Was going to reply to ae but this is a good enough reply. Americans get a bad rep for stereotyping and the like but there's a lot of it going on against Americans itt.

Imho , a gun debate never works because people are either very for it or very against it . You wont change someones mind with a debate no matter how hard you win the debate . I know this from experience and I'm not even gonna try . Someone who is on the fence about the issue is worth educating about it , but anti gun people just do not change . Thats cool to me tho i suppose . At least you take a side on the issue albeit the wrong one

I have a very libertarian view on things . I'm for pretty much whatever . Drugs etc . As long as your decisions dont affect me , do what you want iyam .

Waffle is correct to an extent.

Look at I think either sweden or switserland countries where due to national service or wotever there is a gun in most houses. Then look at america.
Murder rates imply it is not gun ownership but society tht is the problem

Couldnt agree more . America I believe has more guns per person than anywhere else in the world .

I was going to post facts, I mean actual scientifically studied facts, but then I realised that would kill the spirit of this thread (and make some Americans unhappy).

Just look at these bazookas instead:

Firearm related accidents isn't the main reason that I am against free gun ownership but it shouldn't be discarded totally. I do believe that if you handle your firearm responsible the risk of accidents is very small. However, not everybody with a gun will be that responsible.

The main problem is that also allows the bad ass mofos to be easily armed. I can't deny that criminals will get guns, legal or not, but the amount of guns available is significantly lower if you have strict gun control. This makes guns a much rarer commodity and they are less likely to be used for a petty home robbery as they are needed for the big stuff like armed bank robberies or killing of rival criminals.

The bolded part is the exact logical fallacy I was talking about many Americans commit. Your guns don't make you safer it's the opposite. Just look at any statistics of both homicide rates and gun-related deaths per capita. America is way head of nations you should be comparable to (mainly Western Europe). Yes there is some social factors contributing to that but there is no way you can dismiss gun availability as a main factor.

The point is that an armed robber normally isn't looking to shot the victims they rob. However if the victim pulls out a gun they will. In America there is a much higher risk that a gun will be pulled back at you hence the robbers will be much more inclined to shot you if you catch them while robbing you.

Also, it is inevitable that at some point some one will snap. This happens in all societies and will happen again. When that happen I much prefer them to go on their killing spree with a steak knife or samurai sword rather than a gun.

So you think that by gun control ( ie : disarming law abiding citizens ) that volent crimes will go down ? Some shocking stats taken from gun owners of america .

Australia: Readers of the USA Today newspaper discovered in 2002 that, "Since Australia's 1996 laws banning most guns and making it a crime to use a gun defensively, armed robberies rose by 51%, unarmed robberies by 37%, assaults by 24% and kidnappings by 43%. While murders fell by 3%, manslaughter rose by 16%."2
* Canada: After enacting stringent gun control laws in 1991 and 1995, Canada has not made its citizens any safer. "The contrast between the criminal violence rates in the United States and in Canada is dramatic," says Canadian criminologist Gary Mauser in 2003. "Over the past decade, the rate of violent crime in Canada has increased while in the United States the violent crime rate has plummeted." 3
* England: According to the BBC News, handgun crime in the United Kingdom rose by 40% in the two years after it passed its draconian gun ban in 1997.4
* Japan: One newspaper headline says it all: Police say "Crime rising in Japan, while arrests at record low."5

"You are more likely to be mugged in England than in the United States," stated the Reuters news agency in summarizing the study. "The rate of robbery is now 1.4 times higher in England and Wales than in the United States, and the British burglary rate is nearly double America's."6 The murder rate in the United States is reportedly higher than in England, but according to the DOJ study, "the difference between the [murder rates in the] two countries has narrowed over the past 16 years."7
* The United Nations confirmed these results in 2000 when it reported that the crime rate in England is higher than the crime rates of 16 other industrialized nations, including the United States.8

I wasn't serious! I understand that a gun can be used for purely self defence reasons.

Whether a society with loose gun laws is safer than a society with restrictive ones is where the debate lies.

I suspect the illegality of drugs, poverty, and harsh prison sentences contribute alongside access to weapons.

I think if I lived in the US I'd be a gun owner.


I don't knowe enough about it tbh. That's why I asked those questions

Not trying to be a dick but most people who hold ae's view back their assertions with theory. Post facts that support your view pls.

I'll readily admit that I do stereotype in this debate, but generally speaking Americans are much more pro-guns than Western Europeans. I don't mean to offend anybody and I truly believe that the pro-guns people I am debating have the views I'm ascribing to them. If not they should feel free to correct me. Even though people disagree there is no reason it shouldn't be kept civil.

Gun ownership isn't everything but it is a huge part of it. Do you believe the Swiss are more safe due to them having guns at home? Because that was waffles argument.

But debating is fun...

omgomgomg it's nom time..... pick bitches

Originally Posted by whydowe_fall
Watching a sex tape that you're a part of is... odd.

nom please.

Well alright then, if you really want to talk facts

I don't know about your other two examples, but maybe if I dig a little deeper...

First off, I forgot to put this in my previous post so this might look like I'm back pedalling but it is what it is. That is that you (America) might already have dug yourself in to deep. I can see why you wouldn't want to do it now but I was more talking about it from a idealistic perspective ie how would you want a society to be structures (and that includes not relaxing gun laws countries with currently strict gun laws).

So I am not saying that disarming law abiding citizens is necessarily the best way to go (I won't rule it out though, but that isn't nearly as clear cut in my opinion).

I am not familiar with the statistics quoted but I would also be much more interested in how those statistics look in 40 years. ie it is very conceivable that there will be an immediate rise in crimes but later when the illegal firearms gets off the streets the gun-related crimes will fall. They might however be a argument for not disarming Americans.

Also, I'll reserve the right to not uncritically take in everything from that site (they are a self identified lobbying organisation and thus clearly not unbiased).

I assume this was aimed at me.

The only facts that I have posted is that the US have higher homicide rates and gun-related deaths than comparable Western European countries. If that is what you want me to post I'll do it, but I thought that was a commonly accepted fact.

If you are referring to the effects of having more or less guns available then I have no studies at hand to show but I am very convinced I am right. I might have some digging to do there but it is based on the reported crimes in a country with strict gun control (Denmark) compared to the US.

Originally Posted by crazyfool1985
ITT tbob loses his virginity and acts like ron jemery


is my nom .

I like this one the best ^^ - it was a tough one and WDWF's dogs one made me lol too.

Well the first link has a disclaimer at the bottom that basically says lolsample size . Cant quote from there for some reason .

And your second example is basically saying that the police just reported more violent crimes than they used to , but that the crime rate didnt go up but actually went down ? I admit that i am not the smartest person ever , but that dont make alot of sense to me . please elaborate .

.

Maybe a reproduction licence would be better for society than stricter gun licencing???


Maybe would prevent atrocities like bilzarian being allowed to breed (check it about 2min 15)

Yes statistics are statistics and never lie. That doesn't mean that they tell the truth either.

They (the snopes response posted by dimaba) isn't just saying lolsamplesize they are also saying lol apples to oranges ie population growth of 3.4% led to a 3.4% more murders when any real statistician would have measured the increase in murder rates and lol missing error bars in the case of the jump of 7 to 19 murders (At first glance I would have thought that it was significant but I guess (hope) that they have made the calculations and found the increase non-significant.

Basically the site points out how statistics can be both true and misleading at the same time if you aren't careful.

For the first link: the lolsamplesize is part of the point (some of the stats were based on lolsamplesizaments). Besides that, there are also some non-statistical points (such as whether or not different situations are comparable).

For the second: the police implemented a new reporting system which apparently made making reports easier. This may or may not have been combined by new guidelines to report incidents even when no charges are filed or w/e, but the point is that the method with which crime was measured changed. So police figures went up, but it is hard to compare police figures across several years when the methods of measurement changed inbetween data points. So, to discover if changes in crime reported by police are due to increased crime or due to a change in methods you can look at a study which measured accross the same period but with consistent methods. Studies with consistent measurement methods show a decrease in crime.

This is actually a very interesting topic, even apart from the whole guns/no guns thing. Studies have shown that as much as 75% of variation in registered crime rate can be due to changing registration frequency (how many of the crimes reported to the police are registered) and as little as 1% can be due to actual variation in incidence (how often crimes are committed). The study I've got these last figures from is a Dutch one, related to a specific period of time (1980-2000), so might not apply elsewhere. Also, these numbers are most likely the 'worst-case' scenario. Nonetheless, it's an interesting piece of information.

What he did is ******ed on sooo many levels .

JUST PICK A NOM YA ARGUMENTATIVE BASTARDS!

nom