Binnsyboy said:
Evilpigeon said:
Binnsyboy said:
Evilpigeon said:
Binnsyboy said:
That's not how it works at all, and it will never work like that.
"Disarming the innocent does not protect the innocent". Or as I like to say, "DUH!"
Except that it does work like in many other countries, criminals are mostly disorganised and to get hold of a weapon with sufficient control and enforcement you have to be very well organised. And, you know what unless in your society is carrying around a handgun at all times, it's more likely that the attacker is going to be the one armed. You stand a much better chance of getting away from someone with a knife than a gun.
I understand that the US is perhaps too far down the rabbit hole for an immediate ban on guns to be effective but phasing them out over a long period of time could work.
There's a little less gun crime in places like here in Britain, but there's plenty of knife crime to make up for that.
I'd much prefer a situation where everyone is encouraged to have carry guns, with an amount of mandatory shooting, safety and situational training. A prospective criminal would think twice, because chances are every target is armed. People say that would just cause more death overall, but that's not necessarily true. If it's the common knowledge that everyone around you can protect themselves, it makes crime as a whole far, far less inviting and over time, there's a good chance it could lower hugely.
Plus I've always held the view that once someone (e.g. a mugger or rapist) puts someone else's base human rights secondary to their own personal wants, they sacrifice priority for their own rights. Fair is fair, after all.
And I have had many conversations with people who, if it weren't for carry weapons, wouldn't be able to safely go out alone at night. One of whom is an escapist here I won't mention because it would probably be quite rude to randomly throw her into this.
With or without weapons, people will find ways to at least have the ability to kill each other. Hell, I know how to kill someone with a damn newspaper. With that in mind, I much prefer a world where your bogstandard guy can protect himself.
Knife crime is much less deadly and it's much easier to escape
Not true, because the mugger isn't going to behave the same with a knife as he is with a gun. They utilize the knife differently, hence why, when it occurs, knife crime is as fatal as gun crime.
there's also less risk of your mugger simply attacking you
I think I've made it clear that if someone has chosen to assault someone or mug them with a weapon, I no longer give a shit about the mugger's safety.
Okay, your first premise: Everyone is armed and trained in the use of a weapon. This means everyone with access to a gun, so both sides of the law. Or, in fact unless you make it mandatory to own a gun it'll go more like this; Your mugger will have a gun and there will be a % of the civilian population who're likely to be armed.
The way it's meant to work is that you can't commit assault/mugging so simply because everyone who sees it has a means to stop it, which is one hell of a deterrent. Anything that was attempted would either quickly end with the mugger being injured or killed (once again, the prevention of that is a low priority to me) or a dragged out hostage situation, which if I were a mugger wouldn't seem worth it, especially because it's almost impossible to get away with.
Now, how does premditated violent crime work?
You take your opponent by surprise, get the situation under control, get what you came for and get out.
So now, still on the criminal:
Your target is probably armed.
Your target is probably not armed.
Shooting someone and using a gun is a risk because it's loud and cam leave evidence so you aren't going to shoot someone lightly. But if they're armed then you have a risk that you probably need to take. Unless you're some sort of soldier or expecting the attack you're safer if your attacker thinks you're unarmed, hell scratch that, everyone is safer if the attacker thinks you're unarmed.
Guns are not good for self defence
You can say that all you like, but as I've said, the fact is I know too many people who are only safe going out at night because they can carry a gun to believe that. Once again, with the proper amount of care, it's the best deterrent, along with the above fact that if everyone carried guns, petty crime would have too great a risk tied to it.
It's irrelevant that you can kill people anyway, deadliness is not black and white, it's more of a scale. A gun is an order of magnitude more deadly than necessary, arming both sides with something so powerful leads to unnecessary escalation and dramatically increases the chance that someone is going to die, essentially for reasons of history and national pride.
But people die anyway. You're just as dead stabbed as if you're dead shot, and once again, my point is that the presence of guns in that world would reduce crime, and therefore reduce death. I'm not claiming it would be a perfect solution, but it's better than removing legal access to weapons all together.
For instance, here in Britain, the country famous for not even arming its police, the black market gun trade for criminals is alive and well. And to that, you're going to say legal guns puts more guns on the black market, but I'm looking more at having a larger percentage of guns present in the hands of innocent people to protect themselves than in the hands of criminals. That, in my opinion, will do more good.
Your bogstandard guy stands a much, much better chance when weapons aren't involved.
True, but there being no weapons involved is a fairy tale state. Unless you're an idealistic six year old, you're aware of this. Once again: Criminals. Black Market.
Ahh fuck I'm actually going to have to go find data aren't I? -.-
This is going to end with me bringing up crime statistics and being told that it has nothing to do with the number of weapons, just as Terminator421 said in his first post. Ah well, can't win on the internet can you?
Tell you what, I'ma write down how I reckon it'll work, then go find stuff and see if I'm right.
"If you get stabbed, it's as deadly as being shot"
My guess would be less deadly, a knife is easier to use and it's rare the criminal is actually trying to kill people. It does less damage than a bullet as well.
"my point is that the presence of guns in that world would reduce crime"
This is where the bit about crime statistics comes in. I also kinda wonder what is necessary for something to be classed as knife or gun crime. But seriously, people do not attack you by walking up to you and giving you a chance to pull a weapon, it's rare that you being armed makes a difference. It's even more rare with guns involved.
"the black market gun trade for criminals is alive and well"
Come on, that's a silly comment. You can't seriously think that there is a high chance of guns being involved unless we're talking organised crime in the UK. My whole premise is that it doesn't matter all that much if civilians are armed.
Telling me that people are only safe to go out at night because guns is irrelevant. It's probably not true that they're only safe because they're carrying a gun but obviously if they're available it's going to give you the best sense of security.
"And to that, you're going to say legal guns puts more guns on the black market"
There might be, not sure. It is certain however that a larger percentage of potential criminals are going to be able to get their hands on something when it's possible buy it in a shop.
"True, but there being no weapons involved is a fairy tale state. Unless you're an idealistic six year old, you're aware of this. Once again: Criminals. Black Market."
So now after acknowledging that people having no weapons is the best scenario that people being armed with less deadly weapons is somehow worse than escalating things. Your average criminal in the Uk does not have access to a gun, unless you're 6 you'll understand that the black market isn't magic, it quite simply can't come anywhere near matching the availability of making something legal.
___________________________________________________
Time to go do some research, see if this is right.
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.
