gun control...

[VOR]

That would be pretty un-American of us.

It might produce a better product for the workforce, but we aren't really concerned with that as long as we can drink Budweiser and watch TV.

[Hazzer]

As a British citizen I am 50 times less likely to be a victim of Gun homicide,in 2004,their were nearley 11,000 homicides involving Guns in the US,according to the FBI.
           
           Total number of victims from firearm incidents was 477,000 in 2005.16 children and teenagers are killed by Gun accidents in the US each day!Guns that are kept for self defence are 43 times more likely to be used to kill a friend,or a family member.Possessing a firearm increases the chance of suicide by five times.

       surprisingly Guns in the US are used five times more often in self defence than for crime!


       As a Brit I have never seen a hand Gun let alone heard one fired in anger,their is Gun crime here but mostley Gang related - they tend to shoot each other!

[Warspawn]

Britain is one of the highest crime rates of major countries.  Whether it's with a baseball bat, a knife, or a rock; it's still rather violent when it hits your head.  And guess what?  You can't defend yourself with a legal firearm when a couple of brutes decide to stick you with an icepick.

Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized.

The United States didn't even make the "top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime.

Jack Straw, the British home secretary, admitted that "levels of victimization are higher than in most comparable countries for most categories of crime."

Highlights of the study indicated that:


The percentage of the population that suffered "contact crime" in England and Wales was 3.6 percent, compared with 1.9 percent in the United States and 0.4 percent in Japan.

Burglary rates in England and Wales were also among the highest recorded. Australia (3.9 percent) and Denmark (3.1 per cent) had higher rates of burglary with entry than England and Wales (2.8 percent). In the U.S., the rate was 2.6 percent, according to 1995 figures;

"After Australia and England and Wales, the highest prevalence of crime was in Holland (25 percent), Sweden (25 percent) and Canada (24 percent). The United States, despite its high murder rate, was among the middle ranking countries with a 21 percent victimization rate," the London Telegraph said.

England and Wales also led in automobile thefts. More than 2.5 percent of the population had been victimized by car theft, followed by 2.1 percent in Australia and 1.9 percent in France. Again, the U.S. was not listed among the "top 10" nations.

From worldnet daily:  http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21902

The study found that Australia led in burglary rates, with nearly 4 percent of the population having been victimized by a burglary. Denmark was second with 3.1 percent; the U.S. was listed eighth at about 1.8 percent.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Originally posted by lazs2
and ripley...  you dont need murder in your country.. your population is shrinking on its own.

lazs

If you'd know better you'd know that this is typical for any highly trained high tech society. Your country is also running fast out of caucasian occupants as lowly educated and often illegal immigrants outbreed you 10 to 1. Lowly educated high breeding mass = poverty, STD's rampant, drug problems, violent crime. Step by step your country is turning into Somalia with the top 1% living in ultimate luxury and 60% in grass huts.

We have steadily turned away the masses of immigration by using strict quotas. We have 90% less immigrants compared to Sweden and 95% less problems with tribe/gang related incidences. I think shrinking of the population is a good thing - as long as I can walk the streets safe at night without the fear of getting shanked by a gang consisting of unemployed piss-poor immigrants. Oh, I almost forgot even the immigrants here get the benefits of the social welfare so they don't need to get desperate and rob for food.

[Slash27]

Originally posted by Hazzer
Possessing a firearm increases the chance of suicide by five times.

   

And possession of rope increases suicide by six times!!:O

[Charon]

Total number of victims from firearm incidents was 477,000 in 2005.

As a Brit I have never seen a hand Gun let alone heard one fired in anger,their is Gun crime here but mostly Gang related - they tend to shoot each other!

Victims is a bit nebulous. There were about 10,000 firearm homicides that year in our population of 300 million. Are these killers the "average guy with a gun? No, not today and not historically:

  Though only 15% of Americans have criminal records, roughly 90 percent of adult murderers have adult records, with an average career of six or more adult years, including four major felonies. Juvenile crime records are generally unavailable, but to the extent they are, juvenile killers have crime careers as extensive or more than do adult killers -- and so do their victims. Typical findings of 19th and 20th Century homicide studies: "the great majority of both perpetrators and victims of [1970s Harlem] assaults and murders had previous [adult] arrests, probably over 80% or more" as also did Savannah murderers and victims in both the 1890s and the 1990s; exclusive of all other crimes they had committed, 80% of 1997 Atlanta murder arrestees had at least one prior drug offense with 70% having 3 or more prior drug offenses;5 1960s-'70s Philadelphia "victims as well as offenders, finally, tended to be people with prior police records, usually for violent crimes such as assault, and both had typically been drinking at the time of the fatal encounter."6

Typical of "acquaintance homicides" in general are: drug dealers killed by competitors or customers; gang members killed by members of the same or rival gangs; and women killed by brutal, predatory men. Studies analyzing "family homicides" demonstrate that these are not ordinary families; e.g., "intrafamily homicide is typically just one episode in a long standing syndrome of violence." -- "The overriding theme to emerge from these cases was that [domestic] partner homicide is most often the final outcome of chronic women battering."9

In sum, it cannot be true that possession of firearms causes ordinary people to murder -- for murderers are virtually never ordinary, but rather are extreme aberrants with life histories of crime, psychopathology and/or substance abuse.
http://hnn.us/articles/871.html

As is obvious, criminals do not obey laws like drug prohibition, and they are unlikely to obey any firearm prohibition, as England is currently realizing with an increase in violent crime and I even believe gun crime after the bans. But then there's the argument: The UK has so few firearm homicides compared to the US because of fewer guns! Well, the UK has long been a far different place demographically than the US, as has Europe in general, and organized gangland crime has always been different.

We have always had a violent, immigrant or minority driven inner-city crime problem. This is not a racist or xenophobic statement, just a look at cause and effect in how such people have traditionally been warehoused in the US whether that immigrant was from Ireland, Italy or South America or was an African American or Asian minority. The reasons are simple. They are typically outsiders from mainstream America due to language or prejudice, living in poverty. They are tightly knit "loyal" communities with their own rules and leadership.  Various elements in these communities have sought to do what they could to achieve the "American Economic Dream" and that can involve organized crime and gangland activities easier than other options. Often, the communities support the criminals more than the police, and often with some justification.

You have not had this dynamic throughout Europe with many of the cultural issues related to religious differences etc. being smoothed over among people who, at the end of the day, are pretty much the same except for an accent or slightly different flavor of Christianity. There has also been more of an acceptance in the class-driven societies to the poor "knowing their place."

And, you cannot even begin to remotely compare the urbanization of the US with that of Europe. You simply lack the dense urban environments on the scale found in the US, as I've illustrated previously.

The US does have a problem -- it's inner city poverty and a war on drugs that creates, as with prohibition, a lucrative and violent black market drug trade. If you are not an active participant or wanna-bee in this drug trade, you by and large do not have any real, personal risk from firearms even if you live in one of these communities but are not a gangbanger yourself. And, in European urban communities where this model is starting to develop you do see a level of crime, including firearm crime in some cases, that is a match for the US experience. Similarly, outside of these urban areas in the US you see a firearm crime rate comprable to Canada. Welcome on board!

16 children and teenagers are killed by Gun accidents in the US each day!

We have a population of 300 million. Firearms are involved in 0.6% of accidental deaths nationally. Most accidental deaths involve, or are due to, motor vehicles (39%), poisoning (18%), falls (16%), suffocation (5%), drowning (3%), fires (3%), medical mistakes (2%), environmental factors (1%), and bicycles and tricycles (1%). Among children: motor vehicles (45%), suffocation (18%), drowning (14%), fires (9%), bicycles and tricycles (2%), poisoning (2%), falls (2%), environmental factors (2%), and medical mistakes (1%).

And, it's not uncommon for "children" to include people under 24 years of age in such firearm statistics since the end typically justifies the means over at Brady. They get a pass from the media on statistics that the NRA would never get. The actual figure is closer to 9 per day, again, out of a population of 300 million with roughly 75 million firearm owners.

Guns that are kept for self defence are 43 times more likely to be used to kill a friend,or a family member.

These statistics are based only on reported incidents and typically ONLY where the criminal was killed. As you point out in contraditction to this: "surprisingly Guns in the US are used five times more often in self defence than for crime!" It is estimated that perhaps firearms are used to deter criminal activity long beore anything serious happens 2.5 million times per year.

These are the flawed "Kellerman studies." A researcher with a "conclusion" set from the start, peer reviewed by like-minded colleagues that overlooked a lot of poor methodology. "Kellermann's "22 times more likely" study suffers yet another flaw: only 14.2% of criminal gun-related homicides and assaults he surveyed involved guns kept in the homes where the crimes occurred. With a similar sloppiness in his "43 times more likely" study, suicides (never shown to correlate to gun ownership) accounted for the overwhelming majority of gun-related family member deaths he pretended to compare to defensive gun uses."

Possessing a firearm increases the chance of suicide by five times.

Really? Then why does the us rank lower in per capita suicide compared to many gun-free countries in Europe, and even Japan? Maybe people who are suicidal gun owners just choose the gun rather than stepping in front of a train.

As for nutters doing mass killings -- 90 -100 people die from lightning each year. Even in a bad year like tis one you are at far more risk outside on a rainy day. Or, at an enormously higher level from a preschool teacher driving home on the weekend after a few too many jello shots.

Charon

[Maverick]

I'm still waiting for you to answer the questions ripley.

[lazs2]

we are all waiting... curval has admitted that any evaluation would be subjective...  we all know that shrinks get it wrong most of the time.

I asked curval what traits of mine would he consider enough to bar me from my human right to defend myself and others.

Everyone points to societies that are decaying and stagnant and say "see, we have a couple less homicides per hundred thousand population than you so that proves that a stagnant socialist country with strict laws and all one race is a good thing."

They call us biggots because we can't deal with the most diverse country on the planet that is also vibrant and full of opportunity..

We have half our hoimicides being committed by less than 20% of the population yet... we are the bigots?

Hell... no races in you-rup and they still have to be bigoted against other whites... anti semitism is rampant... poles russians jews whatever.. even lower class whites..  europe is nothing but biggots.

Why would I/we listen to dying societies?  Maybe a vibrant society of individuals and diversity is doomed to a little more murder..  and that is all it is...  a few more per hundred thousand mostly committed by the dregs of a vibrant society.

I don't see the problem.   I don't see any solution to this hand wringing nothing of a problem unless it is to be like countries that are dying out.

lazs

[Dago]

Originally posted by lazs2
we are all waiting... curval has admitted that any evaluation would be subjective...  we all know that shrinks get it wrong most of the time.

I asked curval what traits of mine would he consider enough to bar me from my human right to defend myself and others.

Everyone points to societies that are decaying and stagnant and say "see, we have a couple less homicides per hundred thousand population than you so that proves that a stagnant socialist country with strict laws and all one race is a good thing."

They call us biggots because we can't deal with the most diverse country on the planet that is also vibrant and full of opportunity..

We have half our hoimicides being committed by less than 20% of the population yet... we are the bigots?

Hell... no races in you-rup and they still have to be bigoted against other whites... anti semitism is rampant... poles russians jews whatever.. even lower class whites..  europe is nothing but biggots.

Why would I/we listen to dying societies?  Maybe a vibrant society of individuals and diversity is doomed to a little more murder..  and that is all it is...  a few more per hundred thousand mostly committed by the dregs of a vibrant society.

I don't see the problem.   I don't see any solution to this hand wringing nothing of a problem unless it is to be like countries that are dying out.

lazs

Well said.  

[cpxxx]

No country has a monopoly on bigots or is free from them.  Neither does America or any country have a monopoly on nutjobs. Only today, my sister in law, who is a law lecturer told us about a student of hers who sounds spookily like Cho. Ironically he's an American citizen but Lebanese.  He definitely has some kind of psychological problems and is clearly paranoid and has been referred for treatment.

On the face of it, he would seem like an ideal candidate for a rampage. But with one key difference. If he was so inclined he would have a lot more difficulty gets his hands on a couple of handguns in this country than he would in the USA.

That is the real differnce between Europe and America on this issue. Gun massacres are not exclusively an American phenomenon but like it or not America probably leads the world in this partcularly grim statistic.

The reason, quite simply is that it is a lot easier for nutjobs to obtain a gun or two then walk into a crowded area and kill people.

That, I'm afraid is the price Americans must pay for their freedom to bear arms.  Whether you are pro or anti gun you can't escape that fact.

[lazs2]

cpxx are you saying that without handguns this guy is not dangerous or couldn't kill 32 or... go for the record and make it 33 maybe!  

It is an event here.. the news is acting like our killers are nothing until they break the record.. the hero that was shot protecting his students is not even mentioned compared to the nutjob.

god help us when they learn about poison and simple bomb making or skyjacking or just driving a truck through a schoolyard... all of those things have been done here and has similar or higher... much higher body counts.

[cpxxx]

I'm saying the weapon of choice for nutjobs is the gun. People will always take the line of least resistance. Bombs are hard to make, skyjacking difficult, knives relatively ineffective.

Above all none of these are as 'sexy' as guns. A lot of stuff is copycat too. The precedent has been set and these people feed off previous events.  I'm not anti gun as I made clear more than once but I do believe the easy availability of guns makes massacres like this more common simply because they are available to the crazies.

That is not to say I believe in heavier gun control but the facts have to be faced. When guns are available people will misuse them.

So will stronger gun control stop this in future? Maybe, but I doubt it. I think the genie is out of the bottle on this one. These gun massacres will continue and the same arguments will be played out again and again. In the long run, I think to the detriment of law abiding gun owners.

[Charon]

I'm saying the weapon of choice for nutjobs is the gun. People will always take the line of least resistance. Bombs are hard to make, skyjacking difficult, knives relatively ineffective.

No, it is not. Factually, the weapon of chice is arson. Gasoline and a match. Take the Happy Land Social Club killing of 1990 where 87 people died. Or the DuPont Plaza hotel fire in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1986 where 97 people died. And thes people burned or choked to death to boot.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/happyland/fuego_3.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupont_Plaza_Hotel_fire

All of the high profile shootings during this same period and since have yet to catch up to either of these events. And it's not like mutliple arson deaths on a lesser scale are rare. Arson deaths by the handful -- 3 here, 7 there, etc. --  happen all the time. Often, entire families get wiped out. We just had 11 arson deaths in two incidents in the past two weeks. In one case 5 children died, just like the Amish school shooting. Where was the 24 hour media coveage?

All this latest nutjob had to do was use those chains to lock the dorm room doors, get a five gallon can of gasoline, soak down a floor or two and light a match I bet the death toll would have passed 30 if he did so.

Charon

[Warspawn]

Originally posted by cpxxx
I'm saying the weapon of choice for nutjobs is the gun. People will always take the line of least resistance.  

You know of course, that this path of least resistance is often because the rest of the population has been disarmed, and the killer knows this?

He's the only one with a gun because of arbitrary suspension of constitutionally granted rights.

Originally posted by cpxxx
So will stronger gun control stop this in future? Maybe, but I doubt it. I think the genie is out of the bottle on this one. These gun massacres will continue and the same arguments will be played out again and again.  

You know where it won't happen?  It won't happen where someone is armed legally and defends themselves when a nutjob starts walking around shooting people.  It will however, happen when there are helpless victims available who have no means of defending themselves.  How many times does it have to be shown that if you give people the means to defend themselves, then suddenly they are no longer victims to be preyed upon, but rather active participants in the defense of themselves and their loved ones.

Ask yourself honestly when this man breaks in to your home...how would you like to be prepared?
-------

Police Search for Serial Child Rapist
Filed under: sexual assault, child molestation, home invasion, rape, child abuse, crime, Arizona, News — readthis @ 9:41 am 1 Apr 2007

Police are searching for a serial child rapist. He finds a single-parent home, then breaks in and rapes the daughter after subduing the parent. He has raped two 13-year-olds and a 14-year-old in the past three months. A sketch of the suspect is below. He speaks with a Spanish accent.







============

Or how about these winners:



PORT CHARLOTTE -- Kaley Kendrick, 17, hid in her mother's closet when two men broke into her home, killed her mother and pumped several bullets into Kaley's boyfriend, according to court records.

Kaley told deputies that the men demanded money and drugs, and her mother told them to take anything they wanted from the Inverness Street house.

They took her mother's life Sunday afternoon with a gunshot to the head. Lisa Marie Kendrick, 41, was found dead, lying face down in a pool of blood next to her bed.

The girl's boyfriend, Hakeem Jamile Lennard Hearns, 19, was left bleeding near the front door. He was airlifted to Lee Memorial Hospital with severe injuries.

Kaley heard a shot, looked out the front door and saw Sihr coming toward her with a gun pointed at her, she told deputies. She shut and locked the door to escape the man whose head was partially hidden by a pullover with a hood.

Kaley ran into her mother's room and woke her up, a warrant states. The teenager hid in the closet; her mother went into the bathroom. At least one of them tried to call 911, but police were unable due to workload to answer the emergency call.

Kaley told deputies she heard banging and peeked out of the closet door.

She saw Sihr grab a phone from her mother, she told deputies. He dragged Kendrick into the bedroom, asking for money and drugs.

Kaley "Kendrick remembers hearing the victim tell the perpetrator to take everything and Kendrick then heard a gunshot," the warrant states.

" 'Where is the daughter at?' " Kaley said she heard the other intruder say. " 'She ran!' " Sihr said."

Kaley heard doors slamming, another gunshot and silence, she told deputies. A few minutes later, she came out to find her mother and boyfriend had been shot.

===========

Of course, if you're armed, the story that the newspapers report after you defend yourself are quite a bit different:
----------

RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif. -- A home invasion robbery in Rancho Cordova turned deadly Thursday when at least two people tried to rob a home, and the people inside opened fire, according to authorities.

When officers arrived at the scene, two people were shot.  
 
"One was down in the doorway. The other one was down right out in front of the residence," said Sacramento County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. R.L. Davis. "One had a gunshot wound to the chest. The other one had one to the leg. They were transported, both of them, to the UC Davis Medical Center, where one was pronounced deceased.

==============

Man Dies After Attempted Home Invasion On 39th Street
posted April 6, 2007

A man died after a shooting on 39th Street on Friday afternoon.

The Chattanooga Police Department was summoned to the scene of the shooting at 1717 West 39th St. and Pennsylvania Avenue, according to Sean Paul of WGOW Talk Radio.

Investigators said the owner of the residence, Stacy Eubanks, and his brother, Kevin Walker, were inside the residence and saw a lone gunman wearing a ski mask approach the door. They tried to close the door, but were not able to. A struggle ensued and multiple shots were fired.

The suspect, Andre Lavelle Terry, 38, of Chattanooga, was shot and died on the scene.

===========
Home Invasion Suspect Killed
 
Jennifer Leslie Reports

Police continue to investigate an overnight shooting on Folkstone Road.

Web Editor: Minnie Bridgers
Last Modified: 3/12/2007 8:16:46 AM

DeKalb County police continue to investigate an overnight shooting near Brookhaven that killed a man.

Investigators said they believe a man, who may have been homeless, broke into a house on Folkstone Road off Buford Highway around 12 a.m. Sunday. He was armed with a knife.

The homeowner shot the suspect. He died Sunday morning at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Police have not released the suspect's name.

Officers said the homeowner will not face any charges in the shooting.

===========

Wouldn't everyone here much rather be one of the people who were able to defend themselves, rather than a victim who is killed/raped/beaten because they were unable to react to a criminal about to attack them?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Originally posted by Maverick
I'm still waiting for you to answer the questions ripley.

I already answered your question. Now if you can't understand it then I can't help it. As a sidenote, your world seems awfully egocentric. Me me me me ME ME ME!

But as I said everything points to the fact that in US people do need weapons and survival training. Everyone is armed, especially the criminals and due to the rampant drug problem nobody is safe anymore.

I'd probably sleep with an assault rifle loaded next to me if I lived there.