Do Less Guns Really Mean Less Crime?

reply to post by mirageman


Its an interesting but slightly unfair comparison only governments have access to nuclear weapons? So should the same go for guns?

PhoenixOD
reply to post by Daedalus
Guns are killing machines, as long as there are guns around people will get shot and in your country that's about equal to a mass shooting every day and that's not including accidental injury by guns.

you're still clinging to the false assertion that there is a mass shooting in the united states every day...that isn't true...you sited a redit blog, that posts news of shootings, in an attempt to whip up fear about an "epidemic of violence" i've already sited examples of actual mass shootings...the reports in the blog do not measure up to the standard commonly accepted to identify an event as a bona-fide mass shooting...

guns are inanimate objects...the intent of the user is what determines their use. guns are not the problem, their operators are.

i could call for a ban to liquor, because it makes people violent, or cars, because people kill with them every day, and in far greater numbers than guns....i could call for a ban on hammers, pencils, knives, belts, and long trousers, because you can kill with those too....admit that this is nothing more than the fact that you believe your opinion on the subject is correct, and absolute, and that you want to tell other people how to live, because you doubt their ability to conduct their own affairs....

So you site a case were someone stabbed 8 people, big deal, if they had had an automatic assault rifle the death toll would have been way higher. Its much more difficult to kill multiple people with a knife. If you attack someone with a knife theres a good chance someone will take it off you and kill you first, thats because you have to get in close. It takes a lot effort to kill someone with a knife, unlike with a gun.

no, he stabbed 23 people...did you even bother reading the whole article?

have you ever killed anyone with a knife? can you speak to the difficulty level of killing with a knife vs a gun, from personal experience? unless you can, i would suggest you stop making baseless assertions.

and what's this about automatic rifles? we don't even really have automatic rifles here in the states....your ignorance of what we have access to over here is not surprising, but it sure is annoying. i would appreciate it if you would educate yourself on the facts of the matter...it makes for a better debate when all parties know what they're talking about.

If you need a gun to make you feel tough enough to face life that's a pretty sever insecurity which in fact is completely wrong. A gun owner is 4.5 times more likely to be shot..

it's nothing to do with insecurity....it's about making a choice to be responsible for your own safety, and security...the world is not all lollipops, rainbows, and unicorn farts.....there are real dangers out there, the police cannot be everywhere, and i see NOTHING wrong with accepting a bit of personal responsibility for my own safety, instead of expecting the government to carry me from cradle to grave...it's not their job.

and you trot out a statistic that says i'm more likely to be shot if i own a gun....riiiiiiight....

there are countless examples of regular people, who accepted responsibility for their personal safety, who have stopped crimes, and the evil people committing them, with their evil guns....how about all the places where there is a high ownership, and low crime as a result of that? i guess it's all made up, right?

Im sure you will still want to bury your head in the sand, mind you while there are so many guns around in your country its probably the only safe place to put your head. lol

and another ignorant insult...have you ever even been here?

you haven't a clue what you're talking about....if things were as bad as you make them out to be, there wouldn't be anyone left here in the states to tell you how wrong you are.....think on that for a minute..

reply to post by Daedalus

you're still clinging to the false assertion that there is a mass shooting in the united states every day...that isn't true...you sited a redit blog, that posts news of shootings,

Err.. yes. A list that reports 'some' of the mass killings in the US with sited links to multiple credible news sources for each case. You can try to deny that if you keep you head in the said long enough but it doesn't change any of the facts that they are happening.

he world is not all lollipops, rainbows, and unicorn farts.....there are real dangers out there, the police cannot be everywhere,

Strange after you whined on about your country being called violent..try looking up the word hypocrisy.

and you trot out a statistic that says i'm more likely to be shot if i own a gun....riiiiiiight....

Great that you have an 'opinion' that the stats are wrong about the link between gun ownership and getting shot , heres thepaper put together by Charles C. Branas, PhD,corresponding author Therese S. Richmond, PhD, CRNP, Dennis P. Culhane, PhD, Thomas R. Ten Have, PhD, MPH, and Douglas J. Wiebe, PhD

As for me visiting your country i visit at least twice a year every year and I'm a pretty excellent shot.

have you ever killed anyone with a knife? can you speak to the difficulty level of killing with a knife vs a gun, from personal experience? unless you can, i would suggest you stop making baseless assertions.

Thats so rediculous its hardly even worth replying to , So maybe people who havent killed anyone with a gun cant comment either?

Facts are facts and your opinions based on ignorance or an agenda don't change them. Just keep your head in the sand , its safer for you there...maybe.

PhoenixOD

Hoosierdaddy71

PhoenixOD
reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71

 

Your 400 times more likely to die from drug use,,,, hmmm.
We better make heroin illegal!!!! Oh, wait,,

How many drive by overdoses have you heard of?

edit on 25-9-2013 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)

The point is chances of dying not intent.
Lets take away gang related gun violence and run the numbers again.

You could do people who take drugs who end up dying of drugs versus people who get shot and end up dying. I wonder what the figures would be then?

If you took away the gang violence then there would be even less reason for people to own guns. They wouldn't need them as much for protection against other bad people with guns.

We can make numbers say pretty much anything to reinforce a point.
And your right about not needing protection if there is no violence, but thats like saying we dont need auto insurance if we didnt have cars. We do have cars, hence we have geico.

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71


Hi, Hosierdaddy you seem a lot more based in reality and more open to sensible discussion than some of the people in this thread .

We can make numbers say pretty much anything to reinforce a point.
And your right about not needing protection if there is no violence, but thats like saying we dont need auto insurance if we didnt have cars. We do have cars, hence we have geico.

I guess every country has violence , but very few of them feel the need to have guns for protection. I get the feeling it more of an excuse than an actually solid daily need. Guns are empowering , i get that. I enjoy shooting at a range when i visit the US.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


I like to have facts and numbers before i make up my mind. People making snap judgements from wrong info and rumors drive me crazy.

Also i think people in this country know it was made free at the end of a gun barrel and are scared they will lose that freedom at the end of someone else's barrel. Maybe its buried deep in our thick heads but we will not give up our guns..

Hoosierdaddy71
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

I like to have facts and numbers before i make up my mind. People making snap judgements from wrong info and rumors drive me crazy.

Also i think people in this country know it was made free at the end of a gun barrel and are scared they will lose that freedom at the end of someone else's barrel. Maybe its buried deep in our thick heads but we will not give up our guns..

I can fully understand that. I can also understand that to a nation that has always had guns the idea of giving them up would make them feel like they were losing a basic right.

I think guns have become an addiction in the US and like all junkies the American people have a very hard time admitting there is a problem. For some its impossible and they blame everything else, its classic junkie behavior.

i really dislike how you quote me out of context, to make it easier for you to appear correct.

if you're going to argue a point, argue the ENTIRE point, not just the parts you find easiest to spin.

PhoenixOD
Err.. yes. A list that reports 'some' of the mass killings in the US with sited links to multiple credible news sources for each case. You can try to deny that if you keep you head in the said long enough but it doesn't change any of the facts that they are happening.

they're not mass killings...you left out the part where i tell you that they do not meet the criteria generally accepted to classify an event as a mass shooting....they don't...these are regular instances of crime....you're twisting the facts to support an agenda.

why don't you find me a blog like the one you posted, that documents violent crime occurring in YOUR country....i'd be curious to see the comparison...

Strange after you whined on about your country being called violent..try looking up the word hypocrisy.

i wasn't whining, you were being insulting, and making ignorant claims.

there is violence in your country, and in everyone's country. the difference is that in this country, the police are not legally responsible for the active protection of citizens, which is completely reasonable, because it is absolutely impossible for them to be EVERYWHERE...

so the solution to this is that the individual citizens take personal responsibility for their safety...i don't understand why this is such a foreign, or abhorrent concept to you... is it really that strange to think that people would want to defend themselves against threats to their person, property, or family?...last i checked, self-preservation was still hard-coded into our psyche, as was the fight or flight reaction.....is that not true where you are?

Great that you have an 'opinion' that the stats are wrong about the link between gun ownership and getting shot , heres thepaper put together by Charles C. Branas, PhD,corresponding author Therese S. Richmond, PhD, CRNP, Dennis P. Culhane, PhD, Thomas R. Ten Have, PhD, MPH, and Douglas J. Wiebe, PhD

ok, and? your appeal to authority isn't going to work here....i don't care how many people with letters contributed to this study...the fact still remains that in the places in this country with the strictest gun control laws, you see the highest crime rates, and in the places with the most relaxed laws, you see the lowest.....the fact still remains that you see a dramatic drop in the FBI uniform crime stats, in relation to the increase of private ownership.....this is what works here.....it might not work in your country, but it works here, and what works here is all that matters, because the discussion is about what's happening here...

As for me visiting your country i visit at least twice a year every year and I'm a pretty excellent shot.

glad to hear it, so am i

so if you've been here, what's your deal...i mean, it's not a lawless bloodbath over here, so why keep this up?

Thats so rediculous its hardly even worth replying to , So maybe people who havent killed anyone with a gun cant comment either?

it's not ridiculous....it's a perfectly valid point...how would you know how easy either is, unless you've done them? to assert one is easier than the other, without knowing it to be true, is you imagining, or making things up....it's not a valid assertion, as it has no basis in reality....facts are important.

Facts are facts and your opinions based on ignorance or an agenda don't change them. Just keep your head in the sand , its safer for you there...maybe.

yes, facts are facts, and you ignore the ones that don't fit with your argument, and that is intellectually dishonest..and very bad form....

i don't appreciate your aloof, arrogant, condescending attitude...the system you're used to is DIFFERENT..that doesn't make it better, it's just different...it's what you're used to, it's what you're comfortable with....why not leave it at that, instead of telling us we should live like you?

what works for your country, doesn't work for ours..

PhoenixOD

Hoosierdaddy71
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

I like to have facts and numbers before i make up my mind. People making snap judgements from wrong info and rumors drive me crazy.

Also i think people in this country know it was made free at the end of a gun barrel and are scared they will lose that freedom at the end of someone else's barrel. Maybe its buried deep in our thick heads but we will not give up our guns..

I can fully understand that. I can also understand that to a nation that has always had guns the idea of giving them up would make them feel like they were losing a basic right.

I think guns have become an addiction in the US and like all junkies the American people have a very hard time admitting there is a problem. For some its impossible and they blame everything else, its classic junkie behavior.

but it IS a basic right.....in this country...

i don't get why you can't just accept that things work differently here, and stop telling us that we're stupid because we do things in a way that works for us..

reply to post by Daedalus

i don't get why you can't just accept that things work differently here, and stop telling us that we're stupid because we do things in a way that works for us..

Yes its painfully clear you don't get it..that much i agree.

No one mentioned stupid other than you.. again with you making up quotes.

You keep complaining when anyone calls your country violent and then plead that you need guns because its so violent.

Its astonishing that you think that the gun situation in America is working out just fine. Of course if things were working out just fine then schools full of children wouldn't be getting shot up , people in theaters wouldn't end up dead instead of watching a movie, mass shootings wouldn't be happening on almost a daily basis and this wouldn't be a hotly debated issue in the first place.

Addiction behavior pretending everything is ok, blaming everything and everyone else.

Yes it crystal clear you don't get it, im glad you admit that that's something we all agree on.

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Do Less Guns Really Mean Less Crime?

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Let's take a look at something a bit different than just firearm offenses for a moment. Now since guns are a tool that can be used in a crime, one would have to consider all crime. Here's Statistics Canada with some general crime statistics over the last year (that include to some extent the territories): www.statcan.gc.ca...

Notice something on there? There is FAR more crime in the territories and more crime in some provinces compared to the rest. But here's where it gets interesting, if you look around, most of the Canadian statistics conveniently do not include the territories (most likely because their crime rates are so excessively higher than the rest of the country, it could be considered skewed). Despite the territories having some of the smallest populations, they also have the most crime.

Now how on earth could areas with so few people spread over such a large space be worse-off than the rest of the country? I would say demographics such as culture and poverty play a factor.

My argument here is that demographics clearly play a larger role in violence than anything else. It explains why you have very violent cities and far safer cities. Many US cities that are in high economic decline or with higher gang activity have higher homicide rates that are multiple times greater in some cases (looking at your Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, etc.) In fact, these poorer US cities probably account for the majority of the gun violence along with high drug-trafficking/gang cities. Furthermore, violent crime and homicides are down in the US anyways, without the use of gun control: www.policymic.com... You can also look on the US's statistics website and pull up the stats to see the general decline.

And for everyone who thinks the UK has less homicides than the US? Think again. Here is an excellent article explaining how the US and UK systems of reporting deaths differ greatly: rboatright.blogspot.ca...

of those 4400 cases are what we would normally call murders that would suggest that the correct number of "violent deaths of interest to the police" is on the order of 4700 for 2011, then the UK murder rate is 8.5 per 100,000 or about 177% of the US murder rate.

All this data. All these open arguements. When had gun control worked for you?
My lady and I have seen the useless fruits of gun control. Her little cousin was hanging out with the ghetto individuals she normally associated with. They picked up a acquaintance. He was the normal problem child that by 17 had quite the long list of charges and wanted nothing more than to make a name for himself in the " streets ". While they rode around he popped off something to the effect of he was going to rob another black male that she also was close friends with. She was a outspoken little girl to which she replied no you won't cause I'll tell him. She probably didn't think much of it as she drove down the road with him in the back. But this little bastard thought a lot of it apparently. He pulled out a gun ( which note his age and criminal history means it was illegal for him to own or carry ) and shot her in the back of the head. Point blank. Execution style. Did gun laws prevent this? Did this individual care about the laws? No. This story is exactly why gun bans would fail in the u.s. Their are simply too many weapons to regulate them. My area alone I would venture to say guns out number people. I know of some collectors who own over 20-30 guns and they know people that overshadow their collection by far. We simply can't expect for guns to disappear over night. Our crime rate has been discussed multiple times in this thread. Do you think taking the already small fear away from criminals that a citizen may be armed will help?
Let's return to my story. This pitiful excuse for a man killed a young girl. He never showed a bit of remorse. Even worse his grandmother got on the stand and testified under oath that he never left the house that night and he is a " little angel ". They had family members from out of town stalking her mother and my girlfriend attempting to strike fear in them so they wouldn't push for conviction. Parking in front of their house middle of the night. Following them around town. All for a person they knew very well killed someone.The problem isn't guns people. It's that American citizens are willingly raising monsters with zero fear of consequences while having a media and entertainment industry that says its okay to be that way. That glorifies these actions. The problem is far deeper than guns. You can take guns completely out of the equation and I promise you the American people will still be surprisingly violent.

PhoenixOD
reply to post by Daedalus

 

i don't get why you can't just accept that things work differently here, and stop telling us that we're stupid because we do things in a way that works for us..

Yes its painfully clear you don't get it..that much i agree.

No one mentioned stupid other than you.. again with you making up quotes.

You keep complaining when anyone calls your country violent and then plead that you need guns because its so violent.

Its astonishing that you think that the gun situation in America is working out just fine. Of course if things were working out just fine then schools full of children wouldn't be getting shot up , people in theaters wouldn't end up dead instead of watching a movie, mass shootings wouldn't be happening on almost a daily basis and this wouldn't be a hotly debated issue in the first place.

Addiction behavior pretending everything is ok, blaming everything and everyone else.

Yes it crystal clear you don't get it, im glad you admit that that's something we all agree on.

edit on 25-9-2013 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)

There is already enough gun control laws, I seriously doubt you travel twice to U.S. a year. Even if you did, you probably do not reside here long enough to find out just exactly how tight our gun ownership laws are here.

First off, we do have full automatic assault rifles here in U.S., they are however, highly regulated. To the point where obtaining one is really discouraging. On top of that, you'd likely pay up to $10,000 to $20,000 or more very easily for a full automatic assault rifle.

In Southern California, most rifles you are allowed to purchase, are "Semi-Automatic". Just in case.. for our friends that are not too gun savvy, it means you fire 1 shot at a time.

On top of that, we have laws in place that prevents a buyer from getting assault rifle magazines that are larger than 10 bullet capacity.

So all of our hand pistols and as well as rifles, are limited to 10 shots only.

Beyond all these hassles, there are hoops for you to jump through, paperwork to complete, plus a frigging long wait period before you even get to touch the gun you bought.

You cannot make it any more strict, other than taking everything completely off the shelves.

But hey, I think you're missing a key point here. Somehow, I think some people live in LA LA LAND, where they believe that criminals obtain their guns from ... Big5, WalMart or Mom&Pop gun shops.

So I guess, the believe is that if we removed all guns from retail stores, surely enough, the criminals will never be able to lay hands on another firearm again right? right? right? *wink* *wink* *wink... RIGHT???

Next thing you know, right after gun ban, underground firearm smuggling business BOOMS 800%.

Daedalus

yes, that pesky american school of thought...lord knows the lunatics in D.C. have been trying to stamp out any notions of individuality, or free thought, or self determination, or any of the other things that we used to be known for....

i explained all of this in another post...you might wanna give it a read...

basically, the cops can't be everywhere all the time..so who's gonna protect you, if not yourself?

I agree with the principles of the second amendment, I was simply taking a swipe at the redundant law enforcement beauracracy prevalent in the usa. I have lived in europe many years and can tell you there is only national police, something like the fbi.

All the township police departments could easily become part of the state police force. Do away with township police and county sheriffs department. Of course its centralisation of power, but consolidation saves money in the long run. I dont know its just an idea.

We also have volunteer fire departments which saves money. Most towns dont need professional service.

reply to post by EarthCitizen07


Realistically the amount saved would probably be zero by letting people defend their own property as the police would still have to collect evidence from a house where a intruder was shot to allow due process of the law to determine it is a legitimate use of a firearm, and what happens to people who cannot defend themselves like ex-cons who are banned from owning a gun or those with medical problems that mean they cannot physically handle a firearm whose only option is to rely on the police force.

reply to post by Maxatoria


All small towns throughout america have volunteer EMS, just like volunteer fire departments.

I see your point though.

reply to post by EarthCitizen07




believe it or not, the sheriff is the ONLY law enforcement entity recognized by the constitution...

i'd say roll everything into county sheriffs....

i'm not terribly keen on the state police being the only game in town....i mean, it's not going to cost any less, and it's not really going to improve anything...i dunno...this is kind of off topic....

really, the only thing it would change is HOW the law is enforced....instead different laws for different things between municipalities or counties, like, for instance, firearms.......one set of rules across the board...kind of a scary idea, if the wrong people get into power...

reply to post by Daedalus


I dont necessarily disagree with you. In many ways what you say makes sense. I was thinking of consolidating police(like business does all the time) to save on costs, but on the otherhand it can lead to tyranny sometimes.