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Why is self-defense not considered a valid reason for gun ownership in many European nations?
updated 11 months, 2 weeks ago
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I know that firearms can be used for sporting use, but isn’t a firearm a weapon after all — hence, primarily for killing? As an American, some of these gun laws in Europe (especially the UK) seem asinine. Can anyone explain the logic behind these policies?
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Fun fact: cops stop two men in Canada. Each man is carrying an identical pocketknife. Cops ask each man what is the knife for? Man #1 replies “To open boxes at work.” Man #2 replies “to protect myself from muggers.”
Man #1 is released. Man #2 is arrested for carrying a weapon.
In Canada, you can carry tools but not weapons. Since Man #2 claimed self-defense, his pocketknife ceased to be a tool & became a weapon. Like how the ATF at one point considered shouldering a brace to be “manufacturing an SBR.”
There’s a legal/philosophical compulsion in these bleeding-heart, soft-tyranny societies to think that weapons, not wielders, commit crimes. That guns & knives are use mind-control to force people to act violently. So weapons mustn’t be carried because their simple existence is itself an act of violence.
Of course, that’s the subject’s explanation. It’s what one peasant whispers to another. The rulers have more simple, rational reason for outlawing weapons: they don’t trust their subjects. The rulers life is easier when they don’t have to worry about disobedience & armed resistance.
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Because fuck you, that’s why.
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“Can anyone explain the logic behind these policies?”
Logic? How presumptuous of you.
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Because the government in most European countries don’t give half a fuck about you or anybody else
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Coming from the country where gun ownership for self defense was prohibited for quite some time (not anymore though), the general argument was the lack of “gun culture”. With implication that uncultured peasants will start shooing each other left and right, if guns will become more common. Which is kind of a catch 22, because gun culture can not appear without gun ownership, and gun ownership is suppressed to the point when very few were willing to go through all the legal steps required. Situation got better now, since self defense was finally accepted as a legally valid reason for firearm ownership, but the argument didn’t go anywhere, and is currently applied to handgun ownership and carry for defense reasons, both are still illegal. Worth mentioning that the law contains dedicated loopholes, allowing “elites” to own and carry handguns, who could have thought.
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Their common law systems often do not allow for killing in self defense. Also armed people are harder to oppress, unarmed people are subjects.
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british people literally put beans on toast. thats all you need to know
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Because peasant lives don’t matter
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Who cares, just be happy you don’t live in that liberal hell hole.
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Belgian here, you can’t even legally use pepperspray for self defense here, so obviously much less a firearm.
hell beating up a dude that threatened you with a knife can provide said dude with legal base to sue you
there have been cases of firearms being used in self defense and generally the court decides that it counts as legal self defence up until you shoot the assailant in the back
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they don’t believe that people have a right to self defense let alone a right to arms.
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The primary function of a firearm is that its a TOOL, like any other. It can be used for sport shooting, competitive shooting, hunting, home/self defense, or just sit there looking pretty being a collectors piece.
The idea of self defense in terms of a lethal response is seen differently by everyone, its truly an individual issue. While a majority of European citizens disagree with the idea of a lethal self defense response, some still do.
There is also the idea that if you were to use a knife it would mean you needed more training and would be safer for “everyone” involved. While self defense experts (as well as the people that follow them), and law enforcement know differently.
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You imply there is sound logic behind them, there is not
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Different vision of the state and the human being. The more socialistic the state, the more the state is expected to take care of you. This can be good (it’s nice to have a safety net for the poor). This can be infantilizing (shitposting in the U.K. can send the police to your door to “check your thinking”).
You wouldn’t your kids fight it out with swords and guns and so the state acting *in loco parentis* won’t you do it either. We are all the children of the state and the job of the state is to look out for us.
