Do guns protect you, or simply cause violence? (Page 2)

ghostgeek: Lipton, you seem to be missing the point. If it was all but impossible for anybody to get a gun there would be few shootings. In America it seems rather easy to aquire a firearm while in the U.K. it is far, far, harder to do so. Look at the figures I post showing the number of civilians shot by police in the U.S. and U.K. Without ready access to guns criminals are far less likely to shoot anyone and are also far less likely to be shot by the police. Most police here in the U.K. do not carry firearms. Can that be said about America?

If people feel the need to arm themselves it must be because they feel threatened by gun wielding criminals. If criminals didn't have guns, because there were none to be had, I'm willing to bet that fewer people would feel the need to protect themselves with firearms.

Geoff: As I said, or at least implied - if guns are available to the sort of person who will go on a wild shooting spree - then guns in the hands of their potential victims is perhaps a good thing.

Personally, I think that most people are too emotional to own a firearm.

I personally think that every life matters - even the stupid ones. And I don't think giving everyone a gun will save more lives than removing guns from the equation.

Of course, America is different, you're never going to put the genie back in the bottle.

LiptonCambell: >>>Lipton, you seem to be missing the point. If it was all but impossible for anybody to get a gun there would be few shootings.

And you're naive. Prohibition doesn't work. If people want something, they're going to get it. And given how simple it is to make a gun, or even make a bomb, you will never see a point and time where dangerous people are not in possession of them. Pandoras box is open, and this is now the world we live in. The best situation is that enough decent people are armed that people won't risk starting a mass shooting.

>>>Look at the figures I post showing the number of civilians shot by police in the U.S. and U.K.

Look at the figures I posted on the homicide rate in the UK- after it's mass shooting in Dunblane, and change in gun laws, EVERY YEAR has been higher than the rate prior to the law existed. There was even a huge spike. If this law is saving lives, why is there --more-- people being killed?

As for police shootings- come on- we all know this is a cultural and societal difference happening here...gun laws have had no bearing on such issues

>>>If criminals didn't have guns, because there were none to be had

Why stop there? Lets not just outlaw guns- lets outlaw criminals! If Criminals don't exist, no one would be hurt!

So naive.

davidk14: .

Automobiles and swimming pools kill more people than guns. Get rid of cars and pools. They also pollute the air and the water needed to keep pools filled is obscene and the chemicals used to keep pools clean will kill as well.

Make our country safe once again.

ghostgeek: I guess that to Lipton and David I must seem terribly naive but consider this single fact:

"FROM DECEMBER 2012 TO DECEMBER 2013, AT LEAST 100 CHILDREN WERE KILLED IN UNINTENTIONAL SHOOTINGS — ALMOST TWO EACH WEEK, 61 PERCENT HIGHER THAN FEDERAL DATA REFLECT"
[ http://everytown.org/documents/2014/10/innocents-lost.pdf ]

That's in the U.S., of course. Some 65% of these deaths took place in a home or vehicle that belonged to the victim's family. Another 19% took place in the home of a relative or friend.

Here's another fact to mull over:

"Guns in the home increase risk: Rather than being used for self defense, guns in the home are 22 times more likely to be involved in accidental shootings, homicides, or suicide attempts. For every one time a gun in the home was used in a self defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were 4 unintentional shootings, 7 criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides. On average, states with the highest gun ownership levels had 9 times the rate of unintentional firearms deaths compared to states with the lowest gun ownership levels."
[ http://nyagv.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Accidental-Shootings-NYAGV.pdf ]

ghostgeek: Here in the U.K. people die in car accidents and they also drown but gun deaths are mercifully rare. So should people in the U.K. be allowed to arm themselves to the teeth so that we can get the death rate up over here?

davidk14: .

On a serious note....

ISIS just executed 70+ children by shooting, beheading using knives and swords and the worst... crucifixion.

It's not the type of weapon or weapons...its the society. Its like saying lets get rid of nuclear energy because nuclear weapons can cause mass death.

Its society. Does not matter if it is religion or politics.

Get rid of religion and politics. Then maybe death by guns cans be eliminated. I believe it is called...utopia.

Impossible.

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ghostgeek: Is this thread really about the evil actions of ISIS or is it more concerned with what might happen if a three year old picks up a loaded gun and starts playing with it?

dennygringo56: Everything is relative. Also, look into non-consensual experimentation and extremely low frequency (ELF) and try understanding why kids whose dads are registered semi-automatic assault rifle owners decide, out of the blue, to shoot their schoolmates and two days after the massacre the anti-gun movement protest the 2nd Amendment. I'm in Honduras and I know these things. A lot goes on underneath the surface. Please folks, look into these things.

davidk14: .

There is another thread named ISIS. Nor is it about a 3 year old picking up a gun.

A child walks through an unlocked gate surrounding a pool and drowns. The child has been in that pool many times with there parents and have had a great time. The child does not know the dangers of drowning. There are many more children that drown than die by gun violence.

I have never heard a movement for pools to be emptied and filled with sand. Pools are not covered by the US Constitution.

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LiptonCambell: >>>"FROM DECEMBER 2012 TO DECEMBER 2013, AT LEAST 100 CHILDREN WERE KILLED IN UNINTENTIONAL SHOOTINGS — ALMOST TWO EACH WEEK

Well, taking daivids comments further, while I don't have the week by week accounts of the subject(although I have doubts your source was strict about the accuracy week by week as well, and most likely just averaged), the CDC reported between 2002-2011, 9000 children were killed in car accidents. That's 1000 per year- ten times as many as the stats you're presenting

Why are you presenting stats targeting children, if there are far greater threats to American children that you are perfectly okay with? Are you okay with dying children?


In all fairness ghost, I don't think anyone here is arguing against increased gun safety, increased gun training, increased proper gun storage- all these things are extremely important, and absolutely essential for preventing these deaths. more importantly, there is room for both our ideals and your criticism to meet- and that comes for proper training and education. We don't need to go the route of banning guns to achieve the end of accidental deaths.

davidk14: .

Lipton.....I agree with your comments to ghost.

I believe that there are far greater threats to not only American children, but to children around the world. There are far greater concerns to the safety and welfare of children and gun control argument in the US is clouding the dire health and safety to children in general.

ISIS just murdered 70+ children.

Where is the outrage.

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Outbackjack: Obama gets drones to bomb children.

Where is the outrage?

ghostgeek: People in general, and not just children, die from all sorts of causes. So yes, people die in car accidents and drown in swimming pools and choke eating chicken soup, but so what? This thread is about guns and violence. What we are debating is whether there is a link between the availability of guns and the number of shootings, fatal or otherwise. Clearly, this is an emotive issue for some. Anyway, here is something worth reading:

"One inspiring example comes from Cali, Colombia, and highlights the value of using data to identify risk factors for homicide. In the early 1990s, the mayor of Cali decided to use data to improve health outcomes in his city. A physician and epidemiologist by training, Dr. Rodrigo Guerrero Velasco set up a firearm death tracking system to identify different risk factors driving these trends. Guerrero Velasco and his colleagues found that more than half of Cali’s homicide victims were intoxicated. Also, analysis of the data revealed that homicides were more likely to involve young people and occur on holiday weekends, weekends following paydays, and election days.

Based on these findings, Guerrero Velasco implemented several interventions to address these risk factors, such as limiting the hours alcohol could be sold, imposing curfews for individuals under 18 on the weekends, and imposing short-term gun bans on select weekends and election days when homicides were most likely to occur. According to an academic study based on an analysis of the city’s gun death database, homicides declined from a high of 124 per 100,000 in 1994 to 86 per 100,000 in 1997. Another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and co-authored by University of Washington epidemiologists found that homicide death rates were 14% lower than expected during periods when gun bans were imposed in Cali."
[ http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2014/03/visualizing-gun-deaths-comparing-the-u-s-to-rest-of-the-world/ ]

Notice the last statistic: "homicide death rates were 14% lower than expected during periods when gun bans were imposed in Cali." Does this not suggest that controlling guns leads to a drop in violence?

davidk14: .

ghost said:

but so what? This thread is about guns and violence. What we are debating is whether there is a link between the availability of guns and the number of shootings, fatal or otherwise. Clearly, this is an emotive issue for some.

david responds:

There are 300 million guns in the United States or about one gun for every man, woman and child.

http://www.gunfaq.org/2013/03/how-many-guns-in-the-united-states/

So...how many gun deaths in the US? According to the FBI, in 2012, there were 8,855 total firearm-related homicides in the US.

Pretty good numbers considering.

There are more deaths by car or by pool in percentage than guns.

It's sickening when we hear about a child who dies by gun. It's sickening when we hear of a child dies by drowning in a pool yet we do not hear a call to fill in swimming pools with sand.

But so what...right?

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ghostgeek: Sounds like there are 300 million guns too many in the U.S. Prune that number down and maybe a few more people will live to draw a pension. Worth a try, surely?

davidk14: .

Priorities...

Perhaps we should first fill in swimming pools because more people die from drowning, especially children. And after that, lets get rid of automobiles since they cause more death. Then, once that's done, then we can decide to limit guns.

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dennygringo56: Let human nature take its course and just wait for the apocalypse. We fancy ourselves a civilized species and continue to progress in technology. We can send rockets into space and other planets, but we find that the most difficult thing is to live with "the neighbor." We are deluded with the notion of civility until our most basic amenities are removed. Then we realize the nature of the beast. We judge other cultures, societies, and religions, and see ourselves as being different when the primal urge to survive at all costs is within each and every one of us. We embrace a false sense of perpetuity and think that we can fix things and inhabit this world for all eternity. But, we are primitive and not fully evolved consciously. In essence, guns are not the problem, we are.

davidk14: .

Bravo!

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dennygringo56: Thanx.😎

Geoff: Without wanting to take this thread too much further down this tangent - the majority of people around the (certainly Western) world live quite contentedly with their neighbours. Violence is not something many people have to deal with.

That is not to say that there is not violence, or that we as a species are not capable of incredible death-dealing on every scale from the intimate and personal to industrial genocide, but the desire for peaceful coexistence is becoming stronger and stronger throughout humanity. Yes, some parts of humankind are lagging behind others, but on the whole we're getting better.

Metaphorguy: davidk14 that's an reductio ad absurdum argument. I don't think comparing cars or swimming pools to guns is constructive. The function of a car is to drive and the function of a swimming pool is to swim. The function of a handgun, or assault rifle, is to seriously injure or kill a person. They aren't made for hunting they are killing machines.

davidk14: .

Cars are killing machines when they are improperly used. Swimming pools can suck the life out of a child is seconds. Knives are for cutting food yet they can kill as well.

The point is, guns do not kill people.....people kill people.

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Geoff: But people with guns kill a lot more quickly and readily than someone with a knife.

No three year old pulls a knife out of his mother's purse and accidentally kills both of his parents with it.

davidk14: .

More kids die and have serious injuries from pool gates being unlocked than from accidental gun discharges.

Listen...I completely agree with some forms of gun control. I also believe in pool safety and teaching kids to swim. I was a swim instructor for years. And still, kids die from drowning by the hundreds.

From 2005-2009, there were an average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States — about ten deaths per day.

An additional 347 people died each year from drowning in boating-related incidents.

About one in five people who die from drowning are children 14 and younger.

For every child who dies from drowning, another five receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.

More than 50% of drowning victims treated in emergency departments (EDs) require hospitalization or transfer for further care (compared with a hospitalization rate of about 6% for all unintentional injuries).

These nonfatal drowning injuries can cause severe brain damage that may result in long-term disabilities such as memory problems, learning disabilities, and permanent loss of basic functioning (e.g., permanent vegetative state).

About ten deaths per day.

No one is clamoring for pool control with ten deaths per day now are they.

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