Fire, Fire, Fire!

gcomeau wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:




Guns give the weak a chance against the strong and violent. Bullies and thugs don’t need guns nearly as much as their victims do.

It astonishes me this ridiculous myth of guns as the great equalizer between the weak and the strong still persists.

The "strong and the violent" "bullies and thugs" are far more likely to acquire and use guns against the weak than the other way around because that's what naturally appeals to the type. So when you make guns widely available to the general population guess who loads up on them the most? And has the initiative when they are used because they know when they're planning on starting something? Or uses them as a weapon to terrorize others?

Yes, it is POSSIBLE for a weak person to use a gun to overcome a strong person. But it is just as possible for a strong person to use a gun to terrorize and kill a weak person with far more ease and effectiveness than they would have otherwise had. And guess which group is more psychologically disposed to use them?

The FBI homicide statistics regarding young children, rape victims and the elderly reveal that the most vile predators who prey upon the weakest, eschew guns.

gcomeau wrote:There is ZERO ability to keep guns out of a city when a city 50 or 100 miles away allows their ridiculousness unrestricted sale and there are no travel barriers between the two locations.

But then WHY does the nearby city with "their ridiculousness unrestricted sale" have a much lower crime rate? Why don't those nefarious evil guns kill everybody when so many more people have them? Your preconceptions can't explain those facts.

It is illegal EVERYWHERE in the US to sell guns to criminals, and for criminals to possess guns. It has been illegal for more than 150 years. That does not stop them. Making it 'more illegal' will not stop them. Taking guns from innocent people will not stop criminals.

gcomeau wrote:Those cities try to implement gun restrictions in a desperate bid to combat those high gun crime rates, not as a cause of them.

If you try to solve a problem, and make it worse, and then continue to apply the same measures that made it worse, no matter how much worse it gets, well, where I come from that there is what we call stuck-on-stupid.

Anti-gun zealots have repeatedly applied the same ‘solution’ in over a dozen American cities. They promised peace and safety, every time. They transformed cities with moderate crime problems into violent hell-holes, every time.

Somebody with a functional brain would think to try something different. But still, after 85 years of unrelieved failures they, like you, have proven incapable of learning from their many mistakes. They, like you, can conceive of no other approach than the same one that has always failed before.
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Bullshit remains bullshit, no matter how many times you repeat it.

I'm not an "Anti-gun zealot", grew up with them and have six in a gun case within reach of where I am sitting now. Plus I agree that it is almost certainly too late for the US, as if repeated mass kills of school kids won't move sentiment enough, nothing will.
However the other point made is valid. All developed countries bar the US have much lower firearm death rates, and much less indiscriminate availability to guns.
Can't do it in the US as it's too easy to just drive to another jurisdiction, buy guns and return. Try smuggling guns past customs elsewhere though?

Daryl wrote:Try smuggling guns past customs elsewhere though?

Yeah, that would be as hard as smuggling thousands of tons of drugs, or fortunes in illegal diamonds, or underage girls…no way they could do any of those things. You are aware of the origin of the term 'cigarette boat', no?

In our case the cigarette boat wouldn't have the range or the sea keeping capability to handle the Pacific.
Certainly stuff does get past our customs, but a lot gets caught as well. Guns usually come in pieces by mail, but there isn't a big profit motivation as with drugs. Generally in our society guns aren't much of a problem. Someone gets shot, it's a national headline, and along Fly's discussion points, so many resources get put into it most gun attacks get solved. Easy to do when there aren't many.
I had my weapons checked a couple of months ago as most crims use stolen legal guns. The cops just checked that I still had them, and they were secure.

Imaginos1892 wrote:

Daryl wrote:Try smuggling guns past customs elsewhere though?

Yeah, that would be as hard as smuggling thousands of tons of drugs, or fortunes in illegal diamonds, or underage girls…no way they could do any of those things. You are aware of the origin of the term 'cigarette boat', no?

Well I am pleased to see that Daryl has acknowledged that arrest rates might be an issue. In the US experience, the huge decline in crime clearance rates that preceded the huge increase in violent crime rates is undeniable. Equally undeniable is that the more recent huge decline in homicide rates in the US was not accompanied by much less preceeded by an increase in crime clearance rates. Some big city police departments such as NYPD did increase their clearance rates after their crime rates decreased which seems to have resulted in even lower crime rates.

Equally undeniable is that while cities with the most stringent gun laws almost invariably have the highest homicide rates.

Also undeniable is the correlation between high clearance rates and low homicide rates.

All of the data available in the US screams that we should be concentrating resources on solving crimes rather than more gun control laws.

Just FYI, the rural community that I live in is experiencing a surge in homides. There has been nauseating number of murdered mothers found dumped in remote areas. One mother was killed by being ejected from a vehicle moving at high speed. People, including LE and the District Attorney are outraged. LE and the DA continue to be diligent in solving crimes and have maintained an extremely high clearance rate.

In the most recent case, a philanderer who got his girlfriend pregnant a few years ago and only recently was assessed for child support abducted the mother and child, killed them, then dumped their bodies in the woods. The perp lives within rifle range of my property and the bodies were found only a few miles away from my property.

In other news, even Oregon's liberal legislature and Governor gave Judge Wiles and the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program a severe bitch slapping. They passed a law requiring the OMMP to obtain the informed consent of the landlord before issuing a grow site certificate to a tenant in a rental property. Those morons were not even bothering to verify that addresses were real much less who owned the property. Prior to my discovery of my tenants' grow, they had never, ever inspected a grow site. Guess where all of the black market pot was coming from?

Daryl wrote:In our case the cigarette boat wouldn't have the range or the sea keeping capability to handle the Pacific.

You do have the advantage of being the world's biggest island, surrounded by vast stretches of ocean, and with no other nations sharing your landmass. Still, can your customs officers search EVERY cargo container, EVERY airplane, EVERY boat? Here in the US they search maybe one container in 20.

We also have a 1500-mile border with what is essentially a failed state, and a dominant political faction determined to sabotage any efforts at border enforcement. They want to pretend that our nation is not our nation.
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Why do so many idiots believe that the way to solve our problems is to keep voting for the same shitheads that caused them?

Imaginos1892 wrote:You do have the advantage of being the world's biggest island, surrounded by vast stretches of ocean, and with no other nations sharing your landmass. Still, can your customs officers search EVERY cargo container, EVERY airplane, EVERY boat? Here in the US they search maybe one container in 20.

It would be interesting to ask North Korean custom officers about their procedures. Could they - of the world's most secluded nation, with heavily controlled traffic - completely be sure about what's traveling across their borders?

Dilandu wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:You do have the advantage of being the world's biggest island, surrounded by vast stretches of ocean, and with no other nations sharing your landmass. Still, can your customs officers search EVERY cargo container, EVERY airplane, EVERY boat? Here in the US they search maybe one container in 20.

It would be interesting to ask North Korean custom officers about their procedures. Could they - of the world's most secluded nation, with heavily controlled traffic - completely be sure about what's traveling across their borders?

The North Koreans have effeftively controlled their Southern border. Only a few people have survived attemptihg to flee across their Southern border. However; it is my understanding that their Northern border is not so secure and that many unsanctioned refugees escape to either Russia or China.