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robertericleech
Guest
I think the chances of an armed citizenry overthrowing an oppressive government are pretty slim, unless the yokels at my local gun range somehow manage to get their hands on nuclear weapons.
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adrift
Guest
You state that what he writes isn’t true yet you provide no proof.
You aren’t trying to say that there are no murders in your country? Of course not, that would be delusional.
Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year or 6,849 every day. 5 Often the gun is never fired and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
Property crime rates are dropping (especially burglaries).
Every day 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.
: 60% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. 40% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed.
Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot.
Washington DC has essentially banned gun ownership since 1976 11 and has a murder rate of 56.9 per 100,000. Across the river in Arlington, Virginia, gun ownership is less restricted. There, the murder rate is just 1.6 per 100,000, less than three percent of the Washington, DC rate.
Fact: 26% of all retail businesses report keeping a gun on the premises for crime control.
In 1982, Kennesaw, GA passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate dropped 89% the following year.
A survey of felons revealed the following:
•74% of felons agreed that, “one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime.”
•57% of felons polled agreed, “criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.”
Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year or 6,849 every day. 5 Often the gun is never fired and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
Property crime rates are dropping (especially burglaries).
Every day 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.
Notes:
1.Richard Lumb, Paul Friday, City of Charlotte Gunshot Study, Department of Criminal Justice, 1994
2.Homicides and Non-Fatal Shootings: A Report on the First 6 Months Of 2009, Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission, July 13, 2009
3.Firearm-related Injury Incidents in 1999 – Annual Report, San Francisco Department of Public Health and San Francisco Injury Center, February 2002
4.Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008, Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2011
5.Targeting Guns, Dr. Gary Kleck, Criminologist, Florida State University, Aldine, 1997
6.National Crime Victimization Survey, 2000, Bureau of Justice Statistics, BATF estimates on handgun supply
7.Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, James Wright and Peter Rossi, Aldine, 1986
8.Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, James Wright and Peter Rossi, Aldine, 1986
9.A “hot burglary” is when the burglar enters a home while the residents are there
10.Dr. Gary Kleck, Criminologist, Florida State University (1997) and Kopel (1992 and 1999)
11.The Supreme Court invalidated the D.C. handgun ban in the Heller case (2008), but the city has made obtaining a handgun very difficult via local legislation
12.Crime in the United States, FBI, 1998
13.Crime Against Small Business, U.S. Small Business Administration, Senate Document No. 91-14, 1969
14.Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force, Dr. Gary Kleck, Social Problems, February 1988
15.The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons, U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics Federal Firearms Offenders study, 1997: National Institute of Justice, Research Report, July 1985, Department of Justice
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Tomdstone
Guest
400,000 life-threatening crimes every day? Is that in the USA? If so, then does that make the USA the most violent and crime ridden country in history?
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Catholic_Nation
Guest
In that case it is a matter of getting these gangs off the streets by community programs,education and jobs. By getting rid of youth unemployment and giving young people a job then this will keep them off the streets and reduce the number of gangs and therefore making society safer.
And I do see your point in keeping Arms in case of a repressive government rising to power but we must remember oppressive governments can be taken down other ways. Just look at South Africa and the velvet revolutions of Eastern European Countries in the 90s.
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captainrick
Guest
Yes, you’re probably right. But at least the “yokels” will go down fighting. The Nazis in 1939 would have been thrilled with compliant sheep, happy to comply rather than stand up and resist. I guess the brave Jews in the Warsaw ghetto uprising were just yokels to you.
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adrift
Guest
Did you miss the prevented part?
In school, my teacher a sister, made the statement that what prevented our country from being overtaken was the educating of the populace and that citizens were armed.
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Tomdstone
Guest
So there are 400,000 attempted life threatening crimes in the USA every day? Seems like a pretty violent, crime infested culture to me?
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robertericleech
Guest
The only weapons I want my parish priest carrying are his breviary, a rosary, and maybe some holy water.
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Eddie_Mac
Guest
I think you need to get out on the interwebz and read more. You would be surprised at what the armed citizenry can do. There is much more to freedom loving citizens than the yokels you refer to. Actually calling them yokels is derogatory and has no place in a civil discussion. The patriots that fought and won our country’s freedom were probably what you would refer to as a yokel. They were the 3% of the populace.
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LongingSoul
Guest
The murder statistics are probably the clearest and most accurate figures that distinguish country from country. I am 4 and a half times more likely to be murdered in the US (4.7 per 100,000 pop.) than Australia (1.1), Canada (1.6) New Zealand (0.9), the UK (1.0), France (1.0), Germany (0.8) etc.
Other statistics are routinely created and misused in this debate with what is typical bureaucratic logic ie. we need more guns to prevent more crimes. This doesn’t factor in the prevalence of crime directly caused by the presence of guns in the general community and the culture of fear and violence they inspire. 400,000 crimes prevented per day is a fearful statistic to be sure when it is not balanced by all the cultural factors that show guns to be a self perpetuation ‘cause and solution’ cycle… really only benefiting a highly power and profit driven industry of fat cats.
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Eddie_Mac
Guest
I have questions for all of you who shudder at the thought of arming yourself in a church.
Put yourself in the shoes of those murdered in Charleston.
What would you have done?
What do you think would have gone through your mind as the killer went from victim to victim shooting them?
What do you think you could have done? What would you have used to defend yourself?
Would you have tried to defend yourself or would you have simply waited your turn to die?
What if one of your family was there too? Would you have simply passively waited as they were killed?
If you answer these questions, why do so many people have a victim mentality? What makes people just give up and die?
Put yourself in the shoes of those murdered in Charleston.
What would you have done?
What do you think would have gone through your mind as the killer went from victim to victim shooting them?
What do you think you could have done? What would you have used to defend yourself?
Would you have tried to defend yourself or would you have simply waited your turn to die?
What if one of your family was there too? Would you have simply passively waited as they were killed?
If you answer these questions, why do so many people have a victim mentality? What makes people just give up and die?
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on_the_hill
Guest
I waffle on the gun control issue, admittedly. I’m not too big of a man to admit it.
But it does irk me when the gun righties conjure themselves as heroes-in-waiting or as guardians of my rights.
As for the 400,000 prevented crimes–how so? How can you prove a crime didn’t occur?
“I’ve got a can of tiger repellent on my desk.”
“Tiger repellent? That’s impossible!”
“Do you see any tigers around here?”
To our brethren from abroad–the U.S. is not a crime ridden culture of violence despite what you read, and the presence of a so-called armed citizenry is neither the secret to our well-being nor to the perpetuation of our democratic republic.
But it does irk me when the gun righties conjure themselves as heroes-in-waiting or as guardians of my rights.
As for the 400,000 prevented crimes–how so? How can you prove a crime didn’t occur?
“I’ve got a can of tiger repellent on my desk.”
“Tiger repellent? That’s impossible!”
“Do you see any tigers around here?”
To our brethren from abroad–the U.S. is not a crime ridden culture of violence despite what you read, and the presence of a so-called armed citizenry is neither the secret to our well-being nor to the perpetuation of our democratic republic.
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robertericleech
Guest
In fact the framers of the Constitution were well educated, civilized men, who believed in the rule of law. That’s why the seldom-quoted first half of the Second Amendment says, ‘A well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ For some reason, many NRA supporters leave the first half of that sentence out. We didn’t have a huge standing military with a million and a half active duty members in 1791.
I like shooting, and I don’t think all guns should be banned…but, in my opinion, this idea that the average person needs to keep a military arsenal in their home for dubious protection from some sinister future government is a pseudo-apocalyptic paranoid fantasy designed to create a market for the multi-billion dollar firearms industry. They have to sell all those guns to somebody.
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josh987654321
Guest
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josh987654321
Guest
I completely agree. Well said I believe.
God Bless You
Thank you for reading
Josh
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DaveBj
Guest
When an armed citizen is confronted by a criminal, the criminal is an enemy of society, and the armed citizen is, in fact, a militia of one. How would allowing the criminals to win by disarming the citizens ensure the “security of a free state?”
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LongingSoul
Guest
That’s an oxymoron. * Mile* is the Latin for a soldier. Miltiae or militia denotes a collective of soldiers.
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josh987654321
Guest
No way, I am very happy with Australia’s gun laws. They might have been a bit too strict, but it’s way better than what they were and I would never want to go back or end up with Amercia’s gun laws. Shooting massacres are a non occurance here in Australia ever since our gun laws were changed.
God Bless You
Thank you for reading
Josh
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DaveBj
Guest
Well, if the army can advertise based on the slogan of “an army of one,” I can talk about being a militia of one
Whatever the verbiage, my point stands.
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Hoosier_Daddy
Guest
I’m a little late to the thread.
I carry in Mass. And at least one priest friend of mine does as well.
I would say, counting cops, the number of people who carry at our parish is about 10-15 percent. Enough to stop an aggressor.
I carry in Mass. And at least one priest friend of mine does as well.
I would say, counting cops, the number of people who carry at our parish is about 10-15 percent. Enough to stop an aggressor.
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