Guncrazy USA

Technically true but not true in practice. You don't need as much courage or knowhow to kill with a gun, you can't get caught in the crossfire with a knife. For the same number of crimes, gun crimes result in more deaths and injuries than knife crimes, this is a fact and I would suggest a fairly obvious one.

Yeah, but I was ill that day.

 

The UK murder rate is pretty constant at somewhere between 600-800 per year and has been for decades. I can't find any actual figures but would be very surprised if murders attributed to gunshots were on average as high as 10% of murders, perhaps closer to 5% with occasional blips like the Dunblane massacre, and the Hungerford incident in the late 80s. The gun crime figures are just incredibly low, almost non-existent compared to the US. I think I understand now why you're having trouble with this - it's hard for an American to understand how rare gun crime is in the UK.

In addition, due to our strict gun laws, the little gun crime there is is committed with black market illegal weapons, not ones purchased legally (like Hamilton's). Guns are hard to come by in the UK, but they are here in small quantities through smuggling and other sources. A ban on the legal purchase of handguns would have had little discernible impact on the availability of handguns - those that there are still come from illegal smuggling, those which were legally owned prior to 1997 were required ot be locked up in safes and accounted for, and could only be owned by those who demonstrated a legitimate need (eg sport). These kinds of guns did not find their way into the black market as a general rule.

Given these factors, the 1997 handgun ban would have had almost no effect on the availability of illegal handguns, and no effect on the instance of handgun crime.

Your assumption that the amount of gun crime and gun related murders must have declined following the 1997 law and that there are consequently more murders with different weapons is just plain wrong. The percentage of gun murders and knife murders etc would be expected to be about the same following the 1997 law.

This is why I keep saying the 1997 law is pretty irrelevant to the case given our already tight licensing laws and the incredible rarity of gun crime.

 

Even if the gun murder rate was as high as 10% (70 deaths) prior to 1997 and dropped to 5% (35 deaths) after the handgun ban, a difference of 35 murders out of 600-800 murders (in a population of 60million) is well within the natural variability you would expect in year by year murder rate, so to make such a judgement as the one you're seeking to make that these 35 deaths are made up for with other weapons incidents would be statistically impossible anyway.

 

Though technically correct, the final line of my post would have suggested the entire post was farcical. This is a ridiculous debate since the current administration in America WANTS the citizenry armed.

 

Please consider.

Gun control laws will not work in America. Similar to Prohibition or the "war on drugs", as long as there is demand, it will only increase the traffic of illicit guns and narcotics.

We've all heard of corrupt law enforcement officers who made tons of money selling the drugs that they confiscated.

Someone who is determined to have a gun will find a way to get one.

 

Problems do not go away by themselves. It's you, the people who have to decide what is best for you.

Some other people, who hate to see you all getting killed like that over there, are trying to make you see things from another perspective, one that you are not used to.

The pro-gun lobby is a huge business in the States. It is clinging to your wallets like the most malignant cancer. It has infested every single home, government office, and as we have seen all too often schools, and universities.

Already, this tragedy is dying out from the media focus. It has served their intent and purpose. One more Columbine until the next one.

Those kids will be remembered by grieving relatives, and loving friends. We will remember them as well, but not in the same way.

Not until it happens to us.

And that is why we have to stop thinking like cattle, because it should not be our fate to "well, you know what it's like in the States, dude, everyone carries a gun, and my lil 12 year ol son went to get an ice cream and some crazy psycho pulled out an AK47 an wasted 20 people. Now if my 12 year old son were carrying my Colt 45 things would have been diff'rent! An he woulda shot them critters!"

Things would indeed have been different if people had to go out of their way to find guns. That police departments and Feds could crack down on gun dealers and throw their ass in the slammer for 10 years.

Desperate people will use guns. Psychotic people will use guns. And those who have the "occasional" bad day will use guns.

Take the gun away and they might still kill someone with a knife, axe, knitting needle, ashtray, but at least we won't have to go through the slaughterhouse that you get with an automatic pistol every time some asshole gets suicidal, lonely, depressed, picked on, randy, or homesick.

 

the stricter the gun laws the more dangerous each gun becomes

if there were guns allowed on campus, that asshole woulda prolly been stopped sooner




and yes, they would crack down on gun dealers liek they do on switchblade dealers or drug dealers
please

there are more criminals than police, there always will be
fighting crime is a losing battle.

 

What makes you think that? Please don't tell me you think Bush is pro-gun, because the fact is he isn't.

I don't think any government wants its citizenry armed.

 

Thinking like cattle means foolishly believing the government is there to protect you, and that THEY should have all the weapons but the people should have none.

And your stereotype about all Americans carrying guns is false.

Gun-toting psychos with AK47s going on rampages is a rare occurance.

Clearly the media has played a big role in creating your idea of what Americans are like. Have you even been here?

 

Nazi gas chamber where Jews, Slavs, gypsies and other "non-Aryan" families including political prisoners were murdered in the Mauthausen and Auschwitz concentration camps.






I love it when Europeans, like to lecture Americans about the evils of gun ownership, and violence in general.

The Nazis obviously didn't need guns and used more efficient methods to carry out sadistic acts of inflicting suffering and mass killings.

Turn in your guns so that government can go about with suppression of political dissent or whatever else it decides with a minimum of resistance.

 

Mandell, you shock me. I think that was the point.

 

Why is it that the same group of people that tell me my government is corrupt, evil and stupid are the same people who tell me that I should just trust my safety/freedom to them? Europe is becoming a police state with a camera every 10 feet and you guys trust your governments that much? By the way if you just locked all people in prison to start with then murder rates would really fall.

 

There is an eerie similarity to calls for stricter gun control laws in America, to "gun control" policies, leading to the Nazi Weapons Law of 1938.

Hmmm.

 

US is a police state too. They seem to be trying to put everyone in jail these days. from murderers to pot smokers to peace activists to the mentally ill. We've got the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Unfortunately alot of those who are ending up in jail are actually higher on the intellectual totem p[ole than those doing the arresting. State Police only are required to have a GED for example...

Now, in places like WV, it's even worse. Highest rate of incarceration in the US. Besides the police being nazi wanna be's (they are absolutely your enemies, NOT your friends), there are too many folks who are illiterate, don't know their rights, have no money to bail out or hire a good lawyer. The WORST POSSIBLE THING for people here to do would be to simply give away their guns and expect the police to protect us!!!!!!! Hell, the way things are going here in WV, we may NEED those guns to protect ourselves from the rogue cops.....
:$

 

Here are some musings as I’m off for a couple of days.

As I’ve said many Americans attitude toward guns is just one aspect of a more general attitude of intimidation in US society.

For example the US has the largest prison populations in the world (686 per 100,000) and has one of the highest execution rates in the world (in the company of such countries as China, Iran, Pakistan and now Iraq). It is also about zero tolerance and the three strike rules.

(Switzerland prison population is 83 per 100,000, England and Wales 148 per 100,000. Both countries do not have the death penalty)

To me this seems more about ruling through intimidation and the fear of violence (especially since US prisons are often described as extremely brutal especially compared with those in the UK and Switzerland, - Amnesty International).

But who is this intimidation been directed at?

**

Guns can also be a means of intimidation, the whole carrying of a concealed weapon movement is based on the premise that ‘criminals’ will be too afraid to act.

But while many pro-gunners talk about using guns to deter crime, what crimes can a gun deter or tackle?

Guns in the hands of ‘decent’ ordinary citizens are not much use in tackling white collar or computer crime neither is it against the mostly closed worlds of organised crime.
(Just a reminder here that “In 1998, more than four times as many women were murdered with a gun by their husbands or intimate partners than were killed by strangers' guns, knives or other weapons combined”… and “One study found that, in Atlanta, family and intimate assaults involving guns were 12 times more likely to result in death than family and intimate assaults not involving guns (L. Saltzman, et.al; Weapon Involvement and Injury Outcomes in Family and Intimate Assaults; 1992). ‘Guns and Domestic Violence’ by Beth Levy. These were crimes but ones were the gun supposed protective deterrence of outside forces caused internal tragedy)

**

So that leaves street crime, the deterrence being talked about is basically lower class crime the protection being sort is mainly against the lowest lever of criminal.

Could it be said that it is about keeping the economic lower orders in their place?

Well back to those other means of intimidation.

It might be interesting to note that Black households have traditionally had some of the lowest median incomes according to the US census and at the same time although black people only make up around 13 per cent of the US’s population they made up half the prison population in 1999 and in 2000 one in three young black men were either in prison or on probation or parole. Today in the US they make up 41.8% of those on death row.

Now while any group can become involved in criminal activity social, economic and educational backgrounds often have a way of determine the type of crime someone is going to undertake.

And those close to poverty are much more likely to become involved in street crime (which isn’t that profitable) than white collar or computer crime (which is)

**

So again who is this intimidation been directed at?

 

Thank you Brabus. At last someone with eyes and a brain to go with it.

This is what I've been getting at all along. How can anyone try and divert a finger pointing at the Nazis in Germany when America's record on Native Americans, Afro-Carribeans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans is appalling. Never mind everywhere else they have stamped their boot on!

But that is not the point. Is it?

That is just a stubborn mule way, pretending to be a dumb redneck whenever I feel it suits me because I refuse to see someone else's point and interract in an intelligent way with it. Get my drift?

Someone asked have I been to America?

Have you?

You live there, dude, but you seem to be living in another world, obne of X-Files and secret government alien takeover plots, gas chambers and holocausts.

Try reading a bit more thoroughly other people's posts before bursting your blood cells to make a hasty reply.

America has some serious problems to tackle, before sending out its marines to color the deserts red.

As Brabus mentioned poverty lines along the ethnic minority groups are shocking.

These are your people, even if their skin color is different, they are just as proud to be an American citizen as you.

And they have been forgotten.

Not by you.

But by your govenment and elite ruling class.

All they manage to create is a never-ending fear/hate relationship among everyone so that we are all too busy hating/killing each other while they live their dream out sitting on a yacht.

Don't hate me.

Hate those who keep you blind.

You don't need guns to protect yourselves.

All you need is love.

 

Why do you resort to nonsense about Marines "painiting the deserts red"? Who said anything about the Marines? Who said anything about blacks or Native Americans? Is anyone here trying to justify the treatment of Native Americans?

This is about the right to defend oneself.

You mention the government. You even mention an Elite. The same Elite you believe have the right to dictate people's ability to or not to defend oneself against this Elite.

If anyone knows about social engineering it's me, and yes, they most certainly do work to create divisions in society for their own agenda. Yet, you believe people should rely on these people for their own protection?

 

When it comes to this issue of "gun-control", I take a similar position to that of pacifist Mahatma Gandhi, and I quote:


"History will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

- Mahatma Gandhi​

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i've lived in some truly shitty places. crime comes in all colors. 3 times in my life my home has been broken into WHILE I WAS IN IT. i want a gun for that ONE TIME they're there for more than just the "valuables." my husband's home was once broken into as well. his father stabbed but undaunted. he had a shotgun. there's more poor white people, more white drug addicts, etc, just from sheer numbers.

 

And while we were here sitting and debating like old chums, I noticed that a gunman went into the NASA Johnson Space Center and shot a hostage, and then himself.

More guns anyone?