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I am so happy to live in germany which has so strict weapon rules. I would not want to live in a country where i know that all my neighbours have weapons at home. Noooo thanks. I feel so safe here, you can count the shootings happening here "on the hand" ( not really but almost). I dont understand why everybody in the US needs a gun at home, even the poor people which dont have a fortune at home or are hollywood stars. For me, this is just mentally ill. If i think i live in a unsafe area - i move to another!
I am so happy to live in germany which has so strict weapon rules. I would not want to live in a country where i know that all my neighbours have weapons at home. Noooo thanks. I feel so safe here, you can count the shootings happening here "on the hand" ( not really but almost). I dont understand why everybody in the US needs a gun at home, even the poor people which dont have a fortune at home or are hollywood stars. For me, this is just mentally ill. If i think i live in a unsafe area - i move to another!
Hahahahahahhahahahahahahahha...
Yeah, Germany is the country you want to reference when talking about gun control.
Why don't you ask a German Jew how well gun control works.
I am so happy to live in germany which has so strict weapon rules. I would not want to live in a country where i know that all my neighbours have weapons at home. Noooo thanks. I feel so safe here, you can count the shootings happening here "on the hand" ( not really but almost). I dont understand why everybody in the US needs a gun at home, even the poor people which dont have a fortune at home or are hollywood stars. For me, this is just mentally ill. If i think i live in a unsafe area - i move to another!
Germany is top 15th for gun ownership, which means about 1/3rd of the population owns a firearm. I feel more comfortable knowing my neighbors all have guns as well as I. It's called "personal protection". Go ahead and hit a criminal with a bat or a frying pan and let us know how it turns out for you
There is some debate as to whether the 2.5 million number is actually accurate and if it isn't we lose credibility in the gun debate. Some estimates peg the number closer to 1 million and some closer to 2.5 million, we should probably just split the baby and use a fraction of the smaller number. It's high enough anyway, but we might as well give the benefit of the doubt to the critics.
The actual number of firearm related deaths in the USA is 8,583, a bit lower than the 12,500.
I was going by mainly the 2007 reports I keep running across online since more recent data under Obumer seems to be classified information. But truth be told, the gun grabbing leftist are too lazy or incompetent to research the data for themselves. But of course what more can we expect from a group of persons that want others to do everything for them while they have their hand out for waiting for gov. handouts and freebies. Also I have yet to see anyone from the gun control movement post any viable data to support their argument. Although there certainly isn't a shortage of baseless insults hurled at anyone that is pro-gun and posts strong supporting evidence for the 2nd amendment.
In my 2 or 3 weeks of digging, I certainly haven't found any evidence that supports their argument that less guns save lives or that criminals will obey new laws if passed or that law enforcement will start doing their jobs to enforce the laws already on the books. And I'll still stick to my 2.5 mil. estimate since I have seen this number on several sites that can be easily found by anyone else.
Utilizing Australia as an example is logically incorrect because Australia's history and culture is essentially alien to ours.
Yeah, they're descendants of criminals? But come on, their culture is "essentially alien"? Not really. A little different but not a lot. The key difference has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with the structure of our Bill of Rights. Their country was somewhat permissive gun-wise and became less permissive after some incidents. Sure it was more easily accepted there but mainly because they don't have an individual guaranteed right and a vehement lobby dedicated to making sure no bit of that is impinged. (Aside: can we please apply just a little of that 2nd Amendment vehemence to the 4th Amendment at the airport? Please? Thanks.) It's just an interesting data point in a country choosing to become more restrictive with guns. There's no denying that the gun murder rates are lower in the countries where guns are far more restricted, so the idea that restricting them wouldn't make the rate go lower seems a bit of a stretch. But anyway this really isn't a straight gun control debate exactly; gun control makes up part of the argument as to whether or not the premise of guns save lives can be true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnonymouseX
A more apt comparison is a state with extremely lax gun laws like say mine, VA, or Alaska vs one with severe gun laws like say DC or New York or Illinois.
Not really. These are pretty much varying degrees of permissive to extremely permissive. Okay maybe not DC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnonymouseX
The data proves that reduced gun laws accompany reduced gun murder rates. Period. No argument otherwise exists.
You know, even if that is taken as given (I do not share your certainty though I am aware of the correlation) what you have demonstrated is that in some of these state by state cases having even more guns resulted in fewer deaths than having some smaller number of guns. Does that automatically demonstrate that "Guns save lives" overall? To me it does not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnonymouseX
Note I use murder only as utilizing accidents or self defense is stupid. You can't ban accidents and self defense is an irrevocable right.
Self-defense might be an irrevocable right, but not necessarily with a gun. Using a gun for self-defense is a right that is in the US merely highly unlikely to be revoked. It can be revoked by amending the Constitution, which is very difficult but not impossible. An extreme change general political feeling on this matter would have to happen for it to get to that point, and we are not in any way close to such extreme changes despite what many gun advocates appear to think.
You can't ban accidents, but the deaths are part of the numbers. So are the self-defense ones. If the self-defense deaths are traded for victims instead, well, there's no gain in lives saved, but suggesting that the self-defense deaths don't count is just an emotional response because the "good" people are still living. I am thinking a lot of this "Guns save lives" argument hinges on emotions because a certain chunk of gun deaths are criminals who are maybe worse than the ones who murdered them, and who cares if these lowlifes die right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnonymouseX
With the exception if Arizona and Massachusetts which are statistical outliers, all the states with the laxest gun laws have less gun murders than those with the strictest.
You think those are equal sets of data? There are a whole lotta variables between those places other than just a very general ranking of strictest vs laxest gun laws. Something is effed up in DC though for sure, but then we know that right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnonymouseX
Why? Banning guns and increased gun laws don't work...
That is probably true in this country but it's not possible to determine very well because there are so many guns. Why does it work in other countries? You know, saying it's in the "culture" is really BS unless you think it's good that our culture is one of, erm, shooting people. We can't have extreme restriction here as I have readily admitted but the stats always make me go WTF? If they make you go "Who cares?" then your priorities are out of whack in my opinion. Although we can't have and many of us don't want laws that restrictive, we can and should wonder if that is why the gun murder rates are so much lower in those countries.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnonymouseX
That's what I meant by you people. You people includes anti gunners plus all the other people that want to discuss based on emotions. Both groups are illogical.
A lot of emotions are on the pro-gun side too. I am purposely trying to keep this as emotion-free as possible. I'm not taking a side in a pro vs anti-gun debate here. I came into this wondering if there is data for the "Guns save lives" remark to hold up, some kind of numbers compiled for the lives saved since we do compile some numbers of the lives lost. I realize it's difficult to quantify the number of lives saved, so I think the answer is probably that we don't have such stats. We should though. It would be a good argument.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnonymouseX
There us nothing to discuss. Allowing guns and relaxing the gun laws results in more saved lives.
Well if the the one thing actually does cause the other, it results in fewer lost lives. Which is not quite the same thing. But apparently it's close enough for you.
That's fine by me, I just don't like the simple proclamation. I thought it was reasonable to expect a certain burden of proof when you're talking above a device designed to kill people "saving lives".
Guns save lives. Violent Crime & Murder rates are higher in countries that ban guns. Murder is murder regardless of what tool is used to commit murder. Only a stupid tool would claim lower gun murder is good when actual murder skyrockets when guns are banned.
Heh, well, you might notice in the chart you posted that all the countries with lower rates are more restrictive with guns. Of course, so are the ones with higher rates. So you've got that true for certain countries, but nothing conclusive for "higher in countries that bun guns" in general.
To answer your question:
FACT:2.5 million armed citizens defended their livesand/or property while 12,500 lives were lost in gun related crimes. That is 200 times more lives and/or property saved by the use of guns than were lost.
And you do NOT have to take my word for it, you can find the data if you chose to look for the truth of the matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lycos679
There is some debate as to whether the 2.5 million number is actually accurate and if it isn't we lose credibility in the gun debate. Some estimates peg the number closer to 1 million and some closer to 2.5 million, we should probably just split the baby and use a fraction of the smaller number. It's high enough anyway, but we might as well give the benefit of the doubt to the critics.
The actual number of firearm related deaths in the USA is 8,583, a bit lower than the 12,500.
That's a rather interesting stat that hasn't been proposed before in this thread. But where is the source?
If you're proposing that guns save lives and using that stat to back it up (makes sense to me), the burden is on you to support your statements here, not on me or anyone else to take your word for it and go look it up.
That's a huge number, very good for a guns save lives argument. Shouldn't be any reason to neglect posting the source.
Generally speaking when gun control is put in place, murder rates stay about the same or go down slightly, but here is the fly in the ointment: violent crime goes up.
That's interesting. In any general discussion of gun control I think this is an important point about the violent crime going up, a side effect that might give people otherwise in favor of gun control some pause. But does it fit into guns save lives? I guess to answer that the question would be do you want to take some wide definition of "saves lives" or are we sticking strictly to alive vs dead? If the latter, then the violent crime stats actually do not matter for the sake of this debate.
That's a rather interesting stat that hasn't been proposed before in this thread. But where is the source?
If you're proposing that guns save lives and using that stat to back it up (makes sense to me), the burden is on you to support your statements here, not on me or anyone else to take your word for it and go look it up.
That's a huge number, very good for a guns save lives argument. Shouldn't be any reason to neglect posting the source.
It was linked earlier in the thread, maybe page 3.
"Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use: A Methodological Experiment." By David McDowall and others. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, March 2000, Vol 16, Issue 1
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But come on, their culture is "essentially alien"? Not really. A little different but not a lot. The key difference has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with the structure of our Bill of Rights. Their country was somewhat permissive gun-wise and became less permissive after some incidents. Sure it was more easily accepted there but mainly because they don't have an individual guaranteed right and a vehement lobby dedicated to making sure no bit of that is impinged. (Aside: can we please apply just a little of that 2nd Amendment vehemence to the 4th Amendment at the airport? Please? Thanks.) It's just an interesting data point in a country choosing to become more restrictive with guns. There's no denying that the gun murder rates are lower in the countries where guns are far more restricted, so the idea that restricting them wouldn't make the rate go lower seems a bit of a stretch. But anyway this really isn't a straight gun control debate exactly; gun control makes up part of the argument as to whether or not the premise of guns save lives can be true. 
