I am for gun rights, but there is a BIG flaw in the "Everyone should be armed" argument

[Taverner]

OK - let just say Mr Crazy McKiller decides to start shooting people at a University. Let's just say all the students are armed.

Mr Crazy starts firing shots. Students will panic and seek cover. This is a GOOD thing.

However, the armed students, and let's just say they're the majority, pull out their weapons and return fire.

At this point no one will know who is the killer, and where he/she is firing from, so any time a gun IS fired, it is returned with a bunch of counter-fire. I know that's not what it's called - but humor me here.

Now anyone out there is in danger. Yeah, Crazy McKiller might be shot and killed. But so will a lot of other people.

And don't tell me that every person carrying will be smart and know what to shoot at. The CCW program is very good at making sure those with said permits know a little about guns. They're not the ones I'm worried about.

It's everyone else, who is now panicking, and firing at anything that makes a sound.

OK - let's say we force every High School senior to take a gun safety course. They'll STILL panic, because when you're in a situation like that, you aren't using reason, you're using instant reactions.

Think of the Tet Offensive. Most soldiers did not know where the VC was coming from. As a result, there were a lot of deaths by friendly fire. And these were soldiers, who had better gun training than anything the NRA could give.

[pnwmom]

1. Yes, and that situation happened here in a state park.

Somebody fired a warning shot into the air -- at an argument during a family picnic -- and suddenly others pulled out guns and bullets went flying.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/2-shot-to-death-at-Lake-Sammamish-State-Park-897234.php

Two men were shot to death and four others wounded by gunfire Saturday night at Lake Sammamish State Park, according to a King County Sheriff's spokesman.

"We don't know if they're innocent victims, people caught in the crossfire, suspects, another shooter -- we don't know," said Sgt. John Urquhart.

SNIP

"We thought they were fireworks at first because there were so many in a row, like 15 or more," park visitor Laura Thoren told KOMO-TV/4. "We didn't pay that much attention to it until the cops that were nearby in the parking lot zoomed off to find out what was going on."

SNIP

Detectives found at least one gun at the scene of the shooting, and several other guns in a car parked nearby, Urquhart said. Investigators believe other guns were stashed in the park after the shooting and deputies need to find the weapons before the park can reopen, he added.



Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/2-shot-to-death-at-Lake-Sammamish-State-Park-897234.php#ixzz1UB6FpeYP

[iverglas]

31. and it got appropriate mention in this forum

Well, predictable mention, anyhow.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x340998

Hm, I'm only counting four tombstones in that short thread ...

[AtheistCrusader]

154. You know damn well it wasn't a 'family' picnic.

I can see the spot where the shootings occurred from my office window.

It was two rival GANGS not 'families'.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/24298919/detail.html

Nor was this a case of 'oh snap, someone's shooting, I better shoot back' crossfire. It was an out-and-out direct shooting between people that are perfectly happy to kill each other. I'm not sure about the 4 victims that survived, but the two dead guys were one each from the two gangs involved.

Try harder next time.
http://www.king5.com/news/local/Lake-Sammamish-State-Park-shooting-deaths-98740034.html
http://www.issaquahpress.com/2010/07/18/investigators-recover-four-guns-in-lake-sammamish-state-park-release-details-about-shooting-victims/

Who wants to bet if the 4 gang members carrying guns were doing so lawfully, before the shooting broke out?

[Rageneau]

2. Bartcop used a hypothetical like this to show how slaughters could start anywhere ...

including church.

Belay that -- hell, ESPECIALLY in church, where I'd expect to find a higher percentage of CCWs.

[slackmaster]

3. Taverner, I'm sorry but I must Unrec your giant straw man post

Nobody on this forum has ever seriously suggested having a majority of people, much less everyone, armed with guns.

[Taverner]

4. You may not have, but many here on DU have...

It comes up every time there is a mass killing

To be honest, I think have a nice distribution of CCW holders WOULD stop senseless violence

But that's already the case in most states

[slackmaster]

14. I must now challenge you to cite even a single instance of someone SERIOUSLY suggesting...

...that everyone should be armed.

[slackmaster]

18. Surely you can find one concrete example and show it to us

Let's see one. Just one!

[WingDinger]

51. Hold your horses. This is what happens when SOME people have guns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMGn6aLcFs4

Oh, and notice how well it would work, to have guns to get the real bad guy. They all missed. Those thinking that guns are making you safe, are idiots.

[slackmaster]

57. When the real world fails to provide examples to justify your irrational fear,

You can always fall back on presenting the actions of violent armed criminals as examples of what would surely be the result of allowing people to get licenses to carry guns legally.

[WingDinger]

58. Oh, you mean you can tell all of them arent CCW? None picked up a gun to protect themselves?

You are a friggin Kreskin. Or did you see them fire the guns sideways?

[slackmaster]

64. Burden of proof falls on the party who makes a claim

By posting that video link, you are implying that at A) at least some of the people involved in the melee had permits and B) were carrying guns legally, as in not in violation of pesky laws such as those that prohibit carrying while consuming alcohol.

I can't even tell where or when that video was shot, so you'll have to provide more data for us.

[Name removed]

67. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[slackmaster]

70. Starbucks outlets, like most businesses, are private property and have the right to ban guns

Or anything else.

I dont imply knowing anything about those shooters.

Then why on Earth did you present that video as relevant to this discussion?

Did you think nobody would call you on the fact that their behavior was criminal from the get-go, including their possession of concealed firearms?

:crazy:

[WingDinger]

74. And the gun freaks threatened boycott to any business that did so.

Likely would be burned to the ground.

[Glassunion]

81. Ha!

Stay classy.

[WingDinger]

82. Do you agree with those that threatened boycott?

[Glassunion]

85. No I got a chuckle out of your comment...

[Llewlladdwr]

287. I do.

If a business engages in actions with which I disagree why should I spend my money there?

[slackmaster]

84. There you go again, conflating people who are engaging in lawful activity, i.e. free expression...

...with criminals, in this case arsonists.

[Name removed]

86. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[slackmaster]

89. Of course you could. This is teh Internetz. You can find just about anything.

[PavePusher]

129. Cite your evidence to support your accusation of criminal action, or retract your statement. n/t

[oneshooter]

173. He can't do the first, and won't do the second. n/t

[Glassunion]

Yep... Kreskin...

According to the Toledo Blade, police say one of the suspects was trying to sell marijuana when a bar employee asked the man to leave. A fight then erupted.

Sounds like a group of upstanding citizens to me.

[Name removed]

69. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Glassunion]

71. What?

You said: Oh, you mean you can tell all of them arent CCW?

I pointed out in all probability, because they were trying to deal drugs that they were not.

[WingDinger]

75. Oh, every bar patron was dealing?

[Glassunion]

76. No... But the dudes who started the fight and shooting were.

[WingDinger]

78. Sounds like a real life situation, and a perfect labratory for whether or not guns make you safe.

In that instance, I would rather have a pepper grenade, or stun grenade.

[Glassunion]

79. It was a real life situation, however hardly the perfect labratory.

This one event where a group of drug dealers shooting randomly and without aiming is not the litmus test for all gun encounters.

[WingDinger]

80. I heard ONE guy dealing, and thrown out.

[Glassunion]

83. How many guys were thrown out? I counted 4 from the video.

It looks like there were 2 people shooting inside and 4 outside.

"The brother of the shooter under the pool table says the bouncer tried to kick several men out of the bar for selling weed."

"Sawyer's brother told him he did not know the man next to him at the pool table or the men he was shooting at.

According to Sawyer's brother, the gun he had was dropped by one of the bar patrons. The cook retrieved the gun and brought it back to the front with him.

On video seen around the world, the cook is clearly shooting. We asked 'Why shouldn't he get an attempted murder charge and go to jail?'

His brother replied, "Because he did not come out to attempt to murder anybody, he came out with the purpose of protecting patrons in the bar." "

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=news/local&id=7063959

[WingDinger]

88. How would you like your mother to be a friendly fire mushroom, and the guy that killed her was

let off, cuz he meant well?

[Glassunion]

92. 1. My mother would not be in that bar.

2. She is a far better shot than those thugs.

[WingDinger]

63. Oh, and I have a gun that aI needed to protect me against a guy I had to fire, and the cops told me

he was planning a mass shooting at work. And yes, I was a criminal, cuz I had no choice but to carry it in car etc. I KNOW the drill.

[slackmaster]

66. Wat?

Your reply makes no sense.

[WingDinger]

72. I am not afraid of guns, and I know their utility. Also have practiced tactics in paintball.

Oh, and I almost singlehandedly wiped out the four times stronger force of national guard troops with my ragtag paintball crew. There goes your better trained canard.

[michreject]

116. Too funny.

Also have practiced tactics in paintball.

[Starboard Tack]

107. Violent people tend to use handguns or automatic rapid fire hi-cap weapons

As long as those weapons are available. they will be acquired, legally or illegally. You don't need either to satisfy your 2A rights.

[PavePusher]

130. Bullshit.

Cite, please. Good luck finding machine-gun crimes.

[Starboard Tack]

164. Machine gun crimes?

[PavePusher]

192. This:

"automatic rapid fire hi-cap weapons" = machine gun.

If that was not your intent, you picked the wrong verbiage.

Yes, technical nuance is important in these discussions, no matter how many people claim it doesn't matter.

[Starboard Tack]

196. What did loughner use? Would that qualify?

How rapid does the fire have to be?

[PavePusher]

198. Jello from you too? Color me disappointed. n/t

[Starboard Tack]

206. Boohoo, now go have a nice cup of tea. You'll be right as rain

[We_Have_A_Problem]

261. Loughner used...

...a pretty common SEMI-automatic pistol.

It is technology which is over 100 years old.

[DWC]

109. Do you actually believe this is real?

Filmed to insinuate surveillance cameras interior and exterior of a small, local bar with one coin operated pool table.
Note:

Interior and exterior provide continuous feed WITH audio which hard violates the law. That simply is not the real deal.

Sorry you were mislead by these guys playing gang bangers like children play cops and robbers.

I have a CCW license. I constant carry and train regularly for self defense. Your opinion of me and those like me is about as as valid as your example of a "real gun fight".

Semper Fi,

[Francis Marion]

213. A roomful of impaired people

pose a worst case sample and surely bias any conclusion drawn from them alone. Bunch of drunk lowlifes to me, and far below, in so many different ways, what Americans are capable of reaching. Still protected by the Bill of Rights, though, in spite of their disgusting behavior and ineffective performance.

Anyway- what if the activity was CPR- because some Red Cross certified providers get drunk and botch it, does that mean that nobody else is capable of performing CPR properly?

Society sees the benefit of having well skilled people save lives through CPR, Heimlich, etc. People take classes and demonstrate competence through the Red Cross, AHA. Gun owners should take their concealed or open carrying that seriously- no doubt many people do the necessary work. Gunfighting is just not institutionalized knowledge, as are other aspects of life preservation. Private companies Front Sight, Gunsite, or fill-in-the-blank gun school and their standards are what people seeking formal instruction must choose from.

[DWC]

29. With this I fully agree...

Requiring proof of competance to handle a handgun in public, just as we require proof of competance to drive a car on public roads, is a reasonable precaution for public safety.

In no case should cost for that permit be financially restrictive or exceed that of a Driver's License.

Other than specified, highly secured areas such as court rooms and airport high security areas, permitted individuals should be authorized to carry anywhere they want.

However, if my only two choices were
1. every honest citizen should be armed, or
2. every honest citizen should be disarmed,

I will vote for #1 every time.

Semper Fi,

[SteveM]

48. Buddy, it's not only a straw man, but an oft-repeated lie. nt

[PavePusher]

50. Bull.

No-one advocate arming everyone. (Please cite if you can...)

Some of us advocate allowing everyone freedom of choice in the matter.

I assume you understand the difference

[pnwmom]

5. Wrong. I've seen that posted MANY times.

This is not a straw man at all.

[Straw Man]

8. Cite please.

And please don't conflate "someone" with "everyone."

[pnwmom]

11. Here's one. You can find the others yourself, if you're that passionate about this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=561589&mesg_id=562592

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=561589&mesg_id=562615

[slackmaster]

17. Bullshit is as bullshit does

You can't find a single instance, and "Google it yourself" is a lame cop-out.

[pnwmom]

19. I changed the post.

"Nope, M-16A2 should be issued to every non felon American citizen

I don't trust Repubs but if we match them in firepower we can keep them in line.

Most Repubs own guns."


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=561589&mesg_id=562592

Excemptions would be granted but they had better be good

If you are a real pacifist you would be exempted.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=561589&mesg_id=562615

[slackmaster]

21. One bad link, one link to a disruptive post by a tombstoned RW troll

You're 0 for 2.

[pnwmom]

23. I fixed the links. The comments were made by a DUer.

You're changing the goal posts.

[slackmaster]

24. Now you have two links to disruptive posts by the same tombstoned RW troll

A thread in which I conspicuously disavowed the position that everyone should be armed.

:D

[pnwmom]

25. Yes, you did. So you weren't telling the truth when you said these

comments were never made on DU.

[slackmaster]

28. I said they were never made SERIOUSLY

Obviously troll posts and sarcasm don't count.

Also, the Astute Observer(TM) will note that you had to go all the way back to 2003 to find something resembling what you were challenged to produce.

[pnwmom]

30. The person was a DU member at the time.

You're still trying to change the goal posts.

[slackmaster]

34. Obviously we are never going to agree on details. Such statements are anything but common.

The concept of arming everyone, or even most people, doesn't remotely reflect the views of anyone involved in this thread. It's a gross distortion of the mainstream view of pro-RKBA people in general.

That's why I tarred it as as straw man, and I stand by what I originally wrote. It's a position so far out of line with what people actually believe, that there isn't any point in trying to argue against it. Its absurdity is self-evident to pretty much everyone.

[iverglas]

32. "one link to a disruptive post by a tombstoned RW troll"

Hahahaha. C'mon, give 'er a break. It's kinda hard to link to much else once you get back a year or so into the archives of this forum ...

[RSillsbee]

36. M-16A2 should be issued to every non felon American citizen

can I opt for an M14 or M16A1 instead ?

[tortoise1956]

242. Hell with that!

Give me a Garand any time.

Of course, I don't look as mean as Clint Eastwood...

[SteveM]

53. You are not being honest...

"...to every non felon American citizen."

So that everyone now includes "non-felons?"

You persistently continue to be dishonest. Standard Operating Procedure for gun-controller/banners.

[slackmaster]

16. I've seen it posted many times too, but only as sarcasm

Never once has anyone seriously suggested it on DU AFAIK.

[SteveM]

49. Yeah, posted MANY times by gun-controller/banners. Cite sources. nt

[Glassunion]

52. No you have not.

Your two examples of the same: tomb-stoned, anti-women's rights, disruptor from 8 years ago hardly equate to MANY.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SteveM]

55. Cite your sources. nt

[Hoyt]

20. Many have pushed for gun proliferation in public, on school campuses, in bars, parks, you name it.

[iverglas]

27. oh look, you said just that in last year's thread about the Seattle picnic shootings

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4470243

You really do need to look up the concept of "hyperbole", and also what "concrete thinking" can be symptomatic of.


But anyhow ...

Nobody on this forum has ever seriously suggested having a majority of people, much less everyone, armed with guns.

If by "people" we understand "adults" ... as I think most of us do* ... how's that then?

Is a majority of people in the US not eligible to tote firearms around in public?

So if anybody proposes that it be legal for anyone not criminally/psychiatrically disqualified from doing so to do so, how would that not amount to advocating that a majority of people be armed with guns?

Logical conclusion, I'd say.



* edit - but I can still never figure out how it is that 17-yr-olds ... and 8-yr-olds ... should be denied access to the most effective tool for self-defence. People do assault, abduct and rob children. Not all children have bodyguards, do they?

[TPaine7]

40. I would think the answer should be self-evident...

So if anybody proposes that it be legal for anyone not criminally/psychiatrically disqualified from doing so to do so, how would that not amount to advocating that a majority of people be armed with guns?

Let's take the Gun Control Reality Distortion Field out of play thus:

So if anybody proposes that it be legal for anyone not disqualified from doing X to do X, how would that not amount to advocating that a majority of people do X?

Plug anything relevant into the space filled by X--traveling abroad, running the Boston Marathon, posting online, investing in the stock market...

Some people are criminally disqualified from these activities, prisoners, convicted hackers, financial felons. I propose that it be legal for anyone not disqualified from engaging in these activities to engage in them as they see fit. Does that mean that I advocate that the majority of people run the Boston Marathon?

This is your brain, people...

...and this is your brain on the Gun Control Reality Distortion Field.

[iverglas]

56. I see there's a lesson of adulthood you haven't picked up on yet

People are presumed to intend the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their actions.

Advocate that a majority of the population be permitted to wander abroad with firearms and possess firearms in a majority of situations, and don't claim not to have been advocating that they do so when they do.

[TPaine7]

77. The Boston Marathon analogy holds.

It is no more reasonably foreseeable that most folks will carry guns outside the home than it is that most will run the Boston Marathon.

Carrying a gun is--according to people who do so--a real pain. Even in places where no license is required to carry, most eligible folks don't.

(Good luck with your adulthood lessons. You might also consider that remedial reading class you've babbled so much about, and elementary logic.)

[TPaine7]

108. "Logical" conclusions reached under the GCRDF cannot be trusted, or applied in the real world

People are presumed to intend the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their actions.

Advocate that a majority of the population be permitted to wander abroad with firearms and possess firearms in a majority of situations, and don't claim not to have been advocating that they do so when they do.

Really?

Advocate that a majority of the population be permitted to run marathons, and don't claim not to have been advocating that they do so when they do.

Advocate that a majority of Canadian women be permitted to wander abroad topless in a majority of situations, and don't claim not to have been advocating that they do so when they do.

Advocate that a majority of the population be permitted to express extreme right wing views, and don't claim not to have been advocating that they do so when they do.

Advocate that a majority of the adult Canadian population be permitted to vote for Stephen Harper and work for his campaign, and don't claim not to have been advocating that they do so when they do.

The Field has shown you no mercy.

[Starboard Tack]

102. Seems to me that many toters here brag about the growth in sales and CCW permits

so it is rather disingenuous to not infer that a majority would be the goal. At the least, a majority of the "good, law-abiding citizens".

[TPaine7]

111. The growth of sales and CCW permits are a big deal to many of us because they

indicate the political strength of the gun rights movement.

I wouldn't want many people to carry weapons, just as I wouldn't want many to post on this site. I understand, however, that my wishes are less important than their freedom.

[Starboard Tack]

113. So, you revel in the growing political strength of the gun rights movement?!

but you wouldn't want many people to carry weapons. And you see no contradiction there? You understand that your wishes are less important than their freedom? What freedom? Freedom to walk around with a concealed fucking handgun? What freedom is that? Where is that "freedom" enunciated? Freedom to own machine guns? Where is that freedom enunciated?
Jesus, talk about fucking sheep.

[TPaine7]

119. As in, "there are many people I would prefer not carry," NOT I hope not many people carry."

And aren't the sheep the ones who think they only have those rights which someone has "enunciated"?! That's bass ackwards--as the US Constitution correctly emphasizes.

[Starboard Tack]

123. But you said "I wouldn't want many people to carry weapons,"

So who do you prefer carry weapons and how many is too many?
Regarding the sheep, I would say, by definition, they are blind followers of anything. Rights, you are correct, do not need to be enunciated or enumerated, like the right to live and operate in a gun free zone, if the democratically elected representatives in those areas make that decision.

[TPaine7]

124. I actually intended to say "there are many people who I would prefer not carry."

I failed in editing my post, leading me to misspeak.

As far as how many is too many, from my perspective, that's the wrong approach. The people who I don't want carrying are hate filled folks, folks who are not trained or psychologically ready to use a weapon correctly, power drunk cops, violent felons who have no record and people with anger control issues. If 100% of otherwise eligible didn't fall into those categories (and probably some others I didn't think of), I wouldn't mind if every eligible person carried.

Your last sentence seems to contradict itself. When elected representatives make legally binding decisions, they enunciate them in laws.

[Starboard Tack]

125. OK. So now we have something to discuss - gun control

which apparently we both agree there is a need for. You have stated the categories of people you don't want to be armed. Guess what? I'm in total 100% agreement with you and I'm sure 99% of the population would agree.

So, the question is, how do we accomplish that?

How do we decide who the "hate-filled folks" are? Establish a hate test?
Who decides if they are "not trained or psychologically ready to use a weapon correctly"?
and "power drunk cops" Good luck with that one.
and "violent felons who have no record" don't officially exist or we don't have any way of identifying them.
and "people with anger control issues", which probably includes most people on a really bad day, which is the one you left out and is really the catchall.
Normal, law abiding toters having a really shitty day.

Regarding - "Your last sentence seems to contradict itself. When elected representatives make legally binding decisions, they enunciate them in laws." Yes, they do, and then others challenge those laws by getting the Feds or SCOTUS to overrule them on constitutional grounds or Federal laws trump state laws rationale. The NRA lobbies heavily for many of those you would prefer not to be armed and to change local laws that decree gun-free zones.

[TPaine7]

146. It doesn't work like that, however.

Cars are used to kill far more non-suicide victims than guns. There are also a lot of people I wouldn't want driving, including people with anger control issues.

Guess what? If they haven't crossed certain legal boundaries or certain mental health boundaries they get to drive. It's an imperfect system, but I'm imperfect and so are you. A perfect system might keep us from driving--we are as subject to bad days as the rest of humanity.

There are people whose speaking and posting contributes nothing of value to those around. They sometimes tend to depression in others (which leads to suicides) and to bad days which, (at least per your post) lead to impulse control issues and potential murder. Guess what? Until they pass certain legal boundaries--inciting violence, divulging state secrets, slander and libel--we have no legal recourse.

We cannot possibly eliminate all risk. A government run by human beings that attempts to attain perfect safety in governing other humans will fail miserably. (So will a human government that attempts to attain perfect safety while governing dangerous viruses or insects.)

I disagree that bad days lead to murder if an average law-abiding person has ready access to a gun. Most people who would shoot someone for cutting them off in traffic already have serious records. The exceptions are rare indeed.

I prefer the small chance of death by terrorist strike to the nude scans and touchy-feely searches in the airport. I also prefer that most people have the option to arm themselves for security.

The closest approach to perfect safety is a solitary confinement cell with three square meals a day.

[Starboard Tack]

165. This is how you want to discuss gun control? By saying cars are now used to kill people.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in this forum. Do you honestly believe people are now using cars to kill people? If so, I give up.
And the rest of your rambling...? WTF does that have to do with how you propose implementing your expressed desired restrictions on gun ownership.
You listed all the types of people that you do not think should be armed. Please explain how you propose to achieve that.

[TPaine7]

216. I'm about to give up too.

This is how you want to discuss gun control?

You keep trying to put words in my mouth. I never said I wanted to discuss gun control.

By saying cars are now used to kill people.

They are. More often than guns are. Cars are the means by which more people are killed, counting accidental deaths, drunk driving (negligence) and vehicular homicide.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in this forum. Do you honestly believe people are now using cars to kill people? If so, I give up.

That's probably for the best.

And the rest of your rambling...? WTF does that have to do with how you propose implementing your expressed desired restrictions on gun ownership.
You listed all the types of people that you do not think should be armed. Please explain how you propose to achieve that.

I get the feeling you don't want to get my point. And you keep trying to run both ends of the conversation. I don't propose to achieve a state where only those people I want to carry do. There are a great many things that people do that I would prefer they not do. I have no proposals to achieve their abject obedience to my will. I am not an authoritarian.

I doubt you will be able to comprehend what I've written above, it's not in the proper gun control jargon. It's probably just as well.

[Starboard Tack]

217. I'm sorry, but you said "Cars are used to kill far more non-suicide victims than guns"

If you are trying to say that more people die in traffic accidents, that's one thing, and has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, which is gun policy, violence and self defense. Where the fuck do cars come in, if you're not serious about Cars being USED to KILL people. Why would you say it like that? Like "Oh, I think I'll go out and kill someone now with my car" well shit, what they need guns for if they can just use the car? And all you need is a driver's license.

But, you're wrong anyway, because only in the movies are cars USED to kill people. In real life GUNS are used to kill 30,000 every year, half of them suicides. Now it's hard to kill yourself with your car, except for the old carbon monoxide/locked garage routine. But I think we're done with cars.

[hack89]

231. The point being made is that, just like cars, it is impossible to enact laws

that eliminate all risk when it comes to guns. Just like guns, there are many people that should not be behind the wheel of a car. How do you implement a system to keep them off the road without infringing on the rights of the safe driver. How do you keep guns away from people you don't feel should have guns without infringing on the rights of responsible gun owners?

[Starboard Tack]

232. Don't you see that the car analogy doesn't wash

Cars are not made to kill. They sometimes kill by accident. That's a numbers game. If 100 million guns were being used for their intended purpose, shooting things, not sitting in their garage/holsters, every day, the numbers would increase significantly.

[X_Digger]

233. Oy, your needle is stuck on 'guz iz fer killin' again.

The 'intent' of some designer somewhere is irrelevant compared to the use to which people put them.

Silly putty was 'intended' as a replacement for rubber during WWII.

[Starboard Tack]

238. That's why it's called silly putty.

[X_Digger]

240. Ahh, but that's the use to which it was applied, not the original intent..

Or are you saying that guns that are marketed as self-defense firearms aren't 'fer killin'?

Thanks!

[Starboard Tack]

246. You can market handguns for hammering nails or pounding steaks

doesn't change what they were designed and manufactured for. You think this is about marketing? That's your justification? Oh, I thought it was for self defense, your honor. I didn't know it would kill him.

[X_Digger]

250. No, just poking fun at your asinine assertion that 'original intent' of a designer matters fuck all

rather than the intent of the user.

Keep spreading the moral whip.

[hack89]

236. I did not buy my guns to kill

That was not and is not my intended purpose.

[Starboard Tack]

239. We'll let Norway know. Maybe they'll give you the Nobel Peace Prize

[hack89]

247. Not everyone sees himself as potential killer.

Perhaps if you tried to see the good in everyone, fear would not dominate your life like it does.

[Starboard Tack]

252. I would hope not

Doesn't change the fact that toting a gun around increases the probabilities.
I don't see bad in people who tote guns around. I just wonder why good people would do something so silly. What makes them so afraid for their personal safety. If I were that afraid, I'd probably just stay home.
Why do you tote? Can you explain it without the "you never know when you might need it" nonsense? A swiss army knife would fit that need much better.

I never bought a gun to kill anyone either. Mine were bought for hunting and target shooting. Never entered my mind to take one to the mall or restaurant. Can you explain your reasons if you are not afraid of the unknown?

[hack89]

253. Your "fact" is wrong

gun ownership and concealed/open carried have significantly increased while gun violence has significantly decreased. Those are the facts.

The main reason I carry is people like you - I carry to exercise my civil rights. I feel that a right not used is easily lost. So just on principle I will carry even though I have no real fears for my safety.

Now, in my younger days there was a period where I did carry for safety. I couldn't afford to live and work in any place other than a high crime area. I also worked the night shift. Never had to use my weapon but I was definitely surrounded by crime and there was an underlying fear I lived with. But after a year my situation improved and I moved to a saver area.

[Starboard Tack]

254. We thank you for your honesty.

Finally, a toter who admits he used to carry out of FEAR for his safety. Thank you.
Now, you carry in order to exercise your civil right. Like it may atrophy if you don't exercise it. Interesting concept. Do you also stand on a soap box every day and yell at people? If not, your 1A rights might atrophy.

[hack89]

255. I vigorously exercise all my civil rights

I vote, I participate in the political process, I routinely petition my representatives, I write letters to the editor.

It is not that it will atrophy - it is simply important to ensure that our political leaders at every level understand that it is important to everyday Americans. Civil rights expand when they are accepted as the norm for society. It is important that politicians (and you) understand that people that own and carry guns are everyday people and not some fringe group to be marginalized. Therefore I exercise my 2nd Amendment rights as a message to politicians that they have nothing to fear from people such as myself.

[Starboard Tack]

257. I respectfully disagree with you

People who own guns are a large minority of everyday people. Those who carry them are a tiny fringe group, who marginalize themselves by their behavior. Is there a test that ensures other toters are as responsible as you? Did Loughner take that test?
If all the toters were old farts like us, it would probably be a safer world, but guns and high testosterone levels don't work well together on city streets.

[hack89]

258. Well then, as a minority it is even more important to exercise my civil rights

how else do I prevent the majority from restricting them?

[Starboard Tack]

259. They are already restricted. Try toting in NYC

[hack89]

260. But the trend is a positive one - I can wait. nt

[Starboard Tack]

263. Careful what you wish for

History shows that when rights are abused they end up getting taken away. Like children who abuse their toys or other kids.

[hack89]

264. Asking for more freedoms can never be bad

how are you able to blithely ignore all those facts that completely undermine your view? The record low crime rates show what will happen when Americans exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.

So you and your fellow authoritarians are the adults here? Poised to strip me of my civil rights as soon as you can? Well, good luck with that. Don't expect to see it in your lifetime. You really need to understand how much ground your side has lost in the past 10 years - the war was lost a long time ago. You are just another dead-ender.

[Starboard Tack]

265. I am not authoritarian and I abhor the tools of authoritarinism, like handguns

"Asking for more freedoms can never be bad" - well that takes the prize for naive statements. There are folk in this great nation who would love to have the freedom to abuse women with impunity, shoot "illegal" immigrants, not pay taxes, steal your guns and your money. Oh yeah!
Never say never.

[hack89]

266. Since none of your "examples" are civil rights

I think we can ignore them. We were talking about enumerated rights - the ones us children can't be trusted to handle.

[Starboard Tack]

267. But you said "Asking for more freedoms can never be bad"

Now you're talking about "enumerated civil rights". Nice switch.
Would you call "eating" a freedom you might ignore because it is not enumerated. How about "breathing", or maybe "not having to be in the same room as someone carrying a loaded gun".
You want to try redefining your concept of "freedom" again.

[hack89]

268. And what were we talking about previously? Perhaps that provides some context?

shall we get back to the 2nd amendment before you evade yourself right out of the thread?

Bottom line to me is simple - any thing that expands the scope of a Constitutional right is a good thing. Do you agree?

[Starboard Tack]

269. "any thing that expands the scope of a Constitutional right is a good thing. Do you agree?"

Absolutely not. Especially an archaic, irrelevant right in today's terms. Your "anything" could be "expanded" to include military grade weaponry including nukes.
I would support 2A in it's original intent. Muskets single shot pistols, but you've already poisoned your own well with the toys available today.

[hack89]

270. Thank you - we now know what side you are on.

fortunately authoritarians like yourself are steadily losing ground but it is still important that beliefs like yours are exposed frequently so that no one gets complacent.

[Atypical Liberal]

271. But that was not the original intent.

I would support 2A in it's original intent. Muskets single shot pistols, but you've already poisoned your own well with the toys available today.

But that was not the original intent of the second amendment, which was to have a citizenry armed with small arms suitable for infantry use in the militia.

Muskets and single-shot pistols (and there were multi-shot firearms in 1776, by the way), were appropriate small arms suitable for infantry use in 1776, but not today.

[PavePusher]

274. Of course you'd never hold still for the same restrictions on other Rights.

Hypocricy, thy name be Starboard Tack...

[Starboard Tack]

275. Takes one to no one. Deceptive is as deceptive does.

[PavePusher]

278. Deceptive? Moi?

Hardly....

I like to think that my bluntness and lack of tact precede me...

[Starboard Tack]

280. That's probably true too. But still deceptive.

[friendly_iconoclast]

285. Did you post that via a quill pen, or a hand-operated printing press?

No, of course you didn't. You used some variety of computer, violating the original intent of the First Amendment.

By your own standards, you do not have the right to free speech via Internet.

I guess your computer should be taken away from you, due to your "abuse" of it.

[Starboard Tack]

286. There is a difference between anything and everything.

And the First Amendment gets curtailed all the time by corporate and government censorship.

[PavePusher]

273. "...who marginalize themselves by their behavior."

What "behavior" would that be?

[Starboard Tack]

276. Toters of handguns. Toting would be the behavior.

That's why you and a handful of others are here, trying to defend your "marginal behavior". This place isn't a forum for toters, it is for all Democrats to discuss gun policy. Toters are a tiny minority who have every right to try to justify their behavior. The rest of us have every right to express our views about such behavior and try to drum some common sense into you. You're like our unruly children, but we do love you, regardless.

[PavePusher]

277. Your paternalism/maternalism and bigotry are noted. n/t

[Starboard Tack]

281. "bigotry"?

There is a huge difference between pity and bigotry. If I were intolerant of you, I wouldn't play in the same sandbox with you. I love you guys. I used to be one of you, well not a toter, but not seeing anything negative about it. Not until I came here and heard all the bullshit reasoning and the extent of it.

[gejohnston]

279. you just gave the right wing a big wet kiss

The rest of us have every right to express our views about such behavior and try to drum some common sense into you. You're like our unruly children, but we do love you, regardless.

The absurd paternalism. All they have to do is reprint it someplace, and they can save shit loads of money otherwise spent on voter caging and election fraud.

[Starboard Tack]

282. LOL The toters kiss them all day long with their we're just like you message.

Sometimes in life you've got to stand up for what you believe in, my friend. If you are as sincere as I am in your position on gun toting, then I give you my respect, but I'll still try to get you to see reason.

[gejohnston]

283. you can't get someone to see reason

if you do not use reason. Of course if using reason was all it took, I would have you convinced.

[Starboard Tack]

284. I see toters the same way I see lottery players

The odds against them being able to justify their irrational actions are astronomical.

[PavePusher]

272. Still with the fear meme?

Put the friggin' stick down, the horse died last year.

[rrneck]

241. Soooooooooo

Who are guns made to kill?


Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

[Starboard Tack]

245. Bad guys daddy and rednecks if you miss

[rrneck]

251. Yes. You're very clever.

Do you have documentation to that effect? Internal memos stating that a firearm is designed to kill daddy?

Can you point to a design feature developed for the homicide of a particular individual?

Or will you just find another way to say "everybody"?

These little emotional outbursts are so predictable.

[tortoise1956]

243. There is no "right"

to live and operate in a gun-free zone. If you believe otherwise, please refer me to the relevant section of the Constitution and/or Bill of Rights.

There is, however, a right to bear arms (you know, the second amendment). Thus, if these democratically elected representatives pass a law creating a gun-free zone, they have deprived the citizens living in that area of one of their basic rights. That doesn't pass muster, as was so ably demonstrated in Heller.

[X_Digger]

120. You're beginning to sound like a religious fundie w/r/t "abortions for everyone" n/t

[Starboard Tack]

126. What? Care to explain?

[X_Digger]

135. It's about choice.

Advocating that as many as are not prohibited have the choice to do something is a hell of a lot different than saying you wish everyone did.

Do those of us who also work for reproductive freedoms also want everyone to have a D&C?

[Starboard Tack]

166. It's not about choice . It's about public safety not personal fear

[X_Digger]

167. You've yet to demonstrate 'public safety' impacts.

And no, this is not the first time you've tried (and failed) to do so.

If I recall correctly, the last time you were left with moral whinging rather than hard data.

[Starboard Tack]

180. 30,000 gun deaths a year - that's quite an impact

it is you and other toters who "fail" to compute that simple little statistic.
Show me any evidence that proves that more guns will reduce that number. Like the more it rains, the drier you get. Spin away.

[X_Digger]

184. 30,000 by concealed carry holders? I'll have to have a cite for that one..

Show me any evidence that proves that more guns will reduce that number.

I don't have to, I didn't make that claim. Fucking duh.

Show me the evidence that concealed carry impacts public safety.

[Starboard Tack]

186. I don't have evidence either way.

So we aren't talking evidence here, but common sense ideas and logic.
Now using my brain, which I think is still quite functional, it would make sense to me that MORE GUNS IN THE MARKETPLACE does not equal less GUN VIOLENCE, unless you want a police or militia run state. If you don't think guns are intimidating, why wear one?

The "bad guys" will continue to acquire guns at a rate directly proportionate to that of the "good guys". Why? Because they see you as the enemy, as the "bad guys".

In the UK it is rarely an issue, because neither side is usually armed. It's against the rules and it works to the point of gun violence being statistically negligent.

[X_Digger]

188. And we circle back to post #167.

You've yet to demonstrate 'public safety' impacts.

And no, this is not the first time you've tried (and failed) to do so.

If I recall correctly, the last time you were left with moral whinging rather than hard data.

So we aren't talking evidence here, but common sense ideas and logic.
Now using my brain, which I think is still quite functional, it would make sense to me that MORE GUNS IN THE MARKETPLACE does not equal less GUN VIOLENCE, unless you want a police or militia run state. If you don't think guns are intimidating, why wear one?

The "bad guys" will continue to acquire guns at a rate directly proportionate to that of the "good guys". Why? Because they see you as the enemy, as the "bad guys".

In the UK it is rarely an issue, because neither side is usually armed. It's against the rules and it works to the point of gun violence being statistically negligent.

Who's this 'we' in your first sentence? You might be arguing from emotion, but I don't have to join you.

MORE GUNS IN THE MARKETPLACE does not equal less GUN VIOLENCE

Take that up with someone who thinks that.

What I would assert (and back up with NICS / FBI UCR stats) is that crime has continued to drop, regardless of 125M+ guns being bought since 1998.

More guns != more crime. (Which is different than 'more guns = less crime'.)

If you don't think guns are intimidating, why wear one?

I carry concealed, intimidation (real or imagined) isn't a factor. I carry as a means of having one more tool available should I be in a situation where I think I'm in danger of grievous bodily harm or death.

The "bad guys" will continue to acquire guns at a rate directly proportionate to that of the "good guys". Why? Because they see you as the enemy, as the "bad guys".

Demonstrably false. DOJ's BJS tracks gun use in crime. It's descended in both rate and number, along with other crime stats.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/guncrimetab.cfm

[Starboard Tack]

197. "I carry concealed, intimidation (real or imagined) isn't a factor"

So, when you pull it out, what do you do with it? Shoot someone or intimidate them?
From what you've intimated previously, you use it to intimidate by pointing it at your potential attacker's chest, after retrieving the gun from your vehicle. Why couldn't you have just got in the vehicle and closed the door instead of pulling a gun. Oh, yes, because you had the gun available. Otherwise you would have had to find another solution like driving away, but I'm sure you'd have come up with something.
Handguns are for killing, not problem solving.

[RSillsbee]

199. If I pull it out ( God that just sounds SOOO wrong)

I have no intention of using it to intimidate you. You have from the time I clear leather till the time I line up the sights to stand completely down or I will shoot.

[Starboard Tack]

207. Hope you never have to do that. We'd miss you

[friendly_iconoclast]

210. I daresay he'd be back here as soon as he got "no-billed", or whatever it is they do where he is.

I have no doubt whatsover that at some here would be crying bitter tears of poutrage over the "murder" of some
"alternative shopper" or "aggressive panhandler" who was suffering from "untreated mental issues"....

[RSillsbee]

212. I HAVE done it

the mugger ran as soon as he saw the gun. Rest assured I had every intention of shooting

[Starboard Tack]

219. Why didn't he shoot you?

[RSillsbee]

225. You would have to ask him

I don't know that he had a gun and under Colorado law it wasn't relevant. He was just starting his attack run. he came out from between 2 cars about 15 feet from me headed straight for me and picking up speed. I caught him out of the corner of my eye and was drawing as I turned, he saw the gun come out of my pocket and took off.

[friendly_iconoclast]

202. "Handguns are for killing, not problem solving" Because you say so?

In my one and only DGU, not only was no one killed or injured, no shots were fired. There have been several other incidents with
similar outcomes posted here, which brings up a question: What, exactly, did we do wrong?

[Starboard Tack]

208. Handguns are specifically designed for killing.

Rulers are designed for measuring, but can be used to rap knuckles. It's your choice what you use a tool for. Sometimes wrong is right and sometimes right is wrong. Some people like to play with fire. Doesn't make them arsonists or firefighters, just fools.

[friendly_iconoclast]

211. Someone in your neighborhood needs to lock up their dangerous chemicals.

As you seem hellbent on poisoning the well...

[X_Digger]

204. Oy, back to the 'gunz is fer killin' meme.

You've just got them on repeat, don't you?

Self-defense doesn't have to include the actual discharge of a firearm, much less killing. But in the eyes of the law, presenting a firearm and pointing it at someone is just as culpable as the use of deadly force. That's why you don't pull a gun unless you're willing to use it- the law will judge you as if you had ('deadly conduct' in TX law). If the situation didn't warrant the use of deadly force, it doesn't warrant pointing a gun at someone.

In the case I relayed in a previous conversation, my truck was deployed. It was a 43,000 pound rig, with multiple masts and booms that folded out to the ground. Think of it as a mini-telephone company. This is a similar version, just for wireless only.



Sure, I could have crawled up into the cab.. and waited for the idiot to pick up a rock and chuck it through a window. It's not like there was a lack of debris around, having had a fucking hurricane come through the area.

[friendly_iconoclast]

205. How DARE you present one of our true believers with empirical evidence!

You can cause them some serious moral harm doing things like that.
Besides, it's bad for social cohesion, dontcha know?

[Starboard Tack]

218. I'm glad there was no harm done and that you're safe

but self defense doesn't have to involve a gun at all. I'm not trying to second guess you, but you might have considered carrying pepper spray, like mail carriers, or something a little less lethal than a handgun. Even a shotgun I could see as legit in that post natural disaster situation.

[one-eyed fat man]

222. Mail carriers

When it was still the The Post Office Department, a Cabinet level department, headed by the Postmaster General, every window clerk, and indeed, all mail carriers, were armed. This fact is reflected by the fact that many states had provisions similar to this Kentucky statute.

527.020 Carrying concealed deadly weapon.
(1) A person is guilty of carrying a concealed weapon when he or she carries concealed a firearm or other deadly weapon on or about his or her person.

(2) Peace officers and certified court security officers, when necessary for their protection in the discharge of their official duties; United States mail carriers when actually engaged in their duties; and agents and messengers of express companies, when necessary for their protection in the discharge of their official duties, may carry concealed weapons on or about their person.

My former father-in-law was employed by the U.S. Post Office as a "Railway mail clerk." Like every clerk in the mail car, he was issued a Colt Banker's Special. He turned it in when the Postal Service discontinued the postal transportation service AFTER the changeover in the Seventies. Here is a picture of one like it.



The Post Office was transformed into its current form as a quasi-government corporation in 1971 under the Postal Reorganization Act. After the change and over the next few years postal employees were disarmed, firearms collected and stored at the Eastern Area Supply Center at Somerville, New Jersey. In 1993, this accumulation of thousands was sent to a foundry at Newark, New Jersey, for supervised destruction.

The first instance of "going postal" was in 1983, when a disgruntled employee was assured bu postal service policy that the only one with access to a firearm would be him.

[Starboard Tack]

226. Thanks for the info. Very interesting.

I guess there'd be a lot of dead dogs if they still carried.

[one-eyed fat man]

229. Registered mail

Registered mail was routinely used to send cash and other valuables through the mail. It was series of mail truck hijackings in the Twenties that cause the Post Office to augment their security with Thompson submachinegun toting Marines.

Marine Mail Guards

As for biting dogs, The Velo-Dog was a pocket revolver originally created in France by Charles-François Galand in the late 19th century as a defense for cyclists against dog attacks. The name is a portmanteau of "velocipede" and "dog". In the US Iver Johnson, Harrington & Richardson and host of others made small short barreled revolvers for the same purpose.

It was a quaint time when if you didn't want your dog shot for biting people you made sure he stayed home.

[Starboard Tack]

234. You sir, are a fountain of truly fascinating information.

They certainly were different times. Probably one of the reasons mailboxes were at the end of the driveway too. (the dog thing)

[X_Digger]

223. Pepper spray is fine for dogs (as mail carriers use it)

Or for potentially stunning an attacker long enough to retreat.

Where would you have had me retreat to, hrmm? And what would you have had me do when McMethMouth rinses out his eyes in a nearby puddle?

Have you seen the results of a shotgun blast from three feet away? For someone who claims to care about the perpetrator, you're not making much sense.

Yes, you're second guessing for all it's worth. And doing it quite badly, I must say.

[X_Digger]

128. replied in wrong spot. n/t

[Riftaxe]

7. I hardly think everyone should be armed

take the irrational prohibitionists on this forum, if they are so unstable that they fear a hunk of machined metal. It is unlikely they are mentally stable enough to take the responsibility that comes with owning a firearm.

[Blown330]

9. Unrec.

Ignorant dramatization doesn't even begin to touch on reality. Armed students would be those who are at least 21 years old who have a CCW permit. You are talking about maybe 2% of the student population at the most who would even qualify and far less who would actually carry on campus. So on a campus of around 13,000 students maybe 20 - 30 would actually be carrying at any one time. The big flaw here is your OP.

[rfranklin]

15. The OP was talking about "if everyone was armed"

So your oh so logical analysis is a bogus argument itself.

[SteveM]

60. Didn't see the "if everyone was armed." Could you point that out?

Seems rather peculiar as a hypo argument, given the crap attempts at pointing to those "advocating."

[Blown330]

115. Your oh so ignorant...

...understanding of the subject matter is bogus. By current laws it is IMPOSSIBLE to arm even a majority of an average college's student population. Most aren't even old enough to purchase a handgun or ammo for one which basically disqualifies them from even applying for a CCW. Try again.

[Taverner]

93. I am not arguing against CCWs

Re-read my post. CCWs, because they are not everyone, but a specific group of people who have trained for such an event, can do a lot of good.

However, if everyone's armed, and they hand CCWs out like candy (See: State of Texas) then the whole idea of a qualified, armed presence is moot. Instead it's everyone and their horse who's packing heat.

[X_Digger]

96. Lol, pass me some of whatever you're smoking..

hand CCWs out like candy (See: State of Texas)

Do you even know what the requirements are for a CHL in Texas? And what percentage of the population has one?

I'm not going to give them to you so that you can claim you already knew that.

Come back when you've found out, and you can apologize.

[Glassunion]

97. "Do you even know what the requirements are for a CHL in Texas?"

Oooh... Mister Kotter!!! Oooh! Oooh! I know!

[oneshooter]

194. I doubt that he could qualify for a CHL in California. n/t

[PavePusher]

131. Perhaps he meant Vermont, or Arizona.

Real cess-pools of crime and vigilantism, both.

:sarcasm: , if I must...

[iverglas]

137. yeah, Vermont, just tops!

Well, actually, second place.

When it comes to the rate of homicides of women in the US.



edit because you may have managed to miss it where it was posted yesterday:

http://www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw2010.pdf

In 2008, the homicide rate among female victims murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents nationally was 1.26 per 100,000. For that year, Nevada ranked first as the state with the highest homicide rate among female victims killed by male offenders in single victim/single offender incidents. Its rate of 2.96 per 100,000 was more than double the national average. Nevada was followed by Vermont (2.54 per 100,000) and Alabama (2.07 per 100,000).

... For homicides in which the weapon used could be identified, 38 percent of female victims (3 out of 8) were shot and killed with guns. Of these, 33 percent (1 victim) was killed with a handgun. There were 2 females killed by a blunt object, and 3 females killed by bodily force.

For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship could be identified, 100 percent of female victims (8 out of 8) were murdered by someone they knew. No female victims were killed by strangers. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 38 percent (3 victims) were wives, common-law wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends of the offenders. Among the female intimates who were murdered, 67 percent (2 victims) were killed with guns; 50 percent of these (1 victim) were shot and killed with handguns.

For homicides in which the circumstances could be identified, 100 percent (7 out of 7) were not related to the commission of any other felony. Of these, 29 percent (2 homicides) involved arguments between the victim and the offender.

In Vermont, women are not murdered by muggers or home invaders or "rapists". They are murdered by their intimates. Much like anywhere else. And when they are murdered by firearm, long arms are no stranger to the picture. (But hey, only .000001% of homicides in the US or whatever meaningless figure it is are committed by long arm, so nothing to see here.)

[X_Digger]

142. Yes, if you narrow the data and ignore data that doesn't match..

Then you can make meaningless comparisons and claim they actually mean something.

For example..

"among female victims murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents"

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_04.html


Single victim/single offender...................6,940......48.9
Single victim/unknown offender or offenders.....4,222......29.8

[iverglas]

143. got some numbers for Vermont up your bum there?

Or did you just think someone might believe something you were saying was relevant to something ... somehow ...

[X_Digger]

144. Glad you asked!

http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/asp/vic_selection.asp


Family..........15
Acquaintance....16
Stranger........4
Unknown.........16


That's VT, for women victims, 2000-2008.

2/3 could be identified as 'family' or 'acquaintance'.

The FBI breaks down the relationships differently than the OJJDP. They actually separate out 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend', 'ex-wife', etc. I can't seem to find the FBI's state by relationship by sex (assuming they do into that level of detail for the public.)

My point stands. VPC's numbers winnow down the data to a small subset, then try to make comparisons. e.g., they would discard 1/3 of the murders against women in the above table because they were committed by a(n) unknown person(s) or stranger.

[iverglas]

148. yeah

And those 16 "unknown", they were undoubtedly all strangers.

How about: 1 in 9 known killers were strangers.

Yeah, I think so.


My point stands. VPC's numbers winnow down the data to a small subset, then try to make comparisons. e.g., they would discard 1/3 of the murders against women in the above table because they were committed by a(n) unknown person(s) or stranger.

Your point is as flat on its ass as it started out being.

Comparisons involving data for cases in which the value of a variable is known are just unheard of in your world, I guess. In the real world, they're kind of how it's done.

they would discard 1/3 of the murders against women in the above table because they were committed by a(n) unknown person(s) or stranger.

That's a false statement, isn't it? I mean, the data I presented in the first place pre-empted it:

"For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship could be identified".

No "discard ... because they were committed by a ... stranger" there, is there?

The fact that none of the cases in which the relationship was known in 2008 happened to involve a stranger is just your bad luck.

[X_Digger]

152. It's cherry picking..

Which is fine when looking at one data set. But when you try to compare one cherry picked set to another-- that's where it breaks down.

If 1/3 of your original data set (murder of women) gets thrown out*, and 1/4 gets thrown out because there are two or more offenders.. what statistical value does a comparison to another state, using the same criteria have?

That's the same reason I chose multiple years- it's a basic tenet of statistics that increasing the sample size leads to more reliable comparisons / conclusions / trends.



* And yes, I inadvertently included 'stranger' rather than just 'unknown'. In the above table, the 'could be determined' is 35. The 'unknown'? 16. The percentage? 45% Thanks for the correction.

[iverglas]

159. .................

That's the same reason I chose multiple years

Yeah, and where I originally posted this, I chose multiple years too -- multiple individual years showing Vermont right up there in the standings.

Find it if you like. I'm tired of doing people's searches.


As long as we're in Vermont ...

http://women.vermont.gov/resource-directory/Violence

I'm not seeing the gun militant organizations that I'm sure must be there in the network of organizations working to combat violence against women ...

[gejohnston]

169. I don't see a lot of organizations.

That does not mean individual members could not be members of or work with different organizations. The only one that would be mutually exclusive with NRA or Shady Oak Rod and Gun Club would be NECPGV

[iverglas]

175. let me put it this way

I have never seen a gun-centred organization involved in any efforts or organizations dedicated to combating violence against women, anywhere.

But gun militants care sooooo much about women victims of violence ...

[friendly_iconoclast]

195. What they do enables women to make choices that *you* do not approve of.

I can see why you don't dig 'em....

[iverglas]

228. what they do puts women at risk

I guess now I get to say "I can see why you dig 'em".

By the rules of your game I do, anyhow.

[PavePusher]

191. Jello. n/t

[TPaine7]

10. The flaw in that "argument" is that it's a straw man. n/t

[pnwmom]

12. I've seen that argument made here many times. It's no straw man. nt

[SteveM]

61. That "argument" is posted by gun-troller/banners. Keep up with yourself. nt

[iverglas]

139. I love sauce

Especially the kind that's good only for the goose, eh?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=245448&mesg_id=246048

Fire_Medic_Dave
Sun Aug-09-09 09:21 PM
Response to Reply #43

46. Surely you remember the poster that thought guns themselves were evil.


X_Digger Donating Member
Sun Aug-09-09 09:43 PM
Response to Reply #46

47. Joe_Steel, I believe.. n/t


Fire_Medic_Dave
Sun Aug-09-09 09:44 PM
Response to Reply #47

48. The funniest thing is that iverglas has responded to their posts.

Then she acts like they don't exist.


iverglas
Sun Aug-09-09 11:17 PM
Response to Reply #48

50. this Joe Steel?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=198621

Here, I'll make it easy:



Ooooh. And look what my response to one of his posts was:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=196970&mesg_id=197101

iverglas
Mon Jan-12-09 01:31 PM
Response to Reply #42

46. I'm sorry, but

"Guns are inherently evil."

is really a very odd thing to say.

It's actually the sort of thing that firearms control advocates are constantly alleged to think, ridiculous though it is, and your post provides a convenient hook for people who choose to portray firearms control advocates as thinking such bizarre things to hang their future allegations on.

and what follows.

(my emphasis in this copy -- hahahahahaha, eh? No turnip truck two years ago, no turnip truck today.)

:rofl:

Damn, I wish I could enlarge those idiotfacethingies to express the true level of my hilarity.


Fire_Medic_Dave
Sun Aug-09-09 11:27 PM
Response to Reply #50

51. So when wondered if these people actually exist, what Joe Steel momentarily slipped your mind?

We all know how "honest" you are after all.


iverglas
Sun Aug-09-09 11:57 PM
Response to Reply #51

53. Joe Steel doesn't exist

and he existed only for a brief time, such as he ever did, and as you can see, I never fell for the game. Not that time, or the many other times it's been played. I do just have to be circumspect, you know. The post I quoted there, when dampened with lemon juice and held up to a mirror, said:

I'll try to make it a little easier to understand next time.

If I may: do keep up with yourself, whatever that means.

[Yavapai]

13. We shouldn't eat pizza just before bed, it causes bizarre dreams.

No one suggests that everyone should be carrying firearms.

Also schools should teach gun safety as it would prevent many accidents with firearms.

[HockeyMom]

22. My husband's couldn't protect him right now,

maybe never will. He had complications from hip replacement surgery. He is in a walker. He cannot stand up alone. He has trouble getting out of bed. If a burglar came into the house, he would never be able to get out of bed, get in his walker. and go to where the gun is. I don't even know if he would be able to hold himself up in the walker with one hand and try to shot with his other hand. He can barely pour himself a cup of coffee.

So, I suppose "protection" would be up to me now. Ironic. Forget it. In the heat of the moment, getting his gun would never occur to me, IF I knew where they were, how to load it, or even how to shoot it. Not going to happen.

This post has certainly made me think about it, though, now that my husband and his guns would be totally useless. I am sure this would upset him greatly, if he realized it. He is too involved with his physical condition, and I am certainly not going to bring a subject like this up.

[spin]

39. I am a candidate for a hip replacement but am trying to put it off as long as I can ...

Hopefully your husband can overcome his complications from the operation.

If you ever do seriously believe that your using a firearm for home defense might be necessary:

1) Ask yourself if you could shoot an invader in your home knowing that you might seriously injure or even kill him. Many people can't. This is not a negative personality trait by any means.

2) Get training so that you are proficient with the weapon you would use. An intruder can sense your lack of confidence and decide to merely take your weapon from you.

3) If you ever do decide to have a firearm available, consider a short barrel shotgun such as a double barreled coach gun. They are simple to load in an emergency. Call the police on your cell phone and if possible move to or stay in your bedroom. Stay behind cover, with the shotgun pointed at your locked bedroom door. If the intruder breaks the door down and enters, you should have enough time to be sure that he has no right to be in your home before you shoot.

Another simple to use firearm is a double action .38 caliber revolver as it has no safeties. You just point it and pull the trigger.

[spin]

26. Why would all the students at a University be armed ...

In Florida you have to be 21 to get a concealed weapons permit. Many college students are younger than that.

I personally would have no problem with requiring a higher level of training for any teacher or student to be allowed to carry in a college environment.

I often hear the statement that many pro-RKBA posters in the DU Gungeon want everybody to carry, but I rarely see any posts that actually back this accusation up from long term posters. I for one, favor current gun laws in Florida which is where I live.

[PavePusher]

33. Yes there is a HUGE flaw.....

IN THAT NO-ONE IS MAKING THAT ARGUMENT.

And please, cite to evidence that your manufactured, hyperbolized scenario has ever come to pass in any location that does have legally armed people.

Waiting....

[Kali]

35. "there is a BIG flaw in the "Everyone should be armed" argument"

as I am sure others in this thread have already pointed out, nobody seriously advocates everyone being armed

even the most rabid gun nut knows arming morans who have no training or worse - are afraid of guns - would be a disaster

nobody thinks everybody should be armed

[gejohnston]

43. We can't be rabid

we all had our shots

[virginia mountainman]

37. The vast majority...

Of the people who say what you just said, tend to be anti-gun people who are making things up out of thin air..... Again....


They think if they keep saying it, it will one day be true.

[SteveM]

65. "seen that argument before:" Yeah, in their auto-induced echo chamber. nt

[rrneck]

38. In the pantheon of things I have to worry about

that's way down the list.

Some have advocated arming everyone, but they are a tiny minority. The truth is a gun is a pain in the ass to carry and Americans aren't exactly known to suffer inconvenience lightly.

Unless there is a significant change in our socioeconomic environment very few people will have the need or desire to carry.

[spin]

42. I know a good number of people who carry on a regular basis ...

and all, except for one, carry small and light firearms often called "mouse guns".

I agree that carrying a full sized firearm concealed can be a pain in the ass. When I first got my carry permit, I tried to carry a full sized .45 auto. Now I carry a .38+P S&W Model 642 Airweight snub nosed revolver in a holster in my front pants pocket. It's so light and easy to carry that I can almost forget that I am carrying it.



My son in law carries a .380 Ruger LCP which is every easier to carry.

[one-eyed fat man]

41. I don't know where you were during Tet

But I was THERE and a tank commander in the 2nd Bn, 34th Armor. We were not confused who was shooting at us and who we needed to be shooting.

At high command levels in Vietnam the attack had all the impact of the German Ardennes offensive of World War II. On the field soldiers level, fighting did not change much; there just was more of it.

The units taken by surprise were the like the Air Force at Ton Son Nhut air base where the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry made a 57 mile night attack to save their bacon. Similarly, the supply bases of Long Bihn and Bien Hoa were inadequately defended by complacent rear support troops. Units like mine and the 2nd Bn, 47th Mech left Hậu Nghĩa province to relieve the beleagered supply bases and the general Saigon area.

Your claim of massive soldier casualties, even among the cooks and clerks, from friendly fire is specious. An apparently baseless assumption from some whose combat experience lies in having the DVD box set of all the Rambo series, Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket.

[Glassunion]

46. "I don't know where you were during Tet"

Personally I was swimming in my dad's balls trying not to get shot.

[gejohnston]

100. I do

I was in second grade. Or grade two, for our Canadian friends.

[iverglas]

106. well done

Were you a Wolf Cub at the time?

[gejohnston]

112. Yes I was

[iverglas]

62. ah

Perhaps I should conclude that all the Canadians shot (or otherwise killed or wounded) by USAmericans in "friendly fire" incidents were harmed intentionally, then.

No one with a lethal weapon ever mistakes their target.

[gejohnston]

87. The only Canadians at

the Tet offensive were wearing US uniforms.

However, if you are talking about friendly fire from aircraft like Tarnak Farm or (going back in time) US bombers not getting the message that Canadian Forces secured Juno Beach and advanced ahead of schedule, your point is well taken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarnak_Farm_incident

[iverglas]

90. that's one of them

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2006/09/04/afghanfriendly.html

Two U.S. aircraft mistakenly fired on a Canadian platoon taking part in NATO's massive anti-Taliban operation in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing one soldier and injuring dozens of others.

The soldier who was killed was identified by the Canadian military on Monday evening as Pte. Mark Anthony Graham.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/friendlyfire/

On April 18, 2002, an American F-16 fighter jet dropped a laser-guided 225-kilogram bomb near Kandahar, accidentally killing four Canadian soldiers and injuring eight others.

and an open question

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2010/07/28/wikileaks-friendly-fire-parents-reaction.html

A leaked U.S. report that emerged on the WikiLeaks website suggested that four Canadian soldiers who died on Sept. 3, 2006, in the Panjwaii district of Afghanistan were killed when a U.S. jet dropped a bomb on a building they occupied during the second day of Operation MEDUSA.

[gejohnston]

99. those too but

none of these CCWs would be firing from aircraft into a building. Sooooooooooooooooooooo

[rl6214]

121. I thank those soldiers for their sevice to their country

and mourn the loss of life...you on the other hand have the habit of dancing on the graves of...well, anyone you can.

[iverglas]

132. you thank Canadian soldiers for their service to Canada?

What, Canadian business has suddenly become your business in this one instance?

Or were you thanking the members of the US military who killed the Canadians?

Just not making any sense out of that, I'm afraid.


you on the other hand have the habit of dancing on the graves of...well, anyone you can.

No vicious, ugly, false personal attacks in that post, folks. Nothing to see there. Move along. Don't even think of clicking on that Alert thing when you see such statements made about another member of this website. Move along!

[RSillsbee]

151. Give the main reason for Canada's security

is it's position right next to America maybe you should be thanking American soldiers for their service

[iverglas]

158. is that other people in the world tend not to hate us,

which is at least partly because we tend not to do things that make other people hate us, and given that our some-would-say unfortunate association with the USofA is in fact a source of potential danger to us ...

I think I'll be ignoring your unsolicited, uninformed and disrespectful advice.

Ta all the same though, eh?

Oh, by the way ...

it's <sic> position right next to America

Canada's position is in America.

[gejohnston]

170. or their service to NATO?

Or their service to Canada or both. Either way, it is time for both militaries to leave the place.

[RSillsbee]

200. Viet Nam?

Man y'all get news slow in Wyoming

[gejohnston]

201. huh?

I meant Afghanistan, which is NATO. I missed the Vietnam reference other than the previous conversation about the Tet Offensive.

[RSillsbee]

203. It was a JOKE man

we were all talking about Viet Nam and you said it was time to bring the troops home (basically) So I cracked wise.

Sorry, most people don't get my humor

[one-eyed fat man]

98. Those well documented friendly fire incidents

Seem to recall were mostly the air force dropping bombs on the wrong targets. And there are plenty of instances of misdirected artillery. Instances of ground units engaging themselves, while not unheard of are not the epidemic that you or the OP would appear to suggest. It is, however, the very type of mistake, two allied units engaging each other that got Pat Tillman killed.

In those pre night vision goggle days we had a procedure to minimize such when a position was overrun at night and the enemy was in among us. A pre-arranged signal, a specified signal flare (which changed every night) would be fired at which point friendly forces would stop shooting. Anyone left shooting was assumed unfriendly and was dealt with using grenades, bayonets, entrenching tools, knives, axes and machetes.

There is plenty of opportunity to make mistakes. There are tricks which go back Hector and Paris which still work on green troops. Fratricide or friendly fire has always been a concern and professional soldiers do endeavor to train the troops in their charge as to the causes and the means of prevention.

One of the most basic is being where you are supposed to be and knowing where all the friendlies are. Leaders need to ensure units are properly informed of the location of friendly units. For example, one of the control features on a map is the FLOT or Forward Line of Troops. Basically "no good guys past this line" anyone on the wrong side of the line is presumed enemy.

During Tet of 1968, incidents of friendly fire did not occur in my unit. Had incidents of any significance occurred at adjacent or higher units, we'd have heard about it. While they doubtless occurred they were neither as overarching or significant as the OP breathlessly infers. During my two tours in Viet Nam I know of only two instances that affected us directly. The first involved a mistake in artillery resulting from failing to account for difference between White Phosphorus projectiles and High Explosive. No one was hurt. The second involved a Navy gunboat mistakenly firing on a US patrol being sunk by tank gun fire from a tank supporting the infantry unit. Several sailors were killed or injured. Word we got was the investigation determined the Navy boat was 5 km further upstream than they had told anyone they were going to be.

In the 1990 Gulf War, most of the Americans killed by their own forces were crew members of armored vehicles hit by anti-tank rounds. My division suffered a KIA and a tank damaged by friendly fire during the fight at Medina Ridge. I suspect I might have a bit more first hand experience in this subject than either the OP or you do.

[Name removed]

104. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[iverglas]

110. as I was saying

Not interested.

[oneshooter]

224. "air force dropping bombs on the wrong targets"

I HATE it when they drop short!!! Prefer a SPAD overhead to a "drop and run" F4. Longer hang time (TOT) and slow enough to put em where we point.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[RSillsbee]

105. I was still in diapers

You ooooooolllllld man

[one-eyed fat man]

117. Yes

and you know what they say about old men.

[iverglas]

136. since it seems anyone else can say where they were during the Tet offensive

I'm going to say where I was. Like it or not.

I was demonstrating in the streets against it. As I did mention, I did it once but was made to go home by my parents.

Years later, others older than me still remembered my mum pulling up in the station wagon with my baby sister and telling me to go home, and then me eluding her gaze and picking up a placard and marching off again while she chatted with the nice cop there, and then her fetching me back ...)

I had to wait til a year later when I was 16 and left home for university to get seriously involved in anti-Vietnam War activities. And of course lots of other political activities: as a social democrat electorally; as a socialist ideologically; as a feminist, in various ways ... . And then two years later, almost to the day of that embarrassing incident, on the day I was going back home for a short time before summer school, I awoke to another outstanding moment in the tale of the war against Vietnam: the Kent State massacre.

We all know what the war against Vietnam was, so I needn't say it again. I do know where some outstanding USAmericans were during it, too: in Canada. Unfortunately, some of them did bring their peculiar USAmerican perspectives on things with them and leave a mark on the social sciences departments of our universities that it took a while to get past, but when you open your doors to the victimized of the world, you open them to what they bring with them, good and bad.

[one-eyed fat man]

156. 4 May 1970

I was 30 kilometers across the Cambodian border. We heard about Kent State on Armed Forces Radio.

I was a soldier on active duty for 26 years. I was born in German in 1942. My parents and I managed to get to the West and emigrate to the US in 1954.

My mother's sister married a Waffen SS officer. Most of the maternal side of the family that did not stay in the DDR emigrated to Canada after the war. He's 93, lives in Ontario. He worked for years as a highway engineer for the Provincial government. Yes, you get all kinds.

[iverglas]

168. you may be making a point

I don't know what it is.

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/07/14/canada-bars-hundreds-of-suspected-war-criminals-each-year-feds

The only source I see with a recent write-up on bars to entry / deportations of war criminals. (Of course we do have a problem these days with it being the right wing who decides whom to let in, so not all in those numbers may be genuine war criminals; some may be freedom fighers.)

If you're saying your aunt's husband is a war criminal now in Canada, the RCMP would be glad to hear.

There have been and are a lot of contributions to our society from newcomers (in various eras) that I don't like. The Loyalists in the east and the later settlers of Alberta from the US brought some that we still suffer from (I've had to endure the class distinctions some Loyalist descendants like to perpetuate, and I'm enduring Stephen Harper, brought to me by right-wing religious fundamentalism courtesy in part of immigrants from the south), some elements of some newer cultural and religious communities have some ideas inimical to Canadian values, and so on. Hell, the French and British did it in the 17th and 18th centuries. Those influences existed and exist in the world. Building walls doesn't generally work. And they also keep out good things.

Here we go, the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/05/12/f-nazi-war-criminals-canada.htmlhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/05/12/f-nazi-war-criminals-canada.html

Over the last 20 years, the successful legal actions against Nazi war criminals in Canada have been a result of extradition, not prosecution.

Unlike the recent case of John Demjanjuk — who was sentenced to five years by a German court for allegedly working at a Nazi death camp in Poland — the Canadian government tries to revoke citizenship and send the accused to stand trial in the country in which the crimes were alleged to have taken place.

This is largely a result of several failed prosecutions that took place during the 1990s. ...

As for the rest, my opinions are not welcome here and will be suppressed, so there's no point in telling me things I may not reply to.

I can count the number of people I've known myself who were in the military on the fingers of one hand (an uncle around 1950 for the minimum time as a way for someone with problems to earn a living, a cousin's husband on the other side of my family, and I think the son of my former beau whose other son had killed himself with dad's hunting rifle, and oh yes, the son of an old friend who went to military college for his engineering education and may still be in the forces). Not a single friend or even close acquaintance.

I see that as a symptom of the fact that I live in a non-militarized society that has historically not tried to coerce compliance with our orders around the world. I used to be proud of our peacekeeping activities. Those days are gone. I do not support our present adventure in Afghanistan in the aid of a corrupt local government and its USAmerican masters.

Yes, I move in rather "elite" circles these days, in terms of people I know well. People with postsecondary education, mainly, except for my seriously less advantaged neighbours where I have lived for years. I suppose it's possible that kids in my working-class childhood neighbourhood joined the military, I just wouldn't know. I don't know of any.

I do have a great-uncle who was in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces, killed in Europe three weeks before the end of WWI, conscripted cannon fodder for the mighty; his underaged brother survived. No one in my family was the right age to be in the military in WWII, but there was honour, and of course necessity, in that fight, even though the reasons many had for joining the military weren't really related to the reasons for the fighting. One not too distant ancestor very sensibly deserted from the British military in the 1870s when he'd done his agreed time (a labourer who signed up on the death of his wife mere months after their marriage) and they wanted to stop-loss him to Afghanistan for the war they were starting there. Oh, I'm forgetting a grandfather who was discharged from a rather elite bit of the British military with disgrace ... at the age of 16 ... then re-upped immediately with a different name and got a battlefield commission once WWI rolled around ... then went on to fight Britain's dirty war in Ireland. Not the twig in my family tree I'm proudest of, for that and other reasons. And oh yeah, the more distant ancestor who joined the British military as a boy on Christmas Eve, perhaps because he was hungry, perhaps because he was drunk, and was released before the end of his many-year engagement, halfway around the world, because he was so ill ... I tend to see people who were in the military in bygone eras as victims, of the poverty and misery of their lives and the imperial aspirations of their governments. These days, the same is true in some cases, in others, I don't know, or will not say here what I think.


You're entitled to your opinion about anything you like, as am I, as are we all. Since mine about certain things aren't welcome here, I fail to see any point in pursuing this.

[one-eyed fat man]

179. You may have gotten more than you asked for.

Canadian Defense Forces have been all volunteer for a longer time but the draft ended in the US in 1974. As you point out, your social circle is loath to join the military. You don't personally know anyone in uniform or anyone who does.

You are not alone. Here in the US the total active duty force is under 5% of the population. Service in the military is a complete anathema to the professional Left. As you put it, "as victims, of the poverty and misery of their lives..." others have have used terms less charitable, if everyone on the Left is "too good, too valuable, too elite" to join the military, the reality is, by default, the military is filled with people who are most NOT like you. Then, the best you can hope for is that soldiers are apolitical.

What has actually happened is the military is far more right wing that the population as a whole. Couple that with the fact that there are more intergenerational service families, clustered in military communities with little or no interaction outside that circle and for the first time in US history you see the seeds of a "warrior" class and all the ills associated with it. There is a real danger in a military that is disassociated from the population it serves.

Secondly, when armies are largely conscripts, great masses of mommas with a keen interest in their boy, politicians are not as free with their adventuring. With a professional Army there is less inhibition. Consider,

"What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" Madeline Albright

...and she's not even a dirty war-mongering Republican. Those of us who have been there are more than keenly aware that those who call the shots will not be among the dead and maimed.

Orwell was right about more things than you might consider.

[iverglas]

185. "the professional Left"

Damn, some people say some strange things.

Here in the US the total active duty force is under 5% of the population. Service in the military is a complete anathema to the professional Left.

Under 5%? I'm not sure what you're saying. Of the total population? I wouldn't have guessed that even your bizarrely militarized society was that militarized. The Canadian figure ... I have to count the zeros .. is about 0.2%. Not counting reservists, about 2/3 again as many. No, c'mon, wiki tells me 1,477,896 active duty ... that isn't 5%, it's more like 0.5%. You must mean that, or 5% of something else.

Over time it does make a difference, regardless of the low percentages in both countries. Did it occur to you to wonder whether it might be entirely to be expected that I don't know people in the military? When there are only about 67,000 regular forces members at the present time, and I don't live in a small town with a CFB? I've actually lived where there are military presences. In one case, it was the Airborne, which spent its free time pillaging and looting the bars in the area; I didn't seek them out for company, and in fact we made sure to plan the bars we went to according to which one they'd been at the week before and were not expected back at. In another, it was where higher-ups were found, and yet I don't remember them seeking me out for company.

Let's say "employment" in the military, shall we? I don't play the framing game.

You say "service in the military" is anathema to "the professional Left". I wonder whether killing innocent people is anathema to, oh, let's just say large numbers of people in your country?

I wonder whether the imperial goals of the US might be too?

They seem to be, to large numbers of people at this website.

I wonder whether that might explain some peole's aversion to employment in the US military. You can define such people as the "the professional Left" if you like. Just seems a strange place to be doing it.


if everyone on the Left is "too good, too valuable, too elite" to join the military, the reality is, by default, the military is filled with people who are most NOT like you.

Were you quoting someone there? Were you trying to pretend I said something that even existed in the same universe as what you seem to be pretending I said?

Many people WITH BETTER OPTIONS do not join the military. What's your point? People with better options don't join street gangs either, or work in fast food joints. What's your point?

Yes, people who join the military, join street gangs, work in fast food joints, receive social assistance, work in laundromats, drop out of high school, work as bike couriers, and do a lot of other things, are not like me. However ...my father was in sales, my mother was a secretary before having children, her father was a printing press operator. My father's father was the alcoholic abusive adulterous military man. So people who went to private schools are not like me, people whose parents paid their university tuition are not like me, people who got cars for their birthday are not like me, people whose connections got them jobs are not like me. I've worked as a retail clerk and in a fast food place, just fyi.

In point of fact, people who join the military are very much like me: born and reared working/lower-middle class, in a working class neighbourhood with working class friends and neighbours, and very definitely looked down on by the actual elite -- the actually professional and very NON-left elements of that particular bit of society.

By the fortunes of genes and good timing and placement -- an IQ off the scale, in the prosperous 60s in Ontario, so purely economic barriers were lower, as were the barriers to women -- I got a lot of education. And with it, I made my own way without a speck of assistance from family or class or connections.

So I'm not taking any point from what you said. Maybe I shouldn't have done any of that? Maybe the fact that some are unable to makes me blameworthy for doing it?

What the fuck is this PROFESSIONAL LEFT and what does it have to do with me?

If you, in the plural, want to be always at war with Eastasia or wherever it is your government may be pointing your military next, then yup, looks like you might be wise to have a draft. The great leveller indeed.

On the other hand, you could always consider an alternative to having several wars (or coups) going on at any given moment, and come up with something actually productive for people to do with their lives.

You seem to be the one with the Orwellian premise, and it's not one I've ever indicated I hold to.

[PavePusher]

214. Now it's rancid Jello.

I didn't even know you could do that....

[one-eyed fat man]

221. Maybe this is simpler

Yes, I did misplace a decimal.

The premise was when Roman citizens felt service in the Legions was better suited to the barbarians, the Romans were caught unawares and unprepared when the barbarians eventually turned upon the Romans.

Or in a more chilling example, the Waffen SS was never a part of the German Army. It was always an organ of the Nazi party, it did not have an allegiance to Germany or the German people. Their allegiance was only to Hitler and the Party

I find too many historical examples where governments have used their military to oppress minorities in their own populations. One of the preludes has always been to restrict the targeted minorities from being in the military. The danger is in an army which does not have a cross section of the society in it might be more likely to act against those segments not represented. If you think that danger is too remote to consider, fine.

[S_B_Jackson]

44. That has to be one of the most impressive strawmen I've ever seen! ! !

You should put in for a job with Josh Sugarman, asap.

[SteveM]

68. They'll do it everytime! Don't they realize a lot of folks read this?

And form opinions about those using lies repeatedly?

[SteveM]

45. Yeah, the "argument" is a straw man. Please tell us who advocates this? nt

[MrDiaz]

47. ...

"The CCW program is very good at making sure those with said permits know a little about guns. They're not the ones I'm worried about." Those who go through the CCW training and pass, are the only ones who are aloud to carry a firearm legally.

[PavePusher]

133. Depends on what state you live in.

Many have multiple options for carrying without any permission slip from the government.

[Oneka]

54. Since what if's abound,

I will add some.

What if crazy Mcshooter knows that " some " students and faculty
members are armed, and be gets cold feet and never even opens fire in the crowded
Schoolyard?

I can't say that allowing weapons on school grounds won't cost lives
In certain circumstances , but it can save lives just as well.

[Taverner]

91. Reason - where have you been?

Very true - if anything, my post is more of a call to strengthen existing CCW programs. They do work.

But the canard I get a lot is that everyone should be armed. Everyone was armed during the Tet offensive too...

[Glassunion]

94. Where/who are you getting this canard from?

[TheCowsCameHome]

59. DU Unrec Squad, armed and reporting for duty, sir!

Sooooo predictable.:rofl:

[friendly_iconoclast]

73. Bad memory? The "friendly fire amongst CCW holders" myth gets brought up semi-annually

Strangely, no one ever gives an example of it in real life.
Unless I missed the part where Vermont and Alaska resemble a bad night in Mogadishu....

[ileus]

95. The antis have to lay claim to this argument...no pro2As ever make such claim.

[Starboard Tack]

101. Excellent post. K&R . Let sanity rule

[azureblue]

103. So what is the NRA's solution to this?

These issues, of criminals using guns, and firearm owners who panic, have been with us ever since way back when.

So what is the NRA's solution to this?

[gejohnston]

114. Let's see

The NRA has supported most of the current federal gun laws, NICS background checks, programs like Project Exile.
They have good training programs for citizens and police.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Exile

Brady and VPC? umm write poorly written op eds in Huff Po, get money from a couple of foundations and millionaires to pay six figure incomes, lobby once in awhile.

Since criminal use of guns exist even in UK, which involves machine guns more, can't blame us.

[iverglas]

140. you keep saying this

Since criminal use of guns exist even in UK, which involves machine guns more, can't blame us.

Can you offer some sources? I don't doubt for a moment that you have them, so I'm sure you will be happy to share.

I only hope you aren't relying on things like, oh, newspaper headines ...

Cousins were killed in hail of machine-gun bullets ... who knows ...

Conviction in machine gun murder

Having forced his way in Callum produced a Mac-10 automatic weapon he had concealed in his jacket chased the group up to the second floor landing and fired at least three shots at them.

... who knows ... was it really automatic? Either way, do you know where it came from?

Now this one does look legit:
Gang who plotted machine gun murder of Eccles shopworker facing life behind bars

The gunman was told to damage the shop or injure one of the owners.

But he mistook Nasar Hussain for the target and killed him by mistake as he struggled to control the 600-rounds-a-minute machine gun he had been supplied with.

Mr Hussain was serving a customer when the gunman entered the shop at 8.50pm with a machine gun hidden in a paper bag. Customers dived for cover as Henderson opened fire.

... I mean, unless one of our resident gun afficionados can pick that apart as they are sometimes wont to do.

Hey, machine guns in my home town, too:
Rare machine gun in suspect’s car

LONDON, Ont. - London police found a rare Second World War-era machine gun in a car carrying the suspect in a downtown shooting.

... but the thing actually used in the murder the accused was associated with was a handgun ...


Anyhow, anyhow. Who is this "us" that no one can blame? The NRA? That's what the question was about.

[DissedByBush]

118. You forgot that study

That showed a gunman coming into a classroom will be able to take out even a lone CCW defending the class.

Except the test gunman was told which student had the gun and where he was sitting.

There were other built-in skew factors, but I can't remember them right now.

[Euromutt]

127. The 20/20 piece? I bitched about it two years ago

See here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=214463&mesg_id=231716

Unfortunately, ABC took the videos off YouTube.

[RSillsbee]

138. Yes, but VPC put them right back up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjZY3WiO9s part one


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLN6_s66wTg part two

[PavePusher]

134. The "students" were forced to wear loose gloves....

tight shirts over their weapons, vision-restricting masks....

--Edit: Also, IIRC, only one had ANY firearms training prior to the filming.--

In short, they stacked the deck so cold, they eliminated their air conditioning bill for the month.

Yellow journalism at its finest.

[X_Digger]

122. Advocating that as many as are not prohibited have the choice to do so..

Is a hell of a lot different than saying you wish everyone did.

Do those of us who also work for reproductive freedoms also want everyone to have a D&C?

No, it's about choice. It's what's for dinner.

[iverglas]

141. yeah, but here's the thing

Advocating that as many as are not prohibited have the choice to do so..
Is a hell of a lot different than saying you wish everyone did.

Yammering on and on about how, oh, somebody with a gun could have stopped every mass murder known to humanity and NOT saying you wish everyone did ... well that's just kind of weird, isn't it?

How else could there be any guarantee that anyone with a gun would ever be anywhere?

If someone is going to say that they do NOT advocate that everyone eligible tote a gun around, they had better not ever try saying that allowing "as many as are not prohibited have the choice to do so" has ANYTHING to do with ANYONE's interests or welfare except THEIR OWN.

[X_Digger]

147. Speaking of yammering on..

I guess I touched a nerve there.

Choice. It's about the ability to exercise a right, should they so choose. It's no more advocating that everyone carry than saying pro-reproductive-choice is the same as 'abortions for everyone'.

You be sure to take up the rest of your post with those who think that every mass murder could be stopped by a person carrying concealed. I'll keep an eye out for that mysterious person.

If someone is going to say that they do NOT advocate that everyone eligible tote a gun around, they had better not ever try saying that allowing "as many as are not prohibited have the choice to do so" has ANYTHING to do with ANYONE's interests or welfare except THEIR OWN.

Of course people carry for their own self-defense. They're not cops. Whether the scenario involves a single attacker in a violent robbery, or a spree killer-- the person carrying is looking out for themselves. Any additional carnage averted is a happy bonus.

[iverglas]

149. speaking of yammering on

Hey there. I guess you decided to give a demonstration of what I was talking about.

No point addressed there, time to move along.

[iverglas]

150. oh, and by the way

Choice. It's about the ability to exercise a right, should they so choose.

Petitio principii. It's about assuming your conclusion ... or maybe hoping somebody else will think you've proved it.

(edit in case someone didn't get it: "carry a gun in public" = "exercise a right" -- unproved premise.)


A pregnant woman is at risk of injury and death (and a lot of other negative outcomes) from the pregnancy. Her right to life is violated by forcing her to continue the pregnancy.

Nobody's right to life is violated by forcing them to wander the streets without guns. Nobody is forcing them to wander the streets, you see. And wandering the streets without guns has never killed anybody. Unless they walked in front of a bus. Pregnancy kills women.

It's no more advocating that everyone carry than saying pro-reproductive-choice is the same as 'abortions for everyone'.

Listen up. If I advocate that everyone be permitted to exercise the right to terminate a pregnancy if they so choose, I will happily agree that everyone having an abortion is a logical outcome of my position.

But here's the thing: I'm not claiming that anybody having an abortion benefits anybody but herself. I'm not saying that if more women had abortions, mass murderers in schools would be stopped by women having abortions. I'm not saying that anyone would be spared death or injury or trauma by a woman having an abortion. Gun militants DO say that third parties will be safer if somebody is carrying a gun. All the time. Over and over and at every turn.


Now that you have had the distinctions explained, I'm sure you will stop exploiting the historical and modern-day violation of women's rights in the service of your agenda.

[X_Digger]

153. 'the right of the people to keep and *bear*'

Kinda supports it, non?

Listen up. If I advocate that everyone be permitted to exercise the right to terminate a pregnancy if they so choose, I will happily agree that everyone having an abortion is a logical outcome of my position.

Are you advocating that everyone have one, though? (Which is, after all, the salient comparison, your blather notwithstanding.)

[iverglas]

155. keep trying

Are you advocating that everyone have one, though? (Which is, after all, the salient comparison, your blather notwithstanding.)

Listen up carefully, and you might not to be able to disregard the salient DISTINCTION.


No one is saying that women having abortions will protect anyone but herself from harm.

Gun militants DO SAY that people carrying firearms WILL protect other people from harm.


It would make no sense for me to advocate that everyone have an abortion, since I make no claim that having an abortion is salutary for any individual, let alone for third parties.

When someone claims that people carrying firearms will protect other people from harm, what they are saying makes no sense unless they are in fact advocating that there be someone carrying a firearm in every conceivable situation where there are people.

Otherwise, how is anyone carrying a firearm going to protect them? You carrying a firearm on the streets of Laredo is not going to protect students at Virginia Tech. Unless there is someone on the spot at Virginia Tech with a firearm, no one is protected. And the only way to ensure that there IS someone on that spot is to advocate that EVERYONE carry firearms.

If you want to tell your fellow travellers to stop claiming that someone on the scene of mass murders could stop or could have stopped them, feel free.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to point out that what they are advocating is that everyone carry firearms. And the hell with "everyone eligible". Why should other people in a situation (say they don't have a clear shot at the bad guy with their own gun) be killed because somebody said the criminal could not carry a gun?

Argue that you can't possibly conceive of going out in the daylight without a pistol in your pants in your own interests if you want. And when somebody claims that a person carrying a firearm could have stopped the mass murder at Virginia Tech or anywhere else, tell them they had better rethink it.

[X_Digger]

163. That's a matrix-worthy dodge.

The comparison is between two rights.

Does advocating the free *choice* to exercise that right equate to advocating that everyone *do* exercise it.

I don't consider it the same, either regarding carrying a gun, or having an abortion.

The reason why someone chooses to exercise it is immaterial to the comparison.

[iverglas]

172. I knew you'd figure out a way not to "see" your fatal flaw

apart altogether from that one about "wander around in public with a gun" being a right.

I'll be happy to say it again, if it will help you.

IF you say that allowing people to wander around in public with guns will benefit third parties

THEN you may not say that you are not advocating that everyone wander around in public with guns

How are you doing so far?

As you will see, NONE OF THIS has ANYTHING TO DO with ANYTHING being a RIGHT.

It has to do with the CLAIMS that some people make about the BENEFITS of people wandering around in public with guns.

No one claims that anyone having an abortion will benefit third parties.

The claim is that interfering in women's ability to have abortions violates their rights.

The claim I am addressing is NOT -- see, it NOT -- that prohibiting people from wandering around in public violates their rights.

The claim I am addressing IS that allowing people to wander around in public with guns BENEFITS THIRD parties.

The specific form of that claim that I am addressing -- if you follow the easy breadcrumbs you will see this, in case you did miss it -- is that allowing people to wander around university campuses with guns WOULD HAVE PREVENTED DEATHS AT VIRGINIA TECH.

How can you not see what comes next, now?

ALLOWING people to wander around university campuses with guns WILL NOT PREVENT ANYTHING.

What MIGHT prevent something would be IF there actually ARE people on university campuses with guns.

The ONLY way of guaranteeing that there will be SOMEONE present with a gun in any particular situation when a mass murder on a university campus is attempted is to ensure that EVERYONE EVERYWHERE has a gun with them AT ALL TIMES.

If YOU aren't advocating that everyone everywhere have a gun with them at all times, then if you claim that allowing people to wander around with guns will benefit third parties, I DON'T BELIEVE THAT CLAIM IS SINCERE.

Because anyone who claims that allowing people to wander around with guns WILL benefit third parties HAS TO advocate that everyone everywhere have guns at all times, or their claim is mere white noise.

Are you getting there yet?


"Carrying a gun" and "having an abortion" are ACTS, not rights. Maybe that will help.



typo fixed

[X_Digger]

176. Yes, I see that giant straw man..

I'd hoped you'd actually address the content of my post, rather than shoving more straw up it's ass, but ah well..

IF you say that allowing people to wander around in public with guns will benefit third parties

I don't, as a rule.

Addressed in post #147 above-

Of course people carry for their own self-defense. They're not cops. Whether the scenario involves a single attacker in a violent robbery, or a spree killer-- the person carrying is looking out for themselves. Any additional carnage averted is a happy bonus.

Now that you've spun a pile of bilge against a position that I don't hold (nor do I think is a widely held position at DU), care to actually address what I said?

"Carrying a gun" and "having an abortion" are ACTS, not rights. Maybe that will help.

Semantic masturbation.

[iverglas]

178. own your own straw

because the straw in this discussion is all yours.

You're the one who tried to redefine the issue to make it something it isn't and then argue as if someone were talking about something no one was ... and drag in the smelly red herring of women's reproductive rights ...

I'm willing to keep trying to help you in case you are genuinely confused, though.

me: "Carrying a gun" and "having an abortion" are ACTS, not rights. Maybe that will help.
you: Semantic masturbation.

Let's go then.

Writing a letter to the editor is an act.
Freedom of speech is a right.

Eating food is an act.
The right to life is a right.

Travelling to Cuba is an act.
The right to liberty is a right.

Saying grace before dinner is an act.
Freedom of religion is a right.

You have a right to write a letter to the editor, a right to eat food, and a right to say grace. I have a right to travel to Cuba. You also have a right to travel to Cuba, but that right is currently being violated, more specifically without justification.

These are all acts that we have rights to do.

How are you making out so far?

Women have the right to terminate their pregnancies. You assert that you have a right to wander around in public with guns.

When someone claims that allowing people to wander around the streets with guns BENEFITS THIRD PARTIES, there is no issue of rights.

They are not claiming that they have a right to wander around in public with guns.

They are claiming that allowing people to wander around in public with guns BENEFITS THIRD PARTIES.
This is the REASON they are giving for allowing people to wander around in public with guns.

I am not claiming that allowing women to terminate their pregnancies BENEFITS THIRD PARTIES.
I am not claiming ANY reason for allowing women to terminate their pregnancies other than that PROHIBITING them from doing so would violate their rights.

If you want to claim that prohibiting people from wandering around in public with guns violates their rights, FEEL FREE.

But do NOT claim that allowing people to wander around in public with guns BENEFITS THIRD PARTIES and at the same time claim that you are not advocating that everyone have a gun on their person at all times -- BECAUSE there is NO benefit to ANY third party in allowing people to wander around in public with guns if there is NO ONE who actually HAS a gun on their person when a mass murderer comes to call.

UNLESS you advocate that EVERYONE have a gun on their person AT ALL TIMES, your claim that allowing people to wander around in public with guns BENEFITS THIRD PARTIES is unfounded.

If you aren't "you", you have no problem. Except that you keep trying to blow straw at an irrefutable statement.

If you don't hold that position, you only had to reply to post 141 in which I said:

If someone is going to say that they do NOT advocate that everyone eligible tote a gun around, they had better not ever try saying that allowing "as many as are not prohibited have the choice to do so" has ANYTHING to do with ANYONE's interests or welfare except THEIR OWN.

by saying: I don't say that. And left those who do to their own devices. Simples. Didn't call for arguing with me at all.

[X_Digger]

183. Who is this 'they' in 'they are claiming'?

And why don't you take up your argument with them?

If you don't hold that position, you only had to reply to post 141 in which I said:

I did.. in the next reply..

Of course people carry for their own self-defense. They're not cops. Whether the scenario involves a single attacker in a violent robbery, or a spree killer-- the person carrying is looking out for themselves. Any additional carnage averted is a happy bonus.

Take up your bilge wash with someone who claims what you say they did. (Somewhere. Somewhen.)

Even Taverner was unable to come up with a credible refutation that his premise was a straw man.

[iverglas]

187. oh dear, you've missed an entire thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x445112

You'll find lots of what I'm talking about right there.

Kind of just the sort of thing the OP in this thread, to which you replied, was talking about.

If you didn't want to talk about the subject of the OP in this thread, you could have just clicked on by this one too.

So I guess what I missed was that you'd decided to change the subject right in that very first post of yours:

Advocating that as many as are not prohibited have the choice to do so..
Is a hell of a lot different than saying you wish everyone did.

So are striped socks.

You pretended there is no "everybody should be armed" argument.

I've demonstrated that there is. Whether the ones making it admit it or not.

[X_Digger]

190. No, I didn't miss that thread..

But it comes down to the same response.. removing a prohibition on something does not equate to advocating that everyone do it.

Feel free to quote a post in that thread saying that everyone should be armed.

[ileus]

193. oh dear, did you see it...it's right up there...now go back...over a bit more...down some.

yeah there....

Oh sorry I never said that...before I said that...between the times it wasn't said.

[PavePusher]

215. Jay, eee, ell, ell, OH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX1H9Lq0438

[DirkGently]

145. Yes. But the conceit seems to be that only the Good Guys will have guns. Equally irrational, though

Lurking at the bottom, for a lot of the Armed Society proponents, is the idea that the "right people," to be armed are the White People.

Check out this thread on a message board run by a self-annointed personal defense expert on the Philly "flash mobs." Devolves VERY quickly into the proposition that "certain groups" who live in "certain places" are prone to horrendous violence, and that the answer is -- check this out -- to carry multiple guns, at all time, including extras for all passengers in your car.

And wasp spray. :)

Watch the self-defense guy -- to his credit --come in and try to drag them back. Of course, he started the whole thing by raising the specter of Minorities Run Amuck in the first place.

http://www.closequarterscombat.com/blog/flash-mob-violence-philadelphia/


Take away the blatant racial paranoia -- which absolutely is a huge of the underlying mythology for many people -- and you still have a huge, circular fallacy. Let's make guns readily available, in all places, for -- not everyone -- but for OUR GROUP.

You know, the Good Guys. Because you can always tell who they are. Somehow, the theory goes, we can ride that tiger of lethal force, and make it work for peace, justice, and domestic tranquility.

What's conveniently ignored is that the whole Armed Society philosophy is busily CREATING the environment of violence they then use to justify the need for ... Armed Society. 1) A country bursting at the seams with firearms, with minimal regulation, so that the Bad Guys are guaranteed to have them, and 2) A philosophy that private citizens' role is to "help" law enforcement clean up the streets, by shooting anyone who, say, tries to steal the neighbors' television. Or an illegal immigrant. Or both.

What the Armed Society philosophy doesn't want to talk about is more guns = more people getting shot, period. But that's okay, as long they're the ones doing the shooting. THAT'S the real fantasy. More power for "our" group For some its whites. For the more enlightened, it's just the Good Guys. They don't want to ensure that "everyone" will have a gun, but that THEY WILL. The power to kill randomly, instantly, anytime, anywhere is fine. As long as that power rests with you and your friends. Right? And sure, accidents will happen. Kids will get shot. Teachers will get shot. Leaders will get shot. Terrible really.

Clearly a case of too many of Them having too many guns, and not enough of Us.

[benEzra]

160. Here in NC...

to obtain a license to carry, you have to pass a Federal background check, state background check, an FBI fingerprint check, a mental health records check, take a class on self-defense law, and demonstrate competence with a handgun on a shooting range, live fire.

Does that guarantee that every single individual who obtains a NC CHL will be above reproach, or supremely competent? Of course not. Does it ensure that as a group, NC CHL holders are far more law-abiding and competent than the population at large? Yes, and the history of NC's carry law has borne that out.

And BTW, if you want to look at racist attempts at "guns for whites only", look at NC's other firearms permitting process, the "handgun purchase permit" law. Unlike carry licensure, which is based on colorblind statutory requirements, the Jim-Crow-era purchase permit law requires you to appear in person before your sheriff or an authorized representative and obtain written permission to buy a gun. A person with a spotless criminal record and impeccable mental health may be denied for not being of "good moral character", which for a long time meant "has the wrong color skin" in this state.

[iverglas]

162. a genuine shame

Unlike carry licensure, which is based on colorblind statutory requirements, the Jim-Crow-era purchase permit law requires you to appear in person before your sheriff or an authorized representative and obtain written permission to buy a gun. A person with a spotless criminal record and impeccable mental health may be denied for not being of "good moral character", which for a long time meant "has the wrong color skin" in this state.

Yes, racism is a terrible thing, there is no doubt about that, and I don't doubt for a minute that it still is endemic in, uh, some places. So gosh, I wonder whether the same thing tended to happen to people who had to appear in person to apply for a job or rental accommodation?

And I wonder which situations caused them more grief and problems?

Hmm. Maybe we could ask an actual person of colour ...

Or we could just keep pretending that gun control is racist. That's way more fun.

[benEzra]

171. Or, one could look at the actual legislative history of the law in question.

And I was not arguing that all gun control is racist, whether in origin or impact, and I agree that that argument paints with too broad a brush. However, it is incontrovertible that *some* U.S. gun control laws enacted on racist grounds, particularly that enacted during the immigration boom of the late-19th/early-20th centuries such as New York's Sullivan Law, and laws enacted in the American South during the segregationist era, many of which remain on the books (NC's being a case in point). You are, I'm sure, familiar with the American euphemism "Jim Crow," and NC's pistol permit law is a textbook example. Many U.S. drug prohibition laws were similarly based on racial fears, as I'm sure you're aware.

I have no doubt that it in most counties of this state, it is now administered on a far more colorblind basis than was the case thirty or forty years ago. However, it still retains the elements intended to allow for discrimination, and in some counties I am sure that a practicing Muslim, someone who has too many tattoos or piercings, or someone who is openly gay or transgendered could find themselves denied on "good moral character" grounds. We are working on changing to a straight-up background check like most states use, but it's down the priority list a bit.

[iverglas]

174. so were you saying

that the law requiring that a person attend in person to make application was racist? that it was not intended to verify the identity of the individual in question and deter fraudulent applications (in an age before computerized databases, for starters)?

You *are* saying that it was "intended to allow for discrimination"?

If not, then all you're saying is that the society was racist and the people who administered its laws were racist. Just as the people who ran businesses and owned rental property were.

Where I'm at, it's illegal to request a photograph with a job application, for precisely such reasons.

But once a person gets the job, they may be required to carry photo identification as an employee. Lots of employers don't require this, of course.

Licences do commonly require attendance or photographs at the time of application, since identity is an issue.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/faq/lic-per-eng.htm#b6

Q. Can I submit a licence application online?

It is not possible to submit a licence application online because we need original signatures and an original photo. However, the application form for a Possession and Acquisition Licence (form CAFC 921) can be downloaded and filled out electronically, then printed and mailed to our Central Processing Site.

Is identity not an issue for the licences in question in NC?

If so, how can it be accurate to say that the reason for the requirement was racism?

[benEzra]

189. Obtaining a purchase permit was intimidating for me as a 32-year-old white male

in 2003, the year I applied for one. That's because it was designed to be, and it still holds on to that aura a bit. I can imagine how it was for a black man in 1955, in a segregated, openly-and-viciously-racist society, to show up at the county jail and declare (to a powerful white man who doesn't like uppity blacks) that this black man wants to buy a handgun...

You probably have no idea how fucked up U.S. society was in segregated areas in early to mid 20th century (and not just in the South), because you didn't have the brutal extent of racial oppression in Canada that we sadly had here, but it was downright evil. There is no other word for it. And a lot of people in positions of authority treated the two-tier society almost as an article of faith. It wasn't just about guns (you're right, that was small potatoes); it was about every interaction between the citizen and Authority, from voting to going to school to interacting with law enforcement. There was one standard of civil rights for people with pale skin, and one standard for people with non-pale skin, regardless of the character of the individual.

The purchase permit statute was originally passed in 1919, and there wasn't much paperwork. I don't believe there was any application form at all, originally, although sheriffs could create one. The applicant showed up before the (always white) sheriff, usually at the county jail (in my county's case, above the jail), and asked permission to purchase a revolver, pistol, or crossbow. The sheriff or a deputy sized up the applicant, decided (via whatever means they chose, including gut feelings) whether the applicant was of "good moral character", and if the sheriff or deputy approved, he issued the applicant a permission slip to purchase a handgun. The relevant statute is § 14-403, and the requirement to have that permit to purchase is § 14-402. I think the "background check" language is a relatively recent addition, though I'd have to hit the library to say for sure.

And unless things have changed since 2003, sheriffs are still allowed to make up their own criteria. I applied and was denied after moving back to NC in 2003, because I didn't meet the sheriff's self-imposed time-of-continuous-residency standard (it might have been 1 year, I'm not sure; there was no statutory requirement). No biggie, because I got a carry license instead and that satifies the requirements for purchase (with a stricter background check, to boot), but it just goes to show how arbitrary it can be. And if I wasn't already planning to get a carry license, it would have been a bit of an imposition.

And BTW, to show just how tightly North Carolina has hung onto its authoritarian statutes from years gone by, check these out:

http://law.onecle.com/north-carolina/14-criminal-law/14-184.html
http://law.onecle.com/north-carolina/14-criminal-law/14-186.html

Those statutes are enforced very selectively these days (generally only against someone who offends someone in a position of authority who is in a position to retaliate), but the fact that they even exist says a lot, none of it good. And it's not just in the South; when we spent a month in Boston for my son's most recent heart surgery a few years ago, I noticed much to my surprise that it was apparently a crime to sell alcohol on Sunday (because $DEITY wouldn't approve, dontchaknow), though I see that they changed the law in 2004 to allow sales once church lets out. :eyes:

[iverglas]

227. different worlds

I suppose it's possible that there were anti-fornication laws somewhere in Canada's past. The Lord's Day Acts (prohibiting most trading on Sunday) were struck down as unconstitutional (freedom of religion) in 1985. (And the interesting thing here is that while the intent of such legislation is blatantly discriminatory, it does have effects that are beneficial to society for completely different reasons, in that it ensures that families are able to spend at least a little time together without one parent or the other being required to work.)

If the effect of something is discrminatory, e.g. a requirement that a worker be able to lift 100 lbs where that is not a bona fide occupational requirement, it is properly regarded as discriminatory (that one would exclude more women and more members of some ethnic minorities).

But where the manner a statute is applied is discriminatory, your problem just is not with the statute -- even if it was tacitly intended or understood that it would be applied that way when it was enacted. Your problem is one of administrative law: abuse of discretion by the administering authority.

I can just never understand this. Fine, in 1919, people didn't take local sheriffs to court for abusing their discretion. But a century later? It's done in Canada. All the time, about everything you can imagine. People who are denied firearms licences have a procedure for seeking review, and some do, and some win. Also where discretion is insufficiently or excessively fettered in legislation, the legislation is challenged:

http://scc.lexum.org/en/1992/1992scr2-606/1992scr2-606.html

Furthermore, the AQPP has claimed that the Act, in giving enforcement authorities, under certain circumstances, a discretion between penal and civil recourses, leaves them with too much discretion. The source of this allegedly excessive discretion lies in the structure of the Act and not in s. 32(1)(c) of the Act itself. This claim lies beyond the lis of this case, but I will nevertheless address it. ... In the first place, what the AQPP brands as an arbitrary power given to the Director does not correspond to the kind of excessive enforcement discretion leading to concerns about the vagueness of the law.

(the only thing I found handy on a quick google) "Void for vagueness" would be the rubric here. A reference here to a dissertation on the issue:

http://www.lareau-law.ca/vagueness.html

This dissertation explores the void-for-vagueness doctrine in Canadian constitutional law. Vague laws are constitutionally suspect because they fail to provide "fair notice" to citizens as to what the law prescribes and also because they increase the discretionary powers of law-enforcing authorities. In order to understand the operation of this contemporary doctrine it is useful to explore first some other related principles which possess deeper roots in our legal tradition. Among these principles, legality and the rule of law represent key elements, as they are closely related to the ideals of "fair notice" and "limitation of law-enforcement discretion" which both lie at the core of the vagueness doctrine. ...

If some authority in Canada made up its own rules about how long someone had to live somewhere before getting a licence to do something and denied the licence on that basis, as you say happened to you ... well, it wouldn't happen, but if it did, that authority would find itself in court next day. Why does that apparently not happen in the US?

During the bad old days in NC I am sure that African-American men were very disproportionately charged with a number of crimes they had not committed. I don't think you would have been calling for the criminal law statutes in question to be repealed. If it were happening today, I think you would be calling for the relevant authorities to be restrained or replaced.

This is where I fail to see the argument against firearms licensing laws. If they are applied in a discriminatory manner, go after the person or entity practising the discrimination. If the issuing authority is allowed to "make up" its own criteria, do something about the legislation that allows it, because too obviously it is legal garbage. NOT because legislation requring licenses is wrong (even if you think it is), but because legislation that allows individuals who administer the law to discriminate in administering it is wrong.


But the main thing is still what I have repeatedly said: the people and organizations making these allegations, the people and organizations seeking to have these laws struck down, are NOT the people who suffer the allegedly discriminatory effects of them. Outliers like Roy Innis and the parties to Heller notwithstanding. All you have to do is read the NRA's blacklist to see that. The amici supporting the measures in Heller were:

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/07-290_amicus_coalition.pdf

AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE,
ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE,
BAPTIST PEACE FELLOWSHIP OF NORTH AMERICA,
CEASEFIRE NJ,
CENTRAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RABBIS,
CITIZENS FOR A SAFER MINNESOTA,
METHODIST FEDERATION FOR SOCIAL ACTION,
CLIFTON KIRKPATRICK IN HIS CAPACITY AS THE STATED CLERK OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (U.S.A.),
EDUCATIONAL FUND TO STOP GUN VIOLENCE,
FREEDOM STATES ALLIANCE,
AMERICAN JEWISH CONGRESS,
FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL LEGISLATION,
GRAY PANTHERS,
GUNFREEKIDS.ORG,
ILLINOIS COUNCIL AGAINST HANDGUN VIOLENCE,
ILLINOISVICTIMS.ORG,
IOWANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF GUN VIOLENCE,
JENNA FOUNDATION FOR NONVIOLENCE, INC.,
KARLA ZIMMERMAN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION,
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE,
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN,
NEW ENGLAND COALITION TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE,
NEW YORKERS AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE,
DC STATEHOOD GREEN PARTY,
NORTH CAROLINIANS AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE EDUCATION FUND,
OHIO COALITION AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE,
RENÉE OLUMBUNI RONDEAU PEACE FOUNDATION,
ROOT (REACHING OUT TO OTHERS TOGETHER) INC.,
UNION FOR REFORM JUDAISM,
VIRGINIA CENTER FOR PUBLIC SAFETY,
WISCONSIN ANTI-VIOLENCE EFFORT,
AND CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL VICTIMS AND FAMILIES OF VICTIMS OF GUN VIOLENCE

I've highlighted two obvious representative organizations in the African-Ammerican community, nationally and locally.

Where are the genuine representative Affrican-American organizations calling for the repeal of measures like licensing for firearms owners/carriers?

Where are gun militants and their organizations in efforts to achieve actual social justice for African-Americans or any other disadvantaged group?

But really, mainly, where are the African-Americans and grassroots/representative African-American organizations calling for less firearms control -- in this century?

[krispos42]

177. More guns = more people getting shot

Period.


Or maybe not. The homicide rate has fluctuated quite a bit the past century or so, while gun ownership rates haven't. In fact, considering that modern firearms are more reliable, have better sights, are more ergonomic and more reliable, hold more cartridges, and fire better ammunition than has been true historically, it's kind of surprising that homicide rates are down some 40% since about 1990.




The Unarmed Society Theory holds the opposite view, that the violence of society is used to justify the needs for no guns. The more violence, then obviously the need for fewer guns. The less violence, then obviously the need for fewer guns so there can't be more violence later on.

Right?

[iverglas]

181. oh dear, you have it so sadly wrong

Surely you know about "the racist roots of gun control"!!1!1!!

All the white male people in this forum who are so saddened by alleged barriers to people of colour acquiring firearms ... they aren't at all the same ones who explode in paroxysms of glee every time "da thug" gets blown away by somebody with a gun. No sirree bob.

It's the purest coincidence that da thugs are so often not white people. And the fact that the gangstas and assorted other bad guys who disproportionately make up the segments of the homicide statistics whom we may dismiss with the backs of our hands because they just don't matter are not white people, that's also pure coincidence.

A little harder to follow sometimes, because they tend to appear out of sequence, are the pleas for us all to focus on what matters - the poverty, the bad schools, the drug wars that are the "root causes" of crime - juxtaposed with the amusing (to some) remarks about how the bad guy was just a victim of the society that the bleeding hearts will blame for his crimes.

All bases covered in the very concerted effort to ensure that nobody ever looks at that smoking object over there.

It certainly is instructive to look at other places to see it all in its purer forms.

Google "devon frenell" ... the ones I'm thinking of are in the first dozen results.

[benEzra]

157. The same flaw exists in the "everyone should have an abortion" argument,

and the "everyone should get a gay marriage" argument. Namely, that argument is a straw man.

Advocating that people have the choice to do so is not the same as advocating everyone do so. And since we are talking about those with state-issued carry licenses here, we are limiting the pool almost exclusively to mentally competent adults over 21 with clean records who have passed their state licensure requirements. In my state, that means passing a Federal background check, state background check, FBI fingerprint check, mental health records check, a class on self-defense law, and live-fire demonstration of competence with a handgun on a shooting range. FWIW, in states with carry licensure, around one in twenty over-21 adults typically carry, and the bell curve is definitely shifted toward the more experienced end of the bell curve due to the effort it takes to get a license. A disproportionate number of CHL holders are former LEO's, former military, and competitive shooters.

And we *do* have a case of a mass shooter entering a building to kill people and being shot by a civilian CHL holder with a personally owned gun, and that was the New Life Church shooting. She was/is an avid shooter and had briefly worked as a Minneapolis LEO years ago.

http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/12/jeanne-assam-one-year-later.html
http://www.gazette.com/news/don-113486-new-hero.html

[iverglas]

161. read a thread before posting ever?

Cripes, I disposed of this one in the subthread directly above, even in the ones before you posted.

But hell, for your benefit -- and them maybe you'd go to the subthread where this has already been discussed:

Advocating that people have the choice to do so is not the same as advocating everyone do so.

Asserting that THIRD PARTIES are protected from harm by permitting the carrying of firearms in public AS GUN MILITANTS DO ASSERT constantly is the straw that broke the back of that claim, for those who do assert that, and of the exploitive and false reproductive-rights analogy that for some reason is just such a shiny object around here.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

182. newsflash... there is no "everyone should be armed" argument.

Not even from the NRA.

Now, there is a "everyone who choses to arm themselves should be allowed to own/carry a gun" argument... but there is a very difinitive ideological difference between that and seriously advocating "everyone should be armed". Lots of people should not be armed and some should even even be barred from owning firearms. I've never heard anyone advocate that everone should be armed.

Your "argument" posted in the ttle of the thread is a mischaractarization of the pro gun agenda and a simple straw man used to discredit the RKBA crowd. It's no wonder you see a ig flaw in it... it was designed by the opposition to be that way.

[Francis Marion]

209. The probability of McCrazy

choosing to hurt people who can, and will, defend themselves is lower than it would be for a pool of guaranteed defenseless victims.

McCrazy has the capacity to hurt society. The best we can do is prejudice his or her decision to skip the conflict.

There's two possibilities of McCrazy's victim pool: A) free men and women, or B), other than free men and women.

And you'd have to be crazy to pick a fight with free people.

Furthermore, McCrazy isn't kept from getting guns, matches, fuel, automobiles, airplanes, etcetera simply because legislative fiat constrains people who care about law and society.

Nevertheless, let's visit the situation you posit- armed students resist an armed murderer.

There's scant data to evaluate because institutions regularly deny personal freedoms, such as 'keeping and bearing arms' openly or concealed. But I can't recall a police station being chosen as a victim zone; why might that be? Nevertheless, the Appalachian Law School event is most relevant, but not perfect: armed students subdued a murdering gunman after going to their cars to retrieve weapons.

There was no firefight, no blue on blue.

Also consider the Colorado church shooting a few years ago; an armed security person with LE background stopped the murderer by force; Major Hassan, the radical Muslim terrorist who shot people at Fort Hood was stopped by gunfire; police this time.

If police can do it, why can't other people? If it's important enough for police to train to secure public safety, why wouldn't gun owners be capable of reaching the same standards of performance?

For Joe Citizen to carry around a concealed pistol, although to do so is very much their Constitutionally protected right- lack of training, lack of practice, and improper mindset will be degrade their ability to function in an emergency.

I think we need to expand the salutary effect which armed, effective persons- such as police- extend to society through sharing some responsibility for personal and community defense, as with a firearm. There are too many places to patrol for the few police, and besides, we don't want to live in a police state. So a person who chooses to exercise their right to carry arms in public had better live up to that responsibility, and be well prepared to function if it is ever necessary. That means sufficient expenditure of time, money, sweat to achieve competence.

The prospect of well trained, competent citizens carring or using guns in public is a boon in time of crisis rather than a liability.

We have plenty of data to study the outcomes for public murder events where killers liesurely and unconcernedly ply their craft, confident their victims lack the means of resistance. Sure would like to place more power into the hands of the public, where it belongs, and where people can dispute their own murder. That experiment has not been tried.

[Atypical Liberal]

220. Any example of this big flaw?

Since 1986 we've gone from hardly any states allowing concealed carry to now all but one.

Do you have any examples of this sort of confused panic happening?

I suspect that when a bad person is killing lots of people, it's pretty obvious to everyone around who the bad person is. He's the person killing people and that everyone is running away from.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

230. and *crickets* from the OP

[Euromutt]

235. Minor correction to your post...

Since 1986 we've gone from hardly any states allowing concealed carry to now all but one.

Almost all of those states already permitted concealed carry in theory, it's just that "may issue" laws made permits hard to come by. And still do, in "may issue" states like California, New York, Massachusetts and (Heaven help us) New Jersey.

[Atypical Liberal]

237. And Hawaii. n/t

[tortoise1956]

244. I understand your argument,

but I believe that the incident you use as an example would be much less likely to happen in that type of situation. I am a firm believer in the Heinlein adage:

"An armed society is a polite society."

However, I have no proof. I do think though that if one is not sure WHO is armed, they would start to think twice about committing crimes. Wasn't that the case in Florida? (I don't have links handy, does someone else?)

[NewMoonTherian]

248. I'm having a really hard time understanding quite what you mean.

And don't tell me that every person carrying will be smart and know what to shoot at. The CCW program is very good at making sure those with said permits know a little about guns. They're not the ones I'm worried about.

It's everyone else, who is now panicking, and firing at anything that makes a sound.

Under proposed campus carry laws, everyone still has to pass the test and acquire a CCW license before carrying. There is no "everyone else" firing anything.

The rest of what you said about friendly fire is valid, but I just can't see a majority of students in a given class carrying. It could happen, and it could create a more dangerous situation, but outside of the military example you cited, there's no precedent for it that would warrant banning campus carry on those grounds alone. There is tremendous precedent for a single shooter doing massive damage to an unarmed crowd to warrant giving campus carry a chance.

[slackmaster]

249. A firearm is a discretionary purchase for most people

I certainly couldn't have afforded one when I was a student.

[Atypical Liberal]

262. Also, you must be 21.

Most, if all states, require the CCW holder to be 21 years old. This is going to preclude most traditional college students anyway.

Really, I don't see this as an issue for traditional college students. Mostly I see this as something beneficial for people like me who attend night school.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

256. Everyone BUT you --

:hi: