Author Topic: Longest Signature Block Competition! (Read 2707 times)

Toad · « **Reply #45 on:** December 07, 2002, 09:17:28 PM »

Well then why do folks in a big city think murder is a rational solution and folks in less populated areas don't?

And what do we do about it?

You can't just say "big city" and shrug it off like it was merely a "sharp instrument" homicide or something.

Nashwan · « **Reply #46 on:** December 07, 2002, 09:20:10 PM »

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Well, they were stupid enough to think they could ban guns. Your knives will come in time.

Yes we'll go down the long road of totalitarian regiemes that have banned knives like, um, eh...

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Many folks find target shooting extremely relaxing due to the focus required to do well. You just choose to ignore things that are important to other folks and not to yourself.

Been target shooting today? If so, you're probably one of less than 1% of the world's population that has. Used a knife today? 95% or more of the world' population has.

Seems it's not just me, but nearly everyone else in the world that uses knives everyday, but doesn't own a gun.

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The 17,000+ number comes from the MADD website. Even subtracting 3000 that "weren't themselves drunk" that leaves 14,000+... more than the 11,000+ firearms.

I don't think I made myself clear. 3000 were not drunk, and were killed by drunken drivers. The rest were self inflicted wounds.

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Knives can be banned.. just as guns were.

I can name a number of countries that have done the latter. Can you find one that has done the former?

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Well, one would think so.. but there's that pesky stat that more folks are killed with sharp instruments in the UK than by guns. Seems there's LESS of a chance of getting away.

Now you're comparing gross numbers, not rates.

How many knives in the UK? How many guns? Murder rate higher for crimes involving guns than involving knives?

As beet1e pointed out, give away free guns, get the UK murder rate as high as the US rate, and deaths from knives will shrink as proportion. More people will get killed, but we will achieve a sensible balance between gun murders and knife murders, like the US one.

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Ah, we agree. So does the US. They just aren't enforced, just as Britain's weren't enforced

Britain's gun laws were enforced, and worked very well.

What US gun laws? The ones that make it illegal for criminals to own guns? Isn't that a bit pointless? They are criminals, breaking the law is what they do.

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And it wouldn't make a bit of difference. The homicide rate would be "very stable" to use your Home Office's description of minor variances in the rate/100,000.

On what do you base that claim? The effect of a gun ban in Britain, which already had strict firearms laws? The effect of a gun buyback in Australia, which had stricter laws than the US?

A 0.2 per 100,000 drop in America would be 600 murders per year averted. America, which has more of a gun problem than Australia had, should see a much larger drop again.

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Looks like to me that Canada has the four of yas in the UK or so close it doesn't matter. And they've got LOADS of guns.

Canada has lots of hunting rifles. They aren't used for crimes anywhere near as much as handguns are.

Australia had lots of hunting rifles, not a lot of handguns. Total handgun murders in Australia in 95 were 12. Total handguns in Australia was in the 100 - 200,000 range, or thereabouts.

Australia Canada and the UK all had gun control. Futher tightening of those controls isn't going to have as dramatic an effect as introducing controls in America.

The figures for the US are 8441 murdered with a handgun, 638 with a rifle, 643 with a shotgun, 35 with "other" guns.

Why would you expect Australia and Canada, with lots of rifles, few handguns, to have a particulary high murder rate?

Thrawn · « **Reply #47 on:** December 07, 2002, 09:33:16 PM »

Toad I think your agrument could be made or broken on statistics for Attempted Murder in the various countries we've been looking at.

If the statistics for attempted murder are poportional to the higher number of per-capita homocides in the US, then you might be right about the will to murder being the cause.

If they are lower, then it might indicate that there are more murders effected, because guns are more leathal. So more attempted homocides are completed.

Toad · « **Reply #48 on:** December 07, 2002, 09:52:45 PM »

You've already got significant restrictions on knives. Or so you've intimated. They'll come for the rest as time goes by. The PETA-types and true Vegan types most likely don't subscribe to your blase attitude about any number of sharp instrument deaths being acceptable so you can slice bread. Cod knows your island has even more of those than we do.

You've been "nanny-ized".

Nope. No target shooting today. Today it's the middle of deer season. Went deer hunting with the #1 son.

I see you totally avoid the issue of shooting being a method of relaxation for some. Is that because you prefer alcohol and so, therefore, should everyone else? BTW, what's your thought on HO's in AH?

"The need for conformity is strong in this one".

Have you given any thought to the idea the the incredibly vast majority of gun owners in the world never kill or injure another person with their firearms? That it is a small minority that is responsible? That the majority shouldn't be punished for the transgressions of the few?

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House of Commons - Homicide Statistics '97

...In 1997 around 8% of homicides involved firearms and almost one third a sharp weapon.

So how would those percentages look if expressed in rates/100,000. Those aren't "assumed" percentages with some wag extrapolated. Those are your governments numbers.

Or conversely, you could say that as the number of available guns goes down, sharp instrument homicides go up as a percentage of total homicides. Your own UK stats show that I believe and I think I saw it on the AIC site as well.

To differentiate between the tool used.. saying that somehow it is better for a person to be murdered with a knife rather than a gun is ludicrous, IMO. And, despite bans/confiscations, homicide rates/100,000 in both the UK and Australia have remained "very stable. So... dying by knife is "better" than dying by gun? Come on now.

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They are criminals, breaking the law is what they do.

Glad to see you agree. Which just highlights why the bans haven't changed either UK or Australian homicide rates/100,000 in any meaningfull fashion.

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Canada has lots of hunting rifles. They aren't used for crimes anywhere near as much as handguns are.

Oh, now hunting rifles are OK? It's just handguns now? Before it was all guns with you and Beetle. Isthis a sea change?

We can keep our rifles and shotguns without restriction? Oh, wait... rifles and shotguns are also severly restricted in the UK and particularly in Australia. But you said they're not the problem?

Let me know when you make up your mind with respect to what WE should do about guns.

Then I'll tell you what you guys should do about sharp instruments and alcohol, ok? Fair is fair, after all.

Toad · « **Reply #49 on:** December 07, 2002, 09:57:32 PM »

I haven't even looked for "attempted" homicide stats. Do they even exist?

Seems they're going to be more subjective than a dead body, too.

Victim: "He tried to kill me!!!"

Officer: "With a handful of cotton candy?"

Who decides?

Still, it'd be worth looking at.

Part of it also though, is.....

The incredibly overwhelming majority in ANY society would recoil from the idea of killing someone over who got the last beer.

Basically, we're dealing with literally crazy, insane people that do those things.

Does the US have more insane people?

Like I said, it isn't a simplistic topic and there are no simplisitic "feelgood" solutions.

eskimo2 · « **Reply #50 on:** December 07, 2002, 10:08:36 PM »

I really don't think this thread has anything to do with a Longest Signature Block Competition, you guys are just here to argue about stuff, sheesh, false advertising!

eskimo

Toad · « **Reply #51 on:** December 07, 2002, 10:13:47 PM »

Sorry, Eskimo. My apologies, you are right.

It was just a "beetle bait". Looks like he's hooked.

NUKE · « **Reply #52 on:** December 07, 2002, 10:24:21 PM »

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It was just a "beetle bait". Looks like he's hooked.

lol Toad, I need more support on my Alcohol thread. Beet1e will be back soon enough

Kieran · « **Reply #53 on:** December 07, 2002, 11:00:14 PM »

Oh, I give. Teach me to be more British. Must I eat scones? Gasp in awe at a photo of the Queen? Laugh uproariously at men dressed in drag and speaking in falcetto?

Thrawn · « **Reply #54 on:** December 08, 2002, 02:17:05 AM »

First of all,

You use me as a reference sourse at your own peril.

lazs, I'm not prepared to debate your point regarding black people in the US at this point in time. But I am looking into it.

Toad, do you agree with my premis regarding Attempted Murder, if Attempted Murder can be proved beyond a reasonal doubt? If not, what criteria would you find acceptable. If the your issue with the agrument doesn't lie there, then where exactly?

beet1e · « **Reply #55 on:** December 08, 2002, 06:56:56 AM »

Wow! Cracking posts, Nashwan. I see I can take the rest of the weekend off.

Mr. Toad is wrong. I was not hooked by the title of this thread. I did a routine check of all threads to see where my name had been mentioned. I search on beet1e or beetle or beatle. But Nashwan has clearly got the lid on this one.

One thing I didn't realise -

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If someone with no record can go and buy a gun and sell it on for a $100 markup to someone who has a record, how can you keep guns out of the hands of criminals?

Does this mean that in the US you can buy a gun without even needing a permit, or without having to register? That would explain a lot.

-tronski- · « **Reply #56 on:** December 08, 2002, 07:01:09 AM »

Seeing how the AIC has been used as a resource...I like what Adam Graycar the director of the Australian Institute of Criminology said before new handgun laws were announced:

ABC news report 25/10/02

ADAM GRAYCAR: It's on the one hand those that comply with the law and not those by and large who commit criminal offences, but on the other hand we know that, and its intuitive that the fewer firearms in the community, the less the risk.

PETA DONALD: But Dr Graycar agrees, most hand guns involved in crimes are unregistered.

ADAM GRAYCAR: One study done by the Australian Institute of Criminology looked at homicides that involved weapons that were registered and users that were licensed and found that the overwhelming number of criminal activities that were committed with firearms involved people who were not licensed to use the firearms ant the weapons were not registered.

So by and large, those who comply with the law don't commit the criminal offences but occasionally there are exceptions, and every exception is a monumental tragedy for our community.

Even better was what the Prime Minister said when announcing the new hand gun laws (although watered down - only banning about 250-300 types of hand guns) on Thursday:

PM and Coag

The Premiers and Chief Ministers endorsed that approach and we have reached a very happy understanding but importantly it’s an extremely good outcome for Australia and this is particularly important for people who are worried about crime and worried about the danger to their children and to themselves. And I’ve frequently said and I’ll say it again today there are many things I admire about America but one thing I do not admire about the United States is their gun culture and I will do everything I humanly can to make sure that culture never seeps into Australia and spreads into the streets of Australia. I think the ready availability of handguns is a curse in our kind of society and the more that we can all do to take them out the better.

There will be some people unhappy with it, that's always the case, but I think by and large a reasonable sporting shooter will say, well, in an ideal world we might have wished it hadn't happened but we don't live in an ideal world, we have lunatics in the community, criminals, who want to use guns and the Governments have done the right thing by the public but they've also given us an opportunity to continue our sport under proper conditions and restrictions. And I think that is the sensible outcome and it's an outcome that Australians will welcome.

Surprisingly good leadership from a Liberal PM.

Oh, and Beetle wins by a country mile...

Tronsky

Wotan · « **Reply #57 on:** December 08, 2002, 07:02:18 AM »

You can go into User cp / edit options / thread view options and turn off signatures so you dont have to be bothered with reading them.

Kieran · « **Reply #58 on:** December 08, 2002, 07:28:55 AM »

To be honest, I don't find men in drag to be the least bit funny.

Toad · « **Reply #59 on:** December 08, 2002, 07:50:30 AM »

Looks like Graycar and the PM agree that it's the person that's the problem. Apparently however, they just don't want to deal with people. Too difficult, I guess and probably too expensive. Go after the inanimate objects that you can melt down instead of maintain in prison.

Then they can sit around patting their own backs and review just how much homicide they prevented.

Australia: Homicide rate per 100,000 from the AIC

1989-90 / 1.9
1990-91 / 2.0
1991-92 / 1.9
1992-93 / 2.0
1993-94 / 1.9
1994-95 / 1.9
1995-96 / 2.0
1996-97 / 1.7
1997-98 / 1.7
1998-99 / 1.8
1999-00 / 1.8

Uh..... well....... OK...wait a minute.... They can pat their own backs and tell everyone it's better to die by the knife than by the gun. There! Good Show! Jobs done, move along folks.

Beetle, if you want to declare "victory" and run away, that's fine. I recognize a white flag when I see one.

You can't get around the fact that the Aussie and UK bans have done nothing to lower the homicide rates/100,000. And fewer people dying is the true goal, right?