ivytheplantwell i think they usually give it per capita. something like violent crimes per 100,000 citizens or something. kind of like adjusting for real dollars in economics

ivytheplantso did i, but not the way you mean

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what if nigger meant kite

ivytheplanti was just noticing that too. when did the assault rifle ban go into effect does anyone know? wasn't it around '94 or so?

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what if nigger meant kite

mandingo

True, but it's the way that the statistics are worded that give them a certain weight. Some sites (mostly the UK) list total number of weapons related deaths in the US for a certain year and then list total number of weapons related deaths in the UK for that same year and triumphantly proclaim (or at least strongly imply) that there's a higher number of deaths in the US because we allow people to carry guns and knives. Or they will list a per capita statistic without showing the total population of either nation. What they're doing is purposely misleading the reader to a certain way of thinking which is basically fraudulent.

Another thing I saw was a set of statistics for handgun-related suicides with the strong implication that without handguns, suicides would decrease. Which is, frankly, a load of horse shit. If someone really wants to kill themselves, they'll find a way. And that goes back to what law enforcement officials and criminals are constantly saying; it doesn't matter how much you try to legislate something out of existence, the people who don't give a rat's ass about the law will get it anyway. I think the "war on drugs" is a prime example of that.

Personally, I don't like handguns. They make me nervous as all hell and I already told boorite if he decided to carry concealed on a daily basis, don't expect me to come closer than 6 inches to him. Even when I had to carry one as my duties in federal law enforcement (park ranger, but still with all the rights and privelages thereof), I absolutely hated it. And as much as I wish banning guns and knives would actually work (and used to believe), it doesn't. The evidence is overwhelmingly against it.

mandingo

Somehow I doubt a ban on assault weapons really caused the decrease. Otherwise, UK weapons-related crime would be plummeting since they ban everything up to (and in some cases, including) pocket knives.

 

ivytheplantyou don't have to know the population with per capita, that's the point of doing it that way. unless you're saying larger countries are just prone to more violence per person because of all the GODDAMN TRAFFIC

ivytheplanti bet the uk's gun fatality rate per capita is lower than ours. if there's some study showing it isn't, i'd love to see it. i think not having as easy access to guns would have to lower gun related fatality rate. seems crazy if it wouldn't. accidents in the home alone would do it, i'd think. but admittedly, i haven't seen any studies or statistical surveys or anything so if there's something out there that says "yes, gun fatality rates go down 82% but beaten to death with a shoe fatality rates go up 1,032,827%", i'd be interested to see it

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what if nigger meant kite

The assault weapons ban (now lifted) was a cosmetic ban, basically a ban on "black guns" (literally, rifles that are the color black) and couldn't have had any measurable impact on violent crime.

I think it was Gov who mentioned the 2nd Amendment and how the Framers must have intended it to mean something other than what it says, which is that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Don't be so sure they didn't mean this until you read what people like Thomas Jefferson actually wrote on the subject of possessing firearms. I used to believe they were thinking only of a militia whose purpose was to defend the nascent states against Britain, or they were thinking in ways limited to an 18th century frontier region, etc. etc. common gun control arguments. Actually consulting the works of these men proved me wrong on all counts, and I invite anyone who doubts it to do so themselves.

Also don't be so sure that "statistics" reveal any particular causal relationship between handgun laws and violent crime. Anyone who doubts that can have a gander at such statistics as exist, and there are lots of them. As for "common sense," forget about it. It is an absolutely worthless concept if you are trying to understand reality.

I think not_Scyess implied that a homeowner in the UK would not go to jail for shooting at an intruder as long as the intruder weren't killed. That's not true. Everyone needs to have a good look at UK laws and policies and proposed legislation before supposing that common sense has anything to do with the situation there. To me, it's an example of authority gone absolutely mad.

And it is a fact that violent crime has increased dramatically in the UK following the implementation of extremely strict weapons laws, and as far as I can tell, this has only spurred lawmakers and advisory groups to consider even tighter restrictions, up to and including a serious proposal to ban pointed kitchen knives. We should not forget that someone somewhere must think of this antilogic as "common sense," and every one of us is prone to make similar errors at all times.

Trust me-- I could elaborate. But what seems important here is that most people on both sides think their views about personal weapons and violence are based on things like facts and logic, when in truth they proceed almost entirely from feelings, subjective impressions, and naked assumptions. It takes work to form something that deserves to be called an "opinion" on this issue, and hardly anyone but fanatics will take the trouble.

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What others say about boorite!

mandingo

I still think it is important to mention the population size. Of course, if it was just a matter of bare statistics, I wouldn't argue, but there's certainly a lot more factors involved than just who has guns. Population density, poverty, drug use, etc. There's a reason crimes get committed and it's not because there's a weapon around. Sure, it may make committing a crime easier in some ways, but like others have said, if someone's going to do it, they're going to do it and they really don't give a rat's ass what the law says. Just ask any cop.

mandingo

Gun-related crimes in the UK are lower than ours, yes. However, violent crime in the UK, even without weapons, makes us look almost peaceful by comparison. What someone else was saying was that statistics and common sense dictate that less guns equals less gun crime, which really isn't true at all. The evidence is against it. Hell, just the fact that there's a decrease of gun crime here and an increase in the UK shows that isn't true.

Well, the number of people killed by blunt objects is way way higher than the people killed by guns.

The funny thing in all of this is, if someone said we should ban rope because it's used in suicides and violent crimes, people would respond that it's just plain stupid and illogical. But switch "rope" with "gun" and suddenly it's a whole different story. Yes, guns are intended to be weapons, but not all are. And any frontier law enforcement from the turn of the 20th century will tell you that a rope is used to commit a large number of crimes, most of which the resulting punishment was death by...hanging.

Yes, I know the whole rope thing is not as simple as that, but neither is the gun thing. And as I stress over and over again, law enforcement and criminals will tell you that people will find a way to commit violent crimes, guns or no. And criminals absolutely love the fact that John Q. Public can't have access to a weapon. It just makes it easier for them.

Maybe I just have a unique point of view. My father was law enforcement and his brother was a violent criminal. They both say the same thing from two different sides.

Holy crap I just had a moment of brilliance. I know the solution to the whole thing.

Men are much more likely to commit violent crimes and are much more likely to use a gun in a violent crime or suicide. So let's ban all men from having guns and allow women to carry them. Statistics and common sense dictate that it will reduce crime. /sarcasm

In regards to what boorite says combined with everything else.

If statistics and common sense dictate that less guns equals less crime, then the following should be true:

Laramie, Wyoming is armed to the teeth. There are more guns here than there are people. Therefore, common sense and statistics should dictate that we have an incredibly high crime rate.

Except we don't. In fact, it's incredibly low. Why?

ivytheplant

Joking aside, you raise an important point. It's been said that outlawing firearms gives men a huge advantage over women in the violence sweepstakes and is therefore sexist. I find it extremely difficult to think of any substantial rejoinder to that argument.

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What others say about boorite!

boorite

Duh. They're women. They'll shoot themselves in the foot. What are you going to want to give them next, the right to vote?

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

TheGovernor

to plat devil's advocate i'd like to point out that in Switzerland every family is required by law to produce a working firearm once yearly and that they have one of the lowest accidental gun injury as well as gun crime rates in the entire world. 

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Kill Whitey.

Too...

...much...

...to...

...read............

boorite

Oh, my name!  Now my attention is back.

Either I worded my response badly or you read it wrong, or both.  What I meant to imply is that if you shoot a guy in the US for breaking into your house, you'd better make sure you finish the job or you're going to get sued by the intruder.

You also want to make sure you have a very light TV because he'll sue you if he hurts his back trying to get it out the window.

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peddling the funny around since 09/24/2002

Works the same way in the UK. Only I think you could go to jail for using a weapon.

not_Scyess

Oh, that. Yes, an intruder is likely to sue you for shooting him if he lives. And sometimes that means you're better off legally if your shots kill him. It depends on a lot of things, but the fact that it is ever the case seems perverse.

Even weirder is that you may be more liable criminally for having only wounded the guy. This is especially the case if you tell investigators that your intention was only to wound him. Whether he lives or dies, you've just admitted that you really didn't have to use deadly force, and yet you shot his ass. That's basically a confession in most states.

The supposedly trigger-happy US has some positively surreal legal goings-on with regard to defensive use of firearms, even in supposedly trigger-happy states like Arizona and Texas. A writer named Massad Ayoob documents a lot of these in his monthly magazine column, "The Ayoob Files," which has also been published in book form. If you think you know what's happening in American legislatures and courts, and it's somehow "pro-gun," then chances are good that reading Ayoob will be a rude awakening.

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What others say about boorite!

I will be exiting this thread now. I thought you guys said repeatedly that you didn't want this to become a gun debate thread?

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Mediocrity at its most average.

another threat has been posted on 4chan.org on the random board(/b/), stating that Arizona state is next. Its supposed to go down tomorrow.

 

I wouldn't go to /b/ right now anyway though there is CP on the main page. "shudders"

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possible savior probable SEX MACHINE

attitudechicka

I don't think I'm debating anything. I just want to invite people to think hard about these things.

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What others say about boorite!

Im desencitized to this shit now

It must be the c.

boorite

I don't think I'm debating anything. I just want to invite people to think hard about these things.

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you're debating, assmunch. i can tell cause your tail is wagging back and forth real fast.

it is an interesting issue though. individual freedom vs. greater good. (greater good here being the less loss of life from giving the spider monkeys sticks instead of sticks of dynamite.) it all comes down to whether or not banning/restricting guns is indeed efficacious to reducing loss of life. from posts in this thread it seems a grey issue because cultural or even regional differences tend to obfuscate whether there's a correlation between gun fatalities and number of guns. for instance, people say wyoming and switzerland have a shitload of guns but low rates of gun fatalities. but i'm sure if you took those same guns from there, stuck them on a truck, took them to south central l.a., dumped them in the road and walked away, i think most people are savvy enough to realize the gun fatality rate in l.a. would go up, and probably a lot.

it all comes down to statistics really. it's all we have to go on. has there ever been a country/state/province/city that allowed guns and then banned them? what happened to gun fatality rate. if it dropped, did the knife (et al.) fatality rate rise commensurately so that the overall weapon fatality rate stayed the same? if so, that would indicate people really will find a way to kill someone, not deterred by the absence of guns in the least. if not, it would indicate that spider monkeys, even with all their evil little monkey intentions, don't kill as many people with sticks as sticks of dynamite. until someone shows me a study proving otherwise, i also consider it common sense to believe the latter, just as i'd consider it common sense to believe banning cars would decrease drunk driving deaths

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what if nigger meant kite

I'm going to go back in time, find the guy that invented guns and then off him.

Then I'll steal his plans and make them myself. Then I'll be really rich and I'll won't have any doubt as to which side of this argument I'm on. Then it'll be a Billings .45, and a Billings Desert Eagle. Only I think I'll make it a Dessert Eagle, and it'll have a cute little eagle holding a piece of cake etched into the side. But it'll still fucking kill ya!

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

mandingo

Don't forget that the more churches per square mile, the higher the crime rate. That's a powderkeg waiting to blow. It's time for the revolution. :P

ivytheplant

Don't forget that the more churches per square mile, the higher the crime rate. That's a powderkeg waiting to blow. It's time for the revolution. :P

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i think you'll have a hard time proving religion leads to violence

now if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna go watch the history channel

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what if nigger meant kite

boorite

Oh, that. Yes, an intruder is likely to sue you for shooting him if he lives. And sometimes that means you're better off legally if your shots kill him. It depends on a lot of things, but the fact that it is ever the case seems perverse.

Even weirder is that you may be more liable criminally for having only wounded the guy. This is especially the case if you tell investigators that your intention was only to wound him. Whether he lives or dies, you've just admitted that you really didn't have to use deadly force, and yet you shot his ass. That's basically a confession in most states.

The supposedly trigger-happy US has some positively surreal legal goings-on with regard to defensive use of firearms, even in supposedly trigger-happy states like Arizona and Texas. A writer named Massad Ayoob documents a lot of these in his monthly magazine column, "The Ayoob Files," which has also been published in book form. If you think you know what's happening in American legislatures and courts, and it's somehow "pro-gun," then chances are good that reading Ayoob will be a rude awakening.

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gotta go with Boo on this one. anyone remember Bernard Goetz? the guy who got stuck up by 4 guys on an NY subway?

well he pulled a .38 and shot all four of them. my memory gets a bit sketchy at this point  but i think he killed one of them, definitely paralyzed another and either scared away the other 2 or wounded them in a minor sorta way.

what happened you ask? well he was successfully sued in civil court for paralyzing the one piece of shit, and if he did indeed kill one of them (i might be mixing up my cases here...) he was found guilty of wrongful death. and probably owes damages to the other two who weren'y seriously wounded.

this is one reason you've never heard of the "Bernard Goetz" story on TV. he doesn't want any money he'd make off that going to the filthy, degenerate fuckbags who tried to rob him with weapons on the subway.

he wasn't licensed to carry a concealed weapon. that was his only crime. he got some jail time if my memory serves me right, and will be paying reparations to one or two of the "victims/victims family" for the rest of his life.

how the fuck is that right? you can only defend yourself and/or your property at the risk of having to pay some criminal shitstain if you hurt/kill them in the process of defending yourself from being robbed/assaulted?

if he'd had a gun holstered at his side at the time, do you think he'd of been robbed by guys armed with knives and screwdrivers? things that are totally effective against and unarmed citizen/victim, but not much of a match against a firearm...

i don't think so.

so he shoulda done some time for carrying a concealed weapon. i'm all for that. but for using a weapon he had against multiple people who were trying to rob him of his hard earned money and probably would've assaulted him to get it?

fuck you. if you think he did wrong please go get robbed by armed assailants willing to hurt or kill you to get your dough and then tell me the same thing.

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Kill Whitey.

mandingo

I wasn't trying to prove that; I was pointing out flaws in statistics

. Statistics show that the higher number of churches per square mile, the higher the crime rate. So "statistics and common sense" say that religion equals crime.

Of course the number of churches and the amount of crime in this instance is related to population density. But hey, statistics and common sense said religion equals crime. Time to start burning churches.