[andyt]

Lemmy wrote:

DerbyX wrote:

Hence this completely vindicates my position that you guys use circular logic in this debate.

Their other crazy circular logic is "I need a gun in case someone tries to rob me" but if the other guy didn't have a gun either it wouldn't matter. Guns give cowards courage.

Except that we have such lax gun control, even in Canada, that many "other guys" do have guns. Especially living next to the land o' guns and all. I have no problem with somebody having a gun in their home for protection. I just don't want them carrying one out on the street where it can cause all kinds of havoc. If you're too scared to go out without a gun, stay home.

[BartSimpson]

Lemmy wrote:

Guns give cowards courage.

Guns also give cowards pause.

[Psudo]

PublicAnimalNo9 wrote:

Psudo wrote:

Yes, PA9.

Ok now I gotta ask, where were you trying to cross?

The Washington/BC border near Vancouver.

DerbyX wrote:

aside from your stats being woefully incorrect

Why do you think they're incorrect? The Department of Justice would know. I don't see any math mistakes.

DerbyX wrote:

Psudo wrote:

What are you if you characterize gun owners by 0.41% of their population?

so many staunch gun supporters (I'm looking at you Bart ) do exactly that.

Uh... Bart is characterizing gun owners by the behavior of the other 99.5% of them. Statistically, Bart is 99 percentage points more right than you. You can't pass blame onto him with a dismissive joke.

Returning to the racism metaphor, you're saying blacks have blue eyes (possible, but clearly not typical) and Bart is saying blacks have ancestors from Africa (pretty much universally true).

DerbyX wrote:

I just abhor the retarded and woefully unscientific conclusions that gun ownership lowers crime.

Why do you believe it is an unscientific conclusion?

DC Crime Statistics. DC's handgun ban was declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court's decision in the case District of Columbia v. Heller on June 25th, 2008.

Murders in DC, 2005-2007 average: 182 per year
Murders in DC, 2009: 143 (down 21%)

Rapes, 2005-2007 average: 179 per year
Rapes, 2009: 150 (down 16%)

Assaults, 2005-2007 average: 3,957 per year
Assaults, 2009: 3,295 (down 16%)

DC's population went from about 580,000 to 600,000 during the period from 2005 to 2009, yet the number of violent crimes went down. Also, 2007 was the worst of that three-year period. I used the three-year averages and raw crime counts to minimize the appearance of the change in crime rate, a courtesy to the gun control crowd.

If gun rights are the primary factor in violent crime rates in DC then gun rights reduced crime. Even if you can come up with an alternate explanation for dropping violent crime rates, you still have to admit they have an experimentally demonstrable theory of causality (intimidation) that accurately predicted the result. That seems pretty scientific to me.

DerbyX wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

the overwhelming majority of lawful gun owners are, indeed, lawful gun owners.

you disqualify them once they commit an illegal act. See the inherent contradiction.

DerbyX is right that one cannot measure the rate that legal gun owners become criminals by excluding any who commit crimes; if you exclude all the criminals, of course no criminals remain.

But Bart has a point, too: the guy was charged with gun control violation and violence at the same time. That doesn't mean he committed the gun control violation for the first time the same day as the violent crime. It was road rage, not premeditated. He didn't go home for his gun first. He brought it along with him, illegally, before there was any immediate reason. It's reasonable to imagine he brought it, just as illegally, many times before. If so, he can hardly be considered law-abiding merely because he wasn't caught. The information available on this particular case is insufficient to help either side's argument.