Poll: Guns and you!

[Jegsimmons]

well im a gun lover. but i think their should have been one more option for legalize all guns withing reason (such as keep automatic weapons with a special state/federal license, but but not explosives bigger than fireworks.)

and while doing research for a school term paper i found that (in the USA mind you) that compared to about 14,000 gun deaths each year, their are 2.5 million REPORTED cases of a gun preventing crime, and they predict another 2.5 million go unreported. and much to my shock, more than 90% didn't even involve a shot being fired.

and lets also take in to consideration that a huge chunk of gun crime is committed with guns that are either stolen or smuggled across the border. so just from pure logic its safe to say that guns are not a "bad" thing, its a simple tool that most of the 80 million registered gun owners use wisely (note: not all gun owners in America have to be registered.)

and i constantly find that in states (and other countries) where firearms have been heavily restricted or banned, crime has shot up to a crazy point. and thats why an average city in California (where guns are not popular) will have higher crime rate than a city in say Alabama (where even granny is packing). now that not always the case but most of the time it is.

and since this post is getting long ill stop here.

 

[lolmanxe]

i live in norway. its a rather peacefull country as long as you kee away from the SOUTH of norway then its very simmilar to jersey. i live north and we get to go hunt when its in season and we also get to hunt crows. we chopp their feet of as evidence and get a modest sum of money for killing it. so yeah i think guns are great as long as they are used for what they are supposed to... wait that would be war... never mind then

 

[nofear220]

Don't ban anything.
Guns are awesome.

how bout a mental exam for people before they are allowed to have guns though?

But the criminals would still get them by going around the stystem.

There is nothing special about guns, they are a weapon like a sword or a butter knife. Its not like murder didn't exist until the gun was invented.

Yeah, but it would just increase the street price of a gun further

Most criminals of all types are in it for the money anyways. And generally, they have plenty of it. So getting guns wouldn't be a problem regardless.

Even if it takes a gun out of one deranged mind, it's worth it.

 

[blind_dead_mcjones]

i just had a thought: rather than talking about whether guns should be banned or not, shouldn't we be talking about proper gun safety and etiquette, and whether people should be taught about it regardless of whether they own one, so that if they come across a gun they know what to do to make sure its safe?

 

[Dimensional Vortex]

...but attacking silently can also be easily done with a gun if you attached a silencer onto it.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18576_5-ridiculous-gun-myths-everyone-believes-thanks-to-movies.html

Okay so a silencer isn't as great as I thought it was, a gun is still more useful, manageable, intimidating and (in some cases) simple than a cross bow. If you use a crossbow you might go out side and train with it which is good to reduce over weight population, but there is the thing, having to train with a crossbow for a while to be able to use it easily easily enough to defend yourself takes quite a while of training and a crossbow arrow won't do as high damage as a gun.

P.S. A Crossbow is pretty large and cumbersome for a woman to carry around in her purse, when instead she could carry a pistol and get rid of old Johnny Night-rape in a flash. Also I'm not sure about the time it takes to reload a pistol compared to reloading a cross bow I think they are quite similar but the cross bow arrows take up quite a lot of space for a Woman to carry around in her purse along with the crossbow.

 

[bpm195]

The problem that I have is that, because of how abundant guns are in our society, it's trivially easy for any person to get a gun if they're willing to pay and go through illegal means. It's probably easier to get a gun illegally than it is legally. Seriously, if I wanted to get a handgun I could go to a gun shop in the morning and have it in three days, or take a quick trip to some shady contacts and probably have it in 3 hours. I'm probably more connected with the underworld than the average person, but I don't imagine it'd be particularly difficult for any person. There's also the problem of being able to legally purchase ammo and accessories for an illegally owned gun.

and while doing research for a school term paper i found that (in the USA mind you) that compared to about 14,000 gun deaths each year, their are 2.5 million REPORTED cases of a gun preventing crime, and they predict another 2.5 million go unreported. and much to my shock, more than 90% didn't even involve a shot being fired.

and lets also take in to consideration that a huge chunk of gun crime is committed with guns that are either stolen or smuggled across the border. so just from pure logic its safe to say that guns are not a "bad" thing, its a simple tool that most of the 80 million registered gun owners use wisely (note: not all gun owners in America have to be registered.)

and i constantly find that in states (and other countries) where firearms have been heavily restricted or banned, crime has shot up to a crazy point. and thats why an average city in California (where guns are not popular) will have higher crime rate than a city in say Alabama (where even granny is packing). now that not always the case but most of the time it is.

There are some serious issues with the way you're using your numbers (I neither know nor care about their accuracy). It's a completely unfair comparison to compare crimes prevented by gun to only murders prevented by gun. Gun crimes aren't always shootings and damn sure aren't fatal shootings. A criminal doesn't need to fire a shot to rob a person, rape a person, or any other crime that occurs at gunpoint. A fair comparison would be cases of crimes committed at gunpoint versus crimes prevented by guns.

Furthermore, illegal handguns (aka, the ones that urban centers in general have a problem with) aren't flowing to America from other countries, they're being circulated around America. Mexico has a bigger problem with American guns flowing into their country than Americans have with Mexicans flowing into our country. If you don't have any convictions you can just go to a store and buy a gun in America, anybody that would try to smuggle a gun that's legal to purchase at least one continental state through border control is just silly.

Finally, crime generally has a stronger correlation to population density and poverty than to anything else. If you compare any town to a city, chances are crime rates will be much lower in the town. I'm not certain, but when you compared Alabama to California I assume you compared large cities to large towns or much smaller cities, which would usually show less crime in the town. You can throw the numbers the other way by comparing a random town in California to Montgomery.

 

[DanDeFool]

I imagine that situation would have been very different if that student had been carrying a .45 Glock.

I can tell you what would have happened! The glock would have exploded in his hand because glocks are complete crap and he would have ended up shot and missing a hand.

Odd. Pretty much everything I've heard about Glock has lead me to believe that they make some of the best handguns in the world. What makes you think Glock's handguns are poor quality?

The extreme finicky-ness of it. The ability to literally explode on you with reloaded rounds (yes, all guns can explode with reloads, it just happens more for glocks) The extreme light weight means more recoil. If you've ever held one, the grip weighs probably less than a pound, all the weight is in the slide. The lack of an external hammer. I hate the trigger safety, I'd much rather go with a decocker. I don't like how it feels... Pretty much the only good thing I can say about Glocks is that they run very well when they're dry. You don't have to lubricate it at all. I personally like my P226 over my Glock 17 (inherited, not bought) but I have to keep it wet. It's much like the AR, AK argument in that an AR will beat an AK, but it just has to be well cleaned and oiled.
Oh, there's also the whole "upward barrel tilt" thing. I never understood the usefulness of that.

Okay. Interesting.

What is a 'reloaded' round? I'm not too familiar with gun lingo, myself. Any idea why they explode more frequently with Glocks?

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

I imagine that situation would have been very different if that student had been carrying a .45 Glock.

I can tell you what would have happened! The glock would have exploded in his hand because glocks are complete crap and he would have ended up shot and missing a hand.

Odd. Pretty much everything I've heard about Glock has lead me to believe that they make some of the best handguns in the world. What makes you think Glock's handguns are poor quality?

The extreme finicky-ness of it. The ability to literally explode on you with reloaded rounds (yes, all guns can explode with reloads, it just happens more for glocks) The extreme light weight means more recoil. If you've ever held one, the grip weighs probably less than a pound, all the weight is in the slide. The lack of an external hammer. I hate the trigger safety, I'd much rather go with a decocker. I don't like how it feels... Pretty much the only good thing I can say about Glocks is that they run very well when they're dry. You don't have to lubricate it at all. I personally like my P226 over my Glock 17 (inherited, not bought) but I have to keep it wet. It's much like the AR, AK argument in that an AR will beat an AK, but it just has to be well cleaned and oiled.
Oh, there's also the whole "upward barrel tilt" thing. I never understood the usefulness of that.

Okay. Interesting.

What is a 'reloaded' round? I'm not too familiar with gun lingo, myself. Any idea why they explode more frequently with Glocks?

Reloading is when you take the spent cartridge and as long as it's not completely out of proportion, you replace the shot bullet and spent powder, thus making a "new" bullet. It's extremely useful if the round is expensive or hard to find. My guess as to why they explode more with glocks is that, from the two or three glocks that I've held, the plastic on the slide and surrounding the chamber is pretty cheap and definitely not as sturdy as the alloys and, in some cases, stainless steel. That's one of the reasons why the handgun itself is cheaper than most others.

 

[xdom125x]

"The second amendment wasn't meant to protect us from ducks and deer."

Now, I'm not a gun nut or even a republican. But this rings true for everyone.

It's not really an issue of practicality for sporting or even relevancy as some people would argue it's an antiquated addendum.

The second amendment was designed to be a last-line of defense for the other 9 inalienably rights. That is, the second amendment is meant to protect us from the government. Not criminals. Not wild dogs. But men who come in the night.

The idea of the 10 inalienably rights is a core virtue of our country and it's absolute foolishness to revise those inalienable rights at the will of vocal alarmists.

Some people would eagerly argue the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments are antiquated in these times of faceless terrorism and should be abridged for the security of all.

Very clearly then, security is always at the expense of life and liberty and most people would say abridging any of the inalienable rights is absolute madness.

Except the second amendment because it's antiquated, right? Give me a break.


I also cringe at the thought of the assault weapons ban of the 90's. The logic was that hunters don't need 40 round magazines and assault rifles while forgetting entirely that hunter merely benefit from the second amendment, they're not the subject of it.

So much THIS!!!

 

[DanDeFool]

I imagine that situation would have been very different if that student had been carrying a .45 Glock.

I can tell you what would have happened! The glock would have exploded in his hand because glocks are complete crap and he would have ended up shot and missing a hand.

Odd. Pretty much everything I've heard about Glock has lead me to believe that they make some of the best handguns in the world. What makes you think Glock's handguns are poor quality?

The extreme finicky-ness of it. The ability to literally explode on you with reloaded rounds (yes, all guns can explode with reloads, it just happens more for glocks) The extreme light weight means more recoil. If you've ever held one, the grip weighs probably less than a pound, all the weight is in the slide. The lack of an external hammer. I hate the trigger safety, I'd much rather go with a decocker. I don't like how it feels... Pretty much the only good thing I can say about Glocks is that they run very well when they're dry. You don't have to lubricate it at all. I personally like my P226 over my Glock 17 (inherited, not bought) but I have to keep it wet. It's much like the AR, AK argument in that an AR will beat an AK, but it just has to be well cleaned and oiled.
Oh, there's also the whole "upward barrel tilt" thing. I never understood the usefulness of that.

Okay. Interesting.

What is a 'reloaded' round? I'm not too familiar with gun lingo, myself. Any idea why they explode more frequently with Glocks?

Reloading is when you take the spent cartridge and as long as it's not completely out of proportion, you replace the shot bullet and spent powder, thus making a "new" bullet. It's extremely useful if the round is expensive or hard to find. My guess as to why they explode more with glocks is that, from the two or three glocks that I've held, the plastic on the slide and surrounding the chamber is pretty cheap and definitely not as sturdy as the alloys and, in some cases, stainless steel. That's one of the reasons why the handgun itself is cheaper than most others.

I see. It kind of sounds like you're asking for trouble anyway using reloaded ammunition, but I can see why you would would want to reload.

I did some poking around, and it looks like this is a bigger problem with the high-caliber Glock pistols, and less-so for 9mm models. I also saw a Glock FAQ that said the risk from reloaded ammunition is due to the Glock's unsupported barrel, and recommends an after-market barrel for shooting reloaded ammunition.

Well, in that case, if I ever decide to buy a Glock, I'll go with a 9mm model. If I ever want a .45, I'll try to get an M1911.

 

[Kuhkren]

...but attacking silently can also be easily done with a gun if you attached a silencer onto it.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18576_5-ridiculous-gun-myths-everyone-believes-thanks-to-movies.html

Okay so a silencer isn't as great as I thought it was, a gun is still more useful, manageable, intimidating and (in some cases) simple than a cross bow. If you use a crossbow you might go out side and train with it which is good to reduce over weight population, but there is the thing, having to train with a crossbow for a while to be able to use it easily easily enough to defend yourself takes quite a while of training and a crossbow arrow won't do as high damage as a gun.

P.S. A Crossbow is pretty large and cumbersome for a woman to carry around in her purse, when instead she could carry a pistol and get rid of old Johnny Night-rape in a flash. Also I'm not sure about the time it takes to reload a pistol compared to reloading a cross bow I think they are quite similar but the cross bow arrows take up quite a lot of space for a Woman to carry around in her purse along with the crossbow.

Silencers can be very quiet if subsonic rounds are used in addition .

 

[Saint of M]

My take on guns.

First off, I have first hand experience for when things can hit the fan as when I was eleven, I went to the Alameda fairgrounds with my family on the 4th of July back in 1998. There was a gang related shooting where several people were injured, and caused several stampedes of panicked people who injured more. I was over by the ferris wheal when it happened, and which was probably only two or three hundred feet away from where it happened.


That said I have mixed feelings with gun control.

At one end there has to be some because some people should not be around dangerous objects. In the united states, their is one on a federal level paste in 1965 or 68 (its been a while since I had to do a speech on this, and my computer crashed last year so no notes on it). In any case in its clause, you have to have the following requirements

1. legally an adult, or if you are as young as sixteen, have special permission.
2. No Criminal Record
3. Of Sound mental Health.

If the last one was obeyed, the Virgina Tech massacre would never have happened.

If we followed them we be ok.

However I have problems when they become too restrictive as this doesn't help but hinder people trying to save lives. Why? The point of having guns becomes useless as if someone broke into your house, if you could get your weapon quickly to defend your self you would be arrested for not following gun safety protocol. There is a good example of that in southern California where a naked man armed with a pitch fired killed and severely inured 4 kids before the cops could arrived to take him out. If the eldest girl had gotten to her father's handgun he would have been arrested for child endangerment.


More over the cities and states with the highest rates of violent crimes in the United States are also the ones with the strictest gun laws ( from the bottom up: The state of New York, the state of California, and the City of Washington, D.C.). That's right, the nation's capital is more dangerous to live in then two of the heaviest populated states.

 

[CaptainKoala]

Don't ban anything.
Guns are awesome.

how bout a mental exam for people before they are allowed to have guns though?

But the criminals would still get them by going around the stystem.

There is nothing special about guns, they are a weapon like a sword or a butter knife. Its not like murder didn't exist until the gun was invented.

Yeah, but it would just increase the street price of a gun further

Most criminals of all types are in it for the money anyways. And generally, they have plenty of it. So getting guns wouldn't be a problem regardless.

Even if it takes a gun out of one deranged mind, it's worth it.

But you're missing the point. Yes, you might be taking the gun out of a deragned mind, but they would just kill people with something else. Give people the chance to defend themselves against deranged people. They only way to stop them would be to make a law against crazy people. A law like that can't be enforced right? Yeah, well neither can gun laws.

Even if it takes a gun out of one deranged mind, it's worth it.[/quote]
How about this? Look how many people drown in bath tubs every year! We should ban bath tubs. If it saves one life its worth it.

 

[Jake0fTrades]

Banning the possession of firearms as illegal won't abolish murders. Criminals can buy guns ILLEGALLY, and even with the right to bear arms they still do buy guns illegally. All you'd be accomplishing is removing the ability of innocents to defend themselves from murderers.

 

[manaman]

I don't like to base my beliefs on misguided feelings and propaganda. So here are some facts.

40% of US households have a firearm in the house.

There are 93 guns in the US for every 100 people.

Guns account for the majority of murders and suicides in the US (with well over 1/2 of the deaths by firearms suicides).

The homicide rate of the US is 5.4, the average homicide rate of Europe is 5.4.
1/3 of robberies and burglaries in the US occur using a firearm, and those that do use a firearm are 12% more likely to result in a fatality.

A study was performed of guns role as self defense tools. During the study guns where used in defense nearly 70,000 times. That means that while guns where used in crimes a staggering 23% of the time they where used in defense .8% of the time. However these studies did not take into account incidents where a shot was never fired. Police officer use of firearms for defense tends to result with them discharging the weapon 20-28% of the time, while civilians the number is much closer to 5-8% of the time. Which drastically increasses the case for weapons being used in self defense.

The last one was an example of how confusing trying to pin down the impact on crime can be. Just when you seem to have your thumb on the issue it squirrels away from you.

The reason it is so hard to pin down firearms impact on crime is because crime and gun ownership have little correlation to each other.

Seriously. At times where there where no gun restrictions and you could order a handgun in the mail, or buy one at a department store. There was less violence and homicides then during some of the strictest gun control eras. Even now in 00s when the number of households with guns has increased for the first time in 40 years and laws are becoming more lax you will find homicide rates are dropping, and crime as a whole is decreeing. Crime levels have more to do with location, culture, social views on punishment, and enforcement of laws then accessibility and type of weapons.

Yes I support private gun ownership, because there isn't a logical reason to ban them when Alcohol, cigarettes, and vehicles, each kill and injure more people then firearms (both legally owned and illegally owned). When more people point them at themselves to commit suicide with the weapons then point them at another person with hostile intent. Lastly when there are perfectly justifiable reasons to own one, including hunting, target shooting, collecting, and oddly enough when a civilian uses one in self defense the result often ends more peacefully then when police use them to protect people.

 

[ikillu87]

No...a firearm doesn't help you at all...Someone trying to rape you is much to close to you for you to get your gun out, flick the safety of and take aim at the assailant without him taking that weapon from you and using it against yourself. If you can't defend without a gun in this situation, you also can't with one. Not to speak of shock and the inherent restrain to severely hurt someone else. People don't normally go around the world, constantly counting on being attacked, so if it happens, the likely don't know how to react and outright forget that they carry a weapon at all. When they remember, it is to late. Also if you are robbed and take out your gun, the attacker is more likely to use deadly force on you, just because he has to protect himself now, and he has the upper hand in that situation. Always.

While somewhat agreed, I do have an interesting story... that just happened yesterday.

Apparently someone was trying to climb through my grandmothers window. When he saw her he started to yell and try and get in faster. However, she has several guns placed throughout her house for just such an occassion (things happened previously that led to this... just to be clear), and as soon as she got ahold of her gun the man promptly climbed back out and ran off.

Granted if someone is within arms length a gun is no longer very useful, however they do make wonderful deterents on some occassions. Home invasion is rarely a quiet affair, and getting your gun would before they get to you isn't that hard an affair.

Leaving a gun out of sight is an alright practice. Specifically testing people every so often so the darn thing isn't out of mind is exactly why I'd like to see licensing done. It leads to accidents.

What if someone robbed your home? They stole that forgotten gun. Then they killed someone with it.

It's easy to say; not my problem. But it's totally preventable with proper storage and education.

My guns are all properly stored in my gun case (locked, unloaded, etc etc), however I refer to a large group of people. A cop cannot simply come in your house and demand information on your guns. And like I said, so many guns in the U.S. are owned without the government or anyone having the ability to know of your ownership. Testing people would be a futile act, considering that would require all guns to be known of and tracked, and without them being seen in public this is almost impossible.

 

[WolfThomas]

I see. It kind of sounds like you're asking for trouble anyway using reloaded ammunition, but I can see why you would would want to reload

It is definately cheaper, as on average you can get five reloads out a case, it's especially useful in Australia where I pay roughly a dollar a .223 round. But another factor is they can be more accurate, every gun is unique and ammo is just made generically, if you tweak with the powder loads and other factors you can get a round you'll find more comfortable and accurate.

Also it'll be a useful skill when the zombie apocalypse comes /joking.

 

[Zaik]

An armed society is a peaceful one.

Make all the gun control laws you want, they don't matter. Any 15 year old kid with a little common sense can get any drug they'd like with a little money stolen from mom's purse, and there's laws strictly regulating that. Lol @ the War on Drugs, right? What makes guns any different?

Criminals aren't going to follow just gun control laws and not any others. They'll have guns. When you take the right for law abiding citizens to own a power equal to the criminals away, you just make them easy targets.

At best it would cut back on a few petty shoplifters and drastically increase pretty much any other gun-related crime. It would be like super-steroids with no consequences. A few more years tacked onto a life sentence isn't going to matter to me, or anyone else.

 

[Jonluw]

...but attacking silently can also be easily done with a gun if you attached a silencer onto it.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18576_5-ridiculous-gun-myths-everyone-believes-thanks-to-movies.html

Okay so a silencer isn't as great as I thought it was, a gun is still more useful, manageable, intimidating and (in some cases) simple than a cross bow. If you use a crossbow you might go out side and train with it which is good to reduce over weight population, but there is the thing, having to train with a crossbow for a while to be able to use it easily easily enough to defend yourself takes quite a while of training and a crossbow arrow won't do as high damage as a gun.

P.S. A Crossbow is pretty large and cumbersome for a woman to carry around in her purse, when instead she could carry a pistol and get rid of old Johnny Night-rape in a flash. Also I'm not sure about the time it takes to reload a pistol compared to reloading a cross bow I think they are quite similar but the cross bow arrows take up quite a lot of space for a Woman to carry around in her purse along with the crossbow.

As someone else mentioned on here, pistols are pretty crappy for defending yourself against rapists.
You normally don't discover that someone is trying to rape you before they are completely up close; a range at which a gun is very cumbersome. From that range, a rapist will easily be able to disarm his victim before it manages to 1: Pull the gun out of concealment 2: Cock it (Optional; but you normally don't want to walk around with a gun ready to fire in your purse) and 3: Remove the safety.

In addition, the threshold for using a gun is far higher; and the repercussions for using it are far more serious. For purposes of self defense, pepper-spray or an expandable baton (Which, ironically, is actually a felony to own in some states) are far more effective because they take a much shorter time to ready, don't mortally wound your assailant, and consequently, the mental treshold for actually using them aren't as high.

But regardless of all that, I think what was actually being discussed here was the usefulness of a bow as an assault-weapon; not as a self-defense weapon. As a self-defense weapon, a bow is just slightly less useful than a gun.
Let me just say that a bow - even a comparatively weak one - will completely penetrate a bulletproof vest (not a stab proof vest though).
If you have ever fired a bow that has a pulling force exceeding 50 lbs (bows used in warfare could be as powerful as 160 lbs) at a soft target, you know that a bow is capable of doing some serious damage. Particularly if you use a broadhead.

The points where guns excel, compared to bows, are when you need to kill many people in rapid succession (for example firing into a crowd), and when you need great accuracy at a long range. In addition, achieving reasonable accuracy may be achieved with not as much training (this goes for crossbows as well though).

Guns are certainly more effective for killing; but don't believe that just because guns can be more powerful, bows aren't effective weapons. And in certain situations, for example when silence is a priority, the advantages of a bow may outweigh those of a gun.

Edit: As a small add-on. Bows aren't as likely to misfire and harm the shooter.

 

[Jonluw]

Gun controll in Norway works exellent, very few deaths are caused by guns.
everytime someone gets shot the murderer is arrested, due to the few guns in the country.
we've never had a schoolshooting ever!

You hear that? Monarchy, free healtchare, liberal sexuall visions, socialism and gun control!
hell yeah!

Actually, I looked this up a while back, and turns out we have pretty many deaths caused by guns, if you compare us to Sweden, for example.
The interesting part is that we have just as little murder done with guns as Sweden does. It's just that, for some reason, we have a hell of a lot of suicide done with guns

I suppose Swedish suicidals hang themselves, while Norwegians prefer the gun.