LTE: Get rid of guns

[Ruger Mason]

Its a a play right out of the anti-gun playbook... when the facts don't match your claims, create new "facts".

[CNHT]

I call shenanigans!
Where does this guy get his Riduculously overinflated statistics from?
I checked out several anti-gun sites and came up with about 30,000 deaths annually for firearms in the US http://www.ichv.org/Statistics.htm(sources cited CDC) 60% of which are suicides. 12,000 homicides by firearm per year in a country of 300,000,000.

Look at the table on this page http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html(sources cited: US FBI, Taiwan National Police Administration) for a nice breakdown of how gun homicide correlates to the murder rate... what do you mean it doesn't? How could you say that? Just look at Taiwan, with less than half of the number of gun murders (per 100,000), but with 3 times the number of non-gun homicides (per 100,000) what do these numbers mean? Absolutely nothing.

If you have got a gun and don't use it for evil purposes, you don't have to worry, and if you have a gun and use it for evil purposes, it is just a matter of time before someone punches your ticket.

Don't worry Sand, "you is a'preachin' to the choir!"   

[FTL_Ian]

There was a reply LTE today:

http://concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/REPOSITORY/610170348/1029/OPINION03

Bleh, a not so great excerpt:

We should stop making and selling ultra-violent video games, raise the standard of living in our urban areas so people don't have to resort to selling drugs - or their bodies - to make a living, and try to stop the moral and cultural decay of our nation.

Preach, preach.  He may be pro-gun but he's also a moral enforcer.   

[MaineShark]

Just look at Taiwan, with less than half of the number of gun murders (per 100,000), but with 3 times the number of non-gun homicides (per 100,000) what do these numbers mean? Absolutely nothing.

Of course it means something.  Don't you know that it's much better to be murdered by being clubbed to death than by being shot?

You're actually deader if you get shot instead of being clubbed or stabbed!

Joe

[CNHT]

This Thursday we will have as guest on WLMW 90.7 "NH Taxpayer Radio" show: NRA instructor and local Porcupine guy, Tony Lekas to talk about those who are running for office and looking to take away our gun rights.

Streaming link is:

http://wlmw.mainstream.net:8000/listen.pls

[burnthebeautiful]

That guy's a lunatic. Even Sweden lets people own guns if they have a hunting or target-practice license. Granted those licenses are difficult to get, but at least they're there. Going so far as not even wanting people to be allowed to own shotguns for hunting is insane.

As for the 113,000 deaths, maybe a significant portion of those people were attempting to rape or rob someone. Maybe people being able to acts of violence in Japan without being shot is a bad thing. I happen to know for a fact that Sweden has a higher rape rate per capita than USA.

Does sweden allow handguns? (not concealed carry but ownership)... also what about scary looking rifles?

I heard that Finland's gun laws are extremely permissive, as long as your police chief issues a purchase permit you can get whatever you convince him to allow.

As far as I know Sweden lets you own pretty much any type of firearm if you have the proper license, there are people who own fully auto's.

In Sweden the legal use of handguns is for the sport of target shooting, which is recognised as a legitmate sport and has competitions. To get a handgun license you have to have been a member of a pistol club for a minimum of 6 months and passed an extremely strict shooting test (most people need more than 6 months training to pass). You get to shoot real handguns as soon as you join a pistol club, but with a supervisor standing next to you. Once you've passed the test and been a member for 6 months, you go to a police office and fill out an application form. Providing you've never been convicted of a violent crime etc, you get a handgun license that lets you buy and own handguns.

A hunting license lets you own rifles and shotguns. Hunting licenses are, compared to handgun licenses, comparitively easy to get. You take a hunting course (not sure what it entails as I don't know anyone who's taken it), and when you're done you get your license. Hunting is quite popular in Sweden, especially in the northern parts. Out of Swedens 9 million inhabitants, 700,000 people have a rifle or a shotgun for hunting. So that's 12.8% of the population owns a rifle or shotgun, plus all the people who own a handgun for target shooting. Gun control loons here usually fumble and say something like "well but that's different" when I tell them these numbers.

[mvpel]

The principal statistical mistake that anti-gun people make, both here in the US and overseas, is to compare the entire United States with the entirity of other nations such as Japan or Sweden.

The problem with that approach is that there is such a vast range of laws across the United States, ranging from Vermont and Alaska, to Washington DC and Chicago.

By lumping the entire United States together, they miss the fact that fully 1/8 of violent crime in the United States takes place in areas with the most draconian gun laws, while the places with the most lenient gun laws routinely have the least violent crime.

What they should be doing instead is comparing individual states - for example, New Hampshire with a shall-issue CCW license and open carry has a lower violent crime rate than Sweden.

Of course, they won't do that because it utterly devastates their arguments.

[Michael Fisher]

There was a reply LTE today:

http://concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/REPOSITORY/610170348/1029/OPINION03

Bleh, a not so great excerpt:

We should stop making and selling ultra-violent video games, raise the standard of living in our urban areas so people don't have to resort to selling drugs - or their bodies - to make a living, and try to stop the moral and cultural decay of our nation.

Preach, preach.  He may be pro-gun but he's also a moral enforcer.   

sigh

They don't "have to resort to" selling drugs or their bodies to make a living - that is their choice. By "raise the standard of living," I assume he means try to kick the voluntarily poor out of the city with regulations and extreme NYC-style law-enforcement.

I agree with not making and selling video games, VOLUNTARILY and in response to cultural pressure and a lack of an available market for those games, though I highly doubt that will ever happen. However, as long as there is demand for video games, you cannot go around lazily attacking the branches, the effects of this decay, with regulations while hoping the problems go away. That is pointless and harmful.

[tracysaboe]

The principal statistical mistake that anti-gun people make, both here in the US and overseas, is to compare the entire United States with the entirity of other nations such as Japan or Sweden.

The problem with that approach is that there is such a vast range of laws across the United States, ranging from Vermont and Alaska, to Washington DC and Chicago.

By lumping the entire United States together, they miss the fact that fully 1/8 of violent crime in the United States takes place in areas with the most draconian gun laws, while the places with the most lenient gun laws routinely have the least violent crime.

What they should be doing instead is comparing individual states - for example, New Hampshire with a shall-issue CCW license and open carry has a lower violent crime rate than Sweden.

Of course, they won't do that because it utterly devastates their arguments.

Or invidiual counties like John Lott did.

More Guns: Less Crime

Tracy

[citizen_142002]

I thought NH was also safer than Switzerland, which is a point I wanted to make in KFP or an LTE. Gun grabbers talk about how much safer people are in places like England and Japan, "because" of gun laws. Firstly NH is likely safer than most places cited, secondly they compare gun crime rate to gun crime rate, not homicide rate to homicide rate. I'm not sure people are even murdered less frequently in England or Japan than compared to the US average, it's just not done with guns.

Those article numbers are BS. Even liberal fatass Michael Moore claimed 12,000 something gun homocides a year in the US. That's more than a tenfold margin of error. Liars, cheaters, potential oppressors, the anti-gun left.

[Forastero]

Sorry Ruger, but you have the 2nd Ammendment of the Constitution stopping ya