EU Considering Regulating Sale of Violent Games

[friznit]

Fuck guns.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Fuck guns.

So, what do you do when the tank gets borked/fuct? Run at the bad guys with harsh words and an ideal home magazine hoping they'll get scared?

[friznit]

Order the other 13 under my command to engage, call the REME to come fix me, and have my operator make another cup of tea.

[Joose]

Guns are terrible weapons against zombies. The noise will attract loads more, headshots are difficult unless at close range, and you have to reload them too often. Better something like an ice pick or a sharpened shovel to destroy the brain.

ah, a much more sensible discussion topic!

I agree with the guns!=decent anti-zomb weapon. Even with training to lessen the difficulty of actually using them properly, you still have issues such as pausing to reload, running out of bullets entirely, noiseiness etc. Ive always thought (presuming you had trained in the appropriate skillzors) that a decent sword would be a good option. Not too long, so it doesnt become cumbersome in small areas, and good and sharp, but with enough weight behind it for decent cleaving action. Lopping the head clean off is often seen as being as good as popping the brain, and if you cant achieve that, at least you can chop off the extremities, making it harder for them to tackle you to the ground. Plus, if they surround you, waving a sword around blindly is going to be more effective that spraying bullets all over the place. Its relatively silent, doesnt need reloading and doubles as a usefull cutting tool, too.

Course, you wouldnt want to use it against the highly contagious zombie types, like in 28 days later. blood spurting all over from severed limbs may put a bit of a downer on things in those cases.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

You'd have to keep a suitable sword reasonably sharp to lop heads off suitably, which I suspect (disregarding the ammo issue for a minute) takes considerably longer than reloading any modern firearm.

The Ammo issue shouldn't be a problem, providing you stockpile a fair bit of ammo.

Also, I'd rather have a chance of killing a zombie from range, rather than getting close enough to lop its head off.

[Anhamgrimmar]

Fuck guns.

PAH! 120mm single shot cannon? thats tiny. you wanna get onto the MOD about fitting a pair of 1400mm arty. and 2 6round SAM boxes.



right, i've lost the thread. can someone point me to the particular tangent i should be respond to now?

[deject]

1400mm arty

exaggerating slightly are we now?

[eion]

exaggerating slightly are we now?

Not by that much.

To Joose's earlier point about criminals always being able to get guns, or rather his assertion that that statement is untrue: if he can name me a country where the criminals don't have guns, then I'll believe him.

(A real country, so not Vatican City or something - the criminals there are mostly pickpockets and kiddy-fiddlers)

In the UK, the criminals have guns, law-abiding citizens do not. Does no-one else see how fucked up that is?

[Hehulk]

In the UK, the criminals have guns, law-abiding citizens do not. Does no-one else see how fucked up that is?

Not really, no. Over the years I've had to phone the police numerous times over this or that, and afaik the closest I've come to a gun is some pellet gun a prick at school brought in. Can't say I know anyone who's been held to gun point either.

On the rare occasion someone does get shot, it's all over the national news, so I have faith that gun crime here just doesn't effect 99.9999....% of the population. If I want to feel more secure in my home, I'll take up Tai Kwon Doe again.

[eion]

So criminals in the UK don't have guns? What do they use, harsh words?

Can't say I know anyone who's been held to gun point either.

I know a few people who have - but then, I lived in London (which is the only part of the UK worth living in, in my possibly contentious opinion). I certainly don't feel safe walking around London.

This clip, and the next two parts, pretty much sums up my views. (Not a horse link)

Let me put it another way - why are you anti-gun people so keen to allow the government to take away your civil liberties?

[Joose]

So criminals in the UK don't have guns? What do they use, harsh words?

mostly? yes. that and their fists, or a baseball bat or something. Very rarely guns.

EDIT: Just found the official statistics. Less than 0.5% of crimes reported in england involved a gun.

London (which is the only part of the UK worth living in, in my possibly contentious opinion).

I think you may have alienated yourself from 90% of the population of Britain there. I know lots of people who either live in or have lived in London, not one of them liked it. Contentious? More bloody bizarre.

I certainly don't feel safe walking around London.

What I dont understand is why you think being armed yourself would help matters. As ive said before, the minority of criminals in England, and only then in places like London, tend to have guns. If gun law was more lax, most of them would have guns. As far as I can see, as we now seem to have moved on to muggings, its a case of:

With gun control: small chance of having a gun shoved in your face.
Without gun control: larger chance of having a gun shoved in your face.

So you would have a gun too, so what? Most muggings dont exactly come with a warning. "Oh, hello, im going to mug you now. Let me just get my gun out. Here it is. Im going to point it at you next, just so you know." The first you would know about it is when you realise some git has a gun pointed at your head. How helpfull is being armed then? Are you really going to go for your gun in the hope that you can get it out, get the safety off, cock it and point it at them before they go: "Shit! he has a gun too!" and insert bullets into your fleshy parts? So the gun wont help you. Therefore, making guns easier to get at helps the muggers, not the muggees*

Let me put it another way - why are you anti-gun people so keen to allow the government to take away your civil liberties?

Because thats how legal systems work. You need to impinge on some nice people liberties to stop nasty people running amock. Take driving for example. I would have been perfectly safe to drive at a younger than is legal age. So why did the government make it illegal! the bastards, taking away my liberties! oh, no, wait, its because most people are fucking reckless idiots in thier early teens, and letting them have access to a car would be a Bad Idea™. So despite the fact its stopping me do something I would like to do, I accept it. Would I like to own a gun, personally? Kinda, yeah. I would love to go off to some valley somewhere with my big assult rifle and blow shit up with it, it would be fun. But if that puts me in significant danger (from nasty people with guns) Im happy to not have that particular liberty. I accept it. I dont feel I need it for my own security (because I dont think I would feel any more secure with it than without it), and I think that people who say they would haven't really thought it through logically to the "what would actually happen if I had a gun in these situations" bit.

*probably not a real word, but I like it. I sounds funny.

[Dog Pants]

I lived in London (which is the only part of the UK worth living in, in my possibly contentious opinion). I certainly don't feel safe walking around London.

Okay, I'll chip in now. My Sister lives in London and she loves it. I live in the countryside and I prefer that. Big cities piss me off because people are generally arseholes and there are so many more people there. That's personal preference, but without living in a lot more places than just London you can't really make a statement about how it's the only place worth living here.

As for civilians owning guns and civil liberties, if it was legal for me to own a gun in this country I wouldn't. The laws here make it extremely difficult to justify using one - basically you have to have somebody shooting at you at the time before you can respond with lethal horse, and then you'll have to prove that that's what you were doing in a court that seems often weighted towards the criminal. I find being armed a big hinderance for exactly this reason - it gives me the opportunity to be put in prison and little else. A criminal accepts the risk of going to prison in the first place so it's not much of a problem for him, but for me it is.

Other countries are a different matter, and I'm not going to argue about whether the US or anywhere else should change their gun laws because as with most things it's all a matter of opinion, but in the UK I think it would result in more harm than good.

[buzzmong]

I'm chipping in my support to the guns = bad idea in the UK outside of professionals (Police firearm squad members, Military horses).


While I would like to own a gun, and quite possibly use it for target shooting, there are just that many fucking idiots around that they'd use it for just about anything.

Fuck, I'd be scared at work, I work customer services. I'd probably get shot in a fit of rage by one of the above idiots due to telling them it's not my problem to fix that you've failed to pay your bill on time and incurred penalites (so what if you're in the hospital, could have got someone to ring the credit company and tell them that).*


I personally believe knives need to be restricted more, and would seriously consider a knife proof vest if it involved going anywhere remotely shady these days for a considerable period of time.


*Might be an extreme dramatisation, but you should catch my drift when applying to other situations eg-) car accidents, pub fights etc.

[eion]

What I dont understand is why you think being armed yourself would help matters.

Not just being armed myself. If law-abiding citizens (also known as "targets" to violent criminals) often carried guns, then criminals would likely think twice before attacking them, for fear of being shot. This is the positive externality I'm taking about infra.

Because thats how legal systems work. You need to impinge on some nice people liberties to stop nasty people running amock.

As a lawyer, I am rather familiar with "how legal systems work". However, are you familiar with the harm principle? Using a gun to shoot someone (who isn't a bad person) is not legal. In the same way, running someone over with your car is not legal, and nor is bludgeoning someone to death with a hammer. Gun ownership alone hurts no-one - it has positive externalities, in fact - and therefore it should not be illegal. I don't trust the police to protect me, and I don't want to have to rely on them. Which brings me to:

I find being armed a big hinderance for exactly this reason - it gives me the opportunity to be put in prison and little else. A criminal accepts the risk of going to prison in the first place so it's not much of a problem for him, but for me it is.

Absolutely true, but this could be easily fixed by legislation. The technical term for it is the "castle doctrine" (as in, "an Englishman's home is was his castle"). Some states in the United States have gone further, enacting "Make My Day" laws. I think the Castle Doctrine would be a good start.

I'm chipping in my support to the guns = bad idea in the UK outside of professionals (Police firearm squad members, Military horses).


While I would like to own a gun, and quite possibly use it for target shooting, there are just that many fucking idiots around that they'd use it for just about anything.

Fuck, I'd be scared at work, I work customer services. I'd probably get shot in a fit of rage by one of the above idiots due to telling them it's not my problem to fix that you've failed to pay your bill on time and incurred penalites (so what if you're in the hospital, could have got someone to ring the credit company and tell them that).*


I personally believe knives need to be restricted more, and would seriously consider a knife proof vest if it involved going anywhere remotely shady these days for a considerable period of time.


*Might be an extreme dramatisation, but you should catch my drift when applying to other situations eg-) car accidents, pub fights etc.

The thing is, I suspect the average American is just about as dumb as the average British person (England has Wales and Scotland to bring down the average ), and this sort of thing doesn't happen often in the US. When it does happen, the people involved in the shooting are almost invariably criminals (before pulling the trigger).
I can think of a recent incident near where I used to live where some people got into an argument and one person shot the other one with a handgun... but guess what? That was in Washington D.C., where guns are illegal.


At the end of the day, it boils down to two issues for me:
1. I don't trust the government to be able to protect me, because they're an inept bunch of bastards. I'd rather be able to take responsibility for my own security.
2. I don't trust the government that much full stop, especially in the United States, and I firmly believe that guns are a vital tool in preventing - or at least mitigating - tyranny. An armed populace is an empowered populace.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

2. I don't trust the government that much full stop, especially in the United States, and I firmly believe that guns are a vital tool in preventing - or at least mitigating - tyranny. An armed populace is an empowered populace.

That, but here too.

[Joose]

First off, it would appear that the 5punk server hates this thread. It keeps giving internal server errors when i try to quote long posts. Anyway...

Not just being armed myself. If law-abiding citizens (also known as "targets" to violent criminals) often carried guns, then criminals would likely think twice before attacking them, for fear of being shot.

If this were true, then places such as Texas would have a lower rate of firearms related crime. Does it? (I'll give you a clue: the answer is "no")

This is the positive externality I'm taking about infra.

Like saying "Fact" after a sentence doesnt make it more true, using phrases like "Positive externality" instead of "gives a positive external benifit" when discussing things with non-lawyers makes you look a ponce, it doesn't make your argument stronger.

As a lawyer, I am rather familiar with "how legal systems work". However, are you familiar with the harm principle? Using a gun to shoot someone (who isn't a bad person) is not legal. In the same way, running someone over with your car is not legal, and nor is bludgeoning someone to death with a hammer. Gun ownership alone hurts no-one - it has positive externalities, in fact - and therefore it should not be illegal. I don't trust the police to protect me, and I don't want to have to rely on them.

Two things: as a Ethics student, I am familiar with the works of JS Mill, yes. And gun ownership hurts plenty of people: its a lot easier to shoot someone when upset than to bludgeon them to death with a hammer, for instance. Merely owning the gun makes it easier for you to kill people. And as I have said before, the "positive externalities" you keep mentioning are unproven and very debatable.

1. I don't trust the government to be able to protect me, because they're an inept bunch of bastards. I'd rather be able to take responsibility for my own security.

I doubt I have a lot more trust in the government than you do, but the idea of the average british idiot being able to get a gun merely by walking into a shop and giving them money fills me with infinately more fear.

2. I don't trust the government that much full stop, especially in the United States, and I firmly believe that guns are a vital tool in preventing - or at least mitigating - tyranny. An armed populace is an empowered populace.

If that were the case, why is Bush still president?

[eion]

I'm not going to quote from your post, but let's just say you aren't the only one having trouble quoting from long posts.

About the firearms-related crime rate in Texas - lower compared to what? Other places with different circumstances, or the same place with more gun control? The latter is the relevant statistic (although obviously getting a statistic like that is difficult).

"Positive externality" is a term of art. I'm fundamentally a lazy creature, and it's easier to type two words than to type many to get the same meaning across. Nonetheless, ad hominem attacks do you little credit.

Moving on, gun ownership does not hurt people. Shooting people hurts people. You're equating the two, which is simply wrong.

I would support limited background checks before allowing people to purchase a weapon. For example, someone whose wife just took out a restraining order because he was threatening her would not be a good candidate for gun ownership. But I truly think that the good outweighs the bad here. Criminals in the UK get their hands on weapons, despite the fact that guns are illegal.

Finally, I'd argue that the problems in the US started long before Bush II (or the Shrub, as I call him). Maybe as far back as Lincoln, but certainly FDR. As to why people haven't done anything about it, I suspect it's the old slow-boiling-a-frog thing.

[Joose]

About the firearms-related crime rate in Texas - lower compared to what? Other places with different circumstances, or the same place with more gun control? The latter is the relevant statistic (although obviously getting a statistic like that is difficult).

Lower compared to places that have gun control, ie: England. Obviously the best comparision would be if we could compare it to Texas *with* gun control, but that, equally obviously, aint gonna happen. But if you want hard statistics: In the UK, the percentage of reported crimes that involve guns is between 0.2 and 0.5% (depending on the year you get the stats from). In the US, the percentage of crimes that involve non-fatal firearms incidents is "less than 10%" (according to the DoJ). I cant find firearms crime in total, but its pretty moot after that.

"Positive externality" is a term of art. I'm fundamentally a lazy creature, and it's easier to type two words than to type many to get the same meaning across. Nonetheless, ad hominem attacks do you little credit.

Except that it only gets the meaning across if the other person knows what it means. The majority of people on 5punk won't, and you are aware of that. Its not a personal attack, just pointing out that it makes you sound supercilious, which does *you* little credit.

Moving on, gun ownership does not hurt people. Shooting people hurts people. You're equating the two, which is simply wrong.

You are ignoring the counter point there though; its damn hard to shoot someone if you dont own a gun. And despite what you seem to believe, the average criminal in england does *not* own a gun. Because its hard to get them, becuase it is illegal.

I would support limited background checks before allowing people to purchase a weapon. For example, someone whose wife just took out a restraining order because he was threatening her would not be a good candidate for gun ownership.

But what good is that when the guy could have already bought the gun *before* the wife takes out a restraining order? Not as an act of premeditation, but just because he wants to protect himself from all the other people with guns. Background checks only work against people who have already done something bad. Crimes of passion are often carried out by people who have never done anything bad before. And like I said, you need to be considerably more pissed at someone to hit them with a hammer untill they are dead than to point a gun at them and pull a trigger once.

But I truly think that the good outweighs the bad here. Criminals in the UK get their hands on weapons, despite the fact that guns are illegal.

No, they really dont. Ok, a small minority do, but the vast majority dont. As evidenced by the incredably low gun crime rates when compared to america.

Finally, I'd argue that the problems in the US started long before Bush II (or the Shrub, as I call him). Maybe as far back as Lincoln, but certainly FDR. As to why people haven't done anything about it, I suspect it's the old slow-boiling-a-frog thing.

heh, I was kinda joking about that really. I actually think the problems started with that whole revolution thing. Should never have broken away, see where its gone without the guiding hand of the mother country?

[eion]

This inability to quote thing is giving me the rage.

Ok, so let's compare England before and after gun control... actually someone's already done it for us. (Useful to read the comments thing too.) Note that Reason magazine is a libertarian publication, but that author as far as I know is not. (I've briefly seen her speak at a Second Amendment conference thingy, though, and apparently she just got hired by the law school I used to go to.)

If you don't know what something means, then just look it up, unless you want me to talk down to you. I'd rather debate with you as an equal than have to use simple words, though. Remember: lazy.

Gun crime rates aren't the be-all and end-all. Let's look at overall crime rates. That's where the benefits of gun ownership come into play (of course, the US locks up an unconscionably large number of people, too).

So, in summary:
- there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
- pffffft.

[Joose]

Ok, so let's compare England before and after gun control... actually someone's already done it for us. (Useful to read the comments thing too.) Note that Reason magazine is a libertarian publication, but that author as far as I know is not. (I've briefly seen her speak at a Second Amendment conference thingy, though, and apparently she just got hired by the law school I used to go to.)

- there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

there are also people who lie about statistics. Also, linking to an article where the argument is primarily supported by statistics, then poo-pooing using statistics to support an argument? Doesn't seem too consistant.

If you don't know what something means, then just look it up, unless you want me to talk down to you. I'd rather debate with you as an equal than have to use simple words, though. Remember: lazy.

True. And, in fact, what I did. But ultimately, im lazy too, and would prefer you not to liberally sprinkle legalese in your replys. I would rather be discussing the point, not going off to google yet another unneccasary latin term.

Gun crime rates aren't the be-all and end-all. Let's look at overall crime rates. That's where the benefits of gun ownership come into play (of course, the US locks up an unconscionably large number of people, too).

I would agree with this, but for one major problem. In 1980, america had about twice the robberies and burglaries that england had. In 1996, that almost exactly reversed. As the only major change to gun law in either country that I know of is the banning of handguns in the uk in 1997, clearly the overall crimes rates are altered by a hell of a lot more than if you are allowed guns or not. So comparisons of overall crime rates are useless, at least in this argument.