Anti-gun protests in London

[SnakeProphet]

I think XSAS has made it very obvious that gun's serve no purpose in any society. 

Of course its the parents and childs fault. But the fact is, if there were no guns a hell of a lot of lives would be saved every year and you wouldn't have all these mass killings going on.

633774[/snapback]

That is a problem of society.Guns are nothing more than tools.People will look for other ways of killing.

If guns serve no purpose in any society any other tools serve no purpose as well.

[whoa182]

I think XSAS has made it very obvious that gun's serve no purpose in any society. 

Of course its the parents and childs fault. But the fact is, if there were no guns a hell of a lot of lives would be saved every year and you wouldn't have all these mass killings going on.

633774[/snapback]

That is a problem of society.Guns are nothing more than tools.People will look for other ways of killing.

If guns serve no purpose in any society any other tools serve no purpose as well.

634282[/snapback]

Don't you agree that the majority of them lives would of been saved without guns?

If so I don't see your point, Im simply saying that gun's being involved in social problems usually lead to death.

The stats make it quite clear that people cannot control themselves. If you take guns away from it all then a lot of kids will be saved.

Its that simple

Edited May 23, 2005 by whoa182

[Seraphina]

That is a problem of society.Guns are nothing more than tools.People will look for other ways of killing.

You know, I keep hearing this arguement....and to me, it's absolutely mental...

"People who were really set on killing would find a way to kill anyway! So there's no point taking away guns!"

So...because you think people would find their way anyway....you think it's perfectly fine to just make it easier for them, by dropping the most efficient means of killing readily available to the common man right into their lap?

A gun is a weapon, not a tool. A hammer is a tool, because it can be used to construct something of use. A plough is a tool, because it can be used to plant crops, and feed people and their families. Could someone please remind me what a gun creates? What it does to benefit mankind at large?

As far as I can see, and as history has proven, all a gun does is kill people And makes it very easy to do so.

I made the arguement, some time ago, that a gun is an empowering thing to own...one of the reasons that it gives so many americans the illusion of safety. "I've got a gun, so I'll be safe!"...So great, you've got a gun locked in a cabinet somewhere...hope it makes you feel safe when you wake up and some nutter is standing over your bed with one in his hand

A great many people who commit crimes with a gun do so because it allows them to strike out without having to put themselves in danger, to look the person they're killing in the eye while they're doing it...it's a coward's way to murder. If people would "simply find another way", then why does America have so many high school kids grabbing guns and going on a rampage, when the UK doesn't have any high school kids doing the same things with knives, or a weapon more readily available to them?

Having a gun makes a person far more likely to find the motivation to kill. Someone who would never have the courage to commit a crime without it suddenly finds their ultimate weapon, and unfortunately that weapon allows them to kill far more people, in far less time, and makes them far more difficult to subdue, than any other weapon they could have chosen.

[bathory]

sigh and still people concentrate on a tiny percentage of deaths

FACT: Banning guns isn't going to lower overall homicides, get this in your skulls because that is the only reason where banning something would be acceptable, you know, where banning something will actually change things.

FACT: last i checked deaths resulting from rampages (the only homicides you will cut back a bit) totalled around 40 - 50.

FACT: how many times are guns used for defensive purposes in the US...i've seen figures of around 100,000 +, you know what it could be 100 defensive uses and it would still outway the number of people you save from rampages. Unless of course you want to assign a value to these lives.

and please stop touting UK statistics as if they are a good thing, your crime rates are going up, your violant crime and robbery are greater than that of the US, and your murder rates are rising. Gun control in the UK accomplished nothing, your homicide rates using guns in the UK were never high in the first place, and even then they are going up, last i checked they are higher than they were before the last round of gun bannings back in 96, NICE WORK GUYS:)

(and people, remember accidental deaths with guns don't count)

its a shame appeals to emotion get further than actual facts:(

Edited May 23, 2005 by bathory

[Seraphina]

FACT: last i checked deaths resulting from rampages (the only homicides you will cut back a bit) totalled around 40 - 50.

Well, wouldn't it be nice if rampages were it? As the statistics above point out, a child dies every three hours from gun related injuries...that is a frightening number of deaths that simply would not have occured if guns were not floating around the streets.

FACT: how many times are guns used for defensive purposes in the US...i've seen figures of around 100,000 +, you know what it could be 100 defensive uses and it would still outway the number of people you save from rampages. Unless of course you want to assign a value to these lives.

Would guns even be needed for defensive purposes if it wasn't so ridiculously easy for criminals to get a hold of them? It's funny how only the people who live in the country where guns are so readily available feel they actually need them to defend themselves.

Gun control in the UK accomplished nothing

Since the ban on handguns, we've yet to have another Dunblain scenario....the US seems to have them quite frequently. I consider that having accomplished quite a bit. I'm not willing to compromise the safety of my nation's children, so a few rednecks can get their jollies from the shiny metal things that go bang.

(and people, remember accidental deaths with guns don't count)

That's a cop out Bathory, and you know it. I could maybe understand this standpoint if guns were actually contributing something to society other than a ridiculously high death toll...but they're not. Accidental deaths are entirerly revelent. The fact that so many people are killed by guns, and yet you people continue to insist that there's no gun problem...it's just flat out worrying.

[bathory]

Well, wouldn't it be nice if rampages were it? tongue.gif As the statistics above point out, a child dies every three hours from gun related injuries...that is a frightening number of deaths that simply would not have occured if guns were not floating around the streets.

the 3000 (ish) figure is skewed, why? lets look at who they define as children

"5-19 years of age"

now i'll say this with absolute certainty that the vast vast majority of these deaths occur in the upper age group, 16 - 19. Now i think its pretty clear that young adult males are statistically the most likely to be a victim of violence. I would even hazard a guess and say that the majority of these '16 - 19' year old 'children' are being killed as a result of gang activity.

Why do i say that? lets read what the article said shall we "Less than 1% of all homicides among school-aged children (5-19 years of age) occur in or around school grounds or on the way to and from school. (Centers for Disease Control, 1997)

"

Less than 1% of these 3000 deaths occur in, around or on the way from school. School deaths are insignificant. So where are all these extra deaths getting padded out? well looking at the definition of children i think its pretty obvious that much of it will be a result of gangs and the like, unfortunately that also means that the murders served a purpose and because of that they won't be stopped simply by banning guns.

Would guns even be needed for defensive purposes if it wasn't so ridiculously easy for criminals to get a hold of them? huh.gif It's funny how only the people who live in the country where guns are so readily available feel they actually need them to defend themselves.

yes? people were killing people long before guns were available...of course you live in a world where people don't get attacked, don't get stabbed, don't get bludgeoned to death, the UK must be some kind of gunless paradise. I've said it before, but as thngs are, it is you who has the false sense of security,

Since the ban on handguns, we've yet to have another Dunblain scenario....the US seems to have them quite frequently. I consider that having accomplished quite a bit. I'm not willing to compromise the safety of my nation's children, so a few rednecks can get their jollies from the shiny metal things that go bang.

so your murder rates have gone down have they? what about your violent crime rates? home invasion rates? hmmm?

That's a cop out Bathory, and you know it.

no it isn't a cop out, an accidental death resulting from a firearm is no different a car accident, or a house fire etc Its an accident, and don't give me this 'firearms don't have a purpose crap', if someone can use it for recreational use, be it hunting or a target range it has just as much of a valid use as any of the othe rpointless crap in society which is potentially lethal if misused.

well i crunched some number and worked out that if you were to remove the african american population from the whole population, and then work out the murder rates from there you'd see that the american murder rate works out to be about 0.01% the same as the Uk murder rate. Now what this demonstrates is that there is a major cultural problem centered around the african american community, ie gangs and drugs (please note my numbers are pretty rough, i ended up with 0.004% but figured i'd round up just to cover any minor rounding errors i may have made with previous numbers used to get that figure, this figure should take into account every other ethnicity aside from african american)

want to lower homicide rates in the US? deal with gangs and drugs in the african american community.

The fact that so many people are killed by guns, and yet you people continue to insist that there's no gun problem...it's just flat out worrying.

no whats worrying is that you unable to comprehend that removing guns won't change the rates whatsoever. There is a murder problem, there is a gang problem, there is a drug problem, i'll happily admit it because THESE (well the latter two, murder isn't really a cause so to speak) are the causes, its because of gangs and drugs that there is a highly inflated number, and it is because of gangs and drugs i argue that removing guns won't change anything because murders occuring because of said activities serve a criminal purpose. They aren't random, they are murders that occur to achieve a goal and because of this, guns or no guns they will occur.

Edited May 23, 2005 by bathory

[Seraphina]

Okay, first thing's first, because this statement absolutely shocked me. It's the exact statement, in fact, that makes me live in absolute terror of America's gun culture...

Less than 1% of these 3000 deaths occur in, around or on the way from school. School deaths are insignificant.

Insignificant? Your exact word Bathory, when referring the the deaths of school aged children...is "insignificant"...

Does it terrify you that any children have been shot on school grounds? Doesn't it make you absolutely horrified that school, a place where children should be safe and secure, has been violated by the US' fetish for firearms?

Over here, we had a school shooting...and our immediete reaction was "Children have died here....what can we do to make sure it never happens again?" And so, handguns have been banned and...now here's the real trick...it's never happened again.

In the US, the reaction is "well, this is tragic, but what is the life of a few children next to my right to own a gun? I'll defend it to my dying breath!" (ironically, a lot of your countrymen do seem to die thanks to the right to own guns ), and amazingly enough...it's only a matter of time before it happens again.

I find the fact that any human being could call the murder of children in schools "insignificant" nothing short of disturbing.

and don't give me this 'firearms don't have a purpose crap', if someone can use it for recreational use, be it hunting or a target range it has just as much of a valid use as any of the othe rpointless crap in society which is potentially lethal if misused.

The difference is, no other "recreational" item can claim to inflict the same casualties as guns. Are you honestly trying to justify the massive, massive number of deaths directly caused by the easy access to guns in the US, by saying people also use them to shoot at targets too?

It's just mental....the fact that a weapon designed to kill people has been reduced to the same level as a set of golf clubs. People have become so ridiculously enamoured with guns that they seem oblivious to the danger it poses, and have even developed this totally bizare dependancy on it...something I will never understand, and I'm afraid will always find terrifying.

[Subtemperate]

people were killing people long before guns were available

You do realise that gins were created to kill MORE efficiently..... Why would you want something that was created for the soul purpose of being efficient in causing Death out in the general population in any place?

[Commander CMG]

Well, wouldn't it be nice if rampages were it? tongue.gif As the statistics above point out, a child dies every three hours from gun related injuries...that is a frightening number of deaths that simply would not have occured if guns were not floating around the streets.

the 3000 (ish) figure is skewed, why? lets look at who they define as children

"5-19 years of age"

now i'll say this with absolute certainty that the vast vast majority of these deaths occur in the upper age group, 16 - 19. Now i think its pretty clear that young adult males are statistically the most likely to be a victim of violence. I would even hazard a guess and say that the majority of these '16 - 19' year old 'children' are being killed as a result of gang activity.

Why do i say that? lets read what the article said shall we "Less than 1% of all homicides among school-aged children (5-19 years of age) occur in or around school grounds or on the way to and from school. (Centers for Disease Control, 1997)

"

Less than 1% of these 3000 deaths occur in, around or on the way from school. School deaths are insignificant. So where are all these extra deaths getting padded out? well looking at the definition of children i think its pretty obvious that much of it will be a result of gangs and the like, unfortunately that also means that the murders served a purpose and because of that they won't be stopped simply by banning guns.

Would guns even be needed for defensive purposes if it wasn't so ridiculously easy for criminals to get a hold of them? huh.gif It's funny how only the people who live in the country where guns are so readily available feel they actually need them to defend themselves.

yes? people were killing people long before guns were available...of course you live in a world where people don't get attacked, don't get stabbed, don't get bludgeoned to death, the UK must be some kind of gunless paradise. I've said it before, but as thngs are, it is you who has the false sense of security,

Since the ban on handguns, we've yet to have another Dunblain scenario....the US seems to have them quite frequently. I consider that having accomplished quite a bit. I'm not willing to compromise the safety of my nation's children, so a few rednecks can get their jollies from the shiny metal things that go bang.

so your murder rates have gone down have they? what about your violent crime rates? home invasion rates? hmmm?

That's a cop out Bathory, and you know it.

no it isn't a cop out, an accidental death resulting from a firearm is no different a car accident, or a house fire etc Its an accident, and don't give me this 'firearms don't have a purpose crap', if someone can use it for recreational use, be it hunting or a target range it has just as much of a valid use as any of the othe rpointless crap in society which is potentially lethal if misused.

well i crunched some number and worked out that if you were to remove the african american population from the whole population, and then work out the murder rates from there you'd see that the american murder rate works out to be about 0.01% the same as the Uk murder rate. Now what this demonstrates is that there is a major cultural problem centered around the african american community, ie gangs and drugs (please note my numbers are pretty rough, i ended up with 0.004% but figured i'd round up just to cover any minor rounding errors i may have made with previous numbers used to get that figure, this figure should take into account every other ethnicity aside from african american)

want to lower homicide rates in the US? deal with gangs and drugs in the african american community.

The fact that so many people are killed by guns, and yet you people continue to insist that there's no gun problem...it's just flat out worrying.

no whats worrying is that you unable to comprehend that removing guns won't change the rates whatsoever. There is a murder problem, there is a gang problem, there is a drug problem, i'll happily admit it because THESE (well the latter two, murder isn't really a cause so to speak) are the causes, its because of gangs and drugs that there is a highly inflated number, and it is because of gangs and drugs i argue that removing guns won't change anything because murders occuring because of said activities serve a criminal purpose. They aren't random, they are murders that occur to achieve a goal and because of this, guns or no guns they will occur.

635311[/snapback]

What worries me is you actually believe what you are saying and that is extremely disturbing???

Edited May 23, 2005 by XSAS

[bathory]

Insignificant? Your exact word Bathory, when referring the the deaths of school aged children...is "insignificant"..

thats right, it would seem you much prefer to put the value of one innocent life over that of another greater number. Please also note that when i say insignificant i mean statistically insignificant. Don't you even question how they got that number of 3000? thats overall deaths of people 5 - 19

19, doesn't that strike you as somewhat odd they are including 19 year olds under the term children? its a nice way to blow out figures.

Does it terrify you that any children have been shot on school grounds? Doesn't it make you absolutely horrified that school, a place where children should be safe and secure, has been violated by the US' fetish for firearms?

as much as it terrifies me that school children have been stabbed, strangled and beaten to death.

Over here, we had a school shooting...and our immediete reaction was "Children have died here....what can we do to make sure it never happens again?" And so, handguns have been banned and...now here's the real trick...it's never happened again.

it hasn't happened YET. These things AREN'T a common occurance regardless of what the media would make you think, according to those previously stated statistics, 1% of total 'children' homicides due to firearms comes out to about 30, and even then the figure isn't just at school, it takes into account, in school, near a school and on the way to and from school. 30 deaths out of 280 million people is INSIGNIFICANT.

Chances of being struck by lightning in the US? 1 in 600000

Chances of being a student and being shot in a US school? 1 in 1 773 333

yup we should all be terrified.

n the US, the reaction is "well, this is tragic, but what is the life of a few children next to my right to own a gun? I'll defend it to my dying breath!" (ironically, a lot of your countrymen do seem to die thanks to the right to own guns huh.gif), and amazingly enough...it's only a matter of time before it happens again.

In the US the reaction is, We could ban firearms but it would accomplish nothing.

Your constant emotionally charged arguements present little in the way of fact, you offer no solutions beyond a reaction that has been demonstrated numerous times will in do absolutely nothing to alleviate crime. Ban guns and hope the problem goes away, you should look at the ills of the UK to see how this approach isn't working whatsoever.

By banning firearms you leave 100,000+ people out in the dry, these are the people who have used firearms to defend themselves. You are trading the well being of hundreds of thousands of people for a silly emotions based arguement to save the lives of 30 'children' a year.

I find the fact that any human being could call the murder of children in schools "insignificant" nothing short of disturbing.

As it stands, i am the only one here who sees the big picture, you cry about these 30 children, others cry about their 2nd amendment, i take my stance looking at the big picture, my stance is somewhat utilitarian and i make absolutely no apologies for it because I see that there is indeed a greater good that far outweighs the loss of 30 lives. Either way there will be deaths, there is no denying that, I picked the option which will result in the overall least amount because i didn't choose to place more value on the lives of 30 children over that of a far larger number of other people.

So no taking the moral highground thanks because I've already got my flag firmly planted on the peak of the moral mount everest:)

The difference is, no other "recreational" item can claim to inflict the same casualties as guns.

Interesting, do you differentiate between various firearms? eg assault weapons (purely cosmetic btw, no less deadly), rifles, handguns etc?

you do realise stats wise rifles and assault weapons make up for a tiny percentage of homicides with firearms, the vast bulk being from handguns...does that make one form of firearm more valid for recreational use than another?

You do realise that gins were created to kill MORE efficiently..... Why would you want something that was created for the soul purpose of being efficient in causing Death out in the general population in any place?

because if you actually looked at the stats you would see that it doesn't make a difference if guns are floating around in the general population.

What worries me is you actually believe what you are saying and that is extremely disturbing???

what worries me is that you are too lazy to actually research the issue and instead resort to the same old uninformed drivel.

[Seraphina]

First of all, your claim that violent crime in the UK is higher than in the US...that's a figure that seems to be extremely scewered. In fact, there seems to be a great deal of disagreement on that, as some sites quote the US as having a significantly higher rate of assaults and other violent crime over the last couple of years

What certainly cannot be argued with is that the US has a far higher rate of homocide, especially with regards to guns...so, for a moment, let us agree nevertheless that the UK does, in fact, have a higher rate of violent crime than the US, as you love to claim.

....yet it has a lower homocide rate?

So, the country that is, according to you, more violent (and has fewer guns), still has a lower casualty rate resulting from its violent crime. The country that you claim has a lower rate of violent crime (and significantly more guns) has a higher death rate resulting from its violent crime.

Now to me Bathory....this would suggest that the ready availability of guns does in fact lead to more deaths. Apparantly, the UK's knives and cricket bats simple aren't doing as efficient a job as those gun toting nut cases over in the states, despite being more active. By your very own arguement, it seems fairly obvious that removing guns from the equation does, in fact, save lives.

[Subtemperate]

Guns are rarely useful for self-defense. They only

increase the risk of death and injury and create a

false sense of security. A gun kept in the home is 4

times more likely to be involved in an unintentional

shooting, 7 times more likely to be used in a criminal

assault or homicide, and 11 times more likely

to be used to commit or attempt suicide, than to

be used in self-defense.

Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH; et. al. “Injuries and Deaths Due

to Firearms in the Home.” Journal of Trauma 1998 vol. 45 p.263.

Must be good to be that safe....

[Seraphina]

At the end of the day, the only people living in a sense of false security, and burying their head in the sand as far as guns go, are the people who think having guns makes their lives safer. Clearly, it doesn't.

[bathory]

First of all, your claim that violent crime in the UK is higher than in the US...that's a figure that seems to be extremely scewered. In fact, there seems to be a great deal of disagreement on that, as some sites quote the US as having a significantly higher rate of assaults and other violent crime over the last couple of years

yup it would seem that the US assaults rate has gone up (or the British assault rate has gone down, i'm thinking the former), my bad.

So, the country that is, according to you, more violent (and has fewer guns), still has a lower casualty rate resulting from its violent crime. The country that you claim has a lower rate of violent crime (and significantly more guns) has a higher death rate resulting from its violent crime.

I'm not making a comparison of the US and the UK, i'm trying to demonstrate the effect of banning firearms within that society. If i wanted to make a comparison between countries with firearms and those without i'd have picked Canada and compared it with the UK, would it have been wrong of me to do so? you betcha, just as it is for you to draw a comparison between the UK and the US.

What you are doing is saying, hey look at the UK murder rates, how sexy and low they are, what i'm saying is that UK has always had low murder rates, and is so completely different socially and culturally, hell even geographically that your attempt to draw a comparison is simply invalid.

Must be good to be that safe....

do you have a link to the whole article? i would like to see how he worked that out, eg what constituted as self-defense etc

and where said guns purchased for the purposes for self defence?

things are quite a bit more complicated than your neat little quote would indicate.

[Seraphina]

Bathory, what I have in fact demonstrated is that violent crime without the benefits of guns fails to inflict the same casualties as it does with them. A gun makes if far easier to kill, and it apparantly makes it far less likely that the victim will survive.

What you have done is sidestep this issue. After spending some time using the comparrison between the UK's crime rates (a country with very few guns), and the US' crime rates (a country that seems to have been built on guns) as the cornerstone of your arguement, you are now accusing me of staging an invalid arguement by doing the exact same thing

[bathory]

ok, i had a whole rant written but i figured i'd be short and concise.

There is NO correlation between gun ownership and homicide rates. That is why I say you cannot compare the UK with the US.

Want proof?

Check out the gun ownership stats from countries such as canada, switzerland, finland, sweden etc and then look at their homicide rates, thats what makes your comparison invalid. (Please note these countries have significantly high numbers of gun ownership, or at least did at the time the stats i'm looking at were taken, they all have homicide rates comparible to that of the UK, yes i know i'm making a comparison, but its valid because i'm addressing an issue you brought up and not using the comparison to try and create a correlation between ownership and homicides)

yay me

Has a nice table AND has it nicely referenced too

[SnakeProphet]

Weapons have no use in society?One of the reasons a society can even exist are weapons.Humans have no natural weapons which makes them extremely vulnerable to natural predators.And without weapons,they wouldn t be able to hunt=no meat.And without meat (propably) no intelligence.I can see though,why you think they have no use in society today.

Guns are weapons,not tools?A knife,which is the most used weapon right after guns, is a tool, right?So why don t you ban knives and use non-dangerous tools for cutting?With the technology available today,I m sure there are many ways.The problem is,they are expensive.Why spend money on such things if you can simply use a knife, right?I m not comparing knives with guns.But banning knives would make access to them harder.A knife makes if far easier to kill, and it apparently makes it far less likely that the victim will survive.

At the end of the day, the only people living in a sense of false security, and burying their head in the sand as far as guns go, are the people who think having guns makes their lives safer. Clearly, it doesn't.

Of course, it doesn t.But do you really think by banning guns you would make them realize this?If you take a gun away from a psycho ,he still will be a psycho.But it apparently it doesn t matter , since he is not dangerous,because he doesn t have a gun.So a bunch of psychos running around in your neighborhood does make you feel safer?Again , it is a problem of society.Instead of dealing with guns you should deal with the psychos.

I think I don t exaggerate if I say america is one of the countries with the most psychos around.

[Celumnaz]

rampant hoplophobia. I'm just afraid that if I link all the quotes in this thread that prove it, it might break the quote feature for that post as it sometimes does to my long quote posts.

[Seraphina]

One of the reasons a society can even exist are weapons.Humans have no natural weapons which makes them extremely vulnerable to natural predators.And without weapons,they wouldn t be able to hunt=no meat.And without meat (propably) no intelligence.I can see though,why you think they have no use in society today.

The emphasis there is, most certainly, on "society today". It has been a very long time indeed since any industrialised country has had any need whatsoever to support its population by hunting and foraging....the arguement is so utterly irrelevent, I can't even understand why you bothered bringing it up.

For that matter, even if there WAS a need for members of the community to go out and hunt for some food....that would still not justify the overwhelming number of handguns currently in circulation in the united states.

Guns are weapons,not tools?A knife,which is the most used weapon right after guns, is a tool, right?So why don t you ban knives and use non-dangerous tools for cutting?

This exact same arguement was raised elsewhere, and the simple answer is because it's not practical. Knives are used in anything from food preparation to consumption, and perform functions far more fundamental than a gun...nor do they inflict anything like the casualties (for that matter, a lone thug with a gun is far far more dangerous than several armed with knives). Guns are utterly without peer in the number of deaths they cause, and in their lack of other function.

"I can use them to shoot stuff!"

...right...good for you...

If you take a gun away from a psycho ,he still will be a psycho.

Of course he will. But you will also have prevented the terrifying number of accidental deaths caused by guns, and the occassional self empowered idiot who shoots someone in a rage. The fact that America has this "oh, it won't make any difference. We'll just keep shooting stuff up" attitude to guns is simply alarming.

So a bunch of psychos running around in your neighborhood does make you feel safer?

Well...hypothetically speaking, I'd certainly feel a damn sight safer knowing I don't live in a country that gives them a gun

Now, Bathory, your article...

Gun control opponents can play similar games. The Swiss with 7 million people have hundreds of thousands of fully-automatic rifles in their homes (see GunCite's "Swiss Gun Laws") and the Israelis, until recently, have had easy access to guns (brief summary of Israeli firearms regulations here). Both countries have low homicide rates. Likewise this doesn't mean more guns less crime.

The key difference: Every single individual in those countries is expected to serve a term in the military...in fact, they are required to do so. The gun is treated not with the same terrifying levity as the US ("It's just a recreational item"), but people are trained in its uses, and how to use them safetly...by that mere fact alone, they have already managed to place far better restrictions on who in their country has access to guns than the US has ever attempted to do.

However, for the sake of arguement, I'm just going to pause for a moment to nurse my headache, because this is getting ridiculous...if it is a problem with society...if there is something fundamentally wrong in American culture that just makes them more obsessed with killing each other than the rest of the industrialised world...

When the hell does that become an excuse to toss the most efficient weapons we have available right into their lap!?

Can you honestly not see how much that obviously inflames a bad situation? Can you honest to god not see that giving a violent person a gun makes him significantly more dangerous than if he didn't have access to one in the first place? Are you such a statistic quoting robot that you don't even stop and think about the huge logic void that is the American gun culture?

rampant hoplophobia

Celumnaz, a "phobia" implies an irrational fear of something. I can assure you there is nothing irrational about feeling that society would benefit from tighter restrictions on guns (at the very least).

I consider the fact that even some people who I otherwise consider very rational and intelligent people turn into raving lunatics when it comes to guns...spouting every arguement from "I need my guns to protect me from the government" (Because obviously a bunch of civilians are going to be able to fight off an air strike from the military if, for some reason, the government decided to level the country) to "I need them to defend my home!"....would you honestly have the same need for a gun to defend your home if every criminal on the street wasn't able to easily get a hold of one?

The way America loves it guns is mindless, unthinking, and shows a frightening lack of compassion for the millions of lives that have been lost because of them

[GoddessWhispers]

Right before Parliament disarmed law abiding citizens of GB, for the first time in their history Bobbies (police) were armed! That in and of itself should have served as a warning to the citizens of GB.

Now that the officials are packing, the citizens have something else to fear;

May 20th Article *Link*

Excerpt: (sic)..."The increasing use of imitation firearms by teenagers has created the risk that police will shoot a youngster "in the not too distant future", a police chief said yesterday."

The toughest anti-gun laws in the western world were established by Great Britain in 1996. Prior to that over 54 thousand citizens owned firearms! And now they have one of the highest crime rates in the western world. Even their olympic pistol team members were forced to travel to other countries to practice with a firearm after the ban!

What then does a British citizen do in the face of an armed assailant?

Answer: Anything they tell you to!

Now America can ask their cousins across the pond the same thing we've asked about our corrupt, ill-brained political process; "Did you vote for this!?" Perhaps a British citizen could ask that question of one of your Parliament members, if they were able to get past that unarmed member of British security, that is!

God save the queen.

And give her bodyguard a 9 millimeter!

What a country!

*broken link edit*

Edited May 24, 2005 by GoddessWhispers

[Seraphina]

GoddessWhispers, I think you'll find that your country is producing far more "cold dead bodies" already than ours is

[GoddessWhispers]

Firearms Offences chart Great Britain

U.S. Bureau of Justice firearms crime tables

Perhaps, but then again we the people of the united states are able to fire back at our assailants!

And per the first link table, (above), GB is certainly catching up in other ways and means of violence! And that would be a reference to violent criminals attacking law abiding and unarmed citizens of GB, btw!

[Seraphina]

Yes, you're able to shoot back...that's excellent....of course, you wouldn't be in anything like as much danger if you weren't being attacked by someone with a gun, would you?

On your table, you'll notice a vast majority of the listed offenses involve air rifles, which aren't currently illegal in this country. Although I think there was a move to ban them that's sort of in limbo at the moment.

On gun issues, people just....open their mouths....and out comes crap

[SnakeProphet]

I m not trying to argue that giving guns to psychos is a good thing.Of course it is not.But by banning you will still have those psychos around.If you deal with them,there will be no need for banning guns in the first place.It certainly is a problem of society.You just have to look at freaks like KKK,drug gangs,etc and you will realize that america has massive problems.

[bathory]

The key difference: Every single individual in those countries is expected to serve a term in the military...in fact, they are required to do so. The gun is treated not with the same terrifying levity as the US ("It's just a recreational item"), but people are trained in its uses, and how to use them safetly...by that mere fact alone, they have already managed to place far better restrictions on who in their country has access to guns than the US has ever attempted to do.

canada? australia? new zealand? want to cherry pick any more?

with relatively high rate of gun ownership in said countries you'd think they'd have muder rates that were higher thn that of weaponless societies.

there is no correlation, you cannot say otherwise

However, for the sake of arguement, I'm just going to pause for a moment to nurse my headache, because this is getting ridiculous...if it is a problem with society...if there is something fundamentally wrong in American culture that just makes them more obsessed with killing each other than the rest of the industrialised world.

13% of the american population is suffering from 48% of homicides....It is a a social problem.

When the hell does that become an excuse to toss the most efficient weapons we have available right into their lap!?

because as i've said numerous times, as i've demonstrated numerous times, banning firearms doesn't lower overall rates. The UK experience, the Australian experience hell pick any country that has done something similar, shows that there will not be a reduction in overall murders because unfortunately, regardless of what you have said, a knife can be pretty lethal too.