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![]() "Jay Stranahan" wrote in message ... Look, here's the deal - I would rather the lady not be burgled in the first place - as anyone would. However that's trivial. Consider two options, either neither the lady nor the burglars has a weapon or on the flip side, they both do. Who is going to come out the better in a shoot out? The granny? Certainly not, which is why it would be better that there were no guns involved. What makes you think if Reagan's ongoing War On Drugs can't shut down the meth labs in the national forest behind my house that a War On Firearms is going to be any more successful? We have the longest undefended borders in the world here. You're an island. Maybe you can make it work. We can't. This I understand and agree with - it's not the fact that you have guns that bothers me, it's the readiness with which you use them in situations that can be resolved through non lethal means. Gun related deaths in the UK weighed in at 23 compared to over 10,000 in the US for a similar time period. Granted, a large proportion of that 10,000 may be gang related, or there may be other driving factors which are not so much of an issue in the UK. I'm just speculating. However you look at it, 10,000's just staggering - that's Vietnam in five years. Our population is several times yours, and it is spread over an area roughly the size of Europe. The statistics you want, if you're to be honest with yourself, are the numbers per. 100,000. The US population is several times larger than that of the UK. The number 23 is not several times smaller than 10,000. I vaguely recall that our murder rate is higher than yours but lower than the Baltic states. Nothing to be proud of. In every other sense, your own society comes off far worse (which simply means you're passing through a rough economic and demographic patch). Now. What does that tell you about your prejudices -- and that's what they are -- regarding my people and *my* society? The UK does not come off worse in every other sense - so I'm unclear as to how this ties in with my own prejudices. This ethos of gun totting scares me rigid, how on earth can it be defended? In the US the number of states permitting the concealed carriage of weapons has risen from nine to 31 since 1986. That's just a step in the wrong direction. Before you get all worked up in this tearful frenzy over what the poor Americans are inflicting upon themselves, why don't you -- if you really care -- do a bit of research as to how many legally carried firearms were employed unlawfully over the past few years? Of all the crime statistics for the US I've looked at, I have been unable to find this information. Maybe you can point me in the right direction? And: Your understanding of American gun laws seems to be kind off off-kilter. I can't *lawfully* wave a shotgun at some prick trying to steal my pickup truck. That's called felony brandishment, and will earn me jail time. On the other hand, if the sonofabitch comes inside and tries to harm me, it's reassuring to know I can stop him cold, although I frankly can't fathom that happening in the first place. Life here is so safe as to be boring. Beyond TV, my understanding of US gun law stems entirely from the NG. Which has, frankly, been quite worrying. If you'd kill a man over the loss of a few of your personal possessions - e.g. the pick up thief - then surely that is beyond felony brandishment and so why would a person not be prosecuted ofr that man's death? If you wouldn't kill that man, then we are agreed. You also seem to think that mere possession of a firearm makes an otherwise ordinary human being susceptible to the equivelant of road rage. And if that were true, Shasta County would be one of the bloodiest places on earth. I wholeheartedly agree, but wouldn't you prefer those guys to not have ready access to guns to facilitate those violent crimes? How do you prevent that by the mere act of outlawing them? It didn't work for grass or meth. I have not stated that outlawing weapons would solve the gun related murder rate within the US, in fact I've said it's a ludicrous proposal. My original question was to ask whether it was worrying that guns are so readily available to both well meaning ODCs and the average criminal alike. Or is it their right to go about their criminal activities safe in the knowledge that they've a weapon for self protection? Lunacy! Here you are going off half-cocked again, and excuse me for calling you on it. Please do go to the FBI's web site -- again, if you actually care -- and do some research into how many legally-owned firearms were used in the commission of a crime in the United States last year, or even in the last decade. I think my point was valid, and certainly not half-cocked. That statement was in reply to the suggestion that, as is the right of any US citizen, a criminal can legally carry a weapon. Obviously if attempting to break the law, he's in the wrong, and I am unsure of the legalities of carrying a weapon in such a situation. Up until that point of breaking the law, a criminal is defended by the US constitution to carry arms. That is lunacy. There is nothing, as far as I am aware, in your 2nd amendment that says you must be a well-meaning chap with 2.4 kids. Look, I'm not laying out flame-bait for you. I'm not spewing smug rhetoric. I'm saying, do what I did a few years ago and challenge your own assumptions. After I got through looking at what the Centers for Disease Control and the Feds said about gun crime in America, I felt a lot better as a gun owner. I can't recall the exact figure off the top of my head, but the number is absurdly low. Single digits of single digits. I am not intentionally obtuse, and I sincerely hope that I have not given a bigoted impression. Over the last 24 hours I have read and appreciated a large number of well composed and logical arguments, many of which counter my opinions of gun crime and ownership. As a result, I can now see why you would keep a gun for home and personal protection - resulting from the US gun culture which is simply not an issue in the UK. I've respect for Dan, who clearly has his head screwed on straight - having worked with the NRA to promote gun awareness and safety, he's said guns aren't the shortcut answer to everything. Ticks in boxes. Yet other posters have demonstrated a shocking disregard the life of a fellow human being, albeit a dirty 'badguy' criminal. It's the flagrant willingness to kill, coupled with such a low regard for the gravity of murder, that really gets me. I'm not desperately urging you guys to throw down your guns, shout hallelujahs and join the British way of life. I know. I know that. I'm just fascinated as to why you so readily defend your right to shoot someone where really no right should exist. As a mushy-squishy California LibDem who voted for Gore the last time around, I have to honestly say that is -- to me -- a dismaying, disquieting, illiberal sentiment, and I cannot fathom your mindset. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on that one. Viscerally. I'll tell the crusaders to unpack their bags. And now, having dispensed my Solomon-like wisdom to all and sundry, I will go out and flop a slab of fresh tuna on the gas grill and make some fish tacos, and I will sit on the back porch and eat them in the secure knowledge that despit our guns and drugs and widespread poverty and petty sleazy white-trash meannesses that Shasta County is *still* safer than Merrie Olde England. Controversial. Jim Doyle |
#2
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Beyond TV, my understanding of US gun law stems entirely from the NG.
No wonder you're all worked up. Go to Google and type in 'Centers For Disease Control' and 'FBI' and go look at the data, instead of fencing with anonymous strangers on Usenet and watching reruns of Miami Vice. I think my point was valid, and certainly not half-cocked. That statement was in reply to the suggestion that, as is the right of any US citizen, a criminal can legally carry a weapon. Oh for Christ's sake.... (rolls eyes). That's not true. Felons cannot legally own firearms (not that that prevents them. They're *felons*. Duh). At least not in the great state of California, and I seriously doubt they can *anywhere.* You are speaking from prejudice and your prejudice is based on ignorance, and if it annoys you for me to point it out and call it by its proper name, I'm not completely sorry. Because you've said a couple of things below that I find seriously offensive. It's the flagrant willingness to kill, No, it's a total willingness to defend onesself in one's home. You used to have the same ethos in your own society. You have successfully argued yourself out of it, and only time will tell whether this was any sort of an improvement. coupled with such a low regard for the gravity of murder, that really gets me. Prejudice again, and this one angers me. If I defend myself with lethal force, it's only because I wish to avoid dying in my own living room. I have no desire to harm any human being. No normal man does. I am not dehumanizing the violent intrusive asshole who might hypothetically barge his way into my house at night. I simply want to not be at his mercy. He's certainly not there to do me any favors. The reason he might be armed is not because of any Yankee gun kul-chore, but because criminals, by de facto goddam definition, DO NOT OBSERVE THE LAW. This is true in London as well as Redding (CA, population 78,000). Why would any reasonable individual place himself at the mercy of lawless, violent men? What's the rate of hot burglaries in Britain? What's happened to your rates of violent crime, gun crime, since you chopped every legally-owned handgun on your island into scrap? They've gone up severalfold. Why? Because the lawless took heart at the way their prospective victims were disarming themselves? No... no, that's the standard macho NRA line, and I don't buy it. I think it's because you've hit a rough demographic and economic patch, and banning legally owned weapons -- predictably -- didn't make any dent in it. You treated a symptom. The disease rages merrily onwards. despit our guns and drugs and widespread poverty and petty sleazy white-trash meannesses that Shasta County is *still* safer than Merrie Olde England. Controversial. What's controversial about the facts? Unless you find them so counterintuitive to your prejudices that you discard them out of hand. You can say what you please in reply, but I see I'm not doing any good by bouncing the marbles of statistical fact off the sidewalk of your prejudice. So I'll stop. |
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