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Originally Posted by roachboy
dk:
it seems to me that the person who operates in this thread with a priori assumptions is you. you appear to use this scenario to limit the implication of this legislation. you seem to want to reduce discussion to a switch-the-scenario game.
i simply presented an example of something that i, for better or worse, see happening on a semi-regular basis (usually as i am coming home from somewhere else) and imagined what would happen if that same type of situation unfolded if more people involved were armed
i would imagine that the "collateral damage" would cancel out the profit/loss calculation you present.
do you live in a city?
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Originally Posted by Ace_O_Spades
Do you have any particular experience or reason to back up this statement?
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I used to live in northern dallas. Crime was increasing, especially gun/gang related, at a rate that was unreal. I moved my family to a smaller city because my 13 year old stepson was abducted by two people, one of them with a gun, and driven away out of our neighborhood.
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Originally Posted by roachboy
could you try again to explain to me how the possibility of bullets being sprayed on an even more regular basis than they presently are is supposed to make anyone safer?
particularly in an urban setting.
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will it make the whole nation safe? no. It won't even make the whole city safe. As I stated before, there are some STUPID people out there and there are some people that don't give a damn about your life, but there are others that will take pause when considering to rob, assault, or threaten you if they think you might be armed.
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Originally Posted by roachboy
i can sort of understand how this legislation might be confused with something rational if you live in an rural area, say, with a small police force that may have to travel a considerable distance to get to a problematic situation--but in a city, things go otherwise--in philadelphia, for example, there are lots of cops. they arrive fairly quickly to where they are called to (well...more quickly than would a cop who has to drive 20 miles to get to it would)
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I hear about shootings on a near daily basis here in dallas, half the time there are no suspects, or no suspects in custody.
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Originally Posted by roachboy
say the cops turn up during one of your Law Abiding Citizen vs. EvilDoer situations--how do you imagine the cop would be able to sort out who was who, which gun was the good one, which the bad? would you not expect the cop to feel equally threatened by all the guns?
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This can and has presented issues, so you have to choose, do you hope the cops come fast enough that you aren't killed by the perp, or do you shoot back, hope you survive, and hope for the best outcome. lesser of two evils I say.
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Originally Posted by roachboy
would this not escalate the situation unreasonably, adding more folk who feel threatened into an already volatile mix, increasing the possibilities of death, not just for those involved, but for people standing nearby or walking on the same street somewhere before the bullet's weight causes its trajectory to cease, or someone sitting in a nearby apartment watching tv, just anyone, a man, a woman, a child?
you cannot seriously believe that in such a volatile situation that everyone would be able to muster the concentration required to be sure that no bullets missed their target....i dont care what you assumptions are behind the notion of "responsible gun ownership" or "law abiding citizen"--panic is panic and panic with guns means that innocent people will be wounded or die in greater numbers than they already do--which is already too many, because there are already far too many guns in urban situations.
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No, I'm not suggesting nor am I under the foolish assumption that all legal gun owners are 100% accurate and possess perfect judgement. What i'm looking at is the plain unadulterated truth that your odds of surviving a violent conflict go up considerably if you are able to fight back. Is there a possibility of escalation and harm to innocent bystanders? yes, there is, but I ask you this....If it came down to you, the bad guy, and me living after a gunfight...who are you rooting for?
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Originally Posted by roachboy
i'm sorry but the more i think about this legislation, the less sense it makes to me. it almost seems motivated by a resentment toward those of us who live in urban spaces, based on arguments that in a city seem moot, evaluated on the basis of an everyday experience that has nothing do do with living in a city. it does not seem to have been thought out as a law at all, one that would apply equally in all types of socal space.
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do YOU live in a city?
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Originally Posted by Ace_O_Spades
Because the vast majority of research on the subject (Aggression and the presence of guns) has shown that guns only increase the tension, aggression, and fear in any given situation. Whether the gun is drawn or not, simply visible is enough to often escalate conflict.
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a criminal is going to fight back. they don't want to go to prison or die. This is to be expected. This legislation is not about reducing violence, its about allowing people to defend themselves from those that don't give a damn about the law, or you.
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Originally Posted by Ace_O_Spades
Interestingly enough, this very reason is why police officers in the UK don't carry guns.
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I've also heard that in UK cities, where guns are banned, the number of home invasions has increased tremendously, is this true?