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What is more important to you, life or guns?

Tlrmln said:
I only need to go back to the early 1900s, when anyone in England could buy a pistol without so much as writing their name down.

https://en.wikipedia.orgwiki/Firearms_regulation_in_the_United_Kingdom#Pistols_Act_1903
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But being able to do so, in theory, doesn't mean it happened in practice.

Looking at that Wikipage and you see that less than 100 years before there were restrictions on firearms already in place.

Also the UK was a place where people often didn't have guns. Poorer people simply were not expected to have guns, as was the case in the US. So there wasn't an easy supply of firearms for criminals back then, even if there were laws in place that restricted something.

In 1870 you needed a license to carry a gun outside, and would have been too expensive for most people to be able to buy.

So, it was far easier for the police to control firearms in the UK than the US.
 
Tlrmln said:
It's also hard to compare the US with England or Germany, for similar reasons and only to a lesser extent.
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Of course, it's always hard to compare different countries. However if you're going to make comparisons then first world countries, especially with European heritage are going to be the closest you'll get.
 
Frigidweirdo said:
Of course, it's always hard to compare different countries. However if you're going to make comparisons then first world countries, especially with European heritage are going to be the closest you'll get.
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If ethnic heritage is relevant, perhaps you should compare the US to a hypothetical country comprised of a proportional mixture of countries with heritages that are representative of the US population, calculate the hypothetical murder rate of this country, and get back to us.

Let me help you get started with some sample reference countries:

US Murder rate: 5.3

Europe: 3.0
South Africa: 35
Botswana: 15
Guatelmala: 26
Mexico: 25
 
Tlrmln said:
If ethnic heritage is relevant, perhaps you should compare the US to a hypothetical country comprised of a proportional mixture of countries with heritages that are representative of the US population, calculate the hypothetical murder rate of this country, and get back to us.

Let me help you get started with some sample reference countries:

US Murder rate: 5.3

Europe: 3.0
South Africa: 35
Botswana: 15
Guatelmala: 26
Mexico: 25
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If you want to play these games, we'll have the US and Mexico together. Europe is not a country.

We're not talking about Europe, we're talking about first world countries in Europe, most of which have a murder rate of around 1.
 
Frigidweirdo said:
So, it was far easier for the police to control firearms in the UK than the US.
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How do you figure it was easier, when there was no meaningful limitation on who could obtain a handgun and no meaningful requirement to obtain one? All you're pointing out is that Brits were less interested in having them.
 
Tlrmln said:
How do you figure it was easier, when there was no meaningful limitation on who could obtain a handgun and no meaningful requirement to obtain one? All you're pointing out is that Brits were less interested in having them.
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Try this.

You could buy a gun. If you bought a gun and were caught by the police with it outside of your home, say, on the way home from buying it, but you did not have a permit which cost far, far more than you could afford, then you'd have that gun take off you.

This is a massive thing. Even in the UK today, when people can get guns from abroad, the fact that their gun could be taken off them at a moment's notice and they might struggle to buy another one, would have had a big impact on the use of guns then, as it does today.
 
Frigidweirdo said:
If you want to play these games, we'll have the US and Mexico together. Europe is not a country.

We're not talking about Europe, we're talking about first world countries in Europe, most of which have a murder rate of around 1.
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Yes, I know that Europe is not a country, but why should we cherry-pick the first world countries in Europe? How is "first world" even relevant? There are developing countries in Europe with very low murder rates (e.g. Poland, Serbia), and those with quite high murder rates (Russia, Ukraine).

Similarly, US states have a wide range of murder rates, all the way from 1 (NH) to 12.4 (LA), and incidentally, the state with the highest per-capita income (MD) is near the top of the list (9.0).

There's no first world country in Europe that is anything like the US in any sense that matters.
 
Frigidweirdo said:
Try this.

You could buy a gun. If you bought a gun and were caught by the police with it outside of your home, say, on the way home from buying it, but you did not have a permit which cost far, far more than you could afford, then you'd have that gun take off you.

This is a massive thing. Even in the UK today, when people can get guns from abroad, the fact that their gun could be taken off them at a moment's notice and they might struggle to buy another one, would have had a big impact on the use of guns then, as it does today.
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Why would a criminal (the people who do the most murdering outside their own homes) care about the tiny chance that a cop would catch him with a gun while he's walking down the street on the way to rob or murder someone?


Everything you said is true in California today (and more than getting your gun taken, you will almost certainly be arrested for carrying one) and it has basically the same murder rate as Texas where that's not generally true.
 
Tlrmln said:
Yes, I know that Europe is not a country, but why should we cherry-pick the first world countries in Europe? How is "first world" even relevant? There are developing countries in Europe with very low murder rates (e.g. Poland, Serbia), and those with quite high murder rates (Russia, Ukraine).

Similarly, US states have a wide range of murder rates, all the way from 1 (NH) to 12.4 (LA), and incidentally, the state with the highest per-capita income (MD) is near the top of the list (9.0).

There's no first world country in Europe that is anything like the US in any sense that matters.
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First world is relevant because first world countries have a much lower crime rate and murder rate compared to other countries.

Poland isn't first world, it's second world because it's still struggling to deal with the disaster of "communism". It'll get to first world status soon enough, especially with the help of the EU.

There are also third world countries with very low murder rates. This doesn't help us at all.

US states have GDP per capita rates that are very high. Mississippi has the lowest at $31,000, that would put it in the top 45 countries in the world.

Oh, but then Mississippi has a really high murder rate, as do some of the other states at the bottom of that list.

But the US is a country. That there is this poverty in the South, suggests there's a lot of corruption in the US that shouldn't be there. And this corruption and lack of caring by politicians is one of the reasons why guns are so easy to obtain.

Mississippi has a murder rate of 8.1, I mean, that's high and it shouldn't be like that in the richest country on earth.
 
Tlrmln said:
Why would a criminal (the people who do the most murdering outside their own homes) care about the tiny chance that a cop would catch him with a gun while he's walking down the street on the way to rob or murder someone?


Everything you said is true in California today (and more than getting your gun taken, you will almost certainly be arrested for carrying one) and it has basically the same murder rate as Texas where that's not generally true.
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Part of the issue here is, if you get your gun taken from you, where do you get another one? In the UK it's an issue because guns aren't that easy to get. In CA maybe it's different because guns are easy to find.

Easy availability of guns is the issue. They might not be that scared of getting arrested, but scared of losing something irreplaceable.
 
Frigidweirdo said:
I got that. The problem is you seem to be making a simplistic argument.

The UK before the handgun ban was still a restrictive place for guns. Unless you understand the facts, then you'll jump to false conclusions.

The reality is the UK has a lower murder rate because A) there are less guns and B) because the authorities actually try and deal with the problems of the country
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The reality is that the UK had a lower murder and violent crime rate because they had a homogeneous, virtually all white society. They are no different than MANY European countries. But as that picture changed and as the UK has begun to deal with gangs, refugees etc, the UK has become significantly more violent and its guaranteed to get worse.
 
independentusa said:
Every heard the of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is in the Declaration of Independence. I find it interesting that as part of our God given rights, life comes before liberty and happiness. In our country that is no longer true. Life seems to come after guns. To so many Americans the loss of life is just what people have to pay so they can have all and any type of guns they want. Some on this board actually believe that the weapons they should be able to own include something like the M259 Saw, a weapon that is fully automatic and can put out up to 800 rounds per minute. Just think how many lives would have been lost if the Dayton or El Paso shooter would have been able to buy that kind of weapon at any gun shop? I come from a military family and none of my family think that the public should be able to buy military weapons. I think we ought to change the Declaration to say instead of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to "semiautomatics rifles, automatic pistols and body armor". Doesn't have the same punch, but is more closely in tune with modern day America.
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What a great point! "Life" before "Liberty". I never thought of that.
 
independentusa said:
Every heard the of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is in the Declaration of Independence. I find it interesting that as part of our God given rights, life comes before liberty and happiness. In our country that is no longer true. Life seems to come after guns. To so many Americans the loss of life is just what people have to pay so they can have all and any type of guns they want. Some on this board actually believe that the weapons they should be able to own include something like the M259 Saw, a weapon that is fully automatic and can put out up to 800 rounds per minute. Just think how many lives would have been lost if the Dayton or El Paso shooter would have been able to buy that kind of weapon at any gun shop? I come from a military family and none of my family think that the public should be able to buy military weapons. I think we ought to change the Declaration to say instead of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to "semiautomatics rifles, automatic pistols and body armor". Doesn't have the same punch, but is more closely in tune with modern day America.
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There are over 300 million guns in America which have never been used in a crime and never will be used in a crime. Confiscating those guns from good Americans will not stop the wicked from shooting people with guns they are not allowed by law to have.
 
Tlrmln said:
Yes, I know that Europe is not a country, but why should we cherry-pick the first world countries in Europe? How is "first world" even relevant? There are developing countries in Europe with very low murder rates (e.g. Poland, Serbia), and those with quite high murder rates (Russia, Ukraine).

Similarly, US states have a wide range of murder rates, all the way from 1 (NH) to 12.4 (LA), and incidentally, the state with the highest per-capita income (MD) is near the top of the list (9.0).

There's no first world country in Europe that is anything like the US in any sense that matters.
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Funny how the NRA is always cherry-picking this statistic and that statistic in different countries, but you say comparisons aren't valid. And no wonder - the US gets their collective butt kicked when looking at these comparisons.

gun-death-rates-chart.jpg

If only the NRA adherents were honest, and admit that our Freedoms lead to more gun deaths. There is no question about that!!!
 
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Media_Truth said:
What a great point! "Life" before "Liberty". I never thought of that.
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Guns protect life and liberty. those who want to ban guns want diminish the liberty of gun owners and make their lives less safe. The lives gun banners seek to make safer are those of violent criminals
 
Media_Truth said:
Funny how the NRA is always cherry-picking this statistic and that statistic in different countries, but you say comparisons aren't valid. And no wonder - the US gets their collective butt kicked when looking at these comparisons.

If only the NRA adherents were honest, and admit that our Freedoms lead to more gun deaths. There is no question about that!!!
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Did you just accuse the NRA of cherry-picking, right before cherry picking a bunch of countries to compare to the US?

When did I say "comparisons aren't valid"? Oh, right, I didn't. That's you lying again about what I said. Keep it up!
 
Tlrmln said:
Actually, before either the US or the UK had any gun laws worth mentioning, the murder rate in the US was about 8 times that of the UK. After the UK started passing strict gun laws, that ratio fell to a little north of 4 to 1.
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You got stats to back this up?
 
Tlrmln said:
Did you just accuse the NRA of cherry-picking, right before cherry picking a bunch of countries to compare to the US?

When did I say "comparisons aren't valid"? Oh, right, I didn't. That's you lying again about what I said. Keep it up!
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Quote from your post --- "There's no first world country in Europe that is anything like the US in any sense that matters." You certainly dont like comparing the US to other "first world countries".
 
Frigidweirdo said:
Actually I couldn't understand a thing you were trying to say.

I can't "prove" anything. This isn't an issue where there's going to be 100% proof of anything. To ask such a question is to show lack of understanding of the issues.

One of the biggest issues with gun crime is the availability of guns to criminals.

So what I'll do is present some things, and then you can look at the argument I'm making and you can try and pick holes in it, okay?

Comparison of international gun homicides.

List of countries by firearm-related death rate - Wikipedia

The US has a gun homicide rate of 4.46

The UK has a gun homicide rate of 0.06

Switzerland has a gun homicide rate of 0.15

Now, Switzerland has a lot of guns, but also has strict laws on how you keep guns, so guns aren't actually that easily available to criminals. Whereas in the US they are. They on'y have a rate of 27 guns per 100 people, compared to 120 for the US.

England and Wales has a rate of 4.6 guns per 100 people.

Germany, has a higher gun murder rate than Switzerland with 19.6 guns per 100 people and a gun murder rate. Germany has a rate of about 1 per 100,000 for gun murders.

So, the factors we're looking at here are easy availability of guns. Not numbers of guns. In the US guns are so easy to get. In Switzerland they're difficult because of the laws. In Germany they're easier to get hold of and gun murders increase.
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Again that link doesn't prove what the number of homicides they had before they enacted their draconian gun control laws. Saying the UK has lower amount of homicides than the US doesn't mean dick if their homicide were already extremely low to be begin with before they even enacted their draconian gun control laws.
 
independentusa said:
Every heard the of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is in the Declaration of Independence. I find it interesting that as part of our God given rights, life comes before liberty and happiness. In our country that is no longer true. Life seems to come after guns. To so many Americans the loss of life is just what people have to pay so they can have all and any type of guns they want. Some on this board actually believe that the weapons they should be able to own include something like the M259 Saw, a weapon that is fully automatic and can put out up to 800 rounds per minute. Just think how many lives would have been lost if the Dayton or El Paso shooter would have been able to buy that kind of weapon at any gun shop? I come from a military family and none of my family think that the public should be able to buy military weapons. I think we ought to change the Declaration to say instead of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to "semiautomatics rifles, automatic pistols and body armor". Doesn't have the same punch, but is more closely in tune with modern day America.
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The Declaration of Independence is a dead document. Has been since 1776.

Why would we change it?
 
independentusa said:
Every heard the of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is in the Declaration of Independence. I find it interesting that as part of our God given rights, life comes before liberty and happiness. In our country that is no longer true. Life seems to come after guns. To so many Americans the loss of life is just what people have to pay so they can have all and any type of guns they want. Some on this board actually believe that the weapons they should be able to own include something like the M259 Saw, a weapon that is fully automatic and can put out up to 800 rounds per minute. Just think how many lives would have been lost if the Dayton or El Paso shooter would have been able to buy that kind of weapon at any gun shop? I come from a military family and none of my family think that the public should be able to buy military weapons. I think we ought to change the Declaration to say instead of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to "semiautomatics rifles, automatic pistols and body armor". Doesn't have the same punch, but is more closely in tune with modern day America.
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Your attempt at utilizing the extreme to justify your point is a massive fail.

In the first place it's M249. Weighs 22 pounds. Belt fed. While it can be carried, it is designed to shoot from a stationary prone position using a tripod. Accuracy firing from the hip would be close to zero.

Hardly the type of weapon I would choose to shoot up a school.
 
If life is of the utmost importance to an individual, how is the right to own a means to protect that life, and the lives of of one's family, less important? :roll:
 
independentusa said:
Every heard the of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is in the Declaration of Independence. I find it interesting that as part of our God given rights, life comes before liberty and happiness. In our country that is no longer true. Life seems to come after guns. To so many Americans the loss of life is just what people have to pay so they can have all and any type of guns they want. Some on this board actually believe that the weapons they should be able to own include something like the M259 Saw, a weapon that is fully automatic and can put out up to 800 rounds per minute. Just think how many lives would have been lost if the Dayton or El Paso shooter would have been able to buy that kind of weapon at any gun shop? I come from a military family and none of my family think that the public should be able to buy military weapons. I think we ought to change the Declaration to say instead of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to "semiautomatics rifles, automatic pistols and body armor". Doesn't have the same punch, but is more closely in tune with modern day America.
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My guns protect my life and my liberty.
 
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