But Guns Do Kill Children!

posted by Ghost01

posted by donwhite
" . . the unnecessary deaths of up to 10,000 people a year to be a significant social problem.

I agree, 10,000 deaths a year is a problem. My point was that people are very unlikely to give up a basic right granted by the Constitution.

Tim

“ . . a basic right . . granted . . the Constitution?“ Isn't it strange? Look at the Patriot Act. We have enthusiastically given up our 1) Right of Privacy - no eavesdropping; 2) Right not to be illegally searched or property seized; 3) Right to know the charges against you, to confront the witnesses against you, to have a speedy trial in the place where the crime was allege to have been committed; 4) Right not to be indefinitely detained in secret after a secret designation as an “enemy combatant;” 5) Right to counsel which must of necessity include the right of the lawyer to see all the evidence to be used against you; 6) No Ex Post Facto laws. If it ain’t a crime when it happened, you cannot make it one after the fact.

Who is bitching? Conservative gun-busters? Or us liberals who want to see even the meanest accused person get a fair trial? Why is that?

Did you know our Constitution has 2 categories of protected rights? One set relates to “citizens” only and the other set relates to “persons” which includes all of God’s chillun’s.


[edit on 11/19/2006 by donwhite]

Fair enough! maybe I was wrong about people not wanting to give up their rights!
Well, I still want to get up tommarrow and know MY rights are still there!

Tim

The problem I have with that is, while I've never even touched a real gun IRL and I have no need to own a gun, it would be wrong to ban guns from the people who have never hurt anyone with them. Think about that. You hear about all the gun crimes in the news but do you ever hear about the responsible gun owners? No, because thats not news. Well actually, to some people it would be.

But thats the point, really. Its just that things involving guns in general get more attention than other cases that involved a knife or other type of weapon, so it seems that they are the predominant murder weapon in the US but their not.

Once I must reiterate is it right to take guns away from EVERYONE when alot of the gun owners never shot ANY innocent people?

posted by Kacen

“ . . (1) It would be wrong to ban guns from people who have never hurt anyone with them. (2) It’s just that things [crimes, not “things”] involving guns get more attention than cases that involve a knife or other type of weapon, so it seems they [guns] are the predominant murder weapon in the US but they are not . . (3) is it right to take guns away from EVERYONE when a lot of the gun owners never shot ANY innocent people? [Edited by Don W]

1) Banning guns has not been proposed. That false claim is an NRA strategy to de-fang the legitimate concerns about firearms. A diversion.
2) Wrong. We are talking about homicides. The unlawful taking of a human life. Without having the numbers before me, I’ve been around long enough to sense that 80% of all US homicide victims die by gunshot. Knives are no doubt #2 but trail far behind guns. Clubs of all sorts would be #3. Pummeling to death by fist and strangulation are less frequent than any of the 3 above. Poisoning is probably in there somewhere, but it is usually a method of choice by angry wives.
3) This is another diversionary argument, a calculated distraction. Whether it is raised here for that purpose, or merely by misapprehension of the issues, shall not be further remarked upon by me. To accept this patently incomplete approach to the “guns homicide” issue, is to put beyond reach 279 million of the 280 million guns in America which is a reducio ad absurdum argument.

Can we possibly have a suggestion on how to deal with those guns? I recommend the gun club solution. Every gun is deposited in a safe place, operated by a gun club. Financed by the gun owners. Annual fees per gun. Staffed by volunteers. Open from 7 AM to 7 PM. Seven days. Check out your gun or guns, but put them back by 7 PM. Overnight? Why? Form a "gun anti violence" committee of 3 or 4 mature, civil-minded people, let them rule on your overnight request. Allow you 1 overnight-er a year for good cause shown. Vacations? Hunting trips? Yes, on your approved request including who what where and when.



[edit on 11/19/2006 by donwhite]

posted by Ghost01

Maybe I was wrong about people not wanting to give up their rights! Well, I still want to get up tomorrow and know MY rights are still there! Tim [Edited by Don W]

That is why I support the ACLU. They try to protect everyone’s rights. Our rights. Even those people - especially those people - who are not popular with the public. MY rights are no better than the rights of any person accused of a crime. No better. It is scary to hear people express a willingness to see an unpopular person maltreated. Rights-wise.

I was in the USAF when Senator Joe McCarthy did that to 1000s of people. I protested, but all too many did not. All too many. We are all too good at “profiling.” First it was Americans of Japanese descent, then African Americans, today it is people of Latino descent or it is Middle Eastern people. Will we ever learn? Can we ever learn? Stereotyping. Profiling. Two sides of the same coin.



[edit on 11/20/2006 by donwhite]

Originally posted by donwhite
2.) Wrong. We are talking about homicides. The unlawful taking of a human life. Without having the numbers before me, I’ve been around long enough to sense that 80% of all US homicide victims die by gunshot.
[edit on 11/19/2006 by donwhite]

Very well put!

Now, the Key word in the definition of Homicide is UNLAWFUL. The people committing muder are already Breaking the law by taking another person's life.

What make you think they will obay the law on the ownership of a gun, if they can't even fallow the law that sais they don't have the right to kill another person?

Sorry, but the argument that gun control will prevent murders is funimentally flawed.

Tim

posted by Ghost01

“ . . the key word in homicide is UNLAWFUL . . people committing murder are breaking the law by taking another person's life. What make you think they will obey the law on the ownership of a gun, if they can't even fallow the law that says they don't have the right to kill another person? Sorry, but the argument that gun control will prevent murders is fundamentally flawed. Tim [Edited by Don W]

I believe the claim - “lawbreakers will not be deterred by gun control” - is called “intuitive.” That is, the claim is not based on any scientific study, but it “seems” to be correct. It sounds good. This is another NRA diversion to avoid the real issues related to guns and death.

Guns raise two specific issues: 1) Lethality. 2) Availability.

1) Of all people seeking medical attention, the number who die due to gunshot wounds is between 26% and 30%, which varies from year to year. OTOH, the number of people who die of “all other accidents” requiring medical attention, is less than 1/10th of 1%. This is the measure of the lethality of guns. Not surprising. Guns are designed to kill. Guns have no other reason to exist but to kill living things, all to often humans. That is not true of knives, which are used by all of us to prepare food, to make things and as a handy utility instrument. Ball bats are made to hit balls. 2 X 4s are made to build things. But guns are made to kill things. That puts guns in a category of 1.

2) Some estimate there are 80 million Americans owning 280 million guns. Every year, several 10s of 1000s of guns are stolen from houses, cars and places of business. These enter the “street” market of illicit sales from one wrong-doer to another wrong-doer. All too often otherwise innocent people are the victims of these illicit guns. It seems intuitive to me that if we had the legal guns under stricter controls, there would be fewer guns in the illicit market for crooks and wanna be crooks to buy.

If the goal is to reduce the number of murders by guns then you have to start somewhere. One logical place to start is with the source of many illicit guns. It has taken us about 65 years to get to where we are today. It cannot be fixed overnight. It must start somewhere unless we Americans want to declare we are helpless to reduce or prevent 10,000 people a year dying needlessly. Every year. And likely to get progressively worse under the present lack of purpose or system.



[edit on 11/20/2006 by donwhite]

Keep Guns Legal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Hitler and Stalin would want you to give your guns up to.
We need to get rid of online poker. Kids can play it.
We ned to get rid of Porno. Kids can watch it..
We need to get rid of alchole. Kids can drink it.

Give me a break

Look guns are not the problem. Get rid of your guns the crimnals will still have theirs. Not to mention the goverment would love for you to give away your guns.

I dont own a gun and never fired one but saying guns are the problem is just wrong.

Last time I checked it wasn't the gun that killed someone but there person with the gun. If you ban guns your only going to find death by knife attacks increase, then of cource you'll have to ban knifes and as such death by improvised weapons (glass bottles, pens, bats, polls) will increase.

The reason there are so many murders in the US is because of they way people live in the US, to solve a problem you simply remove the problem permanently even if that means killing people.

you could probably say the US is in the same state that the middle east is in and that Europe were in hundreds of years ago.

Guns don't kill people, bullets do, bullets fired by crazy people.

We need to go to the source of the problem, crazy and disgruntled people, children that are bullied and picked on will snap, it's only a matter of time, I know what it feels like to be picked on and I understand the mentality, I just never did it because I was A) too afraid to die and B) I care too much about people, I could have easilly obtained a gun in the Netherlands which mostly banned guns (guns are banned in the same extent as Austalia), I could have obtained this guns ON THE STREETS, that's where the criminals get them from, they assemble them from parts stolen from factories, they steal them from law enforcement agencies and occasionally from legal gun owners (but it's very hard since they'd have to be stolen from the gun owner's house, but more frequently they were stolen from gun ranges).

I know a guy that bought a Glock 9mm pistol illegaly in Holland, he however bought it for self-defense.

If you want to get rid of guns, you have to destroy ALL guns in the world, and if you destroy all guns, we will go back to medieaval times of survival of the fittest and strongest, we will decend to anarchy, law will be very hard to enforce.

We need to put guns behind lock and key if there are children residing in the house and have good locks in our house so nobody can break in and steal them.

Originally posted by GrOuNd_ZeRo
We need to put guns behind lock and key if there are children residing in the house and have good locks in our house so nobody can break in and steal them.

Here, I posted this a long time ago.here

On Aug. 23, 2000, Jessica Lynne Carpenter was 14 years old. At that young age, she knew how to shoot; her father taught her. There were firearms in the Carpenter home. Her law abiding parents John and Tephanie Carpenter did just whate the new ?safe storage? law in California required them to do, lock up their guns when their children are home alone.

Jessica?s siblings ? Anna, 13; Vanessa, 11; Ashley, 9; and John William, 7 ? were still in bed when 27 year old Jonathon David Bruce broke into the farmhouse about 9 a.m. that morning.
Bruce armed himself with a pitchfork. He cut the phone lines. When he entered the house and began stabbing the younger children in their beds, Jessica tried to dial 911. It didn?t do any good. She ran to where the family guns were. They were locked up.


?When the 14-year old girl ran to a nearby house to escape the pitchfork-wielding man attacking her siblings, she didn?t ask her neighbor to call 911. She begged him to grab his rifle and ?take care of this guy?? writes Kimi Yoshino in the Fresno Bee. He didn?t, and Jessica ended up on the phone with the police.

When Merced County sheriff?s deputies finally arrived, 7-year old John William was dead. 9-year old Ashley Danielle was dead. Ashley had clung to the leg of the assailent long enough for her older sister to escape. 13-year old Anna was wounded, but she survived.

?Once the deputies arrived, Bruce rushed them with his bloody pitchfork. So they shot him dead. They shot him more than a dozen times. With their guns. Get it?? writes Vin Suprynowicz of the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Do you have the intestinal fortitude to walk up to walk up to the graves of John William and Ashley Danielle and place a trigger lock on the their head stones? Would you have it in you to hand a trigger lock to John and Tephanie Carpenter, or debate reasonable gun control with them?

posted by cavscout

"I swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America" - Offer void where prohibited by law, see local statutes for eligibility and constitutional right permit requirements. Offer may be voided at the discretion of local law enforcement.

Every part of the Constitution and its amendments is subject to interpretation by the courts, up to the Supreme Court, which tells us what the words mean. For example, look at the following:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The amendment begins “Congress shall make no law . . “ but
1) We accept that Mormon’s cannot have multiple wives. 2) We accept that Native Americans cannot use (smoke) peyote in religious services. 3) We accept you cannot shout “Fire” in a crowded theater. 4) We accept that you cannot libel a person in print without suffering consequences. 5) We accept there is a narrow line between a “peaceable assembly” and a riot or a mob.

. . so the US Con really does not mean everything it says. Literally. I do not know how many laws regulating guns are in full force and effect in the United States. The most restrictive - from the gun lobby’s POV - must surely be the DVO laws. Domestic Violence Orders. I’m thinking of the doctor in Texas who was convicted of violating a DVO by having a 9 mm in the house where he lived. He pled “Second Amendment” which got him out of the trial court ok, but not the Appeals Court which set aside the lower court’s decision that the Second Amendment was literal and applicable. Not so. Lesson? Do not be found near a gun if you are under a DVO unless you want to do time in jail.

My point? That the Second Amendment does not prohibit any reasonable rules or regulations related to ownership, possession or use of firearms. All we lack is the will to do something serious about the obscene number of firearms loose in America.


[edit on 11/22/2006 by donwhite]

Just One More Narco Raid Gone Awry

I once lived in Louisville. A Narco raid on a house resulted in the occupant being shot to death. The evidence whether the shooting was justified was murky. Regardless about that, the fact was, the police were at the wrong house. The person named in the warrant had moved away more than 1 year earlier, because the current occupant's - now dead - name was listed in the phone book. I don’t know if anyone keeps track of this kind of fatal error. I have heard of it in other places, which shows 1) careless investigations, and 2) over exuberance by police officers who are running on adrenalin. And invariably followed by lying and cover-up attempts.

An Atlanta police official said narcotics officers were justified in returning fire on a 92-year-old woman they shot to death after she shot them as they tried to serve a warrant at her house . . the woman, identified as Kathryn Johnston, was the only resident in the house and had lived there 17 years.

Assistant Chief Alan Dreher said the officers had a legal warrant and "knocked and announced" before they forced open the door. He said they were justified in shooting once they were fired upon. Sarah Dozier, identified as a niece of the woman, "My aunt was in good health. I'm sure she panicked when they kicked that door down," Dozier said. "There was no reason they had to go in there and shoot her down like a dog."

Sanitized Version of Story. As the plainclothes Atlanta police officers approached the house about 7 PM, a woman inside started shooting, striking each of them, said Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman. One was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder. The officers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all three were conscious and alert, police said.

Rev. Markel Hutchins, a civil rights leader, said "of all the police brutality cases we've had, this is the most egregious because of the woman's age," Hutchins said.

President Nixon announced the War on Drugs in 1973. Why do we insist on doing the same dumb and deadly things year after year? Are we stupid, stubborn or shortsighted? Or all of the above?


[edit on 11/22/2006 by donwhite]

Originally posted by donwhite
" . . the unnecessary deaths of up to 10,000 people a year to be a significant social problem.

You are right about the "unnecessary deaths of up to 10,000 people a year" however you are off about the cause of those deaths. A homicide is not an un lawful death; the 10000 number represents all deaths by another person to include, as I ALREADY SAID, police shooting criminals, rapists shooting their attackers, and so on.

Many of these are JUSTIFYABLE, according to the courts.

The real cause of many of these deaths, as you know, is the war on drugs. The criminal element that invariably surrounds and illegal supply and demand chain is one of the real problems. Although I do not feel too bad about the high percentage of that 10000 is drug dealers shooting each other over turf or users shooting people over "deals gone wrong," it cannot be ignored that these deaths are preventable. The problem is how do we prevent those deaths? just like when alcohol was made legal again, if we got rid of the war on drugs those killings would disappear almost over night. When was the last time liquor store owners shot each other over turf? When was the last time that someone mugged a person for his tobacco fix?

“ . . a basic right . . granted . . the Constitution?“ Isn't it strange? Look at the Patriot Act. We have enthusiastically given up our 1) Right of Privacy - no eavesdropping; 2) Right not to be illegally searched or property seized; 3) Right to know the charges against you, to confront the witnesses against you, to have a speedy trial in the place where the crime was allege to have been committed; 4) Right not to be indefinitely detained in secret after a secret designation as an “enemy combatant;” 5) Right to counsel which must of necessity include the right of the lawyer to see all the evidence to be used against you; 6) No Ex Post Facto laws. If it ain’t a crime when it happened, you cannot make it one after the fact.

And the fact is that most gun owners are just as pissed about patriot act, and look at it as one more good reason that every person in our nation should own a military grade firearm. Patriot Act is the sort of thing the founders had in mind when they refused to ratify the constitution without the 2nd in it. Patriot Act should have been the wake up call for leftist on the 2nd.

1) Banning guns has not been proposed. That false claim is an NRA strategy to de-fang the legitimate concerns about firearms. A diversion.

WRONG. Banning all guns has been proposed by many politicians, to include the Clintons, Gore and Feinstein

2) Wrong. We are talking about homicides. The unlawful taking of a human life.

WRONG. See above.

Can we possibly have a suggestion on how to deal with those guns?

Yes, make them easier to get. As I have shown, the easier it is to get guns, the less murders you have.


More to come later, Jericho is on

[edit on 22-11-2006 by cavscout]

To quote Eddie Izzard "guns dont kill people, people kill people, and monkeys do tooo if they have a gun."

Originally posted by JamesMcMahn
To quote Eddie Izzard "guns dont kill people, people kill people, and monkeys do tooo if they have a gun."

A: How did that help?

B: No drive by one liners are allowed

C: Deny ignorance. If you don’t have anything smart to say don’t say anything at all.

Originally posted by donwhite
I believe the claim - “lawbreakers will not be deterred by gun control” - is called “intuitive.” That is, the claim is not based on any scientific study, but it “seems” to be correct. It sounds good. This is another NRA diversion to avoid the real issues related to guns and death.

2) Some estimate there are 80 million Americans owning 280 million guns. Every year, several 10s of 1000s of guns are stolen from houses, cars and places of business. These enter the “street” market of illicit sales from one wrong-doer to another wrong-doer. All too often otherwise innocent people are the victims of these illicit guns. It seems intuitive to me that if we had the legal guns under stricter controls, there would be fewer guns in the illicit market for crooks and wanna be crooks to buy.

I'm confused!

First you tell everyone that you Agree that Law Breakers are not deturred by gun control, and how that is a common sense statement! Next you jump into the issue of Illicit guns, and weapons that are stolen!

Websters Dictonary defines Illicit as follows:

Illicit (adj.) : not permitted; unlawful; unlicenced

If criminal by Definition are people who do not follow laws, how do you expect gun control laws to cut the numer of Illicit weapons in the hands of law breakers? If they obtane weapons illeaglly, making it harder to get a gun leaglly would NOT make any Real difference!

Tim

I see what's going on here. And to make my point, here are a few quotes:

First, we should keep in mind that firearms kill between 5,000 and 10,000 people in our society every year. We are already giving up that many dead people for the privilege of possessing 280 million guns. That is not an insubstantial number. It deserves some of our attention.

Wow! Is no one locking up these law-breaking firearms?

Before there were guns, there was knives, before knives, there were stones. Throughout the history of humankind murder has existed in one form or another and even if you remove all items from this planet people still would find a way.

Competent studies on this general theme have demonstrated it is not true. Sure, it is akin to proving a negative, but you are allowed to use your intuition when it is appropriately limited and consciously acknowledged.

So it is not true that people killed each other before firearms proliferated? I think we're going to need to revise some history books...

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

This little slip was also in the first quote. So the 2nd amendment is about a priviledge now? All this time time I thought it was a part of the Bill of RIGHTS...

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.)

People turned in their gold (a substance used for financial gain or security) for an increase in financial gain/security... so why do you propose getting people to turn in guns (used for an advantage in security or for independance) for anything less than a greater advantage in security or independance?

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.

Wow, I like this... so if I am a laborer and die, my kids will get maybe that $10K life insurance I managed to buy, but if I kill someone and die, they get $10 mil? Great incentive for reducing the prison population...

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.

Ate who?

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.

The US Constitution IS immune to all State, Local, Federal, and any other kind of laws you or I can imagine. That's the point... if you want to legally ban firearms, you have to amend the Constitution. Simple.

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?

Ummmm... personal responsibility?

OK, more than a few... I'll post my general comments on the next post.

TheRedneck

I pointed out the above quotes in order to empathize my point here, which is that donwhite's arguments are at best contradictory. Banning firearms has been tried, despite the US Constitution, in quite a few cities across the nation and most prominently in Washington DC. In all cases, the ban was followed by a marked increase in crime. This increase was so extreme in many cases that cities quickly abandoned the experiment and reinstituted legal firearms. In other places, where firearms ownership by law-abiding citizens is encouraged, the crime rate for violent crimes has dramatically decreased. And before anyone asks, I do not know the town names and details off the top of my head, but can look them up if anyone wishes.

As one drives into Florida on I75 South, one will see a billboard that proclaims a warning to all would-be criminals: 'Florida Residents Have The Right To Use Deadly Force'. Why? Because Florida recently relaxed gun control laws to compensate for an increase in violent crime. It worked.

Washington DC is one of the most violent cities in our nation. Period. It is not uncommon to sit in a traffic jam while the police clean up after the latest shooting. I know; I've sat in many. It was also the location of the recent sniper attacks. but no one in Washington DC is allowed to legally own firearms except retired police.

Soon after the 9-1-1 hijackings, the FAA started allowing pilots to carry firearms to protect themselves against hijackers. That would make no sense whatsoever under donwhite's arguments, but there has ot been another terrorist hijacking since.

During my life, I watched as nuclear devastation was mere moments away during the Cold War. Both countries were armed equally with nukes. Neither fired. We survived, despite the cries of well meaning advocates of unilateral disarmament.

All the shool shootings that have taken place since Columbine have done so under a total firearms ban. Firearms are already banned not just on the grounds of schools, but anywhere near them.

I could go on and on, but I think my point is clear. At no time has the banning of firearms led to a safer society. At many times, the removal of firearms bans has done so. Experiment performed. Results are in. Period.

And an even greater argument against any firearms ban is that it is unconstitutional. Period. It's in black and white. If you want to ban firearms in the US, you have to amend the Constitution. No law is above it. So the result, should you choose to ignore the above. is that you must amend the Constitution. So do it.

I really pity you, donwhite. To be so adamant about a subject despite evidence to the contrary, to be so assured despite factual evidence that spans the entire human history, to be so blind as to ignore or twist facts in favor of your argument, indicates a fear that is to the point of phobia. I do hope you can find a way to recover. Fear is the real enemy.

TheRedneck

reply to post by Rockpuck


I understand the argument being made here, but practically speaking, are guns really going to protect americans from the government? The government has overwhelming technology regardless of how many guns one owns, so this argument doesn't hold so much water with me.

This is not to say the second amendment isn't important, far from it. But the traditional, historical reasons for its existence may not be valid today.