Giffords Shooting

[padren]

Fewer, but not removed - as I stated. Because fewer is not useful. Fewer doesn't indicate if ALL criminals have guns while ALL law abiding citizens do not, or otherwise. Only law abiding citizens will follow laws, by definition. Enter the most overused anti-gun control phrase..."outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns". Funny thing is, it's quite defensible.

 

Fewer doesn't provide less death when one "side" simply melts down their weapons - the essential result of gun control laws that remove guns from circulation.

I think it's worth making a distinction between types of crimes that involve guns. There are crimes that are spontaneous or improvised in a manner where if a gun is available, it will be involved, and it won't be if one is not. This extends to accidental gun related injuries. I think it's only fair to concede that fewer guns can reduce this sort of gun related violence.

However, it does not provide direct justification for reducing citizens' access to guns which gun control ultimately boils down to - to impose any sort of gun control is to limit access, and the implication in an imperfect system is that many people who are entirely responsible gun owners are caught up. I do think some gun control laws are understandable (such as they apply to felons, etc) but there is also a understandable concern that those who do push them tend to have a stance that they cannot go too far and that makes it very hard to trust/debate/negotiate with that side of the debate. Drunk driving laws are fair when it comes to ensuring people are not driving while intoxicated, but you statistically could also argue banning anyone who purchases any alcohol from driving at all would save more lives. Most would see that as too extreme - unless you already believed that all alcohol is bad and people should never buy/consume alcohol in the first place.

This is another reason why smoking laws are so hard to swallow - they are usually pushed not by people who want to safeguard the health of those who choose not to smoke, they are pushed to stop people from choosing to smoke. They see the impositions put on smokers callously in a "so what, they should quit anyway" sort of fashion and genuinely have contempt for their freedom of choice to choose to. People like that cannot be trusted to work towards fair (freedom and responsibility centric) smoking laws, just as people who think alcohol is only a disease cannot be trusted to be fair to drinkers, and when so many anti-gun people argue as if every gun owner is a "brainwashed gun nut who doesn't know better" it's absolutely understandable why people resist gun control regulation pushed by such people.

 

I think most people here are fairly reasonable on the topic, and have an intellectual honesty towards the genuine problem of making progress on the issue of reducing gun violence, but it's obvious that many pro-gun control voices (the loudest, politically) really do have contempt for the majority of gun owning citizens. They see gun owners as brainwashed, ignorant, stuck in 1700s or otherwise incapable of realizing they'd be safer without guns, and preferably want people to choose not to own guns.

 

It's probably impossible to both work towards the elimination of a facet of our culture, and at the same time work towards an equitable and fair regulation of that facet of our culture.

 

I think we use laws to fix things so that we don't have to personally engage a societal problem. We want to be able to ignore the poor guy in the cold asking everyone for money for a bus ticket; we want to be able to feel good enough to sleep at night in the face of young runaways selling themselves for drugs; we want to be able to turn our nose up at "crazy" people yelling at telephone poles - because we paid our taxes and passed laws for that problem. We can ignore everything we personally encounter because we have impersonally paid into a pool of "caring" - laws and tax funded programs.

I think that's actually quite an astute observation. I think honestly in this case, the biggest contributing factor is this individual's isolation within society. It's hard for someone so... well... crazy and on the fringe to be expected to maintain a healthy social life, but it does seem to me that most of the time people who do these sorts of crazy things have become largely isolated and detached, with no one really paying attention to their escalating behaviors. Of course it's not the sort of issue that can be addressed by government and is more a social issue than a political one, but I do feel at times that we are becoming a society too easily isolated. I have no idea how to solve or even address it, or even if it can be addressed intellectually, but as a factor I think it would be wrong to ignore.

[rigney]

A gun ban or laws restricting ownship will not cure the world of hate, ignorance or instability. This latest instance of a person doing such an unspeakable act is nothing new. It stands out not so much because six people died, but because this congresswoman was targeted. I know it's sad to look at it that way, but basically that's what it's all about. A husband goes off the deep end and kills his entire family. After a couple of days, it's forgotton other than the local six o'clock news. Eight people are asphyxiated due to a faulty gas furnace. Yes, it will be reported, maybe even nationally for the day, but is quickly a back page item, if at all. An airliner goes down and 200 die in the crash. Unless some dignitary is aboard, you won't know a single name. Sensationalism sells newspapers and air time, not tragedy in itself. Had this fellow purchased a couple cheap knives at the local "doller store" and stabbed two or three folks to death standing near him in the crowd, it would have hardly gotten air time at all other than local news. That it happened at a political rally may have given it a couple days, but the fact is; we are definitly hooked on sensationalism. Other than the injured congresswoman, do any of us remember a single name of the six who died?

Edited January 19, 2011 by rigney

[ParanoiA]

Damn, I just spent an hour typing a post on all of your responses. Then I hit the wrong key and it's all gone. Sorry, I don't have the energy to do it all over again. Man I was really on today too...

 

...ah, this sucks...

[rigney]

Damn, I just spent an hour typing a post on all of your responses. Then I hit the wrong key and it's all gone. Sorry, I don't have the energy to do it all over again. Man I was really on today too...

 

...ah, this sucks...

 

Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that! Yu' gotta be careful uv that delete key.

[ParanoiA]

Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that! Yu' gotta be careful uv that delete key.

 

Thing is, all I was doing was rephrasing one freaking little sentence, and it wasn't even that necessary. I was seconds from submitting the post, but I was getting fancy with the control-z to undo, and then typed control-r, which I swear I *thought* was 'redo', but I think it was 'refresh' or something because it all disappeared as I almost screamed "NO!!!" out loud here in my cubicle.

 

I'll come back and do it all over, I always do. But right now I'm going to pout a bit first. It just pisses me off. What a waste of time. All that work...and you can never say it again the same way. I may have been wrong as hell, but I was articulately wrong as hell, if so.

[rigney]

Thing is, all I was doing was rephrasing one freaking little sentence, and it wasn't even that necessary. I was seconds from submitting the post, but I was getting fancy with the control-z to undo, and then typed control-r, which I swear I *thought* was 'redo', but I think it was 'refresh' or something because it all disappeared as I almost screamed "NO!!!" out loud here in my cubicle.

 

I'll come back and do it all over, I always do. But right now I'm going to pout a bit first. It just pisses me off. What a waste of time. All that work...and you can never say it again the same way. I may have been wrong as hell, but I was articulately wrong as hell, if so.

 

I thought you were giving this old fart the "rasberries". If not, I apologise. At times, everything seems shallow to me. At others, even when my rambling are totally superfluous, I hang on like a bull dog. Edited January 19, 2011 by rigney

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Thing is, all I was doing was rephrasing one freaking little sentence, and it wasn't even that necessary. I was seconds from submitting the post, but I was getting fancy with the control-z to undo, and then typed control-r, which I swear I *thought* was 'redo', but I think it was 'refresh' or something because it all disappeared as I almost screamed "NO!!!" out loud here in my cubicle.

 

I'll come back and do it all over, I always do. But right now I'm going to pout a bit first. It just pisses me off. What a waste of time. All that work...and you can never say it again the same way. I may have been wrong as hell, but I was articulately wrong as hell, if so.

Yeah, that's Reload; redo is Ctrl-Y on Windows. There really ought to be an auto-save feature...

[Pangloss]

Hate when that happens. Sorry man.

[zapatos]

Sure. I believe that...

 

Great response. Usually when I hear someone say the government is their enemy, they never seem to make the connection that they are part of the government. It's as if the government is some outside force. "It's time to take back our government!" Take it back from whom? Take it back from us?

 

I completely agree that voters can be ignorant, lazy, citizens, and that the worst of the politicians can flourish in that environment. I guess I just don't see it being as bad as you do. People have been complaining that the US is on the fast track to disaster since its inception. I tend to feel that this country can vary between good and bad, but that the framework we are built on keeps us on pretty firm footing.

 

How do you know it isn't necessary? It most certainly wasn't necessary for our forefathers to start a war over taxes established to cover the costs of protecting our sorry asses...Or was it?

Different situation. Back then we weren't part of the government. If you start a war now, who will it be against? You can't attack "the government". You have to attack someone or something specifically. Who or what would it be?

A republic *must* be able to negotiate intense ideas; anything and everything. It cannot be left to a handful of men, no matter how impressed we may be with them, because we are all the government. As long as we are all responsible, then we must all be able to live up to that responsibility, to be adults and act like it. We must be able to discuss and negotiate volatile and dangerous ideas. Any consequence to that, is just that, a consequence. *Not* a goddamn "indicator" for more freaking laws, more restriction of speech, or more restriction of gun features, or any other prohibitionist psychology that we try to fix everything with, yet never works.

 

Some people have mental problems and can't handle these ideas. Too bad. These ideas are necessary, too necessary for the function of our government.

I don't think anyone is saying you shouldn't debate intense ideas; anything and everything. The point is that after I've told you that you are completely wrong, I shouldn't end my argument by suggesting that I'm now going to go load my gun. What has loading my gun got to do with, for example, healthcare? That is the part that I don't believe is necessary.

[padren]

Great response. Usually when I hear someone say the government is their enemy, they never seem to make the connection that they are part of the government. It's as if the government is some outside force. "It's time to take back our government!" Take it back from whom? Take it back from us?

Speaking for myself, I am both concerned by overly zealous talk of "second amendment remedies" but I also think it is impossible to ignore the fact that any government (society, really) is an agreement between parties that can break down at any moment. It's not even based on anyone's best intellectual intentions, there's very real breaking points with regards to trust and faith. We saw a huge drop in faith within the system during the banking meltdown and frankly I don't think it's possible to crutch on civility or our higher natures to always maintain our faith in being able to work together. If there is one thing I learned from my divorce, it doesn't matter how much you care or how much you want things to get better, once trust breaks down and the injuries outweigh the strengths, there is a natural breakdown that cannot be avoided. Acknowledging things can break down to the point that communication becomes impossible actually helps avoid hitting that point far more than blind faith. It doesn't matter how bad we know things would get should it all break down any more than it helps to know how bad it would be to pass out from exhaustion trying to swim to shore - psychological and emotional exhaustion are as real and as debilitating as physical exhaustion, even if they exist in a more abstract manner.

 

It doesn't matter who you take the government back from, or who you feel "the bad guys are" or even if you think such a breakdown would be an unmitigated disaster or glorious revitalization - when you are done you are simply done and you can only work with what you have at that point. I don't think we are there, and I certainly think the political voices preaching second amendment remedies are largely attempts to very recklessly stir a demographic with absolutely no respect for what that language actually implies or entails.

 

The matter is of such weight I find it personally offensive when I hear it used so flippantly, but that does not mean the language itself is irresponsible or flippant in nature. It's a very real topic about very real factors that should not be ignored or dismissed simply because most of those who do address the topic use it as a cheap pandering tool.

I completely agree that voters can be ignorant, lazy, citizens, and that the worst of the politicians can flourish in that environment. I guess I just don't see it being as bad as you do. People have been complaining that the US is on the fast track to disaster since its inception. I tend to feel that this country can vary between good and bad, but that the framework we are built on keeps us on pretty firm footing.

People have also been screaming that the sky is falling about all manner of things since the inception of language itself, but we also have had people screaming about dangers that turned out to be very well founded in retrospect. We can say that we haven't ever slipped off the cliff edge like many have thought we would, but in my view of history most of the time instead of something catastrophic happening or not, we usually end up with both being wrong, and we slide a bit further into a society and personal lifestyle that is just a little more depressing than before. We have all kinds of great tools we never had, and great technology, but everyone also just ends up working more, is stressed more, is more disconnected from their neighbors, and has less time and resources for self actualization.

I don't think it's safe or warranted (if we want the best possible achievable future) to dismiss concerns about the failings of our current system by simply stating that the current system has managed to keep us from failing entirely. The fact that the fringes have always been wrong about our total collapse doesn't mean that all of the core concerns that set those sorts of people off are not genuinely indicative of dangers that will cause a drop in quality of life and increase in hardship if ignored.

Different situation. Back then we weren't part of the government. If you start a war now, who will it be against? You can't attack "the government". You have to attack someone or something specifically. Who or what would it be?

 

I don't think anyone is saying you shouldn't debate intense ideas; anything and everything. The point is that after I've told you that you are completely wrong, I shouldn't end my argument by suggesting that I'm now going to go load my gun. What has loading my gun got to do with, for example, healthcare? That is the part that I don't believe is necessary.

I just want to draw the distinction to clarify if we are talking about talk of "gun loading" in general as part of an intellectually honest discussion about the real world issue, or the flippant use of the language to rile people up just to get them to actually leave the house long enough to vote.

[rigney]

Well, the lady is on her feet; thanks to some of the staff and a collosus of intervention we can't understand. Don't know what it was, but glad that it happened. The guy, who knows his reasons? Best we just leave it alone, but with condolences to both the families, and those who are gone.

Edited January 20, 2011 by rigney

[ParanoiA]

But we have examples of places where essentially only the outlaws have guns, because of restrictive gun ownership laws. And their death rate from guns is much lower than ours. The thing is, that's not the argument for having the right. The original argument (from the Federalist Papers) was to balance the power posed by a standing army. It's a political argument that, despite higher death rates, we still have this right. It's the price we pay for having that freedom. The problem is in massaging statistics to support the argument when they don't, or making the argument that because eliminating gun ownership won't completely solve the problem, it's not worth doing.

 

 

Ok, but who's dying? Less total gun deaths doesn't tell me if only victims are being killed since they are the only ones unarmed. I'm absolutely, totally cool with skyrocketing gun deaths when it is criminals that are dying. Lower gun deaths that restricts the dying to victims only, is not an improvement.

 

And there are many arguments for having the right, and the one you cite is the most important one. We're just arguing a different one at the moment.

 

Fewer does provide less gun death as evidence that I have provided suggests. Laws do help, they are far from perfect. What is the alternative? Should I become Eastwood and go around taking the bad guys out?

 

The alternative would be to go Eastwood and let people defend themselves.

 

maybe a taser? Oh yeah, the bad guys have guns, so maybe a grenade launcher for small females.

 

Nah, my position on gun laws doesn't reflect my position on bomb laws. However, I'd be tickled pink to read about a small female gunning down home intruders with an AK-47. Most though, like my wife, will opt for something reasonable (she won't touch my 12 guage, but loves her .38). Law abiding citizens - the ones who obey murder laws and stuff - are generally the more reasonable portion of the population.

 

Funny thing, no matter what happens, people extrapolate to the extreme where only bad people have guns. Fewer is useful as has been shown already. In this particular case, the guy had a mental disorder and obtained a gun LEGALLY. That is what I am talking about.

 

And if he happened to use a slingshot, or a car, would you then advocate for stricter laws on slingshots and automobiles? Or would you stop pretending the problem isn't "a mental disorder"?

 

This is how we get tombstone legislation. Mentally disordered citizen obtains gun and kills people, so we make more gun laws. Mentally disordered citizen obtains Strychnine, sells it as coke and kills people, so we make more drug laws. Mentally disordered citizen obtains airplane, kills people, so we make more flying laws.

 

So....uh....when do we deal with the 'Mentally Disordered' part?

 

Of course, only one of those things happened in my example, but it's a demonstration of how we think. I'm just not a fan of redirecting problems away from their source. The problem here isn't guns, or access to a car, or access to grenades - the problem is the freaking mental disorder of citizens and our refusal to find them and help them. This is mainly due to our culture of selfishness, where we settle our conscience with taxes and the expectation that "someone else" will help them.

 

We don't take it upon ourselves to personally engage with societal problems. We'd rather just pay into a fund so other people can do all that uncomfortable caring, and we can continue to keep our head down and ignore all the problems we walk right by, everyday.

 

Someone knew he was disordered. Probably lots of people knew. But somehow he didn't trigger any of our bureaucratic systems to label him as such. Not surprising our initial reaction then is to add more bureaucratic steps, add more laws that only attempt to resolve the bad stuff he happened to perform while he went nuts. If he happened drive a truck and kill people, we would be having *that* conversation instead....ridiculous.

 

We already limit many weapons and various guns. It makes it harder to obtain them if the SELLER also can get into trouble. So having a system in place to prevent people from obtaining grenades, even if it isn't a life sentence to buy one, is effective.

 

You can only effect the total available merchandise in a given market to a certain point, and that point ends with the last law abiding citizen. The total available market leftover will equal the demand of the criminal element - the black market.

 

 

Well, that's not what I wrote last time. I've lost interest but I wanted to at least address the points that were raised by you fellas.

Edited February 5, 2011 by ParanoiA

[Marat]

But look at the extreme case to clarify the intermediate situation. Guns, abstractly considered, when used by anyone other than the police, are devices for magnifying and projecting the power of individuals using them outside of the normal social order, since the state is defined as 'the entity which has a legal monopoly on the use of force' (Austin). So if we want liberal gun ownership laws so that almost anyone can have guns, then why not also have liberal atom bomb ownership laws? Abstractly considered, they are just another personal power augmentation device, like a pistol. The reason why private individuals are not allowed to own their own atomic bombs is that this would allow the legally unreviewed and uncontrolled power of a subjective individual to be powerfully projected, and the projection of power by anyone other than a state official is almost always wrong, except in rare cases of self-defense or defense of necessity.

 

Since the death penalty is illegal in most jurisdictions today, the state is increasingly committed to the idea that even criminals should not be killed, so gun-ownership cannot be defended on the basis that people can use them to kill criminals. Further, in many cases where legally untrained individuals think they have a right to use a gun to defend their private rights they are mistaken, so their use of guns 'in self-defense' is inaccurate and thus criminal -- even if their aim is not lethally inaccurate, which sometimes happens. Add to this the fact that widespread ownership of guns leads to all sorts of accidental deaths, causes passing black moods to result unnecessarily in suicide because suicide is so easy, and augments the effects of transient temper tantrums to make them lethal where otherwise they would not have been, and you have a number of reasons against liberalizing gun ownership. In a society where gun ownership is general, the entire level of violence by the police, criminals, and individuals has to escalate to preserve or attack the social order, and where violence escalates, more deaths result, often among innocent by-standers -- which would not happen if people were throwing punches.

 

In any society where the rule of law obtains, the more gun ownership is legally limited the higher the percentage of guns in society owned by the police will be, and this can only be the good.

[swansont]

Ok, but who's dying? Less total gun deaths doesn't tell me if only victims are being killed since they are the only ones unarmed. I'm absolutely, totally cool with skyrocketing gun deaths when it is criminals that are dying. Lower gun deaths that restricts the dying to victims only, is not an improvement.

 

Where's the evidence that this is the case?

[Mr Skeptic]

Ok, but who's dying? Less total gun deaths doesn't tell me if only victims are being killed since they are the only ones unarmed. I'm absolutely, totally cool with skyrocketing gun deaths when it is criminals that are dying. Lower gun deaths that restricts the dying to victims only, is not an improvement.

 

Good question. I've seen a study that you're better off being robbed by someone with a gun than by someone with a knife. Why? Knives can kill just fine... but the victim is more likely to try to defend themselves and get away since it's "only" a knife, and on the other hand the perpetrator is more nervous and more likely to react. Also, using a gun means they attract attention so they really don't want to do it. But what if the victim also has a gun? They might try to use it, and odds are they are the ones going to die rather than the criminal, given who has the element of surprise and probably the more training. I do think people have a right to defend themselves, but quite frequently trying to exercise that right is much more dangerous than not.

 

Since the death penalty is illegal in most jurisdictions today, the state is increasingly committed to the idea that even criminals should not be killed, so gun-ownership cannot be defended on the basis that people can use them to kill criminals.

 

I disagree. Criminals killed by the judicial system have already don the harm in question. Criminals killed in self-defense, or by law enforcement to save someone, can be prevented from committing their crime. Thus, for example, I might not think the death penalty would be justified to punish rape, but I wouldn't think twice about killing someone if it would prevent a rape.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Where's the evidence that this is the case?

It's hard to find evidence either way.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/us/26guns.html

 

The reality is that even these and other basic questions cannot be fully answered, because not enough research has been done. And there is a reason for that. Scientists in the field and former officials with the government agency that used to finance the great bulk of this research say the influence of the National Rife Association has all but choked off money for such work.

The dearth of money can be traced in large measure to a clash between public health scientists and the N.R.A. in the mid-1990s. At the time, Dr. Rosenberg and others at the C.D.C. were becoming increasingly assertive about the importance of studying gun-related injuries and deaths as a public health phenomenon, financing studies that found, for example, having a gun in the house, rather than conferring protection, significantly increased the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.

[rigney]

It's hard to find evidence either way.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/us/26guns.html

 

Such naivety! Take a walk around lower Detroit, Mich. and saunter through the Cobo arena area anytime, day or night. I believe they still refer to it as "fishing". The cats there thrive on weak links as you seem to portray. Don't want to pack a gun? Go into the Loop area of Chicago unarmed and prepare for what ever. Troops there won't necessarily waste you, just hoping you will come back for another visit. L.A., Cleveland and Atlanta are no different? Don't believe it, go check it out. Almost forgot about Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and El Paso. Edited February 6, 2011 by rigney

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Such naivety! Take a walk around lower Detroit, Mich. and saunter through the Cobo arena area anytime, day or night. I believe they still refer to it as "fishing". The cats there thrive on weak links as you seem to portray. Don't want to pack a gun? Go into the Loop area of Chicago unarmed and prepare for what ever. Troops there won't necessarily waste you, just hoping you will come back for another visit. L.A., Cleveland and Atlanta are no different? Don't believe it, go check it out. Almost forgot about Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and El Paso.

It's not hard to find evidence that you're more likely to be shot in certain places. But that's not the point of the article. It's difficult to do research on whether owning a gun increases your survival rate in certain crimes, whether it makes you safer in home invasions, whether it helps prevent mass shootings, and so on.

[rigney]

It's not hard to find evidence that you're more likely to be shot in certain places. But that's not the point of the article. It's difficult to do research on whether owning a gun increases your survival rate in certain crimes, whether it makes you safer in home invasions, whether it helps prevent mass shootings, and so on.

 

Wasn't trying to be contrary to your reasoning, just wanted to bring you into reality. The lady who just murdered her 12 year old son and 16 year old daughter didn't even live close to the places I mentioned. A fine family and well respected as I gather. She simply walked into a gun shop, bought a fire arm and killed her kids. Why? Had she not gotten the gun from that shop, it would have been just as easily obtained from some thug on the street. We don't read much about England, Australia and several other countries who have banned fire arms, yet the problem is still there with them also. You can't hide from reality, no more than trying to deny that reality is out there. Guns, knives, tire tools or baseball bats, it's all in the semantics of how the tool is used. Edited February 6, 2011 by rigney

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Wasn't trying to be contrary to your reasoning, just wanted to bring you into reality. The lady who just murdered her 12 year old son and 16 year old daughter didn't even live close to the places I mentioned. A fine family and well respected as I gather. She simply walked into a gun shop, bought a fire arm and killed her kids. Why? Had she not gotten the gun from that shop, it would have been just as easily obtained from some thug on the street. We don't read much about England, Australia and several other countries who have banned fire arms, yet the problem is still there with them also. You can't hide from reality, no more than trying to deny that reality is out there. Guns, knives, tire tools or baseball bats, it's all in the semantics of how the tool is used.

Sure. But if guns were not so immediately available, would angry or psychotic people be deterred? If it took longer and cost more to buy a gun, would the average pissed-off dude give up and calm down before being able to get the gun? If we ban guns, will gun crime decrease along with general gun ownership?

 

These are all valid questions that decide how gun control should be approached, but there's not much research.

[Pangloss]

Even if there are X people dying, and, and in other countries the figure is something like X/10, or even X/2, this should tell us something, if we should taken it in context with other arguments. Additional regulations seem reasonable to me.

 

The real problem with this issue is defining the right outcome. Let's say for the sake of argument that we cut gun deaths in this country by a massive amount, and also learned scientifically that 99% of the remainder turned out to be recent prison escapees pointing a loaded weapon at a child, taken down by the homeowner with a registered firearm.

 

Even in that extreme example we still would not be done with the gun debate in this country, because of that 1%. The next preteen finding a loaded weapon that daddy forgot to lock up and blowing away his future childhood sweetheart sends us right back to Square One.

[swansont]

Wasn't trying to be contrary to your reasoning, just wanted to bring you into reality. The lady who just murdered her 12 year old son and 16 year old daughter didn't even live close to the places I mentioned. A fine family and well respected as I gather. She simply walked into a gun shop, bought a fire arm and killed her kids. Why? Had she not gotten the gun from that shop, it would have been just as easily obtained from some thug on the street. We don't read much about England, Australia and several other countries who have banned fire arms, yet the problem is still there with them also. You can't hide from reality, no more than trying to deny that reality is out there. Guns, knives, tire tools or baseball bats, it's all in the semantics of how the tool is used.

 

Well, no. If by "the problem is still there with them also" you mean that they have similar death rates, then it's simply not true. 7 firearm homicides per year per 100,000 population in the US, vs 0.5 in Australia and 0.15 in England. That's right, it's ~50 times larger in the US than in England. Accidental deaths are also much lower as well.

 

If you merely meant the death rate is not zero, then I think it's a disingenuous argument.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

[jackson33]

Well, no. If by "the problem is still there with them also" you mean that they have similar death rates, then it's simply not true. 7 firearm homicides per year per 100,000 population in the US, vs 0.5 in Australia and 0.15 in England. That's right, it's ~50 times larger in the US than in England. Accidental deaths are also much lower as well.[/Quote]

 

Homicide rates in GB were 1.28/100K and 5/ in the US. To indicate the means of homicide is in itself disingenuous. I would also suggest there are many factors involved, including record keeping, gang influence, demographics and cultural. India for the record is 2.8. Israel 2.4, South Korea 2.3, Canada 1.81 and Egypt by the way .8/100K.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Indeed. One must research whether taking guns away just makes people use knives more often. Which is why it's unfortunate that there's no funding for this kind of research.

[swansont]

To indicate the means of homicide is in itself disingenuous.

 

That would depend on the claim, now wouldn't it? If the claim is that other countries have similar rates of firearm related deaths, then I think it's a direct rebuttal of that claim and not at all disingenuous.