Debate : 13504


Off-Topic / Debate / 13504

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) It wasn't exactly rhetorical...I don't know for sure what's legal in all the European nations. But, if it requires "special permission" then it's a priviledge, not a right. (...) Absolutely. The citizens of the US do not have a right to drive. (...) (23 years ago, 6-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Pedro Silva

(...) What if the permit is almost granted to be issued, unless one is declared "unfit"? (by a number of reasons, including possibly being a lunatic or a terrorist) (...) And then you get really shocked about stuff like Columbine, Waco, or that (...) (23 years ago, 7-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) What if? (...) No I don't. And those have to do (I believe) with children who are institutionally abused, more than with firearms. The firearm was a only tool...a means of expression. (...) say (...) Why is it that Europeans often start in (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Scott Arthur

(...) Do you think Amtrak should get more than the $24B *subsidy* it has had since 1971, or do you think roads should get less *investment*? Scott A (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Larry Pieniazek

(...) The latter. If something has been incorrectly subsidised in the past the solution is not to jack up the subsidies of everything else you can find that remotely competes with it. Highways and airtransport have been unfairly subsidised in the (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) Road and rail should each be cut from subsidy. Chris (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Horst Lehner

Hello Chris, (...) But wouldn't things be better when other means of expression are easier to get than arms? Or, still better than nothing, vice versa, when arms are harder to get? Of course, I don't want to advocate to NOT also tackle the root (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Tom Stangl

(...) Most criminals aren't stupid. Given a choice against going up against an armed or unarmed victim, most will logically choose the unarmed victim. I sure would if I were a criminal! -- | Tom Stangl, iPlanet Web Server Technical Support | Sun (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Pedro Silva

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Tom Stangl writes: (snipped) (...) Most criminals aren't psychic, either. So how can they tell if someone is armed or not? They just try their luck. If the victim is not armed, fine; if it is, too bad, one person will (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Tom Stangl

(...) Simple - they go to areas where weapons are hard to *lawfully* get. Statistics prove this out - the easier it is to *lawfully* get a gun, hence the more *lawful* citizens have them, the lower the "bad" crimes in the area. (...) No, they often (...) (23 years ago, 9-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —James Powell

(...) Statistics (...) *lawful* (...) Hmmm...I hate to point this out: UK murder rate by handgun is lower than US one...hmmm, seems that the _opposite_ effect is true. Or, look at Canada/US . Same sort of effects. Although, I think that it has a (...) (23 years ago, 9-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Tom Stangl

(...) You're comparing vastly different countries, with different mindsets. Compare within a country, especially within the US, and you'll see that states that allow easy lawful access to guns tend to have lower violent crime rates. Compare apples (...) (23 years ago, 9-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Lawrence Wilkes

"Tom Stangl, VFAQman" <talonts@vfaq.com> wrote in message news:3BC2954C.27A2A3...faq.com... (...) How are the US, Canada, and the UK "vastly different countries, with different mindsets"? (...) It seems to me the above is comparing apples with (...) (23 years ago, 9-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Tom Stangl

(...) How are they NOT? While they share many similarities, can you seriously say the mindset of the country as a whole is the same between them? Canada and the UK seem to lean too far to the Socialist side compared to the US, IMO. There are many (...) (23 years ago, 9-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Pedro Silva

(...) And what about *inside* them? Are these three nations that homogeneous? (...) OTOH, it can be said the US are too far to the Conservative side... it depends of the reference you take for "Centre". (...) Yes, but the UK did not need a (...) (23 years ago, 9-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Frank Filz

(...) While I don't have any knowledge of the laws of Canada and the UK, I'm pretty confident the rights enshrined in the US Constitution are not as well protected in Canada and the UK. (...) The right to bear arms is not the "almost single one (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Horst Lehner

(...) Not a single word of arms there. What do you read between the lines? (...) Maybe, but even with the arms you US civilians do have, do you think that is realistic? :wq Horst (23 years ago, 16-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Larry Pieniazek

(...) It was, but sight of that point was lost and unconstitutional restrictions imposed on what sorts of arms can be owned have now made it less realistic. That's the whole POINT of this debate, after all. (23 years ago, 19-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) Yes. If a large chunk (say, 50%) of the US population used handguns and rifles to overthrow the national government for the sake of instilling a better one, I'm sure that we would defeat the military. They would not posess the will to put the (...) (23 years ago, 19-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —James Powell

(...) No, they are not. There is NO way that you can compare downtown Toronto with Elliot Lake (or Pickle Lake). I've lived in the biggest Canadian city, and in much smaller communities. I would say that the murder rate per populace _by gun_ was (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Tom Stangl

(...) Um, NO. That doesn't follow. Not unless every mugger in Canada kills their victim every time (if that happened, you'd have a lot more citizens killing muggers, with illegal guns if necessary). The statistics you quoted have to do with deaths, (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Lawrence Wilkes

"Tom Stangl" <tom.stangl@sun.com> wrote in message news:3BC3637E.62D9EA...sun.com... (...) I think it depends on the intepretation of 'vast'. US, Iran, Thailand - now thats more like vast. US, Canada, UK - that's just shades of grey in my book. (...) (23 years ago, 9-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Scott Arthur

(...) It means that we have a legal framework which reflects the way we live today. We are not held ransom by a bunch of politically appointed lawyers arguing over semantics based on a centuries old piece of paper. Scott A (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Larry Pieniazek

(...) In the large, more similar than different (and did I say "thank you Great Britain" yet today? Consider it said, and ditto for Canada, two true friends). But I think the point is that when comparing this particular facet, they are different (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —James Powell

(...) Well...it ain't all that big of a trick to import the guns into Ontario from NY either...but, that _still_ doesn't make the crime rate with firearms in Ontario all that high in comparison to most major US areas. Look at a US city with a (...) (23 years ago, 11-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) NY (...) Ontario (...) Why do you folks obsess over the crime rate _with firearms_? Isn't the rate of crime what really matters? Or more specifically violent crime? Killed by a knife is just as dead as killed by a bullet, after all. (...) than (...) (23 years ago, 14-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —James Powell

(...) of (...) It's harder to kill someone with a knife than a gun...how many times do you hear of people killed via 43 stab wounds, vice a single bullet wound? Are you next going to say that if we limit access to guns, we should limit access to (...) (23 years ago, 14-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —James Powell

In lugn (...) the Bill of Rights (...) What??? You mean, that since we DON'T WANT your Bill of Rights, or your Declaration of Independance (we did it nicely enough ourselves, thank you without any guns from you prodding us :) (1812 :) - Canada is a (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Horst Lehner

(...) Can you bring up any examples that have straight relationship to the topic? The problem with your apples is they lie so close together that if one of them is rotten it can too easily infect the others. However, that does not say that the (...) (23 years ago, 16-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Horst Lehner

Let me play a bit of advocatis diabolis here ... (...) So, you would admit that there is a problem with SOMETHING in the US mindset? But you are sure it has nothing to do with arms? (...) ... and at the same time fuel the violent crimes in places (...) (23 years ago, 11-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —James Simpson

(...) Violent crime involving robberies and non-domestic assaults are usually committed by people who are not likely to pick up and move to another state where concealed handguns are not allowed just so they can commit crime. You'd be very hard (...) (23 years ago, 12-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —James Simpson

(...) In close quarters, or in terms of hand-to-hand self-defense, a knife can often be deadlier than a gun. Based on what I've learned in self-defense classes, and from a bit of personal training by a friend who teaches martial arts, attempting a (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Dave Schuler

(...) But the issue is "close quarters." A gun is more or less equally deadly (other than matters of aiming) at a range of ten feet or of one foot; both can therefore be considered close quarters for a gun-wielder, but it's hard to disarm someone (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —James Simpson

(...) Exactly my point. I'd rather face, within my striking range, a mugger with a gun than with a knife. (...) Clearly all that you say above is correct. Again, my point was that in hand-to- hand combat (as I define mugging), you often have a (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) I don't think you really hated point it out. Also, you're assertion, while certainly correct, supports Tom's stance better than your own once you look at the broader picture. The rate of violent crime is _greater_ in the UK than in the US. (...) (23 years ago, 14-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Horst Lehner

(...) How far would they travel to do that? At least not to Europe ... (...) ... because these statistics must be within the US. And of course they prove nothing about how the situation would be like with a *consistent* legislation over the *whole (...) (23 years ago, 11-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Mike Petrucelli

(...) Guns are already more easily obtained through illegal channels in the US. Increasing the difficulty of obtaining a gun through legal channels will not stop any criminals from getting them. Why do people assume that just because something is (...) (23 years ago, 11-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Scott Arthur

(...) This is news to me. So why are criminals criminals? (...) lol Scott A (...) (23 years ago, 9-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Horst Lehner

Hello, (...) Point missed. What I just say is this: Human interaction is complex, and it has been sufficiently proven that complex systems don't react to a single stimulus with a single, easily predictable response. In other words, simplistic (...) (23 years ago, 10-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Larry Pieniazek

(...) I think you're better off examining statistics rather than analysing reasons, as there are just too many blind alleys to go down if you try the latter(1). But if you examine statistics that are applicable, homeowner gun ownership reduces (...) (23 years ago, 11-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) They are already. Guns are A) a hassle to get most places, B) expensive, and C) highly regulated as is. (...) It might, in fact, reduce the number of school shootings. I'm not convinced of this, but I'm willing to concede that it might. But I (...) (23 years ago, 14-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Horst Lehner

(...) ... within the US, because there is always a place nearby where it is easy to get arms. (...) Quicker in the US than in Europe, for example. What makes me think so is the simple difference between how the average Europe Gas Station robbery (...) (23 years ago, 24-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...) —Larry Pieniazek

(...) Which every single piece of legislation I've ever seen (except for legislation REPEALING gun control law) does. (23 years ago, 24-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta loveOracle...) —Tom Stangl

(...) Yes - easier to illegally get arms. I could get an illegal gun MUCH easier than a legal gun, yet I choose to wait and get one following the ridiculous laws of this state. How does the ease of illegal acquisition for criminals affect the fact (...) (23 years ago, 29-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta loveOracle...) —Horst Lehner

(...) OK, if it is easier to get an illegal gun in states that have restrictions on who can and how he can legally obtain a gun, then, of course, this needs to be fixed, too. (...) I was talking about *legal* ways for criminals to get guns. And to (...) (23 years ago, 30-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta loveOracle...) —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) Fixed how? The solution I favor is to lift those restrictions. (...) It IS appropriate to compare US states because we're not giving up our right to keep and bear arms. Whether or not you think it's safer without them, we are committed to (...) (23 years ago, 30-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta loveOracle...) —Horst Lehner

(...) You already guessed that I prefer a different solution, didn't you? I think it's time to agree that we disagree. The discussion has not brought up any new arguments for a while ... (...) I am for sure not going to tell you what you should do (...) (23 years ago, 31-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Pedro Silva

(...) (snipped) (...) ! (...) Yeah, right... (...) That is why mankind invented LANGUAGE... to express. A tool for expression is a pencil, a guitar, a toy, the body expression... A gun is a tool to *end* the need for speech. You shoot, you win, you (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Horst Lehner

Hello Chris, (...) I understand that this is the current situation. But why would you want to maintain it exactly this way? What makes driving different from bearing arms? Why is it acceptable to require permission for one but not the other? (...) (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) Well actually, I would have argued that we ought to have the right to drive. But since Richard pointed out that we do, the point is rather moot. (...) First of all, I don't know that it is. I just spent about a half hour trying to find those (...) (23 years ago, 14-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Horst Lehner

(...) Well, open enough for my taste, given the fact there are very few other countries which have that many people per square mile. As far as fair treatment is concerned, I think there is two answers: - On one side, there is the official side of (...) (23 years ago, 24-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Christopher L. Weeks

(...) What must a person of Turkish descent whose family has lived in Germany for three generations do to seek citizenship? (...) Actually, this is a tricky situation because ultimately I think that rights are just a notion. But I spend the majority (...) (23 years ago, 26-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Richard Marchetti

(...) Actually, we do have the right to travel by modern conveyance -- a right recognized under common law since the time of Magna Carta. Applying this argument to the a.k.a. "driving privilege" is not too complicated -- getting the courts to (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Scott Arthur

(...) Do you have the right to pollute by means of an automobile? :) Scott A (A Car owning cyclist) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Richard Marchetti

(...) Hey, everything has its drawbacks. Even horses pollute. For that matter, so do cyclists... -- Hop-Frog (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Gotta love Oracle... —Larry Pieniazek

(...) Arguably, no. Not on a rights based calculus. But see Friedman (1) who argues that rights based calculus breaks down at the edges (asserting your right not to ingest one molecule of extra CO2 due to a car near but not on your property is a bit (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)