Gun Control - A Superficial Solution ?

[wswolf]

So let me understand this. You're saying that it's better to shoot someone that to give them your valuables?

No, Sir. I did not mention protecting valuables. Using potentially deadly force is ethically and legally acceptable only if you are in reasonable fear of imminent death or serious bodily harm. Reasonable, in legalese, means that the fear was from a realistic assessment of the threat and not due to panic.

Because let's be clear, the majority of people who threaten you with violence are in it for monetary gain and not to kill you.

That may be the case in your neighborhood but would not be a safe assumption in Israel, Mumbai or innumerable other places where your race, religion, politics or nationality provide ample reason to do you harm. In any case, "Give me our money and I won't kill you" is hardly the basis for a reliable social contract. One would be extremely naà¯ve place such trust in someone who is in the act of committing a robbery. Even if the majority were only robbers the minority cannot be ignored. If you were a woman, you might have mentioned rape as another motive. I hope we can agree that a woman has the right to use any means at her disposal, including deadly force, to keep from being raped.

Also, if the whole nation is a "gun free zone" then the idea that such areas attract criminals becomes redundant.

A gun-free zone is only respected by the law-abiding. To criminals it is a helpless-victim zone, hence the attraction. Obviously, making the law-abiding population of an entire nation gun-free would enormously expand the opportunities for criminals to go about their business unhindered.

If, as you say, restricting firearms means that only criminals will own them, why do you think that it wouldn't stop these massacres from happening?

I don't recall saying that but surely you realize that criminals with firearms are the perpetrators of massacres and making the victims helpless will do nothing to discourage them; quite the contrary.

Have you ever heard of a mass killing of this type being carried out by someone who was a member of a criminal organisation?

I already mentioned Mumbai. The list of Islamic terrorist atrocities would fill a volume. Ireland. Sri Lanka. Bosnia. Rwanda. Philippines. Naming the individual gangs would fill another volume. The lone nutcase does not cause the only need for self-defense.

Do you think that someone who wanted to commit such an act would join a criminal gang in order to gain access to firearms?

I have never heard of a criminal gang that is organized along the lines of Costco and requires membership in order to purchase their products. Smugglers traditionally operate on a cash-and-carry-no-questions-asked basis. Perhaps this is a new marketing strategy that has escaped my attention.

Regards,
Wolf

 

[Your Funny Uncle]

Strange, then, that as a citizen of the UK I can state that in my 37 years living in the country I have only seen Soldiers and specialist policemen carrying firearms. I have never once seen a criminal with a gun. Nor do I know of anyone who has been threatened with a gun. I know few people who have so much as been mugged. Certainly no-one who has been killed. Why would this be if the policies of my government do nothing but encourage gun/violent crime?

I understand that this may not be the case in countries with high religious tensions, but is this true of the US? Surely you should be comparing your country to other western democracies, not developing nations. Even Northern Ireland, which is the closest to home for me and the only one of the places you mention to be in a comparable country to your own, is not somewhere were the general population choose to wander around with guns or would want to, in my experience.

I have no idea how to get hold of a gun in this country, beyond the fact that I'd have to deal with some very shady folk to do so. I'm pretty sure that even then it wouldn't be the type of gun that one can easily get hold of over the counter in the US. When you can be arrested for even owning a firearm, even criminals are reluctant to use them except when they feel that they really must. I guess it must be tough for someone coming from a country such as the US to understand the difference in mentality that exists in a society where guns themselves are illegal...

 

[wswolf]

I think this whole guns don't kill people argument is bollocks, I mean no one ever says 'stereos don't play music, people do' or 'bottles don't hold liquid, people do.'

If you are referring to "Guns don't kill people, People kill people"; I think it means that guns are tools that only act as directed and it would be a mistake to read any more into it than that.

The fact of the matter is, guns are designed for killing and whilst tighter regulation may not prevent someone who is dead set (excuse the pun) on killing from doing so - it would certainly make it more difficult, especially on such a scale.

It is already a violation of Federal law, since 1968, for a convicted felon to so much as touch a firearm. If memory serves the penalty is 5 years imprisonment for each firearm and each round of ammunition. Yet criminals can get firearms as easily as they can get cocaine. With one exception every mass public shooting since at least 1950 has been in a gun-free zone. Tighter regulations only affect the law-abiding. The only practical solution that has been presented is to respect the individual right to self-defense and eliminate victim-disarmament zones. Schools should have armed guards, either professional or trained volunteers. Israel allowed armed teachers and parents in schools since 1974 and have not had a school shooting since. In the U.S. there were no school shootings before schools were made into gun-free zones.

That is not to say that society shouldn't also try to protect its citizens by trying to spot unstable and potentially dangerous individuals and treat their mental illness before they become a danger,

I am not saying that we should not try but there are reasons why we should not expect such efforts to be very successful. At present mental-health and educational-privacy laws in some jurisdictions prevent sharing patient's or student's data. In many cases it is impossible to identify dangerous individuals before they are apprehended for their crimes.

but to say that gun availability is not part of the problem would be utterly fallacious (note, I'm not saying you personally hold this view, but a lot of the opposition to gun control seem to).

Unfortunately criminal access to guns is as impossible to control as their access to illegal drugs or cricket bats. Even if by some magic criminals and lunatics could no longer pick up a gun the self-defense rights of the law-abiding would remain intact and their need for self-defense tools would be undiminished. Undiminished because in nearly 90% of violent crimes (in the U.S.) criminals do not use guns but rely on knives, clubs, brute strength or superior numbers.

Regards,
Wolf

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Are you dismissing his work, with a wave of the hand, because his article was posted on a website of which you disapprove?

Gun advocate sites are extremely biased, the sieve anything that fits their world view and naturally you will only find what fits that world view, nothing else. Why not source FBI statistics? Which are actually official statistics, from real crime. But let us give the benefit of the doubt, I have no motivation to just believe in what they are saying (they have all the motivations to make up stuff) so I do is to try and check what they are saying, I look into their sources. But when their sources either loop back to their own articles, or when it doesn't it leads to a dead end, the only think I can conclude is that the only sources they have are themselves. Now you put 2 and 2 together.

The right to keep and bear arms was regarded by the founders of the U.S. as inalienable, existing prior to governments and beyond a government's legitmate power to infringe upon.

Unfortunatly, I am not one least bit convinced by this sort of argument, just because the founding fathers did "whatever" it doesn't mean they are right. You can say that they were not dumb when they put that there, I would agree. But you would have to put into context that the only types of firearms didn't shot more than a round before going into a lenghty process to try and re-use them. You must also not forget that they just ended fighting in a war against the British, who confiscate the weapons of the population that so that they couldn't be used against them, and that the aspiring new independent country of america didn't had an army, they had a melitia, they were just regular people fighting with the weapons that managed not to get confiscated. Sure on such circumstances it would be a smart thing to put the right to bare arms into the constitution as a form of protection, but the US has changed, it no longer has melitias, it has an army, it is no longer armed by the regular person but by a production line. The weapons in the hands of common citizens are no longer used to fight in a war against the common enemy, they can now only be used to kill eachother, and let me higlight that, they can now only be used to kill eachother. That old philosophy no longer makes any sort of sense today.


I personaly would like to put a stop to that myth that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" or that "if you make a crime to hold a gun, then only criminals will hold guns". They are both extremely naive. Sure people are the ones who are driven to kill people, but the right tool is half the job done in anyother situation, however for some reason people don't want to apply that to guns, why? Do you want to know what else there is common in all those mass shootings in US besides the aparent fact that they all happened in a Gun-free zone? How about the fact that the weapons were legaly acquiered? Do you think that if the perpetrators didn't had a gun that it wouldn't be a factor? Do you think that the best solution is force everyone to be armed, so that when people start getting killed that they could defend themselves? Or not give anyone easy acess to guns and then nobody gets killed?
What do guns in criminal hands have in common? For one thing that they were acquiered (apart from few artesanal exceptions that are mostly inefective). There was a factory, a legal factory, from a legal company that produce those guns for a legal purpose, somehow they ended up in the wrong hands, how? Did you ever taught of that? I mean, the kalashnikov is pratically build in almost every country, they are used, bought and sold in almost every conflict zone, however most of the gun busts that you hear or the news are american build weapons, how did that happen? Did you ever taught of that? I will let you think of that. If you were a criminal mastermind, and you wanted to get american weapons, how would you do it and why would it work?

Focourse gun control wouldn't mean that there wouldn't be gun violence, there is gun violence in my country to, however they are:
1. much less frequent
2. often using a fake gun
3. And the real guns could hardly cause a mass shoting

Now if you started to remove guns from the US, would that increase gun crime? Surprisingly the answer is yes, it will! This is due to the massive proliferation of guns, and until you flush them from underworld it is going to take a while. But it will eventually go down, black market guns would be more expensive, harder to get and as a consequence less people will have acess to them. And you can't have gun related deaths without guns.
There will allways be criminals with guns and the world is not going to be perfect, but fuck, damn if we can't make them so few as to be neglectable.

Be back after the new year, and I promiss I will bright real stats.

 

[Your Funny Uncle]

The right to keep and bear arms was regarded by the founders of the U.S. as inalienable, existing prior to governments and beyond a government's legitmate power to infringe upon.

Unfortunatly, I am not one least bit convinced by this sort of argument, just because the founding fathers did "whatever" it doesn't mean they are right. You can say that they were not dumb when they put that there, I would agree. But you would have to put into context that the only types of firearms didn't shot more than a round before going into a lenghty process to try and re-use them. You must also not forget that they just ended fighting in a war against the British, who confiscate the weapons of the population that so that they couldn't be used against them, and that the aspiring new independent country of america didn't had an army, they had a melitia, they were just regular people fighting with the weapons that managed not to get confiscated. Sure on such circumstances it would be a smart thing to put the right to bare arms into the constitution as a form of protection, but the US has changed, it no longer has melitias, it has an army, it is no longer armed by the regular person but by a production line. The weapons in the hands of common citizens are no longer used to fight in a war against the common enemy, they can now only be used to kill eachother, and let me higlight that, they can now only be used to kill eachother. That old philosophy no longer makes any sort of sense today.

Not to mention the fact that the arms that were available at the time of the drafting of the US constitution were completely different from the semi-automatic weapons of today. I wonder how many kids one of these people would manage to kill if they had to muzzle-load their weapon each time they wanted to fire...

 

[IBSpify]

With one exception every mass public shooting since at least 1950 has been in a gun-free zone.

I'm sorry, but your going to need to provide a source for this, because as far as i can see it is total crap, Mother jones has a timeline of mass shootings spanning from 1982-2012 which contains 62 shootings, and by my count, only 16 of them are in gun free zones, and that is taking into account cinemark theatres no guns policy, and the no guns policy of zerox and calling those 2 shootings a "guns free zone". (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map?page=2)

It would appear that if anything gun free zones have no bearing on if there will be a mass shooting there, which makes sense, because most of these people, if they are not shot by the police and killed, commit suicide so them being afraid of having people shoot back at them isn't entering into the picture.

As a side note do bear in mind that while I included Columbine in the 16 gun free zones from the above timeline, The highschool did in fact have an armed security guard on the grounds, clearly it didn't help them.

 

[Gnug215]

Quick question: Why is it people want/need assault rifles again?


Also, I'd argue that gun control IS a superficial solution.

Perhaps especially in the US. There are so many factors involved in these shootings, that there is no sole solution.

It seems clear that the US is "too far gone" to have a bit of gun control solve even a fraction of the problem.

But it also seems clear that some restrictions of SOME kind are in order.

 

[Frenger]

The cultural divide that I wrote of earlier is becoming ever more apparent. I appreciate guns for their potential as emergency-survival and food-gathering equipment but also for thier mechanical elegance, historical connectons and even artistry. I have absolutely no desire to use, or threaten to use, any form of potentially deadly force against any human being (or most animals fo that matter) but stand ready to do so in the gravest extreme, if there is no other way possible to prevent the death or serious injury of innocents. This ethic is common among gun-owners, propaganda notwithstanding.

The problem is here, the very rights that give you the means to protect those innocent people, are also exactly the same rights that put their lives at risk in the first place. On top of this, what makes you think you can determine a grave situation? I myself sometimes panic and I'm pretty sure other people do as well, do I act before I have had time to think (never violently of course)? You bet your hat I do, and when I act in opposition of my better nature, the mistake is easily rectified, in your world however, well, I don't know how to bring people back to life, do you?

The right to keep and bear arms was regarded by the founders of the U.S. as inalienable, existing prior to governments and beyond a government's legitmate power to infringe upon. The right is yours whether you choose to exercise it or not.

And that was what, 200 years ago? I once read about a French government hanging a cow for sorcery, many countries used to burn witches as well as hanging people for blasphemy. The point is, the world changes.....this is about context. I personally don't think it's a good idea to have the right to own a fighter helicopter, however put me on an Island where everyone else has a pointy stick, and I'm going to have a pointy stick.

Laws created can very well lose their validity as the world in which they were designed changes, however I do understand the importance of having such pieces of paper to wave around in debates like this as it removes the need to actually form a rational argument.

It would be wonderful if nutcases could be identified before they commit any crimes but I don't think that is possible. We can only be prepared to deal with them.

I agree, identifying nutcases is simply impossible and in even trying to achieve such a goal you will inevitably only succeed in creating a witch hunt. But making it easy for people to act on murderous impulses is clearly not a good idea. Just about anyone can walk into a shop, buy a gun with as much ammunition as they can carry and then ask for directions to the nearest school. Surely you can see this is less than ideal, and by simply putting restrictions on these kinds of weapons, you can make a very positive change?

If your reference to Mad Max implies ungoverned chaos, this has simply not happened. At the latest extimate there are eight million licensed to carry concealed handguns in the U.S. As a group their (our) rate of violent crime is equal to or slightly lower than that of off-duty police officers.

So police officers make stupid mistakes with guns as well? What's your point here?

Armed teachers would be voulnteers, trained and presumably mentally prepared for this sort of emergency.

This is simply batshit, teachers are there to teach, they are not there to be part of a vigilante group. How can you even ask someone to do that?

To live after such a thing emotionally they first have to live.

Which they would have a far greater chance of if guns were taken out of the equation.

Imagine the emotional fallout from watching the slaughter of those you are obliged to protect and being forbidden by law to have means to stop the killing.

They wouldn't have to, they would also most likely be dead.

I agree completely. You might think of legal gun carriers as porcupines, inoffensively going about their business but able to defend themselves if the need arrises.

Nope, I think of them as maniacs with the potential to do a lot of bad.

There is no "kill or be killed" mentality. The goal of self-defense is not to kill the attacker but to stop the attack. If the attacker is injured or dies it is the result of his own action. Even up to the last second he could choose not to attack and not force a responce from his intended victim. If there existed a Star Trek weapon permanantly set on "stun", that could stop an attacker without damaging him, I would be all for it. Until then the handgun is the only option that can be immediately at hand.

I can't imagine many people being as calm and rational as this under the stress of having a gun pointed at their face. If you really believe the average, gun owning person to say just before they pull the trigger "Well, this a pickle, but never to mind, I can simply disable the offender by shooting the gun out of his hand" as opposed to "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SHOOT THE TWAT" then good luck to you.

 

[CommonEnlightenment]

If you are referring to "Guns don't kill people, People kill people"; I think it means that guns are tools that only act as directed and it would be a mistake to read any more into it than that.

I agree with the portion of the statement that states that a gun is a tool that can be used for either good or negative purposes. People that understand the history of science understand the implications of this statement. The nuclear weapon is a prime example of this good or negative purpose. When the weapon is used for offensive purposes the outcome can be less than desirable. Does this mean that the discovery of the nuclear age has completely negative consequences? I would state NO. The discovery of the nuclear age has lead to many positive and civil uses of nuclear technology (medical, electrical power related activities, and propulsion just to name a few). I think the important thing to remember here is the EDUCATION that leads to peaceful uses for this technology. Unfortunately, the human species has a less than stellar (not the light producing use of the word) track record when it comes to areas of the need to dominate others. Just remember that a portion of population does not view domination as courage...... they can view domination (through intimidation) as cowardly behavior.

But if we as a species want to critically analyze information and potentially understand the topic we need to 'read' more into it (when necessary or applicable). It is often the questions that arise from these situations that lead to a better understanding of our reality.

Carry on....

 

[wswolf]

Are you dismissing his work, with a wave of the hand, because his article was posted on a website of which you disapprove?

Gun advocate sites are extremely biased, the sieve anything that fits their world view and naturally you will only find what fits that world view, nothing else.

From reading his books I think that Lott advocates concealed carry and the abolition of gun-free zones because his research indicates that that is the most effective policy for crime reduction. The fact that he has his data available for all to see is, in my opinion, an indication of honesty. How would you describe the world view of a gun advocate? I believe that each individual human has certain rights that ought to be respected. Is that a world view?

Why not source FBI statistics? Which are actually official statistics, from real crime.

I am interested in defensive gun usage. FBI statistics, so far as I know, only cover data on crimes that have been reported, not crimes that have been thwarted. There has been at least one government study but it shows very much lower usage than any private study. Possibly, because people, not knowing the precise legal status of their actions, are reluctant to discuss the subject with government agents. Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America by Gary Kleck and More Guns Less Crime by John Lott seem to be thoroughly researched.

But let us give the benefit of the doubt, I have no motivation to just believe in what they are saying (they have all the motivations to make up stuff) so I do is to try and check what they are saying,

If you are referring to Lott and Kleck, they are academics who publish in peer-reviewed journals. Making stuff up and submitting it for peer-review would be against their own self-interest. (Remember the ignominious fate of Bellesiles when invented data to support the assertions in his book? He was ballyhooed in the national press and awarded a prestigious prize until his blatant dishonesty was revealed. Then all academic hell broke loose.) To advocate social policies that they know would increase violent crime in their own communities would also be against their own self-interest. I don't see any motive for making stuff up.

I look into their sources. But when their sources either loop back to their own articles, or when it doesn't it leads to a dead end, the only think I can conclude is that the only sources they have are themselves. Now you put 2 and 2 together.

Their conclusions were derived by analyzing data from their own, original research. When they write an article about their conclusions and the policy implications thereof, of course it will "loop back' to their own, unique data set. The same criticism could be leveled at Charles Darwin or anyone else doing original research.

The right to keep and bear arms was regarded by the founders of the U.S. as inalienable, existing prior to governments and beyond a government's legitmate power to infringe upon.

Unfortunatly, I am not one least bit convinced by this sort of argument, just because the founding fathers did "whatever" it doesn't mean they are right. You can say that they were not dumb when they put that there, I would agree. But you would have to put into context that the only types of firearms didn't shot more than a round before going into a lenghty process to try and re-use them. You must also not forget that they just ended fighting in a war against the British, who confiscate the weapons of the population that so that they couldn't be used against them, and that the aspiring new independent country of america didn't had an army, they had a melitia, they were just regular people fighting with the weapons that managed not to get confiscated. Sure on such circumstances it would be a smart thing to put the right to bare arms into the constitution as a form of protection, but the US has changed, it no longer has melitias, it has an army, it is no longer armed by the regular person but by a production line.

According to modern historians and legal scholars the Second Amendment was not that simple. Historian Joyce Lee Malcolm:
"The Second Amendment was meant to accomplish two distinct goals, each perceived as critical to the maintenance of liberty. First, it was meant to guarantee the individual's right to have arms for self-defense and self-preservation. Such an individual right was a legacy of the English bill of rights. This is also plain from American colonial practice, the debates over the constitution, and state proposals for what was to become the Second Amendment. "¦The second and related objective concerned the militia, and it is the coupling of these two objectives that has caused the most confusion. The customary American militia necessitated an armed public, and Madison's original version of the amendment, as well as those suggested by the states, describe the militia as either 'composed of' or 'including' the body of the people." To Keep and Bear Arms, The Origins of an Anglo-American Right, Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994, pp. 162-163.

The weapons in the hands of common citizens are no longer used to fight in a war against the common enemy, they can now only be used to kill eachother, and let me higlight that, they can now only be used to kill eachother. That old philosophy no longer makes any sort of sense today.

The cultural gap I mentioned earlier is becoming more apparent. It should be obvious that firearms have other uses than killing people. ""¦they can only be used to kill each other." is both untrue and a strawman. As I explained previously: the goal of self-defense is not to kill the attacker. The goal is to stop the attack. Whether the attacker perceives that his intended victim's demeanor does not indicate easy prey and decides not to attack or sees that the victim is armed and decides not to attack or initiates an attack but is scared off by the sight of a drawn gun or is captured and held for police, the defender has been successful. The least desirable outcome is if the person being attacked is injured or killed. The second-least desirable outcome is if the attacker is injured or killed. Comparing the number of criminals justifiably killed by civilians with even the lowest estimate of total defensive gun usage shows that criminals being killed in self-defense is a rare event. I hope that the phrase ""¦they can only be used to kill each other." can now be buried and never resurrected.

I personaly would like to put a stop to that myth that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" or that "if you make a crime to hold a gun, then only criminals will hold guns". They are both extremely naive.

They are not a bad as the clunker you quoted above above but I agree that overly simplified 'truisms' seldom increase our understanding or advance dialogue.

Sure people are the ones who are driven to kill people, but the right tool is half the job done in anyother situation, however for some reason people don't want to apply that to guns, why?

Guns also improve our ability to defend ourselves.

Do you want to know what else there is common in all those mass shootings in US besides the aparent fact that they all happened in a Gun-free zone? How about the fact that the weapons were legaly acquiered?

Not all. The Newtown murderer apparently did not own any guns of his own; he killed a woman and stole her guns. The guns used in the Columbine atrocity were obtained illegally. There might be others.

Do you think that if the perpetrators didn't had a gun that it wouldn't be a factor? Do you think that the best solution is force everyone to be armed, so that when people start getting killed that they could defend themselves? Or not give anyone easy acess to guns and then nobody gets killed?

Of course whether and how a criminal is armed is a factor because tools magnify one's ability to do good or evil. Responsible adults have a right to be armed but forcing anyone to be armed is a repugnant idea that no one has suggested. Easy access is not given to criminals; it is simply a fact that they have access through illegal channels and that access cannot be stopped any more than access to illegal drugs can be stopped. Even if criminals all voluntarily stopped using guns the need for arms by the law-abiding would not disappear. The weak would still have the right defend themselves against stronger or multiple attackers.

What do guns in criminal hands have in common? For one thing that they were acquiered (apart from few artesanal exceptions that are mostly inefective). There was a factory, a legal factory, from a legal company that produce those guns for a legal purpose, somehow they ended up in the wrong hands, how?

Criminals make a profession out of stealing and smuggling.

If you were a criminal mastermind, and you wanted to get american weapons, how would you do it and why would it work?

I would follow the example of Mexican drug gangs and buy American (or Chinese) weapons from corrupt army officers in Mexico or Central America.

Now if you started to remove guns from the US, would that increase gun crime? Surprisingly the answer is yes, it will! This is due to the massive proliferation of guns, and until you flush them from underworld it is going to take a while. But it will eventually go down,

Please think of the implications of this proposition. A policy that will predictably increase violent crime would increase human suffering. More people would be robbed or extorted of assets they worked hard to earn and need to provide for their families. More people would be assaulted, and after the healing process, however long and painful, expensive that might be, some would suffer pain or limited mobility or psychological trauma for the rest of their lives. More women would be raped with all of the horror that implies. Such a policy would be unethical in the extreme. It would be more than unethical, it would be evil. By denying the basic human right of self-preservation, the right to survive, a government would declare itself indifferent to individual rights and therefore illegitimate.

black market guns would be more expensive, harder to get and as a consequence less people will have acess to them.

The U.S. "war on drugs" was begun in 1971 and many billions of dollars were spent. The result is that the price of illegal drugs has gone down by 74% over the last 30 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/business/in-rethinking-the-war-on-drugs-start-with-the-numbers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
There is no reason to think that gun smuggling would be any more difficult than drug smuggling.

And you can't have gun related deaths without guns.

Those stabbed, bludgeoned, stomped, strangled or defenestrated will be equally dead.

There will allways be criminals with guns and the world is not going to be perfect, but fuck, damn if we can't make them so few as to be neglectable.

The right to self-defense and the means to implement that right will always exist and it will always be wrong to take it away.

Be back after the new year, and I promiss I will bright real stats.

It's not about stats it's about basic human rights.

Regards,
Wolf

 

[wswolf]

With one exception every mass public shooting since at least 1950 has been in a gun-free zone.

I'm sorry, but your going to need to provide a source for this,

You are quite correct. I should have provided a source. I was quoting John Lott who has repeated it in several news reports and articles. I asked him for the source and he replied:

The data original came when I put this paper together, though that particular result isn't stated. I have updated discussion in The Bias Against Guns and to a lesser extent in MGLC [More Guns Less Crime]. Still you can see the basic data. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=272929

Not as much detail as I was hoping for but he did take the time to write a gracious reply to a random stranger. I am 2000 miles from by bookshelf at the moment so am unable to look up the discussion in his books.
The linked paper is very much relevant to this discussion and well worth reading.

Mother jones has a timeline of mass shootings spanning from 1982-2012 which contains 62 shootings, and by my count, only 16 of them are in gun free zones"¦

You are correct that guns were not allowed in Cinemark and Xerox facilities. How did you determine that the other locations were not also posted as gun-free?

By the way; Lott was very critical of the Mother Jones article. Among other objections, MJ defined mass public shootings as having at least four victims, which allowed them to ignore the shootings with two or three victims, where the madman was stopped by an armed citizen before the victim count reached Mother Jones' minimum. http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2012/09/mother-jones-and-media-matters-bungle.html

It would appear that if anything gun free zones have no bearing on if there will be a mass shooting there, which makes sense, because most of these people, if they are not shot by the police and killed, commit suicide so them being afraid of having people shoot back at them isn't entering into the picture.

If you are correct about the gun-free zones, and forgive me for thinking this unlikely, you might have a small point. These lunatics are obviously seeking death but they also seem to be seeking fame and/or some sort of satisfaction for killing as many as possible. Choosing places that are guaranteed to have helpless victims also guarantees the opportunity to do maximum damage.

As a side note do bear in mind that while I included Columbine in the 16 gun free zones from the above timeline, The highschool did in fact have an armed security guard on the grounds, clearly it didn't help them.

Actually his actions may have saved some lives. He delayed the madmen by shooting at them (unfortunately he was a terrible shot) until being driven off when they threw home-made grenades at him. If the criminals had not had to deal with the guard they may have had more time for killing students. But there is no way to know for sure.

Regards,
Wolf

 

[IBSpify]

You are correct that guns were not allowed in Cinemark and Xerox facilities. How did you determine that the other locations were not also posted as gun-free?

By the way; Lott was very critical of the Mother Jones article. Among other objections, MJ defined mass public shootings as having at least four victims, which allowed them to ignore the shootings with two or three victims, where the madman was stopped by an armed citizen before the victim count reached Mother Jones' minimum. http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2012/09/m ... ungle.html

That 16 number was a cursory glance, and picking out the schools and businesses with explicit no-guns policy, now I may have missed some, but i know for certain that they were not all gun free zones.

For example, one of the shootings on the list was a man walking into a coffee shop and shooting 4 police officers, which were his targets, thus even if that coffee shop was a gun free zone, those 4 police officers were armed so you really can't count that one towards a gun free zone.

The Fort Hood shooting happened on an army base, army bases are not gun free zones. Another shooting happened at an air force hospital where the shooter was eventually taken down by MP's thus if there are armed MP's it's not a gun free zone.

So while I could be wrong and more then 16 of them happened on gun free zones, there was certainly more then just the Gabby Gifford shootingthat were not in gun free zones.

And by the way, I fail to see how his example works against his statement of only one shooting in a non-gun-free zone, by eliminating the shootings were the killer is stopped by an armed citizen before they reached Mother Jones' limit it skews the data in favor of his claim

 

[Dogma's Demise]

Hmmm...

Assault rifles are overkill (like literally) and probably shouldn't be available for anyone but police, military and FPSRussia.

Banning firearms... no. Not gonna happen, especially not in America.

 

[wswolf]

Quick question: Why is it people want/need assault rifles again?

Technically we have are not discussing assault rifles but military-style semi-automatic rifles. We might as well use the correct terminology or we will be imitating those who argue against the ToE without knowing how to define it. If anyone is interested I will post a paragraph or two explaining the difference.

In answer to your admirably succinct question: they are useful and versatile. A .223 semi-auto is extremely viable for self-defense and highly recommended by professionals who train both police and civilians. (Massad Ayoob is one who has many articles available on the internet.) Though a number of states have made use of the cartridge illegal for deer hunting do to the small diameter of the bullet it still has enough power stop a determined attacker. Because of light weight and light recoil it is user-friendly to women and others of small stature. Some models have a telescoping buttstock so that it can be quickly adjusted to fit any user (too long for the user makes it very clumsy and difficult to shoot accurately). It fires a very small bullet that is unlikely to over-penetrate to endanger bystanders. It is easier than a handgun to shoot accurately and its longer practical range makes it desirable for farm and ranch use against vermin or predators. The detachable magazine enables it to be safely carried or stored unloaded but quickly loaded when needed. Magazines are available that hold as few as five rounds and as many as 100 but those holding over 30 are impractical because they tend to jam. Normal-sized magazines could be lifesavers in case of multiple attackers. In the case of the L.A. riots shopkeepers who stood guard with "assault weapons" with large magazines were able to keep their stores and homes from being looted and burned and keep their families unmolested. They were successful partly because of the intimidation factor of their rifles with conspicuously large magazines. The same effect was seen in the aftermath of Florida hurricanes when the police were unavailable to discourage looters. Military-style semi-automatics are reliable under adverse conditions. Anyone who has served in the military since the late '60s will have been trained in their use. For anyone planning to join the military being already familiar with the primary weapon would be very helpful. For these reasons, and probably more, these sorts of rifles have been very popular in the U.S. out-selling all others for perhaps the last decade.

But it also seems clear that some restrictions of SOME kind are in order.

As I have explained before there are many restrictions on who may own or possess a friearm.
Unfortunately restrictions are ignored by criminals.

 

[wswolf]

The problem is here, the very rights that give you the means to protect those innocent people, are also exactly the same rights that put their lives at risk in the first place.

Exercising rights does not endanger anyone. There is no right to put anyone at risk. People are endangered by criminal behavior.

On top of this, what makes you think you can determine a grave situation?

Criminal attacks are not generally rife with subtly. If a woman is being dragged into an alley at knife-point or her door is being kicked down in the middle of the night it glaringly obvious that a crime is being committed. If you are unsure of a situation do not intervene.

I myself sometimes panic and I'm pretty sure other people do as well, do I act before I have had time to think (never violently of course)? You bet your hat I do, and when I act in opposition of my better nature, the mistake is easily rectified, in your world however, well, I don't know how to bring people back to life, do you?

As with driving in adverse conditions or administering first-aid, if you are prepared for a situation and feel confident to handle it you will be insulated against panic. This is a matter of training and mental preparation. One of the basics of firearm safety to not shoot anything you have not positively identified.

I personally don't think it's a good idea to have the right to own a fighter helicopter,

Strawman. No one has suggested that the right to self-preservation includes the right to anything so indiscriminant and powerful as to endanger the general population. Not bombs, aircraft, mines, explosives, artillery, tanks or crew-served weapons of any sort. Only weapons that might be carried and used by one person.

however put me on an Island where everyone else has a pointy stick, and I'm going to have a pointy stick.

That would be prudent.

Laws created can very well lose their validity as the world in which they were designed changes, however I do understand the importance of having such pieces of paper to wave around in debates like this as it removes the need to actually form a rational argument.

Laws can lose their validity but basic human rights cannot. The Second Amendment "is not a right granted by the Constitution . . . [n]either is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876). If I wave it about a bit it is only to emphasize that its purpose it to protect a natural right that preceded any government.

But making it easy for people to act on murderous impulses is clearly not a good idea.

It is simply a fact that some aberrant individuals have murderous impulses and act on them; no one wants to make it easy. Some of the incidents we have been discussing were carefully planned. Some may have been impulsive but there is no way to know.

Just about anyone can walk into a shop, buy a gun with as much ammunition as they can carry and then ask for directions to the nearest school.

Anyone with valid identification documents who is not a drug-user, who has not been judged mentally incompetent and who passes a criminal background check by the FBI. Sure, just anyone at all. Prospective buyers must also pass the informal but very real "suspicious gun shop owner" test. I have personally seen a shop owner refuse to sell a gun to someone whom he thought was a bit off. Two other gun shop workers told me they have done the same.

Surely you can see this is less than ideal, and by simply putting restrictions on these kinds of weapons, you can make a very positive change?

Restrictions only affect the law-abiding, not the criminals. Or do you imagine that people law-abiding enough to pass the background checks are seething cauldrons of rage that might boil over at any instant?

If your reference to Mad Max implies ungoverned chaos, this has simply not happened. At the latest extimate there are eight million licensed to carry concealed handguns in the U.S. As a group their (our) rate of violent crime is equal to or slightly lower than that of off-duty police officers.

So police officers make stupid mistakes with guns as well? What's your point here?

It is disingenuous of you to equate violent crimes with mistakes. My point here, which you so deftly tried to twist into a pretzel, is that there is no demographic, excluding children, with a lower incidence of crime.

Armed teachers would be voulnteers, trained and presumably mentally prepared for this sort of emergency.

This is simply batshit, teachers are there to teach, they are not there to be part of a vigilante group. How can you even ask someone to do that?

The unthinkable to you is not unthinkable to everyone. Some think that helplessly watching child-killers is unthinkable. Israel armed its teachers in 1974 and have not has a successful terrorist attack on a school since. Peru has armed teachers. The Philippines has issued teachers M-14 battle rifles that can fire as machineguns. Also you have no idea what a vigilante is but I don't want to get sidetracked on to that subject.

Which they would have a far greater chance of if guns were taken out of the equation.

Why do you think it is possible to disarm criminals? Where have even the most draconian laws been successful?

You might think of legal gun carriers as porcupines, inoffensively going about their business but able to defend themselves if the need arrises.

Nope, I think of them as maniacs with the potential to do a lot of bad.

The mildest thing I can say is that this is sheer bigotry.

There is no "kill or be killed" mentality. The goal of self-defense is not to kill the attacker but to stop the attack. If the attacker is injured or dies it is the result of his own action. Even up to the last second he could choose not to attack and not force a responce from his intended victim. If there existed a Star Trek weapon permanantly set on "stun", that could stop an attacker without damaging him, I would be all for it. Until then the handgun is the only option that can be immediately at hand.

I can't imagine many people being as calm and rational as this under the stress of having a gun pointed at their face.

You have an active imagination but it only seems to work at seeing gun owners as maniacs who also panic at any danger (projection?) and scenes where having a gun might not be immediately useful.

If you really believe the average, gun owning person to say just before they pull the trigger "Well, this a pickle, but never to mind, I can simply disable the offender by shooting the gun out of his hand" as opposed to "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SHOOT THE TWAT" then good luck to you.

There goes that imagination again. Luck is always welcome but skill and fortitude are better.

Regards,
Wolf

 

[Gnug215]

Quick question: Why is it people want/need assault rifles again?

Technically we have are not discussing assault rifles but military-style semi-automatic rifles. We might as well use the correct terminology or we will be imitating those who argue against the ToE without knowing how to define it. If anyone is interested I will post a paragraph or two explaining the difference.

In answer to your admirably succinct question: they are useful and versatile. A .223 semi-auto is extremely viable for self-defense and highly recommended by professionals who train both police and civilians. (Massad Ayoob is one who has many articles available on the internet.) Though a number of states have made use of the cartridge illegal for deer hunting do to the small diameter of the bullet it still has enough power stop a determined attacker. Because of light weight and light recoil it is user-friendly to women and others of small stature. Some models have a telescoping buttstock so that it can be quickly adjusted to fit any user (too long for the user makes it very clumsy and difficult to shoot accurately). It fires a very small bullet that is unlikely to over-penetrate to endanger bystanders. It is easier than a handgun to shoot accurately and its longer practical range makes it desirable for farm and ranch use against vermin or predators. The detachable magazine enables it to be safely carried or stored unloaded but quickly loaded when needed. Magazines are available that hold as few as five rounds and as many as 100 but those holding over 30 are impractical because they tend to jam. Normal-sized magazines could be lifesavers in case of multiple attackers. In the case of the L.A. riots shopkeepers who stood guard with "assault weapons" with large magazines were able to keep their stores and homes from being looted and burned and keep their families unmolested. They were successful partly because of the intimidation factor of their rifles with conspicuously large magazines. The same effect was seen in the aftermath of Florida hurricanes when the police were unavailable to discourage looters. Military-style semi-automatics are reliable under adverse conditions. Anyone who has served in the military since the late '60s will have been trained in their use. For anyone planning to join the military being already familiar with the primary weapon would be very helpful. For these reasons, and probably more, these sorts of rifles have been very popular in the U.S. out-selling all others for perhaps the last decade.

So people really need assault rifles for self-defense?

That seems a tad extreme.

You mention two extreme circumstances where they were actually used for self-defense, and it occurs to me that the US as a society is really too far gone and too sick in order to fix this problem.

I live in the EU, and we really don't need guns here. I suppose one could argue about the right to own a gun, but I'd rather talk about a right to live in a safe society.
But I suppose gun rights are much more individualist than (my on-the-spot-made-up) "safe society" right, which is, I suppose, typically socialist-y European.

But it also seems clear that some restrictions of SOME kind are in order.

As I have explained before there are many restrictions on who may own or possess a friearm.
Unfortunately restrictions are ignored by criminals.

But these shootings haven't all been done by criminals.

Besides, criminals ignore restrictions in other countries, too, so availability still matters, right?

Where I live, only some of the most hard-core criminal gangs are really able to get a hold of assault-type weapons, and if they ever use them, you usually get a man/ganghunt so massive, it will hurt whichever gang used it, so we don't really see these weapons used all that much.
The lacking availability isn't the only factor, I'm sure. The culture and the society seems to matter as well, and perhaps that's really the problem in the US.

 

[australopithecus]

No one needs a fully automatic assault rifle for home defense. No one. Not unless you're surrounded by zombies, and not unless you're in a profession where you require one. Armed forces or armed police for example. The sole purpose of an automatic weapon is to kill as many people as you can in a very short space of time. That's it. There is something very wrong with a culture that insists this is a valid domestic defense tool.

I've fired one of those monstrosities, and I do not see the appeal. Swords are cooler than guns anyway.

 

[wswolf]

You are correct that guns were not allowed in Cinemark and Xerox facilities. How did you determine that the other locations were not also posted as gun-free?

That 16 number was a cursory glance, and picking out the schools and businesses with explicit no-guns policy, now I may have missed some, but i know for certain that they were not all gun free zones.

For example, one of the shootings on the list was a man walking into a coffee shop and shooting 4 police officers, which were his targets, thus even if that coffee shop was a gun free zone, those 4 police officers were armed so you really can't count that one towards a gun free zone.

The Fort Hood shooting happened on an army base, army bases are not gun free zones. Another shooting happened at an air force hospital where the shooter was eventually taken down by MP's thus if there are armed MP's it's not a gun free zone.

So while I could be wrong and more then 16 of them happened on gun free zones, there was certainly more then just the Gabby Gifford shootingthat were not in gun free zones.

And by the way, I fail to see how his example works against his statement of only one shooting in a non-gun-free zone, by eliminating the shootings were the killer is stopped by an armed citizen before they reached Mother Jones' limit it skews the data in favor of his claim

I think you misunderstand the nature of gun-free zones. They are not meant to exclude pilice officers, only civilians. Police officers are required to to armed when on duty and that requirement extends to places like schools and post offices which armed civilians may not enter. Military bases also qualify as gun-free zones because firearms are locked in a armoury and only issed for specific purposes and then often without ammunition. The only ones likely to be armed on a military base are the Military Police. Any private business or landowner, because of their property rights, create a gun-free zone by posting a notice stating that guns are not allowed on their property. The Mother Jones article did not state whether or not such notices had been posted.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

From reading his books I think that Lott advocates concealed carry and the abolition of gun-free zones because his research indicates that that is the most effective policy for crime reduction.

I think you will find the caboose, rather than the locomotive, is pulling the train.

The fact that he has his data available for all to see is, in my opinion, an indication of honesty.

Creationists have their data available for everyone to see, yet, have you given yourself the trouble to check it?

How would you describe the world view of a gun advocate? I believe that each individual human has certain rights that ought to be respected. Is that a world view?

The belief that you are living in a western as the fastest and meanest gunslinger in the west, but they wouldn't be able to play cowboys if the gobermint toook thyer gawnS!

Why not source FBI statistics? Which are actually official statistics, from real crime.

I am interested in defensive gun usage. FBI statistics, so far as I know, only cover data on crimes that have been reported,

As opposed to what? Crimes that nobody knows because they haven't been reported? How is this supposed to make your data less made up?

not crimes that have been thwarted.

Ok, so a guy walks into a bar trying to kill everyone, then the barman goes "bam! I shot you!" and he stops the crime from happening. Does this sound like something that the police wouldn't be involved? In what situation is a gun fired and successfully stops a crime from happening that does not follow a police report? And how do other studies get to this people?

There has been at least one government study but it shows very much lower usage than any private study.

And this is a problem why?

Possibly, because people, not knowing the precise legal status of their actions, are reluctant to discuss the subject with government agents.

I.E. I make up a story to explain why the data does not support my worldview (that guns in the hands of civilians reduce crime)

Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America by Gary Kleck and More Guns Less Crime by John Lott seem to be thoroughly researched.

I.E. I will therefore conclude something that supports my worldview which runs contrary to what I have seen in the last phrase.

If you are referring to Lott and Kleck, they are academics who publish in peer-reviewed journals. Making stuff up and submitting it for peer-review would be against their own self-interest.
("¦)
To advocate social policies that they know would increase violent crime in their own communities would also be against their own self-interest. I don't see any motive for making stuff up.

Do you mean, unlike creationists do? Or exactly like creationists do?

Their conclusions were derived by analyzing data from their own, original research. When they write an article about their conclusions and the policy implications thereof, of course it will "loop back' to their own, unique data set.

Have you read the articles you linked? It's not their data, they never collected any data! They don't "loop back to their unique data set" because they have no dataset of their own, they loopback to other articles of their own to support other unfounded assertions of their own.

According to modern historians and legal scholars the Second Amendment was not that simple. Historian Joyce Lee Malcolm:
"The Second Amendment was meant to accomplish two distinct goals, each perceived as critical to the maintenance of liberty. First, it was meant to guarantee the individual's right to have arms for self-defense and self-preservation. Such an individual right was a legacy of the English bill of rights. This is also plain from American colonial practice, the debates over the constitution, and state proposals for what was to become the Second Amendment. "¦The second and related objective concerned the militia, and it is the coupling of these two objectives that has caused the most confusion. The customary American militia necessitated an armed public, and Madison's original version of the amendment, as well as those suggested by the states, describe the militia as either 'composed of' or 'including' the body of the people." To Keep and Bear Arms, The Origins of an Anglo-American Right, Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994, pp. 162-163.

Unfortunately, what the "Historian" Joyce Lee Malcom says means nothing what so ever to me. It is nothing but an appeal to authority. But let us put his words to the test, by lets say, read what actually says in the text instead of reading stuff into it.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

So first (rather than second) it is referenced the importance of the militia in the roll of the security of the state, it is not an objective as Malcom proposed. It does not establish anything about the militia, if it did it would have a different article of its own. The militia part is the leading element to the following sentence and this is indicated by the usage of the word "being" instead of the word "is". Only in the following sentence the constitutional right is being given. The first sentence is the justification of the second. What is important in this article is "the security of a free state" which was perceived (at the time) only to be achievable by the usage of a tool (a well regulated militia), and it was thus important to safeguard the components for the creation of such tool (the right of the people to keep and bear arms). And only in that circumstance could the text:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Make any sense.
However this is a red herring, this is a constitutional talk, not a talk if either or not giving people the right to bear arms is a good idea.
If the constitution had read:

A well armed citizen being necessary to the security of himself, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

It wouldn't make any difference to me. Because I propose that the right to bear arms should be abolished.

The cultural gap I mentioned earlier is becoming more apparent. It should be obvious that firearms have other uses than killing people. ""¦they can only be used to kill each other." is both untrue and a strawman. As I explained previously: the goal of self-defense is not to kill the attacker. The goal is to stop the attack.

And how does one stops the attack with a gun exactly? And how does one starts the attack exactly?

Whether the attacker perceives that his intended victim's demeanor does not indicate easy prey and decides not to attack or sees that the victim is armed and decides not to attack or initiates an attack but is scared off by the sight of a drawn gun or is captured and held for police, the defender has been successful. The least desirable outcome is if the person being attacked is injured or killed. The second-least desirable outcome is if the attacker is injured or killed.

Yes, that is exactly how people react.
Oh wait.

Comparing the number of criminals justifiably killed by civilians with even the lowest estimate of total defensive gun usage shows that criminals being killed in self-defense is a rare event. I hope that the phrase ""¦they can only be used to kill each other." can now be buried and never resurrected.

1. What estimate? Do you have a source for that?
2. And I say it again "guns can only be used to kill each other", and bringing examples where people have not been killed doesn't change the fact that guns have no other usage.

Guns also improve our ability to defend ourselves.

Guns are the reason why you need guns to defend yourself in the first place! So it doesn't improve the ability to defense yourself, it actually makes you less safe.

Not all. The Newtown murderer apparently did not own any guns of his own; he killed a woman and stole her guns. The guns used in the Columbine atrocity were obtained illegally. There might be others.

The "woman" you were referring to was his mother, his mother legally acquired her guns despite your pathetic insistence that they were "stolen and therefore illegally acquired" (as if this was comparable to getting it in the black market). Well if you want to be technical about it, since his mother was dead he inherit it. But I don't need to go into this sort of pathetic excuses to avoid stating the obvious, that he would not have those guns had they been illegal for sale!
And to say that the guns used in "Columbine were obtained illegally", when they were legally bought in a gun show and where the only illegal thing they did was to modify the weapons after purchase, it is disingenuous.

Of course whether and how a criminal is armed is a factor because tools magnify one's ability to do good or evil. Responsible adults have a right to be armed but forcing anyone to be armed is a repugnant idea that no one has suggested.

Yes you did suggest that!
How else you would you expect the right to bear arms prevent things like school shootings?
It is not what you want it to say, but it is exactly what it means! Are you so short sighted that you can't even see the immediate consequences of what you are proposing?
What else do you suggest to be done so that school shootings could be prevented?

Easy access is not given to criminals;

Bull shit! How much easy can it be than to purchase a gun in a store like buying a TV? Perhaps just giving it away?

it is simply a fact that they have access through illegal channels and that access cannot be stopped any more than access to illegal drugs can be stopped.

Despite popular American belief, guns don't grow on trees, nor can they be cultivated.
And it is an egregious false analogy to compare guns with drugs.
However there is some truth to the fact that they cannot be absolutely stopped. You are not looking at the big picture, that it will overall reduce murder. It is like being on a sinking boat putting in tons of water, and you go around and say "why patch the boat? You will not be able to stop the leek completely". Well "fuck off!"

Even if criminals all voluntarily stopped using guns the need for arms by the law-abiding would not disappear. The weak would still have the right defend themselves against stronger or multiple attackers.

What about the right for the strong not to get shot by the weak with a gun? How about the right of multiple law-abiding citizens to be protected from an attacker with a gun?
What about the right of the Newton's kids from not getting killed by a madman with a gun? Where are their rights?

I would follow the example of Mexican drug gangs and buy American (or Chinese) weapons from corrupt army officers in Mexico or Central America.

Weapons from corrupt officers? Lol. Or how about, just buying them on ebay from a US store? It cheaper, you can buy as much as you want, with a better quality than what the local police have. You don't want an electronic trace? No problem, just hop over the border and walk into a store. Do want to buy from a store? Just steal it from a dumb ass gringo that thinks the world is going to end. Don't want to deal with people? Just buy them from the local firearm black market, made out of goods stolen from stupid gringos who think the world is going to end.
And it is that easy.

Please think of the implications of this proposition.

I have, but you haven't.

A policy that will predictably increase violent crime would increase human suffering. More people would be robbed or extorted of assets they worked hard to earn and need to provide for their families. More people would be assaulted, and after the healing process, however long and painful, expensive that might be, some would suffer pain or limited mobility or psychological trauma for the rest of their lives. More women would be raped with all of the horror that implies. Such a policy would be unethical in the extreme. It would be more than unethical, it would be evil. By denying the basic human right of self-preservation, the right to survive, a government would declare itself indifferent to individual rights and therefore illegitimate.

This is why we think of Americans as stereotypically short sighted baboons. The right to bear arms is the cancer of America, keeping its population in constant fear of strangers, on a dog eats dog mentality, being slowly killed and sacked by buffoons with no more sophistication than to purchase a gun. There is a solution to this but unfortunately it is not all rainbows and unicorns. On one hand you can rip this cancer for good, with some minor consequences but you will come out overall better, in the future things will get better. On the other hand, you can leave this cancer to fester and in the long run more people would be robber, extorted, assaulted, raped and killed than what would have happened otherwise. Americans have paid more in human misery throughout the history due to the second amendment than what was needed to remove it.
And it is inevitable, America will have to go through this process sooner or later if they are to progress into the future, the more they wait the more serious the consequences, the longer the wait the higher the cost. Only a madman would leave this thing to fester in order to avoid the pain of the cure. How many more Columbine's does it take for you to realize this? How many more shootings like Newton's does it take for the price to be too high? How many more people will have to die for you to realize you are mistaken?
Your position is extremely short sighted, a position which does not care about the consequences, it embodies everything that is wrong with America.

The U.S. "war on drugs" was begun in 1971 and many billions of dollars were spent. The result is that the price of illegal drugs has gone down by 74% over the last 30 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/business/in-rethinking-the-war-on-drugs-start-with-the-numbers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
There is no reason to think that gun smuggling would be any more difficult than drug smuggling.

False analogy! When guns become a consumption product, when you can grow your guns, when people start to be chemically dependent on a constant flow of guns and guns don't harm anyone else but the user, then you might have a point.

Those stabbed, bludgeoned, stomped, strangled or defenestrated will be equally dead.

Yet another fallacy that "if people can't kill with guns, then they are equally capable of killing with knifes or other weapons". Bull shit! It simply just does not follow.

It's not about stats it's about basic human rights.

It's about things that work vs shit that don't. Do you think I don't care about human rights? However contrary to you I care about the human right to life, a life where one does not live in a constant fear. Which is not a made up bullshit right to bear arms.

 

[australopithecus]

Maybe I'm a product of my liberal European upbringing, but owning a gun is not a basic human right. Healthcare is a basic human right, the ability to shoot someone is not.