Quote from: zwanzig20 on September 08, 2013, 12:38:02 PM

It is a weapon intended to kill. And gun related murders are relatively much higher in the US that in Germany. Like I said maybe you are able to handle guns resposible, but what if your neighbour isnt?

Per 100.000
Germany 1.24 (2010)
United States 10.3 (2011)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

We must also consider murders outside the firearms spectrum; for this to work, we must look at the rates of all homicides, and not keep ourselves in a box where we only examine the data of firearm deaths (because, if we did this, 100% of firearm deaths are caused by firearms, and that does not tell us much.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

We can see, despite some countries having lower rates of firearm deaths, their total homicide rates can be much, much higher. Also, most of America's gun violence is apparently suicides, almost twice as many as homicides; that's completely different from worrying about your neighbor shooting you, as much as him shooting himself.

So now we must argue as to whether a gun in the hands of a person immediately turns them into a serial killer. I argue that people must already have those tendencies before wanting a gun; allow me to explain why banning guns, then, worsens this situation.

Lets say future-murderer Bob wants a gun to shoot his neighbor with. Lets say, all gun sales and ownership is now illegal. So, Bob goes to his good friend he met over the deepnet, Jane, who is selling guns under the table at a markup for the risk involved. Bob acquires his gun through breaking the law, and goes to his neighbor's house. His neighbor, George, is not armed, because guns are illegal, and George is a good law-abiding citizen. Bob breaks into George's house, and meets the unarmed George. Because George is unarmed, and Bob can kill him at any moment with his own gun, Bob then rapes George, and after, shoots him dead.

Later, the police arrive (who are allowed to have guns, btw), called by the neighbors only after they heard gunshots, and arrest Bob, who was sobbing in the corner. Thankfully, due to the law against guns, Bob got extra time in prison for gun ownership, and George...well, George is dead, so that really doesn't matter to him. Thankfully, however, the law against gun ownership was there, and this crime did not go unpunished--I mean, Bob is already getting life for raping and murdering a person, and he would've been dead even after the gun law charges were put into place...