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but guess what? A HECK OF A LOT LESS TRAGEDIES than the usa

Japan, Germany, and many other developed nations have lower murder rates than the U.S. even if you disregard all of the shootings in the U.S. and look at just our non-firearms homicide rate versus other nation's total rate. We stab, bludgeon, and strangle each other at three times the rate that the people of Japan do.

Our problem isn't so much legal access to guns as it is social, economic, and cultural factors.

Apparently, somewhere between 800 thousand and two and a half million times a year.

That looks like a nice objective website! ;)

Tell it to this lady. Lots of things that you can't imagine, happen every day.

Good for her, but it's worth noting that (1). news articles tend to report the exception rather than the rule, i.e. this lady has novelty value for *not* being a victim, and (2). the article also says:

The McCullocks say they have been threatened as they run trouble makers out of their mobile home park, and have seen the man who shot her before.

The McCullock family moved to Albany from Manhattan two years ago, and this is their second time being victims of crime here. Their home was burglarized. They say that's why the entire family has armed themselves, and they will continue to wear guns constantly.

So, yeah, things are working out really well for them. I'm pretty sure that this will never happen again to them, and it's all thanks to their gun ownership!! </scarcasm>

is there *really* any use in having a gun for self-defence?

Apparently, somewhere between 800 thousand and two and a half million times a year.

I can't imagine any realistic scenario where would-be burglar/thief/assassin/rapist is likely to get into a situation where their intended victim has a gun trained on *them*.

Tell it to this lady. Lots of things that you can't imagine, happen every day.

-jcr

The Constitution implicitly assumes the private ownership of warships (see 'letters of marque and reprisal'), so the idea that the founders would have been shocked by private ownership of crew-served weapons seems rather silly.

Assuming the existence of privately-owned warships is not the same as guaranteeing them as a right.

The relevant question is not "what would shock the founders" -- hell, a country where you can't keep slaves anymore would be a shock to many of them. The question is, what does "arms" in "right to keep and bear arms" refer?

My understanding is that there was at the time a well-understood difference between "arms" -- basically, as discussed above, what an individual soldier would carry onto battle -- and "cannon".

Well said. A well-written and persuasive discussion of what does seem to be a consensus interpretation of the the 2nd Amendment is here: http://www.guncite.com/journals/reycrit.html .

The constitutional scholar (Glenn Harlan Reynolds of Tennessee) who writes the piece clearly has partisan leanings toward a fairly expansive interpretation of weapon ownership (which he reveals toward the bottom), but he is honest and points out that to be covered a weapon must be such that you can actually bear it. Crew served weapons are not covered, but any portable anti-tank weapon, anti-aircraft missile, or light machine gun would be. Ownership of heavier weapons might be permitted, but bearing them would not be covered by the Bill of Rights. Presumably a device like a Claymore mine - which weighs 3.5 lb and fires 700 steel pellets in a fan covering several thousand square meters and which would slaughter a couple of hundred people at a time in a suitably chosen crowd - is also covered.

Now I have not yet heard of any organized movement demanding that these types of weapons be sold in gun shops, though I know people who do argue for this. But since this is the logical consequence of the 2nd Amendment - that anyone should be able to buy and keep at home Stingers, RPGs, Javelin missiles, M-60 machine guns, Claymore mines - I predict that this will start surfacing among the Tea Party movement in the near future.

I'm not going to join either side of this argument - I've never visited America and don't know whether or not the description was apt - but I found this while reading about gun control in Japan and it sounded interesting:

The official Japanese police culture discourages use or glamorisation of guns. One poster on police walls orders: 'Don't take it out of the holster, don't put your finger on the trigger, don't point it at people'.[113] Shooting at a fleeing felon is unlawful under any circumstance. Police and civilians can both be punished for any act of self-defense in which the harm caused was greater than the harm averted.[114] In an average year, the entire Tokyo police force only fires a half-dozen or so shots.[115](p.38)
[...]
Comparative criminologist, David Bayley, a proponent of stricter American gun controls, suggests that American police attitudes towards guns make it impossible for gun control to be achieved. As long as the police are armed, writes Bayley, they send the implicit message that armed confrontations with civilians are the norm, and that shootings of police officers, while sad, are nothing extraordinary.[117]
[Source]

The question that comes to mind is: to what extent is gun-crime self-reinforcing? Does the cultural idea that people should be constantly armed and ready to protect themselves from attack encourage violent crime? I don't have an answer but it's an interesting thought.

any stats on suicide success rate in countries with lotsa guns vs countries with fewer guns ?

Suicide rates per 100,000, averaging male and female rates: UK 7.55, U.S. 10.55, India 10.65, China 13.9, Switzerland 18.25, Japan 25.3.

Guns per 100 residents: China 3.5, India 4.0, UK 5.6, Switzerland 46.0, U.S. 90.0. Japan's rate of firearms ownership is nearly nil.

(The numbers given are numbers of guns, not gun ownership rates; the U.S. number is distorted by ownership of multiple guns being common. 38% of households and 26% of individuals own at least one firearm.)

So, no, we do not have a higher suicide rate than countries with few guns. Try again.

someone with with a sudden yearning to die and a gun will probably shoot themselves.

You do not understand the nature of suicide. One does not take one's own life on a passing whim.

In Japan, despite the absence of guns, people manage to kill themselves highly effectively by jumping off high places or in front of trains.

Your numbers are bogus. It appears that you only are counting cases of self-defense where somebody died. Actual self-defense numbers appear to be at least 100 times your number. See for example: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

The second point is misleading to the point of being useless.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

The second point is misleading to the point of being useless.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html

John Paul Stevens is an example of that. He was appointed by Gerald Ford and sold as a conservative. He is arguably the furthest Left of any Justice currently sitting on the Court.

John Paul Stevens is a conservative. He appears "left" only in comparison to the hard right composition of the rest of the court.

Robert Bork would almost certainly be considered not conservative enough by today's Republicans because he took the 2nd Amendment literally and believed it only applied to "well-regulated militias"

Taking the Second Amendment literally, one most certainly would not believe that is applies only to "well-regulated militias".

First, every able-bodied adult male is a member of the militia under federal law; and "well-regulated" is a term of military art meaning only prepared and trained. Second, if we consider a law saying, "A well-educated populace being necessary to the liberty of a nation, the right to keep and read books shall not be infringed", does that mean that only the "well-educated" have the right to have books? No; the introductory clause merely states the reason for the directive.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html Anywhere between 800,000 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year, with the lower end being a gun-control supporting DoJ. Smoke it ;)

Over half of those would be suicides and they generally support the sometimes harmful nature of firearms. So would 12.5 Million registered hunters and the law abiding citizens in 1-2 Million "defensive gun uses" every year.

For the 60 some million people (a rate that increases every year) owning over 200 million firearms 15,000 would be small even if it didn't include police shootings and intentional acts of self defense and is even less if you're cynical and feel that the another third or so shouldn't be counted because the victims were either committed by drug dealers or against them.

Most incidents of gun violence are domestic &/or perpetrated by someone you know.

That claim is based on the flawed Kellermann study which has been repeatedly debunked.

There is far more anecdotal evidence that supports the validity of the defensive use of firearms by the armed citizen.

In the 1970's, Kopsch, Turcos and Ward produced their "KTW" handgun ammunition using steel cored bullets capable of great penetration. Following further experimentation, in 1981 they began producing bullets constructed primarily of brass. The hard brass bullets caused exceptional wear on handgun barrels, a problem combated by coating the bullets with Teflon. The Teflon coating did nothing to improve penetration, it simply reduced damage to the gun barrel.

I didn't leave anything out. I thought the obvious was- well, obvious. Do I need to repeat everything you should already know?

You should also note that the warrant-less wiretapping was only used on international calls, and to that end, with people with suspected terrorist connections. No one familiar with the program, including the democrats involved has ever claimed otherwise. The only people who have were the ones attempting to cause a problem out of it. As for it being an expansion of the government, that too is questionable at best. We were already able to listen to state actors and their agents without a warrant. FISA had a problem because there was no technical definition of a terrorist that fell within the state actors exemptions and a FISA warrant was needed. That has been corrected by law because people knew the need for the action was real. Bush actually got a bump in the polls when this was released because it showed the country they were doing something about the issues of terrorism on domestic soil.

Now, if you really want to get into Bush's expansion of government and deficit spending, outside of two wars, the next biggest thing was No Child Left Behind which despite it's resistance and overall criticisms, was somewhat of a noble goal that most people were willing to accept.

As for Obama expanding gun rights, no he didn't. Congress did because a rider was attached and it was the only way they could get their credit card bill passed. Guns weren't even banned on federal land anyways. Concealed carry was banned at certain parks in certain states and most states have laws about guns on public lands unless hunting and all this bill said was that it's allowed as long as it violated no other law. I frequent Wayne National forest and take my .357, 44mag, or 9 mil with me all the time. I go hunting there all the time too. All state forest in my area is public hunting and all national forests are public hunting. Further more, we are allowed camping just off the trails and the rangers actually suggest having a side arm for the overnight stays. All this law does is say the states can make their own rules for government lands in their areas.

Obama is clear on his gun rights stand. All you have to do is listen to his own words and statements. Smoke and mirrors might have you fooled. However, that does not make your position true. Obama's past is clear, his present is clear, all you need to do is a Google Search for Obama is anti gun and you will be presented with tons of links presenting his position and most of them use his own words. Don't complain about biased sites either, there are plenty on both sides reporting the same damn shit.

By We, I meant Americans, and more specifically Floridians... which didn't change that law until 2007. So for the majority of my life that was the law. I'm glad to see it has since changed.

They still loose the right to bear arms. I googled it this time to be sure.

I used a summary that I'd read years ago. Here's what a quick Google search says:

Thirteen surveys, 800k to 3.6M defensive uses/year.

http://www.guncite.com/kleckandgertztable1.html

The author (Kleck) of the criminology paper where those charts originally appeared is a widely respected criminologist who is trying to find out which gun control policies might be effective for reducing crime and/or violence.

You'd like him as he's also pretty hostile to the NRA.

Step up with some numbers that substantiate your position or go away. As a reminder, you have yet to assemble a cogent argument for your position. So far, all you've done is assert wildly.

Old data on defense uses of firearms, from 1995: http://www.guncite.com/gcdgklec.html I haven't done the research recently but since concealed carry permits are available in more states now than 1995, I might be inclined to think the defensive use has gone up, or at least been maintained with population growth. The problem with data like this is, generally a victim that deters a crime with no witnesses might not even report the crime ever happened. You'd be surprised how many failed crimes don't get reported, regardless of the reason for the failure. Child deaths, 12 was off the top of my head. It ranges depends on how you view the data. Here's the stuff I've found for 2002/2003. If you count all firearm related deaths (which include intentional homocide, accidental police shootings, suicides, etc) they're only 2.73 times more likely to die from motor vehicle. If you only count accidental deaths, they are 50 times more likely to die by automobile. Sorry for spreading misinformation. http://www.childdeathreview.org/Nat'l%20Data%20Webpage%202002_files/US2002.pdf http://www.childdeathreview.org/2003%20Data/US2003.pdf I personally find it interesting how consistent the data is from year to year.

Read the reply to that post though. All we have is the abstract to go off of, not the article itself. That's not really a refutation, if the article is based on false premises or jumps to the conclusion.

I made my reply quickly at the end of the day, and didn't look too hard. How about the first paragraph of this summary, which involves direct interviews with convicted felons? There are no statistics involved, but testimonial evidence is worth quite a bit.

At the very least can we agree that the issue isn't resolved, and further research might be good? ;)

You apparently lack the intelligence to understand that getting criminals off the streets does improve public safety

You apparently lack the intelligence to realize that carpeting a city with cameras DOES NOT GET CRIMINALS OFF THE STREET. If that were the only goal of such a program, it must be noted that it fails utterly at doing so. There is empirical evidence of the case, straight from London: in 2008 only 3% (I'll let you look it up, smartypants) of the violent crime in the city (chiefly mugging) was solved with the help of CCTV. 3 percent. It's much more effective at spotting drunks and tracking other anti-socials than it is at finding muggers. FACT. It's a colossal Orwellian boondoggle and a big waste of tax money that does a better job of robbing people of their privacy than it does of finding robbers. Let's remember: this whole thing was started to track movements of the IRA.

People being registered to lawfully concealed carry on the other hand, has demonstrated a much more positive effect on the crime rate, here in the US. Furthermore, CCW holders average a lower crime rate than COPS themselves, and states which have adopted shall-issue laws have not seen a rise in accidental killings, but many have seen all other rates of violent crime go down.

If you were at all concerned about the welfare of the general populace, you'd look harder at the facts, and you'd be demanding your Illinoisan representatives move in the right direction, the direction of the 35 states which have enacted shall-issue laws.

I agree with what your premise, but one of your quotes was never uttered:
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcbogus.html

Do you have any idea how often guns are used to save people's lives?

How does approximately two million defensive gun uses per year grab you?

So you can take your "you don't need a gun to live" BS and tell it to all the people who would have died without one.

Are you seriously quoting Arthur Kellerman? I'll see your link to a partisan anti-gun website, and raise you four links that discredit his research. http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html http://home.comcast.net/~dsmjd/tux/dsmjd/rkba/kellerman.htm http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,7217,00.html Arthur Kellerman also thinks you shouldn't be allowed to have an automated defibrillator in your home. http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20040806/lifesaving-machine-over-counter He doesn't give a rat's ass if you live or die, as long as you aren't allowed to take care of yourself. Have you ever noticed that these anti-gun groups are all about preventing gun violence, but they never cry about any other type of violence? I've decided that they really don't care if you get murdered or raped or mugged, as long as it's not done with a gun.

Gimme a break, that study has long been proven incorrect and filled with errors. It should tell you something when all of the anti-firearm groups depend so heavily on ignorance, misinformation, and just plain bad data to support their opinions. Unfortunately, in the real world that isn't filled with rainbows and unicorns, guns do serve a healthy purpose in society and the majority of data out there supports it.

That thing is lethal, but unlikely to kill by accident, like a gun.

A gun is also extremely unlikely to kill by accident. A few hundred people - 600 in 2000 die in gun accidents each year (and many of these are actually suicides that are covered up out of respect for grieving families); in that same year, 3,900 people drowned, 3,600 were killed by fire, 3,400 choked to death, and a whopping 16,200 died in falls. Your staircase or your swimming pool are much more likely to kill you accidentally than your gun.

However, in each individual mugging, you personally are better off acquiescing.

Not if you are properly armed:
http://www.guncite.com/gcdgklec.html
Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun

Previous research has consistently indicated that victims who resist with a gun or other weapon are less likely than other victims to lose their property in robberies[3] and in burglaries.[4] Consistently, research also has indicated that victims who resist by using guns or other weapons are less likely to be injured compared to victims who do not resist or to those who resist without weapons. This is true whether the research relied on victim surveys or on police records, and whether the data analysis consisted of simple cross-tabulations or more complex multivariate analyses. These findings have been obtained with respect to robberies[5] and to assaults.[6] Cook[7] offers his unsupported personal opinion concerning robbery victims that resisting with a gun is only prudent if the robber does not have a gun. The primary data source on which Cook relies flatly contradicts this opinion. National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data indicate that even in the very disadvantageous situation where the robber has a gun, victims who resist with guns are still substantially less likely to be injured than those who resist in other ways, and even slightly less likely to be hurt than those who do not resist at all.

And you're missing the point: you don't have to be a murderer to not be a law abiding citizen (aka criminal). Most non-law abiding citizens that wind up killing don't start out murdering people; they start out with robbery, rape, drugs, etc. All things that would prohibit someone from legally owning a firearm

There are loads of statistics that prove my point here.

And yes, lets make this a racial issue, because that makes perfect sense and fits just perfectly in this discussion.

See:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/RKBA/2ndQuotes.html

and:

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndfqu.html

Cheers, off to clean my guns,

-Unass

Can't improve on that at all, except to spit up the rest of the quote:

Armed men are citizens. Unarmed men are subjects.

An interesting article with a long historical perspective:

http://www.guncite.com/journals/shalciti.html

Sir Walter Raleigh agreed with this point, suggesting that among the basic principles of the tyrant was "to unarm his people of weapons, money, and all means whereby they resist his power."

BTW, whilst looking for an origin for the quote, I found this disturbing article, very much related to today's topic: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=66081

WND Exclusive AFRICAN POWDERKEG Unarmed victims beaten, burned to death Firearms Control Act forbids gun ownership, results in cold-blooded murder Posted: June 04, 2008 1:00 am Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling © 2008 WorldNetDaily

An outbreak of xenophobic violence has resulted in the murders of 56 people and forced thousands more to take shelter in camps, community halls and churches across South Africa - the victims are foreigners who are strictly forbidden from owning guns.

Foreigners in Gauteng Province are suffering from gunshot and stab wounds, while many others have been raped, fatally beaten and burned alive.

Thomas Eastes, national chairman of Gun Owners of South Africa, said foreigners are unable to defend themselves from such atrocities because they are not allowed to be armed in South Africa. He believes the rise in crime and chaos is chiefly a result of the Firearms Control Act passed by the South African Parliament.

"Arming foreigners and as many citizens in South Africa will surely provide an equal opportunity of survival for all," Eastes said. "The weak, the marginalised, the oppressed and frail have a chance of survival if they are armed. I believe that firearm ownership places great responsibility on people but also enables foreigners and legal citizens not to live in fear."

Approximately 22,000 people are murdered annually in the country for being of another race, Eastes said. Some are killed because they own cars or $5 cell phones.

"Five-year-old babies are raped and sodomised as a perceived traditional remedy for curing AIDS," he said. "Women are objects of abuse, and our children are badly neglected every day. People are tortured and murdered to set examples and create fear. This is what communism thrives on."

Foreigners from Zimbabwe escape to South Africa to avoid state bloodshed, terror, persecution, kidnapping and starvation. More than 15,000 refugees have been displaced by state violence since the end of March. Zimbabwean Collen Makumbirofa of the Foundation of Reason and Justice said the situation is shocking as the foreigners flee President Robert Mugabe's atrocities.

"Millions of Zimbabweans are being starved into submission by Mugabe's government," he said. "Mugabe has lost support of the majority of Zimbabweans, therefore is clinging onto power by terrorism. Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans have been tortured by Mugabe's secret police, militias, soldiers and war veterans."

The South African government is refusing to offer Zimbabwe refugees adequate protection. It stopped processing asylum permits in Johannesburg and shut down Home Affairs Offices. Corrupt officials seize goods belonging to foreigners, demand sex from immigrant women and refuse to apprehend criminals who murder unarmed victims.

"Xenophobic South Africans see the police arresting and abusing foreigners on a daily basis therefore by doing violence they are also helping the African Nation Congress' efforts to eliminate foreigners," he said. "The police don't do anything or they release the criminal on a bribe. Police are also biased against foreigners who report crimes against Sou

Yeah but how often do people get robbed, assaulted, raped, murdered etc withOUT a gun being involved? Depending on where you live, I bet it's probably quite a bit higher than it is in the US. And don't forget, most of the people getting shot here are not good people anyway; ie gang bangers and the like. In fact, the average gun homicide victim has 4 prior arrests Idk, but as long as I'm not in some ghetto, I feel much safer anywhere in the US than in most European cities I've been to.

Sorry buddy, your collective 2A reading is a dying breed, and not too many well informed people are going to support it.

Maybe this will help clear things up: 'Well regulated' in the 18th century context means 'skilled' or 'well trained'. And 'militia' means the ENTIRE body of the male population who are of fighting age (17-45 IIRC). So the term 'a well regulated militia' means 'a population who is skilled in the use of firearms and combat,' and the best way to ensure this is to allow the private ownership of firearms.

Basically, the point of the 2A, as further described by the likes of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, et al in the Federalist Papers and other era writings, is to ensure the PEOPLE have MILITARY arms. The idea is that the body of the population be privately armed as well as, if not better than, any standing army so that they can be well prepared to defend themselves, their state, and their country against any enemy, foreign or domestic. Furthermore, those who privately own firearms are going to be far more proficient than those who have never shot a firearm before basic training, and almost always make far better soldiers.

Don't believe me? Look it up, but I suggest you stay away from the disingenuous Brandy Campaign types. Even a good number of prominent gun-grabbing law scholars accept this reading and openly criticize the Brady interpretation. If you don't like it, you need to petition congress to AMEND the constitution, as that's the only thing that is going to change it.

I also suggest checking out Heller v DC, which should be decided any day now on this very debate. Needless to say, your collectivist theory stands a snow ball's chance in hell of holding up in the SCOTUS. It looks more like it'll boil down to how strict of an individual right the 2A is and what powers, if any, the government has to infringe on that right. (Come on strict scrutiny, daddy needs a new MG!)

That part doesn't even matter.

It's listed in there as a reason, not so much as defining the second amendment to simply refer to militia; additionally, the militia back then basically consisted of any able-bodied male.

All the Amendments in the Bill of Rights refer to individual rights and the federal government, and the second is no exception no matter how much you wish it was. Simply look up quotes of the founding fathers to see how MOST of them felt...:

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndfqu.html

The second amendment did not refer only to the militia and your liberal high school government class teacher's bias is in fact not reality.

At the time, "regulated" was taken to mean something different. See: http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndmea.html

Actually, studies do show a definite increase in suicide with gun ownership (seems obvious). Some studies have found the likelihood of being murdered also increases. I'm not aware of any studies that indicate owning a gun in the US actually improves ones safety, but I don't really care enough to do that much research.

Citations:
The association between the purchase of a handgun and homicide or suicide.
Does Owning a Firearm Increase or Decrease the Risk of Death?

Owning a gun doesn't change the likelihood of a home invasion. It does change the likelihood of mistaking oneself for Jack Bauer while the sad truth is that most of us are more akin to Gomer Pile.

Who is better off, you, living in a country where most people who are killed with guns are killed with their own gun, and the police are (reasonably) too cautious to help you when your life is threatened, or me, living in a country where no-one has guns and the police aren't scared?

Me, that's who. Armed citizens lowers crime rates studies have shown. When Florida passed a concealed carry law in 1987 while anti-gun supporters claimed crime would go up, it actually went down. Up until 1997 although 370,000 permits were issued only one person with a permit was convicted of homicide. Meanwhile Washington DC with a total ban on handguns, until the US Supreme Court strikes the law down, is the most dangerous jurisdiction in the US.

Someone in your family is more likely to be shot than anyone else when you own a gun.

Actually, according to the DOJ, "Homicides committed by friends/acquaintances and strangers are more likely to involve guns than those committed by initmates or family members." So if you get shot to death, it's less likely to be by a family member than by some other sort of acquaintance.

And you're much more likely to use a firearm defensively (which will probably not mean killing someone, just making the threat to do so tends to make people leave you alone) than to shoot a family member. There are roughly 2,000 homicides by family members per year; estimates of defensive firearms use range from around one hundred thousand into the millions, depending on who does the surveys.

I think it's the same reason that the First Amendment combines freedom of speech and freedom of religion -- similar rights were grouped together.

This article discusses the issue: The Second Amendment and the Historiography of the Bill of Rights

Not at all- the 2nd amendment specifically says "well regulated militia".

The word "militia" must be read in the context of when the document was written. The modern day definition is quite different.

Except in reality you are twice as likely to shoot a friend or family member than defend your home with your home defense gun.

Actually, this is not true.

This comes from a highly dishonest "study" by Kellermann. The only "use" counted in the study was to kill someone, so (for example) holding an attacker at gun point until the police show up was not counted as a "use" of a gun. There were other major flaws too.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html

A better study is the Kleck study.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgeff.html

It is no more true to say that owning a gun makes you likely to shoot your family, than to say that owning kitchen knives makes you more likely to stab your family.

Except in reality you are twice as likely to shoot a friend or family member than defend your home with your home defense gun.

Actually, this is not true.

This comes from a highly dishonest "study" by Kellermann. The only "use" counted in the study was to kill someone, so (for example) holding an attacker at gun point until the police show up was not counted as a "use" of a gun. There were other major flaws too.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html

A better study is the Kleck study.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgeff.html

It is no more true to say that owning a gun makes you likely to shoot your family, than to say that owning kitchen knives makes you more likely to stab your family.

You're inferring cause and effect. The same as a lot of people here are doing with Tasers, for that matter. Helps to get the facts behind the situation, which does involve firearms but not in the way that you probably think. We have plenty of good research on the subject of firearms. So far as I know, we have nothing comparable when it comes to the use of Tasers.

There are many reasons why a given society (or even a particular region within a given country) has a high crime rate. Most of those are economic: people with something to lose generally don't go around shooting up other people for fun and profit. People with nothing to lose, on the other hand ...

When you look at the numbers, the defensive uses of firearms (which includes all the millions of times a weapon's mere presence ameliorates or prevents a violent confrontation) on the part of both law enforcement and private citizenry far outweigh the negative impact. Doesn't matter if you gun-control advocates think otherwise: facts speak for themselves and need no interpretation. Contrary to popular belief, the prime function of firearms in civilized cultures is not the launching of projectiles at people: it is the projection of fear.

I don't own a gun (well, I have a BB pistol) but I accept that America would be much worse off if the government truly tried to completely remove them from the population. In some places that has happened, and the result was rarely what the local leaders expected, although it was predictable. The sheep does not, after all is said and done, hold its own well against the wolf.

Everything we know about the psychological effects of firearms might be true with Tasers, I don't know. Probably not: if you're a physically healthy criminal capable of handling a Taser charge (particularly if you've already had the experience) you aren't going to be anywhere near as afraid of a good Tasering as you would be of a bullet. As a deterrent to violent crime a Taser is, by its very nature, less potent than a gun.

I'm not really sure where gun control advocates draw the line. Some of them just don't want "We the People" to have guns, others seem to want guns removed from everyone's hands (as if that were possible.) If it were up the the latter crowd, the next logical step in the program would be to remove guns from the police, replacing them with Tasers or other "non-lethal" technologies: I suspect that will result in a lot more dead cops.

Any way you slice this, treating a Taser like a watered-down police special is insufficient. Cops need to know when to use them, when not to use them, and when to just pull their guns. That all requires expensive training, and perhaps the powers-that-be have decided that a few dead citizens is a reasonable tradeoff for saving the bucks.

Some other folks have made references to gun stats, which reminds me quite a bit about this article. Most stories involving guns come at it from one angle or another, trying to make some point. Usually the press offers up the dangers of not enough gun control. The response to this is a listing of the dangers of gun control by groups like the NRA. What we rarely get is a substantial break down of the real effects of weapons in our society. What happened to the city that instituted strong gun control measures? Did the murder rate drop as control advocates suggest? Did other types of crime rise as gun rights advocates suggest? How about what happens when gun controls are relaxed, like instituting concealed carry laws?

When Florida liberalized gun laws, making it easier to conceal carry, homicides went down:

"In 1987, when Florida enacted such legislation, critics warned that the 'Sunshine State' would become the 'Gunshine State.' Contrary to their predictions, homicide rates dropped faster than the national average. Further, through 1997, only one permit holder out of the over 350,000 permits issued, was convicted of homicide. (Source: Kleck, Gary Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, p 370. Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997.) If the rest of the country behaved as Florida's permit holders did, the U.S. would have the lowest homicide rate in the world."

cities with effective gun bans are the worst in crime, see DC and Chicago.)

Or see Hong Kong, effective gun control, low crime. Cities in the US with gun control have a hopeless problem preventing guns coming in from less-restricted parts of the country. Your examples could as easlily argue for national restrictions.

However those places where people are allowed to carry, even concealed carry, see drops in crime. See the University of Chicago study "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns". Or take what happened in Florida after Liberalized Concealed Carry Laws were passed. The homicide rate in Florida dropped faster than the drop in the country after they were passed. And of more than 350,000 permits being issued only one person with a permit was convicted of homicide.

Actually, US v. Miller said the Court had been presented no evidence that a short-barrel shotgun was useful to a militia, so they couldn't rule that it was. If that sounds like a cop-out, it was. But, no one showed up to argue for the defendant, so the government was free to present their case without opposition.

I recently read a very interesting article that explains a great deal about the back story surrounding the decision: the defendants, the district judge, the public defender, and the Supreme Court justice that authored the ruling.

The Peculiar Story of United States v. Miller

The author's conclusion: the entire episode was a set-up to 'validate' the National Firearms Act of 1934 with a precedent. But the ruling was not exactly a shining example of clear writing, leaving us to scratch our heads over its effect on subsequent gun control legislation.

It's a stupid-ass Amendment written by drooling illiterates, as far as you can tell by reading it.

It was written and re-written by the House and the Senate at the time, starting with proposals by James Madison that he derived from the constitutions of the states in the US at the time. More interesting, the Senate specifically rejected a proposal to add the clause "for the common defense" (which was in a few state constitutions at the time). If original intent counts for anything, this would conclusively reject the notion of a collective right:

The Second Amendment and the Historiography of the Bill of Rights

But, they were hardly illiterate. They just had a different perspective that you have today. One of the key words even had a different meaning that you associate with it today: "regulated" meant "properly functioning", rather than "constrained by government laws".

Compare: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html

What Utopian countries are you referring to that don't have crime?

You might be surprised, but the world is not black and white. There are countries with less, and countries with more crime. For an example, compare the total homicide numbers here: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html

Ask and ye shall receive: ;)

http://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndmea.html

http://yarchive.net/gun/politics/regulate.html

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/05/12/19/greensla de.htm

http://mason.gmu.edu/~nlund/Pubs/WklyStd2dAmd.pdf

http://www.virginiainstitute.org/publications/prim er_on_const.php#c4

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndmea.html

This link covers pretty much what there is to understand about the passage. Could you tell me what piece you had in mind when you asked the question?

You seem to be employing a form of primitive animist belief: that an inanimate object will someone affect your future behavior.

It is NOT just as likely that a gun-carrying student will flip out as use a gun in their own defense. Good estimates are that there are about 2 million legitimate defensive uses of firearms per year, most of which do not involve the weapon being fired. If your assertion was even 10% correct, there would be 200,000 illegitimate homicide shootings per year. In fact, in 2005, the number unjustifiably killed by firearms was 14,860, most of which was committed by those already barred from firearm ownership. If we assume that every one of those was a otherwise peaceable person that "flipped", you would be about 0.7% to 1.8% right, at best.

It is significantly likely that a criminal person, who may not legally possess a gun, but has come into possession of one, will "flip out", i.e. commit a crime, as soon as use it in their own defense.

As to your argument that "just because you're licensed to carry a gun does not make you mentally stable forever" is interesting, and it says more about you than it does anyone else. Do you think this of other people because you are concerned that if you had that kind of capability in your hands, you would be likely to flip out? Do you think everyone else has a inner seething cauldron of rage because you, in fact, have an internal rage? Psychologists call this projection.

Lastly, the people committing this kind of crime are rational, although they are rational in an abominable way. Having decided that he must kill someone, and being unwilling to face the death penalty in Virginia, the killer was instantly freed of all possible consequences of his actions by intending a suicide to follow his murder. And if you're going to do one, why not get all the people that pissed him off? Where should you do it? Somewhere his victims must go, be corralled in one place, and they cannot possess the means to stop him. The university is the perfect, rational place to commit an abomination, as would any victim disarmament zone, otherwise laughingly known as a gun free-zone.

In short, your facts are weak, your arguments unsupportable, you espouse a primitive belief system, and the policies you support make the problem worse. Bring a better game. And I agree, you should not possess weapons, but your choices should have no bearing on anyone else.

A few are murders for hire, and others are cold, calculating bastards, but pretty much any gun murder described as a "crime of passion" wouldn't have happened if the murderer hadn't had ready, legal access to a gun.

This is flatly incorrect. Stats show that the murderer would use a knife instead.

I would hasten to add that the people saying guns reduce crime are also wrong. Gun ownership has no statistically significant effect on violent crime rates.

Check out the top five gun owning countries (among those that keep good statistics), US, Norway, Finland, Canada, Switzerland. They're nicely distributed from the top of the chart to the bottom, in terms of homicide rate:
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

Sorry to those on the pro, and the anti, side of the argument. There's simply no ground for either of you in the crime rate stats. Accidental death rates are equally unimpressive. In countries where gun ownership is common, people are more familiar with firearms and have less accidents per gun - the overall casualness of the society is a much larger determining factor in the rate of accidents.

Alas, like so many serious problems with easy answers, the easy answers are bullshit. More guns won't help. Less guns won't help. Heck, would we even be having this argument if the stats were definitive in one direction or the other?