Europe certainly isn’t gun-free, but the US is still double, nearly triple, the next closest major European country (France) for ownership rates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Guns.png
Moreover, all of the major European countries require a license for ownership. Equating the US gun ownership environment to Europe is pretty big stretch. It’s not like you look at the different gun homicide rates and then scratch your head looking for differences. Whether those differences are causal is up for debate, but there are a ton of differences.
There’s certainly causation for percentage of murders committed with guns, but the overall murder rate loses correlation if you remove the US from the distribution, and the US still has a higher non-gun murder rate than most EU countries’ total murder rate, so obviously there is a problem of violence here, gun or not, that is unique among what we consider Western wealthy nations.
The amount of kills would be way lower if not for guns.
Gun culture takes another toll on the stupid: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2628536/Teenage-girl-accused-shooting-dead-friend-asked-try-bulletproof-vest-missed.html
We need strict laws on gun ownership. Responsible, non-criminal/mentally ill people get to have them. Everyone else does not. If only we could start over.
No offense JP, but you tend to argue from your gut rather than a factual standpoint. There is no correlation between gun ownership and the overall murder rate of a country across all of Europe. It’s only when you throw in the US with its very high ownership rate and it’s very high murder rate that you can tease out a slight correlation, and that’s not how statistics work. In that respect we’re an outlier that should be thrown out. However, income inequality shows a strong correlation across all countries regardless of location or ownership.
olaf
3392
lol urban gun enthusiast! That sounds like code for something…
I myself am a suburban gun enthusiast I guess.
Spitting, Stalking, Rape Threats: How Gun Extremists Target Women
Protip: Please don’t bring loaded rifles into Chipotle.
Chipotle is asking customers not to bring firearms into its restaurants after gun-rights advocates brought assault-style weapons into a downtown Dallas store during the weekend.
The Mexican fast-food company, based in Denver, said Monday evening that it has traditionally complied with local firearms laws, but that “the display of firearms in our restaurants has now created an environment that is potentially intimidating or uncomfortable for many of our customers.”
“Because of this, we are respectfully asking that customers not bring guns into our restaurants, unless they are authorized law enforcement personnel,” the statement said.
Alex Clark, a member of the Dallas chapter of Open Carry Texas, tells KRLD-TV that he had attended the weekend armed lunch at a Chipotle in downtown Dallas.
“We had all different types of long-guns, some people had shot guns. I personally carry an AK-47,” Clark says. “There were a few AR-15′s there. The rifles were loaded. There’s no reason to carry an unloaded weapon — it wouldn’t do any good.”
ShivaX
3396
Which is perfectly within Chipotle’s rights as far as I’m concerned. Plus carrying around rifles, especially in a business is nut-job territory in my book.
Concealed handgun (or even a holstered one) is reasonable. Carrying a rifle just seems silly or lazy.
“I could put it in the trunk, but that’s a lot of work.”
Agreed.
I just don’t see the point of running around with a long arm. It’s needlessly confrontational and indeed I think it’s counter productive. You’re not normalizing gun ownership, you’re creating a scene. Those who feel threatened by firearms will only feel more so.
This is just another round in the internal slap fight about the best way to promote open carry. I’ll let others hash that out.
I appreciate Chipotle asking nicely. It’s perfectly fair to say “we appreciate your civil rights, but please choose another fast food chain as a demonstration area.”
Couple of salient points in this escalated road-rage incident:
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The guy with the baseball bat was pursuing on foot. The guy with the gun stopped his car and got out to shoot him, instead of just driving away. This is what happens when you remove duty to retreat: people who actively want to kill someone (and avoid punishment) will escalate situations that would resolve themselves peacefully otherwise.
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The place where gun guy chose to stand his ground: IN FRONT OF A MOTHERFUCKING DAY CARE. By the way, we have KinderCare franchises in Texas. They are not inconspicuous. They have a red arched roof with a plastic bell tower to look like a cartoon schoolhouse.
I cannot fathom why we should approve of gun laws that enable behavior like this to be considered reasonable and law-abiding.
I’m glad you provided a link to that story, because I think your post misrepresents it a bit. He didn’t get out of his car with the intention of shooting, and he didn’t actually shoot anybody. Fired three shots that missed. Nobody was injured in the altercation. If the man with the gun had a desire to, as you put it, “actively want to kill someone” he wouldn’t have let the man get away on foot, while he had a gun and a working vehicle.
That being said, I can’t fathom why you think a man defending himself from an eminent beating is not reasonable or law-abiding, but somehow don’t pass judgement on the man who was running him down with a baseball bat.
Well then, that’s all right then! As long as you miss, shooting at people is just dandy.
He didn’t get out with intent to shoot he says, but he did get out instead of just driving away. The guy chasing his car was on foot. He wasn’t in any danger until he stopped and got out of the car. He knew the guy had a bat. What exactly did you think he had in mind, if it wasn’t drawing his weapon?
He tripped and fell getting out of his car? Who trips getting out of a car? 30 years as a driver and I’ve never done that. I guess that can happen if you’re really angry - some people get really inept when they’re angry because they’re trying to move fast and they’re not good at moving fast.
My read on the situation is that he probably didn’t intend murder, but he’s also probably nearly as much of an angry asshole as the guys charging with the bat, because he had no reason to stick around other than anger. Having a weapon didn’t save him, driving away could have saved him. It’s another case where a guy with a concealed weapon escalated a nondangerous situation into one that could have ended in death because he had a pistol.
haha I suppose it would have been better for him to let himself get his head smashed in with a bat instead of scaring the man away with his gun.
I agree that it was completely foolish of him to stick around/get out of his car if he was only being chased on foot, but in a situation like that - with a couple of hot headed guys being… hot headed guys - they’re not caring about what some law says, whether they only have their fists, bats, or guns. But in this situation, where he was sprawled on the ground with a man coming after him with a baseball bat, having a gun did save him. Being stupid got him in that situation, but being chased by an equally stupid (and maybe slightly angrier) man with a baseball bat put him in that situation more than anything else. It takes two to tango. One guy having a gun and using it to defend himself doesn’t somehow make him a villain of the highest order.
I like to think of it as an ironic statement about results-based emotional judgment calls.
You have to be methodical about the law. The law tracks who the aggressor is, which can change. It starts out with the man with the bat attempting to smash a truck. The law allows you to meet non-deadly force with the same, without considering it an escalation of violence, which would then make you the aggressor. If someone threatens to smash your truck, you can confront him, though that wouldn’t be advisable. But the moment the man with the bat threatens you while you’re laid out on the ground, that becomes an imminent case of great bodily harm. (What if you were standing up, or bigger than the guy with the bat, or had a knife? That’s where the jury comes in.)
It’s regrettable, but that doesn’t mean you can put someone in a cage for it. Police shootings can be evaluated the same way. Often the decision to pull the trigger is legitimate. It’s the poor handling of the situation beforehand where change needs to happen.
The moment he decided to stop and confront the person, any claim of self-defence has to go out the window in any rational system of law.
I don’t believe you should be able to shoot someone running away in the back either.
It’s pretty debatable that he needed to pull the trigger once let alone three times. Reckless endangerment should be the charge here.
Yes actually. I would rather someone dumb enough to stop their car to escalate an argument with a bat-wielding asshole get their skull caved in by said asshole, with no collateral damage, than pull out a gun directly in front of a daycare and start blazing away so carelessly that he didn’t hit his target.
