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Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
True, but I believe it misses two points, and that they are:
1. The aforementioned differences in basic philosophies (at least as I perceive them); being that we here in America hold that the concept of individual liberty is the basic reason for our country's very existence.
2. The also aforementioned fact that America already has a huge privately-owned firearms base, and trying to ban all guns tomorrow would possibly lead to a new revolution. What works for Europe wouldn't necessarily work here, basically because of the mindset I mentioned in (1).
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Thanks Steve, for accepting that I
might have a point, and actually answering my questions.
From what you post, it looks like its not the guns themselves that are the issue, rather the right to have them, the individual liberty of bearing arms being infringed upon by the government. I don't buy it (ie, I believe you, but i don't
like believing you :p). Which are the advocates of gun ownership attached to more, the guns or their right to have them?
If guns can be shown to have a net negative effect on society, should the concept of individual liberty prevail over the well-being of the society as a whole? I believe that the liberty of gun ownership in the US unfairly violates the "individual liberties" of many of it's citizens, such as the right to life.
I still don't know why that is, I'm getting pretty sick of asking the question and being quizzed on statistics instead (including SUBMAN1 questioning my figures, then 3 lines below posting wildly inaccurate figures). The numbers I've shown are correct, can anyone help me interpret them?
ASWnut - Those graphs show a general decline in violent & property crimes since the early 70's. (See, I noticed. A bit condescending, but hey I'll give it a try)
Notice the slowdown of the decrease from 2000 on, on
both graphs. Would I be correct in saying that the Bush Administrations have been looser with gun control than the Clinton years? I'm open to correction here, but I think that's the case. So crime gets worse as gun control lessens. Of course, that's a huge leap to make from such general, non-specific data, but if you're happy doing that, I'm in. Any response to my previous post
As regards the article, it details
one year out of what we've seen is a 30-year decline in crime. As I've already posted, both the murder and gun murder rates are
significantly higher in the US than in another comparable country with vastly reduced gun ownership. Why do you think this is?