A home invasion is scary, but again, I'd rather lose my TV than my life. I place a greater value on human lives than on basically anything else - therefore, I'd immediately accept a higher "crime" rate if the murder rate was cut by 75%.
Except that it wasn't cut by 75%. That's the thing. You traded open access by criminals to your homes in exchange for no real reduction in the murder rate at all. Your murder rate is less than the United States' because it's always been less than the United States'. You've turned your courts and homes over to the criminals and received absolutely nothing in return, except the satisfaction of being able to say to yourself, as a man busts in through your window and helps himself to your cash, "at least I don't own a gun, like those goddamned Americans."
It's insane.
I live in California.
Yeah? How's the gun control working there? Strictest in the nation, I hear; I make it three mass shootings in the past year.
I'll repeat that: choose between triple the violent crime, or quadruple the murder rate.
But that's just it, there is no choice. But thanks for admitting, I guess, that gun ownership reduces crime.
I'd much rather the violent criminal simply not have a gun.
And the way to achieve that is by disarming people who aren't criminals? That's never made any sense.
I said that state laws mean little when crossing state lines is trivial.
But he didn't cross state lines. He used guns from Connecticut. Even if he had crossed state lines, he'd have been in either Rhode Island, New York, or Massachussets, all of which have roughly equivalent rates of gun ownership.
So "state lines" is irrelevant. To go to the closest place near him with a significantly higher rate of ownership, he'd have to have gone to Canada. Canada! The vaunted gun-free paradise, with double the rate of ownership of any of the states I've mentioned above.
Which means you're simply using the fallacious reasoning that anecdotes constitute more heavily weighted evidence than multi-year trends of statistics.
There aren't enough mass shootings to be significant. They're like meteor strikes. Anecdotes are all there is.
But, as I've said before, Connecticut had a lower rate of firearms ownership than Canada and a lot of European countries. And yet, there's a guy shooting up a school. So clearly a low number of guns doesn't prevent these crimes.
An obviously and fatally flawed argument, no point repeating Rahvin's explanation.
Also, the argument is not that a "low number of guns" prevents homicides. The argument is that gun prevalence and gun homicides are positively correlated. More guns, more homicides.
But he didn't cross state lines. He used guns from Connecticut. Even if he had crossed state lines, he'd have been in either Rhode Island, New York, or Massachussets, all of which have roughly equivalent rates of gun ownership.
So "state lines" is irrelevant. To go to the closest place near him with a significantly higher rate of ownership, he'd have to have gone to Canada. Canada! The vaunted gun-free paradise, with double the rate of ownership of any of the states I've mentioned above.
All nothing more than red herrings. Either you're simply missing the point, or you're deliberately avoiding the fact that talking about state laws is meaningless because state lines can be crossed with trivial ease.
There aren't enough mass shootings to be significant. They're like meteor strikes. Anecdotes are all there is.
I am not and never have been talking about mass shootings. I have been talking about gun related violence, of which mass shootings are merely a subset. I've said this before.
I've said this multiple times: perhaps you should consider debating stances that your opponents have actually stated, instead of the straw men you make up in your head.
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
You're STILL confusing "reduction" with "prevention."
Because that's what Percy is talking about. He's saying that the mass shootings will continue while guns are super-plentiful.
No, Percy is not saying that. Percy is making a probabilistic argument that gun prevalence and gun homicides are positively correlated. Which all the evidence supports. Mass murder is the rarest form of homicide, but as gun ownership declines they should also decline.
And I'm saying, recent events prove that mass shootings will continue regardless of how plentiful guns are, because this most recent one happened in a state where there were almost no guns at all.
You're saying this again? I hope you only mean that low gun prevalence won't mean an end to all mass murders, but if not then, well, I guess the odds are good that those who don't understand the errors of bucking probability are doomed to repeat them.
Fully half of all burglaries happen while the home occupants are present. Fully half. That's a guy breaking into your home while you're asleep, armed with who knows what - even a firearm! - creeping around your sleeping body.
I'm sorry but that is out of control.
Oh - I see. You are making some weird point, not about numbers, but how the burglaries occur.
Crashfrog writes:
quote:A violent burglar who called himself Lucifer and received a record-breaking sentence for his crimes won a partial victory today in his damages action against the Home Office.
Just as I thought. You aren't able to provide a link to a burglar being paid compensation. Would you like to try again?
Crashfrog writes:
Apparently burglars filing suit against their victims is so commonplace that the UK has moved to ban the practice: ... Truly amazing. Topsy-turvy land.
No. Not so commonplace - merely a loophole that needs closing. But at least we try to fix things that are clearly wrong. So, why doesn't America? Or did you not know that American criminals sue their victims? Truly amazing...hypocrisy. How are you enjoying living in your topsy-turvy land?
Crashfrog writes:
Well, congratulations on that, but you've constructed a society where people aren't safe in their own homes, and where criminals are allowed to file suit against those who resist their criminal predation.
They are significantly safer from being killed than in America. Criminals are also allowed to sue victims in America - congratulations to you too!
Crashfrog writes:
But, nobody's getting killed with a gun! Well, except about fifty people every year. But fuck those guys, right?
Wrong. We are trying to reduce gun crime even further. Perhaps you should try to. It might have saved those children. But you want your toys, so fuck those kids, right?
Crashfrog writes:
Australia didn't "make guns illegal", they enacted gun control and then at a much later date, homicides were lower. You've not made the case that Australia's gun control actually caused there to be less homicides, and if you assign the credit for the eventual decline in homicides to Australia's gun control laws but not the immediate and precipitous increase in all other crimes, you're just cherry-picking stats.
The immediate and precipitous increase immediately and precipitously dropped back down. You are just cherry-picking stats.
Australia banned guns and gun deaths went down dramatically. You have not shown otherwise.
Do you think that a gun ban would produce an instant reduction? I think it would take several years at least. How long do you think it should take?
"There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god." J. B. S. Haldane
Still want to know where this bizarre statement comes from.
The National Guard evolved out of state armies
Please explain what you mean by this. Some historical basis for the comment would be nice. Unless of course it is just some shit you threw against the wall to see what would stick. If that is the case, carry on.
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
Also, the argument is not that a "low number of guns" prevents homicides. The argument is that gun prevalence and gun homicides are positively correlated. More guns, more homicides.
You've used this statistic throughout this thread and obviously you believe it. There are statistics on both sides, I've seen statistics that show that homicides along with all other crimes are fewer when there are more citizen owned guns. The statistics seem to be politically malleable. Why should I trust yours?
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
quote:That prevents the effective use of the gun for home defense. You shouldn't have to fumble around with a safe while someone's breaking into your house.
Why cannot anything be done with the real problem? In my country very very few people can own handguns and every single gun must be locked in safe or a sturdy lockable cabinet. I do not remember a single instance when a burglary had ended up in the death of the tenant (and yes, by my profession I do know). The availability of guns and the culture that idolizes the use of guns results in the threshold of using guns being low.
...according to this article in a UK publication called the Mail Online from 2009, reporting on the growth of GUN crime since guns were prohibited in 1997, that law you are all so proud of that you think has reduced gun crime.
I gather it's a conservative paper but these are Government statistics and I see no reason to doubt them, or if I have to doubt them I'm going to doubt the statistics on the other side more.
Here's the story:
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.
The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place.
Last week, police in London revealed they had begun carrying out armed patrols on some streets.
The move means officers armed with sub-machine guns are engaged in routine policing for the first time.
Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, said last night: 'In areas dominated by gang culture, we're now seeing guns used to settle scores between rivals as well as turf wars between rival drug dealers.
'We need to redouble our efforts to deal with the challenge.'
He added: 'These figures are all the more alarming given that it is only a week since the Metropolitan Police said it was increasing regular armed patrols in some areas of the capital'.
I gather it's a conservative paper but these are Government statistics and I see no reason to doubt them, or if I have to doubt them I'm going to doubt the statistics on the other side more.
Thanks for that peek into your thought processes work. As I read it I could almost hear the cogs grinding. But at least I'm warned not to expect to use evidence to convince you of anything.
One thing to consider when looking at statistics that are vaguely labelled as 'gun crime' or 'firearm offenses' is that when guns are outlawed, gun possession alone becomes a 'gun crime'. The fact that the UK police are busting people with guns and taking the guns and the thugs off of the streets doesn't disturb me all that much, so I'd want to see some kind of breakdown into what this 89 percent increase means.
quote:The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place.
I note that the statement does not say that police are unable to combat increased gang-related crime, just that the statistic itself will generate fear. Doesn't that wording seem even the least bit questionable to you?
Yesterday I was listening to an interview with a former police commissioner of Baltimore who was explaining how he was able to reduce gun violence (meaning actually use of firearms as opposed to fire arm offenses) by focusing on arresting thugs for gun offenses as opposed to focusing on drug busts. (I didn't catch his name, but a quick search tells me that the former commish was Frederick H. Bealfield.) Bealfield described how in a year before his crackdown the department made over 100,000 adult arrests in a city of about 600,000 people. Yet by changing the focus to gun arrests, he was able to knock down gun crime involving real gun play (murders, etc.) while making less than half of the number of arrests.
So despite the fact that 'gun crime' statistics actually went up during that time in Baltimare, the actual incidence of people being threatened and hurt by guns went was way done.
Bealfield also made the point that before his changes police were bragging about taking 4000 guns off of the street on an annual basis when there were 30,000 new guns being sold in the city.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
Stastics are easy to read but hard to interpret correctly. Basically no-one is reporting a drug crime but they come up with doing police work. The more effort the police puts to them, the more they appear in crime statistics. The crime itself did not increase...
As you said, the numbers can look "ugly" yet the reality behind them is something else. Then again when you compare 12 dead in Japan as a result of a gun crime to 12.000 in the US the statistics are rather irrelevant - a death is a death.
Here's a video about people in the UK protesting against their freedoms being eroded, specifically protesting the taking away of their guns and the resultant rise in crime and the criminalization of the law-abiding citizen. That's where the Left is taking us all.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
Thanks for that peek into your thought processes work. As I read it I could almost hear the cogs grinding. But at least I'm warned not to expect to use evidence to convince you of anything.
You can be sure you needn't bother to offer any more of the kind of statistics that have been passed off as *evidence* on this thread for gun control as the solution to gun crimes.
The evidence in the UK definitely seems to be that gun control has caused gun crime to rise and has victimized law-abiding citizens. You may quibble about this or that aspect of the facts if you like but the overall thrust of the evidence is that the UK has crippled itself and the same mentality wants to cripple the US, and there are a bunch of you in the US working in that direction.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
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