Knives have the purpose to cut food.

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Because we have more guns more readily available. That's a stupid question. Compare all homicides, not gun homicides. We are nowhere near the top of the list.


Nobody carrying weapons is an idealistic utopia that will never exist. Humans can be violent. Nothing you do is going to change that. I'm going to carry a weapon. You can do what you want.


His opening statement is "Since the outrage that shocked the world, another 500 Americans have died because of absurd gun Laws." That article is a propaganda opinion piece. There is no argumentative merit anywhere in it. It's mostly a list of gun accidents. Guns are not the leading cause of death in this country. Not even close.

Interesting fact:

do you know why some countries used chopsticks? It was because knives were banned. Knives weren't designed for dining to begin with; you can just use one to cut up your food.

Firearms can shoot food (most animals are still killed by a "gun", whether it's in the wild or bought from a shop).

You are right, I should have said homicides, rather than gun homicides. However, you are still near the top of that list. The only comparable countries that have higher murder rates are Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and Russia, the first three of which have equality issues that make America's seem trivial.

Nobody carrying weapons is an idealistic utopia that will never exist. Humans can be violent. Nothing you do is going to change that. I'm going to carry a weapon. You can do what you want.[/quote][/quote]
That is all well and good. I think you can get to crowds of people, or cities of people, where very few people carry weapons, and crime is lower.

They take second place for non-medical deaths, and will be in first place by 2015.

Are gun accidents any less important than gun homicides?

[/quote]
That is all well and good. I think you can get to crowds of people, or cities of people, where very few people carry weapons, and crime is lower.

They take second place for non-medical deaths, and will be in first place by 2015.

Are gun accidents any less important than gun homicides?[/quote]

Vermont and New Hampshire have the lowest homicide rate in USA. Vermont doesn't even require a permit to carry a pistol as long as you're over 16. Both Vermont and NH have homicide rates of about 1 per 100K. Washington DC for a long time had handguns banned, and homicide rate there is 24 per 100K. Also, Jamaica has very strict licensing requirements for guns, and in practice bans guns. If you're caught with a gun in Jamaica, you can get a 25 year sentence or even life. But Jamaica's homcide rate is 40 per 100K. Of course Japan also effectively bans guns (though you can own some stuff there if you jump through enough hoops) but their homicide rate is also really low, like .3 or 1 or something.

Maybe it's culture and not inanimate objects? Nah.

Yes, culture is definitely important. I've said before that I think what is needed is a culture shift so that banning guns is a realistic option.

The problem is, the cat is out of the bag. A world without, say, nuclear weapons, would be the best. And that'd be a hell of a lot easier problem to solve than firearms. But, because the knowledge to make nuclear weapons exists, countries will have them. Nuclear weapons were only invented a little under 70 years ago, but most people would agree nuclear disarmament is an unrealistic goal, and the nukes are here to stay. Now, it's a nuke, quite a bit more complex than a firearm. A firearm only requires really, a pipe with the end sealed off, some sort of projectile, and some sort of explosive powder. Prisoners have made matchlock firearms using matchheads for gun powder, and AA batteries as projectiles, and these guns could supposedly fire through a steel prison door. Guns are here to stay, good or bad.

One thing interesting, too, Korea actually has stricter gun laws in Japan. In Japan, you only have to keep pistols in the police department, shotguns and rifles can be kept in a locker in your house. South Korea all guns have to be kept at the police station and signed out. Japan's homicide rate is .3, and South Korea's is 2.3. So, South Korea is higher than Switzerland's 1.0. South Korea is a very developed country, whereas Jamaica isn't. So its not even all the times areas associated with minorities or poverty. South Korea's rate is higher than the Czech Republic even. Lastly, one thing interesting about the Swiss and Japanese societies is very low murder rates, but because they're such restrictive societies (even if the Swiss allow guns for a hobby) the suicide rate is through the roof, same in Korea, which was highest.

You can't say "oh, gun control is a complex, cultural issue" on one hand and then say "suicide is because of restrictions" on the other. For example, America, the land of the free, has a higher suicide rate than Zimbabwe or Iran (or Australia, Germany, the UK or Spain, for that matter). Egypt had the lowest non-zero suicide rate in the world in 2009, under Mubarak.

I didn't say it was because of gun control. I said the societies are restrictive societies. Japan and Switzerland are very rigid societies with lots of emphasis on conformity. Switzerland just coincidentally has lots of guns. But in a society that's very conformist and restrictive (Switzerland, you're actually not allowed to modify cars much there) it's going to correlate with a higher suicide rate. Switzerland is just an oddball country in that it's one of the few restrictive conformist type societies that allows lots of gun ownership.

The purpose of a knife is to cut using the sharpened edge. What it cuts is up to the user.
The purplse of a firearm is to launch a projectile down a tube under the pressure from burning propellants. What it launches that projectile against is up to the user.

Do you want to stab a rabid skunk or shoot it?

If you changed a culture enough that violence wasn't so much of a problem, why would you still need gun control? Unless you just don't like guns, which is a whole other kettle of fish.

To shoot bullets out the barrel. Next question?

ruveyn

A tool does not uniquely determine the job it does.

However the nature of a tool constrains the set of tasks that it can perform;

ruveyn

As long as man exists with the mind to think outside the box anything can become a weapon.

Sharpened Hufflepuff bones?

What purpose does a stiletto have?

ruveyn