Should I move to Australia if Obama wins?

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Where did someone do this? I earlier presented statistics on murders by firearms and, separately, suicides by firearm. They did not include "lawful shooting", although technically, a suicide by firearm is lawful.


So. You disregard any facts, make up unsupported stories about how good guns are, and sell them to whomsoever has the money.

As I now understand that you have a vested interest in a vigorous market in firearms, I will interpret all your arguments in that context. I can understand how the fear of losing your job would made you emotional on the subject.

I didn't say you did that, though I did note that something is off with your numbers because the murder by firearm chart doesn't have Russia anywhere on it, where as Russia is near the top in murders overall, and I doubt that they're all stabbings and bludgeonings. Your numbers at least are honest in presenting the number of firearm murders in the US (around 9000 a year), most anti-gun groups go with the CDC number of around 30,000 because it includes suicides, police shootings, and lawful self defense shootings. I wasn't really specifically referring to anyone on this board with that comment, but more to the anti-gun political groups like the Brady Campaign.



Wow, that's quite a leap from my simple statement that I make some money in the arms field to "I make up stories", in your own country I might have a libel case if you had used my real name. Seriously, this is really weak, you can't find any holes in my message so you try to shoot the messenger, nice. If you'd been following my posts on guns in the past, I've been up front about what I do since the beginning, I have a gunsmithing degree and I have a machine shop in my garage where I do occasional gun work for people, and work on my own designs in my spare time. I don't have a "job" to lose involving guns, and I've been this passionate about them since long before I had any professional relationship with them. I've also made an actual argument, so far all you've done is post some out of context numbers and hurl baseless accusations, so perhaps you'd best stick to making snarky comments to people who suggest site improvements.

Sand: Your first statement is a statistical blunder if I ever saw one! Unless you live in a place like Florida or eastern Australia your chances of being strike by lightning are Negligibly Small.

Futhermore, I once read an article about a huge, bodybuilding bouncer at a Vegas strip club who intervened with a defiant custormer and BROKE the custormers neck after dragging the guy outside! There ARE people in this world who are big and strong enough that their own body is a deadly weapon which they use as an instrument of force to crush those who get in their way! The gun is the great equalizer. It makes a person powerful no matter what their size or strength. Gun owners DO NOT have the right to decide who lives or dies.And I dont know where you get the idea that having a gun makes you effectively above the law because the cops have guns and they have A LOT more firepower at their disposal than any one citizen does.
Shouldnt a person have the right to decide for THEMSELVES whether THEY live or die in dangerous situation?? WHY should someone else get to put your life in their hands just because they are bigger and stronger???

That's one of those statements that isn't supposed to be taken literally, it's just an expression, and means that (whatever) is not that uncommon.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... tning.html

BIRDWALK!

I guess you can come up with an effective counter-argument to the one I gave that you just quoted. BTW Sand, according to that article 3,696 people were killed by lightning in the US between the 44 year span from '59 to '03. I'll bet you that no less than 10 times that number of people were murdered by predatory killers during that same 40 year period! I live in a part of the country where lightning is VERY RARE except on occasion in the summertime. If you live in Detroit, or LA, or even St Louis Missouri your chances of dying as a result of violence are substantially higher than being killed from a lightning strike. You REALLY should know better than that Sand.

No. You've just said that you like guns, and you are happy to live in a country that panders to that "passion", with the concomitant slaughter.

Legalizing of course, or at least decriminalizing. This alone would save more lives, both from being lost to violence or destroyed by the legal system, than any amount of gun control ever would. Whole wars are financed on drug profits, which would be completely destroyed if the substances in question were suddenly legal and didn't bring risk. I've discussed this topic thoroughly in other threads, so I won't go into it in depth here.



You're welcome to go abolish poverty all you want, it would definitely be more productive than gun control, which as far as anybody has been able to tell doesn't save lives at all.





Ahh, but you're still talking about punishing someone after they misuse something like a car, where with guns you want to take them away from everyone to prevent a few people from misusing them. Do you see the difference?





You know, I'm starting to suspect that you'd make an excellent radiation shield... What is a gun? When does a linear accelerator change from a simple machine into a deadly weapon? Or, if guns are so absolutely bad, why are they so commonly employed by governments, the same people that you seem so willing to place all of your trust in?

As to my own motivations, I'd wager that I'm in a better position to understand them than some guy on the wrong side of world who's never even met me, and unless I've made a hideous misjudgment doesn't know the first thing about firearms. Remember, I have a degree in this subject, it's what I do.



And I should just take your word for it? I've yet to see any evidence of this "profound insight", and your deeply flawed view of people who believe in the right to bear arms doesn't help with your claim. I'm one of those people and I don't hold life in the least bit cheaply, and neither do the other gun people that I've met over the years. How would you even know anyway? By your own admission you detest us and wouldn't willingly associate with us, so where is this stunning insight coming from?



I meant it as a parallel, if you keep taking any risk out of life, people will do things that they probably shouldn't because they don't know any better. In the case of the road, knowing that there is no safety net if they screw up causes people to drive more safely, if society would stop trying to outlaw anything even remotely dangerous, people might be less likely to simply charge into unknown situations or blindly walk into trouble assuming that society will always save them.

Incidentally, I drove professionally for about 5 years, and assuming that every other car on the road is driven by a brain dead raccoon is pretty much SOP. It's better just to plan on the guy in the other lane doing something stupid and be ready for it then to let them surprise you.

Well, I don't know if simply learning to use a gun gives someone any special ability in determining the appropriate force in any situation, but anyone motivated enough to get a permit to carry in public is likely to at least know the law, and in some states may be tested on it and have to pass minimum accuracy standards. I know the exact legal line at which I can draw my gun, and it's pretty stringent, I can actually be charged with a crime simply for showing my gun when it's considered unwarranted. I'm of mixed feeling on that, since many confrontations could be avoided entirely if the aggressor was aware that their potential victim was armed, but I understand why the laws are written the way the are. It's sort of a double edged sword in a way, I'm more capable of defending myself, but I will be held to a much higher legal standard than normal if something should happen.

I personally don't go looking for trouble when armed, though I can't say that no one who carries has ever been made overconfident and walked intentionally into a dangerous situation. Between the legal scrutiny and my own common sense, there's just no percentage in inserting myself into a violent encounter. The other factor is that I give off a very different "vibe", for lack of a better word, when I'm armed, and people with street smarts can read the body language and know to look elsewhere for a possible mark. I know, sounds iffy, but they've done studies on human predator prey selection with inmates and police officers viewing films and picking out the victims, the thing that all the selected victims had in common was a set of body rhythms that added up to "easy". This vibe alone helps me to avoid both small annoyance like panhandlers, and possibly more serious threats who's own target selection process is attuned to pick up on that "armed" signal I send out. Sounds weird, but it works.

Capability? Yes, right? No. I don't make any such decision, the person who initiates sufficient force against me to require a lethal response has self selected themself for that response, it's not my fault for being attacked. I could gain lethal capability with another tool, or even just my body, but a gun is the only tool that takes things like an opponent's size and physical strength out of the equation, making it the best tool for the job and thus what I carry.




I would only add that in a fluid and violent situation were a gun is being used defensively, I'm not overly concerned for the welfare of the person or persons who caused that gun to be drawn. If the gun owner is going by the law, things have progressed pretty far by that point and serious bodily harm has at least been threatened, and the person who makes that threat aught to know the possible consequences.

Well, I guess the previous 5 pages of me eviscerating the fallacies of the anti-gun movement don't count as argument... And you're still ignoring the cognizant points of my post, like how you turned my firearms related work into "proof" that I'm making things up, to use your words, or how you've yet to do anything beyond attacking me personally and posting some irrelevant links. I also don't know why you put "passion" in quotes, my enthusiasm and knowledge of the subject aught to put to rest any doubts as to my feeling about firearms, and as an Aspie you should know how these things go with the all consuming interests.

I cannot dispute any of your considerations and wholeheartedly agree that if I were in a situation that required a gun to save my life or stop violence to save other's lives I would surely appreciate having a weapon for defense. But the sharp edge of decision rests upon my confidence in myself or others to act sensibly and with a minimum of passion. I find it difficult to ascertain whether I could do this under extreme emotional pressure, not to speak of the intelligence or the mental balance of whoever goes looking for trouble. Legality, under these circumstances has a very minor part to play if at all. As I pointed out, the factors involved in brutality are not totally calculable and the psychology of participants is pretty much chaotic and these are the crucial factors in violent encounters.

One additional point. In a situation in New York City which involved the death of a fellow going home after a bachelor's party where undercover policemen were involved the fatality seemed to occur because there was the hint of a firearm in a car that was trying to escape the scene. No firearm was displayed but it is evident that the victim assumed he was being attacked by criminals and even the brief display of a gun would have unleashed a huge amount of police firepower to horrible effect. Arms, in this case would have made the situation immensely worse.

You have done no such thing. All you have done is present some opinions - nothing fact-based. Other, that is, than making the obvious statement that, in a violence-loving culture, the man with the biggest gun wins.

I emphasize the legal guidelines for the use of deadly force so much because they are quite stringent and clear cut, and they provide a useful template for planning ahead for how one might handle a given situation. Remember, I don't want to have to draw my gun, whatever the result it's going to be a huge hassle for me that I'd much rather avoid if possible, and by the letter of the law I can't draw until I really need to in order to prevent serious harm from being done, so I use that standard as my own benchmark. I can't speak for everyone who carries, but concealed pistol license holders like myself have to have at least a passing familiarity with the law and some instinct for planning ahead, so I don't think my system it too uncommon amongst our ranks.



Any worse than not having a gun did? That was a nasty incident that I'm only passingly familiar with, but IIRC the police shot into a fleeing car after failing to properly identify themselves. I don't see how if the guy was himself armed could have made it any worse for him, maybe worse for the cops since they might have had to deal with return fire, but the guy wouldn't have ended up any more dead. If anything, this would seem to strengthen my argument that it's not practical or wise to rely on the police for protection, they are OK at catching crooks after the fact, but are only fair to middling at preventing the crime in the first place, and the psychological effects of their work lead to things like this happening.

It is the responsibility of those who want to change the status-quo to present the facts... those of us who want to keep the current system then get a chance to refute those facts, show them to be either false or irrelavent.

In this thread I've been mostly focused on explaining my own point of view and defending myself from unwarranted assumptions, as well as debunking some of the more egregious manipulations of the gun control movement. I'm sure you and QM would like for me to break the TOS by crossposting some of my previous arguments on this subject that went into greater depth and had the appropriate links and information, but either of you is perfectly capable of using the search button, and I'm not going to repeat myself yet again. I've just been responding to what I'm asked in this thread, and rather than simply regurgitating numbers I've been laying out my reasoning, something that you've yet to do. Attacking me alone does not constitute an argument, you're going to have to do better than that to be taken seriously.