Ummm, I hate to bring this up, but guys, we can go anecdote for anecdote for awhile, and be none the wiser. Glitch and Freedom have brought in some accounts of pretty horrible things that happened to people who didn’t have guns, and I’m sure I could dig through my back issues of HCI’s newsletters and find a bunch of bad things that happened to people because other people had guns. But I can’t see anything to be gained by that. Any takers on a cease-fire in the Anecdote War?
Freedom wrote:
You mean like, having gay sex with James Bond?
I knew it!!! 
I can’t go along with you. (surprise surprise )
For me at least, and maybe other pro-2nd Amendment people, I feel that only one side of the story ever gets told.
If there are 270 something million people in America, somewhere around 2 million firearms used in self-defense annually and only around 30,000 gun deaths (maybe half suicides), then why do we only hear one side in the media?
Why doesn’t the media hype up citizens who save lives with their legal firearms? Why don’t we hear protests from the media over our government preventing people from carrying protection?
I feel that the media is slanted enough to be actually pushing an agenda. Many people think guns are only used in self-defense “once in a blue moon.” Gun tragedy stories are what people now associate with firearms. If we don’t tell the news that the media omits, people will never hear the other side of the story.
That being said, I recognize there are more than enough true stories over the last 10 years that it is useless to keep score. I try to use anecdotes to illustrate principles of self-defense.
I was actually looking for my anecdote above to put in the Bars and Guns thread. I only threw it here to make sure Glitch saw it.
So I guess I half agree with you.
(I feel a little dirty, I think I have to go shower now, )
That’s OK, Freedom, I’m a couple posts behind. BTW, I thought I’d already mentioned that I was a HCI member, or was that on the other thread? (Glad we more or less abandoned the other threads for now.)
Anyway, I wanted to talk about the evil NRA.
Sorry, Freedom, but I have to consider a group evil that has stood up for plastic handguns, cop-killer bullets, fully automatic weapons, and the like. They like to paint themselves as defenders of sportsmanship and the right to self-defense (their commercials were on Redskins radio last fall, so I got an earful), but if they’ve ever said of any gun, “this firearm is too unnecessary for any of those purposes for us to justify defending,” I must admit it’s slipped by me. Maybe the Gun Owners of America is more conservative than the NRA, but it’s hard to see how the differences can be all that large.
They use ‘card carrying member’ for a lot of things. It started with McCarthy, of course (Joe, not Gene). More recently, George Bush the Elder used it on Dukakis in '88, pointing out that he was a ‘card carrying member of the ACLU.’ So don’t feel like the NRA is getting singled out. It is a stupid phrase, though.
Damn!!!
You are going to ruin all my fun. It is so easy to demonize you when I nothing about you and can disagree with you on everything.
That makes 3 1/2 agreements by my count. I better get busy disagreeing with you befroe they take away my card
I don’t know about the plastic guns. Are you talking about Glocks or toys?
Cop-Killing bullets is one of the catch phrases that makes us pro-2nd Amendment people laugh.
Do they only kill cops?
Are Cops safe from every other kind of bullet?
Can I walk into a gun store and ask for a box of “Cop-Killing Bullets?”
Fully automatic weapons…I admit that is a little harder to defend, unless you think the 2nd Amendment is to arm the citizens so the Federal Government would always be kept in check.
Don’t you think the Chechans are pretty happy about their automatic weapons right now?
Anyway, does you newsletter give you the stats about how many people have been killed by automatic weapons in America? I think it is like ONE person back in the 60’s.
Ok, you got me. I’m not quite sure what you mean by this, so I have to ask for an example. Go dig through the newsletters and give me the EVIL GUN OF 1999.
I will give you my personal opinion on whether or not it should be banned. If I agree, I will send a letter to the head office and tell them I think they screwed up on that one.
(really I will)
hehehehehehe…
Here is an excerpt from a recent article about them. They just helped kill more gun legislation.
"To her chagrin, GOA refused to go along. Boxer complained:
I could not understand why we could not walk, hand in hand, down the Senate aisle and vote for the Boxer amendment. But when I got back to my office, I found out why because there waiting for me was a letter from the Gun Owners of America attacking my amendment, saying, essentially, that I was taking political advantage of a horrible tragedy in Michigan… The Gun Owners of America has every right to take this position. They have every right to do it. We should look at what their logo says: ‘Gun Owners of America, 25 Years of No Compromise.’ That is their slogan. That is their logo: '25 Years of No Compromise.'
[/quote]
http://www.gunowners.org/
Since you are coming clean, I feel I must also. I am a member of both Organizations.
Nope, sure can’t. Neither can Kellerman. I just counted bodies, the same way Kellerman did. Yet another reason why his study was inherently flawed.
A Thought just occured to me.
Why don’t we make it a celebration when someone stops crime committed with a gun if they shoot the sob 10" below ihe navel.
You know parades and like that.
That way not as many would be killed cause you are aiming a little lower.
Sorry I wasn’t here Saturday or Sunday. I have more thoughts, and I’ve read all the posts that have been made following that one.
When all else fails, ask Cecil.
quote:
Gun Law Failure Australia Crime Increases After Guns Are Confiscated
It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed, a program costing the government more than $500 million dollars.
And now the results are in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent; Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent). In the state of Victoria, homicides with firearms are up 300 percent. Figures over the previous 25 years show a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms (changed drastically in the past 12 months). There has been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly.
Australian politicians are on the spot and at a loss to explain how no improvement in “safety” has been observed after such monumental effort and expense was successfully expended in “ridding society of guns.”
I am not entirely pro-gun or anti-gun, but it seems to me that if you want to show that crime increases when ordinary citizens are unarmed, this is not necessarily the best way to show it. To my way of thinking, this article about Australia describes taking guns away from an armed population, not the effects of low gun:citizen ratios per se.
The situation in Australia seems to be that “law-abiding” citizens turned their guns over to the government for destruction, but the criminals never did. Since this article was written only twelve months after the gun-control law took effect, there is likely quite a large number of illegal guns floating around. The conclusion that the Aussies apparently reached was that they were “ridding society of guns.” This did not actually occur. Therefore, they should not be surprised that a now unarmed population has to deal with gun-carrying criminals.
The problem in this new situation is not that the populace is unarmed, its that the criminals are. If gun ownership had been lower to begin with, the criminals wouldn’t have such easy access now.
I have seen a statement by Charlton Heston, NRA President, that Americans would be safer if everyone owned and carried a gun (policemen, bankers, doctors, teachers, and apparently… even students). The reasoning behind this being that you can always protect yourself if you have a gun. However, there is NO way to prevent criminals from having ridiculously easy access to guns if guns are so openly tolerated in society - they could buy or steal one practically anywhere. Sadly, this situation is not far off the mark in America today, where 50% of households have guns.
Other societies (such as Canada - where I live) have made it much more difficult to get any access to guns whatsoever. Although I would seriously consider buying a gun were I to live in the US (particularly certain areas - not that I’ll list them… I don’t want to offend anyone in particular on the board 
), I don’t even consider buying one in Canada.
Unlike Australia, Canada does not have soaring violent crime rates, despite our very low gun:citizen ratio. However, generally lower crime rates aside, it is a bloody nuisance to get a gun in Canada, even as a law-abiding citizen, let alone being able to carry it. I have some friends in law-enforcement, and apparently the paperwork alone involved in purchasing a gun is bewildering - completely unlike the US’s simple 5-day waiting period. Between the paperwork for your criminal record check, license to buy, licenses to convey, licenses ad nauseaum, etc… aside from gun collectors, most people simply don’t bother.
I do not have a single relative or know a single person (even bare acquaintances) who owns a gun.
Although I empathize with the scenarios of rape & murder listed above by various persons I feel obligated to point out that if overall gun ownership levels (legal and illegal) were lower, perhaps there wouldn’t be as much violent crime overall.
My 2cents - anyways, perhaps this whole different approach to guns in the US vs. Canada has more to do with our national “personalities”. The West in the US was settled with gun-toting homesteaders and the law came later, whereas in Canada the West had Mounties from the very beginning, and private gun ownership was discouraged even then. (Gun-carrying Americans were even turned back at the border during the Gold Rush to the Klondike!!)
Anyways, I have to go and this post is much too long anyways.
The key is to have an open mind, without it being so open that your brain falls out.
Thanks for the kind thoughts. But my depression is not momentary, it is chronic and I have attempted suicide more than once. I take medication for it and see a doctor regulary. It is under control, but it will never be cured. I have had to learn how to live with it. (Besides, I decided that if I was going to kill myself because life was so painful, why should I choose a painful way to die? Getting shot sounds awfully painful, especially if you do it worng. I wanted to END my pain, not increase or intensify it.)
And I have had to learn how to live without owning a gun. Because of my illness, I am forbidden to own a firearm. (Never owned one, anyway.) And when I realized that one could learn to live without a gun, I realized that the same should be true for everyone else.
If I can do it, you can do it. You just choose not to.
When all else fails, ask Cecil.
I have a lot of trouble with that. It only strengthens my position that a lot of gun owners are looking for permission to kill.
I would read the book if I could find it. It’s not available at the Library and I can’t order a book online since I choose not to have a credit card. (I hope no one thinks I’m a wealthy retiree.)
All executions are unfair. (I’m also opposed to the death penalty on moral and ethical grounds. Our imperfcet justice system is a second reason.) It’s not hypocritical to believe that everyone deserves to live, even the most heinous of criminals. I believe that what separates me from the criminals is what I do, not why I do it. If I resort to the same methods as they, what difference is there between us? You sound like you’re arguing theat the ends (surviving) justifies the means (killing).
You re-cite some extreme examples next. Their extreme nature makes their occurrance rare. We should arm every qualified person against the rare occaision they will be the victim of an extreme crime. A lot of people–hell, I’ll go out on a limb and say MOST people live their whole lives without ever being a victim of a rape or mugging or murder or some other violent crime.
I do not wish a violent death on anyone, including criminals.
I’m not.
If I did so, I would be responding not with logic or reason, but with instinct.
Where do you get this? According to the CDC stats that Firefly and I have cited, about 35, 000 people out of 260,000,000 died by gunfire in 1997. That’s closer to 1 in 8,000.
“What is true power? True power is having every justification in the world to kill and choosing not to. That is true power.”–Schindler’s List
When all else fails, ask Cecil.
Freedom quoted RTFirefly as saying:
RTFirefly is probably talking about those mythical guns made entirely out of plastic that can sneak past airport metal detectors. Stories about these guns made the rounds on the news a few years ago.
Problem is, no such gun exists. It is physically impossible to make a gun entirely out of plastic. The firing chamber and barrel must be made out of steel (or some equally hard and temperature-resistant metal) to withstand the chamber pressures and combustion/friction heating of even the lightest, lowest-powered rounds. A plastic barrel would be mangled into uselessness even if it survived its first test firing; a plastic firing chamber would rupture before the bullet left its casing.
Even a one-inch-long steel firing chamber attached to a one-inch barrel would contain enough steel to set off an airport metal detector. The villified semiautomatic pistols in question had longer barrels than this, and only had some of their parts made out of plastic. Plastic was used for the action and the handgrip because it is lighter and therefore makes the gun less fatiguing to carry.
The metal-detectability gun laws passed as in reaction to this “scare” didn’t outlaw any gun in existence or on the drawing board, including the new “plastic” guns. These laws did, however, create a new testing requirement for handgun manufacturers, thus increasing the cost of development and the time-to-market of a new handgun by a tiny amount.
Well see here is one of the problems. Glitch said ealier, there is a 1 in 8 chance that your wife or daughter will be the victim of a violent crime in her lifetime.
Then Jab states the following:
First Glitch said 1 in 8 chance in their lifetime and you are talking about the span of a year. Second, Glitch was talking a violent crime and you are talking about killed by guns.
Jeffery
I couldn’t find the DoJ bulletin online; however, in December 1993 “Without a complete reversal in present crime trends, 8 out of 10 Americans will be the victim of violence at least once in their lives.”
From “Strong on Defense” by Sanford Strong
So my mistake, it wasn’t 1/8 it was 8/10.
Granted since 1993, things have improved significantly (even perhaps enough to call it a complete reversal; however, there are some experts who are saying we are in the calm before the storm we’ll just have to wait and see), so I don’t know what that number is currently.
And note that important “Without a complete reversal in present crime trends” clause. 8 out of 10 people were not the victim of violent crime at some point in their lives in 1993. 8 out of 10 people living in 1993 would not be victims of violent crime even if the violent crime levels stayed the same forever after. 8 out of 10 people living in 1993 would only be victims of violent crime if the 1993 trend of increasing violent crime carried forward indefinitely into the future.
I find myself wishing for a truly objective source of statistics. No twisting, no slanting and no fudging the numbers.
I don’t care what the issue is, or what side you are on, it is impossible to know the reality of almost ANYTHING out there.
Especially in an emotionally charged issue such as this, or abortion for that matter. LIke you said Freedom, it’s very diffcult to find objective numbers. The problem isn’t so much falsification as selectivity. When emotions rise, objectivity is lost.
I forget who said this but it is always appropiate to these types of debates.
“Statistics can be made to admit anything if you torture them long enough.”
Of course. Pretty much anybody can live without owning a gun. I do, for example. Never really wanted one. But I also don’t consider it any of my business to tell another law abiding citizen they can’t own one. There are plenty of perfectly valid reasons to own a gun, so just because you or I chose not to own one doesn’t mean nobody else can either.
Live and let live is a good philosophy, IMHO. Forcing your particular choices on somebody else, whether regarding religion or what you want to spend your money on or what can or cannot be read, is almost never a good idea.
–
peas on earth
Okay, a hypothetical question: Let’s say, in your life time, someone invents a real, honest-to-goodness Star Trek phaser, only it cannot be set to kill, it can only stun. Would you buy one of them and get rid of the guns you have now?
(Yes, I know there are stun guns now, but you have to be in close contact with your attacker to use it and you have to use it on his bare skin or through very thin clothing.)
And sicne there are a number of non-letahl weapons on the market NOW, maybe some of you can tell me what’s wrong with any of them? Are they effective or not?
StrTrkr777, I think you’re right. I think I did screw up my interpretation of the statistics. Sorry.
When all else fails, ask Cecil.
Damn straight I would! What a wonderful weapon that would be. You are practically free from any civil liability. Virtually no chance of injuring innocent bystanders. 1-hit/1-kill (well, stun ;)). Does it get any sweeter?
The problem with most self defense gadgets is that they don’t work (like noisemakers). The few that do work require various degrees of training and occasional practice (like Mace). Those that do work, like Mace, also have only moderate to low success rates even when used properly. They are roughly comparable to success rates with an untrained person using a firearm.
By non-lethal, I assume you mean those that don’t cause physical damage either whether it be lethal or not. There are some self defense items which improve your odds of success, but they all cause moderate to severe harm to your assailant.