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Thread: Gun Ownership

  1. #1
    It got brought up here and i thought it might be worth discussing. I apologise to all the americans cos this thread will probably be directed at them.
    My personal opinion is that there is no good argument for having a handgun and personally would never want to live somewhere where they are commonplace.
    I found this article here which has a few stats :
    Douglas Wiebe of the Firearm Injury Center at Penn (FICAP) at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia agrees. Last month, Wiebe and colleagues found that people who keep guns at home have a 72 per cent greater chance of being killed by firearms compared with those who do not, and are 3.44 times as likely to commit suicide (Annals of Emergency Medicine, vol 41, p 771). A 1997 survey by the CDC that compared the US with 25 other industrialised countries, including the UK and Australia, showed that the number of gun-related homicides in the US per 100,00 children below the age of 15 was 16 times that of all the other countries combined. The proportion of children below 15 who use guns to kill themselves was 11 times higher.
    Theres some other interesting info in the article and it goes on to talk about various stuff that could be done for gun safety.
    16 times more, than 25 other industrialised countries, children either killing or being killed (the article isn't clear) with guns seems a rather excessive amount and the news reports that make it across to the UK about childred either succeeding or being caught before they go on killing sprees isn't all that encouraging. Also although not a handgun, what about that sniper, i thought that for an american that must have been a very worrying precedent.

  2. The Drawing Room   -   #2
    lynx's Avatar .
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    One of the prime arguments put up by the NRA is 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people'.

    Whilst there may be some truth in the argument that people will still kill people even if they don't have guns, remove the gun and it becomes a lot harder, and above 10 feet away almost impossible except for the really determined.

    And if someone is really determined, do we really want to make things easy for them ?

    No doubt someone will come up with the argument that a gun held by the person being attacked may prevent the attack in the first place. But most guns falling into this category are kept in a drawer or a cupboard, so that as a weapon against a prepared (armed) attacker they are virtually useless, and an unarmed attacker can often get to the weapon first in any case (which is why so many people are shot with their own guns).

    So yes, people kill people, but we should not be making it so easy.
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    Political correctness is based on the principle that it's possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

  3. The Drawing Room   -   #3
    j2k4's Avatar en(un)lightened
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    Gun ownership, or gun control?

    Here are some interesting facts:

    Britain and Germany have much more restrictive gun control/ownership laws than the U.S., and also enjoy a much lower murder rate.

    Russia and Brazil have much more restrictive gun control/ownership laws than the U.S., and suffer a much higher murder rate.

    Gun ownership is much more widespread in Israel and Switzerland (where it is mandatory) than it is in the U.S., yet their murder rates are much lower than the U.S.'s.

    The current "favorite theory" of the anti-gun crowd is that more gun control is the key to lowering the murder rate.

    The facts stated above indicate something else is afoot.

    Those who are pro gun-control are entitled to their theories as to the effectiveness of same; they are not, however, entitled to ignore or filter facts that belie these theories.
    "Researchers have already cast much darkness on the subject, and if they continue their investigations, we shall soon know nothing at all about it."

    -Mark Twain

  4. The Drawing Room   -   #4
    yeah but comparisons between countries with different economic statuses can be misleading. Both russia and Brazil have huge economic problems and poverty/unemployment add to that the much higher crime rate and the levels of corruption in certain areas of those countries and theres ur explanation of the figures.
    In switzerland owning a gun is not mandatory, training to use a gun is (for men) and even switzerland has occasional problems with guns, i dont know if anyone remembers a couple of years ago when a guy ran into a canton's (like a borough) council and started shooting people. Lets not forget that Switzerland is an extremely stable and rich place to live, I was reading the paper here today and a gas explosion which knocked down 1and 1/2 houses was the biggest explosion they've had in 5 years I rather doubt that would be the case in 99% of countries around teh world.

  5. The Drawing Room   -   #5
    j2k4's Avatar en(un)lightened
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    Originally posted by ilw@14 July 2003 - 10:32
    yeah but comparisons between countries with different economic statuses can be misleading. Both russia and  Brazil have huge economic problems and poverty/unemployment add to that the much higher crime rate and the levels of corruption in certain areas of those countries and theres ur explanation of the figures.
    ilw-

    Your post refers to "crime rate", which could be higher, as you say, due to societal circumstances; I was referring specifically to their murder rates.

    Although economic ills always indicate higher crime rates, there is no similarly specific indicator as to murder rate.

    None of this serves to protect even the safest countries, i.e. Switzerland, from the occasional "crazy".

    As to the situation in Switzerland:

    To refine my point, every adult male in Switzerland is, after training, required to keep and maintain a firearm.

    This can be verified here: http://www.asa-training.com/switzerland.html
    "Researchers have already cast much darkness on the subject, and if they continue their investigations, we shall soon know nothing at all about it."

    -Mark Twain

  6. The Drawing Room   -   #6
    Ron's Avatar Poster
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    Well, forbidding people to hold guns, isn't the answer.
    It would only help the criminals to get what they want easier.
    If only cops and criminals would have them, how would normal people defend themselves and their family/property?
    Recently, we've had a few jewelry shop keepers who fired at criminals robbing their store. In two or three cases, they killed one of the robbers. These shopkeepers had a hard time defending themselves in court.
    One of them has to pay the family of the criminal €100.000!!!

    If you were a criminal, and you had a choice to rob a shop of which the owner had a gun, or one were the owner didn't, which one wold you choose?

  7. The Drawing Room   -   #7
    Rat Faced's Avatar Broken
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    j2k4,

    we come again to a "Cultural" thing.

    Ive said before, the USA is a collection of 50 different "Cultures"..and I dont see it as one country.

    Im sure some of the States (and im betting they are the States with the LOWEST number of guns available per capita) pull the average down quite significantly.


    So how about this?

    YOU pick the US State/City with the highest murder rate...and use the Stats from this State (or Culture), instead of watering the figures down...(Guns per capita, population, Murder Rate etc)

    Then ( to give balance) bring up the Stats of the US State (Culture) with the lowest murder rate.

    Lets then compare the two extremes of the USA against Russia and Brazil...lets see if Gun Ownership actually does come into the figures.


    An It Harm None, Do What You Will

  8. The Drawing Room   -   #8
    lynx's Avatar .
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    I notice the 'Switzerland' page proudly quotes gun accidents as less that 2% of the US annual 92000 accidental deaths.
    Less than 1840 deaths.
    Is this something to be proud of ?
    Get rid of the guns and most of those people will still be alive.

    It quotes that gun availability has no apparent effect on suicide rates - well who thought it would - to (mis)quote the NRA - people kill people (themselves), guns don't kill people(themselves).

    It does not make clear that the majority of Swiss held armaments are rifles, not handguns, which are a lot more difficult to conceal and harder to use in confined places.

    If you are going to quote sources, please quote rational unbiased ones.
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    Political correctness is based on the principle that it's possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

  9. The Drawing Room   -   #9
    j2k4's Avatar en(un)lightened
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    Originally posted by Rat Faced@14 July 2003 - 12:03
    j2k4,

    we come again to a "Cultural" thing.

    Ive said before, the USA is a collection of 50 different "Cultures"..and I dont see it as one country.

    Im sure some of the States (and im betting they are the States with the LOWEST number of guns available per capita) pull the average down quite significantly.


    So how about this?

    YOU pick the US State/City with the highest murder rate...and use the Stats from this State (or Culture), instead of watering the figures down...(Guns per capita, population, Murder Rate etc)

    Then ( to give balance) bring up the Stats of the US State (Culture) with the lowest murder rate.

    Lets then compare the two extremes of the USA against Russia and Brazil...lets see if Gun Ownership actually does come into the figures.

    Wow, Rat, you don't want much, do you?

    Let me try this instead, for now:

    New York City's murder rate has fallen continuously for approximately ten years, after having been amongst the national leaders for decades. This trend seems to have begun under a law-and-order mayor, Rudy Guiliani. It continues under democrat-cum-republican Michael Bloomberg. Make sense?
    There has been a mini-cultural enlightenment in NYC over the same period, but nobody is trying to link the two.

    In any case, my point was this:

    Lots of guns+relative wealth=high murder rate in the case of the U.S.

    Fewer guns+relative wealth=low murder rate in the cases of Germany and Britain.

    Fewer guns+relative poverty=high murder rate: Russia, Brazil.

    Lots of guns+relative wealth=low murder rate: Israel, Switzerland.

    When viewed logically, these facts countenance no circumstance which allows a conclusion other than that something apart from the presence of convenient weaponry is responsible for a high or low murder rate.

    Culture weighs in, but how, exactly?

    We need a thread entitled "Why do people kill one another?"

    Your request for a geographical comparison wouldn't yield anything really useful. I fear.

    Off the top of my head, I see two reasons for high murder rates, geographically:

    1) Poverty in asset-stricken areas in close proximity to areas of extreme wealth, i.e., Washington, D.C.

    2) A large illegal immigrant population in areas which function as centers of population for specific non-indigenous peoples, such as Miami (Cubans) or Houston (Mexicans).

    I'm sure I'm missing many pertinent facts, but, as always, work beckens.
    "Researchers have already cast much darkness on the subject, and if they continue their investigations, we shall soon know nothing at all about it."

    -Mark Twain

  10. The Drawing Room   -   #10
    j2k4's Avatar en(un)lightened
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    Originally posted by lynx@14 July 2003 - 12:19
    I notice the 'Switzerland' page proudly quotes gun accidents as less that 2% of the US annual 92000 accidental deaths.
    Less than 1840 deaths.
    Is this something to be proud of ?
    Get rid of the guns and most of those people will still be alive.

    It quotes that gun availability has no apparent effect on suicide rates - well who thought it would - to (mis)quote the NRA - people kill people (themselves), guns don't kill people(themselves).

    It does not make clear that the majority of Swiss held armaments are rifles, not handguns, which are a lot more difficult to conceal and harder to use in confined places.

    If you are going to quote sources, please quote rational unbiased ones.
    lynx-

    I provided the link merely to backstop my point about thw Swiss requirement of an armed male citizenry. If I agreed with the entire content of the page, or sought to use the information contained therein to prove something else I would have cut-and-pasted the entire page.

    While you obviously disagree with the content of the page in question, do you aver it fails for my purposes?

    In the future, I will devote more time to the search for "non-objectionable" web-pages, just for you.
    "Researchers have already cast much darkness on the subject, and if they continue their investigations, we shall soon know nothing at all about it."

    -Mark Twain

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