Basically

UK here, we're allowed guns actually if you're implying we aren't, we're legally allowed shotguns(not pump action), bolt action rifles, and semi-automatic rifles up to a certain calibre i'm sure all with a license and certain specifications like having a wall mounted gun cabinet, but they tend to be for hunting purposes only, not allowed to be used in self defense situations.

You can actually buy Automatic rifles but you've got to write a handwritten letter to Teresa May explaining why you need it so much.

I don't know why you got thumbed down, you're pretty much right.
There's a correlation between government involvement and Economic freedom.
The more government involvement, the less economic freedom.
That's why North Korea is last on the list of Asia's nations (161 or something), and Hong Kong is doing so incredibly well. Hong Kong has a Laissez-faire system (little to no government involvement) and is one of the highest on the list.

you know Somalia has little or no government involvement either

and people say capitalism is a bad thing.....

Danefag here. According to the economic freedom index (www.heritage.org/index/)
I am quite free. However, i can't take a shit without the government wanting to tax the paper, water and labor going in to that action. We have one of the biggest government spendings in the world, and are one of the most free countries.

Just saying.

This is FJ.
At time I wonder why I'm even bothering.

It might seem so, but it is not if you take the time to think about it.
It means that to the ones in power, an unshackled populace is more lucrative than a restricted one.
Government takes its percentage from profit, called euphemistically "tax", like a mafia crime syndicate would; therefore it cannot restrict individual striving for gain, as that is its primary income.

The basic mechanisms for a dictatorship are already in place.
A police force that is blind to reality and enforces the very letter of the law without conscience, a mechanisms of legislation completely unbound to the will of the people (EU commissary), and that's all that is needed to install autocracy or even tyranny within an incredibly short space of time.

Basically, my argument here is very simple.
It is that any structure of domination and rule, even if regulated by majority as a democracy is, can be used or abused to served tyrannical ends with terrifying efficiency.
To truly ensure freedom of the individual human existence and mind, any and every variation of such a structure needs to be abolished.

(Very interested in a good debate here; I'm not perfect and might learn something new from you.)

there is also a correlation between less government involvement and chaos

Glorious, golden chaos.
Yes, there is.

interesting

Or you know, planned economies don't work?

Apparently you don't see anything that's not slapped in your face.

Weimar Republic was a democratic republic, but I'm willing to bet my dinner you have never heard of it and have not even the slightest idea why it is of relevance here.

And disarmament of the people is not the reason, but a symptom. I never said otherwise.
Get your act together, you idiot; FJ hates my opinion and still you get thumbed down despite disagreeing with me.

"The Weimar republic wasn't about disarming the people, it was about disarming the country"

Where is the difference?
You disarm the country, you've disarmed the people. You disarm the people, you've disarmed the country.

Disarmament in Weimar Republic was not even the point; that Weimar Repuplic could be seamlessly transformed into a ruthless dictatorship was.

All of this has nothing to do with modern day USA, apart from the mechanism of an armed populace able to resist a tyrannical government.

I'm reasonably sure that, in fact, I know more about the Weimar Republic than you do.
(So give me your dinner)

You can of course take a few examples where there seems to be a correlation and then say "Hey, see?"
But just because the Weimar Republic happened to become a dictatorship, that doesn't mean that all other democracies can do the same thing and you have to be armed to the teeth to defend yourself against your own government. The Weimar Republic had some serious flaws in its constitution that were exploited, for example that the president had almost the same power as the emperor did in the German Empire.
Also, what you seem to be forgetting is that even if the population had been armed to the teeth, they were, for the most part, not willing to revolt anyway. Nothing about the nazis would have changed, the people were content up until 1943 or so.

Ah, whatever, this is useless. I'm just wondering if you people really believe this shit and live in constant fear and need your guns to protect yourself at all times (maybe you have a bunker in your backyard too and wear a tinfoil hat at all times) or if you just have to come up with ridiculous reasons so that you can keep your guns.
I don't even mind if you like guns, I like guns FFS! But what's the problem with licenses and certain limitations? I just don't get it.

"the people were content up until 1943 or so"
That may well be the grandest delusion I have ever heard of.
Granted, the Germany ruined by WW1 was the most perfect feeding ground for a socialist dictatorship there was in all of known human history, so yah, you're half wrong half right here, actually.

I see you're a reasonable fellow not shackled to "Meeeeh, guns are baaaad". Kudos for that alone; a free mind is much more important than any weapon system of this world.

Summarizing, my point is that the mechanism we call government is not to be trusted. Duh, eh?
Sure, it's been quite tame for the last 60 years or so in the western world, but it has racked up a higher count of corpses in the 20th century alone than all of war has in recorded history of mankind, neglecting the role government had in declaring those wars, even.

It's not strictly about guns; its about the means to resist government if need be (that happens to equal guns in our time.).
Government can be corrupted if it is not corrupted from the start; the ordinary people need a possibility to defend themselves and other innocents, or a bloodbath beyond description or even just imagination is assured.

tl;dr: Guns are the means of the populace to resist the tyrant.
Strip the populace of those means and you play into the hands of the tyrant.

Please do not mention the Weimar Republic, spent two years studying it for GCSE History. But do I get brownie points for knowing what it is?

Sure, brownies all around.
Weimar is incredibly interesting; town, culture, state alike.

me too

You are a beautiful man.

*starts slow clap

this will never happen in um murica'

Have a gif good sir

Meu negrito

Obrigado

Gun control does work, but I'd rather get shot than stabbed.

Agreed. As much as I assume that getting shot isn't very pleasant either, I suppose that getting stabbed is a lot more painful.

Coming from someone who's had both happen to him, getting stabbed hurts a hell of a lot more.

You've been shot AND stabbed before?
What's your profession? Like, security or po-po or what?

I was born in Philadelphia.

In West Philadelphia, born and raised...

Please tell me you've got an auntie and uncle in Bell Air? You'd make my day.

In fact, I do.


I really don't but I said it so I don't disappoint you.

Awww... Wel, at least I got to get my hopes up today.

Thumb for you.

Well, I suppose that's just as good of an explanation as any other.

In Connecticut a bunch of people were shot.
26 died.

In China some more people got stabbed.
No one died.

Personally I'd rather lose an ear and a finger than be dead.
But what do I know.

It works when guns aren't already a "problem". They're like AIDS. They can go in, but they're really damn hard to get out.

Also, if someone breaks into my house, I'd rather have a shotgun than a knife.

Fuck a shotgun, I want something belt-fed.

I hope you're really good at spackling.

Nah, leave the holes. It tells the next guy to fuck right the hell off.

I think it's better for your foundation and whatever plumbing or wiring is in the walls if you just cut the burglars head off, mount it on a spear on your front yard, then hang a sign from it saying "This guy tried to break in".

It's kind've hard to damage your foundation in that manner. Most walls are hollow anyways.

Gun control won't work for America. We're connected to Mexico with little or no borders to keep the drug cartel out, and they can easily bring in guns illegally for sale along with their drugs. It's different with Europe (Especially England) because you guys don't have as much problems with the sale of illegal weapons.

your reaction pic earned you my thumb

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a gun in some parts of europe?

but what if some people have curved swords, THEN WHAT MAN, DAMN IT THEN WHAT!

If I ever start my own country, I'll make you like, the head of homeland security or something so you can instigate this.

That just might be crazy enough to work.

you.

I like you.

I could just imagine people trying to go hunting. They'd be running through the woods chasing deer with swords held above their heads. BADASS.

ahem
'Revolution' had that on the show.....Miles Matheson was one evil mofo with swords

"She's so drunk!"

All those silly 'mericans and their weapons...

....And their economy that drives the world economy....and their military that polices the world so that your military doesn't have to get it's hands dirty. Fuck us, right?

As a matter of fact the Danish military is very present internationally, and of all the nations participating in the Afghan war Denmark is the nation, which has lost most soldier per capita due to the fact that the Danish army are peacekeeping the most dangerous regions...

my statement was about the globe and yours was specific to Afghanistan, why you think an unnecessary war in the middle east is what's keeping the world stable is beyond me. even in Afghanistan though, the US has lost 2084 soldiers, and we have a population of 313 million. you have lost 43 soldiers have a population of 5.5 million. so your fallen soldier per capita is higher than ours-slightly- it's baffling to me why you would think that's the relevant statistic. it isn't as if a country of 100 people would win a war against one million because their soldiers have a slightly higher per capita kill rate. so while it's true you might be "doing your share" it's like, who gives a shit? your "share" is a drop in the bucket.

I have never told anything about wars keeping the world stable. I only responded to your quite inpolite and rather ignorant comment about U.S doing all the work, because no other country wants to get "their hands dirty". I find this statement rather rude, because a lot of nations are contributing to peacekeeping in the world. Of course all contries can't contribute equal simply because of the nations' population. Also I don't consider sacrificed lives drops in the bucket...

oh, was i rude? sorry, we're only on THE FUCKING INTERNET.

The US is a hegemonic military power, you, and many other countries are protected from harm because you are our allies. the fact that you chip in on the few skirmishes that do occur doesn't change the fact that without the USA's massive military force you would be forced into conflicts that never occur because you are under our protection. there would be much more wars in the world without the deterrent. but because american's are willing to spend magnitudes more on our military you get to sit back and enjoy a safe global neighborhood, and the US gets blamed whenever something goes wrong.

yeah...

I think you mean conservative not liberal.

Actually the Nazi's were influenced by American Eugenicists. The Eugenics movement stated in America. Concentration Camps were also invented in America (to deal with the Indians) and the United states government did round up and execute hundreds of thousands of Natives Americas. I don't really know what makes you think that the American government is incapable or unwilling to kill unarmed people they have already done it they can certainly do it again. The fact that they don't want to do that NOW doesn't mean that that couldn't change. And the NAZI's weren't the only mass murderers. The soviets killed 30-50 million of their own citizens the Khmer Rouge killed 7 million of its own citizens. The Chinese government killed 80 million of its own citizens. the Cuban government killed 100,000 of its own citizens the Turkish government killed 12 million of its own citizens. the Rwandan government killed 1 million of its own citizens. Most of the mass murdering governments did not kill because of feeling of racial superiority most of them killed people trying to socialize, trying to equalize incomes (so did the NAZI's btw yeah they were racists but what they were trying to achieve was equal incomes for the German worker. They viewed Jews/Non-whites as threats to the "fair wage" of the German Worker so they actually weren't killing out of ignorant hate they were killing for a very well defined reason NAZI is an acronym for National SOCIALIST German Workers Party). Socialism has killed many people in the past and the US is trending towards socialism right now more than at any point in time since the late 1920's early 1930's. Now would be a pretty good time to get armed.

I'm english, and I've personally been murdered by the corrupt government lots of times, it's a real pain these days, if only I had a gun, then I could take down the entire British Army that's been turned against the people.

Oh my, that is just awful.

Good thing the world's governments don't have things like MISSILES or FUCKING ROBOTS THAT FLY AND USE THERMAL VISION..

Than we would be really screwed, at least I have my gun for the town sherrif if he rides up on his horse and knocks on my door, i'll be ready with my six-shooter.

....But seriously people, if the Government really was trying to enslave us, they would NOT be using tactics that were used 50-60 years ago, they would just zap us all with lasers and send robots after us. It's time to live in the future and stop dwelling in past experiences. Of course it's good to note what has happened back then, but comparing this to that isn't gunna cut it.

I agree. It would be foolish of us to think that only good people can learn from the past.

Really? I did too. We called it Canada.

They tried it here in Norway too... though... obviously not everyone follows that law.

Guns aren't illegal in Norway. But they are mostly used for hunting or competative shooting.

I think that applies for a lot of countries...no?

Yes

Dude, guns are legal in Britain.
Where does everyone get this stereotype from? There is a gun shop like 25 minutes from my fucking house.

If you have a hunters license, that is. Not that I believe hunting should be legal but wateva,

Not a hunters license, at 17 (I think) you can get a shotgun certificate for around £50.
Rifle certificates are more stringent and handguns are nigh-impossible to get a hold of (legally) though.
I'm not sure about regulations for hunting, but to my knowledge to successfully obtain a shotgun certificate or firearms certificate, you need to be over 17, have been a member of a shooting club for more than 6 months and have an approved place to store them, like a safe.

People just tend to not bother with guns in this country though, bro.

You get your gosh darn logic out of here.

If only they had listened to Hertzl. "Dude they are GOING TO FUCKING KILL US"

"Nah man, they cool"

Same here in sweden. You may own a gun but can not carry it. Only time you can use a gun is at the shooting range or during the hunting season. In fact, you're not even allowed to wear a knife in public unless it's needed for your profession.

I am totally ok with this.

souvenirs souvenirs...

UUUND... UUUND...., MUS-KAT-NUSS! MUS-KAT-NUSS, 'ERR MÜLLER!