Guns, Guns Guns

Donnachaidh wrote:I think a lot of the reason gun control is such an issue in the US and why many people outside the US have trouble understanding why its an issue and why we have such strong feelings about it ultimately goes back to history.

Unlike Europe, the US has not had modern weapons (tanks, machine guns, bombers) used in a war in it and so has not had to absorbed the devastation that brings on a cultural level (Europe did after both WW1 and WW2) nor does that awareness exist in the memories of our current leaders. But from a cultural perspective we are not that far removed from the time when guns were necessary for our families' safety (<150 years since frontier where attacks by both bandits and natives were not uncommon and the American Civil War). Most of Europe has lived in cultures were civil authorities were able to exert effective control of areas and deal with crime for centuries. For most of the Western US that has only been the case for maybe 100 years - which isn't long in terms of human culture. The US had highway bandits < 75 years ago (the most famous example being Bonnie and Clyde). That sort of thing is of why our police are armed; for that matter even when they weren't officially armed (when police forces were first formed in the US) almost every police officer carried some sort of firearm.

Just for your information, most police forces are armed (i think all the rest of europe are). In fact, the british police might be unique in being unarmed. For that reason, I was using it as an example of how cultural expectations vary as a result of our hitory.

I certanly agree that the 'frontiersman' attitude and the revolutions/civil wars had that effect but the possibility that a war with modern technology on US soil might swing things the other way hadn't really occured to me. Now I'm ruminating on eastern europe. Certainly something to think about.

But I think the above results more in an open-mindedness to towards freedom with arms. But it seems that the reason some defend that right so fiercely (and here as an outside i speak carefully) is because they are actively scared of their government. And that's just as much an alien attitude.

Certainly some of it comes from fear of the government. While some more f the fear is not rational, when prominent members of the government mock and especially vilify them then that fear is reasonable and justified.

JimHacker wrote:

Donnachaidh wrote:I think a lot of the reason gun control is such an issue in the US and why many people outside the US have trouble understanding why its an issue and why we have such strong feelings about it ultimately goes back to history.

Unlike Europe, the US has not had modern weapons (tanks, machine guns, bombers) used in a war in it and so has not had to absorbed the devastation that brings on a cultural level (Europe did after both WW1 and WW2) nor does that awareness exist in the memories of our current leaders. But from a cultural perspective we are not that far removed from the time when guns were necessary for our families' safety (<150 years since frontier where attacks by both bandits and natives were not uncommon and the American Civil War). Most of Europe has lived in cultures were civil authorities were able to exert effective control of areas and deal with crime for centuries. For most of the Western US that has only been the case for maybe 100 years - which isn't long in terms of human culture. The US had highway bandits < 75 years ago (the most famous example being Bonnie and Clyde). That sort of thing is of why our police are armed; for that matter even when they weren't officially armed (when police forces were first formed in the US) almost every police officer carried some sort of firearm.

Just for your information, most police forces are armed (i think all the rest of europe are). In fact, the british police might be unique in being unarmed. For that reason, I was using it as an example of how cultural expectations vary as a result of our hitory.

I certanly agree that the 'frontiersman' attitude and the revolutions/civil wars had that effect but the possibility that a war with modern technology on US soil might swing things the other way hadn't really occured to me. Now I'm ruminating on eastern europe. Certainly something to think about.

But I think the above results more in an open-mindedness to towards freedom with arms. But it seems that the reason some defend that right so fiercely (and here as an outside i speak carefully) is because they are actively scared of their government. And that's just as much an alien attitude.

Ah well here's a pump action cross bow plan

http://www.vintageprojects.com/archery/crossbowfull-plans.pdf

Poker

Could it be that Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo are raising such a stink about gun control to cover the fact that the New York state penal system is broken? Three New York City policemen were shot on the third of January. two of them were shot by a five time convicted felon. Mind you, that is not the number of times he was arrested. That is the number of times he was convicted of a felony. That is a major felony, including assault with a deadly weapon every 31 months. In that 31 months are included jail time before trial, time of trial and service of sentence. What was he doing out on the street? He should have been in prison with a lot of time left to serve.

To me, the fact that he had a gun, while not irrelevant, is not part of the issue. Due to the lack of funding, prisons are releasing unreformed, dangerous felons back out on the street to continue to victomize law-abiding citizens. In other words, the justice system is falling down on the its main job, protecting the citizens of the state. The fact that this is in an attempt to lower the costs to the tax-payers is not an excuse.

I have been unable to find out anything about the criminal who shot the third officer, an off duty cop moonlighting at the family business. All I do know is that he was shot during a hold-up attempt by an armed assailent. If he had had his service weapon with him, purhaps he would not even have been shot.

The fact that existing laws and punishments are not being enforced, IMHO, has more to do with gun violence than the availability of guns.

For the poster who said that US citizens are afraid of their own government, there is more than a grain of truth in that. The possibility of corruption of or an outright attempt to suppress the Bill of Rights has long been on the minds of US citizens. Current attempts to silence critisism, remove our guns and otherwise violate our rights under the Constitution are validating the need for the right to bear arms.

KNick wrote:Could it be that Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo are raising such a stink about gun control to cover the fact that the New York state penal system is broken? Three New York City policemen were shot on the third of January. two of them were shot by a five time convicted felon. Mind you, that is not the number of times he was arrested. That is the number of times he was convicted of a felony. That is a major felony, including assault with a deadly weapon every 31 months. In that 31 months are included jail time before trial, time of trial and service of sentence. What was he doing out on the street? He should have been in prison with a lot of time left to serve.

To me, the fact that he had a gun, while not irrelevant, is not part of the issue. Due to the lack of funding, prisons are releasing unreformed, dangerous felons back out on the street to continue to victomize law-abiding citizens. In other words, the justice system is falling down on the its main job, protecting the citizens of the state. The fact that this is in an attempt to lower the costs to the tax-payers is not an excuse.

I have been unable to find out anything about the criminal who shot the third officer, an off duty cop moonlighting at the family business. All I do know is that he was shot during a hold-up attempt by an armed assailent. If he had had his service weapon with him, purhaps he would not even have been shot.

The fact that existing laws and punishments are not being enforced, IMHO, has more to do with gun violence than the availability of guns.

For the poster who said that US citizens are afraid of their own government, there is more than a grain of truth in that. The possibility of corruption of or an outright attempt to suppress the Bill of Rights has long been on the minds of US citizens. Current attempts to silence critisism, remove our guns and otherwise violate our rights under the Constitution are validating the need for the right to bear arms.

I'm about to go to bed so don't have time now to respond to this as i'd like. But I will go ahead and quote this into the 'four more years' thread like I did before with someone else's post. Whilst obviously there's a connection between criminal sentencing and gun control/crime I suspect any engangement on that here will sidetrack us into a political debate on law and order, the US prison system, etc.

KNick wrote:

JimHacker wrote:[quote="I]I'm about to go to bed so don't have time now to respond to this as i'd like. But I will go ahead and quote this into the 'four more years' thread like I did before with someone else's post. Whilst obviously there's a connection between criminal sentencing and gun control/crime I suspect any engangement on that here will sidetrack us into a political debate on law and order, the US prison system, etc. [/quote]

I've moved Knick's post here as I said I would. I hope people don't mind me doing this, but as I said before I think it's important that in a mod-lite section of the forums we should try to avoid derailing threads.[/quote][/quote]


I put that post in the Guns, guns, Guns thread (which I started) because the people cited are trying to use these two incidents in New York as a platform to tighten gun control laws. The fact that neither incident would have been prevented by stricter laws is part of my point. I am sorry that was unclear. When politicians attempt to use incidents to take away the rights of law abiding citizens while ignoring the causes of those incidents, it is shameful. If Mayor Bloomberg was advocating longer prison sentences for a crime where a gun was used and there was a chance that they would actually be enforced, I would have no beef with him.[/quote]

Bringing this back to the correct area, Not enforcing existing law, tolerating lawbreaking, using examples where the existing laws were violated to show the need for stricter gun control. Goes to prove the old joke:

Mange, <How do you tell when a politician is lieing?>

Chief, "When their lips move."

Poker & Mange

PS Those trusting the Government should check out the reports of the Church Committee on Governmental misconduct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

He was our Senator, and I worked on his campaign back when there were still conservative Libertarian Democrats.

The reason I quoted knick's post was not so much that it was off-topic (it was clearly related to gun control) but that the response I wanted to write to it veered quite heavily into political stuff and a comparison of law and order in the USA and Europe - especially the fact that europe has much lower crime rates whilst also being much more lenient. I just wanted to keep that separate.

As was my intent, i'll respond to the guns stuff here:

It's always annoying when people misrepresent an anecdote, or when they cherrypick examples or data. But both sides are doing it. It's basically an established principle of politics that you seize on everything you can and spin it in favour of your position even when it has nothing to do with what you want; you can't have a proper debate about anything because people would never follow it (sadly, that's probably true) So spin, spin, spin and churn out those sound-bites. After all: it's for the greater good.

It's true that the man who shot two police officers maybe should have been in prison - its hard to know for sure without more information: remember that kicking someone with steel-toe-capped work boots is considered 'assault with a deadly weapon' and 2.5 years for that seems ok to me. And remember that the USA already has the highest incarceration rate in the world, as well as the longest sentences and worst-quality prisons in the First World. While that case is certainly a bad case for stronger gun control, the European perspective on that case would be: he was probably caught in the act of committing a crime and with his criminal record the man probably thought he was going to prison for the rest of his life anyway so felt he had nothing left to loose. If the US prison sytem concentrated more on reformation instead of punishment then maybe he wouldn't have been in that position in the first place. Also, in Europe it is very likely he wouldn't have had the gun in the first place: I know its hard for some americans to believe but most criminals genuinely don't use guns here. Its more trouble than its worth. The only criminals who have guns are the high-up mob/organized crime types, drug traffickers and the very occasional very ambitious/crazy bank robber. And those people (other than the bank-robber) are generally no threat to the public, just to each other. Burglars do not have guns, drug-dealers do not have guns, muggers do not have guns, even street gangs don't generally have guns. Yes there is more knife crime, but nowhere as much to make up all that gun crime. And frankly, i'd rather face a criminal armed with a knife instead of a gun. Its very rare for european (British even more so despite our higher crime rate) police officers to get shot because criminals don't have guns in the first place and criminals aren't put in the position of "i'm going to jail for the rest of my life anyway so might as well shoot my way out".


All governments are corrupt and attempt to silence criticism to an extent, but I don't really see any interference with constitutional rights. Well, actually there is that interference with habeas corpus, unlimited detention which to me seems like the biggie, but no-one else seems to be bothered - in fact it generally seems like the the more anti-gun-control people are in favour of it. But if we take that off the table for a minute, the argument I often see is that "we need our constitutional right to bear arms to prevent the government from taking away our constitutional right to bear arms". If you see what I mean? Ie, some seem to see the right to bear arms as an end in itself so when you ask what rights need to be protected, its the right to bear arms. It's circular.

RandomGraysuit wrote:

Tenshinai wrote:Those statements are yours alone. If you think that´s the only part of "demographics" that is relevant, think long and hard again.

In the context of American urban murder rates, do you have any other suggested demographics that should be considered?

Population density, average income, proximity of shops, proximity, quality and availability of healthcare, quality and proximity of schools, unemployment (regardless poverty), local prevailing culture, heck even terrain in the area can make a noticeable difference.

Oh, I see the issue; you completely missed the context of the cities I referred to. In Washington DC and Chicago, it has been illegal for a law-abiding citizen to own a handgun for many years. Not hard. Illegal.

*sigh*
I didn´t miss it. You missed the fact that there are nothing stopping anyone from bringing guns into the area. Illegal gun users doesn´t care where it becomes illegal to have guns at all and where it´s just their illegal guns that are illegal. There´s little difference for the criminals.

The amount guns brought in illegally here have gone up sharply ever since the border with Denmark became almost open and then Finland made it easier to pass the border to/from Russia(and as with Norway, Finland has long had a mostly open border with Sweden).
And there are still some potential for checks at the border, USAs "no guns" areas have nothing stopping gun smuggling.

So again, thie is a problem USAs state by state laws creates.

pokermind wrote:Ah well here's a pump action cross bow plan

http://www.vintageprojects.com/archery/crossbowfull-plans.pdf

Poker

Hmm, almost a cheap knock-off copy of the Chinese Chukonu repeater crossbow. Just a thousand years behind or so...

Donnachaidh wrote:I think everyone here would appreciate you not talking about things you do not understand and have little to know experience with.

It's very frustrating and maddening when you listen to someone who hasn't lived there and doesn't know how things works tell you how things work in where you live.

Well, what a lovely little condescending snob reply.

Thing is you see, unlike the majority of americans, me and a lot of other people from the rest of the world actually likes knowing more about that same "rest of the world", and woe and behold, we spend time to find out!

You seem incapable of understanding that.

Mostly it's the condescending tone Tenshinai manages to have in almost every post. Neither you nor Spacekiwi have had that tone nor do you attack, rather you address specific points in a calm, polite, and reasonable manner.

Funny how you say that. Since i´m basically just adjusting myself to YOUR tone when replying to you.
And the first quote in this post, is the most condescending so far in this thread.
Written by YOU. Hypocrite. That´s you.

And if the pro-gun crowd actually had good arguments, i wouldn´t have to laugh at them as hard.

I think a lot of the reason gun control is such an issue in the US and why many people outside the US have trouble understanding why its an issue and why we have such strong feelings about it ultimately goes back to history.
...

Oh dear no. I know perfectly well about that. That is no reason for frivolous gunlaws however. And really, it just says "we live way in the past" very loudly in a hickie accent.

And i just wish that americans could quit whining about the "constitutional right", because it´s bullshit.
I´m a linguist and historian by trade, and it´s completely obvious that the amendment in question refers to gun rights in relation to a militia.
A militia which by the way is also supposed to be the ONLY armed forces of the nation.

Argue for rights to own or wear guns based on logic instead of the poor piece of paper that 99% of the population can´t even read properly, simply because intent of the wording have drifted over time.



*****

JimHacker wrote:I dn't think Tenshinani has been particularly rude, but I do think he's getting a bit frustrated running into a brick wall with some people on the 'more guns = less crime' front. The fact that people on both sides blatantly cherry-pick examples doesn't really help discussion.

Oh i´m being very nice overall here, you should see how i argue with friends. Or on Swedish forums.
Overall, i tend to match myself to those i reply to.

On US forums it seems it´s fine to be rude to any degree, as long as you don´t actually straight out say it honestly.
Perhaps it has something to do with US schools having rethorics and debating clubs as standard, something completely absent here...
And just now i most likely proved that i know more about USA than Donnachaid knows about Sweden... Again.


Also, it´s very absurd getting hit at with usual crap of the "guns guns guns!" crowd when i´m not even an opponent of gun ownership. Just an opponent of IRRESPONSIBLE gun ownership or EASY gun purchase.

There IS a direct correlation between availability of guns, and gun crime. That is simply a fact. That does not mean that low ownership equats to low gun crime, but instead such places gets even worse with easier availability.

But the real mistake the "more guns" crowd make is to assume that those who wants restrictions only wants less raw numbers.
Personally, i want gun purchase to not be a trivial thing and storage to be an equally non-trivial thing, because then, even with many guns, availability is still not high.

But shouting out to arm teachers at schools? That is simply insane. I shouldn´t even need to say that it is an extremely bad idea, it should be VERY obvious.

I can guarantee, that had any of my teachers had weapons at the school when i was a kid, i would have gotten ahold of one before age 12, guaranteed.
Since i was responsible even as a kid, chances are decent that i would neither get myself or others killed or hurt, but this is NOT how kids are overall.
And even i had plenty of *oops* moments (i learned caution specifically because i was a bit fumbly), and having a gun go off by accident, even if no fault of your own, is still a gun that goes off and can kill someone through a window or even a thin wall or door.