Ray From Cleveland
Diamond Member
- Aug 16, 2015
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Because guns save more lives than they take.Links to Harvard and Brooklyn Law are hardly "fair and balanced". Both are liberal/democrat strongholds. Find better sources.
You're damn right you have nowhere else to go. Sensible people people in your country don't want guns either. AMERICANS want to enjoy the safety and security of living in a country where anyone who feels threatened by "others" can't shoot them.
A study I read a few years ago that took the stories of gun owners who had drawn their guns to defend themselves from the threat of crimes being committed against them. These were licensed, "responsible" gun owners. None had criminal records. In the cases which wer reviewed,
Their stories were reviewed by a group of retired criminal judges. Only the gun owners' stories were heard, and their stories weren't questioned. The judges found that most gun owners were guilty of criminal offences, when they pulled the gun. What the gun owners called "self-defence", was using their gun to threaten and intimmidate others. In nearly every case the judges reviewed, the gun owner was, at all times, the aggressor.
What you have created is a nation where "shoot first, ask questions later" is a way of life. Just read the posts of the Internet Rambos here. If they feel threatened, they will use lethal force, and apologize if they're wrong. It doesn't matter whether the threat is real or not. And if they do, they'll likely end up in jail for murder, or at best, manslaughter.
They think they can argue their way out of a murder charge if they're wrong, because of "Castle Doctrine" or "Stand Your Ground". This ignorant and wrong headed interpretation of these laws is why the murder rates rise so precipitiously after SYG laws have been enacted. The first question asked when lethal force is used isn't whether you felt threatened, but whether or not the threat was real.
As crime goes down, conservatives are buying more and more guns. "Feeling threatened" is not the same thing as being threatened. I have to ask myself, if crime rates are going down, the police are brutally clamping down on the "thugs", why do you all feel so threatened?
Gun Threats and Self-Defense Gun Use
1-3. Guns are not used millions of times each year in self-defense We use epidemiological theory to explain why the “false positive” problem for rare events can lead to large overestimates of the i…www.hsph.harvard.edu
Guns Prevent Thousands of Crimes Every Day, Research Shows | Lawrence W. Reed
The Center for Disease Control, in a report ordered by President Obama in 2012 following the Sandy Hook Massacre, estimated that the number of crimes prevented by guns could be as high as 3 million annually, or some 8,200 every day. And there is plenty more evidence showing that guns keep...fee.org
- Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. Most often, the gun is never fired, and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
- Every year, 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.
- 60 percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. Forty percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed.
- Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot.
- Fewer than 1 percent of firearms are used in the commission of a crime.
Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.
Any Study Of 'Gun Violence' Should Include How Guns Save Lives
Guns are used for legal self-defense far more often than most people realize.www.forbes.com
Almost all of the national surveys are coming from the NRA, with an agenda to keep handguns legal and readily available. There is little to no funding available for unbiased studies, and even less which highlight the dangers of gun ownership, because the agenda is to keep gun ownership legal and unregulated.
Since the CDC were barred by Congress by doing research on gun issues, there has been little unbiased research on the topic. The Republican Congress stopped funding research the results always came out badly for the "gun rights" crowd. Every study the CDC did, essentially came back with the same results: gun regulation saves lives.
There are few unbiased studies being done in the USA, and even fewer that show gun ownership in a negative light, despite the gut wrenching numbers of deaths, injuries, and mass killings ever year. There is no need to prove unrestricted handgun ownership is a detriment to public health. The numbers alone on the deaths, injuries, suicides, and mass shootings, make it obvious, when compared to other first world nations where handgun ownership is strictly regulated.
All of the statistics from the Foundation for Economic Freedom are refuted by the Harvard Study, and here's the reason why. The FEF study set out to demonstrate how many times guns are used to prevent crime. The survey was biased to find as many positive gun uses as possible, because that's they're looking for: studies to support the libertarian view.
The Harvard study wasn't looking for a result. If anything, it was set up to show how effective law abiding gun owners are in the use of their weapons. They didn't even hear from the "other guy" as to what went down, nor did they cross examine the gun owners or question their statements. The accepted what the gun owner told them was true, and never questioned their reasons. They also used retired criminal judges to assess the stories. Criminal judges are hardly flaming liberals. If anything, listening to criminals try to justify their crimes all day would make anyone hardcore conservative.
Added to which, the Harvard study results were truly surprising. It was expected that some of the gun owners acted inappropriately when drawing weapons, but not virtually ALL of them.
Last but not least, Harvard is hardly a "liberal" institution. 8 US Presidents attended Harvard from the past. Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, all attended Harvard. It's an even split between Democrats and Republicans.
Also, there are no "unbiased sources" when it comes to guns, everyone has a bias one way or the other.
Not even worth your time to argue. We use FBI statistics, and she's talking about some study she didn't post by Harvard. We know which source is biased and which one isn't.
