smooth

The answer to your question, from self-report data, is either or both.
A burglar (not robber), is going to enter your house when he's pretty confident you're not home. The NRA sticker is most likely to result in your life being jeopardized, however, since the burglar is on alert that the situation could become lethal. And since he's more desperate, and possibly more used to hurting other people than an average houseowner, we can make an educated guess as to who is going to be more inclined to harm the other if a confrontation does ensue.

...not to mention your sticker just alerted the burglar to a potential stockpile of arms in the residence...

...stockpile of weapons, or birkenstocks? which house would you burglarize?


regarding the stats, they collide for a variety of reasons, but it's not disputed that a large portion of weapons related crime is due to accidents and suicides from guns in the home along with unauthorized access to arms by criminals. now you can try and compare the numbers between crime alleviated and those unfortunate incidents, but the dispute is volume, not an if.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

jorgelito

Ah...my little question was intended for humor but I see it has taken a philosophical bent *chuckle*. There are a host of flaws to my one-liner but I get your point. Still, believe all things being equal, most people take the path of least resistance. looking at the two options, perhaps choosing to rob the birkenstocks would be less work than a potentially armed guy (with itchy trigger finger), assuming your average Joe burglar is unarmed.

Regarding the statistical question, I think it's worth a look. Otherwise this type of debate just sort of goes in circles eh?

For examples, excluding accidents and suicides would be a preliminary step I would think. And differentiating between crimes committed with lawful guns vs unlawful (if they even keep such a statistic) would also be wise. Something like that.... of course looking at stats is only a part of the discussion but a potentially valuable addition.

smooth

Yeah, I realize it was humor intended...but there's some underlying assumptions that were worth exploring in my opinion.

But directly to your points, yeah birkenstocks may be easier to steal (or presumably the person wearing them would be an easier target) but they aren't worth anything on the street. Regardless, your house will be burglarized when the burglar thinks you aren't home and selection would be based on perceived worth of the job rather than danger (since danger is controlled for by your absence).


The problem with going to the statistical data is that its conflicting and a large number of people don't know how to consume it. It's difficult enough to have discussions over statistical findings with people trained in that area, and its not as if academics see this as a settled matter either. Basically what will most likely happen is members here will go round and round over the numbers instead of their ideas, and injecting them into conversations hasn't been very valuable in the past.

And yes, "they" keep stats on crimes committed with lawful guns versus unlawful ones.
Gun control proponents usually get their arguments maligned by gun possession advocates. More often than not, people agree that lawful possession and responsible wielding are doable--even if they don't personally choose to carry. But then something needs to be done to restrict the avenue through which criminals illegally obtain weapons, and that's the gist of the argument for a lot of reasonable people who recognize that criminals are the ones who pose the greatest danger to the general populace when it comes to firearms.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

dksuddeth

in 86, the FOPA (firearm owners protection act) was signed in to law and part of that law was the prohibition of posession, manufacture, or importation of machine guns manufactured after May 1986.
The argument of 'what sane person needs an automatic weapon' CAN be a valid one, but I propose the following...

shadowy street gangs (like MS-13) who come from countries where automatic weapons are easily available bring them across the border in to our country. Now, don't tell me that these would be stopped because we all know how dedicated our federal government is in stopping border crossings.

So, how many illegal automatic weapons are in this country? Couple that with all of the 'reconquistas' who are the militant variety who COULD get an automatic weapon illegally.

With over 20 million illegals, there is no telling how many could suddenly rise up and start 'taking back their country' or some such crap. How many civilians would be killed, by illegal automatics, IF this happens? In sizable numbers, law enforcement would be sorely outmatched and we've all seen how rapidly the feds are to dispatch military units with the L.A. riots and Katrina.

Civilian ownership of automatic weapons would be the ONLY thing to save people and hold off a massacre of unprecedented scale.



Now, some might say that the police will handle it, or the national guard and military are supposed to deal with issues like this, but did that work for the LA riots of 92?


someone tell me the good reason why gun control, which truly only affects those that will abide by the law, is a good idea?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

host

I'm only talking about legalizing small tactical nukes...."packaged" as artillary rounds and tank gun rounds....you can't be too careful.

The above quote box is displayed to make the point that any weapon can be inserted to make the argument that the civilian population neccessarily needs to be armed with anyhting that it can carry....because the threat is so large and unpredictable. Armor piercing rounds, C-4 plastic explosives, anti-tank weapons, and shoulder launched anit-aircraft missles can also be inserted as weapon du jour, in the above quote box.

The problem is that this won't solve anything, it won't lower the risk level, the "legal" weapons will be stolen or wrenched from the hands of the panicked civilian who deems it appropriate to us one of these on the perceived threat.
Why is it that all police are not armed with an Uzi, and H&K, or a B.A.R.?
The military is trained to fire three round bursts. Zealous civilians with too much fear and money and too little training don't need automatic weapons, anymore than they need flamethrowers or hand grenades.

dksuddeth

IF a 'dirty bomb' is used, it won't matter much anymore after that. Nukes can't even be considered an option, not on our own soil. to go with the total arms not infringed argument, if you could afford to build and maintain a nuke, why shouldn't you?

until somewhere between 1934 and 1968, most men of any age knew how to use their weapons. It that particular time period though, a subversive element of this country managed to convince a sizable percentage of the urban population that they didn't need to be responsible for their own protection anymore. That self defense, especially with guns, was a repugnant idea and that we now had policeman who could take care of that responsibility for us. This was a wholly unamerican, and now a complete national security risk, idea. It's not only damn near destroyed us as a nation, but it's turned us from a free society in to something thats just steps away from the statist society that england has.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

dksuddeth

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...home-headlines

If you want an answer to californias crime issue, there it is. Instead of keeping an obviously dangerous felon in jail, he was released AFTER being convicted of possessing a sawed off shotgun. That alone is an NFA violation and should have faced federal charges. And one year? one damn year?

all the screaming for tougher gun control laws is a waste of energy if you're just going to let the bad guys back out on the street.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

smooth

wow, thanks for clearing up California's crime issue. I'll be sure and let everyone know on my floor first thing in the morning...

...we can all go home now, I bet if we had just kept him in jail for the whole four more months he skated without serving, he wouldn't have committed any more crimes.

Of course, maybe you meant we should have kept him in prison for life for possession of a sawed-off shotgun?

The irony is that you post thread after thread about firearms rights, yet call this person an "obviously dangerous felon" due to the fact that he possessed a shotgun in violation of current laws. Where does legitimate flouting of the law begin and end in your mind? Does one have an inherent (god-given, is the word I believe you used in discussion with me earlier) right to possess weapons or only those the state allows him or her to possess?


EDIT:
If you make it to the end of the article, the author provides some objective data:
The first thing you'll notice is that, while pre-releases rose considerably, the percent of people who served their full sentence ALSO increased. Presumably, this indicates that low-risk offenders were released while enabling the jail to house more eggregious offenders who would otherwise have been released early.
*perhaps we can discuss the profile of these various offenders in another thread before making sweeping assertions regarding the "crime" problem in Cali and the US, generally.*

the second chart indicates that in 3.5 years only 16 people committed murder after they were released early. While any murder is a murder too many, the fact that nearly 150,000 inmates were released in that same time indicates that the stories employed to make the point that potential murderers were being released wholesale is not only inaccurate, it's so far from the norm that it's not even on the map (run the numbers on a calculator just to get a sense of how ridiculous it'd be to make conclusions by using early-released murderers as a policy guide).

All of the offenses listed COMBINED only comprise 1% of the inmates released. And only 10% of the total population were re-arrrested at all (for what, we're not privy to in this data set). However, you're arguing, based on this, that a better solution would be to house 90% of the released population (which was never re-arrested) and 99% of the population (which didn't commit a violent crime again)?


The only thing we can conclude policy-wise from this data-set is that if we were to implement the changes you seem to be implying, our jails would EXPLODE! And we wouldn't even obtain a significant reduction in the crimes committed for our troubles and expense.

The other clear point is that roughly 1 out of 100 inmates will reoffend in a violent crime. 1 out of 100,000 will commit a murder. The problem then becomes how we determine which one?

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

host

dksuddeth, I first posted about "Fred" last month....there is a link to get to the column that he wrote about buying a house in Mexico...in the first post on the Living in Mexico thread.....

Anyway....if he's right about where we're headed, in his newest column:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/MultiCulty.shtml ....

(A.) It is abundantly clear why he moved to Mexico.
(B.) We are going to experience a much uglier and violent future in America.
(C.) Your strong advocacy for being well armed is a "no brainer"!

Fred moved to Mexico....I don't think that he is racist...just observant and realistic about the consequences of what he observes. This country is *ucked!

dksuddeth

my two points are

1) To prevent offenders from re-offending, use LONGER sentences, especially for crimes that involve weapons, like a sawed off shotgun

2) The 2A is an inherent right, but it is not without it's limits, just like any other right. If it's abused, you punish the individual and if that individual cannot be trusted with a weapon, you don't let him out of prison.

I'll find a quote from one of the founders and post it later, but it said something to the fact that carrying arms is a right, but those that abuse the right and commit crimes with firearms will face the stocks or the gallows to ensure that they can't do it anymore.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

smooth

dksuddeth,

you're not making much sense to me
Moreno didn't commit a crime WITH a firearm, the ONLY crime Moreno committed was possessing an illegal weapon. then he was released, then he killed someone.

how long should someone get for carrying a weapon the state says is illegal?
1 year? 2 years? 5? what will it take, in your opinion, to prevent such a person from ever committing a crime again? if you can't answer that definatively, what's the purpose of even saying your point #1?

are you seriously going to dig up a quote from someone saying that if you carry some types of weapons you should face the stocks or gallows?

doesn't such a position contradict your earlier arguments that it's socially irresponsible to prohibit people from owning certain weapons?
or do sawed-off shotguns fall within your personal scope of invalid weapons?
and if they do, why can't handguns fall within mine?

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

dksuddeth

actually, he committed a crime as well as possessing an illegal weapon. drug possession, along with an unregistered NFA weapon, should have been grounds to hold him til trial.

The way the current brady law is makes it illegal for a felon to possess a gun. Now, how many felons actually follow that law? I'm guessing that there's a sizable percentage, but the real issue is the felons who don't plan on following the law anyway. That's why I'm of the position that the real determination for gun rights should be 'can this person be trusted in society again?', because if a person is going to commit another crime, a stupid gun law isn't going to stop him. So if the person CAN be trusted in society again, he should get all of his rights back. The soft hearted liberals have reduced these sentence standards which is a partial cause of the high crime in society as it is today.

yes, but only to show that firearm crime wasn't rampant back then because you didn't get a second chance to commit a crime with a gun. you were either imprisoned for life or you were hung/executed.

it does, but only because it has to at this point. Until we can make changes in sentencing and imprisonment standards, there has to be some sort of 'qualifier' to own a gun, not that it works anyway.
sawed off shotguns are a valid weapon, but they are required to be registered with the BATF and a $200 tax payed for each individual weapon, according to the National Firearms Act of 1934

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

smooth

dksuddeth,

You need to reread the article because it appears you are confusing Moreno's second conviction with his first. I mean, this is the article YOU posted; the least you could do is transpose the facts from one website to another correctly when we're discussing it, agreed?

Moreno didn't originally commit a crime WITH a firearm, the ONLY crime Moreno originally committed was possessing an illegal weapon (a sawed-off shotgun). THEN he was released, and while possessing a bag of marijuana, shot Dennard with a "rifle."


The main problem's I'm having with your position are that 1) the state determines what weapons are lawful and/or registerable and 2) the state determines who is fit to carry weapons and who isn't

both of these are unteneble if we hold to your original position that weapon weilding is an inherent right (albeit with responsibilities) and that the main reason for such a right is to protect our inherent liberties.

both of these scenarios would not prevent a tyrannical state from arising.
in the first point, the state would simply round everyone up and seize weapons they felt created a significant threat. I don't see how you would move around that issue. AFAIK, weapons registries are opposed by weapons and privacy rights advocates.

in the second point, the state would simply classify those likely to present opposition as threats to society, effectively nullifying their check against government power. using your standard, how would we have been able to distinguish between you and moreno (pre-crime)? are you of the opinion that I'm inherently more dangerous to society than you even though I've served four years in the state penitentiary...or have I regained your trust to defend our collective and my individual liberties now that I'm completing my doctorate?


none of this is coherent on the theoretical level--wherein you argued that weapons possession and usage is a god-given, inherent right and obligation. at that level, it simply wouldn't matter what the state thinks of your point 1 or 2. in that world, we would allow people to carry and weild weapons as they saw fit and punish them for behaving inappropriately. much like the quote you may or may not eventually dig up (relevence being the key here, whether we operate within a world where we react to crime [founder's quote] rather than proact [preemptive detainment--your position]).

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

dksuddeth

I'll concede on mixing up the two offenses. Thank you for pointing that out to me.

On the weapon registration. It is a federal law (NFA 1934) that shotguns with barrels under 18" in length must be registered with the ATF, owner must pay $200 revenue tax, and the county sheriff needs to approve, in writing, that the weapon can be owned. I don't agree with this law, but there it is.

In California, the state does indeed get to narrow the list of what weapons they will allow their citizens to own and which ones they can't, but this cannot override any federal laws. For example, fed law states that nobody can own a machine gun manufactured AFTER May 1986, so california couldn't negate that law for their state. They can add weapons to the list of restricted or banned weapons, as they have done with their own version of the assault weapons ban.

With regards to inherent rights of keeping and bearing arms (carrying), the 9th circuit court of appeals has effectively handcuffed all citizens in the 9th circuit jurisdiction with the decision that the 2A is ONLY a right of the states to maintain a militia. Until the supreme court gets off of its duff and makes the ruling consistent with congressional findings of historical fact, nothing can be done about this. Just because the courts rule a gun ban or gun control law constitutional, does not mean they are right.

there are very limited avenues of crime prevention. We do not live in 'the minority report', but there are some situations where action can be taken to prevent a greater crime.

"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege."
--- Arkansas Supreme Court, Wilson v. State (1878)
I was mistaken as to who said this but there it is. Don't interpret this too narrowly and construe 'army pistols' with it meaning 'well regulated militia'.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."