This site is also interesting, with information aimed at people working in medicine.
http://www-medlib.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/GUNS/GUNSTAT.html
Unfortunately she’s not just ‘questioning’. She asked questions when she already knew she wouldn’t like the answers and would insult those who answered her. So why did she even bother?
According to her it seems to be using a gun. Personally, I want the best tool available to me for the job, and that certainly isn’t hand-to-hand combat against someone who is bigger and stronger than me and who is potentially armed himself.
I think she knew she’d be rudely dismissive of any answer she got when she started this thread.
I used to think I had to justify my ownership of firearms to antis like yourself. Then I realized I have nothing to justify to anyone. I want to own firearms, and it’s legal for me to do so. The only other consideration should be whether or not I’ve got the money to give to the seller.
Unfortunately like every other site put up by the antis, it doesn’t break any of the statistics down between legal and illegal owners. I think you’ll find a lot of those ‘injuries’ are drug dealers shooting each other and not dying, gang violence, and idiot criminals who hurt themselves.
…
Oh come on. This site is clearly a lot more than that, with its extensive history of firearms, discussion of ballistics and so on. You just tell yourself that because you didn’t like the graphs on the particular page I linked to.
Yup, there are sensible humans and then there are people that deserve to get shot. Keep thinking and don’t look for answers, and you’ll be fine.
blowero: I freely admit that I didn’t say what I thought I said, re: people believing that the government wants to eliminate private ownership of guns. That’s what I meant to say, and that’s what I thought I said. I thought I had changed the line, and I didn’t.
But it should have been clear that that’s what I meant when did type what I meant several times. Error on my part for forgetting to change the original line, error on your part for not perceiving what I intended after I did type the line I thought I’d typed. Fair enough?
Now…
As I have made clear, many people believe the government is out to take their guns. I posted quotes from people who believe that the government wants to take their guns. If you believe otherwise, please provide a cite.
That’s your opinion, and you have no right to dictate your opinion to other people. In my opinion, people should pursue those things that make them happy as long as those activities do not harm others. You have posted the line from the Declaration of Independence, but I asked you to define the ‘pursuit of happiness’. You didn’t.
It seems that you are incapable of understanding that gun owners can be non-violent. I’m the second- or third-most non-violent person I know. Gun ownership does not equal penis issues or a desire to kill things or a violent temper.
Frankly, this is all getting very boring. I have better things to do.
If you hate guns so much, I’ll make a deal with you. Deliver me an Aaton XTRprod camera, two magazines,two batteries, video tap, matte box, Zeiss 11-100mm zoom (or a Cooke zoom), cables, charger and cases. I’ll deliver to you my entire collection of firearms. You can turn them over to whoever you turn unwanted guns to, make a big sculpture out of them, or throw them in the ocean; and I’ll do my shooting with the camera. Okay?
If you don’t want to do that, then leave my guns alone.
Where did she say that? See this is the cognitive disconnect that I see from those who are anti-gun all the fucking time, and it doesn’t make sense. Criminals are going to use guns to hurt and kill other people no matter what the law says, people who legally own guns are not, so it doesn’t matter what laws you pass, criminals are going to ignore them anyway. They are criminals. That’s what they do. It’s not about “deserving” to get shot, whose ass did you pull that out of? You can quote all of the statistics you want, and if it doesn’t break things down by legal and illegal gun use, it’s impossible to tell what effect stricter gun control laws will have. (hint: the only stats affected will be the ones that apply to the legal use of guns)
Arwin,
I’ll have a better question. Last week, a drug dealer, Tater Tot, shot a drug addict, Sweet Pea, in west Baltimore over a $20 drug debt. Craft me a law that would prevent this from happening. ( A new law, obviously, seperate from or in addition to existing laws )
Craft me a world that would have prevented him from shanking the crackhead with a knife over a $20 drug debt.
Criminals are people like you and me, but more desperate, less educated, angrier, (temporarily) insaner etc. in a variety of configurations. Robbers are those desperate for cash for a variety of reasons, some bad some less bad (but my dad/son/wife has no health-insurance!).
Regardless. Say I own a cigar store. A sixteen year old comes robbing me. I don’t like to be robbed, so I shoot him. He’s dead. He deserved to be shot, right? Except that the penalty on robbing isn’t death. Only since you happen to have a gun, and don’t feel like being robbed, it becomes so. You are right, it is a cognitive disconnect. But wait, you say, the next robber who hears about this somehow, will think twice before robbing a store. I’d say make sure you have good insurance and a camera. That way I don’t have to live with having to shoot a sixteen year old. Or a father of 2. Or someone who went through a rough patch and got hooked on dope.
Here’s a strange concept. Criminals are going to commit a crime because they have a motive for this crime, and they are desperate. That’s one of the first things that needs to be dealt with. Not properly dealing with social issues like racism, poverty, sexism, jealousy, revenge, a failing justice system; there are lots of motives for people to commit crimes.
The cognitive disconnect is in people not realising that this doesn’t change if there are more or less guns. The presence of guns has no effect on the crime, it only has an effect on the severity and consequences of the crime. The robber who heard about the shop-owner having a gun will simply take out the shop-owner first.
He still needs that money, after all. More people in the US have guns than in just about any other Western country, as the statistics show. Does that mean the US has less crime? No. Does mean more gun related deaths? Yes. Legal and illegal possession relevant? Legal possession also means that a thief will have more opportunity to own one illegally, through stealing from legal owners, stealing from gun shops, buying from gun shops under the counter, and so on.
How about making sure that the street value of a gun is worth more than $20. Combine that with decriminalising drugs and putting druggies on methadon programmes, and you might get there.
I can’t craft you a law that makes people care enough about a druggie to pass such laws though. I’d probably have to convince them that sometimes bullets pass through a feeble druggie and might hit an ‘innocent’ bystander by mistake, or something, for them to care enough.
Cry me a river, Arwin. Threaten me or mine with a deadly weapon, and get killed. I don’t give a shit what your circumstances are. By your own free will you attempted to do harm to me. You reap what you sow. Fuck “desperate.”
I said that because it, like so many other sites of its nature, tries to imply that firearms are the problem. They are not. Criminals are the problem, and laws do not stop criminals.
What the fuck are you on about now? The point I’m making is that there is no law that’s going to stop a criminal from leaving a gun he or she already illegally owns under a mattress where some other criminal’s kid will find it.
The implication that their criminal activity and irresponsibility are my problem is insulting.
Exactly. The only statistics that are relevant when discussing whether or not to abridge the freedoms of those who legally own guns are statistics that pertain to legal gun owners, and Arwin’s statistics are meaningless because they don’t make that distinction.
Lawful owners like myself are tarred when a crack addict leaves her kid in a crack house where he finds an illegally owned gun under a mattress and shoots a classmate. These are people who already do not obey the laws. Making more laws will not affect them.
And unless you were in fear for your life, you just committed a crime. If that person has a gun or a knife pointed at me, it’s a different story.
He’ll go rob a shop where the proprieter is not armed.
Again you need to separate out the eighty million of us who lawfully own firearms and look at what we’re doing with ours.
I don’t know of anywhere that you’re going to get a gun on the street for $20.
I’d be happy to he’p him, too. Many people in Government do want to take away the citizens legally owned guns - in part, or in whole.
Go look at the names in this post:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4879316&postcount=66
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA:
"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.”
" If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them: “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,” I would have done it.
PETE STARK, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA:
"If a bill to ban handguns came to the house floor, I would vote for it.”
WILLIAM CLAY, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI:
" …we need much stricter gun control, and eventually should bar the ownership of handguns"
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
“Only the police should have handguns.”
JOSEPH BIDEN, U.S. SENATOR FROM DELAWARE
“Banning guns is an idea whose time has come.”
JOHN CHAFEE, FORMER U.S. SENATOR FROM RHODE ISLAND:
“I shortly will introduce legislation banning the sale, manufacture or possession of handguns (with exceptions for law enforcement and licensed target clubs). . . . It is time to act. We cannot go on like this. Ban them!”
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM ILLINOIS:
“I believe…this is my final word…I believe that I’m supporting the Constitution of the United States which does not give the right for any individual to own a handgun…"
MAJOR OWENS, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW YORK:
“We have to start with a ban on the manufacturing and import of handguns. From there we register the guns which are currently owned, and follow that with additional bans and acquisitions of handguns and rifles with no sporting purpose.”
I accept your retraction.
Nope. It wasn’t at all clear.
Yes.
No. Don’t blame your mistakes on me.
I never asked you for a cite on that. Believe me, you don’t need to convince me that there are a lot of paranoid gun-nuts out there.
I have every right to state my opinion. It’s in that little Amendment right before the Second Amendment. Ever heard of it?
Guess you can’t read.
Why don’t you just do that anyway?
That makes no sense.
Good job. At least somebody around here understands how to back up an assertion.
I’d also point out that most of those quotes are about banning handguns, not banning guns altogether. And I don’t think I’d worry about Clinton; he only banned assault weapons, and he’s not in office anymore.
As Sarah Brady has said, handguns are only a step.
Slippery slope, eh?
It seems to me that gun ownership specifically for protection (as opposed to hunting or target-shooting as a sport) is a good example of the “Prisoner’s Dillemma” in action.
That is, the preferred solution for any given individual is that he or she owns a gun, and nobody else does; but in pursuing rational self-interest, everyone (or in reality, many) end up being armed, which is the worst solution (as any confrontation is rendered thereby more deadly).
Thus, in a society in which gun ownership for protection is legal, it makes sense to have one (assuming that you are not the type to shoot yourself with it by accident). However, such societies are likely to be more dangerous on average.
Since you’re quick to pick the nits, I’ll not that you only wanted claims of governtmental figures who wanted to ban “guns.” Handguns, obviously, are guns. You have made no distinction anywhere in this thread between the varieties of firearms until this very minute. You aksed for guns - you got guns.
I do think that had more to do with the Constitutionally mandated Presidential Term Limits than the now-defunct law passed under his watch. But you just go ahead and think what you will.
There are robberies in the parking lots of my apartment complex, at least one has been an armed robbery (we are moving later this month) and at least one home invasion. When my wife comes home from work after dark, I go and wait for her in the parking lot. We have applied for Concealed Carry licenses, but they have not yet arrived. I take one of our two handguns (holstered) with me most nights to the parking lot. I do my best to keep it uncovered without startling the neighbors, until the CCW cards arrive. But an armed robbery attempt on my wife would be met with deadly force, if that criminal’s weapon were directled at her.
In my world, Deadly Force is only acceptable to prevent imminent death or serious injury to myself, a family member or associate. Possibly a stranger, depending on circumstances. The criminal would have to show INTENT. Breaking into my apartment does not show intent. I would (if possible) show my weapon and demand the criminal stop and get on the ground (I have quite the command voice). If he complies or runs off, I would not have to clean my pistol the next day. No intent to harm me, no shooting. Clean my shorts? Yes.
If he advances or shows a weapon, then it’s off to the rags and toothbrushes and cleaning agents the next day, because that action demonstrates intent to harm or kill me, and I would respond with deadly, and accurate, force.
I have never used a weapon in my civilian life against another person, not used the threat of such use against anyone, directly anyway. We had a vandal coming into our back yard in Miami, cutting up a line he had staked in the yard to keep a pet tethered. I put a sign on the stake holding that line, saying we DID have a gun, and would use it if needed. The vandal stopped.
When my wife moved in she was not all that comfortable with the thought of the pistol in the home. We came to an agreement on how it would be stored (unloaded at the time), and I told her I would get rid of it if she were not comfortable with it in the home. I fully believe there should NOT be a gun in the home unless everyone who CAN access it is trained and confident with it.
She enjoyed shooting, though, and now has her own pistol, one that is easier for her to use. We go to the range about every six weeks or so, firing from 7 yards (I heard on Mythbusters that 70% of shootings, or fatal shootings, occur at 22 feet). We do it for the enjoyment, as mentioned several times before in this thread, and to remain proficient and comfortable in the use of the pistols in case they were ever required.
Upon further review, blowero, I misinterpreted your statement, please disregard my first paragraph.
That’s just not correct.
Once someone is going to do you physical harm and/or rob you, it’s no longer a non-zero sum game.
Attempting to recast it as if it isn’t a zero sum game is false to facts.