"But that's beside the point. The founding fathers didn't protect an undefined right to bear arms in the Constitution. Furthermore, even if you think they did, they certainly were working in a world lacking weapons of the power and destructive capability we have today..."
That is not really true. Due to our far advanced medical capability, gun shots today are far less deadly than they were 200+ years ago.
"...in a society in which everybody totes guns around, every testosterone-ridden dispute is as likely as not to devolve into a gunfight..."
This is obviously wrong. In the late 80s, only about 9 states issued concealed weapon permits to any law abiding citizen without needing "good cause". Now the number of states who will do so is 36. There are many hundreds of thousands more law abiding citizens carrying guns today, and yet your fear of simple disputes turning deadly at an increasing rate if we allow people to carry guns has simply not come true
"The more people live closely packed together and the more destructive technology is, the more we need to make compromises to make society work properly (to argue otherwise invariably results in your making logically fallacious "slippery slope" argument). In the same way that your right to yell "Fire" ends when you enter a crowded theater, why can't your right to carry a gun end when you enter an urban area? If it poses more of a risk, statistically, to others around you for you to have it than for you not to have it, what's wrong with the people of that area judging for themselves that by their measurement of your utility and theirs (a utilitarian argument, in other words), it doesn't make sense to allow guns?"
That is a good question. It would be much more interesting if your basic premise (that lawful gun ownership poses a risk) were true. Let's use Texas as an example:
According to a report by the National Center for Policy Analysis, the slightly more than 200,000 Texans who have become licensed to carry a concealed firearm are much more law-abiding than the average person. Comparing arrest rates for example:
Texans who exercise their right to carry firearms are 5.7 times less likely than the average citizen to be arrested for a violent offense.
They are 14 times less likely to be arrested for a non-violent offense.
They are 1.4 times less likely to be arrested for murder.
If the stats really showed that lawful gun ownership increased crime and violence, then your argument would have some weight.
"It should also be noted that the overwhelming majority of gun incidents and deaths are related to drug dealing. So, unless you're a major drug dealer, you're chances of getting shot and in the UK are almost zero. Can you say the same of the US?"
Yes we can.
Total gun homicides is around 13,000 for the entire nation. New EnglandJournal of medicine reports 75% to 80% of these are dealers or their
customers. About 650 are due to "legal ntervention" by the police, with a possible 2 to 3 times that many racked up by the civilian in "legal intervention." (Many which are logged as simply "homicide." This is very typical in Maryland, where you will be automatically charged with murder, even in clear-cut cases of delf-defense.)
So, if you are not hell-bent on suicide, dealing in drugs, or engaging in high-risk vocations (e.g., breaking into houses), then the number of people being murdered, either intentionally, or in a cross-fire shootout, is about 3000 nationwide, annually.
Gun are used to kill, and it can be easily proven that they account for deaths that would not otherwise occur
The question is, do they represent a net positive benefit to society? The answer is an obvious yes. Guns are used far more often to stop crime and save lives than they are to wrongfully injur people.
"...most gun deaths (in civilized countries anyway, I'm not sure about the statistics for the US) occur from legal, registered guns..."
Source please.
"...the numbers show time and time again that you having one rarely stops you from getting hurt by a criminal."
Source please.
You are just plain wrong on this. Most gun deaths are from illegally obtained guns and every study I have read (NCVS, etc.) shows that the more violently you resist a crime, the less your chances of being seriously hurt.
In 1996, rates of murder, rape, and robbery recorded by the police were all higher in the United States than in England
Clearly you did not take any stats classes in school. The stats you posted are not in any way a useful comparision of England and the US. The truth is that, if you look over the past century you will see that the rate of violent crime in England is increasing much faster than in the US and will easily surpass the US relatively soon.
If you are still hung up on your simple comparision, let me ask you how Switzerland, where gun ownership is virtually mandatory and in any case is higher than even the US, the violent crime rate is very low.
There is no place in the world that had high crime rates, enacted gun control and subsequently saw crime rates go down. On the other hand, there are plenty of places where crime rates were high, gun control was removed, and crime went down.
Isn't "weapons" just a category that can be blocked or not, depending on whose controlling the software? Thus I think it is fairly accurate to include pro-gun sites under "weapons."
I think you are missing the point. Blocking political pro-gun web sites and not blocking political anti-gun web sites makes a big political statement that has nothing to do with how to buy, build or otherwise get a weapon.
No other amendment so clearly, explicitly lays out the reasons for its own existence -- that is, for a "well-organized militia".
1. The Supreme Court has never found the Second Amendment to be anything other than a personal right of individual people.
2. The Supreme Court has repeatedly pointed out that the "milita" of the Second Amendment is basically everyone in the US capable of bearing arms.
One really neat application for DiVX might be a fast end-run around the HD DVD standardization process. A movie studio and player manufacturers could get together and squeeze HD movies down using DiVX so that they fit on a standard DVD.
Plus, the more codecs there are, the higher the chances that MPlayer will become "the" "standard" movie playing software
This really isn't about streaming video over the web. This is about what codec will replace MPEG 2 for DVD, cable, OTA and satellite. It is clear that MPEG 2 is not the most efficient. A new codec can made HD-DVD possible without completely replacing the hardware (with bluray or something). Also, a new codec could double the number of channels on cable or satellite.
Everyone is waiting to see what everyone else is going to do. Microsoft has leapt ahead by getting an example HD-DVD (T2 EE) released with their codec (WM9). I think Microsoft has a good chance of winning this one.
"Biut whatever, once oil price hit where they really should be,"
You about $20/barrel? The world is awash in oil and prices are only going down, not up.
No one should think that things would be so much better (from a security standpoint) if we would all run UNIX. Go over to Bugtraq and check out how many known exploits there are against your faviorite UNIX platform. I checked a week or so ago and there were about 40 known vulnerabilities for Windows 2000 plus IIS and about 40 for Sun plus Netscape Enterprise.
I agree that Microsoft could do more to stop this crap, but, for some time now, they have been quick to issue fixes for these things.
The real issue is twofold:
1. The patches are there to stop these attacks, but system administrators are not even close to staying up to date. This is due to overwork, laziness, fear of introducing new problems and corporate policies.
2. Windows is very popular and therfore the target of attack. If all of those using Windows on the Internet were to switch to Linux, then the attackers would start writing more attacks for Linux and they would get more publicity.
The grass is not (much) greener on the other side.
Slashdot Mirror
That is not really true. Due to our far advanced medical capability, gun shots today are far less deadly than they were 200+ years ago.
"...in a society in which everybody totes guns around, every testosterone-ridden dispute is as likely as not to devolve into a gunfight..."
This is obviously wrong. In the late 80s, only about 9 states issued concealed weapon permits to any law abiding citizen without needing "good cause". Now the number of states who will do so is 36. There are many hundreds of thousands more law abiding citizens carrying guns today, and yet your fear of simple disputes turning deadly at an increasing rate if we allow people to carry guns has simply not come true
http://www.nraila.org/FactSheets.asp?FormMode=Deta il&ID=18
According to a report by the National Center for Policy Analysis, the slightly more than 200,000 Texans who have become licensed to carry a concealed firearm are much more law-abiding than the average person. Comparing arrest rates for example:
Texans who exercise their right to carry firearms are 5.7 times less likely than the average citizen to be arrested for a violent offense.
They are 14 times less likely to be arrested for a non-violent offense.
They are 1.4 times less likely to be arrested for murder.
If the stats really showed that lawful gun ownership increased crime and violence, then your argument would have some weight.
Yes we can.
Total gun homicides is around 13,000 for the entire nation. New EnglandJournal of medicine reports 75% to 80% of these are dealers or their customers. About 650 are due to "legal ntervention" by the police, with a possible 2 to 3 times that many racked up by the civilian in "legal intervention." (Many which are logged as simply "homicide." This is very typical in Maryland, where you will be automatically charged with murder, even in clear-cut cases of delf-defense.)
So, if you are not hell-bent on suicide, dealing in drugs, or engaging in high-risk vocations (e.g., breaking into houses), then the number of people being murdered, either intentionally, or in a cross-fire shootout, is about 3000 nationwide, annually.
The question is, do they represent a net positive benefit to society? The answer is an obvious yes. Guns are used far more often to stop crime and save lives than they are to wrongfully injur people.
Source please.
"...the numbers show time and time again that you having one rarely stops you from getting hurt by a criminal."
Source please.
You are just plain wrong on this. Most gun deaths are from illegally obtained guns and every study I have read (NCVS, etc.) shows that the more violently you resist a crime, the less your chances of being seriously hurt.
Clearly you did not take any stats classes in school. The stats you posted are not in any way a useful comparision of England and the US. The truth is that, if you look over the past century you will see that the rate of violent crime in England is increasing much faster than in the US and will easily surpass the US relatively soon.
If you are still hung up on your simple comparision, let me ask you how Switzerland, where gun ownership is virtually mandatory and in any case is higher than even the US, the violent crime rate is very low.
There is no place in the world that had high crime rates, enacted gun control and subsequently saw crime rates go down. On the other hand, there are plenty of places where crime rates were high, gun control was removed, and crime went down.
Isn't "weapons" just a category that can be blocked or not, depending on whose controlling the software? Thus I think it is fairly accurate to include pro-gun sites under "weapons." I think you are missing the point. Blocking political pro-gun web sites and not blocking political anti-gun web sites makes a big political statement that has nothing to do with how to buy, build or otherwise get a weapon.
No other amendment so clearly, explicitly lays out the reasons for its own existence -- that is, for a "well-organized militia". 1. The Supreme Court has never found the Second Amendment to be anything other than a personal right of individual people. 2. The Supreme Court has repeatedly pointed out that the "milita" of the Second Amendment is basically everyone in the US capable of bearing arms.
I just drove my 2002 Corvette from LA to Las Vegas and averaged 32MPG. It is hard to see how hybrids are going to catch on with the current economics.
"Biut whatever, once oil price hit where they really should be," You about $20/barrel? The world is awash in oil and prices are only going down, not up.
No one should think that things would be so much better (from a security standpoint) if we would all run UNIX. Go over to Bugtraq and check out how many known exploits there are against your faviorite UNIX platform. I checked a week or so ago and there were about 40 known vulnerabilities for Windows 2000 plus IIS and about 40 for Sun plus Netscape Enterprise.
I agree that Microsoft could do more to stop this crap, but, for some time now, they have been quick to issue fixes for these things.
The real issue is twofold:
1. The patches are there to stop these attacks, but system administrators are not even close to staying up to date. This is due to overwork, laziness, fear of introducing new problems and corporate policies.
2. Windows is very popular and therfore the target of attack. If all of those using Windows on the Internet were to switch to Linux, then the attackers would start writing more attacks for Linux and they would get more publicity.
The grass is not (much) greener on the other side.
Tod