Civil Discourse Bulletin: a good read

[Mad Max]

My dad sent me these editorials. They are pretty good.



Recent posting in "Gun Control" in Public Affairs:
>
>
> By Jack Davis, in reply to Jim Hamilton
>
> Well, we now have another anti-gun nut on the block.
>
> Jim Hamilton wrote: "30,000 Americans are killed by bullets each year."
>
> If you are trying to snow us with nonsense numbers you should, at least,
try to get them right. 38,000 is the latest number (1991).
>
> That's 38,000 homicides, suicides and accidents that are gun related. Even
assuming the use of a different firearm in each incident, that's 0.02
percent of the 200 million privately owned guns in the U. S. The facts show
that more than 90 percent of the instances when guns are used for
self-defense, they merely frighten assailants into retreat without injury or
death to those involved.
>
> There are purportedly 400,000 lifesaving uses of guns annually, a figure
that dwarfs the 38,000 lives taken with guns. If you take the guns away from
the good guys, you almost certainly will cause hundreds of thousands of
people to die, not to mention the astronomical health care cost.
>
> In the Wild West bad ol' days, when almost everyone was armed, the rates
of murder, rape, robbery and other violent crimes were a small fraction of
what they are today -- specifically because so many persons were armed.
Those most vulnerable -- the young, the old and female -- were far safer
since people had arms, knew how to use them, and were willing to fight with
deadly force to protect their persons and property.
>
> Ahh, the numbers, ditto, ditto, ditto.
>
> Incidentally, speaking of numbers, there are an estimated 187 million
licensed vehicles on our highways that cause far more accidental deaths than
do firearms. You should be advocating getting rid of those nasty old cars.
>
> The King of England and his red-coated thugs are too busy putting on their
bulletproof vests and dodging bullets to come over here and bother me. But
that's what happens when you have English-style strict gun control.
>
>
> (Post your thoughts on this or any topic via this bulletin, or visit the
site at http://www.civildiscourse.com)
>
>
> Daily Groaner
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>
> Classic Blondage
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> A blonde, out on a hike, comes to a river and sees another blonde on the
opposite bank.
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> "Yoo-hoo" she shouts, "how can I get to the other side?"
>
> The second blonde looks up the river, then down the river, then shouts
back, "You silly. You ARE on the other side."
>

Another bulletin:


By Anthony Garcia, in reply to Jim Hamilton
>
> If you are going to bandy numbers about, use the correct numbers.
>
> For example, the correct figure for firearm related deaths in 1999,
according to the CDC database at
http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10.html is 28,874.
>
> Out of a population of 272,690,813 people, that's 0.01% of the people of
the United States dying from a firearm injury every year. Not exactly an
"epidemic."
>
> Of these, 10,828 are homicides. 299 are "legal intervention" i.e. shot by
a cop. And then you have 16,599 suicides, 57% of the total. Suicides are
tragic. But they're gonna happen, one way or another.
>
> So, you have 10,828 homicides committed with a firearm in 1999. That's
0.004% of the population of the United States murdered with a firearm in
1999. Assuming that each homicide was committed with a unique firearm, and
taking as a rough estimate 200 million privately owned firearms in the US,
that's 0.0054% of all privately owned firearms being used to commit murder.
>
> However, gun control laws do not discriminate between murderers and the
innocent. They are applied to all guns and to all gun owners.
>
> In every case of murder with a firearm, the individual responsible, the
individual who deserves legal sanction for the act, is the one that makes
the decision to pull the trigger.
>
> Responsibility for the murder does not rest with the manufacturer who made
the gun, not with the dealer who sold the gun, and not with some random gun
owner somewhere else in the country who's never shot at anything except
paper targets. These people are the ones whose rights are infringed by gun
control laws, and they have done nothing to deserve such infringement.
>
> Jim Hamilton writes, "Jack's other number, however, is ridiculous. The
"400,000 life-saving uses of guns annually" is a concoction from anecdotal
(meaning unreliable) "information" compiled from sources such as Soldier of
Fortune magazine."
>
> No, it's not ridiculous. And it's not collected from magazines. (And
besides, SOF runs war stories, not self-defense stories. You find
self-defense stories in handgun magazines and American Rifleman.)
>
> Surveys have placed the annual number of defensive gun uses (including
situations where a crime was deterred without a shot being fired) at no less
than 80,000 per year and possibly ranging as high as 2,000,000 per year.
Please see http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html
>
> Jim claims one can also read stories in such magazines about how a
booze-guzzling, nuclear Type-A tough guy can gun down a card-playing rival
on the ground that, "Well, the other guy had a gun, too. Fair is fair."
>
> Don't be silly. I defy you to cite even one instance of a story such as
you describe being published in a magazine as a justifiable incident of
self-defense.
>
> Jiim writes, "That's a lot of tragedies, Jack, and most of them are
utterly preventable. In fact, these numbers are yours, not mine. You claim
them. Bathe in the blood."
>
> Heavens, Jim. You must go through a lot of hankies in a day. But your post
wouldn't meet the parameters of a traditional liberal rant without
containing 1/3 truth, 1/3 bullsh*t and 1/3 useless emotional handwringing.
>
>
> (Post your thoughts on this or any topic via this bulletin, or visit the
site at http://www.civildiscourse.com