Sunday, November 1, 2009

Struggle Over the Gun: One Dead

Al.com reports on a terrible incident that took place in Birmingham.


One man was killed and another injured as the two struggled over a loaded gun in the 800 block of 20th Street Ensley this evening, according to police.

The man with the gun got into an argument about 5:30 p.m. with another man at Life Styles Detail Shop, a car wash less than a block from Avenue I.

The two struggled over the gun, the gun went off and both men were shot.

The man who brought the gun to the car wash was killed. The other man was taken across the street to a Birmingham fire station and then to UAB Hospital. Police did not know the injured man's condition.


This took place in gun-friendly Alabama. It illustrates the problem with gun proliferation, concealed carry laws, lax gun control generally. The presumption on the part of the pro-gun crowd is that they are somehow above these incidents, that they avoid confrontation rather than go out looking for it. Although I have no doubt this may be true for the majority, it certainly does not apply to the minority. Some gun owners cannot be trusted with guns, it's a simple as that. The more guns we have out there, the more incidents like this we have. It's a simple and obvious proportion.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

10 comments:

  1. "it's a simple as that. The more guns we have out there, the more incidents like this we have. It's a simple and obvious proportion."

    Too bad its 100% wrong.

    Try again!

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  2. mikeb, weer'd said it already. We have had an increase of guns in this country (on an absolute and per person basis) however the number of these incidents has gone down (on an absolute and a per person basis.

    It illustrates the problem with gun proliferation
    How does it do that? Are you making an argument that any incident with a gun illustrates the "problem" with gun proliferation. Are we then to blame the Chinese for inventing the technology?

    concealed carry laws
    Huh? The story says absolutely nothing about whether either one of the people or any of the bystanders was a CCW holder. Your stretches of the imagination or getting really thin.

    lax gun control generally
    Yeah, whatever. Try backing up your statements with facts in the future and maybe people would take you seriously.

    Although I have no doubt this may be true for the majority, it certainly does not apply to the minority.
    So if we have 100 million law abiding people and 1 criminal, then we should inconvenience/restrict/regulate/whatever you want to call it the 100 million in the hopes of finally catching that last 1? Are there more than 1 unlawful gun owners? Sure there are, the statistics we have shown you is that there are around 500K to 1 million of them. Out of a population of 65-100 million. However, your definition of people who shouldn't own guns includes all of those who have not even committed a crime, but may commit a crime based on statistical analysis. Unfortunately, statistical analysis in this case cannot identify specifically who is going to commit a crime, it can only show that for a given population, X number of non specific people are going to commit a crime. So, short of banning all guns (which we constantly accuse you of supporting) nothing will keep guns out of these non-specified people's hands (because we don't know who they are until they DO something). Minority Report was just a movie, it wasn't based on fact (and if you didn't know, the lie detector is not admissible in court because it doesn't work).

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  3. You are making a big leap here in presenting this as too regular guy gun owners that got into a fight. No where in this story does it say that either man had a concealed carry license nor does it say they were not prohibited persons.

    Now I'm going to go out on a limb and make leap and say that probably two guys getting into a fight at a car wash on a Friday night might not be normal every day gun owners. Further, I am going to guess that one of them was carrying a gun illegally. Either he was prohibited or he did not have a concealed carry license.

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  4. Is there any evidence that the guy who brought the gun was following the concealed carry laws? Criminals carrying guns illegally is an argument FOR decent people having the right to be equally armed.

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  5. "Criminals carrying guns illegally is an argument FOR decent people having the right to be equally armed."

    And that's why MikeB is so against it!

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  6. "You are making a big leap here in presenting this as too regular guy gun owners that got into a fight. "

    He's just channeling the Brady Campaign, intentionally lying and misleading his readers in an attempt to push his agenda.

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  7. Reputo, If the guns have increased and the gun crime has decreased, which I'm not convinced about, but for argument sake let's say it's the case, don't you think the gun crime would have decreased even more if the gun availability had also decreased? Isn't that just common sense?

    It's like the suicides in Japan. If they had guns to use, wouldn't the successful suicides increase?

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  8. So let me get this straight, The Citizens of the United States have been buying guns and getting carry permits at the greatest rate in the history of this country. Also crime is at a low.

    So what you're saying is if we turned in all our guns, and removed the 2nd Amendment and all industries under it we'd have what, Zero crime?

    I DARE you to do a post on that, MikeB!

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  9. If the guns have increased and the gun crime has decreased, which I'm not convinced about,

    Do you also question whether the sun rises in the East and sets in the West? The FBI has been compiling stats on this since 1973. What is it you don't believe about their numbers? It clearly shows that the rate of firearm crime now is 40% lower than its high in 1993. Furthermore, it is almost 30% lower than in 1973! Are you freaking blind as well?

    This isn't my interpretation of the numbers. These aren't reports from some sedentary town in North Dakota. These are the firearm crime numbers for the United States. If you question the validity of these, then quit trying to compare London's low rate to Baltimore's high rate since the Baltimore number comes from this dataset.

    don't you think the gun crime would have decreased even more if the gun availability had also decreased? Isn't that just common sense?

    Only if the only source of guns is through legal channels. Unfortunately, a gun (like drugs) is a tool that happens to have value on the black market. Hence, criminal organizations will meet the demand through smuggling. Take a look at Jamaica and England. Both island nations, they don't border anyone with lax gun laws. Both have few (in England's case) to no (in Jamaica's case) legal channels for firearms. Yet the gun crime in both country's has increased since their draconian implementation. Not by NRA standards. By their countries own media's reporting standards. Are we then to believe that you think the British and Jamaican press are in the pocket of the NRA and the 2nd Amendment supporters?

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  10. According to MikeB the FBI is in the pocket of the NRA and cannot be trusted to present valid data.

    I wish I was kidding...

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