vlad from moscow

[Computergeek01]

@ Disch: According to Wikipedia 42,836 reported vehicular fatalities in the US for 2004, I think we have a car problem.

[cire]

http://www.livescience.com/3780-odds-dying.html

So yeah... more deaths by guns in 1 year than an 8 year war. We have a serious gun problem.

Deaths per population might be more informative. There are far more Americans in America than there are in Iraq.

[Disch]

Computergeek:

To be fair, you have to look at that with percentages.

What percentage of the population owns a car
vs
What percentage of the population owns a gun


Obviously with more cars it is likely that there are going to be more car related fatailities. But if you look at the ratio of car owner : car death vs. gun owner : gun death, guns deaths will be much, much, much higher.

Though I don't have time to look for numbers now to confirm.


EDIT:

fair point @ cire.

[Ispil]

Well, you have to remember that that is deaths on the US side. What about the other side?

[Computergeek01]

The problem with that ratio is it is biased against legal gun owners. Obviously people who own a firearm illegally aren't going to report their ownership yet their crimes get washed in with the statistic on deaths. And as much as I really dislike Cuomo, he has a valid point (and you have no idea how much it hurt to type that) when he says that not owning a firearm is not the same as not having access to one.

What we have is a mental health services epidemic, we do nothing about the mentally ill people walking around everywhere because some doctors in the 60's or 70's did some really nasty things to a reporter who pretended to be a patient. Even if you used a wish from your magic genie to take all of the guns away in the US you would still have violent crimes being committed by other means, I'll point to England as an example of this and they even HAVE access to mental health care and no where near our population.

[JLBorges]

Ah! I see it now.

So can we finally conclude that the fundamental problem with vlad from moscow is that the lounge kiddie who lacks self confidence has been the recipient of poor dietary advice and is encouraged to carry fire-arms?

[rapidcoder]

In Chicago more people die from gun in a week than in Poland in the whole year. And Poland has 10x more citizens than Chicago...

[Manga]

I don't think guns are bad. I think people can use them for bad. Sad but too many often do. It is in the news all the time about another mass shooting and people dying. But you can't fix this one. You see if guns were taken away from people, bad people would still use them. They break the law anyways. They only hope is to get a gun yourself and try not to get killed.

[jwkNwA7f]

^ +1 for Manga's post

I have not read all posts so I could have the wrong idea of the topic right now.

Also, I had to link to this: http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=CEoSLATNnvqBUM&tbnid=RiaKIOoUxxDgAM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgranitegrok.com%2Fblog%2F2013%2F01%2F43484&ei=uYhFUpjDMe784AOp5YBg&bvm=bv.53217764,d.dmg&psig=AFQjCNFpOkfEDh7SS_yk0Pcs8wLr3N66BA&ust=1380375095526818

There was a better one, but I couldn't find it.

[Disch]

I just want to clarify that I don't think we should get rid of all guns. I'm just saying we should have reasonable gun control.

We're apparently willing to sacrifice freedoms left and right in order to protect ourselves from terrorist attacks (torture, imprisonment without trial, privacy invasion on a massive scale, drone strikes on US soil, etc), yet we're unable to pass legislation that requires background checks on gun purchases.

To put that in perspective.... 10,000 deaths per year by guns... and the largest terrorist attack in recent US history (9/11) resulted in under 3,000 deaths.

If we were willing to put forth the same effort to confront gun violence as we're willing to put forth to confront terrorism (a much, much smaller threat), we could make a huge dent in gun deaths.

[jwkNwA7f]

@Disch I mostly agree.

This is a bit off this subject, but have heard about that kid who got suspended for the rest of this year for playing with an airsoft gun at his own home. And, it wasn't even all that close to the bus stop. His neighbor said that they felt "uncomfortable" about it. Also, a kid got suspended for making their pop tart into the shape of a gun. That is some examples of gun control taken to far.

If you ban guns from schools, which they have, do you think that the criminals are going to say "Oh crap, they banned guns there. I guess we can go on a shooting spree now oh well...". Luckily, you are soon going to be allowed to conceal carry guns into schools, restaurants that serve alcohol, etc.. But, I do disagree with someone being allowed to conceal carry in restaurants that serve beer, because if someone with no intentions to shoot gets drunk enough then they might still do it. If someone is planning on shooting there, then they are going to bring a gun anyway

[o1vk4iN6]

Well at least an effort is being put forward to stop piracy by indoctrinating children at their educational institutes.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/mpaa-school-propaganda/

[rapidcoder]

I don't think guns are bad. I think people can use them for bad. Sad but too many often do. It is in the news all the time about another mass shooting and people dying. But you can't fix this one. You see if guns were taken away from people, bad people would still use them. They break the law anyways. They only hope is to get a gun yourself and try not to get killed.

In Poland and many European countries it is generally not allowed to have a gun (you need a special permission which is hard to get). The criminality rates are much lower here than in USA. How do you explain this fact?

[jwkNwA7f]

I'm sorry, I can't help my self:
http://themetapicture.com/media/funny-Wonka-meme-please-tell-me.jpg
http://static.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/1342985923968_6404145.png
http://static.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/MjAxMy1kYzc5YjNiOGU0YTgyZjFi.png
http://www.politifake.org/image/political/1207/gun-laws-gun-politics-1343135600.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lsHZP.jpg
EDIT:
One more:
http://i1.wp.com/www.funnywallphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/chicago-gun-laws.jpg?resize=500%2C428

[Disch]

That is some examples of gun control taken to far.

Those aren't really examples of gun control, they're examples of stupid school policies being applied without taking the entire situation into context. I agree that any law or policy that attempts to be "black and white" (ie: "zero tolerance") is a stupid law.

If you ban guns from schools, which they have, do you think that the criminals are going to say "Oh crap, they banned guns there. I guess we can go on a shooting spree now oh well...". Luckily, you are soon going to be allowed to conceal carry guns into schools, restaurants that serve alcohol, etc.

"Criminals are going to do it anyway so we might as well make it legal" is the most absurd pro-gun argument ever. Try applying that logic to literally any other topic (ex: drunk driving) to see how ridiculous it is.

The whole point of laws is to try and enforce a standard practice among the population. Yes... criminals are still going to break them, but that doesn't mean they're not effective.


It should be illegal for people with histories of mental illness to purchase guns.
It should be illegal for people with a record of gun violence to purchase guns.
It should be illegal for someone to purchase a gun over the internet.


Currently, all of the above are legal in various place in the country. That's simply unacceptable.

Yes, putting laws in place does not guarantee it will no longer happen... but it will definitely reduce the frequency at which it happens.



EDIT:

Furthermore, the idea of everone in the country being armed somehow making it safer is equally bonkers. Turning the population into a large group of armed vigilantes is a horrible idea. This isn't the wild west.

I mean... look at how much trouble George Zimmerman got into because people thought he was a vigilante (even though he was totally innocent and did the right thing).

[3qX21hU5]

rapidcoder wrote:

In Poland and many European countries it is generally not allowed to have a gun (you need a special permission which is hard to get). The criminality rates are much lower here than in USA. How do you explain this fact?

You are comparing highly different cultures and are not taking that into consideration. I hear the comparisons against country that ban guns all the time but no one ever takes into consideration the differences in culture in the US and other countries.

How can we act surprised when people are violent when we hold up rappers that all talk about drive by's, killings, dealing, what have you. When so many new movies are about revenge killings (Assault on Wall Street?) is it really that surprising? We are basically teaching the children that watch and listen to this stuff while they are growing up how to act.

So many concentrate on the guns themselves like having a gun somehow makes the person use it. Which is just not true.

Instead of concentrating on a inanimate object the concentration should be on the people that are actually committing the crimes and why they did them.

Taking away guns won't change anything really. All you would be doing is taking the legally owned guns away from people. While the non legally owned guns that are 90%+ of the time used to commit the crimes are still out there.

You might say then that if guns we not legal in the country there would be no where to get new ones. Well that is wrong. They can be easily brought in illegally across the boarders. And who do you think would buy them guns? Average citizens?

So basically what would happen I believe is the people who wish to do harm with guns will still be able to get them and the government would have a even harder time tracking them because all the purchases would be illegal. And the law abiding citizens will be restricted from owning one.

[D80DSL3A]

I agree with Disch. Any proposal based on the idea that somehow more guns = less shootings should be examined very carefully. The idea that more guns = less shootings is counter intuitive at best. A different idea is called for at this point.
The aussies were able to do it!

[devonrevenge]

It should be illegal for people with histories of mental illness to purchase guns.
It should be illegal for people with a record of gun violence to purchase guns.
It should be illegal for someone to purchase a gun over the internet.

This would reduce some crime/accidents why not do it?

[jwkNwA7f]

Those aren't really examples of gun control, they're examples of stupid school policies being applied without taking the entire situation into context. I agree that any law or policy that attempts to be "black and white" (ie: "zero tolerance") is a stupid law.

Agreed.

"Criminals are going to do it anyway so we might as well make it legal" is the most absurd pro-gun argument ever. Try applying that logic to literally any other topic (ex: drunk driving) to see how ridiculous it is.

No. I mean that they shouldn't, for example, ban guns so that criminals won't use them, when the people who are going to use them for self defense can't have them to protect themselves from the criminals that will get the guns anyway.

[jwkNwA7f]

The aussies were able to do it!

You mean ban guns? Banning guns is stupid. People need to be able to defend themselves, and it is fun to go down to the gun range and shoot.