Time for ANTI-GUN people to put their money where their mouth is!

[lazs2]

beetle... It is you who don't understand numbers.   In the U.S.....  the states that have the most lax gun laws also have the least crime.   A state that had high crime rates that  then goes to more lax guns (more guns in the hands of citizens) enjoys a DROP in crime.   States that enact more restrictive gun laws show an increase in crime.   Do yourself a favor and read John Lotts "more guns less crime"   It is well researched and so far... undispuded so far as facts.   I will buy it for you if you are willing to read it.

I am not arguing that there are more violent criminals in the U.S. than in other countries.   Freedom sometimes allows criminals to operate more freely too I suppose.   I am willing to pay the price but.... I like to have an advantage or at least parity with the criminal.   I see no advantage in having them armed  and me not. or... I see no advantage to them unarmed and my grandmother unarmed also.

In London...  Well... I can take care of myself.   I was with a friend who can take care of himself.   I, of course, would have felt safer with my little Walther but.... I stayed in the crowds.   If I lived in london I would want to oppose force with equal or greater force..  As I grow older and more frail... It becomes more important.
lazs

[beet1e]

Mr. Toad,

I trust you had a good night’s sleep, and awake refreshed to continue our debate. Seems like we’re the only two contenders left...

I should apologise for that virus remark, even if apology is a sign of weakness in some cultures. Given the circumstances of our discussion, the analogy did seem rather apt, and was just lying there, begging to be used! I know how frustrating it can be to get a computer virus. I had to spend a whole afternoon ridding my brother’s PC of the Klez-H virus a few months ago because his daughters had not kept the definitions up to date. Sorry you got zapped. Just get Norton, but keep the virus definitions up to date!

Ah yes, I thought you might latch on to the part where I said that guns made bugger all difference. I wondered whether to couch it in slightly different terms, but I thought you might like that one – not just a hook, but a hook with a 12oz fillet steak on the end of it.

One estimate that I saw said England & Wales had about 5% gun ownership prior to the ban. Figuring England ~ 50 million and Wales ~ 3 million, that's still a significant number of guns, don't you think? Shall we say 2.5 million or so?

I’d be interested to see the official source of that data. So no, we shall not say 2½ million guns till we can substantiate it. I can put my hand on my heart and say that I’ve NEVER run into anyone in this country who owns a gun of any kind, except shotguns for hunting purposes, and very few of those. 5% seems way to high. If I had been called upon to give a finger in the air figure, I might have said 50,000 guns, not 2½ million. I will look into this...

But I loved your manipulation of the stats – deaths per gun – LOL!  Priceless. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it once more: Mr. Toad, you should have been a politician. Your talents are wasted in any other field! Clearly the problem in Britain is not that we have too many guns; we don’t have enough deaths! hehe, I need to remind you that the homicide tally for the years 1995-99 as shown above is for all homicides, not just gun homicides. That, plus my belief that gun ownership was much less than 5% even before the ban skews the figures completely. But in any case, I think you would agree that your example was very tongue in cheek, otherwise I could solve the gun problem myself: Make a law that says all citizens must purchase 50 guns. Criminals are exempt because they can get as many guns as they like anyway. And wheyhey! Deaths per gun fall by ~98%! Mr. Toad for US President!

You simply ignore the fact that there has actually been an inverse relationship going on and choose your own conclusion from the many possible situations. You simply dismiss anything that doesn't fit your preconceived notion.  

Contrary to the idea you seem to put forward, of the 220 milliion guns now estimated in the US, a very large percentage of those are used lawfully in pursuits that have long been part of our way of life.

A man can only commit a finite number of murders in a day, and unless he’s Clint Eastwood, he’s unlikely to be killing people with more than one gun at a time. LOL! 220 million guns?  That’s almost one for every man, woman child, baby, terminally ill cancer patient, infirm retiree, prisoner, anti-gun liberal, and one legged vegetarian lesbian! You can play with stats all you like, but the fact remains that you have one of the highest homicide rates in the industrialised, civilised world. Your deaths per gun stat is a nonsense barely meriting a reply. But consider this. You have 220 million guns. Let’s focus on handguns because both here and there, there are hunting rifles and shotguns used for sporting/game shooting purposes. Let’s suppose we got rid of ALL handguns in the USA - except one. That one remaining handgun is to be left with a avacadohead – a well balanced person with a chip on both shoulders. And one day he decides to go on a killing spree. What is it, eight rounds that an automatic holds? So he kills seven people, and then kills himself. Shock horror! That’s a death per gun rate of 8! Never mind that the weapon is confiscated by (unarmed) police so that no further handgun homicides are possible for that year and that the annual handgun homicide tally is a mere 8, we have an appalling situation of EIGHT deaths from one gun! But fear not!  Mr. Toad has the answer! Churn out 220 million guns and hand them out like McDonalds game cards, and the problem is solved! People can go about their daily business of killing people as usual, and there will be many thousands of handgun deaths in the US as a result. But Oh! That doesn’t matter, because at least the deaths per gun figure has been reduced from 8 to .000108. Mr. Toad, you might be able to gull most of your potential electorate with your over contrived arguments, but you won’t fool me. Were your argument to be anything other than patently absurd, I might have been mildly offended that you had even tried.

But why don’t we try this idea for improving road safety: Let’s remove all Interstate and US Highway speed limits, double the speed limits on state roads and raise the speed limit on urban streets to 60mph. That way, people will be able to get where they’re going much faster. Sure, there will be more accidents and road deaths, but the death rate expressed as a proportion of total car miles travelled within a given space of time will go down. Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense!

But at least your manipulation of the stats has shown that the arbitrary value of  “deaths per gun”, besides being utterly meaningless in terms of total gun homicides, actually increases as the number of guns decreases. And that’s because, as I’ve said all along, that the vast majority of privately owned guns in America are not needed and are never used at all. I never needed a gun when I lived in California, but many people believe they do.

I would rather see a society that had a smaller total of gun homicides, than an outrageously high number in the thousands, even if the deaths per gun statistic is higher. And THAT is the issue on which your educated voters will want to focus, Mr. Toad.

This latest wall-0-words needs to be split. Part two will be in the next post.

[beet1e]

The homicide rate in England & Wales has remained fairly static. Any fluctuations are too small to be taken into account. The “best” and worst tally for the years 1995-1999 differ by only 86. For the last three years in which stats are available, 1997-1999, that fluctuation is a mere 17 – too small to be interpreted as an overall trend. Hey, I could fit that many into my living room, and I live in a small house. I honestly don’t know how many of these were gun homicides, but I suspect they were a minority. Your Bureau of Justice gives a breakdown of that in the charts I displayed above, but the Home Office document does not. The American handgun death toll has declined, but the rate of decline is levelling off. In the years 1997-1999 the rate of decline was less than 1000 per year, and in some categories of homicide there were small increases, but these were blips, and just like the British blips are so small that they need to be discounted.

You say your "gun free" environment accounts for the homicide rate. If that's true, why was it necessary to ban them? After all, you admit guns have "bugger all" to do with it due to the overall low number of guns? So what was gained?

As previously stated, the gun ban was a pre-emptive measure. The government was faced with a dilemma. For the second time in our recent history, a man had gone berserk with a gun and committed mass murder. Now I know that a few dozen or even several hundred gun deaths means nothing in American society – Lazs has even dismissed many thousands of deaths as “a pittance” in the overall crime picture. But here in Britain, we are unaccustomed to such atrocities, and clearly the government was obligated to act. If I may just come back to the topic of computer viruses just for one moment, I’ve never had a virus infect my PC, so why do I bother paying for anti virus software? And the answer is that there have been attempts to send me viruses, none of which has succeeded, thanks to my pre-emptive action. However, no attempt has ever been made to break into any of my homes, here or in the US. So do I gain anything by insuring my house contents? Yes. I sleep better when I’m away from home.

Mr. Toad, I am slightly time constrained today, but I would like to respond to a couple of other points. I mentioned New York City as a showcase of correctly deployed law enforcement, and you responded by saying

True. Now compare it to DC, which has even more restrictive gun laws than NYC. DC still has an incredibly high rate of homicide.

So what's the difference here? It's not the availability of guns. Anyone who wants a gun in DC or NYC has no trouble procuring one. There have been no mandatory buy backs in either place.

And the difference, Mr. Toad, is that the office of City Mayor has a pivotal bearing on the fortunes of large cities like New York and Washington. Rudi Giuliani was an outstanding Mayor. We were so impressed with him that the Queen gave him a knighthood. In the face of the Twin Towers tragedy, followed soon afterwards by a plane crash in Queens, Giuliani performed admirably. He understood what New York needed, and took great steps to see that it was delivered.

Now compare that with Washington. Who did we see holding Mayoral office in the 1990s? A crackhead and alcoholic! That’s right, folks. Marion Barry, the mayor of America’s capital city was caught smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room 1990, and subsequently convicted on a misdemeanour drug charge – LOL!  And that’s not the funny part. The really funny part is that he got re-elected in 1994! LOL! And that makes me ask two things: What were the other people like who ran for Mayoral Office to get beaten by a crackhead – I mean how bad can they have been? And secondly, what were the other people like that worked in City Hall?

Sorry, Mr. Toad, you lost that one. Admittedly, Washington has a deplorable crime rate. But when you have a city of that magnitude, run by crackheads/alcoholics, what do you expect? And what do you make of an electorate that goes and re-elects a guy like that?

The last point concerns my two part question about the increase in gun ownership in the US following Sept 11th 2001. I asked you a two part question, but all you have done is to respond by asking a further seven questions. This sidestepping of my question(s) has not been lost on me. [By the way, did you know that in Britain (and possibly the US(?)) when a suspect refuses to answer police questions by responding “No comment”, the Court is entitled to make its own inferences in the absence of plausible replies.] It was reported here that gun purchases surged in the US after Sept 11th 2001 in response to the tragic events of that day. If I may for one moment bestow upon myself the privileges enjoyed by a UK Court when questions have not elicited satisfactory answers, I will draw my own inferences: America panicked. I know, it was a horrible day and people couldn’t think straight. But off go John and Jane, hand in hand, down to the local gun store. Yeah right, like that’s going to solve anything But oh, you did give half an answer to part two of my two part question:

As far as I know, though, no Al's have been shot in the US.

Oh, well there’s a big surprise. What, no-one from al qa’eda bothered to call on John and Jane? Funny that...

OK, Mr. Toad. There are already more than 2000 bricks in this latest wall-0-words, and I have to go out soon. But before I go, I will just leave you with the email that I received from an old Warbirds friend who lives in a large American city.

Bye for now. Same time tomorrow?

You guessed right. I'm not a gun owner. I'm not a big
fan of the NRA (National Rifle Association), either.
But I'm sure you'll find a majority of Warbirders over
here would fit in the "pro-gun" category. Goes with
the "fighter pilot mentality" and the "pro-military,
patriotic" mindset.

It's all rooted in our past history, really. Our
Constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear
arms, but when it was written, you HAD to have a gun:
for food, for hunting, to protect yourself against
"frontier elements". Also, if you check the wording of
that, the Constitution establishes the right to a
well-armed *militia*. We have a military now to do
that, whereas when it was written, we didn't. Also,
the idea is if the people are armed, then the
government can simply declare some form of
unrepresentative government and control the (unarmed)
people. Also, if we'd had no guns, we wouldn't have
been able to overthrow British rule, either.

These days, our food comes to us on trucks, and there
is no frontier left. And, if there ever WAS a coup
that involved the entire military, with the weapons
they have, I doubt there's much any of us could do,
anyway, guns or no. So, to me, the whole "guns rights"
thing is roadkill. A good idea for the 18th century,
but hopelessly antiquated today.

Then, there's the issue of how many guns are "out
there" now; the idea being you can't close Pandora's
box now, because if you take away all the guns from
law-abiding citizens, then only criminals and cops
would have guns...and the general population would be
all but powerless to stop crime (the police being
already overworked and in some cases, outgunned by
criminals sporting AK-47s, Mac10s and other "gats").
There might be something to that, but we gotta start
*somewhere*.

There's no easy answer to the gun problem, but it does
seem to be an American-indigenous problem. People
still long for that "wild west" kind of lifestyle,
with showdowns at high noon (pause for dramatic
tobacco spit to one side). I recall a filmmaker (a
rather talented satire filmmaker whose forte is
"holding the mirror up" for idiots to see themselves
in) last week talking about his new film, "Bowling for
Columbine" talking about how many gun-related deaths
we have vs. the rest of the "civilized" nations. It's
mind-boggling. I'm going to go see his movie and check
out some of the points he makes.

Interesting, really. I'm "anti-gun" but VERY pro-death
penalty. I truly feel that there are some people who
have done things so heinous as not to be worthy to
breathe the same air as the rest of us. And I don't
like the idea of paying for their stay in prison,
waiting for the day that the laws "soften up" enough
to allow him a loophole to win his freedom.

[GtoRA2]

I will no longer waste time with you.


You are the one who only sees what he want's to see. Why don't you take Laz up on his offer for the book?

I  doubt you will, you already know it all.


I am done with you on the other hand.

Insulting me cause I do not agree with you is pretty immature.

If you mean that you will never convince me that 1+1 does not = 2, then I agree with you again, though some of the arithmetic needed on the stats is rather more involved than that, so I can see why you're struggling.

If you can't make your point without insulting people your not worth talking to.

It is funny you still do not see how this works.  The is like religion, both sides believe so much, that changing their views is going to be almost impossible.  I am sure no mater how many facts you are shown you will still go on believing how you want to.

[beet1e]

GTO - you're right.

Sorry, that was a bit below the belt. I didn't mean to be insulting, just mild banter. Sorry it sounded like it did and upset you. I was equally indelicate with Mr. Toad about the computer virus he had. I get very fired up on boards like this, and sometimes have a bit of a mean streak.

I can tell that you, and Lazs - and Mr. Toad, are sincere in your beliefs, just as I'm sincere about mine. Yes, I will read the book that Lazs suggested. I welcome any new material. I have a little more to add, but will let Mr. Toad take his turn.

[beet1e]

Mr. Toad,

I'm sorry to be taking another turn on the soapbox before you have replied, but I have at last found a Government document that gives a breakdown of homicides in England & Wales involving firearms, and those not involving firearms.

The URL is http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-056.pdf

I've had a quick browse, and see that of the 748 homicides in England & Wales for 1997, only about 8% of these homicides involved firearms. That is to say, only 59 people were shot by any kind of gun compared with the US total of 12337 for the same period. The report goes on to mention that homicides involving firearms have declined in recent years. There's also a significant amount of data on the United States in that document.

The 59 gun related homicides in England and Wales in 1997 compares with a total of 12337 in the US for the same period, ie more than 209 times the England & Wales total!

Hehe, that makes a right buggery-suet of some of your stats.
Your "deaths per gun" figure of 0.000108, in its current form, needs to be revised to 0.00000864!  But then again, we don't yet know for sure the total number of guns in Britain, and that method of reckoning is bollocks anyway. Still looking...

Oh yes, and you might want to revisit the effect of the new gun laws in Australia.

http://www.iansa.org/documents/research/2000/aussie_guns.htm

The above report indicates that a "Sharp Drop in Gun Crime Follows Tough Australian Firearm Laws". Within the report, it is stated that "There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998."

I'm going to retire for the evening now. I have a feeling I shall sleep well.

I leave you with a reproduction of Page 18 of the newly discovered Home Office report.  

Toodle-pip, as they say in Whitehall.

[Toad]

Short stuff first:

Nahswan, don't these lines from the Home Office report linked in Sir Beet1e's post make it sound like there was a reporting change of the type we originally discussed?

...However, because the statistics relate to the
crime as originally discovered, rather than the offence for which a person may be finally brought to court or convicted, they are subject to revision. Nor do the initial recorded statistics contain a great deal of detail concerning the offence (or of course the unknown offender).

2. One victim, one crime?
‘Counting rules’ have been adopted to standardise the crime statistics recorded across forces. The old counting rules have been in place since 1980 and state that only the most

The Home Office counting rules were revised in 1998, partly in an attempt to measure one crime per victim in more cases (and more closely equate BCS results with recorded
crime). Clearly this will increase recorded crime levels, and the net effect has provisionally been estimated by police forces to be an increase of around 20% in recorded crime from next year4. However, the main impact will be on the fraud, theft, and criminal
damage categories. For homicide, the new rules should make little difference, apart from a switch to recording on a financial year basis. The latest recorded crime statistics for the year to March 1998, released in October 1998, were the last under the old counting rules.

[Toad]

Sir Beet1e,

Yes, as you say, you are indeed indelicate and insulting. I'd have to agree with you there. See, we seem to be agreeing more often!

Actually, I'm thinking it was you that took the offered bait.

After seeing you try to float this stinkbait by

but the shocking reality is that the US homicide rate is almost twenty-five times that of England and Wales

when you know all too well that  /100,000 population is the UN and International Standard used for comparison. You've used this standard for homicide comparison in this thread, in fact. So, you knew when you wrote that bit that you were twisting the stats like a pretzel maker.

I decided to see how'd you'd react to an equally incorrect use of stats. I wasn't disappointed. You chomped right down on "deaths per gun".

Now, I'd like a bit of justification for this statement of yours, if you will.

And that’s because, as I’ve said all along, that the vast majority of privately owned guns in America are not needed and are never used at all.

Please, do tell. How did you determine that th "vast majority" are not needed and never used at all? Given your vast experience with firearms and deep involvement in the "gun culture" of the US during your extensive visit,[/sarcasm] I'm sure you have data to support this irrefutable quote?

I'd suggest to you that many folks that have guns have significantly more than one. Particularly those that hunt and or shoot competitively or just for relaxation. For example, a Trap shotgun is totally unlike a Skeet shotgun in stock dimensions and barrel length. A person that likes clay bird shooting is quite likely to have specific shotguns for each game. That's an example that merely scratches the tip of an iceberg. Like a golfer, a shooter is likely to have many similar but different tools in his bag to play his game.

So, where's the support for that sweeping generalization?

As previously stated, the gun ban was a pre-emptive measure

Well, yes, of course. Even one life is too much to sacrifice, right? The pleasure of hunting and shooting are meaningless measured against that, right?

So, tell me, how are the efforts to ban smoking and the direct deaths and indirect "second hand smoke" deaths going over there? After all, smoking is a pastime that is simply antiquated today, don't you think?

And after that, you can go to work on all the things in life that are pleasurable to others that you find no longer necessary in these modern times. Motorcycles spring to mind; hopelessly antiquated as modern, safe transportation, it's time to round them up, crush them down and melt them into reusable coat hangers, don't you agree?

[Before you jump to conclusions, I've never smoked and I don't own a motorcycle. But I respect the rights of other folks to find their legal pleasures where they will.]

I could go on, but I think you see the point. There are numerous inanimate items that cause death in any society. Many of those things are far more efficient killers than guns. Yet apparently you're willing to tolerate that loss of life as lamentable but necessary?

How many folks are done in by alcohol in the UK each year? Either by disease or Driving While Intoxicated? Any move to ban all alcohol over there?

You see no need for guns and are therfore totally blinded and intolerant.

Those of us who use guns lawfully are most likely never going to agree with you and those like you for this simple reason. We know guns can be used lawfully in ways that enhance our lives and our enjoyment of life. We also know that the intolerant will never be satisfied with anything less than banning and confiscation. If ever one doubted it, they need only to read your posts.

I can see areas of gun licensing and registration in the US that might be improved. However, I also know we sportsmen face many such people as yourself. Totally biased, your ilk will never be satisfied. Therefore, we're left with no choice but to oppose at every turn, for there can be no rational solution when we're dealing with totally irrational people. And so the struggle continues.

Fortunately, we do have the 2nd Amendment. It's as hopelessly antiquated today as the 1st Amendment. I'm thankful every day for men like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. And a large majority of our State Constitutions have an Amendement in their Bills of Rights that pretty much mirror the Federal Constitution's Second. You are aware that the States themselves can limit gun rights within the individual State? You knew that right? So voters do have choices beyond revision of the Federal Constitution. So far, few States have seen any need.

Now to your contention that it is solely the Mayor that determines the crime rate of a city. Do you really want to claim that as your own? You're saying that if Giuliani was Mayor of DC he could "work his majic" and "hey, Presto!" DC would become a safe city? Do a little research on the DC crime rates throughout the decades from the 60's on. Some pretty fine men were Mayor during those times.

Once again you choose to ignore the obvious: Both DC and NYC indisputably have plenty of guns to go around. So it isn't availability of guns that makes the difference. Suprise, Suprise! Guns are once again not really a determining factor. Boy, that's a repeated theme, isn't it?

DC is much "softer on crime" than NYC. Much as London is "softer on crime than" than NYC. Yet the very folks that allow this "soft on crime" attitude to prevail in their cities....... argue the loudest for gun controls. NYC proves "soft on crime" isn't the answer though.. while it is held up as the example. Gotta laugh there, eh?

Oh, and that electorate in DC that has failed to impress you with their discerning wisdom in choice of candidates? Check and see how that area voted for President in 2000. Check and see how the House and Senate races went in 2000 and 2002. Same discerning folks that voted for that Mayor, you know. That electorate generally votes for pro-gun control candidates. And the Mayor you so deeply admire. Now there's something to ponder.

By any chance does your "old Warbirds friend" live in an Eastern or West Coast large American city?

Does he hunt or participate in any shooting sports? I'm willing to wager he doesn't. So, once again, it's simply a biased viewpoint.

A bit like someone who doesn't own a motorcycle saying "Let 'em drive Volvos. Motorcycles are just too dangerous."

[Nash]

Anyone have any stats on guns used for recreation (hunting, ranges etc.) vs guns that are not?

Ie., for every 100,000 guns, how many of those were bought and are used for recreation?  (prolly pretty hard to dig up a reliable stat for this... but ya never know).

[Toad]

Originally posted by beet1e
only about 8% of these homicides involved firearms. That is to say, only 59 people were shot by any kind of gun compared with the US total of 12337 for the same period. The report goes on to mention that homicides involving firearms have declined in recent years.

Yes, indeed. Quite so! It was declining in the years prior to the ban. The "recent years" in this paper that includes stats up to '97. Let's wait and see how '98-'01 show out? After all.. prior to '97.. the recent years in this report.. there WAS NO BAN!  

I  remember that you said

Now I know that a few dozen or even several hundred gun deaths means nothing in American society – Lazs has even dismissed many thousands of deaths as “a pittance” in the overall crime picture. But here in Britain, we are unaccustomed to such atrocities, and clearly the government was obligated to act.

So, if you're government is obligated to act when roughly 60 peoples lives are snuffed out with firearms, what will it do when 200+ humans are "cut" down before their time?

B. Homicide involving firearms

While the most common method of killing in 1997 was with a sharp instrument (just under a third of offences),

And homicide offenses totaled 650 in 1997. Now Sir Beet1e I know a concerned caring human like you (so unlike that dastardly Laz) is deeply moved by tragedy like this.

So what are you doing to ban sharp instruments? Cod knows sharp instruments are hopelessly antiquated in these modern times.


Australians:

Between July 1996 and August 1998, the new restrictions were brought into force.

So, the reported decrease occurred while the laws were being put into effect. Good-o! Now let's see what happens in '99-'00 before we break out the champagne. Why?

"There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998."...1998 homicide data showing "a 9% decrease from the rate in 1997

Can it be possible that criminals (because I doubt the law-abiders ever figured much into the stats) are switching to edged weapons? After all, Scotland has experience a huge increase in edged-weapon homicides after the ban. 30% decrease in firearms is a good thing... if it can be shown that it's due to the ban... but  it's clear that other means of homicide were substitued resulting in a 9% decrease overall.

Don't misunderstand. Any decrease is good; I think it's a bit premature to decide the ban was the sole reason. After all, we achieved nearly the same results in the "all homicides" area without any of Australia's severe restrictions on law-abiding citizens

US Data: WISQARS Injury Mortality Reports, 1981-1998


Firearms Homicides

1997 13,252

1998 11,798

A decline of 1454 or ~ 11% in Firearms Homicides and

All Homicides

1997 19,491

1998 17,893

A decline of 1598 or ~ 8%

So, without banning or buying back any guns we essentially equaled Australia's percentage reduction in total homicides. Once again, it looks like guns are not the key factor. Or are you going to make the case that it is far better to be chopped to death with an axe than shot with a pistol?

As I said, "good-o" to Australia. They did a gnat's whisker (statistically) better than we did. Of course, we did it without spending tons of money, banning guns or denying the average joe the simple, unrestricted pleasures of sport shooting.

I'm going to retire for the evening now. I have a feeling I shall sleep well.

Toodle-pip.

[easymo]

So, tell me, how are the efforts to ban smoking and the direct deaths and indirect "second hand smoke" deaths going over there? After all, smoking is a pastime that is simply antiquated today, don't you think?
 And after that, you can go to work on all the things in life that are pleasurable to others that you find no longer necessary in these modern times. Motorcycles spring to mind; hopelessly antiquated as modern, safe transportation, it's time to round them up, crush them down and melt them into reusable coat hangers, don't you agree?

DEATH TO TOAD!

[Toad]

Relax, Easymo.

This is America. I don't want a Nanny government any more than you do.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Just give the rest of a fair chance not to breathe it when you do.

Cycles? Hey, it's your choice. Drive what you like. Like what you drive. Don't worry about what the other guy drives. It's life!

[Nashwan]

Nahswan, don't these lines from the Home Office report linked in Sir Beet1e's post make it sound like there was a reporting change of the type we originally discussed?

There certainly was a recording change. It didn't have much, if any, effect on homicide figures.

What that site you linked to said was homicides are only recorded if someone is convicted, which is clearly untrue, under the old rules or the new.

[beet1e]

Good morning, Mr. Toad. I have just finished reading your posts, and most enjoyable reading they were too. A trifle unwise of me to drink coffee at the same time, however, but I exercised good self control.

I didn’t mean to offend you with any of my material, but please try to see it from my position. I’ve got my arse up against the wall in this thread. I’ve got you and Lazs and GTO all bearing down on me, but in some situations I function best when everyone’s against me! So please don’t be offended. I have thoroughly enjoyed this debate thus far and I hope you have too. We're both a couple of mass debaters, but which one of us will prove to be the master baiter? LOL

I’ve quoted all the stats that needed to be quoted. I’d like to keep this post rather more brief than previous ones but I would like to answer some of your points.

Mr. Toad, my beef about firearms has never been about sporting rifles, shotguns for hunting purposes, and target shooting with pistols. We have gun clubs here where one can do all that, and even old Sir Beet1e can go and buy a shotgun. (Thanks for the knighthood, by the way) My main beef has always been about handguns, the favoured instrument of homicide in the US. I know there are many thousands of law abiding US citizens who own them, and many thousands who do not. My presence in this thread came as a result of the direct invitation in the thread title – time for the anti-gun lobby to put their money where there mouth is. There then followed some captions designed to poke fun at those people who do not believe in guns the way you do. You have been at pains to point out why you should have a gun or guns, and others advance all kinds of hypotheses about what would happen if they found an intruder in their home – talk of “skewering the bastard”, and all kinds of machismo crap. Some gun owners claim to be better citizens in view of their gun ownership. Indeed, raww of AGW  - instigator of the captions posted by ripsnort, is one of them. You guys are entitled to your point(s) of view, and I and millions like me are entitled to ours. Some people are clearly irked that I can participate in a gun debate or other debate that involves the US, and that’s their hard cheddar. Carrying a gun might give you an advantage on the outside, but it wont do you much good in here, where we are all equal.

I do think it’s likely that many people buy and own a handgun because the law allows it, and for no other reason. To find out how many of the guns in circulation are fired on a regular basis, we would have to consider the number of guns and reconcile this against sales of ammunition and membership at firing ranges. But 220,000,000 guns? I’d best get myself into the shooting range business!

I’m not proposing to ban motorcycles! They too result in many deaths. But motorcycles, like many inanimate objects to be found in our society, have a legitimate purpose other than killing people. But guns have only one purpose – to kill. Yes I know – waaah-waaah-waah target practice waaah-waaah...

As a freelance consultant, I used to visit the offices of many different corporate clients. Since about 1990, virtually all office buildings have become smoke free and many do not even have a designated smoking area – hence all the studmuffin ends around the entrance doors.  Social drinking is enjoyed by many, myself included. I had two glasses of red wine last night as I prepared that last post.

hehe, I rose to your death/guns bait, but seems like I got you with the Washington DC crackhead business. You didn’t think I knew about that, did you? Be very careful. I know your country rather well – better than you know mine. I never said that it was the City Mayor that solely determines crime in a city. Don’t misquote me. I said he/she plays a pivotal role. In the case of New York, it was also Police Chief Bratton who deployed his officers on the streets, and Giuliani created the conditions in which he could do it. I’ve said more than once in this thread that New York is much safer than it was before. And I’ve also said, more than once, that this is due to the deployment of many more police (not more privately owned guns), and a crackdown on quality of life crimes which led to a reduction of overall crime. Seems like the only crackdown they had in DC was into Marion Barry’s lungs. That’s all I have to say about New York and DC.

Enough of stats. I’ve seen all I need to see. Gun homicides are 200 times higher in the US than they are here. Or if you prefer it on a per 100,000 basis, 50 times higher than here. Twist ‘em, massage ‘em, use different coloured inks – the facts remain the same.

My WB friend lives in a large city on the west coast. A person doesn’t need to hunt or participate in shooting sports to hold an unbiased opinion about guns, just as one does not have to be a smoker to appreciate the health hazards of smoking.

Funny that you should mention motorcycles and Volvos in the same sentence. My father would not allow me to have a motorcycle when I became of age – too dangerous. Hehe, Dad owned a Volvo at the time!

Should we ban motorcycles? Well maybe we should. Indeed, coat hangers would seem a most worthy substitute. In the state of Delaware, they have already initiated a motorcycle ban, but without provision for recycling – hoho, excuse that pun. I leave you with this photo, taken outside the Delaware apartment of a friend of mine.

[senna]

Motorcycles only kill the rider if hes stupid enough to kill himself. Wanna know what to ban, ban those dam SUVs and way to big 4x4 truck HUMV things. People who drive those things are a step away from killing others. I see it almost every other day on the road. They drive with little or no respect for the safety of others around them because they are in a tank.