Leave a comment

ext_1471491 April 1 2013, 23:37:30 UTC
"First of all, set aside the fact that hammers and kitchen knives and cars are useful things outside of their capacity to maim, banning them would have tremendous negative impact on our economy and lifestyles. Guns, on the other hand, are designed specifically, primarily and exclusively for one purpose - to kill things. They have no other purpose, and heavily restricting their use would have no obvious impact on the economy or modern life"
This is exactly the argument I make when people talk about banning tools, or fertilizer, or anything else used to kill people. Glad to hear someone else using it, and another person using it.

Reply

drewkitty April 1 2013, 23:59:01 UTC
I have heard this argument made with respect to swords: Bows and spears are tools of the hunt, axes are used to chop wood, and knives have many other uses, but the sword is only an instrument of death and killing ( ... )

Reply

starcat_jewel April 2 2013, 02:51:43 UTC
Those states which have made concealed handgun permits easy to obtain have experienced significant drops in violent crime.

First off, I'm still dubious about these claims; I've seen so many of them which were achieved by cherry-picking the data or playing weasel-words with terminology and definitions.

Second... is anybody keeping track of the rates of lethal domestic violence in those states? Because it's not just stranger-crime we're talking about here -- it's also people who blow away their families, or their neighbors, or their buddies, because they're in the middle of an argument and there's a gun handy. I will bet you a meal at a good restaurant that THOSE death rates have gone up.

Treyvon Martin wasn't a victim of "violent crime" in the sense that you're using it here -- but he'd be alive today if a racist idiot hadn't had easy access to a gun.

Reply

drewkitty April 3 2013, 19:02:45 UTC
I don't have time to re-fight the gun wars in dueling statistics. I'll refer you instead to www.guncite.com and to the award-winning book, "More Guns, Less Crime" by John Lott: Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Crime-Understanding/dp/0226493660 Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime... )

Reply

starcat_jewel April 3 2013, 22:55:45 UTC
John Lott's thoroughly debunked study? That's as bad as the anti-vaxxers still citing Andrew Wakefield. 'nuff said.

"You can't beat a woman who shoots."
The hell you can't. All you have to do is get the drop on her when she doesn't have a gun in her hand. Plenty of women are beaten regularly in homes where guns are easily available -- to some extent, the two attitudes run in parallel. And if she does shoot you, she stands a high likelihood of being convicted of murder even if it was self-defense.

Reply

drewkitty April 4 2013, 03:55:01 UTC
I see three links from an extremely biased media source. So, not enough said ( ... )

Reply

gardnerhill April 4 2013, 05:50:49 UTC
Yeah, isn't it funny how Stand Your Ground only works for white males? Black man defending himself with his legal gun against a white assailant? Prison for 30 years. Woman who shoots into the Ceiling to stop her abusive boyfriend? Attempted Murder and down the river.

But more guns is supposed to make us feel safer 'n' shit, right?

Reply

alverant April 2 2013, 03:45:34 UTC
First, guns aren't banned in Chicago. Second the claim that guns save lives more often the taking them is dubious. I'd like to see where you get them. Third the phrase "law abiding" is a red herring. A person is only "law abiding" until they stop. Unless they turn in their guns before they stop being "law abiding" then the phrase is misleading.

Places like Britain have strict and enforced gun control laws and little gun violence while Somalia has no gun control laws and lots of violence. There was a report that was being done by the federal government until the gun huggers put a stop to it. The report was going to say that a home with a gun in it is three times more likely to be involved in a fatal shooting. (You can guess why the study was stopped.) Basically world wide the more guns you have the more gun violence you have.

Also just because Thomas Paine said something doesn't make it true.

One other thing, I've nearly been killed twice by "law abiding" gun owners and threatened by a third one all while doing perfectly legal

Reply

ebartley April 2 2013, 05:08:20 UTC
When I lived in Chicago, guns were theoretically permitted if registered but in practice banned except for those with political connections because you couldn't get the forms to register guns without connections ( ... )

Reply

lil_shepherd April 2 2013, 06:32:28 UTC
The figures for violent crime between different countries are not comparable for a number of reasons -- different classifications of what constitutes violent crime, different methods of collecting the statistics and insurance (number of people insured and whether they will pay out if the police are not informed) are three of them for a start.

Reply

alverant April 3 2013, 21:24:12 UTC
So less firearms and less murders. So why is that a problem? We're also addressing the issue of guns killing people, not other violent crime. Would you rather be shot and killed or get punched in the face at the pub and get a black eye for a week?

Reply

ebartley April 3 2013, 22:14:14 UTC
First, Britain had a lower murder rate than the U.S. back before they banned guns. Matter of fact, if I recall correctly they had a lower murder rate than the U.S. a century ago before they passed the first of their laws making gun ownership difficult for the average civilian ( ... )

Reply

drewkitty April 3 2013, 20:36:39 UTC
Michael Williamson posted this about Chicago, IL vs. Houston, TX ( ... )

Reply

alverant April 3 2013, 21:21:09 UTC
So you admit that guns are not forbidden in Chicago. I have to wonder what else you were exaggerating about.

The reason why the CDC was forbidden to use Federal money for firearms research was because the NRA didn't like the results much like how Texas Gov sabotaged a study into whether or not they executed an innocent man. To show trends you do have to use ten and twenty year old and older sources. That's what trends are about. Also 100% of criminals were once "law abiding" citizens.

Also the National Institute of Justice is led by a political appointee and has had trouble in the past with political pressures. In other words they too were caught cooking the statistics, but in that case the NRA liked what they saw so they were allowed to continue.

Reply

drewkitty April 4 2013, 04:10:10 UTC
Briefly ( ... )

Reply

drewkitty April 3 2013, 20:37:03 UTC
"Basically world wide the more guns you have the more gun violence you have ( ... )

Reply


Leave a comment

Up