32 people killed every single day

reply to post by nixie_nox


LA had a terrible public transport system when I lived there. Absolutely ridiculous. Compare that to where I live in Germany, where the public transport is about as good as it gets, and I don't know why the US doesn't adopt systems like it. Well, apart from lobbyists and ingrained "car culture".

yeah its awful in la. portland has an amazing transportation system though. for anyone who doesnt drive thats a good place to live .

reply to post by calihan123


Thats exactly what you are stating. You think, because your scared of your shadow, that everyone else needs to act in a manner that makes you feel safe!!! What drivil. You say you and your familygave up driving, take a bus or walk. I got news for you darlin'< the nearest town to me is 60 miles away. We ain't gotz no danged bus service ,or taxi service or even paved roads for the most part. Your logic is circular and your ignorance on Stats promulgated by the old 'Handgun Control' bunch speaks volumes on your lack of research. They have a habit of taking every single death by firearm, whether by LEO, or suicide, or gang related, and grouping them into a catagory that they claim are "CHILDREN' !!!It just ain't so!!

Zindo

reply to post by ZindoDoone


ok well i lived in the middle of nowhere too, and there are still buses that run in the middle of nowhere believe it or not. its true

there are always exceptions, i mean if you literally live completely in the middle of nowhere then yes please have a car.

but if you can avoid it, go for it. cars are a waste of money anyways.

Originally posted by calihan123

Originally posted by schism85
Have you ever heard of home protection? If someone busts in your house some day with a gun, you will not be singing that same tune.

listen to yourself. if someone comes into your house with a gun...

exactly my point. they wouldnt HAVE a gun if they werent allowed.

We don't allow 'unregistered' guns in Australia...doesn't stop anyone getting them illegally though. Happens all the time. Makes no difference if you ban them or not...it's the attitude of the country as a whole towards violence that changes things. Criminals will always find a way to get their hands of a weapon if they want it.

banning or not banning, im stating i dont understand why every single person needs a gun

why is that so hard to get across?

Originally posted by calihan123
banning or not banning, im stating i dont understand why every single person needs a gun

why is that so hard to get across?

The fact that this charade has gone on for some 8 pages now is more than proof you have no intention of "understanding" why people choose to own guns.

You just want to stand on a pile of your own ignorance and enjoy a semi-conscious fit of arm waving.

Originally posted by calihan123
ok im getting pissed. everyone acts like smoeone is constantly breaking in to your home or trying to rape you.

we arent constantly being robbed, or chased after by thugs

why does everyone keep making this defense of "we need a gun for protection" when those things dont happen to most people every day.

and if it did im not sure a gun would do you much good if your sleeping and someone breaks in and you dont wake up.

or if someone robs you on the street... what so you are going to carry a gun in your purse at all times? how about just carry some pepper spray. theres an idea.

please don't get angry, this thread is actually at times bringing up some points that other gun threads missed. if you read my replies you will see that i am trying very hard to disagree with you while at the same time trying to understand where you are coming from. yes, my house has only been broken into twice...and i wasn't home either time, but if I had been home, what would the robbers have done to me if they saw me and they had guns? i don't want to EVER get caught in that situation without a gun if i need one. i know i would wake up if my house was being robbed, and my gun is always ready just in case. you are right that most people probably have the guns locked up and it wouldn't do them any good if the event actually happened, you are right thatMOST people will never need it too, BUT what i'm trying to stress to you is that it would be unforgiveable to actually need a gun for you or your family and to not have one, i would never forgive myself for that. and yes, all women should be carrying one in their purse in my opinion. my ex wife had no idea how to shoot a gun when we got married, but i showed her how and bought her a cute little .38 snub nose, and taught her how to use it. for those of you who don't know this is not a very accurate gun once you are further than 10 feet away, they are strictly for self defense, only useful when someone is right up on you, and you know what? she had a man follow her as she walked home from a party, and after noticing she was being followed, she turned around, pulled the gun out and said "i know you are there, and i have a gun!" Well, as you can imagine, she saw nothing but heels after that, he took off like a rocket and she returned home shaken, but safe. if she had not had that gun, i am confident she would have been robbed, or raped, or worse. would he have been as scared if she had pulled out a can of pepper spray? i think not. some people are actully not even bothered by pepper spray, i have seen this with my own two eyes. and pepper spray and tazers have a very fundamental flaw...someone has to be within 2 to 3 feet of you for them to be effective. her .38 probably would not have been accurate past 10 to 15 feeet, but at least that is protecting her up to that range, keeping her safe from knife distance. and she estimates that the man was around 25 feet back when she flashed the gun, and it didn't even matter if she could hit with it or not, he ran away as soon as he saw it, no shots fired, and the gun still saved her. what you are suggesting would only take guns away from people like my me or my ex wife, while changing NOTHING at all about the people who buy them illegealy and kill people. it's not like the majority of those gun deaths are done with a legal, registered gun. So are you beginning to see how flawed your idea is? also, what is wrong with having a gun for fun? i really enjoy shooting stuff with really big guns, especially things that have a reaction, like watermellons or beer kegs, that is a lot of fun to me, why shouldn't i be able to do that? Now i fall into the mythical middle ground you don't find a lot of. i do believe 100% that we should have the right to buy high powered rifles and high capacity magazines, but i also believe it should have some type of process to getting them so that not just anyone can have one. those laws are already in place however, they are just not strictly enforced, making new laws will have results that are as predictable as they are useless. it would do nothing to the criminal who seeks a throw away gun to kill someone with or rob a store, but it WILL make it harder for the store owner to have one behind the counter to protect himself with. And your main arguement for the guns needing more attention than the nuclear threat, and the arguement that it works in the UK, are both bunk. We are not the UK, our people are different, our contryside is different, and the laws should be different. You cannot defend yourself from nuclear attack with another nuke, like i said, but you can defend a gun with another gun. Most of us are much more fearful of a radical american hating country having nukes than we are of our neighbors having a high powered rifle. truth is, guns just aren't that big of a threat when compared to other things like cancer, or heart attack, that a large percentage of COULD be stopped or prevented through tougher laws with fast food places and chemical companies. but this is america, if we want to eat 2 pounds of red, raw meat, while smoking big fat cuban cigars and drinking whiskey, then follow it up by shooting the empty bottle with an AK-47, we have that right, and that is what makes our country so wonderful...freedom to choose, freedom to decide what is right for yourself, not having the government decide for you. i do understand your concern, but i also encourage you to try and disprove any idea i have posed here, as i am confident that any attempt to do so will only involve half-cocked "facts" or "data" with no real substance or truth in it. I respect you as a fellow ATS member, you SHOULD be questioning anything you disapprove of! good for you!!! but be prepared to valiate anything you bring up, and be prepared to have others disagree, it's noting to get pissed about, as you have said you were, this is a conspiracy theorist site after all, did you expect to get a lot of "yes you are right!" and what have you? surely not. now that being said, don't get discouraged from speaking what you feel, that is what this site is all about. thanks for the good topic, i'll be checking it often.

32 people a day, 23 backwards.

reply to post by calihan123


That isn't as accurate as you might thing England has 28 a day

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Can't find accurate Candadian ammounts but as of 2006 I read a report that there was still 1 Candadian an hour killed or victimized in gun violence.


No point, just pointing out some stats.

Over half of the gun deaths per year in the US is due to suicide. Here is a good article relating to that, and how the media likes to sensationalize things. www.guncite.com...

"Gun death" statistics are frequently cited, in the manner above, to strongly suggest that guns are the cause behind the high violent death rate in the U.S. As in the case of the Los Angeles Times article, no mention is made that over half of those violent deaths are suicides. The CNN article mentions gun homicides and gun suicides, but fails to show us the total violent death rate of other countries, not just gun deaths. For example, in Japan, where gun ownership is rare, its total suicide rate is higher than our total suicide rate.

Combining gun suicide and homicide deaths creates a sensational comparison with other countries, but only clouds and distorts the many factors actually behind violent death rates. Looking at only gun deaths, it is easy to get the false impression that, because of guns, the United States is the most violent country on earth

Rather than being the "league leader" in violent death rates, as the sensational and misleading media reports suggest when focusing exclusively on guns, though the U.S. is still high, its violent death rate is not orders of magnitude higher than other countries. (See also international homicide comparisons.)

The "gun death" statistic is seldom referenced within its proper perspective and context. Also rare is the article that mentions the number of lives saved through defensive gun use and that our homicide rate is at a thirty year low and still declining (FBI Uniform Crime Reports).

[edit on 6-11-2008 by schism85]

Originally posted by calihan123
banning or not banning, im stating i dont understand why every single person needs a gun

why is that so hard to get across?

I dont own a firearm but I am completely for the 2nd amendment. The fact is, firearms do save many more lives than they take. Also, the 2nd amendment was put into place for the specific purpose of giving the people the power to fight against tyranny from aboard or our own government. That can also include tyranny from corporations such as the wars between the coal mining companies and the coal wokers in West Virginia in the early 1900's. Also, the whiskey rebellion is another very good example of why guns are important to freedom and liberty. Its my personal opinion that everyone who can legally get one today, should own a firearm and know how to use it. That shooting at Virginia Tech, how long do you think that demented man that killed all of them students would have lasted if all those student had been armed and adequately trained?


The pros of gun ownership outweight all of the negatives in my opinion. If you cant understand this, then you will not understand anything about gun ownership.

I am posting this even after what occured not to far from my house yesterday afternoon and in fact, I personally was less than 1/8th of a mile away at an insurance office.
Shooting

Did you happen to read my previous post on page 2?

[edit on 6/11/08 by Pfeil]

Originally posted by calihan123
Wow. Obviously NONE of you understood the thread in the first place.

Im simply saying, too many people in this country have guns. They dont effing need one. Unless you are using it for sport or for your damn job, dont have one.

It only corrects everything i was saying, because all of you are getting so damn defensive about guns. You are so reliable on a tool that is used for the sole purpose to kill someone... it amazes me. Every single person said they want a gun.

A car can drive you.

A knife can cut your food.

A gun is only used to kill. Why DO YOU HAVE ONE

End of my discussion.

[edit on 6-11-2008 by calihan123]

Im sorry. Who are YOU to tell ANYONE what they need or dont need.

And you have FAILED to answer simple questions.

And you run away because you have lost your debate?

Seriously. Dont bring something to the table that you arent prepared to debate and bring substantial evidence to back up your claim.


WHAT is YOUR solution for all the criminals who have their weapons ILLEGALLY? You have none, because you do NOT understand the issue at all.

[edit on 11/6/2008 by greeneyedleo]

OK, I'm breaking my own rule here and posting before I read the entire thread. But this one statement just has to be addressed:

reply to post by calihan123

as far as the gun issue, if we didnt have them we wouldnt have nearly as much crime as we do now. whether the gun is in "good" hands or not. there are people who are "good" and then switch one day and kill a bunch of people.

My daddy used to say (and no doubt would say, were he still with us) "and if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their butts every time they tried to jump."

Do you know what exactly a gun is? It is a mechanism that propels a projectile toward a pre-determined target, normally using expanding gases due to combustion. Now, I am by no means well-off financially, but with the tools I have right now, surrounding me in this shop, and with the materials I have, right now, at hand, I could build a gun from scratch. True, it wouldn't be an AK-47, because I doubt that I would go through all of the design necessities to construct such an advanced device, but neither would it be some crude 'shoot once and throw it away' deal either.

Now, exactly how do you propose we deal with removing all guns from society, when they can be manufactured so easily by an average guy? OK, OK, I know, make manufacturing them illegal. Just like we made alcohol illegal at one point? That worked out pretty well. Or maybe the way we have marijuana illegal? Obviously no one can get their hands on it. Hey, what about pedophilia being illegal? The MSM must be wrong; such activity couldn't possibly be happening as much as they report it... it's illegal, remember? How about child abuse? that's illegal, but somehow it's still happening. Oh, wait, murder itself is illegal, even with a gun... but isn;t that the very reason you want to outlaw guns?

Maybe you'd like to make the tools used to manufacture them illegal? that would be difficult. Say goodbye to that public transportation, because the same milling machine that makes engine parts can be used to make gun parts. Say goodbye to air conditioning, forced-air heating, all home appliances, electricity itself, and anything made from metal or plastic that requires close tolerances. And in the end, guess what? I could do the same thing with a wood router and special (home-made) bits, a good grinder and a wood lathe. It would just take a little longer.

So now that we have established that guns cannot be completely removed from society as a practical matter, we could indeed crack down on gun ownership. Of course, the most obvious result, given that some guns will still exist, is that those who obey that prohibition will be left defenseless. Is that your proposal? To make sure that only hardened criminals can kill, while conscientious law-abiding citizenry can not protect themselves form such criminals? That doesn't sound very socially equitable to me. I'm sure the criminals would approve, though.

We have instances of this equation in action. Washington DC, until a very apt SCOTUS decision recently, had laws in effect that essentially banned all operable guns from existing in the city. Yet, they also had one of the highest gun crime rates in the entire nation. In contrast, Kennesaw GA had high crime rates at one time, until a law was passed that required all legally-eligible citizens of the town to own at least one firearm. That's right, they made gun ownership mandatory. The result was that crime became essentially non-existent in Kennesaw.

Florida recently combated high crime by passing legislation that allowed citizens to use deadly force (via firearm) to defend themselves. The result? Crime dropped. Schools are now so-called 'gun-free zones' where simple possession of a firearm is strictly prohibited. The result? Student shootings, far too often resulting in multiple deaths from a single shooter.

I think your premise is inherently flawed, as witnessed by a plethora of empirical data. I think your solution is inherently flawed as witnessed by logical reasoning.

Thinking things through. It does a body good.

TheRedneck

Lets try to put an end to this....

Percent Injured after Self Protection Action:

Robbery Assault
Any Self Protection with gun 7.7% 3.6%
Chased, tried to catch Offender 9.6% 9.0%
Ran/drove away; tried to 4.9% 5.4%
Screamed from pain, fear 22.0% 12.6%
Threatened Offender without weapon 5.8% 13.6%
No Self Protection measures at all 23.6% 55.2%

Taken from NCVS data from part of the '90s in a study by Gary Kleck and Don Kates. (Self Protection is the term used in the NCVS)

The use of a gun is the best way to defend yourself, but doing anything is a good idea.

Website Source: Here

[edit on 6-11-2008 by ExistenceUnknown]

The Japanese have some of the most restrictive laws on ANY firearm in this world. The Yakuza still is probably one of the heaviest armed organizations. Restictions as well as outlawing possession does nothing to sway these criminals. The Japanese have few firearms deaths but murder with all other implements is still a large problem. Prohibition of things people want or need only breeds a black market for those implements. Legislating morality or peoples will, always backfires! To change human nature you need to change that which makes us human!

Zindo

Originally posted by calihan123
banning or not banning, im stating i dont understand why every single person needs a gun

why is that so hard to get across?

Why is it so hard to get across to you that it doesnt matter why someone has one or not - if they have it LEGALLY. Their reasons will vary. You dont need to know why. They have the right. Period.

You should be afraid and concerned of all the thugs that have them illegal who want to do YOU harm. Your pepper spray and your self defense skills are great - but they wont save your arse when you have a criminal with an illegal weapon wanting to harm you and your family.

You should spend your pecious efforts on making sure all those criminals receive HARSH punishments for murdering, harming and possessing illegal weapons.

Put your energys to better use. This is not it.

Originally posted by calihan123

Originally posted by schism85
Have you ever heard of home protection? If someone busts in your house some day with a gun, you will not be singing that same tune.

listen to yourself. if someone comes into your house with a gun...

exactly my point. they wouldnt HAVE a gun if they werent allowed.

Ohhh boy I hope you were wearing protection when you decided to be intimate with that statement.... oO

ne'er a less true word been said. Murder is not allowed, yet??

On fact however, I do agree with your sentiment. but I'd also point out that likely more than 32 people a day are born in your fair land. Humans are not precious enough to warrant 100% protection from the simple laws of nature.

Death, as Life, is natural. By the hand of others or by that of the determination of the life we lead.

The world, sadly, is currently bursting with humans. It can certainly do with a reprieve, and 32 a day is far from it...

reply to post by calihan123


Calihan, no one said every single person needs a gun. I know a bunch of stupid SOB's that have no business with a gun. Or a car. Or a butterknife. Or even the right to vote. I mean, stupid.

Ever had anyone fire on you with the intent to kill you? Never met him before, didn't know who he was? Of course you haven't. Or you wouldn't have this post.

Just saw where a young woman just over one hundred pounds was murdered. The guy who murdered her after raping her simply used his 200+ pounds, put his weight on her chest, and she couldn't breathe. She simply suffocated.

Now had this young woman been aware and armed, she could have shot him to doll rags, size difference be damned.

That's why in the nineteenth century, the handgun became known as the equalizer.

I've been in gunfights that I didn't start. Quite exhilarating. Now if I hadn't been armed and skillful enough, you would have been deprived of this response to your post.

Now, aren't you glad that some of us are armed?

You know, when I was a GIRL of 7 years old my father ( a local policeman) gave myself and my two brothers a hunting gun for Christmas. I remember loving to go hunting with my dad on week-ends. I got very good with my aim and killed several rabbits and quail, which we always ate for Sunday dinner.

We were taught how to clean our guns and how to handle them safely when hunting. I don't think anyone should have the right to take my gun away. You have the right not to want a gun just as others should have the right to own one.

There would be nothing more frighting to a thief coming into a home where only the mother is there protecting her children. Woe, to that thief if that mother has a gun in her hands. He will be a dead man. A mother will kill to protect her children.

As for the nukes, I am much more afraid of them then I am a gun. I can control my gun however, I have no control over the nukes.