Welcome to the Just Plain Folks forums! You are currently viewing our forums as a Guest which gives you limited access to most of our discussions and to other features.
By joining our free community you will have access to post and respond to topics, communicate privately with our users (PM), respond to polls, upload content, and access many other features. Registration is fast, simple, and absolutely free; so please join our community today!
The argument on D.C.'s gun laws that the Supreme Court is hearing is on the issue of whether the right to bear arms is a "militia" or an individual right.
In 2003, Nashville had an overall higher crime rate than Washington, D.C., according to the FBI. It's murder rate was far lower. But Nashville was way higher in forcible rape, aggravated assault, burglary and larcency.
If you look at the cities with the highest murder rates, you'll see that gun laws aren't the problem. It's poverty, gangs and drugs.
And the good, law abiding folks in New Orleans or Baltimore or Detroit didn't apparently go out and buy guns to keep from getting killed. It won't happen in D.C., either. The idea that the minorities who are overwhelmingly in the circumstantial culture of poverty, gangs and drugs in D.C. can arm themselves out of the problem as some kind of personal responsibility has a racial tone. Sorry for the hyperbole before, but it just does. Gun laws are a distraction from the real problems.
When you consider how many more people use cars than guns, how many times they use them, and how long the periods of time are that they are used -- without doing the math -- it's pretty apparent that cars are safer than guns if only 30 times more people accidentlly die from their use every year.
The "study" you cite of felons who were "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed citizen, and 40% have not committed crimes because they feared that their potential victims were armed" doesn't say anything about who those felons were -- what crimes they committed or even if they were armed when they committed the crime. Were they armed when they decided not to attack someone they thought was armed?
That statistics also combines apples and oranges -- if someone was captured or shot at or wounded, they went ahead and committed the crime. Did they commit the crime even if they were wounded or shot at? Crappy study.
The K-G study about 2.5 million cases of defensive gun use is hardly a non-controversial study. For example:
We would like to keep the membership in Just Plain Folks FREE! Your donation helps support the many programs we offer including Road Trips and the Music Awards.
