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It's just yet another idiotic myth taking advantage of the fact that most conservatives are too ignorant to verify any data by themselves.
Here we go:
Texas has a homicide rate of 4.7, Mississippi - 7.4 or Florida - 5.2. All of them a far cry from civilized countries like Canada with 1.6, Australia with 1.0, Japan with 0.3, Germany with 0.8 or the UK with 1.2 homicides per 100,000 of population. Nope, even without NYC, Detroit, Newark, Chicago, LA, DC and New Orleans, the US would still be a MUCH MORE dangerous place than any other industrialized nation and not anywhere near the bottom...
Try again lol
Indeed. if you take "diverse" cities like New Orleans, St Louis, Chicago, Newark and D.C. out of the equation we have one of the lowest rates of gun violence on Earth.
How many of those are suicides? The reason our gun crime rates look so inflated compared to other countries is that we include suicide in ours (close to 60% of all gun crime btw) where most other countries do not.
Suicides involving firearms are included in gun VIOLENCE stats, not gun Crime stats.
Gun violence includes crimes, but also "justified" shootings, accidental shootings, and, yes, suicides.
The stats are so apple to oranges that in the last world report on violence the FBI issued a disclaimer that the US crime data should not be used for making comparisons with other countries.
I haven't used FBI data RoTFL. Stop this nonsense, dead body is a dead body in any country, that's why homicide rates are the only ones you can compare. Anyways, i's not just the big cities, the entire us has murder rates way above any industrialized nation. Why? Because these nations are smart and have gun control. Gun control works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapperJohn
The stats are so apple to oranges that in the last world report on violence the FBI issued a disclaimer that the US crime data should not be used for making comparisons with other countries.
I am not going to fight this argument with statistics. All I can say is that I have never lived in fear that I did not have the means to protect myself or my family. While I have never had to pull a gun on anybody; I have always had one at the time when I might have needed one. I have never had an accidental discharge - I treat guns with the respect that they mandate.
Both me and my wife are now 67. We have lived our lives knowing that it is possible to protect ourselves and our family. We never had to hide in the closet and hope the bad guy never found us. Guns gave us piece of mind. Even if a criminal broke in and used my guns against us; I still feel that all of these years (of at least thinking we controlled our destiny) has to be worth something.
There will always be bad guys walking amongst us. The people that try to take the guns, out of the hands of citizens that legally own then, have absolutely no way to take them away from the criminals. Then there is the other debate about how easy it would be to invade us if we were not armed.
The statistics are clear that the US has among the highest gun violence rates in the industrialized world. I really don't know how anyone can dispute that and that the cause of this gun violence are weak gun control laws.
Some anti-gun control people have argued that our gun violence stats are skewed because of inner city violence or one's race which is in itself an argument for greater gun control not lesser.
Why is that?
The question is what is more important to you the rights of the living to be free from gun violence or the right to own guns whose sole purpose is to kill human beings (not hunting guns)? If you believe that gun rights trump all like Joe the Plumber, I say stop the BS, like challenging obvious facts on gun violence, and call it like it is. My right to own a gun trumps your right to live. It does not matter that one person or one hundred thousand lives will be saved with stricter gun control as gun rights supersedes all. The race of a person is a red herring in this argument and means nothing.
Joe the Plumber may be a joke in many ways, but he did cut to the chase on what the right and many who agree with him really think.
The statistics are clear that the US has among the highest gun violence rates in the industrialized world. I really don't know how anyone can dispute that and that the cause of this gun violence are weak gun control laws.
Some anti-gun control people have argued that our gun violence stats are skewed because of inner city violence or one's race which is in itself an argument for greater gun control not lesser.
Why is that?
The question is what is more important to you the rights of the living to be free from gun violence or the right to own guns whose sole purpose is to kill human beings (not hunting guns)? If you believe that gun rights trump all like Joe the Plumber, I say stop the BS, like challenging obvious facts on gun violence, and call it like it is. My right to own a gun trumps your right to live. It does not matter that one person or one hundred thousand lives will be saved with stricter gun control as gun rights supersedes all. The race of a person is a red herring in this argument and means nothing.
Joe the Plumber may be a joke in many ways, but he did cut to the chase on what the right and many who agree with him really think.
So how do you plan on taking the guns away from people that don't pay attention to our laws?
You want to see the gun violence statistics drop; legalize a way for a painless suicide. That would cut down on the suicides by gun. If people had a better means to kill themselves; they would take it. Until that time and especially if you count suicides by guns in the statistics; gun deaths will be high.
When I grew up we carried our guns to school for our HS rifle team. I never heard of a school shooting. I also carried (legally) a pocket knife - we had no school stabbings. Why are you so concerned about taking the weapons out of the hands of people that have never been in trouble? You catch criminals with guns; give them extra time or shoot them with their own guns - do whatever it takes to stop the gun violence; but leave those out of the equation that obey the law.
The aim of control laws is to keep the guns out of the hands of people who will abuse these The idea of taking guns from people who already own them is frankly ridiculous, and any proposed gun control laws are proactive and not retroactive. I don't know why law abiding gun advocates are such stubborn opponents of gun control legislation, like background checks, when they will enable the law abiding citizen to purchase the weapon they desire after the background check or waiting period.
It would seem to me that many gun rights advocates are also pro-life in one context, but for any gun control laws are there most vocal opponents despite the fact that it may save lives. Either you believe that saving lives from senseless gun violence is an admirable goal or you don't. If you don't, just admit it.
...., and any proposed gun control laws are proactive and not retroactive.... .
Not always. With a stroke of the pen many gun owners in NY suddenly owned illegal firearms when magazine limits were arbitrarily put in place. No grandfathering, just SOL.
NJ is pushing for the same thing which will render even some old .22 rifles illegal.
In the meantime it will continue to be business as usual in Newark, Camden, Trenton..............
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