Hey Gun Nuts and "MORE GUNS IS THE ANSWER" crowd, chew on these stats:

the supreme court has always construed the second amendment as a collective right, not an individual right. a well regulated militia, not an individual right to bear arms. so, no, you do not have the latter right. and you can look up a 1995 refereed study available on google where right to carry laws were followed by small increases in crime even though relatively small numbers of people got guns that way. as for criminals getting the guns anyway, they get them primarily by buying stolen guns. stolen from legal gun owners. you could do a lot to reduce that supply. and the u.s. owns nearly twice as many guns per capita as virtually any other country.

Pamela Andersons Left Nipple wrote:

Hey, NRA, I read your post, and came to this glorious conclusion: Thanks to our founding fathers, who came to the conclusion that the second most important right we have after our freedom of speech, is the right to own a gun. Thanks to this decision, normal everyday citizens were effective in eliminating 143 scumbags from the gene pool.

And my conclusion is: thanks to your and othe governing bodies INTERPRETATION of the 2nd amendment, 10,000's die needlessly each year. Hmmm....10,000's vs 143. Yup, your interpretation is working out for us!

(oh, and by the way, the odds of being killed by some random killer you didn't know is incredibly rare. So it IS a fantasy that there is a decent chance that having a gun around will make you safer against some imaginary attacker. But the reality is: that gun WILL make it more likely that you or your family will be involved in a shooting accident, suicide, or deadly domestic dispute you will regret. SO.....have fun with your gun. The odds are about 1 in a million it will protect you from some murderous maniac, and a lot smaller odds that it will cause you or someone you know some harm. Hey, but if it makes you feel tough, great).

Look in the mirror wrote:

You are afraid of guns, according to Freud, because you are impotent and unable to come to grips with it. (No pun intended) Look who's talking about fantasy.

I'm going for a run now, just to get this thread on topic.

Actually, quite the opposite. It is well known that those that are weak physcially and have a small penis or a penis that doens't work need to compensate for their weakness with a large phallic symbol, such as a gun. If you can't climax, at least your gun can, and you feel validated. And if you can't defend yourself with your own arms and legs, you need a weapon. Truly, truly sad. Not surprising that many emasculated runners like guns on here.

Davy Effing Crockett wrote:

So I will ask a simple question:

Hypothetically, you are a rapist or a burglar.

Option 1: Would you break into a house in a city where all guns were banned?

Option 2: Or would you rather break into a house where there was the possibility that you would find yourself staring down a shotgun?

Hmmm...where are more of these types of crimes are committed ? In cities where lots of people have guns, or in the suburbs, where less people do? In the hood, where you have lots of gangs with guns, do they say: "oh oh, those other gangs have guns, we better not attack them. No lets go into the burbs, and purposely target some liberals who don't like guns and who are likely unarmed" ?? Think about. Crazy violent criminals target who they are angry at first, or secondly, the person they see first. They don't spend a lot of time figuring out who might have a gun or not. And this is america, so they assume everyone is packing. And it doesn't stop them from committing crimes. For them, guns are a deterrent like the death penalty is a detterent....they aren't.

Letter I wrote to and published by my (British) newspaper.

Make of it what you will:

Sir - The figures Trevor Rigg cites are for homicides by all methods, not firearms alone. Worldwide, there is no correlation between firearms availability and homicide rates.

Ukraine has almost total gun control, but the murder rate there is twice that of America. Mexico has more restrictive gun laws than the United States, but its murder rate is nearly three times as high. Switzerland, where every household has an army rifle, has a murder rate one third lower than that of Britain.

The seventh United Nations survey of crime trends puts the world population-weighted murder rate at 100 per million, making America and Britain well below average.

Murder rates are cultural. America's murder rate is higher than Britain's because, despite recent immigration into Britain, it has many more diverse sub-cultures, including some that accept and even glorify violence. Southern "death before dishonour" boys and urban drug cultures are two examples, with homicide rates resembling war zones.

By contrast, the New England descendants of English emigrants, whose culture is closest to the mother country, settle their differences at law and have homicide rates quite similar to those seen in Britain.

guns rule wrote:

More gun control now than in the history of the country. That's done a whole lot to stop gun crimes too, eh?

"more gun control" than ever before still means virtually none. That's like a 1000 lb man who used to weigh 1050 lbs saying: "I weigh less than I have in 20 years, and I am still not healthier, what gives??"

Next.

kaitainen wrote:

the "arguments" on this thread are so unbelievably bad. the OP puts up a stat about the number of times a gun was used to kill an attacked. how relevant is that? it's moronic. the relevant stat would be the number of times that a gun deterred a crime. the hypothetical deterrence factor of a victim potentially having a gun is pretty much impossible to measure, so i understand excluding that. but excluding shots that hit but didn't kill an assailant and deterrence via .

I tend to respect your viewpoints, and I agree, the stat comparison was not the best possible one. BUT.....you did miss one part of the equation. The author was discussing the possibiliy of stopping the rampage we saw the other day. The only way to stop that one was to shoot the guy dead. Waving a gun at him or missing him with a shot would not have done shit. And the gun crowd was saying that if students or teachers were armed, they could have gunned this nut down. The author was countering with the fact that amoutn of time where such an event like that occured, a violent attacker was actually shot dead by a civilian, are extremely low. The point being: it is very unlikely a gun owner will gun down a violent criminal to protect themselves or others, despite the millions and millions of guns in this country. And also despite, AND because of, the miilions and millions of guns in this country, there are 100,000+ violent crimes commmited with guns.

In short, guns do a fantastic job at helping criminals kill people, and commit other crimes, and are involved in tons of suicides and accidents, but rarely does one gun down a violent criminal like the one that went nuts the othe day.

How many times has a gun protected someone? Sure, we don't know. But it appears to me it's like fighting fire with fire. Despite the fact that people like that expression, think of it in another way. It could mean: ' we need fire around, to fight the fire that is engulfing us. If we didn't have fire, we would be burned alive by that fire that we need to have around to fight the fire that kills us.' What?!?! Exactly. Fire(guns) are the problem. Why defend yourself with something that is the PROBLEM in the first place.

No to 2012 wrote:

Ukraine has almost total gun control, but the murder rate there is twice that of America. Mexico has more restrictive gun laws than the United States, but its murder rate is nearly three times as high. .......

The seventh United Nations survey of crime trends puts the world population-weighted murder rate at 100 per million, making America and Britain well below average.

HA HA...you're funny. So the US should want to compare itself to MEXICO and the UKRAINE?!?! HA HA HA excellent. If tomorrow guns were outlawed in Iraq, and the crime there was still higher than in the USA, would you cite that too??

I hope the USA could do much, much better than Mexico and Ukraine when it comes to being civilized and having its laws enforced if it were to pass such laws.

And then you put "America and Britain" in the same sentence when discussing murder rates?? Might as well put Liechtenstein and Canada in the same sentence when discussing land mass/area.

agreed, the deterrent argument is asinine.

I believe Glasgow is called "the most dangerous city in Europe".

Japan has VERY restrictive laws, yet the Mayor of Nagasaki was just shot to death.

Germany had an 18-death school shooting.

The Swiss Parliament was shot up last year.

I could go on, but it would be a wasted effort.

In the words of Vice-President Dick Cheney: go f*** yourself.

NRA wrote:

Look in the mirror wrote:

You are afraid of guns, according to Freud, because you are impotent and unable to come to grips with it. (No pun intended) Look who's talking about fantasy.

I'm going for a run now, just to get this thread on topic.

Actually, quite the opposite. It is well known that those that are weak physcially and have a small penis or a penis that doens't work need to compensate for their weakness with a large phallic symbol, such as a gun. If you can't climax, at least your gun can, and you feel validated. And if you can't defend yourself with your own arms and legs, you need a weapon. Truly, truly sad. Not surprising that many emasculated runners like guns on here.

I'll stop advocating the right to own a gun when people like you explain to me how to stop an armed attacker with my penis. Apparently you've figured it out.

No wrote:

I believe Glasgow is called "the most dangerous city in Europe".

Japan has VERY restrictive laws, yet the Mayor of Nagasaki was just shot to death.

Germany had an 18-death school shooting.

The Swiss Parliament was shot up last year.

I could go on, but it would be a wasted effort.

In the words of Vice-President Dick Cheney: go f*** yourself.

Those were just isolated incidents. That type of stuff happens in the U.S. all the time.

The U.S., by far, has the most gun deaths per capita out of any wealthy nation, with 5 to 6 times as many gun deaths per capita than most European nations.

No wrote:

I believe Glasgow is called "the most dangerous city in Europe".

Japan has VERY restrictive laws, yet the Mayor of Nagasaki was just shot to death.

Germany had an 18-death school shooting.

The Swiss Parliament was shot up last year.

I could go on, but it would be a wasted effort.

In the words of Vice-President Dick Cheney: go f*** yourself.

Those were just isolated incidents. That type of stuff happens in the U.S. all the time.

The U.S., by far, has the most gun deaths per capita out of any wealthy nation, with 5 to 6 times as many gun deaths per capita than most European nations.

Your statement below is incorrect. In fact the most recent ruling by the court, in overturning the DC gun ban (and that is a fine example of how banning guns does not reduce gun crime) specifically says that gun ownership is an individual right.

jonesy wrote:

the supreme court has always construed the second amendment as a collective right, not an individual right. a well regulated militia, not an individual right to bear arms. so, no, you do not have the latter right. and you can look up a 1995 refereed study available on google where right to carry laws were followed by small increases in crime even though relatively small numbers of people got guns that way. as for criminals getting the guns anyway, they get them primarily by buying stolen guns. stolen from legal gun owners. you could do a lot to reduce that supply. and the u.s. owns nearly twice as many guns per capita as virtually any other country.

Your statement below is incorrect. In fact the most recent ruling by the court, in overturning the DC gun ban (and that is a fine example of how banning guns does not reduce gun crime) specifically says that gun ownership is an individual right.

jonesy wrote:

the supreme court has always construed the second amendment as a collective right, not an individual right. a well regulated militia, not an individual right to bear arms. so, no, you do not have the latter right. and you can look up a 1995 refereed study available on google where right to carry laws were followed by small increases in crime even though relatively small numbers of people got guns that way. as for criminals getting the guns anyway, they get them primarily by buying stolen guns. stolen from legal gun owners. you could do a lot to reduce that supply. and the u.s. owns nearly twice as many guns per capita as virtually any other country.

Yeah, but then those 143 civilians would be dead instead of protected. What would you rather have, the opportunity to protect yourself or instant death?

It's interesting that "Handgun Rights" advocates and "Pro Choice" proponents share a common rationale but are usually considered at OPPOSITE ENDS of the political spectrum:

"Handgun Rights" advocates usually contend that, although many needless deaths (accidental, criminal) are caused by widespread handgun ownership, the RIGHT to own a gun should be protected from violation by the government.

"Pro Choice" proponents contend that, although many needless deaths occur due to abortion, the RIGHT of a woman to control her own bodily processes should be protected from violation by the government.

Discuss.

No wrote:

Japan has VERY restrictive laws, yet the Mayor of Nagasaki was just shot to death.

That's a political murder. Surely you can understand that there isn't any correlation between the legal availability of guns to private citizens and a mayor's death.

Australia recently spend millions to confiscate all the country's legally-owned handguns. Their gun-related crime rate has skyrocketed.

Gun control laws are, for the most part, silly, because criminals don't care about them. We can barely dent the flow of drugs, what makes you think confiscating the guns of law-abiding citizens will do anything positive to the crime rate?

Take a look at the proportion of gun crimes committed with LEGALLY OWNED guns. I have never seen this data, but I'll bet that the % legally owned is in the single digits. It is becoming apparent that that VT shooter was probably violating federal law by buying a gun, but slipped through the cracks because Virginia said it was too expensive to comply with federal law by updating the mental illness database in the background check system.