Firearms

[Man United]

I was about to write a responce in the thread about the new law in Indiana, when I decided it'd be better to start a new one, so as to not take that thread too far from it's original topic.

I have always found the stupidity and delusion of Americans, who believe that everyone is safer if everyone owns a firearm, quite amusing. Hence, I would be entertained hearing some of you argue that guns are a good and useful thing for the average citizen to possess and even carry around.

"We need to carry weapons around in order to protect ourselves," many Americans will say. The thing is, would you rather defend yourself unarmed against an attacker who is also unarmed, or with your rifle against another man with a similar weapom?

"But the badguys still get their hands on guns, making it them with guns vs. us without," they may argue, and their point would be valid, if that were the case. Luckily for the inhabitants of many other countries, it is not. Firstly, having not grown up surrounded by firearms, it doesn't even cross most people's minds that they could use one. Secondly and more importantly, most shootings are not the acts of men who are evil at heart, but of mad men. When a man, or even a child, snaps because of all the stress they have been under, or whatever other reason, and there is a rifle around, there is a possibility they will grab it and take lives with it. If there isn't one around, they will do something else, usually far less severe.

I can't even think of what someone defending automatic rifles that shoot multiple bullets per second might say, but I know that people who are pro automatic-rifles exist. Perhaps we will even come across such a person in this thread, I'm sure it would be very interesting and amusing.

Now, obviously this is just my opinion, though statistics do certainly back me up.
Please note that i say Americans, not because I intend to demonstrate bigotry towards them, but because I am yet to come across this type of idiot in Europe, though no one could deny there are many other types.

[saxitoxin]

- murder is a statistically rare crime, even in places that have high murder rates
- assault is a statistically common crime

U.S. Assaults per 100,000 (permissive firearms environment) - 262
Austria Assaults per 100,000 (permissive firearms environment) - 48
UK Assaults per 100,000 (restrictive firearms environment) - 730
Sweden Assaults per 100,000 (restrictive firearms environment) - 927
http://www.rampageshooting.com/

Given the option between a small chance of being murdered in Orlando, or a high chance of being stabbed to within an inch of my life by a 13 year-old father of 3 named Li'l D-Dawg living in a council estate in Birmingham, I'd choose the former. Others may have alternate preferences. And that's okay. That's why there are different nations with sets of laws crafted to local preferences.

[BigBallinStalin]

Right. It's about relative risks, and about people's preferences for a variety of crimes--as oppose to only (1) decrease murder at all costs.

Then you have the many problems of prohibition, the costs of which offset the benefits--in my opinion.

More importantly, beyond firearms, the source of most murders is due to a mismatch in the informal rules of civil society and the federal/State government's rules. (e.g. Drug War. Take away people's ability to settle contract disputes in court, then they're going to settle them in the streets). Given what we've experienced for the past 50+ years about prohibition, I'd say that prohibiting guns while overlooking the more fundamental causes of crime is foolish.

Also, if you have to rely on stereotypes of huge swaths of different individuals in order to reinforce your beliefs, then you should really reconsider and stop doing that--assuming you'd want a deeper understanding of the issue.

[saxitoxin]

I do think Austria's regulatory environment is very elegant -- access to shotguns, bolt-action rifles and revolvers with virtually no limits. A kind-of licensing system for semi-auto handguns and long guns but administered by private groups instead of the government. (you have to be a member of a gun club to own a semi-auto firearm; gun clubs are incentivized to admit people who seem responsible - if X# of members are convicted of firearms related crimes in any X-year period the status of the whole club is revoked)

[Phatscotty]

[Army of GOD]

[Man United]

- murder is a statistically rare crime, even in places that have high murder rates
- assault is a statistically common crime

U.S. Assaults per 100,000 (permissive firearms environment) - 262
Austria Assaults per 100,000 (permissive firearms environment) - 48
UK Assaults per 100,000 (restrictive firearms environment) - 730
Sweden Assaults per 100,000 (restrictive firearms environment) - 927
http://www.rampageshooting.com/

Given the option between a small chance of being murdered in Orlando, or a high chance of being stabbed to within an inch of my life by a 13 year-old father of 3 named Li'l D-Dawg living in a council estate in Birmingham, I'd choose the former. Others may have alternate preferences. And that's okay. That's why there are different nations with sets of laws crafted to local preferences.

Austria cannot be compared to the US. Firstly in Austria it is considerably harder to get a firearm licence than in the US. It is a long procedure. Guns are far less common, America has more than three times the amount of firearms per capita than Austria does. Also, depending on your reasoning you have access to different weapons and firearms such as shotguns and automatic (and most semi-automatic) rifles are illegal. The good education system and very low poverty and unemployment rates, amongst a number of other things, are the reasons for the low crime rate in Austria. It has absolutely nothing to do with Austrians defending themselves using dangerous weapons.

If you would like to compare Sweden to the USA.. Yes, in Sweden you have an almost 4x higher risk of being punched in the face, but in America you are almost ten times more likely to get shot. 1.47 vs 10.26 deaths per 100,000 people.

The knowledge that different nations have different laws, depending on what a majority of the inhabitants want, probably makes the suffering of a parent to a murdered child even worse. Imagine knowing your loss is because your country is one of the few first-world countries that doesn't choose to prevent such a thing.

Right. It's about relative risks, and about people's preferences for a variety of crimes--as oppose to only (1) decrease murder at all costs.

Then you have the many problems of prohibition, the costs of which offset the benefits--in my opinion.
More importantly, beyond firearms, the source of most murders is due to a mismatch in the informal rules of civil society and the federal/State government's rules. (e.g. Drug War. Take away people's ability to settle contract disputes in court, then they're going to settle them in the streets). Given what we've experienced for the past 50+ years about prohibition, I'd say that prohibiting guns while overlooking the more fundamental causes of crime is foolish.

Also, if you have to rely on stereotypes of huge swaths of different individuals in order to reinforce your beliefs, then you should really reconsider and stop doing that--assuming you'd want a deeper understanding of the issue.

I certainly agree that there are a lot of issues, many of which are bigger than gun control. This, however, definitely does not mean one should overlook the smaller problems, simply because larger ones exist, which I hope you were not implying.

There are the films that glorify many things, no matter how wrong they may be. You posting the summary of that film is like someone arguing that thieving is morally acceptable because they watched Ocean's 11.

[Phatscotty]

There are the films that glorify many things, no matter how wrong they may be. You posting the summary of that film is like someone arguing that thieving is morally acceptable because they watched Ocean's 11.

How wrong is it? Why is it wrong? I know you didn't even watch it because I just finished it myself. The film tells a true story. That's kind of important for you to know before you make comments on it, don't ya think?

[Lootifer]

- murder is a statistically rare crime, even in places that have high murder rates
- assault is a statistically common crime

U.S. Assaults per 100,000 (permissive firearms environment) - 262
Austria Assaults per 100,000 (permissive firearms environment) - 48
UK Assaults per 100,000 (restrictive firearms environment) - 730
Sweden Assaults per 100,000 (restrictive firearms environment) - 927
http://www.rampageshooting.com/

Given the option between a small chance of being murdered in Orlando, or a high chance of being stabbed to within an inch of my life by a 13 year-old father of 3 named Li'l D-Dawg living in a council estate in Birmingham, I'd choose the former. Others may have alternate preferences. And that's okay. That's why there are different nations with sets of laws crafted to local preferences.

I completly agree except on one point.

I would change you initial lines to:
- murder is statistically a very rare crime, even in places that have high murder rates
- assault is statistically a rare crime

[Man United]

There are the films that glorify many things, no matter how wrong they may be. You posting the summary of that film is like someone arguing that thieving is morally acceptable because they watched Ocean's 11.

How wrong is it? Why is it wrong? I know you didn't even watch it because I just finished it myself. The film tells a true story. That's kind of important for you to know before you make comments on it, don't ya think?

I did in fact watch the whole thing and I liked the story. I never said the video itself was wrong, only what it glorifies. The way the music changes when the guns arrive, how they all look to the guns as their saviours, how the heroes of the story are unharmed during the shootouts and the happy ending are ways the makers try to manipulate. The fact that it is based on a true story does not change anything.

[Phatscotty]

There are the films that glorify many things, no matter how wrong they may be. You posting the summary of that film is like someone arguing that thieving is morally acceptable because they watched Ocean's 11.

How wrong is it? Why is it wrong? I know you didn't even watch it because I just finished it myself. The film tells a true story. That's kind of important for you to know before you make comments on it, don't ya think?

I did in fact watch the whole thing and I liked the story. I never said the video itself was wrong, only what it glorifies. The way the music changes when the guns arrive, how they all look to the guns as their saviours, how the heroes of the story are unharmed during the shootouts and the happy ending are ways the makers try to manipulate. The fact that it is based on a true story does not change anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... %281946%29

The Battle of Athens (sometimes called the McMinn County War) was a rebellion led by citizens in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee, United States, against the local government in August 1946. The citizens, including some World War II veterans, accused the local officials of political corruption and voter intimidation. The event is sometimes cited by firearms ownership advocates as an example of the value of the Second Amendment in combating tyranny

Citizens of McMinn County had long been concerned about political corruption and possible election fraud.[5] The U.S. Department of Justice had investigated allegations of electoral fraud in 1940, 1942, and 1944, but had not taken action.[5][6] In 1936 the system descended upon McMinn County in the person of one Paul Cantrell, the Democratic candidate for sheriff. Cantrell, who came from a family of money and influence in nearby Etowah, tied his campaign closely to the popularity of the Roosevelt administration and rode FDR’s coattails to victory over his Republican opponent. Paul Cantrell was elected sheriff in the 1936, 1938, and 1940 elections, and was elected to the state senate in 1942 and 1944, while his former deputy, Pat Mansfield, was elected sheriff.[5][6] A state law enacted in 1941 had reduced local political opposition by reducing the number of voting precincts from 23 to 12 and reducing the number of justices of the peace from fourteen to seven (including four "Cantrell men").[5] The sheriff and his deputies worked under a fee system whereby they received money for every person they booked, incarcerated, and released; the more arrests, the more money they made.[5] Buses passing through the county were often pulled over and the passengers were randomly ticketed for drunkenness, whether guilty or not.[5]

In the August 1946 election, Paul Cantrell was once again a candidate for sheriff, while Pat Mansfield sought the state senate seat.[5] After World War II ended, some 3,000 military veterans (constituting about 10 percent of the county population) had returned to McMinn County. Some of the returning veterans resolved to challenge Cantrell's political control by fielding their own nonpartisan candidates and working for a fraud-free election.[5] They called themselves the GI Non-Partisan League.[7] Veteran Bill White described the veterans' motivation:

There were several beer joints and honky-tonks around Athens; we were pretty wild; we started having trouble with the law enforcement at that time because they started making a habit of picking up GIs and fining them heavily for most anything—they were kind of making a racket out of it. After long hard years of service—most of us were hard-core veterans of World War II—we were used to drinking our liquor and our beer without being molested. When these things happened, the GIs got madder—the more GIs they arrested, the more they beat up, the madder we got ...[5]

Combat veteran Knox Henry stood as candidate for sheriff in opposition to Cantrell.[5] In advertisements and speeches, the GI candidates promised an honest ballot count and reform of county government. At a rally, a GI speaker said,

The principles that we fought for in this past war do not exist in McMinn County. We fought for democracy because we believe in democracy but not the form we live under in this county.[8]

Battle

Polls for the county election opened August 1, 1946. About 200 armed deputies turned out to patrol the precincts—the normal complement of 15 deputies significantly augmented by reinforcements from other counties. A number of conflicts arose before the polls closed, the most serious of which was when a black man, Tom Gillespie, was assaulted by officers after casting his vote. Deputy C.M. Wise shot and wounded him in the back while he was trying escape from the officers. C.M. Wise was later sentenced to 1–3 years in prison, being the only person to face charges from the events of August 1–2, 1946.[7]

As the polls closed, deputies seized ballot boxes and took them to the jail. Opposition veterans responded by arming themselves and marching there. Some of them had raided the National Guard Armory, obtaining arms and ammunition.[9] Estimates of the number of veterans besieging the jail vary from several hundred[9] to as high as 2,000.[7]

When the men reached the jail, it was barricaded and manned by 55 deputies. The veterans demanded the ballot boxes but were refused. They then opened fire on the jail, initiating a battle that lasted several hours by some accounts,[7][9] considerably less by others.[10] In the end, the door of the jail was dynamited and breached. The barricaded deputies—some with injuries—surrendered, and the ballot boxes were recovered.

During the fight at the jail, rioting had broken out in Athens, mainly targeting police cars.[7][9] This continued even after the ballot boxes were recovered, but subsided by morning.[10]
Aftermath

The recovered ballots certified the election of the five GI Non-Partisan League candidates.[10] Among the reforms instituted was a change in the method of payment and a $5,000 salary cap for officials. In the initial momentum of victory, gambling houses in collusion with the Cantrell regime were raided and their operations demolished. Deputies of the prior administration resigned and were replaced.[10]

[/]

Let’s be honest here, how often is it REALLY about saving lives as a whole? If we really cared then most of us would know that if everyone on the planet just put down the booze, it would save more lives than the cure for AIDS and world peace put together. Yet where are the legions of prohibition activists?

The fact is that weapons are a major economic market. Americans make billions of dollars each year selling weapons and ammo to the people, and billions more exporting them (legally and illegally) to other countries. We could do so much more to catch and prosecute weapons runners, criminal straw purchasers, and corrupt federally licensed gun dealers, but instead the government and the NRA deliberately stifles the progress of sensible gun laws and justice with legislation such as the Tiahrt Amendment.

[BigBallinStalin]

Right. It's about relative risks, and about people's preferences for a variety of crimes--as oppose to only (1) decrease murder at all costs.

Then you have the many problems of prohibition, the costs of which offset the benefits--in my opinion.
More importantly, beyond firearms, the source of most murders is due to a mismatch in the informal rules of civil society and the federal/State government's rules. (e.g. Drug War. Take away people's ability to settle contract disputes in court, then they're going to settle them in the streets). Given what we've experienced for the past 50+ years about prohibition, I'd say that prohibiting guns while overlooking the more fundamental causes of crime is foolish.

Also, if you have to rely on stereotypes of huge swaths of different individuals in order to reinforce your beliefs, then you should really reconsider and stop doing that--assuming you'd want a deeper understanding of the issue.

I certainly agree that there are a lot of issues, many of which are bigger than gun control. This, however, definitely does not mean one should overlook the smaller problems, simply because larger ones exist, which I hope you were not implying.

Well, we live in a world of scarcity, so it seems wisest to choose the policy which is most effective. Eliminating the source of murders (as well as a substantial amount of unemployment, poverty, deaths from low-quality drugs) would largely require ending the prohibition on drugs. What follows is a different debate.

My main point is that given the lessons of prohibition, banning guns (or raising the transaction costs through regulations) might* reduce the current level of gun-related homicides, but it doesn't seem to reduce crime and death in general, which in my opinion are more important goals.

[saxitoxin]

- murder is a statistically rare crime, even in places that have high murder rates
- assault is a statistically common crime

U.S. Assaults per 100,000 (permissive firearms environment) - 262
Austria Assaults per 100,000 (permissive firearms environment) - 48
UK Assaults per 100,000 (restrictive firearms environment) - 730
Sweden Assaults per 100,000 (restrictive firearms environment) - 927
http://www.rampageshooting.com/

Given the option between a small chance of being murdered in Orlando, or a high chance of being stabbed to within an inch of my life by a 13 year-old father of 3 named Li'l D-Dawg living in a council estate in Birmingham, I'd choose the former. Others may have alternate preferences. And that's okay. That's why there are different nations with sets of laws crafted to local preferences.

Austria cannot be compared to the US. Firstly in Austria it is considerably harder to get a firearm licence than in the US. It is a long procedure. Guns are far less common, America has more than three times the amount of firearms per capita than Austria does. Also, depending on your reasoning you have access to different weapons and firearms such as shotguns and automatic (and most semi-automatic) rifles are illegal. The good education system and very low poverty and unemployment rates, amongst a number of other things, are the reasons for the low crime rate in Austria. It has absolutely nothing to do with Austrians defending themselves using dangerous weapons.

If you would like to compare Sweden to the USA.. Yes, in Sweden you have an almost 4x higher risk of being punched in the face, but in America you are almost ten times more likely to get shot. 1.47 vs 10.26 deaths per 100,000 people.

The knowledge that different nations have different laws, depending on what a majority of the inhabitants want, probably makes the suffering of a parent to a murdered child even worse. Imagine knowing your loss is because your country is one of the few first-world countries that doesn't choose to prevent such a thing.

Right. It's about relative risks, and about people's preferences for a variety of crimes--as oppose to only (1) decrease murder at all costs.

Then you have the many problems of prohibition, the costs of which offset the benefits--in my opinion.
More importantly, beyond firearms, the source of most murders is due to a mismatch in the informal rules of civil society and the federal/State government's rules. (e.g. Drug War. Take away people's ability to settle contract disputes in court, then they're going to settle them in the streets). Given what we've experienced for the past 50+ years about prohibition, I'd say that prohibiting guns while overlooking the more fundamental causes of crime is foolish.

Also, if you have to rely on stereotypes of huge swaths of different individuals in order to reinforce your beliefs, then you should really reconsider and stop doing that--assuming you'd want a deeper understanding of the issue.

I certainly agree that there are a lot of issues, many of which are bigger than gun control. This, however, definitely does not mean one should overlook the smaller problems, simply because larger ones exist, which I hope you were not implying.

There are the films that glorify many things, no matter how wrong they may be. You posting the summary of that film is like someone arguing that thieving is morally acceptable because they watched Ocean's 11.

I wasn't comparing the US to Austria. I was comparing Austria to Britain. The pleasant tree-lined streets of polite Salzburg to the chav-run council slums of Birmingham with its Clockwork Orange society.

[chang50]

I was about to write a responce in the thread about the new law in Indiana, when I decided it'd be better to start a new one, so as to not take that thread too far from it's original topic.

I have always found the stupidity and delusion of Americans, who believe that everyone is safer if everyone owns a firearm, quite amusing. Hence, I would be entertained hearing some of you argue that guns are a good and useful thing for the average citizen to possess and even carry around.

"We need to carry weapons around in order to protect ourselves," many Americans will say. The thing is, would you rather defend yourself unarmed against an attacker who is also unarmed, or with your rifle against another man with a similar weapom?

"But the badguys still get their hands on guns, making it them with guns vs. us without," they may argue, and their point would be valid, if that were the case. Luckily for the inhabitants of many other countries, it is not. Firstly, having not grown up surrounded by firearms, it doesn't even cross most people's minds that they could use one. Secondly and more importantly, most shootings are not the acts of men who are evil at heart, but of mad men. When a man, or even a child, snaps because of all the stress they have been under, or whatever other reason, and there is a rifle around, there is a possibility they will grab it and take lives with it. If there isn't one around, they will do something else, usually far less severe.

I can't even think of what someone defending automatic rifles that shoot multiple bullets per second might say, but I know that people who are pro automatic-rifles exist. Perhaps we will even come across such a person in this thread, I'm sure it would be very interesting and amusing.

Now, obviously this is just my opinion, though statistics do certainly back me up.
Please note that i say Americans, not because I intend to demonstrate bigotry towards them, but because I am yet to come across this type of idiot in Europe, though no one could deny there are many other types.

After reading many debates on this subject,I have concluded Americans have what I would call a strong emotional attatchment to what little history they possess,discounting the millennia of native American history as unimportant,especially the founding of their nation and their constitution which they hold sacred and gives them the right to bear arms.Any challenge to this inevitably causes an outcry,you might as well piss on the walls of the Alamo.

[karel]

we need less gun laws and more guns

[patrickaa317]

After reading many debates on this subject,I have concluded Americans have what I would call a strong emotional attatchment to what little history they possess,discounting the millennia of native American history as unimportant,especially the founding of their nation and their constitution which they hold sacred and gives them the right to bear arms.Any challenge to this inevitably causes an outcry,you might as well piss on the walls of the Alamo.

Not sure what Native American history has to do with firearms...

Anyway, what caught my attention was that you said the Constitution gives us the right to bear arms. The Constitution does not 'give' rights but rather ensures the government cannot remove 'natural rights'. To assume the Constitution gives rights, assumes the government is the default option in granting permissions.

[TheMissionary]

The Constitution also enables the citizens to prevent the over power of our government by ensuring the rights as started by Patrick. Our right to bear arms was configured to protect our Constitution, just as much as our Constitution is to protect our rights.

On another note, would the death rate climb if we weren't allowed to hunt the large game in our country, due to the unregulated population? Would our farms still be able to produce enough livestock with the overwhelming population of predators that would ensue? There are many things firearms are beneficial to, other than self defense. Growing up they were only used for hunting to feed my family. Personally I don't own firearms. I prefer the challenge of a bow, however I still promote the right to bear arms. They don't just protect against criminals, but also tyranny.

[chang50]

After reading many debates on this subject,I have concluded Americans have what I would call a strong emotional attatchment to what little history they possess,discounting the millennia of native American history as unimportant,especially the founding of their nation and their constitution which they hold sacred and gives them the right to bear arms.Any challenge to this inevitably causes an outcry,you might as well piss on the walls of the Alamo.

Not sure what Native American history has to do with firearms...

Anyway, what caught my attention was that you said the Constitution gives us the right to bear arms. The Constitution does not 'give' rights but rather ensures the government cannot remove 'natural rights'. To assume the Constitution gives rights, assumes the government is the default option in granting permissions.

Fair point showing just how differently Europeans and Americans see things.Is it fair to say 'natural rights' are 'god-given' in your system?If not where do they come from if not from man?

[KoolBak]

I like Karel....

On a side note, I recently picked up a vintage French Military rifle for a song....the note on it said "Never fired...Only dropped once!"

Cool...

Back to thread.

[patrickaa317]

After reading many debates on this subject,I have concluded Americans have what I would call a strong emotional attatchment to what little history they possess,discounting the millennia of native American history as unimportant,especially the founding of their nation and their constitution which they hold sacred and gives them the right to bear arms.Any challenge to this inevitably causes an outcry,you might as well piss on the walls of the Alamo.

Not sure what Native American history has to do with firearms...

Anyway, what caught my attention was that you said the Constitution gives us the right to bear arms. The Constitution does not 'give' rights but rather ensures the government cannot remove 'natural rights'. To assume the Constitution gives rights, assumes the government is the default option in granting permissions.

Fair point showing just how differently Europeans and Americans see things.Is it fair to say 'natural rights' are 'god-given' in your system?If not where do they come from if not from man?

Eh, you could say that if you believed in God and wanted to view them as such type of rights. I personally prefer to call them 'natural rights' because everyone has them upon birth regardless if their religious. Man does not give rights but can only take them away through things such as enslavement, laws, etc. Sort of like the right to free speech. It's not the government that tells us we can say what we want but rather the Constitution tells the government that they cannot restrict what we say (within certain limits of course, you can't yell fire in a crowded theatre. The government regulates that through law).

[TheProwler]

Guns are fun to shoot.

Is it possible that so many Swedes are punching each other in the face because they are frustrated about not having guns to shoot?


I'm all for having firearms in a safe container in your own home. Or even beside your bed as long as you can prevent the kids from gained access to firearms. Or taking them to a firing range or out to hunt. But the thought of having a bunch of people carrying concealed firearms around with them as part of their daily routine makes me uncomfortable. I get it...the criminals have guns and if one of them wants to shoot you in the head to steal your car, you'd like to be able to defend yourself.

It's just a pretty paranoid way to live.

[patrickaa317]

Guns are fun to shoot.

Is it possible that so many Swedes are punching each other in the face because they are frustrated about not having guns to shoot?


I'm all for having firearms in a safe container in your own home. Or even beside your bed as long as you can prevent the kids from gained access to firearms. Or taking them to a firing range or out to hunt. But the thought of having a bunch of people carrying concealed firearms around with them as part of their daily routine makes me uncomfortable. I get it...the criminals have guns and if one of them wants to shoot you in the head to steal your car, you'd like to be able to defend yourself.

It's just a pretty paranoid way to live.

It's not always about defending yourself but also about defending others. It's also not always to defend from criminals who have guns but criminals who are bigger than you. If some 6'4'' 280lb guy was messing with me or my wife, i know my fighting skills are not up to par (this is probably pretty obvious since I am a member of an online dice game community...), however if I am concealing a weapon; or even possibly concealing a weapon, the playing field becomes a little more balanced.

Do you know how many crimes are committed by people who are legally registered to conceal and carry? If you had those statistics, it shouldn't make you uncomfortable at all. Check them out. Most often you will find personal stories that try to play on your emotions because raw numbers are not enough to support any reason to oppose c&c.