OzOne wrote:
On Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:44:54 GMT, "Maxprop"
scribbled thusly:
Gotta start somewhere.
Jon made the same point about slavery. I asked him if he was willing to see
the country enter a period of civil war with hundreds of thousands dead,
infrastructure destroyed, and an economy in the toilet for decades in order
to grab guns and save a few dozen lives each year. So far no answer.
Max
It's far more than a few dozen, Every year in the US more than 30,000
are killed by guns in murders, suicides and accidents, over 65,000 are
injured.
I'd think it's worth looking at.
Are you assuming that murder rates in the USA would drop if gun laws were a
lot tighter?
You're dreaming. Didn't happen in Australia and we're a *lot* less violent as
a cultural group than the USA.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...der-rate/2006/
10/23/1161455665717.html
All that happened was a substitution of implement. If you have a hate/fear
reaction to guns, you're probably happy. However, the stats show that people
are getting murdered just the same. Doubt it makes any difference to them.
Always keep in mind what you're actually trying to achieve. For people like
you, it seems that murders by other means don't count as long as the gun
related murders drop. For myself, I look at the overall figures and if there's
no change, its obvious that availability of guns per se aren't making a
difference. But then I understand statistics and it's obvious that you either
don't or won't.
I'm a pragmatist. If it was possible to eliminate all firearms (including from
the police/military), perhaps it would be worth it. Since it patently isn't
possible, why are we even trying? Like the War on Drugs - a great waste of
time & money with zero chance of achieving the stated outcome. There's an
unstated assumption by people like you (see above) that a drop in firearms
will result in a drop in murders etc. That's wrong straight off. Secondly,
*even if it were true*, how do you achieve the drop in ownership and how much
are you prepared to pay to do it, in terms of money, curtailment of civil
liberties, etc? IOW, how much do you personally think we should pay to
eliminate firearms from a community? Random street searches? House searches
without warrant? Registration of and restrictions on ownership of lathes,
milling machines, tool steel, lead, other metals? How about electricity,
aluminium and plastics?
http://www.lindsaybks.com - Gingery books on building
a metal foundry, basic lathe, shaper, drill press & milling machine basically
from scrap.
The genie got out of the bottle a long time ago and it's not possible to put
it back in again. The idiots on the Right have their unachievable war on
drugs. You have the analog war on guns.
I'll listen closely to any proposal that has a chance of succeeding. Until you
can ban steel, machine tools and common chemicals, you can't prevent people
owning firearms. Last time I raised this all you did was metaphorically wave
your hands and say that crims would always get guns. Duh. So what are you
trying to achieve? The absolute *best* you can hope for is a society where the
only 3 groups with firearms are the military, police and criminals (with
little difference between the last 2, in Australia). Wonderful. To get this,
you'd need to completely alter society and I strongly doubt you'd like the
result. People like me, no probs. I'd be in one of the intelligence or defence
materiels type organisations.
Think I'll get my Tasmanian gun licence to go along with my NSW one. I just
bought a new milling machine on Ebay, BTW. Less than $1K AUD. Now I have 3
mills & 3 lathes scattered over 2 states.
PDW - who's had his hands on a loaded 50 cal BMG mounted on a ship in a
capital city port. Nobody was afraid.
Now, I'm off to dry dock. This has been a very busy season, the off season is
going to be worse, and I'll be heading south again in August. Don't expect me
to spend much time here.... especially given that you never come up with
anything on point as to what you'd actually like to see as an outcome. Is it a
drop in murders, assaults etc overall, or is it merely the elimination of
firearms as an end in itself? Statistically, B != A. Pity you & Jon seem
incapable of understanding that.
It's dead easy to throw rocks at the USA WRT firearms abuse, Oz. Pointless,
but easy. The 1996 firearms laws in Australia made zero difference to the
overall murder rate. Can't see why you'd assume that similar laws in the USA
would have a better outcome. Don't care enough to stick around and follow the
red herrings I'm sure will be next so.... ciao. Maybe someone else will bother
- which is why I've x-posted my reply.