RE: Again....But it's never the guns!
December 24, 2012 at 12:24 pm
(This post was last modified: December 24, 2012 at 12:42 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
@ Arac, I wouldn't know, I can't even find the keys to my own fireproof ammo safe atm...lol. People do stupid things I suppose.
@ Ryan. Mine are designed for sport shooting and hunting. Your argument levarages what you feel to be a more horrible scenario than that which was faced by a soldier or civilian in the revolutionary or civil war. Read any of their letters, I assure you they found musket exchanges as horrifying as you find semi-auto rifles. A shooter may only be as lethal as his weapon but a murderer is as lethal as his imagination. Thankfully most of the crazies and criminals we see in this country are fairly short of imaginative. Firing a weapon also takes knowledge and skill, especially if you want to fire it effectively. A person who imagines that hitting people with an assault rifle is a matter of pulling the trigger has clearly never fired an assault rifle - for example. Without skill or knowledge you may hit with the first round, but every round thereafter will likely hit the ceiling, and the rifle will jam (yes.... even an ak-47). How much skill or knowledge does it take to douse a building in gasoline and light a match? Gas station on every corner, they usually sell lighters too. Many people with guns lock, load, and become incarcerated within minutes, without successfully leveraging the use of their firearm. One of the reasons that things like tecs and uzis became popular in the 90's was because the average gangland shooter couldn't hit a fucking barn. His aim didn't get any better with the auto either. But here again we see the beginnings of a justification from crime - and how that applies to me, seeing as I have not and don't ever plan on committing a crime with a gun, is beyond me.
There are also countries with even less restrictive gun laws that also have far lower rates of gun related violence. But lets keep it close to home. DC had a gun ban for years - they also had one of the highest murder rates in the nation during that ban. But hey, theres data, so lets not write it off-
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs...online.pdf
"Of course, it may be speculated that murder rates around
the world would be higher if guns were more available. But
there is simply no evidence to support this. Like any specu‐
lation, it is not subject to conclusive disproof; but the Euro‐
pean data in Table 1 and the studies across 36 and 21 nations
already discussed show no correlation of high gun owner‐
ship nations and greater murder per capita or lower gun
ownership nations and less murder per capita.
48
To reiterate, the determinants of murder and suicide are
basic social, economic, and cultural factors, not the preva‐
lence of some form of deadly mechanism. In this connection,
recall that the American jurisdictions which have the highest
violent crime rates are precisely those with the most strin‐
gent gun controls."
It's not "mere coincidence" it's a concerted effort to wrench statistics to fit a political agenda (for all the right reasons - for some- I'm absolutely certain of that). If you want my blunt and honest opinion, it's a way for us to confront an issue indirectly without having to face the shittiest parts of it. That it's not the guns, it's us, and we just can't handle ourselves - apparently. Do we have a problem? Yes. Do we have a gun problem? No, unless you're determined to excuse the criminal and lay a hefty portion of the blame on an inanimate object for reasons not supported by evidence.
@ Ryan. Mine are designed for sport shooting and hunting. Your argument levarages what you feel to be a more horrible scenario than that which was faced by a soldier or civilian in the revolutionary or civil war. Read any of their letters, I assure you they found musket exchanges as horrifying as you find semi-auto rifles. A shooter may only be as lethal as his weapon but a murderer is as lethal as his imagination. Thankfully most of the crazies and criminals we see in this country are fairly short of imaginative. Firing a weapon also takes knowledge and skill, especially if you want to fire it effectively. A person who imagines that hitting people with an assault rifle is a matter of pulling the trigger has clearly never fired an assault rifle - for example. Without skill or knowledge you may hit with the first round, but every round thereafter will likely hit the ceiling, and the rifle will jam (yes.... even an ak-47). How much skill or knowledge does it take to douse a building in gasoline and light a match? Gas station on every corner, they usually sell lighters too. Many people with guns lock, load, and become incarcerated within minutes, without successfully leveraging the use of their firearm. One of the reasons that things like tecs and uzis became popular in the 90's was because the average gangland shooter couldn't hit a fucking barn. His aim didn't get any better with the auto either. But here again we see the beginnings of a justification from crime - and how that applies to me, seeing as I have not and don't ever plan on committing a crime with a gun, is beyond me.
There are also countries with even less restrictive gun laws that also have far lower rates of gun related violence. But lets keep it close to home. DC had a gun ban for years - they also had one of the highest murder rates in the nation during that ban. But hey, theres data, so lets not write it off-
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs...online.pdf
"Of course, it may be speculated that murder rates around
the world would be higher if guns were more available. But
there is simply no evidence to support this. Like any specu‐
lation, it is not subject to conclusive disproof; but the Euro‐
pean data in Table 1 and the studies across 36 and 21 nations
already discussed show no correlation of high gun owner‐
ship nations and greater murder per capita or lower gun
ownership nations and less murder per capita.
48
To reiterate, the determinants of murder and suicide are
basic social, economic, and cultural factors, not the preva‐
lence of some form of deadly mechanism. In this connection,
recall that the American jurisdictions which have the highest
violent crime rates are precisely those with the most strin‐
gent gun controls."
It's not "mere coincidence" it's a concerted effort to wrench statistics to fit a political agenda (for all the right reasons - for some- I'm absolutely certain of that). If you want my blunt and honest opinion, it's a way for us to confront an issue indirectly without having to face the shittiest parts of it. That it's not the guns, it's us, and we just can't handle ourselves - apparently. Do we have a problem? Yes. Do we have a gun problem? No, unless you're determined to excuse the criminal and lay a hefty portion of the blame on an inanimate object for reasons not supported by evidence.
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