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

[Wraith]

--"The article you provided a link to didn't include a list of references."

I would suspect that the ones that don't list the journal will be found in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. As it is, several of them reference government publications, and a quick check shows a couple citing the New England Journal of Medicine.

--"How did all these gunshot wounds escape notice?"

"To make sure this is covered by your HMO, I need to know how you got shot."
"Well, I was trying to rape this chick..."

Yup, that works.

His study actually comments on this, you know. There are plenty of reasons someone injured (but not seriously) in the course of a crime isn't going to report it. There's a black market for just about everything, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a few doctors willing to do off-the-books work.

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

The LP has, IIRC. Remember the whole "Census on a Postcard" campaign? I'm pretty sure a legal challenge was part of that.

Wraith
"I'll listen -- as long as what you say doesn't become too obviously phony."
-- Number Six ("The Prisoner")

[Lung]

Originally posted by 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.

Oh, you think it's a lack of guns that caused their deaths, do you? No, it was a lack of democratic rights. Before these tyrants killed their people they took away their democratic rights i.e. their ability to stop such atrocities from happening in the first place. Besides, if German Jews had guns, what difference would it have made? They would die, irrespective of whether they took a few down with them.

Doesn't it occur to you that you live in a free country? Your perceived threat to your life and liberty by anyone who has a different opinion to your own is paranoia gone mad. Furthermore, it is steeped in hipocrisy.

You are proof that if you tell yourself a lie often enough, you will eventually believe it. The question that constantly bugs me is this:

What limit should there be on personal defence?

Rifles?
Machine Guns?
Grenades?
Tanks?
Nuclear Warheads?

If you think all of these are justifiable, your are a complete nutter!!!

[faded glory]

Lung the Jews had guns. The warsaw uprisings.....And it was a huge moral booster to know some kind of revenge was being meted out.


Oh and Hitler was a democratically elected leader.

Doesn't it occur to you that you live in a free country? Your perceived threat to your life and liberty by anyone who has a different opinion to your own is paranoia gone mad. Furthermore, it is steeped in hipocrisy.

I live in a free country. But theres always a chance some asswit might want to change that. in any case ; im ready to head for the hills and join the militia

What limit should there be on personal defence?

Guns, RPG's, you cant get guns easier in america than you can in Somalia. Go to a gun show ; ask for there "Barreled Specials or Hot stuff"...lots of illicited stuff. That just a start.

But I believe the supply should be available in the event of tyranny. Your pretty Naive to think freedom may be around forever. Always be ready...

[mactbone]

He wasn't a democratically elected leader, just a democratically elected representative, who was then given basically dictatorship powers on supposedly a short term basis, and he prompt;y threw out the short term part.

Also, would you purchase a weapon on the magnitude of an RPG right now, if you had the money to burn?

Guns should be regulated. Guns should not be sold to mentally unstable persons or unrepenant persons after they have served time.

Any weapon that can kill 80 people in seconds should not be legal.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Lung


Oh, you think it's a lack of guns that caused their deaths, do you? No, it was a lack of democratic rights. Before these tyrants killed their people they took away their democratic rights i.e. their ability to stop such atrocities from happening in the first place. Besides, if German Jews had guns, what difference would it have made? They would die, irrespective of whether they took a few down with them.

Doesn't it occur to you that you live in a free country? Your perceived threat to your life and liberty by anyone who has a different opinion to your own is paranoia gone mad. Furthermore, it is steeped in hipocrisy.

You are proof that if you tell yourself a lie often enough, you will eventually believe it. The question that constantly bugs me is this:

What limit should there be on personal defence?

Rifles?
Machine Guns?
Grenades?
Tanks?
Nuclear Warheads?

If you think all of these are justifiable, your are a complete nutter!!!

A democracy that denies rights and freedom to its people is an empty democracy. A democracy without a steady and respected constitution to ensure basic rights is an empty democracy. One of those rights of a free people as enshrined in our constitution is the right to bare arms. Sure we could throw out the constitution altogether and vote gun control laws in to take away our guns, that is a 'democracy'.

As was just noted Hitler was democratically elected. Germany was a democracy. There is nothing unique about voting itself that makes a country pure and safe. People in many times in history have voted tyrants into power.

These are worries that were of foremost concern to the people who established this nation. This is why they established a system of checks and balances. So no one section of the government could overpower the others. Of course this whole system rests on the principle that everyone must obey certain ground rules, certain minimum boundries to ensure they play nice with each other. These rules are the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

To even suggest that the desires and the perceived needs of the moment somehow supercede the principles of our freedom and democracy is blindingly stupid and irresponsible. This country has slid very far into an empty democracy without respect for the constitution. For many people the constitution is just an empty document that can be interpreted to say anything desired. This mindset is a POISON for our democracy and our nation. We are sliding toward tyranny.

Democracy is more than voting, democracy is about preserving the rights of the individual above all. The rights of unpopular people, unpopular groups, unpopular views. You cannot exert your will over an unpopular minority for whatever reasons you think are good and expect our democracy to survive.

Democracy is more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

[OzzyKP]

A second point.

What if our would be tyrant doesn't decide to go through all the hassle of getting elected like Hitler did. What if he has the full support of the military and he decides he just is going to dissolve our democracy and institute himself as supreme ruler?

Congress says, "thats against the law! The people didn't vote for you! You can't do that!" The dictator sends in the troops and kills congress. Now what?

How are democratic methods going to save you now?

Do you throw up your hands and board the trains for the camps or do you fight back?

If you have no guns or grenades or anything else how are you going to fight back?

You going to write poetry to free yourself?

[mactbone]

You're assuming that the entire military goes along with it. That congress cannot choose loyal generals. That NOONE in a position of power will do anything.

We all know what assuming does.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by MacTBone
Also, would you purchase a weapon on the magnitude of an RPG right now, if you had the money to burn?

Guns should be regulated. Guns should not be sold to mentally unstable persons or unrepenant persons after they have served time.

Any weapon that can kill 80 people in seconds should not be legal.

Ok, guns are very destructive. Guns kill people. Guns can do a great deal of harm. Why on earth are you advocating you give guns to one section of the country and not the other?

I would be fine and dandy if ALL nuclear weapons disappeared ALL bombs ALL tanks ALL guns. I will lead the charge in fact if that ever seems possible.

What I don't understand is why you want to take away guns from the average joe on the street and give all the firepower in the world to the government. Why do you trust those in power more than yourself?

Human beings are equal. Being a soldier or a cop or a governor doesn't give you any superior cognitive ability. Being a figure in power doesn't give you a greater capacity to use guns responsibly. Our history has shown far greater destruction and death carried out by governments than by individuals. So why the double standard when all evidence and logical reasoning is against you?

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by MacTBone
You're assuming that the entire military goes along with it. That congress cannot choose loyal generals. That NOONE in a position of power will do anything.

We all know what assuming does.

Again, why do you only trust those in power to do something? Why can't you do something yourself?

[mactbone]

Did I ever say noone could own a gun?

I believe that handguns and hunting rifles should be the only guns allowed.

Why should I have to? If I do my job right, I'll never have to worry about it. It's called voting and promoting. So, when Novemeber rolls around, you go out there and vote for a person that is in favor of what you want, and I'll vote for someone slightly different.

Ozzy, you're seeing things as black and white, when in reality they should be gray.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Wraith

--"How did all these gunshot wounds escape notice?"

"To make sure this is covered by your HMO, I need to know how you got shot."
"Well, I was trying to rape this chick..."

Yup, that works.

His study actually comments on this, you know. There are plenty of reasons someone injured (but not seriously) in the course of a crime isn't going to report it. There's a black market for just about everything, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a few doctors willing to do off-the-books work.

-- Number Six ("The Prisoner")

Physicians are legally required to report gunshot wounds. Failure to do so would mean an end to the physician's career. Then again, remeber that according to Kleck we're all a bunch of prejudiced liberals bent on taking away the people's right to bear arms, so why wouldn't we report them? Furthermore most gunshot wounds would require treatment beyond that which a physician's office could provide. Based on statistical probability related to body proportions alone most wounds would involve the abdomen or chest, and even if vital organs were missed such wounds would at least require diagnostic tests no sane physician would attempt in his office. Likewise with head wounds. Even when one considers limb wounds, most will do bony damage that can't initially be treated on an outpatient basis. If black market doctors treating gun shot wounds in their offices existed, the trail of dead bodies would quickly get them shut down. Regarding hospitals, there is no way that Hospital based surgical or ER services could possibly get away with treating gunshot wounds on the sly. There would be too many people involved to hide such activity.

[Wraith]

--"Physicians are legally required to report gunshot wounds. Failure to do so would mean an end to the physician's career."

Which is where that whole black-market stuff comes in...

In any case, the biggest factor there is likely an overstatement of sucess on the part of the shooters.

Please do read the study. There are some interesting comments in there on this issue. Like:

And even when a DGU is reported, it will not necessarily be recorded by the police, who ordinarily do not keep statistics on matters other than DGUs resulting in a death, since police record-keeping is largely confined to information helpful in apprehending perpetrators and making a legal case for convicting them. Because such statistics are not kept, we cannot even be certain that a large number of DGUs are not reported to the police.

and

Low as it is, even an 8% wounding rate is probably too high, both because of the censoring of less serious cases, which in this context would be cases without a wounding, and because the survey did not establish how Rs knew they had wounded someone. We suspect that in incidents where the offender left without being captured, some Rs remembered with favor" their marksmanship and assumed they had hit their adversaries.

Wraith
"I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming... They don't know I'm only using blanks."
-- Emo Philips

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by David Floyd


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.

You've been watching way too many cowboy movies! Statistically most gun shot wounds will strike the chest or abdomen, if only because they constitute the bulk of the body. They're also what most people shoot for. The shoulder is a relatively small part of the body. Even if someone does manage to "just" get wounded in a limb, most such wounds will involve a bone or an artery. How many friends do you have capable of "fixing" such a wound? Fractures resulting from gunshot wounds are automatically considered "open" fractures. They require operative debridement and a course of IV antibiotics or they develop nasty infections that can be fatal.

When are you guys going to realize that Matt Dillon wasn't real?

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Wraith
--"Physicians are legally required to report gunshot wounds. Failure to do so would mean an end to the physician's career."

Which is where that whole black-market stuff comes in...

In any case, the biggest factor there is likely an overstatement of sucess on the part of the shooters.

Please do read the study. There are some interesting comments in there on this issue. Like:


and


Wraith
"I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming... They don't know I'm only using blanks."
-- Emo Philips

Like I said, there just aren't many gun wounds so minor that a black market doctor could treat them in his office. Certainly even you can understand that penetrating wounds of the abdomen, chest or head would require treatment in a hospital. Even most wounds of the limbs will do damage to the bones, nerves and arteries that will require initial treatment in a hospital. There is no way that treatment of a gunshot wound by a hospital can get by not reported, it's an automatic thing and it doesn't involve a decision by the police. There is no such thing as a black market hospital, they're too big to hide. See, here's the problem, evidently this Kleck guy has as little knowledge of how the real world works as you do. He's just making up explanations as he goes along without any consideration of reality.

As to his last explanation, that some of his "R's" might be overestimating their marksmanship: First, if they lied about hiting someone, they might have lied about everything else. Second, gunshot wounds have a nasty habit of leaving a lot of blood behind. In fact, there is often a telltale spray of blood from the initial passage of the bullet through the victim.

[Lung]

Originally posted by OzzyKP


A democracy that denies rights and freedom to its people is an empty democracy. A democracy without a steady and respected constitution to ensure basic rights is an empty democracy. One of those rights of a free people as enshrined in our constitution is the right to bare arms. Sure we could throw out the constitution altogether and vote gun control laws in to take away our guns, that is a 'democracy'.

As was just noted Hitler was democratically elected. Germany was a democracy. There is nothing unique about voting itself that makes a country pure and safe. People in many times in history have voted tyrants into power.

These are worries that were of foremost concern to the people who established this nation. This is why they established a system of checks and balances. So no one section of the government could overpower the others. Of course this whole system rests on the principle that everyone must obey certain ground rules, certain minimum boundries to ensure they play nice with each other. These rules are the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

To even suggest that the desires and the perceived needs of the moment somehow supercede the principles of our freedom and democracy is blindingly stupid and irresponsible. This country has slid very far into an empty democracy without respect for the constitution. For many people the constitution is just an empty document that can be interpreted to say anything desired. This mindset is a POISON for our democracy and our nation. We are sliding toward tyranny.

Democracy is more than voting, democracy is about preserving the rights of the individual above all. The rights of unpopular people, unpopular groups, unpopular views. You cannot exert your will over an unpopular minority for whatever reasons you think are good and expect our democracy to survive.

Democracy is more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

You make a lot of assumptions, Ozzy. Australian politics is also full of lunatics, but taking the opposite extreme to their ridiculous extreme puts you on shaky ground. The question you must ask yourself is how much of a threat what you fear is? If you look at Hitler, the signs abounded. Sure, it's easier in hindsight, but do you really think it's likely to happen in the U.S. any time soon?

You still didn't answer my question How much do you think is enough? Why is the threat of a psychopath being elected to president significantly more than, say, a giant meteor wiping out Texas? I don't particularly care if some farmer miles from anywhere has a shotgun stashed away in their house, but beyond a point it becomes a threat to everybody else. If you can see reason in this i might even take back that 'nutter' comment

If you have enough checks and balances in your constitution (like you do), you shouldn't need to fear for your life. Your democracy is not under threat of a maniac being elected to president. Rather, such things as the Enron scandal are far more common and threatening to your democracy, because they rely on secrecy for their success. You can't have democracy without a government. The answer is in open government, so decisions are not easily made for their own benefit. Remember, in anarchy the biggest gun wins Also, if you fear that your constitution may be changed, speak up, but pointing guns won't convince anybody.

I agree with the sentiment about limiting the power of government, but like anything else, it can go too far. The Australian system is similar to the U.S. system, in so far as it has many checks and balances. The main principle of democracy is everyone has everyone else by the balls The people elect the government, who make the laws within the constitution. Police enforce them, and judges interpret them. Any group which crosses those boundaries is threatening the democracy, which is why you can't let people take the law into their own hands, or let police convict people (by rigging evidence, etc), or let judges change laws. In Australia it is the third group which is threatening democracy, along with the public service. The legal fraternity, through such groups as the Law Reform Commission, recommends changes to law, which always seems to involve making laws ambiguous. This has the effect of empowering lawyers and judges to have more power over laws through the increase in amiguity. It also has the side-effect of creating more money for lawyers through increased legal action to resolve ambiguous laws To make matters worse, public servants use their PC think tanks to come up with ridiculous ideas to be enacted in legislation. Fortunately, most stupid ideas don't get through parliament, but could you imagine what could happen if unelected representatives had that power?! As much as we might hate politicians, we reserve the right to vote the bastards out. This also means that the power to change laws must remain with them, within the confines of the constitution, of course.

Besides, if you don't like it, become a politician

One of those rights of a free people as enshrined in our constitution is the right to bare arms.

What sort of maniacal bastard would deny the right of people to bare their arms?!