Charlatan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Xell101

Quote:

Yes. People kill people. But why make it easier for them?[/qouote] Criminals wont have legally obtained weapons.

That is besides the point... more guns in the marketplace means just that... more guns.

I'd love to see some stats on home invasions. How many occur while people are at home compared to when they are away. Where in the coutry do they occur? etc.

My dog/alarm system is loud and my phone is by the bed and I'd rather let them steal my stuff than have a shoot out in my house.



I can see the thrill and the challenge BUT if getting rid of handguns is going to make it safer (assuming for the moment that it will) I think we can forego the hunting with handguns.

Why is it that in other parts of the world guns just aren't deemed as neccessary to "personal safety"? You only need to "equalize the ability of people to kill each other" when there is a gun culture to start with... I honestly just don't understand America and Americans when it comes to this issue.

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Megacheese

I'd give up my right to own a gun if and only if I could be assured that the criminal element, or better yet, no one else outside of military and law enforcement would have a gun either. The biggest detracting argument I find against gun control is the hardship in prohibiting illegal gun ownership.

People under 21 aren't supposed get alcohol, but they do.

Marijuana and other drugs are illegal, people obviously get those

So if we make handguns illegal why do some people think it will get rid of handgun violence? Granted it may make it a bit harder, but even so then criminals will still have weapons, so what does that give me? Kung Fu and and a ten minute police response window?

No thank you

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Zeld2.0

I think many many people would agree with that statement. And that seems to be the general concensus here.

But there are still some stubborn enough to think they need one no matter what *sigh*.


Anyways I can't see guns going son because Americans are too stubborn to change things of old. A gun may never be used by a family but its only there because their entire family is supposed to have one for "family protection" and maybe one day that would be an outdated term.

sportsrule101

zeld 2.0 the only way we will ever have "family protection", if we remove the criminal element. IF you have a way to do this please tell someone asap. Hitler took guns away from his citizens, America had its beginning in an armed society, and hopefully it always will be. Unless you like big brother goverment to do everything for you.

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Lebell

Charlatan,

I haven't found any statistics on home invasions, but I did find these newspaper excerpts for the month of April, 2003:

I'll also repeat that the Second Ammendment was not written for "hunters", but so that the people would not be disarmed in the event of a tyranical state, so the notion of "the police and the military" only having guns is exactly what the Second Ammendment is designed to avoid.

BTW, it would be helpful if you put "Canada" in your profile, just so people don't have to guess.

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Zeld2.0

Well other coutnries have very few deaths (like England like 100-1000 a year, other european nations less than 500 for sure, some even less than 100) due to guns.

Thats mainly because the criminals don't have the guns and neither do the populace. It works for them.

America - too many guns are out there already. And honestly the argument of "military and police" having guns and making a police state all depends on the gov't's thinking.

If we elect a sane man it wouldn't happen.

Besides, honestly, would YOU shoot at police/military if there was a police state or martial law or whatever you want it to be?

Most "right" people wouldn't anyways despite having guns so thats somewhat irrelevant.

Guns for defense are only useful if the guy owning the gun is responsible and knows how to use it. And its responsiblity that really matters. Leaving it in an unlocked locker is hardly responsible when there are kids around.

Oh and I'd like to mention that those cases you listed - there are many more where the gunfire exchange leads to the guy trying to defend. There are many many grocery store / liquor store robberies where the owner tries to get a gun and ends up dying. Home invasions as well where they challenge there are man yas well.

You only hear about the heroes - but many more probably get injured, and sometimes its the kids getting hurt which is even worse imo.

Hell thats even why police repeatedly say "just wait for the police and don't try to fight" because there are so many incidents where people try and they end up the victims.

Of course all of this would be irrelevent if criminals didn't have guns and people didnt' as well. to get to that point though some type of measure has to be done in the beginning to stop providing criminals with it - which imo is much more important.

archer2371

All I've got to say is that, the founding fathers thought that I should have the right to own a gun, and I thank them. Teaching people how to use a gun and respect a gun would bring down gun related crimes, because by teaching respect of a gun, people will realize the killing power it has and will only use it in self defense or in sport. I mean, criminals will continue to try to get a weapon to use it against innocent citizens. I for one say, leave my second amendment alone.

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Charlatan

I am aware that the Second Ammendment was written for that purpose. I've always found that facinating. While it is an amazing bit of counter balance right in the constitution it is highly unworkable in this day and age. Do you honestly thing an uprising by the people wouldn't be squashed by the far superior fire power of the US military? Besides there are MUCH better political counter balances that can be used to oust a tyranical state (election 2004 perhaps... j/k... sort of).


As for the reported cases of people fighting off intruders... yes. A gun was handy at that moment.

Is there a direct relation to the number of gun related "incidents" to the number of guns available?

If there were fewer guns total would there less gun violence?

Why is America so apparently "obsessed" with guns when other countries are not?



By the way, I'm Canadian. How long have I been posting here?

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reconmike

The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, 04/10/03
Tyrone McKnight, a Charlotte, N.C., man with a record of some 30 offenses committed over eight years, picked the wrong target for what would be his last crime. McKnight broke into an East Charlotte apartment about 2:30 a.m. Resident Jerene Haron O’Neal, awake and armed, pointed a gun at McKnight and fired at least three times, according to Charlottte-Mecklenberg police. McKnight was taken to a local hospital where he later died.


This story is great.
It doesnt look like Tyrone will be robbing anyone anytime soon.
I do not see anywhere where the police detered this break-in.

Maybe Jerene could have asked Tyrone nicely to leave his house,
but what do you think the outcome of that would have been?

I see it as one less lowlife that the public has to pay to babysit in prison.

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debaser

They also have a far higher rate of violent crime than we have here in the US (mugging, home invasion, assault, etc). Look at Switzerland. They have an average of two guns in every home (50% of which are the scary and evil assault rifle), yet they have the lowest murder rate in Europe (after Vatican City). It is not about guns.
I am in the military, and I would be the first to take up arms to defend the constitution, that is the oath I took. If I had to defend it against the government, so be it.
True. That is why, given the fact that guns are abundant in America, we should insist on a mandatory gun safety course in our schools.
Just the opposite really. The media rarely if ever reports the use of a gun in self defense. Mind you, in most cases the gun is never fired, it simply acts as a deterent.

Thats exactly the opposite of what every cop I've ever talked to says (and I am engaged to one).

Quick scenario.

You wake up to the sound of breaking glass. Footsteps creak down the hall towards your bedroom. The average response time for the cops is 5 minutes (a wildly optimistic figure). Your doorknob begins to turn.

Now, would you rather:

A. Have a gun.

or

B. Not have a gun.

Ask any cop and they will tell you, they are there to solve crimes, not prevent them.
"Some type of measure", even though is has been proven not to work?

Check the areas of the country with the highest rates of gun violence, and you will find that they have the most restrictive gun laws.

Like it or not, guns are here to stay, you cannot change that. The only thing you can change is whether the law abiding citizen is allowed the chance to effectively dissuade the criminal who preys upon him.

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smooth

A handful of cases out of a population exceeding 280 million doesn't portray a very accurate picture of gun related incidents.

It seems to me that a more relevant question would be, out of all the people posting in support of handgun ownership, how many have actually been forced to use it in self-defense?

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debaser

It is an enourmous deterent. First, do not assume that the US military would engage citizens acting within their constitutional rights. To do so would be to obey an illegal order, which we are prohibited from doing (regardless who gives it). Second, to know that a huge portion of the population is not only armed, but skilled with their weapons as well, will give any would-be tyrant pause.

Please show me a better counter balance to oust a tyranical regime that is willing to use force against its subjects. Singing Kumbaya isn't gonna cut it...

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debaser

800,000 (the low figure, see my link earlier in the thread) is not a "handful".

And I have used my pistol to defend another, not myself. I did not fire, only brandished, the fact that I had it was deterent enough.

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smooth

First of all, debaser, I was referring to Lebell's post not your figure (albeit less than 1/350th of the population, BTW).

Secondly, thanks for the response. That makes one person--would you elaborate on the circumstances?

edit: the "low" number in your link was actually 108,000 which would place DGU at less than 1/2,593rd of the population. I've already pulled the stats from a crim database on the ratio between DGU and fatal accidents. It was exceedingly high but no one came back with any stats of their own. I can't find the thread anymore which is a shame.

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"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

Lebell

If you are relying on the example of European nations to bolster your arguement, you are in for a disappointment.

In Switzerland, every able bodied man is required by law to do a stint in the army and the army reserves. In addition, they keep their fully automatic weapons in their homes, both during service and after they leave. Is there a crime wave in Switzerland?

No.

According to the Swiss Consulate, there were 66 homicides and attempted homicides in Switzerland in 1998.

Contrast this with England, a country with some of the toughest gun control laws in the world.



The International Crime Victims Survey, based on 34,000 telephone interviews across 17 countries, found that 26 per cent of people - more than one in four - in England and Wales had been victims of crime in 1999. The figure for Scotland was 23 per cent and in Northern Ireland 15 per cent.

(Read the full London Telegraph Article)

These two extremes show that the number of guns available to the populace is NOT the determining factor in the level of gun violence.

In the United States, this is bourne out by the examples of Washington DC, Chicago and Los Angles, all cities that severely restrict gun ownership and all cities with high murder rates.

Saddam Hussein was an elected leader in a democratic society, as was Slobidan Melosavich and Adolph Hitler.

Just because we hope it won't happen, doesn't mean it can't or won't.

Honestly?

If you were one of Hussein's terror police raping my wife or daughter, yes, I would shoot you in a heartbeat.

But honestly, it could never happen in a 'civilized' first world country, right? Say Chekoslovakia? Or Germany?

Finally, something we agree upon.

Statistics do not bear you out.

There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU's annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU's annually.

(Read the FULL ARTICLE)

Further more, homicide rates are as low as they have been since the 1960's:



(Source: US Dept. of Justice)

This inspite of more guns.

As to firearm deaths, there were 30,708 firearm related deaths in 1998 (US pop= 270,248,003). Of these, 17,424 were suicides, 11,798 were homicides, 866 were accidents and 304 were legal killings. (Crunch your own numbers at the Center for Disease Control.)

By this data alone, you can see that overwhelmingly, there are far more defensive uses of guns than deaths, and DGU's dwarf the number of accidental deaths.

Oh yes, the "Call 911 and let the police handle it" strategy.

Did you know that the police are NOT legally obligated to help you when you call 911 or otherwise?

This has been determined by:
-Hartzler v. City of San Jose (1975) 46 Cal.App.3d 6, 120 Cal.Rptr. 5
-Davidson v. City of Westminister (1982) 32 Cal.3d 197, 185 Cal.Rptr. 252
-Westbrooks v. State (1985) 173 Cal.App.3d 1203, 219 Cal.Rtr. 674
-Ne Casek v. City of Los Angeles (1965) 233 Cal.App.2d 131, 43 Cal.Rptr. 294
-Susman v. City of Los Angeles, et al (1969) 269 Cal.App.2d 803, 75 Cal.Rptr. 240
-Antique Arts Corp. v. City of Torrence (1974) 39 Cal.App.3d 588, 114 Cal.Rptr. 332

Note that all these cited cases are from California, but I can dig up others as well. (I just wanted the California cases since you hail from LA and expect LA's finest to protect you )

Anyway, please feel free to read the summary of these cases HERE.

I reject this arguement as I did before by saying that with the invention and ease of availabilty of the gun, a weak person no longer must feel helpless against a stronger person.

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Lebell

Sorry, had to throw this one in too.

(You get all sorts of amazing results when you GOOGLE for england gun crime )


--------------------------------------------
(original article HERE)

Gun Control’s Twisted Outcome

Restricting firearms has helped make England more crime-ridden than the U.S.

By Joyce Lee Malcolm

On a June evening two years ago, Dan Rather made many stiff British upper lips quiver by reporting that England had a crime problem and that, apart from murder, "theirs is worse than ours." The response was swift and sharp. "Have a Nice Daydream," The Mirror, a London daily, shot back, reporting: "Britain reacted with fury and disbelief last night to claims by American newsmen that crime and violence are worse here than in the US." But sandwiched between the article’s battery of official denials -- "totally misleading," "a huge over-simplification," "astounding and outrageous" -- and a compilation of lurid crimes from "the wild west culture on the other side of the Atlantic where every other car is carrying a gun," The Mirror conceded that the CBS anchorman was correct. Except for murder and rape, it admitted, "Britain has overtaken the US for all major crimes."

In the two years since Dan Rather was so roundly rebuked, violence in England has gotten markedly worse. Over the course of a few days in the summer of 2001, gun-toting men burst into an English court and freed two defendants; a shooting outside a London nightclub left five women and three men wounded; and two men were machine-gunned to death in a residential neighborhood of north London. And on New Year’s Day this year a 19-year-old girl walking on a main street in east London was shot in the head by a thief who wanted her mobile phone. London police are now looking to New York City police for advice.

None of this was supposed to happen in the country whose stringent gun laws and 1997 ban on handguns have been hailed as the "gold standard" of gun control. For the better part of a century, British governments have pursued a strategy for domestic safety that a 1992 Economist article characterized as requiring "a restraint on personal liberty that seems, in most civilised countries, essential to the happiness of others," a policy the magazine found at odds with "America’s Vigilante Values." The safety of English people has been staked on the thesis that fewer private guns means less crime. The government believes that any weapons in the hands of men and women, however law-abiding, pose a danger, and that disarming them lessens the chance that criminals will get or use weapons.

The results -- the toughest firearm restrictions of any democracy -- are credited by the world’s gun control advocates with producing a low rate of violent crime. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell reflected this conventional wisdom when, in a 1988 speech to the American Bar Association, he attributed England’s low rates of violent crime to the fact that "private ownership of guns is strictly controlled."

In reality, the English approach has not re-duced violent crime. Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist them. Imitating this model would be a public safety disaster for the United States.

The illusion that the English government had protected its citizens by disarming them seemed credible because few realized the country had an astonishingly low level of armed crime even before guns were restricted. A government study for the years 1890-92, for example, found only three handgun homicides, an average of one a year, in a population of 30 million. In 1904 there were only four armed robberies in London, then the largest city in the world. A hundred years and many gun laws later, the BBC reported that England’s firearms restrictions "seem to have had little impact in the criminal underworld." Guns are virtually outlawed, and, as the old slogan predicted, only outlaws have guns. Worse, they are increasingly ready to use them.

Nearly five centuries of growing civility ended in 1954. Violent crime has been climbing ever since. Last December, London’s Evening Standard reported that armed crime, with banned handguns the weapon of choice, was "rocketing." In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.

Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England’s inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England’s rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America’s, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world’s crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

This sea change in English crime followed a sea change in government policies. Gun regulations have been part of a more general disarmament based on the proposition that people don’t need to protect themselves because society will protect them. It also will protect their neighbors: Police advise those who witness a crime to "walk on by" and let the professionals handle it.

This is a reversal of centuries of common law that not only permitted but expected individuals to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors when other help was not available. It was a legal tradition passed on to Americans. Personal security was ranked first among an individual’s rights by William Blackstone, the great 18th-century exponent of the common law. It was a right, he argued, that no government could take away, since no government could protect the individual in his moment of need. A century later Blackstone’s illustrious successor, A.V. Dicey, cautioned, "discourage self-help and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians."

But modern English governments have put public order ahead of the individual’s right to personal safety. First the government clamped down on private possession of guns; then it forbade people to carry any article that might be used for self-defense; finally, the vigor of that self-defense was to be judged by what, in hindsight, seemed "reasonable in the circumstances."

The 1920 Firearms Act was the first serious British restriction on guns. Although crime was low in England in 1920, the government feared massive labor disruption and a Bolshevik revolution. In the circumstances, permitting the people to remain armed must have seemed an unnecessary risk. And so the new policy of disarming the public began. The Firearms Act required a would-be gun owner to obtain a certificate from the local chief of police, who was charged with determining whether the applicant had a good reason for possessing a weapon and was fit to do so. All very sensible. Parliament was assured that the intention was to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and other dangerous persons. Yet from the start the law’s enforcement was far more restrictive, and Home Office instructions to police -- classified until 1989 -- periodically narrowed the criteria.

At first police were instructed that it would be a good reason to have a revolver if a person "lives in a solitary house, where protection against thieves and burglars is essential, or has been exposed to definite threats to life on account of his performance of some public duty." By 1937 police were to discourage applications to possess firearms for house or personal protection. In 1964 they were told "it should hardly ever be necessary to anyone to possess a firearm for the protection of his house or person" and that "this principle should hold good even in the case of banks and firms who desire to protect valuables or large quantities of money."

In 1969 police were informed "it should never be necessary for anyone to possess a firearm for the protection of his house or person." These changes were made without public knowledge or debate. Their enforcement has consumed hundreds of thousands of police hours. Finally, in 1997 handguns were banned. Proposed exemptions for handicapped shooters and the British Olympic team were rejected.

Even more sweeping was the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act, which made it illegal to carry in a public place any article "made, adapted, or intended" for an offensive purpose "without lawful authority or excuse." Carrying something to protect yourself was branded antisocial. Any item carried for possible defense automatically became an offensive weapon. Police were given extensive power to stop and search everyone. Individuals found with offensive items were guilty until proven innocent.

During the debate over the Prevention of Crime Act in the House of Commons, a member from Northern Ireland told his colleagues of a woman employed by Parliament who had to cross a lonely heath on her route home and had armed herself with a knitting needle. A month earlier, she had driven off a youth who tried to snatch her handbag by jabbing him "on a tender part of his body." Was it to be an offense to carry a knitting needle? The attorney general assured the M.P. that the woman might be found to have a reasonable excuse but added that the public should be discouraged "from going about with offensive weapons in their pockets; it is the duty of society to protect them."

Another M.P. pointed out that while "society ought to undertake the defense of its members, nevertheless one has to remember that there are many places where society cannot get, or cannot get there in time. On those occasions a man has to defend himself and those whom he is escorting. It is not very much consolation that society will come forward a great deal later, pick up the bits, and punish the violent offender."

In the House of Lords, Lord Saltoun argued: "The object of a weapon was to assist weakness to cope with strength and it is this ability that the bill was framed to destroy. I do not think any government has the right, though they may very well have the power, to deprive people for whom they are responsible of the right to defend themselves." But he added: "Unless there is not only a right but also a fundamental willingness amongst the people to defend themselves, no police force, however large, can do it."

That willingness was further undermined by a broad revision of criminal law in 1967 that altered the legal standard for self-defense. Now everything turns on what seems to be "reasonable" force against an assailant, considered after the fact. As Glanville Williams notes in his Textbook of Criminal Law, that requirement is "now stated in such mitigated terms as to cast doubt on whether it [self-defense] still forms part of the law."

The original common law standard was similar to what still prevails in the U.S. Americans are free to carry articles for their protection, and in 33 states law-abiding citizens may carry concealed guns. Americans may defend themselves with deadly force if they believe that an attacker is about to kill or seriously injure them, or to prevent a violent crime. Our courts are mindful that, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, "detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an upraised knife."

But English courts have interpreted the 1953 act strictly and zealously. Among articles found illegally carried with offensive intentions are a sandbag, a pickaxe handle, a stone, and a drum of pepper. "Any article is capable of being an offensive weapon," concede the authors of Smith and Hogan Criminal Law, a popular legal text, although they add that if the article is unlikely to cause an injury the onus of proving intent to do so would be "very heavy."

The 1967 act has not been helpful to those obliged to defend themselves either. Granville Williams points out: "For some reason that is not clear, the courts occasionally seem to regard the scandal of the killing of a robber as of greater moment than the safety of the robber’s victim in respect of his person and property."

A sampling of cases illustrates the impact of these measures:

• In 1973 a young man running on a road at night was stopped by the police and found to be carrying a length of steel, a cycle chain, and a metal clock weight. He explained that a gang of youths had been after him. At his hearing it was found he had been threatened and had previously notified the police. The justices agreed he had a valid reason to carry the weapons. Indeed, 16 days later he was attacked and beaten so badly he was hospitalized. But the prosecutor appealed the ruling, and the appellate judges insisted that carrying a weapon must be related to an imminent and immediate threat. They sent the case back to the lower court with directions to convict.

• In 1987 two men assaulted Eric Butler, a 56-year-old British Petroleum executive, in a London subway car, trying to strangle him and smashing his head against the door. No one came to his aid. He later testified, "My air supply was being cut off, my eyes became blurred, and I feared for my life." In desperation he unsheathed an ornamental sword blade in his walking stick and slashed at one of his attackers, stabbing the man in the stomach. The assailants were charged with wounding. Butler was tried and convicted of carrying an offensive weapon.

• In 1994 an English homeowner, armed with a toy gun, managed to detain two burglars who had broken into his house while he called the police. When the officers arrived, they arrested the homeowner for using an imitation gun to threaten or intimidate. In a similar incident the following year, when an elderly woman fired a toy cap pistol to drive off a group of youths who were threatening her, she was arrested for putting someone in fear. Now the police are pressing Parliament to make imitation guns illegal.

• In 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and has been granted £5,000 of legal assistance to sue Martin.

The failure of English policy to produce a safer society is clear, but what of British jibes about "America’s vigilante values" and our much higher murder rate?

Historically, America has had a high homicide rate and England a low one. In a comparison of New York and London over a 200-year period, during most of which both populations had unrestricted access to firearms, historian Eric Monkkonen found New York’s homicide rate consistently about five times London’s. Monkkonen pointed out that even without guns, "the United States would still be out of step, just as it has been for two hundred years."

Legal historian Richard Maxwell Brown has argued that Americans have more homicides because English law insists an individual should retreat when attacked, whereas Americans believe they have the right to stand their ground and kill in self-defense. Americans do have more latitude to protect themselves, in keeping with traditional common law standards, but that would have had less significance before England’s more restrictive policy was established in 1967.

The murder rates of the U.S. and U.K. are also affected by differences in the way each counts homicides. The FBI asks police to list every homicide as murder, even if the case isn’t subsequently prosecuted or proceeds on a lesser charge, making the U.S. numbers as high as possible. By contrast, the English police "massage down" the homicide statistics, tracking each case through the courts and removing it if it is reduced to a lesser charge or determined to be an accident or self-defense, making the English numbers as low as possible.

The London-based Office of Health Economics, after a careful international study, found that while "one reason often given for the high numbers of murders and manslaughters in the United States is the easy availability of firearms...the strong correlation with racial and socio-economic variables suggests that the underlying determinants of the homicide rate are related to particular cultural factors."

Cultural differences and more-permissive legal standards notwithstanding, the English rate of violent crime has been soaring since 1991. Over the same period, America’s has been falling dramatically. In 1999 The Boston Globe reported that the American murder rate, which had fluctuated by about 20 percent between 1974 and 1991, was "in startling free-fall." We have had nine consecutive years of sharply declining violent crime. As a result the English and American murder rates are converging. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and the latest study puts it at 3.5 times.

Preliminary figures for the U.S. this year show an increase, although of less than 1 percent, in the overall number of violent crimes, with homicide increases in certain cities, which criminologists attribute to gang violence, the poor economy, and the release from prison of many offenders. Yet Americans still enjoy a substantially lower rate of violent crime than England, without the "restraint on personal liberty" English governments have seen as necessary. Rather than permit individuals more scope to defend themselves, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government plans to combat crime by extending those "restraints on personal liberty": removing the prohibition against double jeopardy so people can be tried twice for the same crime, making hearsay evidence admissible in court, and letting jurors know of a suspect’s previous crimes.

This is a cautionary tale. America’s founders, like their English forebears, regarded personal security as first of the three primary rights of mankind. That was the main reason for including a right for individuals to be armed in the U.S. Constitution. Not everyone needs to avail himself or herself of that right. It is a dangerous right. But leaving personal protection to the police is also dangerous.

The English government has effectively abolished the right of Englishmen, confirmed in their 1689 Bill of Rights, to "have arms for their defence," insisting upon a monopoly of force it can succeed in imposing only on law-abiding citizens. It has come perilously close to depriving its people of the ability to protect themselves at all, and the result is a more, not less, dangerous society. Despite the English tendency to decry America’s "vigilante values," English policy makers would do well to consider a return to these crucial common law values, which stood them so well in the past.



Joyce Lee Malcolm, a professor of history at Bentley College and a senior adviser to the MIT Security Studies Program, is the author of Guns and Violence: The English Experience, published in May by Harvard University Press.

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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sportsrule101

Most excellent Lebell.
I will have to save this link for future reference

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Kadath

Well, that's one way to choke a thread to death.
I was reading a book with vivid descriptions of a break-in/attempted kidnapping of an infant and an attempted rape, both of which were resolved firmly and effectively by force of firearms. I admit that it is almost certainly comforting in the night to think of the shotgun in the closet or the handgun in the nightstand as deterrents against the crime in the world outside, and I'll not comment on the statistics one way or the other. I think that owning a gun is giving in to the fear, joining the base element of humanity that uses violence as a standard solution rather than a last resort. Those of you who swear by guns can call me unrealistic, but I hope you never see the need to use your gun on another human, and I suspect we'll both sleep better having made the choices we have.

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it's quiet in here

Lebell

Sorry.

No worries, tho.

I give it a month, maybe two, when this thread is long buried, before someone starts a new gun control thread and starts repeating all the same misconceptions without any facts to back them up.

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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seretogis

Using a firearm against an intruder should always, of course, be a last resort and I think is seen as so by most responsible gun owners. I'm interested in hearing how you would deal with someone that breaks into your house with the intent of raping your wife and stealing her jewelery after stabbing her to death. Talk him out of it, like two rational adults?

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Kadath

When I said I hope you never have to use your gun against another human, I meant it, not just for the other human being, but for you, too. Did you read my post at all, or just kneejerk at the sight of my name? The passages in the book I mentioned certainly demonstrated the exegencies of using a gun to solve an otherwise intractable problem. I'm sick of fucking arguing about gun control. You are happier having made your choice about guns, and I about mine. So are you really fucking interested in hearing how I would talk him down, or do you just want to see my wife raped and then stabbed to death?

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it's quiet in here

debaser

I hope for the exact same thing. If I go to my grave never having to fire my weapon at another human being (in civilian life, that is), I will be a happy man.

Nobody wants to use a gun, but some of us retain the option, knowing that it is sometimes an ugly neccesity.

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archer2371

I hope I never have to use a gun against a person either, it's a horrible thing to think about, but if it's a choice between me or my family and him, it's gonna be him that's gonna pay the price. I will take the step of calling the police first, but if someone who is invading my house and pulls a gun on me or my family, his ass is gettin shot. I mean if you ban guns it won't bring down violent crime no more than Prohibition brought drunkeness down, what people will want, they will always obtain. I mean, we've banned drugs and more and more people are using drugs everyday (not that I condone the legalizing of drugs) I'm just pointing out that banning things will not prevent the use of said things.

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"Hey Grif, Chupathingy...how bout that? I like it...got a ring to it."

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Phaenx

Very nice Lebell. It looks like you've had practice debating in this particular topic of discussion. I believed that it wasn't guns that were responsible for crime before, but it's good to have the facts.

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"I went shopping last night at like 1am. The place was empty and this old woman just making polite conversation said to me, 'where is everyone??' I replied, 'In bed, same place you and I should be!' Took me ten minutes to figure out why she gave me a dirty look." --Some guy

jamesy

I am Canadian, we have had gun control for many years. Hand Guns require special permit to own, you also have to have a specal permit to move one from your house to the range. The new gun control system in canada is good, there is only one small part of it that doesn't work(the gun ownership database). The idea behind most of the gun control law is to make sure that everyone that owns a gun know how to treat that weapon at all times, while hunting, while target shoot or while storing. I own many different hunting rifes/shotguns. I don't want a gun under my bed for protection or hidden downstairs in a drawer. I want the all lock up in a safe, with trigger locks on each gun and the ammo stored some where else. I want to be safe not only from the bad guys but from the good guys as well.

thedrake

No American needs an automatic weapon they are made for killing not protecting.

Xell101

So because one does the same thing only faster, it is a tool for killing not protecting? Are you opposed to using hollow tips?

cj2112

As an American, that lives in a rural area that sometimes goes without 24 hour police patrols, and when there are officers on duty the nearest one can be as far as 30 min. away, I view it as my responsibility to my family to protect them. For their sake thank God that I do. The following anecdote illustrates my point.

As I lay in bed sleeping one night, I awoke to a strange noise outsider my bedroom window. As I looked outside I was startled to find a figure, dressed in dark clothing attempting to break into my home. I quickly phoned 911 and informed them of the situation, put on a pair of sweats, grabbed and loaded my single shot 12 ga. shotgun, threw a couple extra rounds in my pocket and proceeded outside in order to confront this person, What I found when I came around the corner of my home was a person under the influence of methamphetamines, fiending for his next fix and willing to do whatever it took to get it. By this time he had given up on my window and had moved to my children's window. I ordered him to the ground and held him there for what seemed like an eternity (probably 20 - 30 minutes) while waiting for the police to show up. As the police searched him, they found on him a large bowie style knife, I cannot say that he would have used that knife on myself or my children, but I can say he wasn't given the opportunity. I realize that this anecdote (and yes it is true) is the exception to the rule, however I am very grateful that i had the foresight to act in a responsible manner and took steps to be able to protect my family, before I needed to.

Btw I hunt deer w/ a .357 magnum revolver (that's a handgun) so don't try to tell me it's ridiculous to think that people hunt w/ a handgun.




*edited to fix the ever-present typo's*

Kadath

Here is a situation where I'll buy the need for a gun; namely, where police presence is not assured. This is more akin to the circumstances under which the second amendment was conceived.

Priceless.

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seretogis

Don't try to make my choice for me, and we have a deal. If you seriously think that you can talk a druggie with a knife out of injuring you or your family, pleasant dreams. People who don't like guns shouldn't own them, as they probably will misuse them if forced into a situation such as the one I suggested above.

I asked a simple question, there's no need to jump to ridiculous conclusions. If you, oh benevolent one, have absolutely no need to ever defend yourself against anyone with the use of violence, I am really interested in finding out how you would do so. If your stance is just an idealistic one, then I sincerely hope you are never in a life-threatening situation which requires a violent method of self-defense.

Newsflash. Police presence/protection is not assured anywhere. Response times are generally horrible, as are police-to-citizen ratios. As has been stated many times, police do not generally stop crime, they investigate it after the fact.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

ctembreull

I tend to take a strict interpretation of the Second Amendment.

I actually know that one by heart. Yay me. Anyway, I believe the militia clause is in there for a reason. See, we do have a formalized militia in this country; it's called the National Guard. I really think that if someone wants to own a weapon, then they should serve a term in the National Guard or in the armed forces.

Now, I'm also in favor of strong registration and weapon tracking, trigger locks, and stiffer penalties for gun offenders, as well as criminalizing failure to keep a gun safely. But barring that, I say go ahead - anything short of an assault weapon, you can have it, given that you've served the purpose the Framers of the Constitution intended.

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Mac
"If it's nae Scottish, it's crap!

seretogis

Well, the Supreme Court disagrees with you.

From an earlier post of mine: "..the Supreme Court decided that "a well regulated militia" was essentially comprised of "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense,'' who, ''when called for service . . . were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.'' This would suggest that any argument that "well regulated militia means state police!" is false."

A "well regulated militia" is NOT the National Guard. The National Guard is officially a branch of the military.

How does gun registration help prevent crimes? It doesn't. Many criminals simply file off the serial numbers from guns they repeatedly use in crime anyhow, and it's already illegal to do so.

Trigger locks are good. Forcing people to use them is bad.

As for criminalizing "failure to keep a gun safely", I don't think there is a need for this. Negligence laws already would cover this if someone was directly at fault for an accidental shooting.

Lastly, "assault weapon" is a seemingly arbitrary determination. Is a .22 cal that looks like an AK-47 an "assault rifle"? An "assault rifle" in the hands of a law abiding citizen will be just as safe as a BB gun.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

ctembreull

You would be astonished to realize how many times I have disagreed with the Supreme Court. It may have something to do with the fact that it's highly conservatively tilted, but then, that's not always been the case.



We could argue that point back and forth all day long. To keep it short, I strongly disagree on the principle, if not the organizational status, of the National Guard. That said, then we should turn to the regulation clause, indicating that the militia - taken in your argument to mean any American citizen who owns a gun and is capable of defending his country - should be closely regulated. This dovetails nicely into your next point:

Mostly because registration efforts have, to this point, been spotty and insufficient. I'm personally quite interested in the ballistic profiling of weapons. I also think there's a way out there somewhere to trace back any bullet fired to a specific gun, or at least to a small subset of guns which would at least aid in the solving of gun crimes. Registration is not a magic bullet, but it sure as hell can't hurt.

In some cases; any home lacking another means to keep children from getting to a gun kept in that home should require them.

Unfortunately, that's a strawman argument. Negligence laws have been specifically hamstrung to avoid dealing with cases of gun negligence. Stronger anti-gun-negligence laws are needed. Full stop.

As far as assault weapon, I personally define this as any weapon capable of carrying more than twelve rounds at any time, firing in full-automatic mode (already illegal), any weapon capable of firing a round heavier than .45 caliber, or any military-grade ammunition (e.g. jacketed rounds, teflon rounds, tracer, etc.). Mind, there are weapons that defy categorization, those need to be dealt with individually. But this usually works for me as a good basic definition.

I don't think guns should be eliminated (though sometimes I think they never, ever should have been permitted outside of the military). But I do think that they should be more tightly controlled, and that commission of gun crimes should carry the stiffest penalties possible under our legal system.

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Mac
"If it's nae Scottish, it's crap!

seretogis

So conservative that they overturned sodomy laws? By the way, the clarification of the second amendment was done in 1939 I believe, I have absolutely no idea of the make-up of the Supreme Court back then.

I would interpret "well regulated" as meaning that those able-bodied Americans able to defend their country should be trained in the usage of said firearm and how to defend themselves with it. This is the case somewhat in Minnesota, where you have to acquire a "purchase permit" in order to buy a handgun. Getting a "purchase permit" requires that you take a firearm safety course, much like the course that you take to get a firearm safety certificate (which is required for any hunting license). I'm not entirely sure what the purchase permit course entails, as my firearm carry permit also serves as a purchase permit so I had no need for a separate purchase permit.

Aaaanyhow, I am very in favor of educating people on how to use a firearm, and teaching children how incredibly scary and bad that guns are to dissuade them from playing russian roulette with daddy's revolver. I would oppose any sort of national gun registration, as it is really a first step to disarmament. Ask Germany.

Criminals do not register their guns. As for "well, it sure as hell can't hurt", wasting time on something which hasn't worked in the past is indeed harmful. It's energy, time, resources that could have been used eficiently elsewhere.

In my home, I learned how dangerous that guns were at a very young age (5 or 6) and knew to stay the hell away from them if I happened to see one laying around. I learned this because I had parents who did their job and cared more for their childrens' safety than the cost of gas. The secret is proper parenting, not mandatory trigger locks. Wouldn't a careless parent neglect to put a trigger-lock on their gun anyhow? How would putting one more law on the books at all prevent gun accidents in the home?

Are law-abiding citizens less capable of using a firearm with a 13 round clip than a 12 round clip? I have fired a full auto before (a pre-ban Uzi) and it really isn't difficult to handle. I still have the silhouette target and iirc there were a lot of holes in the kill-zone.

Even if you thought that guns should be eliminated, it simply is not possible. All that a full-out disarmament would do is take guns from law-abiding citizens and provide a slew of easy victims for the already-armed criminals.

I absolutely agree with you here. Using a gun in the commission of a crime should cause the punishment to be much more severe. Robbing a bank with a paper bag is not nearly as much of a threat to life as robbing a bank with a gun.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Kadath

I'm surprised you finally got around to answering.
I didn't make your choice for you. You are the NRA. *huggles*
Yes, you're right. Asking me how I would defend my wife from being raped and murdered isn't at all an incredibly negative and horrible way to argue gun freedom. "Oh benevolent one" comment noted.
The presence of police is intended to deter crime as well as investigate it after the fact. And news flash, it does. But let's not fucking argue any more. You like your guns, and that you can have them. I like not having resorted to guns. We both hope we are never in life-threatening circumstances, whether we have guns or not. That's called "goodwill toward your fellow man." I consider this topic between us closed, barring a dramatic change in either's ethos.

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debaser

But your personal definition is completely irrelevant (as well as arbitrary). Why twelve rounds instead of eleven or thirteen? Define "heavier than .45 calibur", are we talking bullet weight, TRW, speed? Jacketed rounds are now off limits? Every rifle round is jacketed (except .22), and 90% of pistol rounds are too. Some modern pistols cannot fire a non-jacketed round. You just defined my single shot target pistol as an assault weapon. I think that you have actually just defined how ignorant you are about guns in general, no offense. Perhaps you should become more versed in the subject, and reconsider your "definition".

BTW an assault weapon is:

A semi-automatic rifle, capable of accepting a detachable magazine, which incorporates two or more of the following features:

1. A pistol grip which protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon. Pointless: the pistol grip provides no increase in functionality or accuracy over a straight stock

2. A bayonet lug.Pointless: number of bayonet murders in the US = Zero

3. A flash suppressor, or threaded barrel capable of accepting a flash suppressor.Pointless: Flash suppressors are notoriously inneffective, and any criminal not wanting to be seen will just aquire a pre-ban gun.

4. A grenade launcher.Pointless: Already considered a Class 3 weapon under NFA34. Number used in crimes in the US = Zero

5. A collapsable or folding stock.Pointless: The weapon still needs to conform to overall length reulations when folded or collapsed, this has just led to manufacturors making smaller, more concealable (all the time) weapons.

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Xell101

Putting some metal in/through a guy will sure do a lot to stop a him. If he is in my home with far less than hospitable actions on his mind, I'd like to be able to stop him if the police do not arrive in time to do it for me. That is how I see guns used for defense in the home.

seretogis

Gun control legislation, and supporting it, is essentially an attempt of making the decision for me that "guns are unnecessary" and "you, common citizen, are unable to safely operate a firearm". In fact, quite the opposite is true. I haven't shot myself in the foot yet ~

Complete lack of attempt to back up the idea that a non-violent response to a violent crime in progress will in any way be effective, noted. I don't see why I should try to think up a positive happy-joy hypothetical when one isn't at all practical in the situation of self-defense. Guns are rarely seen around pink bunnies and smiling flowers, and so are not a happy or positive thing to have to resort to using.

Police presence is only effective if it is visible. Having 1 police officer to every 3,000 citizens (or worse) is not what I would call a deterrant.

I'm glad that you see this topic as closed, but as long as you are in favor of taking a law-abiding citizens guns away, we will have something to discuss. The huggles in my title is for you.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Trilidon

Ok, so your wife is dead, daughter is pregnant by the rapist, you've locked yourself in the closet while screaming out " your a bad man please stop" You have no idea what the guy looked like, and your neighbors didnt hear or see anything. Guess what, the police will investigate it, but the chances of them finding the guy are slim at best.

But ya wanna know what? You would probably try and kill the guy with a hair brush, a knife, a plunger anything you could get your hands on if anyone tried that to someone in your family, at least I hope you would.

I know I know " omg you're evil " stfu rapists, thieves, and murderers dont go around giving chocolate and roses to people of course your going to talk about a bad scenario.

The police deter crime, yes. But they cant stop it all.
Thats like saying customs deters illegal immigration. Hey guess what? It still happens.

Ralvek

The bedrock of most arguments against guncontrol is the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. What these people fail to do is read the entire amendment which states that we have the right to keep militias of armed men. Well don't we have this? I think it's called the National Guard, so do we need every yahoo and his grandma armed to the teeth?

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