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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. |
On December 05 2015 05:20 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2015 03:33 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I like the idea of guns in our society. Maybe I'm currently unhappy with the current trend to very socialist by the NDP party where I live, but I believe people should be entitled to more freedoms.
I think it's universally agreed that more guns will lead to more homicides, ceteris paribus. That said, I think it's a freedom that people should have. I don't like that in a case someone tries to assault me, however unlikely it may be, my only course of action is to try to run away, or get beat up, and hope that the legal system punishes them, and rewards me for damages. Sadly, as long as there's no serious injury, I won't get compensated for being mistreated in ways that are not allowed in the universal human rights.
I think that a better education system and slightly better regulation would fix a lot of problems in the US. I dislike the trend of more things being controlled, or monitored by the government. With advancing technology, there will be less and less privacy, and less freedom of expression... I want to make sure that people's rights are respected, even if it's at the expense of wellness to our society.
We could have sensors in our cars that track our eye movements, and communicate the info to the government if there's distracted driving. I think things like this infringe human rights, and even still, this technology will be start being implemented in certain professions. In the same way, people should have a fundamental right to protect themselves, regardless of how unlikely danger might be.
That said, I think the research ban is silly. Just realize something here: you just admitted to having developed a strongly held legal/political perspective on gun rights when a very important source of information, the sort that would almost certainly play figuratively into a well established factual basis for such a perspective, is severely limited via the current de facto prohibition on gun rights public health research in the most gun-violent 1st world nation on the planet. High minded talk of rights linked with borderline conspiracy theory-esque analogies referencing smart car eye sensors, as an overall justification for individual freedom-heavy gun control, seems fairly susceptible to the plain faced truth that countries with gun control at least marginally more strict than the US suffer less violent crimes that are less severe in their damage to the social fabric. Furthermore, the interests who fight the hardest in favor of weak gun control here in the US happen to be very wealthy and entirely responsible for the overall lack of good data on the matter. That all seems problematic to me.
I mean, he did say the ban on CDC gun research was silly. How are you defining the first world, by the way? Mexico is an OECD country.
On December 05 2015 01:42 Ryndika wrote:
Aren't tazers legal in many states/countries or smth? Pepper spray even more so I don't understand really this self defense thing.
Or are you actually planning to kill people? Why else would you carry tool to kill people with you?
You really think people don't have spontanous moments of aggression when they have a gun with them?
Owning guns for collection is legitimate but this self defense thing is like from 1800 or little kids fantasy.
Defense means you're trying to stop yourself from being kidnapped, raped, attacked, killed, and so on. To defend your person, your family, your home, this a serious thing people need to do, it's not a fantasy. The deterrent is real, too - the majority of burglaries in the UK happen with people at home; most burglaries in the USA happen when nobody is home. Fantasy is pretending bad things can't happen to good people.
In the USA, the government doesn't have a legal obligation to defend you personally, they have an obligation to the public. That starts to become scary if you also couldn't defend yourself, but we fortunately have a legal tradition supporting that right.
Pepper spray and tasers are great options also for many people, although tasers become useless if you miss the target. Pepper spray is arguably more useful than a knife, even.
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The comparison between the usa and Canada is interesting.
Usa is a high crime area while Canada is a low crime area.
The cause of this difference is speculation but maybe it has to do with inequality.The higher the inequality in income,the higher the crime rate.
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On December 05 2015 05:20 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2015 03:33 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I like the idea of guns in our society. Maybe I'm currently unhappy with the current trend to very socialist by the NDP party where I live, but I believe people should be entitled to more freedoms.
I think it's universally agreed that more guns will lead to more homicides, ceteris paribus. That said, I think it's a freedom that people should have. I don't like that in a case someone tries to assault me, however unlikely it may be, my only course of action is to try to run away, or get beat up, and hope that the legal system punishes them, and rewards me for damages. Sadly, as long as there's no serious injury, I won't get compensated for being mistreated in ways that are not allowed in the universal human rights.
I think that a better education system and slightly better regulation would fix a lot of problems in the US. I dislike the trend of more things being controlled, or monitored by the government. With advancing technology, there will be less and less privacy, and less freedom of expression... I want to make sure that people's rights are respected, even if it's at the expense of wellness to our society.
We could have sensors in our cars that track our eye movements, and communicate the info to the government if there's distracted driving. I think things like this infringe human rights, and even still, this technology will be start being implemented in certain professions. In the same way, people should have a fundamental right to protect themselves, regardless of how unlikely danger might be.
That said, I think the research ban is silly. Just realize something here: you just admitted to having developed a strongly held legal/political perspective on gun rights when a very important source of information, the sort that would almost certainly play figuratively into a well established factual basis for such a perspective, is severely limited via the current de facto prohibition on gun rights public health research in the most gun-violent 1st world nation on the planet. High minded talk of rights linked with borderline conspiracy theory-esque analogies referencing smart car eye sensors, as an overall justification for individual freedom-heavy gun control, seems fairly susceptible to the plain faced truth that countries with gun control at least marginally more strict than the US suffer less violent crimes that are less severe in their damage to the social fabric. Furthermore, the interests who fight the hardest in favor of weak gun control here in the US happen to be very wealthy and entirely responsible for the overall lack of good data on the matter. That all seems problematic to me.
Actually my engineering department has been working on developing the smart eye sensor technology, and hence, I'd speculate there is demand for it, yes I haven't done research, but thought it was a reasonable inference.
Anyway, I'm mostly talking from personal experience from my city. We've a 3/100,000 homocide rate per year, and roughly 10% of those are gun related. Obtaining a gun is as simple as spending $250 on a class and certification that I believe you need to renew every 5 years, as well as undergoing a background check. Also, if you look at the deaths, an overwhelming majority is any gang or drug related activity. When you compare that to the 6/100,000 deaths per year from car accidents (versus 0.3-0.5/100,000 gun related deaths), it doesn't seem like a big issue.
I think educating the population, and having a society built on tolerance is very compatible with a regulated firearm industry. I don't that I need to look at any gun research in any significant depth, to make the conclusions I've made. Like I said, I'm against the utilitarian perspective that most governments have been shifting towards, and would prefer a greater emphasis on a more rights-based ethics approach.
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For those who are scratching their heads at the US gun laws, here is a really good documentary on why gun control in the US is politically unfeasible:
Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA
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this might be off topic but the concept of education is often times NOT the issue. education and programs are out there, it's not, non existent, anyone who WANTS to learn these things HAS access to them VIA the internet, merely asking a librarian, etc. this is the 21st century to make the topic of education the point of blame is just well, foolish at best. there is not a LACK of information, there is a lack of competence. There are an abundant amount of programs about these things in schools, and merely even educated individuals. People in general, know what's right and wrong....they just choose not to do these things. People who don't want to learn, and are ignorant are not suddenly going to become non-ignorant, in fact they don't realize they're stupid to begin with! you can't fix these people.
What we can do is stop giving power to the stupid people in the media that these ignorant people blindly follow! i for one blame hip hip culture, a culture based around murder, drug-dealing, worshiping sexuality, etc. it's not that sexuality is a bad thing, but often times it is idolized to extreme extents often times that alot of these kids think "getting pussy, and getting high are the only things having a good life is about" our music is essentially flooded and over abundant in these topics. a consumerist society that inevitably spirals downwards profiting off the ignorant of the public. when it becomes "cool" to be "hard" and shoot a dude, and being a killer you have places like mexico and Compton. there is a pattern to this superficiality idolization and criminal behavior. Unintelligent people who are easily influenced are going to take the suggestions of these rap artists's literally, not to mention some of the more extreme rock and roll bands as well.
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On December 05 2015 11:44 saocyn wrote:
this might be off topic but the concept of education is often times NOT the issue. education and programs are out there, it's not, non existent, anyone who WANTS to learn these things HAS access to them VIA the internet, merely asking a librarian, etc. this is the 21st century to make the topic of education the point of blame is just well, foolish at best. there is not a LACK of information, there is a lack of competence. There are an abundant amount of programs about these things in schools, and merely even educated individuals. People in general, know what's right and wrong....they just choose not to do these things. People who don't want to learn, and are ignorant are not suddenly going to become non-ignorant, in fact they don't realize they're stupid to begin with! you can't fix these people.
What we can do is stop giving power to the stupid people in the media that these ignorant people blindly follow! i for one blame hip hip culture, a culture based around murder, drug-dealing, worshiping sexuality, etc. it's not that sexuality is a bad thing, but often times it is idolized to extreme extents often times that alot of these kids think "getting pussy, and getting high are the only things having a good life is about" our music is essentially flooded and over abundant in these topics. a consumerist society that inevitably spirals downwards profiting off the ignorant of the public. when it becomes "cool" to be "hard" and shoot a dude, and being a killer you have places like mexico and Compton. there is a pattern to this superficiality idolization and criminal behavior. Unintelligent people who are easily influenced are going to take the suggestions of these rap artists's literally, not to mention some of the more extreme rock and roll bands as well.
I disagree with you.
We are all born more or less the same, whether it's Bill Gates or an ISIS terrorist. It all depends on your up bringing, and the society and culture you are brought up with. I'm not talking about education as in telling people guns are dangerous, and don't shoot people.
I'm talking about education where the person is shaped completely differently in their upbringing, to prevent these tendencies. Often times the people who commit such crimes were neglected as children, or had other problems in their lives. I think that very few people are born stupid, like looking back, I was a pretty stupid kid in high school, and cared more about social acceptance and whatnot, and like the you know, wannabe gangster stuff. And then, I chose to go to to university, and was enlightened if you will, and it changed my views tremendously, it changed me deep inside my core.
I think if you get people to value their lives by having things that they'd lose by making poor decisions, and get them to live with the principles of logic and reason... I think you'd reduce these atrocities significantly, that's what I mean by education. But the U.S society as a whole (from what I've seen from my limited time in the US), has different beliefs and values compared to Canada, Western Europe, and developed Asia. I don't have any facts to back it up (and hence why more research would be good), but I believe that a majority of the root cause is different education systems and beliefs and values, rather than lax firearm laws.
This figure always comes up when comparing the US with the rest of the world, and it's obviously just a little component, but I think it goes to demonstrate that there are some fundamental differences between our societies.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eFAXujs.jpg)
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United States24779 Posts
On December 04 2015 22:14 evilfatsh1t wrote:
just because a gun isnt being used to kill something, doesnt remove the original purpose of having a gun.
guns are supposed to inflict damage. full stop
off the top of my head there is nothing else that is legal where its original purpose is to inflict damage. Up to this point, I was tracking with you actually.
you can argue people 'train' with guns or use it for recreational purposes, but what positive impact does it actually have on society?
what are you training for? why are you even trying to improve your shooting skills.
the argument that alcohol, cars, and a whole lot of other shit should be banned if you ban guns is ludicrous. everything else has a positive purpose in society, its just that they have terrible side effects in some cases. guns literally have 0 positive purpose. they were created to kill shit
Why do you think that alcohol, cars, and 'other shit' have a positive purpose in society, but target shooting, skeet shooting, and hunting do not? You reasoning seem to be "the argument is ludicrous" which is not really sufficient. I'm sure you are someone who personally doesn't get any benefit from shooting activities, but it's pretty arrogant to think because you don't like something that it has no positive impact on society. I'm not even arguing about whether or not the benefits of recreational gun culture outweigh the threats that go along with it... just discussing what good people get out of it.
On December 05 2015 00:12 AngryMag wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2015 00:08 ahswtini wrote:On December 04 2015 22:14 evilfatsh1t wrote:
just because a gun isnt being used to kill something, doesnt remove the original purpose of having a gun.
guns are supposed to inflict damage. full stop
off the top of my head there is nothing else that is legal where its original purpose is to inflict damage.
you can argue people 'train' with guns or use it for recreational purposes, but what positive impact does it actually have on society?
what are you training for? why are you even trying to improve your shooting skills.
the argument that alcohol, cars, and a whole lot of other shit should be banned if you ban guns is ludicrous. everything else has a positive purpose in society, its just that they have terrible side effects in some cases. guns literally have 0 positive purpose. they were created to kill shit what is the positive purpose of alcohol or recreational drugs in society? is alcohol a required part of life? cars help you get around and life would be severely impacted without access to cars. can you really say the same about alcohol? Yeah I can confidently say that. Leave the booze alone, some comparisons made in this thread are so absurd they could sport in satire shows.
You similarly try to dismiss the argument as being absurd, but that is not a valid line of reasoning. When all of the people on one side of an issue start to say "the other side is being absurd/ludicrous" and the opponents are disagreeing, that's a problem.
On December 05 2015 00:21 AngryMag wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2015 00:17 ahswtini wrote:On December 05 2015 00:12 AngryMag wrote:On December 05 2015 00:08 ahswtini wrote:On December 04 2015 22:14 evilfatsh1t wrote:
just because a gun isnt being used to kill something, doesnt remove the original purpose of having a gun.
guns are supposed to inflict damage. full stop
off the top of my head there is nothing else that is legal where its original purpose is to inflict damage.
you can argue people 'train' with guns or use it for recreational purposes, but what positive impact does it actually have on society?
what are you training for? why are you even trying to improve your shooting skills.
the argument that alcohol, cars, and a whole lot of other shit should be banned if you ban guns is ludicrous. everything else has a positive purpose in society, its just that they have terrible side effects in some cases. guns literally have 0 positive purpose. they were created to kill shit what is the positive purpose of alcohol or recreational drugs in society? is alcohol a required part of life? cars help you get around and life would be severely impacted without access to cars. can you really say the same about alcohol? Yeah I can confidently say that. Leave the booze alone, some comparisons made in this thread are so absurd they could sport in satire shows. i dont understand though. alcohol and drugs cause way more deaths and health problems than guns. please name the positive impacts of alcohol and drugs on society. Escapism from a shit reality. Releasing pressure build up by said shit reality. In our societies the poorer classes are drinking and abusing drugs the most. It is a way to flee from reality, like a movie. Take the drugs away and (this includes legal ones like booze) organized crime will grow, cohesion in societies will be further reduced and the existence of shittier but necessary jobs in our societies will be put into question.
When pressed, you actually did attempt to justify your position. However, it seems to me like your explanation of why alcohol and drugs help our society (which is kind of suspect to begin with), does not in any way demonstrate why gun culture does not also offer benefits to society (regardless of the drawbacks). Alcohol and guns can both be used to have a good time, albeit one you drink and the other you shoot bullets from. You might enjoy one but not the other, and that's your choice, but that doesn't make the activity you don't like have no value to many other people.
On December 05 2015 01:59 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2015 00:17 ahswtini wrote:On December 05 2015 00:12 AngryMag wrote:On December 05 2015 00:08 ahswtini wrote:On December 04 2015 22:14 evilfatsh1t wrote:
just because a gun isnt being used to kill something, doesnt remove the original purpose of having a gun.
guns are supposed to inflict damage. full stop
off the top of my head there is nothing else that is legal where its original purpose is to inflict damage.
you can argue people 'train' with guns or use it for recreational purposes, but what positive impact does it actually have on society?
what are you training for? why are you even trying to improve your shooting skills.
the argument that alcohol, cars, and a whole lot of other shit should be banned if you ban guns is ludicrous. everything else has a positive purpose in society, its just that they have terrible side effects in some cases. guns literally have 0 positive purpose. they were created to kill shit what is the positive purpose of alcohol or recreational drugs in society? is alcohol a required part of life? cars help you get around and life would be severely impacted without access to cars. can you really say the same about alcohol? Yeah I can confidently say that. Leave the booze alone, some comparisons made in this thread are so absurd they could sport in satire shows. i dont understand though. alcohol and drugs cause way more deaths and health problems than guns. please name the positive impacts of alcohol and drugs on society. 10 bucks says you're not a school teacher.
I truly cracked up at this.
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i dont think anyone here is saying recreational shooting has no value to people who enjoy recreational shooting.
its just blatantly obvious that the drawbacks of allowing people to have guns simply because they like shooting for fun are way too severe. this stuff just went without saying
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United States24779 Posts
This part of the conversation started with "you can argue people 'train' with guns or use it for recreational purposes, but what positive impact does it actually have on society?" which I take to mean recreational shooting has no value, and therefore your point does not go without saying for all involved.
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ok ill admit my previous post wasnt clear about me asking what the positive impacts were which outweighed the negatives
edit: 3000th post
what a shame i wasted it in a thread discussing such a shitty topic
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On December 05 2015 14:13 evilfatsh1t wrote:
i dont think anyone here is saying recreational shooting has no value to people who enjoy recreational shooting.
its just blatantly obvious that the drawbacks of allowing people to have guns simply because they like shooting for fun are way too severe. this stuff just went without saying
but it's not too severe. the amount of people killed in gun homicide is less than 30% the amount of people that die in auto accidents (in 2013). primary or secondary uses for guns or cars has no bearing if the logic your using is that gun ownership costs lives, when it comes down to cold hard numbers cars kill more people than guns do.
well, you might say but cars are a modern necessity, it's worth it. if you're ok with justifying the deaths of thousands for the convenience of faster travel, i don't see how it's so utterly incomprehensible to say a few crazy outliers and gang / drug violence (in which, i'd guess firearms are not obtained legally anyway) is a small price to pay for the right to bear arms.
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On December 05 2015 18:00 dontforgetosmile wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2015 14:13 evilfatsh1t wrote:
i dont think anyone here is saying recreational shooting has no value to people who enjoy recreational shooting.
its just blatantly obvious that the drawbacks of allowing people to have guns simply because they like shooting for fun are way too severe. this stuff just went without saying but it's not too severe. the amount of people killed in gun homicide is less than 30% the amount of people that die in auto accidents (in 2013). primary or secondary uses for guns or cars has no bearing if the logic your using is that gun ownership costs lives, when it comes down to cold hard numbers cars kill more people than guns do. well, you might say but cars are a modern necessity, it's worth it. if you're ok with justifying the deaths of thousands for the convenience of faster travel, i don't see how it's so utterly incomprehensible to say a few crazy outliers and gang / drug violence (in which, i'd guess firearms are not obtained legally anyway) is a small price to pay for the right to bear arms.
I don't think one can honestly only attribute homicides to firearm ownership. At minimum you have to include accidents and irresponsible discharges. Realistically, a significant portion of suicides should be included too.
There's a lot of ground in between where we are now and no guns. The solution isn't just keep what we have now and that's indisputable.
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On December 05 2015 18:57 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2015 18:00 dontforgetosmile wrote:On December 05 2015 14:13 evilfatsh1t wrote:
i dont think anyone here is saying recreational shooting has no value to people who enjoy recreational shooting.
its just blatantly obvious that the drawbacks of allowing people to have guns simply because they like shooting for fun are way too severe. this stuff just went without saying but it's not too severe. the amount of people killed in gun homicide is less than 30% the amount of people that die in auto accidents (in 2013). primary or secondary uses for guns or cars has no bearing if the logic your using is that gun ownership costs lives, when it comes down to cold hard numbers cars kill more people than guns do. well, you might say but cars are a modern necessity, it's worth it. if you're ok with justifying the deaths of thousands for the convenience of faster travel, i don't see how it's so utterly incomprehensible to say a few crazy outliers and gang / drug violence (in which, i'd guess firearms are not obtained legally anyway) is a small price to pay for the right to bear arms. There's a lot of ground in between where we are now and no guns. The solution isn't just keep what we have now and that's indisputable.
i agree with you.
i only bring the argument up because a number of people have expressed that any utility from firearms is unjustifiable given that its invented purpose was to kill more efficiently. yet, despite this idea that FEELS absolutely terrible, the number of total deaths in 2013 is only slightly higher than that of auto deaths with around 2/3rds of those gun deaths being suicide.
have you as a driver ever been questioned about the morality of your decision to drive? it sounds ludicrous and yet this is the question that gun owners have to defend themselves against every time a crazy person goes on a murdering spree.
can we do better with regulations? i personally think so. but it doesn't help to give in to fear mongering and which leads to ineffective knee-jerk legislation like the previously proposed federal assault weapons ban.
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On December 05 2015 07:19 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2015 05:20 farvacola wrote:On December 05 2015 03:33 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I like the idea of guns in our society. Maybe I'm currently unhappy with the current trend to very socialist by the NDP party where I live, but I believe people should be entitled to more freedoms.
I think it's universally agreed that more guns will lead to more homicides, ceteris paribus. That said, I think it's a freedom that people should have. I don't like that in a case someone tries to assault me, however unlikely it may be, my only course of action is to try to run away, or get beat up, and hope that the legal system punishes them, and rewards me for damages. Sadly, as long as there's no serious injury, I won't get compensated for being mistreated in ways that are not allowed in the universal human rights.
I think that a better education system and slightly better regulation would fix a lot of problems in the US. I dislike the trend of more things being controlled, or monitored by the government. With advancing technology, there will be less and less privacy, and less freedom of expression... I want to make sure that people's rights are respected, even if it's at the expense of wellness to our society.
We could have sensors in our cars that track our eye movements, and communicate the info to the government if there's distracted driving. I think things like this infringe human rights, and even still, this technology will be start being implemented in certain professions. In the same way, people should have a fundamental right to protect themselves, regardless of how unlikely danger might be.
That said, I think the research ban is silly. Just realize something here: you just admitted to having developed a strongly held legal/political perspective on gun rights when a very important source of information, the sort that would almost certainly play figuratively into a well established factual basis for such a perspective, is severely limited via the current de facto prohibition on gun rights public health research in the most gun-violent 1st world nation on the planet. High minded talk of rights linked with borderline conspiracy theory-esque analogies referencing smart car eye sensors, as an overall justification for individual freedom-heavy gun control, seems fairly susceptible to the plain faced truth that countries with gun control at least marginally more strict than the US suffer less violent crimes that are less severe in their damage to the social fabric. Furthermore, the interests who fight the hardest in favor of weak gun control here in the US happen to be very wealthy and entirely responsible for the overall lack of good data on the matter. That all seems problematic to me. Actually my engineering department has been working on developing the smart eye sensor technology, and hence, I'd speculate there is demand for it, yes I haven't done research, but thought it was a reasonable inference. Anyway, I'm mostly talking from personal experience from my city. We've a 3/100,000 homocide rate per year, and roughly 10% of those are gun related. Obtaining a gun is as simple as spending $250 on a class and certification that I believe you need to renew every 5 years, as well as undergoing a background check. Also, if you look at the deaths, an overwhelming majority is any gang or drug related activity. When you compare that to the 6/100,000 deaths per year from car accidents (versus 0.3-0.5/100,000 gun related deaths), it doesn't seem like a big issue. I think educating the population, and having a society built on tolerance is very compatible with a regulated firearm industry. I don't that I need to look at any gun research in any significant depth, to make the conclusions I've made. Like I said, I'm against the utilitarian perspective that most governments have been shifting towards, and would prefer a greater emphasis on a more rights-based ethics approach.
I'm very happy to hear that there are people who still view things correctly.
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Its hypocrite to only ban some guns or some body armor.
I mean if there are reasons to ban some weapons, what are they?
And why don't they apply to the other weapons.
If there are reasons to carry certain guns, what are they?
And why don't they apply to other guns, firearms and body armor.
The hole dicussion is just nit-picking and all that politicans do, is cater to one or the other view to collect votes.
http://guntv.tv/
:D I like the jingelly music of the spot.,,,
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On December 05 2015 01:21 oBlade wrote:+ Show Spoiler +One rate or another may have fallen or risen since 2013, but it is trending downwards.
About 2/3 of the "firearm related death rate" is suicides, were you aware of that?
I'm saying the homicide rate is only 2-3x that of say, Canada or Finland because it's true, what do you mean "helping." Yes, the homicide rate is higher than certain small democratic countries. But it's not 100x worse or whatever people think when they look at this issue hysterically. Despite having half the world's guns, the USA's homicide rate is clearly below the world average... I don't see how that's something to dismisss. There are some notable countries with stricter gun control, or all countries have fewer guns than the US of course, like Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, and Russia, that have homicide rates between like 10 and 30.
Sure, but think about this, would the suicide numbers be as high if the access to guns was more restricted? People who failed suicide attempts have been recorded to say they almost always directly regretted attempting suicide after they jumped or overdosed or whatever. Aot of suicides are also passionate in the sense that people have something traumatic or lifechanging happen to them and they can't handle it, so they want to end it. A gun is a very easy way to actually end it really quickly without alot of hassle or chance of it failing.
The downward trend is good, I've also noticed that, so I hope it continues dropping. This may also be because more and more people are becoming more responsible or something?
Comparing the US to countries with massive internal problems isn't really a good comparison though. Major gang violence / militia force in Mexico, Brazil and South Africa for example.
But it's true what you said, the numbers aren't extremely disproportionate for the US and other Western countries, however, it's still a number that's too high in my opinion, and is caused by this gun culture or at least is a major contributor.
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I really wish defensive gun use research didn't have to rely on such bias-prone methodology (making any results pretty questionable, whether pro or con DGU) and actually did some interventional time series assessments in the U.S. I cannot imagine, for example, that any areas with assault weapons bans have had significant decreases in defensive gun use-or that many of the cases of DGU in general are done with assault weapons.
But we don't have good research on either, so who knows?
A handgun I can see people using to defend themselves. A shotgun or hunting rifle even. But I can't see what an assault weapon will do for self-defense that those two won't the vast majority of the time with less potential for collateral damage.
Edit: Also, on the subject of target shooting, it's perfectly conceivable to sustain target shooting while totally altering laws about individuals being able to own or carry guns. It just means that people would have to rent guns to practice and competitions would have to provide guns (which arguably makes them fairer anyway). What it would kill is the gun modification industry really.
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On December 06 2015 02:01 Uldridge wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2015 01:21 oBlade wrote:+ Show Spoiler +One rate or another may have fallen or risen since 2013, but it is trending downwards.
About 2/3 of the "firearm related death rate" is suicides, were you aware of that?
I'm saying the homicide rate is only 2-3x that of say, Canada or Finland because it's true, what do you mean "helping." Yes, the homicide rate is higher than certain small democratic countries. But it's not 100x worse or whatever people think when they look at this issue hysterically. Despite having half the world's guns, the USA's homicide rate is clearly below the world average... I don't see how that's something to dismisss. There are some notable countries with stricter gun control, or all countries have fewer guns than the US of course, like Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, and Russia, that have homicide rates between like 10 and 30. Sure, but think about this, would the suicide numbers be as high if the access to guns was more restricted? People who failed suicide attempts have been recorded to say they almost always directly regretted attempting suicide after they jumped or overdosed or whatever. Aot of suicides are also passionate in the sense that people have something traumatic or lifechanging happen to them and they can't handle it, so they want to end it. A gun is a very easy way to actually end it really quickly without alot of hassle or chance of it failing. The downward trend is good, I've also noticed that, so I hope it continues dropping. This may also be because more and more people are becoming more responsible or something? Comparing the US to countries with massive internal problems isn't really a good comparison though. Major gang violence / militia force in Mexico, Brazil and South Africa for example. But it's true what you said, the numbers aren't extremely disproportionate for the US and other Western countries, however, it's still a number that's too high in my opinion, and is caused by this gun culture or at least is a major contributor.
Well as you have just said, countries like Mexico and Brazil have gang violence problems which is what causes their high murder rates despite their strict gun control. Why doesn't the same apply to the US? The US has far more gang related violence (which is the majority of gun crime) than other Western European nations. So why blame the gun culture and not the gang culture?
Essentially, it's unfair to say "Mexico and Brazil have violence compared to the US because they have lots of gang crime. Ignore the gun laws there they don't matter", and then "The US has a lot of violence compared to Western Europe because they have loose gun laws, ignore the gang crime they don't matter."
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Probably has something to do with the fact that people see the US as a generally western society quite similar to european nations, while they see mexico as a third world country ruled by criminal cartells and corruption.
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On December 06 2015 02:51 Simberto wrote:
Probably has something to do with the fact that people see the US as a generally western society quite similar to european nations, while they see mexico as a third world country ruled by criminal cartells and corruption.
Which would be a fairly wrong and somewhat racist assumption.
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EPT
