New state law to open more public buildings to firearms

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I understand what you are saying and I didn't want to get into a long argument at 1:30am. However, saying we have shootings because we have guns does not address the complexity of the situation. The drug trade substance abuse, extreme poverty, bad role models, poor education systems, few job opportunities, and to a lesser extent, holes in the availability of mental health services are some of the identifiable factors that contribute to violent crime. Address those, and most crime statistics, including firearm homicide, tend to go down without tightening gun laws. In addition to that, letting people that are not inclined to conduct themselves in an offensive manner carry weapons for personal protection drives down violent crime even further.


Whether it's the most ideal way to go about public safety is a moot point because in 1981, the DC circuit court ruled in Warren v. District of Columbia that the police are legally obligated to protect individuals. You either have to hope that you fit into whatever strategy the police have to protect the pubic at large or take initiative to provide for your own protection. My family once waited 2 hours for the cops to respond to some teenager shooting off his dad's gun in a residential area, I once waited 3 hours for them to show at a car accident that interfered with traffic, and forget about getting them to show up to parties and turn off loud mariachi music before 1am. There was once an incident where two families and some of their friends were drunk and fighting out front and there were kids with them and the first cop on scene got there in a half hour, which I guess is pretty good for them. The city always seems to have plenty of manpower too keep the number of traffic tickets up and I guess that's the important thing.

The situation is even worse in Camden, NJ. They had to lay off half their police force and now only the most serious calls get answered at all. Aggravates assault with a firearm is up 259%, shootings are up 88%, and overall crime is up 19%. Homicide is down, strangely, but that's probably just due to untrained crackheads. In new Jersey, it's easier for criminals to get guns than peaceable people that want to stay safe, and nobody is obligated to look out for them.

I agree absolutely with what you say. It's just I disagree about the remedies. Lousy police protection may be aided by a wider distribution of personal armaments but it also puts the untrained random armed individual in the position of enforcement and if you cannot trust the police to behave well, why do you find such confidence in the average armed citizen?

How is calling you on yet another random change of subject a denial of anything?

Now, are you incapable of grasping the concept that victims of violence don't particularly care if they're being shot, stabbed or strangled and that the only measurement that matters is absolute levels of violent crime, or are you just pretending to because you don't have an argument?

Let me take the (metaphorical) gun out of your hand and presuppose that to someone already bent on committing violence, guns are often the preferred tool if available. Now be that as it may, the charts posted by AoS (and many others from a variety of sources) clearly show that although gun ownership is up, violence is also down, which seems to indicate that the mere presence of guns does not CAUSE violence. In fact, the states with the most permissive gun laws tend to have the lowest violent crime, quite a conundrum if you're trying to argue a causal relationship between guns and violence. The presence of guns MAY mean that any violence that happens to occur is more likely to be done with guns rather than alternate implements, but that the overall level of violence is not affected. Is that difference clear enough for you?

On a side note, why don't you tell us your qualifications to speak on this issue? So far, I've got that you've lived in various places and never needed a gun, and that's it... Ignorance and armchair psychoanalysis don't count. Do you think that not owning or carrying a gun somehow makes you an expert on guns and gun laws, let alone other people that do own and carry them? You certainly seem to think that you've got gun people figured out, despite the fact that you've got at least three of them in this thread alone telling you that you're completely full of BS.

I can only use my on experience as a basis for my conclusions. I have never been attacked by aliens and needed a ray gun never been even assaulted throughout an 85 year old life and been in many places. I am careful, avoid confrontation and do not advertise I have a gun and can outshoot Anne Oakley.

To deny there is any connection between guns and violence is to be a damned fool. To insist that having more guns floating around means to have less shooting is idiotic. Your contentions about overall violence contain no validity for me since I doubt there are reliable figures on all sorts of everyday occurrences. Your underlying disparagement and disgust with law enforcement may have some validity but the general remedy of liberally distributing lethal instruments to a random populace is a silly fantasy.
I have no doubts you have a good deal of expertise with weapons and a lifelong fascination with them but I have no confidence that dispersing weapons is a move towards a peaceful populace. I really don't care how many people who delight in guns try to insinuate that they are basically harmless when it is most obvious they are highly designed to be harmful and since it is people with guns that is the problem I am not at all encouraged by the attitudes I have seen in people that they are generally qualified to randomly sentence someone to death.

Easy, unlike law enforcement, civilians are held accountable for their actions and can't arrest people and confiscate their cameras for filming their actions. Short of re-selling drugs or weapons from the evidence locker or selling sensitive information to criminals, or something like that, they hardly ever get prosecuted for their actions on duty. Hell, they almost never get traffic tickets and occasionally get out of DUIs (not so common anymore with so much being recorded), and can pull "professional courtesies" for violations of local ordinances. Civilians are held to a higher standard.

They may be held to a higher standard after the fact but it's the wild west in the interactions of spur of the moment decisions. I'm with you all the way on the way the police push people around and get away with it but it seems to me the problem is getting the police to behave properly.Not easy. Perhaps not possible. But I cannot see any other way.

Cause it is unlikely the crooks will think things through and have a backup plan in case you have a gun, specially in states with loose laws.

Even here, the crooks are into sun tsu. The crook robbing you has other two guys watching the event just in case you try to be a hero and pull something out. I do not have enough willing suspension of disbelief to think that the US crooks are much more stupid than the ones here.

Also, wouldn't the "adjusted" plan be not to rob the guy that is carrying a gun?


Gun laws are not correlated with less guns though.

Sand wrote:

The purpose of an individual carrying a handgun for self-protection is just that, for self-protection and extended to family that are with them should the need arise.
It’s not to enforce or police anything else and this is clearly stated in state law along with the circumstances in which deadly force can legally be applied. There’d better be a good and defensible reason for that pistol to be out of the holster. People have been arrested and/or lost their carry permits for being careless.



So it’s better to let the assailant have his way and maim or kill an innocent than it is for that innocent to defend himself/herself???

As stated by John Browning, the police are not always available. Well, to be blunt they rarely are on time when it really matters. In my suburban town where we have enough cops to cover day to day things but in time critical emergencies (burglary, assault, etc.) where you need help in seconds you just don’t receive it in time and never will.
So answer me this; how do you fill in that critical gap in time and survive it unscathed?
Well, the only answer is you have to handle things yourself as best as you can which in the case of this argument might mean use of deadly force to meet deadly force.

Actually I had something worse in mind when I said "adjust accordingly"; grab the dude's gun and use it against him. And yeah I know all about the "Convenient bystander" strategy, my parent's store was robbed that way a few times. Crooks generally like stacking the odds against their victims not waging a war of attrition so they might also find someone easier to rob. Another thing about open carry is that you know how many people in the area have guns. If you don't have the comfort of knowing who does and who doesn't have guns, then there is much more of an uncertainty and you might risk getting shot by 70% of people in the area. But anyways this is one scenario out of many and sweeping generalizations do not address all possible scenarios.

I don't know about the US but the neighbourhood I grew up in most of the the crooks weren't all that slick. They'd usually pincer people, line up against a wall in a walkway or set you up in the laundry room. Although they weren't usually stupid, they were somewhat predictable if you know what to look out for. The "professional" types are relatively rare and the muggers were usually borderline ret*d.

Are there not gun owners who actively try to avoid confrontation too?

No you don't have any real objection to statistics, they just didn't matter all the sudden when they contradicted your stance and insulting assumptions about gun owners. You already brought up gun death statistics and that site with the laughable "You're more likely to shoot a family member than an intruder" myth and then when I refuted every one of your points with statistics of my own you cry foul that I'm shoving them in your face. And yes there are all sorts of everyday occurrences, which is why calling all gun owners paranoid without knowing their day to day circumstances is condescending and presumptuous.

Liberally (pun intended lulz) restricting legal accessibility of firearms in the hopes of making the black market magically disappear overnight is a silly fantasy. My statistics show that the vast majority of legal gun owners are neither stupid, careless, bloodthirsty or lacking in self control.

Once again, besides the fact that most crooks have criminal records and have usually obtained their first gun in their teenage years, they prefer to obtain guns illegally regardless of gun laws because a legal transaction is SELF-INCRIMINATING.

On a side note, what is being "civilized" supposed to mean anyways? I judge the civility of a person based on how that person conducts himself/herself in social interactions, not by whether or not the person is willing to meet force with force.

Statistics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... _ownership
indicate the USA has th largest gun ownership in th world.

Therefore, isn't it obvious the USA is the safest country in the world?

Have you already forgotten about this?


Please show me where I said higher rates of gun ownership = less homicides, because I've said over and over again that there is no correlation between the two. Statistics indicate that there is no correlation between rates of gun ownership and rates of homicide, therefore isn't it obvious Finland is safer than Canada? Or that North Ireland is safer than Norway? . Anyways I'm done with this thread, I'm not gonna continue beating a dead horse.

And oh yeah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... death_rate
Don't forget to sort it by homicides. Not that I count on you doing that anyways since the total firearm-related death rate is synonymous with homicides to you.

OK. Then having a gun does not make you safer. Or does it or what? I find it hard to make a conclusion. If having a gun handy makes it easier to commit suicide I fail to see how that act of suicide should be disqualified as a potent danger of having a gun.

Most people that get shot are involved in illegal activity. If you are a gang member or a drug dealer, you are more likely to get caught off guard and they tend to die before they pull their weapon. In the US, involvement in criminal activity or association with criminals is the best way to get shot. If you are a law abiding citizen with a job (or wants one), attackers tend to have other motives than assassinating you so you are more likely to spot someone who may have malicious motives and get your guard up (notice I didn't say pull your gun out, though that may end up being required). If a thug loses the element of surprise and discovers their target is harder than originally anticipated (sometimes you can make them realize you have a gun without pulling it based on your stance and mannerisms), they are likely to back off.

When you look at murders in Philadelphia, PA the previous years, you would see the majority of them happen between 11 pm to 3 am and most victims are felons or former felons. People who live by the sword truly die by the sword.