In Poland
you may have a fire gun but only if you
get a required
license. But should we fully legalize weapon possession
in Poland?
 |
In Poland
obtaining a permit for a gun is not easy. The
exam is not only practical but theoretical as well: it confirms your knowledge
of the law and the ability to use the weapon. We must also provide a valid
reason why we need such a permit. A person who would like to obtain a
permit for a gun should:
●
be at least 21 years old;
●
be a permanent resident of Poland
● have
active legal capacity;
●
be mentally and physically healthy
●
not have a criminal record.
.
Are we
safer without widespread access to weapons?
The US has
the highest gun ownership rate in the world - there are 89 guns for every 100
Americans, compared to 6 in England or 2 in Poland
And the
murder figures themselves are astounding for Brits used to around 550 murders
per year. In 2011 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available
- there were 12,664 murders in the US. Of those, 8,583 were caused by firearms.
In Poland in 2011 we had over 360 murders, but only 20 of them were caused by
firearms (due to restricted access to guns).
In my
opinion here in Poland people should have easier access to weapons (easier, but
still under control by the police!). Why?
Because That could prevent many robberies (bad guys would think twice before
they decide to assault someone - because their victim may have a weapon and use
it against them). Moreover I don’t think that more weapons would lead to more
crimes - before 1918 Poles could legally possess weapons and the number of
crimes were not significantly higher. And my last argument in favor of
facilitating access to weapons - more weapons = higher defense potential of our
nation - which as history shows, is very important (November Uprising, Warsaw
Uprising etc).
Sources:
Comments
The fact about number of crimes with weapon only shows that thanks to restricted law we don't have to deal with high rate of murders caused by firearms. The only advantage of possessing a weapon is fact that sooner or later there might be a war or the invasion of foreigners that would like to hurt us.
I believe there is a collection of topics that can be summarized: yes, this is a good idea to implement in a _mature_ and _wise_ society.
In fact, if they would like to do make it work in Poland, it should require changing much more than only the part about firearm possession in the law. Why have a gun if you cannot use it to self-defence? You cannot even have a knife that is longer than the one of the attacker or be trained in martial arts, because they will treat the attacker as "at a disadvantage" if he get's hurt.
A lot of people have the impression that we are in a 'safe place', but in fact it's just because nothing really happend to them or their families (yet). Hopefully it never will, but when something happens we are mostly on our own. It's good to know the law and have some idea of how you can effectively defend yourself (using a gun or not) in the case of a problem :)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-increases-risk-of-getting-shot-and-killed.html#.VVsXFqmTVfY
And you cant defent yourself, because you dont have a gun (robber ias aware of that aswell - thats why he's not affraid to attack anyone)
What can you do in such a situation? call police and wait for them like 10/20/30 minutes?
Restricted access to weapons is great option but only if we as a society can rely on law enforcement +
we are sure that anyone who is not allowed to ccarry a gun does not have any. In other cases we should be able to defend ourselves and our families.
Still, now if you want to legally have a gun, you can have it, but with proper training and permission. Why should we let people buy it basically without any control?
I've seen a lot of statistics concerning crime rates and availability of weapons, but the comparisons are mainly made by people of organisations strongly-pro or strongly-against unlimited avalaibility of guns. I think that a long-term, thoughtful, international and objective research should be held by the specialists before the law changes.
Sure, if a criminal wants to have a gun, he’ll buy one, no matter if it’s legal or not, and access to firearms would give the victim a chance to defend. However, think about that: do you really believe people who don't need guns would buy one once the law changes? Do you believe everyone will carry a gun in their pocket to be really able to do something? Do you think old people will carry guns to avod being robbed or that women will hide them in their purses when going out at night?
Do you believe everyone will be able to afford a gun? Do you believe that, given a choice, people would risk to use it? Do you think assaulted person would have a chance to draw it fast enough to threaten the assaulter in any way?
Besides - of course, some of the criminals already possess weapons, even if it's not legal, But surely, not all of them. I'm pretty sure some minor thugs or robbers find the difficulties with obtaining a gun hard to overcome. Unrestricted access to guns would give them more tools to harm others.
I'm not saying I would ban the firearms or anything like that. I'm just saying we're not specialists. We can't predict how our society would behave. If the research shows the firearms should be legal to increase our safety, so be it. Nevertheless, I don't think it should be for 'normal' people to decide.
I don't see a problem with control tests. I wouldn't like to give a gun to a mentally unstable people or former criminals, for example, and I don't see how that's unfair.
I have never felt to be in need of possessing a gun or other fire arm. I have also never been in a situation requiring me to use one. Even if there would be a situation in which it would help solving the situation, I probably could use a fake gun.
Using a fake gun is one of the worst you could do in the danger. This would easily get you killed, I promise. The most stupid thing is taking out a knife if you're not ready to use it especially in Poland and when you can't use it properly and 99.9999% of people can't.
Fortunately pepper sprays are quite effective.
First of all I wouldn't like to have a gun and I wouldn't want to shoot anybody, even a thief. And if someone breaks in and they see me with a gun, they are definitely going to try to shoot me , if I hide and wait there is a high possibility that they won't kill me. Most robbers just want to steal things not to kill. I knew people that had house robberies when they were inside their houses and they didn't even notice, because someone got in, took some stuff and left. Now "imagine" if they would run down with a gun and start shooting with the thieves.
Now I live in an apartment with guard downstairs so I feel quite safe here and I don't think that it would be easy to break in here. And earlier I lived in a house and we had an alarm that would go off when someone would be outside or inside and we also had "panic buttons" that would make guards arrive and it takes them about 3 minutes(I don't remember exactly, but they are quite quick) to come to the house. So I think that people living in houses should first get a good security company and then a gun if they need it.
In my opinion having firearms would make a lot of trouble. Of course people would feel safer but I would be afraid of coming home late or meeting another person with a gun. I don’t think it is a good idea that everyone should have a gun. I definitely don’t think that is a good idea.
With widely available weapons I would not feel safe. I will not have the courage to defend my-selves and I would be afraid people for whom I pass on the street.
I think that obtaining a permit for a gun is absolutely necessary for a person to posess a gun. I don't know much about the rules and exams but in my opinion it should not be easy. A have an uncle in Chicago and he told me that gunshots are nothing unusual there and people die in the streets everyday because of careless/ill-considered firearm use. All the guns should be registered and the owners should be checked on regularly.
Of course, there needs to be some kind of control so that, for example, people mentally ill or with an extensive criminal record wouldn't be able to legally acquire a firearm.
I just think that it's weird that in a free country you are denied ownership of a weapon that is meant to be a tool of protection.
But firearms aside, I really wish that our laws concerning self defence would change, now they are so strict that in most cases you can get a worse sentence in court rather than the person that assaulted you if you wound him or even in some cases kill while defending your life.
In Australia they had one of the biggest mass-murdering, after that the government decided: 'Well, guys, it was fun, but you crossed the line, we take your guns' after that there was no any single case of mass-murdering.
Those who love guns have a lot of arguments, but the most valid is: '**** you! Guns are cool!'. All other arguments like - 'I want to be able to protect my family from the killers' are invalid. Come on! You have too damn high self-esteem, that you think that some random guy would like to brake in your apartment and kill you with all your family, more than that, you overthink your importance in the world - that some people in the European country will want your death (of course if you are not playing with feelings of muslims and their god, then we all know what could happen).
In other words - I think Poland does well without gun. You don't need to bring new social problems in your society, you live good enough to be happy without playing in Clint Eastwood.