PH Gunfight thread

[Guy]

You could always post a quote of him inciting rioting in response to the Ferguson decision to prove he did what you have accused him of doing.

Except I didn't accuse him of inciting a riot did I.
I accused him of not being sincere when he says that rioting is not the answer.

[Lumpy]

Has anyone contributing to this thread DGU'd outside of work? either brandished or discharged a gun as a crime victim or as a bystander?

Yes. Road rage. It stopped the attack, which was all I wanted to achieve by showing my firearm. I was the victim, and I was not charged with a crime for brandishing my firearm.

Glad you asked, it is when so much of statistics is tossed about to think that the are real people involved with real problems that different tools may be need for.

And Al Sharpton was named as an individual inciting a riot. I'd like the person that made that claim to back it up with any recent evidence, say since Trayvon Martin was killed up to now.

And no, I'm not defending Al Sharpton.

[Lumpy]

You could always post a quote of him inciting rioting in response to the Ferguson decision to prove he did what you have accused him of doing.

Except I didn't accuse him of inciting a riot did I.
I accused him of not being sincere when he says that rioting is not the answer.

I carelessly abused the quote reply button please forgive me.

Accusing someone of being insincere is a lot like judging how much faith another person has. It's impossible to prove or defend.

[Koda]

Has anyone contributing to this thread DGU'd outside of work? either brandished or discharged a gun as a crime victim or as a bystander?

yes. carjacking or robbery he decided to find another victim.

[Koda]

There are a number of posts in this thread mentioning criminals as if it is a us-v-them distinguisher. I thought that more than 99% of Americans were criminals, it's just that the majority have not been caught/prosecuted.

IMO its the intent behind the person. If you speed on the way to work does that make you a criminal or do you say hey I need to leave earlier from now on? What about unintentionally speeding? To me a criminal is someone who has a disrespect for the law and others...

[Koda]

.....
Interesting statitistics there, any reason to believe they are tainted by being from a pro or anti gun control advocate?

Twice as many homicides from a family argument as a robbery?

40% of households have a gun?

Reinforces my believe that owning a gun makes you less safe
...

so here we are again in the statistics game. We've discussed already and yet more statistics are presented that cannot produce any trends. I've traditionally held the stance that statistics to prove a point, on both sides of the topic, are invalid.... yet the more I read into statistics supporting gun control the more I find them flawed more so than statistics supporting gun rights.... yet many of us simply believe in it because its called science it appears are not interested in finding the truth behind the science. How come my statistic of how many DGU's are not in the study? The fact that its not easy to answer is not a reason to ignore it your argument is whittled down to saying there is zero usefulness of guns with no "statistic" to back that up! I'll throw you a couple bones to chew on... the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually. Gary Kleck's book Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America estimated that in 1993 there were approximately 2.5 million incidents of defensive gun use. I'm sure there are more studies with different "statistics" for example Wikipedia's article on DGU indicates 'low end' statistics in the 55,000 to 80,000 range, my guess is the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

So here now we have been presented "statistics" that guns are the reason for domestic violence and suicides and that YOU are more likely to be killed simply by having a gun. I find this hard to believe simply that removing the gun from the scene removes the root problem of violence or suicide. Equally, suggestions in this thread for possibly addressing the root problem of "gun violence" for gun safety and improving mental healthcare have been largely refuted here, brushed aside, swept under the carpet and the discussion moved onto yet more "statistics". The idea to me that one has a greater risk of being killed or committing suicide simply because of the gun is flawed... 1) it ignores the primary reason for the situation and 2) you cant track or stop first time offenders. I don't have the numbers but my guess is over half of the US is lawfully armed yet is domestic homicide or suicide by firearm on the rise? What exactly does it mean when one says that firearms are the primary cause of domestic homicide or suicide, at least one CDC report claims the greatest increase in suicide method is suffocation up 81.3% followed by poisoning (24.4%) then finally the target of your concern firearms (14.4%) Now how does this increase in method compare to the increase in total suicides? (source: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtm ... mm6217a1_w). Alas, how does suicide rate compare to DGU's... 21,754 suicides to 55,000 low end estimates of DFG. (I think its fair to put a huge emphasis on the low end estimate I selected that for your benefit). Now we are encroaching on the death by automobile analogy but nobody is arguing to ban cars, why, because of their usefulness. How about alcohol?

Lets look at one more note on suicide. If gun ownership is correlated with total suicide rates then why is Japan one of the highest rates of suicide when they have the least rates of gun ownership? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate

So I've looked at YOUR statistics how come you aren't considering mine? I'm not going to accept your statistics as definitive... I've studied them all from a bipartisan point of view and they leave me with questions and the numbers never stack up against mine even when I've looked at the gun rights statistics with the same level of critique. To me this boils down to a personal choice on whether or not to accept the fact that guns (arms) are a part of life and it makes no sense to me for someone to not have the freedom to choose how to provide their own defense, if need be with guns. You can choose not to accept them, but even if they could actually be prohibited they are still a reality... remember the only people your voting to prohibiting them from is yourselves.

[retired jerry]

It seems like the statistics for homicides are more reliable. If somebody is killed, it's reported. They come and look at the body. Maybe some suicides are called homicides and vice versa, but they're probably close. And most of the time they'll correctly categorize it as a family argument or robbery.

If you do a survey, it's a lot less reliable. People don't necesarily tell the truth. The survey population may not be representative. Much more open to manipulation.

I don't care if you show someone your gun and they leave you alone. They probably would have done the same regardless. Some people would feel challenged and escalate.

Regardless, you can deduce the risk from the homicide data:

About half the people own guns, there are 6 gun suicides, and 3 homicides per 100,000. mcds data says there are twice as many family argument homicides as robbery homicides.

Even if all the robbery homicides are with non gun owners, almost all of the suicides and family argument homicides must be from gun owners. And if guns of the gun owners scared off criminals that would hve killed them, then there'de be homicides in the non gun owners. Any reasonable way of looking at it, if you own a gun, there's a bigger chance of dying.

But the risk is low, and if you're stable and well trained, the risk is even lower than that.

Go ahead and get a gun, but the homicide data is inconsistent with the claim it makes you safer.

Gun control is another issue. I don't see any compelling data that says it effective.

Just my opinion, if you require that people are trained, there would probably be fewer gun deaths and injuries, but mostly it affects the gun owners, so if they don't want to do it, fine with me.

[Lumpy]

There's Jerry being all reasonable again.

[retired jerry]

But if you look at gun violence survivors like Brady or the Sandy Hook families, I have a lot of compassion for them. I can see how they think there are too many guns causing violence and there must be some way to control them. For them, it's 100,000 out of 100,000 that suffer gun violence.

[Crusak]

Here's a pretty awesome site for people who support the 2nd Amendment: http://www.modernmusket.com I've purchased more than a few products from them. Just placed another order today. Very popular gift items for my extended family.

(just thought I'd toss that out there to stir the pot a bit among my PH friends, LOL)

I've seen mixed information and opinions about firearms ownership by dangerous people. The example most commonly associated with mass shootings is that of a mentally ill person using a gun to shoot at multiple victims. In Oregon there are provisions in the law where a mentally ill person can be prohibited from owning or purchasing a firearm - the courts issue a Firearms Prohibition Order, which gets entered into the OSP database (LEDS). Any officer running the person will get the 'hit' and know that that individual is not supposed to have guns. Anytime that person tries to purchase a gun they'll be denied because of that order.

The Statute - ORS 426.130(D) Shall order that the person be prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm if, in the opinion of the court, there is a reasonable likelihood the person would constitute a danger to self or others or to the community at large as a result of the person’s mental or psychological state as demonstrated by past behavior or participation in incidents involving unlawful violence or threats of unlawful violence, or by reason of a single incident of extreme, violent, unlawful conduct. When a court makes an order under this subparagraph, the court shall cause a copy of the order to be delivered to the sheriff of the county who will enter the information into the Law Enforcement Data System.

Check out the Oregon Revised Statutes to see just how many firearms-related laws are already on the books. And that's just the state-level laws... Here is an example - ORS 166 Plenty of restrictions and controls in Oregon, just in that single chapter.
(Tell me again how more laws will help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill?)

That's why I always see the efforts to further restrict legal access to firearms by law-abiding citizens as baby steps toward total confiscation.