Gun control debate

agrote wrote:

I don't know all the facts, so I can't say for sure that something else has caused the rise in crime. But I find it hard to believe (though maybe I wouldn't if I had more information) that the rise in crime is a result of the banning of guns - guns are not a big thing here in the UK, and muggers and burglars and such are unlikely to expect their victims to be armed - very few people are, I've never seen a gun in my life (well, not in this country anyway - I saw some armed guards in Italy). So before the ban on guns I doubt that criminals were worried about armed victims, so banning guns is not going to make them more confident an increase crime in that way. If that's what you're suggesting - if not then nevermind.

I've never seen this argument presented before, and it is compelling. My mental of shooting activity in Great Britain twenty years ago was of a few wealthy, but eccentric, old coots going out twice a year to blast a few clay pigeons. So, you essentially went from no guns to banned guns. You live there, agrote, I don't, I'm going to concede this particular point.

You've got another statement in there that just leaves me breathless, but I'm going to have to pick up on it another time. Short of time now, and my immediate response would probably not be received as intended.
later.

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agrote wrote:

I don't know all the facts, so I can't say for sure that something else has caused the rise in crime. But I find it hard to believe (though maybe I wouldn't if I had more information) that the rise in crime is a result of the banning of guns - guns are not a big thing here in the UK, and muggers and burglars and such are unlikely to expect their victims to be armed - very few people are, I've never seen a gun in my life (well, not in this country anyway - I saw some armed guards in Italy). So before the ban on guns I doubt that criminals were worried about armed victims, so banning guns is not going to make them more confident an increase crime in that way. If that's what you're suggesting - if not then nevermind.

I've never seen this argument presented before, and it is compelling. My mental of shooting activity in Great Britain twenty years ago was of a few wealthy, but eccentric, old coots going out twice a year to blast a few clay pigeons. So, you essentially went from no guns to banned guns? You live there, agrote, I don't, so I'm going to concede this particular point.

You've got another statement in there that just leaves me breathless, but I'm going to have to pick up on it another time. Short of time now, and my immediate response would probably not be received as intended.
later.

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Thanks roger, I look forward to your response.

Well done craven Laughing

fishin' wrote:

Look, I understand your point. It just seems short sighted to me. The comment that got us started down this discussion was your statement that ""in a perfect world" you'd eliminate guns. It just seemed odd to me that you would choose to eliminate one (out of thousands) possible means of murdering another person instead of just choosing a world in which no one had any reason or desire to commit murder to begin with. Wouldn't eliminating murder itself be a lot more effective means to the end goal?

Forget the perfect world thing, I was just responding to somebody else's mention of a perfect world. This is not a perfect world, but I believe that doing away with guns would be a small step towards a slightly less violent society. There may be thousands of other methods of murdering people, but they are difficult to ban. We can't just ban knives because we need to chop carrots, we could ban baseball bats, but that would literally be taking away an object which is designed purely to be used in sport to hit a ball, whereas the primary function of a gun is to kill an animal or a person - if guns were mainly for shooting bits of paper, they wouldn't be as powerful as they are.

We could ban ropes, candlesticks, lead piping, and all that, but that would be ridiculous because those objects are not designed to kill, and are not used as often as guns are to kill. I'm not saying banning guns will end murder, of course it won't. But I think it will bring murder rates down a little bit, at least. (As we've established, the statistics for the UK are against me on this, but I don't want to get in to that again - as I've said, I don't see how crime could go up as a result of banning guns in a coutnry where there aren't all that many guns anyway.)

You ask me why I choose one of thousands of possible murder weapons to ban, well it's because it's the ultimate murder weapon, it's not just any old inanimate object that you can whack someone over the head with - it's a killing machine! That's what I mean by it being not merely an inanimate object - it's not just something that you might pick up and kill someone with, like a kitchen knife, which would normally be used to chop carrots - it's soemthing which is actually designed to be picked up and fired at soemone. Obviously guns aren't alive, no need to patronise me, but hopefully you see what I meant now by "not merely an inanimate object."

Just imagine you're going to murder someone, violently... you could wack him over the head, punch him in the face, chop him into little bits - or you could just get a gun and shoot him in the head, much easier. If no guns were available, it wouldn't be as easy to kill somebody, simple as that.

Now, let's look at stuh's list of non-murderous uses of a gun:

1) A zoo trainer needs one as protection when dealing w/ animals - do they need guns with bullets? Wouldn't they use tranquilisers or something? I assume the zookeepers in Britain don't carry guns, so I don't see why any other zookeepers would need to.

2) A park ranger again for animals - I honestly don't know anything about that, I can't really comment, the only animals in our parks are ducks. But again, they could jsut use tranquiliser guns couldn't they?

3) A policeman or member of the military, and they usually buy their own for personal training - well actually English policemen don't carry guns. There's been lots of debate over whether they should, but most of us apparently agree that they shouldn't - as long as only the minority of criminals carry guns, the policemen do not need them, and in fact most of them don't want them. We have specialist people that are allowed to carry guns that can be called in in an emergency. As for the military, I'm not too fond of the military, but obviously we'd have big problems if we just suddenly disarmed our entire armies, so I don't think a ban on guns should extend to the army, and it wouldn't anyway.

4) A scientist running tests for medical understanding of terminal ballistics, or exterior ballistics testing - yes okay, fine, let them have guns. Scientists experimenting on guns does not apepar to be a massive problem. But are you or fishin' scientists studying guns for medical reasons? I think not.

5) A movie producer - What?? I'm sorry, but you've lost me here. They don't need real guns that shoot bullets do they?

6) Someone who takes a trip into a dangerous part of the world like into the jungle or Africa - I'm not sure about that, maybe guns are appropriate i nthose situations, I'm not sure. But I'm really talking about guns in the UK and USA, not the jungle.

7) Someoen who chooses to abandon society and live in Alaska for a few years and live off the land - if they're looking for a back-to-basics lifestyle, why don't they build spears for hunting?

8) Someone who likes to go duck hunting with friends, the family dog, and their son on the weekends - well I already mentioned hunting. When it's not for food, I don't really understand it - it appears to be for the sadistic pleasure of killing animals. When it is for food, fine, but it's still not all that necessary I don't think.

9) Someone who just wants to be ready in case they get into a bad situation by a violent person - I've already talked about this supposedly legitimate use for gun, I don't think I need to repeat myself.

10) Someone who just thinks its fun to shoot holes in paper some afternoon - pieces of paper with that person-shaped black sillhouette printed on? So when you're not murdering someone with a sharp knife you can cut carrots with it, and when you're not murdering someone with a gun you can... got to a shooting gallery and PRETEND to murder someone with the gun! Try archery, it's safer, and you just shoot a big round thing. Or darts!

11) Any of the people at AR15.com where I am a member and we like to share pictures of our modified AR15's...which don't even really get used except at the range - so guns should be legal, and available to anyone who does want to murder people, so that you and your friends can take pictures of them??? Riiiiight Confused

12) People who spend their whole lives practicing to be good target shooters, win medals, earn respect...taking away their gun is like taking away Beethoven's piano - I disagree completely. Target practice is closer to sport than art, and I don't think there's much similarity between composing a concerto and kicking a football. The other, more important difference, is that occasionally somebody applies those targeting skills to, say, murdering JFK. Beethoven may have been a very good composer, but I don't think it will have improved his ability to murder people from long distances at all.

13) People who just want to figure out how the internal operation works
14) People who just want to display it on their wall - for these last two, see number 11, because they're equally ridiculous excuses for the legalisation of guns.

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agrote wrote:

You ask me why I choose one of thousands of possible murder weapons to ban, well it's because it's the ultimate murder weapon, it's not just any old inanimate object that you can whack someone over the head with - it's a killing machine!

A gun isn't even close to being the "ultimate killing machine". Compare it's effectiveness to those Nukes Craven mentioned and it looks pretty petty.

But thusfar your comments are all about how something should be banned because of your fear of them to reduce the number of murders. What if guns disappeared off of the face of the earth? Your position is that this would reduce the number of murders. I doubt that. Something else would simply be used in place of guns.

Banning guns doesn't address the problem. It's a bandage to hide a symptom.

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argote,

thank you for proving my point, by noticing that there is at least 1 legitimate reason for a human being to own a gun

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If you really want to address murders outlaw cities.

Thing is, cities don't kill people, people kill people.

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Ah, but destroy their habitat, and maybe they'll beocme extinct.

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Personally, I think we should kill cities by starving them of their humans.

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I really don't see why guns can't be treated just like any other weapon. My friend's in the SCA Rapier Squad, and she can probably kill someone with a 4-ft thin metal rod just as easily. Anything can be a weapon - as long as you don't use it to kill people it should be fine.

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And I would add, as long as you haven't demonstrated a propensity to misuse those weapons.

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Well of course. We don't let the sugar-high ADHD children chop the celery for the same reason.

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fishin' wrote:

A gun isn't even close to being the "ultimate killing machine". Compare it's effectiveness to those Nukes Craven mentioned and it looks pretty petty.

I didn't say it was the ultimate killing machine, I said it was the ultimate murder weapon. By murder I'm not really thinking of mass murder, of blowing lots of people up at once. This is a gun control debate, and mass murder involving bombs and such does therefore not seem relevant to me, so I am not bringing it up. Why should I be complaining about nuclear weapons instead of guns, when nuclear weapons aren't available to the general public, as guns are? How can I argue to ban something which is already banned?!

A gun is the ultimate murder weapon when we're talking about killing one person at a time. Yes I know that ANYTHING can be used as a murder weapon, everybody keeps telling me that, but as I keep saying: killing somebody is, by and large, EASIER with a gun! Okay okay, some people, with training, might just as easily kill somebody with a 4-ft thin metal rod. But your average joe is much more likely to succeed in killing someone if he uses a gun than any other weapon which they can legally obtain. Surely you can't dispute that, fishin' and rufio!

stuh505 wrote:

Thankyou for proving my point, by noticing that there is at least 1 legitimate reason for a human being to own a gun

If your point was literally that "there is at least 1 legitimate reason for a human being to own a gun" then I guess I have agreed with it. Correct me, with a quotation, if I'm wrong, but I don't remember saying that there is NO legitimate reason to own a gun, so apparently I never disagreed with your point in the first place. But I don't think your point was merely that scientists researching ballistics should be allowed access to guns. I assume you believe that guns should be allowed for at least some of those other reasons you listed, and I still disagree with nearly all of those other reasons (there were one or two 'don't know's or 'maybe's), as I have explained. Would you care to make some sort of argument against what I said about those other supposedly 'legitimate' uses for a gun?

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Have you ever shot a gun? It may just be me, but I'd much rather kill someone with a bread knife if I had the choice. Also, bread knives don't require background checks. And trust me, the average Joe is not going to be familiar enough with guns to know how to use one effectively. I know that in the movies everyone has a gun, but that's the movies. I know more people who can use rapiers than who can use guns correctly.

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Quote:

If your point was literally that "there is at least 1 legitimate reason for a human being to own a gun" then I guess I have agreed with it

that was not my ENTIRE point, but it was the only reason I was listing off purposes for a gun

the rest of my point, which I already stated, was that if there is a minimum of one possible reason to own a gun that is legitimate, than it MUST be legal for everyone to own guns, because I don't think the government has a right to restrict anything benevolent. i consider it to be assuming guilty before proven innocent.

Quote:

A gun is the ultimate murder weapon when we're talking about killing one person at a time. Yes I know that ANYTHING can be used as a murder weapon, everybody keeps telling me that, but as I keep saying: killing somebody is, by and large, EASIER with a gun!

yes, how are you guys missing this point? it's quite obvious. refer to my earlier story (rufio). especially if you happen to be CARRYING a gun on you at the time, someone might just pull it out and shoot someone, it allows people to murder with LESS premeditation, and less actual desire to kill....if they have to beat someone to death, you need to be a little more sick.

Quote:

Have you ever shot a gun? It may just be me, but I'd much rather kill someone with a bread knife if I had the choice. Also, bread knives don't require background checks. And trust me, the average Joe is not going to be familiar enough with guns to know how to use one effectively. I know that in the movies everyone has a gun, but that's the movies. I know more people who can use rapiers than who can use guns correctly.

right, well, understanding how to operate a handgun is a simple matter of learning the function and position of the trigger, magazine release, magazine, slide, de-cocking lever, and safety. anyone could learn this from their operators manual in under 5 minutes.

a rapier is not nearly as dangerous because they must kill you from within 6 feet away. so they could run away. Kill Bill is not an accurate representation of real life, you cannot kill a gun-weilder by using a rapier...you cannot dodge bullets, shooting a moving target is extremely easy to do. the reason we don't care about rapiers is that they are easier to escape from, and they cannot be concealed as easily, and they cannot be used at long range.

EDIT - in case you are confused, YES I am arguing that guns are dangerous, and yes im arguing that we should continue to have them as accessible as they currently are. I do not think we should have any more gun restrictions, NOR any more (including the ridiculous AW ban which is done for).

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stuh505, I'm glad that you do acknowledge how dangerous guns are, but I still must disagree with your point:

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if there is a minimum of one possible reason to own a gun that is legitimate, than it MUST be legal for everyone to own guns, because I don't think the government has a right to restrict anything benevolent.

By that same logic, heroin should be legal because it is possible to use it very occasionally and not suffer any terrible consequences. Obviously your average heroin user is a junkie, and doesn't use it occasionally at all, but it is possible to. So do you think heroin should be legal? I'm all for legalising some drugs, but heroin is practically a deadly virus.

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Quote:

By that same logic, heroin should be legal because it is possible to use it very occasionally and not suffer any terrible consequences. Obviously your average heroin user is a junkie, and doesn't use it occasionally at all, but it is possible to. So do you think heroin should be legal? I'm all for legalising some drugs, but heroin is practically a deadly virus.

certainlyt not, heroine is extremely addictive and its effects are so devastating that people who use it become unrecognizeable shadows of their former selves.

even ignoring its addictiveness and harmful effects, its illegalization could easily be justified on the means of public safety...because addicts will do just about anything to score a hit.

the fact that it is possible to use it does not make it equal to my statement. an equivalent statement would be if you could think of a number of legitimate uses for a person to want heroine for purposes OTHER than taking it as a drug.

heroine should definitely be illegal.

and to remain consistent, marijuana should either be legalized, or prohibition should be reinstated, because alcohol is a much more devastating drug than marijuana i think.

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I don't think it's possible to use herion safely. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Although, I would be perfectly happy with legalizing it and allowing health insurance companies not to cover people who use it. It's their body - as long as I'm not paying for it with my taxes I'm fine with them screwing it up all they like.

Believe it or not, guns take a fair amount of actual skill to use in a way so that you don't hurt yourself. The bottom line is that if you're skilled enough with anything it can be dangerous. And most people aren't skilled with guns, which is why there are so many people whining about them. And you can buy a knife or a sword or anything else made for being a weapon just by being 18. You have to pass a competance test and a background check to buy a gun. People who use guns in crimes steal them 90% of the time. So all you have to do to prevent most gun homicides is to prevent theft.

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Sorry to keep you in suspense over such a little thing, agrote. Since no one else even mentioned the following partial quote, possibly I'm seeing something that doesn't exist, or is a complete nonissue. Still, if we're talking about increased crime, I would hardly call the highlighted text a tangent. So, we're from different countries - I was afraid saying we were from different planets would be insulting, but after more time considering it, I now believe we can both feel complimented.

Now, really! If it seems unneighborly to lock a door at night, and you take pride in your reluctance to respond to violence with violence, and further, that that is a prevalent attitude there, it is small wonder crime is increasing. You are going to lie there pretending to sleep while your home is cleaned out? By a criminal? Um, listen, crooks are not really like other people. A higher percentage of them are prone to violence than is found in the normal community. How is this potentially violent preson going to react when he discovers the house is occupied - by someone who just may be able to identify him, becoming a threat to his future freedom?

The final paragraph, I quoted because of it's relation to the first, if you put it in the right perspective. What I mean is, you better be wrong, or your mere presence in your own home may trigger this thug's survival instinct.

agrote wrote:

So I suspect that something else may have caused the rise in crime, but because I don't know all the facts I'm a little reluctant to assert this. Removal of guns obviously cannot remove violence - but if there are no guns, it is at least slightly harder for one person to murder another person. That may not be much, but it is something. Whether the British police should be armed is another debate, but as for UK citizens - keeping a gun in the house is pretty much unheard of here as a way of protecting oneself. Some of us are even reluctant to bother locking the front door. But there's a heck of a lot more murder in America, where just about everybody has a gun, so I'm not sure possessing guns limits violence. I don't really see how fighting violence with violence can really work, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to murder somebody who was breaking into my house. I might like to whack him over the head with something, but he doesn't deserve to die just for trying to steal things from me - I don't blame him, he probably has a lot less money than we do. Anyway, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent...

****

I'd have thought killing was some sort of survival instinct, or an aspect of a survival mechanism or something. All that evolutionary stuff, fight-flight response, blah blah blah. But that's a different argument, I'll try and stick to the gun control thing.

I want to add one of the simpler business concepts here, and see if you don't think it applies.

Easy Entry vs High Profit - Some businesses are cheap and easy to enter, like the classic lemonade stand. Buy some lemons and sugar, borrow a table, and get some water, and you are in business. What is your profit potential, though? Not much. Other business are difficult and expensive to enter. How does the profit potential sound from, say, the pharmaceutical industry?

Point is, you are making the various forms of thievery very easy to enter, reducing the risk; all without lowering the potential for profit. Yes, I'm going to agree - in your case, there really is something other than a gun ban influencing your crime rates.

Sorry to make you wait so long, for so little. Time has been another scarce commodity around here, lately

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stuh505 wrote:

certainlyt not, heroine is extremely addictive and its effects are so devastating that people who use it become unrecognizeable shadows of their former selves.

even ignoring its addictiveness and harmful effects, its illegalization could easily be justified on the means of public safety...because addicts will do just about anything to score a hit.

the fact that it is possible to use it does not make it equal to my statement. an equivalent statement would be if you could think of a number of legitimate uses for a person to want heroine for purposes OTHER than taking it as a drug.

What I'm saying is: it would be possible to use heroin once, and never again. I'm sure that happens very very rarely, but it's possible - it would be like having one cigarette, and nicotine is actually more addictive than heroin (I'll try and find some evidence for that if you don't believe me). And although heroin is, as I said, practically a deadly virus, the junky virus, being on heroin is not an unpleasant experience at all - the feeling of euphoria you get is supposedly better than sex. So this means that it is possible for somebody to use heroin once, have a wonderful experience, and then never use it again. But most people who use heroin become, as you said, "shadows of their former selves," and they will indeed do "just about anything to score a hit," so it makes sense to ban heroin.

You said,

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if there is a minimum of one possible reason to own a gun that is legitimate, than it MUST be legal for everyone to own guns, because I don't think the government has a right to restrict anything benevolent.

I'm saying that there is a minimum of one possible reason to use heroin that is legitimate. Forget using heroin for medicinal purposes or anything like that - I'm saying somebody could use heroin once for their own pleasure, and then never use it again. If it is less addictive than nicotine, then that must be possible, even if it is extremely rare. So by your logic, the government does not have the right to restrict the use of heroin because there is a minimum of one possible reason to use heroin that is legitimate: to experience a feeling of euphoria once, and never again.

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its illegalization could easily be justified on the means of public safety

So could the illegalisation of guns! Heroin indirectly causes criminal behaviour, guns directly cause death.

rufio wrote:

all you have to do to prevent most gun homicides is to prevent theft.

Yep, and all you have to do to prevent ALL gun homicides is to prevent GUNS! No guns, no gun homicide, there'd be no such thing. Very Happy

I think it would be easier to successfully prevent guns than prevent theft. The war on terror suggests that it's not all that easy to prevent abstract nouns.

roger wrote:

Now, really! If it seems unneighborly to lock a door at night, and you take pride in your reluctance to respond to violence with violence, and further, that that is a prevalent attitude there, it is small wonder crime is increasing. You are going to lie there pretending to sleep while your home is cleaned out? By a criminal? Um, listen, crooks are not really like other people. A higher percentage of them are prone to violence than is found in the normal community. How is this potentially violent preson going to react when he discovers the house is occupied - by someone who just may be able to identify him, becoming a threat to his future freedom?

This family a few doors down from us got their house robbed a couple of weeks ago. He and his entire family were in the house asleep at the time - the burglars probably knew the house was occupied, they'd be pretty stupid not to, but nobody got hurt - they just went in, stole some things, and left. So not all burglars double up as a danger to you and your children - they're just a danger to your property. I don't see why crime should increase because people are less paranoid over here - there's still less crime here than there is in America, where people sleep with guns under their pillows. And the attitudes haven't changed all that much, which suggests that a sudden increase in crime has nothing to do with the comparatively laid-back attitudes we have to criminals. There must be another cause (or causes). We're not that laid-back about it though anyway - my Dad locks all the doors before he goes to bed, and hides the car radio under the driver seat, etc. But none of us feel that we need weapons to protect ourselves from crime, especially theft.

It could be that we don't need guns because crime is not as bad here, whereas crime is worse in America so you do need a weapon to defend yourself. But I think the higher level of crime in America has something to do with the availability of guns.

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agrote wrote:

I don't see why crime should increase because people are less paranoid over here - there's still less crime here than there is in America, where people sleep with guns under their pillows.

Quit parroting the Micheal Moore-esque stereotypes. Every American doesn't own a a gun and very few sleep with one under their pillow.

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But none of us feel that we need weapons to protect ourselves from crime, especially theft.

None of you? There isn't a single person in the UK that thinks they should be able to own a firearm to protect themselves? Do you want to retract that now or would you prefer to wait until I post a few dozen links to prove it wrong? Wink

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