quote:

Originally posted by freedomordeath:
You've obviously never heard of knife throwing. It's not only just as deadly, but also more painful. You wouldn't be able to run away any way, if it was in close range, duh.

You know who can throw knives? Angelina.

quote:

guns also make it much easier to kill somebody, id rather be attacked with a knife than a gun. at least then i have a fighting chance, and at least then i can run away without fear of being shot in the back.

You've obviously never heard of knife throwing. It's not only just as deadly, but also more painful. You wouldn't be able to run away any way, if it was in close range, duh.

quote:

guns also make it much easier to kill somebody, id rather be attacked with a knife than a gun.

Alcohol also makes it easier to kill someone while driving under the influence.

Guess which one kills more people annually in the US?

Gun murders/unintentional shootings for 2002: a 12,000+

Alcohol related car deaths for 2003: 17,013
(Note that this number does not include the total alcohol related deaths/murders. Only those including driving. The total number is far greater.)

I guess we should ban alcohol (again) by your logic.

quote:

and so on, with no access to guns, gun crime will go down and therefore overall crime levels will drop.

The logic is sound, unfortunately you're totally over-simplifying reality. The actual, real world experiance directly contradicts your reasoning there.

Guns do not disappear. I'll quote the doctor:

quote:

You outlaw guns in a country with 280 million private guns, you think they'll all just go away? You don't think a signifigant portion of the population will ignore the law? I can tell you that I certainly will. You don't think a huge number of them will be available for sale in rural and suburban areas?

Drugs are illegal in this country, but has the purchase and re-selling of them gone down? Usage? Drug-related crime? No.

Do I believe crime will go down if more liberal gun laws are put into effect? No. I just simply think it should be very difficult for a citizen to buy a gun, and more expensive. In addition, I do not believe stricter gun laws need to be enforced.

quote:

But guns do provide more immediate actions. I honestly wouldn't consider a car automatically as a weapon. That isn't its firsthand purpose. What is a gun's purpose though? To kill, or at least injure.

guns also make it much easier to kill somebody, id rather be attacked with a knife than a gun. at least then i have a fighting chance, and at least then i can run away without fear of being shot in the back.

guns also represent a culture, if these school shooters has no access to guns, then it is likely they wouldnt take a knife to their cause, guns can play on peoples minds because of their place in popular culture, especially amongst youths who see them in their favourite films, in the hands of their favourite rappers...and so on, with no access to guns, gun crime will go down and therefore overall crime levels will drop.

plus itd be an end to driveby shootings, a drive-by stabbing would be much harder!

Exactly. That's why it was put there.

quote:

responsibly

The key word in almost everything in life.

But guns do provide more immediate actions. I honestly wouldn't consider a car automatically as a weapon. That isn't its firsthand purpose. What is a gun's purpose though? To kill, or at least injure.

Sorry to play devil's advocate. I honestly believe in the right to bare arms... responsibly.

Nobody accused racists of being very smart in the first place, but that's beside the point. I see I can't adequately argue my point anymore, so I'll stop.

quote:

Of course guns don't equal crime. But they help cause it. Imagine Mr. Joe Blow, average American white guy, goes out and buys a pistol. Now Joe Blow feels empowered and thinks to himself, "Now I can get back at that dirty turbanhead who overcharged me at the gas station," and thus goes to said gas station and blows away the clerk.

Are you serious? This is such an extreme and unlikely scenerio it's totally irrelevant to the discussion. If a man is going to shoot a clerk for something that stupid, he's also going to run him down with his car or get a few of his buddies and beat him to death.

At least choose a rational scenerio. And if Joe Blow gets killed because he was trying to murder someone, that's a crime prevented and a murder served justice. He should have thought about his wife and kids before he decided to murder an innocent man.

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If we must rely on armed civilians to protect our streets, why bother having a police force at all? Why not just let this vigilante justice cure all our woes? It seems to me that allowing everyone to simply go out and buy small arms can potentially cause more problems than it solves.

One, it is not a replacement for police, but a supplement. An armed citizenry will respond to a crime far more quickly than the police. The police are not responsible for preventing crime. Statistics show that states with higher per-capita legal gun ownership and more liberal carry laws have lower crime rates. Nations that have implemented strict gun control laws experiance a sustained increase in violent crime following the bans. 99% of all legally owned guns in this country are never used in a crime.

The statistics are against you.

And as to your assertion that he'd have no access to a "black market" to obtain a gun, think again. I personally know where I could go and purchase a firearm illegally. You outlaw guns in a country with 280 million private guns, you think they'll all just go away? You don't think a signifigant portion of the population will ignore the law? I can tell you that I certainly will. You don't think a huge number of them will be available for sale in rural and suburban areas?

http://www.nationmaster.com.
And the US is 24th among ALL countries in all murders per capita. 0.04 per 1,000 people. Colombia's 1st with 0.6 per 1,000.

Mexico is considered developed? My gosh... By what standards? Where was that found?

Guns should be outlawed...only allowed to law enforcement and hunters w/ background checks. There are too many guns out there in the wrong hands.

The doctor never said that armed citizens are vigliante police officers. The fact that we have armed citizens makes crime less attractive to criminals (especially in the case of home burglarly.)

Anyhow, the statistics of world murder rates among DEVELOPED NATIONS breaks down like this:

Murder Top 10:
Mexico - 13,829.
US - 12,658
Poland - 2,170
France - 1,051
Germany - 960
South Korea - 955
UK - 850
Italy - 746
Japan - 637
Spain - 494

Murders w/Firearms:
US - 8,259
Mexico - 3,589
Germany - 384
Czech Republic - 213
Poland - 166
Canada - 165
Slovakia - 117
Spain - 97
Portugal - 84
United Kingdom - 62

WORLD Murder Rates:
India - 37,170
Russia - 28,904
Colombia - 26,539
South Africa - 21,995
Mexico - 13,829
US - 12,658
Venezuela - 8,022
Thailand - 5,140
Ukraine - 4,418
Indonesia - 2,204

Murders w/firearms:
South Africa - 31,918
Colombia - 21,898
Thailand - 20,032
US - 8,259
Mexico - 3,589
Zimbabwe - 598
Germany - 384
Belarus - 331
Czech Republic - 213
Ukraine - 173.

Of course guns don't equal crime. But they help cause it. Imagine Mr. Joe Blow, average American white guy, goes out and buys a pistol. Now Joe Blow feels empowered and thinks to himself, "Now I can get back at that dirty turbanhead who overcharged me at the gas station," and thus goes to said gas station and blows away the clerk.

Or, perhaps the clerk has a gun as well and uses it in self-defense, killing Joe Blow and leaving his wife and children without a husband or father.

Alternatively, let us say that guns are outlawed. Now, Joe Blow can't easily get a gun to exact misguided revenge on the convenience store clerk. He would have to go through the black market, not easy for some middle-class slob such as Joe Blow. Of course, the criminal element, having nothing to lose, would be able to get weaponry through such channels with ease. But that just reflects upon the pathetic law enforcement in this country.

If we must rely on armed civilians to protect our streets, why bother having a police force at all? Why not just let this vigilante justice cure all our woes? It seems to me that allowing everyone to simply go out and buy small arms can potentially cause more problems than it solves.

quote:

Originally posted by clpo13:
It defies reason to say that gun control is the cause of increased crime. Drug control hasn't caused a spike in illegal drug use, has it?

Your reasoning fails when you realise that guns do not equal crime. Coming to a conclusion like you defies my reasoning. Guns and gun use are not illegal.

In fact, an armed citizenry makes crime against said citizenry less attractive to a criminal. Make that fear less likely by implementing severe gun control, and you'll have in increase in criminals (who are likely still armed anyway) taking advantage of the population. How does that reasoning not work for you?

Oh and Blue, look at those numbers again when you consider developed nations. I'm not sure but I think we're higher among the 1st world.

Actually, the US murder rates are not that high. They are little bit below global average. That's not terrible.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_cap

It defies reason to say that gun control is the cause of increased crime. Drug control hasn't caused a spike in illegal drug use, has it?

Even if it's an international problem, it's way more common in the US. Murder in general is much higher in the US; the country with the most serial killers in the world is the US (and ironically, most of them were white males in their mid ages).

Could this happen at my high school? Oh yes. My school this year has gone insane, ever since the principal died.

Sorry to double-post, but I couldn't edit my post...

March 13, 1996 - 16 children and one teacher killed at Dunblane Primary School by Thomas Hamilton, who then killed himself. 10 others wounded in attack. - Dunblane, Scotland.

March, 1997 - Either people (six students and two others) at two schools killed by Mohammad Ahman al-Maziri. - Sanaa, Yemen.

April 28, 1999 - One student killed, one wounded at W. R. Myers High School in first fatal high school shooting in Canada in 20 years. The suspect, a 14-year-old-boy had dropped out of school after he was severely ostracized by his classmates. - Taber, Alberta, Canada.

Dec. 7, 1999 - One teacher and three students wounded by a 17-year-old student. - Veghel, Netherlands.

March 2000 - One teacher killed by 15-year-old student, who then shot himself. The shooter has been in a coma ever since. - Branneburg, Germany.

Jan. 18, 2001 - One student killed by two boys, ages 17 and 19. - Jan, Sweden.

April 26, 2002 - 13 teachers, two students and one policeman killed, ten wounded by Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, at the Johann Gutenberg secondary school. Steinhaeuser then killed himself. - Erfurt, Germany.

April 29, 2002 - One teacher killed, one wounded by Dragoslav Petkovic, 17, who then killed himself. - Vlasenica, Bosnia-Herzegovnia.

Sept. 28, 2004 - Three students killed, 6 wounded by a 15-year-old Argentinian student in a town 620 miles south of Buenos Aires. - Carmen de Patagones, Argentina.

It is a more common problem here, a bi-product of lax parenting by the generation before us, but that's not to say it doesn't happen in countries which pride themsleves on peacefulness and blahdy blah.