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Minority Rights

“In July, an Israeli company unveiled a man-portable gun turret that it says can scan for and lock on to targets automatically and then be fired by an operator using a wireless, tablet-like device...
The Light Remote-Controlled Weapon Station (LRCWS)... combines a gun equipped with the SMASH 2000 computerized gunsight and a remotely operated mount that the company says can be installed on a tripod or a pedestal mount on the ground or on a vehicle..”
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...nd-the-killing-of-irans-top-nuclear-scientist

Despite the rarity of remote controlled guns, they emphasise the difficultly for forensic detectives in catching suspects. In unarmed combat a criminal potentially leaves more evidence as they’ve to come close to their intended victim. In doing so there’s more chance to discover finger prints if they trespassed on property. Unlike a sniper perch, there’s more possibility of witnesses in close combat disputes.
 
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(Red dot sight on a handgun)

I feel that handguns are safer than rifles. I think that legalised handguns are less dangerous than the other weapons: semi-auto rifles and shotguns. There’s less risk of ambush and long distance attacks with these devices. They could possibly be used as a compromise between gun control and the current permissive gun laws. But I still believe they pose unnecessary risk and full gun control is more suitable. For instance, it’s probably not too difficult to extend the barrel of handgun, put a small scope on it or use a tripod to increase its accuracy. Furthermore a criminal could dual wield handguns against a crowd of people to increase the rate of fire.

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Linuxcooldude said:
bringing an airgun to an actual gunfight, while criminals can use more leathal means.
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A scoped air rifle might have been potent for the first responders in the Las Vegas shooting compared to the semi-auto rifles and shotguns. While an air rifle would not have killed Paddock from that distance, several people firing air rifles might have been able to obstruct him. Obviously no one could have known in advance about the incident and sniper threats are rarer than other weapons used by criminals. Words can’t describe how bravely the police and the crowd dealt with the onslaught. The question is how can we prevent future attacks.

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A military coup might happen very quickly. This can be seen in Burma where the military suspended parliament. But political tyranny doesn’t happen overnight. It took years for Hitler to become chancellor. Therefore we might see telltale signs ahead of time before a political party attempts to take total control. So worst case scenario we could always re-legalise guns if the parliament starts showing sinister elements.
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55902070.amp
 
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The camouflage of smoke grenades could help people flee in mass shootings. A smokescreen would conceal where the masses of people were heading from the eyes of the perpetrator. They’d have to shoot blindly and miss many shots which would help protect concentrations of people.
 
“A group of swarming compatriots with no training, a loose plan, inferior weaponry and a common purpose can often overcome a superior adversary. It has been used many times for good, when implemented as a last resort by unarmed potential victims of active shooters. These good citizens have time and again turned from victims into victors.”
https://www.police1.com/preparing-a...e-a-common-terrorist-tactic-h0Q4gCbJfPLyxt5V/

A flashbang grenade would make swarming slightly less dangerous for unarmed people confronting a shooter.
 
DebateChallenge said:
True, killing dozens of people is usually going to require a weapon but there are other weapons besides guns that can fulfill that purpose, cars, trucks, airplanes, homemade bombs, gasoline and matches, you name it.
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Although we don’t necessarily need a gun to deal with these alternative threats. An airgun pellet through the windshield or hitting the glass with a blunt object and throwing knives to slash the tyres would help protect pedestrians against vehicular attack such as the 2016 Nice truck attack. A gun won’t protect us against planted bombs; we’d need search warrants or frisking by security staff to preempt such an attack.
 
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A hidden variable with gun control is reciprocity: criminals will invariably try to be as armed as their rivals. In Europe most criminals are unarmed simply because their rival gangs, citizens and police are usually unarmed. It’s not worth the while of small time criminals in France and Spain to acquire guns because they’re unnecessary for the self-defence of the criminals themselves. Plus they’re deterred by jail sentences for illegal possession of weapons. Contrast this with Mexico where heavily armed gangs means the police also have guns. Lo and behold up and coming criminals will seek to acquire guns to compete against enemy gangs and police. Unfortunately there’s a risk of a downward spiral. Gun control is not about blind faith in criminals. We still need SWAT teams in Europe for fear of breaches in gun control. Criminals in Europe still carry out heinous violent crimes but they often don’t carry it out with guns. Even though criminals are very untrustworthy in their intentions we still have to be streetwise. Sadly criminals will adapt to the environment. Even evil enemy soldiers in wars will have some pragmatic understanding of proportionality, ceasefires and negotiations.
 
Michael McMahon said:
Although we don’t necessarily need a gun to deal with these alternative threats. An airgun pellet through the windshield or hitting the glass with a blunt object and throwing knives to slash the tyres would help protect pedestrians against vehicular attack such as the 2016 Nice truck attack.
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You think an airgun pellet will stop a truck? You think that most people will be able to throw knives accurately to hit and puncture the tires of a moving vehicle? Do you even think that throwing rocks at a truck is an effective means to stop it?

Michael McMahon said:
A gun won’t protect us against planted bombs; we’d need search warrants or frisking by security staff to preempt such an attack.
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Bombings can't really be stopped without having certain information beforehand as to who plans to do it, even with search warrants and frisking, people will set off bombs in the soft areas outside security checkpoints such as in the Manchester bombing.
 
DebateChallenge said:
You really think a pellet from an airgun would puncture the tires?
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The more cracked the windshield is the harder it’d be to see out of and direct the vehicle. The greater the tyre puncture the slower it will drive.
 
Michael McMahon said:
The more cracked the windshield is the harder it’d be to see out of and direct the vehicle. The greater the tyre puncture the slower it will drive.
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Somebody driving a truck at full speed into a crowd of people, do you really think they care who they hit? Its not hard to drive a truck into a crowd of people with or without a cracked windshield.
 
DebateChallenge said:
Its not hard to drive a truck into a crowd of people with or without a cracked windshield.
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Remember there could be several people firing multiple pellets at the truck. I’m not well up on truck engineering but the front tyres being hit would make it harder for the attacker to steer. Also the side of the tyre is sometimes less thick than the circumference that touches the road surface. A rock or blunt instrument propelled at the windshield will have a large relative velocity against a moving truck.


“A .22 caliber shaped “pellet” fired from a CO₂-powered pellet gun? Maybe through the sidewall of an automobile tire.”
“Yes high powered air rifles will certainly penetrate truck tyres if they are filled at high pressure of for example 3000 psi.”
https://www.quora.com/Will-a-pellet...etrate-a-car-or-truck-tire-or-just-bounce-off
 
Michael McMahon said:
Remember there could be several people firing multiple pellets at the truck. I’m not well up on truck engineering but the front tyres being hit would make it harder for the attacker to steer. Also the side of the tyre is sometimes less thick than the circumference that touches the road surface. A rock or blunt instrument propelled at the windshield will have a large relative velocity against a moving truck.


“A .22 caliber shaped “pellet” fired from a CO₂-powered pellet gun? Maybe through the sidewall of an automobile tire.”
“Yes high powered air rifles will certainly penetrate truck tyres if they are filled at high pressure of for example 3000 psi.”
https://www.quora.com/Will-a-pellet...etrate-a-car-or-truck-tire-or-just-bounce-off
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You seem to worry about the weirdest things.
 
Rucker61 said:
You seem to worry about the weirdest things.
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“President Donald Trump called for reform of mental health laws on the heels of two deadly shootings that claimed the lives of at least 31 people and left a grief-stricken country in disbelief.
The president, saying that “hatred and mental illness pulls the trigger, not the gun,” also called for better identification of people with mental illness and, in some cases, “involuntary confinement” of them.”
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/theconv...psychiatrist-explains-the-complexities-121480

Mental illness is often temporary. Some people might have an illness like autism or schizophrenia for a long time or even until death. Yet some people might suffer a sudden onset of anxiety or psychosis and make a full recovery after a few weeks or months. Mental suffering can often come out of the blue so there’s no way of knowing who’ll develop psychotic illnesses. Suicide is a risk with mental illness. Aggression might perhaps be a risk if they had pre-existing anti-social tendencies before the development of their mental illness. People who disclose threatening thoughts and beliefs should be made unarmed. However the random nature of our emotions means we don’t know everyone who’ll become volatile or violent in order to selectively disarm them. Hoping to preemptively disarm all bad people before they attempt violent crimes is not a sustainable strategy in my opinion. Preferably potential criminals will always be unarmed like the rest of society. People cite the equaliser argument for gun ownership to protect physically vulnerable and elderly people. Unfortunately the flip side of that is where the power of a gun might tempt someone into criminality when they wouldn’t of had the muscular strength to do so otherwise.
 
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-...train-wanted-kill-happy-women-nhk-2021-08-07/

We don’t always need the same weapon as the perpetrator in order to beat them. For example a baton could injure a knife-wielding attacker. I know knife-legislation is divisive. I think people could be allowed to have the instruments needed to overcome knife threats as knives are commonly owned in homes and industry. That doesn’t automatically mean you need a knife of your own to defeat such a criminal.
 
Michael McMahon said:
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-...train-wanted-kill-happy-women-nhk-2021-08-07/

We don’t always need the same weapon as the perpetrator in order to beat them. For example a baton could injure a knife-wielding attacker. I know knife-legislation is divisive. I think people could be allowed to have the instruments needed to overcome knife threats as knives are commonly owned in homes and industry. That doesn’t automatically mean you need a knife of your own to defeat such a criminal.
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shotguns work far better
 
Michael McMahon said:
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-...train-wanted-kill-happy-women-nhk-2021-08-07/

We don’t always need the same weapon as the perpetrator in order to beat them. For example a baton could injure a knife-wielding attacker. I know knife-legislation is divisive. I think people could be allowed to have the instruments needed to overcome knife threats as knives are commonly owned in homes and industry. That doesn’t automatically mean you need a knife of your own to defeat such a criminal.
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If I need to defend myself or loved ones, I don't ever want to be in a fair fight.
 
Michael McMahon said:
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-...train-wanted-kill-happy-women-nhk-2021-08-07/

We don’t always need the same weapon as the perpetrator in order to beat them. For example a baton could injure a knife-wielding attacker. I know knife-legislation is divisive. I think people could be allowed to have the instruments needed to overcome knife threats as knives are commonly owned in homes and industry. That doesn’t automatically mean you need a knife of your own to defeat such a criminal.
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I'm going to use whatever weapon I happen to have at my disposal to defend myself. During the Summer months I rarely leave my home without my Ruger .44 Mag. strapped to my hip. If someone threatens me with a knife, do you really think I'm going to ignore my .44 and look for another weapon?

I haven't read anything quite so stupid in a very long time. :rolleyes:
 
Glitch said:
If someone threatens me with a knife, do you really think I'm going to ignore my .44 and look for another weapon?

I haven't read anything quite so stupid in a very long time. :rolleyes:
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An airgun might be a slight disadvantage against a criminal with a handgun. I know there’s debate about shoot-to-wound policies against criminals actively aiming at you with guns because the leg or arm is a small target. But worst case scenario a metal pellet would certainly prevent a criminal from stabbing you. Displaying an airgun could deter them from starting an assault. An airgun can inflict a proportional nonlethal wound on an aggressor who might not have intended on killing their victim.
 
Michael McMahon said:
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-...train-wanted-kill-happy-women-nhk-2021-08-07/

We don’t always need the same weapon as the perpetrator in order to beat them.
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That's quite obvious, a defender with a gun has a good chance of beating a perpetrator with a knife.
Michael McMahon said:
For example a baton could injure a knife-wielding attacker.
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It could, although a baton requires more skill than a knife.
Michael McMahon said:
I know knife-legislation is divisive. I think people could be allowed to have the instruments needed to overcome knife threats as knives are commonly owned in homes and industry. That doesn’t automatically mean you need a knife of your own to defeat such a criminal.
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Knife legislation would be pointless since knives are so easy to make, people are even able to make knives in prison, called Shivs.
en.wikipedia.org

Shiv (weapon) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Michael McMahon said:
An airgun might be a slight disadvantage against a criminal with a handgun. I know there’s debate about shoot-to-wound policies against criminals actively aiming at you with guns because the leg or arm is a small target.
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In a self defense situation you don't shoot to wound you shoot to stop.
Michael McMahon said:
But worst case scenario a metal pellet would certainly prevent a criminal from stabbing you. Displaying an airgun could deter them from starting an assault. An airgun can inflict a proportional nonlethal wound on an aggressor who might not have intended on killing their victim.
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Unless you can hit your attacker right in the eye, an airgun is a laughable defense against a criminal armed with a knife or a real gun.
 
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