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EvC Forum Side Orders Coffee House Gun Control Again

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Author Topic:   Gun Control Again
Tangle
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Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 634 of 5179 (685132)
12-20-2012 4:32 PM
Reply to: Message 618 by Faith
12-20-2012 2:10 PM


Re: These Yanks are Crazy.....
Faith writes:
But I'm not for exchanging lower death rates for higher home invasions or other crimes anyway.
I've shown you, from the best sources I can find, that the burglary rate is the same for both the UK and the USA - I'm happy to go through them again if you like and I'm happy to look at whatever statistics you have. (Which are?)
On the face of it though, it does seem that the proportion of burglaries in the UK that happen whilst someone is home is about twice as high in the UK as in the US. But it's also a fact that when a US burglar meets a home owner 12% of them have guns - that just doesn't happen in the Uk to any statistical significance.
Some facts about murder statistics. These numbers are generally very good. The thing about death is that it's absolute - no-one can second guess or what-if it. (Even you.) Then we have the fact that murder is regarded as a serious crime - the most serious crime - so it tends to get recorded properly and in detail. And finally, in most countries it's relatively rare so it's not a big effort to collect them. So just saying you can't trust them doesn't cut it - you have to say why.
Finally, you seem to be terribly confused about the great British Bobby. Yer actual British Rozzer, Plod, is not armed. They don't want to be armed and we don't want them to be armed. Both we and they are proud not to be armed.
But that doesn't mean they are never armed. When we need armed police, those trained for it are armed to the teeth. But because the general public is not armed it's not routine and it's rarely necessary to use them.
In the year 2007—08, there were 6,780 Authorised Firearms Officers, 21,181 police operations in which firearms were authorised throughout England and Wales and 7 incidents where conventional firearms were used.[2]
Police use of firearms in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 618 by Faith, posted 12-20-2012 2:10 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 639 by Faith, posted 12-20-2012 4:39 PM Tangle has replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 647 of 5179 (685146)
12-20-2012 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 639 by Faith
12-20-2012 4:39 PM


Re: These Yanks are Crazy.....
Faith writes:
That sheet of statistics you supplied had every kind of crime jumbled up in one number and when I referred to it as evidence that crime had risen everybody jumped on me for the imprecision of YOUR statistic. That's not exactly reporting murder with precision.
Ah, bless you. Trying to understand what's going on by analysing actual facts is not something you're familiar with I know, but in this case you should at least try, because there is a lot of factual information available and it might help you have an informed opinion rather than an insane opinion.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 639 by Faith, posted 12-20-2012 4:39 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 648 by Faith, posted 12-20-2012 5:03 PM Tangle has replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 656 of 5179 (685163)
12-20-2012 5:34 PM
Reply to: Message 648 by Faith
12-20-2012 5:03 PM


Re: These Yanks are Crazy.....
Faith writes:
Get your statistics clear in the first place.
I'm trying Faith, I'm trying.
So what would you like to know? I'm not remotely an expert but I have spent a few hours trying to understand.
In return can you show me any statistics at all? You say that the rate of what you rather emotively call 'home invasion' is much lower than ours and therefore justifies the extraordinary high level of gun ownership in the US. I'd like to understand this statistic better. Thanks.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 648 by Faith, posted 12-20-2012 5:03 PM Faith has not replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 670 of 5179 (685211)
12-21-2012 3:24 AM
Reply to: Message 669 by Faith
12-21-2012 2:11 AM


Re: These Yanks are Crazy.....
Faith writes:
people ought to have the right to defend themselves AND their property. Period. If people with criminal intent are deterred by the threat of being shot, then they won't be shot. Seems logical to me.
People do have the right to defend themselves and their property. They are allowed to use reasonable force to do so. Reasonable force can and does mean fatal force if that is reasonable at the time.
It doesn't mean that if you find a kid trying to break into your car that you can shoot him dead with a rifle whilst sat safely on your porch - even in your country. (I hope.)
(And, by the way, is that the Christian thing to do?)

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 669 by Faith, posted 12-21-2012 2:11 AM Faith has not replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 676 of 5179 (685231)
12-21-2012 10:21 AM
Reply to: Message 675 by Tempe 12ft Chicken
12-21-2012 10:12 AM


Re: Would this be enough?
I think you also have to factor in that the availability, convenience and efficiency of a firearm as a way of committing murder and suicide play a very large role.
It doesn't seem to me that Americans are uniquely depressed; just depressing ;-)

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 675 by Tempe 12ft Chicken, posted 12-21-2012 10:12 AM Tempe 12ft Chicken has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 678 by Tempe 12ft Chicken, posted 12-21-2012 10:53 AM Tangle has not replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 708 of 5179 (685298)
12-21-2012 3:09 PM


About 6 months after every school in the USA has armed guards at the gates and in the corridors, there will be a massacre on a school bus.
The NRA's immediate response will be to demand armed guards riding shotgun on school buses.
And so on.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

Replies to this message:
 Message 709 by RAZD, posted 12-21-2012 3:12 PM Tangle has replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 710 of 5179 (685300)
12-21-2012 3:15 PM
Reply to: Message 709 by RAZD
12-21-2012 3:12 PM


RAZD writes:
And when one of those armed guards goes on a rampage ...
And when one of those armed guards shoots a child when he was reaching for a hidden banana....

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 709 by RAZD, posted 12-21-2012 3:12 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 712 by AZPaul3, posted 12-21-2012 3:35 PM Tangle has replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 714 of 5179 (685305)
12-21-2012 3:43 PM
Reply to: Message 712 by AZPaul3
12-21-2012 3:35 PM


..ah, good. i thought for a minute you didn't have it quite sorted out. But obviously you do, children are safe again, phew.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 712 by AZPaul3, posted 12-21-2012 3:35 PM AZPaul3 has seen this message but not replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(3)
Message 734 of 5179 (685355)
12-22-2012 3:28 AM


The New Scientist is reminding us that the NRA uses its political influence to block research into gun ownership and gun deaths:
Such research suggests that restrictions on the availability of guns in the US could bring down the death toll. But correlation does not prove causation, and there are many reasons why homicide rates may vary from country to country. Unfortunately, good data at the individual level on gun ownership in the US — who has them and how that relates to violence — is seriously lacking, in large part because the National Rifle Association has used its political influence to curtail research.
Research restrictions
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has faced particularly onerous restrictions. Back in the 1990s, Congress slashed its budget for studying gun violence and passed language preventing funds from being used to promote gun control. Questions on gun ownership have also been stripped from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the survey used by the CDC to investigate how risky behaviours lead to death, disease and injury.
"There's a limit to what you can achieve if you can't do original data collection," says Philip Cook of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, one of the leading researchers in the field.
How to reduce the toll from US gun violence | New Scientist
Now why would the NRA do this, I mean they are convinced that gun ownership is a good thing, why wouldn't they actually fund the research to prove it? Is anybody here reminded of the tobacco industry?

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

Replies to this message:
 Message 738 by NoNukes, posted 12-22-2012 11:00 AM Tangle has not replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 767 of 5179 (685555)
12-23-2012 5:45 PM


This:
BBC Radio 4 - Letter from America by Alistair Cooke, America's problem with gun ownership
is a radio broadcast from 1993 by Alistair Cook in a series (the longest of it's type ever, anywhere) called Letter from America. He's a historian and journalist and talks about the events and issues that brought in the Brady Act.
It's only 14 minutes long and well worth listening too as it could be today, again.
[I'm hoping that it can be played outside the UK]

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 779 of 5179 (685663)
12-24-2012 6:38 PM


... and more shot today. Christmas Eve. It seems easy to make a statement with a gun.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 807 of 5179 (685752)
12-26-2012 2:23 PM
Reply to: Message 806 by kofh2u
12-26-2012 2:13 PM


Re: ...one idiot to another....
You'd have a (slightly) easier time of it here if you at least published the source of the dross you post.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 806 by kofh2u, posted 12-26-2012 2:13 PM kofh2u has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 808 by kofh2u, posted 12-26-2012 2:34 PM Tangle has not replied
 Message 809 by NoNukes, posted 12-26-2012 2:42 PM Tangle has not replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(2)
Message 839 of 5179 (685876)
12-27-2012 6:47 PM
Reply to: Message 827 by crashfrog
12-27-2012 4:41 PM


Re: ...one idiot to another....
Crashfrog writes:
And in the meantime you've eliminated basically any possibility of regular people from participating in their own defense against armed criminals. As we've seen in the UK that doesn't work well for society.
This is factually false.
You're behaving no better than a denialist YEC. You can have your arguments and opinions, but when you resort to distorting facts, you lose all credibility.
I doubt you have a defensible argument - I haven't heard one yet - but if you have, no-one will hear it if you have to dissemble to make it.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 827 by crashfrog, posted 12-27-2012 4:41 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 841 by crashfrog, posted 12-27-2012 7:39 PM Tangle has not replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 952 of 5179 (686116)
12-29-2012 6:10 AM
Reply to: Message 948 by Coyote
12-28-2012 9:40 PM


Re: Statistical Blindness
Coyote writes:
See the two posts I made previously in this thread, linking to very good articles on the subject. So far it looks like nobody has even bothered to read them.
I read your last one. It concentrates on murder rates which really isn't the point. Murder rates are falling across the developed world - actually, crime rates are generally. in the UK general crime rates have been falling for the last 16 years. Most put this reduction down to economic growth and expect it to rise again if the recession gets harder.
The massacres get the headlines but there's a much greater problem with suicides and accidents.
Personally, it seems to me that it's the psychological effect of normalising gun ownership and the repeated headlining of massacres does more damage than the guns themselves - it has a long term effect on the way Americans feel about their safety and their society. Talk of arming teachers and equiping kids with kevlar backpacks is an anathema to me and the idea that the solution is more guns is barking mad.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 948 by Coyote, posted 12-28-2012 9:40 PM Coyote has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 953 by Larni, posted 12-29-2012 7:45 AM Tangle has not replied
 Message 954 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 12-29-2012 7:52 AM Tangle has not replied
 Message 969 by crashfrog, posted 12-29-2012 1:34 PM Tangle has replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(4)
Message 976 of 5179 (686163)
12-29-2012 2:26 PM
Reply to: Message 969 by crashfrog
12-29-2012 1:34 PM


Re: Statistical Blindness
Crashfrog writes:
But kevlar? The notion that private citizens should be forced by their government to allow themselves to be shot is absolutely insane, and just another example, in your case, of the meek, learned helplessness that attends UK-style utter disarmament of a people against criminal predation. People should just be able to break into your house. People should just be able to shoot bullets into your body. People should just lie down and accept all of that, bear all of that physical risk, because it's the cop's job to do something about it, not yours; yours is to lie down and pray that they get there in time. If not? Well, that's life, I guess.
You know Crash, for an intelligent guy, you don't half talk a pile of absolute, unequivocal shite at times. I mean really great steaming piles of it. This has to be post of the month.
So why not kevlar backpacks?
Why would anyone admit to being content with a situation were the children go to school wearing kevlar? When did your precious freedom turn you country into Beirut?

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 969 by crashfrog, posted 12-29-2012 1:34 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 978 by crashfrog, posted 12-29-2012 2:41 PM Tangle has replied

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