Almost nobody would need their own vehicle if our social and environmental priorities were in order. I think there would be many benefits to outlawing private vehicles, but achieving that any time soon is not realistic.
gotta cite for that?
secondly, moving goalposts again. you asked for evidence and I gave it to you. ya wanna debate or just handwave again?
But, really, what kind of evidence is useful here, regardless of one’s stance. How many factors enter into crime statistics? No matter what, aren’t we pretty much doomed to *post hoc * failure in our evidence?
If gun related homicide dropped 40% in Elbonia after they completely removed all gun controls, would that prove something? How about if there were a nationwide disgust with firearms, so that nobody much had them? Where social pressures outweigh legal pressures?
Or a 40% rise in homicides after gun restrictions were enacted, but only criminals had them and there was an ongoing, vigorous debate in the free black market.
How can we isolate an experiment in statistics that will prove any point, whatsoever, in something as chaotic and energetic as America?
The question can’t be resolved on a data point, however sharp it may be. It can only be a matter of reasonable sifting of uncertain data, where no scientific conclusion is possible.
I disapprove of the violence in my America. Duh. If I truly believed that an absence of guns in my country would directly and effectively address that problem, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment. I would call up the black helicopters and grab every gun in sight.
But it just ain’t so.
Is it really a threat to suggest that maybe your strange Uncle Fred ought not to have a military style weapon? If you feel the need for nine millimeter reassurance, maybe fifteen rounds ought to be enough? Are these unreasonable questions? Or can our concerns be dismissed if we are not familiar with configurations of bayonet attachments? Need I be an oncologist to despise cancer? Do I need to know the precise definition of the weapon I don’t ever want to see?
Let us resolve to be less fearful of each other. And if we can’t quite manage that, let’s do our best to pretend. The only way to kill a demon is to starve it to death.
Happy New Year.
It’s not exactly rocket science. What kind of complete imbecile do you have to be to not grasp the intricacies of attaching a stabby bit to a shooty bit? The kind whose understanding of reality is so crippled as to have no worthwhile input to give.
Don’t listen. Problem solved. You’re welcome.
Save this kind of stuff for the Pit, Grumman.
The problem is that it’s not my strange Uncle Fred. It’s me. Productive member of society that I am. Owner of a business that employs a dozen guys making 6 figure incomes in a good year, father of three, independent voter, and happily married. Every time you try to and isolate owners of the guns as crazy Uncle Freds, you push us back just a little farther. I’m at the point where I really don’t care to argue anymore.
I have spent the last 20 years collecting the guns that I have and I plan to pass them on to my kids. The threat as I see it, is that these weapons have somehow been placed on the chopping block with absolutely no serious consideration of their involvement in crime at the national level. They just aren’t the problem. What may seem reasonable to you and others, just seems short sighted to me.
Happy new year to you also. I’m now off to watch Nebraska lose.
So, if those weapons were to disappear, along with whatever threat to the lives of innocents they may or may not represent, something of value would be lost, either to you or society as a whole? Is that it? What thing of value would that be?
Not shifting goalpost, if you want to lock it down state by state that is fine too but to claim that Englands drop was due to gun control but the rest of European countries and the US drop in crime was not is special pleading.
Note Australia also did a similar gun ban and confiscation, I provided many cites to show it didn’t work there you can read the thread for those cites.
Seeing as this is government produced data and thus public domain and because you obviously don’t follow links and even look at cites as this has been provided in this thread multiple times already I will provide you the stats from the FBI for the US.
[
](United States Crime Rates 1960 t0 2019)
Now are you going to ignore that we are at the lowest homicide rate since 1963?
So instead of looking at the data and realizing that bans don’t work and thus directing your energy towards solutions that may actually work you will toss political capital and a large amount of money to ineffective legislation because you find the people who you wrongfully imagine as the only ones who use the right as being distasteful?
If you despise cancer find a fix for cancer, If you know cauterization of cancer caused ulcers doesn’t improve the survivability of the patient you stop doing it and find something that does work.
If you despise homicide work towards a fix and stop passing legislation which only makes you feel good about yourself when the people continue to be murdered.
By your arguments seems to be that what you despise is not the death of people but the demographic groups you view as being gun owners. Does name calling and debasing people really do anything to further your cause?
Come back when you actually are willing to discuss specifics. You asked about a country where gun bans have worked, I give you England, you give me Vermont, Australia, the US, Englsih data that’s a decade out of date, but still won’t discuss the English experience.
glad you got religion. this thread has been an eye opener.
No you have not shown that the gun ban in England worked.
Murder rates when UP directly after the ban when they were dropping in the rest of the developed world, they did come down again but you have provided ZERO cites as to why there should even be a correlation let alone a causative effect of the legislation.
Homicide rates were dropping everywhere in the developing world, you have provided NOTHING that even suggests England’s gun ban had anything to do with that.
The fact that you just ignored real data proves you have no desire to talk about reality and facts.
Generations of tradition, millions of hours annually of safe and fun recreation.
Unless we’re talking about a total gun ban, I don’t see where either of these comes into play.
I thought that was the point of the question. If it was directed solely at AW’s my reply remains the same however.
I think it would be a stretch to say there are “generations of tradition” centering around private ownership of assault weapons (however they’re defined).
I’m sure that you think so. Regardless, several generations is accurate.
Any discussion about gun laws - and any laws for that matter, should be one of costs and benefits. Personally the the freedom to own and carry far outweigh any societal costs in and of itself. Regarding so called assault weapons - the societal costs in crime and homicides are quite low and the costs in both enforcement and the loss of individual liberty and enjoyment are substantial.
However when ElvisL1ivs and China Guy are focusing on the 12,000 gun related deaths per year and asserting that increasing restrictions on gun ownership would reduce that figure, it completely ignores the other side of the equation. Defensive Gun Use (DGU) in the US is quite high.
Here’s a thread where it was discussed at length, though it’s quite long. From that thread, 13 studies that were conducted to estimate the number of DGU/year, with 12 producing an actual numerical estimate. It’s arguable the precise level, but even taking the lowest value from the DOJ studyit’s safe to say it’s north of 100,000 incidents per year. Any talk of the number of deaths should also consider the number of lives saved. That number is not insignificant.
I’m sorry, but you didn’t demonstrate that the gun ban in England was the sole or even primary factor in the decline in their gun murder rate, since it’s clear from the cites provided to you that this was a general trend that had nothing to do with gun control in several western nations with widely varied stances on personal firearms ownership. I’m unsure why you are missing that point, as it seems pretty obvious.