Gun Bans

[The Occident]

Let's break this into some basic arguments people propose to one another, with what I think coming last.
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PRO-GUN: We need guns to defend ourselves against criminals.
REALITY: A weapon kept in the home is more likely to be involved in the death of someone who lives there than it is to be used in self-defense. There have been some exceptions.
WHAT I THINK: It's sad that we live in a society where we can't feel safe without firearms.
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PRO-CONTROL: Removing guns would stop criminals.
REALITY: It would HELP PREVENT future gun crimes. It takes time for broad-spectrum corporal laws like this to culturally spread throughout the country (as in, the majority of people are willing to follow such a law.)
WHAT I THINK: It's a pretty sorry state of affairs that people would take advantage of people on so grave a level. A unilateral gun ban would NOT work, except if it were slowly implemented over decades and met little political opposition.
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PRO-GUN: Other nations, some with higher per-capita gun ownership rates, have much lower gun crime levels than we do.
REALITY: Most of these nations are countries where civilians never did have the right to own firearms except as use in national defense. You cannot compare a nation where one right has always existed to another where it never did. All of these nations are also (mostly) ethnically homogenous. The cultural divides that exist in the US do not exist in these nations.
WHAT I THINK: we need to get our own house in order without trying to look to countries that don't offer a good picture of our situation.
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PRO-CONTROL: For ONCE, we agree with the pro-gun guys on this.
REALITY: Same thing as with pro-gun. The US isn't some other homogenous, long gun-free nation.
WHAT I THINK: Same as with pro-gun.
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PRO-GUN: The Second Amendment says we can own guns.
REALITY: The Second Amendment calls for the establisment of a well-armed, well-regulated militia and for the legal protection of said establishment. Back when the Constitution was written, each man had to own his own gun if he wanted to join the Continental Army or the Marine Corps. This is likely what the amendment is referring to. It says nothing about otherwise allowing civilians to own firearms.
WHAT I THINK: Be that as it may, over time, the cultural definition of the Second Amendment stretched, thanks to Manifest Destiny, the Civil war and two World Wars, beyond the legal definition of it. At this point, it makes little sense to try to apply a dated definition to a history that was forged with the barrel of a gun.
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PRO-CONTROL: The Second Amendment is dated.
REALITY: TO AN EXTENT, it is. But, it is deeply engrained into American culture. Any attempt to change or repeal is doomed.
WHAT I THINK: Same as pro-gun
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PRO-GUN: Tightening gun regulations is the goverment trying to intrude our freedoms.
REALITY: Yes, it seems so, because of the gun's place in American culture. It is true, to a small extent.
WHAT I THINK: Sometimes freedom must take a passenger seat to safety. When this country proves it can handle guns without 10,000+ gun crimes per year, this will phase itself out as an excuse.
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PRO-CONTROL: Tightening regulations is a good thing because it keeps guns out of the hands of the unstable.
REALITY: This is not true. Most mass shooters either legally obtained their firearms or got them from someone who did. You can plan a party, but you can't predict the weather.
WHAT I THINK: Tighter gun regulations COULD work. But they will take time.
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PRO-GUN: Guns make polite citizens.
REALITY: This is not true. Otherwise gun control would be a non-issue.
WHAT I THINK: If it were, you would not feel you need one to protect yourself. A "gun-polite" society is one rooted in fear, suspicion, and hatred.
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PRO-CONTROL: Less guns means safer citizens
REALITY: In some places, yes. In major cities, with old, well-established organized crime syndicates, this is not the case.
WHAT I THINK: Some will inevitably take advantage of this. It's pure human condition, unfortunately.
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PRO-GUN: Assault rifles are needed for self-defense
REALITY: No one can agree on what, exactly, an assault rifle is.
WHAT I THINK: As far as it can be said, you don't need an AR-15 or an AK-47 to defend yourself anything here in the US.
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PRO-CONTROL: Assault rifles are NOT needed for self-defense
REALITY: No one can agree on what, exactly, an assault rifle is.
WHAT I THINK: Are you a soldier on deployment? Are you SWAT? No? Then you don't need an assault rifle, no matter what the definition may be.
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PRO-GUN: Gun crimes in the US are traceable to inner-cities. Those who are caught up in this violence only contribute to it.
REALITY: In many cases, yes. But poor people living in the inner city can't just up and move. The higher gun crime rates in some cities are also due to more cities reporting violent crimes like gun assaults to the FBI (which they do not have to do. However, the FBI strongly recommends they do so.)
WHAT I THINK: Most people that chide the inner cities haven't lived there. Solutions for them should be figured out by locals, not by politicians that have probably never even been to some of the cities with the highest gun crime rates.
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PRO-CONTROL: Education will deter criminals in inner cities.
REALITY: Yes, but only if the individual chooses to positively imbibe such instruction.
WHAT I THINK: Teachers can teach, police can enforce, but they cannot replace the brains of criminals or high-risk people with their own.
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SO, WHAT DO I THINK?

A sensible balance needs to be struck between regulation and freedom. That's going to take time, effort, money and, sadly, exposure to more crime thanks to the jerks who abuse this freedom, but guns CAN be an important part of American society without having to be brandished to someone's head level.

I think you're naive, never lived in an area with a lot of crime, and completely ignored data that was previously posted on this forum regarding the correlation between crime & gun laws.


11,504 people died from firearm homicides in the U.S. in 2009 according to the CDC ( http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf )
34,485 died from motor-vehicle related injuries in 2009
Why does anyone NEED a car? It seems more people die from automobile related injuries than firearm homicides. Should we allow the government to regulate our personal freedom on the basis of what we “need”?

It's neither true nor necessary to assume anything about me personally. Please refrain from doing so in the future.

The US measures 3.6 million square miles. Unless you'd rather walk across a state (or spend the money flying), I can think of plenty of reasons one requires an automobile.

[Big Jim P]

/rehashargumentagainstguncontrol

Quit spamming.

Interesting. When statistics do not support a certain view they are spam.

[Big Jim P]

While I look into the new material that you added to your spam package, perhaps you'd like to look at the graph I made.

I claim that I made this graph as objectively as I could. I tried to avoid cherry-picking data (I took the most recent finalized FBI data, 2011, and took data from five years before without considering whether 4 years before or 6 years before would produce a different result. Five years is a round number.) I drew the arrows up and the arrows down just the same way, for every state.

Three year averages would have been better (2004/05/06 versus 2009/10/11) and the FBI has that data, but I'd didn't think of it until later.

I drew no conclusion from the graph other than what seems a clear trend that less violent states became more violent while more violent states became less. I'll remark again that violent crime nationally decreased by 20% ... a good thing which has very little to do with gun ownership nor gun control.

I'm clearly for more gun control than the US generally has, but I made the graph not to prove or disprove your assertion "guns reduce crime" but just to find out if that is true, or the opposite is true, or neither is true. I found nothing. In my opinion, gun control laws have negligible effect over five years.

But I'm interested to hear what you make of it ...

I don't think I directly made the assertion "guns reduce crime". I did say "These FBI statistics for 2009 seem to suggest that states with stricter gun laws do not have less violent crime. ".

Your post basically just reinforces what the FBI data I provided I already suggested; that stricter gun laws do not reduce crime.

Hell the FBI stats show gun crimes decreasing for at least the last decade, a fact roundly ignored.

[Bottle]

11,504 people died from firearm homicides in the U.S. in 2009 according to the CDC ( http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf )
34,485 died from motor-vehicle related injuries in 2009
Why does anyone NEED a car? It seems more people die from automobile related injuries than firearm homicides. Should we allow the government to regulate our personal freedom on the basis of what we “need”?

It's neither true nor necessary to assume anything about me personally. Please refrain from doing so in the future.

The US measures 3.6 million square miles. Unless you'd rather walk across a state (or spend the money flying), I can think of plenty of reasons one requires an automobile.

Yeah, I think pro-gun people need to stop trying to compare guns and cars.

I dislike cars. I actually dislike cars MORE than I dislike guns. I'd love to live in a place where cars and trucks were only used when absolutely necessary, such as for shipping or moving your buddy's sofa or shit like that.

But I know damn well that banning cars isn't practical. Too many people would be flat-out unable to get to work, unable to obtain food, unable to get to the hospital, unable to get their kids to school, or whatever else.

I dislike cars more than I dislike guns, but people who are "pro-car" have made convincing arguments as to why cars are necessary. I still work to improve and re-design infrastructure so that, hopefully, we can one day get rid of cars, but I don't advocate banning cars entirely. I support strict controls on who can drive, where they are permitted to drive, and what type of vehicles are legal to drive, but I don't support banning driving.

[Big Jim P]

It's neither true nor necessary to assume anything about me personally. Please refrain from doing so in the future.

The US measures 3.6 million square miles. Unless you'd rather walk across a state (or spend the money flying), I can think of plenty of reasons one requires an automobile.

Yeah, I think pro-gun people need to stop trying to compare guns and cars.

I dislike cars. I actually dislike cars MORE than I dislike guns. I'd love to live in a place where cars and trucks were only used when absolutely necessary, such as for shipping or moving your buddy's sofa or shit like that.

But I know damn well that banning cars isn't practical. Too many people would be flat-out unable to get to work, unable to obtain food, unable to get to the hospital, unable to get their kids to school, or whatever else.

I dislike cars more than I dislike guns, but people who are "pro-car" have made convincing arguments as to why cars are necessary. I still work to improve and re-design infrastructure so that, hopefully, we can one day get rid of cars, but I don't advocate banning cars entirely. I support strict controls on who can drive, where they are permitted to drive, and what type of vehicles are legal to drive, but I don't support banning driving.

As long as there are predatory humans, then guns are necessary for self defense. I would love to live in a place where the only uses for firearms were recreation (hunting, target shooting, historical collecting etc.). Unfortunately, I live in the reality where criminals prey on the innocent and the nearest official, state-sponsored protection is anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour and a half away.

Forget the "overthrow the government" B.S. that is bandied about, those are the only two legitimate reason to support the private ownership of firearms: recreation and self-defense.

[Xsyne]

I don't see the harm in illegalizing assault weapons. A pistol may be a good defense weapon. A bushmaster is like using a minefield to defend against a few wolves.

I fail to see what's wrong with using an assault weapon for home defense.

A Bushmaster is an autocannon. I suspect it's a joke about the definition of assault weapon outside of politics.

[Yandere Schoolgirls]

Forget the "overthrow the government" B.S. that is bandied about, those are the only two legitimate reason to support the private ownership of firearms: recreation and self-defense.

This "B.S." is one of the best reasons why we need high-powered firearms to become deregulated.

[Big Jim P]

I fail to see what's wrong with using an assault weapon for home defense.

A Bushmaster is an autocannon. I suspect it's a joke about the definition of assault weapon outside of politics.

Indeed. I want a brass 12 pound cannon on my front law. Really I do. those things are wicked cool.

[Big Jim P]

Forget the "overthrow the government" B.S. that is bandied about, those are the only two legitimate reason to support the private ownership of firearms: recreation and self-defense.

This "B.S." is one of the best reasons why we need high-powered firearms to become deregulated.

Not when we have a peaceful framework for changing the U.S. government. You know, the same one I keep telling the gun-control people to use: change the constitution.

[Yandere Schoolgirls]

This "B.S." is one of the best reasons why we need high-powered firearms to become deregulated.

Not when we have a peaceful framework for changing the U.S. government. You know, the same one I keep telling the gun-control people to use: change the constitution.

Yet, they don't listen. Even with facts and data the demagogues refuse to accept the simple truth about guns; they have no relation to the murder rate, they reduce crime in many cases, and protect the fragile institution of private property.

[Big Jim P]

Not when we have a peaceful framework for changing the U.S. government. You know, the same one I keep telling the gun-control people to use: change the constitution.

Yet, they don't listen. Even with facts and data the demagogues refuse to accept the simple truth about guns; they have no relation to the murder rate, they reduce crime in many cases, and protect the fragile institution of private property.

here we are in agreement.

[Yandere Schoolgirls]

Yet, they don't listen. Even with facts and data the demagogues refuse to accept the simple truth about guns; they have no relation to the murder rate, they reduce crime in many cases, and protect the fragile institution of private property.

here we are in agreement.

Then I think we can also agreed that high-powered rifles may be needed if the economy turns sour and the threat of uncoupled tyranny looms over us both as individuals.

[Big Jim P]

here we are in agreement.

Then I think we can also agreed that high-powered rifles may be needed if the economy turns sour and the threat of uncoupled tyranny looms over us both as individuals.

The economy has already turned sour. Several times in the history of the U.S., and even uncoupled tyrants have been very careful to not take away our right to vote.

[Yandere Schoolgirls]

Then I think we can also agreed that high-powered rifles may be needed if the economy turns sour and the threat of uncoupled tyranny looms over us both as individuals.

The economy has already turned sour. Several times in the history of the U.S., and even uncoupled tyrants have been very careful to not take away our right to vote.

Except most people are deadly terrified of guns it seems in light of unforeseen vicissitudes. It would seem that the vote of the most reasonable and intelligent of human beings has little to no value.

[Nua Corda]

The economy has already turned sour. Several times in the history of the U.S., and even uncoupled tyrants have been very careful to not take away our right to vote.

Except most people are deadly terrified of guns it seems in light of unforeseen vicissitudes. It would seem that the vote of the most reasonable and intelligent of human beings has little to no value.

The reasonable and intelligent human being is a very rare specimen, especially in American politics.

[Yandere Schoolgirls]

Except most people are deadly terrified of guns it seems in light of unforeseen vicissitudes. It would seem that the vote of the most reasonable and intelligent of human beings has little to no value.

The reasonable and intelligent human being is a very rare specimen, especially in American politics.

I think the time for reason and intellectual discussion is soon coming to an end in American politics.

[Nua Corda]

The reasonable and intelligent human being is a very rare specimen, especially in American politics.

I think the time for reason and intellectual discussion is soon coming to an end in American politics.

No, it's merely reaching a tipping point. When the Enlightenment started getting going, the Churches and Absolutists got more and more extreme and crazy in trying to stop it. The Enlightenment was a paradigm shift; we're on the cusp of another paradigm shift. It's only natural that the established order is getting insaner by the minute.

[Yandere Schoolgirls]

I think the time for reason and intellectual discussion is soon coming to an end in American politics.

No, it's merely reaching a tipping point. When the Enlightenment started getting going, the Churches and Absolutists got more and more extreme and crazy in trying to stop it. The Enlightenment was a paradigm shift; we're on the cusp of another paradigm shift. It's only natural that the established order is getting insaner by the minute.

Perhaps, but if wherever we're going involves banning guns, then I don't I want to go

[Iseran]

Here you go. Have fun.

before i begin my analysis you should notice that, in the US, murder rates have dropped while gun ownership rates have increased over the last few years:
http://gunsandbullets.wordpress.com/201 ... asy-world/

you may dismiss this as propaganda from an "unashamedly pro gun site" but it's hard to find statistics which have not been altered (to express results in favor of gun-control) in some way by the vast majority of openly left-leaning "official" media outlets.

now let's perform a detailed analysis of the murder rates.

the UK claims there were 648 murders, 58 of which involved a firearm, which took place in England, Scotland and Wales in the year 2011. however there is no way to verify whether these statistics are entirely truthful (did they include victims who died after they were taken to hospital? did they count all unlawful killings committed intentionally as murder?) and it is a fact that crime statistics in the UK are not only calculated differently to those in the US (the UK counts incidents while the US counts individual cases, which means that the murder of 4 individuals would be considered "1 murder" in British crime statistics while it would be considered 4 murders in American ones) but they are also notoriously under-reported (not forgetting that person reported "missing" may very well be a murder-victim whose body was not discovered).

in 2011 the US had a murder rate of 4.7 per 100000 citizens while the UK had a murder rate of 0.98 per 100000 citizens, however the official British figures do not represent actual murder rates due to the problems mentioned above which is why the UK's data must be analyzed 3 times, once with the official figures, once with a liberal estimate (including suspicious deaths and missing persons) and one with the average of the two figures.

2011 figures.

UK official murder rate: 0.98 per 100000 citizens.
UK liberal estimate of murder rates: 16.59 per 100000 citizens assuming that 5% of all missing persons are murdered.
UK average estimated murder rate: 8.81 per 100000 citizens assuming that a maximum 648 plus 5% of all missing persons and a minimum of 648 persons are murdered.

US official murder rate: 4.7 per 100000 citizens.
US liberal estimate of murder rates: 14.95 per 100000 citizens assuming that 5% of all missing persons are murdered.
US average estimated murder rate: 9.51 per 100000 citizens assuming that a maximum 12664 plus 5% of all missing persons and a minimum of 12664 persons are murdered.

we can clearly see that the potential murder rates are higher in the UK than in the US while the average potential murder estimates are very similar (being somewhat higher in the US), unfortunately this data is highly debatable due to the lack of concrete information on murder in the UK.


an average of 195000 people go missing every year in the UK, with no yearly figures available while an average of 678860 people were reported missing in the US in the year 2011.
missing persons are important to this research as they always get treated as individual cases rather than incidents.


now let's compare the total crime and disappearance rates between the UK and the US:

the UK has a crime victim rate of 26.4% while the US has a crime victim rate of 21.1%. (total historical figure).
the UK has a total average potential murder rate of 8.7 while the US has a total average potential murder rate of 9.72 (based on the average of all the previously established murder figures).
the UK has an assault rate of 2.8% while the US has an assault rate of 1.2%. (total historical figure).
the UK has a disappearance rate of 0.31% while the US has a disappearance rate of 0.21%. (total historical figure).

state comparison:

of the US states with a lower murder rate than the UK only 2 (Hawaii and Rhode island) enforce strict gun-control laws, however, these two states have fairly low populations and very few problems stemming from ethnic/racial tension and/or poverty.

the "mainland" US state with the lowest murder rate is New Hampshire; a state with lax gun laws. New Hampshire's murder rate is a little lower than that of England and Wales and less than half that of Scotland.

most of the the US states with the highest murder rates are those with both the strictest gun control laws and the greatest amount of factionalism (racial, economic or religious).
New Mexico is an anomaly due to it's extremely high levels of racial tension and the resulting gang activity.


in conclusion:

these statistics provide a very strong indication towards the fact that private gun ownership for the purpose of self-defense will lower overall crime rates. the reason for the higher murder rates in the US compared to the UK is a combination of the extreme factionalism leading to increased gang activity and intellectual dishonesty on the behalf of the British government when it comes to crime data. it is also easily proven that gun control does not lower suicide rates by comparing the PRC and Japan to the US and Saudi Arabia.

a more detailed comparison between the US, Saudi Arabia, the Czech republic, the PRC, the UK and Belgium can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that allowing civilians to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense will lower overall crime rates.



http://www.citizensreportuk.org/reports ... ce-uk.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... e-us-state
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/mar/0 ... tionpolicy
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder- ... tate#MRord (this site is very obviously biased and uses doctored statistics to justify it's stance)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate (notice Saudi Arabia's low homicide rate despite it's high gun ownership rate and strong gun culture. Switzerland, the UAE and the Czech republic also have low crime rates whilst having a strong gun culture and much higher rates of private gun ownership than most countries. these facts indicate that private gun ownership does indeed lower violent crime, including homicide, rates.)
http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Uni ... ates/Crime
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/uselect ... -newmexico

[Caninope]

Even that optimistic estimate leaves handguns responsible for ten times as many murders.

It's not "optimistic", it's as fair and objective as I can be. Are you having difficulty with the concept that where "other gun or type not known" was used, it was just as likely to be a rifle as it is when the type of weapon is known?

If I was trying to inflate the figure, I'd speculate that rural areas are less likely to report fully and that a rifle is more likely to be the unknown weapon there.

You said 2% which is less than half the real figure. I'm not even arguing with you, just informing you!

The 2% figure most likely comes from earlier data sets (specifically 2008) which has firearms reported as rifles accounting for 2-3% of homicides.

[Caninope]

I fail to see what's wrong with using an assault weapon for home defense.

A Bushmaster is an autocannon. I suspect it's a joke about the definition of assault weapon outside of politics.

Bushmaster can also refer to the semiautomatic and legal weapons that are made by Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC.

[Gun Manufacturers]

A Bushmaster is an autocannon. I suspect it's a joke about the definition of assault weapon outside of politics.

Bushmaster can also refer to the semiautomatic and legal weapons that are made by Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC.

[Grinning Dragon]

Bushmaster can also refer to the semiautomatic and legal weapons that are made by Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC.

OMG, that evil paintball marker has an evil forward grip, ban it! It will make that marker more lethal.

[United Prefectures of Appia]

Mexico has stricter gun laws than the U.S.

Having strict gun laws is one thing, having the ability to uphold them is another. Don't expect Mexico's deep-corrupted government to be in a good position to regulate guns when many druglords and cartel have too much power. Chicago is another example, they have strict gun laws, but lack sufficient funding to police departments to be able to uphold those laws, and it's bad enough that inconsistent gun laws throughout the country based on state-by-state makes 'strictness' doesn't help the situation. As long as the US lacks any strong universal gun control legislation, any level of 'strictness' in gun laws doesn't mean Jack.

[Iseran]

Mexico has stricter gun laws than the U.S.

Having strict gun laws is one thing, having the ability to uphold them is another. Don't expect Mexico's deep-corrupted government to be in a good position to regulate guns when many druglords and cartel have too much power. Chicago is another example, they have strict gun laws, but lack sufficient funding to police departments to be able to uphold those laws, and it's bad enough that inconsistent gun laws throughout the country based on state-by-state makes 'strictness' doesn't help the situation. As long as the US lacks any strong universal gun control legislation, any level of 'strictness' in gun laws doesn't mean Jack.

in other words you are saying that gun control requires an all-powerful police-state?

that's just another of the many reasons why gun control is a crime against humanity.