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Because: Confounding factors are few enough to draw the conclusion. They're few enough when no one can name any, or the ones that are named are rationally deemed minor. Well, I've conceded it was possible already, so you can go look up every single knife massacre, look at their death tolls, then compare it the death tolls in all gun massacres. You're arguing this as if you're sure the former is greater than the latter, which I'm sure you have effective and informative statistics for. 3 things here. Why is it fucking dumb? And why do you think simple firearm training will serve better? Would you care to repost it since I can't seem to find any lucid details. So you don't believe in capital punishment, but would be willing shoot a fleeing criminal if you knew you would hit? Point here being that's another lost life because the general populace has guns. Tell me when you find an education course where everyone pays full attention. HANDING POWER OVER THE THE GENERAL MASSES DOESN'T EITHER. WHAT'S YOUR POINT? Facist too. And non-constitutional monarchy. Not democracy. The only problem there is inefficiency. I can't seem to find the article on the net. Closest I can get is this. Those dealing with stressful situations are checked constantly, while the police theselves are trained to look for signs of mental illness, and shove their mates in immedately when they see it. No, it was made after I said the number of police gone psycho was less than the normal people gone psycho. Reroutes to the point above where you shoot the fleeing criminal. Yes I will, because statistically and practically significant statistics are ones I cannot ignore. You can use nonsignificant statistics all you like, but if they're not significant, they're open to interpretation. I hope by extremely difficult, you imply that there is a degree of difficulty in them. Thus we have a case of lower gun availibility on the streets, and low crime. Hmm... Since you seem to think yourself very clear, I wonder why this wasn't elaborated on. How about why you think so? I've given my views on why I don't. I never said you had to use Australia, you suggested it yourself. Though I doubt you'd find anything substantial if you looked anyway. Also, yes the people can elect bad politicians, but they have the right to take him back down. It seems to me they decided not to take him down even during the conversion to fascism. After that they lost the right to take him down. Democracy's power comes from the people. Abusing power would mean abusing the people. If the people themselves don't find it abuse, who can say it was? Point? Try to be clear. Not every crime is an armed one. We do have the right of citizen's arrest, the state just doesn't encourage it, unless you contact the police first, then try to stall the situation with it until they arrive. I don't see how that's babying. More will die from starvation/malnutrition after we're left with trying to eat meat with safety scissors. It's probably about time for you to substantiate that claim. Likely. Unfortunately, I'm yet to see another. @Zephr: rude, hostile, immature? How could you say such a thing :P

Oh? And how do you know that it's not a tenous connection? It basically goes like this: There are too many confounding factors to be able to draw a connection between gun ownership rate, and total crime rate. I've named population density and touched on low awareness. However, a connection should be able to be drawn between gun ownership and gun related deaths, where the confounding factors are limited to..er... Clipping the rest as you have a silly habit of splitting what should be one point into several, then refuting each thing by itself, completely missing the whole. I believe the words I used were "not normally possible" and "only knives", or at least something to that effect. Do the people that go mass shooting in America have to drive a truck into the crowd before killing them? And if you think driving a truck into the crowd at Akihabara won't have an effect on people's ability to get away, boy are you not thinking. As for the mental patient guy, I suppose it shows it is possible, but what I was getting at is that I doubt he even thought about how he'd do it. But then bring in the other case where the knifer injured two and killed none, and you can conclude that any pure knifing massacre where 8 are killed was a strange case. Perhaps you should quote the whole paragraph I assume "removing weapons" refers to guns, as the thread is about guns. I assume the "non-violent manner" you speak of involves said weapons, as you would not have mentioned them in the same sentence if they were not related. Since you mention "difference" I assume you are drawing a comparison, then either the conditions, or the solution would be similar. Otherwise, you would have no grounds for drawing such a comparison. Finally, since the conditions are different, then the solutions would be similar, in this case, non-violent and taking out. That's my logic, which part was off? It's because you haven't suggested any details about your proper training. "We'll hammer the details out later" reeks of a politician's rhetoric. A cure-all for any situation, since you can modify it to fit the arguement. Before I take this point, would you care to define "good shot". I would normally take that to mean being able to hit them. But since it's you, it could very well mean "able to hit their leg in a not fatal area, and then performing first aid to stop them from dying from blood loss before the ambulance arrives". Well, we have a detail here, at least. Education courses, at least the short terms ones, are pointless. I hold a Responsible Service of Alcohol license, after taking the education course. The only thing I still remember from that is "Don't jump the bar to calm a drunken brawl - you'll get stabbed in the eye with a pool stick". What? I didn't even get 3/4 of that. At the risk of it being out of context, when the state itself is the problem, we're in a communist state. Here you go again, taking things out of context. Police are given psychological support whether they need it or not. And especially regardless of whether they feel the need for it. Every police won't need it, but it ensures that the ones that need it will get it. I can now only assume you meant that my drawing the comparison between the number of "cops going crazy" and "normal Americans going crazy" was an unfair one. If that's the case, you should have just said so, instead of whatever rant that was up there. But the comparison was made in reference to the statement that you "police yourselves", which is why decided to draw the comparison. It must be bought with the preparedness to harm then. I didn't say desite though, I said intention. All sophistry, all the same in the end. The end being that when it does come to protect yourself, you would have to point that gun at someone. And shoot if they continue. Actually no. But if you want to call your statistics "effective and informative", give me the p values and then I'll accept them. Unfortunately, working out p values for such statistics is impossible and thus they are as effective at informing as they are at misleading. I assume getting a permit also includes providing them with a reason. Is self-defense allowed as a reason? And are you arguing that the presence of a firearm would have altered the situation? If not, I fail to see the significance of it. And that second sentence has even less significance. When did we start talking about knives changing situations? If you can name one for Australia, go ahead. I can only think of one (conscription), during WWII. The nation was divided over this issue, to a point where I don't remember anyone taking it up to the High Court, which exists outside both government and existing law. Nazi Germany was turned into a facist state during that string of power abuse, not a constitutional democracy like we're talking about here. You did not say why though, except "I didn't say that", which conflicted with what I had in front of me. Actually, someone else could carry a knife like the criminal does. Hell, I've got a knife on me every now and again. It's all moot though, as it's in these situations when the police have a bigger chance of getting there in time. Not to mention there will be fingerprints and DNA tracks all over the hostage/victim in the case of a knife. Walking in and randomly killing someone tells people you're more interested in blood than anything else. I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing, but the first thing I'd do if someone did that would be to run and hide. It might be different if they announced their intentions first, then shot someone, but if you annouce your intentioned first, everyone's already frozen. Thing don't need a show of force, unless anyone's planning on fighting back. I've mentioned it before, but it also complicates things for them while trying to get away from law enforcement. How about the more similar case of the 16 year old going on a mass stabbing. The shootings you're comparing it to are by teenagers, not grown men. If you wanted to compare it to grown men, take Virginia Tech. 32 dead compared to that 8. This arguement will divert into the one above it, but and deadly tool that is less deadly than a gun is still some people saved. And I suppose your education course fixes the problem of people? I'm not sure what the legal age of gun ownership is, but anything over 4 would make your education course meaningless for that purpose. I've clipped quite a bit that either reroutes to an existing arguement, or is based too much on your education course, since I need more details on that. No, we scrutinise the government as if they were not trustworthy. We do not actively distrust them. If that were so, the country would get nothing done. I'll give you an example. In this current economic crisis, the Australian government has actively told us that we are in no danger of falling into deep recession. If we were not to trust them, we'd quickly liquidate any asset not nailed down. And in doing so, stocks will plummet, the country will fall into recession. We're not in recession. Violence isn't the answer to everything. The government relies on its people to be productive in order to survive. Passive resistance is all that is needed.

Sorry for the delay, real life got in the way >_> I suppose all this would hinge on the idea that "Gun's don't kill people, people kill people". I was building the arguement for this up with Esau if Isaac, but does that idea require that the people who kill others with guns be rational beings? If not, then it can be argued that guns do indeed kill people. If so? Well, it's quite naive to think that people are rational beings all their waking life. I suppose the counterargument for that would be, all the more reason for to carry a gun - to stop those who have gone irrational. The thing with that is that perhaps they would not have gone on a rampage if they didn't have a gun, or at the very least, if they did not have a gun, the damage they could do would be limited. Because besides recreational usage of guns - which I don't think is the point here - guns should only be used as a deterrant for crimes. But here we have all this talk about shooting someone if they do the crime. Does someone infriging on your rights give you permission to infringe on theirs? More specifically, does someone commiting a crime deserve to be shot? That may be so while guns are used solely as a deterrant - a bluff. But if someone calls that bluff? It's hard to see why you would call Hume the penultimate pessimist, when his argument from fear runs exactly along those lines. The state of war he postulates hinges on that lack of trust. But anyways, I still fail to see how the system is not perfect enough. I can't imagine the US government having strayed so far from the system of constituitional democracy as to warrant its people to not trust that system anymore. Any abuse of power would not only be the fault of the government, but the fault of the people not stopping them. All those drugs can be grown and/or extracted from legal products that have an everyday use. I don't see how you can grow a gun, nor assemble one from common items. "I like this race better than another" is hardly being racist. "You fucking convicts should get back onto your fucking whitey ships and get the fuck off our country" sounds more like it, to use an real example I heard. Perhaps not inherently illegal, if it started a fight, I doubt the person who said that would get off with no charges. We like to believe we have the right to freedom of speech, but if we can't freely exercise it, it is pointless. Hence I put up that line from The Life of Brian. And yes, we cannot freely exercise our freedom of speech. Unless you do so in the right way, which kills the point of that right anyway. If no one physically stops you from saying whatever you want, scoiety eventually gets you in the form of loss of reputation. As someone who has taken a logic class, you should know that you can't merely attack the person and not his argument. Though in this case, it matters not, Locke argued for the same thing as Hobbes, but in a more roundabout way. Calling it the simplest and most efficient form of protection implies that there are others ways of doing it. I've mentioned it above, but the problem with using an inherently offensive weapon for defence is that if someone calls your bluff, you'd have to shoot. Do they warrant being shot for infringing your rights. Of course, even if they don't call your bluff specifically, and just attempt to run away and not get caught - would you shoot? I doubt someone would break in while there are people in there. They usually at least ring the doorbell first. You would have to walk in on the burglar for you to have a chane to point your gun at him, at which point, your family would not be in danger. But the point from above applies here. If he tried to escape, would you shoot? Maybe not you, but at the time, you were yet to reply. The dogmatic comes from not conceding anything, nad the law enforcement was a joke was a common line of arguement from the early posts. Pessimism towards other people, or pessimism towards the state? Both Hobbes and Locke took the first and argued for the state. You seem to be taking the second. Either way, pessimism rules. Locke argued the same, at least in the beginning. It is indeed your responsiblity to pass judgement on those who would infringe on your rights. But then he notes that because it was your rights that were infringed, what you would consider to be within "the realm of reasonability", tends to expand by a big margin. He then goes on to argue that passing unfair punishment on others warrants others passing punishment on you. Which leads to a Hobbesian fall into a state of war. So the formation and intervention of the state in necessary. I'll deal with all these together, since they're all the same. Correlation isn't causation. Statistics don't tell you the reason for anything. Crime victims in Sydney tend to be English backpackers and Chinese foreign students. The obvious effect of low population density, which you densely missed, is that there are more places where no one else is around and thus perfect for crime. A train station in the middle of Sydney CBD falls under this catergory. Couple these two together and you can see that guns have little to do with a crime rate. I'd attribute it to lack of awareness, which is why I advocate education as the solution. Introducing guns would not help because the population density means no one would see you being attacked, and you wouldn't have time to get the gun out to defend yourself. However, it does mean that mass shootings would be possible. No advantages and a disadvantage. On the other hand, in places where the population density is much higher, people would see you being attacked. And either call for help if they're armed with a gun, or help you out if they weren't. Both if they were armed with a knife. Note I said "only knives". The guy had a truck. And no, we're not going to ban trucks because they're actually useful. Also note the 4th last paragraph in that article. The boy injured several people in a school stabbing. Not shot and killed. As for the 2nd and 3rd last paragraphs, the guy was mental, he'd go killing with a rope if he had to. And I expect that the 8 he killed was before any teacher saw the man, so a teacher armed with a gun would not have helped. Teachers tend not to supervise the kids much in Japan. I find it strange that you mentioned "non-violent" and "taken out" in the same scenario. In a society with guns you have the problem of having to cooridnate without words how you'll deal with the situation. If one blockhead decides to open fire, you'd likely get fatalities. Which is why you argue for proper education on gun use, fair enough. However, there's still the problem of human stupidty, which as you know, has no limits. And then there's the other problem I've raised with Duff Ostrich. Say the criminal see the guns and tries to escape instead. Would you shoot him? In any case, what kind of education are you thinking of? You've mentioned Switzerland, but theirs is a compulsory boot camp. Sigh. That article said nothing about knife crimes eclipsing gun + knife crimes before the ban. And unless you were familiar enough with the UK where armed with that article, you could claim such a thing, then the gun ban did its job. If that's the case, then I apologise. I forget who has conceded what point. Perhaps you can help me with Crystal Shards, why seems to be arguing against this fact. Too difficult? Nothing's impossible. But difficult enough for crime gangs not to try it if they didn't have to, as there's the chance of capture, interrogation and free details about your crime ring. As for cops going crazy, I thought I did answer it with the point about the state providing psychological support. Do you know how much that costs? For police this is feasible, as they must deal with stressful situations daily. But for the average person, the stress they go through happens intermittently. Psychological support for them would be a waste of money, not to mention that there's simply too many of them. If you mean normal in the sense that I meant it, I don't see how it's relevant. If you buy a bat, I assume you're going to play baseball with it. Guns that are bought with the idea of self defense are but a bluff. They'd need to be prepared to shoot for it to work. One who buys a gun and isn't prepared to shoot is endangering themselves even more, since criminals would treat them as a dangerous target, rather than a harmless one. Also if they were properly educated, I assume they would also be prepared to shoot. They might. But there will be a tendancy to use the gun. Afterall, why have a gun in the first place if you're not going to use it. Because statistics can sing whatever you want them to sing. I would assume that you had an American city vs American city statistic in mind when I brought this up, hence the constant arguments, instead of simply finding another. Finding another means you aren't just making the statistics say what you want the to say. Arguing for the validity of one statistic reeks of it. Arms have a practical use. I can't say the same for guns. I do agree with it. How many responsible people does it take to kill a criminal with a gun? One. But how many does it take to stop a criminal with a gun? Your call. Another moot point as they aren't allowed to carry the gun with them unless they're transporting it to some place that requires its prescence. Owning a rifle and carrying it around with you are different things. Now when in that situation did I say someone opened fire? Correlation doesn't equal causation. Societies where veryone is educated on the use of firearms, I assume are the ones with a compulsory boot camp. They are also probably less individualistic than America, so the connection can't be drawn perfectly. Do note I said uncommon. But a gun would not have helped anyway if it was a quick stabbing, so I'm no longer sure of the relevance of this example. Perhaps it might be best if you provided that examples of abuse of power. I can't imagine the US government having strayed so far from the system of constituitional democracy as to warrant its people to not trust that system anymore. Any abuse of power would not only be the fault of the government, but the fault of the people not stopping them. If everyone has a gun? Shoot him repeatedly Can't blame me for misinterpretting Just as a gun must be fired if someone calls your bluff which you're using it for defence, I'd be natural to assume that the crimal would shoot the hostage if you call his bluff. Which you seem to realise too, since you didn't mean it to say so. The caveat here is "if an individual were careful enough". People tend to overestimate their abilities, unless trained not to do so and experienced enough. You can train the people, but I'm not sure where you can give them the experience. Now it's my turn. What are you talking about? I just explained why killing being indiscriminantly doesn't work. The sense of fear you want goes away because the criminal just showed that he wasn't going to spare you anyway. Not to mentioned you get the police on your ass a lot faster. I got your point. My point was that the shooter wouldn't have had the gun in the first place, had guns been banned. Had the guy used a knife? Well, we have that Japanese example of a school stabbing by a student. Huh? That was evidence for normal people losing it, which you seemed not to agree with. For evidence on how guns can incite a mass shooting, you can look up discriminative stimuli. Perhaps if you stopped taking things out of context, it would start making sense to you. Crystal Shards, Jyosua, Phoenix: Your points have been covered in the discussions with me, duff ostrich and esau of isaac. Feel free to rebut them, but I think this post is long enough as it is for me to repeat the arguments to you. General Spoon, Vincent: Yeah, I don't think many people here are against banning guns from hunters. It's mainly self defence that's being discussed.

Get Twilkitri of course -_- Pears are better =/

1. I was refering to the first-time cirminals. They are criminals after their act, not before. 2. People seem to have forgotten the word illegal in there. $40 in America is cheap for a gun, but guns are legal there. Furthermore, I was referring to that fact that expensive implies either rare, or the costs of getting them high. You mentioned before that the only time a right should be taken from us, is when it infringes on other people's rights. Your gun infringes on people's rights to live. Since this isn't a class in sophistry, everyone bar you realised the above statement. We have a right to live. The arguement then turns into whether or not guns are infringing upon it enough for a ban. You, as a part of the population of that nation, have the right to veto any decision they make, provided you can find enough backing from the people. Even if the government does not have your best interests in mind, they want to stay in power. This means addressing your concerns, else they be ousted from power, if not through riot/passive resistance, then at the next election. They grow their weed. Where's my gun tree? See my second statement. Basing your whole arguements on rights is foolish. The right of free speech vs racism was a debate of the past. See one point above. I'm not arguing that you can't defend yourself. Just don't do it with a gun. Although I can't recall if guns were ever legal in Australia, I doubt that knife crimes went up to the point of eclipsing gun+knife crimes before the ban. Better off reducing the chance that you see a gun, and then you can have a knive vs knife catfight where you have a bigger chance of getting out alive. But in any case, the rest of the topic has been about this, so I don't see the need to rebut this point any further. I wrote that? O_o Willing to hurt family/friends might be a just cause. Killing someone for trepassing is harder to justify. Why can't you just restrain them? Shoot first, asking questions later is hard to justify. I see you've either done a logic class, or a psychology class. And probably didn't listen hard enough. Correlation does not equal causation, is one of their favourite sayings. It actually does though, but the saying is warning against assuming direction of causation. To jog your memory, if A is correlated to B, then either A causes B, B causes A or C causes A and B. If guns cause violence (A->B), then remove the guns If violence people causes the use of guns, then you can't change the people, so you limit the effects by removing the guns. If a 3rd factor is causing both the violent people and the use of guns...then you either deal wit that 3rd factor, or limit the effects by removing the guns. Strawman implies that I'm attacking a false construction of your arguements. Tell me, what is this false construction that I'm attacking? If I spot the error, I can attempt to rectify the mistake. 1) In a home invasion, the criminal will want to rob a house with no one in it. If he hops in while you're in, he's likely to bail anyway, gun or not. Guns are a means of attack. Using them as a means for defence means you must be willing to shoot, not just bluff. 2) Well if anything, I'd disagree with the word "safety". I'd replace it with Liberty vs Life. See my second point in this post anyway. And here we can get into that problem of shooting a trepasser. It acts as a deterrant for others that would trespass, sure. But is that deterrant worth the life of a man? This is a Lockean arguement - because it is out home they were trespassing, we cannot be expected to rationally pass fair judgement/punishment upon them. Thus the need for a third party, the state, to do this. 1) Arguements based on the premise of less gun crime come with the Lemma that rights that infringe on other rights should be taken away. Free speech vs racism. 2) If you have indeed taken a psychology class and not a logic one, I suggest you review notes on discriminative stimuli. Recreational usage of guns doesn't mean you have to own and carry it around with you all the time. Collecting and admiring can be done without the ammo. We're focusing on self-defence/crime here because that's the main reason they seem to be used. Even then though, using guns for recreation isn't really a justification for having guns, at least not as much as needing a knife for steak. If you want to use it though, feel free to press it, I'll elaborate. Not analogous. Left out a premise - that people's lives are on the line. Or plan it out more meticulously so that they get the surprise advantage. No, the nation relies on its people for its power. Passive resistance is enough to stop a constitutional democractic government from abusing it. I can't actually see the relevance of recreation to my point you're rebutting. Especially when it was used in a narrow context. The guy was a necrophiliac. Two things to raise here: 30 min grace period, maybe not. But you have a longer period to live against a knife than a gun. Secondly, they need to know what they're doing. And the average goon that seems to be the problem is just going *stab*stab*stab*. There is 1 place in the whole body that you can survive for hours from a gun wound. Somewhere on the left, near the stomach, I think. Someone else can go check it up, I don't study anatomy. I seem to remember someone pro-gun in the thread saying that if they could have a 1% extra chance to live, they'd take it. I echo that statement. No, I was arguing that living is more important than anything else. I suppose I could have argued that our crimes rates are higher because we survive, but I don't think that'd work. Just survivng is enough for me. In this case, you seem to be arguing that the mere prescence of other bystanders with guns is enough to deter people from commiting crimes. The problem is that most crimes down here, judging from the news, take place in situations with no bystanders. In any case, wouldn't everyone carrying a knife perform the same function? Nor can you be the average nerd that has just exploded because his girlfriend dumped him to go knifing a lot of people. Mass killings would not be possible with only knives. It's not acceptable, I agree. But if you agree that you'd rather robbed than dead, then it should follow that saving lives takes priorty of stopping other crime. Stop killings, then stop other crimes, one step at a time. The obvious rebuttle that that would be that Australia's gunless since our creation and yet crime rates are so high, in which case I say that crimes rates have only risen in recent years, after post-war mass migration. They still need time to lower the crime, both through the educational system, and through law enforcement. If it means sparing the lives of the innocent, so be it. Though it doesn't end when he gets away. Law enforcement picks up and chases them down. I think this was still the bank situation. The criminal's goal is the get money. If someone resists, not only will he not get the money, he would get caught - unless he could stop the resistance (by showing he's serious and shooting the hostage). If no one resists in the first place, he would take the money and run. Not my country. In any case, top priority doesn't mean that banning guns caused knife crimes to skyrocket. Neither of us are familiar enough with the UK to postulate why knife crimes would rise. Thank you. Knives are easier to get because guns are banned. The average goon couldn't be bothered to go get the gun, so they go for the knife. If they did have the gun, we'd have a lot more deaths. They can be. But it's a lot rarer, perhaps due to the selection criteria for who gets to be a cop. I haven't heard of any cops going on killing sprees down here lately, though I think there was one in Hong Kong a few years ago. So 1 compared to however many shootings by normal people in America. I assume this refers to the above point. Again, the rate of cops going nuts and killing people seem to be rather low. Though I can postulate an additional reason for this: Those working as cops have the psychological support necessary, and provided by the government, so that they don't snap. Or if they do, they snap nicely. Now that recreational gun usage has been raised, no I can't. However any gun bought for the purpose of self defence must also be bought with the intention to harm. If they were not willing to shoot anyone with it, then having the weapon is pointless. Perhaps I should define what I mean by psychology. In this case I mean the way people think. If someone tried to rob your house and you, with a gun, caught them, what would you do? This answer varies depending on the cultural upbringing of the person. One of the other posters in the thread seems to have suggested shooting them. Down here we just had someone wrestling them to the ground and calling the police instead. Having a lower gun holding rate, but still being part of a gun culture does not take the above into account. A gun ban would include removing such teachings, which is why I've said before that the educational system is vital. The problem here the word "responsible". Educating people on the use of guns only for them use that education on innocent people would not be fun. If you are caught in the criminal's line of sight - no you don't have time. If you happened to stumble upon the event, but the criminal didn't see you, you might have a chance. But then it's a shoot first, ask questions later unless you want to get back to the bank style situation. Which I suppose you might think is fine if you believe in capital punishment, but that's a different issue. If that's what you meant, then I concede the point. They would have a harder time reacting to many issues. And while arming the population could give them an easier time, I'm not sure it's worth the random mass shootings. I think I addressed this above. But if not, that only works when other people with guns are nearby. Perhaps the problem down here is not the fact that we don't have many guns, but the fact our population density is so low. I should've added the word 'usually' to that. Random knifings seem uncommon down here. There is usually a motive that isn't I'm angry, let's go knife. Proper gun education won't solve the problem either, because guns are too quick to kill. I'm you know what you're doing, you've already killed one before anyone notices that you're on a rampage. I do agree that education is the solution, be it awareness programs or moral conditioning. What do you mean by 'that'? If a constitutional democratic government abuses its power, the people get mad and riot. Then the government stops and fixes the situation. That's the theory behind it, anyway - I'm not sure how the Americans implement that theory. Then please clarify what you meant by "Shoot him repeatedly". I assume you meant shoot the criminal repeatedly, which in turn implies that the criminal will shoot the hostage. No one takes a hostage seriously unless a) The criminal is willing to shoot the him/her but B) the criminal is willing to spare the hostage if you meet his demands. Indiscriminative killing is either going to get you killed in a place where people have guns, or inspire the the law enforcers to work overtime to get your ass. Because we can't discriminate between them. Would you happen to know where and how long it took them to get the gun? My point is that banning guns removes this type of shooting. Or at least lowers it to the point that it's a rarity. Like I said before, when was the last time we had a mass shooting down here? I think this is the one we need. Note it's not a mass survey of criminals, since this type of testing is expensive. Results must have been statistically signficant though, for it to be cited in a paper. - A random 20 Californian murders were interviewed and tested. Half turned up as the typical criminal: Lack of impulse control, extroversion, long history of violence etc. The other half were the different: normal impulse control, no criminal record before the current homicide, gentle to mild dispositions. Edit: Adding on the second half

I can hear you, I'm not sure if you can hear me, though. 1) Criminals don't make up the every single person that uses a gun for crime. Not even close. 2) Why do you think an illegal weapon is so expensive? I can say the same to you. Your point is that the percentage of guns being used for crime is small. My point is that it could be smaller. Now what would you rather be? Assault/raped or killed? And can you not understand that people can kill even easier with a gun? This has nothing to do with range. The skill needed for the average goon to kill someone with a gun is near zero compared to a knife. I would still rather robbed than dead. No it isn't. In the case where he was armed and no one else was, he'd get the money and run. All lives are spared. Of course, but they don't think in the same way. You would be willing to gamble someone's life on your belief that the criminal values his life? I asked for proof that knife murders increased after guns being banned. This one merely states that knives are out of control. We can only be glad that they don't have their hands on guns. Now I've forgotten the relevance of this line of thought. I was all for the state having weapons. And since you can't verify, you deny them all. Slight correction, all guns are bought with the intention that someone will be harmed by it. New points of view are surprising, I know. I do note here that you've switched from lower amount to gun ban. Lower amount does not take into account the psychology. Gun ban would, if it the ban was put in place early enough for the people to have changed. But that doesn't take into account the influence from the state next door where guns are legal. Which is why I asked for not an American vs American example. Make enough sense for you? And it would be nice to see them even smaller. Well now you have. They're allowed to carry the ammo with them, but not in the magazine. I'm sure even you know that loading a gun take time. Which you don't have if you were going to play cop. You said that the police would not to able to reach any crime in time for them to stop it. I split the cases into petty and big. Big crimes take enough time for police to act. I conceded that they can't stop petty acts, but then carrying a gun with you wouldn't either. As a side not though, a normal criminal would not stab the guy unless he resisted. Because the number of people losing their lives is still higher than it should be. The fact that the American governmental system has not changed dramatically shows that not enough people thought it was abuse of power for the country as a whole to care. Thus is the way of a constitutional democracy. And at no point did I accuse you of that. Stop putting words in my mouth. I said sacrifice the hostage. Meaning shooting the criminal to stop his crimes. Because the criminal will shoot the hostage if you did so. And grabbing a hostage is a means for that to happen. And if you don't take him seriously by refusing a hands-up, it's quite likely he will shoot to show you he's serious. No, I believe the number that crack is high enough to warrant restricting weapons from the general population. The number that stay stable is significantly higher, I agree. Depends. Rage subsides to a point where some may go "Wait, why am I going on a killing spree in the first place?". This is because in psychology, we call guns a discriminative stimulus. If you're hungry, food makes you want a eat. If you're fucking angry, a gun may well make you want to kill before you get a chance to think. Others maybe too impatient to get a knife, and simply get out a knife. Finally, how is the common nut going to get a gun in a place where guns are illegal? I think we went though this before. Smuggling was the answer we came up with, which has a chance of getting caught. So you'd be able to catch at least some of the ones that do go for a gun before they start shooting. Statistics I don't think I can give you, since I wouldn't know where to look. That knowledge came from Philip Zimbardo in his paper The Psychology of Evil: A Situationist Perspective on Recruiting Good People to Engage in Anti-Social Acts. Unfortunately, I've only got a hardcopy with me. Basically he shows that any person, innately good or bad, can do evil things. By restricting guns from the general population, we can prevent those who would not normally go shooting people from doing so.

Right. Crime rate is also incredibly fucking small. Let's not reduce that any further either. Nice logic there. Also, while you have those links: In the US 90/100 people have guns. Rate gun violence is 3.6/100,000. Guns are banned in Australia. We have 0.3073 /100,000. Let's take all homicide into account now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count..._by_murder_rate US is up to 5.7, Australia is up to 1.28. Nice steep rise in knife kills there. +1 Again, I find myself mentioning her name. Kitty Genovese. 30mins to kill one girl. From a man who later overpowered a gaurd and broke out of jail. Look up. If we're being murdered by the dozen, you're being murdered by the hundreds. It is a Mexican standoff. If he values his life, the criminal will drop the gun. If he doesn't, he'll tell everyone else to raise their arms so you won't be able to gun your gun. If everyone tries to resist, there is a chance he'll kill the hostage and find another. You can shoot him at this point, but there would be a loss of 2 lives (excluding the criminal). Do criminals value their life? I doubt it, but who knows? It replaced terrorism as major priority. Not firearm related crime. Irrelevant article. The UK has the grunt police force not carrying firearms, likely because no one else is and thus they don't need it. However, they have various groups within the police that do carry firearms. They are not disarmed to the point that a criminal gang who smuggled in some guns can take them. No, I say you don't need to be able to defend yourself. The state does a much better job than you anyway. I also think, this guy could become a nutcase, best not arm him. Only arm the people we know won't become nutcases. No, if you took the time to read into it, you would see what I mean. Knives have a practical purpose that doesn't invlove harming people. Guns do not. (Protecting yourself with a gun involves harming them.) Because it doesn't take into account the psychology of a people who have lived without carrying guns. Depends on the weapon. No. But the percentage of guns used for crime is high enough that it warrants banning them. And their use for other purposes is...what? Restricted to a shooting range? Their ammo must be seperated from the gun. They might as well all be carrying sticks. Perhaps you should take the time to read the whole point, before finding something you can rebut on, and move on. Any petty crime is easily traced. Any big crime will take longer to do. Only if you redefine "well". So, which consitutional democratic government has abused its power without a gigantic uprising by the people? Where abusing is defined objectively, of course. You can't say that you'd shoot a criminal with a hostage, and then say you wouldn't sacrifice the hostage to stop a crime. They are the exact same thing. I'm not putting the words in your mouth. You are. His stupid ass would have killed the hostage in those few seconds. You noted it yourself. He is stupid. How do you even know he values his life? Hmm...we might get someone with this line of thought. If only that were true. Humans are not machines. If we perform an action at one time, in one circumstances, we might not do so again in in the same circumstance the next time. This unreliability in humans means that we do not know when someone will crack and do something stupid like go on a killing spree. In this, we are like babies. And you do not give a baby a sharp object. Normal citizens that have temporarily cracked make up half the prisoners in a jail. At least. The other half is likely organised enough not to kill people. Giving guns to citizens means that normal people who have got nuts can do more damage. Organised crime arent usually out to kill people, bad for business. See arguements of gun availibilty. Not going through them. Nightgraves' arguements aren't worth replying to, even if he is on the same side.

Oh wow, personal greetings from the founder himself :P Thanks Vincent, and nice to see you again too~ I still regret joining irc only after you left it >_> Also, Hey Mitty :)

+1 Hey Mitty!!

MWHAHAAHA On the other hand, why would you eat a pear with chopsticks Also, Hi Choppy~ Let's have fun lurking!

B-b-but...Willfor did it!!! :( LG/Jeffer: LET'S GET HIM!

It seems that all it boils down to is: People that want guns don't trust anyone else. They pessimisticly think law enforcement is a joke, their governments are out to kill them and that only a gun can protect you from that. They'll dogmatically stick to that view, disregarding any evidence. Well, I'll go through the rebuttals anyway, but bear in mind 2 things: 1) Your gun means shit all for defence, unless you don't care about hostages. 2) Preventing the crime from happening is better than stopping a crime in process. Conversely, getting out of a crime with all lives intact first, and then bringing down justice is better than dispensing justice at he risk of someone's life. Now I wonder when the last time we had a mass shooting in Australia was... No, it wouldn't be. You don't know he's a criminal, so he has the advantage. Your gun means shit all if his is pointed at you while yours is in your holster. The only time you'd have a chance to draw it is if it's not pointed at you, in which case he has a hostage and he'll either force you to drop the gun, or you'll get an innocent killed. Show proof of that, or it didn't happen. And even then it'd have to show that the number of successful knife + gun crimes went up. A knife takes longer to kill, so i doubt this was the case. See the case of Kitty Genovese. No, but they know how to track criminals. As for disarmament of police...proof or it didn't happen. In anything, they're getting more weapons these days - tasers and what not. In any case where the gun was not used to immediately kill, the criminal intends to take something and run. The State has detectives for this line of work. I'd like to see you eat STEAK with a GUN and fork. Unless you can find proof that isn't one American city vs another, I highly doubt that correlation of crime rate:gun availablity is true. You hypothetical situation never seems to take into account hostages - unless you assume the hostage is dead anyway. Only because you took it out of context. Some people are suggestign that knives can kill as quickly as a gun. Here we have a man strong enough to overpower prison guards and flee, with a knife, taking over 30 minutes to kill a woman. Quick. Well, at least you admit gun crimes rates have gone down. Next step is to ask why. Criminals can always kill people. You can do it with your bare hands if you knew how. But sucessful murders must have also dropped when guns were banned. Crime rate mate have stayed the same, but the amount of people escaping with their lives is more important. If you rob one guy with a gun, you're a petty criminal and will let the guy live. Robbing a bank takes longer. Either way, there are enough CCTV cameras around to catch a criminal, as will there be fingerprints and all sorta of other details a detective can use to trace the criminal. Very consequential. People cannot possibly effectively police themselves. The Leviathan goes through all this, but it's too long for me to summarise here. In any case, your paranoia about the state is showing. You are living in a consitutional democracy. Not communist China. If you want to drag this into the realms of political philosophy, I suggest you read up the background knowledge before blabbering about this you don't know. If they were truly abusing their power, Americans streets would look like Burma. Yes, yes I am. The entire population has the potential to become a nutcase. Go into ANY jail and talk to the prisoners. At least half of them will be first time offenders that to this day cannot explain their actions. You would sacrifice someone else's life for the sake of a criminal not getting what they wanted. You are the exact type of person who we do not want having guns. Knife, gun, shaving razor. If anyone's life is at stake, you give the criminal want he wants (as long as it isn't a life), and track him down after he loses the hostage. Even worse, if he knows you have guns, he might take the hostage with him. I'll end this post with one more point. If you wanted to play cop, you better know this. Lives are infinitely more important than possessions. Before you sacrifice the next hostage, think about this. And if you ever become a hostage, you better hope the guy trying to stop the criminal knows this too.

Silly names ftw! miniature giant space hamster!!! Lurking ;) How've you been, WSL? Still trolling around on serenia? SEEIIICHIII!!!!! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEEN?? People tell me it's quite natural :P A good thing bout not getting that video out is that if you did, you'd have a train of youtubers begging for more XD Thanks NTG, and nice to see you again~

I think I went through this already. When you take the right to bear guns from the people, even the criminals find it harder. They will have to smuggle them, which is infinitely harder than what it is now in America. On an different note, we have a line from the Life of Brian. Talking about rights always makes me think of that. You can have all rights you want, just get rid of the guns. If guns are illegal in Britain like I think they are, that's why you hear about knives more often. Because the criminals have a hard time getting a gun, so they go for the knife.

Hey MK404 (or was it Hooktail?) :P I'm still sleeping happily on dynasty these days~ Heya, haven't seen you since you were Tenshi. Or maybe on EFED Forums. Now haven't you moved up in the world? Hah, only because I wasn't sure you could type | in the username box ;)

No, but banning them makes it harder to get a hold of, for criminials and normal pteople. The point is to remove guns from the nutcases, so that they can't use the gun as a killing tool. So how do you know who's a nutcase and who's not? You can't, so just remove all the guns. That said, you could argue then that removing all the guns affects the non-nutcases. However, the non-nutcases would have no need for a gun if the nutcases didn't have one either. Unless they become a nutcase themself See my point with the <<<<<< in it, which you forgot to address. See my note about Kitty Genovese's stabbing From what area? You'd have to smuggle it in, which has a chance of getting caught and prematurely get labeled "nutcase" and thrown into jail. Only if guns were illegal though. By not making them illegal, you have missed out on the chance of catching them before they start shooting. Stereotype alert. If an ambulance can reach a person having a heart attack quickly enough to save him, the police can reach most crimes before it's too late, provided someone witnesses the event and calls them. Which is the case for most crimes involving guns, other than random shootings by first time criminals, who wouldn't be able to get the gun in the first place if they wren't so readily available. Yes it does. If you want to read the theory behind it, it's in Hobbes' Leviathan. Good read, though he's a tad long winded at times. In all seriousness though, the government should not be something we don't know. We ELECTED them. See 2 points above. Random killings aside, first you get out with your life, then you get the police to go recover anything else you lose. Which they usually manage to do. How can you be sure that the ones you train won't become the nutjob that goes on a random killing spree? First you remove the means for a quick killing spree, then you teach them why killing sprees are bad. One physical, one psychological barrier. The ones that break both barriers are few - I wonder when the last time we had a shooting here was... How about this situation? Criminal walks into the bank, grabs a hostage, sticks their gun against their head and demands money and hands up. What are you going to do?

Got nothing else to do, so I'll take a stab at this. Note though that I can't say anything about the purely American points, since I don't know, nor care too much about it. Firstly, that "I don't trust my government line." You elect the government. The government supposedly stands in fear of getting ousted if they piss you off too much. An untrustworthy government is grounds for an ousting. Sure, if America was communist, then that would be valid. Otherwise, you have nothing to complain about here. Secondly, it does NOT make sense regardless. I don't know much about the Columbine case, but as I remember it, the Virginia Tech kid was not a criminal before the shooting. If guns were indeed banned, where do you think a normal guy gets the guns from? *Walks down to the local gansters* "'Sup, gimme a gun!" Right... Thirdly, the "only criminals will have guns part". Again, wrong. By simply banning guns, gun availability goes down. They'll have to be smuggled in from across borders, where if the guards are doing their job right, they'll get caught. Or they'll have to be robbed from those who have guns, who are trained in using them. Of course, I agree that it still is possible to get guns through either of these two avenues, but the amount of guns still drops. Drops to the point where a criminal gang has 1 or 2. The Police have 1 EACH. The army can also be called in for another what? 2 each? While I agree that it's a silly point, most of that is how you've phrased it. I would guess what that point should be, or at least how I'd put it, is: Number of occasions guns used for self defense <<<<<<< Number of occasions guns used for offense Banning the would cut down on the numbers of both sides, but since the one on the left is so small anyway, it should just be a one-sided drop. And before you say that banning guns would make the right hand side RISE instead of drop, read my point above on gun availability. Indeed, the state exists to protect our rights, should someone try to tread on them. Thus, the individual should not have to carry the burden of protecting ourselves. Seems compatible to me. Classic arguement. If you remove the guns, people will use knives. While the Police still have Guns. Gun > Knife. Though the fact that people kill people still stands. That's a problem for the education system to fix, while they're teaching morality and ethics. But even with knives, you have a chance of survival. Kitty Genovese took over 30 minutes to get stabbed to death. Should have been enough for the police to arrive, were the onlookers not braindead.

That made slightly more sense before the edit. 'Sup LG Also, of course - NTG did a good job on that biography~

bork bork bork bork bork bork (My God, NTG, I can't believe people are still commenting on that, 2 YEARS after you and CO made it XD) By the way, Hi! I'm a lurker.