Easier to Kill w/ a Gun Than W/out a Gun

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
1

For rainman and the various other people on the Justin Eilers thread who have a real hard time understanding a basic point.

In an ideal world everyone should be allowed to do whatever they like. In theory, Anarchy is the best political system.

Problem is, that doesn’t seem to work in practice. If there had been no guns in Justin Eiler’s murderer’s houes, there is a good likelihood that no-one would have died. the root cause of the problem was drink and aggression, the gun turned a bad situation into a nightmare.

I would suggest that the gun laws in the US have nothing to do with people being able to protect themselves and are more to do with a small but influential group of people who use scare tactics to promote their own selfish agenda.

Your average NRA member is not affected by the terrible problems that easy access to guns cause in underprivilaged communities in the US and what’s more, they couldn’t care less.

OK, lets see if people can respond to this without the need to resort to name calling, offensive language or straw man arguments.

2

Just an outsider, completely unawares of the argument in process, but I’m not sure who you think the “small influential group of people” are. And it seems like you are painting private ownership of firearms as “their own selfish agenda”.

As for the “average NRA member”, I’m pretty sure they think that people in underpriveliged communities in the US have just as much right to protect themselves from criminals (who are the actual cause of the problems you describe) as those outside of said communities.

3

[quote]MrRezister wrote:
Just an outsider, completely unawares of the argument in process, but I’m not sure who you think the “small influential group of people” are. And it seems like you are painting private ownership of firearms as “their own selfish agenda”.

As for the “average NRA member”, I’m pretty sure they think that people in underpriveliged communities in the US have just as much right to protect themselves from criminals (who are the actual cause of the problems you describe) as those outside of said communities.[/quote]

Yeah, I’m interested in his “averages” that he is using.

4

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
In an ideal world everyone should be allowed to do whatever they like. In theory, Anarchy is the best political system.

Problem is, that doesn’t seem to work in practice…[/quote]

In practice it works every day and you do not even realize it.

With anarchy it is no different to deal with anti-social personalities than under the presence of a state. Society can deal with violent and criminal anti-social behavior more efficiently than any government ever could.

In an anarchist society there would likely be much less of such behavior precisely because it would be dealt with much more effectively. That is to say, the consequences would be felt much greater and much swifter in such a society.

5

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
For rainman and the various other people on the Justin Eilers thread who have a real hard time understanding a basic point.

In an ideal world everyone should be allowed to do whatever they like. In theory, Anarchy is the best political system.
[/quote]
This is a stretch. Gov’t is helpful in protecting us from coersion and force.

How do you know gun laws would have meant no gun in the house? What about hunters? There could have been a rifle in the house. What about a crowbar from the garage? How about a knife from the kitchen?

I don’t think you have taken much time to think about this. This has been hashed out dozens of times on this board already, so I am not going to waste too much time. Pot and other arbitrarily selected substances are illegal. How hard are they to get? What kind of citizen is more likely to aquire illegal goods? What type of citizen is more likely to profit from the sale of illegal goods?

[quote]
Your average NRA member is not affected by the terrible problems that easy access to guns cause in underprivilaged communities in the US and what’s more, they couldn’t care less.

OK, lets see if people can respond to this without the need to resort to name calling, offensive language or straw man arguments.[/quote]
Just to recap:

Will making guns illegal make them much harder to get?

Who is more likely to obtain guns by illegal means and profit from the sale of illegal guns? Law abiding citizens or criminals we need protection from?

Where does it stop? All guns? I hunt to put food on the table and for enjoyment. What right does anyone have to take my guns away? How about bow and arrows? swords? Spears? Ice picks? Implements to start a fire? Hammers? Nail guns? Baseball bats? Steel toed boots? A car that could be used to run someone over?

You are going to have to tell us what should be illegal and why other devises use to harm others are not on that list.

6

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
In an ideal world everyone should be allowed to do whatever they like. In theory, Anarchy is the best political system.

Problem is, that doesn’t seem to work in practice…

In practice it works every day and you do not even realize it.

With anarchy it is no different to deal with anti-social personalities than under the presence of a state. Society can deal with violent and criminal anti-social behavior more efficiently than any government ever could.

In an anarchist society there would likely be much less of such behavior precisely because it would be dealt with much more effectively. That is to say, the consequences would be felt much greater and much swifter in such a society.[/quote]

Then why don’t we see evidense of this in areas that might as well be lawless? Do we really need to start naming exsamples?

7

In the Anarchist state the control goes to the powerful, who protects the weak? Or do you just not care about them in a survival of the fittest type response?

Maybe instead of Average I should have said Stereotypical. And we go back to the idea that throwing guns into a bad aggressive situation, in my opinion, does not lower the level of aggression. It gets people shot.

8

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
For rainman and the various other people on the Justin Eilers thread who have a real hard time understanding a basic point.

In an ideal world everyone should be allowed to do whatever they like. In theory, Anarchy is the best political system.

Problem is, that doesn’t seem to work in practice. If there had been no guns in Justin Eiler’s murderer’s houes, there is a good likelihood that no-one would have died. the root cause of the problem was drink and aggression, the gun turned a bad situation into a nightmare.

I would suggest that the gun laws in the US have nothing to do with people being able to protect themselves and are more to do with a small but influential group of people who use scare tactics to promote their own selfish agenda.

Your average NRA member is not affected by the terrible problems that easy access to guns cause in underprivilaged communities in the US and what’s more, they couldn’t care less.

OK, lets see if people can respond to this without the need to resort to name calling, offensive language or straw man arguments.[/quote]

From your original attempt to hijack the Eilers thread:

There is no mention of the alcohol, or the aggression - just the gun. If you can’t see the idiocy in that statement, I can’t help you.

As for coothless:

Is English not your native language?

Now, on to this thread -

Show me the data backing up your assertions about “the average NRA member”. Were you aware that there are many NRA members who don’t even own a firearm?

Was Eilers underprivileged?

Is all gun violence unique to those who make less than a given dollar amount per year?

Are you honestly advocating infringing on the rights of the people because you think it will protect a small segment of the population?

9

dhickey, I agree with a lot of what you are typing (see my comments about anarchy that I was probably typing at the same time as you)

I have no problem with people having a hunting rifle kept in the correct safe conditions. (I think the UK gun laws have gone totally overboard.)

This is totally different to being able to carry a handgun in a holster to a family Christmas party.

A rifle in a locked box, a crowbar in the garage, a knife in the kitchen are all tools, meant for another purpose that could be adapted to violent use. A sidearm is there to shoot people. Which is what happened.

Incidentally, I totally agree with you that pot should be legal. That has nothing really to do with the gun laws though.

If you were to make handguns illegal except in shooting clubs, you could then pass a law stating that anyone carrying a handgun is sentenced at the same level as attempted murder. Your average street crook is now not going to be holding up the corner store with a handgun.

Hanguns are now going to be much harder to get and the price of black market handguns will go out of the range of most crooks.

Also, the risk benefit has shifted.

10

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
In the Anarchist state the control goes to the powerful, who protects the weak? Or do you just not care about them in a survival of the fittest type response?

Maybe instead of Average I should have said Stereotypical. And we go back to the idea that throwing guns into a bad aggressive situation, in my opinion, does not lower the level of aggression. It gets people shot.

[/quote]

So we should take guns away from cops, because that only makes violence more likely? The cops would be safer disarmed?

11

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
dhickey, I agree with a lot of what you are typing (see my comments about anarchy that I was probably typing at the same time as you)

I have no problem with people having a hunting rifle kept in the correct safe conditions. (I think the UK gun laws have gone totally overboard.)

This is totally different to being able to carry a handgun in a holster to a family Christmas party.

A rifle in a locked box, a crowbar in the garage, a knife in the kitchen are all tools, meant for another purpose that could be adapted to violent use. A sidearm is there to shoot people. Which is what happened.

Incidentally, I totally agree with you that pot should be legal. That has nothing really to do with the gun laws though.

If you were to make handguns illegal except in shooting clubs, you could then pass a law stating that anyone carrying a handgun is sentenced at the same level as attempted murder. Your average street crook is now not going to be holding up the corner store with a handgun.

Hanguns are now going to be much harder to get and the price of black market handguns will go out of the range of most crooks.

Also, the risk benefit has shifted.[/quote]

Handguns only use is to shoot people? I’ve “used” handguns throughout my life and never shot anyone. Maybe I need better aim.

12

Lack of access guns sure kept the good people of Mumbai safe from gun violence.

Actually, nope. It didn’t work there.

A gun free school zone definitely keeps guns away in places like Colombine and Blacksburg.

Crap, didn’t work there either.

13

[quote]rainjack wrote:

From your original attempt to hijack the Eilers thread:
…here is another example where no gun = one less dead person.

There is no mention of the alcohol, or the aggression - just the gun. If you can’t see the idiocy in that statement, I can’t help you.
[/quote]
Ok, my comment may have been an exageration, there is a possibility that someone could have died without a gun being there, however it would have been a lot less likely.

If you cannot see the idiocy of a gun exacerbating an already bad situation instead of mitigating it as the pro-gun lobby would have you believe then no-one can help you.

At the moment, Spanish is the main language that I speak given that I am in Mexico.

I can’t get to that link through my work firewall so I will have to wait till I get home to know quite how inventive your insult was. Possibly it is you that doesn’t have true English as a native language given the way your country regularly bastardises the language in an ill informed attempt to simplify it for it’s denizens.

Of course there are NRA members who don’t own firearms, a fair number have been scared into joining, worried that this is the first battle on a march into a police state. Exactly the point that I was making.

I never implied that Justin Eilers was underprivileged or that gun violence was unique to the poor, I would refer you to my straw man comments.

Now please try and address the points I made, not the ones that you have unsuccesfully tried to infer.

If you have a drunk angry person, is it a better or worse situation if they have a gun on them?

14

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
In the Anarchist state the control goes to the powerful, who protects the weak? Or do you just not care about them in a survival of the fittest type response?

Maybe instead of Average I should have said Stereotypical. And we go back to the idea that throwing guns into a bad aggressive situation, in my opinion, does not lower the level of aggression. It gets people shot.

So we should take guns away from cops, because that only makes violence more likely? The cops would be safer disarmed?[/quote]

Actually yes, we should. In the UK, there are armed units that are highly trained and brought in to situations where they are needed. Outside of that the police do not carry guns.

This system for the most part works well (unless you are a Brazillian attempting to ride the tube.)

15

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
dhickey, I agree with a lot of what you are typing (see my comments about anarchy that I was probably typing at the same time as you)

I have no problem with people having a hunting rifle kept in the correct safe conditions. (I think the UK gun laws have gone totally overboard.)

This is totally different to being able to carry a handgun in a holster to a family Christmas party.

A rifle in a locked box, a crowbar in the garage, a knife in the kitchen are all tools, meant for another purpose that could be adapted to violent use. A sidearm is there to shoot people. Which is what happened.

Incidentally, I totally agree with you that pot should be legal. That has nothing really to do with the gun laws though.

If you were to make handguns illegal except in shooting clubs, you could then pass a law stating that anyone carrying a handgun is sentenced at the same level as attempted murder. Your average street crook is now not going to be holding up the corner store with a handgun.

Hanguns are now going to be much harder to get and the price of black market handguns will go out of the range of most crooks.

Also, the risk benefit has shifted.

Handguns only use is to shoot people? I’ve “used” handguns throughout my life and never shot anyone. Maybe I need better aim.[/quote]

I have already mentioned shooting for fun in a controlled environment. Please no straw man arguments.

16

[quote]Doug Adams wrote:
Lack of access guns sure kept the good people of Mumbai safe from gun violence.

Actually, nope. It didn’t work there.
[/quote]

In general yes it did, which is why a small number of people being shot is such huge world news.

A school being a gun free zone is a farce in a country where you can legally buy guns so freely.

17

What right does someone from an impoverished failed narco-state have to tell us how to run our business up here? Mexicans are all voting with their feet to come up here and enjoy our wonderful system. Maybe that should clue you in that it’s better.

18

Anti-gun laws would/do keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Just like anti-drug laws have kept drugs off our streets, out of our schools, and out of underpriviged neighborhoods. Hey, wait a darn minute…

19

If we banned the sale of guns in the US, they would just be smuggled in from Mexico.

The average NRA member doesn’t own a gun criminals would find useful.

Most gun owners have hunting weapons that fire one shot at a time, would be next to impossible to hide in public and require a high level of accuracy.

20

War on terror, drugs, and poverty. They’ve been so successful that we need a war on guns.