Question for people Pro-guns....

[DarthNader26]

Where I'm from, most everyone owns a gun simply because you -have- to. The only police in the area is the county sheriff, and it can take almost 20 minutes for him to reach your house. That's -if- you can get to the phone. And I'm not just talking about escaped convicts or crazies (which did happen often enough for stories to trickle down the grapevine). I'm talking about rabid dogs, or racoons killing all your chickens, or something nastier killing livestock. Speaking as someone who's traveled to Europe many times, it's tough for Europeans to imagine the kind of vast, empty spaces that exist in the U.S. You guys are kind of crammed in there, and even your rural areas are pretty populated compared to ours.

Simply put, the US still needs it's guns in a bad way, as a lot of people depend on their ability to react to situations to protect their homes and livelihoods.

Now, I've moved to a more urban area since then, and it's a lot different here. The police are minutes away, and I don't have to worry about livestock getting taken, and I still own my 12 gauge shotgun. Going out and spending a weekend clay shooting with friends is some of the most fun you can have.

Also, I'll point you to Switzerland, that has the highest gun ownership per capita in the world. Until not long ago, it was mandatory for every family in the country to own a firearm and be trained in it's usage. Gun crime is -extremely- low, and most cases of legally owned guns used in gun crime are domestic disputes. The rest of the gun crime is done with illegal firearms.

 

[Xangba]

Because that nice sharp kitchen knife couldn't be used, right?

Indeed, the experience shows that without guns, despite of weapons of opportunity, crime gets far less severe.

People don't think of stuff like kitchen knives as often as firearms, and even if they do, the consequences are less bad. For one thing because killing someone with a small knife is much harder than shooting them with a firearm.

Killing is difficult. You don't know this, but melee fighting is extremely difficult psychologically. We have instincts against killing. The trick with firearms is that everything is alright and the instincts are quiet, untill you pull the trigger and someone is dead.

Killing with firearms is easy. Thus, without firearms, killing is harder. Thus, there will be less killing. There's really no way you could assail that reasoning.

The biggest fallacy is the idea that removing guns would get rid of gun crime and change nothing else, while the more logical idea is that removing gun crime would see an increase of other crimes.

Why would that happen?

People are inherently less dangerous without guns, so violent crime would fall for certain. And what remains would be far less deadly and thus the people would be a lot better off.

Also to repeat something I said earlier, they are far too widespread for any kind of real banning or limiting to work in America.

Experiences with countries that were armed to the teeth before would suggest otherwise. People will disarm for the same reason they're not killing whomever they like and pillaging stores; people want to behave and not break the law.

Most would hand in their firearms voluntarily when it's about to become law. Many would follow after that, and only a tiny minority of crazed rednecks and criminals would hang on to their firearms, and these could be easily disarmed by the police. Over time their firearms would be seized as well, and untill then, you'd see they no longer use them frivolously, because that's a crime.

I don't know about melee fighting? Baseless assumption, I'm a medically discharged Marine. Our base instincts are for survival, and that usually means killing your attacker. Killing with firearms is easy, killing with knives is easy, and for a trained person killing with hands can be simple.

You make many baseless assumptions about what would happen, but at least I've done research on this. I'm wrapping up my Criminal Justice degree and taking Academy classes for the police. I actually research our crime rates, weapons of opportunity, changes in crime rates, ect. You don't live in America, so don't make baseless assumptions about how changing gun laws would affect our crime.

Also the whole "crazed rednecks" comment is again a baseless assumption. When half the population owns them, they will not simply hand them over. The more likely scenario is a nationwide backlash that would result in many of the current people in office either being kicked out or changing policies and then opportunistic idiots would take control that would instead make gun control worse instead of better. America has a strong gun culture, it's not a matter of "Hey, can we take these? 'Kay thanks." especially because the government would have to pay each person the cost of their weapons and ammo. That's a LOT of money that the government doesn't have. Or we could do it and have a complete financial collapse.

 

[spartan231490]

some stuff I wrote...

1) Hyperbole. no one ever claimed gun carry stopped crime all together, but studies have shown that it does reduce violent crime, including armed robbery, rape, and even murder.

Here's a link to a primary source that confirms it: http://gunowners.org/fs0404.htm

2) It's not just about hunting, it's about self defense(and you don't want to defend yourself from an ak-47 wielding gang banger with a bolt action rifle). Further, fully-automatic weapons are already virtually illegal in the US, no one legally owns AK-47s, so you're again using hyperbole. The rifle you should be talking about is the AR-15, which is one of the best sport shooting rifles because of good accuracy, cheap ammo, and low recoil, not to mention a bunch of attachments. It's also a top choice for hunting certain game like bears and boars because a quick follow-up shot could save your life. Many hunters of these animals carry semi-automatic handguns for the same reason. Also, semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 are some of the best and only reliable home defense options. For example, in Arkansas, a police officer was fired upon by a drunk individual and it took 15 bullets from the officers handgun hitting the man to stop him from firing. Illinois police were fired upon by a junkie and it required a staggering 33 hits to prevent him from firing his weapon. http://gunowners.org/fs0404.htm As hunting rifles rarely carry more than 5 shots because it's often illegal to hunt with more than 5 loaded, they are not adequate for self defense.

3) Here you have to understand something, yes the constitution can be amended to adapt to changing times, but until it is amended by congress it is a binding document which protects our legal right to bear firearms. If you truly feel a ban is necessary, then do not argue for gun control laws which set precedents for violations of the bill of rights, but instead argue for an Amendment to the Constitution. So, while the 2nd amendment may not always be an argument against gun control, and individual who believes in the bill of rights should treat it as such until and unless it is amended out of the constitution.

Final word: It is wrong to allow innocent people to die, but as I've already said, a person is about 42 times more likely to defend themselves with a firearm than they are to be killed by one, including suicide. If you exclude suicide, a person is 125 times more likely to defend themselves with a firearm, than to be killed by one. So banning guns would cause many more deaths than it would stop, and by the it is wrong to kill an innocent argument, a gun ban is far worse than gun ownership.

Also: "readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The ?error rate? for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high"
Maybe we should ban the police from having firearms and not the populace.


Shout out to any Australians on the forum, you might want to consider writing your politicians and asking them to re-legalize firearm ownership and use for self defense: * Australia: Readers of the USA Today newspaper discovered in 2002 that, "Since Australia's 1996 laws banning most guns and making it a crime to use a gun defensively, armed robberies rose by 51%, unarmed robberies by 37%, assaults by 24% and kidnappings by 43%. While murders fell by 3%, manslaughter rose by 16%." From the same primary source as above, if you want to fact check it.

Sure... lets stick with the numbered arguments.
1) I'm not clicking on that link. It's just for some reason I doubt "gunowners.org" is going to be the unbiased bastion of knowledge you might want it to be. I'll concede there are some studies that agree with your argument.

2) Well this numbering arguing thing clearly hasn't worked. I say some people argue it's for hunting, you say it's not just about hunting. That's obvious. That's why there are more points.

2)b) To actually respond to that argument... I'm not pro-hunting. I just think it's a different argument entirely. Frankly I think we should give the bear a gun at least to make it fair game. However the last line of your sentence makes my point exactly. Hunting rifles aren't meant for self-defence, and guns for "self-defence" is what I'm opposed to. I'm sure that drunk guy had his gun for self-defence from sober policemen.

3) What I got from what you were saying is it doesn't matter that the second amendment is (or isn't) a bad argument against gun control. It's law so it doesn't matter. I would agree with that, and I guess I would say they should get rid of it. It is a bit sad to just grab a convenient bit of legislation rather than actually argue from an actually justifiable standpoint.

I would question your use of statistics here but I really can't be bothered to look into them because I was gonna play some bulletstorm before I got distracted by responding to this post.

My link is, as I said, a primary source. That means it's much like a research paper that compiles information from other sources in a more manageable form, and cites them at the end. I would have just used the sources for the article in question, but there are almost 200 of them, and not even most of them are biased(in favor of looser gun restrictions) sources.

about 3) I was just saying that as long as the 2nd amendment is a part of our constitution it is a valid argument. I don't need any more support than to say "1st amendment" in order to exorcise free speech, and I shouldn't need any more support than "2nd amendment" in a debate on gun laws. I was pointing out that we(the american people and politicians) need to stop quibbling over laws that obviously violate the 2nd amendment and move on to debate on whether or not we need an amendment to replace the 2nd amendment with something a little more selective.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

I do not need millions of people because my team has never been larger than 7. Millions of people would just get in the way.

I didn't mention sending out millions upon millions of people to hunt feral pigs. That was solely your invention. I do keep bringing up that the differences in geographical scale between your home state and my country because it matters. I also keep bringing up the overall lack of human population density because it matters as well. It means less available resources, human or otherwise that are available to solve the problems at hand.

So I will refine my question, and ask it again.

Could you do what you do, the way you're doing it currently and get the results that you're currently getting if the geographical range of your responsibilities were to be expanded by a measure of five and the amount of people that were available to help you do it were reduced by half?

 

[Raesvelg]

Indeed, the experience shows that without guns, despite of weapons of opportunity, crime gets far less severe.

Wait, what?

This is only true in the sense that as firearms get more restricted, it gets less likely that this sort of random blip in the murder rate will occur.

Because that's all one of these highly-publicized massacres are. A blip.

Take the UK, for example. Homicide rates in the UK went up progressively even as their gun control laws tightened, which rather undermines the causal link that many gun-control proponents purport exists. Sure, it's down right now to relative low, but the same is true pretty much everywhere in the first world.

And I might point out that the "30 year low" that many UK politicians are reporting coincides with a period obviously before the prohibition of assault rifles and handguns.

Killing with firearms is easy. Thus, without firearms, killing is harder. Thus, there will be less killing. There's really no way you could assail that reasoning.

The observed statistics contradict your opinion.

Murder rates per capita don't alter much depending on little things like gun control. The UK, Australia, take your pick; guns get banned... murder rates remain constant. Or go up, in some cases.

People are inherently less dangerous without guns, so violent crime would fall for certain. And what remains would be far less deadly and thus the people would be a lot better off.

Now, while this particular assertion gets a bit trickier, given the variation between definitions of "violent crime", as a general rule there's more of it in the UK than there is in the US.

Depending on your statistics, almost four times as much, in point of fact.

 

[lacktheknack]

Congratulations, you threw out all credibility you may have had.

You can't say "leave this conversation" because you don't like their preconceived notions. That makes you worse than any inflammatory commenter.

Not hard to see which side you're on eh? Presumably you've followed the entire debate between myself and Farson and this is the part you choose to comment on?
And you don't happen to think that my oh so flawless and noble opponent lost credibility with the remark:

"Just, do not say that we have to sacrifice ourselves to live down to your [Australia's] expectations."

Because this shows no bias and is absolutely not in any way a blatant insult directed not against my arguments, or even myself, but my entire country.
I'm not usually hugely nationalistic, but when someone I'm trying to have a reasonable argument with claims they factually know better than an entire nation and culture of people. I'm liable to lose my temper a tad.

I'm not on a side. Both sides have positives and negatives.

And no, he didn't lose his credibility there. If at any point you said "it works in Australia" (I'm too lazy to check if you did), then he was within his rights to say that.

Does it show bias? Yes.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zQmesP1rjxY/Tvkt600Md_I/AAAAAAAABbA/aOjKik5cFYw/s1600/So-What.jpg

Bias exists. He has it, I have it, you have it, and it's the reason you have an opinion at all. People need to stop treating it like it's dirty. The only place that it's bad is in statistics.

Does his comment insult your country? Nope. If he had said that about Canada, I'd have not been offended in any way. I actually fail to see insult.

The thing I pointed out (where you lost your credibility) is where you told him to STFU and GTFO. You can't do that, man, no matter what your current state of temper is.

 

[spartan231490]

Because that nice sharp kitchen knife couldn't be used, right?

Indeed, the experience shows that without guns, despite of weapons of opportunity, crime gets far less severe.

People don't think of stuff like kitchen knives as often as firearms, and even if they do, the consequences are less bad. For one thing because killing someone with a small knife is much harder than shooting them with a firearm.

there are at least 5 easily accessible locations on the human body where less than an inch and a half of penetration will cause rapid death from blood loss.

Killing is difficult. You don't know this, but melee fighting is extremely difficult psychologically. We have instincts against killing. The trick with firearms is that everything is alright and the instincts are quiet, untill you pull the trigger and someone is dead.

"We have instincts against killing" This is probably one of the most amusing things I've ever heard. We have no such instinct, and the instinct for self-preservation is far more powerful than any squeamishness. Hell, look at "ice man" we've been murdering each other for millennia, long before guns came around. In fact, a quick google search will reveal that the debate in academia is whether or not there is an instinct to kill, not an instinct to avoid murder.

Killing with firearms is easy. Thus, without firearms, killing is harder. Thus, there will be less killing. There's really no way you could assail that reasoning.

How about with the hard fact that study after study has shown that, at least within the US, stricter gun control laws tend to cause an increase in crime, including murders, not the other way around. How about Switzerland, one of the highest guns per capita nations in the world, one of the lowest murder rates.
Primary source: http://gunowners.org/fs0404.htm

And if you really think killing with firearms is easy, why don't you go talk to some Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan veterans who have PTSD from killing people with guns.

The biggest fallacy is the idea that removing guns would get rid of gun crime and change nothing else, while the more logical idea is that removing gun crime would see an increase of other crimes.

Why would that happen?

People are inherently less dangerous without guns, so violent crime would fall for certain. And what remains would be far less deadly and thus the people would be a lot better off.

Violent crime would not decrease. Again, look at the source, it has well over half a dozen sources that show that increased handgun carry reduces violent crime rates significantly, including murder, rape, and armed robber, and that gun control in general doesn't cause any significant reduction in violent crime.

Also to repeat something I said earlier, they are far too widespread for any kind of real banning or limiting to work in America.

Experiences with countries that were armed to the teeth before would suggest otherwise. People will disarm for the same reason they're not killing whomever they like and pillaging stores; people want to behave and not break the law.

what countries? I can't think of any nations that were "armed to the teeth" and then disarmed. Further, even if they did exist, I doubt they had over 70 million gun owners possessing over 300 million guns. They also didn't have a right to firearm ownership ingrained in their culture. That's a logical fallacy, false analogy.

Most would hand in their firearms voluntarily when it's about to become law. Many would follow after that, and only a tiny minority of crazed rednecks and criminals would hang on to their firearms, and these could be easily disarmed by the police. Over time their firearms would be seized as well, and untill then, you'd see they no longer use them frivolously, because that's a crime.

Even say you're right, over 70% of gun crime in the US is done with illegally purchased firearms, another law isn't going to stop criminals from getting them

 

[spartan231490]

Where I'm from, most everyone owns a gun simply because you -have- to. The only police in the area is the county sheriff, and it can take almost 20 minutes for him to reach your house. That's -if- you can get to the phone. And I'm not just talking about escaped convicts or crazies (which did happen often enough for stories to trickle down the grapevine). I'm talking about rabid dogs, or racoons killing all your chickens, or something nastier killing livestock. Speaking as someone who's traveled to Europe many times, it's tough for Europeans to imagine the kind of vast, empty spaces that exist in the U.S. You guys are kind of crammed in there, and even your rural areas are pretty populated compared to ours.

Simply put, the US still needs it's guns in a bad way, as a lot of people depend on their ability to react to situations to protect their homes and livelihoods.

Now, I've moved to a more urban area since then, and it's a lot different here. The police are minutes away, and I don't have to worry about livestock getting taken, and I still own my 12 gauge shotgun. Going out and spending a weekend clay shooting with friends is some of the most fun you can have.

Also, I'll point you to Switzerland, that has the highest gun ownership per capita in the world. Until not long ago, it was mandatory for every family in the country to own a firearm and be trained in it's usage. Gun crime is -extremely- low, and most cases of legally owned guns used in gun crime are domestic disputes. The rest of the gun crime is done with illegal firearms.

Glad you pointed this out.

Response time for police in my area is even worse than that. An hour, if you're lucky.

If you're attacked, you're on your own.

Relevant quote: "Former Florida Attorney General Jim Smith told Florida legislators that police responded to only about 200,000 of 700,000 calls for help to Dade County authorities. Smith was asked why so many citizens in Dade County were buying guns and he said, "They damn well better, they've got to protect themselves."

Source: Statement of Representative Ron Johnson in U.S. Senate, "Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1987," Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary (16 June 1987)

 

[spartan231490]

Because that nice sharp kitchen knife couldn't be used, right?

Indeed, the experience shows that without guns, despite of weapons of opportunity, crime gets far less severe.

People don't think of stuff like kitchen knives as often as firearms, and even if they do, the consequences are less bad. For one thing because killing someone with a small knife is much harder than shooting them with a firearm.

Killing is difficult. You don't know this, but melee fighting is extremely difficult psychologically. We have instincts against killing. The trick with firearms is that everything is alright and the instincts are quiet, untill you pull the trigger and someone is dead.

Killing with firearms is easy. Thus, without firearms, killing is harder. Thus, there will be less killing. There's really no way you could assail that reasoning.

The biggest fallacy is the idea that removing guns would get rid of gun crime and change nothing else, while the more logical idea is that removing gun crime would see an increase of other crimes.

Why would that happen?

People are inherently less dangerous without guns, so violent crime would fall for certain. And what remains would be far less deadly and thus the people would be a lot better off.

Also to repeat something I said earlier, they are far too widespread for any kind of real banning or limiting to work in America.

Experiences with countries that were armed to the teeth before would suggest otherwise. People will disarm for the same reason they're not killing whomever they like and pillaging stores; people want to behave and not break the law.

Most would hand in their firearms voluntarily when it's about to become law. Many would follow after that, and only a tiny minority of crazed rednecks and criminals would hang on to their firearms, and these could be easily disarmed by the police. Over time their firearms would be seized as well, and untill then, you'd see they no longer use them frivolously, because that's a crime.

I don't know about melee fighting? Baseless assumption, I'm a medically discharged Marine. Our base instincts are for survival, and that usually means killing your attacker. Killing with firearms is easy, killing with knives is easy, and for a trained person killing with hands can be simple.

You make many baseless assumptions about what would happen, but at least I've done research on this. I'm wrapping up my Criminal Justice degree and taking Academy classes for the police. I actually research our crime rates, weapons of opportunity, changes in crime rates, ect. You don't live in America, so don't make baseless assumptions about how changing gun laws would affect our crime.

Also the whole "crazed rednecks" comment is again a baseless assumption. When half the population owns them, they will not simply hand them over. The more likely scenario is a nationwide backlash that would result in many of the current people in office either being kicked out or changing policies and then opportunistic idiots would take control that would instead make gun control worse instead of better. America has a strong gun culture, it's not a matter of "Hey, can we take these? 'Kay thanks." especially because the government would have to pay each person the cost of their weapons and ammo. That's a LOT of money that the government doesn't have. Or we could do it and have a complete financial collapse.

I've actually been meaning to say this for a while, but a gun ban would cripple the economy. There are hundreds of thousands of registered gun dealers in the US, which means a ban would cost the US hundreds of thousands of jobs, which our economy cannot afford.

 

[Raesvelg]

Could you do what you do, the way you're doing it currently and get the results that you're currently getting if the geographical range of your responsibilities were to be expanded by a measure of five and the amount of people that were available to help you do it were reduced by half?

But feral pig ranges in Australia are actually somewhat smaller, overall, than they are in the United States as a whole.

And Australia still has almost six times the number of feral pigs.

Clearly, something different is going on in the way the two countries are conducting their efforts to control the feral pig population.

Now, you're correct in the sense that Australia has a lower population density than the United States, but that doesn't have an enormous impact on how many people can be employed in the goal of pig management. It does, admittedly, affect the number of people who may or may not be out hunting independently at a given moment, but there are also a vast array of cultural imponderables at work there that would require a lot more research to figure out. i.e., how popular is hunting in Australia, how permissive are hunting laws in regards to feral pigs, how would the general populace regard a push towards greater numbers of hunters hunting swine, and so on.

Part of what is keeping the pig population under greater control in the United States, after all, is the fact that most states with a significant feral swine infestation typically allow the animals to be shot on sight, with no hunting permit required or limits in place.

 

[Exocet]

Meh, I say if Americans want to keep their guns, let them. I don't give a shit anyways, I'll just stay nice and cosy in Europe, where a suicidal/psychotic man can't buy a gun from a local store and go postal in the middle of a crowded area.
And where people aren't go walk around town carrying guns, because when a crisis occurs, the last thing I want is some hero wannabe with no credentials to pull out a gun and open fire, turning a simple robbery into a bloodbath.

Yes, I'll stay here, and I don't think I'll be missing out.

 

[Shraggler]

The question is this: I live in the UK, where firearms are illegal, even the police do not have them, and the rate of gun crime is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than gun crime in the US. I have not even heard what a gun shot sounds like outside of TV and video games - think of that. With this being a fact, how can you people who are pro-guns; that don't like the idea of guns being made illegal, even rationalise why it would be a bad thing?

It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing at all.

I'm personally fascinated by firearms. The mechanics involved, the chemistry in propelling the projectile, the cycling designs, the various designs in automatic firearms, the various designs in semi-automatic firearms, the reasons why a particular weapon was conceived, created and mass produced.

It's sad to me that the purpose of all firearms boils down to killing something and, ultimately, killing another human being.

But I love understanding how they work. I love taking them apart and going "Ohhhh... I see", getting a light bulb moment whilst taking apart a bolt.

However, it must be said that I'm this way with anything, especially complex machines. I hate not knowing how say a lawnmower works or how a car's engine works or how pickups in a guitar work. And, until I do ascertain said knowledge, I feel incredibly frustrated and ignorant.

As an American, I can sort of see why some people want to justify owning a firearm. Yeah, yeah "Second Amendment... blah blah blah", there's that argument of which I can see logical reasons supporting both sides. In real, practical life with other, potentially hostile, people around - having a pistol greatly evens the odds of survival. There are crazies everywhere. You go out one night, just to have fun, just to blow off some steam, just to get a little inebriated after a long day, and *wham*, here comes four dickbag, "gangster" wannabes, two blocks from your car at two in the morning and three of them are brandishing knives. This kind of shit happens all of the time. You have some distance and a pistol, you're pretty much golden. Your odds of survival just skyrocketed.

The majority of people who own firearms don't decide one day to go apeshit and murder a bunch of other people. Firearms are either a recreational hobby or a tool. You either shoot them for fun or shoot them to survive (i.e. hunt, defense).

Ultimately, when these sorts of "massacres" occur (by the way mass media outlets, great job on cheapening the language), I just see it as another instance of humans being human. What it says to me is we should really look into securing the legitimate procurement process progressively so that it's constantly improving. That's the only way a system perpetuates.

Even then, it's not really going to change anything. If you make it completely illegal to own a firearm in the United States, it's a fools errand. Forgoing the immense size of the country and the huge manpower and financial cost of doing so (especially if done at the federal level): if, once the law's passed, then you enforce it by first confiscating all of the firearms from legitimate purchasers. Great, then that still leaves a HUGE amount of unregistered and illegally obtained firearms in the hand of the criminals who've just been given a massive leg-up on the rest of the population. Then, upon realizing this, a ridiculous amount of manpower and money is going to be required to track down every single illegal firearm in the country. Best of luck.

 

[Trillovinum]

Because there's a difference between "crime" and "gun crime", and they respond in opposite ways to gun laws.

Basically, for every person that you spare from death by bullet wound, you're getting a mugging, a rape, and two deaths by knife wound in return.

We're just better at math than you are.

While you do have a valid argument, I don't think it right to include 'rape' in your list of things that would happen if you take the guns away. Simply because rape is a crime of an entirely different nature than the others you've mentioned.

(other than that I largely agree with you. although your statement regarding math might need revising.)