You people just don't get it do you? A gun has one purpose: To kill. Just
any other tool, a gun, if it is available _will_ be used at some point.
So making sure there are lots of guns around only serves to make a lot of people very dead. This is a Bad Thing.
Gun control laws are not the issue. It's a matter of mentality. In Europe, where we have rather strict guncontrol laws, and have had them for a long time a decent human being will not even think of shooting someone else. In
At 07:16 PM 10/1/97 +0100, Alex Le Heux wrote: like the
US, where guns are tradition and part of the American way, many people would not think twice before shooting someone. The result of this is that the number of people getting killed by guns is enourmous, be they criminals, little kids, old grannies, or presidents.
You are right to the extent that the US has a more violent culture than the UK and many other European countries, and has a higher murder rate. However, your argument that the presence of guns == corpses is demonstrably false. Private ownership of firearms has a significant deterrent effect on violent crime. This may not be obvious when comparing the US to the UK, but when comparing the statistics for areas within a country, region, or city, it becomes indisputable. Before Kennesaw, Georgia passed its famous (or infamous) ordinance requiring each household in the city to own a gun and allowing concealed carry of firearms, it had an average of 25-27 violent crimes (murder, armed robbery, etc) per year. After the ordinance was passed, there was one violent crime the first year, and three the next. The gun control shills in the press reported this as a tripling in the violent crime rate. Since the state of Florida passed a "shall issue" concealed carry law (if you apply, pay the fee, pass the safety course, and are not a felon or mentally incompetent, the state shall issue you a concealed carry permit) it has experienced significant reductions (10-20%) in the rates of murder, rape, armed robbery, and other violent crimes. Even in England and Scotland, this inverse relationship between private gun ownership and violent crime can be demonstrated, according to Colin Greenwood, retired chief of the West Yorkshire Constabulary and criminology researcher since the sixties. The explanation for this phenomenon is simple. Most people are not mentally unbalanced, or violent criminals, and therefore are capable of safe and responsible gun ownership. I had a gun when my wife told me that she was having an affair with one of her co-workers. By your theory, my wife should be dead. However, she remains in good health, we communicate frequently, and are currently working on a reconciliation. Why? Because I (and most other people) have sufficient moral fortitude to reject the idea of committing murder for foolish reasons. I am not a lunatic, therefore I do not behave like one. When the general population is armed, especially if they are armed during their daily activities, the life of muggers, rapists, and murderers becomes extremely dangerous. People who insist on staying in these professions are quickly removed from the gene pool by natural selection, and the smarter ones gravitate to less dangerous professions, thereby reducing the crime rate in two separate ways. Even if only 10% of the population is carrying, the 1% or less that is still outgunned by a factor of 10 or more, and only fools play those odds. The US has a higher rate of murder by strangulation than does the UK. Would you argue that Americans posess more hands than their British counterparts? At 04:20 PM 10/1/97 -0400, Cynthia Brown wrote:
IMNSHO the best way to fight crime is not with bigger guns than the "bad guys", but with better social programs such as universal health care, and improved day care so single parents can show their kids what a productive lifestyle looks like. This takes longer than blowing the brains out of some teenager that feels his only path to a better life is through crime, and it doesn't give the same adrenalin rush. However, it works at the source of crime, and not the consequences.
We already have more social programs than we can afford--they are a large part of the problem. Why would a 19 year old work for minimum wage at an entry-level job when he can get on walfare and get better benefits than he would from the job, and thereby have the time to make $1000 per night selling crack. Jonathan Wienke What part of "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" is too hard to understand? (From 2nd Amendment, U.S. Constitution) PGP 2.6.2 RSA Key Fingerprint: 7484 2FB7 7588 ACD1 3A8F 778A 7407 2928 DSS/D-H Key Fingerprint: 3312 6597 8258 9A9E D9FA 4878 C245 D245 EAA7 0DCC Public keys available at pgpkeys.mit.edu. PGP encrypted e-mail preferred. Get your assault crypto before they ban it! US/Canadian Windows 95/NT or Mac users: Get Eudora Light + PGP 5.0 for free at http://www.eudora.com/eudoralight/ Get PGP 5.0 for free at http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pgp-form.html Non-US PGP 5.0 sources: http://www.ifi.uio.no/pgp/ http://www.heise.de/ct/pgpCA/download.shtml ftp://ftp.pca.dfn.de/pub/pgp/V5.0/ ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/pc/win95/pgp ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/mac/pgp http://www.shopmiami.com/utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/replay/pub/pgp/pgp50/win/ RSA export-o-matic: print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`