Oh, yeah. On Wednesday I had in-service training. There was a 4 hour block on gang investigations. The instructor stated that many younger gang members are joining the military so they can come back with knowledge in fighting anf firearms and teach it to other gang members.
Training. Yah!:rolleyes:
Just watch Game of Thrones - they are the master of Exposition delivered via conversation at a whorehouse.
The problem is that skews the statistics towards defensive gun use. Generally speaking, the statistics on gun violence only count incidents where somebody is actually shot - they don’t count situations where a gun is accidentally discharged but nobody gets hit or situations where somebody irresponsibly points a loaded gun at somebody.
wrong. Most of the time during an armed robbery, the robber doesn’t shoot anyone. It still is counted as an armed robbery and gets included in gun violence stats.
If you irresponsibly point a loaded gun at someone, that is (in this state) reckless misconduct with a firearm, and that would go into the gun crime stats as well.
Guns, when used for defense, are rarely fired. To cut out most of the incidents and say those don’t matter kills any honest discussion on the subject.
As far as I know, I never said that training would reduce violent crime so I’m not sure why I would answer a challenge to a statement I never made. I said I was all for training and certification, but to me those are issues not necessarily related to violent crime. One is about safety and capability, which I think would come in quite handy if you were in a violent situation and need to use a firearm, but is not something that would reduce violent crime. It might reduce accidents and it might make someone more capable of defending oneself if faced with a violent crime. But, I don’t know where you got it in your head that anyone is talking about training criminals or that it matters, in this discussion, how criminals got their guns, illegally or not. :smack: I suppose one could argue that required training would simply make for more capable violent criminals, but as you point out (without a cite) “many” criminals obtain their guns illegally and wouldn’t have undergone training in the first place.
No. Real world example: I stopped a guy from killing his ex wife with a knife. He saw my gun and ran. I would not have approached him without the gun, because there is always a chance that he would not run and would attack me instead. Luckily he ran and the police caught him down the street.
I heard this years ago. I didn’t buy it then, and I don’t buy it now.
So, the government training I received that included actual cites during the Power Point presentation is bullshit, but government mandated training for someone to exercise won’t be?
As far as I can tell, gun advocates are unlikely to give credence to any statistic or fact that shows guns to be ineffective for home or personal protection. The anecdote (like the one you provided) always wins out, or, worse, the hypothetical.
The one firearm statistic that seems to make an impression on gun rights advocates is that the majority of shooters and shooting victims are black males, who are presumed to be criminals. Well, out of the true ones. Gun advocates found Kleck’s 2.5 million a year convincing enough, despite the unlikeliness, and the claim that baseball bats kill more people than guns gained surprising traction among gun advocates.
You are inevitably relying on the survey participants subjective assessment that a crime was prevented by a gun. Even if they are answering in good faith–which I think is questionable given the obvious political valence of the question–some unknown proportion of them are going to be wrong about their assessment of the situation.
On top of that, you’re talking about a relatively rare phenomenon (i.e., fewer than 1 in 100 respondents, for sure), and so all of the little errors in survey design and statistical noise and just plain crazy people very easily skew the results. There are tens of thousands of Americans who believe they have been abducted by aliens. That doesn’t tell us much about the rate of alien abduction.
I think both problems prevent this from ever being a useful concept in the gun control debate. The evidence just won’t ever be compelling enough to push people off of their intuitions on the subject.
I agree. When I was writing my post I originally used the term gun crimes but I realized that this would be false for the reasons you gave. So I switched to gun violence, which more accurately reflected the point I was making. And I’ll stand by that. Unless you have examples of statistics on gun violence that include non-shootings.
The reverse is also true. The anti-gun crowd will dismiss any evidence that guns are effective for personal protection. Both sides refuse to acknowledge that their opposition might also have a valid argument.
Pointing a gun at someone is considered a violent act. I’ve been charged with it (and acquitted). Can you show a statistic on gun violence (other than deaths by guns) that doesn’t include things like armed robbery? That would be the exception.
Guns* are *of limited use. Most owners have neither the training or will to use them in the right way or right time. And of course if you have kids or criminals in the home, they are a bad idea.
But they do make you *feel *safer, and honestly, what with budget cutbacks, the crooks around here are getting bolder and bolder. True, it’s mostly gang stuff, but they are knifing dudes in broad daylight.
OTOH, I have been trained, and I have had ‘combat” experience. I carried a gun when it was a duty and a requirement and I wore a badge.
See, my defense of guns is a libertarian and Constitutional defense. I agree that many gun owners should not actually be gun owners, and that there are too many guns. But, there’s no easy way to separate the wheat from the chaff without trampling on the Constitution.
I support gun safety courses and training 100%.
Disagree about the statement about most owners. I can think of a couple of people who with know training were able to point a gun at someone who was trying to harm them, with good outcome. But I’m all for training.
Agree about criminals, disagree about kids. I was raised with guns in the home, my son was as well. Most people in rural areas are, and if you teach your kids basic gun safety and take reasonable precautions it’s not a problem.
When I lived in a bad area, it was essential to have a gun. A big dog helped as well. Now I live in a decent part of town (across the street from a police station)and my guns are packed away in a closet. The Dog has gone deaf, and if I couldn’t have a gun here, it wouldn’t worry me. Not everyone gets to live in such a place.
I’ve had some training, I did private security in high risk locations, but I can train someone like my wife the basics of what she needs to know – like lock herself in the bedroom and keep the gun pointed at the door until the cops get there.
agreed, except for the libertarian part. If we truly want to regulate guns much more than they are, we need to do it the honest way and get an amendment. The fact that such a thing is unlikely to pass shows that much of the country doesn’t want it.
During that time, did you have to use your gun defensively?
Yes
Fair enough. How about all your neighbors?
several of them, over the years. That I know of.
It was like having a fire extinguisher. I’ve had to use one, I know other people who never did, but everyone should own a fire extinguisher if they live in a flammable house.
You make a good point, Depends on the age and maturity of the kids, I should have added.
Right. Not only would such a amendment pass, no one would ever agree on the wording.