Gun Sales Up Since January

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Ekuryua
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Gun Sales Up Since January

Post by Ekuryua »

Apparently fear of the Obama administration has prompted a sharp rise in gun sales. In particular, trigger-happy Americans seem to be afraid that President Obama will reinstate the ban on the sale of assault weapons. Semiautomatic rifles have been selling particularly well.

Personally, this disturbs me. The fact that nuts like this own firearms makes me wish that they were altogether illegal. Maybe someday...
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risk
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Re: Gun Sales Up Since January

Post by risk »

i agree...banning firearms or heavily restricting them would be the way to go. worked here. now the problem is knives...but anything can be made into a weapon.
personally i do not get why the heck assault rifles or any automatic weapon is available to buy in the first place. defend your home maybe, but an uzi is overkill...
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Ekuryua
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Re: Gun Sales Up Since January

Post by Ekuryua »

Here in Arizona, you don't even need a permit/license to carry a weapon (unless it's concealed). The fact that any person over 18 can buy a gun without even passing a background check scares the crap out of me, especially considering how close Arizona is to the recent Mexican drug cartel violence.

See, I can understand why some people might want to own rifles for hunting... but what do they need pistols and assault weapons for? Honestly, hunting can be accomplished just as well with a tranquilizer gun or a crossbow. As far as defending yourself or your family, pepper spray or a taser works just fine.

As far as the "if you outlaw guns, only the criminals will have them" argument, take a look at Japan. The Japanese government has made it so hard to acquire guns that not even the major criminal organizations have them. If nobody has guns, everyone is a lot safer.
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Azgalath
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Re: Gun Sales Up Since January

Post by Azgalath »

I see pistols as a self-defense thing. However, I will give you assault weapons and automatics (which you need a special permit for) as they are purely for entertainment. I also find it a little amusing that you haven't mentioned shotguns. You can't hunt birds with a crossbow. That's only for medium to big game (and only certain ones at that).

Note: I don't know how much of the following only pertains to Arizona law or United States law. If you are interested and want to find out more, look it up yourself.

By law an 18 year old can have a rifle. They cannot own a pistol or an assault rifle or anything fully automatic. You can buy pistols and assault rifles (semi-autos) at 21.

You then need a special permit to buy any weapon which is fully automatic. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the permit... so I can't comment more on that. You also need to have a special permit for concealed weapons (i.e. not in a holster, car's glove box, or car's trunk).

Not to mention on private property, you can put a "no weapons" sign out. At which point it is illegal to have the weapon on that property. Of course if you want to commit a crime, you're not going to obey this. Which can throw most of this post out the door. (I have a feeling someone will bring this up...)

I don't see a complete ban on guns ever happening in America. Simply, it's part of the bill of rights. If it were removed, there would be a great uproar in the country. There would be a number of groups that would turn against the government (such as that guy Ekuryua linked) which would create an even greater mess. Their argument is this: we don't trust our government, so we have this right in order to revolt if necessary (just like the founders did). Which can be argued for as the purpose to the amendment, but it could also be argued that people at that time needed weapons for survival and other reasons (we were mostly agricultural then).

I hope that was neutral enough. I just think you guys should hear the other side of it as well.
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Azgalath
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Re: Gun Sales Up Since January

Post by Azgalath »

Ekuryua wrote: As far as the "if you outlaw guns, only the criminals will have them" argument, take a look at Japan. The Japanese government has made it so hard to acquire guns that not even the major criminal organizations have them. If nobody has guns, everyone is a lot safer.
There are a few logistical differences between America and Japan.

Japan is an island nation. It's much easier to control what comes into a country when you're an island nation. America has major problems with human and drug trafficking on it's boarders. We don't need to add gun-trafficking to that list (which would be a lot easier to do than it is in Japan). Japan is also a much smaller nation than America. Even if we stepped up boarder patrols (as we really need to anyway), there is still way too much land to cover to stop weapons from getting in. Which leads to dealing with in inside the boarders... which I'll let you argue (as I think that's where it will go after you're done tearing apart my horrible post).

One last thing: I don't think a major banning of guns will happen any time soon. Many of these weapons and ammunition are made in the United States and the last thing the Obama administration needs to deal with is more unemployed people.
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Re: Gun Sales Up Since January

Post by risk »

its true, an outright ban will never happen in one hit in the states, it just wouldnt work logistically. however it does suggest alot of distrust in american culture if they still need guns to protect their lives and property, to 'not trust the government' is not an acceptable excuse in my opinion. its a vicious circle, gun laws allow every tom, dick and harry to own a firearm, therefore everyone else needs a firearm to protect themselves from tom, dick and harry, just in case they decide to go do something illegal.
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