Is the damage to society from guns worth the freedom to have guns?

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JackBurtonJr

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The Question

Are we as a country willing to accept hundreds of thousands of horrific situations and incidents when those who mis-use an otherwise legal substance create chaos and harm innocents? Or do we demand that freedom for all be curtailed so that the innocents be saved?

http://jack-burton.hubpages.com/hub/damage-society-guns?done

My latest essay. Any feedback would be appreciated, and I will certainly ask for Facebook likes if you will. As a note, yes I know the damage is not done from the guns but from the choices of people, but headlines are written to attack hits from Google, not to be accurate.

{it would be a better help to me if you read the whole essay BEFORE you comment on it.]
 
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Things should not be crimes. Only ACTIONS should be crimes. Punishing people for having a thing with the potential for misuse is like collectivly punishing people of one perticular race for something that they might be more likely to do.
 
Yes. There is a price for personal freedom and liberty. Even in communistic countries, there are crime problems. (Assumes your premise is valid.)
 
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With due respect I suggest the premise is flawed. Guns don't cause problems criminals cause problems. There were criminals around before guns and they were also pretty nasty and all they had were knives and swords.
 
With FREEDOM comes RESPONSIBILITY for one's actions. The Federal Gov't would like to mix that up and tell you that you are not responsible, it is always someone else's fault (ambulance attorney syndrome)

Franklin said it - everyone knows the quote about freedom for security
 
hmmm... I think you might've missed an important point. We didn't abandon Prohibition because being sober wasn't a good idea, or even because our right to get drunk was worth the sacrifice of safety. It's worth pointing out that the biggest problem with Prohibition is that it didn't solve the problem it intended to at all... and created even bigger problems on its own.
I don't oppose gun control just because my freedom is worth the risk to innocent citizens. I oppose gun control because it won't solve the problem of criminals hurting innocent citizens, and may in fact be expected to actually make the problem worse because the citizens will be unable to defend themselves.
It's not a matter of whether or not we choose to reject a good idea... it's not a good idea.
 
Keeping those previously found to be dangerous locked up would be where I would start. Stripping us law abiding citizens of our ability to defend ourselves from those dangerous people who have not yet been discovered and locked up is tantamount to making all of us helpless potential victims.

I would not be in favor of limiting or prohibiting our ability to arm ourselves in our own defense.

Woody
 
accept hundreds of thousands of horrific situations and incidents

You can't start a discussion with a lie and have a serious discussion. DoJ crime stats don't reflect "hundreds of thousands of.." so where does the discussion go from there?
 
Oh, Jesus Christ. Will this appeasement ever stop?

In a "free" society, there are always going to be certain risks. You want to curtail more gun rights so you can feel all warm and fuzzy? Or, are you just tired of being hated and despised by the left? Either way, it's a loser proposition.

Hundreds of thousands? Are you freaking serious?!!! Get your facts straight Jack!
 
BAH. it pisses me off that this is even debated. taking away guns from citizens does not make other citizens safer. thinking that way is a joke
 
The Question

Are we as a country willing to accept hundreds of thousands of horrific situations and incidents when those who mis-use an otherwise legal substance create chaos and harm innocents? Or do we demand that freedom for all be curtailed so that the innocents be saved?

http://jack-burton.hubpages.com/hub/damage-society-guns?done

My latest essay. Any feedback would be appreciated, and I will certainly ask for Facebook likes if you will. As a note, yes I know the damage is not done from the guns but from the choices of people, but headlines are written to attack hits from Google, not to be accurate.
The Assault weapon ban did not prevent an even worse massacre than the latest Colorado example called simply, Columbine. The two perpetrators broke dozens of gun laws and still killed more people than the latest incident. No, an assault weapon ban will not prevent sick people from devising death and destruction by any means.

A large percentage of killings happen with stolen or black market guns. The criminals already are going against the law simply possessing a black market or stolen gun. Laws will not impact a large part of this criminal activity.

Other nations have stricter gun laws and still can't prevent these mass killings as well. No, it won't work and it does deny the right to law abiding citizens the right to keep and bear arms.
 
hso and sig...

Okay... over the past ten years how many crime incidents with guns do you think have happened here in America?
 
Could we stick with data (from a referenced source) instead of "how many do you think"?
 
FBI data shows well over a million violent crimes a year consistently.

Information collected regarding type of weapon showed that firearms were used in 67.1 percent of the Nation’s murders, 42.6 percent of robberies, and 20.9 percent of aggravated assaults.

There were an estimated 806,843 aggravated assaults in the Nation in 2009. 20 percent of 800,000 in one year is 160,000.

Nationwide in 2009, there were an estimated 408,217 robberies. 40 percent of 400,000 is 180,000.

I am confident in my statement that over a ten year period guns were used in several hundred thousand incidents since there were several hundred thousand incidents in just one year.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/violent_crime/index.html

If someone has data showing otherwise I'll be happy to look at it.
 
Hundreds of thousands? Over what sort of time period? Certainly not one year.


The question is not what is the cost to society for private citizens owning guns.

But rather, what is the cost to society for not allowing it's private citizens to own guns?
 
If i were writing a piece on gun violence in the US, (i would not) somewhere it would be necessary to categorize gun deaths: That would require some research.

http://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/gun_violence/sect01.html

In 1996 (the most recent year for which data are available), 34,040 people died from gunfire in the United States. Of these deaths, approximately 54 percent resulted from suicide, 41 percent resulted from homicide, and 3 percent were unintentional (see figure 2). Firearm injuries are the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. In addition, for every fatal shooting, there are roughly three nonfatal shootings.

One would soon discover that well over half of gun deaths in the US are due to suicide. Yeah, its the NEJM.

See (italics mine):

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805923

In 2005, the most recent year for which mortality data are available, suicide was the second-leading cause of death among Americans 40 years of age or younger. Among Americans of all ages, more than half of all suicides are gun suicides. In 2005, an average of 46 Americans per day committed suicide with a firearm, accounting for 53% of all completed suicides. Gun suicide during this period accounted for 40% more deaths than gun homicide.

One would need to compare US suicide rates to those in other countries. One would discover that both Japan and Russia have much higher suicide rates than the US. Both countries also have draconian gun control.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-05-29-japan-suicide_N.htm

With that act, Matsuoka became one of the more than 30,000 Japanese who kill themselves every year — the second-highest suicide rate in the industrialized world. Japan's suicide rate per 100,000 people stood at 25.5 in 2003, compared with Russia's 38.7, according to World Health Organization figures.

Hundreds of thousands were murdered in Rwanda by Hutu using knives and machetes.

i'm old; twice in my lifetime i have shot gun armed home invaders. My ex, my daughter and i would be dead today if my ex and i did not own guns. Yes, Mr. Burton, my ex and i were victims of gun violence brought on us by violent career criminals who the "justice" system turned loose on society.

i read any paper on gun violence in the US with a jaundiced eye. i take any attempt to disarm law abiding US citizens very seriously.
 
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Why don't you attack this from the current unemployment rate. Its a well known fact that when unemployment is up so is crime.
It's like that everywhere. It doesn't matter about the gun part of it, the criminals will have guns to terrorize people with whether us private citizens have them or not.

When we don't have guns to protect ourselves with, the criminals will know that, that just makes their crimes evan easier to commit since all we will be able to do it call 911, and guess what, their will be nobody home!

The police will be so busy, that well, they'll get their in an hour or so, and you won't be able to blame them, just yourself.
 
"over the past ten years how many crime incidents with guns do you think have happened here in America? "

I don't care, it's not important. Crime exists, be prepared to defend yourself. The actual number of "crime incidents" is not important to me. Does it really matter if it's 100k/year or 20k/year or even once in a blue moon?

To answer the thread title, what damage to society? I see some damage to individuals, but not to society.

John
 
The same question would have to be applied to things like alcohol and automobiles (and cameras and computers ect)

I think the answer should be obvious
 
It's a valid question - I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that we should give people the ability to freely purchase nuclear weapons just because it's a person and not a tool committing the crime. At some point, the cost to society of people misusing these tools becomes too great.

And I think TexanScott had already given a valid answer. Banning all guns would do nothing to solve the problem, just as banning alcohol did nothing good.
 
Sadly, any new firearms legislation will not have any effect on the existing illegal firearms possessed with evil intent in America.

Gangbangers, potential murderers, sociopaths, and other undesirables will not simply relinquish their arms at the signing of a new law. Those who wish to do evil in possession of any weapon will simply find another means of acquiring it, or another weapon.

In this latest tragedy, its very obvious that should he the attacker chose to have done so, he could have carried an explosive device into the theater capable of just as much destruction as he wrought with small arms. The only reason he did not is that he himself wanted to inflict each wound, end each life....and he had some sort of theory that he could escape that situation with his own life. Very sad, but very true.

This is not a standard legal weapons owner. This is a violent sociopath.

In truth, if you wanted to make a law that would prevent this tragedy, as well as another one in nearby Columbine....all you would need to do is outlaw social deviant and castigated 14-30 year old males who were failures in academic environments.

Hows that for some targeted legislation ? Not real fun is it..............but its true.

Its not the victims' fault.

Its not the weapons fault.

Its not the theaters fault.

Its not your fault.

Its not societies fault.

Its not my fault.

The fault rests solely in the lap of that "tie-died orange haired" freak.....no one else.

Society has a habit of producing violent aberrations in even the most peaceful and harmless of environments.

We are, by nature, a predatory and violent species. One that is frequently shortsighted and self serving at the most basic primitive level. When we feel that.... that ability to sustain ourselves in this society no longer exists, that primal creature takes over- no longer salved by the constraints of a polite society to which we no longer have the ability nor desire to connect with.

This too, is sad, but true.

No amount of litigation or restriction will prevent such aberrations, nor quash their ability to inflict their wounds of self perceived vitriolic justice on the society that has wronged them.

Its almost as if its a genetic glitch.

KILL KILL KILL

We have a motto, humanity.

Death is its banner- and it always has been......always will be.

The ability to take life , and the lives of others, into our hands as a responsibility or debt as individuals is both a very constructive and powerful force at the core of humanity.

It has both a light, and dark, side.

Even the mightiest of human spirits can be reduced to our primitive selves by failure, and use the abilities within and without us to lash out .......

But in the end, those failures are our own. Not that of our brothers.

They may be effect, and direct cause. Action however, rests solely in the hands of the individual.

That is something that no law, no test, no background check, nor assay will ever be able to detect- the will of the individual.
 
The question is not what is the cost to society for private citizens owning guns.

But rather, what is the cost to society for not allowing it's private citizens to own guns?

The answer is 262 million. That is how many people were murdered by their own governments in the 20th century alone. This is more people than were killed in all the wars ever fought. Practically all of these people lived in countries with strict laws against civilians having guns. See for yourself what DEMOCIDE is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide
 
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