“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas


Friday, April 20, 2007

Reader comments

Reader martin c. cox thoughtfully pointed out in the comments section to this post concerning the VT shootings...

Murders with firearms by country:

Germany: 384
Canada: 165
Spain: 97
Portugal: 84
United Kingdom: 62
Australia: 59
United States: 8,259

(Source: Nationmaster.com)

We could say: See, these numbers show why we Americans need guns to protect us!

Or we could ask: If guns are the best protection, how come there's so few murders with firearrms in the other civilized countries - where the population almost have no guns to protect them with at all?


My argument begins with these sobering statistics from an article in ReasonOnline magazine...

Last December, London's Evening Standard reported that armed crime, with banned handguns the weapon of choice, was "rocketing." In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.

Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England's inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world's crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.


Point 1: Even if you stupidly passed gun-conrol legislation, the guns are already here. How can you disarm the criminals without making the ordinary citizens vulnerable? If you disarm the general population, only the criminals will have guns and the murder rate will increase dramatically because we would be defenseless. You don't seriously think the bad guys would turn in their guns to the government do you?

Point 2: Those other countries do not have a second amendment to what passes for constitutions.

Point 3: Is it right for the State to prevent an individual from defending himself, his family, his property, or other citizens from harm? Really that is the only question that need be answered. Just think, if only one student or teacher at VT had the means of defending himself and others, think of the lives that could have been saved that morning. Can you look into the eyes of the parents and friends of those 32 dead people and honestly say you are still glad that VT was a gun-free-zone? I couldn't.

46 comments:

Anonymous said...

Point 1: Yes, the guns are unfortunately there, and I don’t have a clue how to get rid of them. I just know that arming every citizen is NOT the solution.

Point 2: You’re right, they’re more civilized than us.

Point 3: How can you look your children in the eyes and say ‘sorry kid, we Americans have made a society so insecure that you need to carry a gun at all times to feel safe. But be aware; even with a gun in your pocket there is far greater risk of being killed in this country than in other western democracies. Still I refuse to even consider other solutions.'

Some more numbers for you:

Prisoners by country
Germany:
79,153
Canada:
36,024
Spain:
59,251
Australia:
22,894
France:
56,957
Italy:
57,238
United States:
2,078,570

Have a nice weekend.

Anonymous said...

To address point 2 first: each one of those countries you named is devolving into a socialist, welfare state because they won't even breed in order to save their cultures. I don't think holding up states who actively take part in their own hostile colonization by Islamic radicals is much of an argument.

Point 1, I never said to arm every citizen, but wishing for a peace, love, and harmony utopia is pure silliness. The fact is there are evil people out there who wish the rest of us harm. The question is do you trust them not to harm you?

If you are so anti-gun, then I challenge you to put a sign in your front yard proudly announcing that your home is a gun-free zone. Why wouldn't you do that? Is it because you want criminals to wonder if you have a gun or not? If that's the case, why shouldn't you be allowd to own one just in case?

What are your other solutions martin?

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