I did wonder if he meant American 'outraged' or British 'outraged'... the latter being more akin to mildly miffed over some uncouth heathen serving you a cream tea with the jam the wrong way around!Originally Posted by Corky34
To be fair I'd be pretty upset if someone started shooting at me also.
DanceswithUnix (15-06-2017)
.. and putting the milk in first?
Ah, no, that's simply the practice of the uneducated lower classes.
Free speech is a Human Right. Going to disagree with you.
So is self defense, which is why it can be used as an affirmative defense in court.
I don't need a gun license, CCW permit or anything else.
Read the article you quoted. The author suggests that the violent crime rate in the UK is only twice as high as the US, rather than Swann's four times as high. Awkward...
Never said that one wasn't...
It might be a constitutional right, legal right, or somesuch, but the CHR specifically said it is NOT a Human Right.
It is an affirmative defense, ie "A fact or set of facts other than those alleged by the plaintiff or prosecutor which, if proven by the defendant, defeats or mitigates the legal consequences of the defendant's otherwise unlawful conduct"
Furthermore, the concept of self defense being a Human Right immediately brings up gun control, as a government failing to enforce adequate, or maintaining inadequate, gun control laws is arguably breaching (or rather allowing the gun-handler to breach) a person's more important Human Right to life.
You can *seriously* just go out and get a gun, no questions asked, no checks made? You can just walk around with it in public... and you still claim you have not heard any reasonable argument favouring gun control??!!
I'd question whether you're actually listening in the first place.
You read them - A larger part of the article explains the differences between what each nation considers and reports as violent crime, resulting in the massive misrepresentation of statistics. Simply knocking someone's tooth out counts as 'violent crime' in the UK...
Better yet, match the US definition with just those that meet the same criteria in UK crime, rather than recycling the oversensationalism of media just looking to sell more papers.
Heck, just read the summaries and updates at the end.
"Considering how differently crime is treated and defined in the two countries, it’s not possible to parse the data any further, in my opinion. My point was simply to show how incredibly wrong it is to make comparisons of two rates that are measuring fundamentally different crimes".
So tell me again how much more violent we are in our crime?
Loved this part, though:
"And it’s also worth noting that while Swann implied that the UK is more violent than the US because of its handgun ban, violent crime has been declining in Britain since the mid-1990s, and it continued to do so without interruption after the 1997 Firearms Amendment went into effect. Meanwhile, in the United States, gun ownership has been falling steadily, even as the US experienced the same sharp decline in violence beginning in early ‘90s".
But to bring it back on topic again - Even if the UK were 4-10 times more violent than the US, as claimed... How does that in ANY way make arming British cops a good idea??!!
Ooh look, we're ten times as violent as the Yanks and we manage that without benefit of guns... You arm the cops, we'll just take their guns off 'em and be even more violent!!
Yeh, good one.
Irrespective of the origins, i.e. people not being able to afford to replace broken china. I can categorically state milk first produces a better cup of tea... seeing as I was involved in the scientific study undertake by Brooke Bond Lipton.Ah, no, that's simply the practice of the uneducated lower classes.
If Wisdom is the coordination of "knowledge and experience" and its deliberate use to improve well being then how come "Ignorance is bliss"
I live in Wyoming and am currently working in Arizona, both states have what's called 'Constitutional Carry' with no permit requirements. I do have to go through a background check when buying a gun from a dealer.
No, again, human rights are things which Governments cannot restrict. Government cannot restrict right to life. Government can't restrict the right to defend oneself. That doesn't mean the Government has a duty to protect you.
The US certainly has had a massive decline in violent crime since the 1990's. You know which states have the fastest decline? Those with more guns! Arizona passed their Constitutional Carry bill just a few years ago. What do you think? Blood running through the streets? Nope. Decline in violent crime. Chicago has very tight restrictions on gun ownership. Guess how that's going for them? Gun control laws are far more lax now than they were in the 1990's!
From the article:
'in 2010, according to the FBI, the reported rate of violent crime in the US was 403 incidents per 100,000 people'
'Due to fundamental differences in how crime is recorded and categorized, it’s impossible to compute exactly what the British violent crime rate would be if it were calculated the way the FBI does it, but if we must compare the two, my best estimate‡ would be something like 776 violent crimes per 100,000 people. While this is still substantially higher than the rate in the United States, it’s nowhere near the 2,034 cited by Swann and the Mail.'
So tell me again how much more violent the UK is?
I don't understand what you guys are trying to achieve here. Are you thinking it's possible to have TeePee turn around and say 'aah, yes, you guys are right, my bad'? We've long past passed the point of pointlessness in this debate.
CAT-THE-FIFTH (16-06-2017)
Unless that was pre-1984, that doesn't count, as Brooke Bond is now just another soulless brand owned by Unilever, as is Lipton.
The problem is that milk and sugar are optional, to taste, so even the Royal Society of Chemistry approved approach of adding milk first leaves too great a chance of adding too much and getting the to taste part wrong.
And I bet most of the milk-first types are using teabags and mugs, rather than loose leaf and teapots or following any of the other scientific requirements, anyway!
So they can't, say, execute a criminal, because that would be restricting his right to life....
Of course it can. That's why there are laws governing such things, and why you must prove you acted in accordance with those laws. Otherwise it's deemed unreasonable force, which in the case of 'defensive killing' is reconsidered as manslaughter and potentially murder.
What flippin' good are they, then? Seriously, what did you vote them in for?
If that were true, then surely other countries with more guns would have massively less violent crime?
Finland, murder rate 1.98, gun ownership rate 39,000
Norway, murder rate 0.81, gun ownership rate 36,000
Poland, murder rate 1.79, gun ownership rate 1,500
So two countries with very similar quantities of guns, yet one has more than double the murder rate of the other... and a third with about 4% of the first two, yet bang in the middle for murder rate.
Taken from: https://www.armedwithreason.com/debu...ess-crime-3-0/
"Gun rights advocates frequently highlight the fact that from the early 1990s to today, violent crime nationwide has fallen precipitously, with gun homicides declining 49 perecent. This dip in all types of violent crime happens to correspond with a dramatic surge in the number of states issuing concealed carry permits. Those same advocates, usually citing studies conducted by pro-gun researcher John Lott, contend it is the rising number of good guys with guns on the streets that is responsible for the lower crime rate. But this line of argument runs counter to the facts".
"Since the publication of More Guns, Less Crime, at least three major reviews of Lott’s work have debunked his findings" - Sixteen cited and linked to in just that passage alone, never mind the full article.
Worse still, when Lott tried to refute the increasing number of challenges he wrote a fresh paper, but ended up destroying his own argument with his own data (or rather lack of it).
Also from the article, which you obviously haven't either read right to the end, nor read the second of:
"Note on my guesstimate: I included all crimes against the person that involved injury, from murder to female genital mutilation. But many of the 359,000 assaults that caused the less serious “actual bodily harm,” as opposed to the 39,000 that caused “grievous bodily harm,” would not have been classified as aggravated assault in the United States.
It should be noted, however, that this is the highest estimate I calculated, although the one I made in the initial post. I suspect it is an overestimation, and the true figure is likely to be closer to the low-end estimate of 271.
So it might be higher, it might be lower, but it’s almost impossible to say with certainty".
From the second article:
"While it becomes clear that certain types of offenses are marginally higher in the UK than in the US (robbery and knife crime being more likely in the UK by an order of 1.1x and 1.27x respectively) a number of other, more serious offenses, are both marginally and substantially higher in the US. Rape of a female is 1.02x more likely in the US, while theft of a vehicle is 1.29x more likely. More disturbingly, burglary is significantly higher at 1.52x more likely to occur in the US. However, it is at the considerably more, well, violent crimes that America really supersedes England and Wales into its own class. In the United States, you are 6.9x more likely to be the victim of aggravated assault resulting in serious injury than in the UK. You are 4.03x more likely to be murdered than in the UK. And more staggeringly (though not surprising) you are 35.2x more likely to be shot dead in the Unites States than in the UK".
And the footnote: "TL;dr? That’s fine. The US is more violent in basically all ways that will either result in a serious injury or death than the UK".
For my part, I'm enjoying the challenges and rebuttals, while talking in-depth about something I'm passionate about, while trying to remain in context of the primary topic.
However, it is quite a wide issue with numerous elements interlinked.
Did you know toddlers killed more Americans than terrorists in 2015?
http://www.snopes.com/toddlers-kille...ns-terrorists/
One might argue that we should be more afraid of armed three-year-olds than Moslem extremists...
Do you think that Criminals should have rights like freedom of movement and gun ownership too? That's ridiculous. Removing some rights after conviction is obvious. I'll clarify that I am entirely against the Death Penalty, but not because government can't take away some rights from criminals. Government's duty is to protect rights and create laws. There's no affirmative duty to protect individuals.
Your article is spectacular in it's failure. The Author challenges categorization of crimes (Quite rightly!) comes back with his best estimate based on similar categorization, and then gets extremely upset when the data proves the point he set out to disprove. It's the perfect of trying to make facts fit the narrative. Usually, however, the gun control loons just change the facts.
It's interesting that you bring up other countries. Obviously, if gun control worked, countries with strict gun control laws would have far less violent crime. Places like Mexico must have very low crime rates...
It's almost like there's something culturally different that makes for higher crime rates in some areas. Like idiotic drug policy started by the US. Turns out, if you aren't involved in gangs, the risk of you being attacked and murdered is suddenly a lot smaller. Maybe there is actually a way to direct that misguided passion toward some positive social change?
I have no fear of Religious extremists, and nor should you.
Not at all, I'm in favour of them losing all but the most basic of rights, really and then only those who are expected to return to society. They should become non-citizens, but instead people are debating about so many of their rights, you'd think they're merely grounded instead of being imprisoned and punished.
Exactly - In this instance the government not only restricts, but outright *removes* that right to life when they execute the crims.
So that's done in your argument about the government not being able to
Their first duty is to protect everyone - From themselves, each other and from foreigners.
Actually he gets upset that he had to estimate because the two datasets were not directly (or even easily) comparable, that he grossly overestimated and made the same mistake as the person he's challenging, and that his adjustment for his overestimation was still too high.
The point of the article was a swipe at Swanny, but actually further proves his point because even the article author made some of the same mistakes as his target and the whole thing only further disproves the claim that the UK is 4-10 times more violent than the US.
I thought it was a great example of two sides arguing, both being wrong and the reality being vastly different than both their assertions, while also disproving the argument you offered earlier.
You misread my intention - That data suggests there is actually no support for either more or fewer guns affecting violent crime in general... which is supported by your (seemingly correct) assertion that you're more likely to get knifed in the UK than shot.
However, guns are still the most lethal and convenient weapon available to any given human being, which is why things like the javelin aren't really as much of a worry for law enforcement.
Switzerland is only a little behind the US in terms of private gun ownership, has roughly similar and pretty liberal laws over gun control, and yet has less than a tenth of the firearm killings that the US has.
The differences are no concealed carry and, as you alluded, a culture of social responsibility - In a land where so many people have guns and so few are allowed to carry them in public, they have so few gun-related deaths (which, in this instance, is mostly suicides).
Something to take from Switzerland is that gun control is not the same as gun banning, either. They control their weapons effectively.
But there is still that inescapable aspect of 'Can't shoot someone if you don't got no gun'...
Funny you mention that, because:
This is another aspect, with a lot of studies keen to point out how 'rich white people' areas have such low crime, while 'poor black gang hoods' have high crime - And how many low-crime reports like to showcase the white areas, yet fail to mention the racial, social and financial disparities...
They also seem to gloss over the areas where gangs operate and target non-gang people.
So how come so many mass-shooters are white, non-gang people, then?
If you have no fear of them, you're a liar or an idiot.
You may not live in fear, you may not feel terror, but you should fear them... Just sayin', the statistics indicate you should fear toddlers even more, though!!
But again, this here is a land where we supposedly violent people don't need no gunz to commit crime, where arming the police still does nothing to prevent and only aggravates violent crime.
Not at all, I'm in favour of them losing all but the most basic of rights, really and then only those who are expected to return to society. They should become non-citizens, but instead people are debating about so many of their rights, you'd think they're merely grounded instead of being imprisoned and punished.
Exactly - In this instance the government not only restricts, but outright *removes* that right to life when they execute the crims.
So that's done in your argument about the government not being able to
Their first duty is to protect everyone - From themselves, each other and from foreigners.
Actually he gets upset that he had to estimate because the two datasets were not directly (or even easily) comparable, that he grossly overestimated and made the same mistake as the person he's challenging, and that his adjustment for his overestimation was still too high.
The point of the article was a swipe at Swanny, but actually further proves his point because even the article author made some of the same mistakes as his target and the whole thing only further disproves the claim that the UK is 4-10 times more violent than the US.
I thought it was a great example of two sides arguing, both being wrong and the reality being vastly different than both their assertions, while also disproving the argument you offered earlier.
You misread my intention - That data suggests there is actually no support for either more or fewer guns affecting violent crime in general... which is supported by your (seemingly correct) assertion that you're more likely to get knifed in the UK than shot.
However, guns are still the most lethal and convenient weapon available to any given human being, which is why things like the javelin aren't really as much of a worry for law enforcement.
Switzerland is only a little behind the US in terms of private gun ownership, has roughly similar and pretty liberal laws over gun control, and yet has less than a tenth of the firearm killings that the US has.
The differences are no concealed carry and, as you alluded, a culture of social responsibility - In a land where so many people have guns and so few are allowed to carry them in public, they have so few gun-related deaths (which, in this instance, is mostly suicides).
Something to take from Switzerland is that gun control is not the same as gun banning, either. They control their weapons effectively.
But there is still that inescapable aspect of 'Can't shoot someone if you don't got no gun'...
Funny you mention that, because:
This is another aspect, with a lot of studies keen to point out how 'rich white people' areas have such low crime, while 'poor black gang hoods' have high crime - And how many low-crime reports like to showcase the white areas, yet fail to mention the racial, social and financial disparities...
They also seem to gloss over the areas where gangs operate and target non-gang people.
So how come so many mass-shooters are white, non-gang people, then?
If you have no fear of them, you're a liar or an idiot.
You may not live in fear, you may not feel terror, but you should fear them... Just sayin', the statistics indicate you should fear toddlers even more, though!!
But again, this here is a land where we supposedly violent people don't need no gunz to commit crime, where arming the police still does nothing to prevent and only aggravates violent crime.
The words you are looking for are 'Due Process'. Same when it comes to No Fly lists. There must be due process, you can't just ban someone from gun ownership or freedom of movement because you don't like the vowels in their name.
Government has no duty to protect individuals. They have a duty to write laws to protect society as a whole, but they are not liable when the police fail to show up when called to enforce them.
But the objections to John Lott's research, all show that, at worst, legal concealed carry has no effect on violent crime rates, while many other studies show similar results to Lott. I'm glad we have moved the argument away from the nonsense that fewer guns reduces crime, but why legal concealed carry is your new target I have no idea, there just doesn't seem to be any logic surrounding your yo-yo.
If you are afraid of the sad little losers who paint themselves as terrorists, then you're an idiot. The only feeling I have toward them is pity.
Oh dear
Time to abandon thread, methinks.
Fewer guns reduces crime? Perhaps, perhaps not, but that is not what we've been saying, not me anyway. We've been saying that restricting access to guns, or better still banning them altogether, prevents the disproportionate killings that mindless idiots inflict with them. There really is no need for having a gun in the uk save a farmer's shotgun, and he is allowed one. Beyond that, we don't need them, don't want them, and are glad that the nutters can't just walk in a shop and buy one. No amount of trying to deflect the argument away from that will wash, restrict access to guns = prevent nutters from using them for heinous and horrific purposes. And given the problems we have with their access to knives and trucks I'm glad they can't get hold of worse.
Don't mis-hear me. I would probably be someone who, if the option was there, would own a gun and would enjoy going to a range and doing competitive shooting. I enjoyed archery when I did it, and I imagine this would be similar. I would not however want to own a gun solely "for defence". That's basically saying "I bought this to be able to kill someone." To reiterate, the argument has not been "guns = bad", but that it is better to ban them for the overall benefit, than cling to them for the false perceptions that they help prevent violent crime, when they don't. Quite the opposite, they enable the magnitude of such crimes to escalate beyond the scale they would otherwise be. And to prevent that is wholly right IMO.
It seems to me that the legal rights (and needs that drive them) to bear arms change as a society progresses. Eg. it used to be lawful to carry and bear a sword, for self defence - rather necessary before the establishment of policing as we know it. The need for that is long gone, and the law got changed. It used to be necessary to be safe indoors before sundown. Those days are long gone, and we no longer have to bar the town gate, etc. It's a mark of progress I guess that society becomes more ordered, less brutal. It kind of puzzles me that America hasn't progressed from its 18th Century Laws and wants to cling to them. So much progress in some ways but yet not in others.
Annoyingly it looks like I will be sans internet for the coming days so if I disappear that's why, Not because I don't want to continue the debate but because I probably won't be able to read / respond. But hopefully things will continue and I look forward to catching up as soon as I'm able. Have a good weekend all.
What I don't follow, is the statement that you don't want guns, and have no purpose for them, followed by your next paragraph stating that you want one and have a purpose for one (That being enjoyment and friendly competition).
I get that you think that there is a cost of ownership in lives that is too high to pay for your enjoyment, and I dispute that a price exists, but that's a separate argument. Logic is more important than an emotional argument. Good policy is what is right, not what makes people feel better.
I'll step in for ik9000 at this point, if I may, as he may be afk for some days.
Careful mixing the you singular with the you plural; in para. 1 ik9000 used "we don't need them". I assume that "we" refers to the general populace of the UK, or at least those that have contributed to this topic.
In para 2, I read his statement, "I would probably be someone who, if the option was there, would own a gun and would enjoy going to a range and doing competitive shooting." as a probability or a maybe, not even a "shall", which I take to be very close to a definite, but it's certainly not a "would" in my book. Also, the friendliness or otherwise of any subsequent competition wasn't mentioned
I'll bow out, I have a lot to do.
spacein_vader (08-07-2017)
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