Dramnek, you are just quoting correlations. Correlation is NOT the same as causality. The number of cod in the sea has declined rapidly over the last 10 years, and number of gunshot wounds in Hackney has risen rapidly during that period. Ergo - restock the seas with cod and the gunshot statistics will fall.

Crude example, but you may as well quote that, it is equally meaningful.

EDITING because I missed a bit which makes my post look stupid [img]tongue.gif[/img] :
We were not talking about accidents, which can happen in any number of ways with any number of items, but about murder. Yes, murderers with a gun are more likely to use that gun to commit murder, but if they didn't have a gun there are plenty of other dangerous items they could use instead! Owning a gun does NOT make someone more likely to be a murderer.

[ 05-21-2002, 03:00 PM: Message edited by: Epona ]

You are saying that lobying...and lobbyists are illegal and not part of the american political process? Im afraid if you look at it that way then there are quite a few bigger worries than the NRA, the NRA is not even close to being the biggest lobby in DC, ever heard of the AFofL CIO? The Teamsters? The Sierra club? The NRA is playing the game by the rules that 40 years of Democratic majority has developed, don't blame them for playing by the oppositions rules.

By the way, there is NO such thing as a Right wing agenda....every group has its own agenda, the right wing is no more organized than any other group of a hundred million or so people, and you can also toss out the BS about the "Vast right wing conspiracy" too.[/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]The whole process of lobbying is an obstacle to true democracy; It allows people with money to gain political influence above and beyond those who do not, thus subverting the whole idea of a democracy.
BTW if you think there is no such thing as right wing agenda, just look at some of the stuff that nutcase loony john ashcroft has tried to get passed, he wants to make it easier to amend the constitution AND he wants to make it illegal to burn the American flag.[/QB][/QUOTE]

I like some if not all of Ashcrofts proposals, but that being said, he is not a group...he is an individual with his own aims that APPARENTLY are not in line with most conservatives (the right wing) so he hasn't gotten most of what he has proposed done. saying there is a Right wing agenda or a right wing conspiracy indicates that all or most of the people composeing the "right wing" are in agreement and working together..which is not the case.

In Crime is Not the Problem (1997), Frank Zimring and Gordon Hawkins identified the "use of firearms in assault and robbery as the single environmental feature of American society that is most clearly linked to the extraordinary death rate from interpersonal violence in the United States." Their research led to the conclusion that, "without strategies for the reduction of firearm use in assaults, no policy can be accurately characterized as directed at the reduction of American lethal violence." This study, Saving Lives by Taking Guns Out of Crime, an analysis of FBI crime statistics, presents compelling evidence that implementation of the Brady Law has led to a reduction in the use of firearms in robberies and assaults, preventing thousands of deaths since the law took effect.

In 1994, however, coinciding with the implementation of Brady, the trend reversed and gun-related crime has been dropping faster than the violent crime rate ever since. The Center used this information to estimate the number of lives saved since Brady took effect – not because the crime rate was falling, but because the percentage of violent crimes committed with guns was falling.

The results of this analysis provide compelling evidence that the Brady Law is saving lives by taking guns out of crime: from 1994 through 1998, an estimated 9,368 fewer people died than expected because the percentage of robberies and assaults committed with firearms fell each year after reaching a peak of 42.4% of robberies and 25.1% of aggravated assaults in 1993. Furthermore, from 1991 through 1993, an estimated 3,105 more people lost their lives in gun-related crime than expected because the proportion of assaults and robberies that involved guns increased each year from 1990 through 1993.

More Gun control, means less people die.[/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Zimring and the Brady group are left wing extremists that purposely skew the statistics to suit their needs and if necessary they invent the numbers they want. Zimring AND the Brady bunch both lump all deaths from handguns into thier death statistics and ignore self defense, law enforcement incidents and accidental death as being different from murder. So I would take their numbers and the NRA's numbers and say they cancel out.

Another thing that Anti-gun lobbyists never do is take into account the vast differences in locale. Inner city gun ownersdhip and owners and rural non city ownership and onwers are completely different things. The vassssst majority of the USA is low density population open territory, with most of the 300 million people in the country crammed into a few dozen cities.....mostly coastal. It is another case of apple sand oranges, and like I said, the VAST and by that I mean greater than 99% of the people who own guns, never use them illegally, and do not commit murder, and do not accidently kill loved ones due to mishandling. The accidental deaths are rare and are exceptions not the norm, the criminals, dont have their guns legally, so new laws only affect those people who do NOT commit crimes....

Dramnek, you are just quoting correlations. Correlation is NOT the same as causality. The number of cod in the sea has declined rapidly over the last 10 years, and number of gunshot wounds in Hackney has risen rapidly during that period. Ergo - restock the seas with cod and the gunshot statistics will fall.

Crude example, but you may as well quote that, it is equally meaningful.

EDITING because I missed a bit which makes my post look stupid [img]tongue.gif[/img] :
We were not talking about accidents, which can happen in any number of ways with any number of items, but about murder. Yes, murderers with a gun are more likely to use that gun to commit murder, but if they didn't have a gun there are plenty of other dangerous items they could use instead! Owning a gun does NOT make someone more likely to be a murderer.</font>[/QUOTE]Thats what I was trying to indicate with my statistics about hamburgers....

You have missed the point, that being, that a potential murder has a better chance of getting hold of a gun in a place where gun laws are lax. It doesn’t matter how safe and responsible you are, there’s always people out there who will abuse guns, and guns being the incredibly powerful instruments of death that they are, should not be allowed to the common citizenry.

Also Guns & deaths & murder is a perfectly valid correlation (given that guns cause all of these), the example you cite is a bad analogy.

[ 05-21-2002, 03:26 PM: Message edited by: Dramnek_Ulk ]

I think you’ll find that there are many American organisations and groups, For example the NRA, which supports Senor Ashcroft and his sinister aims. He seems to be very popular among right-wing fundamentalists as well.
And do you realise that banning people from burning the America flag is an attack on free speech?

Oi, hold on a minute, I'm a lefty [img]tongue.gif[/img] Don't tar us all with the same brush - Left, Right, and Centre researchers have all been guilty of skewing statistics and making stuff up - it's more to do with dishonesty than alignment. [img]smile.gif[/img]

No, I haven't missed the point at all. I understood what you are saying, what I am saying is that the gun itself does not commit the crime. Plenty of murderers here in the UK manage to obtain illegal firearms - those that can't use knives instead. Availability of guns does not turn a law abiding citizen into a murderer. Likely if they didn't have a gun, they would have found another weapon instead. It's the person that kills. A gun is an inanimate object.

i see flag burners as idiots. first off, if you hate America so much as to burn its flag, then you give up your rights as an American, thus freedom of speach is out the window. flag burners need to be shot, locked up, or sent to a country that doesnt have freedoms like America has, so they can see what they are taking for granted. these people only want attention, so they can be "heard" i say to hell with that, if you live here, then you dont burn the flag. if you live elsewhere and do it, then you are just jealous of the freedoms that America has to offer. that is just my opinion however.

You have missed the point, that being, that a potential murder has a better chance of getting hold of a gun in a place where gun laws are lax. It doesn’t matter how safe and responsible you are, there’s always people out there who will abuse guns, and guns being the incredibly powerful instruments of death that they are, should not be allowed to the common citizenry.</font>[/QUOTE]I dont know what you are doing but it is screwing up the quotes.

There always going to be people who abuse a lot of things, the answer to fixing that rpoblem is not to try and babysit people who do not abuse them, go after the offenders and punish them...don't send them to retirement resorts with cable tv and well equipped gyms, make them suffer, make them endure pain, that will deter the majority..and those who don't need to be excised from society anyway.