Guns and the Supreme Court

In this case the intelligent folks won the debate. Sorry if you disagree Set, I can't fix stupid.

You are both idiots and that much is obvious to anyone with even a half a brain based in reality. It is the most basic of human rights to protect our life using ANY MEANS at our disposal. You obviously disagree with that, and thus, idiots.

cjhsa wrote:

You are both idiots and that much is obvious to anyone with even a half a brain based in reality. It is the most basic of human rights to protect our life using ANY MEANS at our disposal. You obviously disagree with that, and thus, idiots.

If only you had half a brain based in reality, Cj, your comments might be taken more seriously. But, you wouldn't be so slavishly wedded to your dream of someday shooting someone.

Cycloptichorn

Yeah, right. So if i can protect my life by nuking Michigan, and thus ridding the world of YOU, that is my basic human right? Nice work, bright boy.

maporsche wrote:

Roxxxanne wrote:

There is hardly a more worthless human activity than wasting one's time arguing with gun nuts how easy access to firearms affects the crime rate. For one, no such correlation could ever be proven or disproven.

Certainly, the availability of guns in the US contributes adversely to gun violence.

And the availability of cars contributes to car accidents.

And the availability of peanuts contributes to peanut butter.

You're simply stating the obvious.

And you are avoiding the obvious, which is that unlike these other products, the principal function of the gun is to kill people. That's what it is designed to do.

Roxxxanne wrote:

Certainly, the availability of guns in the US contributes adversely to gun violence.

cjhsa wrote:

Everywhere that guns laws have been relaxed the the US has seen a reduction in crime. When make guns illegal for law abiding citizens, criminals know they have an easy mark. It's so obvious it's stupid.

I don't know how many people in this thread care enough about this to check their convictions against actual data from the real world. But for those who do, I'd like to add a pointer to the best review of the statistical literature I know about the impact of gun ownership on violence. It comes from the National Academy of Sciences and is titled Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. A browseable version of the book is available here.

In a nutshell, the authors find that while passions on both sides run high, the empirical findings so far give neither side much of a case.

On page 2 of their executive summary, the authors wrote:

The committee found that answers to some of the most pressing questions cannot be addressed with existing data and research methods, however well designed. For example, despite a large body of research, the committee found no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws decreases or increases violent crime, and there is almost no empirical evidence that the more than 80 prevention programs focused on gun-related violence have had any effect on children's behavior, knowledge, attitudes, or beliefs about firearms. The committee found that the data available on these questions are too weak to support unambiguous conclusions or strong policy statements.

Source

Full disclosure: I like the theory behind a broad right to bear arms, and I'd very much like to see that concealed handguns deter more crime than they enable. But facts are stubborn things -- and in this case, they stubbornly refuse to say what I want them to say. It's cold comfort for me that they just as stubbornly refuse to say what Roxanne wants them to say.

A very potent argument compares the USA to countries with very strict gun control. In the latter, the deaths from guns, or any other means, are a tiny fraction of ours.

Steven Kazmierczak's quiet, dependable and fun-loving exterior masked troubling details from his past that emerged as a stunned community struggled to understand what caused the 27-year-old to open fire on a class at Northern Illinois University, leaving six people dead.

A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak was placed there after high school by his parents. She said he used to cut himself, and had resisted taking his medications.

Advocate wrote:

A very potent argument compares the USA to countries with very strict gun control. In the latter, the deaths from guns, or any other means, are a tiny fraction of ours.

A tiny fraction? Please elaborate by showing these countries with very strict gun control and their statistics.