OBEY THE LAW = DEATH SENTENCE ???

Touché.

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I've seen anti-gun control forces use automobile accident deaths as a parable to deaths due to guns. The logic (?) being if we takes away guns because of the deaths, why not take away automobiles? I needn't elaborate on the absurdity.

I can appreciate your adding fervor to your argument, Timber, with a hypothetical example but the fact that the pro-lifers have spawned actual killers just unravels the argument. I have a high degree of respect for you in these forums but collecting guns is just a hobby I fail to understand. I would not advocate taking away any freedoms but I believe the Constitution was written at a time when they had little concept of what kind of weaponry was in store for the future and the legislators in this country have always been trapped in the past, and not conscientiously wanting to move forward. So far, the Supreme Court hasn't overturned any gun control laws. I wonder why? I think it is because there really is no right to maintain an arsenal of weapons. If there was a revolt, does one pass them out guns to their neighbors who do not know how to use a gun? The ensuing scenerio is difficult to imagine.

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Need some information here, if anyone has it:

Has anyone done a study of how guns are used and where? Are guns used to commit crimes largely in urban or rural areas? Do guns have a greater non-violent use in urban or rural areas?

Am I right in suspecting that most gun violence happens in areas where guns are not needed to hunt, shoot snakes, and other rural necessities? Would one consider gun control -- or no gun control -- to be a matter for individual counties? Does gun control in East LA make sense, while gun control in West Texas make no sense?

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Whoops! Illinois tried to have a separate, more restrictive gun law in Cook County (Chicago) several decades ago. I believe it was ruled unconstitutional - not on a second amendment basis, by the way.

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At the current rate, by the year 2150, every American will either be in prison, or working in a prison. The complete and total collapse of US society is as inevitable as the morning sunrise.

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Keep hoping.

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Ya know, Gun Control is another of those issues which engenders emotional, knee-jerk reactions far more than objective study and rational analysis. As a gun owner, and a vigorous supporter of responsible gun ownership and use, I have lots of opinions on the matter. Here are just a small selection of them for starters, along with supportive evidentiary cites (printed material, not links ... sorry for the inconvenience):

1) Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day.
Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun," 86 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995): 164

2) This means that each year, firearms are used more than 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives; according to the National Safety Council, the total number of gun deaths (by accidents, suicides and homicides) account for less than 40,000 deaths per year.
See Accident Facts, published yearly by the National Safety Council, Itasca, Illinois.

3) Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606).
Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, (1991): 111-116, 148

4) Only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The error rate for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high.
George F. Will, "Are We a Nation of Cowards'?," Newsweek (15 November 1993): 93

5) Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.
Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," : 173, 185

6) Every year, as many as one-half million citizens defend themselves with a firearm away from home.
Dr. Gary Kleck, interview with J. Neil Schulman, "Q and A: Guns, crime and self-defense," The Orange County Register, 19 September 1993

7) In the ten years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, there were 478,248 people who received permits to carry firearms.
Memo by Sandra B. Mortham, Secretary of State, Florida Department of State, Concealed Weapons/Firearms License Statistical Report (10/1/87-12/31/97)

8) FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 39% during that 10-year period. The Florida rate is now far below the national average.
Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Crime in the United States," Uniform Crime Reports, (1988): 7, 53; and FBI, (1998):15, 77

9) States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder rate by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%
"More Guns, Less Violent Crime," The Wall Street Journal (28 August 1996)

10) In 1976, both Georgia and Wisconsin tried two different approaches to fighting crime. Georgia enacted legislation making it easier for citizens to carry guns for self-defense, while Wisconsin passed a law requiring a 48 hour waiting period before the purchase of a handgun. What resulted during the ensuing years? Georgia's law served as a deterrent to criminals and helped drop its homicide rate by 21 percent. Wisconsin's murder rate, however, rose 33 percent during the same period.
Compare FBI, "Crime in the United States," (1977):4 5, 53; and FBI, (1994): 70, 78

11) In 1982, Kennesaw, GA, a suburb of Atlanta passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole. Ten years later (1991), the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72% lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed.
Compare Kleck, "Crime Control," : 15, and Chief Dwaine L. Wilson, City of Kennesaw Police Department, "Month to Month Statistics: 1991."

12) Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:
Homeowner occupancy during burglary rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and Netherlands: 45% (average of the three countries); Homeowner occupancy during burglary rate in the United States: 12.7%.
Kleck, Point Blank, : 140

13) In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety course which taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando's rape rate dropped 88% in 1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and the nation.
Kleck, "Crime Control," : 13

14) In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.
U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape Victimization in 26 American Cities, 1979 : 31

15) In a recent Department of Justice Study, over 60% of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun."
74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."
57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.
U.S., Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research Report, (July 1985): 27

16) The courts have consistently ruled that the police do not have an obligation to protect individuals, only the public in general. For example, in Warren v. D.C. the court stated "courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community."
Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A. 2d 1 (1981)

17) Former Florida Attorney General Jim Smith told Florida legislators that police responded to only about 200,000 of 700,000 calls for help to Dade County authorities. Smith was asked why so many citizens in Dade County were buying guns and he said, "They damn well better, they've got to protect themselves."
Statement of Representative Ron Johnson in U.S. Senate, "Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1987," Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary (16 June 1987): 33

18) The Department of Justice found that in 1989, there were 168,881 crimes of violence which were not responded to by police within 1 hour.
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics -- 1990, (1991):257

19) Washington, D.C. has, perhaps, the most restrictive gun control laws in the country, and yet it has one of the highest murder rates in the nation. Critics claim criminals merely get their guns in Virginia where the laws are more relaxed. This, they argue, is why the D.C. gun ban is not working. Perhaps criminals do get their guns in Virginia, but this overlooks one point: If the availability of guns in Virginia is the root of D.C.'s problems, why does Virginia not have the same murder and crime rate as the District? Virginia is awash in guns and yet the murder rate is much, much lower. This holds true even for Virginia's urban areas. The murder rates (1997) are:
Washington DC : 56.9 per 100,000
Arlington, VA : 1.6 per 100,000
Total VA metropolitan area : 7.9 per 100,000
FBI, "Crime in the United States," (1998): 77

20) A criminologist at Florida State University, Dr. Gary Kleck began his research as a firm believer in gun control. But in a speech delivered to the National Research Council, he said while he was once "a believer in the 'anti-gun' thesis," he has now moved "beyond even the skeptic position." Dr. Kleck now says the evidence "indicates that general gun availability does not measurably increase rates of homicide, suicide, robbery, assault, rape, or burglary in the U.S."
Gary Kleck, speech delivered to the National Research Council, quoted in Don B. Kates, Jr., "Scholars' ignorant bias causes anti-gun sentiments," Handguns, June 199 : 12-13

James Wright, formerly a gun control advocate, received a grant from President Carter's Justice Department to study the effectiveness of gun control laws. To his surprise, he found that waiting periods, background checks, and all other gun control laws were not effective in reducing violent crime. Wright says at one time, "It seemed evident to me, we needed to mount a campaign to resolve the crisis of handgun proliferation." But he says, "I am now of the opinion that a compelling case for 'stricter gun control' cannot be made."
James D. Wright, "Second Thoughts About Gun Control," The Public Interest, 91 (Spring 1988):23

Dave Kopel, an expert in constitutional issues and firearms research, categorically states that, "Every scholar who has 'switched' has 'switched' to the side that is skeptical of controls. Indeed, most of the prominent academic voices who are gun control skeptics -- including law professor Sanford Levinson and criminologists Gary Kleck and James Wright -- are people who, when they began studying guns, were supporters of the gun control agenda."

Kopel continues: "I do not know of a single scholar who has published a pro-control article who started out as a skeptic of gun control. This suggests how heavily the weight of the evidence is distributed, once people begin studying the evidence."
Dave Kopel, "Guns, Germs, and Science: Public Health Approaches to Gun Control," The Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia (June 1995): 272

I could go on and on, should anyone care to have me do so; I've given many presentations and written lots of Letters to The Editor, and have plenty of additional material readily at hand. For those who'd rather chase links than do library research, heres a taste of The Real World as I see it:

Quote:

DOES THE RIGHT TO CARRY CONCEALED HANDGUNS DETER COUNTABLE CRIMES?

FLORENZ PLASSMANN
State University of New York at Binghamton

T. NICOLAUS TIDEMAN
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

ABSTRACT (Fee for full text, University of Chicago Publications, not available for download)
An analysis of the effects of right-to-carry laws on crime requires particular distributional and structural considerations. First, because of the count nature of crime data and the low number of expected instances per observation in the most appropriate data, least-squares methods yield unreliable estimates. Second, use of a single dummy variable as a measure of the nationwide effect of right-to-carry laws is likely to introduce geographical and intertemporal aggregation biases into the analysis. In this paper, we use a generalized Poisson process to examine the geographical and dynamic effects of right-to-carry laws on reported homicides, rapes, and robberies. We find that the effects of such laws vary across crime categories, U.S. states, and time and that such laws appear to have statistically significant deterrent effects on the numbers of reported murders, rapes, and robberies.

© 2001 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-2186/2001/4402-0019 http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE/journal/issues/v44nS2/012201/brief/012201.abstract.html#fn1

Quote:

Defensive use of guns underreported
New book explores media's failure to cover positive firearm stories
Posted: July 5, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jon Dougherty
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

... The media conditions many to oppose guns because reporting of incidents when firearms are used negatively is so much more prevalent than coverage of when guns protect lives and property, which is estimated by researchers to be more than 2 million times a year - most never involving the firing of shots ... ... Many of the national morning and evening network news shows in 2001 had "about 190,000 words of reporting on gun-crimes stories," he said, "but during that entire year, there was no mention of using guns [for protection] or self-defense." ...
... "when you ban guns it's going to be the most law-abiding people who obey these rules and not the criminals. The problem you face is that if you disarm law-abiding citizens relative to criminals, you're going to see increases in violent crime rather than drops." http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33410

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WEAPONS OF CHOICE
'Preserve freedom and liberty'
Author, NRA chief LaPierre defends 2nd Amendment gun rights

... LaPierre, in his book, also discusses total gun bans in other Western countries that have caused crime to skyrocket. He says statistics show that, for example, after England banned most private firearms ownership (after requiring them to register their weapons a few years earlier), robberies went up dramatically.

"Since then, crime has gone up 50 percent in Britain," he said."You're six times more likely to be robbed in London than you are even in New York City."
The same is true in Australia, he said. "Crime has gone up across the board, from home-invasion robberies to muggings."
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33266

Quote:

As a result, criminal violence and a criminal gun culture are 50 times more prevalent than they were in the early 20th century, when there were no antigun laws, and no laws against the use of reasonable force against violent criminals ...... Peter Hitchens has just come out with a major new book, A Brief History of Crime: The Decline of Order, Justice, and Liberty in England. Hitchens, a columnist for the Sunday Mail, argues that British governments have helped cause the tremendous increase in crime over past decades by refusing to punish criminals strictly, and by making excuses for criminals. As crime has soared, the government has responded by cracking down on the law-abiding population and on civil liberties. The right to silence has been abolished, the right to jury trial has been restricted, surveillance cameras are pervasive, and wiretaps and e-mail intercepts are skyrocketing. Hitchens devotes a chapter to the failed campaign against guns, explaining how the deprivation of the means of self-defense causes more crime.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel051403.asp

Quote:

GOA Blasts Ignorant and Elitist Views Presented on Fox Cable News
For Immediate Release
October 17 2002
Contact: Andrew Said
703-321-8585

(Springfield, VA) -- GOA today blasted the ignorant and elitist views presented by Louis Palumbo of the Elite Groupe, Ltd. Palumbo appeared on Fox Cable News today with Eric Shawn.

"Palumbo just doesn't know what he's talking about," said GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt. "He thinks that only the police can defend people against criminals, but the facts just don't support his case."

Palumbo said that because citizens are "not trained or experienced," the best that they can do is to be the "eyes and ears" for the police until the Beltway sniper is caught.

"What arrogance," Pratt said. "The fact is, armed citizens kill almost three times as many criminals as do the police every year. And according to the Clinton Justice Department in 1997, armed citizens defend themselves more than 4,000 times a day. In most of these self-defense cases, the gun is only brandished and a shot is never fired.
http://www.gunowners.org/pr0213.htm

Quote:

Dems Have Not Dropped Gun Control Agenda

Has the gun control issue really disappeared?

Some think that Democrats, chastised by the loss of the presidency of 2000 and the loss of the Senate in 2002, have learned the risk of supporting gun control the hard way. Some even argue that there is a more fundamental change in Democratic beliefs on gun control.

Yet, as Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi recently said,Democrats will wait and revisit the guns "when the issue is ripe."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90037,00.html

Quote:

U.N. vs. Guns
An international gun-control fight.

July 11, 2003, 11:50 a.m.

By John R. Lott Jr.

The U.S. government often makes American gun owners feel besieged. For example, over the last decade it is simply impossible to find one study by either the U.S. Justice Department or the Treasury that measures the benefits from people owning guns. While this has been done by both Democratic and Republican administrations, the Clinton administration surely set new standards for misleading attacks on gun ownership with its studies and public-service ads.

But if you think that is bad, the Clinton administration pales in comparison to the United Nations' attitude on gun ownership. This week the U.N. conference to "Prevent, combat, and eradicate the Illicit Trade in small arms and Light Weapons in All Aspects," which concludes today, puts these views in straightforward terms: Governments have the "right" to guns for "self defense and security needs." On the other hand, not one acceptable reason for individuals owning guns is mentioned ...
... Research by Jeff Miron at Boston University, examining homicide rates across 44 countries, found that countries with the strictest gun-control laws also tended to have the highest homicide rates. News reports in Britain showed how crimes with guns have risen 40 percent in the four years after handguns were banned in 1997.Police are extremely important in stopping crime, but almost always arrive on the scene after the crime occurs. What would the U.N. recommend that victims do when they face criminals by themselves? Passive behavior is much more likely to result in serious injury or death than using a gun to defend oneself.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-lott071103.asp

All emphasis in above quotes added by timber

It is my own firm conviction that Fire Arms Education, not Gun Control, is the remedy. Firearm safety and responisible gun use should be taught in Middle School. Gun Control does nothing but limit gun possession to scofflaws. The efforts to restrict gun ownership are an affront to liberty, dignity, and intelligence. The Gun Control Proponents have no concept of the reality of the situation, ignore the pertinent statistics, and skew data to press their own socialistic, blatantly unconstitutional, shortsighted, pollyanna agendas. Liberal politicians see the issue as an easy hook with which to snag those ungiven to critical thinking. Guns don't kill people; criminals with guns kill people, careless, untrained people with guns kill people, idiots who allow children to access guns kill people. In short, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

Any questions?

(edited to fix a couple broken links and some faulty BB Code. I imagine there's more, but the heck with it ... I'm tired of laboring on this post.)

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Lots! many. huge numbers.

But - I agree with you that the topic is almost undebatable, because of the emotions it raises on BOTH sides.

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roger wrote:

Keep hoping.

Don't have to hope, just have to wait.

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Gee, I guess I don't agree with Timber after all. As I noted before, this is not about guns. It's about something else. (And too many of the quote sources are hacks in this issue.)

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Wlso that is a simple impossibility. Someone has to guard the inmates.

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Wonder how many criminals are shot dead for a minor crime? This makes the shooter the judge and jury if they are not actually being threatened with a weapon. As much training as law enforcement gets to not have a "knee jerk" reaction in firing at an individual, it so happens a lot of those shootings were unnecessary. It's the Old West mentatility that is disturbing and gun education is definitely in order -- which means licensing of gun use just like driving a car (which can also be a deadly weapon). I don't think anyone here is advocating doing away with private ownership of guns which can be used in a defense of a crime (even if only as a threat). It's how far our citizenry can be trusted weilding weapons, some of which are clearly overkill (sic). It is a emotionally charged topic and difficult to stay rationally clear about the philosophical and psychological make up of everyone posting in this forum. That the United States still is in a bad position in the world as far as crime rates, especially violent crime and should never be compared to third world countries on that subject makes for a good reason for powerful debates on what gun ownership should entail. I don't believe a private citizen should not be allowed to own a firearm anymore than a butcher knife. It's the efficiency of the particular weapon and whether it should be in the hands of anyone, especially criminals. I see no reason why someone has to buy a gun and have it the next day. Are they anticipating they are going to be attacked in 24 hours? Absurd.

BTW, know of any grenade collectors? I suppose that would really be a good defense as it could wipe out more than one burglar at one time.

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OmSigDavid, what Nazi immage are you refering to? As far as I know no one on A2K uses such an avitar.

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He's getting UN and Nazi mixed up.

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Oh...

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Tartarin wrote:

Gee, I guess I don't agree with Timber after all. As I noted before, this is not about guns. It's about something else. (And too many of the quote sources are hacks in this issue.)

Tartarin, OK ... for sake of argument, I'll give you Fox News, Gun Owners of America, The National Review, and WorldNet Daily as being tilted toward conservative bias, but are you seriously saying that you consider The Northwestern University School of Law, The National Safety Council, Newsweek Magazine, The Orange County Register, The Florida Department of State, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, The Police Department of the City of Kennesaw GA, The Wall Street Journal, The U.S. Department of Justice, The U.S. Supreme Court, The U.S. Appellate Court, The Congressional Record, The Public Interest Magazine, The Journal of The Medical Association of Georgia, three internationally acclaimed criminologists, and The Journals of the University of Chicago, to be "Hack Sources"? That, to me anyway, would seem more a partisan, agenda-driven dismissal of inconvenient data than an objective evaluation and criticism of the probity of same.

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I'll take the UChi journal -- that's about it.

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But you may have been intending to give us all a huge laugh with the Florida Department of State, huh? You were serious?

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Probably as valid as a previous reference to http://www.millionmommarch.org/facts/research.asp?record=6

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I don't know about a million mom march, Roger, but even one mom is often more than a person can bear.

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OBEY THE LAW = DEATH SENTENCE ???

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