The Great American Gun Fetish

[Manic Ferocity]

I'm not trying to sound like "oh ya, I'm a fuckin gangsta" but I lived in Price Hill, Cincinnati for a year. If you're at all familiar, it's not a safe area to live. On the front porch of my complex, I witnessed someone gunned down, and I just walked right in when I heard the gunshots. No one ever fucked with me there and I was 100% unarmed. The worst I dealt with was (likely junkies) trying to break the tin foil holding my air conditioner together, which was a failed attempt at robbery anyway. I moved because it was way too loud there.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

 

[CiG]

I think people should have the right to have them. I just don't understand how dangerous your environment can be to justify the necessity, unless you're a gang member.

I'm not trying to sound like "oh ya, I'm a fuckin gangsta" but I lived in Price Hill, Cincinnati for a year. If you're at all familiar, it's not a safe area to live. On the front porch of my complex, I witnessed someone gunned down, and I just walked right in when I heard the gunshots. No one ever fucked with me there and I was 100% unarmed. The worst I dealt with was (likely junkies) trying to break the tin foil holding my air conditioner together, which was a failed attempt at robbery anyway. I moved because it was way too loud there.

I can't speak to the American experience of course, but I know some Americans who protected against home invasions with their guns and once someone has saved their own lives or protected their property even once with a gun, you're going to have a hard time convincing them that guns are over the top or unnecessary.

For me guns were always about hunting and dealing with farm issues. Can't put a dying animal out of its misery with a can of mace.
Though I do keep some firearms in the house since I've never not lived in a shithole area and I've dealt with break-ins when I was too young and dumb to own a firearm. Never again.

 

[UltimateApathy]

The statistics speak for themselves, the whole idea of gun ownership making a country safer is a MYTH, and gun ownership in fact has the opposite effect of making a country much more DANGEROUS:

Guns in America: For every criminal killed in self-defense, 34 innocent people die

"The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun." saysWayne LaPierre, the vice president of the National Rifle Association.

That's become the kernel of the NRA's response to recent mass shooting tragedies -- if only more people carried guns for protection, the thinking goes, then they would be less likely to be victimized by gun-wielding criminals.

“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre said

The challenge to that argument is that, data show, guns are rarely used in self-defense -- especially relative to the rate at which they're used in criminal homicides or suicides. A recent report from the Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy group, put those numbers in some perspective, and I dug up the raw numbers from the FBI's homicide data. Take a look:

In 2012, there were 8,855 criminal gun homicides in the FBI's homicide database, but only 258 gun killings by private citizens that were deemed justifiable, which the FBI defines as "the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen."

That works out to one justifiable gun death for every 34 unjustifiable gun deaths.

Or, look at it this way. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that in 2012 there were 20,666 suicides by gun. That works out to one self-defense killing for every 78 gun suicides. CDC data show that there were more than twice as many accidental gun fatalities as as justifiable killings.

There are, of course, plenty of solid arguments for robust 2nd Amendment protections. Millions of people use guns for sport and recreation every day. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible citizens, not criminals.



But, though some people certainly use guns for self-defense, the data suggest that overall, guns are used far more often for killing than self-defense. As a result, it may be worth thinking twice about arguments for more guns in schools, churches and other public places."

https://www.google.com.tw/amp/s/www...illed-in-self-defense-34-innocent-people-die/

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

 

[UltimateApathy]

 

[CiG]

Cold dead kid due to being against vaccinations.

 

[UltimateApathy]

" "I am not anti-vaccine. I am anti-Thimerosal, anti-mercury." - Jim Carrey.

Think again, son.

 

[CiG]

"I'm not anti-this thing, I am just anti-its ingredients."

 

[UltimateApathy]

Genuine anti-vaxxers believe all vaccinations cause autism, it's apples and oranges, get your facts straight, son.

 

[CiG]

There is no scientific proof that thimerosal in a vaccine is harmful. Jim Carrey is a kook.

 

[UltimateApathy]

I haven't looked into research about that, and I bet you haven't either, but you're missing the whole fucking point here, son: the psychotic American gun obsession looks obscenely juvenile and awesomely retarded to the rest of the world, and the statistics testify clearly with regard to its monumental stupidity.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

 

[UltimateApathy]

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

 

[UltimateApathy]

 

[CiG]

 

[UltimateApathy]

 

[UltimateApathy]

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]