[Colonel]

[quote:adb8a]Rubbish. Show me the stats.[/quote:adb8a]

Most gun control lobbying groups, such as the one you link to, refer to a stat showing that you are "22% more likely" to have the gun in your house used against you, either by a criminal, or by accident. (sometimes they say 40 or 43%, sometimes 18% - they can't make up their minds). This supposition comes from study done by Arthur Kellerman, M.D.. But he readily admits that he used very a very small scale group from "selected" districts because he wanted to make sure he proved his belief that guns should never be in the home. He justified his political bias by stating "People should be strongly discouraged from keeping guns in their homes." Apparently the end justifies the means. Furthermore, he only included cases where the criminal was actually killed. Dr. Edgar Suter refuted Kellerman's findings in the Journal of Medicine of Georgia. Dr. Suter said, "The true measure of the protective benefits of guns are the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved, and the property protected—not the burglar or rapist body count. Since only 0.1% to 0.2% of defensive gun usage involves the death of the criminal, any study, such as this, that counts criminal deaths as the only measure of the protective benefits of guns will expectedly underestimate the benefits of firearms by a factor of 500 to 1,000."

[quote:adb8a]How on earth do you judge it saved a life?[/quote:adb8a]

I agree that this is difficult. As in the case I mentioned earlier, I believe my father's flife was saved by his gun. Can I prove it? No. Can I be reasonably sure that a young guy with a baseball bat who is ramming your door, and who tries even harder to break down that door after he sees the 75 year old liilte guy inside, intends to cause someone serious bodily injury? yes.

This is not an unusual case, "criminologist Gary Kleck notes, "More commonly, guns are merely pointed at another person, or perhaps referred to or displayed, and this sufficient to accomplish the ends of the user." (Targeting Guns, Aldine de Gruyter, 1997, p. 162.) Kleck's 1995 landmark survey of defensive gun uses found guns used for protection as many as 2.5 million times annually, ("Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1995.)"

[quote:adb8a]But not gun-related crimes. You are trying to make a link where none exists.[/quote:adb8a]

Ah, but the point is that crime in general, and even violent crime increased. "Between 1980-1995, Australia's firearm-related death rate was cut nearly in half and its firearm-related homicide rate nearly by two-thirds. (The former decreased 46%, from 4.8 deaths per 100,000 population to 2.6; the latter decreased 63%, from eight per 100,000 to three). In 1995, the annual number of firearm-related deaths fell to its lowest point in the 16-year period." So crime was decreasing in Australia prior to the ban. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics website, incidences of violent crime increased from 1997 to 1998 (I think this was the first year of the ban) from 161,398 to 172,690, a 7% increase. (violent crime includes murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault, etc.)

A few more quotes:

"The number of Victorians murdered with firearms has almost trebled since the introduction of tighter gun laws.
--Geelong Advertiser, Victoria, Sept. 11, 1997.

"Crime involving guns is on the rise despite tougher laws. The number of robberies with guns jumped 39% in 1997, while assaults involving guns rose 28% and murders by 19%."
--"Gun crime soars," Morning Herald, Sydney, Oct. 28, 1998.

"The environment is more violent and dangerous than it was some time ago."
--South Australia Police Commissioner Mal Hyde, reported in The Advertiser, Adelaide, Dec. 23, 1999.

[quote:adb8a]And what about non-accidental deaths? The black communities are the worst to suffer from this, but I guess if you're white and middle class it is alright, right? You don't have to live with it.[/quote:adb8a]

This is a little insulting. Crime is crime regardless of skin color. This statement is like me saying to you that your only concerned about banning guns because you don't want to be "blasted away" and that you don't care about all of the women that are raped because "You don't have to live with it" By the way, in the murder/attempted murder category in the Australian stats they increased from 639 cases to 666 cases, sexual assaults increased from 14,353 to 14,568. I guess you don't want the stats about accidental deaths. But.. 100,000 people of all ages were accidentaly killed in the US in 1999 (sorry that the last of year of stats that I could find). Tragically 824 were from accidental firearm deaths. 42,401 from autos, 13,162 from falls, 12,186 from poisoning, etc - firearms deaths were way down the list.

Your comments about my 19th century values will have to wait until another time - got to pick my daughter up from school - but I will say that freedom is never old fashioned. I think we are looking at this from two different directions. you say that "your "freedom" isn't whether a penny if you're dead" and I agree. But your freedom from the fear of being "blasted away" will not be worth a penny if a guy bigger than you beats you to death or rapes your daughter, etc. I guess it is all in how you look at it.

I'll have to comment on the rest of your post later. You have some good points, but sadly, they are not based in facts. :cry: :wink:

By the way, you also said that non-lethal by definition cannot kill you. Maybe its not designed to, but it can. Remember the actor a few years ago that was killed by a blank firing gun because it was fired too close to his head? Haven't you occasionally read about someone in a crowd getting killed by a rubber bullet that happens to hit them just right? Don't you remember Mama Cass choking on a ham sandwich? (actually I think she had a heart attack while eating a sandwich but it didn't go down in history that way). -- Boy I wish this had spell check cause there's no way I'm gonna proof this.