Guns used for lawful self-defense Pt. 5

[Seth]

Seth

I am indeed open to facts. I am, however, very resistant to NRA propaganda. Nor do I consider cherry picked anecdotes as 'facts'.

One thing I am even more resistant to, is insults as argument. They simply show that the person delivering the insult has no argument.

Seth is a cop.

LOLWUT. Young Seth was never a gun toting career cop. This is why he has to apply for concealed carry permits. A bona fide retired cop has the right to carry a concealed gun.

Isn't it nice how you can just say whatever you want, without actually having any idea what you're talking about?

Yeah, Aspire does that all the time. He's probably the same jackass who tried to out me over at RatSkep some years ago and published the personal info of a person with the same name as the one I'm using. He was wrong then, and he's still wrong.

[Seth]

To Collector, who claims I do not use facts.

Here are a few facts for you. Some time back, Seth tried to argue that giving up hand guns would just result in the same murders, but with other weapons. I decided to look this up.

1. After firearms, the greatest number of murders in the USA are done with stabbings. 2,000 of them.

2. The total number of stabbings each year in the USA is over 3 million. That is : 1500 stabbings for each stabbing death. The British figures on the internet are a bit lower, 400 stabbings per stabbing death, and to be conservative, I will go with these.

3. There are 100,000 shootings each year in the USA and 20,000 deaths from those shootings. So there are 5 shootings for each death. Since there are 8,000 hand gun murders each year, that translates into 40,000 attempts to murder with hand guns (at 5 shootings per shooting death).

Again you show you know fuck-all about statistics. The vast majority of those "shootings" are suicides, and we don't care if someone kills themself, that's their sovereign right as a free individual and they don't present a danger to the general public like a criminal with a gun does that makes it reasonable and necessary for law abiding citizens to carry defensive arms.

4. If all hand guns were removed from the civilian population, which is what I am saying should be done, then Seth would argue that the 40,000 attempted murders with hand guns would simply be transferred to another weapon. If we go with the second most lethal weapon, knives, that is 40,000 stabbings per year. If we calculate based on the more conservative British figure (400 stabbings per stabbing death), then 40,000 attempts means 100 stabbing deaths.

Don't try to tell me what I'd argue. The simple fact is that if you remove handguns from law abiding citizens (because you CANNOT remove ALL weapons from criminals) you are creating a larger pool of people who are helpless to resist criminal victimization, which includes many crimes short of murder that are successfully defended against using handguns as many as 2.5 million times per year, and at least 80.000 times per year.

That means between 80,000 and 2.5 million people per year who were NOT victimized BECAUSE they had a firearm will likely be victimized because they are denied their fundamental rights.

You love to cherry pick, pettifog and obfuscate by carefully selecting which apples you compare to which oranges.

I care as much about the guy who is mugged as the one that's murdered. You don't give a flying fuck about anybody.

5. This means that getting rid of hand guns in the USA will reduce those murders from 8,000 per year to only 100. Lives saved = 7,900 per year.

Concluson : getting rid of hand guns is the logical and rational thing to do.

Wrong. You falsely assume that making it illegal to own a handgun means that there will be no handguns in the hands of criminals, which is completely and totally incorrect. It also wrongly assumes that criminals intent on murder who do not have a handgun will not resort to another type of firearm or other weapon.

Therefore, your analysis is, as usual, shit.

[Blind groper]

To Seth

A couple of points to shoot down your reply in flames.

You claim that the majority of shootings is suicide. Sorry, but that is totally wrong. There are 100,000 shootings per year in the USA, and only 13,000 are suicides or suicide attempts. A relatively small minority - not a majority. It helps, Seth, to get your facts right before you start typing.

On your point about criminals. FBI statistics show that only 18% of murders are committed by people with a previous criminal record, or during the commission of a crime (other than the murder). 30% of murders are the result of a passionate argument, in which one person gets so hot under the collar, that he pulls out a gun and shoots the other dead. Another 30% are of unknown motive (meaning an unsolved murder). Most of the rest are such things as a husband shooting his wife dead, or other 'domestic' murders. At least half of all murders are done by a person known to the victim. Murders in criminal gangs and the like are a small minority.

Thus, removing hand guns from civilians, but not from criminals, will still reduce the total murder rate by a massive amount. So, Seth, as always, your illogic is still fallaceous.

[Seth]

To Seth

A couple of points to shoot down your reply in flames.

You claim that the majority of shootings is suicide. Sorry, but that is totally wrong. There are 100,000 shootings per year in the USA, and only 13,000 are suicides or suicide attempts. A relatively small minority - not a majority. It helps, Seth, to get your facts right before you start typing.

On your point about criminals. FBI statistics show that only 18% of murders are committed by people with a previous criminal record, or during the commission of a crime (other than the murder). 30% of murders are the result of a passionate argument, in which one person gets so hot under the collar, that he pulls out a gun and shoots the other dead.

Actually the classification is "argument other" not "passionate argument." Nor do those statistics begin to suggest that the cause is as you portray it. You imply that an otherwise sane and sober person will get into an argument and, if he has a gun, will suddenly go crazy and start shooting. This is obviously ill-informed crap. Normal people don't suddenly go homicidally insane merely because they have a gun. The hundreds of millions of handguns in the US prove this beyond any reasonable doubt. If what you suggest were true there would be millions of thses "passionate argument" shootings. There aren't.

The classification "argument other" simply means that the police could not identify the cause of the argument as being about drugs, money or property. As I told you before this classification includes arguments such as "turf" battles between rival gang members and even "arguments" between criminal thugs that end up in a shooting because one or both parties felt "disrespected."

Nor is your claim valid because you're trying to find a simplistic solution to a very complex problem.

The word "passionate" is not used in the crime reports so your trying to add it is intellectually and factually dishonest.

Another 30% are of unknown motive (meaning an unsolved murder). Most of the rest are such things as a husband shooting his wife dead, or other 'domestic' murders. At least half of all murders are done by a person known to the victim. Murders in criminal gangs and the like are a small minority.

Thus, removing hand guns from civilians, but not from criminals, will still reduce the total murder rate by a massive amount. So, Seth, as always, your illogic is still fallaceous.

You forget that "known to the victim" does not necessarily mean a spouse or intimate partner, it also means friends, acquaintances, enemies and anyone else who has had previous contact with the victim before the fatal event. This particular classification is intended to distinguish between "known to" and random murders committed upon someone the killer has never met.

You again try to expand the data far beyond what it actually means.

And once again you conflate the "100,000 shootings" and "total murder rate" in a most mendacious manner. Using your figures there are only 8,000 murders with handguns, not 100,000, so removing the hundreds of millions of handguns that are NEVER used to hurt anyone or commit a crime will have a very tiny effect at best on reducing the murder rate or the "shooting" rate, but it will have a huge impact on INCREASING the criminal victimization and murder rates.

We know from the FBI that at least 80,000 people per year use guns in legitimate self defense, and without those guns that would necessarily be at least 80,000 people MORE per year who are victimized or killed because you took their guns away.

The fact that you simply ignore and discount the use of handguns to prevent or thwart crime only demonstrates your bias and deliberate mendacity and has no connection to the truth.

[Blind groper]

To Seth

In the interests of destroying straw man arguments before they are erected, let me once more explain the basic numbers. Please try to understand these, so I do not have to go back and correct you yet again.

In the USA,
There are 100,000 shootings each year approximately ( all my figures are rounded and approximate, because the data varies somewhat from year to year, as we would expect).

Definition of a shooting is when one person fires a gun, and the bullet passes through some part of someone's anatomy. Of the 100,000, roughly 22,000 result in death (about 1 in 5), and 78,000 survive. Survival is mostly due to the efforts of dedicated doctors and nurses, who tend to be pro-gun control because they see the harm from unrestricted access to tools for committing murder. A large percentage of the survivors are left with permanent disabilities, including paraplegia, brain damage and so on.

12,000 of the deaths are suicides. Only a little over 1,000 attempted suicides survive. 8,000 deaths are hand gun homicides. This leaves a residue of about 2,000 firearms deaths, which come from homicides using other firearms, plus accidents, plus 'legal' killings.

On the business of argument killings.
FBI figures sow that 30% of all murders fit into this category. This is many thousands of murders each year, and require a hand gun. Regardless of te passion involved, two people argue, and it ends with one person pulling out a hand gun and shooting the other. I have not said that this applies to everyone who carries a hand gun, so that argument of yours is a straw man. However, it happens often enough, and kills enough thousands of people that it should be regarded as a real and major problem, and a problem we should be trying to counter.

This problem cannot be fixed by 'solving' murders, because these are not the kinds of murders that are responsive to deterrence, because they are spur of the moment actions, not premeditated.

The only way to solve this problem is to remove the hand guns that are used in these murders. Since only one stabbing in 400 results in death, people carrying knives instead of hand guns will not create the sheer number of argument based homicides that carrying hand guns do.

On the 80,000 DGU's per year
You still have not woeken up to the difference between a claim and a reality.

I accept that there are probably 80,000 claims of DGU's each year. Sure. But that does not mean these claims are real. Perception is everything in this kind of statistic.

I have told you that being threatened does not mean you need a gun. I have been threatened with physical violence three times, and in all three cases, I did not need a gun to escape. Nor would most of those 80,000 have needed a gun. They used one because they had one, and thought they needed their gun, because their perception was so limited that they could not conceive of the many alternatives.

[Seth]

To Seth

In the interests of destroying straw man arguments before they are erected, let me once more explain the basic numbers. Please try to understand these, so I do not have to go back and correct you yet again.

In the USA,
There are 100,000 shootings each year approximately ( all my figures are rounded and approximate, because the data varies somewhat from year to year, as we would expect).

Definition of a shooting is when one person fires a gun, and the bullet passes through some part of someone's anatomy. Of the 100,000, roughly 22,000 result in death (about 1 in 5), and 78,000 survive.

Interesting that the number of fatalities closely mirrors the number of suicide deaths you keep quoting. I say that you have just shown that the number of gun deaths is actually quite small, and that "shootings" includes all sorts of minor injuries that can be caused by carelessness, ignorance and accident. I don't give a fuck about suicides being successful, whether they use handguns or Valium, because I respect their sovereign natural human right to end their lives when they decide to do so, using whatever method seems best suited at the time.

So we can toss out the 13,000 suicide deaths or attempts right off the bat. Then we can subtract the 8000 murders because no law will prevent a murder from murdering his victim. That's 21,000 of the "shootings" out of the equation right off the bat, leaving 79,000 non-fatal "shootings." Now, you don't say how many of those are woundings caused by criminals against innocent victims, much less how many of those non-fatal shootings could have been avoided or prevented if the victims had been armed for self-defense at the time they were attacked. Since it is reasonable to discard any shooting involving a criminal act by the shooter that would not be deterred by an anti-gun law, that leaves us with, I suspect, a very small number of accidental shootings.

So why don't you get back to me with credible data (provide source links) show how many of the non-suicide non-fatal shootings were the result of criminal activity and how many were accidental? Then we can move on. Until then I'm ignoring the rest of your bilge.

I accept that there are probably 80,000 claims of DGU's each year. Sure. But that does not mean these claims are real. Perception is everything in this kind of statistic.

Actually it means exactly that they are real. The FBI doesn't deal in "perceptions" in coming to that number, it relies on facts. Funny how you rely upon the FBI one second and then reject their data in the next. As I've told you, the 80,000 minimum DGUs per year reported by the FBI are not "anecdotal" or "perceptual" reports, they are gleaned from ACTUAL police-investigated and reported DGUs. In other words, to include an event in the FBIs data it has to be a verified use of a defensive firearm to thwart or prevent a crime from occurring that has been reported to, and investigated by the police. Therefore, those 80,000 are not "anecdotes" or "perceptions" they are hard, verified data. And that DOES mean that all 80,000 are "real."

I have told you that being threatened does not mean you need a gun.

Depends on the nature of the threat. Since you cannot absolutely guarantee me that the number of threats I might receive in my life in which I WOULD need a gun is exactly ZERO, I choose to be armed for self defense so that I can adequately respond to any threat which might require the use of deadly force in a timely manner.

I have been threatened with physical violence three times, and in all three cases, I did not need a gun to escape.

Lucky you. I've engaged criminals dozens of times in situations where the fact that I DID have a handgun prevented me, or anyone else, from being shot. And I've never actually had to discharge my firearm at another human being to create that record. The threat that I would do so alone caused the criminal to surrender.

Nor would most of those 80,000 have needed a gun.

Bullshit. You have exactly zero critically robust evidence supporting this assertion.

They used one because they had one, and thought they needed their gun, because their perception was so limited that they could not conceive of the many alternatives.

Your specious, idiotic, irrational and grossly ill-informed opinion is noted.

I'll go with what the victims felt they needed to do at the time, which in all cases turned out well for them, which is all that matters.

[Blind groper]

Seth

You still do not appreciate the difference between a person thinking he needs a gun, and a person actually needing a gun.

I will give you an example. This happened a few days ago here in NZ, and was well reported in the news media. A very nasty home invasion.

Elderly couple who lived on an isolated property. A young hoodlum carrying a rifle burst in on them and held them up. He tied them up and then demanded money. He used a knife to inflict minor wounds on the woman, and they told him where their valuables were. He then stole their car and drove off. The man wriggled out of his bonds in time and they called the police. The police found the car about 100 kms away and driving north. Police followed the car, and finally forced it off the road. The man fired on the police and was shot dead.

The point of this story is to illustrate the simple fact that the victims did not need a gun. They suffered, and lost property, but they recovered. If they had tried to use a gun to oppose the criminal, one of them, if not both, would probably have ended up being shot.

When you quote 80,000 DGU's, you are not quoting 80,000 times when a gun is needed. You are quoting 80,000 times when someone only thought a gun was needed. In the example above, if the old couple had 'won' by threatening the guy with a gun, that incident would have been called a successful DGU, where as I showed, a gun was not needed. And that was about the most extreme example I could quote. In the vast majority of cases where one person is threatened, the situation would be far less extreme, and the gun would not be needed.

I have said before, and I stand by this, that if threatened, I would freely hand over my wallet, my watch, my laptop, and anything else I had. Those things are far less valuable than my life, and indeed, are far less valuable than the criminal's life, even if I could draw a gun and shoot him.

However, Seth, with your callous and non empathetic approach, I do not expect you to agree. Your priorities are screwed.

[Seth]

Seth

You still do not appreciate the difference between a person thinking he needs a gun, and a person actually needing a gun.

No, you don't. You also fail to understand that having a gun is something entirely different from committing a murder with a gun. You also are incapable of understanding that if you NEED a gun, you'd better have it in holster on your belt because there will not be time to go fetch one when the need arises.

I will give you an example. This happened a few days ago here in NZ, and was well reported in the news media. A very nasty home invasion.

Elderly couple who lived on an isolated property. A young hoodlum carrying a rifle burst in on them and held them up. He tied them up and then demanded money. He used a knife to inflict minor wounds on the woman, and they told him where their valuables were. He then stole their car and drove off. The man wriggled out of his bonds in time and they called the police. The police found the car about 100 kms away and driving north. Police followed the car, and finally forced it off the road. The man fired on the police and was shot dead.

The point of this story is to illustrate the simple fact that the victims did not need a gun. They suffered, and lost property, but they recovered. If they had tried to use a gun to oppose the criminal, one of them, if not both, would probably have ended up being shot.

My goodness, gun crime in NZ, the gun-free utopia of the Southern Hemisphere. What a concept.

They are alive purely by luck and the fact that the thug didn't WANT to kill them. He certainly could have if he'd wanted to, and they would have been helpless to resist. I've given you many examples of similar home invasions in the US that were STOPPED before any innocent person was injured by the victim having a firearm.

When you quote 80,000 DGU's, you are not quoting 80,000 times when a gun is needed.

Both the FBI and I disagree with you.

You are quoting 80,000 times when someone only thought a gun was needed.

No, I'm quoting 80,000 times when a gun WAS ACTUALLY USED defensively.

In the example above, if the old couple had 'won' by threatening the guy with a gun, that incident would have been called a successful DGU, where as I showed, a gun was not needed.

This is just asinine. You point to a situation that ended up well for the victims only because the assailant did not CHOOSE to kill them. He could just as easily have slaughtered them both. And they certainly didn't know whether or not they were going to be slaughtered, and I'm quite certain they though they were, given his torture of the woman with a knife. Whether this couple could have successfully used their own firearms to protect themselves is an open question because they DID NOT HAVE A GUN with which to do so. I've showed you many examples where having a gun did prevent the crime/murder.

And that was about the most extreme example I could quote. In the vast majority of cases where one person is threatened, the situation would be far less extreme, and the gun would not be needed.

That's not for you to say. That's only for the individual to decide in the moment when he reasonably believes that his life or the life of another is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm.

I have said before, and I stand by this, that if threatened, I would freely hand over my wallet, my watch, my laptop, and anything else I had. Those things are far less valuable than my life, and indeed, are far less valuable than the criminal's life, even if I could draw a gun and shoot him.

You can do whatever the hell you want. But you can't tell or compel anyone else to do as you would do because you're not in their shoes when the attack happens. Neither can the government.

However, Seth, with your callous and non empathetic approach, I do not expect you to agree. Your priorities are screwed.

My priority is making sure that the victim has the maximum possible opportunity to defend himself successfully if he needs and chooses to do so.

That's not screwed, you are.

[Blind groper]

To Seth

You quote 80,000 DGU's each year. And then you refer to my example of a home invasion in which the victims escaped with minimal harm, and tell me they might, might, might have been killed, if the assailant decided to. So what!!!!

With 80,000 DGU's, if the assailants were out to kill, then we would see double that number of occasions in which the victim would have no gun (because twice as many Americans do not own guns compared to those wo do), and we would see 160,000 murders per year. We do not. We see 9,000 firearms killings per year (8,000 of which are hand gun homicides). This tells us immediately that the majority of assailants are not out to kill. The vast, vast, overwhelmingly vast majority of those 80,000 DGU's were situations where their lives were not at risk. If you suggest a gun is needed to save lives, you are talking bullshit because those lives were never at risk.

This is the thing, Seth. In the vast majority of situations where someone is threatened, their lives are not at risk. The risk is to their wallets, their jewellery, and occasionally for a woman, her virtue. In each case, giving the assailant what he demands is better than having someone die. While I know that rape is a terrible thing, and can leave a woman emotionally scarred for life, it is still better than a killing. Especially if it is the woman victim who gets killed. And a killing, either the victim or the assailant, is the probable outcome of carrying hand guns. It is just not worth it.

Just as an aside, I noticed something interesting when I was researching data on the internet. Here in NZ, the police have a clearance rate for murders of 90%. That is, they solve 90% of murders, and bring the culprit to justice. In the USA, the figure is 70%. I do not suggest for a moment that American police are less competent. However, the rate of failure by the police is three times as high in the USA. Why is this?

The obvious reason is simply that they have 5 times as many murders to investigate (per capita). They have, like police anywhere, limited resources and limited manpower. So in the face of such a massive investigative load, they fail far more often.

Not only does the USA have a much higher rate of murders, but it has a much higher rate of murderers who get away with it.

[Seth]

To Seth

You quote 80,000 DGU's each year.

Yup.

And then you refer to my example of a home invasion in which the victims escaped with minimal harm, and tell me they might, might, might have been killed, if the assailant decided to. So what!!!!

So, they have a natural and unassailable right to not be victimized, by anyone, to any degree, ever. In the case of a home invader no questions need be asked. Someone forcibly breaks an entry into your home and threatens you, you shoot him right then and there without hesitation. Doesn't matter if he was just trying to scare you into compliance, his threat is sufficient provocation to use deadly force.

I will not be victimized in my own home (or anywhere else) and I'm certainly not going to depend on the good graces of an armed home invader for my safety. That's just stupid. Anyone who tries to kick in my door is a) going to have great difficulty doing so because I've reinforced it properly; and b) is going to face a hail of high-velocity lead the instant he crosses the threshold.

With 80,000 DGU's, if the assailants were out to kill, then we would see double that number of occasions in which the victim would have no gun (because twice as many Americans do not own guns compared to those wo do), and we would see 160,000 murders per year.

Doesn't matter whether they are out to kill or not or just out to rob or rape. Deadly force in response to a violent home invasion is the preferred response, used in such a manner that the invaders are not moving or breathing when the police show up, as a public sanitation measure.

You still refuse to understand that using a gun for self-defense does NOT necessarily mean that you are going to apply lethal force. The mere presence of the weapon is often enough to thwart the crime and cause the attacker to leave without consummating his crime, whatever that crime might be.

You can bet that a burglar trying to steal my TV is going to be looking down the barrel of a loaded firearm. Whether or not he gets shot depends entirely on whether and how quickly he gets his sorry ass prone on the floor with his hands behind his head.

We do not. We see 9,000 firearms killings per year (8,000 of which are hand gun homicides). This tells us immediately that the majority of assailants are not out to kill.

The motive of the attacker is entirely and utterly irrelevant. All that's relevant is the threat that he is projecting, intended or not. Enter my home violently and with a firearm and I'm not going to wait one microsecond to exercise my right to self defense because an uninvited entry while armed is automatically and inexorably a potentially lethal threat, and I'm not going to wait around to see if the intruder is merely using the weapon as a tool of terror and has no intent to fire it. Nor does the law require me to wait.

The vast, vast, overwhelmingly vast majority of those 80,000 DGU's were situations where their lives were not at risk.

You don't know that. You're just making an assumption based on your biases. I'm happy to accept the fact that THEY thought they needed to use their weapon in self defense, because THEY were there at the time and only THEY can judge the instantaneous threat level they perceive. You can't, the police can't, the courts can't. Armchair quarterbacking and 20/20 hindsight are useless and harmful. The phrase "You had to have been there" applies exactly in every one of those 80,000 DGUs. And I note that the FBI makes that estimate based on police-investigated incidents where the police agree that the use of a firearm was authorized by the law, which means that your arrogant statement is just so much bum custard.

If you suggest a gun is needed to save lives, you are talking bullshit because those lives were never at risk.

You don't know that. You weren't there. So your opinion is noted and rejected as the utter crap it is.

This is the thing, Seth. In the vast majority of situations where someone is threatened, their lives are not at risk.

This may or may not be true.

The risk is to their wallets, their jewellery, and occasionally for a woman, her virtue. In each case, giving the assailant what he demands is better than having someone die.

After being told dozens of times you STILL don't understand the laws regarding the use of lethal force. You're an idiot. The lethal force is not authorized by the desire to protect one's wallet or jewelry, it's authorized by the threat to the persons life and health posed by the criminal and the method he uses to gain compliance.

If the crook walks up to you on the street and politely asks, "Sir, would you please hand over your wallet and watch, I need to by drugs." any rational person would kick him in the nuts, give him a knee to the face on his way down and kick him in the head a couple of times for good measure. Or just laugh and walk away.

There's a reason that muggers use weapons, from paring knives to sawed-off shotguns. It's to use the weapon as a terroristic threat in order to cow the victim and overcome resistance. But whether or not the mugger INTENDS to actually shoot or knife their victim is utterly irrelevant when it comes to the lawful use of deadly force in self-defense against the threat to one's life and safety posed by the weapons and actions of the attacker. It doesn't even matter WHAT he wants, and I'm fully authorized to draw and fire the moment that I see him pulling out a weapon in a manner that gives me a reasonable belief he's threatening my, or another person's life or safety. If I see him focused on some little old lady and he pulls out a handgun and begins to approach her in a manner that reasonably leads me to believe he's going to rob, and potentially kill or hurt her because he's armed, I'll shoot him in the back with no warning if I have to.

The law cares nothing for the actual motives of the attacker, it authorizes the use of deadly force in defense of a person's life or safety based only upon a reasonable belief that the use of unlawful harmful force is imminent.

And no, it's NOT better that the little old lady have her Social Security check stolen at gunpoint than it is to kill the mugger. The mugger forfeits his rights when he takes up a life of violent crime and if he gives someone legal justification to shoot him dead, then that's the best possible outcome for society because death is a one-hundred percent effective cure for recidivism. And it saves the taxpayers a lot of money too.

While I know that rape is a terrible thing, and can leave a woman emotionally scarred for life, it is still better than a killing.

Ah, here we have it, the "lay back and enjoy it" argument. Go fuck yourself. Better yet, the appropriate thing would be for some thug to rape YOUR daughter right in front of you.

I believe you never answered this question which I asked long, long ago in this thread: If some thug was brutally raping your young daughter and you came on the scene and saw a handgun sitting on a log, would you or would you not pick up the gun and try to stop the rape? Care to answer this time?

Especially if it is the woman victim who gets killed. And a killing, either the victim or the assailant, is the probable outcome of carrying hand guns. It is just not worth it.

Sure it is. It's just important to make sure it's the assailant who gets killed. That's the best of all possible outcomes: crime prevented and all future crime by this perp also prevented.

Just as an aside, I noticed something interesting when I was researching data on the internet. Here in NZ, the police have a clearance rate for murders of 90%. That is, they solve 90% of murders, and bring the culprit to justice. In the USA, the figure is 70%. I do not suggest for a moment that American police are less competent. However, the rate of failure by the police is three times as high in the USA. Why is this?

Because NZ murderers are singularly inept and stupid I'd imagine. The people who do most of the killing in the US, the inner-city blacks, usually have a plan in place to minimize the amount of evidence they leave behind, and because they are remorseless killers when questioned they know to shut the fuck up and admit nothing.

I'd venture a guess that the clearance rate in NZ is largely caused by the killers confessing to the police.

The obvious reason is simply that they have 5 times as many murders to investigate (per capita). They have, like police anywhere, limited resources and limited manpower. So in the face of such a massive investigative load, they fail far more often.

Nah. Homicides always take priority and it's the other stuff, like burglary and car theft that go begging for police investigations. In Colorado Springs they won't even send out an officer to take a car-theft report. You have to fill out a report online or at the PD.

Not only does the USA have a much higher rate of murders, but it has a much higher rate of murderers who get away with it.

And far fewer murderers would get away with it if their intended victims pulled out a pistol and put two in the chest and one in the head.

[Blind groper]

Seth

Arguing with you is like struggling not to be drowned in bullshit. Among other things, you seem to have a terrible memory. You make a point. I debunk it. A few posts later, you make the same point again, and I have to debunk it again. This has happened so many times.

For example : you used the example of my daughter being raped, and said, would I use a hand gun to save her. You also said I had not answered it previously. In fact, I had answered it, and my answer is the same this time. In that situation, a parent would use any means available to save his daughter. Of course I would use a hand gun if that was all that I had. If I did not have a hand gun, I would use knife, club, fists, or fingernails if I had nothing else. Any parent would do the same.

All of which is irrelevant, for the simple reason that such a situation is rare indeed. You talk of 80,000 DGU's and then come up with an extraordinarily unlikely situation as some kind of rationalisation for carrying a hand gun. The thing is that, for every situation in which a parent witnesses his/her child being raped, there are thousands of other situations in which the possession of a hand gun leads to an unnecessary death. FBI figures show about 4,000 murders each year coming from an argument, in which one person pulls out a hand gun and shoots the other. You are trying to suggest that a situation which might happen perhaps 10 times a year in the USA justifies 4,000 unnecessary deaths. Total bullshit.

On the 80,000 DGU's.
Let me try again to see if I can get through to you. I know damn well that only in a tiny fraction of those cases was the gun wielder's life in danger. Why?

Because for every person with a gun, there are two without a gun. In fact, the ratio is even higher, since gun owners do not carry guns all the time (except for a few total nutters).

So, if there are 80,000 DGU's, there must be more than double that amount of similar situations in which the person was not carrying a gun. At least 160,000. And we do not see that many murders.

This shows very, very clearly, that those 80,000 DGU's were not cases where a life was threatened. That is why I have said continuously that the 80,000 DGU's were perceived threats only, not real ones.

In countries where no hand guns are permitted, like all of the OECD (except the USA), people are under threat just as often as they are in the USA. Yet the number killed by felons is a quarter or less compared to the USA . In other words, the vast majority of those threats are empty. No one's life is at stake.
This makes all those perceived DGU's look pretty sick. Those people (or more than 99% of them) were not at risk. They just perceived they were at risk.

[Collector1337]

In other words, the vast majority of those threats are empty. No one's life is at stake.

I'm not taking that chance. My life is valuable, especially to me. I know that according to your collective, my life is nothing but a statistic, and can be marginalized away, since I have in fact defended my life with a hand gun, but that's not important to you since it doesn't help your cause.

I'm not willing to sacrifice my life for you. So suck a fat one.

[Seth]

Seth

Arguing with you is like struggling not to be drowned in bullshit.

It's your own shit you're drowning in BG, not some poor bovine's.

Among other things, you seem to have a terrible memory. You make a point. I debunk it. A few posts later, you make the same point again, and I have to debunk it again. This has happened so many times.

Except that you have "debunked" exactly zero of my points, which is why I keep pointing out that just because you think or wish it to be so doesn't make it so.

For example : you used the example of my daughter being raped, and said, would I use a hand gun to save her. You also said I had not answered it previously. In fact, I had answered it, and my answer is the same this time. In that situation, a parent would use any means available to save his daughter. Of course I would use a hand gun if that was all that I had. If I did not have a hand gun, I would use knife, club, fists, or fingernails if I had nothing else. Any parent would do the same.

Well, that was a long time ago, so it bears repeating. But thanks for the answer. Now, what would you do if all of those weapons were unlawful for you to use or even possess and using them would put you away for life...or get you the death penalty? You'd still use whatever weapons are available to you, right? And you'd feel justified in doing so and you would object to any law that prohibits you from using whatever weapons you need to prevent your daughter from being brutally raped, or that purposes to punish you for defending her, right?

Well, that's all I'm doing. I'm objecting to dogma that purposes to deprive me of the best available defensive weapon in existence because someday it may be necessary to use it to defend myself...or your daughter.

All of which is irrelevant, for the simple reason that such a situation is rare indeed.

I've never heard such mindless irrationaliity in all my life. Rape happens and you know it. So does robbery and other violent assaults, hundreds of thousands of times per year. And then there's this one:

tumblr_mpp24pSOjC1raj25po1_500.jpg (31.06 KiB) Viewed 2015 times

You talk of 80,000 DGU's and then come up with an extraordinarily unlikely situation as some kind of rationalisation for carrying a hand gun.

That's because the low-end estimate of 80,000 DGUs per year demonstrate that it's not "extraordinarily unlikely" and the 2.5 million times per year figure, which is far more probable, shows it to be alarmingly commonplace. And THAT is why I carry a handgun.

The thing is that, for every situation in which a parent witnesses his/her child being raped, there are thousands of other situations in which the possession of a hand gun leads to an unnecessary death.

Fallacy. You exclude all the other legitimate reasons someone might use a handgun defensively, like robbery, or home invasion, or any number of other violent situations that call for the use of a firearm to stop or thwart the crime. Therefore your statement is non-sequitur.

FBI figures show about 4,000 murders each year coming from an argument, in which one person pulls out a hand gun and shoots the other.

So what? There are at least 20 legitimate DGUs for each of those crimes, not to mention the fact that if the victim had been armed perhaps he wouldn't have been shot...or wouldn't have gotten in an argument in the first place.

You are trying to suggest that a situation which might happen perhaps 10 times a year in the USA justifies 4,000 unnecessary deaths. Total bullshit.

Minimum 20 to 1 ratio numbnuts. Six hundred and twenty five to one using the probable number of lawful DGUs each year.

Therefore, between 20 and 625 people are NOT shot to death BECAUSE they have a gun for each person murdered in an argument.

I'll go with protecting the largest number of people against criminal victimization thanks.

On the 80,000 DGU's.
Let me try again to see if I can get through to you. I know damn well that only in a tiny fraction of those cases was the gun wielder's life in danger. Why?

You know nothing of the kind. You're making an ex-recto assertion.

Because for every person with a gun, there are two without a gun. In fact, the ratio is even higher, since gun owners do not carry guns all the time (except for a few total nutters).

So?

So, if there are 80,000 DGU's, there must be more than double that amount of similar situations in which the person was not carrying a gun. At least 160,000. And we do not see that many murders.

Except that's not the way statistics work, numbnuts. And there are FAR MORE violent criminal victimizations than 160,000 committed each year, each one of which justifies the use of physical force in self defense by each and every victim.

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Justice Statistics
BJS
Special Report
DECEMBER 2012
NC
J 239424
In 2010, about 1.8 million nonfatal violent
victimizations were committed by strangers,
which was a 77% decline from 7.9 million
victimizations in 1993. Violent victimizations
committed by strangers accounted for about 38% of
all nonfatal violence in 2010. Simple assault made
up the majority (60%) of victimizations committed
by strangers during the year, followed by aggravated
assault (20%), robbery (17%), and rape or sexual
assault (2%). From 1993 to 2008, among homicides
reported to the FBI for which the victim-offender
relationship was known, between 21% and 27%
of homicides were committed by strangers and
between 73% and 79% were committed
by offenders known to the victims.

And that 1.8 million number, which is an order of magnitude greater than your estimate, is JUST by strangers and doesn't include all violent criminal victimizations.

This shows very, very clearly, that those 80,000 DGU's were not cases where a life was threatened. Thatis why I have said continuously that the 80,000 DGU's were perceived threats only, not real ones.

You're an idiot. First, you don't know that there was no threat in those cases, and second it was the presence of the firearm that prevented or stopped the victimization, so to assume as you do that a) every other victimization results in a murder; and b) that all DGUs are "perceived threats only, not real ones" is pure logical idiocy.

The "perceived threats" that are important are the more than 5 million violent criminal victimizations that occurred in 2011 that were not thwarted by a DGU.

In 2011, U.S. residents age 12 or older experienced
an estimated 5.8 million violent victimizations and
17.1 million property victimizations.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics

In countries where no hand guns are permitted, like all of the OECD (except the USA), people are under threat just as often as they are in the USA. Yet the number killed by felons is a quarter or less compared to the USA . In other words, the vast majority of those threats are empty. No one's life is at stake.

Cherry picking red herring. I never said that one's life had to be at stake in order for a DGU to be legitimate. An estimated 60% of the time no shots are fired by the victim and no one is injured because the mere presence of the firearm in the hands of the victim stops the attacker in his tracks and causes him to run away.

Now if YOU care to believe that someone threatening you is making an "empty threat" you're free to do so. I, on the other hand, am going to assume that the criminal means what he says and if he backs up the threat with a weapon I am going to reasonably assume that he intends to use that weapon against me and I'm going to defend myself using whatever degree of force is reasonable and necessary at the time, up to and including deadly physical force.

If the crook doesn't like that outcome, then don't threaten me because the law permits me to act on appearances not wait for the attack to be consummated before I defend myself. If the crook wasn't actually going to shoot or knife me, well, tough shit for him.

This makes all those perceived DGU's look pretty sick. Those people (or more than 99% of them) were not at risk. They just perceived they were at risk.

That's all the law requires: a perceived risk that is "reasonable" under the totality of the circumstances at the instant the decision to use force in self defense (any kind of force from a threat to deadly force) is made.

And you cannot say that they were "not at risk" because you don't know that. The evidence points towards their perceiving a legitimate threat that justifies the use of force, up to and including deadly physical force, because they are not arrested for using that force, which they would be if they unlawfully used force against a non-existent threat.

That's why the 80,000 number of DGUs is so completely relevant and decisive. We don't have to make assumptions about undocumented DGUs and try to discern what really happened, we know what happened from the police investigation of the incident resulting in the report that the FBI used as a part of the data set it compiled to come up with the figure.

Just because YOU don't think they were legitimately in danger doesn't mean the law doesn't. Clearly, in those cases, it does.

[Blind groper]

Seth

You were the one a few posts back who said that there were 80,000 cases each year in which a person would have been killed if he/she did not carry a gun. I was debunking that stupid statement.

There are a reported 80,000 claims each year of a DGU. I am sure in each case someone felt threatened and pulled a gun to avert the threat. However, thinking you are threatened and need a gun is not the same thing as really needing a gun.

As I said, I have been in that situation three times, and did not have a gun. On each occasion, I used an alternative strategy successfully. However, had I been carrying a gun, and used it to threaten, and averted the threat that way, you would call it a DGU and use it as 'proof' of your exaggerated claims.

Using a gun to avoid a threat does not show that a gun was needed. My own guess is that, at least 99% of all those DGU's would not have resulted in a major victimisation if no gun was available. Reason, because so many other strategies are available, but were not tried. Of course, you would claim that handing over a wallet represents a failed strategy, so we will not agree. Since human life, even the criminal's, is worth far more than a wallet, my view is that handing over a wallet to avoid a killing is a success.

I have already listed a range of strategies to replace using a gun when threatened. One or more of these alternatives will nearly always work to avoid major harm. Guns are not needed.

You also ignore the fact that owning a hand gun increases your risk of being murdered, and increases substantially the risk of a member of your family killing him/herself.

Owning a hand gun is a mug's game.

[Seth]

Seth

You were the one a few posts back who said that there were 80,000 cases each year in which a person would have been killed if he/she did not carry a gun. I was debunking that stupid statement.

Liar. I said there are 80,000 cases each year in which a person was NOT VICTIMIZED and NOT KILLED BECAUSE they had a gun. That's simple fact.

There are a reported 80,000 claims each year of a DGU. I am sure in each case someone felt threatened and pulled a gun to avert the threat. However, thinking you are threatened and need a gun is not the same thing as really needing a gun.

Not to you, but then you're an idiot.

As I said, I have been in that situation three times, and did not have a gun. On each occasion, I used an alternative strategy successfully. However, had I been carrying a gun, and used it to threaten, and averted the threat that way, you would call it a DGU and use it as 'proof' of your exaggerated claims.

Using a gun to avoid a threat does not show that a gun was needed.

Lucky you. Someday perhaps you WILL need a gun and won't have one and you'll be crying and shitting your pants and secretly praying for someone like me to come along and save you. But by then it's too late and you're dead. Oh darn, hoist on your own ideological petard.

My own guess is that, at least 99% of all those DGU's would not have resulted in a major victimisation if no gun was available.

Opinion noted and rejected as idiotic.

Reason, because so many other strategies are available, but were not tried. Of course, you would claim that handing over a wallet represents a failed strategy, so we will not agree.

Whatever you do to survive is a successful strategy, and nobody is demanding that you do anything but capitulate. All I'm saying is that neither you nor anyone else has a right to force ANYONE ELSE to make the same decision you did, and that EVERYONE has a right to be effectively armed for self defense against those times when capitulation is not a viable option.

Since human life, even the criminal's, is worth far more than a wallet, my view is that handing over a wallet to avoid a killing is a success.

Again, it's not the wallet that authorizes the use of deadly force, it's the threat of imminent violence that jeopardizes the victim's life or health, and in that case no, the criminal's life is NOT more important than the victim's safety.

I have already listed a range of strategies to replace using a gun when threatened. One or more of these alternatives will nearly always work to avoid major harm. Guns are not needed.

...until they are, and then nothing else will do the job, and if you don't have one you die. Therefore it is prudent to carry one against such an eventuality. But that too is an individual choice and I would never presume to tell you that you HAD to carry a handgun as a matter of public policy (although according to our Constitution the Congress actually has authority to do that, whereas it has NO authority to disarm any law-abiding citizen), but neither are you allowed to tell me that I cannot do so merely because of some vacuous fear you might be suffering from.

You also ignore the fact that owning a hand gun increases your risk of being murdered, and increases substantially the risk of a member of your family killing him/herself.

Even if true, which I dispute, that's still a decision that I get to make, not you and not anybody else. It's my risk to assume.

Owning a hand gun is a mug's game.

Then don't own one. You're free to do whatever the hell you please...and live (or die) with the consequences.

In my experience however, it's been a positive benefit and has prevented me from being victimized, so you can fuck off with your suggestion that I not be allowed to carry it.