Supreme Court Gun Ban Ruling Expected Tomorrow

[Snorri1234]

"If we take away all the guns, no one will get killed".

I don't think anyone in this world reasons that way.

Then what is the goal of getting rid of guns? Maybe I am over simplistic, but this is the message I see. To quote Mustard...

if you all didn't have them, then you all wouldn't need them.

Maybe I am missing the whole point of the wanting to get rid of guns, its to save lifes right? Too many people are getting killed by guns. If that isn't the rational behind it, then I am really missing the whole point of the topic.

(lol, I am under half a beer, so this may very well be the last post, for real, lol)

The argument is that getting rid of guns will lessen crime-rates, not eradicate them. People will still get killed, just not as much.


Also, I think it is rather optimistic to think that murder can really be prevented by giving people guns. Most murder-cases are between people who know eachother, them having a gun often wouldn't make a difference as they'd either let the guy/girl get close or at least wouldn't be able to reach their gun. (Which is safely locked away to prevent the kids from grabbing it.)

[dewey316]

The argument is that getting rid of guns will lessen crime-rates, not eradicate them. People will still get killed, just not as much.

Ok, I can agree with that as the goal. So, has getting rid of handguns in England, lessened the crime rate? The big question is, England did what many people in the US think is the unthinkable, they took the step to ban handguns, that was the better part of a decade ago, so in 10 years, has it really worked?

Also, I think it is rather optimistic to think that murder can really be prevented by giving people guns. Most murder-cases are between people who know eachother, them having a gun often wouldn't make a difference as they'd either let the guy/girl get close or at least wouldn't be able to reach their gun. (Which is safely locked away to prevent the kids from grabbing it.)

I don't think that it can be prevented either. I think there are enough self-defense shootings in the US, that there is at least a case that there are people who are alive today, because they shot a would be murder before they got to them. I am saying, that I think the trends that we say, are removed the guns, and availability of legal guns. I think the crime-rates, and murder rates, are tied to other factors. I think the rising crime-rate in England, and the dropping crime-rate in the US, give this idea credit. I am not going to blame Englands crime stats on the lack of guns, any more than I will give credit to the US's number of guns. My theory is that these trends are showing us something compeletly unrelated, and that we should spend our effort and time, finding the stuff that is actualy broken in our systmes, and fix those. I find the notion that banning guns will lower the crime-rate, and lower the murder rate, to be a knee-jerk reaction by people who just a fear about guns, and (with good intentions, don't get me wrong, I think both sides of this are honestly trying to make our countries better places to live) try to take away the right of other people to own them.

[Pedronicus]

I've just watched a program about England's current problem with teenage knife crime.

London has currently got more knife attacks per capita than New York (guns included for New York)

The teenage gang members they were interviewing were all saying the same thing, If I don't have a knife - I can't defend myself from another teenager because everyones carries a shank. It's for your own protection.

The difference between knives and guns is that a 16 year old can buy a knife anywhere, steal one from the kitchen before he goes out etc. Then once outside, the knife is a £3-10 thing that if you throw it away before the police stop and search you - it's no big deal. But with all teenagers now carrying knives as the norm - Knife murders amongst teenagers has tripled in the last year.
Sure there are gang members armed with guns as well - but knives are the norm in London.

With both sides now armed with lethal weapons - the death rate increases and it's all born out of fear of not being able to protect yourself from someone who is tooled up / armed.

I can understand some stupid 14-16 year old not being able to grasp the concept of this moronic 'He had a knife - so I need a knife' concept, but I would of expected more from American law makers over the last 200 years to stop this stupid ruling, because it's FUCKING STUPID.

[Dancing Mustard]

I am not a raving gun crazed person.

I never said anything to the contrary... but good for you.

The only gun I own, is an antique rifle of my grandfathers, I have no ammo for it.

Again, good for you.

If we are going to allow people a weapon for home defense. They should have the best tool for the job.

Well actually the best tool for the job is probably a fully automatic sub-machine gun, loaded with split-end hollow-points and equipped with a laser-sight and a silencer (don't want to wake the kids up do we?). Is your proposition still such a good idea now?

Reductio ad absurdum aside, my point here is threefold.

1. If we simply must have guns, then you don't need the 'best' tool. You just need a good enough tool. Owning a simple handgun is good enough to kill and maim anybody you need killed or maimed. The whole 'in for a penny, in for a pound' argument is just ridiculous overkill; plain old greed and paranoia, nothing else. You just don't need it; you're defending yourself against humans, not against the Hulk or something.

2. Saying "I must have the best" is to be the mouthpiece for escalation and arms-racing. If all your neighbours have the best, then your family (as that's the example people seem to insist on using) is less safe until you do. And when you have the best, then the criminals aren't going to want to bring knives to gunfights, so they'll go get the 'best' too. Once again, your insistence on having the 'best tools for the job' is just a one-way ticket to a suburban arms-race in which each side of the equation is hell-bent on having the biggest, bestest, and most insanely lethal armaments that money can buy them.

3. If you didn't all have guns, then you wouldn't all need them. Sure, there'd still be crime, and yes, there'd even be some gun-crime. But every single person in the state wouldn't be a walking arsenal, and the level of violence that was likely would fall. You wouldn't have to lay awake at night worrying about armed militias storming your garden, because people wouldn't have the guns to form them. Without a legal gun-market, then people would be stripped of the capacity to butcher scores of people in less than sixty-seconds, and as such there'd be no need for you all to walk around fretting that you weren't in possession of military-grade firearms.

The point is that if your population doesn't all have guns, then they don't need guns to defend themselves; as the threat they face on an everyday basis is so much lower.

Sure, it'd be great if only ultra-responsible citizens could own guns, so they'd have a monopoly on force should the occassion require it, and they would exercise that monopoly only when absolutely required and only in a 100% proportional manner... but that's a crazy and impossible pipe-dream, and one which leads to wholescale slaughter the moment it fails to work completely correctly.
The moment guns are legal to buy (no matter your security checks) they're going to filter into the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable (by sale, grey-market, insecure holding, or theft); furthermore even the most sane-minded of citizens are going to make mistakes with guns (see: hunting-accidents, and errors of self-defence), and end up in situations where the easy presence of firearms leads them to commit atrocious acts (see: boundry-dispute, crimes of passion, and 'I was carrying this while drunk').

To conclude: Sure, when all your neighbours have guns I see why you want one. But in a logical and civilised state, nobody would be permitted to own death-dealing implements (whose only purpose is for shooting at other humans), everybody would face a far lower risk of serious lethal violence, and therefore nobody would require personal ownership of a firearm.
The only way for the USA to reach such a state is by banning guns. Yes, the toothpaste is very much out of the tube, and things may get worse before they get better. But permitting a citizen led arms-race and cycle of violence under the veil of 'self-defence' is just crazy.

if we are talking about stopping someone else who is trying to kill you, would you not want the best resource available to you to stop it?

Yes. But I'd far rather the person trying to kill me didn't have free and legal access to precisely the same implement. After all, let's not forget that you don't live in the movies, and even in your noble 'intruder' paradigm, it's probably the bad-dudes who are going to be better armed, better prepared, and shooting first.

Giving yourself a gun gives you a better chance you say? Oh no, it's giving them a gun that gives you a far worse one. The minute you're all running around with weapons is the minute you force an intruder to do you harm.
If nobody starts waving guns around, then they most likely just grab your laptop and return from whence they came... after all, don't the majority of criminals who enter domestic dwellings only do so to steal?

I really think what we are seeing here, is the differing views of what is a good chunk (I think it is likely a majority, but at least a very significant ammount) of people in the US think vs. what a significant chunk of Europe thinks.

Indeed.

What it comes down to, is I am not willing to lay down my right to own a gun if I wanted, for the unproven notion that it will make all of society safer.

Well to begin with comparative criminology demonstrates that the notion isn't 'unproven' (though you Americans do cling to that idea rather feverishly no matter how often we point it out).
Secondly, even without studies to prove it; how is it not logical that reducing the number of weapons in a society, and making it possible to arrest and detain those owning guns (before they even consider committing crime with them), not going to lead to lowered gun-crime (i.e. make society safer)?

Sure, you feel a primal feeling of safety when you hold your gun in your hand. But you need to look at the bigger picture of what widespread murder-weapon proliferation really does to society.

Put it this way, if I made it legal to buy, own, and carry 'baseballs with knives taped to them', do you really think the number of 'knife-bat' crimes would fall?
You think it'd rise you say? You think that suddenly people might use those implements (designed solely to kill and maim) to commit crime and harm others? Well what a suprise...

Why do you think it's somehow different for guns?

I just am not yet willing to make a trade of freedom, on the hope that the ciminals will stop getting ahold of and using guns.

How would rolled-out banning of sale, carrying, and possession be a 'hope'? Coupled with effective policing that'd be a guaranteed way of reducing the number of guns in society.

Why is it that Americans always resort to the "Oh well, we can't be sure criminals will stop getting guns can we? All the studies show that they find it extremely difficult in other jurisdictions... but American criminals might be magically different. Perhaps they'd find ways to grow guns in trees or something."

Seriously, quit with the silly 'hope' thing. If the USA did a ban, and did it properly, then criminals would find it just as difficult to get hold of guns as they do in Europe. In other words, very.

the best course of action, is to really study the numbers, and determine what course of action will be most benificial.

Meh, pretty sentiment, unlikely idea.

The truth is that gun-culture is too deeply ingrained in the USA to be rooted out in a lifetime. It'll take generations before America is ready to vote-for and put the effort-into getting guns removed from its society.
I don't personally think it'll ever happen; it's a national mentality that's probably going to stick with you all for as long as your nation persists. Sad to say, but there it is.

[suggs]

Looks a great post, i;m off to bed now (another fascinating insight!) so I'll read it tomorrow.
But anyone who uses the phrase "reductio ad absurdum" is obviously a contender for " Sorry, I'm The Biggest Winner On The Planet, 2008"

[Juan_Bottom]

1. If we simply must have guns, then you don't need the 'best' tool. You just need a good enough tool. Owning a simple handgun is good enough to kill and maim anybody you need killed or maimed. The whole 'in for a penny, in for a pound' argument is just ridiculous overkill; plain old greed and paranoia, nothing else. You just don't need it; you're defending yourself against humans, not against the Hulk or something.

Have you ever seen a crackhead fight? They literally are the Hulk. I'm not kidding.
It's an argument about stopping power, I believe. While a 9mm has enough stopping power, it's not neccessaraly leathel. Which can be a serious problem in a 'potental' fire-fight in your home. Where your family lives. Where your baby is at. And the new puppy that was supposed to be a guard dog.

2. Saying "I must have the best" is to be the mouthpiece for escalation and arms-racing. If all your neighbours have the best, then your family (as that's the example people seem to insist on using) is less safe until you do. And when you have the best, then the criminals aren't going to want to bring knives to gunfights, so they'll go get the 'best' too. Once again, your insistence on having the 'best tools for the job' is just a one-way ticket to a suburban arms-race in which each side of the equation is hell-bent on having the biggest, bestest, and most insanely lethal armaments that money can buy them.

No arms-raceing, unless you mean organized crime. A simple rapist or home invader will probably use what he/she has avaliable. If someone is invading your home to rob you, then they don't have the money for an Uzi. And if they had money, they wouldn't need to take sex. Rich people get all the honey.

3. If you didn't all have guns, then you wouldn't all need them. Sure, there'd still be crime, and yes, there'd even be some gun-crime. But every single person in the state wouldn't be a walking arsenal, and the level of violence that was likely would fall. You wouldn't have to lay awake at night worrying about armed militias storming your garden, because people wouldn't have the guns to form them. Without a legal gun-market, then people would be stripped of the capacity to butcher scores of people in less than sixty-seconds, and as such there'd be no need for you all to walk around fretting that you weren't in possession of military-grade firearms.

Am I to ignore to assume that we are ignoring hunting arms for this debate? Everyone around me has a gun collection. They are collectable, like tattoos I suppose. But there is no gun violence here. The local sheriff stops on my G-Pas porch every sunday while making the rounds. They enjoy a cup of coffee. Where did idea that every American has a KC-109 for killin' each other come from? We aren't all running around killing each other. I think you guys have been propagandized. In fact, I have never seen an automatic weapon anywhere for sale but for a lone gun show(Wisconsin is nothing but gun-nuts!). No one is fretting.

The point is that if your population doesn't all have guns, then they don't need guns to defend themselves; as the threat they face on an everyday basis is so much lower.

Sure, it'd be great if only ultra-responsible citizens could own guns, so they'd have a monopoly on force should the occassion require it, and they would exercise that monopoly only when absolutely required and only in a 100% proportional manner... but that's a crazy and impossible pipe-dream, and one which leads to wholescale slaughter the moment it fails to work completely correctly.
The moment guns are legal to buy (no matter your security checks) they're going to filter into the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable (by sale, grey-market, insecure holding, or theft); furthermore even the most sane-minded of citizens are going to make mistakes with guns (see: hunting-accidents, and errors of self-defence), and end up in situations where the easy presence of firearms leads them to commit atrocious acts (see: boundry-dispute, crimes of passion, and 'I was carrying this while drunk').

My point being that guns are only a tool. In the same way as knives. One person may use it to cut up some tomatoes, while another uses it to stab some 14 year-old.

To conclude: Sure, when all your neighbours have guns I see why you want one. But in a logical and civilised state, nobody would be permitted to own death-dealing implements (whose only purpose is for shooting at other humans), everybody would face a far lower risk of serious lethal violence, and therefore nobody would require personal ownership of a firearm.

This point was made earlier, but only a civilized state would allow its citizens to own firearms. They are a deterrant, in more ways than one.

dewey316 wrote:
I really think what we are seeing here, is the differing views of what is a good chunk (I think it is likely a majority, but at least a very significant ammount) of people in the US think vs. what a significant chunk of Europe thinks.

Indeed.

Ditto.

dewey316 wrote:
What it comes down to, is I am not willing to lay down my right to own a gun if I wanted, for the unproven notion that it will make all of society safer.Well to begin with comparative criminology demonstrates that the notion isn't 'unproven' (though you Americans do cling to that idea rather feverishly no matter how often we point it out).
Secondly, even without studies to prove it; how is it not logical that reducing the number of weapons in a society, and making it possible to arrest and detain those owning guns (before they even consider committing crime with them), not going to lead to lowered gun-crime (i.e. make society safer)?

Sure, you feel a primal feeling of safety when you hold your gun in your hand. But you need to look at the bigger picture of what widespread murder-weapon proliferation really does to society.

Put it this way, if I made it legal to buy, own, and carry 'baseballs with knives taped to them', do you really think the number of 'knife-bat' crimes would fall?
You think it'd rise you say? You think that suddenly people might use those implements (designed solely to kill and maim) to commit crime and harm others? Well what a suprise...

Why do you think it's somehow different for guns?

You're asking the wrong question. Will the number of murders decrease in a justifiable way? Probably not enough to justify taking away our guns.

Giving yourself a gun gives you a better chance you say? Oh no, it's giving them a gun that gives you a far worse one. The minute you're all running around with weapons is the minute you force an intruder to do you harm.
If nobody starts waving guns around, then they most likely just grab your laptop and return from whence they came... after all, don't the majority of criminals who enter domestic dwellings only do so to steal?

It's I, not the intruder, being forced to do harm. S/He broke into MY home.

And I'm American, so I'd rather go down swinging than have my throat slit while tied to the register in the bathroom. And those that don't agree with me won't own a gun.

Yes. But I'd far rather the person trying to kill me didn't have free and legal access to precisely the same implement. After all, let's not forget that you don't live in the movies, and even in your noble 'intruder' paradigm, it's probably the bad-dudes who are going to be better armed, better prepared, and shooting first.

Only if they broke in knowing that
A) you were there
B) they were going to kill you
C) they weren't going to get caught

dewey316 wrote:
I just am not yet willing to make a trade of freedom, on the hope that the ciminals will stop getting ahold of and using guns.How would rolled-out banning of sale, carrying, and possession be a 'hope'? Coupled with effective policing that'd be a guaranteed way of reducing the number of guns in society.

Why is it that Americans always resort to the "Oh well, we can't be sure criminals will stop getting guns can we? All the studies show that they find it extremely difficult in other jurisdictions... but American criminals might be magically different. Perhaps they'd find ways to grow guns in trees or something."

Seriously, quit with the silly 'hope' thing. If the USA did a ban, and did it properly, then criminals would find it just as difficult to get hold of guns as they do in Europe. In other words, very.

You can't get the guns away for this reason. To outlaw guns, you are turning honest citizens into criminals.

And still you all ignore Canada, which has MORE GUNS PER CAPITA, AND LESS CRIME. It's all about your enviroment, guns are just a tool.

dewey316 wrote:
the best course of action, is to really study the numbers, and determine what course of action will be most benificial. Meh, pretty sentiment, unlikely idea.

The truth is that gun-culture is too deeply ingrained in the USA to be rooted out in a lifetime. It'll take generations before America is ready to vote-for and put the effort-into getting guns removed from its society.
I don't personally think it'll ever happen; it's a national mentality that's probably going to stick with you all for as long as your nation persists. Sad to say, but there it is.

Glad to say I agree.

[dewey316]

Reductio ad absurdum aside, my point here is threefold.

1. If we simply must have guns, then you don't need the 'best' tool. You just need a good enough tool. Owning a simple handgun is good enough to kill and maim anybody you need killed or maimed. The whole 'in for a penny, in for a pound' argument is just ridiculous overkill; plain old greed and paranoia, nothing else. You just don't need it; you're defending yourself against humans, not against the Hulk or something.

Thus the muzzle energy discussion, one could very well make an argument that a 9mm handgun, is not anywhere in the realm of good enough. If you are going ot talk stopping power.

2. Saying "I must have the best" is to be the mouthpiece for escalation and arms-racing. If all your neighbours have the best, then your family (as that's the example people seem to insist on using) is less safe until you do. And when you have the best, then the criminals aren't going to want to bring knives to gunfights, so they'll go get the 'best' too. Once again, your insistence on having the 'best tools for the job' is just a one-way ticket to a suburban arms-race in which each side of the equation is hell-bent on having the biggest, bestest, and most insanely lethal armaments that money can buy them.

I would feel better if I know all my neighbors DID have the best, they are not who I would worry about. I could care less what all the upstanding people choose to do, if they don't have a gun, I don't care. If they choose a simple small handgun, I don't care. If the choose a AK, I don't care.

What we need to focus on, is how we reduce violent-crime and murder rates. Again, I'll ask the really point blank question. England banned handguns, it must be very hard for the criminal to get ahold of them. Did it work? Did the violent-crime rate drop? Did the murder rate drop. Are the people of England really safer now, because they got rid of these hand guns?

3. If you didn't all have guns, then you wouldn't all need them. Sure, there'd still be crime, and yes, there'd even be some gun-crime. But every single person in the state wouldn't be a walking arsenal, and the level of violence that was likely would fall. You wouldn't have to lay awake at night worrying about armed militias storming your garden, because people wouldn't have the guns to form them. Without a legal gun-market, then people would be stripped of the capacity to butcher scores of people in less than sixty-seconds, and as such there'd be no need for you all to walk around fretting that you weren't in possession of military-grade firearms.

The point is that if your population doesn't all have guns, then they don't need guns to defend themselves; as the threat they face on an everyday basis is so much lower.

Yes we hear you, I get the point. Again, did it work? You have the notion that the US is the crazy outlaw nation, where everyone is armed to the teeth, with armed malitias running around everywhere, not the case at all. What we instead have, is a lot of people with guns handed down by their fathers, hunters, some crazies, but mostly normal people, who just also own guns. I'll ask it again, if Europe is so much further ahead of the US, and their lack of guns has been so effective, is England that much safer than it was in 1996? Bring the numbers, bring the data, show us here in the US, how wrong we are. That is what I am trying to point out, the IDEAL behind what you say is great, but the numbers from England, Australia, or even places in the US were handguns have been banned. Don't show that. You point not matter how great it is, is mute if you have no data that can back it up.

Sure, it'd be great if only ultra-responsible citizens could own guns, so they'd have a monopoly on force should the occassion require it, and they would exercise that monopoly only when absolutely required and only in a 100% proportional manner... but that's a crazy and impossible pipe-dream, and one which leads to wholescale slaughter the moment it fails to work completely correctly.
The moment guns are legal to buy (no matter your security checks) they're going to filter into the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable (by sale, grey-market, insecure holding, or theft); furthermore even the most sane-minded of citizens are going to make mistakes with guns (see: hunting-accidents, and errors of self-defence), and end up in situations where the easy presence of firearms leads them to commit atrocious acts (see: boundry-dispute, crimes of passion, and 'I was carrying this while drunk').

That ideal is as much of a pipe-dream as the idea that banning handguns, is going be the end-all solution to dropping crime rates, or murder rates. I hate to sound like a broken record here, but did it work where you are?

To conclude: Sure, when all your neighbours have guns I see why you want one. But in a logical and civilised state, nobody would be permitted to own death-dealing implements (whose only purpose is for shooting at other humans), everybody would face a far lower risk of serious lethal violence, and therefore nobody would require personal ownership of a firearm.
The only way for the USA to reach such a state is by banning guns. Yes, the toothpaste is very much out of the tube, and things may get worse before they get better. But permitting a citizen led arms-race and cycle of violence under the veil of 'self-defence' is just crazy.

In a logical and civilised state, a gun would be nothing more but another tool, like a wrench. You wouldn't have to worry about a meth addict breaking into your home, or about gang violence.

And here we go again "The only way for the USA to reach such a state is by banning guns". Based on what? Beyond your great ideals, what proof do you have to offer, that shows this will happen? I want to get to a place in our country, were violence isn't an issue, and crime isn't an issue. I am looking for the means to acheive that, that actualy have been shown to work. Lets start there, before we start stripping rights from people. Civilized societ, protects peoples freedoms while still working to accomplish goals, you don't just start taking away freedoms. Like it or not, it is in the Constitution of the U.S., that is not something that you just make changes to at will, that would completely negate the civilized part of our society.

[got tonkaed]

though its rather irrelevant i suppose id rank the 8 amendments (assuming we throw out 9/10 - as they are catchalls rather than specific provisions as important today as follows)

1) I
2) IV
3) V
4) VI
5) VIII
6) VII
7) II
8 ) III

I don't find it necessary to "rank" the amendments; I think they're fine just they way they are.
However, I noticed you have the 3rd sitting at #8.
So strictly for the sake of argument, do you really feel quartering troops in your home without your consent is not "more important" than the right to not have to incriminate yourself? Or the right to a speedy trial?
Just curious.

Yes, i think that the right to not have to incriminate yourself and the right to a speedy trial are more important than the seemingly non-issue (at least in America in the 21st century). Granted the entire exercise is just for fun, personal preference would say that the 3rd is the least important in contemporary context out of the first 8

[Nephilim]

i've only read the first page of this thread cause that's all i could stand but i just have to say: i'm from the US. i live in australia now. they have very strict gun laws, and from what i hear only farmers have guns, to keep down the vermin population. several men in their 40s have told me that they've never held a gun, and those that have, it was only a rifle, no pistols.

this shocked me, of course. i grew up around guns.

but guess what? there is no violent crime here. a murder is NATIONAL FUCKING NEWS here. isn't that odd?

the 2nd amendment should be repealed, what could possibly be more outdated that it? but the gun lobby is too rich......

[Juan_Bottom]

i've only read the first page of this thread cause that's all i could stand but i just have to say: i'm from the US. i live in australia now. they have very strict gun laws, and from what i hear only farmers have guns, to keep down the vermin population. several men in their 40s have told me that they've never held a gun, and those that have, it was only a rifle, no pistols.

this shocked me, of course. i grew up around guns.

but guess what? there is no violent crime here. a murder is NATIONAL FUCKING NEWS here. isn't that odd?

the 2nd amendment should be repealed, what could possibly be more outdated that it? but the gun lobby is too rich......

It's not the gun lobby, it's the people. The people don't want it repealed. And you must have missed the parts where we made the argument that murder is a more of cultural thing? CANADA HAS MORE GUNS PER CAPITA THAN THE US, YET HAS A LOWER CRIME RATE. Guns do not cause violent crime.

[Dancing Mustard]

Have you ever seen a crackhead fight? They literally are the Hulk. I'm not kidding.

Yes I have.

But have you ever seen a crackhead break into a home to kill?
Of course you haven't, because the majority of drug-addict crime is committed solely to steal. The point is (again) that people aren't breaking into your home (the example which you seem so obsessed with) to kill you, they're doing it to steal. As such, waving a military-grade lethal-weapon around is unecessary, and by letting both sides of the situation have access to such things you simple increase the chances that somebody will die... you don't reduce the likelihood of the crime, and you don't reduce the likelihood that harm will come to you/others.

It's an argument about stopping power

Actually that's a sideshow argument born of a gun-culture mentality that doesn't see firearms as the catalyst for lethal violence. This is an argument about guns.

Where your family lives. Where your baby is at. And the new puppy that was supposed to be a guard dog.

Oh God, not this sentimentalist "Guns are for protecting newborn babys" thing again.

Please spare me all these sob-stories and pretty examples of a model 'intruder paradigm'. Not only is the situation an unlikely one, but it's not a true representation of how that situation would be if it did occur; it's just soppy tear-jerking anecdotalism, and it gets us nowhere.

This isn't a discussion about "What would happen if somebody broke into Barbie and Ken's sweet little home" it's a discussion about the genuine effect of allowing guns into society, made-up examples of ideal fantasy situations and "Won't somebody think of the children" don't actually help us.

No arms-raceing, unless you mean organized crime.

Yes arms racing, in all walks of life. Logic says it will happen, cold-hard statistics say it has happened. No amount of "only badmen and gangstas don't know how to use guns" preaching changes that fact.

A simple rapist or home invader will probably use what he/she has avaliable.

Which in the USA is a semi-automatic lethal-weapon, probably armed with the hollow-points that were so lovingly described earlier.

Seriously, you're telling me what I already know. In a society where guns are nt available then criminals will not use them. In a society where the latest and greatest killing technology is sold in Wal-Mart, then criminals will be carrying it.

If someone is invading your home to rob you, then they don't have the money for an Uzi.

Firstly, that's not true, crime does pay. Secondly, if they're a career criminal then damn sure they'll have purchased the tools of the trade. Thirdly, if they're a housebreaker then they've probably stolen a (widely and legally available) gun already. Fourth, that statement of yours was just plaing wrong.

Am I to ignore to assume that we are ignoring hunting arms for this debate?

Probably... but you ought to know that I think "I need a gun so that I can occasionally go to the woods and butcher wildlife to feel like a man" is another shit justification for having guns.

Everyone around me has a gun collection. They are collectable, like tattoos I suppose.

Oh hey, aren't you the guy who was telling me that only organised criminals did gun-stashing and arms-racing? Guess you'd just forgotten about all of your neighbours when you said that eh?

Where did idea that every American has a KC-109 for killin' each other come from? We aren't all running around killing each other.

From your own fevered imagination? I never said it, that's for sure.

What I did say however, was that great numbers of Americans are in possession of lethal weapons that are intended only for inflicting harm to other humans, and that as such American crime is destined to be more violent, faster-escalating, and more deadly than in places where the population aren't all armed to the teeth.

I think you guys have been propagandized.

Oh yes, I forgot that lizardmen, Ameros, and shadow governments would have something to do with it. After all, anybody who doesn't agree with American Culture must be a brainwashed drone... right.

My point being that guns are only a tool. In the same way as knives. One person may use it to cut up some tomatoes, while another uses it to stab some 14 year-old.

Well actually guns aren't a tool in the same way that knives are, because unlike knives, guns have no purpose other than killing other humans.
While I see cutting up tomatos as a valuable social function, I don't see killing other people as the same. As such I'm willing to permit knives, as the danger they pose is far less than that of guns (which enable speedy mass-homicide), and the social utility of them is far higher. Guns are tools only for killing, and when they're used irresponsibly then their capacity for killing is far greater than that of knives.

As such all of this "They're just a tool, people are the problem" argument is rubbish.

But hey let's work with your logic, how does this sound: "Nuclear Weapons are just a tool.In the same was as guns. On person may use them to deter others from harming their family and property, while another uses it to demolish an entire city. As such, we should legalise nukes".

You all ready for civillian ownership of nukes, warships, tanks, and missiles Juan? It's where your logic points us.

only a civilized state would allow its citizens to own firearms.

Rubbish, pure unbased and unsupported rubbish.

They are a deterrant, in more ways than one.

1. They're not. Criminology studies have been proving that for decades. They're only a deterrent in the mind of the paranoid gun-owner
2. What are your more ways than one?
3. Nuclear Missiles are a deterrant, Knife-Bats are a deterrant, why aren't you permitting them to be put in the hands of every 'patriot'?

You're asking the wrong question. Will the number of murders decrease in a justifiable way? Probably not enough to justify taking away our guns.

Actually I'm asking the correct question, but you seemed to shy-away from the 'knife-bat' conundrum.
Also, comparative criminology shows that lower numbers of guns in society leads to lower numbers of gun-crimes being committed; these lower numbers lead to less deaths as crime is less lethal.

Put it this way; a "mass public shooting" occurs every ten days in the USA, in the UK the last one we had was over a decade ago.
Precisely how high do you need your death count to rise before you think takign away your guns will be justified? All this "Oh I need my freedom, my gun is very important, where is the proof that death will fall if we don't all own the most efficient murder-weapons known to man?" preaching and wriggling is just a classic example of gun-loving Americans burying their heads in the sand.

It's I, not the intruder, being forced to do harm. S/He broke into MY home.

That statement is premissed on the notion that the only way to deal with a home intrusion is with lethal force. Stupid at best, barbaric at worse.

Just because somebody is on your property doesn't force you to do them harm, it simply forces you to end the situation. Now this is a crazy outside-the-box idea, but perhaps you could try methods such as scaring-off, calling the authorities, or non-lethal force? I mean, I know it's blue-skys thinking, but perhaps you're not being forced to butcher anybody here... maybe not everyone is out to get you and you're just being forced to intervene to make them leave?

And I'm American, so I'd rather go down swinging than have my throat slit while tied to the register in the bathroom.

aaaaand we're back to all that weird sentimentalist tosh. Please stop with all these silly made-up fictionalised anecdotes of violence that might happen.

I'm English, so I'd rather interupt and scare off my intruders with a 999-dialled phone in my left hand and a cricket-bat in my right, than have my face blown-off by a startled intruder the day after my children were gunned down in their high-school by their semi-automatic wielding peers.

See how little that above story helped us? Yeah... now stop doing it yourself.

You can't get the guns away for this reason. To outlaw guns, you are turning honest citizens into criminals.

What are you even talking about?
How does not owning a gun turn you into a criminal? Without your gun would you suddenly feel compelled to steal cars, take drugs and molest young-children? What is wrong with you?

you all ignore Canada, which has MORE GUNS PER CAPITA, AND LESS CRIME.

Stats please. I dispute your bald assertion.

[Dancing Mustard]

Again, I'll ask the really point blank question. England banned handguns, it must be very hard for the criminal to get ahold of them. Did it work? Did the violent-crime rate drop? Did the murder rate drop. Are the people of England really safer now, because they got rid of these hand guns?

Erm, England has never permitted citizens to own handguns. What are you talking about?

It is very hard for criminals to get handguns here. So hard in fact that most of the (excedingly low amounts of) gun-crime here is comitted with retrofitted replicas rather than the real thing. That's how difficult it is for criminals to get hold of lethal-weapons when they're outlawed.

Has our violent crime-rate dropped? Well given that we never had the gun-ban you seem to think we did, all I can say is that our murder rate is much lower than yours, and our mortality rates from violent crime are also lower (what with those crimes being comitted with far less dangerous weapons).

Are the people of England safer than those in America? Yes, yes they are. Not every criminal is armed with a lethal-weapon, not every citizen is able to commit a mass public homicide on a whim, and small-scale disputes can't turn into pitched gun-fights when tempers flare. Our murder-rate is lower than yours, our gun-crime numbers are lower than yours; our two socieites are so similar (and other crime-patterns so similar) and yet in the society without guns less people die from guns and less people get murdered.
Do we feel less free? No. Does anybody feel the need for gun ownership? No. Are we safer for not having them. Yes.

You do the math.

You have the notion that the US is the crazy outlaw nation, where everyone is armed to the teeth, with armed malitias running around everywhere, not the case at all.

No I don't. I never said anything like that. Please stop putting words in my mouth.

the numbers from England, Australia, or even places in the US were handguns have been banned. Don't show that.

Please show us these numbers instead of just claiming they exist.

Given that you seem to think handguns were legal here before 1996, I'm not massively optimistic that you're going to have a particularly good grasp of a decades records of criminological trends.

That ideal is as much of a pipe-dream as the idea that banning handguns, is going be the end-all solution to dropping crime rates, or murder rates.

Again, words in my mouth.

I never said banning handguns would stop all murders, or all violent-crime, or all gun-crime. I only said that it would decrease the incidence and likelihood of all three. Full-solutions would require much more; but why waste our time stating the obvious?

In a logical and civilised state, a gun would be nothing more but another tool, like a wrench.

See my resonse to Juan.

Also, glad to know you'll be another willing subscriber to my "Nukes are just tools" campaign.

it is in the Constitution of the U.S., that is not something that you just make changes to at will

Get over it mate. It's an outdated piece of legislation that originally permitted slavery. Not everything in it is right, and changing it is no big deal.

It's just some law that's been around for a very long time, stop treating it like it's the word of gods.

[Pedronicus]

Total pwnage by Mustard.

The amount of sense spoken was overwhelming.
All the Pro gun stuff I've seen in this thread to date is NRA propaganda bullshit.

[tzor]

Well actually the best tool for the job is probably a fully automatic sub-machine gun, loaded with split-end hollow-points and equipped with a laser-sight and a silencer (don't want to wake the kids up do we?). Is your proposition still such a good idea now?

Now DM you are getting silly. (Or you could just be plain ignorant of modern weaponry.) You have just designed an oxymoron, fully automatic weapons are not like the famous repeating crossbow balistas of the greeks which could split rheir own bolts several times over. Recoil on a fully automatic rifle is significant and accuracy in rapid fire mode is almost impossible. Traditionally most fully automatic weapons are used for area cover fire. If such a weapon has a laser sight, one generally uses it in single shot mode only.

The problem for the home defender is similiar to the problem faced by UK forces in various wars in Africa. First and foremost you need stopping power. Even killing a person is of no solice if he remains alive long enough to chop your head off with his weapon. Secondly you need to be able to fire a few shots in a reasonable time frame because you probably have the elements of suprise and experience working against you. Secondly you don't want to cause significant problems should you miss.

Now with that you could argue in the other direction. I remember someone talking about a pistol that could use either traditional bullets or shotgun shells. Loaded with rubber shot, this could provide non leathal deterrant at medium range and potentially leathal damage at really close range. It could even be used in a reasonable defense arggument. Most people are against this idea because the effect of rubber shot is exceptionally short term - great for police where you can then jump on the buy with several people - not great for the solo defender.

[Dancing Mustard]

I have a pedantic point about weapon nomenclature to make that does not advance this debate at all, and contributes nothing to either side of the argument

Yeah, good for you mate.

Unfortunately this is a debate about whether gun-ownership ought to be legal or not, not one about the best way to butcher other human beings without waking up your kids.

Don't get me wrong, I see what you were trying to say; but simply because a different though equally lethal gun might be better than the precise gun I described (i.e. military-grade murder-weapon A is in fact more suitable than military-grade murder-weapon B), that doesn't actually undermine my point.

I mean, I'm sure you find lengthy descriptions of weapon-stats fascinating and all, but (no matter how hair-splitting you want to be) all of this ballistics minutiae doesn't have any bearing on the actual points that have been made so far.

[tzor]

I am tempted to do a summary misquote of DM in the way he did my quote but it's not worth the effort.

DM, you have been the one who has insisted on this arms race between the home robber and the home defender and trying to push the argument for decent weapons into the ad nauseum range of automatic weaponry (with laser sights and silencers no less). I'm not going into the details for nothing, I'm doing it to point out that your argument is, frankly, without merrit.

The question is not about who has the biggest weapon (generally speaking the intruder will not) but what is the most effective weapon for the circumstance. In one sense guns are a silent deterrent. They play into the cost / benefit analysis of the average robber, like silent alarms that can have the cops on the scene before you can get the flat screen TV out the window. But then you have those wierdos who don't even bother to think, much less reason. They probably have several offenses already and spend more time in jail than you do on vacation. (holiday on the other side of the pond) These people must be stopped. On the one hand they must be stopped long enough so that the cops can arrive on the scene. On the other hand various procedures that might cause moderate harm can also be used against you in a court of law. In this far from ideal world far from ideal solutions are required.

Now let's put the rubber to the road and look at the problem. This problem happened across the sound in the state of Connecticut. Ghastly Details In Conn. Home Invasion. This caused special legislation to be drafted against such home invasions but such deterrants are only good against rational people.

The state medical examiner confirmed that Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, was strangled and that her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, died of smoke inhalation. The deaths were ruled homicides.

The girls' father, Dr. William Petit Jr., a prominent endocrinologist, remained hospitalized with head injuries.

All three women were raped, sources familiar with the investigation told both the Waterbury Republican-American and Hartford Courant. Petit was beaten with a baseball bat, thrown down the basement stairs, and then tied up in the cellar.

The girls, sources told the Courant, were tied to their beds and raped repeatedly, then left to burn after gasoline was poured around their beds and ignited.

The suspects entered the Petits' Cheshire home at about 3 a.m. Monday, planning to burglarize it, state police said.

This is what this debate is about. Thugs who come into your house with baseball bats who would kill you if they had the chance. The option to be able to stop these peple is a matter of life or death.

[dewey316]

Erm, England has never permitted citizens to own handguns. What are you talking about?

Are you trying to tell us, that prior to Dec 31st, 1996, it wasn't legal to own a handgun?

You do the math.

That is exactly what I am trying to do, I am trying to look at more factors, to try to comunicate with other people, to help educate them on what is going on, instead of just making emotional reactions based on a fear of guns. I am saying, if we look at the trends, in both the US and England (I don't have nearly the access to England information as you do, I probably have more access to US information that you. The England information unfortinaly is mostly based on stuff i can frind from the Bristish Crime Survey, and the News agency's from England). I don't see the numbers correlating with gun legislation, I see the trend much more tied to the number of police, and social and justice factors.

For example, since 2005, there has been a stabilization of crime rates in England. But, what we see is quotes like this from Ken Livingston "The Met now has record numbers of police, and dedicated police teams located in every single neighbourhood in the city." and "After decades of falling police numbers, London has turned the corner."

Much is the same in the US. The murder rate has been dropping significantly since its high in 1987. The cities where the numbers are still very high, Chicago, Washington DC, Philadelphia. Have police departments have are having problems, they have mayors who don't listen to what the police departments say, and don't implement policy that allow the police to do their job, and do not have the number of police required to deal with the populations they have.

Another example. In my home state of Oregon, in 1994, we passed a law, with minimum sentencing for a whole slew of crimes, and was especialy tough on juveniles, it required anyone over 15, who who commited a violent-crime to be tried as an adult. This ties in very well with the crime trends in Oregon. The crime rates dropped year after year between 1994-2000 and have remained stable or dropped slightly since 2000.

I honestly just want people to focus on the real issue. The US does have a crime problem, but it is much more widespread than the fact that guns are available to people. In fact, handgun deaths have been dropping for a lot of years nationwide at a much higher rate than the total murder rate. (source, US-DOJ)



We also see that the shape of these trends ties in wiith Urban areas.



So, what we need to look at, is what is it that has caused these changes in urban areas that effect the trends so much. We need to look at these trends and deal with the real issue. This is the math I am doing. I want to know what really works, and what really stops crime. Instead of just banning things as a reaction, lets look at the real problem. If the NRA and the Brady group would spend their money on actualy dealing with the problems, we would be in a much better place.

Please show us these numbers instead of just claiming they exist.

US Homicide Rate:


Australia:


England
I couldn't find a graph to post here, finding stats for England seems to be very hard. If you look at page 6 of this document, it has violent-crime rates for about the same time periods as the two graphs above.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07 ... 07summ.pdf

All three of this, show the same strend, a huge spike in the late 80's-early 90's, then a drop. It seems that all three countries are following a similar trend, regaurdless of gun laws. As I said, I think that what we are seeing is really a trend that goes beyond gun laws, we have a trend in crime and murder rates that corrisponds to other social changes, and likely justice system change, and policing. We also see what is probably results of the huge crackdown on Drug trade, and the attempts to reduce gang crime, and drug related crime.

it is in the Constitution of the U.S., that is not something that you just make changes to at will

Get over it mate. It's an outdated piece of legislation that originally permitted slavery. Not everything in it is right, and changing it is no big deal.

It's just some law that's been around for a very long time, stop treating it like it's the word of gods.

Changes to it are a big deal. It is the foundation of what keeps the power of government in the hands of the people. I, and it seems many people in the US, take the changes to it VERY seriously, we do not just make changes to it, specificly the first section (Bill of Rights). If it was easy to change, it would take undermine the whole ideal of it, as being rights that ALL people of the US have. It isn't something we just "get over" and fold on. Letting the government just change it, takes the power away from the people.

[Dancing Mustard]

Are you trying to tell us, that prior to Dec 31st, 1996, it wasn't legal to own a handgun?

It has been several lifetimes since England has been without a statutory regime that has permitted general unlicensed handgun ownership. We have been, for all practical intents and purposes, living under a gun ownership ban.

I know which bit of legislation you think you've got up your sleeve Dewey, I know why you keep asking pointed questions about 1996, and I'm well aware that you think you're walking me into a verbal trap here. I also know why you think that prior to 1996 the UK was some kind of gun-ownership utopia where we were allowed to wield whatever weapons we liked.

Unfortunately for you the 'Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997', banning as it does the private ownership of handguns, was not enacted into a void. It was preceded by the Firearms Act of 1920, the Firearms Act of 1937, and the Criminal Justice Act of 1967; all of which placed heavy restrictions on the rights of citizens to own firearms (and essentially effected a ban). Please don't be fooled into thinking that prior to 1996 we were all free to own firearms and that every household had its own private lethal arsenal; that Act only removed a class of weapons that could be licensed, it wasn't the first restriction that had ever been placed on them.

The fact is that gun-ownership in the UK has (for as long as anybody living will remember) had a strict regime of licensing and registry for most firearms. While our ban on gun ownership is not absolute, it's very much a ban; don't think that just because we can apply for a firearms license that we all have one... they're hard things to obtain.

In short; stop trying to set up a "Ha ha, you don't know about the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997!!! You don't know anything about the country you live in!!" moment. It's not going to happen, I know exactly what I'm talking about.

instead of just making emotional reactions based on a fear of guns.

Sorry, but I'm not actually doing that. I'm making perfectly rational arguments about why allowing guns into society is a bad thing. Please don't criticise me for things you wish I was doing, and please don't project mindsets onto me that you suspect anybody who doesn't own a gun must have.

The only 'emotional reactions' in this thread have been the "What if a blood-crazed madman broke into your house where your FAMILY and CHILDREN were? What if he was going to kill you in cold blood? With you an HONEST and PATRIOTIC citizen! Would you want a gun then?" style posts. But then, it hasn't been me making those, has it?

I don't see the numbers correlating with gun legislation, I see the trend much more tied to the number of police, and social and justice factors.

Well obviously the trends in the UK and USA are going to be tied to those factors, and you produced lots of beautiful stats to prove that somewhat obvious point. But we all know that policing and social-intervention initiatives are going to cause fluctuations in crime-figures wherever they are done effectively... why state the obvious? That doesn't tackle the problem of "Does giving everyone a gun make it more likely that people will be killed", it just proves that you can tweak the levels of ensuing bloodshed with other state-sponsored programs.

What I'm trying to say is; the problem is that simply looking at rising and falling figures in either nation doesn't prove anything. The thing that you need to look at is the comparative number of crimes committed per head in similar demographics at either side of the Atlantic. That's what demonstrates that Americans are more prone to killing each other than the British (and other gun-free Europeans).
Seriously, just go back to the "Mass-public shooting" statistics example. The last high-profile one that happened in the UK was Dunblaine (1996); how many mass public shootings do you think have happened in the USA since then? Here's a clue, Virginia Tech was last year.
Do you honestly think that those massacres occur so frequently in America for a reason other than the fact that your citizens have the ability to arm themselves to the teeth?

Tell me; based on the sheer number of mass shootings that occur in your gun-rich society (one every ten days I once read) does giving every citizen the means with which to commit a mass public homicide make you safe?
It's all very well to talk through fictional "Man in my house" stories; but is that illusion of safety that you feel you get when you hold your rifle close really worth it?

The US does have a crime problem, but it is much more widespread than the fact that guns are available to people.

Nobody is denying that.

The problem is that widespread proliferation of lethaly efficient murder-weapons is a serious contributor to the levels of homicide in your country. Sure, it's not the only cause of crime; but it is a massive part of the reason why so many people are killed or critically injured in the USA every year.

So let me see...

You have a graph here which alleges that 9000 people (all numbers aprox) were killed by handguns, 3500 were killed by 'other guns', 3000 were killed by knives, and 1000 were killed by blunt objects in '05. That makes 12500 gun fatalities and 4000 other fatalities... but you're telling me that guns aren't the problem?
Looking at it another way, you have a graph that shows handgun fatalities to consistently be three times (or more) higher than other weapon fatalities; but you're telling me that handguns aren't the problem?

Seriously, what planet are you on? You've proved yourself that guns do immense amounts of killing in the USA. Yes you've proved that other factors contribute to the rise and fall of the homicide rate... but you seem blind to the fact that handguns are the number one homicide weapon in your nation, yet you tell me there's no evidence that handguns cause death. That's just plain old madness.

Looking at your America (lots of guns) homicide rates and Australia (no guns) homicide rates we see that in the most recent year recorded (2000) the yanks had a rate of 5 in 100,000 homicide victims, whereas the ozzies had 1.5 in 100,000 victims. I.e. the gun-rich nation had over three times as many homicides per 100,000 people, than the nation without guns.

Fluke year you cry... but I'm afraid not, if you wind back the clock five years and look at 1995, you see that the yanks had 8:100,000 homicides whereas the ozzies had 1.7:100,000. i.e. the Americans had four times as many homicides as the Australians.

The above trend has remained constant for as long as we've had statistics... and yet you're saying that your stats don't prove guns are a significant part of your homicide problem? Are you gone mad?
Yes, policing etc can change those rates; but the only coherent explanation for the USA's consistently soaring (indeed, world-leading) homicide rates appears to be the fact that every citizen is given full and free access to completely lethal weapons. So far, you don't appear to have any information to contradict that.


Sorry Dewey, you seem like a pleasant guy and all; but the sad truth is that no matter how safe your personal firearm makes you feel, and no matter how personally responsible you are; giving people full and free access military-grade murder-tools is just a recipe for widescale slaughter.



PS. I'm about to go on holiday for a fair old while here, so I suspect I'll be leaving this debate as it stands. If it's still raging when I return then I daresay i'll continue this then.

[The1exile]

DM4PM.

[Snorri1234]

A prime example of the US legal-system functioning.

This guy shot two people in the back and it was self-defense? WHAT THE f*ck MAN??!



I guess they were going to kill his wife/baby and he had no other way to prevent that.

[heavycola]

DM4PM.

hear hear. Juan, a gun is not really like a knife. Handguns are made solely to kill people. They aren't much good at chopping tomatoes.

[Snorri1234]

DM4PM.

hear hear. Juan, a gun is not really like a knife. Handguns are made solely to kill people. They aren't much good at chopping tomatoes.

But what if you want to open up a bottle of beer and have nothing else? Surely a gun would come in handy then!

[radiojake]

A prime example of the US legal-system functioning.

This guy shot two people in the back and it was self-defense? WHAT THE f*ck MAN??!



I guess they were going to kill his wife/baby and he had no other way to prevent that.

Texas law allows people to use deadly force to protect themselves if it is reasonable to believe they are in mortal danger. In limited circumstances, people also can use deadly force to protect a neighbor's property; for example, if a homeowner asks a neighbor to watch over his property while he's out of town.

And there we have it, in Texas, property is more important that human life - if the skin is dark, that's for sure

[Snorri1234]

A prime example of the US legal-system functioning.

This guy shot two people in the back and it was self-defense? WHAT THE f*ck MAN??!



I guess they were going to kill his wife/baby and he had no other way to prevent that.

Texas law allows people to use deadly force to protect themselves if it is reasonable to believe they are in mortal danger. In limited circumstances, people also can use deadly force to protect a neighbor's property; for example, if a homeowner asks a neighbor to watch over his property while he's out of town.

And there we have it, in Texas, property is more important that human life - if the skin is dark, that's for sure

It's not clear whether the neighbor whose home was burglarized asked Horn to watch over his house.

..or asked him to shoot anyone doing so in the back.


Yeah guys, totally self-defense guys...

[Juan_Bottom]

A prime example of the US legal-system functioning.

This guy shot two people in the back and it was self-defense? WHAT THE f*ck MAN??!



I guess they were going to kill his wife/baby and he had no other way to prevent that.

Texas law allows people to use deadly force to protect themselves if it is reasonable to believe they are in mortal danger. In limited circumstances, people also can use deadly force to protect a neighbor's property; for example, if a homeowner asks a neighbor to watch over his property while he's out of town.

And there we have it, in Texas, property is more important that human life - if the skin is dark, that's for sure

This just happened like a hundred miles from my house. A guy was HOUSE SITTING and some teenagers broke in with guns. He killed one of them in self defense. They weren't leaving, and didn't believe him when he said that he was talking to 911 and had a gun.

As for the rest, I'll reply tommorrow. Bed time...