Debate should people be allowed to keep weapons at home?

I think its all up to who owns the house...oratleast thats how it should be. like in my house, my mother didnt want guns but she doesnt mind my japanese sword collection. i rely on a wakizashi for indoor protection. personally i feel that, my skills with a katana are enough to take on anyone entering my house. although ive never used my katana in any way, other than martial arts, i have used my bokken when i was attacked by a drunk guy. i feel that in that particular moment, a gun would have been of very little use. this guy was drunk enough that he wouldnt have stopped had i had a gun in my hand, therefore leaving me with the only choice to shoot him, which i wouldnt have done. but since i had my bokken, i was able to respond with non-lethal force. so, i believe that, perhaps guns shouldnt be allowed because in the case of a break in, the user is only able to respond with lethal force.

 

That's a good point, Hitokiri Gensai. You can shoot for a non-vital part of the body, but the trouble is that a lot of people don't when they feel threatened or are panicking. Guns do a lot of damage, and they do it a lot faster than other weapons can.

There was something on the radio this morning, actually, about a cop giving a gun safety talk. He unloads his clip, yadda yadda, asks a volunteer to check that the gun is unloaded, then as he's pointing it downwards the thing discharges and he shoots himself in the thigh. Even a supposedly responsible, trained individual can fall victim to a weapon like a gun, eh?

Besides, this whole idea of having a gun for protection... It works for a single person or an adult couple, I guess, since these people ought to be responsible. However, does it make sense to have a gun for protection purposes in a household with kids? If it's not for sport, how does it make sense to have the gun locked up, unloaded, with the ammo somewhere else? If someone were to break into the house, you'd have to get the gun, get the ammo, load the gun... All while in a possible state of panic. For a gun to be effective for protection, you really can't take all the necessary precautions to prevent it being used.

 

thats a very good point, Dilandu. being trained to use a nihontou, i find guns of anytype, immoral. I also think, as you stated that the use of guns requires them to be "unsafe". panic is the enemy, and not thinking in the proper state of mind can, and will be, deadly. the first thing they teach in kenjutsu, is to be mentally prepared. The primary use of a nihontou is a weapon, and kenjutsu is the art of killing. so, even if your not using a real sword or not dueling against a real opponent, you have to remember that your primary objective is to kill them. therefore in a duel, panic is the first thing to set it. and panic can easily turn your own weapon against you.

so in a way, what im saying i guess, is that no matter the weapon, you have to be prepared. which is something that not a lot of gun, or sword owners for that matter are trained for.

 

I know the debate here is mostly about guns, but, I remember a friend of mine showed me something she had for a couple of years. It was a huge, big, very real, double-edged broad sword!!! I mean, the blade was nearly as long as she was tall (so, about 4 1/2 feet or so) and it was very sharp and very real. I pointed out that the guy who broke into her place and took her laptop a few weeks before should have been grateful that she wasn't home!!!!!! I mean, you might expect someone to come after a crook with a gun or a knife, but a sword?!?!?! Good thing she had no kids!!! The thing really could split a hair!
Frankly, if I had to choose whether to have a gun in my house or a really big sword, I'd pick the sword. I mean, if I really have to defend my life against someone, and the only way that I can do that is to kill, I want to make sure they're dead! I'd just feel safer with a sword or a good knife.

Oh, something else: A friend of mine who had self-defense training told me that if you do hit someone with a bat, don't swing up at their head. Women generally don't have the upper arm strength of men, so a hit upwards isn't going to knock them out; he'll just rip it out of your hands. It's better to poke them (hard!) in the stomach with the wide end of the bat. When they bend down, then you can bring it down on the back of their head and neck. This should knock them out.

Hey, you never know when a little tid-bit like that can save your life.

 

as much as a sword is perhaps a better option, you also have to remember that it lacks range. a gun can be fired from like 200 yards and kill. a sword's range is as long as the blade will reach. often times not much more than say 2-3 feet. also you have to take in the point that a sword is about 2-3 feet in length. generally a house's ceilings will only be 8 feet or so. so, when combined with the height of a person, the sword when held upwards for downwards cut will be about 9-10 feet. so, in this case a sword is completely useless...if you cannot generate enough movement then the cut wont be powerful enough to make any sort of debilitating wound. now, some would argue that you could make a sideways cut. but, this type of cut wont be as powerful and could only be done in an open room, so if you get trapped in a hallway your pretty much dead.

 

Unless your run the sword right through them, you don't have to swing a sword to do damage, you can just run at them with the point of it in front. If your quick enough you may be able to catch them off guard, so a sword is not that usless.

 

oh, believe me, i know, ive practiced Nihon Kenjutsu for the last 8 years. But a stab move is very easy to dodge. because you only have to step out a little bit, the move can be completely dodged. there are many styles of Kenjutsu that use a stabbing move as its main attack. the more memorable comes to mind as Tennen Rishin Ryuu. first started by Kondo Isami, it had a technique created by Hijikata Toshizou called the Hirazuki. which was aright handed forward stab. it proved to be highly effective during the raid on the Ikedaya Inn, by the Shinsengumi.

to be honest, in a fight indoors the best weapon would have to be any type of knife. because of its size it can be easily concealed and when used its very agile due to its lack of weight. indoors it can be used very effecticly , because of its size in small confined areas.

 

I stopped reading after the first page, so I apologize in advance if I repeat anything previously stated.

Anyway, I think this whole topic is pretty much a two-edged sword. On the one hand, keeping weapons at home is nice in theory, and it provides surefire protection if needed. However, a curious three year old hasn't the slightest idea what a gun is, and they still won't when they shoot themself in the head. Even a slightly older child who DOES know what a gun is might be even MORE tempted to use one, since on television guns are portrayed to be the ultimate in "cool violence". Not to mention that this would give villians easier access to guns. Eventually the villians would probably get their hands on the guns anyhow, but it's better to keep them away for as long as possible, right?

On the other hand, without weapons you have no real protection. If some nutcase-psycho waltzes in your bedroom at midnight with an AK-47, you're pretty much screwed. So I don't really know where I stand on this topic, there are pros and cons either way.

 

Psh. Guns are so out. It's all about the katanas now.

 

This is kind of off topic (Sorry!! ) but, since knives have come up, I've always wanted to know:

These people who can throw a knife at a target, how do they make sure the blade hits and not the handle? I tried throwing a knife at the ground a few times and never could get it to work.

 

its all about the balance of the knife. it has to be perfectly balanced between the handle and the blade. also when throwing its possible after much practice to throw the knife in a straight line point first eliminatng the posibility of the handed ever hitting first.

 

I think that people should be aloud to have guns. If you only shoot it to shoot clay birds, or a target and arn't hurting someone, then nothing is wrong.

I just wanted to say something that has been on my mind for some time.
If guns are outlawed, and no one can own them anymore, things would be peaceful. But someone who wants to kill someone and is determined to, will get hold of a gun. Once they get out on the streets, it's mass murder because no one else will have a gun, and the police may arrive too late.

Personally, I think we need to be stricter with who has a gun and who doesn't. :catgirl:

 

Well that's all nice and good, but what do you plan to do when your three year old neighbor gets ahold of the gun and decides to see what happens when he pulls back the little handle?

I agree whole-heartedly with that statement, but there are other ways to protect oneself besides a gun. I realize that if some guy comes into your house with a gun, and you're completly unprotected, then trying to stab the guy with a knife would be pretty fruitless. I seem to have contradicted myself, so again, and this just proves even further how wishy-washy I am with this particular debate. I really don't know where I stand, because, like you just said, people are going to get ahold of guns whether you want them to or not.

Couldn't agree more. Maybe they should make some requirements as to who is allowed ownership of weapons. For instance, couples with children under a certain age probably shouldn't own guns, and neither should people with particularily heinous criminal records (but that should go without saying).

 

What's your three year-old neighbor doing in your house unsupervised anyway?

And.. wait a minute, I don't have a three year old neighbor!

And.. Hey, how the Hell did that kid push the step ladder over to that closet, climb on top, crack the code to the lock and load the gun all by himself?!

Anyways... sure, let people keep weapons. It'll just show who's the responsible ones and who aren't... and could probably get rid of a lot of unneeded people that way.

 

Experience.

It's been my experience most of the human race as a whole is polluting the gene pool, anyway. Out of a population of over six billion, now, no one's going to miss one little three year old, anyway, right? Except perhaps the parents. Who likely deserved what they got for not keeping a better eye on their kid in the first place.

Or, maybe if you get really lucky, the three year old will be intelligent enough to point it at the owner of the gun. And then the owner in turn gets what he or she deserves for leaving the gun in a place so obvious that even an ignorant three year old could get to it. And loaded, no less. Stupidity, not guns, kills.

 

honestly, even if guns didnt exist, people would still kill eachother. theres nothing you can do to avoid that. hatred, war, strife, and everything that goes along with it is patterned into the human gene pool. even before guns were invented, hell, before gunpowder, humans were killing eachother with spears and swords and hell, clubs and rocks. as gruesome as it may be, humanity survives because of war. since the dawn of time humans have been at war. its unavoidable.

 

My vote goes that people should be able to keep weapons at home. Without venting a lengthy rant, here's a good example:
States and cities that don't allow weapons have HIGHER crime rates. Why? Because law abiding citezens don't have any guns to defend themselves. (While the criminals are out shooting people... or whatever else they do with guns.)

 

Not always the case. The United States' crime rate, especially for gun crimes, is incredibly high despite relatively easy access to legal weapons and ammo. There are a lot of factors that go into a high-crime society, not just gun ownership. For example, police effectiveness, government effectiveness, poverty level, access to jobs and health facilities, racial dynamics and the level of intolerance, gang activity, average level of education...

 

Ahh, I guess that's why the bent kitchen knife didn't work, huh? :anime: Thanks, Hitokiri! hehehehe!
You guys are right about one thing: If someone wants to kill somebody else, they will find a way to do it. Even if they don't have access to a gun, or a knife, or whatever, they'll find some way to do it. Look at the woman who killed her husband by slipping him some anti-freeze! Or the guy who tried to kill his wife by dropping the radio in the bath tub when she was in it. (She caught it, acutally! I'd have loved to hear that conversation!!!!) Ok, someone breaking into your house isn't going to do that, but it does show that where there's a will, there's a way. After all, as Anne Rice once said: "What can be imagined can be done."

 

Its a shame that it has to be debated. You *shouldnt* need to keep weapons in your house if you're in a good area of the world.

If, however you are stuck in the ghetto or something, i think its reasonable to want your own means of protection.