Is it Time for the US Government to Ban Gun Ownership?

[Milo Hobgoblin]

apparently many of you on this thread havnt read the constitution.


It doesn't matter what you "think" about guns.. how much you dislike them.. or how dangerous you "think" an inanimate object is... our government simply lacks the power to ban firearms from private ownership.. to even discuss such a matter is prohibited in the constitution..

and if you want quotes specifying EXACTLY what the framers meant when they wrote the amendment .. Id be happy to provide them, plenty of them.



Whats sad about this.. is how some of you are .. failing to realize that if we let the US government defy the constitution and ban firearms...

then there is NOTHING stopping them from banning ANY other right guaranteed within the same document.. say.. like free speech. (which I am sure many of you egaltarians would defend with your lives.. oh wait you cant.. you have no firearms dummies).

Or how about your right to vote.. is it fair that some uneducated crackhead, welfare mom has the SAME right to vote.. wields the SAME power as some of you overeducated imbeciles? Maybe we should take away her right to vote.. or only give her a quarter vote.

Really.. move to England,.. (where in London you are 5 times MORE likely to be mugged than NYC) and tell us how safe you feel.

 

[Kurdt]

Most of you Europeans (Swiss excluded) have a distorted idea of gun ownership which is understandable since most are not familiar with them. Your assumptions of chaos and daily shootouts between everyday citizens is completely rediculous as well as unsupported.

I certainly don't think you have daily shootouts and have said nothing of the like. I think it will however stop incidents such as those that occurred at Virginia tech, and have also acknowledged the problems. I just don't think that people should be allowed to legally own something that can kill in a split second. It really is absurd and there is no need for one unless you need protection from dangerous wildlife. The only people that seem to be attracted to guns and use them irresponsibly are those that are attracted to the power it gives them that they don't have in their normal lives. The two UK examples that I know well are testiment to that because both of the men that took part in that were mentally unstable or one might even use the word ill. The majority of other people have no use for them unless they choose it as a serious sport or need it for protection from wildlife.

Far from protecting people I think they just antagonise a criminal who is willing to use a gun for reasons that have been mentioned before, and because there are very few armed robbery shootings here in the UK. I believe this is mainly due to the fact that criminals do not expect others to have guns and thus are just using it as a tool to assert their will. Once they get what they want they leave you alone.

I think the problem is that some people are unwilling to see the correlation between the ease of availability of guns and the increased chance of a nut job getting one. Now of course there are instances where people can get guns with very tight control laws but they are in a very small minority. You can't solve the problem of the small chance of a nutter getting a gun by saying well we'll give everyone a gun and then if something happens he can be shot easily. Thats crazy. Its just fighting fire with fire, and arguing to keep guns relatively freely available to protect from the odd nutter now and then is bizarre because the odd nutter wouldn't be able to get hold of them if they wren't freely available (with a minority of exceptions).

Ultimately one must start to question whether the 2nd amendment applies today. As i understand it it was there so that the population could protect the state when it was very first formed, but now the USA can protect itself as it isn't a fledgling country any more but a well established democracy with other means to protect itself.

Anyway, I won't say any more on this because its just going to go round and round forever.

 

[Kurdt]

apparently many of you on this thread havnt read the constitution.


It doesn't matter what you "think" about guns.. how much you dislike them.. or how dangerous you "think" an inanimate object is... our government simply lacks the power to ban firearms from private ownership.. to even discuss such a matter is prohibited in the constitution..

and if you want quotes specifying EXACTLY what the framers meant when they wrote the amendment .. Id be happy to provide them, plenty of them.



Whats sad about this.. is how incredibly ignorant some of you are .. failing to realize that if we let the US government defy the constitution and ban firearms...

then there is NOTHING stopping them from banning ANY other right guaranteed within the same document.. say.. like free speech. (which I am sure many of you egaltarians would defend with your lives.. oh wait you cant.. you have no firearms dummies).

Or how about your right to vote.. is it fair that some uneducated crackhead, welfare mom has the SAME right to vote.. wields the SAME power as some of you overeducated imbeciles? Maybe we should take away her right to vote.. or only give her a quarter vote.

Really.. move to England,.. (where in London you are 5 times MORE likely to be mugged than NYC) and tell us how safe you feel.

Thats going to the extreme and its not about that. Ultimately you have to start questioning whether the constitution applies x many years on and keep doing it throughout history or you'll get trapped in a dogmatic cycle where nobody has any real freedom. No document is infallable, and even if it is at the time its made, it doesn't necessarily mean it is throughout time. Morality and ethics are completely changable concepts, and thus so are societal laws and rights. that's why we should be encouraged to debate whether things are applicable any more or whether new things should be added. Its how society progresses and how it has done for millenia.

 

[Bystander]

I certainly don't think you have daily shootouts and have said nothing of the like. I think it will however stop incidents such as those that occurred at Virginia tech, and have also acknowledged the problems. (snip)

"Incidents," hmm --- such as Europe's mass murder rate over the 20th century? That's what? Couple hundred thousand a year? And it's been accomplished with gun control --- here in the provinces without gun control we average a piddling couple dozen a decade.

There may be more to the "prevention" arguments defending the 2nd amendment than meets the eye.

 

[Kurdt]

"Incidents," hmm --- such as Europe's mass murder rate over the 20th century? That's what? Couple hundred thousand a year? And it's been accomplished with gun control --- here in the provinces without gun control we average a piddling couple dozen a decade.

There may be more to the "prevention" arguments defending the 2nd amendment than meets the eye.

Well if you're including the world wars that's a little unfair, but if you're not then I can't see where you've pulled that stat from.

 

[Milo Hobgoblin]

Thats going to the extreme and its not about that. Ultimately you have to start questioning whether the constitution applies x many years on and keep doing it throughout history or you'll get trapped in a dogmatic cycle where nobody has any real freedom. No document is infallable, and even if it is at the time its made, it doesn't necessarily mean it is throughout time. Morality and ethics are completely changable concepts, and thus so are societal laws and rights. that's why we should be encouraged to debate whether things are applicable any more or whether new things should be added. Its how society progresses and how it has done for millenia.

Kurdt .. you are wrong and multiple courts of law disagree with you.

In multiple cases.. our government has stated that it is not THEIR responsibility to protect the individual citizen. It would be nice if we lived in your fantasy world where outlawing guns would make a much safer world, where the police wouldprotect us from assailants.. but that world does nto exist.

Consider another horrible case making headlines this month involving a Charles County woman named Janice Lancaster. Her husband had beaten her to the point that she felt obliged to draw up a will. But the courts were of little help to her. After one particularly vicious incident, her husband pleaded guilty to assault and was given 18 months . . . probation. She subsequently filed for divorce, but after a violent argument in which her husband yelled at her to get out or she wouldn't make it out, she sought help from the local state's attorney's office. He asked a judge to sign an arrest warrant for Mrs. Lancaster's husband, and the judge did so. But the court clerk's office didn't get around to working on the warrant. It went 13 days - over a long holiday break - without being processed, at which point the violent husband - who should already have been served the warrant and been in jail - shot and killed her. (Laws forbidding him to possesses a weapon somehow didn't keep him from getting one.) Then he killed himself. Martha M. Rasin, Chief Judge of Maryland's District Court, called it a "horrible situation," but added that the time lapse was "normal." Think of the court as the U.S. Postal Service without even the late delivery. Law enforcement seems the obvious choice to protect women from assaults, but case law suggests otherwise. In an infamous local case, Warren vs. District of Columbia, two women who heard their roommate being assaulted downstairs called the police for help. The police came but left without entering the building. Again the women called, and this time the police didn't bother to dispatch anyone to the scene at all. The attackers, however, heard the women upstairs and assaulted them too . . . for 14 hours. No police came. The women sued the city, but the courts dismissed their claims saying it was a "fundamental principle" that the government has "no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen."

and yet another

The same was true in a New York case, Riss vs. City of New York. A woman who telephoned police to beg for protection from her boyfriend sued the city for its failure to protect her from an assault in which he threw lye in her face, blinding her in one eye, damaging the other and scarring her face. The city denied responsibility, and the courts agreed. Complained a dissenting judge, "What makes the City's position particularly difficult to understand is that, in conformity to the dictates of the law, [the plaintiff] did not carry any weapon for self-defense. Thus, by a rather bitter irony she was required to rely for protection on the City of New York which now denies all responsibility to her."

whats it going to take to convince all of you.. that YOU are primarily responsible for defending yourself NOT the police.??


Do I need to find of hundred of these cases and cite them to convince you? Do YOU need to be shot, have your wife raped?

Stop being naive'

 

[Francis M]

Well color me almost wrong. With the exception of Milo here this has been a pretty civil discussion of gun laws, especially on the heels of the VA Tech shootings. I still don't think this is something to post as a poll right after the shootings but that's just my opinion (based on the experience that you usually can't have a civil debate on anything when emotions are running high). I'd like ot thank most of you for proving my prediction wrong on the flame war and locking of the thread.

I don't own a gun. I'd only own one for target shooting at most or maybe a replica (functional) antique firearm.
I have no illusions about how the U.S. would be if everyone was "packin' heat". I also have no illusions about how well armed the citizen malitias would be against the regular army and national guard if things deteriorated into a civil war here in the U.S. Let's be realistic about this and not go to those extremes, they're really no thte best arguments to use either for or against gun control.

I think this has been said before (long htread and can't find the people to quote) but I think the best thing is to examine the laws already on the books here in the U.S. There are already plenty of laws for regulating gun ownership here. I don't think we need more. What we need to do is take a serious look at the ones we already have, repeal the ones that are repetative and overlap, reform the ones that are left to close the loop holes that are on some of them. After that it comes down to education about firearm safety and responsible gun ownership and that means between manufacturers, retailers and consumers.

Oh and can we please not compare highjackers with box cutters to some body who flips out and goes on a shooting spree? The comparison just doesn't wash. They're totally different situations.

 

[Milo Hobgoblin]

Yes.. I get a little bothered when people threaten to repeal my individual rights.


Nice to see so many of you will let them go without a whimper.

 

[siddharth]

Could anyone share the statistics on number of guns in households and homicide rate in various US states & between US and other countries? I wasn't able to find any independent studies.

Also, not being from the US, I don't understand the big deal about "individual rights". After all, we don't have individual rights to do many things. If it turns out that there is a definite link between increased homicide rates and availability of guns, what's the problem with gun control laws?

 

[Huckleberry]

Fine, so what do we as a society do to people who can't live life civil people? We typically take away from them the tools they use to be uncivil, or more specifically we ban them from being allowed to be uncivil.

This is what we do in the United States also. It is not legal for a convicted felon to own a firearm whether their crime involved a gun or not. This is how we take the tools away from those who would use them unlawfully. I'm not sure what you mean by not allowing uncivil people to be uncivil. The only way I can think of to do that is to keep them in prison. Criminals are criminals because they do not obey the laws.

Your not seriously saying that students in a university, a place of learning should be allowed to carry guns into class.
If you were a parent would you really want your child to go to a university and sit along side a bunch of hormonal kids with guns strapped to their waists .Your not seriously saying that students in a university, a place of learning should be allowed to carry guns into class.

I don't think that's such a good idea either. I do think it would be a good idea for armed security, perhaps even armed teachers. There would be a firearm in every class in that case. I don't know how teachers would feel about it though. Maybe I'm just familiar with being around people bearing arms on a regular basis having been in the military and living in Arizona. I'm not uncomfortable with the idea of firearms in schools at all.

I'm not sure what kind of liberty would be instilled by a mob of gun toters. It would most likely be a tyrrany in which those who disagreed got shot. Countries have military for protection from tyrrany in a foreign land. They have democracy in the west to ensure that tyrrany at home does not occur. A ban on guns all logistics aside would remove in the most part the oppourtunity for criminals to use them. If they did get their hands on guns then a population that couldn't retaliate with fire would be a lot safer for reasons russ outlined before.

I'm not sure who "the enemy" is that you seem so afraid of, but I can't believe that level of paranoia in anybody.

The United States was formed by a mob of gun toters who fought against what they perceived to be a tyranny. A responsible, reasonable person bearing a firearm does not become mesmerized and overcome by the desire to shoot people that disagree with him. The mobs that you refer to could be ones family and neighbors. Where does the idea that someone who owns a gun automatically becomes a crazed killer come from?

Democracy does a pretty good job of protecting this country from tyranny. I'm glad of that. It does not mean that we should believe tyranny is an impossibility. The first step to imposing a tyranny is to remove the firearms. I see them as a valuable precaution.

I'd rather be free than safe. I refuse to seek security because of irrational fear. I don't believe taking the rights of all law abiding citizens in this nation to make things a bit more difficult for a handful of criminals is a good idea.

I didn't say the word enemy anywhere in my text. If there must be one I suppose it would refer to either tyranny or criminals, both of which I stated as posing a reason for law abiding citizens in this nation to bear arms.


Here is the result of some studies corellating gun ownership with violent death.

Kleck concludes that "the homicide-guns study was not international at all, but merely reflected the unique status of the United States as a high-gun ownership/high-violence nation

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html#intl
This leads me to believe that banning firearms would not reduce the homicide rate in the United States. What we need to improve is our own violent nature. How zen is that?

 

[Monique]

Whats sad about this.. is how incredibly ignorant some of you are .. failing to realize that if we let the US government defy the constitution and ban firearms...

then there is NOTHING stopping them from banning ANY other right guaranteed within the same document.. say.. like free speech. (which I am sure many of you egaltarians would defend with your lives.. oh wait you cant.. you have no firearms dummies).

Oh common, then why are hard drugs illegal? Tell me that! And have you ever heard of Mahatma Gandhi? Talking about ignorance..

 

[drankin]

Could anyone share the statistics on number of guns in households and homicide rate in various US states & between US and other countries? I wasn't able to find any independent studies.

Also, not being from the US, I don't understand the big deal about "individual rights". After all, we don't have individual rights to do many things. If it turns out that there is a definite link between increased homicide rates and availability of guns, what's the problem with gun control laws?

There are plenty of gun control laws and they vary from state to state. When they are so restrictive that they begin to infringe on our Constitutional rights, that's where the debate is. Some are extreme on both sides. I think our system is working as there are gun regulations that maintain a responsible median without blatant infringement in most cases.

 

[Bystander]

Well if you're including the world wars that's a little unfair, but if you're not then I can't see where you've pulled that stat from.

Holocaust equals mass murder; Joe is regarded as The all time champion mass murderer; Benito vs. Ethiopia is peanuts, but he was European; and, the numbers people throw around for the total gratuitous murder in Europe (plus NW Asia, depending upon where you wish to separate the Eurasian landmass) run around 20-30 million.

 

[Kurdt]

Yes.. I get a little bothered when people threaten to repeal my individual rights.


Nice to see so many of you will let them go without a whimper.

I'm not threatening anything. This is a debate about alternatives and isn't going to become gospel. I was bothered by the outright exclaimation that I was wrong about questioning your constitution. How do you propose to progress if the rules by which you live can't be changed?

And I did not realize the US government feels it doesn't have a duty to protect its citizens, but its just a debate. I'm not trying to remove your rights, don't take it personally.

 

[siddharth]

When they are so restrictive that they begin to infringe on our Constitutional rights, that's where the debate is.

But, that's what I don't understand. As I said before, if there's statistical evidence that there's a link between increased homicides and availability of guns, does actually matter if gun control infringes on constitutional rights? The constitution should be amended, in that case.

Reading this thread, I've understood that some people say

(i) lack of guns would mean decreased protection from crimes,
(ii) guns protect people

Are there any statistics on this?

 

[turbo]

While it would be nice to live in an ideal world where everybody is respectful of everybody else's rights, that's not the situation. I live in a very rural area with no police force, and the nearest state police barracks and county sheriff's offices are at least 20 minutes from here, assuming that they responded instantly to a 911 call. I'll keep my pistols, thank you. Just because we are in a rural area doesn't mean that it's all bucolic and peaceful in this county. There are too many people doing B&Es to finance their addictions.

 

[Kurdt]

Holocaust equals mass murder; Joe is regarded as The all time champion mass murderer; Benito vs. Ethiopia is peanuts, but he was European; and, the numbers people throw around for the total gratuitous murder in Europe (plus NW Asia, depending upon where you wish to separate the Eurasian landmass) run around 20-30 million.

Oh well if you're getting into that then that's ridiculous. This isn't about institutionalised mass murder. If you are going to go that way, how about America's hit counter during both world wars, and Iraq and Afghanistan. Ramps up you conservative estimate of a few dozen.

I don't think your argument has any place in this thread.

 

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry
Personally, I don't know why people are so afraid of guns. Where I lived in Arizona most of the men wore pistols or revolvers on their sides as they walked around the town. Every other pick-up truck had a rifle rack in the back. Guns were all over the place. Criminals had them too. They didn't mess with the town and the town didn't mess with them. The criminals mostly shot other criminals.

Man, I can't even imagine such a picture.

It is fairly common in smaller towns in Arizona for people to wear guns. This particular town was right across from the Mexican border and there were frequent human trafficking and drug crimes which brings a bad element to the place. There were also a lot of retired engineers, police, military and writers. There are also a lot of old hippies and I supect a few people wanted by the law. Some things that happened there that my relatives have told me...

A drunk man was petting a cat on his lap. When the cat bit his hand he drew his pistol and shot the cat. It was still on his lap at the time. The bullet went through his leg.

After an altercation in a bar a man left to go to his truck and get his rifle. On his way back into the bar to shoot the man that offended him he was met by the barrel of a shotgun. I saw the blood stains on the rafters outside the bar. I believe the bar tender was the shooter.

A dog was digging in a womans property and retreived a human head. The head did not belong to anyone that had lived in town. It was suspected to be a drug related homicide. (Most of the lots are 40 acres of free range. It wasn't like someone buried it in her back yard.)

Cool place huh?

 

[Milo Hobgoblin]

Oh common, then why are hard drugs illegal? Tell me that! And have you ever heard of Mahatma Gandhi? Talking about ignorance..

Uhh.. the right to use hard drugs was never mentioned in the constitution.. they were never used to defend the individual nor the freedom of a society..

how that pertains to this thread is beyond me. And you call me ignorant?

And what exactly does Ghandi have to do with this? Do you think the average rapist will eventually give up (as the British colonosts did) simply because you refuse to comply?

NOT carrying a firearm didnt stop the ATF from murdering Randy Weavers wife.. now did it? She was holding an infant not a Glock.
and the government agent who killed her as never prosecuted.



Again... our government has CLEARLY stated that it is not their responsibility to protect the individual. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU?

 

[Kurdt]

The United States was formed by a mob of gun toters who fought against what they perceived to be a tyranny. A responsible, reasonable person bearing a firearm does not become mesmerized and overcome by the desire to shoot people that disagree with him. The mobs that you refer to could be ones family and neighbors. Where does the idea that someone who owns a gun automatically becomes a crazed killer come from?

A person is clever but people are stupid was the point i was trying to make (it was rather late at night).

 

[Milo Hobgoblin]

A person is clever but people are stupid was the point i was trying to make (it was rather late at night).

So "people" are stupid but you will trust "people" with your safety and the decision of your rights.. and not the individual (yourself)?

And are you also implying that the American revolutionaries were stupid because they fought as a collective and not as a group of individuals??


While again.. you trust a collective to govern you and decide what's best for you, how you should be taxed, where that money should go?

 

[Milo Hobgoblin]

It is fairly common in smaller towns in Arizona for people to wear guns. This particular town was right across from the Mexican border and there were frequent human trafficking and drug crimes which brings a bad element to the place. There were also a lot of retired engineers, police, military and writers. There are also a lot of old hippies and I supect a few people wanted by the law. Some things that happened there that my relatives have told me...

A drunk man was petting a cat on his lap. When the cat bit his hand he drew his pistol and shot the cat. It was still on his lap at the time. The bullet went through his leg.

After an altercation in a bar a man left to go to his truck and get his rifle. On his way back into the bar to shoot the man that offended him he was met by the barrel of a shotgun. I saw the blood stains on the rafters outside the bar. I believe the bar tender was the shooter.

A dog was digging in a womans property and retreived a human head. The head did not belong to anyone that had lived in town. It was suspected to be a drug related homicide. (Most of the lots are 40 acres of free range. It wasn't like someone buried it in her back yard.)

Cool place huh?

and yet Id feel a THOUSAND times safer there .. than I would in San Diego or NYC or D.C. where the gun laws are a thousand times more restrictive.

 

[Anttech]

"Incidents," hmm --- such as Europe's mass murder rate over the 20th century? That's what? Couple hundred thousand a year? And it's been accomplished with gun control --- here in the provinces without gun control we average a piddling couple dozen a decade.

There may be more to the "prevention" arguments defending the 2nd amendment than meets the eye.

Hahaha, funny, really funny.

The prevention is **ZIPP** all to do with your gun laws, and everything to do with your education system and of course your history. Why when we have to argue about gun's with Americans they become all illogical and come out with nonsense like this.. Why can't you just admit that your society is very masculine based, with the good and bad bits that come with that? Keep your guns, because *you want them* but please for the love of god stop the Bull**** arguments like:

More guns = more safe
Europeans live in a Violent society because of events that happened > 50 years ago
Americans (The country trooping through the M.E. right now screaming DEMOCRACY) need Guns to stop dictators from taking their country.

I was watching BBC world and on it was another genius from the Gun Lobbiest that was trying to assert that London needs more guns to make it a safer place...

As I have said umpteen times, keep your guns, your society respects individual *freedoms* more than the health of society in general. What I can't understand is that people feel the need to *excuse* your constitution gun amendment by asserting society in general is better for the huge circulation of guns, when it would be easier to swallow if you just said: "We know they are bad for society, but we want em anyway"

 

[Monique]

Uhh.. the right to use hard drugs was never mentioned in the constitution.. they were never used to defend the individual nor the freedom of a society..

how that pertains to this thread is beyond me. And you call me ignorant?

Isn't it your freedom to do drugs? You seem to be so concerned about your freedoms. Just because something is written down into a constitution, doesn't mean it cannot be challenged.

And what exactly does Ghandi have to do with this? Do you think the average rapist will eventually give up (as the British colonosts did) simply because you refuse to comply?

It was a reply to your comment: "then there is NOTHING stopping them from banning ANY other right guaranteed within the same document.. say.. like free speech. (which I am sure many of you egaltarians would defend with your lives.. oh wait you cant.. you have no firearms dummies)".

Again... our government has CLEARLY stated that it is not their responsibility to protect the individual. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU?

If it is not the responsibility of the government to protect the individual, then why are there laws? Clearly the government is concerned about the individual.

 

[Anttech]

So "people" are stupid but you will trust "people" with your safety and the decision of your rights.. and not the individual (yourself)?

Actually some people look at society in general and think about what best for everyone. Yeah I know I probably sound like I am from Mars, but really there are many people like that. Regardless it is soooo evident that allowing everyone to have guns, makes you less safe than the opposite.
Perhaps you need a lesson in real democracy? You know the Society based, everyone has a voice, and the government implements what is best for us all democracy.

 

[drankin]

Actually some people look at society in general and think about what best for everyone. Yeah I know I probably sound like I am from Mars, but really there are many people like that. Regardless it is soooo evident that allowing everyone to have guns, makes you less safe than the opposite.
Perhaps you need a lesson in real democracy? You know the Society based, everyone has a voice, and the government implements what is best for us all democracy.

Ummm, maybe not-so-much. Maybe we will stay over here and enjoy our form of government, and you will stay over there and enjoy yours, no?

 

[Huckleberry]

But, that's what I don't understand. As I said before, if there's statistical evidence that there's a link between increased homicides and availability of guns, does actually matter if gun control infringes on constitutional rights? The constitution should be amended, in that case.

Reading this thread, I've understood that some people say

(i) lack of guns would mean decreased protection from crimes,
(ii) guns protect people

Are there any statistics on this?

Here is a site from the Beaureau of Justice. If you check the weapon trends you can see the homicide difference from gun/nongun crimes in the U.S.
http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/homicide/homtrnd.htm

Coorelation of gun ownership with violent death in several countries.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html#intl

 

[drankin]

Here is a site from the Beaureau of Justice. If you check the weapon trends you can see the homicide difference from gun/nongun crimes in the U.S.
http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/homicide/homtrnd.htm

Coorelation of gun ownership with violent death in several countries.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html#intl

It looks like gun related deaths deminished 66% in the last 14yrs. Better stop them guns! At this rate guns won't be so scary anymore!

 

[ukmicky]

It looks like gun related deaths deminished 66% in the last 14yrs. Better stop them guns!

If the above is true then maybe we have become better at handling gunshot trauma through quicker medical responce times ,better treatment by the paramedics and doctors at the seen of the incidents and at the hospital ,better drugs etc etc. Or maybe these days people receive less training and are less accurate with the shots. There could be many reasons why these days less people die from gun crime If your above statement turned out to be true Mr 1 shot ,sorry i mean 1 post drankin :-)

 

[Monique]

Here is a site from the Beaureau of Justice. If you check the weapon trends you can see the homicide difference from gun/nongun crimes in the U.S.
http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/homicide/homtrnd.htm

Coorelation of gun ownership with violent death in several countries.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html#intl

Statistics don't lie, I've but the 1994 firearm homocide rates into a chart:

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/3629/statisticsic8.png

I normalized both data series so that the highest value in the groups is 100.

* Hmm, the US owns the most guns and the amount of firearm homocides is second highest. So guns prevent violence? Don't think so.
* Also look at the Netherlands, it has to lowest amount of guns per household, it also has about the lowest amount of firearm homocides. So not owning a gun makes you a victim? Don't think so.

 

[Art]

It looks like gun related deaths deminished 66% in the last 14yrs. Better stop them guns! At this rate guns won't be so scary anymore!

The fall in gun homicides appears to coincide with the introduction of tougher gun regulations whilst homicides from other sources have not increased which strongly suggests gun control laws do have a positive impact on the overall homicide rate.

In relation to gun control breaching an individuals rights. My opinion is rights have a hierarchy with the right to stay alive being number one so a person's right to life trumps another person's right to have a gun.

 

[drankin]

The fall in gun homicides appears to coincide with the introduction of tougher gun regulations whilst homicides from other sources have not increased which strongly suggests gun control laws do have a positive impact on the overall homicide rate.

In relation to gun control breaching an individuals rights. My opinion is rights have a hierarchy with the right to stay alive being number one so a person's right to life trumps another person's right to have a gun.

The right to life trumps another person's right to have a gun? Who's rights? The victim? This doesn't make sense to me because the purpose of MY gun is to keep me alive. Which trumps the idea that disarming me is going to make me safer. It does not.

 

[Anttech]

Its simple, if you don't have a gun, I don't get shot by you.

 

[Evo]

Its simple, if you don't have a gun, I don't get shot by you.

I'm sure they'll find another method of getting rid of you. If a person wants you dead, there are many ways of doing it.

I don't have the link here, but I believe there are over 200 million registered guns in the US, now compare that to the number of murders commited with guns.

 

[ukmicky]

The right to life trumps another person's right to have a gun? Who's rights? The victim? This doesn't make sense to me because the purpose of MY gun is to keep me alive. Which trumps the idea that disarming me is going to make me safer. It does not.

Today normal everyday sensible-ish person ,but tomorrow ,next week,next year