OBEY THE LAW = DEATH SENTENCE ???

AMEN!!!!!! About time somebody said it!

The particular statistic I quoted came from the FBI.

To consider guns -- even used 'responsibly' -- as a socio-deterring element in a society says everything about how the people of a society see their co-citizens. Not as equals, but as threats to their own sourly achieved status. If you do not, as a social base, consider and treat each other as equals (with all the rights and duties that accompany this), you will need guns for ever and for everyone. Imagine that.

You can extrapolate this vision to the current American behavior towards the world, by the way. Arm them all, so that you can go out and shoot at them. Then you can continue your arrogant selfish perversion and imprison them. Values as equality, justice and power to the people are for pussies. I'm John Wayne and I don't care if you're in pain.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not a communist. But a civic society should not be built on competition and expect criminality to stay low. The problem with the American community is that is has been based upon tough competition for too long. The need for guns as protection against other human beings, who can not follow this competition, is a sign of things astray.

Wolf, you are right, of course, but it's a truth which will be rejected out of hand in these discussions, I think. Wait and see. The mere idea that you feel you have to preface your opinion with "I'm not a communist," shows the depth at which we're operating. Pathetic.

I wouldn't say anyone here is "A Communist", or "A Nazi", either. There are differing points of view, and considerable polarization. The Utopians are convinced the Pragmatists are wrong and evil and just plain mean, while the Pragmatists look at the Utopians as ... well, as Utopians. I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of mutual misunderstanding, likely due to out-of-hand rejection of the possible validity of other side's point of view and motivations. Labels don't help much, either.

It's odd that Communist is equated with Nazi. LOL

Every gun owner should have one 8 year old child bleed to death in their arms.

It was a real eye opener for me!!

Gun control would happen so fast it would make your head spin!!

Anon

Jeeze, sorry, tartarin ... I missed this. I'm not at my own 'puter right now, so my links list isn't handy, but I'll offer my comments and thoughts, anyway.

"Gun Crime" is a predominately urban phenomenon, from what I understand. I've also read that if one filters minorities and illegals from the statistics, the overall picture changes dramatically for the better. I've also seen it reported that more deaths-and-injuries-by-violence, other than suicide, are attributable to blunt-force trauma and stabbing than to gunshot, and that significantly more children are killed or injured each year by lawncare appliances and other household accidents than by firearms. A strikingly disproportionate incidence of gun crime involves drugs, alcohol, or both. Adult-on-adult domestic violence accounts for the largerst portion of in-home gun crime. A notable majority of firearms involved in guncrime were obtained by the user through other-than-regulation-compliant means. Adult, licensed firearm owners of legally registered guns are disproportionately unrepresented in gun crime statistics. The statiscal incidence of gun crime in states bordering Canadian provinces, with much more restrictive gun law, have essential balance, no marked difference one way or the other, though I do recall that The Yukon and Northwest Territoties were abberationally higher in guncrime than contiguous Alaska, and that even with Montreal Metro removed from the equations, in Vermont, which has what amounts to no gun law, gun crime is notably lower than among their demographically and economically similar Canadian brethren. Vermont in fact has the lowest crime rate in the nation. I see no reason to suspect any of the foregoing.

I also don't dismiss the tragedy of gun death, or of any unnatural death, period. Not too long ago, a very good freind was killed in a stupid, careless, bone-headed, negligent hunting accident. I was one of the First Responders at the scene. He died in the helicopter on the way to the trauma center. I went with a Deputy Sheriff to tell his wife. His daughter's highschool graduation was this May. Damn, he was lookin' forward to that. We sure miss him. Oddly enough, about ten years ago, the guy's cousin had been killed right in that same patch of woods. A long-dead, wind-damaged, dangerously hanging tree he was attempting to clear from the fire access road crushed him. I no more blame the gun for my buddy's unnecessary death than I blame the chainsaw for his cousin's.

See, Timber, you and I have the same impression (we need hard facts!) about gun (mis)use. I wish a law could be worked out with respect to the licensing of guns which respected the use of guns and inhibited their misuse. Organize the sale of guns differently perhaps. Worth discussing, if you will. Got an electric storm brewing here. Am therefore not philosophizing at length!!

The US has five times the population of the UK, so if we were playing on a level playing field, if gun deaths were responsible for 30 murders in the UK in a particular year, then you would expect the US equivalent to be around the 150 mark yes?

This apparently is the statistic for 1996,

deaths in UK 30

deaths in USA 9,390

Taken from this excerpt:


And there are plenty of other nagging indicators. A recent Bob Herbert column in The New York Times cited stats including these: In Great Britain, where handguns are banned, handguns were used in a total of 30 murders in 1996. In America the number was 9,390


This exerpt was taken from this site:


http://www.timesreview.com/st04-29-99/stories/letter.htm

If there are no handguns, there is no violent crime attributed to handguns. A more interesting set of numbers would derive from total of all violent crime, regardless of whether any weapon were used, let alone what type weapon. Put this on a per capita basis and factor in percent of change, and we might have some valid comparisons to work with, again, ceteris paribus.

With the demographics included, Roger.