Summations Only

Yes, we know, and that's why it's impossible to reach reasonable compromises with the pro-gun crowd. They value their guns more than human life. Columbine and New Town are just a couple of many examples of unpreventable tragedies that must be forever endured. Two points. First, it isn't just your wife and kids that are in the zone of danger. It's everyone around you, which includes family and friends.Second, most people understand that how well they personally fit a statistical profile isn't the standard by which its validity is measured. If guns were truly a deterrent then incidents where good guys "shoot a criminal" would abound, but they don't. Fear of guns deters criminal behavior about as much as fear of arrest or fear of the death penalty, i.e., barely at all. The prevalence of guns only influences burglars and assailants to also carry guns, increasing the likelihood of tragic outcomes. What's the win/loss record on average citizens taking on gang members in your neighborhood? You know what's much more common? Innocent civilians being caught in the crossfire of a gun battle between gangs, or hit by a stray shot. You and the gangs need to lose your guns.A gun-packing good guy getting the jump on a criminal is a myth. It's so rare that it's considered amazing every time it happens. Even in your neck of the "woods," it's a pipe dream that almost never comes true.What does come true with a regular drumbeat is children and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and family and friends dying who didn't have to, just because gun nuts love their guns.--Percy

I couldn't make much sense of Message 4018, either, but part of that was that Bliyaal also had a couple sentences that left me scratching my head. Maybe you guys could take another stab at it. There seems to be a worthwhile point at issue.--Percy

Why didn't you respond to the part of my message that explicitly answered your question? Why did you ask? Ridiculing them doesn't help. And when you drop the value-human-life card like that, you're just begging people to bring up the fact that when you're focusing so much on such a small subset of human-deaths that are happening all around us, then you're insincere if you act like its the value of human life that is driving your behavior (as opposed to your irrational fear of guns). Its that attitude that draws out the 'what about cars' lines.For me, its not about the gun. I don't even really like my current handgun that much.But I do value my ultimate ability to defend myself over that of the life of a stranger. It doesn't even have to be about guns, we can just talk about "weapons". I'd rather not get into the semantics, though, but please humor me.Anyways, I want to be able to own a good weapon. I feel that I have the right to that. I don't need to carry it on me all the time, but I think every home owner should have one somewhere. Some kind of weapon, I would hope. I learned that lesson in college.So, the best weapon for me, today, personally... I feel it is my right to make that decision for myself. I can accept restrictions on the weapons that we should allow people to have. The question is where that lies.Part of the problem of talking about the Federal level, is that in some of the States many of the people actually do need significant firepower to survive as they do. And in others having a lot less is a significant benefit.For me the best weapon is a handgun. I'd probably oppose any gun control law that limits my ability to legally own one. Of course, but wife + kid = 0, so they're out of the equation. So what are the odds? Am I supposedly 1000 times more likely to kill one of these hypothetical people than defend myself with a gun? Do I have to actually kill the guy to be counted in the stat?Regardless, if we're talking 0.001% chance vs.0.000001% chance, then I'm not worried about it. Especially considering I took too huge chunks out of the equation. I'm more concerned with whether or not I fit the statistical profile than I am with measuring the validity of it. No, I don't think so. If the crime was deterred then there was no reason to shoot. I'm talking about crimes that didn't happen. Only? How could you possibly know that? Ewe, that's a tough one. The average citizens formed their own gang and pushed the other one back over to the other side of the river where they came from. Really? You think that? I'd bet that a lot more of the deaths by gun fire are due to men purposefully shooting other men in the city, not accidental or random ones. See, that's just not a decision that I'm willing to let you make for me. And the additional 0.4% of deaths every year isn't enough to let you.And really, how do you suppose that would happen? Let's say that you do pass a bunch of Federal gun control laws, and then I comply with them and disarm myself like the law-abiding citizen that I am.Now the only people who have guns are the ones that are already willing to break the law. Gee, thanks a lot.And how would you feel if the number of gun homicides went up? Even with a drastic drop in gun suicides? And if the total amount of suicides barely dropped? How are you measuring it? Defensive gun use happens all the time, what are you talking about? Really? So amazing that the news stations blast it about? When was the last time it happened; the thing you are talking about? How amazing was it? So is anyone being shot by a gun at all, family and friends, depending on the distance of "my woods". I don't want to own a weapon just because I intend to have to use it, which I hope never happens, but I do want the ability to decide for myself whether or not I should have a good one.

He dismissed most of my arguments without even taking a stab at it. Why should I bother?

Your answer about stronger sentencing and somehow identifying "people who are willing to use guns illegally" was self-evidently absurd. The two-year old who shot his mother wasn't thinking about sentencing. The Vermont woman who just killed a social worker and three members of her family provided no hint that she was dangerous. You're being absurd again. It would only be irrational to not fear guns. Even you know you're wrong, since you only own a gun because you know people fear them, believing that just having a gun prevents people from messing with you. You can't have it both ways, claiming that guns are not fearsome while carrying a gun that you believe deters only because it is fearsome. Yes, we know, and guns purchased for defense are far more likely to be used against family and friends than against a criminal. You're voicing the gun nut attitude that is fueling continued needless gun deaths. A gun just sitting around in the home is probably the most dangerous gun of all. If you secure it sufficiently well then it will be unavailable for self defense (its supposed primary purpose), and if you don't then it will be available for misuse. Even if fully secured that gun can still look like an effective solution to all your problems when, for a recent example, a social worker causes you to lose custody of your child and your self control fails. Now you're just sounding loony and paranoid. For self-defense, there is no "best weapon." Handguns increase the risk of injury and death to you and those around you. Yes, we know, but obviously everyone isn't you. The statistical aggregate tells us that guns increase the risk of injury and death to gun owners and those around them. How are you going to reduce the gun deaths resulting from this equation? Well, sure, criminals could adjust to more people carrying in other ways. For example, they might just sneak up from behind and club you unconscious with a baseball bat rather than deal with the possibility that you might be armed. The point is that you're wrong to believe that more people carrying will deter crime. It won't, or at least not much. The causes of crime are rooted in social issues. It's like wack-a mole - you can push it down in one way, but it'll just pop up in another. By carrying you're just upping the odds of violent confrontations.Deterrence and intimidation has a long and honored record of failure. Threatening someone with incarceration or violence doesn't necessarily deter them. It often makes them sneakier or more violent or something else, but it doesn't deter them. That's a great movie script, but get real. Tell you what - let's just follow US news for a while (current news - no old news). Every time there's a defensive gun use we'll post it here. And every time there's a needless gun injury or death we'll also post it here. We'll keep a running count on the number of each until you give up. Sure, go ahead and roll your eyes. That attitude encapsulates the whole problem. You gun nuts only care about keeping your guns and not about the lives and safety of others.--Percy

I at first thought his claiming that he didn't understand what you were saying was just his way of dismissing your arguments, but when I went back to your Message 4017 I found I couldn't be certain what you were saying either, especially the first sentence. I do agree that Cat Sci does seem to be engaging in mental gymnastics to avoid confronting the contradictions in his position.Cat Sci won't abandon his position, so I can understand why you might not want to bother clarifying, but it might not hurt to put a finer point on things for the sake of others reading along.--Percy

Scanning through today's news I found only this: Score:
Thwart Crime: 1
Injury and Death: 0--Percy

Shawn Fuller, 31, resident of North Carolina. Here's some of his opinions as preserved by the internet. He is also notable for murdering his children with a gun.He then attempted suicide, but missed.

I'm too busy to reply to the other message, but here's some links to news of defensive gun use from the past week, not that its all inclusive. I stopped at a dozen:http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article30744024.html Homeowner Shoots Intruder In Lake Highlands - CBS DFWhttp://fox2now.com/...re-away-teen-carjackers-protect-victimhttp://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/321023621.htmlhttp://www.newsnet5.com/...micide-on-hilbish-avenue-in-akronHomeowner shoots and kills burglar suspectMan shot in neck in apparent break-inhttp://www.jcfloridan.com/...c6a-11e5-a556-8b15e1d936ca.htmlhttp://www.wsbtv.com/...r-shoots-man-breaking-his-home/nnFBGhttp://www.fox5vegas.com/...during-east-vegas-holdup-attemptCops: Neighbor in fear for life shot teen he saw burglarizing home — Orlando Sentinelhttp://www.actionnewsjax.com/...home-invasion-westside/nnB5K

What it says is that the federal government must not infringe on the states' capability to maintain their own militias. It's about militias - and well-regulated militias at that. It isn't about letting every goober have unregulated access to arms.

http://news.yahoo.com/...re-becoming-monsters-151748901.html

quote:

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HOUSTON (AP) A man charged in the deaths of a couple and six children at a Houston home has professed love for one of the victims his son but said he thought the children were "growing up to be monsters."

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They were growing up to be monsters, they were disrespectful, rude in school," Conley told KPRC-TV. "I'm not saying they're dead because of that. I'm not even saying I killed them. God says in the Bible do not disrespect your mother and father or your days will be short, but I'm not saying that's what happened.

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Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

No, what it says is that the government* must not infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. If you'd like I can draw you a sentence diagram to prove that you're wrong.____________________
* It doesn't specify state or federal. Though the initial understanding was that it adopted only to the federal government, that understanding was later changed without any alteration of the original text.

I'd like that. Try not to ignore the part about MILITA, like you've been doing consistently. That's what I'm saying: the original text has been ignored in favour of whatever "meaning" is desired on the spur of the moment.

I'm impressed. Whatever you're doing is very effective. Using Google news I couldn't find search terms that returned any items from your list on the first page, until I started typing in words from the actual headlines, and then it would only return that single item.We'll have to use the same search tool and equally effective search terms, else we're just measuring search tool effectiveness. For today when I searched for defensive gun use using Google News I came up with only a single item, and when I searched for gun injuries and deaths I came up with zero items, so that's one way we could go. Or we can switch to whatever you're using, but you'll have to fill me in.--Percy

The bar on infringing doesn't apply to the militia as evidenced by the fact that the Second Amendment does not, and has never been used to, forbid the government from banning the formation of militias, well-regulated or otherwise.In fact, the Constitution grants full control over the militia to the government. If we interpreted the Second Amendment as prohibiting the government from infringing on the rights of militias, then we'd have to conclude that Article II violated the Second Amendment. It hasn't been ignored; it has just been clarified. Your reasoning leads to nonsense conclusions such as: extending the prohibitions against free speech to the State governments ignores the text of the First Amendment.