Guns Used.....cont

[Kristie]

I certainly hope you boys aren't attempting to use humr in this thread. it's no laughing matter.

[amused]

How will you round us up? Convincing arguments? Stern looks? Colourful language? :p

We will use a combination of armchair sales data and Google Basement Tracker.

Yes! The comfy chair!

[Gallstones]

Ah, this is an example of the anti-gun moral superiority over the gun "nuts".
Charming and yes, amusing.

You are so much less violent with your fantasies of what to do with undesireables.

[Gallstones]

I certainly feel superior to gun nuts. My genes are better suited to Future Earth. People are going to give up all kinds of power to cohabit the crowded planet. We will round up all gun nuts and put them in a gun-leper colony. You can shoot each other. We will encourage it.

We will use teanquilizer darts and stung guns when we come and handcuff you.

Except this isn't how humans work. When the competition for resources gets tougher, people get more aggressive not more cooperative.

[Blind groper]

We are not going to see more competition for resources. However, we will see continued urbanisation, and more and more of the world's population will live in high rise constructions. Every man and his dog having a hand gun in that situation will be disaster. We can predict that security systems will improve in that time, making even the flimsy excuse used by gun lovers today simply evaporate.

Actually, security technologies even today are so damn good that guns are not needed. Set up your home with proper security and no burglar or home invader will ever enter against your will.

[aspire1670]

I certainly feel superior to gun nuts. My genes are better suited to Future Earth. People are going to give up all kinds of power to cohabit the crowded planet. We will round up all gun nuts and put them in a gun-leper colony. You can shoot each other. We will encourage it.

We will use teanquilizer darts and stung guns when we come and handcuff you.

Except this isn't how humans work. When the competition for resources gets tougher, people get more aggressive not more cooperative.

*facepalm*

Even by your piss poor standards this is a particularly dumb argument in favour of gun ownership.
Competition is exactly why gun ownership should be restricted. My heavy machine gun trumps your eensy pea shooter.

[Gallstones]

How will you round us up? Convincing arguments? Stern looks? Colourful language? :p

We will use a combination of armchair sales data and Google Basement Tracker.

Yes! The comfy chair!

Is this comfy chair going to be plugged in to a couple thousand volts?

[Gallstones]

I certainly feel superior to gun nuts. My genes are better suited to Future Earth. People are going to give up all kinds of power to cohabit the crowded planet. We will round up all gun nuts and put them in a gun-leper colony. You can shoot each other. We will encourage it.

We will use teanquilizer darts and stung guns when we come and handcuff you.

Except this isn't how humans work. When the competition for resources gets tougher, people get more aggressive not more cooperative.

*facepalm*

Even by your piss poor standards this is a particularly dumb argument in favour of gun ownership.
Competition is exactly why gun ownership should be restricted. My heavy machine gun trumps your eensy pea shooter.

This particular reply you quote wasn't a defense of gun ownership. It was a correction of alleged human behavior when faced with competition.

[Pappa]

We are not going to see more competition for resources. However, we will see continued urbanisation, and more and more of the world's population will live in high rise constructions. Every man and his dog having a hand gun in that situation will be disaster. We can predict that security systems will improve in that time, making even the flimsy excuse used by gun lovers today simply evaporate.

How can you possibly know that? It would seem contrary to what's happening right now and contrary to any sensible predictions of our near future.

[Gallstones]

We are not going to see more competition for resources. However, we will see continued urbanisation, and more and more of the world's population will live in high rise constructions. Every man and his dog having a hand gun in that situation will be disaster. We can predict that security systems will improve in that time, making even the flimsy excuse used by gun lovers today simply evaporate.

Actually, security technologies even today are so damn good that guns are not needed. Set up your home with proper security and no burglar or home invader will ever enter against your will.

You've been to the future have you?
Could have made it worth your while and come back with the winning lottery numbers.

[Blind groper]

How can you possibly know that? It would seem contrary to what's happening right now and contrary to any sensible predictions of our near future.

There are hints in today's developments. Take oil for example. It is often stated that the world, and (on this forum) the United States in particular, will collapse as a result of oil depletion. A new report from the International Energy Agency contradicts that view point, with a prediction that the USA will, by 2035, and using natural gas plus alternative fossil oil, be quite self sufficient.
http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pr ... 15,en.html

Other resources are mostly mineral resources, or renewable (like forests). Mineral resources are only limited with today's technology. A New Scientist article on that topic pointed out that the Earth's crust averages 40 kms thick and humans have barely tapped the top 1 km. There are new techniques under development which will permit us to find needed resources in the other 39 kms.

[Seth]

We are not going to see more competition for resources. However, we will see continued urbanisation, and more and more of the world's population will live in high rise constructions. Every man and his dog having a hand gun in that situation will be disaster. We can predict that security systems will improve in that time, making even the flimsy excuse used by gun lovers today simply evaporate.

Actually, security technologies even today are so damn good that guns are not needed. Set up your home with proper security and no burglar or home invader will ever enter against your will.

And what about walking through that parking garage at night, or down the street from the pub, or out in the country where the nearest cop is 45 minutes or an hour away, or the home invasion gang who plans to be in and out in three minutes...before your alarm company even calls the police? I bet you didn't know that, did you? Yes, burglar alarms no longer go directly to the police, they go to a private dispatch center where it takes several minutes to verify the alarm before the police are sent. In some cities the police WILL NOT respond to an alarm call until a security company employee goes to the residence FIRST to confirm it's not a false alarm.

And what about the people who live in apartments, where they can't armor-plate the doors and walls because the landlord won't let them.

Don't be any denser than necessary, okay? No "security system" will ever be more effective than a personal handgun in the hands of a law-abiding citizen when the shit hits the fan.

[Blind groper]

Seth

Security systems are already better than hand guns. Because a good security system will stop any burglar or other intruder entering your home in the first place. Most landlords will encourage the installation of such systems, because they increase the value of their investment.

Hand guns reduce, not increase security. A hand gun in the home, for the millionth time, increases the odds you will lose a member of your family through murder or suicide. For every criminal killed by a person at home, there are 100 people in their homes killed by guns, usually wielded by someone who is known - a 'friend', or a relative, or (most often) a spouse. Having a hand gun in the home simply increases the number of such killings.

The fear of home invasions is simply paranoia, since being murdered by a home invader happens so infrequently, in any country with or without hand guns. Might as well wear that steel helmet to save yourself from meteorites.

[Seth]

To Seth.

Let me quote an adage of skeptics - you know, those guys who think rationally.

"The plural of anecdote is not data."

You can tell all sorts of stories, and they mean as much as if they came from "The Bumper Boys book of Violence."

To an idiot perhaps. Here's another adage: "Idiots who think that people don't use guns to defend themselves are idiots."

You can't refute even ONE of those reports, all of which are gleaned from identified local news sources. That means you can go to the newspaper and look up the article, and you can even go to the police department and look up the report if you want. Of course you don't want, and never would bother to even try to verify a legitimate DGU because in your fantasy land nobody is ever victimized by criminals so nobody ever needs to engage in self defense. That's just loony.

A while back, I tried to gather some statistics on home invasions. I couldn't.

Here's another adage: "Just because you're too stupid to find the data doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

The reason turns out that this kind of crime is so rare that the various police forces around the world do not even bother collecting statistics on it.

It's not rare at all, it's just historically not been identified as such. Usually such events are classified, according to the Uniform Crime Report Handbook, "home invasion" is not a classified offense. The rules for classifying offenses are very carefully laid out in the UCR Handbook. For example:

Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook, 2004 21
Robbery—Firearm (3a)
Robbery—Firearm (3a) includes robberies in which any firearm is used as a weapon or employed as a means of force to threaten the victim or put the victim in fear. Attempts are included in this category.
The following scenarios illustrate incidents known to law enforcement that reporting agencies must classify as Robbery—Firearm (3a):
1. A man came to a victim’s door and asked to use the phone. After being admitted to the residence, he pulled a gun and demanded money. He took the victim’s money and fled. The police have yet to apprehend the suspect.
2. A lone male with a gun appeared in a tavern and ordered ten patrons and the owner to hand over their cash and jewelry. After obtaining their possessions, the man left.
3. Four individuals planned to rob a local supermarket. One of the group informed the police. On the appointed day, the four walked in the front door of the market armed with handguns. They were all arrested. The informant was released for cooperating.
4. A person with a shotgun entered a rural grocery store and ordered the clerk to hand over the cash. The clerk complied. The suspect ran out of the store to a waiting car. The clerk notified the police. The police spotted the suspect’s vehicle and engaged in a high-speed chase. They apprehended a 17-year-old suspect.

So a "home invasion" would be classified as a robbery, or a forcible rape, or an assault, or burglary depending on the specifics of the incident.

ROBBERY (3)
•
Firearm
•
Knife or Cutting Instrument
•
Other Dangerous Weapon
•
Strong-arm—Hands, Fists, Feet, etc.
Definition: The taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.
Robbery is a vicious type of theft in that it is committed in the presence of the victim. The victim, who usually is the owner or person having custody of the property, is directly confronted by the perpetrator and is threatened with force or is put in fear that force will be used. Robbery involves a theft or larceny but is aggravated by the element of force or threat of force.
Robbery involves a theft or larceny but is aggravated by the element of force or threat of force.
Because some type of assault is an element of the crime of robbery, an assault must not be reported as a separate crime as long as it was performed in furtherance of the robbery. However, if the injury results in death, a homicide offense must be reported.
Armed robbery, categories 3a, 3b, and 3c, includes incidents commonly referred to as stickups, hijackings, holdups, heists, carjackings, etc. Carjackings are robbery offenses in which a motor vehicle is taken through force or threat of force. In such cases, following the Hierarchy Rule, agencies must report only a robbery, not a motor vehicle theft. Robberies wherein only personal weapons, such as hands, fists, and feet, are used (3d) or threatened to be used may be referred to as strong-arms or muggings.
The UCR Program considers a weapon to be a commonly known weapon (a gun, knife, club, etc.) or any other item which, although not usually thought of as a weapon, becomes one in the commission
of a crime. Reporting agencies must classify crimes involving pretended weapons or those in which the weapon is not seen by the victim, but the robber claims to possess one, as armed robbery (3a, 3b, and 3c). Should an immediate on-view arrest prove that there is no weapon involved, the agency must classify the offense as strong-arm robbery (3d).
Law enforcement must guard against using the public’s terminology such as “robbery of an apartment”
or “safe robbery” when classifying a robbery offense, inasmuch as the public is referring to a burglary situation.

Example 1 above would be classified as "Robbery-Knife or Cutting Instrument" if the assailant had a knife, or "Robbery-Other Dangerous Weapon" if a crowbar was used, but the "robb

If the forcible entry were made not to steal, but to rape, it would be classified as "Forcible Rape-Rape by Force" not "Robbery" or "Burglary" and not "Home Invasion."

This is why you couldn't find the data you were seeking. Not because the data does not exist, but because you don't understand how crimes are classified (the UK has the same sort of structure with different criteria) and because in order to determine if the crime was a "home invasion" you would have to look at EACH CASE REPORT and determine from the circumstance if the actions of the assailant(s) fit the criteria, which, by the way, you have not defined.

Trust me, there are plenty of home invasions out there, and the NRA Armed Citizen column highlights a good many of them.

Now, if you are talking burglaries, we have another story. There is any amount of data on burglaries, because that is a common crime.

You really ought to learn what you're talking about before you embarrass yourself further.

A burglar, though, will avoid his victims like the plague. Burglars stake out a house and observe it, and make sure they enter only when no one is at home. Contrary to myth, most burglaries occur in broad daylight, because that is when people are out. The ones that happen at night are those places where the occupants are on holiday and away, and the burglar discovers this fact. If the burglar enters a home in error, when people are there, as soon as he finds out, he is out of there like the wind. The point I am making is that having a gun to counter burglars is quite pointless, since the burglar will not enter the home when people are there.

Those are unofficially referred to as "cold burglaries" and they are the most common type of burglary in the US precisely BECAUSE so many citizens have firearms in their homes.

It is axiomatic in the United States that burglars avoid occupied homes. As an introductory criminology textbook explains, "Burglars do not want contact with occupants; they depend on stealth for success." [FN8] Only thirteen percent of U.S. residential burglaries are attempted against occupied homes. [FN9] But this happy fact of life, so taken for granted in the United States, is not universal.

The overall Canadian burglary rate is higher than the American one, and a Canadian burglary is four times more likely to take place when the victims are home. [FN10]

In Toronto, forty-four percent of burglaries were against occupied homes, and twenty-one percent involved a confrontation with the victim. [FN11] Most Canadian residential burglaries occur at night, while American burglars are known to prefer daytime entry to reduce the risk of an armed confrontation. [FN12]

Research by the federal government's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention found that, based on 1994 data, American youths 10 to 17 years old had much higher arrest rates than Canadian youths for every category of violent and property crime. The lone exception was burglary, for which Canadian youths were one-third more likely to be involved. [FN13] In cities such as Vancouver, home invasion burglaries aimed at elderly people have become endemic, and murders of the elderly during those burglaries all too frequent. [FN14] Unfortunately, help from the government is not always available. In Quebec, the provincial police (Sureté du Québec) are under orders from their commander to reduce arrests for burglary, because the jails are full. [FN15]
*348

A 1982 British survey found fifty-nine percent of attempted burglaries involved an occupied home. [FN16] The Wall Street Journal reported:

Compared with London, New York is downright safe in one category: burglary. In London, where many homes have been burglarized half a dozen times, and where psychologists specialize in treating children traumatized by such thefts, the rate is nearly twice as high as in the Big Apple. And burglars here increasingly prefer striking when occupants are home, since alarms and locks tend to be disengaged and intruders have little to fear from unarmed residents. [FN17]

In Britain, seventy-seven percent of the population was afraid of burglary in 1994, compared to sixty percent in 1987. [FN18] The London Sunday Times, pointing to Britain's soaring burglary rate, calls Britain "a nation of thieves." [FN19] In the Netherlands, forty-eight percent of residential burglaries involved an occupied home. [FN20] In the Republic of Ireland, criminologists report that burglars have little reluctance about attacking an occupied residence. [FN21]

Of course, differences in crime-reporting and crime-recording behavior between nations limit the precision of comparative criminal data. Nevertheless, the difference in home invasion burglary rates between the United States and other nations is so large that it is unlikely to be a mere artifact of crime data quirks. [FN22]
*349

Why should American criminals display such a curious reluctance to perpetrate burglaries, particularly against occupied residences? The answer cannot be that the American criminal justice system is so much tougher than the systems in other nations. During the 1980s, the probability of arrest and the severity of sentences for ordinary crimes in Canada and Great Britain were at least as great as in the United States. [FN23] Could the answer be that American criminals are afraid of getting shot? The introductory American criminology textbook states, "Opportunities for burglary occur only when a dwelling is unguarded." [FN24] Why is an axiomatic statement about American burglars so manifestly not true for burglars in other countries.

Source

To have a gun to counter home invasions is like wearing a steel helmet all the time in case a meteor falls on your head. It is an event so rare that those precautions are a joke.

Except that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Here's another axiom: "Your inability to parse crime statistics to get your desired result does not prove that your claim is accurate."

Keeping a gun to oppose home invasions is so irrational that we can call it utterly paranoid.

"We?" You got a mouse in your pocket or something?

As I have pointed out repeatedly, the increase in probability of both homicide and suicide of a family member, because of that gun, is massively greater than the tiny chance the gun can be used in self defense.

Here's another axiom: "Just because you keep on saying it's true doesn't make it true."

And your claim is not true, it's false.

Nor are home invasions rare because of guns. Home invasions are rare everywhere. They are sufficiently rare in my country, where no one has a hand gun, that each and every one is published in national newspapers. Try to get a burglary written up in the papers!

Where the fuck do you think all those "anecdotes" I posted came from? You can go to the site and peruse thousands of similar synopses, each and every one of which has been reported by a LOCAL newspaper. That the national newspapers don't carry them is utterly irrelevant.

[Tero]

Spelling: I mean trap, in my last post above.