I thought we'd never need guns in coffee shops?

[PavePusher]

Or maybe, just maybe, the nay-sayers precognition continues to be faulty.

http://www.katu.com/news/local/110628094.html

"Employee shoots, kills Eugene coffee shop robbery suspect

From a Eugene Police Department press release:

A robbery suspect was shot Wedensday evening by one of the shop's employees and police said the suspect was found deceased at the scene.

Eugene Police have identified the robbery suspect killed in Wednesday's shooting as Sirus Combs, 27, Eugene. Police say he has an extensive criminal history."


More at link.

I'll note that none of the nay-sayers here has ever offered to provide security for another individual or business while attempting to strip them of the means to provide such for themselves. There's a word for that sort of philosophy. Actually, a lot of words.

[rfranklin]

1. Capital punishment for robbery...

or was it for an "extensive criminal history?"

[Speck Tater]

3. It was a drive-through kiosk, not a coffee shop and the robber opened fire first

trying to gain entry to the inside of the kiosk. So no, it wasn't "capital punishment for robbery", it was self defense against someone who was attempting murder and mayhem.

[rfranklin]

4. If the robber shot first, it was justifiable...

did not see that in the news account.

[Speck Tater]

5. I live in the area so I got local TV coverage and witness accounts.

I'll see if I can find a link to something that mentions that fact.

[Bold Lib]

11. Even if the robber had not shot first it still would have been justified.

[spin]

45. You are not required to wait until the robber shoots. (n/t)

[AtheistCrusader]

71. How kind of you to allow.

[SteveM]

75. He doesn't have to shoot first to be subject to deadly defensive measures...

Once an individual threatens others with deadly force, he/she is subject to same; "shooting first" at this point is merely entertainment-induced etiquette.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

17. Meth related ?

[PavePusher]

14. Thinly-veiled accusation of vigilantism is noted. And dismissed. n/t

[X_Digger]

37. If the robber hadn't been able to convince the clerk..

.. that his life was at stake, the clerk would have told the robber to fuck off.

Who are you to gainsay the word of the criminal pointing a gun at someone?

[SteveM]

74. The usual disingenuous response...

Do you believe an armed robber is only after the money, or do you believe that the armed robber is quite capable (and desirous) of killing others? How do you know? A reasonable person would conclude that the armed robber could be after juice and street cred, and is not particularly interested in the money, and act accordingly.

I choose not to give armed robbers the benefit of the doubt.

[fascisthunter]

2. more guns won't help

people live in a pipe dream if they believe it will.

[PavePusher]

6. A gun in the proper hands....

certainly helped in this situation, as it does many times a day across the nation.

You live in a pipe dream if you continue to ignore reality.

[fascisthunter]

7. I Live in Reality where guns have killed too many

your assumption that owning a gun is going to keep more people safe is false, because it can go both ways. Your inability to acknowledge that is called denial.

How many more need to die needlessly? Because of people like you, kids and bad people are able to get their hands on more guns than ever... try thinking more about that.

[PavePusher]

9. "How many more need to die needlessly?"

Perhaps you should be asking this question of the criminals. Instead, you seem more interested in abusing honest citizens who have done no harm.

I must assume that you fear to confront the crims, because you know that to do so unarmed, while attempting to appeal to their 'better nature', will only earn you injury and pain, while accusing and persecuting non-criminals presents you with no risk of harm, while also satisfying your desire to agressively dominate others.

In the meantime, it gives you the superficial appearance of being productive without actually having to be so.

Good luck with all that.

[fascisthunter]

21. you don't get it...

more guns, more shooting, more accidents more criminals get their hands on them to... get it? If you don't, you are lying to yourself.

[PavePusher]

22. I'm not lying to anyone, least of all myself.

The numbers freely available to your examination do not support your assertion. Speaking of lying...

[X_Digger]

38. Care to back up those claims?

Start with the BJS..

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/

Since peaking in the early 90's, crime (gun or no) has fallen. This, in spite of their being more guns.

[SecularMotion]

46. "More Guns, Less Crime" debunked

http://motherjones.com/politics/2003/10/double-barreled-double-standards

[X_Digger]

47. I don't claim that more guns = less crime, but the inverse has been disproven..

more guns definitely != more crime.

Lott goes too far for me, ascribing causation where it is unwarranted.

[jazzhound]

57. Agreed -- but here are a couple of real gems from the

article:

Probable the most visible scholarly figure in the U.S. gun debate............

What a load this is! Were it not for the criminal suppression of the work of liberal Democrat Dr. Gary Kleck, Kleck would be the most visible scholarly figure in the gun debate. So the author dishonestly sets up Lott as the "leading figure" in the debate and proceeds to critique his work!

But as Harvard economist David Hemenway wrote in a recent critique of Lott's latest book, "The Bias Against Guns", one must have "faith in Lott's integrity" before accepting his statistical results.

:rofl: Hemenway has the unmitigated audacity to question the integrity of someone else?! Hysterical! Only a Mother Jones author could get away with this line.......either unaware of Hemenway's lack of integrity or well aware that most of his audience isn't!

[SteveM]

78. Yeah, I saw those stinkers bob to the surface as well...

Lord knows MJ doesn't want to cite Kleck, being a liberal Democrat, in its studies -- much more photogenic to throw in right-wing groups and individuals!

[SteveM]

77. Lott's studies do not convince me, either. But I still support 2A fully...

Clearly, the old gun-control meme that "more guns = more crime" has been debunked in far less complicated studies. But the biggest reason for keeping and bearing arms is self-defense, and not social policy. Too many people have confused the right to self-defense with social policy. Perhaps in the future a research model will be constructed by which the possession (and carrying) of firearms can be related to the drop in violent crime (a social phenomenon), but this is not necessary for a sound argument to be made that 2A recognizes the right of the individual to keep and bear arms; most especially for self-defense.

I confess to being puzzled why Mother Jones, which has correctly warned its readers of the dangers attendant with the Far Right's rise to dominance, still pursues gun-control. 'Seems counter-intuitive to me.

[friendly_iconoclast]

16. And your inability to acknowledge murder rates are declining is also denial.

Are you willing to state unequivocally that the clerk should not have fired back at Combs?

You may choose not to resist an armed robber. If you are ever forced to make that choice, I sincerely hope it turns out well for

you.

You do not, however, have the power (nor should you) to force that choice upon others.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

19. When I grew up murder rates were lower then now.

And here you go again looking at one case. Ah screw it, I give up. More nuclear weapons would be better too.

[hack89]

44. You have to go back 40 years to find lower murder rates

they were consistently high from the early 70's to the early 90's. They have been consistently falling since 1997. Interestingly enough, gun ownerships has skyrocketed in the same period.

[pipoman]

61. You'll have to tell when that was

because if you grew up in the last 40 years you are lying to your self just like all the old duffers who proclaim the virtues of 'the good ol' days'.

[fascisthunter]

20. wow... did I say I had power to force you to do something?

what's wrong with you people who want to promote guns? Do you not even comprehend what posters say anymore... you just jump to conclusions. I'm sorry but you don't have the power either to force me to accept your opinion. As for murder rates... I don't trust gunner's stats because most of it turns out to be garbage.

I live somewhere guns are used alot in violence... your so-called constitutional rights are having an impact on society and not in any good way that I see. Also, you and millions of others actually interpreted the constitution to suit your opinions, and it wasn't done through grassroots as much as it has been funded by the wealthy, powerful, gun manufacturers and those who make a living selling them. You ALWAYS had the right to own guns, nobody is oppressing you, so spare me the righteous indignation...

PS - nobody said anything about BANNING GUNS... is that clear to everybody here. Good...

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

25. Yes yes yes yes

[friendly_iconoclast]

35. So provide us with some accurate statistics, then

An assertion without evidence is faith, not science.

[spin]

48. Does the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics produce garbage?

First be aware that I have absolutely no interest in "forcing" you to accept my opinion. All I will ask is that you fairly look at the data I present and reply if you wish to debate.

All these graphs come from the the BJS website at:
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=31











You may live in an area where guns are used to commit violent crime. Ask yourself, who is responsible for this crime, honest citizens or criminals? Does the fact that gun ownership where you live is more restricted than in other areas of the country embolden or deter criminals?

The firearm owners that you possibly fear the most are those who legally carry concealed. Obviously, these are the most dangerous legal gun owners and they have often been viewed as people who may use their firearms in anger. The Brady Campaign has often predicted every time that a state considers passing "shall issue" concealed carry, there would be blood in the streets.

Are there any reliable statistics on those who legally carry concealed?

The state of Florida publishes a Monthly Summary Report on Concealed Weapons Permits which can be viewed at:
http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html

To summarize, this report covers a 23 year period of time between October 1, 1987 to October 31, 2010. During this period of time Florida issued 1,871,589 licenses of which 767,739 are currently valid. Florida has revoked only 168 licenses for a crime involving a firearm the occurred after the license was issued.

To be fair the solutions to the violence in cities such as where you live is better proactive policing. The politicians you elect will take advantage of your dislike of firearms to pass laws which inhibit firearm ownership by legal citizens. You and other citizens will believe that these politicians are seriously interested in reducing violence and will vote them back into office, time and time again. Wake up my friend. When your elected officials decide to go after the criminals and treat their carrying of illegal firearms as a serious crime, your crime rate will fall dramatically. It's not an easy solution or a cheap one, but it works.

Allowing honest citizens to own firearms and implementing RKBA friendly programs such as "shall issue" concealed carry, castle doctrine and "stand your ground laws" will change the nature of violent crime. Intelligent bad guys will avoid breaking into occupied homes or attempting to mug alert people who might just be carrying a firearm. They will become more selective in choosing their victims. Lives will be saved when people use legitimate self defense to stop attacks and in many cases no shots will be fired. But having said that, the bottom line is still that the best solution to violent crime is proactive policing and a justice system that is far more than a simple revolving door.

In other words, criminals adapt to the situation they find themselves in.

But consider this: In the 1990s there was a string of murders and robberies along the highways of Florida, as criminals targeted tourists through an identifying Z or Y on the license plates of their rental cars.

In 1993, Barbara Meller Jensen, a 39-year-old visitor from Germany, was just a few miles from the Miami airport when her rental car was bumped from behind. When she stopped, she was robbed and beaten to death by the occupants of the other car, in front of her two young children.

When the assailants were caught, they said they prowled the roads looking for license plates with the telltale letter.

Keith Thompson, a 42-year-old postal worker vacationing in Florida, was murdered after his killers spotted the rental-car plate and staked out his vehicle.

In all, nine murders in Florida were directly connected to the identifying licenses plates. In one year alone, there were 4,000 crimes related to the plates, including assaults, robberies and smash-and-grabs, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/crime_courts/safety/89658602_A_dangerous_law.html

And why were the tourists being attacked?

Greater safety for Florida residents and American tourists may be the reason for another notable characteristic of Florida in recent headlines--criminal attacks on foreign tourists. These tourists stood out because of the distinctive rental car license plates that Florida issued until recently. Unlike Florida residents or American tourists (who might shoot back), foreign tourists would certainly be unarmed, suggests the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. <41>
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/ShallIssue.htm#T41

41. Doyle Jourdon, head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, observed, "The bad guys are not stupid. They understand that a tourist from Germany is far less likely to come back and testify against them in court, and they know that these people carry large amounts of cash, don't have weapons and are generally not that well aware of where they're going." Larry Rohter, "Miami Unnerved by a Tourist's Killing," New York Times, Sept. 12, 1993.
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/ShallIssue.htm#41

In Florida, a resident can carry a loaded firearm in his vehicle as long as it ins securely encased (for example in a unlocked glove box). Obviously, a tourist is a far better target for criminals. As I said, criminals adapt.

[Kennah]

27. I live in the reality of Washington State ...

... where we have more concealed guns per capita than either Florida or Texas, yet rank #37 in murder, #26 in robbery, and #30 in aggravated assault.

More guns does not make the world unsafe. In fact, the opposite is true.

[one-eyed fat man]

30. Relying on the criminal's good nature?

Insofar as the police deter by their presence, they are very, very good. Criminals take great pains not to commit a crime in front of them. Unfortunately, the corollary is that you can pretty much bet your life (and you are) that they won't be there at the moment you actually need them.

"Call for a cop, call for an ambulance, and call for a pizza. See who shows up first." And unlike the police, the victim does not have to resolve the ambiguity of who is the bad guy.

You tell us when confronted with the threat of lethal violence, we should not resist, but simply give the attacker what he wants. If the crime under consideration is rape, there might be a little waffling on this point. How can anyone be so callous as to expect her to, with great dignity and poise, simply hand over the goods?

The suggestion that a criminal who proffers lethal violence should be treated as if he has instituted a new social contract: "I will not hurt or kill you if you give me what I want," is stupid beyond belief!

[fascisthunter]

32. nah... lets make more guns and sell more, because bad guys never get those guns

my gawd, you people just don't want to admit that glaring truth. More and more guns are getting into the wrong hands while people are promoting guns... no responsibility.

[one-eyed fat man]

40. Just as you

You refuse to accept the criminals are bad people. Prisons have pretty good gun bans, yet there are certainly guns in prisons that do not belong to the guards.

What's more, the rate of criminal activity in prison goes pretty much unabated at greater rates than in the general population. There is extortion, robbery, assault, murder, rape, drug use, illicit whiskey, smuggling and bribery.

Maybe that's because convicts demonstrated predisposition to be nasty bastards might have caused them to wind up behind bars?

But I just don't understand your approach. You want to stop criminals misuse of guns by taking away the guns of people who are not criminals misusing guns. You may as well try to justify wanting to stop drunk driving by taking cars away from sober people.

[friendly_iconoclast]

42. Well said, with a line that bears repeating:

"You may as well try to justify wanting to stop drunk driving by taking cars away from sober people."

[pipoman]

62. When are you going to produce something to back up your

silly feelings? Just because you feel there are "More and more guns are getting into the wrong hands", don't make it true. You don't get to make up your own truth without being called on it in these parts. You don't provide stats because the .gov stats actually prove the exact opposite. What other public policy do you advocate based on feelings and distortion/denial of the truth?

[SteveM]

79. "You people" seems to suggest your continuation of a culture war...

against the dreaded "Other." If you have such a "glaring truth," why don't you cite the supporting data for such an assertion? As for "no responsibility," who do you have in mind?

[RSillsbee]

49. If guns have killed so many

Why aren't the prisons full of guns?

[SteveM]

80. The cost of cleaning and maintenance are too high?

[Straw Man]

53. Assumptions

your assumption that owning a gun is going to keep more people safe is false, because it can go both ways.

It worked for the guy in the coffee shop. Or was he supposed to just lie down and take one for the team?

BTW, the denial does not mean "the refusal to agree with unsupported claims on the Internet."

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

15. Such cold logic. Fact is were going in the wrong direction.

[friendly_iconoclast]

18. How so? More guns don't seem to be the problem.

I don't see too many people blaming machete manufacturers for the genocide in Rwanda back in the nineties, or

the charming practice of lopping off the limbs of civilians in various African wars.


Yet somehow, in some magical way like the Ring of Sauron, guns are held to cause crime and murder.

[PavePusher]

23. Such poor logic. Self-defense is "going in the wrong direction"? n/t

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

28. New testament = poor logic ?

Don't assume you know were I'm coming from either.

[PavePusher]

29. Are you responding to the right person? I never mentioned anything biblical. n/t

[X_Digger]

43. Only if the 'direction' you prefer is detached from the reality of crime stats.

The Department of Justice's BJS tells us (as does the FBI) that crime, gun or no, is down. During the same time, there have been more guns.

I would not state that there's any causation, but the reverse case has been dis-proven.

More guns != more crime

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/

[jazzhound]

55. False. See post #48. Violent crime has been dropping

as the number of firearms has been rising dramatically.

Minus 1,000 points for your mendacity.

[Bold Lib]

10. It sure did in this case.

And often does when the guns are in lawful hands.

[cleanhippie]

64. No one but you is saying that.

Next strawman?

[lawodevolution]

72. Yet if you look at the data nations with higher gun ownership rates have lower murder rates.

"2. more guns won't help"

[SteveM]

76. Uh, I think it helped the law-abiding citizens in this case...

Having "more guns" is not social policy. In the hands of a law-abiding citizen, a firearm is a measure of personal protection against the deadly threats of others. And that is not a pipe dream.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

8. He won't try that again. We have been trying for thousands of

years to prove that killing makes you right and the one that kills the most wins. How noble, strength and might are always right. Yep more and more guns and everything will be just fine. Look at all those evildoers out there, now if we could just shoot them all, our problems would be solved. Wait theres another one, how come their not going away, I thought I taught them a lesson.

[PavePusher]

12. You're right of course.

The shop worker should have simply let the criminals have their way. That would certainly discourage them from repeated criminal efforts....

:sarcasm: ...if I must.

[friendly_iconoclast]

13. Being as Combs fired on the clerk, if he had nobly declined to defend himself...

...he may very well be dead now.

Morally superior to Combs, true- but still dead or injured.

[fascisthunter]

24. they spread this NEED for guns

and yet don't want to see that the situation with criminals getting their hands on guns is just going to multiply because there are more for them to get their hands on....

Good luck talking to these folks, but they have convinced themselves that more guns equals safety.

[PavePusher]

26. Since you seem to have ignored the evidence that refutes your position...

Perhaps you could cite to the evidence that supports it?

We're patient... I'll check back later, after my hike up Mt. Lemmon.

[fascisthunter]

31. You Honestly think This Evidence that Proves having a gun "sometimes" Saves the good guy?

You have got to be kidding.... you know how many people die daily for guns? Compare the two then ask yourselves is it keeping us ALL(hello!) safer? All I would have to do to refute your claim is Google and I would find plenty of cases where guns have killed more innocents than this fiction you hold onto. One case and wow... see everybody, I right. Too funny. Everytime we hear gun shots in the city, I seriously doubt you all are getting your wings. Come back down from that mountain and try to see both sides. If you can't there is very little anyone can tell you to change your POV.

PS - if your evidence were stats, don't bother because most of the stats you gunners have is bs propaganda payed for by those wanting to sell more, more, more... consumers can be suckers so I guess where there is a dime to make, who cares how we do it.

Good night

[friendly_iconoclast]

39. You're entitled to your own opinion. You're *not* entitled to your own facts

Fascinating. Clear evidence that support for gun control is primarily faith-based- and rocks the genetic fallacy, to boot:

PS - if your evidence were stats, don't bother because most of the stats you gunners have is bs propaganda payed for by those wanting to sell more, more, more...

If you have a more accurate source of information, why haven't you produced it?



And BTW:

Having a gun saved the clerk in the OP. Feel free to describe Combs any way you like.

[PavePusher]

50. The DOJ stats show approx. 108,000 instances per year of defensive gun uses.

I can't recall the exact cite, hopefully someone will help me out. That number is, however the very minimum, and I think it counts only those instances in which there was confirmation by police report, or possibly only those in which the firearm was actually discharged. The prevailing studies indicate that there are as many as an order of magnitude more instances, most of which never have the defensive firearm being discharged.

There are some 12-13,000 firearms homocides per year.

DO. THE. MATH.

If you have evidence to refute this, please post it.

[jazzhound]

54. Actually, the figure of 108,000 DGU's wouldn't even

come close to the what could rightly be considered a minimum by modern scientific standards. Sounds like that could be close to the number provided by the fatally flawed NCVS (National Crime Victims Survey) which didn't even ask respondents directly if they had been involved in a defensive gun use, but recorded those that were VOLUNTEERED by the respondents. Also, the NCVS were door-to-door interviews conducted by pairs of government employees who presented their credentials as they introduced themselves. So exactly how much incentive would a respondent have to volunteer a DGU to government employees who know their identity and where they live? :eyes:

The NSPOF survey, conducted by two pro-"control" "scholars" (Cook/Ludwig) came up with 1.5 million annual DGU's, while the Kleck/Gertz survey (NSDS) and the Police Foundation Survey came up with 2.5 million and 2.4 million respectively.

So even taking the lowest figure from the pro-"control" pair, defensive gun uses outnumber offensive gun uses by roughly 500,000 annually, since there is general agreement that offensive gun uses number roughly 1 million annually.

[PavePusher]

56. Oh, I know. I'm just trying to make it easy for someone who 'doesn't want to bother' with stats.

Evidence, it seems, would shatter their invented world-bubble.

[SteveM]

82. Jesus, the use of statistics, data and good argument use to be a liberal strong suit...

Now, all we get from the gun-controller/prohibitionist is more faith-based culture war utterances worthy of any anti-intellectual.

[spin]

51. What you are discussing is DGUs (defensive gun uses)

It is hard to determine just how many times a year firearms are used for self defense. In most cases no shots are fired and the police reports do not end up in any statistical data base.

However attempts have been made to estimate DGUs. The estimates vary from 80,000 to 3.5 million times a year. Obviously the true answer is somewhere in between.

I know of two incidents in my own family where a firearm was used for self defense. Many years ago in the 1920 time frame, my mother was attacked while walking home from work. She had a .22 cal revolver in her purse and fired two shots over the head of the attacker who ran. My daughter stopped an intruder breaking into our home in the early 1990s as he was forcing the sliding glass door of our home open. She pointed a large .45 caliber revolver at him and he also ran.

I didn't bother to post stats since you are so closed minded that you would ignore them. This is sad because you might be fun to debate and most anti-RKBA posters who visit the Gungeon have apparently admitted defeat. This place was once a lot more fun when the anti-RKBA posters would insult the pro-RKBA posters when they realized that their emotional arguments would not stand up to statistics. Unfortunately now, the mods in an effort to make DU a better place delete insulting posts. I can understand their reasoning but the Gungeon has turned more boring. (Note: this in no way is a criticism of the Mods. The management sets the rules and if you want to play here,it's wise to follow them.)

Still I believe that you would admit that there are two sides to every debate and that merely stating that your opinion is right and the opposition is wrong is not enough to win.

If you wish to devote a little time there are plenty of sites that you could research and obtain good arguments to support your position. I believe that I could present a number of good arguments against gun ownership if I chose, but obviously I would have to disguise myself with a different screen name. I have never researched the rules on doing this and I personally believe that such a tactic would be dishonest.

You should be able to do the same and argue your side of the argument with references and statistics.Two good sources are the the Brady Campaign at: http://www.bradycampaign.org/ and the Violence Policy Center at http://www.vpc.org/.

[PavePusher]

52. >>SNORT....!

Damnit, that cost me a mouthful of really good coffee! :spray:

[spin]

58. I don't think he will do any research ...

but if he does, it will be fun replying.

[friendly_iconoclast]

73. And three days later, he hasn't. Or hasn't posted it.

I suspect that reality (as it usually does with these sorts) doesn't quite jibe with his claims....

[Euromutt]

69. I appreciate your notifying us in advance that you intend to discount any evidence you don't like

There is, of course, a certain irony in someone refuse to listen to the other side's evidence right after exhorting them to:

Come back down from that mountain and try to see both sides. If you can't there is very little anyone can tell you to change your POV.

And another thing, "everytime <sic> we hear gun shots in the city"? That would be Boston, MA, right? One of the most restrictive states in the Union when it comes to private ownership of firearms, and yet, and yet, it suffers from gun violence. Why is that?

It's for same reason gun violence occurs in European countries with more stringent gun laws than Massachusetts: guns are illegally trafficked because there is a demand for them, and it's equally futile to think you can eliminate gun crime by trying to eradicate the source of guns as it is to think you can eradicate drug trafficking by eradicating the supply of drugs. We've seen how well that approach has worked for the past forty years.

Even if you could magic every gun and gun manufacturer in the United States out of existence overnight, some enterprising but unscrupulous spark would start smuggling them in from abroad (just like already happens with cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and meth), or manufacturing them in underground workshops. That's what happens in places like the UK and the Netherlands. We only have to look at the use of zip guns by American gangs in the 1950s as illustration that, if those intent on criminal activity can't get real guns, they'll make improvised ones. While under Nazi occupation, copies and knockoffs of the Sten sub-machine gun design were produced by insurgents in Norway, Denmark, and Poland, and Indonesian nationalists produced them to use against the Dutch during the "police actions" of the late 1940s; both in Denmark and the Dutch East Indies, these guns were typically produced in bicycle repair shops.

Even in the People's Republic of China, where private citizens can't own anything more powerful than a .177-cal air rifle (and even that requires a permit), illegal improvised firearms are cobbled together to a sufficient extent that the government felt in necessary to conduct a large-scale campaign against them two years ago. Note that we're not talking crime guns here; Chinese organized crime buys its guns directly from China's many arms manufacturing plants, albeit via the back door from corrupt employees.

Very simply, gun crime is a demand-driven phenomenon, and the suppliers respond to demand. Nobody "dies daily for guns"; they die for a variety of reasons best known to their killers, who would almost certainly have killed them by other means absent firearms. Sure, firearms make the job easier, which is why criminals go to some length to acquire them, even when doing so is highly illegal. As in Europe, Russia and China, and just about everywhere else in the world.

[one-eyed fat man]

36. Where do dead Mexicans come from?

Mexico has pretty strict gun laws, but when cash in amounts so vast you can fill up semi-trailers with it, you don't need to buy anything in Texas.



You have enough cash to build a submarine to smuggle drugs, or buy your RPG's direct from North Korea.

Just like former East bloc automatic weapons now show up routinely in the UK thanks to the Chunnel, no doubt Mexican cartel surplus machineguns will find their way north through tunnels in San Diego



No matter the bans on firearms, if a criminal decides he needs one, he will get one. Here is a two shot gun found during a search in a prison.



Prison built SHOTGUN - made from iron bedposts; charge made of pieces of lead from curtain tape and match-heads, to be ignited by AA batteries and a broken light bulb. On May 21, 1984 two inmates of a prison in Celle, Germany, took a jailer as a hostage, showed off their fire power by letting go at a pane of bullet-proof glass, and escaped by car.



Yet you would have us believe that if guns were banned, criminals wouldn't have them? How much more banned can they be than in a maximum security penitentiary? Yet one disabled inmate wheelchair was searched and they found a .357 revolver

[friendly_iconoclast]

41. Unpossible. If we just believe hard enough guns will disappear...

...armed robbers will stop robbing people, and the new Jerusalem will be at hand...


::implied facepalm::

[SteveM]

81. And you spread this FICTION again...

I haven't seen anyone "spread this NEED for guns," on this forum. Yet you knowingly spread the fiction that "they" are doing it.
You can choose to have a gun or not have a gun. You can conclude that having a firearm will not do you any good, and knowing your disposition (and I don't), I might even agree with you. But no one is spreading a need for guns. It is just one of your typical straw men.

It is a measure of how gun-controller/prohibitionists have lost the day that they must rely on fictions, repeated over and over.

[east texas lib]

34. Doin' right ain't got no end.

:o

[Katya Mullethov]

63. There is much iron in the words of ETLib

That is the motto of every tyrant .

[east texas lib]

66. Damn it!

I thought "It's a matter of national security" was every tryant's motto. Doh!

[cleanhippie]

65. Complete and utter nonsense.

How many strawmen can you pack into one post?

[Euromutt]

67. "Thousands of years"? You want to invoke history?

Because the fact is that homicide rates in the United States, even at their height around 1990, were a fraction of homicide rates in 14th century Europe, as estimated by various historians. In a good year, London had a homicide rate of ~36 (per 100,000 pop.), rising to ~52 in bad years. Oxford, and parts of Germany, had murder rates that rose above 100. (The highest homicide rate ever recorded in D.C. was 81.6, in 1991.) This was before man-portable firearms even existed in Europe.

European homicide rates started declining with the Renaissance, and declined further with the Enlightenment, even as firearms became more common and acquired faster rates of fire. European gun control laws were never adopted for the purpose of reducing violent crime (though they were in some cases advertised as such), but to protect the governments of the time from being overthrown like the imperial governments of Russia and Germany had been.

A key element in the reduction of homicide rates over the centuries has been the increased value placed on human life, driven by the spreading of the idea that maybe there is no afterlife and this one is the only one we get (so if you kill someone wrongly, you haven't done him a favor by sending him to Heaven ahead of schedule), and that maybe--just maybe--harm to one's self-image (call it "honor," "pride," or whatever) doesn't require the death of the offending party.

And that explains to a large extent why the United States has lagged behind Europe in homicide rates: religiosity in the Unites States is far higher in Europe (due, somewhat ironically, in no small part to unyoking religion from the state), and the United States has had a steady influx of immigrants who have brought with them cultural attitudes about self-image that were less influenced by the Enlightenment, or not at all. For example, the attitude common among inner-city black males involved in the criminal circuit (particularly the illegal drugs trade) that being shown "disrespect" (a slight to one's self-image) not only justifies but requires spilling the blood of the offending party to erase it, appears to have been introduced by Jamaican "posses" in the 1970s and 1980s. The Jamaicans were at the time noted for their casual regard for human life, but their attitudes appear to have spread not only among blacks in the United States, but in the United Kingdom as well.

But lest I be accused of pretending this is a "black thing," many of the same things that were heard about Jamaican organized criminals thirty or so years ago (their touchiness about their self-image, their casual attitude towards killing) have been heard over the past ten years about organized criminals expanding their operations into western Europe from the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. It's not a matter of skin color, but of culture.

A problem that tends to arise with ethnic groups that have been kicked around by history is that they will all too often succumb to the temptation to weave myths about their past achievements, and take pride in the accomplishments of their ancestors (even if they have to engage in a large amount of fabrication with regard to the accomplishments, the identity of the ancestors, or both) rather than in their own achievements, but also demand deference on the basis of that (fabricated or at least greatly enhanced) past greatness. We see this phenomenon in nationalist movements throughout the past two centuries, with the Italian fascists and German Nazis (both of whom wove bullshit myths about their respective nations' origins from the Romans and Roman-era Germanic tribes, blithely ignoring that both had been wiped out in the Great Migrations of the Dark Ages and that the Italians and Germans of the day would at best have been descended from the people who wiped the mythical ancestors off the map) as prime examples. In a very similar vein, we've seen movements like the Nation of Islam, and the Afrocentrist movement in academia, which have sought to boost African-Americans' self-image on the basis of pseudohistorical claims that all of humanity's notable achievements were really thanks to black Africans, but (inferior) Whitey stole the credit.

That's on a macro scale; on a micro-scale, we see this in any individual who demands "respect" despite not being able to provide any decent reason why he deserves it. Admittedly, this is aided by the culture of entitlement seen across the United States (and not just there, but let's focus on the U.S. since we're discussing American domestic policy to large extent) of people demanding respect for their socio-political opinions and religious beliefs regardless of the merit of those opinions and beliefs, but even the most off-the-rails conservative fundie is far more likely to publish a book about how horrible you are, persecuting him or her by failing to "respect his beliefs" (and plug it shamelessly on Beck, Hannity and O'Reilly), than shoot you where you stand.

But western Europe's starting to see this phenomenon in third-generation immigrants, who aren't particularly connected to the culture of their forebears, but haven't integrated into their host societies' cultures (mainly because they haven't been given much opportunity to do so). And because they're generally part of a socio-economic underclass, they find themselves in a position remarkably similar to many African-Americans, and are particularly susceptible to ideas that involve boosting their self-image, even undeservedly. Some are drawn to militant Islamism, others want to be the banlieue's answer to N.W.A. or Snoop Dogg. Europe may yet follow America in this regard, and tighter gun laws won't make a difference.

It's not as if criminals--organized and unorganized--in western Europe can't get hold of a firearm if they want one already, anyway.

[PavePusher]

68. You write the best damn posts, you wordy bastard... 8>) n/t

[east texas lib]

33. I thought that I'd never need guns at all...then I broke my sheppard's staff.

So I went with John Browning and Sam Colt. Works for me.;)

[RamboLiberal]

59. Wonder if the employee will be fired if carrying

Although it has been reported in the media that Combs entered the kiosk and that there was a struggle, Mozan said that hasn’t been confirmed yet. It’s also not clear who the two guns belong to.

Angie Galimanis, a spokeswoman for Grants Pass-based Dutch Bros., confirmed Thursday that company policy prohibits employees from having firearms at work. She said the company is cooperating in the investigation and will not make any other comments until that process is complete.

Mozan said it’s not yet clear how the robbers arrived at the kiosk, which offers drive-up and walk-up service.

“I don’t know whether there was a getaway vehicle,” he said. “I don’t know how the guy got there or what either suspect was doing just before the shooting started.”

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/25591996-41/police-combs-mozan-eugene-shooting.csp

If I had to work at some places I'd damn well be carrying even if my employer had a policy against. My life is worth more than some stupid policy.

[Euromutt]

60. God, I hope not

When I'm driving to California, I take great pleasure (being Dutch) in getting some Dutch Bros. coffee at a drive-through, and I'd hate to have to boycott them.

And is it me, or is there something a little odd about a company that sells merchandise bearing the legend "Dutch Mafia" (http://www.dutchbros.com/_product_121725/Hooded_Mafia_Sweatshirt_Unisex_2XL_BLUE_FRIDAY and http://www.dutchbros.com/_product_121725/Dutch_Mafia_Tee_Unisex_2XL_BLUE_FRIDAY and also http://www.dutchbros.com/_product_91818/Dutch_Mafia_Projector_Key_Chain) and, indeed, "Dutch Army" (http://www.dutchbros.com/_product_121727/Dutch_Army_Camo_Tee_Ladies_L_BLUE_FRIDAY and http://www.dutchbros.com/_product_121727/Dutch_Army_Black_Camo_Tee_Ladies_L_BLUE_FRIDAY) to have a policy against baristas carrying on the job.

[GreenStormCloud]

70. When I worked as cashier, midnight shift, alone, at a convenience store...

I carried a concealed gun. Kel-Tech P3AT. Company policy said, "no guns". What the company didn't know could have saved me. Luckily, nothing happened for the six months I was there. Two weeks after I quit the midnight shift was robbed. Glad I was already gone.