Guncrazy USA

I have never argues that there is more homicide in the US than there is in the UK. Nor do I argue there is more "gun Crime" in the US than there is in the UK.

You do mean that you have never argued that there are more homicides in the UK than there are in the US. Nor have you argued that there is more "gun Crime" in the UK than there is in the US?

 

Oh hell Pitt did you learn nothing from that last thread I know you were not very good at reading the posts but are you so close minded that you got nothing out of it?

OK


What I’m trying to point out is that the problem for me is that many Americans seem to be not asking this question only putting there trust in guns to suppress it.

I think one of the problems is that until that cultural attitude changes Americans will not tackle that question.

You seem to be in this group because your whole argument is not about tackling the question but involves a desperate defence of gun ownership as a means of suppression.

You champion carrying a concealed weapon in the hope that bad guys will be frightened to do anything. But isn’t the question why do they want to do something?

You say someone can do both suppress the problems and deal with them, but while you and others are big on suppression you seem to have little in the way of dealing with the problems. Again and again I tried to get you to explain your ideas on dealing with the problems in you society (other than guns and suppression)

Britain has never had a real big gun problem before or after the ban yet you keep trying to hold it up as an example of what happens when guns are banned. But while it is true that in 1996 there were only 49 gun-related homicides in 1995 there were 70 and 1993, 74 and in 1999 three years after the ban the figure is again 49.

But we are talking here of gun related murders in double figures not in hundreds or the thousands.

We have our problems but which society seems to have the greater problems, the US or UK in this regard?

As was discussed in the other thread the thing that needs to be asked is why it is that US society seemingly so much more deadly than other societies.

What I’m trying to point out is that the problem for me is that many Americans seem to be not asking this question only putting there trust in guns to suppress it.

To me the problem is not just gun related, but some people use guns as an excuse not to ask questions. They seem so busy defending guns that they don’t seem to have time for anything else. All this talk of bans and the usefulness of guns in tackling crime means they don’t have to ask difficult questions about why their society is in such a state.

It really isn’t that important if the UK’s gun ban is working or not or that Switzerland has guns, they are not the US, they are different societies with different problems but neither have had the huge gun related murder rate of the US.

I haven’t called for a ban on guns I have talked of regulating them to try and improve US society along with many other programmes, is that a bad thing?

 

Balbus, it's quite clear to me that Dirk is simply trying to illustrate that the UK gun ban led to no significant benefit after 4 years......why are you having such a difficult time grasping this concept???

 

HGLYGLFLDHKF! THE USA HAS 300 MILLIONS PEOPLE THE UK ONLY HAVE ROUGHLY 70 MILLIONS. BIG FUCKING DIFRENCES .

 

The UK's lack of gun culture and low murder rate can not be placed at the door of the largely irrelevant 1997 ban on handguns, but rather our nearly 100 year history of restrictive gun licensing. Dirk Pitt you continually fail to understand this point.

 

And what is the relevant cultural/societal difference between Britain and the US? Britain never had a gun culture because we introduced strict firearm licensing after World War I. No culture of gun crime = low murder rate. The USA has a culture of gun crime and consequently a high murder rate.

Seriously, if you're not going to think properly it's really no fun discussing this! Nobody claims that the 1997 ban on handguns had or was ever likely to have any significant impact on the murder rate - we never had a gun crime problem to begin with, so how could it?! Your point is simply a nonsense.

 

We're overlapping in other threads here, here's what I wrote:

"you would need to have a culture both of guns and of violent crime for gun crime to have the effect on murder rates we observe in the USA.
The UK has the violent crime trend, but not the gun culture - hence lower murder rates."

It was to reduce the likelihood of these rare instances of concealed weapons crimes. Obviously. We don't have a gun culture, we don't have gun crimes - that incident shocked our country and the government decided to ban handguns so that this kind of crime was less likely to occur in the future - Hamilton owned his guns legally. Obviously a law does not prevent anyone from committing crime, but banning handguns reduced the likelihood of this kind of crime and the ease with which it could occur.

 

The idea of Hamilton doing absolutely anything to find other ways to kill schoolchildren (building bombs perhaps - that would be about the only way he could have done more harm, but even then it's debatable) doesn't really fit his profile. It's just a single case though, so it's impossible to draw any kind of general principle from it.

We're not just talking about Hamilton; anything which reduces the ability of people to get hold of the most dangerous / deadliest weapons will reduce the chance of such weapons being used in crime. Again, that's so obvious it's hardly worth debating - I can't believe you'd question that point.

 

Our psychology tutor says that Amrican obsesion mit guns is to do with penis insecurity from childhood und peer pressure of capitalist system. He says it is what set off the bot from the South Korea und that it could happen again. I think this is sad. Why need guns for penis insecurity und why no just buy the bigger penis pills from web like they do in canada?

 

What utter guff. Do you really believe that knives are just as deadly or as easy to use as guns? You're talking complete bollocks. Remove the availability of guns, you lower the amount of deaths and injuries any one person will be likely to cause in cases of violent crime.

My point precisely! Guns are incredibly efficient personal weapons. Remove guns, you lessen the efficiency with which criminals can cause deaths and injuries. Simple as.

I really wish those in favour of unrestricted gun ownership would be honest about their views - basically you believe that despite the fact that unrestricted availability of guns is a factor in the causation and quantity of deaths and injuries, and that guns cause far more deaths and injuries than any other personal weapon for the same number of crimes, you still think it's reasonable that guns should be available almost without restriction. I would have far more respect if you admitted this point - I think it's a deeply irresponsible and dangerous attitude, but at least it's honest.

Trying to argue the point that the availability of guns does not feed into an increase of deaths and injuries or that there would be just as high a murder rate if guns were banned is quite clearly total garbage, disingenuous nonsense.

 

Anyone with a gun should turn it on themselves. That'll help get rid of the idiot gene.

 

Well of almost 15,000 murders in the US in 2005, about 10,000 were comitted by guns, of the other 5,000 about 1/2 were done with knifes, which those alone would still give us a higher murder rate then most 1st world countries, so yes, I'd say knives are just as dangerous

 

Firstly where are your figures from, secondly the figures you quote demonstrate you are about 4 times more likely to be killed in a shooting incident than one involving a knife, so on what basis do you draw the conclusion that knives are "just as dangerous"?

I wonder how many knife attacks there were in which the victims survived - it's far, far harder to kill someone with a knife. If those murderers who used guns only had access to knives there would be fewer deaths and less serious injuries.

 

What would be interesting to know is how many shooting incidents there were compared to the number of knife attacks, my guess is that there would probably not be four times as many shooting incidents, I'd guess that the amount would be about the same; in which case guns would be four times more lethal.

 

I can't work out if you're joking - I asked you to reread the parts you hadn't understood before, I think you haven't done that. Who claims the 1997 handgun law caused a decrease in the murder rate? How could it possibly have done so when handgun crime was so rare? The 1997 handgun law was introduced as a preventive / reactive measure, not in response to a general problem. We lack a gun culture and consequently have a low murder rate because of our strict gun controls which have been in force since about 1920. That's the last time I'm going to say that.

Please please try to read and understand what I've said about the UK and gun crime. You evidently have no understanding of the issue of gun crime in the UK despite my attempts to point you in the right direction, and have this idea that the 1997 handgun law was the be all and end all of our gun control measures. The 1997 law was largely irrelevant, you need to look at the context of gun control over the past 100 years to understand why our murder rate is so low and why the 1997 law would clearly have had very little effect on the murder rate.

 

Yeah my assumption was that there were probably not four times as many incidents involving guns as there were incidents involving knives - this is the assumption I clearly stated in the post. Admittedly I have no evidence to back that up, which is why I stated that it was a "guess".

 

The poster stated:
10,000 deaths by shooting
2,500 deaths by knife attack

2,500 is four times less than 10,000, therefore you were four times more likely to be killed in a gun attack than a knife attack in 2005, according to the poster's figures.

There are some figures quoted here:
http://timlambert.org/category/guns/knives/

This page quotes a study demonstrating that the death rate from robberies involving guns is at least three times higher than those involving knives.

 

On re-reading what I wrote I've removed some tasteless comments which I shouldn't have written, apologies.

 

I'm sorry but you clearly don't understand the UK situation. Gun crime was a very rare occurrence before 1997, it continued to be rare after 1997, if gun crime was not a significant factor in the number of murders before handguns were outlawed, how could you possibly expect to see a decrease in murders after they were outlawed. You would expect the figures to stay pretty much the same, which is exactly what they did - despite a slight blip when Harold Shipman's serial murder cases were reported.

 

Actually, knives are more efficient at killing than guns. You don't have to reload and they make no noise to alert others that someone is being killed.

All you have to do is plunge a 12-14" bladed knife down at a 25 degree angle toward the center of the body between the clavicle and scapula, and once the hilt makes contact with the skin ratchet the blade back and forth. This punctures the upper lobe of the lung (preventing the victim from screaming) while severing the aorta, possibly bisecting the upper chambers of the heart. Death occurs in 15 seconds.

OK, perhaps not as fast as a gun, but quiet and no need to reload.

Also easier to conceal than a gun.

Don't they teach you Brits that in primary school?