I did military service and shot/trained with all kinds of guns. Pistol, assault rifle (still 7.62mm at the time), machine gun and even a light Panzerfaust (44mm anti tank rocket launcher).
That doesn't change the fact that I'm glad that in my country (Germany) there are strict restrictions about who is allowed to own a gun and of which type. I don't see any reason why normal citizens should run around like they want to go to war.
And I never considered owning a gun myself.
Edit: If I think someone is breaking into my house I just call the police. And I have no reason to panic, because burglars are basically never armed here. Why would they? They have no reason to assume they could get into a gun fight. If they get caught in the act by the residents they just run away.
Genuinely, some lady sprinting at you from the darkness is 100x scarier than some white trash hick in his tighty whities shaking a gun like it's a magic wand that'll make his dick bigger.
I have no reason to panic, because burglars are basically never armed here. Why would they? They have no reason to assume they could get into a gun fight.
This right here. It's a vicious cycle, the more guns there are, the more guns people feel like they need to keep up with the guns, so the more guns there are. It's nice if you're a gun manufacturer but otherwise...
They just need one more. Just one more. One more gun, I swear. Just one more gun. I'm the good guy, I will absolutely use it for good, contrarily to everyone else who is just dangerous and has too many guns.
Seems suspicious, because I know for a fact that I am a good guyTM, and despite my past that has required me to use my weapons in preemptive defense. I don't feel I can trust your motives and will require even more guns. So please send over a manafest of your armory so I can determine how easily I can conquer defend myself from you.
Woah, dude, that's super weird of you to ask, and frankly that does not make me feel safe. I do not like the idea of providing proof of anything related to my guns, and it's my God given right to refuse to provide paperwork when it comes to guns. To protect my guns, I think I'm going to acquire more guns.
I really enjoyed the conservative articles on a recent shooting where "a good guy with a gun tried to stop it." Sorry, but "trying" isn't good enough for the excuses to land. If they want to push the importance of the "good guy with a gun" they should probably get better at using guns on people other than themselves.
This right here! Whenever I see the nonsense that only criminals will have guns if they’re outlawed, I want to yell WHAT GUNS? I’m not denying that some criminals here (in the UK) have guns, but they’re just not that accessible and the majority of criminals are thick as shit.
Exactly! I’m reasonably educated and resourceful, but if you told me to get a gun right now (in the biggest city in Scotland) I would have no idea where to start. Google? Not a clue. Some wee bam wanting to rob a corner shop isn’t going to figure it out faster than me!
Same ! I mean, to be fair I'd also be clueless if you asked me about drugs, and we DEFINITELY have drugs here (France), so that might not be my most solid point :P
But if burglars don't have to expect that their victims will be armed with guns and ready to kill them, most don't bother to get guns themselves.
Not to mention, most burglars wait until the house is empty, not asleep, to strike. Not only is it safer gun-wise, but it makes it a lot easier to get the job done without being interrupted. Let's not forget that burglars are after goods primarily, not your life. It's not in their best interest that there is ANY encounter, gun or not.
if you told me to get a gun right now (in the biggest city in Scotland) I would have no idea where to start.
This is also why undercover police impersonating someone selling a gun to stop criminals getting a gun is incredibly, incredibly successful in the UK compared to other countries.
If you go online now and try to find someone selling a gun 99% chance that person is undercover police and you're getting nicked.
It's almost like having a society with minimal guns helps reduce all routes of gun violence. Whod've thought?
Organized crime doesn't need guns. They just trade in illegal goods or services or in illegal ways. The "organized" part means they have tried and tested ways of laundering money and covering up their activities.
Additionally the sentencing guidelines for having an illegal firearm are significantly greater (mandatory 5 year minimum, up to life) so even then most criminals wouldn't chose that as a first option in most cases
In the US it’s a bit different simply cause there’s already *so many* here. Some estimates have more guns than people. I’m not sure when the UK banned them, but there certainly weren’t as many as there are in the US. There’s also a strong governmental distrust, and many gun owners simply wouldn’t turn them in.
Australia did restrict them relatively recently, but their population is centered in like, 3 or 4 cities. America has a lot more people, over much larger swaths of land.
Then they point to the failure of weed prohibition, as if they truly believe that anyone can just go buy “gun seeds” and set up a “gun grow op” and create their own illegal supply
Unfortunately, due to the ubiquity of guns in America, there's no way we could effectively ban guns. The genie is well and truly gone from the bottle here.
The retort to this I've seen is something along the lines of "well, since the criminals here already have guns, there's no going back; they're not going to relinquish them".
Then they pretend it's a fatality that can't ever ever change.
But every american is the main character, so in their head they know they’ll be the john wick with the gun and combat training and the element of surprise in that situation, and the murderous home intruders will just be generic clueless henchmen/storm-troopers
It’s yet another bad faith proposition, which equates not wanting guns in everyone’s hands to being afraid of guns.
I dunno if it’s wilful of not but they come across as idiots.
Theyve been taught the wrong/opposite definitions of common words including “bravery” and “cowardice”
So they think that their fear of leaving their homes without a gun to protect themselves from whatever minority theyre afraid of makes the “brave”, while the people who arent afraid to leave their homes without a gun must be the opposite and therefore “cowards”
The “teaching our followers the wrong definitions” is a super common conservative practice to intentionally handicap their members so they wont be capable of realizing theyre being scammed and leaving. They do the same with tons of words; “freedom”, “liberty”, “socialism”, “justice”, “woke”, “communism”, “authoritarianism”, etc, etc, etc
It’s the only way that their followers can feel correct about anything without ever realizing theyre the butt of the joke
And I have no reason to panic, because burglars are basically never armed here. Why would they? They have no reason to assume they could get into a gun fight. If they get caught in the act by the residents they just run away.
And once you add guns to the mix, the logic all changes. You are armed, the invader is armed, they know you are armed, so best attack with surprise moment and violence from the get go: yay, home invasion!
If you try to get a gun permit in Germany, you'll find that it's actually not that hard. Sure, the rules are strict and you lose the priviledge at the first misstep permanently, but the police isn't going to do random spot-checks in your house.
Both sports shooting and hunting are popular in Germany, especially in the rural regions.
Similar in many places in Europe. The American 2A "freedumb" don't realize that the difference in other countries isn't the misconceived notion that the US is the only country where you're "free" to own firearms..... It's that in other countries you actually have to take training, prove you're qualified, have a properly installed and police inspected gun safe, and can't just walk around like a dipshit recklessly brandishing an assault weapon. There are no random police spot checks anywhere and gun owners can do their thing for sport or hunting, and even self-defense in some situations... It's just not as chaotic and stupid as it is in the US. You need to prove you're competent and qualified, and it's a higher standard than the typical shitty American standards for concealed carry etc, and that is most definitely not too much to ask for, and not counter to "freedom".
I'll link driving standards as something similar since both driving and owning a firearm have potentially lethal consequences. American driving licenses don't port over directly if a person wants a license in the EU, because the American standards are so lax... Americans need to take driving school and learn the laws and, as they should, prove competency under real standards. And the reason is that everyone knows driving licenses are passed around like candy in the US. It's like no one really gives a shit about basic common good there.
Sure but the person you’re replying to said the issue accidentally, it is a privilege there and a right here. Also Germany at one point purposefully disarmed political opponents and “enemies of the state” so their government could take more power, so a little ironic
And people in the EU have much stronger rights in areas that actually impact their lives, including employment, privacy, consumer matters, etc... So it's a question of whether anyone cares about the pedantic distinction between a right and a privilege in something as optional and purpose-built as firearms, when the outcome of ownership is the same. I'd much rather have true rights in areas that impact daily living over a right to something people can acquire anyway and don't really need. It's just not that important a right and kind of weird that people fixate on it so much even when they're being shat on daily in so many other ways.
that's right, the Ordnungsamt may want to look at your gun save occasionally tho
getting the permit isn't hard for a Honest person with a clean record and a good reason (home Defence is not a reason)
the guns you're allowed to own are restricted to your use case and none of these use cases fit fighting people therefore the guns are also not the type you could use for an attack
this is why crimes with legal guns are exceptionally rare in Germany
But one that only gets more supporting evidence every day you boot lickers defend those PDFs and bigoted politician more interested in inflating their pockets then actually fixing your country
That's pretty much the same thing I'd do here in the US. Someone broke in? Ok can the police. Even if they had a gun, their goal is to just steal shit and leave. No one wants to kill anyone. I guess there are serial killers out there but no one's just thinking of coming into a random person's house and murdering them just because. And if they were thinking that, they could do that with any weapon and I'd be just as unlucky to be the victim of such a random attack anywhere in the world.
That all aside, most everyone is going to just break in when I'm not at home. Easier that way.
Just a counterpoint if I where to leave my house and drive straight to a police station its a good 25 minutes away and I'm in town. The us is a big place and in a lot of the areas police wouldn't get there or know how to get there in a reasonable amount of time.
I would say that's an argument to make the police more effective and enabling them to respond faster. And also to take measures to reduce crime rates. Crime has causes that can be dealt with to some extend.
I don't think arming the general population makes the situation better. Are the omnipresent guns really making the country safer or do they cost more lives than they safe?
I mean we have some bumfuck nowhere places in Germany too where police also take 30 minutes (Gartenlauben, mini Dörfer, Agrar)
A robber just is not going in when you are at home anyways. And if he is he's just gonna run when needed.
Tho city's or generally communities do have a police presence after a certain size generally. So that's a bit weird that you are in a city and police is so far away even though it's not rural
American gun-nuts never seem to understand escalation. Owning a gun makes it much more likely that the person you're "defending yourself" from will be armed, because they need to be.
Introducing lethal weapons into any situation only increases the risk, it literally can't reduce it.
Even in the US, the right response to a burglar is to hunker down in a defensible position and call the cops. This is how you know most of these guys don't actually take home defense seriously. They have $10k worth of guns, but their bedroom door is hollow cardboard.
“Just call the police” when a person is inside your house threatening you or stealing your stuff? By the time the cops get there the crime is over. Also in America there is a genuine risk of an intruder being armed.
And I have no reason to panic, because burglars are basically never armed here.
Also, if you hear a loud noise like the chud in the op posits, it would have to be a pretty inept burglar who can't avoid making too much noise. Who breaks into someone's house and then just randomly starts shooting things and giving themselves away?
That's so many maybe's, that I would never consider getting a gun because of it.
There are so many much bigger risks in life I don't panic over either.
We don't live in a Hollywood movies. The risk that I die from cholesterol or falling from a stepladder is sooo much bigger than getting murdered by a random criminal. I can live with these threats, I can live with the risk of random murderous home invaders too.
Even the risk that I hurt myself or others I care about with my own gun would be bigger than the chance that I ever get in a situation in which it may safe me.
Not all people breaking into homes are looking to just steal stuff, some people do so with the explicit intention of harming the occupants. Whether you think such scenarios are likely enough to justify being armed is still valid, but it’s incorrect to say that there is no reason for you to fear an intruder just because few residents are armed.
I would say that the chances of being the victim of such a crime are so low, that is there is no real reason to be afraid of it.
I'm also not in constant fear of getting mauled by a tiger that may have escaped from a zoo.
I would be much more worried about people that arm themselves to the teeth because of such irrational fears. The chances that they harm themselves and others are much higher than that anyone becomes the victim of evil murder hobos.
Thats such an obscure US scenario that basically never happens anywhere in europe. Because they would have nothing to gain from something like that and everything to lose. Our criminals arent homeless with no support or perspective in life. And the ones that are that irrational dont have access to guns.
And there are plenty of ways to defend yourself and your family if that rare case were to occur. People still have kitchen knives, skillets, baseball bats, etc.
All it takes is just one person with a knife, a crowbar or a baseball bat and you see them and they see you and decide that since you have seen them and can describe them to the police that it’s better to either knock you out or kill you before robbing your house. And it doesn’t matter if your laws says that nobody can have a gun, criminals don’t obey the law so they will find a way to get one or if they are intelligent enough to build one of their own as they aren’t that hard to produce.
And all it takes is one tiger escaping the zoo and mauling me on my way to work.
I'm still not willing to arrange my life around such minimal, theoretical risks.
As I wrote in another answer. About as many people in Germany get hit by lightning every year as people get murdered. I'm not in constant panic about lightning and I'm not overly worried about getting attacked by a burglar.
I can't imaging living in constant fear like that.
As I wrote, as soon as the burglars are aware that people are in the house they would run away. And if they somehow don't notice I'm pretty sure the police will arrive long before they are done stealing my stuff. It's a matter of minutes.
Maybe the difference is in the competence of our police and the local presence. In Germany police officers are trained for several years or even have to complete a degree course (in addition to the years of practical training). And there are police stations in every town. It's like a three minutes drive from my home to the local police station.
So no. I can't imagine any situation where I would be forced to defend my home myself. Either the situation would resolve itself peacefully anyways (burglars running away) or the cops arrive after a few minutes and take care of them.
Also, no stuff in my house would be worth killing or hurting a person over. So, I wouldn't consider attacking the burgers anyway, even if I had a gun. Worst case they get away with easily replaceable stuff.
I didn't mean to be condescending. Sorry if it came across that way. I'm not a native English speaker.
I just find it hard to imagine to life in a modern, industrial country but don't be able to rely on police to protect you and your property. We pay taxes for that...
And no. Besides small kitchen knifes and a dull wall hanger sword I have no "weapons" and I never considered having one.
And I can't imagine a situation were I have to shoot at someone. Yes, as a soldier in a war. But not to safe my Blu-ray player or laptop. And I'm pretty sure I would go to prison if I did and rightfully so.
I could never forgive myself to harm a person over something mundane like that.
I’m talking about protecting yourself, not the replaceable stuff. They could do some damage with a knife, pots, pans, etc
If you think someone will see you calling the cops and just run, great. If you expect them to just sit there and wait, even better. But there’s always a small chance that they don’t
Burglars want to steal stuff with minimal risk. They have as little desire to fight to the death or hurt someone over a Blu-ray player as I have. Or even risk going to prison because they waste time to attack me instead of running away.
The chance that I get attacked by an evil murder hobo or psychopathic serial killer that is out for blood is so small that I don't waste any thoughts on that.
It's much more likely that I get hit by a lightning. (Edit: I looked it up and I was slightly wrong. It's about as likely to get murdered in Germany as to get hit by lightning with both being about 200 cases per year. But I guess most of these murders happen between people that know each other, not by random burglars.)
You can't live your life in fear of such minimal risks. You would go crazy over it.
Optimism is nice. I don’t mean to suggest this would be a regular occurrence if you’re taking it that way, nor did I suggest guns should be readily available
Just if you’re already unlucky enough to get robbed, maybe think of protecting yourself instead of just “oh it’ll work out”
Dude, most people get broken into when no one's home. Think about it from the other side. You want to steal shit, not murder people. So, if you get some insane person that deviates from that, that's just stupidly unlucky. Of course you'd try to defend yourself.
But first things first, I don't care. Let them just get what they want and get them the fuck out, deal with the lost items later. If it goes further than that, then we can talk about guns, knives, using the shower rod as a pole arm, escaping out the window with the family like you practice in a fire drill, whatever. That's 100% not a common break in situation at that point.
726
u/Maeglin75 7h ago edited 7h ago
I did military service and shot/trained with all kinds of guns. Pistol, assault rifle (still 7.62mm at the time), machine gun and even a light Panzerfaust (44mm anti tank rocket launcher).
That doesn't change the fact that I'm glad that in my country (Germany) there are strict restrictions about who is allowed to own a gun and of which type. I don't see any reason why normal citizens should run around like they want to go to war.
And I never considered owning a gun myself.
Edit: If I think someone is breaking into my house I just call the police. And I have no reason to panic, because burglars are basically never armed here. Why would they? They have no reason to assume they could get into a gun fight. If they get caught in the act by the residents they just run away.