Konfy wrote:Sirnak wrote:... And is THAT a joke?
A gun and a knife? The only people I ever saw with weapons are drug dealers (only in small numbers and only if they feel paranoid), policemen and some hunters.
I'm kinda glad to live in a country where guns and knives are illegal... :/
what the only people you ever saw with weapons were drug dealers, is your city that safe? I mean I carry a knife or an expandable baton when I go out alone at night, because I dont want to give away my iPod to the next 3 Kanaks at the corner or the underground, it's not like I need it everytime I go out at night but it sometimes saved my iPod and my nose.
btw there's an area in Hamburg where it's not allowed to carry weapons:
the funny part is that there's a gunshop in the middle of that area
lol! It's prohibited to play baseball! xD
We have 15 "real" drug dealers in our city out of which 10 possess non-cutting sword canes, baseball bats or chains. I still feel safe at night.
Jake wrote:No but I think there may be a cultural element in play here. I live in the United States where one of my constitutional rights is my ability to own firearms.
I can understand your assumption in a corollary of weapons leading to violence(my assumption from your statement) but that isn't the case. It's really much more of a cultural thing. For instance Japan's gun laws are similar to your own in the need for licensing and education (assuming you live in Quebec), their violent crime rate (not limited to firearms) are half yours, which in turn is half the US's. It's a topic that I doubt any of us are as well educated as we should be before making any statements about but there is plenty of information publicly available. Also, I'm not sure why but I'm associating you with Quebec and if that's wrong let me know, if not, your statement about the legalities of weapons is also wrong. Out of all the provinces in Canada, Quebec is one of the top 4 in issuing gun licenses.
I don't like the logic behind allowing the population to wield firearms. If nobody would possess firearms, nobody would need guns to defend themselves in the first place. You also wouldn't have to fear for your safety so much. So the possession of guns is paradoxal at my opinion. I'm not saying there's a corelation between guns and violence. Anybody that would say that is a complete retard (and it's rare I so openly insult people...). Having a weapon doesn't make you want to kill (unless you already have psychological problems). If anything, it can make you feel safer or more confident in yourself. What I find unmoral it's to give to any person the right to wield real weapons. That's where it can be dangerous. If you wanna murder someone in Quebec, you have to do it with the good old baseball bat a kitchen knife strangle him/her to death if it's a child. Basically, you'll rarely hear stories of children shotting down other kids in schools or about street gangs fights on the street because of that.
Now, I chose to say "rarely" and not "never" for a good reason. Yeah, there are gun licenses in Quebec. But you interprete your statistic of Quebec's being top 4 of issuing gun licenses in a wrong way. Here, our policemen are forced to obtain their gun licences as well as hunters. And hunting is a highly popular thing in Quebec so we have many gun licenses going that way. The thing is, the gun licenses given to hunters allow them only to buy big firearms specially for hunting. These weapons are way too big to carry on the street without everyone noticing. As for the other people the could attend gun licenses, they are way rarer. Now you'd probably tell me it doesn't make it impossible for criminals or simply people with murderous intents to obtain gun licenses anyway. That's where you are partly wrong. The government won't give the license to anybody. Criminals, even if they did "little" crimes like driving drunk, are judged. The government normally judges if people are responsable and trustworthy or not before giving the licenses. Also, the gun license costs a lot. Untrustworthy people the governement can't necessarily identify with their data (like individuals addicted to drugs) generally don't have money to afford the license. Also, if you want a gun license in Quebec, you are forced to follow a formation of firearms (that can take weeks, months or years...) and to be trained at aiming. I'm not 100% sure if you have to pay yourself for this formation, but I'm pretty sure you have to.
Of course, our system still isn't perfect and some untrustworthy people can indeed end up with gun licenses. But it's so rare. There never was any case of people being shot in my city. The only city in Quebec in which it can happen to hear people being shot down is Montréal which proudly breaks records in criminality. Even in this case, most firearms used to gun down people in Montréal are illegal.
I say it again. Yes, our system is not perfect. Yes, some criminals can still obtain guns illegally. But overall, our system is pretty safe.
I'm used to live a life in which nobody has weapons (I don't personally know a single individual, from close or far, who possesses a firearm. I used to know a guy who owned a knife some years ago). I prefer life that way. Please note I'm not insulting your USA rules or anything. I'm just stating my opinion and telling my preferences as a Québec citizen used to live in a world without weapons.
