Thank God somebody has their head screwed on straight.
I’m gonna be away for a little while so don’t get too upset if I don’t say more right away…
You’re being unreasonable. In Britain, where their violent crime rate is rapidly rising and more and more criminals and police are using guns, the Home Office offers the following advice:
Obviously, free men should be pepared to cower in their beds or emulate the homeless by talking loudly to an imaginary friend, not to defend their lives, homes, and families from an intruder.
Wow, what a compelling, original article. Perhaps one day the American public will hear this lone voice crying in the wilderness and take pity as she is devoured by wolves because the jackbooted thugs took away her assault rifle.
Next up: Freshman English student writes impassioned term paper opposing death penalty.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by minty green *
**Wow, what a compelling, original article. Perhaps one day the American public will hear this lone voice crying in the wilderness and take pity as she is devoured by wolves because the jackbooted thugs took away her assault rifle.
[QUOTE]
At that point, we won’t be able hear anything because we’ll all be too busy yelling at imaginary friends to scare away burglers.
Well I know that I find it reassuring that when somebody brakes into my house the best defense I have is shouting out “Martha, fetch my slippers Martha!”
OK, let’s see:
Paragraph 1 - Liberals are bad people.
Bias firmly established.
Paragraph 2 - militia meant the “whole of the people”, and “people” meant the individual
“check”
Paragraph 3 - Rosie O’Donnell is a hypocrite
“check”
Paragraph 4 - Exaggerates O’Donnell’s complaint with Selleck
“check” (well, who cares anyway)
Paragraph 5 - O’Donnell is a double dog hypocrite, China murders 20 million
“check” (what tied that paragraph together?)
Paragraph 6 - Hitler was a bad man
“check” (Duh!)
Paragraph 7 - “These numbers should interest groups concerned with peace, tranquility, and liberty”
“check”
Paragraph 8 - Citizens of the UK have high murder rates, despite gun control.
Really? Cite? Oh, Scotland Yard is hiring.
And finally, Paragraph 9 - Criminals? Where did that come from? The rest of the article was about people protecting themselves from their government (like the second amendment provides). And then the kicker - "Race, gender, and gun control are the tools of the liberal to divide us."
Huh? What the hell was that? From my own backyard, no less. Scary.
I swore I would never be so anal; but cite please? Please don’t offer anecdotal proof. Statistics if you have them. I remember the statistics showed a slight increase in crime when I was there a few years ago but that was because the government changed reporting and methods used to analyse the figures.
Australia and Japan have restrictive gun laws, and the level of crime is lower than the States.
http://www.iansa.org/documents/research/2000/aussie_guns.htm
(shows statistics of gun crime since stricter laws were introduced in Australia)
Although, I will admit that in Japan’s case its not JUST gun restrictions which have resulted in the low crime rate. Forced confessions, beatings from the cops, and a high sentencing rate mean that people are too SCARED to commit a crime. BUT I still think that having gun restrictions HELPS keep the crime down.
Oh good. Another gun control thread where uncited references to the UK crop up. How unusual.
Is there some version of Godwin’s law that relates to gun control threads? If not, there should be - how about “any gun related thread becomes invalid as soon as unsubstantiated quotes about levels of violence in a completely different country are used”. In honour of the op we could call it Tyklfe’s Law.
And out of interest, can someone tell me what’s wrong with the advice given?
Seems fair to me. For most people they’d probably pop down the stairs carrying their favourite pointy stick of choice, but for the elderly or vulnerable pretending that there’s someone else about in the house seems like a good idea.
Wrong, at least with respect to Australia. See this summary of the 2000 International Crime Victims Survey. The Australian gun crime rate may be lower than the States’, but the Australian crime rate in general is higher than in the U.S.:
I gotta hit the shower; I’ll be back later today with statistics on British gun crime.
Well, theres: http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/statistics15.htm
The International Crime Victim Survey for 2001 also showed an increase in British violent crime rates leading up to it, but I can’t find a direct copy (it’s cited in roughly 928483 places, however, which makes searching for it fun). I’ll look around later and try to find some better sites, I found a nice page with summary data for the US crime rates from 1960-2000 but nothing like that for the UK. With the second-highest violent crime rate in the first world (just behind Australia), I can understand why the Brits don’t seem to make their stats easy to find.
You do realise that if you’re going to start throwing this logic around, you’re arguing in favour of gun control? After all, as Britian’s so much more violent than the US it should have a higher run of gun crime. Australia too.
Counting down 'til Kellerman or Lott is cited…
please, pretty please could there be something new introduced in this thread
signed,
a firm believer that gun control is hitting what you aim at…
You need to explain the chain of reasoning you use, since it’s not exactly clear. I’m not at all sure how ‘Britain is more violent than the US’ means that ‘Britain should have more of a specific subtype of violent crime than the US’, and why you think that I would advocate forming a more dangerous society because of this. You should bear in mind that I don’t have a phobia about guns, so simply repeating ‘guns are bad’ isn’t going to cut it.
I’m also not really aware that women raped by a man using brute strength feel better about it whan women raped by a man using a gun, for example, but perhaps you could cite something? It seems rather odd that, despite the victim disarmament crowd’s cries of ‘ban guns to reduce violence’, they always seem to shy away from looking at violent crimes, and instead concentrate on specific subsets of the violence they’re allegedly opposed to.
Well, I’ve given a reasonable cite (from the UK government) when asked, and will dig up a better set of crime statistics later.
What, you mean you missed the complete lack of respect for human dignity, life, and freedom expressed in it? A free man is not forced to cower in his bed and rely on the good intentions of the person who just invaded his home.
Except that that arming yourself before you ‘pop down the stairs’ has been construed as premeditation, thus leading to anything you do not being self-defense in at least some cases in England. I’m not sure how widespread this is (I can go dig up archived news for one or two cases), but I do know that there isn’t a simple law stating that ‘if they break into your house, it’s self defense’. Legally, the Home Office’s advice is sound since there really isn’t much protection from you if you do have to kill or injure someone in self defense, so cowering or yelling are really your only choices if you don’t want to end up for a lengthy stay in the courts and possibly jail.
And why is carrying a weapon that’s less effective for the victim, like a ‘pointy stick’ good, but carrying a weapon that is more effective, such as a gun, bad? If you think that a young, healthy man has the right to defend his home with deadly force, why doesn’t a much smaller women, or handicapped man, or older person have the same right? The means are certainly available to do so.
If they don’t have any effective means of self defense they may as well cower in bed or try to fool an attacker. If they were not denied an effective means of self-defense, though, then they wouldn’t be vulnerable in the first place.
I’d love to, but my copy of “More Guns, Less Crime” is at home! I’ll see what I can do for you in a couple of hours. 
–==the sax man==–
That’s just what I thought as well. Clichéd, for us at least, but from the heart.
Here you go Gary:
So, a general ban went into effect in the UK in 1996, yet we see gun violence rising to levels greater than when the ban went into effect.
I especially like this bit:
Well hell! Getting rid of the fake guns will definitely lower gun violence! :rolleyes:
Gary K: I’ll second the motion for a Gun Control Godwin eqivalent, as long as the law is impartial. Gun prohibitionists cannot cite any country other than their own in making a case for more or less restrictions in their own country.
As to the OP: c’mon. Really. We can do better than half-baked editorials (regardless of how well intentioned they may be). I felt like chastising some folks for piling onto the OP the way they have, but on second thought, we’re all growed-up in this here forum. If you post foolishness to make a case, be prepared to take your lumps.
FTR: I am firmly pro-gun and pro-rights where guns are concerned. I also like to think that I’m honest enough to call a spade a spade. As such, I ain’t gonna touch the OP with a keyboard with a 10 foot cable.
I own a gun, so you may assume what my position is here, but I am aghast at the comments below that poorly edited article, 100% in glowing praise of the author. I know full well what the First Amendment says, but this seems to be fully against the spirit of that Amendment. I KNOW there must be dissention, even at Georgia State! But is it being stifled? Hmmmm… Didn’t Hitler also stifle free press and dissenting opinions??? Hmmm???
A position on this issue should be stated with a heck of a lot less rhetoric and sarcasm.