Americans

[ophic]

Originally Posted by Spank86

Pulling a knife back on someone wouldnt help you, it woul make things worse since you're then much more likely to be stabbed. A good pair of running shoes would probably be a better buy.

It would definitely help if they pull a knife on you, unless you're some sort of martial arts superhero. Running shoes also good. However random knife crime of this sort is still relatively unlikely. Might be a mugging, in which case you're best off just handing over whatever they want. This is a different scenario.

If you feel you were likely to be attacked with a knife, you'd take some measures to protect yourself. Either avoid the area or carry one yourself. Some people don't have the freedom of avoiding the area. This is basically the gang problem.

I've never felt the need to carry a knife for defense either. However I have felt the need to "accidentally" leave a large wrench within reach of my front door when I was a teenager. Didn't have to use it, fortunately.

Originally Posted by Spank86

But most of these mass shootings are with guns that started off as legal.

I think many are with fully legally held guns. You can buy them at the supermarket, effectively. Many of the mass shootings end up with the shooter topping himself anyway, and they never had any intention of getting away with it so using an untraceable weapon would be pointless.

As it is now, every person in the US has the freedom to choose whether to carry or not. They can choose not to. That's their choice and I respect that. However making guns illegal would remove that choice and put some severe responsibility on the government to ensure that no-one else carries one either, to maintain the level playing field. It's the effectiveness of the government's role here that I would be concerned about. I don't see how they can possibly achieve it, and I wouldn't want to sacrifice anyone's safety any further while they try.

[Heorot]

Case in point today. A police officer was shot today in London with an illegal automatic pistol. Banning guns doesn't solve the problem as it only affects law abiding citizens.

I've not read the whole thread but want to clarify a few things.
Only some states in America allow concealed firearm carry, you also have to attend a compulsory one day training course to do so and if you have anything but a squeaky clean record, you won't get granted one.
There are reportedly over 20 million illegal guns in circulation so banning legal guns will have minimal effect.
The culture needs to change, especially around the storage of guns at home, many people in places like Texas have land and plink on their land causing no bother to anyone, should they be punished for the actions of a very small minority?
Legislation only targets the law abiding, remember that.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by Specialone

The culture needs to change...

The only bit I could find to disagree with.

Actually I don't disagree, but wanted to point out that this is a highly subjective point. Many people in the US are quite happy with the culture regarding guns just as it is.

That's true to an extent but the ones I've spoken to, realise that a change is better than a ban.
Obama won't be happy until he's moved the debate forward with some kind of positive change, personally I think if they could insist on how guns are stored, at home and in transit, restricting access to minors and only be accessible to the owner then I think it would pacify the nay sayers for a while.

Originally Posted by ophic

As I pointed out, the same data could be used to argue that mass shootings don't occur where there are enough armed people around. It never becomes a mass shooting. How can you possibly measure the number of mass shootings that have been prevented? All the data you've got shows that one mass shooting was stopped by a member of the public - ie it was already a mass shooting in progress that was prevented from going further.

You'd need to look at how many occurrences of any gun crime were stopped by an armed member of the public.

The one where it was stopped the death toll was 2 I believe. It is a fine example of a good citizen using his legal right to carry a firearm to protect himself and others. Other mass shooting have been stopped by police before large death tolls were reached. The number of dead does not define whether an event was a mass shooting.

For example a person goes to a family home and kills 9 members of their estranged family before turning their gun on themselves is not defined as a mass shooting, though the death toll is high.

Or a man walks into a market he has no prior connection with but gets handful shots off and injures two people before he is shot by a policeman is a mass shooting despite the only death being the perpetrator, as his intended target were random and had no prior individual connection.

There are statistics on the number of armed felonies and those prevented by armed citizens. There are significantly more successful armed felonies than those prevented. Even the number of accidents which cause death from legally owned firearms compared to the number of prevented felonies (which would not necessarily have resulted in death of the victim, potentially just their being robbed) show that legal defensive gun ownership is not an effective deterrent.

Also as SP1 pointed out gun laws are not necessarily about outright banning at the stage, more effective storage and carrying restrictions would help which is i believe all they are talking about.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by ClunkintheUK

...show that legal defensive gun ownership is not an effective deterrent.

Don't see how anyone can possibly claim that. No-one has any idea how bad it would be if things were different.

You can only measure deterrents by their impact after the deterrent was introduced. You can't count how many people don't do something that they would otherwise have done.