In a gun-free/defense free society this is all that would happen...

[theweatherman]

[ QUOTE ]
American gun owners would disobey the law without a thought or a qualm,

[/ QUOTE ]

I was under the impression that all American gun owners were law abiding citizens. Are you suggesting that a large, armed segment of our population could at a whim act out against a federal law (democratically passed of course) with violence and force? This sounds very dangerous and just furthers the case for restricting gun ownership even more.

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
American gun owners would disobey the law without a thought or a qualm,

[/ QUOTE ]

I was under the impression that all American gun owners were law abiding citizens. Are you suggesting that a large, armed segment of our population could at a whim act out against a federal law (democratically passed of course) with violence and force? This sounds very dangerous and just furthers the case for restricting gun ownership even more.

[/ QUOTE ]

I said nothing about violence and force. I said that if guns were outlawed, it is highly likely that most gun owners would continue to own guns.

[theweatherman]

that implys force, all civil disobedience is force. What is yourplan when the ATF comes and takes your guns.

[etgryphon]

Exactly.

If I was allowed to "bear" my arms like the Constitution says then we wouldn't have a problem.

Gun Control is just feeding the problem as you so aptly pointed out.

-Gryph

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
all civil disobedience is force.

[/ QUOTE ]






[ QUOTE ]
What is yourplan when the ATF comes and takes your guns.

[/ QUOTE ]



FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!

[theweatherman]

civil disobdience can be very peaceful, but it is still force. Ghandi was using peace to forcefully push his agenda.

I love how you use threats if violence to tell me how you should be ableto own a weapon designed to kill things. Did you go to law school? Because your retoric is phenominal.

[BCPVP]

For a great discussion of this topic of gun cultures in different countries, see the book The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Control Policies of Other Countries by David Kopel (Kopel is a libertarian, I believe). The conclusion was that while gun control in other countries "works" at limiting guns, it would not work well in America (at least not present-day America). Kopel shoots down both the pro-gun control advocates' argument that we should be like Japan and the pro-gun advocates'argument that we should be like Switzerland. Great book for more detail on this subject.

[ QUOTE ]
Can we know that a flourishing black market of firearms would exist?

[/ QUOTE ]
I think the answer is clearly yes. There is a demand for the product and a law is not going to remove that demand. Simple economics, if you ask me. Such a law would probably deter some people from trying to buy guns, make guns more expensive (and therefore more rare), but you would also eliminate any sort of oversight on who is buying guns and who is not. Now the man who would have been caught trying to buy from a dealer will probably still be able to get a gun and the liklihood of catching him will be lowered.

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
For a great discussion of this topic of gun cultures in different countries, see the book The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Control Policies of Other Countries by David Kopel (Kopel is a libertarian, I believe). The conclusion was that while gun control in other countries "works" at limiting guns, it would not work well in America (at least not present-day America). Kopel shoots down both the pro-gun control advocates' argument that we should be like Japan and the pro-gun advocates'argument that we should be like Switzerland. Great book for more detail on this subject.

[ QUOTE ]
Can we know that a flourishing black market of firearms would exist?

[/ QUOTE ]
I think the answer is clearly yes. There is a demand for the product and a law is not going to remove that demand. Simple economics, if you ask me. Such a law would probably deter some people from trying to buy guns, make guns more expensive (and therefore more rare), but you would also eliminate any sort of oversight on who is buying guns and who is not. Now the man who would have been caught trying to buy from a dealer will probably still be able to get a gun and the likelihood of catching him will be lowered.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the book recommendation.

This discussion has certainly gotten a little away from what I was interested in (namely that, we can look to other nations for a picture of how a 'gun-free' (or relatively gun free) society might work, and that it's not ridiculous to assume such systems could be functional here. Mx6 literally said "why in the world would anyone think that we would be able to create a gun-free society?"; I think we probably agree that it's not feasible to create a gun-free society (or even a relatively gun free) society here. Yet I don't think it's ridiculous to ponder, nor do I think it's so un-feasible that it's not worthy of inquiry.

Anyway, I assume that gun control advocates might approve of the black market you've described (although not being a gun control advocate, I'm merely playing devil's advocate here), given that they're arguing there is little to no effective oversight now; and if stict gun control laws merely make guns more difficult to purchase because of the higher costs involved, they see this as better than the status quo. Although I'll admit this is becoming a moving target, as I was initially arguing that we couldn't know a black market could exist - while I'm now claiming gun control advocates would favor a system of strict controls (and accepting the variables of a black market) as being more desirable than the status quo. So I don't think any of you (you = gun rights supporters) should feel obligated to refute anything I've said (although feel free to) - only that I don't think it's outlandish for gun control advocates to make such arguments, however wrong we might feel them to be.

[etgryphon]

To be completely honest...I believe the most of gun control crowd is well intentioned. I mean no one can look at the murder rate in America and say that we are doing fine or that it is acceptable. And if I was not familiar with firearms and\or had no interest in them at all, I completely understand the "supply side" argument that the gun control crowd has put forth.

I do however believe that they a stubborn and misguided. What they have proposed has not worked, it will never work and it will put good people at risk of criminals. The one thing that people must understand is that no matter how much gun control we have we will NEVER be gun-free or *relatively* gun-free. Japan isn't, Canada isn't, the UK isn't, Australia isn't. Law abiding citizens compliance levels are around 15-20% in those countries.

I think that the reason that soem places do have lower crime is a cultural aspect. Take Japan, there are less lawyers in the COUNTRY of Japan than there are in DC proper. We live in a litigious society where we take what we can get. Our poor in society live with little hope and little direction. We are setting up ~25% of our population to fail and training them that they are entitled. We exploit the poor, both Republicans and Democrats, pretending that we want to help them but just continually oppress them.

We need to start with giving people hope and that will have an effect on the crime rate more than any gun control will.

Now there are sensible "gun control" measures that can be implemented.

<ul type="square"> [*]Tougher Penalties for Black Market sales [*]Inventory Controls on Store that sell firearms [*]Stricter penalties for firearm used in felonies [/list]
There are a few measures of gun control that I personally wouldn't mind with guarantees like gun registration with a constitutional amendment that states at no point will any type of arms be made unlawful to the law abiding public. I don't think that this will happen but I wouldn't mind it.

We just need to sit down with the FACTS and try to solve the problem together rather than oppose one another. We waste so much time fighting each other that it prevents solutions from being implemented.

-Gryph

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that the reason that soem places do have lower crime is a cultural aspect. Take Japan, there are less lawyers in the COUNTRY of Japan than there are in DC proper. We live in a litigious society where we take what we can get.

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? I understand all the words - yet I'm not seeing the causation between 'presence of lawyers', 'litigious society' and 'lots of crime'. I'll agree there's a good deal of lawyers in the US...but there's lots of coastline in America, too. And lots of cattle. We also seem to have a monopoly of the world's best football players.

Catch my drift? Correlation doesn't = causation. I'm willing to listen to how 'lots of lawyers' = 'lots of crime', but I won't accept it prima facie. In fact, I think you would have a more convincing claim the other way around - that is, 'lots of crimes' leads to --&gt; 'lots of lawyers'.

But I certainly think some gun control advocates see America's high murder rate, see America's high level of gun ownership (I don't think we can deny the correlation), and then think causation (as in, guns --&gt; more murders). I don't necessarily agree, but I don't think it's a bizzare thing to think, either.

[ QUOTE ]
We just need to sit down with the FACTS and try to solve the problem together rather than oppose one another.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds nice, I suppose...but I don't think you'll find much consensus as to what the FACTS are.

In fact, I know you won't. If you do somehow manage to get people to agree on what is fact, and what isn't, you may have discovered the secret to resolving all conflicts, ever.