Good Samaritan Gun Use

[taranaki]

Originally Posted by YogsVR4

Its true that a significan portion (80% or so) were done using firearms http://www-medlib.med.utah.edu/WebPa...S/GUNSTAT.html But, even then, there is no evidence that the crimes wouldn't have been committed even if there were no guns.

Yes, I'd say that 80% is a 'significant proportion' .And if you can find an alternative weapon that can kill someone instantly from across a room, I'll agree that the criminals may have used an alternative,but the facts will remain unchanged. In 2000,over 12,000 people were killed with guns.And that's okay with the pro-gun lobby.Strange then that when 3000 get killed by a bunch of Arabs a year later,all the gun-loving control freaks get excitable.Seems that only selective problems get dealt with, and then only if the problem involves......mor guns.

To summarize. You're pulling imaginary numbers out of the air.

Actually Yogs, I pulled nothing out of the air.The figures were supplied here.

Originally Posted by SnoopisTDI

I can't find the gun-related death count for the US, but it's something like 46,000. About 2/3 of which are criminals killing criminals, and 1/4 of which are suicides- the rest being innocent people killed, or police shootings(accidental or inentional).

If people can't be bothered finding the correct figures to support their arguments, I'll use whatever they bring.Because no matter what they bring, the truth is that guns are killing far more Americans per head of population than any [u]civilised[/i] nation.Which is hardly surprising, because at the last estimate, the US had ownership of approximately half of the world's firearms.

[RSX-S777]

Originally Posted by SniperX13

I am sorry if you feel I was challenging your honor, I was trying to guage what type of person you were, not trying imply anything, or attack you personally.

no one said the gun made him brave, he himself was brave already to make up his mind to go and help. the firearm was mearly a tool to assist.

but with the comment of "not his (our) job to enforce the law, leave it to the professionals, I guess that answers my question of stopping to help out someone who needs help and can't help themselves.

I suppose there is a fine line, then, between bravery and stupidity. Where exactly does one stop in one's quest to "help" their fellow man? Perhaps we should all buy bigger guns to be better, more helpful citizens. I prefer a different, more civilized route. If that makes me somehow less human, less gallant, or less of a man in your estimation- so be it. Bottom line is, lax gun control is at the root of the problem, not people such as myself. Vigilante justice is not the cure for society's ills. At best, the man got himself killed. What if he himself had shot and killed an innocent bystander while trying to play hero? Would we be having this debate?

[Twitch1]

Now suddenly you seem to understand that it's a social problem rather than the inantimate object problem. That is the point. So what is it? Let's damn the object (since Swiss have full auto firearms in most households you are correct in that their firearm crime rate is lower per 100,000) or damn the society. So it's not the firearms that are bad, It's the people that use them! That is exactly the problem and always has been! The point also remains is that anyone with the desire can buy an illegal firearm on the street. I'll extend that to any city in the world not just the US. If you have the $$ you can easily find what you want.


The people that do that are criminals, plain and simple in any country. Everyone agrees on that. Someone outside of another sovereign nation can make fun of that country's governing laws. It's a cheap shot to throw stones at another society's values and constitution. It's truly the refuge of a coward.

And no you don't understand us if you do not live here. A visit is not the same and the population of rural areas have a vastly different point of view than the city folk do here as well on virtually every topic. There are more rural areas in the us than large cities.

It's is just sublime that on any given forum the foreign folks are the ones involved in some instigation of negative comments about some aspect of the US well beyond firearms. I have never seen an American carping, for example, about "the danged Norwegian government and their policy on ___" (fill in the blank)

We just don't care if you want to waive your right to own a gun or do anything outside the US frankly. Who appointed anyone outside the US to be our society's psychologist? The holier than thou attitude just doesn't cut it.

As an recon marine in country in 1970 I assisted in the defense of the weak from the fascist strong. Every country I've been in was the same. Whole peoples without liberties, rights and freedoms and governments foreign and domestic that always think they know whats best for them. That is some dead crap!

[SnoopisTDI]

Originally Posted by taranaki

Do explain more about your last sentence in this paragraph, because I haven't a clue what you mean.

19 knives, 3000 people dead. 11 September 2001. That's the largest example of multiple homicide I can think of, by far. And guns were not used.

Here is some more information about gun laws and changes in crime in the following years: Just Facts

So, you're going to your government's site for strategy on reducing gun deaths? Frankly that's like going to the Marlboro Man for advice on quitting smoking.

No, most of the government would love to get rid of the Bill of Rights, and most of them are starting with the 2nd Amendment. But they can't move too fast, because they value their job security more than anything.

Since you're not going to talk about what the report said, I won't bother talking about it. But I will point out(from the report), for the year 2000, there were 28,663 firearms related deaths(57.9% suicides, 37.7% homicides, 2.7% unintentional, 1.7% legal interventions or undetermined), not the 46,000 I mentioned earlier. Sorry, that's my fault for bringing it up instead of waiting until I could get the right number.

And I've looked for some information on murderers and their vitcims: Who Kills Whom?

From another source:
"MYTH: 'Most murders are argument-related 'crimes of passion' against
a relative, neighbor, friend or acquaintance.'

The vast majority of murders are committed by persons with long
established patterns of violent criminal behavior. According to
analyses of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, by
the FBI, and the Chicago, New York City, and other police
departments, about 70 percent of suspected murder- ers have criminal
careers of long-standing - as do nearly half their victims. FBI data,
indeed, shows that roughly 55% of the murders were known to their
victims."

Tell me, are you so scared of your government that you intend to raise an armed militia?

No, I'm not, and I don't. But who's to say things will never change? To say we will never fear our government is to laugh at centuries of history.

But, if I may quote you from the Maximum Pain thread:

How many times have you seen footage of police or armed forces in riot gear intervening in lawful and peaceful protests?How many times have you seen technology abused to torture dissidents? Do you really believe that if they develop this weapon that it will be used soley by the US military, and soley with discretion to break up riots?

I've also read some of your posts about the Patriot Act- you talk about Americans getting hauled off to Guantanamo, you talk about lack of faith in our intelligence and law enforcement using it appropriately, you even said "Rights are like oxygen.You don't notice them until you come to excercise them and they're not there.


It sounds to me like you don't trust them, but I should. You don't trust them, yet you want me to give up any means of self defense. You don't trust the government with a wire-tap or video camera, or a list of books you have read at the library- but you do trust them to be the only people with guns?

And if you tried to, do you think you would get far enough to make one iota of difference?

Damn right. American citizens have more small arms than any military in the world. A lot of people think the terrorists in Iraq are giving us a hard time- well they aint seen nothing yet. Wait til someone tries to disarm me and mine. Sans the beheadings of innocents, of course.

To be honest I don't think it would ever happen. People are too comfortable, and no one knows what the end result would be. But I'm not going to give them the chance.


Over a million people in Turkey trusted their government enough to accept "gun control" in 1915-1917. 20,000,000 people in the Soviet Union trusted their government enough to accept "gun control" in 1929-1945. The Germans(namely the Jews) trusted their government enough to accept "gun control" before WWII- which spread to the lives of 20,000,000 between 1929-1945. 10,000,000 people in Nationalist China trusted their government enough to accept "gun control" in 1927-1949. Estimates vary between 20,000,000 and 35,000,000 people in Red China trusting their government enough to accept "gun control" between the years of 1949-1952, 1957-1960, and 1966-1976. Over 100,000(some estimate 200,000) in Guatemala trusted their government enough to accept "gun control" between 1960 and 1981. 300,000 Christians trusted their government enough to accept "gun control" in Uganda between 1971-1979. 2,000,000 in Cambodia trusted their government enough to accept "gun control" in 1975-1979. 800,000 Tutsi in Rwanda trusted their government enough to accept "gun control" in 1994.

These people were all murdered by their government. That's about 74,000,000 in the 20th century alone- suckered into death by gun control. Not I.

Oh, and none of this includes however many minorities were killed in lynchings because our government, in the USA, implemented gun control copied from the Nazis in order to keep them(mostly blacks) from defending themselves.

OK so you were given a constitutional right to protect yourself against your government.

No, we weren't given anything. We made the constitution, not the government. The constitution is a limit on the government. Rights aren't "given." You're born with them. The Bill of Rights merely lists a few of these rights which the government has no power over.

So What? it's obsolete

Freedom isn't obsolete. I hope you don't have a problem with that.

One final point.

58,000 men died in Vietnam.That war is almost universally accepted as a failed campaign.Fought over ten years thats an average of less than 6000 deaths per year for a failed cause.You are holding up 46,000 gun deaths as an acceptable figure.With the same success as Vietnam.

I disagree about Vietnam, but that's neither here nor there.

28,000 per year, IF that number were to stay the same for a century, would be 2,800,000 Americans(mainly suicides and criminals) killed with guns. Versus 74,000,000 innocent civilians and political dissidents killed by gun control.

Hmmm...what a good idea, take out the problem areas and the figure drops.Of course it's a skewed argument,but never mind, it gives Yogs figures that he needn't be embarrassed about.

Curiously, if you took out new zealands 3 biggest urban areas, the percentage of gun deaths would rise.

Another reason why I said it's useless to compare different countries. There are completely different situations, and a lot more circumstances affecting these numbers than just "gun control."

But if you want to compare, this link lists total homicide rates, firearm homicide, and non-firearm homicide for many countries: International Homicide Comparisons

Look at Mexico- they have very strict "gun control" laws, yet their firearm homicide and total homicide rates are about three times what they are in the US. Brazil also has relatively strict "gun control" laws, with even higher murder rates.

No, I'm not blaming this on "gun control," just making the point that there are many factors that affect crime and murder rates.

Taranaki, so far, all you have done is show evidence that a lot of criminals in America use guns to kill people... tell us something we dont' already know!

What I want to see is evidence that "gun control" works. Prove to me that a comparable country or state has implemented laws that would restrict would restrict my right to self defense, leading to a significant increase in public safety. Show me where gun control has worked. And prove to me that governments of the "civilized world" will never be less civilized. Prove to me that history no longer repeats itself. Prove that we will never elect another Hitler. Prove to me that our government will never do what the Sudanese government is doing to people in Darfur right now.



I realized this is a little old, but I haven't found anythign more recent yet. Here is a report from the Fraser Institute: Failed Experiment. Before you discredit the source, read the report. Check out the data. Find some examples of a measurable increase in safety brought about by the "gun control" laws of these countries. Or show me where the relaxing of restrictions in America has lead to a measruable decrease in my safety.

This too is a little old, but check it out: Great Britain and Gun Control: With Neither Liberty nor Safety . The whole thing is interesting, and it's pretty short, but the main point I'd like you to read is the last part, about women.

Back to England: England passes gun control, sees highest murder rate in 100 years.

A quick write-up from last summer here mentions many rises in crime in the last few years in countries like England, Wales, Australia, and even Canada. Meanwhile, in America, where gun laws were not passed, crime is decreasing.

Again, I fail to see a trend of incrased safety from "gun control." The radical proponents of "gun control" are wrong.

[Muscletang]

To me, gun control is having 2 hands on your Smith & Wesson .357 Mag Long Barrel.

Snoopis you did your homework and raised some very good points. England banned all guns and now they're defenseless against criminals. Also, you people for gun control what do you think about this story.

A guy breaks into an English family's house. The guy takes the wife and children hostage and threatens to kill them. The man of the house had a shotgun hiden in his house so he got it and shot the guy, killing him. The man killed the guy that broke into his house but saved his family. He was arrested though for murder and breaking the law by owning a personal firearm.

YEAH! That sounds like justice and having problems "under control"! We better write our congressman and start passing those gun control laws right now!

I'm glad that I live in Oklahoma where we have the "Make my day" law. If somebody breaks into your house uninvited, you can shoot them and get away without charges being pressed. Anybody, who wants to take guns away so I can't defend my family, is no better than the guy who would break into my house.

[taranaki]

Perhaps you should know something about British gun ownership before you quote isolated incidents.My whole family was born and raised in England.I lived there for 22 years, never once did I see a gun, nor did I know anyone who owned one.They're not as cowardly over there, they don't need a gun under their pillows to feel safe in their own house.

To talk of British gun crimes as having increased by 'x' percent since the correction of gun laws misses the point.even if they jumped 100%, 100percent of next to nothing is still next to nothing.Comparing the British situation to the ridiculous proliferation of cheap and nasty weapons in the US just doesn't cut it.The rise in gun crime is not a direct result of removing guns from circulation, as the majority of Brits will have nothing to do with guns.Even with the increase in gun crime, the comparison shows Britain to be far safer than the US.



Willful ignorance of better ways is your perogative guys. I can walk down any street in any city at any hour of the day or night in this country and feel perfectly safe.Without a gun. You keep your penis substitutes, and I will keep the kind of freedom that you can't even dream of.

[Twitch1]

I sure glad some of us get to live in a Utopian paradise that has no crimes, violent or otherwise.


The truth of it is no matter where you live here's what you're destined for:

You finally get over the youthful exuberance of some devoted cause. You start working some crappy job till you can get the good one that your education prepared you for. You get married and have a couple kids and figure out how the hell to pay the bills. You drag your ass outta bed before daylight and get into bumper to bumper traffic for an hour to get to work. You deal with a bunch of assholes all day and creep home after dark in traffic to take the kiddies to their activities, pay bills, look at why the car is leaking something and tons of other mundane crap. You don't have time for shit besides taking care of family and work.

Suddenly you wake up one day with high blood pressure and diabetes, or cancer, or emphasema and all this remembered youthful rhetoric seems a century ago. You never contributed anything about any one minor point of the passionate pleas for your "beliefs." And all these years later there's still the same dirge of reactionay bullshit being sung about insignificant intellectual formulas that some people think other should live by.

And that's the fascist element in it. Guys like me Yogs, Muscletang and Snoopis don't WANT anyone to conform to the ranks and goose step into a new order. Our motto is live and let live while the radicals motto is "you should do this and do that because we know what's best for you."

While we and our friends and families are going to the range or out in the country to have fun with our firearms this weekend the antis can sit red eyed from perusal of anti this and that website that have the one true message, seig heil.

One thing for sure is we're not losing any sleep over what a bunch of foreigners think about any aspect of our lives in the USA. We just don't care about them. Nuke 'em all till they glow in the dark.

[YogsVR4]

Originally Posted by taranaki

In 2000,over 12,000 people were killed with guns.And that's okay with the pro-gun lobby.Strange then that when 3000 get killed by a bunch of Arabs a year later,all the gun-loving control freaks get excitable.Seems that only selective problems get dealt with, and then only if the problem involves......mor guns.

Actually Yogs, I pulled nothing out of the air.The figures were supplied here.

If people can't be bothered finding the correct figures to support their arguments, I'll use whatever they bring.Because no matter what they bring, the truth is that guns are killing far more Americans per head of population than any [u]civilised[/i] nation.Which is hardly surprising, because at the last estimate, the US had ownership of approximately half of the world's firearms.

Where is it written that the number killed is ok with the pro-gun lobby? Thats the same as claiming you were ok with Saddam killing thousands of his own people.

You don't normally do some fact checking on your own when using those numbers to support your own position? hmmm....

Homicides per 100,000 http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/homicide.htm#murd It stands to reason that someone who wants to commit murder would use the easiest tool for the job. What you've failed to do is offer any evidence that the absense of guns would reduce violent crime.













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[YogsVR4]

Originally Posted by taranaki

Willful ignorance of better ways is your perogative guys. I can walk down any street in any city at any hour of the day or night in this country and feel perfectly safe.Without a gun. You keep your penis substitutes, and I will keep the kind of freedom that you can't even dream of.

We do pity those of you wallowing in your own perceived paradise. Anyone proclaiming their freedoms by the things their government says they cannot have or what they can or cannot do has been landed hook line and sinker by the state. Such good little soldiers.













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[SnoopisTDI]

Originally Posted by taranaki

To talk of British gun crimes as having increased by 'x' percent since the correction of gun laws misses the point.even if they jumped 100%, 100percent of next to nothing is still next to nothing.Comparing the British situation to the ridiculous proliferation of cheap and nasty weapons in the US just doesn't cut it.The rise in gun crime is not a direct result of removing guns from circulation, as the majority of Brits will have nothing to do with guns.Even with the increase in gun crime, the comparison shows Britain to be far safer than the US.

Let me clarify the point I was making in reference to Great Britain. I don't care about their gun crimes. You're right, they were next to nothing. And they still are. The only change is that crime(crime in general, not just gun crime) has risen after the passing of gun control laws. And I'm not even going to blame that on gun control, because as I said earlier, there are a lot of factors that affect crime. But now you have people in the situation of rising crime, and no right to defend themselves. That's the problem with gun control.

It's similar to places like Baltimore and Chicago. Firearm bans have not had any effect on crime rates. The only thing they have succeeded in doing is preventing people like you and I from defending ourselves.

Willful ignorance of better ways is your perogative guys. I can walk down any street in any city at any hour of the day or night in this country and feel perfectly safe.Without a gun.

I'm glad you can do that. And for the most part I feel the same here. There have been few places I've been to where I didn't feel safe, and none of them were places I normally visited.

But some people aren't so lucky. Some people live or work in areas where people are mugged, raped, beaten, stabbed, or shot, on a regular basis. It takes a lot of balls to tell them they don't have a right to defend themselves only because you, living thousands of miles away, feel safe.


I'll try to look at this from a different angle, becuase I just don't understand the people who support gun control. I don't expect to change anyone's mind, but I'd like to at least try to understand where you're coming from- right now, I don't get it, at all.

Some of it just seems to be a cultural difference in how we view guns. You mention your limited exposure to guns- you didn't see one of them in 22 years in England, and you probably haven't seen many since then. You've probably seen gangsters and bank robbers use them on tv(or maybe some people with small penis ), or seen a few isolated incidents on the news.

This is contrary to many Americans. My grandfather always had a few rifles and a handgun(which he carried everywhere, even at my sister's wedding, and nobody ever knew, including myself until later), my uncles had rifles, my dad has a bow but no firearms. My mom is considering getting a handgun. I remember when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, going to visit my grandparents, and seeing my cousin(same age as myself) going rabbit hunting with my uncle and my grandfather. The first time I fired a gun was with my gandfather at the age of 12 or 13.
In college, a few roommates and friends had handguns, shotguns, and rifles. After working in the lab for a few hours on whatever project we happened to be working on, we'd run by the gun shop, get some ear plugs and a little ammo, drive out into the desert with a bunch of empty wine/beer bottles or some sporting clays and spend a couple hours shooting.
College is over, and I'm in the real world now. Last summer I overheard two guys at work talking about a shooting range in the area, so I start talking with them... next thing you know, it's Sunday afternoon and while most people are getting drunk watching Nascar, I'm at the range with a few friends, shooting their .50cal rifles and a couple "assault weapons." We bring a cooler with some snacks and gatorade, and have a good time. Once the sun starts to set, we pack everything up, and fire up the grill, have some steaks or bratwurst, and call it a day.

It's just normal activity, with normal people. None of these people are any different than the average American. Engineers, pilots, factory workers, former military, family members, etc. This is the rule, not the exception. The exception is the rare examples you see on tv.

It's like people from other places see just murderers, thugs, and deranged lunatics with guns. They can't possibly imagine their neighbor, or their son or daughter's math teacher, or the guy in the cubicle next to you at work owning a gun. They're not criminals, they don't have or need guns.

Most Americans don't see it like that at all. Normal people have guns. Our neighbors don't scare us. Our teachers don't scare us. My co-workers don't scare me. So why should I worry if they own guns? The only people that scare me are the people who will get guns regardless of any gun control laws.

But say your neighbor had a gun... would that scare you? What if your son or daughter's math teacher spent his sunday afternoon blasting holes in paper targets with his .45... would that scare you?

[Muscletang]

Originally Posted by taranaki

You keep your penis substitutes, and I will keep the kind of freedom that you can't even dream of.

When remarks are thrown around like this it's very clear who has won the debate.

Also, what freedom do you speak of? If a guy breaks into your house and holds your family hostage, you're helpless to stop him or save anybody. My freedom is if a guy breaks into my house I'm going to break him by sending a few rounds of double ot buck through his gut.

I'm sorry but you're living in a dream world if you think banning guns will make crime go away. Do you really think the criminals are going to turn in their fire arms if there ever is a nation wide ban? All the people would then be helpless to defend themselves and would be run over by the criminals who have the power.

[taranaki]

Originally Posted by Twitch1

It's is just sublime that on any given forum the foreign folks are the ones involved in some instigation of negative comments about some aspect of the US well beyond firearms. I have never seen an American carping, for example, about "the danged Norwegian government and their policy on ___" (fill in the blank)

Then you've not read these forums very well at all.


It's full of halfwits carping on about Korea, Iran Iraq,France,Spain,Mexico...and most of those halfwits are American.

[Twitch1]

This forum may be unique. Who knows? Who cares? As stated, most forums have the European guys bitching about some obscure US policy or statement that may or may not be accurate after the international news services present it.

Like I said no one is going to do anything about anything. You're going to get wrapped up in life survival. You're not going to have time to go on marches and attend demonstrations cause you'll be taking care of kids and a household and trying to hold a decent job and perhaps facing medical problems. That's the reality of it. In 30 years Bubba, this will all be a dim memory that consumed a tiny fraction of your life. Utterly wasted time.

[RSX-S777]

Personally, my time here will have been very well spent if at least one non-American comes to acknowledge that at least one American is not a smug, arrogant, self-seeking, warmonger who lives to shoot his gun, shoot his mouth and shit on the world. But that's just me...and I am apparently in the minority.

[Twitch1]

RSX- there are people on these forums that are dedicated to continually attempting to debase and demean YOUR society(if you live in the US) and YOUR brother citizens in an ongoing effort to make you feel guilty about things of which you have no control as they point out every perceived flaw while they pretend to have none.

If that makes you feel good that go for it!