Four lives x 27 in a year doesn’t matter, as long as crazy uncle Bob gets to own guns! His right to shoot shit trumps 108 people/year’s right to live.
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“I NEVER cherry-pick my data. Here is some data where I have picked two years…”
You’d be better off using this which shows trends in terms of number of crimes reported where different weapons were used. However this doesn’t capture the rate at which crimes occur where each weapon is used, which would be more valuable.
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Please tell me where I can get that 2015 calendar.
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Well if it’s Mad Uncle Bob you’re worried about, we’d better ban revolvers. AKs and AR15s? Nah, let him have those…
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You’re judging UK cops as if they’re US cops. Nowhere’s cops are as bad as yours.
See? The cure is worse than the disease.
The cure (potential legal trouble for some innocent people) is worse than the disease (potential death for some innocent people)?
They can also stop somebody like me and get them in trouble Just Because They Can.
In case you didn’t realise: cops can already do this. If they don’t like you or they want to make your life hard there is always a way.
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I’ve got a couple of questions that I’d like some strong gun-ownership advocates answer. I don’t harbor any fantasy that I’m going to change anyone’s mind, but I’m genuinely curious about the thought process at work here.
The specific wording of the 2nd amendment is “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Let’s start with the understanding that in 2010 the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in McDonald v. Chicago that some form of access to individual ownership of handguns is protected by this amendment, so that’s the law of the land. But the court did not specifically rule on the constitutionality of restricting ownership of other types of “arms.”
I’d like to know if you believe that the 2nd amendment guarantees individual access to the following arms. And if not, why not:
- Semi-automatic rifles with high-capacity magazines?
- Fully automatic rifles? (Was the 1934 National Firearms act, supported by the NRA at the time, unconstitutional?)
- Larger caliber, belt-fed machine guns? Say the M240 for example.
- Teflon-coated bullets? (AKA, cop-killers)
- Hand grenades?
- Anti-tank guns? (Say the 37 mm M3)
- Anti-aircraft guns?
- Anti-aircraft missiles?
- Suitcase nukes?
All of those are commonly referred to as “arms,” but I’m guessing you draw the line somewhere. Any non-crazy person does. My question is how you square that with the constitution? When a new weapon is invented that’s orders of magnitude more deadly than the technology available in the late 1700’s, who gets to decide whether the individual’s right to own it should be infringed? I’ve got my own thoughts, but I’d like to hear yours.
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he specific wording of the 2nd amendment is “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Let’s start with the understanding that in 2010 the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in McDonald v. Chicago that some form of access to individual ownership of handguns is protected by this amendment, so that’s the law of the land. But the court did not specifically rule on the constitutionality of restricting ownership of other types of “arms.”
[/quote]
No problems. I could see a manditory safety class for fully-automatic, but no reason to stop an honest person from having one. I must say that one would be fun to shoot, but I see no real reason to own one. It is just a great excuse to throw ammo into the ceiling/sky.
This one gets a little tricky. I am kind of on the fence for this one.
Sure. Bad guys can get vests too.
Personally, I draw the line at what I would use in my house to protect my family. I would use a rifle to save the lives of my family. I would NOT use a hand grenade or greater. Just my $0.02.
We also own computers, cell phones, etc. Even the most maniacal person would be hard-pressed to kill more than about 30 people (well, except in China, where guys with KNIVES managed to kill 33 and injure another 130 until a good guy with a gun stopped them). Now, how many MILLIONS of people died at as result of the publishing of “The Communist Manifesto?” Guns can be dangerous. An idea can be even more powerful than 1,000 guns. Guns never get up and shoot themselves. The wrong idea at the wrong time, planted in the wrong field, can act like it is alive. It can reporduce, spread, and grow. It can cause millions of deaths.
Whether it is “cherry-picked” is for you to decide.
I chose 1995 as the starting point, because this was before the time of the big gun grabs. I chose 2010 as the ending point. I wanted to use later data, but the 2012 document that I provide a link for has this note on Table 1 (lists violent crime).
I wanted an ACCURATE picture. So, is this “cherry picking?”
1995 numbers (population 18.1 million).
Murder: 321
Attempted Murder: 301
Assault: 101,149
Sexual Assault: 12,809
Kidnapping: 469
Robbery: 16,466
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Violent Crime Total: 131,545
Violent Crime per million: 7267.68
2010 numbers (population 21.18063 million)
Murder: 282
Assault: 171,083
Sexual Assault: 17,757
Kidnapping: 603
Robbery: 14,582
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Violent Crime Total: 204,285
Violent Crime per million: 9160.762 (Yes, it went UP by 26%)
2010 numbers (population 21.18063 million) – all numbers per million people.
Murder: 11.65
Violent Crime total: 9160.762
[quote]The document includes the following quote:
“Note: Number of victims presented here represents revised estimates on numbers published in earlier editions of Australian Crime: Facts & Figures. It is advised that caution be exercised when comparing the number of robbery victims due to an undercounting of victims in New South Wales prior to 2005”
What effect does this have on the numbers? I am not entirely sure – making crime statistics is not my full time job. It is possible that the 1995 numbers for robbery might be a little low.[/quote]
2010 numbers (note the gov.au in the domain name) – look at Table 1:
http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/facts/2012/facts12.pdf
1995 numbers (note the gov.au in the domain name):
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/818290ca7df32b80ca2570ec001b2fc2!OpenDocument
So, how exactly was I “cherry-picking” this? Just wondering…
By the way, I do actually try to be as honest as possible. If you find that I have made a typo or some other error in this, please let me know. I would like to correct my spreadsheet if it is not right. This does seem to contradict the numbers you gave earlier. I am not sure what the difference is, but I trusted both sets of numbers since they are from the Australian government. Maybe standing upside-down all day lets the blood rush to their heads. 
Because I have very little doubt that if the stats showed the opposite outcome (murder rates going up with a modest decline in other violent crimes) then you’d be presenting THAT as evidence that the gun ban led to an increase in murder. It’s “cherry picking” because you pretend that the only numbers which matter are the ones that be used to support your case.
Also: if you want to track a change over time you don’t just compare stats from the first year to the last year, you chart the numbers for all the years in between to get a better sense of general trends. If you just show the stats for one year at the beginning and another at the end then you might end up with non-representative outliers.
So to summarize:
Arguments for banning private ownership of fully automatic weapons
- They are ideal tools for indiscriminately killing large numbers of people, and many have used them for that purpose
- They have few if any practical purposes for civilian use
- The people who collect them tend to be crazy-ass militia types
- They are fucking dangerous
Arguments for legalizing private ownership of fully automatic weapons
- Hot damn, that looks fun!
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Thanks for your response, but you didn’t really answer which of those weapons private individuals are constitutionally guaranteed to have access to. (Regardless of where you personally draw the line for your family.) What would be your answer to a person who believes that it is their constitutional right to own an anti-aircraft gun, or some other weapon capable of killing far more than 30 people?
The 30 people number you come up with is an interesting benchmark. But the Kunming knife attack had 4 perpetrators working together, so that isn’t really a good comparison to what a single maniac could do with the right firearm.
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Also useful for overthrowing governments. And note Kevin advocating for reducing the defence budget in another thread:
Coincidence? I think not.
You’d be excused for thinking he might be debating how the IPCC is wrong and global warming is a greens agenda scam for sheeple using the same methodology. I’m so happy BB exists and sensible people like yourself are here to patiently explain things for the slower (or, more likely, selfish and wilfully deceptive) members.
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How about banning private ownership of fully automatic weapons, and legalizing public ownership of fully automatic weapons?
The teflon coating is somewhat useful for reducing ricochet from angled surfaces (glass, sheetmetal) but actually hinders penetration through body armor. These “cop killer” bullets are a myth. The teflon coating is there primarily to reduce wear on the barrel when a bullet made of harder material is used.
And note that legislation often specifically bans teflon-coated bullets, while not giving any lip service to molybdenum disulfide or UHMWPE or any alternative coating. Shows how much are the politicos into banning stuff because it sounds scary instead of banning stuff in the few actual cases when it makes sense.
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Sounds like a True Patriot.
I think that Otherbrother was hoping for a rationale behind the permitting/restriction of different levels of armament, rather than you just saying ‘this one’s fine, that one shouldn’t be allowed’.
The Communist Manifesto never got anywhere near to killing a single person as directly as a gun did. It’s completely irrational (although perfectly predictable) that you seek to argue that the existence of a firearm is not related to deaths resulting from its availability, but a political text that you don’t agree with caused people to die. If that is the case, you don’t need guns, because the American Declaration of Independence has more than adequately proved itself on the field of battle.
Of course ideas can have dangerous outcomes, but they are also at a remove from the acts of violence caused by them. We cannot ban thoughts, so we have to intervene between the violent idea and the violent act. We do this by making violence more difficult.
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Isn’t that pretty much what most countries have now? Private individuals can’t own fully automatic weapons, but states can and do own these on behalf of the people?
Tell that to the Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan
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In truly democratic countries, the public IS the government.
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