Guns in our society.

[Plow]

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for violence.

[guartz]

So since you can only prepare for violence, the choice is even simpler.

[Plow]

there's a huge difference between not being able to prevent 100% of all violence in the world and not being able to prevent violence

[guartz]

Plow, life is full of counter intuitive truths. Earth although it looks flat, is actually round, and it may seem like the sun is orbiting the earth, but it's the other way around. It seems like banning guns will reduce violence, but it actually would create more crime and violence.

[Plow]

Have fun finding a post where I've suggested banning guns, or even coming remotely close.

[guartz]

ah so your position is to have stricter gun laws? Perhaps some type of a deterrence for mentally disturbed individuals?

[Plow]

My position is that the 40 people that kill themselves with a "home protection" weapon for every time one is successfully used for home protection probably weren't much use to society anyway.

[Snprphnx]

i am for stricter laws, but not outright banning.

just like with safety rules and laws, all a company or community can do is make the laws, and enforce them to the best of their abilities. you will always have blind-ass 90 year olds driving, and idiots in factories who dont wear their safety glasses. you can't write a rule to prevent stupidity.

[guartz]

My position is that the 40 people that kill themselves with a "home protection" weapon for every time one is successfully used for home protection probably weren't much use to society anyway.

Wha? Are you suggesting suicides wont happen if said people have no access to guns? ...what are you saying?

[Tristam]

there is a big difference between banning guns, and restricting their sales. Banning guns altogether is a horrible idea , Australia has proven that. Their government banned and destroyed over 650,000 firearms in the late 1990s, including handguns, .22cal rifles, and shotguns. The Prime Minister at the time said "personal defense" was NOT a reason to own a firearm. Here are the numbers one year after the guns were LM-17'd...

# Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
# Assaults are up 8.6 percent;
# Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;
# In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;

this information is posted on several sites, from the NRA site to Australian news sites. Taking guns from law abiding citizens does one thing, emboldens criminals, due to a reduced fear that their next victim is protected.


seriously? you really think that you need to be a green beret, navy seal, or swat member to kill people? April 17, 2007 at VA Tech ring a bell? You know, where a 23 year old exchange student took 2, just 2 pistols, and killed 32 and injured another 25. These were guns he had bought in the 2 months prior to the shooting, the second just 9 days before. He was not trained in clearing a room, or special tactics. He was a kid who was fucked up in the head, and took it out on the world.

Nystuls post about the 20/20 story proves that it doesnt matter how trained you are, you never know how you will react when your adrenalin spikes and your life is in danger. Even cops freeze in situations.

The skill of the person doesn't matter when it comes to criminal finding a victim. If they think the person has no defense, they will go for them. Think about it. If russia had invented the nuclear bomb instead of the US, and the US had not been able to develop it, do you really think we would be here? Russia would have either taken us over or bombed the fuck outta us, because we couldn't fire back.

snopes.com: Australian Guns Stats

The results of the Australia gun ban are still not clear at all, you're giving the results after one year (and that year was quite a long time ago) and expecting that to be representative of the long term effects of a gun ban? Not so fast.

Here's, perhaps, a better analysis using data from 93-03

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi2/tandi261.pdf

Now I'm not at all for a gun ban in the US. I think the numbers from australia don't give anyone any satisfaction one way or the other, and the end result may be that it was a big waste of time and money. But I can't think that homicide increased by any significant amount after the gun ban after looking at the raw numbers. Maybe the past five years have been different? Also what we need to consider is that in the cases of England and Australia, relative to the US, their homicide rates were already very low. So when you say there's a 100% jump or w/e, are you talking about a jump in raw homicides from 1000 to 2000, or 15 to 30? The big thing, to me at least, is since the gun ban in Australia there have been zero mass shootings.

Also, guns are obviously NOT a deterrent to criminals, or crime would decrease with the rate of handgun ownership by population. This just isn't the case. The US is armed to the teeth, yet it dosen't seem to have slowed down crime. Crime in general, as many have noted on this board, is more complex than "I have a bigger stick than you."

[Tristam]

Have fun finding a post where I've suggested banning guns, or even coming remotely close.

The gun ban is the zombie strawman in these threads.

[Rhinox]

Wha? Are you suggesting suicides wont happen if said people have no access to guns? ...what are you saying?

Quick Link the suicide by chainsaw and Suicide Robot in Australia Threads.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Did anyone see 20/20 last night? Find it on the web. "If I had a gun" I think was the title. It made me think of this thread- especially those of you that argue that handguns are good for self defense.


I think many of you are young and impressionable. I think none of you have ever been in a situation where you had a gun and were forced into returning fire. They made the claim that media- TV, movies, games, etc provide an unrealistic expectation in terms of firearms and their use. I think most people here would say with confidence that they could, even if they didn't have any training, draw a weapon and hit a target 10 feet away under stress. Whats 10 feet right? The fact of the matter is that unless you train hours. HOURS and hours and hours, you won't.

They did this little experiment. They took 6 college kids of varying experience (from none to 100+ hours) with guns and told them they were to take a gun safety class. They trained them using a real glock handgun using plastic/paint rounds. Then one at a time they gave them a gun to conceal, told them they were the only person that had one and to hold on to it for an exercise to happen much later in the day. For now they were going to a class on safety equipment (face shield/gloves etc). THe room is filled with cops/employees of the show (student does not know). As soon as they learn how to put on all their gear someone kicks open the door and starts shooting.

Of the 6, 5 attempted to draw (1 who did not had the second most experience with handguns, he just froze).

Of the 5, 3 actually got their guns out (2 who did not either had it get stuck in their shirts. One had the most handgun experience the other owned an airsoft pistol).

Of the 3 who got their guns out:

1 ended up shooting the wrong person
1 managed a few shots and hit the shooter in the thigh, though she herself took 2 to the head.
1 returned fire with 5 shots, hitting the floor twice, the blackboard twice, and the shooter barely on the shoulder (would have been a grazing wound at best). She herself took 5 rounds to the chest. She also nearly hit a "fellow student" fleeing past her. This student had some fire arm experience and was a martial arts blackbelt. In the shooting range training sessions she was the most accurate shooter.

There is no guarantee you'll react in time (you may freeze), you don't have the muscle memory and hours of training to draw quickly and aim accurately, and you will have difficulty hitting your target if you even get that far. And what every student who did attempt to draw their weapon DID do was stand up and be the only- the ONLY person in the room upright and staring making themselves a huge easy target. All of them would have been much better off just running.

They also showed surveillance clips of a robbery of a convenience store where the owner and robber exchange 14 rounds at a distance of maybe 6 feet and NO ONE IS HIT.

I think many of you VASTLY overestimate the effectiveness of a handgun as a weapon of self defense in the hands of someone who has no training, moderate training, or even significant training. It's easy to think of yourself as Rambo but you're not.

Wow dude fk ya. That's a serious post. Replying to this before seeing page 3 so expecting "ya bro, I would totally be able to do a double barrel somersault, take out his kneecaps in one shot, and find out where the nucular bomb is in LA."

Seriously, thanks for that post. I came twice.

[Plow]

Wha? Are you suggesting suicides wont happen if said people have no access to guns? ...what are you saying?

What am I really saying? I'm saying you're not worth more than 1 liners because nothing I say will ever register with you, and you will never open your mind to a new view unless it further develops and legitimizes your current views.


What points am I actually making in relation to the guns?

People with handguns in their homes for "protection" are about 3x more likely to be a victim of homicide than those without.

Direct quote ( VPC - Handgun Ban Fact Sheet < site that wants just handguns banned)

For every time a gun in the home is used in a self-defense homicide, a gun will be used in—

* 1.3 unintentional deaths

* 4.6 criminal homicides

* 37 suicides

In 1997 there were 15,690 homicides.

* Of these, 8,503 were committed with handguns.

* Among handgun homicides, only 193 (2.3 percent) were classified as justifiable homicides by civilians.

For every time in 1997 that a civilian used a handgun to kill in self-defense, 43 people lost their lives in handgun homicides alone.

In other words, the only fallacy being presented in these arguments is that guns actually improve your safety.

[Plow]

Let me delve into this a little further.


People regularly make the argument that people will murder regardless of having guns. People like to make the argument that people die in car crashes, planes, etc., and therefore clearly we should ban them.


So, let's look at *purely* the accidental deaths.

For every time a gun is successfully used for defense, 1.3 people will die accidentally.


Imagine, for a moment, the following utterly absurd scenarios:

For every time someone successfully drives a car to work, 1.3 people will die in car accidents.

For every time someone successfully flies across the country in an airplane, 1.3 people will die in a crash.

For every time someone successfully uses a knife to prepare their dinner, 1.3 people will die in a knife accident.

For every time someone successfully uses a chainsaw to cut down a tree, 1.3 people will be killed by guys in hockey masks.


Do I need to go on? Do I even need to actually spell out my point?

Here's a hint: cars, planes, knives, and chainsaws would've been 100% sweeping banned long, long ago.

[Melchiah]

I'm sorry, but if those of you masturbating over that 20/20 report can't see how flawed the premise and execution of that "study" are, or how skewed the results are presented, then I just don't know what to say. Fuck man, I can't even begin to count the absurdities there.

Ok, so to the crowd who is for a total firearm ban, let me ask these questions in all seriousness:

Supposing I were to agree to give up my right to own a weapon, along with the rest of America and we outright ban firearms from private ownership. At this point, when the murders and crimes continue to happen, where do we assign blame? On whatever weapon happens to have been used in the most incidents? When do we start holding the individual responsible?

My greatest problem with the new liberal mentality is this idea that the individual is never responsible for his actions, he's just a product of his environment, upbringing, psyche profile, whatever. I just don't understand why we keep nurturing this culture of individual irresponsibility.

[Plow]

Ok, so to the crowd who is for a total firearm ban, let me ask these questions in all seriousness:

Grats on narrowing the audience you're arguing against down to Senoska, should be a real tough one to win now.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

So, let's look at *purely* the accidental deaths.

For every time a gun is successfully used for defense, 1.3 people will die accidentally.

I'm sorry pal but, with your tendency to make shit up or exaggerate wildly to defend your 'net ego I'm going have to ask for cross referenced, unbiased sources to prove this little gem.

edit: sort of owned myself read a few posts up, Sorry Plow. Spot reserved for anal leakage below.

[Plow]

Admittedly, it's not a completely unbiased source (they rather clearly want handguns banned), and it's 1.3 accidental deaths per actual person killed by someone defending their house, which is probably a fair bit less than actual like shots fired that miss but scare the person away or injured but not killed intruders.

Still a pretty telling statistic, though.

[Melchiah]

Grats on narrowing the audience you're arguing against down to Senoska, should be a real tough one to win now.

Whoa, pull the pinecone outta your ass bud.

The audience isn't that narrow, as evidenced by the many people in various threads who tout obscenely skewed statistics and make blanket statements like "there is no reason for any civilian to own a handgun."

Truthfully, and this is just conjecture, but I think there is a correlation that isn't being considered; population density. But that's a whole other can of worms, and I highly doubt I'm going to be able to get any honest discussion about it.