http://www.geenstijl.nl/archives/images/kaartdesdoodszoom.pdf
Interesting I would say even though I have no clue how accurate it is.
Interesting I would say even though I have no clue how accurate it is.
20th century cause of death map
- Thread starter Roald
- Start date
Mr. Daystar
In a bell tower, watching you through cross hairs.
Interesting. Get johan in here so he can see how few deaths guns REALLY do cause, compared to the rest of real life.
Because it's not a real problem unless it's the biggest problem, right?
vodkazvictim
Why save the world, when you can rule it?
Mick sez wot?
Mr. Daystar
In a bell tower, watching you through cross hairs.
It's only a problem, if you let the people that have no respect for the responsibility, or the laws, cause the problem. The biggest problem isn't guns, it's people that feel they have the right to usurp the Constitution, and take from those they shouldn't, while ignoring the ones that shouldn't have them, but do.
That aside, how many people die from medications, prematurely green lighted by our government, and they do nothing. How many people die in cancer clusters, our government denies are there...even though the cause is present in the area.
To me, the accountability for such things, would be a much more productive way for our elected employees to spend our tax dollars, as opposed to shoving an agenda on the country, that is obviously unwanted, and ineffective.
You can't argue that it's ineffective. Look at the UK and Australia and see the gun crime rates there. Yes there will always be violence, there will always be someone who just wants to take another's life, but without an arsenal of perfectly-legal firearms, it becomes one person stabbed on a bus, not twenty-six dead in moments. I'm not saying the rest of your point isn't true, big pharmacy and cancer are huge problems. But ignoring one problem completely just because there's other problems too is stupid. All problems need and have solutions; there will always be a bigger problem than the one in front of you but you can't just take a tunnel-vision view of the world one thing at a time. I'm not going to ignore a runny nose just because my head hurts too and that's worse.
Mr. Daystar
In a bell tower, watching you through cross hairs.
Or the I.R.A. blowing shit up? Unless of course you like England in your shit. My best friend is 100% Irish...I won't even go to a BP station, out of loyalty to him. Maybe some private citizens with guns, could do to England, what we did to England. FREEDOM ISN'T FREE!
Yep, the troubles is exactly the same as the idea of restricting firearm ownership in the US, especially because America has a dozen active terrorist groups engaging in a war with each other daily. Did you have some sort of brain spasm near a keyboard or what happened there?
Yeah, a huge difference of less than 3 more gun-related homicides/100,000 people/year. That's not really the incredible difference I think you were looking for.
Even with a rate of three less deaths per hundred-thousand, that still is an "incredible difference"--it's going to extrapolate out to ~3155 (I'll say 3000 to be conservative on it) less murders a year in the US. That's a whole town full of lives saved annually. Is that not worth the hassle of eliminating high-capacity magazines and requiring background checks for assault weapons?
Mr. Daystar
In a bell tower, watching you through cross hairs.
The only difference between you and johan, is the accent....you'll never get it.
I'll never get why you think comparing a brutal civil conflict to the debate on whether everyone really needs to be able to legally buy machine guns without a background check are the same? In that case I'd say the only difference between me and everyone else in the world is the accents, then.
The means doesn't serve the end. Magazine capacity and mandatory background checks are irrelevant to stopping or slowing gun crimes. How many murders that are committed with firearms were with firearms that were legally obtained in the first place? Just making it harder to legally obtain a weapon only places restrictions on people who plan on obtaining firearms through legal avenues, which is rarely, if ever, the case with people intent upon committing a crime with said firearm.
You're not wrong in this, but there is a level of gun crime which does rely on legally-obtained firearms--yes, there are always going to be gangs and organised crime who will obtain their firearms regardless, and I'm not naive enough to think that some legislation is going to stop that, but crimes like those committed in Columbine or Virginia Tech do feature criminals who were able to buy their weaponry legally and without hassle. I could try tracking it down but Stephen King wrote a pretty good piece recently about the issue (he's a gun-owner and is against a ban, but for sensible controls) and noted that even the introduction of a background check, without it ever having to catch someone with a mental illness who shouldn't be given a gun, will provide a cooling-off period that might be enough to stop spree killings--those extra few days between deciding to buy a gun and actually getting it could be a game-changer in terms of cutting down on impulse. The flip-side for this for decent citizens is just a bit of extra waiting-around time, and I honestly can't see a situation when someone would want a gun right this minute for a wholesome reason. The same goes for reducing magazine sizes--it's going to have a concrete effect in terms of these spree shootings, without causing any insufferable issue for those who want a gun for self-defence/hunting/etc--if you have a firearm for home defence, and can't stop an intruder in less than 10 shots, what good are the rest going to be to you? But those extra rounds will translate into extra dead civilians in a spree situation. I'd also highly doubt that smaller magazines are going to cause a black market in large-capacity magazines. Investing in an illegal firearm is, for a criminal, an understandable purchase--spending a fortune on black market bullets is not. You're going to stock up on regular ammunition, cheaply, because it's such a disposable thing. You think that gang drive-by shootings are going to stay as common as they are (not saying they are common, but I'm saying "as common") if the cost to the dick with the machine-pistol is trebled, five times, ten times more? Of course not--they'll pull a handgun and shoot their target down in the street. Still a murder, still a gun crime, but that's a lot less chance for collateral damage alongside it. Even that situation is a huge improvement. I'm not advocating a ban, but it honestly will not hurt decent honest civilians to see that a few extra checks and balances will not hurt what they need their guns for, while cutting down on what they don't want to see happen with guns. It doesn't take much more than a few incremental changes to add up to a real result.
This frame of thought works very well... in a tiny little vacuum-sealed box. It kind of ignores the fact that the vast majority of "illegal" firearms were once legal firearms. Vinnie the Nose and Fingers Fitzpatrick aren't off in a basement somewhere churning out brand name knock-off Barettas and SIGs. So stemming the flow of legal weapons (especially to the negligent or incompetent) should logically stem the flow of illegal weapons as well.
Mr. Daystar
In a bell tower, watching you through cross hairs.
And here we go....you HAVE NOT been able to buy a machine gun, without a back round check, special paperwork, and a long...LONG waiting period, since 1934. You miss the point, our freedom was won, because of the right to bear arms, perhaps if your people were allowed to own guns, they would be able to win there freedom from tyrannical British rule, much as we did. I would suspect the only real and viable terrorist groups activity functioning in America, and getting away with it, are gangs...a group of criminals, that by nature wouldn't follow the rules anyway, considering most of them are most likely already prohibited from owning a firearm, let alone the types of fire power they do have access to. If you're referring to some subversive, anti American terrorist organization, I'm relatively sure, our leaders are watching, and preparing to destroy them on our very soil, for merely questioning the actions of our leaders.
Your freedom was not won with the ability to buy guns, it was won due to your role as a proxy war between two superpowers. And I'm not referring to actual American terrorists--if you understood sarcasm I was noting that violence here is because of multiple terrorist groups in conflict with each other. You could point to any country with a long-running civil conflict and say "this is why we should all have assault rifles", it's still a terrible point to make. If you have restrictions on gun ownership you are not going to turn into 1970s Belfast, or 1990s Rwanda, or Chechnya or Darfur or anywhere else. Wise up. And regardless of the accessibility of firearms, if Pearse and Connolly had a strong French armada blockading the Irish Sea, had 90% of their materiel supplied by a superpower nation, I'd say they'd have fared pretty well too. No part of recent Irish history has come down to gun control--especially given that the UK's strictest controls only came into effect long after the troubles began, after the Dunblame massacre in Scotland. You're comparing apples and oranges and acting like I'm the idiot here? Catch yourself on.
Mr. Daystar
In a bell tower, watching you through cross hairs.
First, yes, I did miss your point about violence in your country, that's on me. Second, I never treated you like an idiot, nor have I implied it...I just don't think you will ever understand WHY it's important to Americans to have this right...and it is. Third, it is important that we are allowed to own them, and considering the rights handed down to the criminals, and there great prevalence in this country, due to a lack of government control of illegal immigration, if you take them from us, only they will have them.
The reality is, the government could care less about safety, any law restricting guns is about control, and disarming a lawful society...they'll never get them from the criminals, and until they do that, they can't have mine. I think that pretty much is the same feeling of most gun advocates. Now, after your reply, we should stop with the thread hijacking...which was actually my bad in the first place.
