SpudFiles

i have to write a persuasive paper for english and i have decided to write it on gun control and why it is a useless waste of time, any links to websites with neutral informaiton and/or statistics would be greatly appreciated, also feel free to make comments as to how right/wrong i am. Be careful though, if you say something i dont like, i might just shoot you

Howabout a comparison of gun crime in the UK and the US with reference to how they are controlled in each country.

That would sink your paper

For helpful information however I suggest typing the words 'gun control' into google. The wiki links are good.

Beebs, what grade are you in?

"if gun where outlawed only outlaws would have guns" this statement is very true and imagine if every one carryed a pistol around what criminals would do

thanks for the comments so far, i am currently in ninth grade, finally we got an an assignment that i will enjoy doing why do you ask?

lukemc, that is exactly my point, and exactly what gun control lobbysts dont seem to understand, outlawing guns only creates a profit margin to people who decide to sell them illegally, and takes them out of the hands of law abiding citizens.

Gun control means = Hitting your target!

ok, then anti gun laws or laws that make it hard to obtain a firearm, the hot topic today is any handgun or any "Black" gun, becasue everyone knows that if a gun is black it is solely made for killing human beings(sarcasam)

beebs111 wrote:lukemc, that is exactly my point, and exactly what gun control lobbysts dont seem to understand, outlawing guns only creates a profit margin to people who decide to sell them illegally, and takes them out of the hands of law abiding citizens.

Thats all it does?

My thoughts:

Outlawing drugs only creates a profit margin to people who decide to sell them illegally.

School massacres don't happen with illegal weapons.

Killing people is a lot harder and less common without such efficient devices freely available.

A responsible person may buy a lethal gun but they'll still have it if they become irresponsible.

But the rights of the individual to carry a gun must be protected at any cost hmm...?

Hotwired,Here is a nice article from 2001 by the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1440764.stm
And another thing from WIKI it seems The UK has replaced guns with knives.

Stabbings are the most common form of murder in Britain, where firearms — except certain shotguns and sporting rifles — are outlawed.

Of the 839 homicides in England and Wales in 2005, 29% involved sharp instruments including knives, blades and swords. Firearms account for just 9% of murders in Britain. The murder rate in Britain is 15 per million people.

The US murder rate is 55 per million, according to the FBI. Of those, 70% of murders were committed with firearms; just 14% involved knives or cutting instruments.

In London alone, there were 12,589 knife-related crimes last year. Police say the most likely people to carry knives are males ages 15 to 18. Blogs about knife crime are being setting up to try to make society safer

By the way,
US population:301,139,947 and that works to 1 murder per 5,475,271.764
UK population:60,776,238 works out to 1 murder per 405,1749.2

Somehow I don't think the "gun ban" is working as well as you think.Crime happens no matter what.I personally feel safer with a gun.
Unless the UK plans on banning knives.It seems things are going to be the same

Hotwired wrote:

beebs111 wrote:lukemc, that is exactly my point, and exactly what gun control lobbysts dont seem to understand, outlawing guns only creates a profit margin to people who decide to sell them illegally, and takes them out of the hands of law abiding citizens.

Thats all it does?

My thoughts:

Outlawing drugs only creates a profit margin to people who decide to sell them illegally.

School massacres don't happen with illegal weapons.

Killing people is a lot harder and less common without such efficient devices freely available.

A responsible person may buy a lethal gun but they'll still have it if they become irresponsible.

But the rights of the individual to carry a gun must be protected at any cost hmm...?

ok, have you ever seen the violent crime rate in a city such as new york, they along with shootings are very high. it is illegal to discharge a firearm within city limits, and there are very strict gun laws there. look at a place where there are virtually no gun laws, like texas, where many people carry, and there are much less violent crimes there.

On the point of the drugs argument, that is exactly my point. if someone could buy heroine at a pharmacy, with a valid ID and a warning on the syringe, it would eliminate all drug trafficing, all drug related crime, and the government would be able to tax it and control the potency of it. i dont advocate for hard drugs like heroin or cocaine, but the same thing is true for pot. there are far worse things that are legally sold(alchohol) and all that making marijuana illegal does is create a profit margin for drug dealers and makes people like me criminals.

Do you really think that the VA Tech shooting wouldn't have happened if he couldn't get his hands on guns? the kid was a freakin wackjob. ill admit he probably wouldn't have killed 32 people, but he should have been in a mental instution in the first place, sedated up to his frickin eyeballs. guns dont kill people, people kill people, back in the 1200's they used swords and bows, no guns, that didn't stop them.

Ever heard of a pipe bomb? it would cost you about $15 to make one that would obliterate a car. take some shitty soil and do some other stuff(which i wont mention here) add some sulfur and some charcoal and slap 2 endcaps on a piece of pipe, add a fuse and youve got a bomb. put in a school locker, that would do far more damage in a crowded hallway than a .45 would especially becasue once a kid started shooting everyone would run, but if a bomb went off, instant vapor.

and our 2nd ammendment rights GARENTUEE the right to bear arms, not that oh, you can bear arms, but only the ones that we let you, and nothing that you could ever use to defend yourself in case of a hostile takeover by the government, becasue that is the reason there is a second ammendment, to protect the freedom of the people, and if youve ever heard the saying: Freedom isn't free, then you know that yes, the right of an individual to ahve a gun, MUST be protected at any and all costs.

and goat hunter, if they outlaw knives people are going to kill eachother with bricks, untill they outlaw those..........

Also, of that 70% how many were with legally registered firearms?

Beebs the last remark about knives was sarcastic.Eventually, The brits will have to pave there country in foam and walk in bubble suits to be safe from crime . Only The UK will have Utopia then

Anything can be a weapon.It's pretty easy to kill with a pen. There is no end to violence and crime.At least not until the second coming of Christ.

I think you should include that it's not just the difference in gun laws that cause crime. It also depends on the people who buy the guns and why they are different. For example how much TV people watch. The Old Western movies might affect you more than you think.

goathunter wrote:

The murder rate in Britain is 15 per million people.
The US murder rate is 55 per million

US population:301,139,947 and that works to 1 murder per 5,475,271.764
UK population:60,776,238 works out to 1 murder per 405,1749.2

Knives are more popular when guns are banned? You don't say?
What exactly did you do to work out a LOWER murder rate for the US?

Don't you mean:

UK: 1 per 66666.6
US: 1 per 18181.8

Thus sinking your own post, gun control in the UK has vastly reduced killings.

Back to beebs:

Whats the good of having strict gun law when you can walk in there with a gun bought elsewhere in the country where theres less strict laws. New York has a hell of a lot of issues that contribute to why there are so many gun related killings but trying to restrict gun use in one highly populated area of a country is worthless.

I'd love to buy a heroine at my local pharmacy but legalising heroin does no good at all, it's addictive and harmful as are all recreational drugs to their own degree. I know a 14 year old kid that acts as a weed dealer in my town. Thats wrong, but it's no reason to say "right lets legalise this sh*t" because there are side effects to it and it then brings into question the status of "harder" drugs and whether they really are as dangerous as all that compared to legalised cannabis.

No. He wouldn't have killed that many people if he had to do it manually. A sword can't be hidden very easily and a sword you can run from and fight back against. What can you find in a classroom that will stop a hail of 9mm? Can you outrun that? A traditional bladed or stabbing weapon only puts out the energy you physically put in, guns release thousands of times the input energy each time, focused behind metal slugs - far easier to keep going with a gun than a blade.

As I said: A responsible person may buy a lethal gun but they'll still have it if they become irresponsible. He was sold those legally.

You'd be amazed how many less people die of bombs than guns. People who die from guns are generally not dying in the kind of circumstances where a bomb would have been the ideal weapon of choice.

Run through a locked door from a .45. I don't think so. When these whackjobs do these suicide massacres they want maximum casualities and often specific victims. They don't do it totally randomly.

I'm no expert on american law, in fact I just had a scan through the 2nd just now for the first time.

I think it's no longer the requirement it once was. An armed militia is what it refers to, for the defence of the country, hence the insistance on the public being able to legally bear arms.

To keep the state free, a militia is needed, hence the need to have an armed population. Two hundred years ago.

Used to be a requirement to do archery practice on a sunday because every now and again we'd have a bloody big row with the french and needed archers...

Some might say the requirement of an armed population to be the basis of a militia if needed is as outdated as that.


You like to joke that once all the guns are gone people will go back to killing each other with knifes, then bricks.

Sure they will, if you want someone dead you'll kill them with whatevers available, it just needs to be rather more personal now, needs more determination than putting a few pounds of force on a trigger and firing chunks of lead off to do it for you.

There'll be less killings overall.

Less people can face repeatedly hitting/cutting/stabbing another person to death than standing back and squeezing a trigger a couple of times.

On the other hand lets give EVERYONE a gun, we're stepping up a notch, now you know everyone around you has a gun on them, do you feel safer?

Damn it!!!
I had a full post about why gun control and bans DO work, and then the network here ate the damn thing. I'll try again.

Looking at those statistics for murder and guns, then it seems very much like the UK's ban works very well.

The fact that 70% (38.5 per million) of US murders are done with guns, and only 9% (1.5 per million) of UK murders use firearms seems evidence enough that gun bans are very effective.

The US gun murder figure is a collosal 25 times larger! And the overall murders in the UK are lower as well, at just over a quarter of the US figure.

Numbers that large do not occur through coincidence - double would be too large for chance. 25 times more is as conclusive as proving gravity exists by dropping something.

Allowing any guns into the system will end up with huge numbers of criminals getting them.
A gun ban has worked in the UK to cut murders.
Knives may be more prolific than guns when guns are banned - huge surprise. But knives are hugely less lethal than guns.
My brother was stabbed twice - and survived. If he'd been shot twice, I wouldn't have liked his chances.

You can't argue a knife ban. Knives are essential for so many things - cooking, and such.
Guns have one use - and one use only.

Why allow something that can kill, if you don't want people killed?