would you support a constitutional amendment to ban handguns?

[John Dibble]

No, I don't want to make law abiding citizens even more prone to victimization by uncivilized thugs.

[John Dibble]

yes, obviously.

No.

Besides, aren't you conservatives supposed to be the ones who are against gun control? Or did that change when you conservatives seized power?

Bandit, Walter isn't very conservative on a lot of things - people tend to question why he's still a Republican.

[John Dibble]

Bandit, Walter isn't very conservative on a lot of things - people tend to question why he's still a Republican.

He's extremely conservative: He supports union-busting and right-to-scab laws, and thinks poor people shouldn't be allowed to chew bubble gum.

Just because someone holds some conservative positions by no means makes one 'extremely conservative' - it simply means they hold conservative postions. Walter also has many positions that would be considered liberal, such as his position on guns and his support of affirmative action, but this doesn't mean he's extremely liberal. You shouldn't make such broad generalizations, it's just plain stupid.

[John Dibble]

i wish kids in the inner city were free to go outside and play without fear of being shot up in a drive-by.

how many (innocent) people have to die before we get serious about doing something?

Walter, you've already admitted it would pretty much be impossible to get rid of all the guns the criminals have, so why would banning them change that? How will removing a method of self-defense of law abiding citizens while the criminals still are packing, as you admit, make people feel safer?

If you want to get serious about gun crimes, then punish the criminals, not those who use their guns responsibly and in the bounds of the law.

Also, I think you're seriously exaggerating the problem. According to the CDC, there were only 1,822 homicide by firearm deaths in the age groups of 0-19 in 2003 out of a population of 81 million in that age group - I seriously doubt most of them go outside worried about getting caught up in a drive by.

[John Dibble]

that is 1,822 preventable deaths.

As dazzleman pointed out, that presumes that the ban would be effective, which I must again mention that you have admitted it won't be. It's either going to end gun violence or it isn't - make up your mind, Walter, which is it?

It also presumes that in every case that if a gun wasn't available that another method, such as a knife stabbing, would not have been used. You can't say that to any degree of certainty, and given that murders by other methods still occur I would be that a fair number of these would even if guns were not available.

[John Dibble]

would a ban end gun violence?  no, of course not.  it would, however, be a  step in the right direction.

If you want to end gun violence, or pretty much any violence period, go to the source - the people commiting the acts.

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No, it doesn't, because frankly I want innocent, law abiding citizens to have a viable means of defense from the uncivilized thugs who want to steal from them, assault them, rape them, and murder them - especially the thugs who still have guns. How exactly would you propose a 120lb woman fend off a 210lb rapist who has a gun?

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You keep using the drive-by rhetoric, but how many innocent people actually die in drive-by shootings? It happens, for sure, but I would bet you are greatly exaggerating the problem.

I'd also like to point out that crime rates have been going down yet gun ownership has been increasing.

[John Dibble]

I mean please, how many people are actually saved by having a gun, does anyone know that stat?

John Dibble or David S would know.

Based on various studies, guns are used in self-defense somewhere in the range of 800,000 to 2.5 million times annually in this country. If even 1/16 of those uses are life saving, then 50,000 to 156,250 lives a year are saved through defensive gun use, which still far surpasses the total number of lives lost in murders by all methods.

[John Dibble]

Guns are a serious threat to human life and should be treated as such.

No, guns are inanimate objects. If nobody touches one, it doesn't shoot. Guns are tools just like any other in that it is the user who determines the use. The serious threats to human life are those who are behind guns maliciously, recklessly, or negligently - go after these people(the real threats to human life), leave the literally millions of responsible gun owners alone. There are 65 to 80 million gun owners in this country, with over 200 million guns, 65 to 70 million of them are handguns. The total number increases by roughly 4.5 million annually.

Yet, with millions of handguns, the total deaths by firearm number roughly 30,000 a year, half of which are suicides which I don't think you can really blame the gun for. Statistitically speaking, this shows that guns aren't dangerous. Of course, this isn't necessarily true - guns can be very dangerous, which is why gun owners must take great care in treating their firearms with great care. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible in how they handle their firearms, so as I said don't punish them for the actions of other people.

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Don't get me started, and try not to get off topic - too many threads go off on tangents because of this.

[John Dibble]

Speaking of suicide, in Japan the suicide rate is more than double what it is here. http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/
In fact their combined rate of suicide and homicide is also higher than ours. In Japan handguns are outlawed and that fact is frequently cited as the reason for Japan's low homicide rate. So how come they have such a high suicide rate?

Cultural differences, one of the many reasons why it's very difficult to make valid comparisons internationally when it comes to guns and various other issues.

[John Dibble]

Canada banned handguns over 80 years ago, so according to Everett we must all be idiots

Well duh, you are Canadians after all.

[John Dibble]

Canada a murder rate per capita that is almost a third of America's, and I don't particularly see all that many cultural differences between those two countries.

This is why I said cultural differences were 'one of many' reasons that international comparisons are different. Let me tell you an interesting fact - when ice cream sales go up, the murder rate also tends to go up. Obviously, this is a correlation and not a causation. The real cause for both going up at once is a rise in temperature. When it's hot, people tend to go out more, interact with more people, and also many people get irritable aggressive in hot weather, so you end up with better conditions for murder. Canada is further north and cooler than the US on average, so this can partially explain the difference in murder rates. Of course this doesn't fully explain it, but there are other differences.

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I can offer a partial explanation - suicide is generally higher in most areas in winter. Why is this? I can't give an exact explanation, but it has to do with the fact that it's darker in winter for longer periods of time. Since Canada is further north, it has longer winters, so higher suicide rates are higher. It's due to something called winter depression, or seasonal affective disorder in more technical terms.

As for the after 65 part, I don't know. Might be worth looking into.

[John Dibble]

I think Japan has a higher suicide rate for two reasons:

1. Their culture is one which emphasises that personal faults affect your family and dishonour them.
2. They are Buddhist.

I doubt it has anything to do with guns.

I do not think they would like being called Buddhists. That is a largely Chinese religion. In Japan it is Shinto.

Shinto originated from Japan, but Buddhism is also big. In truth, most Japanese identify themselves with both religions. The Japanese tend to incorporate many things from many different religions into their lives.

[John Dibble]

groupthink

I don't think so - I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people had formulated the yes or no before they even saw the poll results.

[John Dibble]

My respect that WalterMitty lost over something baseball-related (I can't remember what it was now) has been regained and then some.

WalterMitty is a true freedom fighter for this excellent and necessary idea.

And this shall hurt you greatly if you ever try and go into politics.

I'd never run on my real views....I'd be a killer candidate in fact, a Southern populist...

So you would want to be like every other lying, hypocritical, corrupt politician who ever was?