Seems somebody at the Miami Herald wants you dead

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

...(and "The Brady Campaign" isn't a source)...
Go read the Gun Facts book...

The Gunfacts Book isn't a source...

[Flint]

I reject your source and replace it with my own!

[Hippikos]

Please source your statistics (and "The Brady Campaign" isn't a source). I'd like to see percapita numbers, not relative rates. (Especially if you think they can be validly "combined".)

You want sources?

School Safety

* Between 1994 and 1999, there were 220 school associated violent events resulting in 253 deaths - - 74.5% of these involved firearms. Handguns caused almost 60% of these deaths. (Journal of American Medical Association, December 2001)
* In 1998-99 academic year, 3,523 students were expelled for bringing a firearm to school. This is a decrease from the 5,724 students expelled in 1996-97 for bringing a firearm to school. (U.S. Department of Education, October 2000)
* Nearly 8% of adolescents in urban junior and senior high schools miss at least one day of school each month because they are afraid to attend. (National Mental Health & Education Center for Children & Families, National Association of School Psychologists 1998)
* The National School Boards Association estimates that more than 135,000 guns are brought into U.S. schools each day. (NSBA, 1993)

Children and Gun Violence

* America is losing too many children to gun violence. Between 1979 and 2001, gunfire killed 90,000 children and teens in America. (Children's Defense Fund and National Center for Health Statistics)
* In one year, more children and teens died from gunfire than from cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, and HIV/AIDS combined. (Children's Defense Fund)
* The rate of firearm deaths among kids under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

America and Gun Violence

* Every day, more than 80 Americans die from gun violence. (Coalition to Stop Gun Violence)
* The rate of firearm deaths among kids under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
* American kids are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die from a firearm accident than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined. (Centers for Disease Control)

[Spexxvet]

Thank you, Hip

[Hippikos]

Saddam passed out AK-47s, when? Baghdad violence increasing, when? Non Sequitur.

Next time you want to know whether the users were left- or right handed, whether they had long or short hair, had eye defects, or other red herrings.

But, to answer your question this time, I consider our country Holland as an industrialised country with a population of 16 Mio. Gun related death (inc.suicide) 2001: 47, 2002: 38, 2003: 28. Since you want to know the source of everything: www.iva.nl/forceDL.php?filename=pubPDF1405.pdf

This means in average 37 gun related death a year = 0,10/daily. In the US there are 80 death related to gun violence.

US has 18,75 times more population than Holland, so in Dutch relations, you should have 1,875 gun related death daily.

[theirontower]

As a lurker on the boards I usually just read the stuff the flows across, but I felt compelled to post on this, it seems that most people are arguing over things that don't really have much to do with the issue. I am not a champion speller, I am very well read and an internatioanal parli debater, so hopefully people can focus on the ideas rather than the literal verbage. Please understand that when I ask a question I never mean it rhetoricaly or in a sarcastic manner, I really do want to hear what people think about this. I have for months enjoyed reading the threads here, thank you for that =D

A little history to explain the perspective: I grew up in a very poor, rural area in California. Being in California, poor and rural are relative for most, but I grew up on a farm, not a rich farm, a working farm, where as an 8 year old I got up in the middle of the night to fix irrigation ditches breaking down from time to time. I grew up with mostly mexican kids (who see the word Hispanic as an insult, a nod to the spanish conquistadors.) Real mexicans whose fathers taught them concepts like machismo and honor, kdis that would get pissed if you called em a wetback, because most likely they did swim over. I bring this up because more and more I realize that the world at large does not value things like honor anymore, so maybe I grew up in a different environment than is the norm. We learned to take a whuppin and give one, you don't go for a knife or a gun, if you got a problem you take it out mano e mano if you can't talk your way through it. I never had to worry about getting jumped by 8 guys, or stabbed, or shot. We had plenty of guns around, it just wasn't even an idea that you would use a gun to solve a problem with another person. My family are all white christian cowboys, while I may be the black sheep in the family, we found alot of common ground with the people we worked with, we all fought for our honor and are great friends, even greater enemies. Looking back at it I can say I didn't grow up the california norm, but who does?

Thats not true anymore though.

Most of this thread has centered around school based gun violence. Both that caused by students and by adults not involved with the school. As far as the students go, my perception is that most of these kids are either A. afraid to take a whuppin or B. afraid they will get jumped/stabbed/shot if they try to deal with the issue mano e mano. But understand, that to fall into either of those categories, you must have already decided that violence is the answer to your problem. The thought process does not instantly devolve to gun = kill. First you have to decide upon that method as resolution. After that, you begin to take stock in your resources. Even if that thought process takes less than a second, it happens in that order, probably not with conscious thought all the time. Can I fight fairly? Will that solve the problem? Will I have to worry about vengence? There is no reason to consider the gun as an answer until you have already decided that other answers will not resolve your issue, so the gunis all that is left. Fear takes over.

So this is my question to the people in the thread talking about guns being a direct reason for violence. This is not rhetorical, nor sarcastic. Do you think that violent crimes would have have occured if guns were not available? Do you think that if they had not had the access to firearms that they wouldn't have gone to a knife? Or somthing else?

There is a broader issue occuring that EVERYONE in this thread agress on, but maybe it takes someone else to point it out.

Our world has become more violent, and that violence is intruding upon areas of our lives that we traditionaly have not had to relate to violence. (I say we in general, there are large portions of the world that do or do not have the problem in the same proportion that we do.)

Some people in the thread have accused others have having a wild west attitude. If you look at that period in history, many many people died of gun violence. But was it in schools? Were children performing these acts, and were schools the target they have become then? If not, then why not? There was just as much lawless activity and viciousness, if not more, with more firearms readily acessible and accepted publicly.

The truth of the matter is that the world is evolving, AS USUAL. At one time statistics told people that fighting back against a rapist, or home assalt, or classroom assault, would get more people killed, as the people doing those crimes were not as likely to kill the victim. That is no longer true though, rapists and child molesters are much more likely to do away with the victim when they are done rather than run the very real risk of being caught. That has changed the paradigm under which "victims" may respond. Today, if an armed gunman takes overa school campus, it is not very likely that a student will not get shot, that people will not die. I lived though the Stockton Massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_Massacre), my girlfriend in highschool was a very good friend of some of the cambodian girls that were killed, she still remembers what happened. That guy decided before he showed up at that school that people were going to die. As a result of that, semi-automatic assault weapons were debated and then a federal law was put into place to try and stop these kinds of things from happening. As a gun owner and hunter, I was very happy for that, I have no problem not owning semi-automatic weapons, just have to be a better shot.

Sorry for the long post

Look at what happened at Beslen! Had the teachers been armed, had they fought back against the intruders, they would never have had the chance to work explosives into the scenario. Even if some children were hurt doing this, wouldnt some be better than 186? On the other hand, they had alot of problems with local parents showing up armed, they finally had so many of them that at one point there were reports coming out indicating that they had to include them in the police work, had to organize and utilize them to get them outta the way. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_massacre)

What Im really saying here folks, is that there is NO one answer for a situation like this. Saying that situation X will best be solved by Answer Y because that worked last time, or the opposite, situation X will not be solved by Answer Y because that didnt work last time, is a verifiable and defined fallacy of logic. Logic dictates that each situation be evaluated and analyzed on its own, we can apply the lessons history has taught us, but not in a rote manner, always with reason and analysis. At times force will be the only means of saving our childrens lives, at times we will be able to find other means of resolution. At times its appropriate to gather all the kids into a fortress of a classroom and lock themselves in to prevent some madman with an AK from shooting them, at other times that same action will provide the attacker with a defendable base and hostages, with time for explosives. Prioviding an easily defensible area may not be the a good thing when taken with things like Beslan in mind, or take a step back farther and see the power a few people can wield in a small defensible arena. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae)

How to tell ahead of time?

Steve

PS I know that there are statistics that would support every viewpoint in the world, so please refrain from them, unless you can give the statistic for every variable, which we know isn't possible. Logic and reason are the flavor of the day.

[theirontower]

PPS Its not fair to compare the US to a country with legal pot, of course there is less violence and shooting there.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Thanks theirontower, and welcome to the Cellar.
To your point of Mano on Mano, to settle a dispute with the other guy. There is a culture that's developed, and spreading, where losing a fight is unacceptable. A loser is a social pariah, shun by the entire peer group. It's better to kill, or die, than lose.

I firmly believe this attitude (Gangsta) is driving the increase in violence with weapons. I also believe it's a damn shame.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

You want sources?

I guess they don't teach proper citiation forms in your oh, so "civilized" land.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

The Gunfacts Book isn't a source...

No, it's a compendium. It cites its sources.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I firmly believe this attitude (Gangsta) is driving the increase in violence with weapons. I also believe it's a damn shame.

Concur. Remeber that in drug-related violent crime, sometimes the drug is testosterone.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by theirontower

So this is my question to the people in the thread talking about guns being a direct reason for violence. This is not rhetorical, nor sarcastic. Do you think that violent crimes would have have occured if guns were not available? Do you think that if they had not had the access to firearms that they wouldn't have gone to a knife? Or somthing else?

Which is a point that's been brought up often in the other arguments here on this subject (the thread count surely exceeds a dozen by now)...and is never credibly responded to.

The problem of violence isn't weapons. Violence isn't caused by weapons any more than arson is caused by matches. Violence is caused by violent people. Liberals/progressives, whose philosophy is driven by identifying "victims" (and then grabbing power on the pretext of "helping the victims") prefer to reflexively relabel criminals as victims, while displacing responisbility for their criminal behavior onto inanimate objects, "society", "oppression" and "injustice". This ensures a steady supply of "victims"...

[Aliantha]

So you're suggesting that a particular group - liberals - are responsible for violence in schools Maggie?

[Hippikos]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

I guess they don't teach proper citiation forms in your oh, so "civilized" land.

These ain't no proper citations? Or does it not fit your world view?

You asked for hard facts and sources, you got it.

[Hippikos]

Originally Posted by theirontower

PPS Its not fair to compare the US to a country with legal pot, of course there is less violence and shooting there.

Well, that tells a lot of how you view the outside world and how it really is. Drug using here is less than 1% of the population, so there goes your theory up in smoke.

Yes, the world is becoming more violent, especially when El Presidente of World Greatest Power is using violence cq. threatening to use it to solve the World problems an settles arguments with his father "mano a mano".