Vice President Joe Biden Meets With Gaming Industry

Scumbag NRA, blames video games for gun violence, releases video game about guns.

Fucking done.

I find it funny how fast the NRA are out saying that guns don't kill people, people kill people. But yet they still blame videogames for the killings. Not that I'm an expert on the subject, but one would think that it is easier to kill someone with a gun than a videogame.

Now I know that the NRA are talking about the impression a videogame can leave on someone or inspire someone to do, but after they have become "inspired" they still have to get a weapon to finish their plan. Good thing there are a lot of guns then!

Lets look at this a different way: If you were to kill someone with a videogame, how would you practically do it? You could throw the game box or disc at a person, but I doubt that would kill them. Alternatively you could break the disc in two and try to use it as a knife or stabbing device of some kind, but I still think you would have hard time killing someone like that.

Now lets go back to the NRA. They say that people kill people, well that's true, but should we not try to remove some of the weapons meant, no designed, to kill people from the street? Let's make it harder for people to get their hands on weapons meant to kill other people.

@Krystal_Sackful said:

Patrick, did you actually play the NRA app? You seem to have included the bare minimum in terms of details about it despite putting it in the byline. Its like you intentionally framed it so that it would sound as insensitive as possible. For instance, saying that the NRA blamed video games in general and not specifically violent video games that don't address the full gravity of killing a person. Now, I don't agree with that sentiment. I think its childish to defer the blame of a heinous crime from the person to the media, and I have a real problem with a lot of what the NRA says and does but a game that aims to educate people on the responsible and safe use of a firearm sounds like an unambiguously good thing to me. Its not like you're using guns to shoot living people in the game, OR ARE YOU? The only information I have to go on is the image. I implore you, inform me. I don't own any Apple products, so I can't check it myself and every article I find about it is inflammatory and clearly biased, playing up the outrage while giving almost no actual information. Give me the deets, please.

I second this. I get the irony of a gun training game being release after a shooting massacre, but this is clearly just the NRA trying to "do the right thing". The NRA is an institution. What are institutions good at? Covering their arses of course.

Well that was 13 minutes of my life I'll never get back. This has nothing at all whatsoever to do with Games. Also, the US government appears to still use typewriters to take minutes.

@Kingyo said:

I don't know who the guy next to Biden is but I think it's funny how unbelievably nervous he looks for this whole video :P

That's John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts.

Patrick, did you actually play the NRA app? You seem to have included the bare minimum in terms of details about it despite putting it in the byline. Its like you intentionally framed it so that it would sound as insensitive as possible. For instance, saying that the NRA blamed video games in general and not specifically violent video games that don't address the full gravity of killing a person. Now, I don't agree with that sentiment. I think its childish to defer the blame of a heinous crime from the person to the media, and I have a real problem with a lot of what the NRA says and does but a game that aims to educate people on the responsible and safe use of a firearm sounds like an unambiguously good thing to me. Its not like you're using guns to shoot living people in the game, OR ARE YOU? The only information I have to go on is the image. I implore you, inform me. I don't own any Apple products, so I can't check it myself and every article I find about it is inflammatory and clearly biased, playing up the outrage while giving almost no actual information. Give me the deets, please.

I don't know who the guy next to Biden is but I think it's funny how unbelievably nervous he looks for this whole video :P

I would have loved to have seen this discussion.

Looking forward to the controversy shitstorm, when the next murdering crazy gun person has that NRA app installed.

Weird? Weird?! It's fucking hypocritical!

@Artie said:

Can Patrick or Alex give us a recap of if this video is worth watching, insane/delusional or pointless?

It's not. The whole video is him saying who he met with previously.

@Bourbon_Warrior: Kids shouldn't be playing that. It's not meant for kids. It's not supposed to be sold to kids. It's not designed for them. If they're getting their hands on it, then that's wrong: but it's either their parents fault for buying the game for them, or a store's fault for selling to those under-age, but it's not the fault of the game. These things clearly have age restrictions on them. It's up to us to abide by them. It's a bit unfair to blast the game because kids play it when the rating says they shouldn't be!

Just a last point. Did Riccitiello mention that Medal of Honor cross-promotion with that gun company? That would have been interesting.

I love how these big companies get to represent everyone who makes and plays games. What a joke.

@Renahzor said:

@fustacluck: I suppose sarcasm and nuance is lost to translation. My point is, taking a specific statistic, ignoring all others and using it to advance an agenda is ridiculous. That should be pretty easy to see from the progression of posts and what they're in response to. But go on thinking that my position is in fact taking away rights form a specific group instead of the one I clearly stated. Your strawman argument is either a massive projection on your own part, or simply deciding to not have a real discussion, either way you've "won".

I like to think that freedom won, as it always does (so I'm told).

I'm sorry such "nuance" flew over my head. A sophisticate such as yourself clearly had many other options to be sarcastic about in response to the threat of having the right to buy any weapon you want taken away from you, and were going to use them. You were just warming the audience up for over two hours with your "material of colour" and I rudely interrupted you before you could get to the rest of your bits. I heard the same happened with Michael Richards.

Now, THAT'S sarcasm.

Also, what's the deal with Wizard of Oz? Clearly you have a boner for that story.

@ZGoon: Can you not counter me with logic? Is dropping a strawman and running all you know to do? Are you even aware that the founding fathers of the United States were composed of both slave owners and abolitionists?

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

@insanejedi said:

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

Exactly dude, but it was taking over by the Gun Companies, to push their own agenda in Washington. The majority of NRA wants tougher regulations on guns, because they just want to go hunting, they don't want a 50 round semi-auto assault weapon to go hunt deer with, but the people that sadly control the NRA now just want to sell and make as much money as possible...

You are making up stuff again. I told you last time not to talk about shit you have no idea what you are talking about.

The NRA is made up of 4.3 million members paying $35 minimally each a year with many members PAYING MORE. Also, are you a member of the NRA? Are you with people who are actually NRA members? Because I am both, and what you said is completely fallacious. If the majority of the NRA members wanted tougher regulations on guns, THEY WOULDN'T BE PAYING THEIR OWN MONEY TO JOIN THE NRA EVERY YEAR. Because it is against the NRA mission statement.

Established in 1990, The NRA Foundation, Inc. (“NRA Foundation”) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that raises tax-deductible contributions in support of a wide range of firearm-related public interest activities of the National Rifle Association of America and other organizations that defend and foster the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans. These activities are designed to promote firearms and hunting safety, to enhance marksmanship skills of those participating in the shooting sports, and to educate the general public about firearms in their historic, technological, and artistic context. Funds granted by The NRA Foundation benefit a variety of constituencies throughout the United States including children, youth, women, individuals with physical disabilities, gun collectors, law enforcement officers, hunters, and competitive shooters.

To end on that. they defend the Second Amendment, and the second amendment is not about hunting.

Explain to me what I am making up? Heres a poll taking last year with NRA members that details what I said about wanting regulations

Among the survey's key findings:

• 87 percent of NRA members agree that support for 2 Amendment rights goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.
• There is very strong support for criminal background checks:

• 74 percent support requiring criminal background checks of anyone purchasing a gun.
• 79 percent support requiring gun retailers to perform background checks on all employees – a measure recently endorsed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry.

• NRA members strongly support allowing states to set basic eligibility requirements for people who want to carry concealed, loaded guns in public places. By contrast, the NRA leadership's top federal legislative priority – national reciprocity for concealed carry permits – would effectively eliminate these requirements by forcing every state to allow non-residents to carry concealed guns even if they would not qualify for a local permit.

NRA members support many common state eligibility rules for concealed carrying:

75 percent of NRA members believe concealed carry permits should only be granted to applicants who have not committed any violent misdemeanors, including assault.

74 percent of NRA members believe permits should only be granted to applicants who have completed gun safety training.

68 percent of NRA members believe permits should only be granted to applicants who do not have prior arrests for domestic violence.

63 percent of NRA members believe permits should only be granted to applicants 21 years of age or older.

So if the NRA are only there for the 2nd amendment, wouldn't that mean criminals are allowed firearms?

And what I said about Gun Companys heavily investing in NRA

But membership fees don't pay the NRA's bills alone. In recent years, the group has become more aggressive about seeking donations, both from individuals and corporations, and that in turn has led it to become more deeply entwined with the gun industry. In 2010, it received $71 million in contributions, up from $46.3 million in 2004. Some of that money came from small-time donors, who've received a barrage of fundraising appeals warning of President Obama's imminent plot to gut the Second Amendment and confiscate Americans' firearms. But around 2005, the group began systematically reaching out to its richest members for bigger checks through its "Ring of Freedom" program, which also sought to corral corporate donors. Between then and 2011, the Violence Policy Center estimates that the firearms industry donated as much as $38.9 million to the NRA's coffers. The givers include 22 different gun makers, including famous names like Smith & Wesson, Beretta USA, SIGARMS, and Sturm, Ruger & Co. that also manufacture so-called assault weapons.

Some of that funding has given the NRA a direct stake in gun and ammo sales. As Bloomberg noted in its January article, Sturm, Ruger & Co. launched a campaign to sell one million guns, and promised to donate $1 of each purchase to the group. Since 1992, MidWay USA, which retails gun supplies including ammo and controversial high-capacity magazines, has allowed its customers to round up each of their online and mail orders to the nearest dollar, and automatically donate the extra to the NRA. Together with other companies that have joined the effort, MidWay has helped collect more than $9 million for NRA. MidWay's owner, Larry Pottfield, also happens to be the the group's largest individual donor.

These connections have fueled the theory among some gun-control advocates that the NRA is just another corporate front. That might theoretically explain why the group has opposed politically popular measures such as requiring background checks at gun shows and banning sales to people on the terrorist watch list, proposals that even its own members have been found to support. For gun makers, the fewer rules, the better.

"They translate the industry's needs into less crass, less economically interested language -- into defending the home, into defending the country," Tom Diaz, the Violence Policy Center's senior policy analyst, told me in an interview. One example, he said, was concealed carry laws, which the NRA promotes as self-defense measures. As Diaz explained, letting private citizens carry their handguns in public also just happened to allow firearms manufacturers to make and market new, smaller weapons with higher calibers.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/whom-does-the-nra-really-speak-for/266373/

So please explain to me the part I am making up?

Best post I've seen in these comments, for all colours of reasons.

@fustacluck: I suppose sarcasm and nuance is lost to translation. My point is, taking a specific statistic, ignoring all others and using it to advance an agenda is ridiculous. That should be pretty easy to see from the progression of posts and what they're in response to. But go on thinking that my position is in fact taking away rights form a specific group instead of the one I clearly stated. Your strawman argument is either a massive projection on your own part, or simply deciding to not have a real discussion, either way you've "won".

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@BRich said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@ZGoon said:

@Bizen247 said:

Joe Biden is a joke. He's a character from a Mel Brooks film except in real life. Even sounds like one. Anyone who thinks this guy is a decent politician or has any charisma is somewhere between partisan hack and political tool.

All reps from the NRA and game industry need to do is walk in the room and say, "First and Second Amendments, ever heard of them?"

And then walk out.

I don't want to seem like an ignorant Canadian, but... Why do people in your country continue to blindly cling to a bunch of stuff written down 200 years ago by a bunch of sexist, slave-owning bigots whenever someone challenges your pathetic lack of any gun control, or anything else for that matter?

Cuz it's the only defense they have and never mind the fact that the thing has been amended numerous times and in the case of the cough (18th) cough repealed. They're too busy being paranoid about a big brother takeover and irrationally think that stockpiling will save them. (Generalization sure, but that way of thinking is seriously out there. You're lying to yourself if you think that's not true)

It's like people are incapable of separating the concept of gun control from no guns.

I think the problem is that the most vocal people for gun-control don't just want to strengthen laws, they want to outlaw them completely. People like Diane Fienstien and Michael Bloomberg have said as much. I have don't really have a problem with sensible laws that actually work, the problem is that the laws people like that are trying to pass aren't sensible, and have been proven (remember the 1994 crime bill?) not to work. Stopping criminals from getting guns is a great thing, but stopping law-abiding people isn't going to do a damn thing. We already have some 2,700 gun laws on the books as it is. Let's try enforcing those rather than cooking up new ones to make ourselves feel good.

That's great and all, but haven't the majority of those that have recently lost it with a gun in a public place been, up until that moment, law-abiding citizens?

Law abiding citizens who all had numerous mental health problems. And a few convicted felons that stole guns from from burglaries and police officers. Strengthening our mental health system should be our main priority here. There are some people that shouldn't have guns at all for various reasons, but taking guns away from people who don't have mental health issues or haven't broken the law isn't going to solve anything.

And even then, people are going to do what they want to do. Those freaks at Columbine stole pistols and shotguns and used them, and made their own explosives and used them because they wanted to. "Assault Weapons" where already banned then under the 1994 crime bill, and explosives have been banned forever, and they weren't of legal age to own a gun, much less buy one, but that didn't stop them one bit did it?

It's just more useless laws that we can't enforce - we can't even properly enforce the laws we have now.

If there were almost no guns in the country (like every other first world country on the planet), where would they steal them from exactly? Sure, mass shootings have happened in countries like Norway, but they average 2 guns homicides per year IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. England, a more comparatively diverse country to the U.S. had only 41 gun homicides compared with over 9100. There are 88.8 firearms in the U.S. for every 100 citizens (35-50% of the world's civilian owned guns for 5% of the world population).

Fuck a 230 year old document written during a revolution.

And the UK had the 2nd violent crime rate in the EU, and the US is rated 28th in the world in gun-related homicide. There are more gun related murders in south america and eastern-Europe than in america, and far less guns.

It's not a gun problem, it's a societal problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2u6aen0RCY

See what you did there Stonyman, nice skewing of the figures! If you try to make a comparison, at least give both sides an even chance. Actual gun crime figures in the UK are lower than most of those in Europe and lower than both the US and Canada, accounting for about 0.2% of all annual crime figures (including air-pistols and rifles), and of that most of those are suicides (not including air-pistols and air-rifles). Only 3% of the 0.2% result in serious injury or death.

Still, don't let the facts get in the away..... and all that.

I'm not skirting that facts, just adding another perspective. As far as gun-related deaths and crime in the US:

deaths in the US - 2,468,435 (annual) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Gun related death in the US 32,163 (total including self-inflicted) http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/6492

Violent crime rate: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime (take your pick of any year)

You do the math.

Hint: it's a lot less than you think it is.

Yeah, but check the UK figures, it's a lot lesserer. You do the math.......s.

Of course it's a lot lesser. They have like 1/4th of the population that the US does.

I'm not saying that guns aren't a small part of the problem here, but considering everything else, it's a statistical zero. Especially the dreaded "assault Weapons" that account for 0.000001% of that statistical zero.

Just as an aside, those "freaks" didn't steal their weapons, they bought them off friends who bought them from gun shows.

And maybe dismissing them as freaks doesn't really help getting to the heart of the problem.

Anyone who goes on a shooting rampage and kills a bunch of people is a freak. Sorry. Before that, maybe not, but nothing in the world could (or should) drive someone to do that.

I stand corrected on the source of guns - that is what is considered "straw purchasing" - selling guns to someone who can't legally own one or buy one themselves. The friends are just as guilty as they are in this case.

Look, I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of Columbine, but surely two guys driven to desperation by the bullying they received, that was allowed to go on in their school, and happens in many schools, should not just be referred to as just "freaks". I'm not excusing them in any way, it was a horrendous act, but simplifying the argument never helped (and pointing at any one thing, in particular video games is also simplifying the argument). Until the societal problems are addressed, and let's face it those with the power to effect societal change are quite happy with the way society is, the next best solution is just to allow those that need guns to carry out their duties (security personnel, hunters, farmers, etc) to carry weapons, but to have them held in a secure facility away from the home, like an armory, and those that don't need guns don't. If people want to fire weapons as a hobby then they keep their weapon at their gun club. Pretty simple.

I know at this point the horse has bolted, and I don't have the answer for the mess that that's entailed, but there are people paid a whole hell of a lot more than me to come up with realistic solutions. And it should be more realistic than "there's no correlation between guns and gun-crime" or "It's vidier games what done it". When that's all that's offered, maybe it's time for a regulated militia to rise against their govt.

<now waiting for my door to be bust in by Homeland Security>

I'm really confused about the argument people have. It's very much like:

"But they have more gun related crimes than we do! So we should be able to have guns! This is unfair!".

How about stop comparing to other countries and focus on what's happening in your backyard and not across the road.

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

@insanejedi said:

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

Exactly dude, but it was taking over by the Gun Companies, to push their own agenda in Washington. The majority of NRA wants tougher regulations on guns, because they just want to go hunting, they don't want a 50 round semi-auto assault weapon to go hunt deer with, but the people that sadly control the NRA now just want to sell and make as much money as possible...

You are making up stuff again. I told you last time not to talk about shit you have no idea what you are talking about.

The NRA is made up of 4.3 million members paying $35 minimally each a year with many members PAYING MORE. Also, are you a member of the NRA? Are you with people who are actually NRA members? Because I am both, and what you said is completely fallacious. If the majority of the NRA members wanted tougher regulations on guns, THEY WOULDN'T BE PAYING THEIR OWN MONEY TO JOIN THE NRA EVERY YEAR. Because it is against the NRA mission statement.

Established in 1990, The NRA Foundation, Inc. (“NRA Foundation”) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that raises tax-deductible contributions in support of a wide range of firearm-related public interest activities of the National Rifle Association of America and other organizations that defend and foster the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans. These activities are designed to promote firearms and hunting safety, to enhance marksmanship skills of those participating in the shooting sports, and to educate the general public about firearms in their historic, technological, and artistic context. Funds granted by The NRA Foundation benefit a variety of constituencies throughout the United States including children, youth, women, individuals with physical disabilities, gun collectors, law enforcement officers, hunters, and competitive shooters.

To end on that. they defend the Second Amendment, and the second amendment is not about hunting.

Explain to me what I am making up? Heres a poll taking last year with NRA members that details what I said about wanting regulations

Among the survey's key findings:

• 87 percent of NRA members agree that support for 2 Amendment rights goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.
• There is very strong support for criminal background checks:

• 74 percent support requiring criminal background checks of anyone purchasing a gun.
• 79 percent support requiring gun retailers to perform background checks on all employees – a measure recently endorsed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry.

• NRA members strongly support allowing states to set basic eligibility requirements for people who want to carry concealed, loaded guns in public places. By contrast, the NRA leadership's top federal legislative priority – national reciprocity for concealed carry permits – would effectively eliminate these requirements by forcing every state to allow non-residents to carry concealed guns even if they would not qualify for a local permit.

NRA members support many common state eligibility rules for concealed carrying:

75 percent of NRA members believe concealed carry permits should only be granted to applicants who have not committed any violent misdemeanors, including assault.

74 percent of NRA members believe permits should only be granted to applicants who have completed gun safety training.

68 percent of NRA members believe permits should only be granted to applicants who do not have prior arrests for domestic violence.

63 percent of NRA members believe permits should only be granted to applicants 21 years of age or older.

So if the NRA are only there for the 2nd amendment, wouldn't that mean criminals are allowed firearms?

And what I said about Gun Companys heavily investing in NRA

But membership fees don't pay the NRA's bills alone. In recent years, the group has become more aggressive about seeking donations, both from individuals and corporations, and that in turn has led it to become more deeply entwined with the gun industry. In 2010, it received $71 million in contributions, up from $46.3 million in 2004. Some of that money came from small-time donors, who've received a barrage of fundraising appeals warning of President Obama's imminent plot to gut the Second Amendment and confiscate Americans' firearms. But around 2005, the group began systematically reaching out to its richest members for bigger checks through its "Ring of Freedom" program, which also sought to corral corporate donors. Between then and 2011, the Violence Policy Center estimates that the firearms industry donated as much as $38.9 million to the NRA's coffers. The givers include 22 different gun makers, including famous names like Smith & Wesson, Beretta USA, SIGARMS, and Sturm, Ruger & Co. that also manufacture so-called assault weapons.

Some of that funding has given the NRA a direct stake in gun and ammo sales. As Bloomberg noted in its January article, Sturm, Ruger & Co. launched a campaign to sell one million guns, and promised to donate $1 of each purchase to the group. Since 1992, MidWay USA, which retails gun supplies including ammo and controversial high-capacity magazines, has allowed its customers to round up each of their online and mail orders to the nearest dollar, and automatically donate the extra to the NRA. Together with other companies that have joined the effort, MidWay has helped collect more than $9 million for NRA. MidWay's owner, Larry Pottfield, also happens to be the the group's largest individual donor.

These connections have fueled the theory among some gun-control advocates that the NRA is just another corporate front. That might theoretically explain why the group has opposed politically popular measures such as requiring background checks at gun shows and banning sales to people on the terrorist watch list, proposals that even its own members have been found to support. For gun makers, the fewer rules, the better.

"They translate the industry's needs into less crass, less economically interested language -- into defending the home, into defending the country," Tom Diaz, the Violence Policy Center's senior policy analyst, told me in an interview. One example, he said, was concealed carry laws, which the NRA promotes as self-defense measures. As Diaz explained, letting private citizens carry their handguns in public also just happened to allow firearms manufacturers to make and market new, smaller weapons with higher calibers.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/whom-does-the-nra-really-speak-for/266373/

So please explain to me the part I am making up?

Damn, you just fucking schooled this guy over this own thing. I'm damn impressed.

@Renahzor said:

@fustacluck: Nice strawman. Since you obviously have some trouble reading, I'll spell it out more simply for you.

There are many more cultural, social and economic issues at hand, to the point that simply less guns = less crime is not only untrue, but likely inaccurate at its core anyhow. Everyone is quoting how much more dangerous it is to have a gun in the home, how terrible it is the US has such a high homicide rate due to how many guns we have etc are missing the point entirely. We need changes that address the real problems, but folks like yourself love to ignore that to advance an anti-gun agenda. We can't boil everything down to one statistic, its a gross over simplification of the problem.

No problem reading. And since you haven't answered my question I'll just give you some excerpts from your posts that i READ and so prompted me to ask my question. Please don't dance around the issue, or question my literacy as a diversion, if you reply. I've highlighted, italicised, and underlined the passages that worry me.

Renahzor is online on Jan. 14, 2013 at 9:10 p.m.

@BRich: So with demographics so heavily slanted in one direction, there is OBVIOUSLY more going on than simple gun ownership within the home. When simply being a specific minority makes you 7 times more likely to be involved in a homicide, shouldn't we be looking at the real root causes of these issues, and not kneejerk reactionary removal of guns from homes? I don't agree with gun bans, they're ineffectual and unnecessary. Adding a few more hurdles to ownership is all fine and well, but there is much more to the problem than the gun. It's disgusting that being a young African American male, specifically in select inner cities would make someone so much more likely to be involved in homicides. Lets not pretend banning pistols will make this problem disappear overnight, it's much more complex than that, and washing DC, Chicago, etc are all prime examples of that.

We should be more focused on community outreach, sensible background check reforms, mental health system overhauls that target at risk individuals, and reassessing the "drug war" that I would generously describe as ineffective. Talk about banning weapons as a reactionary move does nothing except rile everyone up, this thread as a prime example.

That was the most recent. Next.

Renahzor is online on Jan. 14, 2013 at 8:23 p.m.

@BRich: So what should we do if there was something that made people 7 times more likely to be the victim or offender in a gun homicide? I mean that's way worse than even keeping a gun in the home so we have to do SOMETHING about it right?

And the first time I noticed, but there may be more.

Renahzor is online on Jan. 14, 2013 at 6:53 p.m.

@YOU_DIED: Same, they usually have fax machines on the tables for just that purpose, or at least behind their curtain. I assume most people have never been to an actual gun show though and are basing this of conjecture or heard it/read it somewhere. While it might happen, I've never seen it personally.

@Scotto: Handguns are responsible for FAR more deaths than rifles, let alone "assault rifles"(good luck defining what that means). Also how do you propose enforcing your mandated proper storage? Keep in mind we have unlawful search and seizure protection too, or is that just some irrelevant words that need to be amended too? Lets take it a step further, African Americans are the perpetrators and victims of a majority of all gun crime in the US.... Maybe that 14th amendment "needs to be amended"?

As you've noticed I've kept your posts intact, in case you also accuse me of taking things out of context. Despite your most recent post you seem to be very concerned about one statistic in particular, and a solution that involves taking away African American rights, so much so you repeat it for over 2 hours. Over to you, Lion.

P.S. As for having an anti-gun agenda, I have used pistols, rifles, submachine guns, light machine guns, and a variety of other ordinance. The difference is that I had a need to use those weapons. I didn't have them lying around the house waiting for me to be drunk and/or angry enough to use it wrongly.

What's weird about teaching people gun safety? Is a kid knowing trigger discipline such a bad thing?

@Aterons said:

"I like how 10.000 people a year gunned down in US cities" is a secondary problem to "20 kids killed at a school".

Thats only people that are killed, 266 people are shot each day in America in 2007

@insanejedi said:

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

Exactly dude, but it was taking over by the Gun Companies, to push their own agenda in Washington. The majority of NRA wants tougher regulations on guns, because they just want to go hunting, they don't want a 50 round semi-auto assault weapon to go hunt deer with, but the people that sadly control the NRA now just want to sell and make as much money as possible...

You are making up stuff again. I told you last time not to talk about shit you have no idea what you are talking about.

The NRA is made up of 4.3 million members paying $35 minimally each a year with many members PAYING MORE. Also, are you a member of the NRA? Are you with people who are actually NRA members? Because I am both, and what you said is completely fallacious. If the majority of the NRA members wanted tougher regulations on guns, THEY WOULDN'T BE PAYING THEIR OWN MONEY TO JOIN THE NRA EVERY YEAR. Because it is against the NRA mission statement.

Established in 1990, The NRA Foundation, Inc. (“NRA Foundation”) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that raises tax-deductible contributions in support of a wide range of firearm-related public interest activities of the National Rifle Association of America and other organizations that defend and foster the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans. These activities are designed to promote firearms and hunting safety, to enhance marksmanship skills of those participating in the shooting sports, and to educate the general public about firearms in their historic, technological, and artistic context. Funds granted by The NRA Foundation benefit a variety of constituencies throughout the United States including children, youth, women, individuals with physical disabilities, gun collectors, law enforcement officers, hunters, and competitive shooters.

To end on that. they defend the Second Amendment, and the second amendment is not about hunting.

Explain to me what I am making up? Heres a poll taking last year with NRA members that details what I said about wanting regulations

Among the survey's key findings:

• 87 percent of NRA members agree that support for 2 Amendment rights goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.
• There is very strong support for criminal background checks:

• 74 percent support requiring criminal background checks of anyone purchasing a gun.
• 79 percent support requiring gun retailers to perform background checks on all employees – a measure recently endorsed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry.

• NRA members strongly support allowing states to set basic eligibility requirements for people who want to carry concealed, loaded guns in public places. By contrast, the NRA leadership's top federal legislative priority – national reciprocity for concealed carry permits – would effectively eliminate these requirements by forcing every state to allow non-residents to carry concealed guns even if they would not qualify for a local permit.

NRA members support many common state eligibility rules for concealed carrying:

So if the NRA are only there for the 2nd amendment, wouldn't that mean criminals are allowed firearms?

And what I said about Gun Companys heavily investing in NRA

But membership fees don't pay the NRA's bills alone. In recent years, the group has become more aggressive about seeking donations, both from individuals and corporations, and that in turn has led it to become more deeply entwined with the gun industry. In 2010, it received $71 million in contributions, up from $46.3 million in 2004. Some of that money came from small-time donors, who've received a barrage of fundraising appeals warning of President Obama's imminent plot to gut the Second Amendment and confiscate Americans' firearms. But around 2005, the group began systematically reaching out to its richest members for bigger checks through its "Ring of Freedom" program, which also sought to corral corporate donors. Between then and 2011, the Violence Policy Center estimates that the firearms industry donated as much as $38.9 million to the NRA's coffers. The givers include 22 different gun makers, including famous names like Smith & Wesson, Beretta USA, SIGARMS, and Sturm, Ruger & Co. that also manufacture so-called assault weapons.

Some of that funding has given the NRA a direct stake in gun and ammo sales. As Bloomberg noted in its January article, Sturm, Ruger & Co. launched a campaign to sell one million guns, and promised to donate $1 of each purchase to the group. Since 1992, MidWay USA, which retails gun supplies including ammo and controversial high-capacity magazines, has allowed its customers to round up each of their online and mail orders to the nearest dollar, and automatically donate the extra to the NRA. Together with other companies that have joined the effort, MidWay has helped collect more than $9 million for NRA. MidWay's owner, Larry Pottfield, also happens to be the the group's largest individual donor.

These connections have fueled the theory among some gun-control advocates that the NRA is just another corporate front. That might theoretically explain why the group has opposed politically popular measures such as requiring background checks at gun shows and banning sales to people on the terrorist watch list, proposals that even its own members have been found to support. For gun makers, the fewer rules, the better.

"They translate the industry's needs into less crass, less economically interested language -- into defending the home, into defending the country," Tom Diaz, the Violence Policy Center's senior policy analyst, told me in an interview. One example, he said, was concealed carry laws, which the NRA promotes as self-defense measures. As Diaz explained, letting private citizens carry their handguns in public also just happened to allow firearms manufacturers to make and market new, smaller weapons with higher calibers.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/whom-does-the-nra-really-speak-for/266373/

So please explain to me the part I am making up?

Get ready for a totally ineffectual compromise that lasts just long enough for everyone to forget the whole thing ever happened!

They clearly sense that a new GTA game will be along soon :D

Seriously though, I don't even get angry when people like that attack videogames, if anything.. games are helping keep crazy people off the streets, or something.

@fustacluck: Nice strawman. Since you obviously have some trouble reading, I'll spell it out more simply for you.

There are many more cultural, social and economic issues at hand, to the point that simply less guns = less crime is not only untrue, but likely inaccurate at its core anyhow. Everyone is quoting how much more dangerous it is to have a gun in the home, how terrible it is the US has such a high homicide rate due to how many guns we have etc are missing the point entirely. We need changes that address the real problems, but folks like yourself love to ignore that to advance an anti-gun agenda. We can't boil everything down to one statistic, its a gross over simplification of the problem.

@Bizen247 said:

@ZGoon: It is pretty ignorant, not to mention rude, to speak this way about another country's culture that you admit to not understanding (which is odd since you're in Canada and not half a world away).

The answer is that more traditional freedom-focused Americans prefer said freedom to government imposed "safety." Also, the founding fathers of the United States were not perfect people but their ideas and the logic behind them were the height of political and social genius. This is why the Constitution, while abused by authoritarian politicans, has not been overtly thrown out by them...the people still love it you see.

People forget that one of the smartest parts of the Constitution's design is the ability to change it to fit the changing needs and wants of society. So Americans could very well have the Second Amendment repealed, but, again, at least half the country is more traditionally minded and we much prefer the freedom to own what we want and a defense against tyranny.

Sorry, I stopped listening after you said people who thought it was okay to own another human being were "the height of political and social genius".

"I like how 10.000 people a year gunned down in US cities" is a secondary problem to "20 kids killed at a school".

@Renahzor said:

@BRich: So with demographics so heavily slanted in one direction, there is OBVIOUSLY more going on than simple gun ownership within the home. When simply being a specific minority makes you 7 times more likely to be involved in a homicide, shouldn't we be looking at the real root causes of these issues, and not kneejerk reactionary removal of guns from homes? I don't agree with gun bans, they're ineffectual and unnecessary. Adding a few more hurdles to ownership is all fine and well, but there is much more to the problem than the gun. It's disgusting that being a young African American male, specifically in select inner cities would make someone so much more likely to be involved in homicides. Lets not pretend banning pistols will make this problem disappear overnight, it's much more complex than that, and washing DC, Chicago, etc are all prime examples of that.

We should be more focused on community outreach, sensible background check reforms, mental health system overhauls that target at risk individuals, and reassessing the "drug war" that I would generously describe as ineffective. Talk about banning weapons as a reactionary move does nothing except rile everyone up, this thread as a prime example.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/race.cfm

All so true. I just don't see why doing both doesn't help exponentially more in the long run. I'm sorry, but I'm just never buying the rise up against the government excuse.

I'd be a little happier if the doctors in the shock trauma unit got to work on ANYTHING other than the next gunshot victim. Homicide rates would be rising at an even faster clip without medical advances leaving so many more gunshot survivors.

@Renahzor said:

@BRich: So with demographics so heavily slanted in one direction, there is OBVIOUSLY more going on than simple gun ownership within the home. When simply being a specific minority makes you 7 times more likely to be involved in a homicide, shouldn't we be looking at the real root causes of these issues, and not kneejerk reactionary removal of guns from homes? I don't agree with gun bans, they're ineffectual and unnecessary. Adding a few more hurdles to ownership is all fine and well, but there is much more to the problem than the gun. It's disgusting that being a young African American male, specifically in select inner cities would make someone so much more likely to be involved in homicides. Lets not pretend banning pistols will make this problem disappear overnight, it's much more complex than that, and washing DC, Chicago, etc are all prime examples of that.

We should be more focused on community outreach, sensible background check reforms, mental health system overhauls that target at risk individuals, and reassessing the "drug war" that I would generously describe as ineffective. Talk about banning weapons as a reactionary move does nothing except rile everyone up, this thread as a prime example.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/race.cfm

So, Renahzor, this is the second time in these comments that that I've noticed you bringing race in to this discussion, with allusions to it along the way. What exactly are you trying to say? That this is all the fault of inner-city young African American males?

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@BRich said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@ZGoon said:

@Bizen247 said:

Joe Biden is a joke. He's a character from a Mel Brooks film except in real life. Even sounds like one. Anyone who thinks this guy is a decent politician or has any charisma is somewhere between partisan hack and political tool.

All reps from the NRA and game industry need to do is walk in the room and say, "First and Second Amendments, ever heard of them?"

And then walk out.

I don't want to seem like an ignorant Canadian, but... Why do people in your country continue to blindly cling to a bunch of stuff written down 200 years ago by a bunch of sexist, slave-owning bigots whenever someone challenges your pathetic lack of any gun control, or anything else for that matter?

Cuz it's the only defense they have and never mind the fact that the thing has been amended numerous times and in the case of the cough (18th) cough repealed. They're too busy being paranoid about a big brother takeover and irrationally think that stockpiling will save them. (Generalization sure, but that way of thinking is seriously out there. You're lying to yourself if you think that's not true)

It's like people are incapable of separating the concept of gun control from no guns.

I think the problem is that the most vocal people for gun-control don't just want to strengthen laws, they want to outlaw them completely. People like Diane Fienstien and Michael Bloomberg have said as much. I have don't really have a problem with sensible laws that actually work, the problem is that the laws people like that are trying to pass aren't sensible, and have been proven (remember the 1994 crime bill?) not to work. Stopping criminals from getting guns is a great thing, but stopping law-abiding people isn't going to do a damn thing. We already have some 2,700 gun laws on the books as it is. Let's try enforcing those rather than cooking up new ones to make ourselves feel good.

That's great and all, but haven't the majority of those that have recently lost it with a gun in a public place been, up until that moment, law-abiding citizens?

Law abiding citizens who all had numerous mental health problems. And a few convicted felons that stole guns from from burglaries and police officers. Strengthening our mental health system should be our main priority here. There are some people that shouldn't have guns at all for various reasons, but taking guns away from people who don't have mental health issues or haven't broken the law isn't going to solve anything.

And even then, people are going to do what they want to do. Those freaks at Columbine stole pistols and shotguns and used them, and made their own explosives and used them because they wanted to. "Assault Weapons" where already banned then under the 1994 crime bill, and explosives have been banned forever, and they weren't of legal age to own a gun, much less buy one, but that didn't stop them one bit did it?

It's just more useless laws that we can't enforce - we can't even properly enforce the laws we have now.

If there were almost no guns in the country (like every other first world country on the planet), where would they steal them from exactly? Sure, mass shootings have happened in countries like Norway, but they average 2 guns homicides per year IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. England, a more comparatively diverse country to the U.S. had only 41 gun homicides compared with over 9100. There are 88.8 firearms in the U.S. for every 100 citizens (35-50% of the world's civilian owned guns for 5% of the world population).

Fuck a 230 year old document written during a revolution.

And the UK had the 2nd violent crime rate in the EU, and the US is rated 28th in the world in gun-related homicide. There are more gun related murders in south america and eastern-Europe than in america, and far less guns.

It's not a gun problem, it's a societal problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2u6aen0RCY

See what you did there Stonyman, nice skewing of the figures! If you try to make a comparison, at least give both sides an even chance. Actual gun crime figures in the UK are lower than most of those in Europe and lower than both the US and Canada, accounting for about 0.2% of all annual crime figures (including air-pistols and rifles), and of that most of those are suicides (not including air-pistols and air-rifles). Only 3% of the 0.2% result in serious injury or death.

Still, don't let the facts get in the away..... and all that.

I'm not skirting that facts, just adding another perspective. As far as gun-related deaths and crime in the US:

deaths in the US - 2,468,435 (annual) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Gun related death in the US 32,163 (total including self-inflicted) http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/6492

Violent crime rate: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime (take your pick of any year)

You do the math.

Hint: it's a lot less than you think it is.

Yeah, but check the UK figures, it's a lot lesserer. You do the math.......s.

Of course it's a lot lesser. They have like 1/4th of the population that the US does.

I'm not saying that guns aren't a small part of the problem here, but considering everything else, it's a statistical zero. Especially the dreaded "assault Weapons" that account for 0.000001% of that statistical zero.

Just as an aside, those "freaks" didn't steal their weapons, they bought them off friends who bought them from gun shows.

And maybe dismissing them as freaks doesn't really help getting to the heart of the problem.

Anyone who goes on a shooting rampage and kills a bunch of people is a freak. Sorry. Before that, maybe not, but nothing in the world could (or should) drive someone to do that.

I stand corrected on the source of guns - that is what is considered "straw purchasing" - selling guns to someone who can't legally own one or buy one themselves. The friends are just as guilty as they are in this case.

Look, I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of Columbine, but surely two guys driven to desperation by the bullying they received, that was allowed to go on in their school, and happens in many schools, should not just be referred to as just "freaks". I'm not excusing them in any way, it was a horrendous act, but simplifying the argument never helped (and pointing at any one thing, in particular video games is also simplifying the argument). Until the societal problems are addressed, and let's face it those with the power to effect societal change are quite happy with the way society is, the next best solution is just to allow those that need guns to carry out their duties (security personnel, hunters, farmers, etc) to carry weapons, but to have them held in a secure facility away from the home, like an armory, and those that don't need guns don't. If people want to fire weapons as a hobby then they keep their weapon at their gun club. Pretty simple.

I know at this point the horse has bolted, and I don't have the answer for the mess that that's entailed, but there are people paid a whole hell of a lot more than me to come up with realistic solutions. And it should be more realistic than "there's no correlation between guns and gun-crime" or "It's vidier games what done it". When that's all that's offered, maybe it's time for a regulated militia to rise against their govt.

<now waiting for my door to be bust in by Homeland Security>

It's because people (by "people" I mean the bureaucrats in Washington, mostly) don't want to deal with what they really need to do - stop crime, strengthen background checks and screenings, promote responsibility and enforce current laws and penalties.

The fact is whether you like guns or not, they aren't going anywhere. The cat's out of the bag and has been for hundreds of years now. We need to fix society first and then worry about the gun issue.

@BRich: So with demographics so heavily slanted in one direction, there is OBVIOUSLY more going on than simple gun ownership within the home. When simply being a specific minority makes you 7 times more likely to be involved in a homicide, shouldn't we be looking at the real root causes of these issues, and not kneejerk reactionary removal of guns from homes? I don't agree with gun bans, they're ineffectual and unnecessary. Adding a few more hurdles to ownership is all fine and well, but there is much more to the problem than the gun. It's disgusting that being a young African American male, specifically in select inner cities would make someone so much more likely to be involved in homicides. Lets not pretend banning pistols will make this problem disappear overnight, it's much more complex than that, and washing DC, Chicago, etc are all prime examples of that.

We should be more focused on community outreach, sensible background check reforms, mental health system overhauls that target at risk individuals, and reassessing the "drug war" that I would generously describe as ineffective. Talk about banning weapons as a reactionary move does nothing except rile everyone up, this thread as a prime example.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/race.cfm

@YOU_DIED said:

@BRich said:

Yea man, I can send you the PDF. Here's another good table comparing the High Gun States to Low Gun States:

A couple more stats:

For every self-defense homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 firearm suicides.

A more complete study examined all gunshot injuries (nonfatal as well as fatal) in the home occurring in Memphis, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; and Galveston, Texas (1992-1994) in which the gun involved was known to be kept in the home. Home guns were 4 times more likely to be involved in an accident, 7 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault or homicide, and 11 times more likely to be used in an attempted or completed suicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

You really have to be careful when including suicides in firearms data, as there are places with much higher suicide rates where gun ownership is non-existent (Japan, for example). I'd also like to see how many non-self-defense homicides and home invasions took place during that period at those locations. I'd wager that firearms are much more likely to be used in a crime than in self-defense, obviously because the majority of people do not carry guns outside of the home (assuming that most homicides and violent crimes in general occur outside of the victim's residence, I need to find some info on that). Here's a good paper I dropped earlier: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

Also, we have to consider this is for children aged 5-14. Children have a much higher accident rate than adults (because, well, there kids after all) so you can't really consider this an overall statistic, but one restricted to households with children. I'm sure if you got the same information form households with only adults, the numbers are most likely going to be way smaller.

As for guns being used for self defense vs crime, statistics show that on average, guns are used for self defense around 800,000 time a year in america. http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#crime

So, in my opinion, the benefits of having guns around for self defense/home protection greatly outweigh that negatives of that gun being used for crime. According to stats, the numbers support this.

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@BRich said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@ZGoon said:

@Bizen247 said:

Joe Biden is a joke. He's a character from a Mel Brooks film except in real life. Even sounds like one. Anyone who thinks this guy is a decent politician or has any charisma is somewhere between partisan hack and political tool.

All reps from the NRA and game industry need to do is walk in the room and say, "First and Second Amendments, ever heard of them?"

And then walk out.

I don't want to seem like an ignorant Canadian, but... Why do people in your country continue to blindly cling to a bunch of stuff written down 200 years ago by a bunch of sexist, slave-owning bigots whenever someone challenges your pathetic lack of any gun control, or anything else for that matter?

Cuz it's the only defense they have and never mind the fact that the thing has been amended numerous times and in the case of the cough (18th) cough repealed. They're too busy being paranoid about a big brother takeover and irrationally think that stockpiling will save them. (Generalization sure, but that way of thinking is seriously out there. You're lying to yourself if you think that's not true)

It's like people are incapable of separating the concept of gun control from no guns.

I think the problem is that the most vocal people for gun-control don't just want to strengthen laws, they want to outlaw them completely. People like Diane Fienstien and Michael Bloomberg have said as much. I have don't really have a problem with sensible laws that actually work, the problem is that the laws people like that are trying to pass aren't sensible, and have been proven (remember the 1994 crime bill?) not to work. Stopping criminals from getting guns is a great thing, but stopping law-abiding people isn't going to do a damn thing. We already have some 2,700 gun laws on the books as it is. Let's try enforcing those rather than cooking up new ones to make ourselves feel good.

That's great and all, but haven't the majority of those that have recently lost it with a gun in a public place been, up until that moment, law-abiding citizens?

Law abiding citizens who all had numerous mental health problems. And a few convicted felons that stole guns from from burglaries and police officers. Strengthening our mental health system should be our main priority here. There are some people that shouldn't have guns at all for various reasons, but taking guns away from people who don't have mental health issues or haven't broken the law isn't going to solve anything.

And even then, people are going to do what they want to do. Those freaks at Columbine stole pistols and shotguns and used them, and made their own explosives and used them because they wanted to. "Assault Weapons" where already banned then under the 1994 crime bill, and explosives have been banned forever, and they weren't of legal age to own a gun, much less buy one, but that didn't stop them one bit did it?

It's just more useless laws that we can't enforce - we can't even properly enforce the laws we have now.

If there were almost no guns in the country (like every other first world country on the planet), where would they steal them from exactly? Sure, mass shootings have happened in countries like Norway, but they average 2 guns homicides per year IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. England, a more comparatively diverse country to the U.S. had only 41 gun homicides compared with over 9100. There are 88.8 firearms in the U.S. for every 100 citizens (35-50% of the world's civilian owned guns for 5% of the world population).

Fuck a 230 year old document written during a revolution.

And the UK had the 2nd violent crime rate in the EU, and the US is rated 28th in the world in gun-related homicide. There are more gun related murders in south america and eastern-Europe than in america, and far less guns.

It's not a gun problem, it's a societal problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2u6aen0RCY

See what you did there Stonyman, nice skewing of the figures! If you try to make a comparison, at least give both sides an even chance. Actual gun crime figures in the UK are lower than most of those in Europe and lower than both the US and Canada, accounting for about 0.2% of all annual crime figures (including air-pistols and rifles), and of that most of those are suicides (not including air-pistols and air-rifles). Only 3% of the 0.2% result in serious injury or death.

Still, don't let the facts get in the away..... and all that.

I'm not skirting that facts, just adding another perspective. As far as gun-related deaths and crime in the US:

deaths in the US - 2,468,435 (annual) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Gun related death in the US 32,163 (total including self-inflicted) http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/6492

Violent crime rate: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime (take your pick of any year)

You do the math.

Hint: it's a lot less than you think it is.

Yeah, but check the UK figures, it's a lot lesserer. You do the math.......s.

Of course it's a lot lesser. They have like 1/4th of the population that the US does.

I'm not saying that guns aren't a small part of the problem here, but considering everything else, it's a statistical zero. Especially the dreaded "assault Weapons" that account for 0.000001% of that statistical zero.

Just as an aside, those "freaks" didn't steal their weapons, they bought them off friends who bought them from gun shows.

And maybe dismissing them as freaks doesn't really help getting to the heart of the problem.

Anyone who goes on a shooting rampage and kills a bunch of people is a freak. Sorry. Before that, maybe not, but nothing in the world could (or should) drive someone to do that.

I stand corrected on the source of guns - that is what is considered "straw purchasing" - selling guns to someone who can't legally own one or buy one themselves. The friends are just as guilty as they are in this case.

Look, I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of Columbine, but surely two guys driven to desperation by the bullying they received, that was allowed to go on in their school, and happens in many schools, should not just be referred to as just "freaks". I'm not excusing them in any way, it was a horrendous act, but simplifying the argument never helped (and pointing at any one thing, in particular video games is also simplifying the argument). Until the societal problems are addressed, and let's face it those with the power to effect societal change are quite happy with the way society is, the next best solution is just to allow those that need guns to carry out their duties (security personnel, hunters, farmers, etc) to carry weapons, but to have them held in a secure facility away from the home, like an armory, and those that don't need guns don't. If people want to fire weapons as a hobby then they keep their weapon at their gun club. Pretty simple.

I know at this point the horse has bolted, and I don't have the answer for the mess that that's entailed, but there are people paid a whole hell of a lot more than me to come up with realistic solutions. And it should be more realistic than "there's no correlation between guns and gun-crime" or "It's vidier games what done it". When that's all that's offered, maybe it's time for a regulated militia to rise against their govt.

<now waiting for my door to be bust in by Homeland Security>

@Renahzor said:

@BRich: I'm talking specifically within the US, there IS something that makes you 7 times as likely to be the victim or offender in a gun, or for that matter any homicide than any other group. So knowing that, just based on statistics, we HAVE to do something about it more than just banning guns from the home which is so bad but not nearly as bad as this right?

As a guy who has to live in Baltimore City, heroin capital of the world, for med school now I know where you are coming from. I don't think there's been a week this year without a couple homicides in front of my building.

Definitely a harder cultural problem to solve and one of the reasons the U.S. will never be close to the rates of homogenous countries like Norway and Switzerland.

@BRich said:

Yea man, I can send you the PDF. Here's another good table comparing the High Gun States to Low Gun States:

A couple more stats:

For every self-defense homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 firearm suicides.

A more complete study examined all gunshot injuries (nonfatal as well as fatal) in the home occurring in Memphis, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; and Galveston, Texas (1992-1994) in which the gun involved was known to be kept in the home. Home guns were 4 times more likely to be involved in an accident, 7 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault or homicide, and 11 times more likely to be used in an attempted or completed suicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

You really have to be careful when including suicides in firearms data, as there are places with much higher suicide rates where gun ownership is non-existent (Japan, for example). I'd also like to see how many non-self-defense homicides and home invasions took place during that period at those locations. I'd wager that firearms are much more likely to be used in a crime than in self-defense, obviously because the majority of people do not carry guns outside of the home (assuming that most homicides and violent crimes in general occur outside of the victim's residence, I need to find some info on that). Here's a good paper I dropped earlier: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

@BRich: I'm talking specifically within the US, there IS something that makes you 7 times as likely to be the victim or offender in a gun, or for that matter any homicide than any other group. So knowing that, just based on statistics, we HAVE to do something about it more than just banning guns from the home which is so bad but not nearly as bad as this right?

@ZGoon: It is pretty ignorant, not to mention rude, to speak this way about another country's culture that you admit to not understanding (which is odd since you're in Canada and not half a world away).

The answer is that more traditional freedom-focused Americans prefer said freedom to government imposed "safety." Also, the founding fathers of the United States were not perfect people but their ideas and the logic behind them were the height of political and social genius. This is why the Constitution, while abused by authoritarian politicans, has not been overtly thrown out by them...the people still love it you see.

People forget that one of the smartest parts of the Constitution's design is the ability to change it to fit the changing needs and wants of society. So Americans could very well have the Second Amendment repealed, but, again, at least half the country is more traditionally minded and we much prefer the freedom to own what we want and a defense against tyranny.

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@BRich said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@ZGoon said:

@Bizen247 said:

Joe Biden is a joke. He's a character from a Mel Brooks film except in real life. Even sounds like one. Anyone who thinks this guy is a decent politician or has any charisma is somewhere between partisan hack and political tool.

All reps from the NRA and game industry need to do is walk in the room and say, "First and Second Amendments, ever heard of them?"

And then walk out.

I don't want to seem like an ignorant Canadian, but... Why do people in your country continue to blindly cling to a bunch of stuff written down 200 years ago by a bunch of sexist, slave-owning bigots whenever someone challenges your pathetic lack of any gun control, or anything else for that matter?

Cuz it's the only defense they have and never mind the fact that the thing has been amended numerous times and in the case of the cough (18th) cough repealed. They're too busy being paranoid about a big brother takeover and irrationally think that stockpiling will save them. (Generalization sure, but that way of thinking is seriously out there. You're lying to yourself if you think that's not true)

It's like people are incapable of separating the concept of gun control from no guns.

I think the problem is that the most vocal people for gun-control don't just want to strengthen laws, they want to outlaw them completely. People like Diane Fienstien and Michael Bloomberg have said as much. I have don't really have a problem with sensible laws that actually work, the problem is that the laws people like that are trying to pass aren't sensible, and have been proven (remember the 1994 crime bill?) not to work. Stopping criminals from getting guns is a great thing, but stopping law-abiding people isn't going to do a damn thing. We already have some 2,700 gun laws on the books as it is. Let's try enforcing those rather than cooking up new ones to make ourselves feel good.

That's great and all, but haven't the majority of those that have recently lost it with a gun in a public place been, up until that moment, law-abiding citizens?

Law abiding citizens who all had numerous mental health problems. And a few convicted felons that stole guns from from burglaries and police officers. Strengthening our mental health system should be our main priority here. There are some people that shouldn't have guns at all for various reasons, but taking guns away from people who don't have mental health issues or haven't broken the law isn't going to solve anything.

And even then, people are going to do what they want to do. Those freaks at Columbine stole pistols and shotguns and used them, and made their own explosives and used them because they wanted to. "Assault Weapons" where already banned then under the 1994 crime bill, and explosives have been banned forever, and they weren't of legal age to own a gun, much less buy one, but that didn't stop them one bit did it?

It's just more useless laws that we can't enforce - we can't even properly enforce the laws we have now.

If there were almost no guns in the country (like every other first world country on the planet), where would they steal them from exactly? Sure, mass shootings have happened in countries like Norway, but they average 2 guns homicides per year IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. England, a more comparatively diverse country to the U.S. had only 41 gun homicides compared with over 9100. There are 88.8 firearms in the U.S. for every 100 citizens (35-50% of the world's civilian owned guns for 5% of the world population).

Fuck a 230 year old document written during a revolution.

And the UK had the 2nd violent crime rate in the EU, and the US is rated 28th in the world in gun-related homicide. There are more gun related murders in south america and eastern-Europe than in america, and far less guns.

It's not a gun problem, it's a societal problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2u6aen0RCY

See what you did there Stonyman, nice skewing of the figures! If you try to make a comparison, at least give both sides an even chance. Actual gun crime figures in the UK are lower than most of those in Europe and lower than both the US and Canada, accounting for about 0.2% of all annual crime figures (including air-pistols and rifles), and of that most of those are suicides (not including air-pistols and air-rifles). Only 3% of the 0.2% result in serious injury or death.

Still, don't let the facts get in the away..... and all that.

I'm not skirting that facts, just adding another perspective. As far as gun-related deaths and crime in the US:

deaths in the US - 2,468,435 (annual) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Gun related death in the US 32,163 (total including self-inflicted) http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/6492

Violent crime rate: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime (take your pick of any year)

You do the math.

Hint: it's a lot less than you think it is.

Yeah, but check the UK figures, it's a lot lesserer. You do the math.......s.

Of course it's a lot lesser. They have like 1/4th of the population that the US does.

I'm not saying that guns aren't a small part of the problem here, but considering everything else, it's a statistical zero. Especially the dreaded "assault Weapons" that account for 0.000001% of that statistical zero.

Just as an aside, those "freaks" didn't steal their weapons, they bought them off friends who bought them from gun shows.

And maybe dismissing them as freaks doesn't really help getting to the heart of the problem.

Anyone who goes on a shooting rampage and kills a bunch of people is a freak. Sorry. Before that, maybe not, but nothing in the world could (or should) drive someone to do that.

I stand corrected on the source of guns - that is what is considered "straw purchasing" - selling guns to someone who can't legally own one or buy one themselves. The friends are just as guilty as they are in this case.

@Renahzor said:

@BRich: So what should we do if there was something that made people 7 times more likely to be the victim or offender in a gun homicide? I mean that's way worse than even keeping a gun in the home so we have to do SOMETHING about it right?

There IS something that makes people over 7 times more likely to be the victim of a gun homicide. It is living in the United States.

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@BRich said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@ZGoon said:

@Bizen247 said:

Joe Biden is a joke. He's a character from a Mel Brooks film except in real life. Even sounds like one. Anyone who thinks this guy is a decent politician or has any charisma is somewhere between partisan hack and political tool.

All reps from the NRA and game industry need to do is walk in the room and say, "First and Second Amendments, ever heard of them?"

And then walk out.

I don't want to seem like an ignorant Canadian, but... Why do people in your country continue to blindly cling to a bunch of stuff written down 200 years ago by a bunch of sexist, slave-owning bigots whenever someone challenges your pathetic lack of any gun control, or anything else for that matter?

Cuz it's the only defense they have and never mind the fact that the thing has been amended numerous times and in the case of the cough (18th) cough repealed. They're too busy being paranoid about a big brother takeover and irrationally think that stockpiling will save them. (Generalization sure, but that way of thinking is seriously out there. You're lying to yourself if you think that's not true)

It's like people are incapable of separating the concept of gun control from no guns.

I think the problem is that the most vocal people for gun-control don't just want to strengthen laws, they want to outlaw them completely. People like Diane Fienstien and Michael Bloomberg have said as much. I have don't really have a problem with sensible laws that actually work, the problem is that the laws people like that are trying to pass aren't sensible, and have been proven (remember the 1994 crime bill?) not to work. Stopping criminals from getting guns is a great thing, but stopping law-abiding people isn't going to do a damn thing. We already have some 2,700 gun laws on the books as it is. Let's try enforcing those rather than cooking up new ones to make ourselves feel good.

That's great and all, but haven't the majority of those that have recently lost it with a gun in a public place been, up until that moment, law-abiding citizens?

Law abiding citizens who all had numerous mental health problems. And a few convicted felons that stole guns from from burglaries and police officers. Strengthening our mental health system should be our main priority here. There are some people that shouldn't have guns at all for various reasons, but taking guns away from people who don't have mental health issues or haven't broken the law isn't going to solve anything.

And even then, people are going to do what they want to do. Those freaks at Columbine stole pistols and shotguns and used them, and made their own explosives and used them because they wanted to. "Assault Weapons" where already banned then under the 1994 crime bill, and explosives have been banned forever, and they weren't of legal age to own a gun, much less buy one, but that didn't stop them one bit did it?

It's just more useless laws that we can't enforce - we can't even properly enforce the laws we have now.

If there were almost no guns in the country (like every other first world country on the planet), where would they steal them from exactly? Sure, mass shootings have happened in countries like Norway, but they average 2 guns homicides per year IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. England, a more comparatively diverse country to the U.S. had only 41 gun homicides compared with over 9100. There are 88.8 firearms in the U.S. for every 100 citizens (35-50% of the world's civilian owned guns for 5% of the world population).

Fuck a 230 year old document written during a revolution.

And the UK had the 2nd violent crime rate in the EU, and the US is rated 28th in the world in gun-related homicide. There are more gun related murders in south america and eastern-Europe than in america, and far less guns.

It's not a gun problem, it's a societal problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2u6aen0RCY

See what you did there Stonyman, nice skewing of the figures! If you try to make a comparison, at least give both sides an even chance. Actual gun crime figures in the UK are lower than most of those in Europe and lower than both the US and Canada, accounting for about 0.2% of all annual crime figures (including air-pistols and rifles), and of that most of those are suicides (not including air-pistols and air-rifles). Only 3% of the 0.2% result in serious injury or death.

Still, don't let the facts get in the away..... and all that.

I'm not skirting that facts, just adding another perspective. As far as gun-related deaths and crime in the US:

deaths in the US - 2,468,435 (annual) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Gun related death in the US 32,163 (total including self-inflicted) http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/6492

Violent crime rate: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime (take your pick of any year)

You do the math.

Hint: it's a lot less than you think it is.

Yeah, but check the UK figures, it's a lot lesserer. You do the math.......s.

Of course it's a lot lesser. They have like 1/4th of the population that the US does.

I'm not saying that guns aren't a small part of the problem here, but considering everything else, it's a statistical zero. Especially the dreaded "assault Weapons" that account for 0.000001% of that statistical zero.

Just as an aside, those "freaks" didn't steal their weapons, they bought them off friends who bought them from gun shows.

And maybe dismissing them as freaks doesn't really help getting to the heart of the problem.

@YOU_DIED said:

@BRich said:

@YOU_DIED said:

@BRich said:

@Stonyman65: http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/5/6/502

The evidence is overwhelming for the fact that a gun in the home is a risk factor for completed suicide and that gun accidents are most likely to occur in homes with guns.

On the benefit side, there are fewer studies, and there is no credible evidence of a deterrent effect of firearms or that a gun in the home reduces the likelihood or severity of injury during an altercation or break-in.

LOL are you fucking kidding me? This is what passes for academia? 'Studies show that meals are much more likely to be eaten with forks in homes that have forks'. The second statement is outright false, and it doesn't even mention whether 'severity of injury' includes the aggressor of the altercation or just the victim. I kind of want to pick apart this whole white paper now.

Gotta read a bit more than the abstract to get the actual statistics. Here's a little taste:

I can't get ahold of the PDF version, something about having to sign in. If you can get a link to the actual PDF file could you post it in a response to this?

Yea man, I can send you the PDF. Here's another good table comparing the High Gun States to Low Gun States:

A couple more stats:

For every self-defense homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 firearm suicides.

A more complete study examined all gunshot injuries (nonfatal as well as fatal) in the home occurring in Memphis, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; and Galveston, Texas (1992-1994) in which the gun involved was known to be kept in the home. Home guns were 4 times more likely to be involved in an accident, 7 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault or homicide, and 11 times more likely to be used in an attempted or completed suicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@BRich said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@ZGoon said:

@Bizen247 said:

Joe Biden is a joke. He's a character from a Mel Brooks film except in real life. Even sounds like one. Anyone who thinks this guy is a decent politician or has any charisma is somewhere between partisan hack and political tool.

All reps from the NRA and game industry need to do is walk in the room and say, "First and Second Amendments, ever heard of them?"

And then walk out.

I don't want to seem like an ignorant Canadian, but... Why do people in your country continue to blindly cling to a bunch of stuff written down 200 years ago by a bunch of sexist, slave-owning bigots whenever someone challenges your pathetic lack of any gun control, or anything else for that matter?

Cuz it's the only defense they have and never mind the fact that the thing has been amended numerous times and in the case of the cough (18th) cough repealed. They're too busy being paranoid about a big brother takeover and irrationally think that stockpiling will save them. (Generalization sure, but that way of thinking is seriously out there. You're lying to yourself if you think that's not true)

It's like people are incapable of separating the concept of gun control from no guns.

I think the problem is that the most vocal people for gun-control don't just want to strengthen laws, they want to outlaw them completely. People like Diane Fienstien and Michael Bloomberg have said as much. I have don't really have a problem with sensible laws that actually work, the problem is that the laws people like that are trying to pass aren't sensible, and have been proven (remember the 1994 crime bill?) not to work. Stopping criminals from getting guns is a great thing, but stopping law-abiding people isn't going to do a damn thing. We already have some 2,700 gun laws on the books as it is. Let's try enforcing those rather than cooking up new ones to make ourselves feel good.

That's great and all, but haven't the majority of those that have recently lost it with a gun in a public place been, up until that moment, law-abiding citizens?

Law abiding citizens who all had numerous mental health problems. And a few convicted felons that stole guns from from burglaries and police officers. Strengthening our mental health system should be our main priority here. There are some people that shouldn't have guns at all for various reasons, but taking guns away from people who don't have mental health issues or haven't broken the law isn't going to solve anything.

And even then, people are going to do what they want to do. Those freaks at Columbine stole pistols and shotguns and used them, and made their own explosives and used them because they wanted to. "Assault Weapons" where already banned then under the 1994 crime bill, and explosives have been banned forever, and they weren't of legal age to own a gun, much less buy one, but that didn't stop them one bit did it?

It's just more useless laws that we can't enforce - we can't even properly enforce the laws we have now.

If there were almost no guns in the country (like every other first world country on the planet), where would they steal them from exactly? Sure, mass shootings have happened in countries like Norway, but they average 2 guns homicides per year IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. England, a more comparatively diverse country to the U.S. had only 41 gun homicides compared with over 9100. There are 88.8 firearms in the U.S. for every 100 citizens (35-50% of the world's civilian owned guns for 5% of the world population).

Fuck a 230 year old document written during a revolution.

And the UK had the 2nd violent crime rate in the EU, and the US is rated 28th in the world in gun-related homicide. There are more gun related murders in south america and eastern-Europe than in america, and far less guns.

It's not a gun problem, it's a societal problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2u6aen0RCY

See what you did there Stonyman, nice skewing of the figures! If you try to make a comparison, at least give both sides an even chance. Actual gun crime figures in the UK are lower than most of those in Europe and lower than both the US and Canada, accounting for about 0.2% of all annual crime figures (including air-pistols and rifles), and of that most of those are suicides (not including air-pistols and air-rifles). Only 3% of the 0.2% result in serious injury or death.

Still, don't let the facts get in the away..... and all that.

I'm not skirting that facts, just adding another perspective. As far as gun-related deaths and crime in the US:

deaths in the US - 2,468,435 (annual) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Gun related death in the US 32,163 (total including self-inflicted) http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/6492

Violent crime rate: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime (take your pick of any year)

You do the math.

Hint: it's a lot less than you think it is.

Yeah, but check the UK figures, it's a lot lesserer. You do the math.......s.

Of course it's a lot lesser. They have like 1/4th of the population that the US does.

I'm not saying that guns aren't a small part of the problem here, but considering everything else, it's a statistical zero. Especially the dreaded "assault Weapons" that account for 0.000001% of that statistical zero.

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@BRich said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@fustacluck said:

@Stonyman65 said:

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@ZGoon said:

@Bizen247 said:

Joe Biden is a joke. He's a character from a Mel Brooks film except in real life. Even sounds like one. Anyone who thinks this guy is a decent politician or has any charisma is somewhere between partisan hack and political tool.

All reps from the NRA and game industry need to do is walk in the room and say, "First and Second Amendments, ever heard of them?"

And then walk out.

I don't want to seem like an ignorant Canadian, but... Why do people in your country continue to blindly cling to a bunch of stuff written down 200 years ago by a bunch of sexist, slave-owning bigots whenever someone challenges your pathetic lack of any gun control, or anything else for that matter?

Cuz it's the only defense they have and never mind the fact that the thing has been amended numerous times and in the case of the cough (18th) cough repealed. They're too busy being paranoid about a big brother takeover and irrationally think that stockpiling will save them. (Generalization sure, but that way of thinking is seriously out there. You're lying to yourself if you think that's not true)

It's like people are incapable of separating the concept of gun control from no guns.

I think the problem is that the most vocal people for gun-control don't just want to strengthen laws, they want to outlaw them completely. People like Diane Fienstien and Michael Bloomberg have said as much. I have don't really have a problem with sensible laws that actually work, the problem is that the laws people like that are trying to pass aren't sensible, and have been proven (remember the 1994 crime bill?) not to work. Stopping criminals from getting guns is a great thing, but stopping law-abiding people isn't going to do a damn thing. We already have some 2,700 gun laws on the books as it is. Let's try enforcing those rather than cooking up new ones to make ourselves feel good.

That's great and all, but haven't the majority of those that have recently lost it with a gun in a public place been, up until that moment, law-abiding citizens?

Law abiding citizens who all had numerous mental health problems. And a few convicted felons that stole guns from from burglaries and police officers. Strengthening our mental health system should be our main priority here. There are some people that shouldn't have guns at all for various reasons, but taking guns away from people who don't have mental health issues or haven't broken the law isn't going to solve anything.

And even then, people are going to do what they want to do. Those freaks at Columbine stole pistols and shotguns and used them, and made their own explosives and used them because they wanted to. "Assault Weapons" where already banned then under the 1994 crime bill, and explosives have been banned forever, and they weren't of legal age to own a gun, much less buy one, but that didn't stop them one bit did it?

It's just more useless laws that we can't enforce - we can't even properly enforce the laws we have now.

If there were almost no guns in the country (like every other first world country on the planet), where would they steal them from exactly? Sure, mass shootings have happened in countries like Norway, but they average 2 guns homicides per year IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. England, a more comparatively diverse country to the U.S. had only 41 gun homicides compared with over 9100. There are 88.8 firearms in the U.S. for every 100 citizens (35-50% of the world's civilian owned guns for 5% of the world population).

Fuck a 230 year old document written during a revolution.

And the UK had the 2nd violent crime rate in the EU, and the US is rated 28th in the world in gun-related homicide. There are more gun related murders in south america and eastern-Europe than in america, and far less guns.

It's not a gun problem, it's a societal problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2u6aen0RCY

See what you did there Stonyman, nice skewing of the figures! If you try to make a comparison, at least give both sides an even chance. Actual gun crime figures in the UK are lower than most of those in Europe and lower than both the US and Canada, accounting for about 0.2% of all annual crime figures (including air-pistols and rifles), and of that most of those are suicides (not including air-pistols and air-rifles). Only 3% of the 0.2% result in serious injury or death.

Still, don't let the facts get in the away..... and all that.

I'm not skirting that facts, just adding another perspective. As far as gun-related deaths and crime in the US:

deaths in the US - 2,468,435 (annual) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Gun related death in the US 32,163 (total including self-inflicted) http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/6492

Violent crime rate: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime (take your pick of any year)

You do the math.

Hint: it's a lot less than you think it is.

Yeah, but check the UK figures, it's a lot lesserer. You do the math.......s.

@BRich said:

@YOU_DIED said:

@BRich said:

@Stonyman65: http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/5/6/502

The evidence is overwhelming for the fact that a gun in the home is a risk factor for completed suicide and that gun accidents are most likely to occur in homes with guns.

On the benefit side, there are fewer studies, and there is no credible evidence of a deterrent effect of firearms or that a gun in the home reduces the likelihood or severity of injury during an altercation or break-in.

LOL are you fucking kidding me? This is what passes for academia? 'Studies show that meals are much more likely to be eaten with forks in homes that have forks'. The second statement is outright false, and it doesn't even mention whether 'severity of injury' includes the aggressor of the altercation or just the victim. I kind of want to pick apart this whole white paper now.

Gotta read a bit more than the abstract to get the actual statistics. Here's a little taste:

I can't get ahold of the PDF version, something about having to sign in. If you can get a link to the actual PDF file could you post it in a response to this?

@FourWude said:

US citizens need their guns to keep themselves armed against the tyrranny of their own govt. One million US soldiers would never be enough to occupy the US mainland. It's barely enough to cover the NE Metropolitan areas. You only have to look at Afghanistan and the urban areas of Iraq to see how impossible the task. An armed US Citizenry poses a massive headache to those in power. And they know it.

And that fact that most Police and Military would probably defect and be on "the people's" side, the numbers just get higher from there.

@Stonyman65 said:

@Renahzor said:

@fustacluck: You're a scary individual. The first 10 amendments, the bill of rights as it were, are individual rights. The Supreme Court has ruled that the second amendment is an individual right. The founders in their writings elaborate on the individual's right to own weapons. The 2nd amendment specifically refers to the militia as the reason individuals must not be restricted from owning firearms. They had just gone through the attempted mass disarmament of the country by the king. It is indeed an individual's right, and people like you are the reason we can't have an actual debate about common sense measures to help restrict people from getting weapons who NEED to be restricted.

Additionally, I've lived in a rural area before(my parents still do), 911 response times varied from 30 minutes, to 4 or 5 hours depending on proximity and which jurisdiction was taking the call. You can rely on someone else to protect you all you want, I prefer to be responsible for myself though, I know personal responsibility is fast becoming an extremely foreign concept though, so no worries that you dont feel the need.

And the fact that the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 (I think it was 2008) that the Police have no legal obligation to protect citizens. Their job is to investigate crimes already committed and apprehend criminals, not stop crime.

It's fucked up, but that's how it works. Add to that that there is only one police officer for every 10,000 people or so, even if it was there job to protect us, it would be impossible to do so.

I'd say the members of the Supreme Court who decided to reinterpret the Second Ammendment to the "standard model" were out of their fucking minds at the time (or, dare I say it, maybe money was involved, you know, from like contributions and stuff *wink*), and so you should direct your fear at those scary individuals, I'm waaaay too far away to affect your life.