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Gun Control in the Socialist Republic of Kahlifornia

[-project.rattus-] said:
I guess that developed out of the hugeness of the USA. When you are hundreds of miles away from any form of "civilization", you better take "law" in your own hands if need be. Still, modern means of communication and transportation should've changed that... But then, it is quite hard to change mindests of people, especially when they have been established for well over 200 years.

Yeah, you are right.
 
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Lucius said:
Add to it, that people seem to insist on being their own judge, jury and executer.
Well, picture this:

There's someone wandering around downstairs with a knife. He sounds very angry, and seems intoxicated.

And he's a lot bigger than I am.

Do I...

a. Call the cops
b. Reason with him
c. Pull a gun out and force him out, shooting him if he actually tries to attack me
d. Run away

The correct answer since I'm IN MY FREAKING HOUSE is c, then a. If he runs away, great. If he stays put (basically, if I detain him), great. If he comes at me, well, he's a dead man. Sorry, but my life is worth a lot more to me than some junkie waving a knife around in my living room. If we were out in the streets, the correct answers would be D, then C if I can't get away. I'll note that it is in fact illegal to draw a gun OR open fire unless I am in immediate danger...I can talk more about the legal side of self defense with firearms if anyone's interested.

Escalation of force goes a LOT faster if said madman was threatening, say, my girlfriend or wife. Or even worse, my (or anyone else's) child. That's hardwired genetic instinct: protect the lil' chilluns.

Something to read—a Russian immigrant's take on gun control. If you're too lazy to read the whole thing, then just read this part. I'm sure we have a lot of less intellectual gun owners, but that about sums it up for me—weapons and the martial arts are the art of watching your grandchildren play in the yard.

(BTW, I'm Chinese with a Buddhist bent. I'm pretty big on the Zen stuff.)
 
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He is downstairs, you are upstairs. You hear him before you see him, so you don't know how much of a threat he is. You (A) call the cops. If for whatever reason you make contact with him (basically, he comes upstairs), reason with him untill the cops show up. Threatening him with a gun is as much a crime as him waving a knife around. Until he undeniably physically attacks you, self-defense doesn't apply because you would be attacking him.

This is the correct order of things. Him being in your house, intoxicated and the fact that you FEEL threatened are things to be considered at his FAIR trial.
 
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Fu. Svedberg said:
USA still has the highest rate of gun related injurys/deaths (not only crime related) in the western world.

Some form of gun controll would probably reduce this and is probably the strongest argument for it.

Or is there some other option?
Ehh. If we were trying to save lives, we would be regulating cars more (say, better speed limit enforcement, harsher drunk driving punishments, etc.). Guns are just easy to vilify.

Also, by only taking into account defensive usage of guns that actually result in the bad guys getting shot and/or killed, their defensive effectiveness is hugely understated—estimates run from 80% (probably a bit low) to as high as 98% (probably BS) for the number of times guns are used defensively without shots being fired. *shrug*

Sandra Froman, current Prez of the NRA: "Most gun legislation is a proxy for fixing social ills nobody wants to talk about".

Most gun accidents are caused by people being idiots, and I really don't feel very much sympathy for the "victims". If some teen offs himself because he thinks it's cool to spin a cocked revolver around his finger, it's natural selection at work. If some adult does the same, same thing. If some little child sees a gun and shoots himself, it's more the parent's fault for not storing the gun properly (what kind of idiot leaves a loaded gun around unattended?!) than the gun's fault for killing the child.

In the case of guns, education will save lives; not fearmongering. As for criminals, the more law-abiding citizens who carry, the better, IMO.
 
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Banning of cars would not work since as far as I know big parts of USA is very decentrelised meaning a ban on cars would bring a stop to the economy. Not to say that it wouldn't hurt with harder legislations around traffic and more resources put in to make people abide to those.


"Most gun legislation is a proxy for fixing social ills nobody wants to talk about"

I find this quote very interesting.
But with that reasoning, wouldn't it be better to take away all guns (meaning criminalising ownership) untill the major part of these "social ills" are sorted. When you have a more stable social structure you could always ease very strict gun laws and let people once again have access to whatever gun collections they want to have.

I do agree with you that extensive education would help.
But how would you enforce that people to take that education?
Education is good but if you don't give people (specially kids at school) a reason to listen to it they will only sleep trough it. The solution to this might be to have a licensing system simmilar to what you need to drive a car or fly a airplane.
But then we are down to that sensetive point again, a licencing system is a form of gun controll and as I understand it a form that alot of people in USA don't want to have.
 
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[-project.rattus-] said:
Musketeer was victim of a crime (and a dog-assault), which explains this fear, allthough he obviously had a gun beforehand. I would be interested in what the criminal wanted to achieve and how you fended him off. Was it enough to draw the gun, or did you have to shoot him?

It was 1992 and I was living in Florida at the time. I had just completed my degree a couple months earlier but due to a major downturn in the defense industry (where most in my field worked) I had no gotten a "real" job yet. To pay the rent in the meantime I was working as a pizza deliveryman. The job required that I go into some unfriendly areas and even the police I knew said I would be crazy not to be armed.

At the time there had been a rash of carjacking/kidnapping/assaults and murders. The routine was they would take you and your car to an ATM machine to get all the cash they could. Afterwards they would at the very least beat the living daylights out of you, in more than one instance the victim was just killed and the body dumped.

There had also been numerous assualts on pizza guys. We carried cash (don't beleive that maximum amount stuff, on a busy night there is no time to off load the cash between runs), had food and cars. That is just about everything the criminal wanted short of drugs. It got so bad the chain pizza places started blocking out sections of the town maps where they refused to deliver. Of course this was branded as racist since those areas of highest crime also tended to be predominantely black. I was with a small family shop and we went everywhere (but our piza was also much better than Dominos!).

I was making a delivery run into one of the low income housing projects, a high crime area. My car, a red firebird, was well known as the "pizza guy's car" and I was in and out of there several times a night. I also stood out like a sore thumb as the only white guy in the neighborhood. I pulled head first into a parking spot. As soon as I did I heard the screech of tires and saw a car come skidding to a stop, blocking me in my spot. The passenger jumped out and raced up to my passenger door. This is how several other people were taken, they were forced to drive the attacker to the ATM (criminals are not always smart and I wouldn't do it that way but I am not a criminal). As soon as I heard the tires and saw the car I grabebd the gun I was carrying (legally) and the 4 D Cell Maglight I also kept with me. The attacker reached my passenger door and gave a couple hard yanks on it to try to open it (pizza guys often leave the door onlocked so they could run around and get the pies quickly). My door was locked though and the windows were up as they always were when I enterred this neighborhood. After one or two pulls at the door he looked up and realized I had the gun pointed at him from 3 feet away. His hands were not visible, but if they came up into view with a gun I would have begun firing as fast as possible. As soon as I knew he saw what I had I blinded him with the flashlight. He turned and ran off. He must have yelled to the car, although I didn't hear a thing and can't recall hearing anything after the screach of tires when I was blocked in. The car took off out of the parking lot.

Afterwards I shook like a leaf for a couple minutes and came very close to throwing up, adrenaline. To this day even typing this story makes my pulse race and my breath grow short.

Things I did right.

1. Physically preparred. I had a gun.
2. Mentally preparred. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind I would have shot if he had presented a weapon capabale of harming me. I never saw his hands clearly and perhaps his weapon was just out of site. Bottom line was I had no doubts I would shoot if I had to and I think he understood that.
3. Kept my doors locked. It is easier to leave them unlocked and a little quicker but I made a point of only unlocking them the moment I would leave the car.
4. Used the right tool. I had a gun, a big flashlight, and a peppergas sprayer. I love my peppergas, and still keep one on me for situations that may warrant it, although I have not had one since the dog attack the same year as the near shooting. Peppergas is NOT the solution for when in a car and will certainly not work through a closed window. Even with open windows residual spray may easily blind you as well inside a vehicle and make escape impossible.

Things I could improve upon.

1. Get a Better Job! Pizza delivery does not pay enough for that type of encoutner...
2. Use of the flashlight. It worked and may have helped drive him away but it also seriously inhibited my vision due to its reflection off the window. The big flashlight was great for finding houses in the dark and a two foot metal pipe hanging on my belt hook certainly made the casual criminal think twice about accosting me but in this case I should not have lit it up.
3. Avenue of escape. I parked so that I could be easily blocked in with no way to drive off. That is not always an option, many times you cannot choose a wide open spot and I probably could not that night. The problem is I really did not look for one so who knows...

I do not want people to think I live in fear. Police see far more than I have in my life and would you say that every off duty officer lives in fear? They know what is out there and live their lives. So do I. People live in one of three conditions.

White - No threats and oblivious. Not paying significant attention to your surroundings or concern about your enviorment. No perception of danger, nor expectation of it. This is the condition most people live in.

Amber (yellow) - No Identified Threat. Paying active attention to those around you. Dress and demeanor of those in close proximity is taken into account. Active attempts to identify anything as out of the ordinary. Tactical attention paid to surroundings and structures. Sitting down in a restaurant so you can see the most area and doors, stopping yuor car on the street with enough room to move around the car infront of you. Insuring your doors are locked. Most importantly acknowledging that bad things can happen although they will probably not happen today. Accepting the situation can change and being at least partially prepared to deal with the most likely problems. This is what real street cops cannot help but live in.

Red - Threat Identified. Fight or Flee as appropriate. Going from White to Red will almost certainly result in confusion and hessitation. Making the proper decision is much more difficult and takes longer. Imagine sky diving without insuring your reserve chute is packed properly or practicing its deployement. If the main fails you need to use it in a hurry but are not preparred to activate it as quickly as you should and may not even have it packed properly. That is going from White to Red. Someone in Amber though has taken the time to practice deploying the spare, accepts that it may be needed and has most likely insured it is packed properly.

I live day to day in amber. This includes actually paying attention to where emergency exits are in theaters, airplanes and stores. Knowing some basic first aid. Watching those people around me for innapropriate dress and behaviour. Wearing my seatbelt, leaving space between cars, changing smoke detector batteries twice a year. Having an emergency window ladder for escape from our home in the event of a fire. Installing high powerred motion lights aroudn the outside of my home and insuring the windows and doors are locked. Keeping fire extinguishers on all three floors of the home. These are all normal parts of my life. Carrying a gun is just one more way of being preparred for a situation that is all too likely in the world. Perhaps I use it, perhaps I do not but having the ablility to make that decsion should be mine and nobody elses.
 
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I find this quote very interesting.
But with that reasoning, wouldn't it be better to take away all guns (meaning criminalising ownership) untill the major part of these "social ills" are sorted. When you have a more stable social structure you could always ease very strict gun laws and let people once again have access to whatever gun collections they want to have.
As a thought experiment, that seems like a "maybe". In real life...

a. When have you ever heard of governments just giving back power to subjects (you're not a citizen anymore if you can't force government to do things) when asked?
b. How are you going to make all the guns go away?
c. Those social ills are just that: "social". They don't have anything to do with guns. Japan is very low gun, and very low crime. The really high-gun areas of the US—as in places where lots of ordinary citizens have guns—are pretty low crime.

AUS and CAD both have registration and confiscation schemes in place. In Australia, they've admitted that the goal was never to bring down crime, and in Canada, multiple provinces are so fed up with the bull**** that they don't even enforce the registration laws anymore, much less prosecute people for not complying. It's just a black hole for law enforcement money best spent actually going after criminals.

VERY different social contexts. Well over a quarter of all households in the United States have guns. Guns are a part of our culture. Guns are a part of why the US exists as a country. It would go against several of the country's basic principles to attempt to confiscate everybody's guns and illegalize citizen armament...not to mention criminals have long been "resistant" to official confiscation attempts.

Gun ownership in Washington, D.C. is basically illegal. Too bad it also has the highest per capita murder rate in the entire country.
 
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Lucius said:
He is downstairs, you are upstairs. You hear him before you see him, so you don't know how much of a threat he is. You (A) call the cops. If for whatever reason you make contact with him (basically, he comes upstairs), reason with him untill the cops show up. Threatening him with a gun is as much a crime as him waving a knife around. Until he undeniably physically attacks you, self-defense doesn't apply because you would be attacking him.

This is the correct order of things. Him being in your house, intoxicated and the fact that you FEEL threatened are things to be considered at his FAIR trial.

That is not the law in the USA. What is more, many a person has died from trying to reason with a criminal They DO NOT think like normal people. They are ABBERANT PERSONALITIES. It is like reasoning with an angry bear intent on harming you. It is an animal, you placate it as best you can until you are in a position of advantage, then you eliminate it.

I do advise calling the cops first. That is my wife's job. I get to my gun first. She then gets her shotgun. If we KNOW someone is downstairs we may or may not go after them. Being upstairs and knowing some crack head may set my house on fire is a definite concern. Assuming we just hear a sound of some sort and do not know for certain someone is in the house, the normal situation, you investigate. You do not call the police for a sound that could easily be the wind knocking over a lawn chair or an animal rummaging aroudn the garbage cans or windows. If I encoutners someone in my home, who should not be there, I am 100% within my rights in to believe my life is in danger. That is called a home invasion and many people around here have been seriously injured, with some deaths, by criminals doing them. These are people who did not resist at all.

Your ideas of reasoning with a criminal and that there is never a justification for taking a human life astounds me. You are honestly goind to say that someone bent on murderring you and raping your wife and 4 year old daughter should be reasoned with? You would gamble with their lives like that? Every woman I know, even the most liberal ones, draw the line at the rape and murder of children. How many really bad people have you ever encounterred on their own terms?
 
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I find this quote very interesting.
But with that reasoning, wouldn't it be better to take away all guns (meaning criminalising ownership) untill the major part of these "social ills" are sorted. When you have a more stable social structure you could always ease very strict gun laws and let people once again have access to whatever gun collections they want to have.

Hah, you know how HAPPY that gang members and criminals would be if you did that? I think they'd send you complimentary drugs if that was the decision made. Criminals will always have guns, because they guns ILLEGALY, kinda like how they do anything else. The only person you're hurting is the law abiding citizen who doesn't have any felonys on their records. You're making everyone an easy target.

And also, when you cite the 2nd Amendment, you have to understand its deeper meaning. Its that when we Americans feel that our rights have been infringed upon and the government is tyrannical and oppressive, we have the right to consider a major violent civil revolt. And you know what? I can say that publically in an internet forum because I'm protected by free speech. But you know what? I'm not trusting the Government to protect me or enforce that. I'm trusting the Americans around me with the other 2499999 guns to protect each other's rights. After all, civil revolt was what brought America, and Rome into existence.
 
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Musketeer said:
That is not the law in the USA. What is more, many a person has died from trying to reason with a criminal They DO NOT think like normal people. They are ABBERANT PERSONALITIES. It is like reasoning with an angry bear intent on harming you. It is an animal, you placate it as best you can until you are in a position of advantage, then you eliminate it.

I do advise calling the cops first. That is my wife's job. I get to my gun first. She then gets her shotgun. If we KNOW someone is downstairs we may or may not go after them. Being upstairs and knowing some crack head may set my house on fire is a definite concern. Assuming we just hear a sound of some sort and do not know for certain someone is in the house, the normal situation, you investigate. You do not call the police for a sound that could easily be the wind knocking over a lawn chair or an animal rummaging aroudn the garbage cans or windows. If I encoutners someone in my home, who should not be there, I am 100% within my rights in to believe my life is in danger. That is called a home invasion and many people around here have been seriously injured, with some deaths, by criminals doing them. These are people who did not resist at all.

Your ideas of reasoning with a criminal and that there is never a justification for taking a human life astounds me. You are honestly goind to say that someone bent on murderring you and raping your wife and 4 year old daughter should be reasoned with? You would gamble with their lives like that? Every woman I know, even the most liberal ones, draw the line at the rape and murder of children. How many really bad people have you ever encounterred on their own terms?

Stiletto never said it was a criminal, just someone intoxicated and loud. There is no reason to believe any harmful intention. Who knows, maybe it is someone that lives nearby that just stumbled into the wrong house? With your 'shoot first and ask questions later' or 'assume the worst' mentality you are definitely not making things better for anyone.

Oh and a piece of advice. Move to a better place. There are many areas where such occurances are none/rare.
 
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Thats a kind of defeatist attitude. You're telling him that instead of confronting the social problems where he lives, he should just pack up and leave at his own financial burden? I don't recall our nation being built upon running away to the West or Mexico, but by defending yourself in situations of duress, which I believe was what the American Revolution was about.
 
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Stiletto never said it was a criminal, just someone intoxicated and loud. There is no reason to believe any harmful intention. Who knows, maybe it is someone that lives nearby that just stumbled into the wrong house? With your 'shoot first and ask questions later' or 'assume the worst' mentality you are definitely not making things better for anyone.
Don't assume the worst—but be ready for it. Investigate first. If it's just a drunk neighbor, there's no need to call the cops, you just need to direct him back to his house or to a comfy sofa (if you're buddies like that). If it's a threat, neutralize it (and no, that's not just a euphemism for doubletaps to the head). THEN call the cops.

That said, chances are it is a home invader; the rate of drunks just bumbling into your house is pretty freaking low. YMMV depending on where you live, though.

Oh and a piece of advice. Move to a better place. There are many areas where such occurances are none/rare.
Or stay where you are and make things better. Moving out is sometimes the only option, but frankly, the "go somewhere else" attitude pisses me off—I can't currently go downtown at night (I like photography) where I live, because I'd be at risk of getting mugged or somesuch nonsense. With a gun, I'd have vastly more effective means of defending my lanky-ass, 6'3" 145lb self.

The paradox of guns for self-defense on the streets is that the overall rate of injury goes down, not up—because the perp will usually run the **** away, thus ending the incident without harm to anyone.
 
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[CiA]Stiletto said:
a. When have you ever heard of governments just giving back power to subjects (you're not a citizen anymore if you can't force government to do things) when asked?

b. How are you going to make all the guns go away?

c. Those social ills are just that: "social". They don't have anything to do with guns. Japan is very low gun, and very low crime. The really high-gun areas of the US
 
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Lucius said:
Oh and a piece of advice. Move to a better place. There are many areas where such occurances are none/rare.

That is a good one! Home Invasions happen in every neighborhood. In low income high crime areas it is often seraching for drugs. In higer income neighborhoods it is searching for jewelry. Often it is also part of a "game" to the criminals adn they are looking for more than just cash. Many times the goal is rape, violent attack and murder. Those after real valuables target the more expensive neighborhoods. They also will case a house to see if women are present for rapes.

Long Island, a diverse area of NY with multi million dollar homes all the way to slums, has seen home invasions in almsot every areas. There have even been instances of criminals impersonating police officers to gain entry and then assulating the family within.

At the same time I would love to get a bigger house in a more expensive area. Why don't you send me the money? Understand though that I will be taking my guns with me.

I printed up signs for some "friends" who were very anti gun. They read:

ANTI-GUN and UNARMED

Strangely those people who were so proud of never touching or owning a gun did not want to advertise that fact on their homes or vehicles.
 
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WhichDoorIsYours.jpg


Kinda like that?
 
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The Soup Nazi said:
Thats a kind of defeatist attitude. You're telling him that instead of confronting the social problems where he lives, he should just pack up and leave at his own financial burden? I don't recall our nation being built upon running away to the West or Mexico, but by defending yourself in situations of duress, which I believe was what the American Revolution was about.

Hah, yes. Guns will solve the social problems where he lives.... ? They way i see it is that he and his family are in constant danger and he should protect himself and his family by moving away.

Funny, I was just thinking of something similar to the 'everybody has guns so nobody tries anything'-argument. This argument is exactly why countries like Iran want nuclear weapons, because it will scare off agressors like the US or Israel from attacking them.
 
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Fu. Svedberg said:
As it is from my point of veiw if you are going to regulate guns in USA you need to do it nation wide not only at state level otherwise you will see absolutley no difference.
Also, as I said earlier, since there allready are so many guns in circulation you can't pass a "over night" legislation and expect to see imediate results.
See, we have a paradigm problem here. You sound like you're asserting that guns in general are bad. I'm asserting that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are good. Our founding fathers certainly thought so. It's one of the things which makes America...well...America.

Looking at it from the criminal perspective, people are criminals because they can't make it otherwise—increase their risk factor, and that job at McDonald's starts to look a lot more attractive.

As for border controls, my ass. Our politicians aren't even willing to seal them up to stem the tide of illegal immigration. How the hell do you expect them to block off black market guns if they can't even block off black market people?

Hah, yes. Guns will solve the social problems where he lives.... ? They way i see it is that he and his family are in constant danger and he should protect himself and his family by moving away.

Funny, I was just thinking of something similar to the 'everybody has guns so nobody tries anything'-argument. This argument is exactly why countries like Iran want nuclear weapons, because it will scare off agressors like the US or Israel from attacking them.
Sometimes, your only option is to move out. The problem is that the risk is always going to be nonzero. The UK's gotten better about allowing homeowners to defend themselves, but there's a reason that the hot burglary rate there is actually higher than the cold burglary rate.

There's a fundamental difference between MAD among states and MAD among individuals: for states, it's often a pissing match (war is politics with bloodshed, politics is war without, etc.), whereas for individuals it's about someone taking advantage of someone else.

Also, about "guns solving social problems where he lives": in cases of natural disaster and loss of order, it's always groups of people who "circle the wagons" and band together in armed defense of themselves and each other who don't get looted. Funny, that.

homefront_L9L5813.jpg
 
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Sure, but the one on the right has a greater risk of the person waking up as you force the door open, and returning fire. You would go through the door on the left, wouldn't you?

Anyway, your typical burglar is after just that: money and shiny things. Not blood. Everybody comes off better if nobody has to get shot—it's just that the attitude of gun owners (most of us, anyway) is that it's better that the criminal get shot than the victim. There's really no way to defend against a preemptive strike like you described, but then again, cold-blooded murders of that sort are exceedingly rare.

***

BTW, what you described is precisely why there's a lot of debate on the subject of advertising your gun ownership. The most popular targets for theft are guns, jewelry, and expensive gadgets.
 
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