[QUOTE=Renob]
Consider an area such as Washington, D.C., which imposed a virtual ban on handguns in 1976 and has had some of the highest crime rates in the nation over the past 30 years.
[/QUOTE]
Oh yes, this was another compelling reason for my shifting opinion. Now I’m really glad I asked the question, because at the time I really couldn’t conceive of why it wouldn’t be a good idea. Now I think the onus is on handgun ban defenders to explain why Toronto (or any Canadian city) would succeed where Washington, D.C. failed.
[QUOTE=Askance]
Perhaps I’m not understand what you mean by “normalise” here; simply expressing it per capita it doesn’t seem to support your contention.So in 2004 the US had about 18,900 murders of which 13,230 were by firearm and so 5,670 by other means, whereas Canada had about 600 murders of which 200 were by firearm and 400 by other means.Is this really so? And if so, couldn’t that be because areas with the highest crime rates try to lower them by restricting gun ownership? That is you have cause and effect reversed?
[/QUOTE]
By normalize I mean that you need to look at the statistics based on demographics (population density, disparity of wealth, et cetera). Certainly the United States has higher crime rates; it also has cities with much higher population density, and a substantially greater disparity between the rich and the poor than virtually any other industrialized nation. As for reversing cause and effect, you seem to miss the point; I’m asserting that there is not definiable cause and effect between firearm availability and crime per se; in areas where firearm ownership is common (owing to very liberal laws in that regard) crime is typically low; in the major cities in which firearms ownership is heavily restricted or essentially illegal, crime is very high and rates continued to climb after prohibition of legal firearm ownership was installed. My essential point is that prohibiting firearms ownership does nothing to address the underlying problems of crime, to wit economic disparity, lack of vocational and educational opportunity, social impetus to criminal activities, et cetera.
[QUOTE=cowgirl]
I am not making an argument. I stated my uninformed opinion, disclosed that it was uninformed because I do not have enough information to take an informed position, and then asked to hear arguments supporting the other side (because I have never heard them before).
Please do not attribute motivations to me that I have not demonstrated. This sort of miscommunication is how fights begin, and I am not interested in a fight.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not trying to attribute anything to you other than what you have stated. There was no intention to offend or misattribute, and I apologize if that was the result. There is, however, reason for private citizens to have the wherewithal to use lethal force when appropriate and necessary, in defense of one’s life and (in the arguments of some but not all) capital property. Firearms ownership is not, of course, a panacea to address the problems of violent crime any more than gun prohibition; however, when one is personally under assault the ability to display and use a firearm may be the only immediate recourse that results in a successful resolution for the would-be victim. I’d prefer no violence and no guns (outside of sporting and hunting) but there is no realistic argument and no empirical evidence that eliminating legally owned firearms eliminates or even effects crime rates.
Stranger
[QUOTE=RickJay]
Obviously, the number of Americans and Canadians who literally believe that is vanishingly small. 99% of all intelligent (and semi-intelligent, I suppose) people will concede that the individual must surrender SOME freedom to allow for the state to function. Even folks with a libertarian streak will concede the basics; you aren’t free to libel someone, or foment violence, and such things.
If it sounded like I was justifying taking awya rights based on a societal good, I’m not. I am much closer to libertarian than socialist, and to my mind the price paid by intrusions upon people’s freedom is very high, and so the justification needs to be very clear-cut and needs to substatially outweigh the cost in freedom and trouble.
To use an example, I believe seat belt laws are a reasonable intrusion upon people’s liberty:
-
The societal benefit of seat belt laws has been enormous. It is fact that the laws have increased the use of seat belts, and it is fact that the corresponding costs saved are astronomical.
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While such laws do constitute an infringement upon liberty, it’s an extremely minor one. Nobody loses any property by obeying the law, the inconvenience is trivial, and there’s not really any reasonably likely slippery slope into the loss of additional freedoms. Even the penalties for non-compliance are pretty small.
-
The law is appropriately and reasonably limited in scope; specifically, it is to the use of motor vehicles on highways belonging to the people (or Her Majesty, in Canada, if you want to get technical) and so the legislature legitimately has a say as to how those roadways can be used. If you want to build a track on your own property and bomb around it at 140 miles an hour wearing no seat belt, there is no law against it.
To my mind, these three tests (a clear social value, a correspondingly lower cost in liberrties curtailed, and reasonable application) don’t work with the handgun ban:
-
There has never been any reliable study produced that a handgun ban in Ontario, or Canada as a whole, would produce a measurable benefit. Handguns are very tightly controlled. The vast majority of guns used in crimes are already illegal and would not be affected by a ban at all. It is simply not clear a handgun ban would have a genuine positive effect.
-
The infringement upon people’s liberty would be much more substantial than the unproven likelihood of a crime reduction. The only people who would pay a price, initially, would be the very people who are NOT committing crimes with guns; they would lose their property or be branded criminals, despite the fact that they are not the problem the government is out to solve.
-
It would almost certainly lend credence to calls for a ban on all firearms.
As a disclaimer; I have a lot of experience with firearms, having been a soldier, but own no firearms and have no interest in owning one. I don’t have any self-interest in opposing a handgun ban, but I do anyway because it’s bad policy.
[/QUOTE]
Didn’t want to hijack this thread, so I started another on seat belt laws:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9665678#post9665678
Handguns are certainly used for sport. My youngest son is a world-ranked pistol shooter. He is also a gun collector. He has dozens of handguns of various sorts, all legal, all with extensive pedigrees. He has never gone hunting in his life, though he is also a very good shot with a rifle.
Still, he and I have spent many jolly hours arguing over the notion of “needing a gun handy for self-defense”. I think that’s a dangerous proposition and he, needless to say, does not. This notion of needing a gun for self defense is not so common in Canada as in the US. Since a loaded gun is too dangerous to have tucked in the night table drawer and an unloaded gun is useless, I think it’s best to forget the whole thing.
[QUOTE=vison]
Still, he and I have spent many jolly hours arguing over the notion of “needing a gun handy for self-defense”. I think that’s a dangerous proposition and he, needless to say, does not. This notion of needing a gun for self defense is not so common in Canada as in the US. Since a loaded gun is too dangerous to have tucked in the night table drawer and an unloaded gun is useless, I think it’s best to forget the whole thing.
[/QUOTE]
Luckily you have the right to choose. For my part I agree…I know quite a bit about guns, am a very good shot, know all about range safety and such and I CHOOSE not to have a gun in my house.
I just wish the anti-gun crowd would realize that the converse should also be the case…that law abiding citizens should be able to CHOOSE to have a gun in their home if they wish to. Because it’s purely subjective and based on the individual whether or not a gun is needed. Sort of like that iPod example above…different strokes for different folks.
-XT
[QUOTE=vison]
Since a loaded gun is too dangerous to have tucked in the night table drawer and an unloaded gun is useless, I think it’s best to forget the whole thing.
[/QUOTE]
It is not a given that “a loaded gun is too dangerous to have tucked in the night table drawer”; firearms do not fire spontaneously unless mishandled. It should go without saying that in any household with children or adults of questionable responsibility that firearms, loaded or otherwise, should be secure (and some would argue this is true regardless of the composition of the household), but there are many products available that will secure a firearm against all but the most determined attempts to extract it but yet make it readily available to the owner.
Stranger
[QUOTE=vison]
Since a loaded gun is too dangerous to have tucked in the night table drawer…
[/QUOTE]
Why is that? My loaded gun under my bed (and the one in my desk drawer) are perfectly safe. They have never accidentally discharged.
[QUOTE=Renob]
Why is that? My loaded gun under my bed (and the one in my desk drawer) are perfectly safe. They have never accidentally discharged.
[/QUOTE]
How very true.
My reasons for never wanting to have a loaded gun at hand are reasons born of sad personal knowledge:
-one of my young cousins, in the midst of an argument with his father, took the loaded gun and put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger after threatening to shoot his father
-a neighbour, some 30 years ago, “heard something” in the middle of the night and shot and killed his brother
In both cases the gun owners believed they were being careful and keeping the gun safe, etc. Their precautions weren’t proof against anger or stupidity. They never are.
Those two will do, since they are 2 that involve handguns. Long guns feature sadly in my memory, too.
Having said that, I don’t advocate a gun ban of any kind, just sensible regulation. What we got in Canada was not sensible and did little but cost money.
Heck, I have a loaded gun on my hip right now, one under my bed, one in my car and one by the bedroom door. None of them are dangerous. If someone got through the various security on them, then that person could be dangerous, but the gun is not.
Remember, anyone that claims the gun “Just went off” is very probably lying. It “just went off” because they couldn’t keep their booger hook off the bang switch.
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]
Heck, I have a loaded gun on my hip right now, one under my bed, one in my car and one by the bedroom door. None of them are dangerous. If someone got through the various security on them, then that person could be dangerous, but the gun is not.
Remember, anyone that claims the gun “Just went off” is very probably lying. It “just went off” because they couldn’t keep their booger hook off the bang switch.
[/QUOTE]
Silly semantics, Bob.
Are you a cop? If not, why all that firepower?
Silly semantics? Everything he said is completely sound reasoning.
And why should cops be the only ones allowed to arm themselves?
[QUOTE=vison]
Having said that, I don’t advocate a gun ban of any kind, just sensible regulation. What we got in Canada was not sensible and did little but cost money.
[/QUOTE]
The Long Gun Registry maybe but handguns have been regulated since 1934.
[QUOTE=vison]
Silly semantics, Bob.
Are you a cop? If not, why all that firepower?
[/QUOTE]
Please re-read this thread.
That’s why I have “all that firepower”.
Neither the government nor anyone else has any business telling me how many of what kind of guns I can own, so long as they are purchased, stored, and used legally. As a CCW holder and gun owner, my background has been investigated many times over the years by city, county, state, and federal authorities, and none have ever found a reason to suspect I’d be a danger to the community. I’ve had, literally, dozens of inquiries into my background. My prints are on file with the CBI and FBI. Why, I must ask, shouldn’t I have a several dozen firearms?
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]
Please re-read this thread.
That’s why I have “all that firepower”.
Neither the government nor anyone else has any business telling me how many of what kind of guns I can own, so long as they are purchased, stored, and used legally. As a CCW holder and gun owner, my background has been investigated many times over the years by city, county, state, and federal authorities, and none have ever found a reason to suspect I’d be a danger to the community. I’ve had, literally, dozens of inquiries into my background. My prints are on file with the CBI and FBI. Why, I must ask, shouldn’t I have a several dozen firearms?
[/QUOTE]
Right. Did it.
I don’t say you can’t have lots of guns. It’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t advocate a gun ban at all. Just careful regulation.
For myself, I do, though.
I grew up in a house with guns. They don’t freak me out, but I was taught to be very, very careful with them. We used to shoot clay pigeons when we could afford to buy them. My Dad hunted until our neighbourhood got too developed.
We have a couple of shotguns, and a .22, and I can load and fire them if I need to. I’ve shot at coyotes (mostly scared them, never killed one but wish I had when the summer before last they got 9 of my lambs) and downed many a crow. But I have no use for a gun for any other reason and truthfully the idea of shooting a person does freak me out. I would have to be in dire straits to do such a thing and that isn’t very likely.
I cannot imagine any circumstance in my daily life where I would want or need to go about with a gun on my person or in my car.
Evidently your ideas differ.
Anyway, I have nothing much to add. As a Canadian I can own guns, I do own guns, and so far that’s ok by me.
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]
Why, I must ask, shouldn’t I have a several dozen firearms?
[/QUOTE]
You weren’t asked to defend why you should be allowed to have them, you were just asked why you needed so many guns. I’m curious too. I assume you’re not some sort of octopus-man with the ability to fire a multitude of guns at once, so I’m curious as to why your house is seeded with so many loaded guns.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
The old saw “A Canadian has no reason to own a handgun” argument is pointless and intellectually lazy.
[/quote]
This above is an intellectually lazy and a pointless argument in response. As if anyone’s been hurt by an iPod.
So try this on;
A Canadian has no reason to possess an ounce of pot.
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
So try this on;
A Canadian has no reason to possess an ounce of pot.
[/QUOTE]
Every bit as pointless.
[QUOTE=vison]
why all that firepower?
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it doesn’t sound very optimistic.
Non-gun owner, anti-ban.
[QUOTE=cowgirl]
Hold on - is sport shooting done with handguns? So my original assumption, that handguns are not designed for sport, is incorrect?
Interesting. That certainly does change the debate a little.
[/QUOTE]
Am I being whooshed here, or did you just post the most ignorant thing I have ever read on this message board?
How the smeg could you not be aware that handgun shooting is a sport? Even if you’d never seen a handgun competition match, surely you’d think that “Well, people shoot rifles and shotguns for sport, so it stands to reason that they shoot handguns for sport as well”, wouldn’t you?
I usually stay out of “pro/anti-gun” debates because my views are too left-wing for most of the American Pro-Gun crowd (I favour firearms licencing, for example) and too right-wing for the Anti-Gun crowd (I think a properly licenced person should be able to own whatever firearms they like in whatever quantity they like, provided they store them securely and obey the law), but in this case I feel compelled to speak up.
If you have so little knowledge of the applications of something you’re opposed to, I respectfully suggest you read up on the subject a little further before making your opposition (and reasons thereof) public. I mean, a simple Google or Wikipedia search would have sufficed to at least let you know that there are handgun shooting competitions, and therefore handguns have other uses besides killing people or as movie props.
I’m actually sorry that you’ve never had the chance to see/experience the sporting use of handguns (which is a lot of fun!), and I will further respectfully suggest you try it out sometime- even if you remain opposed to handguns, you will at least be speaking with some knowledge and experience of the matter.
[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
Am I being whooshed here, or did you just post the most ignorant thing I have ever read on this message board?
[/quote]
Where the hell have you been posting? :dubious:
I don’t see anything wrong with cowgirl not knowing something about handguns and then being enlightened through the use of the Dope. Hell that’s the whole point. When you don’t know something you ask people that do. You also tend to turn to the people you’re reasonably familiar with and with >3000 posts it seems like that’s us for cowgirl