Why does that even matter? It's not meant to be for the greater good, it's an individual right. I'd say armed self-defense is a universal human right.
Gunman on Virginia Tech campus
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Why does that even matter? It's not meant to be for the greater good, it's an individual right. I'd say armed self-defense is a universal human right.
If Anders Breivik hadn't been able to get hold of firearms, would he really have been able to kill as many people as he did? I personally don't see how he could.
With regard to banning substances that can potentially be used to create bombs, it's a bit different to banning firearms as those substances aren't specifically designed and manufactured to kill. Cars and knives and lots of other things can of course kill people too, but that's not their primary function and generally they're not as effective as guns are.
What about uranium or plutonium? Should they be legalised as people could just make bombs and kill people with other things anyway?
With regard to banning substances that can potentially be used to create bombs, it's a bit different to banning firearms as those substances aren't specifically designed and manufactured to kill. Cars and knives and lots of other things can of course kill people too, but that's not their primary function and generally they're not as effective as guns are.
What about uranium or plutonium? Should they be legalised as people could just make bombs and kill people with other things anyway?
Wasn't there some guy, who apparently knew a lot about this sort of thing, who said that the point was to report on it as little and as mundane as possible because popularising it actually increased the likelihood it was going to happen? I believe it was in 'Bowling for Columbine'.
I wonder how true that actually is.
I wonder how true that actually is.
It is skewing things, or at least, potentially skewing things.
View A
City A has 50 gun murders.
Gun control instituted
figure drops to 30 gun murders, you could say it is successful.
View B
City A has 100 murders, 50 with guns, 40 with knives and 10 by other means.
Gun control is instituted.
City A still has 100 murders, 30 are with guns, 50 with knives, and 20 by other means.
The gun control has failed to change anything apart from the composition of the weapons. No extra people are alive.
Same city, same changes, different view of the data.
Crime is crime, irrespective of the tools used in committing it
And focusing exclusively on US cities as a means to declare guns bad is equally disingenuous. The reality is that there is no correlation between gun ownership legality or levels and violence levels when you don't skew the same sets with selective datasets.
Bowling for Columbine was typical michael moore made up drivel pretending to be a documentary...
So you admit to being disingenuous....
Because what I'm seeing, and what I think most people see, is one wealthy 1st world nation with legal guns in every home having a 3 to 4 times higher murder rate and sky rocketing gun crime in comparison with all the other wealthy 1st world nations without easy and legal access to firearms.
Now you can take all the data you want on a state by state basis and ignore the idea that states are in any way separate entities when most people can drive to another state in less than a day, I could select Nottingham and compare is to one district in Tokyo and compare that with a small suburb in Alaska and show all kinds of weird correlations, but the broad picture is still the same.
This we both agree on.
And the broad picture is that there is no benefit to draconian gun control
What about fully automatic guns, grenades, bombs... Should they all be legal because someone could (somehow) commit the same level of violence with a knife?
only if you have an agenda it's purely curiosity i honestly couldn't give a ****.
This tbh..
some UK cities have higher levels of all other types of violent crime compared to the US
except for murder....
Its not like we've not got violent people over here, culturally we're similar - the main factor here is the availability of guns
And the broad picture is that there is no benefit to draconian gun control
Perhaps not - handgun ban didn't do anything.
Gun crime happened to go up irrespective of the ban.
But the reality is that the availability of guns does have an impact on the murder rate.
Banning legally owned handguns kept by enthusiasts isn't going to do much with regards to the general availability of guns. Neither is a US city going to achieve much with gun control, when it doesn't have its own borders, when people already have lots of guns and within a country with a strong gun culture where guns are easily available.
On the converse, if we made guns freely and easily available to everyone South East London would likely have a surge in murders.
Tightening laws in a place where guns are already in circulation and common will achieve nothing, taking guns away from a small number of enthusiasts who've already gone through police checks etc... hasn't achieved much at all.
Guns not being so readily available in the first place... guns less likely to be used...
Violence still exists and violent people will resort to knives etc.. but its all rather less effective and we have a lot less murders as a result.
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They are legal though. You can buy a legal minigun or grenade launcher if you have the money.
$100,000 gets you a M240.
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=245239321
30k gets you a 37mm anti-tank gun.
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Not sure that's necessarily what the founding fathers ever envisioned when coming up with the 2nd amendment.
(Leaving aside the question of whether it refers to individuals or militias)Not sure that's necessarily what the founding fathers ever envisioned when coming up with the 2nd amendment.
The state constitutions go in to slightly more detail. For example:
Delaware: A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use.
I think an M240 comes under recreational use.
Idaho: The people have the right to keep and bear arms, which right shall not be abridged; but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to govern the carrying of weapons concealed on the person nor prevent passage of legislation providing minimum sentences for crimes committed while in possession of a firearm, nor prevent the passage of legislation providing penalties for the possession of firearms by a convicted felon, nor prevent the passage of any legislation punishing the use of a firearm. No law shall impose licensure, registration or special taxation on the ownership or possession of firearms or ammunition. Nor shall any law permit the confiscation of firearms, except those actually used in the commission of a felony.
Nebraska: All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain inherent and inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the right to keep and bear arms for security or defense of self, family, home, and others, and for lawful common defense, hunting, recreational use, and all other lawful purposes, and such rights shall not be denied or infringed by the state or any subdivision thereof.
Washington: The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.
Philadelphia for example would be one of "those places":
http://www.philly.com/philly/video/126793963.html
There's a reason the have 7 cameras on each bus.
So basically you're saying being poor is a valid excuse for murdering people? Or is it just the simple act of picking up a gun which turns a normal person in to a murderer?
Are you saying if you had access to a gun you wouldn't trust yourself not to murder someone with it?
And BTW there are twice as many whites below the poverty line than blacks, yet blacks have 10x the murder rate.
And what's your excuse for this? More residual hurt feelings from slavery forcing people to murder each other?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...esh-light-on-link-between-crime-and-race.html
That's almost exactly the same as the USA FBI stats. 13% of population doing 50% of crimes.