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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."
.. but "unbiased" and "slashdot" would be an oxymoron if used together.
Trolling is a art,
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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
A gatling gun?
I guess it's not quite parallel though, is it. But, you have loading, firing, and cooling all running simultaniously.
My opinion of the "Guns Kill People" theory. I have guns. I haven't killed anyone.
If my life is threatened, I will use those guns. Otherwise, those guns are as safe as any other paperweight. If my life is threatened and I don't have a gun, I'll defend myself the best I can. Hopefully the other guy won't have a gun. Throwing a paperweight at a guy with a gun just makes him mad.
Cars kill people. Floods kill people. Lightning kills people. Lunitics in airplanes kill people.. Why don't we have people protesting against the existance of cars, airplanes, and the weather?
Americans claim we're safer if we don't have guns.. Guns were an essential part of the American Revolution. We as Americans gained our freedom by fighting for it. Without guns, we'd be a heavily taxed bastard colony of England still.
So, yes, I have guns, and I will keep them. I will remain safe.
For Y2K, people were asking to come stay with me, because I could be well defended. You all hate guns until you need one to protect you.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
My opinion of the "Guns Kill People" theory. I have guns. I haven't killed anyone.
Much like the classic bumpersticker:
"Ted Kennedy's Car Has Killed More People Than My Gun(s)"
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
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.
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"
"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...
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.
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
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
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
"Guns were an essential part of the American Revolution. We as Americans gained our freedom by fighting for it. Without guns, we'd be a heavily taxed bastard colony of England still."
... ummm, shall I go on ?) much lower on the people-killed-by-guns scale.
Right, look at Canada and Australia. We're still bastard colonies of Great Britain, aren't we ? Not everybody has to go through a bloody battle to become independent.
Clinging to such a dated and nowadays absurd idea that guns are still essential because they were essential in some long-irrelevant war, and, furthermore, that they are a RIGHT, not a PRIVILEGE, further promotes unneccessary and uncontrolled use of guns.
I have a friend who applied for a firearms license here in Ontario. He had to go through a rigorous psychological examination at least, not to mention the background check. However, apart from the procedures, the attitude that owning a firearm is a privilege (like driving) rather than a right, probably contributes significantly to keeping Canada (not to mention Australia, Germany, France, South Africa, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland,
Is there any legislation in the States that would prohibit people from using guns if they prove negligent in their care or irresponsible in their use (before even killing or wounding another) ?
You can lose your Driver's License if you are caught driving drunk, before you hit anyone or do any damage. You cannot lose your firearms license for keeping guns and ammo in the same closet or accidentally shooting a window pane to smithereens because, well, there is no such thing as a firearms license !
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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)?
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.
-
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.I don't want to flame you, but I do have some questions.
First, protection from what?
Second, why by the door? If the Deadly Home Invaders of Death kick the door down and barge in, they've cut you off from your protection before you've even figured out what's going on. If they knock first, wouldn't a paperweight, or a stun grenade, or a taser, or a cattle prod, or whatever be just as handy--and much less lethal?
Finally, have you ever opened the door to a situation that could be best resolved by killing someone? Do you have any reason to expect that such a situation may come knocking?
I dunno, maybe shooting people dead really is the best solution for the problems that plague your neighborhood... if so, I humbly withdraw my questions.
Bonus: I don't think the point of the Second Amendment was to make law enforcement officials fear for their lives when serving a warrant. If that's your idea of a situation that could best be resolved by killing someone, remind me never to drop by unannounced. It seems your paperweight has put you in the mood for murder.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
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.
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!
You think this justifies you carrying a gun.
Yes
You having a gun would have helped if you were in one of those cars how?
If I were in one of those cars- probably not- we would have been heading to the hospital as rapidly as possible. If I had been in one of the many, many cars there at the time. That would have been a different story. I would have stopped and killed him. Maybe save a life or 2 while I'm at it. That's what I mean by an individual's responsibility towards the whole. If 10 more people like me had been there- even if all 3 hit had been packing, that leaves 7 to take care of business.
Do you play the lottery?
No - it is taxation of the poor.
Do you have any idea how small the odds are that someone will try to kill you with a gun?
Yes. It's funny that you mention it because I bring up the same point in discussions all the time. I am astonished that so many people think that they have a chance of winning the lottery but find it inconceivable that someone else may try to harm them. I am not willing to gamble on the hope I never need my 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?
This is why I hate statistics like that. They are meaningless. You have no idea what the odds are of someone stealing my guns. I take extreme care to secure my fire arms. I take my freedoms and responsibilities very seriously. I have invested considerable money, time and effort to be sure that what you describe does not happen.
And last but not least I am not interested in comparisons between the U.S. and anywhere. We are not Canada. There are what 10 people living in that country? (just a joke- lighten up) I don't want to live there if for no other reason than I don't feel like dealing with sucky health care. (Don't try to argue the point with me there please- I wont reply I'm just answering your question)
There were no 'Indians' in Canada? You need to read some history. You do not live on land that stood empty for thousands of years waiting for the ancestors of all those French and English Canadians to show up.
Enough of that- Just trying to answer some of your questions.
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?
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?
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
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?
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'.
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.
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.
(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 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.