Michael New. Skar?

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

plus having been in a knife fight in San Juan with a bunch of Gang Members and a few crew members I can tell you, knives are scarier... too much anticipation, they look scarier than guns and in the right hands... shiver...

oh a word to the wise, friends dont friends drink in a foreign port and then solicit local women in a nice club saying " Hey momma, how much for 2 hours"

Oh, and steel toed boots make an excellent weapon.

[Entsuropi]

I understand it's all about the apathy of the population that lets corps take over. It's about how they care so little, they trade away their freedom for tacky bits of plastic, their humanity for bits of metal, and their beliefs for prepacked ad campaigns. And that all the traditional aspects of cyberpunk - cybernetics, rampant violence, corp control - are merely facets of this.

One thinks that this would tie into gun ownership. A citizenry that goes out of its way to stay armed in case of dictatorship, is less likely to just roll over and say 'meh' in a great united voice.

Oh, and I nearly forgot - you once tried to convince me that you thought people were following you. Which was pretty dorky, and once again ties in with my mockery of you. Which will continue unabated until one of us leaves this forum, of course.

[Entsuropi]

Oh, and if you think about it logically, a knife is harder to disarm. Simply because you have to twist the guys wrist or whatever. A gun you can grab any part of, but a knife is sort of... sharp. You cannot grab the blade (well, you can, but all that happens is you cut yourself, and release your grip because unless your Leon your body will reflexively let go) and there is nothing else to hold onto that your opponent hasn't already got in his hand.

Just a note.

[JP Dogberry]

When did I say people were following me?

[Entsuropi]

On msn. The source for much of my random leaverage and blackmail.

[Master Xaio]

Okay, going back  to the proposed situation of a mugger with a gun or a mugger with a knife.

First off, disarming someone with a knife.  Even with the most basic training, or even none, you can disarm someone with a knife.  An overhead strike - very easy to block, you merely stop their arm and then they are open to counter - attack.  Straight thrust - again, very easy to block or evade.  The most dangerous are little flicks/slashes with a knife, not large movements because they are harder to block.  However, if they are close enough to begin slashing etc. then I'd say you have more than a fair chance of taking them out.  Unless you're an invalid. In all of these scenarios of attacks, you really should come out of it with minor cuts to your arms at the most.  Your belly is your most vulnerable area when fighting someone with a knife - However, as I just said, thrusts to it are easily blocked.  quick little slashes are the most dangerous, because if they can get close enough, and move fast enough to evade your block, and actually hit you, and put enough power in.... then yes, you are in trouble.  

One other thing - which is it easier to run away from? A gun, or a knife?  Last I heard, knife's weren't really a ranged/projectile weapon so unless the mugger is close, you can probably get away.  (Please note, I'm talking about a situation with one mugger at the moment) A mugger with a gun - well, who knows, you may look pretty with a bullet in you.  If you get them to place it right, in some kind of pattern, you could make a fashion statement.  "Blood - red - blotched -pattern - shirt, $150".

Now, on the other hand, a gun.  Could I just point out one thing - You are not Neo.  You cannot dodge bullets.  I've never shot a gun, but I had a chat to someone who has - it would be fairly hard to miss someone at the range of say 1.5, 2 metres.  And a bullet doesn't just make a clean hole, or cut like a knife.  It smashes things.  Permanent damage in some cases.

yeah, just like it was a danger in the McCarthy era. It truly was a big fear. The realities behind that fear are quite another problem. I don't know enough of British history to comment on how possible it was there, but a serious uprising that could do anything was unlikely at best in the U.S. Not that it stopped certain senators from raping the Constitution to find anyone they could label communist and ruin their lives.

The reason for British gun laws, originally, was to head off a possible Communist uprising. Apparently it was quite a big danger at the time.

Newsflash: Communist uprisings really aren't a threat anymore.  Seriously.  As Jam said, you'd rather carry a gun, the very nature of which promotes violence, because you're afraid someone will attack you?  Or that there will be a communist uprising? Or that your conspiracy theories come true and the government tries to become a dictatorship?  Well, I'm sorry folks, that may be a real threat in the US of A, but it sure isn't here, so I'll take my chances.

[Master Xaio]

One of thing I forgot to say.

the main effect of rabid gun control laws is to disarm law-abiding citizens

Now all of us here are law abiding citizens. But in case you have noticed, a great majority of the population are nowhere near as intelligent, reasonable etc. as many of the people on this board.  I don't know about you, but I know that I wouldn't want to trust my life into their hands, by giving them access to a more dangerous weapon.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

outkast, you are INCREDIBLY good at avoiding the point. Which is to say, you're not good at hiding that you're avoiding the poitn, just at not saying anything about it. Are you really so naive as to think that the governmental structures that exist now are permanent? that they can only get better? in a world where people can crash airplanes into skyscrapers, can you really believe that? History is not linear my friend. Sitting back and thinking all is well will eventually get you stuck with no freedoms. The people who framed all these democratic governments you love were positive of that. Thomas Jefferson (know him? The guy who WROTE the American Declaration of Independence) even went so far as to say that each generation should have its own revolution. He did a pretty good job establishing freedoms, I'd think. Yet even he thought that just in the course of a single generation, things could change enough to require a new revolution to put things right.

and what about the fact that none of you Australians are willing to speak to. The one I've asked about at least twice. Gun violence dropped, yet homocide rose in that same year. This single fact pretty much invalidates everything you've said about guns making things less safe.

[Entsuropi]

Outcast - excuse me if I take the word of people who are trained for combat over the word of 15 year old Australians.

[Archon]

Now, on the other hand, a gun.  Could I just point out one thing - You are not Neo.  You cannot dodge bullets.  I've never shot a gun, but I had a chat to someone who has - it would be fairly hard to miss someone at the range of say 1.5, 2 metres.

No, you can't dodge bullets. But you can give the person trying to shoot you a hell of time at it. Think about it, your blood is pumping, there is a bunch of confusion, the person is moving around, it is quite possible, especially with a pistol, to miss. I have shot guns before. I have also had a gun (not real) taken from me before I could pull the trigger by my brother. The gun makes a noise when you pull the trigger, and I didnt get a shot off before he took it from me. We started out a couple feet away from one another. Another point, if someone is going to stick to slashing with a knife, which they should if they are smart, it is a lot harder to get in on them. You cant get up close because every time you do they take a swipe and you have to retreat.

[Skar]

The most dangerous are little flicks/slashes with a knife, not large movements because they are harder to block.  ...  In all of these scenarios of attacks, you really should come out of it with minor cuts to your arms at the most.  

The little flicks and slashes are in fact the most dangersous.  But unless the guy you're fighting is using a butter knife there is no such thing as a minor cut to the arm in this situation.

... And a bullet doesn't just make a clean hole, or cut like a knife.  It smashes things.  Permanent damage in some cases.

Actually the nice clean holes a knife makes take a great deal longer to close than the smashing damage from a bullet.  Lots more blood leaking out all at once.  Any idea how fast you can bleed out from a cleanly severed radial artery?  I'd have to look it up to get an actual time estimate but it's pretty fast, as in seconds.

Incidentally if the whole point of this little side jaunt is to prove that knives are more efficient than guns when committing violent crime, no one argues it.  In a fight I'd take a pistol over a knife in a second.  What this does demonstrate, however, is that guns are certainly not a prerequisite for fast, brutal, and successful violent crime.

Newsflash: Communist uprisings really aren't a threat anymore.  Seriously.  As Jam said, you'd rather carry a gun, the very nature of which promotes violence, because you're afraid someone will attack you?  

The very nature of a gun does not promote violence anymore than a hammer promotes people being hammered to death.  If things that are capable of dealing death promoted violence then hospitals would have to ban syringes along with just about all their other tools. And cars would be long gone.  If anything guns promote peaceful rather than violent discussions of our differences.  As Robert Heinlein once said, "An armed society is a polite society."

Or that there will be a communist uprising? Or that your conspiracy theories come true and the government tries to become a dictatorship?  Well, I'm sorry folks, that may be a real threat in the US of A, but it sure isn't here, so I'll take my chances.

SE has already responded perfectly to this bit of naivety so I'll let it go.

[JP Dogberry]

The difference between a Gun and a Hammer, though, is that a hammer can be used to hammer in a nail, while a gun has NO purpose other than a weapon.

[Skar]

Given.
You're assuming, however, that there is no situation where using a weapon to do violence is as appropriate as using a hammer to hammer nails.

Hammer:
-Hammer some nails
or
-Hammer that man who just flipped me off.

Gun:
-Shoot that man who is trying kill me.
or
-Shoot that man who just flipped me off.

When it comes to appropriate use there is at least as wide a range of choices with a gun as with a hammer.

Guns don't force anyone to commit inappropriate violence anymore than alcoholic beverages force people to be alcoholics.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

yes, a  gun is a weapon with no other purpose. So are bows and arrows, spears, crossbows, nunchucks, and bolas. Banning all those too?

but that's not my real argument. My argument is that BECAUSE a gun is a weapon it should be legal.

An oppressive government is possible. You asked me once if this means we shouldn't trust our elected officials. I've been thinking of that all day, and my answer is no, we shouldn't. people who were elected, in the last 70 years: Richard Nixon (sponsored a crime to get re-elected and then covered it up), Joseph McCarthy (aggressively sought out and persecuted at great cost people because of their nonviolent political beliefs), Adolf Hitler (turned his government into a dictatorship and pursued the deaths of millions of innocent people because of their genetic traits). And you know how you don't want me to trust Bush? Yeah, he was elected too. These people were not elected in places like the Soviet Union, where it's between two people with nearly identical beliefs, but in free and open democracies where the candidates had very different ideals and plans.

As a Mormon, I'm very much aware of a history where a freely elected government either did nothing to protect loyal citizens from continuous mob violence (the federal governmnet offered no protection or redress for the frequent murder, rape, and torture of members of my religion in the 19th century), to active persecution (the Governor of Missouri issued an extermination order that stated it was the duty of Missouri ciitizens to shoot at mormons with the object of slaying them or forcing them to abandon their legally and peacefully held homes). In the 18th and 19th centuries, elected officials and judicial representitives appointed by those officials systematically legalized, enshrined, and aggressively protected the slavery and disenfranchise of a whole category of people based entirely on the color of their skin. This isn't just a 200 year old problem either. The nation of South Africa has only officially renounced their legally enshrined persecution and racism in the last couple decades. It's no where near the elimination of actual practice of that persecution is stil light years away.

why do I bring it all up? There are people in the world, people in our own governments, people that were chosen by the populace of nations in fair and equitable ways that we CANNOT trust because they can do HORRIBLE things in those positions. If the people of my nation elected a man who began to infringe my freedom to peacefully worship, or speak, or congregate, I sure as heck want revolution to be a realistic option. These are things that can be done, realistically, in THIS day and age. just because the people make a choice doesn't mean they've made a wise choice.

[JP Dogberry]

See, maybe I'm an idealist, but I think the solution needs to be attacked at the roots (Why can't we trust our own leaders?) rather than at the branches (Give people guns to protect them from the government they can't trust). If you've ever tried to kill Lantana, you'd understand, you can hack at the branches all day with a machete, but it won't die until you hack your way to the centre, pull up the roots, poison them, poison them some more, and BURN THEM! Vile stuff Lantana, it just refuses to die, you need to get to the roots and BURN IT!.

Regardless, isn't it moot anyway, since if the government WAS going to take over, surely they'd find a way to make you lose the guns?