Signature thread about gun control and gun violence

[VanillaCoke]

I... really don't like your signature. It's big and bulky and detracts attention away from the post

The weird glowing orb of whatever in your sig always distracts me from your posts.

But I do agree. It's the font, for me. Obnoxious. Any reason why you couldn't size it down?

Sorry, White Stripes fan. *cough* Its is the white apple Meg White is holding on the Get Behind Me satan album cover. <3 Spivys sig.

http://www.revolver.nu/bilder/album/the ... _satan.jpg

Yeah whatever Vanillacoke...

[Figment]

Vanilla, I guessed what it was. After staring at it for 10 minutes. And I am a huge white stripes fan. I'm always happy to share the white stripes love, but there are so many lovely pictures of them that it seems odd to use a barely-recognizable closeup like that. *shrugs*

[Kantark]

Oh dear... where to begin...

But denying people the right to own what they want on "moral" grounds, personal preference, or other baseless reasons is wrong.

So, I assume you're okay with Iran developing and owning nuclear weapons?
Al Quaeda, the same? and it's fine for individuals to own torture equipment? Child pornography? Bomb-making equipment? Stolen goods? Drugs? And if morality is a 'baseless reason' I just wonder what you would consider a justifiable reason?

[Illuen]

Yeah, really, not to be rude, but your argument is really more of a 2+2=5 thing in my eyes. The problem with it is that, besides figments fantastic point, the second amendment was written in a time before semiautomatic firearms. You want to carry a musket, feel free to. I think that the types of guns that people have and try to get protected under the second amendment was just hillarious, except in the not funny way. Also, you have to remember, the US, at the time, did not have the system of police stations that our nation has currently, which is why I feel having a gun for self defense right now and comparing it to when the Bill of rights was written is kinda ridiculous. Not to mention, back then, when people went to hunt, they actually needed to hunt, and survived off of the meat. They did not do it just for the fun of killing animals. There are not many people who go around screaming about our right to refuse to house soliders, because it just isn't important anymore, because it is outdated. the right to bear arms, similiarly, was written in a completely different time, and should be looked at from that POV.

The other site you linked to I found somewhat repulsive. I don't know if you are familiar with the US series QAF, or Queer as Folk, but they had a good arc about people who went too far in the name of defending themselves against bashings. Carrying around a gun because you feel you need it to protect you from bashers is just stupid IMHO.

Are you comparing gay marriage legislation with gun legislation? Seem to be. What a logical fallacy. No one here would speak out against gay marriage. But gay marriage doesn't kill anyone.

I don't know about that. I know some drag queens with pretty sharp nails who could do some damage.

[chickvw]

Come now, folks, we *really* need to learn to try to see both sides of the window before judging. Yes, guns kill people, they're bad and cause a higher crime rate, etc.

And vegetarians, stone me now, but here in my rural area, we Need guns. If you are out checking on your crops and come across a wild rabid animal, you NEED a gun to protect yourself and to put the poor creature out of its misery quickly. Deer are also a major problem. You find a better way than guns and compound bows to kill 'em, Have at it! They literally cost farmers hundreds of dollars every year... not to mention the lives they take when they charge across the road or even AT cars.

I'm not saying Guns are wonderful and everyone in the world should own 12 of them, but guns CAN have a useful and responsible purpose in society, like many other commonly abused things. However, I feel taking all guns away is not necessarily a good thing. I mean, we took away the big guns, but people are still killed by blackmarket guns. A bumper sticker I saw once states it well, "If we outlaw guns, the only people that will have guns are outlaws!" I don't personally own a gun bigger than my handheld plastic BB gun, and have NO intentions of EVER owning a gun larger than a Daisy, but I still respect the need for such a thing in American society.

PS - I think if this goes any further, it should branch over to Chit-Chat, yes?

EDIT - Thought I'd throw in, Deer are violent. In self defense of a charging deer, a Southern Illinois University - Carbondale security officer shot a deer that was charging him and some students.. was not the first time either.. they had signs and blocked off paths that the "cute" deer had claimed.

[Jazzy]

guns CAN have a useful and responsible purpose in society, like many other commonly abused things

Like nuclear weapons? Or how about the argument that naked pictures of children are okay, because the people looking at them might otherwise go out and snatch children to molest?

A bumper sticker I saw once states it well, "If we outlaw guns, the only people that will have guns are outlaws!"

Yeah! Except, you know, it doesn't quite work like that. If you outlaw guns, the amount of gun crime goes down and the number of deaths due to gun crime goes down. You don't get armed gangs running the country...and you don't need to outlaw guns to have people with illegal firearms, anyway.

We also have deer in the UK, and I don't think I could say that they were "violent". A yelling person brandishing a gun could probably be described as "violent", but deer tend to just run away. Does anyone have statistics on the number of humans killed by deer each year?

This thread was entirely intended to provoke people in this way. I would split it into Chit-chat, but this was the point of putting "let me have my guns, bitch" in their signature.

[syldssuf]

{sigh} How is comparing nuclear weapons, owned by countries, to individual firearms, any different from comparing individual firearms ownership to gay marriage?

Now, turn off your knee-jerk reactions and turn to page 56 on gunfacts. Turn it off. Keep your booger-hook off the bangswitch. Just read. Check the sources. Read and think, without your prejudices getting in the way. 'k?

Gun control is just like gay marriage. Each side thinks they have perfectly good reason for banning it, but both are full of shit. Only the libertarians have any semblance of sanity, and then not much.

If you outlaw guns, only criminals own guns. If you allow free gun ownership, everyone has guns, and law-abiding citizens are on even terms with criminals.

Vermont, which allows unrestricted concealed carry of firearms by non-felons, has the second lowest violent crime rate of any state in the USA.

Switzerland, which legally requires all males between age 18 and 40 to keep a full-automatic military rifle in their home, has one of the lowest violent crime rates of any country.

[Jazzy]

In simple terms:
- guns kill people, and sometimes they are "good" (so you can shoot some deer and maybe some criminals- in self-defence, naturally- and hang some gun in the back of your car) and "bad" (so some awful, awful criminal can shoot a person and hang a gun in the back of their car).
- nuclear weapons kill people, and sometimes they are "good" (America bombs Hiroshima! How great!) and "bad" (Iraq with a nuclear arsenal? No thanks).
- gay marriage does not kill people, ever.

Gun facts? Like what, they don't kill people? They're the kind of thing you'd give a Neopet? There's a point in advocating guns on an Internet forum about virtual animals?

law-abiding citizens are on even terms with criminals

Sounds absolutely awful to me.

[Illuen]

If you outlaw guns, only criminals own guns. If you allow free gun ownership, everyone has guns, and law-abiding citizens are on even terms with criminals.

The only problem I anm having with this argument is that you apparently live in a bizarro world where the police would not have guns. Or do you feel that normal citizens should be able to go around shooting people who rob banks?

[syldssuf]

Myth: Britain has strict gun control and a low crime rate
Fact: Since gun banning has escalated in the UK, the rate of crime – especially violent crime – has risen.

Fact: Street robberies soared 28% in 2001. Violent crime was up 11%, murders up 4%, and rapes are up 14%.259

Fact: Comparing crime rates between America and Britain is flawed. In America, a gun crime is recorded as a gun crime. In Britain, a crime is only recorded when there is a final disposition (a conviction). All unsolved gun crimes in Britain are not reported as gun crimes, grossly undercounting the amount of gun crime there. 260 To make matters worse, British law enforcement has been exposed for falsifying criminal reports to create falsely lower crime figures, in part to preserve tourism.261

Fact: A continuing parliamentary inquiry into the growing number of black market weapons has concluded that there are more than three million illegally held firearms in circulation - double the number believed to have been held 10 years ago - and that criminals are more willing than ever to use them. One in three criminals under the age of 25 possesses or has access to a firearm. 262

Fact: Handgun homicides in England and Wales reached an all-time high in 2000, years after a virtual ban on private handgun ownership. More than 3,000 crimes 259 British Home Office, reported by BBC news, July 12, 2002 260 Gallant, Hills, Kopel, “Fear in Britain”, Independence Institute, July 18, 2000

261 “Crime Figures a Sham, Say Police “, Daily Telegraph, April 1, 1996
262 Reported in The Guardian, September 3, 2000

involving handguns were recorded in 1999-2000, including the 42 homicides, 310 cases of attempted murder, 2,561 robberies and 204 burglaries.263

Fact: Handguns were used in 3,685 offences in 2000 compared with 2,648 in 1997, an increase of 40%.264

It is interesting to note:
• Of the 20 areas with the lowest number of legal firearms, 10 had an above average level of "gun crime."
• Of the 20 areas with the *highest* levels of legal guns, only 2 had armed crime levels above the average.

Fact: Between 1997 and 1999, there were 429 murders in London, the highest twoyear figure for more than 10 years – nearly two-thirds of those involved firearms – in a country that has banned private firearm ownership.265

Fact: Over the last century, the British crime rate was largely unchanged. In the late nineteenth century, the per capita homicide rate in Britain was between 1.0 and 1.5 per 100,000.266 In the late twentieth century, after a near ban on gun ownership, the homicide rate is around 1.4.267 This shows that the homicide rate does not vary with either the level of gun control or gun availability.

Fact: The U.K. has strict gun control and a rising homicide rate of 1.4 per 100,000. Switzerland that has the highest per capita firearm ownership rate on the planet (all males age 20 to 42 are required to keep rifles or pistols at home) has a homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000. And to date, there has never been a schoolyard massacre in Switzerland.268

Fact: "[T]he scale of gun crime in the capital [London] has forced senior officers to set up a specialist unit to deal with . . . shootings."269

263 “42 killed by handguns last year “, The Times, January 10, 2001, reporting on statistics supplied by
the British Home Office
264 “Illegal Firearms in the UK”, Centre for Defense Studies at King's College in London, July 2001
265 Ibid
266 Clive Emsley, Crime and Society in England 1750-1900, at 36 (1987)
267 Stephen P. Halbrook, “Where Kids and Guns Do Mix”, Wall Street Journal, June 1999
268 Ibid
269 Associated News Media, April 30, 2001

http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts ... Screen.pdf

[syldssuf]

How many police per capita are there in your world? 1 per 1? 1 per 2? 1 per 3? How fast are their response times? 1 second? 2? Maybe 3?

In the real world, there are maybe a dozen police per small town, and their response time is 10 minutes. In big cities, there are hundreds, but their response time is upwards of 1 hour and more.

How long does it take to bleed to death, compared to the police's response time? How long does a drive-by shooting take, compared to the time the police take to get there?

Fact: A survey of felons revealed the following:216
• 74% of felons agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."
• 57% of felons polled agreed, "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."

216 U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics Federal Firearms Offenders study, 1997. Department of Justice,
National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research
Report, July 1985

http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts ... Screen.pdf

[Yfandes]

I agree with Jazzy on this one, particularly concerning that which was quoted
I'm just very, VERY anti-gun. I think the laws in Britain should be much tighter....

Does anyone think this topic is getting a bit touchy?

Though the origins of gun control in Britain are less complex. They ran out of colonies to oppress, and so turned on themselves.

England: No more guns for colonists!
George Washington: GET OUT!

England: Brown people are not permitted to own guns!
Mahatma Gandhi: I don't like food anymore! ("Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." - Mahatma Gandhi)

You also seem to be sending muddled messages whether you are talking about Britain or England which are two quite different things...

[Illuen]

How many police per capita are there in your world? 1 per 1? 1 per 2? 1 per 3? How fast are their response times? 1 second? 2? Maybe 3?

In the real world, there are maybe a dozen police per small town, and their response time is 10 minutes. In big cities, there are hundreds, but their response time is upwards of 1 hour and more.

How long does it take to bleed to death, compared to the police's response time? How long does a drive-by shooting take, compared to the time the police take to get there?

Fact: A survey of felons revealed the following:216
• 74% of felons agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."
• 57% of felons polled agreed, "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."

216 U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics Federal Firearms Offenders study, 1997. Department of Justice,
National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research
Report, July 1985

And yet you completely miss the moral question I posed: Would you rather have citizens shooting anyone who they see rob a bank or a store?

[syldssuf]

If they were good shots? Yes. Absolutely. 30-something % (too lazy to look it up) of people who comply with a criminal are injured or killed anyway, compared to less than 10% who fight back with a gun.

Look at it this way.

A knife-weilding rapist is threatening you or a loved one or whatever with death unless you submit to their every whim for an indeterminite period of time. What is more desirable?

A. You call the police. They arrive 10 minutes later. You are bleeding badly and have been raped and spend days in the hospital and years going to therapy. This is the most common outcome. Fatal injuries are also pretty common.

B. A police officer miraculously appears behind you and shoots the attempted rapist. This almost never happens.

C. You shoot the rapist. Also almost never happens, sadly.

D. You use a "stun gun," (I used to have a video of a woman zapping herself with one then laughing and saying it tickled, but sadly this is lost) or other ineffective device, which the rapist inserts in your anus, then #A occurs (yes, number A).

E. You run away. Actually, that's the best thing to do unless cornered, disabled, or otherwise unable to. But if you can't run, then what?

[Jazzy]

Your facts are flawed. And why are you comparing Switzerland with Britain when you've specifically said you can't compare Britain with America?

"Fact: Handguns were used in 3,685 offences in 2000 compared with 2,648 in 1997, an increase of 40%"
What on earth does an increase of 40% show? Is there a 40% rise in the number of deaths, or does this include crimes where all the person did was wave an unloaded gun around?

"One in three criminals under the age of 25 possesses or has access to a firearm. 262"
What's a criminal?

As for “42 killed by handguns last year “...how many were killed in the USA that year? How many were killed in Switzerland? Is 42 bad? More people die per day on the roads, I'm sure.

And I suppose you want the bank robber bleeding to death after some wonderful citizen shot them? Robbers do not deserve to die, ever. And just why on earth are you allowed to kill someone who is only threatening to kill you? What gives you the right to decide who gets to live and who doesn't? I suspect you pulled 30% out of the air, because I don't believe there could be a survey which would adequately answer that question. Dig up bodies in the graveyard- "hey there, did you comply with that murderer or not?"