Guns used for lawful self defense

[FBM]

I'm working on a tight deadline for a paper right now, so I can't spare the time to go into depth, but I just want to quickly mention that the US has a thing about "unlawful search and seizure" that dates back from colonial times, iirc. Police can't just stop people without probable cause, as that would violate civil rights, could be racial profiling and whatnot.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

He said 'Sharpie', not 4" paint brush.

You'd but half of that, laddie.

[Wumbologist]

Of course, it is not quite as easy as that. Several other factors strongly affect murder rates. Countries with major drug industries tend to have high murder rates. There is also a relationship between poverty and a high murder rate. So, some South American nations with drug industries have very high murder rates, and the murder rate in some impoverished African countries is also high.

I believe I've pointed to the US "War On Drugs" several times as being a much more significant factor in our homicide rate than the availability of firearms.

2. Gun culture. While the gun toting "good guy" is shown to solve problems with guns, people will continue to think that way, leading to widespread tragedy. The messages I continually receive on this thread reveals that completely. No matter how many statistics I post showing that the use of guns just makes things worse, the less than rational rationalia posters keep trying to tell me they will solve problems with guns. This is, in my opinion, and according to the statistics, a cause of further problems and tragedies.

Except that the overwhelming majority of homicides committed via firearm in the US are not committed by "good guys" in anyone's sense of the term, likely not even the ones doing the killing. People talking about owning guns to defend their homes from invasion, or themselves from attack, are a tiny minority in the overall picture of gun crime in the US. Firearm homicides are by and large committed with illegally owned firearms, by people with extensive criminal records, and often in the commission of or in relation to other criminal activities.

The idea that removing guns from normal citizens will make things worse, because criminals still have guns, is not correct. A large percentage of both murders and suicides are carried out by 'normal' citizens on impulse. More murders, for example, are done by people who know the victim than by outside criminals. And most of those murders in America, but not elsewhere, are done by hand gun. If a gun is not readily available, many of those deaths will not occur.

The statistic making the claim that most victims "know" their assailant is an intentionally misleading one, as it readily counts gang members who "know" the member of the rival gang shooting at them. As someone who lives here and is far more immersed in the culture and news, I can assure you that there are literally dozens of news articles on gang-related shootings for every one about the normal non-criminal guy who got mad and shot his friend. Does it happen? Sure, it happens everywhere, with or without guns. But those crimes happen at more or less the same rate here as elsewhere, they're not the ones stacking our homicide rate to where it is.

[Jason]

Really, it's about not bothering to compare gun-death statistics with countries which are rife with internal conflict and have only a tenuous rule of law.

The rule of law in the Soviet Union was anything but tenuous. So what was your reason for dismissing the Soviet USA comparison again?

[Wumbologist]

Really, it's about not bothering to compare gun-death statistics with countries which are rife with internal conflict and have only a tenuous rule of law.

The rule of law in the Soviet Union was anything but tenuous. So what was your reason for dismissing the Soviet USA comparison again?

I think you'll find that any place with comparable or greater homicide rates will be dismissed one way or another, because reasons.

[laklak]

I pointed this out at some point in the past, in one gun thread or another. Anyway, here it is again. http://sarasota.patch.com/articles/mapp ... -s-murders

In 2011, all 7 murders within Sarasota city limits were in the ghetto and were gang related. All of them, including the two British tourists that made a wrong turn and ended up in Da Hood. If you expand that to the entire county there were five other murders, two of which took place in Da Hood just outside city limits and were gang related. Two were a murder/suicide in a private home and the remaining was an armed robbery at an ATM gone wrong. So 10 of 12 murders were committed by criminals. I don't know if they had "legal" firearms or not, but I'm absolutely certain they did not have concealed carry permits.

If you discount the gang related murders then you're left with 3 murders in a population of over 380,000, one by an armed robber and two by a crazy person who killed his wife and himself. A murder rate of 1/130,000 is pretty good, eh?

Now, maybe discounting gang related crimes makes me a bad person or a racist or whatever, but I truly do not give a single flying fuck how many gangbangers off each other, the more the merrier in my book. Not much can be done about a murder/suicide, those can happen anywhere, and I don't know if a handgun or long gun was used.

[Seth]

Er, what part of "no criminal record" was unclear to you?

You are talking of training and equipping every young person. Criminal records very often do not exist at the time young criminals 'graduate' from high school. This is to a large extent because judges keep letting the little bastards off. But the point is that you want them to be given guns while they are still young and in their most violent period. Statistics (which I know you fail to understand) show that the most violent offenders are young males between 16 and 30 years of age. Just when you want to give them guns. Real stupid, as I said.

Since any youth anywhere can obtain a gun with little trouble illegally, and since they can do so legally starting at 18, the only thing that issuing militia arms would do is to arm those young people who have demonstrated good behavior and learning capacity who are not nacent criminals, thus allowing them to defend themselves against the criminal element because they will be both proficient and licensed to carry their arms concealed.

All your plan does is disarm everyone BUT the 16 to 30 year old criminals, thus leaving everyone helpless when attacked.

Nor can you compare Switzerland and the USA.

Why not?

The Swiss do not have the conditioning from a very young age about how wonderful guns are, and, unlike you Seth, do not salivate like Pavlov's dogs when they hold one.

Which explains why shooting competitions are one of the most popular sporting activities in Switzerland, why virtually every town has a well-equipped and attended shooting range, and why nearly every household contains a government-issued fully-automatic battle rifle how, exactly?

Nor do they make hand guns available to every person who wants one.

Strawman. Neither does the United States.

They train young people for the military, and the weapons they retain are for the military, to be stored in a secure cabinet at home.

And this prevents a criminal in possession of such a weapon from using it how, exactly?

Oh, and you're wrong by the way...

5aebaeaf_SwissGirlsCycletoShootingMatch.jpg (99.17 KiB) Viewed 427 times

I believe those are select fire (semi auto, 3 round burst, full auto) SIG STG-90's although they are transitioning to the SIG 500 series in both 5.56 and 7.62. It's very common to see the Swiss walking, hiking and cycling about with their arms, which they are required to take out and use regularly to maintain proficiency.

Not for hiding in their back pocket so they can pull it out when drunk and murder someone.

It's amazing how you're unable to produce any evidence that the simple possession of a handgun drives people insane and turns them into deranged killers. Such magical powers attributed to an inert lump of metal and plastic sounds very much like a religious belief.

[Seth]

and I disagree with those countries, yes, that includes my own.

Seriously, even if I don't really need one, I'd rather have access to the hardware, since a) crimminals have it anyway and b) the police is not trustworthy when it comes to intervening in a pinch (minutes to respond, if not hours, when trouble is seconds away) (and our peelers are usually morons, power trippers, corrupt, or any combo of the three).
It may not be an actual safety need, but it would be a plus since you don't know if nor when a fluke might not happen.

The logical conclusion of that is that everybody should have a small machine gun at home, since it's more effective than a pistol.

I think that's right. In fact, I think every American should carry a machine gun at all times. They would then be ready to defend themselves and others from attack.

Why yes, they should. And you're quite right that it's right, and better yet a constitutional right to keep and bear a machine gun, which of all weapons is indisputably a "military weapon" suitable for use by the individual soldier, which is precisely what the Supreme Court held are fully protected by the 2nd Amendment in US v. Miller. The only reason I can't buy one is because the federal government made it illegal to MANUFACTURE or IMPORT new machine guns for civilian sale in 1986, so only a licensed Class III dealer can obtain a "Post Ban" machine gun and only then under a specific letter of request from a law enforcement or military authority for a demonstration. Once in the hands of a Class III dealer, the new machine gun cannot be sold to the general public, but only to an authorized government agency or another Class III dealer. But that law can be overturned or repealed by Congress at any time, thus making it lawful for civilians to buy machine guns manufactured after 1986. As it stands now, there are approximately 400,000 legally-owned pre-ban machine guns in civilian hands, and since the NFA was imposed in 1936, only ONE of those machine guns has ever been used by the registered owner to commit a crime; and that was a sheriff's deputy who used his H&K MP5 to kill his wife.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot and Gunshow in Kentucky, near Fort Knox. This shoot is held twice a year and hundreds of civilian machine gun owners show up to shoot the crap out of old cars and other stuff. Hundreds of thousands of rounds are expended in two days from everything from a 9mm H&K MP5 to a .50 Browning M2 heavy machine gun, to a three inch naval cannon to black powder cannon to WWI and WWII vintage machine guns and different machine guns from all around the world.

And nobody got killed. Nobody was robbed or murdered. It was one of the most crime-free events I've ever attended because literally everyone was armed, many of them with machine guns.

An H&K MP7 PDW would be the cat's meow for me! Saw one at the show, and it's a beauty.

hk_mp7_b.jpg (23.36 KiB) Viewed 426 times

And a video camera too.
Youtube would be all the better for it.

I think a rail-mounted digital video camera that is activated whenever the safety is disengaged that collects audio and video is a fine idea for defensive shooters. It provides graphic evidence of the justification for the shooting and deters improper use. I think every police officer should be required to use one so that every police shooting can be automatically uploaded to YouTube for the public to see. It would help weed out bad cops and would engender trust in the populace when it can be seen that most police shootings are justified.

[Jason]

Except the bad cops don't use their issued firearm to do bad things. They have unregistered backup carries. I've seen it in movies.

[Seth]

Except the bad cops don't use their issued firearm to do bad things. They have unregistered backup carries. I've seen it in movies.

Plenty of them do use their service weapons, and then collude to lie about the circumstances to justify a shooting. But yes, some cops carry a "drop piece" which is usually a cheap handgun seized on the street (and therefore no traceable to them) that they can plant on the dead suspect to justify shooting him.

[Blind groper]

A couple of points.

To Wumbo.
Re gang killings. Certainly criminals kill more people than law abiding citizens do. However, the people they kill are mostly other criminals. When a law abiding citizen is murdered, though, (which is mostly with a firearm in the US, and two thirds of all such murders are with hand guns) the killer is usually someone they know.

In other words, law abiding citizens who are victims of murders are not usually murdered by recognised criminals, but by their spouse, their neighbour, their room mate or someone else they are supposedly on good terms with. Another reason why having a hand gun in the home for self defense is not very effective. The murderer is not someone you recognise as a murderer, and so you will not have the gun ready for defense. Indeed, having a hand gun very likely increases your chances of being murdered, since that hand gun may well be the weapon your spouse, neighbour, room mate etc uses to kill you.

To Pord.
Re Soviet versus US murder rates. I have constantly compared murder rates between western civilised nations. ie. comparing apples with apples. If you think the Soviets are America's peer group, then you really do have a low opinion of your country.

To Seth
Re handguns in Switzerland. Neither the American government or Swiss government issue hand guns to their citizens, of course. However, it is easy to get one in the USA, and it is much, much more difficult in Switzerland, to the point where very few hand guns are in civilian hands in Switzerland. As I have pointed out repeatedly, hand guns have the properties of portability and concealability, which makes them ideal murder weapons. A machine gun is much more lethal, but you cannot wander round city streets carrying a machine gun without a SWAT team jumping on you.

Handguns are the direct cause of about 50% of all murders in the USA, and about 60% of all suicides. This is a fact. It does not take great intelligence to see that fewer handguns would be better.

[Seth]

A couple of points.

To Wumbo.
Re gang killings. Certainly criminals kill more people than law abiding citizens do. However, the people they kill are mostly other criminals. When a law abiding citizen is murdered, though, (which is mostly with a firearm in the US, and two thirds of all such murders are with hand guns) the killer is usually someone they know.

In other words, law abiding citizens who are victims of murders are not usually murdered by recognised criminals, but by their spouse, their neighbour, their room mate or someone else they are supposedly on good terms with. Another reason why having a hand gun in the home for self defense is not very effective. The murderer is not someone you recognise as a murderer, and so you will not have the gun ready for defense. Indeed, having a hand gun very likely increases your chances of being murdered, since that hand gun may well be the weapon your spouse, neighbour, room mate etc uses to kill you.

Horseshit.

To Pord.
Re Soviet versus US murder rates. I have constantly compared murder rates between western civilised nations. ie. comparing apples with apples. If you think the Soviets are America's peer group, then you really do have a low opinion of your country.

Your cherry picking sucks balls.

To Seth
Re handguns in Switzerland. Neither the American government or Swiss government issue hand guns to their citizens, of course. However, it is easy to get one in the USA, and it is much, much more difficult in Switzerland, to the point where very few hand guns are in civilian hands in Switzerland. As I have pointed out repeatedly, hand guns have the properties of portability and concealability, which makes them ideal murder weapons. A machine gun is much more lethal, but you cannot wander round city streets carrying a machine gun without a SWAT team jumping on you.

You can in Switzerland.

Handguns are the direct cause of about 50% of all murders in the USA, and about 60% of all suicides. This is a fact.

All the more reason for potential murder victims (the law abiding ones) to be likewise armed for self defense. Suicides? Meh. Who cares, a suicide is a Darwinian dead end anyway, no great loss to civilization.

It does not take great intelligence to see that fewer handguns would be better.

True, it does take microscopic intelligence to "see" that because it's flatly false and untrue, as amply demonstrated by the long-term American experiment in lawful concealed carry which shows that where it's lawful, there is less violent crime and where it is unlawful there is more violent crime. This is why 40 states now allow widespread concealed carry. On my recent trip to Knob Creek, Kentucky, I had to unload and store my handgun for about two hours while driving through southern Illinois to remain legal. Unfortunately for Illinois, I deemed my personal safety more important than their law, so I didn't bother. That's called "civil disobedience" and is something that I'll continue to do in any place that tries to deny me my right to effective self-defense.

Everywhere else I just did as I've been doing for a quarter century now, carrying a concealed handgun every day. And at no time did I suddenly and spontaneously turn into a deranged killer and start mass-murdering anyone. Imagine that.

[Blind groper]

Suicides? Meh. Who cares, a suicide is a Darwinian dead end anyway, no great loss to civilization.

I have pointed out before that this is not a good way to look at suicides.
Researchers have analysed what drives suicides and some solid information is now available. For example : The vast majority of suicides are done on impulse, and if the person survives, the impulse will not be repeated. Also, the impulse lasts for a critical period, which is in the range of a few minutes to a couple hours. If no suitable method of killing oneself is found in that time, the impulse passes and no suicide happens.

The point is that people who have an impulse to suicide, can survive that, and live long and reasonably happy lives if they do not find a suitable means of killing themselves. The widespread availability of hand guns is an utter tragedy for these people, since it means that, where a hand gun is available, the affected person will die. 60% of all suicides in the USA are with hand guns. Bearing in mind the shortness and non repeated nature of most suicide impulses, that means a lot of people are dying unnecessarily. 12,000 hand gun suicides each year. If those hand guns were not easily available, most of those 12,000 people would not die, and would go on to live lives that could be full and satisfying.

[laklak]

Then why is the suicide rate higher in Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Romania, Bulgaria, Cuba, Sweden, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Suriname, Hong Kong, Poland, Austria, South Africa, Uruguay, France, Moldova, Finland, Belgium, Croatia, Switzerland, Estonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Ukraine, Russia, Sri Lanka, Slovenia, China, Latvia, Japan, Hungary, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Guyana, South Korea and Lithuania than it is in the United States?

Surely the easy availability of handguns should put us right at the top of the list, behind all those European countries (and your own) that restrict gun ownership?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate

Could this mean that when people decide to kill themselves they find a way, whether or not they have access to a handgun?

[Blind groper]

To laklak

You are embarking on a fallacious line of reasoning. Suicide is multi-factorial, and as soon as you look at a single factor, while ignoring the others, you are in error. It is like a coach of a football team who sacks a player, then loses a game, thinking that the lost player is the cause. Since the most likely reason for the sacking is player incompetence, that is a most unlikely explanation. The coach needs to look at other factors.

Suicide rates from country to country are as they are for many different reasons. Gun availability raises those rates, but so do many other factors. Poverty is probably the biggest reason. The 'special' thing about the USA with regard to suicides is not the sum total. In fact, in the USA there are fewer attempts at suicide than most western nations, probably because there is less poverty. What is 'special' about the USA with regard to suicide is the percentage of attempts that succeed. The 'success' rate is way higher than in almost any other country. This means that, despite fewer attempts, there are a hell of a lot of suicide tragedies that need not happen.

I happened on a reference that is interesting, from Western Australia, in relation to armed robberies.
http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/worksafe/ ... ld_ups.pdf

One note I thought was relevant. So I quote :

(One US study found that robbery victims who resist were 49 times more likely to be killed than those who cooperated.

I have not, yet, found the US study, but even this tip is supportive of my viewpoint.