(Next) friendliest nation for gun ownership?

[Girodin]

I lived in Europe for a while and I would NEVER want to live there again. Perhaps in one of the EU countries I haven't been to, but I HIGHLY doubt it.

It is a great place to vistit and vacation in and it isn't even that bad to spend a year or two but I cannot imagine making my home there long term. It would take me pages to explain all the reasons so I'll just say I greatly prefer the USA.

 

[Prince Yamato]

Xinjiang, Xizang, Qinghai, Shanxi, Shaanxi, or any rural province in China.

So, you CAN own weapons in China. So, let's say I move to Shanghai. Can I apply for a weapons permit for a full-auto? If they ask me what I want it for, can I say, "so I can take it out to the country and shoot it?". Next, can you use a weapon for self-protection? Not that China has that much crime anyway. There are really no muggers or anything... but you never know.

 

[coloradokevin]

The United States is home. I'm not leaving. I'll visit other places, but this is where I'm from, and this is where I'll always call home.

My family has been on this plot of Earth we call "America" since before the Revolutionary War.

I'm staying here.

 

[Manuel]

new zealand is pretty lax on gun laws. I checekd out a NZ sporting goods shop website and they were selling suppressors, ak's, ar's, all of it. No banning of "evil features" and no licencing from what I could see.

New Zealand has a tiered licensing. Miliatry-style Semi-autos, as they call them, are classified as restricted (not banned) weapons under the 'E' endorsement, and require are harder-to-acquire license. However, they can be converted to 'A' endorsements, which require no licensing whatsoever. So, as to what parts are taken out, I dont know. Handguns require the minimal licensing and you must be a member of a shooting club.

No, you need a licence for any firearms. It's may-issue, but if you aren't a criminal or mental case, and you don't live with someone who is, you'll get one. The police inspect the "safe-storage" you are required to have, and there's a safety lecture and laughable written test.

There's no registration for the basic tier, mail-order sales are ok and there's no paperwork for private sales.

For pistols and MSSAs, you need an extra super-duper licence. The police have an unofficial cap on the number of MSSAs, driving the price up, and you need to be in a pistol club for a pistol. Carry is very illegal, and while using a firearm in self-defence is legal, keeping a firearm ready for self-defence is not. The law is also vague and the police make it up as they go along.

 

[barman]

France

We're OK.

Just get a subscription to a shooting club, and you can own a pretty decent choice of longarms.

For handguns, another licence is required, but it doesn't take that long to get it (a few months depending on where you live).

Black powder is completely unregulated.

We're not allowed to carry though.

 

[The Viking]

I've heard (and this is all hearsay, of course) Sweden is pretty "classically liberal" on a lot of things. You can walk into a hardware store and buy a sound suppressor for 5 bucks.

'Course, you'll NEVER get anything but "legitimate sporting guns" [sic] over there, I'm sure.

Yep, it's all hearsay, and not true hearsay at that. Suppressors are heavily regulated here, althought the law was relaxed a few years back, making suppressors for hunting rifles in Class 1 and 2 almost shall issue (Class 1 is for all game, but mostly moose, bear and wolf, class 2 for deer and such).
Funny thing though, I can, atleast in theory, get a license for pretty much anything. Glock 18? Yep. Swedish K smg? Yep. Mk19 full automatic grenade launcher? Yep. Browning M2? Yep!
"All" I've got to do is demonstrate a legitimate need for it. This is the hard part. But if you can show a need for it, you'll have the license sooner or later. Even CCW is allowed in some circumstanses. Hard to get the license though...

OTOH, in Finland, they don't regulate suppressors .

 

[Zoogster]

Each house in Iraq is allowed to have one ak47.

That's the new law made and enforced by the US military. Wasn't there no laws on firearms ownership before?

I'd think that in a war zone where you can't tell who is going to try to kill people and who isn't, regulations on guns may not be terribly out of line.

So long as it's temporary.

They are always temporary. Until the temporary is in place so long undoing it is 'scarier' to government or the population than just leaving it in place.
The majority of "temporary" measures that give the government more power or remove rights or privilidges of citizens become permanent over time.
How many "temporary" measures to fight the "War on Drugs" or now the "War on Terrorism" have become a permanent part of society?

Most permanent measures were "temporary" at one time.

 

[Thernlund]

They are always temporary. Until the temporary is in place so long undoing it is 'scarier' to government or the population than just leaving it in place.
The majority of "temporary" measures that give the government more power or remove rights or privilidges of citizens become permanent over time.
How many "temporary" measures to fight the "War on Drugs" or now the "War on Terrorism" have become a permanent part of society?

Most permanent measures were "temporary" at one time.

I agree. There needs to be a clear, previously defined, light at the end of the tunnel. "Temporary" without any sort of termination date isn't really temporary, is it?


-T.

 

[Snap]

And herein lies the problem, ladies and gentlemen. If we lose the basic freedoms (guns, speech, unreasonable search and seizure, all those eloquently acknowledged rights those guys in funny wigs mentioned) we won from the Brits some 260 years ago, there's nowhere left to run. Personally, I'm not holding out much hope for the next couple generations.

 

[TIMC]

Just from watching the news Iraq seems to be pretty free with owning machineguns and rocket launchers.

 

[ojh]

Anybody know anything about Finland?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Finland .

 

[Glenn Kelley]

I read somewhere on these boards that Turkey is fairly gun friendly.