I've read that the quality of life in Sweden is even better.

Pretty much any first world country with a democracy is going to be swell to live in, in comparison to the rest of the world.

America is a great country to live in. I don't have any deal breaking problems with living in America, but the idea that it's "the greatest country on Earth" is mostly just propoganda. According to this and this it's only seventh best country to live in. Still pretty good though.

Iceland is also another amazing place to live in. A lot of the big cities in America can be unpleasant to live in if you're in some of the more poverty stricken parts.

I imagine that even American poverty beats third-world poverty though.

you should

Iceland is pretty boring, though, from descriptions

Fundamentally, the United States is the greatest country. The Bill of Rights give an reasonable person the freedom to what they want. Our constitution is a template for any democratic constitution that has been ratified since, which is to say all of them. That's not to say these freedoms have always been used to make this country the greatest or that our constitution is perfect. If it was we would have banned slavery 79 years earlier than we did.

I personally, hold these truths to be self-evident...

As is Australia. America has huge homeless problems. Oh and ~18 trillion in debt. And don't you have to pay for healthcare? America has guns which I personally don't think I'd feel safe with.The homicide rates between America and Australia is large. But Australia is only an example, I think Norway and Belgium are really good countries for quality of life.

Just recently Australians were rated the happiest in the world, New Zealand came 4th. USA was not in the top of the list at all.

If you're going to look at lists over what countries you should live in, it's better to look up a proper list based on criteria you can understand rather than the list made by the people running some website who don't explain to you how they got their numbers. A pretty official index is United Nation's Human Development Index which includes stuff like standards of living and education.

List of countries by Human Development Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Iceland is not that great a country to live in at the moment because they got hit terribly hard by the economic crisis. The banks there had given out a huge number of loans among other things, so now a lot of Icelanders have moved to Norway. Before that, it was good.

edit :

That guy is trying too hard to be a dick. If he wants to troll, he could do it better by being less obvious.

You'd feel even less safe without them.

people are crazy and they'd use knives or any other weapons they could get their hands on

No, actually I would be thrilled if all the people shooting each other left and right in my city didn't have guns.

People are also lazy and takes a lot more effort to kill someone with a gun than with a knife. So I'd definitely prefer the knife scenario to the gun scenario.

the same people that are shooting each other with guns would still have to off their foes and they would gladly resort to knives, I don't know what you are talking about.

Killing someone with a knife is pretty easy.

If there are no guns there would just be more knife deaths/stabbings.

I'm aware of Iceland's debt, but it might be just the fact that I'm obsessed with moving to Iceland in the future.

Could you kindly explain the mechanics of how someone would do a drive-by with a knife?

they drive up....two hop out with the deadly knife tactics they kill the person and hop back into the car and ride off.


Easy!


sure it's not as smooth and effortless but it can happen

Sounds like a lot more work than a gun to me. And like I said, people are lazy. There is no doubt in my mind that if all the guns in Philly somehow magically vanished tomorrow there would be a lot less people getting killed.

Yes it's more work but you underestimate the dedication of gangs.

Glad we settled that.

there's people killing people everyday in the world

other countries just gets less coverage and you don't get coverage of them where you live

i don't think the right to bear arms is gonna change anything

in the Rwandan civil war, people were piling into people with whatever they could get their hands on

yeah you quoted me from two different scenarios

one was before you decided to add in a drive by

if people are walking on the street killing with a knife and a gun is the same

if you are comparing knife and gun with a drive by, yes then a gun is easy.

Really? So you could, for example, stab someone who is across the street from you just as easily as you could shoot them? Is that what you're suggesting?

each scenario that you present is always in favor of the gun instead of presenting a scenario that is more neutral , where the two would be equal.


you are presenting a scenario of ranged verses closed ranged.

Well, that's the point. A gun is easier to kill someone with because it doesn't require you to get within arm's reach of them.

if you have horrible accuracy with the gun you aren't going to kill the person though just because it's a ranged weapon.

You'd still have better chances than trying to kill someone at long range with a knife. Plus I don't think it requires amazing accuracy to shoot someone from, say, 15 feet away.

there's something called a throwing knife, you know

also, if you can chuck a butcher knife with enough force, you can kill someone quite far off

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the average murderer in my city is unlikely to be a knife throwing expert.

if you are going out on a limb for that then why must you insist that all gun shootings are going to be at long range when they occur at both places? close and long range.

Especially when they know they might be a ****ty shot, they usually go for point black range.

Huh? When have I insisted that all shootings are going to be at long range?

I'm not gonna go out on a limb and say your correct. Theres a reason they have gun ranges. I've never seen knife ranges. I would feel more confident having a gun in every situation, even arms length. It takes alot of force to kill someone with a knife.

Thank you. I'd also add that there's a reason criminals generally choose guns over knives even though knives are cheaper.

This is a ridiculous argument, obviously the gun is the dominant weapon. That doesn't mean they should be outlawed.

That's ridiculous. The whole point of a drive-by is that you can drive by and shoot someone quickly, without getting out of the car, and get away in seconds without there being much chance of being stopped or recognized.

You're just making **** up cause you're too lazy to actually think about whether or not your position makes any sense.

Note: I'm not really decided on the issue. I'm just pointing out a bad argument.

I'm not actually arguing that guns should be outlawed, I'm just responding to DJ's claim that people would feel less safe if there were no guns.

My position makes perfect sense and I'm not being lazy about it, maybe you don't see the bigger scope and Janz probably missed it as well at the beginning.

if guns are outlawed completely and people weren't able to get guns other weapons would become the main weapon of choice and that will not stop any violence at all!

that's how this all started but maybe it was overlooked.

Americans are more violent in general and gangs will still find other methods to kill their rivals if they didn't have guns plain and simple.

how is that being lazy or having a weak argument?

maybe you are just being lazy and not thinking outside of the box or trying to understand my point. You probably just came in on the tail end of this discussion.

Well, his case lacks substance, evidence, and fact.

But, to add to his argument, I'd like to add that violence and murder were around LONG before guns existed. Even then, the only way to truly protect yourself was to own a weapon of your own, and be proficient in it's use. I have to say the same applies today.

But, to add to your argument, that weapon has to be a gun. There's a reason the saying: "It's like bringing a knife to a gun-fight" exists.

Of course violence would still happen. But it's much easier to kill someone with a gun. A knife takes more skill. You have to be closer and therefore risk being identified. You run the risk of dropping the knife in the ensuing scuffle. If you're going to surprise them and stab them before they can react you have to think up a way to get that close (unlike a long range gun). Even if you do manage to get that close, you still have to not get it stuck on a rib or other bone, since a knife will have more trouble penetrating through the body than a bullet. You run the risk of getting covered in blood, which is just one more possible trail of evidence. And this is all just off the top of my head. If you honestly can't see how a gun makes killing someone easier, then I can't help you.

A lame generalization. I wonder how on earth I could have come to the conclusion that your argument was weak or lazy?:rolleyes:

And if Americans are more violent (which is an odd generalization seeing as how I've been in one fight in the last five or six years, and I'm a brutish, scary American) then shouldn't we take their guns away? Bad Americans! You are very bad Americans!

Maybe you should give other people's opinions some thought before you start figuring out how to deconstruct them so that you get to be right.

Most of my statements are based off of gang activity and they don't really care if it's a knife or a gun that's being used, they will kill their intended target.

you know how gang members stab people without being identified? they were colored scarves repping their gang. They usually have one in their back pocket and if something has to go down then they just tie it over their face and leave their eyes open


yes because your personal anecdotal experience speaks for the entire country and latter part of your statement is a bit of my point based off of what Vanilla was saying earlier.

Some people seem to think that taking away guns will change things and they will be safer without guns around but that's not the case at all.

People outside of America going around using examples about their country and saying well if it's safer here with strict gun laws then it should work for America true which is faulty logic based off of our violent culture as a whole more so related to gang activity.

It's funny that you seem to only want to talk about gangs here, but okay let's talk about gangs. I can't count the number of times I've read about kids or other innocent bystanders getting caught in the crossfire of gang shootouts. How often do you hear about random innocent people getting caught in the "crossfire" of a knife fight?