Is it time to talk about guns?

FBI stats show 5 times more murders by knives than rifles in 2018

Homicides by murder weapon in the U.S. 2019 | Statista

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8

 

Evil will commit Evil,

Jonestown Massacre: What It Meant To 'Drink The Kool-Aid'

 

MeAgain

And the reason why supporters of gun control keep having to explain that is because the pro-gun lobby keep pushing the idea.

And again it seems to be about promoting fear rather than the positive outcomes of lessening easy access to criminals and the irresponsible.

Fear that ‘they’ want to ban ALL legal gun ownership

Fear that any gun control is a wedge so that ‘they’ can take away ALL ‘our’ guns

Fear that ‘they’ want to take away ALL guns because of a hidden agenda

*

As I’ve said before the fearful are much easier to manipulate and it is harder to get through a cloud of fear with rational argument.

It seems to me that it is going to be a long process or education that on a positive note I think has started to happen give the change in the numbers (even on the right) toward accepting some gun control s needed.

 

Toe

Knives and firearms

That is an old piece of dishonesty

Rifles – just rifles - not all firearms or the most commonly used firearm handguns but rifles specifically

All firearms – 10,213 (statista) 10,265 (FBI)

Handguns - 6,603

Knives – 1,515

Again given the job you claim I’m disappointed

 

As I point out in post 150 someone with a rock or club is not going to be able to do as much damage to as many people as someone with a modern firearm, even someone with a knife is easier to subdue than someone with a modern firearm.

 

Expanded Homicide Data Table 8

What is dishonest about this information

 

Toe

It is meant to deceive it is disingenuous at best and at worse a knowing lie

And I don’t know if it is written down somewhere in a pro-gun lobby handbook but it has been thrown at me several times and I’ve seen it written in many other places all by pro-gun people.

It is meant to bamboozle the unwary or the gullible into thinking there is a parity between the danger of knives and firearms and doesn’t make sense in any other context

Shame on you.

 

You believe the FBI would provide false information for a pro-gun campaign ?

 

Toe

LOL oh I see what you did there – thing is - is it clever or just silly

Ok so why did you think someone would selectively cite the info about rifles and knives rather than the much more obvious (and honest) comparison between guns and knives

Why do you think a person pushing back against gun control would say

FBI stats show 5 times more murders by knives than rifles

Rather than

FBI stats show 7 times more murders by guns than knives

 

You did look at this information, correct ? Expanded Homicide Data Table 8

 

Toe

Knives and firearms

Total number of homicides - 14,123

Those committed by firearms – 10,265

Knives – 1,515

 

I live in London it has a population of around 7.5 million and it only had 175 homicides between Apr-2005 to Apr-2006. In fact in 2009 there were only 651 murders in the whole of England and Wales with a population of around 55 million.

But let us take an American city – Philadelphia* – it I believe has a population of around 6.1 million yet it had 406 homicides in that same year. So two Philadelphia’s with only 12.2 million people would create 812 murders, more than what is produced by 55 million Brits.

So the question is are Americans more murderous or is it just that Americans have easier access to much more lethal weapons?

*I was comparing a couple of urban areas of roughly the same size and population density

Philadelphia - population density of 11,457 people per square mile
London - population density of 11,760 people per square mile

New research (New York University's Brennan Center for Justice)

Homicide rates per 100,000 population 2017

Philadelphia – 20.1

London – 1.6

 

You’re right, I should have made my self clear, Rifle use in homicides is what information also has provided, 297 for 2018

as you have pointed out 1,515 homicides in 2018 with knives or edged weapon

perhaps knives should be banned before rifles ?

 

London's murder rate surpasses New York's for 1st time ever

 

Toe

And once again why do you say ‘banned’ as I MeAgain and others have made clear we are talking about prudent gun control measures not totally banning firearms.

I’d then ask if this actually makes any sense to you?

To me it’s the kind of silliness that so highlights how weak the pro-gun argument is.

I mean look at the figures the largest number of US homicides are related to guns not knives

Total number of homicides - 14,123

Those committed by firearms – 10,265

Those committed by Knives – 1,515

 

Would Regulated be a better choice or wording than Banned perhaps ?

 

What utter and complete balderdash. When was the last time you heard of someone with a knife sticking 26 people in 32 seconds?
Or is it just willful ignorance?

 

Toe

I'm not saying the UK doesn't have its problems but one time that was quickly passed does not make 'a gotcha'

There is a lot of time money and energy been spent trying to tackle some of our cities knife problem and we already have laws in place. The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife in public without good reason is 4 years in prison and an unlimited fine. You’ll get a prison sentence if you’re convicted of carrying a knife more than once.

Once again this kind of reply just highlights how weak the US pro-gun argument is.

There were 34 firearm homicides in the US per million of population in 2016, (compared with 0.48 shooting-related murders in the UK) and 4.96 homicides “due to knives or cutting instruments” in the US for every million of population in 2016 (In Britain there were 3.26 homicides involving a sharp instrument per million people in the year from April 2016 to March 2017)

 

If proper regulation of weapons of mass death won't work (you know; like it does in every other developed country on Earth), then perhaps what we need to do is control the 'undesireables' who demonstrably can't be trusted with assault rifles; WASP males.
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