The importance of their ideological view point is "relevant in light of both the number and frequency of occurrences and the significance of the detrimental consequences" — Cavacava
It is the same sort of value judgement. We tend to judge an ideological group by the actions of its most radical elements. — Cavacava
Supposing that early morning in the park I had a gun handy and pulled it out, telling the guy to go back the way he came. Having done that, I would know that this now angry person might be waiting for me when I decided to leave the park (only one way out) and stepped onto the sidewalk under bright street lights. Bang bang, maybe. Dead crank.
Carrying a firearm comes with a great deal of responsibility and judgement calls that sometimes have to be made in a 'split second' and considering the use of a firearm is never an easy one. Yes, some become reckless when stress arrives in a life and death situation but others are capable of channeling that stress into a heightened awareness of what is going on and make those split second decisions and it does save lives, sometimes without firing a shot." — ArguingWAristotleTiff
Yes, but the consequences of those bad judgements outweigh the consequences of those good judgements. This is evidenced by statistics. Here in the U.K. we have considerably less gun crime, and it isn't because our private citizens or police force is armed, since it's only special units which are armed, and we have very tight gun control. — Sapientia
Sapientia, the very idea of an "unarmed police force" is not a viable option here in the USA. To have each State agree that their citizens be required to abandon their personal firearms is like trying to have a group of 'thinkers' agree 100% on a single view. It is just not possible, not wanted, and each State chooses it's level of firearm control that it already has in place. Which is rarely acknowledged by those who choose to cast judgement on our gun rights, the fact that there already are laws controlling the ownership of firearms. The difference is that each State has control of it's own 'control' dial. — ArguingWAristotleTiff
How many innocent lives do you think one armed attacker could take, in a public place such as a supermarket, if 40 out of 100 private citizens are armed? — ArguingWAristotleTiff
Carrying a firearm comes with a great deal of responsibility and judgement calls that sometimes have to be made in a 'split second' and considering the use of a firearm is never an easy one. Yes, some become reckless when stress arrives in a life and death situation but others are capable of channeling that stress into a heightened awareness of what is going on and make those split second decisions and it does save lives, sometimes without firing a shot.
By having "armed citizens" we have gun massacre after gun massacre. And to think that other armed citizens will prevent it is not absurd. — Landru Guide Us
Asking people to give up guns is asking them to give up power. This is difficult for anyone, not just Americans like Tiff, especially if no one else around them is doing the same. — bert1
An annual breakdown of NYPD “Gunfight” hit-ratio data is differentiated in the table
below.
NYPD GUNFIGHT STATISTICS
Year| Hit percentage
1990 19%
1991 15%
1992 17%
1993 15%
1994 12%
1995 18%
1996 14%
1997 10%
1998 25%
1999 13%
2000 9%
MEAN SCORES 15%
What I most despise about the whole gun ownership/ gun legislation issue is the way it is handled, actually universally in the West (both here and there). And that is that gun rules are never, ever discussed or handled at normal circumstances in a normal way as some other legislation might be formed. No, the gun controls are allways rushed in after an ugly incident which has caught the media's attention. The reason is logical, after some attrocity (with guns involved) the majority of the people that are not gun owners and hence the matter doesn't actually matter to them (it's not their property or hobby etc. that is talked about) are quite emotional about the event and prone to accept tighter gun laws. When there isn't an ugly incident in their minds, the majority might not be so open to tighter government control. — ssu
Truth be told -- in most combat situations training doesn't do much in terms of missing, it just makes you less worse as opposed to actually good. Being shot at sucks, period -- even if you're a crack shot. Additionally there are tactics which aren't necessarily meant to connect to a target, so you have to take that into consideration -- but on the whole most discharges do not hit their target. — Moliere
There isn't an "ugly incident" here about once a week, and there definately isn't a terrorist attack every week, so you remark is off base. But tightening of gun control does happen systematically when there is a media frenzy about something. Those events happen more rarely than once a year or two.In the US there's an "ugly incident" about once a week, so this is off base. — Landru Guide Us
Landru the chairfighter.Frankly, I'm not afraid of a man with a knife for a variety of reasons, mostly because I can run away from him, or hit him over the head with a chair. Not so with guns, which is why guns are the weapon of choice for mass murderers. — Landru Guide Us
There isn't an "ugly incident" here about once a week, and there definately isn't a terrorist attack every week, so you remark is off base. But tightening of gun control does happen systematically when there is a media frenzy about something. Those events happen more rarely than once a year or two. — ssu
Furthermore, what is the logic that if there is a terrorist attack in France (with actually the terrorists using full automatic weapons that are illegal), then army reservists shouldn't here have the ability to train shooting as they have been able before? If either there is a terrorist strike or someone with severe mental problems makes a bomb attack or goes on a shooting spree, why is it then logical to make training possibilities for reservists more difficult?
And in this country you don't get a permit for any gun for "self defence". The right of self defence is totally different from the American law. If you use a gun for "self defence" it's very likely that you will go to jail. If somebody kills a burglar that has entered your home, that somebody will extremely likely go to jail for "use of excessive force" and simply for "manslaughter". Using a firearm for personal defence here will be seen as use of excessive force. In fact there are a multitude of things that you are not allowed to use for self defence.
An event defined as a genocide that happened in our time only a few years ago, actually, was basically carried out with knives. So mass murder with knives has happened. Besides, with knives far more Americans are killed than with rifles, shotguns and other guns than handguns (see FBI statistics). Only with handguns more people are killed than with knives in the US. So why the carefree attitude against the second most lethal weapons in the US?
For a country that isn't in NATO, has mandatory conscription and the defence forces' deterrence comes basically from the large reserve force, it's a totally reasonable argument. Totally reasonable when basically every tenth Finnish male is a reservist (and more are in the secondary reserve, at the largest you are talking about 900 000 people out of 5+ million people).Yeah, that's the critical issue: training reservists. Jeez, that's a new low for the gun nut argument. — Landru Guide Us
For a country that isn't in NATO, has mandatory conscription and the defence forces' deterrence comes basically from the large reserve force, it's a totally reasonable argument. Totally reasonable when basically every tenth Finnish male is a reservist (and more are in the secondary reserve, at the largest you are talking about 900 000 people out of 5+ million people).
Actually so reasonable that Finland officially had it, the training of reservists, as the main reason why they have problems with the EU's proposal.
I'm wondering just who has the new lows for nut arguments here, because I'm not sure that you are even replying to what I'm writing about. — ssu
That's obvious.I don't care what Finland does. — Landru Guide Us
Strawman Landru. Feel safe with your nuclear deterrence.But if you think you're going to hold off Russia with hand guns, I think you would feel at home in some whacky rightwing militia in the US. — Landru Guide Us
It's not about relaxing the present gun control, it's about the banning of now legal guns that is the problem here. People would be fine with the current controls. Relaxing gun controls is something I don't recall ever happening. Nobody has ever purposed having similar gun laws here as in the US. Not even the "gun nuts" here.Surely there's a way for Finnish reservists to get sufficient training without relaxing gun controls to the extent that they're as easily obtainable as they are in places like the U.S.A. — Sapientia
So if all the guns and ammo were to disappear tomorrow, the rate of murder might not change all that much. The white southerners and the black sons of the south living in northern ghettos would continue to kill each other, with knives probably, at the same high rate as they do with guns. At least there would be fewer bystanders killed. — Bitter Crank
The example here is how gun controls are done: a EU-level ban instituted and to be pushed through in a few weeks with no public discussion. It's not yet law, so it's not about relaxing laws. It's the similar antics how tough "anti-terrorist laws" are put through, that likely don't have much effect on actual counter-terrorism measures, and people find about them only when they are already a law. Here that several countries themselves made it public is the only reason why the ban is known.↪ssu If the proposal goes through, then was your point not that gun controls ought to then be relaxed in order to avoid the problem of reservists not being sufficiently trained? — Sapientia
Actually it does.And if gun controls are already tight enough in Finland, then this isn't even an issue, or at least a different issue to the main issue under discussion. — Sapientia
The example here is how gun controls are done: a EU-level ban instituted and to be pushed through in a few weeks with no public discussion. It's not yet law, so it's not about relaxing laws. It's the similar antics how tough "anti-terrorist laws" are put through, that likely don't have much effect on actual counter-terrorism measures, and people find about them only when they are already a law. Here that several countries themselves made it public is the only reason why the ban is known. — ssu
It goes to the real question of just what is an armed society? What's the reason for a society to be armed? To defend against whom? — ssu
Yet have mass shootings happened in Switzerland? Yes. Have they happened here in Finland? Yes, twice with the two shooters perhaps even knowing each other, both having mental problems and the first one being obsessed with the Columbine shootings. Yet when deciding on gun laws, should they really be made to prevent something as seldom happening as a mass shooting and even terrorist strikes, which use illegal guns? — ssu
Well, if it went through as now, which basically means that Finland or the Czech Republic or Sweden that have problems with it would be overruled, then Finland could ask for an exception. Because it's very unlikely that the Finnish Parliament would accept to ratify it, as now the administration has been against it in it's now form. Then the EU could object that.You didn't directly answer my question. — Sapientia
First you should ask what is your intention with tightening the gun controls.I was more concerned with whether or not gun controls ought to be tightened in places where the current gun controls are arguably not tight enough. Although I suppose that kind of relates to the sort of questions that you asked above. — Sapientia
Preventing terrorist strikes will not happen by gun laws.Preventing mass shootings and terrorist strikes is definitely a goal worth pursuing. — Sapientia
Well, I don't live there and what does American gun legislation effect me here in Northern Europe? And why should then terrorist attacks in France or mass shootings in the US have an effect here on training of the military? I think the gun laws should be decided by country-by-country. That's the basic reason for have nations in the first place.Like Landru Guide Us, I'm considerably less sympathetic to the woes of Finnish reservists than I am to those affected by mass shootings and terrorist strikes. — Sapientia
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