Another idiot with a gun

[lostinblue 1,989]

....

Nice article from a pro gun group. Maybe they should check out they facts regarding guns and murders. Assaults have gone up, as have robberies but at least are not dead.

I supported guns all the way myself until I realized, week after week, it's an absolute joke here. The fact still remains that while the US has 14 times Australia's population, it has 160 times the death rate by means of firearm. No matter how anyone tries to twist, spin, etc. The fact speaks for itself. As do similar results in pretty much every other developed country.

At least I know my family over there has little chance of being murdered by means of a firearm. By means of some wacko shooting up. Statistically speaking, by means of domestic dispute; which covers one of the largest percentages of homicides.

Just don't marry a wacko,drug addict , drunk,or a person with mental problems and you should be all right. People make bad choices all the time.Then they wonder why some one in the family suffers. Like knowing the boyfriend only a few weeks and he moves in to learn a few years later that he has been molesting your son or daughter. Bad choices.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Things never change, do they.

[Ban Hammer 13,895]

yeah, let's just remove the ability of the elderly, women, and the physically disabled from protecting themselves from criminals.

[mawilson 2,133]

Come to various parts of DC or Chicago and then come tell me whether you prefer a police state or not.

Why would I? I consider DC a safe city because most of the crime is contained in a couple of poor (or "black") areas.

[Peikko 1,575]

This thread is getting really weird.

It only gets weird when people want to beat around the bush and deliberately divert it. The figures I stated earlier speak for themselves. They are a living proof of the success of gun control.

If by success you mean success at taking away people's freedoms in the name of the "greater good"

to usher in a fascist, totalitarian police state where once there was privacy, democracy and liberty, then

yes, you're in good hands - Australia and the UK are some of the best examples of modern police states

where the police closely watch all citizens, yet crime still happens.

That's an interesting delusion that Australia and the UK are farther along the line to being a fascist state than the US simply because people here have the right to bear arms. How does that work exactly? If I was in the US political elite I would encourage gun rights because that focuses the attention of the mob in exactly the wrong direction. Clever it is, if it's deliberate

[mawilson 2,133]

That's an interesting delusion that Australia and the UK are farther along the line to being a fascist state than the US simply because people here have the right to bear arms. How does that work exactly? If I was in the US political elite I would encourage gun rights because that focuses the attention of the mob in exactly the wrong direction. Clever it is, if it's deliberate

Britons once had the right to bear arms. How did it disappear?

"All the way down the slippery slope"

[Peikko 1,575]

Maybe they did, but really, I don't see the 'right to bear arms' as much of a guarantee of freedom from oppression in and of itself in the modern age.

In fact I will revise and go further, it's absolutely no guarantee of anything, freedom included.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You don't eliminate crime unless you declare martial law - something that has not happened in either the UK or Australia, let alone the US.

Crime is a fact of life in any society - the pertinent questions surely are how prevalent it is (in general) and which types of crime rise to prominence.

Generally speaking, you can't eliminate crime by legislating against the possession of weapons (though I do think that encouraging the sort of society where its seen as acceptable for people to walk around armed doesn't really do much for social stability) as much as trying to combat certain social conditions that cause it.

At least where I lived in the UK (and where I grew up) it was common knowledge where the dodgy parts of town were and it wasn't really surprising that they were the areas of greatest impoverishment. Much the same is true here - though the piss poor job of urban integration in many cities has given rise to urban ghettos which can be all but ignored by the residents of the more affluent districts.

That's an interesting delusion that Australia and the UK are farther along the line to being a fascist state than the US simply because people here have the right to bear arms. How does that work exactly? If I was in the US political elite I would encourage gun rights because that focuses the attention of the mob in exactly the wrong direction. Clever it is, if it's deliberate

Britons once had the right to bear arms. How did it disappear?

"All the way down the slippery slope"

Probably because we don't have a well-funded gun lobby and arms industry shilling for its own interests.

[_Simpson_ 250]

I don't think there is a distinction for driving a car as either driving somewhere innocently or guilty. Guns have a single purpose: to penetrate flesh and either maim or kill. If that isn't obvious then there really isn't a purpose of discussing morality and legality.

Guns are used as a deterrent too, my point being is deal with the gunman not the gun. A madman has a lot of options and its pointless to think if we take the gun out of the equation its all good.

I gotta go

Well as I've said before... we're not talking about an across the board 'taking guns out of the equation' deal here. For every extreme case and crazy out there we can find a weapon down to a carpet fiber if you want. The very clear difference is obvious, like I said- and its in the design of the weapon. I'm sure if you were to do an actual statistical analysis to show frequency of use and result in depriving humans of their lives in a non-bellicose fashion that the intentional use of cars, tractors, RVs, knives, chalk, fingernails, rope, arsenic, flowers, ghecko tails, beer bottles, farts, frying pans, pizza cutters, street signs, cement blocks, pirañas, sharks, etc all added up have NOT been utilized to kill as many people as firearms.

And in those details is where we should be rationalizing our thinking... not in equating things on slippery slopes as if they were all equal.

Well first of all lets put this into perspective. I never said that all these things were comparable like knives,beer bottles and other things you listed. I said deal will the gunman not the gun. His options were plenty even if he didnt have the gun. You commented on something that I was responding to in that nature and took it out of context to make it sound like im comparing all these things as equals when it comes to killing. Then with my equation statement you made it sound like I was suggesting you or others wanted to ban guns when all I was saying is he would of found another way. I was not doing that and this kind of ####### happens a lot here at VJ, the point Im trying to make gets lost in the attempt to try to write me off as "one of those guys".

So many people turn to the thinking, stricter gun laws when madmen do shite like this, my point being is guns werent his only option. There is plenty of other fast and effective way to kill people.

Edited September 8, 2009 by _Simpson_

[mawilson 2,133]

Maybe they did, but really, I don't see the 'right to bear arms' as much of a guarantee of freedom from oppression in and of itself in the modern age.

It's not a "guarantee", but it certainly helps. Read this, for example.

[natty bumppo 297]

you're the one pointing out the "living organism" comparison ... just sayin'

Well you guys do seem to use them to kill anything and everything.

sorta like you do kangaroos and wallabies? heck you guys even attach roo bars to vehicles to do a proper job ...

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I don't think there is a distinction for driving a car as either driving somewhere innocently or guilty. Guns have a single purpose: to penetrate flesh and either maim or kill. If that isn't obvious then there really isn't a purpose of discussing morality and legality.

Guns are used as a deterrent too, my point being is deal with the gunman not the gun. A madman has a lot of options and its pointless to think if we take the gun out of the equation its all good.

I gotta go

Well as I've said before... we're not talking about an across the board 'taking guns out of the equation' deal here. For every extreme case and crazy out there we can find a weapon down to a carpet fiber if you want. The very clear difference is obvious, like I said- and its in the design of the weapon. I'm sure if you were to do an actual statistical analysis to show frequency of use and result in depriving humans of their lives in a non-bellicose fashion that the intentional use of cars, tractors, RVs, knives, chalk, fingernails, rope, arsenic, flowers, ghecko tails, beer bottles, farts, frying pans, pizza cutters, street signs, cement blocks, pirañas, sharks, etc all added up have NOT been utilized to kill as many people as firearms.

And in those details is where we should be rationalizing our thinking... not in equating things on slippery slopes as if they were all equal.

Well first of all lets put this into perspective. I never said that all these things were comparable like knives,beer bottles and other things you listed. I said deal will the gunman not the gun. His options were plenty even if he didnt have the gun. You commented on something that I was responding to in that nature and took it out of context to make it sound like im comparing all these things as equals when it comes to killing. Then with my equation statement you made it sound like I was suggesting you or others wanted to ban guns when all I was saying is he would of found another way. I was not doing that and this kind of ####### happens a lot here at VJ, point Im making get lost in the attempt to try to write me off as "one of those guys".

So many people turn to the thinking, stricter gun laws when madmen do shite like this, my point being is guns werent his only option. There is plenty of other fast and effective way to kill people.

You have to admit though - this kind of rampage things seems to be peculiar to this country, certainly it seems to happen a lot more regularly than it does in many others (in the UK, Hungerford and Dunblane while several years apart were watershed moments as far as the law was concerned).

I also don't think its any coincidence that firearms are used in the majority of suicides.

I don't have an answer for this, but its certainly interesting.

One thing you can say with certainty however - is that trying to relativise guns in this equation is pretty dishonest.

[Peikko 1,575]

Maybe they did, but really, I don't see the 'right to bear arms' as much of a guarantee of freedom from oppression in and of itself in the modern age.

It's not a "guarantee", but it certainly helps. Read this, for example.

What is more important, the group or the gun? Without the gun, the group can succeed, without the group the gun is nothing.

[Peikko 1,575]

I don't think there is a distinction for driving a car as either driving somewhere innocently or guilty. Guns have a single purpose: to penetrate flesh and either maim or kill. If that isn't obvious then there really isn't a purpose of discussing morality and legality.

Guns are used as a deterrent too, my point being is deal with the gunman not the gun. A madman has a lot of options and its pointless to think if we take the gun out of the equation its all good.

I gotta go

Well as I've said before... we're not talking about an across the board 'taking guns out of the equation' deal here. For every extreme case and crazy out there we can find a weapon down to a carpet fiber if you want. The very clear difference is obvious, like I said- and its in the design of the weapon. I'm sure if you were to do an actual statistical analysis to show frequency of use and result in depriving humans of their lives in a non-bellicose fashion that the intentional use of cars, tractors, RVs, knives, chalk, fingernails, rope, arsenic, flowers, ghecko tails, beer bottles, farts, frying pans, pizza cutters, street signs, cement blocks, pirañas, sharks, etc all added up have NOT been utilized to kill as many people as firearms.

And in those details is where we should be rationalizing our thinking... not in equating things on slippery slopes as if they were all equal.

Well first of all lets put this into perspective. I never said that all these things were comparable like knives,beer bottles and other things you listed. I said deal will the gunman not the gun. His options were plenty even if he didnt have the gun. You commented on something that I was responding to in that nature and took it out of context to make it sound like im comparing all these things as equals when it comes to killing. Then with my equation statement you made it sound like I was suggesting you or others wanted to ban guns when all I was saying is he would of found another way. I was not doing that and this kind of ####### happens a lot here at VJ, point Im making get lost in the attempt to try to write me off as "one of those guys".

So many people turn to the thinking, stricter gun laws when madmen do shite like this, my point being is guns werent his only option. There is plenty of other fast and effective way to kill people.

You have to admit though - this kind of rampage things seems to be peculiar to this country, certainly it seems to happen a lot more regularly than it does in many others (in the UK, Hungerford and Dunblane while several years apart were watershed moments as far as the law was concerned).

I also don't think its any coincidence that firearms are used in the majority of suicides.

I don't have an answer for this, but its certainly interesting.

One thing you can say with certainty however - is that trying to relativise guns in this equation is pretty dishonest.

The simple fact is that the gun makes these things a lot more likely to take place whatever view you have on the right to bear arms. If you have a gun you are much more likely to succeed in killing your targets than with any other non weapon 'tool'. Of course, if you want to randomly kill a lot of people, that is slightly different but even so, the gun is probably right up their along with bombs and the like.

[Ban Hammer 13,895]

Maybe they did, but really, I don't see the 'right to bear arms' as much of a guarantee of freedom from oppression in and of itself in the modern age.

It's not a "guarantee", but it certainly helps. Read this, for example.

What is more important, the group or the gun? Without the gun, the group can succeed, without the group the gun is nothing.

imagine that.