I heard this guy on NPR at lunchtime. Interesting argument. As he put it, a mother legally can carry a handgun for protection all day long, but when she comes to campus for a night class, she can’t. After Virginia Tech, you have to wonder what would have happened there if students had been armed.
Va. Tech Killings Underscore Guns-on-Campus Campaign
Some college students are pushing for their schools to allow them to carry guns on campus.
They say they should have the right to protect themselves in the event of a shooting like the one that left 33 people dead at Virginia Tech.
Andrew Dysart, a George Mason University senior, has organized a chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.
The group hopes to convince legislators to overturn a Virginia law that allows universities to prohibit students, faculty and staff members with gun permits from carrying their weapons on campus.
Dysart says that the students at Tech should have had a chance to defend themselves.
Virginia law allows schools to decide whether to allow students with concealed-weapons permits to carry their guns on campus.
One state school, Blue Ridge Community College, does allow it. Schools cannot prohibit non-students or other outsiders from carrying weapons onto campuses if they have legal permits.
58–Putting just a bit more thought into it==what I posted is NOT a tautology, but rather an open ended question. Big difference in basic concepts, maybe that is why you don’t understand what a correlation is?
To that end, let me answer your rope tautology (there is no answer to a tautology–its circular!!). I would not outlaw rope because then red necks would have no way to hold their pants up and the sight of holier than thou red neck undies is far worse than the few death by rope cases we are experiencing. I am therefore against making rope illegal.
I could give 2-3 answers for the gun tautology as well, but I don’t want to arm the ignorant. BTW–I’ve read that more pioneers died from self inflicted gun accidents than by indians, but haven’t been able to confirm that juicy tidbit.==Same for homeowners defending against burglars, but why let facts interfere in a cherished belief system?
59 – I’ll answer it, Bobo.
No, I would not because guns are not the only cause of death.
I used a hand gun back when I was about 22 and in the prime of health to chase off a group of 12 young men closing in on me and my girl friend in an isolated area. I would not have been able to do that if I did not have a gun. I’ve used guns since then for other situations.
Now I’m a crippled up old man, and even less able to fight off a mob of teenagers intent on robbing me, or “just having fun”.
The problem is not how many guns there are. The problem is who does not have a gun when he or she needs one.
Current gun laws are absurd. Let’s prohibit those that abide the law to defend themselves from those that don’t. Sound logic, no?
62–I accept that as an honest answer and yes there will always be cases of unique circumstances when having a gun if helpful, as can be owning a cannon, or having a stick of dynamite, or in having piranha in your swimming pool insurance.
But the relevant question is NOT how are you better off in a SPECIFIC circumstance, but rather how are your better off OVERALL! There we have the general correlation that the number of murders goes up with the numbers of guns. Is this clarification that hard to grasp?
Silly arguments ppl.
I’m sure once our constitutional right to bear arms has been fully rescinded and only the police, military and government funded mercenaries have guns we’ll all be perfectly safe.
Hmmm, why did the second amendment ensure a right to bear arms anyway. Ah who cares, Chuck Norris is on TV.
65—“in order to maintain a well regulated militia” is the express reason for the second amendment.
>>There we have the general correlation that the number of
>>murders goes up with the numbers of guns. Is this
>>clarification that hard to grasp?
No, but it would clarify things greatly (again!) if you would break that down by “criminals who have guns” vs. “law-abiding citizens who have guns”.
Most states that have reasonable concealed-carry laws also have the lowest crime rates. cf Vermont.
Interesting, how the imperative for handgun and SUV ownership, coincide. Get them, before they get you.
Its funny,
My friend asked me if he could get me a gun, and asked what i would like…
I told him, a 410 derringer.
This, somewhat confused him, and it took me over 1 year to show and explain it to him.
SHORT range…
NO aiming…
Anything past 20 yards wont be hurt or probably even HIT.
ANd NOTHING wants to be infront of it….PERIOD.
And Looking at the barrel from the front, would intimidate ANYONE.
And what are the Odds that the person with a gun, KNOWS how to even use it. NOT very high. they go out and fire it 1-2 times and then just Carry it or leave it at home. They dont LEARN how to be a target shooter, or HOW to hit anything past 20 feet away.
67–M Mustard==well, you have me there. I don’t have any statistics to show that the Vermont exception if applied across the GOUSA would not win out. In fact, Switzerland shows that it might? Course, lots of differences between Vermont and the rest of the GOUSA, but who knows which of the many combinations of factors could prove determinative?
What is the Vermont statistic compared to GOUSA, Japan, England etc? Do such facts matter when people cant answer the question at 58 even though 2-3 tried?
Let the blood bath continue. FREEDOM has its downside afterall!
Why do I carry a gun? Because a cop is too heavy. I carry a gun on campus, at work, in my car, and anywhere there’s not a metal detector to expose the fact. And I’ve been doing this for 35 years. “…the Right of the People to Keep and Bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436: “Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation, which would abrogate them.”
“Permit? We don’ need no steenkin’ permit!”
Why?
Murdock v. Penn., 319 US 105: “No state shall convert a liberty into a privilege, license it, and attach a fee to it.”
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 373 US 262: “If the state converts a liberty into a privilege, the citizen can engage in the right with impunity.”
Finally: “Better judged by 12 than carried by six.”
Stay safe. Get a gun. Learn how to use it. Don’t leave home without it.
That last part is more than a little scary: “Schools cannot prohibit non-students or other outsiders from carrying weapons onto campuses if they have legal permits.” So they’re sitting ducks for some redneck who wants to teach his ex-GF a lesson.
A short list of collective delusions:
• Guns are more dangerous than deranged people.
• Prohibition of anything has ever once worked in the history of the world.
• When you write a rule, that means that behavior won’t exist anymore.
* Nonlethal weapons are just as effective as lethal ones at scaring people off who only care for themselves
• Killing someone without a gun is difficult.
*Guns per capita and gun deaths are absolutely correlated. Thus, Switzerland has more murders than Iraq.
• My circular tautology proves you are irrational.
I feel the need to address this one directly, though:
“#37 This is a laugh. Those kids at VT were so terrified, they wouldn’t have been able to shoot back even if they had Uzis. ”
Setting aside the ample evidence that some people did fight back, and in one case heroically gave his life to delay the attacker and save lives, lets accept this as true. Does that mean that scared rape victims are at fault for their suffering? Perhaps that a bicyclist who reacts improperly when the drunk driver is barreling at them is at fault as well? Or perhaps that the Jew and the Gypsy who died in the concentration camp is to blame for their deaths for not trying to throttle the camp guard? I am forced to conclude that you are, sadly, a monster with no empathy at all.
“#37 It would have taken a few of them, even unarmed, to over power the shooter while he was reloading if they had worked up the balls”
The reason a soldier carries two guns is that one can always be loaded while the other is being reloaded. The murderer had two guns, so were you in the classroom there would be no real chance to show your balls, though it’s hard not to show your ass when you’re wearing it as a hat.
The key to the high violence in the USA is not too little prohibition, it is too much. Coors and Miller aren’t shooting it out on the street corner anymore, but Al Capone and his competitors certainly were. Canada is the exception that proves this; their prohibitions are more flattery to their neighbor than any deeply held conviction, and thus the priority is much less. That, and they are generally friendly, kind people who mean no harm. Thus, lots of guns, little gun violence.
#61
Your posts in previous threads are generally well presented but I think you are bit off on this one. Your open ended question is by its very construction is designed to be true no matter the opinion. Making automobiles illegal will clearly lower the death rate from automobiles. Making peanut butter illegal will clearly lower the death rate from peanut butter. Making anything illegal will presumably lower the death rate from that thing but not necessarily lower the death rate overall. The problem is the way you are asking the question. Instead of asking the question “Will making X illegal lower the death rate from X” you should be asking “Will making X lower the death rate at all?” While you might reduce death from one cause by making guns illegal, you may likely increase the death rate from other forms.
Presuming this is the point you are attempting to make, I would say that making guns illegal will not lower the *crime* rate overall. First, violent crime and gang violence will increase as the criminals find ways of acquiring weapons that the populace does not. This type of thing is happening in England. Second, there will always be deaths due to mistaken use of guns. However, the question we should ask is whether that risk is worth the cost of incidents like those at Virginia Tech where the death toll was substantially worse due to lack of guns.
As I stated earlier, if you believe that the death toll would have been substantially less if the other 32 people shot at Virginia Tech had been plain clothed, armed police officiers, then the only argument against students carrying weapons is training. At the end of the day, if everyone has guns or no one has guns we are ok. The problem we have is when *some* people have guns. Since there is no effective way of disarming everyone and there are good reasons agaainst such an idea, I would argue that having better training and more ownership is better.
Let me try this again but from a different angle.
10 INPUT “Will disarming the legally armed population stop gun violence”; A$
20 IF (A$ = “Yes”) OR (A$ = “yes”) OR (A$ = “Y”) OR (A$ = “y”) THEN GOTO 50
30 IF (A$ = “No”) OR (A$ = “no”) OR (A$ = “N”) OR (A$ = “n”) THEN GOTO 60
40 GOTO 10
50 PRINT “So how is it people managed to kill one another before guns were invented?”; GOTO 10
60 PRINT “Then stop hassling the legal gun owners please.”
70 REM for those who didnt understand the Rhetorical simple English version 1.0
If you’re gonna arm one idiot…. you better arm them all.
74–Thomas==even after I pointedly tried to inflame you, you respond reasonably??? Strange. Calm, rationale, and completely wrong.
You simply are not responding to what I said. Evidently, you have accepted that what I posted was not a tautology, so I will give it another go–to explain what was clearly stated.
I asked at #53 “IF making guns illegal would (eventually) lower the death rate from guns, would you outlaw them?” That is open ended and as such cannot be “constructed” to arrive at a given answer one way or the other. You can answer it yes or no according to your values just as I did with your rope analogy. Pretty clear here. How you object on the grounds you list is just beyond me. You read the words but are reacting to a different idea than what is contained in the words used. Read until you see this or post specifically and I can give it another go.
ALERT- – – ALERT- – – maybe I have your error. You assume that making guns illegal will infact get rid of the guns? I don’t assume that as one of the main arguments against making guns illegal is that in such cases only criminals will have guns. So, that is why I said “eventually.” That could explain your response, but you may be thinking something else? So, yes, if guns did not exist, people would not die from guns. But I didn’t say that, I said only “making guns illegal.” But even that does not answer the question–as I stated, it can be answered yes or no.
Now you move on to again a different issue–that even if guns “did not exist” that would not affect the “overall” death rate? Thats rather fanciful isn’t it?? Violent crime in society is not like water seeking its own natural balance. Each cause of murder can be looked on for its own causation and effect. Lets keep our feet on the ground?
As to the Virginia incident==yes, a competent shooter with a gun could have prevented many of those deaths. But that is true for any specific instance of justification and is therefore meaningless. MEANINGLESS, except as it adds to the totals and that goes to the general correlation. When guns are generally available as you promote, the statistics are that murder by guns is more likely. You just have to assume a whole lot more variables for that general truth not to be demonstrated. Now Mr Mustard and I think you as well, point to the low murder rate in Vermont with a concealed weapons program. I notice that the murder by guns figures are all uniformly lower in the sparsely inhabited states. Murder seems to correlate in GOUSA with population density rather than right to carry—but I am just guessing. Too many factors.
Still, the logic is pretty simple. Guns kill people, making them less available would get fewer people killed. More than just assuming this logic away has to be presented–especially when the statistics prove this out.
>> Guns kill people, making them less available would get fewer people
>> killed. More than just assuming this logic away has to be
>> presented–especially when the statistics prove this out.
Do statistics prove this?
Why was Washington D.C. — a city that had among the strictest gun laws in the nation — also the murder capital of the nation in the 1990’s?
78–Can you read? Making guns illegal does not automatically make them less available.
Logic vs Assumption
1. Make guns illegal – We’ll have less guns.
True. However the ‘ratio’ of guns will tip drastically in favor of criminals. The ‘honest’ citizen who follows the law will give up or not obtain new guns illegally. The criminal who would use a gun in a robbery or murder doesn’t care that the gun is illegal and will continue to obtain guns. Just like making drugs illegal never in our history stopped the flow of drugs, making guns illegal doesn’t keep them out of the hands of criminals, just honest citizens.
2. Make guns more ‘legally’ available and there will be shoot outs in the street. Every argument and disagreement will be solved with gun fights.
This didn’t even happen in the “old west” (outside of the movies) and has never been true of the states/cities with the most liberal gun laws. Seattle has VASTLY more liberal gun laws (easy to obtain carry permits and handguns are legal) yet vastly less shootouts than DC (per citizen). So it’s city/economic issues, not gun availability that lead to shootings. It’s the same logic that didn’t work with prohibition. They argued that once you make alcohol legal, every mom & dad would stay home and get drunk all day just ‘because they could’. Didn’t happen. Peoples actions are dependent on their up bringing and social tendencies, not the laws of the moment.
Murder can be broken down into three components: desire, ability and feasibility. A society’s aggregate desire to commit murder depends on social factors, but its ability and feasibility to commit murder are heightened by widespread gun availability. Indeed, most studies find a clear correlation between the murder rate and gun ownership, especially handgun ownership. Most gun owners claim they buy guns for protection, but it appears that the problem (murder) and the solution (gun deterrence) are one and the same: 70 percent of all murders are committed with guns.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-gunownership.htm
Let’s step back for a moment because you have changed the manner in which you have presented your arguments
In #45 you posited: “Isn’t there a direct, albeit not perfect, positive correlation between number of guns in a society and death by guns?”. That statement is self-evident. There will always be a correlation because you are formally making the correlation in the design of the statement. We can substitute any object for guns in your #45 statement and result in a correlation. “Is there a correlation between leprechauns and death by leprechauns.” Since the later is dependent on the former there will always be a correlation.
In #53, you asked a different question, “If making guns illegal would (eventually) lower the death rate from guns, would you outlaw them?” It is true this statement is more open ended but only because it deviously omits key details: All guns from all people? All types of guns? Death from any type of gun incident including military or law enforcement? In addition, can you think of an example where possession of an object was made illegal and the stated death rate by that thing was not reduced in the short run? Is reduced death rate caused by one particular type of weapon really the ultimate goal? Should not reduction of the overall death rate be the ultimate goal?
It should also be noted that making anything illegal can be argued to reduce the death rate caused by that thing because it is difficult to determine the death rate in the polar opposite case. Many provide Switzerland as an example high gun ownership and low death by guns but it is difficult to compare that situation to the US because of substantial cultural and geopolitical differences. In fact Switzerland presents an interesting counter question to #53: If both requiring the populace to carry firearms as well as substantially increasing the level of training required would lower the death rate from guns would you not require it?”
In #77 you concede that outlawing guns will not eliminate them that begs the question of whom would be left to possess them? Clearly it would not be law abiding citizens by definition. That would presumably leave law enforcement, the military and criminals as the sole possessors of guns leaving the populace essentially defenseless. Law enforcement personnel will tell you that it is impossible to protect everyone or even be proactive in most cases. That means law enforcement is generally reactive. After you have been mugged, you can go to the police. After a woman has been raped, she can go to the police. This solution is frankly insufficient because it does nothing to prevent the crime in the first place.
> As to the Virginia incident==yes, a competent
> shooter with a gun could have prevented many of those deaths.
This is in fact the crux of the issue. If 32 reasonable trained and armed shooters would have made a difference then clearly the issue is only one of training. Reasonably trained means they do not need to be Billy the Kid or able to shoot a fly at 1000 yards. People with good training in firearm handling, care and general marksmanship in which they were tested at regular intervals would have been sufficient to substantially limit the death toll at Virginia Tech. If you accept that premise, then you are accepting that outlawing guns is not the solution to a lower death toll but rather improved training.
The logic of “Guns kill people” is insufficient. Similar counter examples of the same logic can be used “Automobiles kill people”, “Hammers kill people”, “Unsanitary hands kill people”, “Sex kills people.” It presumes that guns somehow entice people to kill other people which is entirely specious. There is no way to establish that people that died from gunfire would not have died from some other weapon were guns made illegal. Guns are inanimate objects that cannot kill without the actions of a human (See the “Riddle of Steel” ;->). If the goal is reduced death rate, IMO the best solution is mandated gun training, looser carrying restrictions and stiffer penalties for abuse.
You’re grasping at straws here, bobbo. From elsewhere in the link you quoted (which you failed to enclose in quotation marks, making it look like they were your own thoughts, which would have been SHOCKING):
>>But most damagingly, the FBI deems only 1 percent of all
>>murders to be “justifiable homicides” using a firearm.
Perhaps that’s because the goal of law-abiding citizens owning guns is not to have non-stop shootouts at the O.K. Corral; it’s so that potential violent criminals will wonder if their potential victim is carrying the same kind of firepower that THEY are, and think twice about opening fire.
I know that if I were an armed robber, I’d think twice about threatening gunplay in a town where any victim might be packing a .44 magnum. I’d move right along to the places with strict restrictions on (or prohibition of) civilian gun ownership. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
Hmm..apparently my line breaks got zapped. My apologies…
[Fixed – ed.]
@Bobbo #79
>Can you read? Making guns illegal does not automatically make
>them less available.
Well, it certainly makes them less available among law abiding citizens, who then become easy targets as illustrated by the “guns are illegal + highest murder rate in the nation” city of Washington D.C. in the 1990’s.
I’m not saying I have any answers and I get the point that you hate guns, I don’t like them either.
But it’s not like they will be un-invented and making them illegal does not seem to work well.
I worry more about kids who are killed due to lack of gun safety on the behalf of the parents who don’t keep them secured/locked away.
Conceal carry came to my state a few years and there was no rise in gun violence, although I recall being worried about that possibility at the time.
As far as I can tell, the main reason for the existence of guns is to keep the government honest. To some this sounds far-fetched, but the logic of it is fascinating.
The government has to take great precautions and expense to arrest or take away property from citizens due to firearms. If citizens do not have firearms, the precaution and expense is greatly reduced. Because the government does not know who is armed and who is not, they must assume everyone is armed — conferring the benefits to non-gun owners.
In police state nations, guns are illegal and the expenses/difficulty of human rights violations are far lower, which makes human rights violations economical and indirectly encourages it.
Well folks–I have to admit you are up to the mark in this discussion. I’m too tired to give justice to any response tonight==but I’ll be happy to resume after a good nights sleep and time to ponder.
None of you refutes the notion of the positive correlation==the more guns in society, the more death by guns there is. But your solution is not to ban/decrease/regulate firearms but rather to provide more of them or to allow them to be concealed?
Funny, when the issue is death from malaria containing moisquitos, everyone can agree that less moisquitos is a good idea. Why are guns any different?
The Fault does not come from Guns…
It comes from being able to monitor your children, and TEACHERS being able to control situations or being able to identify someone WITh a problem.
If you look at the stats, HOW MANY murders in colleges, and how many DUE to guns and HAPPEN in schools.
YOU cant make me THINK that a single income family….A FAMILY that can survive on 1 INCOME, and having someone AT HOME to help the children, help monitor finances, Food, and so forth, COULDNT of helped this problem or ANY of the school shootings…
Our society is becoming ALIEN unto itself…
MOSt of us dont even KNOw who our neighbors are, or even talk to them. dont party, and have over for a barBQue… You dont even know their religion… We dont socialize with them…
For you OLDEr folks, do you remmeber the OLDEN times, and knowing MOSt of the people in the area?? By FACE if not name.
I could go on about this, but THINK about it.
Gee 88 comments…obviously this is a tough issue to address.
If everyone gets armed wouldn’t this be a return to the Wild West?
Remove the cause – guns. The problem is any positive results will not be seen for a long time – 50 ~ 100 years. So this will never happen, and that’s to bad for our children and theirs.
Cheers
>That last part is more than a little scary: “Schools cannot prohibit >non-students or other outsiders from carrying weapons onto >campuses if they have legal permits.” So they’re sitting ducks for >some redneck who wants to teach his ex-GF a lesson.
Perhaps the ex-GF should learn to defend herself instead of leaving it to the State.
My sisters have all carried a .380 in their purses since they were 17 years old (the oldest is 40 now). Their boyfriends knew it. They were caught a few times by the local police but were let go. My sisters are extremely good looking and the cops figured they probably needed the extra protection.
I would have felt sorry for some redneck trying to teach one of them a lesson because she would have stitched her initials in his chest with it.
My dad made sure we all knew how to handle and respect weapons.
Heres a positive correlation for you: The more people born each year, the more people die approximately 70 years later.
Clearly banning human procreation is the solution to the death problem.
Hopefully that puts the correlation business to bed.
What do guns really do? They allow weak people to kill strong people more easily. Sounds like the tools of emancipation to me.
Would you anti-gun types prefer a return to medieval weapons only? Would that stop violent death and crime?
I didn’t think so either.