US Gun Laws

[Dauphin]

Our current situation works just fine. The reason people in Germany are hearing about an Arizona Congresswoman being shot is because it's an unusual event.

Given so few people are being told (relative to the congresswoman) about the judge and nine year old girl being killed... does that mean that killing of judges and young children is a more usual event?

[Al B. Sure!]

The nine year old girl was the granddaughter of a former Philadelphia Phillies manager.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

As has been proved many, many times over, guns do not kill people. Americans just can't be trusted with them.

[Barnabas]

The best reason for having guns would be to protect yourself and your family from thieves and criminals in you live in one of those cities like Detroit or where Albie lives.
Most people who have guns have them to shoot thieves if they discover them in their property.

[N35t0r]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence

Check the % intentional homicides with firearms, as compared to other countries.

The article does mention that using that data to compare is risky, but still, that's a very high percentage...

[Asher]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence

Check the % intentional homicides with firearms, as compared to other countries.

The article does mention that using that data to compare is risky, but still, that's a very high percentage...

The US' contemporaries are Colombia, Guatemala, and Costa Rica and still Americans don't think anything is wrong...

[Al B. Sure!]

The homicide rate for the US nation-wide is 4.55 per 100K? In New Orleans, it's 52 per 100K. There's one hell of a disparity between some parts of the country and others.

According to that site, New Orleans' rate is just under that of Colombia.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I have filed this under "Stuff I don't care about."

[Dauphin]

Per 100,000, the closest contemporary is Barbados.

[onodera]

A ban is probably impractical in a country already awash with so much hardware.

Well, Russian population after the civil war was also armed to the teeth. The party managed to disarm us just fine. The US simply has too little federal power to pull this off.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Statistically speaking, a black man in New Orleans is more likely to be shot dead than if he was on-stage attempting to catch a bullet in his teeth.

[N35t0r]

Take the guns away and watch the stabbings go up.

That's half of the point. Guess how lethal gun wounds are vs. knife wounds?

[Dauphin]

Imagine the carnage of the Somme or Verdun. Then replace the guns and artillery with knives and spears.

[Hauldren Collider]

People being shot in the US is not an unusual event. A political figure being shot is.
It's sensational news when ANYONE is shot with a handgun in Canada. In the US it's part of your regular day.

No, it really isn't. Poor inner cities are basically the only places where it ever happens with any frequency. The vast majority of the country has crime rates that are similar to Canada's. As I mentioned before, the high crime in poor urban slums doesn't have to do with guns, it has to do with drug gangs and the justice system.

That's half of the point. Guess how lethal gun wounds are vs. knife wounds?

This is so stupid I don't even know how to respond.

Well, Russian population after the civil war was also armed to the teeth. The party managed to disarm us just fine. The US simply has too little federal power to pull this off.

Uh, what exactly is this supposed to demonstrate? On one hand, you point out that a stronger federal government could get the guns out of the hands of the populace but on the other hand that stronger federal government was communist totalitarianism. See I don't think that really counts as getting guns out of the hands of the criminals because the criminals are just the government.

[Asher]

No, it really isn't.

There's more to your country than wealthy Virginia suburbs.

Poor inner cities are basically the only places where it ever happens with any frequency. The vast majority of the country has crime rates that are similar to Canada's. As I mentioned before, the high crime in poor urban slums doesn't have to do with guns, it has to do with drug gangs and the justice system.

You seem to make the false assumption that Canada doesn't have poor inner cities and drug gangs and that the entire country is comparable to the suburban US.

The fact that our entire country, including major cities with drug gangs and urban poor, has "similar" murder rates to the US' suburbs (I'd be curious to see a citation here) is more proof of the bad situation in the US.