Slims

Deerwood: You are very wrong, provided two crucial preconditions are met:

1: The people have some means with which to resist, even if those means are humble.

2: The people are so aggrieved by their government that they are willing to support it's armed overthrow.

If the government is more or less acting in the best interests of it's people, successful insurrection is not possible, it will sputter out and die. If that government has turned bad, then no amount of technology can prevent revolt from within if enough people stand and fight.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

dc_dux

According to the DoJ, the figure 1s just over 20 victims per 1,000 persons

1 out of 4? I dont think so/

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

filtherton

This is fantasy. If this was true, no cops would ever be killed by criminals in the line of duty. If I was a mugger, and thought that you had a gun, I might just be more likely to kill you before I made my "I'm finna rob you" intentions clear.

Derwood

it's this mentality that results in over 100X more gun-related homicides in the US than any other Western country

dksuddeth

I'll try to find a link to it. I know it was an FBI crime report that came out in 99 I think, but not positive.
-----Added 9/12/2008 at 06 : 33 : 38-----
you're looking at the wrong stat. i'll find the link and post it.
-----Added 9/12/2008 at 06 : 34 : 19-----
fine. whatever.

__________________
"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."

dc_dux

My first 5 million estimate was a guess.

The FBI uniform crime reports has it an about 1.4 million violent crimes last year.



Violent Crime - Crime in the United States 2007

In any case, it is no where near 1 out of 4 chance of being a victim of a violent crime.

Its more like less than 1 out of 100 chances and it has been for at least 20 years of FBI stats:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_01.html

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Derwood

and many of those crimes happened to the same person, which makes the chances even less

dc_dux

and even w/o arming yourself, you further decrease the odds by being smart (avoiding particular neighborhoods or situations) and being aware.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

dksuddeth

I guess one could avoid crime altogether by never leaving your damn house, right?

__________________
"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."

dc_dux

I have 20+ years of living in Washington DC, leaving my damn house (condo) on a daily basis and never a victim.....smart and aware.

Can it happen...sure. I dont live in fear and I dont feel a need to arm myself.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Derwood

ditto, but I lived 12 years in Chicago. I often had to walk to/from the subway late at night and I was never victim. nor were any of my friends. or anyone I knew. guess we were ALL lucky

KirStang

Mexico has one of the worst crime rates anywhere. Guns are banned there. Go figure.

If one thinks about it, there's an odd correlation (somewhat) between strict gun laws and high crime rates. I live in Baltimore where I hear about mugged people on a daily basis. Yet MD has some of the more restrictive gun laws. Similarly, NJ has one of the strictest gun laws but contains Newark, one of the high crime cities.

In contrast, NH has *extremely* lax gun laws. You rarely hear about egregious crime rates there.

Derwood

note the differences in demographics between NJ and NH

also, many European countries have extremely strict gun control laws and their gun-related homicide rates are 1% of America's

KirStang

I'll concede, the difference in population make-up could account for the difference in crime rates. What about Texas and Mexico? Bordering 'states.' One with lax gun laws and one without. One with high crime rates and the other without...

Just a thought.

shakran

No. To be blunt, I'm not crazy enough to think it would do any good. I'd be dead, and painted as an anti government mountain man lunatic.



That's not an appropriate question at all because it's not germane to the conversation. You know damn well the NRA is not saying "only peopel who know how to fight in small fireteams have the right to a gun."

genuinegirly

I find this thread informative. Just wanted to say a quick thanks for starting it, and another thanks to everyone who has contributed to this compilation of opinions and facts.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Slims

Which ones?

I know Germany's Gun-related homicide rate is about 1/10'th that of the United States, and I believe that to be the lowest in Europe. It certainly isn't 1%. Let's at least keep approximations to the same order of magnitude.


It should be worth noting, that despite the lack of guns in european countries, non-gun related homicides are also a fraction of non gun-related homicides in the united states.

The only European country with a higher non-gun related homicide rate is N Ireland, which also has a higher gun-related homiced rate than the US.

People just aren't mixing it up in Europe the way they do in the United States. It's cultural. Sure, firearms provide an easy instrument for the commission of a crime, but they also allow for easy defense.

Like those determined to commit suicide, if you take away a single method available, most people will simply use whatever is still available to get the job done; but they will get the job done.

Shit, even if you remove all gun-related homicides altogether from the United States Homicide Statistics, we would still have a higher murder rate than most of Europe, and Australia.

Oh, and how do you account for the Swiss, with their love of automatic weapons and a very heavily armed populace? Their murder rate is one of the lowest in Europe, below England, Germany, France, etc.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

Derwood

I shouldn't have used the word "rate", sorry. I meant 1% of the total homicides, which doesn't take into account population differences.

Slims

No worries,

but that's *almost* a tautology. If you take away guns, more crimes will be committed without them. The only salient measure is whether the confiscation of firearms actually reduces crime overall, or just encourages a mugger to use a knife, etc. Most statistics in Europe / Australia indicate increasing violent crime rates even though firearms laws continue to be tightened. Contrariwise, more and more firearms are purchased and put in the hands of private citizens every day in the United States, and our Violent Crime rates are down nearly 50% since 1980 despite the increase in firearms ownership.

Also, as indicated by the Swiss, if America can get rid of it's 'jackass quotient' the homicide rate in this country would be far lower, irrespective of whether firearms are legal. It's fueled by ignorance, the drug trade, and the romanticization of the 'gangster' lifestyle.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

roachboy

the "data" in this thread adduced by the gun fetishists--which is a different category than folk who simply own guns---is so meager that anyone can draw any conclusion they want from it. there is nothing more to be said about it.

i find strict construction to be intellectually bankrupt. what it does functionally is attempt to eliminate the adaptability of the constitutional order that the united states has operated with SOLELY in order to elevate a self-evidently 18th century-bound amendment about guns to the status of the transcendent. this is typically buttressed with a kind of pseudo-historical argumentation that is not even worthy of a mediocre undergraduate. it is shocking that anyone buys this nonsense.

i find the idea that having a gun magically gives you political agency to be even more astonishing.

this far right political worldview has not even caught up with 1848.
the united states truly is the jurassic park of reactionary politics.

unbelievable.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dksuddeth

I'd rather die free on my feet than spend my life on my knees as a slave. call me a fanatic.


I personally don't give a damn if the NRA is asking that or not. I'm the one asking that. why don't these people know how to do this?

__________________
"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."

Baraka_Guru

Wow, it took six whole pages before reaching this level of hyperbole? Is that a new record?

I find all of this fascinating. I don't personally know anyone who owns a gun. Not that I know of, anyway. Oh, wait. I know one person. He uses it for hunting.

Anyway, I always find it amusing, too, that gun fanatics use these statistics like they do...as though gun laws are the only factor in crime.

Back to Obama:
I don't think anyone has anything to worry about. The country will likely always be awash in guns.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

dksuddeth

so are you trying to say that gun laws have no effect on crime? or that guns are the cause of gun crime?

found the report I was looking for and I was off, but it's also older....for 75 to 84. The number was that 5 out of 6 people would be victims of violent crime. My bad. too many things on my mind.

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/104274.pdf

__________________
"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."

KirStang

Baraka_Guru,

Not so much the use of statistics to show that guns are the only factor, but the use of statistics to show that somehow, gun ownership is proportionally related to crime rates is, in and of itself, a fallacy.

If one thinks about it, some European countries may boast lower crime rates--probably true. But then, their population may also be much more homogeneous, right?

Slims

Now that's just insulting. I am not a gun-fetishist, though they are certainly a hobby. By mentioning that the pro-gun people who presented 'data' in this thread are in a different category from mainstream gun owners is an ad hominem attack, of sorts.

Sure, the stats I quoted were 'meager' as they were in response to even more vague statistics about how good life is in countries that don't have guns. I am not a statistician, and I am not trying to womp anybody over the head with my knowledge of numbers. Rather, I pulled some simple, basic stats, and presented those. Sure, they may be off a little, but by and large, most modern countries have a pretty good idea of how many people are murdered in a given year. That you can draw any conclusion from them was exactly my point. I wasn't presenting an argument that more guns=less crime, only that the comparisons to Europe were far less black and white than they were presented.

Strict constructionism is not morally bankrupt. There is nothing in the constructionist view to prevent the constitution from being changed. However, the constitution was deliberately written to make it difficult to amend, requiring more than a passing majority or a short lived sentiment for a particular change. This lethargy was designed to make sure we were really committed before we changed the document our country was founded upon, rather than changing it with every new administration. To simply 'interpret' it differently according to whichever way the wind is blowing is not only morally bankrupt as you accused those like me of being, but intellectually dishonest, and fails to provide a clear, unchanging guidline of right and wrong. The constitution is supremely adaptable, to the point where the people can legally implement a dictatorship or monarchy, with a simple amendment.
That we don't change the constitution more often is due to the fact that most of the time people are nearly evenly divided over issues such as the one discussed in this thread.


Oh, and Roachboy, I will be happy to read anything you can show me that indicates the second amendment was not written with the intent of arming the people. Prefereably articles written by those who took part in writing the constitution and the formation of our republic. I will keep an open mind because maybe I have been swayed by the Gun-fetishists who actually created our government.

I do not elevate the second amendment to the 'status of the transcendent.' I don't believe it is any more or less important than the other Amendmendts in the bill of rights. I am violently opposed to some of the recent attacks which have weakened some of our other rights. However, we are currently discussing the 2'nd, and as such I have not discussed the others.

I welcome a discussion with a mediocre undergraduate, as I used to be one. Please tell him to be gentle as I am sure his powers of observation will be all the sharper as he is in college and thus knows everything. Again, why insult those you disagree with?

As far as all the 'arguments' presented, I can sum it up like this: Like it or not the constitution refers to 'the people' several times, and in each of those cases (including the 2'nd amendment now) the supreme court has ruled 'the people' refers to *gasp* the people, and that when the authors of the constitution wanted to refer to a different group, they were perfectly capable of articulating it. For instance, when they refer to congress, they say "congress." So when a "pro-gun fetishist who magically believes owning a gun gives him political agency" such as myself opens a book and reads the constitution, it seems quite clear that the second Amendment simply enumerates the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The purpose for which was because it was necessary to maintain an armed populace for the Militia due to fears about the federal government mainting a large standing army. If you don't like it, try to change it, but dont' try to wave your magic wand and reinvent the english language.

Oh, and furthermore, nobody on this forum has suggested that owning a firearm suddenly makes you *somebody* and that you will all of a sudden be able to get things done. It doesn't.

Have enough intellectual honesty to either present your own argument, critique someone elses, or read politely. Simply denegrating those who have challenged a particular point of view is not a very classy move.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

Baraka_Guru

No. I'm referring to what roachboy hinted at: The use of statistics can draw any sort of conclusion you want if you know how to use them. Do you know how hard it would be to accurately demonstrate the effect gun ownership/laws have on crime? If it were easy, there would be little room for debate.

Statistics can benefit both sides of the issue. You can show me where gun laws have had detrimental effects on crime rates, but I could show you stats demonstrating that over half of women killed by guns were murdered by an intimate partner. Where does stat-flinging get us here?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

The_Dunedan

It is, however, the only move he has. The sort of snide, condescending, holier-than-thou-and-smarter-than-God attitude you're referring to is why I no longer debate with RB. One can only see one's argument transmogrified into an unrecognizable strawman and called "incoherant" so many times before the brick wall starts to hurt the head. I suggest you don't try arguing with RB, Slims: if he dislikes your arguement he'll simply label it "incoherant" as if he's some Final Authority, or simply express dismay and disbelief that anyone -still- thinks that way.

He'd be amusing if I didn't know that people just like him have the engines of Force at their disposal, and the ability to turn their irrationality, prejudice, and poor impulse-control into a mass grave.

filtherton

I just want to say that the idea that anyone could honestly believe that people like roachboy have at their fingertips "engines of force" is funny. I think your conception of roachboy is "incoherent" to say the least. And that assertion is completely distinct from any discussion of gun control.

Plan9

Dude, nobody is attempting to understand you. Except for the gentlemen in the "delivery van" outside your house with all the surveillance equipment.

I have a safe full of firearms that haven't done much except kill paper. Are they supposed to be doing something else? Do tell.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

genuinegirly

This thread was delightful. Please stop picking on one another.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Plan9

I concur. People comprise the independent variable. Crime is crime: it is only the tools that change. The United States is "the most gosh-darn violent country in the universe" because of its citizens and social issues, not the type of tools available with which to bludgeon and blast each other.

...

Didn't I read somewhere that the FBI actually has a task force assigned to crimes committed with blunt instruments like baseball bats?

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

ASU2003

I support my right to have a gun. It's all the other people that are crazy. I think the right is a little too fearful of what the left will do. They usually have good intentions, but I don't see the second amendment (as it is currently interpreted) going anywhere.

Even if John McCain had won, I would still be thinking about getting a gun. Not so much to defend my home, but my job might make me check on things if the alarm goes off at night. I would be too scared to go into that situation without some type of protection. It could be a mouse, a bunch of kids messing around, a drug-crazed meth head, or a foreign intelligence agent. I'll need to have something to make me feel better going into a dark building with an alarm going off.

Willravel

I can block a baseball bat. I can't block a bullet. I'll take idiot psychos with bludgeoning weapons any day.

samcol

Very well put. I was getting frustrated with formulating a similar response. Then I refreshed the thread and saw this.

__________________
It's time for the president to hand over his nobel peace prize.

scout

This is a pretty informative video. I'm sure it will be dismissed as "intellectually bankrupt" but nevertheless it does highlight some of the silliness of the "assault weapons ban". I posted this because soon reenacting the Clinton "assualt weapons ban" will be the "common sense approach" to gun control. Funny how this argument never materialized during the election process but as soon as Hussein Obama is elected every gun banner in the lower 48 us jumping on the band wagon once again. It's beginning to feel like 1994 all over again.

Plan9

Can you block a "magic wand?" j/k

...

Will, the point here is that (violent) crimes will occur with or without firearms. Sure, firearms are far more effective than baseball bats (doesn't your leg agree?) but when you remove legally-purchased, citizen-owned firearms from the equation, you still have XXXk guns out there that with which criminals will use against those who're "doing the right thing" by Johnny "Change-It-Up" Lawman.

It is physically impossible to remove guns from the United States. Why heavily restrict or seize them from law-abiding people like Crompsin? I'm a responsible gun owner... and as the bumper sticker goes, "My guns have killed less people than Ted Kennedy's car."

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

dc_dux

Re: the OP...which has gotten lost in the discussion.
Is it reasonable to conclude that Obama's voting record is not as "anti-gun" as they come...unless you choose to ignore his stated reasons for voting against particular bills but believe the NRA misrepresentation of his votes?

Is it reasonable to conclude that Obama's position on gun control is not extreme, but rather in line with the majority of Americans?

The general measures he supports like a background check at gun shows and child safety devices are supported by 2 out of 3 Americans.

He supports stiffer prosecution of gun crimes.

And yes, he supports the AWB...and so does a significant the majority of Americans. Harris poll - 71% support, Annenberg poll - 68% support (including 57% gun owners), Consumer Federation of America poll - 67% support (including 56% gun owners).

Public Attitudes Toward Gun Control

SO please, tell me again how Obama's position is extreme or out of the mainstream and not just NRA generated "fear" rhetoric?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

roachboy

well well.

these gun threads make me impatient.
they are always more or less the same thread.
sometimes that impatience gets the better of me.

i stand by the claim about the "data" that's being tossed about here, as almost inevitably happens when the topic of guns comes up, sooner or later.

all i'll add is that multiple possibilities exist for arguing against gun control: that they in themselves (and this is the important part--in themselves) guarantee the possibility of revolt against the state is goofy---even in the arguments from the militia types, guns function as signifiers that are given a political content by the *other* claims that enframe them. the arguments make an analogy between the activities of contemporary rightwing paramilitary sporting clubs and the 18th century militia. from there, a second analogy follows--between the federal government in the 21st century us and the mid-18th century british colonial government. from there unfolds a discourse graft--the contemporary state taxes without representation, the contemporary state is tyranny---these are the political arguments--that you have guns is therefore not the center of your politics--you frame your gun ownership politically by acting as though you can invoke the american revolution, and as if by doing that you generate a coherent radical politics in 2008. i dont think most of the far right folk here even recognize the way their own arguments operate. i just point it out.


the strict construction position is about what i said is was about. what the far right wants to do by way of this position is not only to elevate gun ownership to a transcendent right by disabling the capacity of the constitutional system to modify itself, they want to change the nature of the entire american legal system. thing is that there are already more rigid constitutional systems around and have been for a very logn time. one thing these have in common is constitutional crises. why? because of the rigidity of the order spelled out in them in general.

morality has nothing to do with the above. it's a simple matter of fact that whatever you think of the american system, the capitalist system that the americans have developed, the legal system itself has proven to be remarkably stable BECAUSE it allows for coherent change. the right wants to eliminate that. i think that's goofy. an the rationale, in the end, really is that by reducing the margin for self-alteration, 18th centry gun rights, the conception of which is written into the 2nd amendement (which was written before there was a standing army, before there were standing police forces, etc.)...

all this follows from the fact that i simply oppose the politics of the militia movement, broadly understood.
=======

later: this brings me back around to the op, strangely enough.

what this panic--if that it is---driven by the nra appears to be about really is solidifying a sense of boundary separating its conservative constituency from everyone else. stoking the paranoid fires by linking hyberbolic claims about what obama's administration might do relative to gun control to the conservative canards from a month or so ago about obama as "socialist" has most to do with maintaining this sense of separateness and little at all to do with the world. by that i mean that there is no particular description of what obama might do--there is a voting record, which is interpreted in a tendentious manner (look it up)...there are the Panic Button nouns from the campaign (redbaiting naturally)....so the alienated members of the far right nra are now arming themselves even more.


but if you look at the composition of obama's administration as it has been announced so far, it's pretty obvious that the governing will happen from the center. policy may be more left-oriented or not--the neoliberal legacy is that neoliberalism has to be set on fire and everyone, right left center, knows it---but the centrist governance will place a brake on this--assuming it happens---which we don't yet know.

and the nra doesn't know either.

i could understand maybe this kind of nonsense happening in response to an active policy--but absent ANYTHING from the administration WHICH ISNT IN POWER YET, the nra's fear-mongering is strange.

unless you see it in the terms outlined above. then it makes some sense--it can be a good or a bad tactic, but it definitely is one.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dksuddeth

And maybe when you come back to say more, RB, you could try speaking plain english. I'm actually pretty disappointed that you think by using combinations of big and important sounding words while claiming that those who believe the polar opposite of what you do make you sound like you know what you're talking about more than anyone else. It almost makes me want to put you on ignore because you make so little sense.

__________________
"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."

roachboy

o get off it, dk.

if you can make coherent counter arguments, then do it.
if you can't then don't.
it is not important to me either way.

but the ball's in your court.

that plain enough?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite