Ok.
I'm not sympathetic to the NRA, and I'll never understand why automatic, semiautomatic and assault rifles are legal. But the reason I chip in is I do get so tired of the US gun debate as people over here fail to realise that the genie is already out of the bottle, it's too late to fix it. If guns, or even just the particular kind of guns I mentioned were outlawed, only the law abiding would surrender them. The criminal fraternity wouldn't, and that could make the US more dangerous, as say, burglars would be less worried about getting shot when breaking in. Gun reform is needed, but they'll never reduce the huge number of guns already in circulation adequately, so let's move on. The comparison I'd make is that we really ought to drive on the right over here, given our proximity to Europe. But the last viable opportunity to make that change passed at some point in the early sixties. Sadly we had not the vision to do it when we could. Same deal with the US and guns.
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Prufrock Lucifer, son of the morning!, Tue 16 Dec 2014, 20:12,
Reply)
Nonsense
Burglars don't seem to be particularly worried about being shot now. They're burglars, remember.
People are not (generally) worried about being shot by a burglar, they're worried about odd bloke at the end of the street who has a funny turn and shoots schoolchildren. Or the student who gets his dad's legally-held gun and takes it into university. Reducing the number of guns will reduce the number of these events.
Sure, the criminals are going to keep their guns but gang crime, for example, is largely perpetrated within similar social groupings (cf. London). Once you make the gun-holding illegal then you can slowly erode the gun-holding within those criminal groups (cf. London).
Everyone's a winner!
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Ghoti Fingers, Tue 16 Dec 2014, 20:51,
Reply)
Except the innocent lives that are killed within those social groups.
And as long as weapons are being manufactured in places like China and Russia, criminal elements will continue to obtain them.
Of course, there were no killings before firearms.
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gunmetal drove slowly in the passing lane on, Tue 16 Dec 2014, 20:54,
Reply)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll
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gunmetal drove slowly in the passing lane on, Tue 16 Dec 2014, 21:32,
Reply)
So roughly the same number of deaths from war in all the time before 1800 as since?
Do you have similar figures for non-war-related murders?
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Ghoti Fingers, Tue 16 Dec 2014, 21:56,
Reply)
so
What you're saying is that is doesn't matter if criminals kill each other and nobody ever gets caught in the crossfire and if a cop gets shot by a criminal it doesn't matter. As for the idea that people are not concerned by armed burglars, that might be true of gun owners, and the idea of a general paranoia over lone gun nuts is your own invention.
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Prufrock Lucifer, son of the morning!, Tue 16 Dec 2014, 21:11,
Reply)