Self Defense?

Another point on slavery - Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't slavery a major issue of debate during the signing of the Declaration of Independence? If I remember right, there had to be a unanimous vote from all colonies to ratify it and begin the war. Several countries refused to sign due to some element of abolishing slavery with the beginning our the new country. In the end, slavery had to be left alone in order to move forward with the revolution.

So, in effect, when there wasn't yet a country, just a bunch of guys representing their homeland, slavery was forced on the government by the people, not the other way around. of course, this is based on some people's idea that the government and the people are 2 separate entities.

To think that slavery wouldn't have been as bad had the government not supported it is absurd. Businesses that used slaves would have destroyed any business that tried to compete using paid labor; thus perpetuating the problem through market forces regardless of government support.

fleurya said:

I think the most interesting point of the movie is the big difference in gun killings between countries. I went to the link mentioned and reworked the numbers to be the best (meaning better for those opposing the movie) numbers that were given, adjusted for population, and the U.S. still looks pretty bad:

U.S. - 8,480
Canada - 1,517
Australia - 5,429
German - 432
Japan - 87

The only one coming close is Australia, and they'd have to kill 56% more people with guns to meet the U.S. rate.

Click to expand...

Now I'm certainly no friend of the gun lobby, but just comparing raw numbers is statistically misleading. A more accurate indicator would be deaths per capita to smooth out population size differences.

Those numbers are already adjusted for population differences, unlike the movie. Here's the raw and numbers adjusted to U.S. population side by side:

U.S. - 8,480 --------- 8,480
Canada - 165 -------- 1,517
Australia - 381 ------- 5,429
German - 123 --------- 432
Japan - 39 --------------- 87

Again, these are the numbers according to the anti-movie site, not the movie itself. I was illustrating the fact that those who claim the movie falsely represents the differences in gun deaths are not helped much when the adjusted numbers are given. There is still a substantial difference between the U.S. and other countries.

schweb said:

Now I'm certainly no friend of the gun lobby, but just comparing raw numbers is statistically misleading. A more accurate indicator would be deaths per capita to smooth out population size differences.

Click to expand...

Thanks, schweb!

It's also ludicrous to look only at that one statistic and draw conclusions. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that those numbers show a correlation between gun ownership and deaths by firearms.

They fail to take into account a whole host of socio-economic factors that separate the countries from one another. It's pretty easy to show that where social, economic, and education opportunities become scarce, crime and violence rise.

If you had a map of US "gun density" (avg # of guns per household by state or by town), I can guarantee you that the places with the highest number of guns per household/per capita are also the ones with the lowest crime rates. And in contrast, as mentioned above, the places where private law-abiding citizens cannot easily own firearms will have the highest incidence of violent crime. Again, we're talking about places like Washington DC, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.

Now let's decide on some socio-economic factors, like high school drop out rates, and compare THAT map to criminal violence. Guess what? Now you have a much tighter correlation. Guns don't cause crime. Criminals do.

Those other countries fluerya mentioned in his "analysis" don't have nearly as many disadvantaged minority populations living in dense urban centers with little or no economic/educational opportunity. And in the parts of those other countries where there are disadvantaged socio-economically challenged groups, guess what? Violent crime is high.

Violent crime has existed since Cain & Abel. Blaming guns is an ignorant, head-in-the-sand viewpoint that gets politicians elected but does absolutely nothing whatsoever to reduce violence. If you want to reduce violent crime, reduce the motivations to commit crime not the tools used.

fleurya said:

Those numbers are already adjusted for population differences, unlike the movie. Here's the raw and numbers adjusted to U.S. population side by side:

U.S. - 8,480 --------- 8,480
Canada - 165 -------- 1,517
Australia - 381 ------- 5,429
German - 123 --------- 432
Japan - 39 --------------- 87

Again, these are the numbers according to the anti-movie site, not the movie itself. I was illustrating the fact that those who claim the movie falsely represents the differences in gun deaths are not helped much when the adjusted numbers are given.

Click to expand...

Are you kidding me? You don't think showing that Canada's rate is almost 10 times what was reported, and Australia's rate is more than 14 times as high, is "not helped much?"

Heck, even Japan is twice as bad when you correct for population.

ToddG said:

Thanks, schweb!

It's also ludicrous to look only at that one statistic and draw conclusions. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that those numbers show a correlation between gun ownership and deaths by firearms.

They fail to take into account a whole host of socio-economic factors that separate the countries from one another.

Click to expand...

That's the problem with statistics. You can never make any concrete claims or judgments based on statistics, they can be manipulated or "read" to mean anything depending on how you cut the data.

To be honest, while some lobbies will try to show stats to prove their point, both sides are very misleading. In the end, I truly believe it comes down to a moral judgment on the part of the individual on how they feel about an issue.

Are you kidding me? You don't think showing that Canada's rate is almost 10 times what was reported, and Australia's rate is more than 14 times as high, is "not helped much?"

Heck, even Japan is twice as bad when you correct for population.

Click to expand...

I mean, not helped in the sense that some protest that if the numbers are adjusted correctly it will prove that the U.S. doesn't differ from others in gun-related deaths. This disproves that.

That's the problem with statistics. You can never make any concrete claims or judgments based on statistics, they can be manipulated or "read" to mean anything depending on how you cut the data.

To be honest, while some lobbies will try to show stats to prove their point, both sides are very misleading. In the end, I truly believe it comes down to a moral judgment on the part of the individual on how they feel about an issue.

Click to expand...

Absolutely true. I think it was Mark Twain who said, "There's lies, ****ed lies, and statistics". I'm taking a business course related to statistical analysis and we're learning how they can be used to find good information, but also how easily they can be misused. Often statistical information is biased, but you can't write off all the information, because some of it is very insightful. You just have to be diligent in checking up on the sources.

In this case, I used numbers from a site bent on disproving everything Michael Moore pointed out, so I think they would have an interest in finding numbers that most favor their position, but it still didn't work. In the end, I don't know where even they got their numbers, so who knows.

Edit: I didn't realize that word was not allowed, but it was a direct quote. sorry forum admins.

fleurya said:

I mean, not helped in the sense that some protest that if the numbers are adjusted correctly it will prove that the U.S. doesn't differ from others in gun-related deaths. This disproves that.

Click to expand...

I think it still goes a very long way towards demonstrating that if the numbers are adjusted for population it shows a much, much less drastic difference. Which still fails to address the point that countless other factors are completely ignored by the analysis.

Here's an interesting challenge for someone: do an analysis by country that compares the per capita ownership of Macs to the per capita death by firearms rate. Then, I'll create a theory that shows why Macs cause gun violence. :blind: :bomb:

fleurya said:

Often statistical information is biased, but you can't write off all the information, because some of it is very insightful. You just have to be diligent in checking up on the sources.

Click to expand...

I agree, I'm not saying statistics are always bad, but just that they're rarely unbiased. They can be used to prove almost anything which is why you should never base an entire argument or decision based off of a set of statistics alone.

ToddG said:

I think it still goes a very long way towards demonstrating that if the numbers are adjusted for population it shows a much, much less drastic difference. Which still fails to address the point that countless other factors are completely ignored by the analysis.

Here's an interesting challenge for someone: do an analysis by country that compares the per capita ownership of Macs to the per capita death by firearms rate. Then, I'll create a theory that shows why Macs cause gun violence. :blind: :bomb:

Click to expand...

True, and that alludes to my other point about finding the underlying cause of the big differences in numbers. Maybe it is in the kinds of guns owned, the gun-related activities of the people, the per capita ownership, or something that has nothing to do with guns at all. The goal should be, find out exactly what it is that causes such a large discrepancy and eliminate that: be it guns in general, kinds of guns, or something completely outside gun ownership.

DistantHoller said:

From a european perspective it seems americans have created a socity where everybody is afraid, for example here in Sweden your rental car does NOT lock the doors for you when you put it in drive, if you are lost you can knock on someone's door without risking getting shot. No kids finds the parents guns and plays with them... No kid takes daddy's gun to school...

IMO you have a scary socity on your hands. Perhaps it´s too late for you to turn this around.

No offence intended, just my 2c.

Click to expand...

I learned long ago that comparing two societies such as ours can be very misleading. You, and every other European and Brit here, are the product of a vastly different society than what we have here in the US. It may not seem like it on the surface, but when you start digging the differences become more and more apparent.

ToddG said:

You realize that movie, like all of his movies, has been proven to be nothing but dishonest propaganda, right?

Click to expand...

I'm glad to see someone else here understands that. Mr Moore's skills as a reporter are akin to Sadams skills as a Humanitarian.

The numbers posted by fletyra aside, it has been show that bans on gun, all guns, do not necessarily lead to a reduction in gun related crimes. In the UK where owning pretty much any firearm is illegal, gun related crimes are still rampant. Criminals don't buy their guns legally so all the law there has done is served to take guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens. Now, I'm sure gun related deaths are down, but when the gun related crime rate is still high, one has to wonder at the wisdom of Government intervention. Consider also that the UK, and London in particular, is the most observed country in the world. The number of remote security cameras per square mile (or Kilometer) far exceeds anywhere else in Europe or the US, yet crime is still rampant. Does big brother not only regulating but constantly watching you really make anyone safer?

baggss said:

In the UK where owning pretty much any firearm is illegal, gun related crimes are still rampant.

Click to expand...

Please back this up.

From my, admittedly anecdotal, perspective in my own city of Portsmouth I can only recall at most 3 gun related crimes in the past 12 months and only one of those resulted in an injury. Can any US city claim the same?

The last gun related fatality in my city was about 4 years ago. Can any US TOWN claim the same?

Amen-Moses

Amen-Moses said:

The last gun related fatality in my city was about 4 years ago. Can any US TOWN claim the same?

Click to expand...

Dude, seriously ... you need to stop watching Westerns.

There are countless towns in the US where no one has been murdered for many years.

I live in a suburb of Washington, DC and I don't remember the last time I heard a story about someone being shot to death in this city (Rockville, MD).

Amen-Moses said:

Please back this up.

Click to expand...

The Telegraph.

Handguns were outlawed by the Government in the year after the Dunblane massacre in 1996, but the number of crimes involving handguns has more than doubled since the ban, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871 last year.

Click to expand...

Banning guns has not reduced the number of gun related crimes. Again, criminals don't buy their guns legally, and all the ban has done is kept law abiding citizens from owning them. Sadly, no one in the UK seems to consider a repeal of the ban as an option.

baggss said:

The Telegraph.

Click to expand...

Awesome link, baggss! Tried to give you rep but the system told me I had to "spread it around." Thanks!

Amen-Moses said:

Please back this up.

Click to expand...

Another from the BBC....

...and The Guardian...

...and a blurb about Big Brother Watching London...

The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - in the shadow of the author's former London home.
It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements is now here.

According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.

Click to expand...

Yet gun related crimes are on the rise. Anyone see a problem here...?

ToddG said:

Dude, seriously ... you need to stop watching Westerns.

There are countless towns in the US where no one has been murdered for many years.

I live in a suburb of Washington, DC and I don't remember the last time I heard a story about someone being shot to death in this city (Rockville, MD).

Click to expand...

Rockville is not a city!

The last time I visited DC I counted at least 7 gun related deaths on the day I arrived (and no I didn't commit any of them )

Amen-Moses

The mayor of the City of Rockville would argue that point with you at great length.

I'd like to know when you were in DC that they had seven firearms fatalities in one day. I used to work at the federal prosecutor's office in DC and I don't remember a day like that while I was there.

baggss said:

The Telegraph.



Banning guns has not reduced the number of gun related crimes. Again, criminals don't buy their guns legally, and all the ban has done is kept law abiding citizens from owning them. Sadly, no one in the UK seems to consider a repeal of the ban as an option.

Click to expand...

Yes and "gun-related-crime" INCLUDES owning a firearm!

Of course "gun-related-crime" will increase after the ban compared to before the ban it wasn't a crime at all and there is always a minority that will flout the law.

The number of firearm deaths in your link is 97, the last year I looked at for the US the figure was 28,000+, the figure here in the UK is probably the lowest that is possible without a total ban on imports from gun toting regimes like the US and is probably the lowest in the world when you take population into account. IOW we are currently at the best possible situation here given the global situation.

Amen-Moses

ToddG said:

The mayor of the City of Rockville would argue that point with you at great length.

I'd like to know when you were in DC that they had seven firearms fatalities in one day. I used to work at the federal prosecutor's office in DC and I don't remember a day like that while I was there.

Click to expand...

Late 1998.

I was over there to work in Rockville strangely enough, the Taxi driver from the airport didn't even know where Rockville was, some city!

Amen-Moses