The right to bear arms / Do we really need a survey to tell us this?

[Fbuh]

Well, the right to bare arms is a throw back from the Revolutionary War when the arms forces consisted entirely of farmers and citizen militias. It's sort of stuck around as "Well, guns won us our country, so we should be able to carry them whenever." However, we really don't need that anymore, since citizens aren't fighting on our own soil to win wars. I could see if it were necessary, but as it is now, the law is only serving to make gun access more easy for those who are going to use them for violence.

 

[Darth Pope]

A study of the correlation of gun violence to previous crimes where both were carrying guns ...?

That's not a complete study, or even a good study. It's trying to correlate two things that may have other issues involved. Without all the knowledge present. Like what mindset was the criminal in that shot the victim? Or did the victim actually use their gun? Or are any of the crimes committed by the same criminal?

Actually reading the study, it's not really all that good, except comparing statistics of seemingly two related issues. Even the researcher says, "We don't have an answer as to whether guns are protective or perilous. This study is a beginning.

It is not indicative at all to whether or not victims carrying the guns got shot because they had guns. Anyone commenting on this article as proof against gun rights should probably READ the article and study in question before REPLYING, "OMG STUPID AMERICANS/PEOPLE, TOLD YOU SO!!!1!"

(I'm not actively pro- or anti-gun. I'm anti-bad-to-questionable sociological/anthropological studies and people facetiously using statements like, "Unequivocal statistics prove..." without actually having the statistics like a unintelligent Brady Bill activist. As the OP asked, do we really need this survey? No, because it's really a questionable study that didn't prove anything worthwhile for either side)

Vomit fourth your words of wisdom.

 

[Lexodus]

The difference between the whole 'being mugged without a gun' and 'being mugged when carrying a gun' is that, yes, you may get lucky and pull a fast one on the bastard, but your standard mugger is also much more likely to go, 'Holy shit! Dude's got a gun! He might pull a fast one on me! Can't chance it; gotta shoot the bastard'. He'd also be right and, by all (his) logic, justified in shooting you. However, if you pull a gun on him, he could try and say he was shooting you in self defence. If you're dead (and the witnesses saw you with a gun), you're not going to have much of a chance to defend yourself against such allegations.


Also, our knife crime rates are insubordinately high. We're not gung-ho retards with rifles; we're fucking ninjas.

 

[Serge A. Storms]

On the one hand, I fully understand that the sociological side of criminal activity alone makes this a million times more complicated than "bad guys rape and kill people, good guys play Superman with a .45," but on the other hand, I'd have a hard time telling someone with a spouse and children that they don't have a moral right to own and use a gun in the event of a house robbery or attempted rape/murder. I fully support gun rights, as well as gun education.

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

You're right, because the police are omnipresent and are able to stop every rape, mugging, homicide, armed robbery in America.

I'll keep my guns, thanks.

right and how often can a gun stop a mugging? sorry you'll get shot and/or killed before you can pull you gun

how about a rape? no i don't think a gun can stop that either

homocide? hmmmm hard to shoot back when you're dead

armed robbery? well they have a gun pointed at you right now, you can NOT draw before they can shoot

so how is that gun really going to protect you? it's not and as they said more than likely to get you shot. there is the illusion that a gun will protect you but the times that it actually does is few and far between. if you really don't believe me, go ask a cop about how well guns will protect you

also rapes, murders and other crimes still happen even if you can carry a gun.

also if you don't believe me look at the murder rates of Japan, the UK and Canada, heck in Japan i can count the amount of gun murders on both hands.

So basically you are saying that the citizens should rely on the goodwill of criminals for their safety in a crisis...

Which is worse? Relying on the goodwill of criminals or at least giving the citizens a fighting chance to protect themselves?

And I have asked cops. And I've also asked victims. And I've also read more than biased reports. Soooo, my conclusion is that a chance is better than no chance at all. It is true that it is technically all a crap shoot whether or not you are raped and/or killed during a mugging but if I can have loaded dice in my favor, even in the slightest bit of favor, I prefer to have it rather than rely on the generosity of somebody threatening my person for a few trinkets.

 

[Kraj]

Someone had to do it.

Arms should only be given to trustworthy people, no criminal record, is 18 (or 21) and so on. And I believe that having a gun gives you better chances while being mugged. The guy mugging you probably just needs quick money and doesn't have the balls to shoot you.

you sir, are a genius, I was going to find the family guy snapshot of a pair of bear arms hanging over a furnace, but you beat me to the punch, with the real thing.

as for carrying a gun making you 4.5 times more likely to be shot and 4.2 times more likely to be killed, that makes sense, but I also have to respect that it is an education based thing. If people were taught the statistics young they probably wouldn't want to carry around weaponry. I'd also like to point out I'm not bashing weaponry at all, I'm comfortable carrying around 4-8 knives on me at all times. I play with them, I'm talented with a Balisong and a trident main gauche, and I carry around 2-6 knives with me at all times, however I'd never consider using them for anything other than maintenance in a public place. If Balisongs become illegal in my state I'll gladly put mine in the closet forever.

I wish gun-owners would say the same :-/

 

[teisjm]

Oh how i love to live in a country where guns are only legal if you're a cop.

Oh how I love the irony that in Britian two cops got gunned down despite lack of guns....

And this article is full of shit XD

Thing is, if someones going to shoot you, they're going to do it ANYWAYS. Law, or your situation does not change this normally... now... if you armed EVERYONE.. I would like to see a bank robber walk in with a shotgun and demand money when the security guard, the bank teller, the customers, the terminally ill child there to promote cancer awarness, all pull a gun on him and tell him to drop it.

My grand father had to deal with a man breaking into his home who had a gun, my grandfather also had a gun. That man is now dead, and my grandfather went to live a much longer life then if he came down stairs with a baseball bat or unarmed as the man had previous murders on his records they found out.

You disarm the public, the criminals stay armed.. BECAUSE THEY ARE FUCKING CRIMINALS!
you ban knives, a criminal will carry a hammer.
You bann hammers, a criminal will carry a rock.
You arm your civilians with guns who lack a criminal record, and criminals will have to think 4x as much about wether they should try raping 21 year old jenny and ruin her life because he might end up losing his life.

The fact is, having more citizens with guns would be a crime deterent.... to those who are unsure, or never planned to shoot you in the first place. If someone is planning on killing you though, or is willing to use lethal force to prevent a mugging victim from talking, or fighting back, he was going to do so anyways wether you had a gun, bare fists, a tank, a plasma rifle.. ANYTHING!

Nevertheless the homicide rate here in Denmark where i live is about 8.6 times lower than in the US where you live according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate (5.8 to 0.68 homicides pr. 100000 people pr year.

While 65% of the US homicides involved guns only 24% did in Denmark, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence ) Now with some calculations thats 0.17 gun homicides to 3.77 gun homicides pr 100000 pop. pr year.
Which means that in the US theres 22.18 times as many gun homicides as in Denmark (again pr. 100000 people pr. year)

Maybe it's just the pilgrim genes which are more violent than the viking genes, i dunno, but i think it may have to do with the fact that here in DK only the hardcore criminals have guns (ofc they have, it ain't THAT hard to get them) but in the US every other psycho and his retarded brother can have one.

I understand your argument and i see how they make sense, but the numbers tell a different tale.

Might have something to do with this.

Person A is slightly fucked up. Theres tons of person A both in US and in DK.
Person A gets pissed at perosn B. Here he punches him in the face and kicks him a little, over there he shoots him.

While we're at it, the penalty for killing people in DK is (ridicoulesly low i know) 16 years, unless you're psychotic and mentally unstable in which case it's undetermined whether you'll ever get out. while in the US u can get death sentence and several lifetimes wirth of jail time, plus the danish prisons are a fucking holiday compared to what i've sene of US prison sfrom documentaries (in this, i give u props, i'm ashamed to live where we care more about criminals than victims) But all this just indicates that peopel who kill doesn't seem to care a lot about the conseqence of their actions, so the chance of them getting shot if everyone else had guns might not make such a big difference.

I know you can still kill people in hundreds of other ways, but it's a lot easier to escape a dude with a knife or a metal pipe than a guy with a gun.
+ here you can get up to 2 year prion for just carrying a knife on you, unless you've got a good reason for doing so, liek beeing a chef in his way to work or something.

I'm sure i forgot something along the way but I think i've made my point

 

[Serge A. Storms]

For those arguing that guns aren't actually helpful in a mugging, may I ask:

1) Have you ever actually been mugged, and do you feel that this will help you understand general mugger behavior?

2) Since when is it the government's responsibility to decide how we may defend ourselves when our lives are at stake, much less amend the constitution in order to fit the current government's concept of self-defense?

 

[CheeseFlareUK]

What? B

my response is "well duh?" to the article. Honestly, the best way to solve gun crime is to BAN GUNS. Learn from Britain, America, not even the police wear guns here! Instead we have knife crime... lots, and lots of knifing.

Ban guns? Don't be an idiot. If we ban guns, that only keeps them out of the hands of honest people.

 

[WhiteTiger225]

I'm still not sure I really get this. If safety's the point of this, and safety is defined by one study suggesting a correlation between two things, one of those things presumably being harm, I can think of a whole bunch of shit that should be banned

-cars
-airplanes
-pets
-water (or it should at least be controlled, wouldn't want t0o drink to much and blow up)
-alcohol
-lighters, fireplaces, and anything that could be used to create fire
-TV, video games, computers, and all other forms of media that can be used to desensitize children to violence
-cooking appliances and eating utensils
-lengths of rope or cords
-bathroom cleaners and bleach
-sharp objects
-blunt objects of a certain size
-sex toys


The list would go on and on and on...

A old man in england disarmed and INJURED a shotgun wielding criminal with 2 heads of cabbage.. we should bann food too seeing as it can be far more useful to criminals then a shotgun by this evidence...

We also need to bann hospital equipment. The drugs they use can be used to murder, needles, scalples, kitchen knives. You can make sharp objects from cardboard so cardboard needs to be banned too. We also need to bann phones, they have been used before to bludgeon people to death. OH! And the police, they have gunned down innocent people by mistake (Like the man who had a "Grenade" but it turned out to be a pear) so we must bann law enforcement...

As you see, you can bann all weapons, but still, people WILL find a way to kill eachother.

Yes, but most people aren't prepared to learn how to kill efficiently with everyday household objects. Keep in mind that we are talking about soccer moms, 45-year old system analysts and plumbers here, not Spetnaz.

You can shout all you want about how you can kill someone with a toaster but that still won't be as efficient as a gun or a knife.

The problem is.. that man with cabbage was in ENGLAND and the criminal had a SHOTGUN when civilians aren't allowed firearms... Banning guns will at most disarm the unsure criminals, but the criminals with intent to kill will STILL get ahold of guns. Chris Rock said it best..
"Never go to a party with a metal detector. You may feel all safe inside knowing no one has a gun... But OUTSIDE are people WITH guns waiting for you who know YOU don't have one"

In the end, taking guns from civilians will do nothing but hurt honest civilians, as they will be the only ones giving them up and not aquiring them.

 

[theApoc]

(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health Human Services)

Guns
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
Yes, that is 80 million.

(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.000188.

There have been many studies, and there are tons of statistics that support the idea that gun bans increase crime and violence. Here is a very good collection of stats and data with sources that essentially throw any argument against legal weapon ownership out the window.

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

You people really need to do more research before going off half cocked(zing!) about something you apparently know nothing about. Especially the people from other countries. Most of you live in places where the population is less than HALF of the us population, so your rules generally do not apply to the situation here. Not for guns, not for employment, not for healthcare, not at all.

There is a pretty good reason America has lasted this long as a super power and it has everything to do with avoiding the naive socialist tendencies that have kept most of the world mired in the past.

 

[WhiteTiger225]

What? B

my response is "well duh?" to the article. Honestly, the best way to solve gun crime is to BAN GUNS. Learn from Britain, America, not even the police wear guns here! Instead we have knife crime... lots, and lots of knifing.

Ban guns? Don't be an idiot. If we ban guns, that only keeps them out of the hands of honest people.

Thats great.. you also STILL have gun crimes Britian.

 

[WhiteTiger225]

Oh how i love to live in a country where guns are only legal if you're a cop.

Oh how I love the irony that in Britian two cops got gunned down despite lack of guns....

And this article is full of shit XD

Thing is, if someones going to shoot you, they're going to do it ANYWAYS. Law, or your situation does not change this normally... now... if you armed EVERYONE.. I would like to see a bank robber walk in with a shotgun and demand money when the security guard, the bank teller, the customers, the terminally ill child there to promote cancer awarness, all pull a gun on him and tell him to drop it.

My grand father had to deal with a man breaking into his home who had a gun, my grandfather also had a gun. That man is now dead, and my grandfather went to live a much longer life then if he came down stairs with a baseball bat or unarmed as the man had previous murders on his records they found out.

You disarm the public, the criminals stay armed.. BECAUSE THEY ARE FUCKING CRIMINALS!
you ban knives, a criminal will carry a hammer.
You bann hammers, a criminal will carry a rock.
You arm your civilians with guns who lack a criminal record, and criminals will have to think 4x as much about wether they should try raping 21 year old jenny and ruin her life because he might end up losing his life.

The fact is, having more citizens with guns would be a crime deterent.... to those who are unsure, or never planned to shoot you in the first place. If someone is planning on killing you though, or is willing to use lethal force to prevent a mugging victim from talking, or fighting back, he was going to do so anyways wether you had a gun, bare fists, a tank, a plasma rifle.. ANYTHING!

Nevertheless the homicide rate here in Denmark where i live is about 8.6 times lower than in the US where you live according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate (5.8 to 0.68 homicides pr. 100000 people pr year.

While 65% of the US homicides involved guns only 24% did in Denmark, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence ) Now with some calculations thats 0.17 gun homicides to 3.77 gun homicides pr 100000 pop. pr year.
Which means that in the US theres 22.18 times as many gun homicides as in Denmark (again pr. 100000 people pr. year)

Maybe it's just the pilgrim genes which are more violent than the viking genes, i dunno, but i think it may have to do with the fact that here in DK only the hardcore criminals have guns (ofc they have, it ain't THAT hard to get them) but in the US every other psycho and his retarded brother can have one.

I understand your argument and i see how they make sense, but the numbers tell a different tale.

Might have something to do with this.

Person A is slightly fucked up. Theres tons of person A both in US and in DK.
Person A gets pissed at perosn B. Here he punches him in the face and kicks him a little, over there he shoots him.

While we're at it, the penalty for killing people in DK is (ridicoulesly low i know) 16 years, unless you're psychotic and mentally unstable in which case it's undetermined whether you'll ever get out. while in the US u can get death sentence and several lifetimes wirth of jail time, plus the danish prisons are a fucking holiday compared to what i've sene of US prison sfrom documentaries (in this, i give u props, i'm ashamed to live where we care more about criminals than victims) But all this just indicates that peopel who kill doesn't seem to care a lot about the conseqence of their actions, so the chance of them getting shot if everyone else had guns might not make such a big difference.

I know you can still kill people in hundreds of other ways, but it's a lot easier to escape a dude with a knife or a metal pipe than a guy with a gun.
+ here you can get up to 2 year prion for just carrying a knife on you, unless you've got a good reason for doing so, liek beeing a chef in his way to work or something.

I'm sure i forgot something along the way but I think i've made my point

There is so much shit here it's not even funny.. it's sad infact.

I will meerly point out that most criminals who do gun crimes aquire the guns illegally. There is actually a waiting period where they check you out to make sure you are not bonkers. So you fail to show ANY evidence as to how criminals with violent tendancies can actually buy guns legally.

 

[RagnorakTres]

...[G]uns should not be illegal, they should not be made, so nobody, not even criminals can get their hands on them. If the police want weapons, make them learn how to wield katanas.

This I agree with. Take us back to the age of honor and glory. (Seriously, that isn't sarcasm. Guns are uncivilized and crude. I just took up hunting, and you know what I hunt with? A bow. An old bow, the classic yew longbow. At least that takes some points in your sneak skill...)

...As for the specific example of a rapist? Psychotherapy and/or chemical castration. If he's impossible to reform, permanent institutionalization.

Rape is not and never has been about sexual satisfaction. It's about power. Exercising power over another individual. It's a form of sadism.

On Topic: Alright, as I said above, I prefer blades and more "primitive" weapons to guns, which I see as crude and overdeveloped. However, that said, I will defend my property and my life to the fullest extent. If all I have to hand is a gun, I will use that and try like hell not to shoot the threat in the head (unless said threat is a dangerous wild animal that has gotten in my house). I will always try to neutralize the threat through non-lethal means first, but, if lethal force becomes necessary, I will not hesitate to use it. Period. When you place yourself on my property without my permission and with the intent to hurt me in some fashion (robbery, murder, rape), you forfeit your rights. All of them. If it's not legal in the state I'm in, very well, I will serve time, but my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is irrevocable by ANYONE (save the occasional deity, but yeah), and I will argue that in any court anywhere.

 

[theApoc]

"Nevertheless the homicide rate here in Denmark where i live is about 8.6 times lower than in the US where you live according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate (5.8 to 0.68 homicides pr. 100000 people pr year."

Are you kidding me?

There are more people on the island of Manhattan than in your entire country. So you homicide rate is 8.6 times lower in a country that is 60 times smaller? Talk about comparing apples to oranges.

 

[teisjm]

Oh how i love to live in a country where guns are only legal if you're a cop.

Oh how I love the irony that in Britian two cops got gunned down despite lack of guns....

And this article is full of shit XD

Thing is, if someones going to shoot you, they're going to do it ANYWAYS. Law, or your situation does not change this normally... now... if you armed EVERYONE.. I would like to see a bank robber walk in with a shotgun and demand money when the security guard, the bank teller, the customers, the terminally ill child there to promote cancer awarness, all pull a gun on him and tell him to drop it.

My grand father had to deal with a man breaking into his home who had a gun, my grandfather also had a gun. That man is now dead, and my grandfather went to live a much longer life then if he came down stairs with a baseball bat or unarmed as the man had previous murders on his records they found out.

You disarm the public, the criminals stay armed.. BECAUSE THEY ARE FUCKING CRIMINALS!
you ban knives, a criminal will carry a hammer.
You bann hammers, a criminal will carry a rock.
You arm your civilians with guns who lack a criminal record, and criminals will have to think 4x as much about wether they should try raping 21 year old jenny and ruin her life because he might end up losing his life.

The fact is, having more citizens with guns would be a crime deterent.... to those who are unsure, or never planned to shoot you in the first place. If someone is planning on killing you though, or is willing to use lethal force to prevent a mugging victim from talking, or fighting back, he was going to do so anyways wether you had a gun, bare fists, a tank, a plasma rifle.. ANYTHING!

Nevertheless the homicide rate here in Denmark where i live is about 8.6 times lower than in the US where you live according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate (5.8 to 0.68 homicides pr. 100000 people pr year.

While 65% of the US homicides involved guns only 24% did in Denmark, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence ) Now with some calculations thats 0.17 gun homicides to 3.77 gun homicides pr 100000 pop. pr year.
Which means that in the US theres 22.18 times as many gun homicides as in Denmark (again pr. 100000 people pr. year)

Maybe it's just the pilgrim genes which are more violent than the viking genes, i dunno, but i think it may have to do with the fact that here in DK only the hardcore criminals have guns (ofc they have, it ain't THAT hard to get them) but in the US every other psycho and his retarded brother can have one.

I understand your argument and i see how they make sense, but the numbers tell a different tale.

Might have something to do with this.

Person A is slightly fucked up. Theres tons of person A both in US and in DK.
Person A gets pissed at perosn B. Here he punches him in the face and kicks him a little, over there he shoots him.

While we're at it, the penalty for killing people in DK is (ridicoulesly low i know) 16 years, unless you're psychotic and mentally unstable in which case it's undetermined whether you'll ever get out. while in the US u can get death sentence and several lifetimes wirth of jail time, plus the danish prisons are a fucking holiday compared to what i've sene of US prison sfrom documentaries (in this, i give u props, i'm ashamed to live where we care more about criminals than victims) But all this just indicates that peopel who kill doesn't seem to care a lot about the conseqence of their actions, so the chance of them getting shot if everyone else had guns might not make such a big difference.

I know you can still kill people in hundreds of other ways, but it's a lot easier to escape a dude with a knife or a metal pipe than a guy with a gun.
+ here you can get up to 2 year prion for just carrying a knife on you, unless you've got a good reason for doing so, liek beeing a chef in his way to work or something.

I'm sure i forgot something along the way but I think i've made my point

There is so much shit here it's not even funny.. it's sad infact.

I will meerly point out that most criminals who do gun crimes aquire the guns illegally. There is actually a waiting period where they check you out to make sure you are not bonkers. So you fail to show ANY evidence as to how criminals with violent tendancies can actually buy guns legally.

Speaking of evidence, wheres yours? Sure some of mine is guessing, but the numbers are not... I guess the fact that it's saddenign shit (provided by none otehr than yourself) is enough to make it useless.

The illegal guns have to come from somewhere, most of them was prolly legal then stolen or something... theres not a lot of legal guns to steal in Denmark, which means theres less ilelgal guns on the black market which means it's harder to get hold of a gun.

But let's cut the crap. Most of what i've said are hypotheses, and ALL of what you said are, while they're both quallified guesses on how stuff works, I still got the numbers on my side.

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health Human Services)

Guns
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
Yes, that is 80 million.

(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.000188.

There have been many studies, and there are tons of statistics that support the idea that gun bans increase crime and violence. Here is a very good collection of stats and data with sources that essentially throw any argument against legal weapon ownership out the window.

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

You people really need to do more research before going off half cocked(zing!) about something you apparently know nothing about. Especially the people from other countries. Most of you live in places where the population is less than HALF of the us population, so your rules generally do not apply to the situation here. Not for guns, not for employment, not for healthcare, not at all.

There is a pretty good reason America has lasted this long as a super power and it has everything to do with avoiding the naive socialist tendencies that have kept most of the world mired in the past.

This...

Let alone that America isn't alone in the world and a number of guns are imported from outside the US from the Southern Hemisphere, ya know, where a number of illegal items are coming from. Not all, of course, but enough and with a ban, that would just increase. Those that wish to call bullshit can look into this silly thing called the War on Drugs that we aren't winning and then add more guns to that equation.

So sure, ban the guns here. It will just make the honest folks with guns into criminals while criminals being criminals will still get their guns. And again, we are going to be asked to rely on the charity of criminals not to kill/rape/etc us. I also question what right a criminal has to stolen property because they went through illegal channels to obtain a weapon to use in a crime. So put me down for no for just handing shit over. They can endure risk for their venture.

 

[microwaviblerabbit]

I agree with the article completely. People who carry guns are more likely to get shot. It is obvious.

However, the answer isn't to ban guns. Guns have a purpose. Shotguns make sense to me. They kill vermin effectively. In the north, a revolver is needed to scare bears. You do not shoot them. You just shoot at something else. The noise and smell scares them.

Educate people about guns. Ie: At the age of 16, you have a Gun training course. You are taught how to load, use, fire, unload, clean and store guns. You are also taught how to avoid getting shot, and other useful hints. Now they know about guns, and they are less fun. Then lower the drinking age! If you can drive at 16, die for your country at 18 or less, then why the hell can't you drink!

Then change the laws on hunting bows. They are quieter, just as accurate, pretty much the same. Also bb guns.

Also make shooting a regular social activity. after your course you can go to a range and rent a gun. Any gun. Lets them rent a minigun if they want.