I'm an expat Kiwi now living in Canada. Gun control is much stricter in NZ - you need a firearms license with different endorsement, and restrictions on the types of guns allowed http://www.police.govt.nz/service/firearms/
A fair percentage of farms out in the country would have a license for dealing with farm issues (possums/live stock etc). As a teenager growing up in the country, you would likely have a friend and go possum hunting. And/or things like Scouts where you would be shown how to safely handle a gun. However it was always in a safe light - for farming reasons. In Coatesville, the area where his mansion is, it wouldn't be out of the norm to have a rifle on hand. I can't comment on the last 7 years, but police officers (do, or did) need to have guns locked in a lock box in the back of their cars, they're not carrying them around in public. Members of the public with pistols and semi-auto style weapons are very rare indeed. When I moved to Auckland from the country I didn't know of a single soul that would have a gun.
As always the gang element would have some serious guns but it's really not as prevelant from both an anecdotal when I lived there, or statistical view point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence). NZ 15% of homicides with guns vs 65% in USA. (Source UN, 2000 per the entry). That's a staggering difference.
It was 16 years ago my first trip to the US, but I was shocked/stunned seeing guns in public. Texas of all places. Being a company owned by kiwis, our "culture shock" of the year was going to a gun show. Abso-frigging-lutely mind blowing. I don't care what potential use case you put it under, some types of guns are for one reason, and one reason only.
All guns are for one reason only - shooting bullets. Also, most firearm-involved homicides in the US are committed with handguns, a fact routinely ignored or brushed aside by those trying to keep the focus on the guns that are 'scarier', but usually less effective for criminal purposes. Knives kill more people per year than all other gun types combined.
The gun control debate in this country is effectively screwed because of the fact that there is a second amendment whose purpose is to ensure civilians remain armed well enough to defeat military occupation, and 'well enough' is being argued about by extremists who set tone of the entire debate.
It is true that while the US army might have the most guns in the world, the US public seemingly isn't all that far behind. Even if your armed forces were not allowed to take part, you'd still probably win in a land war against Canada or Mexico.
I don't necessarily disagree, though I seriously doubt Canada or Mexico would ever invade the US, as there would be too much to risk and too little to gain for the cost. The sad thing is, and I feel really strange saying this as a former member of the US military, we also are supposed to be able to combat our own military should they one day be used against us. Though the US military has not been used against the people of the US since Posse Comitatus (excepting recent drone strikes in foreign countries), history (and present day) is full of examples of this not always being the case.
I don't think you can talk about the point of the second amendment completely without mentioning the fact that it was envisioned to apply against both foreign invasion and domestic tyranny. I'm pretty sure 'self-defense' was a given to the founders, and did not enter into the thinking for it - they were explicitly laying out out the need for civilians to be able to rise up against their own government.
Jefferson's famous quote, "the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" is actually a smaller snippet of a quote which speaks directly to this:
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Hollywood movies do a pretty good job of reminding the US public of the facts of the cruel world out there. Well, the paying US public. Hold on a mo', perhaps there's a case here for allowing unrestricted access to such movies to those who can't afford it, or would rather buy something else. Unrestricted access via, say, Megaupload.
Are you saying Kiwi gun control laws are stricter than America's, or Canada's? Here in Canada there are two basic classes of firearms a citizen can acquire: restricted and non-restricted. Non-restricted guns include shotguns, bolt-action rifles, center-fire rifles, and most semi-automatic rifles. This requires a safety test and license to acquire. Restricted firearms include handguns and some semi-automatic rifles such as the AR platform. This requires just a further test and different license.
The reason I ask is that some states, namely California, Mass., and the like have far greater restrictions than Canada, yet gun crime is generally not an issue here. Hell, in Switzerland, every male does mandatory military service and is given a fully-automatic assault rifle to keep at home upon completion, and they have a very low rate of gun crime.
>some types of guns are for one reason, and one reason only.
Not necessarily. The vast majority of what most people call assault rifles (which aren't; assault rifles are by definition select-fire) are used for sporting purposes only. The fact that they could be used were there ever to be a fecal-fan collision doesn't detract from the fact that almost all owners use them for hobby shooting.
A fair percentage of farms out in the country would have a license for dealing with farm issues (possums/live stock etc). As a teenager growing up in the country, you would likely have a friend and go possum hunting. And/or things like Scouts where you would be shown how to safely handle a gun. However it was always in a safe light - for farming reasons. In Coatesville, the area where his mansion is, it wouldn't be out of the norm to have a rifle on hand. I can't comment on the last 7 years, but police officers (do, or did) need to have guns locked in a lock box in the back of their cars, they're not carrying them around in public. Members of the public with pistols and semi-auto style weapons are very rare indeed. When I moved to Auckland from the country I didn't know of a single soul that would have a gun.
As always the gang element would have some serious guns but it's really not as prevelant from both an anecdotal when I lived there, or statistical view point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence). NZ 15% of homicides with guns vs 65% in USA. (Source UN, 2000 per the entry). That's a staggering difference.
It was 16 years ago my first trip to the US, but I was shocked/stunned seeing guns in public. Texas of all places. Being a company owned by kiwis, our "culture shock" of the year was going to a gun show. Abso-frigging-lutely mind blowing. I don't care what potential use case you put it under, some types of guns are for one reason, and one reason only.