quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: People in Jamaica are dying mostly due to gangs and a severe lack of police. Severe lack of decent jobs, crappy schools and overpopulation in key areas and extreme bigotry and violence towards gays are real issues as well. I've heard several horror stories from friends from Jamacia that make me never want to visit.
But that's Jamaica.
Yes . . . and? So what if it's Jamaica? So what if they have other issues? I thought the correlation you guys were making is that guns = lots of dead crime victims, whereas no guns = virtually no dead crime victims.
By pointing to Jamaica's cultural and socio-political issues to explain away the missing correlation there, you just inadvertently agreed with me that those are relevant.
Our disagreement is over how relevant they are, because even given one of many examples where the correlation you seek to prove fails, you're still arguing based on the correlation.
I'm not saying we should ban Saturday night instead of the Saturday Night Special, but banning the latter isn't going to change the nature of the former.
quote:Also to Cho himself, that whole "he could've used explosives" still holds no water: explosives are extremely difficult to aquire (100 times tougher than firearms at least)
Wha? I'm not talking about military-grade explosives . . . even homemade crap with off-the-shelf supplies will suffice in the example. Hell, for 300 bucks (the approximate cost of one of his guns) you could whip up a 50-gallon drum's worth of a fair approximation of napalm, with just two ingredients that cannot be controlled. Made thick enough it's not even all that smelly. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out a delay mechanism for a centrally-located blasting device designed to spread it around and ignite it.
(I'd explain the procedure, but I trust you'll understand that I've been hesitant in giving examples of such things. I doubt Flare has its own Cho lurking, and there are undoubtedly plenty of places on the internet to find such dirty little secrets, but I'm certainly not going to be the one to reveal them. Hell, watch McGyver.)
quote:and making your own- even primitave gasoline bombs) is very difficult without killing yourself in the process or having to throw it (molotav cocktail) with yields poor results and usually only makes a fire (which is something that rarely is used as an intentional way of killing someone).
Wha?
Maybe it's just me, 'cause I used to know a guy who would make various methods of blasting tree stumps on his property, but given the availability of even simple stuff like fireworks I fail to comprehend your thinking that homemade bombs are prohibitively dangerous and/or hard-to-get and/or expensive.
quote:Guns have a fear stigma that other weapons lack- no one charges a nut with a gun becaus you can be shot several times before you're in range to hit them with anything- any other type of weapon can be faced with at least some chance of success.
Who was it that talked about throwing a chair? You don't charge a gunman like a WW1 soldier running across No Man's Land . . . you either luck up and tackle him from behind (like the ROTC guy) or you produce a method of deflecting or preventing fire while you advance.
I'm not saying going against a gun-toting badguy is my first choice if I'm unarmed, but the principle here is that I wouldn't want to be unarmed, certainly not disarmed, and I can't figure out why others would in a world where Chos can get guns.
The only valid reason to talk gun control here is in regards to keeping guns out of the hands of crazies like Cho.
quote: Originally posted by bX: Guns that, to my knowledge, were purchased legally.
Precisely. He was known to be mentally ill and dangerous, and that was a failure of Virginia law. A backup to that failure could've existed if the campus had not been a gun-free zone . . . that ROTC kid could've been packing and wouldn't have had to try to tackle a gunman . . . but that didn't happen.
You know, even in New York city schools back in the 60's or so, they had rifle classes. Guns, in school even! Yet no one shot up the schools.
So yes, we can talk gun control inasmuch as loons with guns ought not be allowed, but we should also recognize that a major problem is that there were only two guns at the scene of the crime, and both were the badguy's. We should also recognize the cultural issues that led to this particular badguy, and his desire to be a gun-wielding murdering lunatic.
Because the simple fact is, you cannot control "weapons in general". Even in the environment of a prison, ostensibly the area of greatest weapon control in the world, shivs are commonplace items. But that's the culture of the prison population.
The best thing you can do is to try to have a culture where weapons won't be used so callously. Failing that, make damn sure that the situation is akin to what Yamamoto was pondering regarding an invasion of the United States . . . "there would be a gun behind every blade of grass."
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: Kurt, Those countries' gun-death rates you quoted above? What's that boil down to percentage-wise? I mean, the U.S. has a slightly larger population than those other countries.
I'm guessing you're referring to the Bowling for Columbine stuff, but that was in regards to gun deaths, probably including suicides in the US judging by the usual tactics of the gun control lobby (e.g. the Brady bunch).
Japan's population is IIRC about a third of the US, so yes we have more gun deaths given Moore's numbers. But that's obvious, and doesn't prove the point he sought to make.
And then cross-reference with specific searches by country. Poland, for instance, is another one I just looked up, since some forget it.
They have much stricter gun laws than the US inasmuch as what it takes to acquire one, yet have a 25% higher murder rate than the US. However, murders with firearms occur at about 1/8th the US rate.
More murders, but fewer guns? How the devil could this be?
Again, the issue must be cultural. You can take away the worst tools, and even take away not-so-bad tools, but humans intent on murder will find a way to improvise something, if not just do it by hand.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Well golly, if we're going to be compared to the likes of Bulgaria and Armenia. I mean, we're practically the same place. Hell, Colombia's practically a 51st state at this point. I guess if it could be worse there's no reason for us to try to make it better.
For our wealthy, first-world society, I live in a fairly bad neighborhood here in San Jose. Not a lot of drug-lord assassinations or rocket-attacks, but I've had transients wander in, and there have been repeated attempts to break in. I won't own a gun. Not for self defense. Personally I'm a bit freaked out by something where it's so easy to accidentally kill someone. I have swords. It's harder to kill someone accidentally with a sword.
So we're clear, in as far as my personal gun-control position: I'm not saying we should take away all the guns. I know that's never going to happen, and what's more, I don't think it should happen. But I'm all for making damned certain that people who wish to have a lethal capacity, are qualified and competent to own an item whose primary function is to kill. I have no doubt that the gun owners/enthusiasts on this board, like the millions of responsible gun owners in this country would have no problem demonstrating such capacity. Wouldn't it be better to know, though?
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
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posted
quote:that ROTC kid could've been packing and wouldn't have had to try to tackle a gunman
I have known quite a few ROTC kids in my time that I would never, ever want to be packing.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
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Cartman
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The best thing you can do is to try to have a culture where weapons won't be used so callously.
Pointless when you can get them as easily as a cup of coffee and there aren't any barriers thrown up regarding said use.
So yes, we can talk gun control inasmuch as loons with guns ought not be allowed, but we should also recognize that a major problem is that there were only two guns at the scene of the crime...
The guns were there because Cho was: two too many weapons in the hands of one too many untreated lunatics. How's about fixing *that* problem before creating a world where everybody can just pop everybody anyplace anytime as a "backup", hmm?
Registered: Nov 1999
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Pointing to Jamaica as a comparison with the entire United States is like Comparing the worst part of Detroit with all of Asia and expecting an accurate result. The cultures, problems and populations (as well as the availability of cash needed to buy even a cheap handgun) are all completely diffrent.
Guardian, you're making seneraios wherein Cho is lugging "50 gallon drums" of homemade explosive while I'm pointing out that it's both not readily available 9unless you have specific intormation and experience, like you seem to) and that it's an unwieldy pain in the ass to even attempt.
But no guns- they're easy. Just point and click and whoever you want dead, is. ...and for every "Cho" with a long mental illness history, there's a thousand undiagnosed nutters out there capable of legally buying as many guns as they'd ever like....may allready gun owners. You're not in favor of even limiting that?
Like down to one firearm per potential psycho?
Culturally, as you've pointed put, the United States has radically changed since the 1960's, with gun violence increasing geometricly, dont you thnk thelaws (and yes, that outdated Second amendment as well) need to change with the times?
Obviously, clinging to the laws set forth by the founding fathers regarding gun ownership poorly serve us today.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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