Guns and Good Stuff

Lets look at it this way.

Making dope illegal in the US hasnt stopped its use, has it? Hell no. The vast majority of Americans have tried some drug in thier life, many millions use regularly.

Banning alcohol never stopped people from drinking. the prohibition was a laughable failure.

banning fire arms in the US will not stop thier use in crime. Americans do not obey laws. We never have. We never will. if you want Americans to do something, make it illegal. Maybe we should make voting illegal?

Jakomo cant get through his head cultural differences as a signifigant factor in law. Americans behave differently than Dutch do. Dutch are happy to have legal pot. Americans are very happy to have legal guns. Whats the problem?

Since when does anyoen give a # about anything the US govornment has to say anyway? n

If the Dutch wanna smoke pot, let em. Americans like guns. leave us be.

Both pot and Guns can be very bad things when abused. Guns can be used to hurt people. Excessive marijuana use makes one lazy, stupid, and causes physical harm. (Im talking about people who smoke an ounce every day for many years).

If you dont like guns, Jakomo, dont fire them. But youre as bad a a purtitan. Puritans cant sleep if they know someone is having fun somewhere. You simply cant sleep knowing americans are quite happy and have owned guns for over 200 years, and it has worked fine.

Canada's Murder Rate Over the Last Six Years


Canadian long gun and shot gun registration was started in December 1998 and the guns were supposed to be registered by January 2001. Crime rates continued falling during the first full year of the program but rose consistent every year thereafter and in the lastest numbers for 2002 ended up higher than the last year prior to the law (1998).

RIGHT-TO-CARRY LAWS
* Right-to-carry laws require law enforcement agencies to issue handgun permits to all qualified applicants. Qualifications include criteria such as age, a clean criminal record, and completing a firearm safety course. (13)

* In 1986, nine states had right-to-carry laws. (14)

* As of 1998, 31 states have right-to-carry laws, and about half the U.S. population lives in these states. (3)

* In 1996, Dr. John R. Lott of the University of Chicago Law School published the results of a crime study conducted using FBI data for all 3,045 U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992. (15)

* The study sought to answer the question, "What happens to crime when states adopt right-to-carry laws?" (15)

* Between 1977 and 1992, 10 states adopted right-to-carry laws. Dr. Lott's study found that the implementation of these laws created:
-- no change in suicide rates,
-- a .5% rise in accidental firearm deaths,
-- a 5% decline in rapes,
-- a 7% decline in aggravated assaults,
-- and an 8% decline in murder

for the 10 states that adopted these laws between 1977 and 1992. (7)
* Using 1995 numbers, this amounts to:

-- 1 more accidental gun death,
-- 316 less murders,
-- 939 less rapes,
-- and 14,702 less aggravated assaults

in these 10 states annually. (16)

Source- www.justfacts.com...

Thank you everyone who has come to help me, or came to help yourself if you also believe as I do that guns don't kill or commit crimes, people do! And thanks for all the other facts you people have put up, like BlackJackal and Skadi and others(Sorry if I didn't mention you, my memory is kinda messed up). And also, Jakko, I hope this will help realize that, as someone said, "If guns cause violence then do matches cause arson?" and so forth.

Sorry for all the u2u's, but I knew I was right for once in my miserable life, and I wanted to make sure I knew it, lol.

Guns were never meant for the average Joe, but state militias. That's why it doesn't say "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." End of story. It has a little disclamier. Just check out the history of the Army National Guard

The National Guard, the oldest component of the Armed Forces of the United States and one of the nation's longest enduring institutions, celebrated its 366th birthday in 2002. The National Guard traces its history back to the earliest English colonies in North America. Responsible for their own defense, the colonists drew on English military tradition and organized their able-bodied male citizens into militias.

Picture it this way. The EU says "Hey France, Germany, and Spain, join us to form a new country."

'Um, what about our Armies? Say you go nuts, what happens?"

"Oh, you can trust the EU, were the government! Oh, ok. You guys can keep your militias."

The states weren't that keen of joining this new country called the USA without some guarantee that they would have some protection against this new government. They had their own constitutions and laws. "Well regulated" means um, well regulated. Drilling every month and such, like a militia, or our national guard. Of course, back then you had to provide your own guns.

I just see so many people who are wrong about our 'Right to bear arms' that I had to clear that up.

Ummm, guns dont kill...bullets do
An unloaded gun is but a hunk of metal without bullets.

Perhaps guns should be legal, but we should outlaw bullets....
Hmmm, remember the "black Talon" bullet?

Mabey we should keep the guns and ban the things that hold bullets...
try and buy a clip that holds more than 12 bullets...you cant....

oh wait, lazer sights make guns far more effective, mabey we should ban those accessories too?

Oh yeah, lets ban holsters too, because if you cant carry your gun around, you will be less likley to use it...

Hmm lets mandate trigger locks, so that you have to stop and say "wait a second mr criminal, i need to unlock my gun".....Ive got NO children in my home, yet because others do and cant seem to keep their guns away from their kids....I now must lock my trigger in MY house.

Just take responsibillity for your actions, including gun ownership...

Originally posted by James the Lesser
Thank you everyone who has come to help me, or came to help yourself if you also believe as I do that guns don't kill or commit crimes, people do!

Wow, you're truly pathetic.
Next time you feel you can no longer handle an arguement with me, at least have the brains not to send the "HALP ME" u2u to me as well.
To how many people did you send it???

I'll make some additional replies after reading what your little "helpers" posted.

[edit on 24-6-2004 by Jakko]

Originally posted by Jakko

Originally posted by James the Lesser
Thank you everyone who has come to help me, or came to help yourself if you also believe as I do that guns don't kill or commit crimes, people do!

Wow, you're truly pathetic.
Next time you feel you can no longer handle an arguement with me, at least have the brains not to send the "HALP ME" u2u to me as well.
To how many people did you send it???

I'll make some additional replies after reading what your little "helpers" posted.

[edit on 24-6-2004 by Jakko]

Please stop the insults


And also believe that guns dont kill people stupid people with guns kill people.

Wow that's quite a lot to reply to.
I wonder wether most of the teletubbies that decided to help this pathetic spammer even read my posts...
Skadi_the_Evil_Elf surely didn't, seeing as she's having quite a hard time spelling my name right. (It's Jakko, not Jakomo)

Okay here we go.
When I browse through the posts that everyone posted since my last reply, I see loads of links showing studies about the crime rates in Australia and the UK after guns being banned.

As a lot of you people seem to want to think about this in the most simple way possible, I understand how it seems logical to compare country A's crime numbers before the law change, with country A's crime numbers after the law change, but when you think about it, such a comparison can lead to pretty ignorant conclusions.
What you must compare to eachother to get a good look at things, is the crame rates of countries where guns are legal (USA) to countries where guns are illegal. (netherlands for example)
Countries that are currently still in the transition of making guns illegal, will of course not show any improvement just yet, because (as you allready said James) crimes are usually not committed using legal guns.
Enforcing people to turn in their legal guns will not do anything about the illegal guns now.

Most illegal guns were once legal, and this is why closing down the legal gun market will -without a doubt- help to reduce armed crimes for the far future, but not for the year, or even decade we're in now.

I don't understand why it takes studies to understand this, neither do I understand why pasting links to these studies in this thread will help James prove his point, that "legal guns" is better than "illegal guns".

Because of the overal ignorance that entered this thread after the mass u2u that James send half of the ATS members (including me), I will start quoting myself from earlyer posts in this thread.

The problem with guns is that it is made so childishly easy to hurt someone, that the split second in which someone is mad enough to do stupid things, guns make all the difference for wether and how thing escalate.

Guns are to blame for a lot of accidents, escalations and horrible mistakes. Fact is that these tragedies would not have happened, or with less damage if guns would not have been legal. I did not try to say guns are responsible for peoples actions, but I think you know this as well.

The really sad thing in that there are more gun deaths in the US than the rest of the World combined

Exactly, guns make it too easy to kill someone in a split second.
The escalation factor when guns come in the game is just too high and graphs show it.

[edit on 24-6-2004 by Jakko]

Originally posted by drunk
And also believe that guns dont kill people stupid people with guns kill people.

For a mod you really seem to have a hard time posting posts that contribute anything to the discussion, anything at all...
Maybe you can make yourself usefull and tell me wether it's allowed to spamm fellow ATS'ers like James did?

Now your bashing me for my opinion

Careful there Jakko, you might get warned for name calling..(not that i think that James cares)

It takes a person comfortable with themselves to know when, and to actually ask for help when they need it.
Asking for help is NOT a sign of weakness, only a fool doesnt ask for help when its needed.

(look James, we're agreeing on a topic! AND i came to your defence...I must be getting soft)

Now then...affirmative action suggests....Machine guns for everybody!!!!!
Why should only the rich have them while the rest of us poor people are stuck with cheap saturday night specials?

Originally posted by Jakko
For a mod you really seem to have a hard time posting posts that contribute anything to the discussion, anything at all...
Maybe you can make yourself usefull and tell me wether it's allowed to spamm fellow ATS'ers like James did?

Lay off, man.

Stop with the name calling.
Stop with insulting people.

It's old. Real old.
It does not make me happy.

Great post Caz.
Your wisdom about asking help is very true, but I don't think it applies in this way on ATS.
Spamming ATS members for this cause is pretty "weak" in my opinion.
ATS would turn into quite a mess if everyone would be like James, fortunately most are not.

what's the point in allowing everyone to have guns?do they really need them?

selling guns and munitions in shopping stores is ridiculous.
but now it's too late,they could ban guns,what would that change?

For now it would indeed not change much Darkside.
But eventually (maybe it takes 10 years) the amount of armed crimes would go down.
It's an investment into the future.

[edit on 24-6-2004 by Jakko]

Jakko, banning guns does not make the crime rate go down. I think 10 of those 13 sites state that FACT. And I don't care if he calls me an idiot or what not, but he still shouldn't for it is against the pit rules. And name calling and ridiculing the mods? I don't even do that and I have done many things that are, shall we say, pushing the limit.

Anyways, my "Help!" not "Halp!" message was just me copy-paste all the members who were on ATS at the time and sending same u2u. I didn't mean to include you, sorry, I guess, maybe, probably not though, I think.

Also, thanks Drunk, and Cazmedia, and everyone else. Also to the person who put in the facts about the militia/right to bear arms. It is true, but most red white and blue blooded American will still fight for THEIR right to own guns. Now I am not saying selling automatic weapons at the grcery store is a good idea. I like the fact they have backround checks and all to make sure a guy who was in jail for murder 2 getting a gun and killing the lawyer who prosecuted him. I do like the idea of a lawyer who prosecuted a murderer and has the right to own a gun to protect himself from a criminal who wants revenge. Of course, being a criminal won't get the gun legally, so backround checks don't do much except keep guns out of the hands of law abidding citizens.

I love it that I'm right.

edited part> Also, was it ok for me to send the mass u2u? Jakko asked that, and I'm not sure it is allowed. But I didn't find anything saying that I couldn't, so I did. If it is against ATS rules, please tell me so I know.

What you did is called harassment.

As Darkside said, it's probably too late for the USA now.

Countries in which guns have been illegal for a long time are better off than countries in which they are legal, and countries that just recently decided to make guns illegal still have a long way to go untill the large number of illegal guns get found/destroyed.
Not only do they have create systems and methods to find and destroy all the guns that did not get turned in, they also have to put up with people like you, misunderstanding the numbers and explaining the numbers in a wrong way.

There is a big difference between guns being legal or not, and the amount of guns available in a country.
And even though illegalizing guns does eventually decrease the amount of guns in a country if the administration does it right, it's unfortunately not a matter of days.

I'm glad I live in Europe, where most countries have been "gunless" for a long time now.

Originally posted by Jakko
What you did is called harassment.
I'm glad I live in Europe, where most countries have been "gunless" for a long time now.

Good, stay there. I don't even know why you care so much what we do with our own country. Our personal guns affect you a grand total of NEVER.

We like guns, we keep guns, we use guns. Simple as that. Why is that so hard to understand?

What I find funny, is that this stupid conversation has gone on for 5 pages about how you don't like guns, yet live in a country that doesn't have them. The big question is, is who cares what your opinion is on our guns policy?

Do we have problems? Yes. Do you? Yes. We are working on a solution short of outlawing guns, which I'd say most do not want. I know it's much easier to monitor and control a flyspeck country like yours, but we have quite a big country with big problems and no solution is going to be a perfect one.

Should we even outlaw all guns and bullets that would cease to solve the problem. Not because it is too late, but because we have logistics problems the like of which your country has never even thought about.

So, again (and again and again), why do you care?

All dictatoral / socialist / tyrannical governments in the past have banned people from owning guns.

Then they run ship over the people to control and dictate to them how things are going to be, many of those people get tortured, imprisoned falsely, treated bad, and impoverish the country.

This country great because the people are smart enough to know what happens when you try and outlaw guns. People here aren't going to let that happen.

This an authentic country with a rich history and a history that is based on freeing themselves from the iron fist. We need to have guns to protect ourselves. This isn't a Canada, or a Britian or the Netherlands.

No other country is like America, the people are great here and know what happens when guns are outlawed.

It's gives the people a sense of security and pride.

Anyway outlawing guns in the good ol US of A, would NEVER happen.