[hmx9123]

I agree with you, Geodome.  I think that the real key to the firearms problem is education.  I grew up in Missouri, and in 6th grade, Missouri has a hunter's education/firearms safety class that is MANDATORY for all students at public schools.  Not only does Missouri have the highest rate of new hunters in the land, we have a low overall firearm incident rate (I can't find the website at the moment, but I shall look).  That seems to speak volumes about the value of education.

[dfx-]

Here are some simple truths that you must come to terms with, like it or not:
1) YOU are responsible for your own security. If you do not have the means to defend yourself you are shirking your responsibility – this is Nature’s law. Men, parenthetically, do not write laws, we make rules. Gravity is a law, the First Law of Thermodynamics is a law, gun control statutes are rules because they can be broken and will be broken if it suits the breaker.
2) Unless you have a magic wand that can transport all firearms into outer space and stop any new ones from being made you may as well give up on gun control.
3) The police are NOT responsible for your safety, you can’t sue them if they don’t protect you, you’re on your own!

You may choose not to believe these truths.

I certainly do not.

1. I am responsible for my own security...if my only means of defending myself is the gun, then I am not secure.

2. You may not completely control guns (probably impossible in the case of the US), but if you restrict the accepted normality of the personal gun, you can restrict the commonplace of the gun which restricts easier access...which helps prevent at least one or two of these massacres that keep propping their ugly head. Decrease its frequency of occurrence. Isn't that worth the effort?

3. What exactly are the police responsible for except that of public and therefore your safety?

Leave this one place where Brave men may still be Free.

You don't seriously believe that the advocation/adoption of personal gun use sets the US (as opposed to the countries in Europe that you visited who have abandoned the gun) out as the one place where brave men are free? Seriously? Please tell me I've read that wrong.

[Donaldson Tan]

1. I am responsible for my own security...if my only means of defending myself is the gun, then I am not secure.

Even in the United States where firearms are not banned, firearms aren't the only means of defense.

2. You may not completely control guns (probably impossible in the case of the US), but if you restrict the accepted normality of the personal gun, you can restrict the commonplace of the gun which restricts easier access...which helps prevent at least one or two of these massacres that keep propping their ugly head. Decrease its frequency of occurrence. Isn't that worth the effort?

I don't exactly see how prohibiting law-abiding citizens from owning firearms would prevent criminals from obtaining firearms illegally.

3. What exactly are the police responsible for except that of public and therefore your safety?

Are you suggesting that an individual is not responsible for his own safety as long as the responsibility of his safety lies in the jurisidication of the police? The police is not the undersigned in the insurance contract of an individual.

You don't seriously believe that the advocation/adoption of personal gun use sets the US (as opposed to the countries in Europe that you visited who have abandoned the gun) out as the one place where brave men are free? Seriously? Please tell me I've read that wrong.

Entropy did not suggest that firearms represent freedom. Freedom is not characterised by adoption of personal firearms. It is characterised by the variation of activities permitted under the rule of law. Does the consumption of "soft" drugs in Netherlands make it a less free country than the USA where citizens own personal firearms? No.

The unspoken truth of firearms victimization is that most of those victims are poor and uneducated people who were not born with the opportunity to achieve conventional success. The answer to this situation parroted around political circles is ?gun control?. You know you are in dire straits when you have to blame an inanimate object for your problems! Guns are simply the messenger of our problems and these problems persist because people are unwilling to accept responsibility and fix them.

dfx: Do you not see that firearms abuse is the siren call for underlying social and economic issues?

[dfx-]

It's not that the gun is the only means of defending myself, but if it is such that I have to resort to using a gun, then I am simply not secure - it's a mindset that a gun = security.

How many crimes are carried out by "people you wouldn't think" or "those who live amongst us"? You can't stop criminals from getting guns anywhere in the world, but you can help stop psychopaths with no or little indicative criminal history from a murderous rage. Stop the "he got his weapon from his dad" type killings because his law abiding dad wouldn't have had the ability to have the gun in the first place. It's often harder to kill without a gun. Would the VT perpetraitor be able to kill 32 people without using a gun?

Are you suggesting that an individual is not responsible for his own safety as long as the responsibility of his safety lies in the jurisidication of the police? The police is not the undersigned in the insurance contract of an individual.

Freedom is not characterised by adoption of personal firearms. It is characterised by the variation of activities permitted under the rule of law. Does the consumption of "soft" drugs in Netherlands make it a less free country than the USA where citizens own personal firearms? No.

dfx: Do you not see that firearms abuse is the siren call for underlying social and economic issues?

What I'm saying is that the police are responsible for public safety and therefore anything they do within the law from preventing dangerous driving to ensuring as few people as possible get killed is not a restriction of freedom or 'living in a cage', as Entropy puts it.

Freedom is not characterised by adoption of personal firearms. It is characterised by the variation of activities permitted under the rule of law. Does the consumption of "soft" drugs in Netherlands make it a less free country than the USA where citizens own personal firearms? No.

I agree it is no less a free country in such circumstances. Which is why I'm puzzled by "Let this one place be where brave men are still free". That reads to me that the US is that one place which is more free.

It is a siren call for underlying problems, but with the 'ease of justice'/abuse of the gun, none of these problems are going to be solved when the gun reigns over them.

[DrCMS]

It's not that the gun is the only means of defending myself, but if it is such that I have to resort to using a gun, then I am simply not secure - it's a mindset that a gun = security.

To go back to statistics again the crime stats for England and Wales show there are about 800 murders per year
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page40.asp
in a population of ~53.5million
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=6

while those for the USA are ~6.1 per 100000 population
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/hmrt.htm

So in England and Wales there are ~1.5 homicides per 100000 population or ~25% the rate in the USA. 

All those guns in the USA make you less safe not more so.

[Donaldson Tan]

It's not that the gun is the only means of defending myself, but if it is such that I have to resort to using a gun, then I am simply not secure - it's a mindset that a gun = security.

This is where education comes in and play an important role in evolving that mindset.

I grew up in Missouri, and in 6th grade, Missouri has a hunter's education/firearms safety class that is MANDATORY for all students at public schools.  Not only does Missouri have the highest rate of new hunters in the land, we have a low overall firearm incident rate.

This is reflected hmx9123's post too.

I agree it is no less a free country in such circumstances. Which is why I'm puzzled by "Let this one place be where brave men are still free". That reads to me that the US is that one place which is more free.

My only problem with that statement is that it suggests that brave people deserves more freedom than others. Not everyone in American exercise the right to own firearms. Are these Americans less deserving of their freedom?

So in England and Wales there are ~1.5 homicides per 100000 population or ~25% the rate in the USA. 

All those guns in the USA make you less safe not more so.

What proportion of American homicides is gun-related?

What proportion of British homicides is gun-related?

[DrCMS]

What proportion of American homicides is gun-related?

What proportion of British homicides is gun-related?

Working the maths back from the stats I've posted previously and assuming as hmx9123 says the about half the gun deaths in the USA stats are suicides i get

UK ~10% of homicides are gun related (81 in 800)
USA ~82% of homicides are gun related (15100 in 18300)

[Borek]

Working the maths back from the stats I've posted previously and assuming as hmx9123 says the about half the gun deaths in the USA stats are suicides i get

I think your math is wrong. Bureau of Justice Statistics is not about 'gun death' but about 'homicide' - thus IMHO it is doubtfull it includes suicides.

[Donaldson Tan]

in 2005 Cho was declared mentally ill by a Virginia special justice, who declared he was "an imminent danger" to himself, a court document states.

but in 2007 he bought 2 guns and killed 32 people. 

Part of the problem seem to be the gaps in the system between state and fedral laws/reporting.

See the attached PDF on discrepancy between State and Federal Law.

By right, mentally unsound individuals should not be able to acquire firearms.

[DrCMS]

Working the maths back from the stats I've posted previously and assuming as hmx9123 says the about half the gun deaths in the USA stats are suicides i get

I think your math is wrong. Bureau of Justice Statistics is not about 'gun death' but about 'homicide' - thus IMHO it is doubtfull it includes suicides.

I took the gun death numbers from 2002 of 30242 and took half of that figure as gun homicides and divided it by the 18300 homicides total from the BJS number of 6.1 homicides per 100000 head of population in a contry of ~300 million.  So i think my maths is close enough.

[hmx9123]

I gotta check on this, but I believe that homicides include suicides on the BJS website, so you're off by about half.  In either case, there are two obvious conclusions:

1. The US has more murders
2. A larger percentage of the murders in the US are by firearm

(All compared to the UK)

Now, this doesn't mean that the fact that we have more guns creates these homicides, as is implied.  It also doesn't mean it's not.  It's impossible to prove one way or the other.  We live in a more violent country than the UK.  Entropy has one thing right for sure: murders (regardless of whether by gun or not) are the affect of a poor and uneducated class that doesn't have the means to achieve conventional success.

I will look into the suicide thing on the stats.  I would ask DrCMS to figure out how many firearms are owned in the UK, since he's better at finding UK statistics, and I shall look into the US number.  This will give us a relative % of gun ownership in each country to compare to the % of murders related to firearms.  I'm curious, because, as I have listed in my previous posts, the UK has a higher % of knife killings than the US.  I guess the question is, if people are willing to kill each other, does having a firearm available increase the likelihood that they will kill someone else, and if so, by how much?  That is the part that is difficult to prove, if at all possible, as we won't know unless we could turn back time and look at each path that could be taken by an individual.

Oh, and BTW, there's some other firearm-related statistics here:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/firearmnonfatalno.htm

[hmx9123]

Here we go:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm

It says that 30,622 suicides occurred in 2001.  In 2003, 55% of them were comitted with firearms.  If we assume that the % is about the same year to year, especially with only a 2 year gap, that leaves us with 16,842 suicides in 2001. 

Then: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/totalstab.htm

Gives for 2001:

5.6 murders per 100,000 pop, and 16,039 homicides total.  This obviously doens't include the suicides.

Looking here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/weaponstab.htm

For 2001, we get 7,900 handgun killings, 2,239 other firearm killings, and a total of 16,037 including all weapons, which is in excellent agreement with the 16,039 figure above.  Averaging them, we get 16,038 homicides.  Adding both firearms stats together, we get 10,138 firearms-related homicides, or 63%.  Adding in suicides, we have a total of 46,700 deaths in the US.  Adding the number of firearm-related suicides here to the firearm homicides, we come up with a total of 26,980 firearms-related deaths per year, which is ~ 58% of the deaths in the US every year.

Thus, there is definitely a higher % of firearms-related murders in the US every year, but that was known from the get-go.  I guess the supposition that I make is that if you were to get rid of all the guns, do you really think that all of those 26980 deaths would go away every year?  I doubt it.  There may be some % that would not be comitted were there not an available firearm, but I bet a lot of it would just shift over to different weapons.  As I said before, about 13% of homicides in the US are comitted by knives; in the UK it's around 30%.  If we got rid of guns, we may just see our percentages change around, but it's impossible to know unless we do, and therefore no one can really claim that they know what happens when it does.

[Borek]

I guess the supposition that I make is that if you were to get rid of all the guns, do you really think that all of those 26980 deaths would go away every year?

Obviously not. But I don't think anybody stated that.

There may be some % that would not be comitted were there not an available firearm, but I bet a lot of it would just shift over to different weapons.

Yep. But I prefer to stand barehanded against someone with knife - and not because I am Chuck Norris Large part of these lifes will be saved, just because knife is not that efficient tool as a gun is when it comes to killing.

[enahs]

Yep. But I prefer to stand barehanded against someone with knife - and not because I am Chuck Norris Wink Large part of these lifes will be saved, just because knife is not that efficient tool as a gun is when it comes to killing.

Wrong. A knife is just as efficient, it however requires you to first develop a skill. Guns are easy.

One of the biggest problems with hand guns, and I would love to see a real statistic on this, is “accidental” deaths (I use the word accidental lightly). That is, I suspect that a very VERY large portion of people killed with hand-guns are not the intended victim. It is in fact fairly trivial to avoid being shot (at least at first) with a handgun at close range. You simply push the gun one way, and move your body the other. This leads to “wrestling”, and the gun goes off, and shoots other people. I personally know of 3 cases this year alone of this from the local news about local bouncers or security officers from a bank disarming the bad guy and succeed without getting hurt, but some innocent bystander gets shot (and I rarely read the local newspaper too).






As for statistics about crime, these two websites comparing UK and US.
The UK one, which has a nice interface and well done:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/tool/Default.asp?region=0&force=0&cdrp=0&l1=7&l2=0&l3=0&sub=0&v=36
And this one, which is not from a government site, but says they quote government statistics (but broken down by state):
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/US_States_Rate_Ranking.html


Now, some things to point out. Let’s look at violence.
Notice that the US is per state, and notice the huge variance in the numbers. And in fact, there are many US states that when you compare the per capita to the UK, it makes the UK look like a horribly violent disaster zone.

For instance, Lets take the US’s Vermont in 2005, and compare it with the UK in 2005-2006.

US Vermont: Violent Crimes; 1.197 + 0.739 (aggravated assault) +.0026 (murder) per 1000
UK + Whales: Violent Crimes; Average 4.95 per 1000, 2.5 X higher then Vermont’s.

And these numbers show the same trend for Vermont in other crimes, such as sexual offences, burglary, vehicle theft, fraud, etc.



Now, let’s also look at Vermont’s gun laws, the state that makes the UK look like a horrible miserable violent place.

Vermont has no law against the number of hand-guns allowed to be purchased per month.
Vermont has no law against assault weapons (such as the well know AK-47) or the amount of ammunition you can stockpile.
Vermont has no law that handguns must be ballistic fingerprinted prior to sale.
Police permit to carry a loaded and concealed gun in public, not required.
Child Access Prevention: Gun owners, in Vermont are not legally held responsible for leaving guns accessible to children.
Child safety locks are not required in Vermont.
At gun shows, in Vermont background checks are not required.
License to purchase a hand gun? Not in Vermont. Safety training before owning a handgun? Not in Vermont.
Local cities over ride state gun laws? Not in Vermont.
Police maintain gun sales records? Not in Vermont.
Guns required to be registered with law enforcement? Not in Vermont.
Are background checks required for sale of guns from private individual to private individual? Not in Vermont.
Waiting period for guns in Vermont? Nope.


All these lacks in laws, and Vermont makes the UK look like a horrible, violent crime ridden miserable place to live.

Now, if we compare California’s gun laws, where California makes the UK look like a paradise to live when compared to crime statistics.

California:
Limit on the number of hand-guns allowed to be purchased per month, Yes.
California has laws against assault weapons and excess ammunition.
California does not do ballistics finger printing (neither did Vermont).
California requires a police permit to carry a loaded and concealed handgun in public, unlike Vermont.
Gun owners in California are legally held responsible for leaving access to guns to children.
Child safety locks are required with the purchase of all hand-guns in California.
There are gun show checks in California.
California requires a license/permit to purchase a handgun.
Local cities can override state gun laws.
Police are allowed to maintain gun sales records.
California requires registration of assault weapons, not handguns (Vermont did not require it for anything).
People in California are required to take a safety training course before buying hand-guns.
Background sales on private individual to private individual sales, Yes.
Waiting period on Guns sold in California, yes.

Now, notice these two strikingly different approaches to gun laws (one has gun laws, the other essentially does not). One makes the UK look like a crime infested place, the other makes it look like a paradise.

Now, slow down before you go making any conclusions on guns and crimes (since these crime statistics are for more then guns, and again Vermont in virtually all of them making the UK look horrible). Now, go pair the education level of Vermont and California, go compare the Wealth level of Vermont and California. Go compare the education and wealth level of Vermont and California to the UK.


What is the whole point of this long post that hopefully you read it all before you respond? It is not a post for or against gun control; I believe it is important to keep my opinion separate from this post.

It is simply to point out, that in America there are amazingly striking differences in, gun control, wealth, education, and amazingly different crime statistics.

The issue is clearly more complicated the just gun-control. You are naive to think outlawing/not outlawing will solve the problem/is the problem.

And in defense of the US, take even California, if you then break those statistics down by regions in California, you will find regional difference as great in contrast as Vermont to California.

[Borek]

Yep. But I prefer to stand barehanded against someone with knife - and not because I am Chuck Norris Wink Large part of these lifes will be saved, just because knife is not that efficient tool as a gun is when it comes to killing.

Wrong. A knife is just as efficient, it however requires you to first develop a skill. Guns are easy.

You can outrun someone with knife - you can't outrun the bullet. It is much easier to pull the trigger then to strike with a knife - that's psychology, guns are distant weapons, knives are close combat. And there is the skill thing that you have already mentioned. I am not telling that knfie is not an efficient killing tool for someone trained - but most killers are not trained. I stand by what I said - many lifes will be saved if the attacker has knife and not gun.

It is in fact fairly trivial to avoid being shot (at least at first) with a handgun at close range. You simply push the gun one way, and move your body the other.

You need to be very close for that. You can easily kill with gun from much longer distance - you can't do that with knife (unless you are good at throwing, but then again that's trained/not trained opposition).

The issue is clearly more complicated the just gun-control. You are naive to think outlawing/not outlawing will solve the problem/is the problem.

I don't think anyone ever wrote gun-control will solve everything, you are naive thinking we are that naive It is obvious that it is part of the grater picture. Still, gun availability doesn't help - it just adds to the wrong side of the equation.