Another Gun Control Thread

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the streets are only paved with gold here for people who earn over 100k.


and most major cities are more like mini third world nations. like many areas in los angeles, new orleans, detroit, washington DC (the DC part)...a ton of places like that.


that's one thing that most of the foreigners who talk about gun control here don't comprehend.

My mother committed suicide with a gun as well. I don't blame the gun or the fact that we owned one. She just would have found another way.

I'm reminded of an experiment that was done where a city divided by a river was taken and on one side guns were banned and on the other there was mandatory gun safety classes and everyone was required to carry a concealed weapon when outside their home.

On the side where guns were banned crime skyrocketed and on the side where everyone was trained and armed it became nonexistent.

Also disarming a civilian population is one of the last steps in the transitioning of a society to despotism or totalitarianism.

As the saying goes: guns don't kill people, people kill people and humans are infinitely creative when it comes to finding ways to kill.

Personally I think the armed side of the river was a nice place. People tend to be much more respectful towards each other when they don't know if being a bastard is going to get them shot in the face.

see my points about what ACTUALLY causes crime. it's not the guns that are the issue so much as it is everything else.


it's a fallacious belief to blame guns for society's problems.

Freya, I am sure you have documentation to back up your story above. Search as I could I could not find any thing about gun control and a City divided by a river and gun control, etc.

however Detroit, MI and Windsor, ON are real cities and I have the documentation of the difference guns make in each city. I know you will want to give us your reference notations that dispute these findings, and I will watch for them with interest.
Merle

an excerpt:
In the United States, another classroom of children is killed by firearms every two days. That doesn't mean that every few days, there is another Columbine mass murder. But statistics show that each day 13 children die from gunfire, and every two days, the equivalent of a classroom of American children is struck by the tragedy of gun violence. In Windsor, the Canadian town that borders Detroit, there were only 4 firearm homicides in 1997. In Detroit, for that same year, there were 354 firearm homicides. If the population of Detroit and Windsor were equal, the number of firearm deaths would be nearly eighteen times higher in Detroit, a city less than 1,000 yards away.

http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=211365

guns dont kill people, stupid gun owners kill people.

Stupidity need not be a permanent state of mind. As I said, all it takes is one moment of anger.

That's a valid point, but the irresponsibility of some does not justify stripping everyone of their liberties.

Tasers and pepper sprays are also much less effective in defending oneself.

This is true.

Dead ones are less likely to get back up and attack you while you wait (hours) for the police to arrive.

Yes.

Now, I know that this thread is apt to get flame-grilled, so let me tell you to attack the points, not me. Nemo me impune lacessit, savvy?

I think that many Americans, particularly gun lovers, are obsessed with rights before responsibility and consequences.

If some household Dirt Harry wannabe told those guys to freeze, what would happen?

Why the hell would an American citizen outside the police or armed forces need an assault rifle, a machine pistol, or an anti-tank rifle? Hunting? Bulls***. A civilian who purchases these bears watching, if only for psychiatric reasons.

I wonder whether some of the attachment to guns in the USA is because for a lot of men having a gun is part of "being a man".

Guns represent/embody male power, virility, etc etc, for many men. So any law which wants to restrict gun-ownership or access is like threatening to cut their **** off. Especially as, according to studies, their "other gun" may not be working as well as they'd like it to.

It is clear to most non-USA citizens that pro-gun arguments are pretty irrational, and without substance, and that the connection in many American men's minds between masculine identity and gun ownership is the main motivation.

I don't think that anyone could argue against vastly increased gun-control from a rational point of view though.

not really...i just don't understand the appeal of something that's designed for destruction.

Not only that, but you needn't warn them about the pepper spray or taser. Just hit them, knock them out, and then call the cops.

But restricting guns would help. Not by much, but it would help.

Look at Australia, or the UK. Are we despotisms?

Faulty argument there. Australia AND the UK have less homicides, as does Japan. All have gun control, especially Japan.

well, I suppose it would depend on what we would define as liberty, it is often talk about the right of owning a gun, but this also includes the right to kill or cause permanent injury. It is my understanding that police enforcments have tried to use alternatives (eg tasers) to fire arms, for a reason, so I think it should be the same with the rest of civil population, no to mention problems related to school shootings.

I don't even know where to start on this one, there are so many things to address by so may different posters, so in no particular order:



Followed by:







Etc etc ad nauseum. Aside from the complete ignorance of guns and American gun laws, why the personal attacks on gun owners? Being that you are from where you are, I doubt that you've ever had any personal contact with a "gun nut", but obviously you've made up your mind that we are a bunch of knuckle dragging psychopaths who put our guns above human life. Then I'll be you wonder why we won't accept any restrictions on our gun rights when it's people like yourself that are the face of the anti-gun sect. How else are we supposed to interpret things when people who privately speak like you do publicly offer Trojan Horse gun control schemes, other than as an obvious bait and switch?



Again, I think that people who are for gun control are wrong, whereas they seem to think that people like me are "evil", or in this case that I have some sort of psychological hangup. Psuedo-psychiatry is often the territory of the cornered intellectual, when devoid of any real argument. It's easier to smear the person making the opposing argument then to refute their words, hence the armchair analysis.


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The key-phrase here is "non-USA citizens", AKA people who usually have no personal experience with guns, and have very likely been indoctrinated from a young age against them. The opinions of such people on the matter carry about as much weight as a gas station attendant's opinions on particle physics, that of a gnat.



Watch and learn my son, watch and learn...



Small point, firearms are not designed for destruction, they are designed to propel a lump of lead down a long tube at high velocity in as straight a line as possible. It may seem like semantics to nit pick on this point, but it is huge for differing points of view. I see technology as amoral, neither good nor bad and it's purpose wholly defined by the user, whereas others want to assign morality to inanimate objects, something I don't think is possible.



If you live in the UK, not only do you have to warn them but you have to make sure that they are similarly armed before deploying ANY weapon against them, otherwise you will be the one going to jail. Also, neither pepper spray nor Tasers have any intimidation factor to them, nor do they have the ability to immediately incapacitate someone. I dare say that knocking someone out is a bit harder than you think.



In America, we don't believe in punishing the majority for the actions of a minority. It doesn't always work out, but it's something we strive for. By your own admission gun control would have a small effect, I for one think it would be a negative one based on the experience of US cities that have tried it. Look at Chicago and Washington DC, bastions of urban safety, right?



The UK? Absolutely. The entire country is blanketed in CCTV cameras monitored by the police, they can forcibly take your DNA even if you are not charged with a crime, and the criminals have more rights than the citizenry. I don't know about Australia, but things like not having freedom of speech and their bizarre laws on video games are not encouraging signs.



Funny that it's you who's calling faulty logic... Did any of those countries have crime problems before instituting gun control? In the cases of Australia and the UK, what has the crime rate done since the gun control has been enacted? I could point you to the charts and graphs showing the pre and post gun control figures, but it would be more powerful if you found them for yourself.



To answer the first part of your post, the right to gun ownership does not carry with it any right to cause harm. You might say that the right to self defense is tied up in it, but there is no "right" to attack others implied anywhere in any gun law. As far as the police are concerned, they may be carrying pepper spray and Tasers, but they are also carrying guns. The idea is to give them options, some situations call for force but not lethal force, hence the non lethal weapons, but they are always carried in addition to a sidearm. School shooting are also incredibly rare, and creating policy based on incredibly rare events, even tragedies, is not the best course of action.

I will continue this with some original material shortly, I'm in the middle of cooking for tomorrow, but I couldn't let this kind of misinformation stand unchallenged any longer than necessary.

well, I suppose it would depend on what we would define as liberty, it is often talk about the right of owning a gun, but this also includes the right to kill or cause permanent injury.

It is my understanding that police enforcments have tried to use alternatives (eg tasers) to fire arms, for a reason, so I think it should be the same with the rest of civil population, no to mention problems related to school shootings.

Tasers and sprays are not deadly as fire arms, although, sprays could possibly cause serious damage to the eyes if not treated quickly, tasers can be very dangerous to some people if they have heart issues, nevertheless the difference is great compared to fire arms.

How about immobilizing the person to avoid an attack, is killing the only alternative?

Is this the best way in all circumstances?

I think that many Americans, particularly gun lovers, are obsessed with rights before responsibility and consequences.

If we are going to talk about despotisms, how about the fact that Habeas Corpus no longer exists in this country, or how about the fact that we torture people. Or about government scientists being muzzled because they have research that conflicts with the all-important oil companies.

But they are worse than us. Riiight.....