At malls, at schools, -- “Guns don’t kill people ... "

[Cyrano]

Guns just make it easier for those who are angry, or afraid, or vengeful, or careless, or suicidal, or in desperate need, or driven by hatred/rage/insanity, or, rarely, people acting in self-defense, to kill people.

There is no question but that, occasionally, guns save the lives of innocent people. But the vast majority of the time, guns are not used by those who are trying to save the lives of themselves or others.

So have yourself a merry little Christmas the next time you wonder whether the person next to you in Toys-R-Us, or the food mall is armed, and what his/her intentions are.

And yes, I know that knives, swords, bows and arrows and catapults have also killed people. But they do make it more difficult to run up a body count.

I’m sick of hearing about shootings at schools, malls, cribs and everywhere else that someone decided to kill someone.

We can’t “un-invent” guns. But we can sure as hell bury the demented philosophy of those who think there should be a Uzi in every home.

[hlthe2b]

1. I'm with you, but the gun-obsessed needn't reply to me...

I have neither the time, patience, nor inclination to argue with you today... The canned arguments just get old.... (but the incidents no less tragic)...

[michreject]

53. Since you posted on a public forum, I'll play

If a gun is used to save one life, it's worth it.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Guns are necessary to maintain an uncivilized society.

[villager]

5. the attendant fear propels/compels more gun sales, propaganda, etc...

In a nice vicious cycle that pays off quite handsomely for gun corporations, and their lobbying groups...

[slackmaster]

28. I buy them as a financial investment

My gun collection has out-performed stocks by a wide margin. My stocks are down about 40%, guns up about 100%.

[villager]

38. do you sell to collectors? Or to those, increasingly afraid, who want guns?

If the former, then a good investment. If the latter, then the fear remains a necessary part of the "market dynamic...."

[slackmaster]

43. I've been collecting for about 25 years and haven't sold a firearm yet

I'm in for the long haul.

[villager]

44. so, if you never cash out, is it really an investment?

:shrug:

[slackmaster]

46. My planned time horizon for the investment is very long

I didn't say I would never cash out, but I don't plan to sell firearms for another 15 years or so unless I have an unexpected need for cash. I believe they will continue to appreciate in the long run because the kinds I collect are not being made any more. But unlike more "sexy" investments like precious metals, there is never much of a speculative bubble market.

The kinds of firearms that some people are panic-buying now are not IMO good investments, especially at the inflated prices that many sellers are charging.

[villager]

47. well, all right. You'll have to update this thread in 2025 or so, and let us know...

;-)

[ipfilter]

42. Guns as a hedge.

I like it. Too bad you can't sell calls against your long rifle position.

[slackmaster]

3. Who says there should be an Uzi in every home?

:shrug:

[Dr. Strange]

14. The straw man in Cyrano's closet.

[slackmaster]

23. The straw man in Cyrano's closet kicked my dog

And I don't even have a dog.

[boozepusher]

4. I think we should do the same to the car culture.

In many cities there is no need to own a car. Cars are responsible for over 40,000 deaths each year and are a major contributor of green house gases. Why do we Americans insist on relying on cars for transportation when we could instead invest in public transportation such as buses, trains, and subways. We can't "un-invent" cars, but we can sure as hell bury the demented philosophy of those who think there should be a Chevy Suburban in every garage.B-)

[hogwyld]

34. I wholeheartedly agree with you

Impose a humongous gas guzzler tax on ANY vehicle that gets less than 50 mpg, and ban SUV sales. Pickups can only be purchased by commercial enterprises with a verifiable need for them. Increase fuel taxes and registration fees substantially to help fund public transportation. Entice companies to move their jobs to the cities, and the people will follow. Move all goods between cities via rail, and build an intra-city, all electric distribution system. We can then let the dead-enders remain in the hinterlands with their arsenals to slowly die off.

[boozepusher]

36. I wasn't being serious.

[Cid_B]

41. Get Bent...

Pickups can only be purchased by commercial enterprises with a verifiable need for them. You might live in the city with a subway stop every block but some of us need to haul hay and are most certainly not a commercial enterprise.

[spoony]

56. Wow, never heard of a pickup-grabber before

[krispos42]

6. I didn't know that 4,000 times per day was "occasionlly"

That's about how many times a day a person used a gun in a defensive situation. However, since only about 1 defensive gun use in 8,000 results in a dead criminal, this information doesn't make the public airwaves very often.




Corporate media hysteria to the contrary, the vast majority (95%+) of people murdered are done so in single-victim incidents, and nearly all of the rest are doubles.

[Cyrano]

8. Statistics can and are used to prove or disprove any case one wants to make.

Enjoy your gun(s), Wyatt.

[krispos42]

18. So you don't want to argue facts?

Oh, goodie, we can have an emotional argument instead. Just like the Reich Wing did after 9/11. We'll just scrap logic, reason, thoughfulness, intelligence, facts, research, and common sense and replace them with fear-mongering rhetoric!

:woohoo:

[ItNerd4life]

7. If you are sick of hearing about the shootings

then let the people own guns so they can protect themselves.

Chicago doesn't allow guns, but it has the highest murder rate in the country! woohoo, no guns = more murders. Can you please explain why this is?

[tjwash]

12. uh...no

That honor still belongs to Detroit. Followed by Baltimore, St. Louis, Newark, and DC.

Chicago is way down there at number 17.

But thanks for playing anyway...

[dmallind]

20. What's Nashua or Montpelier?

Ya know - cities and states with almost zero gun restrictions?

DC gun laws are if anything stricter than Chicago's too.

[DesertFlower]

13. i'd like to hear the answer to that too.

i lived in new york city most of my life and only the bad guys had the guns. now i live in arizona and we own several guns for self protection.

[dmallind]

9. It's more common than you think.

Only a tiny tiny fraction of defensive gun uses involve firing the gun, and that's the only kind that gets coverage.

There are many times more defensive gun uses, even by the lowest estimate, than there are offensive gun uses. Some of the estimates are in the millions. None are below hundreds of thousands. Who wants to read twenty stories a week in their local paper about a criminal chased off by a gun waved at him?

Yes guns do make it easier to kill people. That after all is the point of guns (well animals too). But people can either use them responsibly or irresponsibly. Putting limits on those who would do the former does nothing to control those who would do the latter, so not being able to keep guns at home would impact only those who would comply with such a law. If people won't comply with laws against murder, we can assume they will not comply with home storage laws which has a much lower risk of detection and punishment.

The problem (and I agree it IS a problem) is that not only can we not uninvent guns, but almost alone among nations we also cannot uninvent a widespread civilian knowledge of how to make them from raw steel (give me a decent machine shop and some springs and some stainless and I will give you a gun - albeit a very expensive one - and I'm nobody's idea of a gunsmith) or reload your own ammunition, nor can we renivent a frontier culture or a successful history of a civilian militia.

In other words guns will always be with us, and crimninals will always have guns. Placing restrictions on non-criminals to defend themselves against criminals is hardly the best solution. Remember those highly efficient killing tools you mentioned? Kinda come in handy to equalize the odds of normal people against thugs who are almost by definition younger, tougher and more desperate than the majority of the rest of us, even when the thugs DON'T have guns. Honestly take a look at the pictures in your local police blotter folks - how many of them (and they are rarely alone) do you think you could handle? I'm a big boy with some pretty decent martial arts training and the answer is rarely more than one, and sometimes not even one, for me let alone a little old lady or handicapped person. Now imagine one such person, or more, armed because they don;t give crap one about home storage or illegal possession laws. What do YOU want to use then?

And of course to forestall the ususal "logic" by the gun grabbing coterie no that does not mean I am much concerned about being a victim of such an attack. In fact I consider it a very very high probability that I will never, as long as I live, be attacked by a determined attacker, or even a thief who may become violent. However I, and no doubt most of the sane population, consider the chance of their house burning down to be any more likely. How many of you lack smoke detectors, fire extingushers or so on? A gun in responsible hands is equally harmless, and equally to be seen as insurance against an equally minuscule but equally dangerous possibility.

[Phredicles]

10. Rec'd - I applaud your courage in saying this;

I've long been surprised at the number of gun-worshippers here.

[Cyrano]

16. Reading some of the replies, I'm sorry I started this thread.

The truth is that no one's mind can or will be changed on this topic, so, even though we agree, I believe that all I've done is initiate just one more thread for both sides of the argument to vent, argue and rage.

I guess my only excuse for beginning this thread is either a lapse in judgment or temporary insanity.

[dmallind]

19. Not true

Until some 6 or so years ago I was as devoted a gun control advocate as any here.

My mind was changed by an internet discussion board, lots of data, and a decision to apply the same rational and objective teleological framework to forming my opinion on this issue that I applied to others.

FWIW I was also decidedly against marijuana legalization until I was likewise convinced I was worng. In that case however I didn;t join in actively with my erstwhile opponents but out of lack of interest rather than disagreement. It can be done. It should be done. A mind that cannot change is a mind that does not work properly.

[Cyrano]

21. There's truth in what you say.

Before entering the military many moons ago, I had no particular objection to guns. Today, I would love to see every weapon of human destruction evaporate from the Earth.

[dmallind]

30. Perhaps counterintuitively

I would agree.

If that capability were possible I would take my chances. Perhaps somewhat selfishly in that I personally don;t need a gun to defend myself - tolerably well at least.

But I'm a pragmatist and a utilitarian and that option isn't available. How then do we deal with the undeniable facts that a)some people will always seek to use deadly force or the threat thereof in crimes and b)The only effective tool against such action is the same deadly force or threat thereof?

Essentially my own conversion came down to deciding whether the unpleasant externalities of legal civilian gun ownership (easier access to deadly force by those depressed or drunk or desperate enough to become criminals) were better or worse than the unpleasant contingencies of making all such ownership illegal (no chance of defense against those who already ARE criminals and care not s fig for illegalities of gun ownership by definition).

Given the number of DGUs versus the number of sudden conversions from legal gun owner to criminal it was a pretty easy call in the end. Remember that the criminal use of guns by established serious criminals would likely not change without that magical option dismissed above, so if the number of legal responsible defensive gun uses exceeds the number of people whose first serious crim is the use of a gun, then I'm on solid objective foundations.

[Dr. Strange]

37. That's similar to what happened to me.

My position on gun control hasn't changed, it's only been strengthened by the debates and statistics I've read. But my position on marijuana has changed (from reading and debating, etc). Free speech and discussion are great that way.

[gogoplata]

39. Oh great, now we want a bunch of stoners with automatic weapons.

[dmallind]

48. Cute, but a bit off the mark

Automatic weaposn are a tiny fraction of those in the US, almost never used in crimes, and already entail expensive and complex obstacles to be overcome to get one.

And I'm fine with that. They are, by design, usually pretty useless for anything a civilian not paranoid about massed zombie attacks would ever need or even want, since they are wildly inaccurate, cumbersome, and fiddly for the most part - designed to spray and pray over a wide area to cause multiple injuries rather than death per se, as in military terms an injury is often more desirable as it takes not only the injured man off the field, but one or more others helping him.

If you just want to ward off thieves or god forbid actually shoot a persistent attacker, those stoners would be far better off with an old fashioned shotgun.

Vast majority of gun owners have no interest in automatic weapons, and are being sensible if so.

[slackmaster]

25. Writers who live by hyperbole die by hyperbole

:D

[Cyrano]

29. It was ever thus. I have always feared the ides of March and

virtually every other fork in the road with which Shakespeare presented us.

[slackmaster]

32. I came to a fork in the road once - Do you know what I did?

I took it!

[Cyrano]

33. So did Yogi. Both forks happened to lead to his house.

[DesertFlower]

11. i just saw "bowling for columbine"

the other day. why is it that canadians own more guns than we do, but our murder rate is so much higher?

[dmallind]

17. Well

I'm not convinced they do, but if so, it's doubtless the same reasons Vermont and New Hampshire have some of the loosest gun laws and lowest crime rates in the nation. Starting with population density, homogeneity, lack of concentrated poverty, etc.

[-..__...]

15. Happiness is...

Santa leaving an AK-47 and a case of ammo under the Christmas tree (but I'll settle for a slightly used .38 snub nosed revolver and box of bullets)

[Greyhound]

22. You know, at some point we'll have to accept that it is us, not our laws, that are the cause of

violence in this nation. Other nation's, even those that have more guns per capita, don't have nearly the problems with gun violence.

We are a violent society.

[slackmaster]

26. It's not even most of us

The violence is perpetrated by a small minority among us. Focus on them, and violence can be reduced.

[Greyhound]

35. Whatever the problem, it's never most of us. We have just come to reacting

legislating based on the extremes and that makes us more and more extreme, creating further escalation, which causes more extreme measures...

We make decisions of the majority, based solely on the actions of the tiniest minorities and that's how we ended up in a police state.
:kick:

[This One]

24. Guns Don't Kill People, People With Guns Do

[slackmaster]

27. Most of us never have and never will

It's only violent people with guns who are a problem, and most of them are already prohibited from having guns.

[EstimatedProphet]

31. "But the vast majority of the time, guns are not used"

Stop there, and the statement remains correct.

[FLAprogressive]

40. How's that ban on pot working out for everyone? n/t

[apocalypsehow]

45. Gee, how's that ban on murder working out? Or burglary? Or assault? Or speeding? Or....

By your logic, I guess we'd have no laws since people continue to break them.

[old mark]

49. Back in September, I put a loaded S&W revolver in a drawer

to see how much trouble it would cause, because I kept reading how guns cause trouble.
I have to report that despite the craziness of the election and the holidays, it seems to have done nothing at all.

But I will keep checking on it, though.....you just never know.

mark

[EstimatedProphet]

50. That's funny!

Come to think of it, none of my guns have escaped and gone on murder sprees either. Although, I did catch one of them trying to sneak off to a strip club the other night. I put it back in its case, and I haven't heard a peep out of it since.

[jmg257]

51. You go ahead and bury the philosophy of those who want a UZI in every home...shouldn't take long.

You are 100% correct - there should NOT be an UZI in every home; and I really think you would be hard-pressed to find more then a few people with that philosophy (or the means to aquire an UZI for that matter).

You don't want a gun in your home - easy - THEN DON'T GET ONE! Having a gun isn't like deciding whether you want to take up crochet or needle point. There are responsibilities involved. Many people don't trust themselves or their kids, or "hate guns", or don't want to be bothered doing/learning what they should to be safe, or whatever - then THEY SHOULD NOT GET ONE.

If you do not think you can handle the responsibility, then DON'T BUY ONE. And I would then also think about doing really dangerous things - like driving cars and raising kids.


And if you ARE next to me in the food mall, there is a good chance I will be armed. NO need to wonder though...my intentions are most likely the same as everyone else's - to get some food for me and my kids, so we can get back to shopping!

[michreject]

52. My UZI is considered a pistol

So I can carry it with me.:)

[aikoaiko]

54. As long as you're not suggesting gun bans or preventing me from using a gun to defend myself or...

...my family, then I'm willing to discuss and support laws that help keep guns out of the hands of criminals or those who would needlessly hurt others with those guns.

[wartrace]

55. You left "criminals" off your list of dangerous gun owners Cyrano.

Criminals are the people who commit homicides with a gun in the vast majority of cases. I too wish we could restrict these people (including those from your list) from owning a firearm. An improved background check system would help a lot. Also increased penalties for carrying a gun if you are prohibited from doing so. If you are a convicted felon caught with a firearm you go back to prison for another 15 year term- no plea bargains, no questions asked. If you use a firearm in the commission of a crime you go to prison for the rest of your life.

You may ask yourself, how would we incarcerate all these individuals? Release all the non-violent drug offenders. I would much rather have someone pinched for operating a marijuana garden out on the street than an armed robber.

I agree with you Cyrano, I would like to see guns taken out of the hands of dangerous individuals without restricting the rights of honest citizens.

BTW- If they do not send that football player to prison in NY for illegally carrying a gun it will just tell me that the gun laws are a joke. It will also send the message to others who are considering carrying illegally that it isn't a serious crime.

[spoony]

58. Nicely put!

[minavasht]

57. Good idea!

I guess all we have to do is declare all schools and malls "gun-free" zones.
I'm sure it will work, just like declaring them "drug-free" zones keeps drugs away.
Or we can ban guns and declare USA "gun-free" zone.
Oh, wait, schools are "gun-free" zones already!
It will be very effective, just like declaring drugs illegal.
I am sure every single owner of the estimated + 300,000,000 guns in private hands will be more than happy to turn them in for destruction.
I am sure that not a single gun will be smuggled after that from other countries, just like no drugs are smuggled now.
I am sure that people wanting to kill a bunch of people will not substitute guns with homemade bombs - after all black powder was invented only 500 years ago and nobody knows how to make it.
I am sure that your idea will work, just like every single ban in human history had worked.
More power to you!