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Who passed the Banner to Hybrid?

By that logic, we should implement stricter alcohol laws.

Much bigger killer than firearms.

Or remove wood chippers. Wood chippers are freaking killers with no chance of escape.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

See, the problem is that it seems pretty clear a lot of people here do not want to be safe. What they really want is to have weapons. They always insist on whether or not they will have weapons, and never insist on whether or not they would be safe.

Bullgak... Just straight up, Bullgak right here... People do want to be safe, it's why people buy houses with locks on them, why they buy foam bumpers for the furniture when they have kids, etc. It's just that for many people, having a weapon is an added security measure that makes us safer, or at the very least, makes people feel safer.

Thing is, in your land of stinky cheese and snooty wine snobs, you may feel completely safe everywhere you go, no matter the time of day. But, in the US (and many other places) there are areas of the city to be avoided during certain times of day, or altogether, depending on who you are. (for instance, I wouldn't be caught DWW in a place like Compton, or Detroit unless I had some means of protection other than my right foot on the accelerator pedal).

 whembly wrote:
By that logic, we should implement stricter alcohol laws.

Much bigger killer than firearms.

I agree, treat it like other lethal substances such as marijuana.

 whembly wrote:
By that logic, we should implement stricter alcohol laws.

Much bigger killer than firearms.

Or "fat" laws, since cholesterol and other heart related issues are even bigger than alcohol


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 MrDwhitey wrote:

I agree, treat it like other lethal substances such as marijuana.

How the feth is Marijuana a "lethal" substance??? Have you EVER read of someone dying from an OD on Mary Jane?

Taking the piss darling, taking the piss.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Taking the piss darling, taking the piss.

Wrong thread?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/601961.page

I didn't say I was then drinking it.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
All death. If you do have more accurate figures, people provide them. As I already told you to .

Ah, the ever popular "Please make my argument for me" route.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I am saying having many, many legal guns in the market makes it easier to get an illegal one. Do you agree with that, or not?

We've been over the difference between illegal guns, and illegal actions. Most of your argument has been conflating the two

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So, do you have more illegal guns that countries with stricter gun control laws and no gun culture? And if the answer is yes, is there a link?
I think the answer to both those questions is yes.

You are misunderstanding what gun culture actually is, again this has been covered above.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
A perfect example of what I meant when I said you do not care about being safe but about having guns. You see gun control as a punishment, because you will not have a gun anymore. If you would care about your actual safety, you would maybe see it as a flawed policy that would not work, but certainly not as a punishment. Because having guns would be a mean, not an end.

You mean being deprived of your lawful rights and lawful possessions when having committed no crime is not a punishment? Millions of gun owners already posses guns and they are perfectly safe, you may have missed the links with the pictures earlier that sort of substantiated that point. If your point was that having guns makes you a victim of crime or is unsafe we would have been inundated with reports of deaths and injuries. We haven't.

Here's a quick link for you with the inconvenient truth that guns protect innocent lives;
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=201909809627841554931.0004a99a6ee3d077dae2d&ie=UTF8&t=h&source=embed&ll=37.579413%2C-96.416016&spn=27.745558%2C61.611328&z=4&dg=feature

Here's a link showing you just how unsafe guns are;
http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2013/09/29/how_common_are_child_gun_accidents_666.html

The New York Times has a big new investigation on the topic, and some left-leaning bloggers have been going out of their way to highlight horrifying anecdotes about children and firearms lately. The NYT's major finding is that about half of accidental child firearm deaths are misclassified in the statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control.

Obviously, this is a huge problem in terms of data collection. But the report's authors seem to think it's also a game-changer in terms of how we should think about accidental gun death, which gun-rights supporters have argued is very rare. (See yours truly in National Review here.) The authors don't provide too many actual comparisons, though -- they just say that adjusting for the reporting problem would make guns rise from the ninth-leading cause of unintentional child death to the fifth or sixth. And strikingly, despite looking at data from four states dating back to 1999, from a fifth state dating back to 2007, and from several smaller jurisdictions that make records available, the authors produced just 259 cases in which a child 14 or younger was accidentally killed with a firearm.

So, let's do some more detailed statistical work. According to the CDC, about 5 in every 100,000 children ages 1 to 14 die from accidental injuries every year. (This is a pretty low number in terms of lifetime risks; accidental deaths skyrocket when you hit the 15-19 age group.) Here are the top ten causes in chart form; I've included both the CDC's number for guns and an adjusted number (double that):



You can see by looking at the X axis that guns do, indeed, move up several places in the rankings when you double the number. But you can see from the Y axis that gun accidents remain a rare cause of unintentional death for children. More than half of such deaths are from cars and water, and shuffling the rankings below fourth place doesn't really change the overall picture. The official CDC stat is that 0.11 in every 100,000 children die from gun accidents every year; doubling that brings it to 0.22 -- just 4.4 percent of the overall rate of 5 per 100,000, in a country in which around 40 percent of households have guns.

The adjusted figure (124 deaths per year) is not even a disproportionate number of the total fatal gun accidents in the U.S. each year -- about 600 according to CDC data, plus 62 for the NYT adjustment for misreported child accidents, plus an unknown number to account for the fact that adult accidents are sometimes misreported too. About 19 percent of the U.S. population is between the ages of 1 and 14, so even if adult accidents are reported perfectly, children make up a lower proportion of gun-accident deaths than you'd expect based purely on population. (I imagine age makes a big difference in terms of how accidents happen, though: Kids rarely have access to guns but misuse them when they do; adults have access whenever they want it and are sometimes careless.)



Further, while the accidental-death risk posed by guns is undoubtedly higher than the risk posed by some other optional household products (e.g. even trampolines cause very few deaths), we tolerate much higher risks in certain items, especially residential swimming pools, which account for about three-quarters of child drowning deaths. Steven Levitt famously calculated that a swimming pool on your property is 100 times more likely than a gun to kill your child by accident; make the NYT adjustment, and it's still 50 times. And swimming pools don't pose the constitutional and self-defense tradeoffs that guns do.

The adjusted number also pales in comparison with the 11,000 gun and 5,000 non-gun homicides that take place each year in this country, the total U.S. population of over 300 million, and the number of guns here (which is also around 300 million).

Of course, none of this is to say that 124 lives per year aren't worth saving, but it's hard to see how we could make such a rare event even rarer -- if the risk of killing a child (often one's own child) isn't motivation enough for a gun owner to behave responsibly, a law against having unlocked guns around kids might not matter, either, though perhaps we should regulate and prosecute negligent behavior more in the interest of justice. And the most dramatic solutions -- making all gun owners lock their weapons up even when children aren't around, mandating expensive technology to keep everyone but a gun's owner from firing it -- raise Second Amendment concerns and could make guns harder to use in self-defense.

The simple fact is that when it comes to accidents that kill children, the heart of the problem lies in cars, water, and fires -- and that when it comes to firearms, the heart of the problem lies in what people do intentionally. Statistically speaking, the issue of kids who die in gun accidents has received far more attention than it should.

So water and cars are more dangerous than guns

 Jihadin wrote:
Who passed the Banner to Hybrid?

What banner ?

 whembly wrote:
By that logic, we should implement stricter alcohol laws.

Yeah, there are some already. Mostly related to driving here, but apparently in the U.S. you can go fight and die for your country at 18, but need to wait until 21 to drink alcohol or something.
But yeah, laws against alcohol are a damn good thing. Not prohibition-level, because that did not work, though.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
It's just that for many people, having a weapon is an added security measure that makes us safer, or at the very least, makes people feel safer.

Yeah, but what about trading that safety for something else that gives you even more safety?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Thing is, in your land of stinky cheese and snooty wine snobs, you may feel completely safe everywhere you go, no matter the time of day.

Well, not really, but I do not go in those place where I would not be safe. And even if I did, I would not fear for my life.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
DWW

DWW?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Or "fat" laws, since cholesterol and other heart related issues are even bigger than alcohol

We have those too. Not sure if you do in the U.S., with all those fast food chains and obesity epidemics and all that.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
We've been over the difference between illegal guns, and illegal actions. Most of your argument has been conflating the two

You made that point :

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 sebster wrote:
But legal self defence usage was common, then you'd have less murders per capita than other developed countries, but instead you have many times more.

And most of these murders are committed with.... illegally held weapons.

Clearly you implied legally held weapons were not a problem because the crimes are committed with illegally held weapons. But those illegally held weapons are way easier to get because of this huge amount of legally held weapons, so you cannot treat those as two unrelated issues.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
You mean being deprived of your lawful rights and lawful possessions when having committed no crime is not a punishment?

Cry me a river.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Here's a link showing you just how unsafe guns are;
http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2013/09/29/how_common_are_child_gun_accidents_666.html

Just what the hell is that supposed to be answering to? Are you voluntarily misunderstanding me, or something?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
You made that point :

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 sebster wrote:
But legal self defence usage was common, then you'd have less murders per capita than other developed countries, but instead you have many times more.

And most of these murders are committed with.... illegally held weapons.

Clearly you implied legally held weapons were not a problem because the crimes are committed with illegally held weapons. But those illegally held weapons are way easier to get because of this huge amount of legally held weapons, so you cannot treat those as two unrelated issues.

No. We've been over this. There are millions of guns that are held legally within the US that are not used to harm other people, or used in crime. Because a small minority sell firearms unlawfully, or smuggle weapons into the country that does not mean that illegally held weapons are "way easier" to get. Millions of firearms are kept safely.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Cry me a river.

Countless people defend their lives against criminal aggression from people intent to do them harm with weapons. You would have them disarmed, be stripped of their legal rights, and lawful possessions and you cannot give any sort of compelling argument.
Let me put it to you very clearly; just because you do not want a gun/do not like guns/are scared by guns/do not understand guns (delete as applicable) it does not mean that others should forgo their rights. Don't like alcohol? Don't drink. Don't like tattoos? Don't get one. Don't like abortion? Don't get one. Don't like guns? Don't buy one. But don't trample over the rights of others.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Just what the hell is that supposed to be answering to? Are you voluntarily misunderstanding me, or something?

You brought up the point that people are safer without guns. I've provided evidence that homes are safer with guns than water, automobiles, or household cleaning products. Along with evidence that I have provided many times through this discussion showing the benefits of legal gun ownership. You have instead relied upon suppositions, your own bias, and asking other people to provide facts for you. Par for the course it seems.

If it's people that is the issue, why are Americans such a murderous bunch compared to other developed countries? Or, in other words, what is the difference between the US and other first-world countries that makes Americans more likely to kill eachother if it's not the guns? No matter what side one's on in the debate, something's wrong, no?

 Jihadin wrote:
Or remove wood chippers. Wood chippers are freaking killers with no chance of escape.

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 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's people that is the issue, why are Americans such a murderous bunch compared to other developed countries? Or, in other words, what is the difference between the US and other first-world countries that makes Americans more likely to kill eachother if it's not the guns? No matter what side one's on in the debate, something's wrong, no?

Violent crime rates are remarkably similar in many 1st world nations, including the US, and the differences are statistically insignificant in many cases.

 CptJake wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's people that is the issue, why are Americans such a murderous bunch compared to other developed countries? Or, in other words, what is the difference between the US and other first-world countries that makes Americans more likely to kill eachother if it's not the guns? No matter what side one's on in the debate, something's wrong, no?

Violent crime rates are remarkably similar in many 1st world nations, including the US, and the differences are statistically insignificant in many cases.

Shush...

I'm trying to perpetuate the idea that we're all worshipper of The Blood Good™!.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
It's just that for many people, having a weapon is an added security measure that makes us safer, or at the very least, makes people feel safer.

Yeah, but what about trading that safety for something else that gives you even more safety?

You mean a bigger gun? Sorry, but Im not really seeing what you're getting at with trading something that is for "safety" for "even more safety".. I could use a ton of the pro-gun advert slogans here, but I'll refrain.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
DWW

DWW?

Driving While White.... Conversely, there's DWB (driving while black) which applies to driving through certain areas of the country/cities where you're more likely to receive greater attention than you'd like.

Tucker and Dale vs evil....love it

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If it's people that is the issue, why are Americans such a murderous bunch compared to other developed countries? Or, in other words, what is the difference between the US and other first-world countries that makes Americans more likely to kill eachother if it's not the guns? No matter what side one's on in the debate, something's wrong, no?

Watching the movie "Soldier" did not clue you in on why the US is so good at war rather its Domestic or Foreign?

 sebster wrote:
America - full of people and full of guns.
Rest of the developed world - full of people.

America - vastly greater murder rate, with a gun murder rate vastly greater than the rest of the developed world.

Conclusion - the problem is people.

Actually, it's my conclusion too.

France has a strong hunting culture, lots of 12-gauge shotguns, and very few problems. Maybe because most french people don't like guns. They see them as dangerous weapons. Not as cool toys.

But it's still surprisingly easy to get a gun here. You just need a sport shooting licence to get a gun, and getting that licence is as easy as getting a rugby or karate licence. Just, unlike rugby, if you want to buy some stuff (gun/ammo), you have to pay your fees, go to your medical examination and eventually get your licence first.

Getting a hunting licence is barely harder, and you can have access to 12-gauge, .44 Magnum etc... guns.

Handguns, and bigger, badder calibers need more paperwork, but basically, if the prefect gives you the green light, you can make a nice Valentine present to your girlfriend : a big, shiny 14.5x114 anti-tank rifle (.50 BMG isn't big enough for your true love).
Isn't that romantic ?

France (according to wiki) has 1 murder per 100,000folks, or a .00001% rate.

The US has 4.8 per 100,000 folks, or .000048.

Statistically not much of difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country

Interestingly, Puerto Rico, an island with very strict gun laws, has over 26 murders per 100k folks.

So, perhaps the tool isn't the issue...

http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf

Damn, that link shows the UK and France way above the US in violent assaults and robbery.

Again, maybe the tool is not the issue...

Television and Internet is to blame

Or optionally it could be that the US has an recessive spree killer gene. As it is the current medical vogue may I be the first on Dakka to suggest that the US' high amount of spree killings are due to genetics!

Bullockist wrote:
Or optionally it could be that the US has an recessive spree killer gene. As it is the current medical vogue may I be the first on Dakka to suggest that the US' high amount of spree killings are due to genetics!

I counter with video games
Desensitizing violence in our young generations

Funny story! Haha

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
And most of these murders are committed with.... illegally held weapons.

Yeah, and if the quantity of illegally owned weapons was unrelated to the overall proliferation of legal firearms, that'd be relevant.

You're right....except for that whole gun violence decreasing and gun ownership increasing

Sigh. As already explained, that analysis assumes guns and only guns are the primary driver of homicides. But just like it is stupid to compare developed countries with large material wealth and effective policing institutions to undeveloped countries with large amounts of poverty and ineffective/corrupt police, it is equally stupid to note a drop in homicides and conclude it must be because there are more guns. In the last couple of decades the US has had a decrease in overall crime, driven by rapid declines in crime in formerly high crime cities like NYC. Analysis of what drove that decrease has led largely to what is called the tipping point theory - a combination of factors that all worked in combination to tip the balance in favour of law over crime. The factors cited are greater economic prosperity, an increase in quantity of policing and effectiveness of that policing, and urban renewal, things like that.

What's interesting is that this decrease has led to the US now being pretty much middle of the pack in most per capita crime figures, such as break-ins and muggings, compared to other developed countries. And yet the murder rate, while declining, is still more than double the rest of the developed world.

Calling the phenomenon as evidence in favour of gun proliferation is extraordinary.

With your tired old cliches about the evils of gun ownership allow I appear to have forgotten my manners; pot, I would like to introduce you to kettle.

And here's the part of the ritual where I explain that I think guns are awesome, and if it was more convenient and cheaper under the laws here in Australia, I think I'd buy one. Maybe a musket - I had a blast shooting a mate's 1853 Enfield back in the day. And I was absolutely psyched about firing a machine gun when I was in Las Vegas, but I got so sick I couldn't get out of bed and it was the one big disappointment of my trip.

But none of that has anything at all to do with the basic necessity of thinking, sensible people to accept facts about a situation. To repeat my point again, there are all kinds of arguments in favour of guns and arguments against tighter gun controls... but the pretend nonsense that guns don't effect or reduce the murder rate simply isn't one of them.

But if you want humour maybe the aggressor could have pointed to his bullet wounds and said "I know you don't have one of these"

That's a pretty good line

Yes, the gun culture that teaches responsible ownership, gun safety, and the four rules. I can see how wanting responsible gun owners would increase the number of people killed by firearms....

Yeah, if that was the whole of the gun culture of the US then you'd have a point. You've just assumed that all gun ownership is responsible gun ownership, and that's just so silly.


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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
So because there is the minuscule chance that someone might steal someone's lawfully held property we should just prevent that person owning it to begin with. So instead of punishing the criminal we punish the lawful. That seems somewhat counter intuitive.

Holy fething gak I don't know how people just don't fething get this one basic thing - recognising there is an issue does not mean automatically supporting increased gun legislation. It is entirely possible to say 'more guns in society means a larger black market of illegal guns' without concluding 'and therefore we need to ban or severely limit guns'.

I mean, if you observed that people tend to go too fast down a certain road, and your friend replied 'no, we don't need a speed bump there' you'd consider your friend to be a little bit insane. Because one can discuss whether or not people are speeding down a street without lurching to a conclusion that something must be done to stop it, and the only thing that can be done is a speedbump.

But that's exactly what you've done here.

Maybe we should put a little bit of effort into our border. The one that guns, drugs, and gang members cross with ease. That might be a better way to reduce gun violence.

More guns flow South than flow North. That's kind of basic economic thing - drugs go North, guns go South, trade balance.


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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
What about Northern Ireland? Very strict gun control. No gun stores. No gun factories. Yet criminals have had access to guns for decades. Here's a clue - stop trying to blame the actions of people on inanimate objects.

Yeah, because when you have an effective and organised resistance to government with strong levels of support among the local population, it is fairly straight forward to get your hands on some guns.

Leaving aside that we cannot make the same assumption about criminal gangs, let alone criminals with no organised crime connections, or the fact that most murders aren't committed by career criminals... what I find most amazing is that people can recognise the IRA managed to get their hands on guns despite them being illegal... but they will still maintain that guns need to be legal in case the people ever need to rise up against their government, completely ignoring the clear example that once you decide to fight your government getting your hands on guns is the easy part.


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 whembly wrote:
By that logic, we should implement stricter alcohol laws.

Much bigger killer than firearms.

What's interesting is that while almost everyone opposes banning alcohol, not one of them is ridiculous enough to take their opposition to banning alcohol to lead them to pretend that alcohol doesn't actually cause harm. And yet there's maybe a half dozen people in this thread alone trying to pretend that gun proliferation isn't a major factor in the US's high murder rate, a ridiculous position they have chosen to believe simply because they don't like the idea of more gun control.

Ultimately, it is possible to say that alcohol results in about 80,000 premature deaths a year, but a ban would be a bad thing because of some combination of (a) the fun gained from alcohol is worth it, (b) a ban would be ineffective, (c) we just don't need more government laws.

The exact same argument can be made about guns. It would be an honest argument, and have a chance of leading to a sensible conversation. Instead we get nonsense.


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 CptJake wrote:
France (according to wiki) has 1 murder per 100,000folks, or a .00001% rate.

The US has 4.8 per 100,000 folks, or .000048.

Statistically not much of difference.

If the US had a murder rate equal to France, so a quarter of what it is now, then there'd be about 3,500 murder per year, instead of about 14,000. Calling that statistically insignificant is fething ridiculous.

Interestingly, Puerto Rico, an island with very strict gun laws, has over 26 murders per 100k folks.

And here we have people ignoring the importance of economic development, and comparing a rich country to a poor country, again.

Sigh...

Damn, that link shows the UK and France way above the US in violent assaults and robbery.

Which tells us that the standard answer that tries to claim it is crime and criminal gangs in the US that are the problem and not the guns is total nonsense. Because the US is on par with other developed nations for other crimes, and actually is significantly better than other countries on a number of crimes. So overall crime and the like simply can't be an explanation for the murder rate that is at least twice as high as other developed countries.

But let's just watch that claim come up in the next few pages.

 sebster wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
France (according to wiki) has 1 murder per 100,000folks, or a .00001% rate.

The US has 4.8 per 100,000 folks, or .000048.

Statistically not much of difference.

If the US had a murder rate equal to France, so a quarter of what it is now, then there'd be about 3,500 murder per year, instead of about 14,000. Calling that statistically insignificant is fething ridiculous.

Interestingly, Puerto Rico, an island with very strict gun laws, has over 26 murders per 100k folks.

And here we have people ignoring the importance of economic development, and comparing a rich country to a poor country, again.

Sigh...

Not sure how you get 1 : 4.8 as 1/4, you may want to brush up on your math. And I showed the percentages, the difference is not statistically significant regardless of how you wish it was.

The 3500 or 14000 is spread over a population of 314 million people, really not a significant difference when you look at the numbers.

And sigh (you like the dramatic don't you). Had you put in my full quote on Puerto Rico I also said

So, perhaps the tool isn't the issue...

That is my argument. Your snide reply is baseless and does nothing to refute the argument. I neither ignored economic development nor any other factor. In fact, those factors help to make my point. It ain't the tool. How hard is it to get?

 CptJake wrote:
Not sure how you get 1 : 4.8 as 1/4, you may want to brush up on your math. And I showed the percentages, the difference is not statistically significant regardless of how you wish it was.

A change in rates from 4.8 in 100,000 to 1 in 100,000 is a 4.8 times decrease in the rate of occurence, or, roughly, it is a rate 1/4 that of the rate seen in America.

I also feel that people misunderstand the significance (if you will pardon the pun) of statistical significance. Statistical significance is not about absolute numbers, but about the differences in numbers. So you could have two very large numbers, or two very small numbers which are almost the same, however, the difference between them could be considered statistically significant because of the size of the population they are being measured in; it is a measure of the chance that the number observed in each population is different because of random variation or because of a genuine difference.

The 3500 or 14000 is spread over a population of 314 million people, really not a significant difference when you look at the numbers.

Again, you are not understanding the actual meaning of the term statistical significance.

 Jihadin wrote:
Television and Internet is to blame

The evolution of the Blame Game;
- Rock music
- Action films
- Video games
- Rap music
- Internet

You can't just mix and match

Bullockist wrote:
Or optionally it could be that the US has an recessive spree killer gene. As it is the current medical vogue may I be the first on Dakka to suggest that the US' high amount of spree killings are due to genetics!

I guess the English sent those with the bad genes to the wrong colony then

 sebster wrote:
Sigh. As already explained, that analysis assumes guns and only guns are the primary driver of homicides. But just like it is stupid to compare developed countries with large material wealth and effective policing institutions to undeveloped countries with large amounts of poverty and ineffective/corrupt police, it is equally stupid to note a drop in homicides and conclude it must be because there are more guns. In the last couple of decades the US has had a decrease in overall crime, driven by rapid declines in crime in formerly high crime cities like NYC. Analysis of what drove that decrease has led largely to what is called the tipping point theory - a combination of factors that all worked in combination to tip the balance in favour of law over crime. The factors cited are greater economic prosperity, an increase in quantity of policing and effectiveness of that policing, and urban renewal, things like that.

What's interesting is that this decrease has led to the US now being pretty much middle of the pack in most per capita crime figures, such as break-ins and muggings, compared to other developed countries. And yet the murder rate, while declining, is still more than double the rest of the developed world.

Calling the phenomenon as evidence in favour of gun proliferation is extraordinary.

Good thing that I didn't compare the US to other countries then. I'm glad you brought up New York too, especially as it has some of the strictest gun control in the country and yet there are still criminals with guns there. In case you missed my earlier post that gun ownership increase, and homicides (including firearm related) decreased;
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/601722.page#6963306

 sebster wrote:
And here's the part of the ritual where I explain that I think guns are awesome, and if it was more convenient and cheaper under the laws here in Australia, I think I'd buy one. Maybe a musket - I had a blast shooting a mate's 1853 Enfield back in the day. And I was absolutely psyched about firing a machine gun when I was in Las Vegas, but I got so sick I couldn't get out of bed and it was the one big disappointment of my trip.

But none of that has anything at all to do with the basic necessity of thinking, sensible people to accept facts about a situation. To repeat my point again, there are all kinds of arguments in favour of guns and arguments against tighter gun controls... but the pretend nonsense that guns don't effect or reduce the murder rate simply isn't one of them.

I apologize if I mis-read your intentions. Usually when the same arguments get brought out in an often polarized debate it can be too easy to mis-read another's intentions. But I never claimed that guns don't impact murder rate. In fact several times above I have shown that an increase in gun ownership corresponds with a decrease in crime and homicides.
Sorry that you didn't get to fire a machine gun (which type?). I've been fortunate enough to fire rounds from a P90 and M4. Last time we were at the range (pistol this time, I had to get used to a DA/SA with a 12lb trigger for the first pull) someone beside us was zeroing in his Lee-Enfield, and someone two lanes up was firing a Mosin Nagat.

 sebster wrote:
That's a pretty good line

Thank you. For bonus points picture him saying that while on the stretcher with an IV in his arm

 sebster wrote:
Yeah, if that was the whole of the gun culture of the US then you'd have a point. You've just assumed that all gun ownership is responsible gun ownership, and that's just so silly.

I never said all gun owners, that was an assumption on your part. But I did speak of the overwhelming majority of gun owners who are law abiding and treat their firearms with respect

 sebster wrote:
Holy fething gak I don't know how people just don't fething get this one basic thing - recognising there is an issue does not mean automatically supporting increased gun legislation. It is entirely possible to say 'more guns in society means a larger black market of illegal guns' without concluding 'and therefore we need to ban or severely limit guns'.

I mean, if you observed that people tend to go too fast down a certain road, and your friend replied 'no, we don't need a speed bump there' you'd consider your friend to be a little bit insane. Because one can discuss whether or not people are speeding down a street without lurching to a conclusion that something must be done to stop it, and the only thing that can be done is a speedbump.

But that's exactly what you've done here.

You seem to have taken my one comment out of context from the entire discussion that was being had with another user. You may wish to revisit the entire conversation rather than snippets.

 sebster wrote:
More guns flow South than flow North. That's kind of basic economic thing - drugs go North, guns go South, trade balance.

You're right, there are basic economic principal at work. And one of those principals is that there is a market for smuggled guns. Yes, more drugs flow north than guns. But that does not mean no guns.

 sebster wrote:
Yeah, because when you have an effective and organised resistance to government with strong levels of support among the local population, it is fairly straight forward to get your hands on some guns.

Leaving aside that we cannot make the same assumption about criminal gangs, let alone criminals with no organised crime connections, or the fact that most murders aren't committed by career criminals... what I find most amazing is that people can recognise the IRA managed to get their hands on guns despite them being illegal... but they will still maintain that guns need to be legal in case the people ever need to rise up against their government, completely ignoring the clear example that once you decide to fight your government getting your hands on guns is the easy part.

Strong levels of support may be overstating it. Yes, there were strong levels of support within some areas, but not overall. And the Republic of Ireland was not keen on being a conduit for weapons reaching the North as an emboldened IRA could have caused issues south of the border.
Defense against a tyrannical government is the reason behind the Second Amendment. I am not going to claim otherwise, nor am I going to engage in pointless debate about how effective resistance would be. But gun ownership has also historically included such things as hunting and self-defense. At the time the Second Amendment was written these rights were so common it was almost unthinkable that they had to be spelled out.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
No. We've been over this. There are millions of guns that are held legally within the US that are not used to harm other people, or used in crime. Because a small minority sell firearms unlawfully, or smuggle weapons into the country that does not mean that illegally held weapons are "way easier" to get. Millions of firearms are kept safely.

Both sentence in italics are just totally irrelevant to the issue.
I just do not know what to say anymore.
Can you really not see why having widespread legal weapons make it, all other thing equals, much easier to get illegally a weapon than if there were next to no legal weapons?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
You would have them disarmed, be stripped of their legal rights, and lawful possessions and you cannot give any sort of compelling argument.

Well, if we do change the law, it will not be their legal right anymore. By definition, laws cannot strip you of your legal rights .

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
You brought up the point that people are safer without guns. I've provided evidence that homes are safer with guns than water, automobiles, or household cleaning products.

No. I said a society without widespread guns everywhere would be safer. Removing guns from one house is maybe just going to make that house less safe. Removing guns from every house is going to make it safer for everyone.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
You mean a bigger gun?

Big rock is best rock.
And that fine lady had found the biggest rock.
What can you answer to that, hey?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Driving While White.... Conversely, there's DWB (driving while black) which applies to driving through certain areas of the country/cities where you're more likely to receive greater attention than you'd like.

So is that some kind of racist thing? And why driving? Is walking while white not working? WWW seems a very fine acronym .

 CptJake wrote:
France (according to wiki) has 1 murder per 100,000folks, or a .00001% rate.

The US has 4.8 per 100,000 folks, or .000048.

Statistically not much of difference.

Almost five time as many is a big statistical difference.

 CptJake wrote:
Interestingly, Puerto Rico, an island with very strict gun laws, has over 26 murders per 100k folks.

That would be a relevant comparison if the U.S. were more akin to Puerto Rico than to France. Yet last time I went to the U.S., I was not exactly struck by the poverty of the country.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Driving While White.... Conversely, there's DWB (driving while black) which applies to driving through certain areas of the country/cities where you're more likely to receive greater attention than you'd like.

So is that some kind of racist thing? And why driving? Is walking while white not working? WWW seems a very fine acronym .

Basically it's a reference that there are places one does not go while of a certain color... For instance (as in an earlier example I gave... my being white could lead to unwanted attention by "less than reputable" people if I were in an areas like Compton, Detroit, parts of Chicago, Baltimore, etc.... areas where there is a higher crime rate/higher "angry minority" presence)

On the flip side, DWB (driving while black) is usually a joke referring to people of darker skin being pulled over by police more if they are driving in extremely affluent neighborhoods with nice cars and generally "dont fit" the overall aesthetic of that neighborhood.(for example, and it was used in a skit... Carlos Mencia, a wealthy Mexican comedian gets pulled over in East LA, because he's driving a Mercedes Benz. The cop clearly thinks "minority, driving uber nice car, in crap neighborhood: drug dealer"