My encounter w/DC anti-gunner

[gbran]

My longtime female freind and collegue met me here in CA for business purposes recently. She is a single widow with 2 pre-teen children. She is also a lawyer. During dinner the other nite, she voiced her concern that SCOTUS would probably rule RKBA to be an individual right and then kill DC's gun ban. Her concern is that DC will now have no way to keep guns out of the District.

I told her DC didn't have a gun problem, they had a people problem in that too large a percentage of the population was prone to violence. We then had the following exchange (shortened and paraphrased);

Me: Sarah, if I gave you a handgun to take home with you, would you use it to purposely maim or kill someone?

Sarah; Of course not!

Me; Now imagine some nite, you awaken to your door being kicked in and you take this handgun to your kids room to find a very large man with a machette raised above your kid......... do you shoot him?

Sarah; Yes, but these questions seem unfair.

Me; Now try to imagine the same scene with a law that prohibits you from having that gun for defense.

I summarized by telling her it appeared that giving law abiding people guns wouldn't turn them into violent criminals and that allowing them might actually save them. I also pointed out that there are lots of cities that don't have DC's crime rates without any serious gun control laws. She didn't like the way the exchange went, but she'll go home and see the light. She did say that she would never have a gun, but would trust herself is she did, but thet didn't mean she would trust others in her community to own guns.

Hey..........I gave it my best shot.

 

[yokel]

At this point I am thoroughly convinced that their fictional universe runs parallel to and is as real as our own.

How convenient and easy life must be when one avoids neat delineation between fact and fiction, and dream and reality, opting rather for a universe in which all thoughts, actions and events maintain the same degree of verisimilitude.

 

[sublimaze41]

I lived in D.C. for several years. There was basically a ban on all guns for the average Joe.

This is how well "gun control" works...... Number 1 in murder for 2 years and number 2 for murder at least one year.

I still can't figure out how "gun control" helps prevent murders and such. Why do the Antis never try and explain this??

 

[DEDON45]

It's all about ignorance... they fear something they don't understand, and it makes them "feel" safe to remove that which they don't understand... sort of the human condition... but it's really hard to understand how the logic that the OP used on his acquantance (as I have used on others) doesn't cut through that IRRATIONAL fear... it's always "I'd be responsible with a firearm, but I don't trust anyone else.".... ARRRGGGGHHHHHH!

 

[scrat]

You did good. We cant change everyone. We can only educate them. most people who are against guns seem to think that everyone who owns a gun is a bad person. that idea is what needs to be changed. It needs to be changed to law abiding people have the right to own firearms. its the criminals that we need to get the guns from.

People kill people. Guns dont. Most people who kill people should not own or have any contact with a gun.

People misspell words. Pens dont.

Blaming my gun for killing is like blaming my pen for misspelled words. or my keyboard on my computer. So if you guys ever think i cant spell. Blame my keyboard not me.

 

[MIL-DOT]

(QUOTE) "How convenient and easy life must be when one avoids neat delineation between fact and fiction, and dream and reality, opting rather for a universe in which all thoughts, actions and events maintain the same degree of verisimilitude."

Ah So, most surprising vocabulary and articulation for one so named "Yokel".

 

[MTMilitiaman]

Quixotic and naive, like every other anti I've ever encountered...

 

[bogie]

Guys, there are "anti" folks, who will work to harm us, and there are "ignorant" folks - this person strikes me as far more ignorant. She thinks that guns are bad because of what she has been taught. Our role here is to gently teach her otherwise. Gently, because if we push too hard, it gets blocked out.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Her concern is that DC will now have no way to keep guns out of the District.

Leftist extremist so-called "gun control" certainly seems to be doing a fine job so far, right?

 

[bogie]

She actually might not be aware that DC has had a gun ban, which hasn't been functioning... Some folks go through life with blinders on... She may be a lawyer, but she likely gets her current events knowledge from mass media.

 

[Robert Hairless]

... but thet didn't mean she would trust others in her community to own guns.

What a sad reflection that is of the way she thinks about her neighbors. I like and trust mine, and I feel comfortable living amongst them. I'm not afraid to turn my back on them.

Perhaps if everyone who thought as she does would leave Washington, DC, it might be a much better place.

 

[Sans Authoritas]

I have to admit, I feel absolutely safe when I am downrange sitting up pins and there are 40 guys milling about, their semi-automatic standard-capacity rifles sitting on a rack well within reach.

I feel far less safe on the highway.

-Sans Authoritas

 

[Werewolf]

I still can't figure out how "gun control" helps prevent murders and such. Why do the Antis never try and explain this??

They do. You're just not paying attention.

The reason gun control doesn't work is simple as far as the anti's are concerned.

THERE ISN'T ENOUGH OF IT!​

There - now isn't that simple?

 

[Guntalk]

When discussing gun laws with someone who appears to be anti-gun, before the conversation really gets started, it can be useful to ask him/her for a brief rundown on current gun laws, who can legally buy guns, and who can not.

Otherwise, it's possible to spend a lot of time talking past each other because he/she does not know the current laws.

 

[csmkersh]

In a prior life, I haunted talk.politics.guns and DC was often a subject of discussion and derision. I deja-ed up one of my old posts which I've quoted below. The increase in homicides could be layed to crack or the whites fleeing to Maryland and Virginia - or both. Data was originally extracted from the FBI UCRs and the DeptJust SourceBook for Criminal Statistics.

Lets take a closer look at Washington D.C.


Washington DC
Year Population Homicides per 100,000
1973 746,518 268 35.9
1974 723,238 277 38.3
1975 716,463 235 32.8
1976 701,493 188 26.8
1977 690,647 192 27.8
1978 675,000 189 28.0
1979 656,934 180 27.4
1980 634,921 200 31.5
1981 635,328 223 35.1
1982 631,922 194 30.7
1983 622,449 183 29.4
1984 622,776 175 28.1
1985 625,532 147 23.5
1986 625,806 194 31.0
1987 618,977 309 50.0
1988 612,148 319 52.1
1989 605,319 328 54.1
1990 598,490 337 56.2
1991 591,661 345 58.3
1992 584,832 353 60.4
1993 578,000 454 78.5
1994 570,000 399 70.0


Averages
1973-75 260 35.7
1976-86 188 29.0
1987-94 355 60.0
Standard Deviation 1972- 75 2.76
Standard Deviation 1976 86 3.02
Standard Deviation 1987- 94 9.70
Standard Deviation 1972 - 94 15.89

Pim aka Enturbulated is a Dutchman who was on loan to the US from the Dutch Navy. Very anti-gun.
​

 

[belus]

I would expect these two objections to this thread:

1) Chicago's and DC's ban on handguns would be very effective if handguns weren't so readily available (and legal) in neighboring states.
And I'm afraid our fear of that leading to a nation wide ban would not motivate an anti to reconsider the idea. In fact, I bet they would view it as a bonus.

2) The UK's rise in handgun violence after their 1997 is only a temporary effect until ammunition also becomes unavailable. And besides, their crime rate per 1000 people is drastically lower than ours thanks to their heavy restrictions on gun ownership.

I often try to form responses to these objections before the conversation starts. It helps to have a couple previously well thought out ideas readily available.

The first objection isn't too hard to defeat by asking the anti to extend the same logic to nation states. In the same way DC's crime culture still has a healthy demand for guns, the US's crime culture will produce a strong demand for foreign guns should they be illegal here. This is a problem that the UK faces.

To further GunTalk's comment about establishing common ground and your backgrounds prior to a heated conversation. I think it's also important to establish that the theoretical goal of gun control is crime reduction. If they're trying to reduce gun ownership as an end in itself, you're not going to make much progress.

 

[protolith]

You could try the more guns = fewer crimes per gun argument.

In 2004 in the US there were roughly 8,000 homicides involving handguns.(1)

There are an estimated 65 million handguns in the US(2)

That makes for 1.2 Homicides per 10,000 handguns.

In the UK there were 78 homicides involving firearms(3), I couldn't find the exact number for handguns, so lets assume it 80% from handguns, just like it is in the US(2). 80% 0f 78 is 62.4

There are an estimated 97,000 handguns remaining in the UK(4)

That makes for 6.43 Homicides per 10,000 handguns.

Or you could say a handgun is 5 times more likely to be used to murder someone in the UK than it is in the US.


References:
(1)Extracted from Wikipedia Page on homicides in the US by weapon type.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ushomicidesbyweapon.svg

(2)Extracted from the Violence Policy Center
http://www.vpc.org/studies/unsafe.htm

(3)UK Home Office Violent Crime Overview, Homicide and Gun Crime 2004/2005
(Supplementary Volume to Crime in England and Wales 2004/2005) Kathryn Coleman, Celia Hird and David Povey 26 January 2006 02/06 2nd Edition

Within this total, there were 78 homicides involving firearms in 2004/05

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb0206.pdf

(4)Independent Up to 4m guns in UK and police are losing the battle

Even when handguns were banned, only around 3,000 of the 100,000 believed to have been in private hands before May 2004 have been handed in for destruction. The other 97,000 have disappeared.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/up-to-4m-guns-in-uk-and-police-are-losing-the-battle-505487.html

 

[ArcherandShooter]

My response when someone blames crime in, for example, DC, is to ask why those areas supplying all the guns to poor DC don't ALSO have DC's huge crime problem?

Same guns, so something else must explain the different crime rates.

 

[skinewmexico]

You did what you could, and we do need to remember that there are a lot of "uneducated" rather than "anti". We need to set a good example, and do a better job educating.

 

[Nolo]

THERE ISN'T ENOUGH OF IT!

Of course there's not enough of it, we haven't seen genocides and iron-fisted dictatorships yet in this country.
And yes, I am convinced that is the goal of some antis.

 

[Travis McGee]