Are the "gun nuts" right?

Question

http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=18660461&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=569380&rfi=8

Answer 1

Of course the gun "nuts" are right. We always have been, and always will be. We don't dodge the issue, and we don't change the subject.

Clint: Where are your numbers from? I can make up statistics, too, just like you did. (I don't make up numbers, but I could.) I can also bring relevant numbers. Where are your numbers from?

Please cite a specific example of a shoot out over a parking space in St Louis, or anywhere else. (Pssst: It's BS! It never happened, and you know it!).

Nobody carries a gun into Wal*Mart thinking the chips are dangerous, or the greeter is too aggresive (except maybe you!). If they choose to carry a gun into Wal*Mart, it's because they know that crime can happen anywhere, anytime, and it doesn't schedule an appointment first! Criminals do not live on some remote island. They live amongst us, and can attack at any time, anywhere.

Masculinity has nothing to do with gun ownership. I personally know several dozen women who own guns and competitively shoot them. That fact that you do not own a gun does not make you more or less a man.

No one is telling you that you must own a gun. Much the opposite, most gun "nuts" would be happy if you'd take the same approach towards them that you profess that they should take towards you--leave them be. They want to own a gun. Fine. You don't. Also fine.

Please provide your source data for Detroit and St. Louis.


A M Frantz: Please provide your data source.

Your assertion that guns in the home are more likely to shoot a family member is based on what? Surely you're not STILL using the old tripe published by Arthur Kellerman in '86. Even he admitted that his study was fatally flawed because he only used criminals and suicides in his report.

Yes, Australia, and Japan and England have a measure of freedom, but they are not free. Nor is the US, to be perfectly frank. Each year, government takes more and more, and the people have less and less.

Please cite a source for your comment that the above mentioned countries have less violence overall than the US.

In Japan, if a husband kills his wife, his son, his daughter, then himself because of some dishonor, it is considered 4 suicides. Here in the US, it is considered three homicides, and one suicide, as it should be. If he uses a butcher knife, people such as yourself will claim some nebulous moral victory because he didn't use a gun, but three innocent people are still dead. Hooray, he didn't use a gun. Gun control worked!

Please cite a source for your comment that gun control works (at anything, other than infringing upon a person's rights).

Answer 2

I don't get this argument, that if she had a gun then this wouldn't have happened.

If I owned a gun then it would be locked up, mainly due to my kids. If someone broke into my house I would first have to find the key, unlocked the gun cabinet and load the gun. During this time I would have the intruders looking for me.

If I did keep the gun out then what would be to stop the intruder from using it if they find it before me.

I'll admit I'm afraid of guns, not so much as the gun itself but more the type of person who has them. Yes America has a wide range of people who own guns and most of them are amazing people but what about the person who sleeps with a gun under his pillow or has to keep a gun on him at all time, my fiancées relative does just this, or the mad driver on the freeway cutting everyone up. It's these people that have access to guns that scares me and what’s to stop them threatening or even pulling a gun out at any disagreement? During the gas crisis a few years ago this was a common problem in St Louis and there has even been shoot out between people over who got to the parking spot first.

If you want your gun to going hunting that’s fine and I'm happy that you can still do that, but if that gun comes near me or my family then I start to have a problem with it. I'm yet to find a reason why anyone would need to carry a gun into Wal-Mart, are chips that dangerous? I know the greeter can be annoying but surely a simple "I'm fine thank you" would do?

I've never carried a gun or even owned one, the closest I've ever been to a "real" gun would be an air rifle. I've not been murdered, I've managed to talk my way out of a mugging, I'm yet to be burgled, I don't feel less masculine for not having one and bambi would have been safe around me.

You keep your gun, I really don’t care, but don’t tell me I wrong for not having one.

Maxx P - At least get your facts correct
Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):

Country - Homicide - Suicide - Inintentional
USA - 4.08 (1999) - 6.08 (1999) - 0.42 (1999)
England/Wales - 0.12 (1999/00) - 0.22 (1999) - 0.01 (1999)
Scotland - 0.12 (1999) - 0.27 (1999) -

Also look at the two most dangerous cities, St Louis and Detroit, both have right to carry laws.

Answer 3

This happened in my neck of the woods, Gun enthusiasts are right, but it's more than the guns themselves it's the basic right to defend ones self and family. Country with strict gun laws have had an increase in violent crimes contrary to what anti gun people may think. And the guns that are left in the home for self defense are not the leading cause for children's deaths. The 2nd amendment is just as equally important as everything else in the constitution.

Answer 4

No.

It wasn't gun control that prevented the victims of this particular crime from defending themselves with guns. Assuming that the victims weren't convicted felons, they had the right in every state of the Union to purchase one or several guns and keep them in their home. However, evidence that doing so actually protects a family is weak at best - statistics generally show that guns purchased for protection are far more likely to shoot family members than criminal intruders.

They're also wrong in claiming that the Second Amendment is a pillar of freedom. Australia, Japan, and England, among others, have extremely stringent gun controls, and remain free societies. They also have far lower rates of violent crime than the US. The strict gun control in these countries would probably never succeed in the US, because there are already so many guns in circulation, but these countries show it does work.

They also claim that gun ownership promotes freedom. I would note that this doesn't seem to have worked very well in Iraq, where almost everybody owned guns under the Hussein dictatorship. In fact, gun ownership is widespread throughout nearly all the Arab world, the least free region on Earth.

Their wrong once more in believing that any type of restriction on ownership even of military type firearms is a threat to all gun owners. The reality is that genuinely strict gun control, such as the other countries I mentioned have, has almost no support and is never going to become law in this country.

They do believe, however, that violent crime is mostly bad. I guess even the gun nuts can't be wrong about everything.

Answer 5

I don't know about "gun nuts". It seems every time someone feels strongly on a subject they become a "nut".

As far as the court system, criminals and police go. That is easy. MONEY. If more prisons were built to keep these people locked up them they wouldn't get out early. More money to build more court and hire more judges and police. The problem is that people don't want to pay more/higher taxes. Yet they complain that the system is failing. Or are the people failing the system they rely on?

This a big can you opened. As far as gun laws. Well, Adolf Hitler was anti gun. And once all weapons were registered they knew were to go to get them and disarm the people so they couldn't fight back. Also, generally speaking, right to carry states have lower crime rates than non-right to carry states. But that's another issue altogether.

Answer 6

We are right and we have always been. The right to defend yourself against lawlessness and tyranny has not gone out of style.

The right to gun ownership is a natural right; one that God gave you if you are religious or one that you are born with if you are secular. It is not a privilege that is handed out like candy to well behaved children by opportunistic politicians..

Read John Lotts book "More Guns Less Crime" if you want to see hard facts and data that prove the effectiveness of gun ownership.

Or you can look to our global neighbors such as the UK and Zimbabwe to see the disaster and tragedy that can occur through gun bans.

Answer 7

I will have a gun in my home to protect myself

Answer 8

i could of told you that guns have saved me on more than one occasion