Dumb arses and guns... [Archive]

US Herk

15th Jan 2013, 09:38

I really hate to enter into this, because I know how it ends, but...

Killing each other with an assault rifle in one hand and that ridiculous 2nd amendment in the other.

First, almost nobody has 'assault rifles'. An assault rifle, by US federal law is a select-fire, fully automatic, military weapon - commonly referred to by the uneducated civilians as, machine guns. The manufacturers have been barred from producing them for the civilian market since 1986 and didn't make many prior to that. Those that do still exist on the market require an extensive criminal and mental background check and the purchase of a specific license or stamp. Under very stiff penalty of law, the gun may not be transferred to anyone without going through this process or through a specially licensed class II gun dealer. These guns cost $10,000 and up and have never, ever been used in any mass shooting in the USA. Ever.

I think you're referring to 'assault weapons'. The term 'assault weapons' was fabricated by the anti-gun group known as Gun Control Inc in the very early 1980s. They use the term to describe any legal semi-automatic hunting rifle that has one or more physical characteristics such as a folding or collapsing stock, threaded barrel, flash suppressor, heat shield, pistol grip, large capacity magazine, etc. They say these are bad guns because they're scary looking, but their physical appearance has absolutely no effect on their function and does not magically turn them into machine guns. These guns are more properly called sporting rifles. The best analogy I can think of right this moment is the young boy driver who puts wide tires, a wing, a scoop, some flashy paint and a loud exhaust on his hatchback. Yes, it looks like a road-race car, but underneath he's still driving grandma's Nissan.

Nevertheless, some sporting rifles have been used in shootings. How many?

In 2011 (latest year for full statistics from the FBI), out of a population of approx 322,000,000 there were exactly 323 murders and non-negligent manslaughters with rifles of any kind - not just sporting rifles. If you do the math, that's literally a per-capita rate of one-in-a-million. The overall gun murder rate in the US is about 3.2 per 100,000 - admittedly on the backside, but underneath the bell curve for 'civilized' society. If you control for population density, in other words, compare like-city to like-city, we're actually well below average compared to just about anyone. But as much as we'd like, we can't just throw out Chicago, Detroit, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, or Miami...(although I know the country would be better off without them, but that's a different discussion).

So, we don't 'go around killing each other' with either assault rifles (never ever) or sporting rifles for that matter. But those sporting rifles make a heckofa news cycle, don't they?

As for our Second Amendment, what you may find 'ridiculous', those who actually understand it label it the 'palladium of rights'. As your mind seems to be made up because you know all things American, I'll not lecture you on it, its purpose, or why you should actually be envious of its inclusion in our Constitution.

To the topic - yes, idiots and firearms don't mix, hopefully, it's a self-correcting problem. :E

Have a great day!

keesje

15th Jan 2013, 10:20

Hi Herk thank your for explaining.

I think the kind of guns for sale in the US are only available for government services in most of the world. Regardless of the technical details.

http://insidetheegg.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/guns-on-the-wall-at-the-gun-store-las-vegas.jpg?w=645&h=429

I think the US has developed a unique gun culture over the last 50 yrs. Tourist get into the shops to amaze themselves. Locals are raised with it (yes movies too) and simply know it's a part of live, a right, you should have one, defend yourself. And play with it (practice).

The resulting number firearm-related deaths is truly astonishing compared to other civilized countries. More then 20 as much as UK, 10 times as Australia, 5 times as Canada.. And the reason behind it is totally clear, to the rest of the world..

List of countries by firearm-related death rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate#List)

We have something similar in the Netherlands, though less violent. Nobody wears helmets cycling in our busy cramped old cities. Research shows we should. Scores get killed / wounded, kids eldery, everyone knows. Helmets make a big difference. Campaigns to have people buy them, even giving them all fail. Its simply not done. Only foreigners wear helmets. Why? don't ask, w'll confuse, mislead, misinform you, change the subject, mix in irrelevant comparisons..

CoffmanStarter

15th Jan 2013, 17:16

US Herk ... Better keep your head down in the Everglades over the coming months as I guess every man and his gun will be out trying to bag some of the Python bounty payments on offer :eek:

500N

15th Jan 2013, 17:40

keesje

Were you trying to use that photo as an example of the guns
for sale in the US ?

If so, then those guns in that photo are NOT for sale but for hire to shoot at
a range in Las Vegas. They do not leave the premises and you have someone standing by you all the time once you have the firearm in your hands.

Only people with very special licences are allowed to buy full auto
SMG's and MG's of which a fair few of those in the photo are.

Is this another case of you twisting the argument to suit your case
like in the Falklands thread ?

.

US Herk

15th Jan 2013, 17:55

I think the kind of guns for sale in the US are only available for government services in most of the world.
No, not true. Sporting rifles are NOT, repeat NOT, government weapons, nor are they law-enforcement weapons.

This hunting rifle:
http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/9380/10373326_1.jpg?v=8CDAE02694C8CA0

Is exactly the same as this sporting rifle:
http://thespecialistsltd.com/files/ruger_mini_14_black.jpg

Just as this looks like a race car:
http://daddytypes.com/archive/cervinis_ford_focus.jpg

It's really just one of these with a paint job, a wing, and some fancy wheels:
http://static.cargurus.com/images/site/2008/09/12/11/57/2003_ford_focus_svt-pic-62144.jpeg

There is absolutely zero functional difference between the two guns. They are both Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifles used for varmint hunting on ranches. They are not 'assault weapons' or 'assault rifles', nor is the bottom one any more dangerous than the top one. They are identical in function, if not form. They fire the same exact round .223 Remington, the same exact way - one bullet each time you pull the trigger.

The resulting number firearm-related deaths is truly astonishing compared to other civilized countries. More then 20 as much as UK, 10 times as Australia, 5 times as Canada.. And the reason behind it is totally clear, to the rest of the world..
That's actually a very unrealistic comparison. If nobody else has guns or ready access to guns, one would expect more firearm-related deaths in the society that does have guns. So, not quite an apples-for-apples comparison. It does prove that if you have access to guns, you will likely have people who die from guns. Something to keep in mind is those other countries have restricted access to a limited number and type of guns, yet they still have gun death. And our murder rate is not 20 times that of the UK, it's about 8 times according to the UK home office and the FBI.

Remember that we are over 322,000,000 people, so the total numbers are quite large, yet as a percentage, it's relatively small. 3.2 per 100,000 citizens are murdered (including non-negligent manslaughter) each year. The UK is only about 0.4 per 100,000, so we're 8 times as likely to be killed with a gun. However, in the UK, there are far fewer guns (approx 4,000,000 according to gunpolicy.org), those that do exist are heavily regulated and the overwhelming majority are shotguns as well. Still, with that in mind, when you consider there are about 120,000,000 guns in the US, it would appear that we're actually more responsible overall than the fewer legal gun owners in the UK. While the US has 30 times the number of guns as the UK, our murder-by-gun rate is only 8 times that of the UK. It's not the guns.

If the US access to guns caused the high rate, we should have a murder rate 30 times that of the UK, but we don't. Here's more: Your Swiss cousins are all armed to the teeth, required by the Swiss government to retain their military rifles after their compulsory service. Every single Swiss home has at least one rifle - military rifles. Yet, they have some of the lowest crime in the whole of the western world. My point? The guns are not the problem. Access to guns is not the problem. You've been fed a line of propaganda for so long you cannot even accept any other possibility. Guns are merely tools - they have no moral character - they are not good or evil, naughty or nice - they are inanimate objects.

Since we can prove that neither the number of guns nor the availability of guns is a good predictor of murder, why do you ban them? I guess it must be because it promotes a culture of violence. With that in mind and since it's clear to everyone else in the 'civlizied world' that guns are bad and hence, they've banned them from most folks' access, one should expect that the US would have the most violent crime. The assumption being that guns cause all the violence - or else, why ban them since it's not the murder? That, however, is not the case. The US has lower overall violent crime (murder, rape, arson, aggravated assault, and home invasion burglaries) than a good deal of the 'civilized world' and our murder rate overall, not just firearm-related, is actually reasonably comparable on a per capita rate (which is the only realistic way to compare any crime statistic). Further, the UK is the most violent country in the EU according to the EU and UN statistics.

Quit watching the news. I didn't make these numbers up. Find some reliable data and investigate for yourself (not wikipedia). The US FBI publishes the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) every year available to the public. The UK Home Office does similarly, as do many other the countries. The UN publishes data it collates from various member nations - some of the data is decidedly less reliable than others based on the sources, but they do provide the generic source for their data so you can filter on your own. According to the UN, the USA is #127 on the list of murder by firearm, but now we're competing with countries like Honduras, Mexico (some of the strictest gun control laws in the world), South Africa, etc.

As an end note, my university degree is in Criminal Justice, so I've been familiar with these debates and statistics for over 25 years now.

This is a good video - around 2:30-40 there's a comparison with the UK specifically.
Crime Stats Piers Morgan MSM Won't Discuss - 2013 Gun Control Debate - YouTube

keesje

15th Jan 2013, 21:24

Adam Lanza used a semiautomatic Bushmaster .223 rifle during his rampage through Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, firing dozens of high-velocity rounds as he killed 20 children and six adults.

Lets not try to overwhelm/ confuse people with technical details that don't really matter.

http://www.feministe.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/bushmaster_desktop_1024x768.jpg

You can get bushmasters at Walmart:
http://www.trbimg.com/img-50d0a8b8/turbine/la-fi-mo-walmart-dicks-cabelas-bushmaster-2012-001/600

I'm sure we can look at the gun related killings statistics in different ways. But the writing is on the wall. Unless you don't want to see it. And that's IMO a problem.

My son will never be able to steal a bushmaster from his mother. Nor will his friends, family, neighbours.. A reality.

500N

15th Jan 2013, 21:27

keesje

As others have pointed out, I notice you are very selective with what you read and respond to.

keesje

15th Jan 2013, 22:35

N500, instead of futile discussions over a single photo (https://www.google.nl/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=649&q=gunshop&oq=gunshop&gs_l=img.3..0l2j0i10i24l2j0i24l3j0i10i24l2j0i24.3757.6422.0. 7327.7.7.0.0.0.0.127.593.6j1.7.0...0.0...1ac.1.iT9HFwV0070)

others seem to answer your question about the ability to buy assault weapons. The NRA is furious.

New York enacts gun-control law, first since Newtown attack | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/15/us-usa-guns-newyork-idUSBRE90E06L20130115)

US Herk

16th Jan 2013, 04:22

Lanza, like every single other mass shooter in the last thirty years, was on psychotherapeutic drugs. He did not have 'ready' or 'easy' access to guns, they were his mother's guns. Did you know he killed his mother to get the guns and her car?

I think we should ban alcohol because some folks don't use it responsibly, get in their cars, and kill people. Or maybe we should ban cars instead. Or maybe we can be sensible, punish those who use either of these tools abusively, and allow the responsible, law-abiding people to go about their lives unfettered from restrictive laws.

For what it's worth, the other 68,000,000+ legal gun owners, owning 120,000,000+ guns killed nobody yesterday. The guns, access to guns, types of guns, or anything else about the tools of the criminally insane are completely irrelevant. Yet you fail to grasp that very simple and basic concept.

According to the EU, the Netherlands has 111,888 violent crimes, which works out to a per capita rate of 676 per 100,000 people. The US has 466 per 100,000 people. If you don't know what that means, allow me to explain it - you are nearly 1.5 times more likely to be the victim of violent crime in the Netherlands. If you have such sensible gun laws, why do you have more violence and violent crime? Go get your house in order before you start telling others how to run theirs. And quit watching the news.

Your ability to selectively pull individual sentences from major media who are not factually reporting, but sensationalizing facts speaks volumes to the extent to which you are already brainwashed, ignorant, or both. You refuse to listen to reason, so I'm assuming your ignorance is willful. The brainwashed part is obvious, but I was hoping there was still logic and reason within you. My mistake.

I'm done.

Pigs can't sing and I'm only getting muddy.

PTT

16th Jan 2013, 05:51

A whole bunch of red herrings which don't actually address the point, which is...More people per capita in the US die from gun injury than in any other developed nation.

Violent crime is not death by guns, so please don't try to equate the two. First, there is the matter of what gets recorded as "violent crime", which differs enormously by nation. Then, while you are more likely to be involved in a violent incident in the UK than in the US, that same violent incident is 15 times more likely to end in the death of one of those involved. So yeah, there may be more "violent crime" in the UK, but the level of violence is far, far greater in the US.
I can dig up the reports on those numbers if you want.

mikip

16th Jan 2013, 07:43

Question for US Herk, forgetting all the arguments about what kills what, why do you feel you need to own a gun?

Duncan D'Sorderlee

16th Jan 2013, 07:45

Without wishing to stifle debate; what has this got to do with military aviation?

Even the info regarding the new UK Glock 17 (yes, I contributed!) was a bit spurious. This is way out in left field.

Duncs:ok:

That said, it's this first time that I have been even remotely in agreement with anything keesje has said!:E

keesje

16th Jan 2013, 09:07

I think guns are for people that are well trained, not only in how to handle them but also when to use them, make quick risk assesments when not to use them and being authorized to use them as a last, to be avoided option.

In my book that is police and militairy. We pay them train them and arm them in the best possible way for that difficult responsibility. We keep their weapons safe for them when they go home.

Not that grown up kid down the street, raised with Gears Of War 2, that heard he has rights to buy that awesome Bushmaster.

The Congressional Research Service in 2009 estimated there were 310 million firearms in the United States. What's the number you have!? If you can't convince them, confuse them?

Herk, the numbers you name, and the conclusions you get out of them.. amazing.

Ronald Reagan

16th Jan 2013, 12:32

I think its rather unfair to law abiding gun owners in the US that they are all tarnished by the actions of the odd lunatic. People ask ''whats the need to own a gun?''. One could say that about anything, ''whats the need to own a sports car or a speed boat or a second home? Maybe simply as the person in question enjoys owning the item, thats all.
To punish the majority of the law abiding due to the actions of the odd person just seems so wrong. Following that logic we could ban all alcohol. Most people drink alcohol in a reasonable way, a minority do not. Maybe for the greater good to prevent drink driving and alochol related violance (common in our cities at night) we could ban all alcohol. As someone who does not drink I don't see why my life should be at risk by those who do. We have all the situations of football hooligans which often involve drink aswell. So maybe for the greater good a total ban on alcohol should take place. What purpose does alcohol serve? Why do people need to drink it? Its a drug and a dangerous one at that, many other drugs are banned so maybe alcohol should be added to the list!!! I don't see that drinking serve any worthwhile purpose at all.
I would not support such a ban though, I hate alcohol but that does not mean my opinion should force others to do the same. Not to think of the major economic disaster such a ban would cause, the same applies to the large gun industry in the US, all the gun shops, manufacterers, shooting clubs would all be gone, with the economy as it is all they need are yet more job losses. But for me the big issue is the freedom of Americans to own a gun or not.

brickhistory

16th Jan 2013, 13:46

Question for US Herk, forgetting all the arguments about what kills what, why do you feel you need to own a gun?

This wasn't addressed to me, but I'd like to answer anyway.

I don't "need" a gun.

I can simply because I can. It is an inherent right for simply being alive as an American citizen that I can. It is enshrined in the the founding charter of our nation, the U.S. Constitution. That remarkable document, for us, states some remarkable rights that are ours simply for being.

They are not for the government to dole out or restrict.

It is ours. It may not work for others and I do not wish to inflict upon others.

The beauty for us is that you can decide for yourself to own or not.

I, and tens of millions, if not a hundred millionor more, did nothing wrong with our firearms.

edited to add: the morons highlighted in this thread on video are well on their way to gene pool clean-up. As it should be; stupid should hurt. :E

Harley Quinn

16th Jan 2013, 19:24

This thread really needs to move to JB now

Posted from Pprune.org App for Android

keesje

16th Jan 2013, 21:51

check around 3:00

Alex Jones vs Piers Morgan On Gun Control - CNN 1/7/2013 - YouTube

Lonewolf_50

16th Jan 2013, 22:05

MightyGem

16th Jan 2013, 22:29

check around 3:00
!3:25 is even better! :rolleyes:

t43562

16th Jan 2013, 22:50

Is there any constitutional limit to what kind of "arms" may be borne?

keesje

17th Jan 2013, 07:24

I think the Swiss, often used as an example by the gun lobby, are insulted.?they think its totally counterproductive. And the weapons at home of swiss armed forces members have nothing to with scared US whites males and their love for guns.

Google Vertalen (http://translate.google.nl/translate?hl=nl&sl=de&u=http://www.nzz.ch/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dz%25C3%25BCrich%2Bzeitung%26hl%3Dnl%26client%3D safari%26tbo%3Dd&sa=X&ei=37P3UKfEHaWd0QXFtYDQAQ&ved=0CDQQ7gEwAA)

PTT

17th Jan 2013, 08:01

PTT, you once again deliberately ignore the utility of prevention of violent crime by citizens who use firearms for self defense. We have had this conversation previously.

The cops can't be everywhere. Some people prefer not to be forced to be a victim.

I'm not ignoring it at all, and have addressed it previously. See this study (http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-kellermann.htm) which shows that having a gun increases your risk of getting killed by 2.7 times. From the study:
After eliminating the impact of other variables like illegal drugs and domestic violence, the researchers found that the risk of getting killed was 2.7 times greater in homes with a gun than without them. No protective benefit of possessing a firearm was ever found, not even for a single one of the 14 subgroups studied.
You might feel safer with a gun, and you probably want to believe that you are "safer" from being killed if you own a gun, but the fact is that you are not. The study is multivariate, so it compares [you with a gun in your house] with [you without a gun in your house] and finds that [you without a gun in your house] is a lot less likely to be killed. I'm sure you find that counter-intuitive and contradictory to common sense, but then so are many other things (think Schrödinger and you're at the tip of a very big iceberg).
I note your habit of counting the hits and ignoring the misses remains.Accusations like that demand evidence.
As to "developed nations" I note that you deliberately white wash the following reality: nations have differences. On the contrary, it was the differences between nations which I pointed out in US Herk's herring-ridden post.
It appears that nations having differences bothers you. Why is that?
Don't strawman, and don't deflect from the issue.
What's your beef? People who misuse statistics, fail to point out the biases, and otherwise misunderstand studies but are very willing to use them as evidence, even interpreting them in a manner to which they are not lent. "Lies, damned lies and statistics" is rubbish: "lies, damned lies and people who misuse statistics" is the truth of it. Sadly the way the media throws stats around leaves people with the mistaken impression that statistics are both inviolable and simple. They're not: they require context.
That, along with people who "feel" they are better off doing one thing while all the evidence suggests otherwise.

JSFfan

17th Jan 2013, 08:11

I'm starting to think the problem isn't the guns, It's just Americans.

t43562

17th Jan 2013, 09:25

Sounds like a clash of perspectives to me. If you live in Western Europe you're never going to be able to see the point of view of a person living in, say, Johannesburg with the constant threat of violence and the police not really having any plan or hope of ending it. I was on the scene of a cash-in-transit robbery in Cape Town 5 minutes after it happened. A gang with AK-47s pushed a truck into the island in the highway and shot the back door off to get the cash. The drivers lived, I saw bullet casings all over the road. This event didn't make the national news, of course, since it was so unremarkable and commonplace.

In this sort of scenario one might feel that everyone has to go around with AK-47s to protect themselves from the baddies who have AK-47s. Where would the escalation stop?

I wouldn't be too surprised if there was a time in Europe when everyone who could afford them had weapons of one kind or another simply for personal protection on the roads.

Duncan D'Sorderlee

17th Jan 2013, 09:33

"I wouldn't be too surprised if there was a time in Europe when everyone who could afford them had weapons of one kind or another simply for personal protection on the roads. "

That was in 1750!

Duncs:ok:

Still not Mil Aviation, though!

t43562

17th Jan 2013, 09:54

Yes, well in the lot of the world it's still '1750' in certain respects and if you went back to 1750 on your own it would be you that had to adapt and you would be annoyed by people living in a better situation who kept telling you what to do when they didn't have your mountain of problems to overcome first.

Duncan D'Sorderlee

17th Jan 2013, 12:49

"Yes, well in the lot of the world it's still '1750' "

Mate, I agree entirely!

Duncs:ok:

Lonewolf_50

17th Jan 2013, 14:09

PTT:

Your study is a fail if you are the one in the situation with a home invasion.

Be prepared.

Firearms accidents are a separate category of problem, and if you go back to my first post in this thread, are best mitigated by a good firearms safety course, which the NRA has a number of, all excellent. Local police departments often have them as well.

If you aren't competent to handle a firearm, don't keep one in the house.

If you have on in the house, get the training in proper firearms handling and safety. Go out and practice now and again at the range to keep the rust off.

That's how you influence firearms safety, not hiding in a hole and screaming "firearms, unsafe."

This thread began about firearms safety. See the video.

The rest we've wasted plenty of time on elsewhere.
Your fearmongering is noted.

Droll how you complain about abuse of statistics. Very droll.

JSFfan

17th Jan 2013, 14:23

The per 100k pop stats show that europe and australia, both with decent gun laws, don't have the guns problems the US does.
Heck the US even have more knife murders than the UK per 100k and knives aren't even on the US radar.

If you looked at the stats, the US looks like a troubled society and guns are only part of the problem

bcgallacher

17th Jan 2013, 15:18

Just to give a little perspective - In a recent 10 year period 544 US policemen were shot dead,in the same period in the UK - 5 policemen shot dead. In 2008 and 2009 173 children under 5 shot dead. The price for the right to bear arms - since 1969, 120000 minors shot dead.

PTT

17th Jan 2013, 18:19

@ Lonewolf 50PTT:

Your study is a fail if you are the one in the situation with a home invasion. Well that's a comprehensive counter to an exhaustive study... :ugh:
Forgive me if I take your "oh no it isn't" response with the pinch of salt it deserves.Firearms accidents are a separate category of problemStop cherrypicking. Firearms deaths are firearms deaths. And the study didn't specify "accidental deaths" either - it said homicides (which is all situations where one person kills another).
best mitigated by a good firearms safety course, which the NRA has a number of, all excellent. Local police departments often have them as well.

If you aren't competent to handle a firearm, don't keep one in the house.

If you have on in the house, get the training in proper firearms handling and safety. Go out and practice now and again at the range to keep the rust off.I totally agree that a sound grounding in education and knowledge, combined with regular practice, will likely reduce the accident rate enormously. I'd say that such preparation should, in fact, be a pre-requisite to owning a gun.
"firearms, unsafe."Oh but they are, inherently: their sole intent is to kill or injure others.Your fearmongering is noted. Your inability to counter a set of facts with which you disagree is noted.
Droll how you complain about abuse of statistics. Very droll.And yet you have failed to show how I have abused any statistics at all. You're heckling, not arguing in any constructive manner. Let me give you an example of how to take some misused statistics apart:

@ bcgallacher
Just to give a little perspective - In a recent 10 year period 544 US policemen were shot dead,in the same period in the UK - 5 policemen shot dead. In 2008 and 2009 173 children under 5 shot dead. The price for the right to bear arms - since 1969, 120000 minors shot dead.This fails to give any real perspective. It does not consider differences in population size, for starters.
Your first statistic seems to say 5 die in the UK per 544 in the US, which is misleading at best. Adjusting that for relative populations, where the US has roughly 5 times the population of the UK, and we can factor down such that it's 5 in the UK for every 109 (roughly) in the US.
Your second statistic fails not only on the population count but on the timeframe. UK, 2 years, 173 dead. US, 43 years, 120,000 dead (you say). In the absence of real 2008/09 stats for the US you can scale down, so it's US, 2 years, 5581 dead. Then factor in population at 5 to 1 again and you get UK:US over a 2 year period was 5:1116 dead. And even that that is full of holes and assumptions.
Yes, the numbers are still apparently much larger in the US per capita (two orders of magnitude, at least), but by making irrelevant comparisons and missing obvious biases you leave yourself open to easy criticism and dismissal of your argument.
Finally, you fail to cite your sources. I have no reason to believe any of the numbers you quote. I personally find the last one about 120,000 children dead from guns since 1969 very hard to believe indeed.

500N

17th Jan 2013, 18:59

JSFFan

"and australia, both with decent gun laws, don't have the guns problems the US does."

Not in terms of total killings but what it does show up is crims just go around killing each other - we had 10 years of an underworld "war" with over 35 dead.

We also have "others" including Lebbo's driving round shooting at each other from cars and a couple of families in a tit for tat war that always involve guns.

You can bring in whatever laws you like but it isn't going to stop any of the above because 1. I doubt they read the papers re the laws and 2. Even if they do, they couldn't give a shyt.

Lima Juliet

17th Jan 2013, 22:27

Quote:
"firearms, unsafe."
Oh but they are, inherently: their sole intent is to kill or injure others.

Seeing as this thread started a bit tongue in cheek and was a reminder for people to be safe during their miitary common core skills (CCS) training, I find this quote from PTT somewhat amusing. Guns, just like cars/aircraft/boats/fireworks/chainsaws/etc... are unsafe if you don't know what you're doing or follow your training (like CCS which the thread is all about). Secondly, their sole intent is not just to "kill or injure others", they can be used to:

1. Act as a visual deterrent and sign of authoriity.
2. Put food on the table.
3. Give an advantage to a smaller force threatened by a larger but lesser armed force (a bit like point number 1).

Why were guns used in the recent US attrocity in Newtown? Because you can buy them in WalMart. However, before getting all high and mighty about it, think whether the nut-job would have used other means to kill/main these innocent individuals - the answer is probably "yes" using arson, petrol bombs, nail bombs, chemical attack, mowing them down in a large vehicle, etc, etc...

So it's not really about guns, more like why do people get so f^cked up in civilised society to do such evil things? This is not an East/West thing either, there are evil b@st@rds around the globe from all societies.

Anyway, back to the intent of the thread - watch the video and when you do military CCS or climb in a jet/helo with pistol strapped to you, don't be a dumb arse!

LJ

Willard Whyte

17th Jan 2013, 22:27

How does he have the time to post here as well as the '35 thread...

finestkind

18th Jan 2013, 00:12

Apologise, a bit late in from were I wanted to intro so may not follow the current line.

Once upon a time if you stole a loaf of bread you were hung or deported for life. Once upon a time if you stole a horse/rustled you were hung.

A different time but some justification. You didn't steal the bread off the rich coves table 5 miles away you stole it of some one in a similar predicament as you and therefore they starved instead of you.

When the Constitution was written, the right to bear arms was a far more fundamental right and far more justified.

If as stated the right to bear arms is to prevent the Government from becoming a dictatorship than I find this highly questionable Mr Jones.

Musket to musket with the cannon thrown in was a reasonably fair playing field. "Hunting rifle" to tanks, missiles, machine guns, aircraft does not add up. Am I missing something here or is it delusional to think the right to bear arms will prevent a dictatorship, or is Alex Jones the delusional one.

Sorry cannot help it, slight thread drift. Freedom of speech. With any right comes responsibility. Does freedom of speech give a person the right to walk down the street and f&&8 and C^$% to everyone. I would hope not. It was a right to voice your opinion and beliefs and hold fast to them without fear of persecution. Not a right be an arsehole. A different time and place were if you did voice your opinion/belief you would have been persecuted. Have we not evolved, become civilised enough, through gaining these rights to state that we will not fall back into this state. Have we not become more educated than the average man 200 plus years ago. Do we not have far, exceedingly so, more access to information to known what is going on (no matter how eschewed by the media). Do the citizens of the USA really fear a take over. In a democracy there is every chance that this will occur but not through arms but simple voting.

I do not have a gun. There will be no accidental death in my house from a gun. If I did not have a pool there would be no accidental drowning. I do but it is fenced etc to minimise the risk. A have a right to have a pool, I have a responsibility to make it as safe as possible.

Keesje states that in the Netherlands that it is not the law to wear a bike helmet. Therefore its the individuals right to either wear one or not. Is it the tax payers responsibility to keep the brain damaged rider alive on life support.

saudipc-9

18th Jan 2013, 03:48

Fk,

Good post. I agree with you completely. Odd that a country which claims to lead the world is afraid of it's own government.

PTT

18th Jan 2013, 05:48

@ Leon
I find this quote from PTT somewhat amusing. Guns, just like cars/aircraft/boats/fireworks/chainsaws/etc... are unsafe if you don't know what you're doing or follow your training (like CCS which the thread is all about).I wouldn't advocate operating cars/aircraft/boats/fireworks/chainsaws/etc without the proper training either. There's no contradiction. The difference between those items and guns, though, is that guns are intended to cause damage.
Secondly, their sole intent is not just to "kill or injure others", they can be used to:

1. Act as a visual deterrent and sign of authoriity.
2. Put food on the table.
3. Give an advantage to a smaller force threatened by a larger but lesser armed force (a bit like point number 1).2 requires the use of the gun to kill or injure the intended meal, as does 3 if things get "heated". In the best case of no shots being fired, the use of the gun in 1 and 3 is predicated on the knowledge that the gun is intended to kill or injure others: fear of that capability is what makes it work. Cars/aircraft/boats/fireworks/chainsaws/etc simply don't have that same effect...
If anything, your example 1 is evidence that guns are inherently dangerous.
think whether the nut-job would have used other means to kill/main these innocent individuals - the answer is probably "yes" using arson, petrol bombs, nail bombs, chemical attack, mowing them down in a large vehicle, etc, etc....They probably would try; thing is, easy access to guns makes it easier for them to do.

Duncan D'Sorderlee

18th Jan 2013, 07:39

LJ,

Well done; a reference to Mil Aviation!

Duncs:ok:

bcgallacher

18th Jan 2013, 08:52

PTT - I suggest you read my post again as you appear to be under the mistaken belief that the 173 figure for children under five refers to UK figures - it in fact refers to US children under five years of age in 2008 and 2009. In the UK for the last 5 years at least I have not heard of a single shooting death of a child of under five. As far as the 120000 figure is concerned it is quite feasable as in an average year 23000 die from gunshot wounds in the USA.

bcgallacher

18th Jan 2013, 09:06

PTT - I suggest you read my post again as you appear to be under the mistaken belief that the 173 figure for children under five refers to UK figures - it in fact refers to US children under five years of age in 2008 and 2009. In the UK for the last 5 years at least I have not heard of a single shooting death of a child of under five. As far as the 120000 figure is concerned it is quite feasable as in an average year 23000 die from gunshot wounds in the USA. The fact is unlike any other industrialised nation,the citizens of the USA shoot each other and themselves at an extremely high rate. What can be done about it? absolutely nothing as the guns are already in society and impossible to remove.In my little country we suffered one school massacre in Dunblane - we may have another as you cannot account for every maniac in society but at least we have tried to minimise the risk. If we need a gun we can legally get one but we do not have to fear our fellow citizens the way it seems to be in the US.School massacres seem to happen at regular intervals in your country - next time have a serious think about how to reduce them - the solution is not more guns.

bcgallacher

18th Jan 2013, 09:27

If you really want a comprehensive account of gun deaths and injuries in the USA the Childrens Defense Fund website is very detailed - the figures given in an article dated January 3rd are from official sources. Any person with a modicum of humanity will be appalled. The price for 'the right to bear arms'. I am glad we do not have the same gun culture - we do not fear our Government and our freedoms are no different.

PeregrineW

18th Jan 2013, 09:54

Q. How many NRA members does it take to change a light bulb?

A. More guns.

noprobs

18th Jan 2013, 10:30

Well done; a reference to Mil Aviation!

Duncs

Here's another tenuous link. In 1995, I was in Sarajevo doing a military aviation job. Our lot had recently been bombing the other lot on the far side of the city, and we won. As Christmas approached, we started receiving the traditional parcels of goodies from back home. The previous year, most of these had been passed on to the orphanages on our side of the besieged city, so this time we decided to try a gesture of reconciliation. We phoned the Serb colonel in his somewhat damaged barracks over the other side, asking for reassurance that we could safely cross over to visit him and give food parcels for the kids over there. He agreed, and 2 of us set off to deliver seasonal wishes.

We (me RAF and an American colleague) were greeted by the colonel in his colourful purple/blue DPM kit and Nike trainers. He was a well-spoken, well-educated, urbane man, who seemed hospitable and reassuring. After a few cups of coffee and glasses of slivovitz, we were having quite a pleasant conversation, despite recent events. Eventually, we got to the point where I thought that he was making a joke, but then I realised that he was indeed serious. In talking about what our children would be doing back home at Christmas, he suggested that our UK and USA kids would be playing with computers, thinking that these would be the means to control the world in the future. However, he said, his son would be practising with his AK47; that was the real secret to future power. :eek:

Sadly, all these years later, there still seem to be a lot of adherents to this philosophy.

PTT

18th Jan 2013, 11:41

PTT - I suggest you read my post again as you appear to be under the mistaken belief that the 173 figure for children under five refers to UK figures - it in fact refers to US children under five years of age in 2008 and 2009.Ah, ok, it wasn't clear to me. In that case the figure is meaningless as it is contextless.
That said, I mistyped the final ratio, which, had my interpretation been correct, should be 173:1116 instead. Thanks for pointing it out though :ok:
As far as the 120000 figure is concerned it is quite feasable as in an average year 23000 die from gunshot wounds in the USA.No source, no belief. I can't find a single source to suggest that almost 2,800 under-5s die a year from firearms related causes. Similar rates are quoted for under-20s, but not under-5's. The only reference I've found to under-5 death rates in 15 minutes of searching is this (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_children_are_killed_each_year_by_gun_accidents), which states 73 under-5s were killed by firearm in 1999. Extrapolating that (and we have no reason to accept that is reasonable give that we have only one data point) we would get just over 3,000 deaths in a 43 year period. Not quite the 120,000 you mention.
That said, the US firearm related death rate (source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate) - original source for that article is a pdf from CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/deaths_2010_release.pdf)) is 10.2 per 100,000. With a population of 310m that makes for 31,620 deaths by firearm in 2010. The homicide rate is 3.6, making for 11,160 homicides by firearm that year. It's worth noting that the US has the 3rd highest suicide by firearm rate.
The fact is unlike any other industrialised nation,the citizens of the USA shoot each other and themselves at an extremely high rate. What can be done about it? absolutely nothing as the guns are already in society and impossible to remove. In my little country we suffered one school massacre in Dunblane - we may have another as you cannot account for every maniac in society but at least we have tried to minimise the risk. If we need a gun we can legally get one but we do not have to fear our fellow citizens the way it seems to be in the US. School massacres seem to happen at regular intervals in your country - next time have a serious think about how to reduce them - the solution is not more guns.I don't disagree. All I'm saying is that in order to make the argument and prevent people from picking niggling holes it is wise to shore it up with citations and be aware of the limitations of the stats you quote.

bcgallacher

18th Jan 2013, 14:38

Nowhere have I said that 120000 under fives have been shot dead - that figure refers to minors. Minors are those under the age of majority.In this country it is 16, in the US I believe it is 18. As far as figures are concerned they are official US government figures - some from the FBI,some from other government bodies.I really think you should stop trying to defend the indefensible and admit that the death rate from guns is an affront to a civilised country - why does this discussion exist?
The last comment on this subject I will make is that 45% of young male gun deaths are of black males who comprise 15% of the population - this also seems to be the case in the UK where the percentage of gun deaths in the black population far exceeds the percentage in society.This is not a racist statement,merely a statement of fact.

PTT

18th Jan 2013, 15:03

Understood now, although you weren't exactly clear.

walter kennedy

18th Jan 2013, 19:19

How’s this for an answer!!!!! (emailed to me by a friend.).
For those that don't know him, Major General Peter Cosgrove is an Australian.
General Cosgrove was interviewed on the radio recently. Read his reply to the lady who interviewed him concerning guns and children.
Regardless of how you feel about gun laws you have to love this!
This is one of the best comeback lines of all time.
This is a portion of an ABC radio interview between a female broadcaster and General Cosgrove who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military Headquarters.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
So, General Cosgrove, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?

GENERAL COSGROVE:
We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery and shooting.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
Shooting! That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?

GENERAL COSGROVE:
I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?

GENERAL COSGROVE:
I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
But you're equipping them to become violent killers.

GENERAL COSGROVE:
Well, Ma'am, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you?

PTT

18th Jan 2013, 19:38

An oldie but a goodie :D
FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
But you're equipping them to become violent killers.This is her logic fails, imo. You're equipping them to be able to safely use weapons (which I advocate). Anyone can be a violent killer, and teaching children how to use a gun responsibly doesn't do that.

keesje

19th Jan 2013, 16:14

I think its funny to see how many are focussed on proving in the US its e.g. just 10 times as many people/ kids killed as in the UK, instead of 20 times as much. Shows how deep the problem is..

cornish-stormrider

19th Jan 2013, 17:49

"guns don't kill people - rappers do. I seen it on a documentary on BBC2"

Guns don't kill people - no the idiot behind the gun is the one, as ably demonstrated by the antics of the darwin brigade in the clips.

HOWEVER - the ease at which lethal weapons can be purchased, or given or whatever stateside is quite worrying......

Would I choose to live in the states - maybe.
would I choose to own a firearm - probably not - I'd like to but with a small child in the house I'd prefer to do my shooting at a licensed range only thanks- and I'm not man enough to do hunting......

I'll stick with my own legal way to eliminate a burgalar - a highly trained wooly alligator, preferably one who is trained to protect the wee un.

Pontius Navigator

19th Jan 2013, 19:45

OK, I'll touch an aviation theme and more:

In the 60s it never crossed our mind that we were visiting the wild west. We would visit Omaha, and we even managed Los Angeles armed with no more than a pitiful handful of dollars (no credit cards then). It never crossed our mind that there were gunmen and women around.

We certainly knew that an American guard or policeman that gave you an order was to be obeyed but not that most others were armed too.

Now would innocent visiting aircrew be quite so blasé?

Now, if you decided to buy and live in the US (as permitted) would you consider getting a gun?

brickhistory

19th Jan 2013, 20:09

Interesting how many accents one could hear at the various Vegas gun ranges coinciding with Red Flag, etc.

Same as when I go to the only :{ indoor range here in my new Midwest home. Not unusual to hear one or two of those young men (mostly) with the short haircut and the non-Midwestern accent signing up for a lane.

I would hope that the level of discourse here is a little better than in Jet Blast on the topic.

But basically, we, in America, have the right to own firearms. It is not for the federal government to infringe upon that. Individual states can, and do, what is permissable or not (This discussion is regarding semi-auto, widely in use weapons, not full-auto. Which are legal to own, just enormously cumbersome regarding the paperwork involved). But not the federal government.

We have the freedom to choose to own or not to own.

If one chooses, one has the responsibility that goes along with it. By far, the vast majority do.

Unfortunately, a few idiots don't.

But it is our decision and society. Not anyone else's. You visit other nations and cultures and abide by their norms. Just as we do (or should) when in yours.

Please note, this is dealing with legal gun ownership and use and not criminal activity which I believe is not eradicated on the far eastern side of the Atlantic either.

edited to add: While I wouldn't presume to speak for all gun-owning Americans this

Odd that a country which claims to lead the world is afraid of it's own
government.

has it backwards. Because there are so many gun-owning citizens, there are those in the government who are afraid of us.

Just as the Founding Fathers (who used The English Bill of Rights as one of their research documents, complete with the "right to bear arms" although you wanted only Protestants!) intended.

And we intend to continue.

keesje

19th Jan 2013, 21:04

I'm not afraid of my government, we have elected them to protect us. And they do or we send them home. I think they have the task to interfere with people that think they have the right to own and play with assault rifles and let their kids do the same.

I think being more tough on gun sales is only the start. The US government should start taking them back, starting the powerfull ones. It's gone out of control. I think it is the right thing to do but takes courage, persistence.

A full blown media campaign presenting the realities of US gun culture is a good start. Anti smoking campaigns should give a good example, educating the population.

parabellum

19th Jan 2013, 22:00

I don't think it would be a good idea to challenge the citizens right to own but one area that can be tightened up without breaching anyones rights is the storage of weapons, I would have thought? How about hand guns, (excluding machine pistols), shotguns and single shot rifles may be kept in the home but semi-automatic and automatic weapons may be owned but must be stored in a secure armoury at the range where they will be used, taken out when required, returned after cleaning?

brickhistory

19th Jan 2013, 22:30

keesje, good for you and I'm glad you have your opinion. I also respect what your government does or does not to regarding your ability to own weapons.

Why is it too much to ask for the same courtesy?

para, why should I store my weapons anywhere but where I choose? Your scenario presumes some sort of registry, which I, and most gun-owners are against, to ensure compliance with the 'armory' storage. Such a universal register would be, and has been in some locales, the first step in government confiscation of said weapons when it decided those guns were suddently illegal.

Secondly, I and most gun-owners, do take precautions regarding safe and secure storage of my weapons. I do not need the state to tell me what I must do and subject me to their restrictions.

Thirdly, although your intent was clear, when you included 'semi-autos' in your plan, you eliminated the, probably, majority of handguns. Semi sales have far exceeded revolver sales for quite a while now. To the extent where some of the best revolvers are no longer produced due to lack of sales. Semi-auto handguns, on the other hand, sell like mad.

Stupidity by legal gun-owners and illegal activity by criminals is the issue. Human behavior of the relative few, not the reasonable care exercised by the vast majority, is the culprit. Not the implement itself.

parabellum

20th Jan 2013, 01:09

I didn't intend to exclude handguns like the 9mm Browning or it's more modern counterparts, just those rapid fire, large magazine machine pistols.

As far as semi-automatic and automatic rifles are concerned they are hardly the weapon for self or property defence are they? My thoughts were that they would only be used on a range so why not keep them there? Don't want to get too deep into this, I'm a gun owner but not an American!:)

500N

20th Jan 2013, 05:23

Parabellum
"I'm a gun owner"

No, as a gun owner you are a bloody traitor. If you are suggesting this
for US citizens, what are you telling your / our Gov't to do ?

Stop imposing restrictions on gun ownership and what people can
and can't do in the US.

FYI, the majority of people in the US use semi auto M16 type firearms
for HUNTING as well as target shooting so storing them at a range is BS.

I can't believe a gun owner, especially from Victoria actually said that.
We were just talking about other "gun owner" traitors who support the Gov't on another forum, I might just cut and paste your post above into that thread
because 99% of people would say you are a traitor.

BTW, What if someone (like those lovely do gooders out there) started to push for all civvy pilots of civvy planes had to take another pilot along on the basis that "you" might do something stupid when flying the plane, endangering other people ??????? Kind of restrict private flying wouldn't it ?

parabellum

20th Jan 2013, 19:48

500N - Uncharacteristically you have gone way, way OTT with your reaction, most unusual and disappointing. All I am suggesting is a change to storage rules, nothing more, you should be very careful with the use of the word 'traitor' too.

Pontius Navigator

20th Jan 2013, 21:59

So, back to my Q.

How do RAF and other detached military personnel feels about gun ownership when based in the USA?

Do they retain the European attitude or do they feel that they also need a firearm?

topgas

20th Jan 2013, 22:20

"storing on the range " really won't help. I shoot on several ranges, so I could take the weapon out of one range to go to another, or just walk out with it. Whilst I see the need for reasonable controls, it is slightly paradoxical that I had to hand in my Glock 17, good for 50m, and now have a sniper rifle good for 600+

West Coast

20th Jan 2013, 22:22

PN

Maybe if you phrased the question properly you might get an accurate response. Not sure that's what you want or if you're simply stoking the fire.

500N

21st Jan 2013, 00:17

parabellum

OK, central storage is one of the worst ideas around as you effectively
create a supermarket for the thieves of all the nicest goodies.

You are effectively telling the crooks, hey guys, here is all the good stuff
all collected in one location for you. And no way can enough security be provided to keep them secure in all locations.

Plus, the inconvenience to owners who live a long way away and don't
use the range, only hunt with them, what about them ?

Re the T word, well, half the reason we have the stupid laws we have in Australia is because certain firearms groups thought they were OK and so didn't fight, only to be shafted the next time around - and when they were
targeted they asked for help !!!

We don't need fellow gun owners suggesting further restrictions !
It's all in or we will get steamrolled by the do gooders.

Just like Pilots / flyers get targeted by the NIMBY's at Moorabbin
and Essendon, airports that were there a long time before houses
but are now being targeted because of noise, danger, and the "oh a plane
might crash on my house" syndrome !!!

Ogre

21st Jan 2013, 01:14

So if we are all happy the "guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people", how do we prevent someone with a gun killing people?

We could educate, or we could legislate, or we could do both.

We could educate gun owners that killing people is bad, educate them to look after their weapons/use them responsibly/store them out of the way of children, all the things that responsible gun owners should do. Societal and peer pressure should be enough to prevent these gun owners from doing the wrong thing.

However, tell me one nation in the world where ALL the citizens obey the speed limit/don't drop litter/hand back their library books on time? education will not work for everyone.

So then we legislate. We bring in laws that try and prevent the bad things, but then the good responsible citizens are lumped in with the bad citizens as laws apply to everyone. So the good citizens can take it on the chin and accept that the laws are there for the minority who can't be educated in order to make the country a safer place (i.e. enforcing speed limits!), or they can immediately get umpty about a tyranical government telling them what to do.:ugh::ugh:

No easy answer, unless more people start thinking about not just themselves.....

500N

21st Jan 2013, 02:36

Ogre

Don't mind what you wrote in the first part but re the second,
"but then the good responsible citizens are lumped in with the bad citizens as laws apply to everyone. "

You can legislate all you want, all you do is restrict LAFO's
(Law abiding firearms owners). Crims, those with illegal
firearms etc etc take no notice of he legislation anyway.

Ogre

21st Jan 2013, 03:04

500N

That's exactly what I was saying. There are those who abide by the laws and those who don't. The answer is not more laws because those who didn't abide by the original ones won't abide by the new ones.

So we go back to education, but some people won't take the learning. Can you make people obey the law, well yes you can but that takes some serious law enforcement / withdrawal of liberties / tyranny.

Would you accept that for the chance to live in a safer society?

Anyone got any better answers?

PTT

21st Jan 2013, 05:45

You can legislate all you want, all you do is restrict LAFO's (Law abiding firearms owners). Crims, those with illegal firearms etc etc take no notice of he legislation anyway.The same is true of all laws. By that reasoning there should be no laws at all because all it does is restrict those who would obey them.

OutlawPete

21st Jan 2013, 06:56

Simple answer - ban firearms for anyone not police or military. Guns kill people, it really is that simple. So what if a few "enthusiasts" will get upset. Boo hoo, go play paintball or join the army.

cuefaye

21st Jan 2013, 09:13

Hear hear!!

Cows getting bigger

21st Jan 2013, 10:19

Yes, it really is that simple. I think it time that the USA really looked at the relevance of the Second Amendment and tried to understand the intent of those who scribed it.

keesje

21st Jan 2013, 10:50

Everyone is free to have his opinion on gun control.

I think the US government should start imposing restrictions on gun ownership and what people can and can't do in the US. It gone out of hand. The evidence is overwhelming.

A majority of the US population is for stricter gun control.
Majority in Poll Favors Stricter Laws for Gun Sales - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323783704578248201655559948.html)

The Swiss are astonished by the US gun culture and the Founding Fathers would turn in their graves if they knew how their 2nd amendment is abused by the gun lobby to drown the country with more and more weapons.

I would feel for OutlawPete's solution. The problems doing so can't be worse then were its heading now.

Robert Cooper

22nd Jan 2013, 03:24

The U.S. Constitution expressly prohibits all governments from infringing upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms. This permits us to defend ourselves when the police can't or won't, and it permits a residue of firepower in the hands of the people with which to stop any tyrant who might try to infringe upon our natural rights, and it will give second thoughts to anyone thinking about tyranny.
The country is ablaze with passionate debate about guns, and the government is determined to do something about it. Debate over public policy is good for freedom. But the liberal progressives want to use the debate to justify the coercive power of the government to infringe upon the rights of law-abiding folks because of what some crazies among us have done. We must not permit this to happen.
The whole purpose of the Constitution is to insulate personal freedom from the lust for power of those in government and from the passions of the people who sent them there.

Brian Abraham

22nd Jan 2013, 04:26

The cousins don't like it when politicians get too big for their britches. Course, England had a bit of strife between Charlie and Cromwell a few centuries ago. Wonder if we'll ever see the like again in the west.

Battle of Athens (1946) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29)

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 04:47

Keesje

"I think the US government should start imposing restrictions on gun ownership and what people can and can't do in the US."

Well, why don't you move there and become a citizen and then you can vote for it. In the mean time, why should the US listen to a bunch of Euro's from the Netherlands and the UK who have given away all their freedoms to the EU.

Being from the Netherlands and probably some people their still remember
the suffering under the jack boot, I am surprised.

"and the Founding Fathers would turn in their graves"
How would you know ? Have you spoken to them ?
Are you an expert on the US constitution ?

5 Forward 6 Back

22nd Jan 2013, 05:35

This permits us to defend ourselves when the police can't or won't, and it permits a residue of firepower in the hands of the people with which to stop any tyrant who might try to infringe upon our natural rights, and it will give second thoughts to anyone thinking about tyranny.

The intent of the second amendment appeared to be to ensure that the people could resist any attempt by the then-government to push things too far and become tyrannical. People are still debating that this is a valid reason to own an assault rifle.

Does anyone really think that a government, with even partial control over the US Army, USMC and National Guard, would have any issues stopping a handful of wannabe-militiamen with AR15s? It's so far diluted as to be meaningless, that interpretation.

The country is ablaze with passionate debate about guns, and the government is determined to do something about it. Debate over public policy is good for freedom. But the liberal progressives want to use the debate to justify the coercive power of the government to infringe upon the rights of law-abiding folks because of what some crazies among us have done. We must not permit this to happen.
The whole purpose of the Constitution is to insulate personal freedom from the lust for power of those in government and from the passions of the people who sent them there.

Must say I've enjoyed fellow Brit Piers Morgan's recent work on the subject, so I'd present his main case to you for your opinion. You are not going to take down the government, no matter how many AR15s and their ilk you have in your basement. If you hunt, you are equally effective with a single-shot bolt-action rifle, or a shotgun. If you want to defend your home, you'll find a .45 or 9mm handgun much more effective to use and manoeuvre with in a tight space like your own stairwell.

Shooting for sport, hunting and self-defence is better served with different weapons, and there's no hope of you being able to take on the National Guard as a militia. I live in America and have watched the news reports on the shooting in Albuquerque and Sandy Hook. What possible reason can there be for allowing normal citizens to purchase military-grade assault rifles??

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 05:45

"If you hunt, you are equally effective with a single-shot bolt-action rifle,"

Not so. Big difference between using a semi auto and a Bolt action rifle
or shotgun.

parabellum

22nd Jan 2013, 07:15

I'm a member of a target rifle club and each year we entertain The Deer Hunters for their annual 'fun' shoot, a highly regulated shoot but it is fun for them as they shoot up to thirty rounds in one day before a BBQ lunch. The shooting is fun because they only do ten round rapid in 50 sec whilst standing, or five groups of two snap, or ten rounds application from 300 yards when they come to us and for some it is a 'first'.

In the nine years that I have been involved I have never seen one automatic or semi automatic rifle brought to the range.

No intention of getting any further involved in the USA gun culture debate, if I lived there I would certainly own weapons for family, self and home defence as well as sport, just don't think they would be automatic. (I would also be a Republican).

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 07:33

parabellum

In the nine years that I have been involved I have never seen one automatic or semi automatic rifle brought to the range."

That's not surprising, we aren't allowed to own them for over 9 years
so of course you wouldn't have seen them.

FYI, I have, F88 Steyr and a few others, some dealers,
some private.

I also know of others that have been taken down incl
an old German Spandau.

keesje

22nd Jan 2013, 10:00

The U.S. Constitution expressly prohibits all governments from infringing upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

Then adjust the frigin constitution. I guess its for the people, not against them.

The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, should be infringed ASAP. Get moving!

http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/cartoon-images/2013/01/cartoon120110-02/14725573-1-eng-US/cartoon120110-02_full_900x600.jpg

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 10:30

"If you hunt, you are equally effective with a single-shot bolt-action rifle,"

Not so. Big difference between using a semi auto and a Bolt action rifle
or shotgun. If you were to learn how to shoot properly and hit the first time you wouldn't need a semi-automatic ;)

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 10:36

Oh, is that it ? Thanks :O

I'll do a few more trips to the range ;)

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 10:39

keesje

I notice you totally ignore my post directed at you.

Then again, I suppose being from the Netherlands you
EXPECT to get walked all over everytime one of your
neighbours decides to be a bully.

Just remember what the Nazi's did before they walked
all over everyone.

VinRouge

22nd Jan 2013, 10:44

How you can call it sport to shoot with a semi auto. Wild boar culling out of a helicopter is the only type of sport where I have seen any necessity for semi auto.

Th constitution could be upheld, only allowing the weapons available at the time the constitution was written.

cuefaye

22nd Jan 2013, 10:52

500N

I notice you totally ignore my post directed at you.

Given your choice of words old chap, it's unsurprising

brickhistory

22nd Jan 2013, 10:53

One asks the obvious questions: Whose nation is it and whose Constitution upholds a right not to be infringed upon by any government?

By what measure does any non-U.S. citizen presume to instruct the U.S. on what it should or should not do regarding an internal matter?

One wonders how 'suggestions' on how to improve various countries' societies would be received yet those of America seem to be fair game?

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 11:04

Vin Rouge

Wild Boar, Buffalo, camels, horses, donkeys, deer of all sorts,
and that's off the top of my head and relates to Australia only.
I am sure other countries could add a few species.

And why can't someone who wants to shoot / hunt vermin
- as in Coyotes, Rock chucks et al do so with a semi auto ?

brick history
Exactly, but I think those who live in the EU are used
to being told what to do and just accept the restrictions.

cuefaye
Maybe I should start asking all your local and National Gov'ts to start restricting your sports or family activities and see how much of a stink
you put up. And re Keesje, he ignores all posts he doesn't want to answer.

cuefaye

22nd Jan 2013, 11:06

You're, uncharacteristically, losing it!

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 11:09

@ Brickhistory
There's a difference between "presume to instruct" and "care to debate". Ultimately the decision is that of the US, of course, but a decision should be informed. Personally all I want to know is how you justify such a decision. "Bcause the constitution says so" really isn't an answer in my opinion, because basing your opinion solely on your interpretation of something someone wrote several hundred years ago is putting the cart before the horse: just as government should serve the people, so should the constitution.

cuefaye

22nd Jan 2013, 11:11

brick

By what measure does any non-U.S. citizen presume to instruct the U.S. on what it should or should not do regarding an internal matter?

Here and elsewhere, there's a plethora of opinions over the behaviour of various nations, covering many topics. The US, and the UK, are among them; and rightly so. It's called free speech and robust debate - part of your own Constitution?

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 11:17

cuefaye

No I'm not.

Obama will not bring in any meaningful restrictions and
those that he does are and will to an extent be circumvented
by the states passing laws to restrict the restrictions.

Apart from the fact he has to win the pollies and senators over
because they know what happens if they vote for the restrictions,
many will be out of a job at the next election.

The states in the US are already doing it (passing laws) to
make sure that the Fed Gov't doesn't steam role them.
It's just the people discussing it on here either don't know
or aren't posting what states are doing what.

And the illegals will just totally ignore them anyway !

cuefaye

22nd Jan 2013, 11:20

That's better!

Ronald Reagan

22nd Jan 2013, 11:49

Why on earth do so many Europeans and Brits get so upset over the right of Americans to have guns. I admire this right and freedom greatly and wish we had the same here, but we do not. There seems to be such total rage amongst the anti gun people.

Also the idea that an armed population are no threat to a government with a large military backing it up seems wrong, one only has to look at the middle east and see how various groups have removed governments/regimes, also in many situations like Afghanistan and Vietnam armed civilians or whatever you wish to call them have been very hard to beat. IF such a situation ever took place in the USA some of the civilians will be ex military, also the fact that many serving military probably would not be willing to fight there own people.

keesje

22nd Jan 2013, 12:48

Also the idea that an armed population are no threat to a government

In most countries unarmed populations are a threat to the government. We just send them home.

why should the US listen to a bunch of Euro's from the Netherlands and the UK who have given away all their freedoms to the EU.

No, we don't and have gun related killings of fraction of the USA, however you count it. That's why.

Airborne Aircrew

22nd Jan 2013, 13:08

In most countries unarmed populations are a threat to the government. We just send them home.

A little naive if I may say so. Sometimes the government decides it doesn't want to go home. :hmm:

VinRouge

22nd Jan 2013, 13:14

Why on earth do so many Europeans and Brits get so upset over the right of Americans to have guns. I admire this right and freedom greatly and wish we had the same here, but we do not. There seems to be such total rage amongst the anti gun people.

I guess we get a little upset over the thought of innocent children getting gunned down in somewhere that shoud be safe... and the only reason that this is not prevented is you all think as supposedly the leader of the free world that you need to have a small personal arsenal to protect your "freedoms".

Nutters.

Its not guns we have an issue with btw. Its the posession of weapons that quire rightly only belong in the hands of professionals, not a hick with a driving licence and a clean criminal record (although a criminal record wont stop most of them anyway as 60% of US gun sales take place without a background check anyway).

brickhistory

22nd Jan 2013, 13:22

Debate? Certainly.

Discuss? Absolutely.

Direct? Not so much.

I take sentences such as "Then change the frigin [sic] Constitution" as directive.

Hence, to be ignored.

brickhistory

22nd Jan 2013, 13:31

I guess we get a little upset over the thought of innocent children getting
gunned down in somewhere that shoud be safe... and the only reason that this is not prevented is you all think as supposedly the leader of the free world that you need to have a small personal arsenal to protect your "freedoms".

Nutters.

Its not guns we have an issue with btw. Its the posession of
weapons that quire rightly only belong in the hands of professionals, not a hick with a driving licence and a clean criminal record (although a criminal record wont stop most of them anyway as 60% of US gun sales take place without a background check anyway).

Lots of insults and incorrect facts in this one post. I suspect it'll be off to Jet Blast shortly. Which is unfortunate.

You make the assumption that legal gun-owners aren't upset at the murder of those kids. I am

You seem to make an assumption that more laws would have prevented the breaking of the existing laws that were supposed to protect those kids.

You seem to think that we care that you have "an issue" with us owning guns. Insults aside (and I seem to remember seeing the odd chav/skinhead, etc, etc, in various European countries in addition to our beloved 'hicks,'), your figures regarding non-background check sales is incorrect.

Not to mention:
VP: We 'don't have the time' to charge background check lies | The Daily Caller (http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/18/biden-to-nra-we-dont-have-the-time-to-prosecute-people-who-lie-on-background-checks/)

In 2010, prosecutors considered just 22 cases of information falsification,
according to a 2012 report (https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/239272.pdf) to the Department of Justice by the
Regional Justice Information Service. Forty additional background-check cases ended up before prosecutors for reasons related to unlawful gun possession.

In all, prosecutors pursued just 44 of those 62 cases. More than 72,600
applications were denied on the basis of a background check.

And, again, we, well me anyway, have no concern that you have 'an issue.' I hope you feel free to express your opinion, but you have absolutely no say in the practical matter.

Ronald Reagan

22nd Jan 2013, 13:42

Its best to try and keep detached from the emotional side of things. We could look at having a ban on many things which kill people, alcohol kills people, both the drinker and others through causing violence and drink driving. It serves no purpose at all, so maybe it could be banned to. It would not effect me as I don't drink. But then I have to consider the right of those who wish to drink.

The most logical thing to do to prevent such a tragedy in a school again would be to have armed security at the schools, possibly armed teachers or even better a volunteer force of retired police/military etc. This way you make children safer in schools and you continue the freedom of the people to have guns, a true win win situation. Thinking back to Beslan in Russia we really need to consider the situation of security for our schools. I keep being told we are in a war on terror and such a big threat exists, yet schools and other soft locations remain totally undefended.

An interesting article here about the situation of guns in Israel and defence of schools:-
Are Israeli Teachers Armed? &lsaquo; Jewish Preppers (http://jewishpreppers.com/2012/12/are-israeli-teachers-armed/)

Duncan D'Sorderlee

22nd Jan 2013, 14:53

RR,

"The most logical thing to do to prevent such a tragedy in a school again would be to have armed security at the schools..."

I'm not sure how you work out that the above is 'the most logical'. It is undoubtedly one course of action. As one of the armed security could 'throw a wobbly', surely another course of action would be to turn all guns into ploughshares; that way no-one could ever get shot again.

I doubt that either is ever going to happen.

For what it's worth, I think that the US 'problem' needs to be sorted out by the US and, whether 'we' like it or not, it will be their legitimate, democratic, decision. Good luck to them! As keesje intimates (I can't believe that I'm agreeing with him twice in one thread!), if the Americans don't like the policies of their administration, they'll have an opportunity to vote for another one in 4 years.

Duncs:ok:

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 14:56

@ Brickhistory
You could change your constitution. That's not a directive, it's a suggestion. It is open to much interpretation (see Scalia on the matter), so reinterpretation is also an option.
What I'd like to know is the justification for having such arms. Why do you need anything more than a revolver or a single-shot rifle or shotgun available to everyone? As I said before, "it's in the Constitution" is not a reason, it's a post hoc justification which puts the cart before the horse.

@ Ronald Reagan
The most logical thing to do to prevent such a tragedy in a school again would be to have armed security at the schools, possibly armed teachers or even better a volunteer force of retired police/military etc. This way you make children safer in schools and you continue the freedom of the people to have guns, a true win win situation.Take a look at the costs of this. To have even one armed guard in every school in the US would cost about $7.2Bn per year (perhaps as low as $5Bn if they can be laid off during school breaks) in wages alone, adding costs of training and arming them. Where's that going to come from?
Then you have to ask whether these people can cover the entire campus - Virginia Tech had armed guards, and police were on-scene within 3 minutes, but they were unable to prevent the death of 33 people.
Finally there is the question of vetting the required 30,000 armed guards for both their ability to work with children and their mental stability.
It's simply not a viable solution on grounds of being unworkable and ineffective.

Airborne Aircrew

22nd Jan 2013, 15:11

PTT:

What I'd like to know is the justification for having such arms. Why do you need anything more than a revolver or a single-shot rifle or shotgun available to everyone?Paraphrased from Massad Ayoob, a highly thought of firearms expert here in the Good Ole US of A:-

Initially the police carried .38 Specials to deal with crime and criminals and civilians who chose to be armed carried the same. In the 70's and 80's police changed to semi-automatic pistols and shotguns. The armed public followed suit. In more recent times the police have added an AR-15 type "assault weapon" with high capacity, (30 round), magazines and the public have again followed suit.

The reason is simple. The police are the experts at protecting the public and, as such, have determined that the weapons they require to do so are a semi-automatic pistol, a shotgun and an AR-15 with a high capacity magazine. It is only logical therefore that, in the period where the public await the arrival of the police, the best weapons for them to protect themselves with are those the police would be bringing.

brickhistory

22nd Jan 2013, 15:58

Why do you need anything more than a revolver or a single-shot rifle or
shotgun available to everyone?

I don't need anything regarding a firearm

I can simply because I can.

And "everyone" doesn't have to or want to own a firearm.

That is the beauty of the right guarenteed me and every other American citizen by the founding document of our nation. The federal government does not have the right or, as a practical matter, the ability to disarm me and all the other tens, if not a hundred or more, million of legal gun owners.

It is just one reason why there are some who want to do just that. They don't like the people having power that is not doled out by a government.

Criminals will get guns. Look at those nations where there is gun confiscation and/or extremely strict control. The crooks still manage to get them and use them illegally. Only those trying to obey the law get punished.

Seems a bit off to me.

Duncan D'Sorderlee

22nd Jan 2013, 16:35

"The police are the experts at protecting the public and, as such, have determined that the weapons they require to do so are a semi-automatic pistol, a shotgun and an AR-15 with a high capacity magazine. It is only logical therefore that, in the period where the public await the arrival of the police, the best weapons for them to protect themselves with are those the police would be bringing."

Now, that appears to be a logical arguement.

Duncs:ok:

Ronald Reagan

22nd Jan 2013, 16:35

Well actually PTT I said ''a volunteer force of retired police/military etc''
Also possibly teachers who can concealed carry.
The idea being to keep the system as cheap as possible. The US is full of retired military and police many of whom still own/use guns, I bet there would be many volunteers who would wish to protect schools.
What is needed is system that allows the great American people to have the guns they wish to but at the same time to increase the protection for schools.
This way the rights of all will be looked after and respected. To simply ban them is unfair to gun owners and goes against their rights.
As a Libertarian I feel there are already to many laws, rules and regulations out there, many of them pointless, all blindly enforced by the powers that be, last thing we need anywhere are yet more laws!

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 16:36

keesje

Re giving away freedoms to the EU

"No, we don't and have gun related killings of fraction of the USA, however you count it. That's why."

Really, that's funny, every time I read the UK newspapers I see all these examples where people can't do this, council take down kids play park, etc etc because of some EU ruling or law.

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 16:43

@ AA
He's not justifying it, just stating the history.
It is only logical therefore that, in the period where the public await the arrival of the police, the best weapons for them to protect themselves with are those the police would be bringing.Except the stats say otherwise: you are 2.7 times more likely to be killed in a homicide if you have a gun in your home than if you do not.
@ Brickhistory
I can simply because I can.

And "everyone" doesn't have to or want to own a firearm.

That is the beauty of the right guarenteed me and every other American citizen by the founding document of our nation.Post hoc justification on the basis of the constitution. As I said, that's not a reason.

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 16:46

Well actually PTT I said ''a volunteer force of retired police/military etc''None of which covers the cost of training or equipping them, unless you're suggesting they cover that cost themselves. Nor does it cover the fact that such systems have proven ineffective (Virginia), or the fact that you'd still need to vet all those people.

Ronald Reagan

22nd Jan 2013, 16:55

Well PTT many can probably provide their own weapons!
A small scale training course with their local police should be enough, if they are retired police they should know a fair bit already, just some refresher training required. I guess in some situations off duty police could take part to hence they would likely have the already required training. With the need to vet them, if retired police it should be fairly straight forward, retired military a little harder.

No, no system is 100% perfect, but atleast my ideas would increase security for the children AND allow gun owners to keep their weapons. Simply banning things you don't like is not really a good direction to take a so called free country in.

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 17:01

PTT

If CCP had been allowed in Virginia and a few others, the outcome might have been a bit different, as it it wouldn't have been such an easy run for the people.

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 17:01

Any idea on numbers of volunteers you have there? As I said, you'd need a minimum of 30,000 to cover all the schools.

It's far from 100% perfect. In fact, it's been shown to not work at all at the worst US school shooting in 80 years. Given that, why on earth do you think it would work now?
my ideas would increase security for the children AND allow gun owners to keep their weapons.As shown, it doesn't.
Simply banning things you don't like is not really a good direction to take a so called free country in.I agree, which is why I haven't suggested they be banned.

brickhistory

22nd Jan 2013, 17:03

Post hoc justification on the basis of the constitution. As I said, that's
not a reason.

And upon that we will never agree.

You want justification for something that simply 'is.'

I do not have to justify it. It simply 'is.'

The freedom to make a choice regarding possessing a firearm is something that I, as an American citizen, have simply for being such.

It is not for the federal government to decide for me.

The Founding Fathers studied much in history to see what worked and what didn't when it came to having a limited government.

One of those documents studied was the 1650 (?) Enlish Bill of Rights which pointed out the "right of the people (well, the Protestants anyway) to keep and bear arms" as a hedge against a tyrannical prince."

Our founders, having just done so, realized that the situation could arise again. That no government was incapable of turning tyrannical and they wanted a 'militia,' in this case "the people" to have the means to check any such governmental move or, in the worst case, to overthrow it.

Such examples are rampant today - Syria being just one.

You may not like the fact that I can legally possess firearms.

But you cannot, nor can the federal government, change that fact.

It simply is.

OutlawPete

22nd Jan 2013, 17:03

Its not guns we have an issue with btw. Its the posession of weapons that quite rightly only belong in the hands of professionals, not a hick with a driving licence and a clean criminal record

Got to be one of the most logical comments on this thread, Vin Rouge.

Its ironic that our friends across the pond get a little upset at the debate of what has to be one of the biggest issues that directly affects their polulation. After all, they wouldn't shy away from interfering in the issues of other nations. Now why does Noraid spring to mind...

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 17:03

PTT

If CCP had been allowed in Virginia and a few others, the outcome might have been a bit different, as it it wouldn't have been such an easy run for the people.Speculation. It could have made it worse as more people were hit in the crossfire, or might have made it happen sooner as more people had firearms access. You're theorising as much as I am there, and neither of us knows what the outcome of that would be.

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 17:05

And upon that we will never agree.

You want justification for something that simply 'is.'

I do not have to justify it. It simply 'is.'

The freedom to make a choice regarding possessing a firearm is something that I, as an American citizen, have simply for being such.See, this simply reads as "I don't have a logical argument which stands on its own, so I will justify myself by pointing at a document." It's nothing more than a religion.

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 17:06

PTT

Well I think the outcome would have been better than it was.

brickhistory

22nd Jan 2013, 17:07

I disagree. Too bad that you do as well.

And there is nothing that will change that.

But my "religion," and this disciple, is well armed. :E

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 17:13

@ 500NPTT

Well I think the outcome would have been better than it was.You have no idea at all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias). Neither do I, but I'm admitting that ;)

@ brickhistoryI disagree. Too bad that you do as well.

And there is nothing that will change that.

But my "religion," and this disciple, is well armed.Hey, if you have a logical argument which stands up without the prop of the Constitution then I'm all for hearing it. As it stands you're admitting that you don't, which is fine. I'm still waiting to hear one, though. Being "well armed" doesn't make you correct though, just scared ;)

Cows getting bigger

22nd Jan 2013, 17:13

Surely the BIG question that society has to ask itself is how did we get to this position? Taking a step back from gun toting multiple child killers, it seems to me that there are huge numbers of people who are only too willing to use weapons. A quick YouTube search will show numerous events which have been 'justified' in the name of self-defence where it is quite clear that a response has been completely disproportionate to an act.

Personally, if I were an American and my country chose to put armed guards at each and every school, I would look upon that as an abject failure of my society and I would be hanging my head in shame. The USA has a unique opportunity as The Global Influence to question its founding principals, make some ballsy decisions and take the lead in starting to shape the 21st century for the better.

The alternative of doing nothing, thus knowingly allowing the cancer unfettered growth is beyond comprehension.

Ronald Reagan

22nd Jan 2013, 17:16

Well PTT in a country of over 300 million, just 30,000 volunteers does not seem like a huge ammount! There could well be plenty of older people who wish to protect their Grandchildren while they are at school for example ie retired police/military.

Do you an idea for a cheap system to increase security at schools but at the same time in no way restricts gun ownership?

As for the statement about being 2.7 times more likely to be killed in a homicide if you have a gun in your own home than if you don't, I wonder if that is true, sounds like propaganda or incorrect data from the anti gun folks.

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 17:16

Cows, it's a religion. If you follow a set of rules it prevents you from having to actually think about a problem, so from that perspective I understand the reluctance to deviate from the Constitution - or at least their interpretation of it ;)

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 17:20

Well PTT in a country of over 300 million, just 30,000 volunteers does not seem like a huge ammount! There could well be plenty of older people who wish to protect their Grandchildren while they are at school for example ie retired police/military.Again, you're spitballing. Hard numbers please.

Do you an idea for a cheap system to increase security at schools but at the same time in no way restricts gun ownership?Nope. Which is why I would place restrictions on gun ownership. I'm not talking about banning them though.

As for the statement about being 2.7 times more likely to be killed in a homicide if you have a gun in your own home than if you don't, I wonder if that is true, sounds like propaganda or incorrect data from the anti gun folks.Nope, I've posted the study before. Here it is again (http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-kellermann.htm). To quote myself from the last time I posted it (http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/504928-dumb-arses-guns-4.html#post7637676):
After eliminating the impact of other variables like illegal drugs and domestic violence, the researchers found that the risk of getting killed was 2.7 times greater in homes with a gun than without them. No protective benefit of possessing a firearm was ever found, not even for a single one of the 14 subgroups studied.
You might feel safer with a gun, and you probably want to believe that you are "safer" from being killed if you own a gun, but the fact is that you are not. The study is multivariate, so it compares [you with a gun in your house] with [you without a gun in your house] and finds that [you without a gun in your house] is a lot less likely to be killed. I'm sure you find that counter-intuitive and contradictory to common sense, but then so are many other things (think Schrödinger and you're at the tip of a very big iceberg).

Ronald Reagan

22nd Jan 2013, 17:21

Plus everyone seems to forget the fact we are supposed to be at war, how real that war is, well. But if we are at war and the enemy as clever and dangerous as is often said by our governments plus following the Beslan siege in Russia and the fact Israel feels the need to have armed guards at their schools we should all be asking ''What if the enemy decide to target a school in our country?'' It has not happend in the west yet, well to the best of my knowledge but could at anytime.

So having armed security at schools would not be so much a failure of anything but rather a clever move to reduce the danger of nut jobs and terrorists!

Lets be honest, Israel is the expert at dealing with terrorism and protecting people.
Are Israeli Teachers Armed? &lsaquo; Jewish Preppers (http://jewishpreppers.com/2012/12/are-israeli-teachers-armed/)

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 17:32

Really? You're going to try to justify this on the basis of the "War on Terror"?
Muslim American terrorist plots have killed since 9/11 — since the 3,000 killed on 9/11 — have killed 33 individuals in the United States since that time. Over that same period of time, there have been more than 150,000 murders in the United States, or 14 or 15,000 murders every year. Muslim American terrorism, then, has been a very small, very low percentage of the overall violence in the United States. Terrorism Expert: Since 9/11, Only 33 Deaths From Muslim Terrorism Vs. 150,000 Deaths From Murders | ThinkProgress (http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/09/10/316260/terrorism-expert-since-911-only-33-deaths-from-muslim-terrorism-vs-150000-deaths-from-murders/?mobile=nc)

As many people were killed at Virginia in a single day as Islamic terrorism has managed to kill since 9/11.

5 Forward 6 Back

22nd Jan 2013, 18:46

Not so. Big difference between using a semi auto and a Bolt action rifle
or shotgun.

Sorry for the late reply; but to paraphrase part of the discussion over here, perhaps losing that extra hunting ability is a very small price to pay if it means that the next shooter in a school doesn't have access to a military grade weapon?

VinRouge

22nd Jan 2013, 18:53

Why not allow all the right to hold single shot bolt actio or 2 shot semi auto shotgun, over this, you need a licence? I really don't see the need to be able to posess semi auto pistols either. Purely designed to kill. Either keep them locked up on a range, or don't have one at all, unless you hold a licence.

Can I also ask what is the need for this?

Everything you need to know about Oklahoma (http://newsok.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-oklahomas-new-open-carry-gun-law/article/3724415)

Or does every hick need a holster at his side to prove he doesn't have a really small willy?

odericko2000

22nd Jan 2013, 18:59

And another college shooting in Texas, mmh.:ugh:. The drama continues!

VinRouge

22nd Jan 2013, 19:11

Not to forget the guy who wiped out his parents and siblings in albuquerque a few days ago...
Albuquerque teen accused of killing 5 wanted a massacre, sheriff says - CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/22/justice/new-mexico-shooting/)

Ronald Reagan

22nd Jan 2013, 19:46

The trouble with a licence is that it allows the government to know who has what weapons and would make any future bans much easier to enforce.

Based on the typical European/UK anti gun view ''I don't see the need'' for people to drink alcohol either, so due to the negative actions of a few maybe all those who enjoy the odd glass of drink should lose out. It would make no difference to me at all as I don't drink. When I think of all the violence caused by alcohol, drink driving, deaths resulting from that and from the violence aswell as the self inflicted damage it can cause maybe a total ban would be in order. Something like 5 years inside for possessing alcohol and 15 years for producing or selling it! Remember its for the greater good and WILL save lives! Think of how much safer it will be!
(I could never really support such a thing but following the lack of logic on gun control we could role out the same for alcohol, the good majority must suffer and lose out due to the negative actions of very few)

brickhistory

22nd Jan 2013, 20:16

Not to forget the guy who wiped out his parents and siblings in albuquerque a few days ago...

But I'm sure you were just getting to posting the numerous foiled home invasions and business robberies from this past weekend by good guys with guns.

Those are readily available as well.

As to what we need or should do regarding our guns; noted.

Thank you for your interest in national defense.

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 20:42

@ Ronald ReaganThe trouble with a licence is that it allows the government to know who has what weapons and would make any future bans much easier to enforce.That's your fear? That they might, in the future, want to take your guns away? I thought that this was a practical impossibility (http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/504928-dumb-arses-guns-8.html#post7648839). And is assuaging this fear of a what-might-be worth the death toll? If so then those are some pretty deep neuroses there.
@ brickhistoryBut I'm sure you were just getting to posting the numerous foiled home invasions and business robberies from this past weekend by good guys with guns.

Those are readily available as well.You are 2.7 times more likely (http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-kellermann.htm) to die from homicide if you have a gun in your home than if you do not. You just keep spouting the platitudes though ;)
After eliminating the impact of other variables like illegal drugs and domestic violence, the researchers found that the risk of getting killed was 2.7 times greater in homes with a gun than without them. No protective benefit of possessing a firearm was ever found, not even for a single one of the 14 subgroups studied.

Airborne Aircrew

22nd Jan 2013, 20:43

PTT:

Except the stats say otherwise: you are 2.7 times more likely to be killed in a homicide if you have a gun in your home than if you do not.

In fairness I can quote stats left right and center without citing the source... Yours was... err... what?

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 20:47

I've linked it several times in this thread, including the post just above your last one. It's the underlined writing which goes red when you mouse-over it ;)

Airborne Aircrew

22nd Jan 2013, 21:03

PTT:

New to the thread and we posted simultaneously... :p

So, you're telling me that there is risk inherent in gun ownership. One wonders what the risks of knife or car ownership are?

The study also makes the point that one is 2.7% more likely to be murdered. Many, including myself will tell you that id statistically insignificant. I'm far more likely to be killed in a car crash when you look at the tables in that study, The incidence of drug use, alcohol abuse, previous propensity for violence in the home is far higher than the norm I would suggest. After all, the sample was 388 households... One wonders if they were in North Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington DC or more normal places.

500N

22nd Jan 2013, 21:07

AA

Well put.

PTT

I just read nearly the whole report but within two pages all the things
AA pointed out stand.

Everyone is saying 150,000 people died from guns in the US yet
this study is based on 388 homes ?

If you are going t do a study, then I am sure he could have picked
a larger group because as AA says, 388 is insignificant.

Edit
Reading that brings back nightmares of writing up psych results for Uni :O

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 21:13

@ AA
New to the thread and we posted simultaneously... Fair enough, but it is linked in two other places.
So, you're telling me that there is risk inherent in gun ownership. One wonders what the risks of knife or car ownership are? No idea. Is that relevant? There is tangible benefit from car (transport) and knife (cooking!) ownership, but the study showed no added benefit for the one thing people advocate guns give you: protection.
The study also makes the point that one is 2.7% more likely to be murdered.No, it's 2.7 times more likely, or 270%. That's statistically significant. The margin of error on a sample size of 388 is 4.97%.
I'm far more likely to be killed in a car crash when you look at the tables in that studyOf course you are, but that is not what the study is looking at. What it is doing is comparing [you with a gun in your house] with [you without a gun in your house] and finds that [you with a gun in your house] is 2.7 times more likely to die from homicide than [you without a gun in your house]. It also compares other variables (6 were found to be statistically significant), but the one we are concerned with in this conversation is guns. I'm happy enough to discuss those other factors or causes of death in another thread, but this one is concerned with guns.
One wonders if they were in North Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington DC or more normal places.The study states where the samples were taken:
The homicides which were studied came from three metropolitan areas. The first two were Shelby County, Tennessee (which includes Memphis), and King County, Washington (which includes Seattle), both from August 1987 to August 1992. The third was Cuyahoga County, Ohio (which includes Cleveland), from January 1990 to August 1992. King County is predominately white and enjoys a relatively high standard of living. Cuyahoga County is 25 percent African-American, as is 44 percent of Shelby County. The poverty levels of these counties were 5, 11 and 15 percent, respectively. (The national poverty rate in 1992 was 15 percent.)

PTT

22nd Jan 2013, 21:15

500N - 388 is not insignificant. There is a method of measuring the margin of error of a sample of a population, and the margin of error is a little under 5%. When you're talking of an effect in the order of 270% then there can be no overlap between the range of the effect and the range of the control, meaning that the number is statistically significant. I would have thought that someone who studied Psych did some statistics as part of the course and would know about sample sizes and margins of error.

finestkind

23rd Jan 2013, 00:02

Hmmm

I am at the stop lights with my two sub 5 yo children. The light changes to green and I move off. I see a truck coming and there is no way it will stop.

I can a) stop and give up my right of way

or

b) assert my right and show that barstard for running a red light by allowing him to kill my two children and cripple me.

One would hope that having a right does not negate the ability to apply reason and common sense which is very uncommon nowadays due to people specifically saying I have a right. This appears to remove any, as already stated, justification for acting responsibly.

We are not talking cars and alcohol, but if you wish. The US has tried prohibition didn't work. Why because we are our own worst enemy. Humanity seems bent on harming itself and it is a cultural thing. Prohibiting alcohol, why? Because it caused harm but people said its my right to get drunk and cause harm (yep that makes a lot of sense). Its a drug so why do we ban other forms of drugs? We have laws for driving drunk, disturbing the peace etc to try and limit the alcohol fuelled damage. Cars, we have speed limits and other laws. We have stop lights, why because people cannot obey simple rules ( I know some one will say to ease traffic congestion but is comes back to basics). I remember the introduction of seat belts. People were very against having to wear seat belts after never having had them let alone wear them. Very much a cultural thing but after two generation its accepted.

What does this mean, basically we need protection from ourselves, particularly I would suggest as sub 30 yo and in some societies all our life.

The right to bear arms. Go for it but please do not try to justify the obvious danger involved in doing so, especially by saying I'm protecting myself against my "gernvmint"

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 01:24

What does this mean, basically we need protection from ourselves,

In the case of guns, I'd suggest it's more that we need protection from others. YMMV, but I'm not planning on wiping out my wife and kid... Something I could do quite easily, with my bare hands, all while giving her a two minute head start to call the police.

One day, maybe, one person will be able to logically and sensibly explain to my why, in the case of guns alone, everyone picks on the inanimate object yet gives a pass to cars, cars/alcohol, knives, hammers, tobacco and a whole host of other objects/things that require human intervention to make them dangerous... But guns must be banned because they wake the voices in our heads... :sad::sad::sad:

finestkind

23rd Jan 2013, 03:13

Cars/alcohol/knives etc are rarely used to conduct a massacre. Although a gun is an inanimate object it purpose is to kill, not transport, carve the meat, get drunk/high. Even if it is possible to use them (cars/knives)for the purpose of killing it is not the objects sole purpose to do so.

Mk 1

23rd Jan 2013, 03:18

Interesting debate.

I've seen the pro gun lobby put forward the argument that guns don't kill people - people kill people.

If that is indeed what you believe, why can you not go down to the local hardware store and buy some Comp B or det cord and blasting caps? They are extremely useful for felling trees (and used by a suitably trained person arguably safer than a chainsaw), also useful for removing rocks in an excavation etc. Why have these been banned form sale to the general public?

How about a beehive charge? Sure, as a large shaped charge it could probably blow a hole through the front of the presidential limousine and clean out through the back, but it would make putting fencing holes in rocky ground dead easy (so should be sold next to the post hole shovels by that reasoning alongside the quick set cement).

Grenades are very effective fishing implements too (seen that done), why can I not pull into my local fishing store and pick up a 6 pack of M26's along with my ice and landing net?

If we were to take this argument to ridiculous extreme why can you not buy a vial of VX, Sarin or Anthrax? There must be some use for these products in mass extermination of pest animals?

Why have authorities worldwide argued that these items not be for sale at the local supermarket/hardware store? Because they are too damn dangerous, and you cannot plan on everybody being rational and right thinking all the time (let alone the true crazies).

I am ex infantry in the Australian Regular Army (marksman qualified), grew up with fireams all through my youth, went hunting regularly for pig, roos and rabbits (my old man had around 30-40 guns), and do not by any means hate firearms. The thought of thermobaric munitions being used on a battlefield gives me a chubby - but I cannot for the life of me see any scenario bar a professional animal culler needing anything more than a lever or bolt action weapon - and anything more than 8-10 rounds in a magazine.

Some of the arguments being put forward here are frankly disturbing - the number of people killed because a kid found the weapon in the top drawer and shot his/her brother are legion (no i don't have stats to back this up but I'm sure its more than 1 - and 1 is too many). I am very close to someone who nearly blew his brother in half- killing him - fooling around with the 'snake gun' (for those non Australians, many rural properties had an old shotgun near the back door in case a venomous snake decided that it preferred your home to the bush). Many gun supporters will point out the the reason the own a weapon is for self defence - and that their kids could never get to it because it is locked in a gun safe with a key or combination required to get access located in the shed/garage/basement/workshop/home office. The irony is that I'm not sure too many home invaders are sporting enough to send a letter or text message 10 minutes before arriving so the owner can unlock the gun safe, load the weapon and get all of their loved ones safely away so they don't get hit in any crossfire.

For a weapon to be truly useful in self defence it needs to be close - quite a few soldiers in combat zones are killed by UD's simply because living with loaded firearms around is dangerous and that's highly trained military personnel - let alone some numby with a Glock. It was drummed into us on the 6 week master coaches course at the infantry school that the most dangerous weapons to your own troops in the inventory were the hand grenade, anti-armour weapons (particularly those with a Back Blast Danger Area) and perversely the pistol. The problem with pistols is they tend to get waved around like flyswats and can be hard to clear jams and cycle the actions for those who are not strong enough (some women) - then you see barrels pointed around everywhere. If it happens on the range, you can bet it will happen at home.

sarcasm on/ I find it unbelievable that the best idea to settle the issue of a mentally disturbed madman arriving with multiple semi-automatic firearms at schools is to have armed guards. To protect you should have overmatch, so that would mean an LSW such as a Minimi or similar. To cover all possible entries and contingencies (toilet breaks meal breaks etc) a couple of armed guards - properly trained armed guards would needed. Cost anybody? Nope I cannot see anything wrong with having a gunfight in a corridor with a belt fed weapon with kids the other side of thin wooden walls either..../sarcasm off.

This argument that the second amendment was there so that the people could overthrow the government is bunkum nowadays too. Back when that amendment was written up there was a chance that the people (who would actually have some firearm skills) could take on the army such as it was back then. Given the size of the US military since WWII there is no way any civilians would be able to take on their own government and hope to win. The most effective weapon today against the government is the media and the internet - far more damaging and effective than small arms.

Face it America, its not a solution to the problem (there will always be crazies that manage to get hold of weapons, a car, a knife or poisons etc) but at least it will hopefully limit the damage that could be done if you banned semi-automatics, and limited magazine capacities. That seems to most of the rest of the world the logical thing to do - you don't need to ban all firearms just the semi-autos and large magazines (and I'd probably throw in pistols too and any revolver with more than 6 shots in the cylinder).

JSFfan

23rd Jan 2013, 03:24

I know I'm wasting my typing with americans, but for others

It's simple to my way of simple thinking, a gun is very easy and efficient and semi-auto are even more efficient.
knives, blunt objects, strangulation and including suicide attempts of hanging, drug overdose etc isn't as efficient and you have a higher survival rate.

It also seems that crims arm themselves to the same or more that they think their victim could be.
This is shown in armed holdup stats, guns used in hold-up has reduced to insignificant levels in australia after all guns had to be locked up, I assume because the shops and banks don't have guns handy, so crims just don't need the extra sentence if they get caught.
where as crim on crim gun stats are much migher, drugs etc.

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 04:16

JSF Fan

"This is shown in armed holdup stats, guns used in hold-up has reduced to insignificant levels in australia after all guns had to be locked up, I assume because the shops and banks don't have guns handy, so crims just don't need the extra sentence if they get caught."

That is the biggest load of crap out.

The reason armed bank and building society hold ups fell is because the banks got smarter and put up drop down or fly up screens in all the banks plus solid windows between the teller and the customer plus a heap less cash was being driven around so a lot less cash was available to be grabbed.

Crims still carry guns around, just look what goes on in Sydney and Melbourne for starters.

JSFfan

23rd Jan 2013, 05:39

and shops? do they have these screens which some banks still dont have?
the crime stats are available and instead of being abusive, show me I'm wrong and gun armed crime is the same as it was Australian Institute of Criminology - Home (http://www.aic.gov.au/)

and I said "where as crim on crim gun stats are much migher, drugs etc."

ps, a quick look and 13% of armed holdups use or claim to have in their possession a gun

page 5 http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/D/A/2/%7bDA2B13B2-1A11-4E9B-9ED0-DB1C8CDDEEFE%7dmr15.pdf

page six has the banking armed robbery which rates up with the others, seems the crims don't know about the screens

also from when I was trying to get some sense into gun-nuts
"Robberies involving firearms dropped to 5% of all robberies in 2005, firearms were used in 30% of all robberies back in 1993 "

http://web.archive.org/web/20070830105615/http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi2/tandi269.pdf

a 47 % decrease in annual numbers of firearms related deaths between 1991 and 2001

tell me again how decent gun laws don't work:eek:

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 08:22

@ AAIn the case of guns, I'd suggest it's more that we need protection from others.And guns don't provide that. Once again:
No protective benefit of possessing a firearm was ever found, not even for a single one of the 14 subgroups studied.
YMMV, but I'm not planning on wiping out my wife and kid... Something I could do quite easily, with my bare hands, all while giving her a two minute head start to call the police.I doubt many people plan to kill their family. What having a gun does is allow it to escalate very quickly to a death. Once more, from the same study:
Of all the methods of murder, guns were responsible for 49.8 percent of the victims killed at home. In homes that kept a gun, the overall murder risk was 2.7 times greater, but for gun homicides it was 4.8, while for non-gun homicides it was 1.2. Notice that 1.2 is not significantly different from 1, so there was no increased risk for non-gun homicides. In other words, people who kept a gun in the home were at higher risk for gun homicides only, not any other type of homicide. This is an important point, because it strongly suggests that gun availability tends to turn ordinary family arguments into something fatal, rather than the murder victims knew they were at risk and armed themselves with a gun.

keesje

23rd Jan 2013, 10:06

Mk 1, welcome. Thank you for an excellent first post!

You'll find the 2nd amendment people around here are good guys & completely rational as long as their gun isn't on the line:)

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 10:21

"You'll find the 2nd amendment people around here are good guys & completely rational as long as their gun isn't on the linehttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/smile.gif"

and it's not some do gooder from the Netherlands trying to take or restrict
a US citizens freedom on how to live away without actually putting anything
of his own on the line :O

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 10:28

and it's not some do gooder from the NetherlandsThe messenger is irrelevant to the argument. Either the argument is or is not sound, and trying to counter it by saying you don't like where the messenger comes from does not take away from the validity of the argument.
take or restrict a US citizens freedom on how to live away without actually putting anything of his own on the line What makes you think we all have nothing on the line? I have family on your side of the pond.

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 12:54

Finestkind:

Although a gun is an inanimate object it purpose is to kill, not transport, carve the meat, get drunk/high.This argument has been so used it is threadbare yet it is utterly irrelevant. The purpose of any tool does not make it spring up and act on it's own. It takes a person to load it, make it ready, point it and pull the trigger. Without all those affirmative actions the gun is just a paperweight, another tool.

As an aside, the purpose of a bow is to kill too but no-one cares to try to ban bows... yet.

PTT:

I know you are relying heavily on that study of yours but really, upon further reflection, the study itself is statistically insignificant. It samples 388 households. In 2011 there were, (per the US Census Bureau), more than 132 million "housing units". I'm pretty sure that anyone would agree that the 388 households are highly unlikely to be an accurate reflection of the 132 million. In fact, with such a small sample, it would be very easy for someone to cherry pick certain regions during certain time periods to prove a point while appearing to be trying to make an honest attempt at fairness. So, I'm sorry, (well, I'm not really - but I'm told it's polite to say it ;) ), but I can't accept the conclusions that your study makes.

To everyone:

I've been arguing this since Newtown and have come to the conclusion that unless you live in the USA and are subject to it's laws your opinions are just that, opinions, and they have no bearing on how America will deal with it's issues. If you are subject to US law and don't like the 2nd Amendment then again that is an opinion you are entitled to. The facts are though that Harry Reid is highly unlikely to bring a vote to the floor of Barry's proposed bans/controls because he knows that in 2014 he has already vulnerable Democrat Senators up for election. Enough of them to risk control of the Senate. While you might think that is purely political it is, but it is also a realization of the fact that those Democrats would be voted out by people that don't agree with bans/controls. Furthermore, the House is highly unlikely to vote for said bans/controls. If your reaction to that is that it is those nasty Republicans vindictively blocking Barry's greatness then you need to remember that the Republicans have a majority in the house because people voted for them to be there - ie: they rejected the Democrat alternative.

This morning the predominantly Republican House of the State of Michigan is voting on two gun bills. One is to make the registration of guns in MI confidential so the silliness that occurred with newspapers publishing the names and addresses of gun owners in the aftermath of Newtown can't happen in MI. The other is a law making any gun or ammunition manufactured in MI exempt from Federal Law. Michigan is not the only state doing this. The states are doing this because the Feral Government is overstepping it's constitutional power that is, by the Constitution, retained by the States themselves or "the People".

In short, the American people know and understand the risks and responsibilities that come with the Second Amendment and they are happy to keep that freedom as is.

Mk 1

23rd Jan 2013, 12:55

From 500N: and it's not some do gooder from the Netherlands trying to take or restrict a US citizens freedom on how to live away without actually putting anything of his own on the line

On another mainly military forum many others from all around the world seem to give similar opinions to the ones expressed by keesj et al. These are serving or ex-serving members of long experience - a group you would think is fairly well qualified to speak on the matter including a few 'specials' (ex SAS). consensus is that a semi or full automatic weapon is brilliant on the battlefield, but for hunting at home, is like buying a semi trailer to take a couple of bags of rubbish to the tip - ie overkill.

I see you live in Australia - we did put something on the line after the Port Arthur Massacre - namely our own Semi-automatic weapons - the world didn't stop, the sun still came up the next day and there has not been a massacre since. My hunting weapons changed from a Ruger 10/22 to A Brno no2 bolt action for the bunnies and a Sako .223 and Ruger No1 replaced the Mini 14.

More training was the cry back in the 1980's yet the bloke who committed the Hoddle St Massacre in '87 was a very well trained former classmate at RMC Duntroon. Well trained enough that he was hitting crossing targets on motorcycles. He was 'sane' enough to be a defence force member and to be selected as an officer cadet - yet he flipped, which goes to prove that it is simplistic to say you just need to keep the guns away from the nutters.

The current spike in shootings is gang related - thankfully the good news for the rest of society is that they tend to target opposing gangs (usually drug related). It's unfortunate that criminals will always find guns.

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 13:02

AA

I must say that in reading various bits and pieces re the States
in the US passing laws, they have been 1. very quick off the mark
and 2. Very clever in the way they are going about it.

Hence my pst prior to this a few pages back that quite a few
states were passing laws and IF Barry tries to bring things in,
the states will just write new laws.

And that is of course before anyone even starts to challenge any
new Fed laws in the Supreme Court which is another thing he will
have to contend with.

PTT
"I have family on your side of the pond."

As in Australia where I am or the US
(assuming you thought I was in the US ?)

"What makes you think we all have nothing on the line? "
As AA says, unless you live in the US, you have nothing
but an opinion that doesn't matter.

keesje

23rd Jan 2013, 13:49

I'm pretty sure that anyone would agree that the 388 households are highly unlikely to be an accurate reflection of the 132 million.

n=388 is quiet good statistically if randomly selected. If I remember well n=30 gives 95% relevenance, or however you name it. 388 Gives a pretty accurate representation, certainly if the margin is significant. Unless you don't like the results and are looking for escapes ;)

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 13:54

@ AA
PTT:

I know you are relying heavily on that study of yours but really, upon further reflection, the study itself is statistically insignificant. It samples 388 households. In 2011 there were, (per the US Census Bureau), more than 132 million "housing units". I'm pretty sure that anyone would agree that the 388 households are highly unlikely to be an accurate reflection of the 132 million. In fact, with such a small sample, it would be very easy for someone to cherry pick certain regions during certain time periods to prove a point while appearing to be trying to make an honest attempt at fairness. So, I'm sorry, (well, I'm not really - but I'm told it's polite to say it ), but I can't accept the conclusions that your study makes.Just so I am entirely clear, you are rejecting the study because:
1. You think the 388 households is too few to be a representative sample, and
2. You think the sample could have been cherrypicked.

As to point 1, that's rubbish. Anyone with any education in statistics knows full well how useful a sample size is depends on the statistical power required (in this case, is it big enough to reject the null hypothesis). In fact, the study specified that of all the risk factors included only 6 had sufficient statistical power with the sample sizes given. To quote the study (again):
Kellermann's team found only six variables that were strong enough to be included in the final model.
What that means is that, because the sample size is only 388, only those 6 particular risk factors caused a big enough difference to be able to reject the null hypothesis. With larger sample sizes it is likely that more risk factors would be strong enough to be included in the model, but given that there were only 388 included in the study then they could not have been.
Just for the sake of education, margin or error is easily calculated (http://www.comres.co.uk/poll-digest/11/margin-of-error-calculator.htm). If the population is 132,000,000 and the sample size is 388 then the margin of error is 4.98%. Since the risk factor was 270% then the bounds for that are roughly 265-275% compared to the 100% for the control case. As you can see, the wide gap between the lower bounds of the risk factor and the control group means that there is ample statistical power to reject the null hypothesis.

Regarding point 2, the study specified exactly where the statistics were taken from and in what years. Given that the actual study took place in 1993 and the sample was from dates up to 1992 I think that any suggestion of cherrypicking by date is desperate and/or foolish: it's simply the most recent data. Regarding cherrypicking by area, not only were the areas chosen all at the same or better poverty levels than the majority of the US (meaning that the crime rate was probably relatively low due to the correlation between poverty and violent crime (http://cjr.sagepub.com/content/18/2/182.short)), but they also weren't those areas which you thought would be "cherrypick" areas (North Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington DC). Basically, it used the most recent data from fairly affluent areas of the US.
Now if you are actually accusing the study of being cherrypicked then it is for you to provide some evidence that it has been - to reject it on the basis that it might have been cherrypicked is intellectually dishonest.

In short, your rejection is based on your lack of understanding of statistics (which is fine - not many people actually understand much about statistics) and possibly an unsubstantiated accusation. You're rejecting it because you don't like the conclusion, not because you can actually show it to be incorrect or otherwise flawed.

I've been arguing this since Newtown and have come to the conclusion that unless you live in the USA and are subject to it's laws your opinions are just that, opinions, and they have no bearing on how America will deal with it's issues.I fail to see the relevance of this point. What exactly are you trying to say and what bearing does it have to do with the discussion itself?
In short, the American people know and understand the risks and responsibilities that come with the Second Amendment and they are happy to keep that freedom as is.My observation is otherwise ;)

@ 500N
I meant US. Apologies for mislocating you ;)
As AA says, unless you live in the US, you have nothing but an opinion that doesn't matter.That's a VERY different thing to having nothing on the line. I have family on the line, but I have no voting rights in the US.

This "you don't live in the US so why do you care" thing is a massive red herring. It's a debate: trying to shut it down on the basis that some of us don't live there is cowardly.

@ keesje
It's Confidence Interval. 95CI means that if the study were carried out 20 times then 19 times the result would be within the range given - exactly what you would expect with probabilities, since there are always statistical outliers.

MightyGem

23rd Jan 2013, 14:24

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed

Two points. As a well regulated militia was required back then to defend the security of the state, the amendment was of the day. Nowadays, given the size of the US Military/National Guard, they can probably defend the state(country) without the need to ask a militia for help. Repeal the amendment.

Second. The amendment gives the right to bear arms. It says nothing about ammunition. Let people have as many guns as they wish, just severly restrict the sale of ammunition.

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 15:19

PTT:

I'm well aware of the basics of statistics having been married to a statistician for several years in the past. I'm also aware that polling prior to Presidential elections selects a sample size in the 1000-1500 region and is often quite wrong so I'll continue to reject the study's findings if that's ok.

My observation is otherwiseThen, Sir, your powers of observation are lacking. The 2nd Amendment is alive and well and living in the USA and there is not much Barry and his cohorts are going to do about it.

I fail to see the relevance of this point. What exactly are you trying to say and what bearing does it have to do with the discussion itself?Mighty Gem's post is a perfect example of why I say what I did. He demonstrates not only an ignorance of the 2nd Amendment but also a limited level of reading comprehension. He then, on the basis of such inadequate understanding recommends it's repeal. He further demonstrates his limited grasp of the language by stating that, (I paraphrase), arms = guns so control the ammunition when various dictionaries concede that arms = both weapons and ammunition.

One can only hope that he was being facetious when he posted.

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 15:27

I'm well aware of the basics of statistics having been married to a statistician for several years in the past.What a ridiculous statement! I wouldn't ask my wife to fly a helicopter, nor would she claim to understand even the basics of it just because I can.
Maybe you should talk to your (presumably ex) wife about it then, since it's not you who has the qualifications and it's clearly not you who understands statistics.
I'm also aware that polling prior to Presidential elections selects a sample size in the 1000-1500 region and is often quite wrongAre you aware of why they publish sample sizes, what the weightings for the polls are, why the different types of poll are relevant, and why they are inaccurate by the amount they are? Are you aware that Nate Silver had it pretty much spot on for the last presidential election due to the way in which he weighted the various samples he looked at, and the reasoning behind those weightings?
I'll continue to reject the study's findings if that's ok.Like I said, not many people actually understand statistics. You're just another one, and you're rejecting data based on your preconceived conclusions.
Then, Sir, your powers of observation are lacking. The 2nd Amendment is alive and well and living in the USA and there is not much Barry and his cohorts are going to do about it.You miss my point. I'm suggesting that not all the American people "know and understand the risks and responsibilities that come with the Second Amendment" by a long stretch, particularly the responsibilities part.

Your last point doesn't address my question at all. What relevance does your the fact that we have no voting power in the US have to do with our opinions?

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 15:42

PTT:

I surrender.

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 16:41

Mighty Gem

"Let people have as many guns as they wish,
just severly restrict the sale of ammunition."

Er, quite a few people make their own ammo. It's called reloading.

Cows getting bigger

23rd Jan 2013, 18:07

I guess the problem is that most of the world just doesn't get America. :ugh:

F900 Ex

23rd Jan 2013, 18:23

MightyGem
Let people have as many guns as they wish, just severly restrict the sale of ammunition.

What rubbish, what about people who reload ammunition, from your location in the UK I guess you are another one of those ill informed gun control nuts.

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 18:38

F900 Ex

That comment, about restricting ammo is IMHO
always a dead giveaway.

Gov't restricts ammo sales, then just buy the ammo factory.
Plenty of private people in the US can produce hundreds of thousands
of rounds a day, and that's not counting individuals who can produce
1000 rounds an hour on a manual machine. 6 of the in a row and
you have a good set up !

Agaricus bisporus

23rd Jan 2013, 18:53

Well, the UK never had a problem with handguns until the gummt banned them in one of their irrational brainstorms . As soon as that happened there was an explosion of illegally held handguns being used in crimes and a whole new industry of importing and distributing them sprang up. Why? Because banning made them "bad" and thus trendy - and suddenly the must have accessory for every unemployed bum in a gang...

It isn't legally held weapons that are the problem so please don't punish responsible legal owners. That is undemocratic, irrational and bloody unfair.

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 18:58

AB

And the other thing is, as soon as you "ban" something like a pistol,
the price goes sky high which makes them much more attractive
because of the profit margin, which then feeds itself as more people
get intot he act of importing / selling them.

"don't punish responsible legal owners."

The problem is here, pollies like to be seen to be doing something
and they can't crack down in one fell swoop on crims because the
crims ignore them so they crack down on the LAFO's.

F900 Ex

23rd Jan 2013, 19:20

It always amazes me how a doctor, Harold Shipman can murder 200+ innocent victims, football hooligans with violence, cars killing people every day but when does the media and politicions spout of about banning these.

But as soon as guns are involved every tree hugging gun control nut comes out of the woodwork looking for their 15 minutes of fame trying to ban everything.

VinRouge

23rd Jan 2013, 19:28

Im a legal gun owner in the UK. I just dont like the fact billy bob and his half sister-mother are entitled to walk round Ok with a loaded pistol in public if they attend a safety course.

I have no issue with sensible people owning sensible weapons. I have a big issue with civilians thinking they need semi and fully automatic weapons, including pistols, when they are capable of complete carnage.

Cows getting bigger

23rd Jan 2013, 19:30

It isn't legally held weapons that are the problem so please don't punish responsible legal owners. That is undemocratic, irrational and bloody unfair.

Now I may be wrong, but the Newtown killings were done with legally owned weapons.

"Bloody unfair". I guess it isn't bloody unfair that 20 innocent kids were robbed of their lives.

F900 Ex

23rd Jan 2013, 19:35

VinRouge
I have no issue with sensible people owning sensible weapons. I have a big issue with civilians thinking they need semi and fully automatic weapons, including pistols, when they are capable of complete carnage.

Well I live in the UK as well and hold all you mentioned except for fully automatic weapons and I am a civilian and licenced to hold what I have, including pistols, so your point is?

Robert Cooper

23rd Jan 2013, 19:44

CGB

The nutcase doing the shooting did not legally own the guns he used. He killed his mother to get them, and she was a legal gun owner. No amount of checks and legislation on his mother would have prevented that nutcase from getting at his mother's legally owned guns once he decided to do that. Criminals are like that, they don't obey the law!

Duncan D'Sorderlee

23rd Jan 2013, 19:46

"No amount of checks and legislation on his mother would have prevented that nutcase from getting at his mother's legally owned guns once he decided to do that."

You are correct. However, if his mother did not have a gun, he would have had to go through a much more rigourous process in order to kill a load of children. And in the end, he might have settled for a w@nk!

Duncs:ok:

F900 Ex

23rd Jan 2013, 19:52

DDS
You are correct. However, if his mother did not have a gun, he would have had to go through a much more rigourous process in order to kill a load of children. And in the end, he might have settled for a w@nk!

No he wouldn't he would have just gone somewhere else to easily find a gun and commit the same crime because that was the way his mind was programmed, you cannot legislate for nut cases, and if he couldn't find a gun he would have used a knife, petrol bomb, car, baseball bat, where do you stop legislating.

Pontius Navigator

23rd Jan 2013, 19:53

semi and fully automatic weapons, including pistols,

Well I live in the UK as well and hold all you mentioned except for fully automatic weapons and I am a civilian and licenced to hold what I have, including pistols, so your point is?

May I ask what, why, and also how.

In my naivety I though pistols were banned.

F900 Ex

23rd Jan 2013, 20:00

PN
May I ask what, why, and also how.
In my naivety I though pistols were banned.

Colt 1911, 357 Taurus, AR 15, because I can, target disciplines, legally.
Not in all parts of the UK

Duncan D'Sorderlee

23rd Jan 2013, 20:02

F900 Ex,

That's the whole point. He would have had to go somewhere else. Not picked up a gun in his own house where - I suspect - he knew where it was. He would have had to do more. Maybe, just maybe, that would have been enough to make him do something else. I guess that we will never know.

Duncs:ok:

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 20:05

Duncan

On that point then, because a group of terrorists hijacked
4 planes and did what they did, we ban all private flying ?

Banning everything on the basis of "if she didn't have the guns
he would have done something else", is crap.

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 20:10

I'm not suggesting a ban.

Duncan D'Sorderlee

23rd Jan 2013, 20:24

I'm not suggesting a ban; I'm simply commenting on the posts of others.

"If his Mum didn't have a gun, he'd just have got one from someone else" doesn't wash with me. Everyone gets pissed off at some point; those with 'more issues' are, IMHO, more likely to do something like Newtown if it is as easy as it appears to be to get weapons in the US. If it is a bit more difficult, it might be less likely to happen. That, however, is only one side of the arguement. No doubt, if everyone at Newtown was armed, it may not have happened either.

That said, it doesn't affect me. I sleep easy at night knowing that it is most unlikely that I am going to be a victim of gun crime - whether legally owned or not. Moreover, I have already indicated that this issue needs to be resolved by those in the US, and I will accept whatever they choose - because I can't do anything about it.

Duncs:ok:

F900 Ex

23rd Jan 2013, 20:25

DDS
That's the whole point. He would have had to go somewhere else. Not picked up a gun in his own house where - I suspect - he knew where it was. He would have had to do more. Maybe, just maybe, that would have been enough to make him do something else. I guess that we will never know.

Of course move the problem somewhere else, as I said you will never ever legislate for the nut cases, so why penalise the law abiding.

If you are going to penalise law abiding gun holders lets start using that principle for all other walks of life, murdering doctors, football hooligans, knife crime, killer drivers, pub landlords for supplying alcohol.

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 20:29

Who is penalising the law-abiding?

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 20:34

Everyone who wants to ban guns. All you are doing is affecting law abiding firearm owners. Crims keep the one's they have.

F900 Ex

23rd Jan 2013, 20:34

PTT
Who is penalising the law-abiding?

Governments, MP's and Politicians under pressure to grab votes from the ill informed public via the media and gun control nuts trying to stay in power taking the easy options.

VinRouge

23rd Jan 2013, 20:57

If you cant kill a "crim" with a 3 shot semi auto shotgun, you shouldnt have a weapon in the first place.

Same goes for single shot rifle (unsuitable for home defence) and anything other than 6 shot revolver. Why do you need 30+ rounds?

Did you ever consider by holding weapons for self defence, you make it worse for homeowners who dont posess firearms, who will now potentially face an armed intruder instead of one who would prefer not to carry a weapon to a burglary and the significantly worse legal ramifications if caught doing so. You are making your own problems.

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 21:05

@ 500NEveryone who wants to ban guns. All you are doing is affecting law abiding firearm owners. Crims keep the one's they have.Do you really think life is so simplistic that you can divide the world up into "law abiding" and "crims"? It's not the black hat/white hat world of the spaghetti westerns in real life :ugh:

What you do by restricting access to (not banning) guns is reduce the death rate due to guns. I don't doubt for a second that there are a lot of people who own guns responsibly: they are well trained and educated in their use, practice regularly, and absolutely should not be restricted in any way. On the other hand, there are also a lot of people who own guns irresponsibly: they are untrained, poorly educated in their use, and their concept of practice is shooting beer bottles off a wall (an exaggeration, but you get the point); these people should be restricted in what they can own.

My suggestion would be a testing and training system which allows you to qualify to own different types, or tiers, of weapon. Weapons would be divided into tiers and you can own and buy weapons from tiers for which you are qualified. Qualification would be determined by examination and a requirement for regular practice (not unlike flying) along with medical and mental health certification. Which weapons go into which tier would be determined by a suitable panel of experts either at State or Federal level, whichever is appropriate - I would suggest State because it would both be able to account for regional requirements and be more acceptable to people in general; the only issue is with different laws across state lines, but that's already an issue in the US. Basically a system of compulsory education prior to ownership rather than the voluntary education after ownership which now exists.
Purely as an example, Tier A (or whatever) weapons might include certain types of air weapons, handguns not capable of taking more than 6 rounds at a time, break action shotguns, and bolt or lever action rifles not capable of taking magazines of more than 5 rounds at a time - basically the relatively "safe" stuff. Anyone would qualify for this tier with the same minimum training required by the state now.
Sure, such a system would cost money as it's more bureaucracy, but it would certainly cost less that the $7.2Bn which security guards for schools would cost, it wouldn't penalise anyone who is law-abiding, and it would ensure that the most dangerous weapons are only available legally to those who are suitably trained, educated and practised - the most responsible. I'm not suggesting it would reduce the number of criminals who have guns, of course, but I am suggesting it would reduce the chances of those who are irresponsible getting hold of the most dangerous weapons.

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 21:24

Vin:

Did you ever consider by holding weapons for self defence, you make it worse for homeowners who dont posess firearms, who will now potentially face an armed intruder instead of one who would prefer not to carry a weapon to a burglary and the significantly worse legal ramifications if caught doing so. You are making your own problems.Why, oh why, does everybody insist that I, or anyone else, should give a rat's arse about everyone else. Firstly, when the bad guy picks my house to invade Joe Public in the next town over can't help and almost certainly could care less about me. So for me to worry about him is silly. But, far more importantly, all the other homeowners have the same right to keep and bear arms as the rest of us. It is, entirely, their choice not to. It's the great part of America... They can choose and so can I.

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 21:26

Firstly, when the bad guy picks my house to invade Joe Public in the next town over can't help and almost certainly could care less about me.It's not the bad guy you should worry about. From the study I have cited to you several times:
at least 76.7 percent of the murderers were relatives, friends or acquaintances of the victim. In fact, the victim's murderer was 21 times more likely to be a relative or acquaintance than a stranger. Even in the 14 percent of the cases involving forced entry, the vast majority of the intruders were known to the victim. The threat of forced entry is the most commonly cited reason for possessing a domestic firearm, but the researchers found no protective benefit for this subgroup either.

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 21:27

PTT:

handguns not capable of taking more than 6 rounds at a timeThat'll help....

lLk1v5bSFPw

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 21:29

Really? You're citing the World Record Holder as a reason it won't work? Can you really not see the flaw in that reasoning? :ugh:

Besides, it was an example, as I clearly stated.

finestkind

23rd Jan 2013, 21:44

AA totally correct hence the ref to cars/knifes etc is a moot point. The reason bows have not been banned is that to walk into a school/cinema/shopping centre and start shooting arrows has a) not occurred and b) highly unlikely to result in multiple deaths (meaning in excess of single digits), this being the main point.

Nice world record. I guess he just walked in and picked it up and "surprise surprise SGT Carter" shot off twelve in three seconds just like anyone could have.

The divergent from the core of this topic is quite interesting and to continue...

I know if my neighbour was in trouble I would assist. I do give a rats arse about other people (possibly a reason why the citizens of the USA demand the right to blow away anyone they feel justified in doing so and why there is so much discussion on this thread from non-US citizens) and respect there beliefs and rights (unless they decide not to honour the responsibility that comes with rights) of others.

Just like most people abhor the suicide bomber and terrorist for the indiscriminate murder of people most of us are stunned by the amount of massacres (particulary death of children) that occur in the States and wonder why it is just accepted as part of the right to bear arms.

HrkDrvr

23rd Jan 2013, 21:59

Interesting discussion. Or not.

PTT seems to have found the one and only study that supports his view and puts it out as the sole reference and then end to any differing opinion. Let's dig a little deeper than his link.

Kellerman is a known gun control advocate. This biases his work as a minimum. He used this same study to claim you were 43 times more likely to die if you had a gun in your house. He back pedaled a bit and now you're only 2.7 times more likely. The challenge is, he has not shared his data. It is not a true peer-reviewed study because nobody has really seen his methodology.

Well, here's a report that pokes holes in Kellerman which, by the way, is the only study to correlate gun death in the home the way he does.

Serious Flaws in Kellerman (http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kellerman-schaffer.html)

Further, the three areas in question are not 'affluent' areas as PTT likes to claim. Seattle/Tacoma is probably the 'nicest' of these areas. Last year just the greater metropolitan area of Memphis had a violent crime rate of 980/100,00 and a murder rate of 10.6/100,000, Sea-Tac had a violent crime rate of 330/100,000 and murder rate of 2.1/100,000, and the Cleveland metro area had 404/100,000 and 4.8/100,000 for violent crime and murder respectively. US national averages were 386 & 4.7 per 100,000 respectively for 2011.

But what's more interesting is in 1992 when Kellerman's 'study' was done, the national averages were 757 and 9.3 per 100,000. The USA has seen well over 20 years of steady declines in both violent crime and murder.

For you correlation enthusiasts, in 1987, Florida enacted the first broad concealed carry licensing law. Several states followed suit - by 2002, 29 states had enacted similar laws and by 2012 all but one state, Illinois, have some form of concealed carry law. Most respectable criminologists will tell you that the reduction in violent crime overall, and murder specifically, is attributable to the increase in personal protection afforded under concealed carry laws.

Much like how do you prove your flight safety program is good because you can't prove something is causal if it didn't happen, trying to pin down how much crime is stopped or prevented by concealed carry is challenging. Reports vary widely on actual numbers, but I've seen 'statistics' (and I use that term loosely because sources are varied) that show anywhere between 2500/month to 2.2 million crimes were stopped/prevented by non-criminals with guns last year. Even if you go with the low number, that more than offsets the <10,000 murders last year with guns.

Of note, as of yesterday, Chicago has had 31 murders so far in 2013 and 109 people shot - this from the city with the strictest gun control in the state with the strictest gun control. Every single one of these guns is illegal, fired by criminals who didn't do a background check or get their gun from the range, or who cared what capacity magazine was in the well. Chicago is a veritable petri dish of what's wrong with the 'logic' of gun control advocates and why it doesn't work.

For those who think us Yanks are worried too much that someone is going to take our guns, it is a slippery slope indeed. You've been down it already, UK, I just hope Newtown isn't our Dunblane. You've lived with gun control for so long, most of you have grown up being told it's the right thing to do. Yet more and more of you cops are riding around in armed response units and not just in your major metropolitan areas.

Here's one you'll be familiar with - a mild dramatization of a true story with a little history thrown in:

by Anonymous

You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom. Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers.

At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it.

In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds something that looks like a crowbar.

When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire.

The blast knocks both thugs to the floor.

One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside.

As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble.

In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless..

Yours was never registered.

Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died.

They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm.

When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter.

"What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask.

"Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing.

"Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven."

The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper. Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys.

Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them..

Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times.

But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die."

The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters.. As the days wear on, the story takes wings.

The national media picks it up, then the international media.

The surviving burglar has become a folk hero. Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win.

The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects.

After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time.

The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.

A few months later, you go to trial.

The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted.

When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you.. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man.

It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.

The judge sentences you to life in prison.

This case really happened.

On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk , England , killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term...

How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire ?

It started with the Pistols Act of 1903.

This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license.

The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns..

Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.

Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerfordmass shooting in 1987.

Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.

The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)

Nine years later, at Dunblane , Scotland , Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school.

For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on
on all handguns.

The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearms still owned by private citizens.

During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun.

Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released. Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands."

All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.

When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities.

Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply.

Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.

How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been registered and licensed. Kind of like cars. Sound familiar?

finestkind

23rd Jan 2013, 22:13

Hrkdvr

Sooooo true but not entirely a point against guns laws but a very valid indication of our crumbling Western Justice system. We have all heard of the person who sued and won MacDonald's for providing hot coffee that caused burn injuries when they spilt it on themselves. Also the mother that successfully sued the store for negligence when she tripped over a misbehaving child and broke her leg, even though it was her child. And the list goes on but just provides justification for a poor judicial system that is owned by the media and lawyers.

sevenstrokeroll

23rd Jan 2013, 22:13

I'm glad you can all say what you like. In the USA, we have the right to freedom of speech. Sure, there are reasonable limits like not shouting: fire in a crowded theatre (though it worked well in the film, "Iron Curtin"with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews).

But we also have the right to bear arms. Yes, some terrible people have stolen weapons and used them to kill innocents. Someone grabbed the controls of an airliner and killed thousands.

We have about 300 million ''guns'' in civilian hands in our nation of some 330 million people. If they were all nutcases we would all be dead now and the race would be on to recolonize the USA.

But we are not all dead.

Shortly after the Sandy Hook school shooting, I watched as 30 school children stood outside of a department store on the sidewalk. I was driving my car and could easily have killed them all by turning my wheel two inches to the right. But I didn't. And the other cars on the same path and I did the same thing...we turned our wheel to the left slightly and even though they were on the sidewalk, we gave them even more room. That day there were no nut cases driving cars near those students.

I don't own a gun. While in the US Army I qualified Expert and won a three day pass for my excellent shooting. I haven't fired a gun since then over 30 years ago.

But I sure want that right. We have a constitution that is wonderful and the father of the constitution said why that right is so important (see Federalist Paper 46). And I agree with it fully.

All the little comments about not being able to buy hand grenades or howitzers are cute. Reasonable firearms in general or standard use are the rule. Not laser guns, or manpads. There are over 1 million AR15's in general use. As the cousin of the m16 military rifle, it is the weapon I would choose to purchase if I wanted one. (actually the Colt AR15A2 MT6700 5.56mm, and for a hand gun I would want the Colt 1911 WW1 replica).

Contrary to popular opinion, we can even buy real MACHINE GUNS...there is a huge tax and the price would make even an airline pilot think twice about paying the price. And to buy the ammunition is incredibly expensive...100 rounds and you could easily make your electrical bill payment.

To you in different countries...it is your business if you want the right to bear arms. I wonder how the people of Norway feel about guns...90 kids killed and no one could stop the nutcase killer.

To you in different countries, I am reminded of the original "The Time Machine" with Rod Taylor having to teach the Eloi to fight back.

Our country is a young one and I live in the wild west of today, but not so long ago Pony Express riders were armed with guns to protect the mail. And well before the 911 attacks airline pilots had guns to protect the mail. Yes, real airline pilots with guns 70 years ago.

We like guns and the great majority of us are responsible with guns or we would all be dead like I said.

The only reason I am even thinking of buying a gun is a restraint on my rights. Not to use, but to have...just like the right I have to say what I like.

I wonder if the Jews in Germany would have fought back better if they all had guns in the 1930's?

I wonder if Hitler would have come to power if more Germans had guns in their hands?

No, were not nuts. We just know the price of freedom.

There are two recent gun violence incidents and both of the shooters did not legally obtain the guns. One of them, in New York state, had been previously convicted of killing his grandmother with a hammer...he only got 17 years in prision and was barred from gun ownership when he got out...but he still got a gun and killed some fire fighters. He should have had a life's sentence for his first crime.

any hammer restrictions...nope.

And the nut job in sandy hook...I wonder about his family but also wonder why metal doors/ballistic glass, armor wasn't used at a school and just a couple of shots allowed entrance through a shattered glass door.

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 22:21

This lass was 15 at the time... Look for the changes of magazine...

7KnBDIbgbMk

PTT:

You haven't done much at a high level it seems. While the difference between an utter dunce and a competent, practiced individual can be leaps and bounds the difference between a world record holder and that same practiced individual can be a matter of a few seconds. My P226 holds 18 round magazines of which I have several. Due to my own quirkiness I only ever put 15 rounds in each. A bad magazine change for me is 2 seconds and since I count my rounds I don't have a re-cocking issue. So... My P226 will fire rounds as fast as I can pull the trigger which is about twice a second on a bad day. I can put 30 rounds down range in about 17 seconds - there are pictures here of the targets I shoot that attest to my accuracy though I'm no Tori Nonaka. No matter how you restrict the capacity of my magazine I can, with not a lot of practice send, accurately, downrange in seconds the capacity of the magazine divided by two, plus two, times the number of magazines in my possession.

My point? Trying to control the capacity of magazines is a wonderful idea in the utopia you appear to live in but in the real world it's a non-starter...

Finestkind:

Nice world record. I guess he just walked in and picked it up and "surprise surprise SGT Carter" shot off twelve in three seconds just like anyone could have.See above...

I care about my neighbours as do you. But, just like you, I really don't give a rat's behind about anyone I don't know and for you to say you truly do will be a lie. So, let's not go there...

Just like most people abhor the suicide bomber and terrorist for the indiscriminate murder of people most of us are stunned by the amount of massacres (particulary death of children) that occur in the States and wonder why it is just accepted as part of the right to bear arms.I'll give you a frank and honest answer to that and I'll hear all the bleating and whining from others and simply ignore it, ok?

Because Americans have not yet, (though there are those working on it as I type), been completely cowed into submission by governments over which they have no control like Europeans have been. I do believe it was this thread where Keefe or some such from Holland made the most naive statement I have heard in many a year... Something along the lines of "We over here don't fear our government's we just send them home when we are done with them"... Stunningly stupid if you ask me from one on a continent that witnessed the holocaust, the near eradication of the Armenians and most recently Bosnia.

The Second Amendment is there to ensure that "The People" are armed... End of story. Whether they chose to hunt or shoot paper with those guns while they site idle in their intent is up to the owner. What needs to happen is that the number of owners who, on psychological grounds, really shouldn't have access to guns is minimized.

In the end, as has been proven all across the world in just the last century, a thousand mass killing with any kind of weapon by nutcases doesn't even begin to match the misery inflicted by a single government gone bad. I'm sure I don't need to list the slaughter for you.

So, America remains armed in the knowledge that these things will happen but also with the knowledge that every time a government uses an event to try to control arms they might be that government about to go bad.

mary meagher

23rd Jan 2013, 22:44

Firstly, the United States Constitution makes provision for amendment. And when it was first approved by the founding fathers, certain states retained the right to slavery - with the kicker being that a proportion of the slave population was counted in apportioning the number of representatives each state was allowed in Congress. Basically, those in power have been gerrymandering the rules ever since.

For sure, the early settlers needed protection against indian raids, and hillbillies needed protection against the revenuers....so guns have always been popular and justified in the backwoods of the US.

Nowadays, parents in the US who keep guns are convinced their little darlings would not be able to get ahold of the parental firepower, as it is of course all properly locked away. The Newtown shooter's mommie took him to the range and showed him how to use the firepower, that sure backfired on her.
Parents who think their children wouldn't be able to access the armory have all too frequently had to bury them, or a neighbour's child who wanted to play with the toy gun.

I learned to shoot in New Hampshire with a 22 rifle, at summer camp. My father, living in rural Maryland kept a small assortment of rifles, we used to shoot tin cans on the fence. But the sound and fury of the NRA in resisting any sensible regulation of weapons that can kill very quickly large numbers of innocent people, is sick. Sick.

Americans can learn from the Australians. JSFfan in a previous post, number 187, has pointed out that between 1991 and 2001, there has been a 47% decrease in the annual number of firearms related deaths....since legislation has restricted firepower of private weapons, after a massacre took place in Australia.

I was confronted in Austin, Texas with a demented person holding a shotgun aimed at me; she claimed I was planning to rob her when I was looking for a friend's apartment. I was terrified. The police who came very promptly were so brave, they couldn't persuade her to come out of her apartment, I sure wouldn't have wanted their job! What firepower does is empower crazy people out of all proportion, and an awful lot of the posters on this thread look like nutters to me.

Although I live in the UK, I hold dual nationality, and have grandchildren in the USA. The sooner the NRA does the right thing and endorses Australian rules, the safer the US will be. Don't hold your breath.

What does all this have to do with military aircrew, anyhow?

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 23:05

PTT

"Do you really think life is so simplistic that you can divide the world up into "law abiding" and "crims"? It's not the black hat/white hat world of the spaghetti westerns in real life"

Well, having lived through a couple of gun grabs by Gov'ts from LAFO,
it seems to me and others that the Crims are the only one's who get to keep them.

So yes, in those terms it is black and white because the crims didn't hand in any guns.

Re firepower, I use the following for a Bolt action.
4 shots in 9 seconds at 3 different targets spaced at least 10 feet apart.
And that is slow compared to some.

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 23:10

@ HrkDrvr
PTT seems to have found the one and only study that supports his view and puts it out as the sole reference and then end to any differing opinion.Not at all. I'm quite happy to discuss it. Let's do that ;)
The challenge is, he has not shared his data.Not true. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, the world’s largest archive for social science research, released the data for public access on May 30th 1997. About 15 seconds of googling found it: Home Safety Project, 1987-1992: [Shelby County, Tennessee, King County, Washington, and Cuyahoga County, Ohio] (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/6898?q=kellerman&permit%5B0%5D=AVAILABLE)
Well, here's a report that pokes holes in Kellerman which, by the way, is the only study to correlate gun death in the home the way he does.

Serious Flaws in Kellerman (http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kellerman-schaffer.html)
Let's take a little look at your report and its criticisms:
The Kellerman, et al (1993) study has been widely quoted as demonstrating that there is a causal relationship between handguns in the home and homicides. The paper itself doesn't go that far, but it uses suggestive language, which suggests that there is more than merely an 'association'.Oh very suggestive. All this says is that Kellerman doesn't conflate correlation and causation, but he could. Flim-flam.
Subgroups and confounding factorsThis basically talks about spurious associations, which would be a valid point if it weren't for the fact that a multivariate analysis was used, thereby controlling for such spurious associations.
Bias due to failure to respond honestlyTo quote the link I've posted before, which addresses this:
If this [underreporting the number of guns in the control homes] were true, this would indeed artificially raise the murder risk of having a gun in the home. Conversely, if the number of guns in the case homes were underreported, then this would artificially lower the murder risk associated with guns. But the authors do not believe this was a problem. First, in two of the three counties they studied, they compared their survey results to a pilot study of homes listed as the addresses of owners of registered handguns. The survey respondents' answers were found to be generally valid. Second, the rate of gun ownership by the control respondents in all three counties was comparable to estimates derived by previous social surveys and Cook's gun-prevalence index. (6)

Of course, respondents might not have disclosed possession of illegal guns. Pro-gunners argue that the case subjects were prevented from underreporting the possession of such guns, because murder itself is almost impossible to underreport. (It's difficult to hide either a corpse or a person's absence). And a murder causes the police to search -- and usually find -- the murder weapon, so the truth about gun ownership in the case homes probably came out. However, control subjects have not been investigated by the police for guns, nor do they desire such a search, so they may lie about possessing an illegal gun. The researchers were aware of this possibility, and they assured the respondents that their answers were confidential, and that they could freely refuse to answer any questions. Even so, only a very few respondents refused to answer a question. Ultimately, the possibility of underreporting remains pure speculation at the moment, and further research needs to clarify this question.
In short, the criticism is pure speculation.
Selection Bias and Response BiasAll this does is reduce the sample size from 388 to 316, thereby increasing the margin of error, but still not significantly enough to cause an overlap.

In other words, your "Serious Flaws" paper is an attempt to misrepresent both the study and the methods used, and it fails at every hurdle. Most amusing is the fact that it ignores the use of multivariate analysis in its first flawed criticism, then blames the use of multivariate analysis for the last one!

Further, the three areas in question are not 'affluent' areas as PTT likes to claim. Seattle/Tacoma is probably the 'nicest' of these areas. Last year just the greater metropolitan area of Memphis had a violent crime rate of 980/100,00 and a murder rate of 10.6/100,000, Sea-Tac had a violent crime rate of 330/100,000 and murder rate of 2.1/100,000, and the Cleveland metro area had 404/100,000 and 4.8/100,000 for violent crime and murder respectively. US national averages were 386 & 4.7 per 100,000 respectively for 2011.They were affluent at the time when compared to national poverty rates, and I suggested that this might correlate with lower crime rates due to a correlation between poverty and crime rates. You've not looked at 1993 data for the respective areas there but at more recent data, so your comparison isn't really valid. Finally, control comparisons were matched by neighbourhood, thereby controlling the data for the neighbourhood.

Here's one you'll be familiar with - a mild dramatization of a true story with a little history thrown in:Yawn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_vividness).

@ AA
While the difference between an utter dunce and a competent, practiced individual can be leaps and bounds the difference between a world record holder and that same practiced individual can be a matter of a few seconds.It's not the competents I'm suggesting restricting, it's the irresponsible.

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 23:11

Mary:

Thanks for that... Do me a favour, nip down to Abingdon and tell my mum and dad why their granddaughter should be left utterly unprotected. I'm sure your hand wringing will have them calling me immediately to have me crush all my guns and burn the ammo..

I'll wait for their call... :ok:

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 23:20

PTT:

I'm sure that you are quite familiar with this and your almost religious acceptance of your quoted study makes me believe it:-

There's lies, bloody lies and statistics...

It's not the competents I'm suggesting restricting, it's the irresponsible.

You said:-

Really? You're citing the World Record Holder as a reason it won't work? Can you really not see the flaw in that reasoning?

I responded... You're making yourself look silly.... You can't refute my premise...

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 23:21

"there is a causal relationship between handguns in the home and homicides"

Their is a very direct relationship between cars owned by young people 8 - 30,
alcohol and car crashes, including drunken drivers crashing into other cars who are totally innocent.

So since this relationship is so strong, do we ban cars, alcohol or
young drivers from driving ?

Airborne Aircrew

23rd Jan 2013, 23:26

500N:

Stop it... Cars have use... Guns don't... Silly... :ugh:

500N

23rd Jan 2013, 23:26

PTT

Their are heaps of studies that support AA's points. I live this every week (as I work in the industry) and frankly, prefer to put my time into fighting our Gov't than discussing with someone who is not going to influence the outcome here or in the US.

Now that gun owners, shooters and hunters in this country are getting more organised,we have the info and data t back things up. Luckily the US has the NRA who have been very strong for a long time and unlike in the Greenie movement, have been able to counter the anti gun nuts.

And FYI, the anti gunners, anti hunters are very very adapt at skewing statistics for their own means and very good at getting the media to publish them without holding them to account as to where they came from or how they were achieved.

PETA is one of the best examples.

PTT

23rd Jan 2013, 23:33

@ AA
There's lies, bloody lies and statistics... I said it pages back, and the truth of it is that there's lies, damned lies, and people who misuse and misunderstand statistics.
I responded... You're making yourself look silly.... You can't refute my premise...You did respond, and you'd have made yourself look far less prone to hyperbole if you'd simply given some times for changes for ordinary people.
Your premise appears to be that reducing magazine capacity does nothing to reduce firepower in the hands of the competent. I'm still looking for your reason why you would be against it in that case.
My premise is that the capability should be taken away from the irresponsible (a catchall phrase which I partially defined earlier, so please don't take it literally) who are, by definition, unlikely to be quite as competent.

@ 500N
Their are heaps of studies that support AA's points.Then for God's sake link them here! I'm not averse to changing my mind on this if some actual evidence is brought out, but so far all I've read is anecdotal evidence and some flimsy reasoning about "feeling safer".
And FYI, the anti gunners, anti hunters are very very adapt at skewing statistics for their own means and very good at getting the media to publish them without holding them to account as to where they came from or how they were achieved.

PETA is one of the best examples.I'm no advocate of that behaviour by anyone. The media are as culpable for the lamentable state of comprehension of statistics (and numerous other areas) as anyone.

finestkind

24th Jan 2013, 00:02

Well AA if you do not give a rats arse about anyone you don't know then you obviously do not shed a tear over the deaths/murders of children that you do not know. And you really had better carry that gun because your Government is overseas and has been for years bringing freedom to people that have been cowed by deathspots and tyrants (often put in power by the USA) and I'm betting no-one knows most of those people. But I guess it does not matter if the soldier you don't know is killed over there.

Do I care about people I don't know...... call me a lair. Floods, fire, famine, tornado's who cares.

sevenstrokeroll

24th Jan 2013, 01:39

I'm sure glad I don't have to bow to a Queen or a King...I'm sure glad I live in a place where I can be trusted with a gun, and to pay my taxes on time (with representation in congress).

The NRA actually has provided enough ''gun lessons'' to make sure that young people entering the army already know how to shoot well. In fact that was part of the charter of the NRA.

GUN CONTROL legislation will not bring back those kids. AS soon as people understand that, things will settle down a bit.

gun control legislation won't prevent another lunatic from killing dozens.

And if every gun on the planet was destroyed, a lunatic could still find a way to kill innocents.

Lock up the nuts, but it is a right to own a gun. IF someone wants to try to repeal the 2nd amendment...that is their right.

I think more people could be saved by repealing the 21st amendment.

And yes, our constitution didn't do away with slavery from day one. But it held within it the mechanism which was used with the 13th amendment which did away with slavery.

I sure see alot of crap on this forum from people from different countries...well that's fine.

How about doing away with KILTS?

How about doing away with Warm Beer?

How about doing away with rotten smiles?

sheesh.

Oh and how about it England, we have a ship in our navy named after Winston Churchil...with a Royal navy officer as part of her crew. When are you going to do something nice for us in return...HMS Marlbourgh has been decomissioned for some time now.

JSFfan

24th Jan 2013, 02:18

They are starting to come out of the woodwork...As a sporting shooter, I'm a member of the NRA-Australian branch, Hardly anti-NRA.

As to the Queen nonsense, it doesn't apply to the commonwealth nations and doesn't even apply to the UK, He/She is just a figure head without real power, that stops a president getting ahead of himself against the wishes of the Parliament who wields the power of the people.

Sensible gun laws and I give Australia as an example, work. The most effective of these are having checks on nutters, proper training, guns locked away when not in direct use and restricted semi-auto rifles to need. Needless to say gun carry is silly, we don't even allow police to carry when not on duty

500N

24th Jan 2013, 03:06

JSFFan

"Sensible gun laws and I give Australia as an example, work. The most effective of these are having checks on nutters, proper training, guns locked away when not in direct use and restricted semi-auto rifles to need."

- having checks on nutters Criminal records check only
- proper training, Where ?, you do not need to do a training course.
- guns locked away when not in direct use I don't have a problem with that
- restricted semi-auto rifles Knee jerk reaction to one or two events.

"Sensible gun laws and I give Australia as an example, work."

Do they ?. Have you read the papers lately. 23 or so shootings in Sydney
in the last month. Even the police minister is saying it is with illegal and illegally imported hand guns.

Melbourne - tit for tat killings by the criminal gangs for quite a few years.
The cops weren't doing too much to stop it because they were killing each other at night, out of the public view UNTIL one of them did in two of them
in a car at a Sunday football match. Then the cops jumped down their throats but another 10+ died before it was stopped. And it only stopped because all the protagonists were dead, over 36 of them.

What about the 2 Lebbo families shooting at each other for the last 5 years ?

All the above were done with illegal firearms.

HrkDrvr

24th Jan 2013, 03:10

@PTT

Show me any other study done like the Kellerman study. Kellerman, who is an ER doctor, had his infamous study funded by gun control advocates and then received several multi-million dollar grants from the Center for Disease Control for the sole purpose of re-categorizing gun crime as a health problem to open a new front for the gun control lobby's war on the Second Amendment.

That alone makes anything that comes out biased. Period. Much like the vast majority of 'climate' science. Follow the money. But I digress...

The fact that he used the same statistical analysis to originally claim that you are 43 times more likely to die with a gun in the house as he later revised down to 2.7 times means he either can't figure out his own numbers or, alternatively, he's manipulating the data to suit his outcomes. Follow the money.

But don't believe just little old me. After all, I'm only smart enough to fly planes...and barely at that. I'm certainly no doctor. And these were just on the first two pages of google. There is nothing else that supports or corroborates Kellerman's 'study' although there's plenty of pages citing it.

note: some of these are cached pages on google

Kellermann-Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://guncite.com/gun-control-kellermann-3times.html)

Kellerman Debunked! (http://home.comcast.net/~dsmjd/tux/dsmjd/rkba/kellerman.htm)

Federal Observer Articles - Federal Observer (http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=717)

Editorial: Deconstructing Kellermann | The Truth About Guns (http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/01/william-c-montgomery/editorial-deconstructing-kellermann/)

The Gun Zone RKBA -- Suter "Outs" Kellerman (http://www.thegunzone.com/rkba/rkba-43.html)

I can cut & paste article upon article and study upon study showing causality contrary to Kellerman. You can find only one study that supports that view - Kellerman's.

And you, like Kellerman, completely ignored the times when guns save lives. Which, I admit, is a difficult statistic to map. Nevertheless, you cannot dismiss it. If you do not measure that which is important, you will ascribe undue importance to that which you can measure.

The crime rate data I provided was from 2011, which you seemed to dismiss, so for grins, I pulled the stats from the FBI for the three counties in question for 1992. King Co (Seattle) 357/100,000 violent crimes and 3.1/100,000 murders. Shelby Co (Memphis) 1552 and 28 and Cleveland 604 and 11.1. National averages for '92 757 and 9.3. And just like today, in 1992 I'd rather live in Seattle than Memphis or Cleveland. So while you completely dismissed my 2011 data because it wasn't 1992 data, my point is that the relativity is largely the same.

You also disregarded my point about the continual decrease in both violent crime and murder rates and the correlation of the increase in concealed carry in all of the states. There are fewer deaths with guns this year than last despite there being more guns in households this year. So you cannot possibly correlate guns in households with increased gun deaths. And while I concede correlation does not equal causation, in this instance, it flies in the face of your 'common sense'.

Gun control isn't about guns, it's about control. While that's a nice sound bite, there's a lot of truth in it.

I'm glad you find your own gun control history a yawn. I suppose that's because you lot all just laid down and went to sleep. It is precisely this characteristic subtle erosion of liberty and rights that is assuaged by the passage of time that makes it all feel okie-dokie. That won't happen here.