[DrStalker]

This varies by country. In Australia if I want a gun I need to have a firearms license, I have to register every weapon I own and store them in an safe that meets certain minimum requirements (separate ammunition, requires key and combination to enter, minimum thickness, rules about how it is secured to the wall/floor, etc) and at any time the police can show up and ask me to show them I have the weapons correctly secured.

Or I could rent appropriate storage space at a gun club, store the weapons that way.

It's a completely different gun culture to what is seen in the US, and personally I like it a lot more.

[robbiep]

You also need a valid reason to have a gun- you can be a member of a gun club and be a recreational shooter, or for animal control (my license) but to have that you have to have a property to shoot on

[15155]

Self-defense is not a valid reason, that should be noted.

The Australian government would rather you get beaten, raped, or murdered in your home than enable to safely and effectively defend yourself.

[osxrand]

I know. There's not a single other implement in the home that could be used for defence. The government must want you beaten, raped and or murdered.

[15155]

Really?

What implement would you use that would be safer (for yourself) than a firearm? What would be more effective?

Better yet, what would you do as a weaker individual when confronted with two or more aggressors?

I don't know about you, but I don't pretend to be tough enough to "take em!" Nor would I want my wife to try and fend off those who have already committed felonies against my property.

Baseball bats, batons, mace, knives, etc. are heinous, laughable, or otherwise ineffective tools for self-defense.

Simply put: the firearm is an effective equalizer. It enables a mother to defend her family against multiple aggressors at otherwise completely unfavorable odds.

I value the lives of myself and loved ones far more than someone who has violated the rights to my property. I refuse to cede any advantage that might make the difference in my survival.

[pluma]

It's also easier to accidentally kill people using a gun. And it's a lot easier to kill or injure the wrong person. A gun is effectively a killswitch. It's a thing for making people not be alive anymore.

The question you should be asking yourself is not "Do I need a gun?" (the answer to which seems to be "yes", which should worry you more than that you might not be allowed to have one) but "Why do I need a gun?".

Incidentally, in Germany you can get a gun license for self-defense reasons. But only in very well-defined, very rare and very extreme circumstances.

If the average person needs a gun, the society is extremely broken. In some parts of the world -- mostly the so-called third world but apparently also many places in the US -- the society really is that broken.

The long-term answer to a broken society isn't arming the populace. It's fixing the society so it's no longer broken.

Guns turn many non-violent crimes into violent crimes already, just by being widely available. If a criminal has to expect to face a frightened, potentially very lethally armed individual in the course of their crime, they are more likely to plan for that eventuality and bring a gun or lethal weapon when they wouldn't have had to otherwise.

The only thing more worrying than a frightened normal person with a gun is someone who is already in such a mess that they knowingly engage in an activity where they will likely have to face such a person (or some theoretical hard-boiled vigilante, though that's the far less likely encounter in practice).

Instead we need to prevent those crimes in the first place. I know this is a very un-American concept, but every crime is a failure of society. Not just because the powers that be should have interfered in the process of committing that crime but because the criminal shouldn't have been allowed to become a criminal in the first place.

An overwhelming amount of crime is the direct or indirect result of social problems and drug politics. Society being broken isn't normal, even when it seems pathological. Prevent crimes and you save lives, give people guns and your best chance is that you add more "bad people" to the bodycount.

There are exactly two groups of people we want to have the legal permission to use lethal weapons in the course of their duty: soldiers and the police.

Soldiers sacrifice their humanity to protect society from external harm. They're trained to overcome their natural inhibition to murder people in cold blood because that's what they are up against. That's why we should respect veterans, we shouldn't aspire to become like them. They're essentially trained to act like sociopathic murderers if necessary. It's a failure of mankind that we still need them at all.

The police on the other hand shouldn't kill people. The act of shooting to kill in hostage situations is called "Finaler Rettungsschuss" in German -- literally, a "final rescue shot" or more figuratively a "last resort". During normal duty a police officer shouldn't even unholster their weapon -- which seems obvious if you consider that you should only aim a gun at something you plan to destroy.

In the UK, normal police officers don't even carry guns on them in the first place -- although the terrorism scare has led to heavily armed policemen (in effect, untrained soldiers) showing up in various places. This should seem obvious: the chance of facing an armed criminal willing to seriously injure or kill police officers is extremely low and if someone seeks out to specifically do so they'll likely not give sufficient advance warning to shoot them.

But of course this isn't very helpful in the US where you can't even expect the police not to harm or abuse you.

Yes, it's probably legitimate to want a gun (and want to be trained in its use and learn to use it against other humans) in places like some parts of the US. But I think it's solving the wrong problem. You're trying to fix a broken pipe with band-aids. Just think: if your society is so broken you need a tool for murdering humans just so you're reasonably safe in the course of your normal life today, what will it be like tomorrow? And what are you doing to change the course -- at least for yourself and your loved ones?

[robbiep]

The australian people don't fear home invasions as much as citizens of some other countries. It's not a rational fear in the scheme of things. My risk of getting killed by someone because of high gun ownership in the community is much higher than my risk of getting a home invasions.

My front door doesn't even lock, and i'm happy that way.