Things besides guns we should ban to give ourselves the delusion of safety

[malestrithe]

in 2007 12,632 people were killed by guns via homicide
118,021 people died from random accidents(like slipping off a ladder)

How's this for ya?

In 2007, 12,632 people in the US were killed by guns via homicide.
In 2007, 14 people in Canada were killed by guns via homicide.
66 in the UK.
140 in the EU.
77 in China.

Yeah, more people die from random accidents than outright homicide. Does that make the issue any less serious? Do we write off the deaths of over 12,000 people simply because more people died from other problems?

12,632 people died from gun violence. That's 12,632 more than there should be.

Your comparison is absurd, the nations do not have the same populations, and as you like to point out, the single vector you are measuring is controlled.

Look at rates per 100k for total homicides if you dont want to be laughed out of the internet statisticians meetings.

Also, most of those deaths are drug gang related, you are using a symptom to suggest control is needed, we need to stop fighting symptoms.

Not sure why you need to muddle the issue, because a high total homicide count is still going to be high when you do the per 100,000 thing regardless of how big the population is. But if you want to see it.

Challenge Accepted:

Firearms related homicides per 100,000 people.

United States, 4.14
Canada 0.78
United Kingdom:
England .07
Ireland .03
Scotland .19
China 1.1

If done the way you suggest it to be done, the U.S. still leads homicides compared to the rest of the world. How bad does it make us look compared to China, who has a billion people and we still get 4 homicides per one of theirs?

Before you think it, the statistics do not control for drug related issues. This is a straight up look at firearms deaths per 100,000 people. The only reason, it seems, to bring up the drug connection is to add unnecessary qualifiers to the data.

Statistics provided by the UNODC 2000-2002, Krug 1998, and OAS 2011.

 

[malestrithe]

We should totally ban cars. Cars can drive into crowds of people at any moment in time and kill people by the dozens. Imagine if a bus crashed into a pedestrian mall?
Knives
Forks
Pointy sticks
all dangerous chemicals
public transportation, trains can crash and planes/boats too. Everyone should have to ride bikes or pull wagons. Or use oxen to plow fields, but the plows have to be dull because sharp plows can hurt people.

Slippery slope much?

 

[Twilight_guy]

By that logic, assume that law abiding citizens are the kind of people who won't shoot up a place anyways. Then why do we even have gun laws. Hell, if law abiding citizens do the right thing anyways, why have laws at all, there are always going to law breakers. We might as well just have anarchy because we can't control people. I really hate the defeatist attitude that 'all laws do is restrict people who follow them'. I'm sure the people in jail right now would really agree with you that when they broke laws it had absolutely no repercussion. Making laws does have an impact. It might not be complete, it might not be the best, but it something. If you think gun laws do nothing to stop people willing to break the law then I refer you to every single person every arrest for illegal possession of a firearm. You can argue that its pitifully ineffective, but don't try to argue that it does nothing.

In Portugal, 10 years after the decriminalization of drugs, the drug abuse dropped 50%. What have drug laws in the US accomplished? They wasted the taxpayers's money and are giving more power to drug cartels.

Funny that you mentioned prison. My point is that laws were made to prevent things, but end up punishing them. If there are people in jail, it was because the law was not able to stop them. It did not stop them from stealing, killing or even drinking before driving.

About illegal possession of firearm: you can't say they were planning on murdering someone, or even use it in legitimate self-defense. Good that they were caught, but you can't say that it prevented deaths.

Look, "door locks only keep honest people out". I am not against laws. I am against the idea that making up new laws will make criminals change their mind.

Law are not proactive. You can't arrest a guy because he is going to murder someone in the future but currently doesn't know the guy yet. They are reactionary. In a sense, all they can do is punish someone for what they did. There are certain laws designed to try and prevent future crimes, such as if they can prove a guy had a detailed plan to kill someone they can arrest the guy for it, but it will never guarantee he was going to carry out that plan and actually do anything. You can't blame laws for acting as a 'punishment' and not stopping people from doing something. It would be a far worst state where the police arrest you for the action you were probably going to commit in the next 5 minutes. Laws can't prevent crime because people are going to do what they want, they can only do there best to try and deter it and to try and provide justice when a crime is committed. The only way to prevent crime at all is to create a police state and kill all civil liberties. The effectiveness of laws aside from that is debatable and even more of a quagmire then the debate about guns in general. I still think laws prevent crimes, but I'm not going to try and argue it.

However, it still boils my blood when someone thinks that decriminalizing something makes everything better, I don't believe this shit line about the mystique of things, and it still makes me mad when people think that having a gun is a good form of self defense. It boils down to cold war ideology. The world is perfectly safe so long as we can both kill each other, unless one of us actually makes a move in which case we're all dead. I think a world where no one has guns is safer then a world where everyone has guns. I'm not going to try and argue that either since that's another quagmire and I have better things to do with my life then an internet argument over that.

If you say "yeah well you can't prove he was going to shoot someone" I can just as easily say "yeah well you can't prove that he wasn't". That's not a good line of reasoning.

I find it ironic that the exact same logic drives the idea 'If I have a gun, I can defend myself' as 'If they have laws against guns, it will prevent gun crime'. Both of it is wishing thinking and hoping and both can go horribly wrong. The other guy can have a bigger gun, or you could shot someone who posed no threat, and criminals can still illegally buy guns. Both sides are scared and looking to try and defend themselves somehow. Maybe we should be trying for a world without a reason to fear instead of one where we have to try and defend ourselves against that fear.

 

[JWAN]

We should totally ban cars. Cars can drive into crowds of people at any moment in time and kill people by the dozens. Imagine if a bus crashed into a pedestrian mall?
Knives
Forks
Pointy sticks
all dangerous chemicals
public transportation, trains can crash and planes/boats too. Everyone should have to ride bikes or pull wagons. Or use oxen to plow fields, but the plows have to be dull because sharp plows can hurt people.

Slippery slope much?

Nonsense! Humans are stupid and the government must control everything to ensure that they cannot harm themselves or others!
What could possibly go wrong!?
I forgot education. Education is dangerous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

 

[Insanely Asinine]

Giant monsters. Why because they don't exist...yet.

 

[Elementlmage]

Not sure why you need to muddle the issue, because a high total homicide count is still going to be high when you do the per 100,000 thing regardless of how big the population is. But if you want to see it.

Challenge Accepted:

Firearms related homicides per 100,000 people.

United States, 4.14
Canada 0.78
United Kingdom:
England .07
Ireland .03
Scotland .19
China 1.1

You are comparing statistics from different years? Besides the fact that they are outright wrong, that is bad juju(the US hasn't seen anything close to 4.0 in decades!):

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/194/rate_of_gun_homicide/10,26,40,49,57,280,65,66,69,71,81,86,88,91,125,136,148,149,153,281,172,177,178,192,190

Now these are statistics! Also, this, firearm ownership rates for all above countries:

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/194/rate_of_civilian_firearm_possession/10,26,40,49,57,280,65,66,69,71,81,86,88,91,125,136,148,149,153,281,172,177,178,192,190

Behold, the complete lack of correlation!

All stats are from 2009*

If done the way you suggest it to be done, the U.S. still leads homicides compared to the rest of the world. How bad does it make us look compared to China, who has a billion people and we still get 4 homicides per one of theirs?

Nonono, see you are comparing firearm homicide, not actual homicide. Here are the actual homicide rates:

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/194/rate_of_homicide_any_method/10,26,40,49,57,280,65,66,69,71,81,86,88,91,125,136,148,149,153,281,172,177,178,192,190

Yet again, no correlation!

 

[ElPatron]

snip

So basically you are disagreeing with me... By agreeing.

I am against the concept of a "police state" and Minority Report style thought police. Which is why I don't like the idea of licenses and registration of firearms.

Like I said... I am not against laws. Making guns illegal in certain places works, in others it doesn't. In the US there are hundreds of millions of guns that could just disappear into black markets as soon as the owners watched them being banned.

You compare guns to the Cold War... Kinda pointless, because the Cold War did prevent nuclear war, but anyway... I don't believe that.

Any gun is a gun. A gun is a gun is a gun is a gun. Sorry for the circular logic, but a gun is, indeed, a gun.

Doesn't matter if an assailant has a "baby-murderer-cop-killer-armor-piercing-high-capacity-incendiary-heat-seeking-.50cal-assault-weapon".

A .22LR will bring him down despite not being the appropriate ammunition to use on humans.

Shooting someone posing no threat? I'm sorry, but that is kind of hard to happen unless you're shooting at American paper-thin walls like a madman with no regard for your family or neighbors.

I just love firearms for what they are, I love engineering. If they allow me to defend myself, it's the cherry on top.

Slippery slope much?

It's not so much a slippery slope... when cars actually kill loads of people, and knives can only be purchased by adults in England.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Look, this argument was addressed in the "4 fallacious arguments about gun control blah blah blah" cracked article someone made a thread about earlier, and I'm sure people have mentioned it ITT, but i'll say it anyway. Guns are designed to kill. That is their only purpose.
Most of the things mentioned in this thread are possible lethal objects, but none are specifically designed to take life away from something.
Would you ban someone's shoelaces because they tripped up and died on the sidewalk? No, because shoelaces are not designed to kill people.
But, banning guns because someone is shot by a gun and killed is a much more valid argument.

I won't make any more points than that, I won't even come to a conclusion so as to avoid a long debate, but I just wanted to point out how OP's point is fallacious.

 

[Elementlmage]

snip

Look two posts above you please, there is no correlation between gun ownership rate, and gun crime rate. That is the only counter-argument needed to disprove a gun ban, but I have others I would be willing to copy paste from my previous posts if you would like?

 

[sethisjimmy]

snip

Look two posts above you please, there is no correlation between gun ownership rate, and gun crime rate. That is the only counter-argument needed to disprove a gun ban, but I have others I would be willing to copy paste from my previous posts if you would like?

I did not say I was for or against gun control, and thought I made it clear that I would not like to address any other points than the OPs, but I guess not.

Your gun ownership and crime rate evidence is probably great and all, but I don't really care about gun control or no gun control because I don't think I've ever touched a gun in my life, or ever been threatened by one.

I just wanted to say, in all the arguments against gun control, OP's is the least valid.

 

[Twilight_guy]

snip

So basically you are disagreeing with me... By agreeing.

I am against the concept of a "police state" and Minority Report style thought police. Which is why I don't like the idea of licenses and registration of firearms.

Like I said... I am not against laws. Making guns illegal in certain places works, in others it doesn't. In the US there are hundreds of millions of guns that could just disappear into black markets as soon as the owners watched them being banned.

You compare guns to the Cold War... Kinda pointless, because the Cold War did prevent nuclear war, but anyway... I don't believe that.

Any gun is a gun. A gun is a gun is a gun is a gun. Sorry for the circular logic, but a gun is, indeed, a gun.

Doesn't matter if an assailant has a "baby-murderer-cop-killer-armor-piercing-high-capacity-incendiary-heat-seeking-.50cal-assault-weapon".

A .22LR will bring him down despite not being the appropriate ammunition to use on humans.

Shooting someone posing no threat? I'm sorry, but that is kind of hard to happen unless you're shooting at American paper-thin walls like a madman with no regard for your family or neighbors.

I just love firearms for what they are, I love engineering. If they allow me to defend myself, it's the cherry on top.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, I'm summing up my thoughts and trying to decide what I believe in. I thought that was the point of having arguments.

Also, if you don't see the cold war mindset, its really about the intention. The idea of that equal deadly means can end conflict yet during the cold war the world very nearly enter an armed conflict multiple times and people were in constant fear of their lives. There was no war but things could have quickly gone south and the fear people had was not a plus to living conditions.

 

[ElPatron]

Also, if you don't see the cold war mindset, its really about the intention. The idea of that equal deadly means can end conflict yet during the cold war the world very nearly enter an armed conflict multiple times and people were in constant fear of their lives. There was no war but things could have quickly gone south and the fear people had was not a plus to living conditions.

Nuclear weapons have that pesky feature of being able to be fired in retaliation in case someone makes the first strike.

Shooting an assailant will not make any gun automatically target you.

I don't get how the concept of escalation and mutually assured destruction can ever relate to firearms outside the John Woo standoffs. Like I said, a gun is a gun is a gun. Doesn't matter which one you're wielding as long as you use it well, and I couldn't care less about what kind of weapons criminals have.

I fear crime and being treated by a criminal by the government. But I don't fear the lumps of metal they chose to carry.

 

[JWAN]

Japan. Only 22 killings involving firearms in 2007. 22 for the entire country. See, strict gun control laws do work.

Japan existed for centuries before guns. America exists because of guns. Add in the severe differences between cultures, and you'll see why this statistic means exactly jack squat.

Don't forget they live on an island. Its easy keeping contraband off of an island.

 

[Nimzabaat]

in 2007 12,632 people were killed by guns via homicide
118,021 people died from random accidents(like slipping off a ladder)

How's this for ya?

In 2007, 12,632 people in the US were killed by guns via homicide.
In 2007, 14 people in Canada were killed by guns via homicide.
66 in the UK.
140 in the EU.
77 in China.

Yeah, more people die from random accidents than outright homicide. Does that make the issue any less serious? Do we write off the deaths of over 12,000 people simply because more people died from other problems?

12,632 people died from gun violence. That's 12,632 more than there should be.

Your comparison is absurd, the nations do not have the same populations, and as you like to point out, the single vector you are measuring is controlled.

Look at rates per 100k for total homicides if you dont want to be laughed out of the internet statisticians meetings.

Also, most of those deaths are drug gang related, you are using a symptom to suggest control is needed, we need to stop fighting symptoms.

Not sure why you need to muddle the issue, because a high total homicide count is still going to be high when you do the per 100,000 thing regardless of how big the population is. But if you want to see it.

Challenge Accepted:

Firearms related homicides per 100,000 people.

United States, 4.14
Canada 0.78
United Kingdom:
England .07
Ireland .03
Scotland .19
China 1.1

If done the way you suggest it to be done, the U.S. still leads homicides compared to the rest of the world. How bad does it make us look compared to China, who has a billion people and we still get 4 homicides per one of theirs?

Before you think it, the statistics do not control for drug related issues. This is a straight up look at firearms deaths per 100,000 people. The only reason, it seems, to bring up the drug connection is to add unnecessary qualifiers to the data.

Statistics provided by the UNODC 2000-2002, Krug 1998, and OAS 2011.

After checking wikipedia the stats are a little higher.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

The most interesting point that I saw is that Canada has a gun ownership almost as high as the United States and less then half the homicide rate per 100k. In Canada, handguns are highly regulated and assault weapons are restricted to police and military. So this is a solid argument towards tightening control over handguns and, well, guns that are only intended to kill people.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.
We should ban sweaters on dogs.
They're already covered with fur, they don't need a sweater
(unless they're hairless dogs, or live in very cold places, those dogs get a pass).

Well if you live in a cold climate, dogs can actually get pretty cold on long walks. We have special boots for our dog because after about 10 minutes without them, she just stops walking and alternates lifting each foot off the ground to try and keep them away from the snow. I think of the fir as their sweater and the actual sweater as their winter jacket.

It's totally not alright in warm climates though.

captcha: exercise more. Shut up! I literally just got home from a 12 hour hike going up and down a mountain.

 

[AquaAscension]

*Snip*

I believe that a gun is the ultimate symbol of power. A person with a gun will always have power over a person without, and to make laws that ban people from having guns is to make laws that ban civilians from having power. The United States is a country founded for the people by the people. The power should rest with all of us equally

Your two claims in this last paragraph can't coexist.

- "A person with a gun will always have power over a person without"

- "The power should rest with all of us equally"

These two statements conflict UNLESS you say that Everyone should have a gun OR NO ONE should have a gun. Otherwise, the power is necessarily not distributed equally according to your own claim. So, which is it? Do we all have the power, or do some of us get unequal power?

Also, I think that conflating guns with power is one of the worst things you can do, ever. In doing this, you fail to see where other power comes from. Perhaps you even deny that power can come from anywhere but physical violence. Or the threat thereof.

Should guns be banned? No. I don't think so.

Should we address this problem as though it actually is a problem and stopping trying to compare it with other things (like falling off a ladder)? Yes.

 

[afroebob]

Knowing if someone broke into my house that I have the ability to put two slugs in their legs then call 911 while drinking a Mikes Hard Lemonade isn't the delusion of safety, its the definition of it.

 

[HannesPascal]

Green lasers (and every other laser with a higher energy rate). The last few nights people have been shot with green lasers in the town I live in (Landskrona, Sweden) and one person became blind a few years ago after being shot in the eyes with one. There's nothing (except blinding people more effectively) that green lasers can do that red lasers can't.

 

[ElPatron]

The most interesting point that I saw is that Canada has a gun ownership almost as high as the United States and less then half the homicide rate per 100k. In Canada, handguns are highly regulated and assault weapons are restricted to police and military. So this is a solid argument towards tightening control over handguns and, well, guns that are only intended to kill people.

Yes, lets ignore the fact that Canada is a country high higher standards of living and less poverty.

Assault weapons are only used in about 1% of the crime in the US. Their restriction in Canada is a moot point.

Besides, in Canada it is possible to own assault weapons such as AR15 or the VZ58 even if you're not in the police.

Japan. Only 22 killings involving firearms in 2007. 22 for the entire country. See, strict gun control laws do work.

Japan is also the country where a woman was killed because criminals modified an airsoft gun.

Japan is also a country with a shit-ton of suicides.

How about not comparing totally different countries and cultures while pretending that a metric ton of other factors are irrelevant?

Don't forget they live on an island. Its easy keeping contraband off of an island.

No it's not. Busy ports can have millions of containers moving around every year. It would be impossible to check more than a few of them.