• Frankly, amd with the greatest of respect, you people are insane.  You think that by arming everyone, you are protecting everyone.  In fact, all you are doing is creating an arms race.  If everyone is allowed to carry handguns, then the next shooter will walk in carrying assault rifles and grenades and wearing body armor.  If you think being heavily armed makes you safe, why do US soldiers and marines die everyday in Iraq.  They are among the most heavily armed individuals in the world.

    By advocating a society where everyone carries a gun, you are promoting a culture of violence that suggests that the best solution to everything is a hail of gunfire.  It is not surprising, considering the actions of your governments (whether led by Democrats or Republicans) have been a consistent resort to violence as a means to virtually any ends.  Not surprising, perhaps, but sad and tragic for the entire world.

    SS


  • If one person had had a weapon on them, they could have stopped him.


  • @M36:

    If one person had had a weapon on them, they could have stopped him.

    They could have stopped him 12 months ago. Have you seen the stuff this guy wrote?? He should not have been at this school in the first place. The TEACHERS were afraid of him. There was obviously cause to dismiss him from school (and get him som mental help) a long time ago.

    Squirecam


  • OK, so some people want a mandatory carry law…

    If everyone has a gun, the theory goes, less violent death will occur because people will be armed and able to defend themselves.

    The problems with this:

    Armed robbery: when someone robs someone currently at gunpoint, there is a very slim chance the person being robbed is armed, so the robber can usually get away with this without using the gun (if he even had one, and wasn’t just pretending)

    if there were a mandatory carry law, the robber would have to assume the target was armed. if he still wanted to rob them, he would have to shoot first and then rob.

    but wait, you say! shooting someone adds an additional charge of such magnitude, that most robbers will be deterred from committing the crime.

    even if this is true, there are still those robbers who are willing to shoot someone. these can be people who think they are good enough to get away with it, desperately need the money and are willing to do anything, or people who are just plain sadistic/sociopathic, and have zero qualms about shooting/killing someone. these people exist now. theres a good chance though, that at least some of them still dont shoot people now, knowing the consequences, and also knowing that due to the extreme unlikelihood of a target being armed, they dont need to shoot. but if there were mandatory carry laws, these people would need to shoot. i think that a mandatory carry law, in addition to accidental discharges, drunken fights that go to far, heated exchanges that get out of hand, etc. would increase the number of violent deaths/injuries associated with armed robberies.

    basically, it may deter some thugs, but the hardened criminals, the psychos, and the desperate would shoot/kill more people, so you are eliminating the mid-range crimes and increasing the extreme crimes.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    The everyone can carry idea does have SOME merit.

    After all, only the VICTIM can prevent the crime.  The police can investigate the crime, arrest the criminal, compile the evidence to get the criminal convicted and guard the criminal once convicted, but none of that is preventing the original crime.

    I just think have too many untrained civilians with deadly firepower at their fingertips just isn’t the solution.  If we had mandatory firearm safety and marksmanship training I might be more readily convinced to change my mind.


  • @Jennifer:

    The everyone can carry idea does have SOME merit.

    After all, only the VICTIM can prevent the crime.  The police can investigate the crime, arrest the criminal, compile the evidence to get the criminal convicted and guard the criminal once convicted, but none of that is preventing the original crime.

    What makes you think the victim has any control over the situation?  That’s ludicrous.  That’s like blaming everyone in the planes that died for 9/11 because they couldn’t stop the plot.

    I just think have too many untrained civilians with deadly firepower at their fingertips just isn’t the solution.  If we had mandatory firearm safety and marksmanship training I might be more readily convinced to change my mind.

    So basically, you want everyone to be in the military - hence your use of the word “civilians.”

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Wow are YOU reaching for reasons to discount what I am saying.

    Only the victim can PREVENT the crime.  I’m not saying victims always have the ability (physically or mentally) to do so.  But I am saying teh police cannot arrest a person becaues the Minority Report says that on 3:17 PM CST they will rape a girl named Jane Doe.  Thus, they cannot PREVENT the crime.

    Now, do you REALLY want to go on the record as arguing against this?  (Yes, I’m giving you a chance to retract your current attack plan on me, because I don’t think you’ve through through what I said, you’ve just assumed that because I said it, it must be wrong.)

    And again, another chance to retract yourself from a stupid attack on me, did I ever once say that “untrained civilians” means everyone should be trained militia?  No.  I said that the civilian population is not trained in the proper use of firearms and thus, maybe the best solution is not to arm them to the teeth.  Of course, if you REALLY want to go on the record that you want all civilians to be issued side arms, go for it.  But I think you might want to retract the insanity spewing from your fingertips before rational people start to point out your insanity.


  • @Jennifer:

    Only the victim can PREVENT the crime.  I’m not saying victims always have the ability (physically or mentally) to do so.  But I am saying teh police cannot arrest a person becaues the Minority Report says that on 3:17 PM CST they will rape a girl named Jane Doe.  Thus, they cannot PREVENT the crime.

    It’s entirely untrue.  Sometimes the victim can’t prevent anything.  Sometimes a stranger or an officer may intervene.  It all depends on circumstances.
    However, you could indicate that the police have no obligation to prevent crime.  That would be a better argument.

    Now, do you REALLY want to go on the record as arguing against this?  (Yes, I’m giving you a chance to retract your current attack plan on me, because I don’t think you’ve through through what I said, you’ve just assumed that because I said it, it must be wrong.)

    And again, another chance to retract yourself from a stupid attack on me, did I ever once say that “untrained civilians” means everyone should be trained militia?  No.  I said that the civilian population is not trained in the proper use of firearms and thus, maybe the best solution is not to arm them to the teeth.  Of course, if you REALLY want to go on the record that you want all civilians to be issued side arms, go for it.  But I think you might want to retract the insanity spewing from your fingertips before rational people start to point out your insanity.

    Please, define attack.  I doubt this qualifies.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    The only time a victim is unable to prevent the crime is when the choices the victim has made physically, or mentally, prevent him from preventing teh crime.

    For instance, if you are robbed in an alleyway you have made a number of bad choices up to that point.

    1)  You went into an alleyway.  You never watched Batman???
    2)  You did not bring protective equipment.
    3)  You did not get rudimentary training in hand to hand combat
    4)  You decided the most prudent course of action was to allow the crime to take place because the contents of your wallet do not equal or exceed the value of your life.

    However, the policeman walking and see’s the crime does not prevent the crime.  The crime has already been committed.  He can chase down the criminal, arrest him or her and take him or her to jail, but that is just prosecuting the criminal, not preventing the crime.

  • 2007 AAR League

    A criminal is about to rob someone in an alley, when they see a policeman walk by.  The criminal changes his mind and runs off.

    A criminal hears on the news that in the past month there were 9 muggings in his city, and the perpetrator was caught on all 9 occasions.  The criminal thinks better of mugging someone.

    Are these not examples of police preventing crime?


  • obviously not all crime is deterred or prevented by police, they are largely a reactionary force, and de facto emergency preparedness force for whatever municipality they serve…but the existence of police deters those who would commit crimes but don’t because they consider the risk-to-benefit ratio the crime offers with the presence of police, and decide not to chance it. i don’t know that there is any way of quantifying this factor, but I’m sure many many many crimes do not occur SIMPLY because there are cops, and the risk of the crime and getting caught is just not worth the pay-off.

    I personally would sooner trust in the police than in arming the populace. I personally am also not going to rely solely on police, and when I have a home of my own, will probably have some kind of firearm for when the situation arises that I must protect myself and mine, but I also know that with the proper education, I could responsibly own and operate a firearm. the same can not be said of all people.


  • @Janus1:

    I personally am also not going to rely solely on police, and when I have a home of my own, will probably have some kind of firearm for when the situation arises that I must protect myself and mine

    paranoid.  :-P what are the chances your giong to get robbed or assualted?


  • @cyan:

    paranoid.  :-P what are the chances your giong to get robbed or assualted?

    Apparently astronomical if you live in Chicago  :evil:


  • :lol: :lol:


  • @Jennifer:

    The only time a victim is unable to prevent the crime is when the choices the victim has made physically, or mentally, prevent him from preventing teh crime.

    For instance, if you are robbed in an alleyway you have made a number of bad choices up to that point.

    1)  You went into an alleyway.  You never watched Batman???
    2)  You did not bring protective equipment.
    3)  You did not get rudimentary training in hand to hand combat
    4)  You decided the most prudent course of action was to allow the crime to take place because the contents of your wallet do not equal or exceed the value of your life.

    However, the policeman walking and see’s the crime does not prevent the crime.  The crime has already been committed.  He can chase down the criminal, arrest him or her and take him or her to jail, but that is just prosecuting the criminal, not preventing the crime.

    Ah, yes.  The “don’t wear a miniskirt if you don’t want to get raped” approach.

    Maybe I’m naive in thinking it’s ok not to have a gun.  I don’t really want to go through life being paranoid about bad things happening to me.  I’ll take measures to ensure I lessen the opportunity of crime, but I’m confident that if I’m robbed, I can handle it and get out of it alive - then the police can do their thing.  Sometimes you just can’t avoid what happens.

  • 2007 AAR League

    Jermo, are you sure you don’t live north of the border?


  • @rjclayton:

    Jermo, are you sure you don’t live north of the border?

    Which border we be talkin’ 'bout?
    Sanity?

  • '19 Moderator

    Several people disagree with me so I am just going to address this em mass.

    I am NOT saying that having a gun will give you a magical bullet shield.  What I am saying is if a would be robber believes that the chances are say 25% that the person he is robbing has a gun will he still follow through?  what about 50% or 75%.  Do you think this guy in VA may have reconsidered if there was a chance that someone in the building had a gun?  Why do you think he chained the doors?  Maybe to keep the odds at 0%?

    The arms race comment is rediculous.  Right now at this very moment there is nothing legal to stop me from carriing my AK47 with me and wearing as much body armor as I want.  Why don’t I? because it’s not worth the benefit.  My compact .45 is plenty.

    I have said this many many times on this forum.  My children have fired several of my guns, they have seen the damage that can be done with them and know the consequences of touching them.


  • @dezrtfish:

    Several people disagree with me so I am just going to address this em mass.

    I am NOT saying that having a gun will give you a magical bullet shield.  What I am saying is if a would be robber believes that the chances are say 25% that the person he is robbing has a gun will he still follow through?  what about 50% or 75%.  Do you think this guy in VA may have reconsidered if there was a chance that someone in the building had a gun?  Why do you think he chained the doors?  Maybe to keep the odds at 0%?

    No.  He would not have done anything differently because he was crazy.  He knew he was going to die.  In fact, he set out to die.  If everyone was armed, it wouldn’t have made any difference to his intentions.  It may have made some difference to his preparations.  He probably would have brought more guns, or bombs or worn body armor.  Whatever he did, gun possession by everyone in the classrooms he attacked would not have deterred him, because he was crazy.

    On the other hand, if it had been impossible for him to legally buy a gun, how many people do you think he would have been able to kill carrying a kitchen knife?  You can say that he could have obtained a gun illegally, which is true.  However, how much more likely would it be that he would have been stopped before taking his action if owning a hand gun was illegal for him.  With his history of mental illness and run ins with the law, I suggest that it would have been more likely that he would have been arrested and his guns taken away long before April 16, 2007.  But, as matters stand in the US, he could lawfully own two guns, keep amunition in his dorm room and walk around with it.  Until he killed 2 people at 7:15 am, he had done nothing that any law enforcement official could even question him about.

    The arms race comment is rediculous.  Right now at this very moment there is nothing legal to stop me from carriing my AK47 with me and wearing as much body armor as I want.  Why don’t I? because it’s not worth the benefit.  My compact .45 is plenty.

    You are suggesting that a society is safer when everyone is carrying a gun, when all the evidence is to the contrary.  I will not quote a source on this because I know it to be true.  You can disagree if you choose.  Dezrtfish, I am sure that you are a responsible gun owner and I am sure that your kids will also grow up to be responsible gun owners, but not everyone is and as long as a society accepts gun ownership as a right that can never be taken away, guns will be used for all purposes - good and evil.  And since guns are, by design, intended to kill things, people will continue to die as a result of gun ownership.

    SS


  • From the Economist:

    Cho Seung-hui does not stand for America’s students, any more than Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did when they slaughtered 13 of their fellow high-school students at Columbine in 1999. Such disturbed people exist in every society. The difference, as everyone knows but no one in authority was saying this week, is that in America such individuals have easy access to weapons of terrible destructive power. Cho killed his victims with two guns, one of them a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a rapid-fire weapon that is available only to police in virtually every other country, but which can legally be bought over the counter in thousands of gun-shops in America. There are estimated to be some 240m guns in America, considerably more than there are adults, and around a third of them are handguns, easy to conceal and use. Had powerful guns not been available to him, the deranged Cho would have killed fewer people, and perhaps none at all.

    But the tragedies of Virginia Tech—and Columbine, and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, where five girls were shot at an Amish school last year—are not the full measure of the curse of guns. More bleakly terrible is America’s annual harvest of gun deaths that are not mass murders: some 14,000 routine killings committed in 2005 with guns, to which must be added 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents (2004 figures). Many of these, especially the suicides, would have happened anyway: but guns make them much easier. Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century. In 2005 more than 400 children were murdered with guns.

    http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=9040170

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