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Floorist, did you not come across any other information related to the Australia/United States comparison? Like this one for example?
"Australia has low rates of crime (particularly compared to the United States) and Australia is very safe. There is no reason to need to protect yourself with a gun. Nobody does. Here a gun is a tool. For farmers (which Australia has a lot of) or for sport shooters (in which Australia competes very well at an international level). They are locked and secured. They aren’t semi automatic or fully automatic. They are registered. The owner is registered. The guns and the gun safe are inspected regularly, by the local police, across the nation. There are no loop holes. Gun owning is a privilege, as it should be. Any gun crime is extremely serious. Any gun incident (even non-fatal) are very serious."
Why? His country has a minuscule fraction of gun deaths, violence and injuries compared to the US.
If he told you that the UK invented a cure for cancer, would you ignore it because they have a Nationalized health system unlike the US? Makes no sense.
Why? Because comparing the United States to England makes as much sense as comparing the earth to the moon. We have so little in common that we barely speak the same language. There is no inherent right to defend oneself in British law. There is no Constitution as we have in the United States much less Amendments protecting the rights of citizens. The UK does not share our history or cultural diversity. They don't have the same issues that we have with inner city gang violence, which is the largest driver of the firearms death rate in the United States. If you dropped someone from the worst areas of London in Compton, Watts, Southside Chicago, or East Saint Louis they'd curl up in a ball and cry for help.
I'm tired of the idiotic comparisons between the United States and an island that could fit in a corner of Texas with room to rattle around, especially when that comparison boils down to "we should give up our rights and be more like them."
America is unique, and combines cultures that in other areas would never be combined. We need to find our own solutions, not copy the policies of the countries that our ancestors left.
Your second paragraph is another example of reductio ad absurdum and therefore isn't worth wasting time on. Stop being obtuse and actually approach the topic with logic.
You live in a country that has regulated BB guns and is attempting to ban pointy kitchen knives. Nobody here is taking you seriously when it comes to the topic of gun control.
Nobody is 'banning' kitchen knives, good lord where do you get your rather warped information from! Just like guns aren't 'banned' either! The difference is we have laws in place that limit the opportunity of death! This is the difference, I have plenty of kitchen knives and I can have a gun if I want one (I just cant carry it around Tescos (and why would I want to)) and that way thousands of lives are saved every year! It aint rocket science! Yet 'over there' thousands of people are dying unnecessarily, but what is most tragic is that nobody seems to even care!
Why? Because comparing the United States to England makes as much sense as comparing the earth to the moon. We have so little in common that we barely speak the same language. There is no inherent right to defend oneself in British law. There is no Constitution as we have in the United States much less Amendments protecting the rights of citizens. The UK does not share our history or cultural diversity. They don't have the same issues that we have with inner city gang violence, which is the largest driver of the firearms death rate in the United States. If you dropped someone from the worst areas of London in Compton, Watts, Southside Chicago, or East Saint Louis they'd curl up in a ball and cry for help.
I'm tired of the idiotic comparisons between the United States and an island that could fit in a corner of Texas with room to rattle around, especially when that comparison boils down to "we should give up our rights and be more like them."
America is unique, and combines cultures that in other areas would never be combined. We need to find our own solutions, not copy the policies of the countries that our ancestors left.
Your second paragraph is another example of reductio ad absurdum and therefore isn't worth wasting time on. Stop being obtuse and actually approach the topic with logic.
Don't be so ridiculous, we have a lot more in common than Britain has with some other 'first world' countries, and yet the US is the only 'first world' country with such shamefully high deaths by firearm, are we supposed to think that being American makes you 'different' from the rest of humanity! Gimme me a break!
Planes crash on runways, too, without even taking off. Even if they do take off, it is still survivable at times such as with the DC-10 in the corn fields. AT ANY RATE, I didn't come up with that, it is the recommended by those in airline safety, including the flight attendants, something like, "Please take a moment to locate the nearest exit to you, keeping in mind that it may be behind you.".
Now, about not everyone wants to be in that mode as an everyday part of living life, how does one avoid it when there are others out there determine to make a point of you, use your target status to their advantage?
Whether it is with guns, or gasoline as in the Happy Land Fire, or gas such as that being used in chemical suicides, or Molotov cocktails, or hijackings (in the 60s, the terrorists figured out it was much more "profitable" to hijack planes than just kill soldiers, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...rael-1.5424289 ) , or whatever, .....
FACE IT, we are targets at one point or another. You may wish it otherwise, but there are people out there determine to take the easy targets, the vulnerable, and use them for their advantage, whether it is because they are upset, angry, have a political point to make, or whatever.
Finally, everyone's life is like that at one point or another.
Again..., there are people who have the sort of fears you describe related to flying. Some people won't even fly at all because of that fear. One that I know personally. This even though the airline industry does all it can to remind everyone that air travel is extremely safe. "Flying is actually the safest mode of transportation. In fact, the odds of a plane crash are one for every 1.2 million flights, with odds of dying one in 11 million. Your chances of dying in a car or traffic accident are one in 5,000."
Same as driving, though of course we keep an eye in front of us and in the rear-view mirror, put on our seat belt, do I think about dying in a car crash every time I get onto the freeway. No, even less when I board a plane. You want to go through all the motions for whatever reasons you do? Fine, but again that's you, not me and not most people I don't think.
Funny your point here on another level when most anti-gun control folks will quickly argue the odds of getting shot despite all the guns in America do NOT justify all the fears. Statistically speaking, this too is true of course, but again it's the psychological factor that the statistics don't well take into account. Every time a plane crashes or some yahoo shoots a bunch of rounds into a concert crowd, millions of people are reminded of the threat no matter how remote, and they develop more fear regardless the statistics.
This is why so much effort goes into studying and preventing the next plane crash despite the safety records, and why in a similar fashion there is all this focus and interest in trying to prevent the next mass shooting. That people should have these fears or always be thinking in terms of how to survive a shooting is not the end result we're looking for I don't think. The opposite in fact. Kids should not be thinking about getting shot at school instead of getting good grades...
You live in a country that has regulated BB guns and is attempting to ban pointy kitchen knives. Nobody here is taking you seriously when it comes to the topic of gun control.
Might be true. I don't know, but before you claim what "nobody" is doing, maybe you should confirm or at least explain how you know this. Otherwise, you're no easier for me to take seriously. I can't speak for everyone of course, but I suspect there are more than a few who would agree...
Nobody is 'banning' kitchen knives, good lord where do you get your rather warped information from! Just like guns aren't 'banned' either! The difference is we have laws in place that limit the opportunity of death! This is the difference, I have plenty of kitchen knives and I can have a gun if I want one (I just cant carry it around Tescos (and why would I want to)) and that way thousands of lives are saved every year! It aint rocket science! Yet 'over there' thousands of people are dying unnecessarily, but what is most tragic is that nobody seems to even care!
Maybe to save yourself and others in case of a terrorist attack?
Nobody is 'banning' kitchen knives, good lord where do you get your rather warped information from! Just like guns aren't 'banned' either! The difference is we have laws in place that limit the opportunity of death! This is the difference, I have plenty of kitchen knives and I can have a gun if I want one (I just cant carry it around Tescos (and why would I want to)) and that way thousands of lives are saved every year! It aint rocket science! Yet 'over there' thousands of people are dying unnecessarily, but what is most tragic is that nobody seems to even care!
The 2012 British Olympic shooting team wasn't even allowed to practice in-country because of the restrictive gun laws.
While it's true that you can own a very limited variety of firearms, there are so many rules and regulations involved that you have what amounts to a tacit ban.
As for knives, the chairman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists is, in fact, leading the charge on trying to get pointed kitchen knives banned. I did not say that they were banned, I said there is a movement to get them banned. Reading comprehension is your friend.
Might be true. I don't know, but before you claim what "nobody" is doing, maybe you should confirm or at least explain how you know this. Otherwise, you're no easier for me to take seriously. I can't speak for everyone of course, but I suspect there are more than a few who would agree...
Perhaps "nobody" is too strong a term. I should have said "nobody who thinks logically." Several posters have already publicly stated that they are putting this particular member on the ignore list due to his seeming inability to actually participate in a logical debate.
Why? Because comparing the United States to England makes as much sense as comparing the earth to the moon. We have so little in common that we barely speak the same language. There is no inherent right to defend oneself in British law. There is no Constitution as we have in the United States much less Amendments protecting the rights of citizens. The UK does not share our history or cultural diversity. They don't have the same issues that we have with inner city gang violence, which is the largest driver of the firearms death rate in the United States. If you dropped someone from the worst areas of London in Compton, Watts, Southside Chicago, or East Saint Louis they'd curl up in a ball and cry for help.
I'm tired of the idiotic comparisons between the United States and an island that could fit in a corner of Texas with room to rattle around, especially when that comparison boils down to "we should give up our rights and be more like them."
America is unique, and combines cultures that in other areas would never be combined. We need to find our own solutions, not copy the policies of the countries that our ancestors left.
Your second paragraph is another example of reductio ad absurdum and therefore isn't worth wasting time on. Stop being obtuse and actually approach the topic with logic.
Though true, many of the differences you note, there are similarities too, just like we can consider with the Earth and the Moon. We can learn from both the differences AND similarities, as we should, and not be afraid of what objective evaluation of the data may tell us or help to tell us.
What is "idiotic" is not to consider the data and statistics here and as they compare to other countries. Certainly NOT to confuse matters with factors that are not entirely relevant to people who perpetrate or are victim of gun violence. Whether their constitution is different, for example, doesn't matter as much as whether they are more or less likely to be killed as a result of gun violence. Right?
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