[Nicodimas]

Quote

Is everyday life *really* that dangerous that you need to be toting around a hand gun at all times....I mean really

Do you ever want to be a victim? That's what it comes down to. I will give up my wallet/stuff/whatever if someone tries to rob me, its when they make that next step that things change. There is a terrible video outthere that I won't ever directly link, that truly shows what a gun fight comes down to. It tells me of the ultimate responsibility you are taking into your hands when you hold a gun. Your own life! It makes you never want to be in a gun fight and never want to be a victim ever.

though granted the FBI says the average gun fight is 1.5 rounds.

[worry]

That statistic clearly doesn't take into account the rivals staring at each other across a dusty main street for several minutes.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Completely unhelpful Falstad ^^^ EDIT -- woops, just realized that post was deleted. Forget it.

Nicodimas, on 19 January 2011 - 12:00 AM, said:

Quote

Is everyday life *really* that dangerous that you need to be toting around a hand gun at all times....I mean really

Do you ever want to be a victim? That's what it comes down to. I will give up my wallet/stuff/whatever if someone tries to rob me, its when they make that next step that things change. There is a terrible video outthere that I won't ever directly link, that truly shows what a gun fight comes down to. It tells me of the ultimate responsibility you are taking into your hands when you hold a gun. Your own life! It makes you never want to be in a gun fight and never want to be a victim ever.

though granted the FBI says the average gun fight is 1.5 rounds.

I know the what if situation...I mean what is the real likelihood that you are going to get in that situation on a given street on a given day. I don't believe for a second that there is a need in broad daylight, at a place you would actually bring your family, that you would need a gun for anything ever. Happens you can increase your chances by hanging out in dangerous neighborhoods, which goes against good judgment regardless of whether you're carrying a firearm...but even if you do, think about how it goes down:

Scenario 1: Guy mugs you at gunpoint by surprise. He's likely an addict, but regardless of the motives, he wants money for drugs or something of the sort. You have no gun. You throw down your wallet or a bill from your pocket, he takes it and tears off.

Scenario 2: Same as #1. Now, You have a concealed gun. Realizing he's got you covered, you announce your intention to reach for the wallet instead of the concealed weapon. Things get way more tense than they were a second ago. Ultimately he takes your money AND your gun since the gun is worth money too.

Scenario 3: Same as #1. You still have a concealed gun. Realizing he's got you covered, you announce your intention to reach for the wallet instead of the concealed weapon. He shoots you just to be safe. Takes your money, gun and leaves you in a bleeding heap.

Scenario 4: Same as #1. This time you have a non-concealed gun. The non-concealed gun is the reason he took you by surprise in the first place. Realizing he's got you covered, you announce your intention to reach for the wallet instead of the concealed weapon. The whole situation is tense because each of you knows the other has a firearm. Ultimately he takes your money AND your gun since the gun is worth money too.

Scenario 5: Same as #1. You have a non-concealed gun. The non-concealed gun is the reason he took you by surprise in the first place. Realizing he's got you covered, you announce your intention to reach for the wallet instead of the concealed weapon. The whole situation is tense because each of you knows the other has a firearm. He shoots you just to be safe. Takes your money, gun and leaves you in a bleeding heap.

Scenario 6: Same as #1. You have a gun, concealed or no. Recalling your firearm training, you refuse to throw down your wallet, electing instead to draw your firearm. 1.5 shots later somebody is dead or seriously injured. Most likely you in that situation, since he already has his gun out.

That example can be extended to home robberies and all other manner of similar situations. In almost every conceivable case, having a firearm ends with an escalation of the situation and the 1.5 shots + serious injury to one or both parties. Would it not simply make more sense overall to simply plan for Scenario 1 and carry a $20 in your pocket instead of a glock? It's the reason my uncle tells me to keep a $20 in my pocket when I'm visiting him in Baltimore. It's extremely rare for a mugging or robbery like that to turn out badly if the criminal simply gets what they want in the first place.

The above is the central flaw with the packing for protection argument. There's little chance of an altercation if you exercise good judgment, and even less of the altercation turning out in your favour simply because you have a gun. It makes no sense whatsoever that carrying a firearm protects you in any way barring zombie apocalypse or breakdown of civilization as we know it.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 19 January 2011 - 02:02 PM

[Abyss]

Nicodimas, on 19 January 2011 - 12:00 AM, said:

...though granted the FBI says the average gun fight is 1.5 rounds.

...and, if reality tv is any indicator, consists of people shooting at each other from around corners without actually looking at each other.

cerveza_fiesta, on 19 January 2011 - 01:59 PM, said:

... It makes no sense whatsoever that carrying a firearm protects you in any way barring zombie apocalypse or breakdown of civilization as we know it.

Not even in the zombie situation. Headshots are tricky. Fiction teaches us that mad kung fu skills with a shovel are infinitely more effective.

- Abyss, contributing little.

[Cougar]

I have to take some issue with Rhulad here. The sheer volume of gun crime in the US, a country which is ranked a lot lower in the statisitcs for 'all murders', points to the idea that it is the ease of committing a homocide (or at the least, maliciously wounding, threatening etc) when guns are so readily available that facilitiates many murders. Sure the most hard core killer would find a way, I'm sure that's true, in all honesty you'll probably not stop them, but it's the people who might go either way. Stabing someone or beating them to death takes time, strength and the ability to engage the person at close quarters. Killing a person face to face also takes real guts for the average person - you have to look into their eyes, struggle with them (See Bourke's an Intimate History of Killing for more on this) make physical contact with them. Plus you risk your own life if they fight back and in a public place will most likely be overpowered. Using a gun is much less risky and requires little forethough or guts to do. I honestly think that proliferation of guns means a lot of people committ murders who in other circumstances would not have been able to.

[stone monkey]

I second that the debate on what it takes to kill another person, whether you have been trained to or not, would probably be better served if everyone involved went away and read Bourke's An Intimate History of Killing and then came back to it. It's a very sobering book.

The issue about guns is, whether you're on the pro- or anti- side of this discussion, that they are an escalation to instantly lethal force in a small, portable and depressingly easily resorted to package. And, as such, they serve as a destabilising element. If both sides of a dispute think they can can effectively end it in a very decisive manner through the use of potentially lethal force (whoever is in the right), then they're more likely to do so.

To borrow Nicodimas' point: the "I will not be a victim" assertion becomes "I will not be a victim and I have the means to kill you" on one side and "I am going to force my will and I have the means to kill you" on the other in a big hurry when both sides of the dispute are armed. Given that humans aren't at their rational best when the adrenaline is flowing (if, in general, they ever are) then a couple of hasty shots later at least one or other of the parties is dead or seriously hurt.

Whether you regard this as a good thing or not (and I for the record don't - although I suspect a number of you might have guessed that already), might point to where you stand on the gun debate. Personally, having encountered all sorts of people, with all sorts of different levels of education and intelligence, with all sorts of temperaments and from all sorts different levels of society, tbh I barely trust most of them with the right to vote let alone with the right to own a firearm.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 19 January 2011 - 08:09 PM

[foolio]

cerveza fiesta wrote

Quote

I know the what if situation...I mean what is the real likelihood that you are going to get in that situation on a given street on a given day. I don't believe for a second that there is a need in broad daylight, at a place you would actually bring your family, that you would need a gun for anything ever.

as I said in an earlier post I never carry a gun when I am by myself....if my wife and daughter are with me I am not willing to take that chance and am usually carrying a legal concealed weapon.
Let me ask you this, do you think most of the people who went to see this congresswoman speak at a grocery in an affluent neighborhood thought they would need a gun?
I know it doesnt happen often and I understand that, but you never know.

for my cheesey movie quote of the day

"its always better to have a gun and not need it, than to need one and not have it"....Clarence in True Romance

[cerveza_fiesta]

foolio, on 19 January 2011 - 09:06 PM, said:

cerveza fiesta wrote

Quote

I know the what if situation...I mean what is the real likelihood that you are going to get in that situation on a given street on a given day. I don't believe for a second that there is a need in broad daylight, at a place you would actually bring your family, that you would need a gun for anything ever.

as I said in an earlier post I never carry a gun when I am by myself....if my wife and daughter are with me I am not willing to take that chance and am usually carrying a legal concealed weapon.
Let me ask you this, do you think most of the people who went to see this congresswoman speak at a grocery in an affluent neighborhood thought they would need a gun?
I know it doesnt happen often and I understand that, but you never know.

for my cheesey movie quote of the day

"its always better to have a gun and not need it, than to need one and not have it"....Clarence in True Romance

No, they would not have thought they needed a gun because nobody would intentionally plan for something with such a small chance of occurrence, like lightning strikes or falling objects on construction sites.

I just don't get how anybody there having a gun, save maybe a trained experienced security officer on duty, would have bettered that situation by carrying a gun. Even though the tuscon thing turned out badly, nobody *needed* a gun because nobody could have done anything if they had one.

Once he whips it out, that clip is going to be empty eons before anybody else has their gun out, at which point it's way easier, quicker and more effective to tackle him.

Even if somehow some way somebody gets out a gun and says "stop or I'll shoot you" before his clip is empty, you still haven't done anything but put yourself & family (which is likely standing next to you) in even more danger.

The question is time. Nobody has time to do anything with a gun, so it's useless for anybody to have one.

[stone monkey]

Arguably, the possession of a gun gives people a sense of agency; that they might be able to do something, fight back whatever. The truth would appear to be that this is all it does. And that such situations have usually spiraled way out of any single person's control before they even have time to think of what to do.

Getting back to the Giffords shooting, one of the bystanders was actually armed and, by his own admission, almost shot at one of the people who had disarmed the gunman because he was holding the gun. As mistakes go, that would have been a biggie.

[masan's saddle]

stone monkey, on 19 January 2011 - 08:06 PM, said:

The issue about guns is, whether you're on the pro- or anti- side of this discussion, that they are an escalation to instantly lethal force in a small, portable and depressingly easily resorted to package. And, as such, they serve as a destabilising element. If both sides of a dispute think they can can effectively end it in a very decisive manner through the use of potentially lethal force (whoever is in the right), then they're more likely to do so.

QED.


http://www.nbcphilad...-113894334.html

[rhulad]

Cougar, on 19 January 2011 - 03:36 PM, said:

I have to take some issue with Rhulad here. The sheer volume of gun crime in the US, a country which is ranked a lot lower in the statisitcs for 'all murders', points to the idea that it is the ease of committing a homocide (or at the least, maliciously wounding, threatening etc) when guns are so readily available that facilitiates many murders. Sure the most hard core killer would find a way, I'm sure that's true, in all honesty you'll probably not stop them, but it's the people who might go either way. Stabing someone or beating them to death takes time, strength and the ability to engage the person at close quarters. Killing a person face to face also takes real guts for the average person - you have to look into their eyes, struggle with them (See Bourke's an Intimate History of Killing for more on this) make physical contact with them. Plus you risk your own life if they fight back and in a public place will most likely be overpowered. Using a gun is much less risky and requires little forethough or guts to do. I honestly think that proliferation of guns means a lot of people committ murders who in other circumstances would not have been able to.

The availability of hand guns does have an impact on the amount of gun violence, I don't disagree with you there. What I was trying to say in my previous post is that even without them people are still going to commit violent crimes. Again I don't know what it's like in Europe, but locally you are much more likely to be stabbed, or beaten by a group of people with pipes than you are to be shot. When you say that stabbing someone takes time and strength, you're right, at least if they know you have a knife but the chances are that someone with intent isn't going to show you the knife and give you a chance to fight back. The people that do that don't intend to stab you to begin with.

I'm getting away from the topic so I will leave it at me not knowing what the answer to the issue is but regardless of the eventual outcome, people are always going to find a way to hurt and kill each other.

[Nicodimas]

Quote

I don't believe for a second that there is a need in broad daylight, at a place you would actually bring your family, that you would need a gun for anything ever

How about Camping in the middle of nowhere? I always Carry when camping, especially seeing the amount of random violence that occurs camping that you never hear about on the news. Think Drunk people.

My uncle was camping and he has son with him. Two random dudes entered there tent 3AM in the morning. Still WTF moment. He pulled his gun/light, they left! If they had moved foward at the moment it would have been different-they freaked and fled. Why were they know he will never know, but it could have been bad since he was out in the middle of nowhere. Not a camping site, but our family camp area we found that is in a primative area.

Quote

I barely trust most of them with the right to vote let alone with the right to own a firearm.

Funny Enough, The reason I carry is this, I just don't trust the everyday intelligence/temperment of people, so I also carry. Dealing with Reality that there is 300 million guns in America...well I don't see them ever going anywhere.

Plus Shooting Stuff Rocks! /headbang

[worry]

Guns aren't a reasonable response to "violence," they are a response to life-threatening behavior. If someone wants to beat you up, you defeat them, you escape, or you take the beating and contact proper law enforcement afterward. We're past frontier justice, and good riddance.

[Tapper]

Nicodimas, on 21 January 2011 - 12:12 AM, said:

Quote

I don't believe for a second that there is a need in broad daylight, at a place you would actually bring your family, that you would need a gun for anything ever

How about Camping in the middle of nowhere? I always Carry when camping, especially seeing the amount of random violence that occurs camping that you never hear about on the news. Think Drunk people.

My uncle was camping and he has son with him. Two random dudes entered there tent 3AM in the morning. Still WTF moment. He pulled his gun/light, they left! If they had moved foward at the moment it would have been different-they freaked and fled. Why were they know he will never know, but it could have been bad since he was out in the middle of nowhere. Not a camping site, but our family camp area we found that is in a primative area.

Quote

I barely trust most of them with the right to vote let alone with the right to own a firearm.

Funny Enough, The reason I carry is this, I just don't trust the everyday intelligence/temperment of people, so I also carry. Dealing with Reality that there is 300 million guns in America...well I don't see them ever going anywhere.

Plus Shooting Stuff Rocks! /headbang

You'd pull a gun on a drunk?
Seriously?
I mean, really serious?
And if they'd moved forward because they were blinded or whatnot your uncle would have shot them?

If I ever visit the States again, I'll PM you in advance for the global locations of you and your family. I will not visit any states they're in/ adjacent to the ones they're in, just to be 100% I won't get shot by accident.

There is a massive difference between feeling threatened, being threatened, being in danger of minor bodily harm and being in danger of losing your life.

Seriously.

[Shinrei]

I liked this a lot:

"This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress. Her life was saved by a Mexican-American gay college student and a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African American President." --Mark Shields

[cerveza_fiesta]

Nicodimas, on 21 January 2011 - 12:12 AM, said:

Quote

I don't believe for a second that there is a need in broad daylight, at a place you would actually bring your family, that you would need a gun for anything ever

How about Camping in the middle of nowhere? I always Carry when camping, especially seeing the amount of random violence that occurs camping that you never hear about on the news. Think Drunk people.

My uncle was camping and he has son with him. Two random dudes entered there tent 3AM in the morning. Still WTF moment. He pulled his gun/light, they left! If they had moved foward at the moment it would have been different-they freaked and fled. Why were they know he will never know, but it could have been bad since he was out in the middle of nowhere. Not a camping site, but our family camp area we found that is in a primative area.

Quote

I barely trust most of them with the right to vote let alone with the right to own a firearm.

Funny Enough, The reason I carry is this, I just don't trust the everyday intelligence/temperment of people, so I also carry. Dealing with Reality that there is 300 million guns in America...well I don't see them ever going anywhere.

Plus Shooting Stuff Rocks! /headbang

We aren't talking about carrying a gun when you go out in the woods somewhere, we're talking about carrying a gun in public.

I think it's a perfectly good idea to have a gun when you go camping in a remote area. Bears, wild dog species, mountain lions, all very difficult to deal with if you have no weapon for protection. Probably, the drunks entering a tent in the middle of the woods had ill intentions and he was right to protect himself and his son by whatever means was at his disposal.

In public places (ie in town or in the city) no, I do not agree that a firearm can help at all. For reasons stated in previous posts in a crazy-person-shooting situation, the firearm in your possession does nothing but allow you to escalate an already-dangerous situation and make you (and your family/friends standing next to you) a target if somebody is already shooting.

And why don't you trust the everyday intelligence and temperament of people? How often does a random crazy-shooting happen in your everyday life? I understand that it's a "planning for the worst" type of thinking, but if your plan has a really good chance of worsening a bad situation, then it's a bad plan.

Say you're at the mall and all of a sudden somebody starts blasting with an automatic assault rifle. The loud noise causes you to look over that way but his clip is empty before your brain even registers what's going on. He stops to reload, you head for cover, along with 500 other screaming, pushing people trying to get away. He unloads another clip into the crowd.

Now, among that chaos, are you really, I mean really going to:
a) remember you have a gun of your own?
b ) be able to use it under the stress of the situation?
c) be willing to get out from behind cover and make yourself a target?
d) have the ability to shoot him while a panicked crowd surges and pushes around you?
e) have the accuracy to shoot him and not innocent bystanders?
f) actually be able to take somebody's life when presented with that decision?

Give me a situation where it actually helps to have a gun on you in everyday life. Please...

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 21 January 2011 - 01:41 PM

[foolio]

nicodemas said

Quote

How about Camping in the middle of nowhere? I always Carry when camping, especially seeing the amount of random violence that occurs camping that you never hear about on the news.

absolutely. I wouldnt dare go camping without a weapon, and it is not animals I am scared of.


and just a major difference in opinion but 2 people are assuming the 2 guys wandering into the tent at 3:00 were harmless drunks, I was kind of assuming they were looking for an easy target.

This post has been edited by foolio: 21 January 2011 - 07:21 PM

[worry]

Well, he's imaginary, so we're all correct.

[Shinrei]

Once scenario we should perhaps consider is one of women being assaulted. Some women are strong, but many can be overpowered by a determined male assailant. For a woman returning home from work at night, traveling on her own etc. a gun is a great equalizer. Getting raped isn't the same as "oh, i can just give him my wallet and report it to the police asap".

[Sindriss]

My curiousity wants to know how many rapes actually get prevented each year by the woman having a gun. Probably, it is mostly a psyckological security although this is just an assumption on my part.