Michael New. Skar?

[Master Xaio]

Ok, seeing as though we're arguing over what I have and haven't said, let me restate what I am saying once again.

1.I believe in gun control.  Gun control means that to own a gun, you have to go through certain procedure etc. to be able to get a gun liscence, let alone a gun.  I put them near the start of this argument, so you can read them there.  One of the most important is being able to prove you have a reason for owning a gun.  

2.This means that I don't believe guns should be in the hands of the general populace, except for where it can be proved that they are needed – like on a farm, or for food hunting etc.

Aside from that excuse me for misunderstanding you twisted idea of gun control, where you have to beg pretty pretty please to be able to do something that even the least of our citizens can do here. Sounds real free to me.

The freedom to be shot.  If its a tossup between that and no – one having guns, well, as I've said before I'll go for not having guns.  

Guns aren't anywhere near as much a part of our culture as they are in America.  We haven't had a history of 'the wild wild west' and we don't have anywhere near as much the stereotypical aggressive attitude of America.  When the gun laws were tightened in Australia, there was only a little outcry.  We didn't really mind.  Because we could all see that there was no solid reason to have them.  

Uhm... guns are tools too. You two have BOTH admitted that there are uses for guns besides shooting people illegally. USEFUL reasons. GOOD reasons. The comparison between weapons and other tools is completely valid. I still don't see what rarity has to do with it. Explain it to me.

Before I do SE, I'm not entirely sure what you are referring to here – archaic weaponry, or cars? I honestly am not sure, so I'll wait till you answer.

Damn boy. YOu GOT to learn what exaggeration and sarcasm are. In America, see, we have this thing called 'humor.' If you took such a statement seriously, you need some psychiatric help.  We don't have signs up that say "don't kill each other too much." Most road signs that aren't giving speed limits or directions actually say stupid crap like "please drive gently"

Damn SE, but you know what? She was serious.  I understand humour and sarcasm perfectly well thank you.  But they were perfectly serious, we had a discussion about it.  And  I/they wasn't/weren't saying that you do have signs up saying 'don't shoot each other'.  She was saying that **if** there were signs like ours (Don't drive more than two hour s etc.) they would be “Just don't shoot each other”.  And she was perfectly serious.

You also need a lesson in applying your own standards to yourself. You claim that we are making irrelevant comparisons, yet you compare the rise of an oppressive government to the growth of a fictional monster growing out of your toe. The previous has been historically documented. I've told you about them here. No, on the whole, the government here is not oppressive. But it can change. It has. This is not a paranoic response. It's an observed phenomenon. Denying it is basically stating you haven't studied history. So what I'd like to know is why preparing for something that has already happened historically, and may happen again is more paranoid than fearing everyone on the street?

Both JP and I have already replied to the last; we are not afraid of people on the street.  Because no one is allowed to carry weapons in public, gun liscence or none.  Excluding of course police etc.  So, you can't really say I'm paranoid.  I am saying that I would be a lot more nervous if there **were** guns everywhere.  If you want to call that paranoid, fine.  I don't really care.  I just know that I feel safer knowing that all the gung-ho fools who've seen too much bad television and Arnie movies aren't carrying guns.  

Now, the first.  I'll restate my opinion on this.  Yes, an oppressive government is a possibility.  Yes, it has happened in the past.  I won't bother to point out how few oppressive governments  there actually have been.  I've never said that oppressive governments aren't a possibility.  What I am saying is that Ithink it is a bit far-fetched to prepare for the possibility of an oppressive government.  If it happens, it happens, and we'll deal with it then.  But seriously, what good is a little Beretta going to do against an oppressive government? Do tell.

Continued.

[Master Xaio]

No, Im not, and no you haven't... with your frequent quotes about guns having only one purpose. And no you aren't with your insinuation that people shouldn't have guns.

Guns do have only one purpose:  to kill things.*  If you can point out another one, I'd be very interested.  But as far as I can see, their purpose is to kill things.  Now, that can be good in the right hands – as I've already said, say in the hands of the military.  Or, to appease the people who think I'm arguiing to total gun bans, in the hands of people who have got a liscence, and need it for food etc.

Restricting the argument to Homicide related death isn't a good tack either by the way. In our country Drunk Drivers involved in accidents are frequently being charged with murder, and homicide, so are reckless drivers.

Let me just restate: The purpose of a car is transportation, yes? The purpose of a gun is to kill.  Surely you can't dispute those basic facts.  You are going overboard when you are suggesting that just because something can accidentally kill someone it should be outlawed.  The difference is in the purpose.  The purpose of the gun is a willful murder, whether it be of a human being or an animal.  Last I heard, that wasn't the purpose of a car.

It seems like you take the freedoms and civilization you enjoy in Australia very much for granted and think it's somehow the natural state of the world to be like where you live.  I assure you the opposite is true.

I never said it was the natural state of the world.  The opposite is true eh? Hmm...  well that would suggest that it is the natural state of America, the so-called 'free-est country on earth' (with y'know, the most biased media, who have their elections rigged etc...) to be oppressive?

The idea that gangsters need to be well trained in order to be dangerous without guns is not true.

Y'know, I wish you'd spoken up earlier with that statement skar.  When we were at the point in the conversation talking about how easy it is to be dangerous with a gun, and where you guys were arguing that knives are more dangerous?

I bet the aborigines wished that they had the tools with which to defend themselves.

I bet they wished it just wasn't happening in the first place actually.   I probably shouldn't have brought indigenous australia up, because it would require a lot of explanation and history, and its a fairly unique case.

I'd just like to point out that allowing thugs, armed or otherwise, to cow you into not entering "their" part of town through the threat of violence is an imposition on your freedom exactly like what a malevolent dictator would perpetrate, just on a smaller scale.  America is a free country and I should be able to wander where I like without fearing for my life.  JP, the fact that you accept that restriction as though it were normal and OK leads me to believe that you don't value the freedoms you enjoy and therefore don't deserve them.  Go ahead and tell us about how great your country is and how much you like it but don't tell us that we should change our country to be like yours when you don't hold the same values dear that we do.

Now who's being idealistic? I'd like to be able to wander through Israel, and Palestine, and Iraq, and Kosovo, without fearing for my life.  I'd like to be able to wander through  many parts of the world without fearing for my life.  Not going to happen though.  And you can bet I'm a hell of a lot more nervous if I know there are a whole lot of trigger-happy people around me carrying guns.

In America there are already so many guns that attempting to eradicate them completely, and nothing less would suffice if you wanted to accomplish the stated goal, is a pipe dream.  Perhaps in Australia it's within reach.

We did have a lot of guns.  But it didn't take that much to implement what we now have in place.  Hundreds of thousands of guns were destroyed.  Didn't even take that long.  The end result: all guns were registered, and in the hands of liscence owners, the others were destroyed.  Now I'm sure the mighty America wouldn't find it too hard to implement what poor little Australia could do so easily?

Continued.

[Master Xaio]

And now, onto the time honoured arguments that gun lobbyists use to allow them to keep their toys.  

1: to defend themselves against criminals with guns.

Outkast and JP have been arguing that if you remove guns from the society no one could hurt anyone else with a gun.  This is true.  Unfortunately you run into reality.  In America there are already so many guns that attempting to eradicate them completely, and nothing less would suffice if you wanted to accomplish the stated goal, is a pipe dream.  Perhaps in Australia it's within reach.  Criminals still get guns in Australia though and therefore, instead of saying that the Australian system is working JP and OK should be agitating for ever more stricter gun control laws until they have an effective ban.  Despite OKs insistence that that's not what he is advocating it's the only thing that would accomplish what he seems to want.

I'll try and restate what I'm saying about this as well.  The purpose of the gun laws is to eliminate homicidal gun deaths.  I'm sure we can all agree that we probably can't eliminate every gun death, but we can at least try can't we?  And it seems to have worked pretty damn well here.  Now, the criminals: I believe you are referring to the gangs in melbourne? Thats... how many people? 50? 100? Out of how many in Australia.  If we've eliminated just about all of them, apart from them, I'd be pretty happy with the result.  And  the gangs in melbourne – they make a point of not killing innocent people, so at least we don't need to defend against them.  They shoot each other.   And yes, it would be good if their guns could be taken away.  I'm sure the police are currently trying t od just that.  I don't think allowing everyone in Australia to carry guns over a small thing like that is at all practical.  

2: To defend themselves from the government should the government go bad.

The problem here is that if you go ahead and implement a ban in order to eliminate reason No.1 for American citizens to have guns you also eradicate the ability to act on reason No.2.  And IMO reason No.2 easily trumps reason No.1

As you've acknowledged I've said before, we don't want a total ban.  We don't have a total ban.  Guns can be useful in some situations.  But anyway, perhaps you'd care to explain exactly what you mean by oppressive government? Give me some examples, describe it to me.  Because you're throwing those words around very freely.  Could you clarify?

I have to say I have a lot of trouble comprehending this argument.  No offence meant, but it just seems a silly argument designed to allow gun owners to keep their toys.

Damn, what a marathon that was....
____________

*Yes, I said 'things' instead of 'people'.  I was wrong before, I should have clarified that Jeffe, I apologise.  And I wasn't trying to attack you.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

we don't have anywhere near as much the stereotypical aggressive attitude of America

Neither does the United States... but way to stereotype 293 million people, Im sure you know a lot about life in our country, from TV.

Giving up a freedom does not make you more free, it makes you less free no matter how you look at it.


An interesting study from the International Crime Victims Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, found that England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among industrialized nations and that they note that Australia leads the ICVS report in three of four categories -- burglary (3.9 percent of the population), violent crime (4.1 percent) and overall victimization (about 31 percent).
Australia is also second to England in auto theft (2.1 percent).

Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized.

The United States didn't even make the "top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime.

Since Australia banned private ownership of most guns in 1996, crime has risen dramatically on that continent,

After Australian lawmakers passed widespread gun bans, owners were forced to surrender about 650,000 weapons, which were later slated for destruction, according to statistics from the Australian Sporting Shooters Association.

The bans were not limited to so-called "assault" weapons or military-type firearms, but also to .22 rifles and shotguns. The effort cost the Australian government about $500 million, said association representative Keith Tidswell.

Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:

Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;

Assaults are up 8.6 percent;

Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;

In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;

In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;

There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.

[Master Xaio]

I don't watch TV Jeffe.

I don't have time to reply to all of them -- but of the top of my head, as far as victoria is concerned -- most of those homicides would refer to the melbourne gang shootings, which is a point already covered I think.

I will try and reply to the rest tomorrow.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

outkast said "Damn SE, but you know what? She was serious.  I understand humour and sarcasm perfectly well thank you.  But they were perfectly serious, we had a discussion about it.  And  I/they wasn't/weren't saying that you do have signs up saying 'don't shoot each other'.  She was saying that **if** there were signs like ours (Don't drive more than two hour s etc.) they would be “Just don't shoot each other”.  And she was perfectly serious. "

Then she's pretty much an idiot. She obviously has a bizarre view of oru culture. This seems like a very strange thing to try to use as an argument, it being speculative, uninformed, and not true.

OUtKast said "The purpose of the gun is a willful murder"

THat's a HUGE jump from the purpose being killing. It also is not true. Murder is a legal term referring to a specific kind of killing. YOu contradict yourself by saying that it's ok for people in certain circumstances to have guns (like in a few posts above: " Guns can be useful in some situations"), then saying that the only purpose is murder. So which is it? Is the only reason to have a gun to commit a crime? Or are there lawful, ethical and moral reasons to have guns in the hands of some people? Once you've decided that, you can decide either to say you're for gun control and not gun bans, or whether there's only one use for a gun.

The short list of reasons to own a gun... let me take that back, the short list of morally and ethically correct and LEGAL reasons to end a life with a firearm is self defense, hunting, and military applications. I would so like it if you would stop this irrational "one reason" argument you keep making inconsistantly in despite reasonable presentation of the facts.

"who have their elections rigged "

that statement is untrue and provokative. Been watching Michael Moore lately? Btw, I'll wager your news media is heavily biased two. That whole paragraph shows a very weak understanding of a place and set of circumstances you've never been in but are trying to condemn. That's inulting and ignorant.

"I probably shouldn't have brought indigenous australia up, because it would require a lot of explanation and history, and its a fairly unique case."

I'll bet it actually follows a lot of patterns common to European colonial movement. Are you insinuating that we're not intelligent enough to follow it? You may be advanced in school, outkast, but most of us here are still better educated and at least as capable of following the situation.

"Now I'm sure the mighty America wouldn't find it too hard to implement what poor little Australia could do so easily? "

my aren't we snippy today? Let's go find some numbers for per capita firearm ownership. I'll bet you find a huge disparity. Plust your condescending bullcrap argument is grossly flawed. The fact that "the mighty" america is so much bigger (in land and population) makes it much more DIFFICULT to pull off such a feat, not easier.

"I'll try and restate what I'm saying about this as well.  The purpose of the gun laws is to eliminate homicidal gun deaths."

A couple things about the usage of your arguments then:
1) stop referring to numbers that include ALL gun deaths then. EIther that or amend that statement to say gun deaths
2) what's the point? If it doesn't reduce violence (as far as I can tell, almost no figures indicate that the elimination of guns does anything to reduce actual homocides, in many cases removing private ownership of guns INCREASES homocides, including firearm related homocides) then why would you worry about that specific kind of homocide? It seems irrational and damaging.
Short form of number 2: yay, fewer people are shot now. How about those increased knife, beating, suffocating, and other related murders?

"But anyway, perhaps you'd care to explain exactly what you mean by oppressive government? Give me some examples, describe it to me.  Because you're throwing those words around very freely.  Could you clarify?"

excuse the lange, but DAMN. Are you even reading ANYTHING I post? What about that long post I made on page 6 about oppressive government actions taken in "free" governments. Let me guess, you don't read all the posts. You want your information? Go back and read it. I was wondering why you completely ignored that information.

[Skar]

 An interesting study from the International Crime Victims Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, found that England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among industrialized nations and that they note that Australia leads the ICVS report in three of four categories -- burglary (3.9 percent of the population), violent crime (4.1 percent) and overall victimization (about 31 percent).  
Australia is also second to England in auto theft (2.1 percent).  

Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized.  

The United States didn't even make the "top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime.  

Since Australia banned private ownership of most guns in 1996, crime has risen dramatically on that continent,  

After Australian lawmakers passed widespread gun bans, owners were forced to surrender about 650,000 weapons, which were later slated for destruction, according to statistics from the Australian Sporting Shooters Association.  

The bans were not limited to so-called "assault" weapons or military-type firearms, but also to .22 rifles and shotguns. The effort cost the Australian government about $500 million, said association representative Keith Tidswell.  

Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:  

Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;  

Assaults are up 8.6 percent;  

Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;  

In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;  

In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;  

There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.
_____

Let's hear it guys.  Your "safer" streets are in fact less safe after the gun ban.  Wait, your argument is coming to me...(touches his temples with his index fingers)  

"Imagine how much worse it would be if there were all those evil guns around forcing people to kill other people.  Yes, imagine.  Maybe Godzilla will grow out of my toe again. That was cool.  Yes, that was cool."

[Skar]

And now, onto the time honoured arguments that gun lobbyists use to allow them to keep their toys.  


I'll try and restate what I'm saying about this as well.  The purpose of the gun laws is to eliminate homicidal gun deaths.  I'm sure we can all agree that we probably can't eliminate every gun death, but we can at least try can't we?  And it seems to have worked pretty damn well here.  Now, the criminals: I believe you are referring to the gangs in melbourne? Thats... how many people? 50? 100? Out of how many in Australia.  If we've eliminated just about all of them, apart from them, I'd be pretty happy with the result.  And  the gangs in melbourne – they make a point of not killing innocent people, so at least we don't need to defend against them.  They shoot each other.   And yes, it would be good if their guns could be taken away.  I'm sure the police are currently trying t od just that.  I don't think allowing everyone in Australia to carry guns over a small thing like that is at all practical.  


As you've acknowledged I've said before, we don't want a total ban.  We don't have a total ban.  Guns can be useful in some situations.  But anyway, perhaps you'd care to explain exactly what you mean by oppressive government? Give me some examples, describe it to me.  Because you're throwing those words around very freely.  Could you clarify?

I have to say I have a lot of trouble comprehending this argument.  No offence meant, but it just seems a silly argument designed to allow gun owners to keep their toys.

Damn, what a marathon that was....
____________

*Yes, I said 'things' instead of 'people'.  I was wrong before, I should have clarified that Jeffe, I apologise.  And I wasn't trying to attack you.

I trust it's obvious to everyone on the board that Outkast has either been on drugs for the last week and therefore stupid, or he is deliberately misunderstanding and/or not answering the points any of us have made, while at the same time ignoring actual statistics in favor of chanting his ideological line.

What a waste of time.

[Spriggan]

I trust it's obvious to everyone on the board that Outkast has either been on drugs for the last week and therefore stupid,

Please keep from insulting others here, I've noticed too many personaly attacks in this thread over the past few days.  Be civil please.

[House of Mustard]

Just when I thought this thread was getting tedious, Jeffe pulls out an amazing, fact-filled post.  I'm giddy to see how the Aussies defend themselves.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

even if you chalked up the 300 percent to just the gang shootings in Victoria, your non violent culture actually proves to be more violent than ours, if you include the number of assaults, violent crime, and victimization.

But I doubt all of that 300 percent is due to that.

[Skar]

I trust it's obvious to everyone on the board that Outkast has either been on drugs for the last week and therefore stupid,

Please keep from insulting others here, I've noticed too many personaly attacks in this thread over the past few days.  Be civil please.

If I had meant to insult Outkast I would have simply said he was stupid.  However, point taken.  I simply meant to say that either his mind was clouded with drugs (causing him to behave in a stupid manner) or he was deliberately pretending to not understand.

And my statement still stands.  He has consistently failed to reply to the substance of our posts.

[JP Dogberry]

Those statistics are, I'm guessing, quite twisted. Not in the fact that they're wrong, or that they're misleading, but in that you can't attribute all of that simply to guns. The world changed in a lot of different ways since guns we're restricted, thus, any application of statistics measuring that is, as a scientific hypothesis, flawed due to the fact that there are a huge number of uncontrolled variables. That said, I predict that giving guns back wouldn't make things less violent again, but more violent, because the society has become more violent, irrespective of guns.

[House of Mustard]

Beautiful reasoning!  

To recap:
The numbers are correct, probably.  But they don't really apply because there are too many factors to consider.  And guns are bad.

[Archon]

That logic, although not necessarily wrong, would have to be applied to all statistics that anyone presents, as there are always an amazingly high number of variables changing. Therefore you would have to throw all or nothing out.