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I immediately get a little put off with the use of "anti-gun" rhetoric, because it isn't that most gun-control advocates are against guns. There are even members of the NRA who are pro-gun-control, and they are not "anti-gun." Those sorts of descriptors make the rest of your argument or anyone else who couches their position like that a little harder to consider outside a negative light, but you make some good points I won't just dismiss even when your words reveal the bias you most obviously have when it comes to this subject.
A little different for folks like me that are okay with guns but okay with gun control as well...
I certainly don't want to come across as a gun-nut or anything. I think it's one of those political arenas where I grew up hearing and largely buying into the anti-gun message. I like to shoot and I wouldn't mind getting back into hunting, but I've not owned a gun for about 20 years now.
The underlying question: Is murder and violent crime higher in the USA because of the guns Americans have? Well, just like most people it seemed pretty obvious to me: I thought to myself, "Of course it's true. That's the tradeoff we have to live with. We have the right to bear arms and the ability to overthrow a tyrannical government, but we have to live with higher murder and violent crime rates in trade."
Similarly to the War on Drugs, it's one of those many issues where the common sense answers that you're fed growing increasingly didn't seem to be quite right. Gun-control advocates cherry pick the nations that they compare the USA to and then tell you things like, "The USA has the highest levels of murder and violent crime in the world." But when I did my own research, it turns out that the USA has astoundingly low levels of murder and violent crime, considering the number of guns that are in the hands of US citizens. "But Western Europe and Japan" the gun-control folks say. There is a massive cultural difference between the USA and those countries. Here in the USA, we're a lot more spread out and even to this day. In many areas, if you can't protect yourself you're dead or raped or mugged, end of story. The cops are spread too thin and can't get there in time. Conversely, Japan and Western Europe are much more densely populated and have experienced several centuries of a disarmed general populace. People depend on the police because they can. They'll get there a lot quicker. It's a lousy comparison, truth be told. And the bigger question is, where would we be if we weren't throwing gasoline on the problem of violent crime via the War on Drugs?
I'll happily admit that both sides exaggerate and lie. I also have real doubts whether tanks and fighter aircraft should be owned by everyday citizens -- so at least some limitation is obvious and proper.
What I got was my thread inserted into another already going and still going, but I won't take credit for that, and you can LOL all you like for whatever reasons you like. I should really know better than to mess with these bits of nonsense, but I guess I like to take a break from really thinking about too much every now and then.
Kind of like swatting at flies before getting back to work...
Yes, you provide a lot of conjecture with basically zero to back it up....
And at your post's...I'll LOL all day long.....just because....
I have been round-and-round with lots of folks about "cherry picking" and all the rest, and especially with the longer less-targeted comments, I can't keep up with all of them. Mostly I am tempted to just point to prior comments that already provide plenty response enough as far as I am concerned, this one comment I "cherry picked" from your post is a perfect example!
Because it is cherry picking.
Look here are some criteria...
Has had it's current form of government for 100 years. (Eliminates almost all of Europe except the UK)
Has a Gini Coefficient of under 50. (Includes Mexico)
Has an HDI in the top 20 (eliminates Italy, Spain, Portugal, France barely squeaks in at 20)
Has an income adjusted HDI in the top 20 (Eliminates the US)
Has GDP per capita in the top 20 (includes Qatar, excludes Japan)
Has a democratic form of government (includes lots of places you probably want to exclude, Russia for example)
Is a republic (excludes the UK, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Australia, Canada, and includes other places you probably want to exclude like Panama, Honduras, South Africa, Somalia).
Has a population in excess of 50M (excludes smaller European countries and includes some places you probably don't want to include)
If you combine these ORwise, then it covers the planet, if you combine these ANDwise then there are no countries to compare zero, not one. If you do one or the other, what are your criteria for selecting parameter A or parameter B and not parameter A and parameter B?
You cannot select gun violence as a parameter unless you are indeed cherry picking, you would be adjusting your data set to exclude countries based upon your parameter of interest. For example, if we did a study of 2000 men who will die in 20 years, but eliminate those people from that 2000 men study who died of cancer, the result is that none died from cancer, even though a sizeable proportion may die of cancer, in that instance the study would be of little benefit in determining rates of cancer deaths in men of that cohort over 20 years. The same applies to gun controls, if you control for gun deaths, then the outcome is of little benefit to determining the effect of guns. One thing that I have never seen is a comparative study on counties with high homicide rates to identify common factors, not just the primary (and somewhat secondary) difference factor(s) between Europe and the US.
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Originally Posted by LearnMe
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Personally, no, I don't think comparing the U.S. to Venezuela is of much value from this sort of standpoint when it comes to just about any subject; government, economy, world importance, natural resources, land and just about everything else including gun violence.
Which shows either a prejudice or an ignorance. Venezuela is a democratic republic, it's GDP per capita PPP is in the top 50, it has vast natural resources in oil, minerals and timber, it's ranked 7th in biodiversity it's world importance is significant given it's oil reserves, and strategic alignments and it has a land area greater than many European countries combined. It has a high HDI index and medium GINI coefficient.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LearnMe
Again for me personally, I am satisfied to compare to those countries we hold in the highest regard when it comes to quality of life, modernization, values, system of government and the like. Ironic, don't you think that the U.K. should be included, given what roll the Magna Carta has had for both our systems of government and what close allies we are in general when it comes to global politics?
Where did I suggest that the UK should not be included? I mentioned the UK in regards to increasing homicide rates post strict gun control and their handgun ban, and they people laud Australia's "decrease" in homicides as a result of gun control, but do not pay any heed to the UK's increased homicide rate for the decade post their handgun ban.
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Originally Posted by LearnMe
Which ones do you think are most worthwhile to compare to? Why don't you tell me and why...
I actually don't think that most are worthwhile. The US is a huge anomally, historically it's the same age as Honduras, or Brazil, (based on our determination of "age", the US is the same age as Europe geologically) it's had its government since 1789 longer than almost all countries in the world (minus a few absolute monarchies), has most socioeconomic and economic indicators within the top 10 or top 20 at worst. It had chattel slavery until the mid 1800's, fought only one civil war that did not result in a change of government. Has the longest standing constitution of any nation, banned a substance that would have caused bloody revolution in most of Europe. Has historically been at war and allied to most countries in Western Europe (at different times), has massive inequality of incomes, no universal healthcare and minimal social programs of typical western countries, as a country we have underdeveloped infrastructure (given our size, population and socioeconomic factors), low population densities outside of urban areas, a drug war being fought on and over our southern border and within our inner city areas, has serious issues about sexual imagery but no issue with violent imagery. I can list more if you desire, for why the US is not comparable with Europe.
So, lets say you did, they did not tell you the only purpose of a gun was to kill.
You're quite right. That is not what they told me. Let me go back to what I posted.
Ah, yes. Here it is.
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The purpose and original intent of a firearm is to cause injury and/or death to living creatures, including people.
Yes, that is what they told me.
And yes, I believe that they were not lying to us.
Please do tell me what other purpose firearms were designed for.
What do you think Mr Colt, Mr Remington, Mr Winchester, and Herr Maxim, and tovarishch Kalishnikov had in mind when they designed their masterpieces?
there was the assumption among the creators of the Constitution that all men held a sense of responsibility to uphold the values and respect for law and for civilization. Obviously they were mistaken to hold us in such high regard.
There was no such assumption, even before the Constitution was written every former colony had laws that prohibited "irresponsible" behaviors with firearms from homicide to threatening behaviors. Why would you need a federal law to prohibit a behavior if all component states of the federation had laws that prohibited that behavior?
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Originally Posted by LarsMac
How about pure stupidity?
How about it? Every in depth statistical study cannot find any correlation between homicide rates and gun ownership per capita, they can find correlation between gun homicides and gun ownership rates, but that's like finding a correlation between grass and the color green. The intent of any gun control is not to only reduce gun homicides and to hell with the rest, but to decrease homicide overall, there's little point in reducing gun homicide to zero and having the homicide rate increase by an order of magnitude. Honduras, same gun ownership per capita (according to the UN small arms survey) as the UK, homicide rate 84/100,000. Switzerland gun ownership per capita 0.45 (45/100), homicide rate 0.63/100,000 (lower than the UK and lowest in Europe). The US homicide rate is higher than Europe, but not astronomically higher, we have drug wars on and over our southern borders and in our urban centers, and you're surprised than we have a higher homicide rate than Europe? Even looking at countries that eliminated public ownership of handguns (Australia and the UK) in Australia's case the homicide rate fell, but was falling prior to the gun buyback and law changes, in the UK's case the homicide rate climbed for a decade after the law changes. So even there there's no consensus from the stats that gun control helped and they occurred at around the same period, with the same global economic effects. There was also an increase in other crimes over the same period whether that was because of increased gun control is debatable, but it certainly was an inconvenient time to increase.
So what would a gun prohibition provide? At best prevent around 352 deaths a year (all accidental), however that would have to be weighed against any increase in deaths caused by people being less capable of self defense. So how many of those exist? Low estimates 55,000, high estimates 4.7 Million, if even 1% of those defensive gun uses prevents a homicide, your already a net 200 deaths higher than now using the lowest figure for DGU's and all of those 550 are homicides.
I am a gun owning Liberal that would eliminate almost all firearms laws. They are not needed for a civilized and peaceful society. The only thing we need to do is make certain that anyone, including gang bangers on one hand and crazy policeman on the other, that shoots another person has to explain how that happened and, if done on purpose, have a very good reason, mostly self defense, for doing so. Government repression cannot replace individual responsibility when it concerns firearms.
Gun Control = Ability to select a legitimate target and hitting it with the first shot.
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Just because...
