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Im really suprised about the number of weapons in civil hands. But now that I think about it I realise that there are a lot of people I know that collect special weapons. (1 goes for swords, 1 old ww2 weapons etc) but there are also a lot of marksmen groups. There is a marksmen village in nearly every "big" village. [we dont have a lot to do in the eifel and germans love to be in clubs - you could make this your next subject]
I think this is also a big factor in this statistic that there are a lot of hunters/marksmen. + those who collect weapons.
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Well, I think you can not just list figures, US citizens mostly own weapons to defend themselves or because "why the hell not", or am I mistaken?
Germans mostly own weapons for hunting, recreational shooting etc, or am I also mistaken?
I never heard someone in Germany say he owns a weapon for reasons of self defence, altough there are ppl who would cite that as their reason, no doubt.
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Zurich15305 Posts
On July 08 2011 19:29 Redox wrote: I dont get the point of this at all. Wtf does gun ownership have to do with peace? I guess the title was a bit misleading. I wanted to write about a number of issues under the broad umbrella of peace where the public opinion of Germans collide with the actual facts. I do think gun ownership is a valid topic in that regard.
I didnt get the EU bit either. The EU forces members to participate in wars now or what? Show nested quote +This will lead to a common defence, when the European Council, acting unanimously, so decides. Every single EU member would have to agree to military action under that clause. Which will basically never happen. The Council is made up of the member states' governments. Which means that the member states' executive branch can order military action, without the legislative even being heard, and without checks by the judicative branch. Again, not even in the Kaiserreich was the executive granted powers like this.
Arguing that it's not going to happen anyway is a dangerous idea to me when we talk about the concepts of peace of war.
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Zurich15305 Posts
On July 08 2011 19:50 MBH wrote: Germans mostly own weapons for hunting, recreational shooting etc, or am I also mistaken?
I never heard someone in Germany say he owns a weapon for reasons of self defence, altough there are ppl who would cite that as their reason, no doubt. Certainly correct. I have made no claims otherwise.
You can officially apply for a gun license on the grounds of self defense in Germany too, but your chances to get the license granted are much lower, and you need very good reason. So I suppose people interested in that usually just join a shooting club and apply for the sports license.
You guys seem to think I have a certain intention with regard to gun politics with this thread. I don't, I just like to present some facts most people are oblivious about.
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I don't know anyone that owns a gun and it has also never been a point of discussion when I am with people. The chance that a thread like "Which guns do you own/plan to own" like we have in general would be opened by a german is probably non-existent. And we also just don't have them to protect our house or our family.
But since the point you wanted to get across is that it is not hard to get a weapons licence in germany, I did not know about that, so that is definitely interesting.
Still, the nubmer of guns (25million) is really just a number that does not tell us anything in my opinion. However, there are quite a few weapon-shops in the centre of bigger cities, so there definitely seems to be demand for weapons.
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"After World War II, moves towards European integration were seen by many as an escape from the extreme forms of nationalism which had devastated the continent" -->wikipedia
The idea was to prevent war within europe, and so there is a requirement that all countries provide resources towards a joint european army.
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Nicely written, but nothing really new for me. Nearly everything you said is pretty common knowledge, at least as far as I and my friends/ family is concerned.
What I didn'T like is that you say 25 Mio Guns is basically 1 for every third Person. Yes I know it's mathematically somewhat correct, but in may show a false picture for someone reading it. In reality I'm sure theres less then 10% or even 5% of the population who owns a gun. Only those have 3-6 guns on average putting the gun per person on 0.3 .
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I usually like your articles but this one was pretty subjective and thus bad. You make it sound like there are a lot of firearms in german households which is definately not true.
The majority of the weapons are NOT automatic or semi-automatic but weapons used (and stored...) in shooting ranges. Those weapons actually have very strict laws that enforce you to separate weapon and ammunition as well as store it in a safe. This is why most of the weapons are NOT in the houses of the people. So the laws are very strict compared to the rest of the world (however the control of it is not). A major flaw is also your interpretation how these weapon are used in germany. You are not allowed to go to the woods and shoot some trees or setup you own firing range. It is very much regulated and controlled when you are shooting at a local shooting club.
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Zurich15305 Posts
On July 08 2011 20:20 Malinor wrote: I don't know anyone that owns a gun. That's the thing. How would you know? Aside from that personal experience is not really the most reliable source, but I can give you a counter example: Part of my family are hunters, and have been for generations. Everyone of them owns at least one hunting rifle.
My boss at work has a small collections of guns. My cousin is a competetive sports shooter. My neighbor in downtown Munich has a whole case full of semi automatic assault rifles, his brother owns guns as well.
Several people I went to university with were gun owners and regular shooters. Yet probably all my other class mates, as well as my other coworkers will say too "I have never met anyone who has a gun" since it's just not something people like to talk about in public. If you are an outspoken opponent of gun ownership it is very likely you will never meet someone who has guns since they will just not want to talk to you about that, much less bring the topic up themselves.
On July 08 2011 20:32 fleeze wrote: I usually like your articles but this one was pretty subjective and thus bad. You make it sound like there are a lot of firearms in german households which is definately not true. What was subjective about it and what was bad? All my other articles are subjective, this is one of few where I just write facts and not just claims based only on personal experience.
What is a lot? If the number of 4 million gun licenses I believe to remember is correct than that is 4 million owners in a country of 40 million households. I didn't post these numbers since I don't have reliable sources for them. You can decide yourself if that is a lot or not.
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I like how the more Germans who come into this thread denying, bashing and counter-arguing the points/facts in the OP kind of cements the whole point the OP is trying to make.
The argument "I don't know anyone with guns. You source must be wrong." just proves that it's a touchy subject and you'd rather go with the widely believed truth than check up on the facts.
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On July 08 2011 20:36 zatic wrote:That's the thing. How would you know? Aside from that personal experience is not really the most reliable source, but I can give you a counter example: Part of my family are hunters, and have been for generations. Everyone of them owns at least one hunting rifle. My boss at work has a small collections of guns. My cousin is a competetive sports shooter. My neighbor in downtown Munich has a whole case full of semi automatic assault rifles, his brother owns guns as well. Several people I went to university with were gun owners and regular shooters. Yet probably all my other class mates, as well as my other coworkers will say too "I have never met anyone who has a gun" since it's just not something people like to talk about in public. If you are an outspoken opponent of gun ownership it is very likely you will never meet someone who has guns since they will just not want to talk to you about that, much less bring the topic up themselves.
I am not an outspoken gun opponent. I just don't care. I have nerver witnessed a conversation about guns, that is all I am saying. Maybe there are also major regional differences, I don't know.
My problem is here that you make it sound that guns are a mass pheonmena in germany, which they are not. There is no silent majority of 15million people who are afraid of talking about them being gun owners because of the social stigma. I cannot argue against your numbers, since you did the research and I did not. But just pulling the number "25million" out of the hat is simply misleading. What exactly does this number tell me? That there are lots of guns in our country. I suspected this beforehand.
But since we are talking about statistics, just look up some number about gun-crimes in germany. the number is just freakishly low, weapons are simply not a part of our daily life. Just that these weapons exist and that someone ones them doesn't do anything if they are nearly never being used for anything harmful ever (And 2-3 school-shootings hardly count).
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"Total Guns" is a bit of a useless metric. How many of them are used/designed for Sport-Shooting/Hunting (and are probably even locked up at the shooting-range? I have no idea myself)? How many just lie around to kill evil burglars? .
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Zurich15305 Posts
On July 08 2011 20:57 Malinor wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2011 20:36 zatic wrote:On July 08 2011 20:20 Malinor wrote: I don't know anyone that owns a gun. That's the thing. How would you know? Aside from that personal experience is not really the most reliable source, but I can give you a counter example: Part of my family are hunters, and have been for generations. Everyone of them owns at least one hunting rifle. My boss at work has a small collections of guns. My cousin is a competetive sports shooter. My neighbor in downtown Munich has a whole case full of semi automatic assault rifles, his brother owns guns as well. Several people I went to university with were gun owners and regular shooters. Yet probably all my other class mates, as well as my other coworkers will say too "I have never met anyone who has a gun" since it's just not something people like to talk about in public. If you are an outspoken opponent of gun ownership it is very likely you will never meet someone who has guns since they will just not want to talk to you about that, much less bring the topic up themselves. There is no silent majority of 15million people who are afraid of talking about them being gun owners because of the social stigma. I am saying there is a silent minority of 4 million people. Again, it's for everyone to decide for themselves if that is a lot or not.
I put the number of 25mio in the OP since it most drastically shows the difference in what the public believes about gun ownership and what is actually true. That, and I was a bit shocked myself that it was so many - I would have expected something like 12mio. But I have updated that section now to make it clear the one gun for every three people wasn't supposed to imly an even distribution.
Also I don't see how gun crime or the actual usage of the guns has any relevance to the topic I wanted to talk about: That what most people think in Germany about guns in their own country in respect of numbers and ease of access is just wrong.
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On July 08 2011 20:44 Cuddle wrote: I like how the more Germans who come into this thread denying, bashing and counter-arguing the points/facts in the OP kind of cements the whole point the OP is trying to make.
I dont think so, because there was no obvious point. People (like myself) were more asking what his point was.
On July 08 2011 20:44 Cuddle wrote: The argument "I don't know anyone with guns. You source must be wrong." just proves that it's a touchy subject and you'd rather go with the widely believed truth than check up on the facts. Noone said that. Dont make up quotes. There is a quote function on this forum for a reason. And the numbers presented here are not new to me at all.
Also, as said before, these weapon numbers do appear to be somewhat pointless as they are not indicative of the number of gun owners. Also, the legal firearms in Germany are virtually never involved in gun crimes.
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A compliment to you for the entire series. Kept me reading and grinning and smirking and realizing why I felt so alien in a country where I've lived for 2 1/2 years. About the guns.. I seriously hate the action -> reaction politics of the government, like with the school shooting for example. A tragedy like that happens and it's a must that laws be changed, even if they are minor, inconsequential, irrational changes. It's like the public needs a vent, to be assured that action has been taken so they can rest assured and get on with the next topic. When this way of dealing with incidents becomes the norm it can generate loopholes, like conspiracy terrorist action just to get the momentum to push an illegal law through without too much public resistance. That's where I see the major concern for safety in the future, not how many guns people own. Very good blog-series.
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On July 08 2011 20:36 zatic wrote:That's the thing. How would you know? Aside from that personal experience is not really the most reliable source, but I can give you a counter example: Part of my family are hunters, and have been for generations. Everyone of them owns at least one hunting rifle. My boss at work has a small collections of guns. My cousin is a competetive sports shooter. My neighbor in downtown Munich has a whole case full of semi automatic assault rifles, his brother owns guns as well. Several people I went to university with were gun owners and regular shooters. Yet probably all my other class mates, as well as my other coworkers will say too "I have never met anyone who has a gun" since it's just not something people like to talk about in public. If you are an outspoken opponent of gun ownership it is very likely you will never meet someone who has guns since they will just not want to talk to you about that, much less bring the topic up themselves. Show nested quote +On July 08 2011 20:32 fleeze wrote: I usually like your articles but this one was pretty subjective and thus bad. You make it sound like there are a lot of firearms in german households which is definately not true. What was subjective about it and what was bad? All my other articles are subjective, this is one of few where I just write facts and not just claims based only on personal experience. What is a lot? If the number of 4 million gun licenses I believe to remember is correct than that is 4 million owners in a country of 40 million households. I didn't post these numbers since I don't have reliable sources for them. You can decide yourself if that is a lot or not.
You put it into a wrong perspective for foreigners. That's what I don't like about it. And maybe you are stating facts, but you forgot to mention the side effects.
Yes I agree with you that there are guns in german households. But it's in no way comparable to the US or other countries with less strict gun laws. There may be 4 million gun licensees (which are not households but people), but how many of these 4 million store there guns at home? My guess would be it's way less than 50%. Most of the guns are stored at the shooting ranges because the laws on gun storage are really strict in Germany. And most of these gun owners don't just have guns for the fun of it or for self-defense (like in the US). They are part of a shooting club or are hunters (which requires a strict certification in Germany too).
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On July 08 2011 21:01 Velr wrote:"Total Guns" is a bit of a useless metric. How many of them are used/designed for Sport-Shooting/Hunting (and are probably even locked up at the shooting-range? I have no idea myself)? How many just lie around to kill evil burglars? . this is exactly my point. Most (My guess would be 90%+) are designed for shooting or hunting. NONE lie around to kill evil burglars because it is forbidden to store your gun outside of a safe. You are not allowed to have a gun in the kitchen or next to your bed in Germany. AND you have to store the ammunition at a separate place so you would in no way be able to collect your gun and arm it if a burglar entered your house.
edit: Sorry for double post, wanted to edit.
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Zurich15305 Posts
On July 08 2011 21:23 fleeze wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2011 20:36 zatic wrote:On July 08 2011 20:20 Malinor wrote: I don't know anyone that owns a gun. That's the thing. How would you know? Aside from that personal experience is not really the most reliable source, but I can give you a counter example: Part of my family are hunters, and have been for generations. Everyone of them owns at least one hunting rifle. My boss at work has a small collections of guns. My cousin is a competetive sports shooter. My neighbor in downtown Munich has a whole case full of semi automatic assault rifles, his brother owns guns as well. Several people I went to university with were gun owners and regular shooters. Yet probably all my other class mates, as well as my other coworkers will say too "I have never met anyone who has a gun" since it's just not something people like to talk about in public. If you are an outspoken opponent of gun ownership it is very likely you will never meet someone who has guns since they will just not want to talk to you about that, much less bring the topic up themselves. On July 08 2011 20:32 fleeze wrote: I usually like your articles but this one was pretty subjective and thus bad. You make it sound like there are a lot of firearms in german households which is definately not true. What was subjective about it and what was bad? All my other articles are subjective, this is one of few where I just write facts and not just claims based only on personal experience. What is a lot? If the number of 4 million gun licenses I believe to remember is correct than that is 4 million owners in a country of 40 million households. I didn't post these numbers since I don't have reliable sources for them. You can decide yourself if that is a lot or not. You put it into a wrong perspective for foreigners. That's what I don't like about it. And maybe you are stating facts, but you forgot to mention the side effects. Yes I agree with you that there are guns in german households. But it's in no way comparable to the US or other countries with less strict gun laws. There may be 4 million gun licensees (which are not households but people), but how many of these 4 million store there guns at home? My guess would be it's way less than 50%. Most of the guns are stored at the shooting ranges because the laws on gun storage are really strict in Germany. And most of these gun owners don't just have guns for the fun of it or for self-defense (like in the US). They are part of a shooting club or are hunters (which requires a strict certification in Germany too). There are conflicting numbers out there, and unfortunately most of them are published by the gun lobby so should be taken with a grain of salt. What they say though is either 10% of households own guns (Canadian Firearms Centre study from 1998), or that there are 4-5mio issued licenses.
Considering storage at home: You need a safe certified for gun storage, and a lockable case for transportation. Guns may not be stored loaded, or in fact be loaded anywhere but a shooting range.
I fail to see how this is "really strict". Seems more like common sense to me. Anyway of all the gun owners I know none of them stores their guns at the range.
And how is being part of a shooting club for competitive or recreational shooting not "having the gun for the fun of it"?
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On July 08 2011 21:12 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2011 20:57 Malinor wrote:On July 08 2011 20:36 zatic wrote:On July 08 2011 20:20 Malinor wrote: I don't know anyone that owns a gun. That's the thing. How would you know? Aside from that personal experience is not really the most reliable source, but I can give you a counter example: Part of my family are hunters, and have been for generations. Everyone of them owns at least one hunting rifle. My boss at work has a small collections of guns. My cousin is a competetive sports shooter. My neighbor in downtown Munich has a whole case full of semi automatic assault rifles, his brother owns guns as well. Several people I went to university with were gun owners and regular shooters. Yet probably all my other class mates, as well as my other coworkers will say too "I have never met anyone who has a gun" since it's just not something people like to talk about in public. If you are an outspoken opponent of gun ownership it is very likely you will never meet someone who has guns since they will just not want to talk to you about that, much less bring the topic up themselves. There is no silent majority of 15million people who are afraid of talking about them being gun owners because of the social stigma. I am saying there is a silent minority of 4 million people. Again, it's for everyone to decide for themselves if that is a lot or not. I put the number of 25mio in the OP since it most drastically shows the difference in what the public believes about gun ownership and what is actually true. That, and I was a bit shocked myself that it was so many - I would have expected something like 12mio. But I have updated that section now to make it clear the one gun for every three people wasn't supposed to imly an even distribution. Also I don't see how gun crime or the actual usage of the guns has any relevance to the topic I wanted to talk about: That what most people think in Germany about guns in their own country in respect of numbers and ease of access is just wrong.
As has already come up, I just think that you presented the topic a bit misleading. Gun crime or usage of guns has no relevance towards the point you were trying to make, but you labeled the blog peace and pacifism, and then said there are at least 4 million gun holders and 25 million weapons. I think for a lot of people this basically implies that they are used and that they are common in daily life and we germans just don't want to hear about it or present ourselves differently towards other countries. That was just what I wanted to tackle, because if you are not a gun owner or go to a Schützenverein, your contact with guns in germany is basically non-existent.
The facts you are showing are as I already said quite interesting and I didn't know about that stuff. I always thought getting a gun in germany would be a huge upstacle.
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On July 08 2011 21:34 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2011 21:23 fleeze wrote:On July 08 2011 20:36 zatic wrote:On July 08 2011 20:20 Malinor wrote: I don't know anyone that owns a gun. That's the thing. How would you know? Aside from that personal experience is not really the most reliable source, but I can give you a counter example: Part of my family are hunters, and have been for generations. Everyone of them owns at least one hunting rifle. My boss at work has a small collections of guns. My cousin is a competetive sports shooter. My neighbor in downtown Munich has a whole case full of semi automatic assault rifles, his brother owns guns as well. Several people I went to university with were gun owners and regular shooters. Yet probably all my other class mates, as well as my other coworkers will say too "I have never met anyone who has a gun" since it's just not something people like to talk about in public. If you are an outspoken opponent of gun ownership it is very likely you will never meet someone who has guns since they will just not want to talk to you about that, much less bring the topic up themselves. On July 08 2011 20:32 fleeze wrote: I usually like your articles but this one was pretty subjective and thus bad. You make it sound like there are a lot of firearms in german households which is definately not true. What was subjective about it and what was bad? All my other articles are subjective, this is one of few where I just write facts and not just claims based only on personal experience. What is a lot? If the number of 4 million gun licenses I believe to remember is correct than that is 4 million owners in a country of 40 million households. I didn't post these numbers since I don't have reliable sources for them. You can decide yourself if that is a lot or not. You put it into a wrong perspective for foreigners. That's what I don't like about it. And maybe you are stating facts, but you forgot to mention the side effects. Yes I agree with you that there are guns in german households. But it's in no way comparable to the US or other countries with less strict gun laws. There may be 4 million gun licensees (which are not households but people), but how many of these 4 million store there guns at home? My guess would be it's way less than 50%. Most of the guns are stored at the shooting ranges because the laws on gun storage are really strict in Germany. And most of these gun owners don't just have guns for the fun of it or for self-defense (like in the US). They are part of a shooting club or are hunters (which requires a strict certification in Germany too). There are conflicting numbers out there, and unfortunately most of them are published by the gun lobby so should be taken with a grain of salt. What they say though is either 10% of households own guns (Canadian Firearms Centre study from 1998), or that there are 4-5mio issued licenses. Considering storage at home: You need a safe certified for gun storage, and a lockable case for transportation. Guns may not be stored loaded, or in fact be loaded anywhere but a shooting range. I fail to see how this is "really strict". Seems more like common sense to me. Anyway of all the gun owners I know none of them stores their guns at the range. And how is being part of a shooting club for competitive or recreational shooting not "having the gun for the fun of it"?
Well, I agree with you here. I just wanted to avoid that people think something like in my quoted post above.
Also I agree with Malinor. It just sounds wrong in the context of your OP.
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