Just to ask, are we still questioning that the amount of gun crime is proportional to the amount of gun culture (if you can count gun culture in amounts...)

Obviously gun control should be dependant on your culture.

I'd just like to point out that not every country thinks you need a military, Costa Rica has had none since 1948 and has also had no military cues. (unlike it's neighbours)

Is there

@ Draugnar: "deaths by gunshot have nothing to do with gun laws on the whole because the majority of them are commited with unregistered, illegal, black market weapons. So if you outlaw guns altogether, you aren't significantly going to reduce gun crime because the shooters are *already* breaking the law by possessing an illegally obtained weapon"

I can't agree with that. Many illegal guns were once purchased legally, and have over time passed into the hands of people not licensed/registered to own them. Stop selling guns and over time you will make it harder for people to obtain them.


@ Darwyn: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Yes, people kill people WITH THE GUNS YOU STUPIDLY ALLOWED THEM TO HAVE!

If you're happy to say that "guns don't kill people, people kill people, so we shouldn't have any control over gun ownership", then why not let people own tanks? Cruise missiles? Nuclear weapons?

Nuclear weapons don't kill people, people kill people, right? So why have any restriction over who can own a tactical nuke? ....right?

I think the guy who was offering to make cruise missiles for ~$5,000 was shut down, because it 'terrorists' ie whoever wanted cruise missiles, could buy them for so little it would increase the cost of securing basically everything.(i can't quite remember the details, but this was a guy in Australia basically setting up a cruise missile company)

"Nuclear weapons don't kill people, people kill people" - but don't forget, If one person dies it's a tragedy, if thousands die it's a statistic, and as statistics are boring i think we can all agree that we should let people have nuclear weapons and bore us all to death. :p

Jamiet, that's a ridiculous slippery slope argument. You could use the same reasoning in reverse to ban kitchen knives, wrenches and mandate that everyone get their hands amputated. The question should be what option represents the greatest utility.

Supersteve, I already conceded that "when it's loaded" made my statement a tautology. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

@Geofarm,

I feel for you that you had to suffer through yet another shooting incident at VT. However, what makes you so certain that even the strictest of gun control legislation would have had any effect whatsoever on the tragedy that befell Blacksburg again?

Sometime out of tragic events people clamor for legislative reaction to stop such events in the future. However, history has proven time and time again, that legislation cannot protect everyone all the time. Further, we've seen what happens when activites/substances/items are banned out right -- prohibition doesn't work. Knee-jerk calls for more regulations are emotional pleas for a near worthless security blanket to make people feel safe from the whatever Boogieman at issue.

A gun is a tool, a very dangerous tool, but a tool nonetheless. In certain circumstances it can and has been used righteously, in others not so much.

'history has proven time and time again, that legislation cannot protect everyone all the time.'

that's ok, i'm willing to accept protecting most people most of the time.

Which is better than the current situation.

@ora - You stopped that quote before the pertinent part of MichMan's statement - "Further, we've seen what happens when activites/substances/items are banned out right -- prohibition doesn't work. Knee-jerk calls for more regulations are emotional pleas for a near worthless security blanket..."

But you're not really protecting people, all you're doing is giving them the false perception that they're protected.

Governments have proven time and time again to be the most dangerous gun users/owners. The stats that anti-gun people hold up fall woefully short of the numbers murdered by governments -- nazi, USSR, Cambodia, China, Uganda, even the US! Until the government gives up their weapons, the people shouldn't be forced to give up their weapons.

"But you're not really protecting people, all you're doing is giving them the false perception that they're protected."

Are you talking about private gun ownership? Yeah I agree. Your handgun isn't going to do much against the "bogeyman" of government tyranny. It creates the illusion of protection. More likely you'll end up shooting your own family member with it.

"Sometime out of tragic events people clamor for legislative reaction to stop such events in the future. "

Gee golly people tend to want to do something about avoidable deaths. And most people don't think allowing more people to get killed because of the sensitivies of a few hobbyists and the overpaid gun lobby is a price worth paying.

I don't think you can equate the prohibition of alcohol in the 20s and any sort of prohibition on firearms today. There's sufficient technology to make a prohibition against firearms work, which can't be made in any bathtub.

(Of course, there's the issue of dealing with the firearms already in existence, but we could simply put all the gun owners in a stadium, have them shoot it out, declare the final survivor an idol, televise the whole thing, and make a few bucks. Then we ship the guns off to a third world nation that needs them... Highest bidder, let's say. Tag the weapons with geolocators and explosives so they blow the hand off anyone who tries to bring them back. It could work.)

@ Putin,

You might not think that private gun ownership is important for protection against a tyrannical government, but I promise you the Patriots that founded this nation certain thought it of the utmost importance as did Solzhenitsyn, a person who lived through the horror of Stalin's pogroms, and later lamented:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"

Disarmed people all over the world have been butchered by power hungry dictators.

What I find most unfortunate about this debate is that the powers-that-be (PTB) are well aware of the power that an armed populace wields, yet they manipulate the minds of those on the left who believe it their right in life to protect everyone from themselves. In actual fact, the PTB aren't introducing increasingly strict gun control legislation to protect people, they're doing it in a slow incremental "frog in boiling water" process of disarming the population (see the scandal blowing up about Operation Fast & Furious). Sadly, they've co opted otherwise well intended people into believing they're doing good and protecting others and themselves from danger. As I said, those in power are take private gun ownership very seriously because they know that it is the final check and balance against a government out of control. Today we see a Federal Government gone awry, grabbing power every where, infringing upon our personal liberties, all because we're told that there are "terrorist" around every corner. But, we are not allowed to defend ourselves from them, oh no. We have to give up all our rights and our guns and trust the government to defend us from them. Bullshit! As I said, the number of people killed by guns -- illegal and legal -- pales in comparison to the number of people slaughtered because they we unarmed fodder for tyranny.

"There's sufficient technology to make a prohibition against firearms work, which can't be made in any bathtub. "

Bathtub, no. Garage, or 8'x8' shed in the back yard? Absolutely, although these would not be as reliable, accurate, or safe as anything produced today. It's not that hard - firearms have been around for eight hundred years, and the basic mechanics are very simple. I have a friend of a friend who makes his own ammunition for his guns already just to save money - I'm sure he wouldn't have too much difficulty manufacturing new firearms to go with them if he had to.

'Until the government gives up their weapons, the people shouldn't be forced to give up their weapons. '

well, if you are calling for disarming the US military, then i'm not going to voice any disagreement there.

That said, all the examples you cite are bad. But selectively choosing the bad examples is not particularly useful for informing a debate.

You're basically saying, assume the worst of people... then imagine what they'd do if we weren't armed. Your assumption is where you make your flaw.

Secondly, did the number of guns in Wacco Texas help or harm anyone? I mean i have to assume that if you lived in a civil society you would trust your courts (as an entity which is independent of your government) And thus wouldn't want a situation where the government/police besieges and then causes the deaths of nearly three score people.

Now if you can imagine a civil society, no seige, and an impartial court system, would allow the arrest of anyone, followed by a fair trial.

If you don't advocating living in such a society and your government decides you are a threat to their interests, then you are considerable more likely to be killed by your own government WITHOUT trial.

So to the point, guns do NOT prevent the government from killing you. They make justice more difficult for you to find.

'Disarmed people all over the world have been butchered by power hungry dictators.'

Yet armed people in Wacco texas were still killed. I don't think you'll find the American military or police enforcement put off by the guns held by citizens.

Do you think the police would be less forceful against occupy wallstreet protesters if they weren't peaceful and unarmed?

i have but two questions, namely:
1) how many murders are there in the USA every year?
2) with a larger population and stricter gun control, how many murders are there in Europe?
just a couple of questions. I am interested...

now, it's pretty late here and i am a little pissed, but can anybody explain this:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur-crime-murders

the US doesn't seem to be there. I dont get it. i was trying to be smart and answer my own questions...bad fail :)
it happens.
night all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

based on this data, homicides by gun are higher in the US than in any european country (not surprising given the gun laws.) I note data on Northern Ireland is horribly out of date, given the data is from before the end of the war there.

by this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Moldova and Estonia are the only countries in Europe with a higher (intentional) homicide rate than the US

The rate in Ireland is almost one quarter that of the US.

sorry, looking at the data again, looks like Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine, Estonia, and Russia all have higher homicide rates.

Guess what, Western Europe is safer than Eastern Europe. That said, a clear pattern of the correlation between economics and homicide can be seen.

Yet the US has higher GDP per capita than Western Europe. So it is possible to draw the conclusion that there is less violence in Europe than the US despite the better economy there. How and Ever, it would also be possible to look at the division of wealth, and attribute the violence in the US to the greater amount of poverty prevailing there as compared with Western Europe.

So i don't think looking at this data is particularly conclusive.

oh, except to conclude that, in any case, i'd rather live in Europe...


'the US doesn't seem to be there. I dont get it.'

that data only covers europe.

The Constitution specifically names the People's right to own guns. You want to dispute the Constitution? Yeah, heck you do.

yes, if the constitution is bad for people then you should change it.

a process which you call an 'amendment', i believe you will find it has happened before!

Don't treat me like I'm stupid.
I know what an amendment is and I aced my Constitution test.
There's a lot more to this than is being revealed, we should allow people to have firearms for those reasons I will not disclose because I'm such an evil person and I want you to figure it out for yourselves and I don't want to get involved in any more threads.

"You might not think that private gun ownership is important for protection against a tyrannical government, but I promise you the Patriots that founded this nation certain thought it"

So many problems with this first part:

1 - Private ownership was irrelevant to the "Patriots". The militias were collectively armed. The Second Amendment which followed is about collective ownership and the maintenance of militias, not private gun ownership. In some states they did care about private gun ownership, like Vermont, but most did not and neither did the federales. And why would the laws protecting gun ownership matter in the middle of a revolution? You don't have the right of armed insurrection.
2- British colonial authority was not "tyrannical". Paying for colonial maintenance is not tyranny. An internal tax is not tyranny. Britain was the most liberal government on the planet.
3 - How has your gun ownership prevented the implemented of a whole slew of recent laws which annihilated Constitutional amendments about due process, warrantless search & seizures, indefinite detainment, torture and the like? Why is it that the gun toters preach on and on about government tyranny but seem to ignore all of this? Or even support it?

4- To call the monarchist anti-semite a "victim of pogroms" is really disgusting. Solzhenitsyn's heroes, the Tsars, were the enforcers of the vicious anti-Semitic pogroms. But anybody is lionized by the western historians and media so long as they're anti-communist

5-Did you know that East German workers were fully armed throughout the duration of the GDR? How does that fly with your gun narrative? Either Communist East Germany was a free society, which I firmly believe, or gun ownership has nothing to do with freedom.

6- One of the first things National Socialist Germany did was dramatically weaken very strict gun ownership laws from the Weimar Republic. How does that fly with your gun narrative?

" As I said, those in power are take private gun ownership very seriously because they know that it is the final check and balance against a government out of control. Today we see a Federal Government gone awry, grabbing power every where, infringing upon our personal liberties, all because we're told that there are "terrorist" around every corner. But, we are not allowed to defend ourselves from them, oh no. We have to give up all our rights and our guns and trust the government to defend us from them. Bullshit! As I said, the number of people killed by guns -- illegal and legal -- pales in comparison to the number of people slaughtered because they we unarmed fodder for tyranny."

I ask again, while you gun toters focus exclusively on protecting your guns, the government passes all sorts of invasive laws with nary a word from the likes of the NRA or the Gun Owners of America, so what difference do your guns make again? Do you really think government authority is concerned with pitch battles with a bunch of gun nutters with some rifles?

Seem to be ignoring all the evidence to the contrary.

"The Constitution specifically names the People's right to own guns. You want to dispute the Constitution? Yeah, heck you do."

The Constitution specifically lists a collective right to maintain a militia. It specifically says "bear arms". Wielding a handgun in your personal home is not "bearing arms". Bearing arms is a military term. If the Constitution wanted a personal right to own guns it would have said so.

I want to ask how many of the gun advocates actually live in urban areas where gun violence is a severe problem thanks to cheap and easy access to guns.

And by urban I don't mean suburbs.

Oh what irony... First I hear that the majority of gun crimes committed are with legal guns then I hear it is with cheap and easy to get guns. Which is it? Legal guns are neither cheap nor easy to get and cheap and easy to get guns are what we call te blackmarket which gun control won't stop.

@ Putin,

"Bearing arms is a military term. If the Constitution wanted a personal right to own guns it would have said so."

And you know this how? Bear arms is pretty clear -- i.e., carry weapons.