Probably when war stops. You see, war causes domestic unrest. If you study up on many of the mass murderers in history, they were mostly all during war-times.
Is this guy a muslim or an arab for the sake of the running terrorist theme?
You're just saying the same thing everyone else is saying. More laws = fewer murders. Prove it, its not too much to ask!
By "here", I meant Canada, and I've already posted a link to the relevent stats.
..and I didn't read this entire thread...thats why I put in my post I'm assuming you meant the US....
now on me providing stats or facts...don't have them...but using simple logic....outlaw handguns (yes I said handguns) the number of guns and murders will go down...as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Course with the gun lobby...and all the scared white people in the US and I'm guessing from your post Canada..it will never happen. Too bad...too bad for all those thousands that will die.
..and I didn't read this entire thread...thats why I put in my post I'm assuming you meant the US....
now on me providing stats or facts...don't have them...but using simple logic....outlaw handguns (yes I said handguns) the number of guns and murders will go down...as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Course with the gun lobby...and all the scared white people in the US and I'm guessing from your post Canada..it will never happen. Too bad...too bad for all those thousands that will die.
if you outlaw handguns, law abiding citizens will no longer have handguns. Criminals who have no respect for the law won't hand in the handguns...handguns won't magically disappear if you outlaw them. Banning handguns is just a band-aid solution for a deeper problem.
make sure the fortune that you seek...is the fortune that you need
What's one of your hobbies? Chances are, someone else will think its boring as shit.
no boubt about it...but my hobbies don't kill people...and the little pleasure some people get from guns as a hobby isn't worth it. I like machinery..and guns are finely machined tools and I appreciate the craftmanship and history of guns...but unfortunately..people can't handle them...sad but true. And I shouldn't have added the shooting guns is boring part..that was bad on me..as its not relevant. Just venting I guess....live in Texas ..and have freinds that like guns...and get into it some times.
You're just saying the same thing everyone else is saying. More laws = fewer murders. Prove it, its not too much to ask!
ok.. Scotland 1994 - present day.. more laws on guns, the banning of ALL handguns has resulted in gun related deaths falling by over 50%
Australia
February, 2000
Sharp Drop in Gun Crime Follows Tough Australian Firearm Laws
Latest official data from Australia shows a marked reduction in gun-related crime and injury following recent restrictions on the private ownership of firearms.
Twelve days after 35 people were shot dead by a single gunman in Tasmania, Australia's state and federal governments agreed to enact wide-ranging new gun control laws to curb firearm-related death and injury. Between July 1996 and August 1998, the new restrictions were brought into force. Since that time, key indicators for gun-related death and crime have shown encouraging results.
Firearm-Related Homicide
"There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998."
-- Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, Oct 1999
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.
elsewhere:-
Other Countries
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.
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
..and I didn't read this entire thread...thats why I put in my post I'm assuming you meant the US....
now on me providing stats or facts...don't have them...but using simple logic....outlaw handguns (yes I said handguns) the number of guns and murders will go down...as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Course with the gun lobby...and all the scared white people in the US and I'm guessing from your post Canada..it will never happen. Too bad...too bad for all those thousands that will die.
Handguns are banned in Canada as far as I know we can only own rifles for hunting. Yet, there are plenty of handgun murders, a guy was seen just last week running down the street with a handgun chasing someone.
Truth is, if the guy he was chasing had a gun aswell, it'd be a different story.
If a guy walks into a bank with a handgun and says "this is a stick-up" everyone cowers in fear. If everyone in the bank also had a handgun, they'd shoot the fucker in the face and continue on with their lives. But my guess is, he would never even try to rob a bank or a store, knowing that he might also be shot, knowing he has no advantage.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Come on, guys ... I'm not for a total ban on guns, but you have to admit that the Europeans have a point here.
Could this guy have stormed into the room with a baseball bat? Sure. Is it likely that 30 healthy teenagers could be easily subdued by one guy with a bat? No. They'd have likely overpowered him and bashed his head in.
You're also ignoring that guns make things so easy. Stabbing someone to death is a very personal act ... you need to get right up in their face, there's likely to be a struggle, you have to be strong. Same thing with bludgeoning someone to death. A guy like this likely doesn't have the balls for that sort of thing. He can be a tough guy with a gun in his hand because he doesn't even have to come into physical contact with his victims. If they make one threatening move, bang, they're dead. So yeah, theoretically he could stab them to death, but as a practical matter he'd never do it.
Another thing to consider is that there aren't a lot of accidental knifings. Gang members and drug dealers are always going to kill each other, but without guns at least they wouldn't accidentally kill some kid riding past on his bike while they're doing it.
Having said all that, I don't think it's possible to ban guns in the U.S. First, there's the constitution to be dealt with, and repealing the second amendment is simply not going to happen. Second, there are just too many of them out there, millions and millions. If you ban them, all the law-abiding citizens will turn in their guns and then we'll have a heavily armed criminal class (who obviously would NOT turn in their guns) that knows almost no one will be able to defend themselves.
I do support tightened restrictions and waiting periods. Dunky, you asked earlier if it was possible that the guy could have just bought the gun this morning. I don't know what the laws are in Colorado, but in Ohio he certainly could have. All that's required is for the gun dealer to call the FBI for a quick background check, which you will pass as long as you're not a felon and don't have a psychiatric history. You can be out the door with guns and ammo in about 10 minutes.
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 1963
if you outlaw handguns, law abiding citizens will no longer have handguns. Criminals who have no respect for the law won't hand in the handguns...handguns won't magically disappear if you outlaw them. Banning handguns is just a band-aid solution for a deeper problem.
now this isnt ideal, but 75% of all gun victims have some form of criminal background.... basically they shoot each other, which isnt great obviously but, well, you know
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
if you outlaw handguns, law abiding citizens will no longer have handguns. Criminals who have no respect for the law won't hand in the handguns...handguns won't magically disappear if you outlaw them. Banning handguns is just a band-aid solution for a deeper problem.
deeper problem...but unfortunately the deeper problem is there will always be sorry ass humans that can't handle guns..and unless you eliminate all people that deeper problem will not be solved....if we outlaw guns...restrict import..make it a felony to own one...there will be less handguns...and yes it will take a while...but murder rates will go down.
I had this argument with one of my progun freinds...and afterwards..he said to me...you know..theres an angle you didn't even mention......"if the criminal thinks you might have a gun..he'll just shoot you..not giving you the opportunity to fire back...but if he knows you don't have a gun then he'll get what he wants and take off" ..I worked retail in a store at the time..that stayed open late...and the relevance of this was if a robber comes in with a gun...and the store clerk has a gun..someone will die....if though only the robber has a gun...probably not.
now this isnt ideal, but 75% of all gun victims have some form of criminal background.... basically they shoot each other, which isnt great obviously but, well, you know
it's not great, but... i'll agree with where you're heading.
make sure the fortune that you seek...is the fortune that you need
Come on, guys ... I'm not for a total ban on guns, but you have to admit that the Europeans have a point here.
thanks Le Hip du Mom
thing is... i;m not really advocating the banning of all guns here either, i just believe it should be way fucking harder to get them, nobody should be able to keep them at their homes unless they have a registered safe and other things like bi-monthly gun registration checks... etc etc etc
again if these small steps are administered then even if 1 kids life is saved its made it all worthwhile... unless that kid was going to grow up and become a genocidial fuckhead, in which case... bravo!!!!
for fucks sake guys... Scotland has the worst rates of heart disease and lung cancer in Europe... and yet we managed to implement a smoking ban in public places... if we can do that then you nice people can restrict the guns a bit more!!!
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
Handguns are banned in Canada as far as I know we can only own rifles for hunting. Yet, there are plenty of handgun murders, a guy was seen just last week running down the street with a handgun chasing someone.
Truth is, if the guy he was chasing had a gun aswell, it'd be a different story.
If a guy walks into a bank with a handgun and says "this is a stick-up" everyone cowers in fear. If everyone in the bank also had a handgun, they'd shoot the fucker in the face and continue on with their lives. But my guess is, he would never even try to rob a bank or a store, knowing that he might also be shot, knowing he has no advantage.
appreciate that....bank robber goes in....no one has a gun..no one dies....everyone has a gun...the robber is dead as well as several people caught in the crossfire...cause the people shooting are the same idiots I'm sharing the road with......I trust 1 % of my neighbors with guns..the other 99% voted for Bush.....okay that was a funny....(-:
deeper problem...but unfortunately the deeper problem is there will always be sorry ass humans that can't handle guns..and unless you eliminate all people that deeper problem will not be solved....if we outlaw guns...restrict import..make it a felony to own one...there will be less handguns...and yes it will take a while...but murder rates will go down.
I had this argument with one of my progun freinds...and afterwards..he said to me...you know..theres an angle you didn't even mention......"if the criminal thinks you might have a gun..he'll just shoot you..not giving you the opportunity to fire back...but if he knows you don't have a gun then he'll get what he wants and take off" ..I worked retail in a store at the time..that stayed open late...and the relevance of this was if a robber comes in with a gun...and the store clerk has a gun..someone will die....if though only the robber has a gun...probably not.
Have you ever seen the video of the two store clerks hitting the armed robbers with a baseball bat and a tire iron? The clerks are shot at repeatedly but somehow the bullets miss and they are able to beat back the robbers.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I do support tightened restrictions and waiting periods. Dunky, you asked earlier if it was possible that the guy could have just bought the gun this morning. I don't know what the laws are in Colorado, but in Ohio he certainly could have. All that's required is for the gun dealer to call the FBI for a quick background check, which you will pass as long as you're not a felon and don't have a psychiatric history. You can be out the door with guns and ammo in about 10 minutes.
very good points in your post Mom... but this genuinely frightens me... :(
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
thing is... i;m not really advocating the banning of all guns here either, i just believe it should be way fucking harder to get them, nobody should be able to keep them at their homes unless they have a registered safe and other things like bi-monthly gun registration checks... etc etc etc
again if these small steps are administered then even if 1 kids life is saved its made it all worthwhile... unless that kid was going to grow up and become a genocidial fuckhead, in which case... bravo!!!!
for fucks sake guys... Scotland has the worst rates of heart disease and lung cancer in Europe... and yet we managed to implement a smoking ban in public places... if we can do that then you nice people can restrict the guns a bit more!!!
that people don't secure their guns...soooo home burglary..and they're back in criminals hands....all handguns need to be make illegal and destroyed...only way it will work...and yes it will take a while...5 10 20 years..but murder rates will go down.....
Hippie Mom made a great point.....its sooo easy to pull a trigger...and it doesn't take bravery to do it...but fighting with fists...or bats....or knives...well most of the punks that shoot people are cowards...so the argument that people will use alternative means doesn't work.
deeper problem...but unfortunately the deeper problem is there will always be sorry ass humans that can't handle guns..and unless you eliminate all people that deeper problem will not be solved....if we outlaw guns...restrict import..make it a felony to own one...there will be less handguns...and yes it will take a while...but murder rates will go down.
I had this argument with one of my progun freinds...and afterwards..he said to me...you know..theres an angle you didn't even mention......"if the criminal thinks you might have a gun..he'll just shoot you..not giving you the opportunity to fire back...but if he knows you don't have a gun then he'll get what he wants and take off" ..I worked retail in a store at the time..that stayed open late...and the relevance of this was if a robber comes in with a gun...and the store clerk has a gun..someone will die....if though only the robber has a gun...probably not.
I guess i also think there will always be sorry ass humans period. The vast majority of legal gun owners aren't causing the crimes and that's where my beef is with banning guns. We need to quit with the knee jerk reaction of banning guns when something goes wrong. If we ban guns, my guess is things will be like prohibition and alcohol.
the counter to the argument you post is that if the guy who comes in to rob you thinks you have a gun, he may be less likely to take a chance. Guns in robberies are about power. It takes a coward to use a gun to commit a crime, do you think that type of person would go toe-to-toe so to speak if they thought someone had a gun?
make sure the fortune that you seek...is the fortune that you need
that people don't secure their guns...soooo home burglary..and they're back in criminals hands....all handguns need to be make illegal and destroyed...only way it will work...and yes it will take a while...5 10 20 years..but murder rates will go down.....
Hippie Mom made a great point.....its sooo easy to pull a trigger...and it doesn't take bravery to do it...but fighting with fists...or bats....or knives...well most of the punks that shoot people are cowards...so the argument that people will use alternative means doesn't work.
yeah, i agree with you.... all handguns should be banned as they did here in Scotland and it has worked... america we were your guineau pig
if they were banned and deaths only dropped by say 10% thats still 1000 extra people saved.. thats 500 kids a year that dont have their faces on the wallpaper... this can only be a good thing!
i dont want to get into all just now, but is the constitutional right to have a gun not something to do with forming a militia against a corrupt government or something??? so all these guys who have handguns would fight their own army, with handguns, no military training, no army, no hierachy of command, no communication system, no hope!! just get rid of the fucking things
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
I guess i also think there will always be sorry ass humans period. The vast majority of legal gun owners aren't causing the crimes and that's where my beef is with banning guns. We need to quit with the knee jerk reaction of banning guns when something goes wrong. If we ban guns, my guess is things will be like prohibition and alcohol.
the counter to the argument you post is that if the guy who comes in to rob you thinks you have a gun, he may be less likely to take a chance. Guns in robberies are about power. It takes a coward to use a gun to commit a crime, do you think that type of person would go toe-to-toe so to speak if they thought someone had a gun?
if not the store clerk he will go somewhere...and I don't have the stats...and I should be flamed but aren't most murders caused by people you know...freinds and family...and murders of passion....by law abiding citizens...course I may be wrong....
if not the store clerk he will go somewhere...and I don't have the stats...and I should be flamed but aren't most murders caused by people you know...freinds and family...and murders of passion....by law abiding citizens...course I may be wrong....
Murders are caused for one of three reasons, profit, passion and compulsion.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Murders are caused for one of three reasons, profit, passion and compulsion.
and pride
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
if not the store clerk he will go somewhere...and I don't have the stats...and I should be flamed but aren't most murders caused by people you know...freinds and family...and murders of passion....by law abiding citizens...course I may be wrong....
Most murder victims are killed by people they know, but NOT by law abiding citizens. If there are a lot of criminals among your friends and family, you might want to think about finding a new crowd, because those people shoot each other all the time. If you stay away from people with criminal records, it's probable that you'll go your whole life without ever seeing a gun in use.
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 1963
Like if someone insulted a gangsta infront of his homies he'd have to be capped. I think because it's pissed the gangsta off and threatened his pride.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
i dont want to get into all just now, but is the constitutional right to have a gun not something to do with forming a militia against a corrupt government or something??? so all these guys who have handguns would fight their own army, with handguns, no military training, no army, no hierachy of command, no communication system, no hope!! just get rid of the fucking things
and right now...I trust my government less than ever...taking away my liberties and rights....and don't trust them......but I still don't want to buy a gun to protect myself from them...hmmm.
Most murder victims are killed by people they know, but NOT by law abiding citizens. If there are a lot of criminals among your friends and family, you might want to think about finding a new crowd, because those people shoot each other all the time. If you stay away from people with criminal records, it's probable that you'll go your whole life without ever seeing a gun in use.
that last sentence is so true... i just read elsewhere about this very phenomenon.. it said that 75% of homicide victims/perpetrators have links to crime in some way..
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
Like if someone insulted a gangsta infront of his homies he'd have to be capped. I think because it's pissed the gangsta off and threatened his pride.
I wouldnt... pride and passion are differing emotions.... and i meant pride in the honour sense... I've done a huge amount of reading on the Sicilian Mafia and murder is normally performed for pride, whereas passion would conjure images of scorned love or some other heartfelt response!
homies and gangstas make me laugh.. not them, its the words
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
that last sentence is so true... i just read elsewhere about this very phenomenon.. it said that 75% of homicide victims/perpetrators have links to crime in some way..
You have to be careful with statistics, pollsters are commissioned to get results complimentary of a particular political point of view. For example, the results of this particular statistics could be drastically different if the question was either of the following:
A) Have you ever been involved in criminal activity?
Which could receive responses such as:
• Yes, when I was a juvenile I was involved in an armed robbery, that was 25 years ago.
• Yes, I was convicted for reckless driving.
Have you been involved in criminal activity within the last 6 months?
• No, my last conviction was as a juvenile.
• No, my last conviction was five years ago.
So you see, depending on how the question is delivered the resulting yes/no may be different, which would affect the statistical results. The pollsters are usually given an outline of what the objective of the poll is so that they can choose the proper wording to acheive the proper results.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I guess i also think there will always be sorry ass humans period. The vast majority of legal gun owners aren't causing the crimes and that's where my beef is with banning guns. We need to quit with the knee jerk reaction of banning guns when something goes wrong. If we ban guns, my guess is things will be like prohibition and alcohol.
the counter to the argument you post is that if the guy who comes in to rob you thinks you have a gun, he may be less likely to take a chance. Guns in robberies are about power. It takes a coward to use a gun to commit a crime, do you think that type of person would go toe-to-toe so to speak if they thought someone had a gun?
As this thread so amply demonstrates, knee-jerking will never go away. Emotional reasoning is human nature, I am afraid.
And callen, take a look in the mirror. The "scared white person" is you. I don't know why you even made that remark. Inane ... I've said my piece, people aren't listening. Mission accomplished. I'll leave you to what has become a pretty fruitless discussion.
You have to be careful with statistics, pollsters are commissioned to get results complimentary of a particular political point of view. For example, the results of this particular statistics could be drastically different if the question was either of the following:
A) Have you ever been involved in criminal activity?
Which could receive responses such as:
• Yes, when I was a juvenile I was involved in an armed robbery, that was 25 years ago.
• Yes, I was convicted for reckless driving.
Have you been involved in criminal activity within the last 6 months?
• No, my last conviction was as a juvenile.
• No, my last conviction was five years ago.
So you see, depending on how the question is delivered the resulting yes/no may be different, which would affect the statistical results. The pollsters are usually given an outline of what the objective of the poll is so that they can choose the proper wording to acheive the proper results.
thats true... i'll see if i can find the page i read it on and i'm sure it said something about violent crime and not parking infringements... but i'll check
its a fair point you've made though
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
... I've said my piece, people aren't listening. Mission accomplished. I'll leave you to what has become a pretty fruitless discussion.
it was never gonna be fruitfull though was it... i have my mind made up as have you... so the only hope is that we make slight inroads into meeting in the middle!!!
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
Which could receive responses such as:
• Yes, when I was a juvenile I was involved in an armed robbery, that was 25 years ago.
• Yes, I was convicted for reckless driving.
Have you been involved in criminal activity within the last 6 months?
• No, my last conviction was as a juvenile.
• No, my last conviction was five years ago.
also i meant to say as good as your post is i'm more impressed with the actual use of bullet points... i've never seen them on this forum before :cool:
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
Comments
Nah, he's probably a Jew, right Ahnimus?
now on me providing stats or facts...don't have them...but using simple logic....outlaw handguns (yes I said handguns) the number of guns and murders will go down...as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Course with the gun lobby...and all the scared white people in the US and I'm guessing from your post Canada..it will never happen. Too bad...too bad for all those thousands that will die.
if you outlaw handguns, law abiding citizens will no longer have handguns. Criminals who have no respect for the law won't hand in the handguns...handguns won't magically disappear if you outlaw them. Banning handguns is just a band-aid solution for a deeper problem.
no boubt about it...but my hobbies don't kill people...and the little pleasure some people get from guns as a hobby isn't worth it. I like machinery..and guns are finely machined tools and I appreciate the craftmanship and history of guns...but unfortunately..people can't handle them...sad but true. And I shouldn't have added the shooting guns is boring part..that was bad on me..as its not relevant. Just venting I guess....live in Texas ..and have freinds that like guns...and get into it some times.
ok.. Scotland 1994 - present day.. more laws on guns, the banning of ALL handguns has resulted in gun related deaths falling by over 50%
Australia
February, 2000
Sharp Drop in Gun Crime Follows Tough Australian Firearm Laws
Latest official data from Australia shows a marked reduction in gun-related crime and injury following recent restrictions on the private ownership of firearms.
Twelve days after 35 people were shot dead by a single gunman in Tasmania, Australia's state and federal governments agreed to enact wide-ranging new gun control laws to curb firearm-related death and injury. Between July 1996 and August 1998, the new restrictions were brought into force. Since that time, key indicators for gun-related death and crime have shown encouraging results.
Firearm-Related Homicide
"There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998."
-- Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, Oct 1999
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.
elsewhere:-
Other Countries
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.
Handguns are banned in Canada as far as I know we can only own rifles for hunting. Yet, there are plenty of handgun murders, a guy was seen just last week running down the street with a handgun chasing someone.
Truth is, if the guy he was chasing had a gun aswell, it'd be a different story.
If a guy walks into a bank with a handgun and says "this is a stick-up" everyone cowers in fear. If everyone in the bank also had a handgun, they'd shoot the fucker in the face and continue on with their lives. But my guess is, he would never even try to rob a bank or a store, knowing that he might also be shot, knowing he has no advantage.
Could this guy have stormed into the room with a baseball bat? Sure. Is it likely that 30 healthy teenagers could be easily subdued by one guy with a bat? No. They'd have likely overpowered him and bashed his head in.
You're also ignoring that guns make things so easy. Stabbing someone to death is a very personal act ... you need to get right up in their face, there's likely to be a struggle, you have to be strong. Same thing with bludgeoning someone to death. A guy like this likely doesn't have the balls for that sort of thing. He can be a tough guy with a gun in his hand because he doesn't even have to come into physical contact with his victims. If they make one threatening move, bang, they're dead. So yeah, theoretically he could stab them to death, but as a practical matter he'd never do it.
Another thing to consider is that there aren't a lot of accidental knifings. Gang members and drug dealers are always going to kill each other, but without guns at least they wouldn't accidentally kill some kid riding past on his bike while they're doing it.
Having said all that, I don't think it's possible to ban guns in the U.S. First, there's the constitution to be dealt with, and repealing the second amendment is simply not going to happen. Second, there are just too many of them out there, millions and millions. If you ban them, all the law-abiding citizens will turn in their guns and then we'll have a heavily armed criminal class (who obviously would NOT turn in their guns) that knows almost no one will be able to defend themselves.
I do support tightened restrictions and waiting periods. Dunky, you asked earlier if it was possible that the guy could have just bought the gun this morning. I don't know what the laws are in Colorado, but in Ohio he certainly could have. All that's required is for the gun dealer to call the FBI for a quick background check, which you will pass as long as you're not a felon and don't have a psychiatric history. You can be out the door with guns and ammo in about 10 minutes.
now this isnt ideal, but 75% of all gun victims have some form of criminal background.... basically they shoot each other, which isnt great obviously but, well, you know
I had this argument with one of my progun freinds...and afterwards..he said to me...you know..theres an angle you didn't even mention......"if the criminal thinks you might have a gun..he'll just shoot you..not giving you the opportunity to fire back...but if he knows you don't have a gun then he'll get what he wants and take off" ..I worked retail in a store at the time..that stayed open late...and the relevance of this was if a robber comes in with a gun...and the store clerk has a gun..someone will die....if though only the robber has a gun...probably not.
it's not great, but... i'll agree with where you're heading.
thanks Le Hip du Mom
thing is... i;m not really advocating the banning of all guns here either, i just believe it should be way fucking harder to get them, nobody should be able to keep them at their homes unless they have a registered safe and other things like bi-monthly gun registration checks... etc etc etc
again if these small steps are administered then even if 1 kids life is saved its made it all worthwhile... unless that kid was going to grow up and become a genocidial fuckhead, in which case... bravo!!!!
for fucks sake guys... Scotland has the worst rates of heart disease and lung cancer in Europe... and yet we managed to implement a smoking ban in public places... if we can do that then you nice people can restrict the guns a bit more!!!
appreciate that....bank robber goes in....no one has a gun..no one dies....everyone has a gun...the robber is dead as well as several people caught in the crossfire...cause the people shooting are the same idiots I'm sharing the road with......I trust 1 % of my neighbors with guns..the other 99% voted for Bush.....okay that was a funny....(-:
Have you ever seen the video of the two store clerks hitting the armed robbers with a baseball bat and a tire iron? The clerks are shot at repeatedly but somehow the bullets miss and they are able to beat back the robbers.
very good points in your post Mom... but this genuinely frightens me... :(
that people don't secure their guns...soooo home burglary..and they're back in criminals hands....all handguns need to be make illegal and destroyed...only way it will work...and yes it will take a while...5 10 20 years..but murder rates will go down.....
Hippie Mom made a great point.....its sooo easy to pull a trigger...and it doesn't take bravery to do it...but fighting with fists...or bats....or knives...well most of the punks that shoot people are cowards...so the argument that people will use alternative means doesn't work.
I guess i also think there will always be sorry ass humans period. The vast majority of legal gun owners aren't causing the crimes and that's where my beef is with banning guns. We need to quit with the knee jerk reaction of banning guns when something goes wrong. If we ban guns, my guess is things will be like prohibition and alcohol.
the counter to the argument you post is that if the guy who comes in to rob you thinks you have a gun, he may be less likely to take a chance. Guns in robberies are about power. It takes a coward to use a gun to commit a crime, do you think that type of person would go toe-to-toe so to speak if they thought someone had a gun?
yeah, i agree with you.... all handguns should be banned as they did here in Scotland and it has worked... america we were your guineau pig
if they were banned and deaths only dropped by say 10% thats still 1000 extra people saved.. thats 500 kids a year that dont have their faces on the wallpaper... this can only be a good thing!
i dont want to get into all just now, but is the constitutional right to have a gun not something to do with forming a militia against a corrupt government or something??? so all these guys who have handguns would fight their own army, with handguns, no military training, no army, no hierachy of command, no communication system, no hope!! just get rid of the fucking things
if not the store clerk he will go somewhere...and I don't have the stats...and I should be flamed but aren't most murders caused by people you know...freinds and family...and murders of passion....by law abiding citizens...course I may be wrong....
Murders are caused for one of three reasons, profit, passion and compulsion.
and pride
I would consider that a form of passion.
Like if someone insulted a gangsta infront of his homies he'd have to be capped. I think because it's pissed the gangsta off and threatened his pride.
and right now...I trust my government less than ever...taking away my liberties and rights....and don't trust them......but I still don't want to buy a gun to protect myself from them...hmmm.
that last sentence is so true... i just read elsewhere about this very phenomenon.. it said that 75% of homicide victims/perpetrators have links to crime in some way..
I wouldnt... pride and passion are differing emotions.... and i meant pride in the honour sense... I've done a huge amount of reading on the Sicilian Mafia and murder is normally performed for pride, whereas passion would conjure images of scorned love or some other heartfelt response!
homies and gangstas make me laugh.. not them, its the words
You have to be careful with statistics, pollsters are commissioned to get results complimentary of a particular political point of view. For example, the results of this particular statistics could be drastically different if the question was either of the following:
A) Have you ever been involved in criminal activity?
Which could receive responses such as:
• Yes, when I was a juvenile I was involved in an armed robbery, that was 25 years ago.
• Yes, I was convicted for reckless driving.
• No, my last conviction was as a juvenile.
• No, my last conviction was five years ago.
So you see, depending on how the question is delivered the resulting yes/no may be different, which would affect the statistical results. The pollsters are usually given an outline of what the objective of the poll is so that they can choose the proper wording to acheive the proper results.
As this thread so amply demonstrates, knee-jerking will never go away. Emotional reasoning is human nature, I am afraid.
And callen, take a look in the mirror. The "scared white person" is you. I don't know why you even made that remark. Inane ... I've said my piece, people aren't listening. Mission accomplished. I'll leave you to what has become a pretty fruitless discussion.
thats true... i'll see if i can find the page i read it on and i'm sure it said something about violent crime and not parking infringements... but i'll check
its a fair point you've made though
it was never gonna be fruitfull though was it... i have my mind made up as have you... so the only hope is that we make slight inroads into meeting in the middle!!!
also i meant to say as good as your post is i'm more impressed with the actual use of bullet points... i've never seen them on this forum before :cool: