Gun control in the USA

sephir0th wrote: »

Hi MadsL, would you put a limit on what a person can or can't carry?

There is a limit. As far as concealed carry is concerned it is the largest calibre a person has shown themselves competent to shoot accurately.

Now that doesn't extend to open carry (visibly carrying a handgun say) on your belt, because that cannot be controlled under the Constitution. However very very few peole open carry - after all they make themselves the first target if anything happens.

If you view it as a person's right to carry a handgun, can they carry a grenade?

Well ask yourself why would you? If you are legally going to be held responsible and have to answer in a court of law to your actions why the hell would you use something as indiscriminate as a grenade as a defensive protection?

An Uzi?

Automatic firearms are banned in the US since 1986. i don't see any rationale for civilian use outside of recreation at a firing range.

I guess I'm asking what is the arbitrary limit and rationale for it in your opinion.

Arbitrary? The limit is quite specific when it comes to concealed carry, as I said, the largest calibre a person has shown themselves competent to shoot accurately. That seems reasonable to me, if you cannot shoot something accurately - you should not be carrying it.

MadsL wrote: »

Arbitrary? The limit is quite specific when it comes to concealed carry, as I said, the largest calibre a person has shown themselves competent to shoot accurately. That seems reasonable to me, if you cannot shoot something accurately - you should not be carrying it.

The reason I say arbitrary is because every person is going to vary in their competence and accuracy. I think nomatter where you draw the line - whether it's automatic weapons, handguns, knives etc. - the 'it's a persons right to carry guns' argument collapses, because then you're arbitrarily applying it a a certain point.

The only difference between your position and an advocate of strict gun-control is that the line is slightly moved to cover handguns.

robindch wrote: »

What was pointed out above -- that the risk of gun violence is higher in homes with guns, than in homes without.

In other news, risk of being eaten by alligator higher in Florida than Dublin.

"the risk of gun violence is higher in homes with guns, than in homes without"

Well, Duh! Let's think about that for a minute.

robindch wrote: »

? I think you mean "tautology" instead of "logical fallacy".

Here's another Dan Quale one for you: "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure". And here's another greek word, rhetoric, you seem to be full of it.

Anyhow, the point is fairly simple, it's been made many times in this thread and it's great you've come around at last!

And there you go again making false assertions as if they were true. You really are utterly dishonest with the way you post.

The point is that if you keep a gun in your home, you or your family are much more likely to suffer a gun-related injury than a home that doesn't contain a gun.

As useful as saying that those who travel by car on motorways are far more likely to die in a motorway pileup than those who take the train.

That overall increase in risk of injury includes the smaller decrease in risk that might arise from having a gun in the first place (and say, being able to repel an armed intruder).

Which study are you quoting now? The Hemenway study? Private Guns, Public Health? or another one. Let's examine Guns in the Home and Risk of a Violent Death in the Home: Findings from a National Study

Let's take this table
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929/T2.expansion.html
Distribution of deaths in the home by cause, presence of a firearm in the home, method, and behavioral characteristics, United States



We can draw a number of conclusions - one is your own; that there is an overall increase in risk of injury in owning a gun. However as the table really shows that increase risk is largely due to suicide. Oddly (not really) people who own a gun are more likely to use it to take their own lives (duh). Now you highlight that as being a problem to be addressed, yet that is probably as helpful as suggesting restricting rope sales in Ireland because 55% of suicides hang themselves.

We can also see drinking alcohol is factor in homicide, may we conclude having alcohol in the home is a risk factor and therefore should be restricted?

Yes, it is tautologous, but that's hardly a problem since tautologies can be true. As this one is.

It is not the statement that is the problem, it is the illogical conclusion that is the issue. Frankly, if some is planning to kill themselves, isn't it better they use their own gun at home and are successful, than jump in front of a train or attempt to poison themselves with ineffectual drugs that cause them later cronic health issues and require drains on resources only for them to die a slow death? The gun suicide affects the immediate family, the jumper/poisioner has an negative impact on our wider society.

There also seems to be a implicit conclusion in your thinking that guns cause suicides (or at least suicides are two-thirds of the 'harm' you are talking about) if that were true we would be seeing a high rate of suicide in the US, yet US suicide rates are almost the same as the UK and Ireland. Equally Japan (strict gun control) has almost double the rate of suicide of the US. Source

robindch wrote: »

I'm thrilled we agree.

It's certainly been a slog getting here, but I think it was worth it.

You delight in this transparent crap. I find it absurd that you continue to troll your own forum.

robindch wrote: »

It's endlessly entertaining that even though we appear to agree on something, you can't bring yourself to admit it.

Hugs!

Robin, I have warned you about misquoting me before, quite why you see your mischievous misquotes as some kind of win completely fails me. Frankly it just shows me how childish you are. That you are mod on this forum baffles me, we have a long thread that could have badly done with some mod direction, but instead you resort to posting one off links of single examples of gun violence, misquoting me and others and generally troll the debate.

I don't get it, do you just mod this forum for amusement because you don't seem to show any interest in actually facilitating mature discussion here.

Frankly, what is the point of you?

robindch wrote: »

Where have I misquoted you?

You just did.

I said

We can draw a number of conclusions - one is your own; that there is an overall increase in risk of injury in owning a gun.

"We can draw a number of conclusions" means not all of them are true.

You misquoted that to make it look as if I supported your viewpoint by only quoting half the sentence. Then you used it as a taunt.

Seriously, if you don't want to have a debate that is fine, just let me know and I will put you on ignore, but you might want to consider actually addressing the points made rather than cheap and transparent word games. I warned you about that previously in this thread, yet you persist.

Then again if your argument is that weak I see why you want to distract the issues into trolling.

robindch wrote: »

Not in the English I speak, it doesn't

You don't think it is possible to draw a conclusion and be wrong? My turn to be confused.

Here is my State's constitution. Not a whole lot about muskets and militias.

No law shall abridge the right of the citizen
to keep and bear arms for security and
defense, for lawful hunting and recreational
use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing
herein shall be held to permit the carrying
of concealed weapons. No municipality
or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident
of the right to keep and bear arms.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

and this is a Charleville musket - the most common gun when the 2nd Amendment was enacted



This is what they meant.

And this is the Girandoni, which was basicly a .48 calibre repeating rifle with a 20-round magazine, and which was available in the US at the time of the drafting of the second amendment (it's most likely the air rifle Lewis & Clark used 15 years after the 2nd amendment was drafted, and it was originally brought into use in Austria a decade before the amendment was drafted, so it is definitely contemporaneous).

So that argument you sometimes hear about how the second amendment should only let people have the firearms available when it was drafted? Yeah, that wouldn't make things any safer, it'd make them far, far worse because firearms today aren't as lethal as they were back then.

obplayer wrote: »

That a military assault rifle which can leave an exit wound you can place both fists in is less dangerous than a musket?

You must be joking surely...a .223 FMJ will pass through flesh cleanly leaving an exit wound the same size as the entry one i.e tiny. The round was specifically designed not to leave a vicious wound as per the Hague Conventions. A musket fires a solid lump of unjacketed lead that will deform when you're hit and open up like a mushroom...that will leave you with some wound.

obplayer wrote: »

A modern military rifle has a tremendous muzzle velocity. This creates a cavity as it goes through the body. While temporary this cavity can and does create a large exit wound, and the cavity created as the round passes through the body does damage as it is created.

http://emergency.unboundmedicine.com/emergency/ub/view/5-Minute_Emergency_Consult/307519/all/Wound_Ballistics

'Bullet crushes tissue it directly passes through, forming a permanent cavity.'

You must also understand that modern hunting rifles and handguns have hugely greater muzzle velocity than when the second amendment was passed. They are simply not comparable.

For handguns check the following

http://www.angelfire.com/mi2/jamesyoungergang/hanska.html

'Cole had suffered an amazing total of eleven wounds; five in Northfield and six at Hanska Slough'

With modern handguns he would have died.

There's no need to explain firearms to me..I'm a shooter. The .223/5.56 is actually made not to kill...it's designed to wound because it will take 2 people to carry the casualty away so straight away you've taken 3 people out of the fight. You'll find complaints online from Iraq/Afghanistan veterans that the 5.56 just isn't effective on a battlefield, I read a piece from a veteran who complained they would shoot guys and they would come to the local base for medical aid 4/5 hours later saying 'you shot me'.

Bullets aren't the nuclear bombs people make them out to be because they saw it in movies etc...like the idea that a shotgun will blow a hole in a wall 2 feet in diameter from 5 yards when in reality it would be more like the size of a teaplate.