He has my vote..... YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jimbo 0]

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Way to go Armchair quarter back.

You weren't there and you only have the very fast rundown of what happened and instantly your a fucking expert.

Dave, if you expect your argument to be (a) taken seriuosly, or (b) be effective, then you need to post ALL of the details. You can't go and get bent at someone for criticizing you when you admit that you only provided a "very fast rundown".

For what it's worth, I'm anti-gun control. I don't think you're making a good argument for the cause.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[Jimbo 0]

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If only "legal, honest and responsible citizens" could get guns, and they stayed that way, I'd have no problem with firearm ownership.

If only legal, honest, and responsible citizens could get guns then we wouldn't need guns, would we?

You're quick to cite murder numbers, but how many of those murder numbers are commited by people with weapons purchased illegally?

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[kmcguffee 0]

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I have seen this man speak on a few occasions. He is EXTREMELY well informed and intelligent..

Clark was my Division Commander in the 1st Cavalry Division. I had the pleasure of serving as an LNO from Brigade to Division during a Warfighter exercise and was able to see Clark work for about a week. He is very smart but.............he is also extremely egotistical and extremely rude and abrasive to his subordinates. Overall, I didn't like him.

He is the only Democrat that I would consider voting for though.

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do." Ben Franklin

[lawrocket 3]

You actually kind of confirm my impressions of him as a sort of self-style MacArthur. Smart, intelligent, educated, but with a vastly inflated ego.

Recall that Clinton relieved him of his command in Kosov. Much like Truman did to McArthur.

He is certainly a personality. But obviously a strong personality, tactical mistakes aside.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[mikkey 0]

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He is very smart but.............he is also extremely egotistical and extremely rude and abrasive to his subordinates. Overall, I didn't like him.

The perfect politician Only difference - he is very smart - most politicians are not (anywhere in the world)

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When people look like ants - pull. When ants look like people - pray.

[jfields 0]

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If only legal, honest, and responsible citizens could get guns then we wouldn't need guns, would we?

Nope, but there also wouldn't be any problem with you having them, either.

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You're quick to cite murder numbers, but how many of those murder numbers are commited by people with weapons purchased illegally?

In this context, it is completely irrelevant. The assertion back in this thread that I was rebutting is that "guns reduce crime" and that "an armed society is a polite society". Both of those are untrue. Weapons help enable crimes and contribute to the related lethality. The statements made were simplistic and false. For example, changing it to "honest, responsible, legally owned guns reduce crime" may be true, but it is untrue without the qualifiers.

To directly answer your question, probably most of the murders were committed with illegal weapons. That also goes to further back in the thread where I stated that the entire system (including both owners attitudes and gun laws) was in need of an overhaul because it was ineffective. With one of the higher homicide rates in the industrialized world, do you not think that is true? I wasn't calling for any ban, just noting that an objective appraisal of the big picture would show that what we currently have isn't working. That is a combination of culture, laws, history and beliefs.

Compare our situation with countries (Switzerland has been examined) that have high gun ownership and low crime? What are the differences. Attitudes and culture. Those same factors used to be true in this country, at the time the second amendment was written. Things change and our laws and culture have developed a conflict that have seemingly locked us into a situation of ever-increasing violence.

Doesn't it make sense to look at the issue and try to work out a solution, rather than just spouting rhetoric about rights, bravado about "killing perps" and that all people concerned about gun violence are liberal idiots? (Not pointing a finger at you personally, but that is a general theme to the pro-gun side of many gun control debates I see.) Wouldn't it be more mature and forward-thinking to address the problems as problems and look for remedies? Improving the system and the efficient control (out of the hands of criminals) of firearms is in the interest of both gun control advocates and gun ownership advocates. With less crime, fewer accidental deaths and less abuse of firearms, both sides would be happy. But nobody has the courage to step up and even try to take the road to a solution.

[Vlad 0]

Justin,

Gun control will make it harder for law-abiding citizens to buy guns. Criminals, however, will not suffer. So, when citing the statistics please do not include in it the homicides committed by criminals with illegal guns.
I was really dissapointed to find so many anti-gun people here, on dz.com. Based on your logic, general aviation should be banned, too.
I come from Russia, where, after banning the guns, millions of people were murdered by the goverment. Exactly the same happenned in Germany, China, and in the rest of countries run by tyrants (except for Iraq, strangely).
Switzeland has a culture of gun ownership - but so does USA - the second amendmend is the proof.

[wmw999 2,534]

Switzerland, to go along with its long history of gun ownership, has a high degree of cultural homogeneity. Some states in the US have a higher rate of gun ownership (often associated with hunting), and a high degree of homogeneity. They tend to have lower violence rates.

This doesn't make cultural or national or racial homogeneity good, it's a factor. If you don't look like someone, it's a lot easier to dehumanize them. So practice pretending that the guy in the wrong part of town looks like your brother, and consider how you'd deal with it then.

It takes a couple of generations. On both sides of any chasm.

Part of the reason why it's so easy to get illegal guns is because there are so darn many legal ones. They get stolen, and they get lost, and their owners end up needing some money and selling them irresponsibly, or who knows what. If the supply were to dry up, eventually fewer criminals would find it easy to get guns.

Note: this actually doesn't mean I'm either pro or aganist guns. But I'm very pro looking farther than the obvious answer when I can.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[GigaBuist 0]

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Compare our situation with countries (Switzerland has been examined) that have high gun ownership and low crime? What are the differences. Attitudes and culture. Those same factors used to be true in this country, at the time the second amendment was written. Things change and our laws and culture have developed a conflict that have seemingly locked us into a situation of ever-increasing violence.

I agree whole heartedly here. The Swiss are an excellent example of a heavily armed society that doesn't have the homicide problems that the USA has. The difference is entirely cultural and not a matter of how many guns are actually owned by citizens.

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Doesn't it make sense to look at the issue and try to work out a solution, rather than just spouting rhetoric about rights, bravado about "killing perps" and that all people concerned about gun violence are liberal idiots? (Not pointing a finger at you personally, but that is a general theme to the pro-gun side of many gun control debates I see.) Wouldn't it be more mature and forward-thinking to address the problems as problems and look for remedies?

Again, I agree entirely. Something has to be done about this problem. I'm not sure what exactly however. It's a social problem and I have no understanding or desire to delve into the psychology of a nation. I'd be happy to help out though if I can.

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Improving the system and the efficient control (out of the hands of criminals) of firearms is in the interest of both gun control advocates and gun ownership advocates.

Well, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 22,000 firearms laws across this country. That doesn't really seem to be helping. Besides, I thought you stated earlier that this is a cultural problem?

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With less crime, fewer accidental deaths and less abuse of firearms, both sides would be happy. But nobody has the courage to step up and even try to take the road to a solution.

Decreasing firearm ownership is unlikely to reduce crime. See Britian and Australia for examples. I will admit that it may reduce the number of homicides by gun. Scratch that, I'll admit that it may reduce the number of people commiting homicide by gun.

The best way to reduce homicides is: to reduce homicides. How we do that exactly? I don't know, but it probably has something to do with a cultural shift that removes people's desire to ever commit such a crime. Why do people feel that they -need- to kill another person? Solve that problem and we'll be as peacful as the Swiss. Something's horribly awry with our culture, but me having a rifle in my home isn't the root cause of the problem. If it was the countries like Switzerland and the rural area I grew up in (which was teeming with firearms) would be high crime areas.

Firearms do not create crime. Firearms are meant to kill but they are not soley devoted to crime. Something else is creating our crime problem and the number of illegal firearms in this country (either purchased illgally or stolen) provides a horribly ugly end result.

I'd rather not, but I'll use some stereotypes here. Take your average crack head with criminal tendencies with a gun. This is a problem. Now, lets look at somebody responsible, like AggieDave or myself, and we have a gun. The criminal should not have the gun. We should take that away from him. We keep on trying to do this but it just doesn't work. There's too many guns out there for him to steal, perhaps from an AggieDave or myself. The anti-gun crowd comes across, to me, in this situation and says "get rid of the guns! Do that and there will be less of a problem."

The real answer is to get rid of the crack head criminal. A town full of AggieDave's armed to the teeth isn't a problem. A town full of criminals armed to the teeth is.

Our nation is like a naked man running through a field of barbed wire. Once across the field some call for better bandages and less sharp barbed wire. I say we tell the fool to stop running through the field of barbed wire. It doesn't matter how much protection you shroud the nation with, eventually something is going to rip through and the bleeding will start.

Guns do not create violent crime. Crime creates violent crime. That is the root cause of our troubles.

Our nation was fine with gun ownership when it was founded. Something has changed, and blaming gun ownership on it is only a stop-gag measure. If we return our nation to a body of peacable citizens the whole problem magically goes away. The right to bear arms is not outdated and it never will be; our nation's moral fibre has changed since the revolution though and that needs to be adressed.

I see this in my own family. I own guns, I have a cousin that owns guns. The difference is that I'm a reasonable person willing to work for my living. He's a drug dealing degenerate that thinks little of shooting at another person over a sour drug deal. If you remove the firearms you still have one crack piping degenerate running around. I don't care if he's armed or not, a bane on society is a bane on society regardless of how well he is armed. I assure you that if you removed his firearms, hands, and feet, this steaming pile of shit would still find a way to harm another human being. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there just like him too.

I would hope that the pro-gun and anti-gun crowds here could at least agree on these ideas. While some may think that removing arms is a good idea, and some are dead set against it can't both sides agree that the real solution is to stop the crime rather than remove the "tools of trade"?

[mikkey 0]

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Decreasing firearm ownership is unlikely to reduce crime. See Britian and Australia for examples

Please explain. Australia has low crime rates compared to the US and it has tight gun control. They did tighten the laws after an incident in 1996, but it was always heavily regulated. Don't know crime rates in the UK, but I know they have less gun related crime. Street cops do still not carry a gun.

So how do you come to your conclusion?

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When people look like ants - pull. When ants look like people - pray.

[GigaBuist 0]

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So how do you come to your conclusion?

A quick google search gives me this:
click here

A little more digging gives this; straight from the Australian government:

click here

A quick quote from there:

"The assault victimisation rate increased by 44% from 563 to 810 per 100,000 population between 1995 and 2002. Assault was the only offence category to show a consistently increasing trend in the rate of victimisation over this period. The sexual assault victimisation rate increased from 69 to 91 per 100,000 population between 1993 and 2002 and was at its highest level since the commencement of the collection in 1993. In contrast, murder, attempted murder and manslaughter victimisation rates remained fairly stable over this period and were 2 per 100,000 population, 2 per 100,000 population and less than 1 per 100,000 population respectively in 2002. "

The number of victims appears to be rising down there. It's very easy to find stats that show Australia isn't any better off than it was before, and easy to find stats thta show it's worse off. Finding something that shows Australia to be the pinnicale of society with no violent crime is probably going to be quite hard.

Like I said before in reference to the Swiss -- it's not the guns that are the problem, it's the crime.

[nightjumps 1]

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You define Assault Weapons.. I asked a simple question. Why does the general public need them? Do you need an AK47 to defend your home? To hunt deer? Please..

What's the difference between a Remington or Winchester .308 Deer Rifle and a AK 47? Answer: The AK47 has less muzzle velocity and impact force.

[nightjumps 1]

I'm liking you already,

[nightjumps 1]

"When everyone had guns strapped to their hips, folks talked to each other a whole lot nicer."

[nightjumps 1]

For those desiring more information on candidate Clark... his website is:

http://www.americansforclark.com

[mikkey 0]

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The number of victims appears to be rising down there. It's very easy to find stats that show Australia isn't any better off than it was before, and easy to find stats thta show it's worse off. Finding something that shows Australia to be the pinnicale of society with no violent crime is probably going to be quite hard.

Well, I never claimed Australia to be pinnacle of society - I do however claim that we and other regulated countries have less gun related crime. BTW have you spend any time down here? I have in the US and I can tell you I 10 times rather walk at night through the streets of Melbourne then the streets of Atlanta.

Stats are always problematic. Victimisation numbers are problematic. If somebody plants his fists in your face at a pub you get charged for assault. "Assault" down here does normally not involve a gun. We were discussing gun related crime. And wehen talking about these type of stats you need to know how these tstats are collected and how the "crimes" are classified. Example - is domestic violence categorised as "assault" or domestic disturbance (I do not know but any difference in definition would be significant).
So how do the 2 in 100,000 rate in murder compare to the US? Also talking about weapons:
"The proportion of robberies where a weapon was used has fluctuated from 36% in 1994 and 1995 to 46% in 1998. Since 1998, this proportion has declined to 37%. For those robberies that involved the use of a weapon, the proportion of offences involving firearms decreased from 37% in 1993 to 15% in 2002." What is the rate in the US?

In regard to how these numbers were used may I qoute:
"
Although Dr. Adam Graycar, director of the Australian Institute of Criminology, calls the NRA's figures misleading, he admitted in an interview with the Associated Press Tuesday that assaults in his country had indeed climbed since 1998 -- the most recent year statistics are available -- but added that "most attacks did not involve guns." Graycar also said homicides had decreased and rarely involved firearms.
It is "enormously difficult" to gather accurate statistics on crime and weapons, said Graycar, because there are so many other factors involved"

I would especially like to see US crime rate for urban areas. The reason being is that Australia is one of the most "urbanised" countries in the world. Over 90% of the population lives in 5 metropolitan areas, nearly half the population lives in Melbourne and Sydney alone. This is significant, because you have to compare apples with apples. Rural towns and smaller cities have always lower crime rates.
I am sure if you compare the crime rates of cities with million plus population in the US with the metropolitan areas in Australia - you would get an interesting picture.

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When people look like ants - pull. When ants look like people - pray.

[PhillyKev 0]

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Decreasing firearm ownership is unlikely to reduce crime. See Britian and Australia for examples

Please explain. Australia has low crime rates compared to the US and it has tight gun control. They did tighten the laws after an incident in 1996, but it was always heavily regulated. Don't know crime rates in the UK, but I know they have less gun related crime. Street cops do still not carry a gun.

So how do you come to your conclusion?

California has very strict gun control laws as well.
As does New Jersey, New York City, and Chicago. Their crime rates are very high.

In Vermont, you don't need a permit or to register any handguns and can carry them concealed without a permit. Compare the crime rate there to the places mentioned above.

I'm not going to argue that relaxed gun laws reduces crime. But I will argue that strict gun control doesn't either. In other words, there is no correlation between crime rates and gun laws. There's a different cause/effect that needs to be worked on. I don't know what that is, but as long as we keep spinning our wheels regarding gun control, the real cause is not going to be addressed.

Actually, I do know what it is. The US far exceeds all other industrialized societies in per capita incarceration. The majority of law enforcement and correction resources (man power, money, effort, focus) is dedicated to fighting drug use. Remove that burden from society, and you now have the ability to concentrate on crime with direct victims. And you also elliminate a leading cause of violent crime, which is underground narcotic sales. It is plainly clear that fighting drug use with draconian laws is not a deterrent. Drug laws are unenforceable.

We have a society that values individual choice and personal freedom. Then we incarcerate people for their choices. That has a direct correlation with the violent crime rate in this country, not gun control laws.

[rhino 0]

lol

[mikkey 0]

You are making some reasonable points. But after being hit with some stats before I did a little research. And I must admit the stats are difficult to compare. The most comprehensive site if you are interested in comparing countries go here:
http://www.interpol.int/Public/Statistics/ICS/downloadList.asp#U

When it come to guns the murder rate must be one of the more interesting one. I found some 2001 numbers.

Murders per 100,000 in 2001:

England: 1.63
Australia: 3.62
Canada: 4.1
France: 3.9
Spain: 2.9
Germany: 3.21
USA: 5.61
Note: the US rate has dropped dramatically in the last 10/15 years. From stable levels around 10 to this one. In 1995 it was still 8.22

People can read into it what they want and I will "butt out" of the gun discussion. It is a US domestic issue and for Americans to decide.

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When people look like ants - pull. When ants look like people - pray.

[PhillyKev 0]

Well, Switzerland and Finland with their high gun ownership are conspicuosly missing.

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Note: the US rate has dropped dramatically in the last 10/15 years.

Interestingly, that is about the time frame that individual states started loosening their concealed carry restrictions. The majority of states that allow concealed carry started doing so in the late 80's early 90's.

http://www.txchia.org/history.htm

[GigaBuist 0]

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Well, I never claimed Australia to be pinnacle of society - I do however claim that we and other regulated countries have less gun related crime.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anybody thought Austrlia was perfect. I've neve heard a native say it was nor would I try and put words in anybody's mouth. From the stats I quoted, yes, you do have less of a gun violence problem. That's noble, but there is still a violence problem. If you remove the violence problem guns are no longer a problem. it's a lofty goal for any nation to achieve high gun ownership and a low crime rate.

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BTW have you spend any time down here? I have in the US and I can tell you I 10 times rather walk at night through the streets of Melbourne then the streets of Atlanta.

I admit, no I have not spent any time in Australia and I've only been in Atlanta for a flight layover. Given the nature of every Austlian I have met however I can assure you I'd feel more comfortable there than I would in most US cities. I will concede on that point easily.

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Stats are always problematic. Victimisation numbers are problematic. If somebody plants his fists in your face at a pub you get charged for assault. "Assault" down here does normally not involve a gun. We were discussing gun related crime.

I agree entirely here. Stats will always be slightly skewed depending on who took them. The manner in which they were collected if often not a bit point in their press releases either. For the record I do not trust anything that the NRA puts out point blank. I'll question stats from any organization and take them with a grain of salt.

The debate is about gun problems, but if you read my previous posts you'll see that I'm more concerned about crime than gun crime in general. I'd rather be shot to death than beaten down with a baseball bat honestly. A violent crime is a violent crime in my mind. Elimination of violent crime would eliminate gun crime. I'm not saying that I think you disagree with me on this at all; it's my premise.

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And wehen talking about these type of stats you need to know how these tstats are collected and how the "crimes" are classified. Example - is domestic violence categorised as "assault" or domestic disturbance (I do not know but any difference in definition would be significant).
So how do the 2 in 100,000 rate in murder compare to the US?

I definately agree that things are categorized differently depending on your locale. What we call domestic distrubance here is probably assult in many other countries. However I feel I should point out that "assualt" was incrased in AU during this period. Unless the definition changed from 1995 until now that is indicitive of a problem.

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Also talking about weapons:
"The proportion of robberies where a weapon was used has fluctuated from 36% in 1994 and 1995 to 46% in 1998. Since 1998, this proportion has declined to 37%. For those robberies that involved the use of a weapon, the proportion of offences involving firearms decreased from 37% in 1993 to 15% in 2002." What is the rate in the US?

It's "nice" that the rate of gun related robberies has decresed, but at what cost? If i'm unarmed and 3 guys bust into my house with baseball bats I'm basically screwed. I'm a small guy tipping the scales at 140lbs bare naked. If I'm physically assualted there's very little I can do about it unless I have a firearm. If they're armed, and I'm armed, I at least stand somewhat of a chance. The laws passed down under certainly have removed guns from the picture but they cannot, from the above, be accredited with reducing crime. Violent crime is violent crime. I'd rather be prepeared and armed for such confrontations.

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I would especially like to see US crime rate for urban areas. The reason being is that Australia is one of the most "urbanised" countries in the world. Over 90% of the population lives in 5 metropolitan areas, nearly half the population lives in Melbourne and Sydney alone. This is significant, because you have to compare apples with apples. Rural towns and smaller cities have always lower crime rates.
I am sure if you compare the crime rates of cities with million plus population in the US with the metropolitan areas in Australia - you would get an interesting picture.

Crime here is probably higher. I'll admit that in a hearbeat without any stats to show otherwise. Even if crime here isn't higher crime here is still to high for my personal tastes. I am totally against violent crime. I'm against violence in general too.

However, given that my posts earlier about this being a culturlal problem have seemingly been ignored I'll don the hat of something I absolutely do not agree with but could be used, statistically, in the same manner that the anit-gun crowd uses.

We'z got a problem with niggers in this country. It's the niggers causing all of the crime. Everywhere you look, if there's crime there's niggers. Us white folk in urban america with guns coming our of our asses don't kill eachother. It's them niggers doing it. If we get rid of the niggers we don't have no more crime. Niggers is the problem.

In case you missed it: I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE ABOVE!

However, it does fit into the argument. Some blame the item used to commit violent crime. It's easy to get rid of, as we don't really need guns many people say. Some people honestly think if we got rid of "niggers" the problem would be solved. Others could say that we just flat out don't need black people in this country. If we got rid of them then we'd have far less crime in the country. Get rid of the Mexicans too while we're at it, some of them commit crimes too.

BOTH are absurd. The latter has not been brought up in this forum, except for me, and I am very happy about that. However, I see both as very simplictic views of the real prolem: violent crime. I don't care if it's done by a honkey with a baseball bat of a black fellow with a gun, they're both bad. I want both to stop. Now.

i still fail to see how telling me, a peaceful American citizen that removing the guns from my house will actually help the situation. It's as non-sensical to me as saying that if I shoot random "niggers" on the street that the crime problem would go away.

I appologize emphatically to anybody who may have been offended by my choice of words above. I stress that I do not at all adhere to such idiotic propositions. I have heard them before, however, from people that certainly do give credence to them. Also, to the anti-gun crowd I am certiainly not comparing you to racisists. I am only comparin the train of thought. There hasn't been a single person in this thread that has expressed such views. I only bring it into the picture becaus I have heard it before (from pro-gun people) and disagree with it in the same manner that I disagree with anti-gun arugments.