And when others not giving up their liberty is a direct reduction of your security?

That argument can be used to take away all rights. Old Ben's point still stands.

Of course.


That's what I'm asking - where is the line to be drawn?

I guess that depends on the priority you place on the liberty to own firearms versus the value of the life of an American citizen. I certainly don't consider myself to have any less liberty than a US citizen, despite my nations stance on firearms. I can understand the advantage it would give for house and personal defence against criminal activity, but equally in regards to burgulary, there are other methods in which you can protect your house from them without resorting to guns.
And when it comes to personal defence against tyrannical governments...I think in this day and age that argument holds little to no water really, and I've laid out the reason why time and again so I won't go over it.

So really at the end of the day, it boils down to how much you want the gun versus how much you value human life. :hmmm:

That's the issue Oberon - you don't see yourself as having any less liberty than a US citizen. I completely agree.

However.

If I had my way and severely restricted firearm ownership there, an awful lot of people would have lost a liberty and yet remain with exactly the same amount left.

This isn't making quite as much sense as I thought it would.

Might be a very roundabout way of getting to "different strokes", but replace "strokes" with "bolt cycles" and suddenly it's a little less homespun.

I'm going to the pub.

Evidently not before another gun incident on a campus - http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...37c604475146ca

Argh.

No, I do understand what you mean, I mean I've never had that liberty to begin with, so I do not know the difference of not having it.
I suppose that is the problem on any law which removes a certain object from peoples lives, it's the taking away of something, something which means a lot to some people.
I think, honestly, that taking away firearms from the American public as a whole would never work, there's a history of the gun within America that's as old as the nation itself, the two are very deeply intertwined. You could go as far as to say that America was built by Colt and Smith & Wesson (and Winchester, of course). I don't think there are many other countries who have that deep an engrained weapon...except perhaps Japan and the Katana. So trying to remove that from America just is not going to work. However, I think that serious thought should be given into making the people who own firearms as well informed about their care and attention as possible in order to prevent unfortunate incidents.
Those who use firearms illegally, you're going to struggle to deal with that because there's a good underground market for firearms, but regulation could possibly help give further in-roads into dealing with it.
For example, a policeman patrolling a street in a random American city spots a stereotypical gang-banger style youth walking along with a Browning tucked into his sagging pants, he stops the car, gets out with his pistol pointed at the gangbanger (and his camera switched on) and asks him to show him his firearms license. The gangbanger will either do so or state that he doesn't have one/the dog ate it/it's at home (etc) in which case the police officer would have the ability to confiscate the pistol because it was improperly holstered and carried without a presentable license. If that gangbanger wants his gun back then he's got to show his license, and even then he will get a citation and/or his gun rights confiscated (for a permanent or temporary amount of time) for improper holstering of a firearm. Chances are though that he'll just forget it and go get another pistol, and then there's the chance that the cop will pick him up with that pistol and we go through the process again. The cops will get quite a collection of pistols and they could probably give them back to the company that manufactured them for re-selling as required, or get them melted down and profit from the scrap value. Either which way, for a short amount of time, the gang-banger loses his firearm. Alternatively he draws on the officer and the officer and the other officer patrolling with him take him down. Either which way the problem is fixed, either permanently or temporary.

I don't know if you realize it but that would be a significant lowering of the standards as they are now. This is how that scenario would go presently in almost every big city in the country:

Cop sees gang banger with a pistol in his waist band. Cop calls for backup (and maybe SWAT too). When backup arrives they accost the gang banger with guns drawn commanding him to drop to the ground and spread eagle. Any hesitation on the gang bangers part and the cops open fire killing or incapacitating him (and probably several bystanders too) in a hail of 9mm bullets.

If the banger instantly complies or lives through the barrage of gunfire they charge him with carrying an illegal weapon (and resisting arrest), the gun is confiscated and eventually either melted down along with a bunch of others in a big media event or "appropriated" by the cops. The gang banger is then imprisoned until his court date on the above charges and he gets either a lengthy jail sentence or he rats on somebody else and gets the charges dismissed or significantly lowered.

If the gang banger does actually have a license (highly unlikely since getting gun permits in the city is almost impossible for the non politically connected) the cops are quickly cleared of wrongdoing (perhaps aided by the convenient discovery of a little pot or coke on him) then his family or him (once he gets out of the hospital) sues the city for a bucket full of money.

Either way he ain't getting the gun back without spending an awful lot of money for lawyers and even then it'll take months if not years for anything to happen.

Oh, well in that case it's not that dissimilar in regards to license requirements only he would get improper holstering of a firearm charge on top of the illegal firearm charge.
So, with the gang-bangers relatively covered already, then this will just make sure that regular gun owners practice common gun sense. I mean you can even tailor it to a sliding scale of offences, put points on the license perhaps if you want to make it more like a driving license. It's open for negotiation, but the basic goal of it should be to make every legal gun owner in America practice gun ownership in a responsible manner.
If a responsible gun owner happens to want to take his gun out and shoot up a school, then that's not a problem we can solve at the gun end of things except through the wholesale ban route which is impractical for America. So to tackle that problem one needs to take the mental health care and protection route to try and spot these people early and put them somewhere safe. What we can try and stop is the incidents where little Timmy accidentally gets ahold of his Dads pistol and shoots the neighbours kid, or some teenager gets his Moms assault rifle, shoots her with it and goes on a rampage at the nearby school.

Well here in California, or at least in my county, you need to get a handgun safety certificate which entails taking a multiple choice test and demonstrating you know how to load and unload the gun safely. The test is pretty simple to pass because all you need to do is choose whatever answer is the safest one, but if you don't have the certificate, you can't take the gun out of the store and this is provided you pass the background check and waiting period.

Now does that stop anybody from getting a gun through a private sale? No, nor through any other means outside of a retail gun store with an FFL, or other FFL holder. This is where the existing laws break down. But, if I buy a gun through the internet, the seller must have an FFL and the gun must be shipped to someone with an FFL so they can fulfill the legal requirements of the sale.

Won't happen, I own firearms, I can and will shoot back.

Good rule of thumb, your rights end where mine begin, and vice-versa. Think about that one before you comment.

Did you support the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11?

I did, however thats a different kettle of fish for another thread.