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CocaCola

Apr 7, 2012
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I know that for most of the over the pond folks they can't comprehend the Americas love for firearms, and I fully accept that... But, regardless it's a deeply rooted big part of our culture, especially in rural America...

That said, yesterday (12-11-12) was a good day for me and many other Illinois residents as Illinois finally took the first steps to join the rest of the country in allowing concealed (or open carry) of firearms in public, when the US 7th Court of Appeals ruled Illinois ban on carry (outside your own property) Unconstitutional and a violation of our rights...

In 180 days the current laws banning carry will be revoked, and Illinois will join the rest of the country in restoring rights...

For those unfamiliar with Illinois politics we are a State that has a huge political machine called Chicago that likes to dictate and run the State as if they own it, even though they are but a small portion of the State as a whole... This is a bitter sweet victory as that machine has been the Goliath in this long battle...
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
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I know that for most of the over the pond folks they can't comprehend the Americas love for firearms

Something like that. But then you live in a very violent society.

There were 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000.[4] The majority of gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides,[5] with 17,352 (55.6%) of the total 31,224 firearm-related deaths in 2007 due to suicide, while 12,632 (40.5%) were homicide deaths.[6] In 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 60% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm.[7]
Sad...
 

CocaCola

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But, guns are only the chosen tool by some, not the cause of violence as shown in your numbers above 4 out of 10 murders were not by gun in the US... History (and even current statistics) have proven beyond a doubt that guns or no guns people will continue kill one another by whatever means...
 

shrtrnd

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What's the stats on automobile deaths in the U.S.
Maybe they oughtta outlaw cars.
I can hear it now, 'but, automobiles are accidents, and guns are murder'.
Gimme a break.
Using the premise that the U.S. is a violent society, how's about not disarming the
VAST MAJORIITY of the American population that are law abiding, and only want to
protect themselves.
Well then, just make all guns illegal. Sure, just like drugs are illegal, so we don't have
any illegal drugs in the U.S.
You're right, CocaCola, it's a losing proposition to talk about gun rights in the U.S., with
'over the pond'-raised people. If us Yankees weren't misfits, we never wouldda crossed
the pond in the first place.
I can see the concept of no guns anywhere being nice. But we're already innundated.
We can pie-in-the-sky about it, or we can face reality. The guns are here to stay, and
we deal with it.
A lot of Americans weren't sure about gun control twenty years ago. The thoughts I
heard were that John Q Citizen didn't have a gun, so he believed no one else should
either. Amazing what's happened since then. Now John Q Citizen has decided that
since everybody else has a gun now, he NEEDS one too.
Keeping up with the Jonse's next door?
CocaCola, congratulations on the win.
I left Detroit for Arizona specifically because at the time, they were Chicago lite.
 
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davenn

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Gun control is just a joke anyway

here in Australia and New Zealand, therre is very strong gun control
All it has done is taken the guns out of the hands of people that wanna use them for legit use .... target shooting, hunting etc
Here in Sydney we have at least 2 driveby shootings a week homes etc being sprayed with bullets... the criminal element will always get their guns fron somewhere

Dave
 

CocaCola

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That still makes a majority of 60% using a gun...

But, statistics from Germany prove my point as well in 2010 guns only accounted for about 20% of the homicides... A logical conclusion is that when you restrict access to firearms people will simply choose another tool to accomplish the task...

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/germany

So one is left to wonder what the evil killing weapon of choice is in Germany, if not guns?

You can argue all day but the facts have never never changed throughout human history, people kill people and they will choose/use whatever implement is available to them at the time...

America is a violent country compared to others, but to blame it on guns is a flawed argument as even Americans 'non-gun' homicides (adjusted percentage) exceed many other countries total homicides, suggesting without a doubt that guns are not the cause of the violence but only one factor of many that is further rooted in society...

What's the stats on automobile deaths in the U.S.

HUGE compared to the rest of the world, and HUGE compared to deaths by gun... Car ownership numbers and gun ownership numbers are traditionally very close in the US... As usual though most will ignore the fact that a car is statically 2-3 times more likely to cause a death than a gun in the US...
 

(*steve*)

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A quick google suggests that the state I live in has a similar population to Chicago.

Chicago has a homicide rate of 15.1 per 100,000. Last year we had a rate of 4.3 per 100,000. This year we're running behind schedule. Looks like we won't reach even a half of last year's total, but Chicago may have hit 20!

My wife's sister (who lives a few hours drive from Chicago) has more murders in her county(?) in a month than the capital city I live in has in a year. And they have similar populations.

Here are some worrying stats:
The city is statistically more lethal to Americans than war-torn Afghanistan, where 271 Americans have died this year.
from http://atlantablackstar.com/2012/10/29/chicago-soaring-murder-rates-eclipses-last-years-total/

My sister-in-law (who used to work for the police) took me for a drive through some of the worst places in her area. In one place she said that if we were in a police car we might expect people to take the occasional shot at us!

Some of these things are really hard for an outsider to believe, but I guess the statistics on violent crime are not made up.

Stats on other crimes are harder to compare. For example does Chicago's "aggravated assault" equate to our "assault", and should I include "domestic violence?" Perhaps the clearest is "Robbery" where the Chicago rate is just over 500 per 100,000 and here it is about 85 per 100,000 (and that's lumping both business and non-business robbery together).

My state is a well known vehicle theft hot-spot, and we hit a rate of 386 per 100,000 compared with Chicago's 673 /100,000.

We don't have "larceny", I think everything is lumped under Burglary. Here 1200/100,000; Chicago 925 and 2630 (so above 3500) per 100,000.

Gee, I hope Chicago is a bad place...
 

CocaCola

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Chicago has a homicide rate of 15.1 per 100,000. Last year we had a rate of 4.3 per 100,000. This year we're running behind schedule. Looks like we won't reach even a half of last year's total, but Chicago may have hit 20!

Yet, Chicago has one if not the strictest gun laws on the books... In fact hand guns were not legal in Chicago for the previous 28 years until July 2010, so look at the 1990 - 2009 murder rates in Chicago a time when handguns were outlawed completely and compare them to the last two years... It's easy to see that the prohibition did little to help the murder rate in the city...

My sister-in-law (who used to work for the police) took me for a drive through some of the worst places in her area. In one place she said that if we were in a police car we might expect people to take the occasional shot at us!

That is everyday for many of us here, but be aware that there is a difference between a criminal with an illegal gun and a law abiding citizen with a gun...

I used to frequent a musical venue in Detroit, the fried chicken restaurant (Brown's Chicken) across the street had the employees behind the counter enclosed in bullet resistant resistant glass, you paid by putting your money in a drop box and your food was passed to you though a larger drop box... This is a reality for many people in America, law abiding citizens that for all intents and purposes are living in a war zone but not allowed to defend themselves... BTW, the police rarely patrol those areas, as your sister said, the chance of them getting shot at is real... And sadly it's not only police, many firefighters and emergency personal also get attacked in those areas as the fire or 'inncident' was intentional and they don't want any 'help' fixing it...

Not saying it's all bad in America, as it is far from that overall, but there are a lot of isolated pockets and neighborhoods in some areas (usually big cities) that are just down right ugly places...

Some of these things are really hard for an outsider to believe, but I guess the statistics on violent crime are not made up.

No, they are not made up... There are some real screwed up places, places where your skin color alone will get you shot at for walking on the wrong side of the street... And you can go from good to bad in literally a few hundred feet of street, there are imaginary lines drawn between buildings cross it and you flip a switch... I dated this girl for a short time that lived on Chicago's South side in my early 20s... The first day I visited her parents house, her dad pulled me aside, took out a map of the area and told me to take this road and only that road in and out of the area, he advised me to ignore stop signs and only stop if absolutely necessary, and if anyone approaches the car, get the hell out of there even if it means running a red light...

Stats on other crimes are harder to compare. For example does Chicago's "aggravated assault" equate to our "assault", and should I include "domestic violence?"

Domestic violence is considered above assault (aka the worst kind of assault) in Illinois and should be included in aggravated if you are weighing it under the level of laws to some degree but possibly not 100%... Domestic is broken down into two levels, it is a misdemeanor charge for anything (even verbal) with a 2nd strike or physical contact generally being a Felony charge, Felony domestic is above aggravated assault in penalties... You lose your right to own a firearm once charged with domestic (even before being convicted), and will lose it for life if convicted of domestic violence even at the minimalist misdemeanor level... Generally misdemeanor domestic is instantly plead down to simple assault to avoid the stricter penalties...

Gee, I hope Chicago is a bad place...

It all depends on the street, the tourist areas and upscale neighborhoods are wonderful if you like city life, and I generally don't hesitate to visit or feel threatened when in those places or on those streets... But, you won't find me walking a street outside of those areas, or spending anymore time then necessary driving through them... There is still a ton of racial segregation in Chicago neighborhoods that makes outsiders big targets and if it's a bad neighborhood and you don't have the right skin color or wear the right clothing you might as well paint a target on your back for something bad to happen to you...
 

CocaCola

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Gun control is just a joke anyway
.
the criminal element will always get their guns fron somewhere

I fully agree, you can't undo the creation of firearms and thus those that desire to obtain them by any means (illegal or legal) will do just that... Criminals are criminals for a reason, they choose not to obeying the laws...
 

GonzoEngineer

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You guy's from Australia don't sound like the Aussie brothers I served with in Vietnam.:(
 

shrtrnd

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nuff said, GonzoEngineer.
We had a lot of their pilots and maintenance crews here at Davis Monthan AFB, making
training runs at Goldwater Range before going to the Middle East.
It's been fifty years, but there's a fair number of them today, who still make the grade.
Just wanted to let you know.
 

davenn

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I believe we were insulted ??

Gonzo... what's the hassle ?

Dave
 

Jotto

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We had a lot of their pilots and maintenance crews here at Davis Monthan AFB, making
training runs at Goldwater Range before going to the Middle East.
It's been fifty years, but there's a fair number of them today, who still make the grade.
Just wanted to let you know.

My home town.
 

shrtrnd

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Nah, davenn.
53% of Americans, as demonstrated by our last national election, are Aussies now.
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
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Nah, davenn.
53% of Americans, as demonstrated by our last national election, are Aussies now.

I didn't really follow it close enough. But I gather that some republican(s?) said that if they lost they'd head over to Australia (really?!?!).

The amusing observation is that Australia has all those wonderful things that it appears most Republicans (and in some cases most Americans) hate.

I believe the list went along the lines of (Prime minister, who is an Atheist, freely (kinda) abortions, tight gun control, universal health coverage, etc...)

(I imagine they were more interested in low unemployment, low debt, etc.)

I read something along those lines and thought it amusing, but I don't know the background behind it.
 

shrtrnd

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Never saw that article.
Most Americans have the highest regard for Aussies. I think most of us, if we couldn't
live here in the States, would choose Australia over anyplace else to live.
We're just somewhat amazed that, having always believed Australians were proud self-sufficient people, the people there allow their government to so strictly control them, ...for their own good, I'm sure.
It's not going to be so easy here. Too many of us have a different take on control of
our lives, ...even when we're told it's for our own good.
Just my opinion, of course.
 

(*steve*)

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It seems to be a twitter thing. A bit of Googling turned up lots of articles having a bit of a laugh at the expense of some people who were just trying express how strongly they felt. I couldn't find any from the perspective of those what did the "threatening" so it's pretty 1-sided (like this).

Shrug, I guess one person's "government control" is another person's "responsible government".

It's a societal thing. Here we expect the role of government is to redistribute wealth so that the poorest in society have the burden lifted from them by essentially receiving a subsidy from the most well off. The societal attitude in the US seems to be somewhat different.

Likewise, we don't have a strong gun culture. Most people are more than willing to forgo the opportunity to own a gun in order to reduce the number of guns in the community. Sure there's the argument that then only criminals have guns, and sure, they do -- but they tend to mainly use them against other criminals or the police. The most recent gun control legislation here was brought in by the equivalent of your Republican party.

Oh, another thing about "gun crime" in Australia. If you pretend to have a gun (even if it's just your finger, or a toy, etc) when committing a crime, that's a gun crime and you face pretty much the same penalties as if you had a real one. So we have gun crimes committed without guns!

You know, we like to generalize about people, assuming they're all just like us. So I can imagine the vast majority of Americans reading this who are thinking how controlled we are and how our fundamental rights are being stolen from us by government. However, you've got to realise that the majority of people in Australia read about your society and think how strange you are.

Having said that, my wife often expresses the desire to own a gun. She says she will only use it to shoot out the tyres of cars that cut her off. I tell her that she is the reason that guns are illegal in Australia. :D
 

shrtrnd

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The 'Republican Party' here gets a lot of press from media that don't like it. It's the smallest constituency in America. Independents and Democrats outnumber it. It's basically a lost cause here. I think more in terms of being a conservative or liberal. I think GonzoEngineer and I fit into the conservative arena, and we think a lot of Aussies here fit into the liberal group. Like you said, it's just personal preference.
Yeah, government's role is viewed differently by the two groups.
I agree, personal freedoms aren't stolen by government, if the people agree to it.
It looks like only 47% of Americans now disagree to that, hence the 53% I referenced that now are of the Aussie view.
Like GonzoEngineer, I spent a lot of time in third world countries. There, the people who have the guns control the people who don't. And I mean, 'control'.
In societies like Australia, guns appear pointless in civilized society.
A lot of the rest of the world is not as lucky, and if you are unaware of it, WE get a lot of those people here. Our latest influx has been the Somali 'lost boys', who have since brought their families here. Change from their society (and others) who come here can be difficult, and often challenges our laws with their culture and traditions.
When I was a boy, it was a right of passage for American fathers to teach their children to shoot. Somewhat less-so now. Hunting is a skill passed down from father to son. But that's probably in the process of change now.
My new neighbors from Somalia armed themselves with fully-automatic weapons in their country, and used them with only cultural restrictions. They're readjusting to gun usage here.
I myself enjoy target shooting. It's a hobby to me, and a lot of my friends enjoy it. We hope it'll always be a hobby we can enjoy here. There are plenty of ranges here where we can shoot.
Anyway. I don't think we intended to insult Aussies, we were just commenting on the ones we met in the military, compared to what we hear sometimes here.
 
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