• Law enforcement reported 720 justifiable homicides in 2012. Of those, law enforcement officers justifiably killed 410 felons, and private citizens justifiably killed 310 people during the commission of crimes. (See Expanded Homicide Data Tables14 and 15.)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013, firearms (excluding BB and pellet guns) were used in 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) ^%5B2%5D and 11,208 deaths by homicide

So 6% of those were justified (roughly, 1 year difference), per capita that means we're down to 3.43~ per capita homicides. Of course, there's no reliable data for how many homicides firearms prevent, so that can't be factored in either.

That's really not bad, especially since that number includes America's top 5 violent cities, which are basically on par with Honduras for both violent crime and firearm crime. Most of America has a vastly lower firearm homicide rate. At least personally, I feel like that's an acceptable number of homicides per capita.

Unless I read this wrong. Hodgman's chart shows USA as around 3.2 gun related murders per 100,000. According to you its actually 3.43. That's HIGHER than hodgman showed.

At what point do you draw the line? Do we give people unfettered access to machine guns? Explosives? Tanks, I mean they're costly but I'm sure a few celebs and mobsters could afford one? Aircraft? Biological weapons? Chemical? Nuclear? Obviously this is the 'slippery slope' argument and I'm certain you aren't condoning nuclear weapons access. But your argument that 'in doing so would need access to equal or greater means of inflicting harm' implies that anything the government has access to, so should the citizens. You've presented a continuum.

Just about everytime someone else suggests a criteria (and for the record I did not) pro-gun activists shoot it down using 'give an inch take a mile' type arguments (and always followed by 'but the bad guys will have it and now we won't', but that's so ridiculous I'm not even gonna bother with that argument). So at what point do you personally draw the line? What is your criteria? What is reasonable for a person to own without any regulations, what is reasonable with regulations, and what is just unreasonable?

There's no law that says you can't buy a tank, or an aircraft. In fact, Arnold Schwarzenneger bought a tank some time back. Michael Dorn owns an F-86 Saber. Wanna buy an M1A1 Abrams? If you've got the cash I don't think you can legally be stopped. If someone tried to get a nuke...well let's just say you'd be arrested for a shit ton of other things first before it'd be illegal weapons possession.

Now to the topic. Gun rights have been an issue that never gets resolved and I'm pretty sure never will get resolved. Culturally speaking, a lot of Americans simply do not see guns as a problem. It's a pretty fundamentally ingrained right that goes way back to the era of independence. That and there are some areas here in the US (especially very rural ones) where I would never really blame anyone for owning a gun. Now I've never been truly convinced that guns should be as freely available as they are now. People are still quite convinced that we need them in the mass quantity that we have. I personally think we should just make a much more comprehensive process for people who want to own guns. You wouldn't let any random dude be allowed to fly a plane would you? Same goes for guns. Nothing wrong with people owning guns, but we need to be more responsible as a country with controlling access to who can own guns. That's my opinion, at least.

In fact, Arnold Schwarzenneger bought a tank some time back.

Yep, but it was actually the very tank he drove when he was in the military.

Though, I think the US has laws that require you to disarm the firing mechanisms so you can't say fire the cannon and, I would hope, block you from buying ammunition for them. Not something I'm well versed on, but haven't looked to see if there is a precedence.

If I'm not mistaken, Switzerland has over 80% of its population as gun-owners. Again, if I'm not mistaken, it's so they can ready an army at a moment's notice. Reason being that they don't want another WW2 take over to happen again. So in short, what's the difference between Switzerland and the US? They both have gun owners. Both have similar reasons. And yet, they don't seem to have the same gun violence problem.

If I'm not mistaken, Switzerland has over 80% of its population as gun-owners. Again, if I'm not mistaken, it's so they can ready an army at a moment's notice. Reason being that they don't want another WW2 take over to happen again. So in short, what's the difference between Switzerland and the US? They both have gun owners. Both have similar reasons. And yet, they don't seem to have the same gun violence problem.

Switzerland has tightened its gun laws significantly, in response to a mass shooting. But the U.S. has a substantial violence problem, with any type of weapon, exceeding most other countries by a fair margin. High concentrations of guns in a region mean that that violence there is more likely to have a gun involved, and the U.S. has a LOT of guns.

http://i.imgur.com/Tn5hfjX.jpg

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That my friend, is called "cherry picking" - it is the practice of selecting your data points to INTENTIONALLY skew the results in a positive or negative way.
Why are many "developed" nations missing from that list ? Why are there several "underdeveloped" nations on that list ?

I could throw a graph together that shows Finland is the #1 consumer of fish ( using cherry picked data points ) - doesn't actually prove anything, however.

The small text at the bottom describes the source. It's the OECD nations (basically, the "western" economy), minus Mexico for some reason (maybe they didn't fit on the chart due to the drug war? :lol:)

It's still valid to compare yourself with your peers. Why are France, Germany, UK, Australia and NZ so much more sane than the US?
When you chart these similar "peer" countries -- countries that yoy should be equal to -- why is the US such an anomaly?
Yoy can't pretend it isnt' an anomaly -- it's off the charts compared to these other freedom-loving, prosperous, western democracies... Your focus on worldwide rankings is just a meaningless statistic designed to allow you to bury your head in the sand and ignore the sickness all around you. You're in the same part of the worldwide rankings as 3rd world nations.

It should be important to ask why the US is such a fearful and deadly place compared to other rich and peaceful nations.

Law enforcement reported 720 justifiable homicides in 2012. Of those, law enforcement officers justifiably killed 410 felons, and private citizens justifiably killed 310 people during the commission of crimes.

You're pointing this out as a good thing, but even this is endemic! That's 700 public executions per year. What the fuck?

German police use about 80 bullets per year total, and they're 1/4th the population, so thats ~320 adjusted for the US population.
One US city's police will use that many bullets in a day.

Why so much killing? This is not normal or ok.

America does have a lethal-crime problem. It's obvious to the rest of the world, but I have no idea why Americans try to downplay it.
Don't you want to live in a safer world where you don't *need* to worry about home defense? You've bought a lethal weapon out of fear and you've used it to make threats against people's lives! That's not normal in other safe, Western countries!

America doesn't have a gun problem, it has a violence problem.

Take the guns away and the mentally mangled people who go off and perform mass killings with just find another means to do their evil. Maybe they'll create bombs and blow up buildings full of people. Maybe they'll set a building full of people on fire and lock the doors. Maybe they'll create some sort of toxin and poison people. Setting guns as the source of the problem for the actions of the nut cases isn't going to address the root problem American society faces: We love violence.

Speaking of the mental health, I find it hilarious that people try to blame mass shootings on mental illness, while the gun lobby actively blocks the CDC from studying the topic.

You can't have it both ways. Either mass shootings are a side-effect of mental health, which places the ball squarely in the CDC's jurisdiction, or the guns themselves are to blame (as the congressmen opposing the CDC's intervention have indeed argued)

Take the guns away and the mentally mangled people who go off and perform mass killings with just find another means to do their evil. Maybe they'll create bombs and blow up buildings full of people.

Have there been any "school bombing" incidents, where a kid has snapped and blown up a classroom?
From what I've heard, bombings are quite rare and usually are part of FBI stings. Bombings are usually also classed as terrorism and prompt a tightening of civil rights...

This also doesn't apply to the non-mass killings. Most gun deaths are not planned, but are heat-of-the-moment actions only made possible by the availability/presence of easy killing tools. When removing guns, gun deaths are not replaced by knife/etc deaths in equal numbers -- many simply don't occur.

I'm sure that if every household had a kiloton bomb in the basement, at least one person would've murder-suicided their wholr neighbourhood by now -- but those tools arent available, so there's been no whole-neighbourhood mass killings.
Killing another person (or yourself) with a knife is a LOT harder (both physically and psychologically) than doing it with a gun, so there's more chances for the attacker to come to their senses.

Also, calling gun-death perps "nutters" really oversimplfies the issue, turning it into a comic book tale requiring no thought or empathy. In different circumstances, you could be w suicide victim, or a crime-of-passion murderer, you could've even been a mass-killer with the right events applied to your life.
People are complex - sane vs nutters is a complete cop out.

It's sad when the most comprehensive argument both for and against gun ownership comes from a comedian

Cons: Mass shootings, suicide, increased likelihood of gun related crime

Pros: "fuck off... I like guns"

I like guns.

I get a significant amount of enjoyment out of shooting random objects with guns in a safe location.
Automatic guns are really fun to shoot. Powerful guns are really fun to shoot.
I have no purpose for having them other than to enjoy myself.

If guns are banned I will be sad.
I do not like to be sad.

And that is the best argument for owning a gun. If you are a responsible, law-abiding citizen, why shouldn't you have a gun? It is fun to shoot guns. I once fired an AK47 on full auto in Cambodia. It was goddamn awesome.

I have several friends here in NZ who hunt. Every now and then, I get a present of some venison. I love venison, it's really tasty.

But if someone here said "I need a gun for protection", even the other gun owners would think they were a paranoid nutjob. As Jim says in the linked video "how many enemies do you have that you think someone is coming to murder you?".

If someone broke into my house, a) they probably wouldn't have a gun and b) I'd say "Fuck it, take the TV, I'm insured... I'll get a new one.. also you have 5 minutes before I call the cops. Here, I'll help you disconnect it". Not only is someone stealing my shit not worth dying for, it's not even worth killing for.

But here's the thing. Almost no-one (no-one with any sense) is actually suggesting banning guns, simply regulating them, like any sensible country does.