Invasion of US Capitol building

[Mark Hancock]

I had an American tell me he had Welsh ancestors, so I asked where in Wales they were from. He didn't know. Cutting a long story short he didn't know where Wales was either.

I use to describe Wales as that bit stuck on the west side of England in an attempt to explain where it was.

 

[D_W]

Sorry but I couldn't help laughing at this sentence. It brought back memories of continually having to explain where in the UK I came from; at that time it was Wales and few Americans had heard of it.
By the way I'd rather a cow to a bull

Actually, I thought it was quite funny as parts of the mountain areas in the states generally aren't traversed without a guide or firearm, definitely true in parts of northern canada and alaska. So I thought, i've never heard of people hunting bear or elk or anything in england and I typed into google "most dangerous animal in the UK" and that was google's response!! "technically, the most dangerous animal in the UK by death rate is cows".

hah!

I live in the suburbs in PA - there have been a few times in the past year where there's been a neighborhood watch for black bears (all the way down to being in my neighborhood, though I didn't see the one they were talking about and it was a juvenile). Two in the same day in the area at one point, one much larger in one of the neighborhoods in the city of pittsburgh. If you live in the appalachians here in a more remote area, you'd probably be wise to carry a sidearm (bears are hunted here, of course). There are lots of old wives tales about bears and such things here "play dead and they won't attack".

Those things work for some bears, but not black bears.

Sometimes those bears get trapped, but fairly often they're just shot.

 

[D_W]

Can a crazy person enter a school building and spray pupils with opioids from a device designed for such a purpose?
But you have another good point, D_W. The wanton prescription of drugs for profit needs to be addressed also.

It's a federal initiative here - 67k overdose deaths last year (that's on the way down). Figure to get a gauge of that on a UK basis, you'd need to cut it to a fifth. It sounds more fantastic probably because of the population here, but it's a lot people. I would guess far more from that group started with a prescription than those in non-gang, non-drug firearm homicides in the US. non-accident alcohol related deaths were 37k last year. 10,600 traffic deaths related to alcohol.

 

[D_W]

Can a crazy person enter a school building and spray pupils with opioids from a device designed for such a purpose?
But you have another good point, D_W. The wanton prescription of drugs for profit needs to be addressed also.

OK, here's where perception vs. reality makes that nonsensical. What are the odds of:
* a child being shot in a school shooting
* a child ending up overdosing from heroin at a later age (let's say before 40)
* a child committing suicide due to bullying and associated depression

Which one are people the most afraid of?

 

[D_W]

I'm not really grasping this guns/alcohol equivalence. I can't say I'd be that afraid if someone pointed a full gin and tonic at me in Wetherspoons.

Which are you more likely to die from at birth - alcohol or firearm homicide?

 

[D_W]

cougars

oh come on...older women aren't that dangerous.

 

[D_W]

I knew some who have been shot. Sometimes in the back of the head, sometimes in the knees. The former didn’t survive, dumped on waste ground or by the side of the road.
Guns designed to kill are evil and totally unnecessary.
I will never ever understand the mentality of those that are pro weapon, never.

You'd be a very rare person if you know more people shot than dead of some alcohol related cause.

Aside from the customary entitlement to drink, put alcohol in your second to last sentence and reword slightly. explain to me the societal need for alcohol given the number of deaths related to it. why are those less of a big deal?

 

[D_W]

Wow DW does himself no favours at all does he - equating cars to Guns oh boy!!
And then comes out with something as pathetic as I don’t know anyone who has been shot or shot anyone, Im sure all those parents of children murdered at School will have the same thought process!!

The highest murder rate with guns in the western society and he wonders why there is a fascination why any country would not want to address this issue.

mexico? brazil?

tell me about odds and reality - see the list that I mentioned above. If safety or life is really the focal point of this, why do you breeze past the alcohol discussion? Is it because you enjoy it or know people who do, so it's customary and OK even though the death rate is far higher from it? What makes it more harmless?

 

[D_W]

I am 67. I was told by an acquaintance probably twelve, maybe fifteen years older than me that when he was young it was easier to get a licence for a rifle then a shotgun as rifles were deemed not much use for armed robberies etc. I don't know.
I grew up from the age of eight carrying a knife as routine - nearly everyone I knew did. I remember my mother asking me for my knife in the middle of a wedding reception (she had a loose thread on a button) - she presumed I had a knife. I always carried a knife (and still do - a rather nice illegal Sandvik Browning). She would have consider it odd if I was out without a knife. I never knew anyone ever to get stabbed.
When I was ten or twelve years old several of the kids in the village had their own shotguns and used them un accommpanied - no one ever got shot. Some of them drove tractors etc. - no one got run over either. Another time, another place.

I'd make a comment about the safety of tractors but both my dad and his brother fell off of the family tractor back in the 50s and got run over by a loaded wagon. Dad's brother's ear was nearly pulled off of his head and had to be stitched on, and dad crapped his pants (the wagon bounced over his midsection). Both were lucky for two things:
1) the equipment wasn't that big in the 50s
2) both were run over in soft ground

Both brothers hunted for food after school, not necessarily because they had to but they developed taste for it. Every day. Neither ever injured by guns but one later dying an alcohol related death (not my father). They were pretty hard on wild rabbits and pheasants, though.

 

[D_W]

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/alcohol-facts/fact-sheets/alcohol-statistics
It's not hard to find the impact of alcohol in the UK, either - I've never seen it mentioned as a concern here. You guys are more concerned about guns in the US than you are about alcohol right outside (or inside) your front door.

I'm egging you guys on a little bit, but realistically, I'm wondering why you don't challenge yourselves a little more. What makes one more common cause far more excusable? Is it because it doesn't make a gory scene (well, that's not true - death by alcohol seizure is pretty ugly, as are crashes with young victims.).

A friend of a cousin of mine (older than me) in the next school district over was erased by a drunk driver when she was 16. I can still remember the odd discussion about it, someone just disappears, but it was only remembered by us because we knew the person and she was the kind of twice a week sleepover best buddy of my cousin. But the outrage was fairly short lived.

Can you imagine if she'd been shot? She wasn't, so nobody remembers. It's less likely that she would be. But people sure love their alcohol and can find a million reasons why abuse is someone else's problem, even when they're an abuser.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

It's It's all about narratives, hystrionics, and having to buy in to totalitarian authority. Follow the narrative that makes you feel the most comfortable.

From the wikipedia page quoted above: "In 2018, the most recent year for which data are available as of 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) National Center for Health Statistics reports 38,390 deaths by firearm, of which 24,432 were by suicide and 13,958 were homicides.

So two thirds of gun deaths are suicides. Would those deaths have happened without the gun? What proportion of people who have decided to end it all didn't, purely because they didn't have a firearm immediately to hand?

Then you have the lunacy that is American inner city gang culture. US murder rates are way higher than other developed nations. Lots of people shooting each other. Please note that they are not shooting each other with legally owned, registered hand guns. If you outlawed gun ownership, and could somehow remove all the legal and illegally owned weapons currently in the US, would new weapons flood in from, say, Mexico? I rather think that they would.

The Brits have done sterling work keeping guns out of the hands of gangs, so they all stab each other instead. Should we outlaw all cutting implements that can be sharpened? A screwdriver is an evil weapon, as is is a chisel. Let's outlaw all of those, too. What you ought to do is outlaw gangs, because they are the idiots causing all the carnage. But that is a whole other can of worms.

Interestingly the USA crime rates have dropped significantly since the 1980s, probably because of the introduction of legal abortion. Well done Democrats. Unfortunately, the worst murder stats are all from high gun control, Democrat states (big cities, in other words). If you remove urban gang murders from the stats, the rest of the USA has similar murder rates to the rest of the western world (you can also perform the same trick by looking at murder rates by ethnicity, but there is a good chance that would be racist).

So, after all of that, guns and gun crime are extremely nuanced topics, complicated and difficult to pin down. Countries like Switzerland have high gun ownership rates, but don't have the same levels of murder. Why not? "Guns = bad" is a bit of a cartoon approach to take, but it makes for fun arguments on off topic forums.

Oh, and to confirm the lunacy, this might be of interest, although it is hardly politically correct - nothing very sentimental about the way the statistics are presented. Chicago stats: Chicago Crime, Murder & Mayhem | Criminal Infographics | HeyJackass!

 

[RobinBHM]

I don't think you have a concept of what some of the rural ranch or mountain areas are like in the US and canada

I stand by what I said....how many people would die without guns?

You are talking about rural areas with few people.

 

[RobinBHM]

(interestingly, I know nobody who has been shot, let alone shot and killed, but I have two relatives - one near and one distant - dead due to alcohol).

I think you know that's a weak argument.

 

[gregmcateer]

I can see your point, DW about alcohol snd I thank you for making it. We probably do tend to ignore it, or at least minimise it unconsciously. I think the shock element at e.g. A school shooting is so great, that the reaction will always be greater. Probably increased when we here the gun lobby coming up with ridiculous arguments that arming teachers would stop a crazed and troubled individual with a rifle or more. Anyone who has ever shot anything will know that you have to keep practising - just learning is just not enough.

More thought and discussion and action! required re alcohol and legal meds, clearly!

 

[RobinBHM]

looks like alcohol is deadlier, also - 10,600 deaths per year in the US from drunk driving. I've got an idea. Let's make alcohol illegal. Nobody needs alcohol. Most people just have it because they like it.

Unfortunately you are engaging in whataboutery, which you know.

There is a fundamental flaw in your argument: deaths in USA from guns are added to deaths from alcohol. The numbers aren't either/or.


There is still only one argument for guns: "I like guns" that's it.

 

[RobinBHM]

It's It's all about narratives, hystrionics, and having to buy in to totalitarian authority. Follow the narrative that makes you feel the most comfortable

Ha ha....you apply your usual post riddled with dishonest arguments, logical fallacies etc.

I can see a few in that post:

Strawman
Appeal to extremes
Non sequitur
Non equivalence
Etc

I always wonder why you do it. Either you don't realise you are doing it or it's deliberately done to inflame the argument.

So do know the dishonest arguments you make?

Here's a classic: conflating guns with stabbing.

 

[RobinBHM]

I'm wondering why you don't challenge yourselves a little more

We do.

Alcohol is one of a number of things that people get hooked on.

But it's a separate topic....whataboutery.

If you want to compare gun control, compare it to other countries....like Australia or UK

 

[Blackswanwood]

I'm not really grasping this guns/alcohol equivalence. I can't say I'd be that afraid if someone pointed a full gin and tonic at me in Wetherspoons.

You've obviously not been in a Wetherspoons when they run out of all day breakfasts

 

[Blackswanwood]

You'd be a very rare person if you know more people shot than dead of some alcohol related cause.

Aside from the customary entitlement to drink, put alcohol in your second to last sentence and reword slightly. explain to me the societal need for alcohol given the number of deaths related to it. why are those less of a big deal?

You seem to be basing your argument simply on pointing to more things that cause fatalities than guns ... should we ban food as overeating is a form of self abuse leading to obesity and mental health problems or feathers as we could tickle someone to death?

We clearly have different outlooks and if you sleep better knowing you have the right alongside all your fellow Americans to own an item that's sole purpose is to kill that's up to you. I prefer the UK way where assault weapons are banned from private ownership and other firearm ownership is subject to tight control and supervision.

 

[Lons]

I typed into google "most dangerous animal in the UK" and that was google's response!! "technically, the most dangerous animal in the UK by death rate is cows". hah!

I think you would likely agree that South Africa has many more dangerous predators than the US but when we were there our safari guide told us that cows were by far responsible for more deaths in RSA than any other animal. Taken in isolation that statement looks stupid but look deeper and it's because they are allowed to wander freely along the motorway verges with resulting crashes.

Last time we were in the US we came off the end of route 66 section on the way back from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas and I spotted what we would call a large boot sale in a field, I spent an hour wandering around the stalls and at least every other stall was loaded up with guns and other weapons of all types both new and secondhand, I handled several and could have bought anything I wished without checks of any kind, I asked the questions and was offered guns along with the matching ammunition.
I was shocked and it was only a few years ago so unlikely the situation has changed, not my country, you can do what the hell you like but as far as I'm concerned the wide spread ownership of most of those weapons is unjustifiable and all the protestations are purely excuses.

If you look at my avatar that Grizzly photo was taken by me in Canada, there is little reason to shoot bears in most cases.