American public opinion on gun laws.
By on Apr 18th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
American public opinion on gun laws.
Center for American Progress senior fellow Ruy Teixeira charts the polling data on American attitudes toward gun control laws:
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza takes a look at the data and concludes: “Given the fairly entrenched views about gun control and apparent disconnect between tragedy and public opinion, it seems unlikely that the shootings at Virginia Tech will have a lasting impact on the political debate over guns.”
Media Matters catches CNN’s Bill Schneider misrepresenting the polling data.
UPDATE: AmericaBlog’s Joe Sudbay, who has worked extensively on gun control issues, comments on guns and the 2000 presidential election.
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It’s for the best.
When you try to make policy around freak events, you end up with bad policy.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:42 pmWhen you try to make policy around freak events, you end up with bad policy.
You mean like the PATRIOT Act?
April 18th, 2007 at 8:47 pmSo what was the gun control situation like in the 90’s when 75% of the people queried wanted more control? I just remember old crime series from the mid-80’s in which perps getting their hand on M-16s was always a Really Big Deal. And of course there is that memorable scene from Terminator where the gun dealer is offed with his own merchandise.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:49 pmGeez, TP. Is this Shit Storm Day?
April 18th, 2007 at 8:49 pmWhen talking to Americans I am always shocked by the number who have had close friends and relatives killed or maimed by handguns. Perhaps it is people who kill and not guns, but the people of America are quick to anger and slow to forgive. A short temper and a handgun are a terrible mix.
And to what lengths will Americans go to protect what they believe in? Into the Heart of Darkness. From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo, the road leads to places where nothing is sacred. Anything is possible: lying, cheating, torture, and murder. It’s a place where oneself becomes the enemy.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:57 pmIf Americans all had guns, they could have fought back against these pollsters.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:00 pmThe philosophy of the NRA and its supporters simply is to let everyone get a gun and have a thousand shooutouts blossom. The last one standing inherits the country.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:01 pmComment by Trekkie — April 18, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
Excellent point, except in that particular case, the policy wasn’t made around freak events, but quite the reverse.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:03 pmThe NRA policy actually helps the Right. In a culture of fear, the people always turn to the strongman leader. Code Red.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:05 pmHow are we going to protect ourselves when GW tries to imprison all of us?
April 18th, 2007 at 9:19 pm#10 Jonny
I wouldn’t worry about that Jonny, Jake, Patrick1, Exley whatever you’re calling yourself these days. Iraq has 1/11 the population of the U.S. and they’re kicking our asses.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:34 pmBill Schneider has been a shill for the AEI for years. He is UNbalanced and Unfair and should not be on public airwaves. And he’s smug.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:42 pmBefore all the gun nuts get here. I respectfully ask them to:
1) Acknowledge that firearms based crimes are uniquely high in the US
2) Explain why they feel this is true if they acknowledge #1 but disagree with the suggestion that it is correlated with the availability of firearms.
3) Suggest what should/could be done to address this problem. (Giving more people more guns will not be considered a sincere answer)
BTW: I feel more like a man when I chock the bastards to death with my bare hands rather than shoot them. Put down your guns pussies!
April 18th, 2007 at 9:44 pmThe NRA must have a strict chokehold on the msm. Because I have yet to see a statistic from the msm mentioning how Americans die each year from gun related deaths, especially in comparison with other modern countries. When is America going to wakeup and hold these assmonkeys accountable. This is all starting to look like that scene from the movie Heathers. The msm is playing the role of the unqualified guidance counselor. Everybody pokes around but nobody gets to the heart of the matter.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:51 pmIt has to be a level playing field. Either everyone is packin’, or nobody gets a gun. Is there a way to keep the guns away from the criminals?
April 18th, 2007 at 9:57 pmdbadass,
I’ll accept that challenge:
First, I’m a registered democrat, liberal on just about all issues but the gun one.
1) OK, gun violence is high.
2) Crime may be correlated with availability, but there is little-to-no evidence to that. It may also be correlated with poverty, race issues (we still have plenty of those), and a whole bunch of social issues.
3) Suggest what could be done for which problem, gun violence or these mass shootings? The more we learn, the more we see how little Cho was about guns. Personally, I think the police and mental institution are the real failures here for failing to file orders that could easily have prevented Cho from buyin a gun.
As for crime, since we DON’T know the correlative and causal issues, guns aren’t going to solve your problem. We have seen violent crime increases in countries that have effectively banned guns (Australia, Canada, and England).
We have NOT seen crime increases since the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban. That doesn’t mean that eliminating all guns in America wouldn’t eliminate quite a bit of crime, but we all know that’s not feasible. So if we haven’t seem crime increases, with more access to guns, and more states going “Right to Carry” then we should…Ban more guns! Now, I’ll admit, we also don’t know if Right to Carry has really curbed crime (although FBI and Bureau for Justice Statistics show 22% lower violent crime rates in right to carry states). That 22% may just be ancillary. In other words, Right to Carry may not be causal, just like people who buy ashtrays aren’t more likely to get lung cancer.
Now, since crime really hasn’t increased (in fact it’s decreased, just unsure of gun rights as causation), and our current administration is the perfect example of why the 2nd Amendment should be an individual right (habeas corpus, Guantanamo, spying, wars, that sort of thing), and more and more Democrats and liberals DO think we should leave gun control alone, are you really willing to give up the mandate that won so many elections in November? That mandate didn’t include gun control It included healthcare, iraq, abusive government, budget deficits. If you’re willing to give that up, then go for gun control. You will lose states like West Virginia, Indiana, Oregon (where I live, and am active in the Democratic Party).
I am usually reluctant to agree with conservatives. But this one we should leave alone. I think TP has this one wrong. We will get punished at the polls for gun control, and you’ll just take away the ability for people to defend themselves.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:02 pmWe are screaming about Constitutional rights. Well we should practice what we preach, let the people have their guns.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:07 pm16 Thanks. A clearly sincere and reflective response. I will reflect upon and integrate your thoughts into my own views. The level of discourse you display should be a model for what TP should be about. Often I find just venom. I totally agree that our abnormal crime rates are a function of the synergy of many variables.
best
April 18th, 2007 at 10:16 pmI wouldn’t worry about that Jonny, Jake, Patrick1, Exley whatever you’re calling yourself these days. Iraq has 1/11 the population of the U.S. and they’re kicking our asses.
Comment by Topper Harley — April 18, 2007 @ 9:34 pm
Yes perhaps but I think most of us would rather not have to resort to suicide bombings to fight back an opressive tyranny.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:16 pm.If the gun-death rate in the US is 50 times the rate in Britain, righties will still argue that Americans need more guns and more-deadly guns. And don’t give me that “homogonous” crap. Britain is far from “homogonous”. I lived there 12 years.
A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to harm a family member than an intruder.
Interesting that Cho is from Fairfax County, Virginia (home of NRA) and gun was bought in Roanoke, Virginia where I and my best friend Wayne LaPierre (NRA head) lived.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:21 pmBritain: From Bad to Worse
Yeah lets be like Britain, bow to the Queen, and live in a wanna be Orwellian police state. NOT!
April 18th, 2007 at 10:27 pmDrug gangs that operate out of Colombia come to Florida to buy their weapons because the US has the easiest access to a large number of military style weapons in the world.
When DC has strict gun laws, sellers to drug dealers make a short trip to Virginia where purchases are quick and easy. Then righties say “look, DC has the high crime rate and Virginia’s is low”.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:34 pmYou are not required to bow to the Queen, it is less of a police state than the US, the Orwellian bits were the result of Conservatives, and it is fifty times safer than the US. Anywhere in the developed world (not the slums of Rio nor Iraq post-invasion) is safer than the US.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:38 pmUniversities such as Oxford and Cambridge cost $1000 if your parents can afford it—free if they cannot. Everyone has healthcare, including dental, optical, and long term. There is good public transportation. It is fifty times safer.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:42 pmYeah, look at Britain. Crime has gone up, not down. There was a recent push to ban long kitchen knives there. Kitchen Knives! Mk…Where do you panty wastes draw the line? Seriously!
do a google search if ya don’t believe me.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:44 pmComment by ohboy — April 18, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
That link from newsmax is written by a right-wing optomotrist and dentist!!! Tell me what top sociologists say!!! That article says British gun bans were recently initiated. That’s bullshit. What do they mean by recent? A hundred years ago?
It is true that homicide rate has gone up in the past ten years as more guns have come into the country. In 1970 there would be about 100 homicides in Britain with a population of sixty million. In Los Angeles in 1981, there were 1,100 homicides in a population of three million.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:51 pmI lived in London for twelve years. I know what I am talking about. I have studied a lot of sociology–which is what we are talking about.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:53 pmSmack:
April 18th, 2007 at 10:54 pmMy quess is you might have a hard time distinguishing a paring knife from a fillet knife from a simitar from a boning knife from a chef’s knife from a bread knife and so on. I’ll bet in your home they all just go in the “knife drawer”. Why discuss the UK if the topic is American attitudes toward gun control?
The US has 30,000 gun related deaths every year. That is a thousand “Virginia Tech’s” every year. The entire developed world thinks Americans are crazy to have such easy access to such a large number of such deadly weapons.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:55 pmIt always amazes me, but it shouldn’t, that the conservatives’ answer to gun violence is always more guns instead of more gun control. “Arm the airline pilots!” “Arm the Amish!” “Arm the students!” “Arm the teachers!” How could this mentality ever put an end to gun violence? We’d have more shootouts than the Old West which is probably what neocons are hoping for. It makes their humdrum lives more entertaining, as evidenced by their “More guns now! Shoot back! Don’t be a coward!” talking points over the last few days.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:57 pmJapan, South Korea, and Hong Kong are literally 100 times safer than the US (gun-death rate of 14.24 per 100,000 vs. 0.12) .
April 18th, 2007 at 11:00 pmNow tell me about THEIR crazy laws.
The second amendment says “well-regulated milita” and you are opposed to regulation. A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to result in harm to a family member than an intruder. Quick, easy access to a semi-automatic handgun with a 15-round clip is WRONG.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:09 pmNumber 20:
Where did you get this number? Is it the Kellerman study or something based on it?
April 18th, 2007 at 11:14 pmThe US has 30,000 gun related deaths every year. That is a thousand “Virginia Tech’s†every year. The entire developed world thinks Americans are crazy to have such easy access to such a large number of such deadly weapons.
16k of that is suicides, a part of the rest is people killing criminals in self defense. Remove guns and you might save 2-3k lives a year and to use a BushCo term, embolden the criminals.
Hitler killed millions in concentration camps after he disarmed them. I wonder if they felt safer with the gun laws? Hopefully I don’t need to explain to you, after the last few years, how easily the USA can fall into the same trap.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:16 pmFBI national crime statistics.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:17 pmOne of the talking heads made the point yesterday that after all the ruckus over passing the Brady Bill that these guns were still legally purchased.
While it is true that there was a ruckus over passing the Brady Bill and that these guns were legally purchased there is absolutely no connection between the two points. The Brady Bill was allowed to expire under the Republican Congress with the full support of Bush. Had the Brady Bill not been allowed to expire the Glock 9mm with a 15 round clip would have been illegal. End of story.
My question is this, why does MSM keep on lying about nearly everything. A lawyer would probably protest that the statement was not a lie. They would be wrong because if the intent is to deceive then the statement is a lie.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:19 pmThat article says British gun bans were recently initiated. That’s bullshit. What do they mean by recent? A hundred years ago?
Comment by keith
It’s geologic time — a blink of the eye. :-)
April 18th, 2007 at 11:19 pmJust found out in 12-month period 2005-06 there were 765 homicides in Britain including 52 in terrorist attack. There are a lot more guns in Britain today than before when they would only have 100 homicides (including Irish terrorists) in a country of 60 million.
Compare that to Los Angeles in 1981 with population of three million and 1,100 homicides.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:57 pmHey Zooey.
I hear everyone is armed to the teeth in Idaho.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:58 pmHitler killed millions in concentration camps after he disarmed them
That, Mr/Ms Ohboy is what is called a deductive fallacy. The United States has killed thousands of civillians in Afghanistan and Iraq and the people there are not short of an AK-47 or two.
1930s Germany voted the Nazis in more or less and gave them the power over them. Notice that similar situations, the populace, even though not armed at all were able to tabke their countries back:
The most of the successful resistances to oppression in the 20th century, were all non-violent at the core:
Poland and the GDR
April 19th, 2007 at 12:05 amRomania
India
South Africa
Why not turn this around:
Americans are armed to the teeth and yet they have willingly allowed their government to snoop on their communications, give up their right to habeas corpus and carry out a pre-emptive war of occupation in a foriegn country….the precious second amendment hasn’t stopped that..
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is very closely related to the German Act of Enablement in 1933….
April 19th, 2007 at 12:10 amHey Zooey.
I hear everyone is armed to the teeth in Idaho.
Comment by keith
Oh yes, that would be mostly true.
Me? I have a dusty baseball bat. :-)
‘night…
April 19th, 2007 at 12:14 amIt is right-wing Americans who like Hitler—not the left. There are American Nazi websites. Check them out. See if they are liberal or conservative.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:15 amGood idea. Hard to kill 32 people with a dusty baseball bat. G’night.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:17 amTTT,
Agree. And the second amendment says ‘well-regulated militia”.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:19 amYou can pry my dusty baseball bat from my cold dead… er… what was that again?
April 19th, 2007 at 12:20 amZooey,
Would you believe my best friend for a long time was Chuck’s buddy–Wayne LaPierre?
April 19th, 2007 at 12:23 amAgree. And the second amendment says ‘well-regulated militiaâ€.
Comment by keith — April 19, 2007 @ 12:19 am
That would be the state National Guards, right?
April 19th, 2007 at 12:29 amIt should probably be best interpreted as the states’ National Guard, yes.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:30 amFunny when gun nuts mention that sentence, they leave out the “well-regulated” part!
April 19th, 2007 at 12:32 amWe have seen violent crime increases in countries that have effectively banned guns (Australia, Canada, and England).
Comment by noops — April 18, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
I recently read the opposite as far as Australia is concerned:
“There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998.”
– Australian Crime – Facts and Figures 1999. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, Oct 1999
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/gunaus.htm
April 19th, 2007 at 12:33 amWould you believe my best friend for a long time was Chuck’s buddy–Wayne LaPierre?
Comment by keith
That is a bit of a surprise, keith, but you seem like you’d get along with everyone. :-)
PS — I’m glad I didn’t go to bed right away. I knew something was nagging at me — I forgot to register for my fall classes! Done….
April 19th, 2007 at 12:39 amKeith
That is the Kellerman study. One of the mostly widely used studies to say that a gun in the home is 22 times more likely to kill a family member. This has become one of the most widely debunked study in the whole argument (Just like Lott on the other side). Once it was largely debunked, Kellerman et al. refused to release the data that they used in the study for further peer review.
I hope you don’t want to rely on unsound science, research and methodology for polciy development. Know your sources a little better.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:39 amWe have seen violent crime increases in countries that have effectively banned guns (Australia, Canada, and England).
Comment by noops — April 18, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
This is utter bullshit. I lived in London for 12 years. I still keep up with goings on. They have more and more guns every year. But they have so many fewer guns than the US that they only had 765 homicides over 12 months. This is for population of 60 million.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:40 amG, night Zooey.
Wayne LaPierre was totally the opposite before his employment with the NRA. He just “sold out” to get the position with the NRA in about 1975. In 1972 his heroes were The Chicago Eight and even though he worked for McGovern, he was really to the left of McGovern. He is afraid of his past and has never had anything to do with the friends he had prior to the NRA. His bio hides the fact that he went to SUNY-Albany his junior and senior years, 1969-71.
Wikipedia’s Wayne LaPierre discussion page keeps taking away what I put up on him. I’ll have to put it back again.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:49 amThe National Center for Health Statistics says 43 times more likely to harm family than intruder.
Burglars watch the home and only break in when noone is there. Homicides almost always involve the victim knowing the perp—such as the battered wife. There are also the suicides and the accidents.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:53 amI don’t know what happened the first time I posted this, so I’ll try again.
We have seen violent crime increases in countries that have effectively banned guns (Australia, Canada, and England).
Comment by noops — April 18, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
I recently read the opposite as far as Australia is concerned:
“There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998.”
– Australian Crime – Facts and Figures 1999. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, Oct 1999
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/gunaus.htm
April 19th, 2007 at 12:56 amNoops,
You tell me to know my sources better(I did not say Kellerman was the source). Yet, you tell me that Britain has effectively banned guns!! That statement is enormously false. It was very rare to see a gun in London up until 1990. I knew one cab company in which the 30 drivers over a 25-year period did not see a single gun. But recently drug gangs have been bringing a lot of guns into Britain. But nowhere near the 200 million guns the US has—hence only 765 homicides for 60 million population.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:08 amIf the top sociologists in the US debunked Kellerman’s methodology, then I would believe them. But what would this mean, that you are only 10 tens more likely to harm your family than save them?
The only debunking I’ve seen from google searches have been pro-gun websites. Not the best science there.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:12 amget rud of automatic weapons and get a handgun and learn to shoot. youll live longer and you might save a life.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:14 amFor the truth about the head of the NRA go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wayne_LaPierre
April 19th, 2007 at 1:48 amget a handgun and learn to shoot. youll live longer and you might save a life.
Comment by old hack — April 19, 2007
Or you might use it in your next argument with your wife or child or brother-in-law. Or your son might commit suicide with it. Or you son might accidently kill himself or a friend with it. Or a burglar will steal it when noone is home and then use it in a crime. Or you might use it in your next “road rage”.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:53 amYar!!! Yeah lets get our pitch forks and go after those evil doer gun owners while our emotions run high! Lets take their toys and their rights … BushCons will keep us safe, keep us from harm, just like those evil evil terrorists. Or maybe the Democrats will keep us safe! omg sign me up for my RFID chip, I want to be a pod person slave.
April 19th, 2007 at 2:01 am/sarcasm
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people…with guns designed to kill people.
With handguns designed to be easy to carry and conceal.
With shotguns designed to inflict a great deal of damage.
With rifles designed to kill from a distance and with accuracy.
With assault rifles designed to kill as many as possible and quickly.
Guns don’t kill people?
April 19th, 2007 at 4:36 amWhite Americans are instilled with a fear of black crime that is out of all proportion to its incidence. They keep their doors locked at all times when they are at home and fear to enter a predominantly black area of town. They receive a constant diet of crime, mostly black, on television news programmes and live in terror of it.
If they notice that whites are rarely the victims of black crime, they probably put it down to having a gun in their homes. It is a tragedy of American life that the weapons they believe they need for protection so often become instruments of death for their loved ones.
The National Rifle Association will argue as always that people, not guns, are the problem, and that a disarmed population cannot be “free”. But the gun lobby is only as powerful as WE want it to be.
April 19th, 2007 at 5:17 amOrdinary citizens cannot be convinced that fear is their worst enemy. Fear is the only reason they continue to harbour the weapons of their own destruction.
We can change our national security policies after 9/11, but we’re not smart enough to change our gun laws after VTU? This is no knee-jerk reaction; many of us have been calling for this for a long time. It’s incidents like this which remind us why…
April 19th, 2007 at 7:17 amSudbay’s article is crap. The line about the Dems taking back the Senate by defeating NRA backed candidates ignores that they did so with NRA A-rated pro gun Senators like Casey, Tester, Webb.
He’s flat lying that Clinton didn’t back away from gun control. Clinton later wrote that the AWB was his biggest regret as it helped hand the GOP congressional control in 1994.
Trojan,
Guns are designed to propel lead at high speed. What the lead passes through is up to the user.
Handguns provide portable protection against criminals. Shotguns are sporting weapons first and foremost. Rifles are target shootitng and hunting weapons. Assault weapons are by definition fully automatic weapons that are already essentially unattainable by civilians legally.
April 19th, 2007 at 8:22 amThe argument: If all the students were armed, they would have had the ability to protect themselves!
The corollary: Pres. Bush HATES gun owners! They make sure that all gun owners do NOT have their guns when the attend public appearances by Pres. Bush, so that means Pres. Bush is encouraging people to NOT BE ABLE TO PROTECT THEMSELVES!
Simple argument: make everyone carry a gun everywhere they go, then all gun violence will disappear immediately.
April 19th, 2007 at 8:37 amThe problem (man have I had to type this a lot recently thanks to the simple minded out there): nobody but NOBODY is saying arm all the students.
Firstly, you have to be 21 to have a CCW permit in VA. That eliminates most of the students on the campus right there.
Many Virginians (135K plus) have permits. The VA State Police trust lots of people (me included) to carry handguns and it hasn’t created any sort of mayhem or problem anywhere in the state; these folks suddenly become a problem when they cross the threshhold of the campus? Bunk. Pure, unadulterated bunk.
April 19th, 2007 at 8:45 amThe day you libs try to come into my home and take my handguns will be the day America turns against you. It is like when the repugs increased the size of government, America turned against them. I completely understand that your into resricting my freedoms and rights, but trying to take away my right to defend myself, my wife, and my children is beyond crossing the line. I understand you truly believe that government is the answer to all you created life problems, but no one has ever explained to me how government will protect me against someone breaking into my home or breaking into a school to harm my children. Government is great at the legal process, but they are simply the “meat wagon” picking up the dead and wounded when it comes to public safety. The “only” way we could actually rely on government to protect us from all these things is by putting a police officer in each and everyone of our homes, set police every 100ft or so in public, and have 1 police officer in each and every classroom in America. Since that won’t happen, they cannot possibly protect my family, thus we must have the right to protect ourselves.
April 19th, 2007 at 9:34 amWhat amazes me is that, being the “stricter laws” crowd consistently higher since 1990, gun control laws are almost as loose today as they were in 1990.
April 19th, 2007 at 9:41 amUPDATE: AmericaBlog’s Joe Sudbay, who has worked extensively on gun control issues, comments on guns and the 2000 presidential election.
The… uh… 2000 election ?
Oh that’s right, Kerry went hunting and pledged to defend 2nd amendment rights in his campaign for the 2004 election.
Here’s an idea, now that gun laws are in the headlines and so is a presidential campaign with more than zero Democrat candidates running perhaps you could ferret out a position from one of them.
When you’re done reporting what some nobody right-winger has to say of course. Let’s get a sense of perspective here. Clearly the hopeful next leader of the free world can get in line behind ‘Derbs’ or whateverthefuck they said his name was.
April 19th, 2007 at 9:50 amPlenty of Democrats have come out and said that right now it is not the moment to speak about gun control laws.
evil spaniard the only thing that has changed is the Brady Bill. DC courts a few months ago declared DC’s strict gun control laws UnConstitutional.
I just don’t get it, Liberals are always claiming how much they love, respect and want everyone to obey the Constitution, but they certainly hate the 2nd Amendment. What gives liberals?
April 19th, 2007 at 10:06 amThere are already over 600 gun laws on the books. Don’t make more, enforce the ones you have. Oh, that’s right, only law abiding citizens obey the laws, you want the criminals (people who break the law) to have guns. You want to disarm the people RIGHT to defend themselves.
More people die from medical malpractice than guns but you don’t want to outlaw doctors. More people die from automobile accidents than anything else but you don’t take away everyone’s car.
In places with strict gun control (NY, CA, NJ) you have the highest gun crime. In places where the people are allowed to exercise their constitutional right to guns the crime goes down. Hmmm too much sense for you people. Lets examine it in recent terms.
The law in Virginia says you can carry a legal licensed gun to school if the school allows you. This school does not allow. What happened? The person breaking the law was armed and the students and teachers could not defend themselves. So where did this happen? In the school with the stricter gun control policy.
If you can guarantee the laws would disarm ALL the criminals then I will give up my gun. Otherwise stop trying to take away my right to defend myself.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:19 amyou know here are the sanctimonious liberals and many other nations of the world are taking this and lashing out at USA gun policies, but please….in Latin America anyone and everyone can own a gun, yes it is illegal in some countries, but in Latin America no one follows the laws.
Why aren’t liberals crying about Hugo Chavez arming regular folks, giving them Ak-47s to defend themselves? In Mexico every freaking household has a gun, in Colombia is the same thing. Yet the sanctimonious Europeans idiots and most Liberals in America cry about USA’s gun control laws.
Britain has the toughest gun control laws and guess what liberals, British criminals still use guns to commit crimes, they still use guns to kill people.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:20 amHell man, we need them guns to kill the terrorists when they come across the ocean and invade our homes.
The statistics show that you are more likely to kill yourself or a member of your family with your gun than you are to kill an intruder.
Those status just show what brainwashing can do.
Perhaps we should have no gun laws like McCain wants. We can all go down the street packing a Uzi. Someone cut you off in traffic? Kill the sucker. Mad at your wife? Haul out that gun and shoot her dead.
I weep for what we have become.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:29 amHappy Guy,
excellent point, when anti-gun individuals guarantee that criminals will abide by the gun control laws, this would be the day I will give up my guns.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:29 am“Is there a way to keep the guns away from the criminals?”
Yes, don’t sell them one. Most criminals get their guns at gun shows where they can walk in, buy a gun and walk out.
I understand people who think we have the right to bear arms. I won’t argue the point, even though I think it is specious.
But, one has to ask why they:
1) Object to administering a test to a potential gun owner.
2) Object to a waiting period.
3) Object to a background check
4) Object to banning automatic weapons (which have absolutely no use other than to kill people).
I would be interested in hearing a gun lover’s sincere answer to these questions.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:33 amHey Kate, I know you don’t want to disarm the police also do you? When they get mad at their wife statistically they just tend to beat them, even though they have guns.
You say statistically you are more likely to kill yourself or a member of your family with your gun than you are to kill an intruder. But statistiacally your more likely to die in an automobile accident. Are you giving up you car? Do you or anyone in your family own a car? Don’t push statistics unless your really going to live by them.
Ted Kennedy’s car has killed more people than my gun!
April 19th, 2007 at 10:39 am“1) Object to administering a test to a potential gun owner.
2) Object to a waiting period.
3) Object to a background check
4) Object to banning automatic weapons (which have absolutely no use other than to kill people).
Comment by Kate Henry — April 19, 2007 @ 10:33 am”
I believe everyone should own a gun and I don’t object to any one of things you said above. all these should be done. It just seems that Liberals only love the part of the Constitution that agrees with their ideology.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:47 amKate Henry maybe you can explain….
many liberals say that they don’t want the 2nd Amendment to be done away with, they just want responsability attached to it, which I 100% agree……
yet many of the same liberals that say that the 2nd Amendment comes with great responsibility are the ones that say that Freedom of Speech means that you can say anything, whenever, where ever, that there is no responsability attached to Freedom of Speech, care to explain……
April 19th, 2007 at 10:50 amHere you go Kate –
We do have to take a test to get a gun. Although each state is different (this is the United State so states can make their own laws) my state requires a saftey test, a back ground check, I had to submit two sets of fingerprints (State and Federal) wait three months for the results to clear a few more checks to write and hoops to jump thorugh and then I got my Permit to carry.
Now when I go to buy a gun then put my permit number into a comupter and it makes sure I am still able to purchase a gun before the sale goes through. You are not allowed to purchase a gun or get a permit if. You are a felon, drug conviction, conviction of any crime involving a firearm, history of violence or a current restraining order against you.
Automatic weapons are banned. They can only be puchased by people who have a federal sales license (FFL) and then getting a Class 1 permit. Very hard if not impossible to get and when you do you give up many rights. The government can come into your house to inspect this weapon at any time. I do not know of anyone who has one of these licenses.
So about your queries
1) There is a test
2) There is a waiting period. (You don’t need a license for a long gun but there is a two week waiting period)
3) There is a background check.
4) Automatic weapons are banned and even the NRA agrees with this ban
The anti-gun lobby has misinformed you people through scare tactics.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:51 amOne more thing. The only state in the union that does not require a permit to carry a handgun is Vermont. And they have no gun crime.
Loose gun law, no gun crime.
New York city and Boston have strict gun laws for there states and even a second stricter permit law for those cities yet they have high gun crime. Disarming the people just does not work.
There is a bumper sticker with pictures of Hitler, Castro and Clinton.
April 19th, 2007 at 11:04 amIt reads “Experts agree, gun control worksâ€
Before all the gun nuts get here. I respectfully ask them to:
1) Acknowledge that firearms based crimes are uniquely high in the US
2) Explain why they feel this is true if they acknowledge #1 but disagree with the suggestion that it is correlated with the availability of firearms.
3) Suggest what should/could be done to address this problem. (Giving more people more guns will not be considered a sincere answer)
BTW: I feel more like a man when I chock the bastards to death with my bare hands rather than shoot them. Put down your guns pussies!
Comment by dbadass — April 18, 2007 @ 9:44 pm
————–
I’m not a gun nut (I don’t own any and have no intention of doing so in the near future) but I’ll take a stab at answering those questions.
1) Yes.
2) It is a symptom about the kind of culture we have, not the relative ease of getting a handgun. There is almost no correlation between areas where it is hard/easy to get guns and the homicide rate involving guns. Incidentally, there is no specific corellation between countries that have strict/relaxed laws involving firearms and deaths/homicides involving firearms. There are two things you’re looking at: accident rate involving firearms and overall homicides. Simply tracking gun deaths doesn’t give you any useful information except stuff you can use to fit your own agenda. If you ban or restrict guns in a region the homicide rate and the accident rate involving guns will go down, but if the overall homicide rate doesn’t go down, then the same number of people are being killed, so what exactly have you accomplished?
3) Giving people more guns or taking them away doesn’t seem to solve problems. In the Virginia tech and Columbine incidents more could have been done if the problems people NOTED AT THE TIME and WARNED OTHERS about were taken a little more seriously. The shooters in both instances seemed to be so bent on killing that the method was incidental to the goal. Making it hard to get their hands on firearms most likely would have made them turn to something else, possibly explosives, especially in the Columbine incident. In both situations, MORE people might have been killed.
Guns don’t kill people. People with “issues” kill people. If the effort put into restricting guns was put into finding out why people flip out kill others and solving THAT problem, I am certain we’d reduce the number and severity of incidents like this quicker than we will by taking the guns away.
As far as accidents go, teach people how to use, take care of and secure their firearms and we won’t have that problem either.
April 19th, 2007 at 11:42 am#84 Personally, I think the big problem is the fact that all this anti gun talk comes from elitist folks that live on the coasts. These are the same folks that have never owned a gun, have never hunted, and have never even shot a gun. The only thing they see is the big news story about a maniac killing a bunch of folks that were unprotected. They take from that the idea that we need to get “tougher” on guns. Do they ever stop and think that anyone wanting a gun regardless of the law can get one easily? How do you come up with some insane idea of making it tougher for law abiding citizens to get guns? Doesn’t that actually make the problem worse? Why not focus on making it tougher for criminals to get guns? That would make sense at least.
BTW, you CANNOT walk into a gun show and get a gun that very day with no checks etc. The only way you can get a gun without a check is by buying one from an individual person. That is the only thing I think we need to get better laws on. We need to make even individual guns sales subject to background checks and waiting periods.
Anyone suggesting the government walk into our homes and disarm law abiding citizens is beyond nuts. Maybe you forget that outside the elitest coasts, we normal folks in fly over country thoroughly enjoy target shooting, trap shooting, hunting, and have the ability to protect my family and personal property from criminals.
Ask a mugger or car theif if they would dare try to mug someone or car jack someone they knew was packing a gun for protection. They would never dare. As it stands now, most everyone doesn’t carry a gun, thus these criminals know it is like taking candy from a baby. That needs to change. We need to instill fear into these folks so they think twice.
April 19th, 2007 at 11:51 amKeith,
That 43 times number also comes from the Kellerman study. I love this though:
I like it, “that’s debunked, we’ll just make our own numbers up.”
And you mention pro-gun websites. If you want to have a rock solid argument, those are exactly the people you need to keep from being able to debunk you. And yet, you seem to have no problem believing statistics from “the other side” which has an equally vested interest.
As for Australia, don’t just look at homicide, and show one statistic. Almost every other violent crime was up, including manslaughter and attempted murder. Armed robberies went through the roof.
April 19th, 2007 at 12:21 pmI love hearing the excuse that “being armed means that you won’t get attacked!”
Really? So by that logic, none of our soldiers in Iraq would EVER get attacked as long as they have their trusty M-16!
Also, nobody has talked about Pres. Bush WANTING everyone that visits his public appearances to be unable to defend themselves should they be attacked by a gun-toting crazy! When everyone has to give up their guns to visit with Pres. Bush, he’s basically saying “I refuse to allow you to protect yourself around me!”
April 19th, 2007 at 1:29 pm#87 If we left out troops in Iraq but took away all there weapons, would they get attacked more or less? My point exactly! Those weapons are what protect them.
April 19th, 2007 at 4:33 pm(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.
(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health Human Services)
Guns
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
Yes, that is 80 million.
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.000188.
Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
Remember, “Guns don’t kill people, doctors do.”
:)
April 19th, 2007 at 6:37 pmgun deaths per 100,000 population:
US:14.24, Sweden:1.92, Germany:1.24, England+Wales:0.41, Japan:0.15, S.Korea:0.12
30,000 gun deaths per year is like one thousand VaTech’s per year.
Yeah, if all those drunk Hokie frat boys coming from a kegger each had an Uzi, then I’ll bet the campus would be a lot safer (sarcasm). Yeah, I hope the next bar I go to, everyone is packin’ so when I spill their beer or look at their girl—they can fill me full of lead–just like the Olde West (sarcasm again).
April 19th, 2007 at 10:10 pmNoops, you are wrong again—I am not the one who mentioned Australia.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:17 pm#87 Why do you use the word “Soldier†in your name when you are the biggest pu$$y on this board? Of course you want everyone disarmed, even our soldiers. You’re an America hating POS.
Keith, let me buy you a beer
ROTFL
April 24th, 2007 at 9:21 am