Do Guns kill people, or People Kill People?

[Parche]

Poll question: Do Guns kill people, or People Kill People?

[etherealtruth]

1. People with guns (and other implements) ....duh

[upstandingcitizens]

83. Guns are tools

just like any other implement. If someone misuses it then it's a problem.

[Edweird]

2. People. If it were the guns there would be no murder in prison.

[sharesunited]

3. Easy access to guns and ammo makes killing convenient and impulsive.

[Statistical]

35. Which is why there is no murder or other violence in prison.

[cleanhippie]

62. Does it? Can you provide data to back up your assertion?

[EstimatedProphet]

68. I will grant you that it makes it easier

The responsibility still lies with the one pulling the trigger.

[guardian]

70. You are absolutely right. Just look at

what easy access to guns have done to the normally peaceful squirrel population. Until the advent of micro-weapons squirrel were content to just chase each other. The mere presence of firearms has changed them into blood thirsty maniacs. Your thesis is proven.

[Old Troop]

87. I believe your picture is a forgery.

He's not wearing squirrel body armor.

[rug]

4. Neither, it's the bullets.

[petronius]

27. Actually, it's kinetic energy. Bullets are just the innocent medium

:)

(Not sure 'medium' is the right word, but I'm only making a joke so I'm not going to bother researching physics terminology...)

[Drix]

5. Actually it's the bullets that kill people.

no message.

[Fla_Democrat]

6. Do pencils make spelling mistakes..

or people? :smoke:

[Maine-ah]

54. if I could rec one post

:applause:

[Electric Monk]

7. I don't understand what the picture of airliners has to do with your poll?

I do like the Gorn reference, though.




/ibtl?

[krispos42]

45. He puts airplanes in everything he posts

Dunno why, especially since is username is taken from a WW2 US submarine, but it seems to make him happy.

:shrug:

[Parche]

86. airplanes rock

:hi:

[LWolf]

8. People kill people with guns and other things. nt

[baldguy]

9. People will always kill people. Guns just make it a whole lot easier.

That's their only function.

[NutmegYankee]

11. Not dissimilar to swords, crossbows, and pikes.

[baldguy]

17. 4 people were killed Saturday two blocks from my office.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/14/buffalo-restaurant-shooti_n_682158.html

They weren't stabbed with a sword.

[NutmegYankee]

24. You missed the point.

[Scout]

59. no one missed the point, you don't have one.... n/t

[cleanhippie]

67. I see his point, so he DOES have one....n/t

[cleanhippie]

66. Yup, flew right past him.

[Statistical]

36. 600 years ago 4 people was killed two blocks from a manor home

and it wasn't with a firearms.

People have been killing people with weapons since the beginning of recorded history.

If anything the rate of violence and death has slowed down.

[cleanhippie]

65. And hundreds were stabbed with a knife...

which is just a shorter sword.

[Arugula Latte]

41. Yeah ... No.

Fail.

Guns can kill a whole hell of a lot more people in a few seconds than the weapons you mentioned.

[PavePusher]

44. They also make self-defense easier.

If you can get guns out of the hands of criminals... you still wouldn't have a talking point, as there is no legal or moral imperative for me to have to meet criminals on a level playing field.

[sad sally]

14. and can be done from a distance without having to actually touch the intended

or see the gory results. And remember, making bullets (and other fine weaponry) is one of the few manufacturing jobs left in America. Also, if one needs a couple of boxes of that fine ammunition, just head on down to your local Walmart or Big 5.

[X_Digger]

38. And what value does that have in evaluating safety / cost / benefit?

I'd love to have you chime in here- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x292384

[cleanhippie]

64. the ONLY function?

Really? Can you provide data or evidence to back up your assertion?


I can think of several functions for a gun and not a single one involves killing people.

[TheKentuckian]

10. Inanimate objects don't "do" anything. The will behind an implement is the source of it's actions

[LostInAnomie]

12. Guns expedite the process.

[cleanhippie]

69. They do? In what way?

Please cite data or evidence to back up your emotionally based assertion.

[LostInAnomie]

74. If I'm looking to kill someone...

... what other practical method provides me with a faster, more effective, cheaper, and easier way to do it from a distance?

[cleanhippie]

76. So you have revised your first statement.

And FWIW, the farther one gets from the target, the less likely you are to hit the target and you will do less damage.

So again, can you cite data or evidence to back up your claim?

[LostInAnomie]

77. No, guns expedite the process.

If you are looking to kill someone, what faster way is there?

Guns provide the quickest, easiest, and safest route to kill someone.

[cleanhippie]

78. I disagree....

but until you provide data or evidence to back up your claim, it is only your opinion based on how you "feel" about it, not what you know.

[LostInAnomie]

82. I didn't think that was even in question.

Is there a method for killing someone faster than with a bullet that I don't know about?

Is there a method for killing someone that is easier than pulling a trigger?

Is there a method for killing someone that is safer than firing a bullet at someone from a distance?

There's a reason open and concealed carry advocates always cite self defense for their reasoning. Guns provide the fastest, safest, and easiest method for doing critical or fatal injuries to whoever they are used on. Whether it's done for malicious reasons or not, guns expedite the process of killing people.

[cleanhippie]

84. uh, ok then

[Ramulux]

13. Thats a stupid fucking question

Last time I checked guns were inanimate objects. How can a gun kill someone?

[old mark]

15. People. I have a S&W Model 1917 revolver, loaded, in a drawer for several years.

It just sits around. It hasn't even threatened anyone, much less killed anyone in the 3 years I have had it...In fact, it turns out to be a fairly interesting collector's item, worth maybe twice what I paid for it...But it's not a killer unless some human decides to use it.
People have killed their own kind with all sorts of devices or tools or with nothing but hands fists or feet...It's the people you have to be afraid of, not the tools...


mark

[Radical Activist]

16. Dogs with guns kill people.

A Baytown, Texas, man was killed while hunting geese after his dog stepped on his loaded shotgun, firing the weapon.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/01/08/Hunter-killed-after-dog-steps-on-gun/UPI-78441199824565/

[pipi_k]

19. Cats...

Don't piss 'em off...

[obxhead]

18. A safely stored firearm has never fired itself. nt

[xchrom]

20. Guns make it easy. Nt

[LatteLibertine]

21. For me, the responsibility

always rests with the person who pulls the trigger. I'd rather know why we have so many people who have been socialized or raised with; low to no impulse control, no conscience and a complete lack of empathy.

[east texas lib]

22. People first, with gun polls a close second...

:boring:

[Jeffersons Ghost]

23. drones kill people

[TheCowsCameHome]

25. The answer is obvious.

[cleanhippie]

71. To most it is, to others, not so much.

[LooseWilly]

26. Gorns kill people, obviously.

But, not Jim Kirk... once he's built himself a makeshift gun.

[TexasObserver]

28. Bullets shot by guns held by people kill people.

[Rhiannon12866]

29. People who don't know how to use guns also kill people...

Including themselves. x(

[Upton]

30. A gun is nothing more than a tool

people kill people.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

31. Gun availability multiplies the number of homicides by a large number

Very few people could stomach cutting a throat or bashing a skull. With a gun, "on na qu'appuyer ce buton"

[oneshooter]

32. Then why has gun violence dropped 20-30% in the last 5 years? n/t

[ProgressiveEconomist]

34. One reason may be police crime-gun-tracing strategies, patterned after Boston's

"Gun Project", that disrupt gun-running to youth gangs. See http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/188741.pdf .

[krispos42]

46. Probably not.

One chapter of the book "Freakonomics" was about the sharp drop in crime in NYC and, to a lesser extent, the nation. Basically, they contend that the drop in crime was due to a large part of the next generation of people demographically likely to murder simply wasn't born.

With abortion legalized in 1973 nationwide, people that were likely to give birth to those that tend to commit murders and violent crime (street-gang drug dealers, for example) had abortions instead of being forced to give birth.


Also, Clinton's COPS program put 50,000+ more cops on the streets, and some states implemented 3-strike-and-you're-out laws. And Mayor Dinkins had put in a plan to double the size of the NYPD over the next several years... which coincided with Benito Gioulani's mayorship a couple of years later.




During the drop in violent crime, the number of states that allowed concealed-carry, and thus the number of CCW licences issued and concealed firearms carried, also soared. So...

[ProgressiveEconomist]

51. You may be right about crime IN GENERAL (except for the absurd "more guns

less crime" argument in your last paragraph). But my post was about homicide, and youth gang homicide in particular. See the link in that post (#34) for a careful study of the effect of crime-gun-tracing on youth homicide in one city--Boston reduced the youth homicide rate to ZERO with crime-gun tracing.

And many other cities have implemented much the same strategy, with much the same result.

[krispos42]

52. My point with the last paragraph was that it seems to contradict the "common wisdom"

I do admit it's a dramatic drop in youth homicide, but it's far from zero.




And it looks like they did what needed to be done. They threw career criminals in jail for long periods of time and went after the straw buyers and illegal-arms dealers that were supplying the gangs.


What the report didn't mention at all was anything about waiting periods, gun registration, or assault weapons, which I find interesting.

[cleanhippie]

73. Where did he state that?

Please show me where someone made the argument more guns=less crime.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

88. krispos42 was testing me ("name that tune") and I identified the "song"

after only the first phrase.

For the rest of the argument, see the paragraph on "John Lott" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Right-to-carry .

[cleanhippie]

72. Can you back that claim up with data or evidence?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

85. See the link in post #34. Also see the charts in post #58 (for homicides overall);

prevalence of gun use in homicides is even more extreme for teens and young adults (see http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/weapons.cfm ).

[depakid]

33. Bullets kill people- sometimes on their own!

Antoine Boutte used to keep a loaded gun at the bottom of his gas stove. hat is, until he forgot it was there early Saturday and he and another man decided to cook some food, Fulton County police said

Boutte fired up the stove at his College Park home around 3:30 a.m. Saturday -- heating up the .40 caliber Smith & Wesson along with it, a police report said.

While the food was cooking, the weapon’s magazine started to melt in the gun well, the police report said.

This caused the spring – and bullets – to come out of the magazine.

The bullets started going off like popcorn.

Boutte’s friend, Christopher Henderson, opened the stove “to see what was happening,” the police report said.

That’s when part of a bullet casing flew out of the stove, hitting Henderson in the stomach, police said.

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/man-shot-after-loaded-563722.html

[X_Digger]

39. Wasn't the 'bullet', wasn't 'killed' ;)

Mythbusters hit all these bullet myths a couple of years ago.

[depakid]

43. This story's better, but it's a few years old

Make sure to check the oven before making fish sticks...

Woman Shot In Leg By Gun Left Hidden In Her Oven

A Texas woman heating fish sticks was shot in the leg Friday by a gun that had been stashed in her oven, police said. Roxanne Perez, 29, was hospitalized in good condition, they said. They said a friend of hers had hidden the .357-caliber handgun in the stove two weeks earlier without telling her after she told him no guns were allowed in her house. When Perez heated up the fish sticks she also heated up the gun, which caused several rounds to be fired. One hit her in the leg.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2004-03-27/news/0403270346_1_antonio-sticks-gun

[proteus_lives]

49. Still human action.

Please feel free to try again.

[quaker bill]

37. People, guns just make it push button easy

With a gun you do not have to come into contact with the target and take the risk of injury or death if you are not successful. You can shoot from some safe distance, particularly if you practice a bit. Guns don't kill people, they just facilitate it.

[wildbilln864]

40. and spoons make people fat! nt

[timo]

42. machetes tooo

all those damn machetes chopping off arms and hands in Africa....oughtta be a law about leaving a machette out where it can just cut off someones hands ......its the people,stupid wacked out people, geeez learn to take responsibility!!!

[hyphenate]

47. The great Ghu kills people

I thought everyone knew that!

[proteus_lives]

48. People do.

People who believe inanimate object kill people are fools.

[Cleita]

50. So how about swords?

It just reframes the question.

[virginia mountainman]

53. Judging by todays news, pickup trucks kill people

8 dead and more than a dozen hurt...

I wonder when the calls to ban pick up trucks will start??

The way some people give inanimate objects magical powers, to move, and act completely independently, and go to great pains to make the rest of us believe that inanimate objects somehow have the ability of independent thought, and action... It stands to reason they would help fight the menace that pickup trucks have become to society as a whole...

After all, practically all pickup trucks have "things that go up", and some of those are "GASP" POWERED!! They operate with the push of a button! And adjustable seats, that can be adjusted so small women, and large men, can USE THE SAME TRUCK!!!!

(posters note) Yes I know that the race truck that crashed bears little in common with a normal pick up truck, but, since some dunderheads insist that semi-automatics are machine guns, and talk about "heat seeking bullets", "things that go up" I figure why not!

After all guns and pickups, have ONE BIG THING IN COMMON, they are BOTH inanimate opjects......


TRUCKS KILL!!!!

[timo]

57. thats cool

love the helmet, I bet it dampens the blast from that thing!!

[Electric Monk]

79. Wow, you really do want America to be like Somalia? How about you move there instead. nt

[virginia mountainman]

80. It already is....Even my neighbors have "Pickup trucks"....

And some of them, don't even have license plates or inspection stickers!!!!!!!!


...roflmao...

[Electric Monk]

81. So move already. Bye. nt

[sea four]

55. People. But guns make it much easier

for people to kill.

[chrisa]

56. I would say both do.

People kill people, but guns make it easier.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

58. Agreed. But (LINKS) which kills MORE people, gun availability or the availability

of other weapons for homicide?



According to http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=448 , of homicide reports for 2007 in which the weapon used was categorized, 10,086 were by gun, 1796 were by knife or other cutting instrument, and 647 were by blunt object (clubs, hammers, etc.) Statistics for 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 were similar. If you don't like these statistics, google 'homicide +"by weapon"' ( http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=homicide+%2B%22by+weapon%22&btnG=Google+Search ) for alternatives.

IMO these statistics show overwhelmingly that "GUN AVAILABILITY KILLS MORE PEOPLE". than does the availability of other means of homicide.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

60. Those who say "people kill people' mean that if guns were not available, killers

(ALL or at least MOST of them) would switch from shooting to kill to stabbing or bashing to kill. But, looking at the statistics in post #58, would this be possible?

Ask yourself, if somehow guns had been unavailable to all 10,086 gun murderers in 2007, what would have happened to the total number of homicides that year?

Because guns are so lethal and so easy to use for homicide, very few would would argue that total homicides would have gone UP or stayed the same. So "People kill people" at the least can't be an ABSOLUTE truth.

But is it a RELATIVE truth? Or do guns kill more people than available alternative weapons would?

To go from being a gun murderer to a stabbing or bashing murderer takes two steps: switching weapons, and being successful in killing with that non-firearm weapon.

What proportion of gun murderers would switch to knives or blunt instruments?

What proportion who switched from guns would be successful in carrying out a homicide, rather than just leaving a victim with scars or bruises?

Be realistic in choosing those percentages, and then multiply them together. I don't see how you could get anywhere over a third, or even near a third. That means that homicides overall would have fallen by more than half.

Case closed; GUNS KILL MORE PEOPLE than available alternative weapons would.

[slackmaster]

61. Sometimes people need to be killed

It's not always a Bad Thing.

[Bill McBlueState]

63. Do nuclear weapons kill people, or do people kill people?

Obviously it's the latter, so there should be no barriers to everyone's right to keep and bear missiles.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

75. Does This Mean...........

.........that when a child finds his parent's gun and accidentally kills a friend or family member, that the child is a killer? Or is it the parent who is the killer? Because the GUN didn't kill the other child. We know THAT for sure. So who should we now lock up for the rest of his/her natural life?

Does this also mean that we can absolve the tobacco companies? Because cigarettes don't kill people. Smokers kill people. And the cancer.

Another question bouncing around in my mind: Why is it that in my particular State (and a lot of others as well), we're not allowed to own 4th of July fireworks? They're banned because they are deemed "dangerous ordinance." But no one ever died of sparkler wounds. You can buy a gun at Wal-Mart, but you gotta smuggle your freakin' bottle rockets over the border under cover of darkness (because THEY'RE "dangerous.")

Another thought from one of the only people (if not THE only person) on this board who's ever done extensive research on the subject: The Second Amendment was written with the specific intention of allowing people to protect themselves from the tyranny of government entities (both foreign and their own). And implicit in that mandate was the idea that the ordinary citizenry should be able to own weapons equally as powerful as the weapons that would be used against them (so that they'd have a fighting chance). Boiled down, it means that the Framers intended for citizens to be able to own ANY weapon that the U.S. Military and/or militia owns. So, the next time you want to invoke the Second Amendment, and the Framers' intent when it was written, just know that YOU are advocating for the right of every hillbilly in America to have a nuclear missile bunker behind every trailer, drive a tank down Main Street, and walk into McDonald's carrying a cannister of mustard gas. Sweet dreams.

Or maybe the Framers would be the first people to tell you that they never could have foreseen a future like the one that exists now, and that probably the BEST idea would be to UPDATE 220-year-old laws so they're actually applicable to the reality at hand.

[cowman]

90. You cannot buy a handgun at WalMart

haven't been able to for 20+ years, however you can buy shotguns and rifles at WalMart.

[B Calm]

89. Right-Wing, NRA, Gun Toting, who despise Abortion Doctors do!

So I chose people!

[cowman]

91. Gee

I am an NRA member and other than my tour in Vietnam, I have never shot anyone in the years I have had a CHL.