In Vigyazat wrote:
> Nevermore
thestake.net> wrote :
> >> Not really. The reason I mention this is because it was the nation's
>> police forces that opposed the re-authorization of the Brady
>> registration law and the reason was because it created a total
>> bureaucratic nightmare for them.
>
> Since when is it the place of the police to decide what the law should
> be? The purpose of the police is to enforce the laws that the
> government write into legislation. It's the responsibility of the
> government to provide the police with the resources they need to
> enforce the government's laws. At least, that's how it works in
> Britain. Is it different in America?
Don't be silly. We have highly paid lobbyists who write the laws here
in America but that doesn't mean that we can't listen to what the police
are telling us about the effectiveness of those laws when they actually
meet the streets. The police have a very compelling personal interest
in making sure bad people don't have guns, they are far more likely to
be shot than the average citizen, and yet, they will tell you over and
over and over that they don't think registration helps them and they
don't think it is a good use of their time and the only people being
harassed, delayed, or hindered by registration are the people who are
trying to comply with the system. People who don't care whether or not
they shoot you certainly aren't going to care whether their paperwork is
in order.
>
>
>> It didn't work. It consumed huge amounts of their time registering
>> weapons from law abiding people who never were a problem.
>
> Granted - this is a problem with gun control laws: "Cum catapultae
> proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt" - with
> apologies to Henry Beard.
"Live by the gun, Die by the gun," - with apologies to Tupac Shakur
>
> But at least if that's the case, then you know that when you find a
> weapon, you've found an offender.
You haven't FOUND an offender. You've CREATED an offender where there
was none before.
> If private gun ownership is banned,
> then those who are found with guns can be prosecuted; and that could
> well happen before that person has a chance to flip and take out a
> school full of kids.
How? Are we going to start searching every home in America on the
chance that there might be a gun inside? I thought we passed the
message to you guys back in 1776 that we weren't going to stand for that
kind of thing.
There you go again....
> The biggest argument against the post-Dunblane
> gun ban here in the UK was that Thomas Hamilton - the offender - held
> his firearms legally. Therefore, the argument went, banning legal
> guns won't do any good. I'm not entirely sure how that was reasoned
> out, though. Obviously, if gun ownership is universal, then that's
> millions and millions of potential Hamiltons all just waiting for the
> right trigger. Restrict or prohibit gun ownership, though, and
> police the laws, and while some will still certainly slip through,
> many more will not have the means to commit such crimes when they do
> flip.
And when those few who slip flip you have crowds of innocent people
getting mowed down because none of them have the tools to defend
themselves.
>
> I don't propose a system whereby people have to register their guns.
> I propose a system whereby people are prohibited from owning them.
Because that very same strategy has worked soooo well with illegal drugs
worldwide?
> Although, as I said, I realise that would never wash in America - not
> without a serious shift in popular thought.
No, it would never happen in America without completely rewriting our
Constitution and abandoning the principals which have made us
functioning democracy for 231 years.
>
>
>> Yes. We should abandon drug laws to make things easier on the
>> government and the police. If you are stupid enough to take illegal
>> narcotics or drink household cleaners for that matter after we've
>> warned everybody for the past hundred years what the consequences are
>> then we should not be spending billions of dollars a year and skewing
>> our entire society and global economy into knots trying to stop you.
>
> That would be fine, IF it were only the drug-taker who would get hurt.
> Unfortunately, it's not. Consider the harm that drink-drivers do.
> Alcohol is readily available, yet is immensely damaging when used
> irresponsibly. And you refer to drug users as 'stupid' - so would you
> suddenly expect those people to use drugs responsibly just because
> they'd been legalised? Or would you accept a measure of
> responsibility when drug use proliferates and more and more people
> suffer as a result?
By God, you make SO much sense. We should register all the drugs and
prohibit anyone from owning them without a prescription!!!
>
> Argue that there wouldn't be such a proliferation - that drug laws
> don't make a difference and that people who're inclined to use
> already use - and you hit the same problem as you did with gun laws:
> how to predict, statistically, reliably, what effect the change would
> have before you make it.
No. We don't have to predict anything. You could hand out guns and
drugs to everybody tomorrow and the people that weren't abusing them
today wouldn't be abusing them tomorrow.
It's like this stupid gay marriage debate - you didn't see a whole
parade of straight guys run out the next weekend and marry their bowling
buddies just because it was suddenly legal.
>
>> Refine them? Why? The sooner these losers die, die, die the better
>> off the rest of us are. It's called natural selection.
>
> A moment ago you were arguing that drug laws should be removed, and
> that the 'stupid' people who take drugs should be free to do so. So
> as ten die, how many more suddenly discover the supposed wonders of
> legal drugs? In short, will there BE a time when they all die off?
> And will you live to see it?
Think about this a second. People have been taking illegal narcotics
for decades now. Many, many of them die from it. They would die if
they were legal. They would die if they were illegal. They are doing
right now. Stand next to the legal/illegal switch all day and flip it
up and down and you don't alter reality one tiny little bit.
>
>
>> And yet I've been all over this country, day and night, city, town,
>> village, remote canyons and mesas, and I've only been in a couple of
>> situations that involved guns and nobody actually came remotely close
>> to getting shot.
>
> I'm not sure that presenting the fact that you've been in a couple of
> situations involving guns, whether or not anyone was shot, necessarily
> makes the case that free-for-all gun ownership is a good thing. And
> besides, you're one person in a nation of almost 300 million, as you
> yourself keep telling me. Your anecdotal evidence doesn't really make
> much difference.
That's true and if you went to a high school or a college that got shot
up by a lunatic you would undoubtedly have a different personal
perspective that I do; however, neither of our experiences would change
the fact that school violence of this type is extremely rare and even
with the events of this week - bad as they undoubtedly are - simple
stats show that school violence is decreasing year after year after year.
> What would would be a percentage of your national
> population who've had some sort of unpleasant gun-related experience,
> measured against the same percentage of the populations of other
> countries.
Way, way, way lower than the kind of problems the population of Kosovo,
Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, etc., etc. have with gun violence.
>
>> The United States is forty (40) times larger than Britain. We have
>> 300 million people and an estimated 300 million guns and the vast
>> majority of Americans are going to go their entire lives without ever
>> being the victims of any kind of gun related violence.
>
> Granted. But in truth, the size of the population doesn't really
> matter, since it's a relatively simple job to scale the statistics -
> bearing in mind the problems we've already seen with regard to the
> standards used in gathering those statistics, and the fact that two
> countries won't necessarily do it in the same way. Without spending
> too much time on a newsgroup post, some figures cited for 1999 on the
> Gun Control Network website give 4.08 fatal shootings per 100,000
> population in the USA, with just 0.54 in Canada the same year; and 0.
> 12 for England and Wales plus another 0.12 for Scotland (Scotland has
> a different legal system so it's counted separately in stats). It
> doesn't matter that the USA's population is nine times that of Canada,
> or four/five times that of the UK - it's clear that this isn't just a
> matter of scaling up a population's problems.
Well, I've found some of those stats are exaggerated by the inclusion of
suicides in the "fatal shooting" catagory. There is little question
that guns are an extremely convenient way for people to kill themselves
but they would undoubtedly find other methods if there weren't guns
around. If you deduct a few neighborhoods around this country where
nobody in their right minds would live because of gangs and drug
problems you end up with a much more realistic picture. There are
places in Britain you wouldn't dare walk at night but nobody is cowering
in the Cotswolds expecting to get mugged, are they?
>
>
>> Drunk drivers kill way more Americans than guns. Nobody is
>> considering banning cars or alcohol.
>
> Have you ever wondered why? Oh, sure - America without cars would be
> an economic disaster, that's a given; but is there any reason why you
> think the regulations for drivers and the penalties for those who
> abuse their vehicles shouldn't be made far more stringent? And I
> know America's attempted to ban alcohol before. It didn't work, any
> more than banning guns would work - but that doesn't necessarily mean
> it wasn't a logical thing to try to do.
If it doesn't work then by definition it is not the logical thing to do.
>
>
>> There are an estimated 300 million guns already on the North American
>> continent. The cat is out of the bag. We need to deal with psychos,
>> not guns. They are a lot easier to find and register.
>
> Psychos are easier to find and register? Are you sure you don't want
> to take a few moments to think about this?
Okay, I took a few moments. I repeat: psychos are easier to find and
register. We are now hearing that this guy in Virginia scared the hell
out of his English teacher in 2005 and she tried repeatedly to get him
into counseling and contacted the police and university officials
because his writings were so homicidally disturbing. His classmates
reported him. His three roommates who were stuck with him also
apparently tried to do something about his suicidal ideations and his
stalking of female students. This is a failure of our mental health
system to act. You could have taken 7,000 guns out of 25 mile square
radius around the campus and this would still have happened. We need to
reverse this idiot trend we started in the 1970s after "One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest" was published of "mainstreaming" the mentally ill
because they're just people who march to the beat of a different drummer.
This guy would have been institutionalized in any other century.
>
>
>>> Another problem with statistics is in how they're measured. What
>>> counts as a 'gun crime'? For that matter, what counts as a 'gun'?
>>
>> Yes, yes, THAT'S the problem, what, oh what, is a gun?
>
> Well, you CAN be sarcastic - or you could just ask what I meant, if I
> wasn't clear. The police in Britain didn't previously treat incidents
> involving air weapons as firearms incidents. Now, largely thanks to
> that National Crime Recording Standard, and its attendant National
> Standard for Incident Recording, they do. Hence, air weapons have
> become firearms for the purposes of incident response. In addition,
> some unlikely weapons also now classify as 'firearms', including CS
> spray and related devices. Obviously, then, relating British
> firearms statistics to those of a country that operates according to
> different standards is not necessarily straightforward; and our
> firearms crime stats may seem a little higher because of this.
I just can't get worked up about something that stupid.
>
>> So the law won't work but changing EVERYONE'S mind in a country of
>> 300 million people built upon the bedrock principal of freedom of
>> thought, speech, and expression will????
>
> Yes. No matter how many question marks you use, the point remains:
> what many Americans really seem to mean when they talk about 'freedom
> of thought, speech and expression' is 'the right to own a gun'. As I
> said before, the two concepts - freedom and gun ownership - are
> inseparable for many Americans; which, despite your apparent
> perception, is not to say all. They essentially mean the same thing.
> My question is, is it possible for a population - whether 65 million
> or 295 million, to change its views on something? I'd say yes, since
> such changes happen all the time. Maybe not overnight, but they do
> happen. Smoking is less popular in Britain than it was. Once it was
> fashionable: now it's generally perceived as a dirty habit. Wearing
> furs, once a mark of wealth and status, is now generally frowned upon.
> And the changes aren't always positive or beneficial, but the point
> remains, society's views on things DO change.
>
> Will America ever change its views on gun ownership? I don't think so.
> But that's not to say it's impossible, or that it wouldn't help solve
> the problem if it did happen.
>
Trust me. It's not going to happen.
>
>>> Americans have a massive emotional
>>> investment in their guns. To an American, the gun is a symbol of
>>> freedom: take away their guns and you take away their freedom. But
>>> is that really the case?
>>
>> You just sailed right past that one. Americans have a massive
>> emotional investment in freedom. I've never acquainted my freedom
>> with a gun. There are thousands of factors involved and just because
>> a bunch of hicks in a trailer park somewhere with a bumper sticker
>> collection are the loudest advocates of gun ownership doesn't define
>> the basic issues at stake any more than "Pearlies" define what it is
>> to be British.
>
> I have no idea what a 'pearly' is.
Well, they stand in our malls and tell us this is some great British
tradition. If its not you should come get them.
>But if you're making this personal,
> let me ask you: do you own a gun?
I'm a Witch. What would I do with it?
>
>>> What threat to American freedom does random,
>>> free-for-all ownership of firearms actually address?
>>
>> The freedom to sit in your college classroom and not be gunned down
>> by the one lunatic on campus who is violating the gun ban.
>
> You answer a question covering a whole nation with a single incident.
> You've yet to outline what would have happened if everyone in the
> college had been armed, and, crucially, how that information is
> available to you.
Well, let's put it this way. There's a reason you don't here about 32
people being gunned down in a Honky Tonk.
>
>>> The fact that
>>> someone else might have a gun and you don't?
>>
>> Yup.
>
> Exactly. Whereas, in general, it's very unlikely that the average
> nutcase in Britain is going to have a gun. Not impossible, and
> perhaps more likely than it once was, but it remains comparatively
> unlikely, even so.
Whatever. I keep saying - the cat is out of the bag. It's like a
minefield. It might be nice if it hadn't been mined in the first place
but once you know it has been you have to treat it differently.
>
>
>> A circle that most Americans will live their entire lives without
>> ever experiencing which is why television interviews of bystanders in
>> this country always begin with the phrase, "We never thought in a
>> million years something like this would happen in this neighborhood!
>> " Do you think that's because we have 300 million incredibly naive
>> people in this country who wouldn't know a shooting if they heard one
>> or because most of our neighborhoods will never experience something
>> like this???
>
> A little way back you pointed out that America was over 40 times
> larger than Britain. Your claim is that these interviews ALWAYS
> begin like this. Where are the statistical centres of gun crime in
> the USA? And do we hear "we never thought..." from those areas?
No, there are some neighborhoods that are free fire zones that the cops
hardly dare go into and almost all of them are in about ten urban
centers where you are perfectly safe less than two miles away.
>
>> Have you been here? You can't put a deck on your house or build a
>> mall or a sewer plant without sparking a multi-million dollar permit
>> fight between twelve city boards, three local governments, the
>> federal appeals court, a few random home owners associations and
>> Ducks Unlimited. Where are the cowering masses under orderly
>> government control?
>
> Good, isn't it? And in the midst of all that - plus squabbling with
> your neighbours over this and that; making sure you've bought all the
> latest consumer goods that you really badly need (the TV said so);
> worrying about what foods are good for you and bad for you this week;
> who's going to sue you or who you're going to sue for what; and of
> course the constant announcements about what the terrorists have in
> store for you - who'd blame you for losing track of the big stuff?
>
> Don't be offended by that: the people of Britain are manipulated in
> much the same way.
Boy, you seem to be getting your information about what we do all day
long over here from some pretty odd sources. It's very nice here. I've
also been to England. It's very nice too. Maybe you should get out
more.
>
>
>> I am about to walk to the "downtown" of my little New England village.
>> I know that I will literally pass dozens and dozen of homes, cars,
>> and buildings on the way that contain firearms. I will not give it
>> one thought and I will not see any of them and I will have the same
>> sense of safety, peace, and tranquility that occurs every other day
>> that I get coffee at the bakery and don't run into those ridiculous
>> Mormon missionaries.
>
> I'm sure you'll have that sense of peace, and I'm glad for you. But
> have you heard the expression "out of sight, out of mind"? When you
> get chance to walk through the less well-off areas of Los Angeles or
> Chicago let me know how comfortable you feel then. As you said,
> America's a big place - the fact that your area, or even most of the
> area, is relatively free of gun crime doesn't change the fact that
> statistically speaking the national gun crime rate is
> disproportionately high in comparison to other countries in the
> developed world.
I was just in downtown Chicago and I made it a big point to stay in the
more well-off areas of the city, which are stunningly beautiful by the
way. Nobody in their right mind goes into the bad neighborhoods. Not
only is there nothing to do but they are very dangerous. This is
called is called common sense. I didn't give the bad area one second's
thought the whole time I was staying in the Palmer House with all the
rest of the sane people.
>
> I also notice that you seem to be taking my comments as attacks on
> your country as a whole and on yourself. They're not intended in any
> such way.
Good. Otherwise I'd have to shoot you.
Nevermore
