Once Again a Person with a Gun Stopped a Mass Shooter

[Brain357]

Almost every person with a gun who intends to murder a lot of people is stopped by someone with a gun. The Maryland school today is no exception.

If the armed law enforcement officers in Parkland had acted as they should have, a lot of lives would have been saved.

You can’t keep criminals from obtaining guns, but you can defend people from criminals.

Maryland High School Shooting Leaves 3 Students in Critical Condition, Including Suspect

Except in countries with strong gun control, where school shootings are extremely rare....

 

[Weatherman2020]

Almost every person with a gun who intends to murder a lot of people is stopped by someone with a gun. The Maryland school today is no exception.

If the armed law enforcement officers in Parkland had acted as they should have, a lot of lives would have been saved.

You can’t keep criminals from obtaining guns, but you can defend people from criminals.

Maryland High School Shooting Leaves 3 Students in Critical Condition, Including Suspect

Except in countries with strong gun control, where school shootings are extremely rare....

Which gets back to my other thread of culture and religion preventing such evil.

As I said, my dad routinely took his rifle to school.

 

[2aguy]

Your lack of knowledge about firearms is showing. The AR-15 rifle was not designed for "attacking people", nor is it an "assault rifle".

It is a defensive weapon and aside from using it for hunting or sport shooting, the majority of them are being used to defend people's lives, their families' lives, and their property..

You're confusing the benevolent AR-15 with true military assault rifles which are designed for attacking people. Those are full-auto or three-round burst, can fire up to 800 rounds per minute, have 200-round magazines, and sometimes have 40mm grenade launchers attached to them.

Does it really matter what the AR-15 was designed to do? The fact is it is an externally lethal weapon, 56 killed in Vegas, 17 in Parkland, 49 at the Orlando Nightclub shootings, all within minutes. The news media has made this firearm and it's emulators the weapon of choice for nuts that are planning on killing dozens of people, long before police can respond.

In defense of assault rifles, opponents point to the lives that were saved by these weapons which are few and far between. Do we really need weapons with this killing capacity to defend a home against a criminal? There are many firearms available that can do a fine job of protecting the home. It is incredibility rare for a home owner to have to defend his home against dozens of attackers and if that does happen, there is law enforcement, something most gun enthusiasts choose to ignore.

The reason this argument of yours never gets traction Flopper is it's clearly obvious that the person fixated on AR variations has NO IDEA of what firearms are truly dangerous. The SKS rifle that I'm "baby-sitting" for a friend in Cali (he can't have it there) is just as lethal. But since it has a wood stock and doesn't LOOK dangerous --- it doesn't get scape-goated. So you're essentially asking for REMOVING at least 27 different brands and styles of semi-auto weapons. And you don't even realize it.

Now -- you cant' stuff an SKS with a wooden stock into a smaller bag. But that's about it.

You mentioned Vegas.. The shooter DESTROYED (burned up) THREE ARs with his bump stock trick. Because the rifle is NOT designed for automatic rates of fire. How many mass shooters are gonna carry 4 ARs around on the ground with everything else they need? It's NOT a military weapon. In fact the BATF REQUIRES that no parts of AR variants are interchangeable with military models.

A semi-auto shotgun with a magazine is an awesome close quarter weapon. Not that hard to reload if you're in a Gun Free Zone with nobody to stop you..

When you REALIZE what you're asking for -- you see why nobody ever bites on your "suggestion" of blaming a single fearful LOOKING rifle.

I'm obviously not a firearms expert although I do own a gun and know how to use. People that know a lot more about firearms and public safety than me can make the decision as to just how much firepower the general public will be allowed, balancing 2nd amendment rights against pubic safety. It was decided long ago that handheld missiles and machine guns were too powerful to put in the hands of the public. As arms makers strive for more and more effective weapons, government needs to excise it's power to regulate ever more power weapons.

How long ago was it that the govt decided how much firepower should be in the hands of ordinary citizens? Was it before or after the Congress wrote in the Marques of Reprisal clause to Constitution and PAID privateers to go after pirates in their "world class" (at the time) battleships?? 8 cannon on a cruiser seems perfectly legit in that context...

And the context has changed quite a bit in last two hundred and fifty years. The primary reason for the second amendment was not to provide citizens the means to overthrow the government but rather to support the militias. The founders believed every able bodied man should be a member of a militia and when invading armies or hoards of Indians attacked, the militias would come to the defense of the people.

Today we look favorable on our armed forces and believe we could not survived without it. In colonial days, they believed just the opposite. Standing armies were abhorrent and were a danger to the freedom of people as well being costly to maintain. It was the militias that would defend the people and for that to happen, our citizen soldier would have to have guns.

To the colonialist a gun meant the musket, an imported item that cost the equivalent of two months pay. Without constant attention its iron rusted, and blacksmiths were ill equipped to repair it. The musket was not efficient for self-defense or hunting. It was not accurate beyond a few hundred feet (it had no sight, and soldiers were instructed not to aim, but fire in volleys. It frequently misfired and was cumbersome to reload, awkward qualities for individual self-defense; by the time you had put ball and powder back in, your foe would be upon you with knife, club or ax. About the only reason for owning a musket in those days was to join others in a militia to fight off attacking Indians or other hostel forces. This explains why only 14% of the men owned muskets and about half of them were not operational.

The founders believe every able bodied man should own a gun because the new nation would be depending on them for defense. To that end, gun ownership was encouraged and protected by the constitution. The context today is totally different.

Spiking the Gun Myth

No...the context is not different......the modern Government of Germany first registered and then confiscated the guns of it's citizens......and then they sent 12 million Germans and other Europeand into gas chambers to be murdered.....the Russian government murdered 25 million people, the Chinese government murdered 70 million people...

The Mexican government has made it impossible for citizens to own guns...and 10s of thousands of Mexican citizens are murdered by the police and soldiers of Mexico, who are the allies of the drug cartels....

Brazil has 60,000 people murdered every year, with extreme gun control laws...as the criminals easily get, and use guns to murder them......

All unarmed and defenseless when their government decided to murder them.....

If anything, it is more important than ever before that the population of a country be armed, in order to keep the government from crossing that line ever again...

 

[2aguy]

Almost every person with a gun who intends to murder a lot of people is stopped by someone with a gun. The Maryland school today is no exception.

If the armed law enforcement officers in Parkland had acted as they should have, a lot of lives would have been saved.

You can’t keep criminals from obtaining guns, but you can defend people from criminals.

Maryland High School Shooting Leaves 3 Students in Critical Condition, Including Suspect

Except in countries with strong gun control, where school shootings are extremely rare....

You can't hide the math dipshit....

Florida....no armed response to shooter....17 dead.

Maryland, armed guard......one dead.

And tell us, genius......what gun laws in France have kept muslim terrorists from attacking schools with fully automatic military rifles.....?

 

[Weatherman2020]

Almost every person with a gun who intends to murder a lot of people is stopped by someone with a gun. The Maryland school today is no exception.

If the armed law enforcement officers in Parkland had acted as they should have, a lot of lives would have been saved.

You can’t keep criminals from obtaining guns, but you can defend people from criminals.

Maryland High School Shooting Leaves 3 Students in Critical Condition, Including Suspect

Except in countries with strong gun control, where school shootings are extremely rare....

 

[Weatherman2020]

Does it really matter what the AR-15 was designed to do? The fact is it is an externally lethal weapon, 56 killed in Vegas, 17 in Parkland, 49 at the Orlando Nightclub shootings, all within minutes. The news media has made this firearm and it's emulators the weapon of choice for nuts that are planning on killing dozens of people, long before police can respond.

In defense of assault rifles, opponents point to the lives that were saved by these weapons which are few and far between. Do we really need weapons with this killing capacity to defend a home against a criminal? There are many firearms available that can do a fine job of protecting the home. It is incredibility rare for a home owner to have to defend his home against dozens of attackers and if that does happen, there is law enforcement, something most gun enthusiasts choose to ignore.

The reason this argument of yours never gets traction Flopper is it's clearly obvious that the person fixated on AR variations has NO IDEA of what firearms are truly dangerous. The SKS rifle that I'm "baby-sitting" for a friend in Cali (he can't have it there) is just as lethal. But since it has a wood stock and doesn't LOOK dangerous --- it doesn't get scape-goated. So you're essentially asking for REMOVING at least 27 different brands and styles of semi-auto weapons. And you don't even realize it.

Now -- you cant' stuff an SKS with a wooden stock into a smaller bag. But that's about it.

You mentioned Vegas.. The shooter DESTROYED (burned up) THREE ARs with his bump stock trick. Because the rifle is NOT designed for automatic rates of fire. How many mass shooters are gonna carry 4 ARs around on the ground with everything else they need? It's NOT a military weapon. In fact the BATF REQUIRES that no parts of AR variants are interchangeable with military models.

A semi-auto shotgun with a magazine is an awesome close quarter weapon. Not that hard to reload if you're in a Gun Free Zone with nobody to stop you..

When you REALIZE what you're asking for -- you see why nobody ever bites on your "suggestion" of blaming a single fearful LOOKING rifle.

I'm obviously not a firearms expert although I do own a gun and know how to use. People that know a lot more about firearms and public safety than me can make the decision as to just how much firepower the general public will be allowed, balancing 2nd amendment rights against pubic safety. It was decided long ago that handheld missiles and machine guns were too powerful to put in the hands of the public. As arms makers strive for more and more effective weapons, government needs to excise it's power to regulate ever more power weapons.

How long ago was it that the govt decided how much firepower should be in the hands of ordinary citizens? Was it before or after the Congress wrote in the Marques of Reprisal clause to Constitution and PAID privateers to go after pirates in their "world class" (at the time) battleships?? 8 cannon on a cruiser seems perfectly legit in that context...

And the context has changed quite a bit in last two hundred and fifty years. The primary reason for the second amendment was not to provide citizens the means to overthrow the government but rather to support the militias. The founders believed every able bodied man should be a member of a militia and when invading armies or hoards of Indians attacked, the militias would come to the defense of the people.

Today we look favorable on our armed forces and believe we could not survived without it. In colonial days, they believed just the opposite. Standing armies were abhorrent and were a danger to the freedom of people as well being costly to maintain. It was the militias that would defend the people and for that to happen, our citizen soldier would have to have guns.

To the colonialist a gun meant the musket, an imported item that cost the equivalent of two months pay. Without constant attention its iron rusted, and blacksmiths were ill equipped to repair it. The musket was not efficient for self-defense or hunting. It was not accurate beyond a few hundred feet (it had no sight, and soldiers were instructed not to aim, but fire in volleys. It frequently misfired and was cumbersome to reload, awkward qualities for individual self-defense; by the time you had put ball and powder back in, your foe would be upon you with knife, club or ax. About the only reason for owning a musket in those days was to join others in a militia to fight off attacking Indians or other hostel forces. This explains why only 14% of the men owned muskets and about half of them were not operational.

The founders believe every able bodied man should own a gun because the new nation would be depending on them for defense. To that end, gun ownership was encouraged and protected by the constitution. The context today is totally different.

Spiking the Gun Myth

No...the context is not different......the modern Government of Germany first registered and then confiscated the guns of it's citizens......and then they sent 12 million Germans and other Europeand into gas chambers to be murdered.....the Russian government murdered 25 million people, the Chinese government murdered 70 million people...

The Mexican government has made it impossible for citizens to own guns...and 10s of thousands of Mexican citizens are murdered by the police and soldiers of Mexico, who are the allies of the drug cartels....

Brazil has 60,000 people murdered every year, with extreme gun control laws...as the criminals easily get, and use guns to murder them......

All unarmed and defenseless when their government decided to murder them.....

If anything, it is more important than ever before that the population of a country be armed, in order to keep the government from crossing that line ever again...

They call Trump Hitler then beg him to take away their guns.

 

[Dr Grump]

Riiiiggghhhhttttttt. Like drugs. We made them illegal, and now we can't get them! Have you asked your drug dealer about that theory?

You have no idea how to accomplish that and never did. Get back to me when you have more than a stupid idea that doesn't work.

Works down here and in NZ and in the UK....It's not my fault the US is behind the times.

 

[2aguy]

Riiiiggghhhhttttttt. Like drugs. We made them illegal, and now we can't get them! Have you asked your drug dealer about that theory?

You have no idea how to accomplish that and never did. Get back to me when you have more than a stupid idea that doesn't work.

Works down here and in NZ and in the UK....It's not my fault the US is behind the times.

No....it isn't working in....the UK has increasing gun crime...23% across England and Wales, up 42% in London, and now London is more violent than New York City, and up 30% in Yorkshire, England.......

 

[kaz]

Riiiiggghhhhttttttt. Like drugs. We made them illegal, and now we can't get them! Have you asked your drug dealer about that theory?

You have no idea how to accomplish that and never did. Get back to me when you have more than a stupid idea that doesn't work.

Works down here and in NZ and in the UK....It's not my fault the US is behind the times.

So you actually believe that New Zealand would be like the United States, but you made guns illegal, and then guns disappeared. You're telling me that's what you actually believe happened? There were 300 million guns in New Zealand? The owners said aw crap, they turned them in? And the exact same thing would happen in the US?

And you haven't read that and said wow, you're a complete and utter ******* moron yet? Seriously"?

 

[kaz]

Riiiiggghhhhttttttt. Like drugs. We made them illegal, and now we can't get them! Have you asked your drug dealer about that theory?

You have no idea how to accomplish that and never did. Get back to me when you have more than a stupid idea that doesn't work.

Works down here and in NZ and in the UK....It's not my fault the US is behind the times.

No....it isn't working in....the UK has increasing gun crime...23% across England and Wales, up 42% in London, and now London is more violent than New York City, and up 30% in Yorkshire, England.......

Dr Grump is obviously a fundamentally dishonest piece of shit who isn't willing to engage in an intellectually honest debate

 

[whutTHEYsay]

Marion Morrison, post: 19548631

I want to play with automatic machine guns. That doesn't mean I want to see school kids as targets, no sir! I want to see school kid shooters as targets.

You want to play with automatic machine guns so your selfish desire means the government ceases the ban on manufacture and sales to anyone that wants one - which
Includes the next mass shooter.

The extra dead and wounded from a machine gun mass shooting would be on you - on your selfishness. You don't have to be the actual shooter to be an enabler,

 

[Marion Morrison]

Marion Morrison, post: 19548631

I want to play with automatic machine guns. That doesn't mean I want to see school kids as targets, no sir! I want to see school kid shooters as targets.

You want to play with automatic machine guns so your selfish desire means the government ceases the ban on manufacture and sales to anyone that wants one - which
Includes the next mass shooter.

The extra dead and wounded from a machine gun mass shooting would be on you - on your selfishness. You don't have to be the actual shooter to be an enabler,

Oh! Cry me a river and burn your strawman argument.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

Oh! Cry me a river and burn your strawman argument.

It's not a strawman argument. You posted that you want the machine gun ban lifted.

What the hell did you think that means? Anyone can walk into Walmart and buy a machine gun under your brilliant idea - including the next mass murderer .

You want more innocents killed faster than done in the past with semi-automatics.

Just reality. Tough concept I know.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

WE had a very close call a couple of weeks ago here. The community surrounding the School noticed an AR carrying person within 1000 feet of a school. They called the cops. The cops zeroed in and arrested the person. They never gave the person any chances. At the same time, the school went into a lockdown where all the doors were locked, the students were put into class rooms in the center of the buildings and the doors were locked. It wouldn't have done the potential shooter any good to try and enter the school. Even if he had gotten past the first set of doors, the next series of doors would also have been locked as well. This would have slowed the potential shooter down giving the cops the time to take him down. But it never reached that point. The Community handled it so the school didn't have to handle it other than a lockdown. 3 hours later, the students were released to the parents.

You don't need to have armed teachers or guards on the premises. What you need is to train the community to pay attention and train the cops. The resources are already there.

 

[Flopper]

Does it really matter what the AR-15 was designed to do? The fact is it is an externally lethal weapon, 56 killed in Vegas, 17 in Parkland, 49 at the Orlando Nightclub shootings, all within minutes. The news media has made this firearm and it's emulators the weapon of choice for nuts that are planning on killing dozens of people, long before police can respond.

In defense of assault rifles, opponents point to the lives that were saved by these weapons which are few and far between. Do we really need weapons with this killing capacity to defend a home against a criminal? There are many firearms available that can do a fine job of protecting the home. It is incredibility rare for a home owner to have to defend his home against dozens of attackers and if that does happen, there is law enforcement, something most gun enthusiasts choose to ignore.

The reason this argument of yours never gets traction Flopper is it's clearly obvious that the person fixated on AR variations has NO IDEA of what firearms are truly dangerous. The SKS rifle that I'm "baby-sitting" for a friend in Cali (he can't have it there) is just as lethal. But since it has a wood stock and doesn't LOOK dangerous --- it doesn't get scape-goated. So you're essentially asking for REMOVING at least 27 different brands and styles of semi-auto weapons. And you don't even realize it.

Now -- you cant' stuff an SKS with a wooden stock into a smaller bag. But that's about it.

You mentioned Vegas.. The shooter DESTROYED (burned up) THREE ARs with his bump stock trick. Because the rifle is NOT designed for automatic rates of fire. How many mass shooters are gonna carry 4 ARs around on the ground with everything else they need? It's NOT a military weapon. In fact the BATF REQUIRES that no parts of AR variants are interchangeable with military models.

A semi-auto shotgun with a magazine is an awesome close quarter weapon. Not that hard to reload if you're in a Gun Free Zone with nobody to stop you..

When you REALIZE what you're asking for -- you see why nobody ever bites on your "suggestion" of blaming a single fearful LOOKING rifle.

I'm obviously not a firearms expert although I do own a gun and know how to use. People that know a lot more about firearms and public safety than me can make the decision as to just how much firepower the general public will be allowed, balancing 2nd amendment rights against pubic safety. It was decided long ago that handheld missiles and machine guns were too powerful to put in the hands of the public. As arms makers strive for more and more effective weapons, government needs to excise it's power to regulate ever more power weapons.

How long ago was it that the govt decided how much firepower should be in the hands of ordinary citizens? Was it before or after the Congress wrote in the Marques of Reprisal clause to Constitution and PAID privateers to go after pirates in their "world class" (at the time) battleships?? 8 cannon on a cruiser seems perfectly legit in that context...

And the context has changed quite a bit in last two hundred and fifty years. The primary reason for the second amendment was not to provide citizens the means to overthrow the government but rather to support the militias. The founders believed every able bodied man should be a member of a militia and when invading armies or hoards of Indians attacked, the militias would come to the defense of the people.

Today we look favorable on our armed forces and believe we could not survived without it. In colonial days, they believed just the opposite. Standing armies were abhorrent and were a danger to the freedom of people as well being costly to maintain. It was the militias that would defend the people and for that to happen, our citizen soldier would have to have guns.

To the colonialist a gun meant the musket, an imported item that cost the equivalent of two months pay. Without constant attention its iron rusted, and blacksmiths were ill equipped to repair it. The musket was not efficient for self-defense or hunting. It was not accurate beyond a few hundred feet (it had no sight, and soldiers were instructed not to aim, but fire in volleys. It frequently misfired and was cumbersome to reload, awkward qualities for individual self-defense; by the time you had put ball and powder back in, your foe would be upon you with knife, club or ax. About the only reason for owning a musket in those days was to join others in a militia to fight off attacking Indians or other hostel forces. This explains why only 14% of the men owned muskets and about half of them were not operational.

The founders believe every able bodied man should own a gun because the new nation would be depending on them for defense. To that end, gun ownership was encouraged and protected by the constitution. The context today is totally different.

Spiking the Gun Myth

No...the context is not different......the modern Government of Germany first registered and then confiscated the guns of it's citizens......and then they sent 12 million Germans and other Europeand into gas chambers to be murdered.....the Russian government murdered 25 million people, the Chinese government murdered 70 million people...

The Mexican government has made it impossible for citizens to own guns...and 10s of thousands of Mexican citizens are murdered by the police and soldiers of Mexico, who are the allies of the drug cartels....

Brazil has 60,000 people murdered every year, with extreme gun control laws...as the criminals easily get, and use guns to murder them......

All unarmed and defenseless when their government decided to murder them.....

If anything, it is more important than ever before that the population of a country be armed, in order to keep the government from crossing that line ever again...

You can cherry pick statistics to prove your point. However, I can do same. The UK has adopted some the most restrictive gun control of any European country. Are tens of thousands of people being slaughtered by criminals? Nope, in fact the homicide rate is one fifth that of the US. Japan has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. For most Japanese, owning a gun is all but impossible. The homicide rate in the US is 14 times greater than Japan. The secret to gun control is creating laws without loopholes that are enforced throughout the country.

It is utterly insane that people have to buy guns to protect themselves because the government is not able to control gun ownership. Other democratic countries do it quite effectively while maintaining a higher degree of personal freedom than in the US.

 

[Rustic]

The reason this argument of yours never gets traction Flopper is it's clearly obvious that the person fixated on AR variations has NO IDEA of what firearms are truly dangerous. The SKS rifle that I'm "baby-sitting" for a friend in Cali (he can't have it there) is just as lethal. But since it has a wood stock and doesn't LOOK dangerous --- it doesn't get scape-goated. So you're essentially asking for REMOVING at least 27 different brands and styles of semi-auto weapons. And you don't even realize it.

Now -- you cant' stuff an SKS with a wooden stock into a smaller bag. But that's about it.

You mentioned Vegas.. The shooter DESTROYED (burned up) THREE ARs with his bump stock trick. Because the rifle is NOT designed for automatic rates of fire. How many mass shooters are gonna carry 4 ARs around on the ground with everything else they need? It's NOT a military weapon. In fact the BATF REQUIRES that no parts of AR variants are interchangeable with military models.

A semi-auto shotgun with a magazine is an awesome close quarter weapon. Not that hard to reload if you're in a Gun Free Zone with nobody to stop you..

When you REALIZE what you're asking for -- you see why nobody ever bites on your "suggestion" of blaming a single fearful LOOKING rifle.

I'm obviously not a firearms expert although I do own a gun and know how to use. People that know a lot more about firearms and public safety than me can make the decision as to just how much firepower the general public will be allowed, balancing 2nd amendment rights against pubic safety. It was decided long ago that handheld missiles and machine guns were too powerful to put in the hands of the public. As arms makers strive for more and more effective weapons, government needs to excise it's power to regulate ever more power weapons.

How long ago was it that the govt decided how much firepower should be in the hands of ordinary citizens? Was it before or after the Congress wrote in the Marques of Reprisal clause to Constitution and PAID privateers to go after pirates in their "world class" (at the time) battleships?? 8 cannon on a cruiser seems perfectly legit in that context...

And the context has changed quite a bit in last two hundred and fifty years. The primary reason for the second amendment was not to provide citizens the means to overthrow the government but rather to support the militias. The founders believed every able bodied man should be a member of a militia and when invading armies or hoards of Indians attacked, the militias would come to the defense of the people.

Today we look favorable on our armed forces and believe we could not survived without it. In colonial days, they believed just the opposite. Standing armies were abhorrent and were a danger to the freedom of people as well being costly to maintain. It was the militias that would defend the people and for that to happen, our citizen soldier would have to have guns.

To the colonialist a gun meant the musket, an imported item that cost the equivalent of two months pay. Without constant attention its iron rusted, and blacksmiths were ill equipped to repair it. The musket was not efficient for self-defense or hunting. It was not accurate beyond a few hundred feet (it had no sight, and soldiers were instructed not to aim, but fire in volleys. It frequently misfired and was cumbersome to reload, awkward qualities for individual self-defense; by the time you had put ball and powder back in, your foe would be upon you with knife, club or ax. About the only reason for owning a musket in those days was to join others in a militia to fight off attacking Indians or other hostel forces. This explains why only 14% of the men owned muskets and about half of them were not operational.

The founders believe every able bodied man should own a gun because the new nation would be depending on them for defense. To that end, gun ownership was encouraged and protected by the constitution. The context today is totally different.

Spiking the Gun Myth

No...the context is not different......the modern Government of Germany first registered and then confiscated the guns of it's citizens......and then they sent 12 million Germans and other Europeand into gas chambers to be murdered.....the Russian government murdered 25 million people, the Chinese government murdered 70 million people...

The Mexican government has made it impossible for citizens to own guns...and 10s of thousands of Mexican citizens are murdered by the police and soldiers of Mexico, who are the allies of the drug cartels....

Brazil has 60,000 people murdered every year, with extreme gun control laws...as the criminals easily get, and use guns to murder them......

All unarmed and defenseless when their government decided to murder them.....

If anything, it is more important than ever before that the population of a country be armed, in order to keep the government from crossing that line ever again...

You can cherry pick statistics to prove your point. However, I can do same. The UK has adopted some the most restrictive gun control of any European country. Are tens of thousands of people being slaughtered by criminals? Nope, in fact the homicide rate is one fifth that of the US. Japan has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. For most Japanese, owning a gun is all but impossible. The homicide rate in the US is 14 times greater than Japan. The secret to gun control is creating laws without loopholes that are enforced throughout the country.

It is utterly insane that people have to buy guns to protect themselves because the government is not able to control gun ownership. Other democratic countries do it quite effectively while maintaining a higher degree of personal freedom than in the US.

Lol
Shit for brains, Violent crime is mostly in urban areas in this country controlled by progressive spineless fuckers like yourself.
Take your ******* gun control and shove it up your ******* ass you spineless coward.

 

[2aguy]

The reason this argument of yours never gets traction Flopper is it's clearly obvious that the person fixated on AR variations has NO IDEA of what firearms are truly dangerous. The SKS rifle that I'm "baby-sitting" for a friend in Cali (he can't have it there) is just as lethal. But since it has a wood stock and doesn't LOOK dangerous --- it doesn't get scape-goated. So you're essentially asking for REMOVING at least 27 different brands and styles of semi-auto weapons. And you don't even realize it.

Now -- you cant' stuff an SKS with a wooden stock into a smaller bag. But that's about it.

You mentioned Vegas.. The shooter DESTROYED (burned up) THREE ARs with his bump stock trick. Because the rifle is NOT designed for automatic rates of fire. How many mass shooters are gonna carry 4 ARs around on the ground with everything else they need? It's NOT a military weapon. In fact the BATF REQUIRES that no parts of AR variants are interchangeable with military models.

A semi-auto shotgun with a magazine is an awesome close quarter weapon. Not that hard to reload if you're in a Gun Free Zone with nobody to stop you..

When you REALIZE what you're asking for -- you see why nobody ever bites on your "suggestion" of blaming a single fearful LOOKING rifle.

I'm obviously not a firearms expert although I do own a gun and know how to use. People that know a lot more about firearms and public safety than me can make the decision as to just how much firepower the general public will be allowed, balancing 2nd amendment rights against pubic safety. It was decided long ago that handheld missiles and machine guns were too powerful to put in the hands of the public. As arms makers strive for more and more effective weapons, government needs to excise it's power to regulate ever more power weapons.

How long ago was it that the govt decided how much firepower should be in the hands of ordinary citizens? Was it before or after the Congress wrote in the Marques of Reprisal clause to Constitution and PAID privateers to go after pirates in their "world class" (at the time) battleships?? 8 cannon on a cruiser seems perfectly legit in that context...

And the context has changed quite a bit in last two hundred and fifty years. The primary reason for the second amendment was not to provide citizens the means to overthrow the government but rather to support the militias. The founders believed every able bodied man should be a member of a militia and when invading armies or hoards of Indians attacked, the militias would come to the defense of the people.

Today we look favorable on our armed forces and believe we could not survived without it. In colonial days, they believed just the opposite. Standing armies were abhorrent and were a danger to the freedom of people as well being costly to maintain. It was the militias that would defend the people and for that to happen, our citizen soldier would have to have guns.

To the colonialist a gun meant the musket, an imported item that cost the equivalent of two months pay. Without constant attention its iron rusted, and blacksmiths were ill equipped to repair it. The musket was not efficient for self-defense or hunting. It was not accurate beyond a few hundred feet (it had no sight, and soldiers were instructed not to aim, but fire in volleys. It frequently misfired and was cumbersome to reload, awkward qualities for individual self-defense; by the time you had put ball and powder back in, your foe would be upon you with knife, club or ax. About the only reason for owning a musket in those days was to join others in a militia to fight off attacking Indians or other hostel forces. This explains why only 14% of the men owned muskets and about half of them were not operational.

The founders believe every able bodied man should own a gun because the new nation would be depending on them for defense. To that end, gun ownership was encouraged and protected by the constitution. The context today is totally different.

Spiking the Gun Myth

No...the context is not different......the modern Government of Germany first registered and then confiscated the guns of it's citizens......and then they sent 12 million Germans and other Europeand into gas chambers to be murdered.....the Russian government murdered 25 million people, the Chinese government murdered 70 million people...

The Mexican government has made it impossible for citizens to own guns...and 10s of thousands of Mexican citizens are murdered by the police and soldiers of Mexico, who are the allies of the drug cartels....

Brazil has 60,000 people murdered every year, with extreme gun control laws...as the criminals easily get, and use guns to murder them......

All unarmed and defenseless when their government decided to murder them.....

If anything, it is more important than ever before that the population of a country be armed, in order to keep the government from crossing that line ever again...

You can cherry pick statistics to prove your point. However, I can do same. The UK has adopted some the most restrictive gun control of any European country. Are tens of thousands of people being slaughtered by criminals? Nope, in fact the homicide rate is one fifth that of the US. Japan has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. For most Japanese, owning a gun is all but impossible. The homicide rate in the US is 14 times greater than Japan. The secret to gun control is creating laws without loopholes that are enforced throughout the country.

It is utterly insane that people have to buy guns to protect themselves because the government is not able to control gun ownership. Other democratic countries do it quite effectively while maintaining a higher degree of personal freedom than in the US.

YOu guys are always fooled by the homicide rate......or you lie and pretend you don't realize that murder is not the indicator of wether gun laws work or not.......

British gun crime is going up.....and up......all across England and Wales.....which means their criminals are getting more and more guns on an island nation where they banned and confiscated guns....and they are using them more and more for crime against unarmed citizens...they just aren't murdering each other or their victims with those guns...

Japan has the only method to stop actual criminals.....long prison sentences for gun crime....and their values and culture reduce all crime, not just gun crime....their criminals get guns easily, they stopped using guns only recently because they instituted long prison sentences.....

Our problem is that people like you keep letting violent gun criminals out of jail...so they can keep killing innocent people.....

Do you realize that French crimnals do not use AR-15 civilian rifles for their crime...they use fully automatic military rifles even though they are completely illegal and banned?

You have no idea what you are talking about, you talk out of your ass and think you are wise......you aren't....you don't understand gun control here or over seas......it shows in all of your posts....


http://www.atimes.com/article/japans-gun-control-laws-strict-yakuza-turn-toy-pistols/



Ryo Fujiwara, long-time writer on yakuza affairs and author of the book, The Three Yamaguchi-Gumi, says that the punishment for using a gun in a gang war or in a crime is now so heavy that most yakuza avoid their use at all – unless it is for an assassination.

“In a hit, whoever fires the gun, or is made to take responsibility for firing the gun, has to pretty much be willing to go to jail for the rest of their life. That’s a big decision. The repercussions are big, too. No one wants to claim responsibility for such acts – the gang office might actually get shut-down.”

The gang typically also has to support the family of the hit-man while he is in prison, which is also a financial burden for the organization.

Japan’s Firearms and Swords Control Laws make it a crime to illegally possess a gun, with a punishment of jail time of up to 10 years.

Illegal possession more than one gun, the penalty goes up to 15 years in prison. If you own a gun and matching ammunition, that’s another charge and a heavier penalty. The most severe penalty is for the act of discharging a gun in a train, on a bus, or most public spaces, which can result in a life sentence.

---

A low-ranking member of the Kobe-Yamaguchi-gumi put it this way: “All of the smart guys got rid of their guns a long-time ago. The penalties are way too high. You get life in prison if you just fire a gun. That’s not fun.”

 

[flacaltenn]

The reason this argument of yours never gets traction Flopper is it's clearly obvious that the person fixated on AR variations has NO IDEA of what firearms are truly dangerous. The SKS rifle that I'm "baby-sitting" for a friend in Cali (he can't have it there) is just as lethal. But since it has a wood stock and doesn't LOOK dangerous --- it doesn't get scape-goated. So you're essentially asking for REMOVING at least 27 different brands and styles of semi-auto weapons. And you don't even realize it.

Now -- you cant' stuff an SKS with a wooden stock into a smaller bag. But that's about it.

You mentioned Vegas.. The shooter DESTROYED (burned up) THREE ARs with his bump stock trick. Because the rifle is NOT designed for automatic rates of fire. How many mass shooters are gonna carry 4 ARs around on the ground with everything else they need? It's NOT a military weapon. In fact the BATF REQUIRES that no parts of AR variants are interchangeable with military models.

A semi-auto shotgun with a magazine is an awesome close quarter weapon. Not that hard to reload if you're in a Gun Free Zone with nobody to stop you..

When you REALIZE what you're asking for -- you see why nobody ever bites on your "suggestion" of blaming a single fearful LOOKING rifle.

I'm obviously not a firearms expert although I do own a gun and know how to use. People that know a lot more about firearms and public safety than me can make the decision as to just how much firepower the general public will be allowed, balancing 2nd amendment rights against pubic safety. It was decided long ago that handheld missiles and machine guns were too powerful to put in the hands of the public. As arms makers strive for more and more effective weapons, government needs to excise it's power to regulate ever more power weapons.

How long ago was it that the govt decided how much firepower should be in the hands of ordinary citizens? Was it before or after the Congress wrote in the Marques of Reprisal clause to Constitution and PAID privateers to go after pirates in their "world class" (at the time) battleships?? 8 cannon on a cruiser seems perfectly legit in that context...

And the context has changed quite a bit in last two hundred and fifty years. The primary reason for the second amendment was not to provide citizens the means to overthrow the government but rather to support the militias. The founders believed every able bodied man should be a member of a militia and when invading armies or hoards of Indians attacked, the militias would come to the defense of the people.

Today we look favorable on our armed forces and believe we could not survived without it. In colonial days, they believed just the opposite. Standing armies were abhorrent and were a danger to the freedom of people as well being costly to maintain. It was the militias that would defend the people and for that to happen, our citizen soldier would have to have guns.

To the colonialist a gun meant the musket, an imported item that cost the equivalent of two months pay. Without constant attention its iron rusted, and blacksmiths were ill equipped to repair it. The musket was not efficient for self-defense or hunting. It was not accurate beyond a few hundred feet (it had no sight, and soldiers were instructed not to aim, but fire in volleys. It frequently misfired and was cumbersome to reload, awkward qualities for individual self-defense; by the time you had put ball and powder back in, your foe would be upon you with knife, club or ax. About the only reason for owning a musket in those days was to join others in a militia to fight off attacking Indians or other hostel forces. This explains why only 14% of the men owned muskets and about half of them were not operational.

The founders believe every able bodied man should own a gun because the new nation would be depending on them for defense. To that end, gun ownership was encouraged and protected by the constitution. The context today is totally different.

Spiking the Gun Myth

No...the context is not different......the modern Government of Germany first registered and then confiscated the guns of it's citizens......and then they sent 12 million Germans and other Europeand into gas chambers to be murdered.....the Russian government murdered 25 million people, the Chinese government murdered 70 million people...

The Mexican government has made it impossible for citizens to own guns...and 10s of thousands of Mexican citizens are murdered by the police and soldiers of Mexico, who are the allies of the drug cartels....

Brazil has 60,000 people murdered every year, with extreme gun control laws...as the criminals easily get, and use guns to murder them......

All unarmed and defenseless when their government decided to murder them.....

If anything, it is more important than ever before that the population of a country be armed, in order to keep the government from crossing that line ever again...

You can cherry pick statistics to prove your point. However, I can do same. The UK has adopted some the most restrictive gun control of any European country. Are tens of thousands of people being slaughtered by criminals? Nope, in fact the homicide rate is one fifth that of the US. Japan has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. For most Japanese, owning a gun is all but impossible. The homicide rate in the US is 14 times greater than Japan. The secret to gun control is creating laws without loopholes that are enforced throughout the country.

It is utterly insane that people have to buy guns to protect themselves because the government is not able to control gun ownership. Other democratic countries do it quite effectively while maintaining a higher degree of personal freedom than in the US.

There is so much misinformation out there. Most of it PRODUCED as propaganda by guys like Bloomberg. The guy that is pushing the TOTALLY false notion that there have been 18 school shootings so far this year. Even Obama repeated this crap last week.

The US is BARELY in the top 20 of firearm homicide rates in the world. And MOST of countries ABOVE us have damn near COMPLETE firearm bans. Almost EVERY central -- south american country is way above our firearm homicide rates.

Japan that you mentioned has always had very very little crime and violence. It's CULTURE -- not firearms. Even their suicide rate is 15 times less than ours. NOT BECAUSE of their laws.. Note the difference below in VIOLENCE and suicide and remember that is CULTURAL. Not always because of law and enforcement.

List of countries by firearm-related death rate - Wikipedia

 

[2aguy]

The reason this argument of yours never gets traction Flopper is it's clearly obvious that the person fixated on AR variations has NO IDEA of what firearms are truly dangerous. The SKS rifle that I'm "baby-sitting" for a friend in Cali (he can't have it there) is just as lethal. But since it has a wood stock and doesn't LOOK dangerous --- it doesn't get scape-goated. So you're essentially asking for REMOVING at least 27 different brands and styles of semi-auto weapons. And you don't even realize it.

Now -- you cant' stuff an SKS with a wooden stock into a smaller bag. But that's about it.

You mentioned Vegas.. The shooter DESTROYED (burned up) THREE ARs with his bump stock trick. Because the rifle is NOT designed for automatic rates of fire. How many mass shooters are gonna carry 4 ARs around on the ground with everything else they need? It's NOT a military weapon. In fact the BATF REQUIRES that no parts of AR variants are interchangeable with military models.

A semi-auto shotgun with a magazine is an awesome close quarter weapon. Not that hard to reload if you're in a Gun Free Zone with nobody to stop you..

When you REALIZE what you're asking for -- you see why nobody ever bites on your "suggestion" of blaming a single fearful LOOKING rifle.

I'm obviously not a firearms expert although I do own a gun and know how to use. People that know a lot more about firearms and public safety than me can make the decision as to just how much firepower the general public will be allowed, balancing 2nd amendment rights against pubic safety. It was decided long ago that handheld missiles and machine guns were too powerful to put in the hands of the public. As arms makers strive for more and more effective weapons, government needs to excise it's power to regulate ever more power weapons.

How long ago was it that the govt decided how much firepower should be in the hands of ordinary citizens? Was it before or after the Congress wrote in the Marques of Reprisal clause to Constitution and PAID privateers to go after pirates in their "world class" (at the time) battleships?? 8 cannon on a cruiser seems perfectly legit in that context...

And the context has changed quite a bit in last two hundred and fifty years. The primary reason for the second amendment was not to provide citizens the means to overthrow the government but rather to support the militias. The founders believed every able bodied man should be a member of a militia and when invading armies or hoards of Indians attacked, the militias would come to the defense of the people.

Today we look favorable on our armed forces and believe we could not survived without it. In colonial days, they believed just the opposite. Standing armies were abhorrent and were a danger to the freedom of people as well being costly to maintain. It was the militias that would defend the people and for that to happen, our citizen soldier would have to have guns.

To the colonialist a gun meant the musket, an imported item that cost the equivalent of two months pay. Without constant attention its iron rusted, and blacksmiths were ill equipped to repair it. The musket was not efficient for self-defense or hunting. It was not accurate beyond a few hundred feet (it had no sight, and soldiers were instructed not to aim, but fire in volleys. It frequently misfired and was cumbersome to reload, awkward qualities for individual self-defense; by the time you had put ball and powder back in, your foe would be upon you with knife, club or ax. About the only reason for owning a musket in those days was to join others in a militia to fight off attacking Indians or other hostel forces. This explains why only 14% of the men owned muskets and about half of them were not operational.

The founders believe every able bodied man should own a gun because the new nation would be depending on them for defense. To that end, gun ownership was encouraged and protected by the constitution. The context today is totally different.

Spiking the Gun Myth

No...the context is not different......the modern Government of Germany first registered and then confiscated the guns of it's citizens......and then they sent 12 million Germans and other Europeand into gas chambers to be murdered.....the Russian government murdered 25 million people, the Chinese government murdered 70 million people...

The Mexican government has made it impossible for citizens to own guns...and 10s of thousands of Mexican citizens are murdered by the police and soldiers of Mexico, who are the allies of the drug cartels....

Brazil has 60,000 people murdered every year, with extreme gun control laws...as the criminals easily get, and use guns to murder them......

All unarmed and defenseless when their government decided to murder them.....

If anything, it is more important than ever before that the population of a country be armed, in order to keep the government from crossing that line ever again...

You can cherry pick statistics to prove your point. However, I can do same. The UK has adopted some the most restrictive gun control of any European country. Are tens of thousands of people being slaughtered by criminals? Nope, in fact the homicide rate is one fifth that of the US. Japan has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. For most Japanese, owning a gun is all but impossible. The homicide rate in the US is 14 times greater than Japan. The secret to gun control is creating laws without loopholes that are enforced throughout the country.

It is utterly insane that people have to buy guns to protect themselves because the government is not able to control gun ownership. Other democratic countries do it quite effectively while maintaining a higher degree of personal freedom than in the US.

You do realize that gun crime in the UK is going up...right...after they banned guns...right?

Yorkshire sees highest number of crimes for any county in Britain according to figures

“In particular we’re shocked to see an increase of nearly 30 per cent in weapon possession offences between 2016 and 2017.”

Crimes covered violent and sexual offences, vehicle theft, public order offences, possession of weapons, shoplifting, personal theft, drug crimes, robbery, criminal damage, bicycle thefts and anti-social behaviour.


========

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223193/Culture-violence-Gun-crime-goes-89-decade.html

The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.

The number of people injured or killed by guns, excluding air weapons, has increased from 864 in 1998/99 to a provisional figure of 1,760 in 2008/09, an increase of 104 per cent .


========



Crime rise is biggest in a decade, ONS figures show

Ministers will also be concerned that the country is becoming increasingly violent in nature, with gun crime rising 23% to 6,375 offences, largely driven by an increase in the use of handguns.

=========



Gun crime in London increases by 42% - BBC News

Gun crime offences in London surged by 42% in the last year, according to official statistics.

Top trauma surgeon reveals shocking extent of London’s gun crime

A leading trauma surgeon has told how the number of patients treated for gunshot injuries at a major London hospital has doubled in the last five years.

----

He said the hospital’s major trauma centre had seen a bigger rise in gunshot injuries compared to knife wounds and that the average age of victims was getting younger.

-----

Last year, gun crime offences in London increased for a third year running and by 42 per cent, from 1,793 offences in 2015/16 to 2,544 offences in 2016/17. Police have seized 635 guns off the streets so far this year.

Dr Griffiths, who also teaches medical students, said: “Our numbers of victims of gun injury have doubled [since 2012]. Gunshot injuries represent about 2.5 per cent of our penetrating trauma.

-----

Dr Griffiths said the average age of gun crime victims needing treatment at the hospital had decreased from 25 to the mid to late teens since 2012.

He added that medics at the Barts Health hospital’s major trauma centre in Whitechapel had seen a bigger rise in patients with gun injuries rather than knife wounds and that most were caused by pistols or shotguns.

Met Police commander Jim Stokley, who was also invited to speak at the meeting, said that handguns and shotguns were the weapons of choice and that 46 per cent of London’s gun crime discharges were gang-related.

He said: “We believe that a lot of it is associated with the drugs trade, and by that I mean people dealing drugs at street level and disagreements between different gangs.”

Violent crime on the rise in every corner of the country, figures suggest

But analysis of the figures force by force, showed the full extent of the problem, with only one constabulary, Nottinghamshire, recording a reduction in violent offences.

The vast majority of police forces actually witnessed double digit rises in violent crime, with Northumbria posting a 95 per cent increase year on year.

Of the other forces, Durham Police recorded a 73 per cent rise; West Yorkshire was up 48 per cent; Avon and Somerset 45 per cent; Dorset 39 per cent and Warwickshire 37 per cent.

Elsewhere Humberside, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Wiltshire and Dyfed Powys all saw violence rise by more than a quarter year on year.

 

[2aguy]

The reason this argument of yours never gets traction Flopper is it's clearly obvious that the person fixated on AR variations has NO IDEA of what firearms are truly dangerous. The SKS rifle that I'm "baby-sitting" for a friend in Cali (he can't have it there) is just as lethal. But since it has a wood stock and doesn't LOOK dangerous --- it doesn't get scape-goated. So you're essentially asking for REMOVING at least 27 different brands and styles of semi-auto weapons. And you don't even realize it.

Now -- you cant' stuff an SKS with a wooden stock into a smaller bag. But that's about it.

You mentioned Vegas.. The shooter DESTROYED (burned up) THREE ARs with his bump stock trick. Because the rifle is NOT designed for automatic rates of fire. How many mass shooters are gonna carry 4 ARs around on the ground with everything else they need? It's NOT a military weapon. In fact the BATF REQUIRES that no parts of AR variants are interchangeable with military models.

A semi-auto shotgun with a magazine is an awesome close quarter weapon. Not that hard to reload if you're in a Gun Free Zone with nobody to stop you..

When you REALIZE what you're asking for -- you see why nobody ever bites on your "suggestion" of blaming a single fearful LOOKING rifle.

I'm obviously not a firearms expert although I do own a gun and know how to use. People that know a lot more about firearms and public safety than me can make the decision as to just how much firepower the general public will be allowed, balancing 2nd amendment rights against pubic safety. It was decided long ago that handheld missiles and machine guns were too powerful to put in the hands of the public. As arms makers strive for more and more effective weapons, government needs to excise it's power to regulate ever more power weapons.

How long ago was it that the govt decided how much firepower should be in the hands of ordinary citizens? Was it before or after the Congress wrote in the Marques of Reprisal clause to Constitution and PAID privateers to go after pirates in their "world class" (at the time) battleships?? 8 cannon on a cruiser seems perfectly legit in that context...

And the context has changed quite a bit in last two hundred and fifty years. The primary reason for the second amendment was not to provide citizens the means to overthrow the government but rather to support the militias. The founders believed every able bodied man should be a member of a militia and when invading armies or hoards of Indians attacked, the militias would come to the defense of the people.

Today we look favorable on our armed forces and believe we could not survived without it. In colonial days, they believed just the opposite. Standing armies were abhorrent and were a danger to the freedom of people as well being costly to maintain. It was the militias that would defend the people and for that to happen, our citizen soldier would have to have guns.

To the colonialist a gun meant the musket, an imported item that cost the equivalent of two months pay. Without constant attention its iron rusted, and blacksmiths were ill equipped to repair it. The musket was not efficient for self-defense or hunting. It was not accurate beyond a few hundred feet (it had no sight, and soldiers were instructed not to aim, but fire in volleys. It frequently misfired and was cumbersome to reload, awkward qualities for individual self-defense; by the time you had put ball and powder back in, your foe would be upon you with knife, club or ax. About the only reason for owning a musket in those days was to join others in a militia to fight off attacking Indians or other hostel forces. This explains why only 14% of the men owned muskets and about half of them were not operational.

The founders believe every able bodied man should own a gun because the new nation would be depending on them for defense. To that end, gun ownership was encouraged and protected by the constitution. The context today is totally different.

Spiking the Gun Myth

No...the context is not different......the modern Government of Germany first registered and then confiscated the guns of it's citizens......and then they sent 12 million Germans and other Europeand into gas chambers to be murdered.....the Russian government murdered 25 million people, the Chinese government murdered 70 million people...

The Mexican government has made it impossible for citizens to own guns...and 10s of thousands of Mexican citizens are murdered by the police and soldiers of Mexico, who are the allies of the drug cartels....

Brazil has 60,000 people murdered every year, with extreme gun control laws...as the criminals easily get, and use guns to murder them......

All unarmed and defenseless when their government decided to murder them.....

If anything, it is more important than ever before that the population of a country be armed, in order to keep the government from crossing that line ever again...

You can cherry pick statistics to prove your point. However, I can do same. The UK has adopted some the most restrictive gun control of any European country. Are tens of thousands of people being slaughtered by criminals? Nope, in fact the homicide rate is one fifth that of the US. Japan has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. For most Japanese, owning a gun is all but impossible. The homicide rate in the US is 14 times greater than Japan. The secret to gun control is creating laws without loopholes that are enforced throughout the country.

It is utterly insane that people have to buy guns to protect themselves because the government is not able to control gun ownership. Other democratic countries do it quite effectively while maintaining a higher degree of personal freedom than in the US.

It would help if you actually knew what you were talking about instead of simply repeating the last anti gun rant you heard...

This is how Japan keeps their country crime free...

Japan: Gun Control and People Control

Japan's low crime rate has almost nothing to do with gun control, and everything to do with people control. Americans, used to their own traditions of freedom, would not accept Japan's system of people controls and gun controls.



Robbery in Japan is about as rare as murder. Japan's annual robbery rate is 1.8 per 100,000 inhabitants; America's is 205.4. Do the gun banners have the argument won when they point to these statistics? No, they don't. A realistic examination of Japanese culture leads to the conclusion that gun control has little, if anything, to do with Japan's low crime rates. Japan's lack of crime is more the result of the very extensive powers of the Japanese police, and the distinctive relation of the Japanese citizenry to authority. Further, none of the reasons which have made gun control succeed in Japan (in terms of disarming citizens) exist in the U.S.

The Japanese criminal justice system bears more heavily on a suspect than any other system in an industrial democratic nation. One American found this out when he was arrested in Okinawa for possessing marijuana: he was interrogated for days without an attorney, and signed a confession written in Japanese that he could not read. He met his lawyer for the first time at his trial, which took 30 minutes.

Unlike in the United States, where the Miranda rule limits coercive police interrogation techniques, Japanese police and prosecutors may detain a suspect indefinitely until he confesses. (Technically, detentions are only allowed for three days, followed by ten day extensions approved by a judge, but defense attorneys rarely oppose the extension request, for fear of offending the prosecutor.) Bail is denied if it would interfere with interrogation.

Even after interrogation is completed, pretrial detention may continue on a variety of pretexts, such as preventing the defendant from destroying evidence. Criminal defense lawyers are the only people allowed to visit a detained suspect, and those meetings are strictly limited.

Partly as a result of these coercive practices, and partly as a result of the Japanese sense of shame, the confession rate is 95%.

For those few defendants who dare to go to trial, there is no jury. Since judges almost always defer to the prosecutors' judgment, the trial conviction rate for violent crime is 99.5%.
Of those convicted, 98% receive jail time.

In short, once a Japanese suspect is apprehended, the power of the prosecutor makes it very likely the suspect will go to jail. And the power of the policeman makes it quite likely that a criminal will be apprehended.

The police routinely ask "suspicious" characters to show what is in their purse or sack. In effect, the police can search almost anyone, almost anytime, because courts only rarely exclude evidence seized by the police -- even if the police acted illegally.

The most important element of police power, though, is not authority to search, but authority in the community. Like school teachers, Japanese policemen rate high in public esteem, especially in the countryside. Community leaders and role models, the police are trained in calligraphy and Haiku composition. In police per capita, Japan far outranks all other major democracies.

15,000 koban "police boxes" are located throughout the cities. Citizens go to the 24-hour-a-day boxes not only for street directions, but to complain about day-to-day problems, such as noisy neighbors, or to ask advice on how to raise children. Some of the policemen and their families live in the boxes. Police box officers clear 74.6% of all criminal cases cleared. Police box officers also spend time teaching neighborhood youth judo or calligraphy. The officers even hand- write their own newspapers, with information about crime and accidents, "stories about good deeds by children, and opinions of
residents."

The police box system contrasts sharply with the practice in America. Here, most departments adopt a policy of "stranger policing." To prevent corruption, police are frequently rotated from one neighborhood to another. But as federal judge Charles Silberman writes, "the cure is worse than the disease, for officers develop no sense of identification with their beats, hence no emotional stake in improving the quality of life there."

Thus, the U.S. citizenry does not develop a supportive relationship with the police. One poll showed that 60% of police officers believe "it is difficult to persuade people to give patrolmen the information they need."

The Japanese police do not spend all their time in the koban boxes. As the Japanese government puts it: "Home visit is one of the most important duties of officers assigned to police boxes." Making annual visits to each home in their beat, officers keep track of who lives where, and which family member to contact in case of emergency. The police also check on all gun licensees, to make sure no gun has been stolen or misused, that the gun is securely stored, and that the licensees are emotionally stable.

Gun banners might rejoice at a society where the police keep such a sharp eye on citizens' guns. But the price is that the police keep an eye on everything.

Policemen are apt to tell people reading sexually-oriented magazines to read something more worthwhile. Japan's major official year-end police report includes statistics like "Background and Motives for Girls' Sexual Misconduct." In 1985, the police determined that 37.4% of the girls had been seduced, and the rest had had sex "voluntarily." For the volunteers, 19.6% acted "out of curiosity", while for 18.1%, the motive was "liked particular boy." The year-end police report also includes sections on labor demands, and on anti-nuclear or anti-military demonstrations.