Collecting/building/basic target shooting/serious marksmanship/ entertainment (some people like to go shoot the biggest most loudest muscle car-jest gun they can get their hand on)
Different stroke for different folks
I think of it like cars
Some people drive cars for a living,
Some people drive fast cars,
Some people like to build/work on cars
Some people collect cars
Honestly, I would totally do the same. I would defend my loved ones with everything I have, with my own life and every weapon I may find in that situation. Probably a branch of a tree, a steak knife, my own body, dunno.
I would not use a gun, for I donât have one (and might hurt myself more than the attacker, for I have no idea of how to use them if I had themâŠ), but I totally understand your point of view. Thing is, where I live, it is highly unlikely to be attacked by someone with a gun, so I donât have to be prepared for that. If I get attacked myself, I can run away, I can scream (most people forget that, but it really helps), I can try to âwinâ the fight (pretty unlikely considering my size and my non-existant martial-arts-training, but I know a few tricks if nothing else works). So I think I can find a resolution to difficult situations, in a way. And still, things might go wrong and I might end up dead or wounded, yes.
But if the laws allow firearms, thing is, I might very well face an attacker who is carrying a gun, and I would have no freakin chance against that. To some people, having a gun gives them a feeling of security, to me, it gives me exactly the opposite - knowing the âother oneâ might have one, too.
And I still worry about the accidents - here, I know guns only from hunting, and Iâve experienced so many cases where something went wrong⊠hunting dogs being shot, hunters being shot, animals suffering a lot because something wasnât done the right way, all that stuff. Considering how small the hunting community in Germany is, I donât want to think about the amount of mistakes that would happen if every stupid person here would be allowed to have weaponsâŠ^^
Oh, saw that one too late, so Iâll put an edit here^^
There are a lot of different ways to protect something, and most of them donât require lethal force. Or force at all. I have never ever needed to defend my home with violence (and Iâm happy about that), and myself only a very few times. And there is no single situation where it is necessary to actually kill someone who is attacking you. It might happen, of course, but there is no reason to shoot someone in the head when youâre just trying to stop him. Like in that trucker-story - definitely okay that he defended himself, definitely still not okay to kick someone whoâs already on the ground - just my humble opinion, of course 
All valid concerns
And thatâs the hard part, concern for the possibility of misuse, isnât grounds enough to warrant taking of liberty
Itâs partially a culture thing
Some people donât know how to drive a reasonable speed, but we donât have governors installed in all cars limiting them to the posted speed limit
There are a lot of things that can, are, and should be done to make things better, without tramping on people who arenât doing anything wrong
But the country hasnât wanted to have real conversations about issues in a long time, just talking points and buzz words and itâs only getting worse
As a former instructor, I would teach people about plenty of stories where someone was initially justified and then they did something stupid and turned it into a criminal event
Food for thought,
I do carry a gun, but it isnât for ONLY if the other person has a gun, I want to be the best equipped I can be to defend myself and my family
While there are levels of force, I donât have to pull a knife on someone holding a knife at me
insert Indiana Jones not dealing with swords gif
Great bodily harm / death / sexual penetration - lethal response
Less than that gets into various other kinds of responses
Knowing when and how much force, is why training is so highly recommended, and why many get themselves in trouble
But again culture loves freedom=inherently dangerous
This is so totally true - not only for this discussion, but for almost every discussion on earth. Problem is, few people really exchange thoughts and arguments and all that, usually itâs more âeveryone is standing on his position and shouting his opinon at othersâ. Really happy about this conversation here 
And thatâs the perfect example - there are speed limits, and yet you are free to ignore them. If you do this on a regular base, you lose your license - but still, every other driver can still decide to drive too fast, and will lose his license as well. Itâs perfect individual freedom and the very same way here in Germany, too. And I like it that way^^
Only problem I have, especially if it is compared to the ownage and usage of guns - the consequences are faced after something went wrong, after someone drove too fast, for example. And after something went wrong with firearms, there is usually someone really hurt.
I think - partially thanks to this discussion - I might be understanding the thinking behind the gun laws in the US a bit better now, but it still feels⊠strange.
Mh, wouldnât agree on that one though. As long as I am able to defend myself without lethal force (including running away or locking up the house or whatever), there is no lethal force justified.
I wonât lie, itâs really easy to get sucked into that positionâŠ
The âgun communityâ loves to get soooo black and white
Gun control = bad cave man grunts
But itâs not just because they are stubborn or hate kids and puppies
There is a history of loosing more and more and more freedom that âcompromiseâ has become a bad word
So many things I could toss out that would be easy to implement, and no one would lose anything⊠sigh
Oh absolutely, Iâm not saying that you or I HAVE to
I used to teach that while you may be justified in doing something, you have a moral/ethical obligation to try to get yourself out before it gets ugly
Carrying a gun doesnât let you walk around and strut like a bad ass, I taught the opposite⊠if you carry you should be nicer friendlier and meeker than normal
Both for ethical/moral reasons, and because context can change a whoooole lot of stuff
Choosing to stay and argue with someone is splitting hairs of âmutual combatantsâ which sinks your self defense
Well, I am having a hard time understanding the relative risk of being murdered in the US compared to the rest of the West (US about 68 micromort compared to the UKs 10) without resorting to some kind of explaination thay has to do with the widespread availibility of guns. School shootings too. => again, massive problems, caused by a few, but can still be tied to this
I think itâs primarily a culture difference
Guns are merely the tool
If just number of guns was the only real cause, you would see a lot moreâŠ
We have a hilarious amount of gunsâŠ
like we donât even know
I would guess there are 30,000,000 ar15s alone
Even that number is probably seriously low since certain companies in the last couple years have sold over 1million in a year
And ar15s are used in like MAYBE 50 crimes a year?
(Itâs actually less than hammers⊠no lie fbi documents)
What I meant earlier was our culture values personal freedom
But freedom is inherently dangerous because you have the freedom to be stupid
So trying to SOLVE stupid, means taking aware freedom⊠which in my view is kinda like fixing a computer my putting it in the compactor
âAre Americans inherently more violent?â
Thatâs probably true, but we musnât forget that mostly handguns are used, and for that iâm sire the numbers are.much higher. (why would someone use a ar15 in a robbery gone wrong or to kill his/her spouse or something is beyond me).
Also true. And itâs also true that guns are not the only factor. For example, take serbia, with 70.8 guns per 100 people (2nd in the world no less), murder rate of about 1.2/100000, US 5/100000, even if you would adjust for no of guns for Serbia you would still only get to about 1.8/100000.
I had a soliloqui about the illusion of freedom and freedom being an overused buzzword but I decided against including it here
Whatâs really strange to me - I donât see the US (from the outside, honestly, so I might be very wrong) as a very âfreeâ countryâŠ
Iâm feeling very free where I live⊠I can do to my body what I want (in the US, several states banned bodymods), I can marry whoever I want, I can walk the streets looking as strange as I want (there are no laws against that in the US, of course, but society is a lot more open-minded here, at least in most regions), I can have sex the way I want (are there still states who ban anal sex? At least there were some, not too long ago).
Yet, the individual freedom is always very emphasized. This feels strange for me, thinking that I can live a much more free life in a country that actually has several strict regulations - but they are simply in areas that donât affect me
And now youâve gotten to the questions I canât answer
This was only supposed to be a small glimpse to try to break some of the stereotype of Americans and our ânon existentâ gun laws
Got so engrossed in this conversation, I lost track of time, missed a meal and now I have a migraine
Fun stuff
Thanks for the nice civil but different perspective chat, itâs rarer and rarer these days which is sad
Sorry to who ever comes into catchup on the thread and has 300 posts to read, didnât mean to get carried away
Sorry that I derailed an anti-derailment thread
Every debate about complex issues in any society is bound to baloon out of anyoneâs grasp.
Me as well, but here itâs about 1 pm so itâs not too bad.
Thank you likewise, it is quite refreshing.
Itâs about 6:50 am here, and not the got up early kind lol
âŠImprobable
edit
I messed up the quote
You managed to do that - thanks a lot for that!
Even though we might still disagree on several points, it was a great discussion and widened my field of view
I was done, but then I remembered a funny yet oddly fitting
Itâs free as in youâre free to die like a dog in a ditch if you werenât born into wealth and you canât bootstrap yourself out of poverty through education. In theory, youâre also free to strike it rich through hard work or sheer luck. Trouble is, itâs a myth carefully perpetuated by the rich to keep the poor from realizing they have a snowballâs chance in hell at success and revolting against the system.
At least thatâs what it was before 9/11. Now it feels more and more free as in youâre free to roam wherever you like within the prison yard.
In Europe, you get fewer âimmediateâ freedoms, but society also helps you improve your life, and that of your children if you yourself canât provide them the chances everybody should have a right to. Itâs a trade-off, and I think youâll agree, for the most part it works out better for most European citizens.