Semiautomatic rifles to be Assault Weapons in CA

[Occupied Deutschland]

You just think it's bad because it's thrown all over the news

not i, kiddo. you'll note i explicitly agreed that gun violence is down. i even mentioned the actual cause of that interesting turn of events.

i think its bad because it objectively is, when compared to other countries on a similar level - and even compared to our rather violent cousins back in england, let alone the rest of the english-speaking world. the difference in rates between here and the rest of the developed world should shock the conscience of anyone with an ounce of humanity. it can't be handwaved away.

Quite correct.
Which is why the handwaving 'banning guns would make things better' is rather illogical.

[Free Soviets]

not i, kiddo. you'll note i explicitly agreed that gun violence is down. i even mentioned the actual cause of that interesting turn of events.

i think its bad because it objectively is, when compared to other countries on a similar level - and even compared to our rather violent cousins back in england, let alone the rest of the english-speaking world. the difference in rates between here and the rest of the developed world should shock the conscience of anyone with an ounce of humanity. it can't be handwaved away.

Quite correct.
Which is why the handwaving 'banning guns would make things better' is rather illogical.

its not handwaving when we know it works. i mean, even if we didn't have all the international and historical evidence that gun control works, it would be crazy to doubt that we could reduce gun violence by making it harder to get guns. but we do have the international and historical evidence.

gun violence is not an insolvable problem. we know exactly how to dramatically decrease it. the problem is, too many people think their ability to gently caress their own private arsenal without having to fill out some extra forms is worth tens of thousands of dead kids.

[Nazeroth]

Quite correct.
Which is why the handwaving 'banning guns would make things better' is rather illogical.

its not handwaving when we know it works. i mean, even if we didn't have all the international and historical evidence that gun control works, it would be crazy to doubt that we could reduce gun violence by making it harder to get guns. but we do have the international and historical evidence.

gun violence is not an insolvable problem. we know exactly how to dramatically decrease it. the problem is, too many people think their ability to gently caress their own private arsenal without having to fill out some extra forms is worth tens of thousands of dead kids.

lol no there are tons of deaths from swimming pool accidents, they could put those on the front page every day but they don't because there agenda is to make shooting out to be common.

for instance school shootings, people say they are really common but even an idiot can look and see how many schools are in the US and realize how few shooting there actually are. Hell, like was brought up earlier, your almost morel likley to be hit by lighting so idk how we have a "gun problem"

[Free Soviets]

its not handwaving when we know it works. i mean, even if we didn't have all the international and historical evidence that gun control works, it would be crazy to doubt that we could reduce gun violence by making it harder to get guns. but we do have the international and historical evidence.

gun violence is not an insolvable problem. we know exactly how to dramatically decrease it. the problem is, too many people think their ability to gently caress their own private arsenal without having to fill out some extra forms is worth tens of thousands of dead kids.

lol no there are tons of deaths from swimming pool accidents, they could put those on the front page every day but they don't because there agenda is to make shooting out to be common.

1) stop arguing with the voices in your head. i'm right over here.
2) we do, however, demand that public pools be staffed by trained lifeguards, mandate certain bits of safety equipment, regulate how people can build private pools, post all sorts of warnings, etc. we completely recognize swimming safety as a problem and do what we can to improve it while maintaining reasonable access to a legitimate good in society. when accidents happen, we routinely review every single policy and procedure we had in place, looking for ways to do better in the future.

if only we could do anything half as sensible on guns.


(and there is also the small matter of the rate of encounter - kids collectively spend a goddamn hell of a lot more hours in pools than they do in situations where gun violence is likely)

[Sevvania]

Quite correct.
Which is why the handwaving 'banning guns would make things better' is rather illogical.

its not handwaving when we know it works. i mean, even if we didn't have all the international and historical evidence that gun control works, it would be crazy to doubt that we could reduce gun violence by making it harder to get guns. but we do have the international and historical evidence.

gun violence is not an insolvable problem. we know exactly how to dramatically decrease it. the problem is, too many people think their ability to gently caress their own private arsenal without having to fill out some extra forms is worth tens of thousands of dead kids.

You say this seemingly under the assumption that no person's life has ever been saved by a firearm ever. That would be a false assumption.

"A new paper from the Violence Policy Center states that 'for the five-year period 2007 through 2011, the total number of self-protective behaviors involving a firearm by victims of attempted or completed violent crimes or property crimes totaled only 338,700.' That comes to an annual average of 67,740."

338,700 instances of a firearm being used defensively in the four years between 2007 and 2011. The number of firearm homicides during those same four years? According to FBI statistics, 46,302. Which would mean that, statistically, guns are over seven times as likely to be used for defensive purposes than they are to be used to kill somebody.

[Free Soviets]

its not handwaving when we know it works. i mean, even if we didn't have all the international and historical evidence that gun control works, it would be crazy to doubt that we could reduce gun violence by making it harder to get guns. but we do have the international and historical evidence.

gun violence is not an insolvable problem. we know exactly how to dramatically decrease it. the problem is, too many people think their ability to gently caress their own private arsenal without having to fill out some extra forms is worth tens of thousands of dead kids.

You say this seemingly under the assumption that no person's life has ever been saved by a firearm ever. That would be a false assumption.

actually, i say it under the weight of the evidence and a rather easy cost-benefit analysis.

given that reducing access to guns reduces gun violence, it follows that reducing access to guns generates more safety than you get by using easy-access guns for self-defense. even assuming absolutely ridiculous levels of gun-based self-defense. because there's still the matter of all those dead kids...

[Sevvania]

You say this seemingly under the assumption that no person's life has ever been saved by a firearm ever. That would be a false assumption.

actually, i say it under the weight of the evidence and a rather easy cost-benefit analysis.

given that reducing access to guns reduces gun violence, it follows that reducing access to guns generates more safety than you get by using easy-access guns for self-defense. even assuming absolutely ridiculous levels of gun-based self-defense. because there's still the matter of all those dead kids...

Let us imagine a gun-free scenario, then. Let us, if only for a moment, say that no firearms exist in the United States of America, criminally owned or otherwise. A gun is an equalizer and a deterrent. But let us imagine that there are no guns, and violent crimes are committed with blades, cudgels, and bare hands. It would seem to me that in such a scenario, the bigger, stronger individuals would be relatively free to do as they please until local law enforcement arrives. An old man isn't going to be able to bring down an athletic thug in hand-to-hand combat.

Think of all those dead old people.

But, "all those dead kids," while tragic losses, are a very small percentage of gun crime in general. If one looks to the notorious mass shooters, it can be seen that almost all of them invariably plead insanity or commit suicide, which would imply that their mental health is somewhat less-than-ideal. Rather than pinning the blame on inanimate objects that do not act autonomously, perhaps one might look to the single aspect that has remained constant throughout every crime that has been committed since time immemorial; human beings. Would it be better to have no guns and individuals with mass-killer mentalities, or better would guns be less of an issue if there were improved treatments for individuals with such warped mentalities?

[Norjagen]

actually, i say it under the weight of the evidence and a rather easy cost-benefit analysis.

given that reducing access to guns reduces gun violence, it follows that reducing access to guns generates more safety than you get by using easy-access guns for self-defense. even assuming absolutely ridiculous levels of gun-based self-defense. because there's still the matter of all those dead kids...

Let us imagine a gun-free scenario, then. Let us, if only for a moment, say that no firearms exist in the United States of America, criminally owned or otherwise. A gun is an equalizer and a deterrent. But let us imagine that there are no guns, and violent crimes are committed with blades, cudgels, and bare hands. It would seem to me that in such a scenario, the bigger, stronger individuals would be relatively free to do as they please until local law enforcement arrives. An old man isn't going to be able to bring down an athletic thug in hand-to-hand combat.

Think of all those dead old people.

And dead kids, and dead women.. Pretty much anybody who isn't a man, between the ages of 18 and 60.

[Free Soviets]

"A new paper from the Violence Policy Center states that 'for the five-year period 2007 through 2011, the total number of self-protective behaviors involving a firearm by victims of attempted or completed violent crimes or property crimes totaled only 338,700.' That comes to an annual average of 67,740."

338,700 instances of a firearm being used defensively in the four years between 2007 and 2011. The number of firearm homicides during those same four years? According to FBI statistics, 46,302. Which would mean that, statistically, guns are over seven times as likely to be used for defensive purposes than they are to be used to kill somebody.

so did you not link to your source on purpose? i mean, the VPC press release about said paper was titled "Guns are Rarely Used to Kill Criminals or Stop Crimes New VPC Analysis Reveals ", so it just seems a bit...odd.

anyways, in the same time span there were 2,218,501 victims of crimes committed with a gun. and, as the VPC report notes, an average of 232,400 guns were stolen each year between 2004 and 2010. which, um, is not so good.

[Sevvania]

"A new paper from the Violence Policy Center states that 'for the five-year period 2007 through 2011, the total number of self-protective behaviors involving a firearm by victims of attempted or completed violent crimes or property crimes totaled only 338,700.' That comes to an annual average of 67,740."

338,700 instances of a firearm being used defensively in the four years between 2007 and 2011. The number of firearm homicides during those same four years? According to FBI statistics, 46,302. Which would mean that, statistically, guns are over seven times as likely to be used for defensive purposes than they are to be used to kill somebody.

so did you not link to your source on purpose? i mean, the VPC press release about said paper was titled "Guns are Rarely Used to Kill Criminals or Stop Crimes New VPC Analysis Reveals ", so it just seems a bit...odd.

anyways, in the same time span there were 2,218,501 victims of crimes committed with a gun. and, as the VPC report notes, an average of 232,400 guns were stolen each year between 2004 and 2010. which, um, is not so good.

My source was stated and easily located. However the document may be worded, the numbers remain: 338,700 cases of self-defense as stated by a New York Times article citing the VPC paper, 46,302 cases of homicide. Is it rare for a gun to be used to stop a crime? Perhaps. But according to the numbers, it's even more rare to be killed by a gun. The stolen guns are neither here nor there, as in spite of these 232,400 stolen guns, there were still only 46,302 cases of homicide.

To use the "dead children" argument, there were more cases of self-defense, in which a child's life could have been saved, than there were cases of homicide in which a child could have been killed.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Quite correct.
Which is why the handwaving 'banning guns would make things better' is rather illogical.

its not handwaving when we know it works (1). i mean, even if we didn't have all the international and historical evidence that gun control works (2), it would be crazy to doubt that we could reduce gun violence by making it harder to get guns (3). but we do have the international and historical evidence.

gun violence is not an insolvable problem (4). we know exactly how to dramatically decrease it (5). the problem is, too many people think their ability to gently caress their own private arsenal without having to fill out some extra forms is worth tens of thousands of dead kids. (6)

1) Except we don't.
2) You mean all that evidence that controls for the cultural, social, and economic factors that differentiate the United States from someplace like Britain? I'm sure that's REAL common from unbiased sources.

Meanwhile there's some contention there.

3) Perhaps. Of course, the goal isn't reducing gun violence but violence overall right?
Because just reducing gun violence and seeing that violence shift into other forms would be pointless and stupid.

4) Of course not. It's also not a problem that will be affected by most of the measures proposed to combat it, however.

5) Economic opportunity, an attitude of social responsiveness and acceptance, an end to creating felons out of nonviolent offenders, other predominantly social-cultural and economic bridges, yes.
Guns have very little to do with the problem.

6) Not really, we'd just prefer that if action is to be taken it not be expensive and inefficient action ala the Drug War.

[Free Soviets]

so did you not link to your source on purpose? i mean, the VPC press release about said paper was titled "Guns are Rarely Used to Kill Criminals or Stop Crimes New VPC Analysis Reveals ", so it just seems a bit...odd.

anyways, in the same time span there were 2,218,501 victims of crimes committed with a gun. and, as the VPC report notes, an average of 232,400 guns were stolen each year between 2004 and 2010. which, um, is not so good.

My source was stated and easily located. However the document may be worded, the numbers remain: 338,700 cases of self-defense as stated by a New York Times article citing the VPC paper, 46,302 cases of homicide. Is it rare for a gun to be used to stop a crime? Perhaps. But according to the numbers, it's even more rare to be killed by a gun. The stolen guns are neither here nor there, as in spite of these 232,400 stolen guns, there were still only 46,302 cases of homicide.

dude, your legally acquired gun is 3.4x more likely to wind up in the hands of the bad guys than it is to be used for self-defense. quit getting bogged down in looking just at one particular aspect of gun violence.

To use the "dead children" argument, there were more cases of self-defense, in which a child's life could have been saved, than there were cases of homicide in which a child could have been killed.

...especially when done so poorly. ignoring that this misses the point about overall reductions in violence, this simply does not follow at all from the given data.

[Sevvania]

My source was stated and easily located. However the document may be worded, the numbers remain: 338,700 cases of self-defense as stated by a New York Times article citing the VPC paper, 46,302 cases of homicide. Is it rare for a gun to be used to stop a crime? Perhaps. But according to the numbers, it's even more rare to be killed by a gun. The stolen guns are neither here nor there, as in spite of these 232,400 stolen guns, there were still only 46,302 cases of homicide.

dude, your legally acquired gun is 3.4x more likely to wind up in the hands of the bad guys than it is to be used for self-defense. quit getting bogged down in looking just at one particular aspect of gun violence.

To use the "dead children" argument, there were more cases of self-defense, in which a child's life could have been saved, than there were cases of homicide in which a child could have been killed.

...especially when done so poorly. ignoring that this misses the point about overall reductions in violence, this simply does not follow at all from the given data.

I brought up the aspects of mental health and guns equalizing the disparities between the weak and the strong, but you chose not to respond to those, which is why most of my focus has been directed towards homicides, as that is something you have responded to. In addition to this, I like to use official statistics to reinforce a point, and the statistics I have on hand deal predominately with homicide.

[Esternial]

Well, I'm rather upset because this inevitably leads to gun owners complaining about "those damn liberals" again, generalising at will, and this will only make the gap between people with different convictions harder to bridge.

I don't really care about it, myself, since I'm not a gun owner, but I can imagine quite a few Americans will be upset about it. Then again, either side has pulled stunts like these, so perhaps everybody should try to compromise, instead?

Hah, of course not.

[Nazeroth]

Well, I'm rather upset because this inevitably leads to gun owners complaining about "those damn liberals" again, generalising at will, and this will only make the gap between people with different convictions harder to bridge.

I don't really care about it, myself, since I'm not a gun owner, but I can imagine quite a few Americans will be upset about it. Then again, either side has pulled stunts like these, so perhaps everybody should try to compromise, instead?

Hah, of course not.

gun owners have been "compromising" for years

little by little more and more gun laws get passed.

[Norjagen]

Well, I'm rather upset because this inevitably leads to gun owners complaining about "those damn liberals" again, generalising at will, and this will only make the gap between people with different convictions harder to bridge.

I don't really care about it, myself, since I'm not a gun owner, but I can imagine quite a few Americans will be upset about it. Then again, either side has pulled stunts like these, so perhaps everybody should try to compromise, instead?

Hah, of course not.

gun owners have been "compromising" for years

little by little more and more gun laws get passed.

We've learned what "Compromise" means. In relation to anti-gunners, it invariably translates to "We'll only take X and let you keep Y... Until we come for those next year. But when we do, we'll let you keep Z... Until we come for those as well."

[Esternial]

Well, I'm rather upset because this inevitably leads to gun owners complaining about "those damn liberals" again, generalising at will, and this will only make the gap between people with different convictions harder to bridge.

I don't really care about it, myself, since I'm not a gun owner, but I can imagine quite a few Americans will be upset about it. Then again, either side has pulled stunts like these, so perhaps everybody should try to compromise, instead?

Hah, of course not.

gun owners have been "compromising" for years

little by little more and more gun laws get passed.

I said "everybody", no?

[Free Soviets]

actually, i say it under the weight of the evidence and a rather easy cost-benefit analysis.

given that reducing access to guns reduces gun violence, it follows that reducing access to guns generates more safety than you get by using easy-access guns for self-defense. even assuming absolutely ridiculous levels of gun-based self-defense. because there's still the matter of all those dead kids...

Let us imagine a gun-free scenario, then. Let us, if only for a moment, say that no firearms exist in the United States of America, criminally owned or otherwise. A gun is an equalizer and a deterrent. But let us imagine that there are no guns, and violent crimes are committed with blades, cudgels, and bare hands. It would seem to me that in such a scenario, the bigger, stronger individuals would be relatively free to do as they please until local law enforcement arrives. An old man isn't going to be able to bring down an athletic thug in hand-to-hand combat.

what sort of mad max dystopia do you live in? i mean, there are some places that work sorta like this now (for the rest of us, we have strong enough institutions that it doesn't even rank as a concern). but there its the guns that do most of the work. because the abstract idea of guns in the hands of a lone citizen simply does not act as an equalizer and deterrent. instead, they are used by the criminals to get what they want with minimal risk to themselves.

ah, you say, but what if even moar people had guns. an armed society is a polite society, right? well, no. because it turns out that the same thought patterns that lend themselves to violent criminality also lend themselves to poor impulse control and being terrible at assessing risk.

But, "all those dead kids," while tragic losses, are a very small percentage of gun crime in general. If one looks to the notorious mass shooters, it can be seen that almost all of them invariably plead insanity or commit suicide, which would imply that their mental health is somewhat less-than-ideal. Rather than pinning the blame on inanimate objects that do not act autonomously, perhaps one might look to the single aspect that has remained constant throughout every crime that has been committed since time immemorial; human beings. Would it be better to have no guns and individuals with mass-killer mentalities, or better would guns be less of an issue if there were improved treatments for individuals with such warped mentalities?

how about we take the best of both worlds and improve access to and effectiveness of treatments while at the same time making it significantly more difficult for the crazy and the criminal to access guns?

also, inanimate objects quite clearly are causal. in fact, the constant of humanity is part of how we know this - people is people but rates change, which means we can reasonably assume that its not the people that make the difference. consider again the easy case. if nuclear weapons were uncontrolled and readily accessible, would there be more or less nuclear explosions than there are today?

[Imperializt Russia]

Excuse me, I can't think of a single country that has no gun violence. Also as has already been stated some countries with strict gun control have higher crime rates.

I didn't say no gun-violence, i said virtually no-gun violence which means almost no gun-violence. That is inaccurate that they have higher crime rates. Compare the UK to the US. 400 gun-related crimes in the UK versus 10,000 gun-related crimes in the US. If you want me to back it up with facts that I have rather than the myths that others have stated, I will gladly supply you with them.

That's not correct. There are (fewer than) ten thousand gun-related homicides in the US, yes.

Further note that in the UK we completely banned and then seized all handguns in civilian possession, yet handguns still make up 44% of our firearm homicides.
People like to either walk them off army bases or smuggle them in from the US.
There are kids in Merseyside, where I live, who have access to SA80 programme weapons from assault rifles to hand grenades.

In the UK, England and Wales alone an average of over 2,000 violent crimes are commited yearly. In the US its 3x lower than that. Add the other two British countries and you'll probably get an even higher rate.

It's actually closer to 775 per 100,000 in the UK and 383 per 100,000 in the US, but it is hard to compare crimes due to different definitions of crimes.

EDIT: Also according to the CDC their are 3,000 fatal drownings in the US each year. So not a few hundred...

According to a rather alarmist study I like to keep to hand, there may be as many as two million violent crimes per year committed.

Now, I don't quite buy that figure, but it does point out the drastic rise in violent crime that began way back during the Second World War, to which we have the Blitz to thank.

[Personal Defense Force]

Dammit people, do I have to keep posting this bloody thing? I have already proved that more guns here in the US decreases gun violence to the point that one could make the argument of making it mandatory for every single household to own a gun (With a few exceptions in the case of those that are mentally incapable).

http://rense.com/general9/gunlaw.htm

Over 30 years of requiring a town of 30,000 people to own a gun and they have had 3 murders two of which where by police officers and the other in a gun free zone, gun crime dropped to zero, robberies in the entire town have dropped to less then 11 a year.

Stop saying that putting more guns in the hands of civilians will just result in shootouts, it's stupid and impractical, unlike your so called "historic facts" about gun control working we actually have proof that less gun-control=less crime.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So just for giggles, not that I think it's going to change anyones mind about any of this thing, I'll quote some statistics that actually do exist and give my own lil argument that I'm sure you guys will be more then happy to tear apart of your own free will.

1. Culture
2. Crime in the US over the past decade
3. Gun crime in areas with high gun control
4. Final Thoughts

[1]

The very first thing I have to say right now is to those that are citizens of foreign countries and believe "Because Gun-Control works here, it will work in the US". That would be a very sound argument if there wasn't such a substantial culture difference inbetween the US and a majority of this countries of this lovely world in terms of political and individual ideology. Things as how our government operate all the way down to how each individual person acts is substantially adverse compared to a majority of the nations.

For those that have had to switch inbetween living inbetween the US and a European or Asian nation such as myself, almost as a certainty you would notice how difficult it is to assimilate into the opposite cultures. This wouldn't be the case if you were say, a European moving to another European country, as the culture shock isn't as bad if at all as a majority of the European countries have similar customs. Although I do apologize for how poorly written this paragraph may seem to some of you I'm sure that those that like to exhibit some forms of intelligence will be able to appreciate what I am trying to say. The differences inbetween the cultures prevents certain actions or laws from being effective or useful in other cultures or countries.

[2]

The second thing I have to say is to those that state "Here in the US, the more gun control we have the less crime there is".

The first statistic I will quote is this:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr ... ta-table-8

This is a table I saw down below that will nicely demonstrate my first point

With the recent expiration of the assault weapons bill and the Supreme court ruling that handgun bans where unconstitutional in any state (Including DC) people assumed that gun crime would rise due to the increased availability of weapons in the US that were considered "Dangerous" just a few years ago. What happened instead is...

Absolutely nothing.

There was no increase in gun crime in the US of any degree whatsoever, rather the previous trend of a decrease in gun related crime continued, with an annual decrease inbetween 5% and 7% every year that has been happening ever since the 90's. Even looking at non-governmental statistics you can see the same trend happening on a yearly basis for much longer.

Even with the increase of mass shootings happening being added to the crime statistic, it still falls way short of previous years violent crimes

If anything, crime in the US is decreasing at a surprising rate as shown by this next table:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr ... es/table-1

Over the past two decades this trend has been continuing constantly in the US, and shows that even if we sit here with our thumbs up our butts and do nothing it will continue to decrease. No pro or against gun control law has had anything to do with the decrease of national crime, and no substantial evidence proving that there is any correlation with any law to the decrease in crime in general. The Culture of the US is simply shifting to a far less violent society then our predecessors.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self- ... -1993.aspx

This is, as statistics show, despite the fact the amount of households reporting gun ownership to there respective states has risen to the highest point it has ever been in the past two decades.

This brings me to the next point...

[3]

There will be those that say that culture across the US is substantially different (which again supports my first argument above), which in its essences is true but in this part I'll show you that the difference is about as relevant as the differences inbetween the European nations.

The point I'm trying to make here is simple, places with higher gun control suffer greater amount of crime then those that don't.

Example 1:
http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/07/manda ... wo-cities/

Keenesaw is the first place in the entire country that has mandated gun ownership within its limits where the population is required to have a firearm with ammunition inside its residence. With a population of 30,000 people and an unemployment rate around the national average, as well as being located on the east coast (An area generally stereotypes with being more liberal, despite Keenesaw's location in the south). In all essence it is a stereotypical town that an argument can be made towards its representation of a majority of US towns of that size.

Ever since it made gun ownership mandatory 31 years ago they have had 3 murders in there town, one of them was on the city limits and the other two where in a "Gun-free" zone outside of the local school, areas where the citizens wouldn't have firearms.

Example 2:
http://www.justfacts.com/images/guncont ... s-full.png
http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/ ... eckdam.pdf

Chicago was the subject of much dispute a few years ago with there handgun ban and the supreme court ruling that was discussed above changing said ban.

The main argument against the ban was the above statistic, the fact that once the ban was implemented the gun related crime there skyrocketed and can, unlike the above decrease in crime stated in bracket 2, directly correlated with a gun control law. The moment that the gun control law was struck down and law abiding citizens could buy handguns again the gun related crime dropped, and as it sits is just marginally higher then the national average (Mainly to do with the fact it is the subject of gangs and is a large city).

Example 3:
Uniform Crime Reporting Program, District of Columbia, 1960-2008." Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Justice Information Services Division
Any washington DC time lapse crime statistics

During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower.

Conclusion:
The conclusion? Gun control in the US does nothing to hamper crime in the US, rather it increases it by making it harder for law abiding citizens to gain access to guns and allowing those that legally or illegally purchased there weapons and have decided to use there weapons for illegal purposes to do as they wish unhampered. Now this may be an assumption but a better argument can be made for that then against it

[4]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... -frequent/
http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac_ssi.shtml

We have no fucking clue (Pardon my language) what the "Shooter" profile is. The only thing that has been true between the shooters is the presence of mental issues that borderline insanity. Ignoring the media's description of 'Shooters" (Which only correctly describe less then half of the shooters that have existed since the 90's), the only thing we can legitimately do is require a background check

The only problem I have with that is the 7 day waiting period that is required for said background checks in the states that require them. In the day and age of the internet where the entire background check system is online and available for anyone to use by request for any variety of reasons and can be instantly checked, why in the world can't the clerk do it in store? IT's not any less effective then having a police officer do so and the clerk can make his/her own decision on whether or not the mental health of the person that is purchasing the firearm is in fact in question on the spot, unlike the officer that is possibly a hundred miles away with no idea what the person they are approving for a firearm is actually like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_o ... _v._Heller

For those that believe the second amendment is only for state militias, the Supreme court already ruled that the second amendment is the for the average man, and not the state militias.

That is all, good day sirs, use this post as you wish.

[The Holy Therns]

gun owners have been "compromising" for years

little by little more and more gun laws get passed.

We've learned what "Compromise" means. In relation to anti-gunners, it invariably translates to "We'll only take X and let you keep Y... Until we come for those next year. But when we do, we'll let you keep Z... Until we come for those as well."

That's so sad for you.

[Downeistan]

I don't want to recopy all of Personal Defense Force's post, and legitimately kudos for putting time and research into it, but just a few thoughts:

1. Correlation is not causation
2. Comparing outer-ring suburb Kennesaw, Georgia with a population of ~35k and NYC with a population of 8.25m is not the most apt comp, especially when decrying cultural differences in comparing the US with Europe.
3. Your data demonstrates consistent downward trends from from about 1993 onwards. I haven't researched so I won't state there is causation, but it's curious that the Brady Bill, the most prominent gun-control legislation in a generation passed in 1993.

But again, I do respect the thought process far more than the all too frequent 'because I said so's'.

[Imperializt Russia]

The implementation of background checks and waiting periods nationally is probably a significant factor, hence why I was saddened when the measure to improve the background checks system was voted down early this year.

The point both of this thread and gun control in general is, the Assault Weapon Ban hasn't significantly impacted crime in any way.

[Spirit of Hope]

I don't want to recopy all of Personal Defense Force's post, and legitimately kudos for putting time and research into it, but just a few thoughts:

1. Correlation is not causation
2. Comparing outer-ring suburb Kennesaw, Georgia with a population of ~35k and NYC with a population of 8.25m is not the most apt comp, especially when decrying cultural differences in comparing the US with Europe.
3. Your data demonstrates consistent downward trends from from about 1993 onwards. I haven't researched so I won't state there is causation, but it's curious that the Brady Bill, the most prominent gun-control legislation in a generation passed in 1993.

But again, I do respect the thought process far more than the all too frequent 'because I said so's'.

Really the decrease in crime is much more lily attributed to the rather large increase in police officers, and better crime fighting technologies. Combined with an increase in prison sentences has made crime dramatically less profitable and taken criminals off the street.
A more controversial opinion is that the decrease in the crack cocaine market is connected with the decrease in crime as this reduces gang violence for control of drugs and the corresponding market.
Even more controversial still is that one could make an argument for abortion being connected to the decrease in crime. The logic going people of low income are more likely to commit crimes, and low income mothers are more likely to get abortions. Thus the legalization of abortions meant a decrease in the low income population, especially for at risk ages.
Most likely it is a combination of these and other factors that caused a decrease in crime.

Crimes happen without guns, crimes happen with guns, the point should be to reduce crime. To accomplish this you need to have a multi pronged operation that not only cracks down on crime, but gives at risk individuals other options besides crime.

[Paddy O Fernature]

We've learned what "Compromise" means. In relation to anti-gunners, it invariably translates to "We'll only take X and let you keep Y... Until we come for those next year. But when we do, we'll let you keep Z... Until we come for those as well."

That's so sad for you.

Are you just here to do drive by trolling, or are you actually going to partake in the debate and contribute anything worthwhile? Norjagen is in the right when he says that law abiding/legal owners of firearms have sadly been stabbed in the back several times over the last few decades with these so called compromises.