This has got to be one of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen. It also seems that those of a liberal mindset think it could work. Check this out:
What I see as the real problem with gun control is that “good guys” don’t need to have their guns controlled, but “bad guys” do. What the video shows is that the supposed “bad guy” is going to abide by the signs.
We cannot stop illegal drugs like cocaine from entering the country, and people think we are going to stop illegal guns? Sometimes I think that people that want to implement gun control just don’t have a clue. The “bad guys” are out there. Even if every gun was gone from the planet, the “bad guys” would still be bad, but it would make the big bad guy the one that became the top dog.
Bad guys don’t need guns to be bad. They can use a baseball bat, an ax, their bare hands if they are big enough. If nobody has guns, the bad guys would use machetes or meat cleavers, or clubs, or whatever. The one thing you can depend upon is that bad guys are bad.
If you have 100 good guys with guns standing around, you aren’t going to have a bad guy trying to kill 20 people (or rob someone, or anything else). In Richmond a recent anti-gun protester was upset that some 400 people that were supporting second amendment rights. He yelled at a group: “It’s people like you that cause massacres like the one at Virginia Tech.” One of the people supporting the second amendment called back to him: “I’ll guarantee there won’t be any massacre here today!” I’d feel much safer with 100 people that have undergone a criminal background check carrying a gun than with no guns around (especially if it is known that the place I was visiting is a “gun free zone” — which you could also call a “safe for criminals zone”.
Well, your chance of drowning in your lifetime is one in 9000, while your chance of being killed by someone with a firearm is ~one in 300. And most people spend a LOT more time around pools than around guns.
Do you think maybe the pool safety laws have something to do with it? Let’s just go on keeping our head in the sand and believing that guns save lives. Sure guns don’t kill people by them selves, but water does! We have floods! And you’re still 30 times more likely to get killed by a gun than by water.
BTW: This doesn’t count suicides. Just killings and accidental deaths.
Sure guns don’t kill people. People with guns kill people.
inSanity,
I thought we experienced ~5-6 murders per hundred thousand. Which is way less than 1 in 300. How are you deriving this statistic?
Sanity, I’m calling you on your data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate
As a rate per 100,000 deaths, there are about 26 that are from violence of all kinds (intentional injuries) which includes any kind of injury–suicide, murder, war–and regardless of the cause of the injury (jumping off buildings, bombs in war zones, purposely being run over by cars, etc.) That translates to about 1 in almost 4000 for all kinds of intentional injuries. Suicides account for 14 of the 26 — so that would mean the murders with guns are down to less than 12 per 100,000. Even at 12, it would be less than 1 in 8000. If you remove war (2.8 per 100,000) you now have less than 1 in 10,000.
I don’t know where you got your numbers, but they are clearly either totally wrong, or at least they didn’t match 2002 (when the data above was tabulated).
It seems that my chances of dying from gun violence is much lower than what you would think. It seems someone was not telling you the truth about the rates.
Of course, if one is a non-Hispanic White, the rate is about 2 per 100,000 each year. So the odds of NOT being murdered are 0.99998 per year. Assuming a life-span of 75 years, 0.99998^75=0.9985. So the odds of being murdered in a 75-year life are 0.15 percent, or
about one in 650.
If we look at Blacks, who have a murder rate of 18 per 100,000 each year, a lifespan of 75 years would result in a 1.34 percent chance of being murdered — about 1 in 75.
Overall, our murder rate is 5.5 per 100,000. So that same calculation gives odds of 0.41%, or 1 in 243.
Of course, only about two-thirds of murders in the U.S. are by guns, so we would need to multiply each number by about 1.5. So overall, in the U.S., our probability of being murdered by a gun is about 1 in 365.
Brian, the war number is already broken out. G.2 gives a rate of 0.98 percent. That’s 1 in 102. However, that is WORLDWIDE, not just U.S.
So, with our proliferation of guns, we are only 42% as likely to die by violence as people in the rest of the world. This, of course, matches the results of other countries, which have seen violent crime rates go up when they banned guns.
IT’S REALLY VERY SIMPLE FOLKS:
IF YOU OWN A FIREARM, BE RESPONSIBLE:
IF YOU DO NOT OWN A FIREARM: THAT’S YOUR CHOICE:
TO EVERYONE: RESPECT EACH OTHERS RIGHTS AND LET THE 2ND AMENDMENT ALONE: THERE IS A REASON FOR THIS AMENDMENT, JUST AS THE REASON FOR THE FREE SPEECH AMENDMENT.
THE BEST THING WE CAN DO IS TO STAND UNITED IN OUR RIGHTS FROM THE BILL OF RIGHTS, ONCE WE START TO DIVIDE OUR NATION WILL CRUMBLE AND WE LOOSE ALL THAT OUR NATION HAS STOOD FOR.
FREEDOM.
I’ll have to go back and research it, but my recollection is that, were it not for the Quakers in PA, the Second Amendment would have REQUIRED firearms possession.
I do know that the first gun control law passed by the Virginia General Assembly REQUIRED people to take their guns to church.
http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm
InSanity,
OK. Thanks. I was looking at the yearly stat you where looking at the lifetime. Went to the site, checked the math it works out. Interesting.
Did you notice …
Odds of getting accidentally poisoned to death 1 in 180
Odds of dying on a fall 1 in 200
as a nontransportational accident 1 in 59
dying on the transportational accident 1 in 80
did you notice they did not bother with the 100K who die every year due medical mistakes, which puts your life chances chances of being killed off by your health care at 1 in 38?
Good site.
Sanity,
I found the source information, it is much more complete:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_19.pdf
What I found interesting, is that auto accidents account for nearly 4 times as many deaths that year. If we believe the statistics, then drinking and driving is much more an issue than guns (by far).
But the issue really isn’t about whether the cause of death is assault by firearm as a raw data point — that does nothing to say how many lives are saved by people being armed.
Ultimately, the issue is that of liberty. Security means nothing if we have no liberty in which to be secure. Liberty requires that we all be able to keep and carry firearms.
Perhaps what you ought to campaign more strongly about is drunk driving. (Maybe laws ought to be passed that do not allow serving an alcoholic beverage in a glass — take your booze in a bottle and go home and drink so you won’t be driving.)
I’ve known people that have been killed by drunk drivers, I have not lost friends to swine with guns yet.
Brian,
Kewel. I think I will download that and keep it for future work.
Your point regarding the statistics of the self defense incidents is well taken. Where do I go to find that little gem? Or is it unavailable.
Jacob, which stat are you asking about? I’m not sure which post you are referencing.
Brian,
statistics with respect to the use of firearms in self defense.
Gosh, You guys are still talking here.
Some updated comment:
“IT’S REALLY VERY SIMPLE FOLKS:
IF YOU OWN A FIREARM, BE RESPONSIBLE:
IF YOU DO NOT OWN A FIREARM: THAT’S YOUR CHOICE”
I agree. This philosophy is what gun regulations should be designed around. I just do not trust you to voluntarily comply.
“..which puts your life chances chances of being killed off by your health care at 1 in 38?”
An industry which is CLEARLY more regulated than the gun industry.
“If we believe the statistics, then drinking and driving is much more an issue than guns (by far).”
…and the alcohol industry and drunk driving in particular is much, much more regulated than the gun industry.
Just because something in statistically less dangerous than something else does not mean that there is no reason to address it or improve its record.
“An industry which is CLEARLY more regulated than the gun industry.”
name a single tool in the medical indusry that is as regulated?
stethascopes? nope
x-ray machines? naaah
scalpels? uh uh
“…and the alcohol industry and drunk driving in particular is much, much more regulated than the gun industry”
wrong. go look it up. BTW, neither drinking nor driving are an inalienable right.
“Just because something in statistically less dangerous than something else does not mean that there is no reason to address it or improve its record.”
just because you don’t value the rights of others does it mean you can step all over them, what part of ’shall not be infringed’ don’t you get?
SAY ERIC,
CLIMB OUT OF YOUR BOX AND LOOK AROUND YOU, YOUR
FEAR OF GUNS IS EXTREME IF NOT JUST PLAIN PARANOIA.
WHAT I SUGGEST IS THAT YOU FIND A GUN RANGE, ONE THAT RENTS GUNS TO USE AND FIND OUT WHAT US GUN OWNERS ENJOY ABOUT SHOOTING AND LEARNING SELF DEFENSE. IF YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO SHOOT,
THAN PLEASE, MAKE UP YOUR MIND, YOUR CONSTANT YEA AND NAY IS OLD AND BORING, SAME OLD SAME OLD.
AS FOR ANYONE ELSE WHO JUMPS ON THE ANTI GUN BAN, WELL LIKE THE STATS SAY, YOUR MORE LIKELY TO DIE FROM A CAR ACCIDENT THAN A GUN SHOT WOUND. I’D WORRY MORE ABOUT THE DUMB NUT WHO DRIVES DRUNK OR THE ILLEGAL WHO DRIVES WITH NO LICENCE OR KNOWLEDGE OF OUR DRIVING LAWS THAN HAVING A GUN IN MY FACE.
In fact, Troll, as the statistics provided by inSanity show, we in the United States, with out great proliferation of guns, are LESS likely to die by violence than are people in the rest of the world. Even Canada has a violent crime rate twice as high as ours. How, then, can you say that guns make us less safe?
“wrong. go look it up.”
Grain – illegal.
Illegal for me to distill my own.
Illegal for me to serve to my 14 yo (unlike your gun) – not that I would.
Illegal for me to carry unopened.
Illegal for me to drink before 21 – even though I can be drafted and “give” my life for my country at 18.
A different series of laws in every state over who can and can not sell the stuff and how it can be served.
Can not transport across state lines.
hmmmm – what does ATF stand for now???
Let’s look at ABC licensing, distributor laws, health department standards for manufacturing…
Its not even close.
Marj,
I already know how to shoot and handle a gun. Thanks for the advice though.
“…can you say that guns make us less safe?”
As you like to say, Jack, guns don’t make us less safe. People who handle and store guns unsafely make us less safe. Since I am not discussing taking guns away, comparison with countries that do not have guns is irrelevant (even if the stats supported your positon).
So you say, troll, but you have yet to produce any evidence that your proposed safety measures will not, in fact, cause more harm than they might prevent, by making a gun unavailable when it is needed.
Jack, Are you dizzy from the round and round on this thread? This conversation is the definition of insanity.
ERIC,
IF YOU KNOW HOW TO HANDLE AND SHOOT A WEAPON,
WHY ALL THE PARANOIA?
SEEMS TO ME YOU DID NOT LEARN VERY WELL.
Cathymac,
letting Jack get anywhere near this discussion is the definition of insanity. Even though he and I agree that gun bans don’t seem to solve much. I’m still waiting for him to prove that crime goes up as a result of guns being banned, as he will tell.
Why are you waiting? I have done so repeatedly. Guns were banned in the U.K. — violent crime rates went up. Guns were banned in Australia — violent crime rates went up there. Guns were substantially restricted in Canada — and, sure enough, violent crime rates went up there, too.
Shall we ban guns here expecting a different result? That would be insanity.
Cathymac,
see how circular he gets? Chicken or the egg? It just so happens that violent crime precipitates gun bans.
Of course not, Jack. We both know bans don’t solve the violence problem.
kevin,
in England, Canada, and Australia the gun ban went into effect before the explosion in crime. Jack has pointed this out. Go look at the links.
How is this circular reasoning?
Eric:
“I agree. This philosophy is what gun regulations should be designed around. I just do not trust you to voluntarily comply.”
That you don’t trust me is beside the point. I don’t trust you to vote properly — should I be able to regulate your voting?
I don’t trust you to drink responsibly. Do people lock up their car to make sure they can’t get to it if you have been drinking? That technology has existed for years, but it hasn’t been put in place because “it would cost too much” for the people that don’t drink and drive to be forced to put up with the extra cost because of those who do.
Gun control is no different. You don’t penalize those that are responsible because of those that are not. You don’t take away the rights of an honest person (with regulations) because there are dishonest people.
As far as drinking and driving are concerned, they are much *less* regulated than guns. Bars serve alcohol to people that drive to the bar all the time. The idea that a person can have a single drink and still drive is within the law, as long as their blood alcohol level is low enough.
And while you say that firearms are not very regulated, I would suggest you look through the code of Virginia. There are many references to firearms (i.e., they *are* regulated) in the code. Do the search …
http://leg1.state.va.us/000/src.htm
That will bring up a list (one per line) much longer than my screen.
Firearms are in fact regulated. More hits than you get with automobile (it is more regulated than cars).
“Bars serve alcohol to people that drive to the bar all the time.”
This has nothing to do with the regulation of the industry. If the person is above the legal limit, to drink and drive violates the regulation. The fact that people violate the regulation does not mean that there is no regulation. Finally, it may be illegal in some jurisdictions for bars to serve patrons who have had too much to drink already – I don’t know but I’ll bet it is. Clearly the bar has been found liable before for serving a drunk more alcohol which resulted in death.
“The idea that a person can have a single drink and still drive is within the law, as long as their blood alcohol level is low enough.”
An example of a well thought out REGULATION.
Thanks for the good example, Brian.
Troll,
I thought you would give up on this sillyness after I gave thought to a better cause? You said start a thread and you’ld be there. Well, where are you? Still here pushing your gun regulations! Curtailing freedoms is againest the law till it becomes the law. Forget about being shot for the time being and be scared about something worthy. Like Osama-bama being the anti-christ (I didn’t come up with the term) and ruining our nation into the ground or, better yet, my thread on driving.
Eric,
You have the most backward thought process I’ve ever seen.
First, you want to assign blame to a victim for the crime perpetrated against them, or the consequences of that crime. If someone steals a gun from anyone, no matter where that gun was kept (even if it was hanging on a set of pegs above the fireplace mantel) it is the thief that is at fault, and only the thief that is at fault. Extending fault the the victim of that theft if the gun is used illegally is backward logic in the extreme. If your baseball bat is stolen, and they use it to kill someone, are you saying the victim of the theft is responsible?
How backward you think. You think that because there are bad people out there, who would steal things, that the good people must be held responsible. That is stupid thought. It is the same kind of thought that says a woman is responsible for having been raped. Scumbag lawyers have made themselves as sick as the rapist by attempting to portray a woman as being culpable for wearing “provocative” clothing.
Attack the victim — blame them for what the bad guys do. Yeah right.
As to this not being about the regulation of industry, again, you are either being naive on purpose, or worse. Drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car kills a lot more than guns (and drinking and driving never save lives as guns do). Do you *really* think the world is that stupid that they would not see through that argument?
Regulation working? Have you seen the number of deaths and injuries caused by drinking and driving? That’s like the police chief in the “no gun zone” at NIU saying they succeeded during the most recent shooting — a guy that was sadly not properly under medical supervision when he was taken off of drugs comes in, starts shooting, kills a bunch of people, then kills himself all before the police SWAT team arrives, and they declare success. THEY FAILED TO SAVE A SINGLE LIFE! If that is what success looks like, I’d hate to see what it would have taken to have him declare a failure. The police responded within 5 minutes, and the whole incident was over. The *only* thing that would have made a difference would have been if the students and professor could have been armed, and accurately and quickly (seconds, not minutes) returned fire.
You want safety? Get a gun, a concealed carry permit, get training. Get good training, not just a single day course, but something like what the following two groups provide:
NVT
or
PGPFT
YOU are responsible for your own safety, you cannot rely on the government, the police, or anyone else. That is the way it should be, because anything else is not safety, but an illusion of safety (unless you are so important to the government that they provide you with an armed bodyguard team — like the governor (state police) or the president (secret service). The rest of us are at the mercy of those who are merciless and do not care what the law says.
The swine that breaks into your home at night doesn’t care if he is breaking yet another law when he is already committing a felony. Sure, he’d rather know that you are unarmed and so all he has to do is be bigger, stronger, swifter than you (or carry a bat and get the first hit in). But suppose guns are regulated to the extreme, then you know the criminal that is breaking into your house could be armed, but you won’t be.
Remember, the government hasn’t been able to stop illegal aliens, cocaine, heroin, pain pills, child pornography, or any number of other things that are illegal from being brought into, or even manufactured in, this country — guns will be no different. All those things were regulated and/or outlawed, and they have not stopped being available to those that don’t care about the law. Doing the same thing, and expecting a different outcome is one definition of insanity. Do the same thing with guns and expect the criminals won’t be able to get them and you are being insane.
Brian, Jack, Act,
I said this ~70 comments ago. Troll is not interested in truth, or in real debate. This is an idiots argument. Troll is beating all of you because now that he has dragged you down to his level he is winning due to his experience.
Jacob, I’m not going to spend my energy working on proving Jack’s point by going back to an old retired blog to find threads where Jack supposedly proved that gun bans PRECEDE rises in violent crime. You seem convinced “the links” exist, you put em up, it’s your’s and Jack’s argument, no offense, dear friend. I will, however, again look for evidence in the literature which might explain either point, as long as it’s not some opinion piece at WND. (which, incidentally, I just googled to make sure I got the initials right and the second link listed: “Soy is making kids ‘gay’”. Hahhahaha!). It’s like the Weekly World News over there, “The Only Reliable Newspaper”
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/
And you’re right, I s’pose “circular” isn’t exactly the correct term.
“First, you want to assign blame to a victim for the crime perpetrated against them, or the consequences of that crime.”
If a bartender, to use the drunk driving scenario were to serve someone who is obviously drunk another drink as he headed out to the road, does he have no responsibility for the actions of the true criminal – the drunk driver?
“How backward you think. You think that because there are bad people out there, who would steal things, that the good people must be held responsible.”
No I am saying that since there are people out there stealing guns and perpetrating crimes with them, the standard of safe storage that good people should follow needs to be adjusted appropriately. To blindly pretend that noting can happen to your gun if you leave it lying around is negligent, imo.
“YOU are responsible for your own safety, you cannot rely on the government, the police, or anyone else.”
How absurd. You are advocating eliminating ALL safety regulation for ALL products everywhere. I will admit that many government regulations are counter productive but that does not mean that the government has no place in public safety. Absurd.
“Drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car kills a lot more than guns (and drinking and driving never save lives as guns do).”
And alcohol is a highly regulated industry (as I have stated many times).
“Regulation working? Have you seen the number of deaths and injuries caused by drinking and driving?”
And have you seen the stats about the reduction of drunk driving deaths since stricter regulations have been enacted? Without alcohol regulation, we would be in a much worse state than we are currently. Room for improvement? Sure. But they are currently saving lives that much is clear.
Kevin,
What you are saying “violent crime precipitates gun bans” is the opposite of what has happened. What has happened is that gun bans precipitate violent crime (at least that is the order of the occurrences). Of course if you want to say that there is a possibility of the gun ban being independent of the rise in crime (i.e., that it is purely coincidental) that could be at least viewed as a possibility. But then you would have other situations in which gun ownership is mandated and then crime rates dropping — which you might also say is coincidental. The rational is that with enough data points, you eventually have a statistical improbability that restriction of ownership or outright bans have no relation to increase in crime (and a positive relation at that).
What is absolutely true is that looking at the data, the “logic” (in quotes on purpose) of those that say restricting guns can only lead to a decrease in violent crime can be rejected outright. If there is no decrease in violence, with the restriction and/or ban of guns, then the argument that we should restrict guns in order to decrease crime/violence is pure nonsense. Even if there isn’t enough evidence to say that tighter gun laws increase crime, there is plenty of evidence to say that there is no evidence that tighter gun laws decrease crime.
The problem right now is the data set is rather small. There are few places which ban guns outright, but in all the cases, violence has increased. So far, I know of 4 in modern times. What is really interesting, is that in all the cases in which data before and after are compared, restriction of guns has been ineffective at best, or counter effective to reduce crime and violence.
If the null hypothesis for the test were “Restriction of guns decreases crime” we could reject that with 90% confidence. Not that I would want to see gun restrictions put in place to test the stats, if it were more prevalent, it would allow greater confidence.
Eric,
The bartender, if the drunk hit him on the head, stole the drink, and ran off should not be held accountable. If a liquor store is robbed, and the person gets drunk with the alcohol he drank, you don’t hold the liquor store to blame.
If you are going to make comparisons, at least the the analogy straight. A bartender isn’t the victim of a crime when he volunteers to serve a drunk a drink. The homeowner who has his gun stolen is the victim of a crime.
“No I am saying that since there are people out there stealing guns and perpetrating crimes with them, the standard of safe storage that good people should follow needs to be adjusted appropriately.”
And then you have already lost. Rather than do that, make the thief who is caught pay so dearly that they will have lots of incentive to not steal. I personally think they should have to pay back four times what they stole, and if they don’t have that, they should be forced into hard labor until such time as they can pay it off.
I did not say that all government regulations should be eliminated — do not put words in my mouth — what I said is that YOU are responsible for your own safety. The police are not there to protect you, and in case you had not noticed, government regulations don’t do a lot to protect you in any case even with things like lead paint and toys. The regulations only make it so that after the fact you can sue (or criminal charges can be brought against the company or in very rare instances, against a person). But provide “safety”? It hasn’t happened yet. It isn’t the job of the government to make you safe. The government can provide a framework in which when bad people do bad things, they can be punished. All those regulations do only that. When someone does the bad thing, they get their hand slapped.
Also, the idea of regulation providing the improvement in death rates for drunk driving, I’d think you can see your statement as post hoc propter hoc. I would much more attribute the reduction in deaths not from the regulation changes, but from the changes in society that have occurred from organizations like MADD that have made is socially unacceptable to drink and drive. The laws in this case have followed the societal change, and both the regulation and the accident rate are a result of the third thing. The regulations did nothing other than follow the trend that was already started.
The government and regulation do nothing to improve things. If the people do not want to do something, all the laws in the world will not change the behavior. When the speed limits were set to 55 throughout the country, many people did not slow down even though laws were in place to preclude driving fast. Some states even went so far as to make driving over 55 a very minor infraction (Montana made it an “environmental violation” with a $2.00 fine). If the people don’t want it, it won’t do any good to restrict it.
Protect yourself. Don’t blame others when bad people do bad things. Don’t try to restrict liberty for security.
Michael…
How much do you make a year?…