"Gun town U.S.A." Not a murder in 25 years!!!

Certainly, but, effective does not correlate with available

I should also note, that upon looking at the statistics regarding kennesaw, I must say, it looks more like an economic correlation than a statistical one

 

But we CAN't all afford those systems, and some of us actually RENT, not to speak of the Wait Time for any response from the already overworked police. Meanwhile, you're still there, frozen, with the phone in your hand as the criminals come in the door. You could have reached for a handgun, not ever wanting to use it on another human, and hoping that seeing it will have the bad guy on the run. If push comes to shove, you have a right to protect yourself,

and NOT just a "right" ~ an INSTINCT: Fight or Flight.

Anyway, once again, all of this has been addressed in another thread, so getting the whole thing started, again, ... crap.

"MOST people?

Citations? 'Cuz i figure, just counting the Military guns, that the illegal ones won't come anywhere close to "Most People."

Ughhh...

That "sudden and/or serious situation of conflict"?

That means being semi-prepared in the event the unspeakable should take place, and your very LIFE (and/or your loved ones' lives)

IS(/ARE) IN IMMINENT DANGER!

Only the grossly irresponsible would ever even consider just Blasting away if they hear a strange sound in the night at their window or door!

And that's why growing up with guns is a good thing.

Yeah ~ Our children handle them, but you'd better believe that the FIRST THING that is instilled into them is RESPECT ~

for the weapon, and what it can do,

as well as for the prey, and what it will do to them.
.........(Ever seen an animal that has been shot? If you don't what you're doing, you'll NEVER forget the hideous mess...)

Oh, and since we are now (it would appear) allowed/encouraged to use these ridiculous generalities:

Back at you:

The Anti-Gun folks present their big plan as if it actually worked, anywhere,

and absolutely REFUSE to acknowledge the truth being posted by other members,

who spent long hours finding, and researching, what they posted about.

That's disrespectful to us...

Also, NO restrictions were put on what we might defend ourselves with ~ why wouldn't we use the easiest, cheapest, most formidable weapons we could find/afford? Believe me, no one walks into a weapons shop, checks everything available to them out,

and then opts for the sling-shot.

 

it is not uncommon for alarms to scream here all day long till the homeowner arrives and turns them off..

as i stated earlier in this thread,the last time i called 911 here it took the police over 2 hours to get here..
criminals here know both these facts..

not everyone in america lives in the city with a cop on every block and a 3 minute response time..

as usual you seem to be making generalizations based on the world YOU live in.

 

I'm curious.

Are there any statistics that actually demonstrate and reflect an increase in safety of persons not owning a gun? Or vice a versa, Are there any statistics that actually demonstrate and reflect an decrease in safety of persons that own a gun?

I have yet to come across a decent statistic source that convinces me that guns are in fact 'less safe', to support the more restrictions on gun control laws argument.

They can be.

At what age? I wouldn’t advocate putting a loaded gun in the crib with a baby but some have experienced that letting a child handle matches or a knife when young and under supervision in the long run prevents a lot of accidental fires and makes them less likely to cut themselves. I ask you why do you think this wouldn’t work in the case of children and guns as well?

Well if the state of the economy is any sign of what the government knows or doesn’t know, I might agree with your statement here.

According to the US constitution and bill of rights, Yes.

I don’t think anyone said the a gun brings freedom but it could help you protect your freedoms.

 

I fail to see how a homeowner not having a gun in a home invader situation can grant him any guaranteed sense of security. Especially if that other person is determined or has a weapon. You know the old saw; that if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.

Sure bring a knife to a gun fight and see how far you get. Yes, there are things like Tasers but you have to be fairly close and you have to ask the criminal to take off his heavy coat, I’m sure he’ll put down his gun and cooperate.

Let’s see here, hmmm. Someone breaks into your home, you shoot him and you miss his head or heart and he goes down, then you go over and pump a few slugs into his head for good measure or you just let him bleed out on the floor. Yeah right, a kill shot for most homeowners would be an accident more often than not. And killing someone is more than most people can stomach, so no, in the case of a home invasion the purpose of a gun is to disable, not to kill.

This is just a giant leap, were does it say that having a gun for protection means that you have a desire to kill someone, let a lone kill some one just because you have a conflict with him?

No it’s not, a person could own a thousand guns or none at all and still step into the street and get hit by a bus, so no, safety is not assured by owning a gun.

As for the US being a safe place, maybe not the safest place on earth but safe enough, it seems a lot of people who live in other parts of the world would rather live here than anywhere else.

 

mama

It’s great that you’re now contributing but you are contributing.

I’ve set out my views have you something to say about those view?

Something beyond, you don’t know what to say?

*

 

owb

So you’ve never read any American history?

How am I to take you seriously when you feel you can pontificate on subjects like this you clearly no nothing about.

Armed Militia’s were a way of dealing with invasion or attack, to ward of the threat of the French or Native American tribes.

Fear of invasion by the British by sea or from Canada kept alive the idea of militia’s and owning guns to defend the revolution.

The (often mythical) image of the frontiersman defend his homestead against hostile Indians.

The Ku Klux Klan dressed in white and holding a gun high, sworn to defend ‘America’ from the threat posed by Blacks, Catholics and Jews.

Company bosses using armed strike breakers because they feared the growing power of the unions, socialists and communism.

Posts here saying guns are needed to counter the threat of criminals and government.

Come on OWB, maybe you should do some reading before you make yourself look foolish again?

*

I ask again could you have the common courtesy to actually read my posts.

It’s a question, NOT a statement, do you understand that?

That’s the reason it has a question mark at the end of it – did you miss that, did you just not clock it, did you actually read the post?

STOP WASTING MY TIME

A question not a statement

Which means…I’m asking the readers opinion – is it in the reader’s opinion a sign of a healthy society or one that has problems?

Now if I’d said ‘in my opinion this isn’t the sign of a healthy society’ (with no question mark) that would be different but for this particular question I’m asking you – and as luck would have it you claim to already know what you think is a healthy society so you should be able to answer the question.

Debating 101 read the question, before trying to be a smart arse, and ending up looking like a fool.

So again this time without evasion is gunownership “born out of fear of others a sign of a healthy society or one that has problems?”

*

Well, that’s a smart arse remark if ever there was one.

I think it would be obvious why you should read my post – so you don’t make so many mistakes.

*

 

And why does gun ownership seem to be seen and promoted by many as a means of dealing with the symptoms of while they seemingly want to ignore the possible causes?

Your trying to be clever again and I wouldn’t because you’re not.

This and the following remarks lead me to believe that astonishingly you’ve never participated in a rational debate?

IT’S A DEBATE, I’m putting forward an opinion based on what I’ve seen, heard or experienced, if I’d said ‘this is a complete fact so that it subject over’ then it wouldn’t be a debate.

The thing is that there are very few things in the universe that are completing and utterly a ‘fact’.

And in my experience those that believe with complete and utter certitude about anything but those very facts are a bit deranged, religiously demented, or never question anything.

*

Many? How many? 5, 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000 or millions and who did the counting and how was it done?

Another smart-arse remark

This is just a way to try and evade rational debate in a rather immature and puerile way.

Are you saying that my inability to give an exact irrefutable number of people in the whole world that might think that way somehow makes it invalid?

A scientist says that there are a many more suns in the Milky Way than our own and a little boys sneers ‘Many? How many is that then Mr scientist?’
‘About 100 billion” replies the scientist
“About? About? So you don’t really know, so that means there can’t be any’

Can you please try and act like an adult?

I’ve meet many that seem to hold those views.

*

I don’t claim to have proven anything, I’m putting forward an argument, the thing is that so far no one seems to be putting up any decent counter arguments, particularly not you.

I mean what is your argument here?

Are you trying to say imply that this is my opinion and so it has no validity – why - because to you it is only my opinion and you don’t like it so it can’t have any validity.

That’s not a rational argument it is the utterances of a bullying bigot.

*

 

PLEASE READ MY POSTS

TO REPEAT –

I’m not refusing to discuss anything – but your not giving me anything to discuss and imply from what you say below that you’re not going to.

TO REPEAT –

*

Thing is there is a historical and cultural hunting element in US gun ownership, I’m not disputing that and as I’ve said if people wish to talk about hunting, fine, they can go to a hunting forum.
But you are in a politics forum.

What ‘political’ reasons have I supposedly put down for ‘taking away’ guns from people?

Anyway IF YOU HAD READ MY POSTS you’d know that hunting and fishing is not how many pro-gunners frame the arguemet.

*

[/quote]What can I say? [/quote]

It seems not very much?

OH you really don’t read the posts do you? TO REPEAT – If pro-gunners were as interested in discussing solutions to the US’s societal problems they’d post in such things, they don’t, instead they mostly only come to the Politics forum to promote guns.

EVASION…AGAIN.

*

PLEASE READ MY POSTS

My thesis was that many pro-gunners use fear to sell guns.

His reply was I think meant as a rebuttal of that view - his point being

But what I point out is that he begins his post with a litany of ‘fear’ images –

My point being that even in a post meant to rebut my argument that pro-gunners use fear to sell guns – he uses fear is to sell guns.

You are even admitting those markers are their – all your argument seems to be is that I should ignore all of them, but why?

And the answer seems to be that you want me to ignore them because they’re inconvenient to you.

Because you haven’t really got an argument, just a dislike of what I’m saying.

*

If you are just going to be involved in point scoring I think you should leave, because although you’re post have been, to me at least, very entertaining they are not contributing anything of any worth.

 

Mad

How many times do I have to repeat something before you read it?

This seems to be why these debates never seem to go anywhere, I seem to have to constantly repeat myself because people haven’t read what I’ve said (while being falsely accused of not reading).

TO REPEAT – the hunting and sport’s angle is not how the pro-gunners usually frame the argument.

*

Closer

Traditionally the right has been the philosophy most associated with individualism the left been seen as promoting community values and ideas.

But to me an individual unless they live on their own on a deserted island and have completely no contact with other humans is part of a community, be it family, tribe, town, city or state.

So there needs to be some type of balance to what is good for the community and the individual.

A few years ago I read an article in a political magazine; sorry can’t remember which one but the right wing libertarian views that were being expressed are not that unusual. The idea is the logical conclusion to the views you express.

The idea was that everyone be given a gun then all the police type institutions would be disbanded and the tax money used to fund them could then be returned and never taken again.

To me that would be horrific but this seems often to be, in a lesser extent, the mentality behind gun ownership “to defend both yourself and your house”.

As in - look I’ve got a gun I can defend myself and my property, why should I pay so much in taxes to a ‘blotted’ police force – anyway there’s not much crime around here it’s over in the black areas of town and why should I pay to have police down there, hell if those people want to kill each other let them, if they come up here, I’ve got my gun, just let them try anything. We only need enough police to contain the violence in those areas any more is a waste.

In other words if people think they can ‘deal’ with things themselves on a individual level they might wonder why they should be ‘forced’ through taxation to pay for community action, even come to resent it.

Individualism can not always be a positive trait.

As I’ve said there does seem to be this right wing slant or bias in the gun issue, I mean Karl Roves trinity was supposed to be “god, guns and gays’, his way of winning elections for the right.

There are some that think that it might have worked again if it hadn’t been for the economy.

And some pro-gunners that have gone beyond the gun issue have expressed broadly right wing views.

The question is are they like Rove using the gun issue as a Trojan horse to spread right wing ideas and as a way of distracting people from more important issues?

 

....................................................................................................

:lurk5:


Yeessssss..........................and Margaret Meade ( was it? )
reported on a communalist/ socialist economy on the island of Tahiti some 70 years ago. A place where folks lived in harmony and (proported) equality.

Thing is that these examples of micro societies are not translatable to a nation of 300 million diverse peoples. Its a nice part of the argument, yes, but falls short of anything other than agitprop.



:beatdeadhorse5:

 

ill ask this question AGAIN since you ignored it as usual the first time.

so what is your solution to these "symptoms of societal breakdown" beyond gun control balbus?

because as i have already pointed out,gun control in the UK has not solved violent crimes. in fact it seems your media is referring to knife and gun crime as being a "epidemic".according to your own governments statistics over 10 people a day are killed or injured by gun violence alone in your country even with your draconian gun laws.

so if you truly want to discuss the solutions,perhaps you could first explain why you feel gun control has not stopped violent crime in your own country,and then tell us all how you propose your country should proceed to address this issue seeing as how gun control has solved nothing there.

 

Criminal are notoriously resourceful and have been known to disable security systems and security systems are not as reliable as you may seem to think, what with false alarms and even the human err of not turning it on.

HHB has talked about this "police arriving while an intruder is still in your home" bit, even in a city setting it is not a sure thing and in a rural setting if they show up the same day you’re fortunate.

I like this “most people” stuff, so accurate and believable.

Shameful? In whose eyes, yours, the criminal’s, God’s?

As for the stupid, I’d have to agree, if a person was truly concerned about home invasion and thought that a gun by itself was all he’d need, that would be pretty stupid.

The trouble is most people in the US are not that concerned about home invasion, I’d say that “most” of the people in this thread, who are talking about using a gun during a home invasion, already have a gun for other reasons, such as hunting and would just use it in the case of a home invasion.

As for me, I don’t own a gun and I don’t have a security system, other than a lock on the door so I guess you’d call me really stupid. I’m just not sure I could shoot someone and so owning a gun for protection in my case would be stupid.

You have a right to live your life the way you want but that doesn’t give you the right to say how others should defend their lives, family and property.

This is just not a true statement.

Gun owners do no such thing; “most” don’t consider a gun to be a solution at all but at best a stop gap measure. As has been mentioned before in this thread, problems in society can not be solved with a gun.

But if a run away bus is headed straight for you, first it’s best to get out of the way and then find out why it was a run away bus.

 

Hillbilly

In this thread have I mentioned anything about any type of ‘gun control’?

Can you explain my view on it from what I’ve said in this thread?

I have pointed out that this issue doesn’t seem to be about overwhelming proof for one cause or the other - because there doesn’t seem to be overwhelming facts one way or the other.

So it seems to me that to come down to the mentality and attitudes of the people involved.

What I’ve red, seen and experience have made me view things from the left, I don’t hide this from people and definitely not from the forum.

My solutions have been spread all over the forum for the past eight years in thousands of posts covering every subject and issue.

Anyone can read them.

You must have an inclining of some of them since I know you’ve been involved in threads where I’ve talked about them, if you haven’t it would mean you don’t read my posts and so there seems little point in repeating them for you.

You also seem to think this is somehow a nationalistic argument (often a right wing fault) that somehow because I’m from Britain I support British government policies. Again if you had read my posts you would realise I don’t (again if you’re not reading them what’s the point of repeating them?)

I think the British governments of the past thirty odd years have been on the whole of the right, with neo-liberal attitudes that one the whole have produced flawed policies, creating a more divisive and unequal society, and bringing about many (if not most) of the problems we have here today from crime to industry and from the economy to the environment.

Again your post seems to be more about point scoring than a genuine contribution, I know you dislike me and my views but you seem to be letting hatred get in the way of rational thought.

 

ahh, as usual you wont answer the question..

no in this thread you haven't mentioned gun control,however you have repetitively stated that you believe that gun ownership is a "symptom of societal breakdown". going further to imply that in order to address these issues we should first address gun ownership,that the two are joined at the hip. .

it seems to me that if that indeed was the case then the UK would not be experiencing the "epidemic" of violence it is now experiencing.

to me that in and of itself makes your arguement null and void.

IMO the "symptoms of societal breakdown" have nothing to do with ones weapon of choice,nor gun ownership or even reasons why people choose to own guns.

it indeed as others have already stated runs much deeper than that and not owning a gun will do nothing to address those issues.

that being said,it would seem if you truly wanted to address this issue you would have answered my questions if for no other reason than to support your arguement that the two are related,but you didnt so i can only assume that your goal is not to spur conversation on gun ownership being a symptom of societal breakdown and addressing it as such, but simply to demonize gun ownership as a whole with nothing to base it on except your own prejudices towards them.

 

Yes, I’ve read quite a bit, thanks for asking.

Just following your example.

So these few examples are your proof that gun ownership in the US in born out of fear of others? Nice try but I think your going to have to do better than that to convince anybody.

To point out these few examples and say that this proves that gun ownership is born out of fear of others is to ignore the literally millions of gun owners that didn’t make the history books that just went out and used their guns to put food on the table so their families didn’t go hungry.

Doesn’t seem to do you any good.

I do read your posts although I’m not sure why? Most of my time is spent trying to ignore all of the insults and name calling and scrolling down because you feel some weird need to post in a large font.

A thousand pardons, please, no need to go off just because I said statement instead of question. See the problem with the question you have asked is in the "statements" that you make in your question. Your question is a little like asking someone; “yes or no, have you stopped beating your wife?”, to answer at all would be to answer incorrectly. So to answer your question at all would mean that I accept your “statement” in the question that “large scale gun ownership, which in the US has historically and culturally been born out of fear of others” is true, which I have already pointed out seems to me to be untrue.

Thanks for mentioning again that “healthy society” thing again. Which reminds me, you still haven’t defined it for us. Are you planning on doing that anytime in the near future?

Thanks but I’ve read the question several times now and you still seem to be avoiding giving us the definition of a “healthy society” (Debating 101 – define your terms)

Well if you put it that way, I’d have to say probably a sign of one that has problems, although you still haven't defined what a “healthy society” is and so i'm just going on what I think a “healthy society” is.

Well you started it but if you stop, I will too.

Mistakes? Au contraire.

 

Mama

I can only try and explain my viewpoint which I am doing, the major problem is that people are not reading what I’m saying they’re projecting what they think I’ve said from the position of being opposed to what they think I’m saying.

It means I’m not really getting anything back from anyone.

For example you state –

What I’ve said is that a person’s socio/political viewpoint and attitudes might colour the way they view guns and vis-versa.

This is something completely different

I know I keep saying this but people need to read my posts, you’re unlikely to ‘penetrate my head’ if you don’t actually take note of what I say, otherwise you’re just going to view things from your own bias and prejudice.

*


You don’t know - but even though you don’t know - you claim to know?

I’m confused - what do you mean?

For example how do you know that “guns are not a bandaid for dealing with society's problem, gun control laws are a bandaid for dealing with society's problems.”

What do you mean?

What do you mean by ‘gun control’?

Again this seems like bias and prejudice talking

*

 

I’ve no problem with you giving an opinion. The problem is that you keep acting like your opinions are facts.

No but doesn’t necessarily make it valid either now does it?

Well for one thing, as people begin to discuss this with you, you keep limiting what they can say, for instance when hunting is brought up, you say; you can't use that. it’s not a political reason. So it makes it seem that you will only say a decent counter argument is one you want to talk about.

The problem is that you keep saying things that are your opinion and go on to treat them as fact and when I bring to your attention that they are just opinions then you go off. How dare I say your opinions aren’t valid? But I’m not saying your opinions aren’t valid, I’m just saying they aren’t necessarily fact.

 

And if that is what you call “the utterances of a bullying bigot”, what do you call these utterances:

Then it gets worse:

And then worse still:

Just wondering.