New gun control push because of Tucson shooting

[crashhelmet]

I think we have to worry more about than just "criminals."

Feb. 2, 1996 Moses Lake, Wash.
Two students and one teacher killed, one other wounded when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class.

Feb. 19, 1997 Bethel, Alaska
Principal and one student killed, two others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16.

Oct. 1, 1997 Pearl, Miss.
Two students killed and seven wounded by Luke Woodham, 16, who was also accused of killing his mother. He and his friends were said to be outcasts who worshiped Satan.

Dec. 1, 1997 West Paducah, Ky.
Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.

Dec. 15, 1997 Stamps, Ark.
Two students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was hiding in the woods when he shot the students as they stood in the parking lot.

March 24, 1998 Jonesboro, Ark.
Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods.

April 24, 1998 Edinboro, Pa.
One teacher, John Gillette, killed, two students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.

May 19, 1998 Fayetteville, Tenn.
One student killed in the parking lot at Lincoln County High School three days before he was to graduate. The victim was dating the ex-girlfriend of his killer, 18-year-old honor student Jacob Davis.

May 21, 1998 Springfield, Ore.
Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home.

June 15, 1998 Richmond, Va.
One teacher and one guidance counselor wounded by a 14-year-old boy in the school hallway.

April 20, 1999 Littleton, Colo.
14 students (including killers) and one teacher killed, 23 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation's deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves.

May 20, 1999 Conyers, Ga.
Six students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend.

Nov. 19, 1999 Deming, N.M.
Victor Cordova Jr., 12, shot and killed Araceli Tena, 13, in the lobby of Deming Middle School.

Dec. 6, 1999 Fort Gibson, Okla.
Four students wounded as Seth Trickey, 13, opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at Fort Gibson Middle School.

Feb. 29, 2000 Mount Morris Township, Mich.
Six-year-old Kayla Rolland shot dead at Buell Elementary School near Flint, Mich. The assailant was identified as a six-year-old boy with a .32-caliber handgun.

March 10, 2000 Savannah, Ga.
Two students killed by Darrell Ingram, 19, while leaving a dance sponsored by Beach High School.

May 26, 2000 Lake Worth, Fla.
One teacher, Barry Grunow, shot and killed at Lake Worth Middle School by Nate Brazill, 13, with .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol on the last day of classes.

Sept. 26, 2000 New Orleans, La.
Two students wounded with the same gun during a fight at Woodson Middle School.

Jan. 17, 2001 Baltimore, Md.
One student shot and killed in front of Lake Clifton Eastern High School.

March 5, 2001 Santee, Calif.
Two killed and 13 wounded by Charles Andrew Williams, 15, firing from a bathroom at Santana High School.

March 7, 2001 Williamsport, Pa.
Elizabeth Catherine Bush, 14, wounded student Kimberly Marchese in the cafeteria of Bishop Neumann High School; she was depressed and frequently teased.

March 22, 2001 Granite Hills, Calif.
One teacher and three students wounded by Jason Hoffman, 18, at Granite Hills High School. A policeman shot and wounded Hoffman.

March 30, 2001 Gary, Ind.
One student killed by Donald R. Burt, Jr., a 17-year-old student who had been expelled from Lew Wallace High School.

Nov. 12, 2001 Caro, Mich.
Chris Buschbacher, 17, took two hostages at the Caro Learning Center before killing himself.

Jan. 15, 2002 New York, N.Y.
A teenager wounded two students at Martin Luther King Jr. High School.

October 28, 2002 Tucson, Ariz.
Robert S. Flores Jr., 41, a student at the nursing school at the University of Arizona, shot and killed three female professors and then himself.

April 14, 2003 New Orleans, La.
One 15-year-old killed, and three students wounded at John McDonogh High School by gunfire from four teenagers (none were students at the school). The motive was gang-related.

April 24, 2003 Red Lion, Pa.
James Sheets, 14, killed principal Eugene Segro of Red Lion Area Junior High School before killing himself.

Sept. 24, 2003 Cold Spring, Minn.
Two students are killed at Rocori High School by John Jason McLaughlin, 15.

March 21, 2005 Red Lake, Minn
Jeff Weise, 16, killed grandfather and companion, then arrived at school where he killed a teacher, a security guard, 5 students, and finally himself, leaving a total of 10 dead.

Nov. 8, 2005 Jacksboro, Tenn.
One 15-year-old shot and killed an assistant principal at Campbell County High School and seriously wounded two other administrators.

Aug. 24, 2006 Essex, Vt.
Christopher Williams, 27, looking for his ex-girlfriend at Essex Elementary School, shot two teachers, killing one and wounding another. Before going to the school, he had killed the ex-girlfriend's mother.

Sept. 27, 2006 Bailey, Colo.
Adult male held six students hostage at Platte Canyon High School and then shot and killed Emily Keyes, 16, and himself.

Sept. 29, 2006 Cazenovia, Wis.
A 15-year-old student shot and killed Weston School principal John Klang.

Oct. 3, 2006 Nickel Mines, Pa.
32-year-old Carl Charles Roberts IV entered the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts died.

Jan. 3, 2007 Tacoma, Wash.
Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot fellow student Samnang Kok, 17, in the hallway of Henry Foss High School.

April 16, 2007 Blacksburg, Va.
A 23-year-old Virginia Tech student, Cho Seung-Hui, killed two in a dorm, then killed 30 more 2 hours later in a classroom building. His suicide brought the death toll to 33, making the shooting rampage the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen others were wounded.

Sept. 21, 2007 Dover, Del.
A Delaware State Univesity Freshman, Loyer D. Brandon, shot and wounded two other Freshman students on the University campus. Brandon is being charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless engagement, as well as a gun charge.

Oct. 10, 2007 Cleveland, Ohio
A 14-year-old student at a Cleveland high school, Asa H. Coon, shot and injured two students and two teachers before he shot and killed himself. The victims' injuries were not life-threatening.

Feb. 8, 2008 Baton Rouge, Louisiana
A nursing student shot and killed two women and then herself in a classroom at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge.

Feb. 11, 2008 Memphis, Tennessee
A 17-year-old student at Mitchell High School shot and wounded a classmate in gym class.

Feb. 12, 2008 Oxnard, California
A 14-year-old boy shot a student at E.O. Green Junior High School causing the 15-year-old victim to be brain dead.

Feb. 14, 2008 DeKalb, Illinois
Gunman killed five students and then himself, and wounded 17 more when he opened fire on a classroom at Northern Illinois University. The gunman, Stephen P. Kazmierczak, was identified as a former graduate student at the university in 2007.

[Gravekeeper]

quite a few like myself are former military.

...and what? That makes you immune to tactical strikes? >.>

ya know I seem to remember a few groups that thought that: first that comes to mind is England during the revolutionary war-odds there were only 3(untrained civilians) to 1 british troop

Irrelevant. You can't possible think military technology then has any bearing on what we have now. You're not going to *see* a soldier to fight him. You're going to get picked off by a drone. ;p

Second is the US in a nice little skirmish that we lost in a tiny country called Vietnam.

Not a domestic war for starters. You're not trying to support troops across oceans. They're already all here, ready to fight you, with all their gear. Second of all, the US "lost" yeah, but military and civilitian casualties inflicted were incredible. Third of all, the US was one of several armies in Vietnam and it was not the largest ( South Vietnam had more troops than you did ). Fourthly, the US suffered 59,878 KIA and MIA. North Vietnam and the Viet Cong suffered 1,176,000.

So your point is totally irrelevant, sorry.

Russians that had their asses handed to them in Afghanistan.

Yet again, not a domestic war. Yet again, Russia lost 14,453 vs the Mujahideen's 1 million plus and again civilian casualties numbered at least 600,000. Yet again, your point does not stand.

[AdminAssistant]

Ah, but crash, if only the teachers had been armed, they could have engaged in a firefight with the shooters and everyone would have been saved! Or, more likely, would have injured more students in the crossfire.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

@Crashhelmet:
Violent crime is by a gargantuan margin more of a problem than mass-killings, and therefore any impact of a given approach on violent crime is more important than the impact on mass-killings. Both of which have been going down across the board and quite independently to gun regulation or lack thereof.

That said, that's a semi-impressive list of anecdotes about criminals killing people with guns, I could drum up equal lists of criminals killing people with edged weapons, blunt objects or simply by beating them to death. The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

@Gravekeeper:
You seriously think that every enemy killed in Iraq and Afghanistan was killed by UAVs? Air strikes are all good and well, but outside relatively limited AC130 and UAV strikes on established hostile strongholds, there has to be boots on the ground as well. In order to secure territory you need near-complete ground dominance and you can't get that with aircraft.

Domestic wars are also more difficult for a variety of reasons. Perhaps first and foremost being that government forces will be actively engaged in destroying the labor and infrastructure that enabled them to operate in the first place. innumerable vital facilities will essentially be in hostile territory that aren't set up for it (mostly intelligence and supply centers.) The industrial apparatus that makes modern armies possible will most likely grind to a halt in the turmoil.

Ah, but crash, if only the teachers had been armed, they could have engaged in a firefight with the shooters and everyone would have been saved! Or, more likely, would have injured more students in the crossfire.

Again, while on paper a valid concern, it hasn't been found to be the truth. Armed resistance, even in cases where numerous shots are fired, has consistently failed to produce these results.
Armed resistance has and continues to save lives and instead of doing anything to prove otherwise, all you can come up with is a lame 'what if' that supposedly is 'most likely'? On what do you base this?

Government forces will most likely be compromised to an incredible degree as the people their fighting against are essentially the same people working for them. Just by starting the war the government would lose a number of units and many more would be combat ineffective and that's just a civilian-driven rebellion, a military coup could easily take place instead of/in addition to a civilian rebellion.

All in all, by the end of it the military would be badly depleted, the infrastructure and workforce would be devastated and it would be years before the resulting insurgency could be eliminated. That is what makes the possibility of an armed overthrow of the government a deterrent far more than the small chance that they would lose. The government therefore stands to lose far, far more than it stands to gain be instigating a situation like this.

[crashhelmet]

@Crashhelmet:
Violent crime is by a gargantuan margin more of a problem than mass-killings, and therefore any impact of a given approach on violent crime is more important than the impact on mass-killings. Both of which have been going down across the board and quite independently to gun regulation or lack thereof.

That said, that's a semi-impressive list of anecdotes about criminals killing people with guns, I could drum up equal lists of criminals killing people with edged weapons, blunt objects or simply by beating them to death. The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

As expected, you're missing my point. To quote myself

It's only complicated because too many people on both sides are too fearful and/or too stubborn to be reasonable.

All of your posts have been about how we need to let the people be armed because the criminals are going to be armed. I just showed you 43 separate instances within 12 years and 12 days where it was not a matter of worrying about the criminal element being armed. These were all crimes committed with legally owned weapons by by the people that owned them. If they didn't own them, their families did and they had full access to them.

43 instances leaving 125 people dead and 155 people wounded.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

To quote my opposition.

As expected, you're missing my point.

All of your posts have been about how we need to let the people be armed because the criminals are going to be armed. I just showed you 43 separate instances within 12 years and 12 days where it was not a matter of worrying about the criminal element being armed. These were all crimes committed with legally owned weapons by by the people that owned them. If they didn't own them, their families did and they had full access to them.

The second these people decided to kill someone to say nothing of any act towards achieving it these people became part of the criminal element. 43 instances in 12 years? drops in the homicide barrel. How many gang members kill people each year? How many rapists? How many people are killed by things other than guns?

These were instances where one or more people attacked and killed another person(s). Career-criminal or not, guns or no guns, people attack and kill other people every day, and every day potential victims save themselves by fighting back, the better armed they are, the more likely they are to succeed.

Nothing any of us can do will stop murderers from being murderers, we can't recognize bad people on sight. The best any of us can hope to accomplish is to recognize that something bad is about to happen, and when it does, take action. Every human being has a right to prepare themselves to do exactly that.

No law will change this. No amount of good intentions will alter it. Like it or not, when faced with someone or something that is trying to end your life you have two options: fight or flight. There are no guarantees, and the cops are ten minutes away. Who are you to force people to choose only one just because you aren't comfortable with the other?

[Greenday]

No law will change this. No amount of good intentions will alter it. Like it or not, when faced with someone or something that is trying to end your life you have two options: fight or flight. There are no guarantees, and the cops are ten minutes away. Who are you to force people to choose only one just because you aren't comfortable with the other?

This is basically the biggest argument that has made me more in favor of guns.

[Vash113]

Alright well I've decided I can't let Wingates have all the fun here so I've decided to jump in and I'm bringing a slew of actual data with me.

First and foremost I will point to one of the best sources and research minds on the subject, Gary Kleck. You can find a full and complete essay of his data, conclusions and arguments here.

To simplify things I'll post here some quotes and data from his article:

"At least 12 national and 3 state-wide surveys have asked probability samples of the general adult population about defensive gun use. The surveys differ in many important respects. The two most sophisticated national surveys are the National Self-Defense Survey done by Marc Gertz and myself in 1995 and a smaller scale survey done by the Police Foundation in 1996."

"The National Self-Defense Survey indicated that there were 2.5 million incidents of defensive gun use per year in the U.S. during the 1988-1993 period. This is probably a conservative estimate, for two reasons."

"The authors concluded that defensive uses of guns are about three to four times as common as criminal uses of guns. The National Self-Defense Survey confirmed the picture of frequent defensive gun use implied by the results of earlier, less sophisticated surveys.

A national survey conducted in 1994 by the Police Foundation and sponsored by the National Institute of Justice almost exactly confirmed the estimates from the National Self-Defense Survey. This survey's person-based estimate was that 1.44% of the adult population had used a gun for protection against a person in the previous year, implying 2.73 million defensive gun users."

"Most uses of guns for either criminal or defensive purposes are less dramatic or consequential than one might think. Only 3% of criminal gun assaults involves anyone actually being wounded, even nonfatally, and the same is true of defensive gun uses."

"Data from the National Self-Defense Survey indicate that no more than 8% of the 2.5 million annual defensive gun uses involved a defender who claimed to have shot their adversaries, or about 200,000 total."

"Nonfatal gun woundings are far more frequent than fatal shootings. In 1985 Cook reviewed data that indicate that about 15% of assault-linked gunshot wounds known to the police are fatal, implying a ratio of about 5.67 (85/15) reported nonfatal assaultive gun woundings to each fatal one. Assuming the same applies to legal civilian defensive shootings, there were between 6,300 and 15,300 reported nonfatal, legally permissible woundings of criminals by gun-armed civilians in 1990. Combining the defensive killings and nonfatal woundings, there are about 7,700 to 18,500 reported legal shootings of criminals a year, which would be less than 1% of all defensive gun uses."

"A 1989 national survey found that 27% of gun owners have a gun mainly for protection, and 62% said that protection from crime was at least one of the reasons they owned guns. This translates into about 16 million people in 1993 who had guns mainly for protection, and about 36 million in 1993 who had them at least partly for protection.

Further, many gun owners, and almost certainly a majority of those who own guns primarily for protection, keep a household gun loaded. The 1989 survey found that 24% of gun owners always keep a gun loaded, and another 7% had a gun loaded at the time of the interview although they did not do so all the time, for a total of 31%. Guns were most commonly kept in the bedroom, where they would be ready for nighttime use."

"A December 1989 CNN/Time national survey of 605 U.S. gun owners asked the following question: "Does having a gun in your house make you feel more safe from crime, less safe, or doesn't it make any difference?" Of the gun owners, 42% felt more safe, 2% felt less safe, and the rest said it made no difference. Results were virtually identical in a May 1994 survey for U.S. News and World Report. When asked "Overall, do you feel comfortable with a gun in your house or are you sometimes afraid of it?," 92% of gun owners said they were comfortable, 6% were sometimes afraid, and 2% were not sure.

In sum, most gun owners, including many who do not even have a gun for defensive reasons, feel comfortable with guns, feel safer from crime because of them, and believe their guns actually do make them safer."

"An August, 1994 Gallup poll asked: "Suppose a law were passed which you were certain would remove all handguns from the possession of all citizens other than the police. Would you feel more safe, less safe, or wouldn't it make any difference?" While 32% said they would feel more safe, 41% said they would feel less safe, and the remainder felt it would make no difference. Since there are more who would feel less safe than who would feel more safe, the net effect on the population as a whole of eliminating guns would be to make the population feel less safe."

"National Crime Victimization Survey estimates indicate that 83% of Americans will, sometime over the span of their lives, be a victim of a violent crime, all of which by definition involve direct confrontation with a criminal. Although it cannot be stated what share of these incidents will transpire in a way that would allow the victim to actually use a gun, it is clear that a large share of the population will experience a violent victimization."

"Incidents in which householders shoot family members mistaken for burglars and other criminals have occurred, but they are extremely rare. Studies indicate that fewer than 2% of fatal gun accidents involve a person accidentally shooting someone mistaken for an intruder. With 1409 fatal gun accidents in 1992, this implies that there are fewer than 28 incidents of this sort annually. Compared with about 2.5 million annual defensive uses of guns, this translates into about a less than 1-in-90,000 chance of a defensive gun use resulting in this kind of accident."

"In the 1979-1985 National-Crime-Victimization-Survey sample, it was possible to identify crime incidents in which the victim used a gun for protection and lost a gun to the offender(s). At most, 1% of defensive gun uses resulted in the offender taking a gun away from the victim. Even these few cases did not necessarily involve the offender snatching a gun out of the victim's hands. Instead a burglar might, for example, have been leaving a home with one of the household's guns when a resident attempted to stop him using another household gun. Thus, the 1% figure probably represents an upper limit."

And now Gleck's own summary of his article's major points:

"Defensive gun uses by crime victims are three to four times more common than crimes committed with guns;

Victim gun use is associated with lower rates of assault or robbery victim injury and lower rates of robbery completion than any other defensive action or doing nothing to resist;

Serious predatory criminals perceive a risk from victim gun use that is roughly comparable to that of criminal-justice-system actions, and this perception may influence their criminal behavior in socially desirable ways.

A deterrent effect of widespread gun ownership and defensive use has not been conclusively established, any more than it has been for activities of the legal system. Given the nature of deterrent effects, it may never be convincingly established. Nevertheless, available evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that civilian ownership and defensive use of guns deters violent crime and reduces burglar-linked injuries.

Economic injustice, a history of racism, and other factors have created dangerous conditions in many places in America. Police cannot realistically be expected to provide personal protection for every American, and indeed are not even legally obliged to do so. Although gun ownership is no more an all-situations, magical source of protection than the police, it can be a useful source of safety in addition to police protection, burglary alarms, guard dogs, and all the other resources people exploit to improve their security. These sources are not substitutes for one another. Rather, they are complements, each useful in different situations. Possession of a gun gives its owner an additional option for dealing with danger. If other sources of security are adequate, the gun does not have to be used; but where other sources fail, it can preserve bodily safety and property in at least some situations.

People sympathetic toward gun control yet skeptical about its likely impact sometimes note that although a world in which there were no guns would be desirable, it is also unachievable. The evidence raises a more radical possibility--that a world in which no one had guns would actually be less safe than a hypothetical one in which nonaggressors had guns and aggressors did not.

If gun possession among prospective victims tends to reduce violence, then reducing such gun possession is not, in and of itself, a social good. To disarm noncriminals in the hope that this might indirectly help reduce access to guns among criminals is a very high-stakes gamble, and the risks will not be reduced by pretending that crime victims rarely use guns for self-defense."

I would also point you to John Lott's article here.

His most pertinent point I think is thus:

"Of all the multiple victim shootings around the country in public schools, the Appalachian Law School, on city streets, churches, or in malls that have been stopped law-abiding citizens with concealed handguns, none, not a single one has resulted in innocent bystanders being shot. Indeed, rarely do the citizens with the concealed handguns actually pull the trigger, simply brandishing the gun stops the attack. Permit holders do not endanger others."

Next we move to the National Rifle Assossiation's news podcast. The podcast features a segment titled Hero of the Day about individuals who have successfully used firearms for self-protection. There are currently 197 such video segments, several of which contain more than one incident of defensive gun use. Here is a link to the NRA News blog.

For more information on the subject I direct readers to the blog of the renowned and highly respected Massad Ayoob. A decorated police officer and experienced practitioner of concealed carry on the job and off he is a major proponent and expert in the area of Gun Rights. He is also among the most frequently called upon experts in the area of self-defense in the nation.

Lastly I will point everyone to the youtube channel of acting Air Force Pilot nutnfancy, particularly his video on The Concealed Carry Protocol.

nutnfancy is an experienced military veteran, gear tester and gun owner with a great many videos on the subject of gun rights and the philosophies of gun ownership. For all those who think avid gun rights advocates are all crazy yahoo hicks his videos might well widen some perspectives and change some minds.

As for me personally, I live in a very low crime area and have no real need or reason to protect myself from anything other than drunk college students, but I nevertheless am an avid proponent of Constitutional Rights and acknowledge the needs and concerns of others who do not live in such a priviledged environment. The 2nd Ammendment gives all Americans the right to bear arms and nearly 60 Million of us choose to do so. I would no more wish to see that right violated than our right to free speech, equality under the law or freedom of religion.

Irrational fear of an inanimate object of metal and plastic is no justification to trample over our rights as American Citizens.

Besides, as Wingates said, Cops do not really protect us from crimes that are in progress, they merely respond to crimes after they have happened. When it is time for fight or flight I'd much rather be able to fight. Studies have shown it is simply more effective and less likely to result in injury or loss of property and frankly a gun is the best way to go about it.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Vash, this was supposed to be a couple hundred posts worth of poking anti-gunners with a stick! why bring all your logic and evidence!?! /sarcasm

On a more serious note, I'd also like to point people towards some more of nutnfancy's excellent productions:
"Close to Engage" "The Sheepdog Concept" and "Dangerous Things"

EDIT:
He also has a number of great backpacking videos such as "Where the Air is Thin"
Tactical shooting videos such as "Sledgehammer"
and gun/gear reviews such as his review of the Kel-Tec PF-9 and the Condor Softshell Jacket
You'know, for those so inclined

[protege]

"Of all the multiple victim shootings around the country in public schools, the Appalachian Law School, on city streets, churches, or in malls that have been stopped law-abiding citizens with concealed handguns, none, not a single one has resulted in innocent bystanders being shot. Indeed, rarely do the citizens with the concealed handguns actually pull the trigger, simply brandishing the gun stops the attack. Permit holders do not endanger others."

I have to agree with that. Take the average gang-land shooting. These assholes simply spray the entire area with bullets. They simply either don't know how to handle a firearm, or don't care that they'll take someone else out.

As for me personally, I live in a very low crime area and have no real need or reason to protect myself from anything other than drunk college students, but I nevertheless am an avid proponent of Constitutional Rights and acknowledge the needs and concerns of others who do not live in such a priviledged environment.

I too live in a very low crime area. We've had one murder in the past 25 years and yes, I do know where it happened. From what I understand, the guy got promoted at work...over several people who didn't like him. One of them, broke into his house, and surprised him when he got home. He was shot and killed. Still, crime in the area doesn't live in a vacuum--we've seen a steady increase because of the Section 8 complex nearby. Those assholes have been breaking into local houses...and yes, several of my neighbors are armed.

Besides, as Wingates said, Cops do not really protect us from crimes that are in progress, they merely respond to crimes after they have happened. When it is time for fight or flight I'd much rather be able to fight. Studies have shown it is simply more effective and less likely to result in injury or loss of property and frankly a gun is the best way to go about it.

But, guns aren't always available. Back in '94, my grandmother was in a serious auto accident. She was in the hospital, and I was living with her while going to college. One night, someone attempted to break into the house because they thought it would be an easy score. Little did they know that I heard it, and wasn't going to let it happen. I grabbed the nearest thing I could find (a pitchfork), went after the son of a bitch...chasing him into the darkness.

Had I called the cops, they would have taken their good old time getting there. Rural area, with the nearest police department being the state police 5 miles away. I knew that they'd show up about 10-15 minutes later, and if the train was at the crossing at Route 218, they'd be even later.

[PepperElf]

As covered in other threads as nauseum, there's a far easier availability of guns in the US than the UK. Hop over the state or county border and just bring it in.

that might be because the UK is an island.

it's much easier to cross state borders than it is to cross UK borders

[Gravekeeper]

You seriously think that every enemy killed in Iraq and Afghanistan was killed by UAVs?

That's not what I said. This is why I stopped trying to argue with you.

Domestic wars are also more difficult for a variety of reasons. <snip>

We're not honestly talking a realistic scenario. I already pointed out it was much more likely to devolve into a quagmire of civil war. BlaqueKatt is the one that brought up a straight up Us vs Them where both sides take perfectly aligned teams. If conflict were to seriously break out in the US, it wouldn't be between the people and the government + military. As inevitably many in the military would defect, equipment and facilities would be seized, and it would be a gigantic clusterfuck without clearly marked combatants.

The industrial apparatus that makes modern armies possible will most likely grind to a halt in the turmoil.

You are correct, this would be an inevitable eventuality though for more reasons then you indicate. But a lot of damage is going to get done before the military runs through its stockpiles and BlaqueKatt didn't specify what side non-military forces such as defense contracters and "security firms" are going to fall on.

Ironically, much of the damage would probably be done by Canada cutting off trade with the US.

All in all, by the end of it the military would be badly depleted, the infrastructure and workforce would be devastated and it would be years before the resulting insurgency could be eliminated.

But again, we're not talking why the government shouldn't attack. We're talking BlaqueKatt's Us vs Them scenario. Yeah, you would get an insurgency, but it wouldn't be an insurgency that has a civilian population to hide behind or amongst as the civilian population in this scenario has been declared the enemy. Which is the heart of the problem with effectively dealing with a group such as the Taliban in Afghanistan.

First and foremost I will point to one of the best sources and research minds on the subject, Gary Kleck.

Ignoring the fact Gary has a pretty blatant agenda, and this study is over a decade old and at points he uses data over 20-30 years old, and thus this entire study is woefully out of date. And that his study, and the entire topic of defensive gun use is a massively conflicted shitstorm between several different studies and universities that squabbled over it for years. And that your second reference, John Lott, can't produce any of the survey data he used, his sample sizes were too small and that he use to write phony reviews on Amazon some of which bash your first reference, Gary... >.>

First of all, of course you're going to have a lot of defensive gun use. As I said earlier, if the tools are available, they will be used. And if the culture embraces, even applauds their use, damn straight they're going to be whipped out whenever possible.

The problem is they will be used by everyone. Again, you have more defensive gun use than criminal use? Ok, but you still have far more criminal use than countries with a lower rate of firearm ownership, availability and/or stricter gun control laws too. Its an escalating cycle.

I'm not even going to touch his study & summary too be honest. I read it and started writing up a big ass discussion, but there's not much point is there? His study is outdated, criticized, debated, makes leaps of logic to support his view and is just one of many in a larger academic conflict between several universities over the entire topic.

As for John, he can't even produce the original survey data he supposedly used for peer review and when he repeated the study, his sample size was too small to produce accurate results.

[bara]

I dont think we need more legislation for gun control. I just think we need to actually enforce what we do have.

You know.. do silly things like have more/better trained police actually out patrolling areas that are more likely to have crimes committed that need to be stopped rather than working as revenue generators for cities/townships/counties by writing tickets for people commiting victimless crimes so they can meet a quota... it says PROTECT and SERVE. Not collect and serve.

The Arizona shooting was a tragedy. But this guy was a nut job that just cracked. He probably would have managed to get a gun and shoot people no matter how many laws get passed.

To that end though. I dont think I would mind if hand guns were banned altogether as seriously.. they only have one purpose.

You cant go deer hunting with a glock. Shoot bambi with a pistol and hes just going get mad and kick your ass.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

That's not what I said. This is why I stopped trying to argue with you.

*ahem*

You're not going to *see* a soldier to fight him. You're going to get picked off by a drone. ;p

That's what you said, right there, so unless you have something to actually refute my conclusion...

We're not honestly talking a realistic scenario. I already pointed out it was much more likely to devolve into a quagmire of civil war. BlaqueKatt is the one that brought up a straight up Us vs Them where both sides take perfectly aligned teams. If conflict were to seriously break out in the US, it wouldn't be between the people and the government + military. As inevitably many in the military would defect, equipment and facilities would be seized, and it would be a gigantic clusterfuck without clearly marked combatants.

So basically you're agreeing with me. okay.

You are correct, this would be an inevitable eventuality though for more reasons then you indicate. But a lot of damage is going to get done before the military runs through its stockpiles and BlaqueKatt didn't specify what side non-military forces such as defense contracters and "security firms" are going to fall on.

Probably because there's no way of knowing, really, but since they're technically civilians they'd more likely than not side with civilians in more cases than the gov if they sided with anyone at all.

Ironically, much of the damage would probably be done by Canada cutting off trade with the US.

I probably wouldn't sell to people who're shooting at each other either, they're preoccupied and your merchandise ends up with all these holes...

But again, we're not talking why the government shouldn't attack. We're talking BlaqueKatt's Us vs Them scenario. Yeah, you would get an insurgency, but it wouldn't be an insurgency that has a civilian population to hide behind or amongst as the civilian population in this scenario has been declared the enemy. Which is the heart of the problem with effectively dealing with a group such as the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Actually we are talking about why the government shouldn't attack, most of the power behind a deterrent is the creation of a scenario where the deterred action becomes a bad idea/worse idea than before.

Ignoring the fact Gary has a pretty blatant agenda,

Not really, his conclusions are pretty consistently derived from the data, and unless you can point to an instance in which he exercises a bias this is a non-argument at best.

and this study is over a decade old and at points he uses data over 20-30 years old,

I see no reason why the same study would find anything different now than it did then especially since, as you so helpfully pointed out, actual hard data on this area is pretty hard to find. So you take what you can get.

and thus this entire study is woefully out of date.

Possibly, as with all things. But in the end, all of the data we've got indicates that the idea of gun control is fallacious and the concept of self defense via firearms is very well grounded. Unless you have stronger data that demonstrates the opposite we've got no choice but to go by what we do have.

And that his study, and the entire topic of defensive gun use is a massively conflicted shitstorm between several different studies and universities that squabbled over it for years.

Irrelevant to the veracity of this article. You must demonstrate that these studies and these conclusions are fallacious not controversial. Plenty of pretty simple shit was/is controversial, doesn't mean no one's right.

And that your second reference, John Lott, can't produce any of the survey data he used, his sample sizes were too small and that he use to write phony reviews on Amazon some of which bash your first reference, Gary... >.>

Again, neither have you, so I'm tempted to hold this lack of listed sources in what is, after all, a tiny article on one news site as being inconsequential. His conclusion that no innocent bystander has ever been injured by CCW holders engaging mass-shooters isn't derived from a wealth of data so much as a lack of it. All you have to do is come up with one instance in which this has happened to disprove him. I didn't spend much time on it, but I wasn't able to so far.

Also, the last time I checked Lotts disagreements with Gary are far from 'bashing' label-worthy, and in academia it's important to remember that disagreement isn't a sin.

First of all, of course you're going to have a lot of defensive gun use. As I said earlier, if the tools are available, they will be used. And if the culture embraces, even applauds their use, damn straight they're going to be whipped out whenever possible.

Which is great because, judging by the numbers, it also works pretty well. So this whole "aw but what about all the ones that don't actually get used?" thing I keep hearing from anti-gunners is therefore bullshit, after all, people use it all the time.

The problem is they will be used by everyone. Again, you have more defensive gun use than criminal use? Ok, but you still have far more criminal use than countries with a lower rate of firearm ownership, availability and/or stricter gun control laws too. Its an escalating cycle.

Ignoring one important point here. While hardly slam-dunk the data so far indicates that this so called 'escalating cycle' is actually more along the lines of a normal cause-effect series as violent crime falls a bit more in areas where gun ownership and carriage are higher. Which means that, while the criminals are armed more than in other countries, there's also fewer of them or at least they're less active. So the problem is actually de-escalating. What we really need is a study comparing the number of victims that are injured or lose property when the criminal has a gun to the number of victims that are injured or lose property when the criminal has anything else, just can't seem to find one...

I'm not even going to touch his study & summary too be honest. I read it and started writing up a big ass discussion, but there's not much point is there? His study is outdated, criticized, debated, makes leaps of logic to support his view and is just one of many in a larger academic conflict between several universities over the entire topic.

There's plenty of point. In fact, I'd be eager to get some specific references to flaws and explanations and proof thereto instead of what you've given us so far: largely unsupported generalizations. If you can demonstrate any of those things, more power to you, if not, then obviously there's no point listening because it's mighty hard to hear an argument that isn't being made!

Again, controversy =/= inability to be correct. Demonstrate that it's incorrect and that it's because of controversy.

As for John, he can't even produce the original survey data he supposedly used for peer review and when he repeated the study, his sample size was too small to produce accurate results.

Actually, with a simple google search the data he used is widely available, just takes a little effort. As to whether or not the limited follow up was big enough to 'count' I'll leave that up for the experts, but at the very least it was consistent with the rest of the data he gathered for the original, so it's definitely not proof against his study's veracity.

[crashhelmet]

So about these "Defensive Gun Use" statistics...

How many of the incidents were against another person with a gun and not someone shooting at a possible burglar/mugger, someone invoking the Castle Doctrine and shooting someone that steps onto their property, or someone that's paranoid and simply thinks they're in danger?