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Thread: USA and Guns

  1. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by WVMark View Post
    There are a lot of things you're missing.



    7. To end. Certainly not the last nor the least but the US has a Constitution and a Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment guarantees our Right to keep and bear arms. (Which, of course, does contain strict limits to keep hands out of the insane, felons, etc).

    Mark
    This morning I also replied to this, but it seems that I did not clicked on submit.

    You have a lot of valid points Mark, but you know that we can put figures as we like and how they best fit us.

    I knew about the Second Amendment in your Constitution, which surely comes from your history and your large country with many places almost inhabited.

    There is also something more: The USA is the major producer of firearms!

    About your point 4, yes, they do NOT obey the law and can get guns easily, but take for ex the Newtown School Shooting, could it have been avoided, if the gunman wouldn't have had access to a gun? And so many other mass shootings. No gun should be available to depressed or inestable people

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    Carina, I have learned long ago that it is pointless to enter into a gun control debate with Americans. You are entering into a debate that is a mixture of politics and religion and thus pretty much guaranteed to get ugly. The gun culture and mentality is thoroughly embedded, and you are not going to change anybody's mind. Also given the incredible numbers of guns already in circulation and available to criminals, they have a different situation than most other developed countries so debating statistics and such is just a waste of time.
    Neil Gendzwill
    Saskatoon Kendo Club

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    Quote Originally Posted by gendzwil View Post
    Carina, I have learned long ago that it is pointless to enter into a gun control debate with Americans. You are entering into a debate that is a mixture of politics and religion and thus pretty much guaranteed to get ugly. The gun culture and mentality is thoroughly embedded, and you are not going to change anybody's mind. Also given the incredible numbers of guns already in circulation and available to criminals, they have a different situation than most other developed countries so debating statistics and such is just a waste of time.
    Thank you Neil, but I found an american who has answers for almost every reason pro gun american will or could bring up
    http://theprogressivecynic.com/debun...rol-arguments/

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Carina Reinhardt View Post
    Thank you Neil, but I found an american who has answers for almost every reason pro gun american will or could bring up
    http://theprogressivecynic.com/debun...rol-arguments/
    If you think that page will change anybody's mind, you have little experience arguing these issues.
    Neil Gendzwill
    Saskatoon Kendo Club

  5. #20
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    hahaha, no I don't think so, just a little reading to reflect. Maybe things that work in other countries, don't work in America. I think every human life is priceless and if there is something to do to avoid the next mass shooting, just a very tiny little thing to make people reflect, we should try it, don't you think ?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Carina Reinhardt View Post
    I think every human life is priceless and if there is something to do to avoid the next mass shooting, just a very tiny little thing to make people reflect, we should try it, don't you think ?
    Bear in mind you are talking to a Canadian here and so pretty much preaching to the choir. Convincing the Americans is another matter. I have a number of American friends that I avoid this topic with - they are otherwise reasonable people but gun culture in the US is close to religion.
    Neil Gendzwill
    Saskatoon Kendo Club

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    I know you are Canadian, beautiful country, I worked in Toronto many years ago.

    As Mother Teresa said "We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by gendzwil View Post
    ...gun culture in the US is close to religion.
    As is anti-gun culture in many other countries.
    Yours in Budo,
    ---Brian---

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    "Gun culture" is a media take on this, largely built by the media.

    I don't own a gun, to my knowledge, no one in my family owns a gun. I have - on occasion - fired a few (oddly, none when I was in the military).
    I have what I consider a healthy fear/respect for guns, and a the moment don't feel compelled to own one. But there are times when I consider the purchase, particularly when there is a threat to take away the right to own one, and when I see society becoming more lawless.

    Make no mistake about it, if I feel the need, I will make a purchase as soon as possible if I feel the need.

    Another oddity, my shinken, or heck, even my iaido have a greater mystique, and will get tongues wagging a lot faster than any firearm - so long as said firearm isn't recklessly brandished. It's a question of familiarity. Americans are familiar with guns.

    Also, when talking about the numbers, proportion to the whole is an important distinction.
    Joseph Dostie

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    Report from the Center for Disease Control in 2013.
    http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18319&page=R1

    Highlights:
    1. Armed citizens are less likely to be injured by an attacker:
    “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

    2. Defensive uses of guns are common:
    “Almost all national survey estimates indicate thatdefensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”

    3. Mass shootings and accidental firearm deaths account for a small fraction of gun-related deaths, and both are declining:
    “The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths. Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons.” The report also notes, “Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”

    4. “Interventions” (i.e, gun control) such as background checks, so-called assault rifle bans and gun-free zones produce “mixed” results:
    “Whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue.” The report could not conclude whether “passage of right-to-carry laws decrease or increase violence crime.”

    5. Gun buyback/turn-in programs are “ineffective” in reducing crime:
    “There is empirical evidence that gun turn in programs are ineffective, as noted in the 2005 NRC study Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. For example, in 2009, an estimated 310 million guns were available to civilians in the United States (Krouse, 2012), but gun buy-back programs typically recover less than 1,000 guns (NRC, 2005). On the local level, buy-backs may increase awareness of firearm violence. However, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for example, guns recovered in the buy-back were not the same guns as those most often used in homicides and suicides (Kuhn et al., 2002).”

    6. Stolen guns and retail/gun show purchases account for very little crime:
    “More recent prisoner surveys suggest that stolen guns account for only a small percentage of guns used by convicted criminals. … According to a 1997 survey of inmates, approximately 70 percent of the guns used or possess by criminals at the time of their arrest came from family or friends, drug dealers, street purchases, or the underground market.”

    7. The vast majority of gun-related deaths are not homicides, but suicides:
    “Between the years 2000-2010 firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearms related violence in the United States.

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  13. #26
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    From the 1980s through 2010, according to NBC, "From its beginnings in the 1980s, the “right-to-carry” movement has succeeded in boosting the number of licensed concealed-gun carriers from fewer than 1 million to a record 6 million today, according to estimates from gun-rights groups that are supported by msnbc.com’s research. And while hotly debated, the effect of this dramatic increase is largely unknown."

    Correlate that with the CDC report. Unintentional firearm related deaths have declined ... while concealed carry holders have greatly increased ... and guns used to save lives range from 500,000 to 3 million per year.

    And we have to remember all the people crying "There will be blood in the streets" and "It'll be like the Wild Wild West" when concealed carry laws started to gain momentum. Time and time again, the anti-gun crowd has been proven wrong in nearly every assertion they've tried.

  14. #27
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    An example

    http://woodtv.com/2015/02/08/wife-of...h-devastating/

    Could this have been avoided, if the man hadn't had a gun?

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    Perhaps, and perhaps not. Notice: "The Jan. 29 incident wasn’t the first time James had seen violence from her husband. Several years ago, he stabbed her in the neck." If police had been called, and if he advanced on police officers with a knife, the outcome might have been similar.

    I knew a man that shot himself, and I felt fairly certain that if he had not had a gun with him that day, that he would not have committed suicide. But then, I never thought he would have done it in the first place. He might have tried something else.

    The biggest argument against firearms is the scale of destruction one person might do without being stopped - IMO over against some other type of weapon. But even there, someone can do considerable damage with a blade, or a pipe bomb, or whatever. And the whole healthcare question gets glossed over in most cases. Why was this man not hospitalized until his medication was under control? He'd already had a violent incident - attributed by his wife to his medications...

    These are not easy questions.

    One more thing, the American 'thing' about guns is primarily about liberty - not violence (99% of the time). I have the liberty to own a gun, or not... I don't.
    Joseph Dostie

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  17. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by jdostie View Post
    Perhaps, and perhaps not. Notice: "The Jan. 29 incident wasn’t the first time James had seen violence from her husband. Several years ago, he stabbed her in the neck." If police had been called, and if he advanced on police officers with a knife, the outcome might have been similar.
    Yes ,the outcome could have been similar, but most likely that if he only had a knife, the police could have controlled him differently and he would be now in a reha center. But having a gun, now there are 3 people who suffer: the wife and son of the victim and the police who shot.

  18. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Carina Reinhardt View Post
    Yes ,the outcome could have been similar, but most likely that if he only had a knife, the police could have controlled him differently and he would be now in a reha center. But having a gun, now there are 3 people who suffer: the wife and son of the victim and the police who shot.
    If a guy is attacking with a knife and is within 20 feet, a cop will (and should) shoot him.
    Neil Gendzwill
    Saskatoon Kendo Club

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