WARNING! GRAPHIC VIOLENCE Options

[realdeal]

This is a video of a suicide. It happened recently in NY and is true. The girl just broke up with her boyfriend and he was apparently upset about it. The video can be viewed

EDITED ******LINK REMOVED******* - if you want the link, PM me and I may send it to you.


IF you don't beleive it's true you can ready the story

HERE

The man's mother is suing the city for leaking the tape.

[Druid]

WooHoo A debate on gun control.
I love it, I love, I LOVE IT!!!

Any site like the one Kirby linked to which shows how evil guns are when you view their statistics, misuse the facts in a weak attempt to justify their stance on gun control.
If your wondering what I mean by misuse the facts, I'll give you a few example from their site.
Kids and Gun Violence
FACT: In 2001, gun violence killed 2,937 American children and teens (ages 19 and under) in murders, suicides and unintentional shootings, an average of 8 young people each day in the U.S. While this is a welcome decrease of nearly 106 youth from 2000 data, it is still too many American young people killed with guns each year.
1) They claim this is about KIDS, but their stats include everyone under 20 years of age. I don't think most people would call a 19 year old a KID. They include KIDS over 18 because a disproportional amount fall into the 18-19 range when compared to those in the 12-17 year old range. They want this to be about KIDS but use adults in the stats to make the number more shocking.
2) They fail to mention in the stats they are so quick to quote also includes criminals killed by police nor do they remove from the stats those killed by a private citizen while legally defending their life and property.
3) A great example of the rhetoric on sites like this. They always try to spin their push for gun control as a way to protect the children. If they were really interested in protecting children and not just spinning stats to back their views, maybe they should ban backyard swimming pools. Think that sounds stupid? Well maybe you would be surprised more kids die from accidental drowning than all firearm related deaths put together.
Texas 2000 Mortality Stats, 126 accidental drownings compared to 21 accidental firearm related deaths
Or another way to look at it
The National Safety Council Report titled, What Are the Odds of Dying? for 1998 reveals that you are almost twice as likely to die from natural environmental factors (1,521 deaths), such as injuries caused by animals, plants or exposure to the elements than from an accidental gunshot (866 deaths). Think about it. The same report shows that you are more likely to choke to death on a piece of food (1,147 deaths) or die from falling down stairs (1,389 deaths) as to die from an errant bullet. You are four times more likely to die in a fire (3,255 deaths) or drown (3,964 deaths). The simple fact is that there are many things that we take for granted in life that are much more dangerous than guns. In 1998, there were 43,501 motor vehicle deaths, 10,255 poisoning deaths, 3,228 deaths from complications or misadventures of surgical or medical care and 16,274 total falling deaths - maybe we should ban ladders.


Guns are used for self-defense as many as 2.5 Million times every year.

• A 1979 Carter Justice Department study found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. That number dropped to only 3% when the woman was armed. That means that a woman carrying a gun is more than 10 times less likely to be raped than an unarmed woman.
• This means that guns are used at least 60 times more often to protect the lives of law-abiding citizens than to take a life.
• In the vast majority of those self-defense cases, the citizen will only brandish the gun or fire a warning shot.

And most importantly.
The Police can't protect you
No offense to anyone in law enforcement but the facts speak for themselves.
Of the roughly 700,000 combined full time law enforcement officers in the U.S., only about 150,000 are on duty on the streets at any given moment to protect a population of over 250 million. That means that there is one policeman to protect almost 1700 civilians. They can't be everywhere at once.
When you think about it, the actual job of the police is not to prevent crime, but to investigate crime, catch the perpetrator and bring the perpetrator to court - ALL after the fact.

I thought it was only fair to add:
I support a one week waiting period to buy a firearm. If you can't think ahead about something as serious as owning a firearm, you probably shouldn't own one.
I highly support training and testing required to buy a firearm, much like what is required to apply for a hunting permit. It amazes me how people are required to show they are able to safely drive a car but not safely use a firearm.