Views on the death penalty and gun control

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I would like to see how people's views on these two matters relate to each other.

For interests of clarity, I have made the poll black and white.

I'm expecting to see three distinct groups. I would be very surprised if one of the options gets many votes.

What do "pro-gun" and "anti-gun" mean? Those are loaded terms. It's like asking "What is your stance on abortion, pro-baby or anti-baby?"

You can't really put "pro-control or anti-control" either, since the vast majority of people agree with gun control of some sort. It's not a binary issue.

I guess I would be called "pro-gun" although I don't like that term, because I don't particularly like guns. But I think that gun ownership has little to do with whether someone will become violent and commit a crime.

I am definitely and have always been against the death penalty. We have a fairly good justice system, I know of none better. But that doesn't mean it's perfect. Some people get away with crimes, others are blamed for, and convicted of, things they didn't do. Besides which, killing a killer, once the killer is locked up and no longer a danger, seems like the pot calling the kettle black. Additionally, the reasons something is made a capital crime don't always make sense, such as killing in the course of another crime or killing a cop or a child, or premeditation - all of these make it seem as if killing one person is worse, or doing it one way is worse than another. It brings into question how we value life. I find it all absurd.

Last edited by BlueAbyss on 10 Jan 2013, 4:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Pro-gun, anti-death penalty (#3 would be the one that gets little votes)

I'd like to see the gun laws relaxed in this country but I have no desire to bring back the death penalty.

I don't think the terms I have used are nearly as loaded as the abortion examples (proudly anti-baby here).

I wanted fairly simple terms.

If you want a clearer definition, then someone who is "pro-gun" would think that civilians should be allowed to own guns without needing it for their livelihood (so farmers would be exempt, for example, as would gamekeepers), or because they live in an area where wildlife poses a genuine threat. If you think guns should be allowed for self defence, or just on a whim, or to prevent a tyrannical government, or to keep crime down, then you are "pro-gun" by this poll.

The death penalty is too risky, self defense is a human right.

Well then I am pro-gun. And yet whenever the topic of gun control comes up, gun nuts always label me (correctly) as an enemy.

There's a reason it's called gun control, and not gun prohibition.

Pro-gun and pro-death penalty in some cases...

And where have you seen this gun control work so well?
Not just places with low violent crime that also have strict gun control but where it can be considered evident that the low crime is attributed to gun control.

It costs more to execute a criminal than to put him/her in prison for life.

I don't want the death penalty to come back in my country and I am satisfied with the gun control laws in my country.

now that guns have [proof of concept] been shown to be printable via 3d printers, ammunition control is where things will head. it is the low-hanging fruit, in that relatively few gun-users [especially the crooks] would be willing to "roll their own" so to speak. also make the means to assemble ammo from scratch much harder to get "off the rack." back to saltpeter!

Pretty much this.

I'm not opposed to the death penalty in theory but there is no way that government can be trusted to carry it out fairly and without error.

Defending oneself is a fundamental human right.

Also the death penlty is lazy and barbaric in its own right.

Surely we are more Sophisticated than this? And what does gun ownership achieve? Historic collections is one thing, owning a vulcan minigun is another.

Easier to just make a longbow/flatbow. Kills just as dead as any firearm at range (little noise too), and the rate of fire isn't too bad with practice.

No idea why there's no "anti-bow" lobbies around, really.

should guns be eliminated and longbows were all that existed, sure enough a lobby would arise to ban them as well. did you hear about that first grader that was expelled from school because he pointed his finger at a classmate and said "BANG!"? actually, this kind of overreaction is old hat in japan where as a tenet of the shinto religion there, the first thing schoolkids were [decades back, in any case] taught [according to my late japanese mother] was NON-VIOLENCE, no playing "cops and robbers" or pretend violence of any kind. it was ok for teachers to cane students for doing this, though- how ironic.