She was killed by a 50bmg gun

[The Straight Story]

Back in the 1990's I worked for company that manufactured reloading dies for everything from the .17 Hornet to the 20mm Lahti.

In 1996 John Ross (a good friend of my boss and a frequent customer of ours) wrote a book called Unintended Consequences - and two of the main characters were based on my boss and his attorney friend (an independent attorney who was more aligned with the constitution than either party).

I met this attorney and his 12 yr old daughter finally at a gun show near Cleveland. A pretty darn nice guy, and his daughter rode with us in the back of the van when we went out to dinner.

A very sweet girl and smart as a whip (I remember her coloring felt pictures of unicorns her dad bought her in the van and while at dinner at Denny's). We had pics of her in our office, as did our biggest customer who was in Adelaide, Australia. She was wearing safety goggles and shooting an electric BMG gun (from when she was 11).

About a week or so after I met her and had dinner with her she died - when the gun she was shooting broke from it's mounts and flew back and crushed her skull. Her dad was devastated, as were we all, at the loss of such a sweet young person.

I knew a lot of people in the 'gun culture' from those days. From militia people to those who just like to target practice. I can't recall a one of them hurting anyone else with their guns or even wanting to. They collected guns, reloaded their ammo with reloading dies to save money, and generally just had a good time.

I am not afraid of most people owning guns or shooting them off. I am afraid of some people owning them - the ones who want to use them for their own gain at the expense of others.

That 12 yr old girl I met would never have even dreamed of using a gun to hurt another person except in self defense - and given the world we live in I wouldn't dream of keeping someone like her from having one for that.

For ONCE I can say folks were right, a gun did kill someone. It came loose and she never had a chance.

But usually, it is the person behind the gun that causes the issue, not the gun itself.

They say there about 33,000 deaths a year caused by guns. I can recall only 1 from personal experience.

The rest were caused by the assholes who had them. And don't even get me started on our government and how they have used them (which some people seem to think should be the only ones with them).

Go ahead and just trust cops (with tasers as well) and people like bush with guns while seeing the rest of us as 'terrorists' to be feared.

The biggest threat to you is not me with a gun. It is those in power having even more power over you and you having less. They spread the fear about how everyone is out to do us harm. I ain't buying it.

There are MILLIONS of guns out there in the hands of fellow Americans. And just like with the war on terror, we see that the threat is minimal, but some people want to use that threat to take away your rights to protect you.

I ain't buying it.

You got your one death by a 'gun'. 1. They got their one 9/11.

Tell me again how they threaten me.

[Richard Steele]

1. K&R

[rusty quoin]

2. I once watched a unstable guy open up his trunk and display all of his guns.

Guns scare me, and I am not talking about hunting. This gun culture scares me because the more weapons out there, the more there's a chance of an innocent person getting shot.

[Lennon]

3. If Guns Scare You

This Video Will Scare The Crap Out Of You.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5854686068870249151

:)

[MercutioATC]

5. I've seen that one before...love it.

It's funny how stuff like that scares some people.

[GoneOffShore]

43. It doesn't scare me BUT

it seems more than a little pointless and a waste of resources and ammo.

Of course, I find that NASCAR, football, basketball and baseball to be pretty pointless too.

[MercutioATC]

49. But it's FUN...

...and we all need fun :)

[GoneOffShore]

54. Yes we all need fun

When I shot target I had fun.

But I was trying to hit the bull, whether from 25 yds or 1000 yds with iron sights. I wasn't just blasting away. It was all about accuracy and making a high score and it was fun.

Hell, if you want to have fun blowing stuff up you can buy dynamite.

[The Straight Story]

7. So...You don't want Iran to have nukes either

Glad we agree on something :)

The more nukes out there the more there is a chance of a nuclear war.

So let's stop em....

[rusty quoin]

50. I agree with you. Iran should not have nukes. Let's get rid of them all.

[sk8rrobert2]

9. more people are killed each year by doctors screwing up than by guns.

The number of people killed by firearms and firearm related accidents: 1134
The number of people killed by Complications due to Medical Procedures each year: 2929

As according to: http://www.anesi.com/accdeath.htm

Also found in the article: "there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million-plus guns." Levitt also observes that yearly there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential swimming pools."

The next time you ask if there are guns in the house maybe u should also ask if there is a swimming pool in the backyard.

[varkam]

14. Note that those are *accidents*.

If you factor in homicide, then you've got more firearm fatalities than doctor mishaps.

[sk8rrobert2]

17. Yes those are accidents and i thought a made that evident

when i said firearms and firearms related accidents but i guess not. I am sorry for the miscommunication i have caused.

[varkam]

34. Firearms and firearms related accidents to me...

means any death with firearms can be attributed to a cause of death. Perhaps I misread you :hi:

[The Straight Story]

24. Which is it?

Firearm Fatalities or human caused ones?

Homicide existed long before guns did, what was to blame before that?

[varkam]

33. Both.

Firearms represent a means to an end in a sizable portion of homicide cases.

I don't think that anyone is arguing that firearms cause people to kill one another, only that they represent one of the most efficient means of doing so.

[frebrd]

4. K&R

[sk8rrobert2]

6. right on bud right on.

As a wildlife enthuasist i love finding myself in cornfield here in iowa hunting phesants or in the mountains of Washington hunting elk. In all my years of hunting i have known of 1 other case besides yours where a gun has killed a person.

I was in Nebraska hunting quail with a friend of mine we had hunted together since kids. two quail got up. he went to shoot at them his first shell didn't eject right and only half way came out when he fired the second shot the second was jammed right behind the first. When he pulled the trigger the third time the gun exploded causing all sorts of schrapnel to go into his hand, face and neck. he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital of blood loss.

I understand where advocates of gun control come from in inner cities such as east st. louis or new orleans where gang life can become a problem. In rural towns throughout the U.S. of A. In my mind i find it harder to justify gun control. Its all about learning gun safety at an early age and having a good role model of good gun safety and practices.

[The Straight Story]

8. True indeed - a band aid needed in one place is not in another

City and country are two different things.

Regulations and banning are two different things as well.

Sensible laws seem to be a thing of the past based on fear. The same fear the RW peddles to us daily.

[sk8rrobert2]

10. oh yeah i completely agree with regulation. I don't think there is any reason to own an Ak-47.

Maybe if your a russian historian or something like that would you want one but for a regular civilian I don't think you can really justify owning an assault rifle.

[Greyhound]

12. Define "assault rifle" please. n/t

[sk8rrobert2]

16. my personal definition of assault rifle would be anything fully automatic capable of firing...

projectiles designed to kill. I'm not sure if they have fully automatic paintball guns but that is why i said designed to kill. Paintballs are not designed to kill so they would not fall under this category.

[benEzra]

36. All automatic weapons are as tightly controlled as howitzers and 500lb bombs in this country.

Possession of ANY automatic weapon (speaking of real firearms, not Airsofts or paintball guns) outside of police/military/government duty is a 10-year Federal felony under the Title 2/Class III provisions of the National Firearms Act of 1934, unless you first obtain Federal authorization (BATFE Form 4). If you do obtain a Form 4 (and your local chief law enforcement officer has to sign off on your application), you can only buy pre-1986 collectibles, at an average price of $15,000 or so each, you cannot take it out of state without notifying the BATFE in writing, and the BATFE gets to inspect your paperwork once a year.

The "assault weapon" bait-and-switch isn't about automatic weapons. It's an attempt to scare people into banning NON-automatic CIVILIAN guns. Guns which happen to be the most popular centerfire target rifles and defensive carbines in the United States; taking H.R.1022 as the operative definition, more Americans lawfully own "assault weapons" than hunt.

[maxidivine]

40. Well then you might have been had

Because civilian AK and AR rifles (I'm guessing that those are probably the two styles that come to mind for you when you think "assault rifle") are not automatic, and they aren't super easy to convert (without the required auto sear, which there are a limited and tightly controlled number of in country). Rifles as a whole are very rarely used in homicides, hands and feet are used about twice as often in murders. That is rifles as a whole, not any specific type of rifles.

[Greyhound]

48. Thank you for answering and that is why this is such a non-issue.

There are relatively few Assault Rifles in this country, and those are tightly controlled and well known to BATF.

The whole distraction is used simply to upset people and project the false impression that this is anything more than an occasional aberration.

We have many real issues that those whom we obey would rather we were not looking at, let's focus on those and irritate the hell out of them.

[Major Hogwash]

57. Go to California. They ban them there using their legal definiton for assault rifles.

Really pisses some people off, too.

Especially assholes who don't own assault rifles.

[Greyhound]

61. Lived there for many years and most of my rifles were banned.

Not that it made any difference since I'm such a scoff-law. Funny thing is that my most potentially lethal rifle was not covered by the ban because I kept the original stock.

[ClassicalLiberalinNC]

11. But look at how little crime goes on in areas with gun bans!

Look at DC, there's virtually no crime there! When was the last time anyone heard of anyone being murdered in our nation's capital? After the wild success the gun ban brought upon DC maybe we should declare it Xanadu!

[Ghost in the Machine]

13. No crime in DC??

:rofl:

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Straight Story]

15. Gun bans are like a religion to some folks

It feels good and make sense to them, but the facts just don't back it up.

Guns are not the problem. Religion is not the problem.

Stupid people are the problem.

Keeping religion and guns out of the hands of stupid people I am down with :)

Keeping both out of the hands of MOST of us I am not for.

The few, the stupid, the morans.

Punishing the many for the few is what people like bush want and it is what fuels his/their war on 'terrorism'. Inject fear of something and then enlist people to ban/limit/create watch lists. Peddle fear.

My biggest fear is not my fellow citizen, it is those who say the represent us and then screw us over time and again...

[villager]

18. As are guns. I've personally known two people who were shot to death.

That'd be on the *bullet* end of a gun.

With fewer guns keeping everyone "safe," they'd still be alive.

[ClassicalLiberalinNC]

19. because, obviously, someone who has it in them to commit a gun crime

will not go out of their way to illegally obtain a gun and use it for fear of, I guess, illegally possessing a firearm, on top of murder.

Give me a break.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[provis99]

25. that same sort of idiot gun nut logic can be applied to nuclear weapons too

Ban nuclear weapons, and criminals will still be able to obtain nuclear weapons illegally! The solution is to give everyone nuclear weapons to protect themselves!

[The Straight Story]

27. Nuclear weapons are harder to make and to get

You can't just make them in your garage. You can do so with guns.

You cannot kill millions with one gun, but you can with nukes.

I can run over and kill more people with my car than a pistol as well in NYC any given day.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Athens30603]

30. Technically, yes, it can be but...

it falls into the realm of slippery slope reasoning. Like if people wanted to ban rice because eating hundreds of pounds of it can kill you.

[benEzra]

37. The line between nuclear weapons and legal civilian small arms

is drawn at non-automatic, non-sound-suppressed civilian small arms under .51 caliber, plus some over-.51 hunting guns, by a 74-year-old compromise.

The gun debate in 2008 is about whether mentally competent adult U.S. citizens with clean records, who pass a Federal background check, can continue to lawfully purchase and own non-automatic, non-sound-suppressed small arms under .51 caliber that meet the longstanding civilian (NFA Title 1) requirements of the National Firearms Act. Not nukes.

[The Straight Story]

22. Did the guns shoot them, or was there someone pulling the trigger?

Which do you fear more, people, or guns?

One is an inanimate object, the other has a brain and can do something with it like harm others with a variety of objects.

Keeping weapons out of the hands of people who would do harm with them is ok IMHO - keeping things out of the hands of all citizens based on how a few may use them is not.

Sounds rather bushian to me. Fear each other, trust us, and let's roll on stopping the 'terrorists'.

When we fear each other more then the government we lose.

The question is not WHAT killed the two people you knew, but WHO. You can't ban people, so some want to ban things.

That really does not solve the problem.

Better mental health care though would go a long way in this country...

[The Magistrate]

35. One Small Point, Sir

A tool that is more apt to a purpose, easier to use to good effect, will tend to be used more readily and more often. It will, in effect, create by its ease and efficacy of employment, more occasions on which it is employed, than a tool of similar purpose, but more difficult to employ effectively, will find. It is far easier to kill with a pistol or a shotgun than with a knife or a cudgel, and on several levels. Most importantly, perhaps because it is so often overlooked, is the emotional level. An instant's heat can readily suffice to take a life with a pistol, but it generally takes a sustained rage to kill with a knife or club, and the latter is harder to muster up and maintain, and overall less frequently experienced, than the former.

[benEzra]

38. A lot more people are murdered with knives and clubs than with "assault weapons" and shotguns.

A lot of people dramatically underestimate non-gun homicide.

[The Magistrate]

41. When You Wish To Seriously Address A Serious Point, Sir, Let Me Know

That is merely reflexive noise, of no interest to me, and probably not to anyone else either.

[benEzra]

42. It undermines the thesis that knives and clubs are so psychologically difficult to use.

A shotgun is a standoff weapon, the most lethal of all firearms and among the most common in homes. Yet knives are used to murder several times as many people as shotguns. The same can be said for rifles (including "assault weapons"), yet they are used even more rarely than shotguns.

"Heat of passion" killings that you mention appear to be less likely to involve firearms than other types of murders, because intimate-partner killings are the one category of murders in the USA in which non-firearm murders outnumber firearm murders.

[The Magistrate]

44. That Is A Bit Better, Sir

The numbers do not quite address my point of the ease of execution, but are worth addressing first.

A striking feature of these graphs is that in the most bulky one, 'friends and acquaintances', and in the one most likely to involve basically law abiding people, 'intimate family', the trend line in fire-arm usage is steadily down over a period in which there has been considerable popular agitation for control of fire-arms, and increased regulation of them. This would suggest on its face that 'gun control' has had some beneficial effect, since the line for killing without fire-arms is comparatively flat in both graphs, and also comparatively flat in the other two categories, including 'non-intimate family', which is the only one in which killing without fire-arms predominates. That latter is also the one which shows the smallest number of homicides over the long run, though very recently 'intimate family' seems to have dropped to approximately its level. One likely additional influence on this is the closer attention paid by police nowadays to domestic complaints, and the greater opportunities of escape now available to women in abusive situations. In the category most likely to involve purely criminal killers, and the one most feared by ordinary folk, 'stranger', use of fire-arms runs consistently above the alternatives, and while basically flat, the non-fire-arm line does show a certain small decline. While killing by fire-arm in the 'stranger' category has fallen off from a peak about fifteen years ago, it has remained a pretty steady rate over the whole of the period graphed, while all the rest show signifigant decline in killing by fire-arm over the period. Again, this seems to indicate that the increased clamor against, and regulation of, firearms over that period may indeed have had some beneficial effect. While it is certainly true there lately has been an over-all decline in killing, and indeed in other crimes, the decline in killing by fire-arms, juxtaposed to the relative stability of killing without fire-arms, is striking.

In taking my comment as a reference to 'heat of passion', you seem to have mistaken my point, which is not the presence of passionate heat, but rather the greater duration of it required to kill without a fire-arm. As a general case, it is much more likely for a person to die from a single bullet wound at close range than from a single stab or cut of a knife, or a single blow of a club. It takes more time, and more physical effort, to kill with contact weapons, or even with bare hands. This requires much greater commitment to the deed on the part of the killer, and that commitment must be sustained through an experience that is often repellent, and offers many opportunities for second thoughts and regaining of one's senses. The twitch of a finger on a trigger that propels a chunk of metal into a person's chest at shocking speed is a very different thing from from actually getting through a flurry of desperate arms and bodily twists right up breath to breath with another person and shoving a blade in under the ribs and up into the heart. In a great many instances where a person is killed by a fire-arm, it is likely the requisite 'oomph' could not have been mustered by the killer to achieve the deed with a contact weapon.

[benEzra]

45. Thoughts...

A striking feature of these graphs is that in the most bulky one, 'friends and acquaintances', and in the one most likely to involve basically law abiding people, 'intimate family', the trend line in fire-arm usage is steadily down over a period in which there has been considerable popular agitation for control of fire-arms, and increased regulation of them. This would suggest on its face that 'gun control' has had some beneficial effect, since the line for killing without fire-arms is comparatively flat in both graphs

The only substantive changes in U.S. gun laws during the time period in question were

(1) The point-of-sale background check, which bars anyone with a felony conviction, misdemeanor conviction of domestic violence, or adjudicated mentally incompetent from buying a gun;

(2) CHL reform nationwide, in which most states made it easier for mentally sound adults with clean records to obtain a carry license.

I can see good arguments for #1 impacting criminal gun access to some extent. #2 has no effect on criminal gun access, and the only effect would be to allow the law-abiding to carry their guns more easily.

During the same time frame, "assault weapons" went from enthusiast guns to the most popular target rifles and defensive carbines in the nation, and the Feinstein law drove development of smaller, more concealable handguns sized to fit the smaller 10-round magazines that the law mandated for most new handguns (but not rifles).

On the whole, I think one cannot say that gun access by the law-abiding was reduced in any way whatsoever during those declines.

One likely additional influence on this is the closer attention paid by police nowadays to domestic complaints, and the greater opportunities of escape now available to women in abusive situations. In the category most likely to involve purely criminal killers, and the one most feared by ordinary folk, 'stranger', use of fire-arms runs consistently above the alternatives, and while basically flat, the non-fire-arm line does show a certain small decline. While killing by fire-arm in the 'stranger' category has fallen off from a peak about fifteen years ago, it has remained a pretty steady rate over the whole of the period graphed, while all the rest show signifigant decline in killing by fire-arm over the period. Again, this seems to indicate that the increased clamor against, and regulation of, firearms over that period may indeed have had some beneficial effect. While it is certainly true there lately has been an over-all decline in killing, and indeed in other crimes, the decline in killing by fire-arms, juxtaposed to the relative stability of killing without fire-arms, is striking.

Again, during that time frame, the access to, and popularity of, civilian firearms in the hands of the law-abiding did not decrease, and attitudes toward firearms actually became more positive between the early '90s and today if you track the Gallup poll data.

The problem is, and has always been, firearms in the hands of criminals, not those with clean records. According to the city of Chicago, so far this year, 97 percent of murderers had prior arrest records; nationwide, the figure is somewhere in excess of 80 percent. Murder is usually not the first crime a murderer commits.

Measures narrowly tailored to address criminal guns use can help. Broad measures that primarily attack the law-abiding (such as the "assault weapon" fraud), on the contrary, are ultimately counterproductive.

IMHO, there are two very big factors that helped drive crime rates down during the '90s that you did not mention. One was the emphasis on the Community Policing model through the '90s, which emphasized officers getting to know their neighborhoods and winning the trust of their community; the current administration seems to be turning the clock back to the older, more authoritarian model under the guise of "Homeland Security," and we may see crime rates ultimately increase from that breakdown. The other factor, of course, was the improvement in economic conditions through the 1990's.

, and also comparatively flat in the other two categories, including 'non-intimate family', which is the only one in which killing without fire-arms predominates. That latter is also the one which shows the smallest number of homicides over the long run, though very recently 'intimate family' seems to have dropped to approximately its level. One likely additional influence on this is the closer attention paid by police nowadays to domestic complaints, and the greater opportunities of escape now available to women in abusive situations. In the category most likely to involve purely criminal killers, and the one most feared by ordinary folk, 'stranger', use of fire-arms runs consistently above the alternatives, and while basically flat, the non-fire-arm line does show a certain small decline. While killing by fire-arm in the 'stranger' category has fallen off from a peak about fifteen years ago, it has remained a pretty steady rate over the whole of the period graphed, while all the rest show signifigant decline in killing by fire-arm over the period. Again, this seems to indicate that the increased clamor against, and regulation of, firearms over that period may indeed have had some beneficial effect. While it is certainly true there lately has been an over-all decline in killing, and indeed in other crimes, the decline in killing by fire-arms, juxtaposed to the relative stability of killing without fire-arms, is striking.

In taking my comment as a reference to 'heat of passion', you seem to have mistaken my point, which is not the presence of passionate heat, but rather the greater duration of it required to kill without a fire-arm. As a general case, it is much more likely for a person to die from a single bullet wound at close range than from a single stab or cut of a knife, or a single blow of a club. It takes more time, and more physical effort, to kill with contact weapons, or even with bare hands. This requires much greater commitment to the deed on the part of the killer, and that commitment must be sustained through an experience that is often repellent, and offers many opportunities for second thoughts and regaining of one's senses. The twitch of a finger on a trigger that propels a chunk of metal into a person's chest at shocking speed is a very different thing from from actually getting through a flurry of desperate arms and bodily twists right up breath to breath with another person and shoving a blade in under the ribs and up into the heart. In a great many instances where a person is killed by a fire-arm, it is likely the requisite 'oomph' could not have been mustered by the killer to achieve the deed with a contact weapon.

I see your point, but I think it probably applies more to the rare individual who commits murder out-of-the-blue, rather than to the person who has built up to murder via a long line of robberies, beatings, and aggravated assaults. And particularly for premeditated killings carried out under the element of surprise (rather than "consensual combat" that escalates into a murder), non-firearm weapons can be as quick as a firearm. A single blow to the head with a hammer, penetrating the skull, is just as quick and lethal as a contact shot with a handgun, and inside 21 feet or so someone armed with a knife is generally considered to have an even chance against a gun, if the knife wielder initiates.

[The Magistrate]

46. The Smallest Category Of Killings, Sir

That of 'stranger', is the one in which persons who have 'built up to murder' will be concentrated: these are usually the acts of 'career criminals', seasoned by those of lunatics. The category of 'friends and acquaintances' certainly will contain a number of criminals, or at least persons with some record of violence, but the killings in these categories generally 'blow up' out of some casual altercation or minor quarrel. The same is generally true of family killings, though these momentary quarrels often arise from long grudges, or patterns of psychopathy in a dominant partner. Pre-meditated killings by surprise are pretty rare over-all: very few people actually think like that, and even fewer have the mental character needed to act on such thoughts.

It is certainly true persons of a certain temperament and possessed of practiced skill can wield contact weapons with great efficacy, but these things are not very common. Most people trying to use a knife to kill will make a serious hash of it. Given the overall history of weapons usage, it seems rather silly to try and argue seriously that firearms are not more effective killing implements than blades and clubs. You might as well try and argue that a motor truck offers no advantages over a horse-cart in conveying goods over a distance: certainly both can do it, but one certainly does so at greater speed and with greater ease and requires a good deal less craft-knowledge on the part of the driver.

My point is simply the general one, that a conflict between persons in which a firearm is present is more likely to have a lethal outcome than one in which no firearm is present. This suggests that a reduction in the number of firearms in circulation would have the effect of depressing the incidence of unlawful killing across the board. Whether this could be put into practical effect as a policy, or achieved by law, is a separate question. The number of firearms present in our country is tremendous, and the attachment to their possession very great among a great many people. Even if one considers this attachment to possession of firearms romantic and irrational, it remains real, and potent as a political force. In the final analysis, it is not just the numbers of people holding a particular view that gives it its political force: its political force is a product of the number holding the view times the intensity with which it is held. A greater number who are in favor of a position, but not too deeply attached to it, will not prevail over a smaller number who hold a contrary view to which they are very deeply attached. As a matter of practical politics, your side is in the stronger position in this debate, and likely to remain so. It is not a question which engages me deeply on either side. As a boy, shooting was a great pleasure; as an adult living in a large city, it has never seemed necessary to me to own a fire-arm, even in the period it is my habit to refer to as 'my adventurous youth'. Many of those I have personally encountered who pressed a case for needing firearms to 'protect themselves' struck me as people who should on no account be let near possession of anything more readily lethal than a popsicle stick, being wholly unsuited in my view to wield lethal force owing to unsound temperament and lack of good sense concerning other people, particularly people not closely resembling them.

[benEzra]

51. I agree on some points. More thoughts, at length:

That of 'stranger', is the one in which persons who have 'built up to murder' will be concentrated: these are usually the acts of 'career criminals', seasoned by those of lunatics. The category of 'friends and acquaintances' certainly will contain a number of criminals, or at least persons with some record of violence, but the killings in these categories generally 'blow up' out of some casual altercation or minor quarrel. The same is generally true of family killings, though these momentary quarrels often arise from long grudges, or patterns of psychopathy in a dominant partner. Pre-meditated killings by surprise are pretty rare over-all: very few people actually think like that, and even fewer have the mental character needed to act on such thoughts.

I think we are mostly in agreement here.

It is certainly true persons of a certain temperament and possessed of practiced skill can wield contact weapons with great efficacy, but these things are not very common. Most people trying to use a knife to kill will make a serious hash of it. Given the overall history of weapons usage, it seems rather silly to try and argue seriously that firearms are not more effective killing implements than blades and clubs. You might as well try and argue that a motor truck offers no advantages over a horse-cart in conveying goods over a distance: certainly both can do it, but one certainly does so at greater speed and with greater ease and requires a good deal less craft-knowledge on the part of the driver.

We are in partial agreement here as well. Our disagreement is primarily one of degree; I think to a degree you underestimate the threat posed by an unpracticed aggressor with a knife. I am licensed to carry a firearm, and honestly an attacker with a knife worries me somewhat more than a person with a gun. Knives are effective maiming/killing weapons, but (from the criminal's standpoint) have less power of intimidation than a gun might; they are also silent, whereas a gunshot sounds an alarm over several blocks. Hence, a robber wielding a knife is considerably more likely to initiate the confrontation with a slash or stab, whereas a robber wielding a gun is more likely to open with a verbal or nonverbal threat rather than actual shots fired. I have read somewhere that the proportion of knife robberies in which the victim gets slashed or stabbed may be as high as 1 in 3, but would have to do some digging to find a primary source.

Beyond 7 yards or so, there is no doubt, the gun usually wins if the shooter is halfway competent; in closer, with a civilian gun, a strong, athletic knife wielder, and no intervening cover, it is a more even fight, in my opinion.

My point is simply the general one, that a conflict between persons in which a firearm is present is more likely to have a lethal outcome than one in which no firearm is present. This suggests that a reduction in the number of firearms in circulation would have the effect of depressing the incidence of unlawful killing across the board.

Assuming for the sake of argument that your initial premise is correct, I believe your conclusion is a non sequitur because you conflate two largely separate populations as if they were a single culture. You could confiscate 98% of all the guns in the USA and have absolutely no effect on the unlawful gun violence rate, if you take the guns of those who have never misused them and likely never will.

Alas, most recent gun-control proposals have done precisely that, targeting the nonviolent and law-abiding rather than the criminally violent. It is conceptually much easier, after all, to ban the law-abiding from buying popular guns than it is to investigate and prosecute straw gun purchasers, to prosecute those who attempt to buy guns illegally and fail the NICS check, to patch the holes in the court system such that violent criminals who use firearms are actually prosecuted instead of having the gun charges always be plea-bargained away. It is even harder to rebuild the trust of an inner-city community between the police and those they are supposed to serve, and to create functioning inner-city schools and economies and a thriving inner-city culture.

It was once passionately argued, in the early 20th century, that a profound reduction in the amount of legal alcoholic beverage in circulation would have the effect of depressing the incidence of irresponsible alcohol use across the board. The 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act did just that, and the result wasn't a reduction in alcohol misuse; it ultimately caused an increase in alcohol related mortality and morbidity (including an epidemic of blindness from methanol poisoning), drove formerly-legal alcohol commerce underground, shifted the market sharply toward the hardcore drinks (whisky largely displacing beer, as it was easier to smuggle on a per-dose basis), glamorized misuse, and gave rise to organized crime and the inevitable turf wars. And things continued to spiral out of control until Prohibition was replaced by a regulated-commerce, right-to-drink model.

Were a comprehensive gun ban to somehow be implemented, and the legitimate gun market driven underground, I do not believe that criminal gun misuse would be significantly impacted. On the contrary, I believe it would exacerbate it.

Whether this could be put into practical effect as a policy, or achieved by law, is a separate question. The number of firearms present in our country is tremendous, and the attachment to their possession very great among a great many people. Even if one considers this attachment to possession of firearms romantic and irrational, it remains real, and potent as a political force. In the final analysis, it is not just the numbers of people holding a particular view that gives it its political force: its political force is a product of the number holding the view times the intensity with which it is held. A greater number who are in favor of a position, but not too deeply attached to it, will not prevail over a smaller number who hold a contrary view to which they are very deeply attached. As a matter of practical politics, your side is in the stronger position in this debate, and likely to remain so. It is not a question which engages me deeply on either side. As a boy, shooting was a great pleasure; as an adult living in a large city, it has never seemed necessary to me to own a fire-arm, even in the period it is my habit to refer to as 'my adventurous youth'.

I agree with you here. And lawful gun owners are indeed deeply committed to preserving the rights we have left; the right to continue to own the classes of guns we now own is not open to negotiation. There may be common ground to be found on further proposals narrowly targeted at criminal misuse, but the rights of the law-abiding are not on the table.

Many of those I have personally encountered who pressed a case for needing firearms to 'protect themselves' struck me as people who should on no account be let near possession of anything more readily lethal than a popsicle stick, being wholly unsuited in my view to wield lethal force owing to unsound temperament and lack of good sense concerning other people, particularly people not closely resembling them.

I have no doubt that this is sometimes true. And some of those probably do manage to legally disqualify themselves from gun ownership as well, via unwise life choices. But I believe the incompetents are vastly outnumbered by the competent majority.

In most of the United States, of the competent, educated people you encounter on a daily basis, between one in five, and one in two, personally own a gun. If you drive down an average well-kept suburban street in most of the United States, roughly half will contain guns. You don't notice the competent majority simply because you don't realize we own guns when you encounter us in daily life.

If you knew me, or visited my house, or saw me sitting on a park bench watching my children playing, you probably wouldn't know that both my wife and I personally own guns, either (even though I might even have one on my person). You'd see me as the bespectacled, thirtysomething man with short hair and a slightly graying goatee, reasonably well dressed, probably with a thick book in my hand. And it's primarily people like me that the U.S. gun-control lobby is fighting to disarm.

[The Magistrate]

52. Though We Got Off On The Wrong Foot, Sir, This Is Developed Into A Decent Conversation

Perhaps my most serious point of disagreement with you is the belief you seem to have that the populace divides neatly into criminals and non-criminals. It is far from clear to me that this is the case. It is true that the respectable suburbanite you picture as the ideal of non-criminal gun ownership is unlikely ever to turn to mugging for a living, but he might easily, under the many stresses that flesh is heir to, give way to violence against some close to him when put to some breaking strain. Divorces, custody battles, business reverses, exposure of various sorts of secret lives, and much more, can put a person into a frame of mind in which violence can come to seem something like salvation and release, and wholly appropriate as a response. A great deal goes on behind respectable facades that never comes to the attention of the police, and will never come to their attention, at least until something goes hideously wrong. On occasion, my neighbors and acquaintances have included persons actively involved in criminal pursuits and members of street gangs, and they were reasonably safe to be around on a personal level of sharing the landing and the courtyard, though doubtless quite dangerous in other contexts. They certainly had police records, but they got my hackles up less as present dangers of immediate violence to my person than a drunken fraternity boy from the college near the lake.

On the question of relative danger, we will probably have to agree to disagree. My view is based on some practical experience of street fights, both as a teenager and as a grown man, conditioned by a modest training years ago in Korean karate, including stick fighting with something approximating a policeman's billy-club. It would never occur to me to imagine that, with a knife in my hand facing a man with a pistol in his fifteen feet away, there was much point to pressing the issue, and my course would be flight if it was even remotely practical to flee.

We are in agreement, whole-heartedly it would seem, that serious enforcement of some laws already on the books would be most desirable. Prosecution of straw buyers particularly would be most helpful, as this is a chief way guns do come into genuinely criminal hands, second only to theft from the chain of supply and burglary in which firearms are part of the loot. In enforcing various present laws, it would probably be helpful to have a central register of purchases and purchasers maintained, as this could bring to light very quickly patterns of purchase typical of illicit trade, and link fire-arms found to be used in commission of trade to those who had initially provided them, opening them to more serious charges that would serve as hefty deterrents to seeking an income by this means.

[Major Hogwash]

58. Not from 5 feet away they're not.

A bullet can travel farther than a mile and most knives are small enough to be concealed, which is why they are considered a deadly weapon and not allowed on airlines.

[Edweird]

39. "they'd still be alive" You know this how? Knives kill just like guns do.

And they do it in a manner that doesn't attract a lot of attention. A pipe bomb kills indiscriminately. If someone is intent on killing, a lack of firearms will not stop them.

[Paladin]

59. And What Are You Willing To Do.....

....to keep guns out of the hands of stupid people---that notion you claim to be so "down with"?

I ask because our resident gun extremists don't seem to be willing to do anything truly proactive to stem gun violence in the U.S. What they're "down with" is: AFTER a person develops a debilitating mental affliction, and AFTER that person acquires a stack of guns and ammunition with ridiculous ease, and AFTER that person takes one or more of those weapons to an ex-lover's house/shopping mall/office building/school/church/commuter train/wherever, and AFTER said person stacks some bodies up, and AFTER that person uses his weapon to end his own life, as virtually always happens; AFTER all that, our gun folks are in favor of by-God throwing the book at such an individual.

Nothing's solved by a recitation of the foregoing; I just feel it ought to be pointed out very once in a while.....

[stevedeshazer]

21. Lotta jargon here, help me out

I'm not anti-gun, but I don't own any.

50bmg gun

.17 Hornet

20mm Lahti.

Gun novice here. What are these things?

[The Straight Story]

26. Size matters (Think of beer)

Denotes the size of the cartridge/bullet used.

A cartridge holds the charge (powder) - the bigger the cartridge the more the power behind it.

A .17 Hornet for example is small and does not have a lot of powder in it and has a smaller bullet attached to it - good for shooting birds and ground hogs maybe.

A 50 BMG (Browning Machine Gun as we say) has a lot more power, bigger cartridge, and a bigger bullet in it - goes further and does a lot more damage.

Like a can of beer versus a 24 pack if you will. Drink a can and you might feel a tad better, drink a case or more and you will be feeling a lot different.

If you want to shoot down a helicopter you wouldn't use a .17 you would use a 20mm, bigger bullet and a lot more power behind it.

[stevedeshazer]

29. Thanks

That was helpful.

I appreciate it.

Not sure about the beer analogy, though.

:)

[The Straight Story]

31. Well then.....

Imagine a small glass of beer versus a 1000 oz glass of rum :rofl:

I prefer the rum ;)

[Richard Steele]

32. Those are various sizes of rifle rounds.

The 17 Hornet is about the smallest commercially produced rifle round,
while the 50BMG is the largest you can buy without obtaining special
permits and paying special taxes.





That's a .50 BMG round on the right there (BMG stands for Browning Machine Gun),
the .17 Hornet is a bit smaller than the round on the left.

The 20mm Lahti is about twice the size of that 50BMG; it's a WWII Finnish
anti-tank round that falls into that "special permit & taxes" category.

Couldn't find a good pic of the Lahti shell to show the size, but here's
what the rifle looks like (not a joke):

[aikoaiko]

47. Excellent post. K&R

[renate]

53. I'm so sorry

What a tragedy. Absolutely heartbreaking. :cry:

[G_j]

55. not "caused" by guns, just from guns

"They say there about 33,000 deaths a year caused by guns." ?

[Orsino]

56. I don't fear responsible gun ownership.

I fear those who revere the ownership without a whiff of responsibility. I fear their violent rhetoric, and their glib assertions that their guns solve all problems, even as I agree that the Second Amendment is an important basic liberty.

They are the few we should fear, along with, of course, our monolithic government that shoots first and suppresses questions later. I was an expert marksman in the Army, and still have some interest in target practice and other activities with inanimate targets. I just don't get the phallus-worship that drives the real nuts, or the fundamental insecurity that feeds it.

[CODemocrat]

60. very sad...

I hate that