"Just a Piece of Paper"

After reading some posts and chatting with the liberal leftist crybaby pacifist Husar (I'm kidding mate) on IRC, I'd like to clarify my stance.

*IF*.. IF one can flee safely with all family members (including pets), then I would probably be inclined to take that route. However, I live in a two story house, and when we eventually do have children, they will obviously be sleeping down the hall on the 2nd story with us. Jumping 6-8 yards down to the ground with wife/children/dog is not feasible, the only safe way out would be downstairs, where the burglar/potential rapist/murderer is. In this case, our only way out would be through them. Again if they hear us upstairs and flee, then clearly all they wanted was our possessions. If they hear us and stay or advance, then obviously they've got other things in mind, hence I am going to kill them with whatever means I have possible, no warnings, no negotiations, no nothing.

Also, to build on one of Don's earlier observations, it would indeed seem that most of the pacifist crowd appear to be single teenage males, unmarried and without children.

Edit - I would also like to put forth that personally, I hate real violence. Video games, tv, etc, that's fine and not real. Real violence is something I go to lengths to avoid. However, the point at which I would kill is when someone breaks into my home and more than likely intends to do Very Bad Things© to my family. Everyone has a point at which they'd kill, it just differs.

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Originally Posted by Whacker

I have a friend from northern Illinois who watched his uncle kill someone who was breaking into this house. They were downstairs watching TV, when they heard shotgun noises go off upstairs, the now-deceased thief was using his shotgun to get the pesky door out of the way. Both he and his family own quite a few guns which they hunt and target shoot with. The uncle gave him a shotgun, and he grabbed a .45 handgun, and went upstairs. Uncle walked around corner to thief reloading shotgun, and dropped him with two shots. The courts and county prosecutor ruled he acted in self defense and let him go after some very short legal proceedings. That's pretty much how I would have handled the situation, if I was in their shoes.

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And here this uncle might have been charged with murder. More likely manslaughter. But for sure for sure 2 firearms violantions (improper use of a firearm and discharging it in unlawful way :yes: ). And he could have kissed those pistols good-bye, probably forever. As being charged with a crime negates your priviledge (and it is a priviledge) to own a pistol. Cops would have grabbed them and melted them.

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And they probably don't even give you your pistol license

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Yes, sorry, that was so obvious from a UK perspective I forgot to mention it. Although self defence is in principle a lawful reason to want to own a firearm, actually wanting a firearm for self defence disqualifies you from owning one. Hence the reference to catch 22.

Oh, and none of this is enshrined in legislation. Its all conveniently unaccountable "practice". Like the requirement that all firearms must be stored in a safe that will resist an attack by a safe breaker for a minimum of 30 minutes, you won't find that in any legislation either. And so on.

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Originally Posted by lars573

And here this uncle might have been charged with murder. More likely manslaughter. But for sure for sure 2 firearms violantions (improper use of a firearm and discharging it in unlawful way :yes: ). And he could have kissed those pistols good-bye, probably forever. As being charged with a crime negates your priviledge (and it is a priviledge) to own a pistol. Cops would have grabbed them and melted them.

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You know, in some countries it's best to kill an intruder and feed his remains to stray dogs and other animals or bury him in the garden though I think the former is more advisable.

I think Whacker has a rather healthy opinion on the matter.

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Originally Posted by lars573

And here this uncle might have been charged with murder. More likely manslaughter. But for sure for sure 2 firearms violantions (improper use of a firearm and discharging it in unlawful way :yes: ). And he could have kissed those pistols good-bye, probably forever. As being charged with a crime negates your priviledge (and it is a priviledge) to own a pistol. Cops would have grabbed them and melted them.

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It's unlawful to defend yourself with a gun?

And merely being charged with a crime means the authorities can take your possessions?
:inquisitive:

CR

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And merely being charged with a crime means the authorities can take your possessions?

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Do keep up CR. Here in the UK I know of a teacher in Scotland who upset a parent, so that the parent threatened to come round and do him. The teacher reported the threat to the police. The police came round double quick to the teachers house and confiscated his shotgun.

Yes, that's right, someone else makes threats, and they take YOUR shotgun.

You can see how exposure to a few years of these stories gradually changes your views on gun control.

(I knows you want to know the end of the story: the police said he could have his shotgun back......IF he wrote a letter of apology to the parent who had threatened him. Seriously, you can't make it up.)

Around here the country's crawling with rifles and shotguns for hunting, and you can actually get a hunting permit at age 15 or something. Aside from hunters occasionally gunning down someone's cow or, more rarely, each other, this mainly shows up as the cops occasionally having to siege basckwoods hillbillies gone nuts in some out-of-the-way village.
Such incidents are over nine times out of ten resolved by flatly outlasting the guy and talking sense into him. The state equivalent to a SWAT team sometimes has to wound the more stubborn cases to disable them though.

Also, folks in the countryside fairly often commit suicide with the aforementioned guns, sometimes killing their families first (most suicidees are loners tho').

The legislative stance on pistols and other small personal firearms, however, is roughly "no you don't". Seems to keep firearms involvement in crime and violence down quite nicely; indeed, about the only ones who ever conduct armed robberies and such with a gun tend to be hardened career criminals, and professional enough to know engaging in violence unless absolutely necessary mainly just screws you over as the cops will give the case a priority.

The law's also pretty strict about the acceptable use of force in self-defense.

'Course, our law enforcement also actually does its job properly, which seems to do wonders to deter crime but apparently isn't the case everywhere. Mind, they also have very strict rules and controls about their own use of firearms; apparently this is a developement of the decades since Seventies, before which the issue wasn't actually monitored at all and it is generally suspected officers may have been a fair bit too trigger-happy in tense spots...
...which rather reminded me of some of the things I've read about US cops' training and mentality re guns.

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Originally Posted by English assassin

Do keep up CR. Here in the UK I know of a teacher in Scotland who upset a parent, so that the parent threatened to come round and do him. The teacher reported the threat to the police. The police came round double quick to the teachers house and confiscated his shotgun.

Yes, that's right, someone else makes threats, and they take YOUR shotgun.

You can see how exposure to a few years of these stories gradually changes your views on gun control.

(I knows you want to know the end of the story: the police said he could have his shotgun back......IF he wrote a letter of apology to the parent who had threatened him. Seriously, you can't make it up.)

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:dizzy2:

Good grief. The truth is stranger than fiction.

How...did such a crazed view take hold? I mean, I've read a bit on how British police regulations on owning guns changed from WWII to the present, with self defense becoming an unsuitable reason decades ago, but that just takes the cake...

:dizzy2:

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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

It's unlawful to defend yourself with a gun?

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It's a case by case grey area to kill an assailant. But the two types of infractions I cited were about shooting a gun in populated area (this is illegal), and having a loaded gun in your home (also illegal).

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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

And merely being charged with a crime means the authorities can take your possessions?
:inquisitive:

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If you loose the priviledge of owning them, yes "the man" can seize them. Under Canadian laws there are three classes for weapons. Prohibited, restircted, and unrestricted. All pistols are restricted. Like any firearm you have to register the gun, and have a license. But a pistol license has all kinds of riders and top of the list is a crminal record and probity check. You have to be a member of a gun club, and 2 others. But if your charged with a crime, you void rule #1. Thus you lose the priviledge of owning a pistol(s). And you loose the pistols too.

Also about 10 years ago more and more Walthers and Lugers started turning up on the collectors market in the U.S. They came from Canadian pistol owners who managed to get them out of the country before their date with the smelter.

You know, I'd like to disabuse some of you of some of the misconceptions you appear to be laboring under. I think I'm about as prototypical a 'gun nut' as exists out there. I own handguns (with license), shotguns and rifles. I hunt, I shoot for sport, and I am prepared to defend my home.

- I don't play first person shooters. When I first met Mrs. Corleone about 10 years ago, she caught me playing GTA3. Now, her brothers are cops, and cop-killing is a big part of that game, but she made some rather valid points.

- I hold a permit to carry concealed. I have never carried concealed in my life. I hold my permit so that I won't be arrested and tossed in the pen for 3 years on a felony weapons charge driving to a shooting range with my pistols locked in a case in the trunk.

- I do not believe defense of property is a valid reason for shooting someone. But I do believe that if somebody is in your house, when they know you are there (and awake and shouting at them for that matter), they are not simple burglars.

-My home defense plan actually doesn't involve handguns. Mrs. Corleone stands at the top of the stairs with a 12 gauge with a skeet barrel and 1 1/2 oz turkey loads (enough to put anybody to the ground, but you'd have to be up close to be seriously wounded). My job is to stand on the stairs with a handgun within reach but a bat in hand.

-I live in a town of 4000 in relatively rural southern New Hampshire. There were 4 home invasions with violence within 10 miles within the past year. Crime statistics say I actually live in a low crime area.

-Now, Productivity made a good point about playing odds. But there's a difference between a sense of control and random odds. We all drive every day, and the odds of dying in a car crash are exponentially higher than dying in a plane crash. But why does everyone 'take note' when the plane takes off the ground? Because you're not in control. I will not surrender my ability to control my destiny, and I certainly won't ask my wife to when she lives alone in the woods with as much traveling as I do.

If you live in a country where violence is inconsequential, I salute you. I think that's terrific, I really do. But I suspect, you're in as much denial as you accuse somebody like me of living in.

Just wondering, but have you ever questioned why it is you have such obscene rates of serious crime in spite of all those guns around, and given that they're supposed to let people defend themselves from crime and generally discourage it ?

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Originally Posted by CR's evidence about why guns are effective

For confrontational burglarly, attacking with a gun had the second lowest loss rate of sixteen self-protection measures, bested only by another mode of armed self-protection, threatening the offender with a nongun weapon."

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Ahem...
I wonder, why haven't any of the pro-gun folks commented on this? It seems to me, that by a pro-gun supporter's own evidence, that guns are NOT the most effective method of preventing loss in CONFRONTATIONAL burglary, which seems to be the topic at hand. Now mind, obviously they aren't exactly ineffective, but it would seem that they are not the MOST effective either. So why must we have them if they aren't even the best way to protect against said method of burglary?

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Originally Posted by Watchman

Just wondering, but have you ever questioned why it is you have such obscene rates of serious crime in spite of all those guns around, and given that they're supposed to let people defend themselves from crime and generally discourage it ?

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No. I've never considered such a thing. Being an American, I'm your typical unthinking, knuckle dragging cro-magnon you envision whenever you watch Jerry Springer (we're all just like that, by the way). Such higher order thinking is incredibly unlikely to occur in troglodytes such as us.

Of course we think about it. America is obsessed with crime, law enforcement and the processes of the judicial system. We have no fewer than 7 daytime television shows dedicated to mock trials of one form or another. Despite the mass of pathetic wretches you envision when you think of America, a few of us can actually stop and reflexively consider the problem.

First, our judicial system is geared to favor the defendant, heavily. This means that defendants have a distinct advantage in criminal court, and they know it. Forget O.J. for a minute, we couldn't convict Ted Bundy the first or second time he was brought before the magistrate. Our deck is stacked and most defendants know even if they draw the short straw, things such as parole and offering testimony almost guarantee they won't do actual time until their third conviction.

Second, despite what you might think about our laws, most municipalities actually discourage citizens from arming themselves and many downright outlaw it. Most of the higher crime areas within the United States have felony convictions attached to firearms possesion (forget using one to commit a crime). Usually, your ability to procure a handgun is controlled by your local chief of police, who is usually under no legal mandate to provide reason for denying you approval of your request for a permit.

Finally, the way our judcial system is structured, with witness testimony being the trump card, despite having been proven unreliable time and time again, the criminal actually has a serious advantage to leave no surviving witnesses and again, they know this better than anyone. Throw on top of this the fact that the court is legally obliged to release the name, phone number and residential address of any witness testifying against the defense, and its no wonder witnesses are frequently victims of 'inexplicable accidents' during trials.

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Originally Posted by kamikhaan

Ahem...
I wonder, why haven't any of the pro-gun folks commented on this? It seems to me, that by a pro-gun supporter's own evidence, that guns are NOT the most effective method of preventing loss in CONFRONTATIONAL burglary, which seems to be the topic at hand. Now mind, obviously they aren't exactly ineffective, but it would seem that they are not the MOST effective either. So why must we have them if they aren't even the best way to protect against said method of burglary?

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He's talking about tasers and mace, which are actually harder for the average citizen to procure than a firearm, if you can believe that. And confrontational burglary is not the topic at hand. If somebody wants to take my silver, television and anything else I own and hold dear while Mrs. Corleone and Jillian are safely holed up behind a locked door with yours truly, than we'd have no reason to ever own a firearm.

But as I've repeatedly said, there is a special class of criminal that police fear. An individual, or group, that specifically seeks out violent confrontation. Most burglars are after financial gain. But there is a not unsubstantial minority that actively seeks to physically prey upon vicitms. We can debate the finer points of the driving psychological need until we're blue in the face, criminlogists recognize this trend across all forms of crime. These are the 'rage rapists', that beat their victims into comas after they've submitted. These are the 2 guys in Connecticut this summer that beat a 10 year old girl, her mother and her younger sister to death after repeatedly raping them for 2 straight days and attempting to burn the father and oldest daugher alive. Cops are advised, by their textbooks and by their superiors, not to confront them directly without heavily outweighing odds, and they don't. And these are the guys that break into houses after having staked them out and know the owners to be at home.

Again, I ask you, why do you tell me I have to use reason with such an individual to try to guarantee my family's safety, when an armed policeman won't go near them until he has 3 or 4 of his friends to heavily tip the balance in their favor?

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Originally Posted by Don Corleone

He's talking about tasers and mace, which are actually harder for the average citizen to procure than a firearm, if you can believe that. And confrontational burglary is not the topic at hand. If somebody wants to take my silver, television and anything else I own and hold dear while Mrs. Corleone and Jillian are safely holed up behind a locked door with yours truly, than we'd have no reason to ever own a firearm.

But as I've repeatedly said, there is a special class of criminal that police fear. An individual, or group, that specifically seeks out violent confrontation. Most burglars are after financial gain. But there is a not unsubstantial minority that actively seeks to physically prey upon vicitms. We can debate the finer points of the driving psychological need until we're blue in the face, criminlogists recognize this trend across all forms of crime. These are the 'rage rapists', that beat their victims into comas after they've submitted. These are the 2 guys in Connecticut this summer that beat a 10 year old girl, her mother and her younger sister to death after repeatedly raping them for 2 straight days and attempting to burn the father and oldest daugher alive. Cops are advised, by their textbooks and by their superiors, not to confront them directly without heavily outweighing odds, and they don't. And these are the guys that break into houses after having staked them out and know the owners to be at home.

Again, I ask you, why do you tell me I have to use reason with such an individual to try to guarantee my family's safety, when an armed policeman won't go near them until he has 3 or 4 of his friends to heavily tip the balance in their favor?

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Alright, I will concede that such a lunatic needs not be reasoned with. I will admit, that we apparently live in very different areas, Don. Apparently, wherever you live/grew up seems to suffer from a large abundance of said psychopaths. Where I live, in Iowa, pretty much all thieves who break in do so for financial gain, and little else. Thus, the actual need for a gun is pretty limited here. But then, I suppose the East Coast has always been a little crazy.~;p Anyways, do you have an statistics showing what percentage of criminals this category would include? How many actual 'rage rapists' actually exist? Honestly, if you're this concerned about your family's safety, move on out here to the good ol' mellow midwest, and have a grand ol' time!:beam: ~:cheers: Disclaimer: I in no way guarantee that crime will not exist in the midwest, obviously. Just less psychopaths, apparently.

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Originally Posted by kamikhaan

Alright, I will concede that such a lunatic needs not be reasoned with. I will admit, that we apparently live in very different areas, Don. Apparently, wherever you live/grew up seems to suffer from a large abundance of said psychopaths. Where I live, in Iowa, pretty much all thieves who break in do so for financial gain, and little else. Thus, the actual need for a gun is pretty limited here. But then, I suppose the East Coast has always been a little crazy.~;p Anyways, do you have an statistics showing what percentage of criminals this category would include? How many actual 'rage rapists' actually exist? Honestly, if you're this concerned about your family's safety, move on out here to the good ol' mellow midwest, and have a grand ol' time!:beam: ~:cheers: Disclaimer: I in no way guarantee that crime will not exist in the midwest, obviously. Just less psychopaths, apparently.

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Didn't John Wayne Gacey come from the Midwest? Where's Jeffrey Dahmer from? And Truman Capote's good buddies, Dick Hickock and Perry Edward Smith... where are they from again?

I guess your point is if somebody ever broke into my house and raped my wife and 2 year old daughter while I was forced to watch at gunpoint, I could take solace in the knowledge that the likelihood of that event happening was so slim that I could hardly be blamed for not having taken precautions? I'm sure that will play well with the 2 of them when I'm trying to explain myself after it happened. That, and I'm just imagining how proud I could be of how civilized I was for allowing it to happen without so much as a "baaaaah" on my ovine part?

No thank you. Personally, until you can offer a better reason than "Guns make me feel icky", I'll prefer to look the defense of my family. You do what feels best for you, and I'll be sure to return the courtesy and respect your decision.

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Originally Posted by Don Corleone

Didn't John Wayne Gacey come from the Midwest? Where's Jeffrey Dahmer from? And Truman Capote's good buddies, Dick Hickock and Perry Edward Smith... where are they from again?

I guess your point is if somebody ever broke into my house and raped my wife and 2 year old daughter while I was forced to watch at gunpoint, I could take solace in the knowledge that the likelihood of that event happening was so slim that I could hardly be blamed for not having taken precautions? I'm sure that will play well with the 2 of them when I'm trying to explain myself after it happened. That, and I'm just imagining how proud I could be of how civilized I was for allowing it to happen without so much as a "baaaaah" on my ovine part?

No thank you. Personally, until you can offer a better reason than "Guns make me feel icky", I'll prefer to look the defense of my family. You do what feels best for you, and I'll be sure to return the courtesy and respect your decision.

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~:rolleyes: Someone doesn't get my dry internet humor, apparently.~:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by kamikhaan

~:rolleyes: Someone doesn't get my dry internet humor, apparently.~:rolleyes:

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I "get it" in that I understand the attempt at humor and the underlying meaning. I just don't find it very funny.

We're at that point that I always reach in gun debates. At the end of the day, I like you and I respect you, so I'm dropping this. You view me as a cringing paranoid case, cluthching firearms and soothing myself while stroking blued metal. I think you're somebody who, having made a decision for himself, cannot bear the idea that somebody else would make a different decision and now want to force me and others to accept your viewpoint, by threat of jail time if necessary, for no other reason than "you say so". Impasse.

Looking forward to a thread where we can be more gracious towards each other again soon. :yes:

Nah, I can understand why you would hold the view you do. Family is extremely important to you. You have a wife, child, and child on the way. The idea of someone attempting to kill/rape them is simply unbearable for you, so you take to the task to make sure that it never happens. For me, I have little family that I value quite so much. Family for me was a bit more stunted growing up, and I'm not all too close to my current family members. Additionally, being a teenager, I do not have a wife or children to care for. It is quite possible that my view on matters such as this will change as I grow older and experience new things. Now, I do think you might perhaps go a bit far in your number of guns and such, but to each his own. I trust that, as a family man, you are properly making sure your children will not accidentally stumble upon them and result in a horrific accident. Keep in mind, I am not anti-gun. I have been merely attempting to point out that different methods of self-protection work in different areas, and thus, gun laws should be handled by the state, rather than the Federal government. I guess the reason I ended up coming across as anti-gun as I did is because, being a Speech and Debate fellow, I have a tendency to involve myself in arguments/discussions almost just for the therepeutic effect. So, I guess I shall bring this debate to a close, and we shall likely butt heads again in the future.:bow:

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Just wondering, but have you ever questioned why it is you have such obscene rates of serious crime in spite of all those guns around, and given that they're supposed to let people defend themselves from crime and generally discourage it ?

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Gun crime in America tends to happen in proportion to the amount of local gun control laws. Washington DC, with a gun ban, has higher crime than gun friendly Virginia's cities.

CR

Eh. Going by what Don wrote, it would seem the US law enforcement system isn't quite getting its job done (on top of which I've long been under the impression its capability of investigating crime is uneven at best). By what I've read on the topic one of the most consistently effective crime-deterrents (particularly for serious violent crime, of course not including genuinely insane perps) is specifically an effective law-enforcement system - the psychological key element apparently being a high propability of being brought to court and being then duly punished for your deeds, rather than for example the exact severity of the punishement received.

One gets a rather strong impression the US system somewhat fails on both counts.

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Originally Posted by Don Corleone

But as I've repeatedly said, there is a special class of criminal that police fear. An individual, or group, that specifically seeks out violent confrontation. Most burglars are after financial gain. But there is a not unsubstantial minority that actively seeks to physically prey upon vicitms. We can debate the finer points of the driving psychological need until we're blue in the face, criminlogists recognize this trend across all forms of crime. These are the 'rage rapists', that beat their victims into comas after they've submitted. These are the 2 guys in Connecticut this summer that beat a 10 year old girl, her mother and her younger sister to death after repeatedly raping them for 2 straight days and attempting to burn the father and oldest daugher alive. Cops are advised, by their textbooks and by their superiors, not to confront them directly without heavily outweighing odds, and they don't. And these are the guys that break into houses after having staked them out and know the owners to be at home.

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Huh. We don't even have this kind of criminal around here, AFAIK. One cannot wonder if this were not another "American Disease" thing, the same way as school shootings and serial killers seem to be.

I can understand Don's point.
And I'd actually say it's not his fault that the American system doesn't work so he should have the right to protect himself if the system fails.
Concerning school shootings, we have them here as well, there was an enraged guy in my uni who pointed a gun at someone but apparently noone but a few people noticed. These people later reported to police swho didn't seem to do a lot until they showed up later and arrested the guy. And to be honest, you never need a gun until someone comes to kill you, happens here in Europe as well. It usually needs some really big screwup for the laws to change and sometimes they change the wrong laws. But I think part of why police arrested the guy at my uni was because we have had our share of school shootings here as well now which means they are more likely to investigate hints from people, at least that's how it should be.

Well. Only just got round to reading this topic. Such a wasteful story. Now I could care less about the whole debate on gun control (don't think it makes any difference, myself), but it clearly shows what police is capable of: tidying up afterwards and apprehending the culprits. Face it, police isn't there to prevent crimes or protect everyone everywhere all the time. That's the job of the citizens themselves, although in this case it can be said police was negligent and its doubtful general conclusions should be drawn from it.

Society isn't created and upheld by police or government: it's done by the people living in a state. It's clear that in many situations, and I think even more in Europe than the US, the public does not have a clear idea of what their responsibility is and what that of the policeforce is. For a large part I think this is to be blamed on politicians raising unfounded expectations of what the police and government are capable of, but also the public not facing the reality of the situation.

The only way the state can have anything approaching total control is in a police state, and that's not really wanted by many people at all. People need to accept that the policeforce isn't meant mainly for individual crime protection (only systematic protection through being effective apprehending perps and dissuading criminals), and cannot perform such a task in a properly functioning democracy. By and large, individuals need to protect themselves, certainly from people with no prior crimes recorded such as in this case.

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Gun crime in America tends to happen in proportion to the amount of local gun control laws. Washington DC, with a gun ban, has higher crime than gun friendly Virginia's cities.

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Is that a bollox trend then Rabbit ?
Would things like population density , poverty levels , ghettoisation , income , education , housing , unemployment , drug problems , broken families ......be more of a trend setter than gun laws .
So now Rabbit just to explore how rubbish your statement is .
Would different parts of DC have different levels of gun crime even though they have the same anti gun laws ?
Would different areas of Virginian cities have different levels of gun crime even though they have the same gun friendly laws ?

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Originally Posted by Watchman

Huh. We don't even have this kind of criminal around here, AFAIK. One cannot wonder if this were not another "American Disease" thing, the same way as school shootings and serial killers seem to be.

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That's harsh. I'm the last to say anything good about the NRA or the continuous repetition of this topic in the Backroom (I mean, come on :dizzy2: ), but school shootings and serial killings aren't exactly American phenomenons as you say.

Americans don't have it half as bad as you seem to think. Most anyway, this is a big place.

We are a little unhinged, though, in terms of prioritizing issues and morality points.

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How...did such a crazed view take hold? I mean, I've read a bit on how British police regulations on owning guns changed from WWII to the present, with self defense becoming an unsuitable reason decades ago, but that just takes the cake...

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Its all in here http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/...0Key%20Factors (They are going to tear up my Euroweenie membership card when they know I have that article bookmarked.)

The warning for you is that the changes we have undergone are irreversible. The vast majority of the population now have never used a gun, and regard guns as inherently bad, and any interest in guns as deviant. Really quite seriously deviant. Asking why a farmer needs a shotgun passes for, if not an intelligent comment, at least not the blindingly stupid one that it is. Being opposed to hunting and target shooting is mainstream. In a democracy that has inevitable consequences.

Coming into shooting, sporting shooting anyway, gets harder and harder. Say, for instance, you want to try target shooting. Why, of course you can. It's a free country. All you have to do is find a club with a range (fewer and fewer, and noe the MOD have closed most limitary ranges to civilians). Then you sign up. Then you serve six months probation, during which you go NOWHERE on the clubs grounds with a firearm unsupervised. (Sounds OK, right? But when I say nowhere I mean nowhere. So when you sign a gun out of the club armoury, you have to wait until someone else is walking from the clubhouse to the firing point before you can go, even though the gun remains in the case in which the duty officer handed it to you. Coming back from the firing point to the club house, the same. For six months. take it from me, you can spend a lot of time waiting about.) Then you can apply for your own FAC, and depending on the part of the country you are in, that will take anything from 8 weeks to six months. Then and only then you are free to go and buy your own deadly .22LR* rifle.

You REALLY have to want to do target shooting to go through all that. Most people just give up. Which is what they want.

*Note to Euroweenies. Whilst I wouldn't want to be shot in the head with one. .22LR is not exactly a powerful round.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

By what I've read on the topic one of the most consistently effective crime-deterrents (particularly for serious violent crime, of course not including genuinely insane perps) is specifically an effective law-enforcement system - the psychological key element apparently being a high propability of being brought to court and being then duly punished for your deeds, rather than for example the exact severity of the punishement received.

One gets a rather strong impression the US system somewhat fails on both counts.

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I have no argument whatsoever with that. I'd love it if we had a very effective law-enforcement system. However, I'm personally not sure how we could make our system very effective. And if I were, I may or may not be able to discover what candidate in my area would seek to establish such a system. And if I did know, it's uncertain their bill would pass. And if it did, it's uncertain whether it wouldn't be changed during the debate process, or poorly implemented.

It comes back to the matter Don mentioned earlier of control. In terms of defense, there are channels I can act through to try to achieve an effective law enforcement system, and I should operate through them, but I have tremendously little control over the outcome. Self-reliance is self-controlled.

Ajax

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Originally Posted by English assassin

Coming into shooting, sporting shooting anyway, gets harder and harder. Say, for instance, you want to try target shooting. Why, of course you can. It's a free country. All you have to do is find a club with a range (fewer and fewer, and noe the MOD have closed most limitary ranges to civilians). Then you sign up. Then you serve six months probation, during which you go NOWHERE on the clubs grounds with a firearm unsupervised. (Sounds OK, right? But when I say nowhere I mean nowhere. So when you sign a gun out of the club armoury, you have to wait until someone else is walking from the clubhouse to the firing point before you can go, even though the gun remains in the case in which the duty officer handed it to you. Coming back from the firing point to the club house, the same. For six months. take it from me, you can spend a lot of time waiting about.) Then you can apply for your own FAC, and depending on the part of the country you are in, that will take anything from 8 weeks to six months. Then and only then you are free to go and buy your own deadly .22LR* rifle.

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I think you are over-reacting. There are loads of places in Nottingham and Liverpool where you can buy a gun for a tenner and then practice on real 12 year olds riding bikes.

No need for the palaver you describe, and you have bonus that the police don't bother you.

I'd have to say that the problem isn't guns, it's that the people who use and own guns are not as sensible with their use as CR and Whacker seem to be. I've got nothing against gun ownership, I just think that the procedure to get one could be more thorough, (more background checks, having to have your license reissued more often, etcetera).

And that police response was ... well, nothing short of :daisy:.

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Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost

I think you are over-reacting. There are loads of places in Nottingham and Liverpool where you can buy a gun for a tenner and then practice on real 12 year olds riding bikes.

No need for the palaver you describe, and you have bonus that the police don't bother you.

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Ah, yes. And did you see that survey, reported as if it was serious news, that one person in seven knows where to get an illegal gun? Why do I think the survey methodology was to go to the nearest chip shop, stop a "young adult" wearing burberry, and take him seriously when he tells you that he is one bad mofo, innit, and de ho's love his uzi.

Bangin.

Still, one good thing about all handguns being banned, is they can't ban them again.

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Originally Posted by AntiochusIII

That's harsh. I'm the last to say anything good about the NRA or the continuous repetition of this topic in the Backroom (I mean, come on :dizzy2: ), but school shootings and serial killings aren't exactly American phenomenons as you say.

Americans don't have it half as bad as you seem to think. Most anyway, this is a big place.

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Yet it is very difficult to avoid the impression such outbursts of... pathological and basically gratuitious violence are disproportionately common there. What was that FBI estimate about active serial killers in the world - three quarters or more of them in the US alone ? And for what it was worth, when I looked the term up in the Wiki there seemed to be a very easy majority of names under the US.

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We are a little unhinged, though, in terms of prioritizing issues and morality points.

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No argument here.
:creep:

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Originally Posted by ajaxfetish

I have no argument whatsoever with that. I'd love it if we had a very effective law-enforcement system. However, I'm personally not sure how we could make our system very effective. And if I were, I may or may not be able to discover what candidate in my area would seek to establish such a system. And if I did know, it's uncertain their bill would pass. And if it did, it's uncertain whether it wouldn't be changed during the debate process, or poorly implemented.

It comes back to the matter Don mentioned earlier of control. In terms of defense, there are channels I can act through to try to achieve an effective law enforcement system, and I should operate through them, but I have tremendously little control over the outcome. Self-reliance is self-controlled.

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Fair enough. By what I know of it the US law enforcement system started going the wrong way in several important areas already at inception, and given how the politics of the state work may well be essentially un-fixable. Or in any case I've no idea of where one would start - probably putting all the AFAIK separate municipal agencies under one organization or something.

The main point I was making however was that the possession or lack thereof of personal firearms for self-defense is really actually something of a nonissue in regards to the personal safety of the populace. It is the job of the authorities to take care of the criminal element properly and see to it that wrongdoers are caught and punished; that is one of the very central purposes of the modern Rechtstaat and also AFAIK the primary and most effective deterrent for serious crime.
We don't live in the damn Middle Ages when among the few ways to be safe from violence was to be a better fighter than the rest, and/or seek the patronage and protection of the good fighters, after all. We live in properly organized and managed societies with laws to protect the weak from the strong, which are ultimately backed up by the fact the state can call on more rifles than anyone living in it.

If the state fulfills this function well enough, the citizens very much do not need to arm themselves in self-defense (against each other anyway, but let's not go there); if it fails to, the arming of the citizenry does not really help the situation one bit, merely occasionally allowing an individual to survive its symptoms by managing to overpower an attacker. While it may occasionally save people from ghastly fates, it does preciously little to fix the real problem - and creates some new ones.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

Yet it is very difficult to avoid the impression such outbursts of... pathological and basically gratuitious violence are disproportionately common there. What was that FBI estimate about active serial killers in the world - three quarters or more of them in the US alone ? And for what it was worth, when I looked the term up in the Wiki there seemed to be a very easy majority of names under the US.

No argument here.
:creep:

Fair enough. By what I know of it the US law enforcement system started going the wrong way in several important areas already at inception, and given how the politics of the state work may well be essentially un-fixable. Or in any case I've no idea of where one would start - probably putting all the AFAIK separate municipal agencies under one organization or something.

The main point I was making however was that the possession or lack thereof of personal firearms for self-defense is really actually something of a nonissue in regards to the personal safety of the populace. It is the job of the authorities to take care of the criminal element properly and see to it that wrongdoers are caught and punished; that is one of the very central purposes of the modern Rechtstaat and also AFAIK the primary and most effective deterrent for serious crime.
We don't live in the damn Middle Ages when among the few ways to be safe from violence was to be a better fighter than the rest, and/or seek the patronage and protection of the good fighters, after all. We live in properly organized and managed societies with laws to protect the weak from the strong, which are ultimately backed up by the fact the state can call on more rifles than anyone living in it.

If the state fulfills this function well enough, the citizens very much do not need to arm themselves in self-defense (against each other anyway, but let's not go there); if it fails to, the arming of the citizenry does not really help the situation one bit, merely occasionally allowing an individual to survive its symptoms by managing to overpower an attacker. While it may occasionally save people from ghastly fates, it does preciously little to fix the real problem - and creates some new ones.

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Yep, Watchman, all your thoughts about Americans being knuckle-dragging neanderthals are perfectly true. And yet, we still have the world's largest economy. Must drive you nuts, knowing that us bunch of in-bred squirrels eat your lunch every day.

One thing I don't get about you Watchman... American gun control laws apply to Americans. If we're a disease you're looking to cure, wouldn't gun control be a bad thing?

Good job missing the point, but actually I just feel kinda sad for you guys. The most powerful state on the planet, yet it can't keep its own citizens safe from each other even to the degree far humbler powers manage to.
What's the point, one might ask.

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Yep, Watchman, all your thoughts about Americans being knuckle-dragging neanderthals are perfectly true.

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Don is that big chip on your shoulder making you walk lopsided yet ?

Don, this is like arguing with a brick wall. Just be glad they aren't Americans and thus have absolutely zero relevance to our own gun laws and situation.

One thing that people do seem to get caught up on here is self defense. Guns aren't used for the sole purpose of kill things and people, they're also tools and fun to own and target shoot for accuracy and for the hell of it. That's like thinking that people who practice archery are also nuts and murderers. I mean it's logical right? Bows were used as weapons and tools for thousands upon thousands of years and have killed tons of people, right? :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Watchman

The main point I was making however was that the possession or lack thereof of personal firearms for self-defense is really actually something of a nonissue in regards to the personal safety of the populace. It is the job of the authorities to take care of the criminal element properly and see to it that wrongdoers are caught and punished; that is one of the very central purposes of the modern Rechtstaat and also AFAIK the primary and most effective deterrent for serious crime.

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Be that as it may, the percent of offenders caught after the act, no matter how high, is not going to help you if you're the unlucky sod who has his house broken into.

Why should people be encouraged to buckle their seat belts all the time for the odd chance they crash, yet when someone breaks in or attacks us, we're supposed to feebly submit and not take precautions to protect ourselves.

I mean, it's pretty obvious gun laws don't have a direct, if any, effect on crime. Yet they do severely hamper citizens lawful right to defend themselves. Take a look at the article EA linked to. 'Reasonable' restrictions keep piling up because they do nothing to stop crime, and people still demand more gun control. What's that definition of insane again, with the doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different?
*Gee, that gun control measure didn't work at all. Since its already illegal for criminals to have any type of guns, let's make even more firearms illegal for non criminals to own, because then criminals will stop using them!*

CR

The capability for self-defense the weapon imparts on the individual tends to be chancy at best AFAIK - if nothing else there exists a very real possibility of the "bad guys" having more armed "effectives" in the situation anyway, no ? Relying on individual strenght - which is really what this "self-defense" thing is - has the problem it has always had, namely that there's always someone stronger.

Which is one reason why the easily best protection is an efficient enough enforcement of legal sanctions that the criminal element prefers not to engage in such gratuitiously violent endeavours in the first place. Although personally I suspect some murky cultural-value sociopsychological issues also have an effect, as I for one cannot come up with a decent theory as to why the US has such a disproportionate amount of pathological and extreme violence without ending up with theories about a structural problem with the values the society is built on and its inhabitants socialized in. (My pet kitchen-psychology theory is that the ideal of individualism is taken to too extreme a form where it becomes narcissistic and pathological, which can hardly be a good thing in an already rather atomized society.)

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Originally Posted by Watchman

(My pet kitchen-psychology theory is that the ideal of individualism is taken to too extreme a form where it becomes narcissistic and pathological, which can hardly be a good thing in an already rather atomized society.)

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I think Watchman is actually on to something there. To the European mindset, America and americans appear to be individualistic in the extreme. This view creates a disconnect in perceptions that we run into here in the backroom all the time (and particularly in gun-threads).

The american "system" or "way" has also been referred to as the american experiment; to test whether (relatively) unfettered citizens, operating in a (relatively) unfettered economy, only lightly regulated by a very-fettered government... can not only survive that circumstance (and each other), but also thrive. All american political arguments revolve around the degree of "fetter" required, and who is gonna pay for that. Generally, less fetter = good. No restriction at all = best.

Europeans don't see it that way. Their long history of being "granted" freedoms from above, versus assuming them or taking them, gives them an entirely different perspective of individual rights and the common good. That's not wrong, just different. A generation without war in western europe speaks to that.

Of course that is over-simplified in the extreme; but I'm certain it informs most conflicts here.

Actually I was thinking more in terms of subconscious individual psychological processes. For example where I live when desperate people find their situation intolerable they tend to resolve the matter by killing themselves, sometimes taking along their families (or ex-wives and their new hubbies etc. - you know how it goes). Conversely I have gotten the impression that people in comparably dire emotional straits in the US often tend to start taking it out on others, by going on a shooting spree or warping into vicious killers.

Any society has it misfits, outcasts and general malaise; it just seems to me the US either has disproportionately high amounts thereof, and/or some structural trait that leads the individuals afflicted to express it in a distinctly narcissistic manner at the expense of others. My theory is that this trait would be at least connected to the ideal of the Individual and his rights and potentials, which sometimes seems to take downright Nietzschean forms (in the negative sense), which is not counterbalanced with enough focus on the responsibilities the individual owes to his fellow-citizens simply by the virtue of cohabitation; and/or the social "connect" between people may be too thin to properly foster this idea particularly in the already troubled cases.

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Relying on individual strenght - which is really what this "self-defense" thing is - has the problem it has always had, namely that there's always someone stronger.

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That is why firearms are so important for self defense - they don't rely at all on a person's strength.

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For example where I live when desperate people find their situation intolerable they tend to resolve the matter by killing themselves, sometimes taking along their families (or ex-wives and their new hubbies etc. - you know how it goes).

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Most people here would do that as well, I think. But the fact is since we're such a big country, there's more crazies. As to why there seems to be more per capita in the US, I think it might have to do with the media treatment of school shooters. Desperate psychopaths seem to have a desire to be remembered, at least partially, and want to do something that gets them noticed, perhaps thinking they had been ignored before. Like they are going to show everybody who disrespected them.

Where does the media come into play? In the post killing sensationalizing of the killer. School shootings almost always make national news. The killers are famous. Everyone in the country knows who they are. Look at the Virginia Tech shooter this spring - some group actually performed his terrible plays after he died. In a flash, they're just as famous as the leaders of the free world. How can that not be attractive to the insane mind?

CR

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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

That is why firearms are so important for self defense - they don't rely at all on a person's strength.

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"Strenght" as in the conceptual and abstract sense, not mighty thews. Guns are certainly useful enough that they make even a weakling strong, but that's somewhat besides the point since his opponents can make use of them equally.

Or put this way, a street gang can put more guns to play than you I would imagine.

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Most people here would do that as well, I think. But the fact is since we're such a big country, there's more crazies. As to why there seems to be more per capita in the US, I think it might have to do with the media treatment of school shooters. Desperate psychopaths seem to have a desire to be remembered, at least partially, and want to do something that gets them noticed, perhaps thinking they had been ignored before. Like they are going to show everybody who disrespected them.

Where does the media come into play? In the post killing sensationalizing of the killer. School shootings almost always make national news. The killers are famous. Everyone in the country knows who they are. Look at the Virginia Tech shooter this spring - some group actually performed his terrible plays after he died. In a flash, they're just as famous as the leaders of the free world. How can that not be attractive to the insane mind?

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That actually sort of sounds like the vague idea of "malign narcissism" I've been trying to describe. A sort of need to "get back" at the bad world by somehow becoming noticed and important, if only briefly and posthumously.

Which drive they seem to lack around here for example.

As for per capita, come on now. You have proportional violent crime rates at least as bad as any other "Western" country, easily the most prisoners per capita in the world, by all estimates the easy majority of the world's criteria-meeting serial killers... and the EU put together has more people than you.
If that doesn't speak of a structural problem I don't know what does.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

If that doesn't speak of a structural problem I don't know what does.

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Well yeah. Your referenced structural "problem" is when the original assumption is misunderstood, or misused. Done right, the 'rugged individualist' (a popular mythological descendent of the 'noble savage' and 'the guy who knows Indians') defies the odds, the status quo, and the chauvenistas, to succeed, peacefully.

Done wrong, the 'loner gunman' flashes 'teh finger' to the odds, the staus quo and the symbols of his oppression, futilely wasting other lives as he makes his 15-minutes-of-fame mark.

In the american system, to allow for A, the success story, we must also prepare for B, the nutcase who got it wrong. Same mythos, different guys, different outcomes, same system. Quite a gamble, actually.

Hence, the seemingly ( to euro eyes) neurotic fascination with firearms, and the desire to own, use and praise them.

Full disclosure: I own a few firearms.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

As for per capita, come on now. You have proportional violent crime rates at least as bad as any other "Western" country, easily the most prisoners per capita in the world, by all estimates the easy majority of the world's criteria-meeting serial killers... and the EU put together has more people than you.
If that doesn't speak of a structural problem I don't know what does.

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I don't think CR was disagreeing with this. He seemed to me to be hypothesizing the structural problem as media sensationalization of the killer. Those who would otherwise go quietly into the night see an opportunity to make an impression, hence more per capita rampages by the crazies.

Ajax

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Originally Posted by Watchman

"Strenght" as in the conceptual and abstract sense, not mighty thews. Guns are certainly useful enough that they make even a weakling strong, but that's somewhat besides the point since his opponents can make use of them equally.

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No, because they level the playing field, so to speak. And defending your house gives you an advantage.

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Or put this way, a street gang can put more guns to play than you I would imagine.

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I don't hear of many gangs attacking homes, but that's why you have high capacity rifles.

CR

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but that's why you have high capacity rifles.

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I really have to say that while confronting a single attacker might be possible, I doubt that
1. A gang would attack my house
2. If someone did attack my house, I would pull out my Galil or AK-47 and let loose.
3. They would attack the only house with an AK-47

I think that assault rifles are a little bit much.

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Originally Posted by KukriKhan

Well yeah. Your referenced structural "problem" is when the original assumption is misunderstood, or misused. Done right, the 'rugged individualist' (a popular mythological descendent of the 'noble savage' and 'the guy who knows Indians') defies the odds, the status quo, and the chauvenistas, to succeed, peacefully.

Done wrong, the 'loner gunman' flashes 'teh finger' to the odds, the staus quo and the symbols of his oppression, futilely wasting other lives as he makes his 15-minutes-of-fame mark.

In the american system, to allow for A, the success story, we must also prepare for B, the nutcase who got it wrong. Same mythos, different guys, different outcomes, same system. Quite a gamble, actually.

Hence, the seemingly ( to euro eyes) neurotic fascination with firearms, and the desire to own, use and praise them.

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Yeah, well, the "success story" bit is perfectly doable without the "flipping out and going amok with a gun or turning into a serial killer" bit too... so that doesn't change the bit about there being some deep-running issue at works in the "system" I'd say.

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Originally Posted by ajaxfetish

I don't think CR was disagreeing with this. He seemed to me to be hypothesizing the structural problem as media sensationalization of the killer. Those who would otherwise go quietly into the night see an opportunity to make an impression, hence more per capita rampages by the crazies.

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That doesn't really do much to address the pathological need for attention of such nuts though. Plus I'm pretty sure there were enough serial killers in the US before the issue got "media sexy".
And moreover, where did the first gun rampages then get started ? Cannot have been pre-existent media sensationalization...

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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

No, because they level the playing field, so to speak. And defending your house gives you an advantage.

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But ultimately the matter then boils down to something like who can draw bead on the other guy first. Doesn't quite sound like the odds I'd bet my continued well-being on.

As I kepp saying, all that amounts to is containing the symptoms to some extent. It doesn't actually matter a thing in the larger scale, and I'm not quite convinced an armed and (even if justifiably) edgy citizenry can be regarded as an exactly healthy state of affairs. Tends to cause some unpleasant side issues I understand, the least of which certainly isn't the vast numbers of personal firearms on the market.

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I don't hear of many gangs attacking homes, but that's why you have high capacity rifles.

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Around here fighting wars is left to the army though.