No one needs a AR15!

[Left Hook Tua]

handguns are great for self defense. i wouldn't want to be swinging around a long rifle in a hallway. i've always been told the best weapon for self defense is a shotgun if you know how to use it. can't miss, and more importantly they are increidbly threatening. i don't care if it's pitch black, you'll hear that thing getting c#cked from 50 feet and know it is time to live and fight another day.

again this story is so rare it made national news and you made a thread about it. if you'r really worried about safety you should look into what makes a country safe, and why yours is not. the answer is having fewer guns. plenty of information around, in spite of your government doing it's f#cking best not to fund it.

Your knowledge about guns are anecdotes, hyperbole, urban legends.

Pretty much crap repeated by some so much that ppl think its true.

Have you seen the spread of a shotgun at close range? I have. I'll give you a hint, it's not much.

Birdshot at distance spreads out a lot, but home defense you're not gonna use birdshot and not at distance.

Only reason handguns are used for self defense is because its size and convenience.

Ppl who get shot by handguns get wounded.

Ppl who get shot by rifles die.

[Left Hook Tua]

There are thousands and tens of thousands of self defense uses in the United states.

It's just not a big story.

Usually hear about it if a bunch of ppl die or it's on video.

Just like murders. Unless there's a juicy story or video, it doesn't get reported much.

Theres what 15,000-20,000 murders a year in the us?

Did u read, see 15,000 cases in the media?

No.

Itd be ignorant to assume since you see it on TV or read (do you know how to read, new england?) only a few times in the news that it doesn't happen.

[BostonGuy]

Those stats your dumbass is talking about are skewed by suicides.

Majority of gun deaths are suicides.

Factor those out and come back and talk.

Why shouldn't we count those stats? Guns make it helluva lot easier to take one's life. If you have kids, having a gun in the house does not make them safer; it increases the likelihood of accidental death or by suicide.

[billeau2]

Actually they are both tenants of the same principles of liberty. That all men shall be able to defend themselves & others as well their personal property from all forms of illegal oppressive forced be they foreign or domestic & be they a criminal breaking into ones home or government. When Alexander Hamilton wrote the federalist papers he spoke of these things in paper #27. That the government shall never have more power than the people have,the people should never fear the government..... & Liberty is a well that must be forever replenished because of the constant inevitable attempts of the government to erode liberty. The government is inherently evil because all governments are inherently evil.

The best book relating to the principles of liberty & just law is written by Bastiat & the book is literally titled:"the Law"

People always assume that the principle is against the federal government when in fact, before the founders could even debate the magnitude of the federal government the states land grabbed farms when taxes could not be paid. Some things never change... Even today when we see a debt to be paid if it is paid to a corporation then it is one thing, but when the IRS is owed they will kill you. When farmers would try to protect their farms from seizure they would be killed much like the federal government does today.

By arming citizens the purpose is to make state authority think twice. People saw when armed individuals stopped the seizure of Nevada land. Everyday we see more state authority stamping people with a boot to the head... Police told they should shoot kids who might have a weapon, or setting someone up to be killed... Federal agents killing people for various debts owed, often setting traps in the process.

Arming individuals prevents these events from occuring. People can make the federal authorities think twice.

[BostonGuy]

People always assume that the principle is against the federal government when in fact, before the founders could even debate the magnitude of the federal government the states land grabbed farms when taxes could not be paid. Some things never change... Even today when we see a debt to be paid if it is paid to a corporation then it is one thing, but when the IRS is owed they will kill you. When farmers would try to protect their farms from seizure they would be killed much like the federal government does today.

By arming citizens the purpose is to make state authority think twice. People saw when armed individuals stopped the seizure of Nevada land. Everyday we see more state authority stamping people with a boot to the head... Police told they should shoot kids who might have a weapon, or setting someone up to be killed... Federal agents killing people for various debts owed, often setting traps in the process.

Arming individuals prevents these events from occuring. People can make the federal authorities think twice.

The solution to gun violence is...……"more guns."

Insane.

[Left Hook Tua]

Why shouldn't we count those stats? Guns make it helluva lot easier to take one's life. If you have kids, having a gun in the house does not make them safer; it increases the likelihood of accidental death or by suicide.

Because it skews the stats.

Having a pool increases the chances of you drowning.

That doesn't mean your house is safer without a pool. Understand?

Does not having a gun prevent suicide? Maybe it prevents a gun suicide but it won't prevent a suicide.

I know it's hard. Try to think sometimes.

They skew these stats for a political point.

[billeau2]

is a kid in a house with a gun more safe or less safe?


well, he's less safe. houses with guns have never shown to be a deterrent for crime. this case is so rare you made a thread about it, and it's being championed by a right wing mouthpiece website.

but guns they have shown to increase hugely the likelihood of the kid accidentally or purposefully shooting himself. go ahead and look it up. your government is literally pressured by lobbying groups with a financial stake in the proliferation of guns. again, look that **** up, dog. but there are a decent number of groups [universities, medical associations, hospitals,] looking into state and federal stats, as well as gathering date of their own, and looking into gun violence or injuries / homicides as a public health issue. homes with guns have triple the rates of suicide and double the rates of homicide. if you've ever done any research in your life you know how hugely significant that is. it's just impossible to ignore and worth looking into. these are peer reviewed studies in medical journals, btw. even after controlling for variables such as poverty, crime rates, etc, there is still a very strong correlation between the amount of guns and gun deaths. strange, i know . guns kill people really easily! so when there are a lot of guns around a lot more people are killed. weird, right!??!

All the studies are skewed New England. Peer Review unfortunately is not immune from political persuasion. Correct me if I am wrong here, The basis of your argument would be that the presence of guns in a home causes more mortality than the rare times a home invasion is stopped with a firearm.

The problem with this argument is that there are many types of homes, many different environments, and many different individuals who own weapons. First off, if people live in a rural area, with no one around for miles, typically these people will have firearms. To not have a firearm in this situation would be strange, so we would have to know hypothetically that handgun deaths in these homes, as a class, followed the same pattern as in other homes. How would this be determined? Impossible.

Second problem is that people who are more educated and have more resources tend to live in secure areas and feel that they do not need guns, so how do we gauge how this affects the sampling? Specifically, do we know that If these people did have guns in their homes, that the same problematic deaths would occur? again, impossible to know.

Finally we have to look at the class of individuals who have guns, which includes people who have a lot of problems, are as a whole, less educated, have less financial resources, etc... Would the same behaviors occur if they were less easy, vis a vis there were no guns in the households? I will give you that one. I think in this class of individuals gun accesibility might indeed be proven to cause more premature mortality.

Is there a way to prevent this? YES! If guns are locked up properly it is physically impossible for someone to get a hold of them. If they are stored unloaded, ditto. If the problems that CAUSE the need to hurt oneself are addressed, people will not shoot themselves.

In reality it is a class of people who have problems that are not addressed that experience more mortality because of guns. Taking the guns away is a band aid. The real issue is gun storage, and the things that cause someone to want to harm oneself, or others.

I keep a firearm in a gunsafe. If someone comes in here I have two dogs and knives around a plenty, which work better in close quarters in the city anyway.

[CHOWWOKKA]

But what am I suppose to let my son borrow if he gets picked on at school?

[billeau2]

The solution to gun violence is...……"more guns."

Insane.

No... Not more guns. Here is the thing: We live in a violent society. We send more people to prison per capita by far than any other country, and kill almost as many people as China using the death penalty. As a matter of fact, if you let out every Black Person from prison tomorrow we would still have the lead by a country mile, regarding the amount of our citizens per capita with prison sentences.

Given this situation how does one allow people to protect oneself, and at the same time encourage a safe environment. You cannot simply have the state demand that people not have guns. That goes against the grain of our society and it gives the state too much power. That is perhaps why you think I advocate more guns?

I am a realist. Education about guns is the answer. When guns are secured properly they are not the cause of accidents. When people are secure they are not trying to shoot themselves. There will always be idiots...How would you like to have to eat barley because of two vegetarians out of thirty people demand no meat? Well, in a country where violence is a priority and people do not want to be victims, guns are going to be a weapon of choice, should we not carry them because of people that abuse them? Or maybe we should all drive 35 miles an hour because speed kills?

The reality is we all deal with the devil this way and accept a lottery. anyone of us could die on the roads because of bad drivers just as gun accidents happen because of idiots.

[billeau2]

Because it skews the stats.

Having a pool increases the chances of you drowning.

That doesn't mean your house is safer without a pool. Understand?

Does not having a gun prevent suicide? Maybe it prevents a gun suicide but it won't prevent a suicide.

I know it's hard. Try to think sometimes.

They skew these stats for a political point.

I agree with the general point you are advocating but the truth is when people want to commit suicide having an easy way to do it increases the risk. And there will be people who are idiots and will shoot their families, etc. We all enter a lottery when we accept any piece of technology that has the potential for harm. We have to adjust our expectations... So while we may not say, "go 150 miles an hour on the freeways!" we also do not say "go 35 miles an hour on the freeways because speed kills."

The real question is how much abuse is it worth putting up with to have the expectation that people should own firearms. We now that criminals manage to procure firearms and it has been proven that deterring guns does nothing to alleviate this problem. We also know that we live in a violent society and people need to defend themselves. The police come to clean up, not to aid you lol.

It is a complex calculus where we have to ask ourselves what ultimately creates more harm....classic utilitarian ethics. What is the greater good? to on, or not to own guns? I think if we stopped owning guns we can look at Europe and see where it got them...Im not impressed. I believe much like in 1776, the government will take things for taxes, kill people and let their agencies comply with policies that are brutal (like police procedures) and we need the threat of armed citizens to counter act these actions. When Clive Bundy was threatened and armed citizens came, they had to back off.