The Abortion/Capital Punishment/Gun Control Thread

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The Abortion/Capital Punishment/Gun Control Thread

Postby patriot » Tue Oct 12, 2004 2:11 am

Since I didn't want to hi-jack Jumper's thread let's bring it here. This oughtta be an interesting one. I'll start where I left off...

I think you might want to check your statistics. The highest murder and gun-violence rates actually occur in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama - places that not only have very liberal gun laws, but also have deth penalty statutes.



Forgive me if I was misleading. What I meant were the cities of these states. Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, and Washington D.C. (which I left out). These cities combined make up for six percent of the population, but they account for twenty percent of U.S. homicides, and these cities have the strictest gun control laws in the country. And I'm sure everyone will say that the laws are a result of the crime and not the other way around, but according to the NCPA...

Murder rates in the District of Columbia and Chicago actually went up after each jurisdiction passed restrictive gun control laws.



For some reason Patriot posted a list of people (some of them under 18) who were killed or wounded while housebreaking. None of them had rape or murder convictions. Everyone else stopped posting to the thread.



Like I said before Dim, anyone with a previous rape or murder conviction would most likely be imprisoned, so it would be a rarity to find such an example. It doesn't make any sense to say that someone is only dangerous if they've previously committed a violent crime. I gave example upon example of people defending their lives and homes from intruders, whether or not they were previously convicted of anything is irrelevant.


I consider that a conclusive resolution to the gun control debate.


Silly Dim.

I guess you haven't heard, Patriot. The US Supreme Court decided that the unborn technically are not human beings and do not have legal protection extended to them.


Hence state-sponsored murder. I don't agree with that classification, sorry.


I don't think this is true - by 1/2 way through the second trimester an embryo has a functioning CNS and spends most of it's time dreaming. I don't think it's moral to kill them except under extraordinary circumstances.

Mid 1st trimester abortions terminate a rapidly dividing cluster of cells with no functioning CNS to speak of.

I guess if you were a religious person then you could claim that the soul entered into a person at the moment of conception (the churches belief). This makes almost all forms of contraception a technical means of abortion. It also makes God a prolific abortionist, since the majority of fertilized eggs fail to implant on the uterine wall and are expelled during menses.


There are many areas of grey, and it's pretty hard to determine when life begins and when the soul becomes existant. But I believe that in week six of the pregnancy (once the primitive heart begins to function) that abortion technichally becomes murder.
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Postby patriot » Tue Oct 12, 2004 2:20 am

Does Gun Control Reduce Crime?

Pundits and editorialists equate the rate of gun-related deaths with the availability of firearms. However, internationally, rates of violent crime and suicide appear to be independent of how extensively a country controls guns.

* Russia, Estonia, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Canada and Hungary all have high rates of homicide and/or suicide despite restrictive gun control laws, and low rates of suicide are found in relatively well-armed jurisdictions like Israel and New Zealand.

* Gun control laws are uniform throughout the United Kingdom, but murder rates are not -- in 1989 the murder rate per 100,000 people was 0.6 in England and Wales, 3.3 in Scotland and 7 in Northern Ireland.

* When Canadian provinces and adjoining U.S. states are compared, threefold-to-tenfold differences in the prevalence of handguns have not resulted in consistently different rates of criminal homicide.

Perhaps the most powerful example that gun control does not equal crime control is the United States. Prior to the enactment of federal gun controls in 1968, guns could be bought virtually anywhere by any adult, but the national murder rate then was half what it is now.

In fact, evidence suggests that guns are an effective crime deterrent in the hands of legal owners.

* A study published by the University of Chicago found that crime rates are lower when civilians are allowed to carry concealed weapons.

* Murder rates in the District of Columbia and Chicago actually went up after each jurisdiction passed restrictive gun control laws.

* Burglaries of occupied dwellings in the gun-free U.K. are much more frequent than in the United States.

It isn't even evident that gun control laws have reduced gun ownership in the United States. Despite more than 20,000 gun-control laws nationwide, firearms are present in about the same percentage of households today as in the 1960s.
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Postby daviduri » Tue Oct 12, 2004 2:29 am

Deleted.
Last edited by daviduri on Fri May 05, 2006 1:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby daviduri » Tue Oct 12, 2004 2:36 am

Deleted.
Last edited by daviduri on Fri May 05, 2006 1:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Sri Lanky » Tue Oct 12, 2004 2:48 am

patriot-therapy,as you well know,gun related homicides in Canada are going up as a result of more stringent gun laws.
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Do the criminals register their guns? Obviously not. Gun control does not work.
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I think every law-abiding citizen should be able to carry a concealed weapon. It is the ultimate deterent.

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As for abortion,it is up to a woman and her conscience.
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Postby patriot » Tue Oct 12, 2004 3:21 am

Is Sri turning over a new leaf??? I could swear he actually made an effort to provide logic and fact for his point of view. I hope this trend becomes a regularity.

On the gun control stuff...

"Correlation is not causation." That needs to be chanted as a mantra.


Huh?

Also, as an aside:

"When Canadian provinces and adjoining U.S. states are compared, threefold-to-tenfold differences in the prevalence of handguns have not resulted in consistently different rates of criminal homicide."

Am I reading that wrong? Is that saying there are not "consistently different" rates (per capita, etc) of "criminal homicide" in the northern US states as compared to the Canadian provinces they adjoin? I don't buy that for a moment. Can you go back to that site, Patriot, and dig up the citation for it?


That comes directly from the NCPA (National Center for Policy Analysis).

http://www.ncpa.org/pi/crime/pdcrm/pdcrm62.html

And what they are saying is that the number of handguns in the states as compared to the number of handguns in the Canadian provinces does not correlate to differences in homicide rates.

As for abortion,it is up to a woman and her conscience.


I just don't see it that way. We're talking about the termination of life, and life has to do with everyone, not just women.
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Postby patriot » Tue Oct 12, 2004 3:24 am

Why do you keep calling me Patriot-Therapy?
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Postby kilroy » Tue Oct 12, 2004 6:49 am

what is meant by correlation is not causality is that despite the fact that two items may be related statistically, it does not prove in the slightest that one causes the other or vice-versa.

however, because i believe that less gov't is better, i extend this to mean that until someone can prove that guns do cause increased crime rates, then i will be against overly restrictive gun laws.

you have to give skiritai props for surmounting dim's challenge, though.
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Postby Yusuf » Tue Oct 12, 2004 8:30 am

Instead of arguing with anything like facts or rationality, I am just going to state my stubborn (but always right) opinions.

Gun Control- Less GC laws = less crime. If teachers carried guns to class, there would have been no columbine.

Abortion- Bad except in case of rape, incest, or health of the woman at risk.

Capital Punishment - Good. I don't want the man to murder my kid to watch television all day for the rest of his life.
'Forgive him who wrongs you; join him who cuts you off; do good to him who does evil to you, and speak the truth although it be against yourself.'

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SRR's lively opinion

Postby SRR » Tue Oct 12, 2004 8:55 am

Abortion: I fully support abortion. In fact, I fully support abortion up until you reach the age of majority. As Bill Cosby said to his television son, "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."

So all kids and teenagers better be careful until they reach the age of 18 otherwise their parents can wax them. When you live under their roof, you gotta play by their rules. Or die. It's only fair.

Capital Punishment: Capital punishments should be put to referenda to the people. All case files, evidence submitted, et cetera should be put online and all citizens should put to a vote if this person deserves to be killed or not for their crimes. This would, of course, only come into place after a full trial and a sentencing to death by a judge. And the media should have no part in shaping people's opinions.

OR all criminals sentenced to death should be shipped off to a faraway space colony where they either live or die. If they live, they advance human civilization by creating sustainable habitats on new planets. If they die, then, no big deal. This will also provide a lot of fodder for journalists and documentarians and hollywood producers about the 'innocent' guy who gets shipped off and works his way through the gangland ranks on the outworld colony, then comes back and forces vigilante justice down the throats of those who wrongly convicted him. Therefore, offworld jail colonies will also be a bonus for producers of mass market culture.

Gun Control: A basic safety course should be required by all who choose to own a gun. If they are caught using that gun in an unlawful manner, they should be shot the same number of times in the exact same body areas as the bullets they put into other people. If they die as a result of the wounds, then so be it. Therefore, all gun crimes should be reciprocal.
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Postby patriot » Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:49 pm

what is meant by correlation is not causality is that despite the fact that two items may be related statistically, it does not prove in the slightest that one causes the other or vice-versa.

however, because i believe that less gov't is better, i extend this to mean that until someone can prove that guns do cause increased crime rates, then i will be against overly restrictive gun laws.

you have to give skiritai props for surmounting dim's challenge, though.


A valid point, but you'll have to be more specific as to which statistics you're refering to because it doesn't apply to ALL the stats I've provided.
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