Reading the Constitution

[Juton]

Trying to find any credible statistics about how many crimes are prevented or stopped by guns is pretty much impossible, IME. So for instance we don't know if a handgun in the house is more likely to stop a burglary or let a child shoot themself.

I like to make informed decisions. I know from the experiences of others if you live out in the boonies having a rifle can be a good idea, especially if you have livestock. Since I haven't found any statistics about how handguns can prevent crime I can't take an informed stance on gun control and I don't think anyone who lacks the information can make one either.

[K]

He's saying that the positive aspects of guns, ie rapes and murders and robberies prevented outweigh

Guns do not prevent those things.

Only a mad person would even imagine they COULD.

Do you smoke crack or something? Only a mad person could possibly claim that robberies, murders, and rapes can't be stopped by guns.

Great in a random street shooting they didn't do anything. Who fucking cares. If someone tries to rob you in your house, it is unlikely you have the crowd presences to take them down. On the other hand, you could easily wait right behind a corner and shoot him in the face.

Women are raped. Women are usually much physically weaker than their rapists. You know what can prevent rapes? Guns.

There are a lot of bad consequences to prevalent guns, including criminals having easier access to guns, and people mistakenly vigilante justicing the wrong people.

But when you say crazy shit like guns can't prevent robbery/rape/murder... Why can't you just stick to true things? Why do you have to lie for Jesus?

Guns only stop crime on TV. It's a myth, much like the myth that torturing people gets reliable information and that you can knock someone out without also having a good chance of killing them.

In truth, criminals attack too fast. I mean, how many banks get robbed when there is a armed security guard in the bank?

Here is a government report: http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/165476.txt

Here is the relevant quote:

Evidence suggests that this survey and others
like it overestimate the frequency with which
firearms were used by private citizens to defend
against criminal attack.

Gun owners seem to confuse the potential to prevent crimes with the real world effectiveness. There is a lot of news about the increases in the last few years of gun ownership and the decrease in violent crime, but no one ever seems to also relate the massive growth in prisons and increases in prison terms during the same time.

[Kaelik]

In truth, criminals attack too fast. I mean, how many banks get robbed when there is a armed security guard in the bank?

How many banks are successfully robbed. How many attempted bank robberies occur. The fact that something fails sometimes or even often does not mean that it cannot happen.

Here is the relevant quote:

Evidence suggests that this survey and others
like it overestimate the frequency with which
firearms were used by private citizens to defend
against criminal attack.

Gun owners seem to confuse the potential to prevent crimes with the real world effectiveness. There is a lot of news about the increases in the last few years of gun ownership and the decrease in violent crime, but no one ever seems to also relate the massive growth in prisons and increases in prison terms during the same time.

I'm not claiming that they are more successful than their cost. I'm not claiming they are even particularly possible. I am contesting the statement that it is literally impossible for any gun to ever prevent any crime.

I am telling PL that a) he's fucking crazy, and b) he should stick to actual true statements, and possibly even look up statistics on why guns are bad. I don't care if the frequency is overestimated. Because the real frequency being a number greater than zero makes PL a liar.

Look at what I said to For Valor. I don't know the statistics, neither does For Valor, and neither does PL.

I personally believe that it is unlikely that a strictly controlled gun set up such as England would result in worse crime, because I personally believe that the instances in which guns help are few, and where they hurt are many. But I don't particularly have any stats to back that up, however I would encourage For Valor to not strawman and PL to not be crazy anyway.

[tzor]

Only a mad person would even imagine they COULD.

Did someone mention me?

Well let's see, logically speaking (yes even mad men can be logical) if gun ownership does not decrease crime and can only increase crime, then gun control must clearly decrease crime. Right?

Wrong.

In the U. K., after the introduction of tougher gun control and a prohibition of handguns in 1997, as well as the general repression of self-defence (victims who defend themselves against violent criminals often get more severe sentences than their aggressors), violent crimes have shot up. To control exploding crime, the British government is resorting to police-state surveillance and control measures, an astounding development in the cradle of Western liberty, and the cradle of our traditional right to keep and bear arms.

Here is a good one ... less guns ,,, more RAPE?

According to a 1995 study entitled “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun” by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, published by the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology at Northwestern University School of Law, law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year.

That means that firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to shoot with criminal intent. Of these defensive shootings, more than 200,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse. About half a million times a year, a citizen carrying a gun away from home uses it in self-defense. Again, according to Kleck amd Gertz, “Citizens shoot and kill more criminals than police do every year [2,819 times versus 303].” Moreover, as George Will pointed out in an article entitled “Are We a Nation of Cowards?” in the November 15, 1993, issue of Newsweek, while police have an error rate of 11 percent when it comes to the accidental shooting of innocent civilians, the armed citizens’ error rate is only 2 percent, making them five times safer than police.

Yea, but tzor, those web sites are OLD man.

Coinciding with a surge in gun purchases that began shortly before the 2008 elections, violent crime decreased six percent between 2008 and 2009, including an eight percent decrease in murder and a nine percent decrease in robbery.1 Since 1991, when violent crime peaked, it has decreased 43 percent to a 35-year low. Murder has fallen 49 percent to a 45-year low.2 At the same time, the number of guns that Americans own has risen by about 90 million. Predictions by gun control supporters, that increasing the number of guns, particularly handguns and so-called “assault weapons,” would cause crime to increase, have been proven profoundly lacking in clairvoyance.4

[K]

Correlation does not equal causation. I'd think you'd know that.

If it did, we could credit the fall in crime in the US to the legalization of abortion (see Freakonomics). Trying to draw direct comparisons between guns and crime without any of the other factors influencing crime like poverty or changes in enforcement like longer and more prison terms, the rise and fall of police budgets, or three-strikes laws is disingenuous at best and an act of outright hucksterism at worse.

As for your killer survey, the government report I posted pretty effectively debunks it. For all we know, those self-reporting on these flawed surveys might think they are "stopping a crime" whenever they shake a gun at the black kids walking down the street.

I mean, if they had real cause they would call the police and then we could use those statistics. It's not like people who are really on the wrong end of a crime just walk it off and don't call the cops, letting the criminals go simply out of the kindness of their hearts.

[For Valor]

Don't be stupid valor.

He's saying that the positive aspects of guns, ie rapes and murders and robberies prevented outweigh the negative consequences that would be prevented by banning guns, ie fewer, but not all shooting sprees, murders, rapes and thefts.

He may be wrong, and I don't know the statistics and neither do you, and neither does he, but it does no one any good to strawman him.

Don't be stupid kaelik.

He said quoted a paragraph which said that murderous rampages decreased, but that there weren't many murderous rampages and then discounted it by saying this:

You admit the impact is minimal and that murderous rampages are statistically insignificant. What is your point again?

He didn't say that the positives outweighed the negatives. He said the statistic was totally unimportant because only a few deaths were prevented. He totally said that. Which makes him retarded.

He may be wrong, and I don't know the statistics and neither do you, and neither does he, but I sure as hell am not strawmanning.

[PoliteNewb]

PoliteNewb, did you just say that murderous rampages are OK because they're statistically insignificant?

Did you also just say that it's not necessary to save human lives unless you're saving enough to change a graph by 5-10%?

Seriously? Did you just say those things? Because that makes you fucking insane.

No, I did not say those things. That said, saying them would not make me insane; cold and callous perhaps, but not insane.

People are dying right now. What are you doing to help them? Don't you care? How about the 60,000 or more people who died in auto accidents last year? Don't you care about them? How can you argue that we should all drive cars, when it causes so many deaths?

The cold fact of the matter is that people like having cars, and they are willing to see thousands of people die rather than give up automobiles. And that isn't insane.

But as to what I did say, was that those numbers were statistically insignificant. No, that doesn't mean they don't matter; it means we should not base legal policy on them, any more than we should base it on other very rare occurrences, like meteorites striking people on the head or spontaneous combustion. Especially when, as Kaelik pointed out, those policies can have numerous negative effects as well.

Let me put it this way: you have no idea how many murderous rampages those gun laws prevented. And you have no idea how many non-gun murders they may have enabled, by preventing someone from defending themself. But we do know that the number of murderous rampages is small...much smaller than the number of times people need to defend themselves.

I never said that preventing a small number of deaths is unimportant. I'm saying it does not outweigh the disadvantages of disarming a huge number of people, especially when you can't prove it actually prevented any deaths at all. If you could save 1 life by banning cars, would it be worth it? How about 100 lives? How about 50,000? How many lives would be worth banning cars? Can you put a number on it?

Guns do not prevent those things.

Only a mad person would even imagine they COULD.

God, I love how you think you can override reality by declaration.
Guns CAN prevent those things. They HAVE. They do every day. It's well documented. It's not madness, it's reality. Denying what actually and observably OCCURS is madness.

Are you telling me that none of this ever happened, despite these stories appearing in the news? None of these either? That's all lies and propaganda, and every news agency in the country is in on it, right? How about this, did that happen? Nah, a principal with a gun could never stop a school shooter.

Do you need more? Are you ready to face reality yet?

One story that has come up as the upshot of the recent political murder spree in the USA has been that the gun man was taken down largely by civilians using basically unarmed combat but that several people in the area carrying concealed hand guns very nearly shot each other dead thinking they were assassins.

Can you even hear yourself talk?
Nobody legally carrying a concealed gun that day shot anyone dead. So the fact that responsible citizens DIDN'T cause a bloodbath is, to you, proof that they shouldn't have guns.

What else CAN you imagine a bunch of dim untrained civilians carrying concealed fire arms could possibly contribute to a shooting spree other than more pretty much in discriminant shooting of each other in confusion and stupidity? If every person in ear shot had a hand gun, even every second one that place would have been a blood bath (well, more so) the second there was a large "bang" noise.

This paragraph is so idiotic I don't even know how to answer it. It is nothing more than a gunhater's wet dream of what they think (maybe hope) would happen when people carry concealed weapons.

But that DIDN'T HAPPEN. In fact, I'm not aware of it EVER HAPPENING, even in places where people do carry concealed weapons, and have been present at shooting scenes.

Guns only stop crime on TV. It's a myth, much like the myth that torturing people gets reliable information and that you can knock someone out without also having a good chance of killing them.

First off, I'm sorry...something that can be proven to happen cannot be a myth. You may be trying to say, "it doesn't happen all that often", which would be a reasonable thing to say (even if I don't agree with it), but to say hyperbolic bullshit like "it never happens" is just ignoring reality.

As to how often it actually happens, here are some rebuttals to that study (which, by the way, was published by the NIJ but not conducted by them...it was conducted by a group called the Police Foundation, who are blatantly anti-gun. Would you trust a survey conducted by the NRA? Why should I trust one conducted by someone associated with the Brady campaign?

At any rate, people can judge for themselves whose research is more sound:

http://www.gunsandcrime.org/dgufreq.html
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

Edited to add:

I mean, if they had real cause they would call the police and then we could use those statistics. It's not like people who are really on the wrong end of a crime just walk it off and don't call the cops, letting the criminals go simply out of the kindness of their hearts.

Are you seriously suggesting that if the person didn't report it to police, it wasn't a real crime? Really?

[cthulhu]

Do you have any facts at all to support your position?

Seriously, you must be retarded. In a country where legal purchase of hands is not possible, how could it be possible that legal purchase was the largest source? I was talking about america you muppet, and will return to that topic in a moment.

Also, I'm not British. Of course it's going to be fucking different in Britain, because they have really stringent gun control laws. You cannot buy a fucking handgun, so there are no legally owned ones to take. In the US, the ATF has shown that as local gun control laws are tightened up, the proportion of imported guns used in crime shoots through the roof.

So, no fucking shit about Britain. You'd have to be retarded to think it was otherwise. It's the same story in Australia, where we can consult the Australian Crime Commission and discover

Illegally sourced firearms come from a combination of illegal importation of complete firearms or their parts, illegal domestic manufacture and the reactivation of firearms. The main supply route of firearms from the legal to illegal sphere is through diversion (Kerlatec 2007; Qld CMC 2004). The black market in firearms does not appear to be dominated by organised crime, but rather by a looser system of criminal gangs who acquire firearms when and where they are needed (Mouzos 1999), and by people with otherwise legitimate access to firearms who coordinate small-scale transfer of firearms out of the legal pool (Qld CMC 2003, cited in Qld CMC 2004).

This was mostly due to a MASSIVE FUCKING HOLE in state regulation of firearms, people where buying the parts individually and assembling a working gun. This has now been banned effectively, but we can see corrupt dealers creeping into the picture. Of course, this nothing compared to the next people will examine.

Returning to the US, where you can actually buy this shit legally, the majority of handguns used in crimes are purchased from licensed gun dealers, either though straw transitions (Where I get you to buy a gun and give it to me), or via people buying guns off dealers then illegally reselling them. A further 15% (approx) are stolen from legitimate owners, according to the ATF.

Further more according to the ATF, the majority of the guns involved in crimes are handguns, not long arms.

[ATF Agent]Wachtel says one of the most common ways criminals get guns is through straw purchase sales.
[...]
The next biggest source of illegal gun transactions where criminals get guns are sales made by legally licensed but corrupt at-home and commercial gun dealers.

[...]

Another large source of guns used in crimes are unlicensed street dealers who either get their guns through illegal transactions with licensed dealers, straw purchases, or from gun thefts. These illegal dealers turn around and sell these illegally on the street. An additional way criminals gain access to guns is family and friends, either through sales, theft or as gifts.

So yeah, shit eaters buying guns legally is the biggest source where it is legal to buy guns. Where it is not, you need to get past HMRC, or the Australian Customs Department, because you need to import the fuckers.

Of course, I will leave this to the ATF to close out

"Let's be honest. If someone wants a gun, it's obvious the person will not have difficulty buying a gun, either legally or through the extensive United States black market."

In Australia, this is not true. In the UK, this is not true.

[K]

Guns only stop crime on TV. It's a myth, much like the myth that torturing people gets reliable information and that you can knock someone out without also having a good chance of killing them.

First off, I'm sorry...something that can be proven to happen cannot be a myth. You may be trying to say, "it doesn't happen all that often", which would be a reasonable thing to say (even if I don't agree with it), but to say hyperbolic bullshit like "it never happens" is just ignoring reality.

As to how often it actually happens, here are some rebuttals to that study (which, by the way, was published by the NIJ but not conducted by them...it was conducted by a group called the Police Foundation, who are blatantly anti-gun. Would you trust a survey conducted by the NRA? Why should I trust one conducted by someone associated with the Brady campaign?

At any rate, people can judge for themselves whose research is more sound:

http://www.gunsandcrime.org/dgufreq.html
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

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).

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.

Edited to add:

I mean, if they had real cause they would call the police and then we could use those statistics. It's not like people who are really on the wrong end of a crime just walk it off and don't call the cops, letting the criminals go simply out of the kindness of their hearts.

Are you seriously suggesting that if the person didn't report it to police, it wasn't a real crime? Really?

Lots of crimes don't get reported. For example, rape is often under-reported because of the shame of the victim.

But other crimes? People report attempted crimes like attempted muggings and theft, not to mention murder and rape. If even a fraction of crimes "prevented by guns" were reported, there would be overwhelming evidence supporting gun use.

So where is it?

It seems that there are basically people who think they might be preventing crimes, but they aren't actually sure. Maybe they think owning a gun somehow magically prevents crime like a magic charm.

[PhoneLobster]

Maybe they think owning a gun somehow magically prevents crime like a magic charm.

Actually there are people who rather specifically believe that and will make arguments along the line of "if anyone could be carrying a gun no one will try and mug you/rape you/whatever you with their also easily available gun.

Well let's see, logically speaking (yes even mad men can be logical) if gun ownership does not decrease crime and can only increase crime, then gun control must clearly decrease crime. Right?

Who said gun control decreases crime?

No one said that.

It changes the NATURE of crime.

Here in Australia it means that the most recent violent gun rampage ended with only two deaths. And the next one may end with even less.

The violent gun rampage still happened, and probably would still happen even if the rampage were down to knives or sharpened safety scissors, but it was less impactful.

Muggings and armed hold ups still happen about as much as they would otherwise, but happen with knives and other weapons, or non-automatic guns that will kill less cops in a stand off.

Rapes still happen, murders still happen, one off killings with guns happen with relatively little impact as the inability to go on and mow down 10 more people by not having an automatic is pretty close to irrelevant. And those make up so much of our actual gun crime that saving those 9 other lives on those rare occasion the killer WOULD go on and do that is statistically insignificant.

That doesn't mean saving those lives wasn't a good thing to do and that those who would throw those lives away so they can wank over an automatic rifle aren't utter inhuman monsters and murderous idiots.

Oddly enough gun related suicides have plummeted, though it is unclear if that is actually caused by the gun regulation, it might be we did crack down a little in a more general sense so maybe there are less suicidally depressed or mentally unballanced people easily able to acquire guns. But it may have been on a downward trend anyway. It is also apparently unclear if the suicides are moving to alternate methods or not.

So no, gun control changes crime, it makes society a better place, it saves countless curious children, and might just save you from a gun rampage or save a cop in a corner store hold up gone wrong. But as great as those things are they are not actually a true decrease in crime, just a small increase in real lives really saved.

I would say considering the nature of the minimal cost even the small number of lives saved is damn well worth it. The Australian people certainly did, we copped an extra 1% income tax hike for 1 year to pay for it and were damn glad we did. But NRA fucking monster idiots without a shred of conscience would not agree. After all, their wank sticks are worth the lives of their own children.

[K]

You know, in some parts of Asia people sometime go on sword-killing rampages. They usually get beaten to death by people in the market before they can kill or wound more than a few people.

I think the gunlovers here would actually be surprised to know that I think people should be allowed rifles. It's the semi-automatics and handguns that are dangerous in my mind. I mean, if you walk in some place with a rifle everyone knows you have a gun and can react appropriately.... it's the guys who can either sneak in and/or mow down lots of people before anyone knows what's going on that I have a problem with.

[cthulhu]

Yeah, I have few problems with bolt action rifles as well, while you could theoretically go all bell tower sniper murder killer, this doesn't actually seem to happen.

If you want to go shoot some rabbits, more power to you. I'd just rather you have to pass a mandatory gun safety exam annually or bi annually and keep your gun in secure storage that meets Australian standards when you're not using it.

[PhoneLobster]

This is the amazing thing really. Gun regulation isn't about taking your precious guns away and interring all gun owners in concentration camps.

That's just what the NRA and the Tea Party tell you.

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.

And that sort of basic regulation, not annihilation, is really very simple, sensible and effective. And it means you can still own a gun and go shoot some shit.

And frankly is hardly outside of the purview of the actual wording and intended spirit of the US constitution.

[tzor]

This is the amazing thing really. Gun regulation isn't about taking your precious guns away and interring all gun owners in concentration camps.

Bullshit. "Gun regulation" is all about taking guns away. It's like that bullshit they tried to pull in Chicago where you could own a gun if you got training on an offical city firing range but then at the same time they closed all official city firing ranges and refused to grant permits for any official firing ranges. No training no legal weapons.

The batshit anti-gun idiots are constantly trying to take all rights away from any decent hunter or anyone who needs to reasonably protect themselves. That's why moderates have to support bat shitcrazy groups like the NRA (who somehow believe that teflon armor piercing bullets are a 2nd amendment right) because the no gun lobby is constantly attacking the 2nd amendment and we need all the help we can get.

P.S. This is not a common cry among tea party people; the vast majority of the tea party is still the 912 movement; guns are a very low priority to them.

[PhoneLobster]

So again, Tzor will side with lunatics and their imaginings and tell us that actual countries with actual gun control don't actually exist or do it like they actually do it at all.

Sorry. Australia has gun regulation, and has significantly changed and increased gun regulation in recent years. That DID involve taking guns away from people. Then we gave them money for those guns. And they used that money to buy replacement guns. And that was all fine and successful and did not leave "hunters" without their guns. Indeed we barely had a drop in gun ownership at all.

So yeah I was right, lunatics like Tzor will outright LIE about what Gun regulation entails. I mean look, he just did right there hey.

[Neeeek]

Women are raped. Women are usually much physically weaker than their rapists. You know what can prevent rapes? Guns.

You know, I'm actually rather skeptical about the likelihood of this. My understanding is that the vast majority of rapes are date rapes, and, frankly, by the time the actual rape/threat of rape is happening, I would be amazed if a terribly high proportion of the victims would be in a position to draw and fire a gun. It is trivially easy for a reasonably strong man to restrain an average woman he is on top of from using her arms for anything.

As for non-date rapes, I'd guess the rapist is the one more prepared for the situation and therefore more likely to be armed.

Hell, a lot of rapes involve drugging the victim and it's over before the victim even knows it is happening.

[Kaelik]

Women are raped. Women are usually much physically weaker than their rapists. You know what can prevent rapes? Guns.

You know, I'm actually rather skeptical about the likelihood of this. My understanding is that the vast majority of rapes are date rapes, and, frankly, by the time the actual rape/threat of rape is happening, I would be amazed if a terribly high proportion of the victims would be in a position to draw and fire a gun. It is trivially easy for a reasonably strong man to restrain an average woman he is on top of from using her arms for anything.

As for non-date rapes, I'd guess the rapist is the one more prepared for the situation and therefore more likely to be armed.

Hell, a lot of rapes involve drugging the victim and it's over before the victim even knows it is happening.

I am not commenting about the majority of rapes, or anything to that effect.

There are a large number of rapists of the prey on women in the street variety, they are usually caught, but usually after at least one, if not more, rapes. It is true that guns could stop some of these rapes. It is also true that if the woman doesn't have a gun, she might be discouraged from attempting to run or struggle by a gun. At no point was I claiming that on balance, guns are good. On balance, handgun availability is something I would want significantly reduced. I am just saying that hyperbolic claims about the impossibility of X where X is very obviously possible are not useful. Statistics as K presented, about how common X is are actually useful.

[Neeeek]

There are a large number of rapists of the prey on women in the street variety, they are usually caught, but usually after at least one, if not more, rapes. It is true that guns could stop some of these rapes.

See, the thing is there actually aren't a large number of rapists that prey on random women on the street. It's just not something that happens a lot. And having a gun wouldn't protect them from those rapists nearly as much as you'd think.

Only about a quarter of all rapes are by someone the victim doesn't know - and this group includes "the guy I met at the bar and went home with that night" and "the guy who roofied me at the party".

[Kaelik]

There are a large number of rapists of the prey on women in the street variety, they are usually caught, but usually after at least one, if not more, rapes. It is true that guns could stop some of these rapes.

See, the thing is there actually aren't a large number of rapists that prey on random women on the street. It's just not something that happens a lot. And having a gun wouldn't protect them from those rapists nearly as much as you'd think.

Only about a quarter of all rapes are by someone the victim doesn't know - and this group includes "the guy I met at the bar and went home with that night" and "the guy who roofied me at the party".

STOP BEING STUPID!

X, where X is greater than zero > 0

Is it possible for guns to prevent rapes? Yes. It fucking is. Has it actually happened. Yes it has.

So yes, I use the word large to describe the number of rapes, because the numbers exceed my ability to actually comprehend, because there are 300 million people in the US. And yes, they are not a large proportion of rapes. Which is probably why I did not say large proportion.

Now, you go sit in the fucking corner and wear the dunce cap until you are ready to admit that the statement I was objecting to "It is impossible for guns to prevent crimes." is false.

[K]

More guns might even mean more rapes because it causes woman to be unreasonably confident in their own safety.

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.

Heck, it might even lead to more rapes turning into murders as people wrestling over guns end up shooting the victim.

Here are some rape statistics: http://www.rainn.org/get-information/st ... -offenders. Note the section where it says "he's not hiding in the bushes" in bold.

Looking at the stats, I actually think parking garages should be banned. One in twelve rapes happening there is pretty messed up. Where is the anti-parking garage movement?

[PoliteNewb]

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.

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.)

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.

If you want to go shoot some rabbits, more power to you.

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:

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?

[Orca]

Claiming that it's impossible to reduce the number of firearms circulating in a country is a political truth rather than an absolute one. PL gives an example of where it has occurred, after all. It may not be possible in the current political climate, but that's a long way from 'Never, at all'.

What IS incalculable is the number of children who die as a result of gun control.

Dunno about Aus, let alone the US, but this number is entirely calculable in NZ. It is zero. Assuming that you're talking about a situation where someone needed a gun to protect children and didn't have one due to gun control measures, this is a story that would make a newspaper editor cream his pants

[PoliteNewb]

Claiming that it's impossible to reduce the number of firearms circulating in a country is a political truth rather than an absolute one. PL gives an example of where it has occurred, after all. It may not be possible in the current political climate, but that's a long way from 'Never, at all'.

There are, according to this site, about 2.5 million registered firearms in Australia.

The US has roughly one hundred times that many.

[PhoneLobster]

We also have 1/10th your population and a fraction of your wealth, a great deal more land area along with a hell of a lot better of an excuse to actually HAVE hunters in large numbers. Nations are not perfectly identical, so what? Do you seriously think that having more guns is an excuse for less gun regulation? What kind of argument is that?

Gun regulation can be done, massive scale gun buy backs can be done (and without seriously impacting gun ownership), it has been done, it will be done again, and if you as a nation can't do it it isn't because "Its impossible, WAAAH!" it's because there is something wrong with you.

This is like the ridiculous anti health care scam all over again "Waaah! Sweden is smaller than the USA, therefore public health care IS IMPOSSIBLES!". Sorry. Doesn't work like that.

Edit: Oh look Ubernoob is spewing out even more stupidity. I missed the big blarg post. Look. I'm talking about hunters, which other people have mentioned, because your hand gun self defense argument is so stupid I didn't even BOTHER talking about it. Yes. That's right Tzor mentioning hunters was more sensible and sane than your argument. You are being dumber than Tzor.

[K]

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?

His paper was not reviewed. It was republished in it's entirety or quoted. Peer review is actually quite a different process (the report I posted is actually a peer review, and we can see how it tears his report apart).

Also, his article is not a scientific argument. It's a legal argument, but it's not a scientific one. Take this tidbit:

Nevertheless, in a ten state sample of incarcerated felons interviewed in 1982, 34% reported having been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim." [60] From the criminals' standpoint, this experience was not rare.

So that sounds like a killer argument, right?

Well, it's not. It doesn't tell you how many times the criminal was scared off and how many actual times the criminal was not scared off based on his number of crimes. Soooooo, imagine if of the 1000 felons the average number of crimes of a felon is ten and of those felons 34% were scared off once, it makes that the actual number of crimes that were thwarted is..... less than 4% of crimes.

Now, those are just numbers I pulled out of my ass and super conservative, but the fact that the writer has no numbers makes his conclusion nothing less than speculation. The average numbers of crimes for a career criminal number might be in the hundreds making the number of crime prevented less than 1%, but since he's failed to provide that data his tidbit proves nothing. The fact that 66% have never been chased off considering the prevalence of guns is actually pretty damning.

He's cherry picked some data and dressed it up in scientific talk, but the data doesn't lie. His conclusions are based on nothing.

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.

When the report said "nah, that can't be right" it was because it didn't fit any of the matching data gathered by objective sources that should have backed him up.

You see, that's how to test a scientific hypothesis. You test it against data. You design experiments that test the rigor of the data you gathered.

So take this bit from the report:

In line with the theory that many DGU reports are
exaggerated or falsified, we note that in some of
these reports, the respondents' answers to the
followup items are not consistent with respondents'
reported DGUs. For example, of the 19 NSPOF
respondents meeting the more restrictive Kleck and
Gertz DGU criteria (exhibit 7), 6 indicated that
the circumstance of the DGU was rape, robbery, or
attack--but then responded "no" to a subsequent
question: "Did the perpetrator threaten, attack, or
injure you?"

You see, that is a killer argument. The very people who are reporting defensive gun uses can't even keep their damned stories straight, making their answers highly suspect.

Rhetoric is not science. The fact that he has some counter-arguments doesn't mean his counter-arguments are sufficient.

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.

Except he's not citing all the surveys against him, which means he's not conducting science.

The report I mentioned actually does mention the various conflicting answers these surveys give as well as addressing the conclusions of the most popular survey used to advance the defensive gun argument (namely this guy's).

His paper is a great argument for gun ownership. The problem is that it is fundamentally flawed, but that won't stop it from being used by people who can't parse an argument or the data to save their lives.

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?

You ever been in a fight?

You see, when you attack from surprise you win the fight. This is why criminals attack from surprise. I've even had criminals run away from me when I ruined their surprise by turning around fast and putting my fists up when I saw them coming.... I assume they know how hard it is to actually win a fight without it.

Now, the ideal situation where a victim is holding a gun and pointing it at the criminal from more than ten feet away is a no win, much like any situation where the criminal doesn't have surprise.

But guess what? Criminals don't get into that situation. They bum rush you and while you are groggily reaching for a weapon they take it from you (assuming you can even keep it together enough to even reach a weapon). Read a report or two on how actual muggings and murders go down.

Heck, I even had a different criminal run away from me while holding a gun on me because I was walking backwards and shouting my head off (of course, the fucker shot me in the foot before he did that). Ruining his surprise ruined his chances of successfully completing the crime.

Crime relies on surprise, the one situation where having a gun won't help at all. People don't foil crimes with quick thinking and a handgun in the real world, and if they did we'd have the data on that other than some self-reporting blowhards whose stories are so bad they won't even risk reporting them to the police.