*maniac not mapu. Not sure who I read who created the thread wrong, lol

Maniac asked that. Mapu is just a bum.

@Fasces

"Mapu asked us not to turn this into a gun rights debate, it took us 45 minutes and 7 posts to turn it into a gun debate thread"

He knew what he was getting into. We forum trolls are like kids. He gave us matches and gasoline, and said, "Don't play with these!"

Which is why we should ban gasoline and matches.

Mandatory background checks to buy gasoline and matches, but only for people under the age of 12, and it doesn't apply to casual sales on the street.

And no more than 10 matches in a pack, but you can buy as many packs as you want.

"Maniac,

I wanna know when you're going to stop asking questions?!? :)) "

I think I'll stop right now....or will I?

@Hecks - I think some people would view chalk and water as gasoline and matches. I did want to discuss pragmatism and what it takes for us to change our cherished views.

This just in....

A man has died after a shop sign fell on him in north London.

The victim was hit on the head by the sign which toppled from a William Hill betting shop in Camden Road, Camden, at about 17:00 GMT.

What are the odds???

Too soon?

@Maniac,
In fairness, I did address your original point and list out above specifically what it would take to change my personal view that (although I don't think they should be banned for those who disagree with me), firearms are not necessary to defend one's rights in the United States:

"The refusal of a US regime to follow constitutionally-established electoral succession, combined with suspension of habeas corpus and a directed campaign of violence by the government against the citizenry."

In short, the dissolution of democratic governance.

you know we have a town in America, Kennesaw,Georgia, outside Atlanta.

They issued a LAW int heir city, making it MANDAOTRY that each home have a gun in it. Yes, correct, each home must have a gun.

Their crime rate dropped like a rock (this started I believe in 1982) and has stayed low, even with a huge population increase.

25 yearrs straight now, no gun deaths (they have 2 knife deaths)

Armed robberis 1.69 a year
Residential Burglaries 31.69 (down from voer 150 when the population was half of what it is now)
Commerical burglaries 19.75
rapes 2

Police there seem to be very happy with this law, as it has made THEIR job much easier.

Just knowing that the law was in effect, has forced the bad guys to look elsewhere, as there is less attempts, even though the population is higher. They went and found different targets, such as.....

Morton Grove Illionois, which enacted a very tough gun law on itself, and watched their crime rate jump 16% in the first year after it went into effect.

So, we have a town of about 30,000, all armed, and they are not killing each other, Actualyl, NOBODY is killing them.

Well, Kennesaw isn't all armed. They were sued and settled out of court and changed the law to allow anyone with religious or moral objections to owning a gun to not have to abide by it. They realized on the very first lawsuit that they were violating religious freedom. So all you do is say "I don't believe in guns and have a moral objection to carrying one." and you get a waiver.

Dra, you get the point. I remember the law suit, I live near there, but a VAST majority of that city is armed, and they are not going around blasting each other.

My own county of 11000, with over 80000 registered guns (and I am sure more not0 0 gun deaths, 0 rapes. Armed robbery...never seen it.

People like to blame guns, when there is obviously lots of examples of areas with large amonts of firearms, not killing each other.

What type of gun do they arm the citizenry with?

they dont arm them, the people buy their own, and what does it matter?

The gun grabbers are saying
gns= higher death rates" and I am providing actual stats, that not only is that not true, but crime rates in general go way down when the population of an area is armed.

Nobody in their right mind would try to break into a house in my county, unless they were 100% sure nobody was home. It is a death sentence, because they WILL get killed.

You think thugs from Chattanooga roll north to my county to rob us? haha, sure not, they stay there and find easier targets. Not only must you be scared of the person who lives in the house, but the neighbors also.

Ourcounty is about 55 miles long and 10 miles wide, and at any one time we have 3 deputies working. 550 square miles, and often they do not go far from town. Takes over 20 minutes to get from town to the far ends of the county. THink bad guy is waiting? course not.

However, the culture here is very good also, as people generally trust each other, and leave their doors unlocked, cars running when they run in the gas station quick, etc...

Guns are NOT our problem here. We have LOTS of them, and we dont kill each other.

Let's see what happens when they require everyone in Manhattan to get a gun. I don't think it would turn out too well. But I've been wrong before.

aAgain, I can only vouch for the areas I am familar with. The culture is different here than NYC, and thus Guns do not cause problems.

However, to grab guns in a knee jerk way is certainly not the solution.

"Let's see what happens when they require everyone in Manhattan to get a gun. I don't think it would turn out too well. But I've been wrong before."

You may well be right that arming Manhattan would turn out very poorly. But it is indicative of an underlying issue, that of cultural differences from region to region, state to state, nation to nation. In regions such as where Stressed and I live the culture is marked the values of self reliance and community. I realize that may seem contradictory, but it's true. So I think there's a fairly high resentment when people from other cultures want to take away our right to keep and bear arms. Our thinking goes something like this: "If your culture can't handle guns, go ahead and ban them....or clean up your crappy culture where people are irresponsible and don't care about their neighbors. But please don't come messing around with us, because we're pretty happy and doing pretty well without your meddling." Does that make sense?

If Jesus were alive today would he own a gun...... I'm coming to the conclusion that more God is Good for some people.
Surely if you love God and baby Jesus firstly you might try and be a better person (because that's what he likes) and secondly the urge to shoot up the neighbour or the neighbourhood diminishes.
Do more people own guns or go to church regularly in the US?
Less gun controls but more God please .....

"What I want to know is where are your own limits, when do we have to shelve our beliefs for a more pragmatic policy?"

Zombie apocalypse.

There is an inverse correlation between gun ownership and violent crime. While I am aware that correlation does not equal causation, you cannot simply ignore such glaring facts.

The Democratic Party is trying to ban "assault weapons", or semi-automatic rifles with more than two of the following - flash suppressors, pistol grips, detachable magazines, bayonet lugs, folding/collapsible stocks.

Rifles (of all types, not just semi-automatics) were used in 4% of all US firearm homicides (not murders; justifiable homicides are included in that statistic) Why is the left trying to ban something that is rarely used in crime? You are more likely to be murdered by a hammer than by a semi-automatic rifle.

In any case, there are 310 million firearms in the United States, most of which were manufactured with technology permitting semi-automatic fire or of an action which, with practice, can be used to obtain rates of fire comparable to semi-automatics. You will never get the populace to turn in their weapons, and you cannot hope to destroy all 310 million firearms.

Gun control only seems like a good solution to the uninformed.

@Stressed,
Do you have crime figures for Kennesaw prior to the passage of this law?
Also, it's a little disingenuous to compare your entire *county* of 11,000 to my 21 square mile city of 65,000, which is considered a small city by most in my region.

Also, here's an interesting comparison between Kennesaw (which *has* in fact had reported murders) and Morton Grove. Morton Grove had two murders, Kennesaw had one. Morton Grove had more home burglaries. But Kennesaw had more robberies, more aggravated assaults, and more thefts/larcenies. To say that a comparison of the two strongly favors Kennesaw is tenuous at best.
http://progressivevalues.blogspot.com/2007/04/kennesaw-georgia-gun-violence-reduction.html

HECKS, no it isnt. why is it? I am guessing my county has more guns than yours by a lot, and according to most people here, it is the guns that are the problem, so if we havemore guns, would it not then translate into more gun crimes.

I said GUN deaths hecks, I did not say no deaths. I know they had 2 knife killings in the report I read.

the report said the crime rate went from 4500 per 100K to 2100 per 100K prior/post law.

@ gunfighter06:
"There is an inverse correlation between gun ownership and violent crime. While I am aware that correlation does not equal causation, you cannot simply ignore such glaring facts."

Is this inversed correlation a fact?!
I do not say it is not (since I simply dont know), I m just askng about your sources for that statement

I did nto say that kennesaw had better crime rate, i simply said they dropped, and Mortono grove rose after they put their law into place.

Morton Grove was the first city in Cooke County to do so, which is why I used them.

@Stressed
"I am guessing my county has more guns than yours by a lot, and according to most people here, it is the guns that are the problem, so if we havemore guns, would it not then translate into more gun crimes."

I'm not so sure about that. I can't find the stats on my county, but my state (16 counties) has the second-highest gun ownership rate in the country. We happen to have the lowest violent crime rate in the country, which many people use to argue in favor of gun ownership. But I think that confuses correlation with causation. The fact is that mine is a very rural state (my city of 65k is by far the largest in the state), and low population density is highly associated with low crime rates. Low population density is also highly associated with high gun ownership. Thus, I think it's too easy to read into these separate associations a causal relationship between gun ownership and low crime rates, when in fact those two may both be unrelated effects of other factors.

(Also, since I'm sure I've now given people enough clues to figure it out anyway, I live in Maine.)

Handguns are doing the harm, not the assault rifles... either we limit who can get them or ban them. Can't stay as it is now. The only thing banning assault rifles does is prevent the giant massacres (I'm not saying that's a bad thing at all) but the handguns do so much more in terms of casualties and violence.

Like I've said before, even as someone who broadly favors gun control, I think that the style of weapon is sort of a red herring. The more important point is that they should all be registered and owners licenced with a safety/proficiency test. That would help cut down on accidental shootings, enable better mental health screenings, and aid in recovering stolen weapons, thus helping to restrict the flow of black market weapons and facilitate prosecution of gun crime when it does take place.