posted by closettrekkie

Sorry Donny, I like the ability to be able to defend myself against people who may try to harm me or my family. Not to mention the fact that should things get tough, it's nice to know we can always hunt for our food. [Edited by Don W]

You are not living in Astoria, Oregon, Mr. C/T. While Lewis and Clark built Ft. Clatsop nearby, in 1805, even they did not have to defend themselves from the natives. You must be in 2 dream worlds at one time, perhaps proof there are more than 4 dimensions after all?

Seriously, do you stay home all the time? Or are your children at school, vulnerable to monsters young and old? Not much good will your .44 Blackhawk Magnum do you. Or them. Yes, you can shoot a hole through a concrete block wall, but how can you be sure who you will hit on the other side? As for feeding your family in downtown Los Angeles or Houston, yeah, maybe for a day or so and especially if you don’t mind having rats for supper. No, Mr C/T, I hate to awaken you, but those reasons don’t wash.



[edit on 10/4/2006 by donwhite]

Don, let us suppose that guns do kill people. Let us suppose this because it is undeniably true. There is exception to be taken with any claim that only guns kill people, that guns motivate killing, or that people will stop being killed if guns are taken away, but it is undeniable that some people cease to live because a gun sends a projectile through one of their vital organs.

If the problem is “guns kill people”, then the obvious question is “how do we prevent guns from killing people” (leaving aside the broader problem, that people are killed at all). You skipped this step and went right to how do we convince America to give up the guns without questioning whether that was the best way to solve the problem.

Let’s look at what guns are. Sporting equipment and in many cases, inactive security items (that is to say, things which make us feel safer but, on average, are never used).

This would make them comparable to swimming pools and block walls. People drown in swimming pools and crash into block walls on a fairly regular basis. Swimming pools, last I heard, kill more children than guns. How do we stop swimming pools from killing people? We separate them from potential victims (child-proof fencing). How do we stop block walls from killing people? We deter the people whose actions make it possible (drunk drivers in large part).

I believe that these are measures we may be wise to consider when it comes to guns, for precisely the same reason that I don’t advocate banning swimming pools and block walls: it will never happen. It’s a simple matter of practicality.

So, how do we go about keeping guns away from offenders and victims? That starts with where the offenders are getting their guns. The answer is theft. This presents a very workable solution. Make it easier to track down a stolen gun. You’d probably do it the same way that your cellular provider already spies on you. You just imbed a numbered GPS chip into an integral component of the weapon, and stolen guns can be located at the punch of a button.

That leaves legally obtained guns, guns not reported stolen, old guns, and smuggled guns. Smuggled guns aren’t a disadvantage over the “ban guns” idea anyway. Legally obtained guns, already a small share of the gun crime market, will shrink further because it will be possible to know whose legally obtained gun was at the scene of the crime. Guns not reported stolen… would you fail to report under those circumstances???

That brings us to old guns. This is a nearly intractable problem in any event. We’ve got more guns than people in America, and there is no sure way to find and confiscate unregistered guns… the rash of reported gun thefts (mostly false I’m sure) in the wake of any legislation would only enhance the problem. It’s a problem that must be addressed though, because guns last a long time. Shore it up from the ammunition side. Only registered gun owners can buy ammo, and only for calibers they are registered owners of. Wholesales, retails, and individual purchased are data-based for computer analysis to prevent black marketing. You use that to force registration and you impose a graduated tax on older guns that increases annually, thus forcing gun owners to begin socking back the cash to buy a new, traceable gun.

With the same technology in place you can establish “rapid reaction zones” around schools, gang-turf, etc where the detection of a gun results in an automatic 911 response.


The buyback I’m not such a huge fan of, reason being that criminals aren’t going to sell their guns. You’re going to buy back 22 billion dollars worth of iron and barely stop a single murder. I just took Freakonomics back to the library so I’ll have to get it back out and look up the source for you, but if I recall correctly, the numbers showed that a very successful buyback in a city such as Los Angeles would be statistically likely to prevent 1/10th of 1 murder that year.

Guns are still available to be stolen and guns are still in the hands of criminals. Nothing is solved.


Here’s one last thing to ponder. Suppose that you had a magic wand that could defeat all practicality and simply take all of the guns away. Would gun crime shift to other weapons? You can’t use Japan or really any other country as an apples to apples comparison because economics and society are going to skew everything. You have to recreate the condition of the American criminal in a gun-free environment to see if gun control would work. The obvious place to start is the American prison system. The American prison system does a wonderful job of demonstrating that America’s violent criminals will keep committing violent crimes when you take their guns away.

So, whichever way we go about stopping guns from killing people, we eventually have to pick back up the broader question of how to stop people from being killed. That opens up a whole other thread (a very long one) about drug markets, education reform, and why the suicide rate in Japan is so high. Suffice it to say that I believe that if we addressed some of the other problems facing us today, we’d find violence to by a symptom of social problems, not of gun problems, and it could be resolved indirectly. Consider the fact that a very strong negative correlation between abortion rates and crime rates has been observed (again I’ll have to get that book back because I don’t recall his sources chapter and verse, but I the logic was sound). When taking that in the context of the social problems that generally correlate to the decision to abort pregnancy, it seems reasonable to infer that fewer young people faced with certain social problems should most likely result in a significant reduction in crime (particularly homicides, which fell faster than any other crime about 20 years after Roe v Wade).


In so many words: gun control means must be carefully chosen, and must be recognized as a treatment of symptoms, not underlying causes. Gun control alone, even if strict enough to be tremendously successful, leaves us with a population of uniquely hostile temperament who harbor the will to break the law and destroy one another whenever they are upset or see a chance to profit. Is that where you want to live? Do you want daily life in this country to resemble a bad day in the Nixon White House?

posted by The Vagabond

Don, suppose guns do kill people. Let us suppose this because it is undeniably true. There is exception to be taken with any claim that only guns kill people, that guns motivate killing, or that people will stop being killed if guns are taken away, but it is undeniable that some people cease to live because a gun sends a projectile through one of their vital organs.
[Edited by Don W]

You started great Vag, but you grew weak! Then you took exception, and ended saying it was a problem of technology. That is, of putting projectiles into people’s organs. That’s a diversion from the issue of guns intrinsically. I know a gun is an inanimate object. The problem is we have too many of them too easily accessible to too many people who do not need to have guns. We made this mess over the years. Now what do we do about it?

You skipped this step and went right to how do we convince America to give up the guns without questioning whether that was the best way to solve the problem . . guns are Sporting equipment . . “

Just pretend for a moment that every gun is a live hand grenade. Or you live in a poor country loaded with land mines. You can have all kinds of proposals, but the only one that will work is removal.

“ . . how do we go about keeping guns away from offenders and victims? . . where the offenders are getting their guns. The answer is theft. This presents a very workable solution. Make it easier to track down a stolen gun. You just embed a numbered GPS chip into an integral component of the weapon, and stolen guns can be located at the punch of a button.

I’d go for that but that’s also a diversion. There are 280 million hand guns in the Untied States. Can we stick with the problem. Future guns may or may not be safer. There should be a whole heck of a lot fewer guns offered for sale in America. Very few. Maybe like a 10 years waiting list. Get your name on the list by lottery. Pay in advance. And etc.

Legally obtained guns are a small share of the gun crime market, will shrink further because it will be possible to know whose legally obtained gun was at the scene of the crime. Guns not reported stolen . . would you fail to report under those circumstances?

I have no idea how many guns are stolen, nor how many are reported each year. I’d guess we’re adding 150,000 to 500,000 guns a year to the illegal gun inventory. Now, if you can file off the serial number, maybe you can disable the GPS or RFID chips? Knowing who the gun was stolen from is not of much value after the fact. The more legal guns out there, the more that will be stolen.

That brings us to old guns. This is a nearly intractable problem in any event. We’ve got more guns than people in America, and there is no sure way to find and confiscate unregistered guns . . “

Don’t give up before you start, Vag. Let’s assume most people are law abiding and will register their guns if the Congress enacts a law asking them to do so. Once upon a time, Congress asked people to turn in their gold, and they did. Almost to a man. That was because the people saw it was a way to make economic progress. (And the new turn-in price of $35 an ounce was nearly double the former prices of $20.)

“ . . the rash of reported gun thefts (mostly false I’m sure) in the wake of any legislation would only enhance the problem. It’s a problem that must be addressed though, because guns last a long time . . “

A personal anecdote. In 1970, my car was stolen from a parking garage at my place of employment in Louisville, Ky. I had a .22 Ruger Standard under the drivers seat. My car was recovered a couple weeks later at a garage in New Albany, Indiana, just across the Ohio River. The gun was not there. Last year, just for the curiosity of it, I wrote the Louisville PD about my gun, and asked if it was in the NCIC as stolen. They wrote back “No,” that was before the NCIC. I wrote back and gave them the serial number and asked them to post it in the NCIC. I hope they did.

Shore it up from the ammunition side. Only registered gun owners can buy ammo, and only for calibers they are registered owners of. Wholesales, retails, and individual purchased are data-based for computer analysis to prevent black marketing. You use that to force registration and you impose a graduated tax on older guns that increases annually, thus forcing gun owners to begin socking back the cash to buy a new, traceable gun. With the same technology in place you can establish “rapid reaction zones” around schools, gang-turf, etc where the detection of a gun results in an automatic 911 response.

Very excellent ideas. Now we must get our “Leaders” to appropriate the money and maybe delay the GHW Bush a couple years?

Here’s one last thing to ponder. Suppose that you had a magic wand that could defeat all practicality and simply take all of the guns away. The American prison system does a wonderful job of demonstrating that America’s violent criminals will keep committing violent crimes when you take their guns away.

Don’t start me. The American prison system is abominable. A disgrace to any nation that even claims to be a Christian nation, which I don't. The system is over crowded, under staffed, and has no objective but confinement. Americans themselves are hateful toward prisoners and ignore or condone harsh and inhumane conditions and treatment. Which sometimes backfires on them when one gets out and vents his pent up rage on them. Short sighted. Try getting a job if you are an ex-con. You never get a second chance in America.

Prisoners are like children, they are totally dependant on their keepers. The state ought to have to pay the heirs of a person killed in prison $10 million. No questions asked. He dies, they pay. That would get the public’s attention. I don’t think anything less will.

So, whichever way we go about stopping guns from killing people, we eventually have to pick back up the broader question of how to stop people from being killed.

No. Gun control is not about ending evil. This is about dealing responsibly with 280 million firearms on the loose in one country. If we can get a handle on that, then maybe we’ll take on the Adam and Eve and Original Sin thing and so on. One job at a time.



[edit on 10/4/2006 by donwhite]

You have voted The Vagabond for the Way Above Top Secret award.

Your latest post on this thread should be saved as the "final word" on this subject and then just printed and/or posted again whenever someone tries to bring up the anti-gun issue again.

Also, I wonder how many of these people that are in favor of taking away our 2nd amendment right to bear arms are the very same people that are accusing the current administration of taking away their rights? Being members of both of the groups I just mentioned would be sure to qualify those people to have their photo placed in the dictionary next to the word "hypocrite".

[edit on 10/4/2006 by centurion1211]

posted by centurion1211

You have voted The Vagabond for the Way Above Top Secret award.

Your latest post on this thread should be saved as the "final word" on this subject and then just printed and/or posted again whenever someone tries to bring up the anti-gun issue again. [Edited by Don W]

I'm glad you're sad the Supreme Court does not regard the 2nd Amendment as immune to laws both state and Federal. That's an urban myth.

Once again its further proof that allowing normal citizens to activley purchase and stock semi/auto weapons isnt the 'proper' stance.

All you 2nd ammendmant loving people out there clearly do not understand that the CON's for this argument clearly OUTWEIGH the PRO's

If your so damn willing to continue having your guns..
then expect more and mroe attrocities such as this to continue.

because your society is slowly killing all moral and decent values that mankind thrives on,

thus... people find reason and contempt in walking into a school, and executing multiple young female students.

just sickening.

Originally posted by donwhite

Five More children were killed yesterday by firearms. Not with clubs. Not with sticks. Not with knives. But by hand guns. Isn't it about time we looked at this dangerous condition we find ourselves so deep into, or do we keep putting off facing real life with the oh so cute, oh so trite “guns don’t kill, people do” kind of illogic?

Guns don't kill children. People kill children.

That same gun might full well be why your child is returned safely to you someday.

I find it very interesting that in each of the 3 recent attacks on schoolchildren, there is one common denomitator: each of the gunman committed suicide before they could apprehend them.

Strange..

What if these people were brainwashed or being blackmailed into committing these atrocities? I think that is a real possibility. And I know it sounds crazy.

Look at the headlines, though, from the last week. Foleygate is dominating the news. Then there's that pesky book by Woodward, "State of Denial." This has been an horrific week for the Republican party.

I hate to say this, but it would not surprise me in the least if I learned that Republican operatives were behind this string of ghastly child-crimes. To take attention away from the perv scandal in DC.

posted by Agit8dChop

“ . . its further proof that allowing normal citizens to actively purchase and stock semi [and full] auto weapons isn’t the 'proper' stance. All you 2nd amendment loving people out there clearly do not understand that the CON's for this argument clearly OUTWEIGH the PRO's . . If you’re so dam willing to continue having your guns.. then expect more and more atrocities such as this to continue . . because your society is slowly killing all moral values that mankind thrives on, thus . . people find reason in walking into a school and executing multiple young female students. Just sickening. [Edited by Don W]

Frankly, it is purely a commercial task for the manufacturers. Their object ti so sell more guns. Period. The Republicans have passed a law shielding the gun manufacturers from legal liability in cases of mis-use of firearms. What does that tell you? What kind of “moral value” is that?



[edit on 10/4/2006 by donwhite]

One that is trickling through the system and making american politics and greed everything that humanity hates.

The biggest and most important factor laws miss, is the law of COMMON SENSE.
That aspect is seemingly overshadowed by Greed, and power.



[edit on 4-10-2006 by Agit8dChop]

We place some blame on a series of objects that can only be caused to do any function by a third-party. It's human nature, I suppose to try to find other causes to horrible events. "There has to be more..," some would say. Interestingly, there is a 100% correlation between all criminals: they all have some amount of water in their body; this is a much bigger correlation than crimes to guns. Granted, all criminals must have some amount of water in their bodies in order to have the ability to commit these crimes. The obvious solution is the ban, or restrict all intake of water.

On second thought, it's not the gun's fault that the receiver of its bullet died. The bullet is what caused the damage. Obviously, the bullet killed the little children. But the bullet was just fired in a straight line. It can't change its course; it's the child's fault that it was in the way. You know, if we banned children, we wouldn't have this problem.

You could say it wasn't the child's fault; it was the bullet that hit her. It wasn't the bullet's fault, it was the gun that fired it. It wasn't the gun's fault, it was the person who shot the gun. In either direction we go (in this example, anyway), the gun is the intermediate in the chain of fault, not the end. While I suppose it is possible that guns have a magical aura that causes their users to be a bit more violent, or that bullets intentionally chase their victims, I don't exactly have that much faith in magic. (Call me supernaturally biased, I suppose..)

The denial of personal responsibility is rampant - and maybe that is just a U.S. problem.

Originally posted by donwhite
[
I'm glad you're sad the Supreme Court does not regard the 2nd Amendment as immune to laws both state and Federal. That's an urban myth.

Gee, I'd be happy to respond if only I could understand what you were trying to say. Please correct logic and spelling and try again.

While you're working on that, a read of the posts by vagabond and radardog, among many others, should have pointed out to everyone that donwhite's anti-gun position is nothing more than an attempt at a "feel good solution" with no logic behind it and without the forward thinking required to actually understand the issue. Radardog's post that logically pointed out that guns are really just the "middleman" in the entire sequence of events was most telling, don't you all think?

I'm a bit torn on this subject... but I keep thinking about how if there were NO guns in the US, there'd be fewer deaths. If someone went crazy and felt the urge to kill, sure they could get a knife or an axe, but their ability to inflict damage vs. multiple people in a short amount of time has been greatly reduced. Plus it's simply a lot easier to outrun a knife (unless it's thrown). It's also easier to take down someone with a knife.

If it were up to me, I'd allow NON-LETHAL GUNS for self-protection. Come on, bullets are primitive. We are more advanced and can use something more humane like a tranquilizer or stun gun. Sure our current forms of non-lethal protection aren't that great, but that's only because there isn't a huge demand for it.

Originally posted by Kruel
I'm a bit torn on this subject... but I keep thinking about how if there were NO guns in the US, there'd be fewer deaths.

If it were up to me, I'd allow NON-LETHAL GUNS for self-protection.

Well, that still leaves the unsolvable problem of how do you take away the (primitive - lol) guns from everyone, not just the law abiding owners.

You see, until that can be solved, the rest of the issue is moot. Just ask the countries that have tried it and where, right now, only the criminals have guns - and the criminals know it.

posted by Odium

“ . . if weapons were locked away, kept out of reach, bullets and the weapons separated from one another the rate of injury would decline sharply. [Edited by Don W]

originally posted by donwhite

Why don’t we require that as part of the privilege of gun ownership?

Gun ownership is a right, not a privilege.

Driving a car is a privilege.

You posting here is a privilege.

This will always be a difficult issue with many opinions.

Why do people always say "take the guns away from the looney ones"? Any gunowner on this forum could suddenly flip and have a bad day, thats when it gets dangerous, you then have a weapon that is great for killing people in your hands during your bad day.

Then again, as has been said millions of times before, people flip and go on the rampage with knives, swords, bits of wood...whatever they can get thier hands on.

CX.

Why are nukes so bad? After all you could just use a lesser type of bomb. Either way people get killed right? People kill people, not nukes.

Compared to knives, guns are WMDs.

Originally posted by donwhite
Just pretend for a moment that every gun is a live hand grenade. Or you live in a poor country loaded with land mines. You can have all kinds of proposals, but the only one that will work is removal.

False analogy.
A landmine is single use, a firearm is dual use. The primary effect of comparing guns to landmines is not to highlight the necessities of preventing their violent use, but to emphasize the potential for violent use.
There is no illumination of the necessary sollution to the gun problem through the landmine analogy because a planted landmine is a weapon in use, wereas a gun in someone's closet is a not. If every gun in America were pointed at someone right now, your analogy might mean more.

I’d go for that (tracking devices in guns) but that’s also a diversion. There are 280 million hand guns in the Untied States. Can we stick with the problem.

(parenthetical mine)

That is the very crux of our disagreement. You believe that 280 million hand guns in the United States is the problem. I believe that the use of only a fraction of those guns to victimize innocent people is the problem. Unless you are claiming that guns are unlucky, or are inviting God's wrath, then your statement of the problem necessarily excuses those who use guns for criminal purposes by suggesting that guns not used for criminal purposes are equally harmful, thus leaving no balance of harm to be attributed to the person who pulls the trigger.

"People don't kill people, guns do," seems to be your mantra. Of course the fact of the matter is that criminals with guns kill people, and sometimes criminals without guns kill people, but VERY VERY rarely does a gun kill anyone without the aid of either a criminal or a moron. So where is the preponderance of the danger, and therefore what should we strive hardest to defeat?

Forcing the assumption that you can only battle gun crime by battling all 280 million guns essentially proposes that this thread be a referendum on your point of view rather than a serious consideration of a tangible problem- the very tangible problem which you cited in starting this thread: shooting deaths.

So, whichever way we go about stopping guns from killing people, we eventually have to pick back up the broader question of how to stop people from being killed.

No. Gun control is not about ending evil. This is about dealing responsibly with 280 million firearms on the loose in one country.

Why? Why do the guns need to be dealt with responsibly? SO THEY WON'T KILL PEOPLE, right? Afterall, you're not talking about responsibly dealing with marshmallows, because those don't normally kill people. Evil is not the issue and it is deceptive to try and describe my position in that way. The ultimate question here is not just "how do we get rid of the guns so that there won't be guns" but "how do we deal with the guns so that people won't get shot".

Point blank, yes or no, is the final objective for fewer people to get shot?

Or do you just dislike the existence of guns on an abstract level because it's trendy?

Maybe like a 10 years waiting list. Get your name on the list by lottery. Pay in advance. And etc.

I would expect the NRA to advocate the random distribution of deadly weapons, but I never thought I'd hear the words "gun lottery" from anyone who was seriously concerned with saving lives.

posted by The Vagabond

False analogy. A landmine is single use, a firearm is dual use . . because a planted landmine is a weapon in use, whereas a gun in someone's closet is a not. [Edited by Don W]

OK, I’ll agree my analogy was not good.

That is the crux of our disagreement. You believe that 280 million hand guns in the United States is the problem. I believe that the use of only a fraction of those guns to victimize innocent people is the problem.

I’d say that is pretty well put. I’m not sure the 280 million is hand guns, it is more likely firearms.

Point blank, yes or no, is the final objective for fewer people to get shot?
Or do you just dislike the existence of guns on an abstract level because it's trendy?

PB - Yes.

Am I being trendy? I’m not sure, but here is my position. The more guns you have out there, the more 1) that will be stolen, and the more 2) times a gun will be used in a sudden heat of passion or 3) by an unpredictable rampage, or 4) in an accident.

The gun problem is lethality. 3 people out of 10 who get shot die. Nothing else comes close. We have allowed so many guns in the US that guns deaths have reached unacceptable levels. None of the children who died last week would have died but for guns.