Not bad for a gun-hater.
So. A homophobic terrorist shoots up a Unitarian Universalist church, which is pretty much the mass murdering equivalent of kicking puppies. The usual suspects on both sides come out of the woodwork to claim that more guns or fewer guns, respectively, would have prevented this tragedy from occurring.
On the NRA side, SaysUncle is on the case!
The Mrs. often asks why I carry to church. It’s because shootings keep happening at churches.
Kynn points out that politicizing tragedy and victim-blaming is kind of a shitty thing to do. Posters from SaysUncle immediately jump all over her blog. She bans them. Her blog, her prerogative, and she wasn’t looking for a debate.
SaysUncle & Co. get butthurt about it and bring up Kynn’s appearance and gender presentation, as if either are relevant.
I can’t resist an opportunity to troll, so I went over there and attempted to reason with them. After all, I’m not anti-gun; I just think that guns wouldn’t have prevented the tragedy. But they flip out, arguing that of course, they totally could have taken down the shooter without hurting anyone else.
There are a lot of arguments that one can make here, but my final one, as I was starting to get caught up in their spam filters, was that yes, certainly, I respect their right to own guns. Among the many problems with their victim-blaming line, however, is the idea that the only way to prevent gun violence is by carrying concealed firearms. To which I asked: what about kids who are too young to shoot, people with physical or mental disabilities that prevent them from safely operating guns, and especially in this case, what about pacifists who don’t want to carry guns? Should they, like the original poster, carry guns to church? And if they don’t, do they deserve to get shot?
The, er, ludicrous response:
Each and every single person on Earth has the implicit right to kneel, bend their head and take a bullet in the back of the head. Each person has the right to lie supine with knees spread. Each and every person has the right to stand in abject terror with hands raised and the sure and certain knowledge that personal death is very near.
Where do these people live—Baghdad? I have a hard time imagining that violence is so rampant in the U.S. that one’s only option if one wants to be safe is to pack heat. Earlier, we were arguing about whether it’s responsible to have guns around children—I firmly believe that it is not. Their argument hinged on the infrequency of accidental child deaths caused by guns.
But random shootings, well-publicized as they are, are also quite rare. You’re more likely to die in a car accident. So I wonder at the psychology of people convinced that they need to be armed when they attend children’s plays at churches—you know, just in case. I suspect there’s some other motive at work, such as complete and utter paranoia or, possibly, tiny penises.
These guys don’t believe me that I’m not part of some sinister left-wing conspiracy to take their guns away (I’m really not, and I’m not sure why they’re so scared when the far-right has been in power in their country, content to erode all of their civil liberties besides the right to bear arms). But to be honest, it’s really hard to take the pro-gun argument seriously when the people making these arguments are so batshit that the solution to any problem becomes a testosterone-laced violent fantasy.
Anyway, apparently they’re looking for Rational DebateTM, which I guess is an invitation to wander over there and disagree with them. Just a warning: If you disagree too effectively, they start to froth at the mouth and suddenly every comment you make mysteriously gets caught in their spam filter.
I also think it’s rude to close YOUR blog to comments and then come over here to engage is…er. Why would you do that..? If you want to engage, why not use your own space, after all..? Yours is too good…which means ours is just the right degree of shit to be used as a proxy..?
Why’d I come over here? Because this is a blog where the blog owners want it to be used for a gun debate, apparently.
I generally don’t want that on my LJ, personally speaking. But if you must, you are welcome to use this post on my LJ, which is unscreened.
Note, though, that you answered your own questions: “If you want to engage…?” — well, no, the point of my LJ post was not to engage gun fucks. I made that pretty clearly. You said it was “rude” to close my blog to comments — well, yeah, that whole post was rude to gun fucks. I mean, I’m not under any illusions that I was being friendly to gun fucks.
Roberta, as far as I know, there are no laws that prevent noninstitutionalized crazy people from gun ownership, so I’m not sure what laws you’re referring to, and I also don’t know why you’d think I lacked “empathy” because I think it’s wrong to expect someone who is physically unable to safely operate a firearm to carry one in self-defense. There are many physical disabilities that would make this the case–a few examples are blindness and cerebral palsy. I would sincerely HOPE that such a person would NOT want to carry around a handgun, as it would make them a danger to far more innocent bystanders than potential attackers should they attempt to operate one, but as it turns out if you read all of what I’ve said, I never suggested that they should be FORBIDDEN to own one.
Well, Lisa, you’ve never had to fill out a 4473, have you? That would be the Federal form you fill out when you buy a gun, right before seller rings up the Federal instant background check number. On that form are a number of questions, including “f. Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?”
Here is where it gets fun: you sign the form, affirming your answers have been the truth. It’s an affidavit. Lying on it is a felony, literally a Federal case. Then the seller rings up the Feds and they look you up (name, address and SSN are entered on the form and you have to show matching ID). You’ll be caught out if you have lied and ta-daa, you have committed a felony. No gun for you! And if convicted (hard not to be, considering), you’ll do prison time and never be legally able to get near a gun again.
In re the handicapped, who made you the authority on what the handicapped can or cannot do? I’m certain they know their own limitations and if they’re responsible adults, none of us have any business trying to tell them what to do. To behave otherwise is patronizing and prejudiced.
PS: Kynn, name-calling? Still? Wow, it must be nice to have never, ever been dissed and called na– Hey, wait, weren’t you all hurt and bothered ‘cos folks were doing something along those lines to you?
Name calling cuts both ways. If you want to continue doing it, it’s hardly fittin’ to kvetch when others do so to you. It certainly adds nothing to the interaction. Everyone else (except for JG but that may be a form of Tourette’s Syndrome) has ceased to do so.
Gee, can’t we loathe each other nicely?
Lisa: Roberta, as far as I know, there are no laws that prevent noninstitutionalized crazy people from gun ownership…
Roberta: Well, Lisa, you’ve never had to fill out a 4473, have you? That would be the Federal form you fill out when you buy a gun, right before seller rings up the Federal instant background check number. On that form are a number of questions, including “f. Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?”
Um, yeah, I have filled out a 4473, which is why I said that I was unaware of any law preventing *noninstitutionalized* crazy people from gun ownership. So, apparently you agree with me.
Lisa: I would sincerely HOPE that such a person would NOT want to carry around a handgun, as it would make them a danger to far more innocent bystanders than potential attackers should they attempt to operate one, but as it turns out if you read all of what I’ve said, I never suggested that they should be FORBIDDEN to own one.
Roberta: In re the handicapped, who made you the authority on what the handicapped can or cannot do? I’m certain they know their own limitations and if they’re responsible adults, none of us have any business trying to tell them what to do. To behave otherwise is patronizing and prejudiced.
Um, yeah, as I said, I would not and have not ever suggested that they be FORBIDDEN to own one…
Look–you clearly have a burning need to be offended, angry and confrontational. However, it makes you look ridiculous when you do it with someone whose points you are affirming, as clearly shown above. If you continue to do so, I will stop taking you seriously. Be warned.
Roberta, please allow me to introduce you to a grammatical concept, and the amazing amount of work that one little, tiny punctuation mark called the comma can do.
Examine these sentences:
“Disabled people who are unable to safely operate a firearm should not be expected to carry one”
Disabled people, who are unable to safely operate a firearm, should not be expected to carry one.”
In the first, the clause “who are unable to safely operate a firearm” is not separated from the referrent “disabled people” by a comma. This means that the “who” tells us about a specific subset of the group “disabled people”—those disabled people who are unable to safely operate a firearm. It acknowledges that some people’s disabilities may have no bearing at all on their ability to use a firearm, while pointing out that some people’s disabilities do indeed mean that they probably can’t operate a gun safely.
In the second sentence, the relative clause is separated from the main clause by commas. This means that the “who” is telling us something about disabled people, in general. It lumps all disabled people into one group, regardless of their individual abilities.
Here’s another example of the comma, and the work it does denoting restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses:
People who wear glasses whose corrected vision is still quite poor are unable to drive.
People who wear glasses, whose corrected vision is still quite poor, are unable to drive.
In the first sentence I am specifying a group of people who wear glasses—those whose glasses don’t correct their vision enough for it to be any better that “quite poor”—and saying that these people can’t drive. This statement is true (for most cases).
In the second sentence, I am saying that people like me who wear glasses, still shouldn’t drive—that notwithstanding our corrective aids, foureyes can’t drive. This statement is false.
Such an important little mark, the comma. You can’t even necessarily hear it when you read aloud, but it still conveys meaning. I am in awe of it.
Lisa, Sabotabby, and I have been referring to “disabled people who are unable to carry firearms,” and the cruelty and folly of expecting people whose disabilities prevent their safely owning firearms to do so. or be regarded by society as parasites and victims.
In the worldview that divides the populace into gun carriers and victims, people who don’t or can’t pack “have the right,” apparently, to be victims.
Lisa gave a couple of examples of people whose disabilities might preclude their safely operating a firearm. She stated, repeatedly, that she does not think that all disabled people are unable to carry firearms, or that disabled people, as a class, should be barred from owning or operating firearms.
Are you seriously suggesting that a person whose fine and large motor skills are affected by heavy tremula or someone who can’t see should carry a gun for personal protection? Just how would that work? And how would a weapon that a person can’t deploy accurately improve that person’s safety?
First of all….Give Roberta a medal. Well said, my dear.
Second… you won’t see SayUncle deleting comments…. and he probably checks his logs to see where people are coming from. I do it, too, and I bet so do you.
Wow! This certainly is a lively debate. Civil conversations between people who disagree are more likely to help either side understand the argument of the opposing side, even if they do not agree with it, than insults.
As a canadian, I have a different perpective on the issue of gun rights seeing as I have never had the right to bare arms, nore do I particularly want it. I cause havoc with the simplest of electronics, so I’m not the kind of person you want in charge of a deadly weapon without some serious training. Paintball guns are about as much as I can handle. I should also clarify that I’m from Ontario, not Alberta or one of the other western provinces where guns are much more common.
I have never felt vulnerable without a gun. I am aware that some people have them and that some of them are dangerous but it doesn’t make me want one anymore. Truth be told, having a gun would probably scare me more than not having one. Even scarier would be living in a world where I felt I had to carry one ‘just in case’. If people in the united states feel they need to carry a gun they can, it is after all within their rights. They should of course make sure to be responsible when it comes to their firearms, including locking them up to prevent them from being stolen and used by people with less than noble intentions.
I would ask that people who carry guns be sensitive to people like me who feel uncomfortable at the thought of someone having a concealed weapon around me. After all, there can be no gun crimes without guns. While knives and other weapons can cause bodily harm, there is an increased chance of death with guns.
As for the exploitation of the tradgedy that occured in the unitarian church, the first commenter seems to me to have misunderstood the accusation. What they are refering to is that a profound tragedy occured and instead of talking aboutthe event it self and about how truly disturbed this man must have been to shoot up a church, people jumped on it as a chance to promote their own political agenda. The implication by some gun rights advocates that what happened could have been avoided had the churchgoers had guns. That shifts the blame from the lunatic to the victims and that is what people have a problem with.
Christine, just a few things:
They are being sensitive when they carried concealed. After all, if it’s concealed, then you don’t know it’s there—everyone wins
It’s the gun owners in states that allow open carry that make a point of carrying openly in order to make a point that are insensitive.
While this is true in theory, in reality there will never be “no guns”—the technology has been invented, they can be handmade by people, and we are stuck with them. So talking about “if there were no guns” is about as useful as talking about how great it would be if I had a pet unicorn that farted out gold nuggets
That being said, human beings were managing quite well to slaughter each other individually and in great numbers for thousands of years before firearms were invented and more recently, the Rwandan genocide in which hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered in a matter of months, was carried out primarily with machetes.
So there is really no reason to expect that if every gun disappeared tomorrow that the world would be any less violent, and it may even be more violent.
Not trying to argue with you—nothing you said is unreasonable—I just wanted to give a different perspective.
Roberta: Well, Lisa, you’ve never had to fill out a 4473, have you? …. On that form are a number of questions, including “f. Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?”
Lisa: Um, yeah, I have filled out a 4473, which is why I said that I was unaware of any law preventing *noninstitutionalized* crazy people from gun ownership. So, apparently you agree with me.
It asks “…have you ever…?” Not “are you now?” Get yourself committed and you’re done. Even if you get back out, all better and happy. Oh, my, those lax gun laws….
In re the handicapped — in re anyone — I don’t “expect” them to be armed, or own a fire extinguisher, or carry jumper cabes, or use their seat belt, or wear proper gear when riding a motorcycle. However, I trust their judgement in these matters. As for your notion some people — me? — think it’s “armed or victim,” I do not. We are all potential victims, just as any of us might have a fire or dead battery; but some of us choose to avail ourselves of the means to do something about it. I see your commas but you are still asserting the privilige of the hale.
Christine: what happened in Knoxville could not have been avoided had someone else in the church been armed and it might not have been ended more quickly. Brave people, armed with that most basic of tools, determination, stepped up and stopped the threat in short order. Had one of them been armed, there may have been fewer innocent deaths. The bad guy with the shotgun wasn’t an innocent.
RobertaX, what your form doesn’t do is prevent anyone who is undiagnosed and who has never been institutionalized from getting his or her hands on a gun.
Generally, in order for someone to enter an instiution for the treatment of a mental health disorder one of two things has to happen:
1) The individual must, of their own volition, enter a treatment centre. IME, this happens once a person has either been receiving treatment with a psychiatrist and has reached a point where they recognize that they’re unable to cope with daily life, and need more intensive care for a period of time.
2) The individual must be so obviously incapable of coping or out of control that they are deemed a risk to themselves or others, in which case they can be committed against their own will.
Many people with serious mental illnesses are never institutionalized. For that matter, many people with mental health issues are never diagnosed or treated.
Also, in the OP, Sabo pointed to at least one supporter of gun rights who came right out and said that as far as they were concerned it was pack or be a victim. That dichotomy, that rhetorical fallacy, rather than your personal right to carry a gun, was kind of what the OP was about.
I didn’t mean to imply that if we took away all the guns there would be no violence. The recent rash of stabbings in the U.K. certainly prove that. I was trying to point out that guns make some people nervous because of their potential for causing such grevous injuries. Some people argue that if you take away the guns people with just kill people with other objects, which to some extent is true but knife wounds etc are less likely to result in death than gun wounds (at least according to the info my 2nd year sociology prof had). Anyway, no one should expect people to carry guns just in case a wacko tries to shoot up a building. The tragedy is the shooting, not the lack of guns. The blame rests in the shooter, not the victim and that is what people have been saying when they accuse people of using the incident for their own political purposes. As for whether or not less people would have been shot if someone else had a gun, who’s to say. Unless you have some kinda psychic powers, no one can really know how it would have gone down.
What Roberta X fails to note is that it is nearly impossible to be prosecuted for lying on a Form 4473.
The language requires that the respondent “knowingly” lied on the form. Proving someone “knowingly” did anything is almost impossible to prove. That’s why fewer than 4% of all cases involving forms that are rejected for inaccurate or false information are ever prosecuted. And, of those 4%, about half result in convictions or plea deals.
Whenever a gunloon mentions gun crime in the UK, they’re almost certainly lying to you.
Note that when a gun loon refers to gun crime in the UK–they invariably frome it in terms of percentages. Why? Because gun crime is so low in terms of actual numbers (as compared to the US) that a small difference in the numbers looks much larger when expressed as a percentage.
Example: when a gun man in Dunblane, Scotland gunned down 16 small children and their teacher in 1996–the gun homicide in the whole of the UK jumped over 2.5% over the previous year. In most major US cities, a difference of 17 gun homicides would represent an imperceptible change on the rate of gun homicides.
Another fact the gunloons hope you will ignore is the fact the UK has had gun control for over a century. The first gun control measure was enacted in 1903. There were other major and minor gun control measures enacted, nationwide, in 1920, 1937, 1968, 1988, and 1996. Gunloons would have you believe gun control is a recent event in the UK.
Another telling fact: between 1998 and 2006, there were exactly 2 UK police officers who died in the line of duty from gunfire. Two. Again, many US cities see two or more police officers die from gun violence each month.
Uhm, no, that is not why—we don’t compare raw numbers because we have five times the population of the UK. I gather you haven’t glanced at a map lately and taken note of the difference in size between the two countries, but generally speaking, you don’t compare things like this in actual numbers, because that doesn’t tell you anything about crime rates.
Yes, but the UK gun control laws from 1903 through 1968 were essentially in line with the gun control laws we were enacting here—licensing for handguns, restriction of machine guns, etc. The UK’s gun control laws didn’t diverge radically from ours until the 1988 and 1996 laws.
Of course you’re correct—the number of gun crimes in the UK is much lower than it is here, but it’s always been low, even before any gun control laws had been enacted. There were only three handgun homicides in the UK from 1890-1892. By 1930, the homicide rate in the UK was only 0.75 per 100,000 while ours was up to 8.8 per 100,000, and they still hadn’t enacted any really restrictive gun control laws—they didn’t restrict machine guns until 1937.
Now the homicide rate here has dropped to 5.7 per 100,000 while the homicide rate in the UK has risen to 2.03 per 100,000, even as the UK has completely banned guns while we have enacted laws allowing concealed carry in almost every state. Furthermore, while the homicide rate in the UK is still significantly lower than our rate, the violent crime rate in the UK is now much higher than the US. I wouldn’t be surprised if our homicides rates aligned in the next 10 years or so.
There is no evidence to date that shows that any combination of gun control laws lowers crime rates or homicide rates.
Guav appears to be math-challenged.
Yes, the UK has roughly a fifth the population of the US. But we aren’t comparing UK homicide numbers to the whole of the US population. We compare US gun homicides to the US poulation and UK gun homicides to the UK’s population.
Since Guav likes to talk of rates–let us do so.
In 2006, there were 50 gun homicides in the UK. If we normalize this number to the US population–5 x 50=250–that means if the the UK were the same population as the US, we should have expected to see 250 gun homicides in the US in 2006.
But we didn’t. We saw over 10,000.
This is complete fiction.
The 1903 law in the UK required anyone buying a firearm with a barrel length less than 9 inches to obtain a license. To date in the US, there has never been a nationwide licensing requirement for any firearm.
In 1920, the law required registration for every firearm. Again, to date, the US has never required a nationwide registration for firearms.
In 1937, all fully automatic weapons were banned in the UK. The US, to date, only partially bans some fully automatic weapons.
1968 required the registration of shotguns in the UK–the US has not required any registration of shotguns to date.
Guav also maintains the UK has banned all firearms. This simply is untrue. The fact is there are over 3M firearm owners in the UK.
I didn’t say we had comparable rates, in fact I noted that “the homicide rate in the UK was only 0.75 per 100,000 while ours was up to 8.8 per 100,000″—that’s quite a big difference—and said you were correct that the UK’s homicide rate was much lower than ours—the UK has always had a very low homicide rate.
And both countries had much lower homicide rates back before they instituted any gun control laws. This is not to say that gun control laws raise crime rates, only to point out that they certainly don’t lower them.
Wow, over 3 million gun owners in the UK? How can there be any police officers left alive?!
JadeGold’s a troll, Guav; there’s no point in debating he, she or it. Jade also ignores the extensive State-level regulation of firearms in the US; for example, in my state, one the Bradys rate pretty lax, you can only transport a handgun to buy it, sell it or get it fixed, unless you are registered with the State, a process that includes fingerprinting and a thorough background check. What, it doesn’t count if the Feds don’t do it?
“Hot” burglary rates in the UK have increased dramatically since the near-total ban on guns in the home there coupled with criminal prosecution for homeowners who have shot bad guys breaking in their own home. Even a conservative straight-line extrapolation looks pretty bad for the future. Clearly, the result of the ban and related measures have been to embolden criminals.
In-re full-auto weapons in the ‘States (machine guns, machine pistols and actual assault rifles as opposed to the semi-auto ones that resemble them), there has been a very high tax on them since the 1930s and since the mid-late ’80s, the sale of any new ones to pretty much anyone but police agencies and the military has been prohibited. What’s still left in private hands is insanely costly due to scarcity and in the hands of hobbyists whe treat ‘em like they were antique sports cars. It’s next thing to a ban. The backyard-bunker-and-MRE set can’t afford them.
The 4473 is a de facto registration system; it records the particulars of buyer, seller and firearm and is kept on file forever.
As for the effectiveness of the questions on it, they’re as effective a speed-limit signs and “no guns” placards. And in re prosecution success rates for fibbing on the 4473, take it up with the Feds. If they won’t pursue the cases aggressively, time to get new and better prosecutors who will. Start at the voting booth, it’s your best weapon for that battle.
PS: I suppose if the Brits drove on the other side of the road, Jade would want to do that,too? Oh, whoopsie! We gave the Crown the old heave-ho a long time ago.
Unfortunately, Guav, having been caught in a lie, elects to tell another in hopes his earlier untruth will be ignored.
Here, Tim Lambert has done the heavy lifting–showing homicide rates in in the second half of the nineteenth century were higher than today.
Meanwhile, Roberta X continues her campaign of misinformation. She claims ‘hot burglaries’ (burglaries which take place when someone is home) have increased dramatically in the UK. What she hopes is that one not dig to far into her factoid. “Hot” burglaries comprise about 14% of all burglaries in the UK; in the US, they are about 11%. And in Canada (with fewer guns than the US), hot burglaries account for 9% of all burglaries. Thus, when put in context, Roberta’s assertions that gun ownership (or lack thereof) deters burglaries is laughable. But what should one expect when a largely uneducated person, such as Roberta, merely parrots her NRA masters without doing any research?
Even most gunloons would laugh at this whopper. First, the 4473 is required to be kept on file for 20 years; unless Roberta has redefined “forever” as meaning “20 years,” she is lying. Second, it isn’t a registration system or anything close to one. A real registration system would allow the police, having found a firearm at a crime scene, the ability to trace that firearm back to its owner. Right now, even if police knew where the weapon was purchased (an extremely remote possibility), all the info they could possibly get (assuming they had a warrant) would be a list of people who had purchased similar firearms.
Jade, when you said that we should look back to the first gun control laws, I looked at page 15 of this PDF which starts at the year 1900, right before the first UK gun control law. The homicide rate was .97 per 100k, and by 1997 was 1.41 per 100k. I didn’t realize that 1900 was an unusually low year. Looking at the Lambert figures, I see that the homicide average was higher in the 1800s.
Starting with the first year of your stats, and then checking back every 50 years we see that:
In 1857 it was 1.26
In 1907 it was .77
In 1957 it was .71
In 2007 it was 1.23 (in England and Wales … it’s 2.12 in Scotland)
So what is the huge success of the gun control in the UK?
Guav, why cherrypick?
I note you didn’t compare 2007 to, say, the the early 1990s. Why?
In the end, though, your selective comparisons simply don’t work because the homicide numbers are so low. As I noted earlier, in 2006, the UK saw 50 gun homicides. Assuming a “jump” of .5 in a year (in reality, such changes occur over several decades)–that would mean 75 gun deaths in a year (assuming all homicides were gun-related). Most major cities in the US would be celebrating in the streets to have such low gun homicide numbers.
The huge success of gun control in the UK is pretty evident: relatively low numbers of gun homicides.
Now, what is the huge success of having no meaningful gun control in the US? Here, we have the richest, most prosperous nation on earth–yet gun homicides cost us over 10,000 deaths a year, not including suicides or accidents. It costs us economically as well, in terms of higher medical insurance and costs and higher prices on everything.
I’m not cherrypicking … the numbers you told me to go look at start in 1857, 150 years ago, and roughly 50 years before the gun control laws you said we should be paying attention to. So, looking at the homicide rates for every 50 year interval, we see that the homicide rate is right where it was five decades before any gun control.
It’s fluctuated between a low of .7 to a high of 1.96, but as you point out, such fluctuation when we’re talking about such low numbers is largely irrelevant. I already said the UK has always had a very low homicide rate.
So I don’t understand what you’re arguing here—first you made it sound like gun control in the UK has drastically reduced the homicide rate, then you say that any fluctuations in such a low number don’t even matter.
Sorry, my idea of the “huge success of gun control” would be a drastically reduced homicide rate, not normal up and down fluctuations from decade to decade that don’t even correlate with the gun controls laws passed.
The firearm homicide rate is irrelevant, because if the overall homicide rate remains relatively stable, then all that means is that other means are being substituted to kill people. If overall homicides don’t go down and stay down, then no lives are being saved.
My guns are all “lawful”, but they are gifts, so go figure.
I know how to get real assault weapons, it’s no problem for me. Slightly harder than five keys of herion, true (and that’s about five mil right there) but hey, the amount of “difficulty” makes it negligable.
I am a “criminal”, but I’m not bad. I simply do what I need to do in order to live. I know guns are meant to kill, I know “assault weapons in particular” were made with that in mind. And I’ve got a lot of killing that needs to be done. It’s gonna happen just as sure as the sun rises and falls, this is just who I am.
Now, with that being said, maybe you could learn a few things from the “gun fucks”. I’m a big gun fuck, I know what they’re for, I know how to use them, and I simply don’t give a shit anymore. You morons really kinda took the meaning out of the word “felony” a long, long time ago. Hey, it’s all about you people looking tough, looking like you’re doing something to solve the problem (which I proudly admit to being a part of), why don’t you try to tell me what exactly you are going to do about it besides bitch and moan? I heard it all before, and I just don’t give a shit.
Yes, Guav, you were cherrypicking.
Let’s review what I did say, without your ‘interpretation’ of what I said. In response to Roberta X’s claims that the UK had become an abattoir because of gun control, I stated the following:
I backed up this assertion by showing gun control was not a recent event in the UK, that gun homicide rates were very low in the UK (especially as compared to the US), and that gun control in the UK accompanied lower homicide rates.
I honestly don’t know if you’re being deliberately obtuse or you’re simply clueless. The fact is the UK has a very small fraction of gun homicides as compared to the US. Every other industrialized nation with gun control shows fewer gun homicides as compared to the US. It’s not even close.
This is simply dishonest on several levels. First, gun homicides correspond directly to guns. Nobody can honestly argue otherwise. It would be like pretending drowning has nothing to do with water. Second, guns make homicide much easier. That’s why we send our troops into war with firearms instead of bats or pointy sticks.
“Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they was pushed out of windows? …” (Archie Bunker to Gloria)
The revolver death rate has dropped significantly since the 70′s, and the black-powder death rate is a very small fraction of its peak. I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t say we’re better off now, based on those cherry-picked facts. Same goes if gun deaths are only being replaced with knife deaths, or by some other cause.
About half of US gun deaths are suicide. Availability of guns affects the method, but not the rate, look at Japan as an example–Although their gun suicide rate is admirably low, the overall rate is quite high compared to ours.
Again, Sevesteen, a firearm greatly enhances the ability and feasibility to kill. It’s really, really difficult to perpetrate a Columbine- or Virginia Tech-style act of violence with a knife or blunt object. Addditionally, a firearm allows one to kill from a distance and/or from a position of concealment.
The myth is that homicides in countries with gun control are equal to US homicides–just committed with different weapons. It simply isn’t true. If one compares first-world, industialized nation homicide rates–the US is ranked up there with third-world countries like Armenia and Bulgaria.
There is a cultural aspect you’re ignoring. Suicide, in Japan, is not looked upon as a social stigma as it is in this country. A person who commits suicide in this country is often regarded as mentally ill. In fact, suicide has been looked upon, in Japan, as selfless, even virtuous act. Insurers in Japan will pay off on life insurance and may even payoff a suicide victim’s mortgage. In this country, it doesn’t happen.
Japan has about twice the suicide rate as the US. Yet, the US has about 10 times the suicide rate of Zimbabwe. Thus, to a great degree, we are comparing apples to oranges when looking at international suicide comparisons.
OTOH, if we look at state suicide rates, we see those states with very lax gun laws also having high suicide rates.
The Japanese seem to be getting pretty good at it—the Osaka school massacre killed eight, and more recently, some maniac killed 7 people in Tokyo.
But you’re right, it really is fairly impossible to kill large numbers of people without firearms. That’s why the Rwandan genocide, in which half a million to a million people were slaughtered mostly with machetes, simply didn’t happen. That’s also why human beings never killed each other by the thousands before guns were invented.
Holy shit, you mean to say that suicide isn’t caused by firearm availability but by totally different factors? Amazing revelation, I wish I had thought of that.
Nobody is ignoring the cultural aspect, we’re pointing out that firearm availability has absolutely nothing to do with people’s desire or ability to commit suicide.
We also see that the top suicide states are large, rural states with low populations and a lot of room in between people. Yeah, I can’t imagine why people living in Alaska would have high suicide rates—IT MUST BE THE GUNS!
80% of suicides deaths are white males, mostly living in rural areas. A disproportionate percentage of criminal homicides victims are black males, mostly living in urban areas. Interesting that several of the places at the bottom of your suicide listing—DC, Maryland (with Baltimore), Illinois (with Chicago)—would be at the top of homicide listings. In fact, you could probably just flip that ranking over upside down.
What can we learn from this? That “Gun Deaths” are not some thing that you can can be just lumped together and blamed on firearms. There are cultural, economic and social factors that drive crime and suicide, and “getting rid of guns,” even if possible, doesn’t address them one bit.
Which is why the UK has strict gun control but extremely high rates of violent crime, and why Japan has has strict gun control but extremely high rates of suicide. Because neither violent crime nor suicide are caused by firearm availability.
I won’t be around for a couple of weeks, so feel free to have the last word.
I can only wish folks like Guav perform a little research before inventing their fractured version of history.
Here is a precis on the Rwandan genocide. As one can easily see, the Hutu militias were equipped with firearms, grenades, and mortars. They used these weapons to subdue and herd Tutsis and other opponents where they were often killed with machetes:
My emphasis added.
Your reading comprehension needs much work.
Firearm availability does lead to suicide in this country. Yes, some people will attempt and succeed at suicide no matter what method is used. But it cannot be denied there exists a correlation between gun availability and suicide rates. The National Academy of Sciences agrees.
Note tha Guav will place blame on cows and wheatfields before he’ll apportion any blame to guns. His Bell Curve philosophy continues:
Odd, this factsheet doesn’t seem to think barns and silos cause suicide.
Hmm. “Jadegold” — the creep who I once had thrown the fuck off the internet because of the way he flagrantly lied about an innocent man being wanted for murder.
Yeah: that’s the kind of person who I wanna try to reason with in all this. You bet.
Hmm. Billy Beck. Drug user and Vince Foster conspiracist.
Pretty much ’nuff said on that.
I guess I must be using the other internet(s) that Billy Beck doesn’t control.
Jadegold
A firearm also greatly enhances the ability and feasibility to defend. Bringing up Columbine and Virginia Tech takes us back where we started-Two more places where guns were not allowed that experienced a spree shooting. Spree shootings (defined as multiple victims unrelated to the shooter) happen disproportionately and with higher victim counts where guns are not allowed. I’ll bet the attacker at the New Life Church expected that church to be disarmed as well…Luckily they had an armed hero, Jean Assam.
I’m not saying that homicide is equal in England and the US. I am saying that firearms are not the likely reason, since it has always been that way, even when laws were similar in the two countries. The difference in crime rate between the two countries doesn’t correlate with stricter laws.
Where states went to objective standards for carry licenses (rather than the previous whim of a politician, if available at all) there is a correlation with reduced violent crime rates, even when correcting for other factors. If violent crime was dropping before concealed carry, it dropped faster after. Virtually all of this is perception of the criminals–In some cases the change begins when the law is announced, months before it takes effect, and long before significant numbers of licenses are issued.
A huge portion of our homicide rate, and our crime rate in general is due to stupid drug laws. We’ve got too many nonviolent offenders in prison learning to be violent, too much incentive for violence to protect drugs and drug turf, and not enough room to keep violent offenders as long as we should.
I’m not ignoring the cultural aspect of Japan’s suicide rate, I’m pointing it out. People who really intend to kill themselves choose the most attractive method available, but if that is NOT available, they move to plan B, or plan C, or plan Z. Lack of guns isn’t a barrier. Apparently it is a cultural difference when the facts support you, but not othewise.
I live in Ohio, #43 on the suicide list you point to. Can you point to how our gun laws are significantly different than either of the top 2 states? I am aware of a few places where we are more strict, but generally in use rather than possession–I am pretty confident that our law restricting the use of magazines over 30 rounds is not a factor in suicide…
As for Rwandan genocide–Gun control at its finest. The government and their agents kept their guns as they always will. The opposition had no means to resist, with horrific results.
Quite a few generalizations and misrepresentations here.
First, not all guns are suited for defense; as an analogy, I could use a cell phone as a hammer but its intended purpose is not to drive nails. An AK-47 is really a lousy defensive firearm, while many shotguns are much better options.
Second, the gun is an inanimate object; its ability to defend completely relies on the ability and capability of the user. Given the fact most gun owners are fairly clueless in the safe opertion and handling of their weapons in benign circumstances, it is fairly ludicrous to believe their performance will improve when faced with a hostile and pressure-filled situation.
WRT spree shootings, the premise you’re ignoring is how the shooter gained access to firearms. After all, spree shootings are not usually perpetrated by folks with full mental capabilities. That is, they don’t seek targets based upon whether they think they’ll encounter resistance or not. After all, most spree shootings are suicide missions. So, you really have to ask why folks with histories of mental instability, substance abuse, violence and the like are given easy access to firearms.
It’s not just the UK. You can go to any first world country (most have gun control) and their crime rates are lower than the US. I think we can all agree that crime is not solely a function of firearm availability (or lack of)–it is also a function of economic and political stability. Given the fact the US is the world leader in terms of economic and political stability–why do we have much higher crime rates?
Not true.
Again, let me be clear: in Japan, suicide does not hold the social stigma it does here. In fact, suicide can be seen as a selfless, virtuous, and honorable act in Japan–while in the US, it is viewed as cowardly, immoral, and/or the act of the mentally ill. That said, a person who truly wishes to commit suicide will find a way. The problem is that easy access to firearms often provides far too easy way and allows those who may be seized by an irrational–and temporary– impulse to kill oneself. For example, I’m aware of one teenager who was distraught by his girlfriend breaking up with him, killed himself using a family’s firearm. I strongly suspect that if it had been a bit more difficult to kill himself, he would be alive today.
Actually, Rwanda is a good example of why easy access to firearms often has disastrous consequences. The fact is Rwanda was ruled by tribal factions; if you were a member of one tribe–you had access to whatever you wanted. If you were amember of another tribe, you were out of luck. This wasn’t limited to guns–it entailed jobs, social services, education, you name it. The fact is there were many gun manufacturers who sold military weapons to these corrupt regimes.
How do you explain Iraq?
There really isn’t any difference between an offensive and defensive weapon–there is effective and ineffective. Some are better in certain circumstances than others. A shotgun does more damage per shot, the AK (or more likely, a semi-automatic variant) has more shots. The AK is more accurate, but a shotgun is more than accurate enough for 99% of home defense situations. The AK has somewhat longer range, but nowhere near the range of a hunting rifle. Handguns suck compared to either in accuracy and power, but they are portable.
You must hang out with different gun owners than I do. Legitimate gun owners do well enough in defensive situations. It isn’t rocket science–ID the target before you fire, make sure there isn’t something behind the target you don’t want to shoot, don’t shoot if you don’t have to. 90% of the time, the presence of the gun is enough to encourage a retreat or surrender, and no shots are required.
I’ve yet to hear of an incident where an armed citizen at a spree shooting missed the shooter and hit an innocent.
Spree shooters generally quit as soon as they meet armed resistance, often they commit suicide. Look up Jeanne Assam again for details–the hero who stopped the spree shooter in her church. He committed suicide after she engaged, handgun against rifle.
If the goal was mere suicide, they’d shoot up gun shops, gun shows and police stations. Instead they pick schools, churches and no-guns-allowed malls. Most want to do as much damage as possible before checking out.
Due process. Gun control has a history of denying rights to people who are the wrong color or the wrong political party. Wasn’t homosexuality considered a mental disorder at one time? A problem we have now is there are essentially two categories–”Crazy for life” and “Sane”. As far as gun rights go, there’s effectively no “temporarily insane”. There should be, with a lower standard of proof than “for life”.
Most have, but there isn’t a correlation between strictness of laws, or availability of guns and crime rate. Switzerland requires that militia-age men keep a government-issued full-auto machine gun in their homes, their crime rate is much better than ours.
A huge part of our crime rate is due to leftover segregation and racism, and a tremendously broken welfare system. Murder is the leading cause of death among black men from age 15 to 44. That is obscene.
…but my guns aren’t part of that problem.
Pick the study that matches your views. I’m not smart enough to follow the analysis of either Lott’s original or the critique. When statistics are given by gun control groups, they are usually distorted, and in a fairly clear way–Example, their “gun in the home” statistics generally include criminals with illegal guns, already violating existing laws.
I really don’t want to be protected from myself, especially to ‘prevent” a self-inflicted injury to someone else.
Sounds like some southern towns–Police would round up the registered guns of black families to prevent an “incident” when the KKK was going to ride in…
If one side of racial hatred is armed, it is genocide. If both sides are armed, it is war, or more likely an uneasy peace. If neither side is armed, it is a power vacuum, and someone with guns will come take over, likely arming one side against the other.
George W. wanted to follow in Daddy’s footsteps…
We have destabilized the area, and our enemies are stirring up trouble.
I hope that all the people who have attended conceald carry classes understand that there is an element of stupid people. If you wish to become a victim then have at it. Natural selection. My son was at the construction site at Virginia Tech. Cho did not have a problem with blue collar workers. That is the only reason my son and his friends are alive today. The rich and really stupid population are the ones at risk from nut job shooters. Kidnap a clue if you have to because there is a definate reluctance of scumbags to shoot at law abiding citizens.
gun laws are only effective with criminals. DUH.