Guns & Violence?

RisiaSkye said:
I never said guns were the problem. Violence is clearly the problem. Guns just give violent people the means to hurt someone.

And, I'm trying to understand why non-violent people would want to own something that serves no purpose but destruction. Very different intent, I think.
amen, sista! elaborating on this. i think that some people might be more cocky and likely to inflict violence if they've got a loaded weopon in their hot little hands instead, say, a stick or something.
 
However, the criminals and the drug dealers had a good supply of weapons and weren't afraid to use them. [/B]
responding to john galt's statemnt; where do you think criminals get many of their illegal firearms? they steal them from supposed law abiding citizens who bought them in the first place, hence them being illegal!

[Edited by Bastet on 05-20-2001 at 01:35 PM]
 
Originally posted by Problem Child

It's also nonsense that it's easier to get guns in the country than in the city. [/B]


i agree. i once saw some people purchasing guns at a super walmart in my town at 11:30pm! it was scary.
 
Bastet said:
they steal them from supposed law abiding citizens

Why "supposed law-abiding citizens"?

Guns are stolen despite all that law-abiding citizens do to protect them. More are stolen by highjacking shipments of new guns despite all the precautions that are taken.

That is still a small percentage of the total number of illegal guns that got that way by being stolen. The vast majority of illegal guns are those smuggled into the country by gun-runners and drug dealers and sold cheaply to gangs by the car-load.

Most of the guns in the hands of "outlaws" aren't strictly speaking illegal. It is the possesion of the guns by felons that is illegal, not the guns themselves.
 
Bastet said:
Originally posted by Problem Child

It's also nonsense that it's easier to get guns in the country than in the city.


i agree. i once saw some people purchasing guns at a super walmart in my town at 11:30pm! it was scary. [/B]


So what if it was 11:30 p.m.? Maybe they work the swing shift at the local factory and 11:30 is the most convenient time for them to shop.

No matter what time they buy the guns, there is normally at least a five day wait before you can pick them up, especially for handguns.
 
i follow your logic, but nonetheless i found the encounter disturbing. i just really hate guns.
 
btw, i notice that no one so far has even attempted to mention the merit of the second amendment. that's spice this thing up, y'all!
 
p.c., does my rabid man hating make your dick shrivel in fear? just teasing. i don't hate all men. i met a guy once that had a labatomy, he was pretty cool.
 
Oh, yeah, I'm shaking. I've never met a certified man-hater like you before. It's very novel.

:rolleyes:
 
Todd said:
Oh yeah I forgot the democratic parenting says don't involve yourself in your childs life any more than just birthing them. Don't try and help your child grow up with morals or any sort of upstanding. Just let your children do thier own thing totally uninhibited...We need to take back parental rights, but in a Democratic society parents have no rights anymore.
Erosion of parental rights?! Your thoughts are so riddled with errors I wouldn't even know where to begin. Your generalizations of behavior and attitudes based on a single characteristic - Democrat = bad, atheist = no morals, Republican = good - are just mind-boggling and quite frankly, sad. I see it's time for me to finally agree with everyone else and just let you live in your little Candy Land of Fundamentalist Euphoria. No more banging my head against this wall.
 
Mischka said:
Erosion of parental rights?! Your thoughts are so riddled with errors I wouldn't even know where to begin. Your generalizations of behavior and attitudes based on a single characteristic - Democrat = bad, atheist = no morals, Republican = good - are just mind-boggling and quite frankly, sad. I see it's time for me to finally agree with everyone else and just let you live in your little Candy Land of Fundamentalist Euphoria. No more banging my head against this wall.

no i never said republicans are good either, they just havent had as much time in the public eye to be seen screwing it all up too.
 
Bastet said:
ok, weird harold, so i should have left the "supposed" out. sorry!

No need for apology. I just wondered why you seemed to automatically doubt the law-abiding nature of gun owners.

I'd like to try and understand the mind set that produced that supposed in association with "law abiding gun owner."
 
Why Richmond is a safer place to live- use guns, go to jail.

As an association which advocates the rights of citizens to own firearms, Southern States PBA is supportive of the following successful program that focuses on criminals, not guns.

Project Exile Executive Summary

For at least ten years, gun violence has plagued Richmond, Virginia, and the violence has grown each year, routinely placing Richmond among the five cities with the worst per capita murder rates. In 1997, 140 people were murdered with firearms. The drug/gun link, a greater willingness of some to carry weapons, and an increasing incidence of domestic violence, primarily cause this murder toll.

In 1997, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Richmond developed and carried out an aggressive, innovative, and creative approach to this violence called "Project Exile." Taking advantage of stiffer bond rules and sentencing guidelines in federal court, all felons with guns, guns/drug cases, and gun/domestic violence cases in Richmond are federally prosecuted, without regard to numbers or quantities. The project has fully integrated and coordinated local police, state police, federal investigators (BATF/FBI), and local and federal prosecutors, to promptly arrest, incarcerate, detain without bond, prosecute and sentence the armed criminal. An expedited reporting system developed has decreased processing time from previously several months to only several days. In court, bond is routinely and successfully opposed, and they obtain mandatory minimum sentences. The project has quickly, efficiently, and successfully prosecuted a large number of gun crimes, with significant impact on criminal behavior.

In one year, as of June 30, 1998:

311 individuals have been indicted for federal gun violations;
374 guns have been seized;
259 persons have been arrested or are in state custody;
200 arrestees (or over 80%) have been held without bond;
202 have already been convicted;
144 have been sentenced, and the average sentence is 56.7 months.
Handling these cases has been a major accomplishment in itself. The cases have required several hundred court appearances involving aggressive litigation of bond, suppression, sentencing issues, and trials.

As part of Project Exile, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has also carried out a training program for Richmond Police Department officers on federal firearms statutes and search and seizure issues. We have also worked with police management to improve case report forms. Finally, to expedite the handling of Exile cases, the police firearms office has been electronically connected to BATF to arrange immediate tracing of seized firearms.

Lastly, a major component of the project has been an innovative outreach/education effort through various media to get the message to the criminals about this crackdown, and build a community coalition directed at the problem. A coalition of business, community and church leaders, and organizations such as the Retail Merchant’s Association, has been assembled to promote the project. With contributions to a support foundation totaling $40,000, and substantial in-kind matching contributions of services and media time, the 1997 media efforts carrying the message, "An illegal gun will get you five years in federal prison," and asking citizens to anonymously report guns on the street to the Metro Richmond Crime Stoppers telephone number included 15 billboards, a fully painted city bus, TV commercials, 15,000+ business cards with the message distributed on the street by local police, and print advertising. The outreach program has been hugely successful, increasing citizen reports about guns and energizing the community to support police efforts.

The outreach effort has continued in 1998. In addition to the methods utilized in 1997, the Foundation also began an innovative radio campaign through sponsorship of area traffic reports. To date, with the assistance of the Greater Richmond Retail Merchant’s Association, the City of Richmond, and the Greater Richmond Partnership, approximately $100,000 has been raised or committed to continue and expand this effective outreach program. Area businesses have also made substantial in-kind service donations to assist the program getting out the message. Most recently, the Richmond Chamber of Commerce has committed sufficient funding to fully implement the media plan for the rest of 1998.

Through these efforts, more than 202 armed criminals have been removed from Richmond’s streets, one violent gang responsible for many murders has been destroyed, and the rate of gun carrying by criminals has been cut nearly in half. Officers now report drug dealers throwing down weapons before running instead of risking being caught with the weapons and a large number of homicides have bee solved with information obtained from defendants in these cases. Most importantly, these efforts appear to be stemming the tide of violence, with homicides for the period November 1997 through May 1998 running more than 65% below the same period one year ago.

Because of the demonstrated results in just one year of sustained effort, the U.S. Attorney’s Office is committed to continuing Project Exile indefinitely.
 
Re: Sometimes it's pretty simply...

Closet Desire said:
However, don't kid yourself in to thinking English society is peaceful and presided over by Miss Marple. In the past four years all three of my children and I have been assaulted and/or robbed in our small, upscale community. My seventeen year old son was attacked in the park by 15 girls and sent to the emergency room (they were eventually arrested and convicted).


I'm sorry all that has happened to you and your family but you have probably had more problems with violence in the UK than most people here see in three lifetimes.

I've lived in London most of my life from Stepney in the East to Deptford in the South (both used to be large gangster areas - and I don't mean teenagers). From Kilburn in the North to where I am at the moment in the West. In between I've lived in Hampstead, Belsize Park, Maida Vale, Paddington and Shepherds Bush, all a fair mix of London society and I have NEVER been assaulted, mugged, involved in violence of any kind or witnessed anything serious beyong a couple of drunks trying to hit each other in the dark when the pubs shut.

I don't know of any of my friends who have been involved in anything either. We're like most people, we know someone who knows someone who's friend's brother's half sister was mugged doing the shopping but we ourselves have never experienced it.

I agree that what we read indicates that there is a strong violent trend in UK society (see my post above written earlier today) but witness it first hand? No I'm afraid not.

You've either been incredibly unlucky or, and please take this in the way it's meant, courted trouble by going into no-go areas at the wrong time.

All I can add is thank God the assailants who attacked you and your family weren't carrying guns otherwise you may well be dead by now.
 
I'm not trying to be inflammatory or anything, but I was interested in gun violence statistics so I went looking and here is what I found. Holy crap, I had no idea it was this bad!

In the U.S. 270 people are injured by guns every day.

In the U.S. 98,500 people are injured each year by firearms, and 40,000 die.

40,000 Americans die from firearm injuries each year.
19,000 Suicides with firearms
18,500 Murders with firearms
>1,500 Accidental firearm deaths
>1,000 Unknown intent
Health care for these injuries and fatalities costs $4 billion per year.

Source: Centers for Disease Control
 
Pyper said:
I'm not trying to be inflammatory or anything, but I was interested in gun violence statistics so I went looking and here is what I found. Holy crap, I had no idea it was this bad!
...
Source: Centers for Disease Control

Is this bad?

How do these figures relate to statistics for other forms of violence?

How do these statistic compute on a per capita basis?

How do these statistics compare with world statistics and other nations on a per capita basis?

Raw numbers without any frame of reference have no real significance in determining good or bad. Each and every incident reported by the CDC is a tragedy to those involved. However, in 1991 the US population was 250+ million people -- the numbers cited affect very small fraction of the population.
 
Dang, Harold, and I just closed the window with the rest of the statistics in anticipation of going to bed.

But this is what I can remember:

Gun violence is the number one cause of violent death, and the number two cause of unnatural death (behind car accidents) among people 15-24.

13 children are killed everyday by guns.

A person with a gun in their home is three times as likely to die a shooting death.


And for my statistics in the previous post, yes I realize that America has millions of people, but don't you think 40,000 deaths a year is still a whole lot? I really didn't mean to be inflammatory, I looked up the numbers for my own interest. In fact, I thought that the most shooting deaths we had in this country a year was probably around 1,000. Not 40 times that number.
 
Pyper said:
And for my statistics in the previous post, yes I realize that America has millions of people, but don't you think 40,000 deaths a year is still a whole lot? I really didn't mean to be inflammatory, I looked up the numbers for my own interest. In fact, I thought that the most shooting deaths we had in this country a year was probably around 1,000. Not 40 times that number.

My point was, that you cited statistics without any frame of reference. From your post, we have no idea whether they represent "as Good as it gets" or "the Worst case."

Without a frame of reference, the staistics of violent crime in England, Switzerland, and China all sound worse than they are.

Whether for your own interest, or to support an argument in a debate, raw numbers without some way of corelating them to a frame of reference, are useless.
 
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