The case against guns

[Blind groper]

Seth

According to your logic, nuclear explosives are not weapons of mass destruction because out of the 60,000 or so that have been built, only two have been used to kill large numbers of people.

That level of logic is a crock. Hand guns are designed and built as tools for killing people. The fact that most do not get used to kill people does not alter the fact that killing people is their function. And 8,000 murders each year with hand guns is massive!

Nuclear bombs are weapons of mass destruction, and hand guns are tools for committing murder regardless of how many are used that way.

Using hand guns to shoot at targets is now defined as a sport and is, indeed, practised at Olympic level. So is Judo, and so is Boxing, and so is archery and a wide range of martial arts. Yet all these activities are designed as methods for hurting or killing people. None are anywhere near as effective as hand guns for killing people, but that is their design and purpose. The fact that some people find they enjoy practising those means of harming people, and this enjoyment leads to it becoming competitive does not alter their original and primary purpose.

However, I am not opposed to one-time martial arts if they no longer cause harm. My opposition to hand guns is based on the number of people killed by hand guns.

As to your statement that 'only' 8,000 murdered is a good result......
Well, that is a :'wipe your mouth, you are dribbling' kind of statement. There are 16,000 murders each year in the USA, and 8,000 committed with hand guns. Compared to any other wealthy and advanced nation that is a bloody awful result.

[Woodbutcher]

Seth, if you cannot find a better article than what you pulled out of your arse I conclude you are trolling. You can't find a fucking thing to shore up your boy Lott.
http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers/Ayre ... rticle.pdf
But of course to a gundamentalist only The Holy NRA writ is true, all others are false. NRA is a religious organisation, and the members are sheep who swallow anything they are told. It doesn't matter to me whether people own guns. I own guns. But when you glorify them and preach that you must have them for self defense something is wrong with the system. I tend to believe that a large number of Americans are unstable and clannish, that's why they rely on fundamentalism and gundamentalism, that frees them from trying to use their brain. They follow instead, and find succor in the brotherhood of the few against the multitudes of MARXISTS.

[Seth]

Seth

According to your logic, nuclear explosives are not weapons of mass destruction because out of the 60,000 or so that have been built, only two have been used to kill large numbers of people.

Red herring fallacy. Failed simile.

That level of logic is a crock. Hand guns are designed and built as tools for killing people. The fact that most do not get used to kill people does not alter the fact that killing people is their function.

Even if true, so what? Hand guns are inanimate lumps of metal and they have no intent or purpose other than that which the person handling them impose upon them. You''re careful to say you don't mind long guns or shotguns, but they are "built as tools for killing people" too. That's why firearms were first invented by the Chinese in the 14th century...as weapons of war.

So you begin by being logically inconsistent. Second, you rant and rave about 8000 crimes of murder committed with handguns without understanding either the comparative magnitude of causes of death or the fact that people die. Everyone in fact.

Using your incredibly stupid logic, we must, as has been pointed out a hundred times to you, ban automobiles, which are far more deadly, including "intentionally" deadly (I consider DUI to be intentional, so does the law), and yet all you do is ignore this fact.

The problem is that you, like all anti-gun nuts, irrationally attempt to assign an evil moral purpose, motive and intent to the tool because you don't like the tool. Problem is tools have no morals, motives or intents. Even Mothers Against Drunk Driving isn't that abysmally stupid, they don't call for the banning of cars, they call for control of the operators thereof, which is exactly, and to a much more detailed degree, what gun regulations do.

Using hand guns to shoot at targets is now defined as a sport and is, indeed, practised at Olympic level. So is Judo, and so is Boxing, and so is archery and a wide range of martial arts. Yet all these activities are designed as methods for hurting or killing people. None are anywhere near as effective as hand guns for killing people, but that is their design and purpose. The fact that some people find they enjoy practising those means of harming people, and this enjoyment leads to it becoming competitive does not alter their original and primary purpose.

There is no "primary purpose" of any firearm other than to expel a chunk of copper-jacketed lead in a very, very specific direction at high velocity. That's all any firearm is ever intended to do. Indeed, it's relatively rare for a firearm of any kind to actually inflict injury. It's the copper-jacketed lead projectile that does that. And even they have but one "primary purpose" which is to follow a ballistic arc from the muzzle to the target with extreme precision and then to expand or disintegrate upon impact. That's it.

However, I am not opposed to one-time martial arts if they no longer cause harm. My opposition to hand guns is based on the number of people killed by hand guns.

And yet your opposition is not inclusive of hands, feet, swimming pools, automobiles, or any of a thousand things that are more "dangerous" than handguns.

I object strenuously to each and every innocent individual who is killed or harmed by any criminal activity of any kind, and I value their lives, property and safety much more highly than I do the life or safety of ANY criminal. Criminals forfeit their right to life and safety when they undertake violent crime that threatens the lives and safety of others. Period.

As to your statement that 'only' 8,000 murdered is a good result......
Well, that is a :'wipe your mouth, you are dribbling' kind of statement. There are 16,000 murders each year in the USA, and 8,000 committed with hand guns. Compared to any other wealthy and advanced nation that is a bloody awful result.

It's an unfortunate side-effect of pandering to criminality for so long, and it's a direct result of the government interfering with the right of law-abiding citizens to be armed and to act freely in self-defense, as is proven by the fact that violent crime, including handgun murders, are the very highest in those places where the law-abiding citizens of the community are debarred the use of arms, something that Thomas Jefferson said was an intolerable insult to the rights of the individual.

More guns, less crime. More Stand Your Ground and Castle Doctrine laws, less crime. More dead criminals, fewer future criminals.

And lest we overlook it, let's assume arguendo that handguns are purpose-built for killing people. So what? Some people need to be killed and it's legally justifiable to do so. Therefore it is prudent for any citizen who might chance upon such a person to be prepared with the proper tool for the job: The modern handgun.

[Seth]

Seth, if you cannot find a better article than what you pulled out of your arse I conclude you are trolling. You can't find a fucking thing to shore up your boy Lott.
http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers/Ayre ... rticle.pdf

Here's a little nugget from the introduction to the Ayres paper:

Indeed, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences has been
convened to sort through the now large body of conflicting studies.

And guess what the National Academies of Science (the organizations actual name) has to say about the results of it's study:

Unauthorized gun possession or use is associated with higher rates of
firearm violence than legal possession of guns. Controlling access to guns
through background checks or restrictions on particular types of firearms
remains controversial, and the effectiveness of various types of control is inadequately
researched. Research on the impact of imposing additional
penalties for firearm use in illegal activities has also produced mixed
results. Studies on the impact of right-to-carry laws on firearm violence
also have inconsistent results and have been debated for a decade.

Availability of Firearms
Guns are widely used for recreation, self-protection, and work in the
United States. However, it is difficult to determine the exact number and
distribution of guns currently in homes and communities due to lack of
data. Between 1986 and 2010, the domestic production of firearms has
increased by 79 percent; firearm exports have increased by 11 percent;
and firearm imports have increased by 305 percent (ATF, 2012). A December
2012 poll found that 43 percent of those surveyed reported having
a gun in the home (Gallup, 2013).

Defensive Use of Guns
Defensive uses of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence,
although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996;
Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive
gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by
criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to
more than 3 million per year (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about
300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the
other hand, some scholars point to radically lower estimate of only
108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization
Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a
year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken
from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is
difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically
about defensive gun use.

A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous
or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gunwielding
crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual
defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the
crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have
found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims
compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies (Kleck,
1988; Kleck and DeLone, 1993; Southwick, 2000; Tark and Kleck,
2004). Effectiveness of defensive tactics, however, is likely to vary
across types of victims, types of offenders, and circumstances of the
crime, so further research is needed, both to explore these contingencies
and to confirm or discount earlier findings.
Even when defensive use of guns is effective in averting death or injury
for the gun user in cases of crime, it is still possible that keeping a
gun in the home or carrying a gun in public—concealed or open carry—
may have a different net effect on the rate of injury. For example, if gun
ownership raises the risk of suicide, homicide, or the use of weapons by
those who invade the homes of gun owners this could cancel or outweigh
the beneficial effects of defensive gun use (Kellermann et al., 1992,
1993, 1995). Although some early studies were published that relate to
this issue, they were not conclusive, and this is a sufficiently important
question that it merits additional, careful exploration.

In other words, guns are frequently used to deter and stop crime; there are many, many more guns in society now; people who use guns for self-defense are less likely to be hurt; and Kellerman et al's studies regarding the statistical danger of guns (which ignores individual rights and is therefor invalid as a matter of law) were "not conclusive." Therefore Kellerman et al are blowing smoke out their ass and up your skirt and have been summarily dismissed.

But of course to a gundamentalist only The Holy NRA writ is true, all others are false.

Well, yes, but that's because it is true, and all others actually are false. That's the point.

NRA is a religious organisation, and the members are sheep who swallow anything they are told.

Actually it's a political organization but even if arguendo it is "religious," that just means it's all the more protected by US law. And just because it's "religious" does not mean it's axiomatically false. That's a logical error you and many others ignorantly make.

It doesn't matter to me whether people own guns. I own guns. But when you glorify them and preach that you must have them for self defense something is wrong with the system.

Indeed there is. Very wrong. The fact that law-abiding citizens need to carry guns for self-defense points to a massive and intolerable failure of government in allowing the situation to get so out of control in the first place, and the "patient zero" focal point of criminal gun violence has ALWAYS been those metropolitan, densely populated, largely minority areas where defensive arms are forbidden to the non-criminals of society.

The entire nation has been infected from these cesspools of social disease for a hundred years and now it takes extreme measures to kill the infection and heal the body politic. Ergo: More guns, less crime.

I tend to believe that a large number of Americans are unstable and clannish, that's why they rely on fundamentalism and gundamentalism, that frees them from trying to use their brain. They follow instead, and find succor in the brotherhood of the few against the multitudes of MARXISTS.

Fortunately nobody gives a fuck what you think or believe. Your religious convictions are no less ignorant and illogical than what you claim of those whom you malign in your religious ignorance and intolerance. You're a bigot.

[Blind groper]

To Seth

Guns kill people, and hand guns kill more people. I do not oppose long guns for two reasons.

1. They have a legitimate and useful purpose, which hand guns do not.
2. Hand guns are used in 8,000 murders each year. Long guns are used in only about 1,000 murders. Hand guns are the biggest problem in gun violence, and that is where the emphasis should be, for the very practical reason that limiting hand guns will have by far the greatest benefit in terms of saving human lives.

Cars kill people too, but there are various reasons I do not seek to ban them.
1. They have a very real and legitimate purpose.
2. Banning cars successfully would lead to massive economic depression, material hardship, and probably more deaths than even hand guns cause, due to the poverty that would result.
3. The purpose of cars is transport, not killing.
4. There are already a very substantial set of rules limiting the harm cars can do. For example, no one can legally drive a car without a car drivers licence. Roll on the day when no one in the USA can own a gun without a gun owners licence.

On DGU's, again I repeat that the vast majority of DGU's are not necessary. Like that grandmother you quoted wo drove off burglars with a small guitar, there are numerous ways of avoiding trouble without actually wielding tools for committing murder.

The other thing you carefully ignore is the simple fact that more hand guns in civilian hands means more hand guns in criminal hands. You cannot make those awful weapons available to the 'law abiding' without also putting them in the hands of those who spurn the law. In countries without hand guns, like my own, there are next to zero hand guns in civilian hands and next to zero hand guns in criminal hands, either. When you 'liberate' hand guns, you massively increase criminal illegal use of hand guns, increasing gun crime overall, and murders in particular. The USA with its awful statistics illustrates this perfectly.

[Woodbutcher]

Fortunately nobody gives a fuck what you think or believe. Your religious convictions are no less ignorant and illogical than what you claim of those whom you malign in your religious ignorance and intolerance. You're a bigot.

Actually, Seth, a majority of Americans and practically all of the civilized world agrees with me. It's just the small circle jerk of gundamentalists who disagree with me. You are the ignorant and illogical one. Obviously you still live in the pre-puberty cowboy world and are afraid to give up your crutches to grow up and become a contributing member to a normal society.

[Collector1337]

Fortunately nobody gives a fuck what you think or believe. Your religious convictions are no less ignorant and illogical than what you claim of those whom you malign in your religious ignorance and intolerance. You're a bigot.

Actually, Seth, a majority of Americans and practically all of the civilized world agrees with me. It's just the small circle jerk of gundamentalists who disagree with me. You are the ignorant and illogical one. Obviously you still live in the pre-puberty cowboy world and are afraid to give up your crutches to grow up and become a contributing member to a normal society.

Yeah, the so-called "majority" is never wrong. Riiiight.

[Blind groper]

The majority can be wrong, of course. But it is less often wrong than minorities. I did a training course a few years ago, and we carried out several exercises in which we were given problems to solve. First exercise was to solve problems individually, and second to solve them as groups. The latter method was consistently and dramatically much higher scoring than the first. That is, after all, the reason we have juries, and the reason big companies are run by boards of directors, rather than by individuals. The more people involved in a decision, the more likely the choice will be the correct one.

[Seth]

The majority can be wrong, of course. But it is less often wrong than minorities. I did a training course a few years ago, and we carried out several exercises in which we were given problems to solve. First exercise was to solve problems individually, and second to solve them as groups. The latter method was consistently and dramatically much higher scoring than the first. That is, after all, the reason we have juries, and the reason big companies are run by boards of directors, rather than by individuals. The more people involved in a decision, the more likely the choice will be the correct one.

That's what the Soviet Union thought too at first. Thus the Worker's Cooperatives and lots of democratic discussion and voting on every little thing. When people began to starve because nobody was doing any work because they were too busy arguing about policies and "fairness' Stalin put an end to it and State Socialism, one of the most brutal forms of government in human history, took over and imposed rigid central control of the workforce and economy. Unsurprisingly that didn't work either, which is why the Soviet Union does not exist anymore.

You are just too stupid to live.

[Collector1337]

The majority can be wrong, of course. But it is less often wrong than minorities. I did a training course a few years ago, and we carried out several exercises in which we were given problems to solve. First exercise was to solve problems individually, and second to solve them as groups. The latter method was consistently and dramatically much higher scoring than the first. That is, after all, the reason we have juries, and the reason big companies are run by boards of directors, rather than by individuals. The more people involved in a decision, the more likely the choice will be the correct one.

I won't have my life and individual liberty dictated to me from some fearful, paranoid, and stupid, power hungry collective. You'll have to come and get me.

Is that worth the steep cost to disarm someone who is no threat to you anyway?

[Blind groper]

To Seth and Collector.

There are times I wonder about you guys. Do you really have IQ's that reach double figures?

I suggest that a group decision is nearly always better than one made by individuals and you jump to Marxism, communism and collectives? Wow, you must have some shit in your brains!

[Daedalus]

To Seth and Collector.

There are times I wonder about you guys. Do you really have IQ's that reach double figures?

I suggest that a group decision is nearly always better than one made by individuals and you jump to Marxism, communism and collectives? Wow, you must have some shit in your brains!

Why do you still discuss this with them?

[Blind groper]

That is a very pointed question, Daedalus. Maybe I am a masochist.

[Daedalus]

That is a very pointed question, Daedalus. Maybe I am a masochist.

It seems clear that they're VERY entrenched ideologues, with polar opposite views to you, but I see that you've engaged in literally dozens of pages of heated argument. It's a pointed question sure, but it has to be one in the mind of anyone new here, which I am.

[Collector1337]

That is a very pointed question, Daedalus. Maybe I am a masochist.

It seems clear that they're VERY entrenched ideologues, with polar opposite views to you, but I see that you've engaged in literally dozens of pages of heated argument. It's a pointed question sure, but it has to be one in the mind of anyone new here, which I am.

What you might not know, unless you've read through many pages of threads, is that I have defended myself with a firearm and would not be alive today had I not been armed. Something that groper dismisses.

I guess firsthand experience tends to make you a "very entrenched ideologue." I have deep resentment for people like groper and jonno. Here's why: After having a near death experience and taking time to absorb it all, I really feel lucky to be alive and I realized how close I narrowly escaped with my life. But here's the thing, me narrowly escaping with my life, rested entirely and solely on the fact that I was armed. Had I not been armed, death was certain.

When I think about those who would have me disarmed, and thus me being murdered, it's like they murdered me themselves. I see them just as guilty as those who nearly took my life. It's enabling. It's enabling criminals, from the petty to the psychopathic, to victimize me and other people, with impunity.

Bottom line, plain and simple, criminal enablers like groper and jonno are going to get people killed. They should be ashamed of themselves that they would allow people to be victimized so easily. They are do-gooders who think they are bettering society, when in actuality, they are making it worse.

They must be stopped.