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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
Then you reject all the statistics listed?
DEAR AMERICA: Here's Why Everyone Thinks You Have A Problem With Guns
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
"which makes the statement that I am prepared to kill."
And that is the false statement.
Guns used in self-defense are not there to allow you to kill someone.
The gun is there to be used to STOP a perpetrator.
STOP someone … not kill them.
Often just showing the gun is enough to scare them off.
Sometimes, an aimed shot that misses, may be enough to stop them and/or scare them off.
In some cases, you may want the perpetrator to get down on the ground and stay down until the police arrive.
But, still, you do NOT KILL.
Killing is NOT the intent nor are you permitted to kill anyone.
Depending on the nature of the attack on you, you may have to shoot at the person, but if they are coming at you, you can attempt to wound or you can even shoot for center mass, but if you intend to kill, you likely will go to prison.
When someone says what you just wrote: “which makes the statement that I am prepared to kill.” … then that statement gives me the suspicion that they have not thought through the responsibilities that come with providing self-defense by using a gun [or any weapon, for that matter]
I would suggest that you contact a local gun shop to inquire about taking courses for a concealed carry permit … and they will explain to you all the legal responsibilities of having a gun.
Clearly, you do not have an understanding of the issues at this time.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
Here is the exact quote, I was ‘summarizing.’
For me, regulating and controlling guns is part of building a Culture of Life, of doing what we can to protect and defend human life. The easy access to guns, including assault weapons, that exists in our nation has contributed towards a Culture of Death, where human life and dignity are cheapened by the threat of violence. No law, no piece of legislation, will ever be able to protect us from every act of aggression, or from the harm that can come from an individual bent on killing. But, we must do what we can to minimize the opportunities for such acts, by limiting the easy access to guns – and, I would add, by increasing funding for programs to treat those who suffer from mental illness, especially those that might lead someone to commit mass murder.
–Cardinal Dolan
I apologize for summarizing. I should have realized that anything relayed would be parsed, spun, and otherwise used to mean something else, from my experience in this discussion.
CLEARLY, I agree with the bishop’s guidance.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
No, I only distrust them.
One poster pointed out one incorrect assertion. Just glancing at the numbers cited, I see myself that the OP went back to 2006 for one statistic for Japan, whereas the most recent is higher. Not a huge difference in numbers, only as a percent. But when people do that, it just makes a person more questioning.
And, of course, the OP does not take into account the difference in ages in the various countries and regions. That is a very significant thing. Mexico, for example, which is not third world at all and has very tough gun laws, has a higher gun homicide rate than the U.S. But then, the average age in Mexico is greatly lower than it is in the U.S. Homicides decline with population age.
The OP wants to establish a cause/effect relationship between gun ownership and homicides in the U.S. without ever actually establishing a cause/effect relationship.
And then, when there has been tweaking of the numbers as well, the information is just not worthy of acceptance for the purposes presented.
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St_Francis
Guest
No… this is not logical. Truth does not necessaily lie in the middle of competing opinions. Take something simple like which side of the road to drive on. I say we should drive on the left, you say we should drive on the right. What? We should all drive in the middle?
*Truth actually exists. *It exists independently of what we think. It is either true that grass is green or it is not true; the presence of colorblind people who say grass is red does not change the color of the grass.
In this discussion, we are considering how best to reduce levels of firearms deaths. The author of the article proposes… well, he postulates that high rates of firearms ownership lead to high rates of firearms deaths of all kinds (including suicide, accidents, and deaths occurring as the result of self-defense).
Is this true? There are millions of firearms owners who have no incidents of firearms violence in their history, much less deaths. There are millions of incidents in which firearm owners have successfully protected themselves with firearms. There are tens of thousands of instances of deaths from firearms.
This we can see that firearms ownership does not lead to firearms deaths.
What then can we say about reducing firearms deaths? Well, the first thing to do is to figure the cause(s) of firearms deaths. For example, in DC, when it was the murder capitol of the world, most instances were linked to drug dealers protecting or attempting to expand their “turf.” Since DC had very strict gun control laws, the guns used were not legally owned. Thus we can see that 1. none of the requirements for background checks imposed protected anyone from those who do not follow the law in the first place, and 2. that the problem of deaths corelated more highly to drug-dealing than to gun-owning.
So maybe that should be investigated.
And so on and so forth.
What is the implication? I already showed that the “implications” drawn by the author were wrong.The only reason all of these statistics are so quickly dismissed, is simply because some don’t like the implication. That in itself is ‘suspect.’
I did not in any way question the statistics, did I? I merely showed that the conclusions he drew did not match the statistics he presented, and that he had *left off *information which did not fit his conclusion.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
But you have not established a relationship between homicides and any particular kind of gun. And yet, you want law-abiding citizens’ access to guns of a particular appearance banned. Well, perhaps more than that, it seems you want people limited to bolt-action rifles. But you have not established why honest citizens should not be allowed to own semi-automatic weapons of any particular kind. That’s the real question.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
I don’t see the point of arguing anymore. We are all only going to accept that research that aligns with personal views. I don’t need a page full of statistics to realize that with over 200 million guns in this country, and the amount of gun related violence, we have a problem. That is a real conclusion anyone can see.
I’ve seen statistics denied, I’ve even seen our bishops become ‘suspect’ for speaking out on the issue. We have a higher calling, to Him, and the least of His. I haven’t seen anything that is going to change my view according to my faith formed conscience. I believe that we are called to make sacrifices on behalf of our fellow man.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
The theater, the mall, the school, and the attacks on the first responders; all with a Bushmaster AR15 style gun. That’s enough for me.
Ms. Lanza was a ‘law abiding’ citizen.
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_Abyssinia
Guest
What gun control law would of stopped Adam Lanza, James Holmes, or Seung-Hui Cho?
Brady foundation ranks Connecticut as the 5th strictest state for gun control
6 died in the Sikh temple Wisconsin shooting; 12 died in Columbine High School shooting; 32 died in the Virginia Tech shooting; 5 died in the Lancaster County Pennsalvaniya Amish school shooting; 12 died in the Aurora Colorado shooting; 27 died in the the Newton Connecticut shooting. All areas where concealed permit weapon handguns are banned, all were gun free zones
1997 - 2 people died, Pearl High School, Mississippi. Student shot several people in high school and was heading towards the junior high school and Joel Myrickm the assistant princicipal took a .45 pistol from his car and put it to to the gunman’s head and the shooting spree ended
1998: 1 person died, Edinboro, Pennsylvania. A student sh0t a number of people at a junior high school dance at a resturant and theowner of the resutrant took out his shotgun and stopped the gunman
2001: 2 people died, Santee, California. A student began shooting classmates. Off study policeman and a ‘trained campus supervisor’ pointed his gun at the shooter and held him until the police arrived
2002: 3 people died, Appalachian School of Law. A man shot a professor and a dean and began shooting students. 2 armed students pointed their guns at th gunman as the gunman got more ammunition and a third person tackled the gunman
2008: 2 people died, Winnemucca, Nevada. Ernesto Villagomez shot 2 people in a crowed resturant but a person carrying a concealed carry permit holder shot him dead
2013: 2 people died, Mayan Palace Theater, San Antonio, Texas. Jesus Manuel Garcia starts shooting in a movie theatre but an off duty armed policeman shot Garcia stopping him from further shooting
2013: 2 people died, Clackamas Town Center, Portland Oregon. A man went into the mall and started shooting. Nick Mali, who who had a concealed gun carry permit, but the mall was gun free zone and he did not notice, pointed his gun at the shooter and the shooter went around a corner and shot himself
Don’t you think more people would have been killed in these incidents if there was not a person with a gun to stop the perpetrator in each of these shootings? Far fewer people were killed in the shootings that took place when the shooter was stopped by a gun holder than the shootings that took place in gun free zones
July 2012 there were seven theaters in Colorado showing The Dark Knight Rises. Only one of those theaters had a ban on concealed permit handguns and guess which of those seven James Holmes targeted? Theater with the ban on concealed permit weapons which was not the theater that was closest to where he lives or the theater with the most seats
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
This sentence is from the Wiki article on the mass killings by Adam Lanza:
The source stated that the investigation had found that Lanza had created a 7-by-4 foot sized spreadsheet listing around 500 mass murderers and the weapons they used, which was considered to have taken years of work and to have been used by Lanza as a “score sheet”.[95]
How do you stop someone who has spent that much research on how to commit a mass murder?
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Fairwinds
Guest
what I’ve seen you do is demonize gun owners, claiming falsely that they believe deadly force is the only solution to defense; that’s a seriously grave falsehood and personally insulting to many of us here.
no one here is calling any prelate “suspect” for speaking out, that’s another misrepresentation that is offensive. some of us are challenging his expertise on a complex legal issue, indeed, whether he even is well advised in forming his opinion.
fortunately, your position is contrary to the law of the land. I call upon you to render unto Caesar and obey.
F/
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
Irony seeing you claim ‘falsehood.’ You cannot twist what another person states and make it a ‘falsehood.’
My position is not contrary, nor is it a sin. I have plainly stated we are all act on our faith based consciences. We can do no more.
St. Ignore
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Fairwinds
Guest
cool… but I’m not addressing you so much as I’m making it clear to readers that you cannot assert that gun owners resort to violence as a first choice in making your case for banning guns.
that is personally offensive and flat out wrong. and you will be called on it on the several gun control threads you’ve started.
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
What it all means is that the language needs to be used precisely and carefully.
No twisting of words.
No twisting of words in the reading of other peoples’ words and no twisting of words when quoting other people.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
I’m fine with anyone reading through and seeing what has taken place, repeatedly.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Most gun homicides are committed with handguns. The great majority.
But Mr. Lanza was not a law abiding citizen. He killed a law abiding citizen (Mrs. Lanza) in order to enable himself to do what he did.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
He was law abiding up until he killed his mother. No matter how you parse it, whether it’s handguns, or a underage individual living with a law abiding parent, the system did not work.
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Fairwinds
Guest
you know that hammers are used more often to murder people than rifles.
fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11
where is the demand to ban assault hammers?
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Ridgerunner
Guest
No it didn’t, despite strong gun laws there.
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TheRealJuliane
Guest
He should have been in an institution, but it’s not easy to commit anyone these days especially against their will.
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