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An Unbiased Analysis of Gun Crime vs. Gun Control?
"Just so everyone knows where I stand, and why I am asking this, I offer the following. I enjoy guns and regularly compete in shooting matches and hunt occasionally. I am a member of the NRA, not for political reasons, but due to the fact that most competitions are closed to non-members (which I do think is screwed up). Having said this I am undecided on what a logical path for the future is. I do believe that an unarmed nation is a bad idea, but as Michael Moore pointed out in 'Bowling for Columbine' Canada has a much higher per capita gun ownership rate compared to the US and has nowhere near the amount of violent crime that the US has. All of the statistics that I have seen about countries that have altogether outlawed guns have been manipulated by those extreme groups. As such I find it hard to believe anything that either side presents.
Thanks, I look forward to reading all of your comments and the references that you provide."
Come on! How's this fit the mission of this site?
What more could you get besides, "How about a beowoulf cluster of those?".
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
.. but "unbiased" and "slashdot" would be an oxymoron if used together.
Trolling is a art,
> Correction: Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people.
Another Correction: Guns don't kill people, bullets don't kill people, it's the blood loss and internal organ damage from catching a bullet (or failing to proplerly catch a bullet) that kill people.
--Shemnon
It should be fairly easy to find facts on gun ownership, number of shooting deaths, etc
The problem is in drawing a conclusion from those facts. There is not a single "correct" conclusion that can be drawn, or we wouldn't have the various viewpoints that we have.
Aaron
The book "More Guns, Less Crime" does a pretty good job of just looking at the numbers. When you look at the numbers, the spin the other groups put on a particular incident is lessened.
What, me Tweet?
I'll kill before giving up my right to wield firearms. ;)
Seriously, though. Places like Switzerland ensure that every able-bodied adult as a fully-fledged assault rifle in their closet. Places like Israel have public armories, and won't let schoolchildren on a field trip unless the chaperones are packing.
Both of those places have ridiculously low amounts of gun violence. (Google it.) Obviously, Israel likely has more that Switzerland, but then, they've been shooting at the Palestinians for years.
In another example, England apparently has a decent chunk of gun violence, yet strict gun control laws.
I can't offer you statistics off the top of my head. I won't tell you that people need assault rifles to hunt today's super animals like the flying squirrel, and I won't tell you that hand guns should be restricted.
The only thing I'll tell you is that guns don't cause violence - societies cause violence. If not guns, then swords and knives and sticks and bare hands.
Correction: Guns don't kill people, f=ma kills people. :)
The Center for Disease Control keeps very detailed records of how many children die each year in the United States from firearms violence. Suffice to say, I have yet to see any organization, Brady or NRA, that gets these figures right.
DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF
The problem with finding "unbiased" data is rarely does anyone with an opinion either way just decide to do a study. Think of trying to find "unbiased" studies on Linux vs. Microsoft stuff. Everyone has an agenda.
h tm l
I, for one, and a huge fan of the U.S. Constitution. And that means I think the government shouldn't be able to stop me from speaking, stop me from gathering in a peaceful manner, stop me from going to church, or stop me from owning a gun for my own self-protection. I carry a gun every day, in fact. It's MY responsibility for my and my family's safety, not the police deparment who will show up 20 minutes late to clean up the mess. I take that responsibility seriously, and in this "land of the free", nobody should be able to take that right of self-protection away. The founding fathers saw those as "God-given" (sorry athiests, but our Founding Fathers were actually believers. Deal).
If you want some good stuff to research, try these links:
http://www.guncite.com/
http://secondamendmentstuff.com/
http://stealthboy.dyndns.org/~msherman/cowards.
--- witty signature
The unbiased analysis you seek is just not humanly possible. Everyone has an opinion on the right to bear arms vs. gun control debate, and anyone willo become emotional defending his or her position. Here are some of my thoughts. Outlawing guns won't disarm criminals. They are criminals, and won't respect new laws any more than the ones we have now. Outlawing guns will only raise their price on the black market. Anything demanded will be supplied. That is basic economics. Even if we could create a state where only the army is armed, do we really want to?
How ya like dat?
I used to be a very peaceful person. I never got in fights, and I was very polite. Then, in third grade I got a knife. I didn't really kill anyone with said knife. However, when I got my first pistol, I started killing everyone: Secret Service, dogs, and even bosses! Soon, even the pistol's power wasn't enough, and I needed to move up to machine guns, chainguns, rocket launchers...everything. I even started looting treasures to feed my addiction!
I hope this helped.
Gun crime is a crime of opportunity. Guns are available, so crime with guns will occur. The number of guns already present in the United States will make gun control much less affective. Studies clearly show that most crimes are not performed with "new" guns.
Therefore, gun control is a reactionary measure proposed by people who fail to understand the motivations behind gun crimes. They are trying to oversimplify. Guns bad...ban guns, doesn't work though.
The biggest problem is this though...you cannot take rights away from Americans. Prohibition taught us that. You can give more rights to Americans...if it's not something we've become accustomed too, you might can take it away. But something we've lived with as a standard for years. You can't take that away.
Craenor
Fact: Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people.
;-)
For a shooting to take place (in the US), you need 1) an American and 2) a gun. Now a way of preventing shootings is to remove one of the ingredients. Either get rid of guns or get rid of Americains
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Rates of violent crimes in the United Kingdom have been steadily rising for years, while rates in the United States have been steadily falling. There is a considerable argument to be made that gun control is to blame for an increase in violence in Britain.
The logic is simple: criminals will always find ways to get guns, whether legally or not. If the average civilian cannot own a gun for self-defense, the chances that a criminal will use a gun against a civilian become much higher.
Reason did a very good article on this a little while ago: Gun Control's Twisted Outcome.
Or more specifically:http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa109.ht ml
Or something short like: http://www.cato.org/dailys/05-13-00.html
Or this has both sides of the issue laid out a bit http://www.ncpa.org:80/bothside/crime.html
Gun ownership should demand a great deal of responsibility on the part of those owning firearms.
Practically, though, you don't see people being held accountable when their gun is stolen, used for a crime, found by a kid, etc.
I believe the pro-gun ownership lobby has become too extreme defending the right to own assault weapons and neglected the need to insure that gun owners are more responsible.
They need to listen and understand their own rhetoric about "guns don't kill people, people kill people".
Well, how the hell did those irresponsible idiots get a gun in the first place? Qualifications for owning firearms are as woefully inadequate as they are for procreation with consequences that are just as dire.
I'm in favor of an empowered citizenry, with the right to own deadly weapons. But I'm insistent that the greater the risk of the weapon (including the highest levels where government officials control nukes, etc.), the greater the responsibility and accountability needs to be.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I agree. There would be far less crime if the Army could quarter troops in our houses.
What about the post's second paragraph?
If you haven't read it yet you might want to.
You can't trust your government.
And why have some guy breaking into YOUR HOUSE so that you can call the cops so they can come with THEIR GUNS. HOW INSANE. Better than have your own gun right there for you to use.
Here in the USA in times of Homeland Security a ready militia is needed now more than ever before. I consider defense of your own home by YOU good militia work too.
If someone broke into your home and did not have a gun and you had no gun, I'm sure you would pick up whatever you had in your house (bat, knife, etc.) to defend yourself. And if you had to hit him with whatever you picked up you probably would not worry much about if you killed them, so long as you protected yourself. And some would lead you to think it's better to call the cops with their guns, because they are so responsible that they BEAT CHILDREN IN THE STREETS ON CAMERA, rather than keep a gun yourself.
Don't be fooled!!!
Did this guy watch The Simpsons last night? That episode would have clearly explained the impact of gun control :)
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Your best bet is trying to find the cold hard facts about the number of violent crimes committed, the rate of gun ownership, and the laws about gun control, and then analyzing this on your own. If you read into someone else's report, you are most likely going to see something that has a bias one way or the other. If you have the data to look at yourself, you can draw conclusions on your own without much bias as long as you have an open mind. Just remember that there are many factors to take into account. Gun control laws aren't the only thing that affects violent crime. A good way might be to find places that have institued major changes in their gun control laws and see how this affected the crime rates.
And just because I love this joke, here it is:
How does the ACLU count to 10?
1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
one of the groups that hold extreme viewpoints on the subject, e.g. the NRA
I am not a member of the NRA and have no immediate intentions of becoming one, but I cannot see how their position can be labeled "extreme". As far as I can tell, they simply want to maintain the status quo and uphold the second amendment. Their position is painted by their opponents as extreme because our culture deems a "moderate" position as being intellectually superior to an "extreme" position. Their opponents have tried all sorts of word gymnastics to diminish the NRA's interpretation of the second amendment, yet the NRA's position has remained consistent and firm.
I remember reading that the majority of crimes were committed with guns obtained illegally (i.e. stolen or bought off of the black market) so I'm unsure what anti-gun advocates intend to accomplish (other than eventually disarming those that abide by the law).
MARK DUGGAN
University of Chicago - Department of Economics
October 2000
Abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between gun ownership and crime. Previous research has suffered from a lack of reliable data on gun ownership. I exploit a unique data set to reliably estimate annual gun ownership rates at both the state and the county level during the past two decades. My findings demonstrate that changes in gun ownership are significantly positively related to changes in the homicide rate, with this relationship driven entirely by the impact of gun ownership on murders in which a gun is used. The effect of gun ownership on all other crime categories is much less marked. Recent reductions in the fraction of households owning a gun can explain at least one-third of the differential decline in gun homicides relative to non-gun homicides since 1993. I also use this data to examine the impact of Carrying Concealed Weapons legislation on crime, and reject the hypothesis that these laws led to increases in gun ownership or reductions in criminal activity.
Topics such as gun control, abortion, capital punishment, etc. are too emotionally entangled with people's perception of the issues. Most people don't own guns, nor have they ever fired one in their lives, but they sure do have an opinion on gun safety. I'm not discounting their opinions. For example, I've never owned a nuclear weapon, but that doesn't mean my concerns over them aren't valid. However, just about anyone can learn how to operate a firearm safely. Therefore, I do believe gun owners have an edge over most other individuals as far as having an opinion that counts.
Carlcmc asks: "I have been trying to become more learned on the issues surrounding knife control and crime. I have had quite a time searching the internet for references about these issues. Practically everything that I have found has been written for, or is a study funded by, one of the groups that hold extreme viewpoints on the subject, e.g. the NKA or the Brady Foundation. The same holds true for references that I have found in our library. I was wondering if any of the members of the slashdot community have come across articles that are objective in dealing with these subjects, and I would also ask what ideas the members of this community have about this issue and what FACTS they can offer to support their ideas." "Just so everyone knows where I stand, and why I am asking this, I offer the following. I enjoy knifes and regularly compete in knifing matches and hunt occasionally. I am a member of the NKA, not for political reasons, but due to the fact that most competitions are closed to non-members (which I do think is screwed up). Having said this I am undecided on what a logical path for the future is. I do believe that an unarmed nation is a bad idea, but as Michael Moore pointed out in 'Bowling for Columbine' Canada has a much higher per capita knife ownership rate compared to the US and has nowhere near the amount of violent crime that the US has. All of the statistics that I have seen about countries that have altogether outlawed knifes have been manipulated by those extreme groups. As such I find it hard to believe anything that either side presents. Thanks, I look forward to reading all of your comments and the references that you provide."
A lot of people will/have ask what business this has on /.
Personally I'm wondering too- though for what it is worth every time I read arguments about freedom in regards to softare/tech stuff I am stunned by the parallels in the gun control arena.
Should hardware or software that COULD be used to circumvent the law be illegal? Even if there are other uses that are not illegal?
What about personal responsibility?
And for my opinion on the question itself. I will add what I believe to be a fact that would add a lot of reason to the debate.
Gun control cannot work in America without the citizenry of the U.S. giving up a lot more of their personal freedoms. It is too easy for Americans to come and go as they please- to keep things private in their homes and buy/sell things in private- unregulated transactions.
As long as this is true gun control will be unworkable. If you doubt this look at how incredibly innefective gun control has been to this point in time.
The parallels to the war on drugs are also interesting but I've gone on enough already.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Awhile back I did an analysis of gun control by correlating one self-described "gun watchdog" group's grades (ranging from F to A, with +'s and -'s) on the different state's gun control laws.
.25) between the level of gun-control.
Then I took the number of violent crimes, homicides, &c per capita (FBI statistics for the same year as the survey) and put them in separate columns. Looking at the correlation matrix I found that there was no correlation (R^2 <
A principle component analysis revealed a further lack of dependancy of one variable on the other.
This study was by no means complete--I didn't correlate it against the years or anything along those lines, but a search on the net for other research while I was performing the research for this project indicated that other studies--using various methodologies and some of them much more formal and complete than I had been--had come to the same conclusion that I had.
If you don't believe me, download a copy of R (http://www.r-project.org/) and check it yourself with those criteria you think would be accurate. I would be interested in the results.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
For some reason, I don't see how the government's inability to quarter troops in my home in times of peace helps criminals.
Seriously, though, at least get the admentment right if you are trying to make an argument.
DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF (responsibly) DRINK DUFF
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.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
I agree with Robert Heinlein:
"An armed society is a polite society."
It would be nice if more people were polite, wouldn't it?
Plus, isn't an armed citizenry quite a deterrent for casual crime...? ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
You write that while looking for references you've exhausted the Internet and your local library...
So what secret references do you think a bunch of geeks know about? You're looking for "FACTS" - where do you think those "FACTS" that anyone here has came from? Um, probably all the references you've already found.
You then cite Michael Moore, who is decidedly biased.
Look, you're looking for a path for the future. Since you presumably don't have magical powers let me save you the effort of worrying over this. Nothing you do makes a difference. Your vote really doesn't count. Just do what you enjoy - being an NRA supporter for personal gain. You'll be dead soon enough and things will go on without you.
It sure impresses me when my local neighborhood violent criminal goes and registers his gat like a good little boy. I am so thankfull that we have a way to track all of these illegal weapons. It's fools like you that pave the way for the 600+ murders that Los Angeles will see this year. The only thing you accomplish by restrciction of gun ownership is to take the guns out of law abiding citizens hands. A very common gun found here is the MAC-10, there is no way that you or I could go and purchase one of these legally, the streets are riddled with them however. Why is this? Because of the existence of the third amendment, or because of the deep restrictions placed on people like me that obey the law? Take your socialist crap to australia or the uk where it belongs.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
Make the bullets cost $5000 each. "I'd shoot your ass, if I could afford it."
Really, this appeals to the Libertarian in me, make bullets reflect the full cost of damages done and the free market will sort things out. It might kill marksmanship competitions and limit hunting, but it will dry up gun violence while preserving the second amendmant.
Whilst it sounds like a logical solution, but all that will do is create a black market on bullets. Then we have to spend a bunch of tax money going after the black market. Then the black market won't like being hassled, so there will be violent retaliations, etc.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Perhps you mean the second amendment. "A well regulated militia being a necessity in a free society, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged." If the meaning ofd this were not so murky, that alone would be something. Does "Well regulated Militia" mean the army, the national guard? or everyone able bodied? and does "the people" mean all the people, or just the ones in the militia? Do you propose that if we passed a new law,that criminals who are by definition, people who break the law, will respect it? That would be a magic law. Too bad there's no such thing.
How ya like dat?
One word : google
/. comments are an avalanche of badly formulated, biased, vaguely interesting and incoherent brainfarts. It's called 'comments', not 'discussions' for some reason.
I do understand that guns are a critical issue in every society, and that everyone is involved when it comes to discussions about guns, but apart from thinkgeek toys, I see little nerd-related issues in such a discussion on this website. Most of all since the majority of nerds have a big problem with serious, open and honest discussions. We can't even make our minds up when it comes to text editors. How in heavens name do you expect any interesting results from the comments of this article ? You could as well ask for a poll and base your conclusions on that.
I find the submitter of the article to be a lazy bum who is not willing to form his own opinion based upon serious research on the topic. Walk into a library, read a newspaper, talk to real people with which you can actually exchange information (as in : two-directional)...
To the moderators : if you mod me offtopic here, you sould seriously considering reading all the comments at -1. You'll probably find a lot of people with my opinion being filtered away.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
OK. Thread's over, you can all go home now.
Where are the most violent crimes committed, compared to the number of available handguns.
I think you will see that the number of violent crimes goes up with the number of weapons.
Go make your own conclusion.
That being said, it is still difficult to explain the two orders of magnitude difference in homicide rate. Another interesting statistic is that in Canada's largest city, Toronto, it is estimated that 3 out of 4 hand guns involved in a crime are imported illegally from the US.
Draw your own conclusions.
I know that it is vogue for Slashdolts to not read links, but not reading the submission itself?
In a free market, prices are signals indicating how much a resource costs to produce. Artificially altering this price is the opposite of a free-market system - what you are talking about is a "planned economy", where beaurocrats attempt to achieve certain social aims by manipulating and obscuring price signals. An example would be the various "sin taxes" on things like alcohol and tobacco.
I'm just trying to clarify your terminology - technically this scheme appeals to your inner Socialist, not your inner Libertarian.
--
CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
I hate to get involved in gun-control arguments, but...
Could anyone post a link supporting this? I've seen lots of England-vs-America gun arguments and the one conclusion I always noted was that England has a pretty low rate of gun violence. Despite their relatively high crime rates in other areas.
What more do you need to know? Whether you're more likely to kill someone because you carry a gun. Sure you are. Whether you're more likely to get killed because you carry a gun? Debate that all you like, but if you have it, you have the choice whether to use it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I thought this kind of thing only happened on Fark.com
:-)
I find it very funny that the first article in this thread has already been modded "Flamebait" There's going to be a LOT of flamebait here.
I even passed on the opportunity to moderate just to make this post
My thinking on the matter is: if no one has guns I would feel safe, knowing that if someone wants a gun they can get it makes me not feel so safe, so I need to get a gun too, given that bare hands are little match for a 38 special if the need ever did arise
I certainly see a need to limit the spread of weapons in this country, but I don't think it will limit crime, only gun related crime. Last time I checked, lots of people were killed with knives *and* blunt objects (try limiting those).Karma: Censored (mostly affected by decency laws)
Personally, I think that gun violence in America is more symptom, than cause. I also don't happen to think that the "cause" is any easy one to identify and/or deal with. Else, in another breathtaking stroke of obviousness, it would have been dealt with already.
Apologies for all the obvious statements, but it seems to me that on polarizing issues such as this, people tend to forget such little self evident tidbits in an attempt to push their own agenda.
My $30.06.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
It's MY responsibility for my and my family's safety...
Is your neighbourhood really that dangerous? How many times have you felt obligated to brandish your weapon to protect your family? What are you so afraid of? That someone else with a gun will randomly try to kill your loved ones? Or do you love your property so much that you would be willing to kill for it, rather than file an insurance claim? These are honest questions because I really don't understand your mentality.
Given your past need to fend off attackers with your gun, what is the greater probability: that at some point in the future you will successfully save the lives of your loved ones with your gun, or that someone you love will be killed with it while they're goofing around?
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226 493644/qid=1039469029/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-891185 5-5319946?v=glance&s=books
More Guns, Less Crime is a book by a liberal that takes unbiased FBI numbers regarding what happened when concealed carry laws were passed, and other very controversial subjects..
and he found that the more law-abiding people that had guns there were, the lower the crime rate because of the fear factor.... that is, the criminals were fearful of the well armed citizens that were ready to defend themselves.
its not politics, its logic.
If it were legal to carry a gun here in LA, maybe that guy wouldn't have tried to carjack me in the Tace Bell drive-thru. He saw a small, white guy in an expensive sports car. I was an obvious and easy target.
I got away - thankfully - by hitting him with my car.
but fsck that. I just carry a small auto now. I'm not going to hope to get lucky next time.
bad guys.. there are a LOT of us nerds carrying now.. and we're growing in numbers. Just so you know.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
This is an excellent book, and consists of one of the largest studies ever compiled on the statistics gathered by the various US agencies and other sources.
Since I'm sure this will be blasted as being biased, let me suggest something. No matter what, every study you read is going to be accused of being biased towards whatever outcome it has. If you want lots of statistics with the reasoning behind it and so on however, you should check out this book. It is quite thorough...almost to thorough for some people however...as some parts can be almost painful to wade through if you aren't fascinated by statistics and so on.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
On the off chance that you are not totally stupid, and the "third amendment" is merely an honest mistake for the "second amendment":
How bout some facts to back up your thoughts?
Removing guns from lawful, responsible people does nothing to keep them out of the hands of actual criminals. By definition, being criminals, they will not surrender the firearms in their posession. So they they have them, and no one else does.
Not a good concept for self protection. And the police being what they are, they cannot be everywhere at once.
A firearm in the hands (or closet) of a lawful, responsible person is no threat to you, if you do not break into his home or otherwise attack him.
Would you, as a presumably anti-gun person, be willing to put a sign in your front yard "This house is gun free!" ?
If not, you are reaping the benefits of allowing guns in the hands of lawful citizens. The crimnals do not know which household may or may not have a gun inside, and so may be less inclined to break in. You may not own one, but no one knows that but you.
Correction: people get killed for posting too many smart corrections (this is not a flamebait -- seriously how many geeky corrections do you think a reader can take? I was fairly annoyed after the 3rd one)
"You can't trust your government."
If you live in a democracy, why not? They're your representatives. They were voted for by you or the people around you. If you don't like them, at minumum, vote against them and campaign for the people around you to vote against them. If you can't trust them, you are probably guilty of political apathy. You have to work with the system, not fight. This is the only way that democracy works.
repost, because I hit the wrong reply button..
It's MY responsibility for my and my family's safety...
Is your neighbourhood really that dangerous? How many times have you felt obligated to brandish your weapon to protect your family? What are you so afraid of? That someone else with a gun will randomly try to kill your loved ones? Or do you love your property so much that you would be willing to kill for it, rather than file an insurance claim? These are honest questions because I really don't understand your mentality.
Given your past need to fend off attackers with your gun, what is the greater probability: that at some point in the future you will successfully save the lives of your loved ones with your gun, or that someone you love will be killed with it while they're goofing around?
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
You misunderstand his original point. The argument is that the current price of bullets drastically undervalues their true cost. Thus, to reframe the question, he is arguing for prices that acuratly reflect both the financial and other costs of bullets so that the market, with all of its great cost-benifit-equlibrium-finding goodness, can work correctly.
Canada certainly has much more of a monolithic culture than does America. I think much of what America terms as "problems" are simply the costs of having a truly heterogenous society. Every such society has these culture clashes, and that is the source of the violence. The guns are simply the implementation.
Columnist Michael Medved makes the claim that if you isolate the gun crime among people like Canadians (i.e., whites), the numbers even out quite a bit. Without delving into the quagmire of why that might be, if it is indeed true, and I can't confirm or refute it quickly, it sort of makes the whole Canada vs. U.S. argument go up in smoke.
My personal resolution to the argument is simple the question: if you do not allow citizens to own firearms, how shall they protect themselves from criminals? Your answer cannot be "the cops". That's not what they are for. It's easy to sit in front of a computer in suburban America with a BMW in the garage and wonder why in the world anyone would need a handgun to protect themselves. Talk to my sister in law, who was attacked and beaten by her boyfriend, and you might get a different point of view.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
There is a set of factoids that have been widely distributed, such as here. They have a pro-gun bias, but sound credible to me. The gun-control folks never seem to indicate that most of their shocking statistics are primarily about suicides and gang members killing each other, rather than littly Timmy finding Daddy's gun in the closet.
This is not a troll or flamebait. We have tens of magnitudes more gun deaths than any other first world nation (100k vs 350). Is it because we have more guns? I suppose one could make that claim. The US has more guns than any other first world nation. Except, proportionately, Canada has more guns per person than US and they have a little over 300 gun deaths a year.
It seems that the rediculous number of gun deaths that occur in the US is unique to the US and is independent of numbers of guns, violence in movies, etc. It seems it is part of the US culture to kill each other. I don't know why. I wish I did.
A good movie on this subject is Bowling for Columbine. It is really good. Watch it. What are you still doing here? I said watch it!
Report that elderly people are 50% more likely to commit suicide when they own a gun. - this one from a suicide-prevention research project at a university. Not involved in the gun / anti gun debate.
.
Report showing a positive correlation between handgun ownership and prevalence of suicide, homicide, and injuries / deaths of children. This one by Harvard School of Public Health, Injury Control Research Center
The list goes on... but the data is pretty clear:
1.You are more likely to die in an auto accident, statistically, if you have a little red Italian sports car parked in your garage.
2. You are more likely to die earlier, statistically, if you chain-smoke cigarettes.
3. You are more likely to die, kill someone else, or kill yourself, statistically, if you own a gun;
and most importantly,
4. I am probably subsidizing all that risky gun-owning, sports-car driving, chain smoking activity through higher taxes, higher insurance premiums, etc., to the tune of 35% of my gross income. And I'm not very happy about it.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
But how much does gun ownership reduce violent crime overall (if any)?
There is an argument, with some deceant support and reasoning, that if lots of law abiding citizens own guns, it will reduce the overall amount of violent crime (muggings, rapes, etc). Not only through direct intervention, but because crooks KNOW that people ahve guns and fear this fact and so don't do it.
Now there is just no way to measure this that I can think of, but it is an important question if you really want to ask wether private gun ownership overall causes more violence or reduces it.
Here is a short list of things people kill other people with that should also be banned: baseball bats hockey sticks cars knives chemicals cigarettes sexually transmitted diseases piano wire ice picks Please, for the love of God, register your knives and take a knife safety course!!! THEY ARE SHARP AND DANGEROUS!
The poster in this comment mentions the Moore Documentary "Bowling for Columbine". Whatever your preconceived notions of Mr. Moor's work are you should take a chance and go see this film. It's funny and obviously it gets its job done as the poster was motivated to take an interest in the topic.
And to the posts that say this topic isn't news for nerds, I point out that many politicians are in fact nerds. And unfortunately the act of informed dialogue in this country (without fanatical rhetoric) is about as popular as math for fun or other geeky activities.
As Ralph Nader says "Anybody who is proud to be a member of the silent majority has resigned from democracy, and that's nothing to be proud of."
One important point that Michael Moore missed, is that while Canadians to have a higher gun ownership per capita then the US, they are almost exclusively long guns - rifles and shotguns used almost exclusively for hunting and protection from animals.
It's extremely dificult to legally get a handgun in Canada. It's been like that the last 30 years, at least. Controls on handguns and assault weapons in Canada has a long history.
Where I agree with Moore, is that Americans carry guns out of fear of people, where Canadians mostly use guns as tools against animals.
The idea that people must carry guns to protect themselves from other people is largely unique to the US, and I think goes to the high rate of gun violence here.
_Am
That's not so far off the mark.
If only the government has guns, then the people are pretty much out of luck.
Which is why the 2nd amendment exists. So the people (meaning individuals, not state-run militias) can rise up (after exhausting all legal means) and take control again.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Thats probably because its too damn cold up there to be screwing around with guns on the streets. Who in their right mind would want to take their hand out of their pocket to hold a chunk of cold metal when its -20C outside.
But seriously. I think it is mostly a matter of education. I don't mean that silly liberal "education about guns/drugs/sex/weed eaters/problem of the day" education. I'm talking about your average everyday high school education. I have no numbers to back this up, but I have a feeling that there are fewer uneducated dolts running around the streets in Canada on a per capita basis than here in the states, and thus fewer shootings.
Casca
<sarcasm>
Yes, because what kind of sense does it make to title the book after the conclusion of the study. It must be biased.
</sarcasm>
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
As properly demonstrated by Joe Isuzu.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
no shit. here in california it's illegal to carry any sharp object capable of causing grevious bodily harm - like a pen, for example.
I say it all comes down to an issue of responsibility. I've seen too many macho, knuckle-dragging rednecks owning enough guns to arm a terrorist cell but whose understanding on the proper use involves holding "grippy end", making sure the "pointy end" faces the thing you want a hole in and pulling on the little "squeezy bit" when you want the hole made. Other people buy a gun and learn how to use them from an accredited gun safty course (frontsight as an example) and
actually know how to use, maintain, carry, and most importantly...when and how to present the weapon when it gets intense.
Contrary to popular belief guns are no more or less dangerous than anything else you can find in a home as long as they are *properly* stored. A child running around with the turkey carving knife he pulled out of the knife rack on the counter has as much damage potential as an unsecured gun.
Also there's the issue of guns and crime. Sure we've all heard the expression "If we outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns" till we're sick of it, but it *is* a true saying nonetheless. We outlaw drugs and they're all over the place. We outlawed Booze once...that worked well didn't it? You can restrict and outlaw and ban all you want, but as long as there are criminals who will pay for the guns, other criminals will figure out how to get guns in from other sources.
Guns used in crime. This is a tricky one as the facts differ from person to person. There is evidence that the "Wild West" wasn't as wild as people claim. This makes sense to me as only a fool would start something in a saloon where everyone including the showgirls are packing some sort of hand cannon. Also there are the anecdotes of the idiots who have tried to commit armed robery of gunstores (some with police officers picking up their sidarms) and the results of such encounter.
Personaly I'd LOVE (not that I'm holding me breath) to see a law that requires everyone over 18 with no police record to start learning the proper useages of a handgun and to be expected to actually openly carry at the age of 21. It's a little harder to rape a woman who is packing heat and is trained in it's proper use. It's even harder to knock over a convience store when the clerk, the manager, the guy behind the deli counter and the guy picking up a pint of ice cream for the missus is armed.
But that's just MY dream and my opinions
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
Schnapple
Certainly numbers are interesting and relevant, but positions of principle are important in an issue like this. I personally think of the 2nd amendment as saying that people have a right to protect themselves (a right they basically lack in England), and I think of that right as important and fundamental.
Reason Magazine is also a libertarian vehicle, but they recently had a piece on the effects of gun control in England. Consider this when you consider more stringent gun control in the USA.
Go ahead and shut the door now that the horse has left the barn. Gun control is the EXACT same concept as banning DeCSS or P2P technology. It all could be used to commit a crime. The difference is, unlike DeCSS and P2P, guns can also be used to prevent crime.
$G
-- $G
I think Chris Rock (the comedian) said that gun
violence would be no problem if the price of ammo
was higher. If bullets cost $5,000 each, there
wouldn't be any innocent bystanders shot or drive by
shootings with dozens of shots fired.
"A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
Try again, troll.
Although technically ture your argument is heavily flawed. If someone cannot get access to a gun and they choose a knife or a sword then their maximum scope of damage is severely reduced.
Assuming I have a 9 bullet handgun I can kill 9 people from a reasonable distance before anyone can do much about it.
Switch to a knife I can probably get 1 or 2 before everyone figures out what I'm doing and eith runs away or overwhelms me
Switch to fists I'll be lucky to kill 1 person unless they are alone and killing 2 people is almost completly out of the question.
The idea that guns have nothing to do with violence is absurd, with a gun I can kill anyone very quickly, as my choice of weapons is reduced so is my ability to unleash quick and deadly force and thus I can kill less and less.
Please dont claim guns are completly irrelevant in how violent a society is as it is an insult to the intelligence of the people around you.
--
nich
37 - what does it stand for really...
Isn't Mike Moore an NRA member? Doesn't he own several guns? I would hardly call him unbiased, but I think BfC does its best to aim for the truth.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
I don't believe you will find any correlation between gun control and gun crime that cannot be explained through other social factors present in the society.
Take two extremes (and this is anecdotal evidence) - Japan where guns are strictly controlled and Switzerland where almost everyone has a semi-automatic weapon from National Guard duty. Neither of these countries has the violent crime problem that is found in the USA. The real question is not one of how prevalent guns are in the particular society, it's one of how prepared the population generally is to use those guns that are in the society in a violent manner.
The only thing that can be said about gun control is more accidental deaths occur from gun related injuries if there are more guns in the general population.
I'm sure you'll find all sorts of "evidence" which shows crime going up and down as you look at changes in gun laws which also conveniently ignores other social changes in the same time. I'm sure you'll see people arguing that guns are needed for self defense and that guns aren't a defensive weapon, but effectively a counter offense.
Personally I don't carry a gun (statistics do seem to show that carrying a gun means you have a higher chance of being killed in the US) but I believe it's the decision of a society as a whole as to what degree its citizens should be allowed to arm itself.
An interesting aside, I believe (IANAL - could have my sources mixed up) that the Supreme Court has consistently ruled against the interpretation of the constitution to guarantee individuals the right to bear arms, instead affirming the view that the 2nd amendment refers to state controlled militias. Those that swear by the constitution as a defense of the right to bear arms should be aware that the Supreme Court's view is that you do not have that right in the US.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Religion: which is the one true faith?
Based on this article, I would guess the one with the most guns?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
But I live in the USA and it's a REPUBLIC. That means some folks are suppose to be representing me, but NO I DO NOT get a say in everything.
So no I will not be trusting them, because no they are not me.
The nation has a military and I should be able to have my own armed forces at my home to protect myself. But I guess you'd figure it's working with the government to call them to come and protect me.
For the record I do vote. I vote in general elections, primary elections and runoff elections too. Where I live I also vote in city elections, which are held in a different location from the county/state/federal elections. So when I vote I must go to 2 different locations.
I hope you are as good a citizen.
I work with my government via voting to ensure I can continue to have my armed forces and help fund my government's armed forces.
Well it did occur to me that I'm not sure if I leave my door unlocked when I'm at home during the day, but then again I don't live in a major mertopolitan city. Had Moore tried the same trick in NYC in a project during the day he'd gotten different results. Still, it would be impressive to me if the citizens of a major city in Canada didn't lock their doors at night.
Schnapple
John Lott did an excellent job on this book and I would recomend it to anyone. It shows pretty conclusively that concealed handgun laws hinder crime.
The criminals mindset is self-preservation. If he doesn't know if Joe Blow off the street is carrying a handgun in his jacket or grandma has a pistol in her purse, is he really going to chance robbing the person? Statistics in the book show that in states with concealed handgun laws, the probability is less.
When searching for the right to carry guns, ask yourself which of the following statements you really want to discuss:
I have a 'constitutional' right to carry guns.
or
I have a 'moral' right to carry guns.
I don't care much for the first but rather be discussing the second. In other words, whenever I am discussing the gun issue with americans I do not want to be sidetracked from the real issues by "what the constitution says".
How do I do brain surgery ?
Should I induce vomiting ?
What plate voltage should I use on this vacuum tube ?
Should I put salt in my eyes ?
Why did they change the flavor of Coke ?
Is OJ a murderer ?
How do I put my name on an engraver ?
Home abortion kits ?
WTF ? Are the editors that self-absorbed that they think Slashdot is a massive think-tank with all the answers ?
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
As a former american (now german) european citizen I stand startled and amazed before these comments that show so much of an utterly different point of view the majority of US citizens has on this subject. ;;;-))) )
George Bushs Iraq policy really becomes understandable (no offense to anyone!!!).
And that's not just all badass semi-facist rednecks, it's all kind's of normal americans, even slashdotters too!
(no such thing as a 'normal american' I know that, but go along with me for a moment
Like it seems it truly is the case that the USA is a country were a large part of the population considers owning or the right to own a gun an expression of liberty and freedom. A very fascinating point of view. It has something medieval about it. I really can only stand amazed...
Any other europeans here feeling the same way?
BTW:
I wonder how americans think about the worlds top amount of dead children due to traffic overspeed in germany. Probably something simular.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I haven't looked at that book in a while, but if memory serves, it depends on the type of crime.
Violent crime was reduced, but crime involving merely property and where therefore there's a lower risk of intervention appeared to increase.
The numbers and analysis are useful to examine for those that want to verify that he wasn't blowing smoke, which for such a heated issue would be handy to know.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I'm Canadian, this is my opinion, not any generally held view, although I think it might be.
I think it has to do with the gun distribution, urban guns kill more people, rural guns don't kill as many people.
Generally a gun is for hunting, target shooting, or protection from animals. Most of the used guns are hunting rifles, with small magazines.
If your gun is used as a tool, and you treat it properly with respect you don't have accidents like children finding a loaded gun laying around.
If you have a gun soley for protection from other gun wielding persons then there is a higher risk of you shooting someone, than if you have it to protect you from a random dangerous animal.
Simple analysis. Ask yourself "does keeping a gun within the four walls of a home increase or decrease the chances of someone living in the household being victim of gun violence?" Don't be distracted by figures for other societies; concentrate on where you live; if you don't live in Norway, Canada or Switzerland, their figures are not going to be applicable to you.
It is worth noting that a number (don't know exactly what the number is) of the crimes committed with guns are using guns that were obtained through legal means. If there was no legal means, it would make it more difficult for criminals to get the guns as well.
I'm not strongly familiar with the statistics, but are there statistics of gun crime in countries where guns were legal and then later banned. The logic of this argument would suggest that gun crime would increase after guns were banned. I kind of doubt that but I don't have numbers to support it.
For the record, I support gun ownership though I don't personally want to own a gun. I just don't find that this argument has a lot of merit.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I agree with Robert Heinlein:
;-)
"An armed society is a polite society."
It would be nice if more people were polite, wouldn't it?
These issues are vastly more complex than Heinlein's little one-shot sound bites would lead one to believe (as much as I thoroughly enjoyed Time Enough for Love and yearned to live in that world as I was growing up, entire chapters are little more than clever sound bites with nothing to support their veracity. It is science fiction, and good science fiction at that, but the key word here is "fiction.")
Yes, I would like to see people be more polite, but there are other means than threat of death by firearms to encourage politeness in a society. Furthermore, armed societies such as Israel, Palestine, Kosovo, Serbia, Chechnia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, etc. are hardly models of polite society, so I think we can dismiss the veracity of Heinlein's little quipp simply by taking a look around our own, contemporary, and very real world.
Plus, isn't an armed citizenry quite a deterrent for casual crime...?
It may well be (assuming citizens are allowed to "pack" as well as "own," something they are not in many parts of the USA), but it is also quite a facilitator for crimes of "passion", such as road rage, momentary madness stemming from anger, etc.
How do the two balance out? I don't know. Like the original person posting the question, I would like very much to see a dispassionate study done on these issues, and let the chips fall where they may.
My biases have been pro gun control (after living in Europe for many years and growing used to the relatively low crime rates there), anti-gun control (after seeing the atrocities committed by troups upon unarmed civilians in Kosovo, Bosnia, etc. a few hundred short kilometers from where I had lived in such peace), to now a very mixed perception, and a conclusion that I simply do not know which side of the argument is more correct than the other, and can recognize that both sides have compelling aspects to their argument.
So I too would like to see an unbiased study, and contrary to many here, I think such a study is emminently possible, if one can gather knowledgable people with the professional and scientific ethic to place good science above their own personal political and social opinions. Such people do exist, and while they may have become more rare in this age of political conformity (from both the right and the left), there are still plenty around to conduct such a study, if the need and interest should ever reach the necessary threshold.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
As most people here will be aware, Europe generally has much stricter gun control than the USA.
USAians often give the following reasons for needing "freedom to bare arms":
1) It reduces crime, so with guns you are safer.
2) In extremis, having citizens with guns allows them to overthrow the government.
A question for the Europeans (proper Europeans, not Americans living in Europe or Europeans living in America):
Do you believe Europe should have less strict gun control?
"Canada is made up of considerably more rural area than urban
LOL! More rural than urban? I think not... almost half the population of Ontario lives in the GTA, or at least the Golden Horseshoe. If you check out Statistics Canada, you will find that in 2001 79.7% of Canada and 84.7% of Ontario are urban dwellers. I guess if you're talking area rather than population, you're right... but that wouldn't make sense in this context.
By definition, if gun ownership is illegal then it doesn't matter whether they will, or will not voluntarily give up guns in their possession because the law can take them off those people.
And the police being what they are, they cannot be everywhere at once.
That's a crap excuse. By that definition, why bother having laws at all? Why bother having laws against rape, when hardly any rapists are caught red handed by the police. Lack of policing resources is an entirely separate issue.
A firearm in the hands (or closet) of a lawful, responsible person is no threat to you, if you do not break into his home or otherwise attack him.
And who decides who is a lawful, responsible person? What if yesterday said person was lawful and responsible, but today they have become a criminal? You can't separate the two, either you take guns away from everybody or nobody. Guns in the hands of lawful people have the potential to become guns in the hands of unlawful people, but no guns in anybodies hands makes things safer for everybody.
Would you, as a presumably anti-gun person, be willing to put a sign in your front yard "This house is gun free!" ?
Er, yes, as would most people in Europe. Let's get this straight now, in England it's possible to get weapons for personal use if you're a criminal. But, you have to deliberately locate a seller on the black market and buy them. If they are found, they will be confiscated and destroyed. A lot of crimes are not meticulously planned with plenty of resources weeks or months in advance, they happen very quickly, sometimes without any thought at all. Removing guns helps prevent their use in those sorts of crimes. It makes getting hold of them for crime in advance harder.
The reason for this is exceedingly simple: only persons commit crimes, and the tool of choice for the commision of any particular crime is irrelevant. After all, some of the most gruesome crimes commited in the US have not involved firearms. For example, Ted Bundy seemed to prefer knives. Shepard was not killed with a pistol - he was beaten and left to die. And of course, we have had people dragged to death by trucks.
One could actually make a very good argument that even banning, confiscating, and destroying all firearms in the country would not make one immune to crime. Because, as I have pointed out, you can still be beaten (with fists, baseball bats), stabbed (kitchen knives, shanks), burned(hairspay and lighter), blown up (bathtub plastique - see the AC),etc.
In fact, in following the gun control debate (and many other debates), I am often reminded of George Carlin's rant about living in a world made entirely of Nerf. It is, after all, the only way to be assured of safety.
Basically, if you're up against a hardened criminal with a big gun, do you really think your little pistol is going to scare him off? Of course not. This guy has been around too much. He might well have shot at people before. He doesn't really care too much about his rotten, stinking life anyway. He has little to loose. You have never shot at anybody before. You have no clue as to how you would react. And you're probably not good at it anyway.
you can't deter someone if that someone thinks he is better than you and/or have less to loose
Well, that sniper, well you guys taught him all he needed to know about killing people, and you taught him that it was actually an OK thing to do with your enemies. Then, it is too late to tell him that "you're not supposed to shoot at others than we tell you to". It just isn't possible. The guys who want guns the most is the last people on earth you should give it to.
But, to end these ramblings. I don't think it is about guns per se, it is about a culture that says that shooting at people is a legitimate way to use a gun. That's where it goes wrong. I think you'd find that shooting crimes would go down if you got rid of that attitude. Guns are for gathering food. Not self-defence. No armed revolution. But that's awfully hard to do.
But then, this was an opinion, not what you were asking for.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Every hour, 645.3 children are killed by lawn darts.
Most lawn darts are never ultimately used in the defense of a home. But they claim thousands of lives every year nevertheless. An angry spouse might turn to a lawn dart in the heat of an argument with tragic consequences. A suicidal teen reaches for the dart instead of reaching out for help.
Worse yet, 67.3% of all lawn darts are stolen from law-abiding homes, ending up on the black market and used against innocent victims, contributing to the dark, rising tide of lawn dart violence.
Stop the madness. Write your congressperson today and demand an end to this scourge.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
As others in this thread have mentoned (but are only scored at 1 as I write this), John Lott was trying to prove the opposite of his book title. Turns out the evidence proved to him that a "more armed" community will have less gun violence (and other violent crimes) than "less armed" communities. He published his findings honestly.
Please, mod these other folks up in this thread, they were here first but somehow were not posted with a +2 like this post.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Absolutely true.
- Guns kill people
- Napster pirates mp3's
- Kazaa pirates mp3's, software, movies
- Violent FPS's (Quake, etc.) cause teen violence
- PC's cause copyright theft
- VCR's and PVR's steal tv shows and movies
- Open source code causes security breakins
- Email causes spam
- Slashcode causes misspellings, poor grammar and duplicate story postings
Seeing this list makes me think I've been warped to a planet of f*cking sheep who are controlled by the inanimate objects around them.This movie (as well as much of Moore's other output) has been discredited time and time again, even by writers on the left who agree with his basic opinions. By all reports it is staged, manipulated, and completely worthless as far as getting unbiased data about the gun-control debate.
See:
From Spinsanity
From LA Weekly
From the National Post
From the Weekly Standard
From The Globe and Mail
--
CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
If guns were completely abolished, imagine the rap videos on MTV. Snoop and Dre rapping about how their rolled on some suckas with their broadswords and morning stars? Somehow that seems way cooler than taking pot shots at people from the safety of your convertible.
cpeterso
Actually, Congress has cleared that up, and one needs to look at what the Framers thought about Militias.
1 78 9.htm9 2.htmy /debate .html
http://www.constitution.org/mil/militia_debate_
http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_act_17
http://members.ll.net/chiliast/GGGH/histor
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia."
10USC Sec 311
EXPCITE TITLE 10 - ARMED FORCES
Subtitle A - General Military Law
PART I - ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL MILITARY POWERS
CHAPTER 13 - THE MILITIA
HEAD Sec. 311. Militia: composition and class
STATUTE (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of National Guard or the Naval Militia.
My sense is that gun control has little correlation (positive or negative) with gun violence, but rather economic disparity, particularly race-motivated disparity is the driving force, both in the US and Britain. I'll say tongue in cheek that Canadians are all equally poor, and hence less prone to violent crime. (Note also that while the rates are lower overall in Canada, race still plays an unfortunate role), whereas the Swiss are all equally rich. ;-)
I should also point out that while there might be more guns per cap in Canada, the vast majority are hunting rifles that require permits. Unlike Americans, we can't just walk in to the local Guns'R'Us and buy a handgun.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
Systems break down. Even injustice becomes popular at times, such as in the post-Civil War South in which officials were sometimes even active conspirators with or members of an increasingly violent Klan. More recently, there's been people overriding logic with their emotions wrt terrorism...
Revolution is a last resort. Nobody's advocating revolution now, but it wouldn't be that swift to lack the means if it ever becomes necessary.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Bowling for Columbine is an interesting movie, but keep in mind that Michael Moore tends to be very loose with his facts. At one point, he repeats a "fact" that someone mentioned that Canada has 10 million households and 7 million guns and he incorrectly concludes that 70% of Canadians have a gun.
In fact, gun ownership (particularly handgun ownership) is much lower in Canada. Only 22% of Canadian households have a gun, as opposed to 49% of American households. But most of the Canadian guns are hunting rifles and such. When you look specifically at handguns, only 2% of Canadian households have a handgun, as opposed to 25% of Americans. These are 1996 figures. It's ironic that Moore would get these facts wrong, since they would tend to support his belief that guns cause violence.
-a
For a shooting to take place (in the US), you need 1) an American and 2) a gun. Now a way of preventing shootings is to remove one of the ingredients. Either get rid of guns or get rid of Americains ;-)
Fight the Power! Americans out of the US! NOW!
Okay, we'll never get a consensus to ban firearms in this country (although some municipalities have).
How about this: A gun license should be as hard to get as a driver's license.
This would mean a written exam on safty, a practical exam on basic marksmanship, maintanience, and safety.
Gun inspections like car inspections would probably be too difficult for existing guns. But at least an inspection for new firearms, to ensure they're being sold with triggerlocks and the like. I can understand why some people wouldn't want a triggerlock on (I think they're stupid, since they're much more likely to kill a family member than an intruder, but that's a compelling fantasy for many). But I think every gun should have one, so that it has to be a proactive choice to not use one.
I'm sure the NRA would frantically hate this idea, but I'd feel more comfortable knowing that people who bought guns legally at least demonstrated that they could pick "no" on a multiple choice test asking "is it okay to leave a loaded gun in the bedside table."
My video compression blog
Can anyone point to a democracy that has been saved from totalitarianism by widespread gun ownership?
On the contrary I can think of a zillion countries wehre widespread gun ownership has led to an absolute loss of rights and freedom to rampaging local warlords who wind up outgunning the forces of law and order.
I think the idea that guns protect people from state oppression is an absolute myth which cannot be substantiated by any real world example.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
It has a lot to do with American culture. Canada's culture is different and they have less killing per gun. It is the same with most other cultures. In America one gets angry, grabs a gun and kills a loved one. In America guns show you are the big man on the street. In America thieves feel it necessary to carry a gun and homeowners feel insecure without a gun.
Do I have an answer to the problem? No I don't, but the culture needs to change, and I believe gun control laws will not make any difference. One must deal with the sense of power in owning a gun and the fear of others owning guns.
Taiwan only allows the police to own firearms and almost every window in the country has bars on them, even windows on the 10th floor. You can brake in to anyone's house and rest assured that no one will be able to stop you. The reason you live without bars on your windows is because the criminals are not sure which houses have guns and which ones do not.
The cities with the most restictive gun laws have the highest cimre rates per capita.
This doesn't matter, what matters is whether or not you believe that people have a right to bear arms or not. If people have that right, taking it away would be wrong.
The reality is, when the situation comes up that people need to bear arms (the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto) almost no one will oppose them having them. The argument that people will usually make is "well, we aren't Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. If you think we are then you are insane, and trivializing the tragedy of the Holocaust." (Oh, and the new argument which is "Well, they ended up losing anyway," which is the argument that "people would never be able to resist the U. S. armed forces for long if the government turned into a dictatorship, so that's not a good argument.")
I think really it comes down to a matter of faith in the State. People who believe that various individual freedoms stand in the way of paradise on earth through central planning will always favor gun control. I mean, what was crime like under the totalitarians? I don't know what street crime was like, but the crimes committed by agents of the State dwarf the imagination in their enormity.
On the other hand, it is true. In many cases when people attempt to resist a modern mechanized army, they end up ground into the dust. Which is better, to willingly go to a relocation camp, or resist through force of arms? It's not an easy question. What would have happened if the Japanese-Americans who ended up imprisoned at Manzanar had resisted, en masse, the unjust imprisonment and theft of their property at the hands of the State? Would they have been massacred, or would the executive order have been rescinded?
I don't trust the State. I think its agents are corrupt. You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
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.
Since much pro-gun FUD is about "keeping your home and family safe", one statistic that I'd love to see is this:
How often a gun is used sucessfully in a "home defence" scenario (killing/wounding/scaring an intruder) VERSUS how often a gun is mis-used in the home (murder, accidents, etc).
Has anybody figured this out?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Bellesiles resigned before he could be fired after peer review of his books found out that he had been inventing data, misrepresenting historical facts, etc.
He's the one source that is always cited when gun control activists start beating their war drums.
Do any google search to get info.
So, please take this into account when looking for information on this topic.
Coldmist
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
What I thought on this topic a few years ago:
A well regulated militia
Don't bother asking for the source of the statistics I used - I used to be able to google for it, but it's long since gone. Remember to create a bibliography for all your documents, even the unimportant ones, folks!
-Adam
The NRA and such always whinge about government control over guns. And what? The government regulates the storage of gasoline, what kind of cars are allowed on the road, who can drive a car, who can own and do what with cyanide, even the production and storage of basic foods.
We accept all these things because they increase the general level of safety and security.
Guns are reasonably safe when they are handled by people with adequate training,and I think simple requirements that people get that training, and checks to make sure they're responsible, are in the same leage as other similar regulations.
The second one I read (but not completely, due to lack of time) is Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control by Kates and Kleck. Kates strikes me as somewhat biased against control, but at least he backs it up with facts (though I haven't checked them yet). Kleck is much more balanced.
Kleck's Point Blank and Targeting Guns have been cited as the definitive scholarly works on the subject. Haven't read either one myself.
Wright and Rossi's Under the Gun is also said to be very good.
There was an article on K5 about this a few months ago. Can't find it right now, their server is having trouble. K5 would probably be a better place to ask this question.
HTH.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
ACLU President Nadine Strossen has spoken about guns in the past, saying that she leans toward the position that the second amendment identifies gun ownership is an individual civil right, not merely a collectivist permission to be part of the National Guard or for Guardsmen to keep their rifles at home like the Swiss. But the ACLU isn't a monolithic organization - they have a lot of central resources, and get involved in Supreme Court cases, but their real work is done by local chapters, who come up with lawyers to defend people in most of the cases that they work on. So if you want the ACLU to defend gun rights, get involved, get your law degree (:-), and find cases that you can convince your local organization that it makes sense to work on.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Finally, Guns don't kill people, but they sure do make it easier.
"Never point a gun at anything you don't want to put a hole in."
It's the best advice I've ever received in terms of gun safety.
They've been demonized, but guns are really nothing more than really crude drills.
Sure, you can use a drill for good and bad. It's can make furniture, and it can kill aunt Martha, but there's no real issue of wether or not we should illegalize drills.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Police carry to prevent crime, namely injury to themselves as they try to enforce the law. So, the lawful armed citizen is a Good Thing. Laws disarm only the lawful.
What part of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" do you not understand? The bit about a well-regulated militia is 18th-century-speak for ordinary people who were expected to make themselves proficient in the use of firearms. It does not, as Sarah Brady and her minions insist, refer to the National Guard. In any case, the validity of the Second Amendment does not hinge on the usefulness of armed citizenry to national defense (though that happens to be a nice bonus). Just as the government shall not tell you, as a (presumably) law-abiding citizen, what you can say or with whom you can associate, it shall not interfere with your right to keep and bear arms. If you choose to not exercise that right, fine. Just don't presume that what's fine for you should be good enough for the rest of us.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Here are some of my offtopic threads on slashdot on the matter:
Movielink Snubs DRM-less Macs
and another:
ACLU campaign challenges patriot act
Now, I personally do not think the right to keep and bear arms should hinge on the utility of it, but you can read more on my stance in the threads linked to above.
Literature
It should be noteworthy that some researchers- Gary Kleck and John Lott, I think- started out their research seeking to prove gun control lowers crime, and found just the opposite. Being intellectually honest, they switched sides.
For some good reading, with some solid factual basis & unrefuted citations, read Richard Poe's Book "The Seven Myths of Gun Control" (ISBN 0-7615-2558-0) or Chapter 10, 'Gun Control Advocates- Good Guys with blood on their hands'of "The Ten Things You Can't Say in America", a book by noted Libertarian Larry Elder. (ISBN 0-312-26660-X)
Poe's book condenses the research of Kleck and Lott into a more palatable format, while combining it with his own research and observations. An excellent read. Lott has statistically shown that in states with more liberal concealed-carry laws, crime rates against persons drop significantly. This is offset by a slight increase in property crimes in these locations, which is only rational & definately preferable to confrontational crimes. Kleck's research shows that guns are used legally and defensively to stop crimes anywhere between 800,000 to 2 million times per year. Gun control advocates estimate around 200,000 such uses per year, which is still more than enough to show the positive impact.
Larry Elder's writing style is a bit too conversational at times, but that stems from his main job as a radio talk show host. Although I don't agree with everything he wrote in the aforementioned book, Chapter 10 is right on target. Either way, the book is an excellent read.
The most notable book from the Gun Control advocate side was Michael Bellesiles' (formerly of Emory University) book "Arming America", however, he has been thoroughly discredited (Note: The linked article is very tongue in cheek, but nonetheless details his downfall at the hands of his equally liberal but intellectually honest peers.)
Now the Gun Control Advocates have nothing. Why? Because they have to lie. There are many who say in this thread, "The sides are equally valid, you can't have an unbiased analysis." This is wrong.
Gun control advocates must rely on distortions or outright lies to prove their point, because the facts are not behind them.
This is a harsh statement, but I will defend it anecdotally. My opinions I've formed from the aforementioned books, and from such sites as packing.org and guncite.org, and from the occasional spot check of their accuracy. If you want supporting documentation for my opinions, look to what I've already given you.
1. Gun control advocates often cite "Gun deaths" when talking about the need to control guns. The assumption is that by removing the most efficient means to cause death, the deaths will not occur. What they don't tell you is that about half of the "Gun deaths" are suicides. While this is tragic, the dedicated suicidal person will often use the most abrupt way to end their lives available. Guns are efficient at this, so they are used often. Compare that with Japan- a nation with almost no Gun Homicides- yet three times the suicide rate of the United States. Cultural differences aside, the means available to commit suicide do not affect the suicide rate.
2.When Gun Control advocates speak of all the children who die each year to gun violence, they include inner-city gangbangers as old as 24. While their deaths are tragic as well, they cannot be honestly compared to the suburban nuclear family with two responsible adults, actual children (ie, at most 18 years old), and a handgun for protection. If you look at gun homocides and accidental deaths for children under 14, you'll find that far more children drown in swimming pools than die to guns.
3. With any variety of "Gun Deaths" included, Doctor's mistakes kill far many more people each year than firearms. Their utility, however, is unquestionable, so we allow their presence despite how often they kill people. The utility of guns is not so obvious, even with the 800,000 legal defensive of guns each year that Kleck estimates, because most of the time, a shot isn't fired, and it isn't reported, because the citizen is afraid of running afoul of the confusing labrynth of gun laws in any particular state- and they've already solved the situation.
Well, I think I've written enough for now. I've cited most of my sources in this thread, or the threads I've linked to above, so don't ask me to defend them, as I already have.
That being said, I enjoy debate and will reply promptly to any intelligent reply/challenge.
Gun Control is hitting the bullseye
Some groups of interest:
Jews for the Preservation of Fire Arm ownership
(remember the Warsaw ghetto uprising!)
Second Amendment Sisters
Pink Pistols
(Gays for Gun rights. They rightfully need to defend themselves from some of the morons wandering around this nation. The Matthew Shepard incident would have been a footnote in the local police dossier if he had been armed and able to defend himself.)
www.packing.org
(Concealed Carry information for all 50 states)
Sorry for no links, but you all know how google works.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Writing as a Canadian, I'm a little concerned about your characterization of my country as monolithic. The United States, from what I'm told, is all about assimilation--a melting pot. The philosophy in Canada leans more towards a multicultural mosaic. Yes, small communities in Canada are often WASP bubbles, just like they are in the States. Urban centres have active ethnic communities, and are better for it.
I'm afraid that the disparity in the level of gun violence is not due to racial friction as you would seem to imply. Rather, it is the different attitude in Canada towards guns. For better or worse, most Canadian guns are long guns used primarily for hunting and sport shooting. Handguns are much less popular, and much less common--and also involve much more paperwork to own. There is a social stigma associated with owning a handgun up here that seems totally absent in the States.
Talk to my sister in law, who was attacked and beaten by her boyfriend, and you might get a different point of view.
This might sound cruel, but are you reading what you're writing? If there was a gun in the house, she'd probably be dead right now.
~Idarubicin
First, I should say that I own guns, most of family members have owned them, and I've pretty much grown up with them. I am also a 'liberal', and I no incompatibility with these two points of view. I believe that the 2nd amendment guarantees an individual right to own firearms of any type, within reasonable limits. I don't see a reason for private citizens to own selective fire (what the military uses) firearms. I disagree with the term 'assault weapon', because it's basically meaningless and it's code for 'scary looking'.
First, the problem is not guns per se, but violence and violent crime. The causes of these are well known: poverty and economic and social injustice. You can pull all the guns off the streets, but it won't do a damn bit of good unless the underlying causes are addressed. I don't think you could ever argue that guns cause people to be violent, or that someone is more likely to commit a crime simply because they obtain a gun. The logic isn't "Gee, I have this gun, now I have to think up a crime to commit." The logic is really "I want to commit some crimes, so I should get a gun."
Gun control is not totally odious either. In California, in order to buy a hand gun, you need to obtain a Basic Firearms Safety Certificate which you get by taking a test similar to the test you take to get a driver's license. There's a ten day waiting period for all purchases (including gun show purchases), and you undergo a background check. These are all reasonable to me.
There is one other point that I'd like to make. A lot of people who advocate gun control have so little knowledge about what the process is to obtain a gun, and what you can and cannot legally buy, that it hardly advances their case. Every time I hear some shrill advocate talk about 'automatic weapons in the hands of children', I cringe. Likewise for the old saw about someone going around the corner to a gun shop and walking out of there the same day with a gun to kill their wife. It just doesn't happen. If you're going to advocate a position, it's really a good idea to understand the topic you're discussing, otherwise, people like me who know what the deal is just think you're an idiot.
Black market firearms are a problem, and if law enforcement had the the resources to go after illegal gun dealers like they go after drug users, the problem would be well on its way to being fixed.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
The Centers for Diseas Control and Prevention (CDC) tracks gun deaths as an epidemic. As such, they have correlation data for various aspects of gun deaths in America. They can for example, show you the correlation between guns in a home and suicide or homicide. They even do some study of gun death and injury among 26 industrialized nations.
h tm
You can see the CDC data on the subject at:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/fafacts.
From all my research, gun ownership correlates very well with gun death and injury in America. This doesn't seem to be true in all countries.
Correction: Guns don't kill people, f=ma kills people.
Actually, I think it's Ek = 1/2mv^2 that kills people.
moto411.com
Even adjusting for population differences, that would give the US many, many times the rate of gun violence that the UK enjoys.
In general for research it is better to find biased sources that clearly state their arguments and methods, than to look for "unbiased" ones to follow. Read up from allot of different sources, especially academic ones (www.jstor.org is a great place to find journals, but you may have to get onto a college campus to access it) and thumb through their footnotes. Where are they getting their information? How are they using the data? How good it their argument? Then make your own mind up based on all these biased sources.
The preceding passage has been checked for spelling, you will find no sentence without at least one mis spelled word
This does not address the question of where to find objective information and statistics related to the gun control issue. What I have is a simple question. Give the Second Amendment: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed; and the 10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people; what is the constitutional basis for federal gun control laws? In one instance, the Constitution says gun ownership (actually, weapons in general) must be allowed. In the case of the 10th Amendment, it says that the Government can only do what is expressly stated it can do in the Constitution. Where does the Constitution say the Government can restrict gun ownership (or outlaw technology for copying DVDs for that matter)?
I'm glas you take your responsibility wrt guns seriously, the problem is too many gun owners don't.
Which is why we fail to meet the first part of the second A: a well regulated militia.
To accomplish this, the state should be able to require a minimum level of training culminating in a license for gun ownership. This would not infringe on the right to keep an bear so long as the licensing process was open to all and not unreasonably expensive nor difficult.
Wrt to your attempt to troll atheists, many of the founders were Deists, which is more similar to Atheism than it is to Christianity (both deny revealed religion).
It strikes me that the answer to whether or not guns should be controlled is as simple as finding out if there is a large percentage of spontaneous gun violence. Because if most gun violence is premeditated, the gun means nothing -- they only opted to use that out of opportunity instead of a knife. But if it turns out that a disproportionate amount of gun violence is spontaneous, then that implies that the gun enables that behavior.
Unfortunately my in-depth 30-second google searching couldn't turn up any survey/study on this... but if anyone should find it later (including myself) maybe they'll post it in reply.
where'd my typewriter go?
To try to show an unbiased opinion, I will draw references from both sides of the aisle.
As I mentioned the other day, the core of the problem is not guns, it is people. Guns have become the target because it is easier to make blanket decisions about the intermediary than to try to address the real problem of trying to figure out how to pick which people do not deserve to have them.
On the other side, people choose to fouus on banning abortion clinics and the idea of abortion for the same reason. These are easier targets to deal with. It is more difficult to try to deal with the issue that women who decide to have abortions are the problem.
In either of these cases the real problem is people, and ploiticians who want to "take things away" do not want to focus issues on individuals, or stratified groups, because it looks like discrimination and is bad for them politically. So they target the intermediaries... guns, or abortion, or some other soulless impersonal thing or idea.
If you want an uncompromising political group, there's JPFO - Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. Or there's Gun Owners of America, though they also like to push the pro-hunting agenda.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The unbiased analysis you seek is just not humanly possible. Everyone has an opinion on the right to bear arms vs. gun control debate, and anyone willo become emotional defending his or her position
I don't think it's true that everyone has such an emotional position on this issue that they cannot look at the gun issue fairly. For example, I don't own a gun and am not interested in owning one; however I don't mind if my responsible and law abiding neighbors have one.
The problem isn't the non-existence of unbiased people, its that the field of contention is is being occupied by extremists on either side, which means there is little hope for progress of any kind in this "debate", which mostly consists of people talking past each other, when they aren't insulting each other.
You can take this test on any issue: has anything you have heard or read about it caused you to change or moderate your position? If not, then you're in extremist mode. This doesn't mean you're wrong necessarily, but that if you are wrong you will never find out.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"We need bullet control"
For what it's worth, if I have a steady rest (as little as a solid bit of ground to lay on, or as fancy as a pair of crossed sticks) I can put 5 shots into a 2 inch circle at 100 yards with all but 1 of my rifles. (The exception is a replica BAR, it looks authentic, and is authentic in it's poor performance, minus the full-auto part of course.)
Hell, I even have 2 handguns that I can put 5 (or 6) rounds into a 4 inch circle at 100 yards..and one of those is actualy good for the same 2 inch circle as my rifles.
I think I've got bullet control well in hand.
Guess what! None of my firearms has ever caused bodily harm to any other person. I think MrDog is right! Bullet control is 100% mandatory for the safe ownership and operation of a firearm.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Guess that means not me.
Has this syntax bug been fixed yet?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
He didn't bother to do any research about Australian history. Urban Australians have *never* owned handguns (or long guns for that matter) en masse, and the laws on handguns were already quite restrictive (nobody can carry a concealed weapon, for instance) so attributing a rise in crime to the changes in gun laws making criminals more cocky was a complete nonsense. He also ignored the fact that around the same time a glut of heroin arrived in Oz, pretty much coinciding with the rise in crime - a far more reasonable explanation.
Doesn't give me any confidence in his supposed impartiality.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
And what are your goals and what kind of data are you looking for anyway? The answers aren't going to be as simple as "strengthen gun control, reduce violence". Strengthening gun control in the US without doing anything else will probably not reduce violence; neither will increasing gun availability result in increased safety or increased political stability. Violence is a very deep rooted problem in American society, it is out of control compared to other western nations, and addressing it will require much more effort than a single quick-fix approach.
And when it comes down to it, people's needs differ: a wealthy resident of a town where violence is less of a problem may have the luxury of having grandiose notions of the constitutional role of gun ownership, while someone living in the slums of a major city may have more immediate concerns.
So, the answer to your request for an "unbiased analysis of gun control" is that you are asking the wrong question. You are looking for quick fixes and simple answers for problems that don't have simple solutions. Gun control won't make people's lives safer in the US--that will take profound social changes. However the willingness to accept gun control in the US would be an indication that the society has become safer, less violent, and less polarized. I think we are still decades away from that.
Which simply means that if you plan on protecting yourself from firearm-wielding assailants then you had better plan on being armed with a firearm.
You see, you aren't going to be able to get rid of firearms. That particular Pandora's box is wide open. Not only are there millions of firearms that you would need to dispose of, but firearms are relatively easy to make. In short, criminals will always have firearms available to them. So when you start talking about banning firearms all you are really saying is that you plan on making it impossible for people to legally own firearms. Not only would that not cut down on the violence, but it would very likely make things more dangerous as then criminals would be assured that they would be the only people armed.
If you really believe that firearms are the problem I suggest putting a large sign out in front of your house saying:
This house is a gun-free zone
and seeing what kind of a response you get.
Honestly, I'm not trying to troll; however, isn't it quite possible that the author of this book that you put forward himself has a bias and only represents in his book those facts that serve his argument? Color my skeptical, but an inaccurate conclusion is an eminently likely result from an incomplete data set.
Just supposing that most anyone who knows me would rank me as lawful and responsible (some might complain that I'm too-much so), and supposing you don't break into my home or attack me, but supposing I'm lawfully drunk in one of those localities where someone with a concealed firearm can be drinking ... am I really no threat to you? Or let's say you walk into the bar and you're the post office supervisor who I quite accurately know to have unfairly denied me a promotion over several years ... it's like stock market analysis, "Past performance is no guarantee of future returns."
The whole point of owning a gun is the psychological charge of knowing you have the power to blow something away. The design of the gun is indicative of whether the power is focused on wild animals or wild human beings. The law in my city is I can't carry a gun. When I lived in another state where people could carry guns I got threatened by them several times. The threats I've had here have been limited to human force. Any human male who can't imagine certain circumstances where he'd gladly - gun being available - blow certain other people away doesn't know himself well at all, and shouldn't be trusted with a handgun. And those who know how tempting it is to use a gun when it's there will respect laws against them.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The biggest problem is this though...you cannot take rights away from Americans.
2 years ago, I would have agreed with you completely. However, in this day and age, I'm not so sure anymore. We have let many of our freedoms fall in the name of anti-terrorism. Also gun control laws are coming up more frequently.
I hope to (insert name of supreme being here) that we never lose our rights. Especially the right to bear arms. Now before you call me a gun-toting redneck, note that without the ability to protect ourselves from aggressors, the other rights don't mean jack shit. If we can't protect ourselves, our rights become just scribbles on paper.
neurostarThe reason you can't find anything except dry statistics on the gun control debate from neutral sources is that the statistics aren't self-interpreting and can't address the things we really want to know, policy choices like how can we reduce the number of innocent people who get hurt. Opinion on or projection of the likely result of various steps is a necessary element. Ideally we'd have some laboratory with cloned United States (or some other country) under different experimental conditions, and watch what happened.
I try to start with the possibly startling premise that everyone favors gun control of some sort, it's just a question of where to draw the line. Starting at the pro-gun end of the spectrum, most would take guns away from prisoners. Or people about to commit a crime. Or the insane. Or children. Or the intoxicated. Or people in the presence of the President. As for types of "arms" -- another form of gun control -- it is important to consider whether to permit exploding bullets? Silencers? Grenade launchers? Machine guns? Tank guns? Whatever. The point is that almost everyone will draw the line, and once they have all hope of a crystal clear rule is gone.
The pro-gun people insist that law-abiding people are safer with easier gun ownership; they also cite a sort of psychological value in gun ownership. The anti-gun people say the opposite. Fine, prove it either way. You can't, because there is a speculative step that boils down to judgment, assuming you have the facts straight, difficult enough in itself.
Frustratingly, probably the single biggest problem by both sides is the witting or unwitting misuse of statistics, which precludes an intelligent philosophical debate. Much of the discussion is thus wasted.
For example, comparisons to other countries are very risky, as are comparisons in any statistical problem where the groups compared vary in multiple ways. Countries with liberal gun ownership laws include Switzerland and the U.S. Countries with strict gun control laws include Japan and the U.K. and (the cities) DC and Chicago. Why are the numbers so different? Well, what else is going on, including the violent crime rate, the usefulness of guns to criminals, the types of punishment for illegal gun use, the cultural attitude towards violence?
You have to look at the statistics in the correct context, and choosing one is sometimes tough. The number of gun deaths, or the % of all murders? What about the number of accidental deaths? The number of successful self-defense cases (pro-gun people sometimes forget the cases where the owner's gun is used against them; this is a frequent hazard for police officers)? The number of people who survive woundings with, say, guns v. knives? And so on.
Often people invoke the Constitution with Biblical fervor, but anyone who's studied con law can tell you it's rarely that simple. Besides, the Constitution was written by men, not God, and if it's wrong we should fix it. So saying "Second Amendment" is not a debate ender, and overlooks that the courts make mistakes, and states are not bound by the Second Amendment anyway. The proper analysis of the Second Amendment itself is a bit of puzzle, esp. with that militia preamble. Ask anyone who says the Second Amendment speaks for itself to explain that militia thing and the rest of the Constitution, in the context of real-world situations, and it becomes apparent that the literal reading may mislead and judges actually earn their pay. Also ask what stops the states from enacting the same sorts of rules -- many have (I don't know the gun clauses of all 50 state constitutions, but I bet someone has extracted them).
There are only a few groups I reject out of hand -- the "me first" group that doesn't care what happens to the rest of society; and the extremists either way. Some of their arguments are just goofy, like the idea that outlawing certain weapons will make no difference because of the black market. That argues against not just gun control, but every single criminal law! What they really mean, I suppose, is that taking guns from law-abiding people will make problems worse, and perhaps they're right. Proof?
I don't see why we can't come to a reasonable accomodation with most people, but the aforementioned groups will never be happy. I think it's terrific the poster has even asked. We have the power to adjust the balance, but how? Like most people, I am concerned over the level of violence in the U.S. What to do about it, well, that's a topic for conversation once we all agree on the propriety and relevance of gun control.
If you want to reduce gun deaths: with a "sin tax" of a few thousand per bullet, this way there is no 2ndA violation, since the right to keep and bear is not infringed.
I first heard the idea from Chris Rock, he pointed out that if it cost $5k per bullet, then folks not only be sure that they really wanted to kill someone before shooting, but it would greatly reduce drive by violence.
$5000 does seem a bit much, but I think the idea has merit, one could use the $ raised for training programs in gun safety and gun violence victim compensation.
While doctors have been proposing this in a small way, I'd say we need to go much higher than 5 cents to see gun death prevention.
Canada certainly has much more of a monolithic culture than does America.
You got it wrong on the first sentence. Canada is the mosaic, not a melting pot. I take it that you have never been to Toronto which is probably the most diverse city on the planet?
I think much of what America terms as "problems" are simply the costs of having a truly heterogenous society
LOL! Exactly when did the US suddenly transform into a heterogeneous society? I must have blinked and not noticed it happen!
Columnist Michael Medved makes the claim that if you isolate the gun crime among people like Canadians (i.e., whites), the numbers even out quite a bit.
The question was looking for an unbiased analysis. Read the article, and this Medved guy is extremely biased in his assessment of the movie and gun control. He does not refute any arguments about the Canada vs US difference in crime and gun control BTW. He merely uses the review as a vehicle for his own personal views and opinions
Move along people. Nothing to see here...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
But wait, here it is from a slightly better news source (and when USA Today is better than your news source, you need to get a new one):
3,685 incidents? In the entire country? And that's all gun incidents, of which only the tiniest fraction are actual murders?
US cops can only dream of the day we see as few as 3,685 gun incidents in a year (or hell, even 10 times that number.)
Insignificant sample sizes, and if I recall correctly, the numbers went back down again after the three year period was up.
-
United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation
-
International Homicide and Suicide Rates
A quick summary: Non-suicide gun-related deaths...- are not proportional to the percentage of households that legally own handguns.
- are proportional to the overall crime rate
In my opinion, it means that gun laws don't solve gun crimes, but whatever means address overall crime (education, equality, whatever) do work.When guns are outlawed, only criminals have guns.
Writing as a Canadian, I'm a little concerned about your characterization of my country as monolithic.
I didn't mean to imply that Canada is monolithic, simply more monolithic. Certainly there is a mixture/mosaic of cultures there as here, but simply as a matter of population, there is more racial diversity in America. This is a matter of statistics, and certainly doesn't make one better than the other.
For better or worse, most Canadian guns are long guns used primarily for hunting and sport shooting.
True. This is what you would expect if I'm correct.
If there was a gun in the house, she'd probably be dead right now.
What is certainly true is that she was left exactly as badly hurt as he had intended. He did not need a gun to kill her. What a gun certainly would have done is evened the score. In any event, I'm not willing to cut my losses without guns and just say "well, she may get the shit kicked out of her every few months, but at least she's alive".
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
2 people died because of a guy in a car shooting people as they drove by.
You think this justifies you carrying a gun.
A few questions:
You having a gun would have helped if you were in one of those cars how?
Do you play the lottery? Do you have any idea how small the odds are that someone will try to kill you with a gun?
Do you know how LARGE the odds are that the guy shooting those people stole his gun from someone just like you who has it legally?
--
I live in a city where ~60 people were murdered last year with a population of over 3 million (isn't it sad that we already know I'm not American). I have NEVER considered owning one. Most people who lvie here feel as I do according to polls. True, I come from a country that doesn't have a history of being scared all the time (Indians, Blacks and Terrorists oh-my), but we have very rational gun laws. It's called Canada, you should move up here with your family - you will be a lot more happy and free. Not free in the right to carry a gun sense, but free in the sense that you don't feel the need to.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
when you need it, you need it NOW!
I carry a concealed firearm.
And yes, it is a pain in the ass. And yes, you always have to be aware that you are carrying a weapon. And yes, you just can't 'cut loose' and party and drink like every one in your group.
But I firmly believe that at some point in my life, I WILL need this weapon.
And I am willing to go through all the annoyance and responsiblity of carrying a weapon so I will have it at that time.
and yes, I do hope that I never have to use it.
I would add to this a couple more:
The American Prospect, which says that, "Though Moore claims to have made a documentary, his examination of American gun culture presents viewers with a more heavily edited fiction than producer Brian Grazer's attempt to clean up Eminem. Whereas the rapper's movie reaches for the sort of truth mere facts cannot convey, Moore's film grabs viewers with the old demagogue's trick of using just as much factual information as is necessary to lead people toward false conclusions."
Additionally, the New York Times review was negative. The review is no longer available on their web site unless you pay to access their archives, but I saved an excerpt from it, "The slippery logic, tendentious grandstanding and outright demagoguery on display in 'Bowling for Columbine' should be enough to give pause to its most ardent partisans...though he seems to be hunting for a specific historical cause for events like Columbine, Mr. Moore, when it serves his purposes, is happy to generalize in the absence of empirical evidence and to make much of connections that seem spurious on close examination."
Neither of these, I'd like to point out, could be called right-wing. The New York Times is center-left, and the American Prospect is left-wing. They are hardly allies of the NRA.
Additionally, NPR, another organization that could hardly be called right-wing or a friend of the NRA, severely criticized Moore yesterday in its program On the Media. The lead-in to the report said:
""Armed with a rifle he got for opening a bank account, and shocking statistics like the ones you just heard, Moore had plenty of fodder. But still, he was not satisfied. To properly emphasize the point that our country is a veritable shooting gallery, Moore embellishes, grandstands, and ignores inconvenient facts. Fine, fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, provocateurs gotta provoke. For the purposes of this story, a lack of countervailing viewpoints will not be faulted. The use of cliched, happy songs over images of war crimes, not once but twice, will be unremarked upon. As will the point that Michael Moore would have no career if he just called ahead for an appointment. This is a fact check, an accounting of distortions that would give pause to even the most enthusiastic fans of the movie."
Anyway, I don't know the answers to the gun violence question. Personally, I lean towards gun control, but am neither an expert nor speak with dogmatic certainty. However, I would point the original questioner the following routes:
First of all, do not trust Michael Moore's statistics. Moore makes a big deal out of the fact that Canada has as many guns as we do in the US, yet has a much lower crime rate. This is not really true. First of all, in Canada, there is 0.26 guns per capita. In the US, there is 0.62 guns per capita. Secondly, in Canada, there are much stricter gun licensing laws, particularly when it comes to personal handguns. As a result, 6.25% of Canada's guns are handguns - the kind of gun used overwhelmingly in gun violence. In America, 22.9% of guns are handguns. And as someone else noted in this thread, "Another interesting statistic is that in Canada's largest city, Toronto, it is estimated that 3 out of 4 hand guns involved in a crime are imported illegally from the US."
Additionally, I would suggest looking at the relationship between unintegrated minority groups and crime. American whites are twice as likely to be murdered than European whites - but American blacks are 14 times as likely to be murdered as European whites! Blacks, despite accounting for about 13% of the American population, account for 53% of Americans who are murdered. And there is a scale in the US - the more integrated an minority, the lower its crime rate. So Asians have a much lower crime rate than Hispanics, who have a lower crime rate than blacks.
The same pattern appears in Europe - the prisons are being filled with immigrants from Northern Africa, just like American prisons are being filled by African-Americans.
Please note that I am not saying that blacks or other minorities are inherently violent! I am merely saying that there is a natural sociological correlation between groups that are not integrated into society and groups that are more violent.
So, given this, let me propose an explanation. The difference in murder rates is due to a mix of three factors: culture, gun control policies, and immigration/social policies.
I do not know enough about the cultural explanation, but it would not surprise me if American culture were a factor.
Having easy access to guns and having far more guns than other countries is going to make a difference.
Immigration/Social Policies - America's crime rate has gone through a huge drop in the past 10 years, while Europe's has gone through a huge rise. It so happens that Europe is dealing with a large, unintegrated minority for the first time in centuries - and has done an awful job of it so far. Meanwhile, the integration of blacks and Hispanics into America, while far from complete, is progressing. I expect that we will see further drops in crime in the US, the more African-Americans are integrated into society.
But Canada has as high a percentage of immigrants as does the US. So what explains its lower crime rate? Perhaps they do a better job of integrating immigrants. And Canada does have a much more generous social welfare system. I would be very surprised if there were not a correlation between social welfare and crime.
So let's put it together. American whites have twice as high a murder rate as European whites. Couldn't much of that be attributable to the massively easier availability of handguns in the US?
On the other hand, American blacks have 7 times as high a murder rate as American whites. Couldn't much of that be attributable to America's history of slavery and Jim Crow, leading to a poverty-stricken, unintegrated black minority? Meanwhile, Canada has a much less racist history, and many fewer blacks - Canada's population is 2% black, of whom many are recent immigrants from the Caribbean, whereas America's population is 13% black, of whom most are the descendants of slaves.
Again, I am not saying that African-Americans are inherently violent. I am saying that African-Americans went through a terrible history that has made them poor and unintegrated into society. And without a good social welfare system like Canada's, some turn to crime.
Well done. Keep up the good work.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Statistics are only of use in as much as they are
applied by principles. For a given set of facts, you
can easily arrive at diametrically opposite conclusions
if your deduction is based on conflicting principles.
I hold that the most fundamental human right is
the right to exist, and the right to self-defense
follows directly from that right. But I wouldn't
derive from that a right to bear small arms unless
said arms were the most apposite means of
self-defense, a question which can only be decided
according to circumstances. The same argument
applies to "weapons of mass destruction".
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
That is an ignorant statement.
If there were no guns a substitute would simply be found, like a knife. If you want to stop crime you have to try to focus on something that can be influenced in the equation, the person.
What if you take everything away from a man. He could still kill you with his bare hands.
If you REALLY believe gun control is good, then why not post a sign on your yard:
ATTENTION
THIS IS A GUN FREE ZONE
NO GUNS ALLOWED IN THIS HOUSE
Make a statement.
Take a stand.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Answer: It's false. You're more likely to be a victim of a violent crime in the UK today than in the US. That wasn't the case 20 years ago, but it is now. "Crime rates as measured in victim surveys are all higher in England than the United States." Check it out.
I play Nerd-Folk!
Unbiased opinion is not possible on this subject. I will give my opinion on the matter. First, go ahead. Take the guns. May I remind you the folks who commit murders do not usually lawfully own the guns in the first place. They are obtained from that bald guy on the corner or that hayseed looking guy in the back ally or the gangster in a business suit from the back of a cadillac. They can even be stolen from their last victim. They don't go to the local gun shows and they don't go to Vance's Gun Shop. They don't get background checks and they certainly don't practice gun safety. Just reminds me they had the gun control thing on the halloween special on the simpsons. Funny as hell but true! The criminals are not going to turn their guns in no matter how much you give them. Every citizen has a right enumerated in the constitution. As far as I am concerned, every gun law that is made is against the consitution and the only way they can get rid of guns is if there is and amendment and that will never happen. Guns are there. Deal with it.
Gorkman
For your statistics, I suggest you look at the statistics published by the extremes on both sides of the debate. Look at the standard deviation on those stats...when the standard deviation of a stat published by gun-rights activists overlaps with that of one published by gun-control supporters, consider that stat as valid. Otherwise, discard it. If you can find a neutral source, that would also be useful.
Really, all the stats in the world are irrelevant to this particular problem (unless we want to change the 2nd Amendment). The 2nd Amendment says "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The meaning of this is clear: it means tthat the right of the people to keep/bear arms shouldn't be disturbed by the gov't. The parenthetical preamble part regarding a well-regulated militia is just a built-in justification for the Amendment: it means the same thing with or without that part. It would be like a commander telling a soldier "don't do X, because of Y"...irrelevant of Y, the command is clear: don't do X. Btw, the USSC has recently accepted this interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
So its very clear what the 2nd Amendment says. It does not mandate that people be in a well-regulated militia in order to have the right to bear arms; if that's what the founding father's wanted, they could have worded it that way.
Now, the question becomes "what exactly is an arm". Is a military grade Vulcan cannon (which is equipped on fighter jets) an "arm"? What about napalm cannons, or rocket launchers? Even Uzis and AK-47s? Well, that's a rather unfortunate vaguity. When exactly does something change from being an arm to being a military weapon that shouldn't be available to the general public, such as (for example) an atomic bomb? The founding father's did not have to face this question: there was no gap in the technology between the military and the civillians back then. Thus, we can not look back to the constitution to determine this question.
Another interestin question regards ammunition. The 2nd Amendment makes no mention of ammunitions. Currently, bullets cost less than a buck to buy: that means your allowing someone to kill 10, 15 people for about the cost of a McDonald's happy meal. If bullets were taxed as cigarattes are taxed, alot of these random shooting sprays might be prevented.
I suggest making a modification to the 2nd Amendment, and modifying it to "the right to self-defense and the right to hunt" which would deal with these questions. Hunting rifles would still be fine, but sniper rifles wouldn't: you do not need a sniper rifle to kill a deer. Nor do you need a fully automatic pistil to defend yourself. If a semi-automatic hand-gun and several bullets aren't enough for you to defend yourself or whoever you're defending, then you're pretty much fucked anyways.
If you don't like what the 2nd Amendment says, then lobby to have it re-written/modified. Don't try to take the cheap easy road and twist its words to suit your particular goals. This is a typical pattern among interest groups when something in the Constitution or the Amendments bothers them: rather than trying to have the Amendment or claused changed by another Amendment, they try to twist the meaning of the words. This is rather disturbing to me.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
You've got a good point. And I wish you were right; I really do. Every time I see one of these "stories" posted on the front page, boasting a couple hundred responses, I get my hopes up about the insightful replies I'll see reading at +3.
...Yes, partly, the problem is the clichéd complaint: too many lamers posting and moderating. But really, the problem has much more to do with the "First Post!" mentality that has become the nature of the site.
Read through this thread for yourself. This is what usually happens. 80% disappointing.
The problem with a thread like this is the very nature of Slashdot.
How often have you seen a discussion on Slashdot continue to acquire a significant number of responses, say, three hours after it's been posted? And how often have you seen any real moderation done to a thread, say, 90 minutes after it's been posted?
Slashdot happens too damn quickly. Too many participants really do sit in front of their computers all day clicking "Refresh." In this thread, the submitter appealed to the community to offer reasoned arguments, and objective facts. Certainly, many Slashdot readers are capable of doing this. But for most, it would involve a bit of thought and research. And so they don't bother -- because they know that, by the time they come back in 20 minutes with some hard numbers, their post will be buried under a couple of hundred garbage postings, and it's unlikely that any moderator will take the trouble to boost their signal above the noise. (And most of that "garbage/noise," of course, has already been modded up to 4's and 5's by lamebrained moderators, anyway.)
It's unfortunate. There are a lot of smart people on Slashdot. But the volume of participants, coupled with the obsession with immediacy, effectively prevents Slashdot from ever hosting a real in-depth conversation about any topic which doesn't appeal to the firsthand expertise of the community. If you want some insightful opinions about Linux, you'll strike gold at Slashdot. But for any other topic, this is the wrong place to expect engaging conversation -- the intellects of the participants notwithstanding.
crib
Please don't read my journal
Correlation does not imply causation. This is one of the most important rules in stastics, science and so on. I can find correlations everywhere, including many that show correlation between more guns and less violent crime. However it is not relivant unless CAUSATION can be shown, and that is much, much harder to do.
Actually, they are ammendments, which means initially no one thought them necessary. They are not carefully ordered and palnned, they are just a collection of things that some people thought about afterwards. The second is the only ammendment that states a motive for its existence, which means it's not a "god given" right as the others, but just a practical consideration, for the security of the state, not the individual's.
Would you, as a presumably anti-gun person, be willing to put a sign in your front yard "This house is gun free!" ?
If not, you are reaping the benefits of allowing guns in the hands of lawful citizens. The crimnals do not know which household may or may not have a gun inside, and so may be less inclined to break in. You may not own one, but no one knows that but you.
A few years ago, some people tried this up in Portland. Needless to say, the signs came down rather quickly after all of their homes were broken into and burglarized.
Personally, I've always fancied the idea of putting a "this house is gun free!" sign in my lawn, then waiting up at night with my rifle. Of course, I can't do that because the would-be criminals have more rights than I do.
The flow of events:
(1) I put up the "gun free" sign. A legal exercise of free speech.
(2) I wait for someone to break into my house and enter it.
(3) I shoot him/her. (Legal if they are breaking into my house.
(4) I go to prison for committing two legal acts, that are, in combination, bad.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Any study of a society where gun control is in place may reveal, or not, interresting facts about that society without any possible correlation to the effect that similar legislation might have on some other society.
An example is Canada, indeed, where violent crime is very low and death by firearms is even lower despite the relatively high number of per capita guns. Yet the reason whu there are so much guns around is that historically, people up here have been hunting a great deal more than our neighbors to the south. My family owns over a dozen firearms of various calibers, but all of them are hunting weapons. Buying a gun for defensive purposes here is highly controled; and you need to demonstrate a reasonable need for it to go through the red tape.
In the US, one will find gun ownership is more closely tied to the desire to protect oneself or one's property. You may find that the number of firearms per capita is significantly lower than Canada's, say, but the number of handguns per capita is much, much higher.
(People rarely buy a 12 gauge shotgun for defensive purposes, after all).
The effect of firearms control legislation is entirely dependent on sociopolitical factors; and the only way you could reliably know what effect such would have on the US, is to enact them and watch.
There is truth to be found in either extreme. It is true that criminals will not care if they break some minor gun control law in order to commit violent crimes. Conversely, it is also likely that reducing the number of handguns is going to reduce the number of opportunity and spontaneous violent crimes.
But any such legislation will have a profound effect on a society which feels (however obsolete the concept) that owning a firearm is a right.
-- MG
Look at the NRA. Do you think everyone in the NRA went to the library, carefully and thoughtfully evaluated the statistics, then reluctantly decided to support gun ownership because the facts supported it? No! They decided to support gun ownership because they love guns. Facts, if any, were found afterward to reinforce the position they already had regardless of them.
I'd wager that most NRA members don't "love" guns any more than you "love" your screwdriver or your car, or your favorite network analysis tool. It's a tool for accomplishing a task, and one that they strongly believe they have a right to use in a responsible way. If used carelessly or maliciously they can cause harm, like any other tool.
Yes, there are exceptions. Just as there are folks on the other side who passionately hate firearms, no matter how they're used. Folks on the extremes cannot be reasoned with, but when given the choice between restricting someone's actions or not, "not" is generally the right choice.
as Michael Moore pointed out in 'Bowling for Columbine' Canada has a much higher per capita gun ownership rate compared to the US and has nowhere near the amount of violent crime that the US has.
He did not say that. If you paid careful attention to the numbers, he said 7,000,000 guns in canada (per 30,000,000 people) and about one gun per person in the states.
My biggest gripe with that film is that he threw numbers around, and unless you were quick at contextualizing them by dividing by population, you were left with a skewed impression of reality.
Undoubtedly this correction will be lost in the noise, and Moore's misrepresentation will live on. Oh well.
-Rob
-Rob Ewaschuk
I live in New Zealand. We have a very strict set of gun controls. In general our society (well at least the law-abiding-majority) does NOT have easy access to firearms. In fact, my current firearms license (which lasts 10 years) "allows" me to own only rifles. In fact I need a license to purchase a rifle or even any ammunition.r ms-code .pdf
If I wish to own a pistol, I must join and attend a pistol club for a time, then apply with references from the club. This would then require me to purchase further more strict containment facilities for any pistol I wish to purchase. The police would come around and inspect those facilities. Again, the same holds true for any MSSA (Military Style Semi Automatic), in fact I would have to prove that I am interested in being a collector, not just a user!
If you wish to review the NZ Firearms Code it can be downloaded from here.
http://www.police.govt.nz/resources/2000/a
It all sounds very strict and bordering on a police state. However, more importantly than that it comes down to the fact that the general society takes the use and ownership of firearms very seriously. They are not considered a means of "asserting one's views", "protecting one's rights". This of course is a side affect of our history, being a nation founded from the days of the ever expanding British Empire, and NOT having asserted the right of independence. We are a constitutional monarchy. Yes have firearms related incidents, but they are not very common, and usually they are used as a threat.
My 5c worth, is that introducing strict gun control measures is not an immediate solution to the firearms problems in any society that has these problems. In my opinion it comes down to educating people in appropriate uses, ownership reasons and reducing the criminal elements access to them.
Basically anybody should have access to them, I don't have a problem with that, however, the question society should ask is, does this person warrant having this firearm for legitimate reason and is this person responsible enough to own one?
Of course all of this breaks down once the criminal element enter the scene.
Guess you wanted to get the anti-gun "let's tell everyone else how to live their lives" freaks all riled up. Talk about pushing hot buttons.
For the uninformed and the just plain deluded, here's some statistics from National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 49, No. 12, October 9, 2001. These are *facts*, unlike what most people seem to be pulling out of their hairy asses:
In the United States, homocide ranked 15th in causes of death, down 6.5% in the last year (2000), a steady decline since 1991. Some numbers:
homocides - 16,137
septicemia - 31,613
influenza and pneumonia - 67,024
accidents - 93,592
You are more likely to die as a result of contracting a non-specific infection during a hospital stay than you are to be murdered, by any means.
You are more likely to die in a non-car-related accident (almost three times as likely, in fact) than you are to be murdered, by any means. This includes falls, drownings, accidental poisonings, and so forth.
You are four times more likely to die of the flu or pneumonia than you are of being murdered, by any means. Note that the statistics for flu and pneumonia are separate from those concerning HIV-related deaths by pneumonia and infectious disease. HIV isn't to blame for these flu deaths.
If someone does try to murder you, there's a fair chance they'll use what's known as a 'weapon of opportunity', e.g., the handiest blunt object or sharp instrument. You are much more likely to die by blunt object or sharp instrument than by gun unless you're a) a criminal, or b) a black male living in certain particularly dangerous urban areas.
Accidental gun deaths accounted for 808 people in 2000. In comparison:
falls - 12,604, mostly down stairs or from ladders
drowning - 3,343, primarily in back yard pools or recreational areas.
poisoning - 9,803
Clearly, accidental gun deaths aren't nearly as common as falling, drowning or poisoning. If folks are so concerned about accidental deaths they should first concentrate on more primary offenders like stairs, ladders, and swimming pools, not to mention general stupidity (e.g., accidental poisoning).
Since 1930, the number of annual fatal firearms accidents has decreased 56% while the number of privately owned guns has quadrupled and the U.S.
population has doubled. This information has been independently confirmed by the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Safety Council, the Bureau of the Census, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
According to the FBI the biggest purchaser of firearms during the last decade has been women, mostly under the age of 40. This makes sense given that this women of this age group are the most likely people to be victimized by a crime, especially a violent one.
For the male dick-measurers in the crowd, you might consider the impact of banning firearms completely with respect to the safety of women. Very few women can match an average man in a physical confrontation and win; the gun completely eliminates the size and strength advantage that a man has. At worst both the man and woman will have a gun - and then at least they'll be on equal ground. Ban the gun and men are once again the winners of any physical contest, in a country where we *know* we can't protect women from violent crime. But I suppose the mysogynistic bastards among you will rejoice at the thought that you can beat your wives and girlfriends without fear of getting your ass shot, as you deserve.
According to the FBI, somewhere between 200,000 and 800,000 violent crimes were prevented last year because the victim was armed. A 'violent crime' is defined as a rape, robbery, or murder. More than 60% of these victims were women who were carrying a concealed weapon illegally, which is why the statistics range so much (they don't report because they'll be arrested if they do). That's a minimum of 200,000 crimes that otherwise would've occurred had the victim not been armed. The firearm was actually discharged in less than 1/10 of 1% of these cases. And please note: the FBI isn't known for it's fondness of the 2nd Amendment.
Of course, I know none of this will mean anything to the anti-gun nuts. They're so piss-scared of everything around them that they'll say and do just about anything to make sure their neighbors aren't armed. Cowards. These are the kind of folks who'd rather see a women raped and strangled with her own pantyhose than defend herself with a firearm.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
That is an ignorant statement.
:)
...
;-)
Ever tried arguing without considering the other side as "ignorant"? Usually works much better
If there were no guns a substitute would simply be found, like a knife. If you want to stop crime you have to try to focus on something that can be influenced in the equation, the person.
I'm not saying that there's no education to do... but face it, education has its limit and you'll still have a low percentage of the population that you won't change no matter what. Also, sure some people will turn to knives, but even knives are still less dangerous for a number of reasons: wounds are less likely to be lethal, also you can't stab at a distance,
The other thing I don't understand is that necessity to own a gun. I've heard many "I need a gun to protect myself from other people with guns". Now, what if there are no guns? Suddenly, you don't need a gun to protect yourself.
What if you take everything away from a man. He could still kill you with his bare hands.
Sure, there are tons of armed robberies done with bare hands
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
The Founding Dads didn't give a hoot about hunting deer, or stopping muggers. These guys were a bunch of fire-eyed revolutionaries who had just won a war against their own government, in part because everyone had an "assault rifle" in his house.
To quote the Big J: The impression I get is that they wanted to preserve for their children the same deal they got -- you don't like the gov't, and are sufficiently motivated, and all your friends agree; revolve! Er, revolute! Well, you get the point.
The part about the 'well-regulated militia' makes me wonder if they'd intended this to be one or more states fighting against the federal gov't (doh). But the documentary evidence seems to support the idea that stopping street crime has very little to do with the 2nd amendment.
Neither the Brady crowd or the NRA crowd seem willing to say these things aloud. I want to see this argued in front of the Supremes: right up front, does the 2nd Amendment forbid all gun control laws or not? Does the 2nd actually require ("well-regulated militia") all gun-owners to register their guns and themselves? Stop tap-dancing around the issue!
or any of that FUD. Think about it: the idea is to reduce the amount of gun deaths by making more expensive to fire your weapon.
If you have to make your own bullets, this accomplishes the same goal: it's alot harder to make your own clip of 7.62x51mm ammo than it is to buy it, so either way you have a great reduction in the number of folks willing to empty a clip to make a point. Of course it wouldn't affect musket owners much at all, and heck hunting with a muzzle loader is alot more sporting.
Would it make a difference? Well, even the 5 cent tax would raise millions for emergency rooms. Of course the much higher tax I'm proposing would greatly reduce ammo sales, but it would hardly "erode civil rights", cheap ammo not being one of those.
As for "our ability to raise against them", you are talking dangerous fantasy talk, you can't "raise against" the US Army with hand weapons, the Taliban tried that with alot more than modified Ar-15s, remember?
If it ever comes to that, you'd be alot better off excercising your right to "keep and bear" bouquets of flowers than modified Ar-15s...
Americans are UnAmerican!!
If you help the Americans, then the terrorists have already won!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
But I can't--with any of those objects you mentioned--blow someone's head off, instantly, from 10 meters away, just by flexing my index finger.
Well I've got some karma points to burn on this fine Monday, so tell me this....is this nothing but a thinly veiled excuse for a troll? I mean, there have got to be better ways of finding info than "Ask /." (well not if you're dumb).
But yes, congrats. This is the first real troll I've seen on the frontpage for awhile.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
Sure, there are tons of armed robberies done with bare hands ;-)
Okay, how about twenty big, angry men with pipes? Remember, no one has guns. Hey, I bet the twenty big, angry men with pipes could take over the whole country! Cool!
(And one day, they'll create a board with a nail through it so big... it will destroy them all!!!)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Im sorry but are you seriously saying that an armed citizens militia could have presented any hinderance to the might of a fresh German army?
The reason Germany was able to roll across Western Europe was because they had the best god damn military machine in the world at the time. How are poorly organised militias going to compete with Stukas, Panzers and the friggin SS???
As for using the Holocaust to justify gun ownership thats just bullshit, if anything it would be a good case for gun control. sheesh
If what you mean is that 17 should not be under the age of consent, then maybe you have a point. However, if a 17 year old is a "minor", then your gang-banger is just as innocent as the 10-year-old's sister.
See the law in question
I used to be very much against private ownership of
firearms. Then I started taking a look at the evidence and changed my mind. Here are a few of the
most useful authors I encountered:
1) Gary Kleck - self described left-leasning liberal
criminologist:
Point Blank - Guns and Violence in America
Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control
2) Don Kates - lawyer, civil rights activist
The Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms & Violence
Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control
3) John Lott - U. Chicago economist
More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws (Studies in Law and Economics (Chicago, Ill.).)
4) Joyce Lee Malcolm
Guns and Violence: The English Experience
5) David Kopel
The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies
As I say, this left-wing anti-gunner ended up
changing his mind as a result of reading this
sort of stuff. I still think that the Republicans
are the Devil and Bill Clinton's policies were
those of moderate Republican of 40 years ago, but
I have to admit the Right is right once in a
while. This is one of those whiles.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
I'd really like to see some stats on just how many oridnary people have used a gun as a defensive weapon (like to stop a rape, buglary etc).
I've heard (sorry, no source) that shootings by the Police can get lumped into these statistics too. Be wary when you see numbers about total handgun deaths and are shocked.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
A firearm in the hands (or closet) of a lawful, responsible person is no threat to you, if you do not break into his home or otherwise attack him.
You make a number of assumptions that the weapons are properly stored, and that the owner is a mature, responsible, well-balanced person without any violent tendencies. Even then, guns can be stolen. The presence of guns in a house may pose a significant risk to the inhabitants of that household though. Most women who are murdered by their spouse are killed by guns. Another unfortunate side effect you ignore is the threat guns in the house pose to children. Some statistics from the American Acandemy of Pediatrics suggest that:
* In 1997 there were 32,436 firearm-related deaths, of which 4,223 of the victims were children and adolescents younger than 20 years of age.
* Handguns continue to account for the majority of deaths and injuries from firearms in the United States.
* In 1997, 85 percent of all homicides and 63 percent of all suicides for adolescents 15 through 19 years of age were committed with a firearm.
* The United States has the highest rates of firearm-related deaths (including homicide, suicide and unintentional deaths) among industrialized countries. The overall rate of firearm-related deaths for US children younger than 15 years of age is nearly 12 times greater than that found for 25 other industrialized countries, and the rate of firearm-related homicide is nearly 16 times higher than that in all the other countries combined.
* In 1994, the mean medical cost per gunshot injury was approximately $17,000, with the 134,445 gunshot injuries in the United States in 1994 producing $2.3 billion in lifetime medical costs, of which $1.1 billion (49 percent) was paid by US taxpayers.
* 1997, 306 children and adolescents younger than 20 years killed by firearms died as a result of unintentional firearm-related injuries.
* 10 children die each day from gunfire in America, approximately one every 2 1/2 hours. That is the equivalent of a classroom of children every two days.
* In 1998, nearly three times as many children under 10 died from gunfire as the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.
So, how about some facts to back up your rhetoric?
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
He said "remove one of the ingredients." He didn't say which one. :)
Guns don't kill people. The government does.
First, research related to guns has taken on an almost totally political tenor. As a recent example, a book that alleged to offer facts relating to low gun-ownership in the time of the founding fathers has been shown to be at best unreliable, at worst a calculated fraud. (Michale Bellesiles
resigned from Emory University over the flap.) The widespread acceptance and adulation at the book at its first appearance did reveal the polticial and uncritical nature of the book review community with respect to this issue.
This would indicate that absent visiting original records, you would have a hard time determining what the basic records reflect. This creates almost insuperable problems in the highly politicized environment. [Consider: the Maryland/Virginia sniper shootings laid out a case to increase gun control over small-caliber (.22 cal./5.56mm), single-shot (only one shot per episode despite the semi-automatic capability of the actual weapon), long (not easily hidden) guns. The result: agitation for more control over the "safest" class of weapons results.]
If the Supreme Court did find an individual rights to self-protection/hunting weapons, wherein gun owners knew that some level of gun ownership was protected by more than the politics of the moment, rabid resistance to any gun control as necessarily leading to a total gun ban might disappear. We won't get that any time soon. Anyway, that would just politicize Supreme Court nominations even more.
In short, unless you want to become a historian in this area, and spend your time examining original records, there probably is not much that you can implicitly trust. Anyone publishing data has an agenda, and it has been pretty much proven that the data can and will be warped to political ends. It is quite sad when that happens -- science is no longer possible, just politics, and the worst kind of politics at that, pure, blind, unbridled ignorance vs. pure, blind, unbridled ignorance.
Interesting. Only white males and females in the guard are allowed to own guns because they are in the militia.
Do the laws you quote say anything about what the responsibilty of the the militia are? For example are there any requirements to train or show up for exercizes? Also what about registration? It seems to me that a well orderwed militia would at a minimum have a member list so that they could be called into action. Maybe we whould make a list of all white males who own guns so that we can call them for service if the US is attacked.
War is necrophilia.
Gun ownership requires that the user be rational and controlled. Based on some of the posts here (my eralier ones included), I would say that this is nearly impossible for most Americans. The ideal way that a gun should be used (only as a last resort after ALL other options for self-defense have been exhausted.) is well-nigh impossible for any human being to do. The very fact that most gun owners consider themselves well trained, is just as frightening as the idiots on the road in SUV's who think everyone else is a bad driver.
Un-news
Its our god given right to have the means to protect ourselves. Period. No further discussion is needed.
Its not *MY* fault there are idiots that do wrong things, and i *refuse* to be judged by their actions.
Looters use bricks to break windows and beat peoples heads in.. does that mean we need to discuss banning bricks? No of course not. This whole discussion is just as ludicrous.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. Look outside the United States for data.
2. Remember: correlation does not imply causation
2. Remember: correlation does not imply causation
>> Police carry to prevent crime, namely injury to themselves as they try to enforce the law. So, the lawful armed citizen is a Good Thing. Laws disarm only the lawful.
Yes, and they are considered a "last resort" the idea is that if all other means fail than they can be used.
I don't know how they handle that in the US but to my knowledge if an officer fires his gun in Germany there is an inquiry and they try to determine if drawing and shooting the gun was warranted.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Uh, the Swiss are more religious about their guns than pretty much any other nation. The BBC has the story.
(Note the stunning lack of gun crime in Switzerland.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I hate this argument. 1) Criminals are not a Java class, they don't have a "definition" that makes them choose to disobey all laws whenever possible. That's bullshit. 2) All criminals will not have guns. If they don't all have guns now, and they don't, then they won't magically recieve them once guns are banned. Some of them have and will have them, and it's out of scope to try to predict whether the proportion will increase or decrease 3) "no one else does" except law enforcement.
If guns were banned, then only some criminals and the police will have guns.
The crimnals do not know which household may or may not have a gun inside, and so may be less inclined to break in.
This is one ot the few anti-gun control arguments I think makes some sense.
I don't have stats about kids accidently killing themselves with guns they find in their parent's closet, but I'm sure it happens. A lot.
.38 Special will kill someone just as dead as a .44 Magnum, a gatling gun or a howitzer. The primary point of a firearm is to act as a deterrent---to cause the assailant to think that there might be grave personal risk in the assault, and so call it off. I don't care how big your gun is, it's still a risk for you to assault me if I also have one.
Sorry, kiddo, but unless you back this up with some facts, it's pointless supposition, and as such, has absolutely no value.
I guess the other argument would be to not throw anything, don't piss him off, and let him take what he wants. [...] But you live. And hopefully he'll get caught by the authorities later.
Cool! Be a dear and tell this to every woman on my campus. I'm going to go serial-rapin' tonight! (Humor-impaired: I'm making a point. I'd prefer not to see cops at my door when I get back home tonight.)
The guns-as-historical-right is a crock. Why aren't you arguing for the right of everyone to keep a catapault, or longbow or sharp pointy stick?
Because no one is trying to take away those rights. Pretty obvious, eh?
Until your neighbour gets a bigger gun.
No, see, you're missing the point. Death comes one per customer. A
Unless you have an orbital laser platform. But in that case, I think it's a slightly different issue.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
If you get out of the military's way. Politics prevented the full commitment of US forces in Somalia. Somalis did ok with small arms (only suffered 100 or so casualties for each of ours) because:
1) We pretty much only used small arms on them
2) Somalis were more than 100 times more willing to suffer casualties than Americans were.
What did Desert Storm, Kosovo and Afganistan all have in common that Somalia did not?
Air strikes.
It's pretty hard to win a war against an opponent who is willing so suffer huge casualty rates when your populace gets extremely pissy if you lose 20 soldiers or kill too many enemy civilians, or if your allies insist you operate within a horrendous maze of rules of engagement.
In modern times, a trained militia is close to worthless for any government function. Palestinians all have guns. The Isreali military still moves around the Palestinian territories at their own leasure, and palestinian leaders can only move around with Isreali permission. A lot of good guns do the Palestinians.
You know what *REALLY* scares the shit out of Isrealis? It's not palestinian guns, it's palestinian voting.
Guns don't protect your rights, votes do.
paintball
I'm a geek. I also despise gun violence, and I do not support the NRA (for several reasons).
As a geek though, I recognise the importance of the Bill of Rights (here in the US at least). It would be hypocritical of me to strongly oppose regulation and laws which limit free speech (the 1st amendment) while lobbying for limiting laws and regulation of guns (the 2nd amendment). I think the Bill of Rights should stand pure, and I support all the amendments as strongly as we support free speech.
That being said, I don't want to sound like some crazed gun-loving redneck. I am against the NRA, and I think they lobby for some horrible things.
For one, they are against any quality regulations for gun manufacturer. If I want to manufacturer Teddy Bears as childrens toys, those toys have to pass more government quality and safety tests than a new gun. It's wrong, and backwards - but true.
Also, the NRA is against banning so-called junk guns. Guns which are made of home-made parts and are designed only for close range killing of another human. They are very unreliable and inaccurate, giving them zero value in hunting, competition, or self defence. They are used only in crime - yet the NRA is strongly opposed to banning them. It's sick, but true.
While I am against the NRA, I do believe that the 2nd amendment shouldn't be any more limited or regulated than the 1st. Once the government sees that they can bend the amendments, it's only a matter of time before Free Speech goes down the toilet (even further than it already is).
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
In the state of Pennsylvania, our right to bear arms for both SELF-defense and the defense of the state "shall not be questioned", as per our state constitution. Naturally, there are some reasonable limits to this clause as enacted by our legislature.
Felons cannot own firearms. You have to go through a (nearly) instant background check to see if you have a criminal record prior to purchasing a firearm. If the instant check comes back "criminal", well, a friendly state cop or deputy sheriff will be in the room with you shortly.
Assuming you have a clean criminal history, $19 will get you a license to carry a concealed firearm. I've had mine for nearly two years now..my carry pistol has never jumped out to bite anyone. The responsibility I accept while carrying greatly limits my ability to party; the pistol gets locked up on my designated party nights.
The stigma attached to guns amuses me as much as the stigma attached to drugs, or 'Open Source Software.'
My life is mine to defend. Noone else is obligated to protect me, and I wouldn't ask them to be. Nor can I afford a professional bodyguard. Police? Love 'em, most of the ones I know are great guys..but they have no legal obligation to protect me as an individual, nor am I obligated to beg Mr. Rapist/Mugger/Batterer for my life until the police arrive.
I hope that I never have to hurt another person in my life. It's not my desire, nor is it my intent.
I will do whatever is necessary to protect my life from unwarranted aggression, however, up to and including the use of lethal force.
I hope you care enough about your life to do the same, but it's your choice to make. Noone's mandating that you carry a concealed firearm. It's the responsible thing to do, but it's your choice.
The extremist gun control advocates lamented that PA would turn into Dodge City when we went 'shall issue' back in '95 or so. Hasn't happened. Most shootings are related to the same things they were back then..the "war on drugs" and the criminal enterprises the 'war' fuels.
Where I used to live (Westmoreland County), one in eight people held a concealed carry permit.
I've never felt safer - except at one of the mega gunshows held bimonthly outside of Pittsburgh.
Hmmm, other examples of people protecting themselves with firearms? Should I name virtually every Ex-Soviet Union country? How about substantial chunks of the Middle East? Africa? Asia?
m l
The US simply hasn't had a domestic land war since the Civil War. But as with every empire (including the US), there will be civil unrest again. Either the gov't will simply stomp on the unhappy unarmed people willing to revolt, or the people will make of their government what they want.
As the US Gov't continues to take away our rights, the people are becoming less and less happy..
http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL/usconst/amend.ht
Article I) freedom of religion, speech, press. Right of peaceful assembly. Right to petition the gov't.
Gone. Not as federal law, but federal law enforcement will use religion, speech, and published works to profile and arrest you.
Gone, you cannot have a group meeting without the potential of the gov't arresting everyone involved, or at least monitoring for future charges. (i.e., 2600 meetings, defcon)
Gone, petitioning the gov't. Try it sometime.
Article II) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed
Gone. New York you are prohibited from owning firearms. California just decided Amendment II is wrong, except for the gov't. Many other states have their own select laws.
Article IV) right against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Gone, as long as they can say the word "Terrorist" when they're doing it. The FBI just announced that anyone with a wireless access point is a terrorist. Add that to the list of:
a) Is of Arabic descent
b) Knows anyone of Arabic descent
c) Belongs to any group with a member of Arabic descent
d) Owns a wireless access point (above)
e) Is in any way, no matter how irrationally, associated with any group that could be considered terrorists. This can include Americans who are part of survivalist groups, "militia", the NRA, and in some cases even American law enforcement.
And now thanks to President Bush, the CIA has the power to neutralize any terrorist threat, foreign or domestic. The CIA "accidently" killed an American citizen in a publicized hit recently, on foreign soil.
Article V) deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law... nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself
Ask the 1000 new citizens of Guantomo Bay, Cuba about this one. Over 1 year, and no charges filed.
Ask Mitnick about his what, 4 years of being held, uncharged.
Have you read the news lately? New York is being widely known for coercing confessions, even from the innocent. From this, I've learned to be a mute whenever speaking to any law enforcement. Even the simple question "Do you know how fast you were going?". If you answer that, it's a confession, no proof required. If you don't, they have to prove what you did.
Ask every person who's had property confiscated by any local law enforcement agency, to never have it returned. They have over $1000 of my property which was "misplaced", to never be seen again.
A friend of mine in Florida had her car confiscated and almost auctioned, for a 10mph speeding ticket. She had to pay over $2000 in bribe money (Donation to a local police group) to get it back.
Article VI) right to a speedy and public trial.
Once again, look down to Cuba.. Or any other person held on "terrorist" charges. Look at any inmate held in a city or county jail on small charges. They can spend months in jail, just to be proven innocent, unless an unreasonable bribe (bail) can be paid.
Article VIII) Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Ya.. See the above. Check your local paper to see what the bail is for a non-incident related DUI (no harm, no foul?). How about an assult charge? Bar fights constitute those, and everyone's arrested.
How about cruel and unusual. We have a tremendous history of those. From jailhouse beatings, to bombing entire countries.. Do you think the citizens of Afghanastan really deserved to be killed from the actions of a few nuts?
Article IX) The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
If it's not in the constitution, you still have other rights.
I'll skip through a few more...
Article XV) Right to vote
Gone, if you're a felon, or otherwise detained. Do you think they were handing out ballots in Cuba? There are American citizens, never convicted of anything.
Gone, as in the voting is completely un-just. 30% of a population, and a large number of discarded votes does not constitute a fair election. The Gov't needs to establish a *GOOD* system for elections, rather than their half-assed attempt. You get more people driving with drivers licenses, and sending their kids to school daily, than you do voting.
Article XIX) The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
How many jobs does the US Gov't deny women? (don't think it's small). It's a sexist country, no matter what this article may say.
Article XVIII) Prohibition
It was later repealed, but they've expanded it's thought to cover other intoxicants (drugs), which may be perfectly legal in other countries. This includes perscription pharmacuticals, recreational drugs (such as Hash or Marajuana), and harder recreational drugs, such as Heroin and Opium. Look at a heroin junkie, a pot smoker, and a drunk.. Tell me how the stoner is going to be a menace to society to the point of making federal laws against him.. How is he worse than a drunk? Hash and Marajuana are perfectly legal in many other countries. Enforcement in the US varies by state. Possession of any Marajuana in Florida is cause for arrest and either misdeanor or felony charges. In California, you have to have substantial quantity to be even spoken more than a few words to. Some states simply won't touch you now for possession of Marajuana.
So, with that many articles of our constitution stomped all over, how long with the empire of the United States remain? Do you really want to be unarmed when it happens?
As for your question of mishandled firearms, there are currently laws for unlawful discharge, unlawful brandishing, and even improper storage. If you are charged, a judge can and will sign an order stating you will not be allowed to own or posses a weapon. If you are a felon, I don't believe there are *ANY* states where you are allowed to posses a weapon. If you are currently on probation in most states, you cannot drink or posses a weapon. You cannot even associate with known felons, and quite a few other restrictions depending on the charges.
I've known misdemeanor viloaters on non-violent charges who can no longer possess weapons based on their charge. Not hearsay, I've seen the court documents.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
...I would like to find some *unbiased* evidence on the effects (if any) of violent media on our youth.
:-)
GOOD LUCK!
-Derek
you wouldn't mess with granny down the street if you knew she had an assult rifle
I call bullshit. Gangs fight other gangs. All gangs are equally well-armed, effectively. Each gang knows how well armed their enemies are. And the gangs still fight each other.
Presumably, each gang knows that granny down the street is unarmed, and presumably they don't care. Granny, armed or not, is irrelevant to their interests. The only time she gets involved in gangland violence is when she's shot as an innocent bystander in a drive-by. And if the shooters aren't afraid of the assault rifle that their target is carrying, why should they be worried about the assault rifle that's propping up the old lady next to him?
If equal armament really was a deterrent in gang violence, then we should just give all the gangbangers the best firearms money can buy. Then they'll all be so afraid of each other that they'll all sit at home, polishing their rifles, counting their ammo, dreaming of the day when those East Coast punkasses come busting in and they have an excuse to actually pull the motherfuckin' trigger... in fact, fuck that shit! I can't take it anymore! I've got the guns, I've got the ammo, I'm takin' it to the streets! Those wack bitches thought they could hide, they got anotha think comin', yo! They got a fully-automatic beating, is what they got comin' Word as bond, bro. Let's get it on!
. . .
Anyway, it seems fairly obvious that equal armament isn't a deterrent for gangsters.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
from 1996. Conservatively definining "white" without including the following ethnic groups:
Canada comes out to a 3,718,005 non-white population. That means about 91% white, whereas according to the CIA Factbook, America is 77.1% white.
Sheesh. Only on Slashdot would I have to cite statitics to prove that Canada is whiter than America.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Gun ownership and copyright violations are 2 completely different kettles of fish
There was a gun in every corner of my grandparents (rednecks) house. I learned from childhood guns are not toys. Teaching responsiblity and accountability.
Let's get something else straight. In England, since they passed their anti-gun laws, gun crimes against civilians has risen. Dramatically.
Only criminals use guns in crimes, and they will use them whether there are laws against guns or not. Thats the definition of being a criminal. Only in England they know their victims are likely to be unarmed. Not much to stop them there. Here in the U.S. thugs have to think twice before pulling a weapon, because in millions of cases each year, law-abiding citizens with guns have stopped the transmission of crimes.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Guns just make bullets go really fast.
You ever try walking into a Seven-Eleven and saying," Ok buddy, give me all the money or I'll push this bullet against your forhead"?
Trust me, they just stand there with that "deer in the headlights" look on their faces.
KFG
Agreed. Ever read "The Dark Knight Returns"?
In the words of Batman: "A gun is a coward's weapon. A liar's weapon. We kill because we've made it too easy. Sparing ourselves the work... and the mess..."
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
...no one's collecting it.
http://reason.com/0111/co.sm.dc.shtml
The rate in the US is 10x that of the UK's.
Er, no. The murder rate was 5.7x, the rape rate was 3x, as of 1996. source.
And note that England came off much, much worse in the victim survey than it did in the police statistics. The UK rates of robbery, assault, burglary and theft were all about twice the US rate(*) in 1995 -- a big change from a decade or two ago when the UK seemed like such a civilised place.
(*to be more precise, they were 1.4x, 2.3x, 1.7x, and 2.2x respectively)
I play Nerd-Folk!
I agree w/you on the training. I see the different sides to why making it a law is not received well by some. I took my first classes so I could get my concealed weapons permit. I have friends who wont take the classes because they don't feel comfortable with the information they have to give the government about themselves to get the permit. If you hang around here much you should be able to understand that sentiment.
I disagree on the number of people qualified to handle a weapon well- and on the frequency with which fire arms save lives- or at least help stop criminals. But I doubt either position can be 'proved'.
You are absolutely right. Just going out and buying a gun is not enough. That is just the very beginning. (Actually it should be part of a process that started well before owning the gun but still- it's at the beginning somewhere).
But I really believe more people should stop shirking there responsibility and start taking the necessary steps to be able to be proactive in their community. It would help lessen the amount of violent crime in this country.
If you don't know of any cases where armed civilians have done good things with their firearms you have not looked too hard. It happens on a regular basis. Often it does not make it to the news as it is a non-event.
I personally watched a friend (he is now a police officer but was not at the time of the event) run out to a traffic accident - draw down on a man who was about to take a bat to a kid who had caused the accident- and keep a beating from happening. One that could have been lethal.
A close friend of mine witnessed an estranged boy friend in the process of kidnapping his ex girlfriend from a grocery store parking lot. (He didn't know the situation at the time- just saw a guy grabbing a screaming woman and throwing her in a truck). He drew his pistol- tried to stop the guy and got hit by the truck.
He didn't save her then and there- but he did his best. The whole scene got a call put through to the police and they were able to stop the truck and apprehend the man. He had a knife and had told the girl he was going to kill her.
I could go on all day. You would be unwise to take my word for it (and I don't think you would) but if you dig a little you'll find that you are mistaken when you say this never happens.
If there is such a thing as an average person I am it. Average people can handle guns in a manner that is not dangerous but rather beneficial. I am not rare among gun owners. I would say that many more of us than you think take our freedom very seriously and weild it accordingly.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Yes, yes and more yes... Oh how I wish I had moderator points today... I had them two days ago, nothing interesting, and now this... Gun Control... oh how I'd like to mod your post up...
It so very much comes down to the whole point of the 'moment'... people who are otherwise fantastic people can have moments where they really want to hurt someone else... it may be due to alcohol, it may be due to them having some real anger management issues... but the thing is... if they don't have a handy gun or other weapon on them, then the worst that will probably happen is the other party gets a black eye or broken nose... when the agressor comes to his senses he may have ruined a friendship, or maybe can even make up with the other party... if it were a gun toting angry person, then the other person is dead... no way to make it up to them, no way to mend your mistakes, because they're dead.
While I agree with your sentiments, not everything you said was true. The statement about CA banning for safety reasons polymer framed guns is provably false as both Glock and H&K are allowed to be imported into CA.
Ironically, this law tends to keep out as many high quality (read semi-custom and custom) guns out of CA as saturday night specials (which are generally illegal anyways) since the smaller shops such as Rock River Arms, Wilson, and Baer can't afford to send any or all of their model firearms for "testing". These guns cost between $1000 and $5000 (and more) and are designed for accuracy and high-reliabilty.
Of course cheap knockoffs ($400) imported from the Phillipines (such as Charles Daily) which sell 100's of guns in CA each year can afford the fee.
Even worse, you can't import guns which are no longer manufactured, since the manufacter won't pay the money to renew their license with the CA gov't. This means that firearms like the Smith & Wesson 10xx series (which were standard issue for the FBI for a number of years) can no longer be imported into CA. Not because it's an unsafe gun, but because S&W won't pay the fee. This of course creates an artifical short supply for these guns which of course means that the price is often 2x that of the rest of the country- if you can even find one.
Of course pro-gun control people like Diane Fienstine don't care about such realities. She like a number of other CA politicians carry concealed firearms. (She got herself deputized so by law she must carry. Funny how an average citizen like myself can't do that!)
why doesn't anything happen when little kids run around yelling, "Bang! Bang!"
I think Dennis Miller said that, but I'm not sure.
Because it's hard to be unbiased when you pit a pragmatic argument dealing with self defense and constitutional rights (in the US) against an emotional argument. Both sides have a difficult time seeing the bigger picture.
First, let me say that on their own, guns are bad. They are designed, espically handguns, to cause distruction. Theres no other way to put that. A gun is a weapon, plain and simple. And it todays day and age, I wouldn't mind at all if all guns just disappeared off the face of the planet.
However, since we live in reality, private ownership of guns become a neccesity for a variety of reasons when used properly. Since the pandora's box of instant death in the palm of your hand has been opened, it has been inpossible to turn back. No matter what legislation is passed, two dangerous or potentially dangerous groups of people will always have guns: Criminals and Governments.
There are reasons why we have a constitutionally protected right to bear arms, and it goes beyond the idea of protecting ourselves from the King of England. If we in America ever reach the stage where our government goes compleatly out of control and the democratic process breaks down, (some would argue that is already happining), what tool other then guns does the population have at their disposal to force positive change?
In addition, there seems to be signigant evidence that private gun ownership does help the innocent (allowing them to protect themselves from the criminal element) more then it hurts them (accidental shootings).
In addition, the numerous downsides to an armed population could be signifigantly reduced by simply changing our perspective about guns. We require that people have an understanding of the safety of guns, we teach them to respect guns for the power that they hold. We get it into peoples heads that when your drunk and angry, you leave the gun at home.
Personally, I don't own a gun, and I don't think I ever could. This stems more from my own individual feelings about the importance of life. I've gone shooting with freinds, and always have enjoyed it. It's been said that you shouldn't own or pull out your gun unless you absolutly intend to use it. My own personal reflections revealed that I wouldn't be able to do use deadly force regardless of the circumstances, and by having that option available and not being able to use it I could cause more problems then I could prevent.
Unfortunatly, when you start getting into the complex battle between morality and personal responsibility surrounding something as important as human life, the pundents on both side of the issue often conviently neglect objectivity.
The Internet is generally stupid
CATO has some of the best independent studies and reviews of all sides of the issue. Very thouroughly done and documented so you can review the data for yourself. *SPOILER* Their conclusions support gun freedom quite strongly.*/SPOILER*
There never were 'good old days.' My grandparents, while out for a beer at the neighborhood tap, watched two guys 'cap' someone at the bar. A few years later, a drive-by killed the wrong guy in front of the same bar. As they tell a different story, there was a near miss of a Columbine-lite in the neighborhood among some middle class white kids in the 50's. (Of course those kids didn't have access to Drug War weapons).
It seems ironic to me that in the suburbs and rural areas, where one is statistically exposed to less violent crime from strangers, people frequently have guns in their homes 'for protection.' But in the big city, where there appears to be a greater risk from stranger-crime, many people refuse to have a gun in the house. They (as I do) believe that a gun in the home is likely to be used against you in a home invasion. Also, it appears that the risk from the gun being used in an effective suicide or in a friend/relative crime is greater than the benefit of 'protection.'
Prohibition doesn't work. Didn't work for alchohol, doesn't work for drugs, won't work for guns. Social stigma, on the other hand, can work. I don't associate with herion users. I think that people need to speak out and express the idea that it's a bad idea to have non-hunting/non-sporting guns.
I'm a big First Amendment freak, so it's only fair that I take the Second Amendment serioiusly. Taken literally, I believe that it protects the rights of memebers of well organized national defence militia to bear muzzle-loaded muskets. Taken more generally, I believe that the government should fear the citizenry. There was a day and age when the general population could rise up and militarily overthrow a government. I don't see that as possible in the US today. Rather, I think it's critical that we all keep and maintain the ability to monkey wrench and sabotage the US if that was needed to overthrow a government that was failing to uphold the constitution.
Removing guns from lawful, responsible people does nothing to keep them out of the hands of actual criminals
Don't you think there is a bit of criminal inside everyone of us? Do you really trust the human race to be so civil? Do you want to take the risk of somebody breaking into your lawfull house in an unlawfull way and breaking open your perfectly safe cabin because he knows he doesn't even have to bring his gun at all? Do you want to take the risk of young children playing around with it even when you're not looking (and god knows you're bound to make that sorry mistake at some point)? Do you want to make sure the crooks come more heavily armed than you beause they know you're gonna be armed, and the one who shoots first wins?
Then by all means, get a gun.
Would you, as a presumably anti-gun person, be willing to put a sign in your front yard "This house is gun free!" ?The crimnals do not know which household may or may not have a gun inside, and so may be less inclined to break in. You may not own one, but no one knows that but you.
Come on. If they're breaking in, they're breaking in. They'll come prepared, trust me. It's not like some petty thieve is going to break in these days, those days are over. Imho, however honest and sincere and lawfull you may be, it is not your right to kill a person, just because you want to stop him. At this point you're excercising control over somebody's life, something that you don't (and never do) own. You have the right to drag him off of your property, maybe, but not in a body bag. Those are pretty medieval practices.
The less guns there are, the less opportunities for people to become 'mortally violent', when arguments get out of hand. The better you can control existing gun possession, the easier you can track criminal links, contacts, people, deals, money. The easier it is to safeguard existing weapons stocks.
Society has invented things like insurance, police for a reason, not because you supposedly have the right to play god in your backyard. You elliminate misunderstandings with terrible endings if you do not allow them to happen. There is no fake sense of security, of "understanding" each other. Without a gun, there is real fear for real danger. Most people don't like that last part, but it is imho the best assessment of a critical situation that lives longest. Hollywood had some serious gun-lobby adds running in the 80ies and 90ies, and it won't be over soon, but e.g. most of European countries have a strict gun-ban, and it works. It's not like a life without a gun is making you less mature, less male-macho-crap-whatever, on the contrary. A gunshot can be an easy way out, but it's not the right way. If society needs help you can either kill it, or help it.
I do have the feeling that the people that are pro-guns have a slight distrust in the system alltogether, and they'd rather protect themselves than count on the system to help when in need. Maybe it's cheaper in tax-dollars, and you're right, msot of the time accidents don't happen. But things like alcohol or fights with the neighbours can have nasty consequences sometimes. I wouldn't want that risk lying about in my house. The mother of a friend of mine shot herself through her head. Because she could. The gun was in her house, she knew how to use it. If she had been taking drugs, or slashed her wrists instead, she might still have been alive. Now she has decided herself, and, well, I respect here wishes, but it's not like the problem she had in her life went away or anything. She gave up the fight. I think that's very brave, but if she had no gun.. well.. guns are pretty final.
Your shot.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Check out the guns on this guy
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Why? I believe that it is the NRA.
I have the right to drive a car. I suspect that unless you are young or have been very irresponsible you have the right to drive a car too.
It is a right that most americans cherish
I had to prove before I could have my right that I knew how to drive and understood the many laws of the road. I needed a minumum number of hours of actual practice before obtaining my ability. I have to register my car, pay taxes on it, and insure it for liability againt the harm that I may cause others. I may not drive my car while intoxicated. There are limits to the kind of car I can drive.
But despite all that nobody is claiming that I do not have the right to drive a car!
The Auto Club is not sending me mailers every time someone wants to put up a stop light saying that the government is trying to take away my right to drive a car! (Moreover here is where to send your money to help us protect your right to drive a car!)
But the NRA, to bolster its own political power base and to increase its fundraising has created this atmosphere of fear and crisis and persecution. It is only in cases where their position is completely bankrupt (teflon coated bullets, undetectable plastic handguns) do they ever seem to move from this tactic and in each case their initial reaction is allways the same 'they are trying to take away your right own a gun'.
To bring this back to the original question the reason that there is no unbiased studies is that there is no room for an unbiased conclusion. You look at everything and it is 'well they are from the NRA' or 'they are from Handgun Control' or 'they were funded by' and so on. Everything must be tossed into one camp or the other because the sides, particularly the NRA, has delineated everything in the starkest division of black or white. You are either 'pro second ammendment' or you are planning on 'taking honest citizens guns away'.
Why would they need to roll over Switzerland?? It basically rolled over all by itself. Switzerland was not the nuetral country it wants to believe, it actively assisted the Nazi regime from beginning to end.
I most absolutely recommend you read "More Guns, Less Crime - Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws", by John R. Lott Jr.
1 3530.ctl
Here's an address where you can read a bit about the book... http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/
Mr Lott's book is a very dry, analytical look at the hard numbers involved. This text in particular, is hated by the gun control lobby for the way it looks at the numbers... then challenges the extremists' point of view by looking at the numbers using their arguments. The key is not in which numbers either side chooses to include. It lies in which numbers one side or the other chooses to EXCLUDE, in order to come up with "the solution" they want.
I found this to be an excellent resource to back up many discussions between myself and my non-shooting friends.
You can judge for yourself if you think it is biased either way. Personally, I dont think it is, given the NATURE of the attacks against Mr. Lott's findings.
Ken Cormack
NRA Member
"Interesting. Only white males and females in the guard are allowed to own guns because they are in the militia."
Nope. At worst (depending on your POV), the second amendment can be read as to say that only those people are free from any laws that infringe on their ability to own a gun. There would have to be a new law to actually deny gun ownership to the other people.
"Do the laws you quote say anything about what the responsibilty of the the militia are?"
If there were conditions to being in the militia, they would be listed in the part that was quoted. It says "all males between 18 and 45," not "all males between 18 and 45 who have been through basic training.
"It seems to me that a well orderwed militia would at a minimum have a member list so that they could be called into action."
They just gave the member list. All men between 18 and 45.
"Maybe we whould make a list of all white males who own guns"
It says "all men between 18 and 45," not "all men between 18 and 45 who own guns."
And we do. It's called Selective Service, and I had to sign up when I turned 18, just like all male US citizens.
The notion that it was just poorly armed rice farmers the Americans were facing in Vietnam is bullshit. Yes there was a heavy element of guerilla warfare, however the NVA also featured heavily, a fully trained and armed military force.
In terms of the genocide that occured during the second world war, you are assuming that an armed population would have risen up and struck back. Remember where the pogroms happened. The first real pogroms started in England for gods sake, the rest of Europe was no better.
Im sorry but the concept of an armed populouse protecting the nation in times of need just doens't hold true, unless you basically turn the entire country into a military encampment complete with constant training a la Sparta. Other wise what you get is a lot of hot heads with guns getting themselves killed or worse turning the country into a quagmire of warlords and fiefdoms a a la the Balkans or Africa.
Sure it is. You're just excempting the CRIMINAL from this "internal code of law". If you use deadly force against someone, you should expect to recieve it in return. If you are violating the rights of others, you should not expect any consideration from them.
You have NO RESPONSIBILITY to someone who is assaulting you.
You're simply perpetrating a double standard.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
True. However, we've all seen how effective policing contraband can be. We've had two attempts at prohibition that failed miserably. Why should anyone think that a 3rd will work any better?
Putting everyone in straightjackets will not alter the conditions that lead to gun violence. At best, it will mask the underlying problems.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The Center for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.gov) has death rate statistics. It helps keep things in perspective, when you can look at actual numbers.
Taken as an absolute, gun deaths look pretty bad. But you have to remember that the USA is a large population (about 280 million), so even a small percentage is a big number. When compared to much more trivial causes of death, the numbers don't look so bad.
I actually start to wonder why (aside from the emotional issues, obviously) people are dedicating so much attention to one cause of death, when there are so many others which are more significant (if saving lives is the goal, and I assume it is).
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Welcome to life, most people will not go through the effort of paying for and carring out a study unless they have a significant interest in the results of the study and a pretty darn good idea of what the studies results will be (favorable to their side). You and I just don't care enough about the result to carry out the study.
That being said, since both sides do carry out studies on this on a regular basis, try to find as much as you can from each side. Read up on their methodology, as both sides usually do some things that are not even close to good study practices. However, they will usually give you some bit of the real truth.
My own thoughts are that America has a lethal violence problem. We are more swift to react with violence with almost any tool at hand, cars knives, guns, blunt objects, and well you get the picture. I would guess that this is related to the individualism and risk taking that is central to the culture of the country. Part of the reason the US has guns and issues is that we are rapidly moving from a very population sparce country to a more densely populated country. Canada probably has a better record because it is that much less populated. Europe likely disarmed because it is much more dense. However, this does not explain Australia's recent gun bans.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Thousands of Americans are killed by criminals using guns. According to well documented research over 160,000,000 people have been killed by totalitarian governments in this past century. Look here for some eye opening figures. The average person on the planet in the past century had a much greater chance of being killed by a dictator as a fellow citizen in an armed free society. In other words, guns are much more dangerous when concentrated in the hands of a government then in the hands of a free people.
I had a very interesing visit to the Sydney Australia Jewish museum
There was an old New York Times from the 1930s with an article about how Adolf Hitler passed a gun control law banning Jews from possesing guns. I imagine there were a lot fewer jews killing each other after that law was passed!
I strongly suggest looking at the first link above. It is really shocking what totalitarian governments have done in the 20th century.
"I fear the government that fears my gun"
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
As for the comments about Somalis forcing the US military out with small arms, I agree with the rest of you in laughing out loud at the statement. Les Aspin wouldn't allow the military to bring in tanks because it was an "escalation". Targeting from the air was strictly controlled by an unwieldy UN C3I system, and the decision to make a daylight air assault raid in the middle of an enemy-held urban environment was questionable at best. The Rangers and Delta operatives still inflicted massive casualties on Aideed's militia while sustaining relatively few casualties. At virtually any other period in American history, the Mogadishu operation would have been considered a tremendous feat of American arms.
As with the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, the battle was won on the ground, but lost in the media.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
A Militia of One
/modified from "An Army of One"
The U.S. private citizen is the most powerful, most respected and most feared ground force in the world. At it's core, the success lives and dies on every citizen's ability to think and to take decisive action -- and to own a firearm that functions properly (well regulated).
Fundamentally, no one except private citizens are willing to protect all that the U.S. Constitution stands for. Each citizen must defend this to his/her last breath with Knowledge, Truth, Respect, Honor, Integrity and Courage.
To accomplish this daunting task citizens must invest in firearms that rival government military, recruiting fellow citizens who are strong in mind, body, and soul, and who understand the power of teamwork.
The citizen equips himself to make a significant difference, to deter foreign invasion, and to enforce the U.S. Constitution on domestic soil.
Don't tread on us.
Hammer of Truth
Since most of this thread just degenerated into the typical gun control flamewar I thought I would actually repond to the question at hand.
I believe the most unbiased report on guns and crime rates has to be
John Lott's "More guns less crime".
He didn't come up with the name until after he did the study. The name makes it sound like he was biased to start but he makes it very obvious why he wasn't. The forward is the best part of the book, since it is now on second edition, he talks about the reactions he got once he finished his book and then once it got media attention.
Gets pretty detailed in the statistical analysis but it is very good overall and the closest thing you are going to find to an unbiased source in my opinion, Good luck in your research!
It's not the OS it's the user that sucks. If it's user friendly, you get stupider people. - clinko
Lyapunov:
You asked for unbiased sources. I did a search of the comments (over 1,400 so far) and did not find this:
The PBS (Public Broadcasting System, the government-sponsored TV network in the USA) had an excellent program years ago on its FRONTLINE series. It was hosted by the late Jessica Savich. This was the most objective and informative program I have ever seen on the topic you ask about. I hope you can obtain a videotape of the hour-long documentary; it is fundamentally useful, and it is absolutely NOT dated today.
Next: in that program, a book was mentioned, and the author was interviewed. Sorry, I don't have the bibliographic data at hand, but: the author was, as far as I can recall, at the University of Chicago. His research on gun crimes and crime prevention was seminal and, as far as I could tell, dispassionate.
Also: there is some legal scholarship available on the supreme court's interpretation of the second amendment. Look in particular for the ruling, in the 1870's if I recall correctly, that made gun ownership a collective or social right, as opposed to an individual right. The case involved freed former slaves who resorted to firearms to defend themselves from night riders, lynch mobs, the KKK and other murdering racists. Since the southern states could not tolerate this, laws restricting gun ownership were passed and enforced against blacks only. This is the root cause of the legal confusion over the dispute today.
Your attempts to find good data on the internet are not surprising--I have interests that take me back to articles published twenty, thirty and more years ago, and the results of Google searches are dismal, to say the least. Perhaps this tendency to ignore the past, or not archive it properly for search engines, accounts for the fact that no one has mentioned the excellent sources I give you here. You will have to dig. Contact PBS and ask for help getting a copy of the FRONTLINE documentary; they may help you. Good luck, and persist!
1. In 1996, the most comprehensive "gun control" study of all time was published by John Lott of the University of Chicago Law School. Fifteen years of FBI files from all 3,054 counties in our country were analyzed regarding the correlation between the occurrence of violent crime and the prevalence of concealed weapons on law-abiding citizens. Invariably, where responsible, law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry firearms, the rate of violent crime plummeted. The criminals were afraid to attack those who "might" be armed.
2. Professor Gary Kleck is a life long (self-avowed) liberal democrat, author of Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America. He had expected the research involved in that writing to infer negatively on gun ownership. He discovered a vast amount of violent crimes were prevented by firearms usage. Even though this was contrary to his original premise, he had the integrity to stand by his research. Although that book was awarded the best book (of 1993) on criminology by the American Society of Criminology it was largely ignored by gun control advocates such as most medical journals and our Government's Justice Department and Center for Disease Control.
[from largo.com]
(From Memory) So I was watching some show on these issues (crime, murder, gun control) and the smart-alek host asks this question "What is the most dangerous place in the world?" He was expecting to provoke a debate among his various and fully-diverse-on-the-issues panel members. But the first person to answer, some retired police chief, stimied the interviewer and managed 100% agreement with the entire panel.
The most dangerous place in the world is... "the secondary crime scene."
Ok, you can't find it on an international map but it is a real, abet highly conceptual, place.
If you are moved from one place to another during the commission of a crime the probability that you will end up dead reaches near certianty. For whatever reason the criminal doesn't want to "do (to) you" whatever he intends while you are all where you are. If someone tries to force you into a car or to walk down a path DON'T DO IT.
To that end, going along with the crime peacfully is asking to be slain. (Ask the French, a policy of appeasment [spelling?] NEVER works.)
Therefore, being armed must increase the victims chance to resist visiting the secondary crime scene, and therefore must tend to keep people alive.
The typical shooting is IMHO an act of cowardess. The random shooters in our lot would't ever decide that a gun show or police convention was "the best possible choice" for a random act of violence. No siree... You want to have a good killin you go to a kindergarden or a MacDonalds or a commuter train or a mall. And not one in Texas or West Virgina.
The odd-but-seemingly-true of the matter is that it isn't the gun control laws that act as a functional component to the crime rate... it's the CARRY LAWS. The easier it is for a person to carry a CONCEALED weapon in a municipality, the less random gun violence takes place. If people have to cary their guns out in the open then an assailant can gage the probability he will take return fire.
Gun Violence is an act of cowardess.
The graphs (of cities etc) from least to most "easy to arrange for concealed carry"; and most to least "likely to have a random shooting"; are essentially the same graph.
Where there are no carry laws, most people don't even (have to) carry because they have the same "protective camoflage" as the little old lady next to them with that hog-leg in her purse.
And so, anything you can do you should do, to keep from being moved or looking like a victim will keep you from that most deadly place. Guns, or just the reasonable probability that a law abiding person might have a gun, are excelent in that reguard. And if you don't have a gun, get a knife, or a stick, or a good kick ready.
And the only solution *REALLY* is to figure out what makes some people need to drag others out into the bushes and do them harm, but barring that unlikely miracle, go armed if you have the mental presence to use it wisely, and don't if you don't.
(I personally don't own a gun, and wouldn't trust myself to carry one around, but I know that I feel more comfortable visiting a place like West Virginia where the law abiding persons are at least as well armed as the kooks, than I feel in LA or New York where only the kooks and bangers are armed.)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Speaking from personal experience, I can think of absolutely no gun-related crime reported here in the last eight years I've lived here. Nor have I heard of any of the "accidents in the home" that gun-control advocates trumpet as a risk of gun ownership.
In the state of Georgia, there are very few barriers to gun ownership. Provided you're not a convicted felon and haven't been in a mental institution recently, you can buy and keep a gun in your home, car, or place of business. If you pay the fee in your county and don't mind being fingerprinted, you can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon pretty much anywhere besides a school, church, gov't building or public gathering. What's more, the police are very supportive of personal carry.
Lest you think we have a society of trigger-happy vigilantes, the law does provide some of the stiffest penalties in the nation for crimes committed with firearms, including a mandatory, non-negotiable five-year prison term for any crime committed with a firearm. This is the right kind of gun control: let law-abiding citizens protect themselves while providing stiff penalties for those who break the law.
Do a google search for "Kennesaw gun law," and you'll find the statistics, which pretty much speak for themselves.
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
I'll throw two simple facts at you:
1-number of deaths per year involving a gun in the EU: 600
2- same in the US of A: 11.000
Seeing as there are as many (or more) people living in the EU as in the US, draw your own conclusions.
It's not very surprising, though, for anyone with half a brain.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Agreed. When crime doesn't happen, it's not news. "If it bleeds it leads" as the saying goes. If anyone wants some good reading, check out this page. Yes, it's an NRA web page, however, the news information is from general sources (local newspapers/etc) and are independantly verifiable. It's just an index.
What cracks me up, is that while most of you think that anyone should be able to learn how to use a computer with a little time and effort, some of you think that as simple a machine as a gun is above the average person's grasp.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
I do realize that this is off-topic, but the conversation has denigrated to interpreting the second amendment - It doesn't need to be interpreted it's all right here in black and white!
...being necessary to the security of a free state...
I believe Webster's Dictionary is usually relied upon for definitions in a court of law.
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Hypertext Webster Gateway: "militia"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Militia \Mi*li"tia\, n. [L., military service, soldiery, fr. miles, militis, soldier: cf. F. milice.] 1. In the widest sense, the whole military force of a nation, including both those engaged in military service as a business, and those competent and available for such service; specifically, the body of citizens enrolled for military instruction and discipline, but not subject to be called into actual service except in emergencies.
The king's captains and soldiers fight his battles, and yet . . . the power of the militia is he. --Jer. Taylor.
2. Military service; warfare. [Obs.] --Baxter.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
militia n : civilians trained as soldiers but not part of the regular army [syn: {reserves}]
...specifically, the body of citizens enrolled for military instruction and discipline, but not subject to be called into actual service except in emergencies.
WOW! This sounds a lot like anyone who has registered for the draft.
Hypertext Webster Gateway: "regulated"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Regulate \Reg"u*late\ (-l[=a]t), v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Regulated} (-l[=a]`t[e^]d); p. pr. & vb. n. {Regulating}.] [L. regulatus, p. p. of regulare, fr. regula. See {Regular}.] 1. To adjust by rule, method, or established mode; to direct by rule or restriction; to subject to governing principles or laws.
The laws which regulate the successions of the seasons. --Macaulay.
The herdsmen near the frontier adjudicated their own disputes, and regulated their own police. --Bancroft.
2. To put in good order; as, to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances.
3. To adjust, or maintain, with respect to a desired rate, degree, or condition; as, to regulate the temperature of a room, the pressure of steam, the speed of a machine, etc.
{To regulate a watch} or {clock}, to adjust its rate of running so that it will keep approximately standard time.
Syn: To adjust; dispose; methodize; arrange; direct; order; rule; govern.
3. To adjust, or maintain, with respect to a desired rate, degree, or condition...
WOW! This is what regulated means - to know how to use said arms
And to the person a few posts back who stated that now that we have a standing army it nullifies the second amendment - what planet are you from? The only circumstance that can change the second amendment would be its repeal. And what's this about the status quo (the way things are and have been) that tries to make it sound as if that is not what was intended - which if you read above - it was.
Sometimes not having a college education is good - many who do, think they know better than everyone else once infected with the liberalism bacteria.
This is an issue that is clouded by emotion, poorly drawn conclusions, political idealism and misunderstanding of social dynamics. It CAN however be boiled down to a VERY simple decision, the value that you as an individual place on your rights. Firearm ownership is a right, just like the freedom of speech, and even more important. If you are more concerned about saftey and would support the suspension/removal of your rights by the governing body, then you can be pro-gun control. If you value your rights and think that things like the Total information awareness are foothold towards the revocation of your rightsm you probabally want to consider sticking up for yourself and your right to own a firearm. Tendencies toward violence and societal issue relating to a homocide culture are not the same, nor even a related issue. The effectiveness of the regulations on murder rates is not the issue. It really is just this simple. Rights VS security.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
No, seriously, too much oxygen is just as fatal as too little. Ask a diver.
I don't really get that whole concept. I mean, are the congressmen gonna come after us with Glocks or something?
I mean, if you're ever going to have a succesful violent revolution there's gonna be a coup involved. Even if you magically got everybody in the country to storm DC with a rifle, you still won't have a chance at getting at the president or really anybody big unless the Army helps you out. Feds go underground in Virginia, Secret Service on the roof fire rockets into the mob, your revolution's done.
The Army will always outnumber civilians in numbers that are willing to die. You guys would be fighting to make your lives better (the vast majority anyway) which is a judgement call. When you get hit with napalm, you'll decide that your personal happiness would be greater if you were having your rights violated instead of being burned alive. The same majority of soldiers would be shooting you and getting shot at because that's what they do, which is not a judgement call, and has very little to do with how unpleasant the whole thing is.
The Civil War only lasted as long as it did because more than half the Army ceceded along with the south.
In other words, marines can kill you if you have a gun or not.
This really has nothing to do with gun control, about which I probably couldn't give less of a shit, I just find it hilarious that so many people here have these fantasies about becoming a charismatic revolutionary someday. Do you think playing Ernest Hemminway in Spain will get you babes or something?
I agree with whoever it was that said "I bet you guys would love it if the US suddenly turned communist" or whatever somewhere on this thread.
The straw in that strawman is wet.
Well, if you had a gun would you be able to rest assured you'd NEVER get mugged by an unlicensed, gun-toting, homical maniac?
Nope.
A gun isn't bulletproof dermal plating - a guy with a gun can get shot just as dead as a guy without a gun. Sometimes the guy with the gun can shoot back, and sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes not. If the guy with the gun shooting back knows how to hit the broadside of a barn, the changes of it being a good thing are somewhat better.
The question isn't whether there are some examples of cases where this wouldn't work. The question is whether more stringent firearms licensing would, in the aggregate, lead to more safety. I think it would. And in a much more second-amendemnent friendly way than say, banning all handguns.
My video compression blog
I grew up knowing nothing about guns, because they simply "don't exist" in PR. Gun control is tremendously strict, and mere mortals aren't allowed to own them.
So why do all the houses have bars on the windows? Why is the murder rate higher than Detroit's? Why have friends of mine been mugged -- some killed in the process? Why did the PR legislature pass a law explicitly allowing you to run red lights after midnight to try to protect yourself against carjackings?
It wasn't until I came to the US that I understood, and even then it took me a while. Criminals will get guns, regardless of the law. If they can get guns in PR (100x35 miles of border to patrol), and nowadays in the UK, how can we pretend that the criminals will ever be disarmed in the US?
I now live in the most heavily armed county in New Mexico, Los Alamos. Guess what? The biggest crime spree in the last year was just stopped -- some kids were stealing CDs from cars, which most people leave unlocked. This made front-page news in our paper.
There are precious few home invasions here -- criminals are cowards, and strongly prefer doing their crimes where people don't shoot at them. I've never heard of a mugging here. They sometimes happen in Santa Fe or Albuquerque, but not infrequently the criminal ends up dead.
No, it's not the Wild West. It's remarkable how civilized we are when we know that everyone is armed. Heinlein said it well: "An armed society is a polite society". And it's not fear that keeps us polite -- it's responsibility.
I hope never to use my weapons against another person... but if anyone ever presents a threat against me or my loved ones, I will not hesitate. And I will never give up my freedom to defend myself.
Gun Control is an innovative concept. I think we should also institute Crowbar Control to prevent burglars from breaking into houses. Oh, let's also have Hand Control (Cut off people's hands) to keep people from breaking into houses. While we're at it, let's have Car Control to keep people from doing hit-and-runs.
Because the tool creates the motivation. It's never the person using the tool who's the pissed-off punk who pulls the trigger and kills someone. No, the gun jumped out of the punk's underwear drawer and leaped in his hands, and as Madriker in the Legend of Eldean, motivated the punk to do his evil deed. Hell, we can't even prosecute him, he was merely being used by the gun! He's as much a victim as the girl whose family now has to live without their daughter.
I think people who are for Gun Control are on the same level as the DRM-and "trusted computing-pushers. Because they try to eliminate the tools of freedom (Yeah, I said it. The Colonists of the US and the peasants of the French didn't launch revolutions by slapping their oppressors with fish) because they MIGHT be used by their owners for illegal things.
A hearty F-U to anyone who automatically assumes I'm a criminal because I own a gun, and double it to the same m0f0 who thinks I'm a criminal for having MP3's.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
As for dioxin, a toxic chemical: "the worst thing people can expect from dioxin is a bad rash" -Regulation, Vol.16, no.1, Fall 1993. Reported here.
Might one assume that if he thinks a rash is worse than cancer, his judgement of the risks of guns might be a bit non-standard?
That being said, I agree that concealed carry laws reduce some crimes, esp. mugging & street crimes. Its the short fused guy with too many coffees and a hangover, who rear-ends me in his SUV and blames me for being in front of him, that I worry about having a
[Pre-Note: I do not now, nor have I ever, owned a firearm. I have, however, bothered to go out and be taught at least the first things you must know to be an "informed" participant in the debate. That is; how to handle, load, and shoot a gun; what is involved in their maintenance and upkeep; how easy/hard it is to "safely" store an handle a gun; and so on. This also includes the reasonably unbiased political history of the issue (e.g. I paid attention in junior/senior high school social studies, and took the time to read on the subject... 8-)]
Your nice and over-broad statistics not withstanding, with respect to children killed in gun accidents (though I wish I could cite this better), my understanding is that there is another more important correlation.
In cultural settings where the child is raised with guns (taken hunting, taught to respect the weapon, allowd supervised access to the weapon if he/she asks) the incidence of accidental gun deaths/shootings of/by children is hugely reduced (e.g. near zero).
What is the classic scenerio?
Child 1: "hey dude, my dad has a gun and I know where it is... want to see?"
If Child 2 then says "so what, my dad takes me shooting" child one never gets to the "whoops, sorry I killed you dude" phase.
If Child 1 doesn't think the gun is a forbidden mistery it stops being an attractive nusance.
Hell, if you wan't to keep kids alive, make the gun into a chore. You know, "no jimmy, you have to come to the range, do your target practice, clean your gun, and put it away before you can play with timmy from next door." You wouldn't be able to drive the kids to the guns with sticks.
In simple point of fact, virtually all gun accidents involve improperly trained or otherwise clueless people. And most people with an "anti-gun" bias have never even bothered to learn about them.
Incidents are most likely to occur in a house where it (the gun) is "the first gun I have ever owned" or was bought "because I was mugged last year" and where "I've never fired one before" or "I shot it once on the range when I bough it."
On the other hand, the acutal "crime prevention" statistics are virtually non-existant. How many times is a gun "brandished" (brought out or otherwise made known to a criminal but never fired) each year? Nobody knows. Even the simple "I heard someone in the house and I yelled 'I have a gun'" incidents arn't statistically correlated out of police reports.
Guns are very good at wounding and killing people. That's what they are for and that isn't something to be ashamed of. When a gun is fired there is a high incidence of someone or something being struck by a bullett. But untill and unless you can compile statistics about the number of times a gun was "used" without being fired, you can't construct any statistically or culturally valid statemets that meaningfully compare the "cost of having them" in lives and property loss, to the "cost of not having them" in lives and property saved.
So your numbers, like virtually all the numbers in the debate, are ad homonym, and uselessly incomplete.
And ALL OF THAT ignores the reason we have the "keep and bare arms" provisions. If you go back to your bare-bones public-school education, you will recall that the intent of the provision is that any one member of a society should have the right to be at least as well armed as any one member of their own government. The British took the guns away from the colonists so that the occupying force could dominate the will of the citizenry.
It is quite the point that the average citizen *MUST* be at least as well armed as the police to keep the police from becomming an occupying force.
The thing that has been lost is that the citizenry were also supposed to be trained, willing, and ready to assist the police (every citizen is in the militia etc) if/as/when needed. It's part of that all-rights no-responsibilities thing that is rotting the western world at its core.
Remember, conversly, that in the age of the authoring of the constitution, gun-control was automatic. (Hua? you may ask...) Because of the quality of materials available at the time, if you didn't care for your gun regularly and know how it was operated, it would become useless and dangerous to you in a matter of days or weeks. If the average gang-banger had to clean his gun every three days whether he fired it or not, do you think he would want to own it, let alone shove it hurridly down his pants?
Modern guns are really the problem they are now because you can hammer a tent peg into the ground with one, have it get rained on, drop it in the mud, and still know that you can whipe it off and expect it to fire instead of blowing your hand off.
Further, there is the issue of "rights" in the (USA biased here) core social conscience. The idea that a right is absolute is, well, absolute nonsense. In any debate where the word "right" is used, the heat totally out-musters the light. You have the right to smoke, I have the right not to be forced to breathe your smoke. I have the right to keep and bare arms, you have the right NOT TO BE GUNNED DOWN OUTSIDE THE LOCAL CIRCLE-K (sothern areas all-night grocery and sundries chain-store). Rights, priviliges, and responsibilities all exist in a hierarchy and, without exception, the "right to" something is trumped by the "right not to have done to", but only so far as do-er and the do-ee are interracting. So the right not to be gunned down in turn, doesn't anywhere become the right to exist in a world restructured to remove the possibility of everything you fear or dislike comming anywhere near you.
The guns are in the equation now, and trying to get them out needs must fail.
Drugs are in the equation now, and trying to get them out needs must fail.
And so on for religous wackos, our-truth-only christians and Xenutologists, leftist extremeists, secular humanists, racists, vegans, confectioners.
You can't take pee out of a pool.
You can't legislate morallity.
You can't legislate intellegence either.
You can only find out what is wrong, what is breaking the minds of the people and turning them to animals, and then try to act intelligently and proactively.
No Apeasement (sp?).
No Reactionary diatribe.
No Crufty Science.
No Return to the Golden-Age dogma.
No Absolute Moral Truth.
Only people trying to think and reason honestly and completely.
It's a lot to think about...
And (reguardless of topic) when you see or hear someone who shows no signs of that requisite minimum thought, you should discard their statements as pre-opinionated dogma.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
And obviously you are one of those gun-toting chain smoking cretins that I subsidize with my hard-earned money (although I expect your 'mobile sin' is an SUV rather than a sports car.)
If there are so "many" reports that show the inverse correlation (and aren't funded by a gun lobby), then why didn't you offer them up? I offer you a choice tidbit from the second source I cited:
"After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide."
Yes, it's 'only' correlation, but who fucking cares? - Not my insurance company. If I park downtown where cars get stolen, they make me pay extra. No causation there...
I also pay extra for your bad judgement in bringing a gun into your home. I don't care what you do - just don't make me pay for your narrow-minded testosterone-poisoned belief system. Jesus, if you want to fuck up, do some Oxy-Contin - or buy a super-bike and ride without a helmet. The 'correlation' between you leaving this planet quickly with little or no additional cost to my wallet is somewhat higher than with your possesion of a firearm.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Mandatory gun registration makes it easy to prove that the guns are stolen (and get them back to their rightful owners, too!)
Look, I'm not *advocating* that anybody go shoot Ashcroft or Poindexter, and Ashcroft even seems to get along well with the NRA. Nor do I own guns. This is a discussion about political theory, and they're some of the most recent examples of the types of people that the authors of the Bill of Rights had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment, just as they are recent examples of the types of people the authors had in mind when they wrote the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth, and Disgraced Ex-Admiral Poindexter and his henchperson Ollie North are examples of the type of person the authors of the Uniform Code of Military Justice had in mind when they wrote the part *requiring* US military personnel to disobey illegal orders.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Okay, this is a little bit offtopic but here it is anyway.
In Canada, the gun registry system was supposed to cost only 2 million dollars, because gun owners were suposed to pay 30$/year for their permit. After three years, it has cost 600 millions and not even all guns have been registered.
At 2 millions dollars the lifes_saved:dollars ratio was pretty high, but at 600 millions (and counting), it would have been better to invest it in hospitals or something like that...
Ref: http://cbc.ca/storyview/CBC/2002/12/03/auditor0212 03
GFK's
SUNY-B Class of 92 - Here is the report you are talking about:
When the number of people carrying concealed handguns increases, crime decreases.
The economics of crime: Analysis suggests concealed handguns deter criminals, BU prof says
By Ingrid Husisian
That's the socially controversial finding of Binghamton University economist Florenz Plassmann and his collaborator, who used the principles of supply and demand to analyze crime rates.
Plassmann's premise was detailed in an article in the October 2001 issue of Journal of Law and Economics. The article, "Does the Right to Carry Concealed Handguns Deter Countable Crime? Only a Count Analysis Can Say," was written by Plassmann and T. Nicolaus Tideman, who was Plassmann's dissertation adviser at Virginia Tech.
Plassmann's assertion isn't the first of its ilk, but it is something of a surprise to him, he admits. In a 1997 book More Guns, Less Crime, economist John Lott similarly analyzed the relationship between the right to carry concealed handguns and the crime rate. Lott was the first to use economic principles to suggest that concealed weapons have a clear deterrent effect. If more people carry concealed handguns, crime decreases, his study showed.
Plassmann, an assistant professor of economics, says he was certain that a re-examination of Lott's work would find Lott's methodology questionable and his conclusions mistaken, he said.
"I believed guns would increase crime," he said. "I had just finished a dissertation analyzing data similar to Lott's. His data are 'count data' (non-negative integers), which means that you cannot have a negative number of murders, or 2.5 robberies. If you analyze such data with standard methods, you are likely to get erroneous estimates. Because Lott had ignored this, I thought that I had a valid reason not to trust his results."
When Plassmann contacted Lott about his concerns, Lott turned his data over to Plassmann and encouraged him to re-examine the methodology and attempt to replicate the results.
"I did my own analysis," Plassmann said. "To my surprise, it suggests that the right to carry concealed handguns does deter crime. Lott's analysis has been criticized because his findings are not very stable, but our results are much more robust.
"To emphasize that a statistical analysis is valid only if the statistical model fits the data, we included a little play on words in the title of our article: Because crimes are 'countable,' you must examine them with a 'count' analysis, and not with standard methods," he added.
Plassmann and Lott are now working together on related research. They are writing a paper that examines the relationship between gun ownership and crime.
The concept of viewing crime through an economic lens actually stems from the work of Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, Plassmann said.
"We can see crime as the outcome of supply and demand," he noted. "If all potential victims are unarmed, crime is easy and, therefore, inexpensive. However, if potential victims are armed, crime becomes more difficult and expensive."
From the "demand" perspective, when the cost of preventing crime becomes more expensive then the "demand" to commit it, the more likely society is to let another crime happen, Plassmann said.
As a researcher, Plassmann doesn't advocate for or argue against carrying handguns, concealed or otherwise.
"I think all this analysis can do is suggest that the theory 'More guns will cause more crime' is probably not correct in this simple form," he said.
Yeah, how about Great Britain's amazingly low crime rate?
Switzerland's crime rate is sky high due to the proliferation of firearms there, too! What a bunch of brainless morons, right?
First, I'm not clear on what you mean by "protect children from being shoot"? Do you mean preventing accidental shootings? Or do you mean preventing kids from shooting other kids?
The answer to both is similar. Both come down to training and responsibility. I grew up in a house filled with guns. However, all but 1 were locked up in a gun cabinet without ammo. The ammo was stored elsewhere also in a locked cabinet. So I couldn't very well shoot myself. I'd be more likely to hurt myself climbing a tree. But my parents did more than just lock up the ammo and firearms. They also taught me a deep respect for guns. Guns are capable of killing, as that is undeniably one of their primary purposes (that's not to say they can't be used for sport and some are designed specifically for that). This meant that I was taught from an early age that one never points a gun at something unless you are willing to kill it. That includes realizing what is beyond your target if you miss. This also means I didn't ever get to go running around the house pointing guns at my friends, even if they were play guns and colored orange. A gun is a gun, whether made of plastic, or the real thing, they were only to be shown respect in my household. My dad was very strict in enforcing this idea and for that I thank him. Part of owning a gun is respecting them as well. If I ever need to use a gun in defense of myself, I fully realize that the one I am shooting at very likely may die. I intend to maim, but if that is not an option, I will reluctantly kill.
Secondly, as for the sniper. Firearms are not a cure all, solve all defense (just as nuclear weapons are not a cure all, solve all defense). However, as pointed out in previous posts, many times just the knowledge that others in the area may be carrying firearms will prevent a crime from occurring. Or perhaps you meant that if we banned firearms, the sniper wouldn't have been able to obtain one? I'm afraid that I don't have any evidence off-hand to back this up, but I think more stolen and otherwise illegally obtained firearms are used in crimes than legally owned firearms.
And again, it comes down to the benefits and disadvantages. The founders of this nation believed that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages, and I for one feel the same. For instance, sometimes riots break out from peaceful demonstrations, yet no one bans the peaceful demonstrations.
Quote: ... of firearms except for those used by police and army.
Presuming you were raised in the USA, I must also persume that you didn't pay one single whit of attention in your public school education.
The singular and only reason that the Constitution of the United States contains a provision to allow for the ownership and excercise of arms is that the framers knew that ANY ONE CITIZEN must have the right to be AT LEAST as well armed as ANY ONE MEMBER of their own government. (That is exactly and percisely the POLICE and the ARMY.)
In short, the citizenry of a free country must have the means to OPPOSE THE POLICE of their own government to keep those police from evolving into an occupying force.
Remember the abbuses of the British forces occupying the settlments in the colonies and compare those to the elements of the bill of rights.
Freedom of the press, because the Red Coats closed the decenting newspapers.
Freedom of assembly because the Red Coats dispersed crowds in an attempt to quell desent.
Freedom from search and seizure because they were breaking into homes and taking whatever the chose as evidence from whoever they suspected of crimes (fishing through communities for disidents)
See how there is a patern emerging?
The constitution give me the right to keep and bare arms, along with my neighbors, spesifically so that if enough of us decide the government is getting out of hand, we will have the recourse of the revolutionary.
In short, I am SUPPOSED to be able to outgun the police, and "crime" and "self protection" have nothing to do with it at all. Period.
The Bill of Rights is singularly and wholly the Right to Restraint over and Revolution against the government should it get out of line.
Period.
Nothing Else.
No hunting.
No (individual) home intrustion countermeasures.
No shouting fire in a crouded theater.
Only the police and army armed? The founding fathers would turn over in their graves.
Try actually reading a highschool civics book.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Yes, I forgot why Australia's gun laws are so strong. We have laws against felons owning guns, too.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
Assuming I have a 9 bullet handgun I can kill 9 people from a reasonable distance before anyone can do much about it.
Always with this argument. Except that anybody who is intending on killing lots of people will ALWAYS be able to get a gun, or some explosives, or poisons. Making enough explosives to kill a lot of people is trivial. Most murders are personal, they have a reason, there's one or two victims, and they're just as likely to happen with a knife or a hammer as they are with a gun. The difference is, there'll be no gun for joe six-pack to stop somebody from busting into his house, taking his possesions and having his way with his daughter.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
How many crimes are stopped each year without the gun ever being fired?
Hom many crimes are commited each year without the gun ever being fired?
Until someone bothers to find and correlate those tow numbers there is no truth to any of the numbers for or agains guns.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Partly true, but what would robbers do if they *knew* that *every* house, car, and person was armed? Probably look for a new line of work.
I said 'partly' because guns are different from cameras. Both have a deterrent value, yes, but if someone breaks into your house, what does a camera do? It lets you record the robbery (or rape, or murder, or both; of course, that depends on them not stealing the tapes) and possibly use that as evidence. Result: the crime still happened. A gun, on the other hand, is *still* useful even if someone *does* decide to commit the crime. If someone decides to ignore a camera and rob, rape, kill, or all-of-the-above you, he'll probably get away with it. If someone decides to ignore a gun and rob, rape, kill, or all-of-the-above you, you stnad a much better chance.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
If having more guns causes more problems then why when Kennesaw, GA passed a law that all homeowners be gunowners did crime drop?
I know this to be true. But you can read about it here.
When the law was first passed the local press and other towns thought they were insane. But it worked.
And more criminals in the USA has been shot by private citizens defending themselves than police.
In truth the most compelling thing I have to offer is personal experience. I have used a fiream 3 times in my life to defend both myself and others, including a total stranger from harm. In two of the three cases the firearm did not even have to be drawn or displayed to be an effective deterrant.
The ability to let it be known to the assailants that I was armed was enough. In each case people's lives were at stake, and I was outnumbered in 2 of the 3 instances and in every case the assailant was armed with a weapon (car, chains, and knives). In my view a firearm in the hands of a competent and level headed citizen is more effective at stopping crime than an our armed police, search and seizure laws and no knock warrants.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
In other words: The Swiss government does not register every bullet. It registers every bullet it pays for and distributes. Enormous difference.
I doubt gun owners would mind the US government giving everyone ammunition, even if they registered it.
Cato Institute's 2nd Amendment Studies is a listing of some of the venerable think tank's pieces and commentary on the matter. In particular, Cato Policy Analysis No. 109 (though not linked to in the above page) is a classic study by Manhattan's former assistant district attorney David B. Kopel from July 1988. Cato Policy Analysis No. 284 from October 1997 is also quite good. Both are extensively well-sourced with complete citation information.
Number of people killed PER legally owned civilian firearm.
Who cares? The idea is to reduce the number of murders, not the murder by firearm. Otherwise, it would imply that if you manage to have 4 times more firearms and "only" twice more murders, it's a good thing.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
In 2000, there were 16,653 fatalities in alcohol-related crashes
If firearms make almost the same number of victims than alcohol, then it's even worse than I thought. Another reason why your argument is weak: ~3000 deaths in WTC attacks, the same as the number gun victims during 3 months. Is that a reason to do nothing (your reasonning implies that)?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
This website at the Australian Institute of Criminology has quite a variety of criminal statistics for all Australian states, and some overseas countries like USA, Canada and NZ.
You don't answer to my first question. You answered : training and responsibilty are necessary. Right, everyone agrees. But my first question was : how the right to carry a gun can protect children from being shot BY CRIMINALS like happened in some schools.
My second question was to point out that even if you carry a gun, anyone who wants to kill you can kill you. A gun protects from robbery or rape, I agree, but killing a robber if he has no weapon is a crime.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Not just citizens. Anyone living in the US who is male and between the ages of 18 and 26, even non-resident aliens on H-1B visas, has to sign up. And, ironically, it's actually more important to make sure you do sign up if you're one of those non-resident aliens, because they can and do check up on it if you ever want to apply for another visa, green card, citizenship etc.
Theoretically, even illegal immigrants are supposed to sign up! Go figure.
Pieces of jurisprudence that are famous for not mentioning gods, Jesii, etc.
Really??? Have you ever read The Declaration of Independence? Allow me to quote:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"
"appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions"
I don't like to rub others noses in religion. I am a religious person but ask not that you believe as I do but instead live by a similar moral code. i.e. Stealing is wrong. Killing without reason is wrong. That is what governments are for, creating a moral code we can all live with. But to say that the goverment must be seperate from religion is not possible. What the orginal jurisprudence does not contain is the mythical seperation of church and state.
Attempts to remove the moral code of a creator is an attempt to state that there is no higher code than that of the government and as such only the rights it sees fit are the ones we are to enjoy. There is a higher code, a right and wrong, call it what you will God's Law, Natures Law.
Put out a sign saying "This house has a valuable collection of firearms" and see how you do. Some burglars are fairly proficient. If you aren't home (and they'll know), they don't have to worry about being shot, and they know they'll be able to sell your guns. They are worth more, and easier to carry, than a t.v.
I got mugged. The shithead had the drop on me, and had I been carrying, he'd have had another gun to show for his night's work.
Even if laws get passed, it doesn't mean everyone will give up their guns. I, for one, would easily give up my second amendment rights if and only if I knew no one else had a gun. Other people would keep their guns, and if I gave up mine, I would just be more of a victim.
This sig is only here so people stop skipping the last lines of my posts.
A book written by someone setting out to show gun control reduces crime that discovered that the opposite was overwhelmingly true.
Not wanting to just point you to a few conservative or NRA (or whoever's) websites and articles which will have an obvious bias, check a pretty basic and vannilla Google search of the title and author.
Best wishes with your research!
You were right.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
First of all, Snoop was never convicted of this crime, he was cleared of all charges, as was his bodyguard because it was in self-defense. Second, his only conviction was for drug-related charges years before he became famous. If you want to learn more, and not just be an ignorant fuck, please visit this site, which might let you do something novel, such posting a flame response that is actually correct!
RE: New Charter
From the point forward, the CDC will only be concerned with viri and bacteria matters. This new policy, thoughfully suggested by an anonymous coward, will ensure that the CDC is best targetted towards the proper goals envisioned by Mr Coward. All employees researching non-viri and non-bacteria deaths are hereby layed off.
Thank You,
Chief, CDC, USDI
XML causes global warming.
... will find you what you need.
+Lott +Mustard
Type these words into a google search, and there you will find an unbiased report that found empirically that an armed populace means less violent crime. Professor John Lott, University of Chicago, looked at all federal, state, and local law enforcement data as well as economics (Eric Mustard's purpose) since economics play a part in crime rates independent of guns. All other guns studies ignore the natural ebb and flow of crime rates, and thus erroneously report the effect of concealed carry legislation.
"Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity."
I don't care much for guns, don't own one, don't go shooting, don't really care.
I don't care much for the NRA - I think they go a bit overboard at times.
I think the 2nd ammendment is outdated - we have a well armed militia and probably won't need to come running out of the house to keep the King of England at bay, or even the reds.
That all being said, I think gun control is a waste of time. Much like the copy-restrictions on cd's/software/whatever, all it does is add a degree of difficulty for legitimate people - if I go to the store to buy a gun to shoot Bambi or coke cans, I have to jump through this hoop and that hoop to do something legal...meanwhile some hood or gangbanger will be getting some black market gun without all this hassle.
About the only place that I see stronger gun control helping would be crimes of passion - getting pissed and shooting someone. However, I think if I was that pissed to kill someone, then not having a gun would not be a deterant...there are enough heavy blunt objects in this world to help.
I think what is needed is sticter punishments (not a fan of the death penalty):
Shoot someone during a crime, life in a 6x6 box - no parole.
Shoot someone during a crime of passion, life in a 6x6 box - no parole.
Shoot someone in a drive by, life in a 6x6 box - no parole.
Get caught with an illegal gun, 20 years in a 6x6 box - no parole.
Instead you get infinite trials, out in a few years, and a book deal or a rap record.
Like I said - my views are mixed...don't own or want one, but don't care if others have one.
While I could argue the fact that The Declaration of Independence is in fact the origin and foundation of all the jurisprudence you stated, for with out the establish of a government the jurisprudence you state would be meaningless. Which in the end was my point that there exist a higher code of conducted than any stated by a government.
What we have in our codified law is an amendment that prohibits the government from endorsing any one religion...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Semantics I know, but you are incorrect what we infact have is an amendment that states that the government can not establish a state religion, um like say... The Church of England!
1) attempt to overturn the First Amendment
Don't want to. Never did. Believe its the second most important right we have.
2) leave the country
Why would I do that, I love this country and would give my life in defense of it.
3) grow up and learn to live with a government that treats Christians, Muslims, atheists, and all other people the same regardless of their beliefs. Oh, isn't that a horror!
I'm not preaching fundamentalism. I agree with you 100%. But that is not what is happening in this country. There are those that would remove all mention of religion from government. And that is not what this country was founded on. That is Marxism and the belief that the government is the highest power and not to be questioned.
Now, if you will excuse me, I must go fuel up the black helicopters.
Funny... Sorry don't believe the whole black helo, chem trails thing either. But that doesn't mean that I believe because everything is roses today that it can't change tomorrow.
"...that are objective in dealing with these subjects, and I would also ask what ideas the members of this community have about this issue and what FACTS..."
Really now. This is Slashdot. Objectivity and the facts have no place here. In fact, I'm very well tempted to simply scream "troll" and be done with it. I mean, come on... I can't be the only one that didn't have to scan all 1000 posts to know that an ass-ton of them were instantly going to be anti-American/anti-Gun. Face it-- You want unbiased sources, go somewhere else. Slashdot isn't research referral site, it's a sewer. Asking it's users on topics like this, Linux and Microsoft is like picking through a septic tank with little hope of finding the relevant information you're looking for. I don't know where, but trust me, you're better off getting your info somewhere else, far, far away from here.
That said, I believe there was a study done in Norway or Switzerland where everybody is required to own a gun and keep it in their house (don't ask me to link it, beats me where it is). Violent gun related crimes are down somewhere at 1%. The question is what are they doing differently from the US and can it be applied without comprimising the concept of a government for the people by the people. After all, the US government is not built on trust. It's why there are three branches, a presidential term limited to four years with only one chance of re-election AND why people have the right to bear arms in it's defense of it's dissollusion.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I also live in New Zealand.
Our gun laws has very big political support in New Zealand since all the right-wingers, centerists and left-wingers are very supportive of the laws. Also, note that the laws has not changed much for the past 50 years apart from changes to make it more difficult to obtain guns. I have yet to hear a major political party (read: a political party that has seats in the current parliament) critizise our gun laws. The public, in general, are also quite supportive of the laws. Everyone realises how much postivie impact the laws has had on our safety.
When I read or hear stories about gun shooting in the United States (especially school shooting), I always compare the US situation to NZ's situation. Here in NZ these things nearly never happens since no-one has guns, except those who have guns for good reasons. However in the United States anyone can just go to a shop and buy a gun and shoot everyone in the street. Its so simple in the United States to obtain guns, it's no wonder why the US has one of the highest rates of gun deaths in the world.
I think the argument that people needs gun for protection is bullshit. If no one had guns, except for the police and people who have passed strict background checks, soicety would be a much better place. In New Zealand since very few people have guns we almost never have gun deaths -- however in the US since everyone has guns, many people use guns. If guns were banned, people would have no reason to have guns since no one else would have guns in the first place.
I would be very supportive of a change to make gun control much more stricter. It has worked very, very, very well in New Zealand -- to the point that we only have one or two major gun deaths every year. Hell, most of the police staff in New Zealand don't have gun, thats how well the laws has worked. I wouldn't be the first to say that US's lax laws on gun control is one of the many reasons why the US is such a dangerous country to live in these days.
While lax gun control might have worked in the 19th century, the US must wake up to the situation in modern times. Things has changed since the United States was first founded, and so the people of the United States should remember this fact when they make up their mind on gun control.
- James
I'm sure no one will ever see this tiny comment buried in all the 2000 inane, opinionated, biased, and just plain ignorant comments posted thus far, but here goes ...
I consider gun ownership part of the culture of personal responsibility that every truly honorable society should strive for. Life is a precious gift, and the taking of life one of the most serious acts a person can take. If you feel that owning a gun is your best bet to preserve life, especially that of you and your family, then go ahead and buy a gun. But part of owning a gun is taking responsibility for its use, including education children on its proper use, keeping it away from them if they are too young for it, and knowing how to use it yourself to successfully defend your family.
The government may try to legislate behavior on this issue, but treating the nation like children will never solve the problem. Give people responsibility, and let them learn to use it. It may take centuries or millennia, but eventually we will do it. If someone dies from illigitimate uses of firearms, well then our society is still not there yet. We can't save every person from being shot, but with some slow change we can make society safer at a more fundamental level. And of course note that we will never save everyone from accidents, just as outlawing bathtubs is not the way to save kids from drowning in them.
There will always be powerful weapons, given the progress of science to date, so outlawing them is not the ultimate answer. Education is the key of course to cleaning up our act. But personal responsibility is the particular goal I believe that could be accomplished.
The government ought to view passing legislation with more sincerity and try to plan for 100-1000 years hence, rather than their own re-elections. Our society has changed quite dramatically on a period of 100 years, and those nations who don't recognize the continual decay of basic humanitarianism are not going to fare well.
So gun control is not going to work, on a fundamental human level. Whether it will prevent a few deaths or not is not really the point.
But even the deaths by guns have actually gone UP in england since they started instituting strict gun control. Meanwhile, It's gone down here.
IMO, Britain has always been a fairly peaceful place, and never had a very high murder rate. Not because of lack of guns, but because the society just wasn't violent. England's home invasion rate is something like 3 times what America's is, because criminals are afraid or armed victims here. More afraid of running into an armed victim than into a cop actually.
In England it is illegal for you to defend yourself in any meaningful way, you are supposed to be patient and hope the cops come quickly. All this does is make criminals confident, as they only have to worry about the cops. And as we both know 'cops can't find a dick with BOTH hands'.
Shit adds up at the bottom...
It is a right though. It is the right to self defense. The right to protect my other rights, with force if neccessary. As much as some people like to think the government can do everything for them, it just isn't possible.
Aside from that, we all know that banning guns doesn't make guns disappear. In England gun crame has went up drastically after the instituted strict gun control. How did this happen? Because the criminals, being criminals will not mind breaking a law to get guns. While the law-abiding citizen obeys the law and can't get a gun to protect himself from foresaid criminal.
It is not possible to take guns out of circulation. They are not some magical device that is impossible to produce. Any small machine shop can be used to make guns, and would be, if guns were banned.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
That sounds pretty damn clear to be a right to me..
Shit adds up at the bottom...
I'd rather be a sysadmim.
KFG
1) your own life (that thief would fire if he saw you pulling out a gun, and frankly I won't blame him)
So you wouldn't blame the carjacker for killing the guy trying to defend his property, but you would blame the guy for killing the carjacker. Talk about a fucked up sense of priorities. The carjacker has already made the decision that he has no respect for your life or your property when he points a gun at you. How is he somehow morally superior here?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
[guns carried by police] are considered a "last resort" the idea is that if all other means fail than they can be used.
Same here in the US - both for police and for citizens.
In most states you can only shoot at the bad guy when your life is in immediate threat. (In a few places you can still shoot to stop him from running off with your stuff or to stop an attack on SOMEONE else. On the other hand, in some you must retreat unless you're unable to do so - even in your own home.) And while the rules are sometimes a little different for the police than for the citizens, the basic idea is usually the same.
Interestingly, if you compare shootings by US civilian and police, you'll find that the civilians are MUCH less likely to shoot somebody they shouldn't - by a factor of more than five. This despite the fact that civilians shoot more crooks than cops, by a factor of more than two.
(Which is not to say that US cops are incompetent trigger-happy bunglers. Police arrive on the scene of the dispute and have to figure out which of the combatants is the crook and which the victim, while the citizen under attack already knows. And citizens, once they've pulled the gun and stopped the attack, can (usually must) retreat when police are supposed to advance, subdue, and arrest.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So what happens when congress passes a law defining the police bursting into your house in the middle of the night and taking everything you own without a whit of judicial oversight (i.e., a warrant) as a 'reasonable search'? Riiight.
This is a constitutional argument. Congress may enact laws within the framework of the constitution, but is not responsible for interpreting the constitution itself. In the example above, it isn't congress' responsability to interpret the constitution; the law would still be unconstitutional.
Your point is moot. It is the supreme court which makes the determination about how the militia clause in the second amendment should affect the amendment's interpretation, not Congress.
Show me a city without crime. Now tell me that it will stay that way after everyone moves there.
Nobody gets mistakenly shot if you know how to use and store a gun properly. It is also quite wise to teach your kids about guns, so they know to respect them and that they are not for play. As for voting, that only works as long as voting is allowed and carried out in a just manner. After that, all bets are off.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Looks good to me. The drug laws in this country are moronic. Now, on to your other point. Someone else posted this quote earlier, so I'll just stick it in here:
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in
the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -- Thomas Jefferson (letter to J. Adams April 11,1823) Let us not pretend that all the founding fathers had deep religious convictions.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
A good case study would be South Africa. We have very strong gun control laws which have recently been made even stricter, but we have possibly the highest violent crime rate in the world.
"That means nothing, unless you're also going to say that the rest of the Bill of Rights should be limited to the 18th-century definition of "citizens"."
Since the 18th century there have been numerous laws passed to include blacks, indians and women in the rest of society. I wonder if simlar laws passed specifically to include minorities and women in the militias. For that matter I wonder if any laws have been passed to further define the makeup and the duties of the militia.
It seems like your take is that all citizens are a part of the militia whether they like it or not. Also that being in the militia has absolutely no responsibilites attached to it. No requirement for training, not for registration, not for being under the command of the president or any other military personell.
Finally I would like to know what your definition of a "well ordered militia" is as opposed to a collection oof citizens. What do you think the founding fathers meant when they said "well ordered" and why do you think they put that phrase in the second amendment?
War is necrophilia.
In Russia, they have strict gun ownership and few persons have guns at home. This doesn't stop the Mafya from carrying weapons from handguns though AK47s though.
So the price of the guns has increased. You admit this would make it harder to obtain guns. This isn't an absolutist argument; we aren't saying that by making guns harder to aquire you're going to completely disarm the criminal element, but you are going to disarm some. And the harder you make it, the more criminals are disarmed. If you can't understand this, you really should take a course in basic economics.
The problem, of course, is that the supply of weapons used in crime is made up, in large part, from guns that were legally bought by law-abiding citizens, but then stolen. Every time your house gets robbed when your'e out and your hand-gun gets stolen, that's another gun in the hands of someone not very nice.
A good example of this is the UK. The UK is a pretty violent place these days, violent crime in general is higher per-capita than it is in the US (significantly higher, I believe). However, the murder-rate is still much lower. Hand-guns have always been difficult to acquire in the UK, consequently those that are available are pretty expensive and out of the reach of normal criminals. For the most part the gun violence has been limited to organized crime and drug-dealing, who are far too busy shooting each other than to engage in petty theft. Unfortunately, this is starting to slip, as the british customs are dropping the ball; the supply is increasing due to guns smuggled in from eastern europe.
Of course, an outright ban on hand-guns would do crazy things in the short-term (see Australia). It would take a long time for the markets to reach their new equillibrium after such a ban.
"Nope. At worst (depending on your POV), the second amendment can be read as to say that only those people are free from any laws that infringe on their ability to own a gun. There would have to be a new law to actually deny gun ownership to the other people."
Sorry I just don't get that from the original quote of the law. It seems to enumerate all people who are in the militia and nowhere does it say "all the people except such and such".
"If there were conditions to being in the militia, they would be listed in the part that was quoted. It says "all males between 18 and 45," not "all males between 18 and 45 who have been through basic training."
And yet I wonder why they included the phrase "well ordered militia". It seems to imply some sort of a structure.
"And we do. It's called Selective Service, and I had to sign up when I turned 18, just like all male US citizens."
Once again women are not subject to selective service. According to your logic they do not have the right to bear arms. Seeing as how women do have the right to have arms yet are not subject to selective service their names definately should be added to the list of militia members who can be called upon to defend the country.
Honestly a militia is useless if it can not be called up on a moments notice. The days of paul revere are over so we can't ride through the town yelling "arabs are coming, arabs are coming" but there definately should be a list of men and women who are 18 to 45 who have guns. People with guns are already armed and are probably trained well and are good shots. People without guns are not useful in the first wave of attack because they don't know how to shoot and will have to be trained. It seems like the absolute minimum requirement for being in the militia should be to be able to be contacted in case of attack.
War is necrophilia.
Before starting off on a gun debate, why not first ask "what is a gun?" Sounds silly, right? But seriously, there are a near infinite means of fashioning weapons easily capable of killing humans. So which of these counts as a "gun"? Is my paintball equipment a gun? It could certainly kill someone if I used marbles instead of soft paint pellets. How about a potato cannon loaded with a golf ball? Or a water baloon sling with a frozen baloon? Or the sling and rock David used to kill Goliath?
IIRC, a gun is legally defined as anything that rapidly accelerates a projectile along a guide using the rapid expansion of gases produced in a combustion reaction. That's a pretty limited definition considering all the many ways to harness kinetic energy as a weapon.
And outlawing / severely regulating such devices will do what good?? NONE
And then you get back to the Columbine nonsense, which the political left has milked for all it's worth in their typical knee-jerk ways. (not to say that the right doesn't employ equally stupid logic on other issues). Suppose the homemade bombs the killers had fashioned had gone off in the cafeterias? Hundreds of students would likely have died. So should we ban propane tanks to 'protect the children'?
So, fundamentally you're in favour of vigilantism?
So what happens if you miss the guy, and end up in a random gun fight in the middle of the street? How many people will you accidentally kill defending yourself from the crazed lunatic who has now turned his full attentions on you?
What happens when a similarly minded person sees you running up to someone randomly on the street and shooting him? I hope you don't mind when they blow your brains out; how were they supposed to know you weren't the killer, and were actually trying to save people? And how are you supposed to know this good samaritan isn't the first guy's buddy and end up in a gun-fight on the middle of a public street?
This is why this whole argument breaks down. All vigilantism does is create anarchy and chaos. If you want to save lives you should try to evacuate the area and call the cops. Let the guys with proper training and uniforms deal with the psycho.
And here's why... You're totally ignoring the category of 'Canadian'. Canadian != White. I know a lot of people who you would consider ethnic who fill out their census forms with Canadian.
It's the people armed with tanks, attack choppers, F-whatever fighters and B-whatever bombers that matter.
The guys with firearms are fairly inconsequential. Especially if they don't have gas for vehicles - or vehicles at all - because they've all been blown up.
We have democracy because we can vote for change before we need to shoot people for it, and even if it came down to that, the people charged with doing the shooting, as you pointed out, would most likely refuse to carry out the order.
paintball
Gun crimes will happen LESS when guns are outlawed.
See Europe, in which all countries (AFAIK) have severly limited or banned gun ownership for non-professionals and death by weapons is far less common than in North-America and the States in particular.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Thinking about this issue rationally, I've come to the following stance:
Guns favor those who use them. Carrying a gun does not protect you against the person attacking you, because they will have their gun ready and armed. They can shoot you before you can even arm yours. Carrying an armed gun increases the risk that you will use it to shoot others in a wave of anger (yes, people do lose their minds when they get angry).
People have told me that criminals will carry guns no matter what the law says, and therefore, everybody should be allowed to carry guns to protect themselves. This argument is flawed on all sides. First, guns don't protect, see above. They may in some cases, but the main thing they do is lower the barrier for killing. Secondly, only a fraction of cirminals would carry guns if doing so was prohibited. Guns cost money, which is something most criminals lack, and if carrying guns is illegal, it will cost a lot of money and effort to get one, and increase the chances for criminals to be caught.
``Guns don't kill people, people do. If guns are outlawed, murderers will find other tools to do their job.'' This is definitely true, but doesn't really argue the case for guns. A murderer could use a knife to kill, but it's much harder; he'd have to be very close to the victim. He could run the victim over, but that makes him much more likely to be traced and caught. Guns are convenient, because they are small, work from a distance, and hardly leave any traces on the killer's side.
It is my opinion that guns do more harm than good, and should therefore be banned.
---
I am a criminal; I play DVD's on Linux.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Of course here in occupied Aztlan you'd be doing a public service to your community.
So, do you consider yourself an occipier, or occupied?
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Arrrgh, you guys are ALL WRONG, its:
p = m*v
that does the killing.... geeeeez!!!!
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
"The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age"
Does this mean then that no-one over the age of 45 is allowed to own a gun?
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
You might get better replies at Kuro5hin, which is a discussion site. You won't get the same responses of "what does this have to do with a Beowulf cluster" there.
How many people do you know that practice knife throwing?
Even then, you would have be a pretty damn good knife thrower to get a moving target the size of a neck.
1. Ban the importation or manufacture of illegal narcotics except by those used by licensened pharmacutical companies.
2. Make private ownership or use of illegal narcotics a felony. Fuck the amnesty. Destroy or conviscate any illegal narcotics found in private hands. Pay people a bonus for being a narc.
3. Arrest anyone with illegal narcotics who's got any and isn't a licensed distrubituor.
Yep.. that works real fucking well. I can point out a half dozen in my neighborhood who deal drugs.
--Demonspawn
How many bullets in the average gun? What about aiming for the body, only 5 meters away?
1.5kgs isn't that much compared to the amount of effort required for the other ways (stabing, punching etc).
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Robbery, assault,
burglary and motor vehicle theft rates are lower
in the United States than they are in England and
Wales, national crime victim surveys conducted in
these countries reveal. However, police
statistics show murder and rape rates higher in
the United States than in England and Wales,
according to a new report by the Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS) in the United States Department
of Justice.
This says to me that you might have a higher chance of being victim of a violent crime in the UK, but you're more likely to be killed or raped in the process in the US.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Secondly, only a fraction of cirminals would carry guns if doing so was prohibited.
Since England banned handguns, Scotland Yard has admitted that prohibition has done nothing to keep the criminals from obtaining them. It's easier than ever, and the London crime rate is suddenly higher than New York City.
A murderer could use a knife to kill, but it's much harder; he'd have to be very close to the victim.
Some interesting research showed that even if handguns were completely wiped out, criminals would simply carry long (hunting) guns or knives (that part's obvious). Probably more knives and fewer guns because of concealability. The unobvious part is the fact that a long gun is far, far more deadly than a handgun, which wipes out any life savings from those who would have used less-effective knives instead.
It is my opinion that guns do more harm than good, and should therefore be banned.
In the U.S., that annoying right of the people to keep and bear arms gets in the way.
Quite a few years ago, one of my female friends had an abusive and aggressive ex-boyfriend. She asked me to stay with her for a few days and bring my gun along. This was back when California had a law that said that if one shoots an intruder who broke in, that the shooter would be presumed innocent.
He started beating and kicking on the door about 3 days later. I came up and aimed my gun at the door. He ran away and called the police.
I and my friend described the circumstances to the policewoman, who got a good laugh out of the fact that the guy was stupid enough to call.
She had no further problems with the guy.
Presumably, the anti-gun crazies around here would consider that my interference with the guy's 'right' to beat the shit out of a woman using an evil GUN!!! makes me an evil person. I've actually seen people take that position when I (rarely) mention this in public. This is useful, though, I know a few more people to hold in utter contempt and not to do business with.
It also puts me in a position to say I've used a gun to deter violence.
Unfortunately, the law was repealed a few years later by the California State Supreme Court.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Even in places where all guns were seized during insurrections, people even made their own guns. As we've seen with drugs, if the people want them, they'll get them. And all the government can do is make the problem worse by banning them. The best the government can do is very harsh penalties for misuse that directly harms another.
In the end, no it doesn't depend on a militia:Especially important was that it is an assumed right inherent of the people. It was not thought that the Constitution was granting this right, but prohibiting the government from infringing on an established one.
"What happened to just plain crazy?"
We have to blame guns, video games, TV, etc. Whiney, whiney, whiney, no one's ever responsible for thier own actions. What ever happened to the idea that these kids were just off their collective rockers?
Actually, our violence and crime rates are far higher than those countries aside from guns. Other countries have approximately the same ownership rates as us (aside from Switzerland, where ownership is militia-based), but with far lower crime rates.
I like my hunting rifles to have precision. I wouldn't buy a sniper rifle simply because they generally cost five-figures, with ammo also costing too much. But if you're a rich and like to hunt or go to the extreme with target practice, why not?
Actually, these numbers come from the Clingendael institute in the Hague; there's a debate going on after a politician was shot here. So I resent your remark.
But who cares if it's a legal gun or not? It's absolute numbers which are more important, as a breakdown of the numbers does just that...you break down the numbers, but the deathtoll remains the same.
As does the math...less guns, less deaths. No pussyfooting around with idiotic arguments I've seen like "well, they'll just use knives" (dumb, that one, takes no account for the psychological impact or the facts)...less guns, less deaths.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
"Oh, damn, I want to shoot 30 bullets at these people, but I'm limited to a 10-round mag instead of the normal 15-rounder. I guess I'll have to take two seconds more swapping magazines."
If I really wanted to kill as many people as possible, I'd be throwing molotov cocktails into crowded places. Some would burn to death, some would be scarred for life, and some would die in the resulting stampede.
I'm very disturbed I came up with that idea. Must be GTA Vice City kicking in.
Stop the brainwash
Does not establish a right to keep and bear arms. It recognizes that the people have a previously existing moral right to do so, and prevents the government from infringing upon that right.
I'll grant you that copyright violation is not the same as violent crime. Regardless, the principal of gun ban and the banning of software simply because it MIGHT be used to commit a crime by any given user is the same. You can dress it up in shades of gray, but at the end of the day, the justification of taking rights away from citizens is the same:
You shouldn't have _______ (fill in the right) because it could be used to ____________ (name the crime).
You missed the point of my original post - the horse is already out of the barn. People already have guns. Banninging them several hundered years later is ridiculous. Also - do you think someone who is about to commit a crime is worried about the legality of owning/possessing/using a firearm of any kind?
$G
-- $G
Really? You should look at England where since the total ban the crime rate has skyrocketed. Infact the per capita rate of crimes involing guns is higher than in the states. Yeah, and the rates for murder are over 5x as high in the states as in the UK, according to the American Department of Justice ( find the link in one of the other comments ). Then how about the Swiss nearly every household has a full auto gun. This is because every of age male is in the reservers. They have very low crime rates. Yeah, and as another poster pointed out, they have to account for every single bullit the have. Also, this means that only trained military men have a gun, not any idiot like in the states. My point is, if you have more guns, as in the States, you'll have more death by guns. I'm not really interested in the crime rates, I don't believe anyone deserves to die for a crime, punished yes, die no.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
While I don't expect that you will read this ( typical cowardice behavior, throw stones then run to hide.. ) it does warrant comment.
First of all Sir, you are the root of the problem. If you were responsible and protected your family, many of the oppressive government and rampant crime around the world would never have had a chance to take hold and prevail..
It is the people that do not stand up for their rights and safety that facilitate these things and continued denial only compounds the issues.
That being said, you DO have the right to not feel that your family is worth protecting, and toss control to whom ever shows at the door demanding it.
However you DONOT have the right to tell me that I cant protect myself or my family, which is a core issue in gun 'control' (actually the goal is gun ban. Not control, an example of more cowardice, by hiding ones agenda).
Nor should you expect people like me to come to your rescue when you are repressed and realize your errors and wish you had stood up for safety and freedom.
Incidentally I happen to agree with your statement that someone breaking into my home doesn't warrant lethal force. However, if they threaten me or my family in the process, it DOES warrant such action..
PS: One also should not presume something because the word GOD is mentioned. God comes in many shapes and forms, and doesn't mean that one is of any belief or denomination.. Sounds a bit prejudicial to me.. Much as your lumping me and others of like mind into some fanatical group that advocates wholesale violence or something, due to your narrow minded concepts and beliefs.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I first would like to agree to the comments, that more guns don't necessarily mean more gun violence as Switzerland seems to show.
But: Many people, especially gun advocats miss an important point. You can't protect yourself with a gun. A gun can't catch a bullet or knife. Only if the bullet or knife accidently hit the steel part of the gun and bounce off in a safe direction. Much better would be a bulletproof west if you want protection.
Deterence is another thing. But any gun introduced into a conflict (were deterence is needed) raises the conflict to a potentially deadly level. A gun draws fire. If a person feels threatened by a gun and knows that he/she can loose their life they will do anything to remove that threat. That means that a gun actually makes you unsave, because it draws on violence. If the other side has a gun or any other deadly force available against you they are most likely to use it as soon as you threaten their most precious asset. Their life.
But it is such a cool, macho thing to draw a gun, ain't it?
Slashdot: News for rednecks. Stuff that makes ya' Holler.
I dislike when people complain "waaa waaa waaa, this shouldn't be posted on slashdot, it's not news for nerds," but I'm human, damnit... I have the inborn right to be hypocritical.
I don't give half a shit about gun control, except that it is more attempts to take away our rights (not that I think anyone actually needs a gun -- especially the police, but that's not the point) Gun control is one of those back & forth issues that will not be unanimously "solved" quickly.
Hell, I might as well Submit an article entitled "Ask Slashdot: So, what do y'all think about that abortion thing?"
The UK has less murders in a year than several, if not most, US Cities. The proportion of these which are gun related is small.
So yes the number in the UK has been increasing. But Washington is still more dangerous to live in than Northern Ireland, even back when the troubles were in full sway.
The numbers in the US are falling from a level that was MORE in some cities than when several TERRORIST organisations were shooting each other for fun. Not for the whole US, for ONE city.
If a crimial commits a gun-crime in the UK he will be much more of a focus for the police than if he doesn't use a gun. Thus using guns is the best way to get caught.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
In Britain, we have outlawed the majority of firearms, any firearms that are legally kept are licensed (for pest control, hunting, etc) or contained strictly for training purposes on a range.
However, outside of this there are a large number of illegal firearms which continue to be brought in to the country. These guns come into the country from places where there are lax gun controls, usually by boat into. It is impossible for us to check every man / woman / child / aircraft / boat or other vehicle which approaches upon our borders. If more countries did the right thing and controlled firearms, then we would have alot less deaths.
Alot of the gun supporters in America complain that while we have locked down the control of guns, we still have high numbers of murders (or homicides if you prefer) which are gun related.
I've heard alot of people use the saying "Guns dont kill people, people kill people", I find no merit in that statement, it's true that a gun needs to be operated (handled or mishandled) by a person, but the gun is certainly an effective tool which makes the job of killing alot easier, after all, that is what a gun is designed for "to kill", in the same way that a bomb is designed "to kill" even if a controlled explosion does make an impressive display of destruction, the primary function of the device is still to kill, you dont see alot of people carrying around bombs for "their protection" do you?
A gun is a weapon designed for death, if you live in the country, hunt for your own food and tend your own table, you have cause to have a fire arm for use to assist you in your need for survival.
If you live in a city, there is nowhere to hunt, you dont need to carry a weapon into a supermarket so you can kill your own chicken, if your carrying a firearm in a city, you have it for the purpose of killing or maiming another human being (whether you beleive it to be in self defence or not) and by carrying it you have justified to yourself that it is ok to do that.
While you Americans may say that you keep a gun for defending your property and your home, what good is your property or your home if youare not alive to enjoy it? In this country, the majority of thieves do not carry guns, they dont need to because no law respecting household keeps such a weapon, if someone breaks in it is more likely to happen when you are not at home, in the unlikely event that you are in the house, you may lose some of your belongings, but when are belongings worth losing life over? I would prefer to keep my life rather than protect a family heirloom.
Hmm lets see:
Man threatened in own home with gun
HELP POLICE CAPTURE GUNMAN
Tower block gun terror
England has worst crime rate in world
These are all UK stories. Would you like me to going I have over fifty of them just for the past month(you can find them here by searching for UK), or have I ruined you little puppies and snowflakes view of the world enough for one day?
Total Robberies:
Total Murders:
It seems to me that Americans are much more criminal than Canada. Because Americans have laxer laws for guns, perhaps there are more guns involved. However, there is no causal evidence for this. That's the problem with information like this -- you can show what has happened, but not why it happened. If handguns were outlawed, perhaps crime would increase, as it is less likely that Average Joe would be armed.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
It depends on the pistol. With a S&W Model 41 (semi-auto target pistol), good ammo, and a good rest I can certainly group under 2" at 100 yards. Several freinds have lost money betting against that. It just depends on the gun and the skill of the user.
Other countries have the same issues as the U.S. with underpriviledged urban minorities and ethnic tensions -- many cities in the U.K. have large underpriviledged East Indian populations and France has a large underpriviledged North African/Muslim population, and in both cases there are sometimes actual race riots.
If the U.S. cannot blame the problem on an urban underclass, gang violence, or racial issues (the U.K. and France have those too), then it has to look inwards. Easy access to guns is probably part of the problem, but the culture behind it is a lot worse. Many Canadians outside the cities and suburbs own rifles or shotguns -- they're necessary tools for a farmer or for moving around in the far North -- but they're not romanticised the way they are in the U.S.
That's not all, though. If you really want the answer, look at law enforcement. The U.S. imprisons and executes more of its own citizens, both percentage-wise and in absolute terms, than nearly any other country in the world, including such beacons of freedom and democracy as Iran, China, and Sudan. Ouch! Countries that save prisons for rapists and murderers, rather than shoplifters, computer programmers and drug users, seem to have a lot less crime.
Almost no other first-world country executes its own citizens any more. Japan has capital punishment on the books but rarely uses it; most of the rest of the countries you wouldn't be ashamed to visit don't even have it on the books anymore. Canada abolished capital punishment in the 1970's, and the murder rate has been dropping ever since.
Sure, since Americans are more likely to have a handgun in the purse, bedside table, or glove compartment, they're more likely to use it to settle disputes, and a few more people get killed that way (usually friends or family members). The biggest problem, though, is the whole cultural attitude towards crime and punishment. I'm not proposing any feel-good rehabilitation stuff here -- I don't know if criminals *can* be reformed -- but just going by the numbers, the U.S. locks more of its citizens and has a higher crime rate than other rich countries, and it is harder on drugs and has more drug-related crime. Go do the math.
It amazes me that a community such as /. can hold such widely disparate opinions and somehow most of these people can internally justify it.
On the one hand, bring up any subject such as crypto, the MPAA, RIAA, government surveillance, or most any other individual rights issue, and the fur will fly. You will get countless opinions of how people should be left alone, complaints about how the US government is slowly (quickly?) taking away our individual rights, and how sad it is that the majority of the American populace just laps up the drivel fed to them by the mainstream media and the government.
Ask a gun control question, however, and many of those same people will suddenly be spouting the same mantra as the mainstream media and the government about how guns are the root of all evil. Don't you people realize that the second ammendment is there in case the government forgets the other nine? What good is a guarantee against "unreasonable search and seizure" against an unarmed populace?
"The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote" -- Kosh
The CDC collects the best statsitics on what everyone in the US dies from. These statistics will quickly show that your chances of dying from a gun are extreemly low. Combined with the fact that in 1999 57% of the gun related deaths were suicides makes it even less likely that you will be unintentially killed by a gun.
Saying that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms only applies to the militia is as silly as saying that the rights of free speech and the press only applies to religious material.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Whenever a government has taken away the tools a person could use to defend oneself, it has been a prelude to oppression, more often than not.
Look into weapon/self defense control as practiced in Korea, China, Japan, various places in Africa, at various places in history and you will see it.
Either that, or those in charge have something to fear from the populace.
Now - as to answer your question, I would turn to two reports (these would be 10-12 years old now) released by the Florida state police. Researchers for the Florida chapter of the FOP (fraternal order of Police) found that violent crime actually dropped in direct proportion to the number of "concealed carry" permits they issued.
Actually, I've found that most Police officers are supportive of private citizens owning and being trained in the safe and proper use of a firearm.
Do I think I'll become a revolutionary? no... Not likely to happen. I keep guns because I like to target shoot (hunting doesn't agree with me, although I don't mind if others hunt humanely) and I'd like to be able to protect my family from anyone who breaks into my house and seeks to harm us (yes, I keep my guns locked up in a nice sturdy safe).
:)
The theory of the second ammendment was that people have a right to self-defense as well as defense of the country (either from invaders or a repressive government). How likely are we to see either scenario? It's a long shot at best. But like they say, it's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it.
Plus, I know how much it irks the europeans and uber-liberals that I have them, so that's a benefit in itself.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Of course not! If that were the case, then the EU must have the same amount of illegal guns as there are in the US...which is such obvious bollocks that even Charleton Heston must know it.
The simple fact is that when gun control is put into place, getting a gun (illegal or not) is much, much harder, and thus there will be less illegal guns around.
Again, if you somehow try to refute it, I point you to a olace with more inhabitants than the US, namely the EU, where gun control is in effect, to the betterment of society. leading to less deaths and less violence...just look up the facts.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
http://www.sgaus.org/
http://home.att.net/~dcannon.tenn/TNSG.html
http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/nyg/nyg.html
http://www.mil.state.or.us/SDF/index.html
and several more
which is the idea.
In fact the WOSD is a perfect model for taxing bullets, look how it has driven people to pay hundreds of dollars on oz for a weed that used to grow wild in most of the country.
The point is not about guns used as self-defense weapons, and I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. The point is that if every murder (remember, we're not talking self-defense here) that took place with a gun had to be done by beating the victim to death with a baseball bat, it would take a great deal more resolve to do it.
Guns, as weapons, cheapen death. When not used aggressively, it makes no difference how easily they kill, only how well they work to frighten, deter or (in the worst case) stop an assailant.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
If a situation is potentially life threatening, they will not enter. Say you're in a bank, and a robber walks in with a gun. By law you don't have a gun to protect yourself in a bank (only police and licensed armed security hired for that detail), so you lay down on the floor, quickly dial 911 on your cell phone, say "1st national bank is being robbed", and leave the phone open, so the police can hear what's happening inside.
Mr. Robber shoots someone. Anyone. Doesn't matter why. The police are not going to come in. They're going to park their cars in the road and stop anyone from getting close. They'll threaten to shoot they guy, but they're not going to put themselves in harms way to stop the robber.
They'll *TRY* to save you. They'll negotiate and all that. But in the end, you're on your own til the scenerio is over. They'll keep him from getting away, but they aren't protecting you. If you get shot, that's the robber's fault, not the police's, and they will take no responsibility. Their responsibility starts if they shoot you, and that's even questionable in court.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I am no gunslinger. I certainly don't carry a firearm, and I don't own a handgun (I do own firearms, just not any handguns). However, I do believe that the fact that the fact that some of my neighbors are armed makes the bad guys pause. Criminals don't want to be dead any more than the rest of us.
I also reserve the right to be able to protect my own family. If someone did break into my house I don't want to have to wait for the police arrive to defend my family. Pulling a gun may make me a priority target, but I would much rather that I was the target than my wife or children. If someone wants to enter my house and do harm to my family then they had better be prepared to kill me first.
Finally, I believe that citizens have the right to bear arms to protect themselves from the government. This is a bit of an unpopular view in a time when many people look to the government to solve all of their problems, but I feel that it is historically prudent. There are plenty of examples even in recent history where a government (even a democratic government) has oppressed its own citizenry (Nazi Germany being the prime example). In short, I believe that the founders knew what they were talking about when they guaranteed our right to bear arms.
I agree, except don't use the term 'assault weapon'. It's a bullshit term made up by the gun control people. The legal definition of an assault weapon is 'any weapon used in an assault'. So a pen or a baseball bat are assault weapons.
You can correctly use 'assault rifle' as a description for a small carbine that fires an intermediate cartridge with select fire or automatic modes of fire. If it is just semiautomatic, then it is a carbine, not an assault rifle. IMO there is only one 'assault rifle' (the SturmGewher 44) and many assault rifle like guns(AK and AR type weapons).
Shit adds up at the bottom...
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Hey,
Would you, as a presumably anti-gun person, be willing to put a sign in your front yard "This house is gun free!" ?
Y'know what would be damn funny? To buy a house, put up a sign like that, then rig it with mechanical metal jaws beneath the windows, circular cutting disks that pop up from the floor, gigantic catapaults that fling criminals hundreds of feet in the air, etc.
I can just imagine a criminal entering the house, then a snap, a crash of metal, a scream, and a body flying out and landing hundreds of meters away.
So yeah, I would.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
What he did say is that US has more such crimes. Not that hard to understand, nae? Would you please try and turn your brains on.
Maybe you missed the link to this story:
England has worst crime rate in world
How does that mean the US has more crime?
I assure you my brain is on an functioning quite well. I have all my teeth, tie my own shoes and don't wear flannel.
Not that most pro-gun freaks probably own the...organ in question.
The ones I know are some of the smartest people I've met in my life. I would suggest you do a bit more research on the subject and open your mind a bit more. I fear the information on it that you have received up till now has been very onesided and emotionally charged.
Yes, but he makes the same stupid argument that has been repeated about a thousand times in this story alone. An armed populace is a good thing. It isn't enough to overthrow a government alone, but it helps. It will eventually come down to how much of the military ends up on the side of the people though. If we have enough on our side, then a revolution could be successful. Without the right to bear arms, the government could quite easily round up as many people as they like and nobody would be able to do much about it. It gets a lot tougher when the population can fight back. Especially when you consider that the government, no matter how threatened, will most likely not be able to use nukes or other very heavy weapons that could destroy cities. The men and women of the military are from these cities and have friends and family there. They aren't likely to cooperate with such heavy-handed tactics, at least most wouldn't.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Oh yes, because people obviously will stop doing things because they're illegal. Yeah, just look at how there hasn't been any drug abuse since it was made illegal, and murders? Oh, I guess those have never happened becuase murder was illegal since fucking forever.
Get a clue. It doesn't matter to the murderer that guns are illegal. If some assclown wants to kill somebody with a gun, they're going to a) get a gun through whatever means it may take them, and b) kill the person.
The only difference gun banning laws will make is that people who would otherwise legitimately use a gun to defend themself from being shot will no longer have that option. Oh yeah, sounds peachy to me!
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
Own whatever you want on your own property, but to take that firearm with you in public you have to be licensed.
That's effectively what a concealed carry permit is like where I live. Most rational people won't carry a pistol openly without making threatening gestures or movements (which is legal where I'm from), because you'll unsettle people and get a lot of inquiries from cops. Anyone who operates with a gun in their regular life pretty much has to have one of these licenses. At home, they don't matter.
It's not that hard to get where I live, but thankfully it's still harder to get than a driver's license. Well, maybe it's not that great that it's harder to get. Man, the idiots on the road where I live. If only I had a gun... <g>
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Shouldn't bringing a new baby human into this world require at LEAST as much licensing / education / certification as catching a fish?
Hell, yes. I think a great number of the social ills plaguing our society could be solved by making sure parents pass an independent psychological and financial evaluation before being allowed to reproduce and then encouraging them to have as many kids as they can safely support to make up for the large numbers of people who should fail that evaluation. As the son of two teachers, I can tell you that so, so much of what's wrong with kids and adults today all stems from the fact that all that's needed to be a parent is functioning sex organs.
Poverty, juvenile crime, being ill-equipped for success, debt-saddled families, drug abuse, bullying and wife and child beating, molestation, etc. could all be reduced sharply by making sure people who can't properly care for children aren't allowed to have them.
The problem is that it's impossible to implement in a reasonable, dignified manner. How do you stop kids from being born? Forced abortions, forced (but reversible) sterilization, or forced abstinence? All are abhorrent in one way or another. How do you fairly judge parents-to-be without allowing political views, racism, religion, eugenics, etc. to get in the way? How do you tell a couple that they're just too poor (welfare mothers) or too abused (beaten as children) to safely raise a child? What do you do when people break the laws anyway?
Many of my favorite authors have positted a future where such population controls are in place. Most are not very egalitarian, however. Niven's Known Space universe in the early days of "The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton" had people prove some great accomplishment for humanity (or win a lottery). Walter John William's "Aristoi" was modeled after Plato's enlightened dictatorship and had the aristoi who were equally burdened with responsibility and privilege able to decide who had kids on their carefully population controlled worlds. I think the most egalitarian means for determining who gets to have kids is an exponential tax, as proposed in one of Asimov's books, I think. The first kid costs X amount, the second 2X, the third 4X, and so on. Money is the closest thing our society has to measuring worth (though it's still a flawed mechanism), and it's coincidentally one of the things needed to raise a kid well. Pay a tax and pass several child-rearing classes, and you should be good to go.
The problem of how to stop people who don't qualify from having kids still isn't addressed, and I don't think it ever will be. Until we have some "vaccination" against pregnancy that can be administered in childhood/puberty that doesn't have long term health risks, like in "Aristoi," and a means of suppressing its effects or of having children without pregnancy, no means of suppressing childbirth will be humane.
Even with all those difficulties, it's still my dream that one day we will have a fair and just means of licensing childbirth to prevent overpopulation, bad parenting, and kids trapped in social situations with no hope for the future.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
What about drugs? If you're not OK with the idea of them being legal...
BTW. I'm an anarchist. So I believe, that ideally, we should have right to own anything we want, do anything we want, as long as it doesn't interfere with others. But unfortunately, society can't handle this kind of responsibility yet, so laws are still needed as a diterant otherwise I would agree with you.
I consider gun ownership part of the culture of personal responsibility that every truly honorable society should strive for. Life is a precious gift, and the taking of life one of the most serious acts a person can take. If you feel that owning a gun is your best bet to preserve life, especially that of you and your family, then go ahead and buy a gun.
Dude, it seems to me that in Afghanistan -- thanks mainly to the free-spending Carter and Reagan regimes -- that every person in Afghanistan who wanted any kind of lethal weaponry could acquire it. What happened? THe loss of central control, endless slaughter, and the rule of the strong -- which you dismiss as some kind of "learning curve" -- followed by religious theocracy. Maybe that's why so many religious fundies in the US seem to be in bed with the NRA?
The chimera that a gun-enhanced family is a safer family is a myth. Quite the reverse is true.
Da Blog
I think gun control is silly. A gun is a tool, like a car or a table saw. Both cars and table saws have caused deaths; in fact, cars contribute to far more deaths than guns. Notice I didn't say "cars kill people". I don't blame a tool for irresponsible or negligent users of that tool, I blame the person operating the tool.
Because this really is the answer to every problem, let me reiterate:
To make this generalization specific: Instead of banning guns, I support qualifications for gun use, similar to drivers' license tests.You may ask why I suddenly had a change of heart regarding guns (from fence-sitter to non-ban). This past weekend, I attended a four day handgun course at Front Sight, a firearms training institute in Nevada. I did not attend because I'm a gun nut, I did it at the request of a friend. I was there to chaperone a collection of 20 pasty-faced geeks from my alma mater. These students are as close to the typical /. crowd as you'll find.
At this course, the instructors don't use the words 'accidental' or 'unintentional' when talking about guns. They use a different phrase: "negligent discharge". Anyone using a gun should be responsible for the results of that use. Accidents never happen with guns, only negligent or malicious use.
I encourage everyone to take the Front Sight courses. I learned an amazing amount from my experience. I can now take a (loaded) Glock 17 from a concealed holster and deliver two sighted shots to the thoracic cavity on a target 7 meters away in under two seconds. I can also deliver a headshot to the cranio-ocular cavity at the same distance 80% of the time under time pressure (the other 20% end up hitting the forehead or chin). I can do better than that with a few more seconds. And four days ago I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, and neither could most of the people I was chaperoning.
If you think I'm now a menace to myself and others, you should know that the most important skill I learned was when to use a gun, which is almost never if you use proper conflict avoidance. If I'm carrying, and I'm attacked at the ATM by a robber, I'll just drop my money on the ground and back away. If he walks past the money and draws a knife, I'll shoot him. But I'll only shoot as a last resort.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
is much better first line home defense than a gun under the pillow.
I sleep well all night knowing that anyone trying to get in is going to meet not just the sound but the teeth of my alarm.
PS the risk of accidental discharge pretty much went away after the first 4 months, though the risk of "accidental" garbage can tipping is still around %5.
etc, etc, folks certainly are trying to:
"stop children dying in accidents then they would focus on the plethora of more common accidents which claim the lives of children around this country rather than focussing on guns."
But somehow the NRA gets all up in arms when folks try to mix reasonable safety measures with guns...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"You're grasping at straws. Explain why the Selective Service System's structure doesn't qualify."
Because it does not include women. Also because it makes no discrimination as to physical ability to defend the country. Even quardapalegic males are required to register which conflicts with the "able bodied" bit. Clearly there needs to be a list of people who are in the militia (and therefore are allowed to own guns).
"The Constitution doesn't grant rights, only your Creator (whatever you believe it to be) can do that. The US Constitution limits the government's ability to interfere with the ability to exercise those rights."
Apparently it is you who slept through civics. The declaration of independence is not a part of the constitution nor is it the law. The constitution, the articles of confederation, and the bill of rights lay the foundation for our laws. None of them mention rights given by your creator.
"It does not say "Only the militia can own guns." The only "not" in the Second Amendment is in the part "shall not be infringed.""
No but it clearly states that a well ordered militia is the reason for your right to own guns. Those two phrases are clearly related. If they simply wanted all people to have guns they would not have included the first phrase.
"You assume that skill with firearms is more important than the number and availability of small arms to a group of people."
I assume no such thing. In fact in the modern world the idea that a bunch of pistol packing rebels being able to repel an army is beyond stupid. Ask the afghans what good all those arms did them when daisy cutters were being dropped on their asses in the middle of the night. For that matter ask the palestenians how all those AK47s are repelling the Israeli occupying army.
I am simply trying to understand your reasoning and following your train of thought. You seem to assume that the militia is a useful thing and I am trying to make sure I understand what your definition of the militia is and what the rights and the responsibilities of the militia are and of course how this militia would be used.
War is necrophilia.
In terms of UK having more violent crime but fewer murders, someone else posting to this article detailed the differences between UK and US statistics keeping.
The basic tendancy is that the UK Home office does everything it can to show the smallest number of crimes, and the US DoJ processes data in a way to give the highest possible numbers. The UK actually redid it's statistics-keeping a couple years ago because the numbers were becoming quite an embarrassment. As far as I can tell, they're still an embarrassment. The DoJ thought though is that the higher the crime rate, the more funding law enforcement departments will get. Once they've got the funding, it's rarely cut, even when crime falls. But again, someone else described the statistics keeping differences, so please look for them.
Assuming that the net result is still true- that the US has more murders (I can believe this) but a lower violent crime rate otherwise, I think your initial conclusion is true- the easy availibility of arms + tradition of self defense does count for much of the difference. And quite frankly, I'm not going to cry if some rapist gets his brains blown out. Also, the Urban areas of the United States suffer from a huge gang violence problem, a problem just starting to arise in the UK. (Their murder rates have been skyrocketing lately, including gun related homicides.) If you leave out gang-ridden urban areas, crime rates in the US are comparable to any european country or canada, and often times better. Even including those high-crime areas, I think we're probably 7th on the list of violence in developed countries.
Now certainly gang & drug related crime is a huge problem that needs to be dealt with, but leaving it out helps put the rest of the country's crime rates in perspective.
Also, the British people are generally famed for their restraint, which may help explain the lesser murder. Perhaps their criminals are a little less apt to 'finish the job' when attacking or robbing someone. Just a guess.
for the other points:
1. The instant death tool of choice for alot of japanese lately is the train. Just as effective as a gun, and alot messier. (Get this- they bill the family for the cleanup. Real Nice.) But suicide is acceptable over there anyway. There's alot of ins and outs about suicide that make it's analysis difficult, and I think it's been said that the availability of guns does increase elderly suicide rates. This makes some sense, because if your mobility is limited, you don't have the option of jumping in front of a truck or train, or jumping off a ledge, or perhaps even hanging yourself.
For the physically capable though, they have a number of choices on how to kill themselves, many of them instantenous. I've read somewhere (sorry, no reference) that females attempt suicide more often than guys, but guys succeed more often than girls. This is for a couple of reasons:
A) Some think that often times girls try to commit suicide as a desperate plea for help, in a time of crisis, whereas guys will comtemplate suicide for sometime and make a definate decision that they want to die.
B) Because of A, guys will choose a more violent, final method of killing themselves, because they've thought about it.
So i think among feeble groups, the availability of guns may increase suicide rates. Among able-bodied though, I don't think that the availibility of guns would have a significant impact.
2. The comparison to swimming pools was meant to show that it's not a huge public health problem, that we allow our children to engage in statistically deadlier activities daily. No lives are saved by a child swimming recreationally, are they? If there's no net benefit to swimming, why alow it at all? Just stay away from lakes and you're all set.
But we allow our children to swim, and swim ourselves, because we acknowledge that some acceptable risk is inherent in every activity, and that the enjoyment derived from that activity outweighs the slim risk of death we run performing it. In that light, even as a purely recreational activity, it's acceptable to have guns around for just target shooting.
For the number of childrens lives saved by shooting, I'd like to again point to Klecks high estimate of 2 million legal, defensive, life saving uses of guns yearly by American citizens. Gun control advocates place the number at around 200,000. This is still two orders of magnitude larger than the number of murders, by any method, of children in 1997- 2,100. (see Here For 1997, the cause of child death are as follows, starting at 44,000 for Motor vehicles:
(Source: World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1997)
Guns don't even rate in the top 8.
How many defensive gun uses save children is a question for further debate, but I'm already tired of any public initiative that flies under the banner of "for the children."
3. Doctors make sometimes make mistakes that outright kill people- some mistakes- a lot of them- aren't just a matter of 'failing to save someone.' Also, if a life is taken in a legal and moral self defense situation, that is not a bad thing, and should not be considered in a negative light. Whose death does society benefit from? The would-be mugger/rapists death, or the death of the woman he attacked? Don't try to tell me that their lives are equally valuable, because the dead robber no longer terrorizes society, and that's a good thing.
That being said, Kleck's research was an attempt to come up with a figure that shows you that the number of lives saved by guns exceeds the number taken by them. You must also remember that there are a number of situations where it is permissible (and I think morally acceptable) to kill an attacker when your death is not a definate outcome otherwise.
Anyway, I need to get to sleep, but I'd reccomend reading every +3 comment and higher under this article, and doing some further reading on Kleck's efforts directly, because it will be of higher quality than any second or third hand info I relate in my sleep deprived state.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
"You have a hand, two eyes and a brain. You are biologically capable of using a firearm. The rest is just legislation."
I have a dick, I am capable of raping just about any woman I see. The rest is just legislation. Right?
War is necrophilia.
Since, after all, crack heads can't get their hands on illegal contraband....
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
http://www.mcsm.org/28amend2.html
Basically, throws out the 2nd amendment and updates it, allowing reasonable people to own reasonable weaponry. Worth a read.
This makes no sense though, unless you think freedom of speech doesn't apply to the internet and TV and movies as well..
The right to keep and bear arms protect the right to bear the same arms carried by the soldiers in the regular army, IMO. Which would include everything up to machine guns and possibly hand grenades.
I would hate to see thinking like that happening in the courts, we'd have no rights left after a few years. After all, the founding fathers could never have imagined that people could secretly and anonymously communicate all over the globe instantly, so the first amendment doesn't cover it.
Shit adds up at the bottom...
Way more than 80 years old, more than double that.
Of course, it was only perfected about 110 or so years ago, but you have to remember the peacemaker and its kin were cartridge guns, and I'm sure they weren't the first...
Shit adds up at the bottom...
Any more than requiring a parade permit infringes on the right to peaceably assemble.
Confiscating guns would infringe on the right to bear arms, so you don't have to worry that licensing will lead to confiscating. Remember slippery slope is a logical fallacy.
generally requires permits or licenses, & subject to all kinds of restrictions which have generally been upheld by the courts. so it seems your statement you can't license a right is false.
So it seems to me, again, so long as it were clear what the procedure was and no person or group was unfairly excluded (felons & severely mentally ill presumably would not qualify), it would be entirely within the rights of Congress to require gun licenses.
I'm confused.
First, you tell me that I'm mistaken. But then nothing else you say contradicts anything I said. If we agree, then how am I mistaken?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
certain arms, likewise.
Muskets would probably be exempt, for instance, along a similar logic: certain assemblies require permits because they may cause impact, and (legal) assemblies involving alcohol most always involve licenses because they may cause a greater impact, so guns that are more dangerous (like handguns and carbines) require licenses while single shot muskets probably wouldn't.
"The individuals who are members of the militia of the United States are clearly defined in US Law [findlaw.com]. Whether or not there exists list contains all and only those who qualify is a separate question."
Nevertheless it's the question we are talking about. I submit that a militia which can not be called to arms is useless and therefore all people in the militia be registered in a national database. Once they are no longer eligible (over 45, disabled, sex change operation etc) they would be removed from that list.
" The phrase well regulated clearly is being used in the sense of having good military discipline, not in the sense of legally restricted."
That is exactly my point. If you are in the militia then you have to have good military discipline. That implies some sort of training or at a minimum being willing to take orders from a military commander of some sort. I think that the people in the militia should act like it. They should train and subject themselves to military discipline.
War is necrophilia.
A Michael Moore fan, are you? ;)
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
There is a considerable argument to be made that gun control is to blame for an increase in violence in Britain.
Except crime is FALLING in the UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2123249.stm
most of the gun crime there is related to drug wars and not criminals vs. law abiding people.
Indeed real gun crime is extremely rare in the UK, so rare it usually makes the national news, and it nearly always inter-gang related. a lot of _armed_ crime is replica firearms.
I'm ok with some drugs being controlled substances and others not. Getting high isn't the problem. Substances that are dangerous or addictive are. Some drugs can literally enslave the user at a level that alcohol and currently legal controlled substances can't (nicotine is close). Take heroin for example.
What is problematic about drugs is that some of them clearly aren't addictive or would be very beneficial to users if they were over the counter consumer products. Others, though are dangerous or addictive and should be controlled.
The purpose of allowing citizens to "keep and bear arms" (notice that that isn't limited to guns, as the word arms means weapons of all kinds) is to 1) provide a ballance against tyranical government. 2) Ensure that citizens can defend themselves even against the government, should that be necessary. 3) Make it more difficult for a foreign power to conquer and occupy the US.
Must be hard being an anarchist supporting the rule of law.
-- $G
Must be hard being an anarchist supporting the rule of law.
Care to explain how you come to that conclusion?