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Why I just joined the NRA

townhall.com

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Re: Why I just joined the NRA

#21

Post by kcima »

Steko wrote: post #17
thisisdallas wrote: post #13

I agree that making something illegal won't make it go away and that is why I think all of the so called gun ban legislation is a front or cover for something else. I'm not talking about wacky conspiracy theories or a government military takeover but something along the lines of someone somewhere will greatly benefit from some sort of gun control legislation. I don't think it's "to protect Americans" but to pad the p…

"I think all of the so called gun ban legislation is a front or cover for something else..... someone somewhere will greatly benefit from some sort of gun control legislation.' So you're saying that the universal outrage over all these children being murdered couldn't possibly lead to good faith attempts to reform society to prevent similar events? You're saying it's probably a front for ... something? That the power…

No, I think he is just saying it doesn't make sense to start taking away guns from everyone because of this. It is not logical.

32,367 died in automobile accidents in the US in 2011, but no one is trying to take away your car.

If the Newtown tragedy happened differently and the killer used his car to run over 20 children. Would you want new legislation to limit your access to automobiles?

I understand this is an emotional time, but how is this so difficult to understand?

Let me put it a different way.

Good regulation: Drive drunk and you can lose your right to drive or end up in prison.

Bad regulation: Drive drunk and your neighbor gets his car taken away.

Re: Why I just joined the NRA

#23

Post by kcima »

Steko wrote: post #20
kcima wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"England has a complete ban on guns. No UK citizen can carry a gun. Period. Not a one. Result? UK violent crime rate is 3 1/3 times higher than America. The FBI reports 386 violent crimes per 100,000 in the USA. The UK Home Office reports 1,361 violent crimes per 100,000 in England."

Those statistics are not apples to apples. Notably the UK started classifying common assault (no injury) as a violent crime which more than doubled the "violent crime" rate. You might ask why the people who fed you this talking point used a clearly deceptive statistic instead of an obvious one like murder.

They sure are apples to apples. Violent crime in the US vs violent crime in the UK.

These are not clearly deceptive statistics. Murder is not the only kind of violent crime.

Allowing people to protect themselves is a great deterrent against violent crime of all types. That is what these statistics point to.

Why do you so easily want to give up these hard-won freedoms?

Re: Why I just joined the NRA

#24

Post by Steko »

johng wrote: post #19
retube wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What some politicians are proposing right now is an outright snub of the 2nd amendment So what? Maybe the 2nd amendment is wrong, or a bad idea, or a 200 year old proclamation that is no longer relevant in modern times? People's attachment to this clause is just... fundamentalist. And why do people insist on equating gun ownership with freedom? You're not allowed to own bombs or missiles, does that also mean I am n…

What makes American's so special is the fact that we are a unique country. A country that was built on our core values, as they are laid out in our constitution of the united states that has guided us and has never steered us wrong. We are the same country that came to the worlds aid (and europe, especially) during WW1 and WW2. Our beliefs aren't perfect. They just happen to be less wrong then others, IMHO... and in…

"constitution of the united states that has guided us and has never steered us wrong"

Slavery?

Re: Why I just joined the NRA

#25

Post by kcima »

Steko wrote: post #14
johng wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not convinced of his facts, check the relevant websites yourself. There's a great drill-down on the statistics in this video and you can go to the same (official) websites and pull the stats yourself: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ooa98FHuaU0

Or you could look at the US and UK murder rate and conclude that gun control radically reduces murders even when one country is possibly more violent than another.

You are looking at only one type of violence, murder, and then assuming that murder rates are affected by guns.

Then you turn around and say that one country is possibly just naturally more violent than another and it has nothing to do with the deterrent affect guns have on violent crimes of any kind.

Hmmm..

Re: Why I just joined the NRA

#26

Post by Steko »

kcima wrote: post #21
Steko wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think all of the so called gun ban legislation is a front or cover for something else..... someone somewhere will greatly benefit from some sort of gun control legislation.' So you're saying that the universal outrage over all these children being murdered couldn't possibly lead to good faith attempts to reform society to prevent similar events? You're saying it's probably a front for ... something? That the power…

No, I think he is just saying it doesn't make sense to start taking away guns from everyone because of this. It is not logical. 32,367 died in automobile accidents in the US in 2011, but no one is trying to take away your car. If the Newtown tragedy happened differently and the killer used his car to run over 20 children. Would you want new legislation to limit your access to automobiles? I understand this is an emot…

"32,367 died in automobile accidents in the US in 2011, but no one is trying to take away your car."

Plenty of new regulations related to cars and highways every year to make them safer.

"If the Newtown tragedy happened differently and the killer used his car to run over 20 children. Would you want new legislation to limit your access to automobiles?'

Are you really asking that if reality was completely different would I maybe believe different things then I believed in this reality? Maybe. The Newtown tragedy is not a singular event. It's just the latest event.

"how is this so difficult to understand?"

How is the empirical fact that gun control works and limits deaths in many countries so hard for you to understand?

Re: Why I just joined the NRA

#27

Post by Steko »

kcima wrote: post #23
Steko wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those statistics are not apples to apples. Notably the UK started classifying common assault (no injury) as a violent crime which more than doubled the "violent crime" rate. You might ask why the people who fed you this talking point used a clearly deceptive statistic instead of an obvious one like murder.

They sure are apples to apples. Violent crime in the US vs violent crime in the UK. These are not clearly deceptive statistics. Murder is not the only kind of violent crime. Allowing people to protect themselves is a great deterrent against violent crime of all types. That is what these statistics point to. Why do you so easily want to give up these hard-won freedoms?

"They sure are apples to apples."

I just told you why they weren't.

http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/01/12/fact-checkin...

the definitions for “violent crime” are very different in the US and Britain, and the methodologies of the two statistics he cites are also different...

First, it should be noted that the figures Swann gives are out of date...

Second, and more importantly, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports defines a “violent crime” as one of four specific offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

The British Home Office, by contrast, has a substantially different definition of violent crime. The British definition includes all “crimes against the person,” including simple assaults, all robberies, and all “sexual offenses,” as opposed to the FBI, which only counts aggravated assaults and “forcible rapes.”

When you look at how this changes the meaning of “violent crime,” it becomes clear how misleading it is to compare rates of violent crime in the US and the UK. You’re simply comparing two different sets of crimes.

Re: Why I just joined the NRA

#28

Post by Steko »

kcima wrote: post #25
Steko wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could look at the US and UK murder rate and conclude that gun control radically reduces murders even when one country is possibly more violent than another.

You are looking at only one type of violence, murder, and then assuming that murder rates are affected by guns. Then you turn around and say that one country is possibly just naturally more violent than another and it has nothing to do with the deterrent affect guns have on violent crimes of any kind. Hmmm..

Murder provides a nice apples to apples comparison because, as noted elsewhere on this page, violent crime statistics for the US and UK is an apples to pineapples comparison.

Re: Why I just joined the NRA

#29

Post by hga »

jmadsen wrote: post #5

The way to break gun violence is to teach people that the way to solve differences is not to make sure you're a bigger bad ass than anyone who might come in conflict with you. Americans don't have a love of guns, they have a love of confrontation. That was the most difficult cultural thing I had to learn when I moved to Japan.

Japan is a really serious outlier when it comes to not having a "love" of confrontation! I mean, their word for "you're wrong" doesn't even have that semantic content.

I suspect America is a lot closer to the middle than it.

Re: Why I just joined the NRA

#30

Post by hga »

retube wrote: post #16
johng wrote: post #11

I'm surprised this type of stuff hasn't gotten more attention here on HN. What some politicians are proposing right now is an outright snub of the 2nd amendment. I will side with the forefathers who made this counter 100 out of 100 times in relation to any recent politicians. No one ever said that Freedom was easy or that it didn't come at a cost. It does and always will. But maintaining freedom and our core principl…

> What some politicians are proposing right now is an outright snub of the 2nd amendment So what? Maybe the 2nd amendment is wrong, or a bad idea, or a 200 year old proclamation that is no longer relevant in modern times? People's attachment to this clause is just... fundamentalist. And why do people insist on equating gun ownership with freedom? You're not allowed to own bombs or missiles, does that also mean I am n…

Everybody in Europe manages just fine without owning guns

Errr, that turns out not to be the case. Look at the results of the 2007 Small Arms Survey at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_owners... and you'll see it's pretty well armed (drill down to the PDF and even legal registration levels are a lot higher than I suspect you think).

In the other direction, when it comes to mass shootings Europe has been doing worse than the US as of late:

From Wikipedia, school shootings in Europe in this century, last two numbers are killed and wounded:

  R., Georg, 18, Sep. 17 2009, Germany, 0, 10-15
  Kretschmer, Tim, 17, March 11, 2009, Germany, 15, 9-13
  De Gelder, Kim, 20, Jan. 16/23,, 2009, Belgium, 4, 12
  Saari, Matti Juhani, 22, Sep. 23, 2008, Finland, 10, 1-3
  Auvinen, Pekka-Eric, 18, Nov. 7, 2007, Jokela, Finland, 8, 1
  Bosse, Bastian, 18, Nov. 20, 2006, Germany, 0, 22
  Steinhäuser, Robert, 19, April 26, 2002, Germany, 16, 1
Other spree shootings in Europe in this century:

  Merah, Mohammed, 23,  March 11–22, 2012, Toulouse & Montauban, France, 7, 8
  Amrani, Nordine, 33,  Dec. 13, 2011, Liège, Belgium, 6, 123 (he also used grenades)
  Breivik, Anders Behring, 32, July 22, 2011, Norway, 75, 242 (a bomb killed 8)
  van der Vlis, Tristan, 24, April 9, 2011, Netherlands, 6, 17
  Radmacher, Sabine, 41, Sep. 19, 2010, Germany, 3, 18 (arson was also used)
  Bird, Derrick, 52, June 2, 2010, United Kingdom, 12, 11
  Sacco, Angelo Secondo, 54, June 28, 2005, Italy, 3, 9
  Antonello, Mauro, 40,  Oct. 15, 2002, Italy, 7
  Durn, Richard, 33,  March 27, 2002, France, 8, 19
  Selamet, Ozan, 42,  Jan. 18, 2002, Belgium, 6 (2 strangled)
  Roux-Durrafourt, Jean-Pierre, 44,  Oct. 29, 2001, France, 4, 7
  Leibacher, Friedrich, 57, Sep. 27, 2001, Switzerland, 14, 18
  Kaya, Hakan, 24,  Dec. 22, 2000, Germany, 6
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