Here in Canada you have to take firearm safety and etiquette courses, although i'm not sure if it's the same in America, I know you can walk in, sign that you have never been institutionalized, and leave with a gun.To control guns right they should disallow people to own anything but a handgun or double barreled shotgun/hunting rifle. there's no point in owning an smg or an assault rifle, all it does is kill people.
Or zombies. I'm going to a shooting range in May for the first time, so I can't comment yet :D HOWEVERRR Poland is quite strict in terms of gun ownership. Less than the UK though.
Then explain why a US city that mandated that every household have a gun saw crime rates plummet. So you have no problem with someone firing inaccurately in an apartment building, and sending high velocity bullets and fragments into bystanders that are behind interior and exterior walls? And can you justify owning an automatic weapon based on a claim of self defense? Do you have the mafia after you or what? It depends on the state. In some, you can buy bullets at a barber shop. In others, you'd be hard pressed to get a permit to carry a gun. Wrong, see above. Please use Google before posting opinions as if they are facts. There are required safety courses in the state I live in, but I can't comment on the others. Again, depending on the state, you may or may not be able to leave a dealer with a firearm. (There is a waiting period in some states.)
All states require a permit for concealed carry - it just differs per state on how hard or easy it is to get a permit. There are shall issue states, and may issue states. I live in a shall issue, meaning - if I pass a background check (no felonies, I'm a US citizen, etc) I get a CPL. That simply means I can carry a concealed handgun (not rifle.) And for everyone here who thinks I'm nuts? I don't own a CPL. I will one day simply so I can carry my gun to the range without worrying about how I'm supposed to carry it. As for automatics - sorry, but the criminals already have them. I'm pretty sure I know people who own stuff like a fully automatic M2. And you want to talk about automatics being crazy? Some states are class 3 states, meaning...well, buy a tax stamp and buy an automatic and go nuts. Some states have em, some don't. The worst crimes are not committed with fully automatic guns. Go look at the federalist papers; the founding fathers wanted all civies to be able to own guns. They made that very clear. Most of the original colonies were formed by people trying to escape religious oppression, or just looking to get land. Aussie land is the lot of prisoners, not the US. Learn some history before you talk. I like gun nuts having guns. Gun nuts are the ones who know how to handle them. It's the plain nuts that I don't want having them. As for gun laws, as others stated, it varies by state. My state is about to allow the use of sound supressors. Just need to get a tax stamp and you can use it. You know what? I've seen the common range guns. They're always in bad condition from constant use; they jam. They have dirt in them. Hell, they might very well slam fire. I don't use range guns or guns from people who I don't trust to care for their guns. I clean mine regularly. I make sure to use ammo that I trust...not ammo with bad primers or ill seated primers. Moreover, I don't trust any gun I own to be in the hands of anyone....but me. The second you limit guns to range only is the second when you should just be done with it and get rid of them totally. You have the typical idea that the only reason to buy a gun is to use it to kill people. You'd be surprised how many friends have pinged me since I grabbed my M1A and wanted to head to the range with me - I can't afford the amount of ammunition to make that possible. To many, shooting is a sport; modify the gun, make it personal. Add a scope. CHange the barrel. Redo the bolt. Get a new stock. Get match grade parts for it and dial in the scope to account for the barrel's characteristics. etc. As for gun crime...well, I contend that given that something like 41% of all americans reported owning a gun (reported to a poll - so god knows how many did NOT report it) shows that gun ownership cannot be directly linked to gun crimes (I bet if you looked, you'd find that most of the gun crimes occuring were happening with guns that the ATF didn't even know about - meaning, stolen or bought under the table.) Moreover, studies have shown that gun ownership cannot be correlated with crime, and that the defensive uses of guns per year far outnumber the criminal uses. Go look up Kleck. There are two ways I want the US to improve gun laws (well, US/States): Fist, close the gun show gap. BUying a gun at a gun show shouldn't allow you to circumvent the background check...yet it does. Make classes mandatory: To own a gun, you must be proficient - able to handle it, clean it, care for it, understand things like "never point a gun at someone - even if it's empty." So make people take classes (or if they're military, allow that to be bypassed.) I've seen too many people just pick up a gun and play with it. They don't check if a round is chambered. Then they jokingly point it at someone (that's actually a felony, IIRC) Too many women who buy a gun for self defense then can't even pull the action on the gun (if they'd take a lesson on physics they could, but...) - it's sad. Yes, I was at the range when someone couldn't figure their gun out; they shot the ceiling. Thank goodness the ceiling was armor plated. Anyway, /poof Are guns fun? No, they are not. Why not? Because they are. But you just said they're not. No, you said they aren't.
Me and my brother fixed a 6-shooter cap gun to shoot live .22 ammunition. Our older brother got some ammoboxes as a present from his uncle or something, he never told the whole story. The cap gun was made of zinc and broke permanently after we had used ~50 out of the 100 bullets we had. That gun didnt have any accuracy, it was fun to shoot though. We tried to shoot fish with it, didnt go as planned when we had to run across a field from the guy who saw us with the gun...
I didn't want say that all the guns should be owned by the range. I agree without a doubt that you'd want your own, but it should only be allowed to stay on the range. It should be really heavily policed and make it 100% fucking sure that you CANNOT leave the range with that gun. I say that, but people would still probably find a way to be honest. So it would be pointless. But my point wasn't communal use at all, I can agree it's nice to have your own shit.
A few policemen with guns eh? Woah Over here 90% of police have a side arm and every now and again around Belfast you'd have a pair of officers in body armour with smg's. That's just in the capital, everywhere else its much like what you've decribed.
