Two wrongs don't make a right (the (ir)rationality of revenge) - also gun control

That is not what you have been advocating throughout this thread.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I'm not talking about going to a shooting range. Sorry - didnt make that clear.I'm talking about buying a gun in the first place.And no one should ever be able to buy a gun over the internet with it's terrible ability to discern whether you should be allowed to do so.Likewise no one should be able to buy a car without producing a valid Driver's License - but remember this: driving is a privilege, not a right.And to Legend: sure the criminals will get guns. But everything we can do to reduce how easy that is, while protecting the 2nd Amendment, is to the good. Every little bit helps.

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- xongsmith

Do you really believe most gun owners go to ranges? Se above. Earlier you stated you were all for gun control laws, just not the banning. Well what is it? Are you for gun controls or not? Do you think a person should be able to walk in and buy a handgun immediately? If not, and since you are in law enforcement, have you never heard of a crime of passion? I think a 48 hour wait for purchase of a handgun is more than reasonable. If you need a handgun immediately, no good can come of it. Please show where this has been advocated on this forum.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

No I didn't. I just showed you yet another situation where carrying a gun would have been useful, lifesaving even. So the fact that a gun-totting psychopath walked into a public place and started firing for nine minutes, with long intervals of changing grounds in between, and noone could stop him because *noone had a bloody gun* indicates to you that there should be even more stringent gun controls for ordinary citizens?!Even though this isn't going to stop the next Cho, just as current gun controls don't stop determined psychopaths?!Even though it's just going to ensure that the next victims are even more defenceless?!sorry but I just fail to follow or understand your line of reasoning. Yes and this recurring need of children in your country to kill their classmates indicates something fundamentally wrong in your social fabric that has nothing to do with the means of carrying out those killings.If you seriously believe that removing all guns would stop those killings then you're deluded IMO. All that would change would be the method of the killings not their ocurrence. Teenagers wouldn't machine-gun their classmates they would just petrol-bomb them or gas them instead. I've stated before that unless we can compare the figures of lives saved or deaths prevented by gun usage then you're just presenting only one side of the coin. Yet in countries like Switzerland and Israel where most men over 21 have guns at home and many are allowed to carry in public, crime rates are among the lowest in the world. Which shows -if nothing else- that your blanket statement of "more gun control results in fewer deaths by guns" is incorrect.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

SHOW ME where I did that or forever hold your peace!

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

And how do we know if a society accepts or abhors violence? It isn't by examining levels of violence, I trust? Gun control is pretty tight in Switzerland though, right? I mean on top of mandatory military service and audits on ammunition ownership (for those that still posess ammo issued by the military), there are strict limits on what kinds of guns can be bought and by whom and limits on how many. It isn't about disallowing citizens to defend themselves, it is about what should be available to do that. Clearly you think nuclear weapons are not something citizens should use to defend themselves, and I imagine you probably don't think a 7.62 mm General Electric Minigun is necessary for defense, either.So why should I not accuse you of holding the false belief that disallowing citizens to defend themselves by preventing them wielding miniguns is better for society?If defence against home invasion is your primary concern then a low range weapon with limited shots should be the kind of thing you are happy with, I'm assuming?The key point with the gun debates is not about defence, but about:1) range (if it is possible to kill someone with a weapon who is at a distance and running away, this is a point of concern for some)
2) consequences of errant shots
3) the ability ot hit multiple moving targets in relatively quick succession.
4) Effort (psychologically (and physically), killing sombody by pulling a lever quarter of an inch is much easier than manually piercing bone with a blade). To kill someone with a gun 'in the heat of passion' requires less time and less anger than it takes to plunge a knife through their ribcage.As a start.I have long grown bored of the gun debate - so I don't engage in it. But if you are going to do it, at least understand the issues and try not to frame your opponents as people who are against allowing people to defend themselves. I do think there is a better explanation for American violence versus Swiss violence. It isn't about 'glorifying violence' it is about poverty. A lot of the homicides in the US are gang related. Poor, disenfranchised males tend to group together and engage in male-on-male group violence. It is a common thing in humans (and chimps). Give them tools that make violence, quick and easy (and distant), and it becomes a major issue.The US has large sections of society who, due to historic accident, are desperate and tend to find themselves staying alive by trading on the black market.You would probably do better to argue that because of these factors, having a firearm in the USA is more necessary than it might be in some other places. But they are just my opinions. Feel free to ignore them - but I think you should be prepared for it to take a long time before you experience any meeting of minds.

The first quote is my position on gun ownership and usage. The second quote is my reply to RAZD who indirectly asked for reasons to have a gun. I hope the distinction is clear. I partly agree. Giving guns to anyone and their dog without checks is not a good idea, especially younger people. However, I also support the idea that people who meet certain criteria should be allowed to carry in public, but that's digressing from my main argument which is that ordinary citizens should be allowed to have guns at home and use them in self-defense.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Cars aren't designed to kill innocent people, yet they often do. Guns aren't designed to kill innocent people, yet they often do. When I buy a car I don't intend to go out and start killing people with it. Likewise, when I buy a gun I don't intend to go out and start killing people with it. The comparison is relevant because it highlights that guns, like cars, are just tools - there's nothing inherently evil about them, only with the people who use them Burglary and property crime is lower in the US, homicide rate is higher. What's your point? Then you'll no doubt be familiar with the Gurnos Estate. I've lived there for a few years as a teenager. Some of my extended family still live there. I know first-hand that the attitude of the main gangs at the time was that they would steal and rob safe in the knowledge that no-one could touch them, residents or police. The only houses they avoided were those of the local hard-men, because they knew that they risked some serious injury (at that time or later) if they did. The only deterrent they appreciated was violence. They wouldn't as a rule target houses or people that might potentially harm them. It's one of the reasons I now believe that gun ownership and self-defense laws for ordinary citizens would be a good thing. If by legalising guns you mean making them available to the average householder and allow them to use them at home if need be, then IMHO society would be a safer place.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Actually it's per 100,000, but really it is all irrelevant as you seem to be focusing on something that is not an issue. You have to take "per capita" in to account. If you're trying to argue that the UK is less violent than the US, I don't really care either way. The US, depending on where you are, is a violent place. I'm not arguing which is more or less violent. I was showing those statistics to show that in a place where guns are highly restricted, like the UK, people will resort to other means (knives). And how, exactly, are the victims supposed to defend themselves? You place all the leverage on the criminal who will find a way to procure a weapon, and leave the one needs protecting completely vulnerable. What the evidence shows is that there is not necessarily a correlation either way. The only factors that ever mean anything are societal influences on the respective countries. The Swiss are armed to the teeth, but enjoy a very low crime rate. The US is also armed to the teeth, and experience a very high crime rate. Finland has more guns than the UK, but experience far less crime.That tells me that crime is societally induced, not whether guns are readily accessible.It's a simple question. What does the evidence say?

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"Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life." - Charles de Gaulle

Cars are designed in such a way to avoid killing people as much as possible. Innocence is a red herring. Guns are designed to kill people. Innocence is a red herring. Miniguns, nuclear weapons, sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads and VX gas are all tools.Is anybody actually arguing that guns are inherently 'evil' or are they actually arguing that their prevalence presents more dangers than they are worth?

Cars are not designed to kill people. Period. Banning car ownership here in the UK might lower the death rate but would also make travelling somewhat difficult. What effect, other than lowering the number of deaths, does the banning of guns have? I was a teacher at Pen Y Dre school. In the middle of the Gurnos Estate. At the time one of the most socially deprived areas in the country. I can tell you I would very probably not have taught there if your desired pro-gun legalisation had been in place. And the average householder includes, whether you intend it or not, exactly the sort of people most likely to use guns for crime if easily available. Madness.

What figures are you referring to? These are the ones I found on my first search for data via a simple google:Gun Deaths - International Comparisons.
Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):Homicide Suicide Other (inc Accident)
USA (2001) 3.98 5.92 0.36
Italy (1997) 0.81 1.1 0.07
Switzerland (1998) 0.50 5.8 0.10
Canada (2002) 0.4 2.0 0.04
Finland (2003) 0.35 4.45 0.10
Australia (2001) 0.24 1.34 0.10
France (2001) 0.21 3.4 0.49
England/Wales (2002) 0.15 0.2 0.03
Scotland (2002) 0.06 0.2 0.02
Japan (2002) 0.02 0.04 0Gun Control Network If you don't like that source then this lists murders per capita Countries Compared by Crime > Murders > Per capita. International Statistics at NationMaster.com. The US and Finland are the two highest first world countries in the list. If you can find some more recent data I would be interested to see it. And you would seem to desire a society where everyone is armed to the teeth in the rather naive hope that it will result in some sort of cold war stand-off rather than ever rising number of deaths from shooting. Society will always have crime. Whether people are shooting each other, stabbing each other or blunt spooning each other will in large part depend on the laws of that society. And the more effective at killing are the weapons accepted by that society the more deaths there will be. So rocket launchers all round?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Yes, which is why I presented statistics. For the militia ammunition accountability is tight, just like it would be with any other military or law enforcement unit. But Switzerland also has a very high rate of private ownership as well which is not highly regulated.But again, I agree with the premise of gun control. I only question the real motives of those who say "gun control" when what they really mean is "anti-gun." Because it is beyond what is reasonable. A semi-automatic pistol is not unreasonable. A mini-gun that fires a hundred rounds per second is. Yes. How do any of those remove the factor of defense? That's the reality of the situation, whether that is their base intent or not, that's what would end up happening. Some on here defend the rights of assailants over the rights of the victims. This is the world in which we live. Economic disparities certainly play a role, but that is one facet of society that explains why. When I said "society" I was introducing all perspectives. People don't necessarily resort to violence because they're poor. The most common reason is because this is learned behavior from growing up in poor neighborhoods, which some times promotes poor ethical understandings. People who trade on the black market are criminals with lots of money. They peddle to the poor, who for them, a gun is an investment and opportunity to make more money. Those people don't last long in this society. They are either killed or imprisoned. The need for protection is high in the US. It's not as bad as places like South Africa, but it is bad enough.Part of the problem is that there are still parts of the United States with vast amounts of land, where guns are not only part of the culture but a part of its staple. There is no sense why the criminals in big cities should ruin it for the rest of the entire nation, especially knowing that it will NOT prevent those criminals from getting weapons.And if they banned it right now, it would turn honest people in to criminals, just like prohibition did.I am all for restrictions and gun control. There is though a powerful lobby who, despite what they say outwardly, want the systematic removal of gun ownership. The citizens of the United States will not surrender their arms peacefully. It is now too far ingrained in to the conscience of the nation to give up what its citizens view as an inalienable right.From your perspective, as an individual who has never been around guns, I understand your position or can at least empathize. You can't find a compelling reason to ever desire change. In reverse, people who have always been around guns, feel that to now take that away, emasculates the culture who has grown dependent upon them. It is viewed as a personal freedom, a right to defend yourself against tyranny.That may sound all so melodramatic, but that is the mindset so many in my country operate under.

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"Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life." - Charles de Gaulle

Now this is where you start to sound like a wing nut. Who on here has even suggested such a thing?

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I have just realised that you are from Portsmouth NH USA rather than the naval town of Portsmouth on the UK South coast as I had stupidly mis-interpreted. Doh! Silly Straggler!!I thought that you, like Legend, were advocating pro-gun laws to be implemented in the UK. My mistake.Whilst I frankly think the attitude of many in the US to guns is blinkered bordering on madness I have no real desire to get into a 2nd amendment debate. You guys can fight that one out amongst yourselves. It is a different culture with different priorities and a different legal structure. Which, although many of the same arguments may apply, you are going to be more familiar with than I and I am relatively uninterested in tackling.