Your views please

[SeaCat]

Yes, there are other types of weapons, true. The reason why I focus on guns is because their sole purpose is to kill another living being. A knife is a tool in the right hands, a weapon in the wrong ones. And so are baseball bats, walking canes, whathaveya. We COULD include all that in this debate, but I chose to focus on firearms, since they can't be anything but weapons. (And possibly odd decore items.)

I suppose the problem is that you Americans see owning weapons as part of a tradition and part of freedom. To me, tradition and freedom are pretty words but not holy cows. Tradition is just another word for habit, and habits may be bad. Freedom as in the right to own firearms, or freedom as in the right to be living in a place where no-one can kill me without going into close combat with me?

I'm leaving this thread. To me, violence is always wrong, no matter what. Self-defence, you cry? Yeah, I would defend myself, too, but not with a weapon. A lesser evil is still evil.

Still fond of you, Cat, dsepite our disagreeing.

Believe me when I say I understand your viewpoint. Violence is always the last resort and one I never relish even thinking about.

Cat

 

[Sandy_Fox]

So if you shoot him, it will stop the violence, will it? Or will his gang buddies load up real good before they go and take their revenge on you?

And if he's desperate enough, he'll break in and try to rob you even if you keep a eff-ing tank in your yard. The only thing you'll accomplish is increasing the risk of violence.

Never mind, you're not open to listen to my pov, so why should I waste my time on you? Good luck, and I hope you'll be lucky enough to get to shoot a person one day. Judging from your words, it seems like you'd enjoy that.

Oh, and why do I use such a cliche? Because I've experienced it in real life. Have you?

Haw! Hon, I spent 30 years in the United States Marine Corps. Yeah, I've got a bit of experience.

Actually, I agree with SeaCat. Around here, most burglar's don't have guns - they have knives. The best defense against a knife is a gun (ever hear that old say about bringing a knife to a gun fight?)

As for the gang-bangers, they RARELY if ever break into houses. They are drug dealers. They also know that if they threaten people here, then it gets REAL hot for them (the majority of our local gangs are Samoans - they ALL have relatives in the military and they deal with their own quite effectively). If you want to change the subject to gang violence then we can, but we are talking about somebody breaking into my house.

I can't/won't talk about any place other than my own little neck of the woods. It's what I know. I'm certainly not so arrogant that I will try to generalize from my personal experiences and apply them to the entire world. Sorry, thems the facts.

BTW, stomping your foot and making sarcastic comments like "Good luck, and I hope you'll be lucky enough to get to shoot a person one day. Judging from your words, it seems like you'd enjoy that." really isn't expressing your point of view very well.

 

[Liar]

Haw! Hon, I spent 30 years in the United States Marine Corps. Yeah, I've got a bit of experience.

Actually, I agree with SeaCat. Around here, most burglar's don't have guns - they have knives. The best defense against a knife is a gun (ever hear that old say about bringing a knife to a gun fight?)

If the burglar have a knife and I have a gun, I'll lose. If the burglar have a knife, and I have an umbrella, a potted plant or a bag of frozen peas, I'm more likely to win.

 

[ishtat]

The thing that you, and others not from the States, don't realize is that if tomorrow a ban on all gun ownership were enacted, just who do you think would have the guns?

The law-abiding people, the ones you don't need to worry about guns in their hands anyway, would turn theirs in. That leaves hundreds of thousands of guns in the hands of those who are the ones you need to worry about.

It's never as simple as y'all seem to think it is.

This is a very valid point.

In the wake of the Port Arthur (Australia) massacre on 28th April 1996 when some 35 people were murdered by a lone gunman the Liberal (actually conservative) government introduced quite stringent gunlaws. This basically made it difficult to get a licence without going through training at a registered gun club and almost impossible to buy automatic weapons. Advocates have claimed that the reduction in homicides is directly a result of that legislation which saw the surrender of at least 1.2 million guns.

Inconveniently however research by the University of Adelaide in South Australia showed that :

1 Murder with guns had already been falling since 1990 and this straight line reduction merely continued after the legislation.

2 Most people killed by guns were suicides.

3 There are an enormous number of unlicenced guns and unlicenced gun owners in the community after the legislation and most of these people were otherwise firmly of a law abiding disposition.

4 The vast majority of gun crime is carried out by people who are living in disaffected social/ethnic groups, invariably poorly educated and living in poverty. Even then there are some dreadfully deprived social groups the best example being Aboriginal Australians who just don't use guns to kill people. Why not, I don't know, it's a complex issue which doesn't sit well with moralistic judgements.

In the USA where there is a vastly greater number of guns, licencing might help but it would also lead to the kind of civil disobedience we have here and above all the criminal element would take no notice.

Personally from my experience of living in the States I think greater improvements in the murder and robbery statistics would result from:-

5 Tackling Americas greatest problem, Poverty

6 Decriminalising hard drug consumption and treating it as an illness.

Just so you know where I am coming from I learned to shoot (rabbits hares birds deer and vermin) as a kid on my dads farm. However I haven't used a gun for more than 20 years and am not fussed one way or another about owning a gun.

I can't seem to make the link to that research I quoted work. I'll have another attempt later.

 

[Sandy_Fox]

If the burglar have a knife and I have a gun, I'll lose. If the burglar have a knife, and I have an umbrella, a potted plant or a bag of frozen peas, I'm more likely to win.

Good point. My wife has an arm on her that would make Nolan Ryan feel ashamed. She can bean me from across the room with whatever is in her hand at the moment - shoes, frying pans, the cat, etc. (teach me to marry a Dominican!)

 

[Sandy_Fox]

This is a very valid point.

In the wake of the Port Arthur (Australia) massacre on 28th April 1996 when some 35 people were murdered by a lone gunman the Liberal (actually conservative) government introduced quite stringent gunlaws. This basically made it difficult to get a licence without going through training at a registered gun club and almost impossible to buy automatic weapons. Advocates have claimed that the reduction in homicides is directly a result of that legislation which saw the surrender of at least 1.2 million guns.

Inconveniently however research by the University of Adelaide in South Australia showed that :

1 Murder with guns had already been falling since 1990 and this straight line reduction merely continued after the legislation.

2 Most people killed by guns were suicides.

3 There are an enormous number of unlicenced guns and unlicenced gun owners in the community after the legislation and most of these people were otherwise firmly of a law abiding disposition.

4 The vast majority of gun crime is carried out by people who are living in disaffected social/ethnic groups, invariably poorly educated and living in poverty. Even then there are some dreadfully deprived social groups the best example being Aboriginal Australians who just don't use guns to kill people. Why not, I don't know, it's a complex issue which doesn't sit well with moralistic judgements.

In the USA where there is a vastly greater number of guns, licencing might help but it would also lead to the kind of civil disobedience we have here and above all the criminal element would take no notice.

Personally from my experience of living in the States I think greater improvements in the murder and robbery statistics would result from:-

5 Tackling Americas greatest problem, Poverty

6 Decriminalising hard drug consumption and treating it as an illness.

Just so you know where I am coming from I learned to shoot (rabbits hares birds deer and vermin) as a kid on my dads farm. However I haven't used a gun for more than 20 years and am not fussed one way or another about owning a gun.

I can't seem to make the link to that research I quoted work. I'll have another attempt later.

Not to blend threads (too much) but if the troops and money that are being used/spent in Iraq were applied/spent in the US, poverty and hunger could be virtually eliminated.

I mean, hell, we are DOING that in Iraq. We "occupy" an area to completely eliminate any chance of violence (like So. Central LA), allow people for the first time to thrive, take the money and manpower to improve housing and infrastructure and to build companies and industry that create REAL jobs (not "you want fries with that" jobs). Take away the enemy’s will to fight (drug profitability eliminated through legalization) and you win their hearts and minds and EVERYBODY wins.

 

[Liar]

Good point. My wife has an arm on her that would make Nolan Ryan feel ashamed. She can bean me from across the room with whatever is in her hand at the moment - shoes, frying pans, the cat, etc. (teach me to marry a Dominican!)

I was thinking more in the style of an ad-hoc bludgeon. I throw like a little girl.

Hm, I wonder how many man-points I lost admitting that.

 

[fieryjen]

I was thinking more in the style of an ad-hoc bludgeon. I throw like a little girl.

Hm, I wonder how many man-points I lost admitting that.

That's okay, I throw like a little girl too.

 

[cloudy]

I think I feel more secure without a gun than you do with one.

I doubt it.

I've been shooting since I was seven years old. I can take my pistol apart, and put it back together blindfolded. I've taken combat courses, and I was on my universities rifle team.

 

[SeaCat]

I was thinking more in the style of an ad-hoc bludgeon. I throw like a little girl.

Hm, I wonder how many man-points I lost admitting that.

Liar,

You truly don't want to see me throw. I can side arm a few things if I have to, small stones and such for skipping. Throwing overhand though I truly suck. (Enough so that it made the Softball team I was on cringe. I can catch like you never saw but throwing????)

As for losing man points, don't sweat it. I'm so far in the hole I couldn't dig myself out with a steam shovel.

On the other hand I have found that those who count the Man Points have never had to do a damned thing they consider manly for themselves.

Cat

 

[Weird Harold]

Possibly the armed citizen is also a slave - to his/her gun ??

According to the sheriff's deputy manning the metal detector at the entrance to the jury pool lounge, I'm habitually armed and dangerous -- but I don't habitually carry a gun.

I am an armed citizen but I'm by no means "a slave to my gun."

And that's one thing that even Americans tend to forget -- the second ammendment says nothing aobut firearms, it just guarantees the right to "keep and bear arms."

As I've said earlier in this thread an many times before, I'm opposed to "gun control," "Firearms registration," "licenses to own," or any further infringement on law abiding citizens' rights/priveleges because of the actions of other citizens they have no connection to or control over.

If the local school district put the entire first and second grade classes on detention because one first grader habitually flings feces at his classmates, every poster on this thread would be up in arms and screaming for the job, if not the hide and entrails of the school adminstrator(s) responsible.

Yet half the posters on this thread see absolutely no problem with applying exactly that kind of logic to dealing with "the gun problem" by placing new and irrelevant restrictions on law-abiding gun citizens who wish to own guns for any reason whatsoever.

The "gun problem" isn't the guns legally owned by law-abiding citizens, it is weapons illegally possesed and used by those who are NOT law abiding. The percentage of legally possessed firearms used in crimes is vanishingly small, so further restricting gun possession seems to me to be a futile and misdirected mass-punishment of people are aren't involved with the problem in the first place.

 

[ishtat]

The "gun problem" isn't the guns legally owned by law-abiding citizens, it is weapons illegally possesed and used by those who are NOT law abiding. The percentage of legally possessed firearms used in crimes is vanishingly small, so further restricting gun possession seems to me to be a futile and misdirected mass-punishment of people are aren't involved with the problem in the first place.

I agree Harold but the question needs to be asked (even facetiously) in order to get your response on the table. The real issue is the crooks and stemming from that I think there is a need to tackle the issues of poverty and drugs as causal elements in gun crime.

 

[Weird Harold]

I agree Harold but the question needs to be asked (even facetiously) in order to get your response on the table. The real issue is the crooks and stemming from that I think there is a need to tackle the issues of poverty and drugs as causal elements in gun crime.

You didn't actually ask a question there.

Still, two points to consider:

1: The majority of Gun Violence in the US -- and the greatest threat to innocent citizens as "colateral damage" -- stems from the "Turf Wars" over control of various black-markets made profitable by prohibition and/or punitive taxation. Drugs, Gun Running, Tobacco, Gambling, Moonshine, and similar criminal enterprises are profitable because they are either outright prohibited or taxed to punitive levels with "Sin Taxes" intended to discourage tobacco and alcohol use without the drawbacks of "Prohibition."

Take the profits out of non-violent, victimless crimes and the Turf Wars aren't worth the trouble so that large element of gun violence goes away.

2: Poverty in the US is nothing close to what it was in the 1930's -- when anyone could purchase and use a Thompson Sub-machinegun -- but there was remarkably little violence engendered by the hordes of economic refugees and hobos that rode the rails and did odd-jobs for a few pennies or a meal and bed in the barn.

Poverty alone is NOT the root or even a contributing factor in gun violence. A culture of "entitlement" that dismisses the concept of personal responsibility in favor of blaming anything but the criminals for their actions is IMHO far more relevant than simple poverty or education.


On a somwhat divergent observation:

The more that guns are removed from the typical household, the higher the rate of accidental shootings. IMHO, the lack of familiarity -- and even the outright fear -- most people have for guns is responsible for the rise in accidental discharges.

As a child, I had cap pistols, Squirtguns, BB Guns and an unlocked rifle rack with four rifles, two shotguns and a Colt Model 1911A1 .45 ACP pistol just outside of my bedroom door. From my very first squirtgun to the hunting rifles and .45, I was constantly drilled in basic gun safety -- I could hit what I shot at and knew how NOT to shoot something/someone by accident.

The vast majority of children today aren't allowed to play with toy firearms and those who are aren't made to develop the good habits of gun handling that prevent accidents.

Children and young adults today are gnerally so unaware of the realities of firearms safety that when they do encounter an unattended gun, they have no respect for the danger it presents nor do they (or their parents) even know how to safely put it out of reach of other children.

If you are a parent and have children you wish to protect from the evils of guns, the best thing you can do to make them safe is enroll them in a hunter safety course or take them to a shooting range/gallery for training in firearms safety.

You don't have to buy them a gun or even let them shoot one as part of their training, but you do need to get them enough information they can safely pick up a gun and make it safe if they do encounter one.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

When it comes to the firearms issue I don't think the rest of the world holds you guys in disdain because of the right to bear arms, but rather for the indiscriminate use of them against innocent people.

Showing the number of people killed in other ways has no bearing on the gun issue. Just because X-amount of people may die in car accidents or from cancer each day, month, or year says nothing about the gun debate.

I'd really like to see the numbers on who is shooting who. It seems to me that far too many innocent people are dying because of guns.

And I would like to hear, although you rarely do, the number of innocent people saved by a gun toting law abiding citizen. How many lives have been saved because the the criminal was either chased away or put in the hospital by a law abiding gun toting citizen.

 

[ishtat]

2: Poverty in the US is nothing close to what it was in the 1930's -- when anyone could purchase and use a Thompson Sub-machinegun -- but there was remarkably little violence engendered by the hordes of economic refugees and hobos that rode the rails and did odd-jobs for a few pennies or a meal and bed in the barn.

Poverty alone is NOT the root or even a contributing factor in gun violence. A culture of "entitlement" that dismisses the concept of personal responsibility in favor of blaming anything but the criminals for their actions is IMHO far more relevant than simple poverty or education.


.

I think I would have to agree with you that poverty alone is unlikely to be causal but would suggest that in the thirties the poor mostly had a very settled set of cultural and religious mores that moderated their behavior.

Nowadays poverty combined with drugs and an absence of social and cultural controls is a deadly cocktail.

And of course there is the trite consideration that in the thirties people just couldn't afford that Thompson machine gun.

 

[SensualCealy]

um...what???

No one gets a gun by opening a new bank account.

I beg to differ, a couple years ago on a trip to the states we were travelling down the inner east coast and we saw an ad in one of the banks. If you deposited so much they would give you one, thats not saying you had to put in a waiting period- I didn't read it that close! Just laughed and said "Only in America!

C

 

[Weird Harold]

I think I would have to agree with you that poverty alone is unlikely to be causal but would suggest that in the thirties the poor mostly had a very settled set of cultural and religious mores that moderated their behavior.

It isn't so much that the poor had settled cultural and religious mores to moderate their behavior, it's that society in general was less tolerant of those who didn't exhibit some degree of personal integrity. There were no "entitlements" to fall back on -- no welfare, social scecurity, or government handouts -- so it was more than a matter of personal pride and integrity to provide for themselves, it was a matter of survival.

Even the "NGO" soup kitchens and bread lines were fairly intolerant of freeloaders who weren't looking for ways to get out of the soup kitchens and off the bread lines.

Nowadays poverty combined with drugs and an absence of social and cultural controls is a deadly cocktail.

Drug use doesn't contribute to the problems any more than poverty does; it is the quick profit dealing illegal drugs provides that allows the absence of "social and cultural controls" -- aka an absence of personal responsiblity -- to flourish.

And of course there is the trite consideration that in the thirties people just couldn't afford that Thompson machine gun.

Those who wanted one could get one -- it was about one-months wages for someone who had a job -- but the law-abiding poor saw no point in buying one because it's not a terribly useful weapon in aiding survival. Even the gangsters didn't buy a lot of Thompson's and the company was always on the verge of bankruptcy.

Single shot .22s, shotguns, and small caliber revolvers were much cheaper and much more useful to the subsistance level poor. Most of the poor families had one or more, and small game provided most of the protein they ate. They generally didn't have to buy them, most of them already had them before they lost their homes and farms.

In many ways, the US weathered the Great Depression better than other countries because we were a nation of gun owners and had room and wild game for the dispossessed to live off the land.

 

[Lisa Denton]

I would like to see some statistics concerning gun injuries/deaths by legally owned firearms possesed by legal law abiding citizens.

But I don't think there is any statistics on that.

So any laws concerning guns only applies to legal law abiding citizens, and any other statistics thrown out do not apply to them.

I would like to see illegal firearm laws strictly enforced. The kid with the pistol with the serial number filed off shouldn't be released to his momma the next day. The gangbanger with a stolen revolver shouldn't just get 10 days in jail. The convicted felon in possesion of a handgun should know he will get locked up for years just for having the gun. The laws we have for illegal possesion of handguns are crap, so why should we pass laws and strictly enforce them ONLY on the law abiding citizens?

Criminals have guns, they intend to take any money law abiding citizens have, rape thier wives and daughters, kill them all for a laugh and maybe spend a couple years in jail and do it all again.

I will be willing to seriously discuss gun control with anyone who can guarantee that said gun control will also be applied to criminals.

End of discussion.

 

[rgraham666]

Puzzled. Why would I want it any other way?

 

[iamincognito45]

I would like to see some statistics concerning gun injuries/deaths by legally owned firearms possesed by legal law abiding citizens.

But I don't think there is any statistics on that.

So any laws concerning guns only applies to legal law abiding citizens, and any other statistics thrown out do not apply to them.

I would like to see illegal firearm laws strictly enforced. The kid with the pistol with the serial number filed off shouldn't be released to his momma the next day. The gangbanger with a stolen revolver shouldn't just get 10 days in jail. The convicted felon in possesion of a handgun should know he will get locked up for years just for having the gun. The laws we have for illegal possesion of handguns are crap, so why should we pass laws and strictly enforce them ONLY on the law abiding citizens?

Criminals have guns, they intend to take any money law abiding citizens have, rape thier wives and daughters, kill them all for a laugh and maybe spend a couple years in jail and do it all again.

I will be willing to seriously discuss gun control with anyone who can guarantee that said gun control will also be applied to criminals.

End of discussion.

She is wise that one...

I too would sign up for THAT discussion.

 

[Safe_Bet]

I would like to see some statistics concerning gun injuries/deaths by legally owned firearms possesed by legal law abiding citizens.

But I don't think there is any statistics on that.

So any laws concerning guns only applies to legal law abiding citizens, and any other statistics thrown out do not apply to them.

I would like to see illegal firearm laws strictly enforced. The kid with the pistol with the serial number filed off shouldn't be released to his momma the next day. The gangbanger with a stolen revolver shouldn't just get 10 days in jail. The convicted felon in possesion of a handgun should know he will get locked up for years just for having the gun. The laws we have for illegal possesion of handguns are crap, so why should we pass laws and strictly enforce them ONLY on the law abiding citizens?

Criminals have guns, they intend to take any money law abiding citizens have, rape thier wives and daughters, kill them all for a laugh and maybe spend a couple years in jail and do it all again.

I will be willing to seriously discuss gun control with anyone who can guarantee that said gun control will also be applied to criminals.

End of discussion.

*Stands next to Lisa in complete solidarity thinking "You go, Girl"!*

 

[SeaCat]

I would like to see some statistics concerning gun injuries/deaths by legally owned firearms possesed by legal law abiding citizens.

But I don't think there is any statistics on that.

So any laws concerning guns only applies to legal law abiding citizens, and any other statistics thrown out do not apply to them.

I would like to see illegal firearm laws strictly enforced. The kid with the pistol with the serial number filed off shouldn't be released to his momma the next day. The gangbanger with a stolen revolver shouldn't just get 10 days in jail. The convicted felon in possesion of a handgun should know he will get locked up for years just for having the gun. The laws we have for illegal possesion of handguns are crap, so why should we pass laws and strictly enforce them ONLY on the law abiding citizens?

Criminals have guns, they intend to take any money law abiding citizens have, rape thier wives and daughters, kill them all for a laugh and maybe spend a couple years in jail and do it all again.

I will be willing to seriously discuss gun control with anyone who can guarantee that said gun control will also be applied to criminals.

End of discussion.

Didn't I say something like this?

Cat

 

[Safe_Bet]

Didn't I say something like this?

Cat

Maybe, but you aren't as nearly good looking so who cares?

 

[iamincognito45]

Didn't I say something like this?

Cat

Didn't mean to NOT give credit where credit is due here.

Like so many discussions on Lit (I'm not the newbie I appear to be), there seems to be a lack of civil, calm discussion.

The biggest issue I see with 'gun control' and those that advocate for it, is that theirs is a position born of fear and lack of understanding. The solution to something you are afraid of is to try to eliminate it.

They are afraid of guns, not the criminals that use them.

Address the problem, which is the unlawful use of the guns.

 

[DesertPirate]

Maybe, but you aren't as nearly good looking so who cares?

*water spew*