The Great Gun Debate

[Wi-Golfer]

Found this little nugget "With the murder rate less than half what it was two decades ago, and violent crime down even more in that time, gun control has declined as a political issue."

Hmm, guns in more than 1/3rd of the USA households with sales increasing every single month/year and yet the actual murder is less than half.
Appears to me that what we installed in place currently works fairly well. Like I posted if this mother had been a bit more responsible she wouldn't be dead neither would 27 others. It's not a gun control issue it's a "get your head out of your ass and properly contain your guns" issue.

 

[nututhugame]

And you never responded when I asked if you had ever heard of the Norway killer, hell he killed 3x the people in a country with gun control.

Don't forget we are the country that did indeed put a price on peoples lives. How many innocent japanese citizens did we kill in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to stop more bloodshed and a prolonged war? Freedom has always come at a cost of lives, funny how you a non american will rail against this yet we have untold thousands and thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanastan in a war that's needless and has been from the beginning. You want to sign up for a cause how about stopping the bloodshed there? or is not worth your time?

Where do I sign up to end our involvment overseas? Bring our loved ones home already. Let the whole middle east implode themselves if that's what they want to do.

 

[Wi-Golfer]

Where do I sign up to end our involvment overseas? Bring our loved ones home already. Let the whole middle east implode themselves if that's what they want to do.

Wish I knew, we have absolutley zero business being over there. Let them have their sand and rocks and kill each other, I don't care.

 

[EnglishGolfer]

And you never responded when I asked if you had ever heard of the Norway killer, hell he killed 3x the people in a country with gun control.?

Okay, fair enough. I believe he had some military link and could therefore gain access to a gun. Now if you look at the numbers quoted earlier comparing the dozen or so countries and their homicide rares compared to America, then you'll see that despite this horrific tragedy, all of them added together combine to only a small fraction of the equivalent crime in your country. Making guns illegal doesn't make it impossible to get them, but it means that serious effort has to go into obtaining one, and doing that often brings you to the attention of the authorities.

Now your turn, will fewer guns means fewer gun crimes?

 

[Dogfish Head]

Wi-Golfer, Norway doesn't have gun crime on the scale of us. Using one example where it has happened doesn't seem quite right when it's our society dealing with mass murders at the hands of guns.

You are correct in that tougher laws will not remove all the guns and all the crime, but you can clearly see the difference in our society which embraces guns and other societies that do not or at the very least, have much tougher laws on obtaining guns. The numbers are staggering.

 

[Wi-Golfer]

Depends on who which side has the fewer, if it's us the good guys then yes it will result in less gun crime but if it's the drug lords and other crime related asses with the guns then no crime will increase.

Lets go back in history to the wild west days of the USA where everyone had a gun and justice was swift. You didn't have people killing a dozen innocents mainly because they knew everyone was armed. Somewhere along the way we forgot this, hell wasn't all that long ago that we still had lynchings going on down south along with people being dragged behind trucks with ropes until they died. I don't recall anyone wanting to ban trucks or ropes?

 

[Dogfish Head]

Trucks and ropes have other purposes than killing. It seems a bit ridiculous to make that point. How can you say crime will increase with less guns when there are so many other countries that have less crime per capita than us with less guns? I don't understand. I hear this all the time, but the facts don't back it up when you look at other countries.

 

[Wi-Golfer]

I wrote it would depend on which side had fewer guns. Take them away from law abiding citizens while the bad guys keep theirs, crime will go up because there will be less fear of a mexican standoff.

 

[Wi-Golfer]

Trucks and ropes have other purposes than killing. It seems a bit ridiculous to make that point.

As do guns, you can hunt with them, protect your land and family and an SKS makes a great club.

 

[Dogfish Head]

As do guns, you can hunt with them, protect your land and family and an SKS makes a great club.

All of those things you just mentioned involve killing or at the very least, violence in some nature.

 

[Wi-Golfer]

All of those things you just mentioned involve killing or at the very least, violence in some nature.

That's their intended nature. As I said before this debate has been going on long before anyone of us were born, much like violence in the middle east. None of here is going to solve it, we all have our opinions and not a damn thing anyone says is going to change that. Let's move on shall we?

 

[eclark53520]

All of those things you just mentioned involve killing or at the very least, violence in some nature.

Feeding your family is violent? I whole heartedly disagree. Hunting does involve killing, however, its not violent.

Please cite the last time a dedicated hunter went on a shooting spree in a school. If the theory of guns breeds violence then hunters should be in the news constantly. Why aren't they?

Also self defense, although violent, isn't offensive violence and shouldn't be treated as such. Completely unrelated to tragedy, and is actually the opposite. Had someone in the front office of that school been armed and killed him before if could get to the rest of the school they would be a hero.

Although Im sure they would be sued somehow for wrongful death.

 

[Dogfish Head]

I don't have any "theories". My entire point is that countries with less guns have less gun violence. At an incredibly high ratio to us per capita. My point was that guns have only a purpose for killing, to counter a claim that trucks and rope should be outlawed because people used them for other means.

We shouldn't have to come to the point where our children are only safe if we arm our teachers and administrators at elementary schools. That is ridiculous.

 

[eclark53520]

I don't have any "theories". My entire point is that countries with less guns have less gun violence. At an incredibly high ratio to us per capita. My point was that guns have only a purpose for killing, to counter a claim that trucks and rope should be outlawed because people used them for other means.

We shouldn't have to come to the point where our children are only safe if we arm our teachers and administrators at elementary schools. That is ridiculous.

Is it ridiculous that I arm myself to protect myself and my family?

Is self defense ridiculous? Criminals are animals of opportunity. They're going to choose the path of least resistance. Schools are gun free zones. Which basically means a resistance free zone for someone looking to do something terrible.

To me its disgusting that we send our kids to a place with zero means to protect them.

We know for a fact that people will harm other people. Its impossible to stop that. I don't see how giving them free reign by disarming the public is a good idea. This is exactly the opposite of what we should do. Create an environment where committing a crime gives you high odds of getting killed by your victim. That will reduce crime. If not by the deterrent then after a few years by simply reducing the number of criminals on the street.

Why reward criminals and punish law abiding citizens? I don't understand that thought process.

 

[Dogfish Head]

American's are so concerned with protecting their family because American's are allowed access so easily to a vast amount of firearms.