If you follow Biden's advice, you would fire two rounds and then be unarmed and a good target for miscreants. As I have said before, one commentator here said Alaska never has violent riots because EVERYBODY is armed. Sorry, @Jessica Morgan but Alaska and much of the western U.S. would not be the place for you. If you go to New York or Connecticut, or perhaps Maryland, you will be back in the places where only the criminals are armed.
I live in Maine, where we don't need a license or registration. A large percentage of Mainers are armed so our rate of violent crime is very low. That's not the case in states where you have to depend on the police. Most often, the police will arrive in time to draw the chalk marks around your body, take photos, and begin the investigation into your murder. Armed citizens are able to defend themselves, and sometimes others.
Neither do I. In fact, I would feel more secure in a place knowing more law abiding folks were armed. There’s a business I frequent that caters to first responders, lots of cops, security, ex-military, fire and rescue, etc. I was looking around on one of our last visits and told my wife that I bet probably 1/4 of the people in there were armed. She said she wouldn’t be surprised at all.
In large US cities, it's mostly the police, the criminals, and the armed security people (who protect the elite) who have guns, and the police have no obligation to protect and serve. Everyone else is a potential victim.
I believe there was a study in Florida some years ago that demonstrated that the violent crime rate declined as gun ownership rose. We have Constitutional Carry and most Alaskans have guns, although many don't carry them. The criminals however have no idea who is armed and who is not. Most of our gun deaths are suicides; the rest are battles between drug dealers.
There are millions of guns owned in the United States but there are not millions of shootings. There are lots of laws pertaining to guns here too. Sadly criminals are not going to be deterred by laws. Only the law abiding will. But if they were to try to make more laws now, the law abiding will fight in the courts, I think. More deaths are probably caused by medical mistakes, heart attacks, diabetes and accidents than guns. But shootings, now, get bigger headlines.
All sounds very scary to me. I remember as a child one Guy Fawkes evening, a lad aimed a gun at me, probably a replica or a toy but it was taken serious. Our police will presume any gun whether replica or toy, is real and will be dealt with an armed response.
They should. On the other hand, kids should not be suspended from school for pointing a finger or biting a cookie into a gun shape. People who first start driving cars often find it a scary experience. Having worked at a range for a few years, it isn’t that uncommon for people to be apprehensive around guns if they know nothing about them. Guns are ubiquitous in American society. I have often told people I highly recommend they go to a range and get a bit of hands on experience. This is not to try to convert anyone, or drum up business. It is so that if they should ever encounter a firearm, they should know how it works, how to safely handle it, what it can do and, most importantly, if someone is handling it to allow you to quickly recognize if they’re an idiot and you need to be elsewhere.
No one should point a gun, toy or otherwise, at another person they do not intend to kill. I am very against toy guns and gratuitous gun violence in movies and video games, as it tends to develop a casual attitude toward forearms. Many of the very actors that spray the screen with automatic gunfire in films are against law-abiding people having guns to defend themselves. Alec Baldwin may be a case for all the above. Perhaps half of the males I encounter every day and a quarter of the female adults are carrying guns concealed and I don't even know they have them. People here who are lawfully armed don't endanger others.
It's something I'll never forget, I had to walk past him too. I don't like watching violent films, there's enough violence in the world as it is. I sometimes do the shoebox appeal for children in poor countries who have nothing to open at Christmas, we are advised not to put toy guns or anything that resembles violence inside the boxes, those poor kids have probably fled war and violence.
The large cities and states where guns are banned or tightly regulated are the scarier places because the criminals have guns, and the police have guns, but sometimes it's hard to tell the police apart from the criminals by behavior, and you have no legal means of defending yourself. In states, like Maine, a lot of people have guns, and a substantial (but far lesser amount) may carry a gun with them, but it's not like you see people walking around carrying rifles, or with pistols on their belts. Except for a few people who might enjoy having people know that they carry a weapon, you don't generally see them. While we can legally strap holsters onto our belts or carry a rifle as we go about our day, most people would feel awfully silly doing that and they'd attract all the wrong kinds of attention. I've been here since 2000, and I'd have to look pretty closely to tell who's armed and who isn't. Most people don't walk around with a weapon because Maine is a pretty safe state. On occasion, when there is a murderer around who hasn't been caught yet, it's nice to be able to arm yourself. But, I live in a small town in a safe state, so I have never felt the need. I own weapons, and I have a holster that would allow me to carry a handgun without people knowing it, and I could legally do so, but I haven't seen a reason to. I know how you feel, though. It can be scary. When I lived in California, I was walking down the sidewalk in a rather seedy part of Long Beach. A man coming my way on the sidewalk pulled out a handgun, and I felt for sure I was being robbed, at least, if not worse. But no, he wanted to sell me the gun. There were a couple of pawnshops in the area, which is why I was there, and my guess is that the pawnshop refused to buy it. Neither did I.
We see open carry some, but mostly during hunting season when people are on their way in or out of the game areas. Bears are still a threat in moose season and water fowl season. My sons carry big revolvers when fishing because bears are all around and they have to be carried openly since they are wearing waders.
There's been a murder on Christmas Eve not so far from where I am, a gunman opened fire on a pub, there were revellers sitting outside and one poor woman got hit in the head and died instantly, 4 others have been badly wounded, there's a manhunt now for the gunman and any accomplances. Quite recently there was a gun found in a graveyard not far from where a little girl was shot dead when her mum opened her front door and a guy being chased ran in for shelter, then a gunman burst into their home and shot randomly killing the little girl.
Oh my. And yet it is against the law to have these guns. Do you think it might have been different if guns were legal and there might have been a person inside the house of the little girl WITH a gun to defend them? Would a gunman have run inside that house if he might have been shot?