A common sense approach to gun control

Beansie Time, I want to applaud your masterful use of logic and language - and your emotional control. I see you as a very effective voice in defense of our rights, and in educating those who purposefully or unwittingly try to take them away. Well done!
 
So far nothing exactly like you want, but here's some interesting 'semi-related' info from a blog that was in answers to 20/20 'If I only had a gun' segment.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/04/13/if-i-had-only-a-gun/

...
Often, the mere confrontation with an armed response takes them out of their revenge fantasy and derails the killing spree.

Some examples:

1997, Pearl, Mississippi: A 16-year old boy stabs his mother to death, then goes to the local high school to continue his rampage with a rifle. An assistant principal hears the gunshots, retrieves a pistol from his truck, and confronts the assailant. The boy surrenders.

1998, Edinboro, Pennsylvania: A 14-year old boy opens fire at a high school graduation dance being held at a local restaurant. The restaurant owner confronts the boy with his shotgun, who surrenders.

2002, Appalachian Law School: Two law students with law enforcement and military backgrounds run to their cars, grab handguns, and stop an expelled law student on a rampage.

2005, Tyler, Texas: A distraught man ambushes his estranged wife and son as they are entering the courthouse for a child support hearing. After killing his wife and wounding several deputies, armed citizen Mark Wilson intervenes with his handgun and shoots the spree shooter. The shooter is wearing a flak jacket and kills Wilson with return fire. Wilson’s actions broke up the attack and gave law enforcement officers time to organize a response that ended with the shooter’s death. Wilson is later honored by the Texas legislature.

2005, Tacoma Mall: A spree shooter with a criminal record and five days’ worth of meth in his system opens fire at the Tacoma Mall. Concealed carry permit holder Dan McKown intervenes, but gives a verbal warning instead of shooting. McKown is shot and receives a spinal injury that leaves him paralyzed, but the shooter retreated into a store and took some hostages after being confronted. After complaining about life’s travails to his hostages for several hours, he is taken into custody and sentenced to 163 years in prison.

2007, New Life Church, Colorado: Volunteer security guard Jeanne Assam shoots a spree shooter as he enters the foyer of a church. The spree shooter’s blaze of glory is over, so he shoots and kills himself.

2008, Israel: A Palestinian man goes on a killing spree in the library of a seminary. Police officers stop at the door and do not go in after him. Student Yitzhak Dadon draws his gun and engages the shooter, wounding him. Part-time student and Israeli Army officer David Shapira blows past the cops, demanding a hat to identify him as a police officer and not the assailant, before entering the building and killing the spree shooter.

2009, Houston, Texas: Distraught woman enters her father’s workplace and shoots one man with a bow and arrow. She points a pellet gun at two employees, both concealed handgun permit holders, who shoot her. Police show up and she points the pellet gun at them. They shoot her again and take her into custody.
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Beansie_Time said:
So I have communicated through email with the editor of the Derry News and he is going to publish an op ed piece from me in their next edition in response to this story.
I want to focus on the downfalls of licensing and how it doesn't work to prevent crime.
Does anyone have any good citable statistics or stories of how licensing affects crime rates? Or especially a citable story of someone being attacked by a violent criminal while waiting for a license?
I'll be doing some research on Goal's website and I already have a few sets of FBI crime statistics to cite but I thought I'd check here to see if anyone has any other sources.
Thanks in advance.
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Don't conflate firearms with any other political ideology. Stick to the 2nd Amendment. The NRA and other advocates have taken a long time to figure out that associating firearms with white blue collar southern males means that instead of 300 million potential 2A supporters there are 300 - 40 mil minorities - 10 million Jews - 150 million women means 100 million potential supporters. We are holding our own right now because of Democrats. Don't forget that.
 
livefreeorhere said:
I added a comment. This can't happen to NH too.
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I fear it is the shape of things to come.

One question: why do we always have to use epithets? Why do we call an immature and misguided 19 or 20 year old girl a bitch or a whore? I guess anger and lashing out are all part of the Forum now...too bad.

Mark056
 
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I just find it odd that they cling to the notion that somehow eliminating the presence of guns would have prevented the murder or incident. The mere presence of the gun somehow is the catalyst for the event, not the individuals who chose their actions.

Beansie and Cekim , well done.
 
Beansie_Time said:
So I have communicated through email with the editor of the Derry News and he is going to publish an op ed piece from me in their next edition in response to this story.
I want to focus on the downfalls of licensing and how it doesn't work to prevent crime.
Does anyone have any good citable statistics or stories of how licensing affects crime rates? Or especially a citable story of someone being attacked by a violent criminal while waiting for a license?
I'll be doing some research on Goal's website and I already have a few sets of FBI crime statistics to cite but I thought I'd check here to see if anyone has any other sources.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
www.massgunlawreform.com
http://www.goal.org/MGLR/Evidence.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/uk/newsid_1440000/1440764.stm

http://gunowners.org/fs0404.htm

http://www.wmsa.net/news/WashingtonTimes/wt-031003_cdc_study.htm

Search terms:
Yahoo: "CDC gun control ineffective"
Yahoo: "UK crime stats vs gun control"

p.s. best to get to the bottom of each of these (the root source) - I'll keep looking today...
 
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You might also want to check out Four Hundred Years of Gun Control (Why Isn't It Working) by Howard Nemerov.
 
Here's another good link, it's a state by state violent crime listing, the data is from the FBI.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004912.html

What needs to be done is to show where the states and or cities with the most stringent gun laws have higher violent crime rates than the ones with more open gun laws.

The problem is that liberals base their beliefs on feelings as opposed to facts and data, you need to make sure that you show them that stricter and more restrictive gun laws don't reduce crime, they do quite the opposite, and that's pure fact.
 
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Thanks guys, I'm going to finish some research and write my piece tonight when I get home from work. I'll post it up here once I send it in to him, or maybe before for a little critique from some of you folks.
I plan on just focusing on the fact thatb licensing doesn't work, as licensing was the focus of the previous piece. I want to highlight that it can eliminate those most in need of a gun (the poor, those who live in bad areas).
Terraformer that sounds like good advice but I was going to include an argument against the cost of setting up a maintaining a licensing system with regards to NH's currently increased government spending. Do you feel I should eliminate that part so as not to sound like I'm making it a partisan issue?
For the record I don't support either democrats or republicans as I have been a libertarian leaning independent for quite some time.
 
Beansie_Time said:
Thanks guys, I'm going to finish some research and write my piece tonight when I get home from work. I'll post it up here once I send it in to him, or maybe before for a little critique from some of you folks.
I plan on just focusing on the fact thatb licensing doesn't work, as licensing was the focus of the previous piece. I want to highlight that it can eliminate those most in need of a gun (the poor, those who live in bad areas).
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Yeah, the racism/classism issue so well demonstrated by the "No guns for Negros" documentary, and generally that licensing has been a precursor to very bad things... [thinking]

Happy to help in any way you need...
 
Beansie_Time said:
Terraformer that sounds like good advice but I was going to include an argument against the cost of setting up a maintaining a licensing system with regards to NH's currently increased government spending. Do you feel I should eliminate that part so as not to sound like I'm making it a partisan issue?
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So long as you keep it factual and don't go on a big government is bad rant it should be fine. Obviously your own political philosophy should inform your opinion and the writing. The trick is to be true to that without being off putting to others.

Also, I like cekim's idea to reference or watch before writing the No guns for negroes piece. The grand daddy of gun control use to also copy almost verbatim nazi germany's gun control laws. You may want to dig up that recent thread on the subject too.

But if you raise these points be sure to draw a line between that gun control and today. It is not enough to say "See, this is what it was used for in the past" and imply it's use is the same today. The best way to do this in my mind is focus on the MA licensing scheme which seems to correlate limited rights with urban and minority rich towns and cities.
http://northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=8703
 
Remember that most 'casual' anti's - meaning the non-rabid ones. The one's that don't activly promote anti-gun causes but nod their heads and say 'that makes sense' when the anti's talk base their position on sound bites an emotional arguments.

"Guns have no purpose other then killing"

[*]You're not going to defuse this argument with talk of target shooting etc. You can mention it but you need to agree that guns are indeed weapons, but a weapon is just a tool. My tool is going to be used, if needed, to defend me and my family and that's it.

"Statistics show you're more likely to use a gun on a family member then to defend yourself."

[*]Good, then that means I'll never have to shoot someone because I'm never going to shoot someone in my family.

'Assault weapons are used only by criminals. Only the police/army should have them.

[*]Here's where you can show the stats that less then 3% of all gun crime is committed with rifles and even less so with so-called 'Assault Weapons'. I'm not a criminal, I have never committed a crime - I would be prohibited from owning a gun if I had. You can trust me.

Casual anti's share the mistaken belief in the idea that if guns were eliminated, violent crime would be less 'easy' and, thus, less likely to happen. DO NOT make the argument that 'laws don't stop crime'. You and I both know what that means, but to the casual anti that statement doesn't make sense. Instead show the stats re the INCREASE in violent crimes in areas w/strict gun laws and keep it to 'history and statistics show that gun control DOESN'T reduce violence. We need to focus on creating and passing laws that do. Remember, the casual anti LIKES more laws. They make him feel warm, fuzzy and safe. The idea of less law is terrifying to the casual anti - they equate it with chaos.

Remember. They're 'sheep'. Arguing that they should stop being sheep and become sheepdogs isn't going to work. If they wanted to be sheepdogs, they would have done something already. Sheepdogs don't hurt sheep, but sheep are afraid of them anyway. Sheep are stupid, they think the sheepdog's a wolf.

What you have to convince them is that 1) they don't need to fear the sheepdogs. 2) you're a sheepdog, not a wolf. 3) taking away the sheepdogs doesn't make the wolf go away
 
Bob P said:
Remember. They're 'sheep'. Arguing that they should stop being sheep and become sheepdogs isn't going to work. If they wanted to be sheepdogs, they would have done something already. Sheepdogs don't hurt sheep, but sheep are afraid of them anyway. Sheep are stupid, they think the sheepdog's a wolf.

What you have to convince them is that 1) they don't need to fear the sheepdogs. 2) you're a sheepdog, not a wolf. 3) taking away the sheepdogs doesn't make the wolf go away
Click to expand...

+3! I'm going to save this- well said!
 
Good luck, Beansie. I am sure that you will write a very compelling piece and make all us pro-2A folks look good. Thanks for fighting the good fight!
 
Bob P said:
What you have to convince them is that 1) they don't need to fear the sheepdogs. 2) you're a sheepdog, not a wolf. 3) taking away the sheepdogs doesn't make the wolf go away
Click to expand...
There is also the matter of regulating the crap out of something (and violating our civil rights) that kills/injuries far fewer people than so many other things...

"The problem" even as bad as it is in those places that have the most onerous gun control, is still blown out of proportion...

I really like the fire extinguisher argument on the "why do you need X?"

And let's remember that the Constitution was written by a group of people who had just cast off an oppressive regime. To say that they intended to do anything but ensure that this could be accomplished again if need be is absurd on its face...

Probability of a house fire (causing injury or death):
0.223% (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/344/25/1911)

Probability of a violent crime:
0.466% (466 for each 100K people of 2007 - http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t31062007.pdf)
Aggravated assault alone is 0.283% or higher than the probability of a fire...

Probability of property crime:
3.26% (3263 per 100K people)

82% of society will be a victim of a violent crime during their lifetimes. 3 out of 4 women will be victims of at least one Sexual Abuse.
(http://www.articlebiz.com/article/11482-1-pepper-spray-protect-your-life/)

Some other interesting stats:
http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Firearms/Data/Crime/Kennesaw Georgia and Others

http://btarl63.newsvine.mobi/_news/2009/05/17/2827389-what-if-we-encouraged-gun-ownership

Comparative tool - compare city to city and national:
http://ypsilanti.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=Ypsilanti&s1=MI&c2=ann+arbor&s2=MI

Geez, I need more guns.. [laugh]
 
Bob P said:
Remember that most 'casual' anti's - meaning the non-rabid ones. The one's that don't activly promote anti-gun causes but nod their heads and say 'that makes sense' when the anti's talk base their position on sound bites an emotional arguments.

"Guns have no purpose other then killing"

[*]You're not going to defuse this argument with talk of target shooting etc. You can mention it but you need to agree that guns are indeed weapons, but a weapon is just a tool. My tool is going to be used, if needed, to defend me and my family and that's it.

"Statistics show you're more likely to use a gun on a family member then to defend yourself."

[*]Good, then that means I'll never have to shoot someone because I'm never going to shoot someone in my family.

'Assault weapons are used only by criminals. Only the police/army should have them.

[*]Here's where you can show the stats that less then 3% of all gun crime is committed with rifles and even less so with so-called 'Assault Weapons'. I'm not a criminal, I have never committed a crime - I would be prohibited from owning a gun if I had. You can trust me.

Casual anti's share the mistaken belief in the idea that if guns were eliminated, violent crime would be less 'easy' and, thus, less likely to happen. DO NOT make the argument that 'laws don't stop crime'. You and I both know what that means, but to the casual anti that statement doesn't make sense. Instead show the stats re the INCREASE in violent crimes in areas w/strict gun laws and keep it to 'history and statistics show that gun control DOESN'T reduce violence. We need to focus on creating and passing laws that do. Remember, the casual anti LIKES more laws. They make him feel warm, fuzzy and safe. The idea of less law is terrifying to the casual anti - they equate it with chaos.

Remember. They're 'sheep'. Arguing that they should stop being sheep and become sheepdogs isn't going to work. If they wanted to be sheepdogs, they would have done something already. Sheepdogs don't hurt sheep, but sheep are afraid of them anyway. Sheep are stupid, they think the sheepdog's a wolf.

What you have to convince them is that 1) they don't need to fear the sheepdogs. 2) you're a sheepdog, not a wolf. 3) taking away the sheepdogs doesn't make the wolf go away
Click to expand...

well said. the old arguments aren't working and while valid they need to be re-worked so the sheeple understand.
 
cekim said:
There is also the matter of regulating the crap out of something (and violating our civil rights) that kills/injuries far fewer people than so many other things...

"The problem" even as bad as it is in those places that have the most onerous gun control, is still blown out of proportion...

I really like the fire extinguisher argument on the "why do you need X?"

And let's remember that the Constitution was written by a group of people who had just cast off an oppressive regime. To say that they intended to do anything but ensure that this could be accomplished again if need be is absurd on its face...

Probability of a house fire (causing injury or death):
0.223% (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/344/25/1911)

Probability of a violent crime:
0.466% (466 for each 100K people of 2007 - http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t31062007.pdf)
Aggravated assault alone is 0.283% or higher than the probability of a fire...

Probability of property crime:
3.26% (3263 per 100K people)

82% of society will be a victim of a violent crime during their lifetimes. 3 out of 4 women will be victims of at least one Sexual Abuse.
(http://www.articlebiz.com/article/11482-1-pepper-spray-protect-your-life/)

Some other interesting stats:
http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Firearms/Data/Crime/Kennesaw Georgia and Others

http://btarl63.newsvine.mobi/_news/2009/05/17/2827389-what-if-we-encouraged-gun-ownership

Comparative tool - compare city to city and national:
http://ypsilanti.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=Ypsilanti&s1=MI&c2=ann+arbor&s2=MI

Geez, I need more guns.. [laugh]
Click to expand...

Wayyy too rational for that crowd. The extent of their logical abilities is summed up in the flawed thesis that:

If violence is bad and guns are used in violent situations then guns are bad.

I see the flaws in that rational, you see the flaws in that rational but they don't.

Also, bringing up the true purpose of the 2nd does nothing but scare the ever-living crap out of them. If you're going to discuss it and you want them to actually listen, you need to do that part from a theoritical standpoint only: "Founders needed the means to defend themselves. in 1776 it was from a tyrannical colonizing power. Today it could be from gangs and other criminals etc."

You start talking about 'protecting' them from their own government and they're not going to see sheepdogs, they're going to see wolves.
 
Bob P said:
You start talking about 'protecting' them from their own government and they're not going to see sheepdogs, they're going to see wolves.
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True - I was trying to provide stats for the fire extinguisher argument and got sidetracked by reality again. I apologize... [laugh]

p.s. though the reality is they are happy to talk about "big scary government" when it suits their needs... Note the Bush years, the 60's, the 80's, etc....
 
Something that's extremely quotable is the US Department of Justice report on the efficacy of the AWB.

Should it [The Assault Weapons Ban] be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. AWs [Assault Weapons defined by the AWB]were rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban. LCMs [Large Capacity Magazines] are involved in a more substantial share of gun crimes, but it is not clear how often the outcomes of gun attacks depend on the ability of offenders to fire more than ten shots (the current magazine capacity limit) without reloading.
Click to expand...

Link to that report HERE

Another fact form the DOJ:
"After 1996, less than 10% of nonfatal violent crimes involved firearm."
Click to expand...
 
cekim said:
True - I was trying to provide stats for the fire extinguisher argument and got sidetracked by reality again. I apologize... [laugh]

p.s. though the reality is they are happy to talk about "big scary government" when it suits their needs... Note the Bush years, the 60's, the 80's, etc....
Click to expand...

[laugh]Well it WAS scary then! Now that Obama's in charge it's entirely benevolent! Come ON Cekim, get with the program!
 
Bob P said:
[laugh]Well it WAS scary then! Now that Obama's in charge it's entirely benevolent! Come ON Cekim, get with the program!
Click to expand...
[sad2]

Although I got a good hearty laugh when he continued tribunals, wiretapping, Iraq, Afghanistan and generally keeps the Patriot Act intact...

For so many "independents" and "undecideds" that was the only issue they were voting on this election (our "defense" policy).

In contrast to the liberal elite who were voting to deny their rampant racism and then other democrats who were voting to affirm their racism[sad2].

At least I'll laugh until they use it all to come after me... [thinking]
 
I just got an email back from the editor. My opinion piece will be running in the June 18th edition of the Derry News.
 
JohnM said:
Sounds reasonable to me. What harm could come of full registration and tracking of all weapons and owners by the state? If you look back on history nothing bad has ever come of this!

QUOTE]

I agree, get rid of all Guns.. Lets make them illeagal for everyone... Next lets target drugs and make them illegal.. If we just got together and made some common sense rules about Heroin and Morphoine and Cocaine, our drug problems would also go away..

Huh?? We did that?? 100 Years?? How come we still have drugs?? They are illeagal everywhere.. Surley the bad guys realize this..
Click to expand...
 
Hmm another interesting point on the paper's online presense.

The newspaper changed the ability to make comments. Previously you could leave a comment without having to create an account.

Now they require a person to register, login and validate their email address to allow a comment to be posted. So expect fewer replies now.

Maybe they didn't like the 'common sense' opinion article being at the top of the 'most discussed' list?
 

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