Justice Thomas: 2a Won't be Touched

You just made a case for my owning a firearm for home protection. I don't care to be raped or burglarized. You've shown that those things happen in the U.S. more than elsewhere.

 

storch

Couple of things

As pointed out most of the people here advocating gun control are not against you having a gun for home protection, as long as you are a law abiding citizen and who acts responsibly.

But I would point out that easy access to guns does not seemed to have reduced crime as well as many comparable countries that do have gun control but has vastly increased the number killed and seriously injured with gun in the US compared to those same countries.

Basically guns are not good at tackling crime but are good at causing deaths.

 

Two of the sets of statistics only dealt with whether a gun was used when someone was killed.

The question of whether or not a gun was the weapon that was used to kill someone doesn't seem particularly relevant since the victim would be just as dead if they were killed with some other weapon.

One of the sets of statistics addressed homicide rates in general. These stats are more relevant to the question of saving lives. However these statistics show that gun availability has only a low correlation with homicide rates.

 

Well, I'm a law abiding citizen, so that's settled.

 

TA

Ok again so to you there is not difference between a blunt pen knife and a fully loaded glock hey lets have a duel ten paces you have the knife I’ll take the glock

 

It's not a matter of difference or lack thereof. It is the fact that a knife is more than sufficient for a murderer to kill with if that is the only tool that he has available to work with.

 

lol

Ok again so to you there is not difference between a blunt pen knife and a fully loaded glock hey lets have a duel ten paces you have the knife I’ll take the glock

I’ve seen knife fights in one the person without a knife just ran away from the one with one. In the other the person without a knife just stepped behind a table and the other couldn’t reach him with their knife and then the man without picked up a chair and used it like a lion tamer in a circus and pushed the knife guy back who then ran away.

Neither ploy would have worked if the knife had been a gun.

And that’s the thing guns are on the whole far far more lethal than other hand held weapons.

 

No. It is more that the difference doesn't matter when it comes to homicide rates.

Guns may well be deadlier than knives, but knives are still sufficiently deadly to kill with.

That doesn't seem to prevent people from being murdered with knives.

Other handheld weapons are lethal enough, however, for killers to still use them if they are the only tools that are available to them.

 

oh my friend you can kill someone with a potato so in your opinion are plant tubers just as lethal as weapons as guns - please come on man you are going to kill me with laughter - oh is laughter just as lethal as guns, please go on....please.

 

Less range, but dead is dead, so yeah. Potato may have a surprise advantage.

 

Ok so this is the great rational and reasonable argument of the gun lobby, guns are no more effective at killing people than potatoes, no gun control would be effective because people would be able to kill people at the exact same rate with plant tubers

wow this would be so funny if it wasn't so tragic

 

I'm just me, not the gun lobby. It's my opinion that if a person wants to kill another, they're going to do it with whatever is available to them, and the solution isn't banning everything capable of killing, but curbing the murderous thoughts. In life, that's not always possible. Aside from that, try and recognize humor when it jumps out and bites your ankle.

 

And lethal is lethal, there's no degrees of it. You added effective in the reply, and yes a firearm would be more effective, but no more lethal. The intent of the user makes the difference.

 

No. It is more that the difference doesn't matter when it comes to homicide rates. Take away the guns and the homicide rate remains pretty much the same.

Although, even if guns did make a difference in homicide rates, we'd still have the right to have guns regardless.

 

Did someone say Clarence Thomas?

 

LOL so in the context of this gun control debate you are arguing that there should be no prudent gun control because a potato is just the same as a gun.

Way to go in trying to convince people the gun lobby are rational and reasonable LOL

Oh yeah because people will commit as many murders using potatoes

Wow you people make it way too easy to point out the absurdity of the gun lobby arguments.

 

Range matters. Also, potato would have to strike just right, in the temple maybe, and even then would probably not be lethal. Guns are more predictable and efficient. That's why we arm police and security guards with guns instead of potatoes.

 

Stop being silly, of course they're different. While you could kill someone with a potato, there are other options available. Ban them all? How about dealing with the murderous intentions instead of limiting what can be used?

 

This has been covered , but one more time; Pay attention! It's much, much, much harder to deal with murderous intentions than to deal with the instruments of murder, because: (1) it's tantamount to dealing with sin and mental illness; (2) we don't know how to do it; (4) sin is beyond the reach of secular society, and even the clergy have trouble with it; (3) the bounds of a free society put limits on how far we can go in preventive measures for the mentally ill, and (4) we don't have the resources, primarily because the folks who love guns also hate to spend taxpayers' money on mental health. Guns don't kill people, but people use guns to kill people--more efficiently than with potatoes, knives, axes, chainsaws, step ladders, fingernail clippers, etc. Without the guns, they'd have to rely on riskier forms of mayhem, like the knives & chainsaws, and their victims might have a better chance of getting away. Besides, most of the other things you can kill people with have other useful functions besides killing..

 

I think its funny 2nd amendment proponents keep saying they want to focus on the root of what drives someone to commit murder

I do too and I will be the first to say the societal ills we deal with in the US are unique to American culture relative to other first world nations

But on the other hand, the vast majority of conservatives dont really want to focus on the root cause. They want to pay it lip service but they arent really willing to fund social services that would address the root, like single payer healthcare or better and more accessible mental health services