• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Gun Control

Would you support more restrictions on guns if they had the potential to save lives?

  • Yes

    Votes: 59 39.9%
  • No

    Votes: 74 50.0%
  • Others

    Votes: 15 10.1%

  • Total voters
    148
I thought we were talking about gun crimes?

While assault and rape went up 40% and 20%. Sorry that does not float. I mean a woman being 3 times more likely to be raped in Australia vs the US is just sad. - Blackdog

Please point out where I said anything about a gun?

Assault could be almost anything. Rapes are generally committed with a penis - not a gun.

And remember - the law was passed to stop mass murders with guns. And that it did as cited by the previous stats where NONE occurred. They achieved their goal and achieved it rather excellently.

You are so dishonest, I don't even know why I bothered...

Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime

And no, the law was passed to stop or lower most crime. Gun crimes went down a whole 9% in 12 years, WOW what a success! And assaults only went up 40% while in the US they went down, go figure. And rape only 20%! I guess disarming women was a great idea.
 
That is the link I used. As I pointed out, you apparently left of those claiming Australian, who's ethnicity is undetermined because there is already a classification for Australian Aborigine.

You also do not address my point about multi-ethnic not being the same as multi-culture.

Those claiming to be "Australian" could be almost anything on that list.

As for the point you want me to speak to..... I am not sure what I can say about it. Again, lets please put our cards on the table. I get the distinct and clear impression you are talking about RACE as in skin color particularly in America. I get the clear impression that the message is that good decent god fearing white folks would be doing just well with gun statistics were it not for those degenerate minorities messing it up for everybody.
 

You are so dishonest, I don't even know why I bothered...

Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime



that is because you are and they are not looking at what was the purpose of the ban in the first place: to stop mass murders with guns. And it worked perfectly

The results are hard to argue with. According to a Harvard University study, 13 gun massacres (in which four or more people died) occurred in the 18 years before the law was enacted. In the 16 years since there has been none. Zero. The overall firearm homicide rate dropped from 0.43 per 100,000 in the seven years before the law to 0.25 in the seven years after. By 2009, the rate had dropped further, to just 0.1 per 100,000, or one per million.

In the USA, the 2009 firearm homicide rate was 3.3 per 100,000, some 33 times higher than Australia's.

Are those stats incorrect?

I would point out to you that there are at least two different threads right on this site - one started by Goshin and the other by Lee White. In the OP for both they restrict any discussion of new laws to one which would specifically be aimed at the Connecticut atrocity. that is what conservatives here are insisting upon. And that is what the Australians did. And it worked to perfection and achieved the goal they set out to achieve - putting an end to mass murders with guns.
 
Do you exist in a nation composed only of New York City?

Since you offered......... What I would like is statistics for the entire nation and not simply cherry picked by you to custom fit your own personal narrative.

It is an example and it is the same for most large urban centers...

Don't have to, I have the national break down here...

The U.S. Justice Department provides a breakdown of homicides by the race of both the victim and offender. Looking at the data for 2005 (the latest year available), we find that whites committed 48.0% of all murders and blacks committed 51.2% of all murders. However, whites outnumber blacks in the population. In fact, non-Hispanic whites are about 69% of the population and blacks are about 13%. These statistics alone, shows that blacks are 13% of the population, but commit 51.2% of the murders, indicate that blacks commit a seriously disproportionate number of murders." - Black on Black Crime Coalition

Link to the Department of Justice article - http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/bvvc.pdf

Now lets see how you try and weasel out of this.
 
Last edited:
that is because you are and they are not looking at what was the purpose of the ban in the first place: to stop mass murders with guns. And it worked perfectly

OK, I suppose rape and assault make no difference to you. No problem. Yes it worked real well. So in other words rare mass murders are gone but rape and assaults have gotten much worse. Got ya.

Are those stats incorrect?

Yes they are. I don't see why Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics would need to lie about it. :roll:

I would point out to you that there are at least two different threads right on this site - one started by Goshin and the other by Lee White. In the OP for both they restrict any discussion of new laws to one which would specifically be aimed at the Connecticut atrocity. that is what conservatives here are insisting upon. And that is what the Australians did. And it worked to perfection and achieved the goal they set out to achieve - putting an end to mass murders with guns.

And upping all other crime... allot. :doh I am not insisting on ****. You can comment in those threads if you like. Got nothing to do with anything here. Nice red herring though.

Just moronic.
 
Those claiming to be "Australian" could be almost anything on that list.

As for the point you want me to speak to..... I am not sure what I can say about it. Again, lets please put our cards on the table. I get the distinct and clear impression you are talking about RACE as in skin color particularly in America. I get the clear impression that the message is that good decent god fearing white folks would be doing just well with gun statistics were it not for those degenerate minorities messing it up for everybody.

No, I am not referring to race. I speaking of culture. Race, rarely, restricts one to being part of a particular culture, but can restrict you from being part of a "sub-culture". After all, you do not see many white "African-Americans" but you do see and meet some just plain Americans with black skin pigmentation. I would say that a sub-culture of poverty or economic disparity, not race, is the center of a lot of our violent crime. Race only becomes part of the issue when members of a particular race try to build a sub-culture for specific ethnicities.

Australians can all be part of a mono-culture and still have multiple ethnic origins. A Culture is not necessarily built upon race. The vast majority of Australians, far more than the US, are "white". The British maintained control of Australia much longer than they did the US, more strictly controlled immigration and set the base culture there. Even when immigrants came, they were assimilated into the existing culture.

One cultural distinction between Australia and the US is and has been gun ownership and it's origins. The US revolted against Britain. Australia did not. The US used different laws for gun ownership through out our history than what the British and later the Australians have had. Since the revolution and up to 1903, ownership of personal weapons with military application, were not only allowed, but were mandated as part of our Defense strategy. Neither Britain, nor Australia, ever had that kind of policy. Our revolution and subsequent approach to gun ownership clearly influenced and continues to influence our culture where guns are concerned and our culture diverged from Britain at the time of the Revolution, Australia diverged from Britain, if it really has, much later than the US and did not involve revolution.

Australian gun laws have never actually been the same as the US. Their gun culture is predicated upon the needs of being a frontier settlement while the US gun culture was started and is predicated upon Armed citizens being part of our National Defense.

Also, while also settled by the British, we also were settled by other Europeans seeking freedoms that could not be obtained in the European cultures, chief among them being Religious Freedom. Australia was originally settled by the British using prisoners. While some were sent to the US prior to the revolution, it was not used in the American Colonies to the extent it was used in Australia. New York used to be New Amsterdam until the British took it from the Dutch. We also got some cultural references from the French and the Spanish. Not so in Australia.
 
It is an example and it is the same for most large urban centers...

Don't have to, I have the national break down here...

The U.S. Justice Department provides a breakdown of homicides by the race of both the victim and offender. Looking at the data for 2005 (the latest year available), we find that whites committed 48.0% of all murders and blacks committed 51.2% of all murders. However, whites outnumber blacks in the population. In fact, non-Hispanic whites are about 69% of the population and blacks are about 13%. These statistics alone, shows that blacks are 13% of the population, but commit 51.2% of the murders, indicate that blacks commit a seriously disproportionate number of murders." - Black on Black Crime Coalition

Link to the Department of Justice article - http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/bvvc.pdf

Now lets see how you try and weasel out of this.

Not trying to weasel out of anything. My position on this is one of two things
1- so what? We are all Americans and regardless of white and black we are in this together and we rise and fall as a nation together.
2- so according to you then this is the direct responsibility and problem of degenerate minorities who are ruining America for everbody else and they are so hopeless and beyond civilization atha we should just say "screw the damn dark savages and let them wallow in their own filth"?

I know which position mine is.

Which is yours?
 
OK, I suppose rape and assault make no difference to you. No problem. Yes it worked real well. So in other words rare mass murders are gone but rape and assaults have gotten much worse. Got ya.



Yes they are. I don't see why Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics would need to lie about it. :roll:



And upping all other crime... allot. :doh I am not insisting on ****. You can comment in those threads if you like. Got nothing to do with anything here. Nice red herring though.

Just moronic.

A really honest question for you:

If we cannot even agree on what the stats are and which stats we should be looking at- is there any hope for any discussion about those statistics?
 
Not trying to weasel out of anything. My position on this is one of two things
1- so what? We are all Americans and regardless of white and black we are in this together and we rise and fall as a nation together.
2- so according to you then this is the direct responsibility and problem of degenerate minorities who are ruining America for everbody else and they are so hopeless and beyond civilization atha we should just say "screw the damn dark savages and let them wallow in their own filth"?

I know which position mine is.

Which is yours?

OK, you admit that gun crime, or in this case murder in general, is to be addressed nationally. In other words, all laws are federal now? What you, and many leftists, have wanted all along, but were simply too afraid to ask for all at once. The answer to everything by the left is for application of more federal gov't power. "We" are all in this together now. Yes they can!
 
Not trying to weasel out of anything. My position on this is one of two things
1- so what? We are all Americans and regardless of white and black we are in this together and we rise and fall as a nation together.
2- so according to you then this is the direct responsibility and problem of degenerate minorities who are ruining America for everbody else and they are so hopeless and beyond civilization atha we should just say "screw the damn dark savages and let them wallow in their own filth"?


I know which position mine is. Which is yours?

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. :applaud





A really honest question for you:

If we cannot even agree on what the stats are and which stats we should be looking at- is there any hope for any discussion about those statistics?

It is really simple...

They passed a law. It banned semi auto and large caliber guns etc....

In 12 years gun crime has gone down 9%.
Assault and rape have gone up 40% and 20% respectively. Along with most other crime.
There have been no mass shootings. This however did not stop mass killings...

Childers Palace Fire - In June 2000, drifter and con-artist Robert Long started a fire at the Childers Palace backpackers hostel that killed 15 people.
Monash University shooting - In October 2002, Huan Yun Xiang, a student, shot his classmates and teacher, killing two and injuring five.


So any questions? Or do you want to make more nonsensical useless requests?
 
Not trying to weasel out of anything. My position on this is one of two things
1- so what? We are all Americans and regardless of white and black we are in this together and we rise and fall as a nation together.
2- so according to you then this is the direct responsibility and problem of degenerate minorities who are ruining America for everbody else and they are so hopeless and beyond civilization atha we should just say "screw the damn dark savages and let them wallow in their own filth"?

I know which position mine is.

Which is yours?

My position is that it actually has nothing to do with race. Statics can show that more of one race or another commits a particular type of crime, but does it address different social factors that may affect a greater percentage of one race over another? No.

Welfarism, community, parenting, education, discipline and crime punishment all play a role.

We need to end welfarism. Communities need to support cleaning up their communities. We need to improve our education system. Parents and Schools need to enforce greater discipline. Punishment should be increased in severity and done publicly to discourage more crime. And we need to end this stupid liberal war being raged against religion.
 
OK, you admit that gun crime, or in this case murder in general, is to be addressed nationally. In other words, all laws are federal now? What you, and many leftists, have wanted all along, but were simply too afraid to ask for all at once. The answer to everything by the left is for application of more federal gov't power. "We" are all in this together now. Yes they can!

Yes, if I could get my wish or snap my fingers I strongly would indeed favor criminal law being national. Yes and no doubt about it. And yes, the causes of it need to be addressed nationally as well.

But I make no such proposal nor do I believe it is possible.

Now your turn to answer my question about which position you identify with

1- so what? We are all Americans and regardless of white and black we are in this together and we rise and fall as a nation together.
2- so according to you then this is the direct responsibility and problem of degenerate minorities who are ruining America for everbody else and they are so hopeless and beyond civilization atha we should just say "screw the damn dark savages and let them wallow in their own filth"?
 
The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. ?

It has become obvious that your continual obsession with race and its statistics regarding crime is NOT A STAWMAN but a very important part of how you think about this entire issue.

And the fact is the law in Australia was passed because of a string of mass gun murders and that has stopped after the law. Nothing you have presented changes that reality.

here it is for you - yet again

The results are hard to argue with. According to a Harvard University study, 13 gun massacres (in which four or more people died) occurred in the 18 years before the law was enacted. In the 16 years since there has been none. Zero. The overall firearm homicide rate dropped from 0.43 per 100,000 in the seven years before the law to 0.25 in the seven years after. By 2009, the rate had dropped further, to just 0.1 per 100,000, or one per million.

In the USA, the 2009 firearm homicide rate was 3.3 per 100,000, some 33 times higher than Australia's.
 
My position is that it actually has nothing to do with race. Statics can show that more of one race or another commits a particular type of crime, but does it address different social factors that may affect a greater percentage of one race over another? No.

Welfarism, community, parenting, education, discipline and crime punishment all play a role.

We need to end welfarism. Communities need to support cleaning up their communities. We need to improve our education system. Parents and Schools need to enforce greater discipline. Punishment should be increased in severity and done publicly to discourage more crime. And we need to end this stupid liberal war being raged against religion.

We had no real welfare programs in the Gilden Age of the last half of the 1800's. That did not help poverty. It helped provide one of the worst condidtions for Americans to live under in our history.

I have no idea what the war on religion means.

I agree with you on doing more for our education system.
I agree with you on getting tough on crime and punishment.
I agree with you that parents and communities need to get their act together.
 
I'm not sure you can point to a post where he does not.

For somebody pretending to have me on IGNORE, there are certainly no shortage of mentions of me in your posts.
 
It has become obvious that your continual obsession with race and its statistics regarding crime is NOT A STAWMAN but a very important part of how you think about this entire issue.

And the fact is the law in Australia was passed because of a string of mass gun murders and that has stopped after the law. Nothing you have presented changes that reality.

here it is for you - yet again

What is their rate of other violent crime? What is their rate of petty crime? Australia has always had some restriction on gun ownership, America has only had a relatively small amount of time when any restrictions were put on our ownership. How does that affect whether or not a society will accept further curtailment of gun ownership? Prior to the ban, what was their rate of ownership of that type of gun vs the rate of ownership in the US? Did they only ban new sales or did they take existing ones away? If we want, as a government, to take away the existing ones, how could that possibly be done when so many would rather fight to keep them instead of turning them over? How are you even going to get a constitutional amendment through to attempt to take them away? Can what the Australians done even be done in the US without a constitutional amendment?
 
We had no real welfare programs in the Gilden Age of the last half of the 1800's. That did not help poverty. It helped provide one of the worst condidtions for Americans to live under in our history.

We also had the highest rates of gun ownership. We also had an extremely low murder rate (probably other violent crimes). So, we do know, outside of other factors, the higher the unrestricted gun ownership rate, the lower the murder rate. Tell me how pointing out the late 1800s supports your argument for gun bans? Heck, Americans actually sometimes had better guns than the military did.

I have not seen any statics or facts supporting your assumption of Poverty and poor living conditions. Perhaps you have some facts relating to that?
 
What is their rate of other violent crime?

I do not know. Nor is that the purpose of the gun law. It was aimed at stopping mass gun murders and it achieved that goal.

What is their rate of petty crime?

I do not know. What does that have to do with a law passed to stop gun mass murders?


Australia has always had some restriction on gun ownership, America has only had a relatively small amount of time when any restrictions were put on our ownership.

Towns in the western states in the 1800's used to ban guns outright in city limits. Gun control has been a part of this nation for several centuries now.



How does that affect whether or not a society will accept further curtailment of gun ownership?

I would argue that I see no real proposal to curtail gun ownership. Simply not allowing unbridled and unrestrained technology to rule the day and the menu available is not curtailing gun ownership.

Prior to the ban, what was their rate of ownership of that type of gun vs the rate of ownership in the US? Did they only ban new sales or did they take existing ones away?

I do not know.



If we want, as a government, to take away the existing ones, how could that possibly be done when so many would rather fight to keep them instead of turning them over?

I have seen no proposal for confiscation of existing legal weapons. And yes, I am aware of the hecklers veto that many on this issue claim they would exercise if it ever came to that. Some would so value their weapons that they would rather destroy the USA in the process. I hope it does not come to that and that is one reason why confiscation is not a viable proposal.

How are you even going to get a constitutional amendment through to attempt to take them away?

I do not think that is under consideration. I certainly would NOT favor that approach nor its result.

Can what the Australians done even be done in the US without a constitutional amendment?

Absolutely. One can get rid of certain guns like during the ten year Clinton period and the right to keep and bear arms still exists. There is more than one meal on the restaurant menu and the removal of an item of ten does not mean one will starve.
 
Yes, if I could get my wish or snap my fingers I strongly would indeed favor criminal law being national. Yes and no doubt about it. And yes, the causes of it need to be addressed nationally as well.

But I make no such proposal nor do I believe it is possible.

Now your turn to answer my question about which position you identify with

More closely to the second, but not as you stated it. It is largely up to state/county/city gov't to enforce the laws, with emphasis on violent crime. If they feel unable to do so they should solicit help from other agencies in their state, perhaps even using the NG for large scale sweeps (if required).

It is not that we lack local laws, or the general local means to enforce them. The biggest problems as I see them, are 1) lack of trust/cooperation between many citizens and their law enforcement, 2) cultural taboos on "ratting out" criminals and 3) the judical/correctional system is way overwhelmed now; things like plea deals and serving low percentages of even those lenient sentences "recycle" a nearly endless supply of "carreer" criminals.

Crime in this nation is very much the doing of a teeny tiny minority of the folks, yet we all are made to suffer from it. It is not the tools of the criminal minority that pose the problem but their acting with seeming impunity, despite our "best efforts" to stop them. If all else fails then make roads in the ghettos one way (out) and bulldoze them, but trying to change the rules (restrict the rights) for all of US society in hopes of eventually impacting the tiny criminal minority is not the answer, for sure.
 
I do not know. Nor is that the purpose of the gun law. It was aimed at stopping mass gun murders and it achieved that goal.



I do not know. What does that have to do with a law passed to stop gun mass murders?




Towns in the western states in the 1800's used to ban guns outright in city limits. Gun control has been a part of this nation for several centuries now.





I would argue that I see no real proposal to curtail gun ownership. Simply not allowing unbridled and unrestrained technology to rule the day and the menu available is not curtailing gun ownership.



I do not know.





I have seen no proposal for confiscation of existing legal weapons. And yes, I am aware of the hecklers veto that many on this issue claim they would exercise if it ever came to that. Some would so value their weapons that they would rather destroy the USA in the process. I hope it does not come to that and that is one reason why confiscation is not a viable proposal.



I do not think that is under consideration. I certainly would NOT favor that approach nor its result.



Absolutely. One can get rid of certain guns like during the ten year Clinton period and the right to keep and bear arms still exists. There is more than one meal on the restaurant menu and the removal of an item of ten does not mean one will starve.

What does the other crimes mention have to do with anything? Well, this a gun control thread relating to all gun violence, not just Mass shootings. You also seem to be advocating for adopting a foreign law that you admit to not knowing the details of. You equate some towns restrictions with nation wide restriction/laws. You say it is not a curtailment on the right to own guns, but it clearly is taking away the right to purchase many different guns.

You also don't seem to understand what they Clinton era "ban" really said. Not all "assault weapons" were baned from new sales, the ban only affected new sales, not the transfer or sale of pre-existing arms or magazines. Was the ban ever constitutionally challenged in the Supreme Court? What reducing affect do you think a new ban would have on pre-existing guns and magazines?

You also seem to equate "assault weapons" with mass shootings. Tell me, what "assault weapon" was used in Tucson? What firearms were used at columbine and did they get them through legal means? Were "assault weapons" the only ones used during any of the mass shootings?
 
Why is it that one tactic used by the gun culture on these sites is to almost always try to get the conversation steered to technical matters?

Cars are indeed limited by law and not by technology.

Because if you are going to claim "hi powered" as a limiting factor...you're going to have to define what that is. :shrug:

Still, no one needs to go over 55 mph...other than cops. Why don't we make civilian vehicles that go over 55 illegal, since safety is our goal and we all know that speed kills.
 
Its a "loose cannon thing"..
I fully know what this is like...no loose cannon should be allowed to own lethal weapons.....period....Automobiles are far safer.

How do you figure? More people are killed by automobiles than guns in the US.

Its ludicrous to allow gun ownership without a 100% background check, as we do not know where all the loose cannons are.....and who they are...

No-one is trying to get rid of background checks.

Automobile-wise, we have made huge strides - no more Pontiac Tempest GTO with 6 cylinder brakes and handling (one example)..

And yet people die every day from excessive speed and wreckless driving.

However, I thinks that it is impossible to sell "gun safety/regulation" to the NRA and its lackeys, the tea bagging conservatives...
Not any more than lead can be talked into being gold..

Actually, the NRA does more to promote gun safety than pretty much any other single organization in the US.
 
NYPD statistics show 96 percent of shooting victims are black or Hispanic and that minority groups represent 89 percent of all murder victims

The latest NYPD statistics show that crime is centered overwhelmingly in minority-group neighborhoods
- NYPD statistics show 96 percent of shooting victims are black or Hispanic and that minority groups represent 89 percent of all murder victims - NY Daily News

would you like stats from Chicago, Detroit and Michigan etc?

Exactly...which means that the real way to reduce crime is to improve education and reduce poverty rather than attacking inanimate objects.
 
H.Lee and me are on the same page. I have at least 8 firearm books. I know Eugene Stoner and I have written papers on Browning (my favorite designer I believe). I will agree to disagree with you.
You can deny all history as far as I am concerned, you never posted any chronology or fact refuting what I posted.

The relevant question in this thread is: do you think we as civilians should be allowed to own them? The AR 15 semi automatic. Or a fully automatic rifle built around the AR platform or any other Platform? I believe in the class 3 license we have right now for full autos. I think that is done.
Before the NRA had it's schism and became the radicalized entity it now is, there were so fewer of you who believe in their extremist philosophy of arming every US man, women and child. It used to be an organization focused on hunting, not creating members who feel they should be purchasing semi/full auto large clip military weapons. These are not hunting or marksmanship tools, they are designed to kill humans at a fast rate, that is what they were designed to do. They are not for personal protection as one can argue a revolver is, they were created for shock troops. And the argument that "we need to defend against a tyrannical govt" is just hogwash, US military weaponry far exceeds what you have, and you just are sliding down the slope if you argue you need to match them.

There is no seriousness in your argument, this is just a bunch of white guys with inadequacies filling a void.

You are not threatened, you are the threat.
 
Back
Top Bottom