Originally Posted by Oracle
How a criminal gets a weapon is besides the point. Whether or not they get one easily or not is besides the point.
If the question is whether guns or any sort of weapon is a good form of self-defense, it doesn't matter what the assailant has, but whether the rate of successful self-defense increases based on the availability of weapons to the defendant.
And all evidence seems to say that an increased availability of weapons for "self-defense" results in more homicides, more assaults, and less actual safety. Stand your ground laws in the U.S. resulted in an increased rate of homicides of 10% in states with those laws. States with lower gun ownership also have lower rates of homicide.
Of course, this then begs the question of whether it's an increase of guns causing more crime, or an increase of crime causing more people to buy guns, or some other factor that increases both. However, current evidence points towards an increase in guns creates an increase of crimes. As an example, women in states with more guns are almost 5 times more likely to be killed with a firearm than in states with less guns. Again, you can argue that more guns means a higher likelihood of being shot, but going even more precise, a woman is 6 times more likely to be shot by a person in a relationship with her, than a random stranger. A woman is 7 times more likely to be killed by her partner if her partner has a firearm. The availability of a firearm significantly increases the odds of being shot.
In addition, evidence also shows that ownership of weapons, particularly firearms, by victims has increased odds of the victim being seriously injured or killed. There's around a 400% chance increase in being shot during an assault if you carry a firearm for self-defense. There's around a 400% chance increase of being killed during an assault when you carry a firearm. Is it because people who are at greater risk carry firearms, or because you carry the firearm that you're at greater risk? Again, this requires more evidence, but it's highly likely that both play a factor. When an assailant perceives you as more threatening, they will either increase the severity of the attack to incapacitate you, or flee. And since firearms have a decent range, and the laws in America justify shooting somebody in the back if they attacked you as legitimate self-defense, the criminal has only one option if they discover a gun on their victim. They have to subdue the victim, or risk getting shot. Often, they will shoot their victim with the victim's own gun because of this.
So really, all evidence points towards firearms, and weapons through relatedness, being ineffectual, and often detrimental, to self-defense. At best, it's just correlation, with an increase of weapons being correlated with increased crime. Although it's highly unlikely it's that simple. At worst, an increase of weapons increases the severity and quantity of crime. Which is noticeable with current evidence.
What evidence? From what I've seen the increased availability of weapons (specifically guns) is not parallel to increased crime rate. Australian gun control was almost completely ineffective and cost the Australian government millions. 12 months after the ban homicide rates went up, assault rates went up, armed robberies went up, and in some cases homicides with guns rose up to 300 percent higher. Sure their crime rates have decreased almost insignificantly since then, but it was decreasing before the gun bans. If you look at the murder rates of developed countries with strict gun laws or low gun ownership rates and compare them to other developed countries with high gun ownership rates you will notice that gun possession has a pretty insignificant effect on murder rates. Sure the number of mass homicides will decline, but those are responsible for barely a percentage of homicides per year. Plus more guns=more death is assuming that the ordinary person commits crimes such as murder. Either way, "weapons of self-defense" are for the most part useless, but if they provide a person or family with a higher sense of security then why not let them have them. Not to sound cliché, but gun control isn't about guns its about control, and that somewhat applies to all weapons.
DAMN.
Originally Posted by box
What if the criminal has a loaded gun?
What if god shows up and saves the world?
There are many what if scenarios, and frankly, they are irrelevant because we are generally speaking.
The risk of a criminal showing up with a loaded gun is very low in my country, partially due to no guns being available at all for anyone except very few people, so that's where my position is derived from.
How are you?
Originally Posted by ImmortalPig
Since the ban has been instated the upward trend in fire arm homicide has been reversed and firearm related homicide in Australia is at an all time low.
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html
If you noticed although the gun related homicides dropped, the rate of homicides actually stayed very consistent with the trend that began before the ban was even instated.
Gun related homicide is merely 10% of that of USA's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ted_death_rate
Let's not forget to mention that crime rates have dropped in the US without the help of a gun ban. Almost 70% of homicides in the US are gun related, but that's only because of the availability. That doesn't mean the same amount of homicides can't be committed with other weapons or illegal firearms.
A long term policy cannot be determined by just 12 months of observation. Obviously there will be a knee jerk reaction.
Each country is a separate entity and you definitely can't say "a country with less guns has less gun incidents", but taking any individual country you can say "if there was less guns there would be less gun incidents" - barring if a country is an active warzone of course!
The point I brought up is that the amount of guns does not coordinate with the amount of homicides. The amount of homicides is based more on factors like police effectiveness, social standards, political situations, and things like that.
The reasons for the US crime drops have absolutely nothing to do with weapon availability. Its completely reliant on an increased number of police, social trends, political and educational advancement, and changing demographics.
DAMN.
Originally Posted by Oracle
I've robbed you at gunpoint. You pull a gun out and shoot me in the back when I'm running away. Congratulations, you're now a murderer.
I fail to see how having a gun changed anything for the better.
You would be stupid going in for a kill shot. Any human being, ANY human being that isn't hopped up on drugs would stop running if you capped them in the leg. If a bat can do, a bullet can do it. And not to mention you haven't murdered the guy, he's laying there in excruciating pain because you just destroyed his god damn shin bone, He's immobile and he's there for the cops now, instead of letting the man run off and do it again to someone who's more helpless than you, take him down right there and now.
Also it just so happens stabbings, brutal beatings, and downright getting pushed into oncoming steel is more common than some guy robbing you at gun point. That shit is unlikely, It's knife point that you should watch out for, I had it happen to me more than a couple of times.
Also have fun running from thugs who out run the police once a week. That shit is hard. They may not have endurance, but they mostl likely have enough speed to catch you before their shitty tobacco lungs give in. Sometimes you just got to stay and fight with a Weapon.
Last edited by T0ribush; Aug 8, 2013 at 12:44 AM.
