Should people be allowed to own guns for self-defense?

slug: article20 date: 2012-03-11 21:35:35 title: author: raisercostinraisercostin@gmail.com tags: type: answer toslug: article19 —

I think anyone should be allowed to own guns to be able to protect his rights as a self-defense form. - you should differentiate between own guns for attacks and own guns for defense - police cannot enforce defense in realtime - what happens if police/army goes against people will? this might be connected with the tragedy of the commons.

If you can listen romanian, watch a good argument here. See wikipedia gun politics article

slug: article42 date: 2013-11-14 10:45:58 title: author: FlorinPanaitescuflorin.panaitescu@gmail.com tags: type: answer toslug: article19 —

Defending gun-user: Own protection is not an argument. Criminality cannot be decreased if normal, peacefull people are wearing guns with them. If the attackers would know the victim is wearing a gun, then they will attack with most powerful guns. So this is not a solution for decreasing criminality or increase self-defense.

Guns production: The system (legal authority) is far from having a good solution for control the production and usage of guns and it will be much difficult with 3-D printers to control this. Banning production won't help on a long term.

Attacking gun-users: Assuming they want to succeed in their robbery mission and knowing anyone can have a gun (including normal, peaceful people) they will use (at least) a gun. They have enough lightness in using guns because: they have many opportunities to acquire a gun (even online) and they are not afraid of legal consequences (the penalties for having or using a gun are too light). So a positiveness in attacking might come from the confidence that they have a gun.

Authorities: They should act indirectly against guns by increasing a lot more the punishments for having or using a gun. Granting licenses for owning guns is granting license for using guns. No one would buy a gun for home decoration.

My conclusion: People should not own guns for defense.