Gun sales up since the electionFollow

Places with less gun restrictions are generally safer then ones without. It's nice to know the police are minutes away when seconds count.

So what would heavy gun restrictions do there? Make it a little harder for criminals to get guns and a lot harder for your average citizen looking to protect themselves? When I said "generally" I meant more so westernized countries since that's what we're looking at here. Just for a more concrete example (There are places in the USA where because people have guns it serves as a deterrent and crime rates are down) look at the Gun Registry in Canada. What did it do? Make it harder to take guns from criminals and harder for people who want to protect themselves to get a gun. And suck up a billion dollars.

When Obama starts leading in Somalia I'll be glad to know how well gun restrictions go there.

Edited, Nov 18th 2008 7:47pm by manicshock

Of course Japan has a SWAT team, you ******* morons. Use your ******* brains, you slobbering plebtards. It's not impossible for people to get guns in countries in which they are illegal. The difference is that, in those countries, armed police being called in is a rarity, although there are armed police stationed at least semi-regularly in a few places, such as the Channel Tunnel.

Of course you all seem to have moved on now and that's a good thing :-) However, I'll just point out again:

1. This happened a long time ago. It was not illegal in that state at that time to brandish a weapon unless you were doing so intending to commit a felony. Fortunately, our Constitution protects us from going to jail for actions that were legal when we performed them. It was certainly not unreasonable at the time to give someone fair warning before shooting them. Nowadays, we've learned that fair warning more often gets the shooter killed so it's better to fire without a warning. Yay for us.

2. I already said pulling over and shooting the fellows if a more concrete threat developed is probably a better idea, but many would say avoiding a shootout and not hurting someone is better.

3. If the other driver was really innocent, they could easily have reported me, and my car wasn't hard to find. That no one ever came for me is convincing to me that they didn't report me, and what innocent person doesn't report to the police someone flashing a gun at them?

4. The whole thing is a moot point. Now, a much better option is to keep driving while dialing 911 on your cell phone and, if you have one, use your GPS navigator to drive to a police station. I didn't have a "car phone" 18 years ago and the 911 mobile network wasn't what it is today.

5. I was trained in the military to apprehend armed threats. So I still don't think this was particularly irresponsible. Just no longer the best approach under the circumstances.

And I apologize for those of you I forced to agree with BD, even if it was silent agreement.

That's not evidence, it's an interview. I'm not saying his findings are unfounded, but there is no way we can form an opinion about this from this interview. Maybe we should buy the book to find out, I dunno, but nowehere in this interview is there any "evidence".

Any chance you'd link the study itself?

I can't be ***** to spend $15 on some random book. I'm sceptical about this. Correlations between decreases in crime and other factors are often tenous, at best. There are millions of examples of crime-reducing factors about which people were *certain* they worked. All the studies showed it, etc, etc...

Here's one: Zero tolerance: Effective or not? Was it largely responsible for cutting crime in NY in the 90s? In the late 90s early 00s, everyone thoguht so. Then people agreed it might be to do with Roe v Wade. Then people thought the importance of Roe v Wade in cutting crime was exagerated. And then zero-tolerance worked in Middlesborough, so people went back to that. Which is true? Was zero tolerance the factor that cut crime in NY in the 90s? No one can say for sure.

So if no one can agree on such an important, prevalent, and recent topic, I'm extremely sceptical that there is a magical relationship between gun-ownership/carrying and a reduction in violent crime.


Edited, Nov 19th 2008 5:13pm by RedPhoenixxx

F-ing Classic!....You might be my evil twin.

Yeah. Like light is a wave, correction, light is made up of particles, no light is both!

And don't get me started talking about relativity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Bell's Theory and action at a distance.

But I know what you mean :-)

Er? But all of these are specific to guns. All you're measuring is the availability of guns for doing these things, not whether their presence actually makes the population "safer" or not. Those statistics only mean something if you're starting with an assumption that less guns is better. But they are meaningless if you're trying to figure out if less guns is actually better.

Sorry. I just read this section of your post and laughed at how ridiculously circular it is.




No, it's not. It's relevant to the question at hand in exactly the way that simply measuring gun related crime is not. If you want to know whether increased gun ownership increases or decreases crime, you kinda have to look at total crime stats. Looking just at gun crime stats misses the point. Of *course* gun related crime will be higher in areas where gun ownership is higher, but that's like saying that cars are bad because in countries with a high car ownership, there are more car accidents...




Sure. And by the same token, many defensive uses of firearms go unreported as well. Um... That's exactly why looking at the numbers out of context isn't very helpful. However, looking at relative trends *is* helpful. And in the US, there's a pretty clear correlation between higher rates of gun ownership and lower overall crime rates.



I tend to agree. I'll go a step further and observe that perhaps what makes a "gun culture" problematic is when there is an active fight over the legalization of guns. In a culture where it's legal and everyone can own one as they wish, those who do will tend to be responsible owners and no one gets pressured either way. In the US, there's a huge gun control battle going on. The result is that most of the people get mixed messages about guns. This leads to people both choosing not to own guns, or choosing to own guns, not because they grew up knowing how to use them responsibly and made their own choice, but because some pressure in the culture makes them feel they should.

So we end up with gang bangers who own guns because it's "cool", but have no clue how to use them properly. And we have the scared citizen, who was taught they shouldn't own a gun, but live in a bad neighborhood, so they buy one for defense. Both end up being accidents waiting to happen.


IMO, it's the fight over gun control that creates many of the problematic statistics we see in the US. Just a theory, but it tends to match what we see around us every day.

Fucking hell Gbaji, you really are the most blindingly partisan dumb-*** on this planet. Even when I'm making efforts to be concilliatory and objective, you find a way to ***** about it.



Let me take your hand through this:

a) Pro-gun people say that making guns illegal will do nothing to prevent criminals from having guns, and will only hamper the law-abiding's citizens to defend himself. By the same token, legalising the carrying of guns will enable law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, will act as a deterrent, and will therefore reduce *gun-related crime*.

b) Anti-gun people say that making guns illegal will make it harder for anyone to have guns, and will therefore decrease the number of crimes made using a gun.

If a) is true, then high gun-ownership should lead to a decrease in crime using guns. If b) is true, then gun-ownership will lead to a rise in crime using guns.

What you are saying is c) High gun ownership will lead to a reduction in any type of crime (amongst which are drug-possesion/consumption, fraud, cyber-crime, domestic violence, drug-dealing, petty theft, etc...) and low/no gun-ownershiup will lead to a rise in any type of crime.

Can't you see how this is retarded? Can't you see how the mass of crime not related to guns will drown the potential impact/effect of gun laws? Can't you see how there a million other factors at work here: economic conditions, number of police on the street, available population on the street, local culture, general trends, sentencing, social factors, etc, etc...



It's not. It's quite simply retarded. You're suggesting that we look at the relationship between one factor (level of gun ownership) and a gigantic sum of outcomes (all of the criminal activity), and that this relationship will somehow be meaningful. It won't. It's like trying to establish a correlation between France's elections and the world growth. Well, there's a clear trend that when France elects a left-wing government, worldwide growth gains between 1-2% point.



This has to be one of the most stupid thing I've ever read from you. And that's saying quite something.

Do you really want me to go over that retarded statement, or should we both put it down to "temporary insanity"?

Wrong. You're creating a strawman. No one argues that everything else being the same, having less strict gun control laws will reduce "gun-related crime". That's a moronic argument. Gun related crime is going to occur within an area in proportion to the number of guns in the area. Period. That's so obvious it's hard to believe I have to point it out.

What the pro-gun people argue is that making guns illegal will not make us safer overall. The argument is that crime will occur whether guns are around or not. The difference being that guns level the playing field for the potential victims of crime and create an overall deterrent for crime. So while the number of gun related crimes will go up, the total crime will go down.

The argument you seem to have latched onto (but are misstating) is that if we make gun ownership illegal, than only criminals will own guns. That's a true statement, but isn't really related to crime statistics specifically.



Yes. But that's not a counter to the point above. That's why it's a strawman. You're arguing against a position that no one actually holds and then patting yourself on the back for "winning" the argument.

Of course, reducing the total number of guns in an area will reduce the rate of gun related crime in that area. No brainer there. And if you've already accepted the assumption that less gun-related crime is the ultimate objective, then that may seem like the correct solution.

But you have to prove that a society is actually better off not having legalized gun ownership. Your argument starts with that as an assumption. I thought I was pretty clear about this in my last post.



This is irrelevant. You haven't yet proven that a decrease in gun related crime alone is the only factor to consider.



Less strict gun ownership laws does tend to reduce the overall rate of crime in an area, yes. Criminals are far less likely to rob a house if they think the person who's there might own a gun. They're far less likely to attempt a mugging, a rape, a robbery, or pretty much any violent crime if the potential victim of their crime might have a gun.




Yes. I can. Try arguing the whole issue and not one selective part.


The issue is whole crime rate. The issue is overall "good" for society. And in the US, it's also an issue of freedom and infringement of rights. You need to show a whole lot more "good" caused by banning guns than the circular argument that gun related crime will go down...




But that's exactly what the anti-gun folks need to do to prove their point. If they can't show that we're better off overall with fewer or no guns, then why should we restrict something that is a protected right in our Constitution?

Isn't that backwards? We should err on the side of *not* infringing rights unless we can show an overwhelming social good. This is exactly why I brought this up. Those attempting to push stronger gun control haven't made their case. Ignoring it doesn't magically make it go away. Unless they can show that we're better off on the whole for doing what they want to do, maybe we should not do it?

Just a thought...

Edited, Nov 21st 2008 3:14pm by gbaji

Good enough for what? Circular logic?

Car related accidents are going to occur in proportion to the number of cars in an area.

Crimes committed by left handed people will occur in proportion to the number of left handed people in the area.


I'm just curious what you think this buys you...



Sure. And if we ban cars, there will be fewer car accidents. And if we ban left handed people, there will be fewer crimes committed by left handed people. What exactly is your point here?



That is exactly what I'm arguing. That and the fact that the citizenry has more control over their likelihood of being victimized by having the freedom to own or not own a firearm.

Additionally, shouldn't those who want to ban the firearms have to prove the opposite? They are the ones arguing that we should infringe on a Constitutionally protected right here. Prove that by banning guns you'll make crime rates go down significantly enough to warrant the infringement of the 2nd amendment or your argument fails (at least in the US).


Burden is on the gun control people here...

And I said the burden is on you to prove otherwise (or at least on those pushing tougher gun control laws in the US). They're the ones trying to change something that is constitutionally protected. They need to prove their case, not me.

Here's the deal though. There are hundreds of cases in which my position is shown to be true. I'll be magnanimous and give you just the first I ran into with a quick search



Admittedly, this is specifically about a concealed-carry law, but it still follows the same logic. The more likely a victim is to be armed, the less likely a criminal will choose to prey on them. It's kinda obvious if you stop and think about it. But then again, facts aren't exactly what pushes the anti-gun agenda, now is it?


How about you show me some facts stating otherwise? Should we compare murder rates in cities with tough versus loose gun control laws? Heck. Just take a gander at the DC crime rates and tell me how well those long standing gun bans have worked (which have finally been ruled unconstitutional).


What's the phrase?

Put up or shut up? Yeah. That's it...