[Empact]

You act like guns some weird anachronism, but from my perch, it seems that the need for civilized people to maintain firearms is increasing, not decreasing.

Consider that we have a documented justice system in many places that is repeatedly releasing violent criminals onto the streets, such that they are going on to set people on fire on the train, knife innocents on the subway, swinging and hitting elderly women with nail-embedded boards on the sidewalk. Note these crimes happened despite their lack of firearms. Should we not have guns to defend ourselves from these barbarians?

If the justice system were perfect, and crime rates far lower, then firearms would be less necessary, but never unnecessary, because civilization in a local phenomenon, and it only takes one barbarian to disrupt civilized order for the peaceful people of the world. It takes one civilized person with a gun to restore order.

In many places in the west, immigration policy has given rise to rape gangs in England, gangs that bomb in Sweden, etc. Should these peaceful people not have guns to defend themselves from these barbarians?

[thunderfork]

"I need my guns to defend myself from the (((barbarian hordes)))" is exactly the kind of rhetoric that leads the rest of the planet treats gun nuts like the nuts they are. Unfortunately for the US, the US valorizes this particular psychosis

[Empact]

In my world, a civilized person is one who upholds peaceable society, and a barbarian is one who uses force to upend that society. They're not hordes, but they are barbarians.

[thunderfork]

And the gun owners desperately fantasizing about finally encountering a situation that will allow them to live out their Falling Down fantasies are..? The civilized people?

If you encounter a failing justice system and your response isn't "let's fix the causes" but instead "thankfully I believe in convenient self-service executions", you aren't upholding peaceable society, and I suspect that a peaceable society isn't what you'd prefer.

[Empact]

I would argue the prospect of people waiting to stop them is a good deterrent, a beneficial complement to any effective justice system. When seconds count, the police are at best minutes away. For example, concealed carry is demonstrably effective in mass shooting attempts in churches, ending the threat in 6 seconds: https://youtu.be/LflruqEMlVU?si=Q4VeYnClxPGtrI88

Consider too that there are many documented cases of the authorities being incompetent to or unwilling to stop a threat, most recently in Bondi Beach, but also in Uvalde. Maybe they’re just not coming to save you?

[bayindirh]

Allowing US style gun proliferation creates a chicken and egg problem:

How can you prevent these rape gangs from accessing the same weapons? They are not caught, prosecuted and banned from obtaining guns? Even if they are, there will be more guns to steal and circulate in either case.

The answer is laws, but you say they are not working perfectly. So rape gangs will be armed rape gangs next.

When I visited Stockholm ~17 years ago, all shops were displaying valuable items in steel cages anyway (e.g.: TVs were "locked" in heavy-duty steel frames to prevent "removal"), so the problem runs older than the immigration policy gained momentum.

[15155]

3D printers and cheap CNC mills and lathes thankfully obviate all of these "laws."

[bayindirh]

> thankfully.

I sincerely wish you to live the life you dream of.

Merry Christmas and happy new year!

[exasperaited]

"thankfully"

[15155]

Yes: 100 year old tech isn't going to be swept under the rug so easily, I am thankful for that.

[archagon]

Fetishizing gun ownership also makes you a barbarian. An instrument of death should be treated with somber reverence, not giddy excitement.

[15155]

The whole concept of rights is to protect activity you don't agree with.

Who are you to really say otherwise?

[exasperaited]

> immigration policy has given rise to rape gangs in England […] Should these peaceful people not have guns to defend themselves from these barbarians?

I don't think you understand the nature of the "rape gang" problem —- what it actually refers to, how it works, and why arming a populace wouldn't do a thing to stop it.

Because the USA has this exact same problem (low-level organised crime gangs sexually exploiting naïve, broke or drug-addicted young teenagers in deprived settings) and gun ownership didn't fix it.

The "rape gangs" are not some roving crime phenomenon that turns up at your door and can be dissuaded by waving a gun.

So yes. Not only do we not extrajudicially shoot rapists because vigilante violence doesn't do anything useful, arming a whole population would not stop this problem in deprived environments in cities. It hasn't in yours.

[tastyface]

We (Americans) vote our rapists and pedophiles into power, so any concern over "rape gangs" is downright comical.