Runningart2004 wrote:
Interesting comparison.
It is VERY hard to own a gun in Japan.
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Japan/United-States/CrimeYou will see this world wide. Those with tighter guns laws have less violent crime.
Alan
For the billionth time. Stop comparing homogeneous societies to the United States.
When did the Europeans turn into a bunch of *******?
They are just sitting ducks for any criminal. The bad part is that they accept that and wont put up fight.
mid D guy wrote:
Anecdotally, the first time I got really scared by a gun was in the US, when my 5-year old run towards me with a loaded gun that someone just forgot on a Starbuck chair.
That was that good guy with a gun!
Only in America this is possible.
yes use your northern neighbour for comparison purposes
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Canada/United-States/Crime
roller coaster wrote:
John Wesley Harding wrote:
It’s always seemed to me that many people, when considering gun ownership, lapse into this alternate world where bad guys are always breaking into their houses.
Well many people don't live in safe cushy suburbs.
Even people who do live in safe cushy suburbs still have a need to defend themselves. People who steal things tend to go where the good stuff is.
Runningart2004 wrote:
Interesting comparison.
It is VERY hard to own a gun in Japan.
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Japan/United-States/CrimeYou will see this world wide. Those with tighter guns laws have less violent crime.
Alan
Correlation =/= causation, genius.
trollism wrote:
In the UK, generally you only need to carry any sort of item for self-defence if you're the sort of person who deliberately puts themselves in situations where it could be required.
It's probably easy to say that as a male.
I relate to what Coevett says and I don't live in London.
It may be easy if you live in certain areas to make these statements. Do you not know places (areas people live in) where a lot of people have been either robbed, attacked?
Places vary fast from street to street. We can't talk about 'London' as a whole - how many people does it have? 10 million?
Its nuts to think people who get attacked are 'putting themselves deliberately in the situation' because a hell of a lot of those people aren't. We have no idea, Coevett could have just been walking down the street.
Living in Europe I can't imagine carrying a gun for self-defense. Here if somebody carries a gun in the streets he would be considered as a criminal or police and everybody would be be quite shocked. It is very unusual here. Naive question, but is it really the standard in the US? As a male I don't need to be afraid in basically any circumstances or location here. I imagine that it is bit different for a female and I will worry bit for my daughter once she will be alone in the streets. But I believe carrying a gun here would make it more dangerous definitely. Paprika spray or similar is more common in women' purses here and common sense, not being alone at night in empty streets, especially in areas considered more dangerous. Of course it depends on the countries and cities a bit but in general here only those have guns who consider it as kind of a hobby. And it is totally not because of the regulations really. I can't imagine any of the people I know would purchase a gun even if we would be allowed to without any hassle.
Let it Rupp wrote:
Runningart2004 wrote:
Interesting comparison.
It is VERY hard to own a gun in Japan.
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Japan/United-States/CrimeYou will see this world wide. Those with tighter guns laws have less violent crime.
Alan
Correlation =/= causation, genius.
Sure but when pretty much every country that enacts stricter gun laws sees a drop, you are getting pretty far into the causation category. Local gun control doesn't work (i.e. banning guns in say DC doesn't help when you can go into VA and buy all you want).
Of course a lot of gun laws are mainly for show. Banning AK47 looks good but doesn't do much. Sure it might help with mass murders but there just aren't enough of them to change things up. A couple hundred people out out of 15k is noise.
To some extent the american problem isn't gun ownership. It is irresponsible gun ownership. Every year legal gun owners give something like 400k guns to criminals because they refuse to store their guns in a responsible manner. There needs to be a culture shift where people realize owning a gun is a big responsibility and for them to take it seriously. I sort of doubt that will ever happen though. That just isn't fun...
Just some reasonable questions wrote:
mid D guy wrote:
Anecdotally, the first time I got really scared by a gun was in the US, when my 5-year old run towards me with a loaded gun that someone just forgot on a Starbuck chair.
That was that good guy with a gun!
Only in America this is possible.
Not a coincidence that the Nazis stripped the Jews of their guns as the first step in eventually exterminating 6 million of them.
Do not underestimate the new fascists. A full The 70% of college kids agreed with violence to prevent someone speaking who didn’t toe the fascist, leftist, Democrat line on the issues.
You Dems will have to take them forcefully from our cold, dead hands. And I know many of you plan to try.
Bela wrote:
Living in Europe I can't imagine carrying a gun for self-defense. Here if somebody carries a gun in the streets he would be considered as a criminal or police and everybody would be be quite shocked. It is very unusual here. Naive question, but is it really the standard in the US? As a male I don't need to be afraid in basically any circumstances or location here. I imagine that it is bit different for a female and I will worry bit for my daughter once she will be alone in the streets. But I believe carrying a gun here would make it more dangerous definitely. Paprika spray or similar is more common in women' purses here and common sense, not being alone at night in empty streets, especially in areas considered more dangerous. Of course it depends on the countries and cities a bit but in general here only those have guns who consider it as kind of a hobby. And it is totally not because of the regulations really. I can't imagine any of the people I know would purchase a gun even if we would be allowed to without any hassle.
No, it is definitely NOT the standard in the US. It is estimated that approximately 3 million Americans regularly carry loaded guns. That is well under 1% of the population of the US. Close to 1% if we are just talking about adults.
///////
The above presents a fact. Here, I provide a personal anecdote. I am 60 years old. In 60 years, not only have I never carried a gun on me but I have never even seen a gun in my entire life (outside of military and law enforcement).
So, don't believe the movies. They're just movies.
the media is corrupt wrote:
Just some reasonable questions wrote:
That was that good guy with a gun!
Only in America this is possible.
Not a coincidence that the Nazis stripped the Jews of their guns as the first step in eventually exterminating 6 million of them.
Do not underestimate the new fascists. A full The 70% of college kids agreed with violence to prevent someone speaking who didn’t toe the fascist, leftist, Democrat line on the issues.
You Dems will have to take them forcefully from our cold, dead hands. And I know many of you plan to try.
Actually you don't.
What you should have said (if you wanted to be honest) is "I fantasize about many of you planning on trying."
Dude - try getting out a bit. Start living in the real world. It is OK to give up your online fantasy world. It's really not that scary out here.
Of course some may have a hand gun concealed on their person but don't act like walking around you see even one more person with a firearm just sitting on their hip.
Genuinely curious, no one has mentioned tasers, are they legal in the US? Do you need a permit?
Pepper spray is pretty good too.
All that being said, never had a problem with assault, except one time while touring in Spain i noticed my friends backpack getting slowly and quietly razored open from behind. We were in a large crown watching a 3 card monte thing at a table. I yelled "Hey" really loud, not only did the razor guy take off, but so did the guy running the 3 card monte table, seems it was a double scam to also draw a crowd and rip people off when they were distracted.
^ That is really common in parts of Europe.
I read that in the US a small proportion of people have a lot of the guns - it was something like a small population who averaged around 17 each! So I would imagine that skews it a bit.
I have spent time in the USA and I did not see anyone carrying one - that does not mean they weren't carrying one of course, and the USA is huge and diverse so what is true in one area probably isn't in another.
Same thing I use when I lived in the US - my brain.
adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:
Let it Rupp wrote:
Correlation =/= causation, genius.
Sure but when pretty much every country that enacts stricter gun laws sees a drop, you are getting pretty far into the causation category. Local gun control doesn't work (i.e. banning guns in say DC doesn't help when you can go into VA and buy all you want).
Of course a lot of gun laws are mainly for show. Banning AK47 looks good but doesn't do much. Sure it might help with mass murders but there just aren't enough of them to change things up. A couple hundred people out out of 15k is noise.
To some extent the american problem isn't gun ownership. It is irresponsible gun ownership. Every year legal gun owners give something like 400k guns to criminals because they refuse to store their guns in a responsible manner. There needs to be a culture shift where people realize owning a gun is a big responsibility and for them to take it seriously. I sort of doubt that will ever happen though. That just isn't fun...
If only it were that simple, but sorry no, you can have a 1.0 correlation between two variables and they can still not be causally related. They tried the actual experiment in the UK, and just found that once guns were outlawed, assault with other weapons like knifes went up (
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53443246). So yeah, GUN crime probably went down, but crime as a whole didn't. What I would guess is that countries with enough resources to enforce strict gun regulation, such as Japan, probably have stable, civilized societies where crime-culture isn't necessary - that can't be said for many parts of the US, although the US isn't particularly high in crimes like homicide (we're ranked 94th despite being the third largest country).
Besides, the correlation between gun laws and crime levels probably aren't as high as Alan would have you believe. The country with the highest crime rate, Venezuela, outlawed guns almost a decade ago.
not your neighbor wrote:
yes use your northern neighbour for comparison purposes
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Canada/United-States/Crime
Canada has a higher homicide rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rateLet it Rupp wrote:
not your neighbor wrote:
yes use your northern neighbour for comparison purposes
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Canada/United-States/CrimeCanada has a higher homicide rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
My bad, that's actually wrong. This page lists homicide rate in a stupid way.
Let it Rupp wrote:
Let it Rupp wrote:
Canada has a higher homicide rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rateMy bad, that's actually wrong. This page lists homicide rate in a stupid way.
A semblance of common sense with a touch of understanding of reality should've been a huge red flag that such a statement is wrong.