Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Sounds to me like you're making the argument that we SHOULD be banning alcohol, not providing an argument against my parallel. If we eliminated alcohol from society, we'd save 10,000 lives per year in drunk-driving deaths and also those other alcohol-related deaths in other contexts you mention (drunk swimming, drunken fights, etc).

So is the UK ready to take alcohol away from everyone, including responsible recreational drinkers? "Think of the children, etc etc etc."



Depends on the jurisdiction. I'm okay with such a rule, if that's what you're asking. I think alcohol should be legal and guns should be legal, but not in combination. Just like alcohol and cars.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

No, but we are looking to put a minimum cost on alcohol to reduce the effects of binge drinking, which is where most of the problems occur. Drivers caught under the influence are given an automatic ban, drunk driver involved in accidents are often jailed. We put a huge amount of money into education and awareness.

I want to know why you are trying to compare calls for sensible gun control with banning alcohol. They're not equivalent, because no one is calling for the US to ban guns.

If the US had the same controls on gun ownership as they did on driving, I don't think anyone would have a problem.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

I think you're just taking an extreme position for the sake of it.
For the record I'd have no particular problem with an alcohol ban , but we all know (from your countries experience) it won't work and will actually increase crime and violent crime.



So in some jurisdictions it's not ?
We're actually in agreement on your last point , we just differ on the terms.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

As someone that's (virtually) teetotal, finds the concept of "getting drunk" a bizarre concept (beyond a few wild years a uni) and finds 99% of all alcoholic drinks to taste disgusting (wine-tasting being a big exercise in "the emperor's new clothes") I'd have absolutely NO issue with a ban on alcohol. Alcohol has made the centre of York a no-go area at night on the weekend and on race days.
A world without alcohol would be a better world IMHO.
I realise in the UK that makes me virtually some sort of alien species though.
Give me a nice freshly squeezed orange juice any day.

I find guns and alcohol quite a good comparison.
Both have limited use in a civil society, kill many people and are very prone to misuse. Both aid in domestic violence.
And both are propped up by defenders that wish to retain their right to partake despite all the ills that result.
I'd ban 'em both.
Although alcohol does have the benefit of the fact that it isn't actually designed to kill people though.
People don't brew whisky in order to kill people. People make guns in order that they be used to shoot people though.



Not really. People have to breed them and own them. Without people pitbulls wouldn't exist to be owned or to bite people. They are a human product like a gun (they are designed for a similar purpose too - to hurt things).

And the point about guns being inert is a good one. Someone else made it in the other thread too.
Surely though that's an argument for keeping them out of the hands of people?
If they only become dangerous when people use them then...erm...stop people getting hold of them easily?
Seems to work in the UK and other places.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

People are trying to ban TYPES OF guns, when nobody combats drunk driving by banning TYPES OF alcohol. That's why I keep bringing up hard liquor. The argument "you can have a revolver or a shotgun but not a semi-automatic rifle" is like arguing "you can have beer or wine but not bourbon."



Once again, the current comparison is not guns and cars, but guns and alcohol.

To buy alcohol, you don't need a special permit. You don't have to prove a lawful intent. You don't need a background check or a mental health check. You don't even need a clean criminal record. There is one and only one requirement to buy alcohol in the USA: that you're over the age of 21.

The background checks that currently occur with many sales, and the mandatory background checks that many Americans support, is actually far more restrictive than what it takes to buy alcohol. Not less restrictive.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

I disagree with your conclusion but I find your consistency praiseworthy.



It's designed to make people intoxicated. Guns are designed to fling pieces of metal at high speed. Either can be a tool for recreation; ether can be a tool for unlawful homicide.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

I'm with ya.
I look around at the casualty dept's full of injured people, car crashes, beaten up children and spouses, liver failures, assaults and murders and I wonder if people really think that bottle of wine (that they had to get over their initial disgust to learn to even like let alone "enjoy") is really worth it.
Certainly doesn't seem it to me.

Like guns, alcohol is fine if only used by responsible people.
Sadly "the general population" are not responsible people and would be better off without it.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Alcohol does have the added benefit of being healthy in small doses.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Not when you're handling a weapon.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

And according to FBI numbers, firearms are used in legitimate self-defense 100,000 times per year (most often a shot is not fired, but a concealed weapon is displayed to deter a mugger or the like).

But just like people say "concealed revolvers are okay but tactical rifles are not," the health benefits have to do with a single nightly glass of red wine, not pitchers or beer or shots of whiskey. So if we're going to ban all guns besides revolvers, should we ban all alcohol besides red wine? If we deter alcohol-related crime like people here would have us deter gun crime, we'd ban hard alcohol for being "too hard to use in a healthy way and too easy to abuse," or something like that.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Except no one takes a bottle of scotch out and kills 26 people with it.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Not a great analogy, as AFAIK drunk driving kills far more people than shootings. Just not all at once.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

America's worst drunk-driving crash left 27 dead, 34 injured. That's a bigger death toll than Columbine High, the Dark Knight shooting, or Sandy Creek.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrollton,_Kentucky_bus_collision

Multiple fatalities from a drunk driver are sadly all too common. Someone hits a car with three in it and kill all three, etc. Like I said, over 10,000 DUI fatalities each year.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

If I had to choose, I'd ban guns and cars but keep the whiskey (only to be sold in plastic bottles, cos y'know, glass is dangerous)
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Alcohol and whiskey is not a good analogy in my opinion. Alcohol, although being responsible for many deaths, is not by definition designed for killing. Guns are.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

This is slippery slope in the USA because it is actually a "right" to own firearms, unlike the privilege to drive an automobile. So licensing is kind of saying you don't have a right so it takes the meaning away from the second amendment. Perhaps taking it a bit further perhaps for certain types of firearms say assault weapons and pistols. You have to take a safety course for hunting licences, so maybe courses could be required for sport shooting as well. Perhaps it could be included in the educational system as a required course. Stricter laws are going to help the criminals and nutjobs, and hurt the responsible gun owners.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

The first gun was made in 700 A.D. The first acoholic beverage was made about 10,000 years ago. Why worry about what the original intent of the inventor was? And the device doesn't have any "intent" of its own. Its an inanimate object. The only intent and effect that I personally think matters is the intent of the modern owners (not the inventor in ancient history) and the effect on modern society.

In the UK combined, drunk driving (which I guess you guys call "drink driving") kills over 400 people each year and injures about 12,000. source Even prior to the current gun ban, the UK had about 200 firearms deaths every year. source

If you're going to be banning stuff based on its effect on society (regardless of its recreational uses by responsible users), you should have banned alcohol too. And if you're going to ban stuff based on its original intent, you should inform Scotland that the basket-hilt claymore is now banned. I don't see any movement in the UK to do either.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Well, we're getting back to how the 2nd Amendment is interpreted again.

Leaving aside the "well regulated milita", it says "arms", not "firearms". If the constitutional pro-gun argument is to take this on face value, why are citizens not allowed to own RPGs or an Abrams fully loaded with DU shells?

It seems to me that the compromises already made to the 2nd Amendment defeat the logic of that argument.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Well perhaps, but here's the law passed in the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 I think it takes a little more education and skill to handle explosives and rocket launchers so yea I think amendments that make sense for public safety are not out of the question. Note that the purpose of the law is not to restrict the use for law abiding citizens, it to make sure the ordinance doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

Regulation of Explosives
Public Law 91-452, Approved October 15, 1970 (as Amended)

Purpose
Sec. 1101. The Congress hereby declares that the purpose of this title is to protect interstate and foreign commerce against interference and interruption by reducing the hazard to persons and property arising from misuse and unsafe or insecure storage of explosive materials. It is not the purpose of this title to place any undue or unnecessary Federal restrictions or burdens on law-abiding citizens with respect to the acquisition, possession, storage, or use of explosive materials for industrial, mining, agricultural, or other lawful purposes, or to provide for the imposition by Federal regulations of any procedures or requirements other than those reasonably necessary to implement and effectuate the provisions of this title.
 
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

The complete answer according to the United States Supreme Court:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

A suofftopicry of the operative part of he opinion:



Semi-automatic rifles are commonly used by individuals for lawful purposes. RPGs aren't.
 
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