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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
Although I'd like guns to be more tightly controlled, the reality in the US is that guns are so deeply ingrained that any attempt to excise them is likely to, aha, backfire. The insane buy-up of guns in response to even just people saying we should talk about gun control is testimony to this fact. A better approach would be a focus on increased responsibility of gun owners and gun sellers, with criminal charges pressed on people who let the guns enter criminal use. But trying to ban guns? That won't happen without decades upon decades of slow buildup.
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On February 01 2013 04:57 KingJames wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 04:34 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 04:31 KingJames wrote:
Knives can kill people too, so its fine for us to have assault rifles.
Assault rifles kill people too, so its fine for me to have a nuclear warhead in my home right?
Is that the best logic you gun nuts can come up with at this point?? Did i just wake up in the twilight zone?
Oh, now there's a clever new slippery slope argument. I wonder why nobody ever thought of it before... If it's so unreasonable for "gun nuts" to think that gun control would just keep going once it started, why do gun control nuts get to think that all gun owners want to own nukes? I'm not literally saying that gun nuts want to own nukes. I'm showing that jumping from knives to assault rifles is as ridiculous as jumping from assault rifles to nukes. All of these things can kill people, but the mass killing potential of an assault rifle is much higher than a knife. Using the simple argument that both can kill people so therefore both should be legal doesn't make sense because it doesn't take into account the killing potential of each weapon or the ease of killing that it allows.
nukes provide none of the things that gun nuts value guns for.
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On February 01 2013 04:57 KingJames wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 04:34 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 04:31 KingJames wrote:
Knives can kill people too, so its fine for us to have assault rifles.
Assault rifles kill people too, so its fine for me to have a nuclear warhead in my home right?
Is that the best logic you gun nuts can come up with at this point?? Did i just wake up in the twilight zone?
Oh, now there's a clever new slippery slope argument. I wonder why nobody ever thought of it before... If it's so unreasonable for "gun nuts" to think that gun control would just keep going once it started, why do gun control nuts get to think that all gun owners want to own nukes? I'm not literally saying that gun nuts want to own nukes. I'm showing that jumping from knives to assault rifles is as ridiculous as jumping from assault rifles to nukes. All of these things can kill people, but the mass killing potential of an assault rifle is much higher than a knife. Using the simple argument that both can kill people so therefore both should be legal doesn't make sense because it doesn't take into account the killing potential of each weapon or the ease of killing that it allows.
Dude, name me a school massacre that used nukes--none. they're totally safe. Name me one US city hit with a nuke? None--that means they're perfectly reasonable for everyone to have. It's not like the US looks down on Korea or Iran for researching nukes.
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On February 01 2013 04:59 Acritter wrote:
Although I'd like guns to be more tightly controlled, the reality in the US is that guns are so deeply ingrained that any attempt to excise them is likely to, aha, backfire. The insane buy-up of guns in response to even just people saying we should talk about gun control is testimony to this fact. A better approach would be a focus on increased responsibility of gun owners and gun sellers, with criminal charges pressed on people who let the guns enter criminal use. But trying to ban guns? That won't happen without decades upon decades of slow buildup.
Yeah true.
Currently gun owners always give me the feeling that their first reaction after a school shooting is not
"those poor kids"
but
"damn, another shooting, now they will talk about gun regulation for ages again, they won't take my guns"
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On February 01 2013 05:04 Zandar wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 04:59 Acritter wrote:
Although I'd like guns to be more tightly controlled, the reality in the US is that guns are so deeply ingrained that any attempt to excise them is likely to, aha, backfire. The insane buy-up of guns in response to even just people saying we should talk about gun control is testimony to this fact. A better approach would be a focus on increased responsibility of gun owners and gun sellers, with criminal charges pressed on people who let the guns enter criminal use. But trying to ban guns? That won't happen without decades upon decades of slow buildup. Yeah true. Currently gun owners always give me the feeling that their first reaction after a school shooting is not "those poor kids" but "damn, another shooting, now they will talk about gun regulation for ages again, they won't take my guns"
Be reasonable.
The first thing on their mind is a desire to go frank castle.
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On February 01 2013 05:04 Zandar wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 04:59 Acritter wrote:
Although I'd like guns to be more tightly controlled, the reality in the US is that guns are so deeply ingrained that any attempt to excise them is likely to, aha, backfire. The insane buy-up of guns in response to even just people saying we should talk about gun control is testimony to this fact. A better approach would be a focus on increased responsibility of gun owners and gun sellers, with criminal charges pressed on people who let the guns enter criminal use. But trying to ban guns? That won't happen without decades upon decades of slow buildup. Yeah true. Currently gun owners always give me the feeling that their first reaction after a school shooting is not "those poor kids" but "damn, another shooting, now they will talk about gun regulation for ages again, they won't take my guns"
let's just keep dehumanizing people we don't like / disagree with, it'll work out so well.
my first reaction after newtown was i wish that there had been someone there with a gun to stop him since apparently people without guns aren't very good at stopping people with them. several members of the staff tried to stop him by barricading doors and getting in his way and got murdered because they had no effective way to fight back.
and the second was i wish he hadn't killed himself because i'd like some alone time with him and some pliers.
honestly i get the feeling gun grabbers wouldn't mind if the government just tossed gun owners into prison camps
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On February 01 2013 05:04 Zandar wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 04:59 Acritter wrote:
Although I'd like guns to be more tightly controlled, the reality in the US is that guns are so deeply ingrained that any attempt to excise them is likely to, aha, backfire. The insane buy-up of guns in response to even just people saying we should talk about gun control is testimony to this fact. A better approach would be a focus on increased responsibility of gun owners and gun sellers, with criminal charges pressed on people who let the guns enter criminal use. But trying to ban guns? That won't happen without decades upon decades of slow buildup. Yeah true. Currently gun owners always give me the feeling that their first reaction after a school shooting is not "those poor kids" but "damn, another shooting, now they will talk about gun regulation for ages again, they won't take my guns"
Had it occurred to you that the inverse could be true?
Gun control proponents always give me the feeling that their first reaction after a school shooting is not
"those poor kids"
but
"damn, another shooting, it's a great chance to try and get knee jerk legislation through banning guns for 'looking scary'".
I hate to say it, but it's true. Sure, it bothers me that people are dying. But it bothers me more that it gets sensationalized and spun into "gun control" before the funeral and memorial service. There's just voyeuristic excesses that generate copycats, into grief and tragedy, being exploited.
If that doesn't bother you just as much, it's hypocritical. The batshit loonies who are more worried about their guns than the kids piss me off too. Both sides do it, and NEITHER side is right.
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On February 01 2013 05:04 Zandar wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 04:59 Acritter wrote:
Although I'd like guns to be more tightly controlled, the reality in the US is that guns are so deeply ingrained that any attempt to excise them is likely to, aha, backfire. The insane buy-up of guns in response to even just people saying we should talk about gun control is testimony to this fact. A better approach would be a focus on increased responsibility of gun owners and gun sellers, with criminal charges pressed on people who let the guns enter criminal use. But trying to ban guns? That won't happen without decades upon decades of slow buildup. Yeah true. Currently gun owners always give me the feeling that their first reaction after a school shooting is not "those poor kids" but "damn, another shooting, now they will talk about gun regulation for ages again, they won't take my guns"
Well that's because you're 100% ignorant to american society and likely base your descriptions of them on what stereotypes you see on television.
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On February 01 2013 05:10 JingleHell wrote:
"damn, another shooting, it's a great chance to try and get knee jerk legislation through banning guns for 'looking scary'".
fair enough, point taken.
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On February 01 2013 05:11 heliusx wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 05:04 Zandar wrote:On February 01 2013 04:59 Acritter wrote:
Although I'd like guns to be more tightly controlled, the reality in the US is that guns are so deeply ingrained that any attempt to excise them is likely to, aha, backfire. The insane buy-up of guns in response to even just people saying we should talk about gun control is testimony to this fact. A better approach would be a focus on increased responsibility of gun owners and gun sellers, with criminal charges pressed on people who let the guns enter criminal use. But trying to ban guns? That won't happen without decades upon decades of slow buildup. Yeah true. Currently gun owners always give me the feeling that their first reaction after a school shooting is not "those poor kids" but "damn, another shooting, now they will talk about gun regulation for ages again, they won't take my guns" Well that's because you're 100% ignorant to american society and likely base your descriptions of them on what stereotypes you see on television.
American and European societies are not THAT different.
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On February 01 2013 05:10 DeepElemBlues wrote:
my first reaction after newtown was i wish that there had been someone there with a gun to stop him since apparently people without guns aren't very good at stopping people with them. several members of the staff tried to stop him by barricading doors and getting in his way and got murdered because they had no effective way to fight back.
and the second was i wish he hadn't killed himself because i'd like some alone time with him and some pliers.
honestly i get the feeling gun grabbers wouldn't mind if the government just tossed gun owners into prison camps
On the other hand my first reaction as a European where guns are outlawed was I wish guns weren't legal in US, since random kids don't become mass murderers without the help of cutting-edge lethal firearms readily available everywhere.
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On February 01 2013 04:59 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 04:55 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:50 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:48 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:42 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:39 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:16 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:09 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:01 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 02:51 silynxer wrote:[quote] Why not quote this article and just count the shootings (actually just count the shootings for the years 2000+ in the US and then every other school shooting outside). I have yet to see an explanation of why we cherry-pick school violence. Sure, it's shitty, but last time I checked, dead is dead, regardless of cause and location. Violent crime, and crime in general, are symptoms. If you go to the doctor because you have a fever, and the doctor tells you "you have a fever, stick these leeches on your neck", and you die three days later from pneumonia, being told about a symptom and handed leeches didn't really do you much good. By the same token, if you say "The US has school violence", do murder victims outside the US say "Oh, well, at least I wasn't killed in a school!"? The answer, of course, is obvious. A murder victim is dead regardless of where or how it happened. And if other countries cite gun control and gun violence, but can't stop other violence with gun control, why should I believe the gun control fixed the symptom? Well if we exclude Eastern Europe our murder rate is about 4 times higher than the EU's. That's a lot fewer dead people. They cite gun control and they have much lower murder rates, so it seems to have worked in developed nations. Their gun violence is much lower, their murder rate is much lower, so something is working better there. Why, exactly, are we excluding countries? The second we start dismissing data as "not relevant enough due to X", we're removing our ability to see the whole picture, which might help us see what the violence is a symptom of. I'd say it's reasonable to state that violence and gun control do not directly correlate, any more than say, violence and video games. We can't dismiss things if we want to solve societal issues.. Mostly I discounted them because the IMF considers a large portion of Eastern Europe to be developing countries, who have a host of problems that are known to contribute to crime. The US should be compared to other developed nations because that is where we fit and developed nations share a lot of characteristics, like very low crime. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to crime. Homocide rates in one OECD nation being far above any other says that one nation is doing something wrong. It really seems to be gun control. I'm not talking about violence, I'm talking about homicide rates. The US has homicide rates about as high as Yemen, Thailand, Georgia and the Phillipines. These countries have a GDP per capita of between 1/10 and 1/5 of ours. They are not the sort of industrial powers with the economic and educational opportunity of the US. The go-to explanations for their crime rates are all related to underdevelopment. The US doesn't have those problems, it has a gun ownership rate of 88 guns per 100 people though. Can someone please tell me why we have a murder rate 4 times higher than most other industrialized nation? Just to hazard a guess, maybe there's less difficulty accessing basic services in other industrialized nations? Who knows, maybe difficulty affording things like healthcare and higher education have something to do with it. Maybe lingering effects of social issues like segregation. Correlation != causation. So you don't know, but you've ruled out prevalence and access to guns because...? Because I consider them to be an enabler. Not a cause. Which I've stated already. Please, show me, how there's a strong statistical correlation between owning a gun and committing a crime with it. Because, per capita, America has a metric fuckton of guns, and the vast majority of them have NEVER been involved in a crime. Just like rape isn't due to a lack of chastity belts. Stats are very hard to find and easily manipulated in this area but... There is plenty of research indicating that firearm possession drastically increases the likelihood of accidental deaths or suicides. If a crime is committed by someone who possesses a firearm it is far more likely that a property crime will become a homicide. Ownership is a fuzzy term, if you do not possess/in some way "own" a firearm, you cannot commit a crime with one. So there's a de facto correlation there. A small minority of a fuckton of guns is still enough to kill a fuckton of people. I don't really understand what sort of stats you're looking for. + Show Spoiler +Firearms are used in about 60 percent of the murders committed in this country, and attacks by firearms injure thousands of others. The risk of being murdered with a firearm falls disproportionately on young people, particularly young black men. o Greater gun availability increases the rates of murder and felony gun use, but does not appear to affect general violence levels. o Self-defense is the most commonly cited reason for acquiring a gun, but it is unclear how often these guns are used for self-protection against unprovoked attacks. o According to the latest available data, those who use guns in violent crimes rarely purchase them directly from licensed dealers; most guns used in crime have been stolen or transferred between individuals after the original purchase. o In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed. The first research approach asks how differences in violence across American cities are related to variations in gun availability, controlling for other relevant factors. These studies generally find small positive correlations between measures of gun availability and both felony gun use and felony murder. However, they find no consistent relationship between gun availability and overall rates of violent crime. The second approach used was a comparison of two jurisdictions. The neighboring cities of Seattle and Vancouver have similar economic profiles and were found to have similar rates of burglary and assault. However, Seattle, with its less restrictive gun possession laws, had a 60 percent higher homicide rate and a 400 percent higher firearm homicide rate than Vancouver. It is not clear whether the differences in gun laws accounted for all the variation between the two cities in homicide rates, or whether differences in culture were also contributing factors. The third approach relies on cross-national statistical comparisons. These studies have generally reached one of the conclusions found in studies of American cities: a small positive correlation between gun availability and homicide rates. The finding is difficult to interpret, however, in view of differences by country in culture and in gun regulations. For example, murder rates are low in Switzerland, where militia requirements make possession of long guns by males nearly universal. This seems to suggest there is no positive correlation between gun availability and murder rates. But this interpretation is clouded because in Switzerland access to guns is limited: militia members are required to keep their guns locked up and to account for every bullet. https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/fireviol.txt Let's grab, for shits and grins, a particular chunk of that data, shall we? Show nested quote +Firearms are used in about 60 percent of the
murders committed in this country, and attacks by
firearms injure thousands of others. The risk of
being murdered with a firearm falls
disproportionately on young people, particularly
young black men.
If the demographics show a trend like this, wouldn't that suggest some sort of causal relationship with social issues affecting that specific demographic? If firearms were specifically the problem, wouldn't it be less disproportionate?
I haven't said firearms are specifically the problem, or that social issues play no part, I actually said that because of the social issues faced by developing nations they are a bad comparison with the US. What I have pointed out is that there is strong correlation between possession of guns and escalation of crimes from assault/robbery to murder.
There are ways to reduce crimes other than gun control but they are not mutually exclusive strategies. Strict gun control does seem to effectively reduce homicide rates in developed nations. Overall crime is a much trickier figure and the effects of gun control are hard to pin down on those, probably has little effect either way. You are the one who has ruled out gun control as part of a solution, I haven't said no to any proposed solutions.
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On February 01 2013 05:21 TheFrankOne wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 04:59 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 04:55 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:50 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:48 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:42 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:39 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:16 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:09 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:01 JingleHell wrote:
[quote]
I have yet to see an explanation of why we cherry-pick school violence.
Sure, it's shitty, but last time I checked, dead is dead, regardless of cause and location. Violent crime, and crime in general, are symptoms.
If you go to the doctor because you have a fever, and the doctor tells you "you have a fever, stick these leeches on your neck", and you die three days later from pneumonia, being told about a symptom and handed leeches didn't really do you much good.
By the same token, if you say "The US has school violence", do murder victims outside the US say "Oh, well, at least I wasn't killed in a school!"?
The answer, of course, is obvious. A murder victim is dead regardless of where or how it happened. And if other countries cite gun control and gun violence, but can't stop other violence with gun control, why should I believe the gun control fixed the symptom? Well if we exclude Eastern Europe our murder rate is about 4 times higher than the EU's. That's a lot fewer dead people. They cite gun control and they have much lower murder rates, so it seems to have worked in developed nations. Their gun violence is much lower, their murder rate is much lower, so something is working better there. Why, exactly, are we excluding countries? The second we start dismissing data as "not relevant enough due to X", we're removing our ability to see the whole picture, which might help us see what the violence is a symptom of. I'd say it's reasonable to state that violence and gun control do not directly correlate, any more than say, violence and video games. We can't dismiss things if we want to solve societal issues.. Mostly I discounted them because the IMF considers a large portion of Eastern Europe to be developing countries, who have a host of problems that are known to contribute to crime. The US should be compared to other developed nations because that is where we fit and developed nations share a lot of characteristics, like very low crime. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to crime. Homocide rates in one OECD nation being far above any other says that one nation is doing something wrong. It really seems to be gun control. I'm not talking about violence, I'm talking about homicide rates. The US has homicide rates about as high as Yemen, Thailand, Georgia and the Phillipines. These countries have a GDP per capita of between 1/10 and 1/5 of ours. They are not the sort of industrial powers with the economic and educational opportunity of the US. The go-to explanations for their crime rates are all related to underdevelopment. The US doesn't have those problems, it has a gun ownership rate of 88 guns per 100 people though. Can someone please tell me why we have a murder rate 4 times higher than most other industrialized nation? Just to hazard a guess, maybe there's less difficulty accessing basic services in other industrialized nations? Who knows, maybe difficulty affording things like healthcare and higher education have something to do with it. Maybe lingering effects of social issues like segregation. Correlation != causation. So you don't know, but you've ruled out prevalence and access to guns because...? Because I consider them to be an enabler. Not a cause. Which I've stated already. Please, show me, how there's a strong statistical correlation between owning a gun and committing a crime with it. Because, per capita, America has a metric fuckton of guns, and the vast majority of them have NEVER been involved in a crime. Just like rape isn't due to a lack of chastity belts. Stats are very hard to find and easily manipulated in this area but... There is plenty of research indicating that firearm possession drastically increases the likelihood of accidental deaths or suicides. If a crime is committed by someone who possesses a firearm it is far more likely that a property crime will become a homicide. Ownership is a fuzzy term, if you do not possess/in some way "own" a firearm, you cannot commit a crime with one. So there's a de facto correlation there. A small minority of a fuckton of guns is still enough to kill a fuckton of people. I don't really understand what sort of stats you're looking for. + Show Spoiler +Firearms are used in about 60 percent of the murders committed in this country, and attacks by firearms injure thousands of others. The risk of being murdered with a firearm falls disproportionately on young people, particularly young black men. o Greater gun availability increases the rates of murder and felony gun use, but does not appear to affect general violence levels. o Self-defense is the most commonly cited reason for acquiring a gun, but it is unclear how often these guns are used for self-protection against unprovoked attacks. o According to the latest available data, those who use guns in violent crimes rarely purchase them directly from licensed dealers; most guns used in crime have been stolen or transferred between individuals after the original purchase. o In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed. The first research approach asks how differences in violence across American cities are related to variations in gun availability, controlling for other relevant factors. These studies generally find small positive correlations between measures of gun availability and both felony gun use and felony murder. However, they find no consistent relationship between gun availability and overall rates of violent crime. The second approach used was a comparison of two jurisdictions. The neighboring cities of Seattle and Vancouver have similar economic profiles and were found to have similar rates of burglary and assault. However, Seattle, with its less restrictive gun possession laws, had a 60 percent higher homicide rate and a 400 percent higher firearm homicide rate than Vancouver. It is not clear whether the differences in gun laws accounted for all the variation between the two cities in homicide rates, or whether differences in culture were also contributing factors. The third approach relies on cross-national statistical comparisons. These studies have generally reached one of the conclusions found in studies of American cities: a small positive correlation between gun availability and homicide rates. The finding is difficult to interpret, however, in view of differences by country in culture and in gun regulations. For example, murder rates are low in Switzerland, where militia requirements make possession of long guns by males nearly universal. This seems to suggest there is no positive correlation between gun availability and murder rates. But this interpretation is clouded because in Switzerland access to guns is limited: militia members are required to keep their guns locked up and to account for every bullet. https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/fireviol.txt Let's grab, for shits and grins, a particular chunk of that data, shall we? Firearms are used in about 60 percent of the
murders committed in this country, and attacks by
firearms injure thousands of others. The risk of
being murdered with a firearm falls
disproportionately on young people, particularly
young black men.
If the demographics show a trend like this, wouldn't that suggest some sort of causal relationship with social issues affecting that specific demographic? If firearms were specifically the problem, wouldn't it be less disproportionate? I haven't said firearms are specifically the problem, or that social issues play no part, I actually said that because of the social issues faced by developing nations they are a bad comparison with the US. What I have pointed out is that there is strong correlation between possession of guns and escalation of crimes from assault/robbery to murder. There are ways to reduce crimes other than gun control but they are not mutually exclusive strategies. Strict gun control does seem to effectively reduce homicide rates in developed nations. Overall crime is a much trickier figure and the effects of gun control are hard to pin down on those, probably has little effect either way. You are the one who has ruled out gun control as part of a solution, I haven't said no to any proposed solutions.
Actually, I haven't ruled it out. I've ruled out poorly thought out, stupid measures as being effective.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0310.pdf
Handguns and shotguns both get used more than rifles in gun crimes. Of rifles, not all rifles are "assault weapons".
I'd say that right there strongly suggests that an "assault weapon" ban is vehemently knee-jerk, and would be massively ineffective. Isn't that enough in itself to suggest that regardless of differences of opinion regarding breadth of gun law, the "gun nuts" have a point sometimes about stupid laws being stupid?
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On February 01 2013 05:20 Zandar wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 05:11 heliusx wrote:On February 01 2013 05:04 Zandar wrote:On February 01 2013 04:59 Acritter wrote:
Although I'd like guns to be more tightly controlled, the reality in the US is that guns are so deeply ingrained that any attempt to excise them is likely to, aha, backfire. The insane buy-up of guns in response to even just people saying we should talk about gun control is testimony to this fact. A better approach would be a focus on increased responsibility of gun owners and gun sellers, with criminal charges pressed on people who let the guns enter criminal use. But trying to ban guns? That won't happen without decades upon decades of slow buildup. Yeah true. Currently gun owners always give me the feeling that their first reaction after a school shooting is not "those poor kids" but "damn, another shooting, now they will talk about gun regulation for ages again, they won't take my guns" Well that's because you're 100% ignorant to american society and likely base your descriptions of them on what stereotypes you see on television. American and European societies are not THAT different.
Then you must not know much about American culture.
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On February 01 2013 05:29 OutlaW- wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 05:20 Zandar wrote:On February 01 2013 05:11 heliusx wrote:On February 01 2013 05:04 Zandar wrote:On February 01 2013 04:59 Acritter wrote:
Although I'd like guns to be more tightly controlled, the reality in the US is that guns are so deeply ingrained that any attempt to excise them is likely to, aha, backfire. The insane buy-up of guns in response to even just people saying we should talk about gun control is testimony to this fact. A better approach would be a focus on increased responsibility of gun owners and gun sellers, with criminal charges pressed on people who let the guns enter criminal use. But trying to ban guns? That won't happen without decades upon decades of slow buildup. Yeah true. Currently gun owners always give me the feeling that their first reaction after a school shooting is not "those poor kids" but "damn, another shooting, now they will talk about gun regulation for ages again, they won't take my guns" Well that's because you're 100% ignorant to american society and likely base your descriptions of them on what stereotypes you see on television. American and European societies are not THAT different. Then you must not know much about American culture.
I know quite a few of them.
Seriously, even TL is like half USA, but often I could not tell if someone posting is from the USA or Europe until I check the country on top of the post.
With threads like this as an exeption. You don't see many anti gun Americans or pro gun Europeans here.
People like Tasteless and Artosis come from the USA too you know, they are not all hardcore religious or gun fans over there. Besides the language they could have easily been from Europe.
Hell, a big part of the country have grandparents etc from Europe. Evolution takes millions of years, not hundreds.
And because of televison, Europe copied a lot of US culture the past decades as well.
Every city here has at least a few McDonalds. We drink Coca Cola and smoke marlboro.
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On February 01 2013 05:29 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 05:21 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 04:59 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 04:55 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:50 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:48 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:42 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:39 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:16 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:09 TheFrankOne wrote:
[quote]
Well if we exclude Eastern Europe our murder rate is about 4 times higher than the EU's. That's a lot fewer dead people. They cite gun control and they have much lower murder rates, so it seems to have worked in developed nations. Their gun violence is much lower, their murder rate is much lower, so something is working better there. Why, exactly, are we excluding countries? The second we start dismissing data as "not relevant enough due to X", we're removing our ability to see the whole picture, which might help us see what the violence is a symptom of. I'd say it's reasonable to state that violence and gun control do not directly correlate, any more than say, violence and video games. We can't dismiss things if we want to solve societal issues.. Mostly I discounted them because the IMF considers a large portion of Eastern Europe to be developing countries, who have a host of problems that are known to contribute to crime. The US should be compared to other developed nations because that is where we fit and developed nations share a lot of characteristics, like very low crime. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to crime. Homocide rates in one OECD nation being far above any other says that one nation is doing something wrong. It really seems to be gun control. I'm not talking about violence, I'm talking about homicide rates. The US has homicide rates about as high as Yemen, Thailand, Georgia and the Phillipines. These countries have a GDP per capita of between 1/10 and 1/5 of ours. They are not the sort of industrial powers with the economic and educational opportunity of the US. The go-to explanations for their crime rates are all related to underdevelopment. The US doesn't have those problems, it has a gun ownership rate of 88 guns per 100 people though. Can someone please tell me why we have a murder rate 4 times higher than most other industrialized nation? Just to hazard a guess, maybe there's less difficulty accessing basic services in other industrialized nations? Who knows, maybe difficulty affording things like healthcare and higher education have something to do with it. Maybe lingering effects of social issues like segregation. Correlation != causation. So you don't know, but you've ruled out prevalence and access to guns because...? Because I consider them to be an enabler. Not a cause. Which I've stated already. Please, show me, how there's a strong statistical correlation between owning a gun and committing a crime with it. Because, per capita, America has a metric fuckton of guns, and the vast majority of them have NEVER been involved in a crime. Just like rape isn't due to a lack of chastity belts. Stats are very hard to find and easily manipulated in this area but... There is plenty of research indicating that firearm possession drastically increases the likelihood of accidental deaths or suicides. If a crime is committed by someone who possesses a firearm it is far more likely that a property crime will become a homicide. Ownership is a fuzzy term, if you do not possess/in some way "own" a firearm, you cannot commit a crime with one. So there's a de facto correlation there. A small minority of a fuckton of guns is still enough to kill a fuckton of people. I don't really understand what sort of stats you're looking for. + Show Spoiler +Firearms are used in about 60 percent of the murders committed in this country, and attacks by firearms injure thousands of others. The risk of being murdered with a firearm falls disproportionately on young people, particularly young black men. o Greater gun availability increases the rates of murder and felony gun use, but does not appear to affect general violence levels. o Self-defense is the most commonly cited reason for acquiring a gun, but it is unclear how often these guns are used for self-protection against unprovoked attacks. o According to the latest available data, those who use guns in violent crimes rarely purchase them directly from licensed dealers; most guns used in crime have been stolen or transferred between individuals after the original purchase. o In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed. The first research approach asks how differences in violence across American cities are related to variations in gun availability, controlling for other relevant factors. These studies generally find small positive correlations between measures of gun availability and both felony gun use and felony murder. However, they find no consistent relationship between gun availability and overall rates of violent crime. The second approach used was a comparison of two jurisdictions. The neighboring cities of Seattle and Vancouver have similar economic profiles and were found to have similar rates of burglary and assault. However, Seattle, with its less restrictive gun possession laws, had a 60 percent higher homicide rate and a 400 percent higher firearm homicide rate than Vancouver. It is not clear whether the differences in gun laws accounted for all the variation between the two cities in homicide rates, or whether differences in culture were also contributing factors. The third approach relies on cross-national statistical comparisons. These studies have generally reached one of the conclusions found in studies of American cities: a small positive correlation between gun availability and homicide rates. The finding is difficult to interpret, however, in view of differences by country in culture and in gun regulations. For example, murder rates are low in Switzerland, where militia requirements make possession of long guns by males nearly universal. This seems to suggest there is no positive correlation between gun availability and murder rates. But this interpretation is clouded because in Switzerland access to guns is limited: militia members are required to keep their guns locked up and to account for every bullet. https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/fireviol.txt Let's grab, for shits and grins, a particular chunk of that data, shall we? Firearms are used in about 60 percent of the
murders committed in this country, and attacks by
firearms injure thousands of others. The risk of
being murdered with a firearm falls
disproportionately on young people, particularly
young black men.
If the demographics show a trend like this, wouldn't that suggest some sort of causal relationship with social issues affecting that specific demographic? If firearms were specifically the problem, wouldn't it be less disproportionate? I haven't said firearms are specifically the problem, or that social issues play no part, I actually said that because of the social issues faced by developing nations they are a bad comparison with the US. What I have pointed out is that there is strong correlation between possession of guns and escalation of crimes from assault/robbery to murder. There are ways to reduce crimes other than gun control but they are not mutually exclusive strategies. Strict gun control does seem to effectively reduce homicide rates in developed nations. Overall crime is a much trickier figure and the effects of gun control are hard to pin down on those, probably has little effect either way. You are the one who has ruled out gun control as part of a solution, I haven't said no to any proposed solutions. Actually, I haven't ruled it out. I've ruled out poorly thought out, stupid measures as being effective. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0310.pdfHandguns and shotguns both get used more than rifles in gun crimes. Of rifles, not all rifles are "assault weapons". I'd say that right there strongly suggests that an "assault weapon" ban is vehemently knee-jerk, and would be massively ineffective. Isn't that enough in itself to suggest that regardless of differences of opinion regarding breadth of gun law, the "gun nuts" have a point sometimes about stupid laws being stupid?
I haven't really mentioned assault weapon bans for a reason. They are not a very effective solution, universal background checks and extended clip bans are slightly better. Handguns are what we need to target, and we need to go after them with everything we can. Completely rewriting the second amendment to clarify what "gun rights" Americans actually have would be best.
Antonin Scalia:
"It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment ’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/07/gun-rights
We cannot allow typical military equipment to be banned and act as if the original intentions of the second amendment apply in any way. We have a massive standing army that is not going anywhere, most civilians are not allowed to own standard military issue weapons, the whole idea of the amendment is completely outdated. People get stuck on the resisting tyranny argument but as a corollary, we weren't supposed to have the sort of standing army we have the militias were supposed to serve the same purpose when necessary. Most of the Bill of Rights is probably timeless, but the second amendment isn't.
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On February 01 2013 05:44 TheFrankOne wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 05:29 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 05:21 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 04:59 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 04:55 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:50 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:48 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:42 JingleHell wrote:On February 01 2013 03:39 TheFrankOne wrote:On February 01 2013 03:16 JingleHell wrote:
[quote]
Why, exactly, are we excluding countries? The second we start dismissing data as "not relevant enough due to X", we're removing our ability to see the whole picture, which might help us see what the violence is a symptom of.
I'd say it's reasonable to state that violence and gun control do not directly correlate, any more than say, violence and video games. We can't dismiss things if we want to solve societal issues.. Mostly I discounted them because the IMF considers a large portion of Eastern Europe to be developing countries, who have a host of problems that are known to contribute to crime. The US should be compared to other developed nations because that is where we fit and developed nations share a lot of characteristics, like very low crime. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to crime. Homocide rates in one OECD nation being far above any other says that one nation is doing something wrong. It really seems to be gun control. I'm not talking about violence, I'm talking about homicide rates. The US has homicide rates about as high as Yemen, Thailand, Georgia and the Phillipines. These countries have a GDP per capita of between 1/10 and 1/5 of ours. They are not the sort of industrial powers with the economic and educational opportunity of the US. The go-to explanations for their crime rates are all related to underdevelopment. The US doesn't have those problems, it has a gun ownership rate of 88 guns per 100 people though. Can someone please tell me why we have a murder rate 4 times higher than most other industrialized nation? Just to hazard a guess, maybe there's less difficulty accessing basic services in other industrialized nations? Who knows, maybe difficulty affording things like healthcare and higher education have something to do with it. Maybe lingering effects of social issues like segregation. Correlation != causation. So you don't know, but you've ruled out prevalence and access to guns because...? Because I consider them to be an enabler. Not a cause. Which I've stated already. Please, show me, how there's a strong statistical correlation between owning a gun and committing a crime with it. Because, per capita, America has a metric fuckton of guns, and the vast majority of them have NEVER been involved in a crime. Just like rape isn't due to a lack of chastity belts. Stats are very hard to find and easily manipulated in this area but... There is plenty of research indicating that firearm possession drastically increases the likelihood of accidental deaths or suicides. If a crime is committed by someone who possesses a firearm it is far more likely that a property crime will become a homicide. Ownership is a fuzzy term, if you do not possess/in some way "own" a firearm, you cannot commit a crime with one. So there's a de facto correlation there. A small minority of a fuckton of guns is still enough to kill a fuckton of people. I don't really understand what sort of stats you're looking for. + Show Spoiler +Firearms are used in about 60 percent of the murders committed in this country, and attacks by firearms injure thousands of others. The risk of being murdered with a firearm falls disproportionately on young people, particularly young black men. o Greater gun availability increases the rates of murder and felony gun use, but does not appear to affect general violence levels. o Self-defense is the most commonly cited reason for acquiring a gun, but it is unclear how often these guns are used for self-protection against unprovoked attacks. o According to the latest available data, those who use guns in violent crimes rarely purchase them directly from licensed dealers; most guns used in crime have been stolen or transferred between individuals after the original purchase. o In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed. The first research approach asks how differences in violence across American cities are related to variations in gun availability, controlling for other relevant factors. These studies generally find small positive correlations between measures of gun availability and both felony gun use and felony murder. However, they find no consistent relationship between gun availability and overall rates of violent crime. The second approach used was a comparison of two jurisdictions. The neighboring cities of Seattle and Vancouver have similar economic profiles and were found to have similar rates of burglary and assault. However, Seattle, with its less restrictive gun possession laws, had a 60 percent higher homicide rate and a 400 percent higher firearm homicide rate than Vancouver. It is not clear whether the differences in gun laws accounted for all the variation between the two cities in homicide rates, or whether differences in culture were also contributing factors. The third approach relies on cross-national statistical comparisons. These studies have generally reached one of the conclusions found in studies of American cities: a small positive correlation between gun availability and homicide rates. The finding is difficult to interpret, however, in view of differences by country in culture and in gun regulations. For example, murder rates are low in Switzerland, where militia requirements make possession of long guns by males nearly universal. This seems to suggest there is no positive correlation between gun availability and murder rates. But this interpretation is clouded because in Switzerland access to guns is limited: militia members are required to keep their guns locked up and to account for every bullet. https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/fireviol.txt Let's grab, for shits and grins, a particular chunk of that data, shall we? Firearms are used in about 60 percent of the
murders committed in this country, and attacks by
firearms injure thousands of others. The risk of
being murdered with a firearm falls
disproportionately on young people, particularly
young black men.
If the demographics show a trend like this, wouldn't that suggest some sort of causal relationship with social issues affecting that specific demographic? If firearms were specifically the problem, wouldn't it be less disproportionate? I haven't said firearms are specifically the problem, or that social issues play no part, I actually said that because of the social issues faced by developing nations they are a bad comparison with the US. What I have pointed out is that there is strong correlation between possession of guns and escalation of crimes from assault/robbery to murder. There are ways to reduce crimes other than gun control but they are not mutually exclusive strategies. Strict gun control does seem to effectively reduce homicide rates in developed nations. Overall crime is a much trickier figure and the effects of gun control are hard to pin down on those, probably has little effect either way. You are the one who has ruled out gun control as part of a solution, I haven't said no to any proposed solutions. Actually, I haven't ruled it out. I've ruled out poorly thought out, stupid measures as being effective. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0310.pdfHandguns and shotguns both get used more than rifles in gun crimes. Of rifles, not all rifles are "assault weapons". I'd say that right there strongly suggests that an "assault weapon" ban is vehemently knee-jerk, and would be massively ineffective. Isn't that enough in itself to suggest that regardless of differences of opinion regarding breadth of gun law, the "gun nuts" have a point sometimes about stupid laws being stupid? I haven't really mentioned assault weapon bans for a reason. They are not a very effective solution, universal background checks and extended clip bans are slightly better. Handguns are what we need to target, and we need to go after them with everything we can. Completely rewriting the second amendment to clarify what "gun rights" Americans actually have would be best. Antonin Scalia: "It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment ’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right." http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/07/gun-rightsWe cannot allow typical military equipment to be banned and act as if the original intentions of the second amendment apply in any way. We have a massive standing army that is not going anywhere, most civilians are not allowed to own standard military issue weapons, the whole idea of the amendment is completely outdated. People get stuck on the resisting tyranny argument but as a corollary, we weren't supposed to have the sort of standing army we have the militias were supposed to serve the same purpose when necessary. Most of the Bill of Rights is probably timeless, but the second amendment isn't.
Universal background checks, sure, "extended clips", no.
You'll discover that I'm all for making sure that it's a hell of a lot harder to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
But, if we managed to tighten things up so that far less people were slipping through the various cracks, would we need to restrict magazine size? It's a convenience. More magazines, a couple of seconds reloading. A shooter would have more time to reload anyways if less people were armed.
I've used 30 round mags, they just mean you change them less often. Get beyond 30, and I couldn't give a shit less, they're an impractical novelty, since mag springs affect chambering, and if you start getting past 30 rounds, you're actually getting too much spring at full capacity, or too little at minimum capacity.
However, the very fact that they're an impractical novelty suggests that restricting them would be kind of "meh" as a means to reduce violence. They already have a secondary effect to reduce violence; weapon malfunctions can really slow you down.
Even trained, it can take 2-4 seconds to clear the average double feed, at a minimum.
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Dear american pro-gun supporters open your eyes and look at whats happening in your society. You really think this is what your founding fathers intended? School shootings every week? Kids shooting siblings acceidentally? Mentally unstable individuals going on random killing sprees? Fathers shooting imagined burglars that later turn out to be family members?
You are quite right in the mantra you keep on repeating, guns dont kill, people do. But clearly people arent ready to have an unlimited supply of firearms.
Also for the record, keeping the population armed to protect against "tyranny" is seriously the weakest argument you could put forth, Its just laughable in this day and age.
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On February 01 2013 02:09 FallDownMarigold wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2013 22:20 kmillz wrote:On January 31 2013 13:44 FallDownMarigold wrote:On January 31 2013 08:29 kmillz wrote:On January 31 2013 07:46 white_horse wrote:On January 31 2013 06:10 Millitron wrote:On January 31 2013 04:48 white_horse wrote:On January 31 2013 03:01 Millitron wrote:On January 30 2013 15:10 StayPhrosty wrote:On January 30 2013 14:15 Millitron wrote:[quote] 1) That sucks. I would hope the background checks would weed out the people who will get drunk and still carry. I'm ok with CUI, Carrying Under the Influence being a crime. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't already actually. 2) I personally do not care about handguns, mostly because they're pretty much pointless for overthrowing a tyranny. I still support them, but I am willing to compromise here. Handguns can have stricter background checks for two reasons, in my opinion. First, like I said, can't overthrow the next Hitler with a glock. Second, they actually are used in a huge majority of gun-related crimes. 3) I don't know. The exact details don't really matter too much though. Democracies in developed have fallen to to tyrants as recently as the 30's (maybe more recently, but I can't think of any at the moment). The public doesn't stand up for the oppressed because A) its not happening to them, and B) the few who do "Disappear". It happened in Spain, Italy, and Germany in the 30's, and in China in the 50's. 5) How are you harming every day life by owning guns? Will my rifle shoot someone on its own? Is it going to break its way out of its gun-safe and start killing people? You can't blame the guns, you have to blame the person holding them, or there's no accountability. 6) It is worse for you to die because you are innocent. If you kill your attacker, that's sad, but he knew the risks. And you don't really need to pack more heat than everyone else. A common thug is going to want something concealable, which basically means small. At the distances you're likely to face, any hand-gun will do, they're all basically the same inside 20 yards. 7) How is the War on Drugs going in Canada? Did it make your urban centers hellish wastelands like it did here? I honestly don't know. If it didn't, then the socioeconomic conditions aren't similar enough for that comparison to be valid. Anyways, of those 310 million guns, a very small percentage are used in crimes, we're talking single digit percentages. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/guns.cfm5.1 million violent crimes involving guns. Even if every gun-crime was committed with a unique gun, i.e. 1 gun = 1 crime, that's only 1.6 percent of all guns in the country are used in crimes. Okay so you kind of ignored a huge chunk of my argument but I'll try to state it a little better this time. Guns change society. Guns change societal atmosphere and gun culture has a negative impact on the public. This is my main point. When I punch you, you punch back, when I pull a gun on you, you pull a gun on me. If we have fists then somebody gets beaten up, when we have guns then somebody gets shot. It's really as simple as that. You multiply that by millions of people and you have americans dying en-masse. If nobody has a gun then nobody gets shot. Okay, that was simplified, but the point still stands. Fewer guns mean fewer gun crimes, more guns mean more gun crimes. Sure you can kill people with knives but it's not as easy as pulling a trigger anymore. Then again, you seem to be against the masses carrying glocks. So please elaborate because at this point I don't know if you understand the negative impact that comes with this gun culture. Long rifles and semi-auto assault rifles though you seem to support. Well, like I said those would not be very pleasant to encounter on the street. One guy with a knife cuts a few people and gets stopped, another guy brings an AK and 100 rounds and slaughters a crowd before being stopped. Maybe you support keeping those guns out of the hands of the irresponsible though. Well, that's going to take A LOT of government oversight to make it safe enough for a lot more people to own them safely. And then what happens when this tyrranical government turns? Now they have a list of everybody who has trained at a gun range to fight them. Now they have controls and know exactly what areas and what cities have whichever guns. To me if you want better government control over weapons you start to lose some of this ability to 'fight back' against your own military. In my opinion though this is okay, because I really don't see how it would be beneficial to form a civilian militia to defeat the US military. You seem to have trouble describing exactly how or when or in what conditions you might need to fight the US government, well perhaps this is part of the irrationality if you 'needing protection' from them. the 30's elsewhere and the 50's in china seem far too disconnected from us today to be relevant in a discussion of the citizens overthrowing the government. Did they have the internet? Did they have a modern democratic government with a modern military? How successful were the citizens at overthrowing this tyranny again? Please, I would actually be interested in a case where such a contemporary violent revolution turned out great for the public. in reference to 6) - of course its too bad that the innocent person died, but someone still died. Having a gun or not having one didn't somehow prevent anyone from dying ever. I mean, tell me how the situation is going to end peacefully when we both pull out a gun? This guy who pulls a gun on me for money is somehow now less ballsy than me? Now he's likely to put his gun down? The situation just doesn't improve for me when I have a gun. Maybe I kill him, great now I'm a murderer. I don't approve of the death penalty because I believe people can still contribute to society and there is no purpose for revenge. So on the street I don't find it any more justified that I should be able to kill him. It would be better that neither of us died - that neither of us had the ability to end the other's life so easily. Pretend that we all start carrying bigger guns for proper self defence. Would some thug on the street really come at me with a pocket knife when he knows people generally have an assault rifle for defence? No, he's just going to bring an even bigger gun, or he'll bring friends and surround/surprise me. The criminals aren't going to obey any restrictions I have to adhere to, they're simply going to be better armed than I am. The solution is not to hope I have a bigger gun than them, the solution is to have fewer guns for fewer people causing fewer crimes. 7-right so you really don't know how socioeconomic conditions are outside of the US. Ok well here for example the war of drugs is bullshit and we have gang/crime problems in major cities just like the US, only our homicide rates are much lower. There are many things that contribute to this, and I don't see how gun ownership provides any benefits. just some statistics on gun ownership causing harm in the US- http://www.businessinsider.com/shooting-gun-laws-2012-12wikipedia on gun violence "In 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 66.9% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm.[5]" States in the highest quartile for gun ownership had homicide rates 114% higher than states in the lowest quartile of gun ownership.[84] Among juveniles (minors under the age of 16, 17, or 18, depending on legal jurisdiction) serving in correctional facilities, 86% had owned a gun, with 66% acquiring their first gun by age 14.[2] There was also a tendency for juvenile offenders to have owned several firearms, with 65% owning three or more.[2] Juveniles most often acquired guns illegally from family, friends, drug dealers, and street contacts.[2] Inner-city youths cited "self-protection from enemies" as the top reason for carrying a gun.[2] In 2005, almost 18% of U.S. households possessed handguns, compared to almost 3% of households in Canada that possessed handguns.[9] In 2011, the number was increased to 34% of adults in the United States personally owned a gun; 46% of adult men, and 23% of adult women. "The United States has about five percent of the total world population but residents of the United States own about 42 percent of all the world's civilian-owned firearms." and crime in the US The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. As of 2006, a record 7 million people were behind bars, on probation or on parole, of which 2.2 million were incarcerated. The People's Republic of China ranks second with 1.5 million. The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population.[33][dated info] The US homicide rate, which has declined substantially since 1991 from a rate per 100,000 persons of 9.8 to 4.8 in 2010, is still among the highest in the industrialized world. In 2004, there were 5.5 homicides for every 100,000 persons, roughly three times as high as Canada (1.9) and six times as high as Germany (0.9). Your gun culture example doesn't work. Specifically because guns are more dangerous. The repercussions are much greater, so you don't just pull guns as freely as you start fist-fights. People carrying guns don't just draw for nothing. They don't get cut-off in a parking lot and start shooting people. The AR15 is the most commonly owned rifle in the US. It's an "Assault Weapon". In many jurisdictions, it is already legal to open carry it. But "Assault Weapons" are used in less than 1% of all fire-arm related crimes. Carrying a gun doesn't mean you WILL shoot someone. My point is, is that this gun culture idea, the idea that people will shoot each other over everything and nothing, has already been tested. People already carry guns, and it doesn't happen. It doesn't take too much government oversight. All you need is background checks. As long as there's no database of gun-owners, it doesn't really matter if they know you're allowed to own a gun. A tyrant would need to know whether you actually do or not. I'm not Nostradamus, I can't predict the future. But democracies can, and have become tyrannies, and that should be good enough. Sure, I can't say every little detail that would be necessary for armed rebellion, but neither did the founding fathers. 15 years before the revolution, no one had any desire for independence. 15 years isn't that long. Europe in the 30's DID have a modern democracy, and they had an almost-modern military. Sure, they didn't have the internet, and things may have turned out differently if they did, but they were never given the chance for open rebellion. Any people with opposition sympathies were at least disarmed, and they often just "Disappeared". I'll be honest, I don't know enough about China to say much there, besides the fact that before Mao, they were a functional democracy, and after he took power, they weren't. This arms race between civilians and criminals also doesn't happen. Plenty of civilians already have guns, and you don't see criminals getting bigger and better guns. Criminals need cheap, concealable guns. They need to be concealable so they can sneak up on you, and they need to be cheap so they can throw them away before the cops show up. Cheap, concealable guns are not very big or powerful. What is worse, a civilian who did nothing wrong getting killed, or a criminal who knew the risks getting killed? And please don't give me the whole "You don't know him, maybe he just wanted to feed his family." nonsense. Soup kitchens are a thing. Foodstamps exist. And besides, you have to admit that this would be a pretty rare occurrence. Most (I'd wager almost all) thefts aren't because the person will starve otherwise, they're because the thief wants to buy a new TV or more cocaine. Last, you do not know what he plans on doing to you. You have no idea if he's just going to take your wallet, or if he's going to kill you. Sure, it might be rare, but if you want to talk about the one-in-a-million dad's who steal to feed their family, I can talk about the one-in-a-million muggers who also kill. I didn't say I don't know socioeconomics anywhere outside the US, I said I don't know them in Canada. I'm happy for you that you seem to have solved all your problems. But look at the UK. They have almost no guns, and have one of the highest crime rates in Europe. Clearly guns are not the only factor, or even the main factor Suggesting that the US federal government is somehow going to devolve into a dictatorship/tyranny, and then using that as an argument for more guns is bullshit. I don't know how some people always bring it up and not be able to think to themselves how stupid the entire idea is. That's just a childish fantasy gun proponents secretly want to happen just so they can tell everyone else how wrong they were. So please...stop pulling the what-if-tyranny-1776-nazi-hitler-stalin-happens-in-america because you're just telling every sensible person how stupid your logic is. If you want to actually convince people that more guns/stronger gun rights is better for the country, use another argument that actually makes some sense. And yes, you are honest about not knowing a lot about china. They weren't a "functional democracy" before Mao (whatever that means). China never had the opportunity to become a real democracy early in the 20th century because of (1) WWII (2) their nationalism vs. communism civil war and (3) their decades-long war against Japan, which had occupied china. What part of it is bullshit? Is it that you think democracy is somehow perfect? Tell that to Spain, Italy, and Germany in the 30's, and France in the 1800's. Tell that to everyone who died at Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Kent State. Is it that you feel guerrillas would be completely outmatched? They wouldn't. Sure, they'd get slaughtered in a conventional fight, but guerrilla warfare is amazingly effective. And if it happened in the US, it'd be even more effective, because the Guerrillas would have far more targets and each one would be more strategically important. All the guerrillas in Vietnam and Iraq could do is ambush a patrol or two here and there. Homegrown guerrillas could target every factory, bridge, and powerplant in the country. Is it that you feel peaceful protest is a better option? Good, I do too. But it shouldn't be the only option. Skydivers wear two parachutes for a reason. The people in the US military are people just like you and me. The people that work in federal government are american citizens just like you and me. Intelligent people not only learn, but also carry with them the knowledge that the american government is made up of checks and balances. Have you? There's a reason why we've had a peaceful transfer of government for 250 years without any problems. And I thought pro-gun supporters were the ones who knew all about the constitution. The idea that someone in the federal government or a high ranking military general would decide that he wanted to become Supreme Dictator of Facist America is batshit crazy with a daily forecast chance of 0%. If we really wanted to be hypothetical, do you really think american soldiers would go shoot up an american neighborhood because the Supreme Dictator wanted them to so that he could start taking control of our country? Somebody down the line would say no. Somebody else in similar power in the government would say no. Someone might kill him first. Do you really think A-10s and F-16s from wright-patterson would start bombing chicago and cincinatti just because the Supreme Dictator wanted them to? Why does something like these even need an explanation? + Show Spoiler +Sure, they'd get slaughtered in a conventional fight, but guerrilla warfare is amazingly effective. All the guerrillas in Vietnam and Iraq could do is ambush a patrol or two here and there. Homegrown guerrillas could target every factory, bridge, and powerplant in the country.
Jesus christ, you sound like a 14 year old. You act as if most of the people in the military wouldn't follow orders that would be bad for the American people. Sure you might have a few who refuse, but the majority of them would be more concerned about the consequences of disobeying a direct order for fear of their own life or their families life. Why do you live in this fantasy land where tyranny is impossible? Telling someone they sound like a 14 year old makes you look like the childish one. Being condescending doesn't help your argument. ... Really? It should be completely obvious that the *vast* majority in the military would simply put down their weapons and give the bird to the chain of command that said "bomb Chicago" (and this chain of orders wouldn't happen in the first place because it require every single person up the chain of command to be batshit insane). He's dead-on accurate when he says "sounds like a 14 year old". It's not an insult, it's an apt observation. Why is that so obvious to you? Do you think the people who died in Jonestown (918) thought that they would be forced to kill themselves? They had no weapons, only the people in weapons had control (Jim Jones' personal little army). Saying "sounds like ur 14" is immature, ad hominem, and pointless. Maybe using facts and logic would work for you, instead of making the incorrect assumption that its so obvious the *vast* majority in the military would put down their weapons, maybe you could consider that you don't know that for sure. This is a conclusion with nothing to back it up besides your feeling of it being "obvious". I was in the military, 4 years USMC, do you think you would know better than me what our military could do? On January 31 2013 18:20 Rannasha wrote:On January 31 2013 18:10 Ryuhou)aS( wrote:
A thought i had on gun control laws. So, the main reason behind gun control laws (or what we're told/most people believe) is to keep criminals from using guns in crimes. What makes people think they'll actually follow these laws? They're criminals, they don't follow the laws. If guns are less readily available, criminals have a much harder time getting guns. In countries that have strict gun control laws in western Europe, only organized crime really has access to guns and they primarily use it to kill eachother. Your everyday burglar or small-time crook doesn't have the resources or the connections to obtain a firearm. Of course, the issue is that if you transition from no (or little) gun control to strict gun control in a country where guns are readily available, such as the US, it will take a long time before gun possession among small-time criminals drops to the level of that in countries that have had gun control for a long time already. The millions of guns in circulation in the US aren't going to go away overnight once a gun control law is introduced. Of course they won't go away overnight...they won't go away period, are you serious? Where would they go? No, it is perfectly accurate to tell someone they sound like a 14-year old when their response focuses on the importance of using the correct military jargon-vocabulary rather than directly respond to the point. I don't care if it sounds a bit harsh, it's absolutely true. I said something, and instead of responding to it, he tells me I'm using "bomb" when I should be using "JDAM" -- I mean, really? That's ludicrous and immediately tells me "you're dealing with someone arguing on the level of a child, stop now". Sorry, but that's what that kind of response tells people. I think that based on where we are today and what we have been through (esp. WWII), we are well aware of how dangerous it is to go down the path of that sort of thing. Comparing the order to bomb a city with Kent State or Waco is totally irrational. Therefore I believe it would be highly unlikely for an order to level a city or murder thousands of US citizens to occur, and even less likely for it to be carried out. No, I don't have scientific analysis and support for this thought and opinion. It's utterly fallacious to ask me to provide evidence for this "feeling" -- what, you want me to go take a census of all military personnel and ask them "would you bomb chicago if your second LT. told you to do so?" It's my opinion and I absolutely could care less if you want to believe that the order to bomb a city in the US is likely or very realistic. I simply disagree. I don't need to provide scientific evidence to disagree -- I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm just sharing my opinion. Feel free to personally disagree. Finally, claiming that you know better because "you were in the military" is just as bad, if not worse, than telling someone their argument or thought processes sound very immature. I mean, are you serious? This thread is absolutely ridiculous and I really am shocked at many of the replies, just looking over the last couple of pages. I'm outta here, this is absurd. Should not have gotten myself into the mess. Adios
Stop defending your childish ad homs, it makes you look more foolish every time you do it, so just move on from that.
You could provide supporting evidence where there have been instances where tyranny has been thwarted by rebellious soldiers, if such a thing exists, but I would simply counter that by naming more instances of tyranny that were not thwarted and the soldiers carried out their maliciously conceived orders.
Experience in the military is where I gathered my knowledge on the military, while you apparently gather your knowledge through spontaneous insight.
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To answer the OP: Yes. And to all kinds (excusing some destructive devices) whether they are fully automatic, .22cal, or 20mm. Whether they carry 5 rounds or 500.
To comment on "universal background checks," are you going to create a hotline for thieves to call when they steal a firearm? This is the only way a potential mass murderer can make sure he/she is stealing the firearm legally.
On February 01 2013 05:55 karelen wrote:
Dear american pro-gun supporters open your eyes and look at whats happening in your society. You really think this is what your founding fathers intended? School shootings every week? Kids shooting siblings acceidentally? Mentally unstable individuals going on random killing sprees? Fathers shooting imagined burglars that later turn out to be family members?
You are quite right in the mantra you keep on repeating, guns dont kill, people do. But clearly people arent ready to have an unlimited supply of firearms.
Also for the record, keeping the population armed to protect against "tyranny" is seriously the weakest argument you could put forth, Its just laughable in this day and age.
Recently, 280,000 people in America died because of obesity. Dare I say our biggest threat is FORKS??
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EPT
