Debunking Some Gun Myths

[AnonyHorse]

I'd just like to state my opinion that Cookie is the kind of guy who will not change their stance on something and agree you with because he's too stubborn to do so. His entire argument is a massive hyperbole and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone in this thread or anyone reading it.

 

I was going to put my two cents in on the whole gun thing but as a Canadian i'll just do what my country does best and watch from the sidelines.

Edited February 14, 2013 by AnonyHorse

[Cookie]

I'm not going to replying to the rest of your argument because its obvious that you did not understand the video at all.

The basis of that guys argument is that citizens shouldn't have nuclear suitcases because it may randomly go off, and that it will cause innocent people to die. Well I already told he is wrong about the detonation, and with the innocent people he is right somewhat. But if his entire argument then is that it will kill innocent people, then small anti-personnel mines and booby traps he must be fine with right.

My rage.....

 

I wonder what would've happened to the people of Asian descent during the LA riots had they not been armed with AK47's to protect their shops. Oh, that's right, they would've lost their shops. It's a higher guarantee of protection, and it's our right as American citizens to protect ourselves against other people and more specifically, the threat of tyranny. The government is armed with automatic weapons, we should also be armed with automatic weapons. "Well then people can go on rampages and kill more people!" Well how about we invest useless government spending in mental health facilities to treat or house people with mental disorders. Not to mention, the US department of homeland security is purchasing billions of dollars worth of bullets and other weaponry.

That's not actually entirely true, most of the guns used would have been 9mm, shotguns, and a few uzis there is a story about a man buying 5 ak-47s right before the riots started to protect his town, but that's basically it.

Fun Fact: Anything purchased by the department of homeland security is to be used WITHIN OUR COUNTRY.

That's not actually entirely true either, many government agencies that work overseas are classified as homeland security; national guard and the coast guard

[F4ithl3ss]

 

You may notice a quote with no text. That is because you basically said nothing at all in your rebuttle. The fact is that those weapons were used properly in defense, and they assisted in the defense against the LA riots, and contributed to the survival of those attacked. In addition, the department of homeland security does not need billions in spending for "many" government agencies overseas such as the TWO that you listed. The fact is that the a large portion of that spending is used on US soil, if I was a master of google and youtube like you are, which I'm assuming is where you find the base of most of your "facts," I could probably pull up the proper documentation. Thank you for posting your opinion about surrendering your God given right to protect yourself to people who can't be trusted

[Cookie]

You may notice a quote with no text. That is because you basically said nothing at all in your rebuttle. The fact is that those weapons were used properly in defense, and they assisted in the defense against the LA riots, and contributed to the survival of those attacked. In addition, the department of homeland security does not need billions in spending for "many" government agencies overseas such as the TWO that you listed. The fact is that the a large portion of that spending is used on US soil, if I was a master of google and youtube like you are, which I'm assuming is where you find the base of most of your "facts," I could probably pull up the proper documentation. Thank you for posting your opinion about surrendering your God given right to protect yourself to people who can't be trusted

Woah there, you should watch that video i linked, it shows how the people you describe as properly defending themselves as walking around the streets with a pistol shooting, with a little research you can find that they were not only defending themselves but shooting anyone that were not of the same ancestry as them. Just because they used a few ak-47s do not mean they were prominent at all in defending, for all you know the 5 ak men died because assault rifles are terrible in urban environments. I do agree that the department of homeland security does spend way too much money, all I was saying that you were wrong by saying its all inside U.S soil (also there are more than two agencies that work outside U.S just the only two I could name off the top of my head). In your last sentence I believe you are talking about John Locke's natural rights, which most of the founding fathers ideology comes from; but really defending yourself from a government isn't a right, sure you the responsibility to overthrow a tyrannical government, but at that point there isn't a social contract theory is out the window. Also, you don't need to have such a venomous tone just because you believe differently than me.

[Kigen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR3t7j2tUec

 

http://www.kgw.com/n...-183593571.html

 

https://en.wikipedia...ooting#Shooting

 

Loughner was tackled to the ground by 74-year-old retired United States Army Colonel Bill Badger,[26] who had been shot himself, and was further subdued by Maisch and bystanders Roger Sulzgeber and Joseph Zamudio. Zamudio was a CCW holder and had a weapon on his person, but arrived after the shooting had stopped and did not use the firearm to engage or threaten Loughner.[27]

 

http://www.mysananto...ing-4122668.php

 

[zidian]

Well...Problem settled. Everyone thinks the exact same thing they thought before.

 

I would hate to be a congressman....

[LazaHorse]

- You may notice a quote with no text. That is because you basically said nothing at all in your rebuttle. The fact is that those weapons were used properly in defense, and they assisted in the defense against the LA riots, and contributed to the survival of those attacked.

- The fact is that the a large portion of that spending is used on US soil

- if I was a master of google and youtube like you are, which I'm assuming is where you find the base of most of your "facts," I could probably pull up the proper documentation.

- Thank you for posting your opinion about surrendering your God given right to protect yourself to people who can't be trusted

- A biased opinion of a fairly extreme outbreak of violence should really not be the basis for your argument. The LA Riots were very much an exception to how gun violence and proliferation have affected American life. Coming from a Korean American with friends whose parents can tell you stories of how the LA riots really were, they're fairly over-glorified on both sides. On one side (usually the left side), you see racial tension between black citizens, white law enforcement, and Korean/Chinese property owners burst into widespread violence exacerbated by proliferated firearms on both sides. On the other side (generally the NRA-influenced right wing), the LA riots tell the tale of gun-owning "common men" who fought back from within their own stores to protect what was lawfully theirs.

And we can glorify what happened during the LA riots as much as we want. Yes, it is good that law abiding Korean store-owners (very few of them were law abiding btw) defend themselves with weapons (many of which were not registered or bought through means we would consider today to be "legal"). However, that same incident marks the isolation of Korean-Americans in America to what have become fairly exclusive "Koreatowns" in LA, NY, DC, and other urban areas in the US. Koreans are now more pessimistic of other races (my grandfather consistently refers to our neighbors as "the brown people"), their government, and even Koreans who have assimilated into American culture (like myself) because of what happened in LA and how Koreans have been treated/chosen to be treated since.

The LA riots were not a glorious example of how Korean store-owners fought against tyranny with weapons they had a right to own. At least that's not the whole tale. It's a story of how Korean Americans who could have become a well-contributing part of American society instead chose to isolate themselves into exclusively Korean communities because of a near-paranoia of other people.

 

- Frankly, I'm too lazy to read into DHS's GIGANTIC budget report for 2013, but as a means of contributing to discussion on what their actual role is, I'd like to share an excerpt from that budget brief (as you said, being a master of google this is easy to do):

Mission 1: Preventing Terrorism and Enhancing Security – Protecting the United States

from terrorism is the cornerstone of homeland security. DHS’s counterterrorism responsibilities

focus on three goals: preventing terrorist attacks; preventing the unauthorized acquisition,

importation, movement, or use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials and

capabilities within the United States; and reducing the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and

key resources, essential leadership, and major events to terrorist attacks and other hazards.

Their priority lies across three immediate purposes, only the last of which involves spending on our own soil. And it makes sense that it is such. It's fairly hard to defend against weapons of terrorism once they've already reached us, so DHS must be proactive in its spending and programs. Not saying you are wrong that a good portion of their budget is spent on our own infrastructure, that may be the case. But it'd be hard to support that given that border security is already less expensive than anti-proliferation, and given their first mission statement, not the primary focus of DHS.

 

- Ad hominem's not a very nice way to take this discussion. Frankly, it's a given that the vast majority of HG members support gun freedom. It's not exactly an unbiased sampling pool. I and a few others in this thread are presenting reasons why some of your arguments are flawed or at least not the best possible alternative. Simply because many of you agree with each other does not mean our arguments are any less convincing/respectable. In fact, Cookie's argument against that fairly ignorant video about comparing guns to nuclear suitcases is fairly well-versed (given Cookie's background in Physics) and more-or-less correct on the matter. Nuclear suitcases don't explode when they're dropped. Even the ones you see in James Bond movies (which are surprisingly pretty close replicas of how the mechanism actually works) involve the contact of two pieces of a severed triggering device before the reaction can even begin. Plutonium does not spontaneously combust when you tap or even shatter its case. Nor does uranium or any other chemical used to make nuclear weapons. In fact, the only elements that would likely explode when they are dropped in large quantities are elements that do not occur in nature, are the product of laboratory work, and have very short lifetimes (seconds and fractions of seconds). That video is ignorant as hell toward how nuclear weapons work, and once the reality is considered, I would MUCH rather have someone drop a nuclear suitcase than a bag with a magnum in it (Annie's Boobs).

 

- A quick BibleGateway.com search of the word "sword" will yield 406 results in the NIV. The same website search of the word "gun" yields 4 results... all of which are the index gun being used to find the name "Guni" or his clan the "Gunites." Now admittedly, the Bible is not the only "holy text" out there among the many religions, but I sincerely doubt any widely-practices religion has within its dogma that God gave them guns to protect themselves.

 

Well...Problem settled. Everyone thinks the exact same thing they thought before.

 

I would hate to be a congressman....

I don't think the same. I'm now more concerned than ever at our future if these are the arguments people are making for the freedom of guns.

[sP00k]

Honestly, Guns shouldnt be banned if anyone was to ask me. Guns are a primary source of protection. I have firearms in my house hold. I trust my family with them, but still they are locked up heavily, Trigger locks, and also kept away in a 5" steel gun rack safe. To buy firearms though, I believe you should be tested, No offense to anyone, I have many sick and mentally ill family so Im not trying to be mean or anything, but if you are under a metally ill list, you should not be able to purchase, or even carry a fire arm.

[zidian]

I don't think the same. I'm now more concerned than ever at our future if these are the arguments people are making for the freedom of guns.

 

So you were already concerned. This forum only strengthened what you already believed. You do think the same.

[LazaHorse]

 

 

So you were already concerned. This forum only strengthened what you already believed. You do think the same.

#MissedIt

[Kigen]

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/s150/report#nation

[Kigen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05AHr89rnTA

 

Article 35 of the 1982 State Constitution proclaims that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration."

 

https://en.wikipedia...public_of_China

 

https://en.wikipedia...rotests_of_1989

 

So who protects the Chinese people's right of freedom of speech?

[Cookie]

 

 

So who protects the Chinese people's right of freedom of speech?

Why not use a democratic government as your example?

See japan ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Japan

In 1990 the police identified over 2.2 million Penal Code violations. Two types of violations—larceny (65.1 percent of total violation) and negligible homicide or injury as a result of accidents (26.2%)—accounted for over 90 percent of criminal offenses in Japan.

and

Ownership of handguns is forbidden to the public, hunting rifles and ceremonial swords are registered with the police, and the manufacture and sale of firearms are regulated. The production and sale of live and blank ammunition are also controlled, as are the transportation and importation of all weapons. Crimes are seldom committed with firearms, yetknives remain a problem that the government is looking into, especially after the Akihabara massacre.

[LazaHorse]

So who protects the Chinese people's right of freedom of speech?

"It could happen here, it could happen anywhere" rarely argues a valid point, and frankly doesn't here either. The Tiananmen Square protests and resulting violence were (once again) an exception to what would be considered the norm as far as how protests occur and are dealt with by governments. Simply put, there are a number of differences between the structure of our two (the U.S. and China) governments, the limitations (and sources of limitations) placed on our governments' power in state action, and the responsiveness of our governments' to public outcries and political speech.

 

The following is for the sake of taking this point to its logical conclusion per my understanding/opinion and not necessarily to make or further my argument. Let us take for granted that the events of the Tiananmen Square Protests support the right to bear arms (and on face, they do). The logical course of action then for a well-populated gun-advocacy group is to incite similar non-violent protest movements in hopes of a similar course of action. They would then be able to point to that event as a national example of the same effect. Let us assume then that the government acts as it did in China. The protest reaches a breaking point without proper government response, the state takes action whether through sanctions or military force to diffuse the situation, and the protesters use their weapons (the difference between this situation and the Tiananmen Square Protests) to defend themselves. America however has a long history of non-violent protests lasting for long periods of time and resulting in significant legislative change (pre-Civil War Northern abolitionists against slavery, 1960 civil rights activism, 1970-80 anti-war movements). As such, after the violence settles and in all likelihood the protesters have been killed or arrested in even larger quantities than had they not been armed (because the government would respond to violence with a stronger military force), the "victory" for the protesters lies in moving public opinion. And yet, given the support of non-violent protest in America's history, the outcome of the gun-advocacy group's protest would likely not be found favorably and support for gun rights would go down if it changes at all. You could say that gun advocates would be emboldened by the protest efforts and resolution to continue their campaign at a higher caliber (no pun intended), but there would not likely be a shift in the opinions of the public who was not originally for them.

 

My point is that using the events of the Tiananmen Square Protests as support for the right to bear arms here takes for granted that the two nations (government, culture, and people) are similar enough that the "moral behind the story" applies. However not only are the circumstances so different that an event like that is less likely to occur in a U.S. context (though I am sure you are going to show me similar events from America's past, and I welcome that), but even if similar events did occur, it cannot be taken for granted that the results should/would affect our opinion toward guns the same way.

[Kigen]

Citizens being armed almost always out number any military or police response.

 

You also have to take into account that security forces are comprised of people.

 

http://blog.wilsonco...s-by-paul-howe/

 

The blog article shows how it would be almost impossible to force gun confiscation in America as written by someone who served in the Army.

 

The only people who can keep the government in check is the people who are governed. The point I was making with the Chinese constitution is that without proper safe guards a government will become tyrannical. The Chinese have the right to free speech. However, we all know that they cannot use that right because their government does not allow it (Great Firewall of China, censorship of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989).

 

It can happen in America. Right now we have a de facto two party system that has resulted in stuff like the NDAA indefinite detention without charge. Right now if you are simply "suspected" of terrorism the law is written that the military can detain a citizen without charge indefinitely. Also, Obama can have you executed for suspected terrorism too (this has happened through drone strikes).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NDAA_2012#Indefinite_detention_without_trial:_Section_1021

 

Right now the only thing preventing you from being detained indefinitely by the military is Obama's word. Just like his word during his 2008 campaign to not renew the PATRIOT Act. But that he did renew.

 

https://en.wikipedia...iki/PATRIOT_Act

 

And lets not forget that Obama had a 16 year old US Citizen in Yemen killed by a drone. This was done because of his father. Who was also a US Citizen and was killed by a drone 2 weeks prior.

 

http://www.theatlant...merican/264028/

[Kigen]

 

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

 

Note in the second question featured to Obama all Obama says is that is hasn't happened NOT that it cannot happen.

[Kigen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_52pMg8qQcc

 

And Laz, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt

[jajolt]

One of my biggest pet peeves in this is that they argue that criminals will get ahold of guns even if we make them illegal. The stupid thing about this is that murderers are going to murder if they want to, and rapists are going to rape if they want to, etc. Well I guess we should make murder, rape, arson, etc legal because criminals will obviously do it anyway.

 

BTW, during the Clinton ban, shooting rates went WAYYYYYYYYYYY down. But you know, whatever, a stupid ban wont do any good.

[Kigen]

BTW, during the Clinton ban, shooting rates went WAYYYYYYYYYYY down. But you know, whatever, a stupid ban wont do any good.

 

I think you'll want to recheck your statistics there.

[jajolt]

I think you'll want to recheck your statistics there.

 

Prove me wrong with a chart or something?

[Kigen]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the "assault weapon" ban and other gun control attempts, and found "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence," noting "that insufficient evidence to determine effectiveness should not be interpreted as evidence of ineffectiveness."[8] A 2004 critical review of research on firearms by a National Research Council panel also noted that academic studies of the assault weapon ban "did not reveal any clear impacts on gun violence" and noted "due to the fact that the relative rarity with which the banned guns were used in crime before the ban ... the maximum potential effect of the ban on gun violence outcomes would be very small...."

 

In 2004, a research report submitted to the United States Department of Justice and the National Institute of Justice found that should the ban be renewed, its effects on gun violence would likely be small, and perhaps too small for reliable measurement, because rifles in general, including rifles referred to as "assault rifles" or "assault weapons", are rarely used in gun crimes.

 

https://en.wikipedia...effect_on_crime

 

Why do I have to do all the research? Google is available to everyone....

 

The "Clinton ban" did nothing to crime. As most "gun crime" is attributed to handguns not rifles. But as we saw in '97 North Hollywood shootout it did nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining such weapons.

[Cookie]

https://en.wikipedia...effect_on_crime

 

Why do I have to do all the research? Google is available to everyone....

 

The "Clinton ban" did nothing to crime. As most "gun crime" is attributed to handguns not rifles. But as we saw in '97 North Hollywood shootout it did nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining such weapons.

http://www.disasterc...ime/uscrime.htm

Before 1993 crime was consistently raising in all sections, after crime in all sections was on a consistent decline. Explanation?

 

http://www.ucrdatato...index.cfm <----- Source

Edited February 24, 2013 by Cookie

[Kigen]

Cookie, it would be nice if you stopped posting in this thread. Its obvious your not comprehending any posts.

 

The AWB of '94 targeted so called "assault weapons." These are basically rifles with certain cosmetic features. Even the most anti-gun groups such as the Brady Campaign acknowledged that the '94 AWB was a complete disaster and total failure. The law only targeted certain features and not the overall function of the weapon (functions like what caliber bullet it fires, how fast it fires, etc).

 

There are a lot of things that affect crime. The availability of weapons are generally not part of that. The greatest increases in crime normally follow attempts by the government to ban something that was previously legal or that wasn't being enforced.

 

The one factor that caused the greatest increase in crime in our time is the so-called "War on Drugs." You can also look to history for examples of this like Prohibition. Crime greatly increased during that era and despite attempts at gun control the ultimate solution was to repeal Prohibition.

 

Our public school system really fails at teaching history in any meaningful way.

[Cookie]

Hey man, all I was doing was giving the data that one guy was talking about.

[Kigen]

Talk to me in TS3 and I can tell you why I said that.