Advice on addressing anti's

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DrPsycho

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A comment made by a certain 'know it all' cousin on mine regarding shooting as a sport - he will never ever take up shooting because "it's just an accident waiting to happen". He is a scuba diver, insistence that scuba diving is a safe sport. And it probably is, because he is involved in it, he knows the sport and all, but to a lay person it's still got the label of "extreme sport" along with say abseiling, base jumping or sky diving, etc

A conversation in a car with a friend/acquaintence regarding my liking of firearms:
Me: taking away guns is not the answer.
Him: of course it is, without the guns so many people wouldn't be killed.
Him: xxx people are killed with guns in America everyday.
Me: so? what about cars? how many people are killed in car accidents everyday? we should ban all cars.
Him: (silence)

And here where I'm stuck - I have no further argument to backup/support. The conversation soon ends.
 
Sounds like you did good.

The mistake I usually make is I get rabid I pound the argument into the ground, till they concede out of fatigue. And that's stupid, because it paints me as a psycho, not a firearm enthusiast.
 
Accidental death rate for shooting sports has to be well below that of scuba diving. Just have to find some numbers to back you.

But guns are not for sport, that's just a fun way to practice and become proficient. Guns are self and national defense by armed citizens. Being armed is a basic human right, and if we didn't have firearms, I'd use a baseball bat shaped walking stick and carry a hatchet, knife and big metal flashlight everywhere. It would work for me, I'm big enough and strong enough, but what if you you're skinny like Skunkability, or just tiny? What if you're in a wheelchair? Or old? Should being an old, skinny guy in a wheelchair make you a victim? No? Then how do you propose he defend himself against a 6'8" 325# nutcase with a ball bat? Hell he can't even bite without his teeth falling out!

If you friend recognizes the human right of self defense, the how can he refuse people the tools to do a proper job?

Read the I'm an Anti w/ questions thread, as it has some very eloquent arguments.

I'll see what I can do for some stats for you.



David
 
Some months ago I calculated the statistical risk of a gun owner and a car owner to cause somebody's death. As a base I took the official numbers from the German Ministry of the Interior.

I didn't keep the numbers (just did it out of curiosity), but I remember that according to my calculations a car owner was 23 times more likely to KILL somebody than a gun owner to commit a crime with his weapon. If you eliminate crimes that don't involve somebody's death from this figure (for which I lacked the exact numbers), you get an even more extreme relation.

Yesterday I was debating with my liberal friend about gun ownership. Finally I asked him: "Why am I allowed to carry a gun every day, and you are not? Am I more trustworthy than you because I wear a uniform?" Of course, his first answer without thinking was, "No, you're definitely not..."

2 seconds later you could see a BIG question mark on his face...


Regards,

Trooper
 
I can't find solid stats, (not that I would put in print) but in 1995 there were 11 scuba deaths per 100,000 participants, and in 2000 there were 600 accidental shootind deaths in the US TOTAL (not just sports) for 10 deaths per gun owner. For 2000 there were 91 shooting related hunting deaths. Hunting is more popular than diving, how many diving deaths in 2000?



David
 
But guns are not for sport, that's just a fun way to practice and become proficient. Guns are self and national defense by armed citizens.
Click to expand...

There are more uses for guns than just defense.
 
Numbers.

These are year 2000 numbers, from the CDC.

Total deaths from firearms: 28,663 Pretty big number, but...
Firearms Suicides: 16,586 or 58% of the total.
Firearms Accidental Deaths 776, so, minus also "unknown circumstances" and "legal intervention",

Firearms Homicides 10,801

But wait, there's more: Of those 10,801 homicide victims, 5084, or 47% of the total, were black males. This is significant because according to the year 2000 census, black males only make up about 6% of the total US population.

Incidently, of 16,586 firearms suicides, 13,214, or 80% of the total, were white males.

I'm just throwing out numbers here; y'all can draw your own conclusions.
 
My first questions to any anti always are:

Define criminal? If all guns were banned tomorrow do you think criminals would give them up? Do you think they would still be able to get them?
 
You could use the wonderful progression of ideas in this article.

pax

I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. -- Dave Barry
 
I like to start with the basics... such as:

Do you believe you have a right to own property?

Do you believe you have a right to use lethal force in self-defense (to prevent eminent serious injury or death of yourself or others)?

Most people will say yes to both of those, from there all you do is ask them questions that highlight how what they claim they believe is inconsistent with gun control. I find the Socratic methd of RKBA preaching the most effective one.

If they say no to either of those two, I usually let it drop because they are generally too far gone to be worth the effort. If I just want to give them a hard time or sense that they haven't thought through their answer very well, then I ask them why they are OK with delegating the use of lethal force to the government (military, LEO) if they don't believe that it is moral to use lethal force in that capacity.
 
Unless you can ban the knowledge of how to make firearms, banning firearms is utterly useless, futile, and will serve only to disarm those who least need to be disarmed.

You cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Man has known how to make a gun go boom for about 400 years (or more?).

And sorry to use the old cliche, but a gun is a tool no different than a hammer. Hammers, bats, knives and axes are used to kill people too, but we don't ban them.

And the old 'a gun is only made to kill' argument is untrue. That would mean that every time a gun is used, it kills or wounds someone. Totally untrue. How many times per day does the mere presence of a gun prevent a crime? Quite a few, we know for a fact.
 
I would also use this argument - The media loves to focus on bad news - how many times per week do we hear about a plane crash, a car crash, a shooting? Quite a lot. They love to report bad news. How often do we hear about the thousands of planes that DON'T crash each day, cars that DON'T crash every day, the guns that AREN'T used to kill each day? Few. Very few.

I don't have hard numbers here, but I do know that guns are used hundreds of thousands of times per year to PREVENT crime. These are rarely reported in the media, not an exactly pro-gun bunch of people, in my view.

Your friend needs to keep in mind that the media isn't presenting all the facts.
 
try showing the math behind the actual deaths. come up with the percentage of homicides involving a firearm from the entire base of 80,000,000+ firearm owners, and then show the percentage of suicides, and accidental deaths.
explain how those suicides likely would happen without a gun present. the best way to do this is to show that japan has the SAME overall number of suicides as the USA does, even though maybe one or two of those suicides invovles a firearm. they dont have guns over there like we do, yet they kill themselves just as often. compare the population between USA/japan, and you'll likely find that japan has a greater ratio of suicides.

then go into how there are approximately 300,000,000 legally owned firearms in this country, and how low the percentage of deaths are.

you can also research the number of firearm deaths over the last 30 years, and reveal that although the number of firearm ownership has doubled, tripled, quadrupled, etc over the last 30 years, the number of firearm deaths has NOT increased in proportion, in fact, the number has remained relatively constant.

there are dozens of different ways to express the facts on your side. these are just a few.
PM me if you need some help coming up with the figures, i think i have my research saved somewhere on my harddrive.
 
There have always been those who feel that the private citizen has no business with weapons. These "herd leader" types feel that the people should submit meekly to violence if the police are not at hand. Their arguments seem to run like this: 1. Guns are dangerous--you might shoot yourself with one. 2. Guns invite the feeble-minded to use them in fits of temper. 3. The prevalence of guns, particularly sidearms, constitutes a hazard for the police. 4. Guns are used by criminals, and so should be prohibited. 5. You should not resist a criminal because somebody might get hurt.

First of all, may the day never come when free Americans are so timid, helpless, and stupid that they must be herded around in bleating packs for their own good! We read of cases every day which might lead us to believe that this day has come, but these are individual cases, and must not be taken as the norm. No law can prevent an individual from committing an offense; it can only punish him afterward, or restrain him as an individual because of his proven inclination toward that offense.

Certainly guns are dangerous: they are supposed to be. They would be useless if they weren't. Automobiles, air-planes, alcohol, sex, and surgery are dangerous, too. Danger is implicit in mortality, and while it is foolhardy to take unneccessary chances, it is idiotic to be so careful as to place your person in greater danger than you are trying to avoid. It's better to master firearms and live with them safely. Gun accidents don't happen with experts.

Mrs. Toro

--------------------------------------------------------------
1 John 2:4
He that saith, I know him, and keepth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
 
P Ranger said: "And the old 'a gun is only made to kill' argument is untrue. That would mean that every time a gun is used, it kills or wounds someone. Totally untrue. How many times per day does the mere presence of a gun prevent a crime? Quite a few, we know for a fact."



How 'bout we extrapolate the following- Find out how many individual rounds of ammunition are sold each year and assume that these are fired downrange. This # is how many times a firearm is fired in a year not "used." Now subtract the suicides and lawful homicides. What number is left? Compare THAT to the millions of bullets sent downrange yearly! Dangerous, eh? My commute to work probably makes firing a firearm seem tame in regards to inherent danger. DRIVE LESS, SHOOT MORE!


:D
 
Check out "Gun Facts" on keepandbeararms.com it will provide you with alllll the ammo you need to rant and rave for hours.
 
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