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Full body scans

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Are full body scans at airports too intrusive?

22 votes remaining
Yes, I don't want anyone seeing my hoohoo or haha (8 votes) 36%
No, it's what's needed to keep us safe (17 votes) 77%
I don't care one way or another (8 votes) 36%
It's supposed to be light out in the morning (2 votes) 9%
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Now who wants to start a thread on abortion??

Just kidding Nicola. I'm sure you're already cringing at the prospect.
MrNudiePants
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Quote by DamonX


Banning guns in one state doesn't really do anything. How hard is it to transport guns across state lines? By increasing accessiblity of guns in the country, you increase the risk of guns falling into the hands of people who will use them for criminal activity. Nobody is claiming that registered gun owners in Montana are more likely to commit crime. Its when they filter down into inner city areas and low income areas that problems arise. And the majority of crimes are committed by unregistered guns and unlicenced gun owners so stats about gun ownership are not really relevant.

I think you guys are mistaken about our position. Nobody is claiming that simply because you own a gun, you are more likely to commit a crime using that gun. You are taking an individual approach: "I have a gun and it makes me feel safe."

We are using a broader, sociological approach. Your society has easy access to guns, and...your rate of gun crime is off the charts. Or course, this is just correlation and not direct causation, but it seems pretty clear. If you feel the need to have a gun for protection...ok. Your society is already flooded with them, so it makes sense that you would want one for protection. But wouldn't you rather not need to carry one in the first place?

And how many of you have guns simply for protection? I know Ladyx does, but it seems that most of you guys just like guns because they're fun. I get that. I used to like guns too. I grew out of it when I turned 15, but I can see the appeal. But try and view things from a broader perspective. You can obviously post news articles about homeowners shooting invaders, but these are isolated incidents and don't really paint the proper picture of the state of your society.

Do I think that the government should take away your guns? No.
Would your rate of gun crime be lower if you had restrictions similar to the rest of the western world? Yeah, probably.

It would be refreshing to hear someone say "I like guns because they're fun!" and not try to justify it by stating the 2nd amendment or try to convince everyone else that "an armed society is a safe society."


I'm trying to figure you out. Your post is full of hyperbole, half-truths, and untruths. Are you being dishonest by accident? Or are you being dishonest deliberately?

First, we don't have "easy access" to guns. It's not like you can walk down to the corner grocer and pick up a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, and a 9mm. Second, our "gun crime" rate is NOT off the charts. As has been shown earlier, our rate of gun crime is much lower than many places in the world where gun ownership is not as prevalent. And as long as we're on that subject, why do you insist on separating "gun crimes" from crime overall? Does it matter to a victim whether she was at gunpoint, at knifepoint, or by simple brute force? Does the fact that her attacker only had a knife mean that her is not as serious, or as damaging? You've never addressed the idea that criminals will commit crimes whether they have access to firearms or not. You only want to address "gun crime" without even identifying what you mean by that term. Despite all this, though, you admit that a greater presence of firearms does NOT mean there will be a greater amount of "gun crime" committed. You can't have it both ways - either you assert that more guns equals more crime, or you look at the statistics already presented, and admit the opposite.

Looking at things from a sociological point of view... there are countries with many fewer privately owned firearms, and in those countries, the crime rate is greater than the United States. There are also countries with fewer privately owned guns, where the crime rate is less. There are countries where the ownership of guns more closely mirrors the United States, and the crime rates in those countries may be greater or less than ours as well. What does that tell you?

The answer is that crime is not a factor of how many guns are in circulation, but of how many criminals are.
Rembacher
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Should we move into a debate about the US justice system, and its effectiveness/ineffectiveness? lol. The stats we were looking at were not gun crimes in general, but murders committed using guns. And I think we are all in agreement that the definition for that is a bullet causing the death of a person. The reason I distinguish between gun murders, and knife or other, is that a gun allows someone to kill from a greater distance, whereas another weapon would require them to get up close and personal. Also, I'm not sure that anyone has ever been killed by a stray knife. But stray bullets do kill innocent bystanders all the time.

If we want to talk about crimes in general, I'd like to know where you are getting your stats Nudie. These are the crime stats I found, which indicate the US is 8th in crimes per capita according to Nationmaster.com which pulled its info from United Nations reports.

Crime Statistics > Total crimes (per capita) (most recent) by country

# 1 Dominica: 113.822 per 1,000 people
# 2 New Zealand: 105.881 per 1,000 people
# 3 Finland: 101.526 per 1,000 people
# 4 Denmark: 92.8277 per 1,000 people
# 5 Chile: 88.226 per 1,000 people
# 6 United Kingdom: 85.5517 per 1,000 people
# 7 Montserrat: 80.3982 per 1,000 people
# 8 United States: 80.0645 per 1,000 people
# 9 Netherlands: 79.5779 per 1,000 people
# 10 South Africa: 77.1862 per 1,000 people
# 11 Germany: 75.9996 per 1,000 people
# 12 Canada: 75.4921 per 1,000 people
# 13 Norway: 71.8639 per 1,000 people
# 14 France: 62.1843 per 1,000 people
# 15 Seychelles: 52.9265 per 1,000 people
# 16 Hungary: 44.9763 per 1,000 people
# 17 Estonia: 43.3601 per 1,000 people
# 18 Czech Republic: 38.2257 per 1,000 people
# 19 Italy: 37.9633 per 1,000 people
# 20 Switzerland: 36.1864 per 1,000 people
# 21 Portugal: 34.3833 per 1,000 people
# 22 Slovenia: 33.6236 per 1,000 people
# 23 Poland: 32.8573 per 1,000 people
# 24 Korea, South: 31.7267 per 1,000 people
# 25 Mauritius: 29.1982 per 1,000 people
# 26 Zimbabwe: 28.8753 per 1,000 people
# 27 Lithuania: 22.8996 per 1,000 people
# 28 Spain: 22.8867 per 1,000 people
# 29 Latvia: 21.921 per 1,000 people
# 30 Uruguay: 21.7017 per 1,000 people
# 31 Russia: 20.5855 per 1,000 people
# 32 Ireland: 20.2376 per 1,000 people
# 33 Bulgaria: 19.9886 per 1,000 people
# 34 Japan: 19.177 per 1,000 people
# 35 Romania: 16.4812 per 1,000 people
# 36 Slovakia: 16.3537 per 1,000 people
# 37 Jamaica: 14.3231 per 1,000 people
# 38 Belarus: 13.1592 per 1,000 people
# 39 Mexico: 12.8406 per 1,000 people
# 40 Tunisia: 12.5634 per 1,000 people
# 41 Costa Rica: 11.9788 per 1,000 people
# 42 Ukraine: 11.7793 per 1,000 people
# 43 Hong Kong: 11.6817 per 1,000 people
# 44 Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of: 9.689 per 1,000 people
# 45 Greece: 9.6347 per 1,000 people
# 46 Venezuela: 9.307 per 1,000 people
# 47 Thailand: 8.80422 per 1,000 people
# 48 Moldova: 8.58967 per 1,000 people
# 49 Kyrgyzstan: 7.50486 per 1,000 people
# 50 Malaysia: 6.97921 per 1,000 people
# 51 Qatar: 6.76437 per 1,000 people
# 52 Zambia: 5.27668 per 1,000 people
# 53 Colombia: 4.98654 per 1,000 people
# 54 Turkey: 4.11252 per 1,000 people
# 55 Armenia: 4.03889 per 1,000 people
# 56 Georgia: 3.21338 per 1,000 people
# 57 Papua New Guinea: 2.39711 per 1,000 people
# 58 Azerbaijan: 1.76416 per 1,000 people
# 59 India: 1.63352 per 1,000 people
# 60 Yemen: 1.16109 per 1,000 people



Remington, why do you feel that you need protection from your government? That makes it sound like you would stage a coup if you weren't happy with the government. Why do you need to do that in a democracy? It's that type of talk that makes us anti gun people nervous about the guns being available.
Rembacher
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Man Accidentally Shoots Daughter Since we have a random story of how a gun owner shot an intruder, I figured I'd post one from the other side. This one is a few years old, about a woman who was trying to get into her parents house early in the morning, and was mistaken for a thief. There was also a case recently where someone shot their partner after mistaking them for a thief. I couldn't find the article, but if I remember the details right, the woman woke up in the middle of the night, and went downstairs for a glass of water. Her partner heard her, but thought it was a theif. When she came back into the room, he shot and killed her before turning on the lights and seeing it was his partner.

I know, these are careless gunowners, and you would never be like them. But accidents happen. And you can compare your gun to to a fire extinguisher, or smoke detector, but neither of those devices also have the potential to set your house on fire.
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Nudiepants, I've already addressed your comments in previous posts. I don't know how may times I can repeat myself. YOUR STATS REFER TO REGISTERED OR LISCENCED FIREARMS, AND DO NOT INCLUDE UNREGISTERED GUNS, WHICH WOULD MAKE UP THE MAJORITY OF GUN USED TO COMMIT CRIME. Got that? Or should I repeat it 3 or 4 more times?

And gun crime would include robberies, murders, attempted murders, assualts commited with firearms. I thought that was pretty clear, but since you needed clarification...there you go.

If you truly believe that it is just as easy to rob a store or kill someone with a bat or knife as with a gun....then you obviously don't know as much about guns as you think. You seem to be fixated on this idea that there are bad people out there that seek to do you harm, and thus you feel entitled to engage in some kind of arms race in order to protect yourself. It must be horrible to constantly live in fear like that.

We realize that you like guns and no amount of rational debate would convince you to think about the broader picture, since you seem fixated on the idea that you feel the need to protect yourself from all the psychos out there. There are possible arguments to be made for guns, (I've actually debated both sides before) but so far, yours have been pretty bad.

And as for the second amendment...are you saying that if it didn't exist, you wouldn't own guns?
Playmale
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Quote by Jebru
And you can compare your gun to to a fire extinguisher, or smoke detector, but neither of those devices also have the potential to set your house on fire.


Actually a hard wired smoke detector could easily short circuit and start a fire.

Also fire extinguishers are commonly found in kitchens and garages and most house fires start in kitchens and garages, so it could be reasoned that since there is a greater probability of a fire where they are found they are in fact responsible for those fires by their presence increasing the likeyhood of the fire.

Sounds kooky but it's the same logic that we use to "prove" that something causes cancer.

How about instead we look a few facts that come from a study which claims to be unbiased from this source. (there is a lot more there I'd reccomend it.)

Gun Defense Use Statistics


According to the National Self Defense Survey conducted by Florida State University criminologists in 1994, the rate of Defensive Gun Uses can be projected nationwide to approximately 2.5 million per year -- one Defensive Gun Use every 13 seconds.
Among 15.7% of gun defenders interviewed nationwide during The National Self Defense Survey, the defender believed that someone "almost certainly" would have died had the gun not been used for protection -- a life saved by a privately held gun about once every 1.3 minutes. (In another 14.2% cases, the defender believed someone "probably" would have died if the gun hadn't been used in defense.)

In 83.5% of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first -- disproving the myth that having a gun available for defense wouldn't make any difference.

In 91.7% of these incidents the defensive use of a gun did not wound or kill the criminal attacker (and the gun defense wouldn't be called "newsworthy" by newspaper or TV news editors). In 64.2% of these gun-defense cases, the police learned of the defense, which means that the media could also find out and report on them if they chose to.

In 73.4% of these gun-defense incidents, the attacker was a stranger to the intended victim. (Defenses against a family member or intimate were rare -- well under 10%.) This disproves the myth that a gun kept for defense will most likely be used against a family member or someone you love.

In over half of these gun defense incidents, the defender was facing two or more attackers -- and three or more attackers in over a quarter of these cases. (No means of defense other than a firearm -- martial arts, pepper spray, or stun guns -- gives a potential victim a decent chance of getting away uninjured when facing multiple attackers.)

In 79.7% of these gun defenses, the defender used a concealable handgun. A quarter of the gun defenses occured in places away from the defender's home.


Source: "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, in The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, Volume 86, Number 1, Fall, 1995



I found this because I was looking for the number of gun crimes committed with "legal" vs "illegal" guns. I didn't find that but what I did see was that the majority of gun crimes were committed by people with criminal records against people with criminal records, and that the guns the used were illegal.

So if you take away the law abiding citizens guns, who will be left with them?
Thugs and the state.

ChefK - Powerful story. Sounds about like the worrst case scenario everyone is bringin up in this discussion about full body scans. I hope the good guys all came out alright.
Rembacher
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Quote by Playmale
In 73.4% of these gun-defense incidents, the attacker was a stranger to the intended victim. (Defenses against a family member or intimate were rare -- well under 10%.) This disproves the myth that a gun kept for defense will most likely be used against a family member or someone you love.

Those are some very interesting statistics. It would be good to see the full study and all the responses. For one, how well below 10% is the use of guns against family members? Because I would still consider 5% to be very high. That would mean that 1 in 20 times a gun was used, it was used by mistake. And it could be more, because there is a dataset unaccounted for. If in 73.4% of incidents the attacker was a stranger, and "well under 10%" were against family members, what happened in the other 16.4 to 26.4% of incidents?

I'm also curious about the 16.5% of the time when the defender drew their weapon without being threatened or attacked first. If threats or force were not used, why did they draw their gun? That's 1 in every 6.25 times a gun was drawn it was done with no provocation.
inepa
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You guys are so obsessed with guns that one day you will all be running around like Rambo. And when that happen those who detest guns will turn to them for the same reason that one needs a gun today....What a future....
Playmale
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Quote by Jebru
It would be good to see the full study and all the responses.

Click the link.

Quote by Jebru
For one, how well below 10% is the use of guns against family members? Because I would still consider 5% to be very high. That would mean that 1 in 20 times a gun was used, it was used by mistake.

Domestic violence. These were defenses not accidents. There is a prevailing myth that guns are used primarily against loved ones, this disproves it.


Quote by Jebru
And it could be more, because there is a dataset unaccounted for. If in 73.4% of incidents the attacker was a stranger, and "well under 10%" were against family members, what happened in the other 16.4 to 26.4% of incidents?

Aquaintances.

Quote by Jebru
I'm also curious about the 16.5% of the time when the defender drew their weapon without being threatened or attacked first. If threats or force were not used, why did they draw their gun? That's 1 in every 6.25 times a gun was drawn it was done with no provocation.

You've implied an assumption here that makes no sense, there was obviously a provocation or there would be no defense. These are gun defense statistics. This particular statement disproves the myth that having a gun available for defense wouldn't make any difference, 83.5% of the time.
Rembacher
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OK. I clicked the link, and read the entire writeup, but still do not see the tables they refer to with the full statistics. I only see the ones they highlight in their writeup. A few flaws with their information jump out at me. 1. They admit that 25% of the people who claimed to have used a gun for defensive purposes, also said in the same survey that they did not actually own a gun. 2. The statistics are compiled through surveys. You have to be alive to answer the questions, which means that the information automatically excludes those who were murdered while trying to use a gun to protect themselves. This exclusion creates a more positive result to the study than what reality actually is. 3. There is no way to determine how many of the people who thought they would have been killed, actually would have been. It's all left up to untrained civilians to determine whether they actually did avert a deadly situation.

Now, to my points I raised before. I'm not saying that guns are primarily used against loved ones. You seem to be dismissing this because the majority of uses are not at family members, while I still feel it is a significant minority. If you say they are defences, not accidents, then where do the accidents get accounted for? Or is that another factor the study fails to account for. A comprehensive study should also include how many times a gun was used in defense of a percieved threat, that turned out to not be one.

And how does my assumption make no sense? Your stats state that in 83.5% of successful defences, the attacker either threatened or used force first. I'm asking what caused the defender to draw their gun in the other 16.5% of the cases, since they were neither threatened, nor had force used on them, as that was covered in the category represented by 83.5% of the defenders.
Playmale
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Quote by Jebru
OK. I clicked the link, and read the entire writeup, but still do not see the tables they refer to with the full statistics. I only see the ones they highlight in their writeup. A few flaws with their information jump out at me. 1. They admit that 25% of the people who claimed to have used a gun for defensive purposes, also said in the same survey that they did not actually own a gun. 2. The statistics are compiled through surveys. You have to be alive to answer the questions, which means that the information automatically excludes those who were murdered while trying to use a gun to protect themselves. This exclusion creates a more positive result to the study than what reality actually is. 3. There is no way to determine how many of the people who thought they would have been killed, actually would have been. It's all left up to untrained civilians to determine whether they actually did avert a deadly situation.


The statistics are for successful gun defenses (2.5 million in this survey), the non successful gun defenses are the murders and gun crime statistics most rely on (about 60,000 per year). They discuss the fallacy of reasoning in assuming the victims passive role as a willing target. The link at the bottom of the report goes to the full report, they summarize the survey method, and give the statistics in the narrative. They further go on to have a peer review by an expert with the contrairian viewpoint, who conceeds that the article is accurate. Then the government tried to duplicate and disprove the study, yet only confirmed it stating that they most likely underestimated because of exclusions.

Quote by Jebru
Now, to my points I raised before. I'm not saying that guns are primarily used against loved ones. You seem to be dismissing this because the majority of uses are not at family members, while I still feel it is a significant minority. If you say they are defences, not accidents, then where do the accidents get accounted for? Or is that another factor the study fails to account for. A comprehensive study should also include how many times a gun was used in defense of a percieved threat, that turned out to not be one.

Those are accounted for in the gunshot wound and fatalities statistics, which are the statistics most used to support gun control.

Quote by Jebru
And how does my assumption make no sense? Your stats state that in 83.5% of successful defences, the attacker either threatened or used force first. I'm asking what caused the defender to draw their gun in the other 16.5% of the cases, since they were neither threatened, nor had force used on them, as that was covered in the category represented by 83.5% of the defenders.

You're making assumptions about what the conditions were in those cases, and that is not a valid argument.
DazzlingLove
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Well if it saves my life and the lives of others...I think it's ok.
Dancing_Doll
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Re MrNudiePants assertion that guns are not easy to obtain, this is just not the case.

I understand the argument made about requiring ‘background checks’, but there are distinct loopholes in the law that allow private dealers at gun shows in certain states to sell weapons without having to conduct background checks at all. Guns are also widely available through classified ads as private sales that do not require licensing because the government feels that these individuals do not make a significant income from selling guns.
Gun shows can operate on a "no questions asked, cash-and-carry" basis. This means that criminals and kids can buy as many guns as they want at these gun shows. Sellers are not required to keep records on gun show sales, making it almost impossible for police to trace such weapons if they are used in a crime. When a society has a prevailing liberal attitude of “guns for all” it does mean that inevitably guns will fall into the wrong hands (and in many cases this appears to happen with considerable ease).

Quote: “It is very easy to buy a gun in the USA. You must be 18 or over. When you buy a gun from a registered dealer, you have a computerised background check. This only takes a few minutes.
If you buy a gun from a "private collector" (anyone who is not a registered dealer), you don't need to be checked. This effectively means anyone over 18 can get a gun.
The American Constitution, which sets out the country's rights and freedoms, says people are allowed to "keep and bear arms."
This makes it very hard to make laws limiting the way guns are bought and sold”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_2350000/newsid_2357900/2357977.stm


As an additional aside, read below and let me know how a Hezbollah member was able to buy weapons and ammunition at gun shows and ship them to Lebanon if purchasing guns is so difficult under the current laws?

"Terrorists have purchased firearms at gun shows, where unlicensed sellers are not currently required to conduct background checks or to ask for identification. According to the Middle East Intelligence Report, for example, a Hezbollah member was arrested in November 2000, after a nine-month investigation by the FBI's counter-terrorism unit. Ali Boumelhem was later convicted on seven counts of weapons charges and conspiracy to ship weapons and ammunition to Lebanon. Federal agents had observed Boumelhem, a resident of Detroit and Beirut, travel to Michigan gun shows and buy gun parts and ammunition for shipment overseas. Boumelhem was prohibited from legally purchasing guns as gun stores because he was a convicted felon. Additional cases involve a Pakistani national with an expired (1988) student visa; a Lebanese native and Hamas member with numerous felony convictions; and a supporter of the Irish Republican Army. (USA Today, Wednesday, November 28, 2001 Americans for Gun Safety)"

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I had so many body scans, other scans and MRIs leading up to my January 2009 cancer surgery that I really don't give a shit about having another one before boarding a plane. The ones I had before my operation helped save my life. If airport body scans help save even one life, they are worth it and I have absolutely no objections.
Dancing_Doll
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Also, since we are debating stats and studies, I thought it might be interesting to step away from looking at numbers related to gun crimes involving criminals and victims, and take a look a population that should never be anywhere near guns... children. How can one dispute the stats below as not being correlated to an overly armed society?

" Children and Gun Violence
In a single year, 3,012 children and teens were killed by gunfire in the United States, according to the latest national data released in 2002. That is one child every three hours; eight children every day; and more than 50 children every week. And every year, at least 4 to 5 times as many kids and teens suffer from non-fatal firearm injuries. (Children's Defense Fund and National Center for Health Statistics)

America and Gun Violence
American children are more at risk from firearms than the children of any other industrialized nation. In one year, firearms killed no children in Japan, 19 in Great Britain, 57 in Germany, 109 in France, 153 in Canada, and 5,285 in the United States. (Centers for Disease Control)

Guns in the Wrong Hands
Faulty records enable terrorists, illegal aliens and criminals to purchase guns. Over a two and a half-year period, at least 9,976 convicted felons and other illegal buyers in 46 states obtained guns because of inadequate records. (Broken Records, Americans for Gun Safety Foundation)"

Reference: http://www.neahin.org/programs/schoolsafety/gunsafety/statistics.htm
MrNudiePants
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Quote by Jebru
Should we move into a debate about the US justice system, and its effectiveness/ineffectiveness? lol. The stats we were looking at were not gun crimes in general, but murders committed using guns. And I think we are all in agreement that the definition for that is a bullet causing the death of a person. The reason I distinguish between gun murders, and knife or other, is that a gun allows someone to kill from a greater distance, whereas another weapon would require them to get up close and personal. Also, I'm not sure that anyone has ever been killed by a stray knife. But stray bullets do kill innocent bystanders all the time.

If we want to talk about crimes in general, I'd like to know where you are getting your stats Nudie. These are the crime stats I found, which indicate the US is 8th in crimes per capita according to Nationmaster.com which pulled its info from United Nations reports.


I notice that when people rail for taking guns away from the general populace, the main argument is that "more guns equals more crime." My statistics came from the same website as yours. Since we were talking about just murders, I used the number for murders, and that places the US 24th. No matter what number you use, though, it disproves the theory that more guns equals more crime. If the theory were true, then the US (being number 1 in terms of private firearm ownership) should also be number 1 in crime, murders, and so on. Since we're obviously NOT number 1 in crime, that theory is bunk.

Quote by DancingDoll
..Gun shows can operate on a "no questions asked, cash-and-carry" basis...

...This means that criminals and kids can buy as many guns as they want at these gun shows...

...When a society has a prevailing liberal attitude of “guns for all” it does mean that inevitably guns will fall into the wrong hands (and in many cases this appears to happen with considerable ease)...


Most of this is not true. There is no "gun show loophole". Gun shows do NOT operate on a "cash and carry basis." ALL sales at gun shows are regulated in exactly the same manner as sales OUTSIDE of gun shows. ALL licensed dealers are required to perform background checks on all purchasers. In some states, private firearms owners can sell to other private parties without a background check, but in others ALL sales MUST go through a licensed dealer, and all checks have to be made. The age to buy a rifle is indeed 18, but the age to buy a handgun is 21. Selling any type of firearm to a person that is not legally allowed to buy one is a felony. Every gun show that I've ever been to was filled with police officers and BATFE agents trying to catch people making illegal sales. If that were a major issue, the web would be filled with news stories about all the arrests that are being made at gun shows. It's not. I'd like you to research how many times guns used in crimes were purchased at gun shows. You'll find that the issue just doesn't exist.


Quote by DancingDoll

Also, since we are debating stats and studies, I thought it might be interesting to step away from looking at numbers related to gun crimes involving criminals and victims, and take a look a population that should never be anywhere near guns... children. How can one dispute the stats below as not being correlated to an overly armed society?

" Children and Gun Violence
In a single year, 3,012 children and teens were killed by gunfire in the United States, according to the latest national data released in 2002. That is one child every three hours; eight children every day; and more than 50 children every week. And every year, at least 4 to 5 times as many kids and teens suffer from non-fatal firearm injuries. (Children's Defense Fund and National Center for Health Statistics)




That's not entirely honest either. If you look up this chart, from the Centers for Disease Control, and start adding up numbers, you'll find that for children under 15 there were 6,574 unintentional deaths. Of that number, 302 are classified as "Firearm Homicide". I can't give you the numbers for "all children" because the next age bracket that they keep records on is 15 to 24. Unless you classify everyone aged 18 to 24 as a child, then the numbers they're quoting are disingenuous at best. In ALL age groups, the leading cause of death is motor vehicle accidents. For ALL age groups, there were 43,664 motor vehicle deaths, compared with 12,791 firearm homicides.

It all comes down to this: Guns in the wrong hands can be dangerous. But a couple million times a year, guns in the right hands save lives. Cars are nearly three and a half times more dangerous than guns. It's not the item. It's not the gun. It's the hand that wields it. If you call for more criminal control, then I'm right there with you. But calling for gun control because they can be misused is like calling for making certain pain-killers illegal because THEY can be misused. Your heart is in the right place, but it's just not going to work out as you plan it.
Dancing_Doll
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Quote by MrNudiePants


I'd like you to research how many times guns used in crimes were purchased at gun shows. You'll find that the issue just doesn't exist.



Here you go MrNudiePants... in the words of the runner up to presidency of the United States (and pro-gun advocate): Sen. John McCain:

Quote: "Criminals and gun traffickers have figured this out," McCain said in a May 15, 2001, Senate floor speech announcing the ultimately unsuccessful measure. "Gun shows are the second leading source of illegal guns recovered in gun trafficking investigations. According to a recent report by Americans for Gun Safety, 'the states that do not require background checks at gun shows are flooding the rest of the nation with crime guns.' While 95 percent of buyers are cleared within two hours, the 5 percent who are not are 20 times more likely to be a prohibited purchaser. Background checks are an essential part of keeping guns from criminals and other prohibited individuals."

The recent explosion of violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has revealed that 90 percent of the guns used by drug cartels are smuggled from the United States. Looking back, some observers now view McCain as prescient for his early attention to the gun-show loophole".

Reference: http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/azdc/t1235890800

Re the "Gun Show Loophole". It appears there is widespread acknowledgement that this issue does exist. I searched wikipedia for stats. Here they are: "... 33 states do not restrict private, intrastate sales of firearms at gun shows in any manner". You will find 6 more paragraphs of info under the headliner: "The Gun Show Loophole". I'm sure they are adequately restricted in the state you live in which is why you have seen safeguards at the gun shows you attend. But it's easy to cross the borders to venture into one of the 33 states with no restriction policies and buy whatever you want. Even if I was a responsible gun owner, this would alarm me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_show
Rembacher
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OK. I clicked the link, and read the entire writeup, but still do not see the tables they refer to with the full statistics. I only see the ones they highlight in their writeup. A few flaws with their information jump out at me. 1. They admit that 25% of the people who claimed to have used a gun for defensive purposes, also said in the same survey that they did not actually own a gun. 2. The statistics are compiled through surveys. You have to be alive to answer the questions, which means that the information automatically excludes those who were murdered while trying to use a gun to protect themselves. This exclusion creates a more positive result to the study than what reality actually is. 3. There is no way to determine how many of the people who thought they would have been killed, actually would have been. It's all left up to untrained civilians to determine whether they actually did avert a deadly situation.


The statistics are for successful gun defenses (2.5 million in this survey), the non successful gun defenses are the murders and gun crime statistics most rely on (about 60,000 per year). They discuss the fallacy of reasoning in assuming the victims passive role as a willing target. The link at the bottom of the report goes to the full report, they summarize the survey method, and give the statistics in the narrative. They further go on to have a peer review by an expert with the contrairian viewpoint, who conceeds that the article is accurate. Then the government tried to duplicate and disprove the study, yet only confirmed it stating that they most likely underestimated because of exclusions.


While all Rs reporting a DGU were given the full interview, only a one-third random sample of Rs not reporting a DGU were interviewed. The rest were simply thanked for their help. This procedure helped keep interviewing costs down. In the end, there were 222 completed interviews with Rs reporting DGUs, another 1,610 Rs not reporting a DGU but going through the full interview by answering questions other than those pertaining to details of the DGUs. There were a total of 1,832 cases with the full interview. An additional 3,145 Rs answered only enough questions to establish that no one in their household had experienced a DGU against a human in the previous five years (unweighted totals). These procedures effectively under-sampled for non-DGU Rs or, equivalently, over sampled for DGU-involved Rs. Data were also weighted to account for this over sampling.


The 2.5 million was an estimate, the actual survey was far smaller. Are you sure you read it? Or my response? I said that they reference only select pieces of data, but do not show all the results. And they admit that 25% of the respondants have inconsistant testimony (gun use, with no gun possession) they dismiss that inconsistancy with a theory, but then does that not make the entire study theoretical, when it claims to be practical?

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Quote by Jebru
Now, to my points I raised before. I'm not saying that guns are primarily used against loved ones. You seem to be dismissing this because the majority of uses are not at family members, while I still feel it is a significant minority. If you say they are defences, not accidents, then where do the accidents get accounted for? Or is that another factor the study fails to account for. A comprehensive study should also include how many times a gun was used in defense of a percieved threat, that turned out to not be one.

Those are accounted for in the gunshot wound and fatalities statistics, which are the statistics most used to support gun control.

Where are those listed? If the study is truly comprehensive, it should have a breakdown of those as well. The study mentions 5% or respondants were injured in an attempted defence, but never mentions failed defence attempts that lead to death. Also, since this information was gathered through surveys, it is most likely that failed defensive attempts were under-reported. Even in an anonymous survey people are far less likely to admit their failures than their successes, but the narrative does not address that.

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Quote by Jebru
And how does my assumption make no sense? Your stats state that in 83.5% of successful defences, the attacker either threatened or used force first. I'm asking what caused the defender to draw their gun in the other 16.5% of the cases, since they were neither threatened, nor had force used on them, as that was covered in the category represented by 83.5% of the defenders.

You're making assumptions about what the conditions were in those cases, and that is not a valid argument.

I am not making any argument. I'm asking for an explanation of the circumstances, one which you don't seem to have, so you instead attack me for something I'm not even doing.
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I must have posted in the wrong thread ... I really did think the topic was about full-body scans at airports ... my bad. Lol ...

LadyX
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I must have posted in the wrong thread ... I really did think the topic was about full-body scans at airports ... my bad. Lol ...




It was- it's about gun control now. Go with the flow, home-slice.xYrTR3RbfuGCnzCB
MrNudiePants
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I'd like you to research how many times guns used in crimes were purchased at gun shows. You'll find that the issue just doesn't exist.



Here you go MrNudiePants... in the words of the runner up to presidency of the United States (and pro-gun advocate): Sen. John McCain:

Quote: "Criminals and gun traffickers have figured this out," McCain said in a May 15, 2001, Senate floor speech announcing the ultimately unsuccessful measure. "Gun shows are the second leading source of illegal guns recovered in gun trafficking investigations. According to a recent report by Americans for Gun Safety, 'the states that do not require background checks at gun shows are flooding the rest of the nation with crime guns.' While 95 percent of buyers are cleared within two hours, the 5 percent who are not are 20 times more likely to be a prohibited purchaser. Background checks are an essential part of keeping guns from criminals and other prohibited individuals."

The recent explosion of violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has revealed that 90 percent of the guns used by drug cartels are smuggled from the United States. Looking back, some observers now view McCain as prescient for his early attention to the gun-show loophole".

Reference: http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/azdc/t1235890800

Re the "Gun Show Loophole". It appears there is widespread acknowledgement that this issue does exist. I searched wikipedia for stats. Here they are: "... 33 states do not restrict private, intrastate sales of firearms at gun shows in any manner". You will find 6 more paragraphs of info under the headliner: "The Gun Show Loophole". I'm sure they are adequately restricted in the state you live in which is why you have seen safeguards at the gun shows you attend. But it's easy to cross the borders to venture into one of the 33 states with no restriction policies and buy whatever you want. Even if I was a responsible gun owner, this would alarm me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_show

Fox News: The Myth of 90 Percent.

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S." In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.



More from John McCain:

John McCain believes that the right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is a fundamental, individual Constitutional right. We have a responsibility to ensure that criminals who violate the law are prosecuted to the fullest, rather than restricting the rights of law abiding citizens. Gun control is a proven failure in fighting crime. Law abiding citizens should not be asked to give up their rights because of criminals--criminals who ignore gun control laws anyway...

..."If you want to take every gun in and dump it in the ocean, I’ll still take you to a Web site where it teaches children how to build a pipe bomb. And I’ll take you to a Web site where the worst kind of hate language that is terribly offensive to all of us exists. I can take you to a video game being sold to our children where the object of the game is to kill police. I understand the importance of weapons, but to define that as being the major cause [of youth violence], there’s a whole lot of causes"...



Regarding the gun show "loophole"... it doesn't exist. All laws that are enforced OUTSIDE gun shows are also enforced AT them. Firearms sales are regulated by Federal law - no state can exempt itself from having to observe federal laws. Calling the enforcement of laws that exist a "loophole" is both misleading and fear-mongering.

I know I sound like a broken record, but criminals do NOT obey the law. Criminals can get guns. If they can't get a gun, they'll use a knife, or a club, or a hockey stick. The deadliest attacks on the American public were carried out using NO firearms of any kind. Gun control is no answer. Criminal control is.
LadyX
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Personally, I'm flat-out shocked that Fox News has statistics that would support pro-gun stances- I don't know about you guys. Would now be a time to throw all the stats out the fucking window? Everyone that has a point to prove rolls out their stats, then the person arguing something else rolls out stats that totally contradict the other stats, or find a news organization that discredits the stats, etc. etc. Will I trust stats from Fox News or John McCain's propaganda site? Uhm, no.

And no, I wouldn't trust stats from MSNBC either- in fact I don't even trust stats from the government, which I guess puts me in the 'stockpile weapons in case the government takes over and enslaves us' camp. I don't trust for a second, regardless of 6 pages of 'stats', that guns are making us safer- but because every motherfucker with a point to prove, or a crack addiction to support, or a gangster lifestyle to project has one, then I damn sure am not giving mine up! Like I said, guarantee me that every last criminal out there is without a gun and I'll hand mine over in a second- but not to the police, since it's not registered... *runs and hides*
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I had so many body scans, other scans and MRIs leading up to my January 2009 cancer surgery that I really don't give a shit about having another one before boarding a plane. The ones I had before my operation helped save my life. If airport body scans help save even one life, they are worth it and I have absolutely no objections.


How deviant of you, actually sticking to the topic of this thread; and even more, to state it so clearly.



Merci, cela me fait très plaisir de te lire, et j'espère que tu est en bonne santé maintenant.

MrNudiePants
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Personally, I'm flat-out shocked that Fox News has statistics that would support pro-gun stances- I don't know about you guys. Would now be a time to throw all the stats out the fucking window? Everyone that has a point to prove rolls out their stats, then the person arguing something else rolls out stats that totally contradict the other stats, or find a news organization that discredits the stats, etc. etc. Will I trust stats from Fox News or John McCain's propaganda site? Uhm, no.

And no, I wouldn't trust stats from MSNBC either- in fact I don't even trust stats from the government, which I guess puts me in the 'stockpile weapons in case the government takes over and enslaves us' camp. I don't trust for a second, regardless of 6 pages of 'stats', that guns are making us safer- but because every motherfucker with a point to prove, or a crack addiction to support, or a gangster lifestyle to project has one, then I damn sure am not giving mine up! Like I said, guarantee me that every last criminal out there is without a gun and I'll hand mine over in a second- but not to the police, since it's not registered... *runs and hides*


Hey! How DARE you bring some common sense into a good ol' fashioned pissing match? (LOL)

Fact is, people that don't like firearms don't like them for very dear and personal reasons, and they're not about to be swayed to "the other side" based on a bunch of internet swaggering and posturing. In the same vein, it's a hobby that I enjoy immensely, and I feel there IS an off chance that it might be useful to know at some point in the future, so I'm not going to give it up.
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6 of one half dozen of another poll stats from all the news organizations are a bunch of shit I don't beleive a damn one of them they change like the weather or who ever pays them to say what they want said if you ask me as lady said trow the polls out the fucking window.
Dancing_Doll
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Quote by MrNudiePants


Fox News: The Myth of 90 Percent.
There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S." In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.


You're right MrNudiePants, I am much more inclined to believe stats presented by an un-named "ATF spokeswoman" during her interview with the widely credible and highly respected FOXnews network. Are you saying that this "anonymous spokeswoman" is more credible than the statistics Sen John McCain spoke of during his Senate floor speech? Not only McCain, but Hilary Clinton, President Obama, California Sen Dianne Feinstein, and William Hoover have all upheld the 90% stat as being valid. What you are asserting is that this "ATF spokeswoman" has gone rogue and said her own agency is wrong and that she has the secret facts? Sorry, but news is only as credible as the source it came from.


Quote by MrNudiePants

More from John McCain:

John McCain believes that the right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is a fundamental, individual Constitutional right. We have a responsibility to ensure that criminals who violate the law are prosecuted to the fullest, rather than restricting the rights of law abiding citizens. Gun control is a proven failure in fighting crime. Law abiding citizens should not be asked to give up their rights because of criminals--criminals who ignore gun control laws anyway...

..."If you want to take every gun in and dump it in the ocean, I’ll still take you to a Web site where it teaches children how to build a pipe bomb. And I’ll take you to a Web site where the worst kind of hate language that is terribly offensive to all of us exists. I can take you to a video game being sold to our children where the object of the game is to kill police. I understand the importance of weapons, but to define that as being the major cause [of youth violence], there’s a whole lot of causes"...




I know I sound like a broken record, but criminals do NOT obey the law. Criminals can get guns. If they can't get a gun, they'll use a knife, or a club, or a hockey stick. The deadliest attacks on the American public were carried out using NO firearms of any kind. Gun control is no answer. Criminal control is.


I have another Q... is it possible to advocate being pro-gun but to still be concerned about the current loopholes in the legislation that are causing guns to fall into the wrong hands? If you said that you were pro-gun but things like the The Gun Loophole etc concern you (similar to the stance that Sen McCain has taken), then I could understand your viewpoint. But to make a blanket statement that the system is running just as it should be, and there is no need for any concerns or change to current laws and regulations just doesn't make sense to me. It's just one step away from a "every man for himself" mentality. It's certainly too late to take away the right to guns in the US at this late stage in the game, but there are certainly many changes that can be made with the gun laws that would make society safer than it is now... That is if you are open to taking a critical look at the current situation and having an open mind.
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You're right MrNudiePants, I am much more inclined to believe stats presented by an un-named "ATF spokeswoman" during her interview with the widely credible and highly respected FOXnews network. Are you saying that this "anonymous spokeswoman" is more credible than the statistics Sen John McCain spoke of during his Senate floor speech? Not only McCain, but Hilary Clinton, President Obama, California Sen Dianne Feinstein, and William Hoover have all upheld the 90% stat as being valid. What you are asserting is that this "ATF spokeswoman" has gone rogue and said her own agency is wrong and that she has the secret facts? Sorry, but news is only as credible as the source it came from.



Did you actually read the story I linked to?

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.


Quote by Dancing_Doll



I have another Q... is it possible to advocate being pro-gun but to still be concerned about the current loopholes in the legislation that are causing guns to fall into the wrong hands? If you said that you were pro-gun but things like the The Gun Loophole etc concern you (similar to the stance that Sen McCain has taken), then I could understand your viewpoint. But to make a blanket statement that the system is running just as it should be, and there is no need for any concerns or change to current laws and regulations just doesn't make sense to me. It's just one step away from a "every man for himself" mentality. It's certainly too late to take away the right to guns in the US at this late stage in the game, but there are certainly many changes that can be made with the gun laws that would make society safer than it is now... That is if you are open to taking a critical look at the current situation and having an open mind.


I can only speak for myself. For me, it's difficult to be concerned with any kind of "loophole", because to me, no such loophole exists. If I were a criminal, there's absolutely no way I could get a gun legally. I could get a firearm illegally, but then again I can also get drugs, explosives, poisons... you name it. The only thing that prohibiting an item does is establish a market for it's illegal supply. If you think the government can prohibit the possession of firearms, just ask yourself how well it's doing with it's current prohibition of drugs.

If someone were to propose a law that would absolutely shut off all access criminals have to firearms, then I would consider THAT law for it's merits and drawbacks. If I found that law to be onerous in it's restrictions on law-abiding citizens, then I would oppose it. It's hard for anyone not an American citizen to grasp how highly we value our citizenship, and how much worth we place on our freedoms. With enough legislation, and enough spending, I'm sure we could make the country a safer place for everyone. We would all have our safe little rubber rooms to live in, and our safe little rubber suits to wear if we ever had to venture outside our rubber rooms. We wouldn't be allowed to own CARS... Everyone KNOWS how dangerous cars are. Instead, our society would have to be rebuilt so that everything would be within walking distance. We wouldn't be allowed to fly - planes can crash. We wouldn't be allowed to see each other, or speak to each other, because THAT might lead to a confrontation, and confrontations might lead to fights, which cause injuries... Can you see where I'm going with this?

Sure, there are some facets of our society that are unsafe. Driving, flying, riding horseback, having a beer, playing darts... owning firearms. But I'll happily live with the risk, if it means I get to enjoy the freedoms that abound. Sure, maybe I'll fall off that mountain and break a leg, or break my neck. But that's a risk I'm willing to take. There's an off chance that a criminal might get hold of a firearm. More of a surety, matter of fact. But imagine the world if you could wave your magic wand and *poof* away all firearms of every kind. Criminals prey on the weak. Successful criminals study their targets for a time, and only strike when they're sure of success. They target the elderly, the unaware, the defenseless. If law-abiding citizens were not allowed to own arms for self-defense, then brute force would be king. Anyone that was stronger, faster, or more physically able would be able to impose his will upon the weaker ones at will. Imagine the brutality that would ensue.

I owe it to my family to protect them to the best of my ability, no matter where we go, no matter what we're doing. Prison interviews with FBI agents highlight that the main thing that will deter a criminal from attacking a particular victim is if he thinks that victim is armed. Like it or not, privately owned arms in law-abiding hands do more to combat crime than all the detectives on patrol. Cops are really good at catching criminals. But until they come pocket-sized, so I can carry one around with me everywhere I go, I have to make do with whatever means of self-defense I can legally carry.
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I know I sound like a broken record, but criminals do NOT obey the law. If they can't get a gun, they'll use a knife, or a club, or a hockey stick.



Of course! If you took away all the guns, then there would definately be an epidemic of drive-by baseball bat bludgeonings! And convenience store robberies with hockey sticks!

MrNudiePants
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I know I sound like a broken record, but criminals do NOT obey the law. If they can't get a gun, they'll use a knife, or a club, or a hockey stick.



Of course! If you took away all the guns, then there would definately be an epidemic of drive-by baseball bat bludgeonings! And convenience store robberies with hockey sticks!



Are you suggesting that Great Britain's criminals have all peacefully rolled over and died, now that handguns are banned there?
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Quote by DamonX
I know I sound like a broken record, but criminals do NOT obey the law. If they can't get a gun, they'll use a knife, or a club, or a hockey stick.



Of course! If you took away all the guns, then there would definately be an epidemic of drive-by baseball bat bludgeonings! And convenience store robberies with hockey sticks!



Are you suggesting that Great Britain's criminals have all peacefully rolled over and died, now that handguns are banned there?




I'm saying its easier to commit a crime with a handgun. Therefor, I'd rather make it as difficult as possible for criminals to obtain them. Criminals can get heroine if they really want to....does that mean you should legalize it? How is your war on drugs going by the way?