For those who compare the lowered homicide by firearm stat of the UK vs the higher homicide rate by firearm in the US, here's a much more telling stat...

Violent crimes per 100,000 people. UK - 2,034 USA - 466

The UK has successfully banned guns, but still report more violent crimes by a MUCH higher rate. Banning guns has lowered homicide by firearm rates but has done NOTHING to stem the flow of violent crime there.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html

#1 Getting lectured by a Republican that compares liberals to Nazi Germany

#2 I'm not a Progressive Liberal.

#3 Getting attacked from behind is a dumb argument. I would much rather FACE a knife, string, or bat than a gun.

#4 Forget OKC. Tell any parent at Sandyhook that guns didn't play a role. Or anyone that knows a victim from a gun death. Hell, if any death is preventable of course the people affected will no doubt be upset that it could have been possibly prevented. But I am talking about guns not fertilizer. Might as well talk about lightning strikes because it equally has no bearing in a gun control debate.

#5 I am for moderate gun control legislation. Back in the 70's my grandfather, I have been told, had the largest private gun collection west of the Mississippi. I received a .30-06 rifle for my 13th birthday after taking classes and buying a hunting permit. I didn't take to hunting, though. I consider hunting a legitimate sport, however, and do support private ownership of firearms. Hiding behind the antiquated 2nd Amendment is bullshit though because we have no well-regulated militia, and our right to arms has been infringed many times over. Its a stupid Amendment. It should read something like, "It is the right of the people to own and operate firearms deemed approvable by the government for the purpose of self-defense and sport." Then make owners of guns responsible for all tranfership of sales much like that for automobiles, and also background checks. Pick up the paperwork at the courthouse or have local gun shops have consignment areas.

#6 When (never) the government comes to take your precious guns that hold and protect you at night, I will be there raising my voice in dissent. That is the time to bring up Schindler's List, the Khmer Rouge, and Chairman Mao, not now.

And there you go... being reactionary. And you say you want to try something new...

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Member formally known as AC59

re·ac·tion·ar·y (r-ksh-nr)
adj.
Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative.
n. pl. re·ac·tion·ar·ies
An opponent of progress or liberalism; an extreme conservative.

Oh, your lexicon. Hypothetical futures can be very scary. I'm more scared about robo-rapists than the Obama walk-and-knock gun collecting. To each their own I suppose.

And what power will your voice have when they have all the guns?

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That's weak sauce!

^

When there is actual talk of taking guns, then we refuse. You don't give them your fucking guns and then complain. Is this really that hard to understand? I AM TALKING ABOUT TRACKING THE SALES OF GUN OWNERSHIP to try and create an easier job for law enforcement and lessen the amount of illegal gun trafficking.

And what power does your voice have now? No more because of a pistol locked in some armoir in your house. Taking down the government would be a lot easier through cyberterrorism than sneakers on the ground carrying hunting rifles. This isn't 1776 anymore, Toto.

Interesting use of the word endemic.


You are correct, though, in that the odd school shooting is not enough to convince me there is an endemic issue with our gun laws. Sure, they are atrocious, but take away the guns and the kids will find something else, something easily obtained, such as gasoline, nails, and metal pipes, then your argument becomes completely moot. What then? What do we do then? Regulate gas cans and nails? Require background checks to fill 'er up at the gas station? Where do you draw the line? Changing these gun laws will do NOTHING but shift statistics around. Instead of gun crime, we'll see more knife crime. Regulate knives and we'll see more baseball bat crime. The sad fact of the matter is that you can do nothing to curb wanton behavior that is psychotic or sociopathic in nature. All you can do is put yourself in a situation to be prepared for it.

Regulate guns and sure, you might see less gun violence. I doubt you'll see much in terms of less violence overall, however. That seems to be tied more to socioeconomic and sociopolitical factors than the availability of weapons.

When kids die in school to a random shooting, it's a tragedy. When kids die because their parents aren't supervising them, they leave a gun out for a toddler to play with, or they are at a friends place when this happens, it's on the parents. Parents should know where their kids are and what they are doing 24/7.

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He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

This is what you said:

"#6 When (never) the government comes to take your precious guns that hold and protect you at night, I will be there raising my voice in dissent."

When they are in the process of coming to get your guns, your voice won't mean shit.

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That's weak sauce!

First, there already is actual talk of taking guns. The Obama administration has been in talks with various groups and individuals about just this subject, and have come out and said they are "exploring executive orders to combat gun violence".

From that article: "The president is going to act. Executive orders, executive action, can be taken," Biden told reporters before meetings with groups representing survivors of mass shootings. "We haven't decided what this is yet, but we're compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and all the rest of the Cabinet members."

Of course, when those don't work, stronger ones will have to be enacted. For our own good, of course.

Also, tracking the sales of gun ownership did exactly jack and shit in Sandy Hook, the case you bring up as the most urgent reason to track the sales of gun ownership. The guns used were legally owned and purchased by another person, his mother. Which means, when he took them and used them on her and the folks at the school, they were stolen. None of this legislation being talked about, minus a forced roundup of all guns everywhere, would have mattered one bit in Sandy Hook.

Why then, are we using that as an example why we need to enact stricter gun control?

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Your picture comes up broken. I purposely used endemic because you used it, if that's what was being directed at. School shootings aren't an endemic, but gun violence is.

Regulating guns may curb gun violence. We agree on this matter. I also think guns are more dangerous and deadlier. If we lower gun violence, we will lower the death rate to some degree. Knife violence will increase, I doubt pipe bombings will.

Guns, knives, and bats are all weapons that can be used in the heat of the moment. Pipe bombs and major explosives must be made for use in premeditated attacks. Going back to guns/knives/bats/etc, guns are the clear cut winner for easiest murder weapon; just aim and pull a trigger, no physical effort needs to be exerted and one hit can kill. Lessen gun violence and lessen the death rate in violent attacks. There's a reason the school attack in China that occured the same day as Sandyhook didn't have the same horriffic result: guns are deadlier.

Kids have died due to poor parental supervision. Kids have been murdered by their parents too. Many things have happened that are unfortunate. I have never let my toddler handle a gun unsupervised. Come to think of it, I try to keep any gun as far away from my kid as possible. There's a good reason why: bullets are unbiased, flying, killing projectiles. I never read about drive by stabbings or by-standers being killed by stray baseball bats flying through the air. Guns are in an upper eschelon of weaponry, above bats/knives/pencils/scissors and below explosives.

Explosives are too dangerous for the public and are outlawed. However, its hard to argue that they wouldn't be very handy in our well regulated militia to fend off a Tyrannical government. The danger element outweighs that argument though, because the 2nd Amendment is a piece of shit Amendment that has no bearing on modern day America. Guns are legal because they are useful tools for hunting and home defense, especially in dangerous neighborhoods and rural areas where law enforcement is not close at hand. For these 2 reasons should Americans be allowed guns, and there is no good reason why they should not have a well documented paper trail on who is buying and selling them.

You seem to be of the mindset that people die more because people have guns. You correlate gun violence and seem to believe that removing guns from the equation will fix the problem. Only thing is, that just isn't going to fix the problem of violent crime, it just changes the method. I showed in a link above, that Violent crime in the UK is 4-5 times higher than it is in the US, even though homicide by firearm is MUCH lower. They took away the guns, make a great looking stat there, but they didn't fix the core of the problem, and still continue to have a world leading problem with violent crime.

I'm not using Sandyhook as a means to track guns. That tragedy garnered national attention but it is no less horrible than every violent gun death since or before. They are all senseless and horrible. The goal should be to limit as many as possible. Gun control would certainly do this.

Everyone is always crapping on religion here because of all the death it has caused. How many senseless deaths has the 2nd Amendment caused?

I know about this. Look at the Homocide rates: US: 4.8 - UK: 1.2. We literally have 4 times the homocides. Maybe because guns are deadlier than knives.

To which school shooting are you referring in the quote below?



And your logic with comparing our statistics to England is a bit confusing.



We also have 8.64 times the number of students enrolling in college than England: U.S.: 21.6M - U.K: 2.5M. We literally have eight times the enrollment in higher education. Using your logic, maybe that's because our schools are so much better than theirs.

Sources:

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/numbe ... 69065.html

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The point being made by gun control people is that violence is committed because there are more guns and if you make guns less available, you'll have less violence. You only have less gun violence, but it rises in other ways. You are not correcting the actual problem, you are only trying to make yourself feel better about the whole thing. I would much rather see someone work towards coming up with ways of making society less violent, not just swap out the tools used in the violence.

The numbers sailor provided show over 8 times the number of students for us. The population is roughly 4.4 times greater, so you are still looking at something near a 2:1 ratio.

I'm a pro gun control person and that's not the point I'm making. So let's toss out that theory.

Let me be clear on what I am saying: If we lessen gun violence, death rates will lessen. Accidental, homocidal, and suicidal. All three will lessen.

Violent crimes will most likely remain constant, but the use of less deadly weapons will replace the use of guns. This will create less death across the board.

If you want to just use pure numbers then it would make sense that the clear leader in guns per household (US) would be the clear leader in gun deaths right?

Then doesn't it bust your theory that we are ranked at 28th in the world in gun deaths?

The problem here isn't guns. Violence is the problem, and as long as our society continues to find excuses for violence instead of solutions, you can take away all the weapons you like, but the violence won't end. If you want a better society, and less violence, then cure the problem, don't just do something to make yourself feel better.

Montana has about 3.5 guns per person if I remember correctly. That's why you see the horrendous number of public shootings there.

Also Harvard disagrees with the theory of gun control: http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_g ... roductive/

But meh, Harvard. What do they know from a hill of beans, those idiots.

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