Proposed ban on assault weapons by Obama

[Juliette]

@KJ, you're still not getting the point i was making...never mind, have a look at this:

That is missing a big one.. suicides, counted at 38,364 in 2010. Apparently 'life' in the USA is not the Dream people think. Interestingly it is also more than gun deaths.

http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?page_id=0 ... 7e6ca6aa37

[Jack]

Piss poor medical care, low standard of living, high cancer rates. Whatever have you the idea that life in America was living the dream?

The only thing we have on other countries is our freedom. We have significantly more freedom than pretty much every other country. Rights are debatable. Some of ours are stronger, some are weaker.

Honestly, I'm surprised more people don't kill themselves.

And yes, suicides are higher. About four times higher.

[Kjarkur]

Piss poor medical care, low standard of living, high cancer rates. Whatever have you the idea that life in America was living the dream?

The only thing we have on other countries is our freedom. We have significantly more freedom than pretty much every other country. Rights are debatable. Some of ours are stronger, some are weaker.

Honestly, I'm surprised more people don't kill themselves.

And yes, suicides are higher. About four times higher.

I hear all Americans say that. You speak of your freedom yet you feel you need guns because you don't trust the government, big companies or the public.
You feel you aren't safe enough without weapons to destroy one another. Of course in self defense because of all the criminals.

Pardon my stupidity but your 'freedom' doesn't sound all that great.

How is your freedom any greater then ours? ( I don't mean it in a sarcastic way, I really wanna know of what you speak) do the States have any more freedom then that of Europe? Enlighten me.


P.S have any of you had too shoot anyone to their death? If so, did you not require therapy to deal with that ?

[curtthehurt1]

statistics directly from the FBI’s own National Crime Statistics reports:

In 1976, Washington, D.C. enacted one of the most restrictive
gun control laws in the nation. Since then, the city’s murder rate has
risen 134 percent while the national murder rate has dropped 2 percent.

After Evanston, Ill., a Chicago suburb of 75,000 residents,
became the largest town to ban handgun ownership in September 1982, it
experienced no decline in violent crime.

Among the 15 states with the highest homicide rates, 10 have
restrictive or very restrictive gun laws.

Twenty percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just
six percent of the population — New York, Chicago, Detroit and
Washington, D.C- all of which it is illegal to own a handgun

New York has one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation
– and 20 percent of the armed robberies. Even more troublesome is the
fact that the places where gun control laws are toughest tend to be the
places where the most crime is committed with illegal weapons.

Canada passed a gun control law in 1977, the murder
rate failed to decline, but armed robbery and burglary, crimes
frequently deterred by gun ownership, increased.”

You can look anywhere you wish to find stats to say guns should be banned, but I can find counters to them all.

in fact, look at the FBI's website for stats on the US per 100,000 population (nationwide average).
Violent Crime rate in 1991:757.7
Violent Crime rate in 2011:386.3

Now compare that to the crime rate in US cities with a population of over 250,000. stats per 100,000 population once again. 186 such cities exist in the US.

Violent Crime rate 2011: 754.5

Now look at the English Home Office website for England and Wales nationwide average:
Violent crime rate 2011: 1361

The more you look at statistics by area, the more you correlate crime to the area rather than the weapons available. I live in a state that allows basically everything that is federally permitted for firearms, but we have had 1 shooting in state history with more than 5 victims, and it was committed with a pair of revolvers that a young kid stole from his father's desk. Our state also has one of the lowest murder rates in the nation.

[curtthehurt1]

also another thing I am finding interesting:

* Currently, for every 12 aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murders committed in the United States, approximately one person is sentenced to prison for committing such a crime

Not all that many US criminals are caught the first time.



* A 2002 U.S. Justice Department study of 272,111 felons released from state prisons in 1994 found that within three years of their release:

• at least 67.5% had been arrested for committing a new offense
• at least 21.6% had been arrested for committing a new violent offense
• these former inmates had been charged with committing at least 2,871 new homicides, 2,444 new rapes, 3,151 other new sexual assaults, 2,362 new kidnappings, 21,245 new robberies, 54,604 new assaults, and 13,854 other new violent crimes[31]

* Fourteen prisons in England and Wales, most of which hold short-term inmates, have reconviction rates of more than 70%

but reconviction rates for iceland cannot be found. maybe some form of your punishment system is more effective for those few people whom do commit crimes?

[Kjarkur]

It's extremely low. But our prison is a 5 star hotel compared to US Prisons.

In there they get a job, have internet access, can get weekend's off to visit the city or family, can get any college/uni education they want, government helps them to become members of society again.
We believe in less sentences and actually focusing harder on improving the individuals, instead of having them locked up half their life.

I'm not sure about how exactly it works but this is what I know. I'll look the rate up for you and post later today.

-KJ

[[KMA]Avenger]

Bit of an eye opener: http://www.fox19.com/story/20538164/pie ... cide-rates


as for Suicides, i wonder how many of those suicides are because the person was on psychotropic drugs and SSRI's.

[Jack]

You should never trust your government. You moment you trust your government is the moment they turn on you.

I never said our country is perfect, in fact I said quite the opposite.

I carry a gun everywhere I go. Not because I'm scared not to, but because I know **Filtered** happens, doesn't matter if it is likely or not, it happens and if it happens to me I want to be prepared.

It's like how airlines have flotation devices. Being in a plane crash is already extremely rare, but your odds of actually surviving a ditching (emergency water landing) is astronomical.

But they still have them in case the unthinkable happens.

[Kjarkur]

You should never trust your government. You moment you trust your government is the moment they turn on you.

I never said our country is perfect, in fact I said quite the opposite.

I carry a gun everywhere I go. Not because I'm scared not to, but because I know **Filtered** happens, doesn't matter if it is likely or not, it happens and if it happens to me I want to be prepared.

It's like how airlines have flotation devices. Being in a plane crash is already extremely rare, but your odds of actually surviving a ditching (emergency water landing) is astronomical.

But they still have them in case the unthinkable happens.

I never used the word perfect either - I know what you said. My question was, how is your freedom any different? Is the gun-laws of what you speak? Is the gun the freedom you speak of?

Regarding suicides, I'd like to know as well - but I think a lot of them are just due to people being sick in general and not getting the help they require.

[Jack]

Which is one reason we need universal healthcare.

[Juliette]

Which is one reason we need universal healthcare.

Universal, or national?

[Rudy Peña]

I don't see what it matters who dies. People are being killed and that's the only thing that matters. It's not for us to decide who is important and who is not.

You dont see, but many people do. Its also a matter of race, there are many hundreds of black and hispanic kids that died by being shot or another way of dieing. But its never gets any national attention like the pretty little white girl who was 7 years old.

[Jack]

Which is one reason we need universal healthcare.

Universal, or national?

Universal/national, what's the difference? We need to get rid of private insurance companies and adopt a much better solution.

[Juliette]

Which is one reason we need universal healthcare.

Universal, or national?

Universal/national, what's the difference? We need to get rid of private insurance companies and adopt a much better solution.

Well.. the big difference would be that to implement a universal healthcare, you will need a truly well functioning world government (and ideally a few more on other planets). *smug chuckle*

[curtthehurt1]

It's extremely low. But our prison is a 5 star hotel compared to US Prisons.

In there they get a job, have internet access, can get weekend's off to visit the city or family, can get any college/uni education they want, government helps them to become members of society again.
We believe in less sentences and actually focusing harder on improving the individuals, instead of having them locked up half their life.

I'm not sure about how exactly it works but this is what I know. I'll look the rate up for you and post later today.

-KJ

No kidding about the 5 star hotel man. lol. One of the hardest things for the US felons is that a large portion of businesses will not hire anyone with a criminal record. so they may only get a 3 year charge and get out, but a life of crime gives them more benefits than making an honest living once they have committed once. Their jail cell offers them more amenities than they could get with the jobs they get stuck in after getting out of prison. basically what iceland has is the opportunity to come out of jail qualified for a $70,000-80,000+, job, instead of having to settle for a $30,000-35,000 a year job that you have difficulty finding because you are a "criminal".

I think that has a LOT more to do with the murder and crime than any weapons availabilty.

aside from that, we live in a society that is changing today.we are a society that wants more freedoms; marijuana legalization is a big topic, as is gay marriage. I am Ok with both being allowed legally. I dont really care who marries who. If you want to have your weed, I'm not going to stop you, but if you do anything that is going to put people at risk such as driving while you are stoned, or you show up to work stoned (I work construction, if you arent all there, **Filtered** can get serious really quick) and I find out about it, I will have no qualms about breaking your jaw. I went to school and was friends with a few people whom were gay, as well as quite a number of heavy weed smokers. The only stipulations that I put on either of those types was a "not around me" policy. I made it nicely clear that i did NOT want to watch a guy and his boyfriend make out, and i made it clear that if you wanted to smoke your pot, go somewhere where the fumes wont affect me, and no I wasnt going to share. Those people who were my friends understood my reasoning, and we never had any problems.

and now with all the gun debates going up and both of those other issues getting on solid footing, I find a lot of those friends of mine whom supported marijuana and gay marriage ranting on their facebooks to "ban assault rifles" and as I mentioned before, the weapons that are classified by the term assault rifles are all but banned here, and dont ever get used for crimes when legally purchased (which is extremely difficult and expensive), with the exception of ONE incident since 1934 *which incedentally was a cop*. What the general public is mistaking for those assault rifles are actually semi automatic versions of the assault rifles, all which are commonly used for hunting due to their ease of use and flexibility. In the southern united states, such as texas and louisiana, wild boar are a big problem as far as causing property damage, and many of the people who hunt them legally to get them out of problem areas use AR's, because you can switch from day vision scopes to night vision in a matter of minutes, and you can easily add supressors so that you can hunt at night without anyone unable to sleep because of the sound of gunfire.

In reality rifles as a whole only account for 3% of gun crime. basically, every weapon that was banned by the clinton gun law (including suppressors) was used in less than 2% of crime. and considering that nearly half of murders are committed where the victim and killer know each other, it wouldnt be all that difficult to use another type of weapon other than a gun for the murder, it's more of a weapon of opportunity. and another 50% or so of murders are related to gangs, whom have easy access to black market guns if they are unable to aquire legally purchased ones.