Because some folks let emotion overrun logic.

And what logic is that? the logic from the statistics that can be shown to go both ways? or the well-funded 'logic' that buys its way into the mainstream consciousness?

The logic is quite simple from where I'm standing.

Guns aren't killing people. People are. What kind of people? Criminals. Most law-abiding citizens are not going to misuse their guns. Will some of them? Absolutely! But very few.

Banning guns is an easy fix. Oh my God! Look at people shooting each other on the streets of SE DC! Well! We better ban guns! Better yet, we should sue gun makers for ever putting those guns out there! If it weren't for those damned guns, we wouldn't have any violent crime!

Bull-fucking shit. It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are ingenious. In reality, the good guys (i.e. Joe Q. Public and friends) are losing out. The actions of a few fuck-ups are ruining it for everybody. How fair is that?

And even if every single gun were taken out of action (including the one from Moses's cold dead hands), what are you left with? A bunch of violent criminals that will use their hands, feet, body, rocks, knives, etc. to get what they want.

The problem is not guns, it's people. What is causing a person (or persons) to randomly shoot at people in the Washington, DC area? What caused 2 guys in body armor to rob a bank in Los Angeles, resulting in a massive gun battle between them and LA police? Is it bad brain chemistry? Socioeconomic factors? A bit of both? THESE are the factors that we really need to look at...not the guns.

How to get the sniper
 

Here's my suggestion. But the police hung up on me....

* Close deer season.
* sell sniper licenses.
* put a bounty on snipers of, say, $10,000.
* require proof that you actually killed a SNIPER and not a hunter.
* turn loose all those pissed off hunters.

Problem solved!

Brian

Now lemme get my tongue out of my cheek...

Then you'd better find another world to live in. No matter what laws may be passed by well-meaning but deluded people, <b>anyone</b> can carry a concealed weapon...and wishing for your "theoretical world" can't change that.

"Good people do bad things" is semantic sillyness. Do you believe that within every person lurks an evil spirt that might at any moment sieze control and make them "do a bad thing"?

Is your solution to this terrible situation a vast system of futile laws that magically protects you from evil? How could this ever ensure that the rest of the world is made as helpless as you feel yourself to be? *I'm* certainly not willing to live within the tangles of "safety nets" you would construct. No law will ever shield you from the unresolved anger you project onto the rest of the world.

Quite true of course as far as it goes. Guns are a tool that make killing easier. People could use bows, knives, swords, clubs, poison, and even just bare hands. However the job is more difficult. England which bans guns has dramaticly less murders per thousand of population then the US while at the same time having more violent crime

That means the English have a more difficulty getting murder done because they lack the tools to do so. The sniper could use a crossbow if he/she didn't have a rifle, but his/her killing efficency would be reduced considerablely and he/she would have more problems with concelment and excape. If the sniper were pegging rocks he/she would already be in custody and there is a good chance there would be many less dead if any dead at all.

I only make this argument for the sake of good logic. I'm not for the banning of guns in the US at least until there is real democratic reform. We may need the guns for the revolution.

So, we get rid of guns, and people start using bows to kill people, then we get rid of bows and people are using knifes to kill people, we get rid of knives and people are killing people with clubs. People have been murdering each other since the Stone Age. Banning a certain weapon is not going to solve the problem. If someone gets it in their head that they are going to commit a murder, they are going to commit the murder one way or the other.
Banning guns is not the answer. Then again having everyone carry guns is not either. Finding the middle ground is necessary. Giving well-trained individuals handguns and attempting to keep guns out of everyone else’s hands is about the best we can do. The problem with Gun Control laws though is that they are just that laws, and they are only as good as the people enforcing them.

I sense that is a facetious comment. ;)

However, it's really quite amusing how Americans maintain two indefatigable opinions:

1. There is no country or group of countries in the world that could withstand the military might of the US government.

2. We the people have a right to bear arms to ensure freedom from oppression by that government.

Not that I disagree with you entirely, but you are either an individual of indefatigable fatalism or a fan of black humour if you consider those beliefs to be 'amusing'. The vast, vast majority of non-US Americans seem to find them disturbing and worrying, judging from personal experience.

But then, if anyone is to induce the end of western civilization as we know it, it may as well be the leaders of the free world. In a sense, it is as fitting an end as any.

X.

Since Americans can point with some justice to historical occurrences to support both opinion 1 and opinion 2, with some of us going so far as to say that opinion 1 makes it a necessity to supply a check-and-balance in the form of opinion 2, small wonder these are "indefatigable."

Hermit22's postulation of carry guns for elite persons only as his preferred way to approach CCW is a viewpoint essential to oligarchy or dictatorship. It is absolutely antithetical to a republic, which requires the electorate to be the ultimate source of power in all things, life and death included, to be delegated by the electorate to its political representatives, or its public servants, who must serve at the suffrance and pleasure of the electorate, which may withdraw said suffrance at any time for cause.

Hermit22 does not himself recognize any individual right to self-defense, that is certain. Hermit: friendly notice -- that is one biiiig booboo. Don't screw up like that; it embarrasses you to demonstrate so clearly that you prefer totalitarianism to any other sort of social order, for only totalitarian regimes delegitimize self-defense in the way that you do, that they may the more conveniently assault anyone they deem inconvenient to their interests.

Hermit, do not let your discomfort with killing tools, and the morally responsible martial-arts mindset that should and usually does accompany them, lay the groundwork for social oppression of yourself, or others, or of our descendants. Too much of this already goes on, with the sinners all unconscious of their sin, and it has eroded our freedoms to a degree that requires repair and an altering of certain insufficiently freedom-friendly paradigms. If you desire in your heart to be a free adult human being, rather than a shackled slave (and you know how childish slaves get), then do not be anti-gun.

Have you noted how you seem unable to conceive that you might be of that armed elite you postulate? I can conceive of that for myself -- what's stopping you, in 25 words or less?

Try your statistical understanding on the study that was the foundation of John R. Lott's More Guns, Less Crime which covers all 3015 counties in the United States over a period of 15 years -- not exactly a small or narrow study. It convinced me that the gun carriers have a real point -- in short, I think it's proven now. There have been allegations that Lott's work has been debunked, but every such allegation I have seen fogs into such a haze of erudite-sounding polysyllables that may or may not be terms of art in the discipline of statistics that I end up being unconvinced. These allegations fail of being comprehensible enough to persuade me that Lott's method or thesis is fundamentally flawed.



I propose an experiment, Hermit: move to the most urbanized portion of the state of Vermont, which is a state where anyone can carry a concealed weapon, and without the officious bother of keeping a carry permit on their person as well. Remain there for five years, and then take stock as to how nervous you felt during that time. Since Vermont's crime rate looks like prewar England's, or North Dakota's, I think you will find it really a very placid experience. You may find it congenial to carry, yourself, with all those shining examples before you.

... or Virginia, to keep on topic.

The presence of guns in the hands of the citizens does change the balance of power.

In order to use the military, first a US government would have to violate Posse Comitatus rules which prevent the use of the military against civilians. If this happens and is not an isolated incident (such as Waco), the shit must really have hit the fan.

Up until that point, the effect of deadly force in the hands of the citizens does act as a check on the amount of power that any particular government agent is willing to use. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

For example, during prohibition 1 (alcohol), there was a significant cultural note of southerners protecting their home-built distillers with shotguns, on the lookout for "revenuers" -- federal agents using the power of taxation to investigate and prosecute people producing alcohol.

Knowing that one's ass might be peppered with buckshot is enough to prevent agents from being willing to do house-to-house searches and such. This in turn changes the political will for different things, and the political ability to do different things. Maybe I need significant armor to do that search, or significant numbers of agents, or light violation of Posse Comitatus (Waco again).

It's not a perfect situation by any means, but IMO it means that there's only about one Waco per decade and not one per state per year.

The image that came to my mind wasn't the prospect of the US military rounding up southern white boys for moonshinin'.

It was the prospect of using the military to round up Muslim Americans and locking them up in military facilities without American Justice en masse like they did to the Japanese Americans during WWII.

Posse Committal that, Jose Padilla.

Utopia is still not an option.

What came to my mind was the political last resort, armed federal troops escorting black teenagers into Little Rock High School or interstate greyhound passengers in the face of state and local kkk militias. Fed power, in my mind, used for good.

but back to topic kinda- Like Syc said, he's a predator, he is hunting. Riflesport. How easy is that line to cross?

It's been interesting to note the spread of the opinion amongst people who have been studying the operational aspects of these attacks that there are at least two people involved: a shooter and a driver/lookout, who may exchange roles from one incident to the next.

So "How to get *the* sniper" may be a misnomer.

If there *are* two or more in this ongoing operation, how likely is it that they are nutcases sharing a common delusion? Or is it more likely that they're part of a larger organization? The *methods* are surely terroristic, whether there is a clearly stated political goal or not.

OK, that's the major premise.

Minor premise:
See: "Osama 'gave Bashir money for Bali bombs''"
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/top...150180,00.html

As a footnote to a story claiming that Al-Queda financed the purchase of three tons of C4 by JI from a source in the Indonesian military, this article reports:

<i>" The Sunday Times said Faruq had also told the CIA of other plots which had been considered. These included: The random shooting of Israelis and Americans at hotels across Indonesia. This was abandoned because it would have only 'minimal impact'..."</i>

Perhaps they found a way to have more than "minimal impact".

Again, bows and knives are less efficient tools for killing then guns, both from a physical and from a psychological point of view. Physically there is less power to these other weapons and a single strike is less likely to kill especially with modern medical procedures. Psychologically (except for sociopath individuals) it much harder to stick a knife into a person than it to shoot him at a distance (I know this from personal experience -Vietnam- and from scientific studies such as On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
by Dave Grossman)

Banning guns would reduce the killing by making killers less efficient. However the fact that banning guns will not eliminate murder entirely is no argument against a ban. Never the less the right to carry arms still must be defended for political reasons. And further everone must have the right or no-one has it.

Which is standard sniper doctrine, as I understand it.

If there's more than two people, I'd say almost a certainty there's a larger organization. If there's two, I think there's probably a larger organization.

Stab wounds are actually slightly more lethal than bullet wounds, I believe. As for the psychological argument, that goes straight to hell because of your parenthetical note. What's the point of making it harder for everyone BUT the sociopaths? It's the sociopaths who are doing the murdering!

Yes, they are less efficient, but if that is all anyone has to either commit the crime or defend themselves it becomes a moot point. If I have a gun and you have a bow and you want to kill me it requires much more effort on your part to actually commit the murder. If I on the other hand only have a bow it comes down to whether I have the training to stop you.
I would guess, though I have no statistics right now, and any statistics would be invalid, that before guns were mass-produced more murders were committed per person then there are now. Guns make killing easier yes, but once again only if the killer has a gun and the victim does not. If every person on the street possibly has a gun concealed on his or her person, a random killer would most likely think twice about just randomly striking. If everyone only had a bow or a knife on them, it makes it easier to just walk up and kill someone because the chances of them being fast enough to use these weapons is minimal and they are far less likely to strike a fatal blow.
Of course, in the case of the sniper it does not matter because he is striking from a distance and the victim has no chance to defend him or herself.

Warch, it's a hard line to cross when it's your own species. I've been in an unpleasant situation -- psycho roommate -- where I thought I might have to pull a pistol out of a drawer and cap the guy. It felt terrible. I was praying I wouldn't have to. Fortunately, I never had to, and a couple weeks later, psycho roommate checked into Saint Elizabeth's, the DC-area mental hospital for the not well fixed.

Cocaine is not your friend. That's all I've got to say.

If what you say is true and the reason for not banning fire arms is self defense then everyone should carry - like in a Heinlein book. That means there will have to be gun subsidies for the poor to make it fair. Every one should get a nine mm auto of some sort so as fire power would be equal. If the government issued them to everyone when they turn 18 then they could buy in bulk and save a bundle. There will have to be ammo subsidies too so everyone gets and equal chance to practice.

The gun ban in my mind is hypothetical i.e. you don't have a gun but neither do I. If that happened the number of killings would go down for the same reason that farmers would grow less food if they went back to plowing with a mule. (The ban is hypothetical in this country because the government wouldn't enforce it. The government doesn't even bother to keep drugs out of prision.)

The argument that people need to carry against random killers is absurd. Most murdered people are murdered by someone they know The argument for the right to bear arm is political. It is not a crime issue! The crime issue is meant to be divisive and it works. It helps keep the people from realizing they could band together to force the government to provide health care instead of cluster bombs for instance.

Boy, it sure stopped being "like a Heinlein book" really fast. Like in the very next sentence.

See here: it's nort my job to feed, clothe and house the poor, and it's not my job to arm them either. You've perhaps mistaken this for a socialist country. I do understand your confusion.

If you are in favor of arming the poor, do you support repealing the "make guns too expensive" type of prohibitionism? Like frivolous tax-funded liability suits against manufacturers, the "smart gun" (boy, there's a misnomer) requirement currently being proposed in the People's Republik of New Jersey, and the "Saturday Night Special" bans? Or are you only in favor of "arming the poor" when it's at taxpayer expense?

What's absurd is arguing that it's the *only* reason. I don't have fire extinguishers in my house *just* in case it's hit by lighting, but itf it *is* hit by lightning I'll be glad I have them..
Nonsense.
You really *are* a Socialist at heart.

The government doesn't "provide" anything. The taxpayers do. This is why they don't band together to insist the government "provide" health care...because so far enough of them still realize who will actually *pay* for it.

You do realize that completely validates my point. If guns were banned then most murders would not be prevented. If in the heat of the moment someone decides to kill a person, they know then they are just as likely to use a knife or other weapon, as they are to use a gun. Guns don't commit the crime the person does, Banning guns does nothing other than make people find other ways to do what guns do, that's the downside of human ingenuity.

It does not matter if the government enforces it. Anyone who thinks that the government can stop people form getting guns thinks that all people are idiots and that the government has all the answers. This is obviously not true.


Once again, human ingenuity comes into play. If I decide to kill someone, I am going to do it unless that person or someone else stops me. If I have a knife and get to the person I'm trying to kill he's just as dead as if I shot him. If that person has a knife and tries to stop me, it just depends on who is more skilled. All guns do is give you another tool. Killing may go down, but it is unlikely, because as you pointed out most murders are not random, but are acts of rage against an acquaintance.


Now you’re just blowing what I said out of proportion. The possibility of someone carrying a gun is a deterrent. If you walk down the street and see me and know I could have a gun your as unlikely to try and attack me as if you know everyone has a gun. It is what neighborhood watch accomplishes. You do not know if someone is watching you but you cannot be sure. The same applies to removing your faceplate from your car stereo. There is a good chance the person stuck their face into their glove box but the idea that they took it with them is enough to deter most thieves.

This Reason piece about the increasing crime rates in GB goes into the differing beliefs about ones right to self defense.

An awesome piece it is.

Ovbiosuly an NRA propogadna piece.

Dave is ovbiosuly giving us Jaguar's propogadna, while he's busy with his studies.

The article is a good summary of the larger work by the same author published earlier this year.

It throws a strong light onto the process of creeping coercive collectivism that gun prohibitionism is a significant part of. Coerceive collectivisim is also a component of "shame culture"....see the links out of the threads here on that topic.
<blockquote><i>
Man :"Awright. It's a fair cop, but society is to blame"
Detective Parson: "Right! We'll be charging them too."
---Monty Python "Dead Bishop" shetch
</i></blockquote>

:)

(Truth be told, I thought it was a fine article. But I figured jaguar's view needed to be represented as well... :) )

From that article:

Cultural differences and more-permissive legal standards notwithstanding, the English rate of violent crime has been soaring since 1991.

The British gun ban was passed 4-5 years ago.

Violent crime was 'soaring' before people's guns were taken away.'

The article is staggering in its desire to link private gun ownership and rising crime, in the process utterly disregarding cultural factors. It's strange how the article admits that general gun ownership was severely restricted by the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act, but only points out that violent crime increased sharply in the 1990s. It would invalidate much of the author's argument is cultural reasons, rather than reduced private gun ownership, were to blame.

Except for murder and rape, it admitted, "Britain has overtaken the US for all major crimes."

Yes, if it's only murder and rape the US is ahead in, it should be OK.

As a result the English and American murder rates are converging. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and the latest study puts it at 3.5 times.
The link to gun ownership being implied, and non-obvious. But as long as it's only 3.5 times, it's still OK.

The example of Britain teaches nothing, especially seeing how emotionally manipulative that article was. The examples of robbers being shot, killed, etc. in the middle of the article were injustice, rather than examples of why guns are good.

Not that the magazine itself would be biased, of course. The banner ad currently is for "The leading libertarian and conservative titles."

Unsurpringly, the author is a Professor at a Business College. With the amount of Post Hoc fallacies committed in the article, I'd find it surprising if he wasn't laughed out of any serious academic convention. The MIT link only suggests that he provides data for a research program.

Here's another example of a pro-gun Post Hoc fallacy:

"The only policy that effectively reduces public shootings is right-to-carry laws. Allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns reduces violent crime. In the 31 states that have passed right-to-carry laws since the mid-1980s, the number of multiple-victim public shootings and other violent crimes has dropped dramatically. Murders fell by 7.65%, rapes by 5.2%, aggravated assaults by 7%, and robberies by 3%."
("The Media Campaign Against Gun Ownership", The Phyllis Schlafly Report, Vol. 33, No. 11, June 2000.)

I just wonder if Malcolm is part of the DHorowitz' oft-invoked liberal academic mafia that's making life so difficult for conservatives... :-)

The article is mostly emotional manipulation with no proof of the links drawn between the statistics and the results. The meat of the article is blatant in its failure to demonstrate how widely available gun ownership would have prevented most crimes, and instead focuses on how 'unjustly' British law treats those who seek to protect themselves.

Naturally, it focuses on Britain, which is an exception to the whole situation, based on Europe. In most other European countries, gun ownership has never been an issue, and crime mirrors (to a lesser, less dramatic extent) the British experience.

But I suspect the author wouldn't want to let facts get in the way of good argument. He has a book to sell, after all.

Fine distractionary tactic, too. Instead of the thread's title of 'how to get the sniper', where general firearm ownership would have done very little, the subject is being diverted to matters of principle. Very well and good, but how exactly are more liberal gun laws in the US vs. Britain preventing a criminal or insane individual from using his probably legal firearm to kill a large number of people?

Surely at this point, concerned citizens ought to be swarming all over that sniper, knee-capping him with their nifty new Glocks. What? People are hiding in their houses, schools are being shut down, and real terror is being struck into their hearts? Why? With your trusty pistol at your side, nothing can happen to you? At this point, pro-gun advocates are claiming that if everybody was armed, they wouldn't be afraid. Which is patent nonsense: your sidearm isn't going to stop a sniper's bullet, and a murderer who is willing to kill indiscriminately and in cold blood isn't going to be stopped by the knowledge that his victim is armed.

The illusion of safety that firearms provide is all good and nice, right until the moment when somebody shatters is. Which is exactly what the sniper is doing. Period.

X.

Links: http://gncurtis.home.texas.net/posthocf.html

How stramge, especially since the book is called <i>Guns and Violence: The English Experience</i>. The UK is always being held up as an example of how successful gun prohibition is. The article, and the book it is based on, show how bogus that argument is.
Ah, <i>Serious</i> Academics. Like Michael Bellesiles, perhaps? Or your own lofty perch in the sociology tower?

Bently is indeed "a business school" (horrors!)...but Joyce Lee Malcolm ("she" not "he") is indeed a Visiting Scholar at the MIT Securuty Studies Program, and Harvard University Press sees fit to publish her books. No one has yet found falsification and fabrication of data in her work, which distinguishes her from the Serious Academics like Bellesiles.

You choose to answer criticisms regarding his methodology with ad hominem attacks on me. As far as I'm concerned, the discussion is over, since I'm not going to fall for flamebait. (I'll counter your points below)

As an aside, I've never studied sociology. (but it's the most commonly-attacked academic study subject, which you predictably pick on to attack academics as a whole)

Business schools, like "Bently" [sic], don't often teach the same stringent methodology that science-focused schools do. This is what I have gathered from personal experience, not an overall judgement. And indeed, her argument is easily shown to be fallacious.

Name-dropping means nothing, especially in the academic world. If you use academic names as a means of support, you need to provide quality of publication at the same time. What I've seen her publish (that one article) is nothing. That an MIT "Securuty" [sic] program has her as a co-operator, and that HUP published her works means very little if the quality of the work doesn't stand up. The latest works by Francis Fukuyama were fairly irrelevant as well, even though his earlier works were highly-acclaimed in the academic world (mostly isolated to US academia). A name is nothing unless it's backed up by solid publication.

No, it's just shoddy and poorly reasoned. I never claimed it was fabricated. Your argument can be based on truths, but if it's foolish, it won't stand up. Please address the issues that her argument is based on Post Hoc fallacies, and that absolutely no proof is provided between her data and her conclusions.

You didn't address a single one of my actual points, but instead sought to bring additional, tangential individuals into the argument. Also, if you are going to crucify jaguar in another thread for his misspellings, at least make an attempt not to do the same here.

If you wish to continue this argument, and provide factual counter-points to my criticism of her methodology, please take it to email. I have no intention of dragging this thread into a flamewar.

X.

I assume that the nut hides himself well so a hail of return fire is unlikely, however, its made more unlikely by the supresion of carry rights in the involved region.

The illusion of safety that government provides is all good and nice, right until the moment when somebody shatters is. Which is exactly what the sniper is doing. Period.

Jag loves my prodding.

Shush, he's trying to study.

Well, since X doesn't want to talk here, I'll let him be. I could have sworn he'd claimed academic expertese in sociology, I must be rmisrembering.

Speaking of ad-hominem, X seemed inclinded to sniff at the author's "business college" affiliation as though she were some typing instructor. Personally I'm not particularly impressed by academic name-dropping, but I pointed out that her academic credentials are pretty much in order. Bellesiles I brought up because he's an example of what the prohibitionist "Serious Academics" (the ones X sets so much store by) have been producing on RKBA issues.

I ignored all the handwaving about post-hoc because it is is exactly that: handwaving. Absent a controlled experiment or a time machine, a charge of post-hoc can always be levelled at a historian's analysis. Bellesiles, we have the goods on, because he claimed to have evidence supporting his own prohibitionist analysis that later independant investitgation proved couldn't possibly have existed. Emory is still trying to sweep *that* one under the rug.

The point about the UK gun prohibition is that it's held up as an example of how successful gun prohibition is. Malcolm's point is that it *isn't* successful at all, and further, it has fostered abrogation of personal responsibility for self-defense to a government that can't do the job, while *prosecuting* those who actually attempt to defend themselves. Those are post-hoc conclusions too, of course, but this is politics, not physics.

Yes, I misspelled Malcolm's employer's name. I did manage to get her gender right, though....you've now blown that one twice, X.

Here, maybe this will help:

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/images/MALGUN_au.jpg
<blockquote>Professor of History, Bentley
BA, Barnard College; MA and PhD, Brandeis University.
Author of <i>To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right, Guns and Violence
The English Experience</i> and a nationally recognized authority on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Primary field is early modern Europe, with emphasis on England. Research and writing focus on the impact of war on society, the popular attitude toward personal liberty, law and religion. Areas of specialization include early modern Europe, 17th Century England, colonial America, warfare in European history, Reformation, Renaissance and constitutional history. Recipient of Bentley College Award for Excellence in Research. Formerly taught at Boston University and Northeastern University. Prior consultant, National Park Service, Boston. </blockquote>

Just curious, X, what do you feel are the underlying cultural factors producing the increase in crime?

Indeed i do, grow the fuck up ;) :rattat:

The article is interesting and raises some good points, even if it's use of individual cases stinks of emotional manipulation over statistical evidence, which can be done to support pretty much anything if you try hard enough. The use of the stat of 3.5 times the violent crime rate as proof of failure was a little…..curious too. The recent monash shooting has been interesting, the main fallout has been that handguns, the only thing not banned under the last gun reform bill were used and there has been a huge increase in the use of handguns in crimes and a huge drop in the use of shotguns and rifles in crimes, suggesting the bans were rather effective. There also has been a large increase in knife based weapons, suggesting oddly enough, that the effect was just to change what weapon was used. The media, particularly the more….tabloid elements have been frothing at the mouth for a blanket ban on handguns.

I still don't think people should be able to conceal-carry a Beretta Tomcat or a S&W .357 Magnum but a right I would support the right to carry some weapons, particularly non-lethal weapons such as pepper spray and legal protection for self defense. It's a thin line. Britain has gone too far, I’d agree, but I don’t think the US should be used as a model either.

Capitalist Pig
 

The ban on non-lethals makes me wonder about the intentions of the legislators. It really does relate to an abdication of personal responsibility in favor of collective responsibility. I don't want enough cops to make us perfectly safe but that is the logical outcome of this kind of thinking.

Gee, not to say "I told you so", but...I told you so. :-)

Pepper spray is a joke as a defensive weapon. Cops use it to try to subdue someone unarmed who's resisting while avoiding the legal and PR hassles of actually drawing their real weapons and without closing to physical contact.

When we had our own campus shooting pretty much identical to the Monash shooting, the perp was apprehended by two students who had to run to their cars to get their handguns. Once confronted with armed opposition, the perp surrendered.

Of course the students had to go to their cars to get their weapons because an enlightened university administration had banned legal weapons carry on-campus, and the students, being law-abiding, complied. The administration's enlightenment probably cost at least one life.

ROTFL. You know, it's really hilarious to see the arguments gun freedom supporters normally use used by gun controllers. Of course, they are just as valid -- or would be, if the article was trying to claim that the gun control alone caused the increased crime. But it doesn't, at least not directly. Rather it is arguing that gun control is part of a whole set of public policies opposed to self defense which have lead to the increased crime.

In fact, the author uses this argument in its usual sense within the article, pointing out that even before Britain had gun control, it had a far lower crime rate than the US had. It's not the guns.

The magazine is, of course, biased. It's a political magazine. It's tagline is "Free minds, Free markets", which should give you some idea of its bias.

It's a magazine article, so the reasoning isn't as well developed as in an academic study. However, it doesn't even make the "post hoc" argument, let alone accept it as a fallacy.

Not every exampe of post-hoc reasoning is a fallacy. This one happens to be backed up by a number of studies on the subject.

And I'd like to point out that here in the Peoples Republic of Maryland, the right to carry our nifty new Glocks has been denied us. So we're guaranteed to be unarmed. Coincidence?

That said, a sidearm will NOT protect me or anyone else from a sniper at long range. But it WILL protect me from the trailer trash living across the highway from me.

I have been forced to draw my sidearm in my own defence twice in my life, and although I hope it never happens again, I want the ability to draw it should the need arise. The first time I was under fire and the second, I was saved from a serious beating. Who knows what's next?

Brian

"Propogadna" -- what "propaganda" sounds like if you have a really bad cold.

Since NRA-ILA is a civil-rights organization, working for the greater freedom of thee and me, roll on, "propogadna!"

Did you miss the joke?

Injustice?? My God, injustice?? Do you, Xugumad, grasp the monstrousness of what you've just said? These people were committing crimes, and were being fought against in accordance with good morals, which call for opposing evil acts. One of those cases was a case of attempted murder. To call fighting against someone who has no right to take your life "injustice" is not merely morally confused: it is downright evil, Xugumad. With that one sentence, you range yourself on the side of crime. You become not only a spokesman in favor of evildoing, you are exerting every fiber of your being to spread evil around more generally. You here try to persuade us evil is good, black white, that Ignorance Is Strength.

Well, we reject that and you should too. If you can't, may I suggest suicide? Evil should not be suffered to live, let alone to flourish.

Quote:

Fine distractionary tactic, too. Instead of the thread's title of 'how to get the sniper', where general firearm ownership would have done very little, the subject is being diverted to matters of principle. Very well and good, but how exactly are more liberal gun laws in the US vs. Britain preventing a criminal or insane individual from using his probably legal firearm to kill a large number of people? The illusion of safety that firearms provide is all good and nice, right until the moment when somebody shatters is. Which is exactly what the sniper is doing. Period. X.

If that were such an "illusion," Xugumad, how then do you explain the savings of an estimated 2.8 billion dollars US annually to crimes stymied by the use of private arms? 2.8B is a shot in the arm for any economy, and keeping that 2.8B in remunerative circulation rather than as a defensive overhead expense or lost productivity and wealth from dead workers is a dollars-and-cents argument for keeping arms around. If it were such an illusion, Xugumad, how then do you explain that policemen everywhere go to the bother of carrying between one and two and a half pounds of gun on their hips? Over an entire workday and into the night, that adds up to a burden -- if it's some "illusion," would that burden be necessary? No, Xugumad, the "illusion" is that such keeping and bearing is somehow useless.

The Sixth Sense of humor
 

No, I did not, though admittedly the humor was some few minutes and posts a-dawning. I'm just dryly adding a bit to the jest.

'salright man. I just wanted to make sure that you knew I wasn't a typo-ing left nut. :)

I think what he meant was that "injustice" best describes being jailed after defending your home... not the actual defense of the home.

Well, on general principles one hopes so, but you sure couldn't prove it by me, the way Xugu put it. I wouldn't be caught writing it like that, for sure.

Curiosity compels me to wonder if your brushes with violence have anything to do with your attitude towards other people. For example you appear to label people as trash based on where they live. I spent a year killing and avoiding being killed with various weapons, but I haven’t felt the need to carry since nor be belligerent towards my neighbors based on who they are or where they live. I haven’t been shot at for 33 years. And I’ve been able to defuse beating situations with my mouth at least twice. Before you ask, I’ve never been able to afford to live in the “nice neighborhoods” until this last summer. I realize my experience is not universal, but then neither is yours, so I’m hesitant to base public policy on such narrow data aren’t you?

Funny, I'd wondered if your brushes with veteran's benefits had anything to do wuth your advocacy for socialized medicine. :-)

:confused: Hmmmmm no, but I don't remember posting anything about socialized medicine on this site -- Yet! But I am for a single payer system. Why?, brushes with 60 hr/wk jobs with no medical, brushes with 44 million citizens with no care and 40 Million more with inadequate care. Knowing the the US spends 14% of GNP on health care and the other industrialized nations spend and average of 7.5% of their GNPs and can provied care for everyone. I suppose that you have good bennies or enough dough to buy your own. Many don't!

How about asking for clarification rather than instantly flying into a rant that equates my opinions with pure evil?

The examples given were examples of injustice. Since the outcome of the examples given was how people defending themselves were punished by the justice system, the examples document something that is unjust, in my opinion. Thus, examples of injustice.

I wonder what the sniper victims' families think about gun control. I think some of them are on Donahue (today? this week?). I am sure it'll be easy to explain to them how the sniper's most likely legal firearm had nothing to do with destroying their lives. After all, the attacker could as well have murdered lots of people with a knife, and still remain unidentified and safe from a distance. Oh. He couldn't have, could he. Oh dear.

This thread was about the sniper. Its focus shifted to firearms. If anything, the fact that the sniper is being very careful suggests that he knows someone could shoot him with their legal concealed weapon, and is taking precautions. Which invalidates the theory that firearms provide protection from potentially insane people like him/them. The casual armed robber may very well kill you if he sees you going for a weapon, and the well-prepared attacker isn't even going to be affected by it, since he may very well land a fatal blow first to avoid retaliation. If anything, a well-armed populace will escalate the situation to where any robbery will start by attempting to subdue or neutralize any defensive capability.

Hurray. The solution to violence is more violence.

X.

He easily could have, he just would have had to go about it much differently, such as attacking people at night or in their homes when they are alone. People can always come up with different ways to do things, no matter what tools they have. Obviously this man is smart, if he wanted to do what he's doing with a knife he probably could. It might have taken longer but then again it would have been harder to link the killings.

Well, go back and read your posts in this thread. ON 10/22 you cited RAH, and then turned right around and suggested the government should buy guns for the poor. You said at the end of the post that if the people simply got together and demanded it the government would "provide" health care. You never responded to my point that the government never actually "provides" anything; it simply forces taxpayers to pay for stuff.
Acttually, no, I'm unemployed, and my COBRA has just run out. I sure don't have enough money to pay for someone **else's** health care.
Or their firearms. So you can peddle your socialism elsewhere.