When we ban guns in the US

[archibaldcrane]

So if the US is around 8k gun murders a year or so - I wonder how much that would be reduced with varying legislation:

Nationwide registration standardization/background check
Assault weapons ban reinstated (with no gun show loophole)
Handgun ban implemented nationwide

and, for the people that don't want some or any of the above, how many murders would have to be reduced for them to switch to being for it?

Like seriously, say we amend the constitution and ban (virtually) all handguns and non-hunting rifles like England did. If we get down to 5k gun murders a year, worth it? 3k? 800?

Obviously some people place no value on an armed population and would say a single life saved would be worth it, and some place such a value on the freedom to bear arms that the consequences of such freedom are completely irrelevant, but I'm curious what people would A) Expect and B) Demand to make such legislation "worth it".

[kuronosan]

Guns deliver damage and death more efficiently than an edged weapon (I agree). But, edged weapon attacks are still far more prevalent than gun attacks. It's a matter of availability. Everyone says guns are more accessible than ever before because there are more guns, which is true. Not nearly as much as an edged weapon. That's why when we're trained as police officers to respond to a deadly threat force, you treat someone with a knife just like you would a gun because in the end, you can end up just as dead. They teach us the Fairbairn's Timetable of Death in knife defense, which is a far more hands on and requires MUCH more repetition than gun offense. The difference between something like 6 weeks of hands on knife/hands defense compared to two weeks of gun DEFENSE and four weeks of gun OFFENSE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._Fairbairn

Chart developed from his teachings:



The average sport knife sold in the U.S. (I say Sport Knife but I mean any crappy Gerber you can pick up at Wal-Mart) has an average blade length of 3 inches. Only one of the spots identified on the chart is more than 3 inches (The heart is 3 1/2 inches but i'm saying thrusting power if you're aiming for the spot, you'll at least nick it) and it's the stomach. The target areas might not seem that big but look at the areas that get cut the most during a knife encounter (arms). Easy to bleed out and die from a small shallow wound on those areas.

Knife attacks are generally much more dangerous because 99% of the time, they are spontaneous. They happen well within your average reaction zone (4-6 feet generally). It's a quick flick of the wrist or thumb on spring-loaded models of stabbing instruments and if the person knows what they're doing, they're on you and the knife is in you before you can blink. Reaction is always slower than action. Of course, training can help and being wary is always a good thing but just because you didn't die from a knife attack, does it make it any less dangerous/gruesome/damaging to your mind? Some of those kids in China will be scarred and maimed for life. Some of them will probably never recover from the injuries inflicted upon them. I would rather die than to suffer an excruciating life of agony and pain from a near-mortal wound inflicted upon me that debilitates or permanently scars me and then the emotional trauma?

And yes I agree, it's far more likely someone will defend themselves against a knife than a gun. People associate gun with danger because that's how it's portrayed and (rightfully so) it's something you should run away from. But not a knife because people haven't been taught that knives or edged weapons are just as dangerous as a gun. Whatever might have instilled this line of thinking weather it be gun violence is more hyped, or maybe knives are just an everyday part of our daily lives that we don't think that the kitchen knife we pick up to cut our sandwiches could someday be used to kill us, I don't know.

All I know is regardless of how you feel about guns, don't discredit the maniacal and brutal aspect of the human psyche. While a gun attack is a very efficient, methodical, and brutal way of killing people, it takes a far greater amount of "bat shit insane" to go up to a person (especially a child) and stab that person with a knife. It takes a level of crazy far beyond the most talented and brutal gun touting psycho to get up close and personal with another human being (ESPECIALLY a child) and maim, stab, cut off something, make less beautiful, or kill someone with a knife. Ask anyone who's been in a firefight and ask them how fucked up they were after killing someone with a gun. It'll be far less than when you had to ram a knife in to someones temple or dig a blade up their ribcage to sever all the internal organs in the upper torso.

which is why these little shits are much more likely to use a gun. Thank you for proving my point.

[Nephlite]

There anything approaching a point in this mess? You can still kill more people with a gun than a knife, and mass fatalities have happened far more often with firearms than knives.

Yes knives are deadly, but who said they weren't?

Did not say that guns were less dangerous, agree wholeheartedly with gun control, and was responding to RKenshin. Why are you attacking me? Check the context. I wasn't talking to you so go gavotte with a unicorn in fantasy world.

So what?

So what to your what? Like I care what you think.

[Dimmauk]

I've had a knife and gun pulled on me, and I liked my odds of living against the knife.

[Dotsudoku]

So if the US is around 8k gun murders a year or so - I wonder how much that would be reduced with varying legislation:

Nationwide registration standardization/background check
Assault weapons ban reinstated (with no gun show loophole)
Handgun ban implemented nationwide

and, for the people that don't want some or any of the above, how many murders would have to be reduced for them to switch to being for it?

Like seriously, say we amend the constitution and ban (virtually) all handguns and non-hunting rifles like England did. If we get down to 5k gun murders a year, worth it? 3k? 800?

Obviously some people place no value on an armed population and would say a single life saved would be worth it, and some place such a value on the freedom to bear arms that the consequences of such freedom are completely irrelevant, but I'm curious what people would A) Expect and B) Demand to make such legislation "worth it".

Any reduction would be sufficient for me, granted we were somehow able to know that it was specifically because of our actions, and not because of natural fluctuation.

I don't know what this makes me, but I see absolutely no value in an armed population. Guns should be limited to those who are trained to use them to protect us. I think it's pretty infantile to believe that owning a firearm is an inalienable right. At the very most, the "right to arms" should be treated as "the right to defend oneself", which is exactly as ambiguous and open to the context of the time as it should be.

[RKenshin]

Did not say that guns were less dangerous, agree wholeheartedly with gun control, and was responding to RKenshin. Why are you attacking me? Check the context. I wasn't talking to you so go gavotte with a unicorn in fantasy world.



So what to your what? Like I care what you think.

I'm a little confused on how most of what you said relates my posts.

My *only* point here is that guns are far more common for and easy to commit mass murder with (particularly for the average person) than knives/swords/etc. That's it.

All the other stuff about the damage you can do with knives, and how, and whether they're more accessible or not, etc, is irrelevant noise that does nothing to address or change the above fact.

[Rhinox]

I've had a knife and gun pulled on me, and I liked my odds of living against the knife.

Especially since you can choke the life out of those little shits

[Churchill]

So if the US is around 8k gun murders a year or so - I wonder how much that would be reduced with varying legislation:

which is why these little shits are much more likely to use a gun. Thank you for proving my point.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...ar-860857.html

[Nephlite]

I'm a little confused on how most of what you said relates my posts.

My *only* point here is that guns are far more common for and easy to commit mass murder with (particularly for the average person) than knives/swords/etc. That's it.

All the other stuff about the damage you can do with knives, and how, and whether they're more accessible or not, etc, is irrelevant noise that does nothing to address or change the above fact.

I agreed with everything. I was taking a more exaggerated way of saying I think edged weapon crime is far more common than gun crime. I tend to ramble, type like crazy and just overall be a nuisance.

My perspective is that edged weapon violence is and always will be more common, traditionally a much bigger killer of people overall, and is much more dangerous than a gun encounter. Deadly and dangerous is the point I tried to make. Deadly in the fact that guns by nature were designed to kill more efficiently than a knife. Knives are sloppy, cumbersome killing tools but they've been around far longer than guns. Dangerous in the fact that you don't die every time from a knife fight but it's more of a state of "beyond kill" or you just get fucked up so bad you would rather be dead. Edged weapons do that to you more often than a gun. Hard to explain, rambling again, don't know if I got the point across. Will shut up now.

[Correction]

[Xno Kappa]

Wifey got me this sweet Galco holster for Christmas.



Shit's pretty nice for my duty weapon.

[RKenshin]

I agreed with everything. I was taking a more exaggerated way of saying I think edged weapon crime is far more common than gun crime. I tend to ramble, type like crazy and just overall be a nuisance.

My perspective is that edged weapon violence is and always will be more common, traditionally a much bigger killer of people overall, and is much more dangerous than a gun encounter. Deadly and dangerous is the point I tried to make. Deadly in the fact that guns by nature were designed to kill more efficiently than a knife. Knives are sloppy, cumbersome killing tools but they've been around far longer than guns. Dangerous in the fact that you don't die every time from a knife fight but it's more of a state of "beyond kill" or you just get fucked up so bad you would rather be dead. Edged weapons do that to you more often than a gun. Hard to explain, rambling again, don't know if I got the point across. Will shut up now.

Yeah, I get your point, but it's just on a different topic from the point I was making. I just think that frequency and ease of the average person causing damage is absolutely relevant in a discussion on what can be used to commit mass murder.

Appreciate the details anyway.

[Ashmada]

I won't get in to a debate with you because I know it won't amount to anything but stop trying to downplay the violence that's been well documented, especially in the article it says this:

Where did I downplay anything? I just pointed out that your anecdotal evidence doesn't answer RKenshin's argument in any way.

Anyway, what's even the point of bringing up knives? No one claimed stabbings weren't gruesome/deadly/whatever, but that has nothing to do with firearms and their availlability.
I know you're Robocop, but I'm not, and I'd much rather face an assaillant with an edged weapon than a firearm, personally. See, there's this thing about knives: they've got limited range.

[Niiro]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...ar-860857.html

You realize that article is about all knife violence and not deaths right?

According to that article, a whopping 27 people were killed by knives in 2007 nation wide.

[Nephlite]

Wifey got me this sweet Galco holster for Christmas.



Shit's pretty nice for my duty weapon.

Hate shoulder rigs. Can't wear them all day. Fuck with my back too much. My first plainclothes assignment I grabbed one and ended up doing surveillance for 4 weeks straight in the back of a stripped transport wagon with bucket seats bungee strapped to the exposed floor boards. Had bruises for weeks around my shoulders.

I can't understand how the Secret Service uses those Kel-Tec mid-line holsters for the MP-5C's they carry between their shoulder blades on escorts. I would probably kill myself if I had to deal with that shit all day.

[Boyiee]

And as mentioned in that post that threw you on the "this guy must be a retard" tangent, I mentioned that shotguns are superior home defense. Better stopping power, and less need for accuracy in a tense situation with people that probably don't go to a range as often as they should if they think they'll *ever* have to fire the weapon in an emergency.

Oh, did I call you a retard? Must have missed that. It's interesting that you don't trust cops with firearms either, there have been several school shootings recently where the police were the ones rampaging through the school killing off people.

[Boyiee]

Also, in states where you get sued or could end up in jail for murdering/attempted murder an intruder in your home via self defense, like Jersey, I would never want to use a shotgun for self defense.

[Xno Kappa]

That's some communist shit right there.

[Ghost_Wheel22]

And as mentioned in that post that threw you on the "this guy must be a retard" tangent, I mentioned that shotguns are superior home defense. Better stopping power, and less need for accuracy in a tense situation with people that probably don't go to a range as often as they should if they think they'll *ever* have to fire the weapon in an emergency.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Not only did you just admit you know nothing about proper HD you think Call of Duty perks are real.

[Blubbartron]

Oh, did I call you a retard? Must have missed that. It's interesting that you don't trust cops with firearms either, there have been several school shootings recently where the police were the ones rampaging through the school killing off people.

Not outright, but implicitly suggesting that my argument was invalid by presuming that I didn't know what I was talking about is effectively the same. And sarcasm aside about the cop thing, there actually have been several events recently where cops unleashed a hail of bullets at people running away, injuring civilians in the process. Most recently in Cleveland, and I think there was another in LA that was a massive shitstorm. The point I was trying to make is that I don't trust anyone with the power to take life on a whim. That means civilians and persons of authority alike.