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mstone
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Posted: Apr 23rd, 2007 01:22 pm |
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Jim Flynt wrote: Isn't it rather amazing that none of these mass killings ever occur in countries (such as Britain and much of Northern Europe) where ownership of guns are highly restricted if not forbidden?
Isn't it also amazing that one never reads or hears of the single good law abiding citizen, who armed with the freely available legal weapon, ever stops even one of these gun crazed madmen bent on mass murder and destruction?
You're kidding - right??? Australia, Germany, and Great Britain have all but ended private gun ownership. The results? In Germany, a 50% increase in gun deaths. Home invasions are up in Australia by more the 40%. Robberies on the streets of England and gang violence with the use of guns have increased a staggering 70% since guns were taken from the law abiding citizens.
No mass killings in Europe???
Scotland, March 1996: Gunman shoots 16 children and their teacher dead at their primary school in Dunblane, Scotland before killing himself.
Yemen, March 1997: A man with a rifle attacked hundreds of pupils at two schools in Sanaa, Yemen, killing six children and two others.
Germany, March 2000: A 16-year-old pupil at a private boarding school in the Bavarian town of Branneburg, shot a 57-year-old teacher, who later died from injuries.
Germany, February 2002: A former pupil killed his headmaster and set off pipe bombs in the technical school he had recently been expelled from in Freising near Munich. The man also shot dead his boss and a foreman at the company he worked for before turning the gun on himself. Another teacher was shot in the face, but survived.
Germany, April 2002: Seventeen people killed after a gunman - a former pupil - opens fire in a school in Erfurt, Eastern Germany. He then turned the gun on himself.
No, you don't hear about "good law abiding citizen, who armed with the freely available legal weapon" stopping these people. There's a very good explanation - and ff12 pointed it out earlier. These massacres happen in "gun free zones". If I take my legal weapon onto a school campus, I am no longer a law-abiding citizen. This short-sighted law enacted on behalf of lobbyist for the Brady Campaign and HCI (Handgun Control Inc.) turns law-abiding citizens into criminals if they walk or drive into one of these "zones" with a weapon.
The news media rarely reports instances where a person used their legally owned firearm for their own protection. However, did you see the CNN piece this weekend about the 82 year old, former Miss America that stopped a home intruder in Kentucky by shooting out his tires and holding him until police arrived? Without that gun, you have to wonder what chance an 82 year old lady would have against this thug. I can list dozens of examples where law-abiding citizens have used their legal firearms to protect themselves from thugs and criminals if you'd like.
Jim, I can only hope you're right. Perhaps this tragedy will be the public's motivating force which finally results in some meaningful changes in gun laws. Maybe law-abiding citizens that are fully trained to use a firearm will be allowed to protect themselves and others and stop such tragedies.
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FatPappy
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Posted: Apr 23rd, 2007 04:28 pm |
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mstone wrote:
You're kidding - right??? Australia, Germany, and Great Britain have all but ended private gun ownership. The results? In Germany, a 50% increase in gun deaths. Home invasions are up in Australia by more the 40%. Robberies on the streets of England and gang violence with the use of guns have increased a staggering 70% since guns were taken from the law abiding citizens.
Pappy ain't much on statistics, but here are some I found without makin' a scientifical search out of it. The numbers are a little old, so maybe somebody has some newer ones that will tell a different story. I'll look some more, but I gotta get outside fer a bit right now.
Comparison of U.S. gun homicides to other industrialized countries:
In 1998 (the most recent year for which this data has been compiled), handguns were used to cause the death of:
373 people in Germany
151 people in Canada
57 people in Australia
19 people in Japan
54 people in England and Wales, and
11,789 people in the United States
(*Please note that these 1998 numbers account only for HOMICIDES, and do not include suicides, which comprise and even greater number of gun deaths, or unintentional shootings).
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How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
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macca
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Posted: Apr 23rd, 2007 05:15 pm |
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Wow! Thanks for the impressive statistics, Pappy!
Sad, but impressive.....
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A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. Herm Albright
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FatPappy
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Posted: Apr 23rd, 2007 06:22 pm |
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Yep, sad. Here's some more recent numbers I found (compiled in 2006) from the National Safety Council web site. Puts it in some perspeective.
Odds of dying from:
Heart Disease: 1 in 5
Motor vehicle accident: 1 in 84
Firearm assault: 1 in 314
Bicycling accident: 1 in 4,919
Lightning: 1 in 79,746
Anyway, not to get too far from the topic, I just hope more effective gun control can come from this tragedy.
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How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
--Abraham Lincoln
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bama80
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Posted: Apr 23rd, 2007 06:50 pm |
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Kinda reminds of a simpsons episode where someone wished for world peace and then later in the episode, martians attacked with boards with nails in them and took over. haha funny but somehow.. relevent in this discussion.
Oh and "If guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns". - somebody... take that for what you want it to say.
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This post will self destruct in 10.......9......8....
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rasin
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Posted: Apr 23rd, 2007 06:51 pm |
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Upfront I do not advocate outlawing guns; in general our laws could use some tweaking here and there and of course could benefit from better enforcement. I also believe we should take our time in evaluating what needs to be changed due to this event. This event may be so aberrant that very few meaningful conclusions can be arrived at that can be applied to the future.
Statistics are a very dangerous topic and just indicating the percentage changes may be only half the story. If there was 1 murder one year and there were two the following year the rate would have gone up by 100% or doubled which is a lot scarcer sounding than saying there were 2 murders this year and 1 last year. Fox News would report that murders have doubled, while mainstream media would probably include the rate of increase as a teaser tag line before commercial and then report the actual number of murders when they got to the article. (Have to get my Fox snide remark in there)
Even if the rates in these countries did go up 50% they still have a long way to go to get to the USA homicide rate. So while a doubling of the homicide rate is not desirable making the connection between Gun laws and homicide rate isn't a slam dunk.
It could be violent TV/Movies, more people moving into the city, high unemployment or any number of other theories various groups have put forward. With changes in employment laws due to the European Union there are many more people moving around these countries which may be a larger contributing factor than gun laws.
Looking at the homicide rate for children under 15 in the USA is at a rate 12 times higher than other modern countries as a group (Australia, Finland, etc). This is a group, children under 15, that is unlikely to be carrying weapons even if most of our gun control laws were repealed. Given how well adjusted my friends were at 18-21 I am not so sure equipping colleges students with guns is a smart idea either.
While I realize it was done by a liberal northeast university, Harvard did a study (not a poll) that shows that states with higher rates of gun ownership have a higher rate of homicide than states with lower rates of gun ownership.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2007-releases/press01112007.html
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mstone
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Posted: Apr 23rd, 2007 07:41 pm |
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Statistics are wonderful things. How about these (also without much scientifical research).....
Since 1930, firearm deaths decreased 76%, while the U.S. population has more than doubled and the number of firearms has quintupled. Among children, such deaths have decreased 89% since 1975.
Firearm deaths are at an all-time annual low while the U.S. population is at an all-time high. In 2002, there were 762 such deaths nationally, including 60 among children. Today, the odds are more than a million to one against a child in the U.S. dying from a firearm accident.
In 1995, firearms were involved in 1.5% of all fatal accidents. Deaths involving firearms have decreased 19% since 1993.
Firearms are involved in 0.7% of accidental deaths nationally, and in 1% among children. Most accidental deaths involve, or are due to, motor vehicles (41%), poisoning (16%), falls (15%), suffocation (5%), drowning (3%), fires (3%), medical mistakes (2%), environmental factors (1%), and bicycles (1%).
Statistics on traffic fatalities from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention web site show that the 2002 motor vehicle traffic death rate was 44,982 people. Of those deaths, 16,919 were due to driving under the influence of alcohol, 2nd - 12,600 deaths due to falls, 3rd - 10,600 (poisoning), 4th – 4,500 (drowning), 5th – 4,100 (fires), 6th – 2,800 (choking), 7th – 1400 (firearm).
According to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) data, there are about 258 million guns registered in the U.S.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (1994 – 2004), there are 6.4 million approved (new and used) NICS firearm transactions each year.
Americans use firearms to defend themselves from criminals at least 764,000 times a year. This figure is the lowest among a group of 9 nationwide surveys done by organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times. The highest number exceeded 920,000.
In 1982, a survey of imprisoned criminals found that 34% of them had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim."
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macca
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Posted: Apr 23rd, 2007 07:47 pm |
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rasin wrote:
Upfront I do not advocate outlawing guns; in general our laws could use some tweaking here and there and of course could benefit from better enforcement. I also believe we should take our time in evaluating what needs to be changed due to this event. This event may be so aberrant that very few meaningful conclusions can be arrived at that can be applied to the future.
I think that is usually what happens after such an event. We try to convince ourselves that it will never happen again, so we don't really need to change anything.
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A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. Herm Albright
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rasin
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Posted: Apr 24th, 2007 12:42 am |
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My concern is with knee jerk fixes that in the end either make things very bureaucratic but doesn't prevent anything or restrictions go overboard and impact innocent people aversely
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ff12
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Posted: May 2nd, 2007 02:12 am |
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The Gov. of Va. enacted an additional statute that would add anyone who has been "forced"? into psych help to be added to the do not to sell list. Hence the Va. tech gunman would not have been able to buy a gun. LEGALLY.
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