Gun Control is ridiculous

[volatile]

How many of those could have been combated with a fire extinguisher?

Probably a great deal of them.

How many of those could have been prevented by armed citizens?

Seeing as about 50 of them were CAUSED by armed citizens, your percentage of preventions would have to be pretty damn high. Do fire extinguishers cause fires?

No, what keeps passing you by is that no one is claiming anywhere near any kind of guarantee. Many house fires happen even with a fire extinguisher; does that mean that fire extinguishers don't do you any good?

Fire extinguishers don't put your house at greater risk or fire, nor does it increase your neighbour and fellow man's chance of immolation. Guns, however, cause death and injury as much as they prevent it. Your analogy is absurd.

And how are you going to stop that?

I know! Give everyone else guns! That'd do it. Make guns freely available, on every high street in the country.

Oh no, wait. That wouldn't work. Maybe you'd reduce them by having better controls on gun imports, stricter penalties for carrying weapons and outlawing the sale of replica and air weapons that can be converted to real ones, for a start.

 

[Shaun from Scotland]

Oh no, wait. That wouldn't work. Maybe you'd reduce them by having better controls on gun imports, stricter penalties for carrying weapons and outlawing the sale of replica and air weapons that can be converted to real ones, for a start.

I'd settle for ANY form of border control as a good start.

 

[baron]

Thats great when do we start forcing everyone to live in locked rooms?

Go round waving your weapon and that's where you'll end up. Or dead.

 

[CFLarsen]

Until she's done something violent and against the law there's no point in arguing this; does anyone trust Britney Spears with a child?

Hell, we can't even trust our astronauts with diapers and duct tape, but until they've broken the law you don't know - would banning duct tape cut back on abductions by psychos?

This whole debate closely resemble the debate on violent video games - it's not the dedicated gamers who are shooting people and it's not the law-abiding gun owners who are shooting people either.

Would Britney Spears pass a gun check today?

Geez. I posted on this thread last night and then went to bed. I wake up this morning and there are like a million more posts. I have tried to read through them.

Well here are a couple of questions that I do not believe have been answered yet. To all of you gun control fans and specifically Larsen since it was first addressed to him and he never got around to answering the questions:

1. Do you believe that education and more responsibility would help cut down on gun related deaths?

2. If an invader broke into your home, and was coming up the steps towards your room or your children's rooms, would you wish that you had a gun?

You know, actually reading my posts (specifically #192) can be quite enlightening.

 

[shanek]

Of course more responsibility and education would help cut down on accidental gun deaths. I like the idea of a true gun license that has actual training and safety requirements attached. I think that hardcore gun people (NRA), while advocating training, oppose mandatory training as it would inhibit the right to bear arms.

Let me posit a hypothetical (after all, everyone else here has): Let's say a battered woman is threatened by her husband. She's tried to leave him, he keeps following her and finding her. He's violating a restraining order to do so. He has directly threatened to kill her. And, as so often happens in these cases, the police do nothing until he actually tries--in which case it's often too late.

She wants to get a gun so she can kill her husband if he breaks in and tries to kill her. Why should she have to wait, go through a training course etc., when he could very likely try to kill her tomorrow? Or this afternoon?

The first flippant answer is that I would want a gun if zombies attacked my house, or the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park broke loose, or if a gang of drug crazed indy professional wrestlers decided to have their battle royal in my living room with me as the guy who has to get repeatedly beaten with a metal chair. But I don't see any of those as likely.

I don't see a house fire as that likely, either. I still have my fire extinguisher.

The serious answer is that in order for the gun to be of any use, it would have to be accessible quickly in a groggy state in the middle of the night. But I don't want to have a gun that accessible in my house.

So, you've done a risk/benefit analysis and decided that the risks of having a gun aren't worth the benefits. Fair enough, but why take the option away from people who have concluded the opposite?

 

[shanek]

A primary school teacher, doing roll call for 6 year olds, armed?

Ok.....

Instead of being dismissive (a most unskeptic-like quality, I must say), why not do a search for "Joel Myrick" and then get back to me?

 

[shanek]

Probably a great deal of them.

Well, you've just proven you don't know squat about fires or fire extinguishers. They can only extinguish small fires, so they're really only handy for small fires, like in the kitchen, when you're there the moment they start. If you wake up to the smoke alarm, a fire extinguisher might help you fight your way out, but don't rely on it. Go out the window.

Most fires cannot be combated by a fire extinguisher.

Seeing as about 50 of them were CAUSED by armed citizens,

Data? You're really good at making up figures, not so good at backing them up.

your percentage of preventions would have to be pretty damn high.

2-3x according to the video in the OP, and that's on the low end of the studies calculating this.

Do fire extinguishers cause fires?

No, and guns don't cause crime.

Guns, however, cause death and injury as much as they prevent it.

Are you ever going to do anything even remotely resembling supporting this? Again, all of the data say otherwise.

Oh no, wait. That wouldn't work. Maybe you'd reduce them by having better controls on gun imports, stricter penalties for carrying weapons and outlawing the sale of replica and air weapons that can be converted to real ones, for a start.

Doesn't work with drugs; why would it work with guns?

 

[richardm]

Guess I really don't get this mindset. You would take a human life for $200 worth of electronics?

Man, that's callous.

This is part of the reason these gun threads never reach a conclusion. There is a basic difference of thinking between people who think their property is their property full stop, and that anyone who tries to interfere with it has forfeited any rights they have, including the right to life. And then there are people who don't. I don't think there is anyway to bridge that gap.

I would say, however, that as has been pointed out in this thread the culture and circumstances of at least parts of America is very different to the UK, and I have been largely convinced by previous threads that any attempts to remove guns from the general population would probably end very badly (I mean, it's a country where the police apparently have no duty to protect citizens, so where does that leave them?).

This is not the case in the UK, and attempts to remove guns cause only annoyance for the people who like to have guns, and not the total breakdown of society (Daily Mail opinion notwithstanding).

 

[Shaun from Scotland]

Instead of being dismissive (a most unskeptic-like quality, I must say), why not do a search for "Joel Myrick" and then get back to me?

Sorry, but I think most sensible people in the UK would find the idea of a society were teachers are armed sick, twisted and frankly horrific. I am dismissive of the idea because it makes as much sense as arming the children.

 

[baron]

How many of those could have been prevented by armed citizens?

Do you think you've missed any reasoning here? Anything at all?

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

<snip>
Businesses will post signs outside saying no firearms allowed. Do they honestly think that is going to stop a criminal from coming into their business and stealing/shooting people?
<snip>

At least with Ohio's CCL, there is a clause in the law that states that business owners may put up such signs, and if you are a holder of a CCL, and carrying, you can not take your firearm on to the premises.

 

[volatile]

Data? You're really good at making up figures, not so good at backing them up.

The links to UK homicide stats have already been linked. If if you need it repeating, try here for starters. Exactly 50 gun-related homicides.

Are you ever going to do anything even remotely resembling supporting this? Again, all of the data say otherwise.

Well, again, others have posted the numbers. The homicide rate in the UK, where we have strict gun control, is several orders of magnitude higher than in the US, where you don't. Why's that?

 

[shanek]

This is part of the reason these gun threads never reach a conclusion. There is a basic difference of thinking between people who think their property is their property full stop, and that anyone who tries to interfere with it has forfeited any rights they have, including the right to life.

Well, no, that's not the point. If someone has broken into your home, you don't know what he's going to do. And above all, you don't know how he's going to react when he sees you. It is quite reasonable to believe that there is the possibility that your life is in jeopardy.

 

[shanek]

Sorry, but I think most sensible people in the UK would find the idea of a society were teachers are armed sick, twisted and frankly horrific.

Sorry, but this is argumentum ad populum at best, pathetic namecalling at worst.

Why are you afraid to look up the case I'm referring to?

 

[shanek]

Do you think you've missed any reasoning here? Anything at all?

Well, the occasional answer to one of my questions would be nice.

 

[shanek]

The links to UK homicide stats have already been linked.

Yes, invalid cross-cultural comparisons with not even the basest attempts at doing a regression analysis. If that's the best you've got, it's worthless.

 

[richardm]

Well, no, that's not the point. If someone has broken into your home, you don't know what he's going to do.

No indeed, however we have also discussed cases where e.g. a car was stolen from a driveway or a bin set alight, etc. and several US posters expressed their view that killing people for incidents that seem relatively minor is A-OK, to the astonishment of others.

Incidentally, Joel Myrick kept his gun in a locked strongbox in his car, he wasn't carrying it around on his person as a matter of course as Shaun seems to assume, and which would seem a bit bizarre. I think that if guns were legal and common to have then probably parents wouldn't have a problem with them being kept in such a way - although it's interesting to see that Myrick also faced some stern criticism for holding his gun to a student's head (an attitude that I find rather strange considering what the student was doing at the time - which, he wouldn't have been doing if there were no guns available to him of course.... Sorry, the devil made me type that, I swear)

 

[baron]

Sorry, but I think most sensible people in the UK would find the idea of a society were teachers are armed sick, twisted and frankly horrific. I am dismissive of the idea because it makes as much sense as arming the children.

It was said earlier, but this is part of the reason why arguments like this go on ad infinitum; most people from the UK cannot believe that things like this actually occur. A teacher with a gun in his car. Unbelievable.

Of course, various aspects of this story escape the gun fanatics. Firstly, that the kid was actually leaving the campus when he was accosted by the gun-weilding teacher. Second, that the whole problem started when a kid got hold of... a gun. Duh.

It reminds me (circuitously) of a reality TV show on Sky the other night. It was basically following around cops in some US city. One incident was a drunk, totally off his head, firing a shotgun in a crowded park. One cop took the gun away, apologising, saying "We'll give it you back tomorrow but you must understand you can't just shoot the place up." Then they went on their way! In the UK the guy would have done 5 years, and rightly so.

 

[Quad4_72]

Yes, but no matter how much education you do you would not get down to the UK level.

Alright. That is a good start then

No.

And why no? What would you do to defend yourself then? To defend your family? If the attacker himself had a gun, everyone in the household would be dead if the intruder chose. Everything would be at his mercy. Would you really want you and your family to be victims and possibly die just because you have a personal agenda against guns? Are you aware that in all likeliness just shooting one warning shot in his direction would undoubtedly send him fleeing?

 

[Shaun from Scotland]

Sorry, but this is argumentum ad populum at best, pathetic namecalling at worst.

Why are you afraid to look up the case I'm referring to?

No Shanek it's a moral perspective on the world, and it's one which I happen to think would be shared by most people I know. The fact that you don't like it is neither here nor there.

What happens in YOUR country and what YOUR country's perspective on arming teachers is YOUR country's business. Courage doesn't come into it.

And I have plenty.