Guns...for or against???

[McPants]

Guns? Against, against, a million times against. But you all knew that.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

I mean, just playing devils advocate. Cars kill more people than guns. So do medical errors for that matter.

I'm not saying a gun is the only way to teach responsibility but I do think it can be one tool to teach responsibility about the powers that modern inventions can have. Lots of "tools", including guns have the possibility of doing great harm if you use them recklessly.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Does Kim Jong Il have to take gun safety?

No but seriously, like I said, it's one way to teach responsibility. There are myriad other ways (obviously) but from what I've seen, if taught responsibly, there's no reason not to allow it.

A motorcycle or dirt bike is another way that I would never allow because I think they're dangeous. I know many, many people disagree with me on that and enjoy them safely and responsibly.

I think it's about being able to make the right choice for your family and I think people should have that option.

[Rapunzel]

OK, I'll post something :

While there is a component of individual safety involved with gun ownership, the Second Ammendment is really established to provide a check on the government should it turn on the People. If you examine the pattern of tyrants and despots - they tend to ban guns in the general population at the start of power. Why? Because then they don't have any armed "insurgency" to counter what their military is commanded to do.

It's something that has a very sound basis in the entire history of mankind. And, it's quite obvious today that an unarmed population is a relatively harmless one for a dictator or oligarchy to overcome.

Beyond that...there was this poster that went by the name "Hernandez" on www.studentdoctor.net who had a number of insightful, factual posts covering the studies showing the large amount of crime legally-purchased guns actually inhibit. I haven't been on there in a very long time - but maybe I'll go there tomorrow and try to dig those posts up if I have time.

[McPants]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ted_death_rate

[Ladybug]

OK, I'll post something :

LOL! I can't believe you made it that long.

I love venison and dove so I'm all for responsible hunting. And if we ever moved out to the country, removed from civilization, I would buy a shotgun gun and learn how to shoot it for mountain lions, wolves, etc. I'd want to be able to scare them away without having to get up close. Of course locks and gun safety would be a priority.

[rainbabies]

Annie, get your gun!! LOL!!

Jennifer...you really bit your tongue for a long time. LOL

[Laker]

In all earnesty, I still am trying to noodle out WHY anyone would have a gun - particularly anyone with kids. If the argument is that, in case of home invasion, you would be able to protect yourself, do you really think you'll have enough time to get to your safe, put in the combo, get out the gun, load it, and THEN meet your attacker? I just don't feel like the timeframe allows for that.

you can buy a handgun safe that bolts to the nightstand, that recognizes your palm print and opens the door so you can access the gun very quickly...if it is in the safe and kept loaded, it can be used in an instant. not that i plan on doing this, but the technology is available.

In the class I took, they sited some interesting stats. One was that 86% of attackers are on drugs, meaning tazers and chemical sprays will have little effect. They also recommend certain calibers of pistols for defense.

[DCJenn]

Actually tasers + drugs can be a very lethal combination. Bad stuff happens.

Jenn

[Rapunzel]

I haven't read any messages after my last one. Sorry!

So, I dipped my feet into the SDN cesspool ( ) and found the following I had been searching for:

Gun crime has doubled in Britain since they (guns) were banned:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2317307.ece

The following is a completely footnoted (ie all studies are cited at the end of the page) "fact sheet I found:


http://gunowners.org/sk0802.htm


And, there's this:
"In 2005 there were 2,857 firearm related deaths of children in the U.S. But, that number includes ALL firearm related deaths in children less than the age of 19. Per the national center for health statistics, there were 202 firearm related ACCIDENTS in 2005, and this is a typical years worth of numbers, the rest of the [2,655] were the result of suicides and homicides. And, considering the vast majority of the homicides are in the 16-18 range, you can easily account for this number by gang/drug activity." (Hernandez in the following thread: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/show...t=crime&page=3 ). The data can be found here: http://www.nsc.org/weekly_articles/guns_and_kids.aspx
Additional data on risks of dying from accidental firearm discharge (entire population) can be found here: http://www.nsc.org/research/odds.aspx


On the low end of the estimations regarding the number of times firearms are used in self-defense in the U.S.:

http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/165476.txt

Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense with a firearm every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America"—a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.3

italics added


There is the following document that uses reality to debunk a lot of false ideology:
http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-fa...5.1-screen.pdf

Now, here is a site that attempts to debunk the current accepted firearm statistics:

http://www.guninformation.org/

And, here is an excellent rebuttal of that rebuttal:

MYTH: The crime rate has been skyrocketing in the UK and Australia since stricter gun control laws were enacted in 1996-1997
- not only did they change the way they track crimes, but the UK flat out manipulates their data to begin with. For instance, if you have a single person murder 3 people, they only count this as 1 homicide. And if they have a murder which goes unsolved, they do not count this data as well. So they grossly underreport their data.

MYTH: Keeping guns in the home increases personal protection.

God, I can't believe people still quote Kellermann. This is a classic example of bias, just look at Kellermann's track record, not to mention this particular study is gifted with an abundance of selection data. If Kellermann's hypothesis were correct, then countries like Japan would have very low suicide rates, which is clearly not the case.

MYTH:"Guns don't kill, people kill people" is a good argument against gun control.

Yet the CDC's research into all the data on whether gun control has any impact on violence shows no data which supports they hypothesis that gun control equals crime control. so if you can show a repeatable data source which shows a clear benefit in preventing crime with firearms(discussed in next point.), why ban them? refers to: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a1.htm

MYTH: Guns are used defensively 2.5 million times each year in the US

Their rebuttal is actually quite weak and does not account for limitations in the study they cite. They point to Gleck's study as if it were done in isolation, and it hasn't been. In fact, there have been 13 studies looking at this since 1976 which have data that places the Defensive gun uses in the range of 800,000 to 3.5 million per year. The biggest limitation to the study which your site links is that it is based off data collected from the police while gleck and others have shown in a convincing manner that many of these Defensive gun uses go unreported to the authorities. Anecdotally if you find the account I've given about when I pulled my handgun to prevent a crime, I called 911, but I did not tell them that I pulled my gun and they never followed up with me after I made the call. refers to: http://www.guncite.com/kleckandgertztable1.html


MYTH: A decrease in crime in Kennesaw, Georgia after it passed a law which required people to keep a firearm in their homes shows that guns reduce crime.

I'll cede that this point is nothing but pandering and not a legitimate point.

MYTH: The 1976 handgun ban in Washington D.C. caused an increase in crime.

Myth my ass. search for my post where I correlated these trends with population size decreases in D.C., any idiot who says handgun crime went down is blinded by pure faith in gun control. In fact, here is the link where I show the absolute number of homicides and just a little further down I give the numbers so you can do the per capita rates yourself

Not only that, but someone else pointed out on another site, they honestly expect that this ban created that instantaneous of a improvement in crime? who are they kidding? firearms are durable commodities which don't just break down and get thrown out with the old eggs, hell, I've got a handgun which is 60 years old, a shotgun which is almost 120 years old and a .22 rifle which is 90 years old. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/show...50&postcount=6 and http://forums.studentdoctor.net/show...3&postcount=11 have numbers cited

MYTH: If you outlaw guns only the outlaws will have guns.

Yet they do not provide any data which shows a decrease in firearm possession by criminals. The UKs data clearly shows an increase in crimes carried out with firearms by criminals, and their news loves to make a huge stink about how bad it is, to the point where they have banned toy guns, deactivated guns, and are talking about banning knives.

-again using Hernandez because the guy has really researched the crap out of this subject (see thread:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/show...=608768&page=4 )


Another bit of interesting information (which you attorneys here can verify for me) is the following list of legal cases which have been perported to release police from legal liability in pre-emptively protecting you (ie citizens):

South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. (18 How) 396, 15 L.Ed. 433 (1856)
Riss v. City of New York, 293 N.Y.Supp.2d 897, 22 N.Y.2d 579 (1968)
Keane v. City of Chicago 98 Ill App.2d 460 (1968)
Hartzler v. City of San Jose, 46 Cal.App.3d 6, 120 Cal.Rptr 5 (1975)
Reiff v. City of Philadelphia, 471 F. Supp. 1262 E.D.Pa. (1979)
Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. 444 A.2d 1 (D.C.App. 1981)
Bowers v. DeVito, U.S.Ct.Ap. 7th Cir. 686 F.2d 616 (1982)
Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C.App. 1983)
Lynch v. N. C. Dept. of Justice, 376 S.E.2nd 247 (N.C.App. 1989)
Marshall v. Winston, 389 S.E.2nd 902 (Va. 1990)


THe following recent (as in the last few months) editorial goes into some of the issues and arguments surrounding Nancy Pelosi's gun registration idea: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-registered39/


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OK, here's my own words on the issue: Factually-speaking guns kill very, very few children every year. And, of those killed from firearms (2000+) 10% (ie 200+) were resulting from accidental discharge. The National Safety Council's own data states you have less than a 1/300,000 chance of dying from a firearm accidentally discharged.

[Rapunzel]

And, beyond that I'm just honestly all "debated out" on this particular issue. A majority of those who respond on the Debates forum agree on the issue of guns (and, disagree with myself) and it's just not worth further time on my part. Sorry.

Actually tasers + drugs can be a very lethal combination. Bad stuff happens.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong Laker, that the lethality of the tazer plus drug combination is not a worry. But rather, the dude on PCP won't be subdued by the non-lethal option of pulling out a tazer to slow him down but not kill him.

And, if PCP dude (hypothetical of course), were to invade Laker's castle, a primary concern for Laker wouldn't be the demise of PCP dude (e.g. the lethal tasers and drugs combo), but rather preventing his own demise at the hands of PCP dude.

[DCJenn]

Hey Kev- that was me-

and yes, you're right- the problem is that the druggie won't sit still (or lay still) like the rest of us so they tend to get REALLY mad and then get tasered again and again and then die.

Which, for most of you wouldn't be that big a deal if some random violent druggie was killed in the police station but they're my clients and I know that chances are there's a real person who was loved by people somewhere in that scary druggie body.

oh well. that's a different debate.

Jenn

Jenn,

I think in some ways we're on the same page. I'm in no way trying to act like PCP dude wasn't at some time loved by someone (maybe he was at the time he went down in someone's home).

Nor am I suggesting it wouldn't be a horrible, terrible, sad burden for someone who had to take him down in their castle. Not something done without nightmares, sadness, etc.

But I guess where we differ is whether Beaver Cleaver, PCP Dude, or fill in the blank... entered my home without permission in the dark of the night would I have the right to do whatever it takes to defend myself and/or my family.

My perspective says I don't care whether it's Beaver or someone who's lived a thug life...perhaps both Beaver and thug are loved dearly by one, two or a dozen peeps...

When they enter my property without my permission, all bets are off.

Even forgetting about guns, all bets are off. I'm using the preppy tool of choice...the driver which I can't use like Tiger does...or the softball bat which I can't use like Bubba in the semi-pro softball league in the dirty... or my fists which (probably) I can't use like the goons I see "ultimate fighting" when I channel surf...

It's not my job in the middle of the night to worry about who loves Beaver or thug or what brought them into my home that night...bad childhood...heredity which made them predisposed to addiction...or psychopathic tendencies apart from any sad stories or prediliction for substance abuse.

[DCJenn]

oh, I know- it's just the curse of the social worker mind.

Jenn