But the criminals will still have them!!! And what if four thugs break into my home to steal my television, which is a very likely scenario!?!?

I am talking about the kill not the gun. There's a big difference between grandma not being around anymore, and seeing a powerful and free creature go from warm to cold, before cleaning and using its remains. Hunting does anything but trivialize violence.

So many places in America where this IS a likely scenario.

You misunderstand power. If you can kill it with the touch of a button, it's no longer powerful. It may feel that way, but that is an illusion - one which makes gun violence more gratifying to the perpetrator. In reality it is a cowardly abuse of power.

This is a totally disingenuous statistic. Of course, gun-related homicides will go down with less guns around. But what about the homicide rate in general? Looking at AIC's statistics of the homicide rate in Australia from 1993-2007. It is largely flat with a downward trend in from 2003. I am not aware of any recent numbers, but this does not show any strong correlation between less homicide when those laws were passed in 1996. And even so, correlation does not imply causation. One of the elementary rules of statistics.

Again, this meta-analysis from Harvard of gun ownership rates and homicide rates as well as other metrics does not find any correlation whatsoever (if you refuse to read it, I can copy and past sections). There is a lot of data used from multiple studies, and they cannot find it. It does not exist; the data does not support the conclusion that less guns = less murder. Period.

You misunderstand my post because of an adjective (that I used to highlight the gravity of taking a life). I'm not only talking about animals that are physically dangerous or large, it was a reverent term. Let me be clear, killing a powerful creature does not empower the hunter. Hunting is not about empowerment. Also I feel that people should be willing to kill and see death if they want to be carnivores.

no i do not

I don't have much to add as much as some of the politics of guns goes, but I feel like shooting guns is probably fun as fuck. I'd like to shoot at a range at least once.

Guns make for better video game fun than real life fun if ya ask me. Been shooting a bit, and it is fun, but I don't really see the appeal as a major hobby. It reminds me of golf, in that you have to dedicate a lot of resources and time and money and trouble for a very small moment of "zen".

also...

Having guns or not having guns doesn't make you safe or unsafe. Having a secure society makes you safe. People endlessly arguing statistics that don't prove one thing or another are all idiots being played against each other like saps. It's embarrassing.

Hey, Ted Nugent. That army clothed redneck exterior doesn't disguise that you were a coward and didn't go to Vietnam.

That makes sense. I like golfing, but I can't be bothered to "get into it". But going to the range, driving the carts, drinking beers and hitting balls in the sun is fun every once and a while.

If I ever do go shooting, I'd really like to shoot some iconic "big" guns, like a desert eagle or something. I know this is probably wholly unrealistic, but I played a lot of counterstrike growing up, so yeah.

I think it would be really good in this thread if we avoided all bullshit ad hominen attacks and sarcasm. We are (mostly) adults, this is just a discussion that might be beneficial so let's not ruin it by imagining that it is personal.

Perhaps it is true that reducing guns in the community does not reduce overall violence and homicide. Surely, gun ethusiasts can concede that guns are especially effective at such things. Otherwise, why would there be such passionate resistance to curbing their use? If guns did not make inflicting violence easier, they would not be useful as a form of self-defense. The whole point of a gun is to make violence easier and safer for the perpetrator. It makes killing easier. It makes potential violence much more likely to be fatal. That is the point of a gun. If guns are not dangerous and insigninficant, why are people so desperate to keep them?

Correlation does not imply causation, but isn't it odd that most of the mass shootings in the world occur in countries where there are lots of guns? Its a mighty strange coincidence that since Australia restricted gun ownership in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre and other mass shootings, we have had 3 mass shootings. Simply compare that to the mass shootings in the US. The US and Australia are culturally pretty similar, with the latter often following ideals of the former but a significant difference is gun ownership. Is the vast differences in the prevelance of mass shootings coincidental? I'd love to hear speculations about other possible reasons for such vast differences.



I fail to see how killing is a useful skill to teach children. Hunting trivialises violence because there is no great effort required for the reward of the dead animal. It reduces what should be something difficult and potentially costly (physically) to the hunter into something similar to being able to operate any simple piece of machinery. It is no greater skill than being able to use a knife and fork. It does not require a large investment or risk on part of the shooter.

Either way, there are many better ways teach children about the facts of life and death and they do not entail utilising the death of an animal to do so. That not only trivialises violence but it trivialise the whole idea of death itself. It is human arrogance to think we can utilise an animal losing the one and only life it will have to teach another human a life lesson.

Dudemanguy: are you suggesting that if a man who conducts a shooting spree which kills 112 people had not had a gun, he would still have gone around and stabbed to death that many people anyway?

Also, why is America so desperate to stop Iran and North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons when they will just go ahead and kill the same amount of people without them anyway? It's the same principle.

If you didn't have a gun you either wouldn't kill people, or you would revert to using other methods e.g stabbing we're the casualties wouldn't be as great.

That's exactly what I'm arguing. No correlation.


Is your premise even true? "A new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found no significant difference in adjusted overall survival rates between gunshot and stabbing (so-called penetrating trauma injuries) victims in Philadelphia whether they were transported to the emergency department by the police department or the emergency medical services (EMS) division of the fire department."
This is totally my mistake. I misread this. Sorry for the confusion.

People want to keep guns for various reasons, but it makes zero sense to attack people's rights (guaranteed by the second amendment) if there is no reason to believe that gun control affects homicide rates at all.


There is no correlation between mass shooting events and gun ownership rates in the US. If you really don't believe me, I can run the numbers later, but take a look at these two sets of data.
http://www.shootingtracker.com/Main_Page
http://demographicdata.org/facts-and-fi ... tatistics/

I think looking at the gun ownership rates and where the mass shooting events occur should be clear. There is no relation between the two.


Are you absolutely certain that a man who wanted to kill a bunch of people could not obtain a gun illegally (happened in Paris I believe) or use some other weapon like bombs or gas (there was that infamous terrorist attack in Japan that used sarin gas)?

Also, nukes and guns are totally a false equivalence in every way and irrelevant to the discussion.

It wasn't intended to be an 'equivalence'. Both enable mass deaths that wouldn't be possible without them. The only difference is the scale.

If you stretch your definition of "mass death" to be like 10 deaths and up, maybe. It's still not relevant.

honestly i am so lucky i live in Australia, the PM who i honestly hated on every other issue introduced strict gun laws and it would be political suicide to try to remove them, then again my partner has family in texas......it should be fun to meet them

This is basically my stance. If you're going to be a responsible gun owner, like the many I've known, then go right ahead. If you're the kind of jackass that sees a gun and says "I WANT A SHINY NEW BOOMSTICK" like a kid in a toy store then fuck off.

What have I done? I've created a monster! I just wanted to talk about guns that I like.. Why do I like such shitty things?

Speaking of which, apparently you can buy a Soviet DShK for only $12,000 in Texas. http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewIt ... =550995656

You expected anything better around here? Look at how all the recent political threads are going...

I do like guns, but they don't like me.

Hey man, I've been gone for like 6 months. Guess I should've learned by now.. But there's no fun in that.

My gun buying is on hold until I find out if the CMP processed my M1 Garand order. Fuck! And they are so far behind it may be months.

I'll just keep stockpiling 5.56 and 7.62 ammo in the meantime.

What

Nevermind that the NRA successfully lobbied to prevent research on gun violence so that it can't even be fully investigated, but yeah.

It's fine to like guns and shooting things (things, not people). Being against reasonable restrictions for such violent weapons and denying the impact of a lack of those restrictions on your society is fucking moronic.

It blows my mind that gun owners try and claim that their weapons are not dangerous. What weapon ins't dangerous? What is the point of a weapon that isn't dangerous?



No, you are arguing in the way that John_Sunlight has mocked, by introducing statistics that don't even prove your points. Morrigan makes a good point; the truth is obscured because the NRA is a powerful political lobby that actively seeks to prevent the gathering of definite statistics. I imagine that the big businesses that make millions/billions off gun sales have a good reason to argue for this obfuscation. I think gun-owners are being manipulated by capitalist monolithic corporations into considering their product a human right.

According to one of the links you posted, the US had about ~325 mass shootings in 2015. Australia had one. As I said, we are culturally alike but Australia does not have guns. I think you are following the NRA stance of selectively interpreting data. The statistics relating gun ownership and violence are considered statistically valid.



Dude, what? That study is not constrasting stabbing with shooting, it is constrasting the methods by which victims are transported to a medical facility. You have no proven any point, you've simply grabbed a vaguely related study and misread it. Here's a quote:

"...the current Penn study is the largest investigation to date examining the relationship between method of transport and mortality in penetrating trauma".

Emphasis mine. You have mistaken the studies conclusions for your own agenda, something which is alarmingly typical in such debates.

Your constitutional rights are irrelevant to me. I am not from the US, I am not effected by your 2nd amendment. But, I think people deserve the right to live in peace more than they do to own a gun. In civilised society, we sometimes have to compromise our freedoms for the greater good. In Australia, we decided that the right to own a gun was less valuable than the right to exist with a lower potential for being gunned down by a mass murderer. Human nature can be violent. It is reasonable to take steps negating the ease of mass violence.



Nonsense. American states do not exist in isolation. You are called the United States for a reason.

You have among the highest rates of gun ownership in the world and the highest homicide by gun rates. How much clearer can it get? Is that a coincidence? I am interested in how you could explain this.

[/quote]

Another red herring really. It is much simpler to obtain a gun in nearly any locale than it is to obtain high explosives or sarin gas. That is the problem, if guns are readily available and there exist people who want to kill a lot of people, they have a simple, easy, efficient way of doing do.

Breaking news guys:

I didn't bother to read through those 40+ pages, but skimmed through parts of it, so I'll just post some random bits & thoughts:

-this is per definitionem not a "meta-analysis", not even counting inherent methodological flaws of meta-analyses here (if it were one)
-authors employ foul rhetoric strategies (debunking obviously wrong arguments nobody has ever claimed to suggest their position is true, yeah right)
-authors employ doubtful and mostly out-of-date sources, often some stupid unreliable newspaper articles
...

to put this short, this "meta-analysis" is totally biased, pro-guns of course, and does not live up to common scientific standards. no need to go into detail here.

EDIT: a quick glance at wikipedia has shown that you're quoting two well-known gun rights advocates. nice job dude.

How many times should I say it? I was defending hunting not guns necessarily. The same would hold true for archery and spear-chucking, but those aren't usually my thing because you're more likely to maim an animal.

Meta-analysis implies a lot more than I thought it did. A poor word to use for sure and I will note that for the future. I do not intend to claim everything the authors say is absolutely correct. That is not my objective. I am merely saying that there is no correlation between overall homicide rate and gun ownership rates and the tables presented give a look into some of the numbers. I believe this was originally written in 2007 and the numbers in the tables come from earlier (2003; hence the datedness), but from official government sources as far as I can tell as well as the UN. If there are some numbers you want me to go more into detail and double check, I'll be happy to PM you or anyone else and we can undoubtedly continue this discussion if so desired. And the bias of the authors does not automatically invalidate their work. I would prefer to stray from the subject in the thread as the OP has expressed pretty clearly that they do not want this discussion.

Nice. What's the CMP and how much are they selling those for? If I could spend $1,000+ on a WWII replica that's what I'd go for.. Or a Browning 1911, but my budget is like $300 at most, so the closest I can get is one of those Spanish 9MM Star knock offs or a Tokarev.

http://thecmp.org/

Its the civilian marksmanship program. Purchasing surplus weapons from them isn't as simple as from a dealer as you have to satisfy additional requirements but you can get nice M1 rilfes from them a lot cheaper than those I see at shows. I ordered a service grade model for 730 dollars. The field grade model is 630 bucks. At this point the rifles are apparently 50's surplus for the most part as the WW2 issue sold out a long time ago. They also sell other rifles but the M1 carbines go so fast its not even funny. They will be releasing old surplus 1911 pistols but no idea when that starts.

additional requirements? I'd click the link but I'm not in the best mind state to read through a buncha stuff right now.. Sounds interesting but kinda hard to believe they've got 1950'a era M1 Garand's for sale for under $1,000.
It seems like any military grade weapon made in the U.S.makes it pretty much top dollar...except AK's.. Nobody wants an AK pattern rifle that's made entirely in the U.S.

There are two requirements.

1. You need to be in a CMP recognized shooting club. I'm in the Missouri Sports shooting association.
2. You need to have taken one of their accepted marksmanship courses. The Missouri CCW test satisfied that for me.

And yeah the CMP sells old surplus garands for a much better price that you get on the secondary market. They had a recent release of cabines that has flooded their system.

Ah I really enjoy shooting. My favorite is my Les Baer 1911 .45 handgun; it's just a dream to shoot and extremely reliable (unlike the Springfield A1 Loaded 1911 I had...). The most long-range-capable gun I have is my AR-15 which is very accurate for a .223 but one of these days I'd like to get into precision and longer-range shooting and get a proper rifle for that, but alas, my bank account... I mostly just enjoy plinking and target-shooting but I am thankful I'd have a fighting chance in defending my wife and self were the need to ever arise. I'm yet to get my hunting license but I'd like to pursue doing so in the somewhat near future so I can hunt and learn what I believe to be a valuable skillset.

I was never much into rifles and guns in my youth but being a paratrooper in the infantry gave me tons of exposure to plenty of cool weaponry and I grew to enjoy them, but I am not a fanatic.

Here is me shooting my AR-15 with a collapsible stock. It is alot like the M4 carbine I was issued and it is my favorite rifle.



I saw Ancient-Mariner mentioned the M1-carbine a while back. Here's mine!



My favorite pistol is my Beretta 9 mm. It is what I had as a sidearm when I carried the M-240B back then. Beyond that I have a few more pistols and a few shotguns. I have not bought anything in a while but I am thinking this Christmas I will trade in my Smith and Wesson 9 mm on something that would be an upgrade.

Sweet pics! I love my DPMS AR. Sure its entry level but it is so much fun to shoot, and I can buy a fancy model in the future.

Love that M1 Carbine. I have a M1 Garand and would love to have a carbine to go with it. Here is one of the photos from when it showed up from the CMP and I opened it up. I love this rifle. Its a 9/1943 issue receiver and shoots great with the right 30-06 cartridges. A real man's rifle unlike the plastic and aluminium models of today.


I've got a few pistols, but my next purchase is a 1911 45ACP to go with my garand. Looking at spending 500-700 bucks so that leaves me some options.

Thank you for your service Von Cichlid!

^Nice!

For 1911s, I hear the Rock Islands are a lot of bang for the buck though I have no personal experience with them. I recommend NOT getting a Springfield - as I had a terrible time with mine (A1 Loaded model, ~$800 ticket price as I recall). It had horrible malfunctions in which the empty brass would get shoved back into the magazine (and messing up my Wilson Combat mags - which to Springfield's credit, they did replace for free) and make it impossible to drop the mag or even move the slide. Clearing these malfunctions was a bear... This was with factory ammo and reloads and happened often. In addition, the rear-sight literally fell off while I was shooting it. I sent it back to Springfield THREE times and they never fixed it from having these malfunctions or replaced it as I ultimately requested so I finally sold it for half of what it should have been worth but I didn't feel it'd be right to the buyer (to whom I explained fully what he was getting) to sell it for more. Similar with Springfield and many of the other big-time manufacturers, Colt has gone way down hill too. I considered replacing my Springfield with a Colt but after handling a few, I was extremely unimpressed with their quality, fit, finish, etc. Nowadays you're paying for the name and not much else it'd seem... Kimber seems to be perhaps the best large manufacturer of 1911s from what I hear, though you'd want to replace some of the internal components with better quality stuff (springs, extractors, etc.) but that's easy and not too expensive.

I am of the buy-once, cry-once mentality and not for a minute have I regretted dropping the $$$ on my Les Baer. That thing is a beast and will be forever more accurate than I'll ever be. Depending on what you want it for (defense, target shooting...), I would recommend saving up and getting something you'll never want or need to upgrade from.

I've been looking at a GI model Rock for a while, I've read tons of great reviews from owners. Its mostly going to be a range gun, and to fill in that gap in my calibre collection. I'm not really after a tricked out model, more of a GI model.

Right on. I'll be curious to hear how you like it if/when you buy one!