The question is then how to go about this. IMHO the key is patience. How do we build patience in a society, that fantasizes about bigger, better, faster, and gotta have it now.
Tell that to the guys who came up with Project Exile.
Great Dave wrote:
Sorry, but this kind of caught my eye. Do you have a cite for this assertion?
Um…Have you check the public schools test record? From all indications we aren’t a pretty smart population…
Somebody mentioned something about Police “stopping crimes.”
Strictly speaking, the Supreme Court has ruled that in general, nobody has a ‘right’ to specific Police protection. Basically we are on our own. Basically, they are there to find out what happened and do the paperwork.
It’s one thing to decline to defend oneself, but it’s entirely another to deny others that fundamental right. That’s selfish, not to mention evil.
I certainly think that murder is too rare to be sufficient reason for law-abiding people to carry guns.
No. First of all, you are mistaken in thinking that 83,000+ defensive gun uses equals 83,000+ people using guns to protect themselves. A few of those gun owners must have used their guns more than once! Secondly, we have no way of knowing how many of these people could have met their defensive needs equally well without a gun. Just because someone fired a gun doesn’t mean that they actually needed to.
Finally, even if a gun was the only way for these people to protect themselves, what were they really protecting themselves from? Plenty of people would have you believe that it was from murder, and that is the particular falsehood I have been objecting to throughout this thread. Ordinary, law-abiding people are not in constant danger of being murdered. It doesn’t matter how tiny they are.
“I should be able to have a gun because if I don’t, the evil criminals might break into my house and make off with my precious Faberge egg collection” is not a position I agree with, but a good case could be made for it. What’s more, it is something that can be reasonably debated. But “I should be able to have a gun because if I don’t, the evil criminals will kill me” is not the position of a rational person (unless that person happens to be involved in organized crime or is in some other extraordinary situation). It is the position of a crazy person, or worse still a person who has chosen to substitute ridiculous exaggeration for any sort of reasoned argument.
Lamia:
That’s exactly the kind of attitude I was referring to.
“Anyone who thinks they need a gun for protection is crazy. Therefore, guns should be banned, and outlawed, etc. You can’t have one.”
Nowhere in this thread or any other have I ever said ‘I should have a gun because if I don’t, someone might kill me.’
What I have said is that I own a gun because at some point in my life I might become the target of a determined criminal. If that chance ever comes to pass, I would like to know that I have the best means available to me to defend myself from whatever harm he intends.
But, of course, that’s just the position of a crazy person. Why the hell would any rational person ever want to be prepared to handle a bad situation?
I mean after all, unless you’re a wacko who’s paranoid about dying in a horrible explosion, what reason do you have to keep a fire extinguisher in your house?
Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2000 (PDF file) from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics gives the following numbers for 2000:
Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearm: 10,417
Intentional self-harm (suicide) by discharge of firearms: 16,418
Accidental discharge of firearms: 808
Discharge of firearms, undetermined intent: 214
I see. Thank you for clarifying your position.
It is likely that a good amount of people have had to use a gun to protect themselves more than once. It doesn’t matter.
Ok, here is a fundamental problem. First, it doesn’t matter if someone could have defended themselves without a gun. The fact is, they defended themselves. There is no way to know if a baseball bat or impressive display of kung fu would have done the job instead.
Secondly, and far more importantly: you do not have to fire a gun to defend yourself with a gun. I can’t stress this enough. The gun is a palatable threat. It is a very visceral reminder of mortality. The fact that a gun has been brandished will serve as adequate defense in most cases.
Ordinary people are murdered all the time. This is a fact of life in every country on the planet. “Better safe than sorry.” “Always be prepared.” You don’t have plans in case of catastrophe because catastrophe is a common thing.
It’s the position that anyone who has survived being raped or assaulted, or who very much wants to avoid being raped, assaulted, or murdered is reasonable in having.
This link contains hundreds of news reports of people defending themselves with guns from the last two years. In most of them, someone was shot, most likely because a burglar running off when confronted with a gun doesn’t make good copy. In many of them, the person that defended themselves did so because they thought their life was in danger.
Here are some excerpts for you:
There are, unfortunately, plenty more where those came from.
Strictly speaking, you’re wrong. What the Supremes said is that you don’t have a right under federal law to sue for civil damages if the police fail to protect you from harm inflicted by a third party when maybe, all things considered, it might have been better if they had given you 24/7 protection. Not quite the same thing as “Go pound salt, ya unarmed wussy.”
Well, don’t get your panties in a wad, certainly the sentiment is correct, strictly speaking. Nowhere did I argue that the police tell anyone to “pound salt” though. Good job of twisting what I said to try and suit your purposes, though.
Another way of restating the obvious (so often necessary when arguing with nit-pickers) is to realize the Police cannot be everywhere all the time. The onus of personal protection falls on the individual. For that, I rely on firearms. I consider them a tool. It’s similar to Insurance, it’s there when you need it.
Well, it does if you are going to claim that gun possession is an essential part of self-defense. But if your claim is simply that guns are one form of self-defense among many others that may be equally effective, then I’m right with you.
Look, I’m not denying that many people feel that they are less likely to be murdered if they own a gun. But these feelings can be understandable without being reasonable, and that is the argument I am making. I am denying is that it is reasonable to live in fear that you will be murdered unless you own a gun.
You seem to have done a lot of research on this subject; have you ever found any statistical proof that gunowners are significantly less likely to be murdered than non-gunowners? I have never come across any. If it exists, I would be very interested in seeing it. If not, I think we need to consider the possibility that when it comes to protecting people’s lives, guns may serve more to provide people with a false sense of security than to really make them safe.
Thanks for backing me up there, MEBuckner. Looks like the stat I remembered didn’t include suicides, which is a whole other kettle of fish.
Meatros– I knew someone was going to call me on that. Granted, while test scores have been less than optimal, the US is still the leader in just about every category of technological development. This is the country that put 12 men on the moon. This is the home of Richard Feynman, Elvis Presley, and Denzel Washington. It tends to make one think that we could come up with a much better society if we really wanted to. Or maybe I should keep off the grass.
SPOOFE– I don’t recall Project Exile. Would you, or anyone, care to enlighten me?
Tedster– I hope that the police would rather try to prevent crime than solve it. Not fully analagous, but as a lifeguard, I try to prevent situations that would require me to get wet, instead of waiting for a full on drowning. Of course, cops have a much harder time of it than I do. Here’s an idea- why tax guns and ammo to help pay for more cops.
Lamia, why the obsession with murder? You’re the only person in the thread specifically stating ‘murder’, others are talking about other violent crimes, such as rape. Of course, if murder is so rare that no one should worry about it, then why ban guns over the even rarer murders with firearms…
Great Dave - if criminals borrowing guns from their allegedly law-abiding brothers is the main source of guns for criminals, how do you explain the massive and rising numbers of handguns being used in crimes in the UK, where private ownership of a handgun is forbidden? There aren’t any brothers for criminals to borrow guns from. And I said allegedly law-abiding since giving a gun to a felon is already a crime in the US.
Jojo, if you really believe that ‘drunken bar-room arguments and long-running meaningless feuds’ will suddenly become shootouts if gun ownership is common, why do the US states with shall-issue concealed carry permits have so much less crime than the ones without them? Shouldn’t they be like something out of an action movie, with gunfights a routine matter? If making it illegal to own guns will prevent people being shot over bar-room brawls, how do you explain that it happened in the UK in the past few weeks?
Your ‘answer’ to the problem of crime doesn’t answer how I protect myself from the crime currently existing, which is far more important to me than whether your theoretical approach might one day reduce crime. And from a combination of statistical work from people like Kleck and the fact that the UK and Australia have the highest violent crime rates in the developed world, restrictions on gun ownership increase crime rather than reduce it.
I don’t see how one can say that guns are more readily available these days than in older times; at the turn of the century, there were no restrictions on gun ownership in the UK and US - you could just mail order a gun with no more paperwork than paying the person shipping it to you. Over time, both countries have implemented more and more restrictions on guns. With the 20,000 gun laws in the US and outright handgun ban in the UK, I don’t really see how they could be ‘more available’.
Your assertion that UK gun crime would have risen more sharply had law-abiding citizens been allowed to keep their guns lacks any evidence to support it, and the simple historical fact of what happens each time after implementing gun bans directly contradicts it.
Hmm… you say that rising population means rising crime rates - yet the US popultion has not been dropping, and our violent crime rate is at a 30-year low. I think that your premise here doesn’t even pass the laugh test.
The UK violent crime rate is the second highest in the first world, behind only Australia (a less densely populated society). And not only are UK criminals using guns at a skyrocketing rate, but the ‘good guys’ (that is, police) are adding more and more armed response teams and routinely going about armed in some areas.
I’m not even going to touch on whether the US government stands a chance against a widespread revolt, that could make it’s own debate, despite the US Army’s own assessment of the (un) likelyhood of winning such a campaing.
I didn’t say it was the main source of guns for criminals. Johnny L.A. said that there are laws on the books that restrict gun ownership by criminals. My point was that they don’t work very well- maybe we should rethink our strategy. My feeling is that making it easier to get a gun in general will also make it easier for criminals to get a gun.
Meanwhile, here are some tidbits I found from the anti-gun side of the issue in Australia- some of the pro-gun side seems to believe that the Tasmania massacre of 35 people was set up by the UN as part of a nefarious plot to subjugate the free people of the world thru gun control. So, I’m going to take their stats with a grain of salt, and rely on official stats.
From here
From here
This report shows that as gun ownership has been progressively restricted since 1915, Australia’s firearm homicide rate per 100,000 population has declined to almost half its 85-year average.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics counts all injury deaths, whether or not they are crime-related. The most recently available ABS figures show a total of 437 firearm-related deaths (homicide, suicide and unintentional) for 1997. This is the lowest number for 18 years.
The Australian rate of gun death per 100,000 population remains one-fifth that of the United States.
Similar reductions in gun death and injury have been noted in several countries whose gun controls have been recently tightened.
In Canada, where new gun laws were introduced in 1991 and 1995, the number of gun deaths has reached a 30-year low.
Two years ago in the United Kingdom, civilian handguns were banned, bought back from their owners and destroyed. In the year following the law change, Scotland recorded a 17% drop in all firearm-related offences. The British Home Office reports that in the nine months following the handgun ban, firearm-related offences in England and Wales dropped by 13%.
A British citizen is still 50 times less likely to be a victim of gun homicide than an American.
And here
Australia Gun Deaths - Totals
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
Accident 30 19 30 29 24 18 20 15 30 19 21
Suicide 521 451 488 510 490 435 420 388 382 330 234
Assault 124 80 79 84 96 64 79 67 104 79 57
Legal Int. 4 7 4 6 14 3 7 6 0 7 7
Unknown 17 15 15 5 7 6 0 3 5 2 8
Totals 696 572 617 634 631 526 526 479 521 437 327
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics
Nuts! I guess that’s what I get for forgetting to preview. That table was much easier to read in WordPad.
Anyhow, my point is that the gun laws were enacted in 1996-98. Right when gun deaths went down. I haven’t found any later data yet, but it could be that things have gotten worse since, like the gun adovcate websites claim.
Uh, any chance on a cite? Sure, if one watches Snatch repeatedly, one gets that opinion.
Maybe by, you know, arresting and trying more than 1% of the alleged felons who attempted to purchase guns but were stopped by NICS? Maybe by actually prosecuting criminals under the various laws that provide for extra, mandatory jail time for using a firearm in a crime? Maybe, just maybe, doing something about criminals is better than placing additional restrictions on law-abiding citizens.
It’s completely impossible for aa person living in DC to legally get a handgun (unless they’re an LEO), yet criminals don’t seem to have a problem doing so. Guns are not that mechanically complicated; match-quality accuracy takes a lot of work, but making a pistol or submachine gun that will put lead into someone at 30 feet is something any halfway competent machinist can do - and there are a lot of machine shops in the US. For that matter, Afghanis are cranking out AK-47s with hand tools - do you think that no criminals in developed countries can manage that?
That’s nice, how about putting forth an argument? It’s all fine and dandy that Australia doens’t have many people getting killed by guns, but it’s also a paradise for rapists and muggers, which is certainly not the kind of society I want to live in. Also, sidetracking on some strawman about ‘gun advocate websites’ without even naming a site is not a very honest way to go about making an argument - I’m not aware of anyone in this thread even making the argument you’re trying to refute.
Well, there’s the International Crime Victims Survey, there’s all of the British newspapers, and the Home Office’s own crime statistics. There’s also the interesting dearth of such statistics on any of the victim disarmament sites.
Great Dave…
It was a project set in motion in Richmond, Virginia (along with a few other places I can’t name outright) that, essentially, called for stricter punishment for breaking existing laws. The end result was that crime saw a significant drop after the institution of the project.
It’s used as evidence that we CAN significantly lower crime rates without passing more and more restrictions on law-abiding gun-owners.
You can hit Google for more info, or I can go dig up an old link, if you want.
I’m always hesitant to argue cross-culture… after all, the typical tactic is to bring up Switzerland in response. However, go check out the entirety of Australia’s crime rates. If I recall correctly, the last time this came up it was found that non-gun-related crimes were a skosh higher than America’s.
Lamia…
And this is where you’re going wrong. You’re assuming that because some people acknowledge that they might be faced with a threat at some point in their life, they also fear it. This is simply not the case.
It is simply realistic to acknowledge that, at some point in your life, you may be accosted, and may need a weapon to defend yourself. Anyone who thinks they have any sort of guarantee that they will not be accosted is just overly idealistic, bordering on delusional.
Riboflavin…
Well, the total stats for firearm-related murders is a hair above 10,000… don’t know what percentage of those came strictly from handguns (as was the original assertion).
Guns are machines designed to kill am i correct? So how can a device made to take away life be in any way a good thing.
Mugging, asault, theft and rape are all very nasty crimes. Crimes that you say could be prevented with a gun… but by taking the criminals life in the process? I dont see how that can be justified. You say that the criminals life need not be taken… just flashing the gun at him/her would be enough to scare them away… then why the need for a gun? Why not a realistic looking water pistol?
Isnt all human life precious? Allowing the general public a device which can take that away seems ludicrous to me.
When brandishing a gun, the fact is that chances are you dont know anything about the criminal you are about to kill… so how can you judge whether his life should carry on or not. The only time i would agree with it would be if you were certain the criminal was about to take your own life.
You say that outlawing gun ownship will not stop the criminals from obtaining the weapon and all it would do is take away the defense of the average man. But surely outlawing gun use would result in a drop in gun use and so a drop in gun related crime. which would be a good thing…no?
Gun ownership is apparently on the rise in the UK. I live in the UK and Im proud to say that i havnt even seen a gun in all my life. I was speaking to some people in a chatroom and they said that in the US all drug dealers have guns and that it would be highly unusual for them not to. Even small time cannabis only dealers. I couldnt believe it. Any dealer i know of in the UK doesnt own a weapon… these are people just trying to make a living (in an albeit illegal way), and i couldnt see any reason why they would need a gun.
OK… im babbling…
People say “guns dont kill people - people kill people”, but i think without the gun it’d be a lot harder. Pointing your finger at soeone and shouting bang is hardly going to kill someone, well not unless they had a really bad heart anyway. (to quote Eddie Izzard)
Ok… im done now. Please feel free to pick apart everything ive just said and tell me im wrong. 