So I started reading through various articles based on, “gun deaths compared to knife deaths” and at first was shocked at how many knife murders there were in the UK. But then I wondered:why are there 3.6 times as many murders in the US as there are in England/Wales?
Now, when you break that down you get:
Knife murders: 4.35 vs 7.7 per million
Gun murders: 1.35 vs 38.5 per million
So it seems like knives are readily available, and represent a base murder rate. Add an over abundance of easily obtainable guns and you go from 1.35 to 38.5 murders per million.
When you tried to suggest that without guns people would just use knives, that’s what it looks like.
Well, two mistakes. The correct answer was “knives.”
And secondly, crime stats from Canada show that houses with guns are actually targets for break- ins. Or maybe that’s the result of making guns less available.
Now as a Canadian, your answer actually makes a lot of sense to me. Why would four guys break into someone’s house if they know they’re armed.
So why do home invasions still happen in the US? Why isn’t the assumption that everyone is armed? Does anyone know if break-ins are more or less likely in Canada vs the US?
Okay, here’s a new graph, we need gun ownership vs break ins. Keep in mind Switzerland has a military issued rifle in most homes, does that change the rate of break ins?
Or die yourself. Your being armed with a gun hugely increases the chance that they’ll kill you; and their being armed with one increases the chance they’ll kill you even if they don’t mean to, and makes it far harder to run away.
Guns are more lethal; it’s easy to kill someone by accident or in a moment of panic/temper with one, when if you had a knife you’d probably have just cut them or waved it at them instead. So, many of the people who kill with guns wouldn’t have killed anyone if they’d had to use knives instead.
Umm… so it becomes my fault, because if I’d just quietly handed over my money and let them rape my wife and beat me for fun, they [del]would[/del] might have spared my life? :mad: :mad: :mad:
I didn’t say anything about “fault”, I was just pointing out the obvious fact that if they know or think you have a gun, they are far more likely to shoot you out of self preservation. Even if they would be otherwise inclined to leave you unharmed. Even if all they intend to do is leave, they’d shoot you first because they can’t outrun a bullet. Guns escalate things.
Sometimes shit needs escalated. YM obviously D, but I prefer escalating things to throwing myself on the mercy of demonstrably violent criminals. There’s worse things than dying.
And as you said, there are four of them and one of you. So you kill one, the other three kill you. They skill rape your wife, take your money, AND take your stock pile of weapons to use in the NEXT BnE.
All you’ve done is show two things: criminals shouldn’t go into houses alone, and that guns won’t save you. Which makes the 2nd Amendment actually more meaningful when you consider that what you need to defend your house is a militia, not a gun.
Alright, you’ve critiqued the shit out of having a gun in such a situation. Now the same four guys kick in your door. Tell us all how you resolve the situation. Sucking dicks and hoping for the best?
But what if they have bullet proof vests? Or are martians? Or if 200 hundred gay muslims kick in your door? Or maybe they are shape shifters and look just like your neighbor? Can’t be too careful.
There is no resolve to that situation. Pretending that having a gun makes you safer is just lying to yourself.
As the stats show, if the four guys want to kill you, they will with or without a gun. Sage Rat even suggested that if they show up with knives you’re actually worse off.
And any scenario that puts a gun in your hand also puts a gun in their hands. Hell, this is actually where you need a hand grenade.
If on the other hand they are simply looking to get in, grab some stuff, and get out, I think your best option is to call the cops* and NOT confront them. You showing up in your house coat and revolver escalates the situation, making a shootout more likely.
Bank tellers are told this; don’t confront robbers, comply, do what they ask, and keep the situation calm.
So what we establish is that you having a gun doesn’t help the situation, and may actually make things worse. But the laws allowing you to have a gun also allow the four criminals to have guns.
Are there comparisons of the homicide rate with gun-control laws in the UK over the, say, last 100 years? I am admittedly ignorant of any such comparison.
After seeing the threads on gun control over the years, I am almost to the point of agreeing that trying to dramatically reduce access to guns will end up like prohibition and making marijuana illegal. I now lean towards things like tracking gun sales like we do for cars so we can trace guns used in crimes back (even indirectly) to their owners, requiring training and licensing for people carrying loaded guns in public, and so on. But then I see threads like this where paranoia rears it’s head as people talk about home invasions of 4 armed men who want to skull fuck wives, or guarding ourselves against the black helicopter crowd, and it makes me question the sanity of people opposing regulation.
We’ve "established " no such thing. You’ve simply asserted it. What tellers, clerks, and pizza delivery men are told to do has fuck all to do with their safety. It has everything to do with corporate liability reduction.
See, I’ve spent a considerable part of my life working with the dregs of society. Do everything they want you to and they may well still kill you, just for the laffs or because they think they’re eliminating witnesses. When they work in groups, the sadism quotient skyrockets. I carried a gun as a deputy sheriff and I carry one as a private citizen exactly because they are the most effective means of self-defense against stronger, more numerous opponents. You can count on their better nature if you like, or simply curl up in a ball because you think a situation is unwinnable. I’m relying on training, mental attitude, and effective weapons to carry the day for me.
Not to be snarky, but a 25% casualty rate every time they commit a B&E would quickly solve the problem.
And no, marauders couldn’t simply continue to take on lone victims one at a time; if there was that severe a brigand problem, the law-abiding people with weapons would band together for their own defense. Maybe practice tactical operations and conduct offensives against known criminal hideouts. Dare I say, form a militia? Oh wait, that’s right it’s only a militia if you’ve been drafted by the state. Otherwise you’re just a band of yahoos. :rolleyes:
So people defending themselves with arms is “escalating”? Bullshit. Bullshit! Bull-Effing-Shit! This has gone into idiot-pacifist territory.