Gun Control

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by Figment

If you don't mind me asking, what is civil about firing 50 to 60 rounds per minute?

There's nothing civil about it. The term you're looking for is "civilian". Civilian means "one who is not a member of the military".

Originally Posted by Figment

That said, the US police force has a reputation of being quite barbaric and easy to turn to violence as first answer tbh. Might have something to do with training?

Yes, if you ask someone who isn't white. Or if you ask one of the Occupy hippies.

Originally Posted by Warborn

blah blah

Yes, because all Americans are the same as Nittany students.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Well, statistics don't tell the whole story. We have an atypical level of racial friction and cultural fanaticism that doesn't help reduce homicide rates. Gang culture is a byproduct of it and so are our homicide statistics.

I could relate to that if it wasn't for the fact that in Europe there is also a significant immigration group with issues and in some cities these immigration groups make up over half the populace. They too account for the majority of crime committed due to high unemployment rates and cultural integration issues.

However, the amount of homicides committed even among them is low.

I'm sure guns do increase the statistics (especially the gun statistics ), but the overall numbers wouldn't look all that different if the US had the UK's (as an example) level of gun controls.

Indeed, they'd be far lower in the US and resemble the UKs more.

The numbers would just be moved from guns to some other deadly weapon.

That assumption is flatout wrong. Knives aren't as deadly as guns. Gunning down someone is not just easier, it's mentally easier as well because a gun is an impersonal weapon as it has range.

A knife is a more personal weapon, it is less efficient and also involves greater risk to the user as you have to get within striking range of your opponent (unless you're a ninja and use shurikens of course! ). However, I have not seen shurikens replace guns in the UK or anywhere else. In fact, I'm quite sure they're illegal for civilians to own too.

It's a complete myth that one weapon would simply be replaced by another and I'd really like you to indicate HOW a knife can replace a gun before you make that assertion again. :/

What would be reduced definitively is our right to actively protect our ability to live in a relatively safe environment. Which is the bottom line for me really.

The problem is that you create an unsafe environment to protect, that's the bottom line for me.

Gun owners tend to use Mutualy Assured Destruction logic. I like to think of that as a rather outdated, retarded type of logic, to be blunt.

[ziegler]

Originally Posted by Figment

Gun owners tend to use Mutualy Assured Destruction logic. I like to think of that as a rather outdated, retarded type of logic, to be blunt.

Hmm...actually....I dont want mutually assured destruction, I want the means to kill the other sumbitch before he kills me.

As Patton said....I dont want my men to die for our country....I want their men to die for their country.


also Figment...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...-west-18310743

Think you better look into those knife crimes in the UK...obviously, they need to outlaw knives and sporks too since that is what will come after the knives.....I mean in the hands of an experienced use...a spork is even deadlier!!

[TheDAWinz]

Originally Posted by Figment

I could relate to that if it wasn't for the fact that in Europe there is also a significant immigration group with issues and in some cities these immigration groups make up over half the populace. They too account for the majority of crime committed due to high unemployment rates and cultural integration issues.

However, the amount of homicides committed even among them is low.



Indeed, they'd be far lower in the US and resemble the UKs more.



That assumption is flatout wrong. Knives aren't as deadly as guns. Gunning down someone is not just easier, it's mentally easier as well because a gun is an impersonal weapon as it has range.

A knife is a more personal weapon, it is less efficient and also involves greater risk to the user as you have to get within striking range of your opponent (unless you're a ninja and use shurikens of course! ). However, I have not seen shurikens replace guns in the UK or anywhere else. In fact, I'm quite sure they're illegal for civilians to own too.

It's a complete myth that one weapon would simply be replaced by another and I'd really like you to indicate HOW a knife can replace a gun before you make that assertion again. :/



The problem is that you create an unsafe environment to protect, that's the bottom line for me.

Gun owners tend to use Mutualy Assured Destruction logic. I like to think of that as a rather outdated, retarded type of logic, to be blunt.

fuck no, without mutually assured destruction there would of been a nuclear war.

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by Figment

The problem is that you create an unsafe environment to protect, that's the bottom line for me.

Gun owners tend to use Mutualy Assured Destruction logic. I like to think of that as a rather outdated, retarded type of logic, to be blunt.

In some cases, yes people create an unsafe environment. Or they live in an unsafe environment. But then again... some people live in nice areas and still fall victim to crime. I wouldn't accuse the Petit family of creating an unsafe environment unless making a decent amount of money and living in a nice neighborhood is somehow creating a hazard.

Your perception of American gun owners is vastly different than mine. Your knowledge is based on internet facts and figures, or things reported in your local media, or movies or internet forums. I can assure you, being an American citizen who was raised in the American South, that I know far more gun owners than you do. And whilst there are undoubtedly gun owners who screw it up for everyone else, the ones that I know use theirs for target practice and for home defense. I wouldn't call their logic Mutually Assured Destruction. A great many of them, because of people with your type of mentality, take gun safety seriously. They take gun safety courses, they handle their firearms with great care, store them with great care, and generally conduct themselves far more responsibly than the rest of the unarmed citizens. Nobody wants to be "that guy", the one who's packing a firearm and gets into a fight and shoots someone. Nobody wants to be "that guy", the one whose kid discovers his revolver and inadvertently kills a sibling or themselves.

I don't personally know a lot of people who've had their homes invaded and have confronted their would-be assailant. In fact I only know of two, personally. One faced down an unarmed assailant and held him at gunpoint until the police arrived. The other faced down an assailant who was carrying a knife and some type of stick. That one also ended in the assailant being held at gunpoint after he tried to flee and then stopped once a shot was fired.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by ziegler

Hmm...actually....I dont want mutually assured destruction, I want the means to kill the other sumbitch before he kills me.

That's... mutualy assured destruction in a nutshell, missing the part where you hope they won't attack you first because you might fire back.

also Figment...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...-west-18310743

Think you better look into those knife crimes in the UK...obviously, they need to outlaw knives and sporks too since that is what will come after the knives.....I mean in the hands of an experienced use...a spork is even deadlier!!

Yeah! Look at the homicide rates for knifes in the UK!

1,28 / 100.000


OMGZ! THAT'S LIKE ALMOST THE SAME AS IN THE US! D:

Ehr.. no.

Yet people still think it's too many. So we want to reduce the amount of deadly knives too as it proved so damn valuable to protecting our safety when the guns were removed.

How about that.

Originally Posted by TheDAWinz

fuck no, without mutually assured destruction there would of been a nuclear war.

You should probably read up on the international doctrine of the Stalinists and others communist nations that weren't Trotskists. The dominant factions wern't all that interested in international spreading of communism. They did like having more allies and influence, especially in the countries around them for buffer zones.

The Trotskist hardliners wern't the ones in control of Russia. In fact, most had been eliminated quite literally in show trials for being enemies of the state.

@Firefly: those things happen if that haven of safety is surrounded by unsafe areas. They are however, not exactly common. Your unsafe area is however consistently and significantly more dangerous due to the policies employed.

I know a lot of gun owners are responsible and it's always a shame when the good suffer due to the bad, but in this case the chance of suffering is increased for all because the good guys also directly facilitate the bad guys.

The question is not if it can help to hold someone at gun point, I'm quite sure it CAN help in the right circumstances. The question is do more people suffer by facilitating both good and bad guys getting guns, rather than hindering the good and bad guys getting guns. Evidence suggests there are less victims in the latter case. The amount of total victims is more important to me. In individual cases you'd be right that there's a chance that having a gun would have helped because you might keep your attacker at distance. Having a knife for defense tends to make things worse. Doing nothing tends to be the next best thing in an encounter, but it also reduces the total amount of encounters. The problem is that if you can have a gun, so can they.


The best way to stop crime is to remove the primary reasons for crime, which means jobs, education and secure, positive environments for everyone, including the would-otherwise-potentially-grow-up-to-be-criminals. Not to threaten criminals after they already went criminal.

[Minigun]

Originally Posted by Malorn

And if a few citizens had legal firearms in that theater we would be talking about how the right to carry saved lives. Instead, nobody was carrying and people in their infinite stupidity want to enact laws to keep it that way. It's madness.

Best put of anyone on this thread. Even one guy with a concealed carry could have completely changed the outcome.

I'm a gun owner and the government will never take them from me.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

[Accuser]

Originally Posted by Firefly

I once participated, as a "combatant", in a training exercise in which the Baltimore's SWAT team went head-to-head with a company of Army intel weenies using Simunitions.

The SWAT team was decimated.

Thank you, exactly my point. Local police are no better trained than many private citizens. They aren't commonly trained in "live fire, you're being shot at" exercises and there's no mystical force that makes them more competent (trust me, there are thoroughly incompetent police officers running around) or more capable. The idea that a trained civilian (who may well be a combat or police veteran) cannot be effective in the absence of a police officer is patently absurd.

Originally Posted by Warborn

You're pulling numbers out of your ass.
...
Look at how fucking massively we ISAF guys dominate the shit out of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan if they ever engage us directly. They don't stand a chance. I assume the US army gave the Iraqis a what-for anytime they were engaged in direct combat with them as well.

The best civilians manage in places where it's them vs. a powerful, modern military is sniping and, especially, IEDs and suicide bombers.

No, the numbers of Syria's military (500,000 including reservists) compared to Syria's population (20.8 million) are quite accurate. It should be obvious that a tiny fraction of the civilian population volunteering for the resistance would be dramatically more than the number of defected troops. If you want to stand by your statement that the majority of resistance fighters are defectors, you have to tell me that less than 2% of the civilian population is part of the resistance. That is pulling numbers out of your ass.

Originally Posted by Warborn

http://www.understandingwar.org/site...21June2012.pdf

As thorough as that report is, it says nothing about the proportion of resistance fighters which are recruited civilians, as opposed to military defectors.

[Figment]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_uprisings_in_Iraq

What happens without foreign support.

[Superbus]

Well, I am a firearm owner, and I don't buy them for protection just against criminals, as crime is decreasing all over the U.S.A. However I do buy them for personal enjoyment and protection, not just because some random criminal may threaten violence against me, but because there may be a day where our current form of government is no longer acceptable, and there may be no other way to change it, but through violence. I don't see this happening in my life time, but you never know. Over the last decade I have seen America become more and more of a fascist police state and the trend seems to continue.

As for a civilian army being a match for an organized professional one. That is debatable. Iraq is a good example of how much damage a military force with no uniform can harm an organized professional one. I did two tours there and can say without a doubt no matter how hard we tried to confiscate illegal weapons, they would always find a way to get them including manufacturing of home made ones. It is impossible to disarm a populace that does not consent to disarmament. Syria is another example; despite helicopter attacks, tanks bombs etc being used on the civilian populace, they still keep on fighting. Even if their resistance gets put down for a short time, Assad will most likely be the last of his genetic line to rule that country, because of the atrocities he committed, someone will turn on him eventually and he will be put down.

[gufftroad]

Originally Posted by Superbus

Well, I am a firearm owner, and I don't buy them for protection just against criminals, as crime is decreasing all over the U.S.A. However I do buy them for personal enjoyment and protection, not just because some random criminal may threaten violence against me, but because there may be a day where our current form of government is acceptable, and there may be no other way to change it but through violence. I don't see this happening in my life time, but you never know. Over the last decade I have seen America become more and more of a fascist police state and the trend seems to continue.

As for a civilian army being a match for an organized professional one. That is debatable. Iraq is a good example of how much damage a military force with no uniform can harm an organized professional one. I did two tours there and can say without a doubt no matter how hard we tried to confiscate illegal weapons, they would always find a way to get them including manufacturing of home made ones. It is impossible to disarm a populace that does not consent to disarmament. Syria is another example; despite helicopter attacks, tanks bombs etc being used on the civilian populace, they still keep on fighting. Even if their resistance gets put down for a short time, Assad will most likely be the last of his genetic line to rule that country, because of the atrocities he committed, someone will turn on him eventually and he will be put down.

this

[Minigun]

Originally Posted by Superbus

Well, I am a firearm owner, and I don't buy them for protection just against criminals, as crime is decreasing all over the U.S.A. However I do buy them for personal enjoyment and protection, not just because some random criminal may threaten violence against me, but because there may be a day where our current form of government is no longer acceptable, and there may be no other way to change it, but through violence. I don't see this happening in my life time, but you never know. Over the last decade I have seen America become more and more of a fascist police state and the trend seems to continue.

As for a civilian army being a match for an organized professional one. That is debatable. Iraq is a good example of how much damage a military force with no uniform can harm an organized professional one. I did two tours there and can say without a doubt no matter how hard we tried to confiscate illegal weapons, they would always find a way to get them including manufacturing of home made ones. It is impossible to disarm a populace that does not consent to disarmament. Syria is another example; despite helicopter attacks, tanks bombs etc being used on the civilian populace, they still keep on fighting. Even if their resistance gets put down for a short time, Assad will most likely be the last of his genetic line to rule that country, because of the atrocities he committed, someone will turn on him eventually and he will be put down.

I do believe the majority of the workforce in the armed forces come from a pro-gun background. Honestly if it got that far i believe the military would split depending on each individual soldiers beliefs. It would be a big mess but you cannot rule it out as a fantasy.

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by Minigun

Honestly if it got that far i believe the military would split depending on each individual soldiers beliefs. It would be a big mess but you cannot rule it out as a fantasy.

The split would be minor and one-sided: the vast majority of American military personnel would refuse to engage, if they didn't outright go AWOL and join the rebellion. Consider that a significant portion of American military manpower comes out of the so-called "southern states". Many of them tend to be conservative, which essentially equates to family values. Between those two factors alone, plus a growing sentiment of "WTF is wrong with our politicians", the military would very likely be incredibly understaffed should such a thing ever occur.

[Minigun]

Originally Posted by Firefly

The split would be minor and one-sided: the vast majority of American military personnel would refuse to engage, if they didn't outright go AWOL and join the rebellion. Consider that a significant portion of American military manpower comes out of the so-called "southern states". Many of them tend to be conservative, which essentially equates to family values. Between those two factors alone, plus a growing sentiment of "WTF is wrong with our politicians", the military would very likely be incredibly understaffed should such a thing ever occur.

Basically summed up what i was trying to say in a more effective and detailed manor. Many thanks, i'm not much of a debater.

[Superbus]

I think most of you southerns are backwards fucking yokels, but I still respect your right to live the way you want I actually spent most of my life in or around Colorado, I use live about 45 minutes away from that theater. It's sad when some one completely loses their grasp of reality and does something like this, but I look it as an inevitable consequence of the second amendment, and just because a small percentage of people abuse a constitutional right, does not give anyone else the right to take away that basic right from those who choose to use it responsibly and non-violently.