Ending the Myth that America is Dangerous because of Gun Ownership

Evidently not, eh? You should put more stock in the human factor, your belief in limiting inanimate objects as a method of control is rapidly melting away. What is becoming of Australia?

 

Ayuh,..... It Appears, to becomin' a Gun Free, Killin' Zone,....

The quickest way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a nearby good guy, with a gun,......

Cell phones now kill more folks every year, than guns,....
Textin' while drivin' kills 1,000s, 'n is illegal here, yet every day, I see morons still doin' it,....

 

You can speculate why the numbers are moving the right direction, bottom line is there is no reason to intervene on something that's working.
Btw, crack is homemade with cocaine, and there is no shortage of coke. It is interesting that you admit that drugs have a huge influence on our stats.
You are pretty safe here if you're not a drug dealing gang banger.

 

Who was it that tore down the towers in Chicago and moved those ghetto people to the suburbs????????

 

Progressive Liberals?

 

The position of gun control is soundly based on rationality. Is America a relatively safe place to live? Of course. There are far more dangerous places. The murder rate in South Africa, for example, went through the roof because of the brutalisation effects of apartheid. However, the evidence shows that gun ownership and death are positively related. To ignore that evidence, typically in support of NRA cultism, is an assault on rational thought.

 

And I hope you had a lovely time here in Adelaide and that your friends showed you some of the state itself which, for mine, is much more interesting than our state capital city.

The problem with visits is that they don't allow an immersion in everyday life. I feel the same way about my own travels, I know unless I spend some routine time in a place I'm only getting a taster and not the full blown experience. In total I've spent about 6 months in the US but in various places as most of the time I was travelling but I did stay with friends in San Diego several times for a week at a time and benefited from seeing the city and environs from a local's point of view (have to admit said friends are on the v. wealthy side but worldly enough). Even then I have only ever skimmed the surface. However I suppose that's an improvement on not even visiting a country.

 

Prevention is difficult to measure. But since 1996 we haven't had a mass murder with firearms. I'd say that's a good run. The woman who (allegedly) killed the children did so with blades and, I don't mean to be brutal but I'm going to say it like it is, she had them penned up and remember they were children and mum was slashing them. Not much any law can do about those circumstances I think. Thankfully it doesn't happen often. But it can happen anywhere there is someone who can go to the kitchen and get some blades and then attack a bunch of defenceless children in a house.

On the first reference you made. He didn't commit mass murder. Why do you think that was so?

- - - Updated - - -

I'm glad you asked. We're going down the toilet rapidly thanks to our moronic federal government.

- - - Updated - - -

A more effective way is to be able to seriously hinder bad guys from getting guns and when they are found to really throw the book at them. Prevention is far better than cure I believe.

 

You were almost at the doorstep of mass murder by firearm with your recent hostage taker event...your laws regarding gun control did not prevent the tragedy, blind luck and good police work did. That said you did have a good run but buying back or limiting lawful citizens from possessing said inanimate objects is not really effective at preventing mentally defective people or criminals who ignore the laws from causing the destruction. Case in point is exactly the mum who had the children penned. Didn't matter to her that she had no gun, any old inanimate object would do just fine. My contention is that it is intention and the inherent evil or mental defectiveness of HUMAN BEINGS that cause such tragedy.

Your statement that "Not much any law can do about those circumstances I think" is exactly on target. It has been the contention of gun rights activists all along that laws attempting to control inanimate objects don't affect those who's intentions is evil or lawlessness, if it their intention they will get it done.

As to your comment about moronic federal governments...I know exactly where you are coming from...we ain't in any better shape here in the US!

 

I take issue with the police response. I saw video of the perp standing in the window on the NBC morning news about 7 or 8 hours before the shooting started. Assuming he had already released some hostages and the police knew that he was alone and didn't have a bomb, they could have taken him out with a sniper very easily. That would have saved 2 lives. As I understand it, they didn't take out the shooter until he started killing people.

Our saving grace will be the 10th Amendment if the states will ever stand up and use it. The Feds have become very good at dangling "Federal Money" in front of the states to control them.

 

According to the graph posted on page three gun deaths in the U.S. are falling...but...gun sales are through the roof and it started right after Obama was elected. It may be because people had a fear of government... but that does not negate the fact that gun violence is down and gun sales are up.

So...the hypothesis that more guns mean more gun deaths is suspect. I don't think I know one person that does not own a gun. Most of them have many.

Off topic a little...I went to town today in our racially mixed communities and had no problems...but one thing is different...it seems like everyone is being nicer than usual...even for the holidays.

 

Your idea that everybody in poorer areas is just sitting around getting stoned and then going out to shoot somebody is not only gratuitously and egregiously insulting but also totally untrue, to my knowledge. Let's see some proof

Besides, aren't most murders are from relatives and close friends? Now, yes, they may indeed be confined mainly to areas where foreigners don't go much, poorer areas where the people don't, in your apparent opinion, matter, but it isn't going to change the overall stat much, and consequently foreigners will consider it the same.

 

Strange, I don't own a gun, nor do any of my friends. HOW do we get by?. Of course neither I nor they have ever had any need for one either.

 

If you dont want to get shot then dont join a gang or otherwise engage in criminal behavior. Its not that hard to figure out.

Most people who get shot did something to deserve it. In the grand scheme its pretty rare that innocent people get shot or murdered.

 

Most women murdered in the US are shot by ex partners often using the very gun they thought would protect them so did they deserve it ?

Most children in the US who die prematurely under the age of 15 do so from firearms incidents often within the home so did they deserve it ?

 

There is this weird perception within the gunner community stateside that we are all trembling in terror here pining after lost firearms freedoms and repressed into servitude by our tyrannical governments. It is a peculiarly insular American view of the world. Here guns mean fear and death not freedom and we only need to look across the pond for an affirmation of that. No other electorate in the developed world would choose to emulate the US example and rightly so. Any government who did so would find themselves in political oblivion pretty quickly

 

93% of statistics are made up. Show us proof.

 

Nobody, not even the FBI, can accurately explain why we've had such a dramatic reduction in crime since the early 90's. Your graph stops in 2010, but the drop has continued since then on roughly the same slope, and that includes ALL crimes, not just murder. The most interesting speculation I've heard as to "why" is that the early 90's would have been the time that unwanted kids who got aborted instead of born after Roe v. Wade would have started showing up in the crime statistics, something it's hard to do if they got aborted. That makes a lot of sense to me because "unwanted" children have a much higher likelihood of growing up in an environment that ultimately leads to a criminal lifestyle. But ultimately the "why" might be something that's purely unknowable.

Since Sandy Hook, gun ownership has grown rapidly, for a period of time after the event you practically couldn't buy anything because every dealer in the country was sold out of everything. However, crime, including murder, has continued to fall. In fact the murder "rate" has fallen to at, or near, an all time low since we started keeping statistics, and it's thought by those who have analyzed statistical information before then that it's actually at (or very near) an ALL time low since the Country was founded. It's also true that if you eliminate Chicago, Louisiana, and DC from our total numbers, it results in the total being less than half what it is with them included.

 

Why ? Will endless repetition change your cherished perceptions ? You put firearms into the hands of your own children and are proud to do so so you are clearly too far gone to be bothering with

 

This is not true......

We just laugh........

 

That is how propaganda works on the sheep. The gun grabbers here have stated that they will try the same thing here.

 

I have never needed a fire extinguisher, either. But I own one.

 

Whaaaaat? Don't you realize you could kill a fire with that?

 

Creating fear that guns might be taking from U.S. citizens prompts more people to buy guns which improves gun sales. If the masses did decide to use those guns, ammunition would immediately be taken off the shelves. The government does not want to reduce gun sales since they do have the power to limit ammunition sales.

 

Don't worry, we will just cast our own bullets and load our own.