The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

Someone mentioned keeping one in their truck (upthread? the other thread? its all moviung too fast). All I could think was "oh so someone can break into yr car, take said gun, then bust into yr house and rob you?"

Having a gun anywhere near me would just lead me to worry someone ELSE could get a hold of it.

But, we simply dont have that culture here. Not in the cities anyway - rifles and whatnot on farms for animals is p common (and loudly defended)

i've fired a machine gun and it was p tite, no lie

are there any stats to back up 'self-defence' theory? or to damage it, i.e. instances of people carrying a gun in 'self-defence' who end up using it, um, inappropriately

i'm not sure what point this might illustrate, but i dunno maybe it ~captures~ the way some americans feel about handguns and their place in american society:

i know three ppl with ccw permits (hi dad!), and two of them don't even own guns, or plan to.

HM, i know studies have been done that support both sides, but my gut feeling is that many sober gun "advocates" would quietly agree that, no, carrying a gun is not likely to effect the outcome of a statistically improbable self-defense situation. i personally feel that it's impossible to stereotype guns-as-self-defense situations in a way that could generate meaningful data. seems just as likely that a person could ace a stickup man as it is that they'd shoot themselves or a bystander or escalate the situation, or wherever.

rifles and whatnot on farms for animals is p common (and loudly defended)

I get that, I mean if you've got sheep and a fox keeps eating them you want to act on the fox. Also p hard to conceal a rifle about one's person in bourke st.

Didn't stop that Hoddle st dude eh?

iirc people who own guns are a lot more likely to shoot family members than bad guys

Didn't stop that Hoddle st dude eh?

― Ex Loin Tamer (Trayce), Monday, 10 January 2011 11:42 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah but people like that will get hold of a firearm one way or another, same with Martin Bryant.

i shot my cousin and his wife
xpost

porn shoot or

popel shot

Mass shootings do not "happen all the time."

― boots get knocked from here to czechoslovakier (milo z), Monday, January 10, 2011 4:18 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

rolling disgruntled shootings thread 2010

And it's also statistically accurate that i am more likely to get hit by a car. My point is that the chances of a non gun owner being shot by a stray bullet are extremely remote.

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Monday, January 10, 2011 4:46 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

spoken like a true midwesterner. just because it's statistically insignificant doesn't mean it's not a total fucking tragedy when it does happen.

Wow really thanks for opening my eyes

fwiw i think we should outlaw cars too

otm

i think iatee agrees with me there

loooooooool xp

haha

cars are just really big guns that can take you places

cars own, america owns

sorry. I dunno about where you've lived before jjjusten but I grew up in inner city philly - stories about innocents getting caught in cross-fire were pretty much a standard thing. so it really rubs me wrong when ppl dismiss that fact of life as 'statistically insignificant - uh, sure, if you live in places that are not big cities.

I come from a quaint tiny burg called Minneapolis you've probably never heard of

er indoors used to carry sw0rds to d4nce gigs

Scottish or bellydance??

latter

ok so 'er indoors = mom, right? why

inner city philly

minneapolis, crime capital of the world

dayo don't you know that most gun owners are responsible and know what they're doing

minneapolis's statistically insignificant crimes weren't as tragic as inner city philly's because philly had more of them.

wait..

We do have problems occasionally with performance swords. Can't get them on Ellis Island, for example. Or to diplomatic events. But that's only in areas with heightened security.

yeah, that's exactly what dayo was saying kerm, good job

boyz2men vs hüskers amirite

xp to Laurel: Ah okay. I think they still do it here as long as they're not caught, and as most gigs are in the n/w suburbs with adjoining parking there's not a police presence.

ok so 'er indoors = mom, right? why

― mookieproof, Monday, 10 January 2011 12:10 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't know what that means

minneapolis's statistically insignificant crimes weren't as tragic as inner city philly's because philly had more of them.

wait..

― Kerm, Monday, January 10, 2011 9:12 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

no, just saying that okay if you look at america's population as a whole, getting caught in crossfire is 'statistically impossible' but that doesn't mean it's uniform. your chances sort of increase by a pretty large factor if you live in certain parts of the country, i.e. cities w/ high crime rates. look, I understand most of the pro-gun arguments being made itt, but trying to justify gun ownership using statistics is some bullshit imo. just because statistically only a small # of people are killed by drunk drivers each year doesn't make it any less of a noble cause to try and reduce the number of drunk driving deaths each year.

Hey maybe gun control advocates should look at where gun violence takes place and why, instead of ignoring poor minorities so they can demonize conservative white dudes.

not a lot of poor minorities arguing for their right to bear arms

wow, who's gonna top that? xp

Gun control is all about demographics now?

Also, 'instead of'? Like only one thing can be done at a time?

I'm totally sympathetic to the argument that yeah, we should go after the root causes of violence in urban cities and that that would probably have a greater overall positive impact on reducing crime rates. but that doesn't change the fact that guns are pretty huge enablers to crime.

yo iatee i know we don't always see eye-to-eye on the politics threads but i just wanna say you've been my hero on these threads, in all seriousness

haha I hope I've convinced you that I'm not an undercover moderate by now

fwiw I would hate to live in a country in which violent crime is so prevalent that I would feel the need to carry a gun everywhere, wtf. Frequently O_O at the very concept that western democracies function like that.

dayo: but guns are enabling violence where crime already exists. More guns don't just generate crime. Gun sales skyrocketed after Obama was elected because dudes expected him to start banning guns, and violent crime has continued to fall.

Gun control is all about demographics now?

many xps - also willing to bet that "civilians caught in the crossfire" is statistically insignificant even in Philly

fwiw I would hate to live in a country in which violent crime is so prevalent that I would feel the need to carry a gun everyanywhere

yeah a bunch of paranoid militia dudes buying their 6th and 7th guns didn't result in crime increases, crazy

People feeling compelled to carry guns has little to do with reasonable analysis of the level of violent crime. Most of the people doing it are living in rural or suburban communities anyway.

As I was going to gun shows all through that panic, it was people buying their first gun because they thought they wouldn't be able to, not Birchers stockpiling for the Apocalypse.

i think anecdotal evidence is def the way to go here