Lumber said:
Guns, on the other hand, were invented to make it easier to kill people.
Well, war also drove other innovations too, like antibiotics, but firearms are not produced to kill people. Firearms are produced to launch a small projectile at high velocity with great precision, and that is all. Everything else is left up to the human operator. The actual use could be putting food on the table, shooting paper or other targets, or defending lives from predatory human or animals. In the case of the former, that does not necessarily imply shots fired, as the vast majority of self-defence uses only require the would-be predator to be made aware that the intended victim is capable of defending herself. Neither police nor military weapons are intended to kill. Deterrence is always preferable, but, if and when that fails, then the requirement is simply to neutralize the threat. That may or may not involve a death. The vast majority of people, police, military, or private citizen, would prefer not to cause a death.
Lumber said:
So, yes, I would find it very unreasonable to expect to have to provide reasons as to why you want to buy a car, because the question "Why do you want a convenient way to travel from point A to B?" is also an unreasonable question. On the other hand, IMO, the question "Why do You, an ethical, law-abiding citizen, want a tool who's express purpose is to kill people?", is not an unreasonable one.
The only reason that any member of a free society should have to give when asked why he/she wants to own something is "because I want to". And, again, a firearm's "express purpose" is not to kill people. were it, then the vast majority should be considered to be defective. A firearm is a tool. How a tool is used is up to the person holding it. Very few hammer-owners, gasoline-owners, or golf-club-owners will ever harm a fellow human with those tools. Very few firearms owners would ever dream of harming another person.
Lumber said:
There is more to gun laws than preventing criminals form acquiring, transporting and using firearms. A gun is a potentially deadly tool, and so there has to be rules and regulations regarding their possession and use. It's the same with alcohol and vehicles.
This is not an unreasonable position, and almost all firearms owners would happily agree. Rules and regulations can be good or bad, logical or stupid, effective or ineffective. "Gun control" laws, rules, and regulations tend to fall under the latter part of each pair.
Regulating behaviour is always more effective than regulating inanimate objects. The basic behaviour regulations have existed since the days of Moses - "thou shalt not murder", "thou shalt not steal" etcetera. "Thou shalt not own a sword of greater length than/club of greater weight than" was never part of that, nor should it be.
Pure and simple possession of a firearm was never a crime in Canada until 1995, nor should it have been, nor should it be now or ever. That criminalizes people who are not threats, would never harm another, while imposing no burden whatsoever on criminals, who are threats and would harm or have harmed others. Possession of a firearm in the commission of a crime or for the purposes of a crime is a different matter. I do not even see that as a necessity, though. The crime itself is what should be punished, not the possession of a tool used in its commission. The nature and severity of the crime, and the number of times that it was committed, should be the only relevant factors.
This law attacks those who are law-abiding by nature, and almost completely ignores those who are the opposite.
This is both harmful and offensive.
Lumber said:
Serious question (although I say it with a tinge of sarcasm), would you really prefer it if we were more like many of the US States, which required no permit/acquisition licence to purchase hand-guns, or where you can buy and sell guns at gun-shows with no requirement for Identification, background check, or record of sale?
Some inaccuracies in your understanding of US firearms legislation aside, if it had to be a yes/no answer, then I would state "yes" unequivocally. Permits and licences achieve nothing, quite simply. Such things may give warm and fuzzy feelings, but are not predictors of future behaviour any more than driver licences are. Willingness to jump through a bunch of, usually quite arbitrary, hoops is nice and all, but a small number of licensed owners have committed crimes. The abject losers who shot up l'Ecole Polytechnique and Dawson College are prime examples here, as is the latest pathetic wretch du jour in Oregon. On the other hand, millions of unlicensed citizens in both Canada and the US have never done so and never will.
The "gun-show loophole" is a crock. All firearms sales by dealers in the US must be approved by the FBI via a background check, whether the sale takes place in a shop, online, or at a gun show. Private sales or gifts do not require that, as it is not reasonably possible for such people to initiate such checks, nor is it readily enforceable. Abuses are rare, regardless of media hype.
Whole swathes of the US have lower murder and other violent crime rates than comparable Canadian jurisdictions. The stats are skewed by major cities, rife with urban decay, racial despair, and drug gangs. Those same cities also tend to have the most restrictive firearms ownership regulations. Firearms ownership in the US today is at a peak, thanks in large part to the greatest gun salesman that the US has ever known, one Barack Hussein Obama, yet violent crime including murder is at a four-decade low. Murder, robbery, rape, and assault rates have plummetted nationally, but much more so in those jurisdictions that have the least restrictive ownership and carry regulations.
Lack of restriction does not make life better for criminals. It actually makes it worse, as ordinary citizens are empowered. Crooks do not like being shot, and they fear armed citizens more than they fear the police - because the police are all too easily avoided. Concealed-carry laws (or, more correctly, lack of laws restricting concealed-carry) are very effective because of the huge deterrent factor: even though the percentage of citizens who actually carry tends to be in the low single-digits, criminals cannot tell which intended victim can be a hazard to them, and this affects their career choices. Canada could also benefit, although there is not a lot of need for that in my opinion.
Burglary patterns in the UK have also changed with changing firearms laws there. As fewer and fewer people are allowed to own firearms, and the licensing and registration schemes become even more onerous, criminals feel safer. Whereas they formerly tended to break into people's houses while the owners were away, there is a growing tendency to break in when the owners are at home. Alarms are rarely armed then, and the occupants can be bullied into showing where the valuables are. While Britain's murder rate is still low, all other categories of violent crimes there exceed US rates.
Just whom has "gun control" been protecting?
Lumber said:
Owning a gun is a privilege, not a right.
Is it? Who says, and on what basis?
What else is merely a privilege?
Lumber said:
Asking you to abide by a set of rules is not harassment.
That completely depends upon the rules.
Criminals have been set free when their constitutionally-protected rights and freedoms have been violated. Is that right and proper? While doing so, a potential threat may be unleashed upon the surrounding community, but our law follows an ancient English tradition that "it is better to let ten guilty men go free than one innocent man go to jail". That is a noble concept, and I hope that it endures. The Liberal-spawned and Conservative-adopted Firearms Act, however, deliberately violates a number of consitutionally-protected rights and freedoms - but for innocent citizens and without suspicion of real criminal activity. The world was inverted by this Act. Ordinary people have been made to appear, and are being treated, as threats and real criminals remain unaffected.
I am tired of being made a scapegoat. I am tired of worrying which of my expensive property will be
stolen confiscated without compensation at the whim of the next fancy-haired twit who happens to be elected.
Lumber said:
you cannot advocate there being no control whatsoever.
Who has done this?
Here's a question for you: What two categories of Canadian citizens must report a change of address to the police or face jail terms?
