OnlyAmbrose wrote:
That is, unfortunately, the case at the moment. But what if it wasn't? What if there wasn't a taboo against guns in public in suburban areas?
Because that's what it is- a taboo. Let's say I'm in a culinary art class. There's likely to be a butcher's knife right next to me. If I had it in my mind to kill someone, I could just as easily kill the guy right next to me with that as I could with a gun.
If I was playing baseball and I wanted to kill someone, I could pick up an aluminum bat and beat his head to a pulp without him looking. One blow would probably do the trick.
Heck, if I'm driving a car and there's a pedestrian in front of me, all it takes is to press my leg down some and they're history.
ANYTHING can be a lethal weapon. Guns just have a bad rep because when you get down to their purpose they're used exclusively as lethal weapons. But a gun could quite easily stop a culinary student gone mad, or a baseball player who struck out one too many times, or a guy with a crazy bad case of road rage.
Yes, guns do have a bad rep, and justifiably so; they are far more deadly than the majority of other potential weapons. A knife has very limited range. Using your example, if for some reason you did decide to go bezerk at that moment, you could kill 2, 3 people, tops, before the remainder noticed and fled or restrained you. Now replay that scenario with a gun. Although reaction time will be vastly decreased (guns
are pretty loud) and so the number of people you can kill straight off the bat is also decreaced, you gain the major advantage of being able to kill at a range. With a knife, evasion and flight were effective options, with a gun they are not; you would be able to shoot quite a few people as they fled.
It is also possible to defend ones self from a knife, where it is impossible to defend against a gun. Unless you have the power to stop bullets with your mind, the options for avoiding them are severely limited.
Even a car, while possessing the same ability to kill while you are nigh invulnerable as a gun has the same weakness (assuming deadlyness is a pro, of course) as a knife; all damage must occur up close. While cars are much faster than any human they lack a lot of manuverability that the majority of humaniy takes for granted. Run behind a tree or into a building and there isn't a lot the car can do. Of course, you're unlikely to recieve a lot of warning of an incoming car, but you are equally unlikely to recieve any warning if the person beside you in Culinary Arts class stabs you.
OnlyAmbrose wrote:I disagree. Would a criminal really kick the door in at all if he knew that behind that door were 20 armed civilians? It isn't worth robbing a place if you're not going to survive to spend it.
Yes, the number of amateur crimes (i.e. crimes in which the criminal has no real intention of actually performing violence, merely relying on the threat of it) will fall drastically, but the casualties from those that
are will performed will also increace drastically.
Consider the following scenario: you, for whatever reason, wish to rob a bank. You know the bank is full of armed customers but are still detirmined to go through. Do you hold the place up at gunpoint and hope that none of the customers is brave enough to open fire on you, or do you swing the odds hugely in your favor and just walk in there firing?
Sure, you'll kill a lot of people, but at least
you will probably remain unharmed.
Yes, the inventive psychopath (or merely angry Arts student) can turn more or less any nearby object into a weapon, but your average, store-bought pistol is a lot more deadly than any of these jury-rigged tools of death can ever hope to be.
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The Rogue State!
