If this doesn't make the point, I don't know what does

[VirginiaJim]

Every time I hear that song I get goose bumps and shiver over soldiers killing the ones they are supposed to protect.  I visited the site a few years ago.

[Rhino]

Thanks for the info Rhino!

Rick: What happened there was horrible indeed. 

How would the situation be different if the students were armed though?

Nothing would have changed in that one tragic incident. In fact it was probably good that no students fired back. But I have to wonder if things might have been different in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943 or if the jewish population in Europe in 1940 was as well armed as the US  population is now. Would things have been different? Or how about the population of Cambodia in the 1970's?

[gPink]

or China....or Russia....or....the Aztecs...or....just about any population who doesn't want to be conquered and enslaved.

[Deziner]

How would the situation be different if the students were armed though?

It is a whole lot harder to control/intimidate a group of people when they are also armed.

Peace through superior firepower.....

[XPLRN]

Dear T,
   As someone who has been in law enforcement for the past 20 years let me give you some input here. Criminals do not care if the average man or woman is armed, as a matter of fact they prefer it that way. If a person has no way to protect themselves then they will be a victim at will for the criminals to exploit.

Was out doing some reading on various threads and ran across this one which contaned some well stated thoughts by numerous folks. Possibly the italicized/underlined text was not quite what was meant to be conveyed!?? The following line tends to counter the previous.

I've never heard of a criminal preferring that their victims be armed.

[just gone]

Well in regards to the title of this thread " If this doesn't make the point, I don't know what does" ....I had to guess exactly what the point was of the first two videos. I'll go out on a limb and say that you were trying to show how a historically antagonistic and potential enemy country of the U.S. has a high school competition where students of both sexes are able to disassemble and reassemble some weapon, and yet 3 out of 4 American men look somewhat foolish handling various firearms? ..and we are supposed to feel doomed if we go to war with Russia?
 
I'm not taking a pro gun stand here nor an anti gun stand...I'm just addressing the title...so perhaps I'm obtuse, but just posting those two videos didn't really make the point with me. I had to guess and I'm still not sure if I got it right. However, I found this post to be crystal clear.

   1) you've made the mistake of thinking all firearms are only used offensively;
   2) People die when guns are in the hands of the gov't at a much higher rate than when in the hands of civilians.
   3) people whose gov't have guns, and the people don't are subject to the whims of their leaders at any time. Do you know anything about history? Ever seen an armed society suffer an ethnic cleansing or genocide? Ever heard of some folks like Stalin, Hitler, Polpot? Many others too. What did they have in common? guns in the hands of the gov't., not the civilians
   4) There is a truth regarding history " those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it" can you understand how that works with an armed citizenry?
 

So going back to before this became a pro-firearm/anti-firearm in the hands of the people debate (page 1, post 3), in words please, Steve was my guess even close? 

 

[maxtog]

Most if not all states do not allow you to carry even with a permit into schools, banks and government buildings.

I have never heard of the list including banks, and I just checked my "blue book" and there is no mention of that (so it certainly doesn't apply in Virginia)....  although "places of worship", "airport gates", and "military bases" typically ARE on the list.

[maxtog]

Well in regards to the title of this thread [...]

How dare you attempt to be on-topic!!

[Rhino]

I have never heard of the list including banks, and I just checked my "blue book" and there is no mention of that (so it certainly doesn't apply in Virginia)....  although "places of worship", "airport gates", and "military bases" typically ARE on the list.

Oops, sorry, not sure where I got that from.

[maxtog]

Oops, sorry, not sure where I got that from.

Well, might be true somewhere, I don't know.  They love throwing in stupid exceptions.

[Deziner]

In Arizona, banks, anywhere alcohol is served, government buildings, schools, anywhere it is posted as "No Firearms", and to be honest, I forget the other places where firearms are verboten....    We have constitutional carry here, no permit required to carry concealed. Gotta love it!

[maxtog]

In Arizona, banks, anywhere alcohol is served, government buildings, schools, anywhere it is posted as "No Firearms", and to be honest, I forget the other places where firearms are verboten....    We have constitutional carry here, no permit required to carry concealed. Gotta love it!

Well, you might love that part, but Virginia finally did away with that incredibly stupid "where alcohol is served" stuff.  Of course, you can't legally DRINK while armed, though.

[Tzigane]

Haha, just came across this and had to think of our earlier conversation here.

Quite sums up my thoughts as well, this guy just brings it better and funnier than I could.

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/24/8283199/gun-control-comedy-jefferies?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=article%3Atop&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

[Rhino]

I have to admit that guy is funny. Full of $hit, but funny. Gun ban made zero difference on homicide rates.

[Rhino]

The US does have higher homicide rates than many countries and many people think that is because of lack of gun control. But the US doesn't even make the top 100 and the top 10 have total bans on private gun ownership.

[Rhino]

Sorry, but one more, this chart shows no correlation between firearm ownership rates versus homicide rates.

[Tzigane]

Those statistics are actually kind of flawed I'm sorry to say..  They're comparing against specific countries to try and present the facts to be viewd in a certain (wrong) way.
Those countries are not at all comparable like this. You can't directly compare the US to Honduras or Zambia, that doesn't make any statistical sense whatsoever. Too many other factors will be at play. It also seems like all the comparable western countries are about equal because the Y axis of the last graph is zoomed out, which they are not.

Zooming in we see that the US looks to have a rather high rate compared to finland, sweden, canada, iceland, new zealand etc. For the numbers to be meaningful, we have to compare to comparable countries. Doing this, we find that gun ownership dóes correlate with gun deaths per capita. There is a LOT of evidence supporting this:





This gives a whole different view on things.

http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2014/03/visualizing-gun-deaths-comparing-the-u-s-to-rest-of-the-world/#prettyPhoto
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/09/19/u-s-has-more-guns-and-gun-deaths-than-any-other-country-study-finds/
http://www.citylab.com/politics/2013/01/gun-violence-us-cities-compared-deadliest-nations-world/4412/
http://www.businessinsider.com/shooting-gun-laws-2012-12?IR=T


Concerning Australia. We DO see a drop off actually. Also: Homicide rate is not the only way people can die from guns.



We also find a statistically significant decrease in suicide rates, interesting.



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-23/katter-wrong-on-gun-deaths/4904576
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control-work-in-australia/


All in all, I think the actual question, knowing fully well that more guns equals more gun deaths, is: Is it worth it. To "protect" yourself (I honestly don't buy into that argument, the chances of coming across people who want to murder you AND you having your gun at the ready are negligable, we're not living in the wild west anymore). It seems to be causing more harm (in actual deaths of people) than good (being "yay it's awesome to have guns, which I understand)

[Rhino]

Those statistics are actually kind of flawed I'm sorry to say..  They're comparing against specific countries to try and present the facts to be viewd in a certain (wrong) way.
Those countries are not at all comparable like this. You can't directly compare the US to Honduras or Zambia, that doesn't make any statistical sense whatsoever. Too many other factors will be at play.

Exactly my point. If you put all the factors in, guns are not nearly as significant. Culture and history become much more significant. The areas in the US that have the high murder rates typically do have strict gun control. In fact most of the US have similar rates to that of Europe. The countries you want to compare to the US are MUCH older and have little or no history of slavery and racism. Honduras in the "New World" is actually a closer comparison to the history of the US than Finland is.

You also say "Homicide rate is not the only way people can die from guns." Thank you for making another point. I wonder what your "Assault by firearm" graph looks like when you add all forms of assault. Is it better to be murdered by other means? Same with suicide rate. Of course "suicide by firearm" goes down when gun ownership is banned. Look at the suicide rate in Japan where gun ownership is virtually unheard of. Is it really so much better to commit suicide by other means?

The funny guy actually makes a great point, our second amendment is not about individual crime. It is all about last line of defense against tyranny. Amazing how many Americans don't understand this truth. His argument is one I've heard a million times. That is that since the government has drones, its silly to think you can resist with mere guns. Actually no. If there is one thing we in have learned in the last couple of decades is that massive air power is not a substitute for boots on the ground carrying rifles.

[gPink]

Evidently netflix didn't think the guy was funny since they have blocked the video.

[maxtog]

Exactly my point. If you put all the factors in, guns are not nearly as significant. Culture and history become much more significant. The areas in the US that have the high murder rates typically do have strict gun control. In fact most of the US have similar rates to that of Europe.

Yep.  Let's face it, one can make statistics show just about any conclusion one wants to obtain.  Just change the samples, factors, wording, and assumptions.  I can easily find statistics that show gun deaths and crime go *up* when tighter gun controls are enactacted.

The USA is far, far, far less homogeneous than most western European countries in just about every way- race, religion, background, ethnicity, economic, education, values, etc.  Increased diversity = more crime.  Increased freedom usually = more crime.  Neither increased diversity nor freedom is a bad thing.  Freedom does ALWAYS come at a price. 

The countries you want to compare to the US are MUCH older and have little or no history of slavery and racism.

As far as I know, just about every country has a history of slavery and racism.... that is, if they contained humans.