Connecticut (et al)

[Blind groper]

Not gonna happen because gun registration is always the prelude to gun bans and confiscations. We know that all too well, so we're not going to register our firearms and make that possible.

Only the guns that need to be confiscated. That is, the hand guns and the military style weapons. Sporting rifles and shotguns which have a legitimate use, outside of killing people, can be kept available. This is the case in my country, Australia, UK etc. We have very, very low rates of firearms murders and suicides, but those with a legitimate need still own firearms.

Anyone who wants a hand gun or assault weapon is thinking of killing people. That is not acceptable or desirable.

The result of the current American system is 20,000 each year killed by bullets and another 80,000 maimed.

[Wumbologist]

Anyone who wants a hand gun or assault weapon is thinking of killing people. That is not acceptable or desirable.

The result of the current American system is 20,000 each year killed by bullets and another 80,000 maimed.

I own one "assault weapon" and five handguns and I'm not thinking of killing anyone. I'm not some rare exception, either.

[Blind groper]

Wumbo

While I am not calling you a liar, I bet you have thought about killing someone with those guns under certain circumstances.

Seth keeps talking of self defense, and I very strongly suspect that valid self defense circumstances are few and far between. Yet he justifies owning all those lethal toys on that basis. Are you sure you have never thought of killing someone under some similar hypothetical and unlikely circumstance?

[Wumbologist]

Seth keeps talking of self defense, and I very strongly suspect that valid self defense circumstances are few and far between. Yet he justifies owning all those lethal toys on that basis. Are you sure you have never thought of killing someone under some similar hypothetical and unlikely circumstance?

I would venture a guess that any human aware of their own mortality has considered the possibility of being attacked and having to defend themselves. In the context of self-defense, is it possible that an attacker might be killed? Sure. But that's not the goal, not the intent at all. Thinking about defending yourself, with or without a firearm, does not equivocate with thinking of killing someone, even if one recognizes that as a potential outcome of their self-defense.

Some might consider that to be splitting hairs, but I personally see a very distinct moral difference between recognizing the possibility of having to defend oneself from attack with deadly force, and actively "thinking of killing someone". There's nothing wrong with someone thinking about how to protect themselves from harm, and recognizing the potential outcomes of doing so.

[Seth]

Not gonna happen because gun registration is always the prelude to gun bans and confiscations. We know that all too well, so we're not going to register our firearms and make that possible.

Only the guns that need to be confiscated. That is, the hand guns and the military style weapons. Sporting rifles and shotguns which have a legitimate use, outside of killing people, can be kept available. This is the case in my country, Australia, UK etc. We have very, very low rates of firearms murders and suicides, but those with a legitimate need still own firearms.

Anyone who wants a hand gun or assault weapon is thinking of killing people. That is not acceptable or desirable.

The result of the current American system is 20,000 each year killed by bullets and another 80,000 maimed.

Problem is that killing people is a lawful activity under any number of circumstances, from criminal attack to war to overthrow of a tyrant, and civilian-owned firearms are used some two million times per year in lawful self defense, and it's therefore necessary that the citizenry be armed with weapons appropriate to killing people, sometimes in large numbers (just ask any Korean War vet) in a short amount of time.

And that's precisely what our Constitution protects insofar as our right to keep and bear arms. Therefore, any law which imperils our ability to be armed with handguns and military style weapons is in violation of our rights and the 2nd Amendment.

Fortunately for us, your opinion on the subject is just...as someone recently said...bum custard.

[Seth]

Wumbo

While I am not calling you a liar, I bet you have thought about killing someone with those guns under certain circumstances.

Seth keeps talking of self defense, and I very strongly suspect that valid self defense circumstances are few and far between. Yet he justifies owning all those lethal toys on that basis. Are you sure you have never thought of killing someone under some similar hypothetical and unlikely circumstance?

They may be few and far between, but you only need to face a deadly attack ONCE while improperly armed or prepared and it'll be the last one you face. Therefore it is prudent and reasonable to be armed at all times, since it's impossible for anyone to predict when they will suddenly and unexpectedly become the victim of a violent, deadly attack.

And it doesn't matter how many guns one owns so long as one does not use any of them improperly or illegally. Most of the time all but one (or perhaps two or three) sit quietly and inanimately in the gun safe, waiting for an event or situation that calls for that specific weapon as the best selection.

[Blind groper]

Seth

Despite your opinions on this (and the opinions of a few million other gun 'enthusiasts'), the second amendment no longer has a purpose in a modern civilised society. A civilian militia is not required, and that was what that amendment was set up for. The only reason it still exists is those people who like to play with lethal toys, and who keep claiming that playing with lethal toys is a divine right. A special gift from God. An element of their religion, whether that religion is Christianity of the Church of the Gun. If not for those people and their political influence, I would strongly suspect that one of the more sane governments of the USA would have rescinded it long ago.

It is utterly ludicrous that a so-called civilised western nation should have such a belief. Out of the more than 200 nations on this planet, only the USA has such an idiotic element.

[Blind groper]

Most of the time all but one (or perhaps two or three) sit quietly and inanimately in the gun safe, waiting for an event or situation that calls for that specific weapon as the best selection.

What you have never admitted, Seth, is that most of the times that specific weapon is called for, it is to murder someone (likely the gun owners wife) or for someone to commit suicide with - very likely a member of the gun owners family. A valid self defense is such a rare event that the killing are strongly biased towards illicit, illegal, and evil killings.

[Wumbologist]

Most of the time all but one (or perhaps two or three) sit quietly and inanimately in the gun safe, waiting for an event or situation that calls for that specific weapon as the best selection.

What you have never admitted, Seth, is that most of the times that specific weapon is called for, it is to murder someone (likely the gun owners wife) or for someone to commit suicide with - very likely a member of the gun owners family. A valid self defense is such a rare event that the killing are strongly biased towards illicit, illegal, and evil killings.

"Kill ratio" is an absurd way to quantify the effectiveness of self-defense. We don't quantify the effectiveness of our police forces by measuring how many criminals they kill. Why would we measure the effectiveness of defensive gun use by that metric, when the most common and most desirable outcome is for a threat to be deterred without shots even being fired?

[Seth]

Most of the time all but one (or perhaps two or three) sit quietly and inanimately in the gun safe, waiting for an event or situation that calls for that specific weapon as the best selection.

What you have never admitted, Seth, is that most of the times that specific weapon is called for, it is to murder someone (likely the gun owners wife) or for someone to commit suicide with - very likely a member of the gun owners family.

Liar. If that were even remotely true, there would be 100 million murders a year. There aren't.

These figures are from the FBI UCR database

In 2010, an estimated 1,246,248 violent crimes occurred nationwide, a decrease of 6.0 percent from the 2009 estimate.

Homicides
Weapons 2010
Total 12,996
Total firearms: 8,775

Violent crimes committed
Year Population Violent crime
2010 308,745,538 1,246,248

Justifiable homicides
Year Total Total firearms Handguns
2010 278 232 170

So, in 2010 there were 308,745,538 people in the US. There were 8,775 murders committed with firearms. If we estimate that there are at least 250,000,000 firearms in civilian hands as of 2010 (a conservative estimate) this means that 1 in 351,000 firearms are used to commit a homicide of any kind.

A valid self defense is such a rare event that the killing are strongly biased towards illicit, illegal, and evil killings.

Huh?

Justifiable homicides
Year Total Total firearms Handguns
2010 278 232 170

Again, from the UCR, this shows that actual justifiable homicides by civilians are indeed rare, but that's 232 people who are alive today because they had a gun. Much less rare are those instances where a firearm is used without killing the attacker, to thwart a crime, most of which (an estimated 60%) are never reported to police because no crime actually occurred because the suspect fled. And those figures (Lott et. al.) ignore the deterrent effects of firearms in the home preventing criminals from victimizing people in that home, something impossible to quantify accurately.

So, as we can see, the use of firearms for homicide is extremely rare, and the vast, vast majority of firearms are never used in any crime at all, which blows your theory right out of the water.

[Blind groper]

Wumbo

Self defense is supposed to save lives. If a tool for self defense kills half a dozen people for every life it saves, then that tool has failed, and failed miserably. That is very likely the case, on average, with guns used purely for self defense.

The idea that non use of guns, via presentation alone, save lives, is a favorite of Seth's. But the study he quotes, from John Lott, has been discredited.

About 1% of those John Lott interviewed by phone (assuming the interview occurred at all) responded with a statement that they had saved their own lives by presenting a gun. By a strange coincidence, there was another similar interview about aliens from outer space, and 1% of the respondents reported they had met an alien. In other words, the reported self defense numbers were equal to what we know of mentally unwell people who will report nonsense in surveys.

I would like to add to this a comparison with other nations. If 2 million lives were saved in the USA every year by presenting a firearm, then that means where there are no firearms to present, nearly 1% of the population will be murdered every year.

So by this dubious logic, in nations with no firearms, 1% of the population is murdered each year. In my country, that would be 45,000 murders each year. Strangely, we get only about 40 murders each year.

I think the conclusion is clear. John Lott, and Seth are talking a load of bullshit when they say 2 million lives are saved each year by presenting firearms.

[Seth]

Seth

Despite your opinions on this (and the opinions of a few million other gun 'enthusiasts'), the second amendment no longer has a purpose in a modern civilised society. A civilian militia is not required, and that was what that amendment was set up for.

So YOU say. Who cares what you say. Congress disagrees with you, which is why the Militia Act is still on the books. Oh, by the way, the Militia Act was last used to conscript soldiers for the Vietnam war.

The only reason it still exists is those people who like to play with lethal toys, and who keep claiming that playing with lethal toys is a divine right. A special gift from God. An element of their religion, whether that religion is Christianity of the Church of the Gun. If not for those people and their political influence, I would strongly suspect that one of the more sane governments of the USA would have rescinded it long ago.

It is utterly ludicrous that a so-called civilised western nation should have such a belief. Out of the more than 200 nations on this planet, only the USA has such an idiotic element.

Thank God for those people and their political influence.

[Seth]

Wumbo

Self defense is supposed to save lives. If a tool for self defense kills half a dozen people for every life it saves, then that tool has failed, and failed miserably. That is very likely the case, on average, with guns used purely for self defense.

Bullshit argument. You are trying to conflate an individual tool held by an individual citizen used for individual self defense with all firearms, some of which (a tiny 1-in-351,000 proportion) are used by criminals to commit homicides.

That's exactly the same thing as saying that because some cars are used by drunks to kill people, we must ban all cars.

And that's a stupid assertion.

The idea that non use of guns, via presentation alone, save lives, is a favorite of Seth's. But the study he quotes, from John Lott, has been discredited.

So you say. But you're a liar and we know it. The NRA however publishes thousands of actual reports ever year of individuals using their firearms to protect themselves, and I myself have used my personal firearm to dissuade a criminal or two from continuing the activity that prompted me to pull my weapon in the first place. I never reported those incidents because nothing happened.

You continue to mendaciously ignore all those examples I cited, which is but a fraction of those published in local newspapers every year. You've yet to refute a single such example.

About 1% of those John Lott interviewed by phone (assuming the interview occurred at all) responded with a statement that they had saved their own lives by presenting a gun. By a strange coincidence, there was another similar interview about aliens from outer space, and 1% of the respondents reported they had met an alien. In other words, the reported self defense numbers were equal to what we know of mentally unwell people who will report nonsense in surveys.

What a bullshit comparison. This is a clear red-herring and "poisoning the well" fallacy. There is no coincidence involved because the people polled about DGUs are not the same people polled about aliens, therefore your conclusion is just so much bum custard.

[Wumbologist]

Wumbo

Self defense is supposed to save lives. If a tool for self defense kills half a dozen people for every life it saves, then that tool has failed, and failed miserably. That is very likely the case, on average, with guns used purely for self defense.

On both sides of this equation you're ignoring confounding factors that completely change the outcome, unsurprisingly they change it in your favor when ignored. There's no particularly good way to know how many deaths are uniquely attributable to guns in the US, that wouldn't have been committed with another weapon had firearms magically disappeared from the planet. Thus, the number of people killed with firearms cannot so easily be equated with the number of people killed because of firearms.

On the other side of the equation, it is similarly impossible to pin down a solid figure on how many lives are saved via defensive gun use. Seth has posted FBI database numbers for justifiable homicides via handgun, which is an unsurprisingly small number. However, not included in that number are the number of justifiable shootings where the aggressor survived, sure to be a higher number than the justifiable homicides with the state of modern emergency medical care. Also not included, as mentioned, are the number of incidences where the mere threat of force deters an attack, sure to be higher than either of the other categories. And, of course, whatever near-impossible to find number we might arrive at as a total for these, there is no way to know what percentage might otherwise have ended fatally for the defender.

We do know that law-abiding gun owners, CCW-holders in particular, are not a major contributor to the US homicide rate. For all your talk of how "unbalanced" CCW holders must be, they are commiting far fewer crimes than the average citizen. Yet, the efforts of gun control advocates always seem to trend towards ideas that are uniquely suited to disarming the law-abiding gun owner without having an appreciable effect on the criminal element's access to weapons. Why not take the opposite approach, leave the law-abiding gun owner be, and advocate better enforcement of existing laws designed to prevent criminal access to guns, and new legislation designed to further that goal rather than the disarmament of the law-abiding?

[Blind groper]

To Seth

The Harvard university researchers I quoted earlier tried to check up on John Lott's raw data, to see how valid it was. (All this is in the report I posted. I hope you read it.) They found no raw data. In fact, the university Lott worked for had no record of his phone survey. The researchers tried to find research assistants who worked with Lott who might confirm what happened. Lott's assistants had no recollection of such a survey. The Harvard researchers had to be careful with their wording in their report, since they would be open to a law suit, but their careful statements were clearly suggesting that the survey you love so much was invented holus bolus. An outright lie.

If it was not a lie, the percentages reported are entirely consistent with the small percentage of total nut cases we know every population has giving a fake report.

If guns are so desperately needed for self defense, then why are murder rates in nations with no guns for self defense down to a quarter of less of the murder rate in the USA. If your much loved theory of self defense was true, then all those other nations should have very high murder rates. But they don't!!

The truth is, and it has always been the truth, that an excess of guns, and a very sick gun culture in the USA costs lives - lots of lives - and saves none.