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Originally posted by EricLindros
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Hilarious is not the right word there.
Also, you really don't know where most of the people here are from. (For example, I'm not really from the Faulkland Islands)
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Guess what, millions of drunk drivers don't kill anyone. We should probably legalize drunk driving then, right? Because, you know, who are you to tell me I can't drive on roads after having a few brews? THATS MY FREEDOM TO DRIVE DRUNK IF I WANT TO!
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If it was just one psychotic moron, that'd be one thing. But about 10,000 people a year die due to firearms in the US.
Response - So you punish the masses because of a few? Once you start doing that for everything else other than "big scarey guns" your arguement will hold water.
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Well, any murder is tragic. But here's the thing you don't seem to understand: Guns murder FAR FAR more people than all those other things combined. You're like a cheese lobbyist complaining that the American Heart Association recommends lowering your intake of fat by running around yelling, "BUT GRAPES HAVE FAT IN THEM TOO!"
Here, maybe pictures will help Department of Justice[/url]
People focus on guns because GUNS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MORE HOMICIDES THAN ALL OTHER METHODS OF HOMICIDE COMBINED.
I'm trying to educate people. People like yourself.
Guns kill people. The more guns in a society, the more deaths there will be. If you're okay living in a society that has lots and lots of deaths caused by guns, okay, that's your prerogative, but at least start from a factual basis.
Response - So are knives, bats, drugs and cars. Once again, your fear is directing your mood. Take a firearm safety course, they are abundant. You don't have to buy a gun, but take the information available. After that, you spread your fear mongering all you want. I train regularly, shoot on a regular basis, have no psychological issues in my history, have passed a police academy with top rank in firearms. Why should I be limited in my access because of a few who misuse firearms? Oh, and by the way, the majority of those firearm homocides are racially skewed in the inner cities. 25 states allow open and/or concealed carry... the other half of the United States is responsible for 4 out of 5 murders. You do the math.
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So does heart disease. Maybe we should ban food.
You see, food and cars serve a very, very useful purpose, so the idea of banning them is silly. With respect to cars, societies have made the decision to deal with some acceptable level of injury and death because the benefits from using cars are so great that nobody really objects to their use.
The purpose of guns is to kill. That's why they exist. And so, there's a good case to be made for people who wish to minimize killing in their societies. Just as people have decided, as a society, that the benefit of cars outweighs the harm done by cars, people can do a calculation for themselves and decide whether they think the benefits of guns are worth the harm done by guns.
Lots of people think the answer to that is "no."
Response - Guns, like all weapons before them, were made to kill. You also use them as tools for food and also self defense. If you want to minimalize killings in your society, why not deal with the poverty and drug issues rather than the fact that I enjoy shooting holes in paper targets and have successfully defended my wife from being assaulted because I was carrying a firearm at the time? Oh,, does this not fit the liberal political agenda? I'm sorry, perhaps I should have allowed the group of drunks to assault us, hurt, maim or kill me and rape my wife. We should have just been a statistic instead of making them back off and call the police, who handled the situation appropriately and with my utmost thanks.
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But you're allowed to push your political agenda? You don't think gun advocacy is a political stance? Try not to be so hypocritical.
Response - Defending an attack is not advocacy. I'm not the one who started this negative thread. It was posted with the intent to draw responses on a "controversial" topic. Hypocrisy is proverbially punching someone in the face then getting mad at them for retaliating.
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Uh, what killed those children. I mean, physically, how did they die?
There was an incident in China the other day in which a deranged person stabbed 22 people at a school, many of them children. None of them died or even suffered serious injury. Why do you think that is? What could possibly be the difference between that incident and the one in Newton, CT?
Response - So you are saying that kids are ok to be stabbed, but not shot? Oh, and China regulates knives to an extent. How did that work out?
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You know, these aren't mutually exclusive concepts.
People can, at the same time, blame BOTH the killer AND the system which made available weapons which facilitated this mass murder.
Response - Then stop sensationalizing the murders and focus on the victims. Rather than using this topic to preach gun control, which has and will never solve the issue of mental illness and cultural depravity (See Chicago... the city with the strictest gun control in the country and the highest murder rate at the same time). If you want to blame the system, then why are people crying about guns rather than crying louder about how this kid became so messed up?
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YES THEY the 18 years before the gun law reforms, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia, and none in
the 10.5 years afterwards.[/b][/color] Declines in firearm-related deaths before the law reforms accelerated after the
reforms for total firearm deaths (p = 0.04), firearm suicides (p = 0.007) and firearm homicides (p = 0.15), but
not for the smallest category of unintentional firearm deaths, which increased. No evidence of substitution
effect for suicides or homicides was observed. The rates per 100 000 of total firearm deaths, firearm
homicides and firearm suicides all at least doubled their existing rates of decline after the revised gun laws.
Response - Quoting Australia's reform is completely unrelated to The US. If you want to quote Australia, which also has strict knife regulation and equally common knife attacks... then why don't you mention how Switzerland requires every household to own a firearm? And to answer Sugarpies post... not every individual lives alone. Comparing population to firearm count is a poor case for your point. Children exist in the country, as do teens and the elderly. This does not disprove the fact that their firearm crime rate is so low that they do not even keep statistics on it.
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