Gun Control, A rational discussion Options

[Bargod]

I thought we'd take this discussion off the pic thread and give it it's own area. I'll start with the quote from Junkie:

Guns don't kill people. Crazy people kill people. With a gun, knife, or a wet noodle people are going to be violent with each other. I have several guns. Most of which have not been fired in years. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to shoot anyone but if someone chooses to come into my house uninvited they very well may get a double barreled chest full. Do I think the average person needs an assault rifle? Hell no. But should they be able to keep guns for defense and hunting purposes? For sure.

I have no bias towards one side or the other and find this an interesting topic. I know many people feel strongly one way or the other. I'm not one of those people.
Having said that, I would like to point out that "Crazy people" don't kill people. The majority of murders are between people who know each other. Guns make murder much easier to accomplish. So, gun owners are often the most successful murderers. This, of course, does not make all gun owners bad people. Anyone can lose their cool and when combined with alcohol can act out in violent ways. This is why it is illegal to carry guns into bars. If some drunk guys get into a fist fight nobody is likely to get killed. If somebody pulls a knife, things are going to get worse. I had two waiters who worked together get into a fight and one hit the other in the face with a pint glass. The glass just missed his carotid artery and his eye. What do you think would have happened if that guy had a gun? The guy who only has a scar on his face would have no face. The buddy of the guy that got hit in the face was close to breaking the attackers neck until I stepped in. What do you think would have happed to that guy after his friends head got blown off. Hell, in his drunken panic he could have shot at me just for being there. These two waiters drank together regularly. They got into a fight over who won the most pool games in the bar they were in before they came to mine. They were betting a nickel a game!!!

I won't say all gun owners are potential murderers, but you are less likely to kill somebody in a murderous rage if you don't have a gun. This is one of the reasons I don't want to have a gun in my house. I like to drink and sometimes I get very pissed off at people.

Guns do protect homeowners. Last year a little old lady living in public housing down the street from me shot and killed an intruder in her home. He was unarmed, but she didn't know that, and he wouldn't have needed a weapon to do bodily harm to her anyway. She's an example of the positive side of gun ownership.

I also don't buy into the "more guns means safer citizens" arguement. Australia has very strict gun control and it's murder rate has gone down. The reason? There are fewer murders involving guns. This means that what could have been a murder is more likely now just an assault.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2004/06/08/1127171.htm

I personally think Michael Moore is a self agrandizing ego maniac, but he made some decent points in Bowling for Columbine.
It is very unlikely that incident would have been possible if it weren't for the weapons they used. Even if they were limited to revolvers and single shot hunting rifles it would have been a different result.

I don't claim to have any answers, but I'd like to hear other oppinions on this.

[Jack]

you cant reson with the left wingers



when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns

[M@ster of Dis@ster]

you cant reson with the left wingers



when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns

Police and army won't?

[Capt. Andtennille]

when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns

Police and army won't?

If only the police had the ability to be in attendance at every crime...

[M@ster of Dis@ster]

when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns

Police and army won't?

If only the police had the ability to be in attendance at every crime...

Just pointing out the clever play on words isn't really correct.

Anyhoo, a quick check on google I was able to find out how Lott's article cherry-picks stats on that Washington thingy. He picks very specific years to argue to make his numbers work. Scroll to the bottom of this blog page (see below) to see ALL the stats and see how Lott cheery picks the numbers. For example, you don't hear from Lott that the average homocide rate for the whole 4 years prior to the gun ban appears to be significantely higher than the averge for the next 10 years after the ban. You don't hear that he picked the year 5 years before the ban specifically because the murder rate had a big dip that year, but immediately bounced back to a much higher number the next year (still 4 years before the ban)!

In fact, I added the numbers on the graph an the results are this...

In the 9 years prior to the ban the murder rate was about 32 per 100,000
In the 10 years after it was 29.5 per 100,000. So it actually dropped, even though it is clear in the 9 years prior the graph was tracking upwards, and after the ban it mostly tracked downwards (though with a lot of fluctuations per year for both).

Read it yourself. Scroll to near the bottom.

http://timlambert.org/category/guns/washington/

Lies, damn lies, and statistics they say. If you simply read Lott's article without investigating anything, you think the Washington experience was a slam dunk case against gun control. Look at ALL the stats and realized he twisted them beautifully to support his argument.

Anyway, I don't feel passionately about this issue, but just playing a little devil's advocate here. I would theorize that Lott's entire article is an exercise of cherry picking specific statistics and dates from places where he can make the numbers work. Unfortunately, it is hard to find an article that seems to be written by a non-right wing or left wing source. It would be interesting to see a combo of all the numbers from every place that had a change in hand guns laws, see the graphs on homicides and major crime over this period (not a cheery picked number), and compare those to similar places at the same time period that maintained the status quo. That would be a good study, but good luck trying to find it.