An Unbiased Analysis of Gun Crime vs. Gun Control? 3042
"Just so everyone knows where I stand, and why I am asking this, I offer the following. I enjoy guns and regularly compete in shooting matches and hunt occasionally. I am a member of the NRA, not for political reasons, but due to the fact that most competitions are closed to non-members (which I do think is screwed up). Having said this I am undecided on what a logical path for the future is. I do believe that an unarmed nation is a bad idea, but as Michael Moore pointed out in 'Bowling for Columbine' Canada has a much higher per capita gun ownership rate compared to the US and has nowhere near the amount of violent crime that the US has. All of the statistics that I have seen about countries that have altogether outlawed guns have been manipulated by those extreme groups. As such I find it hard to believe anything that either side presents.
Thanks, I look forward to reading all of your comments and the references that you provide."
Delusional (Score:5, Funny)
what
Sorry.. (Score:3, Funny)
.. but "unbiased" and "slashdot" would be an oxymoron if used together.
Facts vs. Conclusions (Score:4, Insightful)
It should be fairly easy to find facts on gun ownership, number of shooting deaths, etc
The problem is in drawing a conclusion from those facts. There is not a single "correct" conclusion that can be drawn, or we wouldn't have the various viewpoints that we have.
Aaron
Re:Facts vs. Conclusions (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally disagree. Normatively people don't take a look at the facts, evaluate them objectively, and then draw a variety of different conclusions. They decide what they want their conclusion to be in the beginning and then find facts to support that conclusion.
Look at the NRA. Do you think everyone in the NRA went to the library, carefully and thoughtfully evaluated the statistics, then reluctantly decided to support gun ownership because the facts supported it? No! They decided to support gun ownership because they love guns. Facts, if any, were found afterward to reinforce the position they already had regardless of them.
Re:Facts vs. Conclusions (Score:5, Insightful)
"Look at the NRA. Do you think everyone in the NRA went to the library, carefully and thoughtfully evaluated the statistics, then reluctantly decided to support gun ownership because the facts supported it? No!"
Thank god you spoke up. I couldn't find the place where they keep the statistics on how many violent crimes are averted because of a gun. Where do they keep this in your library? Also, where does the factbook on whether or not we'd still be a democracy without them fit into the Dewey system?
"They decided to support gun ownership because they love guns. Facts, if any, were found afterward to reinforce the position they already had regardless of them."
I think dismissive arguments like this are part of the problem. The NRA thinks that liberals are idiots and would like nothing more than give criminals yet another leg up (but they really do, honestly think that the world is better off with less guns). The liberals think that the NRA is a bunch of violent people who would like nothing better than to shoot another human being (when they really do, honestly believe that the lynchpin of freedom is an armed populace).
Take whatever side you'd like but quit demeaning the other end of the spectrum. Those who commit the crime of disagreeing with you are neither de facto idiots nor liars and everyone suffers when you paint them as one.
Re:Facts vs. Conclusions (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm not sure I fully understand. If there are no guns then how will there be crimes with guns."
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way prostitution will happen when outlawed.
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way drug use will happen when outlawed.
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way racketeering will happen when outlawed.
I offer my sincere, sincere apologies if your post is intended as humor and I just utterly missed it. But if you're serious, by your logic, crime would never occur because
Re:Facts vs. Conclusions (Score:5, Informative)
Well, yes, this _has_ happened - to a liberal Florida State University professor named Gary Kleck, who was hired by a liberal anti-gun organization to dig up stats to prove that guns do more harm than good. The numbers he wound up with put the number of times guns are used (annually) to _prevent_ crimes at somewhere between 2 and 4 million (an admittedly _VERY_ fuzzy number, but undisputably huge), compared to about 10-15,000 criminal shootings (no cops, not self-defense, no suicides, just criminal gun use). Usually, crimes are deterred by the mere display of a firearm, no shots are fired, and the gun owner is hesitant to report the incident since his behavior (drawing a perhaps illegally carried gun on someone) borders on criminal aggravated assault in many areas.
The organization who hired him promptly buried his raw data (which they paid for and own) so deep it'll never be found.
Gary nonetheless wrote a book from the results, entitled "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America" [amazon.com](unsurprisingly out of print) which many in the NRA read, nodded their heads, and agreed with. Their agreement in no way invalidates any of his information.
Yeah, he's only one guy, but his credentials can't be impeached, and if he can be accused of bias it's clearly in the _other_ direction.
Guns vs. Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Daughter "six thousand people were killed with hand guns in the United States last year!"
Archie Bunker "would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they was pushed out of windows?"
Re:Same old NRA rhetoric (Score:3, Informative)
Try again, troll.
Re:Same old NRA rhetoric (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.constitution.org/mil/militia_debate_
http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_act_17
http://members.ll.net/chiliast/GGGH/histor
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia."
10USC Sec 311
EXPCITE TITLE 10 - ARMED FORCES
Subtitle A - General Military Law
PART I - ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL MILITARY POWERS
CHAPTER 13 - THE MILITIA
HEAD Sec. 311. Militia: composition and class
STATUTE (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Re:Viewpoints (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather be pronounced rude than dead :) Seriously, not everyone is worthy of trust. It's silly to think that we should all just trust everyone and therefore have no need to defend ourselves. It's quite obvious that we need to defend ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn't have jails or police. But since the police aren't required to defend us, and aren't capable of defending us well enough even if they were required to, it falls upon us to defend ourselves. A gun is the most effective tool for that purpose.
That sword cuts both ways. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like guns too, and don't feel that they should all be taken away, but your argument that not everyone is worthy of trust is one that can be used in both directions.
If everyone could be trusted, then everyone could have guns, and we wouldn't have any problems. The fact that not everyone can be trusted leads to the question, why should I trust you to own a gun? Like I said, I'm not really anti-gun, just looking at both sides. Captain_Frisk out.
Re:Viewpoints (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the lesson of Bowling for Columbine is: Guns don't kill people, the United States kills people.
Good Book (Score:4, Insightful)
The author, John Lott (Score:4, Informative)
Please, mod these other folks up in this thread, they were here first but somehow were not posted with a +2 like this post.
Fact. (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, though. Places like Switzerland ensure that every able-bodied adult as a fully-fledged assault rifle in their closet. Places like Israel have public armories, and won't let schoolchildren on a field trip unless the chaperones are packing.
Both of those places have ridiculously low amounts of gun violence. (Google it.) Obviously, Israel likely has more that Switzerland, but then, they've been shooting at the Palestinians for years.
In another example, England apparently has a decent chunk of gun violence, yet strict gun control laws.
I can't offer you statistics off the top of my head. I won't tell you that people need assault rifles to hunt today's super animals like the flying squirrel, and I won't tell you that hand guns should be restricted.
The only thing I'll tell you is that guns don't cause violence - societies cause violence. If not guns, then swords and knives and sticks and bare hands.
Re:Barely a Fact. (Score:3, Insightful)
Although technically ture your argument is heavily flawed. If someone cannot get access to a gun and they choose a knife or a sword then their maximum scope of damage is severely reduced.
Assuming I have a 9 bullet handgun I can kill 9 people from a reasonable distance before anyone can do much about it.
Switch to a knife I can probably get 1 or 2 before everyone figures out what I'm doing and eith runs away or overwhelms me
Switch to fists I'll be lucky to kill 1 person unless they are alone and killing 2 people is almost completly out of the question.
The idea that guns have nothing to do with violence is absurd, with a gun I can kill anyone very quickly, as my choice of weapons is reduced so is my ability to unleash quick and deadly force and thus I can kill less and less.
Please dont claim guns are completly irrelevant in how violent a society is as it is an insult to the intelligence of the people around you.
--
nich
rap music without guns? (Score:5, Funny)
If guns were completely abolished, imagine the rap videos on MTV. Snoop and Dre rapping about how their rolled on some suckas with their broadswords and morning stars? Somehow that seems way cooler than taking pot shots at people from the safety of your convertible.
Re:Fact. (Score:4, Insightful)
People here are always bringing up Switzerland as an example in these arguments, but nobody here would be willing to accept the accountability that the Swiss government demands from its gun users. Could you imagine the uproar if every bullet in America had to be registered with the government?
IIRC, Switzerland has a higher than normal gun suicide rate, because every suicidal person has a handy tool, and these people are among the few that wouldn't care if their illicit ammo use is discovered.
Decide for yourself (Score:3, Informative)
For what it's worth, I tend to agree with his conclusions based on the data and his analysis of it.
Re:Decide for yourself (Score:3, Informative)
That book has been thoroughly debunked. Some examples:
awed gun policy research could endanger public safety [ajph.org]
John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime: An Alternate Q&A [bradycampaign.org]
More Guns Mean More Guns: Why John Lott is wrong [reason.com]
Do more guns cause less crime? [unsw.edu.au]Robert Ehrlich
Tim Lambert
Re:Decide for yourself (Score:4, Informative)
Every single one of those people, who are critical of John Lott are anti-gun folks from anti-gun groups. None of them are qualified to even argue against John Lott. You might as well have quoted Sara Brady herself.
Worst of all, they use a study where they picked the data they used by excluding certain counties and dropped states. John Lott addresses this in the 2nd addition of his book, More Guns, Less Crime. He simply asks, why would anti-gun folks use a study that contains less data and data *they* select to try to debuke his study? It does not make sense.
Center for Disease Control (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Center for Disease Control (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Center for Disease Control (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Center for Disease Control (Score:3, Insightful)
Erm, why the Centre for Disease Control?
Doctor: "I'm sorry, but little Billy has got a serious case of cranial bullet-itis. There's nothing I can do."
Oh boy... (Score:3, Informative)
I, for one, and a huge fan of the U.S. Constitution. And that means I think the government shouldn't be able to stop me from speaking, stop me from gathering in a peaceful manner, stop me from going to church, or stop me from owning a gun for my own self-protection. I carry a gun every day, in fact. It's MY responsibility for my and my family's safety, not the police deparment who will show up 20 minutes late to clean up the mess. I take that responsibility seriously, and in this "land of the free", nobody should be able to take that right of self-protection away. The founding fathers saw those as "God-given" (sorry athiests, but our Founding Fathers were actually believers. Deal).
If you want some good stuff to research, try these links:
http://www.guncite.com/
http://secondamendmentstuff.com/
http://stealthboy.dyndns.org/~msherman/cowards.
Re:Oh boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the concept of the militia is to form a military group out of your citizens. Therefore, you need a citizenry that owns and shoots guns regularly, so when you *do* need to form a militia, they are ready to fight. In fact, in a militia, the men were assumed to bring their own weapons.
Also, it does not refer to the National Guard since that was formed by an act of Congress 140 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified.
Re:Oh boy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't assume that every conflict against a poorly armed population will go over like Desert Storm, Kosovo, or Afghanistan.
Re:Oh boy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhh...a militia is a body of citizens organized for military service. A citizen is an inhabitant of a city or town; especially : one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman. These are dictionary definitions, not my own.
So, a militia is a group of *private citizens* organized for military action, usually in defense of their township or state, and armed not through federal funds or subsidies, but through their own means.
Tell me again how the second amendment doesn't guarantee private citizens the right to bear arms?
Re:Oh boy... (Score:4, Interesting)
You know what the source for this is, right?
Oliver Wendall Holmes thought that ditributing pamphlets opposing US involvement in WWI (widely regarded by current historians as a stupid war) and encouraging people to resist the draft via legal means was not free speech, because (mumble mumble) crowded theatre (mumble) national security. It was, in my view, a markedly poor decision.
Not Possible (Score:4, Interesting)
My thoughts... (Score:5, Interesting)
Therefore, gun control is a reactionary measure proposed by people who fail to understand the motivations behind gun crimes. They are trying to oversimplify. Guns bad...ban guns, doesn't work though.
The biggest problem is this though...you cannot take rights away from Americans. Prohibition taught us that. You can give more rights to Americans...if it's not something we've become accustomed too, you might can take it away. But something we've lived with as a standard for years. You can't take that away.
Craenor
Re:My thoughts... (Score:5, Funny)
Look at how it's affected crime in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
The logic is simple: criminals will always find ways to get guns, whether legally or not. If the average civilian cannot own a gun for self-defense, the chances that a criminal will use a gun against a civilian become much higher.
Reason did a very good article on this a little while ago: Gun Control's Twisted Outcome [reason.com].
Re:Look at how it's affected crime in the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look at how it's affected crime in the UK (Score:3, Informative)
It can also be easily argued that it is simply due to other factors in Britan. One is the huge population density in the large cities, another might be economic issues, and so on. Remember: Correlation does not imply causation.
This is the problem with all gun studies, for or against, that I've seen. The best they can do is find raw numbers or a correlation. Well neither of these prove causation and hence don't mean anything.
Enforce Responsibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Gun ownership should demand a great deal of responsibility on the part of those owning firearms.
Practically, though, you don't see people being held accountable when their gun is stolen, used for a crime, found by a kid, etc.
I believe the pro-gun ownership lobby has become too extreme defending the right to own assault weapons and neglected the need to insure that gun owners are more responsible.
They need to listen and understand their own rhetoric about "guns don't kill people, people kill people".
Well, how the hell did those irresponsible idiots get a gun in the first place? Qualifications for owning firearms are as woefully inadequate as they are for procreation with consequences that are just as dire.
I'm in favor of an empowered citizenry, with the right to own deadly weapons. But I'm insistent that the greater the risk of the weapon (including the highest levels where government officials control nukes, etc.), the greater the responsibility and accountability needs to be.
Gun Licenses as hard as Drivers Licenses (Score:4, Insightful)
How about this: A gun license should be as hard to get as a driver's license.
This would mean a written exam on safty, a practical exam on basic marksmanship, maintanience, and safety.
Gun inspections like car inspections would probably be too difficult for existing guns. But at least an inspection for new firearms, to ensure they're being sold with triggerlocks and the like. I can understand why some people wouldn't want a triggerlock on (I think they're stupid, since they're much more likely to kill a family member than an intruder, but that's a compelling fantasy for many). But I think every gun should have one, so that it has to be a proactive choice to not use one.
I'm sure the NRA would frantically hate this idea, but I'd feel more comfortable knowing that people who bought guns legally at least demonstrated that they could pick "no" on a multiple choice test asking "is it okay to leave a loaded gun in the bedside table."
NRA is an extreme point-of-view? (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not a member of the NRA and have no immediate intentions of becoming one, but I cannot see how their position can be labeled "extreme". As far as I can tell, they simply want to maintain the status quo and uphold the second amendment. Their position is painted by their opponents as extreme because our culture deems a "moderate" position as being intellectually superior to an "extreme" position. Their opponents have tried all sorts of word gymnastics to diminish the NRA's interpretation of the second amendment, yet the NRA's position has remained consistent and firm.
I remember reading that the majority of crimes were committed with guns obtained illegally (i.e. stolen or bought off of the black market) so I'm unsure what anti-gun advocates intend to accomplish (other than eventually disarming those that abide by the law).
Re:NRA is an extreme point-of-view? (Score:4, Insightful)
As one gunmaker says in its ads, "in a world of compromise, some don't." Would you compromise your free-speech rights (say, the ability to write whatever software you want) in order to improve some group's security (such as the Media [riaa.org] Mafia [mpaa.org])? I didn't think so.
That was a factor (and an important one), but there's also the consideration that so-called "ballistic fingerprinting" is nearly completely useless for tracking a gun from its manufacture to its possible use in a crime. Ordinary wear and tear will change the breech and barrel over time...and if a criminal wanted to accelerate the process somewhat, a few minutes with a Swiss file would make even more drastic changes.
You're never going to get an honest answer (Score:3, Interesting)
Freedom (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I'm wondering too- though for what it is worth every time I read arguments about freedom in regards to softare/tech stuff I am stunned by the parallels in the gun control arena.
Should hardware or software that COULD be used to circumvent the law be illegal? Even if there are other uses that are not illegal?
What about personal responsibility?
And for my opinion on the question itself. I will add what I believe to be a fact that would add a lot of reason to the debate.
Gun control cannot work in America without the citizenry of the U.S. giving up a lot more of their personal freedoms. It is too easy for Americans to come and go as they please- to keep things private in their homes and buy/sell things in private- unregulated transactions.
As long as this is true gun control will be unworkable. If you doubt this look at how incredibly innefective gun control has been to this point in time.
The parallels to the war on drugs are also interesting but I've gone on enough already.
.
Correlation Analysis (Score:3, Interesting)
Then I took the number of violent crimes, homicides, &c per capita (FBI statistics for the same year as the survey) and put them in separate columns. Looking at the correlation matrix I found that there was no correlation (R^2 <
A principle component analysis revealed a further lack of dependancy of one variable on the other.
This study was by no means complete--I didn't correlate it against the years or anything along those lines, but a search on the net for other research while I was performing the research for this project indicated that other studies--using various methodologies and some of them much more formal and complete than I had been--had come to the same conclusion that I had.
If you don't believe me, download a copy of R (http://www.r-project.org/) and check it yourself with those criteria you think would be accurate. I would be interested in the results.
A Statistical Answer to a Social Question (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the solution here is to look at whatever you can find with a skeptical eye much like you'd look at any politician and make a decision based on what you find (or don't find). Gun rights/control is just a single notch lower on the pole than, say, abortion, and I think you're probably going to find nothing on a higher level than CDC data [google.com] that isn't interpreted in some way.
Finally, while deaths resulting from guns is certain a quanitity data is collected on, deaths and crimes that did not result due to a gun is far, far more nebulous. How do you quantify something like that?
In closing -- and with all due respect because I'm going to assume you are sincere in your desire to get to the bottom of this -- I think you're looking for a statistical answer to a social question and you're going to wind up just as frustrated as when you began if you don't approach it at least substantially from a social angle. And approaching this socially is a tacit forfeiture of the clean answer you were looking for in numbers. But I do wish you the best of luck. If you publish anything on your findings I'd love to see what you come up with (jason at macross daht com).
Facts (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a wonderful source of gun information, and a far better source than even Snopes for combatting gun misinformation. Additionally, I would recomend Michael Moore's new movie Bowling for Columbine [michaelmoore.com] - if you are an American interested in learning about guns in America, you can learn more about gun advocates in the two minute Terry Nichols interview than you can in a year of attempting to decipher NRA mailings. 'There are real nuts out there!' exclaims Terry. And he is quite right.
Despite the recent California Supreme Court decision, I think every reasonable American knows that the founding fathers designed the second amendment to allow all Americans access to personal firearms. Muzzle loaded, smoothbore, single shot flintlocks. Of course, the idea of giving a person today's concealable automatic ceramic-barreled teflon-round armed killing machines would have been complete anathema even to Patrick Henry, and it is likely that the Supreme Court will get around to upholding a ban on everything but black powder smoothbore, but until then we'll have to tolerate the nutjobs.
Guncite is not objective (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm on the fence with regards to gun control, but I shun statistical analysis like the plague. Especially the analysis from Guncite, which is loaded with partial interpretations, spin, and all the rest of it. Don't consider it anything approaching an objective source.
For instance, one particular graph [guncite.com] on the site contrasts the increasing number of guns in the public's hands with gun-homocide rates. Because the homocide rates don't rise with the number of guns in society, the conclusion is that gun "supply" has nothing to do with homocide rates*.
I've thought of drawing a similar example in which I would graph kids' intake of milk on one axis and their rate of growth on the other. My conclusion? As you increase the amount of milk the kids drink to amounts like 10 gallons a day, you don't see a corresponding increase in the kids' rate of growth. Therefore, I've demonstrated that calcium intake has no effect on growth rates in kids. I'll call it the "Calcium Supply Myth".
Of course that's a nonsensical conclusion-- I've just shown that if you're already providing enough calcium, adding excess doesn't necessarily have give you eight-foot tall kids. But if kids weren't getting enough calcium, would their growth rates slow down? Ditto for guns. Once there are enough guns in society to thorougly satisfy criminals' demands for weaponry, it doesn't matter so much how many more you add. Certainly it demonstrates that adding more guns to our already phenomenal supply doesn't seem to "turn people into murderers." But that's about all I can draw from that graph.
What would happen if you actually reduced the number of guns in public hands to the point where criminals were going without? I don't know, and clearly neither does GunCite. Personally, I'm increasingly of the opinion that our liberal attitude towards gun ownership, combined with lack of regulation and training, does indeed result in deaths. That doesn't necessarily mean I want guns outlawed, however; there are good constitutional and moral arguments for gun ownership. But the "we can have it all" argument that our armed society comes without a price is just wishful thinking.
* Incidentally, there are other problems with this graph: it doesn't say how the guns are distributed-- if one person buys a hundred guns, it's a little different from a hundred people each buying one gun. It also doesn't say how many guns are dropping out of supply, etc, and I'm not clear if it includes military/police purchases.
Canadian statistics are skewed... (Score:4, Informative)
That being said, it is still difficult to explain the two orders of magnitude difference in homicide rate. Another interesting statistic is that in Canada's largest city, Toronto, it is estimated that 3 out of 4 hand guns involved in a crime are imported illegally from the US.
Draw your own conclusions.
Ban Stones Now. (Score:3, Interesting)
Facts (Score:5, Interesting)
What more do you need to know? Whether you're more likely to kill someone because you carry a gun. Sure you are. Whether you're more likely to get killed because you carry a gun? Debate that all you like, but if you have it, you have the choice whether to use it.
Safety. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's MY responsibility for my and my family's safety...
Is your neighbourhood really that dangerous? How many times have you felt obligated to brandish your weapon to protect your family? What are you so afraid of? That someone else with a gun will randomly try to kill your loved ones? Or do you love your property so much that you would be willing to kill for it, rather than file an insurance claim? These are honest questions because I really don't understand your mentality.
Given your past need to fend off attackers with your gun, what is the greater probability: that at some point in the future you will successfully save the lives of your loved ones with your gun, or that someone you love will be killed with it while they're goofing around?
Re:Safety. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know as one who carries daily- I don't ever feel a need to brandish a weapon. The day I draw it will be to shoot - to kill. It is not a macho thing- it is a rational, self defense thing. What brandishing a gun gets you is jail time.
Yes- your neighborhood is that dangerous.
3 people died in my city last night. They were killed by some guy on a street corner shooting at cars that drove by. One was a 20 year old woman- 2 months pregnant. Her and the baby died.
I wouldn't kill someone to protect my property but I would do it to protect my wife - my children - or for that matter you. If I am driving down the street and see someone that is presenting the threat of death to another- I will step in.
Our constitutional rights and the responsibilities of freedom extend beyond selfish needs. They extend to what an individual can do to maintain the body politic. If more able bodied/minded citizens would stop shirking their responsibility to make this world a safe place- it would be a much safer place.
We could go on all day I guess. I doubt I'll change your mind but the folks who desire to own and use guns are not as simple minded as you imply.
.
John Lott's book (Score:5, Informative)
More Guns, Less Crime is a book by a liberal that takes unbiased FBI numbers regarding what happened when concealed carry laws were passed, and other very controversial subjects..
and he found that the more law-abiding people that had guns there were, the lower the crime rate because of the fear factor.... that is, the criminals were fearful of the well armed citizens that were ready to defend themselves.
its not politics, its logic.
If it were legal to carry a gun here in LA, maybe that guy wouldn't have tried to carjack me in the Tace Bell drive-thru. He saw a small, white guy in an expensive sports car. I was an obvious and easy target.
I got away - thankfully - by hitting him with my car.
but fsck that. I just carry a small auto now. I'm not going to hope to get lucky next time.
bad guys.. there are a LOT of us nerds carrying now.. and we're growing in numbers. Just so you know.
Michael Moore got it wrong with Canada. (Score:5, Insightful)
One important point that Michael Moore missed, is that while Canadians to have a higher gun ownership per capita then the US, they are almost exclusively long guns - rifles and shotguns used almost exclusively for hunting and protection from animals.
It's extremely dificult to legally get a handgun in Canada. It's been like that the last 30 years, at least. Controls on handguns and assault weapons in Canada has a long history.
Where I agree with Moore, is that Americans carry guns out of fear of people, where Canadians mostly use guns as tools against animals.
The idea that people must carry guns to protect themselves from other people is largely unique to the US, and I think goes to the high rate of gun violence here.
_Am
Opinions (Score:4, Insightful)
actually know how to use, maintain, carry, and most importantly...when and how to present the weapon when it gets intense.
Contrary to popular belief guns are no more or less dangerous than anything else you can find in a home as long as they are *properly* stored. A child running around with the turkey carving knife he pulled out of the knife rack on the counter has as much damage potential as an unsecured gun.
Also there's the issue of guns and crime. Sure we've all heard the expression "If we outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns" till we're sick of it, but it *is* a true saying nonetheless. We outlaw drugs and they're all over the place. We outlawed Booze once...that worked well didn't it? You can restrict and outlaw and ban all you want, but as long as there are criminals who will pay for the guns, other criminals will figure out how to get guns in from other sources.
Guns used in crime. This is a tricky one as the facts differ from person to person. There is evidence that the "Wild West" wasn't as wild as people claim. This makes sense to me as only a fool would start something in a saloon where everyone including the showgirls are packing some sort of hand cannon. Also there are the anecdotes of the idiots who have tried to commit armed robery of gunstores (some with police officers picking up their sidarms) and the results of such encounter.
Personaly I'd LOVE (not that I'm holding me breath) to see a law that requires everyone over 18 with no police record to start learning the proper useages of a handgun and to be expected to actually openly carry at the age of 21. It's a little harder to rape a woman who is packing heat and is trained in it's proper use. It's even harder to knock over a convience store when the clerk, the manager, the guy behind the deli counter and the guy picking up a pint of ice cream for the missus is armed.
But that's just MY dream and my opinions
Guns are just a side issue. (Score:5, Funny)
Every hour, 645.3 children are killed by lawn darts.
Most lawn darts are never ultimately used in the defense of a home. But they claim thousands of lives every year nevertheless. An angry spouse might turn to a lawn dart in the heat of an argument with tragic consequences. A suicidal teen reaches for the dart instead of reaching out for help.
Worse yet, 67.3% of all lawn darts are stolen from law-abiding homes, ending up on the black market and used against innocent victims, contributing to the dark, rising tide of lawn dart violence.
Stop the madness. Write your congressperson today and demand an end to this scourge.
Books (Score:5, Informative)
The second one I read (but not completely, due to lack of time) is Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control by Kates and Kleck. Kates strikes me as somewhat biased against control, but at least he backs it up with facts (though I haven't checked them yet). Kleck is much more balanced.
Kleck's Point Blank and Targeting Guns have been cited as the definitive scholarly works on the subject. Haven't read either one myself.
Wright and Rossi's Under the Gun is also said to be very good.
There was an article on K5 [kuro5hin.org] about this a few months ago. Can't find it right now, their server is having trouble. K5 would probably be a better place to ask this question.
HTH.
If Guns don't stop crime, why do police carry them (Score:4, Interesting)
I usually jump into these debates.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here are some of my offtopic threads on slashdot on the matter:
[slashdot.org]
Movielink Snubs DRM-less Macs
and another:
[slashdot.org]
ACLU campaign challenges patriot act
Now, I personally do not think the right to keep and bear arms should hinge on the utility of it, but you can read more on my stance in the threads linked to above.
Literature
It should be noteworthy that some researchers- Gary Kleck and John Lott, I think- started out their research seeking to prove gun control lowers crime, and found just the opposite. Being intellectually honest, they switched sides.
For some good reading, with some solid factual basis & unrefuted citations, read Richard Poe's Book "The Seven Myths of Gun Control" (ISBN 0-7615-2558-0) or Chapter 10, 'Gun Control Advocates- Good Guys with blood on their hands'of "The Ten Things You Can't Say in America", a book by noted Libertarian Larry Elder. (ISBN 0-312-26660-X)
Poe's book condenses the research of Kleck and Lott into a more palatable format, while combining it with his own research and observations. An excellent read. Lott has statistically shown that in states with more liberal concealed-carry laws, crime rates against persons drop significantly. This is offset by a slight increase in property crimes in these locations, which is only rational & definately preferable to confrontational crimes. Kleck's research shows that guns are used legally and defensively to stop crimes anywhere between 800,000 to 2 million times per year. Gun control advocates estimate around 200,000 such uses per year, which is still more than enough to show the positive impact.
Larry Elder's writing style is a bit too conversational at times, but that stems from his main job as a radio talk show host. Although I don't agree with everything he wrote in the aforementioned book, Chapter 10 is right on target. Either way, the book is an excellent read.
The most notable book from the Gun Control advocate side was Michael Bellesiles' (formerly of Emory University) book "Arming America", however, he has been thoroughly discredited [washtimes.com] (Note: The linked article is very tongue in cheek, but nonetheless details his downfall at the hands of his equally liberal but intellectually honest peers.)
Now the Gun Control Advocates have nothing. Why? Because they have to lie. There are many who say in this thread, "The sides are equally valid, you can't have an unbiased analysis." This is wrong.
Gun control advocates must rely on distortions or outright lies to prove their point, because the facts are not behind them.
This is a harsh statement, but I will defend it anecdotally. My opinions I've formed from the aforementioned books, and from such sites as packing.org and guncite.org, and from the occasional spot check of their accuracy. If you want supporting documentation for my opinions, look to what I've already given you.
1. Gun control advocates often cite "Gun deaths" when talking about the need to control guns. The assumption is that by removing the most efficient means to cause death, the deaths will not occur. What they don't tell you is that about half of the "Gun deaths" are suicides. While this is tragic, the dedicated suicidal person will often use the most abrupt way to end their lives available. Guns are efficient at this, so they are used often. Compare that with Japan- a nation with almost no Gun Homicides- yet three times the suicide rate of the United States. Cultural differences aside, the means available to commit suicide do not affect the suicide rate.
2.When Gun Control advocates speak of all the children who die each year to gun violence, they include inner-city gangbangers as old as 24. While their deaths are tragic as well, they cannot be honestly compared to the suburban nuclear family with two responsible adults, actual children (ie, at most 18 years old), and a handgun for protection. If you look at gun homocides and accidental deaths for children under 14, you'll find that far more children drown in swimming pools than die to guns.
3. With any variety of "Gun Deaths" included, Doctor's mistakes kill far many more people each year than firearms. Their utility, however, is unquestionable, so we allow their presence despite how often they kill people. The utility of guns is not so obvious, even with the 800,000 legal defensive of guns each year that Kleck estimates, because most of the time, a shot isn't fired, and it isn't reported, because the citizen is afraid of running afoul of the confusing labrynth of gun laws in any particular state- and they've already solved the situation.
Well, I think I've written enough for now. I've cited most of my sources in this thread, or the threads I've linked to above, so don't ask me to defend them, as I already have.
That being said, I enjoy debate and will reply promptly to any intelligent reply/challenge.
Gun Control is hitting the bullseye
Some groups of interest:
Jews for the Preservation of Fire Arm ownership
(remember the Warsaw ghetto uprising!)
Second Amendment Sisters
Pink Pistols
(Gays for Gun rights. They rightfully need to defend themselves from some of the morons wandering around this nation. The Matthew Shepard incident would have been a footnote in the local police dossier if he had been armed and able to defend himself.)
www.packing.org
(Concealed Carry information for all 50 states)
Sorry for no links, but you all know how google works.
It's political (Score:4, Interesting)
As I mentioned [slashdot.org] the other day, the core of the problem is not guns, it is people. Guns have become the target because it is easier to make blanket decisions about the intermediary than to try to address the real problem of trying to figure out how to pick which people do not deserve to have them.
On the other side, people choose to fouus on banning abortion clinics and the idea of abortion for the same reason. These are easier targets to deal with. It is more difficult to try to deal with the issue that women who decide to have abortions are the problem.
In either of these cases the real problem is people, and ploiticians who want to "take things away" do not want to focus issues on individuals, or stratified groups, because it looks like discrimination and is bad for them politically. So they target the intermediaries... guns, or abortion, or some other soulless impersonal thing or idea.
References (Score:4, Interesting)
-
United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation [uncjin.org]
-
International Homicide and Suicide Rates [guncite.com]
A quick summary: Non-suicide gun-related deaths...- are not proportional to the percentage of households that legally own handguns.
- are proportional to the overall crime rate
In my opinion, it means that gun laws don't solve gun crimes, but whatever means address overall crime (education, equality, whatever) do work.don't feed the trolls (Score:4, Informative)
For the uninformed and the just plain deluded, here's some statistics from National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 49, No. 12, October 9, 2001. These are *facts*, unlike what most people seem to be pulling out of their hairy asses:
In the United States, homocide ranked 15th in causes of death, down 6.5% in the last year (2000), a steady decline since 1991. Some numbers:
homocides - 16,137
septicemia - 31,613
influenza and pneumonia - 67,024
accidents - 93,592
You are more likely to die as a result of contracting a non-specific infection during a hospital stay than you are to be murdered, by any means.
You are more likely to die in a non-car-related accident (almost three times as likely, in fact) than you are to be murdered, by any means. This includes falls, drownings, accidental poisonings, and so forth.
You are four times more likely to die of the flu or pneumonia than you are of being murdered, by any means. Note that the statistics for flu and pneumonia are separate from those concerning HIV-related deaths by pneumonia and infectious disease. HIV isn't to blame for these flu deaths.
If someone does try to murder you, there's a fair chance they'll use what's known as a 'weapon of opportunity', e.g., the handiest blunt object or sharp instrument. You are much more likely to die by blunt object or sharp instrument than by gun unless you're a) a criminal, or b) a black male living in certain particularly dangerous urban areas.
Accidental gun deaths accounted for 808 people in 2000. In comparison:
falls - 12,604, mostly down stairs or from ladders
drowning - 3,343, primarily in back yard pools or recreational areas.
poisoning - 9,803
Clearly, accidental gun deaths aren't nearly as common as falling, drowning or poisoning. If folks are so concerned about accidental deaths they should first concentrate on more primary offenders like stairs, ladders, and swimming pools, not to mention general stupidity (e.g., accidental poisoning).
Since 1930, the number of annual fatal firearms accidents has decreased 56% while the number of privately owned guns has quadrupled and the U.S.
population has doubled. This information has been independently confirmed by the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Safety Council, the Bureau of the Census, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
According to the FBI the biggest purchaser of firearms during the last decade has been women, mostly under the age of 40. This makes sense given that this women of this age group are the most likely people to be victimized by a crime, especially a violent one.
For the male dick-measurers in the crowd, you might consider the impact of banning firearms completely with respect to the safety of women. Very few women can match an average man in a physical confrontation and win; the gun completely eliminates the size and strength advantage that a man has. At worst both the man and woman will have a gun - and then at least they'll be on equal ground. Ban the gun and men are once again the winners of any physical contest, in a country where we *know* we can't protect women from violent crime. But I suppose the mysogynistic bastards among you will rejoice at the thought that you can beat your wives and girlfriends without fear of getting your ass shot, as you deserve.
According to the FBI, somewhere between 200,000 and 800,000 violent crimes were prevented last year because the victim was armed. A 'violent crime' is defined as a rape, robbery, or murder. More than 60% of these victims were women who were carrying a concealed weapon illegally, which is why the statistics range so much (they don't report because they'll be arrested if they do). That's a minimum of 200,000 crimes that otherwise would've occurred had the victim not been armed. The firearm was actually discharged in less than 1/10 of 1% of these cases. And please note: the FBI isn't known for it's fondness of the 2nd Amendment.
Of course, I know none of this will mean anything to the anti-gun nuts. They're so piss-scared of everything around them that they'll say and do just about anything to make sure their neighbors aren't armed. Cowards. These are the kind of folks who'd rather see a women raped and strangled with her own pantyhose than defend herself with a firearm.
Max
Case in point: Kennesaw, Ga. (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking from personal experience, I can think of absolutely no gun-related crime reported here in the last eight years I've lived here. Nor have I heard of any of the "accidents in the home" that gun-control advocates trumpet as a risk of gun ownership.
In the state of Georgia, there are very few barriers to gun ownership. Provided you're not a convicted felon and haven't been in a mental institution recently, you can buy and keep a gun in your home, car, or place of business. If you pay the fee in your county and don't mind being fingerprinted, you can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon pretty much anywhere besides a school, church, gov't building or public gathering. What's more, the police are very supportive of personal carry.
Lest you think we have a society of trigger-happy vigilantes, the law does provide some of the stiffest penalties in the nation for crimes committed with firearms, including a mandatory, non-negotiable five-year prison term for any crime committed with a firearm. This is the right kind of gun control: let law-abiding citizens protect themselves while providing stiff penalties for those who break the law.
Do a google search for "Kennesaw gun law," and you'll find the statistics, which pretty much speak for themselves.
Growing up in Gun Control Paradise (Score:5, Insightful)
I grew up knowing nothing about guns, because they simply "don't exist" in PR. Gun control is tremendously strict, and mere mortals aren't allowed to own them.
So why do all the houses have bars on the windows? Why is the murder rate higher than Detroit's? Why have friends of mine been mugged -- some killed in the process? Why did the PR legislature pass a law explicitly allowing you to run red lights after midnight to try to protect yourself against carjackings?
It wasn't until I came to the US that I understood, and even then it took me a while. Criminals will get guns, regardless of the law. If they can get guns in PR (100x35 miles of border to patrol), and nowadays in the UK, how can we pretend that the criminals will ever be disarmed in the US?
I now live in the most heavily armed county in New Mexico, Los Alamos. Guess what? The biggest crime spree in the last year was just stopped -- some kids were stealing CDs from cars, which most people leave unlocked. This made front-page news in our paper.
There are precious few home invasions here -- criminals are cowards, and strongly prefer doing their crimes where people don't shoot at them. I've never heard of a mugging here. They sometimes happen in Santa Fe or Albuquerque, but not infrequently the criminal ends up dead.
No, it's not the Wild West. It's remarkable how civilized we are when we know that everyone is armed. Heinlein said it well: "An armed society is a polite society". And it's not fear that keeps us polite -- it's responsibility.
I hope never to use my weapons against another person... but if anyone ever presents a threat against me or my loved ones, I will not hesitate. And I will never give up my freedom to defend myself.
Personal Experience (Score:5, Informative)
In truth the most compelling thing I have to offer is personal experience. I have used a fiream 3 times in my life to defend both myself and others, including a total stranger from harm. In two of the three cases the firearm did not even have to be drawn or displayed to be an effective deterrant.
The ability to let it be known to the assailants that I was armed was enough. In each case people's lives were at stake, and I was outnumbered in 2 of the 3 instances and in every case the assailant was armed with a weapon (car, chains, and knives). In my view a firearm in the hands of a competent and level headed citizen is more effective at stopping crime than an our armed police, search and seizure laws and no knock warrants.
cluge
More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott (Score:4, Informative)
Not wanting to just point you to a few conservative or NRA (or whoever's) websites and articles which will have an obvious bias, check a pretty basic and vannilla Google search [google.com] of the title and author.
Best wishes with your research!
My contradictory opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't care much for the NRA - I think they go a bit overboard at times.
I think the 2nd ammendment is outdated - we have a well armed militia and probably won't need to come running out of the house to keep the King of England at bay, or even the reds.
That all being said, I think gun control is a waste of time. Much like the copy-restrictions on cd's/software/whatever, all it does is add a degree of difficulty for legitimate people - if I go to the store to buy a gun to shoot Bambi or coke cans, I have to jump through this hoop and that hoop to do something legal...meanwhile some hood or gangbanger will be getting some black market gun without all this hassle.
About the only place that I see stronger gun control helping would be crimes of passion - getting pissed and shooting someone. However, I think if I was that pissed to kill someone, then not having a gun would not be a deterant...there are enough heavy blunt objects in this world to help.
I think what is needed is sticter punishments (not a fan of the death penalty):
Shoot someone during a crime, life in a 6x6 box - no parole.
Shoot someone during a crime of passion, life in a 6x6 box - no parole.
Shoot someone in a drive by, life in a 6x6 box - no parole.
Get caught with an illegal gun, 20 years in a 6x6 box - no parole.
Instead you get infinite trials, out in a few years, and a book deal or a rap record.
Like I said - my views are mixed...don't own or want one, but don't care if others have one.
What Happened to Personal Responsibility? (Score:4, Insightful)
I consider gun ownership part of the culture of personal responsibility that every truly honorable society should strive for. Life is a precious gift, and the taking of life one of the most serious acts a person can take. If you feel that owning a gun is your best bet to preserve life, especially that of you and your family, then go ahead and buy a gun. But part of owning a gun is taking responsibility for its use, including education children on its proper use, keeping it away from them if they are too young for it, and knowing how to use it yourself to successfully defend your family.
The government may try to legislate behavior on this issue, but treating the nation like children will never solve the problem. Give people responsibility, and let them learn to use it. It may take centuries or millennia, but eventually we will do it. If someone dies from illigitimate uses of firearms, well then our society is still not there yet. We can't save every person from being shot, but with some slow change we can make society safer at a more fundamental level. And of course note that we will never save everyone from accidents, just as outlawing bathtubs is not the way to save kids from drowning in them.
There will always be powerful weapons, given the progress of science to date, so outlawing them is not the ultimate answer. Education is the key of course to cleaning up our act. But personal responsibility is the particular goal I believe that could be accomplished.
The government ought to view passing legislation with more sincerity and try to plan for 100-1000 years hence, rather than their own re-elections. Our society has changed quite dramatically on a period of 100 years, and those nations who don't recognize the continual decay of basic humanitarianism are not going to fare well.
So gun control is not going to work, on a fundamental human level. Whether it will prevent a few deaths or not is not really the point.
Re:Guns (Score:5, Funny)
For a shooting to take place (in the US), you need 1) an American and 2) a gun. Now a way of preventing shootings is to remove one of the ingredients. Either get rid of guns or get rid of Americains
Re:Guns (Score:5, Informative)
So his quote might strike you as offensive, but it's *exactly* the point of the discussion. Why do Americans kill each other with guns more than Canadians?
Re:Guns (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Guns (Score:5, Funny)
When we do something, we do it right!
Anthropology and violence (Score:5, Insightful)
In Japan, to contrast, the motives that might drive an American to murder tend to lead to sepuku. Citizens of nations, such as Canada, closer to British and continental ideas of orderly society and acceptable behaviour would be embarrased to express American attitudes or tolerate the relative intemperance we consider an individual's right.
Violence is begaviour. Weapons are not of themselves more than tools that can be used or not to expedite behaviour. A good example of this is the events surrounding 9/11. Most people do not expect to be violent or to require weapons. As law abiding citizens, they adhere to the codes the government tells them "are for your own protection." Consequently, there few "weapons" among the passengers that could be diredcted to defeating the terrorists. Criminals and terrorists, however, do indeed expect to be violent and they have no reason to eschew carrying or improvising weapons of any form, regardless of law. Consequently box cutters, which are pretty indifferent weapons, were employed with almost complete success to overcome and demoralize the crews and most passengers on the four airliners.
Growing dependence upon authority by citizenry is probably the ultimate reason that such operations can be successful. The thorough manner in which the "shoe bomber" was suppressed and delivered trussed in twenty odd belts is a solid indication that a "militia" in the constitutional sense is probably vastly more efficient at public protection than the police could ever be.
Box-cutters? (Score:5, Insightful)
--grendel drago
Re:Guns (Score:4, Interesting)
It's probably a combination of (I'm probably forgetting some):
1) Social welfare: There are less really desperate people in Canada with "nothing to lose"
2) Gun control: It's still possible to get a gun, but much harder (I personnaly have no idea how I could get a gun if I wanted one)
3) Over-crowding: The population density in Canada is smaller
4) Cultural: The US has a "gun culture" (with the civil was, 2nd? amendment,
Re:Guns (Score:5, Informative)
Gun control: Nothing to do with it. Switzerland has the most lax gun laws in the world, and also one of the lowest murder rates. Meanwhile, Britain's got damn strict laws, but the worst murder rate in Europe. There are lots of other countries in Europe that have more "normal" correlations.
Culture: You're on the right track, but it's not just "gun culture", it's "homicide culture". Again, look at gun-crazy murder-light Switzerland.
So what is it that drives Americans to murder people with firearms more than other societies with more or less firearms, higher or lower population densities? You're right on target with "social welfare". Someone who lives in Canada can be broke and still know that, if they have a life-threatening disease, they're covered; and no one in Canada will be broke, because people don't get cut off the welfare rolls for being unable to find a job in a certain time period.
If the US really wanted to stop gun crime, there's an easy solution. End the drug war, making all drugs legal (marijuana the same way as tobacco, hard drugs by prescription and safe injection centres) and making legalized distribution networks. End the gun war, making all firearms legal, and requiring child/owner-safety measures (ideally, all guns sold should be required to use fingerprint identification, a new technology making it impossible for anyone but the owner of a gun to figure it). And redirect all of that money formerly spent on fighting drugs and guns, and also the taxes collected on sales of drugs and guns (including alcohol and tobacco), to [a] providing public health resources to help people help themselves end addictions (to drugs or guns); [b] providing national catastrophic health care coverage, meaning that anyone who has a medical emergency, or permanent life-damaging condition (aka AIDS or cancer), can get treatment for free, no questions asked (regular non-emergency care would remain private for the time being); and [c] hugely increasing welfare so that anyone who doesn't make at least a povery-level salary, instead of paying income tax, collects the difference from the government.
When we try to "fight" gun use, we just provoke other people to fight more. Stop the war, make peace with gun/drug users, give them resources they can use to help themselves, and give them a reason to live.
Re:Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Just want to nitpick a bit; this is a rather simplified trivial toy analogy, most often used by gun liberals (NRA and others). The perception is apparently based on the system swiss army uses for having army reserve (much of adult male population) store their personal firearms (assault rifle) in non-distributed fashion, ie. usually at home. Other than that Switzerland's gun laws are not particularly lax, esp. compared to USA.
Similar system is used in Israel, as well, a well-known peaceful non-homicidal nation (point is not to badmouth Israel but to contrast the simplistic example of Switzerland).
The other extreme often used is Jamaica, where apparently gun laws are pretty strict but homicide rates high.
Still, I do agree with most of what you write. However, separating "gun control" issues from cultural ones is difficult as they are fairly closely related. I would actually claim that "wild west" culture ("ain't nobody can protect you but you 'n ya smith'n wesson") is what causes big chunk of problems. That is, the idea that people should protect themselves by firearms is a very underrated culprit.
Re:Guns (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite our higher per-capita ownership of firearms, Canada has a fairly low population density. When you start dealing with differences in income spread across small blocks of neighborhoods, or simply the stress of living in a city where people are routinely jammed shoulder to shoulder like sardines in a can, then numbers may appear higher.
But search long enough and you could find lots of factors elsewhere.
Most Canadians own firearms that are primarily used for hunting, not home defense. When a Canadian is pissed off at you, he punches you in the head or swears a bit and stalks off to cool down with a beer. He can't reach into the back of his pants and pull out a handy Glock 9 because it's a bitch to get handguns in this country.
I've been wanting to see 'Bowling' for a bit, but haven't seen it on the local playbills yet. Does Moore cover the density of handguns vs. rifles across the population centers as well?
Re:Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It's not. Go back and read the question.
The submitter complained about the disappointing level of discourse surrounding this subject. He stated, correctly, that both sides spew nothing more than obviously-skewed rhetoric. He came to Slashdot looking for objective facts, and intelligent discourse. (Imagine that...)
To respond with a quip -- and that's EXACTLY what blackmonday posted -- misses the point. If you believe that gun deaths are far more prevalent in the United States than in Canada, then post some data backing that up. Maybe it's an accurate statement. I don't know. But THAT was exactly the point: The submitter doesn't know, either, and he came to Slashdot looking for those answers.
Blackmonday began what could have been an intelligent, interesting thread with a foolish, bite-sized quip -- EXACTLY the type of thing the submitter had complained about. It's unfortunate that people like yourself, who obviously also missed the point, have modded his quip back up to a 5. And reading the rest of the thread, it's unfortunate to see that blackmonday's post is about par for the course. Nothing new for Slashdot, of course...but disappointing, nonetheless.
crib
Re:Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
People laugh, or mod this as flamebait, but there's a strange, twisted truth to this. The per-capita homicide rate (all numbers from the FBI uniform crime rate analyses of 1997) for the US is something like 8 per 10,000, roughly 5 of which are caused by firearms. If we go to some strange, fantasy-land where no firearms exist, and further assume that murders committed with firearms would not have been committed without the firearm (laughable in cases) and furthermore assume that firearms prevented no murders (e.g., by scaring away criminals,) we can take away five of those eight homicides per 10,000, leaving the U.S. with a per capita homicide rate (non-firearm) of roughly 3 per 10,000. Not bad, right?
The United Kingdom has a per capita homicide rate of ~1.5 per 10,000, firearms included.
So even without our guns, we Americans are twice as homicidal as other industrialized, modern countries? Just my $0.02 (internet-advice value adjusted to $0.00
Re:Even More Reason to Ban Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
And honestly, the NRA is a paper tiger - a good deal of "freedom-oriented" firearms owners are convinced that the NRA doesn't do enough for gun owners that new firearms-rights groups (e.g., GOA, JPFO, etc.) are getting new members like gangbusters (pun not really intended.:)
Like I said: there's more to violence in America than just guns and gun control. These are merely sound-bite friendly, easily polarized topical issues that obfuscate the real problem of violence in America
Re:Even More Reason to Ban Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
And like most over-simplifications, its rife with holes. If I'm out to kill someone do you really think that a lack of a firearm is going to stop me? I'm a pretty big guy, I could probably kill people pretty eaisly without a weapon of any sort. Of, if I want to be quicker about it, a knife is pretty easy to get and use. (Happen to have a nice 8" knife at home in a drawer. Of course, its used to kill celery more often than people, but it wouldn't be hard to use it for such.)
I agree, guns do make killing eaiser, that was kind of the point of guns. Or any weapon for that matter. The question becomes, at what point does a weapon make killing easy to the point where the average citizen shouldn't have one. And that is more just a matter of opinion.
For example, I don't think I'd have to argue too hard to convince people that owing a nuclear device is not something that should be allowed for the average citizen. Most people are just not responsible enough. (I question if even governments are responsible enough, but that is an entirely different topic.)
Sadly, like most social problems, we lack a good control group to run tests against. Do more firearm related deaths happen in the US than in other parts of the world, probably. Does this mean that guns are the problem? No, to assume that is to ignore so many factors. To begin with, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, even without taking firearm deaths into account the US still has a higher homocide rate than other countries. That would seem to indicate that there is an underlying problem in the US, which makes violence more common. The problem isn't directly guns, its the people pulling the triggers. And the commonality of violence in the US. Also, there is another problem with the get rid of guns ides. Assuming for a moment that we did overturn the second amendment, how do you plan to get people to turn them in, without huge outbreaks of violence? Do you really think all of the little gang members are just going to hand in thier guns to the local police? Who is it that is going to be disarmed by this sort of thing? I'll give you a clue, it isn't the people that use guns to commit crimes.
Sorry to say, but what you propose is just an oversimplification of a problem. Its questionable, at best, if the homocide rate will drop by outlawing guns. And the logistics of disarming the populous are outragous, do you really want to go through another civil war?
You truly have NO idea what you are talking about (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, I was going to stay out of this thread, but...
Speaking as a qualified first-aider, someone who has trained various martial arts including some serious knife stuff for much of his life, and a witness to a couple of really quite violent attacks using sharp weapons, I can honestly and sincerely say that you truly have no idea what you are talking about.
A knife is far, far more dangerous than you give credit for. Most of the good guys I know (and I've trained with some of the best on occasion) give themselves maybe 50% chance of survivial against a completely untrained guy who's actually serious about attacking them, if they're unarmed and unable to escape. Against a guy who's had the first session of training, that goes way down. Against someone who has a clue, your survival chance if you have to fight your way out is bordering on zero.
Guns may turn any idiot with $100 into someone dangerous, but a knife will do it for $5, and probably with far less risk of being caught afterwards.
And no, it's not that hard to kill someone much smaller than you on the spur of the moment without a weapon. It's not easy, unless you know what you're doing, but plenty of people have done it by accident. Size makes a hell of a difference in a fight, and often small people fail to appreciate how much stronger a big person is, and big people fail to appreciate how much more fragile a smaller person is.
Trust me, if you ever face someone with a weapon, escape should be your first priority. Failing that, find a weapon yourself, anything you can use to negate some of the advantage, and try to attract attention and get some help. If nothing else, after an encounter with a knife, you're likely to need some serious first aid in short order to avoid going into shock from blood loss, even if you didn't get hit anywhere that's fatal in itself.
Re:Guns (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, I will agree with you.
As was stated in the intro above, Canadians have more guns per capita than Americans, yet they engage in drastically fewer violent crimes with these guns.
Therefore, it cannot be the guns themselves that create crime or cause death.
The answer lies in the decision making abilities and thought patterns of every American, many of which are obviously compromised or malfunctioning.
Why America has this particular malady I cannot say with certainty.
Whatever it actually IS, it is not videogames, it is not violence on TV, it is NOT because there is no prayer in schools, and it is not because "guns are BAD." (If I left out any of the other lame-ass excuses people put forth to advance their personal moral crusades, I apologise.)
I think it may be due to an inversion of morality ie. exaggeration of self importance, emphasis on and importance of property rather than property RIGHTS (sanctity of property), acceptability and glorification of criminality, denial of the sanctity of life (please do not bring up abortion or capital punishment as inducing factors here or I will have to kill you...Hehe), etc. More importantly, I see the problem as a failure of the juducial system to provide adequate examples for deterence. Corporal punnishemnt for lower offenses might help. (Smack'em if they can't obey the law.) Capital punishment more liberally applied might help too. (Whack'em if they can't keep from killin' people.)
It could be a systemic problem with recognition of authority and it's importance. It could be a mass entitlement complex that crumbles in the face of reality and leaves the individual morally destitute and seeking revenge for their unsatisfied ego. It could be mass quantities of hallucinogenic vapors dumped on the metropolitan cities by the US government...(hey, it sounded palusible on x-Files last night!)
Whatever they are, the underlying reasons do not change the fact that each person in the US who picks up a weapon and kills someone with it does so from their own motivation, with foreknowledge that it is wrong, and almost universally with foreknowledge of possible consequences. Therefore, they should be held responsible for their actions and made an example of to deter future crime. The travesty is that many times, this does not happen.
As to the article writer: Do not rely on the "studies" of others to influence you.
Develop your own ideas about why you should or should not continue to own and responsibly enjoy your firearms. You could even tell others about why you believe what you believe(after you figure it out). However, if you can't figure it out yourself, maybe you should dispose of your weapons before you become a statistic or part of someone's study.
Karma: Excellent (mostly due to refraining from killing all the bastards you meet who are begging for it)
Re:Guns (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Guns (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, I think it's Ek = 1/2mv^2 that kills people.
That's right, *bullets* kill people, not guns (Score:5, Funny)
You ever try walking into a Seven-Eleven and saying," Ok buddy, give me all the money or I'll push this bullet against your forhead"?
Trust me, they just stand there with that "deer in the headlights" look on their faces.
KFG
Re:Amen (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that the people are the (unorganized) militia, I'd say that both of you missed the point. (The organized militia [google.com] is everybody who's in the National Guard. The unorganized militia [city-net.com] is everyone else; this was last confirmed in 1939 in United States v. Miller [guncite.com].)
Ask ESR (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Guns and geeks... (Score:3, Informative)
Um, they do [geekswithguns.com], actually.
Especially when the Geeks grow up, get married, and start raising teenage daughters...
Re:We need to change the constitution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We need to change the constitution (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We need to change the constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
How bout some facts to back up your thoughts?
Removing guns from lawful, responsible people does nothing to keep them out of the hands of actual criminals. By definition, being criminals, they will not surrender the firearms in their posession. So they they have them, and no one else does.
Not a good concept for self protection. And the police being what they are, they cannot be everywhere at once.
A firearm in the hands (or closet) of a lawful, responsible person is no threat to you, if you do not break into his home or otherwise attack him.
Would you, as a presumably anti-gun person, be willing to put a sign in your front yard "This house is gun free!" ?
If not, you are reaping the benefits of allowing guns in the hands of lawful citizens. The crimnals do not know which household may or may not have a gun inside, and so may be less inclined to break in. You may not own one, but no one knows that but you.
Re:Sorry for the Troll (Score:3, Interesting)
And contrary to how the media would have you believe, holding a gun DOES NOT actually turn you into a crazy murderer. There's something about making a decision to kill people, and taking responsibility for your actions, but those concepts just go over the heads of most Americans.
We'd rather blame an inaminate object because that means we don't have to deal with motivations and changing behaviors. So much easier.
Re:Somewhere in the middle.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Guns dont kill people, people kill people.....but, guns sure do help
People who want to kill people will do it whether or not they have a gun. They will find a way. There are easier ways to kill a large number of people (gas, bomb, etc.) and there are easier ways to kill a small number of people (posioning, knife, etc.). The absence of guns will not make it less likely for to kill.
I am pretty sure everyone feels this way (except maybe very liberal gun control groups). However, I personally would rather be ensured that I can carry a gun to protect myself than trust people I don't know to have common sense and morals. Entrusting your life like this is borderline careless.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that everyone is out to kill. What I am saying is that I think people should be permitted to defend themselves in case one of these derranged people decide they want to kill someone.
This is one reason. The other reason is for protection. Victims of a violent crime are twice as likey to be injured if they are unarmed. Despite what gun control grous tell you, cooperating is not the best way to ensure your safety.
neurostarRe:News for Geeks? Stuff that Matters? (Score:5, Interesting)
A gatling gun?
I guess it's not quite parallel though, is it. But, you have loading, firing, and cooling all running simultaniously.
My opinion of the "Guns Kill People" theory. I have guns. I haven't killed anyone.
If my life is threatened, I will use those guns. Otherwise, those guns are as safe as any other paperweight. If my life is threatened and I don't have a gun, I'll defend myself the best I can. Hopefully the other guy won't have a gun. Throwing a paperweight at a guy with a gun just makes him mad.
Cars kill people. Floods kill people. Lightning kills people. Lunitics in airplanes kill people.. Why don't we have people protesting against the existance of cars, airplanes, and the weather?
Americans claim we're safer if we don't have guns.. Guns were an essential part of the American Revolution. We as Americans gained our freedom by fighting for it. Without guns, we'd be a heavily taxed bastard colony of England still.
So, yes, I have guns, and I will keep them. I will remain safe.
For Y2K, people were asking to come stay with me, because I could be well defended. You all hate guns until you need one to protect you.
Re:News for Geeks? Stuff that Matters? (Score:5, Funny)
Much like the classic bumpersticker:
"Ted Kennedy's Car Has Killed More People Than My Gun(s)"
Re:News for Geeks? Stuff that Matters? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, look at Canada and Australia. We're still bastard colonies of Great Britain, aren't we ? Not everybody has to go through a bloody battle to become independent.
Clinging to such a dated and nowadays absurd idea that guns are still essential because they were essential in some long-irrelevant war, and, furthermore, that they are a RIGHT, not a PRIVILEGE, further promotes unneccessary and uncontrolled use of guns.
I have a friend who applied for a firearms license here in Ontario. He had to go through a rigorous psychological examination at least, not to mention the background check. However, apart from the procedures, the attitude that owning a firearm is a privilege (like driving) rather than a right, probably contributes significantly to keeping Canada (not to mention Australia, Germany, France, South Africa, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland,
Is there any legislation in the States that would prohibit people from using guns if they prove negligent in their care or irresponsible in their use (before even killing or wounding another) ?
You can lose your Driver's License if you are caught driving drunk, before you hit anyone or do any damage. You cannot lose your firearms license for keeping guns and ammo in the same closet or accidentally shooting a window pane to smithereens because, well, there is no such thing as a firearms license !
Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA (Score:3, Insightful)
If only the government has guns, then the people are pretty much out of luck.
Which is why the 2nd amendment exists. So the people (meaning individuals, not state-run militias) can rise up (after exhausting all legal means) and take control again.
Re:Polarizing and Inflamatory Rhetoric. (Score:4, Informative)
Thought not.
You see, you make armor-piercing bullets out of very hard metals--steel, zinc or brass all work. They're much harder than lead, they don't deform when they hit the target, and as a result, they can punch through steel. Including the steel of a gun barrel--firing steel bullets out of a gun will destroy the barrel in just a few shots.
So in order to protect the barrel from the steel bullets, the KTW Corporation started... coating their bullets in Teflon.
And this is how the media myth of Teflon bullets came about.
The NRA was opposed to anti-Teflon-bullet laws because the NRA knew that wouldn't solve the problem. Instead, the NRA wanted to push legislation which would ban bullets which had cores made out of certain materials--like steel, zinc and brass.
Of course, because "everybody knew" the Teflon was what made a bullet armor-piercing, the NRA got pilloried in the press.
The NRA did the country a favor when they convinced Congress not to ban Teflon rounds, and instead to ban steel, brass and zinc-core rounds... and the country will never forgive the NRA for it.
(And no, I'm not a member of the NRA.)