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I’d hardly call anything that comes from the Cato institute factual. It was founded by one of the Koch brothers after all.
Way to disprove everything in the post.
FBI & Cato Institute.
I do understand your suspicions, but I also feel the news loves to glorify anything gun related but never adds context to show how little guns are a problem in America relative to the number that are out there.
Shut up with your stupid facts! They can be used to prove *anything*. Guns are scary! Well, except when wielded by a guy with a crew cut and a shiny badge. The shiny badge makes ALL the difference.
Well they failed to included the facts that show that carrying a gun or having one in your home increase the chance that you’ll the victim of a homicide (and obviously increases your chance of an accidental death from a firearm). So much for them being motivated by ‘saving lives’ and putting ‘facts before emotion’.
Yeah, well, having a pool increases your chance of death by drowning. What’s your point?
Oh, and don’t insult me by pretending that you’re concerned about my safety when you want to ban guns. I call bullshit.
oh ffs don’t even start with that crap in your pool argument.
And btw nobody gives a flying fuck about Your safety if you have a gun, just those close to you.
My point is that they’re talking about SAVING LIVES, gun ownership COSTS lives, thus they’re spewing crap to promote their agenda.
You’re reading intentions that aren’t there into what I wrote. I think that reducing freedoms in the name of safety isn’t always the right call, and I don’t want to ban guns. I just hate the bullshit that the post is peddling.
I was talking to luminary
If you’re talking about SAVING LIVES, you should talk about cars. Driving COSTS lives, too.
Isn’t every car and truck in the US registered? Don’t you have to report every sale to the government?
No, they aren’t and no you don’t. Only if you want to drive them on public roads. I don’t suppose you’d be okay with privately owned guns that are only kept and used on private property.
I imagine you’re referring to whats known as the Kellermann study (44 times more likely to be killed if you have a gun) right?
Yeah, well, might not know that it’s been debunked as he used a flawed research methodology…
(www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/58tenn.pdf)
Kellerman has done multiple studies.
That paper disagrees with some of Kellerman’s earlier studies, but hardly debunks anything.
Kellerman’s later studies addressed some of the issues in that report and found that the data essentially leads to the same conclusions:
A gun in the home significantly raises the odds of a family member’s death by homicide, accident and suicide.
That less than 2% of shootings in the home involve shooting an intruder.
With a gun in the home, you are much more likely to experience a gun tragedy than you are likely to stop an intruder.
Period.
I’m just going to add that 40% of all gun sales within the US are done in a way that does not require a background check. That’s a horrifying number, literally anyone could be buying guns if they know how to do it right.
But….
But….
But…..
where are the analyses that show that the people most likely to have guns are the ones that are targeted for attack by local gangs or by psychotic ex husbands and ex wives and maybe live in the inner city where the only peace is the peace of the grave? Maybe that is why they BOUGHT THE GUN IN THE FIRST PLACE…..
Ownership of guns does not imply that you will suddenly have an attack of bad karma and your kids will magically sprout bulletholes all over their bodies. That is a false analysis with incomplete data.
I can tell you that women that don’t carry guns are twenty-five times more likely to be successfully raped than women who have purchased, trained to use, and carry a firearm but that doesn’t mean that ALL unarmed women will suddenly have an attack of bad karma and be raped by the karmic agenda squadron.
The truth is that you have to check a HUGE amount of other factors and include those in your calculations.
Things like:
Incidence of spousal abuse in the household. Were they shot by some dickhead in their family?
Then the gun didn’t cause it. The dickhead caused it. He might just as well have used a baseball bat or gasoline or an axe or whatever.
Incidence of violent crime in the area.
Did the gun purchase happen because the owner was afraid of some dickhead criminal?
Then the gun didn’t cause the death. The dickhead did.
Did the person get shot by a family member or was the shooting by someone the firearms were purchased to defend against?
If the death was accidental, what actually happened?
If the death was suicide, were there other methods available?
Are the statistics you are quoting coming from an anti-gun lobby group?
If so, try googling “(name of lobby group) falsified statistics” and read what you find.
So you want to save lives, eh? And your solution is don’t do anything about guns? Interesting. I suppose your solution for putting out fires is letting them burn themselves out. If you want to complain about solutions you also have to present other solutions otherwise you’re just whining.
I’m not so thrilled about saving lives, but I HATE misleading statistics. Guns were never ‘banned’ in Australia, but there has been strict legislation ever since the end of World War 2… is that the time they’re referring to? ZOMG armed robberies went from almost nothing to 40% higher than almost nothing when all of the men between 18 and 45 return from military service!? Say it’s not so!
Everything except for single shot, long barreled rifles/shotguns is banned in Australia.
Not true, semi auto pistols and revolvers are legal in AU with a permit provided the barrel is at least 120mm long.
Yeah not really, pistols are subject to the restriction that you are a target shooter who competes at a yearly minimum number of competitions. Sure, they are obtainable, but it is not the same as the vetting process for a rifle. All semi-auto rifles are restricted to professional shooters or primary producers, again not as accessible as single shot weapons.
None of the “facts” are facts. There is no required reporting to any state or federal agency on these issues.
All these statements do is get in the way of any real talk as to how to reduce deaths by guns.
I think a background check on all who want to purchase a gun makes sense. You also need to arrest the felons who try and buy guns.
Armed robberies spiked by 44% in Australia when guns were banned?!?!? What a pile of fœtid dingoes’ kidneys! Where did that “well known fact” come from? Did you pull that out of your arse? I defy anyone to firstly define the point at which guns were banned in Australia, and secondly, provide armed robbery statistics that show that increase at that time.
I expect the rest of those “statistics,” like the whole argument, are equally made up bullshit.
They’re playing with the numbers – violence did spike in 2000 after the buy back in 1997, but they’ve been dropping ever since. Gun deaths in AU are currently 1/3O of the US and have been for years. Gun control in Australia has been an overwhelming success.
Heheh… three years after the buy-back. I don’t think that even qualifies as correlation, let alone causation! 🙂
And Australia has a population that is 7% that of the US and Australia doesn’t have an urban subculture where less than 1% of the population commits over 50% of the crimes.
Anytime I see a title “The Honest Truth” I know I am about to read some bullshit.
Mistrust anyone who gives one side of the story, addresses no part of the counter argument, and follows that up with claiming a desire for honest debate.
Those kids at Sandy Ridge were killed by what? Someone refresh my memory.
Oh – they were shot! That’s right.
For the record firearms are NOT illegal in Australia. There’s no auto or semi-auto available to the public. Shooting in Australian ranges is single shot only/no mags. When Australians want to shoot the living shit out of things, we fly to the U.S.A.
So, yes, they are illegal.
No. They are legal. But only to those who have been deemed trustworthy of having such a responsibility. Each and every firearms license holder must have completed a firearms safety course (theory and practice) and be thoroughly checked by authorities for suitability. They must also have a reason for needing a firearm. Ie sporting or professional. Illegal is illegal. Legal is legal. Therefore those who buy firearms on the black market (which is the case if you’re not licensed) are illegal.
Seemingly contrary to some of the points I’ve been making in the other million posts about this topic, I don’t really have a problem with this logic (silly comparisons to countries with different cultures and using likely-massaged numbers aside). If we want “gun-ly nation,” then we’re willing to accept the risks that come with that status. Maybe that risk drops safety from 99.9% to 99.0% – maybe that risk means a higher rate of firearms use factored into crime statistics. It’s our decision to make, whichever way we go with it so long as we accept those possibilities – and frankly, I’m fine with them.
Sure, the 96% of the guns that were obtained illegally were much easier to illegally obtain due to the prevalence of liberally regulated legal gun markets in the first place, but again, that’s what comes with the territory.
Don’t want another Sandy Hook? Don’t encourage your mentally problematic and undertreated kid to take your assault weapons to the range and leave them freely available in the home.
Why does America glorify gun violence? Because in a bunch of the problems we’ve faced over the years, gun violence worked out pretty awesome. Revolution, defense, expansion, Rambo, World War II, countries that second guess invading American soil because pretty much everyone is one good reason away from being a modern minuteman…
Responsibility should just come with the territory – and before anybody thinks I’m being inconsistent here, some of that responsibility includes some fucking background checks and psychological / competence testing on occasion.
Every firearm purchase from a legal gun vendor in the United States has to go through an NICS check. Every firearm purchased new since 1986 has gone through this process.
For me who truly needs an assault rifle? Hunting? Having a gun to protect yourself is a valid excuse to own certain types of guns. My father/younger Brother are both proud gun owners for either hunting or protecting their home. They even said that assault rifles needs to be banned, and both of them admit that there is not see a valid excuse to owning one – Just my two cents.
Assault rifles ARE banned in the US and have been since 1986. What the current hubub is about is banning weapons that LOOK like assault rifles. All they are is normal semi automatic rifles that are no more or less capable than any other semi automatic hunting rifles, except perhaps that they are much less powerful than those made for hunting. Indeed, there are rifles on the market that many people would call “assault weapons” that are purpose built for hunting such as the R25.
If you consider owning a gun for the sake of protecting your home a legitimate use then something like an AR-15 is perhaps one of the most appropriate choices. They have capabilities only somewhat greater than handguns for that purpose and are arguably more appropriate: They are less likely to overpenetrate wall of a house (depending on ammo choice) and more likely to hit their target than a handgun kept for home defense. An AR-15 is also arguably less useful for mass shootings: Most handguns also have detachable high capacity magazines and, unlike a rifle, are easily hidden before use.
Now, I’m not making an argument whether firearms in general should be legal and/or easily obtained just hoping to make the point that “assault weapons” don’t have capabilities substantially different from the vast majority of OTHER firearms that most people (in the US anyway) consider “legitimate” for private ownership.
So-called “assault rifles” account for something like 1% of gun fatalities. If this was really about saving lives this would be the last category, fake as it is, of guns that we would talk about. It is not about gun control it is about taking guns away from lawful owners because some people don’t care about the rights of others and support it becasue those guns are scary.
Gotta start somewhere, right?
So are you saying you would support a ban on handguns first…?
Actually, yes, I would. Handguns are disproportionally responsible for firearm violence in America in general. Even if you only look at the rare instances of mass shootings (whether compared to death in general, death by violence or death by firearm violence) handguns are used far more often than long guns of any kind, including “assault weapons”. Indeed, according to the DOJ, shoes are more commonly cited as a murder weapon than are rifles.
I’m not saying that I personally feel that the public ought have unfettered access to semiautomatic rifles in general, nor am I saying they should not. To ban some of them while leaving others that are functionally identical (and in many cases are the same firearm) as legal however is simply bad law. It is a bit like banning racing stripes, bucket seats, rocker panels and air intake scoops to try and cut down on street racing…
What it DOES accomplish is it demonstrates to those who do know anything about the topic that the administration does not understand or refuses to understand the nature of such things. It also provides a rallying cry for the opposition. Many believe that if it were not for the previous AWB, Bush would not have gotten into office. I really don’t want to see a return to the GOP. Banning “assault weapons” helps the GOP garner support among a rather dedicated and vocal crowd.
Don’t.Feed.The.Troll.
why the fuck not?
But a skinny tiki is not as fun!
Sandy Ridge Elementary? Anyone remember what happened there? Any of you gun nuts want to try and explain how that was an OK thing?
Well… one of those kids… we don’t know wich one… was going to be the next hitler. Millions of future lives have been saved!
Nobody is saying the school shooting was ok.
But to say that “well, this bad thing happened, therefore we should ban what the person used to do it” is just retarded. The dude drove there, and in most violent crimes, the perpetrator drove to the crime scene… not to mention all the unintentional deaths associated with vehicles…. it’d make more sense (annual death toll wise) to ban vehicles.
99.8% are happy friendly guns.
0.2% are mean baddy guns that shoot people. Shame on you.
According to the National Institute of Justice (2009), Americans owned an estimated 310,000,000 firearms. 0.2% of 310,000,000 is only 620,000 guns that are purposefully killing your own people.
Phew. I feel better already.
Also, consider that gun nuts are likely to own several guns and it’s hard to use them all when you’re out killing “burglars” or school children.
We should ban USA from going to way and being such a militaristic nation. I think that might solve a problem or two.
Here is the problem in a nutshell.
USA USA USA!!!
That is what the United Nations scream in terror every time there is a militaristic action by some third world nutbag. That is what just about every country in the world screams when they have some disaster and need foreign aid.
The US is the big friendly St. Bernard when other countries need us but they resent us for having frankly the biggest set of balls when their disaster is over or the terrorists are no longer bombing their airports.
There is a saying amongst conservatives.
“A liberal is a conservative that hasn’t been the victim of violent crime yet.”
I believe this is true.
I actually took part in a debate in college that said we should not take part in foreign wars. Then I actually studied history for a while and realized that the old saw that goes “the only thing that evil needs to flourish is for good men to do nothing” is as true as anything else in this world.
Hitler almost conquered that ENTIRE SIDE OF THE PLANET.
How? Citizens of countries in Europe (just like the anti-gun people) said their countries should not be so militaristic after WWI. When they heard about Hitler conquering other countries they said “obviously he is conquering them because they are less (charming or intelligent or religious or holy or tough or pretty) than we are. He would *never* attack us because we are special little snowflakes.”
Hitler would nod and smile and then kick their ass.
If the Australians and Canadians and Americans had decided that it wasn’t in their agenda to step in and spend DEVASTATING amounts of money and material and manpower to defeat that asshole Europeans would all be speaking German now.
Now take that large picture and shrink it down. There is a guy on the corner who collects guns and shoots on the weekend. The local people all see him with a gun on his hip when he is out in public. He is not a police officer. he is not a federal agent. He is a citizen.
Guess what?
The local criminals see this guy as well. They MAY decide that his house is a good bet to steal guns from. They PROBABLY will decide to leave the entire neighborhood alone because they don’t want to get shot and they don’t know who else has guns and the training and the will to use them. Some of the neighbors feel contempt for this man.
Contempt is 70% fear. They should realize that this man means no one harm and in fact would risk his life to help other people. This man spends a large amount of his money and time learning how to use these useful tools to defend himself and others.
OVERLY SIMPLISTIC EXAMPLE:
Wrenches are useful tools. Many people use them every day. Some people have never had the need to use a wrench so they have no real knowledge of wrenches and no idea what they are for.
Some of these ignorant people have an irrational fear of wrenches. So they live in fear of these evil demon wrenches coming to life and stalking them. The government wants to control the people and know that people with wrenches are harder to control. The government finds out that some crazy person used a wrench to kill some children. They put out a HUGE emotional campaign to trigger vast amounts of irrational fear in the people who are frankly ignorant about wrenches. The government makes themselves look useful in a time of serious economic and social troubles caused by the truly stupid policies of the government in the first place by passing a large amount of laws that severely restrict the availability of normal citizens to get wrenches. The watchphrase is the “only ones” are the only ones who have the training and special superhero powers to effectively use wrenches. The Supreme Court rules that the ones the irrational people designated as the “only ones” who could have wrenches do not have any reason to help them with the wrenches that everyone paid taxes for the “only ones” to train with and get paid to carry. So the irrational ones AND EVERYONE ELSE now have to suffer at the hands of criminals who remove all of their nuts and bolts with illegal wrenches and there is nothing they can do. The “only ones” show up every now and then when someone is seriously hurt or killed and take pictures and interview lots of people but can’t seem to prevent the crime in the first place.
It’s so simple really… just look at Germany. I used to live there.
No1 except Police, Army, Hunters and Competition shooters have access to guns. There are harsh legislation on all of those. As a normal person not in one of those positions you can’t get any gun. And even wearing big knives/swords/many other weapons in public is criminalized. And even some weapons like butterfly / spring knives are completely banned from ownage.
In short: No normal civilian wears a serious weapon on the street and even for home defence the best they got is probably a baseball bat or some tool.
So how was it living there? Perfectly safe! Shooting with people killed? Rare! Most often its a father who didn’t secure his work/sports weapon and his son goes berserk. Or a robbery goes wrong and the police has to use lethal force (very very rare there!).
Short: You will not feel unsafe on the streets even at night. And even in the “worst slums” you are pretty much save. The worst thing that will happen to you is getting robbed or beat up. Totally not worth human lives by adding a gun to that calculation.
Guns are for killing the person in front of it. Placing guns in the hands of everyone just increases the tension and leads to deaths.
But the bad thing is. Here in america people are to narrow minded. They don’t understand that gun vendors don’t live from freedom/peace/defence. They live from wars/crime/death. That is their business. They WANT it to happen to have a reason to sell more and make profits.
There are a LOT of jobs and money in the gun business. It would be harsh for any politician to just make our gun model as legislated as germanys. It would be the right thing… but it would be hard on the economy.
In short: It will never happen. Even its the right thing. Politicians would have to fight the narrow minded, uninformed peoples minds AND a loss to the economy. That’s just a death sentence to any political idea.
We just have to live with the sucky system we have. Perhaps in the far future (50+ years) our education will have catched up to europes and we will understand that guns are made to kill and that any country is better of without em.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
Germany had 690 homicides last year.
Something tells me at least 685 of those people wish they had a gun on them at the time.
Germany, 0,8, 690
USA, 4,8%, 14.748
Sorry for
Do not feed the troll.
Statistics aside, 690 people were still killed in Germany last year.
What percentage of the population they made up doesn’t change the fact that they’re still dead, and, had they been armed, may be alive right now.
How many of the 14.748 were armed?
I agree with you regarding Germany’s low crime rate. It’s my personal observation this isn’t due to the absence of weapons, but the presence of a strong economy, hard working people and basically a nation of “good” people. Something we in the US, especially in large cities, are severely lacking. If regulating guns was the answer, than all nations, not a select few, would have the results experienced in Germany.
I listened to a recent Freakonomics podcast about guns, some expert there had a theory about why guns had the potential to make crime more serious (outside of the obvious reasons).
It boiled down to this: before guns if you met someone bigger and stronger than you, you’d back down and not fight. You could tell before the fight ever happened that you’d lose. After guns, though, it doesn’t matter how big the other guy is, a bullet through his head will win you the fight. So guns equalize things in such a way that escalates conflicts.
I cannot speak of how true this is, but I thought it was interesting, and I do see the sense in his reasoning.
Of course the exact reverse is true as well. It allows smaller men, women, and midgets all all types to defend themselves, when before, they just got snatched and abused used however the bigger person saw fit.
This times 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
Tell me about the police in the United States. They are carrying the same weapons the hoplophobes want banned. Why?
Because they have to deal with criminals who might be armed.
Guess what?
The criminals do not seek out police for their victims. They seek out your mother when she is at home alone. They seek out your daughter when she is stopped for gas after work at a convenience store. They seek out that house on the corner where the two old people live. And they hurt people.
People who simply do not deserve to be hurt.
The police and the courts are absolutely powerless to act until A CRIME IS COMMITTED.
There is a Supreme Court case that is now famous that has put forth the idea that the police in the United States HAVE NO DUTY TO PROTECT INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS.
Warren v. District of Columbia is a court case where three women were raped and beaten and sodomized for FOURTEEN HOURS *AFTER* POLICE WERE SENT TO THEIR HOUSE TWICE. The culprits remained in the house during the police visit and the police never even bothered to enter the residence.
Do you think that those women were thinking that it is a good thing D.C has such draconian firearms laws that private citizens have to wait over a year for applications to even purchase one??
Do you think they were thanking God that progressives had passed laws that prevented them from being able to reasonably defend their home from people like that?