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Subject: 
Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Thu, 18 Sep 2003 16:24:55 GMT
Viewed: 
471 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
   60 percent of the violent deaths in your country in the year 2000, according to this website were due to *just* firearms. That leaves 40 percent for all other forms of violent death combined, including knives, axes, rope, baseball bats, and let’s not ferget driving over spouses with vehicles.

So what?

All you’ve done is show that people are smart enough to use the best tool for a certain task -- if you intend to kill someone a gun is a good choice for that job. In a sense, if you could eliminate a person’s motivation to kill you would reduce the murder rate, regardless of the advent of guns. Sadly, people do like to kill themselves and each other.

Why is that? What in your society, supposedly the freeest society on the planet, causes you to kill each other more often, per capita, than any other country in the world during peace time?

Well lets see... According to that site only 0.00004 percent of people decide to abuse freedom by killing others with guns. And only 0.00006 percent of people decide to kill themselves with guns. So in the “supposedly freeest society” only 0.00010 percent of the population abuses that freedom and shoots themself or others. Now personally I don’t care if someone decides to shoot themselves, its their choice to make and only physically affects them. So only 0.00004 percent of the population is abusing their freedom to the detriment of society. Not exactly what I would call a rampant problem.

   I’ll go so far as to grant you the premise that if you can change your fellow ‘Merican’s mindset about killing each other, then by all means, keep the gun in your house. But that’s not going to happen--you’re not going to change your fellow citizens minds, especially when you have high ideals like ‘outta my cold dead hands’ and ‘lead in the brain’ as your mantras. So get the objects that cause the harm, and, hopefully, the mindset will change. If you don’t have access to cigarettes, you can’t smoke ‘em. And if you can’t smoke ‘em, you can’t die because of ‘em.

And just who has the right to tell someone they can’t do whatever the heck they want to themselves?
  
  
What about the traffic? Why does the fact that it’s largely accidental not cause you any worries? I mean, I did mean it as a joke but it does have it’s serious side.


I would say that all the difference in the world lies between the concept of “Accident” and “Violent homicide” and if you can’t distinguish between those two happenings, then you’ve lost any credibility you’ve had left.

And yet the underlying point remains, I am four tims more likely to be killed in a car accident, than I am to be killed by gunshot.
  
   BTW, how many people die of firearm incidents that might have otherwise have been non-lethal but for the absense of a national healthcare system and/or adequately speedy medical treatment for the victim? I find that an interesting question. I am trying to distinguish people that are dead on the spot from those that die of some other complication even if it’s just bleeding to death.


And I could point to a few countries that have national helth care systems and such, that, for all intents and purposes, are getting along pretty well--but that’s another mind-shift that Americans won’t grasp--socialist ideas do not automatically imply ‘communism’.

   If I were to ever kill someone, which generally would never happen unless I was somehow forced to it, I would go for the incapacitating chest shot and then the many shots to lethal locations like the head and heart. Efficiency is my middle name...

I’d say is ‘gun-toting-yahoo’ with the ‘incapacitating chest shot, then the many shots to lethal locations’, but that’s just me.

Well that is the price of freedom; you have a 0.00004 percent chance that you will be killed by some random lunatic with a gun. So this only confirms my previous analogy of trying to save one’s little finger by chopping off one’s legs.

-Mike Petrucelli



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
 
(...) 25,000 violent deaths per year due to firearms is not a 'rampant problem'? 68 deaths a day 3 per hour. In the time it took us to write back and forth, say 3 hours, 9 people have died. 9 people whos violent "non accidental" deaths could have (...) (21 years ago, 18-Sep-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
  Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
 
(...) If I'm reading your statistics right, then I think the actual figure is 0.004 percent. I selected only homicide-related firearm deaths, yielding a total of 10,801, which represents 0.0039 percent. If my calculation is wrong, someone please (...) (21 years ago, 18-Sep-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
 
(...) Why is that? What in your society, supposedly the freeest society on the planet, causes you to kill each other more often, per capita, than any other country in the world during peace time? I'll go so far as to grant you the premise that if (...) (21 years ago, 18-Sep-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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