What's your favorite kind of Handgun?

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• Even the ones that would protect you from harm?

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  by BACzero on November 4th, 2011

• protect me from harm?

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  by fluffylucy on November 4th, 2011

• The world is indeed a sinister place, sometimes.
  
  Estimates by the US Department of Justice put the number of crimes stopped by privately owned guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens at around 1.5 Million per year, with some private surveys reporting closer to 2.5 Million (but I find the US DoJ’s report a little more trustworthy). The FBI Uniform Crime report shows less than 9,000 gun-related murders in the US in 2010, and the US DoJ reports around 470,000 total gun-related crimes happen nationwide, per year. This means you are more than 3 times as likely to be protected by a gun-toting citizen as you are to be accosted by a gun-toting thug.
  
  So yes… even the ones that would protect you from harm?

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  by BACzero on November 4th, 2011

• I live in a country with one fifteenth the gun homicide rate of your country where almost all the murders are of people involved in crime (drugs in particular) and where ones chances of being killed during the commission of a crime increase 5 fold if one is carrying a gun. I can not find figures about crimes being stopped with firearms but gun battles here are extremely rare. I guess that if things here became as bad as they are in your country, and if carrying of handguns was legalised, I may have to reconsider.

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  by fluffylucy on November 5th, 2011

• I don't think you're seeing the big picture here. Gun crime and murder rates were relatively low in Australia before stringent gun laws were enacted. Saying “We have strict gun laws, and low gun crime, so the one must lead to the other” does not indicate causality. It’s like saying “I skipped breakfast today, and now it’s raining. Therefore, me skipping breakfast must make it rain.” Just because you have low gun crime and strict gun laws does not necessarily mean the laws caused the low rates. In fact, knowing that the rates were low before the laws indicates quite the opposite. It was only after a few high-profile multiple murder cases in the 80s that the Australian government started imposing such strict laws. Have they helped with the violence? Not so much. Since the imposition of strict gun laws, the rate of gun murders has decreased, but the rate of overall murders has stayed relatively even. Murder rates by knives, explosives, baseball bats, and every other weapon imaginable have increased. So what does that mean? People are still killing people… they’re just choosing different weapons. Suicide-by-gun rates dropped following a buyback programs, but were offset by a 10% increase in total number of suicides. So again, people are still killing themselves… they’re just choosing different weapons. So what does all of this mean for you, John Q. Citizen? You are still statistically just as likely to be mugged, attacked, robbed and murdered as you were before the strict gun laws… but the person perpetrating the offense will be more likely to use a knife or blunt object. It also means that your ability to effectively defend yourself against such an attacker has been taken away from you. A gun is the ultimate equalizer. Try using your bare hands to fight off a 300 pound, roid-raged meth head with a butcher knife. You’re probably going to lose that fight. But put a pistol in your hand and your odds of survival increase dramatically.
  
  I’m not suggesting you have to like guns… or want a gun… or even support the idea that individuals should own guns… but I think it’s important to see the larger perspective.

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  by BACzero on November 7th, 2011

• I was not suggesting that gun control has led to the low gun crime but even before the buy back we had tougher gun laws than the US. What restrictions on gun ownership do is reduce the number of guns in general circulation and while someone could kill you with a tree branch or a rock, that is no reason to add more guns to the mix. the argument of using a gun when approached by the knife wielding crack heads would also have to be extended to carrying a machine gun when that crack heads pack pistols and rocket launchers (?) when he is carrying a machine gun. i also doubt your ability to protect yourself from most attacks if you had a gun. I spent several years in the military and am familiar with and competent in using a variety of small arms but the truth is that for them to be effective, you have to be in a state of readiness. That means that when someone comes up to your car window to ask for directions, you need to have your gun out of the glove box and in your hand, ready just in case. It means that you need it when you are answering your door and when you go to the pub for a dirink.
  
  I know that the factors and mechanisms that effect public safety are complex and that a few simple arguments or statistics do not explain them. in my experience however and from what i can tell by reading, societies with higher firearm ownership tend to be those with high levels of violence and gun crime. I can't say that this is a causal relationship but for me where I am, having a gun about, seems like a bad idea.

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  by fluffylucy on November 9th, 2011

• I was not suggesting that gun control has led to the low gun crime but even before the buy back we had tougher gun laws than the US. What restrictions on gun ownership do is reduce the number of guns in general circulation and while someone could kill you with a tree branch or a rock, that is no reason to add more guns to the mix. the argument of using a gun when approached by the knife wielding crack heads would also have to be extended to carrying a machine gun when that crack heads pack pistols and rocket launchers (?) when he is carrying a machine gun. i also doubt your ability to protect yourself from most attacks if you had a gun. I spent several years in the military and am familiar with and competent in using a variety of small arms but the truth is that for them to be effective, you have to be in a state of readiness. That means that when someone comes up to your car window to ask for directions, you need to have your gun out of the glove box and in your hand, ready just in case. It means that you need it when you are answering your door and when you go to the pub for a dirink.
  
  I know that the factors and mechanisms that effect public safety are complex and that a few simple arguments or statistics do not explain them. in my experience however and from what i can tell by reading, societies with higher firearm ownership tend to be those with high levels of violence and gun crime. I can't say that this is a causal relationship but for me where I am, having a gun about, seems like a bad idea.

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  by fluffylucy on November 9th, 2011