Our gun culture is a massive failure. We are neither more free nor more safe from tyranny or violence or crime. We are simply more exposed to danger and to death.
It is time we re-examine our assumptions and take an honest and analytical look at firearms, not the myth or heroic stupid fantasies, but the realities.
These are the realities - that guns do far far more harm than any good. I don't care about the excuses, the coulda woulda shoulda's of this. Too many guns are killing and injuring too damned many people, and the massive restriction, and in many case removal of guns would dramatically reduce the problem.
There is no 'upside'; we aren't safer, we do not have less crime, we do not have an protection with personal firearms from 'tyranny' or from foreign invasion or terrorism. We simply have avoidable deaths and injuries like these.
4-year-old boy shot dead on NYC playground
By NBCNewYork.com
For more visit NBCNewYork.com
It is time we re-examine our assumptions and take an honest and analytical look at firearms, not the myth or heroic stupid fantasies, but the realities.
These are the realities - that guns do far far more harm than any good. I don't care about the excuses, the coulda woulda shoulda's of this. Too many guns are killing and injuring too damned many people, and the massive restriction, and in many case removal of guns would dramatically reduce the problem.
There is no 'upside'; we aren't safer, we do not have less crime, we do not have an protection with personal firearms from 'tyranny' or from foreign invasion or terrorism. We simply have avoidable deaths and injuries like these.
4-year-old boy shot dead on NYC playground
By NBCNewYork.com
A 4-year-old New York boy died after being struck in the head by a stray bullet on a Bronx playground Sunday evening, police say.
Authorities say gunfire erupted at about 9:30 p.m. at the playground in the Forest Houses in Morrisania, and the child got caught in the crossfire.
For more visit NBCNewYork.com
The boy, identified as Lloyd Morgan, was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
“When my friend didn’t see her kid, she panicked,” a woman who said she was a friend of the Morgans told the New York Daily News. “Then she saw him on the floor, shot.”Authorities say two men were also shot. A 27-year-old was shot in the stomach and a 21-year-old was shot in the arm. Both are expected to survive.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the two men were innocent bystanders or targets.Residents described chaos as people began running throughout the park and parents grabbed their children.
No arrests have been made. Police continue to investigate.
Lawmakers, clergy and residents in the community planned to rally Monday afternoon to call for an end to the violence that has plagued playgrounds and basketball courts throughout the city in recent weeks.
Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson called the most recent incident frustrating and urged anyone who knows who pulled the trigger to step forward.
"We can't tolerate this any longer. Those who know these people need to step forward," Stevenson said. "It's not about snitching. It's about protecting lives of 4-year-olds. And those who know in this community need to step forward."
"Those who are doing these horrendous crimes are going to be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," he added. "You're taking the lives of young people. You will be taken out of this community."
"Those who are doing these horrendous crimes are going to be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," he added. "You're taking the lives of young people. You will be taken out of this community."
New York already has the MikeB list of gun control dreams:
ReplyDelete1. The person must be licensed before they are ever able to touch a handgun.
2. Once you pay your exorbitant fees and wait 6 months or more, the police decide if they will issue it to you or not.
3. Once the police decide you are worthy, then you must seek their permission again each time you buy or sell a handgun.
4. Certain guns are outright banned and you cannot have boxes with springs in them that hold more than 10 rounds.
5. Unless you get special permission beyond the regular permission required to begin with, you cannot remove the gun from your residence.
I wonder if the turd in the Bronx that killed that child followed all the rules? Yup, more gun control FAIL.
Wrong again FWM. Your darling Gun Culture failed.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't an absence of guns that is at the bottom of what did these shootings and killings, it was the guns that did.
It is dishonest of you to pretend that the guns in New York City originate there; the overwhelming majority of the guns used in shootings like these originate outside New York, in places with lax gun laws. It is the failure ot have more widespread, consistent and enforced gun regulation, not the regulation in New York City that is the failure.
It is the illusion and delusion people like you have about owning guns that is the failure. Guns don't make people safer, EFFECTIVE and restrictive gun regulation does.
Examples that FWM has to lie about or ignore or stick his fingers in his ears and go la la la la la la to deny objective reality:
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=7841676
Gun show loophole in Virginia
NEW YORK (WABC) -- When a gun is used in a crime in New York, there's a good chance the weapon came from Virginia.
That's because the state is the number one source for illegal guns entering the city.
and this:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/cjc/html/crime/guns.shtml
With 85% of guns recovered in crimes in New York City originally sold out of state, CJC spearheaded an undercover investigation that led to lawsuits against 27 gun dealers in five states who were among the top sources of guns recovered at crime scenes in the City. A Johns Hopkins study of dealers who settled with the City found a 75% drop in the share of guns originating from these dealers and recovered in New York City crimes. More recently, the City unveiled an investigation of seven gun shows in three states, catching 35 gun sellers breaking the law.
Watch the undercover videos and learn more
There is massive failure of the gun nuts, not regulation. There is overwhelmingly massive failure of the policies and politics of the NRA.
What the NRA does amounts to being the puppets for criminal gun sales. Shame on you FWM for being willfully ignorant and so damned dishonest about gun regulation.
I hope very much that it never happens, but I wonder if it will take a tragedy that affects your own life, your family and friends, before you let go of your death grip --- and I do mean death grip -- on emotions, fantasies and propaganda regarding guns and get real and fact based.
The dishonesty about guns and regulation of people like you is a huge part of the problem.
So, unless you can show me that the guns involved in New York shootings come from New York, it is NOT their regulation that is faulty or ineffective, and you damned well know it.
Produce some real facts, not your crap that fails to defend your position FWM.
(Btw - how is the Ayn Rand reading going?)
"More recently, the City unveiled an investigation of seven gun shows in three states, catching 35 gun sellers breaking the law."
ReplyDeleteNope, you said it yourself that those little stings presented no chain of evidence. No arrests were made and it was not proven that any laws were broken. Thanks for playing though.
Continue to ride the dog and pony show and see how that works out for you. Blaming other jurisdictions for the failure of gun control in cities like New York and Chicago is a favored tactic by the anti's but it is at best dishonest. If the availability of guns were the main cause of gun violence, why are there fewer incidents of gun violence in the so-called "lax" states? Three weekends ago, New York had 77 homicides in one weekend? Why didn't Virginia have even a small percentage of that if it is gun availability that causes it?
It is against Virginia State law for a felon to purchase a handgun. It is also against Virginia law for any non-resident, even without a criminal record, to purchase a handgun without the State Police's permission. It is against New York law for anyone to purchase a handgun without going through an FFL.
So I suppose you need more laws for criminals to ignore. Lets make it illegaller, that will help.
BTW, I downloaded the book to my Nook but I haven't started it yet. I have a couple ahead of it yet on my reading list.
Per capita, I believe Virginia does have more gun violence than New York.
DeleteIt is proof there is a crime taking place when guns used in crimes are traced back to Virginia non-FFL sales. The videos document those sales taking place.
The problems of guns from lax gun law states being involved in crimes where guns sold in-state are not is all the proof one needs for the claim. You have yet to explain away why all those firearms recovered in crime investigations come from Virginia.
I'm waiting, but I won't hold my breath; clearly those states are lax and clearly they are the problem with gun sales. I'd love to compare the gun violence per capita and the gun sales per capita between the two.
Simply summed up -- fewer guns, less gun violence. More guns, lax laws, more shootings, more crimes.
By your reasoning, you cannot argue that Fast and Furious was a failure, or that ATF agent Brian Terry was murdered because there haven't been any convictions yet.
You massively fail to argue your point FWM.
Since you like per capita comparisons, why don't you take a look at the number of homicides for each nation compared to the number of privately owned firearms. Even if you ignore all the countries full of little brown people like the anti's love to do when comparing gun crimes to the U.S., you will still find that there are fractionally far fewer homicides per gun owned in the U.S. vs. some of your favorite countries like the UK and France. In fact, in France alone, the homicide rate per gun is about 4.5 times what it is in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteSorry, its not gun availability that is the problem, it is criminal availability.
"By your reasoning, you cannot argue that Fast and Furious was a failure, or that ATF agent Brian Terry was murdered because there haven't been any convictions yet."
I don't think you will find that I've made very many comments or really formed an opinion on Fast&Furious or the Brian Terry tragedy.
But, FWM, it isn't the rate of homicides to guns it's the rate of homicides to people. You gun guys own many guns each, you can't add up all the individual guns and make any kind of fair ratio.
DeleteUS has 4 times more than the UK.
By the way, are you our only commenter left? I've got jet lag pretty bad, but it's starting to look like that.
DeleteWhat happened?
We've had other commenters active as well, notably JimF, as well as occasional new commenters.
DeleteWe haven't had the dreaery repetition of Greg Camp or Orlin Sellers; however there appear to be plenty of gun guys still reading here, and a good quantity of our content is being addressed by the gun nuts on their own sites.
Between the non-anonymi provision, and moderation, we have a number of lurkers. If they aren't currently commenting, I think it is only a matter of time until they do again.
The only person who has been regularly moderated, by which I mean his comments are deleted every time, has been Thomas after he included specific identifying information in his comments re Laci.
A lot of what he has tried to post as comments was insulting garbage laced with false statements on a number of topics (i.e. - the Colorado shooter was a pot smoker / dope addict, that kind of thing, which has no factual basis, was not on topic, and did not advance discussion).
We're still noticed, we're still getting a reaction from the other side of the argument. I think people were waiting to see how long you would be gone, and if things were going back to the same old same old immediately on your return or not.
"Nope, you said it yourself that those little stings presented no chain of evidence. No arrests were made and it was not proven that any laws were broken. Thanks for playing though."
ReplyDeleteWhen will you wake the fuck up? When one of your family or friends is killed by some idiot with a LEGALLY manufactured and, originally, LEGALLY purchased firearm that has through no fault of anyone you know, like, PERSONALLY, been sold to someone--disqualified by law or common fucking sense--from owning a firearm?
Given that various states have various laws--and a number of those states have laws that encourage strawbuyers to travel to gun shows to purchase weapons that they could NEVER even examine, never mind purchase, in some city like Manhattan--the canard that NYC's "stringent" gunzlawz are going to prevent people from having gunz is blatantly dishonest. You fucking gunzloonz can pretend to your hearts content that you're on the side of right, truth and justice--the rest of know that your are fucking dupes and useful idiots to the gunz manufacturers and their lobbies.
I live in upstate NY, where the nearest handgunzloonz friendly state is at least 115 miles away. The demographics of the city of Oswego in upstate NY are not those of Manhattan, Dallas, L.A., Nashville, Phoenix or any of a number of cities where rampant drug crime, urban crowding, crushing poverty, de-facto racism and institutional racial inequality, selective policing and prosecution for the same/ similar crimes committed by different groups and climates of fear and distrust deliberately stoked by reiKKKwingers and their chattering class.
We do have the occassional murder. I'm sure that the rates for rapes/sexual assault, robberies, burglaries and other violent and property crimes are similar to those in equivalent sized and composed cities and towns in the U.S.
What we don't have, even though we're close to Syracuse and Rochester is the level of gun crime that those two cities deal with. The reason we don't have the crimes isn't becasue we lack a criminal class; it's because they don't have their hands on, or near to hand, large quantities of untraceable handgunz purchased at out-of-state gunzshowz and transported, illegally to this area. We have drug busts here, on a too frequent basis. We have not, afaia, had a shootout between perps'n'perps or perp'n'poleece in this county--in at least the last six years.
Ready availability of handcannonz makes it not just easy but almost unconciously autonomic on the part of criminulz to simply shoot the competition and fuck anybody that gets in the middle. You really want to support that sort of world?
What FWM considers a crime varies depending on whether or not he thinks it might prove his point. Unfortunately, he doesn't do a very good job on either facts or logic.
ReplyDeleteHe's trying here to argue that although guns from Virginia are used to commit most of the crimes in New York, that there is nothing wrong with Virginia's relaatively lax gun laws, as demonstrated by the video showing those lax gun laws in actual practice.
FWM is at war with reality apparently, denying any part of evidence he wishes would go away.
FWM wrote : Since you like per capita comparisons, why don't you take a look at the number of homicides for each nation compared to the number of privately owned firearms.
ReplyDeleteDon't need to do that FWM, because it would only prove the point that the more guns, the more gun violence, the fewer guns, the less gun violence.
All you are proving with those stats is that when people own guns they do violence with them on a consistent basis.
So clearly if we get rid of a lot of our guns, we get rid of the problem. Thanks for playing!
Btw - estimated population of the entire state of Virginia (2011) is 8,096,604
from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/51000.html
population of New York City is :www.google.com/publicdata
8,244,910 - Jul 2011
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Crime type
Rate*
Homicide:
6.3
Forcible rape:
10.7
Robbery:
265.9
Aggravated assault:
297.6
Violent crime:
580.3
Burglary:
238.1
Larceny-theft:
1,410.2
Motor vehicle theft:
149.1
Arson:
N/A
Property crime:
1,797.3
* Number of reported crimes per 100,000 population.
New York City did not report arson statistics
Source: FBI 2008 UCR data
Crime rates overall are lower in New York, as a direct result of gun regulation.
Look at the Wikipedia entry for Gun Violence in the United States by State, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state
Which shows a significantly lower rate of gun violence in New York compared to Virginia.
So.......your point would be, FWM?
CLEARLY, even with just the city of New York having a larger population than the entire state of Virginia, New York City AND the rest of the state of New York, has a lower rate of gun crimes.
The gun crimes they DO have are the result of guns sold to criminals in Virginia, where they are clearly lax in any kind of background checks, UNLIKE New York.
Btw, I'd love to see you fact check the claim that there were 77 firearms homicides in New York City the first week of July.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't appear to hold up under a check of New York news media, at all. Nor did it add up with a quick check of the various precinct sites.
The ONLY source I could find for that figure was some pro-gun guy in Florida making the claim about New York City.....with no source for his figures given, and only references to some gun nut publication provided for any of his opinions.
Got anything FWM?
They're prolly lyin' about it, but this link (http://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/crimnet/ojsa/greenbook.pdf) would lead one to believe that Fat White Man's number's are a bit off.
ReplyDelete"Btw, I'd love to see you fact check the claim that there were 77 firearms homicides in New York City the first week of July. "
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-commissioner-raymond-kelly-rails-community-leaders-silence-a-week-77-people-shot-city-article-1.1111799#ixzz20LiCs3fr
Sorry, my bad. I said "homicides" instead of "shootings".
"By the way, are you our only commenter left? I've got jet lag pretty bad, but it's starting to look like that.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened?"
Dog Gone and Laci pretty much ran them all off. I guess I'm about as used to their bullshit as they are to mine.
"Dog Gone and Laci pretty much ran them all off. I guess I'm about as used to their bullshit as they are to mine."
ReplyDeleteActually, dog gone and Laci The Dog moderated comments for content (something most of teh gunzloonz are unable to put in their comments) and more importantly they shitcanned anonymous comments.
Interestingly, a few months back, Ol weerd'ybeardy in one of his sockpuppet costumes was complaining about having to use his own handle as it was too time consuming when he was trying to comment. Oh--can I prove it was him? well, shit no, that's why he and others use the "anonymous" handle when they want to sockpuppet. If you sleep with dogs you get up with fleas.
I don't think you understand that this:
"Since you like per capita comparisons, why don't you take a look at the number of homicides for each nation compared to the number of privately owned firearms. Even if you ignore all the countries full of little brown people like the anti's love to do when comparing gun crimes to the U.S."
is a racist comment, but it is.
White gunzloonz are scared shitless of little brown (or large black) people. They bolster their courage by owning small, private arsenals and fucktons of ammo against that day when the baloon goes up and they have to go all "Red Dawn" on somebody's ass. It's not going to happen.
My "little brown people" comment was aimed at the anti's cherry picking comparisons. They are fond of comparing U.S. statistics only against countries that are white and European. They say stuff like: "When the U.S. is compared to other similar, industrial based, predominantly white, mostly employed, not at war, and we ignore terrorism, then the U.S. has more gun deaths....."
DeleteI paraphrase but sound familiar?
That is becaues the most industrialized countries comparable to ours happen to be white. However, I would point out that another of the countries identified as similar is Japan, which is asian. I prefer not to use your color terms for that.
DeleteThat is not cherry picking; it is simply a reflection on developmental stages of economies.
I don't know how you would characterize the Bahamas, but I selected them because they follow similar restrictions to the UK, have a very mixed, not overwhelmingly white population, and the numbers are similar in terms of firearms homicides and suicides.
DeleteSo NO, FWM, your point doesn't hold up under scrutiny, if your point was that we selected largely western european influenced countries, or if you were implying some differences between gun violence and race.
For accurate comparisons internationally, I would suggest you use the information here, which is well organized for research:
Deletehttp://www.gunpolicy.org/
Dog Gone covered it, but let me add my voice. Accusing us of cherry picking when we exclude shithole developing countries where the "little brown people" live is a stretch. It makes you seem desperate. Comparing the U.S. with other 1st world countries is not cherry picking.
ReplyDeleteWhile I would not characterize a lot of developing countries as "shitholes", there is one HUGE difference between countries like Yemen, Afghanistan, Russia, Mexico, numerous Central and South American countries and much of sub-Saharan Africa and countries like Denmark, Sweden, Canada, France, England that are more fully developed. That difference is The Rule of Law. In all of those countries mentioned in the first group, concepts of "justice" and "crime" are nebulous in a lot of places. It is the rule of the gun that prevails--although that rule is anything but benign.
ReplyDelete