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https://www.gunfacts.info/gun-...

>"Ah yes, the infamous, "But when you look at the statistics. . ." bullshit argument."

Statistics are facts. If you don't use facts, then you are arguing irrationally and emotionally.

>"But looking at the number of occurrences and the totality of deaths, the U.S. leads the pack."

Meaningless. Obviously such statistics have to be per capita or they are pretty much of no value. And when you do make it per capita, USA is nowhere near "leading the pack." In fact, in mass shootings, "the USA is 4th behind 3 European countries or eighth when a broader set of non-conflict countries are examined."

http://www.gunfacts.info/wp-co...

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

>"Ah yes, the infamous, "But when you look at the statistics. . ." bullshit argument."

Statistics are facts. If you don't use facts, then you are arguing irrationally and emotionally.

>"But looking at the number of occurrences and the totality of deaths, the U.S. leads the pack."

Meaningless. Obviously such statistics have to be per capita or they are pretty much of no value. And when you do make it per capita, USA is nowhere near "leading the pack." In fact, in mass shootings, "the USA is 4th behind 3 European countries or eighth when a broader set of non-conflict countries are examined."

http://www.gunfacts.info/wp-co...

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

>"Was this a gun free zone?"

Of course it was a so-called "gun free" zone, because almost all "mass shootings" occur at "gun free" zones.

http://www.gunfacts.info/wp-co...

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

>"If it was gun free, how did he get a gun in there?"

You are kidding right? "Gun free" zones, are not enforced, they are just "feel good" things that actually make the zone much, much less safe and a prime target for shooters who want to do maximum damage in minimum time.

>"If it wasn't, how come the good guys with guns didn't save everyone?"

Because the "good guys" follow the laws and rules and the "bad guys" don't. This shooting was another case of mental health problems.

>"Was this a gun free zone?"

Of course it was a so-called "gun free" zone, because almost all "mass shootings" occur at "gun free" zones.

http://www.gunfacts.info/wp-co...

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

>"If it was gun free, how did he get a gun in there?"

You are kidding right? "Gun free" zones, are not enforced, they are just "feel good" things that actually make the zone much, much less safe and a prime target for shooters who want to do maximum damage in minimum time.

>"If it wasn't, how come the good guys with guns didn't save everyone?"

Because the "good guys" follow the laws and rules and the "bad guys" don't. This shooting was another case of mental health problems.

"who the fuck brings a rifle to a rock concert though?"

50 years ago, people were almost constantly armed if they wanted to be, and it was a common sight to see trucks driving around with a rifle rack. It wasn't an issue of bringing a gun. If you drove somewhere, you were armed, if you could make it back to your truck (or hell any active or retired military would have broken a window and pulled out that rifle to use against the shooter) and that was the contrast I posited in my original post.

    "I also note you've smoothly moved from "hunters" to "retired military" with no acknowledgement after I pointed out that returning fire is very much different from hitting a target. Your dishonesty has been noted."

I simply added them to the list because there were dozens at that concert (I watched TV interviews with some of them after the shooting). I stand by my original statement. I will stack my experienced hunter returning fire 90 seconds after the shooting started over your 15 minute police response any day of the week. Whether you are a trained soldier or just a marksman, you are going to be very scared either way, but you have to set it aside and focus on what needs to be done. A patriot is a patriot. The guy who stopped the Texas church shooter was just an armed citizen.

"Can't aim for shit" is a technical military term proudly passed down through the generations. I learned it along with marksmanship, gun safety and hunting from my father and grandfather. My grandfather was an army ranger sniper in WW2 in Europe who first taught advanced marksmanship and then shipped out on D-day. The reason he was such a good shot? He grew up hunting... Most hunters who practice and hunt regularly are better shots with their long gun than the police and at least on par with your average enlisted man (excluding snipers/special forces/etc). To a large degree it is experience putting rounds on the target and shooting under different conditions and relative elevations that makes you a better shot.

Feel free to read up on some actual facts about gun control, and actual crime statistics trends.
https://www.nraila.org/issues/...
http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

Look, if you are going to be a pompous ass, at least be right. I said Europe, not the UK. Unless the rest of the continent phased into another dimension, there are a lot more countries in Europe than just the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Filter by region and look through EUROPE...

And the African American murder rate is a tragedy, and a fact. It has nothing to do with race or racism, it has everything to do with a violent, defective sub culture that rejects upstanding citizenship in favor of the gangster life. To claim it is racist is stupid bullshit that no one will tolerate anymore. State your argument or shut up and let the grown ups talk.

If you remove that sub culture and avoid the liberal inner cities, your risk of homicide is ~2.5 per 100k, which is comparable to many and lower than some countries in Europe. If you are interested in actual facts, feel free to read up and un-brainwash yourself...

https://www.nraila.org/issues/...
http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

Then I'm sure you can cite some of this research? The actual fact is that in recent decades, firearms accidents and murders by firearm have both decreased while the number of guns in private hands has increased.

Now, if you don't like guns, that's fine; like abortions, if you don't like one, don't have one. But if you're going to talk about an "overwhelming amount of research" about crime, you'd better be able to cite some criminology papers.

Ah yes, the good old days when more people accidentally shot themselves. I don't miss them.

In 1968, the U.K. passed laws that reduced the number of licensed firearm owners, and thus reduced firearm availability. U.K. homicide rates have steadily risen since then. 9 Ironically, firearm use in crimes has doubled in the decade after the U.K. banned handguns.

Many of the countries with the strictest gun control have the highest rates of violent crime. Australia and England, which have virtually banned gun ownership, have the highest rates of robbery, sexual assault, and assault with force of the top 17 industrialized countries.

The BCS has been reporting a declining crime rate in the UK while police reporting has shown an increase. The BCS has routinely been criticized because it under reports crime due to the following factors:

Murdered and imprisoned people do not answer surveys
Some crimes are not surveyed when victims are below age 16 3
Crime against institutions (bank robbery, etc.) are not included
Crimes are recorded at final disposition (conviction/acquittal), leaving many crimes completely unreported


statistic link: http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

Yes, actually Every day 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms. The positives far outweigh the negatives here.

And more specifically to the point you were getting at: 71% of gunshot victims had previous arrest records (not including the suicides). Alluding to the most probable conclusion, that 71% of those shot with a firearm (killed and not-killed) were more than likely the perpetrator committing a crime.

And another statistic that also backs the previous one up, is Two-thirds of the people who die each year from gunfire are criminals being shot by other criminals.

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

given that there are only about 230 justifiable homicides a year, and 60,000 cases where the gun is presented but not actually used

Correction... Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year or 6,849 every day. http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

Again this technology does not address any of these nor was it supposed to. It is supposed to prevent accidental shooting and weapons theft.

"Only 2% of gun deaths are from accidents, and some insurance investigations indicate that many of these may not be accidents after all." http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-c...

Meanwhile, you are:
Five times more likely to burn to death
Five times more likely to drown
17 times more likely to be poisoned
17 times more likely to fall to your death
And 68 times more likely to die in an automobile accident
And a whopping 286 times more likely to die by a 'medical mistake' at the hands of a doctor or nurse

Looking at the stats, I think we have bigger problems to worry about than accidental firearm deaths, but because people "fear" guns irrationally, guns get focused on more, instead of any of the other categories above.

not true http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847

The point here is we can all find statics/studies to support our argument(s) In this case http://www.gunfacts.info/ presents argument and counter argument for most of the "facts", we hear in the "gun control" debate.
None of this is decisive, and it will not be, it is all, tired, old and waste of time.

If we want to reduce violent crime, I believe it is possible. We should agree to do it without violating the constitution. What methods do you propose, that do not include additional restrictions on gun ownership?
If you want to disarm citizens, for what ever reason, lets talk about changing the constitution,

While this issue is so entrenched that debating it is usually completely unproductive, you seem like a moderate which is encouraging.
However, there are some fundamental assumptions that need correction. Mass ownership of firearms doesn't make it 'easy to kill people'. Quite the opposite. Switzerland is full of households with state-issued assault rifles, and yet their per capita rate of murder is one of the lowest in the world. An armed-and-lawful society is the strongest possible social structure. Serious crimes become suicidal endeavors, which allows the armed-and-lawful individuals to lead peaceful lives.

In the US, those states which have higher rates per capita of concealed carrying of handguns have fewer violent crimes. Once again, this is because those who would perpetrate them are rightly afraid of being shot. The highest rates of violent crime in the US are invariably in cities that have the most 'gun control'. If somebody is going to commit murder, they aren't going to pay any attention to whether it's legal or not to have a certain weapon in a certain place. The only people who care about those laws are the very people a potential murderer is likely to kill.

The funny thing is, most of the state concealed carry laws have gone into effect in the last two decades. One after another the same tired argument gets trotted out: if more people carry guns, more people will get killed! And in every instance, after the laws pass, violent crime either goes down or remains the same. That's simply because the average guy isn't a murderer. Hardcore criminals will always be armed, regardless of laws, that's because they're criminals. Arming their potential victims is what changes the game.

Suggesting that armed resistance by the Jews would have led to a worse holocaust is kind of absurd. That's a poor gloss for the racism of gun control, both in Nazi Germany and in the US. The first gun control laws here were designed to disarm the black population so that they couldn't resist the KKK. You have to disarm people in order to control them, a lesson that goes all the way back to Pisistratus.

I myself carry a sidearm every day (an H&K USP .45 fullsize var. C), so I do walk the talk. I carried it now for four years (since I turned 21, the minimum age for my state), and I have never had to draw it. However, I do end up being essentially a bodyguard for everybody around me. I'm not a sworn officer, and I don't have to worry about moving violations or zoning laws or paperwork, but if somebody does get robbed, assaulted, or otherwise maliciously put in imminent danger of significant bodily harm, I will step in and do what seems most prudent to stop it. That's not to say that my first thought is 'shoot the guy'. That is a responsible person's last thought. Most of the time when a criminal is faced with a gun, they just stop (the whole 'not wanting to get shot' thing again) and/or run. Estimates are that in the US privately-held firearms are used to interdict 2.5 million crimes a year, and only in about 5% are shots fired (I recommend gunfacts.info if you're interested in a much more detailed breakdown with sources cited and graphs and so forth).

Still doesn't make it a nonsequitor argument. I really don't care about the implication on the 2nd Amendment until I know whether or not this is actually a good idea.

I realize that isn't the argument you are trying to make. Just try and understand it from my vantage point. The same people who push gun control are usually the same people who howl at the top of their lungs if they perceive any of the other parts of the Bill of Rights to be under threat. For better or worse the Constitution includes the right to keep and bear arms and I think that right needs to be taken as seriously as all the others. If we can erode that right then why can't we erode the right to free speech or the right against self-incrimination?

I'm willing to admit I was just guessing based on gut feeling, what about you? Cite your source please.

Source. Here's a few selected items for your consideration although I think you should think about reading through the whole document if you have the time:

* Every year, people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times - more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds
* 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person - about 2% of shootings by citizens kill an innocent person
* When a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of rape attacks are completed, compared to 32% when unarmed.
* 60% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. 40% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed
* 59% of the burglaries in Britain, which has tough gun control laws, are "hot burglaries" which are burglaries committed while the home is occupied by the owner/renter. By contrast, the U.S., with more lenient gun control laws, has a "hot burglary" rate of only 13%.

the Constitution I'm reading is pretty clear that, with respect to firearms, they are to be unrestricted _explicitly_ within the context of a _well regulated_ militia.

Is that a justification clause or a prefatory clause? SCOTUS seems to think it's a prefatory clause. Furthermore, the latter part of the amendment says: the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

How this has come to mean "anybody can have any kind of weapon anywhere at any time and do anything with it they choose" has always been perplexing to me.

It's never meant "do anything with it you choose". The laws against assault/murder/menacing/etc don't magically cease to apply merely because you carry a gun. The 2nd amendment isn't a license to commit acts that you would otherwise be prohibited from committing if you were unarmed. To claim otherwise is to sow FUD to further your argument and I would hope that you are better than that.

As far as "any kind of weapon" goes, the reason that the NRA and most sportsman are opposed to gun control aimed at specific types of guns (so-called "assault weapons") is because that gun control is typically written by people that don't understand firearms and the threats contained therein are typically manufactured. According to most crime statistics "assault weapons" are rarely used in crime (1% of homicides before the original ban took affect), so why do we need to regulate them?

Having been robbed myself, I can say I'm glad that I didn't have a firearm available to me at the time

What if he had opted to try and kill you instead of leaving you alive as a witness? Would you still be happy that you didn't have a firearm available?

but even putting that aside and assuming that shooting robbers is a desirable outcome

Shooting somebody is never a desirable outcome. It's simply more desirable than being murdered yourself. I would never shoot anybody over property -- but if I thought my life was in danger then I'd shoot them as many times as it took to remove that danger. Most gun owners would feel the same way. Talk to somebody in law enforcement or the military who has had to take a life to defend themselves -- it's a horrible thing to have to do and you have to live with it forever. Few people walk around with guns hoping they get a chance to shoot someone.

I've never seen anything to convince me that a proliferation of firearms won't create more violent altercations than it prevents.

Go read through this document when you get a chance and see if it changes your mind. Here's a few of the penitent facts, although you should consider reading all of it when you have the time:

1) 60% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. 40% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed.
2) 59% of the burglaries in Britain, which has tough gun control laws, are âoehot burglariesâ which are burglaries committed while the home is occupied by the owner/renter. By contrast, the U.S., with more lenient gun control laws, has a âoehot burglaryâ rate of only 13%.
3) 57% of felons polled agreed, "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."
4) Less than 1% of firearms will ever be used in the commission of a crime.

his presumes such indisputable numbers exist. I have looked at statistical studies and they suggest that decreased gun ownership means less murder and fewer traumatic injuries overall for society (not just "gun crimes"). You may disagree, but you, yourself, have presented nothing in the way of the analysis you suggest.

I didn't think I had to since those numbers were presented by several different people already and modded highly in this article. Here is one of the pertinent ones that is also well written http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=210866&cid =17175778. Not one person I saw in the entire discussion presented numbers indicating that violent crime (as opposed to "gun crime") correlates favorably with gun control legislation.

"the facts show that there is simply no correlation between gun control laws and murder or suicide rates across a wide spectrum of nations and cultures. In Israel and Switzerland, for example, a license to possess guns is available on demand to every law-abiding adult, and guns are easily obtainable in both nations. Both countries also allow widespread carrying of concealed firearms, and yet, admits Dr. Arthur Kellerman, one of the foremost medical advocates of gun control, Switzerland and Israel "have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States." A comparison of crime rates within Europe reveals no correlation between access to guns and crime." -David Lampo of the Cato Institute

"Guns' danger in violent confrontations is such that they tend to increase the severity of injuries but reduce the chance of an injury occurring in the first place" - from 1979-1985 National Crime Surveys and 1983 FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports

"Gun laws which were examined include waiting periods, gun registration, licensing, permits, prohibition of gun possession by criminals or drug addicts or minors, dealer licensing, concealed handgun restrictions, open handgun carrying restrictions, mandatory judicial penalties, bans on types of weapons, and outright bans on handgun possession. CONCLUSIONS FOR GUN OWNERSHIP. Of the nineteen types of gun laws in the study, none showed consistent evidence of actually reducing gun ownership. Each law's effect on gun ownership was estimated seven times, but none of the laws showed a significant effect in a majority of the tests. Only two of the regulations, requiring a license to possess guns and prohibiting possession by mentally ill persons, showed an apparent effect in even as many as three tests. (Nevertheless, there is still partial support for the view that these two measures may reduce gun ownership, presumably among "high-risk" segments of the population.) CONCLUSIONS FOR VIOLENCE. Generally, the findings indicate that gun restrictions appear to exert no significant negative effect on total violence rates. Of 121 possible effects tested, only ten are solidly or partially consistent with a hypothesis of gun control effectiveness. For instance, requiring a license to possess guns appears to reduce fatal gun accidents. Requiring a permit to purchase guns appears to reduce both gun and, to a greater extent, nongun homicide rates, but, paradoxically, not the total homicide rate. There were other, small correlations like these, but a majority of the measurements found very little correlation between gun laws and reduced violence." - from S. Teresi's analysis of the comprehensive review of gun control studies in the book "Point Blank."

Or, if you're looking for the studies themselves to be analyzed, http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/4.1/GunFac ts4-1-Print.pdf has about 200 studies cited within it, many of which you can find using google scholar.

From 1989 up to and including 1996, the year when the Australian government confiscated and destroyed the 640,000 semi automatic rifles and shotguns taken from law abiding citizens, the murder rate in Australia, defined as the number of murders per 100,000 residents, remained relatively flat, fluctuating between 1.9 and 2.0. In 1995, the year before the confiscation, the murder rate was 1.9. In 1996, the year when 35 people were gunned down by a mad man in Port Arthur thus prompting the gun confiscation, the murder rate was 2.0. In 1997, immediately after the massive destruction of firearms, the murder rate dropped to 1.7, a 15% reduction at best. Not bad for the first year, but what happened in the next three years? In 1998, murder rate stayed at 1.7, in 1999 murder rate crept up to 1.8, and in 2000, it remained at 1.8.

So four years after confiscating over $100,000,000 of property from honest Australian citizens, Australia's murder rate dropped at most 10%. Note that during most of the 1990's, their murder rate fluctuated about 5% anyway. Their murder rate was 1.9 the year before the confiscation, five years later, it was 1.8. Accounting for normal statistical fluctuations, gun control had at best a marginal impact on murder rates in Australia.

99% of gun use is against people.

Actually, less than 1% of guns are used in crime. More may be used against "people", but I'm going to assume that if a gun is used against a person to prevent a crime (by the police or private citizens), you don't think it's "bad".

You can argue about their legitmate use and bad rap 'till you're blue in the face, but the legitmate uses are statistically outweighed by bad ones. The same applies to Bittorrent.

Actually, the courts generally hold that if there is any significant non-infringing use, then the technology is legal. I would agree with you that there are plenty of people who use BitTorrent illegitimately, but that doesn't mean that we should ban it entirely. We live in a free (relatively) society. This is a cost of freedom. If we allow all technologies that can be used for an illegal purpose to be banned, we will soon be living in a totalitarian state without any freedom whatsoever.

No, you educate yourself. The fact is that gun control does not work in any place that's even remotely like the US. The vast majority -- over 80% -- of US gun crime consists of gangs killing other gangs over drugs. Want to do something about that? Well, ending the WoD would be a good start...

Statistics again show that so called "assault weatpons" are rarely used in crime. The reasons are varied, but one of the obvious is that they are too obvious. The are not easily hidden. And criminals invariably want to hide.

Quoting: "Nationally, "assault weapons" were used in 1.4% of crimes involving firearms and 0.25% of all violent crime before the enactment of any national or state "assault weapons" ban. In many major urban areas (San Antonio, Mobile, Nashville, etc.) and some entire states (Maryland, New Jersey, etc.) the rate is less than 0.1%" from Gary Kleck, "Targeting Guns", 1997, compilation of 48 metropolitan police departments from 1980-1994

See Gunfacts 4.0 for much more.

However, concealing weapons is also of great value to the citizen for self-defense, particulary women, those of small stature, handicapped, and older people.

And it is also that reason that 'smart guns' are a bad idea. In a serious self-defense issue, *anyone* in danger must be able to use the weapon and it must be reliable. There are numerous case histories when the spouse, or a child sucessfully prevented the murder of other family members with an available gun.

All that is moot however. Because of the Bill of Rights, there are no grounds for limiting guns, period. See WHETHER THE SECOND AMENDMENT SECURES AN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT

Check out Gun Facts and my own article Firearms And Self Defense. If you come across anything that contradicts those sources please let me know - as I say in my article, I'm genuinely curious to see such stats, but no-one on K5 or here has yet been able to provide any.

No problem w.r.t. to jumping on you - sometimes, the RKBA movement is it's own worst enemy because of the hostility of many of its members; Libertarians & Objectivists often suffer from the same knee-jerk hostility. It serves no purpose other than to alienate open-minded people & strengthen the resolve of the close-minded.

FWIW, I actually was anti-gun most of my life - until I started reading the stats :-)

But the stats don't support that opinion - or at least, the stats that I've seen don't. Check out Gun Facts, & my article Firearms And Self Defense.

The U.S.A. has a problem with violence - that's actually where I agree with Michael Moore. However, a gun is your best protection against such violence - especially if you're a woman. See Gun Facts for details.

Interesting argument - yes, guns are less effective nowadays against Government violations because of the size, funding levels, & armaments of the Government agencies.

However, all the evidence suggests that guns are excellent tools of self-defense against private criminals - see Gun Facts for the proof.