Gun controll?

[Architect]

So a decrease in gun crime is good, even if it's not a decrease in total violent crime?

Is it somehow better to murder a man with a knife as opposed to a gun in your mind? Robberies, rapes, and assaults all must be ok too, just as long as one of those EVIL guns isn't involved!

Taking this to the logical extreme, there there's no point in tackling any problem because it's always part of a bigger picture. Let's not cure, say, heart disease because cancer is just as bad......

 

[Rolfe]

So a decrease in gun crime is good, even if it's not a decrease in total violent crime?

Is it somehow better to murder a man with a knife as opposed to a gun in your mind? Robberies, rapes, and assaults all must be ok too, just as long as one of those EVIL guns isn't involved!

Wow! Straw man or what?

Really, what Architect said. I think a decrease in killings is good. The published rates of crimes which involve, say, someone being given a smack in the face, don't really feature in comparison.

If you're honestly saying that you don't care what level of gun crime you have, because of course it's always possible to commit a crime some other way anyway, I can't help feeling that you've let your love for guns cloud your rational thinking faculties.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Yes... Perhaps I do...

Honestly, Jonathan, if you're still reading, I think you need to find a good psychologist or counsellor and say to him or her what you posted above. You won't find any help posting on the internet, and (as I think you have found) you may well find quite the opposite of help.

Nothing I or anyone else can say here is really appropriate in this situation. The state you're in is entirely fixable, but it has to be real-life fixing.

Rolfe.

 

[Lothian]

Both, however, claimed that basically all UK citizens agreed that people should not own guns for purposes of self-defense in the home. Fargin admitted that he had no stats to back up this assumption, but it appears Rolfe has not.

It is a difficulty one to prove. This has been said before but does need to be emphasised. Mass gun ownership is not an issue in the UK. The reason that we say people are happy with the gun laws, is that no one talks about them. There are no vocal pressure groups marching, writing letters to the press, holding demos, sticking posters in their window......... I don’t even think that there are pressure groups suggesting that guns should be allowed for self defence.

It is not a conversation people have. Even when there are vicious assaults you never hear the opinion that “If the victim or a passer by was armed this would never of happened.”

If this was an issue MPs would be the first on the band wagon. I have never seen guns mentioned in any literature pushed through the door by MPs or prospective MPs.

I doubt you will find any reliable survey on the issue which means that you have the choice either to believe or disbelieve every UK poster here who all say that the majority do not want firearms legalised.

 

[Ocelot]

Surely it's more like someone who keeps the armbands on all of the time, just in case they might fall in? Even though there's a fence around it. And they can swim.

The point being that for a typical American, statistics show that having a gun in your house does not make you safer.

There is an admittedly very small chance that the gun will be used to harm a member of your family, either through accident or (temporary) loss of emotional control. What's more privately held guns are regularly stolen and used by criminals who, as felons should be barred from gun ownership. More innocents get harmed.

Small though that chance is, it is a greater chance than the miniscule risk of an intruder causing you harm in such a way that would be prevented by having a gun.

Some gun enthusiasts make special pleading into an art-form in trying to deny this. "I'm responsible with my gun," "My guns has a safety," "I have a gun safe," "members of my family are taught to respect (worship?) the power of guns" All well and good with regard to reducing accidents. These are sensible precautions to take but the statistics for accidents include many people who claimed the same safety measure. Apparently these precautions aren't 100% effective. And that doesn't even touch upon such measures having no effect on loss of emotional control and little effect on your gun being used by the very criminals they're intended to protect against.

Then of course, as well as attempting to deny the apparent risk involved in owning a gun, they attempt to over emphasise the dangers in not having a gun. "What if you're weak and feeble and your attacker is large and strong?" "Danger is everywhere, from the gangstas on the streets or from the evils of big government." They've been known to paint a truly apocalyptic picture of society.

Perhaps you really are particularly vulnerable to attack, lets say you live in an anarchic war zone where rape gangs roam the streets looking for widows and orphans to pillage. Or maybe you live in the wilds amongst dangerous animals. In these cases, the increased danger may well outweigh the risks of gun ownership. However there may be more cost effective and risk free ways of increasing household security. Window locks, alarm systems and other purely defensive measures spring to mind.

In general though for most of us in a civilised western democracy the threats that drive the claimed right to be armed are far lower than the inherent danger of bringing a gun into your house.

Now the enthusiasts are familiar with the argument. "So what if guns are dangerous?" "We take responsibility for our own actions." "We don't need no nanny state taking away anything that could be dangerous" they get sarcastic at this point "What about kitchen knives they can be deadly, should the government take them away too?" "A car is a lethal weapon, I s'pose you wanna give them up?"

So fuelled by this crowing they just can't hear the cost benefit analysis being patiently explained one more time. A gun's sole purpose is harming people and animals. That's what's it's made for. Take it away and less people will be harmed. Here's the kicker less innocent people will be harmed. Take guns away and you save more innocent lives than bad guys. Fact, rock solid gold plated, I can prove this in court of law using a flip chart and slide rule. Take cars and kitchen knives away you may well save a few innocent lives but the cost is much higher as these other tools have a different primary purpose.

But they're too busy crowing to acknowledge this fact. They know it's a fact. They hear it all the time, they've just built up defences against it.

You know, I don't have too much of a problem with them having their guns. Their real reasons are sound. They enjoy guns. For sport, for a hobby, for the joy of owning a well engineered efficient machine even the thrill of dealing with danger. Daddy had a gun and when taught to respect it they learnt to revere it. It's a badge of responsible manhood like a driving licence or the right to drink beer. If they're honest about their reasons and responsible in managing the risks that's fine with me.

The trouble is that if gun violence in society is too high, if too many innocents are dying these reasons don't seem enough to offset their deaths. You want to hunt? But people are dying. You want a hobby? But people are dying. You like its shiny well oiled efficiency? But people are dying. You have a constitutionally enshrined tradition? But people are dying.

That's where self defence comes in. As the prevalence of privately owned guns makes society more dangerous then the self defence argument starts to look more valid. The very problem they create can start to be used to justify their easy availability.

Fortunately you're not there yet. The dangers from society are not so great that they outweigh the risks of gun ownership. For everybody's sake I hope it never gets there. As it stands to bang on about their right to self defence means they must distort the cost benefit analysis. That's the harm of these debates. To justify their guns they trivialise the dangers, sometimes to the extent of pretending they’re not there and that can lead to irresponsibility. They also over inflate the dangers that the gun is supposed to protect against and that leads to paranoia.

It's this assault on the facts, this denial of reality that gets me riled up.

Gun owners, put your family and other innocents at risk if you want. I do in many different ways. It's a manageable risk and we're no nanny state. Just don't lie about it. Don't pretend you're actually making your world a safer place. That's a dishonest self serving lie and does little to demonstrate the levels of responsibility that would make me feel happier about you arming yourself. I just can't help thinking of some of you as irresponsible and paranoid. The last people I would trust with a gun.

 

[Architect]

I suppose what annoys me is that a problem with gun deaths undoubtedly exists, even in the UK. The status quo is not an option, unless you consider needless deaths somehow acceptable.

Now the gun lobby point to, say, car accidents or alcohol related deaths. But in actual fact we take a lot of steps to reduce these - safer vehicles, strict legislation, public education and warning campaigns, and so on - so the comparison isn't particularly helpful (well, not to the gun lobby).

SO let's turn it the other way. If we accept a need to reduce gun deaths in the US, how can it best be effected? In the UK, Europe, Canada, and the Antipodes we have consistently tighted gun laws, and so far so good. But what is the answer for America?

 

[volatile]

I think we established in previous threads that cars are actually more regulated, harder to own and more bureaucratically difficult to buy and sell than guns are anyway. It's a stupid analogy.

The government in the UK has a record of every motor vehicle. All vehicles are required to be tested annually for safety. All vehicle owners have to take a competency test before they are able to drive. Everyone driving a car must have insurance adequate to compensate the victims should an accident occur or should the vehicle be misused The government has to be notified when a car is bought, sold, scrapped or stolen.

If there were half the regulations on gun ownership that there are on car ownership, America would be moving in the right direction. I mean, I find it utterly bizarre, for example, that even where there are background checks on gun acquisition from gun shops, it's actually completely legal to sell your gun on to anyone you choose.

 

[JoeEllison]

I think we established in previous threads that cars are actually more regulated, harder to own and more bureaucratically difficult to buy and sell than guns are anyway. It's a stupid analogy.

The government in the UK has a record of every motor vehicle. All vehicles are required to be tested annually for safety. All vehicle owners have to take a competency test before they are able to drive. Everyone driving a car must have insurance adequate to compensate the victims should an accident occur or should the vehicle be misused The government has to be notified when a car is bought, sold, scrapped or stolen.

If there were half the regulations on gun ownership that there are on car ownership, America would be moving in the right direction. I mean, I find it utterly bizarre, for example, that even where there are background checks on gun acquisition from gun shops, it's actually completely legal to sell your gun on to anyone you choose.

And cars might kill if used improperly, while guns are made to kill, if used properly. There's no logic when it comes to gun nuttery.

 

[Architect]

Aha, but if the state try and take over the country you can run them over.....etc etc.

 

[cloudshipsrule]

There's no logic when it comes to gun nuttery.

Not all with guns is nuttery.

 

[JoeEllison]

Not all with guns is nuttery.

I never said it was. Of course, when someone tells me that they need the high-capacity magazine for their pistol because they might not be able to hold off the pack of gang members trying to kill them in their house, or they claim they need a stockpile of assault rifles and ammo based on the plot of that Patrick Swayze movie Red Dawn... that's nuttery.

 

[JoeEllison]

Aha, but if the state try and take over the country you can run them over.....etc etc.

Or at least you can drive away?

 

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

I suppose what annoys me is that a problem with gun deaths undoubtedly exists, even in the UK. The status quo is not an option, unless you consider needless deaths somehow acceptable.

The needless deaths are the accidental ones, right?

GB's homicide rate hasn't gone down since the most recent gun ban. If we ban blue cars, and there are no more blue-car deaths, are we any safer if the automotive death rate doesn't go down, or do you just closely examine on cause of death and ignore the rest?

Another possibility: In Indiana, an review of about 1,000 convicted murderers showed that ninety-two percent of them had criminal histories. Now the study didn't say that they had criminal records, mind, but it does seem to indicate that a rather lot of the people getting convicred of murder wouldn't really care about out banning guns in the first place, right?

What good is a ban to which the people who are performing the crime won't pay attention? (I seem to remember something about alcoholic beverage and post-World-War-one, over here.)

About the accidental firearms deaths in the he US: The US Department of Transportation places firearm accidental death risk... drat... can't find the document... something like TENTH, after stuff automotive (based on 1.3 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles), poisons, bicycles, large trucks, railroads (including vehicle and crossing grade deaths), being pedestrian.

You'd have a greater effect by banning poisonous household chemicals (which are made to kill, as well) than banning guns.

Now the gun lobby point to, say, car accidents or alcohol related deaths. But in actual fact we take a lot of steps to reduce these - safer vehicles, strict legislation, public education and warning campaigns, and so on - so the comparison isn't particularly helpful (well, not to the gun lobby).

We take steps to reduce gun deaths, too. Guns are safer now than they used to be. We have hammer disconnects, internal safeties, and safeties that immobilize the firing pin. We have stricter laws against their misuse. The NRA sponsors child gun safety classes. (Stop. Don't touch. Move away. Call an adult.) Some states have mandatory firearms safety classes as a prerequisite for issuance of any form of license involving firearms. Every gun hunting season, we have gun safety warning campaigns.

The results are seen in the comparatively low rate of accidental gun deaths I mentioned above.

SO let's turn it the other way. If we accept a need to reduce gun deaths in the US, how can it best be effected? In the UK, Europe, Canada, and the Antipodes we have consistently tighted gun laws, and so far so good. But what is the answer for America?

In that review I mentioned earlier, they listed the top five motives for the crime. Two of them, felony homicide (causing a death during the commission of a felony) and silencing a witness to a previous crime made up 63% of the homicides (the total of the first five was 122% of the convicts, so I left of the other 3 because of the possibility of overlap).

This means that most of the homicides have their roots in criminal intent.

How do you get criminals to NOT intend to commit crimes?

I think a review of the drug laws would go a long way, myself, but I'm demonstrably on the wrong side of the criminal/victim line, so I don't know for certain.

 

[The Painter]

In the USA, Doctors kill more people than guns do. Ban the doctors!!!!

 

[Architect]

Is it just me, or has Gaggle not answered my question?

 

[Rufo]

I encourage everyone, especially those opposed to gun control, to read Ocelot's post above in its entirety. It will save everyone involved a lot of stupid.

 

[The Painter]

In all this mostly pointless babble no one has mentioned the association of the illegal drug trade, or even just drug use, in relation to gun deaths. Check the FBI records an overwhelming majority of gun shootings are drug related. These are generally not good law abiding people doing the shooting, they are bad people. I’ll bet your crank dealer has a gun, even in jolly old England.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

In all this mostly pointless babble no one has mentioned the association of the illegal drug trade, or even just drug use, in relation to gun deaths. Check the FBI records an overwhelming majority of gun shootings are drug related. These are generally not good law abiding people doing the shooting, they are bad people. I’ll bet your crank dealer has a gun, even in jolly old England.

Oh noes! Let me grab my AK!!!1!11

Seriously, even assuming this is true, why exactly is it evidece we should be armed to the teeth?

 

[JoeEllison]

Is it just me, or has Gaggle not answered my question?

It isn't just you.

 

[The Painter]

Seriously, even assuming this is true, why exactly is it evidece we should be armed to the teeth?

I never said you should be armed to the teeth. I never said you should be armed at all. If you don't want a gun, don't get one. That's fine, but don't tell me as a law abiding citizen that I can't have one.