Gun Control is ridiculous

[Quad4_72]

Haha! Considering my terrible maths, probably not!

Hey, I am just going by YOUR statistics here.

 

[volatile]

Ah but see this is a point that I have argued and no one has seemed to have been able to find a rebuttal. Would better education and responsibility by gun owners not help eliminate that factor?

It wouldn't eliminate it. It would reduce it.

Getting rid of private gun ownership altogether would reduce it even further.

 

[shanek]

It's probably easier to crack down on guns than drugs, because manufacturing and distributing weaponry is harder than manufacturing and distributing drugs, for a variety of reasons - drugs can be grown and manufactured in private residences,

Some drugs can. Others, like meth and crack, are a bit more difficult.

drugs are able to be transported in very small consignments, a drug dealer can distribute thousands of hits on his own, with them about his person.

But a drug addict needs lots of drugs over a period of time; a criminal only needs one gun.

We'd be better off with teachers with guns, then?

Just like we'd be better off legalizing drugs.

 

[Quad4_72]

It wouldn't eliminate it. It would reduce it.

Getting rid of private gun ownership altogether would reduce it even further.

Do you honestly think this is plausible in the US? Private gun ownership has been in our constitution for a VERY long time. Also think of how the criminals would take this. What would then become of the black market for guns? Criminals would simply go to the black market to get their guns, and citizens would be defenseless.

 

[volatile]

Some drugs can. Others, like meth and crack, are a bit more difficult.



But a drug addict needs lots of drugs over a period of time; a criminal only needs one gun.



Just like we'd be better off legalizing drugs.

I'd legalise drugs too. Then the turf-war gangs wouldn't need as many guns...

What this has to do with routinely arming teachers and stopping kids getting hold of guns, I'm not sure.

 

[shanek]

1.7m in 10 years. 33% gun ownership (families). Family avg 2.6 people. Avg 2 guns per household (1.73 per owner, so likely more, but still). 1.7/65 * 7 (assuming 7 decade lifespan) = 18% = 1 in 5.

You've a 1 in 5 chance of having your gun stolen. OK?

Um, I'm pretty good at math. According to the ATF (or whatever they're called nowadays) there are [SIZE=-1]223 million guns in the US; I think the number has gone up since that statistic, but we'll go with it. 1.7 million stolen in 10 years, so the % of guns stolen in the last 10 years is 0.762%. Those are your chances of your gun being stolen in a 10 year time frame. That's a LOT less than 1 in 5!!!
[/SIZE]

 

[shanek]

I'll rephrase my claim, slightly. You're more likely in general to be shot as a gun owner. That actually strengthens my case, however, not weakens it.

1) You still need to provide evidence to back up this claim, and

2) Once you do that, you still need to show that it's not a correlation/causation fallacy. Maybe a lot of people buy guns because they're worried about someone killing them (battered women, say), and then that person does kill them.

 

[Lonewulf]

Y'know, I'd like to once see a JREF discussion where people weren't making attacks against each other. Seriously.

I enjoy shooting guns and I'm a decent shot but I don't own one they are too dangerous. For home defense I have a taser and I think that's more than enough. Why do you need to risk killing the intruder? A taser is a much more sane method.

Tazers can kill too, though. In fact, some police officers, assuming that stun guns were "perfectly safe", would even use them multiple times against a single opponent (often causing serious health problems within the assailant), or even against pregnant women and the like.

The fact is that tazers are not the "ultra safe" weapon that people make 'em out to be; and if your target already has health problems (such as a bad heart), a tazer will not make it easier on 'em.

Plus, tazers have a very short distance, and the gas-propelled ones, from what I understand, are only really good for one shot. They're a decent self-defense device, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't put too much stock in them.

Would you shoot a man dead if he was robbing your house? If he was stealing your wallet? Do you advocate the death penalty for pick-pocketing?

Only if he pointed a gun at me. Only if he pointed a weapon at me. No. Actually, I'm anti-death penalty altogether. I'm only for killing another human being if it is absolutely necessary; in a situation where a man is threatening my life or the life of another, then I count that as "necessary". And I don't equate the death penalty with self defense; the death penalty is after the apprehension, disarming, and detaining of the criminal in question. At that point, he's more or less harmless compared to when he's in my house, with a weapon (whether firearm or not). The two do not equate.

I'd also add that Prisoners of War are not considered the same as prisoners on the battlefield, and comparing the two would be equally ridiculous.

I hear all this talk of "self-defence", but all that really means is the establishment of a vigilante culture where the gun-owning individual is free to dispense summary execution at the moment of his or her choosing.

This seems like a fairly ridiculous strawman. I'm certainly not advocating that. I do believe that in one of my posts up there, I specifically mentioned being taught guns safety. That includes when to fire your firearm, and how to handle that firearm.

Say someone robs you in a dark alley - he doesn't want to kill you, just steal your mobile phone. Would you pull the gun on that guy? Is street robbery a capital crime?

Yes, I would pull my gun out. In fact, before that I would shout, "I HAVE A GUN!" In many situations, the robber would stop almost immediately and back off. The average criminal does not want to be shot, so he would back off.

And once more, street robbery is not a capital crime. But murder is, and I would willingly kill someone if I felt that he was endangering my life, or the life of another. This is usually when the person is armed with a firearm himself, or a melee weapon (such as a knife) within a range of at most 7 yards (People can cover distances pretty quickly).

 

[Loss Leader]

Still investigating statistics, but start here: http://www.csgv.org/docUploads/Gun Violence Fact Sheet.pdf

More than half of all fatal shootings in the US in 2003 were suicides or accidental discharge.

A gun in the home in 7 times more likely to be used to commit a crime than to prevent one.

 

[volatile]

Do you honestly think this is plausible in the US? Private gun ownership has been in our constitution for a VERY long time. Also think of how the criminals would take this. What would then become of the black market for guns? Criminals would simply go to the black market to get their guns, and citizens would be defenseless.

Yup, there are lots of guns in the US. And of course it'd be difficult to achieve a sea change in opinion such that the private arsenal would be surrendered. But I think there are fewer criminals and killers than you think there are, and that, as the UK has shown, guns can be removed from private ownership without risking the downfall of civilised society, and with the positive benefit that we've had NO kids go on shooting rampages, virtually no-one accidentally injured by guns, low-level criminals are generally unarmed, the police are unarmed and generally we're all safer from the spectre of gun crime.

There are still problems, and gun crime is still a huge problem. But it would undoubtedly be worse were guns more freely available.

Basically, it's much nicer, much less scary, much less paranoid to live in a country where you know people aren't armed. It's nicer to know that the police force don;t have to carry firearms as a matter of course. It's great not to live under the paranoid delusion that I could be shot dead at any moment.

Freedom from guns is freedom from the tyranny of fear.

 

[Quad4_72]

Volatile, you made two claims and both of which have not been substantiated by evidence. Do you retract them? For example, the statistics you provided me showed that I have a .7% chance to have my gun stolen. Do you retract your claim that I am likely to have my gun stolen?

 

[shanek]

More than half of all fatal shootings in the US in 2003 were suicides or accidental discharge.

Well, yeah, because there are more suicides than homicides. Eliminate the suicides (which would happen regardless of whether or not the person had a gun), and then what do you have?

A gun in the home in 7 times more likely to be used to commit a crime than to prevent one.

This is the long-discredited Kellerman data, and it's completely fraudulent. Even he recently downgraded it to less than 3, but he still based it all on correlation/causation fallacies.

 

[Lonewulf]

It's great not to live under the paranoid delusion that I could be shot dead at any moment.

I certainly don't have that "paranoid delusion". It's interesting that you would word it that way...

'Cause, y'know, a "paranoid delusion of being shot dead at any moment in an armed society" sounds about your argument altogether.

"paranoid" and "delusion" tends to refer to a mental disorder of not being in touch with reality.

 

[volatile]

Volatile, you made two claims and both of which have not been substantiated by evidence. Do you retract them? For example, the statistics you provided me showed that I have a .7% chance to have my gun stolen. Do you retract your claim that I am likely to have my gun stolen?

I said you were more likely cumulatively to have your gun stolen, to have it cause and accident etc. than to encounter the very specific circumstance in which a gun would have saved your life.

It seems, yes, that it's not that likely that your gun will be stolen. Less likely than I may have suggested. But I didn't say that it was in and of itself likely... I said, what's more likely:

"That, or someone injuring themselves, or the gun being stolen, or the attacker shooting you first?"

If we add up the stats, including LL's one that " A gun in the home in 7 times more likely to be used to commit a crime than to prevent one", it's almost certainly more likely that your gun will cause more harm than good in your lifetime.

Furthermore, this is to be offset against the zero percent chance of your gun causing any harm if you didn't have one in the first place.

 

[volatile]

I certainly don't have that "paranoid delusion". It's interesting that you would word it that way...

'Cause, y'know, a "paranoid delusion of being shot dead at any moment in an armed society" sounds about your argument altogether.

"paranoid" and "delusion" tends to refer to a mental disorder of not being in touch with reality.

Carrying guns is not the default position of society. It's you that seems to feel a need to carry guns to "protect" yourself from some unspecified threat.

 

[Quad4_72]

I said you were more likely cumulatively to have your gun stolen, to have it cause and accident etc. than to encounter the very specific circumstance in which a gun would have saved your life.

It seems, yes, that it's not that likely that your gun will be stolen. Less likely than I may have suggested. But I didn't say that it was in and of itself likely... I said, what's more likely:

"That, or someone injuring themselves, or the gun being stolen, or the attacker shooting you first?"

If we add up the stats, including LL's one that " A gun in the home in 7 times more likely to be used to commit a crime than to prevent one", it's almost certainly more likely that your gun will cause more harm than good in your lifetime.

Furthermore, this is to be offset against the zero percent chance of your gun causing any harm if you didn't have one in the first place.

about 30,000 deaths a year from guns. Millions of gun owners. what is 30,00 deaths a year divided by millions of gun owners? How likely did you say it was that my gun was going to cause me harm?

 

[Lonewulf]

Carrying guns is not the default position of society.

Well...

1) Weapons have been available to the public since the first tribes formed together and started hunting.

2) America kinda has it in the second amendment that we have the right to carry firearms (and have a citizen militia).

3) It's been a more or less recent development that the average individual were not as capable of defending themselves. Firearms, especially those available for mass sale, have only been available relatively recently.

It's you that seems to feel a need to carry guns to "protect" yourself from some unspecified threat.

It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. This is kinda common sense.

If I run into a single encounter in my lifetime where I need a firearm, that single encounter will spell out the rest of my life. Even if it rarely occurs, even if it doesn't have an amazingly high chance of happening, it may happen at one time in the future. I do not want that event to claim my life or the life of another.

Further, almost everyone that I know has had to deal with a potentially volatile (heh) situation at one time or another. Heck, someone I know had to protect his truck from being stolen... he did it unarmed, though. Yet, even unarmed, people are able to injure each other. But wait! I thought you could "only go vigilante" if you don't have a gun, right?

 

[volatile]

about 30,000 deaths a year from guns. Millions of gun owners. what is 30,00 deaths a year divided by millions of gun owners? How likely did you say it was that my gun was going to cause me harm?

Cause harm, not cause YOU harm.

How many of those 30,000 gun deaths wouldn't have happened if there was a ban on gun ownership?

 

[Lonewulf]

How many of those 30,000 gun deaths wouldn't have happened if there was a ban on gun ownership?

How many of them would have been as a result of other forms of hurting someone? Guns do not have a monopoly on being able to injure another person.

If we're talking robberies, then wouldn't the majority of robbers replace "guns" with "knives"?

If we're talking accidents, then wouldn't simply being taught guns safety relieve that situation?

If it's a condition of suicides, then wouldn't they just learn how to jump off bridges better?

If it's a case of homicides, then wouldn't they replace "guns" with "any item that can kill"? I know several serial killers got a kick strangling their victims.

 

[Quad4_72]

Well...
It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. This is kinda common sense.

If I run into a single encounter in my lifetime where I need a firearm, that single encounter will spell out the rest of my life. Even if it rarely occurs, even if it doesn't have an amazingly high chance of happening, it may happen at one time in the future. I do not want that event to claim my life or the life of another.

Further, almost everyone that I know has had to deal with a potentially volatile (heh) situation at one time or another. Heck, someone I know had to protect his truck from being stolen... he did it unarmed, though. Yet, even unarmed, people are able to injure each other. But wait! I thought you could "only go vigilante" if you don't have a gun, right?

This is a point I have been trying to make for some time now.