Good that we can HAVE a CIVIL discussion here...
First, gns are primarily for self defense, not killing...the police do a great job, but 95% of all 911 responses are too late to stop the crime...they never publish or announce the millions of times a firearm PREVENTED a crime. Ask any ner do well thug in prison, if they know there's a gn in the house, they'll avoid that house like the plague. If two thugs walking down a dimly lit street see a woman by herself, but then the woman pulls out a firearm, the thugs will change their path and go elsewhere. Self defense is an inherent right...not one to be given a permit for.
Australia did a massive buy up of gns...640,381 firearms as a result of one mass murderer...it was supposed to reduce crime..did it? assaults are up 9%, armed robberies are up 44%...inthe state of Victoria, homicides w/ a firearm are up 300%.
Australian politicians are at a loss to explain this rise in violent crime following their buyup program. The unarmed are defenseless.
That made me laugh Ricardoon.
You must have been living on the west side of Louisville Rdale.
Yessir Alex, i forgot to mention Rwanda...a great example, from what i've heard, they disarmed all the folks there...thus they had not much ability to defend themselves and thus the genocide.
I agree, education is key...even more so, morality and strong family values...(i hesitate to use such a trite phrase that slimey self serving politicians use) The difference between today and 45 years ago here in the USA, is the decline or morality and family values...alas, we're headed down the same path as the Roman Empire. I don't particularly agree with our president either...i wish our men would come home now...it's all about the money over there. Don't think we can blame our current Pres. tho, the last one, every time his little head got him in trouble, he'd go over and bomb some 3rd world country...it happened several times...to take media and front page attention off himself...what goes around comes around...and then 9/11 hit us.
The REAL Wild West is in Wash, DC...it's our nation's murder capital...the old Wild West had a murder rate of 2 per 100,000 back in the 1800's...toDAY Wash, DC is 78 per 100,000..the old Wild West had its moments, but it was as civilized as rural America is today...the "Wild" image is Hollywood's doing.
...a little help from the GOA here...here are some of their statistics on causes of death in the USA:
General Death Rates
Heart disease 710,760
Cancer 553,091
Stroke (cerebrovascular disease) 167,661
Chronic lower respiratory diseases 122,009
Doctor's negligence 98,329
Influenza and pneumonia 65,313
Motor-vehicle 43,354
Suicides (all kinds, including firearms) 29,350
Firearms (Total)*
Suicides 16,586
Homicides 10,801
Accidents 776 Total 28,163
Accidents (six causes)
Falls 13,322
Poison (solid, liquid) 12,757
Choking on food or other object 4,313
Drowning 3,402
Fires, flames 3,377
Firearms 766
back to me...interesting...you're more likely to be killed by a medical doctor today than by a gn.
more from GOA...back in England...* England: According to the BBC News, handgun crime in the United Kingdom rose by 40% in the two years after it passed its draconian gun ban in 1997.
British citizens are now more likely to become a victim of crime than are people in the United States:
"You are more likely to be mugged in England than in the United States," stated the Reuters news agency in summarizing the study. "The rate of robbery is now 1.4 times higher in England and Wales than in the United States, and the British burglary rate is nearly double America’s."158 The murder rate in the United States is reportedly higher than in England, but according to the DOJ study, "the difference between the [murder rates in the] two countries has narrowed over the past 16 years."159
* The United Nations confirmed these results in 2000 when it reported that the crime rate in England is higher than the crime rates of 16 other industrialized nations, including the United States.160
4. British authorities routinely underreport murder statistics. Comparing statistics between different nations can be quite difficult since foreign officials frequently use different standards in compiling crime statistics.
* The British media has remained quite critical of authorities there for "fiddling" with crime data. Consider some of the headlines in their papers: "Crime figures a sham, say police,"161 "Police are accused of fiddling crime data,"162 and "Police figures under-record offences by 20 percent."
* British police have also criticized the system because of the "widespread manipulation" of crime data:
a. "Officers said that pressure to convince the public that police were winning the fight against crime had resulted in a long list of ruses to ‘massage’ statistics."
b. Sgt. Mike Bennett says officers have become increasingly frustrated with the practice of manipulating statistics. "The crime figures are meaningless," he said. "Police everywhere know exactly what is going on.
also from GOA...Self-defense
A. Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict
* Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year—or about 6,850 times a day20. This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.21
* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.22
* As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.23
* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606)25. And readers of *
* Florida: (my note, in high populated cities) concealed carry helps slash the murder rate in the state. In the fifteen years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, over 800,000 permits to carry firearms were issued to people in the state.32 FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 52% during that 15-year period—thus putting the Florida rate below the national average.33
* Do firearms carry laws result in chaos? No. Consider the case of Florida. A citizen in the Sunshine State is far more likely to be attacked by an alligator than to be assaulted by a concealed carry holder.
* During the first fifteen years that the Florida law was in effect, alligator attacks outpaced the number of crimes committed by carry holders by a 229 to 155 margin.34
C. Criminals avoid armed citizens
* Kennesaw, GA. In 1982, this suburb of Atlanta passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole.37
* Ten years later (1991), the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72% lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed.38
* Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and Netherlands: 45% (average of the three countries); and,
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7%.39
Rapes averted when women carry or use firearms for protection
* Orlando, FL. In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety course which taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando’s rape rate dropped 88% in 1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and the nation.40
* Nationwide. In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.41
Justice Department study:
* 3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun."42
* 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."43
* 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."44
ok,

, don't get me started...i think i'll play a game of poker...then go to a gn show.
