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Kramer

Bowling For Columbine

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For those folks traveling to Arizona for the Holiday Boogie, you will be interested to know that it is an open carry state. That is, you can carry a loaded firearm, on your person, so long as it is not concealed.

I attended a couple of advanced pistol courses at Gunsite, which is just outside Prescott. http://www.gunsite.com/about.htm In California, we were always very careful to either conceal or secure our firearms after training. In Arizona, at least at the Safeway in Paulden, nobody batted an eye when the guys and gals stopped in after training, heavily armed, to buy beers for the BBQ later.

My experience is that much of it is socialization. In most of California people would literally scream when they saw a pistol without it being attached to a guy wearing a badge. In other places it barely generates notice.

I've found my British friends generally have a great distaste for pistols. I have other freinds and family that roll their eyes at the whole thing and think all gun ownership is ridiculous.

I think generally when it comes to gun ownership when asked if someone should be allowed to own a gun you usually get two answers "Heavens, no!" and "Already got one"

It's more like the coffee/tea debate than anyone seems willing to admit.

Let the cutting and pasting begin....

:)

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Getting back to the media argument of this thread, I think that's the main reason for anti-gun people. The portrayal that everyone is walking around with machine pistols shooting each other. If people would bother to learn the facts before screaming for a ban, they'd probably find out the laws they think we need are already in place.



Yes!

Part of the problem is that the only time most people hear of guns is when they are used to commit murder. Thus, this selective media coverage "colors" the view that many people have of guns. They get only a biased sample of how guns are actually used.

They don't hear about crimes prevented with guns, because crimes prevented are things that "didn't happen", and therefore usually aren't considered newsworthy. Likewise, you don't hear that billions of shots are fired every year in sport shooting activities, without anyone getting hurt.

So, it is a fallacy to determine your view of guns, based only upon news reports. They are, by definition, selective samples that do not represent the true, whole, picture. To the contrary, they represent the minority of actual gun usages.

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So, it is a fallacy to determine your view of guns, based only upon news reports. They are, by definition, selective samples that do not represent the true, whole, picture. To the contrary, they represent the minority of actual gun usages.



Sounds a bit like skydiving eh :)

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Sounds a bit like skydiving eh



Exactly! You'll never hear on the Monday news shows:

"This weekend across America, 20,000 skydivers made 80,000 jumps out of airplanes, and none of them were killed!"

Nope, instead all you ever hear is:

"This weekend, a man plunged 13,000 feet to his death when his parachute failed to open."

That's the same thing they do with guns. And that's why the general public thinks that skydiving and guns are more dangerous than they really are.

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How come so many more Americans are killed (in %)by guns even if you compare to the kind of countries that have a lot of guns, too (say Canada or some European states (in%))?



- There are countries with no legal guns and few gun murders.
- There are countries with no legal guns and lots of gun murders.
- There are countries with lots of legal guns and few gun murders.
- There are countries with lots of legal guns and lots of gun murders.

Thus, the number of guns in the society is not a common denominator for high gun crime rates.


It's all about culture, demographics, economics, and other factors.



Exactly! Now, what are these factors?

Like I said earlier, I was not surprised that this thread turned into a gun control debate... If it wasn't so sad, it would be almost funny. :S

For me, the most interesting question (and it was left open in the movie) was: What's the difference?!?!?!?!?

I read comments like:

"If they broke in ...blah, blah... they should have known what was coming!!"

"The guy was INSIDE my house - of course I shot him!"

"If he was trying to steel my car (oh, that holy cow!) - I'd shoot the &¤%##& right there!"


(Oh, the gun here was unintentional - well of course it would be rather different task to kill a person with a knife than with a gun; BUT let's not get in to that ;) )

Remember - there are guns in other countries, too, BUT:

Ask most of the non-American counterparts, what would happen in above cases... In most of the cases no-one would get hurt (let alone get killed). You might lose your brand new TV/DVD, whatever... For that you have insurance. The police could even catch the guy (ok, a smaller chance... :S)

Still, many people live here (and in many other places, too) without a constant fear.

I guess it comes down to the value of life (whoever's life that is). Not surprisingly capital punishment is given up in all western civilized cultures... Wait! Not in all! B|

If a criminal (a robber, repeater - as convicted before for the same crime, gotten out, does it again) gets the same sentence (a life in prison w/o a possibility to parole) no matter whether he just snatches the bag form an old lady or kills the old lady and then takes the bag, it is like telling the criminal to kill the potential witness! I guess the only way to make this idiot to understand is to kill him (back to the value of life, capital punishment etc.)

There are sooo many other things...

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Nice find goose.

It's sad that this movie has enough exagerrated truths, and lies...that we have to sift through all the bullshit to try to figure out what we should believe or not.

-Kramer



Well, it is very rare (in fact, could you point me to one) to have an objective, solely based on truth documentaries anywhere. This applies to to all kinds of docs; wild-life, nature, history, science, etc. Some are more, some are less, true.

IMHO this movie was not about that - it's about making people think and debate about it. I guess in that sense it has been a success!

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Best movie I have ever seen, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Canadian. ;)

And no, my door isn't locked right now. :P

Canuck



Funny, I've spent 44 years within a couple of hours of Toronto and I can't remember not locking the door before going to bed ever... (unless I was drunk and got home late, and then I usually left it wide open)...
If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

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Best movie I have ever seen, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Canadian. ;)

And no, my door isn't locked right now. :P

Canuck



Funny, I've spent 44 years within a couple of hours of Toronto and I can't remember not locking the door before going to bed ever... (unless I was drunk and got home late, and then I usually left it wide open)...



Yeah, I don't have too many friends in the city that don't lock their doors at night.



My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

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And if that doesn't work, I say we go for manditory abortions in the cases of all pregnancys, for at least the next 60 years. That WILL solve the crime issue. Then again, what about the foreigners? Well, we'll just ask the UN to make this a world-wide rule. There, problems of humanity solved!

:S

mike

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills--You know, like nunchuk skills, bow-hunting skills, computer-hacking skills.

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I think Bowline for Columbine is a great example of why all hand guns should be banned. Believe me if all hand guns were confiscated in the US crime rates vie gun violence would drop. Therefore I will support any and all new gun laws.

blues

jerry



Jerry,

I was going to say "watch it. With a comment like that, you're bound to get shot up full of sarcastic remarks." ... But Mike beat me to the punch with one.

I don't think Bowling for Columbine is about banning guns at all. There are the hand gun vs. riffle/shotgun arguments but important points raised include the fact that per person, we have more guns here in Canada. Hand gun regulation is WAAAAAY tighter here but I really don't think that's the reason for the significantly lower gun-crime rate. Guns are merely an instrument of the problem... The problem itself is social in nature, it's desensitisation, it's intolerance hatred and fear, it's Violence in general. Another important issue mentioned by Moore is that nearly every major event in American history is a violent one. People don't shoot eachother Because they HAVE guns, they shoot eachother because that's what they know, that's what they do.

There are arguments that Moore thinks the availability of weapons is the problem (regarding, for example, his stand at Wal Mart with the Columbine survivors until Wal Mart caved and decided not to stock a particular round of ammunition). Whereas other viewers may see that Moores point is really that the availability of weapons is a symptom of the problem.



My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

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There are arguments that Moore thinks the availability of weapons is the problem (regarding, for example, his stand at Wal Mart with the Columbine survivors until Wal Mart caved and decided not to stock a particular round of ammunition). Whereas other viewers may see that Moores point is really that the availability of weapons is a symptom of the problem.


It was K-Mart, fyi.

I think Moore would contest that the main problem with gun violence in America isn't whether or not you can buy bullets at K-Mart, but rather the media's byast coverage of gun-crimes.

He really sounds like a Libertarian more than a Democrat half the time. Libertarian's sorta believe that if you ignore an issue by not pushing it into mainstream society, it won't be a problem. They think that if there weren't so damn many anti-drug commercials, then drugs wouldn't be such a problem in the US. Moore is kind of like that in the sense that if the media didn't talk about gun-murders so much, it wouldn't be as big of an occurance.

-Kramer

The FAKE KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMER!!!!!!!!!

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It's all about culture, demographics, economics, and other factors.



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Exactly! Now, what are these factors?



Well, for example with demographics, it has to do with the percentage of the population in their crime prone age, between about age 17 and 25. If you are younger than that, or older than that, you are much less likely to commit violent crimes. So, when the baby boomers reached that age range, crime went up, because they swelled the percentage of the population in those "crime prone" years. On the other hand, if a larger percentage of the population is older than 25, then crime goes down. All of that just from demographics, and nothing at all to do with the availability of guns.

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Ask most of the non-American counterparts, what would happen in above cases... In most of the cases no-one would get hurt (let alone get killed). You might lose your brand new TV/DVD, whatever...



In those cases, people without guns for self defense are much more likely to be attacked by the intruders.

If someone breaks into your house, he has already proven himself to have no regard for the law or your rights. And you want to put your trust in this criminal not to do something horrible to you?

If you want to take that chance for yourself, that's your decision to make. However, I don't believe that anyone has the right to force that same strategy upon everyone else. Many of us prefer to be able to defend ourselves.

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Still, many people live here (and in many other places, too) without a constant fear.



Just because we own a gun for self-defense does not mean that we live in fear. It's just a matter of prudent measure to be prepared for emergencies. If you wear your seat belt while driving, does that mean that you "live in fear" of an auto accident?

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IMHO this movie was not about that (a documentary) - it's about making people think and debate about it. I guess in that sense it has been a success!



Well if that is the case, then he shouldn't have dubbed it a documentary, and the movie industry shouldn't have given him an award for "Best Documentary".

All the movie industry did was cheapen their own credibility.

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Funny, I've spent 44 years within a couple of hours of Toronto and I can't remember not locking the door before going to bed ever...



Not everyone in the world is as lucky as you are to live in a crime-free area.

Don't judge the rest of the world based upon your own little microcosm.

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all hand guns should be banned. Believe me if all hand guns were confiscated in the US crime rates vie gun violence would drop.



Uh, crime rates are already way down in the U.S. for the last 10 years, even though handguns haven't been banned.

In England, however, handguns were banned and confiscated, and crime has gone up.

So there's something wrong with your theory...

Attached: Chart of gun crime in England. Handguns were confiscated in 1997, and note how the flat graph, suddenly curves upward at that point!

Gun laws don't work!

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oooh, the many personal attacks that must be getting quashed in fear of billvon.



I noticed that a few more of the "gun" threads disappeared overnight - those that were critical of the moderators for deleting the original "Gun Laws Don't Work" thread.

It makes it difficult to consider it worth your time to compose a long, thoughtful and factual response, knowing that it might be gone before the day's over, making it all just a waste of time.

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So, he's a hypocrite? Considering his media based documentary also seems to try to imply that gun murders are commonplace.



Gun murders are only one-half as commonplace as deaths from traffic accidents.

Maybe Moore will do a "documentary" on that travesty some day...

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Of the places you mention, I'm not sure all of them have provisions for permits at all. But, for example, while California allows it, they don't give them to hardly anyone. California law is a "discretionary" issue state. They reserve the right to refuse to issue, for no reason at all. And they exercise that right. If you are a politician, a millionaire, or a movie star, you can get a carry permit. But the average citizen can't.



John,

I was asked by Philly to specify how the U.S. is imposing harder gun laws on the Iraqi people then in there own Country (was Skydekkers argument). Philly narrowed it down to specify New Jersey, or NYC, or Illinois, or California (kinda tricky of him as I don't particularily think these 4 of 50 states would make up an 'average' depiction of American gun law but I took a crack at it)

Read This. But don't just skim over it like you did the last links I posted on the subject.

Since I can't count on you to do that:

"Thirty-two states, including every state bordering Ohio, have concealed-weapon licensing statutes that require the issuance of a carry permit to citizens who undergo a background check and meet certain objective criteria... Nearly all of those states have enacted the "shall issue" licensing systems since 1987.

Eleven states, including California and New York, still have the older, discretionary-licensing statutes. They permit the chief of police or a local judge to issue carry permits to persons of "good character" and who have some "good reason" or "proper cause" to carry a gun.


In Iraq, there is no provision to carry at all in the gun regulations set forth by U.S since June 1st... from my previous link... the one you've commented on:

"Small arms -- including automatic rifles firing ammunition up to 7.62mm, semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and pistols -- may be possessed in homes and in a place of business. Small arms must remain at these sites and may not be taken out in public."

There is clearly a difference John.

(sidenote: there are some that are "authorised" to carry guns in Iraq, but those are the guards -U.S.-trained Iraqi guards lack guns After blast at U.N., officers complain they're vulnerable )






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As a matter of fact, it's actually probably more lenientl than those places. Because owning handguns in places like NYC or Chicago is extremely difficult, automatic weapons are forbidden, as are also the so-called "assault weapons". So ironically, the Iraqiis actually have more gun rights than many of the liberal -controlled places in America.



This is how I know you didn't read that link... 'cause if you did, you would have read this:

"Starting June 1, the people of Iraq will have a 14-day amnesty period to turn in unauthorized weapons to Coalition forces at weapons control points here and throughout the country.

Unauthorized weapons are defined as: automatic firearms firing ammunition larger than 7.62mm; machine guns or crew-served weapons; anti-tank weapons; anti-aircraft weapons; indirect fire weapons; all armored vehicles or self-propelled weapons; and high explosives and explosive devices.

No one in Iraq, unless authorized, may possess, conceal, hide or bury these weapons. No one can trade, sell, barter, give or exchange automatic or heavy weapons with or to any person who is not an authorized representative of Coalition forces."




My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

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