by kwintestal 63 Replies latest social current
I think the whole gun thing is part of the general American paranoia - you seem to live in total and constant fear. How sad.
I'm American. I don't own a gun. I don't worry at all about crime, etc. Whatever happens, happens. I try to enjoy my life. Most people that I know feel the same way. Just an FYI.
xenawarrior: You seem to have a real problem keeping on topic. We are not talking about gun crime, although there too the UK generally has much less, we're talking about gun control and how the simple concept of having fewer guns relates to having fewer gun accidents.
Well, since you were one of the first ones to steer this discussion into the realm of gun control as a means to irradicate gun related accidents and how much better things are over there because you have it, I guess you must also be having a real problem keeping on topic. If something is brought up in the discussion, it's discussed isn't it?
You touted your lack of availability of guns in your country and stated that you have less gun related accidents.
We don't have guns generally avaulable and so tend to have far far fewer gun related accidents.You offered no statistics to back this up and the data I found seems to point to the fact that your gun control hasn't had the desired lessening affect on crime in your country in general so why would it result in fewer gun related accidents either? Since guns are the reason for the accidents and even though you have the strict gun control that you feel fixes that, you still have guns and the crime that goes with them, then don't you also still have the accidents? Or is England a magical place where one thing doesn't naturally lead to the other like it does in the U.S.?
And yes, if people cannot generally do something safely then legislation can remove the right of everyone. eg. **some** people can drive at 175 MPH in total control but most people cannot.
Well since driving at 175 mph is illegal here it wouldn't matter anyway- the person driving 175 mph- whether they could handle it or not is violating the law. We don't have a right to violate the law so there would be no rights taken away from anyone else to ensure another's ability to drive 175 mph. Someone owning a gun and dealing with it responsibly is doing something legal and he/she has a right to that which shouldn't (IMO) be removed because a small portion of the numbers violate that right.
I think the whole gun thing is part of the general American paranoia - you seem to live in total and constant fear. How sad.Actually, one of the things many of us do fear is losing the rights we were guaranteed by our Constitution.
Actually, one of the things many of us do fear is losing the rights we were guaranteed by our Constitution.
Since when is the American constitution infallible?
Actually, one of the things many of us do fear is losing the rights we were guaranteed by our Constitution.
What were the 2 year old kids rights?
Kwin
Well, since you were one of the first ones to steer this discussion into the realm of gun control as a means to irradicate gun related accidents and how much better things are over there because you have it, I guess you must also be having a real problem keeping on topic. If something is brought up in the discussion, it's discussed isn't it?
XenaW
You are talking about two separate issues here - yes this is an issue of gun control because any moron can go out and get a gun and leave it lying around for their child to blow their head off, just because their constitutional rights say they can (heaven forbid that their right to own a gun is taken away)
Criminals dont care whether it is legal or not to own a gun - so showing stats of gun CRIME doesnt really have anything to do with gun related ACCIDENTS that occur in the home because there is a gun i.e homes of law abiding people who would not have a reason to have a gun in the home if there were laws against it.
Well having the guaranteed RIGHT to bear arms is obviously more important than having sensible legislation that would go a long way to reducing the amount of these tragedies that you hear about, as if it was illegal, a normal person (not a criminal), hense good percentage of the population would not have a gun in the home in the first place so the chances of an accident of this sort is greatly reduced.Actually, one of the things many of us do fear is losing the rights we were guaranteed by our Constitution.What were the 2 year old kids rights?
Many kinds of tragedy are risked when a gun is kept in the home. I found this excerpt from a violence prevention article insightful (copied from this site http://www.psr.org/home.cfm?id=home Physicians for Social Responsibility):
One of the key marketing strategies of the gun industry is to advertise to potential customers that a gun in the home will ensure that a family is safe and protected, and that women in particular, being weaker and more vulnerable than men, should keep a firearm for protection. In fact, the opposite is true. Research has shown that a gun in the home is much more likely to kill or injure someone in the family than to be used on an outsider in self-defense. The gun industry fails to recognize that the majority of gun deaths in America are suicides, usually committed with a gun kept in the home. And in the case of homicides, the industry ignores the fact that the majority of firearm homicides are perpetrated not by dangerous strangers, but by people known to their assailants-relatives, intimate partners, or acquaintances-usually as the result of a dispute. The truth is that a gun in the home is four times more likely to be involved in an unintentional shooting, seven times more likely to be used in a criminal assult or homicide, and eleven times more likely to be used to commit or attempt a suicide than to be used in self defense. (Kellermann, Arthur L., et. al. "Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home." The Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection, and Critical Care. Volume 45, No. 2. August 1998). In addition, 53% of female homicide victims were killed with a firearm - more than 63% of these were shot and killed by male intimates. (Violence Policy Center, When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 1999 Homicide Data, 2001).Because of the inherent risks associated with firearm ownership, PSR believes that it is crucial for doctors and nurses to educate their patients about the risks of keeping a firearm in the home, especially where children are present or where there is a history of domestic abuse.
FIREARM INJURY PREVENTION BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following is a portion of a violence prevention research bibliography assembled and maintained by the Violence Prevention Program at Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR). If you would like to receive a copy of any article, either by fax or US mail, please send your request to [email protected] or 202-667-4260 (phone) or 202-667-4201 (fax).
To view PSR?s bibliography in full, please go to the ?Tools for Health Professionals? section of this website.
Bibliography Section:
Firearms in the Home/ Firearm Ownership
Azrael, Deborah, et al. ?Are household firearms stored safely? It depends on whom you
ask.? Pediatrics. Volume 106, No. 3. September 2000.
The objective of this study was to determine gun storage practices in gun-owning households with children?
Coyne-Beasley, Tamara, et al. ?Love our kids, lock your guns.? Archives of Pediatric
and Adolescent Medicine. Volume 155, No. 6. June 2001.
The objective was to determine if firearm safety counseling and gun lock distribution programs improved firearm storage practices?
Coyne-Beasley, Tamara, et al. ?The association of handgun ownership and storage
practices with safety consciousness.? Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Vol. 156, August 2002.
As with other injury prevention practices, education about safe firearm storage is recommended to prevent injuries to children. Results [of study] were not consistent with safety consciousness being associated with safe firearm storage practices or the absence of a handgun.
Cummings, Peter. ?Should Your Neighbor Buy a Gun?? Epidemiology. Volume 11,
No.6. November 2000.
Epidemiology was first published in 1990. During its first 10 years of
publication, an estimated 350,000 persons were shot to death in the
United States; about 51% of those deaths were suicides, 44% were
homicides, and the rest were unintentional or unclassified by intent?
Gabor, Thomas, et al. ?Unintentional firearm deaths: Can they be reduced by lowering
gun ownership levels?? Revue Canadienne De Sante Publique. Volume 92, No.5, p. 396. September-October 2001.
Firearm-related deaths are a leading cause of injury-related premature mortality. In the
?Guns in : Results of a comprehensive national survey on firearms ownership
and use.?(Chapters 1-4) Police Foundation. , 1996.
The reality of policing in includes dealing with citizens who possess firearms: there are about 200 million guns in private hands according to this survey and others?
Hemenway, David, et al. ? Firearms and community feelings of safety.? The Journal of
Criminal Law and Criminology . Volume 86, No. 1, p. 121. Fall 1995.
This article emphasizes that the decision to own a firearm is more than solely a personal issue or a household issue?it affects others in the community as well?
Hemenway, David, et al. ?Firearm training and storage.? Journal of the American
Medical Association. Volume 273, No. 1, p. 46. January 1995.
To determine the extent of firearm training among gun owners, how gun
owners currently store their weapons, and the relationship between gun
storage and gun training?
Kellermann, Arthur L., et al. ?Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home.?
The Journal of Medicine. Volume 329, No. 15. October 7, 1993.
Homicide claims the lives of approximately 24,000 Americans each year, making it the 11 th leading cause of death among all age groups, the 2 nd leading cause of death among all people 15 to 24 years old, and the leading cause of death among male African Americans 15 to 34 years old?
Kellermann, Arthur L., et al. ?Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home.? The
Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection, and Critical Care. Volume 45, No. 2. August 1998.
The objective is to determine the relative frequency with which guns in the home are used to injure or kill in self-defense, compared with the number of times these weapons are involved in an unintentional injury, suicide attempt, or criminal assault or homicide?
Each year more than 29,000 Americans kill themselves, making suicide the eighth leading cause of death in the nation. Despite the widespread adoption of telephone crisis lines, school-based intervention programs, and newer varieties of antidepressant medication, rates of suicide continue to increase. In the , more people kill themselves with guns than by all other methods combined?
Miller, Matthew, et al. ?Community firearms, community fear.? Epidemiology. Vol.11,
No. 6. November 2000.
The decision to acquire a firearm entails consequences for others. Such a decision alters the nature of a community, affecting how safe it is and how safe it is perceived to be. Although most empirical studies have focused on the objective costs and benefits associated with access to guns, risks imposed and benefits conferred can be psychological as well?
Miller, Matthew, et al. ?Household firearm ownership and suicide rates in the United
States.? Epidemiology. Volume 13, No. 5, p. 517. 2002.
In both regional and state-level analyses, for the population as a whole, for both males and females, and for virtually every age group, a robust association exists between levels of household firearm ownership and suicide rates. Where firearm ownership levels are higher, a
disproportionately large number of people die from suicide?
Schuster, Mark A. ?Firearm storage patterns in US homes with children.? American
Journal of Public Health . Volume 90, No. 4, p. 588. April 2000.
Newspapers, magazines, and television programs often report children killing or injuring themselves and others with firearms?
Swahn, M. H., et al. ?Prevalence of youth access to alcohol or a gun in the home.? Injury
Prevention . Volume 8, p. 227. 2002.
The objective is to estimate the national prevalence of youth access to alcohol, a gun, or both alcohol and a gun, in their home and to describe the demographic characteristics associated with access to either alcohol or a gun?
Several studies regarding the topic and inherent dangers associated with mass gun ownership in society.
I was gut shot with a .357 Magnum twenty-five years ago and have suffered compromised health ever since. I certainly don't place blame on the gun; it all had to do with a heated situation and the decision of a man to pull the trigger.
(No, I wasn't commtting a crime and the guy that shot me was in no way affiliated with law enforcement.)
Tigerman
If the man hadn't had access to the gun during this heated situation, you wouldn't have been shot. No compromised health, etc. So indirectly it is about gun availability. Since you make the point that it wasn't law enforcement, I assume it was a private individual in possession of the .357 magnum.
I question the purpose and/or need for private individuals to possess this type of weaponry. Our founding fathers certainly couldn't envision the changes that modern techniques could bring to the gun industry. It is one thing to own a rifle for hunting purposes, or even protection; another entirely to have access to the broad range of concealed or unconcealed weapons now manufactured.
So, to sum up. There are two possible ways to prevent this kind of thing happening that would work just as well.
1: No guns. Period. Apart from law enforcement.
2: People being responsible with firearms.
Both parties are right. I feel that option 2 would be better if we could make it work, but option 1 is easier as far as the government is concerned.
I'd prefer #2.
FMZ
It is one thing to own a rifle for hunting purposes, or even protection; another entirely to have access to the broad range of concealed or unconcealed weapons now manufactured.
Well, it's kinda hard to fit a rifle in your bedside table or up on the closet. I think hand guns offer good protection to trained users. I am opposed to general access to "cop-killer" type weapons. It seems the bad guys have better weaponry than the cops! We had a shoot out here at a bank a few years ago where the cops were way under-powered. They had to run to a nearby gun shop in order to subdue the bank robbers.
