America 'Has Become a War Zone'

An anonymous reader writes, quoting Business Insider: "Eight different law enforcement agencies in Indiana have purchased massive Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP) that were formerly used in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mark Alesia reports for the Indy Star. Pulaski County, home to 13,124 people, is one of the counties that have purchased an 55,000 pound, six-wheeled patrol vehicles, from military surplus. When asked to justify the purchase of a former military vehicle, Pulaski County Sheriff Michael Gayer told the Indy Star: "The United States of America has become a war zone."'

Comments

War of government against people?

[gweihir]

If law enforcement needs this type of equipment, then it has long abandoned any pretense of serving the people and has instead reverted to its original purpose of fighting the people for those in power.

Re:War of government against people?

[gandhi_2]

the police don't actually have to protect the citizens.

this is worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

it is also worth noting that the US is safer now than ever before.

on the other hand, the real deal is there are a surplus of military equipment that can be useful in all kinds of scenarios. the high clearance of an RG33 would be good in a flood, and good for active-shooter scenarios. might as well snap them up if the price is good.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're fighting violent uneducated animals you need this equipment. This documentary covers the problem fairly well: http://www.youtube.com/v/z5MGJ87hPGw

Re:War of government against people?

[rmdingler]

OR

The Police are the civil servant equivalent of the 40ish divorced guy driving a Corvette.

Big weapons? Tim Taylor grunt...we have big weapons.

Re:War of government against people?

[Nidi62]

OR

The Police are the civil servant equivalent of the 40ish divorced guy driving a Corvette.

Big weapons? Tim Taylor grunt...we have big weapons.

Pretty much this. Their thought process is "so, what cool shit can we spend taxpayer money on that we couldn't normally get?". Now, I have no problem with a large or metropolitan police force buying a few surplus M-4s (even though, as police, they have access to better, new weapons for the same price), comm gear, or load-bearing harnesses to equip their SWAT team. But the average beat cop on traffic duty doesn't need a surplus M-4 sitting in his trunk. And they don't need a mine resistant vehicle. And if a major police force doesn't need one, a county sheriff certainly doesn't. I don't think you need an MRAP to do a raid on a methlab, or operate speed traps on that road where you randomly drop the speed limit 20mph so you can get ticket revenue to pay for your toys. If you are really concerned about officer safety in SWAT situations then buy one of these.

I remember once, about 3 years ago, I was officiating a high school football game on theoutskirts of a major metro area. On the sidelines were a couple local sheriff deputies watching the game and (I am assuming) working security for the game. One of them had to be a good 280lbs (and not muscle) loaded out in a tactical vest and harness, gloves, and sunglasses. He just wanted to look bad-ass (but looked like an idiot).

Re:War of government against people?

[Jane Q. Public]

This is the most relevant point:

the US is safer now than ever before.

And not just a little. FAR safer. Violent crime is less than half what it was 20 years ago. And even less compared to 30 years ago.

The only "increasing" violence is news-media propaganda. Because chicks hatching on the farm does not sell news.

In fact, some recent studies have concluded that it was news media coverage, and not guns, which led to copy-cat "mass" shootings on college and other school campuses. (But even so, and even though they are splashed all over the news, THOSE are way down, too, compared to 2-3 decades ago.)

American does not have "increasing" internal violence. It has decreasing violence.

And during the same period, it is interesting to not, per-capita gun ownership in the U.S. has gone steadily up. And also during that same period, concealed-carry laws have become much more common.

Statistics do not prove cause-and-effect. But a negative correlation can DISprove cause-and-effect.

We have more guns. (Per person!) According to our own government's statistics. Yet we have less violent crime. This is a direct, indisputable DISproof of the idea that "more guns equals more crime".

[Sources: U.S. DOJ, and for more recent years: U.S. Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics]

Re:War of government against people?

[mjwx]

OR

The Police are the civil servant equivalent of the 40ish divorced guy driving a Corvette.

Happy?

Re:War of government against people?

[mythosaz]

I'm pro-gun (or at least anti gun restriction), but it's hardly indisputable disproof.

Guns may be contributing to violent crime; other factors may just be having a greater impact the other way.

It's not my personal belief, but the logic just isn't there for your "indisputable" fact.

Re:War of government against people?

[Sir Holo]

If law enforcement needs this type of equipment, then it has long abandoned any pretense of serving the people and has instead reverted to its original purpose of fighting the people for those in power.

Indeed. "To protect and to serve..." has been perverted into "To protect (ourselves) and to serve (those in power)..."

Re:War of government against people?

[rmdingler]

Temporarily, if the shotgun seat is filled with sweet young ass.

Re:War of government against people?

[pkinetics]

And there in lies one of the many problems law enforcement officers should be complaining about.

Rather than spend the money on training and useful long term goals, they spend it on something that has little long term value.

Let's buy a white elephant!

Re:War of government against people?

[s.petry]

Well, I certainly agree with most of your points (I normally do) but have to debate one particular omission from yours and GPs comments. Violence by Police departments has escalated drastically in the same time as criminal violence has gone down. Police brutality is close to a daily occurrence today, and not just the cops manhandling a suspected felon but outright killing people.

Sure, some of this happened in the past but not to the extremes we are seeing today.

This has a potentially rubber banding effect on society. Oppressed people surely don't take the same chances as a "Free" public, bottled up it becomes rather explosive.

When police are increasingly violent I have more concerns about them receiving this type of equipment. They surely don't need an MRAP for stopping people speeding on the freeway, so why have this type of gear?

Since this is not a new phenomenon (militarizing police that is) I have done a bit of homework. The first reason for them to gear up this way is that DHS is selling us back equipment that the military purchased for Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a boost to the MIC, and a nice way to double tax us for the same equipment. Yes, DHS sells them for less money but still are selling them to local police. The next reason is obviously a Rambo effect, where cops think they are "cool" in this type of gear. Lastly, and more of a concern than the two previous is that a majority of police training today is geared toward attacking the public. There have been ample leaks from DHS training materials showing this to be true. Military and Law Enforcement agencies are using material claiming that "Patriots" and "Tea Party" type groups are potential terrorists.

There are many good links to find in this page here, pay special attention to the retired Marine Colonel in the 2nd video. Enjoy.

Re:War of government against people?

[fche]

Not just that. A key quote from TFA: "My job is to make sure my employees go home safe." Police leadership whose priority is on their own safety is more likely to view the populace as a problem instead of as the recipient of service. They are more likely to do no-knock night-time raids ... because if it saves just one [police] life, sure it's worth burning that baby with a flash-bang.

Re:War of government against people?

[overshoot]

might as well snap them up if the price is good.

And as Joe Arpaio has so beautifully demonstrated, once you've bought a toy like that, you have to find a use for it. Even if it's busting into a chicken coop with a light tank.

Re:War of government against people?

[rmdingler]

Mmmmm-Hmmmm... just north of Texico.

Re:War of government against people?

[pkinetics]

Holy buckets. They got a whopping 2 hours of training on the damn thing?!?!

Someone just secured a long term service support / maintenance contract on that beast.

Re:War of government against people?

[dala1]

A negative correlation does not disprove causation any more than a positive one proves it. To see why, consider a simpler example: Town A has 5 police per thousand people, and 3 crimes reported per thousand people every day. The next year, they increase the number of police to 7 per thousand people, but crime rates go up to 5 crimes reported per day.

Despite the negative correlation, this doesn't disprove the idea that having a greater police presence reduces crime. It could be that poverty rates went up due to recession, resulting in more crime and prompting politicians to increase police funding. It could be that the police are corrupt or inept, or that legislation changed such that committing crime is more profitable or less risky. There could be any number of explanations for that data that don't require causation.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, some recent studies have concluded that it was news media coverage, and not guns, which led to copy-cat "mass" shootings on college and other school campuses.

Nobody ever said guns lead to mass shootings, they are the means. You dont need fully automatic assault weapons, you just want them in fact no mass shooting has every been prevented by a private citizen who was coincidentally carrying an assault weapon and happened upon a mass shooter. Yes the NRA likes this fantasy and idiots buy into it to justify feeling like a big man carrying a big gun! And everybody likes to feel that if they had a big gun then they could stop anybody else that had a big gun.

More to the point is the ignorance of the part of the constitution regarding the "well regulated militia", but you dont want regulation and there is no well regulated militia at all. Same old braindead hicks only want to obey the bits of the constitution they like. And with the corruption of Congress and the overreach of the NSA why do these people still do nothing about it? The whole point is to have the ability to overthrow an oppressive government and it is pretty damn oppressive right now.

Which leads to another retarded issue with the 2nd amendment: You're a complete fucking idiot if you think your well regulated militia (which you ignore anyway) armed with assault weapons is any match for the government's military-spec hardware. Just another stupid attempt to justify your want for guns, saying you need them in case you have to take on the military is just another example of the inbred idiocy of some of the US population.

Re:War of government against people?

[Jane Q. Public]

I'm pro-gun (or at least anti gun restriction), but it's hardly indisputable disproof.

Yes, it is. Leaving guns aside, it's the way logic and statistics work together.

A correlation (we see lots of accidents involving cell phones, for example) does not imply cause-and-effect. There is often some outside factor (or even many factors) that influence the things correlated. A classic example, from Darrell Huff's "How To Lie With Statistics" is: the salary of Protestant ministers in the U.S. is strongly correlated with price of rum in Jamaica.

Does one cause the other? Of course not. The more likely answer is that general inflation (an outside factor) has affected both of them similarly.

But while a correlation does not prove cause-and-effect, a lack of correlation -- or more properly, a negative correlation -- can DISprove cause-and-effect. Example: something -- all evidence points to one animal -- has been killing your chickens. You suspect the neighbor's dog. So you start keeping tabs on when the dog is let out, and when it is in the house. It turns out, after examination, that whatever it is has been killing your chickens when the dog was locked up in the house. There is no dispute... it is indisputable that the dog wasn't there when the chickens died. This negative correlation between the dog being out and dead chickens has DISproved your theory that the dog was killing the chickens.

It gets a bit more complicated when the numbers go up but the same principle still holds. If your theory is that X causes Y, and you find a negative correlation, for example X goes up while Y goes down, you have DISproved that X causes Y. Otherwise, barring other outside influences, you would have (no dispute) observed that Y went up as X went up. Anything else contradicts your theory.

And in the gun-control debate, we have in fact had ample time and opportunity to control for other factors. And it is extremely important to note that try as we might, we have found no other causal factors that apply to the situation. Yet even so, as X (per-capita gun ownership and frequency of carry) has gone up, Y (violent crime of all sorts) has continued to go down. Therefore: X does not cause Y. Q.E.D.

There has been only ONE societal factor that has been found to satisfactorily correlate with the reduction in crime (see the movie Freakonomics, and that has been widely disputed.

Lacking any other evidence of outside factors, and even allowing for the one that (maybe) was found, we are still left with the simple mathematical fact that in the U.S., prevalence of gun ownership DOES NOT cause crime.

It isn't an opinion. It's as scientific as it gets.

Re:War of government against people?

[sycodon]

The Feds used one when they burned some 50 women and children to death in Waco.

Re:War of government against people?

[rmdingler]

If you risk cookies clicking a link a single time this epoch, this is the one.

Re:War of government against people?

[Nidi62]

Exactly. I live in a small isolated town. Population about 25,000. Next population center as big or bigger than us - about 75 miles. The incorporated area of our city is about 3x5 miles with a little bit of acreage properties out beyond that. 5 minutes outside of town and you are going to be driving for at least an hour before you pass anywhere with a population over 100. Our city has a mobile command post.... No place in the city is more than 3 miles from the police station/city hall, but we have a fancy RV with "mobile command post" stenciled on the side.

That is probably intended more for an EMA type role. Obviously you live in a rural environment; should any kind of disaster happen in your area, the mobile command post allows local autorities to move closer to the affected area, and should the town need to be evacuated for any reason they can maintain some semblance of central control outside the evacuated zone. In all likelihood it was purchased with a lot of help from state and federal agencies because they can draw on this capability themselves if needed. Isolated commuities actually need things such as mobile command centers because they probably have responsibility over a wider area than if they were closer to other communities.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no. If you went through college, your statistics professor needs to be fired. Please, please stop posting about statistics before you break something.

Re:War of government against people?

[ComputersKai]

Unless there's an all-out drug war where people are getting killed daily, like in Mexico, or some sort of civil war like in Somalia, why do the police need military vehicles.

Re:War of government against people?

[s.petry]

Anyone on Slashdot that complains about cookies surely lacks Adblock and NoScript knowledge, which your fault not theirs. The most relevant link on Youtube can be found here which still has tracking cookies.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fairness, there was a tip the chickens were cooking meth.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where the USA gets it WRONG.

Its the attitude which is the problem, not the gun.

In the USA it is acceptable to buy a gun with the intent to use it to kill someone (self defence, stand your ground, what ever you call it)
and the large number of hand guns posed for this purpose makes the attitude clear, " It is OK to kill people"

Other countries who have large numbers of guns dont have this attitude, in fact if authorities even think you want a gun for "self defence" you will be denied ownership and the use of a gun "for self defence" can see you charged with murder/man slaughter, because the idea of killing another human being is considered abhorrent .

Hence in these countries gun crime is lower, murder rates are lower and mass murder is pretty much unheard of.

The US population is paranoid, delusional, and frightened.
Freedom is not expressed by ones ability of own a gun and be able to shoot someone (in defence or what ever),
it is not needing one, knowing you are safe with your family, neighbours, fellow citizens.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Exceptionally good example of logic.

Call me less disciplined, but I am convinced that increased gun ownership actually causes crime to go down. Strict rules of cause and effect be damned - empirical evidence weighs in on my side. Time and again, when cities and states make gun laws stricter, crime increases. And, repeatedly, when gun laws are relaxed, there is a short initial period of increased violence, followed by a decidedly downward trend in crime.

Many criminals are just plain stupid, but not all. The criminal who is not outright stupid understands the risk of assaulting an armed citizen. Like any corporate shark, the common criminal is going to minimize his risks whenever possible. If he's pretty sure that 50% or more of his potential victims are armed, he is going to get very choosy about which victims to hit. Heck, even stupid people seldom WANT to be shot!

Further, the most dangerous cities to live in today, are precisely those cities with the strictest gun control.

The preponderence of evidence is enough for me.

Re:War of government against people?

[rmdingler]

I think you misunderstood.

I have cold milk and need cookies.

Re:War of government against people?

[AK Marc]

And lead has gone down. Why do you believe in lead in guns, but not lead in paint and soil?

Re:War of government against people?

[Nidi62]

How about pay raises. It's a crime what they pay police officers. They practically guarantee corruption. I don't see how those guys live on what they pay which explains why they're always moonlighting at 2nd and 3rd jobs.

In Atlanta I would have gone in making $45,000 a year base pay had I gotten a job with APD (I have a graduate degree). The job I do right now I am making $27000 a year and tops out around $50,000 a year. Yeah, it sure is a crime how little they pay police officers.

Re:War of government against people?

[s.petry]

Oh, my most sincere apologies. I happened to go back to the page after your post and did see that it's cross sited over half a dozen times. Less than CNN or other "mass" media sites, but enough that I did a "hmm" and figured it was an issue with one or more tracking cookies... Dang browser terminology messing with snacks again... :)

Re:War of government against people?

[Arker]

Your logic is also impeccable!

I would love to hear someone dispute this with logic. That I would know how to deal with. No one does that. They only dispute it with emotion, and with blind assertion, and refuse to believe it, but they can give me no rational reason to follow them.

Now sometimes it's more concrete. Sometimes you know the crackhead idiot down the road has wanted nothing more than to beat you to death with a blunt object for over a year, but will never get the stones up to try it, solely because he knows your family are gun people and he figures there's a good chance that you kill him if he tries. Sometimes, you know. The rest of the time, you dont know, but either way, it helps society in general, by lowering the crime rate, without doing anything, simply as an intimidation factor.

You see it even more clearly in the crime statistics when you break it down by type of crime and area. Rural areas have major economic problems that can definitely see some crime. But in areas where the typical household has what our pseudoliberal press would describe as an 'armory' the types of crimes committed are different. You see very few crimes that risk confrontation. People will sneak in and rob you when they are sure you are gone, but home invasions, muggings, etc are still unheard of. Old Grandad sleeping with a 12 gauge full of 00 next to his bed is not something the typical criminal wants to take any risks of dealing with.

Re:War of government against people?

[chihowa]

I got pulled over for speeding through a notorious speed trap in a little town with 400 residents and the cop walked to up me with no less than four 30 round magazines for his M4 strapped to his belt. There is quite literally no crime in this town besides people speeding on the stretch of highway that runs through it and he feels he must have immediate access to 150 rounds for a rifle. The mind boggles.

I couldn't help but actually laugh out loud at him when he waddled up to the window (which didn't help my suave talk-myself-out-of-the-ticket routine at all). It was almost comic in an over the top disturbing way.

Re:War of government against people?

[knightghost]

Therefore strict gun laws = fewer mass shootings, not no mass shootings.

No. Canada has a massive welfare system funded by their natural resource exploitation. They provide for mental health. The USA doesn't. There are a multitude of other cultural factors such as Canada being formed for Safety while the USA was formed for Opportunity, etc etc.

Re:War of government against people?

[viperidaenz]

USA is still pretty shit with a homicide rate of 5.2 per 100,000.
It's second-equal with Chile, beaten only by Mexico in the OECD countries.

The unsolved murder rate is pretty shit too.

Re:War of government against people?

[jedidiah]

Ready access to guns may not suppress violent crime but ratcheting up the gun laws certainly seems to do nothing to stem the tide. Assuming that gun laws are a reactionary, knee-jerk response to high levels of gun crime, the results don't seem very promising.

Perhaps something else is actually going on and fixating on guns is an easy way to avoid solving the real problem which is really hard and will make liberal busybodies squirm.

Re:War of government against people?

[stoploss]

It's a crime what they pay police officers. They practically guarantee corruption.

I agree, but for the opposite reason you purport. In my locale, we have cops retiring on full pension in their 40's. Furthermore, until a few years ago, the cops were all "spiking" their pensions so they were pulling down $100+k/year pensions (pension pay was based on the last 18 months of income better retirement, and they all loaded up on scads of overtime during their leadup to retirement). Actuarially, they are going to live another 30+ years while drawing these $100+k/year pensions. Of course, they will immediately launch into a second career after retiring in their 40's, so their income is actually the full pension plus their new career.

That's certainly a "living wage" *cough*.

The fire and police unions are driving my city into a race to the bottom. We are half a billion dollars in the hole for the pension fund thanks to these people.

The problem is that the police/fire unions have served as "kingmakers" for the mayoral elections for the past few decades. It's no wonder their contracts have gotten "recommended" enhancements by the mayors. We finally broke the back of the union kingmakers in last year's election... a candidate they opposed won, on a platform that included bringing the unions to heel. Hopefully we can claw back the criminal amounts we are paying these people.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the same anonymous coward, but you're wrong, and apparently your professors and textbooks are wrong too (or more likely, you misunderstood them).

Simple thought experiment: Suppose crime is going down at rate x due to some social factor, and going up at rate y due to more guns. If x > y then crime is going down as number of guns goes up.

Different topic, but you are the batshit craziest poster on Slashdot. It's clear there's no conspiracy theory too stupid for you to embrace. The thought that you are also a gun lover frightens me. I suspect that there are legitimate mental health reasons that you should never own a gun.

Re: War of government against people?

[s.petry]

I'm not sure where you get your news from, but the War in Afghanistan was not over in a week, and after more than a decade of occupation is still anything but "pacified". Your last paragraph is rubbish as well, but then again maybe you don't know how the Governments of both India and the USA were started (and those are just 2 easy examples). Oh wait, Ghandi and the founders of the US just said "please" and the British military left them alone right?

Re:War of government against people?

[ArcadeMan]

only a small portion of them will be able to use guns at all and the rest will have to resort to things like knives and insults.

That still leaves a huge problem unsolved.

Re:War of government against people?

[wagnerrp]

Town A has 5 police per thousand people, and 3 crimes reported per thousand people every day. The next year, they increase the number of police to 7 per thousand people, but crime rates go up to 5 crimes reported per day. Despite the negative correlation, this doesn't disprove the idea that having a greater police presence reduces crime.

Ahem... I hate to have to tell you this, but yes it did. The simple fact is: you had greater police presence, but crime went up. Your hypothesis has been disproved.

In an uncontrolled study, it disproves nothing. The data could be a result of gun proliferation reducing crime. The data could just as well be a result of gun proliferation increasing crime, only for those crime levels to be affected more strongly downwards by some other independent cause. You can't simply plot a bunch of statistics and call it a day. You have to exhaustively search through a large enough data set to definitively isolate that single variable amongst all others.

If you find "stop, drop, and roll" ineffective while someone is pouring gasoline on you, you haven't disproven the technique, you're merely found one situation in which other factors are overriding it.

Re:War of government against people?

[jedidiah]

There is nothing wrong with the attitude.

There should be a place that a man and his family don't have to retreat from. This what makes you a man rather than a peasant. This is what makes you something other than property.

The idea that you aren't allowed to defend your family is what is really abhorent here.

Re:War of government against people?

[pepty]

Violent crime is down, way down. Why ask, let alone assume, whether law enforcement is purchasing this kind of equipment for practical rather than political reasons?

Re:War of government against people?

[Arker]

There is no difference between what you said and what he said, except that you clearly present what you said as a rebuttal. Most confusing. Did not rebut at all.

Re:War of government against people?

[jedidiah]

The retard in question couldn't even get his basic terminology straight. Clearly the other guy didn't put any effort into his original claims. Why should the rebuttal require less indifference?

Gun grabbing busybodies are like Apple users. They are ignorant and they are fiercely proud of their ignorance. This includes information about the guns themselves, and violent crime in general, as well as the likelihood that they will ever be victims of violent crime of any sort.

When a retard can't pretend to take the subject at all seriously, why continue with civilized pretense?

Re:War of government against people?

[lister king of smeg]

If law enforcement needs this type of equipment, then it has long abandoned any pretense of serving the people and has instead reverted to its original purpose of fighting the people for those in power.

While I am generally against the militarization of law enforcement agencies I diasagree that there is no reason for any of them to have these for example my counties sheriffs department has several similar vehicles but It has used them for emergency vehicles during the last three major flood events we have had including, a 100 year flood and a 500 years flood. So these can have other more benign utilitarian uses for law enforcement agencies.

Re:War of government against people?

[jedidiah]

> Read the article. It's for SWAT teams not every day police. These are needed to stop the occasional crazies who shoot up places, not a conspiracy by the man to persecute slashdotters.

A competent marksman and a good bolt action rifle is all you need to deal with such a crazy.

You see, all of the reasons that can be dreamt up to take guns away from civilians can be applied equally well to civilians that wear a badge.

The convenience factor of an AR-15 is useful in a number of ways but not strictly necessary.

Re:War of government against people?

[pepty]

Canada?

Is that the country with strict gun laws that just had a mass shooting where the killer was at large for several days?

But no, such an event in a country with strict gun laws doesn't fit the narrative you want to hear, now does it?

Canada? The country with 1/4 the firearm related death rate and 1/7 the firearm related homicide rate as the USA? Is that the narrative you were looking for? Obviously they need more guns up there for self defense against mass killers.

Re:War of government against people?

[joelgrimes]

Violent crime is less than half what it was 20 years ago. And even less compared to 30 years ago.

I wouldn't argue with your points - or even your conclusion, but it should be noted that that same time period also coincides with the wide adoption of 3-strikes sentencing laws

California's murders peaked at 4096 in 1993. 3-strikes passed in 1994 and the murder rate has dropped almost every year since. It's now less than half what it was before 1884 in 2012.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It is entirely possible to have a scenario where some factor is driving crime down faster than gun ownership is driving it up. The fact that it hasn't been found is about as important to this discussion as the continuing problems reconciling quantum gravity with general relativity is important to launching a rocket to the moon. (Hint, it isn't)

2. The fact that Northern Europe has less gun ownership and less crime than the USA implies that this factor that drives crime more than gun ownership does in fact exist.

3. By your logic, you have also solved NP != P. I mean, try as we might, we haven't found ANY P-time solutions for an NP problem, and we've had ample time to find one, so that's good enough for a rigorous proof right? No?

Oh, and btw, Mr. I've Taken Lots of Logic and Statistic classes, an appeal to authority? Really? Good lord.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Police shootings are not violent crime. The prisons are full. The sooner local government bands of thugs can wipe out a city block at a time, the sooner the National fascists can back to the job of not caring. You Americans really deserve this. You have your armies acting like police and your police acting like armies. How is THAT for a relevant point?

Re: War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the man who lives in a perfect world. Bad people are out there, simple fact.

Re:War of government against people?

[dala1]

Let's try a simpler example.

Students in a chemistry class study an average of 6 hours for a test and get a C for their class average. The next week, the same student study an average of 1 hour for their Interpretive Dance class and average an A..

Despite the negative correlation, this doesn't disprove the idea that studying improves grades. Most likely, grades are positively correlated to studying but negatively correlated to class difficulty.

Re:War of government against people?

[gl4ss]

it's not a warzone, nor are there more violent things to respond to.

however, the sheriffs have become pussies. so they'll rather try to have their own swat them for swat slapping on people rather than risk being shot at.

the funny thing is of course that if he bothered to do his job he would know every single troublemaker in the 13 thousand strong county.

Re: War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Self defense is a human right (see Locke). Any government that tries to take that right away from you needs to be removed from power.

Re:War of government against people?

[Hategrin]

According to this Ad Absurdum logic, dropping sand-bags in an at-risk hurricane zone actually causes the hurricane. Ever see hurricanes hit where NOBODY is getting prepared? No? Well, there you go, responding to a hurricane caused that hurricane, just like responding to a flux in gun violence caused that flux in gun violence.

PS: I don't advocate the removal of any of our constitutional rights, just the abandonment of shitty logic. Don't look so surprised, of course your regurgitated politically rhetoric is going to contain a dozen logical fallacies, it was drummed up to incite argument, not to dig into the root causes, that might *ghasp* bring closure to the argument and no politician wants that.

Re:War of government against people?

[Shadowmist]

Lastly, and more of a concern than the two previous is that a majority of police training today is geared toward attacking the public. There have been ample leaks from DHS training materials showing this to be true. Military and Law Enforcement agencies are using material claiming that "Patriots" and "Tea Party" type groups are potential terrorists.

This is not an unfounded concern. America has had periods where every now and then it became fashionable for whackos to gather in para-military groups put together frequently in reaction to progressive strides the country had made. In the post Civil War period it was the Klu Klux Klan drawn originally from Ex-Confederate troops. In more modern times there were Fascist and Nazi-Sympathizer BUNDS that would form for pretty much the same motivation only with anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism spiced with a good deal of anti-immigrant hatred. When you put this together that the largest recent surge in gun ownership was not driven by a reasonable fear of crime, but the unreasoned fear by the election of a Black President, lots of things tend to add up. These studies aren't targeting the Tea Party, they are a recognition that the Tea Party DOES draw in a lot of the extreme whacko type among it's members. Gun ownership and crime are harder things to track, but what we are seeing in a new wave of shootings is a rise of impulse shootings, which have no real clear end to them... not even the survival of the shooters. So when it comes to trying to correlate trends in gun ownership, the real question to be asked is who's now buying guns in greater quantities than before. If the rise is that of the impulse, especially fear or angst-driven buyer than the decrease in crime is DESPITE the increase in gun ownership, not because of it.

Re:War of government against people?

[DMUTPeregrine]

Gun laws have a big problem: there are already tons of guns in the US. Guns last a long time, even a poorly maintained gun will generally still fire, just not accurately. This means that a decrease in availability of guns to criminals will lag the decrease to law-abiding citizens by decades.

Re:War of government against people?

[cgriffiths]

It isn't an opinion. It's as scientific as it gets.

Your post is opinion, there's some pseudo-science within your post but ultimately it is a biased opinion. By following your statistical analysis above by considering only two factors: rise in gun ownership and falling violent crime figures, you are coming to a very short sighted conclusion. There are many other arguments out there which could have been a larger contributing factor than more gun ownership such as outreach programs, changes in judicial sentencing, changes in public perception to specific factors of violent crime, heck even the BBC published an article on how removing lead from petroleum/gasoline in our cars has a strong correlation with reduced figures in violent crime.

I'm not educated enough in social policy to comment on what changes in society would have had an impact on violent crime levels but you can't state that guns do not cause crime from the figures mentioned previously. Causation of crime comes in many forms, some that we understand and some we are yet to discover. For all we know other factors may have been more influential in reducing crime during that period than the impact of guns in circulation on increasing crime.

You also have to consider that many crimes wouldn't exist or wouldn't be so accessible if it weren't for gun ownership such as school shootings [1] , armed robberies [2] and homicide [3] .

I'm neither pro- nor anti- gun ownership, I live in a country without firearms and that's fine by me. I do see merit in firearm ownership when regulated properly to the extent where any person who has taken a test in firearm safety, is of a stable mind and hasn't committed a violent crime [4] in the last 5-10 years can own a firearm but this I will tolerate only with strong regulation.

---

[1] How else would you go on a rampage in schools or other buildings? Sure you could use a knife, sword, axe or whatever else you choose but ultimately your attack range is gonna be a lot less allowing a lot more people to escape unharmed and a lot easier for people to overpower you if they so dare.
[2] I mean armed in the sense of being with a firearm. A quarter of robberies of commercial premises in the U.S. are committed with guns. Fatalities are three times as likely in robberies committed with guns than where other, or no, weapons are used.
[3] In the U.S. in 2011, 67% of homicide victims were killed by a gun. There is little doubt that many of these victims would have been murdered if there no were no guns about since those who have the intention to do so and have planned it will do it without firearms. However having ready access to a gun for an enraged, unstable individual wanting to harm another because of a form of dispute is definitely going to have an impact on crimes which weren't planned.
[4] Obviously murders, attempted murders, brutal assaults and the like will prevent them ever owning a firearm and the time frame can be varied depending on the severity of the crime.

Re:War of government against people?

[amicusNYCL]

might as well snap them up if the price is good.

That's what I noticed about the list of things they bought at the end of the article. They're getting M-14 rifles for $120 each, .45 pistols for $58.71, M-16s for $120, etc. Hell, if I was getting discounts like that I might buy an armored vehicle also.

That being said, a sheriff saying that America is a war zone when it is clearly not and using that as an excuse is pretty damn worrying. If you want better equipment, fine, say that. But when I walk outside my house, a war zone is not what I see. Sort of makes you wonder that, if America is a war zone, who are the police fighting against?

Re:War of government against people?

[TubeSteak]

Well, I certainly agree with most of your points (I normally do) but have to debate one particular omission from yours and GPs comments. Violence by Police departments has escalated drastically in the same time as criminal violence has gone down. Police brutality is close to a daily occurrence today, and not just the cops manhandling a suspected felon but outright killing people.

I would question this conclusion.
I'm inclined to think that the police have always been brutal, the only difference now is increased reporting (and video recording).
As a point in case, the proliferation of cell phone video has led to a proliferation of lawsuits against police who have confiscated phones or arrested the videographer.

It's something of a society wide problem, where in the past we didn't have a grasp on the extent of many problems, either from willful blindness or unintentional ignorance.

Re:War of government against people?

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

So just a counterpoint of logic:

Hypothesis: A increasing leads to B increasing.
Measured: A increases, B does not.
Revised hypothesis: A therefore does not lead to B increasing, since there is a negative correlation.
Reality: A increasing leads to B increasing, C increasing leads to B decreasing. During the measured period, A increases and C increases. If the effect of C increasing exceeds the effect of A increasing, then B decreases.
Result: By not measuring or accounting for C, the measured results appear to be a negative correlation between A and B.

The difficulty in a scenario like gun control is in the elimination of outside influences in the study. Unless all of the influences are accounted for, then negative correlation can mean that there is no causal relationship, or it can mean that the causal relationship is being overwhelmed by some other factor. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Re:War of government against people?

[vux984]

If law enforcement needs this type of equipment,

RTFA. They don't need it. They KNOW they don't need it. They freely agreed they'd prefer a smaller, lighter, more practical civilian police vehicle like a BearCat but that costs $200,000 to $300,000. That 55,000 lb MRAP listing north of $700,000 only cost them a measly $5000 as army surplus.

Hell, even a police issue dodge ram, with typical law enforcement upgrades is going to cost an order of magnitude more than $5000.

OTOH, although they got the MRAP for $5k, its going to be a beast on gas, and god help them if or when they need to replace any parts on it.

I guess if they actually need something even lightly armored, if this thing runs for a year or three and they can turn around and sell it for 55,000 pounds of scrap metal after that they probably actually saved the taxpayers some money vs operating something else.

The news here isn't that the police are looking to arm themselves with military gear, its that they are on tight budgets and military surplus is overkill specs, but is a lot cheaper than suitable civilian gear.

Re:War of government against people?

[Hategrin]

You act like the criminals have no choice of who they rob. If they know a house is home to "gun people" they'll just target the guy down the street. Anyway, I'm not going to argue that point. Just look up the amount of homes registered as owning a gun with relation to time, you'll notice gun ownership by household doesn't change very much (no where near 50%, hyperbole? really?) whether or not "strict" gun laws are in place.

So like you said, criminals aren't stupid, they'll just pick a home that doesn't have "gun people" in it, and really, it's not going to matter if that house has 20 AKs, only one, or a couple of handguns, you can only shoot one or two of them at one. As for the rest, I'm going to have to call bullshit on your statement that laws preventing the ownership of 6 or more guns causes 50% of gun owners to disarm themselves.

Re:War of government against people?

[Cl1mh4224rd]

...as X (per-capita gun ownership and frequency of carry) has gone up...

Can you provide a citation for this? A quick search indicates that gun ownership in the U.S. has actually been declining.

Re:War of government against people?

[Hategrin]

PS: If you really have no pretext for this discussion, the only "strict gun laws" that ever get passed are "assault rifle" bans and limits on the number of firearms a person can own. Like i said, neither of those things are going to cause anyone to disarm.

Re:War of government against people?

[Pseudonym]

If I had mod points, you would have them all.

This is the flip side of the military-industrial complex. Wasting money in pointless wars results in a crapload of military surplus gear. Savvy cash-strapped police departments are buying them, using bullshit excuses about safety (which everyone knows are bullshit, but who's going to argue with officer safety) when what they're actually doing is using taxpayer money wisely.

Re:War of government against people?

[517714]

The number of (what you mistakenly believe are) assault weapons in the US has more than doubled in the last decade, yet their use in violent acts has not. If there were any truth in what you suggest, violent crime in the US would have risen with the increased per capita gun ownership. If people want them, who are you to suggest that they should not have them?

Re:War of government against people?

[Arker]

I honestly think gun ownership is a secondary, in some cases almost extraneous factor.

In regards to Europe, Scandinavia (where I have lived) actually has a higher rate of firearm ownership than the US. Yet very little violence. And why? It's cultural.

The US is home to the most violent at least of the more developed cultures on earth, if not absolutely. We have been at war constantly since WWII. We have set ourselves up unilaterally as the world policeman, and we are constantly bombarded with propaganda to justify it. The ultimate result of that is a constant increase in militarism, and in the fundamentally mistaken belief that violence is the proper and appropriate way to sole problems of all sorts. And that in turn means that we will have high and climbing rates of violent crime regardless of material circumstance.

Take away all the guns and all you will do is disadvantage the older people and empower the young thugs with knives and blunt objects. Reverse the underlying rot, and violence will decline, even if every person in the country were issued an 'assault rifle.'

Re:War of government against people?

[517714]

"Armed" meant with the most sophisticated military weapons available. Several of the earliest engagements in the American War of Independence were made in response to the British seizing artillery and heavy weapons, that was fresh in the minds of those who wrote and signed the Constitution. "Armed" is used without limitation in the second amendment.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not pro-gun, but I'm anti "disarm the citizens", and the fact that a Venezuelan-like disarmament [1] really doesn't work. I've read people on /. saying that the nationwide gun ban reduced firearms violence in Caracus by a factor of 1000... but looking into it, it made the average person there more at risk than before.

There are reasons the US has a lot of violent crime:

1: The news media cheerleading shooters as modern day war heroes. In fact the shooter that went to town during Memorial Day got far more coverage than real war heroes. The shooter got his biography painstakenly covered, his insane manifesto covered like it was a masterpiece of literature. This just gets copycats ready to go do the same thing because they know that they will get their message heard, and a monument with their name at the school. Look how the Columbine shooters have "inspired" copycats because of their coverage.

2: Drugs. Both the illegal and prescription type are common in the US, and either destroys basic common sense. That is why crimes in the US tend to be smash and grab, while in Europe, they tend to be deliberate and methodical. Meth is not an issue in Europe as it is here. Meth causes meth-style crimes, which are super violent. Once treatment consists of rehab than lockup in private prisons, violent crime would drop by a large margin.

3: Playing factions and races against each other. The US would be a lot less awash with crime, even at its relatively low levels [2], if the pissing contest stopped and people actually voted for properly funding police/fire/EMS, and not just more stadiums for sports teams.

4: Lack of education. Again, the media shows the first resort of situations is using an axe, not an aphorism.

[1]: Easy to do -- have something that can't be measured like "mental health" as part of the background check... something that nobody can pass, just like the concealed carry law in NYC which sets the bar so high, nobody but the crooks and police carry.

[2]: I remember when friends of mine in NYC were almost certain to get mugged every so often. Now, because of people not carrying cash, I've not heard of a mugging from a first-hand source in over a decade. Anecdotal evidence, but the fact that people carry no cash these days have gotten the guy with the Saturday Night Special out of the back alley.

Re:War of government against people?

[TheDarkMaster]

That's true... North-americans have the most violent culture I've ever seen. Violent sports (american footbal, basketball, ice hockey) violent schools (bullies can do whatever they want and the victims is that they are penalized if they react) and a way of thinking and acting violent where others around never have rights. And the thing that bothers me most is that my peers do not seem to care even a little to copy this culture within my country...

Re:War of government against people?

[theshowmecanuck]

Canada does not provide for mental health in any meaningful way. The government talks a good talk but that is it. If you don't have private insurance that covers mental health, you don't get access to anything except family doctors prescribing pills. There are basically no psychologists in the public health system and very, very few psychiatrists such that the only sure way to get access to one is to be hospitalized or committed to an institution. The Canadian health care system does not cover everything. It does not cover dental, nor prescription drugs, nor mental health care, and oddly you often have to pay out of pocket for a podiatrist.

The natural resource sector does not pay for any welfare, any more than any other business does in its taxes.

Seriously, where the heck did you get your information? You must have just made it up on the spot.

Re:War of government against people?

[ShaunC]

Hell, if I was getting discounts like that I might buy an armored vehicle also.

If you live in Indiana, maybe you already have. It's taxpayer money buying these things, after all, and buying them for the second time. We already paid for the damned things once, when they were built and sent off to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Re:War of government against people?

[CodeBuster]

One argument against registration is that we cannot be sure how those records will be used by the government or who might obtain or misuse them in the future. We have already seen some media outlets publish names and addresses of gun owners and types of guns owned from information that probably shouldn't have been publicly available. A very handy tool for convicted felons looking to steal a gun, among other potential abuses. However, even that's just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what future governments might do with this information or whom they might expose it to? Giving information to the government is dangerous because it gives governments or their allies the ability to control others through threats to publish the information, or selective publication of the information or blackmail or any number of other nefarious uses. We have already seen with our phone and email records that the government cannot abstain from mischief. Why should we trust them with a registry of every gun owner in America?

Re:War of government against people?

[gandhi_2]

It depends how it is measured.

If you take polls relying on self reporting, then yes, the numbers are slightly declining.

If you take the number of NICS background checks then the numbers are up.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.c...

Most states have no registration at all. I can buy or sell a gun to another private citizen I don't have to tell anyone, as long as it's not an NFA item. I can even mill out my own un-serialized rifle that no-one knows about (talked about in a previous /. article on 3d printed guns)

Even the number of NFA classified items (machine-guns, suppressors, etc) are up.
http://www.businessinsider.com...

If only 1 in 5 of the NICS checks resulted in a sale, then gun sales from stores alone outpaced the us population increase.

The gun industry actually sailed through the recessions like they never happened, and gun-industry jobs grew like 30%. People will be retiring off the money they make selling ammo with crazy markups.

My state's concealed carry program has been off tha hook as the kids say.

Re:War of government against people?

[gandhi_2]

license = permission slip.
a citizen doesn't need a permission slip.

registration = list of houses to raid.
a list that has been used time and again by totalitarian governments, including GB.

laughing stock? you live by government permission slip... like I give a fuck what you think.

Re:War of government against people?

[AK Marc]

Don't you remember Die Hard? 1988, the LAPD has a tank. Everyone wanted one after that. The War on Drugs funded lots of military gear for the police. Some confiscated or from confiscated proceeds, other from direct federal grants.

Lots of military gear out there, and for a long time.

Re:War of government against people?

[gandhi_2]

take out the 5 most left-wing anti-gun cities and we around the 5-10 safest countries in the world.

Ahh.. Mexico. Where private gun ownership is forbidden.

Re:War of government against people?

[AK Marc]

Nobody has previously done anything with registration in the manner you describe. The disarm acts have all been broad, and they don't focus as much on those on lists. You could just hand it to your neighbor, and be done with it. So they go door to door disarming everyone. The nice thing about the almost-ban places is that suicides are lower (because the most sure-fire method is not available) and one of your worries about gun theft is small. Because you can't get a fun without demonstrating a safe, secure place to store it (in a safe). So invasions for gun thefts are lower when they know the guns are secured, and you have to fight with people to get them to do things before you can steal their guns.

There is a registration of every gun buyer in the US already, so I don't understand your objection anyway.

Re:War of government against people?

[RespekMyAthorati]

All perfectly true, provided there are no other factors at work, and that is one hell of an assumption.
The fact that you don't know of any other factors doesn't mean squat.

The other issue is that prevalence of guns in the hands of criminals most definitely produces a more dangerous society.
And where do the criminals obtain these guns? By buying them from irresponsible gun dealers,
and by stealing them from irresponsible gun owners.

Re:War of government against people?

[camperdave]

Or, in other words, there's an open window in the basement allowing the dog to get in and out when he is supposedly "locked up"

Re:War of government against people?

[Splab]

How is it, you think that you can disprove something with the same argument, that you used to say can't be used for proving?

I live in a Country where guns are banned, and you know what? Crime with guns are exceedingly rare; they are hard to come by and aren't needed - if you want to rob someone, chances are they aren't carrying any kind of weapon and will give up their cash without problems.

Now obviously you paranoid 'Muicans will think that this is a bad thing, allowing yourself getting robbed - but truth is, we have lower crime rate than you guys *and* when someone does get robbed and choose to fight, they have a way better chance of survival than your gun shot victims.

By the ways, those "statistics" you mention, they are from the same period of time, where lead was dropped from gasoline, which has been *shown* to cause aggression and violence.

Re:War of government against people?

[SuricouRaven]

Irresponsible gun owners? It's not that easy. The only way a gun owner can keep their gun from being stolen is to store it in a secure gun safe, bolted to the structure of the building. But this defeats the purpose of the gun as a tool of self-defense. If someone breaks into your house, you can't spend a precious minute in the dark fumbling around with a key or trying to enter a combination, making noise that will alert the intruder. You need to be able to grab your gun in seconds, ideally loaded and ready to use.

Re:War of government against people?

[TubeSteak]

The first reason for them to gear up this way is that DHS is selling us back equipment that the military purchased for Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a boost to the MIC, and a nice way to double tax us for the same equipment. Yes, DHS sells them for less money but still are selling them to local police.

I must have missed that the first time I read your comment.

The original cost was $700,000.
The cost to ship back to the USA and refurb is $250,000 to $300,000 per vehicle
The cost to local police is $5,000.

How is that possibly a "double tax us for the same equipment"?

Every war that the USA has been in, we've tried to destroy, give away, or sell as much as possible instead of shipping it home.
I'm honestly surprised that the military is bringing anything that big home and selling it to state/local authorities for pennies on the dollar.

Re: War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep feeling yourself that, maybe eventually it will make it true. Because right now statistics don't support your emotional position.

Re:War of government against people?

[Rakarra]

Town A has 5 police per thousand people, and 3 crimes reported per thousand people every day. The next year, they increase the number of police to 7 per thousand people, but crime rates go up to 5 crimes reported per day.

Despite the negative correlation, this doesn't disprove the idea that having a greater police presence reduces crime.

Ahem... I hate to have to tell you this, but yes it did. The simple fact is: you had greater police presence, but crime went up. Your hypothesis has been disproved.

I put a gallon of 50-degree water in a stock pot, put it on the burner and heat it for a few minutes. Then I pour in a gallon of 35-degree water and measure the temperature -- 43 degrees, less than the original. Have I just disproven the hypothesis that putting cold water on the burner makes the water warmer? No, of course not, because I didn't control for other variables.

You certainly can't say, given all the various variables that were changing, that greater police presence reduces crime. It does disprove that a greater police presence will ALWAYS reduce crime in EVERY circumstance. But that's a useless conclusion.

Re:War of government against people?

[Rakarra]

This is just full of stupid.

Re:War of government against people?

[sir-gold]

I agree in this case. Being the only reasonably big town in the middle of nowhere makes you the middle of a 3 ring circus when a natural disaster hits. The more communications capability you have, the better off you are.

Hopefully they were smart enough to make sure the thing actually operates on civilian frequencies, and not just the military ones.

Re: War of government against people?

[Rakarra]

I'm no tea party faithful, but calling them a "para-terrorist organization" is going a bit far.

Re:War of government against people?

[oobayly]

While I completely agree with you on the violence being cultural rather than due solely to firearm ownership rates, I do have to disagree with you about Scandinavia having higher ownership rates. According to this the US (89/100 people) has 53% more firearms per person than Serbian (58/100 people) who is second in the list. Sweden and Norway are ranked 10th and 11th respectively with almost 32/100 people.

This is a list of privately owned firearms, not possession, so state owned firearms (like in Switzerland) are not included. However to bring the possession rate of Sweden up to the ownership rate in the US, the government would have to give a firearm to every 2nd person.

One of the reasons why gun control works isn't because it stops sociopaths doing crazy things, it works because it's a lot harder to damage with a knife than a TEC-9 in one hand and a shotgun in the other. I was appalled when I came across this page detailing US school shootings while looking up the numbers.

Re:War of government against people?

[sir-gold]

Maybe some states would finally have suitable vehicles to use as snow plows, when they suddenly get more snow in 24 hours that they usually get in 3 years

Re:War of government against people?

[Areyoukiddingme]

And that in turn means that we will have high and climbing rates of violent crime regardless of material circumstance.

We have neither high nor climbing violent crime rates. They are low and have been getting lower for 30 years. See other posts in this thread for citations.

The constant propaganda isn't causing us to be violent. The constant torture porn movies aren't causing us to be violent. Rap music isn't causing us to be violent. Pile it all up and still we're getting less violent all the time.

Re:War of government against people?

[Areyoukiddingme]

It is entirely possible to have a scenario where some factor is driving crime down faster than gun ownership is driving it up. The fact that it hasn't been found...

It may have been found. There is a remarkably close correlation to the reduction of lead in gasoline to the reduction in violent crime. The downward trend in violent crime follows after lead is banned, and it follows the ban consistently even when the ban occurs at different times in different places with otherwise similar cultures and economic conditions. Nobody has traced the biochemical pathways yet, but it's the best candidate discovered in many years.

Re:War of government against people?

[Areyoukiddingme]

There has been only ONE societal factor that has been found to satisfactorily correlate with the reduction in crime (see the movie Freakonomics, and that has been widely disputed.

Especially because it isn't the only societal factor that correlates. Bans on lead in gasoline correlate, and correlate much better than the availability of legal abortion. Lead was banned from gasoline at many different times in different jurisdictions. The trend in violent crime reduction follows afterwards in all cases, at the same interval. It's the best candidate yet for explaining the change.

Re:War of government against people?

[rtb61]

Lets not forget in performance based law enforcement the definition of violent crime was changed some years back in order to make the numbers look better "In the FBIâ(TM)s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault" http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cj..., in most countries and earlier in the US all assaults and threats were violent crimes. Also people are becoming more afraid of reporting crime in the US as a result to violent interactions with law enforcement.

As for guns, you only look at crimes committed with firearms not all violent crimes. Reality here is out of the mouth of the Sheriff himself, their primary role is protecting and serving law enforcement and the public are part of the war zone, the enemy. I can't believe that idiot said it out loud, you Americans really are screwed, not that you don't deserve it. You taught them all in Iraq and the Iraqis suffered for it and then you hired them as law enforcement and now you lot are suffering for it, Nelson Muntz laugh is most appropriate here https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... Shootings by law enforcement have of course risen out of control. Armoured cars and machine guns, shaven heads and testosterone supplements, hiring for lower IQ's, arrest based performance measures, yep, that's going turn out well, uh huh, it's a fucking war zone alright and the public is not the enemy, at least in the US.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Social science is bs. Well, big part of it is. Correlation does not DISPROVE or PROVE anything. If I take population of people, remove guns and then examine violent crime rates I'll get some crimes, but zero shootings. If I give 50% of them guns I'll get shootings. If I give 100% of them guns, give everyone nice basic income, give everyone that wants meaningfull jobs, but also remove all drugs, alcohol, and enforce everyone to be at their homes by 6pm the amount of violence will go way down. (wife beatings might go up, but who knows without alcohol and drugs)

50% gun ownership has more shootings than 100% in that scenario, but it had nothing to do with the amount of guns.

Re:War of government against people?

[tchdab1]

That's often what happens in a war zone. That, along with lots of expensive and abandoned gear that turned out to be useless.

Re:War of government against people?

[gandhi_2]

if you are operating a vehicle on private property, you don't need a permission slip.

licensed jobs.. people. doctors, engineers. We could have a great argument here on /. about barriers to entry, but licenses for those positions have nothing to do with a license for a person to own a piece of property. engineers and electricians are licensed though boards, usually at the state level, and the standards are set by others in that profession. it isn't a permission slip to own a device.

your car analogy was closest. the people analogy, other than the word "license", has nothing to do with this topic.

and then you resort to this stupid meme, so as to belittle me for my position.

your position boils down to "everything should be under the state. and i should decide what people can have." like a little bitch.

Re:War of government against people?

[Areyoukiddingme]

And as Joe Arpaio has so beautifully demonstrated, once you've bought a toy like that, you have to find a use for it. Even if it's busting into a chicken coop with a light tank.

Wile E. Coyote would like a word with you...

Re:War of government against people?

[Calavar]

Further, the most dangerous cities to live in today, are precisely those cities with the strictest gun control.

Those cities enacted gun control laws because they were already the most dangerous cities. The effectiveness of those gun control laws is up for debate, but you got the cause and effect completely backwards. And you're modded up +5 Insightful. God, what's happening to Slashdot these days?

empirical evidence weighs in on my side

Sure, some of it does. But there is at least an equal amount of evidence supporting the opposing side of view, unless you ignore Japan, Hawaii, and articles like this and (yes, you read that right, The American Conservative) this and this.

My hunch is that there is probably little to no correlation between gun control and crime rates. So gun control is probably not a good way of curbing crime. But claiming that the evidence is irrefutable that more guns equals more safety is patently absurd. It's just as bad as the NRA claiming that armed teachers in every school would have prevented Sandytown. (Maybe it would've, but we'd have four or five instances each year of clueless teachers injuring a coworker with an accidental discharge or killing a student they "swore had a knife.")

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the fact that the USA's major source of violent crime comes from fewer than fifteen counties (that's right,counties...not states), logically, the remainder USA must be a remarkably safe place to be, despite all of the guns, all of the media violence.

The US has very poor areas with low violence rates, very rich places with low violence rates, and it has places where the very rich and the very poor share the same relatively cramped geography. The trend is the violence is most often found in the latter. My belief is the greatest contribution to violence is wildly varying income disparity.

Re:War of government against people?

[Arker]

"This is a list of privately owned firearms, not possession"

Not only that, it's a list of *registered* privately owned firearms. Double that to get a very conservative estimate of approximate actual numbers (these are countries with utterly absurd, though rarely enforced, firearm laws which strongly encourages owners to forget to report) of privately owned firearms, then figure in a militia system similar though certainly not identical to Switzerland, and I am confident for Sweden at least the number is higher than the US.

Anyone in Sweden that wants access, not just to hunting arms but to squad or even platoon level military weapons, could lay their hands on them easily. This is a country where Moose hunting is not only an ancient tradition, but a practical necessity, and theoretically universal military service is tempered by an eagerness to excuse anyone that does not want to be in class as quickly as possible so the rest can get on with it. For generations the military has been geared for a resistance war against the 'Eastern Foe' which means there are weapons caches scattered quite thickly and it's a practical necessity that a great many people have access to them.

The rest of Scandinavia I have less direct experience with I will admit, but my impression of Norway and Finland would lead me to expect them to be somewhat similar, particularly Finland.

Re:War of government against people?

[iserlohn]

First of all, the level of firearm ownership in an area does have an effect on the firearm homicide rate. It correlates -

http://ajph.aphapublications.o...

Violent crime has gone down in most of the industrialized world over the past 3 decades, regardless of whether a country restricts firearms or not -

http://rgambler.com/2013/11/03...
http://jpo.wrlc.org/bitstream/...
http://www.economist.com/news/...

However, America's violent crime rate is much higher than most developed countries -

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

The growing consensus (in public policy circles at least) these days is that it is not gun ownership that is causing this violence, but the American gun culture -

http://www.businessweek.com/ar...
http://world.time.com/2012/12/...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/t...

The problem is that we keep looking at gun ownership rates The Swiss has high levels of gun ownership, but they also have a very strict culture of gun safety and training. Men are required to undergo military training and be in the reserves for 10 years, keeping their sealed army-issued firearm at home or in the Zeughaus, for use in case of invasion. Thus, they have lots of guns, but little gun crime.

Now, the question is how do you measure gun culture? In America you have this issues with two main groups poisoning the culture - the gangs and the "don't tread on me" types. How can you design a study to measure the effect of this culture on gun crime?

Re: War of government against people?

[dave420]

You seem to have difficulty reading people's meaning in their text, beyond the literal at least. You seem rather socially awkward, which would explain your desire to tell everyone that you are a senior blah-whatever at where you work (according to you, anyway). You are weird. I wish you the best.

Re:War of government against people?

[Tom]

While I agree with you this is corruption, if the choice is between a union that moves government money into the pockets of at least some citizens vs. a lobby group that moves government money into the pockets of the 0.01% then I'd rather have the former.

Keep watching and check where the new candidate moves the money to.

Re:War of government against people?

[Tom]

The problem is that the USA has dug itself deep into a hole and getting out is hard.

Once you have guns in the population, stricter gun control laws lead to a shift of the existing stockpile towards criminals, which probably results in higher crime. Basically: The criminals still have all the guns they used to, while the citizen don't.

Gun control laws don't work short-term. They only work long-term, if you manage to actually remove the existing guns from the population.

Re:War of government against people?

[toutankh]

While I completely agree with you on the violence being cultural rather than due solely to firearm ownership rates

I don't know if you imply a dichotomy here, but there most certainly isn't one. Yes, there is a culture of violence in the USA. And yes, allowing everyone to own guns is part of this culture of violence.

Re:War of government against people?

[lgw]

Different topic, but you are the batshit craziest poster on Slashdot

Wow, you must be new here. Jane barely moves the needle, by /. standards! The batshit crazy people around here have been perma-banned and post anyway as AC, stalk people and post dozens of replies to their foes. I miss the GNAA trolls, they were mild by comparison.

Re:War of government against people?

[lgw]

Why is there any dispute? In the cities, it's crack cocaine. The various people who mugged me when I used to be the pizza guy were all getting money for a fix. And, thanks to their own success, they're all dead now. Some problems solve themselves. Meth is nasty, but crack was nuts.

Re:War of government against people?

[lgw]

There's certainly not a registration of every gun buyer in the US. Whatever gave you that idea? Did you imagine that the only way to buy a gun is from a FFL dealer? Private sales and gifts are perfectly legal and paperwork free in any sane state (excepting automatic weapons).

Re:War of government against people?

[lgw]

If you can't handle the responsibility of being self-sufficient in regard to supplying your own safety/defense, don't try to demean others who are grown men and can do so.

Hey! Plenty of grown women are self-sufficient for their own defense thanks to gun ownership too!

Re:War of government against people?

[sFurbo]

Yet even so, as X (per-capita gun ownership and frequency of carry) has gone up, Y (violent crime of all sorts) has continued to go down. Therefore: X does not cause Y. Q.E.D.

One time-series is not enough to prove or disprove anything, especially when the data from other countries is so discordant (AFAIK, the US have always had a high level of gun ownership and a high level of violent crime, compared to other developed countries). Do we have county-level statistics for gun ownership and crime over time? That would allow for much more convincing conclusions.

Re:War of government against people?

[philip.paradis]

There are many variables you haven't accounted for. Quoting from Crime in the United States:

In 2011, the state with the lowest violent crime rate was Maine, with a rate of 123.2 per 100,000 residents, while the state with the highest violent crime rate was Tennessee, with a rate of 608.2 per 100,000. However, the District of Columbia, the U.S. capital district, had a violent crime rate of 1,202.1 per 100,000 in 2011.

D.C. has a long history of highly restrictive gun laws. Why then does D.C. have double the violent crime rate of Tennessee, and one hundred times that of Maine? It's also worth noting that Maine has very few restrictions on gun ownership. See how this works?

Re:War of government against people?

[viperidaenz]

Which cities are those?

Re:War of government against people?

[dunkelfalke]

This game can be played almost anywhere. Take out the 5 most violent cities and voila, welcome to a safe country.

Re:War of government against people?

[AK Marc]

So there is a record of every FFL sale, yet you agree with me like a gigantic ass. Every gun in the US has a record. It may not be up do date, but there is a record of sale for every gun. Would you disagree with that? Or agree again in the most disagreeable way again?

Re:War of government against people?

[blackest_k]

If chickens are only getting killed when the neighbors dog is locked up then you can say the neighbors dog is not killing any chickens when its locked up, something else is.

If some chickens are getting killed while the dog isn't locked up the dog might be killing chickens, or it might be guarding chickens or have nothing to do with the killing of chickens.

Seems like you need to be watching the chickens to find out what is killing them.

Farmer at the back of me last year was having problems with dogs killing sheep (3 dogs running together in the early hours usually) I actually saw the dogs one time and heard them a couple of times as did other neighbors we never saw the dogs individually going after sheep or find out whose dogs they were. In the end the farmer got a donkey which bonded with the sheep and after that no more sheep have been killed to date.

Seems like the ram was capable of stopping an individual dog but got mauled badly with 3 of them working together, with the donkey on side the attacks stopped but we never did find out where the dogs were coming from.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

Watching this thread of the three of you talking about logic is one of the most painful things I've ever seen on Slashdot.

Yes, the logic is fine, but the fundamental premises being used as starting points are not.

Jane Q Public uses a very simplified example of a dog, and uses that simplified example to try and justify her jumping to a conclusion in a far more complex scenario when the two have absolutely no relationship whatsoever. It's about as valid a logical argument as saying my username is Xest, which is true, thus it must also be true that guns increase crime. Obviously that's completely fucking stupid. She washed away the whole basis of the discussion with "It gets a bit more complicated when the numbers go up but the same principle still holds." which is completely not logic. It's an affront to logical argument.

Runaway1956 used the premise "Time and again, when cities and states make gun laws stricter, crime increases. And, repeatedly, when gun laws are relaxed, there is a short initial period of increased violence, followed by a decidedly downward trend in crime." which is false. In the UK increased restrictions on gun ownership actually show the opposite pattern. The idea that there's any kind of consistency in the evidence that more gun ownership results in less crime is completely and utterly false.

Now you hold this up as an example of impeccable logic, you accuse others of debating only with emotion. Guess what you're doing? Guess why you were willing to turn a blind eye to these blatant gaping holes in their arguments? Because you're not interested in logic, you're interested in emotion.

Throwing up words like logic and coming to potentially incorrect conclusions because of flawed foundations to an argument doesn't suddenly make the argument logical. Realistically there are far too many factors to ever reach a genuine logical conclusion as to the impact of guns, if you're pretending otherwise like you three have then you're simply full of shit.

It's an emotional debate because there's always scope for doubt in any evidence that can be introduced into the discussion. If there was a simple demonstrable way to prove one way or the other the effect of guns then the debate would be over, but no such thing exists, or likely ever can exist. So talking about armouries deterring confrontational crime and the like is just equally meaningless bollocks, especially given we've seen the exact same decrease in the UK of confrontational crimes but instead correlating with less guns.

Re:War of government against people?

[shrewdsheep]

Negative correlation is proof in the very same way as positive correlation. You probably mean absence of correlation, which, on the other hand can never be proven. The only thing provable is that correlation is below a predefined threshold, i.e. small.

Re:War of government against people?

[gandhi_2]

it is actually a bit a stretch.

1st thing, the US is actually not that bad. with 4.8 murders per 100k people, we are no-where near the bad part of town.

on the other hand, here are the top 5, from data in this 2012 report.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cj...

city and m/100k
detroit 54.58
baltimore 35.01
philadelphia 21.50
memphis 20.23
chicago 18.48

subtracting the population and murders from the US, and the US moves to around 4.1. removing DC and we move to 4.09.
cities containing 2% of the US population account for 11% of the murders.

Re:War of government against people?

[rioki]

Although I generally agree with you, the Swiss example is slightly misleading. Yes almost every Swiss male under 30 has an army issued assault rifle at home, but not the ammunition for it. They used to have a problem with homicides where enraged husbands shot or threatened their wives. They used to have one or two clips of ammunition with the rifle as to be combat ready any time. They figured that any invasion would not happen so sudden and as a result the ammunition is now stored centrally and handed out on demand. The result is a significant decrees in homicides.

Re:War of government against people?

[rioki]

You know what also reduces crimes? You will find a significant better correlation between wealth disparity and crimes. If you want to fight crime, you should focus on getting people off the street and humane living conditions. But you know, that would be evil and socialist...

Re:War of government against people?

[RabidReindeer]

I'm pro-gun (or at least anti gun restriction), but it's hardly indisputable disproof.

Guns may be contributing to violent crime; other factors may just be having a greater impact the other way.

It's not my personal belief, but the logic just isn't there for your "indisputable" fact.

Actually, a lot of the most recent attacks have involved knives.

I don't know that any sort of weapon "contributes" to violent crimes, but the more powerful the weapon, the more carnage is likely to ensue, whether it's from rapid automatic-fire weapons or pressure cookers.

What contributes to violent crimes is inability to defuse the violently-inclined person before the crime is committed.

Re:War of government against people?

[iserlohn]

You are right. To put things in perspective though, the requirement to keep ammunition centrally at the armoury is relatively recent (2007), and even before, gun crime in Switzerland is relatively rare.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

Well, given that the AC is absolutely right and that you've jumped to a conclusion based on a misunderstanding of cause and effect and lack of understanding of the importance of confounding factors I'd say that the more likely people that are wrong are your statistics professors and logic professors and whatever textbooks you supposedly read.

Maybe you should've gone to a better school where the teachers and textbooks are actually correct?

Re:War of government against people?

[crakbone]

Your statement was "There is a registration of every gun buyer in the US already, so I don't understand your objection anyway." That is not the same as "Every gun in the US has a record"

Re:War of government against people?

[shutdown -p now]

Shootings happened 40 years ago just the same, but the police didn't ask for MRAPs. It's such a statistically rare case in any given place at any given time that there's no point preparing for it beyond some ballistic armor and riot gear for the officers.

On the other hand, when they're always in "we're fighting a war" mental mode, they start behaving like that all the time - all those countless "wrong door" raids with innocent people beaten up and shot, dogs killed as a precaution or because they were agitated etc. A lot of police brutality in this country can be traced back directly to that warzone mentality.

Re:War of government against people?

[dinfinity]

Ah, so it's the lefties that are violent.

You have absolutely no clue how urbanization works, do you?

Re:War of government against people?

[HJED]

And in the gun-control debate, we have in fact had ample time and opportunity to control for other factors. And it is extremely important to note that try as we might, we have found no other causal factors that apply to the situation. Yet even so, as X (per-capita gun ownership and frequency of carry) has gone up, Y (violent crime of all sorts) has continued to go down. Therefore: X does not cause Y. Q.E.D.

And yet crime in other Western Countries (ones without guns) has gone down similar amounts, so either increased guns in America causes lower crime in other countries (unlikely) or there are other factors that you have not controlled for. By Occams Razor the latter is much more likely.

Re:War of government against people?

[maestroX]

And not just a little. FAR safer.

Increasing guns per capita safer? Sounds more like doomsday prepping to me

Re:War of government against people?

[Ginger Unicorn]

Just speaking purely from the logical perspective, it could be the case that gun proliferation has no impact on crime rates or it increases crime rates, but that there's some other independent factor that has driven crime down to the extent that the impact of guns is hidden. I'm not arguing for one side or the other. I'm just pointing out that the logic, that negative correlation disproves a claim, isn't airtight unless you control for all the variables.

Re:War of government against people?

[philip.paradis]

Don't forget the problem of keeping guns from getting back into the population at any given time. This goes back to the same issue you first spoke to: criminals will still obtain guns, and those who respect the law of the land won't. Essentially, I put this whole discussion into much the same frame as the "war on drugs," meaning things can't be uninvented and attempts to overly regulate many of them may result in more net harm than good.

Re:War of government against people?

[Tom]

put this whole discussion into much the same frame as the "war on drugs," meaning things can't be uninvented and attempts to overly regulate many of them may result in more net harm than good.

That's not true. Many countries have strict gun control laws without the insanity of the USA, meaning both the "war on drugs" insanity and the crazy homicide rates.

Re:War of government against people?

[stealth_finger]

There is nothing wrong with the attitude.

There should be a place that a man and his family don't have to retreat from. This what makes you a man rather than a peasant. This is what makes you something other than property.

The idea that you aren't allowed to defend your family is what is really abhorent here.

You're perfectly allowed to defend yourself/family. A gun isn't the only means of doing so.

Re:War of government against people?

[viperidaenz]

I hear Detroit is horrible, you have to take a test and register your guns with the police!

Re:War of government against people?

[AK Marc]

Yeah, so? I've amended it. I have the flu and was imprecise. "There is a registration of every (new) gun buyer in the US already,"

Re:War of government against people?

[u38cg]

Correlation does not work like that. It is likely there have been many other effects working over the years, in particular the astonishing drop in the prices of consumer goods. Yes, crime is complex and has many interlinked causes. However, the ability to carry out a mass shooting relies entirely on the shooter having access to suitable weapons.

Re:War of government against people?

[peragrin]

i would say lead in paint would be a better factor. less people would drink gasoline. but lots of kids would like the walls.

Re:War of government against people?

[peragrin]

except in Europe crime has gone down even farther, and they have even stricter gun laws. so how can you be right and wrong at the same time?

Re:War of government against people?

[Raenex]

That being said, a sheriff saying that America is a war zone when it is clearly not and using that as an excuse is pretty damn worrying. If you want better equipment, fine, say that. But when I walk outside my house, a war zone is not what I see. Sort of makes you wonder that, if America is a war zone, who are the police fighting against?

It's just a bullshit excuse for some redneck yahoo sheriff of a 14,000 person county to buy an expensive man-toy.

Re:War of government against people?

[BigZee]

Even if what you (and others above) say is true, the US still seems to be particularly violent. Whilst violent crime may be coming down, it still seems logical to remove the tools of violence. I can see a use for rifles and shotguns for hunting but handguns in particular have no use or purpose in a civilized country.

Re:War of government against people?

[Lumpy]

Agreed. But remember Fear sells, and that is what the gun haters have on their side.... fear.

Re:War of government against people?

[felrom]

There are many ways to obtain a gun in America, with varying levels of records of it being recorded:
1. Buy or transfer a gun through an FFL, in which case a Form 4473 is filled out and kept by the FFL. The ATF, in the course of an investigation can get a copy of this form to see who bought the gun. The ATF cannot legally go around making copies of all 4473s to create a database. The information from the 4473 is required to be kept on file with the FFL for at least 20 years, at which point he can start purging it. If he quits being an FFL before then, he turns it all over to the ATF to keep the records for future investigations. So a few guns that are sold through an FFL will eventually have no record, if he holds the FFL for 20 years after the sale AND decides to destroy the record.

2. Buy a gun in a private sale, assuming your state doesn't require this to go through an FFL (in which case, see #1). Most states require no record keeping for this. Where I live, my only responsibility under the law is to be reasonably sure that the buyer is not prohibited from owning guns. That means I ask, "Are you prohibited?" and if they say no, I can sell it to them with no liability.

3. Receive a gun as a gift. Most places treat this the same as #2.

4. Make your own gun. Most states don't require you to register a gun you made yourself. You must be making it yourself, for yourself. If you later decide you don't want it, you're supposed to transfer it to its new owner via an FFL. Making a gun yourself is much easier than it sounds; I've built an AR15 for myself, it has no serial number on it, there's no 4473 for it anywhere, and it's 100% legal.

So, methods 2,3 and 4 can create new gun owners with no record of it, and method 4 can create new guns with no record of it.
Method 1 can make new owners with no record assuming certain rare events: FFL in business long enough to start purging his books, or his store goes up in a fire and the records are destroyed, or thieves steal the records. In this case the ATF can only learn that a gun existed at some point; they have no idea who the original retail owner was, so their information that it existed is useless.

With home made guns, they don't even have that information.

So, NOT every gun in the US has paperwork for it somewhere, and NOT every gun buyer is on paperwork somewhere, and what paperwork does exist for some guns is 100% useless with regard to locating the gun or its owner.

This whole discussion doesn't even touch on the subject of a more important question: What good do records and serialization do when most guns used in crimes are stolen to start with? Despite what you learned by watching CSI, the answer is a resounding, "Not a whole hell of a lot."

Re:War of government against people?

[digitig]

Further, the most dangerous cities to live in today, are precisely those cities with the strictest gun control.

I'd like to see that evidence. Worldwide, that is, not just the USA.

And the time series of gun control and violence -- after all, it couldn't be that the gun control is a response to the violence, could it?

Re:War of government against people?

[Fuzzums]

Nice example, but as you already say: it is two effects that can be measured and evaluated separately according to the principles described by Jane...

Re:War of government against people?

[oobayly]

...and I am confident for Sweden at least the number is higher than the US.

So you arbitrarily multiply double the number of firearms, because of a feeling - basically saying that 30% of Swedes are lying about possessing unregistered firearms. Then you add the number of government firearms (920,000* + 32,652**) which adds an extra 10 firearms per 100 people, but keep in mind that only a small percentage of these may be in possession of a civil militia, however, and this is a big one - a Swedish colleague of mine said that they don't have government issued rifles in almost every house, like they do in Switzerland. Certainly I can find no mention of one online, so please link to some sources.

He did however say that he's heard of stories of weapons caches, but mainly among Hells Angels type groups who stole them during national service - but again I can find no solid evidence of that. Plus, it doesn't fit in with the idea of repelling an Eastern foe, more like a gang wanting a stash of weapons for turf wars, crime, etc. Moose hunting is a big thing, but do you really think that 30% of the population have an illegally owner firearm for something as public as hunting?

Even with your plucked out of the air numbers you haven't even reached gun ownership levels in the USA. And surely, if you feel it's ok to arbitrarily inflate gun possession level in one country, you should inflate it for the USA too, but you haven't.

* 920,000 in the defence forces
** 32,652 in law enforcement
Source: Guns in Sweden

Re:War of government against people?

[TheDarkMaster]

I live on Brazil, we are not hispanic (Is usually offensive to a Brazilian when a foreigner thinks he speaks Spanish). You will find it funny but I think the average Brazilian is less violent than it should be, here I live complaining to my countrymen that they do not react as they should when they are attacked and when they are cheated.

Re:War of government against people?

[nospam007]

I'm pro gun too, but nonetheless, it's my personal belief that without guns, there are no shootings.

Re:War of government against people?

[oobayly]

No I didn't mean to, for that reason I did state "solely" - normally I reread my posts to remove any ambiguity, but I think I was concentrating on the numbers part of my post. I certainly didn't mean to imply that gun ownership isn't part of the culture of violence.

Re:War of government against people?

[Electricity Likes Me]

There is nothing wrong with the attitude.

There should be a place that a man and his family don't have to retreat from. This what makes you a man rather than a peasant. This is what makes you something other than property.

The idea that you aren't allowed to defend your family is what is really abhorent here.

You're perfectly allowed to defend yourself/family. A gun isn't the only means of doing so.

Also apparently no place in this fantasy for women who aren't the property of men apparently.

Re:War of government against people?

[ThatsNotPudding]

The Feds used one when they burned some 50 women and children to death in Waco.

Whelp, now we've heard from Cliven Bundy.

Re:War of government against people?

[dave420]

Your post is so full of nonsense it's bewildering how you managed to fit so much into two sentences.

First off, the "anti-gun" cities are separated from "pro-gun" cities by porous borders, making their gun control less than perfect - serious gun control laws work, as have been demonstrated by the countries in which they have been instituted.

Secondly, private gun ownership in Mexico is far from forbidden, with over 3,000,000 registered, legal guns in private ownership (in 2012), increasing every year.

Thirdly, by your ridiculous metric every other country should be able to remove the 5 most crime-ridden areas/cities and restore the US to its rightful position as the second-most murderous country in the developed world.

But I guess it's easier to simply make excuses, or claim that the US's pathetic murder rate is somehow a feature and not a bug, than it is to admit something's wrong and needs to be fixed. Your attitude guarantees problems are never fixed.

Re:War of government against people?

[dave420]

I guess if you lock up enough people for petty crimes you can affect all sorts of other statistics... "Two wrongs", etc. etc.

Re:War of government against people?

[Opportunist]

Odd. It's near impossible in my home country to get a concealed-carry permit. Even private security usually needs to have a VERY GOOD reason to get one, and just being security is none.

Still, there are fewer crimes here per year than in and US town of the same size. Have been for ages, too.

Guns may or may not contribute to crime or the prevention thereof. But if you're serious about preventing crime, take away the reason for it. If people have something to lose, they will think twice about breaking the law. If the choice is to either hit you over the head for the 20 bucks in your wallet or starve, the choice is fairly easy.

Re:War of government against people?

[PopeRatzo]

I agree completely.

I live near my city's police academy and often walk my dog around the place (it is adjacent a large park). One day, I noticed a bunch of big trucks marked "Blackwater", that were unloading a bunch of military hardware for the cadets to practice with. They got dressed up in the black tactical gear and it had the atmosphere of a fraternity softball game. I sat in the park across the street with my dog and watched for the better part of an hour. It was terrifying, and I'm actually impressed with the quality of most of the cadets I encounter. They're a lot different than the old-school racist thug cops I remember from years ago. They're professional, educated and clearly ex-military. In a way, it's even more scary. These guys aren't going to be reaching for a donut, they're going to be reaching for military weaponry.

Yes, anyone in this country who is not very wealthy is seen as the enemy of the state.

Re:War of government against people?

[Shakrai]

In America you have this issues with two main groups poisoning the culture - the gangs and the "don't tread on me" types.

Who are the "don't tread on me" types killing? Oh, that's right, nobody.

The problem is the criminal culture, which we could significantly hinder if we ended the absurdity known as the "War on Drugs". The War on Drugs provides all the profit incentive criminals need to heavily arm themselves, while simultaneously destroying our communities (thus increasing violence) and alienating the most vulnerable among us from the police (thus making it harder to catch and convict the people doing the killing).

It's disappointing that I've scrolled this far down into a conversation about the para-militarization of our police and not one person has mentioned the WoD. I love 2nd Amendment discussions, but this really has nothing to do with RKBA. It has everything to do with our misguided policy of prohibition. What happened the last time we tried it? Violent criminals with a profit motive and an arms race with the authorities. Hmm, didn't see that coming....

Re:War of government against people?

[fey000]

But while a correlation does not prove cause-and-effect, a lack of correlation -- or more properly, a negative correlation -- can DISprove cause-and-effect.

Only in a closed system, unless you presume to have knowledge of the grand unifying theorem, and can thus explain every action in the universe.

Example: something -- all evidence points to one animal -- has been killing your chickens. You suspect the neighbor's dog. So you start keeping tabs on when the dog is let out, and when it is in the house. It turns out, after examination, that whatever it is has been killing your chickens when the dog was locked up in the house. There is no dispute... it is indisputable that the dog wasn't there when the chickens died. This negative correlation between the dog being out and dead chickens has DISproved your theory that the dog was killing the chickens.

Or, which is the recurring problem of the debate, there are two dogs, meaning that while your specific dog didn't kill the chickens, the biological family dog (Canis I believe) is responsible for the increased chicken mortality in the area. This is actually the same example as you first provide, with the rum and minister, except you have obfuscated the scenario.

It gets a bit more complicated when the numbers go up but the same principle still holds. If your theory is that X causes Y, and you find a negative correlation, for example X goes up while Y goes down, you have DISproved that X causes Y. Otherwise, barring other outside influences, you would have (no dispute) observed that Y went up as X went up. Anything else contradicts your theory.

I like how "barring other outside influences" is mentioned only in passing here, while it is considered the key disrupting factor in scientific statistical analysis, something a lot of very smart people spend a lot of time on accounting for and avoiding.
And X going up with Y going down only works when X is the entire environment. If X is merely a part of the environment (as in both of your examples) it proves that X is 1: negatively correlated to Y, or 2: X is not correlated to Y but something(s) else is, or 3: X is correlated to Y while something else is stronger negatively correlated to Y. Given that these three points can be proven without any analysis, it does not seem the statistical addition shed much light on the facts.

And in the gun-control debate, we have in fact had ample time and opportunity to control for other factors. And it is extremely important to note that try as we might, we have found no other causal factors that apply to the situation. Yet even so, as X (per-capita gun ownership and frequency of carry) has gone up, Y (violent crime of all sorts) has continued to go down. Therefore: X does not cause Y. Q.E.D.

I love this. Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, Merck, GSK, and many, many other pharmaceutical companies are spending billions and billions of dollars on trying to control for all the factors of a single human being, and yet are unable to do so for approximately 19 of every 20 candidates that go to phase 3 trials. And here, all along, you ( though stated as "we" by which I guess you are referring to other paid members of NRA) have somehow managed to control for all factors of every human being in the United States. That is an impressive feat. Even more impressive, you have managed to reduce this incredible superhuman complexity to just two features, X and Y. Not even FOX News can boil the world down so succinctly. Well done.

It isn't an opinion. It's as scientific as it gets.

I shall leave the refutation of this part as an exercise to the reader.

Re:War of government against people?

[Electricity Likes Me]

It's illegal to have all sorts of property. The quickest answer is that you're definitely not allowed to have certain types and quantities of radioactive materials. Same thing goes for all sorts of chemicals - some because they're precursors, some because they're flat out dangerous if improperly used or stored and some because they just smell terrible.

So tell us again oh so succinctly how there's no precedent for it being illegal for private citizens to own property?

And then I'll tell you how I find it outrageous I can't just buy surplus plutonium from Russia...

Re:War of government against people?

[AmiMoJo]

And it is extremely important to note that try as we might, we have found no other causal factors that apply to the situation.

What about improved law enforcement techniques, CCTV, removal of lead from petrol, efforts to decrease violence in school children, increasing obesity, improving living standards and reduced poverty, distracting reality TV shows, increasing alcohol prices and tougher drink-driving laws, changes in the way violent crime is recorded and reported etc. etc. ?

Since crime rates have gone down in other countries where gun ownership has not gone up during the same time period it seems absurd to assume that there can be no other cause. Why could the factors at work in those countries not also be at work in the US?

Re:War of government against people?

[Shakrai]

but handguns in particular have no use or purpose in a civilized country.

Self-defense.

Re:War of government against people?

[njnnja]

But a negative correlation can DISprove cause-and-effect.

Unfortunately even that isn't true: see Simpson's Paradox. Not to pick on you, but it is really tough to make strong assertions one way or the other based on social science data. I think the best we can do is a Bayesian approach; start with some prior assumption based on ideology and personal experience, then adjust that prior based on the results of scientific studies. So in parent poster's case, his prior is that guns are pretty good in society, so the reinforcing data point that more guns = less crime makes his belief stronger. Someone whose prior is that guns are bad should probably not be as affected by that data (and if they are being intellectually honest, it would lessen their conviction that guns are bad), and someone who really had no opinion (if you could find such a person!) should be slightly more positively disposed to guns with that data. Of course, another study will typically come out shortly thereafter saying the opposite, so unless you get a series of studies all going in one direction, science will typically not change people's minds.

Re:War of government against people?

[Electricity Likes Me]

There's also the magic of budgeting where if you don't spend it all you don't get an increase the next year (and no one believes you when you say "well this year we do need more - but look at our previous savings!")

Re:War of government against people?

[AmiMoJo]

Macho bullshit. The best way to protect your family is to be a pragmatist. If someone points a gun at you or your family it's best to just co-operate and wait for them to go away. Your stuff can be replaced, lives cannot be. The statistics are quite clear. In cases where two people are armed and pointing weapons at each other one usually ends up being shot, in cases where only one is armed both usually live.

Most criminals don't want to murder innocent people. Aside from anything it draws a lot more heat from the cops than a simple robbery. By drawing your own weapon you turn a situation where they just want to get away quickly into one where they want to kill you first.

Of course, the most pragmatic thing to do is live somewhere where most criminals are not armed, but the US is locked into an arms race now so I'm afraid you are screwed.

Re:War of government against people?

[Talderas]

When you put this together that the largest recent surge in gun ownership was not driven by a reasonable fear of crime, but the unreasoned fear by the election of a Black President, lots of things tend to add up.

I would hardly call them unfounded. Wikipedia provides numerous examples of his pre-presidency gun control advocacy, which included urging prohibiting gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park, something that would cause most gun stores to shutter up over night.

Re:War of government against people?

[AmiMoJo]

I'm interesting to know where your logic ends. Do you think people should need a permission slip to own tanks, fighter aircraft or nuclear weapons? Is there some limit to your freedom to own things, particularly weapons? If so, are you just arguing that you are a little less under the heel of the government because you might take down a few MIBs before you die, or something else?

Re:War of government against people?

[Shakrai]

if the choice is between a union that moves government money into the pockets of at least some citizens vs. a lobby group that moves government money into the pockets of the 0.01% then I'd rather have the former.

Counterpoint: Your hypothetical 0.01% don't have arrest powers.....

Re:War of government against people?

[halivar]

Violent sports (american footbal, basketball, ice hockey)

We do indeed have some violent sports; but the fans can at least be guaranteed to make it out alive, unlike SOME sports. ;P

Re:War of government against people?

[Andtalath]

Violence is down, per capita, all over the world, and keep decreasing.

Not true for every country, of course.

But yeah, we really are moving toward a better world in some ways.
If we can just avoid some major pitfalls (ecological disasters, resource starvation, resource allocation) we are in for a brighter future.

Re:War of government against people?

[halivar]

If every American was separated by miles of trees and moose poop, we'd have less violence too. Also consider that we don't have real maple syrup; correlation may not be causation, but it is data.

Re:War of government against people?

[Talderas]

Those figures may be misleading. The bulk of that $250,000-$300,000 would be refurbishing the MRAP in order to be back in line with its military mission. The cost to ship one back to the US isn't going to be that high.

Overland shipping costs about $0.42 per mile for an MRAP in the US by rail. Shipping it by sea probably costs around $1.40 per mile. Shipping it by truck is probably around $2.50 per mile. Let's estimate about 10,000 miles from Karachi, Pakistan to the east coast of the US. Then from the east coast let's add another 400 miles to Indiana by rail and another 100 miles to get it to the end destination. So the total cost of shipping a single MRAP to Indiana is probably around $14,420 ($14,000 naval, $168 rail, $252 truck). I would have said the worst case scenario for shipping a single MRAP to wherever it's going to be roughly $60,000-$75,000 and that involves shipping it across the country by truck.

So I think reasonably, the refurb cost is around $220,000. So the big question, then is what the refurb cost entails and how much of it can be cut out while still delivering a servicable vehicle to local law enforcement. If it's being sent to the law enforcement as-is then the US government is only subsidizing maybe $10,000 per MRAP bought by a county (and the article did say it $5,000 was the lowest price). That's not including if there may be some subsidies from the Indiana state government.

Re:War of government against people?

[Stealthey]

We have more guns. (Per person!) According to our own government's statistics. Yet we have less violent crime. This is a direct, indisputable DISproof of the idea that "more guns equals more crime".

Here in Canada, we have less guns, less crime and less prisoners per capita than US. By your logic, this is absolute proof that guns are indisputable proof of the idea that, "More guns equal more crime".

Re:War of government against people?

[jellomizer]

The police needs a balance.
Actually we need a balance in a lot of areas.

But it terms of police when they are doing their job correctly, they will always want the best equipment they can get, so they are prepared for anything, they want rules and tools to make their jobs easier and safer. This all sounds Nobel and good.
However history has proven when such a force has too much safety and effectiveness it is at the expense of the freedom of the citizens they are trying to protect. Part of living in a free society means we must keep the forces meant to protect us in balanced where they have the tools and resources to do their job, but not free will to be above the law or to hinder on others freedoms.

Now I see the reason to get this stuff is because it is cheap, and effective. As the police see it, while it may be overkill, it is better safe then sorry and it is cheaper then the less effective alternative. However they fail to see it as a source of the police intimidating the public. Which means people will be less likely to call the police for problems and solve them themselves often with out as much care.

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

Jane Q Public's argument is sound. If the incidence of X increases while the incidence of Y decreases, X clearly does NOT cause Y. If X causes Y, then when X increases Y must also increase. The conclusion reached by Runaway1956 does not necessarily follow (it is a logical conclusion, although the logic is far from conclusive). Jane Q Public's argument is basic application of the scientific principle. If we have increased gun ownership couple with decreased violent crime, the theory that increased gun ownership leads to increased violent crime is disproven. This is insufficient to prove any other theory (such as that proposed by Runaway1956), but it is sufficient to disprove that theory.

Re:War of government against people?

[swillden]

And, repeatedly, when gun laws are relaxed, there is a short initial period of increased violence, followed by a decidedly downward trend in crime." which is false. In the UK increased restrictions on gun ownership actually show the opposite pattern.

Do they? The UK has historically had much lower levels of violence than the US, but since the UK imposed restrictions on gun ownership while the US relaxed restrictions, the gap has narrowed. Both countries have gotten safer, but the US has gotten safer much faster. In the early 80s the UK homicide rate per capita was 9X the US rate. Today it's 4X.

I'm not saying that supports those you're trying to contradict, just that I don't think your conclusion holds, either.

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

No, the negative correlation is not airtight disproof of the claim that increased gun ownership leads to increased violent crime. However, it puts the burden of proof on those who are making the claim that increased gun ownership leads to increased violent crime...and that proof needs to be more than "Well, this could be causing the decrease."

Re:War of government against people?

[Tom]

Counterpoint: Your hypothetical 0.01% don't have arrest powers.....

Errr... which country do you live in where the 0.01% have not yet bought the government and purchased laws that for all practical purposes give them their own legal system?

If you piss off a billionaire enough, I'm quite sure he can get you arrested or worse. It's amazing what enough money can buy.

Re:War of government against people?

[swillden]

If that's the explanation, then we should see and end to the decline in the US over the next generation or so.

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

UM, Washington,DC and Chicago both used to have gun laws that basically made it impossible to someone who was not politically connected, or a member of certain other edge case groups, to legally possess a gun within city limits. These gun laws were over turned by the Supreme Court not that many years ago.

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

Those cities enacted gun control laws because they were already the most dangerous cities.

After which they became even more dangerous.

Re:War of government against people?

[stdarg]

Well, let me check the Constitution of the United States real quick. Hold on. I'm doing a text search for "driver", "engineer", "doctor", and "electrician."

Motherfucker, what do you know, none of those words appear!

So wow I guess guns are special.

Re:War of government against people?

[swillden]

serious gun control laws work, as have been demonstrated by the countries in which they have been instituted

Do you have any evidence for that? I don't think it's true. As far as I can tell there are no countries that enacted tight gun restrictions and then had a significant decline in violence which there's reason to believe would not have happened anyway, per comparison with similar countries without restrictions. Merely observing restrictions followed by decrease in violence doesn't prove the point; if post hoc ergo propter hoc were valid, the significant relaxations in gun control in the US, followed by decreasing violence, would prove the opposite.

Re:War of government against people?

[TheDarkMaster]

This is not really related to the sport itself, is a problem caused by the crowd. That said, here we also have crowds who act more like animals than like civilized people.

Re:War of government against people?

[stdarg]

Well since they're violating the Constitution anyway, why don't the police do something actually worthwhile with their power and just go do invasive home searches of everybody who looks like a criminal?

That would probably get a lot of unregistered guns off the street.

And since we're not worried about the Constitution, no criticism of this plan based on laws or rights is valid.

Not living in Detroit myself, I would actually support this idea.

Re:War of government against people?

[hxnwix]

sorry, no.

Re:War of government against people?

[DarthVain]

A) He was at large for the whole duration of one day before giving up.
B) Canada has more Guns per captia than the US.
C) The long gun registry was scrapped by our current government. Canada does have slightly stricter handgun laws, however exactly zero hand guns were used.
D) This did not involved explosions, or killing 20 children. 3 Police officers died. While tragic, I believe that is called a Tuesday night in some parts of the US.

It *is* a big deal in Canada however. I can only think one one other instance in living memory in Alberta.

Re:War of government against people?

[Agent0013]

Of course, the most pragmatic thing to do is live somewhere where most criminals are not armed, but the US is locked into an arms race now so I'm afraid you are screwed.

Yep, and now we are getting into an arms race with the criminal organization dressed in blue commonly called "The Police".

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

>The best way to protect your family is to be a pragmatist. If someone points a gun at you or your family it's best to just co-operate and wait for them to go away.

Hey, if you cooperate, I'm just going to rob you. Not gonna rape you.

Mmm, now that you're cooperating, I'm gonna rape you. But at least I'm not gonna kill you.

Yeah, now that I've finished raping you, I don't need a witness.

Complying with a criminal just feeds the predatory behavior. Fighting back shows that you're not a soft target. Predators typically don't want to deal with something that's going to fight back.

Re:War of government against people?

[fair_n_hite_451]

And yet Canada - geographically the largest part of North America - is nearly universally known as a punchline for being unfailingly polite.

As someone said above, the so called "logic" being thrown around this thread is appalling.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way to protect your family is to be a pragmatist.

Not in the US. That's not the way assholes work around here. Maybe your criminals are just bad at their "careers" where you're from, but around here, they're pretty damned ruthless, even the stupid ones.

If someone points a gun at you or your family it's best to just co-operate and wait for them to go away.

No. Just, no. If someone points a gun at you or your family, then you or your family are likely going to get shot. Waiting for them to go away is more accurately described as waiting for them to shoot you and leave.

Your stuff can be replaced, lives cannot be.

Yes. Exactly. Shoot first so the criminal doesn't get the chance to. "Stuff" isn't in the equation at all.

The statistics are quite clear. In cases where two people are armed and pointing weapons at each other one usually ends up being shot, in cases where only one is armed both usually live.

Maybe in your pansy-ass (and yet mentally well-balanced) country, but not here.

Criminals have figured out that letting unarmed victims live is a one-way ticket to PMITA-prison since the "justice system" is so biased against someone even accused of a crime. Judgements are easily swayed by what should be described as a marketing campaign against a jury. And that jury will not be a group of your peers because the lawyers get to choose the jurors, and your public defender isn't going to give even a small fraction of a damn because you're a criminal. Since "dead men tell no tales" and all that CSI stuff is expensive and not worth the price of doing it for eighty-hojillion crimes a year (or whatever the statistics say), you and your unarmed family will all get shot for no other reason than the criminal didn't want you to testify against him.

That's why castle doctrines make it legal to put a bullet in him before he does so to you. It's not right, or good, or just, or anything that could be remotely justifiable except by the law of "fuck you, I got mine", which is really quite terrible. But at least the guy dying from a gunshot wound is the guy that decided to do something against the law rather than the victim. It's a marginally better outcome than the one you unwittingly suggested.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

You never threaten to kill a person. Never. So, don't expect a threat to kill to stop the zombie attacker, no matter his beliefs.

You just kill the bastard. No threats. No promises. No brandishing of weapons. No show of force. You pull your weapon out, aim, and squeeze. Lethal force will indeed have an affect. Your crazed zombie will hit the ground, and never harm another human being again. Who really gives a damn that he wasn't thinking rationally?

Re:War of government against people?

[netwiz]

Uh, no. The UK has 2000% and 800% higher property and violent crime than the US, respectively. The only thing they have the US beat on is murder, which is a bit of a special case as usually the victim and perpetrator know each other.

Re:War of government against people?

[AthanasiusKircher]

Thank you for this. It's astounding to me how many people here are arguing that lack of an observed correlation or a negative correlation is "indisputable" logic that there is no causal link.

I make no claims about the gun data stuff specifically. But in general, people need to read more about confounding factors, Simpson's paradox, and other COMMON statistical phenomena that can easily lead to ambiguous or even opposite numbers from what would be expected given actual causal relationships.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Root causes? We're a violent people - that is the root cause. WTF do you want to do about it? DNA testing, prior to birth, and all potentially violent babies have to be aborted?

Hell, we might as well be French then.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Point taken. But, you talk as if it might be a "good thing" to deprive citizens of firearms. See, that's the REAL problem with gun laws - they are unconstitutional.

Re:War of government against people?

[chihowa]

It's not only kids that like the walls. Adults are fond of them, too.

But anyway, you didn't have to drink gasoline to be exposed to the lead it contained. Burning leaded gas increased the amount of lead oxides in the air and in the dust layer on surfaces, both of which were easily ingested.

Re: War of government against people?

[s.petry]

If one or two of those statements were given I could see the possibility for sarcasm, with the 4 paragraphs given not a chance.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

That doesn't contradict anything I've said though, it's just a further example of my underlying point that there are too many confounding factors involved for it to be simple enough to jump to a conclusion based on simple correlation.

His argument was specifically that relaxation of gun control results in decreasing crime (after an initial peak) and that strengthening of gun control correlates with increasing crime. I was merely providing a counterexample, where strengthening of gun control results in decreasing crime, which is enough to act as a proof by counter-example that he is simply wrong, that as you clearly note, it's a far more complex equation than that.

I wasn't trying to get into the argument beyond that because unlike the above I do have at least some grounding in statistics and I know that I couldn't even begin to take into account all of the factors to come to a genuinely valid and logical conclusion. I know what my gut feeling is, but that makes no difference and unlike the folks above I'm not about to try and dress up my gut feeling with arguments that claim to be logically sound, but are demonstrably not.

I don't really have a problem with people stating their gut feeling on an issue and arguing why they believe it's true. I have a problem with people who clearly neither understand logical inference or statistics pretending they do to suggest what is really just their gut feeling has added weight beyond that which it actually does.

As an aside I think you have your figures backwards, it's the US' homicide rate that is 4x higher than the UK's, not vice versa. But regardless, even here you have to take into account so many other factors, what was the relevant difference in increase in police spending? is it simply a natural trend (itself based on numerous factors) that you get diminishing returns from measures to reduce violence the less violent a nation is for example? if lead is a factor, did the UK already have a difference in lead pollutants leaving it less or more scope to see gains from that? As I say, anyone pretending they know what the answer is and are suggesting their argument is more than just opinion based on the small handful of factors they've personally seen studied are either full of shit, or have done one of the most incredibly deep analyses of a complex massively multi-variable problem ever done. Statistically, it's more likely that they're just full of shit.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Your wall of text isn't worth wasting my time.

Chicago. Nothing more need be said. If you had a clue about facts, you wouldn't have written those first couple sentences, and I may have read your wall of text. CHICAGO!!

The most dangerous cities in the United States are cities with strict gun controls.

How 'bout that City of Fairies, located right next to Gay Bay? Oakland? Not many shootings there, but per capita, it is the THIRD most violent city in the United States. Muggings, knifings, robberies, on and on, and on.

Oh - while you're ranting against conservatives - how's the ultra-liberal city, Detroit, doing these days? Violent, dangerous, broke, bankrupt, and totally dysfunctional.

I mentioned "empirical evidence", did I not? The status that Detroit "enjoys" today is due to an empire full of wrong decisions, including gun control and reliance on police forces to maintain order.

Re: War of government against people?

[AthanasiusKircher]

If one or two of those statements were given I could see the possibility for sarcasm, with the 4 paragraphs given not a chance.

Given that the four paragraphs were filled with extremist easily falsifiable claims that anyone who knew enough to talk about such things would be aware of AND the context of what it was responding to... the sarcasm was pretty obvious.

Writers have been known to produce entire essays or even entire books written solely in a sarcastic/satirical way. Chaining together lots of over-the-top claims is often a big clue.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Here's another article for you to consider: http://www.law.harvard.edu/stu...

Armed teachers in every classroom WOULD have prevented Sandy Hook, quite naturally. That punk would have been stopped before he got into the first classroom if all the teachers had been armed. TWO of those women have been lauded for bravery, UNARMED. Just think what they could have done with a weapon!

Gun laws effectively declaw the females of the species, but fail to pull the teeth from the deranged, or from predatory males.

Gun laws are actually pretty damned sexist, when you think about it. Empower the women in your life - give them a 9mm for their birthdays!

Re:War of government against people?

[digitrev]

This only holds if every other variable has been controlled for. I think it's time for a thought experiment.

Let's say that the government of Ontario is interested in reducing health care costs. They have a hypothesis if there are more smokers, there will be more people diagnosed with lung cancer. So they look at the data and find that, while the number of smokers in the province has been decreasing steadily, the number of people diagnosed with lung cancer has been increasing. According to your logic, that means that the number of smokers does not cause an increase in the number of people diagnosed with lung cancer. But what if what actually happened is that people started getting tested more frequently for lung cancer, or that there was an improvement in the tests that detect lung cancer, so the numbers were going to rise anyway? Unless you control for other variables, it's really hard to make a judgment call.

Now, in the hypothetical situation where you only have X (gun control) and Y (violent crime rates) changing, and there are no Z (population), W (economy), A (political climate), D (weather), F (wealth disparity), P (inflation), Q (gun availability in nearby states), or T (number of police in the neighbourhood) factors fluctuating to complicate things, then, and only then, can you say that X and Y are in fact negatively correlated, and that an increase in X does not cause an increase in Y.

The point I'm getting at is that things are more complicated than the simple independent-dependent model that you seem to be pushing.

Re:War of government against people?

[swillden]

Uh, no. The UK has 2000% and 800% higher property and violent crime than the US, respectively. The only thing they have the US beat on is murder, which is a bit of a special case as usually the victim and perpetrator know each other.

You're right that I was looking just at homicide rates. However, that's largely because it's really hard to compare other crimes. Classifications are so different -- and in particular the UK classifies a lot of things as violent crimes that the US does not -- that it's hard to compare meaningfully. Reporting rates also have a huge effect. Murder is nice in that the definition and reporting are both very consistent throughout the developed world.

So, I'm not disagreeing with you, just pointing out that you need to take those numbers with a grain of salt. The UK may have a higher overall violent crime rate than the US, but it's lower (per US definitions) than the 8X you cite, and could even be lower than the US, though that seems unlikely.

Re:War of government against people?

[s.petry]

I'm inclined to think that the police have always been brutal, the only difference now is increased reporting (and video recording).

Five years ago, I believed this was the case but today I can no longer make the excuse. I agree that it would take scientific study to prove and measure, and would further agree that much of the perception is likely due to both my observation and an increase in reports. Hence why I stated Sure, some of this happened in the past but not to the extremes we are seeing today. I can't find, for example, any reports of gangs of cops beating homeless persons to death (which we have had several cases of in CA alone) or cops shooting into cars where there is no evidence of an armed suspect being inside (Cleveland is just 1 of 3 incidents in the last 8 months off the top of my head, add in DC and NM).

Re:War of government against people?

[gweihir]

Guns are force amplifiers. They do not cause violence but they amplify its magnitude. It can often be seen, for example, in police violence, where gun-less policemen would just restrain somebody physically, using guns they shoot and kill people instead.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

"Jane Q Public's argument is sound. If the incidence of X increases while the incidence of Y decreases, X clearly does NOT cause Y. If X causes Y, then when X increases Y must also increase."

No it isn't. What you say is only true, if, and only if there are no confounding factors that have not been taken into account and it's that fundamentally important point that she has completely and utterly avoided dismissing it as not relevant when it's in fact wholly relevant.

You're arguing, as she did, that if we have decreased violent crime in the face of increased gun ownership then it's disproven that increased gun ownership causes an increase in crime. This is completely false because there are many other factors involved and it could in fact be these factors that have resulted in the decrease in crime counter-balancing what would otherwise have been an increase.

If you increase the amount of guns available then it's perfectly plausible that the baseline amount of crime actually goes up, but that there is another completely different factor that is acting against it, such that without any change in gun ownership but with that factor crime would've instead decreased even further, meaning that more guns is still increasing crime, just that the increase is masked by something else causing a decrease such as better proactive policing measures in the same period to deter criminals.

I'm not saying this is what's happening, I have no idea what's happening because there are too many variables in play for you, me, or anyone here on Slashdot to know what the actual effect of gun control is, but I'm highlighting why Jane Q Public's argument is a fallacy with a plausible example.

To claim what you have is true, and to genuinely reach a sound scientific conclusion, you have to completely isolate the possibility of there being any additional outside factors that could've been the actual cause for the decrease in violent crime. Neither of you have done this, so neither of you are adhering to genuinely sound scientific principle but are applying a weak understanding of statistics and logic to reach conclusions that cannot be validly reached based simply on the information you have.

Re:War of government against people?

[swillden]

Er, yes, I meant to say that the US rate was 9X and is now 4X the UK's rate, not vice versa.

I agree that these things are hard to get a handle on. So hard that your claim of gun restrictions reducing violence in the UK is as unsupportable as the other comments in the thread.

Regarding guns and violence, I'm very interested in the topic (my personal opinion is that more normal, sane people with guns reduces violent crime, but that's a belief I can't support with statistics) so I follow all of the studies. So far it seems that every good study concludes that if there is an effect of gun control it's small to imperceptible, and that there's certainly no clear causal link between gun control and reduced violence.

Re:War of government against people?

[gweihir]

Good analysis. Additional problem is that the US population has been hammered with "we are the greatest country in the world" propaganda so long that many there believe that nonsense and do not even consider that better ways to do things may exist.

Re:War of government against people?

[turing_m]

Meh. Gun ownership is an extraneous factor as far as violence is concerned. If you want to see the primary factor, it's right on this page. Check out the sub-region section. Certain peoples have (much) greater proclivities to kill than others. Wherever people end up, they tend to exhibit similar homicide rates as a group to others of their same racio-ethnic group. This has all sorts of implications, like where you want to have your kids go to school, how you lower the crime rates if you are running a city or country, etc.

This hate fact will turn a lot of people purple with rage. But just keep telling yourself it's all culture, that no matter into what larger culture people are transplanted into, their behavior is similar, it can't possibly be genetic in basis. And yet whatever the cause is, this phenomenon is certainly predictive. For others this little factoid is hopefully enlightening. Have a nice day.

Re:War of government against people?

[gweihir]

However, for almost all practical purposes you are unable to and violence against your family is rare and unpredictable. Unless you stay together and on high alert all the time, the idea of "protecting yous family" with a gun, is just nonsensical.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. While firearms are the most 'popular' method of suicide in the US (where guns are relatively accessible), making them less available does *not* correlate to fewer suicides. Where firearms are *not* readily accessible, people attempting suicide use other means. When England banned guns, their suicide rate did not decrease, other methods just became correspondingly more 'popular'. Likewise for Australia, and Japan.

The rest of your post is purely supposition with no evidence to support it, and quite a bit of evidence indicating it is incorrect.

Re:War of government against people?

[gweihir]

No. This type of equipment just gives these opponents legitimacy. And it will be used against all other citizens as well once it is available.

Re:War of government against people?

[gweihir]

Actually, that is the original task of a police force.

Re:War of government against people?

[cerberusti]

X can inflate Y while Z suppresses Y, showing a downward trend in Y overall even though X is causing Y to increase over what it would be absent X.

The argument Jane used is not correct, as it ignores all other factors. The example given is correct and logical, but is not an acceptable method to disprove a statistical trend.

In order to do this you would need to be able to control for all other factors which could influence the result.

In the example this is easy, as they can lock the dog up and easily disprove the theory that the dog is the cause. In the case of correlation between gun ownership and violence, appropriate controls which would allow the correlation to be disproved in this way are not possible.

That said, I do prefer to live in an armed society (even though I do not personally own a gun.)

Re:War of government against people?

[gweihir]

Indeed. Asymmetric warfare at its best. The thing is this always makes matters worse and this way the war cannot be won, but the possibility of a cease-fire or peace-treaty (or the equivalent here) vanish. There people just look like violent, deranged bullies. Which they possibly are.

Re:War of government against people?

[Eunuchswear]

i would say lead in paint would be a better factor. less people would drink gasoline. but lots of kids would like the walls.

Most kids breathe.

Re:War of government against people?

[cryptizard]

How then do you account for cities with high amounts of gun-on-gun violence i.e. shootouts, gang violence etc.? They know that the other person has a gun, and it doesn't matter. Everyone has a gun. They are still shooting each other.

Re:War of government against people?

[Grishnakh]

Considering the fact that the USA's major source of violent crime comes from fewer than fifteen counties (that's right,counties...not states),

Do you have a source for that? I'd like to know which counties I need to avoid.

Re:War of government against people?

[Eunuchswear]

Those cities enacted gun control laws because they were already the most dangerous cities.

After which they became even more dangerous.

Less. Less dangerous.

Crime rates are going down.

Re:War of government against people?

[Grishnakh]

As the person you responded to said, the problem is keeping the guns from getting back into the population, especially into the criminal population. Those countries that have strict gun control laws that you speak of are likely UK and Australia, right? Well guess what else is unique about those countries? They're islands. It's relatively easy to prevent arms smuggling into an island, as compared to a large continental country that shares long, poorly-guarded (or unguarded) borders with other countries where the rule of law is weak. The US can't even figure out how to keep massive quantities of drugs from being imported from Mexico; how would it keep Chinese or Russian-made arms from being imported?

Re:War of government against people?

[Eunuchswear]

Men are required to undergo military training and be in the reserves for 10 years, keeping their sealed army-issued firearm at home or in the Zeughaus,

In my experience it was under the bed. When you stub your toe on a Stgw 90 it fucking hurts.

Re:War of government against people?

[Andrio]

"Further, the most dangerous cities to live in today, are precisely those cities with the strictest gun control."

Yes, but ask yourself this. Are they dangerous cities because they have strict gun control? Or do they have strict gun control because they're dangerous?

———————

Personally, I think crime is down because of the internet and technology in general.

Re:War of government against people?

[iserlohn]

So these people are nobodies now (this one just happened by the way, complete with a Gadsden flag)?

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06...

Whataboot this (spread of American values north)?

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

And this?

http://www.crimelibrary.com/te...

Of course, this -

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/p...

Re:War of government against people?

[Eunuchswear]

Who are the "don't tread on me" types killing? Oh, that's right, nobody.

Have you been hiding under a rock? Have you never heard of Jerad and Amanda Miller? Or Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo and some poor anonymous bystander?

Witnesses told police one of the shooters yelled “This is the start of a revolution” before shooting the officers. [...]

The shooters then stripped the officers of their weapons and ammunition and badges, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. They then covered the officers with something that featured the Gadsden flag, a yellow banner with a coiled snake above the words, “Don’t tread on Me.”

Re:War of government against people?

[T.E.D.]

Further, the most dangerous cities to live in today, are precisely those cities with the strictest gun control.

Yes, because there's no way that could possibly be an effect, rather than a cause. Just ask anyone in an inner city who's had a loved one shot to death about their abiding love of guns and desire that there were more of them on the streets in their neighborhood.

Re:War of government against people?

[Eunuchswear]

license = permission slip.
a citizen doesn't need a permission slip.

How do you know he's a citizen without a bit of paper from the evil government?

Re:War of government against people?

[iserlohn]

Furthermore, I wasn't really focusing on the actual killing by fringe anti-government elements, but the very presence of these people in the debate and their rather extreme attitude poisons the discussion around guns.

These people are of the type that believe more guns actually decrease gun crime. That's an absurd position that is proven to be wrong study after study.

Re:War of government against people?

[Luckyo]

That depends on what you're comparing it to. Gun crime in US is still extremely high (at least when compared to the rest of the world that's not at war, and some places that are). Gun murder however is very much down.

The reason is not in guns. The reason lies in the fact that trauma medicine has improved dramatically over last twenty years. A certain death twenty years ago is not just survivable but will walk away from hospital on its own feet in a matter of a few weeks today.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

"I agree that these things are hard to get a handle on. So hard that your claim of gun restrictions reducing violence in the UK is as unsupportable as the other comments in the thread. "

I just want to make abundantly clear that again that's not my claim, I'm citing the example of the UK as a correlation that acts as a counter-example to the suggestions that the correlation always goes in the opposite direction. Obviously it doesn't, depending on what subset of data you take there are correlations in both directions, hence why using the correlations at all to imply causation is completely meaningless.

The claim, if I made it, would be unsupportable, but use of it as a counter-example, as I have, is not unsupportable.

Re:War of government against people?

[Tom]

Those countries that have strict gun control laws that you speak of are likely UK and Australia, right?

Actually, only in part. Much of Europe has similar laws, and it's not an island.

Re: War of government against people?

[KenHansen]

More than half of all suicides in America are from fatal, self-inflicted gunshot wounds, while slightly more than half of all suicides in Canada are as a result of hanging. Suicide rates, per capita, are nearly identical in the US and Canada. I don't hear the Canadian press push for rope regulation in Canada to try and reduce the number of suicides...

Re:War of government against people?

[T.E.D.]

the only difference now is increased reporting

This.

When I was a kid, I'd regularly hear about cops shooting to death a "suspect" who (in the cop's judgment) was "fleeing". It was hardly even news. Essentially, if you ever turned your back on a cop, you were fair game for target practice. This was considered perfectly acceptable here until the Supreme Court outlawed it in '85.

If they're just rouging you up a bit now, you're getting off light.

Re: War of government against people?

[KenHansen]

You can disarm the citizenry right after you disarm all the criminals... Disarming the citizenry first is a very bad idea.

Re:War of government against people?

[Pope]

It's also a different type of firearm. Shotguns and hunting rifles are not the same as a handgun.

Re:War of government against people?

[CrimsonAvenger]

but not the ammunition for it.

This is incorrect. They are required to maintain a "Unit of Fire" (which is basically the amount of ammo for a particular weapon that the military deems suitable for keeping you operational between supply runs - often a day's worth of ammo, resupply being one of those things that happens every night).

In Switzerland's case, I believe I have read that they have 500 rounds of ammo on hand for their weapon.

Re:War of government against people?

[tlhIngan]

except in Europe crime has gone down even farther, and they have even stricter gun laws. so how can you be right and wrong at the same time?

Or take Canada. Over the period of a month, there have been 3 separate mass shootings in the US, and one in Canada.

In the US, they're calling for more regulations (which is going to be impossible - there's already a 1:1 ratio of guns and population), Canada has around 1/30th as many (or 1/3rd as many per capita).

The shooting in Canada didn't lead to calls to regulate guns - it was understood the shooter was pretty much a loony extremist, and the victim's families (all police officers) are boing publicly memorialized today.

The problem is not guns, it's gun culture. Canada just has less of it.

And the NRA's claim that mass shootings end earlier when more citizens are armed? Well, I have one question - will you sacrifice your life to protect a stranger? (Not counting when it's your occupation to do so - i.e., LEO, firefighter, etc). Would you, as Joe Random Citizen, willingly put yourself in harm's way (and maybe even in legal trouble) to shoot the armed gunman threatening someone you have no feelings towards, and no relation?

(Most people would if it was their family members being threatened, but some random average stranger giving the ultimate sacrifice to protect some other random average stranger? No doubt there will be a few, but I don't think arming them contributes significantly)

As for legal trouble, I mean if you miss and injure the guy - maybe permanently.

Re:War of government against people?

[Luckyo]

I'll give you a Swiss example which is a great example of how to handle high weapon ownership and high gun death rate that comes with it.

Today almost every Swiss who has gone through army (which is conscription in Switzerland, so most men go through it) has a right to have their service assault rifle at home. As a result, many of the home and neighbour violence cases that in their neighbouring countries resulted in things like blunt trauma (frying pan etc) or knife wounds (aka first tool that I can think of when I'm angry- types of attacks) were instead gun murders. Because it's easy to just grab a gun and shoot, even if you're physically weak. This is the same problem that US has and causes extreme rates of gun violence. Gun is simply too easy to get when you're angry and if you have a violent disposition, it's the first tool you will grab and it's much better at producing fatal results than alternatives that you can find at home.

Swiss largely solved this problem in a brilliant way. Their law and tradition dictates that unlike US culture (or exactly like if you argue from pure constitution, rather than cultural change enacted by weapon manufacturers in the 50s and 60s), their guns are for militia defence of their country against an invader - not defence of a person or house or anything of the kind. As a result, ownership of ammunition was largely outlawed, as was a right to take the gun out of the house in assembled state or even keep it at home in assembled state. The logic is simple - these measures ensure that crimes of passion, when person is looking for that something to hurt the other with, assault rifle is off the table as its disassembled and has no ammo. If you want to go to a shooting range to practice, you keep your ammo there. If you want to go hunting, you keep your ammunition at a safe in the local hunting club. And so on.

As a direct result of those measures, gun violence in Switzerland has collapsed. US could perhaps look to it as an example?

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Wait - to make a scientifically valid judgement, based on evidence, you ask me to interview a victim's survivor? A survivor who has almost certainly suffered through an indoctrination within that city's schools? I should try to weigh emotional appeals to my heart, in lieu of statistics, facts, and historical data? Yeah, I'm on it - see me go!

Re:War of government against people?

[werepants]

Yes, it is. Leaving guns aside, it's the way logic and statistics work together.

But while a correlation does not prove cause-and-effect, a lack of correlation -- or more properly, a negative correlation -- can DISprove cause-and-effect. Example: something -- all evidence points to one animal -- has been killing your chickens. You suspect the neighbor's dog. So you start keeping tabs on when the dog is let out, and when it is in the house. It turns out, after examination, that whatever it is has been killing your chickens when the dog was locked up in the house. There is no dispute... it is indisputable that the dog wasn't there when the chickens died. This negative correlation between the dog being out and dead chickens has DISproved your theory that the dog was killing the chickens.

It gets a bit more complicated when the numbers go up but the same principle still holds. If your theory is that X causes Y, and you find a negative correlation, for example X goes up while Y goes down, you have DISproved that X causes Y. Otherwise, barring other outside influences, you would have (no dispute) observed that Y went up as X went up. Anything else contradicts your theory.

Except that you can't "lock the dog up" in this case. You can require strict gun control laws in the US, but you can't change the fact that guns are still readily accessible just a short drive away. You can see that crime is going down, but in fact, gun ownership isn't going up in the way you suggest - the percentage of people who own guns in the US is decreasing, but gun owners, on average, own more guns than they used to. That in and of itself disproves your absurdly simplistic attitude.

And in the gun-control debate, we have in fact had ample time and opportunity to control for other factors.

No we haven't. All policy problems are difficult to deal with because every step along the way of trying to take a scientific approach is fraught with error. Methods of collecting statistics range from government reports and medical records to random surveys. None of these have a very good margin of error, and they all are susceptible to systemic inaccuracies.

There has been only ONE societal factor that has been found to satisfactorily correlate with the reduction in crime (see the movie Freakonomics, and that has been widely disputed.

You directly contradict your own statement here. You say earlier that "we have found no other causal factors that apply to the situation", and then cite one in the next paragraph. Of course this one is highly disputed, it deals with abortion which is itself a controversial policy issue.

Lacking any other evidence of outside factors, and even allowing for the one that (maybe) was found, we are still left with the simple mathematical fact that in the U.S., prevalence of gun ownership DOES NOT cause crime.

It isn't an opinion. It's as scientific as it gets.

This is total bullshit, and you are misrepresenting math and science to try to convince yourself (and others) that this isn't an emotional crusade for you where you look for evidence to fit your conclusion. Real statisticians and scientists have long been exploring data on this issue, but it is very difficult to make progress because the argument is so charged on both sides that the chance of having a rational discourse with anyone is basically zero.

Here are some things that are true: the US has the highest number of guns per 100 people of any country in the world. Among developed countries, we have the highest level of gun homicides per 100 people. Suicides by guns are trending upwards. Regardless of the fact that crime and violence are historically low and getting lower, we do seem to have a correlation that suggests our high rates of ownership have something to do with our high rate of firearm rel

Re:War of government against people?

[Grishnakh]

The rest of Europe doesn't have gun control laws that are that strict. Guns are not that hard to get in Sweden, Switzerland, etc. There's lots of arms manufacturers in continental Europe: Glock, SIG, FN, HK, etc.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Vicious circle kinda thing there. They had a gun problem, so they passed laws, which made the gun problem worse, so they passed more laws, which made the problem worse again. All of that, DESPITE the fact that nationwide, we see violent crimes being reduced. I am convinced that gun laws only contribute to crime rates.

Re:War of government against people?

[therealkevinkretz]

Why would you ask for a citation for his statement and not include one for yours?

Re:War of government against people?

[phorm]

Yeah. Canada *used to* deal with mental health. Many institutions were shut down, and people with severe illnesses essentially end up in general society - as you say, filled with pills - or on the streets (unless they cut of somebody's head on a Greyhound).

Now mental health issues go somewhat through the general medical system (already overburdened) or through the judicial system (similarly burdened)

Re:War of government against people?

[Totenglocke]

Yes, there is a culture of violence in the USA. And yes, allowing everyone to own guns is part of this culture of violence.

Which is supported only by your emotions and not by evidence. Literally close to half of the adults in the US own guns (and we're just talking the non-criminals here) - if guns had anything to do with "a culture of violence", the US would literally be a war zone. Hell, data on those who get concealed carry permits shows that they are the least likely people to commit a violent crime and have a significantly lower rate per capita of committing violent crimes than police officers - yes, that's right, you're several times more likely to be murdered by a police officer than to be murdered by an ordinary American that carries a concealed gun.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Gang violence - that seems to occupy it's own special little niche. I really don't know how to address it, either.

I am more than half convinced that the gang bangers should be encouraged to battle it out, and to kill each other off. The more of them that are dead, the safer the streets will be for honest people.

Of course, a lot of honest people will hate me for that attitude, because they have sons, brothers, cousins, or something that belongs to one gang or another.

Gangs are the refuge of the week minded, IMHO - and survival of the fittest seems to demand that they be permitted to kill each other. Those who resist the lure of the gangs seem more fit to live, again, IMHO.

That may seem harsh - but then, life is harsh.

Re:War of government against people?

[Totenglocke]

Because Europe (or at least the major European nations) already had vastly lower murder rates than the US before any gun control laws. Guns don't cause crime, culture does.

Re:War of government against people?

[s.petry]

Many of your early points of blame are questionable, just read the declassified material from COINTELPRO and Mockingbird.

When you put this together that the largest recent surge in gun ownership was not driven by a reasonable fear of crime, but the unreasoned fear by the election of a Black President,

Are you trying to imply that the only reason people are purchasing guns is fear of crime? Are you further implying that the only reason people distrust those in Government today including Obama is because they are racists?

I will state that many people of many races and religions have concerns with the attacks on the 2nd amendment, and demand letters 1-3 leaked from Operation Fast & Furious are clear that this is on the government agenda. Despite the insinuation of racism, the reality is that people don't trust Obama because even though he promised "Hope and Change" he continued the same exact policies Bush was pushing and has proven himself to be untrustworthy. The increase in Institutional (Political/Law enforcement) crime and the lack of punishment and accountability has much more to do than street crime with an increase in gun ownership.

they are a recognition that the Tea Party DOES draw in a lot of the extreme whacko type among it's members

Citation required. I have seen no measurable studies demonstrating that the amount of "whacko" people involved in the Tea Party or the Libertarian political party is any different than any other political activist group. I have heard this piece of propaganda repeated by numerous media outlets. I know it's being placed in "Training" manuals leaked from the DOJ, DHS, and DOD. Neither of those things make it true.

Gun ownership and crime are harder things to track, but what we are seeing in a new wave of shootings is a rise of impulse shootings, which have no real clear end to them.

Crime and Gun ownership are not hard to track. The overwhelming majority of crimes using guns are not being committed with rifles (even assault rifles) which anti-gun laws are targeting, but with pistols. Many of those pistols are stolen or acquired on the black market. The later case will never be completely prevented by anti-gun laws (See the UK and Australia before making false claims).

To the second half, false flag events are nothing new, they are well documented and proven parts of history. I'm not claiming any or all terrorist acts and mass shootings in the US are those type of events, but there are ample questions and problems with certain events reported in the media that it should at least be considered (some events much more than others). In other words, once it is proven that media and politicians both flat out lied about the NSA, Benghazi, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Fast & Furious, etc.. (this could be an extremely long list), you should not be asking what else they have been lying about. You should be asking what they actually tell the truth about.

Re:War of government against people?

[digsbo]

I think you are missing several important places where strict laws have been in place, such as Chicago, DC, and California.

Re:War of government against people?

[Totenglocke]

You're perfectly allowed to defend yourself/family. A gun isn't the only means of doing so.

Except in the real world, a 100 lb woman cannot beat up a 250 lb man and people cannot dodge bullets or catch knives in their teeth. You watch too many movies. The reality is that a gun is the most effective method of defending yourself, especially for people who are physically weaker.

Re:War of government against people?

[operagost]

He didn't say that the stricter gun law caused crime to increase. True, it was implied. But the real takeaway is that STRICTER GUN LAWS DO NOT DECREASE CRIME.

Re:War of government against people?

[Totenglocke]

Wow...just...wow. The ignorance is truly astounding.

Re:War of government against people?

[hey!]

I wouldn't go that far. I don't have a problem with police simply *having* these things. I don't have a problem with police having SWAT teams either, and they're even more dangerous. People do have a *lot* more guns than they used to, and those guns are a *lot* more powerful. There's no excuse for treating the public at large as an enemy, even the ridiculously heavily armed segment of the public, but that doesn't mean there aren't situations where a police commander needs more firepower and protection than he used to have. And that should be fine so long as he doesn't get too enamored of those things.

As an engineer I'm all too familiar with the dangerous seductiveness of a golden hammer. A professional is always wary of a golden hammer; he doesn't want to use it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't like to have one in the toolbox. Look at the video in the linked article (bad form I know). That's exactly what the commander in the video is saying: he needs to have it, but he doesn't want to use it. But the *other* commander, the one who called America a "war zone", he's pretty much declared that the people under his protection are a very shiny nail that calls for a very special hammer.

No matter how we equip police, or what powers we give them, that equipment and those powers will be easy for someone with the wrong attitude to abuse. So what we need to do is *regulate* how police use these things. And those regulations have to be enforced; they have to have teeth otherwise they're just wishful thinking.

I believe there's a simple solution to the dangers of handing the police golden hammers. Any commander who uses a SWAT team or piece of military or intelligence agency hardware should be sentenced to fill out a mountain of paperwork, and run the gantlet of investigating committees asking hostile questions. For a responsible commander protecting the lives of his men or of civilians, that price would be nothing to pay. But it would take enough of the shine off the golden hammer to deter the trigger-happy commanders.

Re: War of government against people?

[s.petry]

Yes, it is a fact that ignorant, illiterate hill people could never stand against the might of the US military for more than a week or two. Rag tag pickup trucks, improvised explosive, and outdated, ancient rifles could never hold off a US army division, nor even pose a minor threat.

The start is why I have difficulty with a complete sarcasm, I guess if I read this after the 2nd paragraph I would see the sarcasm easier. Seems like a mixed mode as written, because the above is commonly stated by people discussing why not to consider armed revolt in the US.

Re:War of government against people?

[digsbo]

That's exactly right. A man without a rifle is a subject. A man with a rifle is a freeman.

Re:War of government against people?

[Rigel47]

Ah yes, great relativistic argument. That's what union defenders always resort to "but-but-but the mega corps are even worse!" Pathetic. And when cities finally roll over into bankruptcy the police and fire unions fight like wounded bears to keep their bloated, egregious pensions -- even when it means cutting the existing police force.

Re:War of government against people?

[operagost]

The cultures of Europe differ from those in the Americas. One-size-fits-all laws don't work, much like the environment in which white-tailed deer thrive is not the same one in which iguanas do.

Re:War of government against people?

[Tom]

I cannot speak about every European country, but for my native Germany, for example, guns are quite difficult to get. Ownership permissions are manageable if you jump through a ton of hoops, but carrying permissions, for example, are almost impossible.

Compared to the US where many states have open and/or concealed carry right in the law, with no permissions or documents needed, I'd count that as strict.

Re:War of government against people?

[operagost]

Chicago had strict gun laws for decades, yet their crime stayed high-- that's the point. The gun control laws were either ineffective, or an even greater issue totally cancelled out any effect the laws could have had. Either way, the greater issue is being ignored in favor of politics.

Your second statement is a typical appeal to emotion, and has no place in this rational discussion.

Re:War of government against people?

[Arker]

"So you arbitrarily multiply double the number of firearms, because of a feeling - basically saying that 30% of Swedes are lying about possessing unregistered firearms."

It's not arbitrary, there was a researcher in Lund who studied it, as well as personal experience confirming it. And Swedes dont lie. They just get very forgetful about certain things when it makes overwhelmingly good sense to do so.

"a Swedish colleague of mine said that they don't have government issued rifles in almost every house, like they do in Switzerland. "

He's right, they dont. They do, however, just as I said, have arms caches hidden throughout the country. In event of an invasion local squads need to be able to arm and organize themselves spontaneously and quickly, so they have to know where the arms are and how to access them.

Yes, accessing them without permission is an offense but that is hardly going to stop someone that's planning a violent crime in the first place now is it?

"He did however say that he's heard of stories of weapons caches, but mainly among Hells Angels type groups who stole them during national service"

The story I was told (by a veteran of the appropriate age to know) was that back in the day many decades back, the inventory and access controls they do now were not thought of, and items from the caches had a tendency to walk off. Then they had criminal gangs fighting with weapons presumably from the caches, and it was a bit of a scandal to hush up. And as a result all the caches now have controls - that do not actually stop you from gaining access to the weapons, but just log the access and take regular inventory so that if something goes walking off someone can be held responsible.

Again, this would not prevent someone already prepared to commit a violent crime from getting whatever weapons they wanted, it only applies some after the fact accountability.

"Moose hunting is a big thing, but do you really think that 30% of the population have an illegally owner firearm for something as public as hunting?"

No, I think Moose hunters like everyone else are sensible enough to forget to do things that are against their own interest, however. A bolt-action moose gun isn't so tightly regulated - but a little .22 pistol is subjected to absurd regulations, and it's much safer to simply 'forget' you have one than to bring it to the attention of the authorities. The same is definitely true of grandads war trophies and so many other items. And just because self-defense is not legally recognised as a reason to own a weapon hardly means that people do not acquire weapons for that purpose! They simply dont report them, and it's virtually impossible for them to be caught for that.

I honestly think the numbers I suggest are significant understatements. I saw a lot of weapons there, as a foreigner, an outsider, I could still have armed myself to the teeth within a few minutes from my home. I really dont think there are any effective barriers to a native that is motivated to do the same.

Re:War of government against people?

[operagost]

I'll take some wild guesses...

Cook, IL
Philadelphia, PA
Washington, D.C.
Camden, NJ
LA, CA
Wayne, MI
St. Louis, MO
Orleans (parish), LA

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

Yes, it is possible that there exist explanations which would allow the preservation of the theory, just as in the time of Copernicus there existed explanations which allowed the preservation of the theory that the sun circled the earth. However, it is not enough to say, "There could be explanations." You have to actually propose what those explanations are. At this point, the burden of proof rests on those who claim that increased gun ownership leads to increased violent crime. It is possible that they are correct, but the evidence , as currently available, says that they are not. By the standard you are setting, nothing is ever disproven, because there could be variables which have not been taken into account.

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

What confounding factors have not been taken into account?

Re:War of government against people?

[Darktan]

registration = list of houses to raid. a list that has been used time and again by totalitarian governments, including GB.

You know V for Vendetta wasn't a documentary, right?

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

What other factors need to be controlled for? In order for your argument to carry weight, you must propose factors that might account for the observed facts in such a way as to support the theory. It is not enough to say, "Well, there might be unaccounted for variables." You have to specify what those variables are and explain why they might account for the observed facts. Otherwise, I can just say about any discredited scientific theory , "Well, there might be variables which haven't been accounted for."

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

However, they have increased in cities which enact tougher gun laws and decrease faster in cities which loosen their gun laws.

Re:War of government against people?

[Arker]

And that is where you are fundamentally misunderstanding. The old gun culture in the US is NOT a violent culture, or a criminal one, it is actually quite the opposite. (There is a new 'gun culture' created by hollywood that is different, but I am talking about the culture of rural red-state America, where I grew up, where everyone has an 'arsenal' and violent crime is so rare people talk about it for years after an occurrence.)

Re:War of government against people?

[Strangely Familiar]

Your example of the Dog and Chicken rests on the idea that only one animal is killing the chickens. If you don't know what is killing the chickens, and maybe it is two or three dogs, then locking one dog in the house doesn't prove the dog's innocence. It only proves that the dog is not the only thing killing the chickens.

While I am a supporter of the Second Amendment, your logic doesn't disprove that guns don't increase violence, only that guns are not the only possible cause of violence. But I think we all knew that already. People somehow manage to be violent without guns. Even when you take away people's arms, they still have legs.

Re:War of government against people?

[DMUTPeregrine]

It's a problem for gun laws that they don't deprive everyone equally. I did not intend to imply that I support gun laws without amending the constitution. I agree that they're unconstitutional. I think that handguns (including revolvers) should be restricted, since they're used far more than rifles in violent crime and have fewer legitimate uses. They're more concealable, easier to carry, significantly less useful for hunting or competition target shooting, and nowhere near as good as a shotgun for home defense. Sadly most gun legislation focuses on rifles, which are far less useful for crime.

I don't think that the 2nd amendment is useful for resisting the spread of tyranny. Modern tyrants don't work through martial law, they work through bread and circuses. Keeping the people fat and complacent is far more useful, since there are never enough at any time with nothing to lose. 'Brave New World' was far more prophetic than '1984.' Claims that the 2nd amendment provides an effective check against tyranny are misinformed at best.

Re:War of government against people?

[MooseTick]

"The criminal who is not outright stupid understands the risk of assaulting an armed citizen."

I would this this logic would make crime go up. If you believe someone is armed, and you are ok with assaulting them, then your best bet is to shoot them in the back of the head from the get go. Then, you don't have to worry about them pulling out their gun.

Re:War of government against people?

[operagost]

More people are killed by hammers than long guns in the USA. Clearly, allowing everyone to own hammers is part of this culture of violence.

Re:War of government against people?

[shutdown -p now]

If this were about MRAPs, I would believe you. But when I see a cop in heavy body armor and riot gear with an assault rifle busting the door of an apartment and throwing flash grenades inside to detain a suspect in white collar crime, I can't help but think that, no, they want MRAPs. They'd want tanks too if they could get them.

Re:War of government against people?

[Totenglocke]

Jesus Christ, learn to do some research. It's been established many times over that in the 18th century the term "well regulated" meant "well functioning / in proper order". It wasn't until the late 19th / early 20th century that "regulated" came to mean "highly controlled by the government". Thus a "well regulated" (meaning well trained) militia needed the freedom to own and carry arms. It's rather annoying that those who want to completely ban a civil right are the least knowledgeable on the subject that they argue against. It's like a redneck who's never even seen a Muslim or read a single like of the Qu'ran arguing that we need to ban Islam.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Let me throw an idea at you.

A man with low morals, or poor morals, isn't necessarily without morals. A guy who is willing to steal your wallet, isn't necessarily willing to kill you in cold blood.

Yes, there really are people who are capable of doing as you describe. I think I may have met a couple of them. But, you don't find them everyday, in every town across the country. Even convicts can be shocked at some of the more heinous crimes that make the news. Whatever happened to that guy Dahmer? As I recall, he was done in by other convicts who didn't want him in "their" prison.

Most cons that I have ever come into contact with actually do have some morals. Often, they are a piss-poor excuse for morality, but they pride themselves on the morals they do possess.

Re:War of government against people?

[Grishnakh]

I'm talking about ownership, not carrying. If you own a gun, there isn't much preventing you from carrying it around with malintent, is there? Who's going to stop you? No one, until you pull it out and start shooting and the cops are called, but by then it's too late. But somehow, that's not a big problem over there. No, it's not as easy as the US to get guns, but it's not impossible either; just fill out forms, pay some fees, etc.

Most US states require a license to carry concealed, and in quite a few, it's nearly impossible to get that license. You've been watching too much reactionary media; only a few states (out of 50, remember) have unregulated concealed-carry or open-carry. I can only think of 3 offhand which have one of both of these: Vermont, Arizona, and Texas. I might have missed a couple completely unpopulated western states, perhaps Montana.

Re:War of government against people?

[lamer01]

No, because there maybe other variables at play that you're not including in your analysis.

Re:War of government against people?

[AmiMoJo]

People don't just steal shit and go away. They rape and murder your family in front of you, you fucking dumbass.

This kind of paranoia is why America has a problem.

Re:War of government against people?

[cerberusti]

The mere fact that uncontrolled influences are present makes what the op wrote fail as a disproof, it does not actually matter what they are. If you cannot control all factors such that a single example blows the argument, disproof by counterexample does not work. This makes it mostly useful in math, and less so in the real world.

As the saying goes, correlation is not causation. A lot of people have real difficulty with this, especially when the correlation supports the argument they are trying to make, but it remains true regardless.

You could say the available information provides evidence that gun ownership does not cause increased crime, which would be true. It is however very much possible that it does increase violent crime, and something else is responsible for the decline.

If you need a list of possible influences we can go with better education, reduced environmental contaminants (someone mentioned lead specifically), the rise of easy access to information (the internet), deterrent through harsher penalties (which I do not personally believe helps), economic conditions, etc.

There are rather a lot of things which would influence the crime rate and are not accounted for in a simple crime vs gun ownership chart. In this case nobody will be proving or disproving it either way, it is simply too messy to be subject to this kind of analysis.

The reason so many people are coming down on Jane's post is that it redirects the argument in a very misguided (or underhanded) way. A logical process is given with an example where it works correctly, then applied to a situation where it does not.

Re:War of government against people?

[lamer01]

That's all nice and great in unicorn land. What about a society where the criminal element is already armed? If you were starting from scratch and no one was armed your silly diatribe would be acceptable. In the real world in the US you can't disarm all the criminals no matter how many laws you pass.

Re:War of government against people?

[MooseTick]

The 2nd amendment states "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 doesn't have any limits? Are you ok with people owning hand grenades? Machine guns? C4? RPGs? Small Pox? Nuclear missles? Can they walk anywhere they want with their arms since they can't be infringed on their right to bear them?

All those are arms. Is it unconstitutional for the government to place limitaions on any of that?

Re:War of government against people?

[MooseTick]

Yes. Those British and Japanese peasants who aren't allowed to own guns probably just shiver at night in fear of their government and hope some meany doesn't break into their homes where they are totally defenseless.

Re:War of government against people?

[Ozeroc]

I completely agree with your opinion regarding the War on Drugs. Eliminating THAT would help A LOT! But as to the "don't tread on me" types I point to Las Vegas. Overall an admittedly small percentage of gun violence but not 'nobody'.

Re:War of government against people?

[Grishnakh]

Actually, according to this 2012 article, several of those are not in the top-25 list of most-dangerous cities. Flint and Detroit are on there (#1 and #2), Newark NJ is on there (but Camden is not), Philadelphia is on there, DC is on there at #21, but interestingly, Nashville TN beat both DC and Newark and was only barely beaten by Philly. WTF is going on in Nashville? Memphis, Little Rock, and Birmingham AL came in at numbers 5, 6, and 7, surprisingly. You got St. Louis right, though: it's #3. But I don't see LA (CA) on there anywhere, though Oakland and Stockton are on the list (though nowhere near LA). Also interestingly, no cities in Cook County IL are on there, but instead, Springfield and Rockford IL are on the list. New Orleans doesn't seem to be there either, but Baton Rouge is.

It seems like there might be some misconceptions about which cities are the most dangerous in America.

Re:War of government against people?

[cerberusti]

The problem with lead in gasoline is that you combust it, and the lead gets into the air. Once in the air it can not only be inhaled, but can accumulate in various animals and plants which we eat.

Lead paint mostly stays where it is unless it chips or flakes and someone eats it. In the US you are required to sign a waiver before moving in if the residence contains lead paint. It is mostly safe if there are no children present, or the paint is in good condition.

Re:War of government against people?

[Comrade Ogilvy]

And in this case, that there is a C taking effect is indisputable, even if the exact details of C are less than perfectly clear. The simplistic pro- and anti-gun camps arguments both fail to describe reality.

Re:War of government against people?

[modecx]

Violence by Police departments has escalated drastically in the same time as criminal violence has gone down

I disagree. The violence was always there. What has changed more than anything is the visibility of the violence. Everyone packs a cell phone with a camera, everyone is connected to the net and social media, which in turn filters into the mainstream news. If a cop uses or abuses their power these days, it's covered six ways from Sunday, and twice even then. Just a few years ago, the only evidence of police malfeasance would be eye witness reports, and some beat-up individual.

Back in the 60's, 70's, 80's, and to a lesser degree the 90's, big city police regularly used violence with relative impunity, which would result in dismissal and criminal charges today. My source? Conversation with former policemen. I will agree the types of force any given police department might use has escalated. Where someone might have been clubbed silly back in the old days, in this day, they get tazered and riddled with bullets instead.

As for MRAPs, many departments have had armored vehicles for decades. Tanks with the main gun taken off--and frankly, MRAP armor doesn't compare to that. I support SWAT having access to these kinds of things. They come in handy in exigent circumstances. Like when that nutball was shooting at firemen. Or when someone gets held hostage. Like firearms, they are morally inert; tools that are only as good or evil as the user who bares them.

Re:War of government against people?

[Comrade Ogilvy]

There has been only ONE societal factor that has been found to satisfactorily correlate with the reduction in crime (see the movie Freakonomics, and that has been widely disputed.

Incorrect. The better explanation is reduction of childhood lead exposure. The correlations are extremely powerful, and map nicely down to the timing of lead reductions in individual states/provinces even in different countries.

So your claim that there is no major of model to explain reductions is simply wrong,. The lead theory works even in other countries where the dynamics around guns are very different from America. This apparent effect completely swamps the wiggle the pro- and anti-gun camps like to argue over.

Re:War of government against people?

[Evtim]

The whole discussion is very interesting; I still want to try to understand why the crime rates are going down [very admirable development to be sure].

It seems to me that [in the US] there is negligible effort to address the socioeconomic reasons for crime. What we are usually told by scientists about the relation between crime and society is in the lines of more equality, supremacy of the law, honest business relations, good education, health care and social nets etc. does often contradict the very fundamentals of US society. So, meaningful change in society is unlikely reason for the decreased crime no matter how complicated those relations could be. Add to that the lobbing by the prison industry [if half of what I read in respectable source is true, well, I am speechless] which apparently unable to cope with decreased demand makes it so that lesser and lesser crimes are given prison time and new crimes are invented all the time, and it seems to me that the climate as a whole encourages crime [the media's role is a whole huge load of Dingo's kidneys, that I am too revolted to talk about].

But crime decreases.

My personal last straw to grasp for is biochemistry. Could it be as fundamental as that? I have heard stated few times that decrease in pollution might be a contributor. Lead gets mentioned often. Certainly during the period of wild use of lead the US must have had the most vehicles per capita on the planet. The wealthiest and most-industrialized country at the time. Maybe someone has more knowledge to share. Anyway, that is where I'd look for an explanation. And if the socioeconomic reasons are too complex to understand or too difficult to measure looking at chemistry might be the only option. If nothing else, so we could rule it out [or not].

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

If your police department can have a weapon, then your neighbor should be able to keep the same weapons.

Let me key on the "well regulated" bit for a moment. We have lost something in the past hundred or so years. We don't have hometown mlitias any more. If you should read some of the stories of units that fought in the Civil War, you will find that many soldiers fought and died with the boys they grew up with, and the elders from their own home towns. That is, the county more or less maintained it's own militia, which volunteered for service to the state in times of need. Or, in the case of the Civil War, they volunteered, as a unit, with the US Army.

So, these militias were drilling on the town square routinely, each and every year.

You have a point - the individual militiamen didn't take cannon home with them. Or gatling guns, either. They may or may not have taken their rifles (or muskets) home with them, depending on whether they bought the weapons with personal funds, or were issued by the county or state.

BUT - wherever the cannon, the gatling guns, and the government-owned small arms might have been stowed, the militia had ready access.

I'm kinda getting off of my central point though. Well regulated. At age 17, boys were expected to muster with the militia for training and drill. They were expected to continue doing so, until about age 40. And, thoughout their adult lives, they were expected to be ready for action.

Well regulated? Of COURSE they were well regulated. If the commanding officer happens to be your best buddy's grandfather, and the adjutant is your second cousin by marriage, and you went to school with all the privates, your dad is a corporal - yeah, you bet your ass that you'll stay well regulated! No way are you going to go home in disgrace, with all your freinds and family mocking you for the rest of your life!

Of equal importance - these militias were not units of the US Army, or even of the individual state's "National Guard". They were independent units, ready to respond to emergencies of any kind. They often did volunteer for service to the state, or service to the Army, but they weren't actually obligated to do so.

Re:War of government against people?

[dcw3]

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepa...
This graph indicates the opposite is true.

Re:War of government against people?

[s.petry]

I believe you should check with much more than 1 source, as a person with friends and family in Detroit working in Police forces since the 1950s, your source is bad. The rest, I have commented on already to others, if something is not covered or you wish to debate those points feel free.

Re:War of government against people?

[RedShoeRider]

"You're a complete fucking idiot if you think your well regulated militia (which you ignore anyway) armed with assault weapons is any match for the government's military-spec hardware."

Funny.
The Russians thought the same thing about Simo Hayha: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Never underestimate the power of one man defending what he believes in.

Re:War of government against people?

[HiThere]

Sorry, but I think the main effect is due to an aging population. Violence is highest among males in the (to put loose bounds on it) 14-28 years of age range. As the bulge in the population moves past that range, violence should be expected to decrease without needing any other explanation.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Austria, Germany, Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Saigon, Burma, Thailand, to name a few that had gun control, that resulted in hundreds of millions being killed by dictatorship. Just because it hasn't happened in Australia, or U.K. yet, doesn't mean it wont.

Re:War of government against people?

[tbannist]

I'm pretty sure the quoted rates are per-capita, making them closer to 1/40th and 1/70th the unadjusted rates.

Re:War of government against people?

[kaatochacha]

There are a LOT of gun collectors who drive that statistic up.
I have an uncle who owns approximately 50 guns of various types, all locked up nicely in hidden safes, and probably each only fired once every few years.
Why? Because he collects them instead of stamps, or coins, or cars. Most are antique/older than seventy years old.

Re:War of government against people?

[delcielo]

I think we have an unhealthy culture of dominance in this country. I'll stand up for my rights. I'll be number 1. I'll win.

Everything is a competition. Financial, political, physical, workplace, school, etc. We've turned everything into a ranking model where somebody is always above or below somebody else. It pervades every single thing we do. It's this sort of thing that leads to deaths at WalMart on Black Friday, road rage beatings and shootings, backstabbing in the office, and anxiety in the classroom. If you're not winning, you're losing, and don't think for a second that it's happening without notice.

We're constantly anxious about our standing in some fashion. Will I be let go? Am I better looking than that person? Am I better off than that person? Am I smarter? Am I more aggressive?

We're overtly competitive in many ways, but the subtle pervasiveness of the competitive mindset is really troubling.

Re:War of government against people?

[lgw]

You can also make your own gun (from a kit, with a real C&C milling machine, not a 3D printer), with no docs, and such "makers parties" have recently become common with the "Obama gun panic".

Re:War of government against people?

[cerberusti]

Hand grenades, Machine guns, C4, RPGs: Yes

Small Pox, Nuclear missiles: No (and I would rather governments did not have these either, although depending upon how you read it this may actually require an amendment to make the restriction constitutional... which would be a good idea if we were to start allowing everything else.)

I would also say we should be allowed to own tanks, fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and conventional missiles (assuming a private citizen can afford any of those.)

My reading of the second amendment is that the primary thing it does is tell us the form of military we are to have. This would be a militia, not a standing army.

Keep in mind that private citizens owned cannon when that was written. I do believe it allows a private citizen in the US to own military hardware, and it is very much infringed right now.

Re:War of government against people?

[radtea]

We have more guns. (Per person!) According to our own government's statistics. Yet we have less violent crime. This is a direct, indisputable DISproof of the idea that "more guns equals more crime".

There's no real point in arguing with a gun nut, but I'll do so anyway.

You point out that the US has more guns per person. But the US also has (plausibly) seen a considerable drop in the number of people who own guns in the past 30 years: http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

So triumphal ballyhooing about "proof" (never a good sign in someone who pretends to be arguing the data, which only ever increase or decrease plausibility) is a bit premature. It is at least as plausible that some types of violent crime have decreased because fewer people can lay their hands on a deadly weapon in a moment of anger or confusion.

When making a statistical argument (but I repeat myself) it is always important to dig into the sub-structure of the data. In this case, the distribution of gun ownership. In other cases, the kind of gun owned may be important: there is some evidence that the prevalence of handguns specifically are associated with homicides. Canada, for example, has comparable long-gun ownership to the US--and they are used for the same primary purpose here as they are there, which is to commit suicide--but far fewer handguns and a far lower gun-murder rate.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

I agree it's really interesting. What was particularly surprising in the UK is that crime actually consistently declined during the economic turmoil to the point it's now at it's lowest level in recorded history, which may mean it's at it's lowest level ever.

Most people were expecting an upturn in crime during recession as people became more desperate and policing budgets were slashed but in fact the exact opposite happened.

Perhaps most interestingly is that the current generation of teenagers and early 20 somethings in the UK are also the least criminal ever. The UK had a long problem with binge drinking but the current generation of teenagers seems to have completely foregone it. It could simply therefore be just changes in attitude - it could even be the internet, as kids have become more connected with more outlets than ever for instant entertainment and more ability to speak to people when distressed and share knowledge, understanding and experience different cultures then maybe there's just less tendency to commit crime from that. Current stats show that the most criminal generation in the UK is my generation - that which just about pre-dates the internet.

But it's just a guess, it really could just be a combination of things. We may well never know exactly what single or combination of factors are the biggest cause especially given that recent data shows that most assumptions about it being tied to poverty levels hints that even that may not actually be true.

Re:War of government against people?

[Ravaldy]

The CDC has a recent report (which was requested by Obama) showing the increased gun ownership deters gun violence but don't be fooled by the report they say. The standard of living and the increased level of education of the general population has a much bigger impact on general violence than gun ownership. It was actually said that more people could afford guns because their standard of living had increased.

It seems every gun owner out there needs to justify their ownership of a gun. Stop trying to justify it and use it properly. This means lock it so it cannot be miss used by a person with bad intentions. I think that's simple enough and allows everybody to continue enjoying guns for hunting, self defense or for target practice.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

The fact you even have to ask that question demonstrates that you're completely out of your depth on this topic.

I can't possibly list them all, but they include things such as the economy/poverty levels, policing efforts, changes in societal attitudes, levels of education, cost of ammunition, criminal justice changes, environmental factors. Inside many of these factors are many sub-factors too which is precisely why it's too complex to resort to simplistic conclusions based on just two out of literally thousands, maybe millions of variables.

You told someone else it's up to those claiming gun control leads to decrease violent crime to prove their case by demonstrating confounding factors break your argument. That's incorrect, it's upto whoever makes the claim to prove their case, whatever side of the argument they're on so yes that includes those like you claiming a simple two variable correlation that ignores confounding factors is proof of something.

Re:War of government against people?

[Kiaser Zohsay]

Yes, Jane did say pretty clearly

Otherwise, barring other outside influences,

which specifically excludes the scenario you describe.

Re:War of government against people?

[david_thornley]

That doesn't constitute disproof. Correlation does not indicate causation in any manner.

Suppose that adding more guns increases the crime rate by 1%, while other factors, not really understood, lower the crime rate by 2%. Hence, we have more guns, the crime rate has gone down 1%, and more guns increase the crime rate. That's a perfectly consistent and possible situation, and is a disproof by counterexample of your supposed disproof.

In WWII, German war production started increasing during the strategic bombing offensives, and didn't peak until some time in 1944 (different months for different things; IIRC none of them peaked in really early 1944). By your reasoning, that would prove that Allied bombing in 1943 didn't hurt war production, a conclusion that the Germans would not have shared. (We can infer that by the amount of effort put into protecting German cities from air attack at the expense of fighting power at the actual military fronts, for example.)

Re:War of government against people?

[Xaedalus]

The US population is paranoid, delusional, and frightened.

The US is also an oligarchic, imperial republic with a melting pot society consisting of different cultures--none of which have a supermajority. Because there is no supermajority/supra-dominant culture to unite everyone (examples: Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Republic of Ireland, and other mono-culture nations) and make everyone feel safe and secure because they're surrounded by like-minded individuals, every culture within our society always lives on guard against each other. It just so happens that the more paranoid and mentally-unstable members of our society are extremely susceptible to the implicit violence and act it out.

Re:War of government against people?

[david_thornley]

You may well be wrong. Gun people tend to have guns, and those are valuable, easy to carry, and likely to be fenceable for a larger proportion of their value. Since neither of us are actually providing statistics, it may be that gun people are hit disproportionately often, and it may be that criminals go in ready to shoot. I don't really know.

Re:War of government against people?

[Calavar]

You can repeat that as much as you like, but simply saying things doesn't make them true. Show me the facts.

Re:War of government against people?

[david_thornley]

In other words, you are making numbers up, and have no evidence to support your claim. NCIS background checks are not necessarily a good proxy for gun ownership. There has been a tendency to require more checks on gun owners lately, and the number of background checks per gun sold may be going up.

Re:War of government against people?

[Alef]

The burden of proof is on the one making a claim. So when someone wants to claim that gun ownership does not increase violent crime, that person has to prove that claim just as much as someone claiming it does. Pointing to other plausible compounding factors is a perfectly valid counterargument. You then have to eliminate those alternative explanations, just like Copernicus had to for his theory to survive.

You are of course correct that it is a very weak counterargument to simply say that "there could be explanations". But that is not what the GP did. The GP did propose a whole list of other factors that could affect violent crime rate.

By the standard you are setting, nothing is ever disproved, because there could be variables which have not been taken into account.

It's more like "nothing is ever proven", which would be a more or less correct statement with regard to science. It is all about trying to come up with inconsistencies or alternative explanations. When you have thrown everything you've got at the theory and accounted for it all, it is usually accepted.

Re:War of government against people?

[david_thornley]

Under what circumstances would you use a scary-looking semiautomatic rifle (which seems to be the legal definition of assault rifle) to commit a crime? I'd think that a handgun would be the best in almost all cases: intimidates unarmed people, sufficient lethality, doesn't look like it could just be slapped out of the way to an overmacho defender, easy to conceal, easy to acquire, easy to dispose of.

Re:War of government against people?

[Alef]

What people are saying here is that those claiming that increased gun ownership leads to lower crime rates are using utterly flawed logic. That does not mean that they necessarily argue for the opposite position. In fact, the person you responded to explicitly said that "I'm not arguing for one side or the other".

Why is it so freaking hard for people on Slashdot to understand the difference between a counterargument and making the opposite claim? There is such a thing as "we do not know".

Re:War of government against people?

[Calavar]

Back in 1776, the most sophisticated military weapon available was a cannon. Yes, in 1776, an individual with enough money could purchase his or her own cannon. But without a team of draft horses, it was impossible to move it around at any reasonable place. Without well-trained a fire team of a half dozen to a dozen individuals, it was impossible reload at any reasonable place. Or even to hit a target of any kind.

Compare this to a modern semi-automatic pistol. Pistols aren't anything near the most sophisticated weapons available, but compared to cannons, pistols are much cheaper (with a middle class income, you could purchase dozens if you wanted to), more portable, easier to conceal, easier to use (bare minimum of training required, no teams of support staff), more accurate, have a higher rate of fire. A single man with one or two pistols could easily kill 20+ people in a crowded building. A single man with a cannon would be lucky if he even managed to push it within shooting range of the building.

Apples and oranges, my friend.

Re:War of government against people?

[Fjandr]

Rarely do the "don't tread on me" types commit crimes involving firearms. The same can't be said of the gangs.

Re:War of government against people?

[avandesande]

Or there area couple of dogs in the neighborhood killing chickens....

Re:War of government against people?

[Fjandr]

Yes, it's so much better to allow violent criminals to go freely about their business. Human life is sacred when it's a criminal, but fuck everyone else.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

"More to the point is the ignorance of the part of the constitution regarding the "well regulated militia", but you dont want regulation and there is no well regulated militia at all"

Nothing I love more than someone calling others ignorant hicks while spouting ignorance. As an aside, calling someone who disagrees with you slurs generally means you could do with some more knowledge yourself.

There is a meme being pushed by those with an agenda (and yes, sometimes out of ignorance) that it was just for the equivalent of a state national guard or some sort. No.

In those times militia men (Seriously, google the original definition) where people with military training who were not actually part of the military in any shape, way or form. The idea was both 1. The danger of standing armies if the populace was disarmed 2. That the state can't make itself the sole holder of military might by disarming the populace. If you are asking yourself why that was considered important, it's because they'd seen it done by the people they had been fighting.

We repeat a lot of the same cycles unless we push back against them, because there is an attractiveness to all the bad ideas. For example, I'd encourage you to read up on the origins of the ability to plead the 5th, or against self-incrimination, which seems kind of pointless (aren't you just making yourself look guilty?) until you realize what the populace had already seen. Specifically, google "star courts", which we seem to be heading towards again.

Re:War of government against people?

[Fjandr]

I'll point to Afghanistan as ample evidence that a smaller forced with inferior arms can fight a modern military to a standstill. They have done it not once, but twice. Not only that, but the greater forces have been the two largest superpowers in there world. Guerrilla warfare does not really on having the biggest or most destructive arms.

Also, dependent clauses in the Constitution have consistently been ruled as not limiting the independent clauses to which they are attached. It is irrelevant that we do not use the militia as the primary defensive force today.

Re:War of government against people?

[WaffleMonster]

What we can see is that in countries like Australia the gun crime rate dropped dramatically after assault weapons were banned.

So what? I suspect if you were to interview the ghosts of murder victims or their families asking if it matters killing took place with a gun, bat, rock or fist you will find method of murder to be immaterial next to the effect of a dead person.

Simply asserting gun crime rates dropped by itself is wholly meaningless. You can tell fools with an agenda from a mile away when they make such statements without any further consideration for secondary effects.

The only question of import does a policy lead to reduction of overall murder rates or does it not. Also have to establish that a specific policy lead to change rather than aggregate contribution of other factors.

If for example gun crimes go down and knife or beating murders rise to take their place the same number of people are being killed at the hands of others so nobody is any safer.

There is no proof that having guns makes society safer. There is proof that eliminating guns does make society safer. So why do you still want them?

I suspect out of ignorance there is likely to be no salient evidence for either position. Effect on availability of weapons seems to take a back seat to social and political factors. Look at Africa, South America and the Caribbean... weapons availability aint going anywhere near explaining that shit no matter how hard you try.

So please feel free to share your "proof" with the rest of us. If inclined to rely on statistical evidence to establish causation please do first thumb thru statistical databases with the same amount of care and attention as your "proof" for contradictory evidence.

When you look carefully at experiments like Australia in aggregate overlaid with trends having nothing to do with specific policy change the "proof" signal suddenly looks more like noise.

Here in the US homicide rates was halved between 1992 and 2011 without any such constitutional amendment banning firearms. How do you explain that? The short answer is you don't and can't by looking at high level statistical data alone... but this seems to be the only thing those with agendas (both for and against) are willing to do...fool themselves by finding the evidence they want to see.

Re:War of government against people?

[datavirtue]

Those are wonderful insights nut guns cost money. Income adjusted, how many dollars of disposable income are available to each citizen in all of those countries? Does that ratio correlate to the amount of guns owned per segment of each population?

If an American has $1000 of disposable income per year and a Serbian only has $100 of disposable income per year (adjusted for currency valuation to living expenses) I would say the Serbians own WAY more guns than Americans becasue given an increase in disposable income they would surely trade in more firearms for the same given population. This is just one factor to look at. I'm tired of this simplistic tripe...nothing is black and white.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anonymous Coward]

21++ ADVANTAGES OF HOSTS FILES (over browser plugins for security, &/or DNS servers):

(Over AdBlock & DNS Servers ALONE 4 Security, Speed, Reliability, & Anonymity (to an extent vs. DNSBL's + DNS request logs)).

1.) HOSTS files are useable for all these purposes because they are present on all Operating Systems that have a BSD based IP stack (even ANDROID) and do adblocking for ANY webbrowser, email program, etc. (any webbound program). A truly "multi-platform" UNIVERSAL solution for added speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity to an extent (vs. DNS request logs + DNSBL's you feel are unjust hosts get you past/around).

2.) Profit.

3.) Can't believe anyone would think anybody here could possibly compete with Andrew PK on the Crazy Scale. Also too lazy to use bold tags, and posting anonymous for more than obvious reasons. Also the above was excerpted from #5 hit on Google for Host Files, mull that over.

Re:War of government against people?

[Runaway1956]

Well, first, a gun lock renders a gun useless - to you, as well as to anyone else. When seconds count, it only takes half a minute to unlock a lock, IF you have the key immediately at hand.

It has been suggested throughout this conversation that there are factors at work in the rise and fall of crime statistics other than mere gun ownership. Possession of a gun isn't the end-all and be-all of staying safe, only a moron would think so. But, an armed citizenry remains an important factor in personal security, as well as politics and national security.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Dr. Hupp accurately points out that the whole point of the second amendment is to protect us, the little people, from them, congress.

Re:War of government against people?

[Anon-Admin]

Gun ownership in the US is only for hunting and personal protection.

Hunting congressmen and protection from the government. That is what the 2nd amendment was created for. :P

For full disclosure, I have an arsenal in excess of 200 military weapons and over 10,000 rounds of ammunition.

Re:War of government against people?

[iserlohn]

In terms of crime figures, yes, but they do definitely poison the debate on sensible measures to ensure that guns have responsible people as owners.

Re:War of government against people?

[Sir Holo]

[citation needed]

Re:War of government against people?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Runaway1956 used the premise "Time and again, when cities and states make gun laws stricter, crime increases. And, repeatedly, when gun laws are relaxed, there is a short initial period of increased violence, followed by a decidedly downward trend in crime." which is false. In the UK increased restrictions on gun ownership actually show the opposite pattern.

Citation needed. Google tells me the opposite. First hit, second hit. Of course, these articles focus on gun crime. Even in Australia, the gun bans have decreased gun crime but increased violent crime overall. Do you have any citations that support your claim, or are we all just arguing from emotion?

Re:War of government against people?

[stoploss]

While I agree with you this is corruption, if the choice is between a union that moves government money into the pockets of at least some citizens vs. a lobby group that moves government money into the pockets of the 0.01% then I'd rather have the former.

Keep watching and check where the new candidate moves the money to.

That's a false dichotomy. The unions and their compensation are directly responsible for my taxes being increased (sales and property taxes). Furthermore, this is not the government's money, it's the taxpayers' money that is being appropriated to feather these union people's nests.

Bringing the unions to heel involves the new mayor forcing them to accept substantive changes to their abusive compensation. This is underway, and the inevitable lawsuits are winding their way through the courts. Hopefully once these unions are defeated we will be able to roll back the special tax assessments.

So: beating the unions results in the possibility of more money for me and all the other non-millionaire/non-billionaire taxpayers like me in my city.

Re:War of government against people?

[modecx]

My sources do not include anyone from Detroit, at least that I know of; perhaps the boys in blue from Detroit are better behaved than the cops I've met.

I will say this however: my current job often places me adjacent to current and former police officers from around the country. My sources are the anecdotes (and I acknowledge them to be just that) and self-admissions I've heard over last few years from numerous people. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard something like "If I did the shit I used to do in the old days, I'd be thrown in jail.", often as other officers cackle on in agreement.

I'm not being anti-cop or police-antagonistic, just relaying my experience. So, take that for what you will.

Re:War of government against people?

[AK Marc]

So, NOT every gun in the US has paperwork for it somewhere,

Yeah the 0.0001% that were home made aren't tracked. But even if the forms from #1 aren't stored centrally, the NICS check used to help generate those forms is. And #2 and #3 can't make people owners of new guns. So that leaves #1 and #4, with #4 rounding to zero, and #1 leaving a central database of "owners".

What good do records and serialization do when most guns used in crimes are stolen to start with?

That's why most places where guns are "common" but not a right have responsibilities of ownership. If I allow my car to be stolen recklessly, I can be held liable for its theft. But there's no allowance for that with guns. Outside the US, it's common that guns be held in secured facilities when not in use (and yes, that can be in your home). But the US still allows gun racks in trucks, where one rock can net you 2 shotguns and a rifle.

Despite what you learned by watching CSI, the answer is a resounding, "Not a whole hell of a lot."

They simplify, but if any gun with my name against it is used in a crime, they'd come to me and ask how I disposed of it (probably implying I'd be held responsible if I can't justify the disposal). "I gave that one to a friend" or "Sold at a gun show in 1998" should be sufficient. Let them CSI the gun show and facial recog me and whoever. But yes, despite your delusions, they will go to the last "registered owner" and try to track the gun from there.

Re:War of government against people?

[TheDarkMaster]

This. Exactly, the pressure for competition is so great that there is no space for collaboration, for the things that benefit everyone. It is a constant "kill or die" that just make crazy people.

Re:War of government against people?

[TheDarkMaster]

Are you sure?

Re:War of government against people?

[Ravaldy]

Agreed.

Protecting yourself from the state renders the issue of locked guns a non issue as if you decide to bare arms against your government you will have ample time to do so. In the case of a break in, getting to your gun Is more important and having a hand gun in the dresser is probably the best option but it should not be left there for just anybody to pickup either...

Facts are facts and although crime is declining in the US, the US still has one of the higher crime rates of comparable countries. I'm not saying guns. See this chart. I found this to be very interesting. http://www.visionofhumanity.or...

Re:War of government against people?

[cryptizard]

I only meant to say that, while more guns might stop some kinds of violence, it might also encourage or foster other types. Maybe gang violence will become more prevalent with more guns. Or maybe people will just adjust their attitudes and become more aggressive, instead of merely robbing you at gun point and letting you go they could just shoot you and take your stuff. No opportunity for you to pull your own gun.

Re:War of government against people?

[digsbo]

We have an entirely different cultural dynamic here, as well as huge land borders where a drug trade imports enormous amounts of drugs and violence. To liken the kinds of criminals we have in the USA to those nations is inaccurate.

Re:War of government against people?

[kaatochacha]

He didn't mention gender. You did. That says a lot.

Re:War of government against people?

[kaatochacha]

Yeah, I'm a moron. take it back with my lashes, misread the quote. I accept my punishment.

Re:War of government against people?

[Jane Q. Public]

In an uncontrolled study, it disproves nothing.

That is true only *IF* you can identify other influencing factors. If no other influencing factors can be identified then the presumption that your null hypothesis has been disproved must hold.

If other factors are identified later, then this presumption would have to be re-examined. But in their absence, the evidence is clear.

In the case of firearms availability vs violent crime (in the US), nobody has found other influencing factors. All other potential correlations have been pretty thoroughly shot down, with only one possible exception.

The ONE other societal variable that may have been shown to correlate with reduced crime (availability of contraception) has been widely criticized. Whether it stands remains to be seen. And even if so, it has not been shown to affect the negative firearms/crime relationship.

Re:War of government against people?

[Jane Q. Public]

Students in a chemistry class study an average of 6 hours for a test and get a C for their class average. The next week, the same student study an average of 1 hour for their Interpretive Dance class and average an A..

Such a small sample doesn't prove anything, granted. But when you have millions of data points over periods of many decades, it is far harder to dismiss the evidence.

We DO have such.

Re:War of government against people?

[Jane Q. Public]

You certainly can't say, given all the various variables that were changing, that greater police presence reduces crime.

But that is exactly the mistake here, which others have made as well. This situation has not controlled for other variables.

In the case of firearms availability vs violent crime, not only do we have millions of data points over many decades, but nobody has found other correlations or influencing factors. There have been lots of theories, but despite many many years of trying to find other correlations, nobody has managed to make any stick.

Re:War of government against people?

[Magius_AR]

"The criminal who is not outright stupid understands the risk of assaulting an armed citizen."

I would this this logic would make crime go up. If you believe someone is armed, and you are ok with assaulting them, then your best bet is to shoot them in the back of the head from the get go. Then, you don't have to worry about them pulling out their gun.

So what's the plan for the 6 other armed citizens standing around you when you go after the first guy?

Re:War of government against people?

[Magius_AR]

In the UK increased restrictions on gun ownership actually show the opposite pattern

Howso? The accounts I've heard point to increased crime: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

Re:War of government against people?

[Magius_AR]

The problem is not guns, it's gun culture. Canada just has less of it.

The problem is not gun culture, it's culture (namely, crazy people).

Re:War of government against people?

[Magius_AR]

The burden of proof is on the one making a claim. So when someone wants to claim that gun ownership does not increase violent crime, that person has to prove that claim just as much as someone claiming it does.

Proving a correlation and stating no correlation have different burdens of proof. The latter is merely the null state. It'd be different, on the other hand, to say that making gun laws looser decreases violent crime (because again, you're trying to prove a correlatory connection). Saying guns have no effect/correlation is a different, and lower, burden of proof.

Re:War of government against people?

[s.petry]

My point was that we can argue about anecdotal evidence all day and not make headway. As a personal perspective, also working with various law enforcement agencies for over 30 years, I don't see this as "business as usual" in terms of violence by Police.

Yup, it would take a study to prove, but "Newspapers" seem to indicate my "feeling" is not that incorrect.

Re:War of government against people?

[kaatochacha]

I'm buying more guns recently, not because I'm afraid of the "da gubmint" or worried someone will burn down my house, but because I enjoy shooting, and each gun shoots differently.
Sometimes there isn't a serious reason for things.

Re:War of government against people?

[kaatochacha]

Then move. seriously, no anger meant. If you like it that much, consider immigration.

Re:War of government against people?

[kaatochacha]

This I don't get. I know so many smaller women who are physically at a disadvantage in bad situations, who loudly deride guns. As if a large man who intended to rob/assault them would even need one to do that.

Re:War of government against people?

[kaatochacha]

Oddly enough, the police chief of detroit has recently been speaking about allowing citizens to defend themselves. He's heavily anti-vigilante, and careful to say that he does think his department is doing as good a job as they can, but he's reasonable about the idea of Detroit citizens protecting themselves in the city.

Re:War of government against people?

[AK Marc]

I never lied, and your link doesn't say what you assert. I'm not wrong. A cop thinking a jackass is too stupid to own a gun isn't a national conspiracy to disarm everyone through a national registry. A lie is an intentional untruth. Unless you can prove I had pre-knowledge of the untruth, then you are lying, not me. And it isn't an untruth, so pre-knowledge of it would be difficult.

Re:War of government against people?

[Attila Dimedici]

Except that people on this thread have been arguing that the negative correlation between increased gun ownership and incident rate of violent crime does not disprove that increased gun ownership increases violent crime. A completely different argument than arguing that increased gun ownership decreases violent crime. While the fact of increased gun ownership coupled with decreased violent crime does not prove that it causes the decrease, it does prove that it does not cause it to increase. People are arguing that this is flawed logic. It is not. While it is still possible that increased gun ownership may contribute to increased violent crime (A position I believe is wrong), it is clear that it does not cause it.

Re:War of government against people?

[mirix]

Well, had they abandoned them in the theater they'd have cost $700k to taxpayers.

With the refurb, the sunk cost is then $1005k. So effective cost for the police having them is $305k, not $5k.

Re:War of government against people?

[gandhi_2]

redneck...
how is it acceptable to use that geo-discriminatory slur?

you think you are so much better than someone because you grew up in a suburb or something?

the sheriff is elected. unlike most police chiefs, state police commissioners, or the heads of the FBI, DEA, BATFE, or the hundred other federal agencies that somehow have arrest powers and guns. think about that for a second. That is a LOT of people who can ruin your life who don't answer to anyone you will EVER have any control over. I bet the sheriff can't invent constitution-free zones like the CBP.

I say get all that hardware into small town hands where it will fall into disrepair, rusting in weed-covered motor pools in a few years when a fleet of MaxxPros that ride like SHIT is last year's Christmas present.

Re:War of government against people?

[digsbo]

Pennsylvania is technically open carry without a license except in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and on federal land or near schools, etc.. However, it's unlikely to be something you'll want to do anywhere outside of farm/woods country (which most of PA is), as it attracts a lot of negative attention in the more liberal suburban areas.

Re:War of government against people?

[dave420]

He mentioned "civilized", so "self-defense" doesn't count.

Re:War of government against people?

[dave420]

If X increases and Y decreases, it might be that X causes Y, yet factor Z is increasing even more, which counter-acts the effects of X on Y. So no, Jane Q Public's "logic" is a farce.

Re:War of government against people?

[dave420]

Or you could move to a part of the world where such a scenario would seem ridiculously barbaric and incredibly unnecessary...

Re:War of government against people?

[dave420]

Just get proper doors and windows on your house if you are that scared of other people. In civilised countries people don't have to retreat from anything, as there is nothing to be scared of. Home invasions don't happen, burglaries (when they do happen) happen to empty houses, and burglars don't have guns as they are simply not needed - if they're disturbed in the act they flee. So yes - your attitude is precisely the problem as it's resigned you to the notion that it's perfectly normal to need a place to never retreat from, as if you are in some war. Defending your family by increasing the chances they die (either by your gun or the gun of the scary people you think will come get you) doesn't make much sense.

Re:War of government against people?

[dave420]

It's not a decrease in violence in general, but the decrease in shootings, which is what we are discussing. Of course if you move the goalposts it's easy to make it look like a failure, but if we stick to the topic at hand - gun violence - then yes, overwhelmingly, countries which have enforced good gun control laws have seen drastic reductions in gun violence.

Re:War of government against people?

[stealth_finger]

You're perfectly allowed to defend yourself/family. A gun isn't the only means of doing so.

Except in the real world, a 100 lb woman cannot beat up a 250 lb man

One swift knee in the happy sack and he'll drop like anyone else.

Re:War of government against people?

[SuricouRaven]

In this case, statistics don't matter - we're talking about behaviors. It's not important that the incidence of home invasion is miniscule, because people perceive it to be a lot higher and will act according to that perception. Blame the media, or hollywood.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

Well yes, that's probably because the accounts you've heard are the same accounts that everyone desperate to try and claim that the UK is an ultra-violent place grasp on to. Unfortunately:

- You need to read the date on the article, even if true it's from 2003 (hint: that's 11 years ago)

- Firearms offences in the UK include air rifles, imitation firearms and so forth, so it's possible for firearms offences to increase whilst actual shootings and violence go down. A kid carrying a realistic immitation pistol or rifle down the high street reported to the police would class as a firearms offence. Few firearms offences actually include discharging of real actual bullets.

- Increases are still trivial for a single year, a 32% increase in firearms murders is listed as a mere 23 cases total so a once in a decade case of family annihilation in a year can massively distort the stats for a single year when compared to the overall trend

- It's the Daily Mail so probably isn't entirely true in the first place. You have to understand that The Daily Mail is probably the least trustworthy paper in the UK, they don't just put a spin on things, they often outright lie about things. It's not uncommon for them to take a number everyone else is reporting on their front page and double it just to make it look like they have some edge to the story that no one else does but then completely fail to justify their figure precisely because it's a lie. As an example, The Daily Mail when trying to defame the government of the time made the claim that the UK is the most violent country in Europe and more violent than the US and South Africa, they did this by comparing crime rates in the UK, against violent crime rates elsewhere. Yes, that's right, they determined things like speeding tickets to be violent crime in the UK but nowhere else.

- Real actual modern stats will help clarify the truth of the matter (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-2... or from the previous year and different study http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-2...). Homicide rates even before these drops (from 2011/2012) show an even more glaring disparity putting the UK below even commonly seen as relatively murder-free nations like Norway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Long story short, the only place that seems to consistently claim the UK is more violent than ever is The Daily Mail, they've been doing this for some time, but official statistics from both police reporting, and the national crime survey, as well as third parties show a completely opposite story. As an aside, official statistics come from an organisation that's independent from government, and that has on numerous occasions criticised serving governments for mis-representing their statistics so it's a very trustworthy organisation. The Daily Mail is pretty much alone in it's claims, and again, given it's propensity to lie I'd rather take multiple sources with much better reputations over an agenda based lie piece.

Re:War of government against people?

[oobayly]

I'm not convinced Serbians would blow even more money on firearms - they don't have to, they've a massive surplus of weapons left over after an incredibly bloody civil war - there's a firearm for every 2nd man, woman and child.

Look at it another way, large ownership of weapons are a result of wars in the country
1 - USA - In the constitution as a result of the war of independence
2 - Serbia - A succession of wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia
3 - Yemem - Take your pick - there are 4 since 1994
4 - Switzerland - No civil war since 1840s, but instead had been surrounded by countries at war for the following 105 years, while attempting to stay neutral
5 - Cyprus - A country which has been a host to sectarian violence between Greeks and Turks since the Ottoman Empire

Similarly, for the UK, Northern Ireland has over 3 times the number of firearms than the rest of the UK, again a history of bloody sectarian violence. I'm not saying that I'm right, just that it the history of the country should be considered when looking at the reason for firearm ownership rates.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

Will this do?

http://www.publications.parlia...

The graph finishes early, but the trend has continued downwards (i.e. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-2...)

The problem is the article you cite uses The Daily Mail as it's source, I'm almost inclined to say that automatically makes it wrong, because on average if you take a Daily Mail article and say it's wrong to at least some degree you'll more often be right than not as The Daily Mail exists purely to push a political agenda that often runs against the grain of reality - more recent examples being gay marriage, when the law was going through parliament they published polls saying the majority opposed it, but that ran contrary to every other poll in existence. One of The Daily Mail's past articles (in fact it's the one linked at the bottom of the second article you linked I believe) even conflates crimes and violent crime, so it doesn't even get the absolute most basic comprehension of the numbers right but jumps to conclusions anyway.

Part the issue in comparing firearms offences in the UK is the fact that firearms offence can mean anything from a kid carrying a realistic looking toy gun in public and being told by the police you can't carry realistic looking weapons around, to someone going on a massacre. Whilst firearms themselves are defined in law as non-air weapons - i.e. what most people would see as "proper guns" a firearms offence can involve something that isn't a firearm but looks like one, through to air rifles, through to actual proper guns.

This doesn't contrast well to nations like the US and South Africa where many such offences are kept well away from firearms statistics, but in The Daily Mail's comparisons often ignore this sort of disparity because it doesn't paint the picture they want to paint. Or in other words, many UK firearms offences are actually completely non-violent crimes. Even illegal poaching leads to such offences, for example, carrying a shotgun on private farm land without permission would be an offence under the firearms act.

UK murder rates are even more encouraging now, the UK's homicide rate is below that of nations often seen as some of the most peaceful on earth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

If you don't trust Wikipedia, the World Bank provides the same data, but the presentation is much more awful IMO:

http://data.worldbank.org/indi...

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

As an aside, the first article looks a bit dodgy too, I only just bothered to read it, i.e.:

"Moreover, another massacre occurred in June 2010. Derrick Bird, a taxi driver in Cumbria, shot his brother and a colleague then drove off through rural villages killing 12 people and injuring 11 more before killing himself."

It seems oblivious to the fact that that was committed purely with legally owned (i.e. not banned) firearms. You could just as well argue that this case is a reason to further restrict guns rather than the contrary.

"Sgt. Nightingale was given the Glock pistol as a gift by Iraqi forces he had been training. It was packed up with his possessions and returned to him by colleagues in Iraq after he left the country to organize a funeral for two close friends killed in action."

This is also not entirely true. The author is restating the defendants claim but the prosecution had other evidence and a counterclaim, such as for example additional ammunition and so forth which he eventually admitted he kept there because he couldn't be bothered to return it to the base gun lockup after doing firearms practice. It was for this reason he was initially convicted, because laziness isn't an excuse for breaking the law - he knew what it was and one has to bear in mind the police only investigated this because someone reported it, so harmless claims of "oh I forgot about it it's no big deal" are obviously not born out given the fact someone was concerned enough to report he was keeping live firearms and live ammunition. It's not as simple a case as his side of the story makes out.

The final conclusion is a bit of a stretch too:

"What to conclude? Strict gun laws in Great Britain and Australia haven't made their people noticeably safer, nor have they prevented massacres. The two major countries held up as models for the U.S. don't provide much evidence that strict gun laws will solve our problems."

Effectively he's arguing that gun control doesn't work because it doesn't correlate with reduced violent crime. This ignores the fact that it does correlate with reduced gun crime and reduced homicides. I don't think anyone has ever tried to pretend that gun control is a magic wand that fixes all crime even those unrelated to firearms, but it's dishonest of him to deny there isn't positive correlating effects that may suggest that gun crime has a positive impact, but is only part of the solution, and certainly not the whole solution.

I'm not going to pretend that this definitely means gun control in itself fixes gun crime because the whole point of my argument is that there is too many variables to possibly be sure. But fundamentally my point is that there is as much evidence for positive effects (if not more) as there is for negative effects so to suggest it's "obvious" one way or the other and dismissing the existence of another side of the story as the person I was originally referring to did is extremely dishonest.

My gut, based on the statistics I've seen for the UK, and the timing of things however leads me to suspect that gun control doesn't instantly reduce gun crime, but it does create an environment whereby it's easier for the police to remove guns from criminals and eventually reduce gun crime - post ban it looked like it took some time for police to get a handle on how to deal with inner London gun crime, but once they did being able to remove guns from gangs meant it was easier to reduce gun crime than if there was no ban, because without a ban criminals would've just been replacing seized weapons with newly bought ones. That's much harder when the route to acquiring firearms are much more risky. Of course, as I say this is just a suspicion but it seems to play out reasonably - that is, it seems realistic that gun control isn't an instant fix, but combined with effective policing to seize illegally held guns post gun-control it does indeed reduce gun crime. So the mantra of the NRA and it's ilk of "If you ban guns, only criminals have guns" actually seems somewhat true, however there's also a flip side too it - when only criminals have guns, it's much easier to find them and take them off them and to prevent them rearming afterwards.

Re:War of government against people?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Regarding your first link, it's unlcear what the chart is depicting. The vertical axis is labelled "Numbers", with each data series corresponding to a different kind of weapon. Are these numbers of weapons? Numbers of violent crimes committed with these weapons? Numbers of homicides committed with these weapons? The chart, on its own, doesn't make that clear.

The article in the Beeb is fascinating, but the charts it includes refer only to "crime", not violent crime (although the article does state that "personal crime, including thefts from the person and violent crimes, fell by 9%. It also estimated violence had fallen by 13%, taking it to its lowest level for 33 years"). This seems to contradict the claims made in the WSJ article I linked to (which does not cite the Daily Fail).

Indeed, the second link I provided does unfortunately cite the Daily Mail. That was actually the next google hit (after a wikipedia article), which is why I only provided the first two hits. I'm well aware of the Daily Mail's reputation, and made an effort to exclude it from my pool of evidence. It seems to have flew in under my radar regardless, and so I ask you to discount the second link I provided.

In any case, the WSJ article claims about the aftermath of the Firearms Act of 1998: "Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time."

Now, you provide some more links to homicide data. That's not the same thing as violent crime. If banning guns results in half as many people dying, but twice as many people being the victims of non-fatal assault, can we really say we have decreased crime? How many stabbings is a prevented shooting worth? Either way, when we're looking at homicide data, we're comparing apples to oranges. It's entirely possible (and likely, according to at least some of the data) that gun bans result in decreased rates of homicide but increased rates of violent crime overall.

In the end, I'm curious as to why there's an apparent discrepancy between the claims made by the WSJ and BBC. It's sad that even with an issue that's so thoroughly documented, it's hard to get a straight answer.

Re:War of government against people?

[swillden]

What bizarre reasoning. Looking at total violence rather than violence committed with one specific tool is "moving the goalposts"? Nonsense, it's looking at the whole picture. Eliminating gun violence is pointless if it's just replaced by the same amount of violence using other tools.

Narrowing the focus to consider only gun violence constitutes brazen moving of the goalposts. Shifting them sideways a few inches and then ignoring all of the goals that pass through the region where the goalposts previously weren't. The other team doesn't actually score any less, but we ignore a portion of the goals and call it a victory?

The only reasonable and valid goal is to reduce violence, period. If it could be proved that restricting guns reduced violence, then that would be a valid argument for restricting guns. But if restricting guns merely causes people to choose different tools, with the same results, then there is no case for restricting guns.

Re:War of government against people?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I think that's the point, though. If gun bans don't result in an overall decrease in violent crime, then they don't work. If by banning guns, you just encourage people to take up knives and hammers, what's the point? Nobody's suggesting that banning guns will stop stabbings. However, if banning guns increases stabbings, it's quite reasonable to challenge the effectiveness of such bans. Nobody's claiming that gun bans don't decrease gun crime, but if the decrease in gun crime is matched (or dwarfed) by an increase in non-gun crime, what's the point?

Also, I wouldn't focus on the Bird or Nightingale stories, as they're anecdotes and not really relevant in a conversation about effectiveness of legislation (although I'm not surprised to see the news media jumping on an opportunity to promote sensationalism).

Of course, I'd like to just add that we live in possibly the safest times in history. We've never been as safe from violent crime as we are today, and yet there is still this overwhelming concern with safety, with neutralizing some mythical violent threat. I understand that people are still subject to violent crime on a regular basis, and because of that we must not abandon our quest for safety. However, I invite you to consider that we may be chasing the long tail of violence at this point, and the sacrifices we must make in order to do so might at some point be greater than the gains we make. Whether that line is drawn at banning guns or whether it's drawn at banning knives and hammers, I think we can agree that there is a point at which it doesn't really make sense to continue striving for increased safety. In the end, you can't stop every single determined asshole.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

"Regarding your first link, it's unlcear what the chart is depicting. The vertical axis is labelled "Numbers", with each data series corresponding to a different kind of weapon. Are these numbers of weapons? Numbers of violent crimes committed with these weapons? Numbers of homicides committed with these weapons? The chart, on its own, doesn't make that clear."

Sorry, I should've posted the full link. It's the number of recorded incidents:

http://www.publications.parlia...

"In the end, I'm curious as to why there's an apparent discrepancy between the claims made by the WSJ and BBC. It's sad that even with an issue that's so thoroughly documented, it's hard to get a straight answer."

I don't know why either, but personally I'd be inclined to consider that the WSJ article is an opinion piece by someone who seems to have a history of being a bit of an anti-gun control zealot and provides absolutely no citations, whilst the BBC article is an actual news report reporting on the actual ONS figures. It wouldn't be like it's the first time that Dr. Malcolm had just made stuff up on violent crime:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoi...

I know I know, this is an ad-hominem argument against her, but without citations to consider or dispute what is left? Honestly, it's gotten to the point where I almost just discount US sources automatically because the debate there is so polarised and so full of dirty tactics on both sides. I shouldn't of course, because there's the danger in discounting sources of only ending up with one side of the picture, but when it comes down to outright lies (again as is the case with The Daily Mail) it becomes ever harder to give such sources just consideration.

Re:War of government against people?

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I can't disagree with anything you've said.

However, to really get a complete picture regarding how effective gun control laws are at making people safer (safer in general, not just from guns), we'd also need a chart like the one your provide for gun crime, but for non-gun crime instead. If we could show that the drop in gun crime didn't coincide with a rise in non-gun crime, then we'd have an unassailable argument in favor of gun control.

Re:War of government against people?

[airdweller]

This is hilarious. A person with "ghandhi" in the nickname advocates gun ownership.
That person also lies: gun ownership is not forbidden in Mexico - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Re:War of government against people?

[airdweller]

Can you provide any sources for YOUR information?

Re:War of government against people?

[Reziac]

I'd say the factor there is "cramped" not income disparity; there are non-cramped areas with even greater income disparity that don't suffer from high crime rates. I know; I live in one of them (in fact our crime rate is about 1/3rd the national average).

Re:War of government against people?

[Reziac]

So if someone comes into my house, points a gun at me and says, "Get out, I live here now", I have a duty to retreat until they see fit to move back out?? Because that's the endpoint of your logic. And the police may or may not do anything about it. (Los Angeles County told me there was NOTHING I could do about squatters, which is fundamentally the same issue.)

What I find amazing is how people who don't believe in the right of self-defense are usually first to speak out against stuff like, oh, European settlers displacing the American Indians.

Re:War of government against people?

[digsbo]

There has been a tendency to require more checks on gun owners lately, and the number of background checks per gun sold may be going up.

No. Clearly you have not purchased a gun. There is no "tendency" involved. Required checks have been and are required at time of purchase. There is a single check done. Since the gun store people have to try multiple times to get through (because the system is constantly busy on weekends during store hours), why would they do more than one check per purchase? Even if the lines weren't always busy, why would they do multiple checks per gun sold? They do one check to satisfy all paperwork (there are 2 forms for handguns in my state due to a federal law, but only 1 for long guns). What you are saying makes no sense.

Re:War of government against people?

[Samizdata]

Considering the fact that the USA's major source of violent crime comes from fewer than fifteen counties (that's right,counties...not states), logically, the remainder USA must be a remarkably safe place to be, despite all of the guns, all of the media violence.

The US has very poor areas with low violence rates, very rich places with low violence rates, and it has places where the very rich and the very poor share the same relatively cramped geography. The trend is the violence is most often found in the latter. My belief is the greatest contribution to violence is wildly varying income disparity.

Citation, please?

Re:War of government against people?

[Sciath]

History has clearly demonstrated that no organized government military force has been successful in defeating well armed and determined indigenous guerrilla forces. One does not need what appears to be overwhelming force, technology, material, etc to win. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan (who also defeated the Russians, and please don't use the excuse they had U.S. assistance because it was determination on the part of the indigenous people that ultimately defeated them) all demonstrate the power of an armed citizenry to defeat either invading or domestic oppressive forces. The only surefire way to preserve liberty for all (even if it mean sacrifice for some) is for a citizenry has the determination and ability to repel or overthrow apparent overwhelming forces. And the only way to ensure that is for the citizens have access to weapons and education on how to use said weapons. Look at Syria, their revolution began with throwing stones. Not very effective by the way. Then they started to receive assistance from outside. Which is not consistent or reliable. What have they accomplished? Little. Because they didn't have the right or ability to overthrow a dictator from the getgo. Ergo, citizens should always have the right and ability to overthrow oppression even if it requires firearms.

Re:War of government against people?

[AmiMoJo]

The issue there seems to be the failure of the police to act, or perhaps your weak laws on squatting. You could take matters into your own hands, but presumably the squatters are thinking the same thing and in your example already have a gun pointed at you. So assuming you carry yours all the time you had better hope you can draw faster than they can pull the trigger.

Re:War of government against people?

[lsatenstein]

This is the most relevant point:

the US is safer now than ever before.

And not just a little. FAR safer. Violent crime is less than half what it was 20 years ago. And even less compared to 30 years ago.

The only "increasing" violence is news-media propaganda. Because chicks hatching on the farm does not sell news.

In fact, some recent studies have concluded that it was news media coverage, and not guns, which led to copy-cat "mass" shootings on college and other school campuses. (But even so, and even though they are splashed all over the news, THOSE are way down, too, compared to 2-3 decades ago.)

American does not have "increasing" internal violence. It has decreasing violence.

And during the same period, it is interesting to not, per-capita gun ownership in the U.S. has gone steadily up. And also during that same period, concealed-carry laws have become much more common.

Statistics do not prove cause-and-effect. But a negative correlation can DISprove cause-and-effect.

We have more guns. (Per person!) According to our own government's statistics. Yet we have less violent crime. This is a direct, indisputable DISproof of the idea that "more guns equals more crime".

[Sources: U.S. DOJ, and for more recent years: U.S. Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics]

Most probably the reason violent crime is way down is that fewer people carry cash, and rely on credit and debit cards.
Ergo, the stores have much less cash in hand then they had in the past.

Re:War of government against people?

[Sciath]

I suppose that's a convenient excuse if one doesn't mind being a victim... passivity. However it is a well known fact based upon criminal interviews and polls that fear of personal harm is the biggest disincentive to crime. What disincentive exists within a population that is prohibited from defending themselves with more overwhelming force than that possessed by a criminal?

Re:War of government against people?

[volmtech]

My God, I had to read a hundred post before I got to one that mentioned the root cause of America's gang problem. The drug war. Probation caused so much crime they had to create the FBI to fight it. This is a hundred times worse.

Most homicides are caused by a minority of the population. I'm old enough to remember the South before welfare and integration and even those groups rarely killed anyone. If there was a disagreement over a dice game or a woman the knives came out but they only tried to cut the other guy.

Re:War of government against people?

[Occams]

>But a negative correlation can Disprove cause-and-effect.
No the same other thing could be causing the negative correlation, or two other things, or three...

Re:War of government against people?

[Occams]

When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

Re:War of government against people?

[Xest]

"It is an indisputable fact that violence goes down in well armed states. It is a fact. You may not like the fact, but it is a fact nonetheless."

Of course, that's why Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Afghanistan are the most peaceful nations on earth, because of the massive proliferation of arms.

Obviously you're more than just a little bit dumb.

Re:War of government against people?

[silent-listener]

It have al to do with respect. The youtube video shall show the most worse cases, but even it is less as 0.1% you can not respect this Rambo types. Problem is the other 99.9% of the police force loses respect too. Police force needs a better education, and internal clean up.

Re:War of government against people?

[stoatwblr]

One can argue that as gun control gets tighter, ownership of illegal weapons falls to a camp of sociopaths who are more prone to violence and disregard for safety/human life, so they're more likely to use them in anger.

They may be a tiny minority, but they can have a huge effect on gun crime statistics.

Re:War of government against people?

[stoatwblr]

The correlation should be that levels of violent crime would be higher in such areas.

It's also been argued that Wade vs Roe has had a large influence in the incidence of USA violent crime, by virtue of fewer unwanted children being brought up in deprived environments and turning into Angry Young Men.

The counterpoint is that violent crime levels have fallen _everywhere_ worldwide, outside of war zones, even in the few areas that still used leaded gasoline.

Re:War of government against people?

[stoatwblr]

Counterpoint: there is no good reason for the general population to need automatic weapons(*) or carbines(**)

Counterpoint 2: most victims of gun crime are themselves gun owners and in a lot of cases have their own weapons turned against them.

Counterpoint3: you can be just as badly injured by a baseball bat or fists as a gun. It's just a lot less personal with a gun.

(*) If you're involved in feral goat eradication then a semiauto is useful to get rid of them, else the entire flock is over the next ridge by the time you reload.

(**) Carbines (short barrelled rifles) aren't very accurate. They're a specifically military weapon which were developed to be easier to carry.

New Zealand has a near total prohibition on handguns (anything shorter than 22 inches is classified as such, so a shortbarrelled shotgun with pistol grip comes under that classification too) and psych tests are required for "assault" style weapons. Gun onwership is on par with the USA yet gun crime is extremely low. (overall violence levels are not)

Switzerland has even higher levels of gun onwership, with similarly low stats. Handgun ownership levels are low which probably contributes.

The problem with handguns is that they're easily carried and easily used in anger. Longer weapons require some forethought before use.

Re:War of government against people?

[Kirth]

Sadly, most crime statistics don't differ between "hand gun" and "rifle" or somesuch. Because that would change the statistics extremely, with "hand gun" ownership being rather low in most countries other than the US, even those which otherwise have a very high gun proliferation.

If you're counting in the "technically government owned firearms", my country (Switzerland) is probably number two, but these are mostly rifles, and most other privately held firearms also are rifles. Depending on the type of rifle, you can get them without any permit. But you usually can't get more modern than single-shot muzzle-loading hand guns without a specific license. And you need another license for carrying them.

Also, the statistics probably lack murder-by-police ("We mistook his cellphone for a gun"), and I'm pretty sure the US is very high up in that department as well..

Re:War of government against people?

[pepty]

Yup

Re:War of government against people?

[Optali]

In Russia the inhabitants of the tundra and steppes massively bought excedent tanks, without the weapons they make awesome transports. Mate, just imagine driving one of these armored vehicles! I wouldn't mind even if they kept the weapons, I know how to handle them (I served in artillery). OMFG!!!

Re:War of government against people?

[cwsumner]

They just want to drive it. 8-P

They probably promised each of the voters a ride...

Re:War of government against people?

[cwsumner]

Your logic is also impeccable!

I would love to hear someone dispute this with logic. That I would know how to deal with. No one does that. They only dispute it with emotion, and with blind assertion, and refuse to believe it, but they can give me no rational reason to follow them. ...

That is because the hatred of guns is based on superstition. They believe that the guns contain "evil spirits" that can take over good people. They do not see that themselves, but listening to their words makes it evident.

Re:War of government against people?

[stoatwblr]

"Maybe your criminals are just bad at their "careers" where you're from, but around here, they're pretty damned ruthless, even the stupid ones."

This is a direct result of the american criminal system being built around the concept of retribution(*), not justice.

That attitude is seen in the MPAA/RIAA laws which the USA is attempting to export to other countries.

Re:War of government against people?

[jwhitener]

I prefer to correlate violence not with guns, but with income inequality, social safety nets (mental health, food stamps, etc..), and social mobility (ability to increase your economic status.. move up a rung).

As far as I've been able to tell, when inequality is high, social safety nets and social mobility are low, violence goes up.

Re:War of government against people?

[dwpro]

The spoilage of your argument by brazenly comparing the tea party and gun owners to the KKK and Nazis is only surpassed by your rejection of correlations that directly contradict your assertions.

Re:War of government against people?

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Why would you ask for a citation for his statement and not include one for yours?

Because my claim wasn't made in support of a particular argument. Also, are you suggesting that one needs to provide evidence that there might be something wrong with a prior claim before the person who made that prior claim is required to support it? Pff...

Re:War of government against people?

[therealkevinkretz]

No, I'm suggesting one should adhere to the same standard he asks of someone with whom he disagrees. And your claim was made precisely in support of the argument that gun ownership has been declining.

Which, BTW, is incorrect. Not only is ownership not declining, but new purchases are increasing. So gun ownership is not only increasing but accelerating.

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Re:War of government against people?

[sergueyz]

Your post contains contradictions. Criminals do not want to kill innocent people and also want to kill people with guns (even if those people are innocent).

Also you do not provide source for your statistics.

Re:War of government against people?

[khallow]

And it is extremely important to note that try as we might, we have found no other causal factors that apply to the situation.

Demographics. The US population is aging and becoming moderately more female in composition. Crime is predominately a young man's game.

What about escalation?

[Anonymous Coward]

... We start carrying semi-automatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar they buy armor-piercing rounds.

Re:What about escalation?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Hey, escalation is good for the economy. Firearms factory jobs FTW!

Re:What about escalation?

[olsmeister]

"Wanna get Capone? Here's how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun, he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone."

Re:What about escalation?

[riverat1]

Yep, election Obama to the Presidency was the best thing ever for the firearms industry.

Re:What about escalation?

[fustakrakich]

Wanna get Capone? Here's how you get him.

Call the IRS

Re:What about escalation?

[riverat1]

Typo, I meant to write "electing" of course.

Re:What about escalation?

[Patent Lover]

Right wing paranoia has and always will be the best thing ever for the firearms industry. There was a Clinton boom years ago if you don't remember.

Re:What about escalation?

[SuricouRaven]

I still do not approve of that move.

Sure, everyone knew Capone was guilty. But the police couldn't prove it in court (largely due to Capone's effective witness intimidation and bribery campaigns). The correct response to this situation should be to gather evidence of the alleged crimes until they could successfully prosecute. Instead someone decided to go on a fishing expidition. It was an underhanded trick, to first decide someone needed to be convicted and then go looking for a crime to convict them of.

People approve of that case because it was used to lock up a real crime lord - but it's exactly the same legal trick that can be used to silence political opponents, break up protest groups and imprison activists. First decide someone must be eliminated, then look for a law they have violated. There are so many laws, everyone has violated some of them - there is no longer any such thing as a law-abiding person.

Re:What about escalation?

[lgw]

Tax evasion is a worse crime than mass murder, in the eyes of the state. They got Capone for the worst crime of all, by government measure, not some petty trick.

Re:What about escalation?

[david_thornley]

Except that Capone had committed the crime of income tax evasion. This wasn't a slip-up or obscure: he was required to report all of his illegal income as income, and he didn't. This is clearly illegal and clearly intentional. The IRS is supposed to go after tax evaders, and Capone was a likely suspect.

Yuck.

[mythosaz]

Even with Ad-Block, that link is gross.

Slashdot groupthink hates the militarization of our police. Sheriff Gayer (seriously?) isn't going to help that cause.

SWAT teams are a reality. Buying them a surplus MRAP isn't shocking.

Sheriff Gayer making stupid comments, however, won't help anything...

Re:Yuck.

[rolfwind]

Sheriff Gayer?

Well, fuck, that explains it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re:Yuck.

[shikaisi]

Sheriff Gayer?

Well, fuck, that explains it!

The other sheriff quoted in the article is Sheriff Cox. With names like those, they probably need heavy weaponry to suppress the local mockery.

Re:Yuck.

[rmdingler]

If George was alive to appreciate the comedic material fallen into his lap from this one, he would be twirling his fingers together like Mr Burns, chanting Excellent.

Re:Yuck.

[pushing-robot]

The other sheriff quoted in the article is Sheriff Cox.

Of Johnson County.

Face recognition, Armored vehicles, Phone spies

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States of America is a war zone, the government is at war with its citizens.

Re:Face recognition, Armored vehicles, Phone spies

[reboot246]

And that is why they're so desperate to take our weapons. Disarm the citizens and the rest is easy.

Oh, and it's not all semiautomatic hunting rifles like AR-15s. There are a LOT of .45 submachine guns floating around this country, plus other heavy weapons like Browning Automatic Rifles (BAR). You would truly be surprised what Americans are hiding.

Re:Face recognition, Armored vehicles, Phone spies

[Nidi62]

Browning still makes BARs actually. But they look a little different than they used to

Re:Face recognition, Armored vehicles, Phone spies

[Occams]

"There are a LOT of .45 submachine guns floating around this country, plus other heavy weapons like Browning Automatic Rifles (BAR)." All the more reason to confiscate them, whenever they are seen.

$5k

[reanjr]

For five grand, I'd be tempted to buy one, too.

Re:$5k

[Daniel_Staal]

This. The sheriff said he'd rather have a more police-oriented armored vehicle for his SWAT team, but they cost $300,000, and this only cost $5,000. It's bigger, slower, and uses more gas, but it's cheaper overall. He's working within a budget and it's budget-effective.

The rest is window dressing and statements to appease the press.

Re:$5k

[mythosaz]

Are they still for sale?

I've got a teenager who needs a car he can't wreck :)

Re:$5k

[the eric conspiracy]

You would think that just the scrap value would be more than $5g. Hell I got $200 for my lawn tractor.

Re:$5k

[BBF_BBF]

You would think that just the scrap value would be more than $5g. Hell I got $200 for my lawn tractor.

You didn't RTFA didn't you... All a government agency has to do to obtain the equipment is to apply, get approved, then pay for shipping... those are the terms of the plan. (There are probably some other rules, but you get the picture.) The Sheriff's Office pretty much got the vehicle for free and paid $5000 for shipping costs.

Re:$5k

[Ultracrepidarian]

I can't imagine mileage being much of a factor.

Re:$5k

[amiga3D]

We don't need to read no stinkin' article. We post on shit just from scanning the erroneous summary.

Re:$5k

[ArcadeMan]

You're wrong, nVidia is better than Kellogg's.

Re:$5k

[SumDog]

And the company that made it still got it's $300k. Even if the municipality didn't pay for it, someone did. Most likely the federal government and therefore, the taxpayer.

Re:$5k

[ShaunC]

The sheriff said he'd rather have a more police-oriented armored vehicle for his SWAT team, but they cost $300,000, and this only cost $5,000.

Shouldn't cost anything. We (the taxpayers) already paid for it once. I think it's ridiculous for police to be getting this sort of equipment at all, but for fuck's sake, how many times does the public need to be billed for it?

Re:$5k

[blackraven14250]

$5000 for an MRAP is a pittance. The public isn't being "billed for it" again, they're basically getting it for free.

Re:$5k

[shutdown -p now]

They really do think that "America is a war zone". This goes far beyond buying MRAPs for cheap - it's the whole us-vs-them mentality of modern American police where they shoot first and ask questions later (and if it turns out to be a mistake, their colleagues will bust their ass to cover it up).

Re:$5k

[Talderas]

Burma-Vita was much better.
Neither nVidia or Kelloggs.
Has as many letters.
So before your start your jogs.
Make your face feel better.
Burma-Shave.

Re:$5k

[the eric conspiracy]

I have no problem with the Army buying MRAPs at $300K a pop for use in combat. If you are going to have an all-volunteer army it's the least you can do.

However it's STUPID for small police departments.

Re:$5k

[Ravaldy]

At 3-6 miles per gallon it's a pretty big factor if you figure the average crown vic did 14-16 miles per gallons and that was only costing 15 000 per year. That means the military vehicle will only cost $69 000 per year assuming same mileage. What a saving!!!

Re:$5k

[david_thornley]

Military surplus. The Feds bought it, and when the Army didn't need it any more they sent it to a sheriff's department. It isn't ideal for the sheriff's use, but it's cheap.

Re:$5k

[findoutmoretoday]

I agree a good price, although knowing that a Barret sports gun gets through 1" of armor it may be sometimes not heavy enough

SHeriff Michael Gayer

[geekoid]

needs to go to a war zone for a few months.

Violence has been trending down for decades. This dumb ass just get a hard on with driving around in the military vehicle.

Plus he is in Johnson county doing Sheriff duties. Not anything close to a war zone. Using a few stories from the news to claim America is a war zone is so fucking stupid this guy should be fired. Clearly he can not do basic statistics within his field. Someone anyone making purchasing decision should be able to do.
Tell me what crime you deal with the requires this?
http://www.jocosheriff.org/ind...

AND it's going to be more expensive to maintain, and the police should never use military anything, ever. They are NOT the military. Too many people are loosing touch with what the difference is.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[Nidi62]

AND it's going to be more expensive to maintain, and the police should never use military anything, ever. They are NOT the military.

Why SHOULDN'T civilian organizations make use of military surplus when it is available? It saves them money and makes use of existing stuff instead of having to build new. So what if they aren't the military? I've got a couple of old field jackets, should I not use them because I'm not the military, even though they are good, rugged, serviceable pieces of clothing.

There is a bit of a difference between a bush jacket and an anti-mine vehicle. Him buying a surplus MRAP would be like you buying a surplus spacesuit from NASA. Sure, it might keep you warm and dry, but it's a lot more complicated and inefficient to use than an actual jacket and makes you look like an idiot going down the street.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Why SHOULDN'T civilian organizations make use of military surplus when it is available? It saves them money and makes use of existing stuff instead of having to >>build new. So what if they aren't the military? I've got a couple of old field jackets, should I not use them because I'm not the military, even though they are good, >>>rugged, serviceable pieces of clothing.

Well hell, why do we even need a civilian police force? Why not just use military personal to police the civilian population? It would save money by using existing personel that are no longer needed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[s.petry]

DHS does not give this gear to local police departments, so your claim of "cheap" is absolutely false. Sure, they are not paying "New" gear prices but they are not getting "New" gear.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[Obfuscant]

DHS does not give this gear to local police departments, so your claim of "cheap" is absolutely false.

If you don't call $5000 for a vehicle of this type "cheap" then I fear that you aren't speaking the same language that most of the people in the US speak. And you know who's language is relevant to this? The people in Pulaski County. It is their Sheriff who is getting one of these. My claim that it is cheap is absolutely true.

... they are not getting "New" gear.

So what if it isn't new? You think everything a police department gets has to be new to be usable? What will the next objection to this be? It's painted the wrong color? It's made out of METAL, for God's sake! It's too SMALL! It's too BIG! It's just right, so it must be wrong!

You've said nothing that supports the claim that a civilian agency should not use military surplus.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[s.petry]

Cheap how? When you have to pay 1000 times more money for a replacement part because they are only manufactured by DOD contractors? The fuel spent on these old rigs is going to be cheaper? Insurance is cheaper for these behemoths?

Me thinks your point about "cheap" is a very narrow and unrealistic. If they were buying lawn ornaments I'd agree with you completely, but these are not lawn ornaments.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[ArcadeMan]

Are you my mummy?

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[mishehu]

It saves them money and makes use of existing stuff instead of having to build new.

No. No. And again, No. It's cheaper if we just electrocute to death everybody ever found guilty of a crime. Why don't we just electrocute them all instead of having to build those big, expensive prisons and feed people? Hell, does it even matter that they're guilty of having forgotten to pay for their livestock purchase within 24 hours?

When it comes to the police, cheaper is not necessarily better. I would rather not have police plowing through mine or my neighbor's door with an MRAP. We aren't in a war zone, the police aren't the military, and there is zero justification to make everybody feel like we're living without rights and freedoms under martial law. Some studies have shown that when police are less aggressive (possible even not carrying guns) and laws are toned down from the "let's be tough on crime and send people away to jail for 10 years for carrying around a little dead leaf in their pocket", that violence between the police and the populace also goes down.

Accountants and MBA's tend to be only concerned with financial costs and ignore the other, real costs. Surely you're not one of those? :-)

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[Obfuscant]

No. No. And again, No. It's cheaper if we just electrocute to death everybody ever found guilty of a crime.

It is this useless hyperbole that makes discussions on /. so pleasant and productive.

I would rather not have police plowing through mine or my neighbor's door with an MRAP.

Because you'd rather they plow through your door with what? More senseless hyperbole. I doubt the Sheriff of Pulaski County is getting one of these just to run down your whole house at once.

the police aren't the military

Which controls what they DO with what they have, not what kinds of equipment they can have. Are you one of those people who thinks "assault rifle" is some kind of really bad thing that nobody should be allowed to own because it has the word "assault" in the name? Well, "military surplus" doesn't mean that regular people shouldn't be able to own it just because it has "military" in the name.

There is no good reason why a civilian agency shouldn't save taxpayer dollars using military surplus, and doing so does not create martial law or trample on your rights. I suppose your new reasons are a bit better than the "it's painted the wrong color" I was predicting would be the next reason to send the surplus to the smelter instead of using it for something productive, but not by much.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[Peter Simpson]

needs to go to a war zone for a few months.

Violence has been trending down for decades. This dumb ass just get a hard on with driving around in the military vehicle.

Plus he is in Johnson county doing Sheriff duties. Not anything close to a war zone. Using a few stories from the news to claim America is a war zone is so fucking stupid this guy should be fired.

Wait until he gets the fuel bill for the first month. Then, the first maintenance bill. The MRAAP is a white elephant.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[advocate_one]

Violence has been trending down for decades. This dumb ass just get a hard on with driving around in the military vehicle.

Percisely... you can tell from the photo that he's lovin' it... that buzz cut and the shades...

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[HangingChad]

Violence has been trending down for decades

You can't support that conclusion definitively. What's positively been changing for decades is the way police report crimes. That, combined with the sheer numbers of people we're imprisoning, might be contributing to a drop overall level of crime but until there are uniform reporting guidelines, that conclusion is, at best, fragile.

Around here if someone shoots holes in your apartment, unless someone is hit, it gets reported as vandalism, even though most sane people would agree that's a gun crime. If someone pulls a gun on you here, unless it's accompanied by a threat or robbery, it's not considered a gun crime. There was a big stink in the paper about it a few months ago that involved dozens of local PDs. How many other PDs are playing similar games with their crime statistics? Nobody knows for sure. Since that's where the FBI gets their statistics, then garbage in, garbage out would apply.

Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer

[Stuarticus]

Less Americans have died in war zones in the last ten years than have been killed on the streets.

Better title

[oodaloop]

"America Has Become a War Zone, According to This One Guy"

Re:Better title

[R3d M3rcury]

Didn't you hear? There's a revolution going on.

Ob

[Hognoxious]

Pulaski County Sheriff Michael Gayer told the Indy Star: "The United States of America has become a war zone."'

And then when he thought the mic was off he added "...and if it isn't, we'll soon make it one!"

You'll have to forgive Sheiff Gayer

[rahvin112]

You'll have to forgive Sheriff Gayer, after all it must feel like a warzone when you spend all you're available time and money engaged in the war on drugs because it's so damn profitable for the cops.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...

Nineteen eighty-four was the year that Congress rewrote the civil forfeiture law to funnel drug money and "drug related" assets into the police agencies that seize them. This amendment offered law enforcement a new source of income, limited only by the energy police and prosecutors were willing to put into seizing assets. The number of forfeitures mushroomed: Between 1985 and 1991 the Justice Department collected more than $1.5 billion in illegal assets; in the next five years, it almost doubled this intake. By 1987 the Drug Enforcement Administration was more than earning its keep, with over $500 million worth of seizures exceeding its budget.

The numbers are only worse now. States like Minesota that are average size take in around 8 million dollars and almost every penny of that money is given right back to the cops.

Re:You'll have to forgive Sheiff Gayer

[Darth Turbogeek]

The War on Drugs however IS a real problem, solved by stopping that lunatic policy

Re:You'll have to forgive Sheiff Gayer

[pspahn]

Pot is illegal in your jurisdiction? How quaint.

Re:You'll have to forgive Sheiff Gayer

[toddestan]

Yes, there are real problems in the world, and stopping a pothead from getting high isn't one of them.

It's a BS excuse

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the lamest excuse I think I've ever heard. Why not just admit the truth? Homeland paranoid security is militarizing local police departments for civilian pacification when martial law is declared.

Re:It's a BS excuse

[EzInKy]

So it couldn't possibly be that local law enforcement is arming itself to defend against paranoid homeland security? Things have been way to one sided towards the feds forces for way too long now.

Moderator Points

[The Raven]

I'd like to moderate the story as flamebait.

Junk

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the MRAPs are junk. The only thing they're really good at is absorbing a blast coming from under the vehicle. They're unstable and they guzzle fuel because of their weight and lack of aerodynamics. The citizens should be more concerned about how much of the municipal budget is going into fueling these pieces of shit.

Re:Junk

[AHuxley]

re "The only thing they're really good at is absorbing a blast coming from under the vehicle."
That was the origin for much of the tech. South Africa had to keep its troops moving down roads that where unsafe.
South African Border War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
All that decades of tech is been repackaged and sold to the US gov for its own distant small wars. The crew survives but the long term health costs add up as some of the energy of the event does shake the human body.
What is left after the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is been gifted to US cities, states as great "free" tech for any municipal.
Just as the US mil budget had to pay for the construction and running costs so will the local cities, states have to pick up the costs for the mil grade bespoke parts and needed upgrades.
Across America, Police Departments Are Quietly Preparing For War (06/09/2014)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
Yes the "municipal budget" is going to have to stretch far for the parts, skilled staff and new costs ..... thats cash that will have to come from roads, schools, libraries, much needed infrastructure maintenance.
The other option to have enough local raids to self fund with confiscated property auctions. If the paper work is done just right it might bring in extra federal funding per raid too :)

Re:Junk

[Sir Holo]

How many Roadside Bombs did we have in the USA in 2013?

None? Well, how about 2012?

None? Well, how about 2011?

None? Well, how about 2010?

Continue, ad infinitum.

Re:Junk

[ToddInSF]

And insuring them. The whole thing is a massive waste of taxpayer funds by corrupt departments and cops.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Bradmont]

This is why I constantly fear for my life and don't ever go out after dark in the multicultural hell hole of violence and degeneracy that is Canada.

violent crime has plunged

[SuperBanana]

"There's violence in the workplace, there's violence in schools and there's violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract. If driving a military vehicle is going to protect officers, then that's what I'm going to do."

Uh, yeah, except violent (and property) crime has fallen to levels we haven't seen in 50 years (police-involved shootings, however, have gone up - in part, I'm sure, because of all the war vets getting preferential hiring in police jobs.)

This reminds me of the firefighters in our city. Fires have become extremely rare, thanks to better standards/code for electrics, building, appliances, etc...as well as education, etc.

Instead of laying off firefighters, they started sending them out to respond to medical calls. So we have giant ladder trucks responding to grandma saying her chest hurts, instead of spending that operating expenditure on ambulances that can respond quicker, or, say, pivoting the "fleet" towards much smaller, faster SUVs that carry high-tech equipment. Everyone thinks they're still really busy fighting fires. Win-win, except for citizens, screwed by both unnecessary expenditure and ineffective utilization of budget...

Re:violent crime has plunged

[mythosaz]

I was born in the 60's, and Fire has responded to medical calls for my entire adult life.

Re:violent crime has plunged

[SuperBanana]

"I was born in the 60's, and Fire has responded to medical calls for my entire adult life."

Not in my city, they didn't.

I would have thought by your age you would have figured out that other places can be different and others have different experiences than you.

Re:violent crime has plunged

[mythosaz]

*sigh*

I forget, this is the internet, and everyone's a special snowflake.

I was providing my experience, dick. I didn't say it was true for you or anyone else.

That said, TV showed us all that Gage and DeSoto were responding to medical calls on Emergency! in 1972, which was when paramedics started to become part of fire crews around the country. By the 80's they were everywhere in the US -- except for you special snowflakes and your fire departments.

Re:violent crime has plunged

[zAPPzAPP]

That was only the partial quote in the summary.
What he really meant to say was:

"Now that we got tanks, America has become a warzone."

Well I guess they're right...

[Mashiki]

After all the US federal government is no longer enforcing the law for all, but selectively enforcing it. And punishing their enemies by dumping illegals on them. With various letter agencies going after people for being in their legal right.

Re:Well I guess they're right...

[Mashiki]

Sshhh! You'll spoil "The Narrative".

Oh come on AC, if you watch the MSM the narrative never changes. Especially with how deep the rot goes between them and the WH these days. It must be nice that your brother/sister/uncle/close friend of whoever works for the MSM but also has family members right up in the highest areas of the WH.

And nobody like his local mayor called him on it

[Gothmolly]

Cops are in the business to be cops, not too picky about whose will they enforce, so long as they're enforcing someone's will on someone.

This guy needs disciplining and should possibly be fired.

That won't happen, because safety, and the children, and we can't let the terrorists win. And this is how democracy dies; with thunderous applause.

Fortunately, I'll be dead in 40 years and this is all your problem, Millenials.

Re:America HAS become a War Zone

[Nidi62]

Does anyone pay attention to the news anymore? Just yesterday a couple shot two cops who were peacefully siting down eating their lunch. They planned to attack the courthouse and start executing officials too. Just like that guy in Georgia the other week who was thankfully stopped before he could start. And there's a massacre about once every other month. Why do we need all these assault weapons?.

The shooters in Las Vegas used pistols. The guy here in Georgia planned to use homemade explosives once inside the building. The shooter in Seattle used a shotgun (horrible choice for a shooting rampage by the way unless you are using a Saiga shotgun-takes too long to reload). Most shootings in the US are committed with pistols, yet the majority of gun control advocates fixate on "assault weapons" (just because something is black and has a pistol grip does not make it more dangerous) because they are scary. Under "assault weapons" bans an SKS (a 5-shot semiautomatic Russian rifle with attached folding bayonet) would be perfectly legal, but the same rifle with a black TAPCO stock would be illegal. What we need are harsher penalties for felons possessing firearms/possesion of stolen firearms (a significant number of shootings in the US involve one of those 2 offenses) and better mental health treatment.

Battlefield Hardline

[HRbnjR]

Hah, this'll teach everyone knocking today's Battlefield Hardline announcement from E3 because police stations supposedly don't have military style equipment like that shown in the game!

Paramilitary Police Forces

[Onuma]

The militarization of police forces around America is an astounding thing to watch.

Since when has it been OK to conduct a no-knock raid on white-collar crime suspects? Or to use pyrotechnics and concussion devices in homes where there are multiple children living in a home with tight quarters?

There was a time where police officers used ingenuity, charm, and patience to disarm situations. This is an actual quote from my friend:

Another Trooper and I took an enforcer for the Vice Lords with a murder warrant in his house, invited in, on a Sunday morning with nothing but a bullshit lie about a another gangster in a fake car wreck.

I wonder how well that would have gone with an MRAP, instead?

Re:Paramilitary Police Forces

[AHuxley]

The techniques worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan. Voice prints, cell phone tracking, face of driver and passenger, the constant night raids, banking reports, the chat down when travelling locally.
All the kit and skills sold to the US gov during the Iraq and Afghanistan occupation has now found a new marketplace: the lucrative new home front.

Re:Paramilitary Police Forces

[Onuma]

Except in Iraq and Afghanistan our troops actually practiced these techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) properly and well.

These half-assed Joe Donut clowns are trying to use the same gear without maintaining the discipline and repetitive training the military possesses. A lot of military guys get out and go police/security forces due to the somewhat similar nature of the jobs, but I find those guys are often the ones who didn't do much on deployment anyway...they're just trying to be tacticool, and are using their DD-214 in order to gain a cushy job.

There is no reason, at all, which a police force needs a fucking MRAP. Except to subjugate the population. Maybe not now, maybe not in 5 or 10 years even...but the unique function of that hardware can have no clearer statement. "Sooner or later, this will be used against all of you."

Re:Paramilitary Police Forces

[Areyoukiddingme]

There is no reason, at all, which a police force needs a fucking MRAP. Except to subjugate the population. Maybe not now, maybe not in 5 or 10 years even...but the unique function of that hardware can have no clearer statement. "Sooner or later, this will be used against all of you."

That's ok, 'cause our IEDs are much better than them furrin' IEDs!

I wrote that sarcastically, then realized there's some truth to it. Considering the engineer who designed the damn thing lives here, if he gets offended by one driving down his street, he knows exactly how to spend $20 at the local hardware store to be able to bind the thing's axle and bring it to a total standstill. (Etc. etc.)

He knows what he's saying

[paiute]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Mashiki]

This is why I constantly fear for my life and don't ever go out after dark in the multicultural hell hole of violence and degeneracy that is Canada.

You must live in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, London, or Saskatoon then. They're all at varying points of degeneracy and violence, some of them are almost to detroit levels from the 90's. An example: Saskatoon(pop ~260k) has a murder rate than NYC(pop ~8.4m).

They bring knives, we bring guns

[pla]

Aww man, now I need to upgrade my driveway's "vehicular denial" minefield to armor piercing? C'mon guys, that shit costs real money! Couldn't we stop the arms race at flechette mines?

Hey, if we live in a warzone, I have the right to protect myself. Hope none of you unarmored piggies try a no-knock...

No need - Too much money.

[pubwvj]

They don't need all these toys.
They simply have too much money.
They get grants from the feds and have to spend it.
I watched this happen in a local tiny town who got their own drone. No need. Just a grant from Homeland Insecurity.

Re:No need - Too much money.

[the eric conspiracy]

I agree. My local mall now has license plate scanners on all of it's entrances courtesy of DHS.

Some of this stuff is cheap war surplus that probably the small police departments will find impossible to maintain, like MRAPs. But the surveillance stuff is really annoying.

How Many

[overshoot]

police (deputies, etc.) over the past five years have been attacked with IEDs?

Alternately, how would something like this have helped the cops in Las Vegas this weekend?

Re:How Many

[Nidi62]

Alternately, how would something like this have helped the cops in Las Vegas this weekend?

They could put a pizza oven in the back instead of having to go to pizza shops. They could even offset the purchase cost of the MRAP and the pizza oven by using it as a food truck when not on duty.

Good news - combat pay!

[sk999]

How much extra per month do I get?

Just read their stats - nothing that needed this

[Animats]

Just read the statistics for the sheriffs department involved. 133 "crimes against persons" so far this year. But that includes a lot of bad checks, which they list as a crime against a person. It also includes telephone harassment, and "criminal threats". Some assaults, some rapes. No murders. About 63 drug offenses, mostly from traffic stops. Nothing for which an armored vehicle would be useful. It looks like a cop shop that has some real business maybe a few times a day.

They don't need an MRAP. They need a collection agency for the bad checks and a social worker for the domestic disturbances.

Another Fox News infectee

[Baussian]

Sounds like another case of the "Fox News" virus.

Re:What we need are more guns

[Mike_Theory]

Murder rates in the old west were far lower than most major cities today

War on terrorism

[manu0601]

This is the war on terrorism logic. Even the cops are afraid and see military grade enemies everywhere now.

Re:War on terrorism

[pitchpipe]

Even the cops are afraid...

This is the part that is weird. Police officer as a profession isn't even in the top ten most dangerous jobs in the U.S., and yet we act like they are dying at every turn. What about truck drivers, or power-line workers, or iron-workers? These are the real heroes who are dying every day on the job.

I'm not saying there aren't good cops, but I have a friend who is a police officer. And to him if you aren't a cop or someone he knows well, you are suspect. He is paranoid, and that is drilled into them in the culture they are in.

In related news ...

[PPH]

... criminals more frequently make getaway through parking garages.

Ft. Lauderdale's Tank

[JimSadler]

In 1962 the City of Ft. Lauderdale purchased a riot tank due to the overwhelming fear of college students on spring break. I am now 90 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale and my tiny town has a tank designed to drive through the walls of homes on sudden, forced entries. It is a response to the odd drug dealer who wants to go down in a hail of bullets. No walls to hide behind with these tanks I suppose.

Re:Just read their stats - nothing that needed thi

[pkinetics]

How dare you use facts to refute outrageous exaggerations!

This is bullshit

[Rigel47]

> "The United States of America has become a war zone," he said. "There's violence in the workplace, there's violence in schools and there's violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract.

You are no longer an officer of the peace.

You are a new armed wing, a great example of the militarization of the American police force. As part part of the Deep State you see yourself as being on one side with the quarrelsome public and their whining on the other.

Violent crime in the US is at a multi-decade low.. and yet you seek tanks to patrol the streets of US cities.

It is any wonder that people freak when the DHS tries to buy 3 billion bullets?

Re:This is bullshit

[Sir Holo]

I fear for my (soon to be former) country.

Re:And nobody like his local mayor called him on i

[MBGMorden]

And nobody like his local mayor called him on it

The local SHERIFF bought these. The Sheriff is a county level official - mayor is a local/city level official. More importantly though, the Sheriff virtually everywhere is an *elected* official. Generally elected officials can do whatever they want (within some level of reason) without any recourse until they next election day.

Basically you're talking about someone with their own budget who can't be "fired" like a normal person could. Though I must admit that this seems like it would be unpopular at the polls. Democrats hate anything weapon related and Republicans while pro-military tend to be very anti-militarization of the local police (plus just anti-government spending in general). Seems like both sides will not be happy with this.

crime rates

[Charliemopps]

Violent Crime rates are the lowest they've been for decades: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

Yet "Justifiable Homicide" by the police when attacked has almost doubled: http://tacreports.org/storage/...
(i.e. their response is more violent)
While the number of citizens killed by police in general has remained the same despite the reduction in violent crime.

Police murdered while on duty is at a 50yr low, so it's not like they are in some new mortal danger.
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

Problem1: Police don't think they are civilians

[schwit1]

Only in the US is law enforcement not called civilians
The police act like a military institution.
Police actions are not held accountable like everyone else where an INDEPENDENT DA decides if wrongdoing has occurred.

Re:Problem1: Police don't think they are civilians

[WillAdams]

Good argument for living where the local police is a Sheriff's Department overseen by an elected official.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[compro01]

An example: Saskatoon(pop ~260k) has a murder rate than NYC(pop ~8.4m).

You seem to be missing a word from this sentence. Might it perhaps be "lower"? Because it's the only one that would be factual.

In 2013, according to the Saskatoon Police Service's crime map, Saskatoon had a total of 4 homicides (Which occurred on January 1, July 11, August 20, and August 30). That's a rate of 1.80/100k (city population is 222k. 260k is the census metropolitan area, which includes bedroom communities, which aren't part of Saskatoon's crime stats)

In 2013, NYC had 333 homicides. That's a rate of 3.96/100k.

I'm fairly sure that 1.8<3.96

pure security theater

[bzipitidoo]

Nah, this isn't about going to war against citizens. It's about allowing some idiot to use security as an excuse to buy toys. Could be some kind of kickback involved. Someone's nephew needs a job, perhaps.

Everything can be cast in terms of security. Just this week we received a reprimand for letting the grass get too high, and it invoked safety as a reason why everyone should have to mow the grass often. Here are some excerpts from the letter:

"The City ... takes great pride in the health, safety, welfare, and appearance of our community.... Every individual property owner's maintenance contributes to the overall positive appearance of their neighborhood...." The letter states that a Community Image Officer noticed that the property is in violation of the ordinance that states a person may not allow weeds or grass more than twelve (12") tall to accumulate. It concludes with this: "With your help, we can keep our community clean and safe."

We certainly can't allow grass to grow dangerously high!

Re:pure security theater

[sir-gold]

Depending on where you live, tall grass can become a habitat for poisonous snakes.

Mostly they are just worried about the weeds from your yard spreading to the neighbors' yards.

Re:pure security theater

[bzipitidoo]

Trying to stop erosion. Not much sunlight gets past the trees and the neighbors' wooden fences, and the grass was barely hanging on. Then another neighbor added another fence which had the unfortunate effect of blocking what little sunlight still got through. He moved away shortly after, but the damage his little improvement did remains. Most of the grass died. What's left grows in clumps, with large areas of bare dirt between.

I know what's going on with the yard. I don't need the city horning in with their dumb rules. Why don't they make that neighbor tear that fence down? "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Re:pure security theater

[bzipitidoo]

I've heard snakes are the reason people see short grass as beautiful. There isn't anything intrinsically prettier about shortness. Lakes create far more snake habitat than tall grass, but somehow it's okay to have lots of man made lakes, to insure a stable water supply. Then there's the Smokey Bear angle-- short grass doesn't provide as much fuel for fires.

"Weed" is another of those overused terms. What is a weed? If plant nurseries had their way, every native plant would be considered a weed. More profitable for them if you have to constantly buy "weed" killer and replacement plants.

Re:pure security theater

[sir-gold]

The biggest one that most people worry about in their yard is dandelions, because of how far they can spread.

You're That Guy.

[SuperBanana]

"I was providing my experience, dick. I didn't say it was true for you or anyone else."

You were being That Guy who, when someone says something, feels it necessary to be a "dick" and say "THE LIGHTBULB WORKS FINE IN MY OFFICE" in response.

"TV showed us all that Gage and DeSoto were responding to medical calls on Emergency! in 1972,"

Did you seriously just cite a TV show?

Re:You're That Guy.

[swillden]

Did you seriously just cite a TV show?

It actually seems like a reasonable citation to me, demonstrating that Americans found the idea of fire department EMTs to be normal.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[lister king of smeg]

an example: Saskatoon(pop ~260k) has a murder rate than NYC(pop ~8.4m).

than what? greater, lesser...

Re:What we need are more guns

[lister king of smeg]

Everyone needs guns. We can have the old west again. People shooting the "bad guys" left and right. Don't try to make society better by helping those that need it. Just arm everyone.

Murder rates in the old west were far lower than most major cities today

But I want to sit back and watch the movie "young guns" and base my knowledge of history on Hollywood and then hate on inanimate objects.

Depends on your perspective I guess

[rsilvergun]

when the riots hit LA people were surprised that the rioters stuck to their own neighborhoods and basically trashed their own communities. What nobody mentioned was the reason why. Large numbers of armed police cordoned off the wealthy neighborhoods and kept the looters from spilling over.

It's not so much the ruling class here, as the upper class. Even the upper middle class. Basically, if you're going to abandon the poor the their fate you need to build walls to keep 'em out...

Military industrial complex

[rsilvergun]

Yep, it's a by product of the military industrial complex that's been propping up our economy since the end of WWII. Since we couldn't have socialism we just built lots of army vehicles. And that means lots of surplus and a heavily militarized police force. I don't think anyone really planned it, it's just one of the twisted distortions from our way of keeping the economy going...

Re:Military industrial complex

[volmtech]

The Naval aircraft plant near me just hired 400 people. I was a contractor there 5 years ago and people where walking around with their thumb up their a**s trying to look busy.

Re:education

[Hategrin]

OP's logical failure is called the fallacy of the single cause. After half a dozen logic classes and 4 textbooks... I wouldn't be so quick to judge his professors, but it's odd someone could pass a logic course without knowing basic ELEMENTARY logic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

It's time to mine the donuts!

[seedoubleyou]

Krispy Kreme, Dunkin Donuts, and Tim Horton's take notice! Donuts with frickin' lasers is our only hope.

Bull.

[Karmashock]

A few corrupt police departments with apparently too much money in their budgets does not mean the US is a war zone.

The USA has become a war zone...

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

...and if you want to survive, you've gotta know where your towel is.

Is he so blind to not even see...

[Patent Lover]

... that they don't even need these vehicles in Iraq any more. Holy shit.

the war on drugs/poverty/stupidity?

[AndyKron]

Which failed war is he referring to?

This is the result

[markdavis]

This is the result of the militarization of the police:
http://www.cato.org/raidmap

Re:What we need are more guns

[Pseudonym]

Hell, what we need is more MRAPs. It'd solve the parking problem overnight.

The Border Patrol Near San Diego

[tquasar]

I drive through "Check Points" on major roads and highways in San Diego County staffed by mostly friendly agents who wave me to proceed on my journey. But I am scanned by an array of sensors, maybe as many as fifteen, two miles ahead of the choke point and another array near their location that is kind of intimidating. By the time I get to their station they know more about me than I do! The sites have "Stadium Lighting" at night that is blinding and destroys night vision. There is no "opt out". But I enjoy the attention, thank you for protecting me, I guess....

You're drawing the wrong conclusions

[Camael]

We have more guns. (Per person!) According to our own government's statistics. Yet we have less violent crime. This is a direct, indisputable DISproof of the idea that "more guns equals more crime".

You're comparing the wrong things. Yes, gun ownership is increasing in the US. Yes, violent crimes are decreasing in the US.

But lets look at how violent crimes are defined in the FBI statistics

In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.

My point is that the violent crimes count includes both incidents where firearms were and were not involved.

What is interesting however, is that firearms are increasingly being used in violent crimes.

Dont take my word for it-

In 2010, firearms were used in 67.5 percent of the Nation’s murders, 41.4 percent of robberies, and 20.6 percent of aggravated assaults.

In 2011, firearms were used in 67.7 percent of the nation’s murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults

In 2012, firearms were used in 69.3 percent of the nation’s murders, 41.0 percent of robberies, and 21.8 percent of aggravated assaults.

Figures for 2013 onwards are not yet available.

I think its correct (as well as common sense) to conclude that making weapons more easily available increased the likelihood it will be used in violent crimes.

Re:You're drawing the wrong conclusions

[gandhi_2]

So guns are decreasingly used for robberies.

That wasn't the point you were trying to make, was it? Because I just counter-cherry-picked you.

Re:You're drawing the wrong conclusions

[SuricouRaven]

2% or so is within what you'd expect of random noise.

Re:You're drawing the wrong conclusions

[stdarg]

Your reasoning seems correct but I don't think it means what you think it means. Let's say that increased gun ownership deters violent crimes. Just take that for granted.

Now check this out..

2010, 100 crimes, 50 used guns
2011, 90 crimes, 49 used guns
2012, 80 crimes, 48 used guns

What's happening? Crimes are going down because criminals are less willing to engage in crime. But you can divide the criminals into two classes, those willing to use a gun and those unwilling. The unwilling ones are dropping much faster, which makes sense because if you're not willing to use a gun, and your victim has a gun, you are pretty much not going to do anything. The ones willing to use a gun are still dropping, but at a much slower rate, which also makes sense intuitively.

Thus the likelihood that a violent crime uses a gun goes up, but that's an incomplete and misleading description of the full picture.

Re:You're drawing the wrong conclusions

[airdweller]

"2% or so is within what you'd expect of random noise."
Any suggestions as to why that "random noise" keeps constantly increasing?

This is the same Indiana

[Presto Vivace]

which passed a law specifying under what circumstances a citizen might shoot a police officer.

Re:This is the same Indiana

[shutdown -p now]

There are, indeed, cases where a police officer may be acting illegally in such a manner as to endanger the health or life of others to the point where lethal self-defense would be justified. What's wrong with codifying that in law?

Don't worry--the crime rate is sure to go up again

[mc6809e]

Well, maybe.

Many of the worst and violent crimes are committed by men age 16-24.

Now look at this.

Notice that nice peak in the crime rate around 1992? Many of those crimes were committed by people born in the 60s -- a turbulent, uncertain time, and the 70s -- a rotten decade with a corrupt or weak presidents, increasing unemployment, inflation, and plenty of other rottenness.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to believe that that sort of environment helps turn some children into violent criminals.

We have in some ways similar situation today. While some groups seem to be enjoying the recovery (baby-boomers, especially) many others are struggling. Young people -- those forming families right now -- have been left behind.

And I expect children being born into that world are having a tough time -- and in 16-24 years, we'll start to see the consequences.

No need to conspiracy theories

[ruir]

Follow the money. How much were this people paid to buy this surplus vehicles? How much will they be earmarked to receive in commissions in the next few years with the maintenance program? We are used to this shady manoeuvres around here.

violent crime is trending down

[cats-paw]

Many people have mentioned this, but why ?

I think this article is quite interesting.

http://www.motherjones.com/env...

Does correlation imply causation ?

Fuck the NRA!

[Tablizer]

Lobbyists from Hell's Hell.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[qeveren]

I think you've misspelled 'United States' in your post, there.

Are you waiting for a story on CNN?

[Lord Kano]

Look at what's going on around you. It's slowly but surely coming away from the realm of Alex Jones and the like but it's obvious that law enforcement is gearing up for something.

There is something that they expect to happen in the near future that makes them think they'll need weapons of war.

LK

Officer Safety...Not wearing seat belt?!?!?!

[mrbluejello]

"For me, it's all about officer safety..."

The guy driving isn't even wearing a seat belt!

Re:Don't worry--the crime rate is sure to go up ag

[thrich81]

Check the history of lead in the environment and exposure of children to lead based paints, lead from leaded gasoline, etc. Here's one reference -- Lead in Drinking Water and Human Blood Lead Levels in the United States, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ot.... All that started to go down in the 70's. Reduction in environmental lead has been proposed as a reason crime rates have dropped since then.

Excellent

[Torodung]

I really want to see the new Blues Brothers movie that comes from this, where they combine the Illinois Nazi scene with the police chase, all set in Indiana!

Better yet, I want to see Elwood get one of these on police surplus.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[hexadecimate]

So, yeah. In 2012 the entire country of Canada recorded 543 homicides. There were 414 in New York City alone. Almost 15,000 in the US as a whole. Ten times the population, but almost 30 times the number of murders.

Violent crime rates have been trending down everywhere in the industrialized world for the last couple of decades, but relative to the other countries in the G8 the good ol' U.S. of A. remains a pretty violent place. As someone pointed out upthread, it's a big, messy cultural problem with no easy answers or solutions.

War zone

[Orion Blastar]

I got waterboarded by the CIA because of some science fiction I posted on the Internet. It was deleted and my account was banned.

I am constantly monitored for what I post on the Internet now.

Maybe not a war zone yet, but certainly a police state even if crime is low.

Re: War zone

[Orion Blastar]

I do but got too close to the truth on some of my fiction stories.

Re:a few points on this

[sir-gold]

Hopefully it's possible to remove some of the bottom armor to save weight.

"Sheriff" always makes me laugh

[m.alessandrini]

Sorry, as a non-american It always sounds strange to me that they're still called "Sheriff", it reminds me of western movies every time! Do they make duels when facing a criminal?

Wrong priorities

[ReadParse]

See, this is the attitude. He says his job is to make sure his employees go home every day. He's wrong. While nobody should be reckless with the lives of law enforcement, and it is a great tragedy when the lives of law enforcers are lost in the line of duty, it is their job to protect and to serve the public. It is their job, from time to time, to be injured and/or killed in the act of protecting and serving the community. That is the job. It is voluntary. It is not for the faint of heart, or for the cowardly. It is not, in short, for me.

When the number one priority of law enforcement becomes protecting the life and safety of officers, above all else, then the public suffers. And the lives and safety of citizens have been sacrificed on numerous occasions in the name of protecting law enforcement.

I am not anti law enforcement. But I am deeply concerned about their low tolerance for risk.

Re:Wrong priorities

[EmagGeek]

"it is their job to protect and to serve the public"

Not according to hundreds of court rulings, including Supreme Court rulings, that say that police have no duty to protect or serve anyone.

What is wrong with your society?

[prefec2]

Honestly, sitting here in Germany, I wonder what is going on in the US. I've visited the US years ago and my impression was that beside some oddities (e.g., people running around with guns on the street, people telling me that the EU will be the next Roman Empire) the US is a nice place especially when it comes to its inhabitants. Nowadays, most of my information about the US is from the media (including the Internet) and I have the impression that your country is falling apart. First of all, you have a war on anything. In other countries these things are called problems or challenges. Second, your political system is constructed to suppress minority opinion resulting in an immobility of politics. And third, you have lost to solve internal conflicts. Instead you built guarded communities, like in South Africa or other developing countries. You have the highest rate on prison inmates of the world. So please FIX IT. Otherwise your broken country will also break our almost broken countries in the EU. True we have to fix our states too, but at least we are not a war zone (and yes the Ukraine is in Europe, but not part of the EU).

For that price, might as well buy it.

[Sturm]

Anybody in military or law enforcement knows one of the biggest costs of "doing business" is in training personnel and experience is something you can't put a price tag on.
At this price, even small departments could easily justify owning and maintaining one of these vehicles. In the event you DO needs something like this, it provides an extremely high level of protection for a relatively small investment and helps protects your most valuable asset (your people).
And it would look damn cool driving down the street in your cities parade/festival every year as well ;)

Driving?

[seven of five]

Can anyone even drive the thing, or does it take specialized training?

Lots of inflammatory comments

[JonathanHart]

All that's going on here is that the military has some machines built for war, and has decided that selling them is a better move than maintaining them or redeploying. The fact that they sold to Indiana police is, in my mind, one of the best possible end uses of these vehicles. Alternative buyers are allied foreign militaries, which it is my understanding that branches of the milatary sell a lot of old boats and planes to. As far as some peoples concerns about this being a sign that the police are milaterizing, I think those concerns are unwarranted. Police have purchased and used armored vehicles in the past. And the point of doing so, is not to roll a war machine into the back yard of some house party after a noise complaint, but rather to deal with well armed organized criminals, or a group that holes up with arms on a farm or something. You could make the argument that the purchase may have been an unnecessary use of the law enforcement agencies money, but such an argument would require a knowledge of the agencies current work and goals on par with whomever in those agencies decided to make the purchases.

MI looks like a warzone

[synapse7]

If the roads get much worse one of those vehicles will be necessary to get to work.

Re:America HAS become a War Zone

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Actually the SKS has a 10 round capacity, not 5. The SKS is also a popular one for bans because it looks kind of similar to the AK, more so if you have an aftermarket duckbill 30 round clip for it.

LEOs confess

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

You just want the coolest toy!

welcome to the war zone

[potpie]

Any place becomes a war zone when you march an army through it.

Causation

[phorm]

High gun ownership is a result of a certain culture around firearms. In many cases they're almost seen a toys. Consequently, gun violence is also caused by the same culture.
They're related, but by virtue of having the same parent rather than a direct link. If you reduce ownership it may somewhat effect opportunistic gun crimes, but dealing with the cultural issues that result in the glorification of "gangsta" lifestyles and gun violence would likely do more.

However, there is something to be said for *ease* of gun ownership and anonymity. In the U.S, it's also much easier to acquire a gun without a strong paper trail. There's a fairly huge grey/black market, which causes firearms to flow from legit owners to criminals. The Scandanavians do have lots of guns, but they're more highly regulated than the USA, and it's generally harder to get one for black-market activity.

Re:Causation

[bhv]

To the point others have already made. Considering the last 20 years, violent crime is on the decline while gun ownership is on the rise. No one is saying that the two are related but more importantly, they are not likely related. Therefore, more gun laws and controls would be "barking up the wrong tree".

But you can bet that if we enact new gun laws the already declining violent crime rate will be used as justification after the fact.

The militarization of police is distressing, but..

[steak]

The politicians in dc are still a greater threat to freedom.

I was going to agree with you but you lost me

[lamer01]

When you mentioned the UK as an example where gun laws 'worked'. You basically contradicted your own argument. UK is a different country with so many variables being different than the US. The fact (this can be argued) that the laws worked there has no bearing as to whether they would work in the US.

Re:I was going to agree with you but you lost me

[Xest]

Except that's not what I did. I cited it as a counter-example to the argument that increased gun control also equals decreased crime. Obviously that's completely false given the fact that the opposite happened in the UK.

Yes it's a very different country and yes there are different variables, and that's exactly the point - gun control correlated against crime levels without taking into account other confounding factors obviously results in meaningless conclusions.

What is your job again?

[superdave80]

Sheriff Doug Cox:. "My job is to make sure my employees go home safe."

Funny, I could have sworn your job was to protect the public. Or is that whole "To Protect and Serve" printed on the side of your cars a bunch of bullshit? Running over citizens with a bazillion ton military vehicle probably won't make them particularly safe.

Now,

[azav]

if they can only afford to fuel and maintain them.

I'm sure if they really want to, they will ask for more budget from their municipalities.

We can only hope that these die out over high operational costs for minimal return.

Clearly said by someone that has never been ....

[brainchill]

I'd like to take this man to a real "war zone" just to see his reaction. If he thinks that the couple of little outbreaks that we've had in this country make it a war zone he's got a lot of reality check time due.

Pig are allowed to lie to you

[ToddInSF]

But it's a felony if you lie to them.

Of course the US is a war zone.

More than just the cops...

[messymerry]

Pretty much all the first responders act like cops in their Sirly manner while on the job...and this arrogance and meanness permiates the bureaucracy all the way to the White House. Even the janitors wear badges and flaunt their authority. Welcome to the REAL world. When the servant usurps the master, the house falls...

Not Ominous Anymore?

[tmjva]

So years or reports about fed agencies buying up millions of rounds of ammo doesn't sound so ominous anymore does it?

Muaaaha haaaaaa!

More news-fear reports ...

[OldHawk777]

More guns sale to US ...
More vigilante militias ...
More dogma survivalist ...
More extremist politics ...

Fewer violent crimes and gun deaths over the past decades in the USA?
I guess, guns with nuts are not a big problem for US law abiding citizens.