Whatever happened to...

Dysfunction · Apr 6, 2015

RavingMac said:
Not my intent to dis anyone or start arguments, but I will listen to the anti-tattoo crowd when they show up wearing Phylacteries and Fringes on the hems of their robes, plus following all the other requirements in the Torah.
The way I read it, it's all or none, you don't get to pick and choose . . .

Yea... I got a sleeve going on.. it's ummm.. hard to miss

Oh... and shall we say a less-than-secular education

lclev · Apr 6, 2015

Well, I will never be a tattooed person - it's a needle avoidance issue for me. I don't care what others do and I even think some look very interesting.

I do remember standing in a Walmart line and looking at a much older lady who at one time had tattooed dragons on her "girls" and with her deep vee shirt they were on display. Only now, they looked like very stretched out long lizards. I used it as an object lesson for my kids, who were with me, and to this day no kids (now adults) with tattoos.

As for guns - while I know the government knows about my registered guns and I do have a concealed carry permit (required in my state), I am afraid the day has come that we need to be very careful about what we reveal and say on the subject. Sad and unfortunate.

But I do believe in the right to bare....bear arms!

Lisa

IWT · Apr 12, 2015

This is a great part of the forums and entirely new to me. I must drop in more often. I scan those parts of the forums which relate to the Apple products I own and I have made modest contributions when I thought I knew the answer—which to my embarrassment turned out not to be the case on a few occasions!

I have no strong views on tattoos. I agree with whoever said that, if generally visible to the passerby, they should be of a nature not to offend.

As for guns. We in the UK find the whole subject a mystery. Unless one is very naughty or has the wrong contacts, acquiring a gun of any sort is extraordinarily difficult. I think that we are sometimes quick to condemn following shoot outs and massacres. Easy to do and easy to understand why; but it is a question of culture and history. Yours and ours are very different. Shall we just say that my views are flexible and, of course, culturally biased!

Anyway, this is a good-fun forum. More exploring needed!

Ian

XJ-linux · Apr 12, 2015

I ground my 3 small leg and hand tattoos off with a Dremel and some Jack Daniels after college for a job. Who says they are permanent? Guns, on the other hand, I don't get rid of.

TattooedMac · Apr 12, 2015

IWT said:
As for guns. We in the UK find the whole subject a mystery. Unless one is very naughty or has the wrong contacts, acquiring a gun of any sort is extraordinarily difficult.

This is one thing that blew me away in my 3 yrs living and working in London, and the rest of the country. Im not sure if it was because I saw them on Police Officers on US Crime shows, or the local Cops I was around at home, but to go into a city with 1,000,000+ citizens, not 1 single Bobby had a handgun, or any gun for that matter.
Mind you, I count walk from Putney to Camden Town, without them knowing where I was, due to the huge amount of CCTV cameras in and around London. I think that alone was one reason for not needing Firearms. Then again, if the Bobby's don't have them, then the Crims can't get them from the Bobby's

IWT said:
Anyway, this is a good-fun forum. More exploring needed!

Ian

I traverse the New Posts Tag, but look in every forum, because that is the best way to broaden your knowledge. You learn by looking, then doing :Cool:

lclev · Apr 13, 2015

XJ-linux said:
I ground my 3 small leg and hand tattoos off with a Dremel and some Jack Daniels after college for a job. Who says they are permanent? Guns, on the other hand, I don't get rid of.

Ow Ow Ow Ow!!!!! That had to hurt!!! But I agree on the guns. I tend to hang on to mine too.

I grew up with guns - rifles mainly, so I never thought much about them being around. I raised my kids to respect and use them. We live in a rural area so deer, squirrel, rabbit, etc are frequently on the menu.

I was amazed when a friend of mind told me she was terrified of guns just laying on a table - but she was also afraid of computers too. Hum......not sure what that says.

Lisa

toMACsh · Apr 14, 2015

Too many guns around. Yesterday here, a little kid ran out in front of a car. The driver had no time to react. The kid did not survive, but the driver got out immediately to try to render aid. As a reward for this action, he was shot dead by someone from the house the kid lives in. No one would turn the person in to the police. There are, at the very least, too many irresponsible gun owners. Senseless!

lclev · Apr 14, 2015

toMACsh said:
Too many guns around. Yesterday here, a little kid ran out in front of a car. The driver had no time to react. The kid did not survive, but the driver got out immediately to try to render aid. As a reward for this action, he was shot dead by someone from the house the kid lives in. No one would turn the person in to the police. There are, at the very least, too many irresponsible gun owners. Senseless!

And there lies the problem. I come from a time when guns were a tool. Defense was not even discussed because that is not what they were used for at home. They were for hunting, sport, and food.

When I first started teaching, kids would bring their entire rifle to school and refinish the stocks or blue the barrel in my shop. I was a vocational agriculture teacher. We would have wild game cook offs at our FFA meetings.

No one though anything about a student with a gun on the rack in their pickup because they probably ran their trap lines before school or planned to go hunting after school.

Fast forward 30 years. By the time I retired in 2008, a student could not bring even a pocket knife or, heaven forbid, a forgotten 22 shell in their pocket to school or they were suspended and possibly facing expulsion.

Our society has changed and not for the better. Too many people with zero common sense and too many who don't value human life as we once did. So now we fault a mechanical object that propels a metal object and call it the problem. It isn't but it is the easiest to blame. More regulations, getting rid of all the guns, not the answer because the crooks will still have theirs.

I am all for gun registration, extensive training and background checks for any gun owner. Unfortunate that we should have to do that, but there are just too many who should never own a gun and there are too many illegal guns - especially in the hands of young immature adults.

But I said it before - 30 years ago this topic would have never come up. Sad.

Lisa

vansmith · Apr 14, 2015

lclev said:
More regulations, getting rid of all the guns, not the answer because the crooks will still have theirs.

I'm going to have to disagree with that one. There's an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that tighter gun control regulations/laws lowers the incidents of gun related violence. Yes, crooks have guns but that will always be the case. The answer, as I see it, is not to arm people for the sake of deterring people because research will show that this actually exacerbates the rate at which populations commit gun related crimes.

Don't get me wrong - guns have a time and a place and for some, it's a necessary tool (as you rightly noted). I'm just not convinced by the "gun as a means of deterring criminal behaviour" argument.

Just a note - I don't actually care either way if people own guns. I couldn't care less but I'm willing to admit that this is perhaps a consequence of me being in a context in which guns aren't a thing that people either have or ever talk about (I've only every met one person in my entire life who owned a gun and I'm nearing 30 here). I'm sure, as with anything, if guns were a part of my life on a (semi-)regular basis, my opinion would probably be different. In that respect, all I have to fall back on is research and a lived reality that encourage me to disagree (respectfully so).

zewazir · Apr 14, 2015

vansmith said:
I'm going to have to disagree with that one. There's an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that tighter gun control regulations/laws lowers the incidents of gun related violence.

I would really like to see that "overwhelming amount of evidence", because everything I have found falls into three basic categories, none of which supports the idea that stricter laws lower crime rates with respect to firearms.

First are the outright lies coming from government types whose primary purpose is to find more excuses to reduce liberty "for our own good". Like calling an auto-loading rifle an "assault weapon".

The second class are those reports which misuse statistics in support of a claim, such as the "fact" that other countries which have laws which severely limit - if not outright ban personal firearms - have lower firearms related crimes. Of course, they cherry pick their data, since there are also countries with extremely lax firearms laws, but very low crime rates, and there are countries with draconian firearms laws, and very high crime rates.

Then there is the third category, in which the data shows just the opposite: that looser laws, which allow people to choose more freely whether to own and/or carry a firearm, results in lower crime rates. Lisa's point is central: 30 years ago (or more) when laws regulating firearms were NOT as prevalent, gun control was not even an issue, and the concept of "gun free zones" would have been viewed as ludicrous. Going back even farther, to the 50's and 60's, people could MAIL ORDER firearms, yet gun crime was not a serious issue.

Prior to the years of prohibition and the resulting wave of organized crime revolving around the illicit trade in alcoholic beverages, people could go to the local gun store and pick up themselves a nice full-auto "tommy gun" with 50 or 75 round drum magazine, or even a full-functioning machine gun in 30 or 50 cal. Yet it took the mistake of prohibition and the resulting organized crime spree to make owning a full auto a "problem" in the eyes of government.

This indicates that the problem of crime using firearms is a CRIME problem, not a firearms problem.

IWT · Apr 15, 2015

The thoughtful remarks of toMAcash, Lisa, Van and zewazir make it all the more difficult for an outsider to comment without appearing to interfere in a society that has different roots, different backgrounds and ideology different from one's own.

What could be stated, I think without offence, is that views on this matter within the US are deeply entrenched and rigorously defended. It is rare to read about a "middle ground" approach. And arguments based on "selected" statistics only serve to reinforce the old adage that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics".

I can readily understand the hunter-gatherer need for arms which, no doubt still pertains in certain parts and I can appreciate the concept of self defence which has been a historical right, in law. But I stumble a bit in comprehending how one needs an AK47 or similar to achieve this.

However, as a foreigner, I shall quietly retire from this debate in a spirit of cross-Atlantic comradeship.

Ian

Sawday · Apr 15, 2015

"Every day in the U.S., an average of 289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention" (Brady Campaign).

I'm still amazed that so many Americans think it's a good idea to carry a gun. Here in the UK we don't carry guns - we tend not to get shot either.

toMACsh · Apr 15, 2015

zewazir said:
I would really like to see that "overwhelming amount of evidence", because everything I have found falls into three basic categories, none of which supports the idea that stricter laws lower crime rates with respect to firearms.

I don't think that is what was stated. It was "lower incidence of gun related violence." Now, when someone gets mad and shoots at another person, that becomes a crime, because such behavior is against the law. But it is precisely this type of "gun crime" that logic tells me could be reduced with stricter gun laws. Now, robberies committed using a gun is another matter, and probably would not be affected that much.

BlackBoxInquiry · Apr 15, 2015

CIA and other agencies own numbers show that the more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, the lower the crime rates are.

Haven't looked since last year, but they can't be *that* different.

Nobody can tell me that I cannot protect myself and my family. Criminals don't obey laws, thus their title.

There is no utopia, no free lunch and Gov't isn't the answer in most cases. Common sense and education are.

vansmith · Apr 15, 2015

zewazir said:
I would really like to see that "overwhelming amount of evidence", because everything I have found falls into three basic categories, none of which supports the idea that stricter laws lower crime rates with respect to firearms.

The strong and persistent correlation between gun control regulation and gun related crimes as evidenced in the rate of crimes committed with guns isn't evidence of this?

zewazir said:
First are the outright lies coming from government types whose primary purpose is to find more excuses to reduce liberty "for our own good". Like calling an auto-loading rifle an "assault weapon".

Without evidence, this is borderline conspiratorial.

zewazir said:
The second class are those reports which misuse statistics in support of a claim, such as the "fact" that other countries which have laws which severely limit - if not outright ban personal firearms - have lower firearms related crimes. Of course, they cherry pick their data, since there are also countries with extremely lax firearms laws, but very low crime rates, and there are countries with draconian firearms laws, and very high crime rates.

Without evidence, for all I know, you're cherry picking statistics as well.

zewazir said:
Then there is the third category, in which the data shows just the opposite: that looser laws, which allow people to choose more freely whether to own and/or carry a firearm, results in lower crime rates.

Without evidence, that makes no sense whatsoever. People here in Canada have fewer choices to carry guns and the gun related crime rate here is a fraction of what it is in the United States (not to mention the lower rates in Australia and Japan to name a few).

zewazir said:
Lisa's point is central: 30 years ago (or more) when laws regulating firearms were NOT as prevalent, gun control was not even an issue, and the concept of "gun free zones" would have been viewed as ludicrous. Going back even farther, to the 50's and 60's, people could MAIL ORDER firearms, yet gun crime was not a serious issue.

Ok, and how does that disprove my point that now there is a correlation? If the culture around gun use changes and the cultural context is one in which gun related violence becomes more normalized, it is very possible that a new correlation emerges. In other words, if using guns in violent acts is more normal now, we ought to look at how people use their guns and if they're more likely to be violent, perhaps regulation is the answer.

zewazir said:
Prior to the years of prohibition and the resulting wave of organized crime revolving around the illicit trade in alcoholic beverages, people could go to the local gun store and pick up themselves a nice full-auto "tommy gun" with 50 or 75 round drum magazine, or even a full-functioning machine gun in 30 or 50 cal. Yet it took the mistake of prohibition and the resulting organized crime spree to make owning a full auto a "problem" in the eyes of government.

Yes, prohibition pushed alcohol underground but the numerous examples (again, Canada, Australia and Japan are just a few) of countries that have gun control laws illustrates that the consequences of regulation are quantifiably different.

zewazir said:
This indicates that the problem of crime using firearms is a CRIME problem, not a firearms problem.

Ok, and one of the ways to cut off crime at its knees is to regulate the tools that people are increasingly using to commit crimes.

zewazir · Apr 15, 2015

Sawday said:
"Every day in the U.S., an average of 289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention" (Brady Campaign).

I'm still amazed that so many Americans think it's a good idea to carry a gun. Here in the UK we don't carry guns - we tend not to get shot either.

Thank you for proving my point about the use of bogus statistics and unsupported conclusions to promote gun control.

First of all, the UK has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. So exactly what has that accomplished? Two of the more restrictive laws in the UK were passed in 1988 and 1997. The 1997 amendment to the 1968 Firearms Act essentially banned private ownership of handguns. Did this control handgun crimes? In 1997, there were approximately 2700 reported crimes involving the use of a handgun. By 2001, that figure had increased to just under 6000. It was not until the passage of other laws which significantly increased the penalties for violent crime that the firearms crime rate started decreasing again in the UK. But 2013 numbers are still higher than 1997 numbers.

Conclusion: even outright bans on firearms do not reduce crimes using firearms. Logical, since criminals, by definition, don't obey the law.

Looking at the overall statistics for homicide, the UK has sat consistently between 0.8 and 1.2 homicides per 100,000 people for over 5 decades. The U.S. has sat UNconsistently between 4.6 and a peak of 7.1. The major point of these numbers is NONE of the gun control acts in the UK made a significant change in overall homicide rates. They have ALWAYS been much lower than the U.S. So the comment "...we don't carry guns - we tend not to get shot either." has NOTHING to do with gun control, but the fact that the UK is and for a long time has been, over all, less violent prone than the U.S. Perhaps we should be examining why that is, instead of blithely blaming an inanimate object for the problem.

As for the figures from the Brady Campaign, the Brady Campaign is well known to be the biggest liars in the U.S. when it comes to using inflated, misstated, or outright made-up numbers to promote their agenda of banning private firearms. For instance, the 289 shooting per day: only because they count someone shot three times as three shootings.

They also fail to mention that 2/3 of civilian shootings are self defense. Yes, it's a sad comment on our society that people find it necessary to use a firearm to protect themselves and their loved ones. But is it due to lack of gun control laws? HARDLY. If those people did not have the means to protect themselves, many of them would be murder victims themselves, not to mention victims of robbery, rape, battery, and a host of other crimes their actions prevented.

Let's also look at the number of 53 suicides using a firearm. Approximately 1/2 of U.S. suicides occur using a firearm. Would those poor, sad people still be alive if they had not possessed a firearm to kill themselves with? Nope. The suicide rate in the U.S. was 12.6 per 100,000 in 2013. in 2013, the suicide rate in the UK was 11.1 per 100K. 51.6% in the U.S used a firearm. 1.8% in the UK used a firearm. Conclusion: lack of firearms will not significantly reduce suicides.

AS I stated before, there are no valid statistics available showing gun control laws resulting in a reduction of firearms related crime. Conversely, data DOES show that crime rates DO tend to decrease in areas where firearms laws are relaxed.

Sawday · Apr 15, 2015

zewazir said:
Thank you for proving my point about the use of bogus statistics and unsupported conclusions to promote gun control.

First of all, the UK has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. So exactly what has that accomplished? Two of the more restrictive laws in the UK were passed in 1988 and 1997. The 1997 amendment to the 1968 Firearms Act essentially banned private ownership of handguns. Did this control handgun crimes? In 1997, there were approximately 2700 reported crimes involving the use of a handgun. By 2001, that figure had increased to just under 6000. It was not until the passage of other laws which significantly increased the penalties for violent crime that the firearms crime rate started decreasing again in the UK. But 2013 numbers are still higher than 1997 numbers.

Conclusion: even outright bans on firearms do not reduce crimes using firearms. Logical, since criminals, by definition, don't obey the law.

Looking at the overall statistics for homicide, the UK has sat consistently between 0.8 and 1.2 homicides per 100,000 people for over 5 decades. The U.S. has sat UNconsistently between 4.6 and a peak of 7.1. The major point of these numbers is NONE of the gun control acts in the UK made a significant change in overall homicide rates. They have ALWAYS been much lower than the U.S. So the comment "...we don't carry guns - we tend not to get shot either." has NOTHING to do with gun control, but the fact that the UK is and for a long time has been, over all, less violent prone than the U.S. Perhaps we should be examining why that is, instead of blithely blaming an inanimate object for the problem.

As for the figures from the Brady Campaign, the Brady Campaign is well known to be the biggest liars in the U.S. when it comes to using inflated, misstated, or outright made-up numbers to promote their agenda of banning private firearms. For instance, the 289 shooting per day: only because they count someone shot three times as three shootings.

They also fail to mention that 2/3 of civilian shootings are self defense. Yes, it's a sad comment on our society that people find it necessary to use a firearm to protect themselves and their loved ones. But is it due to lack of gun control laws? HARDLY. If those people did not have the means to protect themselves, many of them would be murder victims themselves, not to mention victims of robbery, rape, battery, and a host of other crimes their actions prevented.

Let's also look at the number of 53 suicides using a firearm. Approximately 1/2 of U.S. suicides occur using a firearm. Would those poor, sad people still be alive if they had not possessed a firearm to kill themselves with? Nope. The suicide rate in the U.S. was 12.6 per 100,000 in 2013. in 2013, the suicide rate in the UK was 11.1 per 100K. 51.6% in the U.S used a firearm. 1.8% in the UK used a firearm. Conclusion: lack of firearms will not significantly reduce suicides.

AS I stated before, there are no valid statistics available showing gun control laws resulting in a reduction of firearms related crime. Conversely, data DOES show that crime rates DO tend to decrease in areas where firearms laws are relaxed.

What Poppycock!

Try this for a fact "One person is killed by a firearm every 17 minutes, 87 people are killed during an average day, and 609 are killed every week. (source: CDC)" I understand that CDC is one of your government agencies.

You don't think that it's because we have strict gun controls over here that we have LESS gun deaths over here?

"They have ALWAYS been much lower than the U.S. So the comment "...we don't carry guns - we tend not to get shot either." has NOTHING to do with gun control" BullS**t! Perhaps you should try having strict gun control over there and see if your gun deaths decrease.

Sorry to have to show you up, but an awful lot of us this side (the civilised side) of the Atlantic think that your need to be tooled up shows you're no better than any terrorist in the undeveloped world.

zewazir · Apr 15, 2015

vansmith said:
The strong and persistent correlation between gun control regulation and gun related crimes as evidenced in the rate of crimes committed with guns isn't evidence of this?

WHAT correlation? You keep talking about "lack of evidence" yet provide nothing of your own. Like I said, SHOW IT, don't just claim it. Where is the correlation? Where is your "evidence"? You pick out 4 countries, and claim that as a valid data set? For every country with strict gun control AND low crime rates, I can show you a country with strict gun control and high crime rates (Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala just to name a few right off the top of my head). I can also show countries with lax gun control and low crime rates. (Sweden, Switzerland - and Israel, too, except it is difficult to separate out incidences of terrorism from "normal" crime rates).

Put 100 countries on a scatter plot relating gun control and crime rate, and the correlation between gun control and crime rates is less than .8 (R2 less than .6, which is statistical terms means no valid correlation.). Calculate additional factors which affect crime rates, such as penalties for crimes (in some countries, death is a common and quickly administered penalty), and the correlation drops to less than .5.

Comparing murder rates and gun ownership across countries - Crime Prevention Research Center

The fact that Canada has a lower firearms crime rate than the U.S. does not yield a valid correlation between gun control and crime when the fact is that Canada's firearms related crime rates have ALWAYS been lower, even before gun control was passed. The so-called correlation is further invalidated by the fact that your gun control laws did not significantly decrease the crime rates in Canada. This analysis can also be applied to the UK, Japan, and Australia.

As with others, you simply prove the point that gun control advocacy is based on false statistics.

zewazir · Apr 15, 2015

Sawday said:
What Poppycock!

Try this for a fact "One person is killed by a firearm every 17 minutes, 87 people are killed during an average day, and 609 are killed every week. (source: CDC)" I understand that CDC is one of your government agencies.

You don't think that it's because we have strict gun controls over here that we have LESS gun deaths over here?

"They have ALWAYS been much lower than the U.S. So the comment "...we don't carry guns - we tend not to get shot either." has NOTHING to do with gun control" BullS**t! Perhaps you should try having strict gun control over there and see if your gun deaths decrease.

Sorry to have to show you up, but an awful lot of us this side (the civilised side) of the Atlantic think that your need to be tooled up shows you're no better than any terrorist in the undeveloped world.

Is this how one conducts a civil dialogue? Call me a terrorist?

Explain why UK gun crimes went UP after the gun ban of 1997. Explain why those self-same gun crime rates did not drop until UK laws increased penalties for violent crimes, which then resulted in decreased gun crimes AND decreased violent crimes of all types.

If you are an example of "civilized", I'll thankfully remain barbaric.

BlackBoxInquiry · Apr 15, 2015

Here are a few sources that I've read/seen/followed.

There are other lists as well, from other agencies. The others also have results are very similar in nature.

Take a peek at what's below, if more is wanted, then it's suggested to try googling for results from CDC, CIA and more.

Some sources:

FBI — Violent Crime

FBI — Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report, January-December, 2012

FBI — Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January-June 2013

FBI — Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January-June 2014

News articles about this (past articles):

Firearms offences more than double since Dunblane - Telegraph

Violent crime worse in Britain than in US | Daily Mail Online

And a compilation of statistics, not just with the U.S., but worldwide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pELwCqz2JfE

Whatever happened to...

Dysfunction

lclev

IWT

XJ-linux

TattooedMac

lclev

toMACsh

lclev

vansmith

Senior Member

zewazir

IWT

Sawday

toMACsh

BlackBoxInquiry

vansmith

Senior Member

zewazir

Sawday

zewazir

zewazir

BlackBoxInquiry

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