Guns, guns, guns

i know that DC population does not have a large population change yearly, but then again they are talking about over 10 years...

the population will have changed more than just a little bit.
 
DexterMorgan said:
[PCE said:
el_Prez]Why did those people pick schools? There are tons of other places where a shooter could find hordes of innocent civillians.
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Adults run much faster than children.
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Not really. Especially in the U.S. where many adults are overweight, smoke, and don't get any excercise at all.
 
Well, we can only hope that church shootings pick up then.

I mean, c'mon people, we need everybody to pitch in to make this work.
 
Why school? Cause school is highly stressful and a place of repression and discrimination. People who are/were ostracized at school will search there a form of revenge/emotional release. I'm surprized nobody thinked about that here before.

For an european eye the animosity of your debate is kinda strange. The proportion of people wanting a firearm here is very poor. It is still possible to have one for leisure but it require heavy paperwork. Nobody complain about it cause it's a fact, we have less death by firearms than countries allowing them. Because of the heavy paperwork sociopaths have utmost difficulties to get one, and without possession of firearms the accidents involving them are consequently inexistant. Criminals can still have firearms but they have no point to kill randomly civilians so they mostly shoot at the police.

We have murderers but for the most part they use knives and it's still easier to escape a close confrontation than a bullet. And anyway that's a so ludicrously small proportion of the population it would be insane to consider it's safier to have a firearm than to have not.
 
i was going to stay the hell out of there, but since someone is portraying "THE EUROPEAN" is just had to intervene.

Zwolf said:
The proportion of people wanting a firearm here is very poor.
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euhm, just how do you qualify 'very poor'?
in Belgium there are 20 firearms per 100 inhabitants.
in Germany there are 35 firearms per 100 inhabitants.
in Switzerland there are 40 firearms per 100 inhabitants.

Zwolf said:
It is still possible to have one for leisure but it require heavy paperwork. Nobody complain about it cause it's a fact, we have less death by firearms than countries allowing them.
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bad choice of words. most countries allow them, given that you present the proper credentials and take the necessary tests. and wait. wait a long fucking time...

Zwolf said:
Criminals can still have firearms but they have no point to kill randomly civilians so they mostly shoot at the police.
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they mostly shoot other criminals, actually.

and keep in mind that 50% of the guns in a european country (on average) are illegally owned guns, and that the vast majority of these were never legally owned in that country.

Zwolf said:
We have murderers but for the most part they use knives and it's still easier to escape a close confrontation than a bullet.
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actually, a lot of experts would disagree. but that would lead us far from the subject.
Zwolf said:
And anyway that's a so ludicrously small proportion of the population it would be insane to consider it's safier to have a firearm than to have not.
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actually, your point is more about allowing open or concealed carry than it is about allowing gunownership.
 
SuAside said:
euhm, just how do you qualify 'very poor'?
in Belgium there are 20 firearms per 100 inhabitants.
in Germany there are 35 firearms per 100 inhabitants.
in Switzerland there are 40 firearms per 100 inhabitants.
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And Europe has how many countries again? I know you're convinced that only your Germanic ubermensch brethren count, but puh-leaze.
 
Mikael Grizzly said:
And Europe has how many countries again? I know you're convinced that only your Germanic ubermensch brethren count, but puh-leaze.
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Best thing I've read on NMA this year.
 
welsh, thanks for posting a shitload of stats and links.

The problem with most of these stats you linked to (I'll get to the ones that don't have that problem in a bit), is that they fail to distinguish between correlation and causation and tend to jump to conclusions.
None of the stats manage to create an actual causal link between guns and more or fewer deaths. They do establish a correlation between gun violence and the presence of guns, but they fail to evaluate the most important question: what is the impact of guns on overall violence.

Whether I get shot or stabbed to death - I am still dead. Moreover, is it the kind of person who owns guns in the first place who is more likely to become involved

Is a criminal involved in possibly lethal dealings more likely to own a gun (common sense would say yes, although this does not necessarily make it true), and how does this skew the stats?

What these stats do show, however, is that gun control is not only effective at keeping guns out of the hands of normal people with mental problems - it is also effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, ultimately the main point. The fact that 4 out of 5 handguns in New York are out of state is by itself a testimony to the effectiveness of gun control, but also a testimony to the problem of different legal policies in neighboring states and countries.

It also shows that by far the most gun deaths are suicides, which opens up the question of whether we should care about that, and that accidents are an incredibly minor part of gun deaths - yet many debates rage around that aspect with the smallest impact.
 
Oh well looks like I was not clear enough in my previous statement, was considered to trolling. If I need to:

The Dutch have only two guns per 100 inhabitants.
Switzerland, with 16 guns per 100 inhabitants, is in the middle.
Easy to throw in favorable numbers to make a point.

And the other statements didn't really contradicted my point, only pointing minor imprecisions to discredite the whole, classic argumentation tactic.

Bah so heavy enforcement can be quite boring, I'd better become used to it...
 
One-liners that serve no purpose but to ridicule the original poster get vatted, yes. Put some effort into your posts.

The reason that your statements do not work, Zwolf, is that there is no such thing as 'the European'. European policies are divided on many things, as are cultural inclinations. You can't just say "We as Europeans don't want firearms", as there is no such thing. Which SuAside made pretty clear by citing examples against this statement.

Zwolf said:
It is still possible to have one for leisure but it require heavy paperwork. Nobody complain about it cause it's a fact, we have less death by firearms than countries allowing them.
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Thank you for not paying attention to the content of this thread, at all.
Correlation is not the same as causality.
 
When I say "the europeans" I mean an average of the population. I clearly not stating 100% of the population has such conviction, it would be foolish. But I can reasonably suppose less than 50% of the european want a gun, and I think it's a rather plausible assumption.

For the second part I plaid guilty, I'm not exempt to trying the shortcuts neither. I'd be fool to let this privilege to others :)

By the way I know what is an Ad hominem argument, and I took the subtile necessary precautions to avoid it. Won't go further in the details as it's out of subject and out of subjects sentences are apparently not appreciated here :)

My grammar is damn poor, one day or another I'll edit too slowly to correct it and it will tricks me...
 
Zwolf said:
When I say "the europeans" I mean an average of the population. I clearly not stating 100% of the population has such conviction, it would be foolish. But I can reasonably suppose less than 50% of the european want a gun, and I think it's a rather plausible assumption.
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Yet it is not a useful point given the diverse nature of both gun laws, gun ownership and gun culture. Generalizing over 'European' gun laws is even less useful than generalizing over US gun law: both feature great internal diversity (and European legislature features much greater diversity).

Zwolf said:
For the second part I plaid guilty, I'm not exempt to trying the shortcuts neither. I'd be fool to let this privilege to others :)
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If you want to consider using stupid arguments that ignore any previous points made a good thing, then go for it.

Zwolf said:
By the way I know what is an Ad hominem argument, and I took the subtile necessary precautions to avoid it.
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Given that your post consisted of essentially 'Your points are of no consequence to me, also you're a fanatic', except addressing SuAside in the third person: no, you still used an ad hominem argument.
 
Yet it is not a useful point given the diverse nature of both gun laws, gun ownership and gun culture. Generalizing over 'European' gun laws is even less useful than generalizing over US gun law: both feature great internal diversity (and European legislature features much greater diversity).
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Indeed, I could do extensive research to support my point by finding a hypotetical common ground between european legislatures or opinions of the population but frankly I was not enough interested by the subject to do such efforts. I admit it was quite indelicate to take such shortcuts but it was a good way to test the field.


If you want to consider using stupid arguments that ignore any previous points made a good thing, then go for it.
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Nah, I tried and it didn't worked. What is the point to do it again? Usually most of the people don't read full threads, but you're here so it would be a waste of time.


Given that your post consisted of essentially 'Your points are of no consequence to me, also you're a fanatic', except addressing SuAside in the third person: no, you still used an ad hominem argument.
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Oh my bad, It was indeed a personal attack. Mmh I was distracted. Apparently you're here to be sure people don't get an easy point by pushing others to get angry so I'll restrain myself of such pratices.
But I precisely said "he sounds as a fanatic", not the same thing as he's a fanatic. Personaly I prefer when people say I sound as an hypocrit than when they say I am. Please don't play on that, you'd be no better than me :)

But we probably already get too far to the original subject, so let's give up on it if you're agree. If you're not we could go on but I doubt it would be of any real interest for the members engaged in the original debate.
 
Sander- No prob. There is more data out there, but to be fair, the CDC's own studies of gun violence and gun control, done a few years ago, argued that the findings were inconsistent - but that's a consequence of different methods and variation in conceptualization being used to study gun violence and gun control.

Since then many of those doing gun control/gun violence work have begun to coordinate their efforts to make their studies more systematic.

The problem of causality and correlation- is a standard problem in most social science research. Proving causal chains with quantitative evidence is difficult, while large date sets require quantitative approaches.

This is where you have to start thinking logically about the relationships- if gun control rules increase the price of guns for criminals, or make the gun markets increasing inefficient- is this a good thing? If guns need to be smuggled from low control states to high control states- doesn't that suggest a nexus?

To be fair, the pro-gun folks note that states that have high guns and low gun rules often have low gun violence- but that's only if you consider rural communities and don't compare cities. In the cities, Atlanta and Richmond being used as representative cases- gun violence can be quite high.

But to answer the question- the role of guns- in short is to make violence more lethal. Sure a criminal can rob you at gun point or murder you with a knife, but guns make such events more lethal events. Its hard to do a drive by with a crossbow although its theoretically possible. Likewise, its much easier for a domestic disturbance to reach lethal violence when a gun is present. Domestic incidents could become violent without guns- but guns make it easier.

Which, maybe, is the problem. Guns are a form of easy empowerment. I suspect many hunters might agree that bringing down a bear with a bow is harder than with a large caliber rifle. Perhaps that's why so many homicides are done with guns and not knives.
 
hasnt the UK violent crime per capita risen above the US in all areas but gun violence?

i heard that somewhere.

doesnt the UK have strong anti-gun laws?
 
The UK also has had an increased in gun violence as well. But what you are suggesting is a mono-causal argument? I would think that one of the reasons why the UK is suffering higher crime in general might be due to other demographic- social or economic changes.


Likewise, and consistent with I argued above- gun violence in the US is often different depending on where you are, or who you are with.

A better question would be whether the UK would have more or less gun violence without those laws.
 
I have read somewhere which might be true or not that more people comit suicide with guns at home then without them potentially cause the gun supports a short decision which leaves not much time to get a sane mind again.

It might be in situations with crime similar where guns lower for the one or other criminal the constraint of doing a crime.
 
Welsh, your position on gun control is obvious, but what are your views on gun control on state run groups? One could argue that having police officers armed while it's citizens are restricted from owning firearms shifts the balance of power in the states favor, and undermines alot of the purposes of the guns laws in United States in the first place. Would you be for or opposed to a system like that in the UK where street patrolmen are unarmed and only use non-lethal methods to detain criminals, while they still have weapons for special tactics teams when the need to be armed is required?


Personally, looking at the track record of excessive force within the law enforcement agencies in United States, having this system could automatically require more responsibility on the part of the police officers. Also, I think tasers should be withdrawn from the police force since the ability to use them has given police officers an option of being less responsible when using force to apprehend a suspect and caused another means of excessive force while bureaucratically getting away with it.
 
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