More guns the way to go? Some thoughs.

[Borodog]

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Well, we should at the very leat make it tougher for people to purchase firearms.

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Banning guns does not make it tougher to purchase them. It only makes it tougher to purchase them for PEOPLE WHO ABIDE BY THE LAW. DUH-UH-HUH-HUH.

Wait, are you really trying to infer that criminals don't purchase guns? uh huh.

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We do know that Cho purchased his firearms. Sure, he could have found them on the black market, but we need to make it tougher to buy them legally first.

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Why? So you can feel better while getting more people killed?

Why? How about responsibility?

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There is no reason at all why a 23 year old student would need a Glock. A hunting rifle? Sure. A glock? Why?

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Whoops. There goes another ironometer. I think there are 29 dead approximately-23 year old Virginia Tech students who could have put a Glock to very, very, very good use.

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Right. Because this happens enough that we should make sure every college student in america is armed.

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Strawman. Allowing people to defend themselves does not equal forceably arming them against their will. Although it worked fantastically in Kennesaw Georgia, where just such an ordinance was put in place and the crime rate dropped by 80% (not that I advocate such a law; I don't).

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yeah, ok. How about making it tougher for that 23 year old to buy period?

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How about you acknowledge that putting legal restrictions on the sale of guns does not actually make them harder to get? Or acknowledge that the vast majority of gun crimes are already committed with illegally obtained firearms? Or that passing laws does not magically suspend the laws of economics? Or that passing a law banning the Moon would not actually make the Moon disappear? How about you acknowledge the fact that states that have enacted concealed carry laws have seen their crime rates plummet (Florida), or that CCP holders are far less likely to commit a gun crime than the average citizen, or that gun crimes by CCP holders are practically non-existent, or that if even a single other student or instructor in that dorm or those classrooms at VT had been armed, there might be dozens of people alive today that are dead instead?

In short, why don't you just acknowledge that your knee-jerk, emotional, uninformed opinion just might be wrong?

Nah.

[BCPVP]

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Right. Because this happens enough that we should make sure every college student in america is armed. yeah, ok. How about making it tougher for that 23 year old to buy period?

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I ask again: What specific measures do you want in place to make it "tougher" for people with a clean background check to buy guns, that you think will restrict criminal use of guns more than it does lawful use? (And that could have prevented Cho's purchases?)

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The law that already exists that says you can't buy a gun if you have been locked up for mental illness.

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This doesn't stop things like strawman purchases.

edit- it also doesn't stop him from buying it from a private seller.

[tolbiny]

3,718,695 sq mi



148,746 sq mi

Some other subtle differences: The US has a border with Mexico, a very poor country where guns are availible, does NOrway have these borders?

[karlwig]

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The result is that people doesn't get killed in stealing/robbing related cases. And if the criminal does have a gun? Well, then he doesn't feel the pressure of using it, cause nobody else is a treat. I think this is a good thing. Yes, so a criminal might get more easily away. But isn't that a better outcome than either the criminal and/or the victim getting killed because both were armed? Or someone getting killed by the police while stealing a handbag?


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I would consider a potential victim or police killing a robber trying to steal a handbag to be a better outcome than the robber getting away (with or without the handbag). I simply can't comprehend the passive, victim mindset I seem to observe in many Europeans.

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I can understand many peoples argument about being able do "defend themself", and therfore having guns. But the thing is, if guns are illegal, you don't have to.


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I had an elderly great-aunt who lived alone. A young thug broke into her home while she was there. She retreated to her bedroom, figuring she'd let the criminal take what he wanted. She tried to call the cops, but he had cut the phone lines from the outside (this was long before cell phones were common). The thug started to break into her bedroom, so my great-aunt fetched her pistol, and shot through the door. The bad guy fled, and was later (I believe) apprehended. Yes, this is a true story.

So... please tell me how this elderly woman would have been better off without that gun, and what she should have done when the young thug got to her in her bedroom. Please be specific. The criminal apparently didn't have a gun, so she didn't need one either... right?

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Look. This is very simple. If you're a criminal robbing someone, and somebody shoots you, you would at some point need to shoot back. It works the other way too. If no one has guns, no one gets shot. All there's left is the robbery. Yes, in your example with your aunt, I believe she put herself in great risk when she tried to stop the criminal by shooting at him. Both herself, in case the criminal shot back, and of course the criminal too. I would never kill someone because they stole something from me.

[rubbrband]

What about the UK's boarders?

[BCPVP]

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If you're a criminal robbing someone, and somebody shoots you, you would at some point need to shoot back.

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Not necessarily. They may decide that they don't want to risk their life and leave. Such things happen all the time.

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Yes, in your example with your aunt, I believe she put herself in great risk when she tried to stop the criminal by shooting at him. Both herself, in case the criminal shot back, and of course the criminal too. I would never kill someone because they stole something from me.

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Did you read what he wrote? The guy was trying to break into the bedroom she was hiding in. Chances are good that she was already in in great danger.

[pvn]

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Whoops. There goes another ironometer. I think there are 29 dead approximately-23 year old Virginia Tech students who could have put a Glock to very, very, very good use.

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Right. Because this happens enough that we should make sure every college student in america is armed.

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How many times is this willful misrepresentation going to be brought up? Nobody in this thread is advocating mandatory armament. If I don't violently prevent you from eating a hamburger am I "making sure that you eat a hamburger"??

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yeah, ok. How about making it tougher for that 23 year old to buy period?

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Saying "it should be harder" on teh intarwebs will certainly achieve that goal.

Man I've been waiting to turn that "keyboard commando" argument around. YES!!!

[bkholdem]

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everybody is talking about the black market. if we ban guns, they would get them anyway, so there's no point. that's like saying we should allow killing, cause it happens anyway.

first guns must be banned. of course you would have to do a lot about the black market too. in norway, i'm sure we have a black market where you can buy guns. but the point is, IT'S DIFFICULT TO GET ONE! a maniac can't just get a gun without an effort. it's impossible. he would have to have contacts and look carefully. this is excactly what i wrote in the original post. of course people would still get guns, and people would still get killed. but that's not the point! the point is to make it as safe as possible.



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ORLY?

Here are exerpts of an online conversation I had with a cop about 'the drug war'. He had no defense for the current approach. He asserted that it's because politicians are greedy and people want to be rich for the reason drugs are here. He asserted that we know where the drug growing areas are and who is in charge and 'if we really wanted to do something' we could.

I told him good luck with his flight to colombia and the golden triangle. I also told him that the meth manufacturers wish him a great success!

Then he came back with this and our conversation is as follows:

cop writes:

Youve successfully detailed how big of a problem the drug problem is in the US. I agree with you wholeheartedly. However, the solution you suggest is unrealistic and will never happen. I doubt that there is more than one person on these boards that agrees with you. I doubt that more than 5% of the US population would agree with you.

As bad as the drug problem is here, you clearly dont have the solution.

If shipments of surface to air missles, RPGs, or any other kind of heavy weaponry were entering the counrty on a daily basis, I can guarantee you that we would stop it and stop it very quickly. Its not that hard to stop large shipments of anything coming in.

Large amounts of weapons would kill alot of people
Drugs kill alot of people

The difference is that heavy weapons like the ones I mentioned would kill innocent, middle class people. Drugs kill mostly lower class poor people that the majority of society doesnt consider to be innocent since they voluntarily take the drugs.

Therefore nobody gives a [censored] about those people dying and nothing is really done to stop it. Its always been that way and it always will be that way.

Drugs will never be legalized so why keep harping on it. I personally think the US would be alot better off if we banned or heavily taxes import cars. That will never happen either.

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You are correct that it would be easy to stop shipments of missles but it is a false analogy to comare that to the ability to stop drugs. The reason it would be easy to stop missles being imported is that there are not millions of people in the country demaning them and waving cash in the air to purchase them. There is no demand.

Also, drugs do not kill very many people. Well, alcohol and tobacco kill a small amount, but herion and cocaine dont kill nearly as many. It's not about who is being killed. Poor drug addicts get killed/locked up much more frequently than middle class and upper class ones. The reason is because the middle class and upper class can afford the markup price put on the drugs due to their status as illegal so they don't engage in violence and theft to get the funds to purchase them nearly as often as poor people do.
They also have better access to legal 'prescription' pharmaceutical drugs as there is more scrutiny by doctors in granting access to them to the poor.

It is all about perception. That is why the current situation exists. People don't even realize that if drugs were legalized the violence in the streets would stop. lol

The solution to ending the drug war is the same solution to ending the drug problem.

Education.

In a subsequent post I say:

If you want to continue with the missles issue, first we need to figure out what the actual costs of producing them is. Then we have to assume there are millions (say 5% of the population) that not only is demanding them but actually has the money to pay the markup costs of getting those missles to the people. This alone puts your scenario in fantasy land because people can not afford to pay the price.

We can't just pretend that the country and world is as it is today and there are boats periodically pulling up with missles. We have to pretend that there are millions of people with the cash waiting to pay for them and then realize we are talking about trillions and trillions of dollars. In your scenario you are trying to pretend the world is like it is today where almost no one wants the missles and there is no money sitting on hand to pay for them. You can't just create a fantasy world where economics doesn't exist and use it to try to prove a point. There is no money to incentivise the missle smugglers and no money to bribe the regularory people.

So go gather some numbers and lets see what kind of $ we are talking about (we will get into more details about the actual massive demamd for them later if you wish to continue).

If everyone is agaisnt the missles coming in then it's much much easier to keep them out (plus no demand incentive to bring them in).

Cop says: The high demand for drugs has absolutley no bearing on whether or not we are ABLE to stop them from coming in. It may affect whether or not we WANT to, but not whether or not we are able to.

bk says: It has everyting to do with it. You cant assume that everyone on the customs force and every politician and every coast guard crewman and every soldier and every dea agent and every cop is some non human machine that is immune to corruption and single mindedly bent on preventing drugs comeing into the country like you are doing in your fantsay world were we are 'able' to do it.

We have to talk about the real world with real people and real desires and real needs. We are talking about world politics and world economics in the grey and black markets. That is a subject that I can not speak intelligently about so I will not pretend I can. If you can explain the politics and economics to me (which I assume you cant since you don't even realize that the prohibition is what creates the violence) then I am all ears



cop says: Drugs kill and / or ruin the lives af many many more people than terrorists do or have

bk says: OK. But terrorism is not a commodity that 5% of the population wants so there is no demand for it. 5% of the population is not waving cash in the air in efforts to purchase terrorism like they are doing to purchase drugs.

Also, although we have people in this country that argue against authoritarian rule and might say things that lead you to believe they 'support terrorism' like some radical liberal voices, they do not reallly want buildings blowing up in the usa.

So we are virtually ALL against having terrorism here and there are almost no neutral people when it comes to haveing terrorism actually imported. There are people that are against authoritarian measures being implemented, but they are also against terrorism. And they all do have acutal meters inside themselves about when we need to 'do something', and what kinds of things should be done, but it is probably differnt than yours.

But with drugs there are plenty of people who are not users that are closer to neutral about the issue of having drugs imported than there are for those who are neutral about having actual concrete terrorism imported.

he basically quit the discussion shortly after this saying he disagrees but respects the effort i put into the conversation.

p.s. How much are you willing to pay for a glock where you are at? Please forward me prices you are willing to pay for both over and under 50 guns. I know it will be impossible for me to get them to you....hahhaa yeah right!

It's all about supply and DEMAND.

[MuresanForMVP]

How about you acknowledge that putting legal restrictions on the sale of guns does not actually make them harder to get? Or acknowledge that the vast majority of gun crimes are already committed with illegally obtained firearms? Or that passing laws does not magically suspend the laws of economics? Or that passing a law banning the Moon would not actually make the Moon disappear? How about you acknowledge the fact that states that have enacted concealed carry laws have seen their crime rates plummet (Florida), or that CCP holders are far less likely to commit a gun crime than the average citizen, or that gun crimes by CCP holders are practically non-existent, or that if even a single other student or instructor in that dorm or those classrooms at VT had been armed, there might be dozens of people alive today that are dead instead?

Good post Boro, but unfortunately I feel folks like LBK will never be able to admit that these points are objectively true, because it just doesn't "feel" right to them. Therefore, there is no POSSIBLE way it can be true, right?!? Right?!??

[Borodog]

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If no one has guns

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Aaaand we're back to the faeries, pixies, and magical unicorns.