The End is Nigh says 3 million americans .

Violent crimes dropping ? That's good news , considering that US was almost light years ahead of every other country . However . it'll have to drop considerably more to level off with whichever country held second place.

btw - violent crimes involving firearms are more likely to be fatal - than violent crimes which was just a drunken late night punch-up aka common assault.
Firearms are also handy weapons + feature high in domestic disputes + violence .

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It is not that we do not win the wars. it is that our politicians lose the peace...

 

progress is the trend and the trend is hard down while no other country, proud in its gun grabbing and criminal coddling superiority, can say the same...

 

You really need to look up those international numbers...You might be very surprised...

 

A simple-minded band-aid that does little to nothing to solve the problem. All you do with banning guns is make criminals out of the two thirds of your population that owns them legally and have done nothing wrong aside frmo slight your sensibilities. Banning guns does nothing to change the decision to commit violence in the first place.

Change the decision process that makes it so easy to commit a violent act and who owns what doesn't matter. Your solution does nothing to change anything here. The guns are here, they're not going anywhere, and simply banning them just makes it harder for the individual citizen to defend himself. Bans have been tried and they simply do not work.

 

It amazes me that folk cannot look at their own policies and then look at their own crime rates over time...Of course, they are consistent. They also refuse to look at US crime trends....If they did they would be hard pressed not to note that the big bad country with a record decades long of dropping crime is not theirs...

Then they might be forced to look at themselves and note their own rising problems and ask themselves...what is the USA doing that they are not...

They would not like that comparison as it would make decades of silly posturing by their own pandering politicians look pretty silly.

 

JIM if you're convince + you live in a society where you think you need a gun - then go right ahead , but dont expect everyone around the world to copy american gun obsessed nutters.

Frankly , I dread the thought of having to kill another person for the few pounds + cards in my wallet or most of my easily replaceable material possessions.

Or worse that he might kill me with my own gun, as happened to many US gun owners , including Police Officers :

By BROOKE DONALD
The Associated Press

Over a recent six-week period, a handful of officers from Rhode Island to Illinois had their guns taken from them after they allegedly were overpowered by suspects or inmates. In each case, the ending was deadly.


The incidents have shaken departments and raised questions about safety procedures. But some law enforcement experts say not much will change _ and shouldn't. Despite the latest tragedies, they say there's no evidence that basic procedure is failing officers.

"You do not write policies to deal with the extreme," said Michael Brady, an expert in police procedures in the Administration of Justice department at Salve Regina University in Newport. "The one thing the incidents do have in common is that they are a reminder of how dangerous police work is."

On March 11, a defendant on trial for rape in Atlanta allegedly overpowered a courthouse deputy, took her gun and killed four people, including two law enforcement officers. A little over a month later, a Providence detective was killed with his own weapon while interviewing a suspect at police headquarters.

Police in Augusta, Ga., killed an inmate who fled on April 21 after overpowering a state corrections officer and taking his gun, authorities said. Two days later, a man under arrest in Spring Valley, Ill., wrested away an officer's gun and beat him with it. The suspect then fatally shot himself, police said.

"It's one too many when it happens," Brady said. "But if you look nationwide, the frequency of a police officer's gun being taken by a suspect is extremely rare."

There are no national statistics on how many times officers' guns are taken away. But the FBI says that of the 616 law enforcement officers killed on duty by criminals from 1994 through 2003, 52 were killed with their own weapon, amounting to 8 percent.


"What's remarkable is that it doesn't happen more often," said Jim Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest union for law enforcement officers.Police are trained to protect their weapons if they are attacked, and to resist using their guns unless a threat is imminent. If a weapon is grabbed, the officer always tries to retrieve it and often succeeds, experts said.

Michael White, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said the deputy overpowered in Atlanta should have been accompanied by more officers.

"Certainly when you're moving someone from prison to a courtroom, if that person's not going to be shackled you need to have more than a 1-to-1 ratio," he said.

Defendant Brian Nichols wasn't restrained, partly because of legal rulings against letting a jury see a defendant in shackles.

White said some courts have defendants wear stun belts, which can produce an incapacitating jolt of electricity and can be activated remotely. But a defendant in Texas last year put a sandwich between his belt's batteries and electrodes, interrupting the current, and was able to attack a witness during his trial.

Uniformed patrol officers use specialized security holsters, but most plainclothes officers use simpler holsters designed to conceal rather than secure the gun, experts said.

In the Providence case, Esteban Carpio allegedly grabbed detective Sgt. James Allen's gun while being questioned in a locked conference room. Police will not discuss how Carpio got Allen's gun, or what kind of holster Allen was using.

 

That's a rather broad brush, don't you think? Fully 80 million own weapons in the nation. All of us are 'gun obsessed nutters?' You statement seems rather narrow-minded to me.

You’ve already proven your hostility to the very idea of gun ownership; I suppose your opinion works fine for where you live, supported by all your neighbors, family and friends. If you're happy living without them, go ahead, and good for you. No one here is forced to own them.

But I wonder: what will you do when your “hurricane Katrina” event happens where you are? Lock your door and hope for the best? Hope the police aren’t overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster and can get there in time? Police can’t be everywhere at once and all looters aren’t only interested in your TV.

It’s not as simple as any of us would like. It’s not as safe as any of us would like. It’s as much a matter of personal responsibility as ensuring you have enough medications or fuel or food or water or whatever else you may need to survive until things return to normal. I’m not going to let someone harm my family or me while I have the power to stop them. If that involves deadly force, so be it.

And most of us are not going to pop somebody running off with their laptop. Gun ownership has very little to do with theft and everything to do with the option of self defense.

Complacency and poor training, plain and simple. You wouldn't trust a caged animal, why would you trust a desperate person suspected to be violent who is facing serious prison time?

If you want articles from the NRA demonstrating successful self-defense involving weapons, go here. Too many to put up here. And we can trade this stuff all day long. Won’t make a difference; your mind is closed to the subject.

 

that's over 1 per week under 5 and over 1 a day 5-14 years.

Don't you people value your children's lives, just for some obscure hairy fairy reason that you may get invaded, or the "non-whites" will turn on you.

One word for it Paranoia, maybe two, Stupidity

Cannot find how many lives are saved because of gun ownership on any of the pro-gun pages though.

 

What is wrong with believing in "the rapture" is that we need to spend more time making this world a better place rather than worrying about the next world.

Who cares about "Nuclear war, Global warming" and so on .. the rapture is comming soon !

 

that's over 1 per week under 5 and over 1 a day 5-14 years.

Don't you people value your children's lives, just for some obscure hairy fairy reason that you may get invaded, or the "non-whites" will turn on you.

One word for it Paranoia, maybe two, Stupidity

Cannot find how many lives are saved because of gun ownership on any of the pro-gun pages though.

 

Get a grip .. we have the highest Crime rate in the civilized world making the US one of the least safest places to live in the civilized world.

Half the reason for the high support of Guns is "because you need one here".

That the crime rate was so high that it had nowhere to go but down is nothing to be proud of.

 

just move out into the boonies and learn how to hunt and grow your own food..
anyone remember when those underground shelters were a fad back in the 50s and 60s..to many people live in fear..

 

A lot of that is due to parents not being careful about their weapons. I grew up around guns, but we were never allowed to touch them, and they were kept secured and away from little hands. If you don't tell kids not to play with guns, and you keep loaded guns within easy reach, your kids are going to be at risk. That doesn't mean that every kid is at risk.

And as far as paranoia, I dunno, I don't think the world is ending, I don't expect the N-Word invasion. The guns I grew up around were for deer and squirrel hunting. It's mostly about keeping squirrels out of the tomatoes. So squirrel invasion yes, fall of society, not so much.

 

That report is 7 years old and full of flaws...In 2010 there were under 300 kids that died from guns under 15....that is less than one a day.

We have 310 million folk making the risk of a gun death in that group almost too small to be measured.

One is literally hundreds of times more likely to be killed in a car crash.

Why not save the fear for something with real numbers...

Put another way, if we had a population the size of Australia and the same rate of child gun deaths, we would have about a score of deaths a year. Do you deprive millions of their right to self defense in order to protect a couple of dozen folk from accidents?

Not in a free country.

 

if we had a score of children killed by guns each year there would be such an outcry. One death is too many.

Dont get me wrong, I am a shooter and have 2 guns of my own. Guns locked in a safe, bolts in another safe, and ammo in a third. But I own property and they are small calibre, what you folks would call a varmit rifle.

But, we are not most people, and I know most people are not as careful as I am

 

Folk who say 'one death is too many' in a context where preventing that death deprives millions of a fundamental right and also is guaranteed to increase violent crime and the deaths associated from it, are folk who do not understand concepts like freedom and personal responsibility.

Shudder.

 

So why aren't you protesting cars? Seriously. If one death is too many, the statistics on cars ought to send you into a conniption. Car accidents kill more children every year than guns do by a factor of six all the way up to thirty, depending on your age group (Source, 2009 CDC mortality statistics). How is an accidental death from a firearm any different?

A responsible, law abiding gun owner. That's all we're talking about. Personal responsibility and following the law of the land. None of us are advocating the over throw of the government or stalking the poor or any such nonsense. I myself have my weapons locked in a safe, the only exception has a trigger lock on it and my children are well educated on what to do and what not to do around weapons and how to react around those who are not safe with weapons.

Then those people should not own firearms. There are classes available nationwide, many for free. The NRA itself is huge on gun safety. There is little excuse for not getting educated on firearms ownership--and foolishness with firearms simply feed the fire of those who would see law-abiding citizens stripped of their rights.

 

That's a really stupid comparison . but I doubt you'd realize it.


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Of course NRA would do that - its in their own interest to do so.



And Every gun owner would consider him/her self as being responsible adults + sufficiently educated in gun safety - they dont belief + would never agree that a fatal gun accident can happen in their home - UNTIL IT HAPPENS .


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Then perhaps, as you clearly believe yourself to be more intelligent than I am, you demonstrate your higher abilities and could 'dumb it down' for me.

I think we could all agree that it's in everyone's interest to do so.

And no one believes a hurricane can come along and cause enough trouble for their to be serious 'social unrest,' either. Or that looting can actually happen to you. Or that police could take two hours before they arrive to investigate someone rummaging through your garage. Or that someone would actually break into your home with the intent to do you harm.

Which is more common, I wonder? Accidental shootings of children or criminals harming their victims?

I can't protect the world from itself. I can't change the weather. I can't change what people decide they have to do to better their situation. I can prepare my home for hurricanes. I can protect it from others who intend to harm my family. I have raised two children who have had weapons around them their entire lives to understand and respect the usage of firearms. I can also keep those weapons safe and secured from all their friends who decide to come around. I also teach more than a few of those other people's children how to use and respect those same firearms.

You don't like that? Too bad for you. Stay where you are and continue to shake your head in wonder at the crazy Americans. We revolted from the UK for a good reason, it would seem. While I have great respect for the UK, I feel it's far better we remain free from the Empire, as I don't care for your rules or your ideas of social welfare.

 

Sis was just here talking about this show. I told her it would be good to get tight with her neighbors and church group. She lives half the year in Western North Carolina.
I also told her she should stockpile food. The only two disaster scenarios I feel are quite possible, not to say likely, are civil unrest or and economic melt down.
I think Tom Chittum's "Civil War II" had some very good tips back 17 years ago.

 

How did this topic turn into a gun debate?

Bravo, americans. Your obsession to firearms has no bounds.

Since on this subject, i am still wondering. Does the NRA view flamethrowers as a fundermental right to existance or guns that fit in the hand.

 

If you were on vacation here and became ill, I'm sure you'd forego the entirely free-of-charge medical treatment you'd receive, and instead choose to spend thousands being treated by the same surgeon in a private ward. Wouldn't you? Because you don't like our ideas of social welfare...

 

I know, right! Never can tell where these threads will lead, though I have to say I'm surprised someone hasn't turned it into a Palestinian-Israeli hate fest yet.

And your fears of something you do not understand remains as strong as ever.

LOL! It's always entertaining here, the notions some people have.

I don't think the NRA wants anything to do with Class III weapons, much less a flamethrower or anything like that. Believe it or not, you can get liscensed to own that kind of thing (BATF? Not sure who handles it). Better have some cash and a lot of tolerance for government inspections, though. The liscensing ain't cheap, there are insurance issues, the ammo is not cheap and the weapon itself is horridly expensive--and that's just for an automatic. And the government can come by at any time and inspect your weapons and storage facilities. I imagine an actual flamethrower would only make the liscensing and inspection worse.

I know a few folks with a Class III, but they're pretty much all gun shop owners or gunsmiths. They only have full-auto rifles and the like; collector items, stuff there's not much real use for unless you're actually at war.

Depends on whether or not I get a choice. Socialized medicine is something I'm familiar with and want no part of.

Believe me, my European friends, if I wanted to live there, I would. I'm where I want to be--with both my expanded personal responsibillities and my expanded freedoms.