Why you live longer owning a gun.

[jj2007]

Towns where guns are outlawed have far more crimes than towns where guns are required.

City        Murder per 100,000
London    1.9   (no guns)
Rome      1.6   (no guns)
Berlin      2.0   (no guns)
Detroit    43.0
US avg    4.8

Other source:
Singapore 0.4
Tokyo 0.5
Hong Kong 0.6
Berlin 1.0
Sydney 1.0
London 1.4
Toronto 1.7
Amsterdam 1.8
Paris 4.4
New York 6.0
Los Angeles 7.5
Mexico City 8.0
Moscow 9.6
Sao Paulo 15.6
Chicago 19.4

Now, as an exercise, you could mark those cities in red where weapons are either "required" (your wording) or allowed.

 8)

[CodeDog]

Guns are bad, no question asked. If you need to produce more bad to fight bad then innovation is needed.

[MichaelW]

Towns where guns are outlawed have far more crimes than towns where guns are required.

To know we would need to see the total crimes statistics, not just the murder statistics.

[K_F]

As you might become a crime stat, you have consider that afterwards..

1) would you prefer to be alive - Guns are not allowed.
2) would you prefer to be dead - Guns are allowed.

Guns are not going to stop crime that's a no brainer... but more people are going to be killed where there are more guns - No Brainer2
 ;)

[Ryan]

As you might become a crime stat, you have consider that afterwards..

1) would you prefer to be alive - Guns are not allowed.
2) would you prefer to be dead - Guns are allowed.

Guns are not going to stop crime that's a no brainer... but more people are going to be killed where there are more guns - No Brainer2
 ;)

If guns don't stop crime, why do law enforcement officers carry them?

[hutch--]

Violent crimes are committed using "TADA !!!!" VIOLENCE, guns, knives, heavy blunt objects etc etc ....

Its generally the case that if a person is going to commit a violent crime that they think the can exercise some advantage by doing so, steal things, force someone to do something or just plain kill them.

The argument that you should NOT be able to defend yourself is flawed to this extent that arguments that say you are safer being unarmed don't take into account that many people get killed or seriously maimed as a consequence of violent crime. Would you be happy with the phenomenon here in Sydney where persons of west African appearance commit violent crimes in gangs carrying and using machetties ?

At least if the intended victim can shoot back they have some chance of avoiding the consequnces of violent crime. If the attacker ends up dead, who gives a PHUK anyway ?

[dedndave]

http://www.kjrh.com/dpp/news/12-year-old-oklahoma-girl-shoots-intruder-in-home

[jj2007]

"Jones then pointed to the girl's house and said that he had been homeless for the last 10 days and was hungry"

Burglary certainly justifies death penalty executed by a 12-year-old girl. She would also certainly have found a priest who reassured her that God himself would have shot the guy, too.

[Ryan]

"Jones then pointed to the girl's house and said that he had been homeless for the last 10 days and was hungry"

Burglary certainly justifies death penalty executed by a 12-year-old girl. She would also certainly have found a priest who reassured her that God himself would have shot the guy, too.

What death penalty?

"Jones was flown to the Medical Center of Plano, Texas, where he is in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the left shoulder/back area.
 
Bates said the gunshot was a "flesh wound" and not life threatening. Jones will be arrested by Plano Police after he is released from the hospital."

[dedndave]

...not only that, but who stores food in the bedroom closet of their 12-year old daughter ?

[MichaelW]

There are a lot of girls here who would have shot him, doing exactly what their parents instructed them to do.

[Bill Cravener]

. . .doing exactly what their parents instructed them to do.

Do you not see how pathetic that sounds? How sick has America become that we must teach our children how to shoot a gun so that they may feel safe. Some 350 million guns owned in this country. America, land of the free, home of the fearful. Yes indeed, how pitiful we have become!

[Ryan]

. . .doing exactly what their parents instructed them to do.

Do you not see how pathetic that sounds? How sick has America become that we must teach our children how to shoot a gun so that they may feel safe. Some 350 million guns owned in this country. America, land of the free, home of the fearful. Yes indeed, how pitiful we have become!

Now that she shot the guy, maybe he'll think twice about breaking into someone's house, thereby decreasing the number of potential intruders and giving women one less reason to be fearful.

[Ryan]

Better yet...

Bill, if this was your daughter, how would you tell her to handle the situation?

[Bill Cravener]

There is a reason we have more guns than people in this country. In America security trumps everything, even our liberty. We are paranoid to the extreme and live our lives in fear for our own safety. You don’t have to watch Fox News or CNN for more than 10 minutes to hear about how our neighbor is going to rape our children or a burglar is going to break in and kill you. What does this say about us as Americans? Our natural response to these types of tragedies is not to try to understand why they are happening but to prepare for the worst and be ready to open fire. It is astounding that in this once great country we have become so afraid of anything that moves that we must lock our doors and hide like the mice we have become. Yes indeed, we have become a gun maddened society afraid of our own shadow.