Based on this I would agree it’s not settled.
OTOH, remember, it was Thompson and Quartz (originally) making a rather counterintuitive positive assertion that “guns make communities safer.” The burden should be on anyone wishing to prove that rather than its negation; and nobody in this thread has yet cited any study of widespread gun ownership actually having a deterrent effect on crime, nor any non-anecdotal proof of its defensive value.
Very valid point. But I’m used to politicians making sweepingly broad statements for which they have zero proof, and for lacking intellectual honesty in fashioning their claims. Unfortunately, I have no way to call Thompson to task for this flaw; even a Pit thread complaining about such a practice would be lost in the noise and garner nothing but snark about what a quibbling complaint it was.
On the other hand, when a participating Doper makes such claims, it’s easier to demand of them retraction or proof, as I was able to do here.
I couldn’t care less:
If privately owned firearms make communities more safe, I have a right to keep and bear arms.
If privately owned firearms make communities less safe, I have a right to keep and bear arms.
I don’t give a rat’s ass if privately owned firearms increase or decrease crime. I have a right to bear arms in either case.
I don’t have to sell it, because having a list of registered gun owners with corresponding background checks (and, I assume, fingerprints and photographs) sells itself. That’s not just gun control, but apparently EFFECTIVE gun control.
By the way, this is an example of a legitimate assertion against gun control. Thanks Crafter_Man!
Only to the extent that Roe v. Wade was a restriction on abortion rights in that it moved from allowing states to ban any abortions to allowing them to ban only third trimester ones.
Your other positions are at least arguable. To try to claim that Florida moving from no concealed carry to concealed carry with a permit is gun control is just plain laughable.
Because and only because the prevailing interpretation of the Second Amendment says so (and don’t give me any bullshit about “natural rights”!). But neither its interpretation nor (directly) its wisdom are up for debate here.
I am a little confused. Comparing the USA’s crime statistics, incarceration rates, and laws to other countries methods of living is a fair start, but it does not provide a true understanding of the whole issue of gun conrtol, it seems to me…
The population of the US is subjected to different stresses and influences than those of the UK, Australia, or Mexico, correct?
For example, it seems to me that comparing the US to the UK seems like comparing apples and oranges. (The UK has a different population density, possibly less “diversity” in cultures (although that may be changing), different social pressures, different perceived “needs” that need to be addressed, even a (slightly) different opinion on the particulars of the relationship between the citizen and the government. And maybe more that I can’t think of off the top of my head.)
The Straight Dope prides itself on having higher debating standards.
In regards to the gun control debates, a nod must be made to the fact that the forces driving crime in the US is more than just the availability of guns. In my opinion. Me owning a gun is not going to make me more likely to actually carry out the profound act of stopping someone else from breathing forever. Something else is driving that…
winces, while waiting for the flames
I can’t hope to settle the debate either. As Mark Twain said, “There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are statistics”. I can though relate apocryphal stories.
My wife was robbed one night at her car by a single man who overpowered her. My wife’s sister and her husband were robbed in their home by a single man with a pistol. Neither my wife nor my in-laws were armed. Both of these incidents were recorded as “crimes”.
I have twice been accosted by people with clear criminal intent. Once by a single man armed with a pistol. Another time by three men armed with knives and some kind of club. At that time I carried a S&W revolver in .357, which I draw on these assailants. Neither incident went into “crime” statistics because the parties left the scenes precipitously and without harm or further inconvenience to me.
Oh, please don’t bother to tell me about the dangers of “merely displaying” a firearm. I wasn’t “merely displaying” it-- I would have quite certainly shot these perps in defense of my own life and limb. The distance was less than 3 feet, and they were advancing on me voicing demands. But they chose to remove themselves from my vicinity, so swiftly in fact that any round fired toward them would likely have missed their dodging backsides.
The gunman actually left his pistol behind. I picked it up and found it was a cheap and badly maintained semi-auto in .32 caliber. Three rounds in the clip, plus one chambered. Such a piece of crap that I was afraid to try firing it, I didn’t want it even for a souvenir. The next day I took it along on my boat for a fishing trip, and tossed it into 1,200 feet of water in the Gulf Stream.
This certainly proves nothing. My personal statistical database contains four would-be crimes, reduced by 50% due to my own possession of a legal firearm. But statistics, as noted above, are notoriously unreliable when attempting to prove anything complex. And even more worthless when attempting to prove a negative.
Gun-toting criminals are still members of “society”.
Is there a reason you did not report these crimes?
Laziness, I guess. Or practicality, depending upon how charitable you feel in hindsight.
Both incidents occurred in “high crime” areas of a relatively high crime city. None of the perpetrators had any remarkable distinguishing characteristics; I could only have described them as “specific race, male, average height and weight”. Although they had accosted me with clear intent, I was unharmed and still had my wallet; there was no proof of any crime.
And I carelessly ruined the only potential evidence. I picked up the dropped gun and immediately popped the magazine, examined it, and then worked the action to remove the chambered round. It was a small frame pistol, and my hands were all over it. In so doing, I surely obliterated any finger prints that might have been on it. I didn’t think of this until after the act.
I was an “upstanding citizen”, and my presence in those locations at that time of night was legitimate. My carry permit was in order. I had no reason to fear the police. But neither did I believe that involving them would be of any benefit, to me or to society. It would have simply wasted an hour or more of my time, describing the incident(s) and the perpetrator(s), probably several times over. And then perhaps driving around the area with police attempting to find him (them).
Even had the police (or the police and I) found the suspects, the result would have been only an “I said, they said” standoff. There were no witnesses other than the perps and myself. I doubt he (they) could have even been detained. There was clearly zero evidence available for a prosecutor to use in building a case.
Bottom line-- reporting would have been a waste of my time and the time and energy of the police. The incident report generated would have merely added to the gross weight of similar worthless reports in the police file system. The perp(s) could have been down the street, laughing and drinking beer, watching us the whole time.
And I ensured that the gun would not be used illegally again, probably better than if it was conveyed to the evidence locker downtown.
So you destroyed evidence that could be followed up on, and decided that what the police don’t know can’t hurt them. I’m curious about what the police would think about your idea of saving them so much trouble, though. You think that, because none of the perps had any distinguishing characteristics, the police could do nothing, but what if in the case of the three that ran together the police could use the description of the group to bring them in? Now, they don’t even have suspicion of a previous crime to work with.
Is this becoming a hijack? Well, I’m not a mod. So…
I don’t entirely disagree with you. I might not take the same course of action today. In hindsight I should indeed have turned over the gun. While worthless from the perspective of my little crime, lands-and-grooves on a fired slug might have matched it to some previous crime. My bad.
I did not offer my detailed comments as a defense, but as an explanation, since you asked. But as further explanation of my thoughts I’ll offer that the “group” (if it continued to ‘run together’ and if it could have been identified separately from any other three individuals randomly associated in the neighborhood, and if indeed it could have been approached by police for an interview-- all of which I still find to be highly doubtful) might well have chosen to accuse *me * of attacking them. Now it’s three words against one. This wouldn’t have flown, for reasons below, but it wouldn’t have “brought them in” either.
As for working from the suspicion of a previous crime-- this was an area (downtown Cocoanut Grove, Miami, circa 1990) where after dark the police traveled only in pairs or squads, never alone. The public at large could be broken down visually with pretty high certainty into three groups:
I was a 2. I worked in a bar and had an ongoing and quite positive relationship with the local cops. They were in my place literally every night, sometimes repeatedly. (It was a pretty nasty dive; fights, even brawls, were common.) I saw several of them socially outside of our work-time relationship. A couple of them were fishing buddies. We had lots of personal interaction including discussions about the whichness of what and the problems of the world. I can tell you with considerable authority that, to their mind and based upon their professional experience, they held a “suspicion of a previous crime” for *everybody * in group 3.
As the cops saw things, tourists were bait. Tourists carried money, credit cards, cameras, and other valuables. They could be legitimately separated from these possessions by those of us in group 2-- they spent their money, maxed their credit cards, even pawned their chattels. That was business. But they were sometimes preyed upon in illegitimate ways by group 3. That was a no-no. It bummed the party and was bad for repeat business. So the cops were already well primed to be suspicious of everybody who wasn’t either a 1 or a 2. If a person wasn’t there to “enjoy the night life” (group 1) and wasn’t in the business of providing night life related services (group 2) then they had only nefarious reason to be present. No crime reporting on my part would have reinforced that judgement one iota.
As regards the OP, I offered my original comments as a demonstration of the failure of statistics to resolve the question posed. I demonstrated that statistics can be skewed by many circumstances-- my personal crime statistics showing a 50% variance between “real” crime and “reported” crime. And having the added lagniappe of being directly related to the carrying of a gun by a citizen.
Perhaps I should have found a different way to say that, without the distraction of running off at the mouth— er, keyboard. Sorry.
True.
False.
True.
I think you mean “anecdotal.” Apocryphal stories are lies.
Thank you. I learned the word with a meaning of “unauthenticated” or “of questionable authorship” (Wiki seems to agree cite) and used it because I’m just a user name in the wilderness here. I should have realized that the word has an additional connotation of falsehood which I did not intend to convey. Anecdotal would have served admirably.
Calling it “Anecdotal” means that we may or not believe you, but calling it “apocryphal” means that even you aren’t sure about your own story. 
Taking that into account, your tale does show why it is damn near impossible to use statistics to make a point one way or another. Too many “almost robberies” that either are never reported or or embellishments in the first place.
Do you really believe that the mere presence of a gun on my kitchen table is going to change the values I place on Human life, and be more willing to decide that murder is the appropriate choice for me to take?
Yes. You are obviously willing to kill someone if you own a gun.