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CptJake wrote: Or how many AK47s are used in crimes, when in fact AK47s are a full auto weapon, and are very rarely used in crimes, instead some semi-automatic version is used.
Unfortunately, just because it is semi-auto does not somehow make it "not an AK-47". The mode of fire does not in any way alter the make and model of the gun. An AK-47 is an AK-47, semi or full auto.
Wrong. An AK-47 is a full auto (actually select fire) assault rifle, just as an M4 is an assault rifle capable of a three round burst. Change that and it is not an AK-47 or an M4, it is a semi auto. Just like there is a diference between my HK91 (semi auto civilian version) and a G3 (full auto military assault rifle). It may look like an AK47, but unless it is a selective fire (safe/semi/full auto) it isn't an AK-47.
AK stands for Avtomat Kalashnikova, or “Kalashnikov Automatic rifle ... True AK-47 rifles are fully automatic, however, with the exception of class III dealers it is illegal to posses them in the U.S.
Every time a terrorist dies a Paratrooper gets his wings.
FBI reports:
According to the 1997 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those possessing a gun, the source of the gun was from –
■a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2%
■a retail store or pawnshop for about 12%
■family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80%
In other words, it ain’t legal purchases from firearms dealers in legal shops or gun shows that criminals use.”
Responding to a question of how they obtained their most recent handgun, the arrestees answered as follows: 56% said they paid cash; 15% said it was a gift; 10% said they borrowed it; 8% said they traded for it; while 5% only said that they stole it.
The article goes into straw buyers and other methods used to illegally obtain guns.
Another article:
Ninety-five percent of US police commanders and sheriffs believe most criminals obtain their firearms from illegal sources, according to a survey released by the National Association of Chiefs of Police. Coincidentally, data released by the US Department of Justice appears to confirm this claim by our nation's police executives. The DOJ study refutes the conventional wisdom that guns used in criminal acts are purchased at retail stores or gun shows.
ParatrooperSimon wrote:Here it is. Don't carry guns and less people will get killed, period.
flamey image removed. MT11
Care to explain why simons statement is stupd??
To me, LESS GUNS = LESS DEATHS BY GUNS makes a lot of sense!!
Britain has a complete ban on all semi auto rifles, and shotguns. All non black power pistols are banned. Yet, some how during the riots there were shots fired at officers and helicopters. Also the sale of metal bats to the UK according to amazon.co.uk went up by 5000% during the riots.
Howard A Treesong wrote:That's like saying you need to know how a carburettor works before you can opine on car use.
It's more like needing to know the difference between diesel and gasoline. Or the difference between changing lanes and making a turn.
Yes, it's important. Guns are dangerous tools and people who own guns need to know as much about gun safety as possible.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Makarov wrote:To me, LESS GUNS = LESS DEATHS BY GUNS makes a lot of sense!!
Because of the difference between a valid argument, a true argument, and a sound argument. Less guns present causing less death is a valid argument. However, looking at the actual history of gun regulation, it is not a true argument. And because it is not both a true and a valid argument, it most importantly is an unsound argument.
IE it is an idealistic argument which is made while not paying attention to the facts. It is the same ideological failure that communism has.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2012/01/16 21:43:51
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
Makarov wrote:
Britain has a complete ban on all semi auto rifles, and shotguns. All non black power pistols are banned. Yet, some how during the riots there were shots fired at officers and helicopters. Also the sale of metal bats to the UK according to amazon.co.uk went up by 5000% during the riots.
I doubt there were really "shots fired". The rioting was bad but it was by and large pretty non-violent when you consider the scale of it. If there really were police/civilians being shot at, the armed police would have been all over it, and the second/third night the army were on standby.
Not sure what you mean about metal bats. Lots of shopkeepers in poor areas want to protect themselves, what's your point?
A few shopkeepers successfully defended their shops...well a lot didn't. If you magically removed all the guns from Los Angeles the night those riots started, the death, casualty and crime rates would have all been significantly lower.
Ever thought 40k would be a lot better with bears?
Codex: Bears.
NOW WITH MR BIGGLES AND HIS AMAZING FLYING CONTRAPTION
Gun crime is at a ridiculous level in America. There are more schoolchildren murdered with guns in school grounds in Los Angeles than there are people murdered in London every year.
By making guns readily available it increases the chance that there will be gun crime.
Evilledz wrote:Gun crime is at a ridiculous level in America. There are more schoolchildren murdered with guns in school grounds in Los Angeles than there are people murdered in London every year.
By making guns readily available it increases the chance that there will be gun crime.
I would love to see a source for that.
The Metropolitan Police said 125 victims died violently, down from 132 the previous year.
But gun murders were up 11 to 29, blamed partly on a rise in gang killings and a worrying trend for more teen- agers to use guns.
Evilledz wrote:Gun crime is at a ridiculous level in America. There are more schoolchildren murdered with guns in school grounds in Los Angeles than there are people murdered in London every year.
By making guns readily available it increases the chance that there will be gun crime.
I would love to see a source for that.
Give me a minute I just need to find it in a book =P
Automatically Appended Next Post: Quote: Bill Bryson: "In Los Angeles there are more murders on schoolgrounds alone than there are in the whole of London." However it does not mention guns I am assuming that guns are a large proportion of that. Apologies for the first statement by the way I got that slightly wrong =P
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/01/16 22:54:58
Makarov wrote:
@Howard A Treesong it does. For example the Brady campaign often calls for the ban of high capacity clips. Which do not exist. Then there are gems like this...
This is American news? That guy definately wouldn't be working in news here. I mean don't put down the person your interviewing. News reporters are supposed to be unbiased and all he seemed to be doing is ignoring the points that she was trying to make and attempting to make her look stupid. She doesn't have to know everything about what the legislation is meant to do, especially not little nitpicky things like what a barrel shroud is (which was probably put in there by someone more informed than her, but she's the spokeswoman for it not them).
Yeah American news really not aught to be used to demonstrate a point. =P
She deserved to be made to look like an idiot for not knowing what she was trying to ban. I congratulate the man for not just following along with the normal politician, talk about something else bs.
I'm both orderly and rational. I value control, information, and order. I love structure and hierarchy, and will actively use whatever power or knowledge I have to maintain it. At best, I am lawful and insightful; at worst, I am bureaucratic and tyrannical.
Evilledz wrote:Quote: Bill Bryson: "In Los Angeles there are more murders on schoolgrounds alone than there are in the whole of London." However it does not mention guns I am assuming that guns are a large proportion of that. Apologies for the first statement by the way I got that slightly wrong =P
What was his source?
Bill Bryson is just a humorist, not a statistician, and that quote does not have any actual source.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/01/16 23:06:59
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
Evilledz wrote:Gun crime is at a ridiculous level in America. There are more schoolchildren murdered with guns in school grounds in Los Angeles than there are people murdered in London every year.
By making guns readily available it increases the chance that there will be gun crime.
I would love to see a source for that.
Give me a minute I just need to find it in a book =P
Automatically Appended Next Post: Quote: Bill Bryson: "In Los Angeles there are more murders on schoolgrounds alone than there are in the whole of London." However it does not mention guns I am assuming that guns are a large proportion of that. Apologies for the first statement by the way I got that slightly wrong =P
Seriously, you are quoting a humorously written travel/fiction book written in '89 but have no stats to back up your claim?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/01/16 23:08:50
Every time a terrorist dies a Paratrooper gets his wings.
CptJake wrote:
Nice try . Look at my earlier post in this thread:
CptJake wrote:Why should anyone give a toss what another free person decides to own/collect as long as the items collected are not themselves the result of harming another human (kiddie porn comes to mind)?
If the collection is the result of harming others, then why is the threat of harming others not also a similar reason for concern?
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
If I were to listen to humorists and take their statements as facts instead of humor, I would think noone would want to live in the UK . The dentists rule tyrranically over peopple who eat gakky food and drink gakky beer, with constant riots by thuggish soccer fans and people becoming criminals just so they can so other people.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dogma wrote:If the collection is the result of harming others
Explain?
It's not like gun collectors are mugging people to buy their guns. Or specifically buying guns taht have been used on people.
Well, most of them.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/01/16 23:12:04
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
Makarov wrote:Britain has a complete ban on all semi auto rifles, and shotguns. All non black power pistols are banned. Yet, some how during the riots there were shots fired at officers and helicopters.
Obviously there are illegal firearms in the country, there are also legally owned ones too.
But to my knowledge there was only one incident in which police were fired upon during the riots, in Birmingham, and no one was injured or killed as a result of gunfire on either side. Can you say the same for riots of the same size in the US?
"In 1987 there were 635 homicides in Detroit, eight times the national average."
Doesn't that seem slightly ridiculous to you? I'm not saying you shouldn't own a gun for whatever reason (hunting etc), I'm saying that by making guns readily available it is most likely increasing violent crime. Fair enough if you want to own a gun for personal reasons but if gun laws were stronger don't you think that it would reduce crime?
Evilledz wrote:"In 1987 there were 635 homicides in Detroit, eight times the national average."
Doesn't that seem slightly ridiculous to you? I'm not saying you shouldn't own a gun for whatever reason (hunting etc), I'm saying that by making guns readily available it is most likely increasing violent crime. Fair enough if you want to own a gun for personal reasons but if gun laws were stronger don't you think that it would reduce crime?
You do realize that you couldn't carry legally in Detroit in 1987, right? So the murder rate was done while carrying the gun was already illegal. You do realize that a law that increased mandatory sentencing for illegal carrying went into effect in early 1987 and that the homicide rate still went up? You do realize that the ordinance was largely unenforced (making the point that MORE laws are not really what are needed, when enforcement of current laws is not being done).
What does that do to your point?
Every time a terrorist dies a Paratrooper gets his wings.
During the time where all firearms were banned from civilians in Washington DC, they were enforcing that with a hand so heavy it had its own gravitational pull.
Violent crime still went up.
The facts bear this statement out: Removing guns has not been proven to have a direct correlation with removing violent crime.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2012/01/16 23:35:43
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
dogma wrote:The second part of my post, about the threat of harming others, is what relates to gun regulation.
But that isn't "the result of harming others", it's merely potential harm, and even then only if the weapons are loaded. Gun collectors don't usually load their weapons unless they're going to use them, and oftentimes they won't often use most of their weapons because use decreases value and increases risk of damage which further decreases value.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/01/16 23:37:43
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
Melissia wrote:Even increased enforcement won't help much.
During the time where all firearms were banned from civilians in Washington DC, they were enforcing that with a hand so heavy it had its own gravitational pull.
Violent crime still went up.
The facts bear this statement out: Removing guns has not been proven to have a direct correlation with removing violent crime.
I understand that. I was trying (obviously not successfully) to point out that the knee jerk reaction to make new laws often ignores the fact that existing laws generally already would do what the proposed new law would. Or that new laws making illegal activity redundantly illegal don't change the fact that the illegal activity is already illegal before the new law.
Every time a terrorist dies a Paratrooper gets his wings.
Fair enough. I wasn't aware that it was illegal to carry guns in Detroit in 1987. However I do agree with you that if there are laws in place to stop the carrying of guns and they are doing very little then something is wrong with either the law or the enforcement.
However, I did state that gun laws should be stronger which doesn't necessarily relate to creating new laws, just strengthening them...
Melissia wrote:But that isn't "the result of harming others", it's merely potential harm, and even then only if the weapons are loaded. Gun collectors don't usually load their weapons unless they're going to use them, and oftentimes they won't often use most of their weapons because use decreases value and increases risk of damage which further decreases value.
The part about the result of harming others was related to child porn.
I'm basically arguing that things that are result of harming others, and things that have the potential to harm others are closely associated, and that the reason for regulating both is basically the same.
Realistically, even child porn is regulated on this basis, as it does not bring necessary harm to any children, or necessarily result from harming any children.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Evilledz wrote:Fair enough. I wasn't aware that it was illegal to carry guns in Detroit in 1987. However I do agree with you that if there are laws in place to stop the carrying of guns and they are doing very little then something is wrong with either the law or the enforcement.
However, I did state that gun laws should be stronger which doesn't necessarily relate to creating new laws, just strengthening them...
Is the lack of improvement a sign that something is wrong with the law or the enforcement.
Or is the lack of improvement a sign that banning guns is not having the effect people imagined it would have.
Basic science teaches us that we start with an idea (guns = crime, so more gun control = less crime), then you do an experiment to see if your idea holds up. You set up an environment in which you set up your idea (more gun control) and see if if it has the hypothetical effect (is crime going down). The data shows that as gun control increases, crime did not decrease but at times increased. At what point do you accept the data presented by the experiment and stop running the same test over and over?
If you decided that (water is wet, petrol is wet, so if water stops fire then petrol must stop fire) and run an experiment where you pour petrol on a fire to see if the fire decreases, how long do you watch the fire get bigger until you realize that your idea is wrong?
Yeah it does necessarily do so. Although perhaps I'm making too big of a distinction between drawn art / stories / sculptures and actual child porn involving children.
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
Guys can we just stop talking about child por altogether. Its a screwed up subject to even be discussing and I don't think that the rational minded amongst us really want to be hearing any arguments advocating it or saying that its an acceptible way for people with a problem to let out their vices or whatever. ¬¬
I've said it before. In America there is this sense that ultimately, every person should be responsible for their own safety and the safety of their family. When it all boils down, police do not prevent crime, they respond to it and (hopefully) catch the criminal(s) responsible. Granted this idea isn't unanimous across the country, and indeed some people seem to think that not only should the general public not be responsible for themselves in any fashion, but indeed that the general public is incapable of being responsible for themselves in any fashion.
However, the men who wrote the basic principles of our entire country were (thankfully) of the former opinion. The public can, should, and indeed must, be responsible for themselves; "Government inevitably tries to take too much power from it's citizens, so here's the framework for preventing that." Naturally a clause in our constitution that basically says "Hey! Keep an eye on your leaders!" has fostered an attitude of "Sure! While I'm at it, I'll keep an eye on my neighbors too!"
Firearms are the best way to make sure that I can be responsible for myself and loved ones. They allow me to provide the MOST basic needs: food, shelter and clothing, and to make it very difficult for others to take these things from me. Granted this is a very apocalyptic view, but it can also apply to contemporary society.
Yes all these things can be, and have been, accomplished with the use of other tools such as knives, spears, and bows ( and very recently a katana), but firearms are the most efficient method. The likelihood of incurring harm to oneself during hunting or defense while using a non-firearm is an order of magnitude greater (probably hyperbole) than when using a firearm.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/01/17 00:23:46
Mannahnin wrote:A lot of folks online (and in emails in other parts of life) use pretty mangled English. The idea is that it takes extra effort and time to write properly, and they’d rather save the time. If you can still be understood, what’s the harm? While most of the time a sloppy post CAN be understood, the use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is generally seen as respectable and desirable on most forums. It demonstrates an effort made to be understood, and to make your post an easy and pleasant read. By making this effort, you can often elicit more positive responses from the community, and instantly mark yourself as someone worth talking to.
insaniak wrote: Every time someone threatens violence over the internet as a result of someone's hypothetical actions at the gaming table, the earth shakes infinitisemally in its orbit as millions of eyeballs behind millions of monitors all roll simultaneously.
What our Euro friends seem to not understand that most murders in the US are related to the illegal drug trade just like our high rate of murder in the 20's was related to prohibition.
Lordhat wrote:I've said it before. In America there is this sense that ultimately, every person should be responsible for their own safety and the safety of their family. When it all boils down, police do not prevent crime, they respond to it and (hopefully) catch the criminal(s) responsible. Granted this idea isn't unanimous across the country, and indeed some people seem to think that not only should the general public not be responsible for themselves in any fashion, but indeed that the general public is incapable of being responsible for themselves in any fashion.
There are also people like me that would prefer a society in which only myself, my friends, and my family are allowed to own firearms.
Because, ultimately, those are the only people whose rights and freedoms I consider to be important.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Take it down a notch boys, things seem to be getting a bit heated between some people here, who have been warned. Remember the rules and play nice please - MT11
