He asked Ryan if he believed in God

[The Caspian Hare]

I am in perfect agreement with you there.

[Stellar]

I am in perfect agreement with you there.

Then you agree that "guns dont kill people, people kill people" is an absurd excuse?

[The Caspian Hare]

It's flawed, yes, and I don't like using bumper-sticker logic anyway.

But I believe that whenever possible one should punish offenders rather than restricting the rights of law-abiding people.

And that goes for rights other than guns, too.

[Stellar]

It's flawed, yes, and I don't like using bumper-sticker logic anyway.

As long as the point gets through...

But I believe that whenever possible one should punish offenders rather than restricting the rights of law-abiding people.

I dont believe in just punishment, I believe in prevention also...

[Adramaleck]

Stellar... nukes arnt easy to get. They're expencive as hell, and 'just buying them on the black market' or their materials argument is bull. Osama has both the money and connections to do that and there has not yet been a nuclear strike on the US.

[Dark_Grey]

*In the context of homicidal intent*

So we ban guns and watch the knife statistics skyrocket?

A few pages back we already had a discussion about killers. If we took the guns away from every person who went out to murder sumone with it intentionally and watched to see what they would do instead, chances are they would play out the same scenario sans-guns: kill their victim.

A killer bent on killing the victim is gonna do it however he can. Like we've all been saying We need to change the people. Then law abiding citizens can keep their guns for w/e purposes they need them, and society wont have to worry about meat cleavers in the kitchens and baseball bats in the garages if we know theres no danger of people turning on each other.

You have more a chance of survival if the attacker is using a knife

What about women who can be overpowered? You cant shoot her from afar cuz guns have been removed, so while ur up close with a knife, y not rape her too?

Er what about the average joe whos awakened in the middle of the nite by an intruder on the floor below. Crap! The gov't confiscated the gun in joe's nightstand drawer and that b****** is comin up the stairs looking fer more loot! Quick average joe! Call the police!! Thats what your told to do, afterall!!

LMAO!! Sorry but can anyone else see how absurd this story is? No more guns under our pillows: now we're stuffing steak knives! lol Rediculous.

- Dark

[bathory]

Gut in the thread there was a bunch of people arguing that machine guns, grenade launchers and such should be legal also.

got a link, i don't remember any of that stuff

Self defence... if you eliminate guns from society, more may die because they couldnt use guns in self defence, but many more will live because they werent killed by a gun.

blatant lie, this is completely untrue, maybe you should check out the rates in Britain and Australia, neither country saw a reduction in murders. If you are going to say something, please know what you are talking about.

Recreational use... you can use an airsoft gun for that.

no youcan't

Theres an intimidation factor which makes them effective. Hell, why not legalise grenades then? Everything can be used in defense, I can use my computer as a defensive weapon.

the intimidation factor is null and void when the use of the weapon as a defensive weapon is guarenteed to wipe you, your family and 20 million other people out. Your arguement is ridiculous stellar. Any thing could be used in defense, doesn't mean i'm going to protect myself with a wet tuna.

You just said that the rampages will diminish...

rampages make up something less than 1% of overall murders, you aren't going to have an impact, not to mention all the school shootings have been done with illegally obtained guns.

As someone else pointed out, not many people would have nukes for various reasons. As you have pointed out, nukes wouldnt be used as much as guns because they end in suicide...

as i pointed out, when they are used for whatever reason we will have more deaths in that single use than 20 - 30 years of overall murders. There is no use for a personal nuke.

And 10 000 lives arent important?

in the overall scheme of things, not really, a large percentage of them would have died regardless, crimes of passion and gang/drugs related, those types of killings happen regardless of the implement available.

My point with the whole WMD thing is to show that the argument "guns dont kill people, people kill people" is a weak one and shouldnt be used. Thats it.

so you try to demonstrate that its a weak arguement by giving us a false comparison with WMDs? congratulations, there are a set of underlying arguements to WMDs that do not apply to guns (many of which have been raised in this thread, many of which you simply ignore), you are comparing apples and oranges, saying something similar to Apples taste good, therefore Oranges should taste good because they are both fruit.

People say "Well, the people who baught guns legally arent going to commit crimes", well, again, that is a horrible point because I can say the same about nukes. The ones who say "If a criminal wants to get a gun he'll get a gun" is another poor excuse because, again, I can say the same.

and again your point fails to address the reality of the situation, guns are easily available on the black market, they are cheap and incredibly numerous. Enriched Uranium on the other hand, is incredibly expensive and incredibly rare

So you're, again, saying that thousands of lives arent worth anything...? The people who use weapons for self defence at home would survive even if they didnt have those weapons if they dont try to fight with the intruder.

there is no way you can say this, you have got be kidding stellar, YOU DON'T KNOW THE INTENTIONS OF THE INTRUDER. Its that simple. Again what you are saying is pure speculation, we don't know the intentions of the intruder (not to mention that you don't seem to support the homeowners right to protect his property), you seem to have this absurd idea that if the intruder doesn't have a gun, he won't be able to kill you, what whacky planet are you living on, what do you do if he comes at you with a knife, ask him to wait a second while you lock your bedroom door and call the police? or do you offer to make him a coffee?

Its just as possible with a blunt pencil, but its a lot harder.

that stats would indicate that the criminals aren't having a hard time killing people with knives in australia, we still get the occasional family massacre (one just happened recently, some kid stabbed his whole family to death, 4 or 5 people)

Interesting... you mean people are actually surviving attempted gun murders without having guns themselves? Who would have thought!

no i just found it interesting that you are more likely to survive being shot at than being knifed, at least in australia.

Point being? With a knife, if the guy is 10 m away from you, chances are he's not gonna stab you. You can run. When the guy has a gun and is 10 m away from you... you dont know how good of a shot he is.

yup, but its not the sure thing like you make it out to be.

But in the argument I was arguing against, there is no mention of functionality, it was simply "guns dont kill people, people kill people", which is just like saying "nukes dont kill people, people kill people"

thats because you are falsely representing the arguement, one that presumedly assumes the person using it and the person listening to it are intelligent beings.

It doesnt matter much if the overall rate drops a lot, drops a bit, or stays the same. Why? Because I value human life, and even if it drops a bit, thats a success. If it drops a lot, its a bigger success. If it stays the same, well, at least people have a better chance of surviving against a guy with a knife or a baseball bat than a gun.

have you read what i said, it WON'T drop, its yet to drop because of banning guns in any country thats implemented a ban. What is this better chance crap you are talking about? if it stays the same it means people are dying at the same rate they always were, you didn't give them a better chance to survive against those 20 stabwounds to the face and chest.

Overall crime wouldnt stay the same though. Many crimes involving guns are largely made possible because of the feeling the criminal has when he has a gun. If that gun is taken away from him, he wont feel so eager to commit a crime with a 3" knife.

thats pure fantasy bull****, overall crime does stay the same, Britain, Australia, New Zealand i dunno, pick a country thats banned guns and see if they had a drop (this can be complicated, because there are so many other factors involved, you'd have to look at already occuring trends and such), the rates in the UK and Australia are going up, the rates in the US are going down...go figure, these crimes occur because of social problems, so please stop talking your uninformed crap.

Hmm? You dont have to shoot the guy at all. If the guy is armed with a gun, and he hears you comming down, he's more likely to shoot you than if you stay away from him.

so? you don't know his intentions to begin with, there is no way to find out his intentions beyond waiting things out. How about this, you have a hand gun, you lock your door, and sit in your room with your handgun and DON'T confront him! simple, not as simple if you have children in other parts of the house, what should they do?

keep living in that fantasy land where people don't get killed by robbers because the robber was there to do other things beyond take their tv.

If he has a gun than it wouldnt be excessive force, it'd be stupidity. Banning guns would probably result in the intruder not having a gun. With guns legal, he has a gun. With guns legal, if you have a gun, he's more likely to shoot because his life is in danger.

spinning more crap are we stellar? he would have a knife, people funnily enough get killed by other people with knives! AT LEAST HE DIDN'T HAVE A GUN i hear you say IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE!

Sorry, but I dont feel that way. I dont feel like killing a person that was unarmed and trying to rob me. I dont feel like trying to take him on incase he does have a gun neither.

yeah but you live in whacky land where the criminals hug you instead of stab you death.

Theres a difference. At that point, he's attempting to kill me.

how do you know that? maybe he just feels threatened by your gun? maybe it was just to intimidate you because he wanted to steal your boots.

If he's walking up to me, not obviously trying to attack me, I have ROEs to follow.

ok lets go with this, what if you are out in a listening post holding up the perimetre, and you see what looks like an enemy soldier sneaking around, obviously up to something sus. What do you do? sit tight and let him do what he wants and hope he goes away whilst alerting your superiors? as you say after the quote, you have to confront, you have stop within the bounds of your ROE, but tell me, why can't you just let him go about his business? oh right because he is a possible threat! I imagine you'd point your gun at him and tell him to get his hands up in the air, when he didn't comply you'd be allowed to drop him, applies the same for a home invader.

Im not saying he's going to go about his business when he's discovered... to the contrary, Im saying he's likely to attack you... HENCE, you stay away from him. If you go to try and stop him, you're the one putting your life at risk.

so when you have an intruder roaming through your home looking for valuables, what are the odds of him finding you? You have this weird assumption that people are somehow able to stay out of the intruders way, not everyone has a panic room or something to that extent.

A robber is trying to stay away from you. Like I said, he's trying to do his best NOT to be seen. If you hear someone breaking into your house, you stay put in your bedroom... you dont go after him and put your life at risk.

and when he enters your bedroom? or will he magically avoid that area if he knows you are unarmed? what if you have children?

Those 108k mostly didnt have to happen... I dont consider using a gun to kill an intruder as self defence unless that intruder was threatening your life. That would eliminate a great quantity of those 108k cases of "self defense" and does put gun related crimes causing death higher than gun related true self defense.

Because I value human life

so you value some peoples lives more than others.

Funny... You're the one arguing that 10 000 + dead per year because of guns isnt a good enough reason to ban guns. Im the one trying to save as much innocent lives as possible.

i don't see it as a good reason because these 10000 dead people will get pushed into the knives or bludgeoning category after the bans have come into place (i'm assuming guns magically disappear), but i was merely supplying a relevant fact (you said 18000+ deaths and then said you knew it wasn't all guns but a large portion were)

Hmm... thats how the majority of people in other countries do it... This way you put yourself in the least amount of risk possible. You call the police, which are trained to deal with these situations.

yeah, but you see in regards to crime, cross cultura/country comparisons are invalid. There are too many variables, (yes it appears that i may have made cross cultural comparisons, but i haven't, bcause i'm isolating my conclusions from only information regarding the specific country, eg australia banned guns, didn't see a reduction, uk banned guns, didn't se a reduction, crime went up, canada, high rate of gun ownership, low rate of crime etc etc)

I see how something like this could be shocking to someone like you. Like I and YOU said, you put yourself at more risk if you make it evident that the intruder has been discovered, rather than staying out of his way. A robber, like I've said, is not on a mission to get discovered.

asumming its a robber who's only intentions are to steal your tv, you are gambling with your families life, doing nothing more than closing your eyes and hoping the badman goes away.

Im not crossing them, I'm telling you that I dont feel that my rights are infringed upon by not owning a gun...

good for you

Hence it doesnt matter if "people kill people" because the weapon is used to kill people... hence the reason I say that the argument "guns dont kill people, people kill people" is the worst argument imaginable.

not really, because anyone with half a brain would realise functionality comes into it.

I will concede that your arguement is logically sound, BUT thats all it really wins at, one would hope the application of common sense would allow one to fill in the blanks when it comes to the guns don't kill people, people kill people arguement in a nutshell , which is really just a huge simplfication of a much bigger arguement

*edit*

sigh why the crap isnt the quote button working

Edited March 28, 2005 by Magikman

[__Kratos__]

So... guys, any follow ups on the shootings?

[Stellar]

Stellar... nukes arnt easy to get. They're expencive as hell, and 'just buying them on the black market' or their materials argument is bull. Osama has both the money and connections to do that and there has not yet been a nuclear strike on the US.

Whats your point? Thats a good reason for why nukes detonating wouldnt be a common occurance, like I've pointed out...

If we took the guns away from every person who went out to murder sumone with it intentionally and watched to see what they would do instead, chances are they would play out the same scenario sans-guns: kill their victim.

And what about every person that didnt go out to murder someone, but ended up murdering someone because they had a gun and they got scared and used it? What about every kid that found a gun, started playing around with it and shot himself? What about the kids that got hit by a stray bullet? What about the people trying to kill people twice their size, hence using a gun because they wouldnt be able to win with a knife?

What about women who can be overpowered? You cant shoot her from afar cuz guns have been removed, so while ur up close with a knife, y not rape her too?

Because not all people are hell bent on raping? Because, let me be presumptuous... she'd rather be raped than killed?

Er what about the average joe whos awakened in the middle of the nite by an intruder on the floor below. Crap! The gov't confiscated the gun in joe's nightstand drawer and that b****** is comin up the stairs looking fer more loot! Quick average joe! Call the police!! Thats what your told to do, afterall!!

No! Take your gun and try to fight the guy and end up shot because you werent quick enough! Or maybe end up shooting your son after he came home from a party! Afterall, you couldnt have known. Its the smart thing to do. Every robber has only one thing on his mind... murder, right?

got a link, i don't remember any of that stuff

Ill get it after this post.

blatant lie, this is completely untrue, maybe you should check out the rates in Britain and Australia, neither country saw a reduction in murders. If you are going to say something, please know what you are talking about.

I thought you said we couldnt compare cultures?

no youcan't

Sure you can. Btw, I dont believe in hunting animals.

the intimidation factor is null and void when the use of the weapon as a defensive weapon is guarenteed to wipe you, your family and 20 million other people out.

I suppose that is why people sometimes strap bombs to themselves when committing a crime and threatening to detonate it if the others dont listen to them?

rampages make up something less than 1% of overall murders, you aren't going to have an impact, not to mention all the school shootings have been done with illegally obtained guns.

So, again I ask, how much is the 1%? Maybe a dozen lives? So... a dozen lives a year mean nothing?

as i pointed out, when they are used for whatever reason we will have more deaths in that single use than 20 - 30 years of overall murders. There is no use for a personal nuke.

As Dark Gray has pointed out, its hard to get the material, and thus, wouldnt be common. Where do you draw the line of too many deaths, exactly?

in the overall scheme of things, not really, a large percentage of them would have died regardless, crimes of passion and gang/drugs related, those types of killings happen regardless of the implement available.

As opposed to you, I dont consider a life to be crap and valueless it seems...

so you try to demonstrate that its a weak arguement by giving us a false comparison with WMDs?

Its not a false comparison at all. The argument took off every amount of blame from the weapon, the logic of that argument can be applied to any weapon of my choosing.... and because it could be applied like that, I chose to apply it to weapons which everyone will consider absurd.

and again your point fails to address the reality of the situation, guns are easily available on the black market, they are cheap and incredibly numerous. Enriched Uranium on the other hand, is incredibly expensive and incredibly rare

Hence nukes used by anyone obtaining it legally like I've said.

there is no way you can say this, you have got be kidding stellar, YOU DON'T KNOW THE INTENTIONS OF THE INTRUDER. Its that simple.

I know you dont know the intentions, so why put yourself at risk? Chances are, unless you've p***ed off someone recently, the guy isnt there to kill you.

Again what you are saying is pure speculation, we don't know the intentions of the intruder (not to mention that you don't seem to support the homeowners right to protect his property),

I support the homeowners right to pretect his property... the way I do, at least.

you seem to have this absurd idea that if the intruder doesn't have a gun, he won't be able to kill you, what whacky planet are you living on,

No, I'm saying that chances are he's NOT there to kill you, and if he has a gun, you're putting yourself and your family at more risk by trying to take him on.

what do you do if he comes at you with a knife, ask him to wait a second while you lock your bedroom door and call the police?

At that point, you do what you can. Like I said, nothings full proof. There will be those that lose in my situation, but many will also win. A robber is seldom likely to come at you with a knife if you dont try to take him on in the first place.

that stats would indicate that the criminals aren't having a hard time killing people with knives in australia, we still get the occasional family massacre (one just happened recently, some kid stabbed his whole family to death, 4 or 5 people)

Still, I'd prefer knife massacres over gun massacres because you still have a better chance of survival.

no i just found it interesting that you are more likely to survive being shot at than being knifed, at least in australia.

What are you comparing it from, the statistical point of view, or the situation? Being shot, the wound is bigger and you'd probably end up loosing blood faster, IMO, and therefor, your chances for survival are lower than being in a knife fight.

yup, but its not the sure thing like you make it out to be.

Nothings a sure thing, but we still have discussions on all sorts of things on this forum.

thats because you are falsely representing the arguement, one that presumedly assumes the person using it and the person listening to it are intelligent beings.

How am I miss representing the argument? "Guns dont kill people, people kill people, so lets not ban guns!" is the equivalent of saying "Grenades dont kill people, people kill people, so lets not ban grenades!" and "Machine guns dont kill people, people kill people, so lets not ban guns!" "Truck bombs dont kill people, people kill people, so lets not ban truck bombs!" "WMDs dont kill people, people kill people, so lets not ban WMDs!"

have you read what i said, it WON'T drop, its yet to drop because of banning guns in any country thats implemented a ban.

You just said rampages would drop...

What is this better chance crap you are talking about? if it stays the same it means people are dying at the same rate they always were, you didn't give them a better chance to survive against those 20 stabwounds to the face and chest.

No, but you have a better chance of fighting it off...

thats pure fantasy bull****, overall crime does stay the same, Britain, Australia, New Zealand i dunno, pick a country thats banned guns and see if they had a drop (this can be complicated, because there are so many other factors involved, you'd have to look at already occuring trends and such), the rates in the UK and Australia are going up,

You said the rampages would end...

the rates in the US are going down...go figure, these crimes occur because of social problems, so please stop talking your uninformed crap.

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/MaryPennisi.shtml

Actually, after a period of going down, they're going up again now.

so? you don't know his intentions to begin with, there is no way to find out his intentions beyond waiting things out.

Exactly, you dont know his intentions, you dont know if he's armed, hence, you stick with probability instead of takign unnecessary risk.

How about this, you have a hand gun, you lock your door, and sit in your room with your handgun and DON'T confront him! simple, not as simple if you have children in other parts of the house, what should they do?

You can also grab a baseball bat and stay tucked away in the corner or beside the door and swing if he opens it.

keep living in that fantasy land where people don't get killed by robbers because the robber was there to do other things beyond take their tv.

Im not saying they dont. I'm saying that in the majority of cases, the robber, if left unprovoked, will not.

spinning more crap are we stellar? he would have a knife, people funnily enough get killed by other people with knives! AT LEAST HE DIDN'T HAVE A GUN i hear you say IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE!

The difference is, guns are long range weapons, knives are close range weapons. Like I said, you have a better chance surviving against a guy with a knife than against a guy with a gun.

yeah but you live in whacky land where the criminals hug you instead of stab you death.

Well... this is Canada...

how do you know that? maybe he just feels threatened by your gun? maybe it was just to intimidate you because he wanted to steal your boots.

It doesnt matter why he's trying to attack me...

ok lets go with this, what if you are out in a listening post holding up the perimetre, and you see what looks like an enemy soldier sneaking around, obviously up to something sus. What do you do? sit tight and let him do what he wants and hope he goes away whilst alerting your superiors? as you say after the quote, you have to confront, you have stop within the bounds of your ROE, but tell me, why can't you just let him go about his business? oh right because he is a possible threat! I imagine you'd point your gun at him and tell him to get his hands up in the air, when he didn't comply you'd be allowed to drop him, applies the same for a home invader.

Actually, you'd have about 3 steps before dropping him. You yell "Stop". If he doesnt stop, you raise your gun and yell "Stop", if he doesnt stop you load your gun, shoot a shot into the air and then yell "Stop", and then if he keeps comming, you shoot him. This is a case where there are ROEs being followed and it can be confirmed. At home, its mostly "Stop! Bang!"

so when you have an intruder roaming through your home looking for valuables, what are the odds of him finding you? You have this weird assumption that people are somehow able to stay out of the intruders way, not everyone has a panic room or something to that extent.

Robbers are likely to come during the period of most inactivity, which would be during the night when people are sleeping. They are not so likely to go directly into your room.

and when he enters your bedroom? or will he magically avoid that area if he knows you are unarmed? what if you have children?

It doesnt matter if your armed or unarmed, chances are, he'll avoid the bedroom. If he doesnt avoid it, and you startle him by waking up and he decides not to run, god help you.

so you value some peoples lives more than others.

Not quite. I value the majority over the minority.

i don't see it as a good reason because these 10000 dead people will get pushed into the knives or bludgeoning category after the bans have come into place (i'm assuming guns magically disappear), but i was merely supplying a relevant fact (you said 18000+ deaths and then said you knew it wasn't all guns but a large portion were)

Yes, but 18 000 deaths + was meant "over time" not "per year"

yeah, but you see in regards to crime, cross cultura/country comparisons are invalid. There are too many variables, (yes it appears that i may have made cross cultural comparisons, but i haven't, bcause i'm isolating my conclusions from only information regarding the specific country, eg australia banned guns, didn't see a reduction, uk banned guns, didn't se a reduction, crime went up, canada, high rate of gun ownership, low rate of crime etc etc)

As you said, you shouldnt be making cross cultural comparisons. You can always pick out certain countries with highs and lows. IMO, US society is certainly screwed up and yes, if you banned guns, the number of deaths due to knives and whatnot would raise, but IMO, less people would die overall, even if by a miniscule fraction, and in the far future, the gun ban will benefit the country and the country will have less deaths.

asumming its a robber who's only intentions are to steal your tv, you are gambling with your families life, doing nothing more than closing your eyes and hoping the badman goes away.

WHereas going down and getting shot is much better?

not really, because anyone with half a brain would realise functionality comes into it.

It appears you're right. Only anyone with half a brain realises the functionality of it. The ones with full brains... thats a different story.

[Dark_Grey]

lmao @ stellers last post!!

Dang bro u were quick on the draw with those points! lol U made my morning lol

- Dark