Gun accidents? Guns are dangrous?

[bkholdem]

[ QUOTE ]
Muresan: Scandinavia.
Brainwalter: Do you really want everyone to carry assault weapons when the government collapses? I disagree that a gun in the house increases the safety of your family.
bkholdem: Yes, Potter confiscated all guns not intended for law enforcement.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your going to have to explain to me in a different way what you are trying to say.

p.s. I think you missed my edited in part of the post where I said that if the culture in the usa was akin to the culture in amsterdam or something then having guns vanish would not bother me.

[Brainwalter]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you really want everyone to carry assault weapons when the government collapses?

[/ QUOTE ]

I want me to have an assault rifle when the government collapses.

[ QUOTE ]
I disagree that a gun in the house increases the safety of your family.

[/ QUOTE ]

Duly noted.

[revots33]

Interesting stats from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (pdf file):

[ QUOTE ]
"During the first 11 months of 1998, about 70,000 (2.9%) of an estimated 2,384,000 applications to purchase a handgun were rejected due to presale background checks on the potential handgun purchaser.

About 63% of the rejections were for a prior felony conviction or a current felony indictment. Domestic violence misdemeanor convictions accounted for 10% of the rejections; domestic violence protection orders, 3%."

[/ QUOTE ]

So you'll have to forgive me if I'm not crying over a few days waiting period if it prevented a few thousand felons and wife-batterers from easily obtaining a gun.

[Metric]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
First of all, if they go find an easier target - what good did the assault weapon really do? Someone still got looted.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sort of like proper disposal of your important information-carrying papers "does no good" because people intent on identity theft will just move on to an easier target, and someone still gets their identity stolen.

[/ QUOTE ]

So what business is it of yours whether or not I leave my papers on the ground for anyone to grab, lock them up in a safe, or stand on them while holding a gun?

Seems we are both against stealing. I don't want to tell you how to protect your papers, where do you get off telling me how to protect mine?

[/ QUOTE ]
I can't quite tell if you're one-upping my sarcasm or not, so I'll just say it outright: If action X (taken by an individual) effectively prevents a victimization, it is ridiculous to claim that action X is "really worthless" simply because the criminal will choose a different victim. Using the paper shredder to prevent identity theft is an example -- nobody is going to stop shredding their sensitive documents just because shredding your documents implies that "someone else" will be chosen as a victim.

[andyfox]

"guns do not cause violence, violent people do."

I've never understood the point of this statement. If people are prone to violence, shouldn't we seek to limit the means they have with which to be violent? We are seeking to limit Iran's access to nuclear weapons not because the weapons themselves cause violence, but because we fear they will be the agents of violence in violent people's hands.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
If people are prone to violence, shouldn't we seek to limit the means they have with which to be violent?

[/ QUOTE ]
To what end? To limit the means for people to carry out Oklahoma City-type bombings, we would need to severely restrict things like fertilizer and diesel fuel.

And what of those who are not violent, but will be affected by such limitations?

Edit- It should be mentioned that a nuclear device cannot be used to defend yourself or for any type of sport without innocent people being affected, either by dying from the explosion or fallout.

[John Kilduff]

[ QUOTE ]
"guns do not cause violence, violent people do."

I've never understood the point of this statement. If people are prone to violence, shouldn't we seek to limit the means they have with which to be violent? We are seeking to limit Iran's access to nuclear weapons not because the weapons themselves cause violence, but because we fear they will be the agents of violence in violent people's hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a huge difference between seeking to limit or eliminate access by those we consider especially irrational or dangerous actors, versus seeking to limit or eliminate access by everyone.

The proper parallel with your Iran example (for purposes of this discussion) would be seeking to limit or eliminate access by those we regard as especially unstable or dangerous people (whom the laws already happen to cover in this aspect).

Of course, if you should happen to be a person who would be disinclined to trust himself with a gun, then I could certainly see why you would be disinclined to trust the average person on the street with one. (Note taken of your statement that "people are prone to violence" - which I presume you meant to include yourself as well. I think a more accurate statement would be "Some people are far more prone to violence than others". "People" is not a one-size-fits-all generic term: there is great variation within the species, and betwixt the temperaments of certain individuals.)

I suspect that such a subconscious reasoning probably forms a large part of why many so strenuously object to guns in the hands of civilians - they wouldn't trust themselves with a gun, so why should they trust Joe across the street with a gun?

It goes further, too: since they don't trust themselves or their neighbors sufficiently, a vacuum of trust remains to be filled by someone, but by whom? By the authorities, of course, who are therefore implicitly trusted by such persons even more than they trust themselves.

Perhaps the above are some reasons why gun-safety/gun-handling classes have such good effect upon the unitiated to firearms. A course in gun safety and handling should be considered in a similar vein with driver education classes.

Actually, driving a car is probably a greater responsibility than is carrying a gun, and a car is certainly more hazardous to others in the hands of the average American adult.

[slickss]

[ QUOTE ]
To what end? To limit the means for people to carry out Oklahoma City-type bombings, we would need to severely restrict things like fertilizer and diesel fuel.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you want to take that further then you'd have to restrict the use of steel because someone could engineer a weapon, and so on. A society obviously can't protect itself against everything, but against guns? Yes, to some extent it's possible.

[ QUOTE ]
It should be mentioned that a nuclear device cannot be used to defend yourself or for any type of sport without innocent people being affected, either by dying from the explosion or fallout.

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, with the concept of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), one can argue that nuclear weapons have defensive capabilities. "If you attempt to completely annihilate me, I will completely annihilate you." This was the basis of the Cold War and the arms race.

[ QUOTE ]
The proper parallel with your Iran example (for purposes of this discussion) would be seeking to limit or eliminate access by those we regard as especially unstable or dangerous people (whom the laws already happen to cover in this aspect).

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 is an international treaty forbidding any additional countries from become nuclear powers. Iran are simple breaking this treaty.

"Iran is a signatory state of the NPT and has recently (as of 2006) resumed development of a uranium enrichment program. While the Iranian government claims that this enrichment program is a step towards a civilian nuclear energy program, which is allowed under the terms of the NPT, an United Nations Security Council resolution orders Iran to halt its activity."

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
If you want to take that further then you'd have to restrict the use of steel because someone could engineer a weapon, and so on. A society obviously can't protect itself against everything, but against guns? Yes, to some extent it's possible.

[/ QUOTE ]
This type of thinking ignores the positive effects that guns have. There's no question that there are the positive effects of self-defense and even if we take the lowball figures for defensive gun uses, the positive uses far outweigh the deaths from guns.

Also, if you follow the hunting thread, you can see that hunting of certain animals (deer in particular) helps control the population which saves lives and millions in damages that would otherwise occur from accidents and crop damage.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It should be mentioned that a nuclear device cannot be used to defend yourself or for any type of sport without innocent people being affected, either by dying from the explosion or fallout.

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, with the concept of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction, one can argue that nuclear weapons have defensive capabilities. "If you attempt to completely annihilate me, I will completely annihilate you." This was the basis of the Cold War and the arms race.

[/ QUOTE ]
None of this changes what I said, which is that there is no way to use a nuclear weapon, offensively or defensively, that does not affect innocent third parties. This is inherent in the nature of a nuclear weapon.

[slickss]

[ QUOTE ]
I want me to have an assault rifle when the government collapses.

[/ QUOTE ]

A gun in your house is more likely to harm a member of your family than someone else.

How often is someone trying to attack you and your family with the intention of killing you all - and it is prevented because you own a gun? If someone breaks into your house it is extremely rare that they want something else than materialistic possessions, i.e. they are stealing. If you decide to "protect your family" and use your gun, the situation only escalates and you are potentially just going to hurt yourself, your family, or some punk who's trying to steal your DVD player.