Man Shoots, Kills Seven Year-Old Girl in San Andreas Row

http://www.justfacts.com/gun_control.htm

670,000 people using guns for self defense.

Adam, what you forget is that gun control gives criminals an upper hand, they aren't going to turn in their gun, thus it would be a good idea for you to have some form of protection (a gun!)

Politicians think it is ia noble idea to ban guns, but they don't think of the repercussions.

A gun is a tool that can be used for good or evil, don't blame the guns, blame the person who committed the crime.


(Yes I know that the federal gov't is restricted of using gun control, and the states can use gun control, for example, DC nearly banned all types of guns, and then murders skyrocketed)

The age rating system needs to be more heavily policed - and this will only happen if the system is brought to the public's attention. Perhaps the BBFC need to run some TV commercials, to highlight how important it is for parents to monitor what games their kids play. Because recent opinion states they're indifferent at present.

Adult themed games (e.g. gang warfare, contract killing, prostitution etc) have only become consistant top-sellers in the last 5 years. The previous big-selling "satan spawn" (Doom, RE) were hardly in the same league as GTA:SA.

Now the publishers know that "crime simulators" are virtually guarenteed hits, we'll be seeing a lot more of them. And so the importance of sticking to the ratings will become even more imortant.

Also, if the rating system for games gets more exposure, and it's importance engraved into society, maybe the printed publications will be divided? Maybe a sort of "Smash Hits" type for kids and "The Source" for adults?

It's probably all too late, though.

Welcome to Detroit! (circa Robocop)

During the cold war NATO and the Warsaw Pact played this game with nukes, it was called MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. These days there are very few nukes in the world. I know I feel a lot safer. Don't you worry that you might get caught in a gang warfare version of the Cuban missile crisis?


Less profit for their friends at Smith & Wesson? :-)

OK, cheap shot, but really, we have quite tight gun control here in the UK and we don't seem to have as much gun crime as the US does.

Just checked on the Internet (so this must be true)

United States
Murders with firearms (1999) 8,259
Population (2005) 295,734,134

United Kingdom
Murders with firearms (1999) 62
Population (2005) 60,441,457

Sorry the years don't match, best I could find on short notice. OK, so the US has 4.89 time as many people than the UK and 133.2 times as many murders with firearms.

Another blow for gun control, eh? :-)

Edit - I forgot the sources!!
Firearm Murder Figures
Population figures from CIA World Factbook


A gun is merely a tool for aiming a rapidly moving piece of lead it is true. However the true intent of guns, and the reason they were designed in the first place, is to kill people. Not wound, not defend, kill.


It's down to you to assign the labels of "good" and "evil" to that act.

I'll keep this bit short, since you aren't worth more space or attention. Bottom Line, trying to come off as riding on some moral high horse, protecting childrens everywhere from having their moral compasses permenantly skewed by too much violence, then saying that you're really only opposed to GUNS?

Like I said you're a hypocrite, probably a dilettante and poseur to boot. Its not that I can't respect people with opinions similar to your own, but original thought and true belief and passion are more convincing than whatever lukewarm feelings you have for the opinon you're spouting, apparently having read them somwhere...[/reply]

As to the Second Amendment, if you care about what the framers intended, read on, otherwise don't bother... First off, the bit about the militia, it was their intent to have weapons (and more importantly weapons training) widely dispersed among the population, the fact that we do not currently have a militia isn't relevant, the FACT that we someday might need one is becoming moreso. (Remember, the US is a much "smaller" country now thanks to communications and transporation technology, and we were facing many potential threats from all directions)

Also, remember that the Constitution was written in the wake of a successful armed rebellion, and there was no guarantee that the grand experiment wouldn't degenerate into some sort of tyranny or another, the second amendment was the framers way of protecting against the worst, by making arms freely availible to any future patriots.

So banning guns is counter to the vision of the founding fathers of our country, not that gun control advocates are dead wrong, or fail to have any valid points...

Finally, video games are both art form and valid social commentary, thus, protected speech, and should be free from government censorship.

I don't think I'd even want a gun for self defence.

Your argument puts the American people in a circle of paranoia. Because guns aren't available in the UK people aren't worried about criminals with guns.

By having guns readily available, don't you just think the government are making it easy for criminals to equip themselves?

Oh! You PROMISED. But still you couldn't resist dribbling and ranting on.

Look, we seem to have an impasse. I think guns are bad, and that people who support free access to guns are bad.

You support free access to guns.

Therefore, you are bad and your opinion doesn't count ;-)




And you made all your opinions up, completely indepepndently, and divorced from any social or intellectual context. Hmmmm, I intended that as parody, but now I re-read it, it looks frighteneningly feasible.




Agreed, they should be free of government censorship.

But that does not free the producers of such works from their moral responsibilities. Even well adjusted people are having their moral outlook recalibrated by the constant bombardment of violent images in news and culture. There was a time when a murder was seen as an abomination... now it is seen as an inevitable consequence of modern life. The glorification of murder in (mainly) movies, and games does not put them into a context of loss and emotional desolation that one feels when one loses a loved one, especially if the loss is an unnecessary and senseless one. Most young people have not experienced such loss, and thus cannot see the tragedy of these killings...

Criminals will have guns no matter what, CRIMINALS AREN'T LAW ABIDING CITIZENS, what gun control does is create a balance of power where criminals have the upper hand.

"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will carry guns."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1440764.stm

Isn't that nice, gun control does not decrease crime rate, but actually makes it go up, let the statistics speak for themselves.

Not really, you are comparing two different countries that will have two different crime rates, why not give accurate statistics concerning gun control, for example, in the UK after they implemented a virtual ban on all firearms crimes and murders went up!!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1440764.stm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/watson/watson12.html





Guns can be used to defend a person and not just kill.
If it were the case then, why don't we have 670,000 criminals dead?
That's the # of people who have had the help of a firearm when defending themselves against an attacker/criminal? (http://www.justfacts.com/gun_control.htm)

hmmm????

More info:
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=69

OK then let's compare gun crime against total crime for both countries.

Total Crimes
United States 23,677,800 (1999)
United Kingdom 5,170,831 (2000)
Source
Apologies about the mismatching dates again, however since our crime rate usually rises, I'm sure you'll let me off on this one.

The US has 4.58 times as many crimes in total as the UK based on those figures, fairly close to the ratio of populations, don't you think? The murders with firearms figures still look bad when we compare them against the total crime rate.


It's true that the gun crime figures in the UK rose after the gun control clampdown in 1997, but it's also true that in 1998/99 the way crime figures were counted changed and showed a marked increase. (see here) so the increase is mostly due to reporting methodology changes.

Also worth noting is that "crimes in which a handgun was reported" could easily cover illegal possession or use of replica firearms. Since most firearm possession was illegal after the amnesty, of course crime rates are going to go up.


Only by intimidation. Nukes were also used for defence through intimidation, see my comments above about MAD. Swords can be used to defend people, should we all carry those again? How about baseball bats, purely for defence, of course.

Body armour is designed to defend people, guns are designed to kill people. If defence is your aim, why not buy a kevlar vest and learn to run really fast?


Because not everybody is a good shot? Because most criminals who were wounded got medical attention and survived?

From the page you link to above

So shouldn't you have 670 dead criminals and 6,700 wounded criminals?

As I said above intimidate or try to kill, there is no other alternative with a gun. If you are going to try and intimidate, you will eventually have to shoot. If you hit, you will stand a chance of killing. If you miss, you stand a chance of killing an innocent bystander.



From that page

Please! Dial down the rhetoric to levels that stop your eyes from bulging! Quoting these sorts of figures does nothing to help your case.

By the way you have fulfilled Godwin's law by proxy!

You're not getting what I am saying... give me the UK crime rate before gun control and then after gun control...mmmkay!!!



Thanks for explaining away, its the methodology, not that gun control actually increases crimes



Or how about, they didn't fire the gun, they used it as a deterrent, I love liberal logic! lol!


I don't get what you are trying to say



So, we should just ban guns altogether???



It just shows you, that we both agree on one thing:
GUN CONTROL WORKS!



Did I compare you to Hitler? no!!!

You don't get my point, gun control takes the citizen's rights away to defend themselves and gives criminals the upper hand.

I have abbreviated this post and replied only to the salient points as I see them, since everybody who is still interested can read our points of view above.





OK, try this site where the reporting change is explained. The site quotes a UK government report that claims a 5% reduction in "violence against the person" over the 2001/02 reporting period.


I believe I mentioned intimidation, which would be a form of deterrent. I believe I also pointed out the cold war MAD scheme and my thoughts on it.


I was pointing out that your example figure for dead criminals was slightly inflated according to the source you were quoting. You were using the figure as a refutation by extremes argument, but I was showing that your extreme was a bit too extreme and damaged your argument slightly.


By George, I think he's got it!


I thought your whole argument was that it doesn't work? Or are you now saying that it works to the advantage of a dictator? Check out the bottom of the page I linked to above, many private individuals had a gun in Saddam Hussain's Iraq and gun controls were brought in to pre-WW2 Germany in order to disarm Hitler, not the Jews.


No, you linked to a site (hence my by proxy comment) that compared the gun laws in the UK to those in Nazi Germany. Only a comparison to the Nazis must be made to invoke Godwin's law, not a comparison to one of the posters.

Here I was trying to inject a little levity into this, admittedly very interesting, discussion and you took it as an insult. Please believe me when I say that I respect your right to your opinions, I just disagree with them. That doesn't mean we can't take a civilised approach to our discussion of our different points of view.


You don't get my point, by having more guns in circulation, it's more likely that the criminals will get guns in the first place. Without controls on ammunition a single gun can be used for years, control access to that ammunition and that gun can only be used until the owner's supplies run out.

After gun and ammunition controls are enacted the only way to get more is by illegal means, this is a reduction in supply. When guns and ammunition are legal to purchase then the criminals, as well as the non-criminals, have much easier access. The chances of someone being killed by a gun go up in proportion to ease of access.

The original intent of the second amendment (which started this discussion, if you remember) was to allow the people to throw off an unwanted federal government if such a move was deemed necessary. This amendment was ratified on 15-Dec-1791. However it didn't help the Southern states throw off the then unwanted federal government in 1861-1865.

jsm30625, I am quite enjoying this discussion, it has been the catalyst to me finding out quite a bit of information regarding the US Constitution and other matters around it. Please don't take my difference of opinion as a personal attack. You have raised some interesting points in your argument, which I have investigated and, I hope, countered with points of my own. Even if in the end we agree to disagree on this matter, I hope we have both learned something, I know I have.

I look forward to your reply.

Right. My 2-cents (and not based on stats at all, just my paradoxical "common sense"):

Criminals need to feel they have the upper-hand over their victims, and part of this reassurance is weaponary.

So, in America a home owner might well have a handgun; therefore a burgler will also need a handgun, or even shotgun, in order to be on level pegging.

In the UK, the homeowner will have nothing but his/her fists, or maybe a golf club, so the burgler doens't need anything more than a club of some sort.

If a burgler is detected, he (yes. sexist. whatever) will get the Fight or Flight syndrome. Presuming neither are psychopathic, neither want a confrontation, but it'll sometimes happen.

Should this situation arise, someone will end up worse off. But which would you prefer; a broken nose or gun-shot wound?

I've had a broken nose... and it hurts.

But I'd take it over someone popping a cap in my ass any day of the week.

Guns are bad, mmmm-kay?

Crime, burglary, theft, violence has gone down, wow, why don't they mention homicides?



Well, isn't that nice, giving criminals the upper hand by selling guns on the black market, and the citizens can't protect themselves!


By George, I think he's got it!


Right, gun control was used in order to disarm Hitler when he was the Chancellor of Germany, I don't think that makes sense, could you explain?



True, true, leave Hitler aside, look at all the other instances in which gun control was used to give the government more control over their citizens.



But criminals already have guns, and even when supplies "run out" there are other resources that criminals can go to.



Not in the case of Washington D.C.
http://www.justfacts.com/gun_control.htm


Yes we both have, and that is great, even though we have opposing views it 's always good to learn.



This is more of a neutral background article about gun control, it represents cultural differences between the U.S. and Europe, very good read:

http://www.thepublicinterest.com/archives/2002fall/article3.html

The way UK crime statistics are recorded and reported, violence against the person includes homicides. However, if gun crime had leapt up as other sources have claimed then the overall violence figure would also have risen, or at least stayed level. It didn't, it dropped quite a bit.


See my comments about availability. I still think that if something potentially harmful is easily available, more harm will be caused by it, either by accident or design.

By turning the supply of weapons into a crime you have to have limited the overall supply. Limited supply drives up price, even more so when the supply is criminalised.

The small-time crooks robbing convenience stores won't be able to get hold of ammunition for their guns in just the same way that the owners of those stores won't. There is a balance there.

Events like the shooting that the original news story reported wouldn't happen if the general populace was prevented from owning guns.


Gun control was imposed before he was Chancellor in order to disarm the National Socialist Party that he led at the time. This party became the Nazi party and ultimately put Hitler in power.

The point is that Mrs. Hitler's little boy didn't put the gun controls in place to disarm the Jews and make their capture and slaughter easier. The controls were in place before he came to power and were intended to disarm him and his cohorts.


Oops, too late.


When you have a dictatorial government all public freedoms are repressed, especially any that allow the public to defend themselves.

You aren't complaining about those government's banning of gathering in large numbers or impositions of curfews, both of which prevent organised opposition. Not every revolution requires armed resistance by the general populace, but they all require organised groups of like-minded people.


Percentages can hide many real facts. Did the homicide rate go up from one death to three in those years? That would be an increase of 200%.

You have to remember the source. If you are reading a site or paper that is for gun control or against it, be wary of figures and statistics that prove the point of the piece.


I'm glad you have taken this approach to the subject. It's always informative to hear other peoples' views on this sort of thing.


While I agree the book reviewed here may be a neutral examination of the underlying situations in the US and the UK, the review does appear to take every effort to use that analysis as proof of the rightness of allowing gun ownership.

I don't know how it reads to you, but to me it is very critical of the European trusting attitude towards their governments versus the American distrust of anybody in power.

That difference is, I believe, the root of the difference in opinion over gun control between the US and the UK. The US was formed by people who believed they had no representation in their previous government and decided to take things into their own hands. They then had to take up arms against the armies of that government to defend their independence. This recent history has to have an effect on the mindset of the country.

Meanwhile the last time their was a significant change of power in the UK was in 1660 when the short-lived commonwealth under Richard Cromwell (Oliver's son) was returned to a Monarchy. The commonwealth only lasted 11 years. Before that I believe 1066 was the previous revolution in power when the French invaded. Other than that the countries that became the UK have been reasonably quiet.

The point is that the UK has a long history of not revolting, only 11 years in the last 939. The US only has a short history of 229 years of self-governance from a history of 385 years since the Mayflower landed.

It is perhaps inevitable that the US has a distrust of government and authority and a self-reliant attitude that leads to a wish to defend themselves on a personal level. In the UK, we have been pretty stable for almost a millennium, most internal wars in that time have decided which branch of the same family have taken power and hardly any of them have changed the way the country is run, certainly not by a popular overthrowing of the ruling classes such as France, Russia and the US have seen.

Due to these differences in the attitude of the common man in the two countries, it is probably not a simple thing to compare the effects of laws on the crime rates of the two populations. It is perhaps the similar language we speak that allows the debate to go on as it does.

In recent times, the UK has started to follow the US in trends such as crime, culture and language so I'm sure the gap will narrow in time, but for now we are different people that speak a similar language.

I wouldn't conditions or laws in the UK to work as well in South Africa or Australia. There is no reason the expect that the same attitudes exist in the US either.

I don't quite know where I was going with all of that, but it seems apparent that the debate over gun control will continue with both sides pointing to events and rulings in other countries to make their point however flawed the comparisons are.

What does the old quote say "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." :)


That is quite true.



But somehow I feel it is just an export of American "pop" culture than an export of American values.


It would be interesting to note if the average citizen of any of those countries even cared about whether or not they adopted the laws of a different country.


Our debate just raged over whether government should limit gun control, but what I was implicitly assuming was that there was an "armed populace," now, there isn't as much of an armed populace in the UK as there is in some parts of the US, which has lead to different conclusions.

My main point is that people should be careful what the government should do, for every inch allowed, it has the potential to take a mile (or in metric terms, for every 2.54cm given, 1.61km can be taken.) Whenever one tries to engineer specific behavior by controlling the "invisible hand," unintended consequences can and most likely will occur.

While it may drop, in the long run, the UK will be worse off, it's because liberties have been eroded. The reason why is because the U.K. really isn't an armed populace.



Where there is a will, there's a way, the owners of the store are most likely not going to go to the blackmarket, while the criminal *does not care* we're s/he gets his ammunition.


And thousands of car accidents wouldn't occur if we just banned cars.



Gun control was used to prevent HItler and his cohorts, then that just furthers by argument that gun control generally doesn't work.



But I like resurrecting Hitler, why can't I be like raging anti-Bush people and continually make comparisons between Bush and Hitler and then be admired for my supreme intelligence?



Organized groups of like-minded people doing what? When push comes to shove, I'd rather have a way to defend myself, then only one side (the government) having all the arms.



(1992 rate 75.4 per 100,000 for D.C., 9.3 nationally.)
http://www.duke.edu/~gnsmith/articles/myths.htm


Of course but being one shouldn't just be wary, but cautious, and besides, we can apply the same advice to anyone trying to prove anything.


I'm glad that you weren't infuriated by my (admittedly) acidic sarcasm.





What does the old quote say? "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." :)


That is quite true.



But somehow I feel it is just an export of American "pop" culture than an export of American values.


It would be interesting to note if the average citizen of any of those countries even cared about whether or not they adopted the laws of a different country.


Our debate just raged over whether government should limit gun control, but what I was implicitly assuming was that there was an "armed populace," now, there isn't as much of an armed populace in the UK as there is in some parts of the US, which has lead to different conclusions.

My main point is that people should be careful what the government should do, for every inch allowed, it has the potential to take a mile (or in metric terms, for every 2.54cm given, 1.61km can be taken.) Whenever one tries to engineer specific behavior by controlling the "invisible hand," unintended consequences can and most likely will occur.

I can only vaguely remember when guns were outlawed in the UK. Now I don't think most people consider owning a gun to be a liberty and thus no-one in the UK considers the government has "taken away" ownership of guns. If you need a gun for your job or a specific reason you can obtain access to one, otherwise you can't own one.

The main point is that generally I don't think people in the UK have any motivation to own guns; because I don't think most people think they need one to defend themselves. Just a difference between UK and US culture, maybe.

If the US thinks everyone has a right to defend themselves with weapons, why won't they let every country in the world have nuclear missiles?

EDIT (just some personal notes ;) ):
I also just have to add that in the BBC news article referenced, the research was "commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting".

The "Countryside Alliance" like to pretent they represent the view of those in the countryside, when really they only represent a fraction of those in the countryside.

I would like to point out that there are a lot of people in the countryside who do not support hunting, guns, bird shooting etc etc.

Some countries include terrorist organizations and are hellbent on their destruction. I don't want criminals to have guns (obviously), but I don't want to go about implementing it in the wrong way (i.e. disarming law-abiding citizens.)

I don't really want to get involved in this particular ressurected donnybrook...again, but I will correct one point which has been mentioned.

The British and American attituides toward private gun ownership are indeed quite divergent. However, the genesis of this divergence lies not in the stability of the British Commonwealth as has been implied, rather it lies in the tradition of autocratic control over personal weaponry. The specious modern (at the time it was written it was quite relavant) argument of popular rebellion used to justify gun ownership fails when both sides try to use it. Another related factor is the hunting cultures involved...in Britain, hunting was a privelege, jealously guarded by up to capital punishment for commoners who dared tread upon what was the province of their betters. The only commoners who needed guns were those employed to shoot the poachers. Then there were those two times when world history turned partly upon the United States' ability to churn out massive amounts of small arms and other violent paraphenalia...

So Britain's circumstances at present vis-a-vis gun violence have their genesis in the unintended consequences of feudalism and oppression, not by virtue of the stability such measures were intended to enforce. That isn't to say that the common-born residents of Albion have taken all this lying down, if memory serves the emergence of the English longbow was at least influenced by weapons control by some oppressive minority or another...