Question for people Pro-guns....

[Griffolion]

Right to bear arms is something that has been part of America since its founding. It symbolises freedom through violent revolution, which is precisely how they won it. It will be hard to take that away from a country who's culture has it so deeply embedded.

Criminals in my country (UK) still manage to get hold of guns despite them being generally illegal. Not only that but our knife crime is utterly horrendous. Sure, you can block certain methods of killing, but if killing is going to happen, it's going to happen. They'll just resort to the next common denominator, knives, which are a whole different ball game from a control & regulation stand point since your average kitchen knife is lethal.

I'm actually incredibly impressed by the US population's handling of their gun culture. Almost half the population of the US own a gun in their household, and there are just under 9K gun related deaths a year, markedly reduced from years passed.

You get these people who are mad/evil/deranged/psychologically ill, whatever you wish to label them as per your own leaning, who will cause the whole system to be called into question as a typical knee jerk reaction. Let's just weather it and move on as always.

 

[Evilpigeon]

This argument always ends up as a clusterfuck of people coming up with bull when it's really really easy to find evidence. The answer to this whole thing is really damn obvious, countries with high gun ownership have consistantly higher murder rates (not shootings here, just general killings) than those without. The only exception to my knowledge is Switzerland.

Now I'm going to have to go locate my last post on this to retrieve all my stats :/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First and most obvious comparison, honestly didn't expect someone to actually even try and contend that there's more gun crime in the US.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state

You would not believe how hard it is to find Reliable looking data on UK gun crime that's under 5 years old.

www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN01940.pdf

Best I can find.

Alright, according to the first article 8,775 where shot and killed in the US as a result of firearm gun crime in 2010.

The total number of crimes committed where a firearm was probably used in the Uk is 11,870 - this includes people with air rifles, air pistols which account for 4436 of the 11,000. Of the remaining 7434 gun crimes, just above 20% were done with fake guns. So there were 5947 crimes committed in the Uk using a real gun.

Of these 499 end up with someone either getting seriously hurt or dying. 58 people were killed using a gun.

311m people in the US

http://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&met_y=population&idim=country:US&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+us

62m people in the UK

http://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:GBR&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+uk

Below is worked out using the above:

% of the population shot and killed:

US: 2.82*10^-3 % of the population shot last year. 0.00282%

Uk: 9.35*10^-5 % of the population shot last year. 0.00000935%

Parlimentary pdf says gun crime accounts for 9% of homicide in the UK. Going to assume this means that 58 = 9% of murders in the UK. therefore there were around 644 murders in the Uk last year.

So 0.00103% of the Uk population was deliberately killed last year. So total number of deaths versus only Us firearms deaths and we still come out with less than half as many, proportional to population. You might also be interested to know that finland has the highest murder rate in Europe and also has the highest gun ownership excluding Switzerland.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/20/murder-rate-lowest-12-years

There's more i could do about violent crime in general but this took a long time, kinda interesting though. I think violent crime in general is more even (from what I skimmed). But this all ties back into what I was saying originally when guns are not involved crime is nowhere near as deadly, according to this data and what I've worked out it is in fact half as deadly. I doubt you can be arsed to go through all this, I only did it because I like to make sure I'm on the right side of the argument. Ah well, there was a little bit of rounding involved with the % and population figures but I gave you all the numbers I used so you should be able to replicate my results should you feel like checking them.

 

[JokerboyJordan]

As I have stated before, you have to clean up the hive of scum and villainy known as Mexico (no offence to any Mexicans) before any attempt at gun control would have any impact in the USA.

 

[ReadyAmyFire]

Nope, it's correct.

The only semi-automatic rifles that are permitted on a Fire Arms Certificate are .22, anything over that is illegal, as are handguns over .22 that are not blackpowder, used for humane dispatch purposes, or fitted with a long barrel (even then they cannot be automatic/ self loading.)

In NI however, you must have different legislation to the rest of the UK for those to be legal if your rifle is a center-fire. Not sure what your laws say, but I might have a look

That sounds about correct then. The semi-auto rifle is a Ruger .22LR, as is the pistol. Both centre-fire rifles are bolt-action.

 

[matrix3509]

Yes because criminal really care about doing illegal things. I'm just going to assume you are being intentionally disingenuous here, its better for my own sanity that way. The fact here which you so willfully ignored is that if a criminal wants a gun badly enough a law isn't going to stop them. That you think criminals only care about money is as ludicrous as it is false.

How does this adress the blunt fact that gun bans prevent criminals from getting guns?

Because your "blunt fact" is patently false.

 

[marche45]

Because Americans suddenly become stupid the instant someone utters the word "freedom".

Seriously, in my experience, Americans will defend and protect almost anything no matter how dangerous, ridiculous, or unfair it is simply on the grounds of "we're the land of the free and people must have the right to do x/y/z".

Rational argument, decades worth of statistics and common sense have minimal relevance.

Did you actually stop to read some of the posts in this thread?
They were actually well thought out.

 

[dakenbake]

Can people not see the difference between a knife and an automatic rifle? Unless you're Vamp out of MGS2 any killing spree you try on with a knife probably won't end up with the dead and injured in double figures, whereas anybody with an extremely ill mind can burst fire into a crowd of people with an automatic weapon and cause horrendous carnage.

Imagine the level in Modern Warfare 2 with the assault rifles and light machine guns replaced by kitchen knives and maybe bolt action rifles or possibly a pistol/shotgun or two. It would still be a horrible massacre by anybody's standards, but at least some people would survive it and it would all be over as soon as the armed response teams show up.

As it is, that could easily be almost any crowded public space in the US with only a couple of background checks which show the person hasn't committed mass murder just yet as a buffer.

I don't know, I read a post up above claiming the US constitution is a set of rights given by god and therefore set in stone and unchangeable, and now I just feel tired...

 

[matrix3509]

Also, how does making guns illegal stop CRIMINALS from getting them? Really, I'm dying to know.

Also, also, whom to trust with my life: myself, who knows how to operate a firearm safely and responsibly; or an incompetent police force? I don't think the decision is a hard one.

I'm not sure it's that they can't get them, it's limiting the channels through which they can be obtained. A lot of would be criminals might be turn off guns completely if they're difficult to obtain. Plus limiting guns limits the ease of killing someone, no ones ever heard of a mass knifing before. All I'm saying is that if you took it away, there would be less death and a smaller percentage of the population running around with the weapon, it wouldn't get rid of it completely, but the numbers would go down.

I pointedly disagree that there would be less death. Using the mass murderer example everyone here loves so much: a mass murderer wouldn't get very far at all if more people could defend themselves.

 

[lacktheknack]

The only reason for thinking guns are needed, as far as I can tell, is if you think you need to kill somebody for some reason with them.

http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/IMAGES/Pennsylvania/white_tailed_deer_buck2.jpg

http://www.shooterschoice.net/indoor_pistol_shooting.jpg

http://thedamienzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/old-lady-guns.jpg

There. Three more reasons why you might use a gun.

 

[Signa]

I'm not reading through the thread to see if this was posted already, but this just popped up on Failblog's Win section

 

[matrix3509]

I'm curious as to how the option to make them widely available to criminals to easily attain is a better option here.

The thing is, firearm restrictions and bans can not stop all gun crime, no. But they do make it harder for the average joe to get a gun on a whim. If someone is dedicated enough, they will get their hands on one. But then again, if someone is dedicated enough, they will murder someone. We're not about to make murder legal just because "criminals will do it anyway," are we?

Also, also, whom to trust with my life: myself, who knows how to operate a firearm safely and responsibly; or an incompetent police force? I don't think the decision is a hard one.

Mmmm...False dichotomy.

Oh Christ. Yes they make it harder for the average joe to get a gun, BECAUSE HE WILL BE THE ONLY PERSON AFFECTED BY THE GUN BAN. Criminals are NOT affected by gun bans, AT ALL.

Also, there is nothing false about my dichotomy. If you would rather trust your life to someone else, go right ahead, just don't complain when some lowlife mugs you and leaves you bleeding out on a sidewalk because the cops took their sweet time getting to you. There is only one person I trust with safeguarding my life: me. Thats all there is to it.

Also, how does making guns illegal stop CRIMINALS from getting them? Really, I'm dying to know.

Also, also, whom to trust with my life: myself, who knows how to operate a firearm safely and responsibly; or an incompetent police force? I don't think the decision is a hard one.

because you are obviously much more trustworthy with a firearm than the police force. i'm going to propose to you a situation that you may or may not have heard already: a man pulls out a gun and shoots someone in an alley. you, the armed vigilante, come running, you see the gun man and so you shoot him. now another vigilante comes around the corner after hearing gunshots, sees you standing over two bodies, so shoots you. another vigilante comes around the corner....
also, just as a side note, how did the right to bear arms help all those people who were watching the dark knight rises when a gunman opened fire, killing at least 12 and injuring 59 others

Wow way to stay classy. Its also the stupidest strawman I've ever heard on this site, which is something to be proud of I guess. Because all Americans are crazed gunmen right, and they will shoot anybody anywhere. Please grow the fuck up.

 

[hoboman29]

I just want to say that in America there are lots of paranoid people who use the 2nd amendment as a security blanket to carry around guns as they please and threatening that makes them angry. But its people like that who allow people like the movie theater shooter to get a hold of weapons to go on their rampages and I would definitely approve of stricter gun laws.

 

[Wadders]

Nope, it's correct.

The only semi-automatic rifles that are permitted on a Fire Arms Certificate are .22, anything over that is illegal, as are handguns over .22 that are not blackpowder, used for humane dispatch purposes, or fitted with a long barrel (even then they cannot be automatic/ self loading.)

In NI however, you must have different legislation to the rest of the UK for those to be legal if your rifle is a center-fire. Not sure what your laws say, but I might have a look

That sounds about correct then. The semi-auto rifle is a Ruger .22LR, as is the pistol. Both centre-fire rifles are bolt-action.

Glad we sorted that out

I wasn't aware of any differences in Northern Ireland regarding firearm laws, but then again if there were any I wouldn't have known either!

Out of curiosity, do you have the same two certificates as we do over here? A Shotgun certificate for any Shotguns with a capacity of 3 rounds or less, and a Fire Arms Certificate for everything else? (which is rather more difficult to get)

The only reason for thinking guns are needed, as far as I can tell, is if you think you need to kill somebody for some reason with them.

http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/IMAGES/Pennsylvania/white_tailed_deer_buck2.jpg

http://www.shooterschoice.net/indoor_pistol_shooting.jpg

http://thedamienzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/old-lady-guns.jpg

There. Three more reasons why you might use a gun.

Haha love that, you even put it in nice easy pictures so he could understand. Bless.

 

[matrix3509]

Also, how does making guns illegal stop CRIMINALS from getting them? Really, I'm dying to know.

Also, also, whom to trust with my life: myself, who knows how to operate a firearm safely and responsibly; or an incompetent police force? I don't think the decision is a hard one.

Well, that's a pair of stupid arguments if ever I've read them. And I just have. From you.

Firstly, it isn't CRIMINALS who do most of the killing with guns in America. Angry, depressed teenagers massacring their classmates, lone psychos shooting up movie theatres, dumb kids accidentally blowing each others' -or their own- brains out "playing" with daddy's gun- that's the easy-to-prevent problem that you wring your hands over but apparently don't really CARE enough about to bother stopping. The pro-gun lobby make it EASY for people to be killed with guns -not necessarily by criminals, but by ANYONE- and then act surprised when people die.

Secondly, you just stated that the police are completely incompetant and can't be trusted while private citizens are completely trustworthy enough to be allowed to have their own gun based on... absolutely nothing except your own hyperbole. I'm not even going to bother arguing against that, I'm simply going to point out that you said it and hope you realise how moronic it was.

Fucking lol. Angry depressed teenagers. Sure, keep telling yourself that, you might even eventually believe it.

I never said all private citizen are trustworthy. Stop putting words in my mouth you chump. I said I am. I am basing this upon being: a) smart, b) trained since early age in the safe and responsible usage of firearms. Which is why I'm not going to wait around for some ideal police force from utopia to save me when/if my life is in danger. If you are so meek and spineless as to trust your own life to others...well that's your prerogative, but it is not mine.

 

[Nieroshai]

How many people are in the UK? How many people are in the US? There's your problem. Besides, every single gun used in crimes in the UK is stolen or smuggled, outlawing purchase or possession has not prevented people who really want to murder someone from doing it. Britain's gun crime rate isn't as low as you think, and not nearly low enough to justify preventing civilians from protecting themselves FROM armed madmen.

 

[Evilpigeon]

The answer to this whole thing is really damn obvious, countries with high gun ownership have consistantly higher murder rates (not shootings here, just general killings) than those without. The only exception to my knowledge is Switzerland.

Germany, France, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, etc all have gun ownership rates over 30% and all are relatively safe countries with murder rates smaller or at least around the UKs. Lithuania has 1/10th the gun ownership rate of the UK and a murder rate higher than the US.

Socioeconomic cultural conditions are the reason for high or low crime rates, not guns.[/quote]

Any chance you can give me a good link? I can't seem to come up with anything helpful.

I do agree that guns are not the sole reason, my argument in these threads tends to revolve about guns making crime more deadly, hence the big wodge of stats I posted.

captcha: who am I

Captcha has gained selfawareness, we have only days left before the end of the world!

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Did see a nice quote from Wil Wheaton about this.

paraphrased:

'The pro-gun lobbyists saw that citizens need to be armed, but there was only one person firing a gun in the theatre when 12 people died at the Dark Knight Rises screening.'

Maybe it's just me, but that says something. Especially when the shooter's own mother apparently knew that the police obviously had the right man, but yet still somehow he had been able to put together an armoury.

 

[marche45]

Also, how does making guns illegal stop CRIMINALS from getting them? Really, I'm dying to know.

Also, also, whom to trust with my life: myself, who knows how to operate a firearm safely and responsibly; or an incompetent police force? I don't think the decision is a hard one.

Well, that's a pair of stupid arguments if ever I've read them. And I just have. From you.

Firstly, it isn't CRIMINALS who do most of the killing with guns in America. Angry, depressed teenagers massacring their classmates, lone psychos shooting up movie theatres, dumb kids accidentally blowing each others' -or their own- brains out "playing" with daddy's gun- that's the easy-to-prevent problem that you wring your hands over but apparently don't really CARE enough about to bother stopping. The pro-gun lobby make it EASY for people to be killed with guns -not necessarily by criminals, but by ANYONE- and then act surprised when people die.

Secondly, you just stated that the police are completely incompetant and can't be trusted while private citizens are completely trustworthy enough to be allowed to have their own gun based on... absolutely nothing except your own hyperbole. I'm not even going to bother arguing against that, I'm simply going to point out that you said it and hope you realise how moronic it was.

lolwut?Someone who who murders in cold blood(Therfore commiting a crime) is not a criminal?
Alot of teenagers that do use guns to kill people are in gangs and acquire them through illegal means.
Also,i suppose you have statistics to back up your,to put it frankly,ludicrous claims that criminals aren't doing most of the killing?
P.S:Your kids shouldn't have access to your guns in the first place,thats the parents fault.

 

[Madgamer13]

How about we take this thread in a slightly different direction.

The recent Dark Knight massacre happened in America right? Surely at least one person in that packed audience had a concealed carry license and was packing heat, why wasn't the crazed gunman shot down immediately by the fifty thundering dispensers of justice, on the first dying wail of the innocent?

Surely they were ready for this sort of thing, gun culture and all.

To expand and make it relevant to the discussion, does having legalised carry laws such as America's constitutional rights, actually prepare those permitted to carry for situations calling for such power?

 

[yeti585]

The only reason for thinking guns are needed, as far as I can tell, is if you think you need to kill somebody for some reason with them.

Guns are also used for sport. There are a lot of people who like hunting bucks with a rifle. The United States (of America) expressly gave citizens the right to "keep and bear arms" so that if the government started stepping on toes and shoving it's nose in places it shouldn't, the people would have the power to change that. The founders of the United States didn't want the citizens led around on a leash, but many citizens are.

When was the last time gun ownership actually did anything for the general population's political power, out of interest? Because the place seems to be pretty messed up right now, and yet the politicians are in as secure a position as ever; there's absolutely zero chance of any violent uprising any time soon, and if there was it wouldn't help anything.

The argument of 'criminals can get them anyway' I can somewhat understand, but this one about guns acting as protection against the government is just completely outdated at this point.

It's outdated because some of the exact things it was trying to prevent happened. Taking guns from the public is the government overstepping it's bounds and creating a state that is even more secure for them.