This why the U.S needs to get rid of guns.

[Symmetry]

reasonable gun control

What does Symtopia's reasonable gun control look like?

Does this mean you're onboard now with government recognition of gay marriage?

What does Symtopia's reasonable gun control look like?

Show me your answer and I'll show you mine.

I'll wait for Mets to reply to how to implement reasonable gun control. Your response, which I suspect will ultimately never come no matter what hoops I jump through (given past experience), is not worth it in any event.

Mine was just going to be a sarcastic response that "Symtopia" is just something Mets made up to have a go at me. I don't know what the gun laws are like there.

[thegreekdog]

Mine was just going to be a sarcastic response that "Symtopia" is just something Mets made up to have a go at me. I don't know what the gun laws are like there.

So...

Your response... is not worth it in any event.

Thanks for confirming.

[Symmetry]

Mine was just going to be a sarcastic response that "Symtopia" is just something Mets made up to have a go at me. I don't know what the gun laws are like there.

So...

Your response... is not worth it in any event.

Thanks for confirming.

I apologise for disabusing you, and indeed Mets, of the notion of Symtopia.

So, are you ok with gay marriage being recognised by governments of real countries? Or is that still a thing you don't like?

[patches70]

Heck, let's open it up to the group... what is your gun control method of choice that you believe will solve most (or all) of the problems with gun violence in the US?

I've given my full-proof plan (ban guns for all, including police and military, and destroy all guns) and my slightly less insane plan (legalize drugs) which would not be full proof (it would not solve people shooting themselves in the foot by accident.

Everybody without a criminal record gets a gun and classes on how to use one properly. Then, any criminal who wishes to rob, steal, break in or virtually any other crime, can be well assured that their potential victim is most certainly armed, trained and ready to use their weapon in their defense against a criminal act. This would probably better deter a criminal in many cases.

The cops could be relegated to simple body disposal as they show up after the attempted crime and cart off the dead hoodlum. They'd probably do all right with that task and not screw it up too often.

Of course, there is no perfect solution. Even getting rid of every gun won't stop violence at all. Even legalizing drugs won't stop crime. Even in depth classes won't stop accidental shootings. Even no guns won't stop accidental deaths. Some of those things we can just go ahead and attribute to Darwin's law. The rest is "meh, bad stuff happens even in the most optimal circumstances".

The most important thing to remember is-
It's better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

Everyone likes to think the bad stuff won't happen to them. Some like to trust that the police or the government will ride in at the nick of time and save them so that individuals don't require extraordinary measures to save themselves.
Alas, in the real world unlike the movies, rarely if ever does the "good guy" swoop in at the last second to save someone. Rarely do the police arrive in time to do anything other than draw a chalk outline and search (often in vain) for the criminal.

Rest assured, bad things can, do and will happen to virtually every single one of us if we live long enough lives. Most of those things won't have need of a gun to solve or get through, but in those times where a gun can make the difference between life, death or pissing and crapping in a bag for the rest of one's life, it'd be nice to be able to procure a gun legally. IMO

[thegreekdog]

Heck, let's open it up to the group... what is your gun control method of choice that you believe will solve most (or all) of the problems with gun violence in the US?

I've given my full-proof plan (ban guns for all, including police and military, and destroy all guns) and my slightly less insane plan (legalize drugs) which would not be full proof (it would not solve people shooting themselves in the foot by accident.

Everybody without a criminal record gets a gun and classes on how to use one properly. Then, any criminal who wishes to rob, steal, break in or virtually any other crime, can be well assured that their potential victim is most certainly armed, trained and ready to use their weapon in their defense against a criminal act. This would probably better deter a criminal in many cases.

The cops could be relegated to simple body disposal as they show up after the attempted crime and cart off the dead hoodlum. They'd probably do all right with that task and not screw it up too often.

Of course, there is no perfect solution. Even getting rid of every gun won't stop violence at all. Even legalizing drugs won't stop crime. Even in depth classes won't stop accidental shootings. Even no guns won't stop accidental deaths. Some of those things we can just go ahead and attribute to Darwin's law. The rest is "meh, bad stuff happens even in the most optimal circumstances".

The most important thing to remember is-
It's better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

Everyone likes to think the bad stuff won't happen to them. Some like to trust that the police or the government will ride in at the nick of time and save them so that individuals don't require extraordinary measures to save themselves.
Alas, in the real world unlike the movies, rarely if ever does the "good guy" swoop in at the last second to save someone. Rarely do the police arrive in time to do anything other than draw a chalk outline and search (often in vain) for the criminal.

Rest assured, bad things can, do and will happen to virtually every single one of us if we live long enough lives. Most of those things won't have need of a gun to solve or get through, but in those times where a gun can make the difference between life, death or pissing and crapping in a bag for the rest of one's life, it'd be nice to be able to procure a gun legally. IMO

Is your initial response sarcastic or is that your actual idea? I'm truly looking for what everyone's solutions are.

[thegreekdog]

Mine was just going to be a sarcastic response that "Symtopia" is just something Mets made up to have a go at me. I don't know what the gun laws are like there.

So...

Your response... is not worth it in any event.

Thanks for confirming.

I apologise for disabusing you, and indeed Mets, of the notion of Symtopia.

So, are you ok with gay marriage being recognised by governments of real countries? Or is that still a thing you don't like?

I'm not sure I understand your questions. Please explain them, at length.

[Symmetry]

Heck, let's open it up to the group... what is your gun control method of choice that you believe will solve most (or all) of the problems with gun violence in the US?

I've given my full-proof plan (ban guns for all, including police and military, and destroy all guns) and my slightly less insane plan (legalize drugs) which would not be full proof (it would not solve people shooting themselves in the foot by accident.

Everybody without a criminal record gets a gun and classes on how to use one properly. Then, any criminal who wishes to rob, steal, break in or virtually any other crime, can be well assured that their potential victim is most certainly armed, trained and ready to use their weapon in their defense against a criminal act. This would probably better deter a criminal in many cases.

The cops could be relegated to simple body disposal as they show up after the attempted crime and cart off the dead hoodlum. They'd probably do all right with that task and not screw it up too often.

Of course, there is no perfect solution. Even getting rid of every gun won't stop violence at all. Even legalizing drugs won't stop crime. Even in depth classes won't stop accidental shootings. Even no guns won't stop accidental deaths. Some of those things we can just go ahead and attribute to Darwin's law. The rest is "meh, bad stuff happens even in the most optimal circumstances".

The most important thing to remember is-
It's better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

Everyone likes to think the bad stuff won't happen to them. Some like to trust that the police or the government will ride in at the nick of time and save them so that individuals don't require extraordinary measures to save themselves.
Alas, in the real world unlike the movies, rarely if ever does the "good guy" swoop in at the last second to save someone. Rarely do the police arrive in time to do anything other than draw a chalk outline and search (often in vain) for the criminal.

Rest assured, bad things can, do and will happen to virtually every single one of us if we live long enough lives. Most of those things won't have need of a gun to solve or get through, but in those times where a gun can make the difference between life, death or pissing and crapping in a bag for the rest of one's life, it'd be nice to be able to procure a gun legally. IMO

"The one thing a violent rapist deserves is to face is a good woman with a gun!" That was Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, the standard bearers for America's gun lobby, making the case that personal firearms prevent rape.

The assertion that guns offer protection is a mantra the NRA has repeated often. In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, LaPierre opined: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun", insisting that schools should have armed guards.

Academics such as John Lott and Gary Kleck have long claimed that more firearms reduce crime. But is this really the case? Stripped of machismo bluster, this is at heart a testable claim that merely requires sturdy epidemiological analysis. And this was precisely what Prof Charles Branas and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania examined in their 2009 paper investigating the link between gun possession and gun assault. They compared 677 cases in which people were injured in a shooting incident with 684 people living in the same area that had not suffered a gun injury. The researchers matched these "controls" for age, race and gender. They found that those with firearms were about 4.5 times more likely to be shot than those who did not carry, utterly belying this oft repeated mantra.

The reasons for this, the authors suggest, are manifold. "A gun may falsely empower its possessor to overreact, instigating and losing otherwise tractable conflicts with similarly armed persons. Along the same lines, individuals who are in possession of a gun may increase their risk of gun assault by entering dangerous environments that they would have normally avoided. Alternatively, an individual may bring a gun to an otherwise gun-free conflict only to have that gun wrested away and turned on them."

This result is not particularly unexpected. Prof David Hemenway of Harvard school of public health has published numerous academic investigations in this area and found that such claims are rooted far more in myth than fact. While defensive gun use may occasionally occur successfully, it is rare and very much the exception – it doesn't change the fact that actually owning and using a firearm hugely increases the risk of being shot. This is a finding supported by numerous other studies in health policy, including several articles in the New England Journal of Medicine. Arguments to the contrary are not rooted in reality; the Branas study also found that for individuals who had time to resist and counter in a gun assault, the odds of actually being shot actually increased to 5.45 fold relative to an individual not carrying.

The problem goes deeper than this, however. There's good evidence that the very act of being in possession of a weapon has an unfortunate effect of making us suspect others have one too. This was shown in a 2012 paper by psychologists Prof Jessica Witt and Dr James Brockmole, where subjects were given either a replica gun or a neutral object and asked to identify the objects other people were holding.

Subjects in possession of a replica firearm were much more likely to identify a neutral object as a firearm. The erroneous assumption that someone else is armed can and does often end in tragedy.

Indeed, the evidence suggests the very act of being armed changes one's perception of others to a decidedly more paranoid one. Other studies have shown an element of racial priming too, where a black subject is more likely to be assumed to be carrying a weapon. Guns have a curious psychological effect beyond this: a 2006 study by Dr Jennifer Klinesmith and colleagues showed men exposed to firearms before an experiment had much higher testosterone levels and were three times more likely to engage in aggressive behaviour relative to the subjects not primed with a weapon.

LaPierre's proclamation bears the hallmarks of a litany of misconceptions. Gun aficionados often frame the debate in terms of protection, but it is vital to realise that the vast majority of rape and murder victims are not harmed by nefarious strangers, but by people they know, and often love – friends, family members, lovers. Far from protecting people and keeping families safe, the sad truth is that firearms are often used in episodes of domestic violence. The John Hopkins centre for gun policy research has some sobering facts on this; women living in a home with one or more guns were three times more likely to be murdered; for women who had been abused by their partner, their risk of being murdered rose fivefold if the partner owned a gun.

Nor did guns make the women safer; women who purchased guns were 50% more likely to be killed by an intimate partner. So LaPierre's "good woman with a gun" is actually, it seems, putting herself in danger.

Viewed in this light, the NRA's insistence that rapes can be prevented with firearms or that teachers should be armed appear even more stupid than they already seemed. It is worth remembering that just as America leads the world in gun ownership, so too does it lead the world in gun homicide, with 11,000 to 12,000 murders committed by firearms each year. The tired old rationalisation that guns protect people is frankly contradicted by the evidence. The inescapable conclusion is that gun ownership makes everyone less safe. The logic the NRA espouses is perverse and transparently self-serving – the solution to gun crimes is not more guns, and no amount of rhetorical dexterity can surmount this fact. If the US is to have a truly honest discussion about its gun culture, it needs to be rooted in fact rather than fantasy, and the sound and fury from the NRA should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/mar/25/guns-protection-national-rifle-association

[2dimes]

Move to Sweden patches.

[Symmetry]

Mine was just going to be a sarcastic response that "Symtopia" is just something Mets made up to have a go at me. I don't know what the gun laws are like there.

So...

Your response... is not worth it in any event.

Thanks for confirming.

I apologise for disabusing you, and indeed Mets, of the notion of Symtopia.

So, are you ok with gay marriage being recognised by governments of real countries? Or is that still a thing you don't like?

I'm not sure I understand your questions. Please explain them, at length.

I think your replies have been answer enough. Thanks for your time.

[patches70]

Is your initial response sarcastic or is that your actual idea? I'm truly looking for what everyone's solutions are.

Oh, I'd say there is a fair amount of sarcasm in my post, undoubtedly. But for what solution are you looking for? A solution for society? That's absurd. Society is made of individuals. Any "solution" for society merely helps one group of individuals and hurts another group of individuals. One's "solution" is who they are willing to throw under the bus.

What solution can anyone come up with that takes into account every single individual's circumstances?
None.

That's why you leave it up to the individual as much as possible. That's the real solution, let people figure out for themselves if they need a gun or not and then just leave them the f*ck alone and stop trying to figure out ways to decide what course of actions is best for individuals of whom you don't know, care or even are aware of.

That is the arrogance of the statist. That there is some supposed solution that is a one size fits all. That's complete BS and is why it's such folly to try to come up with a supposed "solution". There are no solutions, only trade offs.

The best course, the fairest course is that you let individuals decide for themselves and those same individuals must face the consequences of their own decisions, good or bad.
If one is a legal, responsible citizen, then there is no reason at all to deny them access to a firearm if that individual deems that it is in their best interest to have one.
Who are you or anyone else to say to that person- "No".?
A criminal with a record, then one can quite easily make the case why that's a bad idea. This is not a subjective case either, it's based on facts and prior actions.
But to say to someone who has never committed a crime nor done anything wrong that they can't have a gun or that it must be very difficult to get one, what are you basing that opinion on in regards to that individual? Is it "Oh, you might shoot yourself", is that valid when the individual shows no prior problems that suggest that? Or, "Oh, you might commit a crime" when the person hasn't committed any crimes prior?

Is it fair to judge one person by the actions of someone else? Is it right? "Oh, this guy over here did something stupid and shot himself in the foot so you can't have a gun." That's nuts.

If laws worked as well as people think they will with guns, then we just have to pass a law- "No citizen shall be allowed to accidentally shoot themselves or someone else". Then we have our "solution".

Every societal "solution" has always had the same effect, it helps some people, screws over other people. In other words, a trade off.

What is important is starting with a core set of beliefs.

Such as,
Does an individual have the right to protect themselves?

And that is an important question, some truly don't think the individual has that right, that right belongs to the State. Of course, there is no State that exists that can actually accomplish that goal, but that doesn't stop the statist.

So, TGD, what are your core beliefs? Start there and go from that point. It helps if those beliefs are universal.
I'm of the opinion that it's better to stay out of your neighbors garden and simply tend to your own garden unless your neighbor asks for your help. Thus, who am I to say to my law abiding neighbor, "you can't have a gun" or "I think it should be very hard for you to obtain a gun".
I'm not worried about my neighbor robbing me or harming me. Because I'll defend myself as I see fit and to the best of my ability with what tools I have. And that may well mean a gun. I won't encroach upon my neighbor and he'll understand not to encroach upon me. Like good neighbors are supposed to do, voluntarily. I'll also be willing to help my neighbor, if he requires it or asks for it. But it will still be my own decision.

And if one wishes to tell another what they can or can't have, what they need or don't need, then that one better have a pretty damn good reason besides "Oh, <insert anything here, including guns> those are too dangerous for you to have" or "I'm afraid of <insert what you will> that so you can't have it".

[patches70]

Move to Sweden patches.

Why?

[patches70]

Here's a solution, TGD. We develop something, say, like a drug. This drug makes whomever takes it passive as hell. I mean passive to the point of "whoa dude, let's leave the bad karma outside, dude!" kind of thing. The drug has to have no other side effects other than making people feel euphoric and passive, unwilling to commit to violence of any sort. To become easily controllable. It can't cause any other effects, especially harmful effects, like cancer, brain degeneration or organ failure.

I don't know, maybe we'll call this drug something like-
Soma.



Then, you require every single individual on the planet to take regular doses of this drug. Everyone, without exception. Then we'll all be a bunch of happy, mindless zombies completely content of doing whatever it is that our higher ups tell us to do. We'll all be model employees. Model citizens and we won't be inclined in the slightest to harm each other nor use each other in nefarious ways. (Which would be hard to do if the politicians aren't forced to take the drug as well!).

I think I read about this somewhere. About the perfect society until one individual decided it wasn't so perfect for him and he ended up pretty much destroying that society.

Now, that may well sound sarcastic (it is!) but believe me, if government could actually develop a true mind control drug that would render the citizenship passive and obedient (and thus non violent except by consent of the government), you can bet your ass that there are quite a few people who would absolutely love that solution and would implement it in a heartbeat.

Thus it is when we try to find solutions that don't take into account the individual and his/her ability to decide what is right and proper for themselves and take responsibility for those decisions.

[Symmetry]

I think Patches should move to Sweden too. It's a brave new world and after all, it has such people in it.

[thegreekdog]

Are you drunk patches?

I'll read these at some point this evening and respond.

[notyou2]

Mine was just going to be a sarcastic response that "Symtopia" is just something Mets made up to have a go at me. I don't know what the gun laws are like there.

Not 100% certain but I thought I coined the term Symtopia.

[Metsfanmax]

We start with the premise that criminals who obtain guns, either obtain them illegally (likely) or obtain them with intent to use them illegally. In other words, criminals are breaking the law. If you pass a law banning guns, why would that law have any effect on those same criminals when current laws don't have any effect on them?

Many criminals use guns that were obtained legally (either by themselves or a friend/family member). These people would have significantly less access to guns if they were heavily restricted.

How would you heavily restrict them? I ask that in the context of the illegality of obtaining guns and giving/selling them to criminals.

You're using "obtaining" and "criminals" way too broadly here. First, many people who murder others were not criminals prior to their action, so it's not obvious what exactly you mean by "criminals." Second, many shooters get their gun from their family home. Isn't it obvious how, despite the "illegality" of this action, it would be significantly harder for these actions to be committed if there were no guns in the home?

EDIT - I'm looking for data now but my firm's firewall does not let me go to websites talking about guns.

In any event, a 1991 study I actually had access to (from the US Department of Justice) indicates that a survey of state prison inmantes indicates that 9% had acquired a handgun by theft and 28% had acquired a handgun through an illegal market. Of all inmates, 10% had stolen at least one gun and 11% had sold or traded stolen guns.

So, again, unless we ban and destroy all guns, how are more laws restricting gun ownership going to stop criminals from getting guns when they already steal them?

What about the vast majority of these inmates who have not illegally acquired a handgun? Your argument would be more convincing if more than 10% were stealing guns.

[patches70]

Are you drunk patches?

I'll read these at some point this evening and respond.

Not drunk, if you read then you'll see I take the Libertarian approach in guns, the individualist route and reject the Collectivist route.
You are asking for a Collective solution, and such a solution does not exist nor can it.

There are already harsh enough laws banning criminals from having firearms. Now the gun grabbers want laws to protect us from ourselves, which is idiotic. You ask for solutions to protect people from themselves (i.e. a solution that prevents accidental shooting, suicides, etc etc).

As a libertarian you should know the futility of trying to pass laws to protect people from themselves.

As well known as guns are, I find them to be one of the most misunderstood of things. Especially by the gun grabbers.

To meet the criteria you ask for then we have to have some sort of mind altering drug or smart guns that know for themselves when to discharge or not. Both of those solutions bring troubles of their own. A Brave New World world, or a Terminator world.

The last option is a Roddenberry solution, where human beings have finally learned to not be greedy, etc etc. Of course, even in the Roddenberry world there are people who aren't on the up and up and there are still firearms. I have yet to see an away team beam down to an alien world without bringing along their phasors.

[Symmetry]

Mine was just going to be a sarcastic response that "Symtopia" is just something Mets made up to have a go at me. I don't know what the gun laws are like there.

Not 100% certain but I thought I coined the term Symtopia.

Apologies all round, I wasn't going to invest too much time pandering to TGD's requests for its laws in any case.

[Symmetry]

Are you drunk patches?

I'll read these at some point this evening and respond.

Not drunk, if you read then you'll see I take the Libertarian approach in guns, the individualist route and reject the Collectivist route.
You are asking for a Collective solution, and such a solution does not exist nor can it.

There are already harsh enough laws banning criminals from having firearms. Now the gun grabbers want laws to protect us from ourselves, which is idiotic. You ask for solutions to protect people from themselves (i.e. a solution that prevents accidental shooting, suicides, etc etc).

As a libertarian you should know the futility of trying to pass laws to protect people from themselves.

As well known as guns are, I find them to be one of the most misunderstood of things. Especially by the gun grabbers.

To meet the criteria you ask for then we have to have some sort of mind altering drug or smart guns that know for themselves when to discharge or not. Both of those solutions bring troubles of their own. A Brave New World world, or a Terminator world.

The last option is a Roddenberry solution, where human beings have finally learned to not be greedy, etc etc. Of course, even in the Roddenberry world there are people who aren't on the up and up and there are still firearms. I have yet to see an away team beam down to an alien world without bringing along their phasors.

So, if I'm reading you correctly, you see the debate as polarised between Arnold Scwarzenegger and Captain Kirk?

[patches70]

No, your not reading correctly. Try again.

[Symmetry]

No, your not reading correctly. Try again.

I must confess I found it baffling, and still do.

[patches70]

There are firearms that are made that can only fire if one specific person's fingerprint activates the weapon. The fingerprint is taken there on the grip. The weapon will only discharge for the person with that specific fingerprint.

If such a weapon is stolen, it doesn't matter because it won't function for the average thief. He'd have to get the weapon reprogrammed which there are safeguards against (though not impossible).

However, such weapons can still be used to shoot anyone. One can suicide themselves, shoot someone else accidentally and so on and so on.

So, if we want firearms that can not only be safe from being used in crime even if stolen, not only must the weapon be fingerprint encoded (or some other biometric), but also the weapon itself needs to be able to know that it's pointing at someone not intended to be shot by the wielder.
This may not be so hard to accomplish actually. The US has just started using drones that decide for themselves when to drop a bomb on a terrorist, for instance.
So it may be possible that firearms could be built so that they cannot be used to kill one's self, used upon an innocent, or accidental shooting, like blowing away your kid in the middle of the night when he got up to get a drink of water and you thought he was a burglar.

Of course such smart weapons leads to certain other possible problems. If a gun is able to decide if it is going to shoot someone on it's own, then what prevents it from just shooting anyone?

Still in the realm of science fiction, which is what the solutions for gun violence are, science fiction at best.

[Metsfanmax]

There are firearms that are made that can only fire if one specific person's fingerprint activates the weapon. The fingerprint is taken there on the grip. The weapon will only discharge for the person with that specific fingerprint.

If such a weapon is stolen, it doesn't matter because it won't function for the average thief. He'd have to get the weapon reprogrammed which there are safeguards against (though not impossible).

However, such weapons can still be used to shoot anyone. One can suicide themselves, shoot someone else accidentally and so on and so on.

So you'd oppose this policy because it doesn't magically solve every problem?

[Symmetry]

Can I have a lightsaber?

[patches70]

There are firearms that are made that can only fire if one specific person's fingerprint activates the weapon. The fingerprint is taken there on the grip. The weapon will only discharge for the person with that specific fingerprint.

If such a weapon is stolen, it doesn't matter because it won't function for the average thief. He'd have to get the weapon reprogrammed which there are safeguards against (though not impossible).

However, such weapons can still be used to shoot anyone. One can suicide themselves, shoot someone else accidentally and so on and so on.

So you'd oppose this policy because it doesn't magically solve every problem?

It doesn't solve any problem at all.

The best it could do it make stolen guns harder to use. It would be a far better solution than your-

Isn't it obvious how, despite the "illegality" of this action, it would be significantly harder for these actions to be committed if there were no guns in the home?

Your solution is to ban guns. People can't have them in their home. Besides the fact that you have no idea if people need a gun or not, what gives you the right to tell your neighbor he can't have a gun?

Anyway, the biometric guns aren't solutions either. Imagine a world where every firearm is biometric. Normally, it wouldn't do any good for the common street hood to bother stealing the gun. It wouldn't fire for them, it could even be tracked remotely so it can't be hidden.
Except, criminals aren't entirely stupid. A specific market would rise that would involve of how to dispense with such stolen weapons. The biometric safeguards would be bypassed and reprogrammed. There would be certain criminal elements that would specialize in this task (making great gobs of money while they were at it). The weapons would then be reprogrammed for a new shooter (the new illegal buyer, biometric weapons ain't cheap).
And you are right back in the same boat, except now you've priced out legitimate gun owners from having a weapon because legal biometric weapons are far more expensive.



As to your idiocy of not allowing weapons in the home, a perfect example of why you don't have the right nor the wisdom of actually deciding who should and shouldn't have weapons.
I live in the country, somewhat. One day, while outside with my kids, guess what sudden walked right up on my property in broad daylight?
A raccoon.

Now you may not find raccoons particularly dangerous, and usually they aren't. Except this was in the middle of the day. Raccoons don't do that. Not healthy ones anyway. I don't know if you would know that or not, but being as where I live I understand that this is not normal raccoon behavior.

Not only had the raccoon just shown up in the middle of the day, it also didn't look right. It's hard to describe if you haven't actually seen one in this state. It's hair was all puffed up, the thing looked about 2 or 3 times it's normal size. The fur was all matted, the thing wobbled side to side. Now, I didn't see any foam coming from it's mouth, but I had a very good suspicion of what was wrong with this particular raccoon.

I told the kids to get away from it, go back inside. I then got my Mossberg. Not only do I have children who can't be allowed to be in proximity to a rabid raccoon, but I have animals as well. They also are quite vulnerable to what this raccoon may or may not have had. I didn't take any chances.
I shot the raccoon dead.
I left it's body where it lay, called animal control and about two hours later they showed up. I told them what happened, they collected the body for testing and come to find out the raccoon indeed was rabid.
It wasn't hunting season either.
Not a lash was batted that I had shot the thing. In fact, I did the right thing. I could have left the thing alone, gone inside and just waited for animal control, but the raccoon probably wouldn't have stuck around long enough for them to arrive (two hours, remember?).

In the meantime it could well have infected other animals or God forbid attacked a person.

Now, what do you think? Do I have a legitimate need for a firearm? I think so.


Now why do you think you know better than me what I need?

Note:I do not own a handgun, I have no need for one. But the Moss will put a man down just as easily (if not easier) than a raccoon. I don't hunt, used to when I was a lot younger, but not for a very long time have I hunted. Doesn't matter, I know that it's a good idea for me to have my Moss.

So if you would please explain to me how it is that you know better for everyone else if they should own a firearm or not? Are you aware of every single person's circumstances? If not, then how can you think that it's ok to say it's better if there are no firearms at all in people's homes?
Then, if you come to the conclusion that I do indeed have a legitimate need for a firearm, then how did you come to that conclusion (if indeed you come to that conclusion)?