Just to respond to a few of Asianbond's several erroneous statements: "For the post'er who claim britian is a much more homogenized society than USA is incorrect, instead I believe Brtian has very similiar demographics to USA given the huge influx of foreigners. They do have major crime issues just like USA." According to: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=273 UK ethnic population % in 2001 White 92.1% Asian 4.4% (combined all Asians) Black 2.0% Other 0.8% (I assume it doesn't total 100% due to rounding) According to 2000 US Census data: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762156.html US ethnic population % in 2000 White 75.1% Native American 0.9% Hispanic 12.5% Asian 3.7% (includes Pacific Islanders) Black 12.3% Other 5.5% (Percentages do not add up to 100% due to rounding, and because Hispanics may be of any race and are therefore counted under more than one category.) AND "The root of problem is the easy access to handguns in USA. With a driver license you can buy large numbers in certain states. Gun control will only work on a national level. Allowing states to control it has not worked. Once a gun is made/born it basically has an immortal life span, it'll go from owner to owner and chances are it will end up as a tool in a crime. See gun running story: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT" Did I call it or what??? The good old "gun running" BS! Here's what I originally posted on the subject; note that Asianbond's simple reposting of a news story doesn't address any of my points: "The traditional arguments against the above possibilities is that lax gun laws in neighboring areas allow the influx of firearms by gun smugglers. But if that's the case, why don't those same neighboring areas experience the same gun-related crime? For those that buy into the "gun smuggling" argument, why don't criminals expand their enterprises into a fresh untapped market with lax gun laws (neighboring states)? Perhaps its because the criminals fear encountering a potentially armed pool of victims?" AND "And for those who argue that succesful defence gun stories are not publiziced and only crime with gun stories are highlighted I find that argument completed ridiculous. The media loves to run successful vigilante type stories because they know the public loves the good guy win angle, instead they bury random murder stories because it is so common in certain cities its no longer newsworthy." Absolute BS. I don't know where Asianbond is, but some of you folks in the US might recall a shooting that occurred a little over a year ago. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Courthouse_shootout It was covered by several national news programs, including CNN and Fox News. It was even covered in one of those sensationalistic police chase shows where they hyped up the fact that the cop that shot the perp rode on the hood of the car while initially responding and shot the bad guy from across a road. However, NONE of the national news coverage mentioned Mark Allen Wilson...local news coverage did. While Wilson wasn't ultimately successful (bad guy had on body armor), several folks in Gregg County are of the opinion that Wilson's efforts helped buy the responding police some time. That's just one example. Want another? Lots of folks have heard of the Texas Tower Sniper shooting back in 1966 at UT-Austin...few know that at least one armed civilian, working at the direction of police on the scene, assisted in stopping the murderer. That's less an example of self-defense, but is illustrative of the lack of media reporting. FWIW, if you ever pick up a copy of the American Rifleman,a monthly magazine, each issue has a page dedicated to newspaper articles (usually local papers with smaller circulations) telling of armed citizens using firearms to defend themselves. Not all of them involve firing a shot. Compare the stories contained therein to televised reporting for the same period...bet you won't see any of the accounts televised. AND ""If you ban guns, a criminal will find a way to get one, and only criminals wil have them" Not true. If you make the penalties stiff (10 year mandatory) enough for illegal gun possession, it will deter even criminals from possessing them. This is proven by data from countries like Britian, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan..etc. There are criminals in these countries who are just as violent, yet they resort to knives and pipes. Look at the statistics, there systems work!" WE ALREADY HAVE 10 YEAR (AND MORE!) SENTENCES FOR GUNS FIRED IN THE COMMISSION OF A CRIME!!! See Title 18, Section 924(c) of the United States Code. [see section 922 for the list of crimes.] http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000924----000-.html AND "No, the criminal will still commit the crime, he will just look for a different victim. Solution is not to deflect the criminal to other victims, it is to disable the criminal by disarming him. He may still commit a crime but with less deadly consequences." Flawed logic. If some folks are carrying concealed, how will the criminal know who is armed and who isn't? While your argument is purely theoretical, empirical evidence suggests that allowing citizens to choose to carry concealed weapons can result in an across the board drop in violent crime. There was an extensive study on this done on Florida when Florida became one of the first states to dramatically liberalize their policy on issuing concealed carry weapons permits to private citizens. I don't have a link on this one; I'll let you look it up for yourself. IIRC, this has been the case for *every* other state that has followed Florida's lead.
There is no valid reason to license firearms. The only reason to license firearms is as a precursor to confiscation. Licensing firearms does not prevent crime...at best, it *might* help solve a crime, but even proof of who a gun is licensed to can never be construed as proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Besides, if a criminal is going to be well reasoned enough to contemplate registration (what, a 10 year prison sentence?), he/she will be well reasoned enough to realize that murder will can result in a life/death sentence. Conversely, if a criminal does NOT contemplate these things (after all, they're *criminals*...duh.), then no licensing scheme or law will deter a criminal from doing evil. Thus, the only people that would be penalized would be folks who do worry about breaking the law...the law-abiding victims. You keep harping on this one statistic but fail to consider if it is truly a cause-effect relationship or merely a symptom of another problem. For another erroneous argument with a similarly flawed premise that was very popular back in the day, google "phlogiston theory."
You still don't get the premise to reduce supply of guns. Your responses are not even on point. -california is just one state -some shooting are senastional new story, some are not -felony murder rule only applies in course of crime, goal is pre-emptive policy to disarm felony before crime, very different situation -gun running is damaging because it increases supply to urban areas -conceal weapon rule, yeah fight the highest homicide rate by arming more citizens, sure I can see how that's going help Why don't you address the data and explain where the 3.72% homicide by guns come from? I'm done with this thread. Makes no sense to continue debating with those in such denial.
Yeah, and if the criminal hated the person he shot, then the criminal really gets the book thrown at him! ( Hate crime bill )
Hooray, he's done! Thank G-d because this guy is too f--king stupid to continue rebutting. Felony murder rule, WTF??? Who brought that up, because I didn't (and yes, I *do* know what felony murder is). I address each argument point by point and he STILL doesn't get it. Oh well, maybe as his grasp of English gets better his reading comprehension will improve.
This is an interesting read concerning legal concealed carry. http://www.nraila.org/CurrentLegislation/Read.aspx?ID=1861 This is interesting too. In the weapons distribution section, more people used their hands and feet in violent crimes than used guns. I guess we should start banning body parts. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/index.html
