Guns

Once upon a time, there was a person who had issues. This person was not 'insane' in the normal sense, they just felt oppressed by others and because they valued their fantasies more than the lives of others, they committed a heinous act.So this person bought a lot of fertilizer, mixed it with diesel oil and aluminum shavings, put it all in a Ryder truck, stuck detonation chords in it, drove it up to a building in Oklahoma City, and killed 186 people.It was a terrible thing, and it caused people to offer quick solutions so it could never happen again.Some of the people said that we should do nothing to avert such a tragedy from happening in the future but most people did not agree.Some of the people said that fertilizer was a bad thing until others pointed out that it was a bit difficult to keep all the people and animals from taking a dump.Then someone said that maybe it would be better to keep an eye on other people who were inclined to kill en masse, and it may be a good idea to keep track of anyone who bought a whole lot of fertilizer, aluminum shavings, diesel oil, and det chord at the same time.Now while some people thought the solution was not simple enough for their tastes, the slightly more complicated solution was implemented and no tragedy of this magnitude managed to occur in the same way since.The moral of the story is that we live in complicated times and over-simplistic solutions do not work. But if people think enough, they can find a solution acceptable to all sides which does not infringe upon privacy and freedom more than absolutely necessary.

"Some of the people said that fertilizer was a bad thing"? C'mon, really? Are you really trying to tell me that, in the aftermath of Oklahoma city, there were really people who thought that Tim McVeigh had blown up all those schoolkids with a truck full of manure?That's really not how I remember it. I'm of the opinion that your "parable that really happened" didn't, to a large extent.

That's kind of the point, though, isn't it? How many somebodies in how short a time? Again, isn't that kind of the point? I don't see how the fact that you could, theoretically, beat someone to death with a boot represents an argument against placing checks on the availability of more effective means.Again - if guns aren't a whole lot more effective at killing than boots, why were guns invented? That seems to be a point that you're glossing right over to maintain your utterly ridiculous equivalences.

OKay Bren,I tried to be nice. I tried to let you go on with your own discussions. I even went so far as to delete my own needless harsh posts.But rather than continue whatever discussion you've been having with whomever you've been having it, you CONTINUE to try and drag me into your bullshit little game.What the hell is wrong with you?You've chased me from thread to thread because you can't be bothered to use "Google". Finally, after 100 or so posts of you SCREAMING LIKE A MANIAC "How many people are killed by accident? How many people are killed by accident?" I provide you with numbers which you could have EASILY GOTTEN YOURSELF with a little research, or BETTER YET you could have simply READ the other posts IN THIS VERY THREAD.But apparently "reading" is too much work for you.Take your shit elsewhere, we're all full up on crazy here.

Bren, I've been asked to ignore you. Please stop bringing my name up in your discussion with other people.If you want to debate some issue OTHER than gun lethality feel free to open a new thread.Edited by Nuggin, : No reason given.

I must admit a bit more artistic license than you are evidently comfortable with, but ammonium nitrate is a fertilizer and yes, from my understanding it is a major component of shit just as saltpeter is a major component of dried urine.Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong about the chemistry.

Well, you have all been asking for statistics. I've been waiting 24 hours to post these things too Anyway, I now present my statistics. A claim that has been made here over and over again is that increased guns = increased violence, or G=V. A claim that I have and other pro-gunners have made is that the violence goes much deeper, and is not tied to increased gun ownership; in other words G!=V. In particular, I've brought up racial oppression as an explanation for increased violence in the United States. Using statistics of crime and gun ownership broken into race”this post focuses on AfroAmerican and EuroAmerican”, I will show that increased violence does not relate to increased gun ownership.The first item that we will look at is the relative population sizes of the two races in the post.(2005)⁴
E - 237854954/296410404 = 80.24%
A - 37909341/296410404 = 12.79%There are, in other words, 6.274 EuroAmericans as AfroAmericans in the U.S. Next, let us look at the murder offenders by race:(2005)⁵
E - 5452/17029 = 32.0%
A - 6379/17029 = 37.6%In other words, AfroAmericans account for 0.851 the number of murders in the United States. If we dived our first number by this number, we see that per person of their respective populations, AfroAmericans commit 7.372 as many murders. So, we have two populations, one of which commits more murders than the others. If there truly is a correlation between murder rates and gun ownerships, then we should expect the population with the higher murder rates to also have the higher amount of gun ownership. In fact, we should expect to see that population to have about the same number more of guns as they do of murders. Gun ownership by race:(1994)⁶
E - 27%⁷
A - 16% No way! You mean the population with a higher murder rate owns FEWER guns? Yes. These statistics show that there is no correlation between murder rates and gun ownership. Instead, race seems to be where the real differences lie when it comes to murder. What is different in the United States regarding race? Racial oppression. Now, the anti-gunners can step up to the plate and start putting a foot forward like the rest of us to actually get rid of racial oppression and ultimately the murder problem, or they can continue to ignore this crucially obvious factor of the murder problem in the United States whilst hiding behind the veil of gun-murder relation not supported by the statistics. I'm well aware that the latter is easier, and requires one to take less responsibility. But as good citizens, what shall it be?Jon
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Thanks man
For this post, I simply used pro-gunners and anti-gunners. I realize the issue is not so black and white, but each person in this thread will no exactly in which group I've placed them.
EuroAmericans = E; AfroAmericans = A.
⁴ Resident Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin Status: 2000 to 2005, U.S. Census Bureau: Page not found
⁵ Expanded Homicide Data Table 3, Federal Bureau of Investigation
⁶ Guns in America: 3, http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf
⁷ For this information, only already-calculated percentages were available.

You've conviently left out a bunch of facts which relate DIRECTLY to this thread.Like the fact that Oklahoma City was on the 2 year anniversary of Waco. Not an accident. Or that Waco, while a disasterous government mishap, started as a result of a group trafficing in Illegal Guns.So it seems that even in your "manure" story, illegal automatic weapons play an important role.

Oh my god, Jon.How can you be this blind?! Seriously! Can you not read? The ONLY person claiming this is YOU.The REST OF US are having a discussion about LETHALITY. (ie Guns are more lethal than knives, Automatic pistols are more lethal than muzzle loaders.)NO ONE is trying to curtail violence in general - no ones been able to do it in the entire history of the world, why start now.What we are saying, for the 9,000 time is this:(Please use a dictionary if there are words you don't understand.)A violent person with access to highly lethal weapons is going to do more damage than he would if he only had access to less lethal weapons.You've been arguing against us for 300 posts now and have yet to address that issue.Why do you think that Cho would have been just as deadly with a pointy stick as he was with double 9mm Glocks?

Doesn't this hurt your argument? Seems that for people who want the illegal guns, laws restricting the freedoms of those who get them legally are meaningless. In fact, shouldn't we go after people who get their guns illegally like we go after people who adopt illegally? Instead, you just want to restrict the freedoms of decent law-abiding American folk, whose gun ownership doesn't contribute to catastrophes, and whose non gun ownership won't get rid of illegal weaponry.Jon

You totally lost me. What does adoption have to do with any of this?

Was VT an accident or was it planned? Yes, I think it is important to be a bit curious about people stockpiling automatic weapons as well as explosives (as simple as those explosive components may be).Is it a safe assumption that you agree?

So, what you're saying is that we should restrict everyone's right and freedom to access of firearms instead of punishing/removing the few who are violent? Afterall, according to this, non-violent people won't do anything no matter how many guns they have access to. Now, I realize that mass punishment is really easier than finding the specific people responsible, but it's also the form of punishment often implemented by incompetent elementary school teachers over their immature classrooms. Don't you think the government could get off its ass and get to the real problem, violent people, instead of just moving the cookies higher up on the shelf? They'll still get them anyway.Jon

sigh, 300 posts later and you still havent heard a word.Fine, Jon, you can go on believing that a .22 and a rocket laucher are the same thing. More power to you.

Please point out in which post I said this was so...