Guns in the U.S need to go away now (or in a few years :))

[OzzyKP]

The issue no one has seemed to bring up (although it might have, i'm finding that if i try to read everything i will soon be buried as people post faster than i can read) is that to hell with freaken statistics, it is my god given right to own a gun if I damn well please.

But it goes much deeper than that. The number one issue for me regarding guns (and yes, i speak of machine guns, tanks, and whatever else you have in mind) is protection against tyranny. All you statist dolts quoting crime rates and accidental gun use seem to be oblivious to the millions upon millions upon millions of innocent men women and children BRUTALLY MASSACRED by their governments in this century alone.

Lets see Hitler take some of the 80 million gun owners to the death camps. Lets see Pol Pot or Stalin stir up trouble with 300 Million guns in this country.

Like blind sheep you all gloss over the atrocities that have went on in this century and willfully devest your rights and your freedoms into some phantom, benevolent government that wishes to take away your freedom for your own good. WAKE UP.

How dare any of you attempt to lead MY NATION to purges and death camps with your irresponsible rhetoric.

The NRA is right, you can pry my gun from my COLD DEAD FINGERS.

Commie Facist Massmurding bastards.

[OzzyKP]

For those of you not convinced by my words how about those of a HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR.


Q.) Did the camp inmates ever bring up the topic, "If only we were armed before, we would not be here now"?

A.) Many, many times. Before Adolph Hitler came to power, there was a black market in firearms, but the German people had been so conditioned to be law abiding, that they would never consider buying an unregistered gun. The German people really believed that only hoodlums own such guns. What fools we were. It truly frightens me to see how the government, media, and some police groups in America are pushing for the same mindset. In my opinion, the people of America had better start asking and demanding answers to some hard questions about firearms ownership, especially if the government does not trust me to own firearms, why or how can the people be expected to trust the government?

There is no doubt in my mind that millions of lives could have been saved if the people were not "brainwashed" about gun ownership and had been well armed. Hitler's thugs and goons were not very brave when confronted by a gun. Gun haters always want to forget the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which is a perfect example of how a ragtag, half starved group of Jews took up 10 handguns and made asses out of the Nazis.


Q.) What message do you have for ultra-Liberal organizations and individuals who want America disarmed?

A.) Their ignorance is pitiful -- their lives have been too easy. Had they experienced Dachau, they would have a better idea of how precious freedom is. These leftist should leave America. These Sarah Brady types must be educated to under-stand that because we have an armed citizenry, that a dictatorship has not yet happened in America. These anti-gun fools are more dangerous to Liberty than street criminals or foreign spies.


To read the full interview go here: http://www.jpfo.org/Survive.htm

To see one of the best Gun Rights groups out there go here: www.jpfo.org

[David Floyd]

The issue no one has seemed to bring up (although it might have, i'm finding that if i try to read everything i will soon be buried as people post faster than i can read) is that to hell with freaken statistics, it is my god given right to own a gun if I damn well please.

You're goddamned right!

[Wraith]

--"Ohhhh! THAT Gary Kleck!"

Like I said, feel free to criticise his methedology if you want . I do find it a bit hypocritical of you that you are (apparently) doing so without having read his report on it, and therefore not actually knowing what it is, but you're free to do so.
His numbers, btw, aren't out of line with other studies done on the subject. The estimates range from 700,000 to 3.6 million per year. As far as the sample size, what is the usual size of a national phone survey?

In any case, that does not improve the ones done in medical journals. You still haven't shown me any reasons his criticisms of those studies are invalid.

--"Doesn't it strike you as odd that the number of crimes supposedly prevented by people brandishing guns actually exceeds the total number of crimes committed in the country?"

Not really. He does not define a defensive use as actually shooting the criminal, after all, and the vast majority of the uses were in or near the home. If you scare off a robber by brandishing a pistol, why wouldn't he just hop a couple streets over and take down an empty house?
Not that I'd mind seeing the study performed again with more care, but I do find it amusing that you're willing to totally dismiss it without reading it.

Wraith
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed -- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
-- James Madison

[Dr Strangelove]

You're wrong Wraith, I did read his article, it's available on the internet. Since the survey was conducted by phone we don't have a copy of the actual questions asked, so we can't evaluate the possibility that the questions encouraged bias. Also note that there is no way that we can determine whether the respondent's perception of a potential attack did infact correspond to a real atempt. There is no way that this survey could distinguish incidents where drunks, druggies or mentally disturbed persons perceiving a possible attack and brandishing a weapon at an innocent bystander from bone fide self defense. I also find it odd that in a one year period 66 respodents, or 1.4% claimed a "DGU", but over a five year period only 165 made the same claim. Was 1993 just a really bad year, or is it possible that the majority of his positive respondents in the one year category keep having the same problem over and over because when it comes right down to it the problem is with them and not with the alledged criminals their paranoid minds keep encountering?

If Kleck had some sort of real police or medical background he would know that intoxicated and/or mentally disturbed people who see burglars, robbers, and assailants around every corner are quite plentiful. Police blotters and ER records get packed with them every weekend.

[Sava]

Guns are bad, mkay....

They should be illegal, but since they're not, I own one.

As with all things wrong with the US, its the conservatives that keep it from being fixed.

[Dr Strangelove]

Here's another problem with Kleck's survey: He notes that the results of "household" DGU is only slightly larger than "personal" DGU. Presumably many of those who personally used a gun for defense live with one or more other adults, so the number of households reporting DGU should approach twice that of reports of personal use. There is no reason to believe that there should be a statistically greater chance for the one who used the gun for defense to be the one who answered the phone. Kleck dismisses this discrepancy by assuming that people are reluctant to discuss defensive gun use by their significant others. He could have researched that point if he had chosen to, but he didn't.

[Wraith]

--"You're wrong Wraith, I did read his article, it's available on the internet. "

Yup. Here's one.

--"Since the survey was conducted by phone we don't have a copy of the actual questions asked"

Quoting from the above link:

The interviewers then asked the following question: "Within the past five years, have you yourself or another member of your household used a gun, even if it was not fired, for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere? Please do not include military service, police work, or work as a security guard." Rs who answered "yes" were then asked: "Was this to protect against an animal or a person?" Rs who reported a DGU against a person were asked: "How many incidents involving defensive uses of guns against persons happened to members of your household in the past five years?" and "Did this incident [any of these incidents] happen in the past twelve months?" At this point, Rs were asked "Was it you who used a gun defensively, or did someone else in your household do this?"

All Rs reporting a DGU were asked a long, detailed series of questions establishing exactly what happened in the DGU incident. Rs who reported having experienced more than one DGU in the previous five years were asked about their most recent experience. When the original R was the one who had used a gun defensively, as was usually the case, interviewers obtained his or her firsthand account of the event. When the original R indicated that some other member of the household was the one who had the, experience, interviewers made every effort to speak directly to the involved person, either speaking to that person immediately or obtaining times and dates to call back. Up to three call-backs were made to contact the DGU-involved person. We anticipated that it would sometimes prove impossible to make contact with these persons, so interviewers were instructed to always obtain a proxy account of the DGU from the original R, on the assumption that a proxy account would be better than none at all. It was rarely necessary to rely on these proxy accounts--only six sample cases of DGUs were reported through proxies, out of a total of 222 sample cases.

So, while the entire list of questions used to get the details wasn't listed, the questions used to establish the DGU are.

--"There is no way that this survey could distinguish incidents where drunks, druggies or mentally disturbed persons perceiving a possible attack"

It is possible that the detailed questoins attempted to cover this. They do list several things that they did audit in an attempt not to overstate the uses.

--"I also find it odd that in a one year period 66 respodents, or 1.4% claimed a "DGU", but over a five year period only 165 made the same claim."

Another quote:

Both telescoping and recall failure should be lower with a one year recall period, so estimates derived from this period should be superior to those based on the longer recall period.

--"Presumably many of those who personally used a gun for defense live with one or more other adults, so the number of households reporting DGU should approach twice that of reports of personal use"

Another quote:

Therefore, for all past-year estimates, and for past-five-years handgun estimates, it was necessary to conservatively assume that there was only one DGU per DGU-involved person or household.

Look, this study was peer-reviewed by the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. One of the big-name reviewers, Dr. Marvin Wolfgang, is very much in favor of gun-control, and still had no problem with the methedology of this study (he said, in the Journal, that he was having to revise his opinions on gun-control thanks to it).

And no matter how little you like Kleck's study, you've still done nothing to counter his problems with the medical journal studies.

Wraith
"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."
-- George S. Patton

[OzzyKP]

Continued arguing over statistics. Anyone tired of quibbling over a few hundred lives saved or lost and want to respond to my statement that MIILIONS UPON MILLIONS of lives are saved by free access to weapons?

Or don't you gun control folks have the balls to take on the larger moral issues at play here?

[Dis]

I'm willing to bet access to guns have saved the lives of hundreds of americans.

That is it.

Having access to guns has killed thousands of americanss though over 2 + centuries.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Wraith

And no matter how little you like Kleck's study, you've still done nothing to counter his problems with the medical journal studies.

Wraith
"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."
-- George S. Patton

The article you provided a link to didn't include a list of references. I can't track down articles unless I have such niceties as the name of the journal, the issue, the date and the page numbers. I checked and our local library seems to be missing Kleck's book.

Frankly, having examined the quality of his work already I don't feel a pressing need to read his book.

Did you notice that 8.3% of DGUs claimed to have wounded or killed during the incident they reported to the survey? What would 8.3% of 2.7 million be? Somewhere over 200,000 I believe. That's more gunshot wounds than were reported for all causes in that year. How did all these gunshot wounds escape notice?

[Sarxis]

I think dogs should be illegal too.

After all: dogs don't kill people, dog owners do!

[David Floyd]

Did you notice that 8.3% of DGUs claimed to have wounded or killed during the incident they reported to the survey? What would 8.3% of 2.7 million be? Somewhere over 200,000 I believe. That's more gunshot wounds than were reported for all causes in that year. How did all these gunshot wounds escape notice?

This is Wraith's argument, but to interject I find it unlikely that a lightly wounded person who attempted to burglarize a house would go report that wound - possibly he has a friend able to remove a bullet from the shoulder and dress a wound, or maybe he can do it himself, but either way it's not in his best interest to report it.

Note that I'm just guessing and have not even looked at the study.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The census in its current form certainly is.

Ok, bring a court case, and get laughed right out of there.

[David Floyd]

Ok, bring a court case, and get laughed right out of there.

Who ever said judges follow the Constitution? Mostly they got where they are by agreeing politically with whichever President apponited them, or by agreeing with whichever electorate elected them, in the case of Texas judges.