George Zimmerman is back in the news

[ballen0351]

and we are moving from a guy pulling an accident victim from a car (or several) to how many people are killed by illegal guns....

I swear, you guys could not stay on topic if your life depended on it!

:lfao:

Say the lady that changes the topic to staying on topic

 

[Steve]

I never said it doesn't happen. I said I've never been to one. Right after that I said it happens but its not common.

Common is subjective. You said 3 to 1 which would be 25%. I would say 25% is common, particularly since you said it and you are likely to estimate conservatively.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[granfire]

Say the lady that changes the topic to staying on topic

Nah, I just mentioned the other parts of the news, people threatening him and completely unrelated individuals....

That's news regarding him

 

[crushing]

Some of my liberal friends are now doubting the truck rescue story--suggesting it's made-up or a planned incident. Sheesh! Too suspicious.

Oooh, more conspiracy theories. Do they happen to be some of the same people that think Zimmerman fractured his own nose and bashed his own head in to the ground after shooting Martin?

 

[ballen0351]

Oooh, more conspiracy theories. Do they happen to be some of the same people that think Zimmerman fractured his own nose and bashed his own head in to the ground after shooting Martin?

Oh like that jim carrey movie. sir what are you doing? Carrey says. "I'm kicking my own a$%"

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Guns are very efficient. While there will always be violent crime, I don't see how anyone could fail to acknowledge that a guy with a firearm will be able to kill/injure more people in less time than without a firearm.

It isn't that I fail to acknowledge that; rate of violent crime is a separate matter from efficacy of the weapon. How ridding the world of guns would affect the death toll from violent crime would be another matter.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I wasn't comparing the two events. Its sarcasm.

I caught the sarcasm.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

This has been proven false--and the effect on suicides is esp. dramatic.

If it has, please show me. This isn't some deeply held conviction; I'm open to new information. Also, I don't include suicide with violent crime.

Without guns, certain types of violent crime would be dramatically impacted. The Sandy Hook shooting, drive by shootings, etc. I'll defer to a police officer or someone with specific statistics on this, but I suspect that as dramatic as such crimes are, they probably account for less than one percent of the murder rate.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Come on, ballen. I am not any kind of strong gun control advocate, but this is just BS and you know it. Seriously.

A guy with a gun, plenty of ammo and a place packed with unsuspecting, innocent people is a recipe for disaster. A determined person armed with a knife, sword, machete, or club could certainly do some damage and may be able to kill some people. But nothing like what the guy, even the relatively untrained guy, with a firearm and plenty of ammo could do.

And this also presupposes that the bad guys are untrained and unskilled. As I've already pointed out, the idea that bad guys MUST have obtained weapons illegally is bogus. And also, the idea that a bad guy can't go to the range like anyone else is also bogus.

In theory, he is correct. The knife never runs out of bullets. However, a person armed with only a knife is perceived as less of a threat by onlookers and is more likely to be subdued, as people don't need to be concerned with being hit prior to being within the dramatically shorter range of a knife.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Some of my liberal friends are now doubting the truck rescue story--suggesting it's made-up or a planned incident. Sheesh! Too suspicious.

It may be made up, but at this point, why bother? The people who want him dead won't not want him dead because of this, and if it is fabricated, people will figure it out anyway, which will make him look even worse.

So far, I haven't heard anything to that effect except from people speculating about it on Facebook, and I have little inclination to spend much time digging on it.

 

[Steve]

But in reality, a gun is a much more efficient way to kill people, and as we've been told over and over by gun advocates, it's easy to reload. That is, after all, the entire argument against bans on high capacity magazines. If we can't, as reasonable people, agree that guns are a much more efficient way to kill people than knives or clubs, then there's really no foundation for a reasonable discussion. It's just self apparent to me.

If you want to drive a nail into wood, you can do it with the flat side of an iron, but the right tool is a hammer. Nothing else works as well as the right tool for the job. Want to be a bad guy and ruin a lot of lives? The right tool is one or more guns.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

But in reality, a gun is a much more efficient way to kill people, and as we've been told over and over by gun advocates, it's easy to reload. That is, after all, the entire argument against bans on high capacity magazines. If we can't, as reasonable people, agree that guns are a much more efficient way to kill people than knives or clubs, then there's really no foundation for a reasonable discussion. It's just self apparent to me.

If you want to drive a nail into wood, you can do it with the flat side of an iron, but the right tool is a hammer. Nothing else works as well as the right tool for the job. Want to be a bad guy and ruin a lot of lives? The right tool is one or more guns.

Oh, I don't disagree with you. Not one bit. There's a reason that swords are considered archaic weaponry and knives are considered tools for the kitchen and for utility in the trades. It doesn't make them any less deadly, but they're nowhere near as efficient as guns.

The whole reason that militaries moved to guns was precisely because they could train much larger numbers of people to be effective in war in far less time than it took to train them in archery. Swords really were more of an officer's weapon, but regardless, training someone to a level where they could be effective in combat, even single combat, is a very lengthy process. With the average student, it takes about a year to get consistent quality cuts, half decent posture and guard, half decent footwork, and half decent distance management. You can achieve the same efficacy with a gun in less than a month. No footwork, and distance management isn't nearly as much of a factor.

 

[billc]

Guns are more efficient. That is why when you have a Sandy Hook, a 5' 2", female teacher armed with a pistol could have slowed if not completely stopped the attack. Add one or two more teachers, adminstrators or just parents who might be on the campus, and you have the killer having to avoid getting shot, slowing him, possibly stopping him and saving lives. In fact, if the killer knew that the school wasn't a gun free zone, and in fact there was a strong likely hood someone with a gun would be on the grounds and might resist him...he might go somewhere else to begin with. This was seen at Sandy Hook, and Colorado and almost every single mass shooting in a public place...the killer chose a location they knew would be "gun free." The people who advocate getting rid of guns always fail to point out that the way to make guns really efficient killing tools is to only allow the killers to have them, allowing them to kill at will with no one to stop them.

 

[Steve]

Oh, I don't disagree with you. Not one bit. There's a reason that swords are considered archaic weaponry and knives are considered tools for the kitchen and for utility in the trades. It doesn't make them any less deadly, but they're nowhere near as efficient as guns.

The whole reason that militaries moved to guns was precisely because they could train much larger numbers of people to be effective in war in far less time than it took to train them in archery. Swords really were more of an officer's weapon, but regardless, training someone to a level where they could be effective in combat, even single combat, is a very lengthy process. With the average student, it takes about a year to get consistent quality cuts, half decent posture and guard, half decent footwork, and half decent distance management. You can achieve the same efficacy with a gun in less than a month. No footwork, and distance management isn't nearly as much of a factor.

Thanks, Dan. Exactly. So, to borrow one of tgace's favorite terms, can we stop cluttering up threads with that bogus meme?

 

[billc]

This has been proven false--and the effect on suicides is esp. dramatic.

Actually, this hasn't been proven false. If you look at the statistics from around the world, countries that have extremely strict gun control, Russia, South America, and other places have higher murder rates than the U.S. Also, countries that have the strictest gun control, Japan, and China also have higher suicide rates than the U.S. So put on as many restrictions on guns as you want, and the murder rate will still depend on the culture...not guns...

Even in the U.K. where they have strict gun control...it doesn't stop gun crime, and in fact, it is on the rise there.

Even in the U.S., the cities with the strictest gun control also have the highest murder rates with guns, as opposed to cities that allow gun ownership and carrying the weapons...

 

[Steve]

Guns are more efficient. That is why when you have a Sandy Hook, a 5' 2", female teacher armed with a pistol could have slowed if not completely stopped the attack. Add one or two more teachers, adminstrators or just parents who might be on the campus, and you have the killer having to avoid getting shot, slowing him, possibly stopping him and saving lives. In fact, if the killer knew that the school wasn't a gun free zone, and in fact there was a strong likely hood someone with a gun would be on the grounds and might resist him...he might go somewhere else to begin with. This was seen at Sandy Hook, and Colorado and almost every single mass shooting in a public place...the killer chose a location they knew would be "gun free." The people who advocate getting rid of guns always fail to point out that the way to make guns really efficient killing tools is to only allow the killers to have them, allowing them to kill at will with no one to stop them.

I agree with this.

 

[granfire]

and since the man didn't shoot the locks off the overturned truck....

http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-res...story?id=19758908&ref=http://news.google.com/

Yep, even univolved people are fearful....
goodness gracious! Somewhere here the first amendment is being kicked into the manure, and the founding father are spinning in their graves. I don't think they had that in mind!

 

[Big Don]

I agree with this.

Holy crap

 

[arnisador]

Guns are more efficient. That is why when you have a Sandy Hook, a 5' 2", female teacher armed with a pistol could have slowed if not completely stopped the attack. Add one or two more teachers, adminstrators or just parents who might be on the campus, and you have the killer having to avoid getting shot, slowing him, possibly stopping him and saving lives. In fact, if the killer knew that the school wasn't a gun free zone, and in fact there was a strong likely hood someone with a gun would be on the grounds and might resist him...he might go somewhere else to begin with. This was seen at Sandy Hook, and Colorado and almost every single mass shooting in a public place...the killer chose a location they knew would be "gun free." The people who advocate getting rid of guns always fail to point out that the way to make guns really efficient killing tools is to only allow the killers to have them, allowing them to kill at will with no one to stop them.

So...the killers should have knives but the defenders should have guns?!?

 

[billc]

I would generally work out better for the good guys if this was the case.