[craigawoodman]

I would like to reiterate Flash's comments that this has been a good and clean debate/exchange of views and shows the maturity of the group. A good bottle of red to go with it might help, but my thanks for those that have read and participated in the discussion. None of us are perfectly 100% right, because all of our situations are different.



It is how we come to an understanding of these similarities and create a solution that respects and meets the needs born out of the differences that should be the goal.



A great exchange of ideas in a positive forum. Kudos to everyone on what could have been a very divisive topic.

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[ds968]

" only a small percentage of crimes are committed with the use of guns (only 7% according to the bureau of justice). crime will go on until we deal with the criminals. other weapons will be used. getting rid of guns will do almost nothing to reduce crime. putting a gun in the hands of everybody would reduce it quite a bit ."



That's a nonsense statistic..it includes ALL violations of ANY and ALL criminal laws which are in the thousands.. Of all Homicides however, over 70 % are committed by guns, as are attempted homicides, as are armed robberies, etc..l and 97 % of gang related homicides are by guns. Want to preserve the 2nd amendment right to own a gun ? Sure - you can satisfy that provision by having everyone own a single shot musket, which must be at least 5 ft long. Try to walk with that one into a school or a movie theatre !

I for one would gladly give up the so-called " freedom " we enjoy if it meant saving a single life. But I

also think it's too late to do anything short of having a draconian, military state where sweeping

searches and strict anti-gun laws are enforced . And that'll never happen. So I doubt any additional gun-

control measures will make much of a difference to curb what is an epidemic in this country.

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[Cloud9...68]

[quote name='ds968' timestamp='1356802089' post='136803']

" only a small percentage of crimes are committed with the use of guns (only 7% according to the bureau of justice). crime will go on until we deal with the criminals. other weapons will be used. getting rid of guns will do almost nothing to reduce crime. putting a gun in the hands of everybody would reduce it quite a bit ."



That's a nonsense statistic..it includes ALL violations of ANY and ALL criminal laws which are in the thousands.. Of all Homicides however, over 70 % are committed by guns, as are attempted homicides, as are armed robberies, etc..l and 97 % of gang related homicides are by guns. Want to preserve the 2nd amendment right to own a gun ? Sure - you can satisfy that provision by having everyone own a single shot musket, which must be at least 5 ft long. Try to walk with that one into a school or a movie theatre !

I for one would gladly give up the so-called " freedom " we enjoy if it meant saving a single life. But I

also think it's too late to do anything short of having a draconian, military state where sweeping

searches and strict anti-gun laws are enforced . And that'll never happen. So I doubt any additional gun-

control measures will make much of a difference to curb what is an epidemic in this country.

[/quote]

DS,



I've been waiting for you to chime in! Agree 100%. The U.S. is saddled with an inescapable correlation: It's easier to get obtain a gun here than in any other industrialized country, and we have by a staggering margin the highest rate of gun-related murders. There's simply no way to dispute that.



However, it's also a fact that gun control doesn't work. It's simply too late. The carnage will continue, and there's not a whole lot we can do about it.

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[flash]

it's not a nonsense statistic. the fact is that violent crime is a small percentage of crime. it is even smaller if you compare it to other causes of death, but nobody wants o hear about those. it really is not something to even pay attention to. a large percentage of the gun deaths involve criminals, and i say "let them shoot it out". the only reason we even hear about it is that it makes better tv than other crimes.



the fact that we have more gun deaths here than elsewhere means nothing more than people there are happier and less prone to crime. the crime rates parallel the gun deaths. the fact of the matter is that other countries are more civilized than we are. we are still a bunch of rude idiots that think we own the world and can take what we want. we are basically bullies. we are near last on almost every significant scale by which you measure a modern society, yet we still think we are #1. we have the best publicity machine on the planet, but there are a lot more civilized places to live. os, of course they have fewer gun deaths, along with lower crime rates.



it's also a fact that we must preserve the ability to overthrow the government, and we won't do that without guns. the founding fathers knew it, which is why they wrote the amendment. the reasons for it are still very present. nothing has changed.

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[Cloud9...68]

I agree with much of what you say - clearly there are a lot more causes of all the violent crime in this country than the easy availability of guns. As an aside, here's a major factor behind the crime rate that royally pisses off both the left and the right, and as a result, is almost never mentioned: The legalization of abortion. The crime rate was skyrocketing throughout the seventies and eighties, leading to predictions of unspeakable carnage and bloodshed in the coming years. Then, inexplicably, the rate of violent crime began dropping precipitously in the early 1990s, and it kept falling steadily. A host of factors were posited (the strong economy, more prisons, increasing number of police, the aging population, etc.), but none of these fit the data. It turns out that the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973 was the factor that best explained the drop in crime throughout the nineties and into the 2000s - as politically incorrect as it sounds, a lot of babies who would have been born into situations leading to a life of crime were getting aborted. This is in no way meant to be a statement on the pro's and cons of the very controversial abortion issue, just to point out how complicated it can be to figure out what's behind a lot of the crime in this country.



But I still say that the easy availability of guns is a factor that belongs in the mix with all the factors Flash sites. The fact is that most of the rest of the industrialized world, whether or not they're happier and/or more civilized than the majority of Americans, can't get their hands on a gun when finding themselves in a fit of rage. I totally agree that there are a lot of positives of gun ownership - I'm sure hunting can be a great family bonding experience, target shooting looks like a lot of fun (I may try it out myself sometime, if I ever get the time), and it's undeniable that guns have a major coolness factor for many. But I think that on balance, we'd be a lot better off with an unarmed populace. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.



And as far as this fear of a tyrannical government taking away all our liberties - horsefeathers. First of all, this may have been true in the 18th and for part of the 19th centuries, but a bunch of people armed with pistols and rifles wouldn't be much of a deterrent to some tyrant who had the backing of the US military (just saying that sounds so ludicrous - and has about the likelihood of a thousand asteroids the sized of Australia all simultaneously striking the earth). If having "protection" against some tyrannical government bogeyman is so important, how do the poor unarmed citizens of Britain, Germany, France, Japan, etc. sleep at night?

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[flash]

i have to disagree that availability is a factor. our history would prove that. it's only in the last couple of decades that we even pay any attention to guns. what has changed? we have fewer per capita now than in the past. i think it's a degradation in the responsibility people take for their actions. it has nothing to do with the guns. it has entirely to do with the fact that we don't hold people responsible.



if you don't think a bunch of people with pistols and rifles would be much of a deterrent to the us military, do some reading on the civil war. more people were killed there than almost all of our other wars combined.



there are 300 million people in this country. there are less than 1.5 million military personnel total. the military would be forced to fight a man to man battle here. they could not use most of the weaponry it has. think about it. they couldn't use the planes, bombs, artillery, or any other such weapon. it would be guerilla warfare. just like in the revolutionary war, the military would be the invader, fighting against the population. we already know how piss poor they are at that kind of fighting, war after war. that would put things on a pretty even playing field. it would be very easy to overthrow the government if everybody had a gun. that's why the amendment remains a vital component.



if you really want to cut down on gun deaths, take them away from the military:



http://en.wikipedia....sualties_of_war

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[Cloud9...68]

Fair enough - we agree to disagree. I respect your views (and those of everyone else who posted here). I completely agree that we have a societal sickness that seems to be getting worse. My concern is that having a large population of disturbed people in our midst, in a society where practically anyone can get their hands on a gun (which makes us very different from most of the rest of the industrialized world) is a recipe for disaster. I just don't have any solutions to offer, and neither does anybody else, it would appear.



The recent debacle in Iraq is a strong piece of evidence in support of your point that even a powerful military can be brought to its knees by a bunch of armed individuals. However, I wonder how much of this was due to our policy of keeping civilian causalities to a minimum. If the U.S. government were to be somehow taken over by a tyrant hell-bent on domination of the country, and had the military at his disposal, I doubt there would be this type of regard for the sanctity of human (at least civilian) life that our military has displayed in recent years. In this scenario, all the rifles and pistols of our armed citizens would be about as effective as a bunch of cap guns against the weapons such a tyrant wouldn't hesitate to unleash, I would think.

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[craigawoodman]

It is a complex debate, but the issue of inequality within a society has not been mentioned. As per one post, while others can take from those who produce and are prosperous by force (be it gun, baseball bat, etc) rather than work themselves, then they will.



Look at Singapore, Sweden, etc. Low crime, stable societies etc. but you need to fund those that will not work and reduce the "social inequity" within the society (the difference between those that have everything and those that have nothing) and remove the requirement to resort to crime to feed yourself (even if the food is drugs - don't get me started on the war on drugs).



Look at media language and the use of sensational language post the fall of Russia. There was no common enemy any more, so Governments invented them as a control and to put fear into the population. If everything is great and there are no problems, why do we need large Governments? Employment by the Government is a waste of productive resources - it has to be paid for by those in private industry as taxes.



The other issue is history. There are simply too many guns in the USA and too big an industry around it to shut it down. It would also push prices up for weapons for the government and munitions. What would happen to all of the businesses and industry that supports the gun market? Whole skill sets would become obsolete overnight.



This is a classic example of a debate where the negative impacts are not being thought out. As per the previous posts, I don't care one way or another, but at least look at all of the impacts.



I have worked with many South African's who have immigrated to Australia because of the violence in South Africa. All of them know someone who has been killed indiscriminately. One person who worked with me was shot when a company laptop was stolen from him at gun point and he offered the computer to the thief. When society has gone that far out of balance - I would want a gun and most people around me armed as well, as the criminals all have them.



As per other posts, why not let people choose, but hold them accountable for their actions. For the deaths of 20 people, when 35,000 die each year on roads, 200 Million people (the majority of citizens) are going to be negatively impacted by the minority who want this. Why not have a referendum on it and see if the people really want the change - not trial by media.

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[craigawoodman]

Everything is interlinked and a dynamic system. As humans, we are not omnipotent or smart enough (nor normally motivated or rewarded) to think through and know the total outcomes of our decisions on all aspects of the system.



Over here, there has been a concerted push to stamp out fighting in schools, etc. this works when there are controls in place during school age, but now there is a major increase in "single punch" fatalities - where young and full of alcohol/drugs young men get into a fight, land one punch and the person hit gets knocked out and then falls back onto the pavement causing fatal head injuries. If kids were allowed to fight when younger, they would learn their own strength as they grew and also be more "aware" when in a fight, so less likely to have a direct hit landed on them. Small experimentation/learning is better than learning this way.



Same for crocodiles and sharks. We protect these apex predators, they breed exponentially as there is not no natural controls (sounds like humans) and then we wonder why they start eating us. Crocodiles over here were almost hunted into extinction and used to run and hide at the sight of humans - now they see us as food. Even though there is no longer an issue with extinction, the opposite, we still cannot cull them - the animal rights groups go feral at the suggestion.



Until we can understand all of the impacts, direct and hidden of proposed system changes, we are destined to move from one stuff up to the next.



Look again at South Africa and Zimbabwe/Rhodesia. Whilst "black" empowerment and the removal of oppressive rules was good in principle, are these people dramatically better off after one generation? Both countries used to be major food exporters, now Zimbabwe cannot feed itself and has hyper inflation.



Beware of well intentioned fools - they will lead you to your ultimate destruction.

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[ds968]

If vehicular manslaughter while DUI would result in a compulsory penalty of life in prison without parole ( no jury trial, no plea bargains , no judge discretion in sentencing ) I am willing to bet not one single person would ever get in their car even after one single glass of wine. By the same token, if mere possession of gun would bring about a compulsory life sentence, and/or the commission of a crime with a gun would result in an arbitrary capital punishment sentence to be carried out within a week ( again, no jury, no plea bargains, no appeals, , no b.s. ..) I would also bet that 99% of would be "criminals" will be standing in line to turn in their weapons. Again, an entirely unrealistic scenario but since we're all talking about concepts here anyway, there's one...

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[craigawoodman]

DS - I agree, if you go back to the post about Societal controls - the future punishment as a deterent against committing a crime now is not tangible. Firstly - how likely are you to get caught - forget CSI - a large percentage of cases go unsolved, then there is the punishment if caught. Now over here (which is different to the USA), our Gaol's (UK spelling of Jail) are more like Day Spa's than a form of incarceration - because the social do-gooders think everyone can be "rehabilitated".



I personally vouch for making prisoners work harder than they ever have in their life (but pay them a wage for it) - deduct the costs of their incarceration and keep the balance for when they get out, retain some as an incentive to not re-offend. That way, there is a disincentive to want to go back, and ANYTHING that they have to do outside of prison would be easier than going back - so they would hopefully choose this over re-offending.



But if we can conclusively prove 100% that someone perpertrated a crime which is henious (i.e. murder, violent rape, peodophilia, etc) - then the punishment should fit the crime. Death for murders, castration for rapists/child molestors, etc. Society should not have to pay to house this type of person - we can no longer exile them, and not many believe in punishment in the afterlife - so it has to be real and tangible now.



The more the balance of society shifts, the more punishments like the latter (not simply making them work harder than they ever have) will come to the fore.

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[flash]

if we keep cooking the planet like we are, we'll have some new land masses up north very soon, with a ton of natural gas for energy to power it, and by all predictions it will happen in the next 20 years. sounds like a great place for a giant prison colony.

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[Rap]

ds with all due respect I deal with people everyday who are not concerned that use of drugs or alcohol will result in jail time. In fact, we have people in treatment who decide not to stay knowing full well it will result in going back to jail. Besides, we already have overcrowded jails. Do we really need more people in jail? In the 60's we emptied our mental institutions because these patients rights were supposedly being violated and were better off out of these institutions. Very little mention has been made of the issue of how we currently treat the mentally ill. Perhaps part of the mania about gun control might incorporate this issue.

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[craigawoodman]

Rap - the issue is the lack of consequences when going to jail. What happened to "hard labour" when there as a disincentive to go in the first place? If we want to "reform" or "rehabilitate" people, making them not want to go back to jail (as a disincentive) would be a great place to start.



Not being a drug user, some of the illegal drugs are simply too addictive for the mind/body to not want. So how do you treat this? The "war on drugs" is not working, so do we look at legalising and controlling these drugs (and taking the profits away from criminals and saving taxpayers on customs, police, DEA, FBI, etc)?



If you cannot be a productive member of society and become a parasite or pest to it, one of the controls was banishment or even society removed you (stoning, hanging, etc). Society now lacks the will and option to do this.



Perhaps some of these options will come back if society becomes desperate enough. Even legalising drugs and using the "taxes/profits" to treat people and/or remove supply from the market place may become an option first. What we are doing now is obviously not working - and contributes to the gun related crime we see.

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[Rap]

Craig, I suspect although I have no facts to back this opinion that even hard labor might not be enough of a disincentive to many. There is a segment of our jailed population who have become institutionalized. I referred to this in my previous posting. There is no drug that one can not learn not to take. It is more a desire to learn to stop and be sober. Chain gangs were used here previously. We have work programs now. Finding labor for an inmate is not a bad idea, especially if it creates a skill to be used if and when one leaves prison. Not sure how many usefull skills could be taught. If the labor would be to hack weeds at the side of the road, you would need a lot of guards to pull that off nationally. I agree the war on drugs isn't working and have previously stated we need to have a national dialogue on whether legalization is the path we want to take.

Every society throughout history has included members who either are not productive and need to be taken care of or for whatever reason do not do as well as others or even not well enough. I'm not sure our sitting in judgement or deciding who is productive enough in our societies is a path we should take. We have employees that for any number of reasons are not as productive as we might like. Either that is a management problem or again this is just the basic inherent differences in humans.

Responsibility and consequences are not allowed in our liberal politically correct society. The dumbness that has become the accepted norm is merely our societies response in loosening the bounds of personal responsibility. We have created sub classes of idiots and entitled citizens who have repeatedly been told that the gov't will take care of them. Do this enough and not only do people believe it but will alter their behavior and embrace it. Couple that with the partisan warfare that demonizes those who work hard and create wealth, and its not to hard to understand how people are so easily mislead.

We can sit here as educated people and have these erudite conversations but how many in the general population spend any time daily reading and digesting news and info beyond 5 second sound bites or soft news. Smart phones and iPads are great but they encourage this general trend of people just surfing the tops of the waves and never really knowing or understanding.

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[craigawoodman]

Rap - when the 50% that support the other 50% who don't/can't support themselves decide it is too hard to continue to do so - it is the end of society.



Once society begins to crumble - it is then survival of the fittest.



Another good book from the late 1930's is "Atlas Shrugged" - it sort of sums up where we are now. As a global society, we have not moved on, we are just repeating past maistakes, but on a much bigger scale.



It worries me that whilst people seem to not take in the broader picture and history, they love to pick up on one single issue and ignore everything else - it is this lack of perspective that worries me.



Perhaps it is getting older that you worry about the world - when you are younger - you just want to partake in all of it's pleasures. Perhaps, it should be the other way around. I wonder if our parents worried as much about the world they were leaving for us?

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[Rap]

Agreed. If you don't know your history your doomed to repeat it. This was what I poorly mentioned in my last post. Everyone gets a degree but few can analytically think. Few know the history of their country or the world. Give a big round of applause and thanks to our educational institutions for that condition.

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[flash]

ironically i got involved in environmental issues very early on. this is likely why i am so focused on it now. i had a head start on what many are only now coming to understand, but the media is not allowed to tell you, as it would likely ruin the economy (as if the economy was at all important in the bigger scheme of things). as stated above, the public generally only gets the top bits. they don't get most of what is out there, and certainly don't bother to find out about it when it is. you can blame that on allowing the news to be profit oriented. we don't have "news" any more. we have approved press releases.



i think we should hold people to a higher standard, and demand a certain level of behavior and performance. if you don't measure up, then public floggings, stonings, and hangings are in order. enough of this namby pamby politically correct nonsense. time to get tough. educate the people so they can be productive. then, when somebody screws up, they get one chance to get clean, go straight, or whatever it is. they screw up again, they're done. i'm so sick and tired of hearing about career drug addicts and career criminals. remove them from society forever. i don't care if we kill them, or use them for labor. i'm just sick of hearing about the crap that happens when they get out again.

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[ds968]

Furthermore, bringing back cruel and unusual punishment for certain crimes ( several of which were mentioned by Craig ) and also administering that punishment it in public, ( as flash mentioned ) would be a good start.

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[flash]

yup - anybody remember the episode of the original star trek, in which they fought a war by computer? the moral of the story being that by removing yourself from the reality of something, you learn to accept it, rather than try to avoid it. by making our penal system too nice and comfy, we have essentially made it a desirable thing for many. it needs to be ugly and horrible, and something to avoid. no more 3 strikes either. you get 1. if you're too stupid to avoid the second time, then you're too stupid to be in society.



we could apply this thinking to other laws too. like, if you are the cause of a traffic accident, then you lose your license for a year, and have to go through safe driving school, which would be a lot more like driver's ed we had when i was a kid, and then you would only be issued a probational license for another year. that should cause people to rethink how they drive.



if you get caught committing a white collar "wall street" crime, you lose your house, and the ability to own property, stocks, or any other such thing after that.



and if you're caught with a cell phone in your hand while driving, you can be shot on sight

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