Gunman on Virginia Tech campus

[Dolph]

Its hardly cherry picked tbh.. it is blatantly obvious

Picking 'gun murders' or 'shootings' instead of 'murders' and 'woundings' is clearly cherry picking. It completely disregards the fact that the tools don't cause the crime, and is only ever done by people trying to twist reality to suit their irrational desires to ban things.

Not much, if at all but its hardly relevant - hand gun murders were and are still very rare over here - but you're completely missing the point. Having lots of guns present and carried within a society increases the chance of guns being used and therefore people being killed - its that simple.

Except it doesn't, there's no evidence to support this in reality. The number of gun related accidents certainly doesn't warrant banning them ahead of other things (such as domestic swimming pools and horseriding). Overall suicide rates and overall crime rates don't change when you ban guns, or certainly not in a positive manner.

I'm sorry but there isn't a border around Washington DC - banning hand guns in a city inside a country in which they are freely available isn't necessarily going to do much.

Banning handguns in the UK didn't do much either, are you noticing the pattern yet?

Murder rate in DC is over 10 times that of the UK... they already had a massive gun problem before banning/attempting to ban hand guns.

DC has the highest murder rate and the strictest gun control in the USA. It also has a murder rate that bucked the national trend and rose when they banned guns.

Why are you so unwilling to actually acknowledge that guns are a tool, not a cause, of the problems?

 

[dowie]

Why are you so unwilling to actually acknowledge that guns are a tool, not a cause, of the problems?

They're both tbh...

compare murder rates in big US cities to big UK cities

You're harping on about 'banning' guns etc.. and parroting arguments form pro gun websites as though I'm advocating that in the first place. I'm not advocating a solution at all - I'm merely highlighting a problem that already exists.

 

[Dolph]

They're both tbh...

compare murder rates in big US cities to big UK cities

Compare murder rates of US cities with strict gun control to US cities without it

You're harping on about 'banning' guns etc.. and parroting arguments form pro gun websites as though I'm advocating that in the first place. I'm not advocating a solution at all - I'm merely highlighting a problem that already exists.

You aren't highlighting a problem that exists, you are making up a problem based on the fallacies of anti-gun websites and the irrationality of an ill-thought out position.

I'm not parroting arguments from pro gun websites, I'm looking at statistics and drawing conclusions. You're then trying to counter these via fallacy.

Guns are not the problem, people are. Banning guns doesn't stop people killing or robbing each other, it just stops the law abiding from owning guns for whatever reason. Personally, I'm a firm believer in the idea that laws should actually have an evidence based justification to exist before you start taking rights away from people.

 

[dowie]

Compare murder rates of US cities with strict gun control to US cities without it

That just illustrates that that sort of legislation is not effective.

 

[Dolph]

That just illustrates that that sort of legislation is not effective.

It really is impossible to reason someone out of an irrational position isn't it?

Banning guns in the UK didn't reduce the murder rate.

Banning and restricting guns in the US doesn't reduce the murder rate, in fact it increases it.

The issue is that guns are not the problem, so regulating guns does not provide a solution. People, not guns, are the problem.

 

[dowie]

It really is impossible to reason someone out of an irrational position isn't it?

Banning guns in the UK didn't reduce the murder rate.

Banning and restricting guns in the US doesn't reduce the murder rate, in fact it increases it.

Especially when you're arguing so hard against a position I never put forward in the first place.

I've not proposed banning guns etc...

I've merely highlighted that the presence of lots of them on the streets means they're more likely to be used. Murders in big US cities highlight this quite well.

 

[hurfdurf]

Yes, the stats do speak for themselves, and they don't support your argument at all.

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#right-to-carry

These stats are comparing states with states from what I can tell.

Well, except again, the stats don't really support the idea that it has any impact on the overall crime rates at all.

You can make some retarded statistics that make it look like gun control reduces crime (like looking at 'gun murders' and that sort of thing), but all that happens is the murders happen with alternative weapons, or alternatively, the murder rate goes up for other reasons, but it happens pretty consistently. If you ban weapons, you only take them from the law abiding, you don't stop the criminal who either carries the banned weapon anyway or finds an alternative.

Can you show that fatal assaults happen the same in areas where guns are freely available Vs those where they are not?

A culture of murder for instance. "The overall homicide rates per 100,000 (regardless of weapon type) reported by the United Nations for 1999 were 4.55 for the U.S. and 1.45 in England and Wales. The homicide rate in England and Wales at the end of the 1990s was below the EU average, but the rates in Northern Ireland and Scotland were above the EU average."

The basic idea I have is that banning free access to guns makes it a lot harder for criminals to get guns and carry them, being attacked by someone with a knife instead of a gun is a lot more preferable in 99% of cases I can think of. These are just assumptions I am making so would be happy to be educated on the matter.

 

[hurfdurf]

I'm a supporter of firearms, would love to carry concealed and one day will make the effort to get the permit for a shotgun (for target shooting).

Its the bystander effect that makes all of the difference. I cannot remember the precise situation, but I remember reading of a shooting that took place in a American dinner. One of the people in the dinner was a deputy police officer from out of state who usually carried concealed but to comply with state laws he (I actually think it was a she) left the firearm in the car. Long story short, a shooter went a bit mental and killed a fair few people. People that wouldn't have died if someone was carrying and could have ended the situation.

How quickly would something like virginia Tech have been over in if one of the students was carrying concealed?

Compare that instance with all the instances of accidental shootings and tragedy's that have resulted from guns being drawn though?

Look at the congresswoman who was shot in the head, in a massive crowd full of CC'ers, a rugby tackle bought the assassin down, to fire back would have been extremely foolish.

I hate the idea of you with a gun, especially if your posts in the offtopic thread were anything to go by.

 

[Blackhawk47]

You know joshy, I would have thought the uni/college would have rules in place to ban firearms/weapons on premises.

 

[kwerk]

The US numbers are incredibly skewed by black-on-black urban violence. 13% of the population commits 54% of the murders.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_49.html

Hispanics are counted as white in that table. If you remove Hispanics, whites are only accountable for about 1 in 8 murders in the US. So rural (white) America is actually comparable to somewhere demographically similar like Switzerland in murder rates, while having comparable gun ownership rates. You can say it's racist but the numbers are right there at the link. Just keep it in mind when people make generalizations about American gun violence, you have to consider the urban black culture of violence. Seriously it's like South Africa you shouldn't venture in to "those places" unarmed. The rest of the country you'll be fine.

24.7 murders per 100,000 for blacks
7.73 murders per 100,000 for Latino-whites
2.63 murders per 100,000 for Anglo-Whites

 

[kwerk]

CC works. That's why it has spread to nearly every state in the last 20 years. Next time your on holiday in Florida you should know roughly 1 in 10 adults could be carrying a handgun. 1 million people have permits in that state alone.

 

[hurfdurf]

The US numbers are incredibly skewed by black-on-black urban violence. 13% of the population commits 54% of the murders.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_49.html

Hispanics are counted as white in that table. If you remove Hispanics, whites are only accountable for about 1 in 8 murders in the US. So rural (white) America is actually comparable to somewhere demographically similar like Switzerland in murder rates, while having comparable gun ownership rates. You can say it's racist but the numbers are right there at the link. Just keep it in mind when people make generalizations about American gun violence, you have to consider the urban black culture of violence. Seriously it's like South Africa you shouldn't venture in to "those places" unarmed. The rest of the country you'll be fine.

24.7 murders per 100,000 for blacks
7.73 murders per 100,000 for Latino-whites
2.63 murders per 100,000 for Anglo-Whites

So black people aren't in other countries?
Why does race even matter?
These are poor disenfranchised people hindered by a history of being owned by whites. It would be far more sensible to claim that it was a lower/bottom/poverty class thing rather than a black white thing.
Is there no lower/bottom/poverty class
Would these people have access to the guns they do if guns were never produced en masse and sold to the public in the first place?
Without the guns would the UN be reporting that the murder rate in the USA is 3 x higher than in the UK?

 

[Tefal]

CC works. That's why it has spread to nearly every state in the last 20 years. Next time your on holiday in Florida you should know roughly 1 in 10 adults could be carrying a handgun. 1 million people have permits in that state alone.

what would be interesting is that gif overlayed with gun crime figures for the years.

 

[hurfdurf]

what would be interesting is that gif overlayed with gun crime figures for the years.

Would be more interesting if, in a parallel universe, the united states existed and guns were never made legal for the public to have so freely in the first place. I wonder if gun crime would be similar to ours, I think it would, I wonder if because of this, the murder rate would be lower, I think it would.

 

[Dolph]

Especially when you're arguing so hard against a position I never put forward in the first place.

I've not proposed banning guns etc...

I've merely highlighted that the presence of lots of them on the streets means they're more likely to be used. Murders in big US cities highlight this quite well.

Except it doesn't, as I've pointed out several times (and you've not provided any actual evidence to counter).

With big US cities, the stricter the gun control, the higher the murder rate...

And that's without looking at overall murder rates in other countries where guns are equally available, such as canada, norway, switzerland etc...

 

[Dolph]

what would be interesting is that gif overlayed with gun crime figures for the years.

Only if you want to go for the skewed approach again. Why single out 'gun crime', why not look at crime overall? Is someone less murdered if they were stabbed to death than shot to death?

 

[Dolph]

These stats are comparing states with states from what I can tell.

Can you show that fatal assaults happen the same in areas where guns are freely available Vs those where they are not?

Pretty much actually, or more accurately, I can show that both high and low levels of fatal crime occur in countries both with and without strict gun laws.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

(Yes, I'm aware of the potential bias of the link, but it is referenced, and much of the research done focuses erroneously on 'gun crime' figures which renders it useless). I'd also recommend searching out studies by John Lott.

A culture of murder for instance. "The overall homicide rates per 100,000 (regardless of weapon type) reported by the United Nations for 1999 were 4.55 for the U.S. and 1.45 in England and Wales. The homicide rate in England and Wales at the end of the 1990s was below the EU average, but the rates in Northern Ireland and Scotland were above the EU average."

Indeed, and the murder rates of countries like Norway (with very relaxed gun control) are lower than the UK's, that's the problem a lack of clear correlation when you start looking at either the worldwide view or stop treating the USA as a homogenous country (which you shouldn't, because gun control varies state by state).

The basic idea I have is that banning free access to guns makes it a lot harder for criminals to get guns and carry them, being attacked by someone with a knife instead of a gun is a lot more preferable in 99% of cases I can think of. These are just assumptions I am making so would be happy to be educated on the matter.

I'd strongly disagree with the above, knives, in the hands of a criminal, are at least as dangerous as guns for many types of personal crime. A gun has a long, but very narrow area of lethality directly in front of the end of the barrel, a knife has a much shorter but much broader and harder to counter area of lethality in a half-sphere in front of the attacker. Being attacked with either is bad news, and in any situation where you are up close and personal and trying to defend yourself is the only option, you're better off facing a gun than a knife, because the chances of disarming the attacker safely are better as you only have to get away from the narrow band of danger.

Of course, the best solution is to not get into that situation, and to tackle the people that are using weapons, rather than changing their tools...

 

[Tefal]

Only if you want to go for the skewed approach again. Why single out 'gun crime', why not look at crime overall? Is someone less murdered if they were stabbed to death than shot to death?

because it's not about skewing anything it would just be interesting to see, ie to see if increased cc follows increased gun crime etc. (which could be lots and lots of people carrying concealed firearms without a permit day)

Also you don't have to kill somone to commit a crime with firearms.

 

[hurfdurf]

Indeed, and the murder rates of countries like Norway (with very relaxed gun control) are lower than the UK's, that's the problem a lack of clear correlation when you start looking at either the worldwide view or stop treating the USA as a homogenous country (which you shouldn't, because gun control varies state by state).

Comparing Norway's gun culture to the USA's is very disingenuous.

 

[[TW]Fox]

I'm a supporter of firearms, would love to carry concealed

Ooh, get you with your cool 'I know guns' lingo. Carry concealed eh. What, as opposed to walking around waving it?

Its the bystander effect that makes all of the difference. I cannot remember the precise situation, but I remember reading of a shooting that took place in a American dinner. One of the people in the dinner was a deputy police officer from out of state who usually carried concealed but to comply with state laws he (I actually think it was a she) left the firearm in the car. Long story short, a shooter went a bit mental and killed a fair few people. People that wouldn't have died if someone was carrying and could have ended the situation.

And people that wouldn't have died had there not been a gun culture either. When was the last time somebody in the UK shot up a diner?