im from spain

been in the states one year

an schange student as me got shot in the face by accident :(

still undertsand the necesity to defend from the state if needed

This toppic is makes me sad. http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/guns.htm

Well said.

It's quite simple really, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

If you feel confident protecting your loved ones and home with pots and pans and whatever blunt instruments you have at hand, then fine.

I prefer to take my chances with Heckler & Koch and 10 .45 caliber modern self defense rounds in the mag and 10 more in the spare mag at my side.

The sad truth is that the world we live in is getting more violent by the day.
I have no respect for the wolves that prey on the sheep that most people are turning into these days, I prefer to be the sheep dog.

Carry on.

This is even more sad

http://www.washingtonaccidentbooks.c...cident-injury/

Why does it impact you differently because a gun is involved?

this is saddest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfz6n2YEEk

touche, but that just means we can't bomb people from the sea. plenty enough cruise missiles and the like left.

sternjaeger - i'd leave this to ruggbutt tbh, as he is doing a far better job of arguing the point, and without resorting to such demeaning terms as you favour. quite what political correctness has to do with guns is utterly beyond me. perhaps it's some kind of leakage from the daily mail, where everything is "PC gone mad", such as this case. rather than an ethos that has pervaded uk law enforcement since... well, pretty much it's inception really.

Not being nit picky but it's spelled favor. Hello???

I have just spent the last hour and a half reading this entire thread, and it was much less painful than I imagined it would be. I'm quite impressed with the (relatively) civil level of intercourse going on here, a very difficult thing considering the highly charged nature of the subject.

By way of background I'm a Yank, who lives in a State where persons are required to have a permit to carry a concealed weapon in public (or to remove a pistol from their house for any reason), and that such permit must be issued if there is no compelling reason not to. To the best of my knowledge no permit holder in my state has ever committed a violent crime with a handgun (to be honest a few have lost their permits due to being stupid).

I'd point out a couple of things on the subject of armed citizenry;

First) Our founding fathers feared democracy possibly more than totalitarianism. They realized that democracy was little more than organized mob rule, hence the idea of a constitutional republic. The second amendment was (as with the rest of the bill of rights) considered "unfinished business", a simple statement of what the original drafters of the constitution had held as "self evident". It was meant to declare that the safety of the State as a whole relied on the ability of it's citizens to defend themselves, each other, and the community at large with whatever weaponry was available at the time. The validity of this idea has not fundamentally changed.

Second) I've carried a pistol on my person most of the time for over 15 years. I have not in that time, even once for a moment considered shooting someone because they "got on my nerves". I have during that time made the conscious decision that I would be the one running towards the gunfire, instead of away. I have on several occasions invested my time hanging around convenience stores late at night shooting the breeze with the clerk when I was uncomfortable with some of the other 'clientele'. I've never gotten a complaint about this habit, and a few 'thank you's'. I rarely turn down a job because the "neighborhood is too rough". I often do work for people who genuinely believe that their life is in danger (I'm a locksmith, by the way), but for the few moments that I'm there I know that it's not so much. (I had one woman actually say to me that she felt safer than she had in years while I was there [she'd been in an abusive relationship for years], and she just couldn't explain it. I didn't bother to.) Whatever any of you might think, I believe that the world around me is just a tad safer because I'm armed.

Third) Those of you who believe that the "Police" give a crap about your safety or are able to in most cases do anything about it are delusional. If you want to believe this fairy tale then go for it. The police in the united states are armed for their own protection and have no responsibility (other than what the bring to the job due to their own convictions) for the safety of individual citizens, and I have no reason to believe that the situation is any different anywhere else. If your police are not armed at all, how can you expect them to be of any assistance to you in a deadly encounter? (I'm not knocking the thousands of police officers who really believe in their work, but most of them will tell you that they just can't be everywhere and that when the S&%$ hits the fan they probably can't help you

finally) Since Cain slew Able, the human race has found no end to the methods by which they might murder each other. Until recent history the victory went to the bigger and the stronger or the Mob. The vast majority of the human race has been for the vast majority of history been slave to whoever was bigger and/or stronger or whoever controlled the Mob. It was not until Sam Colt came along that the idea of all men being equal meant anything. No man is free to any extent further than he is able to defend that freedom. If you think that you will be less dead should you be beaten or stabbed to death than if your shot to death, you are welcome to your opinion. My opinion is that your insane. It's OK, we can still be friends.

BTW, I have lots of friend in both the UK and Canada, and I love them dearly, I just don't think they should not have the option of being able to defend themselves in the most efficient way possible.

Not in England, mate. They not only talk funny, they spell funny too.