For all you anti gun hoplophobes on here

Therefore, what you should have said is, "I'm liberal in some situations, but I'm authoritarian in others"

I find your main argument extremely pathetic. It's the equivalent of saying that "you shouldn't eat bread, because you're making the choice for everyone else who think you shouldn't be able to eat bread". The truth is that, if I own a gun and store it in a safe place, in my home, in privacy, nobody else is affected. There is only a private boost to my utility. There is only a gain in utility to society.

Criminals will always be able to get guns. So I find, denying them to law abiding citizens, is Totalitarian and quite frankly, the type of policy you'd expect in 1930s Nazi Germany, not modern day Europe.

if we had guns, police need guns, criminals then will tend to caryy guns more, then the police will get bigger guns to combat this, then criminals get bigger guns, the chain goes on and on. its best to just cut it off to start with, we havnt needed them for the last 300 years why do we suddenly need them now? this is not america where they think they can go shooting anyone

What don't you understand? Criminals will always be able to get guns. I live in quite a rough area and I know for a fact that if I went to the quite shady pub 5 mins walk away and asked around a bit, I could get sorted for a handgun. But even though I want a gun, it's against the law. Criminals, by very definition, don't regard the law.

If you want to eat bread, go ahead. You can eat bread in the privacy of your own home and I don't have to see you doing it. If I don't want to eat bread, I simply won't buy it and/or eat it, and so for that reason it can be legal and I have no issue with that.

If you want to have a handgun, go ahead. You can have a handgun in the privacy of your own home and I don't have to see you doing it. If I don't want to have a handgun, I simply won't buy it and/or eat it, and so for that reason it can be legal and I have no issue with that.

To be honest, I find your approach to be very barbaric and irrational. "I want a gun so that if someone pulls one on me, I can shoot back wildly and cause others to be shot in the process, as well as getting myself killed and possibly killing my attacker." Don't you think it would be preferable to try and negotiate yourself out of that situation?

In addition, as it stands you are very unlikely to be placed in a situation like that. If guns are made legal, you put yourself at much more risk of being held up by a gunman. If your primary concern is defending yourself from guns, then why would you advocate dishing them out to people who may use them to try and shoot you?

Criminals will always be able to get guns, end of story. Thus law abiding citizens should be able to get them.

Why? If you say you would never shoot a criminal who pulled a gun on you, then what use would it be to you to have a gun?

The only reason I can think that anyone would want guns legal is so that they can shoot other people in self-defence. Why exactly do you want to be able to carry a gun for if you wouldn't shoot an attacker with it? For decoration?

EXACTLY.. but I can simply change "bread" for "handgun" and you suddenly change your opinion.

Even though me, having a handgun in the privacy of my own home, would not affect you AT ALL. You just want it banned because you are anti-liberal and pro-authoritarian, and simply because you may not have an interest in handguns, you force that opinion onto everyone.

To correct an obvious imbalance that exists. Criminals are easily able to attain guns on the black market, and in numerous countries (for example, Switzerland), gun rights clearly correlate with reduced crime levels.

To correct an obvious imbalance that exists. Criminals are easily able to attain guns on the black market, and in numerous countries (for example, Switzerland), gun rights clearly correlate with reduced crime levels.

And the anti-gun brigade in this thread has made no original argument that objects to the right in itself. It's all well and good to bring these arguments up, but pretty much all of them are directly concerned with gun control, and not the fundamental right for a citizen to own a firearm.

I gave statistics earlier showing the the homocide rate (especially rates involving guns) is actually fairly high in Switzerland compared to here. It's low-ish, but 37% of homocides occure from gun crime there.
But Switzerland is a very different country to the UK, with very different ideals and societies, it's not comparable to the UK at all in that sense.

The main problem is that, in countries which permit the right to bear arms, the question of crimes that might alternatively have occurred by other means (knives, saws, strangling etc.) is completely unfalsifiable. Where 37% of homicides may have involved guns, what's to say that the overall crime rate would not be significantly higher otherwise?

Your last point does nothing but reaffirm our arguments. The 'root cause' of the problem isn't gun ownership. It is the depravity of specific individuals.

People being allowed guns does not deter criminals. The USA is a much cited example in this thread. If someone wants to shoot you, they will probably shoot you anyway. It's just that if you have a gun, not only will you get shot but they will get shot too, and so will innocent bystanders. As it stands, guns are not the weapon of choice for criminals in the UK, so the chances of you being shot are very slim. With legalisation, those chances increase greatly. Guns will be the criminal's weapon of choice and you will be much more likely to get shot.

You say that "criminals have guns" as though every single criminal in the UK will use a gun on you. The truth is, only a small minority of criminals in the UK use guns. Why? Because they are illegal and harder to obtain than other weapons such as knives. As a result criminals tend to use knives primarily in this country. Why would you want to give them easy access to a more dangerous weapon?

The main problem is that, in countries which permit the right to bear arms, the question of crimes that might alternatively have occurred by other means (knives, saws, strangling etc.) is completely unfalsifiable. Where 37% of homicides may have involved guns, what's to say that the overall crime rate would not be significantly higher otherwise?

So you're saying that nobody can really discern whether crime rates are affected by the legality of guns?

If so, how can you say in an earlier post that the legality of guns reduces the crime rate?

Those two statements contradict each other.

That's essentially like saying, "we should ban kitchen knives because they're a more 'dangerous weapon' than a sharp pencil". Terrible argument. It's like saying that our rights as citizens should be undercut because of the damage they could cause relative to other things. But, I repeat the simple point I made earlier: all of the points you raise can be tackled with the implementation of gun control. The right to bear arms has nothing to do with it.

Not really. Kitchen knives have an important use, as do pencils. The preparation of food and writing. By this logic you could say I want to ban heavy blunt objects such as books, bricks, televisions, etc. because they have the potential to kill someone.

A lot of things could potentially kill; that doesn't mean they should all be banned. But a gun? Its sole purpose is to kill or maim, and it is not useful in any other capacity. In the same way that the other poster tried to compare guns to bread, this can't be done.