Gun Control

This is why debates are annoying.

I am sorry to inform you but this isn't much of a debate at all more of a slightly heated discussion, see in the old days of SC debates were quite daunting. What we have here is not even slightly intimidating. So discussion is what we call this here swapping of opinions of a certain topic.

Matt said:

I understand where you are both coming from but any random person could walk into a busy shopping mall and decide to shoot people randomly. Mass shootings can't be committed with any other tools. If the person at Sandy Hook was carrying a knife, some people would've been killed, but it would be less than how many were killed in the actual shooting.

Well generally you don't call an event where someone goes about stabbing a bunch of people mass shootings so it goes to reason that most of those mass shootings will not be committed without a gun. Mass stabbing however will.
And I must disagree with you there though guns are quite dangerous, knives are also just as dangerous. If some kid walked into a school with a knife and started stabbing everyone he sees chances are it will take a little while longer for people to figure out what has happened. Compared to someone pulling out a gun a firing even a single shot, guns are louder and a lot more noticeable in use. A knife simply takes a thrust or casually swing of your arm.
Though yes in the long run less people would be killed at the end of the day it really wouldn't be that apparent as both weapons would still kill a lot of people.

Matt said:

People drive cars because it helps with life and getting around. Guns don't really get you anywhere.

Cars are tools with a purpose, transportation. But we know they can be used for other things. Guns are also tools with many purposes, some debatable, killing, protection, and hunting. People use guns same reason they use cars which is to get a certain task done. For cars it is to get to point A to B. While for guns it can be anything from shooting a deer for various purposes like eating or to shooting a killing another person whether in war or out on the street for whatever reason.

Dark Breloom said:

just going to bring up my argument that if every teacher had a gun in sandy hook, adam lanza would have been dead quick.

Maybe... but giving guns to teachers in any school is a bad idea. Your idea suggests that these teachers would have been able to just pull out a gun and shoot Adam Lanza down. But that would raise the problem of how easy these guns are to get access of. When talking about an elementary school full of young uneducated children this is just going to lead to accidents. Even if they are locked up there is always the small chance of a little kid somehow getting to it and accidentally hurting himself or another. Plus if they were locked up safe chances are the teachers wouldn't have been able to get them in time to shoot Adam Lanza anyways. So pointless really.
And this idea wouldn't really be good at a Middle, High School, or College either simply because though the students will be older and more knowledgeable they will also be more prone to act on their emotions and use the gun themselves. Take it away and shoot up the school. Walk into school one day steal teachers keys, unlock drawer with gun, take it out and start shooting. So in my opinion this would be a very bad idea.

Also this post is slightly closer to that of old school debate, still not yet there though.

What were the old school debate topics?

Go back a dozen pages or so on the Does God exist topic, should give you an idea

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« Last edited by Matt77 on Mar 20th 2014 »

I take pride in destroying your posts so if you don't mind being patient I shall find statistics to destroy your statistics.

Nonfatal Firearm Violence, 1993-2011
Year - Firearm incidents - Firearm victims - Firearm crime rate - Firearm crimes as a % of all violent incidents
1993 - 1,222,701 - 1,529,742 - 7.3 - 8
1994 - 1,287,190 - 1,568,176 - 7.4 - 8
1995 - 1,028,933 - 1,193,241 - 5.5 - 7
1996 - 939,453 - 1,100,809 - 5.1 - 7
1997 - 882,885 - 1,024,088 - 4.7 - 7
1998 - 673,304 - 835,423 - 3.8 - 6
1999 - 523,613 - 640,919 - 2.9 - 5
2000 - 483,695 - 610,219 - 2.7 - 6
2001 - 506,954 - 563,109 - 2.5 - 7
2002 - 450,776 - 539,973 - 2.3 - 7
2003 - 385,037 - 467,345 - 2.0 - 6
2004 - 405,774 - 456,512 - 1.9 - 7
2005 - 446,365 - 503,534 - 2.1 - 7
2006 - 552,035 - 614,406 - 2.5 - 7
2007 - 448,414 - 554,780 - 2.2 - 7
2008 - 331,618 - 371,289 - 1.5 - 5
2009 - 383,390 - 410,108 - 1.6 - 7
2010 - 378,801 - 415,003 - 1.6 - 8
2011 - 414,562 - 467,321 - 1.8 - 8
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 1993-2011.

I really wish they made that a picture... anyways while those stats don't directly crush your own it does point out that Gun crime has been declining steadily over the past few years which means Gun Control laws have been effective.

*Homicide rates in the United States are lower now than they have been at almost any time in the last century, having fallen by more than 50% since 1991.
*Mass shootings, even using the very broad definition employed by the FBI, make up a tiny fraction of homicides ? usually less than one percent.
http://ideas.time.com/2013/09/18/navy-yard-whiplash-are-killings-going-up-or-down/#ixzz2wMoVE95z

The chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about what they are for being struck by lightning.
Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K?12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.
Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century.
The high point for mass killings in the U.S. was 1929, according to criminologist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
Gun control in a country that already has 200 million privately owned firearms is likely to do little to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals.

Matt said:

- There are approximately 110 million rifles owned by Americans. That's about 34% of the population of America. (some may own more than one rifle)

Rifles are not really the problem, good stat though :D

Also here is a picture for you->

And another just for funzies!

Odds of being in a mass shooting are less than being struck by lightning

On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being slightly destroyed and 10 being utterly annihilated, how badly did I just destroy your post?

« Last edited by nightmare2 on Mar 18th 2014 »

Interesting choice of weapon for a mass shooting. A shotgun has a good spread so aiming is less of a concern. The down side comes to handling and ammunition. You need two hands to hold a shotgun(pumping it and handling the recoil). Shotgun ammunition is rather bulky. This all explains why the semi-Automatic shotgun is the popular weapon of psychopathic mass shooting maniacs. Magazine fed so reloading is much, much faster. You can fire some Semi-Auto shotguns with just one hand so one hand can be grabbing a fresh mag. And overall shotguns are far less regulated then "assault weapons". By the way the correct term for a military style magazine fed Semi-Automatic rifle is a carbine.

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« Last edited by Matt77 on Mar 21st 2014 »

So you don't debate gun control and I don't debate religion.

Matt77 said:

9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999.

This is my last post in this topic.

wow, you're so helpful.

great debating skills! "LOL HE BEAT ME I'LL POST SOME RANDOM STUPID NUMBERS AND BE DONE WITH THIS TOPIC". but wait!? where is tegan41 to delete your stupid post that contributes nothing of merit!? guess he got busy?

pointing out that guns are involved in most homicides is a dumb argument. guns are the most effective way that regular people can kill other regular people. of course they are going to be most involved in homicides.



wow, that's so surprising. the most readily available weapon to australian citizens was the most used murder weapon in 2004 to 2004! NEVER SAW THAT COMING.

so okay, bye. the most you contributed to this topic was statistics and your own bias.

What statistic is that?

Yeah your picture seems fuzzy.

And yeah Dark Breloom over here is right

pointing out that guns are involved in most homicides is a dumb argument. guns are the most effective way that regular people can kill other regular people. of course they are going to be most involved in homicides.

Considering all you need to do is aim and pull the trigger to severely injure or kill someone it would only be obvious that guns would be the most popular weapon in homicides. That is obvious and isn't the best argument to take. What would be better would be to build off that; since guns are the most used weapon for homicides and are so dangerous we need more concrete gun laws....
Don't be a quitter! Now granted it is slightly my fault for posting that but whether it is a discussion or debate doesn't really matter. All parties involved take turns pushing ideas and opinions forward, backing them up, and when they do lose an argument they it is up to them to admit it and move on. (this advice can also help in life too) I don't expect you to perfectly refute all my claims and counter all my arguments considering how little experience you have in discussions and debates so far. There is no need to quit however there is a need to learn.

Now moving on and back to the discussion.
We are all aware that guns are dangerous and many homicides occur with them. So with that being known all we need to do is try our best to fix that. We should of course start with taking laws and requirements for purchasing guns and extend them to gun shows. The reason being is that with how it currently is, in America, pretty much any one can get a gun. And a gun that they could get could be almost anything, from the Glock all the way to the AKS-74U. All that is needed in most cases is the money and an ID confirming you are 18 and a resident in the state you are buying from. This needs to change. We need to place and enforce requirements on the gun show vendors so that not just anyone can buy a gun.

You also need a FOID card in some states. You can't even handle the weapons in the gun store without a FOID card in some states. Also you could always buy guns privately.

KingofCorn said:

What statistic is that?

http://www.aic.gov.au/publi...141.html

I also said it if you would care to read anything.

I didn't think debate & discussions were about several members all saying your posts and arguments are stupid and useless. Also DB, your numbers are un-readable so your graph was useless. If you think my statistic list was useless, I'll delete my 'useless' post.

I can read it.

Now my post seems useless without a post to be referenced to. Matt you stats were fine however your random number post was not, DB was refering to your post with the 9's in it as being bad. He was not referring to your statistics. The stats you put forth were great!
Debate and Discussion is when people argue or put forth their opinions with or without facts to back them up. It is done in order to push your argument onto the other party and convince them, it isn't easy and often times winning/losing doesn't end up happening. Often enough people do get heated when arguing with others, it happens. Take some time to calm down and then decide if you want to continue or not.

I am sure the media had a field day on that one, DB. "Most used murder weapon is a knife? How could that be? We need to start preventing people from getting these dangerous weapons... What's that? I am told that knives are often found in kitchens...."
I swear new organizations purposely higher the dumbest people they can find to host the news.

When you look at homicides that have occurred it is important to not just look and say oh 100 people were killed with knives this year, we need to start restricting knives to keep dangerous people from getting them. See I know in America that we have homicides classified into different types.
1st Degree Murder - Murder that was planned out and done with malicious intent
2nd degree Murder - Murder that was done with malicious intent

Manslaughter - Did not plan or have malicious intent

Justifiable Homicide - an individual killed another in self-defense or similar circumstances

What people need to do is make sure that the homicides that they are viewing are only 1st and 2nd degree murders. Because a lot of the homicides that happen are actually the result of a situation where someone lost control of their emotions.

Aren't there 3 degrees?

It's too late. I deleted the statistics list earlier today.

You could always post some more.