Talk:Overview of gun laws by nation/Archive 2

message: :::This archive was created 20:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: "The United Kingdom, Australia and Canada have had such laws for many years without becoming totalitarian"
The above quote from the article seems both based on a personal view point. Since at least the UK and Australia have had more totalitarian style legislation after the gun control came into effect. The point of my post isn't to argue politics but to say that the above statement is greatly debatable and not necessarily a statement of fact. I am an australian citizen and feel that recent law changes mean that the statement has become less true or untrue entirely at least in reference to australia. I suggest australia be taken out of the statement or "totalitarian" be changed to dictatorship. I'm not trying to make a political point with this just hoping improve the accuracy of the article. Nor am I trying to say that Australia is necessarily a totalitarian regime since that may now be illegal in my country.
::I've made some fairly substantial changes to the 'balance of power' section, in hopes of finding a less ambiguous statement of the issues and concerns. as well, a number of minor edits are included in the section to clean up wording.Anastrophe 23:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Howabout 'Authoritarian'?  In any case, legislation that a person does or does not like doesn't mean that a country is becoming more or less totalitarian.  I still feel the whole article is violating NPOV, though. TheDeadlyShoe 02:58, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: my understanding is that for a contentious subject such as this, "NPOV" does not mean eliminating POV. it means having a reasonable balance between the competing POV's.  as the article stands right now, it is reasonably NPOV - both the anti-gun-rights/pro-gun-control and pro-gun-rights/anti-gun-control POV's are roughly equally represented. I'm sure a microparsing of the article as a whole could find that one POV has more words/more content than the other. i don't think perfection is possible however. Anastrophe 08:25, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion, the gun-control side seems to presented from a gun-rights POV.  That's how I would describe it.  Not sure how else to put it. TheDeadlyShoe 06:17, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australia and totalitarian rule  

message: There's some awkward wording in the article: several references to guns as weapons. They're firearms unless used to hurt, at which point they can be called weapons. An extremely important distinction, especially when dealing with this topic. I'll update the article to take care of that issue. Krupo 19:46, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
It's not extremely important at all. Weapons are tools for killing or wounding other living things. Guns, regardless of how much it's wrapped up in terminology like 'self-defence' or 'personal protection', have only one use: to wound, usually to wound lethally. Robrecht 20:44, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a cute story but your drill sergeant (and mine) was wrong.  If you want to prove it, ask what he meant when he told you to "March toward the sound of the guns."  He didn't mean ignore the rifle-fire.  "Gun" and "firearm" are both ambiguous terms whose meanings have drifted over time.  "Firearm" is fairly stable in the definition "man-portable slug-throwing weapon powered by chemical explosive".  "Gun" used to mean the same thing without the "man-portable" qualifier.  It later took on a connotation of "any smooth-bore weapon powered by ..." to differentiate "rifles" which spin the projectile.  But then they started rifling artillery and still called an artillery piece a "gun".  At the same time, mortars somehow stopped being "guns".  Now we're all confused and just use "gun" loosely.  They are all, however, "weapons" because they can be used for and are primarily intended as tools for intentionally inflicting harm.  The fact that you can use them for target practice or that you could use a broadsword to cut your vegetables does not make them non-weapons.  To the best of my knowledge, that definition of weapon has been very stable over time.  So a "firearm" is a subset of the class "weapon" and the changes are stylistic.  They do not change the meaning of the text.  Rossami (talk) 05:32, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weapons vs. firearms 

message: I would like the misconception that the Swiss have the same relation to their guns as the Americans to disappear. For a certain class of the population, having an assault rifle is mandatory; a huge proportion of the population finds this obligation moderately to excessively boring, and they have a very strong training in not treating these rifles like toys. Ammunition is not available easily: the ammunition given or bought at a training point has to be depleted there; there are indeed people who watch over the training sessions, and they do control the weapons at the entrance and exit of the stands; people are not searched, but they do not smuggle ammunition either; and the ammunition given to soldiers is sealed. The rifles are not to be carried around without good reasons, and no-one would think of using them for "self-defence" outside of a case of war. 
There are extremely remote links between the situation in the USA and Switzerland, and only and severe misunderstanding or dishonesty can lead someone to take the example of Switzerland to advocate such or such policy for the USA. I especially find it outrageous that this sort of people would pollute Gun politics in Switzerland with their foreign petty politics, without caring to check such basic things as the calibre of weapons for which they mention incorrect data. Rama 19:45, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The point is that Swiss mentality about guns does not focus over the fantasy of shooting intruders in your private property. It is shooting at targets, defending the country against invasions, and possibly hunting. And there is no notion of a God-given "right to bear arms" there. Rama 10:44, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swiss weapons 

message: Reichswaffengesetz
: The "Reichswaffengesetz of 1938" would be translated as the "Weapons Act of 1938", a specific federal law passed by the German government in 1938 which reduced certain restrictions on weapons permits.  I may not have all the details exactly right but as I understand it, prior to about 1920, there were no federal German laws about weapons possession and only limited local laws.  Soldiers returning from service kept their weapons.  As an outcome of WWI, Germany was forced to introduce weapons registration and other gun control laws.  Over the next two decades, they were made more then less restrictive.  The 1938 act is specifically remembered because it reopened gun ownership to all citizens.  It should be remembered, however, that most of the Nazi Party's "undesirables" had already been made non-citizens by then.  Rossami (talk) 06:18, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  what does this world mean anyhow? 

message: I just reversed what surely was a staged vandalism attempt by 4.240.69.108.  I hope I didn't accidently cut out anyone's content.  Matt 05:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism

message: :Some oppose registration of guns or licensing of gun owners because if captured, the associated records would provide military invaders with the locations and identities gun owners, simplifying elimination of law-abiding (i.e. patriotic) resistance fighters. Location and capture of such records is a standard doctrine taught to military intelligence officers.
The last sentence there stands out to me as something that needs verification.
Also, wouldn't a table of countries with the respective legal stance of each on firearms of various sorts (total ban, licensing, club use only / semi-automatic rifle, handgun, et cetera) be a good idea?
- Aaron 03:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is actually a federal regulation that in the event of invasion, arms dealers are supposed to destroy all records of arms sales.  I'm sure that it came up during congressional testimony. Kade 03:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: could very well be. but it's still not a source. not yet at least, until someone can find an actual citation. Anastrophe 07:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can a source be found for this...? + An idea 

message: As we have reached the 3 reverts, lets vote on the inclusion of this analogy.  I have put it back for now, but will accept whatever the majority feels as to whether it should or should not be here.  I think it should be here.  Yaf 19:02, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have strong feelings either way.  My revert was largely procedural.  Deletion of content without any comment either in the edit summary or on the Talk page is a very common characteristic of vandalism.  This particular article draws strong feelings and has been often vandalized in the past.  Maybe I'm set to a hairtrigger (excuse the pun) but without any comment or explanation, the deletion by the anonymous editor did not appear to be a good-faith edit.  Rossami (talk) 22:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A quick check on google shows the swimming pool argument being used fairly often. As the point of the section is to list arguments, it should stay. And yes I also agree with the revert based solely on the user being anon and not giving reasons. keith 23:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Swimming pool analogy

message: I believe the closing paragraph of "degrees of gun legislation" contains biased wording (first half of post) and is unclear (second half).  If you disagree with my final posting, or feel that it says nothing of any note, please explain why before modifying or deleting it.
ORIGINAL:
There is the reasonable perception that firearms registration - by making it easier for government officers to target gun owners for harassment and confiscation - constitutes an easily exploited encroachment upon the personal privacy and the property rights of the private citizen. Gun control advocates excuse the intrusive imposition of a registration requirement by arguing that it is merely a reasonable precaution similar to the registration of privately-owned motor vehicles—the primary counterpoint being vehicle ownership's lack of explicit Constitutional protection.
Biased word choice:
In the first sentence "reasonable" is used in place of good.  Without it, the meaning is identical and the word has a positive connotation, hence it unnecessarily biases the argument.  I am removing it.  To improve sentence flow I replace "there is the perception" with "many gun control advocates argue."  Similarly 
In the second sentence, "excuse the intrusive imposition of a registration requirement by arguing that it is merely a reasonable precaution..."  contains a multitude of unnecessary adjectives which similarly serve only to bias the statement.  They are "intrusive" (this is a belief about the imposition reflecting the other's opinion, I am removing it) "imposition" (this word has a negative connotation compared with a neutral term like requirement, which three words later refers to the exact same legal restriction, this is cut due to redundancy and bias), merely (this is unnecessary and makes the advocates sound like they have some terrible thing that needs to be minimized and shrunken so as not to be noticed), and "reasonable" (this is actually pro-gun control, but still unnecessarily biased).  The result is a bit drab, but at least more neutral.
At this point, I believe it is well established that this is a strongly biased paragraph based solely on diction.
Argument structure and meaning (what is the meaning?)
The middle phrase in "[gun registration]-by making it easier for government officers to target gun owners for harassment and confiscation- constitutes an...encroachment upon...privacy and property rights" simply doesn't seem cogent.  
I interpret this as "gun registration is (is stems from "constitutes") a violation of (this stems from "encroachment upon") privacy and property rights because it makes it easier for government officers to target gun owners for harassment and confiscation".  How can making it easier to violate someone's rights (the violaters being law officers) itself constitute a violation of someone's rights.   I believe that if one were to argue for violation of rights through gun registration, the argument for property rights would be that the gun is one's own, and thus the government doesn't have a right to make you register it (pursuit of property).  The privacy argument seems obvious.  
A second interpretation would be that "encroachment upon" in fact means that rights are not being violated, but that they are almost being violated.  How can you almost violate someone's rights?  Either they are being violated, or not.  Gray area cases for rights violation must be decided as falling into one category or the other (thus the important but fine line between torture and interrogation), but being upset that rights are almost being violated just isn't a human rights-based argument.
     
Final edit:   
Many gun control advocates (should be opponents) argue that firearms registration constitutes an easily exploited encroachment upon the personal privacy and the property rights of the private citizen. Gun control advocates counter that this precaution is no more a violation of rights than registration of privately-owned motor vehicles.  Further debate in U.S. politics often degenerates into whether or not gun registration is a violation of the second amendment, which if accepted makes the violation of privacy and property rights moot.
: This makes no sense.  "Many gun control advocates argue that firearms registration constitutes an easily exploited encroachment upon the personal privacy and the property rights of the private citizen. Gun control advocates counter that this precaution is no more a violation of rights than registration of privately-owned motor vehicles.  Further debate in U.S. politics often degenerates into whether or not gun registration is a violation of the second amendment, which if accepted makes the violation of privacy and property rights moot."  A balance is needed, and this doesn't have it, in addition to not making sense, at least to me.  I reverted to an earlier version, for now.  Yaf 01:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, there was a clear naming error (it is in bold).  Please explain why this doesn't make sense.  Which part of the statement is unclear?  
Also, why is there a lack of balance?  This is a point (this violates rights) counterpoint (not in way that hasn't been done before) format.  I thought that was generally accepted, but I may be wrong.  Please explain why, rather than stating it as though it were an obvious fact (it is not obvious to me).  After review I notice that the latter argument is perhaps obvious, and could be cut.
Re-Edit (re-interpreting argument):
Many gun control opponents (changed from advocates) argue that firearms registration constitutes an easily exploited violation of the personal privacy and the property rights of the private citizen. Gun control advocates counter that this precaution is no more a violation of rights than registration of privately-owned motor vehicles.  Further debate in U.S. politics often degenerates into whether or not gun registration is a violation of the second amendment, which if accepted makes the violation of privacy and property rights moot.
Lastly, after review, perhaps this is not the point the original author was trying to make?  The encroachment argument doesn't seem substantive (what is an encroachment on rights, exactly, and why is it always bad? couldn't interrogation be good even though it is almost inhumane) but perhaps it is a commonly held point.  
LATEST REVISION (simply removing poor language from original post):
There is the perception that firearms registration - by making it easier for government officers to target gun owners for harassment and confiscation - constitutes for an easily exploited encroachment upon individual personal privacy and the property rights. Gun control advocates argue that it is a  precaution similar to the registration of privately-owned motor vehicles—the primary counterpoint being vehicle ownership's lack of Constitutional protection.
I took out the analogy to car registration.  You are perfectly entitled to own all the motor vehicles you want as long as you don't drive them on public roads.  Even then, certain states have exceptions for farm vehicles, etc.  Just seems like the edits could end up going down a rathole...Wesbo 02:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I disagree with your reason for pulling it out.  The fact that the analogy is flawed is irrelevant.  The fact is that some gun control advocates do make that argument.  It would, of course, be equally appropriate to present your counter-argument (as long as someone else said it first).  Having said that, I'm not sure that either the argument or counter-argument are significantly notable to be included in this article.  Rossami (talk) 03:22, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Degrees of gun legislation edit:  Lord is it bad, here is why, and a beginning of fixes 

message: why is this page so bias in favor of the pro gun advocates?
Are there only pro gun websites ? where are the anti gun links?
: That's an easy accusation to make.  Please defend it with some specific references to sections you consider biased.  (Or even better, fix it.)  Note that many of us have worked hard to make sure that this page does represent a Neutral Point of View.  To answer your specific question, how did you overlook the section of links titled Gun politics#Pro gun control?  Rossami (talk) 13:52, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complete lack of balance 

message: The former summary of positions for this article was a blatant strawman written and maintained by people with blatant POV agenda. I revised it to eliminate anything that has no direct bearing to the issue of gun politics, and which are also carefully worded to impugn "the other side" (ie. "Pro-gun-rights believes in the right to self-defense"). Also, got rid of "positions" that no real gun-control group has ever claimed (ie. "It's only the government's role to protect citizens...") J.R. Hercules 22:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As for "second amendment rights"-bit believed by pro-gun-control groups, I've seen arguments basically saying that "a well-regulated Militia" does not refer to everyday people, thereby arguing that the 2nd Amendment does not grant arbitrary individual citizens a right of gun ownership. I don't assert the correctness of this belief, but I think it's misleading to claim that "Those [in the US] who favor greater restrictions on firearm ownership and availability believe [... that o]wning firearms is a Second Amendment right; [...]" as they don't all do. —Gabbe 01:16, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen something like those arguments, too. But mostly by anonymous people on the internet, on Usenet-type groups, not in "real life" as expressed by gun-control groups, or by politicians who sponsor gun-control legislations. For instance, I own two rifles, but there are some gun-control laws I wholeheartedly approve of that most NRA-type people definitely don't approve of. And yet, I don't agree with the "2nd amend only refers to the militia" thing. I know a lot of other people who feel the same way. As a matter of fact, there's a lot of people in those Brady-type organizations who are also gun owners. They're just not NRA members. J.R. Hercules 01:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But it's not just "people on the Internet". In an episode of The West Wing, Toby mentions that "The words regulated and militia are in the first sentence. I dont think the Framers were thinking of three guys in a Dodge Durango." The Collective Rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, while not widely held, doesn't seem to be idiosyncratic or eccentric if you ask me. In fact, an ABC poll conducted in 2002 found that 20% of Americans believe that the Second Amendment "only guarantees the right of states to maintain militias". —Gabbe 02:28, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't believe hostility towards US-specific information makes for a better encyclopedia. None of the arguments may apply to every single human on the planet, but if they have wide use they belong. And the US is a pretty wide country. keith 07:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revised ''Summary of positions''