Gun control

[Kamikaze_Badger]

Maybe targeting the factors that encourage and facilitate crime in the first place would be more effective than specifically focusing on guns?

[iluvstrats2]

Maybe targeting the factors that encourage and facilitate crime in the first place would be more effective than specifically focusing on guns?

 

Sadly no one has thought of this yet. Mainly because it's bad for the gun ban legislature. This is politician thinking "Untreated/undocumented mental illness isn't causing these shootings, guns are !"

[Kamikaze_Badger]

It's kind of like obesity in healthcare. You can treat the high blood pressure and high cholesterol with medications, or you can try getting the patient to change their lifestyle. Treating the cause is more effective than treating the effects.

 

EDIT: I'll leave the question of HOW to address those issues to sociologists and criminologists.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Kamikaze_Badger

[Phil]

Treating the cause is more effective than treating the effects.

 

 

 

And much more expensive.  Seems like everything comes down to money.  Even if it saves in the long run, nobody wants to pay more now.

[VaporX]

In the end I think it is about making the person in office appear useful. For example here in Illinois a few years back we had an effort made to pass a law that required a person be over 18 to purchase certain video games. I pointed out on the show that roughly 90% of all game purchases were done by Mom and hence this would not be an effective law. However the general populace applauded this effort because they felt like it made them safe. A retired Politian and I sat down one even and talked and he explained that situation.

 

You see the truth is many of the things that people want to be protected from they cannot be. There is no law that will stop someone coming into a house and killing you if they choose. No amount of police officers on the streets or harsher penalties can stop this from happening. So instead of telling this to the people and focusing on the issues they can do something about, the political hacks make issues that are meaningless their priority because to the people they appear to care. It is a pure political move with zero impact on ever really protecting anyone.

 

The Illinois law above was being pushed after another round of blame video games for the worlds ills. It was the hot button topic and so even though it would do not good they passed the law and made good press with the public. Here is the funny part, they all KNEW the law would be struck down in court and passed it anyway, free good will and all.

 

The same today with gun laws. There is NO gun law that could be passed, even a pure ban, that would stop gun violence. To be honest when you consider the percentage of gun crimes committed by legal gun owners and how low it is, I am not sure a complete ban would even do much to lower gun violence. The issue is that something terrible happened and people do not feel safe. They have to find a blame and so the Politian's,. never one to not turn a tragedy into their gain, start putting out scape goats like Guns and Video Games. Notice BTW the Dems push hard at video games but kind of let violent movies slide, oh they get mentioned but not as aggressively. Shows who pays the most in campaign contributions.

 

The part that truly is evil to me is that in principle this is the same tactic used by evil men to rule nations for centuries. Remember Hitler used the Jews to explain all the ills of his nation and demanded the rise against them. Now I know we are not there yet but how long before we run out of things to blame and start blaming a certain segment of the population instead? Do not believe it will happen, it already does, how often does the left and the right blame the others for some action that takes place? We are on a dangerous slope as a nation.

 

Finally tell me if any of you have heard the press ever just come out and say this kid was a nut job. I mean without adding after that the need for gun laws or killing off gaming. I mean just laying the blame at the feet of the person that pulled the trigger, not at a lack of anything or what the latest thing to blame is, just at his feet.

[Andrewr05]

I have not personally checked these stats, but I have no reason to believe they are false:

 Caution: Wall of text

 

Unknown source, found on reddit -
 
"I think it's time to analyze the comparisons being thrown
around about the US verses Canada, the UK, and Australia.
 
These cherry picked nations used by gun-control advocates
do not compare well with the United States when dealing with the issue of
murder and/or violent crimes.
 
Omitting the use of the propaganda term "gun
crime" one can see that actual violent crime in the US is not much
different than Europe.
 
However, let us examine first the comparisons of the UK,
Canada and Australia with the US using population parity rather than simply Per
Capita, since Per Capita is misleading if the populations of the countries
being compared aren't even remotely similar.
 
To gain this equivalency we must compare state of the US
to these countries since the populations of these countries are five-twenty
times smaller than that of the US.
 
The violent crime rate of countries like Canada and
Australia are not lower than equivalent US states.
 
 The idea that the
US should be compared to the UK, Australia, or Canada as a whole is ludicrous,
and disingenuous.
 
 The UK only has a
population of 63,000,000 people.
 
 The US has
312,000,000, nearly five times more than the UK.
 
 Total violent
crime in the US (2010 Census figures) was 1,318,000.
 
 Total violent
crime in the UK (2010 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 2010) was 962,877 (omitting
property crimes that may have involved a weapon).
 
 So the UK has
nearly the violent crime of the US, yet 1/5th its population.
 
A better comparison would be to take the three largest
states by population (for density) of California, Texas, and New York state
(78,000,000 people).
 
They had a total violent crime rate of 371,854 (using
2010 Census data).
 
Thus the UK's violent crime is nearly triple (2.6 times
more) that of those states combined.
 
All of those states have less strict gun laws and more
gun owners than the UK, with Texas having nearly no gun laws in comparison to
the UK.
 
The United States has overall more gun owners than the UK
has citizenry at 80,000,000+ known gun owners in the United States.
 
Thus it is to be expected that a country with five times
the population should have a significant (at least 5 times or more) the
homicide of the UK.
 
To contrast this, let us take a country like Russia.
 
Russia has a population of 141,000,000 with a total
number of gun owners at 12,000,000 (approx) yet they have 5 times the violent
crime (13,100 homicides alone) we have (source Russian Ministry of Internal
Affairs report 2010).
 
 
 
As for comparisons of the US with Canada and Australia, the
numbers speak for themselves.
 
 Canada's population
is 34,000,000.
 
 Australia

[Andrewr05]

BUMP

Read my previous post


Also this:
 

[ccokeman]

 

I have not personally checked these stats, but I have no reason to believe they are false:

 

 Caution: Wall of text

 

Unknown source, found on reddit -

 

"I think it's time to analyze the comparisons being thrown

around about the US verses Canada, the UK, and Australia.

 

These cherry picked nations used by gun-control advocates

do not compare well with the United States when dealing with the issue of

murder and/or violent crimes.

 

Omitting the use of the propaganda term "gun

crime" one can see that actual violent crime in the US is not much

different than Europe.

 

However, let us examine first the comparisons of the UK,

Canada and Australia with the US using population parity rather than simply Per

Capita, since Per Capita is misleading if the populations of the countries

being compared aren't even remotely similar.

 

To gain this equivalency we must compare state of the US

to these countries since the populations of these countries are five-twenty

times smaller than that of the US.

 

The violent crime rate of countries like Canada and

Australia are not lower than equivalent US states.

 

 The idea that the

US should be compared to the UK, Australia, or Canada as a whole is ludicrous,

and disingenuous.

 

 The UK only has a

population of 63,000,000 people.

 

 The US has

312,000,000, nearly five times more than the UK.

 

 Total violent

crime in the US (2010 Census figures) was 1,318,000.

 

 Total violent

crime in the UK (2010 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 2010) was 962,877 (omitting

property crimes that may have involved a weapon).

 

 So the UK has

nearly the violent crime of the US, yet 1/5th its population.

 

A better comparison would be to take the three largest

states by population (for density) of California, Texas, and New York state

(78,000,000 people).

 

They had a total violent crime rate of 371,854 (using

2010 Census data).

 

Thus the UK's violent crime is nearly triple (2.6 times

more) that of those states combined.

 

All of those states have less strict gun laws and more

gun owners than the UK, with Texas having nearly no gun laws in comparison to

the UK.

 

The United States has overall more gun owners than the UK

has citizenry at 80,000,000+ known gun owners in the United States.

 

Thus it is to be expected that a country with five times

the population should have a significant (at least 5 times or more) the

homicide of the UK.

 

To contrast this, let us take a country like Russia.

 

Russia has a population of 141,000,000 with a total

number of gun owners at 12,000,000 (approx) yet they have 5 times the violent

crime (13,100 homicides alone) we have (source Russian Ministry of Internal

Affairs report 2010).

 

 

 

As for comparisons of the US with Canada and Australia, the

numbers speak for themselves.

 

 Canada's population

is 34,000,000.

 

 Australia

[Fragsman]

As far as I know nobody can buy a weapon in Argentina, except hunting rifles. But I don't see people geting pistols, shotguns, revolvers, automatic rifles LOL (why would you buy an automatic rifle), snipers, etc.

 

I think only police can have permission for them.

 

Oh well and criminals obtain them from black market of course, so they DO have weapons =/

Plus, in the next block of my house there are armed kids. People know that so police too but as they are underaged they can't go jail even tough they have already fired to police in previous ocassions.. wtf is that?

 

So every country has it fuked up laws. Usa free weapons for everyone = ppl can defend themselves but society have fuked up kids. High school is tough for some guys, holliwood movies shows its a hell in general so guys own guns and kill enemies.. well they are movies. I really don't know how is that.

Here, no weapons for anyone (except criminals that obtain from black market), we can't defend but also we rarely have a kid shooting in school. I think it happened 1 or 2 but one or no-one died. It wasn't a big deal.

 

I agree with someone who said people hasbeen kiling each other and they won't stop. But I also say "proper home education" is the only salvation.

[Fragsman]

@ccokekman

 

Australia Population: 23millon

 

 

.... HAAHHHAHAHAhahhahahahha no wonder why such a beautiful and huge territory is inhabitated by such a few people.. Maybe because of the wilderness of insects and killing animals xDxDxD. I think we are 48milons and our country is 60% of australia's size.

[Andrewr05]

But I don't see people geting pistols, shotguns, revolvers, automatic rifles LOL (why would you buy an automatic rifle), snipers, etc.

The thing is, unless you've gotten your weapon illegally the only other way for a citizen of the USA to obtain an automatic firearm is to first find one for sale (as far as I know, upwards of $10,000) and then on top of that you have to file for a ~$200 (might be more?) federal tax stamp as well as a rather lengthy background check.

 

Same thing with a suppressor/silencer, you need an expensive tax stamp for those as well.

[ccokeman]

@ccokekman

 

Australia Population: 23millon

 

 

.... HAAHHHAHAHAhahhahahahha no wonder why such a beautiful and huge territory is inhabitated by such a few people.. Maybe because of the wilderness of insects and killing animals xDxDxD. I think we are 48milons and our country is 60% of australia's size.

 

Well it was a penal colony at one time so some of the European people there are descendants of dare I say it........criminals!