Gun Control

You base this on what?
Surely that any number of people have successfully defended themselves with handguns and other types of guns in their home and on their properties quite easily refutes what you're trying to assert here. How would you define effective self defense against an armed intruder intent on hurting you or your family?



Unfortunately that is a rather naive assumption on your part. Making guns illegal across the board doesn't do anything to take all the thousands of illegal guns already in circulation out of circulation. It simply doesn't follow that by taking away legal ownership of handguns that illegal handguns are simply going to dissapear.

I'm not even exactly pro gun ownership for everyone anyhow... but I don't think an out and out ban is going to solve the problem of weapons gotten through illegal channels.

It's an absolute non-starter anyhow... it would be tied up in the US supreme court for the next century anyhow.
 
Your opinion counts more than that of the people who feel that it is useful for self defense?

The fact is that if the American Government banned all handguns, there would be tons of illegal handguns with only criminals having them. Cocaine is banned but easily accessible even though we spend billions to try and slow the flow. Based on the numbers posted in this thread, the number of guns in the UK has increased since the ban.
 
Look, this is getting us nowhere as you're taking assertions I've made based on one category and applying them to another.

Let's be very clear.

Violent Crime is a category of criminal activity that includes a number of acts.

The graph you posted shows figures for Armed Robbery.

Armed Robbery =/= Violent Crime.

You said,
here is the evidence from a Government Survey that shows that it isn't.

More Govt Statistics to indicate a drop in violent crime, page 9

Kindly supply any contradictory evidence or accept that Violent Crime in the UK is falling and has been for some time.

Please address this point singly so we may move onto the others.

Mitch
 
A) The Constitution says I'm allowed to have it.
B) It is certainly necessary to have if some himbo bursts into my apartment and wants to hurt me.
C) Banning illegal drugs worked real well. So did Prohibition. And those aren't even guaranteed rights coming from the Founding Fathers. And before anyone pisses and moans, the only reason there is a Constitutional Amendment making drinking legal is because the genuses in Congress enacted Prohibition via the Constitution. It takes an Amendment to negate an Amendment. It doesn't mean it's a fundamental right.
D) Once again, you have failed to provide any rational justification to show how taking a gun away from a sane, law-abiding citizen will have any shred of impact on criminal activity.
 
Going to the homeoffice website here we see 100 years of official statistics. Do you think that is an acceptable source?

Year    Homicides    Percentage    Attempted Homicides    Percentage    Possession of weapons    Percentage
1990     669     0.00%     476     0.00%        
1991     725     8.37%     555     16.60%        
1992     687     2.69%     568     19.33%        
1993     670     0.15%     661     38.87%        
1994     726     8.52%     651     36.76%        
1995     745     11.36%     634     33.19%        
1996     679     1.49%     674     41.60%        
1997     739     10.46%     652     36.97%        
1997/8     748     11.81%     661     38.87%        
1998/9(old rules)     750     12.11%     676     42.02%        
1998/9(new rules)59     750     12.11%     676     42.02%     23,635     0.00%
1999/00     766     14.50%     750     57.56%     23,792     0.66%
2000/01     850     27.06%     708     48.74%     24,552     3.88%
2001/0269     891     33.18%     856     79.83%     28,787     21.80%
2002/0369     1,047     56.50%     822     72.69%     32,816     38.84%
2003/04     904     35.13%     888     86.55%     35,669     50.92%
2004/0573     869     29.90%     738     55.04%     36,387     53.95%
2005/06     765     14.35%     922     93.70%     35,613     50.68%


Year    Total violence    Percentage    Total Violent Crime    Percentage
1990     184,665     0.00%    6671    0.00%
1991     190,339     3.07%    7076    6.07%
1992     201,777     9.27%    7587    13.73%
1993     205,102     11.07%    7855    17.75%
1994     218,354     18.24%    8284    24.18%
1995     212,588     15.12%    8300    24.42%
1996     239,340     29.61%    9204    37.97%
1997     250,827     35.83%    9265    38.88%
1997/8     256,070     38.67%    9420    41.21%
1998/9(old rules)     230,756     24.96%    8859    32.80%
1998/9(new rules)59     502,788     172.27%    16172    142.42%
1999/00     581,038     214.64%    18770    181.37%
2000/01     600,922     225.41%    19578    193.48%
2001/0269     650,330     252.17%    21706    225.38%
2002/0369     845,085     357.63%    26818    302.01%
2003/04     967,234     423.78%    29998    349.68%
2004/0573     1,048,160     467.60%    32061    380.60%
2005/06     1,059,913     473.97%        


Of course, formatting is crap so a screenshots of the numbers.
 
D is the important point. If there is a good rational justification, I think I could be persuaded that it is worth it. But so far, I haven't seen how they can interpert higher numbers as being less.
 
How do you define sane NewLearner ? Who judges what a sane person behaves like ? I wouldn't call a guy carrying a gun necessarily sane unless he is a police man or belongs to the army and even then I'd have my reservations. If you face someone pointing a gun at you, even if he was your best friend, would you still consider him sane ?
 
I guess I would define sane the way it is done legally. "Possessing mental faculties that are capable of distinguishing right from wrong so as to bear legal responsibility for one's actions."

So you doubt the sanity of a police officer or a member of the military because they are carrying a gun? I would be more inclined to doubt the sanity of a military person going to war without a gun. I would also be more inclined to doubt the sanity of a person that thinks it is better to face someone else with a gun when they don't have one.

I don't doubt the sanity of an armed robber. I doubt their goodness.
 
Yes, simply because that person was taught a certain mental drill to shoot at a certain action. Be it a person removing something that looked like a gun or just a threat. If its legitimate is up to the police officer. If that police officer though himself enjoys using his gun how sane would you consider him ? If he spends hours in the shooting club of his police station. Would you suddenly think: oh damn, if he snaps I could be a victim ? We are all human, after all, and just because someone wears a police badge doesn't mean he can't make mistakes or shoot someone out of revenge.
 
That isn't the way the military (or at least not the military I was in) is trained to act. Narcsarge will probably say the same about the police.

In all honesty, I am far more likely, and can statistically be proven, to die from a doctor botching a surgery than being shot by a police officer. Does that mean I should doubt the doctor's sanity or skip the surgery that I need?
 
To a point I can tolerate the self defence argument, the argument that banning weapons would mean only criminals possess them. They are thought provoking, if, in my opinion, plain wrong, but what I hate, truly truly truly hate is the 'Its in the constitution' argument. I mean what a crock! The constitution once condoned slavery, does that mean every American has the right to drive over to Walmart and pick themselves up a nice strong black man? No, because America woke up and realised it was a crock!
 
That might not be the way you were trained to act but a real life situation could be very different and you could behave differently as well. We have emotions and they can control us and seriously, if a person loves using his gun why shouldn't he suddenly enjoy shooting someone as well ? Its only a small step from one thing to the other. Sanity is a fine line in people.



Depends how much you trust your doctor. If your doctor would suddenly decide to take a chainsaw to cut you up and still tell you its regular doctors procedure would you trust him enough to go through with it ? Or would you catogorize him insane ? If you would never have heard how usually doctors perform surgery you probably would find it normal. If I saw a police officer pointing a gun at me for no reason I would wonder if he is sane, whatever his training. It all depends on your point-of-view of what you consider sane.
 
I'll address all of this by once more saying it's irrelevant. Violent Crime is a separate category. As you're unable to supply a link to an actual page I'll have to do some ploughing through stats as and when I have time.

MItch
 
But you just said we were trained to act that way. I really don't think most people are a second away from snapping.




And when have you seen a police officer pointing a gun at anyone for no reason? Would that be never? That's what I thought.
 
Were you unable to see the link that I cut and pasted all that information from? Just download the spreadsheet of the last hundred years of crime reports in the UK.

I gave official numbers for things like homicides, attempted homicides, possession of weapons, and total violent crime. In every case, they were higher in the 2000's than in 1990. Every case. I don't see how you can say it is irrelevant. Well, unless, you just don't want to be objective about the numbers.
 
I actually heard of an officer shooting a guy in london simply because he thought he was a terrorist NewLearner. Because he was carrying a backpack. That was around the 7/7 incident. I know it brought out a huge legal case.
 
You have heard of one case. I wonder how many police officers there are in the UK? Based on that, what is the chance that an innocent person has to fear the police?
 
It only has 40 pages, but the pages are numbered, and they don't go from 1-40. It's whatever number I said on their numbers.

I'm not done reading this thread yet, so I'll post again once I get through it all. I haven't been online in a couple days (got engaged yesterday - woot! ).
 
Okay, I've finished reading through the thread now. I missed a lot of good stuff. Our Constitution is not in the least bit irrelevant. I hadn't even brought it up previously because I believe the numbers on the effectiveness of gun control speak for themselves and that the Constitution argument is unneeded. Since it has been brought up, I will address it with my own personal beliefs though. Even if more gun control would lower overall violent crime by a significant margin, I would still be opposed to it. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantee the right, not priviledge, to own/bear (carry) only one material object. That is a gun. Our Revolutionary War was fought using mainly personally owned firearms. The 2nd Amendment is second because our founding fathers believed it was the second most important amendment in our Bill of Rights, only falling behind the 1st guaranteeing freedom of speech, religion, and assembly. The purpose of the Second Amendment was not strictly or even mainly personal defense or sporting use; it was to keep the power in the hands of the people. The People are supposed to have the right and ability to overthrow our government at any time should it become tyrannical. That said, I personally value individual liberty over collective safety 95+% of the time. I don't want to open another can of worms with that statement, but I agree with Benjamin Franklin who said, "Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety."

Edit: And I have been a gun owner who also carries guns longer than I have been in the military. Did joining the military suddenly make me sane whereas before that I was insane because I carried a gun?
 
That wonderful Franklin quote and the Second Amendment and liberty discussion got me thinking about other gun control quotes. I know this is a lot, but these words are quite revealing.

http://www.sightm1911.com/Care/Gun_Quotes.htm
 
Back
Top