Gun control

[Sev]

A gun in every closet. That seems like the only reliable means of protection.

[Leeward]

And under every pillow. Except the toddlers', they're dangerous little rascals.

[Randall]

My wife now demands I get a firearm.
Anyways, I am in the land of the living again. I am internet-less at home but I will soon be on Telkom's case.
Sheesh, that was tough.

[Sev]

My recommendation: A Sig Sauer P320. Amazing build quality, operational quality, and accuracy. That, and they are extremely configurable. It's called the Glock 19 killer for a reason.

[Randall]

Thanks for the advice, will look into that for sure

[Sev]

Also, go to a training course; gun safety and respect must become second nature. You must also know how to maintain your firearm.

Finally, go to the firing range as much as possible. Untrained, you are just going to be a danger to yourself. The P320 is available in several calibers. Go for the 9mm, since it has the cheapest ammo, which means that developing your skills with it costs less.

[Randall]

When I was younger, my father had a firearm. And yes, I spent many of my weekends in the formative years, on the range, and I have been well-versed in maintenance thereof. I have also used firearms before, I used to be pretty good, but as with all things, you tend to believe everything will be OK, until this stuff happens, some years later.

I will of course go on all the training needed.

In other news, my wife got a job on the same floor as my workplace, so in future we will sell one car and only have the one car. Already R3k back in the pocket each month.

My old house is mostly clear, just a few odds and sods to clean up, and I believe the buyer paid the fees today, he had been stalling. So now the documents can be lodged at the deeds office, and I can let him move in on Monday, the 25th and I no longer have to worry about myself, or my family being attacked in the house.

It was an extremely difficult move, because we were dropped by people, we were promised a truck, and all we got was a small van. I am extremely tired.. sorry for the complaining but I feel totally burnt out.

[Sev]

Moving sucks under the best of circumstances.

[Raven Song]

My mom had a gun. I don't know the legal side of it but I know a gun licence is needed (it is isn't it?)

We never felt safe in the house with the gun around, even though it lived in the closet, in a safe, which only my mom new the combination and where the key lay.
Why we never felt safe became apparent the Christmas after my father moved out:
The gun had been given to my mother as a "divorce present" by my great uncle, who is banned from ever entering the country again because of bad things that no one will ever tell me what... anyway,

Christmas after my dad moved out, and Christmas morning, three am, my sister is fast asleep in her bed. I am fast asleep in my bunk bed, and my deaf bulldog is fast asleep on my bottom bunk bed. My mom is in her bed, asleep and surrounded by three cats.

Our house was laid out like this:

Front room with beautiful bay windows, which was the music and tea room. front door and long corridor, from which you could get into the tea room (right) sisters room (left) toilet just between tea room and kitchen, moms room off to the left at the end and my room directly at the end (my room was a weird l shaped room with a cellar and a creepy yellow spider...)

This night a young man slipped, through the bars on the bay window, under the radar of the alarm system (inside job anyone?) and into the hallway. He checked my sisters room, nothing. Checked my room, and as he closed the door it woke me up. I climbed out of bed and slid into my moms room where he was standing over her. She woke up, because she's a light sleeper and started screaming. I was knocked out the way by his friend who had come in behind me.

The pair of them grabbed my mother and asked her where the gun was, while they tried to find her cellphone etc. My mom screamed at them and that's when I ran to my room and let out said bulldog.

they ran to the front door, and Pie (bulldog) managed to severely wound one of them in the leg.

My mom told me the next day (Christmas morning) that the man had told her if she didn't shut up, when he found the gun she would be shot first, then my sister then I.

I was eleven at the time.

I do not trust guns in the home at all. We gave ours away very quickly (by give away, my mom placed it in the care of the man that would eventually be the reason I hate men... Ironic sort of)...

Guns may make you feel safe in the home, but due to my previous experience with them, I don't trust them and feel they invite a whole new danger level.
If you shoot at a bad guy, what is to stop him from shooting at you.
If you hit him first before he has given you probable cause (as in you can actually prove that, other than breaking and entering, he was endangering your life) you will get manslaughter.

Just my two cents worth.

[Leeward]

And that is precisely why a gun should not live in a safe but within your reach. What's the point of having a gun if you not only never use it but leave it as a vulnerability you may be robbed for?

[Raven Song]

Because if it's in you reach, chances are it's in your attackers reach as well...

I don't trust the things. They cause a lot more damage than good.

[Leeward]

Well duh, causing damage is what they're made for, but if it's on your bedside table and nobody knows you have one, chances are you'll be able to grab it before a home invader does.

[Raven Song]

Like I said it was just my two cents. I don't trust them but if they make people feel safer then that's cool.

I've just read one too many stories about people being killed with their own guns, or going to jail for shooting an attacker and not being able to prove their lives were in danger.

[Sev]

If someone invades your house, that should be enough to justify self preservation.

Safes are for guns that are used for other purposes - hunting, plinking, sport, whatever.
Anything that you use for personal protection should be hidden but quickly accessible.

[Raven Song]

The right to defend yourself



In common law, the controlling principle on the right to use force to defend one’s self or one’s property is proportionality: the defensive act may not be more harmful than necessary to ward off the attack. Although there are no hard and fast rules, courts weigh up the interests protected by the defensive act against the interests infringed by the unlawful attack.



In determining whether a crime victim acted reasonably, the courts judge each case on its own merits. Certainly, an owner who is confronted by a robber is not expected to abandon his property. He is entitled to protect it, and the court will consider all the circumstances2 when deciding whether the means of defending the property were reasonable.



This right to self-protection can provide a defence to a charge of assault or even, in some cases, murder. Our law allows you to defend yourself, another person, your property or the property of another against a current or imminent unlawful attack.3 When a person pleads private defence, his claim is that the injury he caused was, in the circumstances, lawful and permissible.



This common law defence is often confused with the statutory provision contained in Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act as amended,4 which allows for the use of force when effecting an arrest. Despite certain similarities, these defences should not be conflated with each other as they are used for different purposes and have different requirements.



Various requirements must be met before the defensive act will be considered lawful. The attack must be:

• commenced or imminent;


• against a legally recognised interest;5 and


• unlawful.


The action made in defence must be:

• necessary to avert the attack;


• reasonable in terms of the amount of force used; and


• directed against the attacker.


Thus, the action taken must be in response to a currently pending aggressive action, and the law specifically rules out any action being taken, on the one hand, pre-emptively or, on the other, in ‘revenge’.

Changes under the new constitution



South Africa’s new constitutional democracy turned our legal system on its head. The Bill of Rights protects various fundamental human rights, including the right to life8 and the right to property.9 In cases of private defence, it is inevitable that these rights will need to be weighed against each other. The court’s balancing act would have to comply with the requirements as set out in section 36 of the Bill of Rights: was the infringement reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on principles on human dignity, equality and freedom? Applying this test, it is unlikely that any reasonable court would consider it justifiable to take another person’s life in defence of property.



Consider the following scenario. You are woken in the middle of the night by the sound of breaking glass. You look out of your bedroom window and see a thief stealthily driving your new sports car down the driveway. You shout at the thief to get away from your car, but he ignores you and continues to drive away. In desperation, you grab your gun and fire at the thief, killing him.



Your defence is that you were protecting your valuable property and that there was no other way of preventing the thief from stealing the vehicle. Also, the theft was still in progress, so your defence would comply with the requirements that the defensive act should be aimed at an attack that is not yet completed.



In terms of the Van Wyk decision, you would almost certainly succeed with this defence. However, in light of the constitutional changes noted above, it is very possible that you would find yourself in danger of being convicted of murder.



On the other hand, you could argue that the Bill of Rights also protects your right to your property, and that the constitution does not provide for a hierarchy of rights.10 This is perhaps so, but recent decisions have indicated that the right to life cannot be arbitrarily infringed, allowing for lethal force only in situations where lives of innocent persons require protection.11



The landmark decision in S v Makwanyane12 entrenched the right to human life by abolishing the imposition of the death penalty in South Africa. The court also made passing reference to the need to bring other aspects of South African law in line with the constitutional emphasis on the sanctity of human life. With reference to section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act, the court warned that if the state was no longer permitted to take a life in punishment of a convicted criminal, then how could the law allow anyone to take the life of a person they are trying to arrest.



The same reasoning would surely apply to someone who takes the life of the thief who steals his property. Evading lawful arrest is equally, if not more, serious than theft.

https://www.issafrica.org/pubs/CrimeQ/N ... lessis.htm

I is learning things

[Sev]

Meh, that doesn't apply to the US.

If someone invades my home and I shoot and kill them, the NRA will make an announcement about how gun ownership has protected another law abiding citizen.

Anyone that invades a home should not be considered human.

[Raven Song]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_viole ... ted_States

Gun violence in the United States results in thousands of deaths and injuries annually.[1] According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013, firearms were used in 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) [2] and 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000),[3] 21,175 by suicide with a firearm,[4] 505 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm,[4] and 281 deaths due to firearms-use with "undetermined intent"[5] for a total of 33,169 deaths related to firearms (excluding firearm deaths due to legal intervention). 1.3% of all deaths in the country were related to firearms.[1][6]

you may not have known this Sev, but I'm one of the people who are against the easy gun laws in America...

But if it makes you feel safer then go for it.

[Leeward]

I share Sev's opinion on firearm control, so I won't add anything to this... but guys please keep the topic focused on Sonic's issue?

[Sev]

Well, the UK has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, and it still suffers from rampant violence. It has gotten to the point where the government wants to restrict the ownership of kitchen knives.

EDIT: Rakuen, can you move the off topic posts? This is an interesting conversation, and it would be a shame for it to die.

[Raven Song]

Sev it has restricted it. You have to show ID to buy a knife... which is hilarious

But that's because, as the English sometimes proudly state, "you know those Red Necks in the States... where do you think they learned from???"

Leeward I am. Sonic wants a gun. I'm pointing out my opinions on guns.

Or does the fact that I seem to be the only one opposed to the idea mean I shouldn't post those comments?

[Leeward]

No no not at all, this is just getting dangerously off-topic.

[Raven Song]

I don't see how but alright, I wont post any more "guns are bad" type argumentative statements.

[Sev]

Should we make a new thread, or ask Rakuen to move the posts?

[Raven Song]

why. they are currently relevant? they pertain to the fact that Sonic wants a gun. I argue that its not a good idea, and you guys argue that it is. It is still relevant to his safety and family etc.

it's not like we're talking about nonsense. It pertains to his vent, it is a part of it.

[Sev]

Okay, in that case, shall we compare Sweden, which has a civilian army - and thus an extremely high rate of gun ownership - to the UK - which has among the strictest gun control laws in the world?

And if you care so much about suicide statistics, the US to Japan and South Korea.

[Raven Song]

US Guns per 100 Residents (2014):
112.6
Swedish Guns per 100 Residents (2014):
31.6
UK Guns per 100 Residents (2014):
6.6
South Africa Guns per 100 Residents (2014):
12.7

Firearm-related death rate per 100,000 population per year
US - 10.64, 0.16 (2013) Unintentional Deaths
Sweden - 1.47, 0.06 (2010) Unintentional Deaths
UK - 0.23, 0.00 (2011) Unintentional Deaths
South Africa - 6.88, 0.02 (1999) Unintentional Deaths

(All this comes from Wikipedia and is sourced through the relevant countries gun statistics)

Now I'm not saying that these deaths could all have been avoided by not having a gun in the home. In fact I'm sure a large portion of these occurred in homes which don't have guns. But it doesn't stop the possibility that having a gun in the home can and often does increase the likelihood of increased damage to property and persona's in the home.

I'm done with this discussion by the way. What started off as me simply making a statement on my own personal feelings and talking about a very personal story where my families lives were at risk etc. has become me defending my position on guns and why I personally don't like guns.

I have provided statistics etc. on gun ownerships and death, as well as the law on death by gun in self defence (and I found another fascinating one, but unless requested, I wont share it).

I don't deny you the right to own a gun. If it makes you feel safer and better then please, by all means go for it. I know people who have owned a gun and have never once needed it, nor been threatened due to it etc.

I simply just don't see the need or want for more danger in this world.

[Rakuen Growlithe]

I've moved this because despite what relevance it might have had, it is taking over the thread.

While I mostly support gun ownership (libertarian instinct) that does not mean that they are good for protection. There are certainly situations where they are useful but nearly every study shows that guns decrease a person's safety, are more likely to be used against them than by them and are more likely to kill or injure someone accidentally than deliberately. Unless you're living on an isolated farm, getting a gun for protection is like setting your house on fire to prevent burning yourself.

[Raven Song]

getting a gun for protection is like setting your house on fire to prevent burning yourself.

Hehe, that made me laugh

[Sev]

That's why anyone seriously considering using a gun for self defense needs to go for some proper training, and practice extensively.

You should run drills and go to the range as often as possible.

[Raven Song]

That's why anyone seriously considering using a gun for self defense needs to go for some proper training, and practice extensively.

You should run drills and go to the range as often as possible.

I also think the background checks etc. need to be a bit stricter. My friend who lives in the states just got a gun licence even though her family has a history of mental disease (both her father and grandfather died of early onset dementia and had several other problems, including her dad being convinced his one art piece was trying to eat him).

I know you have to have a clearance from a shrink here in SA, but I don't know what it contains/what it takes to pass that, so if someone wants to clear that up for me I'd appreciate it