[Mulletsoldier]

Anyway, you literally have produced nothing to support your argument in earnest; any small desire I had to participate in this discussion is gone as well.

Maybe next time you'll check your references before opening your mouth and having your ass handed to you?

Unsubscribed.

[CDB]

Originally Posted by Mulletsoldier

Or in other words: you have no legitimate response when faced with facts, so you compose whiney moral arguments. Got it.

Oh, those whiney moral arguments.

Fact: the majority of people killed last century were killed by their own government after being disarmed. The exact figure and source I'll have shortly if you're that anal about it.

Fact: you are not more likely to be hurt by your own gun that to use it in self defense. the numbers of DGU vary, hard data is almost impossible to come by. but you can bet your ass everyone who has defended themselves with a gun considered it significant.

Fact: moral and ethical argument is as much a part of this debate as any statistic. My guess is you don't like that because the strength of argument on the pro liberty side is much stronger than on the side of the controllers.

Facts are, you are and were wrong; it is not likely you'll use a gun to protect yourself. Period.

I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall saying it was likely, but a hell of a lot more prevalent than people who 'accidentally' exert an 8lb pull on a trigger while pointing the gun at someone else's heart. In other words, you're much more likely to use your gun in self defense than to be hurt by it. I do notice of course you completely gloss over your quoting of the bullshit study which concluded you're more likely to be killed by your own gun than to use it for defense. If you want to talk about being loose with the figures, pot - kettle - black.

You know, I am sure people who have won the lottery say it was the best decision of their life - that still doesn't make it practical, or make buying a lottery ticket a retirement investment fund.

Not the same situation. If you're wrong on the lottery, you're no worse off now than before. If you're wrong on your need for a gun you're a victim to some degree, if not dead.

And what comparisons are you making? Surely nothing in the developed world. The violent crime rate, gun crime rate, and other aggravated assault rates are far less in most other developed nations - per capita - than the United States.

Are you frigging kidding me? The violent crime rate in the UK is ridiculously high compared to the US, and internal US comparrisons among states and cities routinely show the highest violent crime and murder rates in the cities and states with the most restrictive gun laws. Look at Vermont vs DC for example. In fact last I recall the only stat the UK was doing better on than the US was murder, and that's largely because the method of countin homocides in the UK differs from the US; the count homocides only after conviction, and multiple homocides as one murder if the assailant was the same. Similar book cooking is done with burglary stats there where a string of burglaries on one street will be reported as one incident when it would be reported as 12 here in the US.

Still, different cultures and methods of tabulation. The stats in the US are pretty clear. Gun control does not lower crime in general or gun crime in particular.

Genocides are a far more complex issue than gun-rights, try again. Very poor comparison.

Try committing a genocide upon an armed population, then get back to me.

[bpmartyr]

You guys are mean.

[Rogue Drone]

Originally Posted by CDB

If you're talking hand guns, yeah. A scatter gun will do nicely, aim isn't as critical when you can blow a wall out. .

When's the last time you patterend a shotgun and a selected load? Rule of thumb, with any choke other a vang comp, is a 1" spread diameter for each yard of distance with 00, across a room that's just a few inches, shotguns with shot are only somewhat more forgiving than a handgun for poor aim. I recommend a tritium post on a ghost ring sight and slugs for near and far heavy hits myself, turns a 18" barreled tactical shotgun into an ultra heavy hitting though slow and crude aiming carbine.

Originally Posted by CDB

If a few thousand rag tag arabs in the middle east can damn near paralyze our military, a few million armed Americans on our own soil could do just as well if not better in my eyes. History is full of instances where armed, unprofessional civilians stood up to and often won against the so called pros. I don't disagree that some education can make you a much better weilder of a gun, but there's a reason they call it the equalizer. And there's a reason why tyranical regimes throughout history have always made it a priority to disarm the populace, and it's not because they thought an armed populace wasn't a threat.

It's more than just a few thousand combatants, we, the US military, have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who's family and friends have taken up arms against an occupying force they want gone. They are far more proficent and dedicated/fanatical with better gear than all but a tiny percentage of americans civilians are at this time, but yes, assuming one survives the intial military onslaught here, after the populace as a whole gets enraged and the troops turn on each other, we would grind them down and out.

Assuming you haven't making too much noise on the net and they snatch you up weeks before the mass move, that is.

A note on gun ownership stats - I've seen estimates that 60% or more of guns are in the hands of about 10% of owners,da gun nuts, distribution is not as widespread as commonly believed.

[Mo250]

Originally Posted by Rogue Drone

When's the last time you patterend a shotgun and a selected load? Rule of thumb, with any choke other a vang comp, is a 1" spread diameter for each yard of distance with 00, across a room that's just a few inches, shotguns with shot are only somewhat more forgiving than a handgun for poor aim. I recommend a tritium post on a ghost ring sight and slugs for near and far heavy hits myself, turns a 18" barreled tactical shotgun into an ultra heavy hitting though slow and crude aiming carbine.




It's more than just a few thousand combatants, we, the US military, have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who's family and friends have taken up arms against an occupying force they want gone. They are far more proficent and dedicated/fanatical with better gear than all but a tiny percentage of americans civilians are at this time, but yes, assuming one survives the intial military onslaught here, after the populace as a whole gets enraged and the troops turn on each other, we would grind them down and out.

Assuming you haven't making too much noise on the net and they snatch you up weeks before the mass move, that is.

A note on gun ownership stats - I've seen estimates that 60% or more of guns are in the hands of about 10% of owners,da gun nuts, distribution is not as widespread as commonly believed.

do you have any link to those estimates?

[jrkarp]

Originally Posted by FcuktheFDA

Our Four Fathers gave us this write. It shall remain protected. It's our right as American citizens and not even the government should be able to take that right away from us. The government seems to be getting worse and worse as time goes on, and we may eventually need to revolt. The NRA is the only thing standing between our right to bear arms and the government taking that right away.

It's a right, not a write, and our forefathers did not give it to us.

It is an inherent, natural right.

Does the 2nd say "The people shall have the right to keep and bear arms?"

No. It says "THE right of the people..." The right was preexisting.

The Declaration of Independence says:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Governments PROTECT rights. They do not GIVE them.

[Will Brink]

Originally Posted by Mulletsoldier

Considering that a gun you own is far more likely to injure or kill you, or someone you love, rather than defend against a would-be intruder,

That is false as is all your other comments. The data shows that to be untrue. A primer of the general myths debunked:

The Cold, Hard Facts About Guns
by
John R. Lott, Jr.

America may indeed be obsessed with guns, but much of what passes as fact simply isn't true. The news media's focus on only tragic outcomes, while ignoring tragic events that were avoided, may be responsible for some misimpressions. Horrific events like the recent shooting in Arkansas receive massive news coverage, as they should, but the 2.5 million times each year that people use guns defensively are never discussed--including cases where public shootings are stopped before they happen.

Unfortunately, these misimpressions have real costs for people's safety. Many myths needlessly frighten people and prevent them from defending themselves most effectively.

Myth No. 1: When one is attacked, passive behavior is the safest approach.

The Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey reports that the probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the benefits are smaller: offering no resistance is 1.4 times more likely to result in serious injury than resisting with a gun.

Myth No. 2: Friends or relatives are the most likely killers.

The myth is usually based on two claims: 1) 58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances and 2) anyone could be a murderer.

With the broad definition of "acquaintances" used in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, most victims are indeed classified as knowing their killer. However, what is not made clear is that acquaintance murder primarily includes drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by first-time customers, gang members killing other gang members, prostitutes killed by their clients, and so on. Only one city, Chicago, reports a precise breakdown on the nature of acquaintance killings: between 1990 and 1995 just 17 percent of murder victims were either family members, friends, neighbors and/or roommates.

Murderers also are not your average citizen. For example, about 90 percent of adult murderers have already had a criminal record as an adult. Murderers are overwhelmingly young males with low IQs and who have difficult times getting along with others. Furthermore, unfortunately, murder is disproportionately committed against blacks and by blacks.

Myth No. 3: The United States has such a high murder rate because Americans own so many guns.

There is no international evidence backing this up. The Swiss, New Zealanders and Finns all own guns as frequently as Americans, yet in 1995 Switzerland had a murder rate 40 percent lower than Germany's, and New Zealand had one lower than Australia's. Finland and Sweden have very different gun ownership rates, but very similar murder rates. Israel, with a higher gun ownership rate than the U.S., has a murder rate 40 percent below Canada's. When one studies all countries rather than just a select few as is usually done, there is absolutely no relationship between gun ownership and murder.

Myth No. 4: If law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry concealed handguns, people will end up shooting each other after traffic accidents as well as accidentally shooting police officers.

Millions of people currently hold concealed handgun permits, and some states have issued them for as long as 60 years. Yet, only one permit holder has ever been arrested for using a concealed handgun after a traffic accident and that case was ruled as self-defense. The type of person willing to go through the permitting process is extremely law-abiding. In Florida, almost 444,000 licenses were granted from 1987 to 1997, but only 84 people have lost their licenses for felonies involving firearms. Most violations that lead to permits being revoked involve accidentally carrying a gun into restricted areas, like airports or schools. In Virginia, not a single permit holder has committed a violent crime. Similarly encouraging results have been reported for Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Tennessee (the only other states where information is available).

Myth No. 5: The family gun is more likely to kill you or someone you know than to kill in self-defense.

The studies yielding such numbers never actually inquired as to whose gun was used in the killing. Instead, if a household owned a gun and if a person in that household or someone they knew was shot to death while in the home, the gun in the household was blamed. In fact, virtually all the killings in these studies were committed by guns brought in by an intruder. No more than four percent of the gun deaths can be attributed to the homeowner's gun. The very fact that most people were killed by intruders also surely raises questions about why they owned guns in the first place and whether they had sufficient protection.

How many attacks have been deterred from ever occurring by the potential victims owning a gun? My own research finds that more concealed handguns, and increased gun ownership generally, unambiguously deter murders, robbery, and aggravated assaults. This is also in line with the well-known fact that criminals prefer attacking victims that they consider weak.

These are only some of the myths about guns and crime that drive the public policy debate. We must not lose sight of the ultimate question: Will allowing law-abiding citizens to own guns save lives? The evidence strongly indicates that it does.

This article fist appeared in the Chicago Tribune on May 8, 1998 and is reprenited here with the author's permission.

Dr. John Lott, Jr. is the John M. Olin law and economics fellow at the University of Chicago School of Law, and is the author of More Guns, Less Crime

[Mulletsoldier]

Originally Posted by Will Brink

That is false as is all your other comments. The data shows that to be untrue. A primer of the general myths debunked:

The Cold, Hard Facts About Guns
by
John R. Lott, Jr.

America may indeed be obsessed with guns, but much of what passes as fact simply isn't true. The news media's focus on only tragic outcomes, while ignoring tragic events that were avoided, may be responsible for some misimpressions. Horrific events like the recent shooting in Arkansas receive massive news coverage, as they should, but the 2.5 million times each year that people use guns defensively are never discussed--including cases where public shootings are stopped before they happen.

Unfortunately, these misimpressions have real costs for people's safety. Many myths needlessly frighten people and prevent them from defending themselves most effectively.

Myth No. 1: When one is attacked, passive behavior is the safest approach.

The Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey reports that the probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the benefits are smaller: offering no resistance is 1.4 times more likely to result in serious injury than resisting with a gun.

Myth No. 2: Friends or relatives are the most likely killers.

The myth is usually based on two claims: 1) 58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances and 2) anyone could be a murderer.

With the broad definition of "acquaintances" used in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, most victims are indeed classified as knowing their killer. However, what is not made clear is that acquaintance murder primarily includes drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by first-time customers, gang members killing other gang members, prostitutes killed by their clients, and so on. Only one city, Chicago, reports a precise breakdown on the nature of acquaintance killings: between 1990 and 1995 just 17 percent of murder victims were either family members, friends, neighbors and/or roommates.

Murderers also are not your average citizen. For example, about 90 percent of adult murderers have already had a criminal record as an adult. Murderers are overwhelmingly young males with low IQs and who have difficult times getting along with others. Furthermore, unfortunately, murder is disproportionately committed against blacks and by blacks.

Myth No. 3: The United States has such a high murder rate because Americans own so many guns.

There is no international evidence backing this up. The Swiss, New Zealanders and Finns all own guns as frequently as Americans, yet in 1995 Switzerland had a murder rate 40 percent lower than Germany's, and New Zealand had one lower than Australia's. Finland and Sweden have very different gun ownership rates, but very similar murder rates. Israel, with a higher gun ownership rate than the U.S., has a murder rate 40 percent below Canada's. When one studies all countries rather than just a select few as is usually done, there is absolutely no relationship between gun ownership and murder.

Myth No. 4: If law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry concealed handguns, people will end up shooting each other after traffic accidents as well as accidentally shooting police officers.

Millions of people currently hold concealed handgun permits, and some states have issued them for as long as 60 years. Yet, only one permit holder has ever been arrested for using a concealed handgun after a traffic accident and that case was ruled as self-defense. The type of person willing to go through the permitting process is extremely law-abiding. In Florida, almost 444,000 licenses were granted from 1987 to 1997, but only 84 people have lost their licenses for felonies involving firearms. Most violations that lead to permits being revoked involve accidentally carrying a gun into restricted areas, like airports or schools. In Virginia, not a single permit holder has committed a violent crime. Similarly encouraging results have been reported for Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Tennessee (the only other states where information is available).

Myth No. 5: The family gun is more likely to kill you or someone you know than to kill in self-defense.

The studies yielding such numbers never actually inquired as to whose gun was used in the killing. Instead, if a household owned a gun and if a person in that household or someone they knew was shot to death while in the home, the gun in the household was blamed. In fact, virtually all the killings in these studies were committed by guns brought in by an intruder. No more than four percent of the gun deaths can be attributed to the homeowner's gun. The very fact that most people were killed by intruders also surely raises questions about why they owned guns in the first place and whether they had sufficient protection.

How many attacks have been deterred from ever occurring by the potential victims owning a gun? My own research finds that more concealed handguns, and increased gun ownership generally, unambiguously deter murders, robbery, and aggravated assaults. This is also in line with the well-known fact that criminals prefer attacking victims that they consider weak.

These are only some of the myths about guns and crime that drive the public policy debate. We must not lose sight of the ultimate question: Will allowing law-abiding citizens to own guns save lives? The evidence strongly indicates that it does.

This article fist appeared in the Chicago Tribune on May 8, 1998 and is reprenited here with the author's permission.

Dr. John Lott, Jr. is the John M. Olin law and economics fellow at the University of Chicago School of Law, and is the author of More Guns, Less Crime

I'm going to go on a wild leap of faith and assume you did not read the entire thread; considering I spent two pages showing almost everything you said here was complete bullshit, as is everything Jon Lott says. Period.

[Will Brink]

Originally Posted by Mulletsoldier

I'm going to go on a wild leap of faith and assume you did not read the entire thread; considering I spent two pages showing almost everything you said here was complete bullshit, as is everything Jon Lott says. Period.

You did nothing of the sort, and were wrong all through it. Plenty of other data and researchers beside Lott exist, and no one had debunked his data. Carry on.

[Mulletsoldier]

Originally Posted by Will Brink

You did nothing of the sort, and were wrong all through it. Plenty of other data and researchers beside Lott exist, and no one had debunked his data. Carry on.

True; Lott most definitely did misrepresent the plenty of other ambiguous data out there. Fact is: Lott's data is bullshit, as was shown here and through other more official avenues (see: almost the entire academic community).

I'm very excited to see if you can do anything besides unsubstantially open your mouth though; please, show me the error of my ways.

[Will Brink]

Originally Posted by Mulletsoldier

For anybody interested, John Lott has been unanimously discredited by legitimate researchers,

Wrong, and you have yet to show any such work. Plenty of researchers disagree with him, none of have "discredited" his research in the true sense of the word, regardless how many times you make the statement. Some disagree with his conclusions from the research, some don't.

Again, people that don’t like what Lott has to say, attempt to discredit him any way possible and pretend every other researcher in the field considers him a a “quack” or some such BS. What do various Nobel Prize Winners think of Lott’s work? Let’s see:


"John Lott's thoughtful study should be read by everyone interested in the control of violent crime, and protection against terrorism." --Vernon L. Smith, 2002 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics

"John Lott's 1998 book, More Guns, Less Crime, created quite a stir among the gun-control romantics, whose expressive advocacy involves neither sound analytics nor empirical evidence. In this follow-on book, The Bias Against Guns, Lott continues the struggle, and responds to his critics, motivated by his strong conviction that analysis and evidence must, finally, win the day." --James Buchanan, 1986 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics

"Another major contribution by John Lott to the evidence on the effects--good and bad--of gun-control legislation. An important supplement to his More Guns, Less Crime."--Milton Friedman, 1976 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics

"John Lott is a scholar's scholar and a writer's writer--and his book shows why. That gun ownership might bring social benefits as well as costs is a story we do not often see in the press, and Lott here explores why. With a blend of new data, evidence, and examples, he unpacks the bias against such stories in the media."--J. Mark Ramseyer, Harvard Law School professor

Yah, really discredited....

[Will Brink]

Originally Posted by Mulletsoldier

I'm very excited to see if you can do anything besides unsubstantially open your mouth though; please, show me the error of my ways.

CDP did more than sufficient job crushing your lame attempts at debate and showing you to be unable to deal with reality and ignoring what you don't like, and repeating yourself minus support for your statements. He supported his well, and best you could do was simply do the 'net equivalent of sticking you fingers in your ears and going "la la la la."

The bottom line here is, I don’t actually care what Lott says. We can remove him from the debate altogether, and the results are the same. The only thing that matters here is, what are the net benefits to society of gun control? The data and history tell shows us gun control does not benefit society, and at the end of the day, that’s what matters.

Now, is there intellectual dishonesty on both sides of the issue? Absolutely, but even a minimal look at the issue by an objective person will find the anti gun side FAR and away the more intellectually dishonest of the two sides, with the Brady Bunch et al making Lott look like the most honest human being who ever lived. Some interesting reading for example from authors and researchers Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne Eisen as posted to the “Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws” web site on the issue:

“…we have extensively studied the firearm debate and the consequences of restrictive firearm laws - not just here in the U.S., but abroad, as well. We've written articles on how such laws have turned places like South Africa, Jamaica, the Solomon Islands, and Zimbabwe (to name just a few of the less well-known examples) into a paradise for criminals, and a hell-hole for (disarmed) law-abiding citizens. There are many other examples we've researched and have yet to write about.

But the consequences of restrictive firearm laws are universal and without exception - it's just that some countries are in different stages along the same road to civilian disarmament. And we have yet to find a single "sensible" restrictive firearm law that:

1. Has reduced violent crime
2. Has prevented the acquisition of firearms by criminals
3. Has aided police in apprehending violent criminals
4. Has reduced overall suicide rates, or firearm-related accidental deaths (As we're sure you are aware, the Lott/Whitley paper on "safe-storage" laws documents the fact that these laws are lethal laws for those who obey them.)

What we HAVE seen result from "sensible", restrictive gun laws is:

1. Their subversion to facilitate the creation of government lists of lawful gun-owners, followed by - again and again, ad nauseum - confiscation using these lists
2. The creation of a burgeoning black market in firearms
3. A reduced access to (especially self-defensive) firearms by law-abiding citizens

We've said some of this before in earlier conversations, and while we don't wish to sound like a broken record, each new article we research and write only serves to further validate every one of these observations.

Instead of finding unbiased scientists among the firearm-prohibitionists searching for truth, what we've found, instead, is intentional distortion, outright lying, and bait-and-switch tactics, the extent of which boggles the mind - a whole cadre of anti-gun "junk-scientists" resorting to lies and propaganda, because that's the only means of keeping their agenda alive.

And every one of them - Kellermann, Hemenway, Wintemute, Cook, Ludwig, and all the rest of their ilk - are full of "reasonable", "sensible" firearm proposals for America's politicians to enact.

We would venture to say that your own increasingly prolific writing on the firearm debate has provided you with similar validation of these observations.

Perhaps the most disturbing "accomplishment" of these laws (at least to us) is the transformation of the way children are introduced to firearms in America today. Instead of knowledge passing from parent to child, in a safe and responsible manner - as used to happen in the past - "sensible" gun laws now force many children to learn about guns from their peers, and on the street.

Yet, according to the U.S. DOJ's ongoing Rochester Study on Urban Delinquency and Substance Abuse - totally ignored by the mainstream media and most of this country's politicians - children who were introduced to firearms by their parents are the least violent of all groups studied.

Lastly, there's a great book (now out of print) written by former Chief Inspector of British Police, Colin Greenwood, entitled "Firearms Control: A Study of Armed Crime and Firearms Control in England and Wales". While Greenwood's book was published in 1972, his observations and conclusions are still right on the money (and perfectly borne out by current events in Great Britain on firearm-related crime). Here are some excerpted comments:

"[If the question is] 'How can we stop criminals from obtaining firearms?' From the evidence so far supplied, the answer appears to be that we cannot...Criminals have proved to us that firearms controls will not deny their small class of people access to firearms whenever they want them...Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this class of weapon in crime than ever before...one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction."

Greenwood concluded: "Indeed, it is possible to build up a sound case for abolishing or substantially reducing controls."

It's clear that Greenwood is one who doesn't believe in the concept of "sensible" gun laws. (BTW, Greenwood is still alive and well, and recently authored an article on "Britain's Handgun Ban" which appeared in the Australian Shooters Journal.)

If DSGL ever changes its name and abandons the premise of "sensible gun laws", we'd probably have a change of mind about becoming part of the group.

But at this point, we think that the ONLY kind of "sensible" gun law is one which repeals existing restrictive gun laws, and that's not what we think DSGL has in mind.

- Paul & Joanne

Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws