I live in a Black area and the cops are very overstretched.

When I lived in a 95% White/Jewish 3% Asian neighborhood (Where I grew up), I was actually very anti-gun

You could say the cops in your area are overstretched without referencing "Black area" and you could say the area you grew up in was crime free ("I was actually very anti-gun") without saying "95% White"

But the implications of your statement are very clearly racist and i can see why racism is still an extremely deep issue in US

Predominately Black areas face very different problems, and there IS a difference in the culture you experience depending on which you live in, which is why both points are relevant.

A gun is a tool you just don't need in a White/Jewish area, but can be a lifesaver if in a Black area. I suppose it's hard to understand unless you've lived in both kinds of areas in the USA.

In a mostly White area, for example, cops will always show up in less than 10 minutes. When I was living in my apartment, I've reported groups of people fighting, and the cops never showed up.

I've lived in areas with high black or predominantly-black populations. And not all of them were crime-ridden. And yes, I live in the US. What you were actually describing was a high-employment, low-crime neighborhood versus a low-employment, high-crime, drug-saturated neighborhood. Now why you chose to move from one neighborhood to another is another discussion for another day. But the fact that you now live in a high-crime neighborhood I'm sure you feel justifies your need for a gun. But also remember that there are high-crime, low-unemployment, drug-saturated neighborhoods that are predominately white as well in the US. So this is not a 'Black Thing'^TM.

Is there something wrong about using a gun for self-defense? No. Is there something wrong about having a gun in your home? No. But there is something wrong with mass murders happening on average once a day. There is a problem with people, who have mental illness, oddly having unfettered access to guns. There is something wrong with a racist murdering people in a church and trying to pass that off as 'mental illness'. There is something wrong with how guns and drugs flow from state to state in this country (the US) and how that flow circumvents strict gun laws.

In the US, we treat guns like illegal immigrants. We know there's a problem, but keep making excuses about how we can't solve it. Or how the problem is something else entirely. Then watch as the problem continues to grow.

I'm not sure people from outside the U.S., or even people inside it who don't understand guns, realize this, but: while it is technically legal to own an automatic firearm, you have to go through extensive background checks and acquire permits that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Guess how many legally obtained automatic firearms are ever used in crimes? For that matter, guess what percentage of legally obtained firearms of any type are used in crimes?

Unless you want to buy a gun at a gun show, where there are no background checks at all. And what required permits are you describing? I'm not aware of anything mandatory like that, though some people do want optional permits for things like concealed-carry. Maybe it's a local or statewide policy you're describing? What specific, required permits are you describing, and what is the permitting process like in your area? Or you describing automatic weapons in particular?

As for legal ownership, every illegally obtained gun was legally obtained by someone at some point, unless you think it just fell off of the back of a truck. But that's a side issue. It's unreasonable to demand that any restriction on gun purchase/ownership will end all gun crime; a reasonable standard is more along the lines of "how much of an impact do we expect this restriction to have?". It would be interesting to know the percentage of legally vs. illegally owned weapons used in crimes, but we can't because there is no sort of record keeping on gun ownership. It would be illegal. Sometimes people will conduct surveys, but that's a poor substitute for actual records.

Predominately Black areas face very different problems, and there IS a difference in the culture you experience depending on which you live in, which is why both points are relevant.

A gun is a tool you just don't need in a White/Jewish area, but can be a lifesaver if in a Black area. I suppose it's hard to understand unless you've lived in both kinds of areas in the USA.

I've lived in areas you would describe either way, and I disagree that race is the most accurate and precise way to describe them as shorthand for the level of violent crime. Wealth and political involvement seem to me to be far better predictors. And even though there are often correlations between those and race it doesn't mean that race is the aspect to blame. It would be like blaming the ground being wet for causing rain.

Living near farm country, where it is a 20 minute walk to your neighbor's home, every home has at least one gun, usually several shotguns.

Even the police recommend it for personal safety. No so much against an unlikely human attack, but by a much more likely animal attack.


Also note that by area the US is mostly rural, sparsely populated areas. Cities hold the population centers, but they are relatively few and far between.

Does anyone in this forum bother to do any kind of research, or do they just parrot whatever is heard in the media ?
The United States of America is ranked 111th highest murder rate per capita in the world as of Jan 2015 ... 94th highest ranking for murders per capita using firearms.

Worried that someone might be robbing me of my shed stuff (weedwacker, lawn mower, chainsaw etc), I grabbed my shotgun and went out to investigate it, while my girlfriend followed with a flashlight. When I got to the shed, I yelled if anyone could hear me, I have my gun, and unless they come out now, I'll shoot them on sight. A few second later, a guy in a hoodie kicked open the door, saw my gun, froze up, and dropped a hammer (Not one of mine, I think he brought it in case he had to break in). He then apologized, and I told him to run before I call the cops.

We have the same stories, but replace "gun" with "bat"... You don't need guns for stories like that.
"but what if he also brought a bat with him??"
Well what if your burgler also brought a gun with him? Maybe when you went outside and challenged him, he'd have flat out killed you?

Your gun didn't save you there, it actually just escalated the situation to a point where people's lives were threatened. In a parallel universe without guns, the story could've played out exactly the same, minus the very real risk for you to have been killed.

To quote past studies: "America doesn't really have a significantly higher rate of crime compared to similar countries. But that crime is much likelier to be lethal"

In fact, the reason I bought a gun was because someone 2 doors down had people try to kick in his door, when they failed, they shot at him through a window, then ran. 20 minutes later the cops showed up. A few days later, he was standing at a bus stop, and (probably) the same people killed him in a drive-by. Later I learned from a neighbor that he was ripping people off in drug deals, but I still bought a gun right after that.

I don't follow your logic. A criminal individual was attacked by a criminal gang, because he started trouble with them, and was later gunned down by them (in an ambush situation where him possessing a gun would have had zero impact)... so you better put a shotgun in your home (which statistics show, actually increases the risk of death within your home)? There's a few dots missing in the middle of that picture.

Does anyone in this forum bother to do any kind of reaserch, or do they parrot whatever is heard in the media ?
The United States of America is ranked 111th highest morder rate in the world as of Jan 2015 ... 94th highest ranking for murders using firearms.

Your research is parroted bunk. Comparing the US to Somalia is just a useless statistic. When you compare the US to other developed countries (hopefully that's the bar that you aspire to meet), then you're ranked #1... by far... an outlier on the chart.
http://i.imgur.com/Tn5hfjX.jpg
You have the murder rate of a 3rd world country, while supposedly being "the greatest country on earth".

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

.

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.

We have the same stories, but replace "gun" with "bat"... You don't need guns for stories like that.
"but what if he also brought a bat with him??"
Well what if your burgler also brought a gun with him? Maybe when you went outside and challenged him, he'd have flat out killed you?
Your gun didn't save you there, it actually just escalated the situation to a point where people's lives were threatened. In a parallel universe without guns, the story could've played out exactly the same, minus the very real risk for you to have been killed.

I'm not the strongest person, if I brought a bat, and he had a bat, he'd probably beat me. If I brought a bat, and he had a gun, I'd be shot. If I had a gun, and he had a gun, I'd probably manage to shoot him. The gun defused the situation, he could have ran at me with his hammer. Attacking me with my gun would be tantamount to suicide, which obviously wasn't on his agenda.

I don't follow your logic. A criminal individual was attacked by a criminal gang, because he started trouble with them, and was later gunned down by them (in an ambush situation where him possessing a gun would have had zero impact)... so you better put a shotgun in your home (which statistics show, actually increases the risk of death within your home)? There's a few dots missing in the middle of that picture.

First, the shotgun increases risk because of suicide. The USA counts suicide by gun as gun violence.

I bought it because the cops showed up way after the crime was committed. They could have easily decided to kick in my door/shoot me, and the cops wouldn't be anywhere near the scene yet. That event put it into perspective.

And if the dealer near me had a gun when he was gunned down, it would have at least helped him a little. He may have been able to at least return fire, which would cause them to run away. Maybe he would have gotten off with some non-fatal wounds if he was lucky, but because he had no method of retaliation, he had no chance.

Your research is parroted bunk. Comparing the US to Somalia is just a useless statistic. When you compare the US to other developed countries (hopefully that's the bar that you aspire to meet), then you're ranked #1... by far... an outlier on the chart.

"This is a historical list of countries by firearm-related death rate per 100,000 population in one year.

It should be noted that the following list includes suicides, accidental fatalities, and justifiable homicides."

USA

Homicides per capita - 3.55 (2013)

Suicides per capita - 6.70 (2013)

Accidents per capita - 0.16 (2013)

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expandhomicidemain

• 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) ^[2] 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.

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

.

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.

Surely someone wouldn't make studies, articles, and reports to make their views seem true!