Well, people were trying to use his NRA membership as a sign that he was pro-gun. I countered with his true intent.
If that was his “true intent” then that was his intent from childhood, since that’s how long he’s been a member. What was his “true intent” in being a gun safety instructor? Why doesv he explicitly say that guns are not the cause of American viloence in the film?
Oh, and could you actually dig up a cite for the joined-the-NRA-as-a-scheme-to-rub-for-president allegation?
O
so, wait…blacks are born with an inherent propensity to commit murder that whites lack? i never knew.
or perhaps, in american inner cities, where the populations are most dense, and crimes are more likely to occur, blacks make up a larger ratio than they do elsewhere.
your comparisons obviously completely disregarded the respective populations. how about you compare two cities that are across a bridge from each other? niagara falls, ON, and niagara falls, NY. NY, USA: 6.2. ON, CAN: 0.7 (violent crime, for st. catherines and nf, according to your stats page, the murder rate is likely much lower). you can throw a stone from one to the other.
the point is that the americans have a greater tendency toward violent crime, not that the location of the crime is important.
YOUR simplistic comparisons are completely lacking in any statistical analysis whatsoever.
Meh. A lot of this is “you said” “no, you said”.
This is another issue that can’t ever be resolved. It’s like abortion, too many people feel far to strongly about it.
I’d just like to point out that in my childhood in Montana, guns (in the form of hunting rifles) enabled me to eat.
I’m buying a gun in February. If the borderline socialist state of California decides I can’t own it, I will move. If the US gov’t decides I can’t own it, I will take to the hills.
Guns in the hands of law-abiding people do no harm.
“Do no harm”? Then why does the NRA membership include “Death & Dismemberment” insurance?
Sure, as long as they continue to abide by the law. That’s the tricky part, of course.
They don’t have supermarkets in Montana? :rolleyes:
Some people can’t afford to go to the supermarket every week.
I’d be very curious to read comparable stats between Canada and the US with regard to accidental death/injury as a result of firearms. I would suspect that the rate in the US would be somewhat higher.
I don’t have the link offhand, but I believe he said this on michaelmoore.com. Let me try to find the link…
Got it.
From http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/about/faq.php
Q. Are you really a member of the NRA?
A. Yes. I currently hold a “Life Membership.” I was a junior member and won the NRA Marksman Award when I was a teenager (back when the NRA was known as a gun safety and sportsman organization). I went hunting with the neighborhood kids but there were never any guns in our house. After Columbine, I decided that I would run against Charlton Heston for the presidency of the NRA. If elected, my plan was to try to return the NRA to a gun safety organization, instead of its current agenda of gun fanaticism. The rules said that to run for president, you had to be a member for the past five years or buy a lifetime membership for $750. And that’s what I did. But after a while I realized this endeavor was going to take too much time, so I decided to focus all my attention on the movie I was making.
Yeauh!
As well, let’s be honest: guns contribute to “crime of passion” deaths. Many “law abiding” people have committed murder in the heat of passion; these people would hardly qualify as criminals in their actions up to this point. However, when overcome with confusion and emotion (say, the classic scenario of finding your SO in bed with a rival), a gun nearby that you keep for protection can become very dangerous. Since the margin of safety is so tiny on a gun (a quick burst of emotion, a lack of thought for a moment, and you’ve squeezed the trigger), obviously people are more likely to be killed than by something that requires a more sustained effort.
Alot of pro-gun people (on this board at least) seem to have the impression that the film is a piece of gun-control propaganda. Anyone who has actually seen the film can see that it is much more ambiguous (or confusing depending on your perspective) than pro/anti gun-control. The NRA come out looking insensitive in it, that’s all. I think the US government gets more of a grilling than any of the gun enthusiasts.
Mogiaw
Susanann, I still don’t know what’s going on with your “logic”; one example does not prove a rule for “nearly every” case.
Second, where are your statistics on demographics? What demographics do you consider relevant? The population densities are close, that’s true, but what about urbanization and so forth? Are you not even bothering to give evidence any more? Does it bother you that the city of Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, is bigger than North Dakota itself?
At any rate, how do you account for the discrepancy between the numbers you gave at first and the numbers you’re giving now? If your numbers came from “two different sources,” as you claim, where’s the cite for the second source?
And do you have a response to minty’s much more thorough statistical analysis?
-Ulterior
Thanks for setting things straight on the U.S. vs. Canada per capital gun and handgun ownership. I was suspicious of Michael Moore’s statements on that point. I’ll just point out that using the numbers from the link that you provided actually suggests that per capita handgun ownership in Canada is 1/7 of what it is in the U.S.
Bless you and ulterior and grienspace for setting the record straight here. The ignorance displayed about Canada, starting with jeel’s comment about Canada being mostly rural and continuing through all of Susanann’s posts, has been quite astounding.
To just try to get the basic picture through these folks heads: Yes, Canada is big and doesn’t have that many people in it considering its size. But that does not indicate that it is mainly rural. Rather, it is mainly urban with a large fraction of the population concentrated in a few fairly small areas, a smaller fraction living in more rural areas, and then a vast expanse of virtually unpopulated areas. [As a former colleague who lived in the northern suburbs of Vancouver liked to note, he could walk all the way to the North Pole only crossing 4 paved roads and two of these were roads crossed before he got out of his development!]
And, by the way, if you believe, Susanann, that Canadian cities have few if any blacks, you might try visiting (for example) Toronto sometime. I’ll leave it to others to pull up the actual statistics here, but there are fairly significant black populations at least in Toronto and some of the other large cities. (Admittedly, the demographics of the Canadian black population may be somewhat different than in the U.S. with a higher percentage being more recent immigrants rather than decendants from slaveholding times.)
FYI, here are some census data showing the ethnic, racial, and immigrant vs. non-immigrant breakdown of the population for Metropolitan Toronto as well as Ontario as a whole:
You can do this search at this site for all sorts of places in Canada. Don’t know if the U.S. has a similar site.
Here are statistics for the rural population of Canada…estimates are 22% by one definition and 33% by another.
Here is a link to the urban/rural population percentages for the U.S as a whole and broken down by state from the 1990 census. And, here is the definition used to define urban. (If someone can figure out how to sensibly compare the Canadian and American definitions, you are a better person than me!)
I haven’t read the rest of the thread yet, so I don’t know if this has been addressed yet, but i wanted to make sure I addressed it and didn’t forget by the time I reached the end of the thread.
I have years of Martial Arts training, and I admit that I’m no expert and that I would feel pretty frightened defending against either a gun or a knife, though I am trained against both however, if I had my choice as to which to defend against, I’d take a gun every time. It’s about 100X easier to kill someone with a knife than it is to kill them with a gun. If I came after you with a gun, you might have a chance to get away, if I came after you with a knife, you’re probably going to the hospital.
Knives do MUCH more internal damage, they require less accuracy, they can be thrown and it is much much less difficult to learn how to master their use. (about half the surface area of a knife is dangerous whereas a gun has to be pointed DIRECTLY at a vital area) The only reason guns are more deadly is the allow you to fight someone at a range. However, most gunpoint robberies don’t happen at range, and most people could not hit a moving target. (Think about how much the knife can move around inside of you before it’s extracted)
Last night in the ER, I saw a knife stabbing victim up at Columbia Presbyterian on 168th and Broadway.
Erek
Susanann: Regarding your statement about border states. Did you purposefully intend to leave out Washington and Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsion. The only states that contain large cities among the border states? When you factor the crime rate of Seattle into Washington’s how does it compare to British Columbia’s including Victoria and Vancouver? How does Minnesota, with Minneapolis/St Paul compare? And what about Michigan which contains Detroit, one of the most crime ridden cities in the entire country, how does it compare to Ontario which contrains Canada’s largest city?
Erek
I don’t care if the government knows what I’m doing, I don’t plan on doing anything wrong! And besides, think of the children!
Erek
Let me see if I understand those who talk of the Canadian people…
North Dakota has a murder rate of 0.6. Vermont has a murder rate of 1.5. Guns abound in those 2 states, and in Vermont, anyone can carry a gun concealed or not concealed with no license.
The murder rates in the bordering provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan are 2.6 and 2.5, and in Quebec it is 2.68.
This higher propensity for Canadians to commit murder, is not just in these 3 states, but in nearly all of the bordering provinces. I already pointed out that all but one province has a current murder rate higher than a neighboring American state.
I see that many people posting on this thread maintain that Canadians dont commit as many murders as they would, because of Canadian gun control. These posters are attempting to say that the murderous intentions of Canadians are restricted by Candadian gun control.
Since some of these posters are from Canada, they may be right, I dont know what goes on in the mind of Canadians, but your points are understood by all:
"Canadians need strong laws to prevent them from committing more murders. "
Just how high of a murder rate would the people from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec go?.. if they traveled to North Dakota or Vermont?
Since we see that Candadians under strict gun control are already many times more murderous than the Americans south of the border…those who maintain that Canadian gun control stops Canadians from committing more murders, are arguing that we should not let these dangerous Canadians into America.
Some other posters here would argue, that a Candadian who enters America, who is no longer being restricted by Canadian gun control, would be free and unrestricted to go on his murderous rampages, far exceeding their current 2.6, 2.5, and 2.68 murder rates in their native provinces of just those 3 provinces.
Those who say that all Canadians would commit many more murders if it were not for Canadian gun control, seem to have a very poor opinion of Canadians, and are arguing that Canadians are a very dangerous people, and who cannot be trusted traveling in a land where free people live with guns.
I think the topic of:
" how dangerous would Canadians be if it were not for their gun control:
, or
“whether or not we should let ‘potentially dangerous’ Canadians into our country”
should be a separate topic, but one worth exploring. I too, am curious, as to how violent Canadians would be if they were to come to a free country where guns can be purchased by individuals with much less restrictions.
I do commend you all for bringing up an interesting point.