Lindy, having lived most of my life in environments without guns, it's quite pleasant. While criminals can get guns, without the gun culture, they have less inclination to have them. But nowadays, more and more, criminals have got and use guns.
Statistically, I think I'm less likely to get shot if nobody has guns legally, which cuts down the number of guns greatly, which means I'm less likely to get shot because guns are less likely to be misappropriated to criminal ends.
If criminals aren't allowed guns, and are found with one, then they can be gaoled for having a gun, even if they haven't actually committed any other crime.
If somebody goes on a shooting rampage, I think it's unlikely that I'll be carting my gun around with me. I often enough have trouble remembering to take my driving licence and other essentials, without bothering to cart a gun around on the very remote chance that I'll need it.
Lots of people go duck hunting and stuff in NZ, so there are huge numbers of guns out there. No handguns allowed as their only purpose is to shoot people. So, the number of murders from handguns is near zero. But there are a few because there are always some illegally acquired guns. There might be one a year. If that.
Given the gun culture of the USA, I can see that people are fearful enough that they want to be armed against criminals. In NZ, I can't recall ever wishing I'd had a gun. I wouldn't really want one hanging around for somebody to do something stupid with, such as a child finding it and mistakenly thinking the bullet they put in was a pretend one for just making a bang.
There are many situations which have happened in NZ where if I had been involved, I would want to have had a machine gun, shotgun, hand grenade and maybe a tactical nuke or at least a daisy cutter.
Probabilistically though, the risk from a profusion of gun culture would endanger me more than the risk from a few criminals. Quite a few people can persuade the criminals to settle down and let's have a nice cup of tea and come up with a better way of dealing with things. Maybe the young man who shot a whole lot of people just wanted a nice cup of tea and a chat about things. Taunting him doesn't seem to have been a good strategy.
My preference is to be in places like Japan, where I feel very safe and there's nobody acting in hostile ways. At 2am with our 13 year old son, north of Euno station somewhere, roaming around looking for somewhere to stay having just arrived in Japan a few hours before, people offered us cash, banknotes, not gun barrels. I declined as our problem was finding the accommodation place, not so much a shortage of money.
I wouldn't want to be doing that at 2am in random places in the USA.
Mqurice |
