Ok I've just jumped into this topic to give my view on the actual topic title.
I don't believe any civilian should be allowed to carry a firearm away from their own property. No concealed carrying or anything.
Owning a firearm or two in your own home in a locked, secure case to be used in the event of a threat by home invaders would be acceptable in my eyes.
The problem these days with owning and carrying of guns on the street is the potential and ease in which it can be produced and used in a split second bout of irritation or altercation.
People who say they feel safer if they carry a gun are not safer in my opinion, they just feel it because they think people will think twice about attacking/robbing them.
Although this may appear to be some kind of truth, I think it actually hands the attacker the potential to do more harm by striking first with their own firearm...knowing you potentially have one.
The real issue is in stopping those that do own firearms and do carry them on the street. Those people need to be stopped/come down on, heavily.
This might not go down too well with those in America seeing this written by someone from England, seeing that we do not have owner carrying laws or even home protection laws with locked cabinets...except for those who go to shooting ranges and hunting, which even then there's a certain restriction on calibre of weapon.
Look at the knife crime in England.
Do you think people carrying flick knives for their own protection is a good thing?
What about carrying concealed truncheons or knuckle dusters?
This is what should happen.
All guns and all knives or deliberate offensive weapons carried by a person in public should be come down on extremely heavily, all across the board for those who do not have a licence to carry the weapon.
Ban them all and make sure the punishment fits the crime of having them in carrying or in use.
The problem is that, inherently, criminals do not follow laws, although us good people do. If you say that people can not carry weapons anymore, 99.9% of the people would happily compy, but the criminals would continue to carry their knives or pistols or brass knuckles or whatever. That would seem to put us good people at a disadvantage.
I agree with you in terms of how it is right now and this is why I mention about punishment fitting the crime.
Just like potential murderers or whatever will still murder regardless of the death penalty, so will certain criminals carrying guns, shoot people.
There will never be a perfect answer to stopping it altogether but I believe you can significantly reduce the potential of gun crime and the number of people carrying by simply banning firearms, altogether as a stringent rule on the streets.
You not only take away the ease in which guns can come into criminal contact but you also have a message sent out for any potential criminal who feels carrying a gun is cool and a scare tactic in committing a crime, that being caught in possession on the streets results in 5 years hard labour just for carrying and no exceptions to the rule.
From there the penalties get stiffer.
Now, fair enough you will not stop the hard core gun toting people in a quick fix but you will massively lower the number who potentially take that road...meaning...by percentage, that gun crime becomes insignificant on the whole and people will naturally feel much safer knowing the real penalties for use of such weapons.
Let's put it plainer. Even certain hardcore gun users/criminals take great pains to ensure their weapons are brought in by stealth and they know in those weapons their jail time would be substantial.
Not many want to go to jail for a length of time that strips their young lives away to be replaced by a wasted ageing streetwalker after parole, if it becomes a case.
In a childish sort of way it comes down to this.
If I bring a knife, you bring a bigger knife. If You bring a bigger knife, I bring a sword. If I bring a sword, you bring a small gun and so on and so on.
What I'm saying is, people being allowed to carry and use in what they deem, a situation requiring it, may come up against someone who brings the bigger gun to the table knowing what you're allowed to carry.
Not only does it put your life in bigger danger but potentially could lead to many more lives being lost in the event of you reacting to a situation that may not actually require it.
Basically scare tactics being reacted upon by real time actions of you and your gun, creating a real time reaction from the criminal using his/her gun which may have not even happened if you'd never produced your gun.
If's and but's...yet the situation would be generally created in that scenario, I think.
The reality in life is, most people would be far too scared to even go for a gun and use it. The bigger reality is most people wouldn't be able to effectively use a gun for its intended purpose.
You may if you are army trained.
Some may if they are shooting range trained.
By the looks of it, most criminals can't even use a gun properly from what I've seen.
The likelihood of anyone using a firearm in a situation would result in collateral damage rather than localised.
That's obviously just my opinion based on how I see the things panning out.