6 people shot to death in AL. This would not happen with gun control

[Dis]

Americans are the most violent people in the world?

That's news to me.

I would have guessed the Palastinians. Or muslim terrorists.

P.S. gun lisceneses aren't required in the U.S. this was a provision of the bill of rights. No records are to be made of gun owners. something along those lines.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by David Floyd
It normally involves an act punishing someone, not necessarily with the death penalty

By definition, it involves capital punishment.

Funny, knife sales aren't screened - and exactly what purpose do you think a Bowie knife was designed for? Killing, that's what.

Knives generally don't cause accidental or collateral deaths, though.

Hell, punching or elbowing somebody in the windpipe is a pretty effective way to terminate somebody, but you never read "Man mistakes wife for burglar, accidentally crushes her windpipe" in the papers.

[Jac de Molay]

Funny, knife sales aren't screened - and exactly what purpose do you think a Bowie knife was designed for? Killing, that's what.

Most governing bodies can make the distinction between a knife or machete, which is a tool no less utilitarian than a wrench or a crow bar, and a hollow point bullet or automatic conversion kit for a gun. No one is denying the myriad of ways that humans can kill one another, but the gun is unique in its ability to wreak mass destruction and the specificity of it's purpose.

That's why I'm saying it's deserving of a greater scrutiny than knives, baseball bats, rat poison, or Drano. Many states do, BTW, set the blade length for knives that one can carry on them.

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Taking down those two-legged dear can be a real *****. Especially the uniformed ones.

Ahh, you're so funny with your thinly-veiled kill-the-cops joke, David.

Feeling a little limp in the groin, are we?

[David Floyd]

By definition, it involves capital punishment.

That's not a definition I've ever heard. You could be right, of course.

Knives generally don't cause accidental or collateral deaths, though.

Yes, but the primary reason people want gun registration and background checks and all that isn't to protect people from accidental injury, because by definition accidental injury can't be predicted. The point is to try to protect people from intentional danger, and my point is that the purpose of large knives and rat poison is intentional danger.

[David Floyd]

Guy,

Ahh, you're so funny with your thinly-veiled kill-the-cops joke, David.

Feeling a little limp in the groin, are we?

Have a sense of humor. I don't advocate going out and killing cops and you damn well know it.

DD,

but the gun is unique in its ability to wreak mass destruction and the specificity of it's purpose.

Actually that's incorrect - chemical agents can be used to kill more people than a handgun.

[Sava]

Yes, David... I want to make guns available for one group of people.... criminals. Wouldn't it just suck to live in a "police state" were criminals couldn't get guns. Man that's terrible.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Yes, but the primary reason people want gun registration and background checks and all that isn't to protect people from accidental injury, because by definition accidental injury can't be predicted.

It can't be predicted with perfect foresight, sure, but it can be statistically predicted that Billy Rifleman, who went through weapons training prior to purchasing a gun, is less likely to accidentally shoot a family member than Johnny Numbnuts.

The point is to try to protect people from intentional danger, and my point is that the purpose of large knives and rat poison is intentional danger.

Many locales have a limit to the blade length of knives carried on a person, and concealed knives of respectable size are concealed weapons. And nobody's ever gotten mugged with rat poison.

[David Floyd]

Yes, David... I want to make guns available for one group of people.... criminals. Wouldn't it just suck to live in a "police state" were criminals couldn't get guns. Man that's terrible.

If you think you can make it impossible for criminals to get guns simply by banning them, in a country with over 200 million firearms THAT WE KNOW ABOUT (not counting the ones already owned illegally, of course), then quite frankly I want some of what you're smoking.

I don't care about other societies or hypothetical situations - in the US, today, right now, all you will accomplish by banning guns is preventing law abiding citizens from getting them, who by definition would not be committing crimes. It would do nothing to prevent criminals from getting them, who by definition will be getting them whether or not they are legal. They're criminals, after all.

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
It's curious that the most violent people in the world (Americans) are the only ones who are entitled by their nation's constitution to own guns. I can't figure out which is cause and which is effect, yet.

Neither. The cause is elsewhere.

Oh and we're hardly the most violent people in the world. Unless you cherry-pick nations, taking the ones w/high control+low crime and ignoring the ones w/high control+high crime.

(Oddly enough, our two most violent crime periods appear to be when certain substances were banned from public consumption. First alcohol, then various drugs.)

[David Floyd]

It can't be predicted with perfect foresight, sure, but it can be statistically predicted that Billy Rifleman, who went through weapons training prior to purchasing a gun, is less likely to accidentally shoot a family member than Johnny Numbnuts.

It can also be statistically proven that an elephant can hang off the side of a cliff with its tail tied to a sunflower. So what? Statistics can show anything, and by the way someone with rifle training would be able to kill more people more efficiently - he would miss less than Johnny Numbnuts, don't you think?

[Sava]

Originally posted by David Floyd


If you think you can make it impossible for criminals to get guns simply by banning them,

Where ever you learned to read, I suggest you go there to get your money back. No where did I say I want to ban guns. Prohibition does not work. Banning guns will not work. Making them harder to get and more expensive will help decrease the number of illegal guns. Screening, and controlling the sale of legal guns, will help decrease the number of avenues in which illegal guns are traded.

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by Sava
Where ever you learned to read, I suggest you go there to get your money back. No where did I say I want to ban guns. Prohibition does not work. Banning guns will not work. Making them harder to get and more expensive will help decrease the number of illegal guns. Screening, and controlling the sale of legal guns, will help decrease the number of avenues in which illegal guns are traded.

Screening and controlling the sale of legal guns have been used as backdoor bans for law-abiding citizens, or (in the case of registration) used to confiscate weapons from said citizens at a later date.

Same thing with government-mandated and controlled training courses. Limit the number of classes and who can get in and voila, instant de facto ban.

So pardon any skepticism of your intentions, Sava.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by David Floyd
It can also be statistically proven that an elephant can hang off the side of a cliff with its tail tied to a sunflower.

It can? I'd have thought that the elephant's mass would be sufficient to uproot the sunflower. You learn something new every day, I suppose...

Statistics can show anything

In other words, "I systematically reject statistics that I don't like."

and by the way someone with rifle training would be able to kill more people more efficiently - he would miss less than Johnny Numbnuts, don't you think?

You're barking up the wrong tree on that one. I'd rather have a half-million criminals trained in firearms useage than a million untrained criminals. The criminals can kill each other with greater efficiency, without taking out oodles of bystanders in the process. Sounds like a good deal to me.

[David Floyd]

I'd rather have a half-million criminals trained in firearms useage than a million untrained criminals. The criminals can kill each other with greater efficiency, without taking out oodles of bystanders in the process. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Really? So shopowners and just poor random bastards in the wrong place at the wrong time are criminals now?

As to statistics, I grant you that statistics show trained riflemen are less dangerous - I was mainly being facetious - but preventing accidents is not really the point of gun control legislation.