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The red pill (fighting back) is not for everyone, has extra risks but also extra gain. The blue pill (giving up your stuff) has less risks but more loss.

In most cases you will walk away safely if you give up the goods.

I respectfully suggest that you have no fucking idea of what you're talking about.

The statistics show that if you attack a robber (with a firearm) you are LESS LIKELY to be harmed while being robbed than if you comply with the demands of the robber.

For the people who were shot even after doing so, those same people probably would still have been shot if they fought back.

The numbers do not support your conclusion. You are LESS LIKELY to be harmed if you fight back. Do whatever you want to with your life, but at least do it with your eyes open and facts, instead of speculation, at your disposal.

Personally, I'd take the better odds and less dependencies.

So I guess this means you'll be getting a permit.

LK

I'd rather live in a country where my iPod might have a higher chance of getting stolen (anybody got mugging stats for the UK and US?) than one where I'm more than 3 times more likely to be shot dead.

This according to stats provided by the pro-gun lobby.

(BTW I live in neither the US nor the UK, so this is not a "my country is better than yours" thing)

the thing is that you are not a trained and uniformed member of a law enforcement organization.

My right to self-defense is not lessened by the existence of professional police. Especially when said police are neither legally required to come to my defense, nor practically capable of protecting me as well as I can protect myself when armed.

You are, therefore, not entitled to be as thoroughly armed as those fine citizens.

Nonsense. My right to self-defense is no less than that of a police officer, my life no less valuable - and my threat to others significantly less. The fact that I am armed not only makes me safer, it makes my neighbors safer also.

The benefits of limiting civilians to ten rounds per magazine outweigh any inconvenience on your part.

What benefits? Please cite evidence that the magazine ban - or the "assault weapon" ban in general - has had any impact on crime.

The Constitution calls for a well regulated militia. Welcome to the "well regulated" part of that particular edict.

I suggest you research the meaning of that phrase.

I don't agree that the average citizen can be trusted to exercise an equivalent amount of self-control or security over a fully automatic weapon.

This is offtopic, but I find your misuse of statistics disturbing too:

that idea might be more accurately stated as "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will accidentally shoot their own kids,"

Your statement would imply that there are a lot of accidental shootings. You seem to be buying the gun control and media hype. Statistically, there are VERY few. Taken from guncite.com

"The risk of being a victim of a fatal gun accident can be better appreciated if it is compared to a more familiar risk...Each year about five hundred children under the age of five accidentally drown in residential swimming pools, compared to about forty killed in gun accidents, despite the fact that there are only about five million households with swimming pools, compared to at least 43 million with guns. Thus, based on owning households, the risk of a fatal accident among small children is over one hundred times higher for swimming pools than for guns."

Or maybe I'm reading your comment wrong, just my $.02

As any grammar teacher can tell you, the clause, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" does not modify "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." I suggest you read this site for some thoughtful commentary on the history of the Second Amendment.

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

They are not actually fighting for the rights protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; they are redefining them as they see fit.

our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty.

What about those who are morally or religiously opposed to abortion?
Our tax dollars fund many programs that individual people oppose. For example, those who oppose war on moral or religious grounds pay taxes that are applied to military programs. The congressional bans on abortion funding impose a particular religious or moral viewpoint on those women who rely on government-funded health care. Providing funding for abortion does not encourage or compel women to have abortions, but denying funding compels many women to carry their pregnancies to term. Nondiscriminatory funding would simply place the profoundly personal decision about how to treat a pregnancy back where it belongs -- in the hands of the woman who must live with the consequences of that decision.

School voucher schemes would force all taxpayers to support religious beliefs and practices with which they may strongly disagree.

Oooh. Better take a close look where you get those quotations. It turns out that some of the real Washington historians, and others, are understandably disenchanted with some of the revions the NRA fans have made to history themselves. It's tricky knowing who to trust. When everyone lies, how can one know the truth. Quite the moral meditation.

But. I hate to do this, I really do. And I wholely encourage you to do research into this yourself. At a library, since the internet is almost 100% bullshit and your detector needs a tune up.

Some sites, to provide you with direction when you head to the library, or sit down to write the good folks keeping history alive preserving the context from which our founding fathers legacy blossomed.

http://www.saf.org/pub/rkba/general/BogusFounderQu otes.htm
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndbog.html

As a parting thought I offer: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." ---Thomas Jefferson, 1816.

The fact is there is a great argument to be made for gun advocacy, and the problem is the idiots shouting blatant lies (perhaps because they don't know better?) keep the less numerous and quietly sane arguments from being heard.

Have a nice day.

His statement is true as phrased, but quite deceptive. (Though I'm not going to use the silly phrase 'gun deaths', as guns can't die.) In the U.S. and other first world nations most human deaths involving a firearm are suicides. I don't have statistics handy, but I expect that almost all of these suicides are done with legally obtained guns.

A determined suicidal individual will manage it quite well without a gun- Japan has a higher suicide rate than the U.S. in spite of the fact that suicides using guns are extremely rare. Banning guns will not stop suicide, so bringing up a statistic phrased to include suicides is disingenuous at best.

I doubt it. Check out

ACLU policy statement #47:

The Union agrees with the Supreme Court's longstanding interpretation of the Second Amendment that the individual's right to keep and bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a 'well-regulated militia'. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected.

The ACLU is too busy defending the right to promote child molesting.

While

NAMBLA may extol conduct which is currently illegal, its materials fall far short of speech that may be prohibited. If that rule were to be changed to allow a suit like this one, it would introduce a regime of conformity to majority rule that would threaten the very right to dissent."

In self-serving fashion, the ACLU notes that the father of the murdered boy -- who is suing NAMBLA -- praises the ACLU for defending NAMBLA

While intent on pressing their suit against NAMBLA, the Curley family has acknowledged ACLU's concerns. In a Boston Globe article which appeared shortly after the ACLU entered the case, Jeffrey Curley's father, Bob Curley, is quoted as saying that he harbors no ill feelings toward the ACLU for defending the case. "I really do have respect for them (ACLU)", said Curley. "They are very consistent in whom they defend. It takes a lot of nerve to defend the groups they have over the years. They have a lot of courage."

Wired puts a different spin on it:

Attorney Lawrence Frisoli, who represents the Curleys, said he is glad the ACLU is defending NAMBLA, because he has had trouble locating the group's members.

Harvey Silverglate, an ACLU board member, said Wednesday that the group's attorneys will try to block any attempt by the Curleys to get NAMBLA's membership lists, or other materials identifying members.

The ACLU interprets Roe v. Wade as meaning that minors must be allowed to get an abortion, without having to even notify their parents (much less get their permission), and that taxpayers must subsidize abortions.

But "the people" in the Second Amendment means "the government," because a 30 year old woman is apparently too stupid to weight the risks vs. benefits of owning and/or carrying a firearm for self-protection, and can be denied the right to make that choice.

If the ACLU supported the Second Amendment in the same fashion that they do abortion, then they woudl be demanding taxpayer subsidies for poor children to buy guns, without having to notify their parents, so they can shoot the child molestors who prey on them.

Constitutional scholars who have bothered to write about the issue in various law review journals do not agree with the ACLU's position. You can read the law review articles for yourself at the Second Amendment Law Library. Much better than stuff put out by any pro- or anti-gun special interest group.

In justifying the ACLU's position on gun control, ACLU President Nadine Strossen said that

Putting all that aside, I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessaril

Nobody wants to take your guns.

We can all take solace in knowing that the government and the ACLU know what's best for us.

Here is an overview of Mr. Kleck's work. Take it or leave it. I didn't cite a stack of figures before because I really don't care what you think-- you've already got a position you've chosen to defend.

Here you have an organization lobbying against all form of weapons control in USA,

My, that's quite the FUD-shovel you have there.

The notion that the NRA opposes all gun control is patently false; when they do support a law, it just doesn't get much coverage. My guess is, it's not sensational or "newsworthy" enough.

For example, here's a rundown of the so-called "cop-killer" bullet situation. Quick summary:

--There are varying levels of body armor. The most commonly-worn level, IIA, protects against most handgun-caliber bullets, but not rifle ammunition.
--In the 60's, research began into developing new handgun ammunition for law enforcement officials, to penetrate hard targets such as car doors. They eventually produced ammo called "KTW", which was never available to the general public.
--The media picked up on this "armor-piercing" ammo, and the "cop-killer bullet" myth began, in spite of the fact that no police officers have ever been killed by a handgun bullet piercing their armor. This was helped by the memorable (but ludicrous) bulldozer scene in Lethal Weapon 2.
--The first reactionary bill to outlaw "cop-killer bullets" would have banned virtually all rifle ammo, which can easily pierce level IIA armor.
--The NRA proposed alternate legislation based on the actual design and construction of the bullets.

In Colonial times "arms" usually meant weapons that could be carried. This included knives, swords, rifles and pistols. Dictionaries of the time had a separate definition for "ordinance" (as it was spelled then) meaning cannon. Any hand held, non-ordnance type weapons, are theoretically constitutionally protected. Obviously nuclear weapons, tanks, rockets, fighter planes, and submarines are not.

The proposal finally passed the House in its present form: "A well regulated militia, being necessary for the preservation of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." In this form it was submitted into the Senate, which passed it the following day. The Senate in the process indicated its intent that the right be an individual one, for private purposes, by rejecting an amendment which would have limited the keeping and bearing of arms to bearing "For the common defense".

Funny. That's not what the Founding Fathers said. You'd think an orginization devoted to defending the Bill of Rights would have at least read it's user manual.

because it it directly refers to regulation.

It refers to "well regulated". It's not a phrase used now, but at the time of writing it meant effective, properly disciplined, ordered.

The reason the Jews were rounded up in germany is because hitler passed gun registration and disarmed them.

Uh, no, Hitler just had the world's most powerful army to round them up if necessary. Having a couple of pistols wouldn't do much when the German Panzers came in to raze the ghettos.

Every country that has had gun registration has had a holocaust not too long afterwards.

Australia? The UK? Japan? Most of the rest of the Western world?

See what Jews have to say about the issue

See what one group of Jews have to say about the issue, you mean. I can find plenty of Jews, Christians, New Yorkers, what-have-you for gun control - that doesn't mean they all support it.

The Myth of Nazi Gun Control

...that it's not the damn games or movies.

Japan (there are many other stats to show this) has arguably a far more graphic and violent media than the US, and yet we are still a much more violent society. How can this be? It "be" because the games are not at fault.

I think it's already been said here, but there is something seriously wrong with the person to begin with if a video game can provide the catalyst for murder. When things like this happen, I can't help but realize that these kids (in this instance) would have found ANYTHING to quelch their "desires". If this was 1900, they would have found Tarot cards (I'm making things up now) or whatever to be at fault. When is it the parents fault? When is it the individualists society's fault?. In THIS particular case, it could have been video games, but I seriously doubt is was the reason for the violence. The reason lies in what made them vulnerable to be swayed in this manner, because it certainly does not happen elsewhere, even in places with more graphic violence being portrayed.

Can't trust their reporting, NOW you can't trust the photos!

example:
LA Times promoting the banning of "Assault Weapons" - when in fact they mean semi-automatic firearms WHICH LOOK like assault weapons ..

example LA times art.

Assault weapon definition

which has resulted in Olympic Pistols being declared illegal in California (because the magazine is IN front of the pistol grip)

here's an example of an attempt to make Olympic Pistols once again LEGAL in CA. (I don't know the results of the attempt) ab2351

more ..
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20021115-82494 916.htm

NOW, given this is something I KNOW about, it makes me question the OTHER stuff the LA Times spews that I DON'T know about.

Can't trust their reporting, NOW you can't trust the photos!

example:
LA Times promoting the banning of "Assault Weapons" - when in fact they mean semi-automatic firearms WHICH LOOK like assault weapons ..

example LA times art.

Assault weapon definition

which has resulted in Olympic Pistols being declared illegal in California (because the magazine is IN front of the pistol grip)

here's an example of an attempt to make Olympic Pistols once again LEGAL in CA. (I don't know the results of the attempt) ab2351

more ..
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20021115-82494 916.htm

NOW, given this is something I KNOW about, it makes me question the OTHER stuff the LA Times spews that I DON'T know about.

People like you generally hate factual data, but I'll spit some out anyway:

England's story

Gun Death Stats... Please note on this page that Norway has a 32% ownership rate vs the US's 39%. By your calculations they should have nearly the same death rate as the US by firearms (homicides that is) but they're about 1/6th the US.

Keep trying, you'll find a stat the proves your point someday I guess.

Wow, you're touchy, aren't you?

you failed to mention US v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), in which the Supreme Court clearly indicated that the Second Amendment protects the
right of the people, not some imagined "militia" under the guise of government.

I've read the case you cited and it does not indicate that gun ownership is an individual right.

Sure it does. Page 265, first paragraph, fourth sentence.

You might have read it, but you obviously didn't understand it. Verdugo-Urquidez upheld the legal concept that the phrase "right of the people" is used throughout the Bill of Rights to designate rights for individual citizens, not the state. Thus, the right to bear arms is, in fact, a individual right protected by the Second Amendment.

BTW, don't take my word for it. You may be interested in this link, an essay written by a prominent and published criminologist and attorney. More of Kates' essays can be found here.

You're an idiot.

http://www.guncite.com/

This gun-control propaganda is out of date. The US Dept. of Justice and the 5th Circuit court of appeals have now ruled that the 2nd Amendment does protect an individual right. Some other courts, such as the 9th Circuit have reached another conclusion. The issue will probably get to the US Supreme Court, and I am sure the NRA will argue that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right. Regardless, you can read the cases and law review articles here, and form your own opinion: http://www.guncite.com/

No offense, but the most successful British regiment in the Revolutionary War used breech loaded rifles. And, automatic weapons had already been concieved as early as the 1600s. Not to mention that many of the cannon and mortars used during the Revelutionary war were privately owned. And, you obviously don't have a good knowledge of the intents of the founding fathers of the United States. They intended that we all have access to the means to protect against a tyranical government. They did not want a large standing army and felt that would lead to a repressive government. If you ever get a chance to tour General Washintons Headquarters in Morriston, NJ check out the firarms collection in the museum. The majority of long guns were rifles not smoothbore pieces. If you want a fairly unbiased look from a biased source check out Ted Kennedy's report on the second amendment given to the Senate of the US Federal government in the seventies (maybe late sixties). In that report, the 2nd amendments rights are clearly found to be individual rights. (Ted Kennedy himself is almost apologetic when commenting on the reports findings.) Also, here is a good historical perspective. And, since you seem to have quoted the same source, I find it difficult to understand your conclusions. You'll find Madison in particular in the Federalist papers contrasted European governments afraid to allow their citizens free access to arms in fear of being overthrown, as opposed to a free states allowance of access to arms to provide for that continued freedom.

Many places already do this. I have no problem with it as long as it's not abused (i.e. favoratism to public officials or celebrities, etc.) and it's not tied to particular weapons. As for the bit about being more likely to kill a family member, that's hogwash that came out of one horribly flawed study (Kellermann Arthur & Reay Don, "Protection or peril? An analysis of firearms related deaths in the home," New Engl J Med 1986. 314: 1557-60.) that gets repeated ad nauseum.

Granted, this is only one study, but Gary Kleck's study did show that people who defended themselves with a gun were less likely to be injured than those that offered no resistance. Of course it doesn't apply in every situation. If someone is pointing a gun at your face, you're not gonna reach for the gun in your back pocket. You're gonna do what they say. Unless you're sure enough that they're gonna shoot you to make the risk of grabbing your own gun worth it. I tend to put a little more faith in Kleck's study than many others, since he is pretty conservative in his methods and the conclusions he draws and he isn't locked into an ideology. He was pro-gun-control, but still willing to actually investigate. I give him credit for that.

• United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation
• International Homicide and Suicide Rates

1. are not proportional to the percentage of households that legally own handguns.
2. are proportional to the overall crime rate

I'm on the fence with regards to gun control, but I shun statistical analysis like the plague. Especially the analysis from Guncite, which is loaded with partial interpretations, spin, and all the rest of it. Don't consider it anything approaching an objective source.

For instance, one particular graph on the site contrasts the increasing number of guns in the public's hands with gun-homocide rates. Because the homocide rates don't rise with the number of guns in society, the conclusion is that gun "supply" has nothing to do with homocide rates*.

I've thought of drawing a similar example in which I would graph kids' intake of milk on one axis and their rate of growth on the other. My conclusion? As you increase the amount of milk the kids drink to amounts like 10 gallons a day, you don't see a corresponding increase in the kids' rate of growth. Therefore, I've demonstrated that calcium intake has no effect on growth rates in kids. I'll call it the "Calcium Supply Myth".

Of course that's a nonsensical conclusion-- I've just shown that if you're already providing enough calcium, adding excess doesn't necessarily have give you eight-foot tall kids. But if kids weren't getting enough calcium, would their growth rates slow down? Ditto for guns. Once there are enough guns in society to thorougly satisfy criminals' demands for weaponry, it doesn't matter so much how many more you add. Certainly it demonstrates that adding more guns to our already phenomenal supply doesn't seem to "turn people into murderers." But that's about all I can draw from that graph.

What would happen if you actually reduced the number of guns in public hands to the point where criminals were going without? I don't know, and clearly neither does GunCite. Personally, I'm increasingly of the opinion that our liberal attitude towards gun ownership, combined with lack of regulation and training, does indeed result in deaths. That doesn't necessarily mean I want guns outlawed, however; there are good constitutional and moral arguments for gun ownership. But the "we can have it all" argument that our armed society comes without a price is just wishful thinking.

* Incidentally, there are other problems with this graph: it doesn't say how the guns are distributed-- if one person buys a hundred guns, it's a little different from a hundred people each buying one gun. It also doesn't say how many guns are dropping out of supply, etc, and I'm not clear if it includes military/police purchases.

This paper, while extensively researched, falls into the classic "Correlation vs. Causality" trap. Like the RIAA linking a drop in CD sales to the incidence of Napster use (a conclusion which you vehemently decried), this study has proven a general correlation between gun ownership and crime rates but has failed to provide a causal relation between these factors.

The Correlation vs. Causality flaw is a classic trap, of which I will give one example:
"Men who use electric razors are four times as likely to develop facial melanoma."
So electric razors cause cancer? Well, no.

Electric razors are used in greater numbers by men in urban environments who have higher overall cancer rates in every category, because they are exposed to more carcinogens. But appropriately spun, the correlation sounds downright dreadful.

Instead of flawed studies like the one linked in the parent, I recommend fact sites such as GunCite.

A later study by Lott and William Landes found that concealed-carry prevents mass shootings. This study is available online here. There is also a list of his non-academic articles here and a brief bio here.

Gary Kleck has also done many studies on the issue of guns, crime, and self-defense. There is a good introduction and an interview with him here, a summary of his work here, and a his own home page here.

It might be worth noting that none of the above studies were funded by gun advocacy groups, gun control groups, gun manufacturers, or any other special interests. They are politically balanced -- John Lott is an iconoclastic conservative/libertarian, and Gary Kleck is a lifelong liberal Democrat. (I don't know David Mustard's affiliation.)

Also, they have impeccable credentials. John Lott got his Ph.D. in economics at UCLA, and David Mustard at University of Chicago. Gary Kleck got his Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana.

There is an extensive list of articles on gun control here. The folks running this site are against it, but they don't seem to be connected to pro- or anti-gun groups. They have, among other things, an excellent chart showing gun ownership rising as gun crime stays steady and then falls here.

This should be enough to get you started -- feel free to post follow-up for sent me e-mail if you have any questions! --Robert A. Book, Ph.D. rbook "AT" pobox.com

A later study by Lott and William Landes found that concealed-carry prevents mass shootings. This study is available online here. There is also a list of his non-academic articles here and a brief bio here.

Gary Kleck has also done many studies on the issue of guns, crime, and self-defense. There is a good introduction and an interview with him here, a summary of his work here, and a his own home page here.

It might be worth noting that none of the above studies were funded by gun advocacy groups, gun control groups, gun manufacturers, or any other special interests. They are politically balanced -- John Lott is an iconoclastic conservative/libertarian, and Gary Kleck is a lifelong liberal Democrat. (I don't know David Mustard's affiliation.)

Also, they have impeccable credentials. John Lott got his Ph.D. in economics at UCLA, and David Mustard at University of Chicago. Gary Kleck got his Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana.

There is an extensive list of articles on gun control here. The folks running this site are against it, but they don't seem to be connected to pro- or anti-gun groups. They have, among other things, an excellent chart showing gun ownership rising as gun crime stays steady and then falls here.

This should be enough to get you started -- feel free to post follow-up for sent me e-mail if you have any questions! --Robert A. Book, Ph.D. rbook "AT" pobox.com

A later study by Lott and William Landes found that concealed-carry prevents mass shootings. This study is available online here. There is also a list of his non-academic articles here and a brief bio here.

Gary Kleck has also done many studies on the issue of guns, crime, and self-defense. There is a good introduction and an interview with him here, a summary of his work here, and a his own home page here.

It might be worth noting that none of the above studies were funded by gun advocacy groups, gun control groups, gun manufacturers, or any other special interests. They are politically balanced -- John Lott is an iconoclastic conservative/libertarian, and Gary Kleck is a lifelong liberal Democrat. (I don't know David Mustard's affiliation.)

Also, they have impeccable credentials. John Lott got his Ph.D. in economics at UCLA, and David Mustard at University of Chicago. Gary Kleck got his Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana.

There is an extensive list of articles on gun control here. The folks running this site are against it, but they don't seem to be connected to pro- or anti-gun groups. They have, among other things, an excellent chart showing gun ownership rising as gun crime stays steady and then falls here.

This should be enough to get you started -- feel free to post follow-up for sent me e-mail if you have any questions! --Robert A. Book, Ph.D. rbook "AT" pobox.com

By far the most potent vault of gun facts on the Internet is GunCite

It is a wonderful source of gun information, and a far better source than even Snopes for combatting gun misinformation. Additionally, I would recomend Michael Moore's new movie Bowling for Columbine - if you are an American interested in learning about guns in America, you can learn more about gun advocates in the two minute Terry Nichols interview than you can in a year of attempting to decipher NRA mailings. 'There are real nuts out there!' exclaims Terry. And he is quite right.

Despite the recent California Supreme Court decision, I think every reasonable American knows that the founding fathers designed the second amendment to allow all Americans access to personal firearms. Muzzle loaded, smoothbore, single shot flintlocks. Of course, the idea of giving a person today's concealable automatic ceramic-barreled teflon-round armed killing machines would have been complete anathema even to Patrick Henry, and it is likely that the Supreme Court will get around to upholding a ban on everything but black powder smoothbore, but until then we'll have to tolerate the nutjobs.

I am assuming that you are simply trolling, but since there are many uninformed people out there that would be inclined to believe what you say, I feel I have to respond. Bon Apetite!

fact: a gun in the house is more likely to fire a bullet in to the body of a member of that household than an intruder or criminal.

First of all, this much over-used "fact" comes from a single study (Kellermann Arthur & Reay Don, "Protection or peril? An analysis of firearms related deaths in the home," New Engl J Med 1986. 314: 1557-60.) that has long since been discredited. If you'd like to find out what guns in the home are really likely to do, read Gary Kleck's study. He's a former gun-control nut that has seen the light after doing his own studies. According to him, guns are used in defense of home and family between 1 million and 2 million times a year in the US. In the vast majority of these cases the gun isn't even fired. In the majority of the rest of the cases, nobody is injured.

fact: armed robbery adds significant amount of jail time to a sentence than an unarmed one.

Sure, and murder adds quite a bit to a jail sentence too, but it's not gonna matter much to the victim.

fact: the police are currently outgunned and outarmed over criminals because of the NRA's opposition to even the most COMMON SENCE gun control laws.

This makes very little sense to me. Automatic weapons, and many semi-automatic weapons are already outlawed everywhere except under special circumstances and with special licenses. How exactly are police outgunned? Outnumbered, sure. But outgunned? The problem is the same one I mentioned before. Criminals don't obey the law!! Duh! That's why they're criminals! You expect that if we outlaw guns that the criminals will just give them up and never try to get them again? What planet do you live on?

fact: the 2nd amendment not only says "militia".. it says "well organized militia", which is something you gun nuts are way too quick to ignore. Most people who own guns in the U.S. do not take proper safety precautions, they do not know how to properly care for and fire their weapons, and THERE IS NO FSCKING WAY they could be considered "well organized militias"

This is the only thing you've said that makes any kind of sense at all. The one thing that I actually might be inclined to support is a firearms license. Similar to a driver's license, it would certify that you know how to properly handle, fire, and secure a firearm. It would not be tied to any individual firearm, but there could likely be different classes of license for different sorts of guns. The problem with requiring such a license for ownership is that it can be abused by the government to prevent certain people from owning guns, for arbitrary reasons, even if they could pass the license requirements. I don't think it's a good idea for us to have to beg the government for the right to defend ourselves and our families.

As for the militia part, let me paraphrase something that has been written elsewhere: "the "militia" the second amendment refers to is not a formal military unit -- which the Constitution forbids states to raise [Art. I ' 10, cl. 3 -- but a colonial system which required that every household be armed and every trustworthy man serve with his own arms." There are some very different views on both sides. We aren't likely to settle those differences here on /.

Here's a few more facts for you.

I am assuming that you are simply trolling, but since there are many uninformed people out there that would be inclined to believe what you say, I feel I have to respond. Bon Apetite!

fact: a gun in the house is more likely to fire a bullet in to the body of a member of that household than an intruder or criminal.

First of all, this much over-used "fact" comes from a single study (Kellermann Arthur & Reay Don, "Protection or peril? An analysis of firearms related deaths in the home," New Engl J Med 1986. 314: 1557-60.) that has long since been discredited. If you'd like to find out what guns in the home are really likely to do, read Gary Kleck's study. He's a former gun-control nut that has seen the light after doing his own studies. According to him, guns are used in defense of home and family between 1 million and 2 million times a year in the US. In the vast majority of these cases the gun isn't even fired. In the majority of the rest of the cases, nobody is injured.

fact: armed robbery adds significant amount of jail time to a sentence than an unarmed one.

Sure, and murder adds quite a bit to a jail sentence too, but it's not gonna matter much to the victim.

fact: the police are currently outgunned and outarmed over criminals because of the NRA's opposition to even the most COMMON SENCE gun control laws.

This makes very little sense to me. Automatic weapons, and many semi-automatic weapons are already outlawed everywhere except under special circumstances and with special licenses. How exactly are police outgunned? Outnumbered, sure. But outgunned? The problem is the same one I mentioned before. Criminals don't obey the law!! Duh! That's why they're criminals! You expect that if we outlaw guns that the criminals will just give them up and never try to get them again? What planet do you live on?

fact: the 2nd amendment not only says "militia".. it says "well organized militia", which is something you gun nuts are way too quick to ignore. Most people who own guns in the U.S. do not take proper safety precautions, they do not know how to properly care for and fire their weapons, and THERE IS NO FSCKING WAY they could be considered "well organized militias"

This is the only thing you've said that makes any kind of sense at all. The one thing that I actually might be inclined to support is a firearms license. Similar to a driver's license, it would certify that you know how to properly handle, fire, and secure a firearm. It would not be tied to any individual firearm, but there could likely be different classes of license for different sorts of guns. The problem with requiring such a license for ownership is that it can be abused by the government to prevent certain people from owning guns, for arbitrary reasons, even if they could pass the license requirements. I don't think it's a good idea for us to have to beg the government for the right to defend ourselves and our families.

As for the militia part, let me paraphrase something that has been written elsewhere: "the "militia" the second amendment refers to is not a formal military unit -- which the Constitution forbids states to raise [Art. I ' 10, cl. 3 -- but a colonial system which required that every household be armed and every trustworthy man serve with his own arms." There are some very different views on both sides. We aren't likely to settle those differences here on /.

Here's a few more facts for you.

I am assuming that you are simply trolling, but since there are many uninformed people out there that would be inclined to believe what you say, I feel I have to respond. Bon Apetite!

fact: a gun in the house is more likely to fire a bullet in to the body of a member of that household than an intruder or criminal.

First of all, this much over-used "fact" comes from a single study (Kellermann Arthur & Reay Don, "Protection or peril? An analysis of firearms related deaths in the home," New Engl J Med 1986. 314: 1557-60.) that has long since been discredited. If you'd like to find out what guns in the home are really likely to do, read Gary Kleck's study. He's a former gun-control nut that has seen the light after doing his own studies. According to him, guns are used in defense of home and family between 1 million and 2 million times a year in the US. In the vast majority of these cases the gun isn't even fired. In the majority of the rest of the cases, nobody is injured.

fact: armed robbery adds significant amount of jail time to a sentence than an unarmed one.

Sure, and murder adds quite a bit to a jail sentence too, but it's not gonna matter much to the victim.

fact: the police are currently outgunned and outarmed over criminals because of the NRA's opposition to even the most COMMON SENCE gun control laws.

This makes very little sense to me. Automatic weapons, and many semi-automatic weapons are already outlawed everywhere except under special circumstances and with special licenses. How exactly are police outgunned? Outnumbered, sure. But outgunned? The problem is the same one I mentioned before. Criminals don't obey the law!! Duh! That's why they're criminals! You expect that if we outlaw guns that the criminals will just give them up and never try to get them again? What planet do you live on?

fact: the 2nd amendment not only says "militia".. it says "well organized militia", which is something you gun nuts are way too quick to ignore. Most people who own guns in the U.S. do not take proper safety precautions, they do not know how to properly care for and fire their weapons, and THERE IS NO FSCKING WAY they could be considered "well organized militias"

This is the only thing you've said that makes any kind of sense at all. The one thing that I actually might be inclined to support is a firearms license. Similar to a driver's license, it would certify that you know how to properly handle, fire, and secure a firearm. It would not be tied to any individual firearm, but there could likely be different classes of license for different sorts of guns. The problem with requiring such a license for ownership is that it can be abused by the government to prevent certain people from owning guns, for arbitrary reasons, even if they could pass the license requirements. I don't think it's a good idea for us to have to beg the government for the right to defend ourselves and our families.

As for the militia part, let me paraphrase something that has been written elsewhere: "the "militia" the second amendment refers to is not a formal military unit -- which the Constitution forbids states to raise [Art. I ' 10, cl. 3 -- but a colonial system which required that every household be armed and every trustworthy man serve with his own arms." There are some very different views on both sides. We aren't likely to settle those differences here on /.

Here's a few more facts for you.

Wrong.
Criminals, in general, aren't very good with guns.
Really, they're awful. Do you think the average thug actually takes his 'gat' to the range to practice?
Take your average NRA member and your average violent felon, put them at fifty paces and see who walks away.
The whole "having a gun doesn't help you" thing is a total myth. Just like that study that claimed "a gun in the home is X times more likely to kill a faimly member that protect you." That study was b.s. and it was debunked long ago. bonus link Yet another link

You're going to have a tough time thinking up a scenario where having a gun wouldn't help against the average mugger, burglar, stupid gang member, etc.
Ex: A mugging. I have no warning. Even if someone get's the drop on me, they wouldn't know I have a gun, concealed. I give them my wallet, they turn around, and I pull out my gun. I win. He either freezes and gets arrested (so I get my wallet back), or he tries to draw (in which case I shoot him and still get my wallet back). Note that I can also make the choice not to draw the gun at all, in which case I am not any worse off than I would have been without one.

I don't think guns are for everybody, but they were invented for a reason, and that reason was to improve your chances of coming out of a life or death battle with another person. They're pretty damned good at what they were designed for. That's why police forces and militaries have been using them for hundreds of years.
I think your characterization of your average gun owner waving his gun around and shooting his kid is ridiculous. Yes, kids get killed with their parent's guns, but this is because they find the gun and shoot themselves, not because their parent shot them. It's also criminaly negligent and anyone who has an unlocked gun, in the same house as a kid who doesn't understand guns, should be charged with endangering the welfare of a child.

Driver's licenses are only required to use public roads. If you don't own your vehicle, you may need to agree to insure it, which may require being licensed, but I can't think of a case where the government has the authority to forbid you from owning a car.

This only really applies to people who live outside the city. I don't know how you plan on getting enough land to drive on inside the city unless you're very rich.

It's also a mater of safety. It's very hard to endanger the lives of others while piloting your vehicle on your own land. However, it's very easy to endanger the lives of others while operating a gun on your own land. As bullets don't know to stop once they've reached the end for your property.

Opportunities to take a driving test are available widely and without discrimination. Certain cities and states are known for mandating firearm training and then making it unavailable to ordinary citizens--in one case last decade (New York?), there was space for some twenty students per year, and oddly enough every student was a bodyguard for a wealthy politician or executive.

This is a problem with the state and should not be allowed. In Canada such opportunities are made equally available to everyone.

Driving is so nearly universal in the US that a list of licensed drivers wouldn't be a useful tool of tyranny. Gun registration is typically a prelude to confiscation (care to guess why Jewish Germans were helpless when the Nazis finally came to imprison them?)

Oh yes, lets not forget the classic nazi gun control myth. That's the first link I could find on google. It's does a good job of rebutting that point.

One thing they don't mention in the article that may or may not be true. I heard that Hitler's gun control laws actually loosened the regulations on obtaining a gun for non-jews. Again I'm not sure about the last bit.

Infringing the right to drive isn't specifically forbidden by the US Constitution, so passing such laws can be within federal or state governments' authority.

Yes, that is rather unfortunate. It's for that reason that while I advocate gun control in my country. I also understand that it wouldn't be possible in the US.

I did not format my comments properly because the stab at murder rates and coffee had a "mindless jab" tag that got hidden - I should preview first.

Nonetheless, looking at this you see that the US has a homicide rate about 5 times that of other countries (5.7 compared to around 1 for many other countries) and a gun homicide rate of about 10 times other countries. Some of the countries that outrank it include South Africa and Columbia which are not really in the first world yet

As far as the website. This onemay be relevant:

It includes the advice to bring aluminium baseball bats rather than wooden ones because they are lighter...

Lars I'm not trying to be a dick here I'm just asking you to look at what really happens in the world. I went back and the link I originally provided did contain the statistic that people use firearms 2.5 million times a year to defend themselves and that there were 582,000 crimes committed with a firearm in 1997. That's a five to one ratio of defensive to criminal uses. Countering your statement that "Odd, the people usually "brandishing a gun" are usually criminals.". The 582,000 number came from the Department of Justice Website. The 2.5 Million number from here:

Gary Kleck & Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun," The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law (Fall 1995), vol. 1, pp. 173, 185.

Which I earlier stated was not available online but have since located a copy here.

This study also countered your statement that "Drawing a gun on them will probably make them shoot you. So you having a gun escalate the crime, instead of preventing it." with the statistic that 90% of the time simply brandishing the weapon deters the crime. So the simple act of confronting the attacker with a firearm will 90% of the time end the confrontation not escalate it or "...make them shoot you."

To site the study:

"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."

And last but not least I performed some simple math in my last post, giving you every benefit of the doubt with the numbers, and yet showed you that you have a 1 in 149 chance of being killed when you are the victim of a crime and confront it with a firearm. And those numbers were wildly slanted toward a fatal outcome. So the actual chance I would say is much higher.

So I fail to see how I have not "Put up"? I would gladly debate numbers or logical situations to the contrary but you are the one who up till now has failed to provide proof of the claims you are making. Once again, I am not trying to be a dick or otherwise insult you. I am simply attempting to open your mind to the possibility that you are mistaken in your beliefs. And that you might reconsider them with the information I am providing you.

In addition, to draw a direct parallel, the NRA is fervently opposed to any registration or other database of gun owners on the grounds that it might lead to, and actually has led to, confiscation (New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the UK, NYC, California...) ... if this list included records demanded from gun shops, the NRA probably /would/ be involved.

"Only if you part of a state-regulated militia, as the supreme court has ruled."

Not true. Never happened. If you're thinking of US v. Miller (1939), try again. They say nothing mandating an individual to be in "a state-regulated militia"--they speak only of the appropriateness of weapons for military use.

You might want to check out this analysis of the Miller decision. (Scroll down.)

They're mostly used as collector's items and for target shooting, fool. In case you haven't noticed, they appear in a TINY amount of crime compared to semiautomatic handguns and revolvers -- partly due to cost and rarity, partly because rifles _get attention_ which isn't usually in the interests of a thug. You can't walk around with a rifle, lurking and hoping to rob people, nearly as easily; and for that sort of crime, a knife or small handgun is harder to parry, far easier to conceal, and just as intimidating.

Oh, and few people are allowed to have them, anyway -- using the traditional definition of an automatic rifle, and not just semi-automatic lookalikes like AR15s (and even semis are restricted wrt magazine size, et al).

The columnist who wrote this piece claims that George Washington warned that "government, like fire, is a useful servant but a dangerous master." I liked this quote, which I hadn't heard before. However, when I tried to track down the source, I ran across the claim that it is an apocryphal quote which is sometimes attributed to Washington's farewell address, but that its authenticity has not been proven, despite serious efforts to do so. Although I have not checked the sources cited, they appear to be scholarly, and there doesn't appear to be any ulterior motive for those who question the quote to do so.

Uhm, read the newspapers, and then tell me again that no-one carries a gun.

Who are you trying to fool? Not only do people carry guns, people get killed by those very same weapons. If these guns where sitting at home behind a lock, how come so many people get killed?

Even a 'pro gun' website like guncite admits that there's kids killed in accidents. I quote:

Fatal gun accidents involving children (aged 0-14) also fell significantly, from 495 in 1975, to under 250 in 1995. More children die from accidental drownings or burns than from gun accidents.

Oh, good! there's more kids drowning, so that justifies it then. God, you all make me sick.

Ok, you said "primarily", not "only". Sorry I misquoted you. However, "primarily" is not correct either. Instead of quoting a long string of statistics, reference the "Assault Weapons: The Weapons of Choice?" section on this page. If assault rifles are built primarily for crime, it seems as if people aren't using them as you claim they're primarily intended.

"But let me ask this. Do you believe that the second amendment gives individual citizens the right to keep and bear nuclear missles?"

First to argue the semantics: the Bill of Rights doesn't give rights, it merely recognizes our inalienable rights. Second, in answering your strawman nuclear missle question, it's "keep and bear arms". Arms means weaponry. Nuclear missles are weaponry, so yes, they're included. As for the probable response of "But missles are so big and nasty, they only meant weapons one person could carry", take a look at Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11. This refers to the power of Congress to grant letters of marque, which is permission given to private citizens to fit an armed ship and use it to attack and capture enemy merchant ships in wartime. How does that apply you ask? Well, in order for one ship to attack another, it's going to need some rather large cannon. The Framers would hardly give Congress the ability to grant letters of marque if they didn't expect private citizens to have the ability to effectively use those letters. So in short, the Framers expected private citizens to have the ability to own the largest weapons currently available in their time.

But honestly, if there was no law banning ownership of nuclear weaponry, would that really matter? Please estimate the number of private citizens in the United States that:

A. Have the money to buy
B. Have the opportunity to aquire
C. Have the will to use

a nuclear weapon. There's plenty of people that fit in at least one of the above categories, and some that fit into two. However, I doubt if there are any that fit into all three. Even if there are, I doubt a law would stop them. Finally, if it did become a problem, the solution would be a Constitutional amendment saying "no privately owned nukes".

Finally:

No, states can't make laws that "abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States".

Please explain how the Bill of Rights are not privileges or immunities.

California homicide rate = 6.6
Vermont homicide rate = 2.2

source

Facts:

- Vermont has no gun laws (well just a couple).
- California has the most restrictive gun laws in the country.

I'll let the stats speak for itself.

And the United States' murder rate is nearly 10 times that of Japan. Next time there is a story about something positive occurring in the US, I presume you will immediately warn all Japanese not to move there.