i'm trying to stop it, but you know, something made garth brooks the, what, #3 highest selling artist of all time? you just can't stop the pop machine!Quote:
Originally Posted by Eomer
Printable View
i'm trying to stop it, but you know, something made garth brooks the, what, #3 highest selling artist of all time? you just can't stop the pop machine!Quote:
Originally Posted by Eomer
Anyone who just looks at gun violence statistics is just fooling themselves. Remove guns, and people will kill each other with knives. Hell, some criminals will still have guns regardless. But the 100 pound woman cowering in her house as she hears the 250 pound man breaking in sure won't.Quote:
who have much less shot people.
Plus there are many, many cultural and environmental factors to consider. For example, England has cameras EVERYWHERE. And as I said before, America is a huge mixture of many cultures, which in itself will cause more friction.
You stop violence with education, reason, and compassion. Not by taking away rights. People will always have ways of killing each other.
Actually, the argument that since Canada is bigger it has less violence is false. In reality, Canada is actually MORE urban than the US, with a larger proportion of it's population living in large cities. Yes, on average the population density is low, but that's because the majority of the country is basically empty.
The landmass point was just an example of one of many variables that can affect violence levels in demographics. I didn't say it was THE reason.
Yeah I know, was just pointing out that it's not applicable!
Not by taking away rights. People will always have ways of killing each other.
The easier you make it for people to kill each other, the more people will get killed. If the best way to kill people, known to us were using spoons, you would see far less killings. If nuclear weapons would be available in your local supermarket, you would see more killings.
People will always kill people, but guns makes it really easy - long distance killing. But if you had to get right in there, and stick the knife in, and risk getting stabbed yourself, you might stop and think about it, more than pulling a trigger and walking away.
Or, as Chris Rock put it, make bullets cost $5000 each, then you'd definitely stop to think about it. Damn, he must have done something wrong, he has $50,000 worth of bullets in his ass.
America hasn't started a single war having incurred casualties of over 8 million, much less two in the past century. If there's any reason for a large discrepancy in gun deaths, it is public perception that has been imposed by losing 2 generations to the gun. After two of those, it would be logical that Europeans would be trying to limit the next guy's access to a gun.
ww1
we lost 117,000 with 204k wounded
europe lost over 8 million killed, nearly 20 million wounded
ww2
europe
axis: 11 million military, 4.5 mil civillian
allies: 18 million military, 22 million civilian
united states 295k, no civilian
Knock the US all ya want for gun issues, but we're still not even in your league.
How can you compare domestic violence/killings to WW1/WW2, those wars had nothing to do with the gun policies and social atmospheres of those countries during normal conditions. I would be surprised if any American civilians were killed in the wars because the war was fought in Europe not America. Which country do you think did a decent amount of the killing the axis?
This whole thread baffles me, as an American, I truly felt that the first four of the jokes were much more racist/stereotypical/offensive then the one about America.
are you joking? The whole reason we have any form of nuclear social peace movements post ww2 is because of the use of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1900, noone thought that a gun was bad in Europe, it was the old "imperialistic boys" at it again, they'd fight til it got cold and go home. They were the ones developing the Krupp guns, the Maxim machineguns, because they were just guns.
Then ten million people die in WW1, 50 in ww2, and gee, Europe enacts gun control laws because 1 in 10 people or so have been killed by a gun. Find me some good gun control laws in Europe pre ww1 or 2. I'll lay damn good money it is a direct result of social outcry over the horrors of war, perpetuated by the gun. The kind of reaction we did not have in America because our casualties were so light.
The best example I'll probably be able to find will be some gun control ideas after the Civil War since we inflicted so many upon ourselves.
Hell, the best gun control of all time was who? China. Why? Because of social outcry over the horrors of the gun. So what'd they do to respond (and to make sure noone could use them against the ruling body later?) Ban the gun entirely.
Yes, you can buy assault rifles here, yet our murder rate is only double here, which is further heavily mitigated by other factors.
I would never vote to remove the gun out of the terrified woman's hands right before she is about to get raped and murdered. Sorry.
I personaly wouldn't care much if you banned cop killer bullets, body armor, double magazine clip MP5 submachine guns, etc. But every single firearm? No.
the point is, you're not going to see nearly the social outcry in the United States against the gun because it hasn't seared our national psyches. The World Wars changed the way Europeans viewed violence. Proliferation of treaties that weren't just entente stuff, world court, League and UN...We didn't even ratify the League.
It'd be an interesting topic, but like I said, I hold no doubt that the European gun control and social perception of violence comes from 60 million dead over less than 2 decades of combined time.
Ours is glorified one on one cowboys and indians. Theirs is the German infantryman from the Western Front, body blown away from his hands while they still cling the barb wire.
What I'm saying is Europe has learned its lesson. And whether the US is ignoring that lesson, or we don't need that lesson will remain to be seen. But Europe is in no place to judge the United States for its gun problems.
actually since that is an interesting topic, I've been lookin around for legislation in Europe either post WW1 or post WW2, but everything is swayed in a "gun control sucks!" or "gun control works!" argument. Nothing very objective. There were gun control laws enacted prior to WW2, but most of those articles bog down in "this is why gun control leads to tyranny!"
The US does have 2 "events" that have spurred a wave of gun control laws, aside from the columbine kinda stuff. The JFK assassination and the Reagan attempt yielded gun control laws. At the least the JFK assassination is one of those nation scars, but not on the scale that a Stalingrad or Verdun would be.
interesting anyways
and the Reagan gun control laws (the Brady Bill) while still in effect did nothing to hamper successful attempts to pass concealed handgun laws across multiple states.
As for China, you'll never see any attempt at arming the populace there. It'll be the same way as it was in Russia with the government controlling all fire arms. Imagine Tienneman Square if the protestors had guns. It would have been a differrent situation...same result in the end I'd wager because small arms fire has no chance against tanks, but I think the impact would have been felt greater.
The psycholigic barriers are also much easier to break if you use a gun compared to a knife to kill someone . and like somoene else said if you sell nuclear weapons in supermarket the death rates go up much much higher because it again got easier to kill someone.
As those statistics show, if it wasn't for whiskey *or guiness* the irish would rule the world :D