Guns are for Cowards?

Great Debates
181

Mmmm - i thought this thread had chilled out a bit, but maybe i poured fuel on the fire.

SnakeS - sorry - didnt really mean to imply you were schitzophrenic, you did say “i hear that…” and i was wondering which grapevine you had heard it on. The voices bit was bad taste.

Also ta for sorting out the “Britianize” bit too. I missunderstood.

Here are some points which i think we all would understand and agree with:

No-one WANTS to shoot / kill anyone.
No-one WANTS a kicking or to feel threatened.
No-one WANTS their belongings stolen.

And i would support Triskadecamus first 3 paragraphs.

The difference seems to be what i call an overreaction to a random aggressive situation, and what you guys do.

Looking at the very usefull crime stats web site ( cheers SnakeS ) i can see that:

  1. the average American has a 0.77 % chance of being assaulted (7.70 per 1000 people).
  2. The average Brit has a 0.75 % chance of being assaulted (7.50 per 1000 people)

So, citizens of both countries have about the same chance of being assaulted.

Next:
1.US citizen chance of being murdered: 0.004 % ( ie very, very unlikely )
2.UK citizen chance of being murdered: 0.001 % ( a tiny bit more than very, very unlikely ).

So, can we assume that being murdered at random is NOT something that you should worry about.

So,if you, at any point, are ?afraid for your life,? (when in reality there is such a miniscule chance that you are actually correct in being ?afraid for your life,?) and you whip out your gun, you have:

  1. inflamed the situation leading to an all or nothing outcome,
    2.endangered the people around you, who have nothing to do with your feeling of vulnerability,
    3.decided to take the law into your own hands, AND with limited experience of how to deal with the stress of the situation and its affect on your thought processes.

All this is about to happen in the situation outlined by Crafter_Man:
Quote

“Here’s the deal: If someone runs toward me, and I have reason to believe the person is going to physically hurt me, I will point my gun at him and yell “stop” (if I have time). If he continues to run towards me, I will know the guy is “serious.” At that point it is much better for me to try to stop him by pointing my gun at his chest and pulling the trigger.”

From my non gun owning postion in Britain, i see these holes:

1.Why should i have to worry about where i’m running ?
2.Excuse me if i dont put my life at the mercy of your “reason to believe” thought processes.
3.Thanks for yelling “stop” - if you have time …!!! I hope im not deaf.
4.I find it worrying that you are able to pull a gun quicker than you can say “stop”. You must be very “edgey”
5.Here in Britain, when i see someone running towards me, my first thought would not be " get ya gun old boy, this may be a tricky one…".

There are just too many reasons that you may end up killing the wrong person for the wrong reason.

So, to get back to the op - did the word “coward” mean “paranoid”? If it did, then from where im sitting, its probibly a valid point. IE: many gun carrying americans think that they are about to be murdered and the only way to change the outcome is to shoot first ( sorry, after saying “stop” ).

The fact remains: if everyone in the UK was allowed to carry a gun in public in order to prevent crime, then it HAS to follow that the number of gun deaths would increase. For a start every criminal worth his salt would now NEED a gun, so a massive black market in gun dealing would appear ( i realise that there already is a small one - but the crims dont feel they need a gun to commit their crimes). See - its already out of control and everyone is feeling more paranoid and vulnerable, so everyone starts pulling triggers when they shouldnt be.

The situation in the US is much, much more complicated -your society is satuated with guns and there is pretty well no way to remove them from both law abiding citizens AND the ciminals. I dont know what the answer is, but saying that it is your right to carry one just doesnt seem very helpfull.

However, the US is great country, full of intellegent people ( unfortunatly not governed by one, but there you go ), can you really not start to try and put the seeds of some sort of slow, measured, rational reduction in the numbers of guns in the general population?

Sin.

182

The only time that I was ever afraid for my life was the time I was sitting in my own home, quietly, in the middle of the night, when someone strongly resembling a junkie or a crackhead forced his way through my dead bolted front door.

You think I was wrong to chase him off at gunpoint? Or that I was a ‘coward’?

I don’t know about you, but I cannot run very fast at all. What do I have to worry about running away? That the bad guy is faster than I am.

And here in the US, unless that person looks to intend harm to me or has any kind of a weapon while running at me, my first thought’s not going to be about my gun either. The scenario changes if I see a knife in the runner’s hand.

This has not happened in any of the US states that have enacted right to carry or shall issue laws. It’s an unfounded fear, and it’s demonstrably wrong.

[quoteHowever, the US is great country, full of intellegent people ( unfortunatly not governed by one, but there you go ), can you really not start to try and put the seeds of some sort of slow, measured, rational reduction in the numbers of guns in the general population?[/quote]

There is no reason to, so no. You don’t seem to understand that there’s no proven utility in doing so. We like our guns, we like to collect them, target shoot, hunt, or just hang them on the wall to admire. It is not ‘unintelligent’ to like firearms, nor is it unintelligent to continue acquiring them. Harm does not come to society because someone like myself has tied up thousands and thousands of dollars in a very beautiful collection of firearms that have actually become a pretty good financial investment despite that not being one of the reasons they were purchased.

Yet again, you are someone who wants us to give up our firearms, but you can’t point out any facts as to why you think we should.

183

OK - just the facts from SnakeS’s web site:

Mortality: Handgun discharge (Top 100 Countries) US top with 120
Mortality: Rifle, shotgun and larger firearm discharge (Top 100 Countries) US top with 131
Mortality: Assault by handgun discharge (Top 100 Countries) US second with 1068
Mortality: Assault by rifle, shotgun and larger firearm discharge (Top 100 Countries) US top with 694
Mortality: Discharge from other and unspecified firearms (Top 100 Countries) US top with 525
Mortality: Intentional self-harm by handgun discharge (Top 100 Countries) US top with 3,520
Mortality: Intentional self-harm by other and unspecified firearm discharge (Top 100 Countries) US top with 10,382
Mortality: Intentional self-harm by rifle, shotgun and larger firearm discharge (Top 100 Countries) US top with 2,684
Mortality: Other and unspecified firearm discharge, undetermined intent (Top 100 Countries) US 9th with 166
Mortality: Rifle, shotgun and larger firearm discharge, undetermined intent (Top 100 Countries) US 3rd with 24
Now i realise that within these statistics, many events will be included in multiple lists. I also acknowledge that the US is a very big country.

Do you admit that those figures are pretty appalling and that if guns had never been acceptable in US society - thousands more people would be alive in your country at the end of 2000, than actually were?

As an aside although most of the above lists go down to 1, the UK isnt on most of them.

Also, the US keeps regular company at the top of these lists, with nations which are not on a par with its wealth, standard of living or level of democracy. They are countries which have large drug trade / production problems, large areas of “bandit country”, poorly resourced police forces, or are suffering the after effects of civil war ( eg Columbia, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa, and the Balcans - apologies to anyone from thoses countries, i dont mean to generalise or cause offence :slight_smile: ) and a lot of them are very big counties too.

Sin

184

Just as a corrolary of brit’s questions for the gunphiles: If guns were to magically disappear from the US, do you think that the murder rate would remain the same? That there is “something about America” which makes people beat, stab or bludgeon somebody to death where elsewhere they would merely be wounded or unconscious?

185

We have absolutely no way of knowing what ‘would have happened if’ because that’s not what did happen.

Magically disappear how?

186

Mischievous fairies, let’s say. If, hypothetically, guns magically disappeared, do you think that the US would still be so lethal a place?

187

Quote"We have absolutely no way of knowing what ‘would have happened if’ because that’s not what did happen."

Come on. humour me. Its a debate. I did do quite a lot of typing…
sin

188

I think those serious about killing would find another means.

See above. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols committed one of the largest mass murders in US history without firing a shot.

189

So you are suggesting that Americans, when they decide to assault, forcefully subdue or violently confront somebody, are more ‘serious’ about it, and that Brits are more content to merely hospitalise rather than kill?

That rather suggests that the US is a nation of psychopaths, does it not?

190

I think it suggests that there’s something really fucking wrong with people who are serious about killing others. Just what percentage of the US population do you think are serious about killing other people?

I’ll give you a hint: It’s not the 80,000,000+ people like myself who own firearms for our own enjoyment.

It’s people like Carl Ferguson, Ronald Taylor, Richard Baumhammers, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Those people are the rare exception, but for some reason you seem to think they are the rule. Why do you think that?

191

I don’t. It was merely the logical consequence of your proposal that the US is so lethal not because of the tools used in violent confontations but the “seriousness” with which Americans commit themselves to such.

And it is clearly not just a few psychopaths causing four times more murders per capita, it is clearly something to do with Americans in general. Do you really think that Americans are, on average more likely to use the same tool to murder rather than merely assault?

192

Well then you misunderstood me, because I certainly was not referring to the average American citizen. I was referring to a person who is bent on murder.

You seemed to conflate that with ‘Americans’ in general. That is hardly the case.

You’re going to have to prove this claim.

193

Are there more of them per capita in the US, then? Are you suggesting that Americans are on average more likely to become ‘bent on murder’ than the British?

That the disparity in the murder rate is not accounted for by psycopaths such as Jeffrey Dahmer and the like? I will go to the effort if you refuse to believe me, but I would hope that such pedantry was not necessary.

194

Catsix - you said

“Yet again, you are someone who wants us to give up our firearms, but you can’t point out any facts as to why you think we should.”

I presented you with a shitload of facts. You didnt mention them.
What do you think about them? Are they wrong? Are you happy with them?

You also replied to this:

Quote:
SentientMeat said:
Mischievous fairies, let’s say. If, hypothetically, guns magically disappeared, do you think that the US would still be so lethal a place?

With “I think those serious about killing would find another means”

As you ( and others ) have repeatedly pointed out, YOU are not “serious” about killing. You really dont want to do it.

So YOU wouldnt “find other means” ?

Why? Would it be that you wouldnt feel as threatened because no-one else had any guns?

Sin

There are many gun threads around at the mo, but i feel this one is currently staying quite calm. Cheers !!

195

I think they are irrelevant to a discussion of whether or not law abiding people should be denied their personal property and their Constitutionally protected right to own it.

If guns never existed, I would evaluate the options available to me and select the most efficient and effective means of defending myself in the event that someone attacked me.

They currently do exist, they are legal, and they are my choice.

I don’t feel ‘threatened’ now. Why do you assume I do?

196

I’m a gun owner, and a gun lover, and very strong in my belief that my right to carry a weapon if I feel like it should not be compromised.

And I’m about to make a statement that most pro-gun people aren’t willing to make, and usually work very hard to refute. This statement may also put my NRA membership in jeopardy.

The easy availability of guns in the United States causes the murder rate to be higher than it would be otherwise.

There…I said it. I have no doubt that if all the guns magically disappeared, fewer people would be murdered. I don’t think fewer people would be assaulted. And that nicely explains the crime statistics in the US and UK.

Face it…Americans are lazy. Just look at the drive-thru restaurant as an example of that. And it’s a lot eaier to kill someone with a gun than most other methods. It also removes the would-be killer from the event a little bit (not having to get his hands dirty and all). In the heat of the moment, instances of assault turn into murder more easily when there’s a handy tool available.

Someone motivated enough could still kill. But I concede that the denial of easy access to guns, which is not the same as outlawing guns, would noticeably lower the overall murder rate. (And of course the gun homicide rate in the US is higher than the UK…we’ve got more guns, duh!)

But, that doesn’t mean I want guns taken away. The removal of easy access to automobiles would greatly lower the accidental death rate in the US…but that’s not a tradeoff I’m willing to make.

Guns are certainly misused by a small percentage of people, mainly because they’re very convenient for doing bad things. But you shouldn’t punish everyone for the sins of a (very) few. Instead, punish the perpetrators more severely. Any crime using a gun should result in a sentence at leat three times longer than the a similar crime with no firearm. Some places have laws like that now…but they should be expanded and made even more strict.

My guns (Colt 1911 .45 and Ruger 9mm) are used for sport. I like to put holes in paper. I don’t keep them for self-defense, and I don’t carry them. But I want to know that I could if chose to, because I feel it’s my consitutionally protected right.

If you use a gun for sport, hunting, or legitimate self-defense, no one should be allowed to stop you. If you use a gun to threaten or hurt someone, you ought to be put away for a long time. If you use a gun to kill someone, you should be killed (preferably by firing squad). But I’m not going to start the death penalty debate here…you can take it to another thread.

So there you go. I’m a gun owner, and a second amendment supporter. But I’m also honest about the fact that guns are sometimes misused. I don’t think this means they should be restricted. I do think that people who do bad things with guns should pay for doing so.

197

Thank you, audiolover.

The freedom to keep at home or carry around such tools is one which the US electorate decides whether to bestow upon its citizens. All I sought was some agreement that it is a freedom which comes at a price.

198

It’s one of those rights that the Constitution (specifically the Bill of Rights) recognizes and protects, but not something that the government has ‘bestowed’ upon the citizens.

199

I said the US electorate, not the government. And what do you think of audiolover’s bold statement?

200

audiolover is every bit as entitled to his opinion as I am to mine. Thus far, there’s been no proof of who is right.