remember bernie goetz?

[Cowboy]

Killing to protect property rather than ones safety are two very different things.

They are very similar in that both are examples of using force to defend your rights.

 

[Mystech]

They are very similar in that both are examples of using force to defend your rights.

Does that mean it's ok if I shoot Republicans? They're doing their best to keep me from my rights. Is anything that I do in defense of those rights defendable, or do we have to draw the line somewhere on when it is and isn’t ok to kill someone who’s harming your rights?

 

[vslayer]

the need to carry a gun is created by the want to carry a gun, 1 person decides they want a gun, then the next guy doesnt feel safe, so he gets a gun, and eventually, if you dont have a gun, you will be shot dead in the street by some gangster.

so glad the cops are the only ones allowed handguns here

 

[glaucon]

I'm bored with this subject. Go read this thread again (or maybe for the first time) http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=40712 .

Here in the U.S., until it is changed, I have the right to posess firearms. If through stupidity or carelessness I should injure or kill someone, there is a legal system for that. Dropping a gun and shooting an innocent bystander would be much the same as running someone down with a car on accident, though I'm sure many more die at the hands of bad drivers of the two scenarios. We do not attempt to ban cars because thousands die in them every year.

Wow. I guess you failed first year logic eh?
A car is not designed to injure.
Jeeez.
Yes, you have your Constitutionally protected Right (writtten how many years ago..lol) to bear arms, blah, blah, etc...
Fine.
Nevertheless... simple fact: guns are created to cause harm.

 

[Nasor]

i would be compleatly terifide to walk down any street in the US because of the "right to kill anyone you feel like"

You might be terrified, but your fear would not be statistically justified. While the murder rate is higher in the U.S. than most other countries, your odds of actually being murdered are still insignificantly tiny. You are vastly more likely to die in a car crash than in a murder. If walking down the street would terrify you, then you should be absolutely petrified with fear at the thought of taking a car trip. There are also many simple things that a person can do to greatly decrease their risk of being murdered further - like not being a drug dealer or gang member.

more deaths are either a) acidents or b) crimes of passion than will ever be someone randomly killing you

so either your kid gets your gun and acidently shoots himself or you kill your partner because your having a fight

Gun accidents are an utterly insignificant cause of death in the U.S. There are only around 300 accidental handgun deaths here each year - including instances in which someone mistakenly shot a family member/friend thinking that they were a criminal. In a country with 290 million people, that's nothing.

 

[robtex]

You might be terrified, but your fear would not be statistically justified. While the murder rate is higher in the U.S. than most other countries, your odds of actually being murdered are still insignificantly tiny. You are vastly more likely to die in a car crash than in a murder. If walking down the street would terrify you, then you should be absolutely petrified with fear at the thought of taking a car trip. There are also many simple things that a person can do to greatly decrease their risk of being murdered further - like not being a drug dealer or gang member.Gun accidents are an utterly insignificant cause of death in the U.S. There are only around 300 accidental handgun deaths here each year - including instances in which someone mistakenly shot a family member/friend thinking that they were a criminal. In a country with 290 million people, that's nothing.

Nasor:

What number would you propose for the stat to be jusified at? If you are going to throw out a stat than throw out a number.

The key word in the car example is accident. Cars are meathods of transportation. That is their primary use. It is feasible for someone to use it as a killing instrument but not likely. A gun is used only for killing. Nothing else. Even when u gun nuts list all the other things like self-defense, scare tatic shooting cans, collection item ect it stil boils down to the device was made to kill. Wehn u shoot cans you are practicing to kill...When you say self defense or scare tatic you are contemplating killing. There is no getting around the fact that guns exist to kill. Cars exist to transport. That is why car wrecks are called accidents.

Yes guns owners can have fatal accidents too...but the device that killed them was still created for killing as its primary reason for being.

300 gun deaths a year is nothing? That is almost one a day ..and used an on a device that has no useful purpose other than killing...but as long was we are casting out stats"

http://www.jointogether.org/gv/resources/facts/reader/0,2055,568562,00.html

in 2000 jointogether.org shows there were 28663 deaths that year from guns.

64% of all homicides are done by a firearm....can you guess how many of those people would be physcially mentally or emotionally capable of killing had they not had a gun? I am guessing very very few...which is the reason they had the gun in the first place...because it was the only instruement they could use to murder with..

Unfortunately, what worries me equally is the marriage to fear the gun lovers have. The counter arguements always revolve around fear....fear of walking down a street, fear of driving fear of swimming......the last thing I want my neighbor who thinks about fear so much, is for him to be carrying a gun.

Carrying a gun is like popping a confidence pill to deal with fear.....there are other ways....and with all the annual needless deaths from guns....it would be a good idea to explore some of them on a macro level.

 

[Nasor]

Robtex: My point was that many people have an irrationally distorted perception of the dangers of guns and crime. Asgurd, for example, is apparently under the impression the high crime rates and plentiful guns makes the United States an extraordinarily dangerous place to live – hence his comment about being “terrified to walk down the street” in the U.S. for fear of being shot. In reality, the likelihood of being murdered is absolutely trivial compared to likelihood of dying associated with many other activities that people engage in every day without ever worrying about.

 

[Repo Man]

Wow. I guess you failed first year logic eh?
A car is not designed to injure.
Jeeez.
Yes, you have your Constitutionally protected Right (writtten how many years ago..lol) to bear arms, blah, blah, etc...
Fine.
Nevertheless... simple fact: guns are created to cause harm.

You never hear this sort of hyperbole about bows. You never hear it about throwing knives, or other sorts of knives that have no utilitarian purpose.

Firearms are inanimate metal objects. The use they are put to depends entirely on who wields them.

Robtex, from your own site, 58% percent of the listed deaths are suicides. I feel that people have the right to end their own life, so that 58% gets tossed out immediately. It is too bad that the list doesn't also break down the number of deaths from drug dealers killing each other in turf wars. Those don't concern me either, other than illustrating the need for the drug war to end, and rational decriminalization of drugs to begin.

The anecdotes where someone had a gun, and criminals left them alone are impossible to keep track of in any meaningful way. My brother had a friend when he lived in Tucson who liked to ride his bicycle to work. One day a car with four guys in it veered off the road to scare him. Then they turned around and stopped, and began to get out of the car. He carried a Colt .45 in his seat pack. He pulled it out and said "Leave - now." They left. No crime reported, no statistic entered. If he had not been armed, he almost certainly would have been beaten, quite likely robbed as well. They might have even gotten carried away and killed him (not probable, but possible).

 

[Nasor]

The key word in the car example is accident. Cars are meathods of transportation. That is their primary use. It is feasible for someone to use it as a killing instrument but not likely.

The teleological purpose of an object has no relation to how dangerous it is. It is true that cars are meant for transportation while guns are meant for shooting people, but never the less I am far more likely to be killed by a car than a gun.

300 gun deaths a year is nothing? That is almost one a day ..

Yes, in a population with almost 300 million people 300 deaths/year is insignificant.

in 2000 jointogether.org shows there were 28663 deaths that year from guns.

Like someone else pointed out, the majority of those are suicides. There were only about 9000 gun murders in the U.S. in 2002. Additionally, according to the Department of Justice about half of all murder victims are themselves criminals. So, by simply 1) not deliberately shooting yourself and 2) not being a criminal, you can further decrease the already-low chances that you will be killed by a gun.

64% of all homicides are done by a firearm....can you guess how many of those people would be physcially mentally or emotionally capable of killing had they not had a gun? I am guessing very very few...

There are many countries that have higher murder rates than the U.S., but fewer gun murders. There are also plenty of examples of countries that took away people's guns only to find that the murder rate didn't go down - or in fact went up. There are also many countries with easier access to guns than the U.S., but a lower murder rate. It does not seem that simply having guns around makes people more likely to kill each other.

 

[robtex]

Robtex: My point was that many people have an irrationally distorted perception of the dangers of guns and crime. Asgurd, for example, is apparently under the impression the high crime rates and plentiful guns makes the United States an extraordinarily dangerous place to live – hence his comment about being “terrified to walk down the street” in the U.S. for fear of being shot. In reality, the likelihood of being murdered is absolutely trivial compared to likelihood of dying associated with many other activities that people engage in every day without ever worrying about.

Oh ok sorry...yeah for most part US is a safe place to live. Your post made you sound paranoid....lol

 

[robtex]

The teleological purpose of an object has no relation to how dangerous it is. It is true that cars are meant for transportation while guns are meant for shooting people, but never the less I am far more likely to be killed by a car than a gun.Yes, in a population with almost 300 million people 300 deaths/year is insignificant.Like someone else pointed out, the majority of those are suicides. There were only about 9000 gun murders in the U.S. in 2002. Additionally, according to the Department of Justice about half of all murder victims are themselves criminals. So, by simply 1) not deliberately shooting yourself and 2) not being a criminal, you can further decrease the already-low chances that you will be killed by a gun.There are many countries that have higher murder rates than the U.S., but fewer gun murders. There are also plenty of examples of countries that took away people's guns only to find that the murder rate didn't go down - or in fact went up. There are also many countries with easier access to guns than the U.S., but a lower murder rate. It does not seem that simply having guns around makes people more likely to kill each other.

Than throw the 58 % minus the number that wouldn't commit sucide if they didn't have a gun...or throw it all out for purpose of this arguement..the 11,000 plus for homicide is still unacceptable. If bows or knives caused as much havoc in our society than that would be a great idea..but the difference in knifes (and stick or blunt objects) is that you really have to be committed emotionally and strong enough physically to carry the homicide out with them as opposed to a gun which makes it much more opportunistic.

Even your world choices on this thread, wield, defend, weapon, targets say what yours and others use for a firearm is.

The story is touching but it is the common pro NRA ploy to use isolated heart wrenching incidents where somebody's life or livelyhood was saved because they had a gun. The NRA has used that in lew of stats for years because when you crunch the numbers it ain't looking good for Heston's boys. If you polled everyone on this site who had a story like yours either by association or there partipation in it you would be luck to get 10-15 such stories....and i am probably being very liberal in my estimation. The reality is that handguns and firearms in general in this country, do have a large impact on the violent crime rate and handgun elimation plus guncontrol will only have one effect..lowering the violent crime rate.

The below link is their sob story page. In 2004 with 3.6 million members as of 2002 (http://www.packing.org/news/article.jsp/1521)
they came up with a whopping seven stories in 2004....7 I will contend that I am happy for those involved..but 7 versus....how many preventable deaths? How does one justify this?

( http://www.nrapublications.org/armed citizen/index.asp)
http://www.nra.org/default.aspx

Many of the firearm deaths are violent muggers rapists ect..ect...actually our crime rate is not so bad here. Most of the firearm deaths are upset spouses, people mixing liqiour and guns....and the like. The Brady Campaign shows that in the last decade 67 % of spousal deaths are by handguns for wifes, 57 % for gf and 47 /% for men.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/?page=domviolence
http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/domviofs.htm

Look, actually I could throw stats at you all day long...but three things are clear:

1) the homicide rate for firearms is not acceptable
2) not having firearms would make it unrealistic for crimminals to commit fatal crimes
3) a good percentage of the crimes that are committed are crimes of passion that the person committing them would not have been able to emotionally or physically do if they didn't have the ease of a firearm.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/

 

[Repo Man]

1 What reason do you have for supposing that any legislation can drop the ownership of guns in any meaningful way?

2 Why do you think criminals would be less likely to be armed if there were laws against posession? They are usually already breaking laws just by having them, much less concealing them to commit rape, robbery and murder.

3 Don't try to take away my guns because some people can't be trusted wth theirs.

For the love of pete, what makes you think that guns will go away if they are outlawed? Drugs are illegal, that sure doesn't stop people from obtaining them does it?

The Swiss are one of the most heavily armed nations in the world. They still require that people keep fully automatic weapons, and the ammunition for them, in their homes. Just an illustration of how the gun/crime correlation is a false cause logical fallacy.

Didn't you watch Bowling for Columbine? Did you miss the part where he pointed out the Canadians are heavily armed, yet their crime rate (especially murder) is much lower than ours?

 

[robtex]

I have to break down my reply in multiple posts. I noticed you sidestepped my arguements on domestic violence and stats favor gun control. Do you have any theory as to why
1) the homicide rate for firearms is not acceptable
2) not having firearms would make it unrealistic for crimminals to commit fatal crimes
3) a good percentage of the crimes that are committed are crimes of passion that the person committing them would not have been able to emotionally or physically do if they didn't have the ease of a firearm.

are not valid or true?


Go to the NRA website and under the search type in statistics or gun deaths, violence facts, violent statistics ect.....All you will get is legistation up for vote not #'s. The NRA avoids gun stats for a reason.

I want to start with your footnotes about The Swiss and our Canucks up north.....Their culture is pacifically accomodating to firearms. Ours is not. The numbers of all three countires clearly show this. I am very pleased that neither the Candians nor the Swiss have high crime rates and have guns. What works for them culturally does not work for us. Gun control is not a world issue it is a domestic issue for Americans.

Starting with # 1) that is a cop-out. To say that we can't do anything about so lets all just keep our guns and our high death rates associated with them is a losers mentality. It is akin to saying hey people are gonna speed anyway so lets not give speeding tickets anymore. If there are stronger gun control laws yes..they will be broken. But by having set sanctions in place three positive things will happen. And I am not sure I want to open this can of worns on this thread but by saying by saying the comment about drugs ...you are in effect adovocating drug use since, "Drugs are illegal, that sure doesn't stop people from obtaining them does it?:" I am hoping you are not advocating lifting all existing drugs laws based on the same logic.

The three things:

1) A clear distinct message will be sent about where we as a country will permit as a peaceful community and what we will not.
2) that monetary sanctions addressed in fines, legal costs and opportunity costs will act as a deterient for gun offenders
3) Money made from those offenders can be used to off-set the health care cost that tax payers share from the damage created by people who shoot guns at people

Financial strain is the mother of all deterients when it comes to laws and livelyhood. I worked in social services for a long time and I saw that for the most part that the current DWI campaign is very successful. We do have a lot of DWI deaths annually but I can tell you from personal observation the best way to sober a driver up is to give him probation for 18 months and the 5000 estimated bill that goes with it.

A lot of them stop because they cannot afford the legal aspects of it and they get educated in the negative aspects of drunk driving by professionals who know the facts about it instead of the snow job and powerplay the NRA uses in lew of facts. Those stats are real. Those numbers are unacceptable. Why would you want to be a contributing force that enforces a death toll like that?


I will get to # 2 and # 3 in a later post but let me ask you a question regarding self defense and handguns. Say instead of carrying a handgun an indivdual carried a beanbag gun or a taser....or pepper spray. They get jump and they shoot these devices that are non leathal but still are tools for protection. Would their safety be any more or any less at risk? If a crimminal (and i realize I have not gotten to # 2 yet have to eat in a sec) had a beanbag gun, mace, or pepper spray and say ..a very sharp knife because he did not have access to a gun....could he be committed enough physically emotionally..psychologically to kill the other person with his hands..touching them...feeling them.....and torturing them with cuts in the process......as often as not? Killing somone with a knife is an intimate ordeal that asks a very high committment rate..shooting someone is not nearly as high.

 

[robtex]

2 Why do you think criminals would be less likely to be armed if there were laws against posession? They are usually already breaking laws just by having them, much less concealing them to commit rape, robbery and murder.

3 Don't try to take away my guns because some people can't be trusted wth theirs.

# 2) two things about this part

1) It ignores the reality that many crimes with guns are not committed by hard-core crimminals or predators but by jealous lovers, drunks and friends who argued to the point of a shoot out. Those crimes make-up a large portion of murders and injuries and are completly opportunistic being contigent upon the ownership of a gun.

2) In direct answer to the question it would stop them to a point cause many would not be strong enough to pull the said crimes off without a gun and more importanlty they may be less likey to commit the crimes mentioned because they don't have an adaqute tool for the job. In addition the laws lowering those crime rates because the opportunity has been dimished due to ease of execution the police officers could for the first time, be pro-acitve in fighting those types of crimes because carry handguns would be illegal and finding them on someone..say during a traffic stop or such.....or seeing them branished is a crime in and of itself so the officer would have the legal authority to intervene at that immediate time.

As it stands now, espcially with the repeal of the assult rifle ban an officer cannot arrest someone for simply having an ak47, uzi or mac10 in public. He has to wait for a crime to be committed because carrying one is legal now. Do you think that is not going to have a impact on the death toll of officers and citzens in the upcoming years?

And finally on # 2 just like on # 1 the financial accruement resulting in the enforcement of these laws will help pay the legal and health care cost associated with crimes committed with these weapons.

#3) Repo you live in a community. All communities have utilitarian aspects and things that benefit the whole while inconviencing some. Because the end use of firearms is to kill (weather hunting practing or killing humans) and because of the excellerated ease at which guns make this possible I think there shoud be a sacrifice for some to protect the majority.

What do you use your gun for?

If you collect it ....collect something else....
If you use it for self defense use something else..(like examples in my last post)
if you hunt...well than I think that is ok...for rifles not assult rifles or handguns
If you use handguns to hunt hunt a different way
If you sport it for social reasons substitute another social interaction tool.

With as much death and destruction guns cause Americans annually isn't it negligent to ignore the impact guns have made on it in lew of social convience?

 

[Asguard]

if you hunt...well than I think that is ok...for rifles not assult rifles or handguns
If you use handguns to hunt hunt a different way

in Australia its legal to own double barrel shot guns and bolt action rifles. If you are hunting (and WHY are you going out to slaughter some animal you wont eat?????, farmers defending there stock different) why do you need an asult rifle anyway??

rifles are more acurate than handguns (i belive) so its your own benifit to hunt with a 22 anyway and dont you actually want some of your target LEFT???????

shooting it with an M-16 wont leave much left

use a single shot rifle and actually learn how to aim if you must hunt

 

[Mystech]

rifles are more acurate than handguns (i belive) so its your own benifit to hunt with a 22 anyway and dont you actually want some of your target LEFT???????

shooting it with an M-16 wont leave much left

use a single shot rifle and actually learn how to aim if you must hunt

First off, this statement seems to be based upon the idea that Automatic weapons are legal in the US. Well. . . they are to a degree, but they’re extremely regulated such that the average person has very little chance of being able to get a hold of one let alone legally purchase one. You may have heard of the recent sunset of the Assault Weapon Ban in America, but this ban did not deal at all with fully automatic weapons. Fully automatic weapons are covered under the Automatic Weapons Act of 1936 (I believe that’s it’s proper name) and requires special federal dealers licenses to have such a weapon in your possession.

Actually an M-16 fires .223 (5.56mm for you metric buffs) which isn't really that much larger than a .22. It's a high velocity low impulse type of ammo, meaning it's fast but doesn't have a lot of punch when it hits you (not the sort of thing that's going to knock a man off his feet) and as such is quite a bit more likely to do one of two things: either it will punch into a target and hopefully tumble (Fragment, essentially) or punch right through it leaving a fairly clean exit wound.

An M-16 is actually a very good rifle for hunting and AR-15 variants are extremely popular in the US shooting scene for doing just that, or target shooting (it's also a very accurate rifle) or the like. The vast majority of these, of course are semi-automatic, but if anything that can actually make them more deadly. Even our US military doesn't use fully automatic M-16s, those went out of fashion sometime during or after Vietnam (someone help me out here) with the M16A1 variant. Our current M16A2 rifles are capable only of semi-auto fire and three round bursts for closer engagements. The reason for this is simple, as rate of fire increases, hit rates go down. An automatic weapon is not a magic wand of death that you can pull the trigger and wave all over like you see in the movies and manage to kill everyone in front of you. The distinction between "Assault rifles" and just regular "Rifles" isn't very significant, they both shoot hunks of led of varying calibers with enough force to kill.

But then again that's military engagements. It's not unreasonable for soldiers to expect to engage targets at 600+ meters, and automatic fire isn't particularly handy in those situations. In close quarters, of course automatic fire does become much more deadly. When you're close enough that reflex shooting will do you just fine, which happens to be the range that most of the rest of us could expect to encounter a problem with a gun fully automatic fire does make things considerably less survivable. That's why we've got the Automatic Weapons act of 1936, we put an end to those drive-bys with Tommy Guns a long time ago.

Anyway. . . I have no idea where I was going with this post, I'm not trying to take a side on the issue with this, just offer up some of this useless gun information I've got in my head.

 

[robtex]

Asguard what are aussie gun laws?

In the states to be brief

owning a rifle is ok
for assult rifles read Mystech's posts he knows more than I do
owning a handgun is ok but not a handgun with a small barrell called a subnose.
concealment of handgun is ok if you apply and recieve a license
carrying of a handgun still requires the concealment license weather concealed or not


felons and ex felons may not have guns (there may be time period but not sure)
firearms may not be carried where alcohol is sold
firearms may not be carried in public (state local, federal) buildings

a rifle may be kept in the auto if is in plain view (gun rack)
a pistol I am not sure about but you can have it in the glove if you have a concealed license

hunting may be done on public land where premitted
hunting may be done on private land that is isolated when premitted by the owner of the land

firearms may not be taken on planes or in airports

police officer are not subject to the non-hunting rules but are not eligable for employement if they have a prior felony or misdemeanor record.

mystech did i leave anything out?

 

[Repo Man]

Starting with # 1) that is a cop-out. To say that we can't do anything about so lets all just keep our guns and our high death rates associated with them is a losers mentality. It is akin to saying hey people are gonna speed anyway so lets not give speeding tickets anymore. If there are stronger gun control laws yes..they will be broken. But by having set sanctions in place three positive things will happen. And I am not sure I want to open this can of worns on this thread but by saying by saying the comment about drugs ...you are in effect adovocating drug use since, "Drugs are illegal, that sure doesn't stop people from obtaining them does it?:" I am hoping you are not advocating lifting all existing drugs laws based on the same logic.

Yes, I am very much an advocate of drug decriminalization. Call me a small L or social libertarian. But more to the point, those who you should most fear will be the ones you can be certain will have guns, come hell or high water.

I feel that the violence we experience so much of in the U.S. is intimately tied in to our utterly failed war on drugs. The poor urban subculture has adopted some very poor standards. It will take a very long time to change them, but the first step to getting out of a hole is to stop digging.

California has much more stringent laws about guns than Arizona does. In Arizona, you may wear a handgun on a holster in public with no problems. If it is in plain site, it is perfectly legal. Being very different states, a direct comparison of crime statistics would be unfair. But I certainly didn't feel less safe when I lived and worked in Arizona. It seemed like a breath of fresh air actually. Too bad it's so hot there.

Your domestic violence stats just reinforce my feeling that more women should have and use firearms to protect themselves than currently do. A dead rapist is a good rapist.

If our culture is the problem, and not firearms themselves, then removing firearms is curing the symptom, and not the disease. And I don't think we can even cure the symptom.

 

[robtex]

Your domestic violence stats just reinforce my feeling that more women should have and use firearms to protect themselves than currently do. A dead rapist is a good rapist.

If our culture is the problem, and not firearms themselves, then removing firearms is curing the symptom, and not the disease. And I don't think we can even cure the symptom.

it is ok I am going to not debate the drug thing..that is a different debate for another thread.

On the first paragraph I isolated...why can't non-lethal options be avaliable? why is the only option a deadly firearm? More woman are raped by people they know than strangers by a long shot....a gun is not going to help them when they don't expect it.

Our culture is violent compared to other industrialized countires. And a gradual culurazation that would influence politics, religion, and mutual tolerance should be a long term project. We have a problem with violence as a country.

But lets assume we move in that direction do you really think arming the public heavily is going to move it in a postitive direction that is congruent with a higher level of mutual tolerance and pacivity?

The next time you are holding your gun tell us how it feels? Do you feel more powerful, confident, stronger, secure.....do you become more of an alpha male even if you don't act on it?

I am guessing you do and that is a normal psychological reaction to holding an instrument that affords one that much power.

As a matter of fact I would contend that 95 % plus people who hold guns feel the same way as you do in some areas weaker in others or stronger in others.

A gun can change a person's phsychie. It can maked a timid man a bully. It can make a wrong man feel vindicatable...it can make a small man feel strong. That is the reality of those instruments.

Knowing that how would building a more peacful community include arming it with guns?


Please look at the bottom link it drives home much of what I am trying to convey. It suggests that homicides attached to drugs make-up only 7.1% of homicides annually. However, the biggest part of the pie chart is arguements...37.7. That is huge. Arguements..not crime...arguements...and I guarantee you that if a stronger gun control policy was in affect by this time next year the # would plummet.


http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/graphs/12.htm

 

[alain]

basically the only time you will need a gun to defend yourself is when your attacker has a gun. so remove guns and then they become less necessary