Gun Control (v.2)

But if I am not permitted to arm myself in defense, I cannot protect myself from the government if it decides it no longer wishes to hold the right to human life as inalienable. And if the Constitution fails utterly and the government becomes oppressive and corrupt, without arms, there can be no rebellion.

Please, you're too complacent anyways as a people. I'm telling you now, to suggest that you'll one day repeat the Independence War against another locally bred tyrrany is utterly laughable and worthy of derision. You will not, you will be spoonfed and kept well occupied by a government you, the people, elected.

So stop assuming we're as naive as you; naive enough to believe that the original intent of the 2nd Amendment remains your primary objective in honouring it. If you want to believe it, fine, stack it next to the Tooth Fairy and Santa in the childhood fantasies department, but don't expect a political scientist to except such garbage.

How many goverments have been overthrown by their civilians in the last, say, 100 years? I'm not too great with history sorry!

First, second (SovBloc underdeveloped) or third world?

Because for a long time, Soviet inspired ideology spread through the Sov Bloc and third world which essentially put [percieved] economic inequalities and victimhood at the forefront, which formed a great basis for many a revolution.

Strangely, first world democracies haven't had this happen, but don't tell those people who want to pretend the 2nd Amendment is about protecting themselves from an oppressive tyrrany (I mean, the US Federal Government is sooooo oppressive and will need to be taken down, right? Remember when they did Tiananmen Square? Oh, wait, that was an actual tyrranical regime, not a made-up one... ). It really is there, today, for people to keep the Government in check, and not because a rights based culture has lead to making selfish, spoilt [predominantly] men angrily defending their rights to do whatever the **** they want...

Firearms are simply a tool. The intent for its use has to be given to it by a user, just like with any inanimate object.



From you, I expect better. I don't expect rationalising something you know to be false. Firearms were created as tools of warfare; one of the primary aims of warfare is to kill people. Guns are merely the latest in the evolution of the martial arms species. Their intent was always to kill, and handguns, especially, were designed to kill in close quarters. Just because you can shoot clay pigeons, or paper targets, doesn't absolve the guns of their designer's intent (like playing shunt'n'bump with a car?), and whilst I am well aware of the fact that people pull triggers, you can't very well say that should influence describing the firearm in history.

E_S

 

We're just not going to agree on the Revolution issue. I believe that civilian-held guns are an important safeguard, and I will not for anything give up that protection. You disagree, and that's your right. But if guns were banned, then that would be the government stripping away my liberty in direct violation of the Bill of Rights, which is exactly the kind of thing I'm afraid of, and I would feel justified to use a gun in protecting my right to keep it.

Likewise, I will not yield my right to personally protect myself against an attacker. Do you honestly believe that the government is capable of keeping me protected? I've seen the government attempt to handle entirely too many things to think so myself. It may be a cliché, but that doesn't make it untrue: "If guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns."

Firearms were created as tools of warfare; one of the primary aims of warfare is to kill people.

I'm just curious; when were guns first developed, and how do you know the intent was war and not hunting? I'm not challenging you; I really want to learn. And I would like to hear your answer to the question of whether the bow and arrow ought to be outlawed as well.

-Paul

 

LOL. I've done that. Go back a few pages and look at my posts, I've argued constructively and articulately, but it all falls on deaf ears. I'm responding to slogans now.

I'm responding to your many absences of thought, Uruk. I've read your pronouncements, and you just regurgitate the same things which causes people like myself to repeat ourselves.

I can't understand why you say I am over exaggerating, when people here are promoting allowing guns on planes for the general public. It's the most insane thing I've read in this thread.

You are exaggerating the dangers of this. You assume the worst immediately.

And don't tell me I don't have an argument. The dumbest argument here is the "guns don't kill people" argument.

Am I to understand that you believe that inanimate objects compel people to commit acts of violence? That is utterly innane.


I see the American Right is showing us how rewriting the dictionary is essential to futhering it's philistine agenda...

Liberalism has proven itself to be just as much, if not more, "philistine" than their Conservative counterpart. The vast majority of professors in universities are Liberal, profs who promote revisionist history, liberal agendas by forcing students to remove 'patriotic' symbols, or forcing them to write papers on why "Bush is a War Criminal", or allowing more anti-war talkers onto campuses, but violently protesting those of opposing viewpoint. Would Conservative teachers get away with enforcing their agenda onto students? Not likely, but which political ideology gets protected and promoted in Universities; a place where people learn to grow into the outside world? Liberalism, and nothing else. Is this intellectual diversity, or an attempt of the Left to re-inforce their way of thinking, using the classroom as a bully pulpit onto a student body through our taxes that pay for their employment.

Students For Academic Freedom
FIRE

And just to preempt your "arguements" against this remark, I should point out I'm a conservative voter here; I just object to the American form of conservatism which attracts the more base elements of society to it. It's the byproduct of a culture which says, "You have the right to do this" and which trumpets the individual to such a ridiculous level. Individuality is a wonderful thing, but not to the point where people are pushing their individuals rights as paramount, trumping the other 300,000,000 people in line...

PPOR that Conservatism attracts the baser elements of society more than Liberalism. Liberalism promotes individuality way more than Conservatism does, at least in America, by allowing every way of life, and seemingly every made up right, under the sun without recourse.


Ciou-See the Sig

 

The fact that people found different uses for firearms throughout the years is no argument.

It seems like a pretty effective argument to this statement:

Firearms are designed for one sole purpose and that is killing people.

What purpose does this firearm have?

HERE

Or are you suggesting that a common criminal is going to pay $1800 for a target rifle just to kill someone?

funny, I don't recall any Army being issued this, which is your typical deer hunting rifle:

HERE

Or can I suggest that the natural progression of the automobile is the tank, which of course is designed to kill people.

That must mean that no legitimate purpose exists for the internal combustion engine anymore.

or that the first widespread use of the airplane was as a spoter and bomber for the military. Does that mean we should get rid of commerical airflight?

E_S,

I don't expect rationalising something you know to be false.

In what way is it false?

When you were engaged in target shooting, did the gun somehow corrupt you into becoming a mass murderer?

Or since you were law-abiding anyway, you viewed your rifle as simply a tool?

Just because you can shoot clay pigeons, or paper targets, doesn't absolve the guns of their designer's intent

Alfred Nobel originally developed dynamite as a tool for mining and building.

Does his original benevolent intent prevent TNT from being used to do harm? Of course not.

Or is your argument not suppose to be used both ways?

A machette was designed to cut through thick jungle brush. Has Jason and Freddy permamently changed the machette's characteristics for everyone?

No, of course not.

Why then, are firearms suppose to be inherently evil?

 

PPOR that Conservatism attracts the baser elements of society more than Liberalism. Liberalism promotes individuality way more than Conservatism does, at least in America, by allowing every way of life, and seemingly every made up right, under the sun without recourse.

Well, since you guys don't speak the same language on the whole "liberalism/conservatism" front, I'll clarify;

The brand of American conservatism I encounter most on these boards is one espoused by a rather insular, fearful minority who are happy to indulge their prejudice without any concern for the wider picture. They don't care how things outside the US work, nor that their basic black and white may be too simplisitic and innaccurate, because it's their God damn right to believe it, Goddamit!

Liberalism has proven itself to be just as much, if not more, "philistine" than their Conservative counterpart. The vast majority of professors in universities are Liberal, profs who promote revisionist history, liberal agendas by forcing students to remove 'patriotic' symbols, or forcing them to write papers on why "Bush is a War Criminal", or allowing more anti-war talkers onto campuses, but violently protesting those of opposing viewpoint. Would Conservative teachers get away with enforcing their agenda onto students?

Thank you for proving my points here, Moriate, especially for the inconsistent definition of the word philistine. Your American left may be too idealistic and out of touch with some issues in reality, but they're hardly indifferent to different culture values.

When you were engaged in target shooting, did the gun somehow corrupt you into becoming a mass murderer?



No, but was I not holding something in my hands that was, at the very least, the evolution of thousands of years of tools designed for killing? You could argue that motorsports are a perversion of the intended use of the car, insofar as it's hardly about transportation anymore.

Yes, I had a stupidly expensive Walther rifle that, being a single shot bolt action .22, was hardly a tool o' death. My PPK/S, with all our restrictions, wasn't going to be used to bring down a shopping mall. My responsible ownership doesn't change the historical place of the firearm as the heir to the "machines of death" throne, despite obvious and more social applications thereof.

Alfred Nobel originally developed dynamite as a tool for mining and building.

And after realising what he'd unleashed, he created the Nobel Prize to support positive achievements in society; it was his gift to a world he believed he had just made more dangerous. And it gave GB Shaw a wonderful quip about dynamite and the prize...

Why then, are firearms suppose to be inherently evil?

Because guns were designed to kill, first and foremost. Even if you tried to argue that the rifle was born out of hunting needs, you'd still have to justify the handgun, which was made to kill people. By itself, it's harmless, yes. I'm not making judgements, I'm appealing to historical accuracy. Nobel's explosives or machetes may have found themselves in the hands of murderous thugs, but that is simply because they, like the firearms, are tools. The difference is, neither were invented nor marketed on their ability to destroy human life...

E_S

 

I'm responding to your many absences of thought, Uruk. I've read your pronouncements, and you just regurgitate the same things which causes people like myself to repeat ourselves.

That's rich. I've been the one complaining about how circular this argument is. I have to bring up the same point over and over because people like you deliberately avoid the point of my argument and go off on tangential flights of fancy. My many absences of thought, lol. Right.

You are exaggerating the dangers of this. You assume the worst immediately.

I'm exaggerating the dangers of everyone on an aeroplane at 12,000m packing GUNS? Oh no, no danger there. They can all pack soft low velocity bullets, the skies will be safe as houses then.

It's THE most foolish thing I've read in this thread. Assuming that it is safe is ignorant in the extreme and you know it.

Am I to understand that you believe that inanimate objects compel people to commit acts of violence? That is utterly innane.

This statement shows the stupidity and irrelevance of this arguement. It's not the gun on it's own, it's access to the gun that is the danger, and what the gun can do. Studies show that people with access to guns are more likely to commit acts of murder than those without. I've shown this in previous posts, but they must have been too "thoughtless" for you to consider.

Saying guns are useful for skeet shooting, rifle clubs etc and are not for simply killing people is like saying that because you can recline the front seat in a car to sleep, then their main use is as a hotel room. It's a consequence of design, not what they were designed for.

Guns were originally designed as a weapon of war. Killing people, not animals. The first rifles were so cumbersome, there was no way you could hunt with them. Pretty much any innovation made to the gun was to inmprove it's use as a weapon.

 

Guns are designed to to do more than just kill living things. They are also designed to wound living things.

When you skeet shoot, you practice shooting at a moving target. Why do you practice shooting at a moving target? Because, when you are hunting, in combat, or are kicking someone off your land, you can be damn sure you know how to shoot something that is moving. Same thing with target practice (distance).

To imply that guns aren't designed to cause harm to living beings is absurd. Their primary purpose is to be used to shoot at living things in acts of self defense.

A gun is only as dangerous as the person using it. No argument there.


But, guns ARE designed to kill. I can't believe people are arguing otherwise. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can come up with better arguments against gun control, as it currently stands. And, believe me, there are plenty of good ones like darth paul's "cliche" above.

That cliche true. We need to make sure people with clean records have access to guns and do what little we can (probably not much, but it's worth the effort) to not promote access to criminals.

 

I must congratulate you for doing what many other gun advocates here cannot. That is accept what the primary purpose of guns is.

 

Studies show that people with access to guns are more likely to commit acts of murder than those without. I've shown this in previous posts, but they must have been too "thoughtless" for you to consider.

You have? I'm not being sarcastic here; I honestly missed this. I never saw any study results, only a discussion based on your personal intuition. If you've got a study, I'd love the data to think over.

The first rifles were so cumbersome, there was no way you could hunt with them. Pretty much any innovation made to the gun was to inmprove it's use as a weapon.

I'll buy the first sentence, if I'm still not ready to accept the second one. You've convinced me that guns must have begun life as weapons of war. It dobesn't really relate to the arguments I'm making on the issue, but I will definitely give you that, with no reservations.

The brand of American conservatism I encounter most on these boards is one espoused by a rather insular, fearful minority who are happy to indulge their prejudice without any concern for the wider picture. They don't care how things outside the US work, nor that their basic black and white may be too simplisitic and innaccurate, because it's their God damn right to believe it, Goddamit!

It's not that I don't see that the world is probably more complex than the picture I I reduce it to. It's just that there are ideals of liberty I hold above all else. I see people who would give up a long-standing right to bear arms for simple safety concerns to be sullied by pragmatism. Honestly, I probably live too much in the world of ideals, but I don't have much use for pragmatism. The idea of the right to have a weapon is more important to me than the practical consequences of that right. And that doesn't make me a very good spokesman for our cause, as you'll dismiss me as a bit idiotic. But I am telling the truth, and I do give other, less idealistic arguments.

Do you have a point? Well, to some extent, yes, I'm not denying that there's a certain amount of sense in what you say. It sounds perfect -- if you do away with guns, you'll see fewer people killing each other. But the numbers don't necessarily agree. And you're assuming that it's going to be utterly impossible for criminals to buy or manufacture guns. Even were all that true, you're going to have a heck of a time persuading me to give up a right once I have had it, for any reason.

And you're never going to take my last line of defense against my fellow citizens and against the government. Never. I'm not stupid enough to give that up.

-Paul

 

Next you'll argue we should all walk on with explosives strapped around us...

No, we won't.

...because that'll show those dang terrorists won't it?

No, it won't. Uruk, you obviously have nothing intelligent to say about gun control. All you're doing is putting words in our mouths and assuming we believe things that we clearly do not believe. Why are you still in this thread?

You can hate michael moore all you want, but the facts he presents speak for themselves: in most countries, the number of firearm murders number in the dozens, or hundreds at most... in the US, they number somewhere in the 22 thousands.

The "facts" he presents? Please...how about you look at the truth instead of believing his propaganda?

Even someone who has no criminal record WHATSOEVER can go nuts.

Which is why the 37 states that allow concealed carry have experienced explosions in criminal attacks!!!

...to me it seems a way logical conclusion that more firearms available means that an easier way to commit a murder is available.

Perhaps. But how do you intend to make firearms less "available" to criminals? The amount of guns being smuggled into Britain has increased over 90% over the past three years, and they're an island. You think that the US, with our poorly guarded border with Mexico, would stand a chance if our government declared a "war on guns"???

Explain to me one more purpose to firearms besides killing people. Thats right: there are none.

Killing people is NOT ALWAYS WRONG!!! If your life is threatened, you would be more than justified if you took the life of your attacker.

I'm exaggerating the dangers of everyone on an aeroplane at 12,000m packing GUNS? Oh no, no danger there.

Only to potential hijackers.

Studies show that people with access to guns are more likely to commit acts of murder than those without.

Studies? From who? The Brady Campaign? The VPC? PPOSTFU.

I must congratulate you for doing what many other gun advocates here cannot. That is accept what the primary purpose of guns is.

A gun is a self-defense tool. Sometimes you must kill in order to keep yourself from being harmed. What exactly is wrong with this picture?

EDIT: Australia: For your kids' sake, lay down your arms

"UP to 20 young children have become the innocent victims of Melbourne's bloody underworld war."

"And with police naming alleged drug baron and father Carl Williams as a possible target, children's groups have called on potential underworld gunmen to lay down their arms."

"If that does not happen, they say, then other young children will be left without a father." ...

"Australian Children Foundation chief executive officer Joe Tucci pleaded with potential gunmen to holster their weapons and think about the kids."

-------

If the gunmen are willing to break laws and take lives, they certainly won't be deterred by your tearful "it's for the children" pleas. They will be deterred by an armed populace.

 

Killing people is NOT ALWAYS WRONG!!! If your life is threatened, you would be more than justified if you took the life of your attacker.

1) that first sentence has to be the most disturbing thing I've heard all day... no make that all week.. no actually, make that my entire life! are you ******* nuts?!?!

2) have you ever realised that the "attacker" you're describing here could very well be the person who's gone mad with anger and TOOK THE GUN because it was the most readily available weapon? Yeah that's right! And then he gets killed by the "victim" in self defense! So how can you say that killing people is not always wrong if most people wouldn't even have been killed if there were no guns in the first place!

argh this pisses me off SO MUCH!

 

are you ******* nuts?!?!

Alas, you have exposed me for what I truly am: a gun nut whose plan is to destroy the very fabric of civilization by promoting the proliferation of weapons that turn people into mindless butchers! Just a little more power in the hands of law-abiding citizens, and our evil political agenda will be complete! Mua ha ha ha!!!

have you ever realised that the "attacker" you're describing here could very well be the person who's gone mad with anger and TOOK THE GUN because it was the most readily available weapon?

Yes. But is it your fault he took the gun? No. So why is it wrong to defend yourself from this attacker? Do you think that if guns were banned, this person would not have gone mad with anger? Guns cannot influence human behavior in such a way. He would have most certainly "gone mad" anyway, and simply attacked you with an illegal gun provided by his drug dealer. And even better, you would be defenseless! Why? Because gun control only disarms the law-abiding.

And then he gets killed by the "victim" in self defense!

Well, yeah...the choice to initiate the attack was his. The choice to stop that attack should be yours.

So how can you say that killing people is not always wrong if most people wouldn't even have been killed if there were no guns in the first place!

That explains why rape, murder, arson, robbery, assault, and child molestation were only heard of after guns were invented! How old are you, five? Guns do not influence people to kill. If someone is really determined to rape, mug, slash, or shoot you, they will do it, no matter how many laws they have to break to do so. Banning guns is not a solution. Recognizing the right of law-abiding citizens to have access to them is.

 

Although heated, this is an interesting assertion:

Yeah that's right! And then he gets killed by the "victim" in self defense!

What exactly are you suggesting here, because I'm slightly confused.

I hope you are not suggesting that an "enraged" criminal, as you put it, is somehow more deserving of life than an innocent person?

So how can you say that killing people is not always wrong if most people wouldn't even have been killed if there were no guns in the first place!

Most people wouldn't be killed because of guns?

I think you are exaggerating here, and the Justice Department's offical statistics disagree with you:

BoJS

Nonfatal firearm crime rates have declined since 1994, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2002.

Incidents involving a firearm represented 7% of the 4.9 million violent crime of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault.

So, while I guess your system would protect 7% of violent crime victims, I'm pretty sure the other 93% actually want to defend themselves.

Additionally, this statistic is rather interesting:

The source of a gun used in a crime is the following:

a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2%

a retail store or pawnshop for about 12%

family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80%

How effective are restrictive gun laws if the person is going to purchase it illegally anyway?

At what point are you separating criminal intent from the tool being used?

argh this pisses me off SO MUCH!

Then perhaps you should take a deep breath and objectively discuss the issue.. What point are you trying to discuss?

 

Uruk, you obviously have nothing intelligent to say about gun control

Opinions are like ********s, Fred. We all have them; most of them stink. Just think about that before you start touting yours as a Godsend, mate.

E_S

 

That's rich. I've been the one complaining about how circular this argument is. I have to bring up the same point over and over because people like you deliberately avoid the point of my argument and go off on tangential flights of fancy. My many absences of thought, lol. Right.

What points have been ignored, specifically? What about the pro-gun issue is circular, specifically?

I'm exaggerating the dangers of everyone on an aeroplane at 12,000m packing GUNS? Oh no, no danger there. They can all pack soft low velocity bullets, the skies will be safe as houses then.

The exaggeration was in reference to your "bomb strapping" comment. And you still are exaggerating the number of guns on plane(s). Just because it may be allowed, does NOT mean that every single passenger is going to have a firearm. It does NOT mean that it is going to be a 'wild-west' shootout on board as anti-gunners are wont to say. And yes, homes with firearms are safer, as would planes if a passenger or two had firearms.

It's THE most foolish thing I've read in this thread. Assuming that it is safe is ignorant in the extreme and you know it.

I never assumed it was 100% safe, what ever is? However, you assuming it is dangerous is equally as ignorant and equally as foolish, right? But if no wrong has been done, why legislate against it? Or are you advocating "guilt before innocence?"

This statement shows the stupidity and irrelevance of this arguement. It's not the gun on it's own, it's access to the gun that is the danger, and what the gun can do. Studies show that people with access to guns are more likely to commit acts of murder than those without. I've shown this in previous posts, but they must have been too "thoughtless" for you to consider.

You are still blaming the existance of the firearm. Taking firearms out of the picture will not solve any violence or crime whatsoever. You are merely trading one form of violence/crime for another.

PPOR about those studies too. If you are so sure in your statements, this shouldn't be a problem.

Saying guns are useful for skeet shooting, rifle clubs etc and are not for simply killing people is like saying that because you can recline the front seat in a car to sleep, then their main use is as a hotel room. It's a consequence of design, not what they were designed for.

I have not seen anyone say that guns are ONLY used for hunting or target shooting. Your comparative arguement would be better to say the reclining seat as a "bed", not hotel room. However, the item depends entirely on the use of it. People can sleep in their cars, just as people can only use firearms for hunting and target shooting. Guns can be used to kill; however, what you ignore, Uruk, is that guns can be used for self-defense as well.

-I know it's from 1994, but as of yet there has not been so comprehensive a study on Defensive Gun Use (DFG)

According to the National Self Defense Survey conducted by Florida State University criminologists in 1994, the rate of Defensive Gun Uses can be projected nationwide to approximately 2.5 million per year -- one Defensive Gun Use every 13 seconds.

Among 15.7% of gun defenders interviewed nationwide during The National Self Defense Survey, the defender believed that someone "almost certainly" would have died had the gun not been used for protection -- a life saved by a privately held gun about once every 1.3 minutes. (In another 14.2% cases, the defender believed someone "probably" would have died if the gun hadn't been used in defense.)

In 83.5% of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first -- disproving the myth that having a gun available for defense wouldn't make any difference.

In 91.7% of these incidents the defensive use of a gun did not wound or kill the criminal attacker (and the gun defense wouldn't be called "newsworthy" by newspaper or TV news editors). In 64.2% of these gun-defense cases, the police learned of the defense, which means that the media could also f

 

Maybe twice, Moriate, so what's your point?

What you fail to understand is that the American perception of guns works for America. For every example of gun-related crime, all Fred does is show us coincidental correlations and false hoc. His assumption is that because guns are used for self-defence in America, it must the same elsewhere. In effect, he's saying gun crime post-firearm laws is caused by the laws, which isn't true. Why? Because guns never mitigated defence before the laws...

E_S

 

For every example of gun-related crime, all Fred does is show us coincidental correlations and false hoc.

It's 'false hoc' to display newslinks about criminals who, despite strict gun control laws, obtain guns and use them on defenseless people who (surprise, surprise!) obey those laws? I post stories like this and this, just to show certain hoplophobes that guns are useful tools and they can be used to save lives. But that's just so much false hoc to some people.

...gun crime post-firearm laws is caused by the laws, which isn't true.

If a gang of urban thugs breaks into an Australian home and guns down an innocent family, I hold your gun control laws directly responsible for their deaths.

...guns never mitigated defence before the laws.

Then what did?

 

I'd wager the police took care of their needs, Fred.

That is an important distinction to make.

You see, America has "grown up" with firearms.

They're what created our country in the first place, they're what tamed the frontier, and they're a enumerated Constitutional right.

What is happening now is that such a background is now being examined in the light of the modern world.

The oppressive king is long gone, the frontier has since been tamed, and firearm ownership is a little less black and white.

However, most of the rest of the world hasn't had this shared experience, and neither system is "right" or "wrong."

Having said that, I don't think our rights to ownership in America have been diminished, they just need to be fairly enforced.

I will stand by the fact that the mere availability of firearms do not cause people to turn into homicidal maniacs.

Criminals don't follow the law, plain and simple, and I have yet to see someone go through the process to legally obtain a permit just to go rob a bank.

What needs to change is the perception of firearms, and this is where anti-gun people have a point.

Guns don't turn you into Rambo, guns don't solve all problems, and guns aren't a subsitute for authority.

 

If a gang of urban thugs breaks into an Australian home and guns down an innocent family, I hold your gun control laws directly responsible for their deaths.

I'm going to make an assumption; one I feel is a safe bet of sorts.

You've never left the US have you Fred? You've never absorbed the rich variety of a country's culture other than your own. If you were in England, you'd have no idea what a "well fit bird" is. If you were in France, you couldn't say "Excuse me, I am an American, do you speak English? No? Thank you." You wouldn't know that in Holland, the more amusing sights include the red light district and the tourists trying to speak Dutch in a country where English is also a national language.

In short, you have little to no tolerance for a diversity of opinion, and you almost fit Winston Churchill's definition of a fanatic.

Let us assume for a second that our knee-jerk guns laws had never been born into existence.

Those gangs would still do what they do, and next to nobody would own guns for defence.

They would still, by and large, find your gun obsession sad. They would still laugh, and IMO rightly so, and your suggestion *you* keep the Federal government in check.

"I need my gun to protect me from an oppressive Federal government, and if that day comes, I'll...what's this? I now have one million channels!!! WOW!!!"

The systematic failure of the US experiment with guns to produce not only a mature respect for the firearm, as well as the failure to make it another aspect of America culture you can market worldwide, are the reasons you haven't exported it. People, even those who've never shot one and only seen Bowling for Columbine think you're from a nation of gun freaks. Those who know more about it, and have thought about it, will find the Canada example in that film to be a fantastic example, because it shows that you can have liberal gun laws; you just need a society that's not rights based.

I've never argued that gun control stops crime; I've argued that guns influence crime statistics. Your arguements are largely post hoc ergo propter hoc; after guns laws more crime, therefore because of gun laws more crime. You ignore cultural divides - largely, I assume, because you're unaware of any - socio-economic factors, ethnic factors...

E_S

 

No, it won't. Uruk, you obviously have nothing intelligent to say about gun control. All you're doing is putting words in our mouths and assuming we believe things that we clearly do not believe. Why are you still in this thread

Hello pot, I'm the kettle!

What points have been ignored, specifically? What about the pro-gun issue is circular, specifically?

Bah, I'm not going back over it again. Read the thread, go here where I first joined this debate. Read it and see why I call the argument circular and that people put words into my mouth.

PPOR about those studies too. If you are so sure in your statements, this shouldn't be a problem

Here ya go:

Households with guns carry a risk of murder 2.7 times greater than those without. "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home," The New England Journal of Medicine, October 7, 1993, pp. 1084-1091

A gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a member of the household than an intruder. Firearms, violence, and public policy, Scientific American, vol. 265, 1991, p. 48


Gun owners are 5 times more likely to commit suicide than those without.
Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun Ownership, The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 327, No. 7, August 13, 1992, pp. 467-472.)


And baseball bats were originally designed for baseball, but are commonly used as weapons too, so what.

See? This is why I get bored with this thread. People say the same things over and over and over. You fail to get the point that baseball bats are made for playing baseball. Simply because it can be used as a weapon does not indicate it's primary purpose. It's a consequence of design not the purpose of it's design. I could kill someone if I bashed them over the head with a frozen tuna hard enough. Time to get real, people. Guns are designed as a weapon. Sure there's the odd few other things you can do with it, but they weren't the basic premise for it's design. The premise is to kill things.

 

You need guns to protect you from the English.

E_S

 

This is a fun thread isn't it?

 

No, this is highly serious. The English could reestablish a colonial intent at any minute!

 

I needed a gun last year to protect me from Jonny Bloody Wilkinson, that's for sure. Pommie fecker.

 

It's okay, the French sorted them out.