Did you mean to say that half of homicide offenders have not been convicted of a felony as an adult? Because the universe of crimes is larger than felonies committed as an adult (and I’m not sure that its true, do you have a good cite that can pinpoint this number?), but of course our background check system only picks up the adult felonies.
A lot of the higher numbers (e.g. felons committing 90% of murders) come from studies that only sampled larger metropolitan areas. Gun regulation does not seem to correlate well with low murder rate (perhaps because the places with the worst murder problems subsequently pass the most restrictive gun laws).
Now, we all know that the N.R.A. is in full support of this fine young hunter’s expression of his 2nd Amendment Rights to bear arms. And we also know that their position is the law of the land.
One can reasonably presume that the 4 year old will be given a lifetime membership in the N.R.A. and be sent home.
What are you talking about? Think of all those people that rifle - kept loaded and unlocked under the bed - has and will save! The NRA can give both four year olds little gold medals to pin on their chest, proud testimonies to their patriotic actions. Granted, they’ll have to dig six feet down to pin on one of those medals, and the chest area is really nothing much but a gaping hole of torn flesh and bone, but hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?
I try to be civil and the asshole in you comes out every time.
So table 4 says that 81% of defendants charged with murder have at least one prior arrest (I don’t know if being charged with murder is a good proxy for being guilty of murder but its all I could find).
Table 5 says that 56% had at least one prior conviction.
Table 6 says that 42% had at least one prior felony conviction.
This study included 370 murder defendants (out of perhaps 12,791 murders in 2006).
Cities like NYC and Baltimore have yielded rates of 90%+ but I think they have fairly strict gun laws in those places
And I have no agenda. I don’t have to convince anyone of anything (although I think licensing and registration would be improvements to the current situation). I’m not the one trying to amend the constitution. The overwhelming majority of Americans and their elected officials believe that private citizens should have the right to possess handguns (I would assume an even larger majority would support the right of private citizens to possess long arms (other than scary black guns).
I have woefully inadequate training to perform brain surgery, I have never botched a brain surgery.
There are brain surgeons that have botched brain surgery. Therefore, their training is even more inadequate than mine.
The fact that cops make mistakes doesn’t mean you are better trained than them.
:rolleyes:
We don’t use these sort of standards in any other context. Its a pretty fucking stupid idea but at least I see that Zeriel no longer wants to impose the death penalty if someone is accidentally killed by your gun. Second degree murder almost always has an intent requirement. In what way is this worse than running over a child while driving drunk or texting? We generally don’t charge people who have committed vehicular homicide with second degree murder unless there is some sort of intent. How is this worse than if a homeowner didn’t fence the pool and some unattended kids fell in and drowned? If your response is that we should charge them with third degree murder if second degree doesn’t make sense, then my response is that this is already the law in many [most?] places.
And before the whackos show up and say that I am excusing irresponsible gun owners or that I don’t really care that children are dying, let me just repeat that we already have laws on the books that deal with these sort of situations. You are proposing that we apply penalties for intentional murder for a death where noone intended for the death to occur.
The special treatment you apply to guns is evidence of hoplophobia. Thats not an insult but an invitation to examine your reaction to things having to do with guns.
What are you on about? What makes you think I don’t understand stats or confirmation bias? I’ve passed stats at a college level, and taught Social Psych. If you don’t think it is a fair point, bring content.
What did you “intend” when you left you loaded gun unattended and unsecured? I’d propose the same penalties for someone who left their car unlocked with the keys in the ignition if their kid stole it and hit someone, but very few people are so fucking abysmally stupid as to do that compared to the number of people who will leave a loaded gun unsecured.
It’s not. And we should adapt the penalties for same accordingly. I believe ANY kind of fucking stupid negligence should result in you being penalized as though there were intent to commit the crime.
It’s not.
Guns, like it or not, are specifically designed to kill. That makes their ownership a matter of more responsibility and more penalty when you fuck it up so abjectly that a four-year-old gets your loaded rifle and kills another kid with it.
Guns get special treatment anyway–the Second Amendment, itself, is an example of special treatment accorded to guns. So is the Second also evidence of hoplophobia, or are you prepared to retract your boneheaded statement?
That analogy doesn’t work nearly as well as you think it does.
The average cop, last I looked, shot barely enough rounds a year to maintain basic proficiency against a stationary silhouette target. A couple hundred at most, on a stationary target range.
I would not consider myself qualified to even consider carrying a pistol unless I shot something on the order of a thousand rounds on a tactical course involving moving targets and shoot/no-shoot decisions.
All of which is not near to the complexity or risk factor associated with brain surgery, which is something the average brain surgeon performs enough to maintain actual competency in the practice thereof.
If we allowed brain surgeons to practice surgery, even if they’d spent several years doing no more surgery than a few practice sessions on a cadaver per year, you’d likely have a point.
By the way, congrats on your addition to the Ted Nugent list for that ridiculous hoplophobia crack, Damuri.
Acknowledging that guns are, in fact, a purpose-built weapon and thus deserve potentially different legal consideration is not in any way indicative of either a fear of guns or a “gun grabber” nature.
Unironically linking a WorldNetDaily article is only SLIGHTLY less reputable than linking TheBlaze or the National Enquirer, after all. I’ll wait to hear about it from an actual news source.