How do you defend yourself against wildlife when hiking or approaching a climb?

Ryan Arnold wrote:Please look at this reference again: Kellermann AL, Reay DT. Protection or peril? An analysis of firearm related deaths in the home. N Engl J Med. 1986;314:1557–1560. "For every self-defense homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 firearm suicides." If you are a parent and you have a gun in your home, you're far more likely to experience a tragic use of that firearm by someone in your own family than for it to be used to defend yourself. I'm not telling anyone what to do or what not to do. I'm also not implying any of you adults will be more likely to commit suicide if you buy a gun. I am suggesting to fellow parents that in the vast majority of cases, owning a gun does not make your family safer.

and before you said:
"While in med school I was taught that a gun is 50 times more likely to be used to kill or injure a family member than it is to be used in a self defense setting."

Are not the same statement, Ryan, unless you HAVE to kill someone (not injure or chase off) for it to be self defense. Most self-defense folks would ratehr NOT kill even a perp. The simple sound of racking a shell in the dark will make most invaders beat a hasty retreat.

Likewise, suicide is not "used on a family member."

Data should be quoted, not distorted for political gain.
Thanks for proving my point about religiosity, and thanks for coming clean on what was actually said, although the stats are quite limited and irrelevant.

All I know is that in Vermont, if you are 18 (21 for handguns) you can go to your local sporting goods store and walk out 30 minutes later with a gun, load it, and immediately conceal carry it. No licenses or anything. Vermont has a reported gun ownership rate of 42% (which is likely higher, as many people don't like sharing their gun ownership), and Vermont has one of the lowest murder rates (and also a very low gun violence rate). Now is this *because* of the high gun ownership? Maybe, but I don't know. Vermont is also a very rural state. However, this does go to show that high gun ownership does *not* translate to increased violence.

As this thread (like at least one other recent thread I can think of) has mutated into a firearms argument, perhaps this is worth consideration:

If keeping guns in a dwelling was forbidden, do you think, over the span of a few years, the rate of buglaries would increase? Nighttime domestic break-ins (where the owners are at home, in bed) was common in the UK when I lived there. And remains common today. Because the perpetrators know they won't get shot, because there are no guns in the home. If there are guns in the home they are longarms, and the law dictates they must be locked up at all times with ammo lockedup separately. A person must also have a license to own a gun, and have a legitimate use for the gun to obtain the license. Therefore, the vast majority do not own guns. Not only that, but self defense (even in your own home) is NOT a right there.

My thought is that if you live in a gun free home but with neighbors who do keep guns for home defense, perhaps you get the best of both worlds: a neighborhood with few break-ins, and a home free of the dangers that come with owning a firearm. So maybe those who dislike guns for home defense should just not own them and be happy that others do. You get protection from the fear a would-be criminal feels of getting shot whilst bugalarizing a home.

Greg Petliski wrote: Look at the nations on this list. Most have much stricter gun laws than we do, and in some, civilians are not allowed to own guns at all. Stats can swing both ways. These clearly "prove" that higher gun ownership equates to more killings.

Greg, we live in a very free country, which is a good thing. We also live in a country with massive societal conflicts as well as economic disparity. We sensationalize violence, not just in fiction, but in reality; on the news and in social media. We sell the concept of fame, fortune and "more" as not only achieveable, but almost as a right. And then get surprised when people who don't get what they think they are *entitled* to, or cannot achieve what they are told is within their grasp become angry and frustrated. It's easy to blame guns for the problem, but when all the guns are finally taken away and the violence is still present, we'll have to face the truth, which is a far harder problem to solve. The Uni-bomber didn't use guns. We'll just have more bombings, which in my opinion are far scarier.

Greg Petliski wrote: Look at the nations on this list. Most have much stricter gun laws than we do, and in some, civilians are not allowed to own guns at all. Stats can swing both ways. These clearly "prove" that higher gun ownership equates to more killings.

?
No, this just proves that lower gun ownership does not automatically increase violence. My point, which you seemed to miss pretty clearly, is that social matters such as this cannot be simplified in to one angle of the statistics - in this case, gun ownership. You could just as easily bring up how homogeneous a population is and try to make a point that racial diversity increases violence as well.

A few broken eggs are the required price of an armed citizenry. I am willing to accept unnecessary loss of life if it means that the government will still fear it's people rather than the people fear it's government.

At post limit but @Rockandice2: That's cute that you think a tyranny can be democratically removed.

@Greg: the military is an all-volunteer force largely populated by the rednecks you speak of.

Mathias wrote: Greg, we live in a very free country, which is a good thing. We also live in a country with massive societal conflicts as well as economic disparity. We sensationalize violence, not just in fiction, but in reality; on the news and in social media. We sell the concept of fame, fortune and "more" as not only achieveable, but almost as a right. And then get surprised when people who don't get what they think they are *entitled* to, or cannot achieve what they are told is within their grasp become angry and frustrated. It's easy to blame guns for the problem, but when all the guns are finally taken away and the violence is still present, we'll have to face the truth, which is a far harder problem to solve. The Uni-bomber didn't use guns. We'll just have more bombings, which in my opinion are far scarier.

Economic problems, Facebook, CNN ... none of these available in the other countries

gription wrote:A few broken eggs are the required price of an armed citizenry. I am willing to accept unnecessary loss of life if it means that the government will still fear it's people rather than the people fear it's government.

That argument is total crap. Other civilized nations have not found the need to keep their governments at gun point. Its called democracy.

rocknice2 wrote: Economic problems, Facebook, CNN ... none of these available in the other countries

Of course they do. But in countries where as sense of entitlement is high, violence is very often high. This is also true where the population is sold this idea that each individual can be rich, famous and successful. No other country does that it itself better than US.

The UK is a prime example of a sense of entitlement resulting in violence within society. So they don't have many guns because the government took them away. But for the number of guns they have, the number of gun deaths is proportionally quite high. There are also increasing racial issues there, but nothing compared to here. People also seem to like to discount the figures on countries that aren't considered "western" countries, or "industrial" countries. But Mexico has few guns and high firearms related murder rate than us. Strangely though, their suicide rate with firearms is almost nothing compared to ours. I attribute our high suicide rate to the concept instilled in children for athe last two generations that everyone is a "winner". No other country seems to see the mass murders we do from people who are just unhappy with their lives and want to hurt others because of it. And that's got nothing to do with how many guns there are.

Greg Petliski wrote: Hahahhahahaha yeah, Im sure theyre real scared of us. I dont care how many rednecks you can stuff into a compound in Idaho, our government is not scared of its populace. But go right on thinking your macho M-16 wannabe is a real match for Abrahms tanks, Apache choppers, and nuclear submarines. As rocknice above me pointed out, other countries have the exact same problems we do, some less, some worse, but none in the "western" world resort to violence as we do. I know its hard, reallllly hard to admit that we have a unique problem with violence in America, but is it any shock? We're a young, confused nation with access to drugs and alcohol. If you gave a teen drugs and alcohol and then a gun, and then praised the gun as though it were the second coming of christ, how do you think they might behave with it?

Really? No other country has a high violence rate? Here are some countries that have a higher murder rate than the US:

Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, Jamaica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Venezuela, and Honduras.

Look, it's fine if you think guns should be more heavily regulated, but can you stop outright lying in your arguments?

Are we still talking about wildlife? I think the cubs are getting hungry

Greg Petliski wrote: but none in the "western" world resort to violence as we do."

You just made that up. Canada has a higher intentional homicide rate that the US. You have zero facts.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weste…

Every country I mentioned was in defined as being in the Western world. How can you have a debate when you can't even use common terms properly?



A map showing Western Countries (in blue)

Matt Wilson wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world Every country I mentioned was in defined as being in the Western world. How can you have a debate when you can't even use common terms properly?

You own link actually depicts how ambiguous the term is. You chose the cultural definition, but here's the economic definition:

what is known today as described by the term "The West": North America (USA and Canada), Europe (EU and EFTA member states), Australia and New Zealand.

The term "Western world" is often interchangeably used with the term First World stressing the difference between First World and the Third World or developing countries. This usage occurs despite the fact that many countries that may be geographically or culturally "Western" are developing countries.

gription wrote: You just made that up. Canada has a higher intentional homicide rate that the US. You have zero facts.

May you need to get your facts straight.

nationmaster.com/country-in…

Here is a better representation of a western country [First World Nation]

Greg Petliski wrote: But most of the other countries depicted in that chart I posted do not. Therefore, I used the term "MOST" when I said "MOST other countries"

Yeah everybody except our neighbors...got it. To the idea that we should be disarmed: "Come take"

Greg Petliski wrote: As rocknice above me pointed out, other countries have the exact same problems we do, some less, some worse, but none in the "western" world resort to violence as we do. I know its hard, reallllly hard to admit that we have a unique problem with violence in America, but is it any shock? We're a young, confused nation with access to drugs and alcohol. If you gave a teen drugs and alcohol and then a gun, and then praised the gun as though it were the second coming of christ, how do you think they might behave with it?

You hit my point here, Greg: We have a unique problem with violence in America.

However, the vast majority of people don't go around murdering. It is a very small percentage who do. It's also afact that the vast majority of our firearms related murder rate is compiled from the abnormally high statistics of a handful of cities with extreme gun control laws, racial tension and economic disparity. When those cities are removed from the data pool, we, as a nation, start looking much less violent.

Take a quick look at this: freedomoutpost.com/2015/01/…

It's written in a way I would consider slightly biased, but I don't think the statistics are false. I suppose you could fact-check them, if you liked though.

Edited: Take a look at this too. Less biased, imo, and it was very interesting from my perspective.

justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Mathias wrote: You hit my point here, Greg: We have a unique problem with violence in America. However, the vast majority of people don't go around murdering. It is a very small percentage who do. It's also afact that the vast majority of our firearms related murder rate is compiled from the abnormally high statistics of a handful of cities with extreme gun control laws, racial tension and economic disparity. When those cities are removed from the data pool, we, as a nation, start looking much less violent. Take a quick look at this: freedomoutpost.com/2015/01/… It's written in a way I would consider slightly biased, but I don't think the statistics are false. I suppose you could fact-check them, if you liked though. Edited: Take a look at this too. Less biased, imo, and it was very interesting from my perspective. justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

There is no question that bad people with guns do most of the killing. Its the shear quantity and availability of guns that's the difference between these 1st world nation. Canada, France, Germany has no shortage of kooks, its just harder for them to find a gun and mow down innocent children. I'd say that Canada has a higher murder rate because of its proximity to the USA. Your nasty guns seem to find their way up here.

rocknice...... why do you hate freedom??????

a gun is a good thing to own, and you had better know how it work it without thinking, the police will not come and help you when you need it MOST.....

from my own experience only, yours might be different.

and I will say this..... put a liberal in a dangerous spot, they change their minds about GUN CONTROL pronto.