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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:16
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--"So I'm not sure if the US' ban/war on drugs can clarify the 7 times higher homicide rates."
Well, the US isn't Europe. I don't know how those laws are being enforced in, say, the UK, but there's plenty of precedent for the effects this kind of "war" has on US society. Remember Capone? Our last attempt to do something that stupid set up a whole new class of criminal.
--"True, but I think it is probably easier psychologically to press a trigger and kill someone who satnds ten yards from you, than grabbing a baseball bat and braining someone."
A lot of people think that, but there's only partial evidence for it. Psych studies on the so-called trigger effect (basically what you're talking about here) are split half-and-half on it. The more realistic the scenarios being tested, the less likely a weapon (any weapon, not just necessarily a gun) will be to have that effect.
Remember as well that most criminals are not setting out to kill someone. They want money or drugs or whatever, and that's one thing, but actually killing someone bumps them into a whole new category that makes them much more likely to suffer from police attention.
Interesting side-effect of this is that, last I heard, most home break-ins occur during the day now. Robbers say it's much more difficult to tell if there's someone at home at night, so they try to avoid breaking in then. Their biggest fear is not the police, either, but armed home-owners.
--"however I theorize that a criminal is far more likely to use the firearm anyway, rather than the person he's committing a criminal act against."
Not really. As I've mentioned already, guns are going to bump the crime up into a whole new category as far as police pressure goes. You threaten someone with a knife, you only have to worry about some assault charges if things go bad. Threaten someone with a gun.. well, most muggers don't want to kill their victims, they just want the money. The kind of people who are setting out to kill someone are going to try to get the gun in any case, legal or not.
Criminals are also notoriously bad shots. If didn't usually take the easy way out most of them wouldn't be crooks, after all  These aren't the kind of guys who go spend time at the firing range.
I don't have a citation handy here, but there's been a study done that showed that armed resistance to robbery attempts or assaults is actually the safest thing you could do.
--"than you fail to understand that it's a country where there is little armed forces, and the people serve as a militia"
I know, but the argument orginally presented was just as simplistic. There just aren't any countries out there that would function well as a control.
--"it can also be 'shown' BY the aggressor into making the victim do what he or she wants them to do."
I am aware of this, but it isn't the entire story, as I talked about a little above. Another Gary Kleck study, Guns and Violence: A Summary of the Field covers this one in more detail (Available online, it's a summary of one of his books).
--"and I truly don't think you have any cause for concern about the government becoming corrupt and imprisoning you"
I do. There's over 2 million people in jail in the US. Last year over 600,000 people were arrested for technical crimes (by which I mean they harm no one except possibly themselves, like pot smokers). The government is currently holding over a thousand people without trial (or with secret trial), refusing to even comment on the charges they're being held under. The Supreme Court has ruled that police have the power to arrest you for crimes that do not carry a jail sentence. There are assett forfeiture laws on the books all over the US (in conjunction with the War on Drugs) that are not very good at distinguishing law-breakers from law-abiders. Warrants are becoming increasingly easy to get, even no-knock warrants, and the government doesn't have a stellar track record in finding the right doors. Not to mention several recent laws that have been passed and as-yet have not been scrutinized by the Supreme Court (DCMA, SSSCA, PATRIOT, etc). If you look carefully at some of those, you'll find out that it's entirely possible to be arrested for saying the wrong thing and being noticed.
--"So if you're going to go to jail, or if the government is going to come after you, it's going to be for a good reason."
Hehe.
Oh, wait, are you being serious?
Wraith
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."
-- H. L. Mencken
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Scipio Centaurus
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Even though the burden of proof does not fall to gun owners in this debate, here is the proof:
Excerpted from a book review by David Kopel.
quote:
Damn Lies — or Statistics
by David B. Kopel
More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws
by John R. Lott, Jr.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 225 pp.
The most important book ever published about firearms policy is John Lott’s superb More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws. No other firearms book has reshaped the political debate so profoundly...
Before John Lott came along, a few researchers (myself included) had studied the effects of [shall-issue gun permit] laws. Clayton Cramer and I (in the Tennessee Law Review) had analyzed changes in murder rates in “shall issue” states compared to national trends and found tentative evidence that murder rates fell after enactment of “shall issue” laws. David McDowall (in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology) had analyzed murder rates in five counties and reported that they rose.
John Lott['s] work amounts to the most thorough criminological study ever performed. Lott collected data from every one of the 3,054 counties in the United States over an 18-year period and, in contrast to the Kopel and McDowall homicide-only studies, examined changes in the rates of nine different types of crime. He also accounted for the effects of dozens of other variables, including variations in arrest rates, in the age and racial composition of a county’s population, in national crime rates, and in changes made to gun-control laws, including the adoption of waiting periods. Lott’s findings show that concealed carry laws significantly reduce violent crime. On average, the murder rate falls by ten percent...rape falls by three percent...aggravated assault falls by six percent... |
- Scipio
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:16
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Fab, eh?
The US has a population of around 280 MILLION - hell my home town is around 250,000, and that's kinda smallish as far as US cities go anyway.
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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:16
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--"Enough people in this country like the war on drugs at the moment for it to still recieve support."
Actually, last numbers I saw showed a majority of people against it, at least as far as marijuna was concerned. Several areas, noteably California, have shown this in the form of state laws that were created by ballot initiatives. That didn't stop the Feds from shutting them down anyway.
There are a lot of laws that do not have widespread popular support, if only because people don't know about them. There are also plenty of old laws on the books that are unenforced for now, but could be used as an excuse any time someone cared to do so.
As I've mentioned, my father is a police officer. I know how easy it is for them to find something to arrest anyone for. Basically, so much is illegal these days it's hard to get through a normal day without inadvertantly (and probably unknowingly) breaking some law.
--"Someone gets arrested on drug charges and resists with a weapon,"
The problem is when they go raiding the wrong houses... or seize the property of people who are not involved in the drug trade in any way. It happens. One guy lost his charter flight business after getting his planes seized because he once carried someone connected to the drug trade. He didn't know it at the time, and the government agencies admit he was clean, but he's still got no business left.
--"Who says we need to change the constitution?"
Er... the Constitution itself...
This is not a trivial document. This is the federal government's charter. Note that we the citizens are granting the government power through it. They are not dictating our "freedoms" to us. This is a very important point that just about everyone in the federal government seems to not realize.
--"Fab, eh?"
Think he dropped a few decimal places. Unless he's thinking in base ten thousand for some reason.
Wraith
"Called up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms regional office and asked, "What wine goes best with an M-16?" The guy who answered did his best to be helpful: "That depends. What are you smoking?"
-- Michael Maciolek
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:16
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quote:
Originally posted by drake
Yes, orange said what I was going to start getting at.
Guns are too readily available to unstable and irresponsible people. If I wanted to, today, I could go to the local sporting goods store, pick up a hunting rifle, a few cases of shells, walk to the local mall and smoke a few dozen people without breaking a sweat. Can't do that with a knife, or even something like a bow. Guns makes killing too easy.
Hence the amount of gun related deaths we have every year. |
I'm willing to bet that you would in fact not be able to 'smoke' a few dozen people, and you would indeed break a sweat that would last the rest of your short life.
The most effective way of wanton killing is to use a bomb or a poison. I'm willing to bet that you are intelligent enough to put together a bomb out of ordinary readily available materials which could indeed 'smoke' a couple of dozen people. You could also do so sweat free, as you could be miles away from the action and potentially not ever be identified. Yet I don't see you lobbying for a crackdown on chemicals that could be used to make bombs.
For someone who is intent on going out on a murderous spree I would prefer that they use a gun to a series of bombings. A gun usually freezes you to a time and place, and given a proper (ie non-Columbine) response you are going to be toast after your initial rush. These shooting sprees average a little over two killed, including the perpetrator. Eric Rudolph is still out there somewhere, hiding and probably building bombs.
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:16
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quote:
Originally posted by orange
Not their job. People shouldn't take the law into their own hands...more people get killed that way.
Would you justify it if, say, one of those shopkeepers shot two men dead with those guns in 'self defense'? What if he didn't give a warning and just started firing at the rioters? |
Did you learn this crap from your liberal teachers or from your liberal parents or both? You are all set to bend over and take it from the criminals in order to do the police a favor and wait your turn eh? You have an inalienable right to self defense, no matter that the police would rather you didn't and offered them an ever increasing budget to arrive too late to do anything but perhaps (if you are lucky) punish those who have already transgressed against you.
Now I agree that in some cases it is more intelligent to turn a matter over to the police rather than intervening yourself, and these cases happen a lot in the Northeast where you live, and only the police and the criminals tend to have guns. There are many situations however where it is definitely worth your while to fight, and with your mindest I wouldn't want to be walking with you and get jumped, because you would be busy trying to fight off your natural instincts and rationally decide whether you have a legal, moral and ethical case to defend yourself, while the bad guys would be taking the winner's advantage and crushing your skull. Which would leave me in a tough situation to say the least.
In the cases you outlined above as a juror I would not vote to convict someone who shot people trying to destroy his livelihood, unless he fired without warning and wantonly. If you want to go on a racist rampage and get shot to death in the process, tough sh!t.
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Roland
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Auf'm Jahrmarkt :(
May 1999
time: 06:16
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On the homicide rate: It's also worth noting that the US incarceration rate is 7-10 times higher. Gun legislation may play into that, but there is a much broader difference in the "culture" of crime and repression.
Wraith:
"It's not my fault they decided they'd prefer government promises of safety. It is the easy way out, since excercising rights requires an effort."
There is no constitutional right to gun ownership here, and I'm not aware of it being even discussed. It is a very specific US phenomenon, so please don't generalize this to "rights" in.. well... general. The simple legal right to own a gun is hotly debated in Austria from time to time, the same goes for say France.
"The right to bear arms is a part of the Bill of Rights, the fundamental protections from government that were required before the Constitution could be accepted in the first place. It's there because it's a very important right that they felt needed to be specifically protected."
For the federal government. Do you think the various amendments that (supposedly) extended the Bill of Rights to the states also does that with the 2nd amendment ? If not, I fail to see how the 2nd amendment would stop state legislation on the issue. If yes, what restrictions does it allow ?
scipio:
"When we say War on Drugs over here, we're not kidding around. I'm not sure how dedicated European nations are to eradicating this particular 'scurge'."
For soft drugs, someone in crimonolgy came up to describe the approach as the 4-4 rule: 4 % of cases get reported, and out of that 4 % end in a conviction. Might well be a 2-2 rule now.
The repression of hard drugs is a lot more serious, but there are no special powers related to that.
"Also, the USA has had Federal levels of law enforcement to add on top of state and local law enforcement for far longer than the EU has been around. Can you shed light on whether there were multi-national drug law enforcement efforts in place in Europe for the last 30 years?"
Not sure what you mean there. Police forces exist at a federal and "state" level in Germany, Switzerland and Spain. Criminal law is usually codified at the national level. At the EU level there is only Europol which is not an "operational" police force but only does analysis and information sharing.
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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:16
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--"A 90 pound woman using pepper spray can "equalize" things just fine."
Not nearly as well as a gun. The strength and decay issues have already been addressed, but those aren't the only ones. There's also a range problem. Pepper-sprays only project out a few feet, so the attacker has to be very close before you can even threaten them with it, much less hit. You also have to hit them in the eyes for it really do anything (what if they're wearing sunglasses?). And if you live in Lubbock, don't even think about trying to use pepper spray since the wind makes it just as likely to hit yourself as what you're aiming at.
--"Well, what is better, a little regulation, or a paranoid society of vigilante idiots?"
Paranoid vigilante idiots. They'll get themselves cleaned out of the gene pool real quick, which will live the reasonable people to live their lives in freedom.
--"Are people really that stupid to think a gun will protect them from terrorism?"
Depends on the kind of terrorism. Won't do anything against a car-bomb or similar, but they could be useful in other situations. 9/11 just made people a little more aware that the government can't provide the safety it promises in exchange for your rights.
--"While everyone has and feels the need for one, how can you say you live in a free society?"
Who says I feel the need for one? Only gun I own right now is a family heirloom, an old Winchester .22 rifle I inherited from my grandfather. And that's in my parent's care, which is a couple hundred miles away from where I live.
--"It is a very specific US phenomenon, so please don't generalize this to "rights" in.. well... general"
It is a general right, though. The Bill of Rights was not a granting of privledges, it was an acknowledgement and protection of pre-existing rights. Gun ownership is nothing more than a property rights issue.
--"Do you think the various amendments that (supposedly) extended the Bill of Rights to the states also does that with the 2nd amendment ?"
Yes, I do. In addition, most states have their own gun-rights clauses in the state constitutions.
--"If yes, what restrictions does it allow ?"
Very little. Disallowing convicted criminals and mentaly unstable people from buying/owning weapons, and disallowing concealed carry in public buldings (by which I mean government-owned buildings).
Wraith
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
-- Charles Austin Beard
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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:16
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--"And the inclusion of arms seems to be quite unique."
Well, it was based on English Common Law, so it isn't totally unique.
I still don't see why there needs to be a seperate category for guns, though. They're just a type of private property. If you allow for private property rights, there's the root of any gun-rights debate.
--"Where do you get that ? IIRC it only says "not infringed"..."
Same way they get the "shouting fire in a crowded theater is not protected by the First Amendment" style of things. People who have proven themselves to be a danger to others (convicted criminals, although I would limit this to those convicted of violent crimes, ie. not speeding or tax evasion) do give up some rights.
--"Also, considering that the right is related to the militia, what about requiring training ?"
Well, this has been covered many times in these debates. Militia was just everyone between the ages of 17 and 45 willing to carry a gun. We're not talking National Guard here.
Of course, you'd be a moron to buy a gun and not get some training in it, but it's not against the law to be a moron yet.
--"How do you enforce the "disallowing convicted criminals and mentally unstable people" ?"
Same way we do it now. The FBI's Instant Background Check system. This has been in place for quite a while, and it is a requirement that all gun dealers run buyers through this system (yes, even if they're selling at gun shows) before they can close the sale.
--"I like that quote."
So do I 
Wraith
"Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can be denied a freedom because he might abuse it?"
-- Harlon Carter
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09-12-2001 04:31
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please, do that! Fellow americans - you've got the ball on this issue. Please amend this ridiculous "right"...
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