Just looked it up (Australian Gov. numbers):
"As of 1 July 2001 there were....2,165,170 firearms in Australia."

5.2% of the adult population of Australia own firearms.

So my comments, taking Australia into consideration just looking at "firearms" generally, isn't accurate.

For the point I was making, you can leave Australia out of the picture, or you can consider the issue of types of firearms -- for example, in Australia there are virtually no privately owned semi-auto pistols; compare the gun homicide rates in the U.S. involving semi-auto handguns to the gun homicide rates in Australia with the same type of pistol, then consider percentages measured against the legally owned guns...

My overall point (that some seem to be missing here) is that it is not the gun that is causing anything. It is a people issue; focusing on "guns" isn't a solution to crime problems.

Yeah the old story... guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people. More freely available guns mean more people with more guns kill more people.

Somehow, more dead people (per head of population) is something you want to use to use to somehow justify your argument (because there are EVEN MORE guns per head of population).

I can't prove this, and believe me I've tried (just search the archives here), but I am strongly suspicious that pretty much the sole reason for the increased gun homicide in the US is due to the availability of handguns.

Which would make intuitive sense, because they are portable and concealable, and make a great weapon in a crime of passion.

In New Zealand, there are very, very few handguns (tons of rifles/shotguns though). I'm pretty sure (from prior research) that we have relatively similar violent crime stats to the US - excepting gun crime - and in fact may be slightly higher up on stabbings and so on. This is because people don't often settle a dispute with a firearm.

And when you settle a dispute with a knife, the person is a lot less likely to die. This is intuitive, and common sense.

The whole "guns are good" premise seems to ride on the necessity of having more guns to deter the baddies with guns.

Should everyone have a gun? A requirement to bear arms?

I dunno. In all seriousness, while I could dream up what I think is an appropriate level of gun control (eg, no handguns except for collectors & sport shooting and transportation to sport shooting, no assault rifles, somewhat restrictive ownership), the crux of the matter is that in the US there is no way you can implement it in a way which accomplishes the goal.

Basically, IMHO, you are screwed. The country is so awash in guns that in a practical sense, no gun amnesty would ever get them in and no prohibition would ever take them out of the hands of criminal elements.

Perhaps an analysis of how you got yourselves into that mess is more appropriate ;)

competent:

Glad you bit.

Automobiles: Primary purpose is to provide transportation. Hammer: primary purpose is to drive nails. I could go on but even you should get the Gist. What is the primary purpose of an assault rifle?

I am sure happy that most of a continent separate us.

Cheers!!

As an old song says about a cheap handgun, "to put a man six feet deep in a hole" . . .

Though it sounds goofy, the whole idea is that we are able to own weapons powerful (competatively) enough to kill those in government when/if we are opressed. To protect us from our own government.

Sure it sounds crazy now, but that was really the whole point.

hmmmm... don't start putting ideas into anyone's head :)

It doesn't just SOUND crazy.

That's the whole point of the 2nd amendment? I don't think the founders were worried about protecting the people from their own government. The militia was intended to provide a military arm in defense of a young nation that didn't have a tax base to pay for a standing professional army.

I believe jefferson himself stated that the people need the ability to overthrow the government with force when it no longer responds to more civilized mechanisms for change.

I can't believe we are in agreement 350:)

There are many other quotes from the founders saying the same thing. The people (when organized en mass) were ALWAYS to be more powerful than the government.

Gun control is not a solution to crime problems. It is a partial solution to gun violence.

Gun control did - accidently I guess - reduce homicides in AUS both in total numbers and in rate.

Still don't believe the 2nd Amendment was meant to certify an individual citiznes right to any type or number of weapons. And I don't believe it prohibits gun control.

Good point, 350. He was referring to England, of course, and I don't believe he ever imagined a home grown government of "absolute despotism", but your point is well made.

You don't have to believe it steve, but the historical and legal facts are that it does.

You also can also refuse to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow but it doesn't change the fact that it will.

So you think he was referring to england as "governmentS"?

Wow! I can see you really haven't spent much time studying the history of the United States.

Yes, my "assault" weapons could be used -- in cooperation with other citizens -- to overthrow a criminal government. It is a last resort option to preserve freedom.

My firearms and willingness to use them defensively sounds like it's something that scares you -- which goes back to my earlier question: What do you want to do to me that you think my firearms are something that threaten you? If you respect my rights and do not intend to initiate violence against me, you'll never find yourself on the barrel end of my firearms.

Aside from their defensive use, I also love to use my "assault" weapons for fun. Assault weapons are sort of like sports cars -- in the normal routine of life, they do not have a whole lot of practical value, but they can be a he!! of a lot of fun! You seemed to have missed the analogy in my earlier post, or perhaps you've never spent an afternoon plinking with an AK-47?

" ... but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights ..."
-- Alexander Hamilton

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.
-- Alexander Hamilton

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson

There, I'm done for now. You're just wrong and should spend some time studying before speaking with such conviction....lest you be thought a fool:)

I second that opinion.

What would account for the reduced homicide rates before gun control in Australia? Look at all the numbers. Look at the graph. Those figures show absolutely no evidence of a causitive effect. You can't just look at the downward trend after the gun ban and ignore the downward trend before the ban.

Like I said earlier, if someone wants to believe gun control works, even facts to the contrary aren't going to change their mind.

-Chris

Capitol punishment for killing someone............It wouldn't completely stop violent crime, but it would sure as h*ll cut down on the number of repeat offenders. :p

Ok. So you need to be able to bear arms so you can rise up against your own govt.

I have two questions:

1) If you rise up against the govt, is it treason, or exercising your second amendment right? Further, is it treason if you lose and just "victory" if you win?

2) If you need to have the right to bear arms, as a well regulated militia is essential (see above), why do you need the arms for any other reason? Shouldn't the arms be locked away in all other circumstances?

You might as well just repeal the Second Amendment and start afresh on the whole issue of gun control without that outdated legislation getting in the way. ;) It wouldn't be the first time an amendment was repealed (anyone for Prohibition?).


Another thing occured to me as well - there is an argument about the porosity of borders making gun control (and keeping guns out of criminals' hands) impossible... you know, the old argument that if you make it hard for regular people to get guns you just hand the advantage to the criminals. So... how do you explain that there is so much lower gun crime in Canada (with gun control and an essentially open border).

The numbers drop dramatically after the ban. I choose to interpret that to mean the ban had an effect on the numbers. You choose otherwise. To what else should we attribute the change?

I quoted the sentence with "absolute despotism" in it. There it is government, in the singular - Jefferson refers to the British - not to some imaginary American dictatorship of the future. (Who's Steve?)

The fear of government (or governments) Jefferson had is not the interpretation you thrust upon him or his writings. He wrote, in justification and defense of the rebellion, about the British and the tyranny of royal colonial government - he did not fear a government that represented the people.

Why is the defense of gun ownership so fear based? Do you really expect to rise up against some weird American dictatorship in the future? That's the real reason gun control shouldn't exist? Has anyone got a good reason why there are so many more gun victims in the US versus other countries? Is it important or should we just ignore it?

I don't recall the East Germans, the Poles, the Ukraines, or the Lebanese population needing assault rifles to bring down their unresponsive governments.

This has been an interesting discussion but I'm going to move along. See ya in some other thread....

JSD:

Excellent idea. Assault weapons as "fun" and to overthrow the government is a bit much for me, and I live in a stste where guns are common, plentiful, and respected.

Sadly, someone who thinks the way Competent does makes him, to some people, a poster child for more stringent gun control.

I'm out of this thread as well. It is going mowhere fast. The question will never be resolved because, like so many issues, emotion, not logic, is in command.

Ohhhh He11...I think only illegal aliens should have guns....

Its the nature of self defense. Being assaulted or oppressed is something most people fear instead of looking forward to.

The U.S. and its military is responsible for the what happened in East Germany, Poland, USSR and Lebanon. So the treat of "assault rifles" did have a bearing.
You don't always have to use them for them to effect change. The knowledge of them, and the cost required to defend against them, is normally enough to make an overbearing gov't give into the needs of their people.
When the gov't controls the people, it does what it wants, and in order to do this they must disarm the people. Look at what is happening in Africa.

Terry
What happens to an unarmed people under a dictatorship? We Americans got our first live view of this via TV, from Hungary in 1954±, rocks against tanks.

tabs,

thanks for that.

Supporting the right of illegal aliens to have guns should be right up the Republican alley. The principal cause for illegals in California is economic. The farmers need cheap labor and so their Republican legislators will never truly cut off the supply. And since most gun rights poeple are Republican, it seems that this is a natural outcome.

So if there is ever an armed uprising of illegals living in this country agasinst the tyranny of local government, do we treat them as patriots or criminals.

So,
East Timorians, freedom fighters or terrorists?
Palestinans, freedom fighters or terrorists?

Sigh. If you look at the numbers you'd see they aren't a nice smooth curve or line. 1996 had a spike in deaths - perhaps a school yard massacre or something that year? Because the variability in data, one has to look at trends, not at a small part of the data to the exclusion of the other data. This is the sort of thing one learns in statistics class so it seems obvious to me but I guess it isn't to everyone.

Here's an example of how this sort of thing works:
Over the course of a month in the fall, average temperatures will go down. Some days will be unseasonably warm and others will be more winter like. The trend is for the temps to go down though. If a law was passed to restrict green house gas emissions on an unseasonably warm day, one cannot conclude that it was effective just because the days after that continued the cooling trend.

-Chris

The 1996 'spike' was due to the Port Arthur shootings. It only takes one unhinged individual to do this:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/bryant/index_1.html

So I guess if everyone had been armed, maybe he would have just killed under 5 in the confusion before someone would have shot him, and then someone else thinking there were two of them would have shot the good citizen.

Arming everyone certainly would have prevented a death here- NOT.

I guess you are agreeing with exactly what I am arguing! That the real intentions of many who are seeking more gun control is to disarm citizens like myself who believe in individual rights, liberty and the rule of law -- and who are willing to stand-up and fight if our society breaks down to the point where those things are lost.

Well here in Florida...I can carry a switchblade if I like with a CWP, no length restriction, which I have. However if I go to Ohio, they will honor the gun part of my permit but NOT the blade. Go figure.

\

Oh do they really? Seems to me that our electoral / voting process is pretty easily compromised. Big money is what controls our society today.

Just a few years ago here in the Seattle area, and I assume nationwide, an anti-gun group purchased some billboard space. On these billboards were photographs of small children, averaging perhaps 6-8 years old. The billboard quoted statistics on how many "children" were killed every year by gun violence. The NRA looked into the source quoted and discovered that "children" used to compile the quoted statistics were up to 21 years old. Some very large percentage of the "children" killed by guns were inner city youth between the ages of 18 to 21 involved in gang activity and the drug trade. Why did the billboard not accurately reflect the true make-up of the population actually used to compile the data? Why did they choose to plaster the faces of cute young children on the billboard rather than the older drug dealing gang bangers that make up the majority of the gun related deaths in their data? Out of the 10 to 12 "children" shown, to be an accurate reflection of the real population, only one should have been so young and cute and heart-wrenching. I'm not say that the older gang-bangers' lives are worth any less, and that their deaths are any less of a tragedy. Apparently, though, this particular anti-gun group felt they did not have the same "sympathy factor" and chose not to display the real faces behind the statistics.