California had the highest number of murders from firearms last year.
http://m.guardiannews.com/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state
All that this means to me is that it isn't the availability of or type of guns that are the reason for these high numbers of murder. Because California has a shit ton of laws and restrictions in regards to firearms. Shouldn't Texas be at the top? With all the guns and lack of restrictions on guns? In Texas people openly pack heat 24/7. My point is that guns are NOT the problem. What would restricting them do? The UK is SUPER tight on guns and STILL have a high gun murder rate in proportion to the population and availability of fire arms. People that want to shoot and murder other people WILL, and people who buy guns to enjoy them as a hobby will NOT. Everyone is barking up the wrong tree. It sure as shit isn't violence in video games and movies XD anyone that murders another human being because of a video game was disturbed and dangerously impressionable and as far as I'm concerned a ticking time bomb in the first place. It's all a scape goat so that no one faces the real issue. Which is clearly the sensationalism with which American media covers such horrific events. Anywhere else it is on the news but covered with as much zest as the construction of speed bumps. Not 24 hours a day for 5 days with speculation and trash.
The only thing that increased gun control will do is make it so the people who use them responsibly and carefully won't have them and the people murdering others who don't care WILL.
If someone wants to walk around with a gun JUST in case or they like to, far be it from me to stop them. People show off guns and enjoy them for the same reason people have flashy cars and jewelry, but there's not nearly as large a stigma for those people, that's society for you. I'm a lot more worried about someone hitting me with 4,000 pound vehicle than I am being shot, but car accidents don't draw NEARLY as large a crowd or controversy. Isn't that convenient?
People that don't like guns will bitch all day about them but I'll bet those same people have drivers licenses, but hey, why be objective when you can be a hypocrite? Where does the line get drawn? Will we outlaw alcohol(we all know how THAT went)? There are HUNDREDS of accidents involving alcohol every year, but wait most people like drinking a beer huh? And when it's done responsibly is fine, so why should responsible drinkers be punished? Why should responsible gun owners be punished? That's my point. At the end of the day if your opinions are in the minority you are gonna be shit out of luck. Rant over.
LOL, your Wikipedia citation didn't do anything but prove my point.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Look at the UK at .4 with very strict laws and then look at it's population of 60 million people. Then look at America in the 3's with a population of 300 million. Let's do a little math now.
300/60= 5 ------- 5 x .4= 2.0 <----- that being right under 3
SO basically as I said if UK had our population they would have a more significant murder by gun problem, and their laws are SUPER tight. Gun control is NOT the problem. More to the point, why single out gun carriers? Why not single out people that use knives too, because as we all know, people concealing knives are out to slit the throats of every man woman and child. And all people who drink, drive under the influence and beat their wives. The world isn't black and white. People are going to do what they are going to do, so then why restrict everything in fear of this instead of just enjoying life and not waiting for the next massacre. Make a big deal out of everything and look for trouble and I guarantee you'll find it. I'm starting to think people won't be happy until everyone is perfect with absolutely nothing dangerous or risky about their life style.
These two posts are fucking infuriating.
Do you want to amend anything about your "statistics?"
Edit: I see that you've already been called out regarding your aptitude for basic arithmetic and offered a "shucks I made a mistake!" in response to misunderstanding the
concept of a ratio which completely undoes your original argument.
However, I haven't seen anyone address the couple of points that immediately jumped out at me in your first post.
-California had the
highest number of murders by firearm last year. It's incredibly likely that it also had the
highest number of murders total last year. Why? Because it has the
highest number of people. By a pretty substantial margin. Do you have any idea how irrelevant this statistic is? If you go by total
number of firearm-related deaths by country, the United States is consistently in the top 5 in the world. But this isn't a good statistic to use to make an argument, because countries have different populations. Granted it's pathetic that we, in 2007 for example, had more gun deaths total than the countries of the world that have higher populations than we do, but whatever, that's likely too nuanced for you at this point.
-What you should have said was, "Washington D.C. has some of the toughest Gun laws in the country, yet has the highest rate of gun homicide." Then you could have at least lead us into a meaningless chicken-egg discussion or a debate on the effectiveness of local/city-level statutes. But instead you went for California. Since you did that, now you have to sit there while I eviscerate your point with actual relevant statistics from the
same source you used to try to make your point:
-In terms of gun homicide
rate, DC is followed by
Louisiana (10.16) and
Mississippi.(7.46)
-While gun crime is down in the vast majority of states, it is
up in
Indiana, Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana and several of the
smaller states
-Rate of aggravated assaults with a firearm,
Tennessee (137.58) and
South Carolina (127.88) come above
Arkansas (100.56)
So now what do the numbers tell us?
I don't expect a response, so I leave you all with one more quote:
How about this: if any argument is reasonable we'll just say condescendingly "oh the [fill in blank argument]"
that way no effort is required. Next time people talk about sharks and I say they actually aren't really especially fierce man eaters if we look at how much more likely it is that you are shot by a gun and we'll say "oh the GUN argument" LOL I love this.
I ran this through my translator:
"Stripped of any relevant statistics and unable to defend myself with critical thinking, I adopt a victim complex. Please never take me seriously on any topic."