"Obama Effect" the best thing to ever happen to the gun industry

[TX-Beau]

It would seem the obvious solution to gun violence would be to remove guns from the ownership of private citizens.

The flaw with this political position is that criminals are criminal by definition and do not respect gun laws anyway. They will obtain firearms no matter what. Studies show that criminals, violent and non-violent, are reluctant to prey on individuals thought to carry a weapon.

Responsible gun ownership is good citizenship.

Extreme gun enthusiasm however is potentially dangerous, like the man who is aiming to stockpile 1000 rounds for each of his 25 firearms.

Yeah I have to somewhat disagree with this. It’s not easy to draw and fire accurately under pressure, and if someone ambushes you and demands your wallet – and then you go for your gun, they’re gonna shoot you.

If everyone is armed, they’re not even going to bother with the demand, they’re just gonna shoot you in the back and then rob you.

Back right after conceal and carry was passed here in Texas, two idiots got into a gunfight in a Wal-Mart parking lot over a parking space. Luckily no one was hurt, but it kind of illustrates the fact that in situations where there are altercations and easy acess to firearms, idiots will use them.

Now I’m not an advocate of banning guns, I grew up with guns – I got my first rifle when I was 8. But claiming that guns are gonna protect you from crime is not a good argument in my opinion.

 

[JB3]

And the best thing that could happen to America would be to outlaw all handguns. Confiscate them and have them destroyed. Any citizen caught owning them would face prison. Handguns are nothing more than adult boys toys. Handguns are killing Americans at an alarming rate. They're used in crimes and suicides. If criminals didn't have a handgun they would re-think robbing those banks & convenience stores. The gun nuts think the answer is arming all citizens. That's insanity!

You don't see this kind of violence in Canada or Western Europe. The USA is a war zone.

No handguns = no handgun violence.

If you want a rifle for hunting it has to be licensed, registered and inspected. Not everyone should be allowed to own a gun.

The Constitution has been amended before, it's time to amend it again for this.

What happens when all the guns from mexico start coming back into the US? It'll create a black market just as the current drug laws have a created a black market for them.

 

[Orlandude]

All handguns should be banned but even if that ever happened, the sheer numbers of handguns already out there, along with the stockpiles of ammunition, would create a black market for decades to come. The existing black market would keep all the handgun nuts well supplied, even if the government confiscated all the registered handguns. Thus, law enforcement would conduct a "handgun war" similar to the "war on drugs"....a war that will never be won. This country has spent billions and billions of dollars on a so-called "war on drugs" and there are more drugs in this country than ever before and more drug-related crimes. It would be the same with handguns.

The problem is not really the guns themselves or the drugs. The problem is the stupid, unenforceable laws and lawmakers whose only solution is "build more prisons" and give law enforcement more money. Prisons and more money will never make the problem go away. The prisons and courts will eventually implode on themselves and the only winners are the lawyers who keep fostering more stupid laws to fatten their bank accounts.

They once tried to outlaw alcohol too and that backfired and failed miserably. All it did was create an incredibly wealthy black market that became impossible to control and a stuipd law that was essentially unenforceable.

 

[TX-Beau]

IFirst, Tx-Beau, it is just true that in general people who are thought to be carrying firearms are less likely to be victimized by crime, and houses thought to house gun owning inhabitants are less likely to be burglarized. There are actually FBI findings and statistics that go along with this, but I'm too lazy to dig them up right now.

Well if that is true, how long will it remain true once we all have guns? Will that stop people from crime? No.

I haven’t seen your studies so I don’t know about that. I seriously doubt though that the FBI is advocating arming people as a deterrent to crime.

Whatever the situation criminals will adapt to it. Starting an arms race between you and them will not solve the reason there are criminals in the first place.

Plus, there are far more situations where there are no criminals and there are altercations where easy access to concealed firearms will result in their use. What about cops and domestic disputes? How would we all like to live in a world where the cops go in guns blazing because we’re all armed?

It would be nice to assume that everyone who’s issued a license to carry a handgun would be responsible for using it, but that’s not the case, as with everything else in life.

And once one person pulls their gun, what recourse does everyone else have?

Guns are not the solution to crime.

 

[TX-Beau]

This argument just looks like a colander to me.

It would be nice to assume that when you ban guns you are removing the problem of gun violence. It just isn't so and could actually make gun violence more commonplace.

I told you up thread that I'm not an advocate of banning guns.

Now I’m not an advocate of banning guns, I grew up with guns – I got my first rifle when I was 8. But claiming that guns are gonna protect you from crime is not a good argument in my opinion.

So where does that leave your colander?

 

[JB3]

Oh and here's some stats for you:

The crime rates in Canada and Britain (both with STRICT gun control laws) are higher than the US.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21346/crime-rate-lower-united-states-canada-than-britain.aspx

 

[TX-Beau]

Oh and here's some stats for you:

The crime rates in Canada and Britain (both with STRICT gun control laws) are higher than the US.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21346/crime-rate-lower-united-states-canada-than-britain.aspx

You do realize that polls are opinions asked of a sample group of citizens, and facts can be obtained by looking at how many crimes are actually committed in each country regardless of how people feel about their police.

Survey Methods

Results in the United States are based on telephone interviews with 1,012 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Oct. 13-16, 2005. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. The survey was conducted by Gallup USA.

How many of these adults actually know how may crimes are committed here each year?

 

[JB3]

The US for 2008 had 454.5 violent crimes per 100,000 habitants, while Canada had 962.2 (more than double)

The US for 2008, had 3,212.5 property crimes per 100,000 habitants, while Canada had 4,384.

So yes, crime in Canada was quite a bit worse than in the US.

Relevant information can be found here:
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/index.html

And here:
http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection/J2-246-2002E.pdf
(the chart with the numbers is on page 36 of the PDF)

 

[JB3]

^ Not what I asked you. I asked where in the poll Gallup that you cited did it support your claim that crime rates are higher?

Read the poll.

 

[TX-Beau]

The US for 2008 had 454.5 violent crimes per 100,000 habitants, while Canada had 962.2 (more than double)

The US for 2008, had 3,212.5 property crimes per 100,000 habitants, while Canada had 4,384.

I checked your PDF. Page 36 (I checked both the numbered page and the PDF page . Page 36 of the PDF is titled "Crime Patterns of Two Sample Cities in British Columbia." Page 36 of the document seems to be a comparison of the "Waterloo Region." with the rest of Canada.

The DOJ website has no international comparisons either.

So, let's look at this. First off, neither of these is a comparison of Canadian Crime Rates with American ones. Therefore no effort has been made to normalize standards and definitions between the two. You plucked one statistic out of one place, and another statistic out of another, then claimed parity.

Sorry Droid, it's not that simple. If you want to find proof, find a some facts that make a comparison of the US and Canada.

None of which alters that you originally tried to pass off opinion as fact.

 

[TX-Beau]

I firmly believe guns protect people from crime. The reasons are obvious.

Nonetheless, I expect to be assailed by my friends for this position, which is an experience I do not like. Perhaps this is why I'm not outspoken about my conservative stances and why few people actually know how centrist I am.

Look, you have your opinions like everyone else. We all have opinions. I can't see why there's a need to hide them.

 

[Lostlover]

Not surprising at all. Pathetic people.

Republicans sure know how to play them. Scare them of the Negro president that will take their guns and tax them to high heaven and redistribute their wealth to some Mexican maid.

Pathetic. And they buy this every time and get nothing in return.

 

[TX-Beau]

I was under the understanding that centrism is a desirable and praiseworthy political orientation in America, desiring neither radical rapid change nor a staunch defense of the status quo.

But I'm not centrist in the sense that I'm moderate on all issues. Rather, I am liberal on some and conservative on others. I haven't really seen a good political quizzes that can differentiate between the two types of centrists.

I have come to an extreme dislike of the American habit of polarizing all political thought between liberal, and conservative, with “centrist” somehow held up as a middle ground between the two.

It’s perfectly possible to be neither of the two, and have opinions that draw from both of these entrenched camps. Does that make one a centrist? Not really. It’s completely possible to believe in universal single payer health care and fiscal responsibility.

It’s one reason why I have very little tolerance for people who toe the party line, and defend politicians just because they claim either the “liberal” or “conservative” label.

We need more parties.

 

[TX-Beau]

I was unaware of anyone who supports fiscal irresponsibility.

The right wing lobs that accusation all the time - read tax and spend. You get the point. On could also say that it's perfectly possible to support universal single payer health-care and the Neo-Con fervor for America as world police. Neither of those are "centrist" defined but they are not inherently incompatible.

A lot of biases are responsible for this behavior. Most of those fall under the umbrella of ego defense, in my opinion. People will consider their party affiliation as attributable to their intelligence, so then protecting their party is actually defending their opinion about their own intelligence and ability to make good decisions. To which the arguer will use confirmation bias, which is when someone fallaciously interprets information only to support a preconceived conclusion, idealization, considering an individual to be a better person than that person actually is, denial or ignoring of nonsupporting evidence, distortion, deflection, digression, and a whole host of other methods.

Some of these may even be subconscious where the person does not know that he/she is using these self defense mechanisms, and may even be unable to know without psychological help.

I don't disagree with you here.

 

[andysayshi]

Comparing crime data between nations is very difficult, because laws and definitions of crime differ. According to this US Dept of Justice report, burglary in the US is fairly typical of developed nations.

Violent robberies in the US, on the other hand, are much higher than average:

The US is No 24 in a list of nations where you're most likely to be murdered, beaten mostly by third world and drug-dominated nations like Colombia, South Africa and Mexico. With the exception of Poland, no other OECD nations, including Canada, come close.



Specifically, death by firearm is dramatically higher in the US than most other developed nations.

But it's important to note that a large proportion of those deaths (in all listed nations) are suicides, not homicides. Statistically, nations with high gun ownership tend to have much higher suicide rates, presumably because suicide attempts are more successful when guns are readily available.

I've also heard that crime statistics have DROPPED in US States where conceal-and-carry laws have been introduced.

While typing this post, I just saw that an 8 year old boy shot and killed his 2 year old sister in California in the past few hours. There is clearly no black and white answer to gun control statistics, but one fact is unavoidable: around 30,000 Americans will die by gun this year. That's around one in every ten thousand.

In comparison, about 400 Australians will die by gun this year - around 1 in 60,000.

Something is terribly wrong in the US for this to be happening. Your people are horrified by the death of 4000 soldiers in Iraq, yet 120,000 Americans have been killed since the Iraq invasion - on American soil. Maybe gun control isn't the answer, but what is??

 

[NickCole]

they fear President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass antigun legislation

It's stunning how so many Americans pay so little attention to what's happening and so much attention to their own fantasies.

Barack Obama and this Democratic controlled Congress can't even get half-decent health care reform together and there are people who actually believe they'd pass antigun legislation. I mean, thanks to Obama people can now carry loaded guns in National Parks. Hello?

 

[jackoroe]

Google appears to get it. I think it's a hoot that so may of the lefties eschew firearms ownership. They'll be that much easier to eliminate at some point.

 

[palemale]

I was under the understanding that centrism is a desirable and praiseworthy political orientation in America, desiring neither radical rapid change nor a staunch defense of the status quo.

But I'm not centrist in the sense that I'm moderate on all issues. Rather, I am liberal on some and conservative on others. I haven't really seen any good political quizzes that can differentiate between the two types of centrists.

I believe there is a saying in Texas about centrism. "The only thing in the middle of the road is a yellow line and dead armadillos. TX-Beaux, CowboyBob, did I get this right?

 

[NickCole]

I believe there is a saying in Texas about centrism. "The only thing in the middle of the road is a yellow line and dead armadillos.

 

[HenryReardon]

You don't see this kind of violence in Canada or Western Europe. The USA is a war zone.

No handguns = no handgun violence.

s.

Perhaps you should take a closer look at what happened in the UK after guns were banned and confiscated:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html

Excerpts:

None of this was supposed to happen in the country whose stringent gun laws and 1997 ban on handguns have been hailed as the "gold standard" of gun control. For the better part of a century, British governments have pursued a strategy for domestic safety that a 1992 Economist article characterized as requiring "a restraint on personal liberty that seems, in most civilised countries, essential to the happiness of others," a policy the magazine found at odds with "America's Vigilante Values." The safety of English people has been staked on the thesis that fewer private guns means less crime. The government believes that any weapons in the hands of men and women, however law-abiding, pose a danger, and that disarming them lessens the chance that criminals will get or use weapons.

The results -- the toughest firearm restrictions of any democracy -- are credited by the world's gun control advocates with producing a low rate of violent crime. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell reflected this conventional wisdom when, in a 1988 speech to the American Bar Association, he attributed England's low rates of violent crime to the fact that "private ownership of guns is strictly controlled."

In reality, the English approach has not re-duced violent crime. Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist them. Imitating this model would be a public safety disaster for the United States.

The illusion that the English government had protected its citizens by disarming them seemed credible because few realized the country had an astonishingly low level of armed crime even before guns were restricted. A government study for the years 1890-92, for example, found only three handgun homicides, an average of one a year, in a population of 30 million. In 1904 there were only four armed robberies in London, then the largest city in the world. A hundred years and many gun laws later, the BBC reported that England's firearms restrictions "seem to have had little impact in the criminal underworld." Guns are virtually outlawed, and, as the old slogan predicted, only outlaws have guns. Worse, they are increasingly ready to use them.