stop bringing up the founding fathers in gun arguments

[Goofier]

Originally Posted by Resheph [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I agree that the responsible gun owners, whether I agree with their overzealous need for guns or not, will get the short end of the stick but the unfortunate fact is, you have to plan for stupid. You have to plan for the crazies who do things they shouldn't. In addition, you will never convince me a 'responsible gun owner' will carry anything larger than a handgun on their person outside of their own home.

Hunting and sport shooting are exceptions to this. By law, these activities have to take place in specifically designated areas, or unpopulated areas. You can carry a RPG into the woods and I wouldn't care, but if you carry one on your person in the city, you should be arrested on the spot. Same thing for anything larger than a handgun.

Personally, I think they need to cap the handgun size as well to make .45 and .50 caliber handguns illegal as well, but that's a hair I won't argue about splitting... it's a smaller issue in the overall scheme of things and not worth the hassle.

Yeah, see, to me that's just this side of being institutional-grade retardation 'cause it sounds like you're saying a .45 is more dangerous/deadly than a .22LR.

And why is it okay to carry an RPG in the woods, but not the city? Country folk are immunte to shaped charges?

But hey, cool, let's do it.

But now let's also make parking spaces illegal within 1500 feet of all bars 'cause that'll save us from drunk drivers.

[Vellatri]

Gotta keep this thing alive!

Australia, people? Really?

AUSTRALIA: MORE VIOLENT CRIME DESPITE GUN BAN

It is a common fantasy that gun bans make society safer. In 2002 -- five years after enacting its gun ban -- the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner.

Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:

In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.

Moreover, Australia and the United States -- where no gun-ban exists -- both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7 percent.
During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

While this doesn't prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy. Furthermore, this highlights the most important point: gun banners promote failed policy regardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them, says the Examiner.

Wondering if this stuff was just cherry picked, (Choose Your Own Crime Stats) I attempted to verify it. The data from Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics actually compares positively with the Australian Institute of Criminology. Some other things I personally noted:

Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research points out that robbery only rose 6.2% during the period of 1995 to 2007. However, it is interesting to note that the Australian Institute on Crimonology shows a *massive* spike in robberies during the immediate period after the gun ban was instituted (1996 to 2001) and then something (presumably unrelated - any Aussies care to enlighten us?) caused it to immediately drop way down after 2001.

Looking at assault, which was specifically mentioned, AIC seems to show an increase of about 78% in the number of assaults from 1995 to 2007. It notes, "The trend in assaults shows an average growth of five percent each year from 1995 to 2007, four times the annual growth of the Australian population in the same period."

The onus is not on me to provide a need for any of my human rights protected by the Bill of Rights. It was written so that I don't have to bother justifying my reasons for exercising such rights. (That's one advantage of having a republic as opposed to a democracy.) This would hold true even if it could be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that guns 'r' bad, mmmkay?

Regardless, why do I want a gun? So I can shoot you in the face if you try to violate my other human rights. Why do I want an AR-15? So it's easier to shoot you if you try to take my other guns by force.

[Lexical]

Vellatri! What are you doing here with all this intelligent posting nonsense?

[Vellatri]

Comes from choosing a dark elf over a big-butt ogre. My bad.

[Hitchens]

Unless someone has done so in the last five or six pages of replies I didn't read, no one is saying that Australia's ban on certain types of firearms results in less overall violence. The argument is that Australia's ban on certain types of firearms has resulted in the stopping of mass shootings.

[Lexical]

Originally Posted by Hitchens [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Unless someone has done so in the last five or six pages of replies I didn't read, no one is saying that Australia's ban on certain types of firearms results in less overall violence. The argument is that Australia's ban on certain types of firearms has resulted in the stopping of mass shootings.

I graced on the subject of that being inaccurate based on the article's definition of "mass shootings." But that is besides the point, the number of mass shootings is a terrible metric to illustrate the effectiveness of gun control.

[patriot1776]

who cares about our wives and daughters being raped by big burly PCP'd out criminals who dont follow laws anyway

[Hitchens]

Originally Posted by Lexical [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I graced on the subject of that being inaccurate based on the article's definition of "mass shootings." But that is besides the point, the number of mass shootings is a terrible metric to illustrate the effectiveness of gun control.

I don't read your posts.

[Daldolma]

From what Humerox's study reported, Australia suffered from 13 mass shootings between 1979 and 1996. These resulted in 104 deaths, or what works out to 8 deaths per year. It should also be noted that the statistics are naturally skewed, as the study uses a 35-death massacre as the cut-off point between 'before' and 'after'. In other words, before that course-altering mass shooting, there had been 69 Australian deaths due to mass shootings over the course of the past 17 years -- which works out to about 4 per year.

Explain to me why such measures aren't alarmist, and why Australia's successful elimination of an almost non-existent problem should serve as a model for a country like the US.

[Lexical]

Originally Posted by Hitchens [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don't read your posts.

why?