In 2013, Detroit’s murder rate was 43.5 per 100,000 residents. If you broke that down by the most dangerous neighborhoods, it would be much higher as most of the crime is happening in just a few neighborhoods. If you further broke it down by people who were walking the streets in the middle of the night, higher still. In comparison, New York City’s murder rate was 3.9.
If you look at all violent crimes (murder, rape, assault and robbery), the number is truly horrific. 14,504 violent crimes in 2013. In addition, there were 20,817 property crimes (burglary, auto theft, and arson). So in any given year, an average resident has about a 5% chance of being a victim of some kind of violent crime or major theft. Now take out the low-risk residents in good neighborhoods and with the less risky lifestyles, and the ones left are under major threat to their safety or well-being from criminals.
There’s a reason why Detroit’s population has crashed. And there’s more than enough reason for a law-abiding citizen to want to be armed in such an environment.
The RCMP are armed with handguns, and they have long guns in their cruisers. In this case, the guy sniped them with a hunting rifle. The police were responding to a family dispute that got called in by someone because the husband was going crazy. One officer got out of his car and was almost immediately shot from a distance. The other accidentally left his revolver in the car and sprinted for the woods, but apparently turned around when he saw a little girl running across the farmyard. The gunman then shot him twice and killed him - again from a distance. The killer’s name was Stanley Wilfred Robertson if you want to look it up. He was found with the officer’s weaponry on him.
You contrast Detroit (and further break down Detroit by worse/riskier neighbourhoods and so on) with New York, and conclude that Detroit’s violent crime rate is high enough to reasonably warrant being armed. Does this mean that you would say different for New York? Or for an alternative, less at-risk-of-crime area of Detroit?
I have to admit, to me, your story seems like a strange one to bring up. Anecdotes aren’t data, but I know you mean it not for that but presumably just as as illustrative example of what gun ownership meant to your family and to yourself personally as a child that time. But to me, that seems like a story where gun ownership meant that a crazed person could murder two armed police officers, take their own weapons, and escape into the local area; a story in which gun ownership meant that your family felt safer (albeit with no actual additional safety), from a threat also enabled by gun ownership.
I certainly don’t deny the importance to you of the additional feeling of safety at your family’s ability to arm themselves. But as an anecdote to illustrate that kind of thing, it falls a little flat for me. I’ll readily confess that I am likely more pro-gun-control than you are, so very possibly it’s just bias on my part, but to me that’s a story that portrays gun ownership as having had quite a lot of negative affects with the one positive being that you unnecessarily felt safer. Solely in that one example, of course.
He was a farmer, using a hunting rifle. There is no conceivable gun control legislation that would deprive farmers and hunters of standard hunting rifles - not in Canada, and not in the U.S.
The point about the violent crime in Detroit, and more specifically about someone who may have no choice but to live and work in a dangerous area, is that you cannot extrapolate your own experience and assume that everyone else is in the same situation. And it’s not necessarily about the neightborhood. A woman under threat from a stalker or an abusive ex, a person who has fallen on the wrong side of a criminal element, there are endless ways in which people could find themselves in a situation where a gun is a significant comfort and/or means of safety.
Maybe where you live everyone gets training but the number of concealed carry permits in Virginia outstrip the number of people who attend classes by several orders of magnitude.
The odds of being shot to death are MUCH MUCH higher than the odds of being the victim of a mass shooting. Like a hundred times higher. Still the chances of needing that gun in every day situations is pretty small for most people.
I rarely jump into these discussions on guns because on I believe on this topic more than any other, folks are looking for affirmation not information.
But having said that, it seems that your argument is a bit disingenuous because you state that people need guns for protection because of crime, murder in this case.
But what you don’t address is that nationwide in 2013, 70% of the murders were committed with guns. With this considered, it seems like your argument is we need more guns because of all the guns we have now. Not sure where that logic takes us. Or are you in the camp that says “guns save lives?”
Or more to the point, when we arguing for more (or the same amount of guns) to protect ourselves, do we need to address or acknowledge that the majority of murders that we are using guns to protect ourselves from, are caused by guns in the first place? Or should we just not bring this up?
That’s funny, because I haven’t heard you say ANY reason why you want to carry a gun around.
This is just poor argument for the sake of argument, sort of like the “large” debate.
NRA statements and promotional information regarding guns may not be reliable? THE HELL YOU SAY!
You say you live in California, where you are not allowed to carry a weapon around. If it is SO unsafe to be without a weapon while you are out in public, how do you even leave your house?
Side note: I wasn’t avoiding this discussion, only the benefit of it dropped to below where I would want to continue it. Namely, because I left work, and have better things to do at home then arguing a subject I really don’t care that much about on a message board with strangers. But I’m back at work now, so yay! The cool thing is your tax dollars are paying me to argue with you on this message board, so it’s win-win for me!
How is that possible? The concealed carry permit in Virginia requires that the applicant demonstrate proof of competence with a handgun. There are a number of ways an applicant may demonstrate such competence, including, inter alia, completing an education or safety course approved by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries; completing the National Rifle Association firearms safety or training course; completing a firearms safety or training course available to the general public offered by a law-enforcement agency, junior college, college, or private or public institution or organization or firearms training school utilizing instructors certified by the National Rifle Association or the Department of Criminal Justice Services; completing a law-enforcement firearms safety or training course or class offered for security guards, investigators, special deputies, or any division or subdivision of law enforcement or security enforcement; presenting evidence of equivalent experience with a firearm through participation in organized shooting competition or current military service or proof of an honorable discharge from any branch of the armed services; or previous certification as a law enforcement officer.
I am very interested in your claim that there are several orders of magnitude separating concealed carry permit holder numbers from those who have attended classes. Assuming “several” means at least two, that means there are, according to you, at least 100 times more permit holders than class attendees. If there are 400,000 permit holders, in other words, you assert that of those no more than 4,000 have attended classes and 396,000 have not.
Watch a video, answer some ridiculously easy question about gun safety, pay them the money and apply for your conceal carry permit.
Folks who do not handle guns on a somewhat regular basis will do things like carry their firearm with their finger inside the trigger guard. Its probably the one bad habit that everyone starts off with.
So for the purposes of this discussion, I’ll agree that the online course is not a “class” and that people who qualify with this method did not attend class.
The online course has only been permitted since 2009.
And again, your claim: “…the number of concealed carry permits in Virginia outstrip the number of people who attend classes by several orders of magnitude.”
You have shown, at best, that since 2009 it’s possible to use an online video presentation that does not count as a class. All permit holders prior to 2009 attended classes. Are you suggesting that since 2009, several orders of magnitude more people have obtained permits than in all the prior years using the online training option?
Would that not also be true of the guns that your family owned, too? I admit to naivety when it comes to detailed gun knowledge, but it seems like the guns you mention as belonging to your family would be considered hunting weapons, too (only one as what I’d call a “rifle”, but over here in the UK a shotgun of that sort wouldn’t necesssarily be uncommon for a farmer for much the same purposes).
When you say there’s no conceivable gun control legislation, do you mean that no possible law could be written, or that no possible law could be made into law, or that no possible law would get enough popular support, or that no possible law could actually be enforceable? Or all or some or some other meanings?
But the same standard, though, there would seem to be endless ways in which people could find themselves in a situation where a gun is a significant aid to their threatening or dangerous behaviour, too. A woman under threat but who could have a gun can change the situation, but so too could a stalker or an abusive ex who could have a gun. Those particular threats also seem like examples of people who would not necessarily have access to law-evading gun ownership in particular, assuming a situation with strong gun control.
It’s been a long time, but I sure don’t remember the NRA Hunter Safety course being any longer than a day. In the military, I got a couple hours in the classroom and a half day on the range. There’s a few things that aren’t intuitive, but it’s all pretty easy. None of this was associated with concealed carry, just grab a gun off the wall and head out to shoot things.
I agree. That online course is, in my view, insufficient to adequately train a person for concealed carry.
I just don’t believe even a majority of current holders used online courses, given their somewhat recent adoption, and I certainly am confident that degrees of magnitude are not involved. Many permit holders supply proof of competency from prior military service, for example.
But as long as we’re past the “several degrees of magnitude,” claim, I’m good.
