Why do mass shootings only happen in the US?

Great Debates
121

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
Geez…read the thing! I am not parsing anything. That cite DOES give us exactly the number of accidents caused by drunk drivers (highlighting mine again):
[/QUOTE]

I DID read it…and I quoted the relevent part (that you failed to quote in your own post). All what you quoted says is that 57% of those drivers were OVER the .08 g/dl limit…it doesn’t say what percentage of them were AT .08, or .07…nor how many were counted at the .01 level you used. Reading the unquoted part of your own cite they SEEM to be saying that most of the drivers were ‘drunk’:

Bolding mine.

As I said earlier, I acknowledge I said ‘drunk’ and that is a subjective term…so I concede that your use above .08 g/dl is a reasonable interperetation of what I said. A better way to say what I MEANT was ‘alchohol related’ instead of the more subjective ‘drunk driver’. I think that using the above .08 level would be fairly imprecise in a lot of cases, depending on how quickly rescue workers arrived (and if the crash was instantly fatal to the intoxicated driver), individual metabolism, and individual capacity. YMMV, and obviously you are going to look at the stats in the way that sheds best light on your arguement.

You don’t happen to be a sea lawyer do you? :stuck_out_tongue:

As even the 8k figure is fairly close to your cite for the (unparsed) stats for firearms related murders in 2001 (I note that this cite was for 2004…the parsed stat for 2001 being unavailable, but the raw stat was nearly a thousand deaths higher…16,694 vs 17,400. One wonders how the murder rate related to firearms fell or didn’t fall in a similar time period…) whether you wish to ban the car now as well. I mean, we are talking about the mere difference (if we disregard the pesky ‘alchohol related’ bits) of a little over 3000 deaths. A drop in the bucket statistically speaking considering the total number of deaths per year in the US.

-XT

122

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]

After that you have what? Protecting yourself from bad guys? Curious how often that actually works.

[/QUOTE]

The National Crime Vicimization Survey in '94 listed 108,000 defensive uses of a gun per year.*

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
Frankly this discussion should happen each and every of the 11,000+ times a year this happens in this country.
[/QUOTE]

Fair enough, with the stipulation that each and every of the 100,000+ defensive uses gets the same airtime.

Or, alternately, that 192,989,000 guns in this country were NOT involved in a death during a given year.

*From here I used the conservative 108,000 per year rather than the millions-per-year because the methodology used to get 108,000 eliminated the potential false positives of the other surveys.

123

[QUOTE=xtisme]
I DID read it…and I quoted the relevent part (that you failed to quote in your own post). All what you quoted says is that 57% of those drivers were OVER the .08 g/dl limit…it doesn’t say what percentage of them were AT .08, or .07…nor how many were counted at the .01 level you used. Reading the unquoted part of your own cite they SEEM to be saying that most of the drivers were ‘drunk’:
[/quote]

Indeed they did. “Most” for 2004 was 57%.

And AT .08 is legally drunk…you need to be lower than that to not get in trouble. Below that you are not legally drunk so will not be counted in the 8000+ figure.

You are equating a drunk driver with a murderer. While I tend to be of the opinion that a drunk driver is approaching the level of a murderer if they kill someone I can’t quite put them on the same plane. Massively bad judgement and recklessness should see them to jail for a looong time but that does not put them in the same ballpark as the guy who rampaged through a college campus and killed 30+ people.

Again, when you see people using cars as offensive weapons on a regular basis we can revisit this. Indeed if you follow the 2001 link in my cite they state that 2,300 anti-drunk driving laws were passed since 1980. I have showed more people are killed by firearms than drunk drivers. I wonder how many anti-gun laws were passed in the same timeframe?

124

[QUOTE=BlakeTyner]
The National Crime Vicimization Survey in '94 listed 108,000 defensive uses of a gun per year.*
[/quote]

For some reason my PC locks when I try to open your linked PDF file so I cannot read it.

Of those 108,000 how many were police?

In how many of those was the gun the only thing preventing whatever it was the person was defending themself against (could they have run, used baseball bat, punched the aggressor, maced them, cried for help, etc.)?

Somehow people in other countries where guns are illegal manage just fine and are not overrun by marauding bad guys. Most people I know do not own a gun (illegal in my city) and manage fine.

Fine but in 1994 for your 108,000 defensive uses guns accounted for 17,866 homicides. That does not even count injuries or accidents. Just flat out dead people. So at what price are you buying your “safety”? As mentioned how many of those 108,000 defensive uses would have resulted in a bad outcome had they not had a gun? Certainly some but all of them? Doubtful.

And counting the number of guns not involved in crimes is a dubious number. So what if there were a billion out there? If someone is going to shoot someone they will use one gun even if they have 100 at home (I suppose a few might carry more than one but you get my drift).

125

Obviously the first step before asking why mass shootings occur more frequently in the U.S. is proving that it does happen more often, per capita.

But a more curious question is, “Why schools particularly?”

Blaming it all on the easy availability of guns is a smokescreen, in my opinion, because adults have far greater access to guns than do school students, and yet we hear far more about school-related violence than, say, a nutsoid with a pair of handguns shooting up his co-workers. If it’s entirely and exclusively about guns and gun control, workplace shootings should be about triple the number of school shootings, given that there are easily three times as many workers as students.

But there aren’t that many workplace shootings, are there? So what’s the balancing factor?

Could it be that the speculation about over-medicated children is correct? With children on antidepressants like Zoloft and Luvox, that have clear medical risks of depersonalization and suicide, I think blaming it all on “gun culture” is simplistic. America also has a culture of pill-popping: if there’s something wrong with your precious baby, if your child isn’t a bright-eyed alert A-student, then medicate him. Is this prevalent in Europe?

126

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
And AT .08 is legally drunk…you need to be lower than that to not get in trouble. Below that you are not legally drunk so will not be counted in the 8000+ figure.
[/QUOTE]

‘legally drunk’ is a fairly arbitrary demarkation…and has little to do with actual impairment. Unless you feel that the alchohol does not have any measurable effect between the .08 and .07 levels across the board for all humans.

But fine…I already conceded the point so lets move on, ehe?

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
You are equating a drunk driver with a murderer.
[/QUOTE]

Actually I’m not…though I suppose a good case could be made to equate the two. My point is we live in a technological society. Many of the technologies we use are also dangerous to a small percentage of citizens. We like energy for instance…say coal. Over all this is a good thing…a necessary thing. Yet the mining of coal kills thousands of workers each year. The burning of coal (and the bi-products of said burning) also has a non-zero probability of adversely effecting some number of citizens.

We like to drive cars…and yet, driving our cars, thousands of us are killed each year. In the US, we feel that personal possession of a firearm is a right…and yet thousands of us die each year due to firearms.

You are SUBJECTIVELY making a determination which tool is or is not useful to society…i.e. you (seemingly) feel the gun is NOT a useful tool in the hands of a citizen. And you base this on (IMHO poorly defined in your cite) probability statistics for over an over all death rate due to firearms…and your own subjective evaluation of the gun as useless. I was merely pointing out that the car, another modern tool, ALSO has a high probability of killing thousands of citizens (higher than the gun, depending on how we parse the data :wink: ), and can be misused irresponsibly to kill…and you have as little or no control over those deaths as you do over someone going on a rampage with a gun.

As I said above, you have the ILLUSION of control…but the reality is that in the end you are basically in the hands of pure chance wrt some other maniac running around drunk at the wheel. I think this is why people are more comfortable driving than flying…because while the probability of being killed in a plane is vanishingly small, while the probability of being killed in a car is actually fairly high, its that illusion of control that makes us more comfortable. We FEEL we are in control, so we (incorrectly) assess the risk as lower. Same with shootings like the OP…or some obscure disease. We FEEL we AREN’T in control (we aren’t), so the risk seems higher…because the perceived lack of control makes it seem more frieghtening.

Probability wise you are much more likely to be killed by that maniac at the wheel in fact than you are by a gun (unless you live in very high risk areas wrt firearms deaths…unlike drunk driving, firearms murders aren’t relatively uniform across the country but are more concentrated).

That said, a similar case can be made about the subjective usefulness of the car…such as the Amish example I noted earlier. Another example might be an extreme environmentalist who could rightfully claim that the car is unnecessary (from his point of view), and is damaging to the entire world when taken en masse. Global warming, air pollution (which causes some non-zero amount of deaths per year as well), toxic waste (as things like oil and gas seep into ground water), etc…not to mention things like being beholden to places like the Middle East (and the national commitment that puts on a country like the US militarily and economically).

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
While I tend to be of the opinion that a drunk driver is approaching the level of a murderer if they kill someone I can’t quite put them on the same plane.
[/QUOTE]

Well, as I said above, it wasn’t the point I was making. I am curious though how you can say that someone knowingly driving while intoxicated (after being bombarded for years about how driving drunk kills) is different from someone who uses a gun while under the influence of drugs or alchohol…which I assume is a non-zero number of those you listed in your second cite? At a guess a rather high percentage (perhaps the majority) of those murders were ALSO under the effects of some intoxicant or other? Since we never saw THOSE figures parsed, there is probably no way to tell…but I’m guessing its more than a few.

Which brings us to another ‘modern’ ‘tool’…alchohol. :wink: Perhaps we should ban that, ehe? I hear its been tried…

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
Again, when you see people using cars as offensive weapons on a regular basis we can revisit this.
[/QUOTE]

Why? I don’t see the relevence of the distinction myself. Why does ‘offensive’ matter? What does it have to do with anything?

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
I have showed more people are killed by firearms than drunk drivers.
[/QUOTE]

You showed that only by parsing your own data on the one hand…and using raw data on the other. I’m fairly confident that the number of folks killed by firearms could similarly be parsed to lower the absolute totals…say, just take away anyone who WAS fully under the influence of some intoxicant, or those killed in self defense. But if you wish to claim victory for this, be my guest. :stuck_out_tongue:

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
I wonder how many anti-gun laws were passed in the same timeframe?
[/QUOTE]

Who cares? The REAL results would be…how much has the number of deaths due to drunk driving or fire arms increased or decreased in those timeframes.

I’m at work and can’t do any lookups (if someone has the stats for firearms deaths from 2001 on it would be helpful), but using your own cites we see that firearms related deaths went from 17,986 in 1991 to 11,671 in 2001 (I assume the trend continued). That makes about 6000 less deaths per year (as of 2001). From your drunk driving stats site we get 20,159 in 1991 to 17,400 alchohol related deaths in 2001…giving us about 3000 less deaths a year.

You tell me…which has been more effective looking at the data?

-XT

127

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
For some reason my PC locks when I try to open your linked PDF file so I cannot read it.

Of those 108,000 how many were police?

[/Quote]

None. I’ve no idea about police statistics, just civilian.

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
In how many of those was the gun the only thing preventing whatever it was the person was defending themself against (could they have run, used baseball bat, punched the aggressor, maced them, cried for help, etc.)?
[/QUOTE]

No clue. In fact, there isn’t a breakdown of how many times a gun was actually fired in that statistic; only that one was drawn in defense of self or property. There’s probably a fair number of criminals who retreat once the gun is brandished, but relying on a gun as a deterrent is dangerous, and not something I’m willing to do. If I feel threatened enough to draw, I’ve already decided to pull the trigger. If the thug turned tail immediately and ran, I wouldn’t shoot him in the back, mind you.

I do agree that a gun should be the last line of defense, but I also know how fast a determined person can rush me and overpower me, even if I have a baseball bat. When I took my Concealed Handgun License class, it was demonstrated to us exactly how fast a person can cover 20 feet and knock you on your tail.

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]

Somehow people in other countries where guns are illegal manage just fine and are not overrun by marauding bad guys. Most people I know do not own a gun (illegal in my city) and manage fine.

[/Quote]

Likewise, most people I know own guns and there’s no blood running through the streets. If one compares, say, California to Texas, it’s pretty interesting. Both big states with big populations, but radically different gun laws. Here, we can get a license to carry on our person, own standard-capacity magazines as well as just about any semi-automatic weapon, carry a gun in our vehicle without a license, we’ll have Castle Doctrine as of September 1, etc. California has very strict gun laws (admittedly I’m not as familiar with them as I am with my own state’s). If guns and the gun culture was the problem, Texas would have MUCH higher crime rates, no?

2005 numbers from here

Population:
California - 36,132,147
Texas - 22,859,968

Violent Crimes:
California - 190,178
Texas - 121,091

Property Crimes:
California - 1,200,532
Texas - 990,293

Murder:
California - 2,503
Texas - 1,407

Forcible Rape:
California - 9,392
Texas - 8,511

Robbery:
California - 63,622
Texas - 35,790

Aggravated Assault:
California - 114,661
Texas - 75,383

So I’m just as safe (if not safer) in the “gun crazy” state of Texas as I am in California, which has gun laws far more stringent than Texas. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I feel just as safe as you do; I’m surrounded by guns and you’re not, so apparently the guns themselves aren’t the problem.

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]

Fine but in 1994 for your 108,000 defensive uses guns accounted for 17,866 homicides. That does not even count injuries or accidents. Just flat out dead people. So at what price are you buying your “safety”? As mentioned how many of those 108,000 defensive uses would have resulted in a bad outcome had they not had a gun? Certainly some but all of them? Doubtful.

And counting the number of guns not involved in crimes is a dubious number. So what if there were a billion out there? If someone is going to shoot someone they will use one gun even if they have 100 at home (I suppose a few might carry more than one but you get my drift).
[/QUOTE]

Like I said earlier, I have no idea how many of those 108,000 uses actually involved pulling the trigger at all.

If XXX number of people were shot and killed while breaking into people’s homes, I’m fine with whatever number XXX represents. Likewise if they’re shot while trying to rape, assault, or any other crime that the law deems justifiable for deadly force. There’s more men that need killin’ than horses need stealin’.

Accidental deaths, of ALL types, are tragic. But why do we hold the accidental gun deaths to a different standard? In every single case, a gun safe was either left open or not used at all, a gun lock was not secured, proper storage was not maintained. But, for me, an accidental gun death is no different than an accidental pool death. There are people dead that shouldn’t be. I’m not calling to ban swimming pools because kids fall into them and drown. Likewise cars and everything else.

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]

So at what price are you buying your “safety”?

[/QUOTE]

Cars and swimming pools. At what price are we buying our convenience?

[Quote=Whack-a-Mole]
And counting the number of guns not involved in crimes is a dubious number. So what if there were a billion out there? If someone is going to shoot someone they will use one gun even if they have 100 at home (I suppose a few might carry more than one but you get my drift).
[/QUOTE]

Okay, how about this. Let’s say there are 18,000 firearm deaths per year. For simplicity, we’ll say that’s 18,000 firearm owners that somehow caused a death.

Today, 49.3 firearm owners caused a death.
Today, 64,999,950.7 firearm owners did not cause a death.

That’s a pretty stark comparison. We probably have some vaccines that kill at a higher ratio than that, but are still FDA approved.

Anyway, Whack-a-Mole, I like you. I’m not trying to call you out or anything. I understand that you have your views, and those views will likely not change. At the end of the day, I see gun ownership as my constitutional right. Revoking it, or limiting it, is the same to me as revoking the right to have this discussion. It’s my sincere belief that the 2nd Ammendment is the only one that guarantees the rest of them. I wish everyone agreed with me, but I know that’s unrealistic.

Respectfully yours,
BT

128

[QUOTE=Polerius]
There are guns available in many other countries, but you rarely, if ever, hear about people going on a shooting rampage during peacetime in countries other than the US.

Why is that?
[/QUOTE]

Because in most other countries wholesale murder is a government monopoly.

129

[QUOTE=The Librarian]
From my (Dutch/European) viewpoint I am totally bewildered by the American approach to guns. Why do you think you are in any way safer with as many instruments of death as possible around you? Your homiciderates are twice that of the next developed country and you still think you need to sell guns in the supermarket?

Martin Hyde; How come you need so many words to make a simple point? Maybe to create some room to hide the BS?

[/QUOTE]

You honestly can’t expect me to accept these arguments. You think that the ~11,671 gun homicides that happened in the United States in 2001 are entirely attributable to guns? That none of those homicides would have happened sans the murderer having a gun?

I doubt you believe that. If you’re going to stipulate some of them would have happened anyway, how do you differentiate. Should we go through all 11,671 cases and then have a panel of criminologists, and other experts in the field analyze whether or not those murders would have happened without guns? The U.S. has more bludgeoning and stabbing murders per capita than most other Western countries too, if it was all about guns, why is our murder rate, even sans-gun murders, higher?

If you, or others, think we should ban guns, why not alcohol?

In 2001 there were 802 accidental gun deaths, 11,671 gun homicides, and 16,869 gun suicides. That’s a total of 29,342 gun deaths.

In 2001 there were 12,207 cirrhosis deaths in which alcohol was listed a factor in the cirrhosis (about 1200 non-alcohol cirrhosis and 14,000 in which the cirrhosis cause was not specified), and 17,400 alcohol related traffic crash fatalities. That’s a total of at minimum 29,607 deaths in 2001 from alcohol. ASSUMING of course, that all gun homicides and ALL gun suicides were murders/suicides that would not have happened if a gun wasn’t present (which one can’t really assume–can you?)

130

[QUOTE=Burton]
There’s no reason whatsoever for a hunter to require a semi automatic weapon. There’s certainly no reason whatsover for extended clips.
[/QUOTE]

There’s absolutely no reason for alcohol consumption, which in 2001 killed nearly 30,000 Americans (roughly the same number of total gun deaths.)

There’s also absolutely no reason for tobacco consumption, which according to the CDC is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.. Killing an estimated 438,000 people every year, that’s more people in one year than die from guns in a decade. And 38,000 of those deaths are deaths from second hand smoke–which is more than guns kill every year.

131

[QUOTE=Honesty]
Of course they don’t. But let’s be clear: Guns are weapons specifically designed to kill and injure others. Guns are so well-designed that even kids can pick them up and use them with relative ease. The use of a gun requires relatively no skill or formal training.
[/QUOTE]

Lord knows it takes skill for a kid to light up a cigarette or open a bottle of liquor.

132

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Well, as I said above, it wasn’t the point I was making. I am curious though how you can say that someone knowingly driving while intoxicated (after being bombarded for years about how driving drunk kills) is different from someone who uses a gun while under the influence of drugs or alchohol…which I assume is a non-zero number of those you listed in your second cite? At a guess a rather high percentage (perhaps the majority) of those murders were ALSO under the effects of some intoxicant or other? Since we never saw THOSE figures parsed, there is probably no way to tell…but I’m guessing its more than a few.
[/quote]

I view the drunk driver as criminally negligent and as I said I think they approach the status of a murderer (if they kill someone) and should be punished accordingly. A legal eagle will have to swing by and tell me why I think the notion of you just walking up to me on the street and blowing my head off with a gun seems more abhorrent than you plowing into me with your car while driving drunk. In the end though it is splitting hairs in my view…both should go to jail for a long time.

As for banning alcohol you are correct that it is a wasted effort as history shows but I would be all for more stringent drunk driving laws. Not playing favorites here…if you want to drink fine but be responsible or face the consequences (consequences which I think should be even more severe than they are currently).

Drop the word “offensive” if you like and just keep the word “weapon”. If you use your car as a weapon and run someone down then you are in the same category to my mind as if you had shot the victim dead instead. My point being you just do not see people often using a car as a weapon…certainly nowhere near people using guns as their means to take someone out.

I will because I think it is you getting creative with the numbers. Even if we use the larger number firearm homicides was still larger. We know from the article that the larger number used in alcohol related car deaths is not that high. For the firearm deaths I used only homicides which are by definition crimes. Not accidents, not self defense, not suicides but criminal actions. If we include all other related firearm deaths as you wish to do with the cars of course that number rises as well.

And I do not see the relevance of somehow pardoning a gun user who shoots while intoxicated. Certainly being intoxicated is an aggravating circumstance for the person driving the car and kills someone. I have no idea if it makes the charges worse against the gun user but I cannot see how it would lighten the criminal penalties against them either.

We do not have enough data here to know why crime and drunk driving has lessened over the past few years. Probably a result of many factors. My point is that the government, addressing a perceived problem in drunk driving that caused fewer (ok…we’ll say roughly the same) deaths per year tried to pass laws to address it. Were those laws effective? Maybe…I can’t tell from just these numbers. But if they went after drunk drivers that are such a menace why not regulate firearm use more as the damage done is in the same ballpark?

133

A gun serves no other purpose than to kill or injure. You can’t compare a gun to a car or a knife because those things are not made to be used as a weapon.
When I tell people from other nations that you can buy a rifle at Wal-Mart (but not beer), often they are shocked and appalled. America’s love affair with firearms is definitely a factor in these mass murders. It’s just too easy to buy a gun in the US. In Cho’s native South Korea, it would be virtually impossible to acquire a gun, legally or illegally. Even mobsters fight with knives and baseball bats.

134

If you take total gun deaths, which is what I did, in 2001 you have 29,342.

That includes accidents, homicides, and suicides.

The total number of crash fatalities in the United States in 2001 was 42,196. So, yes, if you include all non-alcohol related fatalities you get a higher number than the alcohol related fatality number of 17,400 in 2001–and of course if you include ALL gun deaths you get a higher number than just including homicides.

But doing that, the total aggregate still bears out the fact that cars are more dangerous than guns.

I’m not really sure why it is significant one way or the other as to whether or not a particular gun death was accidental, malicious, suicide, et cetera versus an automobile death being accidental, alcohol related, or et cetera. Either way, we’re talking about risk to society, not the morality of the act involved. And cars are a bigger risk to society than guns.

Alcohol is at least as big a risk to society when you factor in all the deaths from cirrhosis plus the deaths from alcohol related crash fatalities (which is not just persons who are DUI–that really shouldn’t be the issue, we’re not talking about alcohol related crimes we’re talking about alcohol related deaths.)

Tobacco is a much larger threat to society than hand guns, and it has a bigger death toll (38,000 per year) of “innocent victims” from second hand smoke than do guns (11,000 or so homicides as of 2001.)

To be honest, I view guns as an essential element of liberty and attempts to dissuade me from that point are wasted effort. However, I have another reason to take serious issue with the gun control crowd, I think it takes the spotlight off of what’s really important and puts it on what is not.

Guns aren’t the issue, the issue is we live in a culture that for a host of reasons we don’t really understand is much more murderous than other cultures. Now, rates of things like assault, sexual assault, and et cetera actually are not that different in the United States versus other countries (several other countries like Canada have at various times had a higher rate of sexual assault.)

We need to try and figure out why, from the year 1993-2001 we had an average annual rate of 2,406 murders with a knife or other sharp instrument.

Why we had an annual rate of 823 murders with a blunt object, 492 murders with any “other weapon” and 767 murders with “no weapon.”

In the period 1998-2000 Japan had around 650 murders per year (of all type.) The U.S. had 4500 non-gun murders. Even if we make the ridiculous assumption that ALL gun homicides wouldn’t have happened without a gun, we still have the problem of having ~2.35 times as many people as Japan but around 7 times as many murders (discounting gun murders!)

135

[QUOTE=r4nd0mNumb3rs]
A gun serves no other purpose than to kill or injure. You can’t compare a gun to a car or a knife because those things are not made to be used as a weapon.
When I tell people from other nations that you can buy a rifle at Wal-Mart (but not beer), often they are shocked and appalled. America’s love affair with firearms is definitely a factor in these mass murders. It’s just too easy to buy a gun in the US. In Cho’s native South Korea, it would be virtually impossible to acquire a gun, legally or illegally. Even mobsters fight with knives and baseball bats.
[/QUOTE]

What purpose does alcohol or tobacco serve, really? They have no practical use, are used because “people like it” (just like sportsmen use guns) and both cause many fatalities–tobacco more than guns and alcohol combined FWIW.

136

[QUOTE=r4nd0mNumb3rs]
A gun serves no other purpose than to kill or injure.
[/QUOTE]

Even if I accept this at face value (I don’t)…so what? Again you are making a purely subjective determination of value based on your own assessment. An automobile serves only one purpose…that of transportation. A gun (according to you) serves only one purpose…to kill. Who decides which tool serves a more important or useful purpose to society? You? Me? Some outsider? The citizens who make up a country?

[QUOTE=r4nd0mNumb3rs]
You can’t compare a gun to a car or a knife because those things are not made to be used as a weapon.
[/QUOTE]

You state this as if you are saying something. Again, you are making a subjective measurement of value. To YOU ‘weapon’ is less useful, less valuable to a society than a tool that does ‘transport’ or one that is all purpose (like a knife).

[QUOTE=r4nd0mNumb3rs]
When I tell people from other nations that you can buy a rifle at Wal-Mart (but not beer), often they are shocked and appalled.
[/QUOTE]

I assume you mean Europeans by and large (though you mentioned South Korea so maybe you mean countries on the Pacific Rim…or maybe you just mean Korean’s). When I tell people in THIS nation that you can get certain types of proscribed porn (or that minors can get it), or drugs, or beer for minors in other countries, THEY are appalled. They, you, and your Euro buddies (or whoever else) are making purely subjective assessments based on their own cultural and or national backgrounds. Who is ‘right’? Who is ‘wrong’? Who decides? I can tell you that my own assessment is obviously going to be different than your own, at least wrt the ‘value’, ‘usefulness’ and necessity of personal firearms ownership to society (at least to AMERICAN society). :stuck_out_tongue:

[QUOTE=r4nd0mNumb3rs]
In Cho’s native South Korea, it would be virtually impossible to acquire a gun, legally or illegally. Even mobsters fight with knives and baseball bats.
[/QUOTE]

Thats great…for South Korea. Of course, they DO die quite a bit (or did anyway…I remember the 80’s…) by those knives, baseball bats and even guns. Do the students still riot every year in the capital? I haven’t been to Korea in decades…but I have less than fond memories of this seemingly anual national past time.

The point being, again, that you are attempting to make value judgements based on your own (or someone else’s) subjective evaluation. The US has its own unique history…which has been intertwined with the personal weapon in the form of a gun. We have tradition and history behind this…it cuts to the very core of the founding of the country in fact. Korea (North OR South) does NOT have a similar tradition of personal arms ownership by its citizens for a similar period of time. Just guessing (well, no I’m not…I’ve been there) but they have some traditions that would look strange to us, and would even be hazardous to their citizens, but that the majority of them would ALSO be loath to give up simply because other countries would look down their nose at it. There are a LOT of such traditions in other nations…some are rational, some are (to outsiders at least) not so rational.

-XT

137

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
What purpose does alcohol or tobacco serve, really? They have no practical use, are used because “people like it” (just like sportsmen use guns) and both cause many fatalities–tobacco more than guns and alcohol combined FWIW.
[/QUOTE]

Alcohol or tobacco is not made and processed for the purpose of inflicting violence. It serves the purpose of recreation and all the nasty side-effects are just that, side-effects. What else can you do with with a gun except shoot things/animals/people?

138

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
To be honest, I view guns as an essential element of liberty and attempts to dissuade me from that point are wasted effort.
[/QUOTE]

I’m really curious about this one that is often trotted out.

In what way have your guns (yours) been an essential element of your liberty? In what way has our government ever shown that the only reason they are not banging down our collective doors is fear of the armed populace? When has anyone succeeded in defending themselves from the government when they come to move them out of their home (say an eminent domain issue)? When have you seen other stable western style governments where they do not allow guns go after their populace and become an evil state?

And frankly our freedoms and liberties have been curtailed more in the last 7 years then at any time I can think of and so far not one gun has changed this.

I am not trying to be rhetorical or snarky here. I really am curious as to the answers to the above.

139

[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]

Certainly many things we do carry risks. But until you show me stats of people racing around in motor boats trying to run people over it is not the same thing. Accidents happen. If you were at a gun club target shooting accidents can happen and people could get hurt.

When you come up with stats that show motor boat homicides are on par with firearm homicides you have a point. Note “homicides”…not accidents.
[/QUOTE]

And you know, the fact that I died in an accident rather than being murdered will comfort me in the grave. :rolleyes: Dead is dead.

Booze and tobacco kill more dudes than guns do. Ban them first.

140

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Even if I accept this at face value (I don’t)…so what? Again you are making a purely subjective determination of value based on your own assessment. An automobile serves only one purpose…that of transportation. A gun (according to you) serves only one purpose…to kill. Who decides which tool serves a more important or useful purpose to society? You? Me? Some outsider? The citizens who make up a country?
You state this as if you are saying something. Again, you are making a subjective measurement of value. To YOU ‘weapon’ is less useful, less valuable to a society than a tool that does ‘transport’ or one that is all purpose (like a knife).

I assume you mean Europeans by and large (though you mentioned South Korea so maybe you mean countries on the Pacific Rim…or maybe you just mean Korean’s). When I tell people in THIS nation that you can get certain types of proscribed porn (or that minors can get it), or drugs, or beer for minors in other countries, THEY are appalled. They, you, and your Euro buddies (or whoever else) are making purely subjective assessments based on their own cultural and or national backgrounds. Who is ‘right’? Who is ‘wrong’? Who decides? I can tell you that my own assessment is obviously going to be different than your own, at least wrt the ‘value’, ‘usefulness’ and necessity of personal firearms ownership to society (at least to AMERICAN society).

[/quote]

You must have some warped “culturally values” if you think a gun’s practical worth is even comparable to that of a car. So following your logic, my subjective belief that murder is wrong would be equally laughable, right? And trying to minimize murder is absolutely absurd foreigner talk. You can tell your redneck buddies about what I said and have a good laugh about it.

You must think yourself quite clever in making light of another country’s political struggles. As an American, if you value your hobbies more than the lives of your fellow countrymen, then more power to you.