rdx-fx
...
+955|6561
To keep the discussion of firearms politics out of the "own a gun? Post your Arsenal here" thread


US 2nd Amendment wrote:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Macbeth
Banned
+2,444|5555

Preemptive "the U.S. doesn't have a firearm problem" post:

In the year 2000 there was 70,000 firearm injuries in the U.S. 20,000 of those were accidental. In the same year there was 31,000 firearm related deaths. 18,000 of those were suicides. 12,000 were homicides. In the year 2000, the U.S. population was 280,500,000.

So in the year 2000, roughly 100,000 people were negatively affected by firearms. That comes out to about 0.03% of the U.S. population. Removing suicides the percentage comes out to 0.02%. Total deaths is about 0.006%. There are 270,000,000 guns privately owned in the U.S. Violent crime in the U.S. has continued to drop every year since the 90's. There are less and less gun crimes every year.

In summation, gun deaths and injuries are statistically insignificant.

Last edited by Macbeth (2012-07-11 18:36:46)

A2TG2
Hazbeen
+67|4494|at your six
The Second Amendment is design to prevent tyranny.
It isn't about home defense. It is about the ability to rise up and kill tyrants.

That being said, ' they ' don't give a rip about our guns. They will simply turn off the power and in three weeks you will be on your knees begging for the dictatorship they dream about.
KEN-JENNINGS
I am all that is MOD!
+2,973|6602|949

Macbeth wrote:

Preemptive "the U.S. doesn't have a firearm problem" post:

In the year 2000 there was 70,000 firearm injuries in the U.S. 20,000 of those were accidental. In the same year there was 31,000 firearm related deaths. 18,000 of those were suicides. 12,000 were homicides. In the year 2000, the U.S. population was 280,500,000.

So in the year 2000, roughly 100,000 people were negatively affected by firearms. That comes out to about 0.03% of the U.S. population. Removing suicides the percentage comes out to 0.02%. Total deaths is about 0.006%. There are 270,000,000 guns privately owned in the U.S. Violent crime in the U.S. has continued to drop every year since the 90's. There are less and less gun crimes every year.

In summation, gun deaths and injuries are statistically insignificant.
what about violent crime where guns were used?

statistically insignificant is great.  That's still 31K dead.
Ty
Mass Media Casualty
+2,398|6744|Noizyland

I don't see why someone can't be for guns and for proper gun control.
[Blinking eyes thing]
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/tzyon
A2TG2
Hazbeen
+67|4494|at your six

Ty wrote:

I don't see why someone can't be for guns and for proper gun control.
I am. Exporting guns to a foreign country for political purpose is or should be highly illegal.
RAIMIUS
You with the face!
+244|6684|US
I'm against violent criminals and those who are legally a danger to themselves or society having guns.  A right should only be denied after one's actions prove they are incapable of exercising it without harming others.
Doctor Strangelove
Real Battlefield Veterinarian.
+1,758|6438

A2TG2 wrote:

The Second Amendment is design to prevent tyranny.
It isn't about home defense. It is about the ability to rise up and kill tyrants.

That being said, ' they ' don't give a rip about our guns. They will simply turn off the power and in three weeks you will be on your knees begging for the dictatorship they dream about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_sedition_acts


Yeah the writers of the constitution didn't give a shit about rights, they just threw the bill of rights in to placate people. Second Amendment in particular was made because they didn't want to spend money on a standing army.
Jaekus
I'm the matchstick that you'll never lose
+957|5148|Sydney

RAIMIUS wrote:

I'm against violent criminals and those who are legally a danger to themselves or society having guns.  A right should only be denied after one's actions prove they are incapable of exercising it without harming others.
You mean around the time they get arrested and go to prison?
BVC
Member
+325|6665
One flaw in the anti-gun crowd's argument is that they often assume all gun deaths would be prevented by restricting guns.  They don't account for people who would use other methods to commit murder/suicide if guns weren't available (eg. stabbing, self-asphyxiation etc)

Also, I would assume the intent of the wording "a well regulated militia" is to ensure some sort of enduring balance of power between state & citizen/militia, rather than restricting the citizen/militia's power to some fixed (and eventually irrelevent) level.  If the eternal prevention of tyranny is desired, the balance of power must be maintained.
A2TG2
Hazbeen
+67|4494|at your six

Doctor Strangelove wrote:

A2TG2 wrote:

The Second Amendment is design to prevent tyranny.
It isn't about home defense. It is about the ability to rise up and kill tyrants.

That being said, ' they ' don't give a rip about our guns. They will simply turn off the power and in three weeks you will be on your knees begging for the dictatorship they dream about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_sedition_acts


Yeah the writers of the constitution didn't give a shit about rights, they just threw the bill of rights in to placate people. Second Amendment in particular was made because they didn't want to spend money on a standing army.
They didn't um...actually have the power or authority to fund or organize a standing army until 1787.
I believe what Thomas Jefferson said, not what wikipedia says.
Stingray24
Proud member of the vast right-wing conspiracy
+1,060|6415|The Land of Scott Walker

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

Preemptive "the U.S. doesn't have a firearm problem" post:

In the year 2000 there was 70,000 firearm injuries in the U.S. 20,000 of those were accidental. In the same year there was 31,000 firearm related deaths. 18,000 of those were suicides. 12,000 were homicides. In the year 2000, the U.S. population was 280,500,000.

So in the year 2000, roughly 100,000 people were negatively affected by firearms. That comes out to about 0.03% of the U.S. population. Removing suicides the percentage comes out to 0.02%. Total deaths is about 0.006%. There are 270,000,000 guns privately owned in the U.S. Violent crime in the U.S. has continued to drop every year since the 90's. There are less and less gun crimes every year.

In summation, gun deaths and injuries are statistically insignificant.
what about violent crime where guns were used?

statistically insignificant is great.  That's still 31K dead.
12K right?  Counting suicides is rather silly.
Jaekus
I'm the matchstick that you'll never lose
+957|5148|Sydney
You're saying suicide by guns isn't considered a gun death...

wat
Stingray24
Proud member of the vast right-wing conspiracy
+1,060|6415|The Land of Scott Walker
No, read Macbeth's post.  He removed suicides from the percentage.  This only makes sense because they killed themselves, committing no harm to another person.
KEN-JENNINGS
I am all that is MOD!
+2,973|6602|949

i read his post.  it's still 31K dead.  Maybe you should go back and read my post

by the way i'm FOR guns and FOR gun control.  A lot of people here are as stupid as the fucks in the NRA who think any gun legislation is anti-gun.  It's almost funny how riled up people get.
Ty
Mass Media Casualty
+2,398|6744|Noizyland

On suicide you can use the whole "guns don't kill people, people kill people" and in terms of suicide people chose to kill themselves obviously, but as Eddie Izzard pointed out "I think the gun helps."

Particularly in regard to suicide I would argue. Ever dealt with people contemplating suicide? People make attempts. A number of years ago my own mother had an emotional break-down and among other things cut her wrists open - thankfully poorly. I was actually in the house at the time she suffered this complete melt down. She demanded the keys to my gun cabinet so she could shoot herself. Not a particularly pleasant experience for me. Thankfully this complete meltdown was a one off, she sought treatment and got better. My point is that she didn't have access to a gun and if she did she would no longer be alive.

If she had access to a gun, boom, no more. One admittedly fucking miserable incident turns into a irreparable death instead of just a fucking miserable incident. Thing about guns is that they're very efficient at killing, particularly in the hands of an unbalanced person who happens to at the time want to kill themselves.

So to discount suicides from the statistics because they did themselves in? So no harm was done to someone else? Because they were suicidal, they were a dead body anyway, right? I can't begin to describe how wrong that stance is.
[Blinking eyes thing]
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/tzyon
Jaekus
I'm the matchstick that you'll never lose
+957|5148|Sydney
I've had suicide awareness training and how to deal with a situation where someone is suicidal and iirc there was mention that guns increase the chances of a successfully completed suicide.

Of course there needs to be legislation. Just how is up to individual governments really but some extremists who are against any legislation may as well make the sale of alcohol and tobacco legal at any age and anyone can drive a car without a licence. Legislation is there primarily to put measures in place as a sort of governmental duty of care to protect people. The purpose isn't to take away rights.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
The citizens need small-arms to protect against tyranny:

That might have been the case when British troops had muskets and the citizenry had muskets.
Now the citizens are hopelessly outgunned and don't stand a snowlfakes chance in hell of overthrowing a tyrannical government without outside support and acquiescence of the police and military.
Taking some recent examples, Libya and Syria and Egypt, the Libyans had light machine guns, RPGs and technicals with heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft cannon - they still didn't have a prayer until they got air-support from NATO, heavy artillery and tanks. The Syrian militia likewise are pretty heavily armed but are barely inflicting so much as a gnat-bite. Without the Egyptian military deciding they'd had enough of Mubarak they would have crushed the uprising with ease.

Does 'thuh canstitootion' allow people to have comparable arms to the govt? TOW missiles? Stingers? Multiple Launch Rocket Systems? No? Anyone who thinks the 2nd amendment is anything other than a means to keep the stupid fixated on something irrelevant is a nut.
People who think they and their AR15 with all the plastic doo-dahs in the world stuck to it are going to acheive any more than make a big fat hilarious target for the FBI snipers is delusional.


Its worth having a high murder rate to defend freedom:

See above.
Accepting having a country awash with uncontrolled guns any idot teenager or gang-banger can get hold of with ease and the consequential death rate in order to maintain a delusion is doubly delusional.


But if everyone has a gun then crime will be zero:

Thats what you have now, it doesn't seem to work.


Its OK, we have capital punishment to deal with murderers, that'll fix it and then everyone can have a gun:

See above.


Gun Control is the Mark of the Devil:

No it isnt. Preventing criminals, the mentally unsuitable and children getting hold of lethal weapons is not the work of Satan. People needing licenses, registering their firearms and storing them securely are perfecly reasonable steps which are just not a problem for a normal law-abiding person - they are a problem for people who shouldn't have access to guns - which is how it should be. People have driving licenses and have to register their car, you can argue license/register nothing or everything, guns aren't a special case.
Would it be OK for a citizen to have a right to buy a car, not register it, not insure it and head for the freeway with zero training? If the NRA were funded by the car lobby thats what you'd have. Its beyond idiotic but there you go.
Reasonable gun control, applied in the right areas, would mean more freedom for the law-abiding.


Having said that I don't think its unreasonable for a responsible person to own a weapon, the citizenry of most countries have done so without much problem since before gunpowder was invented  - its just Americans who can't seem to get the hang of it.
Skill-at-arms is both fun and a social duty, although the average gun-nut I've come across isn't interested in skill, being sociable or duty.
If its well regulated so much the better

Even self-defence is reasonable in some situations, in your own home for example. But then if you have a gun for self-defence then so does everyone else, people get drunk and/or old and end up shooting the postman or having their gun stolen by kids because they forget to lock it up when they went to the bingo.
Cruising the streets in an SUV or wandering the subway looking for someone to look at you funny is not reasonable, nor if you don't recognise the person on your neighbour's property.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2012-07-12 03:32:43)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Shocking
sorry you feel that way
+333|5969|...
Sort of relevant for everyone believing that this

2nd amendment wrote:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
actually works

Anti-war Propaganda: Civilizing Weapons
This piece by George Orwell was originally published by the Tribune 19 October 1945 within months after atomic bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan by the only country ever to have used them to kill people and destroy cities, viz., the U.S.A. Orwell had written enough about the latter that had been remarkably stupid, but this particular piece was exceptional for the insights it shared about the world dispensation that lay ahead in the age of atomic weaponry. In addition, it was clear that the groundwork for his novel, Nineteen Eighty-four had been completed by this writing.

George Orwell
You and the Atomic Bomb

Considering how likely we all are to be blown to pieces by it within the next five years, the atomic bomb has not roused so much discussion as might have been expected. The newspapers have published numerous diagrams, not very helpful to the average man, of protons and neutrons doing their stuff, and there has been much reiteration of the useless statement that the bomb ‘ought to be put under international control.’ But curiously little has been said, at any rate in print, about the question that is of most urgent interest to all of us, namely: ‘How difficult are these things to manufacture?’

Such information as we — that is, the big public — possess on this subject has come to us in a rather indirect way, apropos of President Truman's decision not to hand over certain secrets to the USSR. Some months ago, when the bomb was still only a rumour, there was a widespread belief that splitting the atom was merely a problem for the physicists, and that when they had solved it a new and devastating weapon would be within reach of almost everybody. (At any moment, so the rumour went, some lonely lunatic in a laboratory might blow civilisation to smithereens, as easily as touching off a firework.)

Had that been true, the whole trend of history would have been abruptly altered. The distinction between great states and small states would have been wiped out, and the power of the State over the individual would have been greatly weakened. However, it appears from President Truman's remarks, and various comments that have been made on them, that the bomb is fantastically expensive and that its manufacture demands an enormous industrial effort, such as only three or four countries in the world are capable of making. This point is of cardinal importance, because it may mean that the discovery of the atomic bomb, so far from reversing history, will simply intensify the trends which have been apparent for a dozen years past.

It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak.

The great age of democracy and of national self-determination was the age of the musket and the rifle. After the invention of the flintlock, and before the invention of the percussion cap, the musket was a fairly efficient weapon, and at the same time so simple that it could be produced almost anywhere. Its combination of qualities made possible the success of the American and French revolutions, and made a popular insurrection a more serious business than it could be in our own day. After the musket came the breech-loading rifle. This was a comparatively complex thing, but it could still be produced in scores of countries, and it was cheap, easily smuggled and economical of ammunition. Even the most backward nation could always get hold of rifles from one source or another, so that Boers, Bulgars, Abyssinians, Moroccans — even Tibetans — could put up a fight for their independence, sometimes with success. But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised country as against the backward one. There are fewer and fewer foci of power. Already, in 1939, there were only five states capable of waging war on the grand scale, and now there are only three — ultimately, perhaps, only two. This trend has been obvious for years, and was pointed out by a few observers even before 1914. The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weapon — or, to put it more broadly, of a method of fighting — not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant.

From various symptoms one can infer that the Russians do not yet possess the secret of making the atomic bomb; on the other hand, the consensus of opinion seems to be that they will possess it within a few years. So we have before us the prospect of two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds, dividing the world between them. It has been rather hastily assumed that this means bigger and bloodier wars, and perhaps an actual end to the machine civilisation. But suppose — and really this the likeliest development — that the surviving great nations make a tacit agreement never to use the atomic bomb against one another? Suppose they only use it, or the threat of it, against people who are unable to retaliate? In that case we are back where we were before, the only difference being that power is concentrated in still fewer hands and that the outlook for subject peoples and oppressed classes is still more hopeless.

When James Burnham wrote The Managerial Revolution it seemed probable to many Americans that the Germans would win the European end of the war, and it was therefore natural to assume that Germany and not Russia would dominate the Eurasian land mass, while Japan would remain master of East Asia. This was a miscalculation, but it does not affect the main argument. For Burnham's geographical picture of the new world has turned out to be correct. More and more obviously the surface of the earth is being parceled off into three great empires, each self-contained and cut off from contact with the outer world, and each ruled, under one disguise or another, by a self-elected oligarchy. The haggling as to where the frontiers are to be drawn is still going on, and will continue for some years, and the third of the three super-states — East Asia, dominated by China — is still potential rather than actual. But the general drift is unmistakable, and every scientific discovery of recent years has accelerated it.

We were once told that the aeroplane had ‘abolished frontiers’; actually it is only since the aeroplane became a serious weapon that frontiers have become definitely impassable. The radio was once expected to promote international understanding and co-operation; it has turned out to be a means of insulating one nation from another. The atomic bomb may complete the process by robbing the exploited classes and peoples of all power to revolt, and at the same time putting the possessors of the bomb on a basis of military equality. Unable to conquer one another, they are likely to continue ruling the world between them, and it is difficult to see how the balance can be upset except by slow and unpredictable demographic changes.

For forty or fifty years past, Mr. H. G. Wells and others have been warning us that man is in danger of destroying himself with his own weapons, leaving the ants or some other gregarious species to take over. Anyone who has seen the ruined cities of Germany will find this notion at least thinkable. Nevertheless, looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. James Burnham's theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications — that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of ‘cold war’ with its neighbors.

Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralised police state. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a ‘peace that is no peace’.
I'm not a fan of his pessimistic and rather paranoid tone, though the argument holds a lot of truth.
inane little opines
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6745|Moscow, Russia

A2TG2 wrote:

It is about the ability to rise up and kill tyrants.
yeah, yeah.

these

https://www.2dayblog.com/images/2008/january/hellokitty_ar15assault_2.jpg

and these

https://www.sumodawg.com/AR15.jpg

are going to "rise up" and kill "tyrants".

k.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
13rin
Member
+977|6449
Thanks for proving a point.  For those that may not be able to defend themselves as you provided in your pictorial above (a petite pretty thing and an obses man) a gun is the ultimate equalizer.

GG, NEXT!
I stood in line for four hours. They better give me a Wal-Mart gift card, or something.  - Rodney Booker, Job Fair attendee.
eleven bravo
Member
+1,399|5229|foggy bottom
equalizer against a 155 HE round screaming at you from 5 miles away.  real equalizer. 

everyone in Iraq had automatic assault rifles.  really equalized things there.
Tu Stultus Es
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England
Tanks are loud
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
RTHKI
mmmf mmmf mmmf
+1,736|6707|Oxferd Ohire
so are jets
https://i.imgur.com/tMvdWFG.png
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

eleven bravo wrote:

equalizer against a 155 HE round screaming at you from 5 miles away.  real equalizer. 

everyone in Iraq had automatic assault rifles.  really equalized things there.
But how many people with those 155 HE rounds would be willing to fire on their home state?

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