Well they control all our guns here in the UK. Do you think they control all the people? Infact shouldn't a government actually control the people and all aspects of civil life? Without rules we have anarchy. By sensible gun control surely semi automatic assault rifles and semi auto shotguns are not needed by the average citizen? How about proper checks to see if a person is fit to own a firearm?
No the government should ensure that people can live together civiliy and not resort to violence over everyt contested matter.
The Government is the tool which enforces the social contract upon which all people agree to make a liveable society.
Now in all fairness, there are people who live in societies that do not agree with that social contract and want to change it, some of them violently so, however, by living in that country they are still bound to follow the rules of that social contract.
And if they violate it, they are bound to face the consequences of that action.
The problem is that you make a false dichotomy here, on one hand the government controls people on the other there is anarchy.
Which denies that there are quite a few countries in which the governement does not control people, but simply oversees the running of society, and the system works well.
Now I think you accidently used control here, not quite realizing the implications, as government controlling people would mean the government actually exercising power over the people in their decisions, like who they vote for, what news they can see, what they can say and where, who gets to vote etc.
Which is what gives most people the creeps.
And coming from a Country, where there have been two totalitarian states in the last century, yub I'm talking about germany, I tend to agree with them.
We are intimately familiar with how much a government can control people and how bad that can go.
Of how for example public discourse can be controlled and how people can loose their way of pointing out problems and loose their franchise by that.
You know why don't you take a look at the history of east germany for that (the other one is such a tired old trope nowadays
) , you know where the government controlled who got to study, who got which job, yeah no choice of job for you, where you worked, in what capacity and who you friended with. And yeah then turned quite a few of your friends into their Informal contributors, who then reported on all your actions.
Free Press? Non-existant, don't you dare write on a topic that the party did not approve upon, remember the Party was always right!
And while we germans use that sentence sarcastically or ironically, the SED Party of east germany, which was pretty much the state used that unironically, they actually meant that.
Went so far as to make a song about it:
Lyrics:
http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2007/01/das_lied_der_pa.html
I wonder fellow forum denizens, does this little tidbit out of the refrain remind you of something?
"
Oh The Party, The Party is always right
And comrade, may it ever be so;
For who fights for the right
He is always right
Against lies and exploitation
[women] Whoever insults life
is stupid or bad
Whoever defends humanity
Is always right...
"
Or rather of some recent people?
As I said Andy I don't think you the word control in that sense, but that is what wording it like that can lead to. After all the government only controlled the people and all aspects of civil life, just I guess, a bit more toroughly than you would expect.
I think a government shouldn't control people, it should be controled by the people, after all a government is simply made up of employees of the people.
And yes I think the german government has too many powers and has especially been trying to encroach upon free speech recently, mainly because they don't want to be criticized.
Given that our dear, dear, dear Chancellor is a populist of the highest order and very vulnerable to all criticism.
"..By sensible gun control surely semi automatic assault rifles and semi auto shotguns are not needed by the average citizen?..."
In essence by using "surely" you are saying, "I don't know, but I'll guess it's how I imagine it."
How do you know that there is no need of "semi auto shotguns" or self-loading rifles?
And what is the average citizen? One in the city, one living in the back country?
Also there is no such thing as a semi automatic Assault Rifle................an Assault Rifle is a rifle of an intermediary cartridge* which has selective fire modes, in other words can be semi-auto, full-auto, Burst or any other combination, any rifle with just semi-auto firing mode is a self-loading rifle.
Oh and Assault Rifles defined as above are banned already.
So the use of Assault Rifle in "semi automatic assault rifles" is simply a device to trigger an emotional reaction, to make one think: "Assault rifles are bad, Assault rifles are military, surely no one can disagree if we ban them."
I find such emotional tactics distasteful, as they show that the person arguing with them has no trust in the persuasive power of their arguments. And I have seen quite enough of "the feels over reals" style of argumentation in recent times!
Funnily enough, I've talked with an elk (moose) hunter once and guess what, to hunt them you need really powerful rifles. And a semi-auto capability is rather handy if you mess up and the elk charges you. Mind you an elk bull weighs about half a metric ton.......I remember going to Sweden over 15 years back and they told us to drive carefully there, because if you hit one the two people on the front seats would be goners.
"...How about proper checks to see if a person is fit to own a firearm?"
Ok no problem with that, but what should they look like? If you propose them, you should have an idea on how they should work.
Great, now I'm defending the lax gun control laws in the US.....something which I don't agree with.....but then certain views upon state power compel me to do so.
Although the UK has had some encroaching on Citizen's right and tries to control public debates recently, you know with the recentl CPS guidelines on "hate speech" which is what we call a "Gummiparagraph" or a "rubber paragraph/Law" in germany.
Why Rubber? Because it's definitions are so "elastic" that they can be used to cover just about everything you want.
https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2...lines-on-hate-crime-thoughts-and-suggestions/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/05/preacher-locked-hate-crime-quoting-bible-gay-teenager/
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsit...d-the-state-to-police-hate/20232#.WeSpMOPTOpo
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/450735/britains-war-free-speech-continued
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4292117/brendan-oneill-cps-online-abuse-hate-crime/amp/
Oh and Chris Phelan, do you honestly think that criminals would ever give up their guns?
Hell even in germany, with our very stringent gun control laws, they still have guns, especially the illegal stuff like really working AK-47s or derivates of it.
BTW. about Chris Rock's idea, I rather like it! As they have said, many a true word has been spoken in jest!
* Smaller than Battle rifles's ammunition like the 7.62x51mm, so like the Russian 7.62x39mm or the 5,56x45mm. Yeah the length is important, as that controls the powder charge, the longer the cartridge is, the more powder and the more backblast. Which also makes the gun harder to control full auto.
BTW, not a gun nut, just a historian, who was bored one day and decided to research that a bit.
