After the mandatory service is over, you can keep the weapon, but it has to be modified so that it is no longer full-auto. At that point I think you also give back the sealed ammo. I don't know what the loaded-weapon law is then. I suspect it is still frowned upon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3466525.stm

[quote]
"It is trite and irresponsible to accuse violent video games of promoting crime, argues Daniel Etherington of BBCi Collective in his weekly games column."
[/quote]

And to think U.S. Crime rates are at a low... video games cause that too? :P

no.. thats caused by an increase in:
teenage drinking
teenage porn
Kid Rock Albums
and other disgusting items (such as inbreeding) that is causing our crooks to be to ignorant to know how to commit a real crime.

Mcnut, i am very, very offended by that crack on inbreeding. Please remove it.

really urza? i almost have to say "let it stay' at least that would give some of our dumber crooks an excuse. Thee was an article in the paper here recently about a woman who CALLED THE POLICE to report that her boyfriend had STOLEN HER MARIJUANA. She wanted them to get it back so she could SELL IT.

How does inbreeding cause crime? It doesn't. I find that type of sterotyping very, very insulting.

it doesn't cause crime, but genetic defects are more likely to appear, including a lowering of average IQ and an increase in the possibility of mental retardation. This would at least give the criminals an excuse for being dumb criminals.

AT least we aint Australian:

From: Ed Chenel, A police officer in Australia

Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the real figures from Down Under. It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars.

The first year results are now in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent, Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)! In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now! Up 300 percent.

(Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not and criminals still possess their guns!)

While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed. There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly.

Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in "successfully ridding Australian society of guns." You won't see this on the American evening news or hear your governor or members of the state Assembly disseminating this information.

The Australian experience proves it. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save ! lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens. Take note Americans, before it's to late!


NOW HERES WHERE WE HAVE GONE HORRIBLY WRONG!

INTERESTING
Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up yet?


It's the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group of idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.



Okay, so I've concluded thar we are all screwed by way of the US Congress

/me gets out The Sounds' "Living in America" and cranks up the volume..

If guns are outlawed, the only people with guns will be the outlaws.

No, I'm not a gun nut. ;)

Look at switzerland.. If i recall, the male landowners are REQUIRED to have an ASSULT RIFLE and 20 rounds of ammunition in their house.

And they have a very, very low murder and crime rate.

Tell me, would you break into someone's house if you knew that person slept near a M4 and a full clip?

You're mostly correct. The rifle and sealed ammo are issued when males turn 20, and are part of mandatory military service. The ammo is not to be opened unless there is a warlike emergency. The seal is inspected at least once a year (and given a fish). It is prohibited to keep the weapon loaded. Crime is down compared to other countries, but gun-related suicides are up.

Wow, thats kinda interesting in Switzerland. Although, hmm. Is the Rifle owned by teh Feds there then? And Does the user have to return it at the end of service or is it kept incase of a warlike emergency?

And the Stats from Australia aren't too great on Gun Suicides either

manditory military service.. but switzerland has always remained a neutral country if i recall correctly.

So if someone ever does attack the swiss, all males must report for duty i assume.

Here is a question.. If someone breaks into your house with a glock, could you call it an act of terroism (The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating -- dictionary.com)?

If you could call it that, would you not have the right to shoot them because it is a warlike emergency?

Okay, so you get the weapon free of cahrge from the government for your military service. Then afterwards you are allowed to keep the weapon but it isn't permitted to be Fully Automatic and the sealed ammunition is taken back.

Okay, so can you buy that type of ammunition as a civvi? And does the government simply issue a different classification of weapon after your military service is over since it would be extremely expensive over several decades to give out free weapons then have them customized later....wow.


On the gun suicides thing, in Australia, (1999 stats) the gun suicide rate was 32 in 1000 people commited suicide, 10 of the 32 were gun suicides, 11 were hangings and the rest were in the knife or fall related category. (These stats are from the 1999 statisics I beleive, the site was between 1990-2000 study and this is the Late 1998-Late 1999 study year)

In fact on the teenage drinking and porn, clinical depression is up from the 1970s and it's not entirely understood why. It's beleived to be related to world, social and other events that are now present. Also, the level of stress teenagers are under to perform and not slide by is beleived to have raised significantly. Teenage Porn, is that meant as Phedophile images such as Child Pornography or do you mean as in Teenagers Accessing Pornography. In most cases, porn is much easier to access now then it was in even the early 1990s. The WWW has seen a major boom in pornography, dating services and other adult services since now there's no walk or shame or anything. It has become VERY impersonnal and also harder to track teenage offenders.
Porn is estimated to be the single biggest profit area in the .com area for the past SIX years. This is for the above reasons. Most other items can be purchased in public without guilt but porn is almost universally accessed from the home now via the WWW since there is no guilty feeling that another human being really knows about it happening.

In Switzerland, during your "reserve militia" years, you're issued the FAL or whatever they issue over there with ammunition. At retirement, you turn in the gun and ammo, and they give you a different gun (I can't remember what it is).

Also, if people are intent on committing suicide, it doesn't matter if they have a gun or not--they'll manage somehow.

It's sad that Australia is going through with the gun ban. In England, crime rates have shot through the roof, and you're in danger of being machine-gunned on your doorstep, in some parts of London. *hugs his R700* Out of my cold, dead hands will you pry this gun from me.

Oh, Urza, here's that carbine I was telling you about:
http://www.berettaworld.com/Moduli/ContentManager/publicimg/Cx4storm_IMG4.jpg

Available in 9mmx19, 40 S&W, and 45 ACP. *grin*