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Results 31 to 45 of 192
Thread: Primary Response
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21st December 2012, 02:23 PM #31
Hi DavidG,
Some surprises there in both directions. Especially based on my perceptions in some of the countries I have lived in. Who's figures are they and are those only the legal (registered) weapons?
RegardsHugh
Enough is enough, more than enough is too much.
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21st December 2012, 02:56 PM #32
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Louie Gohmert's comment (starting this thread) about how the teacher, if armed with an assult rifle, could have shot the shooter doesn't get around the fact that the shots the teacher heard in the first place would have been the sound of his students being killed. As if it would have been OK if Lanza had been stopped at, say, 10 kids instead of 20.
What a moron.Measure thrice, cut twice.
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21st December 2012, 05:03 PM #33
Skwair2rownd
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Perhaps you are playing devil's advocate here Hugh.
I would like to know which figures surprise you and in what direction.
Why question the figures? I believe they are sourced via Wikipedia form
official government figures.
If you have "better" figures then feel free tom use them.
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21st December 2012, 05:37 PM #34
As I said in both directions. A little country like Swaziland being so high on the list of gun homicides. No suicides in a number of countries. The low number of guns in some countries when I know how many were left floating around after the liberation wars in Africa I can only guess they haven't counted the ones in the hands of militia and rebels. As to better numbers, I don't have any it's just a gut feeling from having been there and not swallowing every statistic fed to me. As you say government figures, if you know some of those governments you would wonder too.
Any way it's only me you can take it with a pinch of salt if you like.
RegardsHugh
Enough is enough, more than enough is too much.
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21st December 2012, 05:50 PM #35
Thanks to David for digging up the stats. At the very least they show a broad trend even if they don't include the illegal weapons and for a broad discussion here, I am sure they suffice. (I couldn't see Australia listed in the list of gun ownership. Probably a typo.)
Factors that would distort the stats apart from illegal weapons would be the genocide conducted by some of those countries. In other words is it restricted to peacetime or does it include SRCC (strikes, riots, civil commotion, malicious damgage and war whether declared or not)?
However that is getting off the point. Wherever guns are prevalent there is a high risk of collateral damage amongst the innocent. The point is that they are not the primary targets during criminal activity. The event we are describing is where the innocents are the primary targets and I think this is the important point.
I think it is interesting to compare, from David's stats, the corralation between homicides and level of gun ownership in the UK (some is listed under England and Wales and Scotland). It is extremely low. It is only in recent years the pommy police have had access to hand guns and they still don't carry them on a routine basis.
It is still amazing, to my mind, that so many americans seem to think that their level of innocent death is acceptable and that the answer is more guns.
Regards
PaulBushmiller;
"Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"
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21st December 2012, 05:54 PM #36
Something else that I should mention is the type of weapon that is allowed in the US. What reason can there be for wanting a fully automatic gun apart from the desire to wreak mayhem? If you are a member of a sporting gun club or hunt for wild deer, rabbits etc the automatic machine gun has no place.
Regards
PaulBushmiller;
"Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"
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21st December 2012, 05:55 PM #37
Jim
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Three facts seem self-evident to me:
Firstly, the mentally troubled are always with us.
Secondly, the children have been killed by a weapon, the only purpose of which is to kill and/or maim people as quickly as possible.
Thirdly, the private ownership of such weapons has been justified by the need of the citizen to be able to take up arms against a tyrannical government.
I suppose all nations indulge in mythologising their foundations to some extent. Here we have a nation of convicts, Ned Kelly, the Eureka Stockade etc. Such mythology tends to be fairly harmless though it can hide the true facts of history be they good or bad.
Simplistic notions such as the belief that the force behind the creation of the US lies in the ability of the citizen to bear arms is downright dangerous and denigrates the intellectual capacity of the founding fathers of the republic and the power of their ideas.
Of course the republic was formed through force of arms but it is not a prerequisite for the creation or the maintenance of a democratic system. So many totalitarian regimes came to power in the same way – for example the Taliban in recent times.
Of course the entertainment industry and their mythology probably doesn’t help - the Die Hard films, Lethal Weapon etc etc.
I would prefer that the biblical quotation on the wall of the CIA Headquarters, “The truth shall make you free”, were used rather than placing reliance on the assault rifle.
Cheers,
Jim
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21st December 2012, 06:14 PM #38
Hi DavidG, can you please tell us the source of your figures. They don't quite match the OECD figures. I'm not saying either figures are wrong, we all know how numbers can be skewed to support a given argument.
firearm-OECD-UN-data3.jpg
Chart: The U.S. has far more gun-related killings than any other developed countryTo grow old is inevitable.... To grow up is optional
Confidence, the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.
What could possibly go wrong.
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21st December 2012, 06:26 PM #39
A few points from my radio-listening mainly ...
The M-4 available to civilians is not the same as the military one. I took that to mean it cannot multi-fire - or not at the same rate. I think that is one argument offered why they are 'acceptable' for civilian ownership.
I understand that the number of guns in the USA is roughly 1-1 with the population ... but only about 20% are gun-owners. This implies that the people who have guns have several.
Lastly I recently was completely shocked ... reading about saws (surprisingly) ... to finally comprehend that the American Civil War was in 1861-1864 timeframe. I was dumb-founded. Agincourt was in the 1400s, as was the War of the Roses. English Civil war in the 1600s. I was unconsciously thinking in these terms.
1860. That's only yesterday. WW1 and WW2 are very real, concrete and fresh to many Australians ... so I'd have to guess that the Civil War is also to a lot of americans. I wonder if that comes into it?
Cheers,
Paul
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21st December 2012, 06:31 PM #40To grow old is inevitable.... To grow up is optional
Confidence, the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.
What could possibly go wrong.
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21st December 2012, 06:36 PM #41
Hmmmm.
I've taken David's stats and amalgamated them, and eliminated the incomplete ones. Then, I added a column "Safety Index", which is the gun ownership divided by the Homicides. To get the two tables on the same scale I changed the Guns per 100 people to per 100,000 people.
So, the lower the index, the less safe the place is, and it makes very surprising reading. Check out how far down the list the USA is: 34th place.
6 of the 10 most dangerous places are in Central or South America.
What I wanted to learn from this exercise (if possible) was which countries of a similar nature (not war torn, western civilisation) had high gun ownership, but low homicide rates.
It would seem Norway, Sweden, Austria, France, Finland, Cyprus and Germany know how to manage this (high gun ownership, but relatively low homicide rate). All of those countries have about 1 gun for every 3 people (we have 1 for every 6.5).
Funny that, they are all European nations.
Having said all of that, we are debating Automatic assault rifles here (and the list is just "Guns"), and I'm sure the USA would come out either on top or damn near.
I am aware that the list is incomplete, but there does seem to be a clear trend emerging - however the Europeans manage high gun ownership, it seems to work.
RANK Country
SAFETY
INDEX
(Guns/DeathsGuns per 100,000
residents (2007)Homicides 1 El Salvador 115 5800 50.36 2 Honduras 133 6200 46.7 3 Jamaica 171 8100 47.44 4 Swaziland 172 6400 37.16 5 Colombia 218 5900 27.1 6 Guatemala 340 13100 38.52 7 Brazil 442 8000 18.1 8 Philippines 497 4700 9.46 9 Zimbabwe 968 4600 4.75 10 Nicaragua 1078 7700 7.14 11 South Africa 1350 12700 NA 12 Mexico 1500 15000 10 13 Panama 1680 21700 12.92 14 Kyrgyzstan 1698 900 0.53 15 Paraguay 2313 17000 7.35 16 Uzbekistan 2586 1500 0.58 17 Barbados 2600 7800 3 18 Lithuania 2917 700 0.24 19 Costa Rica 2982 9900 3.32 20 Argentina 3400 10200 3 21 India 4516 4200 0.93 22 Moldova 6827 7100 1.04 23 Singapore 7143 500 0.07 24 Israel 7766 7300 0.94 25 Uruguay 9815 31800 3.24 26 Peru 10053 18800 1.87 27 Montenegro 11214 23100 2.06 28 Romania 17500 700 0.04 29 Portugal 17708 8500 0.48 30 Ukraine 18857 6600 0.35 31 Belarus 19211 7300 0.38 32 Netherlands 19500 3900 0.2 33 Ireland 23889 8600 0.36 34 United States 24000 88800 3.7 35 Malta 24792 11900 0.48 36 Luxembourg 25500 15300 0.6 37 Bulgaria 26957 6200 0.23 38 South Korea 27500 1100 0.04 39 Japan 30000 600 0.02 40 Estonia 30667 9200 0.3 41 Georgia 31739 7300 0.23 42 Italy 33056 11900 0.36 43 Taiwan 35385 4600 0.13 44 Croatia 38070 21700 0.57 45 Greece 38136 22500 0.59 46 Canada 40526 30800 0.76 47 Hungary 42308 5500 0.13 48 Slovakia 46111 8300 0.18 49 Macedonia 53556 24100 0.45 50 Denmark 54545 12000 0.22 51 Belgium 59310 17200 0.29 52 Poland 65000 1300 0.02 53 Kuwait 68889 24800 0.36 54 Spain 69333 10400 0.15 55 Azerbaijan 87500 3500 0.04 56 Switzerland 87885 45700 0.52 57 Serbia 93871 58200 0.62 58 Latvia 105556 19000 0.18 59 Qatar 106667 19200 0.18 60 Finland 123077 32000 0.26 61 New Zealand 132941 22600 0.17 62 Czech Republic 135833 16300 0.12 63 France 141818 31200 0.22 64 United Kingdom 150000 6000 0.04 65 Cyprus 151667 36400 0.24 66 Sweden 166316 31600 0.19 67 Australia 166667 15000 0.09 68 Austria 168889 30400 0.18 69 Chile 178333 10700 0.06 70 Slovenia 270000 13500 0.05 71 Germany 505000 30300 0.06 72 Norway 782500 31300 0.04
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21st December 2012, 06:40 PM #42
Jim
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Paul, talking of timelines, the second amendment was, I believe, 1791. This was just after the French Revolution and it is possible that the growing opposition in the European monarchies to the French experiment was seen in the US as a future threat to them.
Cheers,
Jim
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21st December 2012, 06:45 PM #43
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Regardless of statistics, a gun is a gun. From my point of view the only people who should have a gun are the Police and Army, full stop. There should be absolutely no reason why a civilian should own a gun. All the stats in the world doesn't temper the fact that children were killed.
-Scott
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21st December 2012, 06:50 PM #44
Pretty right Scott, but I guess you have to add in professional hunters and the like (feral animal control yadda yadda)
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21st December 2012, 09:04 PM #45
This was discussed on the ABC quite early in the year.
I believe in Switzerland (please don't shoot me if it's Sweden) a rifle is (unless recently changed) kept by law in every household. I note they are among the safe countries - although I am sure the program said this was wanted to be changed as they were being employed in domestic violence situations.
Paul.
Gun politics in Switzerland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BBC News - Swiss gun culture comes under fire
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