Guns

Got me? Well, you're right. There may very-well be people who are opposed to gun ownership and also want to fix problems for the minorities; I have yet to see them, however. It seems from my perspective that you only want to get rid of guns because attacking the real problem is just too damn much work. Please, though, you are free to correct that opinion; and I retract having directed my comments on ALL anti-gunners ever in existence since the world began to spin. Am I the only one who realizes that there are a couple of different anti-gun types in the thread here? There seem to be the ones who don't want people to carry even simple hand guns; and then there seem to be the people who are fine with that, but don't want to let people even collect semi-automatics with armour-piercing rounds.Now, I can tell you are of the latter form, . You're right, they don't. You don't need a computer. You don't need a telephone. You could cook all your food in a fire pit instead of a stove; or bathe in a tub of water”heated over the fire pit”instead of a shower. However, you still want those things, no? I mean, Mr. Silver Dollar needn't buy every damn old coin he sees either, but he still does. Perhaps people want these things. Now, I retracted my horribly over-generalized statement about anti-gunners being lazy, do you think you can retract your horribly over-generalized statement that everyone who buys such a gun does so for the sole purpose of killing someone with it? Instead, do you think you could just admit that there are people who want to own those sort of things just because they like to collect them? Well the corrupt U.S. government and police force certainly hasn't come to their aid, has it; letting them live in slums and waste away. Really, you are starting to sound arrogant all of you anti-gunners in this thread. Your slackly attitude to social inequalities is absolutely appalling.Jon

Can you substantiate that claim with even a shred of evidence? WOW! That is one of the most ignorant statements I've read on the entire thread. Seriously, these things play a role, and not a role, but a role. These things are a BIG part of the problem and you continue to refuse recognising their role in the issue. Of course it does; no shit. Owning a steak knife makes you more likely to die from an accidental steak knifing. Owning an iron makes you more likely to get burned by an iron. Owning a hair-dryer makes it more likely you will get electrocuted by a hair-dryer. Whenever you own anything, you are always more likely to suffer some negative effect from that item than if you did not own it... Hell, owning a computer makes me more likely to die from an exploding CRT. What you are saying here proves nothing. Do you know how those people get their guns? Hmm... hmmm... oh... wait... I'm getting a vision... why, that's right, ILLEGALLY! Not to mention the fact that there has been violence in these communities long before guns were all that common. Which is, of course, another point you refuse to address. What does it matter what it's designed for? What it's used for is more important; and the entity responsible for making the what will it be used for decision is not the gun... it's the...”here it comes again”PERSON!Now, I have a lot of homework, so I will make a list of all the points that you have failed to address and then come back and read this after my work is done and you have addressed them:1) Statistics show no sign of [legal] guns and crime being related; why do you still think it's the guns' fault?
2) Statistics DO show relation between oppressed minorities and murder”these statistics don't worry with what tool was used for the murder, if any”; why do you continue to deny that social factors play a major role?
3) People A have been killing off people B since the time there were people... whether you think that was 100 kya, 6 kya, or 2 mya. Haven't you overlooked the fact that people still kill people with or without guns? Will you tell me why this doesn't ride negatively on your argument?
4) The people who want to commit crimes, and want to use guns to commit those crimes, will get the guns whether laws are put in place to prevent them from doing so or not; hell, most of them get the things illegally the way it is. How will taking guns away from law-abiding citizens prevent the criminals”the ones who commit the crimes you are so concerned about”from getting guns the same way they always have: illegally?
5) ... Hmmm... I will have to read the rest of your messages to finish populating the list, but I think this is a good start.Address each of these points, one at a time, in your next post. Any points which you leave un-addressed I will only have to assume you have no counter argument for.Jon Edited by Jon, : coding

Personal attack? Our debate is over.

I would like the anti-gunners to tell everyone their stance, as it seems there is confusion with what they want. They claim that us pro-gunners”whom they've called hillbillies, people with small genitalia, people who feel inadequate”folk are creating the straw man of 'anti-gunners want to severely reduce the freedoms of people to own guns and/or want to severely increase the restrictions on obtaining guns.'They claim this is not their stance, but I haven't seen them make their stance clear, so I would like them to do so now. Also, I would like them to list each of the specific set of data that they wish for us pro-gunners teenie-weenies to produce. Once they list it, we will be able to gather it up in an organized manner. Also, once they've done this, the pro-gunners in the thread will be able to do the same and tell their stance and explain exactly what it is they want from the other side in regards to the evidence.I hope this helps reorganise the debate,
Jon

Other than to collect. Of course, this was brought up before, and you all just wiggled out of it by turning the argument a little. Tell me once again why it isn't totally possible for someone to want such an item for the sole purpose of adding it to their collection?Do you have any proof that these things have only one purpose, and that it is impossible for people to find other”non-lethal”purposes for these things?Jon

GOD DAMN IT! That was exactly the kind of post I figured you people would make! Why is it always 'go back and reread 188 posts'? Can't you just restate your damn opinion? I mean, Jesus Fucking Christ, you went through the God Damn trouble of making a fucking post anyway! It could've just as well had some substance to it!Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

What a beautiful straw man you've built up here... let's hope you're the only crow he convinces Of course you can't collect those things; something is dying for certain. If you went to the gun shop and ordered one of those 'bad' weapons and told the guy you planned to shoot up your office party with it, I'd say you shouldn't have it. Of course, when death is the certain outcome, people shouldn't have the weapon. But what if death ISN'T the outcome? What if the only outcome is that they will sit and get dusty in a display case for many generations?

How in-depth will the psychological analysis be? Next to everyone has some sort of mental/emotional problems. You, for example, are dependent on your need to always have the final say, no matter if you're wrong or right. That seems like it'd make you pretty dangerous with a gun, no?Should people like you have the right to carry a firearm? You seem like you'd be more likely to resort to putting a bullet in someone's chest just to finish an argument than would someone who's not so obsessive about always having the final say.JonEdited by Jon, : Added quote box to make it more obvious to whom the reply was.

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.

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

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

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