It's a fine day to be an AMERICAN!

[MoP]

And does allowing guns have shown to decrease crime?

[Nagash]

Gun bans may not decrease crime, but it certainly does decrease shootouts and casualty rates. Then again, the world is overpopulated, so if we ban guns we only worsen the problem.

[owly]

crime will have guns say that crime was in your house in the shape of a home invasion would you then agree that people need guns to protect themself.......

[Connor]

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/us/02chicago.html

Last school year, 258 public school students were shot in Chicago, 32 fatally, on their way to or from school

Interesting to see what that number looks like 12 months from now. Hopefully the program that the article is about works fantastically well and there's no children shot or killed by citizens observing their right to bear handguns in Chicago.

[Nagash]

Funny how that statistic is multi-interpretable, isn't it? To me it shows that too many idiots are allowed to have guns in the USA.
Here is the Netherlands, with six times the Chicago population and a gun ban, NO children are shot on their way to school. At all. Seems to prove that gun bans work, yet the pro gun lobby will say that with a gun ban the casualty rate will dramatically increase.

Of course, the pro gun lobby is against abortions, so they interpret the whole concepts of freedom and rights however it suits them.

[MoP]

Of course, the pro gun lobby is against abortions, so they interpret the whole concepts of freedom and rights however it suits them.

Shooting children on the way to school might be their way of having a (late) abortion. You can't take that away from them!

[Nagash]

It does indeed give them more kids for target practice. Perhaps it is against their principles that foetuses don't bleed to death like shot kids do?

[Grunt]

When only law abiding citizens are disarmed what do you expect the result to be

[Nagash]

The same zero casualty rate we have here in the Netherlands where only law abiding citizens are disarmed?

[Grunt]

But you were all forcibly disarmed in WWII
Check out Kenesaw Georgia
they made a law that every able bodies law abiding head of house hold had to maintain a fire arm
Burglaries and violent crime dropped to 1/6th the rate in 3 years

[Shredman]

But you were all forcibly disarmed in WWII
Check out Kenesaw Georgia
they made a law that every able bodies law abiding head of house hold had to maintain a fire arm
Burglaries and violent crime dropped to 1/6th the rate in 3 years

it still has the lowest crime rate in Ga.....

has for yrs, probably the lowest crime right of any city in the south east more than 5k ppl

and Kenesaw is near Cobb, Fulton and Gwinett co.s

where the crime rate is thru the roof....

and most all of small town America 2/3 of the Families that live there are Armed .... Well

i tend to agree with the Guns dont kill ppl, ppl kill ppl thing

and i have lost someone to Violent Crime....

a person pulled the trigger, and aslong as bad ppl are on this Planet its every good persons not only Right but Duty to Defend their Families and Homes ,
some of you will say
well thats what law enforcement is for....

ok tell me then how many times do the Police actually stop a Murder in Progress ????????????
yea, hardly ever....

and i like the feeling of knowing that if some 3rd world country or draconian thugs decide to drop in our back yards we can make them regret it...

i have friends in N Fl who prey every day for someone to invade lol

[Nagash]

If you need to be armed to stay safe, then you have a huge sociological problem. Especially as unarmed and defenseless Europe shows much better crime statistics.

Also, we were not forcibly disarmed after WWII. We never had much firearms ever since we established decent governments.

[Atla]

Nagash - We have a way to update our Constitution, it's called AMENDMENTS. That keeps it current.

Our BILL OF RIGHTS, the first ten Amendments, are considered to be unalienable rights that apply to every human being.

The reason I enlisted is because I believe in my country and it's an honor and a privilege to serve it. I may be at extreme odds with certain political factions within this nation, but that doesn't mean I don't love my country and want to support it to the best of my ability. This country has given me a lot of things, which my ancestors have helped paid for with suffering and hardships.

But you don't repay freedom, you pass it forward.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/02/ill ... tml?hpt=T2

The Chicago, Illinois, City Council in a 45-0 vote approved a new gun ordinance Friday, four days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the city's 28-year-old strict ban on handgun ownership was unconstitutional.

Among other details, the ordinance allows only one operable firearm per household, meaning all other guns would need to have gun locks or be in locked cases. It also requires owners to have a state firearms permit, to register weapons with Chicago police and to take four hours of classroom training and one hour of firing range training.

The plan also bans assault weapons and gun shops in the city.

HAPPY 4th of JULY CHICAGO!

[Grunt]

Guns kill people
Forks make people fat
both are just as true

[Lady Maven]

Right ON!!! Can I now blame my keyboard for my typos an my pencil for my misspellings?

[Grunt]

and Owl can blame his bong for being stoned

[Connor]

Guns kill people
Forks make people fat
both are just as true

Very few forks make nearby third parties fat when the opperator has an oopsy. I'm just saying.

If gun makers or cigarette vendors can make a version that only harms the person using the product - I'd be entirely in support of every adult in the world being able to buy as many of either as they can afford. As it is, I have some reservations.

[mogami]

Hi, It appears your actually safer in America
This is a few years old but since gun bans were lifted in the states gun sales are up and our crime rates are lower then in this article.

"the violent crime rate in the Netherlands is 24% higher than in the US, and the property crime rate is 55% higher."

You can own a gun in Netherlands but you have to prove you keep it locked in a safe making it useless for home defense.(the bad people have always had guns, letting law abiding people have them too makes the bad people think twice)

Would peole walk into malls and start shooting if they knew everyone in there was also armed?

[Connor]

"the violent crime rate in the Netherlands is 24% higher than in the US, and the property crime rate is 55% higher."

I can't find a source for that metric anywhere, the closest I can find is that the murder rate in the US is 5.5/100,000 while it's 1/100,000 in the netherlands - and a study in '98 that suggested that the burglary rates in the US were lower than the burglary rates in a bunch of other countries including the netherlands (And Australia). That study also suggested that violence in theft from private residencies was much more prevalent in the US though. Both of those are in the references of the Wikipedia article on crime statistics in the US.

[Lady Maven]

I don't have a problem with controlling my guns. When the police can say the same for their criminals I will be the FIRST to lay mine down. I promise.

Our only real point Connor, and admittedly tongue in cheek, is that it is the PERSON causing the harm not the tool. Cars run over and kill people, but only if a person is controlling it. Drug overdoses kill, but a person has to use them. Sitting on a shelf no tool does harm. My gun has not killed anyone yet. I am, however, trained fully in its use and if necessary it lies waiting to do its duty.

And whether or not guns mean less crime, or whether they deter crime, or any other argument in favor is of NO consequence to me. I can promise you two things. If someone wants to harm me or mine I will be the last person they do it to. Guns get taken away from people when they are not really willing to shoot. Believe me, I have NO such qualms. The second promise is that when all guns come out of the hands of criminals I will cheerfully and gratefully hand mine over to be destroyed and cheer the fact that I no longer feel I need one.

All of that said I fully respect your belief that they cause more harm than good and will, given the opportunity, stand ready to defend you with mine should the need and occasion arise.