anti gun?

[xiphur]

Since i have been floating in the ocean of progun facts/testaments for a while, i decided to swim over to the anti side. I went here to see what afloat over there; i honestly wanted to see what they had to say since i have never really read into it.

It really is hard (for me that is) to decide on what should be taken at face value in thier argumetns as it is always much easier to do so when you support something. I am trying my hardest to rely on just the facts when it comes to taking a position on things like this. Wheather I'm for or against it i do not want my emotions and personal opinions to determine my conclusions. But the way that article is written makes it seem like it's a rock solid, beliveable, assessment of the situation; it could really fool someone who knows nothing about guns or relies on pure emotions as the deciding factors. It's loaded with statistics of crime rates, a hefty portion of fear, and other mind boggling facts. These things that make all the more appealing to the average person. Also, the phrase "assault weapon" is vaguely defined and they even use the term "assault pistol" (I would love to know what is classified as an "assault pistol"). the counter argument to this, which i have read many times, is "all guns could be classified as assault weapons" to which i agree. But when i think about it, any anti gun activist could use this as fuel to further their agenda to ban guns period. I'm coming to the point where i don't know what to accept as fact or some distortion of the truth I'll always be progun but it just seems like their push is in good faith. What do you guys think?

 

[Thefabulousfink]

xiphur,

While some anti-gun individuals might have the best intentions, the Brady Campaign is a purely political organization. Their goal is the elimination of ALL privately owned guns and they will use any means to reach this end. On multiple occasions they have willfully mis-represented facts and statistics, they have used biased "experts" to speak on behalf of their campaign, and they have comissioned biased studies to try and further their agenda. Any time spent fact-checking or looking at independent studies will reveal that +90% of what is written on their website is false.

 

[Art Eatman]

The Brady Bunch introduces a false premise as a fact, and takes off from it: Guns, per se, are bad nasty, and induce people into doing things they otherwise would not do.

They refuse to acknowledge such facts as the similarity of operation for, say, an SKS and a Browning semi-auto hunting rifle (BAR). Other than for size and appearance, they're no different. Brady, however, implicitly claims that appearance makes a difference in deadliness.

And on and on.

The only way to fight these doofi is one-on-one, taking somebody out to a range and show them the realities; or, occasionally, by relating "true facts" to somebody who is ignorant.

You'll note that the Brady Bunch never speaks to the issue of self-defense...

Art

 

[pax]

In good faith? Yes, I suppose it is -- for the most part, the anti-gun movement is made up of good people who want good things for their families and their communities.

They share some common goals with us on the pro-gun side of things. We both want lower crime rates, for example, and fewer people to die by violence. We both want children to be protected from things that would harm them. We both want safe places to live and work, and both sides want our country to be as safe as it can be.

Where the sides differ is in how to achieve these goals. The anti-gun side says that if we only remove the tools of violence, then violence itself will cease. Their arguments sound impressive right up until you look at human history. Most of human history was made in a world without guns. But that world was by no means free of violent crime. It was a world where the strongest men ruled weaker men. It was a world where all women and children were the literal property of some man, because men had the size, strength, and prowess to make it that way. Good men promised to use that strength to protect women and children, but such promises were not always kept. It was a world where the weak were entirely reliant upon the mercy and goodwill of those who were strong.

Of course, the world has changed. But human nature hasn't changed much. People who want to abolish firearms are really begging for a return to a world that was ruled by brute force and sheer physical strength. Behind all their arguments is the assumption that human nature will somehow change if we returned to that world.

We can't return there, of course. The genie has long since escaped from that bottle. To remove guns from the world, you would have to remove three hundred years of scientific progress -- and somehow erase the very knowledge that a projectile can be forced through a tube to form a weapon. But those who want to return to that world somehow believe that this time, when the physically weak are entirely at the mercy of the physically strong, it would be different.

But all the good intentions in the world won't erase 10,000 years and more of human history.

pax

 

[Art Eatman]

"But all the good intentions in the world won't erase 10,000 years and more of human history."

Yup.

Pardon my cynicism: "The meek shall inherit the earth. Six by six by three; no mineral rights." And, "The lion shall lie down with the lamb--but only the lion will get up."

Art

 

[grampster]

Most of the do-gooders of the world bask in the notion that all human beings are inherently good. That could not be further from the truth. Merely reflecting on your own youth or that of your children will reveal that no child ever had to be taught how to do a bad thing. Conversely, every child had to be taught how to be good. If children are not civilized (by mentors and elders) they will become barbarians as that is their natural proclivity.

Our dear friends, the barking moonbats, haven't stopped patting themselves on the back for being smarter than the rest of us to notice the aforementioned.

It's obvious why, since the dawn of time, Man has made weapons to defend himself. Our entire history is about how man dragged himself up out of the muck. It was because we were bright enough to make tools. Weapons are a tool. They have many values, not the least of which is for protection against those who use weapons as tools of aggression. Take away all the guns, Man will invent another tool, or reinvent the gun.

I think we should close all the colleges. Too much edumacation makes for dangerous people.

 

[lamazza]

the phrase "assault weapon" is vaguely defined

Its actually mis-defined-another bs definition by the brady bunch.
By definition an 'assualt' weapon has to be full auto select fire. They just decided to overlook that fact.

 

[Ctone03]

The brady bunch loves media sensationalism, and they are not shy about feeding the sharks with truckloads of BS. They know all too well how naive the masses can be, especially those who are not educated about firearms. Most of what they say seems logical if you say it fast enough, including statistics, which can be construed any way one likes.
D.C. is 40 miles from my house, lawful self defense with any weapon is forbidden, and it is possibly the most dangerous place in America. I can't be coerced with statistics or anything else that would have me believe that I am more safe without a firearm in D.C. I know that having guns for self preservation in my home do not put me anymore at risk than Drano, the bathtub, electrical outlets, or the oven.
The human mind is the only weapon needed to cause harm. The left does not understand the logic of this, and that is why we will always fight for our freedoms, and the Constitution will always be bentto their will.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

They refuse to acknowledge such facts as the similarity of operation for, say, an SKS and a Browning semi-auto hunting rifle (BAR). Other than for size and appearance, they're no different. Brady, however, implicitly claims that appearance makes a difference in deadliness.

I don't think the Brady people are really dumb enough to really even believe that.

Beneath their spoken agenda of regulating handguns and "assault weapons", I believe their real goal is total ban of civilian firearms ownership. They are simply using creeping incrementalism as a tactic.

For now they say the SKS is an "assault weapon" and try to ban guns like it. They know its easy to convince an ignorant public that scary looking guns must be deadlier, and therefore must be banned. However, if they ever succeed in banning those kind of weapons, I suspect they will quickly shift their stance on semi-auto hunting rifles, and say those guns are just as deadly as assault weapons.

 

[El Tejon]

The anti-civil rights movement never acts in "good faith".

They are motivated by the same control motive that drives all tyrants throughout history.

 

[Librarian]

I suspect they will quickly shift their stance on semi-auto hunting rifles, and say those guns are just as deadly as assault weapons.

Of course they will - because it's true.

It's just that the proper expression is 'assault weapons' are no more deadly than semi-auto hunting rifles. Depending on your definition of 'deadly', 'assault weapons' may be less deadly.

 

[HCfan]

In all honesty, I don't think that it's really in good faith.

I say this because of what already has been mentioned, Human Beings, by nature, are extemely violent. The strong, or those with tools, will govern the weaker.

The only way that those weaker to have a chance is to also have tools that would at least make them equal to those who are stronger.

Yet, the anti gun groups wish to remove or at least heavily restrict these tools from those that are weaker and allow the strongest to maintain them (in this case, governments).

So, the only logical conclusion that one can draw is that the anti-gun groups actually wish/want those that are weaker to be either destroyed or maimed. That criminals are free to prey on the law abiding, and government is free to enforce whatever directive that they wish to impose upon the People.

 

[SuperNaut]

I suspect they will quickly shift their stance on semi-auto hunting rifles, and say those guns are just as deadly as assault weapons.

Uh-oh the bus went whooshing right past.

in fact, military and civilian experts agree that semiautomatic fire is actually more—not less—likely to hit the target than is automatic fire, and is thus more deadly.

Don't follow this link if you have high blood pressure or currently have issues with anger management:

http://www.vpc.org/studies/hosesix.htm

 

[MTMilitiaman]

I used to frequent a forum known as "Totse." You may or may not have heard of it. They had a section, interestingly enough, devoted to the right to keep and bear arms. However, that forum was not held to the standards of this one, nor was the typical member as intelligent as those you will find here. I was a regular there for a long time and was almost asked to be a moderator because I became known as an intelligent and well-spoken voice in an ocean of emotional rhetoric. Most on that forum were ignorant, rather than stupid. I got the feeling that many of them were in their mid to early teens, and had no exposure to firearms other than Counterstrike and the pre-digested garbage fed to them by their soccor moms. I got really good at conducting fairly articulate arguments against gun control, because I heard the same old arguments over and over again. Here is one such reply that I wrote, and saved, to a question about gun control at the beginning of last year.

First off, lets get some numbers straight. These are the 2003 homicide figures from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports:

Total murder victims
14,408
Total firearms
9,638
Handguns
7,701
Rifles
390
Shotguns
452
Other guns or type not stated
1,095
Knives or cutting instruments
1,816
Blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)
651
Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.)
944
Poison
9
Pushed or thrown out window
2
Explosives
4
Fire
163
Narcotics
41
Drowning
17
Strangulation
184
Asphyxiation
128
Other
811

However, as reported here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/guncrime.htm

Note: Crimes include the UCR index offenses of murder, robbery, and aggravated assault.
Source: FBI, The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
In 2003, about 67% of all murders, 42% of all robberies, and 19% of all aggravated assaults that were reported to the police were committed with a firearm.
According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2001 about 39% of the deaths that resulted from firearms injuries were homicides, 57% were suicides, 3% were unintentional, and 1% were of undetermined intent. (See table on firearm deaths by intent by age group).

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/02/1720514.php

"The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435,000
deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical
inactivity (400,000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption
(85,000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were
microbial agents (75,000), toxic agents (55,000), motor
vehicle crashes (43,000), incidents involving firearms
(29,000), sexual behaviors (20,000), and illicit use of
drugs (17,000)." (Note: According to a correction published
by the Journal on Jan. 19, 2005, "On page 1240,
in Table 2, '400,000 (16.6)' deaths for 'poor diet and
physical inactivity' in 2000 should be '365,000 (15.2).'
A dagger symbol should be added to 'alcohol consumption'
in the body of the table and a dagger footnote should be
added with 'in 1990 data, deaths from alcohol-related
crashes are included in alcohol consumption deaths, but not in
motor vehicle deaths. In 2000 data, 16,653 deaths from
alcohol-related crashes are included in both alcohol consumption
and motor vehicle death categories." Source: Journal of
the American Medical Association, Jan. 19, 2005, Vol. 293, No. 3,
p. 298.)

For what it is worth, according to http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/hs00/mv1.htm there were 132,247,286 registered private and commcercial vehicles in the United States in the year 2000. To quote the enemy,

There are approximately 192 million privately owned firearms in the U.S. - 65 million of which are handguns.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/?page=firefacts

While http://gunsafe.org/position statements/Guns and crime.htm puts the number at 235,000,000. Both of these sources are admittedly biased, but they are each biased in a different direction. This means that there are probably between 190 and 250 million privately owned firearms in the United States. So, interestingly enough, we find that even though there are many more firearms than vehicles privately owned in the United States, there are many more deaths from vehicles. If all we are interested in is preserving a person's right to live, as stated, then it seems like controlling the rampant abuse of automobiles ought to be a far higher priority than firearms. Yes, most of the vehicular deaths were accidents--this makes no difference. It is irrelevant. The people are still dead and the intent and means by which they got that way doesn't really matter if all we are doing is seeking to preserve life.
Now, if there are over 190 million firearms in the United States, and somewhere around 30,000 or so will be used to injure or kill someone whether intentionally or by accident, then that means approximately .01579% of firearms will be misused. That would seem acceptable to me, but I may be admittedly biased because I own several firearms and, being that I have never injured anyone or their property with them and have used them only recreationally, and have gotten copious amounts of entertainment from each of them, I have a great amount of interest in keeping them. How can we as a society claim to be just if we punish that much of a section of our population for the actions of such an extreme minority? Referring back to the Brady Campaign website, aprox. 39% of American households have firearms. According to here http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2003/tabAVG1.pdf, the average household is 2.57 people for a total of 111,278,000 total households. If 39% of these own firearms, that is 43,398,420 households with firearms. That means that 43,398,420 households own 190 million firearms, and change, or about 4.38 firearms per firearm owning household. Now if we assume only one person per household owns every firearm in the household, which certainly isn't the case at my house, but then, we also have more the 2.57 people and a helluva lot more than 4.38 firearms--then that means there are 43,398,420 gun owners in the United States. If we increase this number to 1.5 gun owners per gun owning household, or divided evenly between one and two gun owners per gun owning household, we get 65 million and change--which is about the commonly accepted number of gun owners in the United States. These 65 million gun owners own 190 million + firearms for about 2.9 firearms per firearm owner. Each firearm has a .01579% chance of being misused or abused to injure someone so if we multiply this number times the average number of firearms owned by the average firearms owner, that means, if my math is correct, that only .045791% of all firearms owners will injure someone with a firearm either intentionally or accidentally. So you want to punish 99.954209% of the gun owning population or about 22% of the United States population for the actions of this minority? That hardly seems like something we could call justice...
Crimes committed with firearms have been falling recently and has appeared to level off at its lowest state since the 1970s. This despite the fact that most researchers agree there was a surge of gun ownership directly after 9/11. American's may be different than other people on earth, in fact, there is little doubt that they are. Americans felt vulnerable after the terrorist attackers and naturally sought means to defend themselves, not necessary against terrorism, but against other more domestic threats as well.
Now, if mere ownership of firearms among the general populace was responsible for increases in crimes involving firearms, we would expect that the number of crimes involving firearms has increased along with firearms ownership since 9-11, but this has not been the case, as the graph in the above Bureau of Justice Statistics website shows. In fact, quite the opposite, in the years immediately following Sept 11th of 2001, crimes committed with firearms are shown to have dropped, despite the rise in gun ownership. This makes it fairly easy for one to conclude that firearms ownership is not to blame for firearms crime in the United States, and following from this, removing weapons, forcefully if necessary, from the civilian population will have little affect on crime involving firearms in this country.
This can be seen, not to repeat myself too much, at the accompanying link, where I have created a chart on another forum which shows that there is absolutely no relationship whatsoever between a state's gun control laws and their rates of violent crime. http://outdoorsbest.zeroforum.com/zerothread?id=303758
So again, with a legal system based, at least in theory, that one is innocent until proven guilty, the burden of proof lies with the prosecutor to show that the defendant is guilty beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt. This means that we do not have to show that the Second Amendment reduces crime but merely that it has no affect on crime--it is up to those of you who wish to restrict or remove this right to show that doing so will reduce crime. There is very little evidence to support this.