Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It seems to me you're mostly likely to encounter criminals who are simply trying to steal from you, in which case having a gun on you sounds like a good way to get yourself killed.

If you encounter someone who is not a common criminal but rather a gun toting psychopath, then yeah, having a gun on you will make you safer than if you didn't have a gun on you because they're probably going to shoot you anyway so if lots of regular citizens have guns they are more capable of defending against the gun toting psychopath...

I think you have that backwards. The average robber wants a weak target, and is likely to run away as soon as they realize you have a gun and might fight back. The homicidal lunatic is more likely to just walk up and shoot you before you have any idea that you're in danger.

But conversely, highly available guns means that every little bag-snatcher or shoplifter might carry a gun.

More restricted guns means that only those who are really dedicated criminals use guns (that is, either building them themselves or stealing from police etc.), and while that is of course bad, it at least means you won't risk being shot for chasing after the guy who just grabbed your bag.

I acknowledge that social and economic differences is the largest problem, but still.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It seems to me you're mostly likely to encounter criminals who are simply trying to steal from you, in which case having a gun on you sounds like a good way to get yourself killed.

If you encounter someone who is not a common criminal but rather a gun toting psychopath, then yeah, having a gun on you will make you safer than if you didn't have a gun on you because they're probably going to shoot you anyway so if lots of regular citizens have guns they are more capable of defending against the gun toting psychopath...

I think you have that backwards. The average robber wants a weak target, and is likely to run away as soon as they realize you have a gun and might fight back. The homicidal lunatic is more likely to just walk up and shoot you before you have any idea that you're in danger.

But conversely, highly available guns means that every little bag-snatcher or shoplifter might carry a gun.

More restricted guns means that only those who are really dedicated criminals use guns (that is, either building them themselves or stealing from police etc.), and while that is of course bad, it at least means you won't risk being shot for chasing after the guy who just grabbed your bag.

I acknowledge that social and economic differences is the largest problem, but still.

The logic sounds good on paper, but as I mentioned earlier, the statistics simply don't reflect this as being the case. Forget the USA, many of the most violence-ridden countries in the world have basically completely banned firearms. The failure of gun control measures isn't just that they don't target the right problems, but that there are already too many guns floating around for criminals to acquire for gun laws to have a meaningful effect when criminals do want to get their hands on a gun. And that's independent of the fact that even if you do get rid of guns, then guns are simply substituted for other things like knives, clubs, bombs, etc. The comparison also breaks down in certain places like Switzerland, which has an extremely high gun ownership rate yet virtually no crime. It's absolutely blatantly obvious that something other than gun ownership rates drives, or even precipitates, violent crime. People just tend to gloss over the obvious in favor of lazy, politics driven rhetoric. Heck, even with the highest gun ownership in the world by a significant margin, the USA still have a very low overall violent crime rate, no matter what sensationalist media tells you. Far be it from being a violent and dangerous place to live, the USA is just a slightly rougher neighborhood than, say, Europe, and a significant amount of the reason behind that is likely remnants of racial issues from prior to the 1960's combined with the extensive drug trade right across the border in central and south America.

Funnily enough, the issue is almost similar to the war on drugs. Ban drugs/guns completely, and you simply create systematic abuse. Legalization and appropriate regulation seems to produce far better results. The irony is that, at least here in the USA, liberals will preach for days that legalizing Marijuana and banning firearms is a good thing, while conservatives will argue that banning drugs and keeping firearms legal is the best course of action. Banning drugs has led to obscene levels of drug related violence south of the USA, and banning guns never seems to have a meaningful impact, so who's right on what?

On the point about Switzerland, whilst it does have a very low crime rate, if you look at its homicide numbers you'll see that a large proportion of its homicides are carried out with firearms.

Switzerland has a low homicide rate per capita compared to neighbouring countries but the percentage of homicides committed by firearms per capita is much higher than neighbouring countries.

And also, Switzerland has very strict laws governing the movement of firearms. They may not be transported loaded, the magazine and weapon must be separated, you must have a legitimate reason for having it on your person (such as going to the firing range or barracks) and you must take the most direct route to your destination. So the culture is vastly different to the US.

Suicide shouldn't be included in violence. It artificially inflates the numbers.

The means of suicide should also not be given any weight either. if someone wants to commit suicide they'll do it with whatever they have available. The presence of a gun doesn't alter anything in that regard.

In the first half of the 20th century, ovens in England used to burn coal gas, which happened to be completely lethal in concentrated doses and was thus the preferred way to commit suicide. By the late 1950s, sticking your head in the oven accounted for nearly half of all suicides committed in England. By the early 1970s, these ovens had been phased out, so nobody was surprised to see coal gas fall out of the top ten British suicide methods (one of Cracked.com's least popular recurring articles). So what did all of those suicidal people do instead? In a startling number of cases, they just went right on living. The suicide rate dropped by a third, and it never went back up.


Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images

Although the marked increase in Hot Pocket consumption pretty much canceled it out.

Wait, really? The decision to off yourself is kind of a big one, isn't it? It's not the sort of thing you just wait to do when the opportunity arises and your schedule opens up. Yet you can find plenty of examples of people being inconvenienced right the hell down from the ledge. Adding a suicide barrier to a bridge in Washington lowered not just the number of suicides that occurred on that bridge, but the overall suicide rate (meaning those people didn't just go find another bridge to jump from). A study of more than 500 Golden Gate Bridge jumpers who were stopped in the act found that 94 percent didn't try it again.

Suicides, it turns out, are often split-second decisions -- add even a few minutes' thought or just plain inconvenience to it, and a lot of the victims change their minds. Of course, that's not possible if your method involves instantly splattering your brains all over the wall with one pull of the trigger. If a bridge with a low barrier and a coal gas oven are Regis Philbin asking you to lock in your final answer, having a gun is like the Jeopardy! clicker -- all you have to do is press one button a single time and it's done. No going back. So it's no surprise that one of the biggest risk factors for suicide is simply having a gun in the house.



Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_20396_5-mind-blowing-facts-nobody-told-you-about-guns_p3.html#ixzz3N8UX9NvH

 Grey Templar wrote:
Suicide shouldn't be included in violence. It artificially inflates the numbers.

The means of suicide should also not be given any weight either. if someone wants to commit suicide they'll do it with whatever they have available. The presence of a gun doesn't alter anything in that regard.

The evidence doesn't support this.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Suicide shouldn't be included in violence. It artificially inflates the numbers.

The means of suicide should also not be given any weight either. if someone wants to commit suicide they'll do it with whatever they have available. The presence of a gun doesn't alter anything in that regard.

The evidence doesn't support this.

Funny, the link you provided doesn't support your claim.

I assume that was addressed at both of them.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Switzerland has a low homicide rate per capita compared to neighbouring countries but the percentage of homicides committed by firearms per capita is much higher than neighbouring countries.

Who cares? Dead is dead.

 Grey Templar wrote:
if someone wants to commit suicide they'll do it with whatever they have available. The presence of a gun doesn't alter anything in that regard.

This isn't true at all. Easy access to a reliable method is a big factor in whether a person commits suicide successfully or not. Even relatively minor obstacles like putting up a barrier on a bridge can stop people from killing themselves. The little bit of extra effort required to climb over the barrier is enough to get past that impulsive thought and keep them alive. Sure, people who are truly determined to die are going to find a way to do it, not every suicidal person is in that category.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
But conversely, highly available guns means that every little bag-snatcher or shoplifter might carry a gun.

Not really. Despite our high gun ownership rates most of those crimes involve no violence at all, beyond maybe a token struggle when the mall cops arrive and ask to look in the shoplifter's bag. In fact, the whole point is to avoid confrontation with a low-stakes crime where nobody is likely to start a fight and the price of getting caught is low. Where guns are involved is when you have people who decide to take what they want by force, and someone who intends to do that is going to need some kind of weapon even if it isn't a gun. And that kind of person is the perfect customer for an illegal gun manufacturer.

 Peregrine wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Switzerland has a low homicide rate per capita compared to neighbouring countries but the percentage of homicides committed by firearms per capita is much higher than neighbouring countries.

Who cares? Dead is dead.

It matters because if there weren't guns you might find the number of homicides decreases. Sure, if people want to kill someone then they'll try whether or not they have a gun, but it will be harder and less likely to succeed.

For an example you can compare the Chenpeng School attack with the Sandy Hook attack. In the first the child had a knife and injured 23 people, with no fatalities. In the second the child had a rifle and killed 20 children, 6 members of staff, his mother, himself and injured 2 others. That's a pretty big difference in body count.

Even if we include all of the other school knife attacks in china over the period of 2010 to 2012 (there was a series of them, apparently uncoordinated) , there were still less fatalities than in the single Sandy Hook attack (25 as opposed to 28).

 CptJake wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Suicide shouldn't be included in violence. It artificially inflates the numbers.

The means of suicide should also not be given any weight either. if someone wants to commit suicide they'll do it with whatever they have available. The presence of a gun doesn't alter anything in that regard.

The evidence doesn't support this.

Funny, the link you provided doesn't support your claim.

I don't need to provide a link. He made a claim. He has to provide the evidence to support his claiml

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Suicide shouldn't be included in violence. It artificially inflates the numbers.

The means of suicide should also not be given any weight either. if someone wants to commit suicide they'll do it with whatever they have available. The presence of a gun doesn't alter anything in that regard.

The evidence doesn't support this.

Funny, the link you provided doesn't support your claim.

I don't need to provide a link. He made a claim. He has to provide the evidence to support his claiml

You're the one who cited evidence. Good form would be to provide said evidence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21370910

People kill people, not guns...gun restrictions do not stop gun violence, it actually has been proven that allowing good people to carry firearms has lowered crime rates..i believe that good firearm safety education is a must have for kids like riding a bike. Being an american it is a right and a priviledge to own firearms, it is not the guns fault if a child picks a weapon up and shoots somebody..thats the parents fault

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Switzerland has a low homicide rate per capita compared to neighbouring countries but the percentage of homicides committed by firearms per capita is much higher than neighbouring countries.

Who cares? Dead is dead.

It matters because if there weren't guns you might find the number of homicides decreases. Sure, if people want to kill someone then they'll try whether or not they have a gun, but it will be harder and less likely to succeed.

For an example you can compare the Chenpeng School attack with the Sandy Hook attack. In the first the child had a knife and injured 23 people, with no fatalities. In the second the child had a rifle and killed 20 children, 6 members of staff, his mother, himself and injured 2 others. That's a pretty big difference in body count.

Even if we include all of the other school knife attacks in china over the period of 2010 to 2012 (there was a series of them, apparently uncoordinated) , there were still less fatalities than in the single Sandy Hook attack (25 as opposed to 28).

School attacks are so incredibly rare that they can't really be used as evidence. And in nearly all cases of US shootings the attack was carried out with stolen weapons by people who would have been allowed to have them in the first place. So the law isn't at fault. Taking away legal weapons from law abiding citizens does nothing to prevent school shootings, and they're so incredibly rare that they are statistically insignificant.

 Grey Templar wrote:


School attacks are so incredibly rare that they can't really be used as evidence. And in nearly all cases of US shootings the attack was carried out with stolen weapons by people who would have been allowed to have them in the first place. So the law isn't at fault. Taking away legal weapons from law abiding citizens does nothing to prevent school shootings, and they're so incredibly rare that they are statistically insignificant.

Bringing in laws that require all weapons to be securely locked up, in a gun safe which the child has no access to (so probably number code rather than key in case the key is misplaced), when not in use might.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Switzerland has a low homicide rate per capita compared to neighbouring countries but the percentage of homicides committed by firearms per capita is much higher than neighbouring countries.

Who cares? Dead is dead.

It matters because if there weren't guns you might find the number of homicides decreases. Sure, if people want to kill someone then they'll try whether or not they have a gun, but it will be harder and less likely to succeed.

For an example you can compare the Chenpeng School attack with the Sandy Hook attack. In the first the child had a knife and injured 23 people, with no fatalities. In the second the child had a rifle and killed 20 children, 6 members of staff, his mother, himself and injured 2 others. That's a pretty big difference in body count.

Even if we include all of the other school knife attacks in china over the period of 2010 to 2012 (there was a series of them, apparently uncoordinated) , there were still less fatalities than in the single Sandy Hook attack (25 as opposed to 28).

School attacks are so incredibly rare that they can't really be used as evidence. And in nearly all cases of US shootings the attack was carried out with stolen weapons by people who would have been allowed to have them in the first place. So the law isn't at fault. Taking away legal weapons from law abiding citizens does nothing to prevent school shootings, and they're so incredibly rare that they are statistically insignificant.

Bringing in laws that require all weapons to be securely locked up, in a gun safe which the child has no access to (so probably number code rather than key), when not in use might.

Nope.

Impossible to enforce without enormous civil right's violations.

Even the existence of such a law would be constitutionally shaky. Requiring people to purchase expensive gun safes just to exercise their basic civil, and human, rights is beyond wrong.

A gun locked up in a safe also completely defeats using it as home defense. 2-3 seconds to open the safe may not seem like much, but it matters in the event of a home invasion.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Switzerland has a low homicide rate per capita compared to neighbouring countries but the percentage of homicides committed by firearms per capita is much higher than neighbouring countries.

Who cares? Dead is dead.

It matters because if there weren't guns you might find the number of homicides decreases. Sure, if people want to kill someone then they'll try whether or not they have a gun, but it will be harder and less likely to succeed.

For an example you can compare the Chenpeng School attack with the Sandy Hook attack. In the first the child had a knife and injured 23 people, with no fatalities. In the second the child had a rifle and killed 20 children, 6 members of staff, his mother, himself and injured 2 others. That's a pretty big difference in body count.

Even if we include all of the other school knife attacks in china over the period of 2010 to 2012 (there was a series of them, apparently uncoordinated) , there were still less fatalities than in the single Sandy Hook attack (25 as opposed to 28).

School attacks are so incredibly rare that they can't really be used as evidence. And in nearly all cases of US shootings the attack was carried out with stolen weapons by people who would have been allowed to have them in the first place. So the law isn't at fault. Taking away legal weapons from law abiding citizens does nothing to prevent school shootings, and they're so incredibly rare that they are statistically insignificant.

Less then .01% of schools will experience a shooting in a given year, just to put numbers to words.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Requiring people to purchase expensive gun safes just to exercise their basic civil, and human, rights is beyond wrong.

And the people who die due to others easy access to firearms aren't having their basic civil and human rights violated?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Requiring people to purchase expensive gun safes just to exercise their basic civil, and human, rights is beyond wrong.

And the people who die due to others easy access to firearms aren't having their basic civil and human rights violated?

Not by the people who exercise their right to bear arms for self-defense.

Just because someone is killed doesn't mean its ok to infringe on the rights of people who did nothing wrong.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Requiring people to purchase expensive gun safes just to exercise their basic civil, and human, rights is beyond wrong.

And the people who die due to others easy access to firearms aren't having their basic civil and human rights violated?

Not by the people who exercise their right to bear arms for self-defense.

Just because someone is killed doesn't mean its ok to infringe on the rights of people who did nothing wrong.

And the start of multiple laps in the circle

Indeed. We've done this dance before.

Ultimately, its a choice between a very very few people getting killed and everyone in the nation having a civil right infringed on.

The right to bear arms is equal in importance to all the others on the Bill of Rights. You would never ever think of infringing on freedom of religion, freedom of speech, assembly, or the right to vote? Why is the right to bear arms ok to infringe on?

Oh dear.

Grey Templar wrote:Indeed. We've done this dance before.

Ultimately, its a choice between a very very few people getting killed and everyone in the nation having a civil right infringed on.

The right to bear arms is equal in importance to all the others on the Bill of Rights. You would never ever think of infringing on freedom of religion, freedom of speech, assembly, or the right to vote? Why is the right to bear arms ok to infringe on?

Ashiraya wrote:Oh dear.

So, that local sports team? I hear they're doing well. Might even make the playoffs this year.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Impossible to enforce without enormous civil right's violations.

Depends on how you want to enforce it. Obviously mandatory inspections of gun storage would create serious legal issues, but there are other ways to do it. The police could act on information that you're breaking the storage law and get a search warrant, just like any other crime. And even if the storage law is never enforced unless you've already attracted the attention of the police it would still ensure that most people decide that buying and using a gun safe is better than risking legal trouble if their guns are used in a crime and their failure to store them legally is discovered. It's kind of like seatbelt laws, you don't need mandatory seatbelt checkpoints every 5 miles to get most people to obey the law.

A gun locked up in a safe also completely defeats using it as home defense. 2-3 seconds to open the safe may not seem like much, but it matters in the event of a home invasion.

Any gun storage law would obviously account for having a gun outside the safe but under your control. You would be free to have your gun out and accessible when you are there with it, you just wouldn't be allowed to leave it out when you're not home.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Just because someone is killed doesn't mean its ok to infringe on the rights of people who did nothing wrong.

Except that's how it already works with other rights.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You would never ever think of infringing on freedom of religion, freedom of speech, assembly, or the right to vote?

Those rights are infringed on all the time. Try claiming a "free speech" defense against a libel accusation, or a "freedom of religion" defense against breaking drug laws. And then there are things like right to only have your property searched with a legitimate warrant, which has been narrowed almost to the point of uselessness (when the government doesn't blatantly ignore it).

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It seems to me you're mostly likely to encounter criminals who are simply trying to steal from you, in which case having a gun on you sounds like a good way to get yourself killed.

If you encounter someone who is not a common criminal but rather a gun toting psychopath, then yeah, having a gun on you will make you safer than if you didn't have a gun on you because they're probably going to shoot you anyway so if lots of regular citizens have guns they are more capable of defending against the gun toting psychopath...

I think you have that backwards. The average robber wants a weak target, and is likely to run away as soon as they realize you have a gun and might fight back. The homicidal lunatic is more likely to just walk up and shoot you before you have any idea that you're in danger.

Maybe they will run away when they discover you have a gun, maybe they'll shoot you in a panic. I count that as a higher chance of getting yourself killed vs just giving them what they want. I lived in a mildly rough area in the US for the first few months I was there, every couple of weeks the police would issue a warning that someone has been robbed on X street at Y time of night, they were almost always robbed by someone with a gun. If I was being held up by someone pointing a gun at me and I had a gun on me myself, I'd mostly be hoping they didn't notice I had a gun than hoping they did on the chance they'd run away rather than just shoot me.

 Peregrine wrote:
Depends on how you want to enforce it. Obviously mandatory inspections of gun storage would create serious legal issues, but there are other ways to do it. The police could act on information that you're breaking the storage law and get a search warrant, just like any other crime. And even if the storage law is never enforced unless you've already attracted the attention of the police it would still ensure that most people decide that buying and using a gun safe is better than risking legal trouble if their guns are used in a crime and their failure to store them legally is discovered. It's kind of like seatbelt laws, you don't need mandatory seatbelt checkpoints every 5 miles to get most people to obey the law.

The problem with gun laws is usually that the law abiding gun owners follow the laws and the criminals don't. The ATF is ridiculously hamstrung in doing what its job is supposed to be: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/08/168889491/gun-control-advocates-say-atfs-hands-have-been-tied http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/ATF-poorly-armed-with-funding-as-duties-grow-4950373.php I'm not saying they should be given more powers, but at least being able to use a computer and have decent staff & funding might alleviate some of the criminal guns issues in play. A lot of good laws are already in place, what's needed is the ability to inspect and enforce them.

 Torga_DW wrote:
The problem with gun laws is usually that the law abiding gun owners follow the laws and the criminals don't.

Which is fine in this case. The goal of storage laws isn't to prevent crime, it's to prevent things like a child getting their parent's gun and having a tragic accident. If most law-abiding gun owners follow the law then the fact that criminals ignore it doesn't negate the benefits.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
The problem with gun laws is usually that the law abiding gun owners follow the laws and the criminals don't.

Which is fine in this case. The goal of storage laws isn't to prevent crime, it's to prevent things like a child getting their parent's gun and having a tragic accident. If most law-abiding gun owners follow the law then the fact that criminals ignore it doesn't negate the benefits.

Well the PSA does advise the kid to pick up their parents fire arms and take it to school.....

 Jihadin wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
The problem with gun laws is usually that the law abiding gun owners follow the laws and the criminals don't.

Which is fine in this case. The goal of storage laws isn't to prevent crime, it's to prevent things like a child getting their parent's gun and having a tragic accident. If most law-abiding gun owners follow the law then the fact that criminals ignore it doesn't negate the benefits.

Well the PSA does advise the kid to pick up their parents fire arms and take it to school.....

Which he couldn't do if it were securely locked away. Just sayin'

So not only would it reduce the cases of accidental suicide by firearms (and possibly also intentional suicide by having that little obstacle of opening the safe, loading the gun etc. in the way), you also wouldn't have to worry about your children trying to give your guns to teachers because they saw it in a video! Everybody wins!