Is it right or wrong to carry a firearm?

[cnorman18]

Is it right or wrong to carry a weapon--specifically, a handgun--as a means of defense for oneself and others?

Self-defense seems to be almost universally accepted as a legitimate and moral use of force. If that is true, what could possibly be wrong with having the means to carry out such defense?

In most states in the US, if one passes the required background and medical history investigations, one may obtain a permit to legally carry a weapon. In every state where this law has been instituted, the rate of violent crime has dropped, sometimes precipitously. It has been observed that such a law benefits even those who do not carry weapons, since criminals are more reluctant to prey on citizens when they cannot know who is armed and who is not.

Also: The number of permit holders convicted of weapon-related crimes has remained statistically insignificant for decades. In spite of predictions of a Wild West atmosphere and frequent gunfire in the checkout lines at Wal-Mart, there have been virtually no instances of shootings over trivial matters--but a very great many instances of crimes stopped or prevented by privately owned and carried guns.

Still, there are some who believe that it is immoral and even uncivilized to own, let alone carry, a firearm. Considering the state of society at present, I personally find that hard to credit.

Opinions?

[cnorman18]

1st arguement: you say that an armed citizen is unlikely to have an effect on a criminal.

Where did I say that? I was speaking of a situation wherein one is actually at gunpoint. There are others, and I have mentioned a few.

sounds like there is no point in having guns.

???

but i don`t think this arguement is teh main one we`re trying to discuss.

That there is a point to having a gun? That's the reason for this thread, and its stated subject.

2nd arguement: you said you couldn`t open pdf files. if you could you could see that the source for these statistics was ``accident analysis ànd prevention``.`it is a journal ``Provides coverage of the general areas relating to accidental injury and damage, including the pre-injury and immediate post-injury phases..`` i don`t know who gary gleck is, but i doubt his neutrality. the canadian gun control lobby (leftist) is using this journal (neutral) to prove their point.

See if you can find a source online that isn't PDF, and I'll take a look. A site named "More Guns, More Crime" is pretty clearly biased, and such sites tend to be selective about the material they cite, even from unbiased sources. Who did the journal?

3rd arguement: you say that mostly irresponsible people are murdered in their homes. i know that there are millions upon millions of people in north america that have statistical alcohol or violence problems. these are teh people who are getting more guns. these are teh people who are dying. they are not bad people, and the fewer deaths they experience the better.

What is your solution? The guns in a crack house are unlikely to have been obtained legally anyway, and tighter restrictions aren't going to help. Besides, good people who live in bad neighborhoods need guns more than suburbanites, not less.

you also do not need to act like you have experience that i lack. i grew up in northern ontario, although go to school in teh city. i have been on hunts and have friends who hunt. my father is also an emergency room physician. i am well aware of many stories of case he recieves and i hear about (through the grapevine) of wounds and deaths due to unintentional gunfire in teh home.

i personally am not against guns. if used in a safe situation, stored securely (theft is a huge source of guns) and fully regulated, sports are a great way of demonstrating skill and honing an art. there are many sports that do not get tv time. i was a national level cross country skiier, but didn`t see a single race aired. is it a forbidden sport...

im sure that if you could open the pdf file (i was unaware you used a blackberry), you would be able to understand the authenticity of teh statistics given. i do not give statistics that are from left or right wing sources, unlike many links in this forum. i``m not trying to look down from my high horse, but i like to argue with sense, reason and even statistics. i especially hate having to resort to personal opinions and experiences, as they ALWAYS present a fractured sample group

I apologize for the rant. I was in a bad mood for other reasons, and I took it out on you. That's not my usual style, and I'm sorry.

I quite agree that we have a problem with gun violence, especially here in the US. But what is the solution? I think we agree that outlawing guns entirely is not a good idea. So what would help?

Guns themselves are already about as tightly controlled as they can reasonably be, in my opinion. Background checks, waiting periods, required training for those who choose to carry, and so on. What's left to do?

Tighter controls on manufacturers' and wholesalers might be a good idea; track the guns from the factory and shut down irresponsible dealers.

Tighter security at ports of entry is a good idea too, but we're having trouble doing that even for bombs. Still, that's essential and it has to be done somehow.

Strict enforcement of laws pertaining to storage would be good. Leaving a gun where a child or an irresponsible adult can get to it ought to win you some time in the slammer. If you aren't actually carrying a gun, whether concealed or on your way to the range or the hunting field or whatever, it ought to be securely locked up.

The use or possession of a gun in a crime or by a felon ought to get enhanced penalties. The NRA has campaigned for that for decades, and those laws are on the books, but such charges are usually plea-bargained away or never brought in the first place. It may be more trouble, but it ought to happen.

There are probably more ideas too, maybe even things that no one has thought of yet. But I don't think preventing good people from owning guns is one of them.

I apologize again for my rant. I'm just tired of seeing a sport--not to mention a basic right--that I love being lied about and demonized (and I don't mean that you were).

By the way, I'm a bit envious. I always wanted to learn to ski, but growing up in central Texas kind of prevented that. Surfing, too. Now I'm too old and fat for either.

[zepper899]

1st arguement: you say that an armed citizen is unlikely to have an effect on a criminal.

Where did I say that? I was speaking of a situation wherein one is actually at gunpoint. There are others, and I have mentioned a few.

sounds like there is no point in having guns.

???

but i don`t think this arguement is teh main one we`re trying to discuss.

That there is a point to having a gun? That's the reason for this thread, and its stated subject.

2nd arguement: you said you couldn`t open pdf files. if you could you could see that the source for these statistics was ``accident analysis ànd prevention``.`it is a journal ``Provides coverage of the general areas relating to accidental injury and damage, including the pre-injury and immediate post-injury phases..`` i don`t know who gary gleck is, but i doubt his neutrality. the canadian gun control lobby (leftist) is using this journal (neutral) to prove their point.

See if you can find a source online that isn't PDF, and I'll take a look. A site named "More Guns, More Crime" is pretty clearly biased, and such sites tend to be selective about the material they cite, even from unbiased sources. Who did the journal?

3rd arguement: you say that mostly irresponsible people are murdered in their homes. i know that there are millions upon millions of people in north america that have statistical alcohol or violence problems. these are teh people who are getting more guns. these are teh people who are dying. they are not bad people, and the fewer deaths they experience the better.

What is your solution? The guns in a crack house are unlikely to have been obtained legally anyway, and tighter restrictions aren't going to help. Besides, good people who live in bad neighborhoods need guns more than suburbanites, not less.

you also do not need to act like you have experience that i lack. i grew up in northern ontario, although go to school in teh city. i have been on hunts and have friends who hunt. my father is also an emergency room physician. i am well aware of many stories of case he recieves and i hear about (through the grapevine) of wounds and deaths due to unintentional gunfire in teh home.

i personally am not against guns. if used in a safe situation, stored securely (theft is a huge source of guns) and fully regulated, sports are a great way of demonstrating skill and honing an art. there are many sports that do not get tv time. i was a national level cross country skiier, but didn`t see a single race aired. is it a forbidden sport...

im sure that if you could open the pdf file (i was unaware you used a blackberry), you would be able to understand the authenticity of teh statistics given. i do not give statistics that are from left or right wing sources, unlike many links in this forum. i``m not trying to look down from my high horse, but i like to argue with sense, reason and even statistics. i especially hate having to resort to personal opinions and experiences, as they ALWAYS present a fractured sample group

I apologize for the rant. I was in a bad mood for other reasons, and I took it out on you. That's not my usual style, and I'm sorry.

I quite agree that we have a problem with gun violence, especially here in the US. But what is the solution? I think we agree that outlawing guns entirely is not a good idea. So what would help?

Guns themselves are already about as tightly controlled as they can reasonably be, in my opinion. Background checks, waiting periods, required training for those who choose to carry, and so on. What's left to do?

Tighter controls on manufacturers' and wholesalers might be a good idea; track the guns from the factory and shut down irresponsible dealers.

Tighter security at ports of entry is a good idea too, but we're having trouble doing that even for bombs. Still, that's essential and it has to be done somehow.

Strict enforcement of laws pertaining to storage would be good. Leaving a gun where a child or an irresponsible adult can get to it ought to win you some time in the slammer. If you aren't actually carrying a gun, whether concealed or on your way to the range or the hunting field or whatever, it ought to be securely locked up.

The use or possession of a gun in a crime or by a felon ought to get enhanced penalties. The NRA has campaigned for that for decades, and those laws are on the books, but such charges are usually plea-bargained away or never brought in the first place. It may be more trouble, but it ought to happen.

There are probably more ideas too, maybe even things that no one has thought of yet. But I don't think preventing good people from owning guns is one of them.

I apologize again for my rant. I'm just tired of seeing a sport--not to mention a basic right--that I love being lied about and demonized (and I don't mean that you were).

By the way, I'm a bit envious. I always wanted to learn to ski, but growing up in central Texas kind of prevented that. Surfing, too. Now I'm too old and fat for either.

i think we have the same opinion in one of your examples. if a criminal has a gun pointed, teh criminal will likely get what he wants. therefore, guns are bad and in situations like this, it would be better if there were no guns. i am not saying guns can be totally seperated from society, but as the source says, the more guns per household, the more deaths. in regards to my source, i agreed it was a leftist source. please don't ignore that. just as an atheist (such as me) often uses scripture to discuss religious elements with theists, a left wing source may use a neutral study to gather statistics legitimatly. note #2: the journal is done by a source that "Provides coverage of the general areas relating to accidental injury and damage, including the pre-injury and immediate post-injury phases." this is from their website.

also, my armchair hypothesis is that you see a huge dichotomy between the yourself and others with a lower income. every person who is poorer does not automatically live in a crackhouse. please don't insult people with a simple 9-5 who don't live in suburbia by saying they are all criminals. your views regarding others seem to be tainted.

i agree with you: i'm not positive what to do. i do know that hand guns have one sole purpose: to kill people. i believe that handguns should be illegal save law enforcement and military. also, according to the government news systmen in canada (CBC) a couple months ago during heated gun control debate, almost 1/2 of illegal guns in canada are stolen from private homes. the rest flood accross teh border (i don't believe we are a major manufacturer of firearms). if there are fewer guns in homes, there would therefore be fewer illegal guns on teh streets. all i'm saying (i'm clearly not against guns totally, just better regulation of longarms for sport), is that the regulation and enforcement systems are slightly outdated with teh current influx of firearms in north america and therefore need update.

ps. as a skier, i cross trained in road cycling during teh summer. i, as well as every one else in teh world, am aware and admiring a certain texan cyclist who retired a while ago.

[cnorman18]

i think we have the same opinion in one of your examples. if a criminal has a gun pointed, teh criminal will likely get what he wants. therefore, guns are bad and in situations like this, it would be better if there were no guns.

I find it peculiar that you are focusing on that one scenario and failing to even acknowledge the others I have mentioned. Are they irrelevant? There is abundant evidence that privately owned guns are used to stop or prevent crimes literally millions of times each year in the US, usually without a shot being fired, as in my own case(s).

It's rather like noting that a drunk or a lunatic could drive a car through a crowded intersection, and then concluding that cars are bad and that it would be better if there were no cars.

i am not saying guns can be totally seperated from society, but as the source says, the more guns per household, the more deaths. in regards to my source, i agreed it was a leftist source. please don't ignore that. just as an atheist (such as me) often uses scripture to discuss religious elements with theists, a left wing source may use a neutral study to gather statistics legitimatly. note #2: the journal is done by a source that "Provides coverage of the general areas relating to accidental injury and damage, including the pre-injury and immediate post-injury phases." this is from their website.

I've tried to find that reference, and I did, but nothing that I can download and see.

As for statistics, you might Google both Gary Kleck and John Lott. Kleck in particular is not rabidly pro-gun, and his research comes down on both sides regarding different matters; but he has documented that guns are used more often to prevent crimes than to commit them. Since those uses most often do not result in a shooting or injury to anyone, they don't show up in the news or in law-enforcement statistics; but they provably do happen, and very frequently.

also, my armchair hypothesis is that you see a huge dichotomy between the yourself and others with a lower income. every person who is poorer does not automatically live in a crackhouse. please don't insult people with a simple 9-5 who don't live in suburbia by saying they are all criminals. your views regarding others seem to be tainted.

That is a falsehood. I myself said that poor people who live in bad neighborhoods need guns more, not less, than suburbanites; and when I spoke of homes where gun accidents and assaults are more frequent, I spoke specifically of homes where drug abuse and crime was present, not the homes of people with lower incomes. I have no reason to think that law-abiding poor people are more irresponsible with guns than other such people, and I indicated as much by implication. Crackhouses and centers of gang activity are where these things primarily take place, and in fact are routine there. Again, a moment's thought will show that to be obviously true. Go to your own sources and check out the proportion of people involved in domestic shootings of whatever type who already have criminal records. For that matter, check out that proportion for criminals arrested and/or convicted of gun crimes of any kind. You know what you will find, and so do I.

i agree with you: i'm not positive what to do. i do know that hand guns have one sole purpose: to kill people.

That simply isn't true. Most of the sports I mentioned in an earlier post involve handguns. Some of those guns are not well-suited for use against people, but against targets only. No one uses a cowboy-style single-action for concealed carry, for instance; they are too big, too slow, and too hard to reload. Single-shot target pistols are another example.

Further, I would submit that not even combat handguns are necessarily for killing people, but for stopping people. And sometimes that is very necessary indeed. Un the Luby's massacre in my home town, wouldn't killing the mass murderer before he could take 23 lives have been preferable to what happened--especially since he ended up dead anyway?

There is an old saying here in Texas in response to what you said about handguns being for killing people: "Sometimes people need killing." Ugly, but also rather obviously true.

i believe that handguns should be illegal save law enforcement and military.

Are those handguns not for killing, then?

Handguns are the best weapons for self-defense by an armed citizen. No one is going to go to the Mall and walk through the parking lot with a longarm, nor should. You are here, again, advocating the disarming of law-abiding and responsible citizens while leaving the criminals armed, since they ignore gun-control laws as well as all the rest (which is why we call them "criminals").

More importantly, I don't trust any government that much, not even my own. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the US, the one guaranteeing freedom of speech and the press, was put into the Bill of Rights to make sure that the government never held a monopoly on information; the Second Amendment, guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms, was put there to prevent a similar monopoly on force. It's always struck me as strange that the very same people who complain about and fear the supposedly "fascist" tendencies of one Administration or another, from Nixon to Bush, want to invest that very government with an unopposed power of arms. This was the clear intent and motivation of the Founders, more important in their reasoning than self-defense or hunting or anything else; and they were right. Every repressive or dictatorial government in modern times got that way, and stayed that way, by disarming its citizens.

Still further, the police and the military may not be there to help when most needed. After Hurricane Katrina struck in New Orleans, there was in most areas no effective police or military presence for weeks. Looting and violence were rampant; many cops fled the city with their families, and there were even reports of police officers engaging in looting themselves. The only protection people had was--well, there was none, except for what they could do for themselves. They were on their own. There were neighborhoods where the people were armed, let it known that they were armed, and banded together to protect their own families and property. Those neighborhoods did not see any significant violence nor looting.

also, according to the government news systmen in canada (CBC) a couple months ago during heated gun control debate, almost 1/2 of illegal guns in canada are stolen from private homes. the rest flood accross teh border (i don't believe we are a major manufacturer of firearms). if there are fewer guns in homes, there would therefore be fewer illegal guns on teh streets. all i'm saying (i'm clearly not against guns totally, just better regulation of longarms for sport), is that the regulation and enforcement systems are slightly outdated with teh current influx of firearms in north america and therefore need update.

What are your suggestions? I have given some. Outlawing handguns is unacceptable for the reasons I've given, and would not, as I've stated repeatedly and you have not disputed, affect criminals at all.

I rather suspect that that figure of "half" was given without source or attribution; such statements are rather common in "heated debate." even so, let's grant that it's true, and let's outlaw private gun ownership entirely. What do you do about the other half? Supply will always meet demand, and the other sources would no doubt merely do a great deal more business.

My position is a very simple one; the problem is not guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, and never has been. The problem is crime. Armed citizens have already proven to be part of the solution to that problem. They are not its source.

That seems to me to be so obviously true that it is all but self-evident, and is in fact borne out by the facts and figures about concealed carry in the 40 states that permit it. Virtually none of those licensees have been charged with, let alone convicted of, gun crimes of any kind. If civilian gun ownership is such a huge source of criminal violence, why aren't more of them behind bars?

And speaking of which, why have you not responded to, or even acknowledged, the statistics, like that one, that I have offered? Like the scenarios I have mentioned (and actually been involved in), you seem to prefer to ignore them.

ps. as a skier, i cross trained in road cycling during teh summer. i, as well as every one else in teh world, am aware and admiring a certain texan cyclist who retired a while ago.

Remarkable fellow, that. If he wasn't obviously real, one would suspect he was a fictional character. He even has a name fit for a movie hero: Lance Armstrong. What could be better?

[zepper899]

i think we have the same opinion in one of your examples. if a criminal has a gun pointed, teh criminal will likely get what he wants. therefore, guns are bad and in situations like this, it would be better if there were no guns.

I find it peculiar that you are focusing on that one scenario and failing to even acknowledge the others I have mentioned. Are they irrelevant? There is abundant evidence that privately owned guns are used to stop or prevent crimes literally millions of times each year in the US, usually without a shot being fired, as in my own case(s).

It's rather like noting that a drunk or a lunatic could drive a car through a crowded intersection, and then concluding that cars are bad and that it would be better if there were no cars.

i did note only one situation, and in a previous point said that this situation is not applicable to the issue at large. you said this WAS the issue, although i prefered to takl about more minute and sensitive scenarios.

i am not saying guns can be totally seperated from society, but as the source says, the more guns per household, the more deaths. in regards to my source, i agreed it was a leftist source. please don't ignore that. just as an atheist (such as me) often uses scripture to discuss religious elements with theists, a left wing source may use a neutral study to gather statistics legitimatly. note #2: the journal is done by a source that "Provides coverage of the general areas relating to accidental injury and damage, including the pre-injury and immediate post-injury phases." this is from their website.

I've tried to find that reference, and I did, but nothing that I can download and see.

As for statistics, you might Google both Gary Kleck and John Lott. Kleck in particular is not rabidly pro-gun, and his research comes down on both sides regarding different matters; but he has documented that guns are used more often to prevent crimes than to commit them. Since those uses most often do not result in a shooting or injury to anyone, they don't show up in the news or in law-enforcement statistics; but they provably do happen, and very frequently.

i did google gary kleck, your most liberal source. he documented that guns are used more often in self defense then criminal matters. but, on the other hand, he apparently has come under scrutiny for his sample sizes and other issues. david, hemenway, for example, has criticized kleck for this issues. he has published a study affirming that, "Even after excluding many reported firearm victimizations, far more survey respondents report having been threatened or intimidated with a gun than having used a gun to protect themselves. A majority of the reported self defense gun uses were rated as probably illegal by a majority of judges. This was so even under the assumption that the respondent had a permit to own and carry the gun, and that the respondent had described the event honestly. CONCLUSIONS: Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self defense. Most self reported self defense gun uses may well be illegal and against the interests of society." this is cut directly from the article abstract in teh US national library of medicine.

also, my armchair hypothesis is that you see a huge dichotomy between the yourself and others with a lower income. every person who is poorer does not automatically live in a crackhouse. please don't insult people with a simple 9-5 who don't live in suburbia by saying they are all criminals. your views regarding others seem to be tainted.

That is a falsehood. I myself said that poor people who live in bad neighborhoods need guns more, not less, than suburbanites; and when I spoke of homes where gun accidents and assaults are more frequent, I spoke specifically of homes where drug abuse and crime was present, not the homes of people with lower incomes. I have no reason to think that law-abiding poor people are more irresponsible with guns than other such people, and I indicated as much by implication. Crackhouses and centers of gang activity are where these things primarily take place, and in fact are routine there. Again, a moment's thought will show that to be obviously true. Go to your own sources and check out the proportion of people involved in domestic shootings of whatever type who already have criminal records. For that matter, check out that proportion for criminals arrested and/or convicted of gun crimes of any kind. You know what you will find, and so do I

my comment from a previous post is as follows: 3rd arguement: you say that mostly irresponsible people are murdered in their homes. i know that there are millions upon millions of people in north america that have statistical alcohol or violence problems. these are teh people who are getting more guns. these are teh people who are dying. they are not bad people, and the fewer deaths they experience the better.

these people will be getting guns if they are more accepted by society. just because somebodies an alcoholic doesn't mean they are criminals. this is what i'm trying to say. i'm sure, to give a personal example, you know or have known somebody who has beaten their wife or become an alcoholic.

you say:

Yes, but other studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of those deaths take place in homes where there are not only guns, but also drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and/or other kinds of criminal or irresponsible activity.

there are many good people who fall into this bracket. they don't have to live in a crack house to fit these examples. this is the dichotomy i perceived. i'm sorry i misjudged you. i don't think these people will keep a handgun if it is illegal and well enforced. perhaps i see too much good in people. damn optimism

i agree with you: i'm not positive what to do. i do know that hand guns have one sole purpose: to kill people.

That simply isn't true. Most of the sports I mentioned in an earlier post involve handguns. Some of those guns are not well-suited for use against people, but against targets only. No one uses a cowboy-style single-action for concealed carry, for instance; they are too big, too slow, and too hard to reload. Single-shot target pistols are another example.

can these sports not be done with longarms? it is still the same sport, and still just as fun.

Further, I would submit that not even combat handguns are necessarily for killing people, but for stopping people. And sometimes that is very necessary indeed. On the Luby's massacre in my home town, wouldn't killing the mass murderer before he could take 23 lives have been preferable to what happened--especially since he ended up dead anyway?

i believe that if handguns were illegal, mass murders would be harder to achieve. if somebody is walking around with a longarm, im sure police would get called. if a person has a longarm, its probably drawn, and based on your previous comments, a victim would be unlikely to draw in time to return fire.
albeit, some people would commit robberies with longarms, and people would die. but your reasoning draws many out many other arguments. although it seems obvious at first to provide everyone with guns to deal with this situation, actions which is proactive is still very much frowned upon by mainstream society. for example, another situation: since you say you would readily kill one to save 25, is this true for peaceful situations? imagine you had 25 people who required organs. they would die with out receiving them. if it was possible to get all the organs from one person, would you kill somebody to get them and save the patients.
does society view proactive killings to save the righteous as permissible. present this situation to others and find out.
i don't want to seem like a person happy to idly stand by and watch people die, but im sure hastyness is not always the best option. perhaps these criminals weren't going to kill everybody. this is not a common occurence. i have never in my life heard of a robbery go so wrong, usually the vast, VAST, majority of hostages survive.

There is an old saying here in Texas in response to what you said about handguns being for killing people: "Sometimes people need killing." Ugly, but also rather obviously true.

i don't think people need killing, perhaps rehabilitation. but again, i'm finding the good in everybody. some people are quite screwed up, and i don't mind in teh least if they go to jail.

i believe that handguns should be illegal save law enforcement and military.

Are those handguns not for killing, then?

they are, in teh hands of secure individuals who are VERY unlikely to release them to the public. (they may also be used for intimidation)

Handguns are the best weapons for self-defense by an armed citizen. No one is going to go to the Mall and walk through the parking lot with a longarm, nor should. You are here, again, advocating the disarming of law-abiding and responsible citizens while leaving the criminals armed, since they ignore gun-control laws as well as all the rest (which is why we call them "criminals").

if handguns were strongly banned, production halted and shipments destroyed, it would be very hard even for criminals to get handguns. ignoring the law would not be an option

More importantly, I don't trust any government that much, not even my own. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the US, the one guaranteeing freedom of speech and the press, was put into the Bill of Rights to make sure that the government never held a monopoly on information; the Second Amendment, guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms, was put there to prevent a similar monopoly on force. It's always struck me as strange that the very same people who complain about and fear the supposedly "fascist" tendencies of one Administration or another, from Nixon to Bush, want to invest that very government with an unopposed power of arms. This was the clear intent and motivation of the Founders, more important in their reasoning than self-defense or hunting or anything else; and they were right. Every repressive or dictatorial government in modern times got that way, and stayed that way, by disarming its citizens.

if im not mistaken, do some people suggest that the second ammendment deals with militia. these are not people packing heat at the mall, they have guns securly locked away in the case that some uprising occurs and the military are to remote to deal with it. and by saying that disarmed citizens are the start of a repressive government is silly. please remember you're talking to a canadian who can attest the opposite.

Still further, the police and the military may not be there to help when most needed. After Hurricane Katrina struck in New Orleans, there was in most areas no effective police or military presence for weeks. Looting and violence were rampant; many cops fled the city with their families, and there were even reports of police officers engaging in looting themselves. The only protection people had was--well, there was none, except for what they could do for themselves. They were on their own. There were neighborhoods where the people were armed, let it known that they were armed, and banded together to protect their own families and property. Those neighborhoods did not see any significant violence nor looting.

a militia perhaps?

also, according to the government news systmen in canada (CBC) a couple months ago during heated gun control debate, almost 1/2 of illegal guns in canada are stolen from private homes. the rest flood accross teh border (i don't believe we are a major manufacturer of firearms). if there are fewer guns in homes, there would therefore be fewer illegal guns on teh streets. all i'm saying (i'm clearly not against guns totally, just better regulation of longarms for sport), is that the regulation and enforcement systems are slightly outdated with teh current influx of firearms in north america and therefore need update.

What are your suggestions? I have given some. Outlawing handguns is unacceptable for the reasons I've given, and would not, as I've stated repeatedly and you have not disputed, affect criminals at all.

i disagree. outlawing handguns, production and shipping i believe would affect criminals.

I rather suspect that that figure of "half" was given without source or attribution; such statements are rather common in "heated debate." even so, let's grant that it's true, and let's outlaw private gun ownership entirely. What do you do about the other half? Supply will always meet demand, and the other sources would no doubt merely do a great deal more business.

i'm sorry. 46%, i gave my source

My position is a very simple one; the problem is not guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, and never has been. The problem is crime. Armed citizens have already proven to be part of the solution to that problem. They are not its source.

they are not the direct source of most crime, but indirectly may affect. loss of guns to theft, hasty shootings, etc.

That seems to me to be so obviously true that it is all but self-evident, and is in fact borne out by the facts and figures about concealed carry in the 40 states that permit it. Virtually none of those licensees have been charged with, let alone convicted of, gun crimes of any kind. If civilian gun ownership is such a huge source of criminal violence, why aren't more of them behind bars?

And speaking of which, why have you not responded to, or even acknowledged, the statistics, like that one, that I have offered? Like the scenarios I have mentioned (and actually been involved in), you seem to prefer to ignore them.

please show me these statistics. i know none of them. the gun owners often don't commit the crimes, but when they loose the guns, the indirectly affect crime rates.
no, i'm not addressing your personal experiences, for reasons i have previously stated. get statisitics that deal with a large sample and i will discuss. a sample of you is not adequate.

lets see how this quote stuff worked

ps. as a skier, i cross trained in road cycling during teh summer. i, as well as every one else in teh world, am aware and admiring a certain texan cyclist who retired a while ago.

Remarkable fellow, that. If he wasn't obviously real, one would suspect he was a fictional character. He even has a name fit for a movie hero: Lance Armstrong. What could be better?

[cnorman18]

i did note only one situation, and in a previous point said that this situation is not applicable to the issue at large. you said this WAS the issue, although i prefered to takl about more minute and sensitive scenarios.

Okay, but "guns are bad" and "it would be better if there were no guns" sounded like general conclusions to me. If they weren't so intended, I regret the misunderstanding.

i did google gary kleck, your most liberal source. he documented that guns are used more often in self defense then criminal matters. but, on the other hand, he apparently has come under scrutiny for his sample sizes and other issues. david, hemenway, for example, has criticized kleck for this issues. he has published a study affirming that, "Even after excluding many reported firearm victimizations, far more survey respondents report having been threatened or intimidated with a gun than having used a gun to protect themselves. A majority of the reported self defense gun uses were rated as probably illegal by a majority of judges. This was so even under the assumption that the respondent had a permit to own and carry the gun, and that the respondent had described the event honestly. CONCLUSIONS: Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self defense. Most self reported self defense gun uses may well be illegal and against the interests of society." this is cut directly from the article abstract in teh US national library of medicine.

Here's Kleck's response:

[/quote]
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz2.htm

It is obvious to us that David Hemenway (H) had no intention of producing a balanced, intellectually serious assessment of our estimates of defensive gun use (DGU). Instead, his critique serves the narrow political purpose of "getting the estimate down," for the sake of advancing the gun control cause. An honest, scientifically based critique would have given balanced consideration to flaws that tend to make the estimate too low (e.g., people concealing DGUs because they involved unlawful behavior, and our failure to count any DGUs by adolescents), as well as those that contribute to making them too high. Equally important, it would have given greatest weight to relevant empirical evidence, and little or no weight to idle speculation about possible flaws. H's approach is precisely the opposite--one-sided and almost entirely speculative. Readers who have any doubts about the degree to which H's paper is imbalanced might carry out a simple exercise to assess our claim: count the number of lines H devotes to flaws tending to make the estimate too high and the number devoted to flaws making the estimate too low. We submit that the ratio is over 100-to-1, i.e., almost entirely devoted to speculations about why the estimate is too high.

The political function of this advocacy scholarship is clear. While high estimates of DGU frequency do not constitute an obstacle to moderate controls over guns, they constitute the most serious obstacle to advocacy of gun prohibition. Disarming the mass of noncriminal prospective crime victims would, if high DGU estimates are even approximately correct, result in large numbers of foregone opportunities for uses of guns that could prevent deaths, injuries, and property loss. To acknowledge high DGU frequency would be to concede the most significant cost of gun prohibition. H's paper is an attempt to neutralize concerns about such costs and to provide intellectual respectability for positions identified with Handgun Control Incorporated (HCI), the nation's leading gun control advocacy group.

H has close ties to HCI through two key staff members of HCI's "educational" branch, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (CPHV). His closest and most frequent collaborator on gun-related research is Douglas Weil, currently Research Director of CPHV, while H has co-edited a strongly pro- control propaganda tract with Dennis A. Henigan, legal counsel to HCI and CPHV.

(These are only the first few paragraphs. There is much, much more at the link.)

can these sports not be done with longarms? it is still the same sport, and still just as fun.

Snowboards are much more dangerous than skis, so they ought to be outlawed. Can snowboarding not be done with skis? It's still the same sport, and just as fun.

The challenge of shooting with a handgun is much greater than with a longarm, and the dynamics of the sport are entirely different. The comparison here is exact.

i believe that if handguns were illegal, mass murders would be harder to achieve. if somebody is walking around with a longarm, im sure police would get called. if a person has a longarm, its probably drawn, and based on your previous comments, a victim would be unlikely to draw in time to return fire.

First, it is absolutely impossible to eliminate handguns. More on that below.

Second, my remarks about not having time to draw and fire were in regard to a one-on-one confrontation where the weapon is pointed directly at the victim. In a mass shooting situation or something similar, the weapon cannot be pointed in all directions at once, and there will almost inevitably be an opportunity to stop the attacker. This is no mere theory; it was the precise situation in the Luby's shootings, and testimony to that effect was the direct cause of the legalization of concealed carry in Texas.

albeit, some people would commit robberies with longarms, and people would die. but your reasoning draws many out many other arguments. although it seems obvious at first to provide everyone with guns to deal with this situation...

That is a classic strawman. No one has ever said that "everyone" should be provided with guns. The proposition that some few trained and skilled private citizens who choose to do so ought to be permitted to carry is hardly the same thing.

...actions which is proactive is still very much frowned upon by mainstream society. for example, another situation: since you say you would readily kill one to save 25, is this true for peaceful situations? imagine you had 25 people who required organs. they would die with out receiving them. if it was possible to get all the organs from one person, would you kill somebody to get them and save the patients.

That's a ridiculous comparison and you know it. You're equating murdering an innocent person for spare parts with stopping a person actively engaged in mass murder. That's about as specious as it gets.

does society view proactive killings to save the righteous as permissible. present this situation to others and find out.

No thanks. I'm not in the habit of asking unbelievably ridiculous questions.

i don't want to seem like a person happy to idly stand by and watch people die, but im sure hastyness is not always the best option. perhaps these criminals weren't going to kill everybody. this is not a common occurence. i have never in my life heard of a robbery go so wrong, usually the vast, VAST, majority of hostages survive.

The Luby's massacre was not a robbery nor a hostage situation. It was a premeditated mass murder of strangers. George Hennard drove his truck through the wall of the restaurant, got out, and began shooting. The time between the impact of the truck and his first murders was less than 15 seconds (I personally know several of the survivors). What would you define as "hasty" in that situation? No, he probably wasn't planning to kill everybody; he was planning to kill as many as he could, and he walked around at his leisure and murdered people, mostly women, at random. (He seems to have had a special hatred of older women; something to do with his mother.) He had no intention of taking money or hostages; he intended to kill until he was killed himself.

No, this is not a common occurrence (though judging from the events of the last week or so, that is arguable); neither are head-on high-speed collisions, but I have an airbag in my car anyway.

i don't think people need killing, perhaps rehabilitation. but again, i'm finding the good in everybody. some people are quite screwed up, and i don't mind in teh least if they go to jail.

I'm not talking about people "needing killing" in retribution. I'm talking about people actively and presently engaged in heinous acts that can be effectively stopped in no other way. I don't think "rehabilitation" is a practical option when someone is blowing people's brains out one after another.

Let's not get bogged down in only mass shooting situations, either. I have mentioned several other situations where the presence of a legally owned and carried gun has stopped crimes. Statistics aside, what else could those people have done?

When two thugs broke into my home at 2 AM, I called the police immediately; they did not arrive for near half an hour. The intruders weren't there to have tea. When they learned I had a gun, they fled. How would I have been better off without one?

they are, in teh hands of secure individuals who are VERY unlikely to release them to the public. (they may also be used for intimidation)

Exactly the same can be said, in every respect, for trained and responsible armed citizens.

if handguns were strongly banned, production halted and shipments destroyed, it would be very hard even for criminals to get handguns. ignoring the law would not be an option

This is a fantasy, pure and simple. There are millions of handguns already in circulation.
Criminals are not going to meekly turn theirs in. What do you recommend? Nationwide house-to-house warrantless searches, all conducted on the same day (else millions of guns will be hidden)? How many police will that take? Short of magic far beyond the capabilities of Gandalf the Wizard, you are not going to eliminate handguns. Ever. It can't be done.

if im not mistaken, do some people suggest that the second ammendment deals with militia. these are not people packing heat at the mall, they have guns securly locked away in the case that some uprising occurs and the military are to remote to deal with it.

Sorry, that's a fallacy. The "militia" in 1789 merely meant the able-bodied males of the general population, who were expected to provide their own arms if called into action. The context of the Amendment is clear; in every other use of the phrase in the entire Constitution, "the people" meant just that; ordinary individuals. It means the same in the Second Amendment. It makes no sense to say that all but one of the ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights were meant to limit the power of government, but that one was meant to limit the power of the population when it specifically says the opposite.

and by saying that disarmed citizens are the start of a repressive government is silly. please remember you're talking to a canadian who can attest the opposite.

What does Canada have to do with repression? Is it illegal to possess a handgun there now?

I didn't say it had to lead to repressive government; but it is an essential step.

(in New Orleans)
a militia perhaps?

Quite right. And notice that they formed themselves, and used the weapons they already owned. They were not sanctioned by any government agency, and their weapons were not stored away for an emergency.

i disagree. outlawing handguns, production and shipping i believe would affect criminals.

See above. It hasn't worked in the UK, now has it?

i'm sorry. 46%, i gave my source

I stand corrected. I still question that figure. Are Canadians incredibly careless, or is the figure just as high here? I doubt that very much.

they are not the direct source of most crime, but indirectly may affect. loss of guns to theft, hasty shootings, etc.

As if most guns end up stolen? Please.

please show me these statistics. i know none of them. the gun owners often don't commit the crimes, but when they loose the guns, the indirectly affect crime rates.

Okay.

I could hand you stuff from dozens of pro-gun sites, but that would be pretty pointless. Here are some hard numbers from justfacts.com, which is about as unbiased as it gets. There is a statement about their standards for credibility on the site.

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Some highlights:

* In the United States during 1997, there were 15,289 murders. Of these, 10,369 were committed with firearms.

* In the United States during 1997, there were approximately 7,927,000 violent crimes. Of these, 691,000 were committed with firearms.

* Americans use firearms to defend themselves from criminals at least 764,000 times a year. This figure is the lowest among a group of 9 nationwide surveys done by organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times.

(Other surveys estimated defensive uses of firearms at numbers as high as 2.5 million times per year. Note that even this lowest estimate shows that firearms are used more frequently in defense than in crimes.)

* In 1982, a survey of imprisoned criminals found that 34% of them had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim."  

* Washington D.C. enacted a virtual ban on handguns in 1976. Between 1976 and 1991, Washington D.C.'s homicide rate rose 200%, while the U.S. rate rose 12%.

* 221,443 concealed carry licenses were issued in Florida between October of 1987 and April of 1994. During that time, Florida recorded 18 crimes committed by licensees with firearms.

(That works out to 0.008%)

* As of 1998, nationwide, there has been 1 recorded incident in which a permit holder shot someone following a traffic accident. The permit holder was not charged, as the grand jury ruled the shooting was in self defense.

* As of 1998, no permit holder has ever shot a police officer. There have been several cases in which a permit holder has protected an officer's life.

There is more on the site, but those will do for a start.

no, i'm not addressing your personal experiences, for reasons i have previously stated. get statisitics that deal with a large sample and i will discuss. a sample of you is not adequate.

You don't have to address them as statistical samples; just tell me how I was wrong or how I would have been better off unarmed. If you can't answer that, the statistics mean nothing.

Incidentally, I have never detailed the third situation in which I was involved. (The other two were a home invasion and an attempted street mugging, both detailed in earlier posts on this thread. Though I was about 300 yards away from the Luby's massacre when it happened, and knew personally some of the victims and many of the survivors, I wasn't there myself.)

Simply put: A man who had once been a close friend developed some severe mental problems and focused on me, entirely without rational reason, as a mortal enemy. He told others, in so many words, that he would have come to my home and killed me, but he knew I was a gunowner and was rarely unarmed.

Yes, this was reported to the police. No charges were ever filed; shortly after this, he spent some time in a mental institution after declaring his intent to murder his ex-wife and their five-year-old daughter. She has since moved to another state--and bought a gun, just in case. He now lives with his mother and takes antipsychotic medications, with regular blood tests, by court order. We have had no direct contact for more than fifteen years.

In that case, I didn't even have to touch my gun for it to save my life. The very fact that I owned one was enough.

No, I'm not giving them up.

[zepper899]

i did google gary kleck, your most liberal source. he documented that guns are used more often in self defense then criminal matters. but, on the other hand, he apparently has come under scrutiny for his sample sizes and other issues. david, hemenway, for example, has criticized kleck for this issues. he has published a study affirming that, "Even after excluding many reported firearm victimizations, far more survey respondents report having been threatened or intimidated with a gun than having used a gun to protect themselves. A majority of the reported self defense gun uses were rated as probably illegal by a majority of judges. This was so even under the assumption that the respondent had a permit to own and carry the gun, and that the respondent had described the event honestly. CONCLUSIONS: Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self defense. Most self reported self defense gun uses may well be illegal and against the interests of society." this is cut directly from the article abstract in teh US national library of medicine.

Here's Kleck's response:

http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz2.htm

It is obvious to us that David Hemenway (H) had no intention of producing a balanced, intellectually serious assessment of our estimates of defensive gun use (DGU). Instead, his critique serves the narrow political purpose of "getting the estimate down," for the sake of advancing the gun control cause. An honest, scientifically based critique would have given balanced consideration to flaws that tend to make the estimate too low (e.g., people concealing DGUs because they involved unlawful behavior, and our failure to count any DGUs by adolescents), as well as those that contribute to making them too high. Equally important, it would have given greatest weight to relevant empirical evidence, and little or no weight to idle speculation about possible flaws. H's approach is precisely the opposite--one-sided and almost entirely speculative. Readers who have any doubts about the degree to which H's paper is imbalanced might carry out a simple exercise to assess our claim: count the number of lines H devotes to flaws tending to make the estimate too high and the number devoted to flaws making the estimate too low. We submit that the ratio is over 100-to-1, i.e., almost entirely devoted to speculations about why the estimate is too high.

The political function of this advocacy scholarship is clear. While high estimates of DGU frequency do not constitute an obstacle to moderate controls over guns, they constitute the most serious obstacle to advocacy of gun prohibition. Disarming the mass of noncriminal prospective crime victims would, if high DGU estimates are even approximately correct, result in large numbers of foregone opportunities for uses of guns that could prevent deaths, injuries, and property loss. To acknowledge high DGU frequency would be to concede the most significant cost of gun prohibition. H's paper is an attempt to neutralize concerns about such costs and to provide intellectual respectability for positions identified with Handgun Control Incorporated (HCI), the nation's leading gun control advocacy group.

H has close ties to HCI through two key staff members of HCI's "educational" branch, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (CPHV). His closest and most frequent collaborator on gun-related research is Douglas Weil, currently Research Director of CPHV, while H has co-edited a strongly pro- control propaganda tract with Dennis A. Henigan, legal counsel to HCI and CPHV.

we here have 2 articles attacking each other. each says that the other is wrong. i'm not educated enough ot judge teh minute details that can prove one is better than the other. especially without access to more than H's abstract.

can these sports not be done with longarms? it is still the same sport, and still just as fun.

Snowboards are much more dangerous than skis, so they ought to be outlawed. Can snowboarding not be done with skis? It's still the same sport, and just as fun.

The challenge of shooting with a handgun is much greater than with a longarm, and the dynamics of the sport are entirely different. The comparison here is exact.

snowboards are more dangerous than skis. to the user. okay, they may be different sports, i'm not a big shooter. perhaps storing the guns at the range, locked up and extremely secure? you have added another exception to my arguement. police and shooting ranges should still be able to have guns. my mistake. but still, only police and shooting ranges.

i believe that if handguns were illegal, mass murders would be harder to achieve. if somebody is walking around with a longarm, im sure police would get called. if a person has a longarm, its probably drawn, and based on your previous comments, a victim would be unlikely to draw in time to return fire.

First, it is absolutely impossible to eliminate handguns. More on that below.

okay, i disagree. more on that below

Second, my remarks about not having time to draw and fire were in regard to a one-on-one confrontation where the weapon is pointed directly at the victim. In a mass shooting situation or something similar, the weapon cannot be pointed in all directions at once, and there will almost inevitably be an opportunity to stop the attacker. This is no mere theory; it was the precise situation in the Luby's shootings, and testimony to that effect was the direct cause of the legalization of concealed carry in Texas.

mass murders, occur, i still don't think its a legitamate sample. i'm sorry i'm so hung up on this. i think very linearly, and i just need statistics. mass murders are horrible, but most murders don't happen this way. according to your statistics below, 10369 murders were committed using firearms. relatively few of these are mass murders. again, one situation (or type) that shadows the larger picture. perhaps those 23 could be saved. perhaps total murders could be reduced by 0.025% and more people would be saved.

albeit, some people would commit robberies with longarms, and people would die. but your reasoning draws many out many other arguments. although it seems obvious at first to provide everyone with guns to deal with this situation...

That is a classic strawman. No one has ever said that "everyone" should be provided with guns. The proposition that some few trained and skilled private citizens who choose to do so ought to be permitted to carry is hardly the same thing.

once something is legal many more people will have arms. people are not always good drivers, although they are "trained and skilled."

...actions which is proactive is still very much frowned upon by mainstream society. for example, another situation: since you say you would readily kill one to save 25, is this true for peaceful situations? imagine you had 25 people who required organs. they would die with out receiving them. if it was possible to get all the organs from one person, would you kill somebody to get them and save the patients.

That's a ridiculous comparison and you know it. You're equating murdering an innocent person for spare parts with stopping a person actively engaged in mass murder. That's about as specious as it gets.

would you take a criminally insane person out of jail for the organs? i wouldn't
by the way, this may raise this issue of capital punishment. we have a large discussion already, so we might as well add on. do you support capital punishment? i think thats what you're proposing. i don't support it.

i don't want to seem like a person happy to idly stand by and watch people die, but im sure hastyness is not always the best option. perhaps these criminals weren't going to kill everybody. this is not a common occurence. i have never in my life heard of a robbery go so wrong, usually the vast, VAST, majority of hostages survive.

The Luby's massacre was not a robbery nor a hostage situation. It was a premeditated mass murder of strangers. George Hennard drove his truck through the wall of the restaurant, got out, and began shooting. The time between the impact of the truck and his first murders was less than 15 seconds (I personally know several of the survivors). What would you define as "hasty" in that situation? No, he probably wasn't planning to kill everybody; he was planning to kill as many as he could, and he walked around at his leisure and murdered people, mostly women, at random. (He seems to have had a special hatred of older women; something to do with his mother.) He had no intention of taking money or hostages; he intended to kill until he was killed himself.

No, this is not a common occurrence (though judging from the events of the last week or so, that is arguable); neither are head-on high-speed collisions, but I have an airbag in my car anyway.

Again, teh massacre although horrible, although this captures less than a statistically relevent scenerio. i think they are awful, but i believe there is a bigger picture.
your airbag comparison is not too relevent. extra protection that doesn't hurt anybody and only saves lives(debating this should be on a different forum), is different than possessing concealed firearms that do kill thousands of people per year.

i don't think people need killing, perhaps rehabilitation. but again, i'm finding the good in everybody. some people are quite screwed up, and i don't mind in teh least if they go to jail.

I'm not talking about people "needing killing" in retribution. I'm talking about people actively and presently engaged in heinous acts that can be effectively stopped in no other way. I don't think "rehabilitation" is a practical option when someone is blowing people's brains out one after another.

okay fine, then...lets not get bogged down in only mass shooting situations, either. these occur relatively rarely, so lets argue these.

Let's not get bogged down in only mass shooting situations, either. I have mentioned several other situations where the presence of a legally owned and carried gun has stopped crimes. Statistics aside, what else could those people have done?

When two thugs broke into my home at 2 AM, I called the police immediately; they did not arrive for near half an hour. The intruders weren't there to have tea. When they learned I had a gun, they fled. How would I have been better off without one?

again, i have a lot of faith in teh government, more than i should perhaps. i would give a robber my money, hope i'm insured (home, etc), and hope that the police capture teh criminal. again, i may be naive.

they are, in teh hands of secure individuals who are VERY unlikely to release them to the public. (they may also be used for intimidation)

Exactly the same can be said, in every respect, for trained and responsible armed citizens.

i doen't think so. if i was a criminal, i would be more likely to steal a gun from a cabinet than a police officer. again, a home is less secure than a police station, and guns would be easier to steal from from private individuals.

if handguns were strongly banned, production halted and shipments destroyed, it would be very hard even for criminals to get handguns. ignoring the law would not be an option

This is a fantasy, pure and simple. There are millions of handguns already in circulation.
Criminals are not going to meekly turn theirs in. What do you recommend? Nationwide house-to-house warrantless searches, all conducted on the same day (else millions of guns will be hidden)? How many police will that take? Short of magic far beyond the capabilities of Gandalf the Wizard, you are not going to eliminate handguns. Ever. It can't be done.

again, seize any they find, offer reward for ones turned in, halt production, etc. concealed weapons are illegal in many countries, and the occurences of weapons are lower there as well. (first website i gave you says as such, look when you have access to a computer.)

if im not mistaken, do some people suggest that the second ammendment deals with militia. these are not people packing heat at the mall, they have guns securly locked away in the case that some uprising occurs and the military are to remote to deal with it.

Sorry, that's a fallacy. The "militia" in 1789 merely meant the able-bodied males of the general population, who were expected to provide their own arms if called into action. The context of the Amendment is clear; in every other use of the phrase in the entire Constitution, "the people" meant just that; ordinary individuals. It means the same in the Second Amendment. It makes no sense to say that all but one of the ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights were meant to limit the power of government, but that one was meant to limit the power of the population when it specifically says the opposite.

the militia in 1789 consisting of "able bodied males of the general population, who were expected to provide their own arms if called into action," can still keep guns locked away and not concealed on their body. take, for instance, the military itself. they have tanks, but you don't always see them. when teh military is protecting, say, the president at a rally, they don't always have tanks and planes everywhere. you can still have an armed militia that can protect teh people without having to be constantly armed.

and by saying that disarmed citizens are the start of a repressive government is silly. please remember you're talking to a canadian who can attest the opposite.

What does Canada have to do with repression? Is it illegal to possess a handgun there now?

we do not carry concealed weapons here. as well, many handhuns are illegal. you cannot buy or sell these "prohibited firearmss" but can only possess them by 'grandfather" clause. you can keep them if you have them, but cannot transfer ownership. they must be under lock and key during teh night and during travel. as well, one must attain a "transport permit" to travel with them. they are illegal to attain. we are not a repressive government. thats all.

I didn't say it had to lead to repressive government; but it is an essential step.

okay. but there are cases (canada) where it doesn't lead to anything.

(in New Orleans)
a militia perhaps?

Quite right. And notice that they formed themselves, and used the weapons they already owned. They were not sanctioned by any government agency, and their weapons were not stored away for an emergency.

keep longarms at home under lock and key. why not store them away for an emergency?

i disagree. outlawing handguns, production and shipping i believe would affect criminals.

See above. It hasn't worked in the UK, now has it?

show me statistics please. it works in canada's case. we have many, many fewer homocides per capita than many countries.

i'm sorry. 46%, i gave my source

I stand corrected. I still question that figure. Are Canadians incredibly careless, or is the figure just as high here? I doubt that very much.

to possess a firearm (any firearm), one must follow certain regulations. "These firearms must be stored, transported and displayed according to Federal regulations and you need a firearms licence to possess them. Provincial and municipal rules may further regulate these firearms (e.g., Ontario hunting regulations require that firearms being transported be encased at night)." other firearms have additional requirements, and have more strict classifications. this is teh most lenient class of firearms in canada. in addition, firearms must be stored " inside a locked recepticle, a locked container, or a locked room that has been modified for the use of firearm storage. The location in which the firearm and ammunition is stored must not be easily broken open or into." i don't think canadians are careless.

they are not the direct source of most crime, but indirectly may affect. loss of guns to theft, hasty shootings, etc.

As if most guns end up stolen? Please.

not most, many.

Here are some hard numbers from justfacts.com, which is about as unbiased as it gets. There is a statement about their standards for credibility on the site.
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Some highlights:

* In the United States during 1997, there were 15,289 murders. Of these, 10,369 were committed with firearms.

-thats is more murders per capita than many countries banning concealed weapons. take it as you will.

* Americans use firearms to defend themselves from criminals at least 764,000 times a year. This figure is the lowest among a group of 9 nationwide surveys done by organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times.

(Other surveys estimated defensive uses of firearms at numbers as high as 2.5 million times per year. Note that even this lowest estimate shows that firearms are used more frequently in defense than in crimes.)

okay, are people defending themself from a $100 theft. this is a good point, and changes my view slightly. but if you check the source, it is the same gary kleck we have discussed. he presents an outlook that fulfill his agenda. but, the total proliferation of guns i still think to be a big issue. see other comments on this point.

* In 1982, a survey of imprisoned criminals found that 34% of them had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim."

again, very interesting point, but i still question the source.

* Washington D.C. enacted a virtual ban on handguns in 1976. Between 1976 and 1991, Washington D.C.'s homicide rate rose 200%, while the U.S. rate rose 12%.

check teh source. i am rather meticulous about this, and can trust my neutral source given earlier. this source is the NRA. and i don't agree with the point in general. of course there will be a ridiculous amount of illegal guns in teh city. if you banned handguns on one street, criminals would still bring there guns on teh street. something this small scale i have never suggested. silly.

* 221,443 concealed carry licenses were issued in Florida between October of 1987 and April of 1994. During that time, Florida recorded 18 crimes committed by licensees with firearms.

(That works out to 0.008%)

* As of 1998, nationwide, there has been 1 recorded incident in which a permit holder shot someone following a traffic accident. The permit holder was not charged, as the grand jury ruled the shooting was in self defense.

* As of 1998, no permit holder has ever shot a police officer. There have been several cases in which a permit holder has protected an officer's life.

i don't suggest gun holders are criminals, i just don't agree with having a plethora of firearms available to the general public.

no, i'm not addressing your personal experiences, for reasons i have previously stated. get statisitics that deal with a large sample and i will discuss. a sample of you is not adequate.

You don't have to address them as statistical samples; just tell me how I was wrong or how I would have been better off unarmed. If you can't answer that, the statistics mean nothing.

perhaps you might not have been better off, but society at large may have been. see other arguments on this issue.

Incidentally, I have never detailed the third situation in which I was involved. (The other two were a home invasion and an attempted street mugging, both detailed in earlier posts on this thread. Though I was about 300 yards away from the Luby's massacre when it happened, and knew personally some of the victims and many of the survivors, I wasn't there myself.)

Simply put: A man who had once been a close friend developed some severe mental problems and focused on me, entirely without rational reason, as a mortal enemy. He told others, in so many words, that he would have come to my home and killed me, but he knew I was a gunowner and was rarely unarmed.

Yes, this was reported to the police. No charges were ever filed; shortly after this, he spent some time in a mental institution after declaring his intent to murder his ex-wife and their five-year-old daughter. She has since moved to another state--and bought a gun, just in case. He now lives with his mother and takes antipsychotic medications, with regular blood tests, by court order. We have had no direct contact for more than fifteen years.

In that case, I didn't even have to touch my gun for it to save my life. The very fact that I owned one was enough.

same issue i explained before. your sample of one i consider minute. even asking your personal friends, how many of them have been attacked, robbed, etc. personally, i know of one robbery in toronto, late at night, didn't even know until the next morning. but thats my experience in a very different environment than yours.

simply put, i don't believe having a large number of guns available and accepted by society is teh right path. in general, the fewer guns the better.

[cnorman18]

m
we here have 2 articles attacking each other. each says that the other is wrong. i'm not educated enough ot judge teh minute details that can prove one is better than the other. especially without access to more than H's abstract.

Interesting. You present an article to me because of its content; I present an article to you, and you ignore the content (which is quite clear, and requires no expertise to understand, only logic) and dismiss them both.

mass murders, occur, i still don't think its a legitamate sample. i'm sorry i'm so hung up on this. i think very linearly, and i just need statistics.

I have you reliable statistics, and you dismissed them because of their source. When you couldn't do that, you dismissed them because you didn't think they were applicable.

mass murders are horrible, but most murders don't happen this way. according to your statistics below, 10369 murders were committed using firearms. relatively few of these are mass murders. again, one situation (or type) that shadows the larger picture. perhaps those 23 could be saved. perhaps total murders could be reduced by 0.025% and more people would be saved.

The 23 were actual. The 0.025% are theoretical. Reality trumps theory every time if you live in the real world.

once something is legal many more people will have arms. people are not always good drivers, although they are "trained and skilled."

Concealed carry has been legal in Texas for more than a decade. The number of licensees is still less than 2%.

would you take a criminally insane person out of jail for the organs? i wouldn't
by the way,

Certainly not, and the comparison is still ridiculous. Again, we are talking about someone actively engaged in murder that can be stopped in no other way. you seem determined not to deal with that rather essential element and remain in the land of theory and the abstract.

this may raise this issue of capital punishment. we have a large discussion already, so we might as well add on. do you support capital punishment?

I am of the opinion that there are those who must never be allowed to walk the streets as free men again. If they are confined for life without the slightest possibility of parole, that is fine with me. Capital punishment is not necessary if that is done; that can also be changed if it later is determined through new evidence that the conviction is in error, and capital punishment does not leave that possibility. Therefore I oppose it in all but cases where there is absolutely no doubt of guilt, and even then I regard a true life sentence as preferable.

And that issue is utterly irrelevant to this discussion. See below.

i think thats what you're proposing. i don't support it.

Stopping a murderer in the act is not capital punishment. It is irrelevant whether or not the perpetrator is killed (not all shootings are fatal); it is essential that he be stopped. Death is not the object, but stopping the crime in progress.

If there were available a weapon like Captain Kirk's "phaser" that could stun a criminal into instant unconsciousness, that would be preferable; but no such weapon exists.

For the record, I also carry nonlethal weapons, pepper spray and often a walking stick. My gun is for use only in extremis.

Again, teh massacre although horrible, although this captures less than a statistically relevent scenerio. i think they are awful, but i believe there is a bigger picture.

There you go again. Those who were there were not particularly concerned with statistical relevance. The fact that such shootings are rare is of no comfort to the families of Hennard's victims at all.

You seem strangely reluctant to acknowledge the fact that statistics are not all that is important here. There are statistics, and there is reality. Anyone is statistically unlikely ever to be involved in a direct armed confrontation, but it has happened to me twice. I place little value on statistics. I know that these things can happen because they have happened to me.

Deal with the reality of real situations, don't just dismiss them as "bad samples" as if the corpses of my friends are just bookkeeping entries.

your airbag comparison is not too relevent. extra protection that doesn't hurt anybody and only saves lives(debating this should be on a different forum), is different than possessing concealed firearms that do kill thousands of people per year.

That is an untruth. Concealed firearms do not kill thousands of people every year--at least not legally concealed ones; and outlawing those will not matter to those who carry the other kind.

okay fine, then...lets not get bogged down in only mass shooting situations, either. these occur relatively rarely, so lets argue these.

I made a point you couldn't rebut, so you want to "move on," that seems clear.

again, i have a lot of faith in teh government, more than i should perhaps. i would give a robber my money, hope i'm insured (home, etc), and hope that the police capture teh criminal. again, i may be naive.

You are not expessing faith in the government; you are expressing faith in the criminal who has a strong motivation to eliminate you as a witness. It has become rather common in home invasions to murder all the occupants. Should I bet my life and that of my family on the high morals of someone who has already invaded my home?

i doen't think so. if i was a criminal, i would be more likely to steal a gun from a cabinet than a police officer. again, a home is less secure than a police station, and guns would be easier to steal from from private individuals.

We were speaking of the responsible use of guns, and suddenly you're speaking of proper storage. Apparently you can't answer my point that trained civilians can and provably do use their weapons in just as responsible a manner as police.

And for the record, gun cabinets are long obsolete; gun safes are more the rule nowadays.

again, seize any they find, offer reward for ones turned in, halt production, etc.

Okay. In fifty years, you will have eliminated most handguns. Maybe. In the meantime...

concealed weapons are illegal in many countries, and the occurences of weapons are lower there as well. (first website i gave you says as such, look when you have access to a computer.)

The state of Vermont does not even require a permit to carry, and never has. Any adult can carry a concealed weapon who cares to. It has the second-lowest crime rate in the United States.

If your statistics prove something, why doesn't that one fit?

the militia in 1789 consisting of "able bodied males of the general population, who were expected to provide their own arms if called into action," can still keep guns locked away and not concealed on their body. take, for instance, the military itself. they have tanks, but you don't always see them. when teh military is protecting, say, the president at a rally, they don't always have tanks and planes everywhere.

LOL! No, they carry concealed weapons.

you can still have an armed militia that can protect teh people without having to be constantly armed.

True. But then, no one ever said everyone had to go armed. What you are saying here is that it's OK to own guns and keep them at home. I agree with that; I didn't think you did.

we do not carry concealed weapons here. as well, many handhuns are illegal. you cannot buy or sell these "prohibited firearmss" but can only possess them by 'grandfather" clause. you can keep them if you have them, but cannot transfer ownership. they must be under lock and key during teh night and during travel. as well, one must attain a "transport permit" to travel with them. they are illegal to attain. we are not a repressive government. thats all.

Sounds pretty repressive to me. How long till Canada, like Britain, decides to simply confiscate all handguns without compensation? Would that qualify as repression? If not, what would "repressive' look like, vis-a-vis firearms?

keep longarms at home under lock and key. why not store them away for an emergency?

What if the emergency happens in a parking lot or a restaurant?

* Americans use firearms to defend themselves from criminals at least 764,000 times a year. This figure is the lowest among a group of 9 nationwide surveys done by organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times.

(Other surveys estimated defensive uses of firearms at numbers as high as 2.5 million times per year. Note that even this lowest estimate shows that firearms are used more frequently in defense than in crimes.)

okay, are people defending themself from a $100 theft.

That's a big assumption, apparently intended to trivialize the issue of self-defense. How do you know they aren't defending themselves from being murdered? You don't.

this is a good point, and changes my view slightly. but if you check the source, it is the same gary kleck we have discussed. he presents an outlook that fulfill his agenda.

No. The source was "organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times" (a leftwing paper, by the way). Kleck simply reported the information.

* In 1982, a survey of imprisoned criminals found that 34% of them had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim."

again, very interesting point, but i still question the source.

Of course you do. You don't like the facts it presents. Read the credibility standards of justfacts.com and tell me why your standards are higher.

* Washington D.C. enacted a virtual ban on handguns in 1976. Between 1976 and 1991, Washington D.C.'s homicide rate rose 200%, while the U.S. rate rose 12%.

check teh source. i am rather meticulous about this, and can trust my neutral source given earlier. this source is the NRA. and i don't agree with the point in general.

Again, the NRA is here reporting government statistics; they didn't make those numbers up. The fact that you "don't agree with the point" doesn't make them false.

You aren't dismissing these numbers because of their sources; you're dismissing them because of what they prove. If you were really concerned with sources, you'd have admitted that the critic who panned Kleck's work was intrustworthy because of his connection with anti-gun organizations; instead, you just dropped that line of inquiry.

of course there will be a ridiculous amount of illegal guns in teh city. if you banned handguns on one street, criminals would still bring there guns on teh street. something this small scale i have never suggested. silly.

"Small scale"? Do you know what the population of DC is? Or are you saying we can't know if a ban will work until it's tried nationwide?

* 221,443 concealed carry licenses were issued in Florida between October of 1987 and April of 1994. During that time, Florida recorded 18 crimes committed by licensees with firearms.

(That works out to 0.008%)

* As of 1998, nationwide, there has been 1 recorded incident in which a permit holder shot someone following a traffic accident. The permit holder was not charged, as the grand jury ruled the shooting was in self defense.

* As of 1998, no permit holder has ever shot a police officer. There have been several cases in which a permit holder has protected an officer's life.

i don't suggest gun holders are criminals...

You have certainly suggested that they are potential criminals. That is the point of everything you have written here. If they aren't--as these statistics prove pretty conclusively--then what's your point?

, i just don't agree with having a plethora of firearms available to the general public.

If legally armed citizens aren't a problem, then what's the problem with having guns available to arm them?

perhaps you might not have been better off [without a gun], but society at large may have been. see other arguments on this issue.

And on that note, we're done here.

I sincerely hope that you never have to deal with a situation, as I have, where the possession of a gun might save your life and that of your loved ones. Since you live in a country where--so far--such things are uncommon, you probably won't, and that's all to the good.

But I can can tell you this, with an absolute, rock-solid, money-back guarantee; if you ever do, your perspective will instantly change, and you will understand that statistics and theory and idealism and optimism and all the rest are of no value whatever in helping you prevent your family from being murdered or worse.

Since you clearly think that theory and some statistics, the ones that you like, are more important than the real-life, been-there-and-seen-it experiences of the person to whom you are speaking, I don't think we have anything more to say to each other. You remain in your safe little world where criminals don't really want to hurt you and where a "rare occurrence" doesn't count for anything at all, and I'll live in the real one.

Peace to you. This is going nowhere.

[zepper899]

m
we here have 2 articles attacking each other. each says that the other is wrong. i'm not educated enough ot judge teh minute details that can prove one is better than the other. especially without access to more than H's abstract.

Interesting. You present an article to me because of its content; I present an article to you, and you ignore the content (which is quite clear, and requires no expertise to understand, only logic) and dismiss them both.

we both presented articles which attack each other's content. perhaps they even out.

mass murders, occur, i still don't think its a legitamate sample. i'm sorry i'm so hung up on this. i think very linearly, and i just need statistics.

I have you reliable statistics, and you dismissed them because of their source. When you couldn't do that, you dismissed them because you didn't think they were applicable.

i dismissed that source (really you only had one [kleck] presented by various websites). some sources i don't think are applicable.

mass murders are horrible, but most murders don't happen this way. according to your statistics below, 10369 murders were committed using firearms. relatively few of these are mass murders. again, one situation (or type) that shadows the larger picture. perhaps those 23 could be saved. perhaps total murders could be reduced by 0.025% and more people would be saved.

The 23 were actual. The 0.025% are theoretical. Reality trumps theory every time if you live in the real world.

the reality you present is a unique identity. i try to present teh more phenomenal and transcendental reality

once something is legal many more people will have arms. people are not always good drivers, although they are "trained and skilled."

Concealed carry has been legal in Texas for more than a decade. The number of licensees is still less than 2%.

the more accepted by society the more concealed carriers (my opinion, flease refute if you desire).

would you take a criminally insane person out of jail for the organs? i wouldn't
by the way,

Certainly not, and the comparison is still ridiculous. Again, we are talking about someone actively engaged in murder that can be stopped in no other way. you seem determined not to deal with that rather essential element and remain in the land of theory and the abstract.

again, i try to dealy with the transcendental reality as opposed to the unique. it is not as drastic. i believe the debate proactivity still is an issue.

this may raise this issue of capital punishment. we have a large discussion already, so we might as well add on. do you support capital punishment?

I am of the opinion that there are those who must never be allowed to walk the streets as free men again. If they are confined for life without the slightest possibility of parole, that is fine with me. Capital punishment is not necessary if that is done; that can also be changed if it later is determined through new evidence that the conviction is in error, and capital punishment does not leave that possibility. Therefore I oppose it in all but cases where there is absolutely no doubt of guilt, and even then I regard a true life sentence as preferable.

so never killing anybody, even if they are criminally insane and would very, very likely kill again, even in prison? sounds like one could draw parallels, no?

i think thats what you're proposing. i don't support it.

Stopping a murderer in the act is not capital punishment. It is irrelevant whether or not the perpetrator is killed (not all shootings are fatal); it is essential that he be stopped. Death is not the object, but stopping the crime in progress.

If there were available a weapon like Captain Kirk's "phaser" that could stun a criminal into instant unconsciousness, that would be preferable; but no such weapon exists.

as you say, would pepper spray not stop somebody? i have heard of people carrying slightly lowered power tasers, they kill much less often then guns? rubber bullets? many options

For the record, I also carry nonlethal weapons, pepper spray and often a walking stick. My gun is for use only in extremis.

i think nonlethal weapons, FOR TEH MOST CASE, are all that should be carried.

Again, teh massacre although horrible, although this captures less than a statistically relevent scenerio. i think they are awful, but i believe there is a bigger picture.

There you go again. Those who were there were not particularly concerned with statistical relevance. The fact that such shootings are rare is of no comfort to the families of Hennard's victims at all.

you seem to be favoring dramatism over teh average picture of society. i am concerned for the united states as a whole. you (to me) are concerned with dramatic events that have occured surrounding your life.

You seem strangely reluctant to acknowledge the fact that statistics are not all that is important here. There are statistics, and there is reality. Anyone is statistically unlikely ever to be involved in a direct armed confrontation, but it has happened to me twice. I place little value on statistics. I know that these things can happen because they have happened to me.

Deal with the reality of real situations, don't just dismiss them as "bad samples" as if the corpses of my friends are just bookkeeping entries.

its not that they are "bookkeeping entries," and i'm very sorry for your loss. i truely am. i am not a bad person, i just am trying to debate regarding my opinions of what will minimize these occurences from happening. bad situations happen, i am trying to make it so fewer happen. we just differ in theories, and you have enlightened me in a few places. i have learned from you (ratio of defense to offence, statistical amount of mistaken shootings), i just hope that you may learn from me.

your airbag comparison is not too relevent. extra protection that doesn't hurt anybody and only saves lives(debating this should be on a different forum), is different than possessing concealed firearms that do kill thousands of people per year.

That is an untruth. Concealed firearms do not kill thousands of people every year--at least not legally concealed ones; and outlawing those will not matter to those who carry the other kind.

conealed firearms do contribute to deaths in teh US, as shown in earlier postings.

okay fine, then...lets not get bogged down in only mass shooting situations, either. these occur relatively rarely, so lets argue these.

I made a point you couldn't rebut, so you want to "move on," that seems clear.

perhaps i don't understand your situation or point, but i wanted to move on because i thought i supported my belief. thats why i didn't rebut, i thought i was supporting it. sometimes i present and argument for you and rebut. thats what i thought you were doing. please feel free to restate in clearer terms. i apologize for any misunderstanding.

again, i have a lot of faith in teh government, more than i should perhaps. i would give a robber my money, hope i'm insured (home, etc), and hope that the police capture teh criminal. again, i may be naive.

You are not expessing faith in the government; you are expressing faith in the criminal who has a strong motivation to eliminate you as a witness. It has become rather common in home invasions to murder all the occupants. Should I bet my life and that of my family on the high morals of someone who has already invaded my home?

whoa, not all robberies end in murder if the homeowner is unarmed. you know that.

i doen't think so. if i was a criminal, i would be more likely to steal a gun from a cabinet than a police officer. again, a home is less secure than a police station, and guns would be easier to steal from from private individuals.

We were speaking of the responsible use of guns, and suddenly you're speaking of proper storage. Apparently you can't answer my point that trained civilians can and provably do use their weapons in just as responsible a manner as police.

And for the record, gun cabinets are long obsolete; gun safes are more the rule nowadays.

i believe that all firearms in the public should be kept in safes at all times save sporting events and catastrophes (hurricanes) for example. that is, in my opinion, responsible use of guns. and i'm sorry if i said cabinets, the exerpt i pasted said room, safe etc.

again, seize any they find, offer reward for ones turned in, halt production, etc.

Okay. In fifty years, you will have eliminated most handguns. Maybe. In the meantime...

and then america will be safer.

concealed weapons are illegal in many countries, and the occurences of weapons are lower there as well. (first website i gave you says as such, look when you have access to a computer.)

The state of Vermont does not even require a permit to carry, and never has. Any adult can carry a concealed weapon who cares to. It has the second-lowest crime rate in the United States.

If your statistics prove something, why doesn't that one fit?

statistical anomoly. i look at the greater amount of statistics, not specific examples.

the militia in 1789 consisting of "able bodied males of the general population, who were expected to provide their own arms if called into action," can still keep guns locked away and not concealed on their body. take, for instance, the military itself. they have tanks, but you don't always see them. when teh military is protecting, say, the president at a rally, they don't always have tanks and planes everywhere.

LOL! No, they carry concealed weapons.

they are the military. i preposed to allow tehm to carry guns. i did not propose allowing a militia to constantly carry guns. the military example is on a large scale. please don't interpret literally, more allegorically. you said yourself i like theoretical arguments.

you can still have an armed militia that can protect teh people without having to be constantly armed.

True. But then, no one ever said everyone had to go armed. What you are saying here is that it's OK to own guns and keep them at home. I agree with that; I didn't think you did.

sorry for teh misunderstanding. i said that guns in a safe....

we do not carry concealed weapons here. as well, many handhuns are illegal. you cannot buy or sell these "prohibited firearmss" but can only possess them by 'grandfather" clause. you can keep them if you have them, but cannot transfer ownership. they must be under lock and key during teh night and during travel. as well, one must attain a "transport permit" to travel with them. they are illegal to attain. we are not a repressive government. thats all.

Sounds pretty repressive to me. How long till Canada, like Britain, decides to simply confiscate all handguns without compensation? Would that qualify as /repression? If not, what would "repressive' look like, vis-a-vis firearms?

wow. i don't think many people think canada is a repressive government. teh global rankings of democracies was just published on the economist magazine (maybe not a perfect ranking, but still the best we have), canada was quite high up.

keep longarms at home under lock and key. why not store them away for an emergency?

What if the emergency happens in a parking lot or a restaurant?

what if. although this is a valid situation, i am looking a more general theory.

* Americans use firearms to defend themselves from criminals at least 764,000 times a year. This figure is the lowest among a group of 9 nationwide surveys done by organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times.

(Other surveys estimated defensive uses of firearms at numbers as high as 2.5 million times per year. Note that even this lowest estimate shows that firearms are used more frequently in defense than in crimes.)

okay, are people defending themself from a $100 theft.

That's a big assumption, apparently intended to trivialize the issue of self-defense. How do you know they aren't defending themselves from being murdered? You don't.

you're right, i don't. but neither do you. see later points on this issue.

this is a good point, and changes my view slightly. but if you check the source, it is the same gary kleck we have discussed. he presents an outlook that fulfill his agenda.

No. The source was "organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times" (a leftwing paper, by the way). Kleck simply reported the information.

the bibliographic entry:“Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun.” By Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Northwestern University School of Law), 1995.
sounds like gary kleck's entry to me

* In 1982, a survey of imprisoned criminals found that 34% of them had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim."

again, very interesting point, but i still question the source.

Of course you do. You don't like the facts it presents. Read the credibility standards of justfacts.com and tell me why your standards are higher.

i am not questioning justfacts.com, i am questioning gary kleck, who published teh study. take a closer look at the bibliography and you will find that that study was done by a person who's veracity i have called into question.

* Washington D.C. enacted a virtual ban on handguns in 1976. Between 1976 and 1991, Washington D.C.'s homicide rate rose 200%, while the U.S. rate rose 12%.

check teh source. i am rather meticulous about this, and can trust my neutral source given earlier. this source is the NRA. and i don't agree with the point in general.

Again, the NRA is here reporting government statistics; they didn't make those numbers up. The fact that you "don't agree with the point" doesn't make them false.

i have agreed with some of your points. i am open to change. i commented on this example, and its inherant illegitimacy

You aren't dismissing these numbers because of their sources; you're dismissing them because of what they prove. If you were really concerned with sources, you'd have admitted that the critic who panned Kleck's work was intrustworthy because of his connection with anti-gun organizations; instead, you just dropped that line of inquiry.

i have changed some of my views because you've proven them to be false. not all, that is why i'm still debating. please show my source to me worse than your source.

of course there will be a ridiculous amount of illegal guns in teh city. if you banned handguns on one street, criminals would still bring there guns on teh street. something this small scale i have never suggested. silly.

"Small scale"? Do you know what the population of DC is? Or are you saying we can't know if a ban will work until it's tried nationwide?

i do know teh population, that is still a small scale. there can be absolutely no enforcement of this example. thats my only problem.

* 221,443 concealed carry licenses were issued in Florida between October of 1987 and April of 1994. During that time, Florida recorded 18 crimes committed by licensees with firearms.

(That works out to 0.008%)

* As of 1998, nationwide, there has been 1 recorded incident in which a permit holder shot someone following a traffic accident. The permit holder was not charged, as the grand jury ruled the shooting was in self defense.

* As of 1998, no permit holder has ever shot a police officer. There have been several cases in which a permit holder has protected an officer's life.

i don't suggest gun holders are criminals...

You have certainly suggested that they are potential criminals. That is the point of everything you have written here. If they aren't--as these statistics prove pretty conclusively--then what's your point?

i never suggested that. i say that the more guns teh more murders on a direct ratio, as proven. i say that guns are too dangerous to permit more widespread useage.

, i just don't agree with having a plethora of firearms available to the general public.

If legally armed citizens aren't a problem, then what's the problem with having guns available to arm them?

as previously stated. i don't think citizens should be armed. i don't thnk they will actively use tehm, but, as proven, the more guns per capita, the more homocides. they will undoubtedly enter teh criminal realm.

perhaps you might not have been better off [without a gun], but society at large may have been. see other arguments on this issue.

And on that note, we're done here.

I sincerely hope that you never have to deal with a situation, as I have, where the possession of a gun might save your life and that of your loved ones. Since you live in a country where--so far--such things are uncommon, you probably won't, and that's all to the good.

But I can can tell you this, with an absolute, rock-solid, money-back guarantee; if you ever do, your perspective will instantly change, and you will understand that statistics and theory and idealism and optimism and all the rest are of no value whatever in helping you prevent your family from being murdered or worse.

Since you clearly think that theory and some statistics, the ones that you like, are more important than the real-life, been-there-and-seen-it experiences of the person to whom you are speaking, I don't think we have anything more to say to each other. You remain in your safe little world where criminals don't really want to hurt you and where a "rare occurrence" doesn't count for anything at all, and I'll live in the real one.

Peace to you. This is going nowhere.

i don't believe we should be finished,
i have learned much, and i think you have some to learn as well.
i hope i don't have to deal with this situation either. i am trying to make it so that these situations don't occur as often. i'm sorry your life is more "real" than mine. i enjoy my peaceful life without constant threat on my livelyhood.
thats what i want for you. i want you to be able to hear of a robbery, and be appalled.
you may think "thats awful, what could be done to prevent that?" i believe that that is better than you having to live through those horrendous experiences that have scarred you so much your entire mindset has changed. thats all.
i am presenting a mindset that i belive will better teh world. i do sincerely hope to hear from you.

peace be with you. i really want peace.

[Fallibleone]

I'm surprised and encouraged that I'm not the only one with an opposing view.

[zepper899]

I'm surprised and encouraged that I'm not the only one with an opposing view.

opposing concealed carry?