To Cthulu: apologies for my mistake regarding your nationality; I mistakenly implied from your defense of the British system that you were British.
Regarding where criminals get guns, yes, they steal them from legal owners. But thinking that "if there are no legal owners, they won't be able to get guns" is idiotic...as I've just demonstrated with Britain, even a complete ban cannot prevent the importation of illegal weapons. And as I said to Red Rob, this is a moot argument...Pandora's box has been opened, there are already far too many weapons in America to get rid of them all, even if such a thing were desirable.
K wrote:I'm pretty comfortable with people looking at the sources for both of those studies and looking at mine and coming to their own conclusions. Your sources are low-rent propaganda sites who seem that think that anecdotes and rhetoric are convincing and mine is ..... you know.... the neutral police organization who uses science and facts and actually talks to police officers (and is supported by the government, meaning it has to be airtight to prevent the kind of political backlash that no Federal employee would risk).
Sheesh, let me dissect the fail in this paragraph:
1.) I did not link to studies; I linked to websites that hosted articles where Gary Kleck answered criticisms of his survey, and pointed out the flaws in the NIJ survey and the conclusions some people drew from it (primarily the conclusions...the actual survey results actually agreed with Kleck's findings).
2.) Implying that "my survey uses science and facts" is a bullshit smear of Kleck's survey, which has been published and reviewed multiple times. It too uses science and facts. In fact, it used the EXACT SAME methodology as the NIJ survey. Talking to police officers, incidentally, is entirely irrelevant to learning about civilian use of firearms.
3.) The fact that the one was "government" also means nothing; in fact, that pretty much sums up your argument, which is a straightforward appeal to authority. I don't expect people to compare the sources; I expect them to actually READ the information and compare that.
Really, would it kill to read a rebuttal or counterargument? What are you afraid of?
4.) Again...if you look at the actual survey results, the NIJ survey actually confirmed Kleck's findings; then they said, "nah, that can't be right", and went back and came up with bullshit rationalizations for why it must be wrong. And again, Kleck has answered all of these criticisms in the links I provided.
Seriously. The whole "defensive gun argument" is based on the ONE single paper which is based on an estimate from a tiny phone survey. As convincing evidence goes, it's weak sauce.
Aaaand...wrong yet again. Kleck points out 13 other surveys that predated his, providing results between 700,000 and 3.6 million defensive gun uses. Here, another link (which you won't bother to read because you don't like what it says):
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz1.htm
Observe table 1, about halfway down the page, for the results of other surveys.
For those who like their appeals to authority, this is not a right-wing wacko website...this is from the Journal of Law and Criminology, Guns and Violence Symposium, 1995.
Oh, and finally, this was not a tiny survey...it was around 5000 people, considerably more than prior surveys.
PL's ranting is easy to reply to: he is treating this as a situation where you consider ALL the positive benefits of gun control and none of the negative effects (which he denies exist). If you believe that, of course you believe gun control is great. But it's just your belief. It's not objective reality.
(incidentally, it doesn't save countless children; the number of children it saves is entirely calculable, and it's less than the number that could be saved by outlawing swimming pools, something I'm sure you're not raging about. What IS incalculable is the number of children who die as a result of gun control.)
PL wrote:Gun regulation is about limiting the most dangerous and least useful guns, and about some simple tests for sanity, criminal records and adherence to basic gun safety.
1.) This is simply not true, in the case of many (very vocal) people who support gun control. They flat-out admit that their goal is the total ban of firearms, and in some places they have achieved that goal.
2.) I have no problem with tests for sanity or criminal records (both of which are in place in the US, btw) or adherence to basic gun safety. I fully support both, as long as they are reasonable.
3.) Handguns are among the MOST USEFUL guns, because they are the only kind you can have on you when you need it unexpectedly.
If I actually thought or knew that I was going into a situation where I'd need a gun to defend myself, I either wouldn't go, or I'd bring a rifle. The point of handguns is that you DON'T know when you might need it, so you need something convenient to carry.
cthulu wrote:If you want to go shoot some rabbits, more power to you.
PL wrote:And that was all fine and successful and did not leave "hunters" without their guns.
Aside from the one note to DarthRabbit, nothing I've been talking about has anything to do with hunting. It has to do with
self-defense, a real thing that really happens, that I happen to believe all people have a right to...even those too small, weak, elderly, or handicapped to defend themselves without the mechanical advantage provided by a firearm.
EDITED to add:
K wrote:I mean, it's trivially easy to take a handgun away from someone who is surprised. This means that you might even get more successful rapes because the victim is now being held at gunpoint with their own gun.
Trivially easy, huh? So you obviously know how often that happens, right? Maybe you've done it yourself a time or two?