Is it right or wrong to carry a firearm?

[cnorman18]

Is it right or wrong to carry a weapon--specifically, a handgun--as a means of defense for oneself and others?

Self-defense seems to be almost universally accepted as a legitimate and moral use of force. If that is true, what could possibly be wrong with having the means to carry out such defense?

In most states in the US, if one passes the required background and medical history investigations, one may obtain a permit to legally carry a weapon. In every state where this law has been instituted, the rate of violent crime has dropped, sometimes precipitously. It has been observed that such a law benefits even those who do not carry weapons, since criminals are more reluctant to prey on citizens when they cannot know who is armed and who is not.

Also: The number of permit holders convicted of weapon-related crimes has remained statistically insignificant for decades. In spite of predictions of a Wild West atmosphere and frequent gunfire in the checkout lines at Wal-Mart, there have been virtually no instances of shootings over trivial matters--but a very great many instances of crimes stopped or prevented by privately owned and carried guns.

Still, there are some who believe that it is immoral and even uncivilized to own, let alone carry, a firearm. Considering the state of society at present, I personally find that hard to credit.

Opinions?

[MikeH]

It's no more wrong to carry a firearm than it is to hold a baseball bat, or use a knife when eating. I would like to see if there is anybody on the boards who does think it's wrong though...

[dissenter719]

I should first warn that I am not a 'debater' per se, but I do tend to see the other point of view. I'm new, so don't kill me.

While I personally agree with self-defense and the right to bear arms (yay us!), I don't think it's very well regulated. I don't believe three classes, some background checks and $65 should be good enough for qualification to carry a concealed weapon. There should be extensive training and testing involved.

That said, according to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, 80+ Americans die from gun violence in the United States daily.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that the rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized nations combined. Also, American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times for likely to die from a firearm accident than children in those 25 other industrialized nations combined.

Take the guns out of the homes where children reside, and the suicide and accident rates would have to drop, so maybe we should put one more question on the permit application. "Do you have children?"

[Fallibleone]

I am against the right to carry a firearm, but then I'm an all-round soft idiot and have no concept of what it means to own one, residing in a country which does not allow citizens to own guns. The UK police do not routinely carry firearms. Of course, firearms are held illegally by some people, and a few are licenced to carry them. Carrying knives is also illegal.

I would argue that owning a gun is different from owning a baseball bat or using a knife at the dinner table, basically because both baseball bats and knives are not intended to function solely as weapons. They have other primary functions, and while I agree that many things which were not intended to be used as weapons are used in such a manner, I think there is a big difference between picking up the baseball bat which you happen to have propped up by the door because you play baseball and reaching for your 9mm which you bought specifically to use as a weapon when someone breaks into your house. A gun is a weapon - that is its primary function...unless your name is Homer Simpson and you use it to switch on the lights and change channel on the TV.

Incidentally, this was the reason for the change in the law on hand guns -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre

And yes, I have one child.

[cnorman18]

I should first warn that I am not a 'debater' per se, but I do tend to see the other point of view. I'm new, so don't kill me.

While I personally agree with self-defense and the right to bear arms (yay us!), I don't think it's very well regulated. I don't believe three classes, some background checks and $65 should be good enough for qualification to carry a concealed weapon. There should be extensive training and testing involved.

For the record:

Here in Texas, obtaining a CHL (concealed handgun license) requires a minimum of 10 hours of instruction, which includes detailed instruction on the law. One learns that misuse of a handgun--including allowing it to be seen, displaying it, threatening to use it, bragging about having it, or carrying in a prohibited place such as a bar or hospital--will result in the CHL being suspended or permanently revoked. One also learns about conflict resolution, anger management, firearms safety and storage, and similar issues. After passing a written test, one must then qualify at the range, shooting 50 rounds and hitting targets at distances up to 25 yards. The cost for instruction ranges from $100-150, and the cost for the ammunition required for the range test is around $100 (the minimum caliber allowed is .32). The cost of the permit itself, paid to the state, is $140.

The background check takes at least 2 months, even if there are no problems. Waivers must be signed and notarized authorizing disclosure of all legal and medical records. Fingerprints and photographs (taken by law enforcement officials or other authorized persons) must be included. Failing to disclose any required information--jobs and addresses for the last 5 years, any criminal record whatever (even an allegation of domestic violence will result in denial), any treatment or diagnosis of psychological problems or substance abuse--will result in criminal charges and a permanent denial of license. If there are any questions at all regarding an application, the process can take up to 6 months. Needless to say, not all applications are approved.

That said, according to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, 80+ Americans die from gun violence in the United States daily.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that the rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized nations combined. Also, American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times for likely to die from a firearm accident than children in those 25 other industrialized nations combined.

Beware of statistics; the CSHV and other antigun organizations (which unfortunately seems to include the CDC) routinely and deliberately skew the numbers to serve their purposes, e.g., "children" are often defined as anyone under the age of 25 to make sure that gangbangers can be included with legal gun owners, "murders" include proper and necessary shootings by law enforcement, and so on. If the case against private gun ownership were as strong as these organizations claim, this kind of deception would not be necessary.

Take the guns out of the homes where children reside, and the suicide and accident rates would have to drop, so maybe we should put one more question on the permit application. "Do you have children?"

On the contrary; we ought to enforce the laws we have now, on proper firearms storage and prevention of access by children. For the record, the number of children under 10 killed by handgun accidents is typically under 20 in a given year, and virtually all of those take place in homes where drug abuse and/or criminal activity is routinely present.

Comparisons with other nations sometimes work against the anti-gun agenda; some industrialized countries have very few restrictions on gun ownership (e.g., Switzerland and some Scandinavian countries) and ownership rates are quite high, but the incidence of gun violence remains low.

The problem in the US, IMO, is that we live in a culture that celebrates violence and thuggery, especially among the young, and where punishment is often all but nonexistent, again, especially for violent juveniles.

The ovewhelming majority of legal gun owners are responsible citizens with no criminal intentions. Statistics that reflect the misuse of guns by criminals are deceptive in their very nature, since such persons disregard firearms legislation from the outset and passing more "gun control" laws will affect them not at all.

[cnorman18]

I am against the right to carry a firearm, but then I'm an all-round soft idiot and have no concept of what it means to own one, residing in a country which does not allow citizens to own guns. The UK police do not routinely carry firearms. Of course, firearms are held illegally by some people, and a few are licenced to carry them. Carrying knives is also illegal.

I would argue that owning a gun is different from owning a baseball bat or using a knife at the dinner table, basically because both baseball bats and knives are not intended to function solely as weapons. They have other primary functions, and while I agree that many things which were not intended to be used as weapons are used in such a manner, I think there is a big difference between picking up the baseball bat which you happen to have propped up by the door because you play baseball and reaching for your 9mm which you bought specifically to use as a weapon when someone breaks into your house. A gun is a weapon - that is its primary function...unless your name is Homer Simpson and you use it to switch on the lights and change channel on the TV.

Incidentally, this was the reason for the change in the law on hand guns -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre

And yes, I have one child.

It is my understanding that since the outright ban on handguns was instituted in 1997 (not to mention the ban on even nonlethal means of self-defense, e.g., pepper sprays and the like), the incidence of violent crime in the UK has increased by a factor of four and is now higher than in all but the most violent cities in the US.

I have seen posts on other forums by Brits who tell of marauding gangs of young men (whose emblem seems to be the Burberry raincoat, for some reason) who prey on innocent citizens and beat them senseless--and when the citizen defends himself with anything other than his hands, the citizen is prosecuted.

The Dunblane massacre was a horrible tragedy. We have had our share of those in the US, of course, many of them in schools.

One such attack took place in my own home town of Killeen, Texas, in October of 1991; the Luby's massacre, wherein 23 people were killed and 20 wounded by one George Hennard, who drove through the wall into a restaurant and opened fire on the diners. It was the worst mass murder in US history until the Virginia Tech massacre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hennard

I was teaching in a middle school about 300 yards away when it happened, and I personally knew some of the victims and many of the survivors.

The political fallout from that mass murder was rather different here. A woman who was present, and had left her own weapon in her car (at the time, only law enforcement officers were allowed to carry guns in Texas), saw her own father killed by Hennard when he attempted to stop him unarmed. Others who tried to rush the shooter were likewise murdered. That woman, Susanna Gratia Hupp, started a movement to allow legal carry of firearms by citizens. She was later elected to the Texas Legislature and introduced such a bill, which became law.

There have been a number of other attempted massacres since which have been prevented by armed citizens, notably at the Appalachian Law School in Virginia. Such things happen in Israel on a regular basis.

Personally, I do not understand the impulse to try to prevent such attacks by disarming the law-abiding. Every such attack, to date, has happened in a place where firearms are already banned; they do NOT happen at gun shops, NRA meetings, or police stations. It seems to me that outlawing guns merely expands the shooting gallery to everywhere.

Is it reasonable to expect that those willing to commit premeditated murders of innocent strangers, even children, will obey laws restricting firearms?

I suspect that as the rate of violent crime in the UK continues to rise, some rethinking of the laws restricting self-defense will eventually take place.

If you are in a restaurant in the US, and some nut jumps up with a weapon and prepares to fire on the crowd--would you be happier if no one else in the room is armed, or if there is someone like me sitting nearby, prepared to stop the violence before it begins?

[MagusYanam]

Every such attack, to date, has happened in a place where firearms are already banned

Sorry, I'm going to question the reasoning on this one. Mutually-assured destruction didn't work in the Cold War, and it doesn't work now. All it does is create an atmosphere of mutual fear that is more likely to produce such 'incidents' in the first place.

Personally, I have nothing against people who own guns and I am in favour (generally) of people being able to own guns, but then I come from Wisconsin where hunting is a ubiquitous form of recreation. Since guns are tools similar in many respects to cars, I think there should be more stringent regulations on guns, actually, such as having to renew gun licenses periodically, just like hunters have to renew their hunting licenses every year and drivers have to renew their drivers licenses every five years. This will help prevent mentally unstable people from owning guns for a long period of time.

Also, similar to the way we have parking and traffic laws for cars to prevent accidents, there should be storage and handling laws for guns, likewise to prevent accidental shootings and to prevent children and other unlicensed people from getting access to guns.

[cnorman18]

Every such attack, to date, has happened in a place where firearms are already banned

Sorry, I'm going to question the reasoning on this one. Mutually-assured destruction didn't work in the Cold War, and it doesn't work now. All it does is create an atmosphere of mutual fear that is more likely to produce such 'incidents' in the first place.

I don't follow your reasoning here. For starters, mutually assured destruction DID work during the Cold War; we didn't have a nuclear holocaust, did we? Further, it doesn't seem to me that "unilateral disarmament"
In the present context is a particularly good idea, either.

Personally, I have nothing against people who own guns and I am in favour (generally) of people being able to own guns, but then I come from Wisconsin where hunting is a ubiquitous form of recreation. Since guns are tools similar in many respects to cars, I think there should be more stringent regulations on guns, actually, such as having to renew gun licenses periodically, just like hunters have to renew their hunting licenses every year and drivers have to renew their drivers licenses every five years. This will help prevent mentally unstable people from owning guns for a long period of time.

Also, similar to the way we have parking and traffic laws for cars to prevent accidents, there should be storage and handling laws for guns, likewise to prevent accidental shootings and to prevent children and other unlicensed people from getting access to guns.

Such laws are already in place. My own CHL must be renewed every five years; I know of no state that issues a permit good for life. Further, every jurisdiction I know of has laws on the books about the proper storage and securing of firearms. In Texas, allowing a child access to a loaded and unlocked firearm is a felony.

[Fallibleone]

I am against the right to carry a firearm, but then I'm an all-round soft idiot and have no concept of what it means to own one, residing in a country which does not allow citizens to own guns. The UK police do not routinely carry firearms. Of course, firearms are held illegally by some people, and a few are licenced to carry them. Carrying knives is also illegal.

I would argue that owning a gun is different from owning a baseball bat or using a knife at the dinner table, basically because both baseball bats and knives are not intended to function solely as weapons. They have other primary functions, and while I agree that many things which were not intended to be used as weapons are used in such a manner, I think there is a big difference between picking up the baseball bat which you happen to have propped up by the door because you play baseball and reaching for your 9mm which you bought specifically to use as a weapon when someone breaks into your house. A gun is a weapon - that is its primary function...unless your name is Homer Simpson and you use it to switch on the lights and change channel on the TV.

Incidentally, this was the reason for the change in the law on hand guns -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre

And yes, I have one child.

It is my understanding that since the outright ban on handguns was instituted in 1997 (not to mention the ban on even nonlethal means of self-defense, e.g., pepper sprays and the like), the incidence of violent crime in the UK has increased by a factor of four and is now higher than in all but the most violent cities in the US.

Hi, cnorman.

I was not expecting a great deal of support for my views.


I have never heard this before, but having no evidence to the contrary I will take your word for it until such time as I have more information (violent crime is posible without the use of any weapon)*. Even if you are correct, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that it was the banning of handguns which led to the increase in violent crime in the UK. One factor I would like to offer, for example, could be that more people are reporting such crime than they did previously.

I have seen posts on other forums by Brits who tell of marauding gangs of young men (whose emblem seems to be the Burberry raincoat, for some reason) who prey on innocent citizens and beat them senseless--and when the citizen defends himself with anything other than his hands, the citizen is prosecuted.

I believe that there are indeed gangs of Burberry-clad youths (Chavs) who hang about causing trouble, vandalising and fighting. I have never seen this happen, but I agree that it probaby does. I do not, however, see how allowing citizens to bear arms will improve this situation. In fact, I can see that it might make it worse. These gangs do not seem to be in possession of guns themselves if they are having to resort to beating people senseless.

The Dunblane massacre was a horrible tragedy. We have had our share of those in the US, of course, many of them in schools.

Whereas in our recent history, I can only think of two massacres, and only one in a school- the other being the Hungerford Massacre - both of which were perpetrated by people who it was deemed were fit to legally own guns.

One such attack took place in my own home town of Killeen, Texas, in October of 1991; the Luby's massacre, wherein 23 people were killed and 20 wounded by one George Hennard, who drove through the wall into a restaurant and opened fire on the diners. It was the worst mass murder in US history until the Virginia Tech massacre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hennard

I was teaching in a middle school about 300 yards away when it happened, and I personally knew some of the victims and many of the survivors.

Another terrible tragedy, and I am sorry for you loss.

The political fallout from that mass murder was rather different here. A woman who was present, and had left her own weapon in her car (at the time, only law enforcement officers were allowed to carry guns in Texas), saw her own father killed by Hennard when he attempted to stop him unarmed. Others who tried to rush the shooter were likewise murdered. That woman, Susanna Gratia Hupp, started a movement to allow legal carry of firearms by citizens. She was later elected to the Texas Legislature and introduced such a bill, which became law.

There have been a number of other attempted massacres since which have been prevented by armed citizens, notably at the Appalachian Law School in Virginia. Such things happen in Israel on a regular basis.

Personally, I do not understand the impulse to try to prevent such attacks by disarming the law-abiding. Every such attack, to date, has happened in a place where firearms are already banned; they do NOT happen at gun shops, NRA meetings, or police stations. It seems to me that outlawing guns merely expands the shooting gallery to everywhere.

This is an interesting point of view. I'm going to think some more about it.

Is it reasonable to expect that those willing to commit premeditated murders of innocent strangers, even children, will obey laws restricting firearms?

No, and indeed they do not. Murder is illegal, so the means of perpetration are hardly likely to matter. However, I would argue that murder is often committed without the use of firearms - if you are going to kill someone you will find a way, and if it's as easy as using a gun you already own, you don't have to look very far to find that way.

I suspect that as the rate of violent crime in the UK continues to rise, some rethinking of the laws restricting self-defense will eventually take place.

We had a case here where a man killed a 16 year old boy and injured a man who broke into his house, he said, in self defence. The killer was found guilty of murder, later reduced to manslaughter. What are your thoughts on this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Martin_%28farmer%29

If you are in a restaurant in the US, and some nut jumps up with a weapon and prepares to fire on the crowd--would you be happier if no one else in the room is armed, or if there is someone like me sitting nearby, prepared to stop the violence before it begins?

Do members of the general public usually go out to dinner with a gun strapped to their waist or tucked into their purse? I'm genuinely curious.

*Edit: My friend Wiki says:

In 2005/06 there were 766 offences initially recorded as homicide by the police in England and Wales (including the 52 victims of the 7 July 2005 London bombings),[15] a rate of 1.4 per 100,000 of population. Only 50 (6.6%) were committed with firearms, one being with an air weapon.[16] The homicide rate for London was 2.4 per 100,000 in the same year (1.7 when excluding the 7 July bombings).[17]

By comparison, 5.5 murders per 100,000 of population were reported by police in the United States in 2000, of which 70% involved the use of firearms (75% of which were illegally obtained).[18] New York City, with a population size similar to London (over 8 million residents), reported 6.9 murders per 100,000 people in 2004.[19]

Home Office statistics, not, I believe, without bias and 3 years old:

http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.go ... ence14.htm

More up to date but again possibly biased:

http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page63.asp

the other side:

http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/guncontrol_20010302.html
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi115.html

[dissenter719]

For the record:

Here in Texas, obtaining a CHL (concealed handgun license) requires a minimum of 10 hours of instruction, which includes detailed instruction on the law. One learns that misuse of a handgun--including allowing it to be seen, displaying it, threatening to use it, bragging about having it, or carrying in a prohibited place such as a bar or hospital--will result in the CHL being suspended or permanently revoked. One also learns about conflict resolution, anger management, firearms safety and storage, and similar issues. After passing a written test, one must then qualify at the range, shooting 50 rounds and hitting targets at distances up to 25 yards. The cost for instruction ranges from $100-150, and the cost for the ammunition required for the range test is around $100 (the minimum caliber allowed is .32). The cost of the permit itself, paid to the state, is $140.

The background check takes at least 2 months, even if there are no problems. Waivers must be signed and notarized authorizing disclosure of all legal and medical records. Fingerprints and photographs (taken by law enforcement officials or other authorized persons) must be included. Failing to disclose any required information--jobs and addresses for the last 5 years, any criminal record whatever (even an allegation of domestic violence will result in denial), any treatment or diagnosis of psychological problems or substance abuse--will result in criminal charges and a permanent denial of license. If there are any questions at all regarding an application, the process can take up to 6 months. Needless to say, not all applications are approved.

That said, according to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, 80+ Americans die from gun violence in the United States daily.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that the rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized nations combined. Also, American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times for likely to die from a firearm accident than children in those 25 other industrialized nations combined.

Beware of statistics; the CSHV and other antigun organizations (which unfortunately seems to include the CDC) routinely and deliberately skew the numbers to serve their purposes, e.g., "children" are often defined as anyone under the age of 25 to make sure that gangbangers can be included with legal gun owners, "murders" include proper and necessary shootings by law enforcement, and so on. If the case against private gun ownership were as strong as these organizations claim, this kind of deception would not be necessary.

Take the guns out of the homes where children reside, and the suicide and accident rates would have to drop, so maybe we should put one more question on the permit application. "Do you have children?"

On the contrary; we ought to enforce the laws we have now, on proper firearms storage and prevention of access by children. For the record, the number of children under 10 killed by handgun accidents is typically under 20 in a given year, and virtually all of those take place in homes where drug abuse and/or criminal activity is routinely present.

Comparisons with other nations sometimes work against the anti-gun agenda; some industrialized countries have very few restrictions on gun ownership (e.g., Switzerland and some Scandinavian countries) and ownership rates are quite high, but the incidence of gun violence remains low.

The problem in the US, IMO, is that we live in a culture that celebrates violence and thuggery, especially among the young, and where punishment is often all but nonexistent, again, especially for violent juveniles.

The ovewhelming majority of legal gun owners are responsible citizens with no criminal intentions. Statistics that reflect the misuse of guns by criminals are deceptive in their very nature, since such persons disregard firearms legislation from the outset and passing more "gun control" laws will affect them not at all.

I, too, have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, as does my father and my sister. (My brother is in the military, so ...) It's called a "CCW permit" here. That said, I have several issues.

A) Ten hours of instruction is not exactly 'extensive.' I have a grasp of the intellect of the average American, and I can confidently state that in ten hours, I doubt anyone is going to learn the intricacies of anger management or conflict resolution, let alone the law. Driver training classes in high school were eight weeks, 30 hours per week, to learn to use a machine I had been riding in and watching various operators use daily for 15 years.

B) I just picked up a box of 50 rounds the other day for $19.47. I can't imagine what you all are buying for $100 in Texas. Besides, I don't believe shooting 50 rounds is enough to qualify anyone to carry a handgun in public. It's not even enough to become comfortable with one's weapon. And I don't believe $290 (instruction and permit fees) is pricey. That's two days' pay, to entrust me with the lives and security of myself and others.

C) Background checks are background checks, no matter how long your particular bureaucracy takes to complete them, and they're based on the information provided by the applicant. If I say I've never been treated for a psychological condition, they have to take my word for it. With HIPAA regulations, all that can be verified independently is involuntary mental evaluation ordered by a court. They can check arrest records, but if I committed a crime and got away with it, it won't show up on any record checks.

D) Lower gun violence rates in other countries may not be so much the glorification of violence in America, but the outstanding prevention methods used in those other countries. If every American were required to complete a couple of years of military training and service upon reaching the age of majority or completion of secondary education, perhaps the youth of America would have more respect for weaponry and the destruction it causes. Other countries screen the same movies we do, they have the same music available, they have the same internet. The differences are more socioeconomic, educational, and proportion of 'free time.'

E) As for statistics, we can all be given any set of facts and figures, and each of us could make a case for any point of view. Statistics are always skewed. That doesn't change the raw data, though. People in America are killed with handguns at a greater rate than in most other industrialized nations, whether they're white, black, old, young, walking, sleeping, educated, impoverished, land owners, renters, whatever. 'Gangbangers' should be included with legal gun owners, because gun violence is gun violence. Any time a gun is used to cause a death, it is gun violence. The mother of the dead person doesn't care who pulled the trigger or why or how; all she cares is that her baby is dead.

I was going somewhere with all this, but I took a Vicodin just before I started, and, well, I lost my train of thought.

Back to the OP, the second question asked was something along the lines of "could it be wrong to have the means to defend oneself."

I have a permit to carry a weapon, but I don't take it out to dinner with the me. I wouldn't use it in a crowded restaurant if it were robbed. I wouldn't use it if I were the victim of a carjacking. The only time I would ever use it would be if I feared for my life or the lives of my children, and I can't think of a situation where I would rather fight than give up mere possessions and put us in that position, with the exception of military invasion or something along those unlikely lines.