Obesity is a problem?
Maybe if the parents weren't so scared of idiots with guns, they would let their kids outside to run around on their own?

That's exactly my point Mike, people aren't looking at things rationally or they would let well-briefed kids run around outside. It's much more dangerous worrying about things that are very unlikely to happen (murder by a stranger) while ignoring something orders of magnitude MORE likely to happen (obesity from lack of exercise and too much eating.) This is the type of issue where people are least likely to make rational risk assessments.

Mass shooting are a problem. Boring old stuff like obesity is a bigger problem. It's important to keep things in perspective.

Mike, you just need to visit where the Borderers settled. Recreational fighting still going on. People will invite you outside,
and then back inside for a beer. They will only shoot you if adultery is involved.

The rest of the country, you get into a fist-a-cuffs and you will end up with a felony charge and maybe conviction for assault, which will follow you for the rest of your life. No voting, banned from owning guns or even holding a bullet, trouble finding work. Not worth it. So
bar room fights are no longer recreation, and fights in general have more to do with turf wars and drug deals, more serious
business.

I have been told by my Scottish relatives that the Scotts who helped write the US constitution were the ones who strongly supported including the 2nd amendment. Because of their experiences with the oppression of the English (battle of Culloden etc.) They had lots of arms control foisted upon them (no swords, knives other arms etc.) and were unable to defend themselves against even small mistreatment by English forces and royal supporters.

Edited by oware on 12/20/2012 13:14:58 MST.

Buck: +1 on perspective.

Our schools do outdoor recess down to -10F. We kick the kids outside each day down to -20F, although we let them come back in after 10-20 minutes when it's subzero.

The unknown is scary. The familiar is not. Yet the familiar that you spend all your time doing (driving, working, stepping out of a wet bathtub) is where the big risks are.

And as to your point about guns away from school killing vastly more children: there's a huge reporting bias both for mass killings and for school shootings. A kid's suicide here, a child's death in a DV incidence there doesn't get reported nationally. Just like "going postal" is an unfair phrase - the USPS is no more dangerous than other workplaces, but since every town has a school and a post office, those shootings become national news. Like airplane crashes versus automotive deaths. Where are the headlines, "Yet again, another 6 months without any deaths on any major US air carrier!" or "Another day, another 75 people dead on the roads!"? But, man!, crash one little RJ with 30 people on board and kill a handful and it's national news for days afterwards!

I'm in Kenai. You?

I'm with you, Buck. And we already have the kids at school to teach lessons on exercise and eating habits. And we do nothing. We even feed them a meal every day. And the meals are horrible. I pack a lunch for my kids every day because the meals served are not tasty or healthy.

A summary of a Harvard study

http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/

The study

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf




So you might want to slow your banning gun roll. And you guys so proud of having no guns might want to reconsider.

"Compared to the U.S., the suicide rate for males ages 15 to 24 
years  in  Sri  Lanka  is  nearly  four  times  greater;  the  female  rate  nearly  13  times 
greater.  The  most  common  mode  of  suicide  is  ingestion  of  liquid  pesticides.”  Lawrence  R. 
Berger, Suicides  and Pesticides  in  Sri Lanka, 78 AM.  J.  PUB.  HEALTH 826 (1988) (empha‐
sis added). 


As we see by the copycat incidents, what is popular or much remarked in a culture is what is repeated.

Again, the sensational modern media fuels and spreads around any kind of "fad" even the most vile.

Our friends just lost a 10 year old boy to strangulation after reading on the internet about getting high by choking,

Very very sad.

Gun violence is but a symptom. The root of the problems need to be addressed.

Never mind. Would just lead to more arguing and hateful language.

Edited by idester on 12/20/2012 15:39:34 MST.

Doug I didn't think your comment was bad in any way but since you removed yours I'll remove my response to it.

Edited by Cameron on 12/20/2012 15:57:45 MST.

"FWIW, my view is that trying to prevent access to weapons just to those with mental health problems will never work. Where do you draw the line? Psychopaths who take a bad turn can kill with a baseball bat, yet those who have gone on a shooting spree can appear almost normal, but have a deep seated grudge or resentment that has been eating away at them for a considerable time."

+1 You should have gone into medicine, Stuart, with a specialty in epidemiology. Here's an epidemiologist's take on the issue that strongly supports your comments. Focusing solely on those who are mentally ill to prevent gun violence is largely ineffective.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/health/a-misguided-focus-on-mental-illness-in-gun-control-debate.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1356044659-++fukRI/C6qmsspZ0kyl+A

"It's much more dangerous worrying about things that are very unlikely to happen (murder by a stranger) while ignoring something orders of magnitude MORE likely to happen (obesity from lack of exercise and too much eating.) This is the type of issue where people are least likely to make rational risk assessments."

Why do we have to choose between the two? Are you saying we can't pursue solutions to both problems simultaneously?

Yes, Why choose between the two? Can't we worry about both at the same time?

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the world ISN'T out to get you.

"What's there to discuss about guns? Guns are guns. They do the same thing everywhere. Guns don't act according to cultural boundaries or respect one person over another. They're inanimate objects that cause the same effect in every country in the world.

And how do you know what the effects of very strict gun control would be if you've never had that kind of gun control? Every single post by Americans who've never experienced living in that kind of society, both pro and against, are purely conjecture. You simply can't know until you've tried it.

I believe that the effects might actually surprise a lot of people. That it wouldn't be nearly as bad as everyone is complaining about."

Guns don't act. People act. People are different. While gun control might work well in some places, in others it can just make things safer for criminals and more dangerous for the average person.

Here is one of my favorite quotes regarding gun control, from an essay on gun control in Japan:

"More than gun control, more than the lack of criminal procedure safeguards, more than the authority of the police, it is the pervasive social controls of Japan that best explain the low crime rate. Other nations, such as the former Soviet Union, have had severe gun control, less criminal justice safeguards, and more unconstrained police forces than Japan. But the Soviets' crime rate was high and Japan's minuscule because Japan has the socially-accepted and internalised restraints on individual behaviour which the Soviets lack. While social controls fell and crime rose everywhere in the English-speaking world in the 1960s, social controls remained and crime fell in Japan.

More than the people of any other democracy, the Japanese accept the authority of their police and trust their government. In this cultural context, it is easy to see why gun control has succeeded in Japan, the people accept gun control with the same readiness that they accept other Government controls. Further, they have little incentive to disobey gun controls, since they have hardly any cultural heritage of gun ownership."

If you have the time, I would try and read some of it. It really demonstrates the complexity of gun politics and how they relate to cultural standards.
http://www.guncite.com/journals/dkjgc.html


In some ways, we do have strict gun control. I can't get a concealed carry permit here, so I encounter strict gun control outside of my home in public places. None of that really matters here because firearms are in abundance and we have constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure. If someone has a pistol, they can walk around with it concealed with no concern for the legality and very little chance of of being searched. In a place without rights against unreasonable search and seizure and a very low number of privately owned firearms in existence, the effect of such laws would be very different.

"And you guys so proud of having no guns might want to reconsider."

I'm from Australia and lived for a few years in the US in the early 90s. Contrasting two societies with different levels of gun control, I know where I feel safer...

As per Tony Beasley's comments up thread, mass murders dropped to zero after the Port Arthur Massacre and the tightening of gun laws. I can't imagine how increasing guns in our country would make us safer.

I also think comparing the US and other countries isn't always helpful. With so many weapons in circulation can you enact effective gun control ? I suspect the genie may be well out of this bottle.

"A big mistake that would have put her in jail. Could have been anyone. Would be hard to prove you are in danger when you have no idea who is at the door or their intentions. Someone at the door isn't an intruder."

Not likely.
Someone trying to come in your backdoor at 6:30 in the morning, when you live well off the road out in the country is not there to offer you brownies.

This womans husband worked shiftwork, and left at 3:45 every morning because they turned over at 4:30am on days.

All you need is reasonable fear of bodily harm. Period. You do not have to hesitate.

Mistakes do happen, and they are terrible, but that is often the fault of the person killed. People have every right to protect life and property, and some do take that seriously.

I recall one case almost 30 yrs ago. Became an international incident. Japanese exchange student in a mask was going to a halloween party, and showed up at the wrong house at 9pm at night, 3 weeks before halloween. Didnt go to the door, wandered to the back of someones house looking for the party. Too stupid to realize there were no cars there, no party sounds, etc. Homeowner heard something and found the guy in his carport, told him to freeze, he didnt and moved toward the homeowner, he was promptly killed. I dont think he understood what he was being told, thats kind of a cultural phrase used here in the US, but he put himself in that situation.

Edited by livingontheroad on 12/20/2012 19:23:42 MST.

Buck: children and adults are gunned down by semi-automatic rifle fire and you want to talk about the obesity epidemic? Come on. Why not bring in cancer? Old age? Meningitis? we can't have gun control because other things are killing us as well.

Gun advocates are always shifting the argument away from guns. We can't regulate or ban assault style weapons until our children are thinner; nothing can be done until we find a cure for psychosis; and of course, there's always car accidents: let's not change our gun laws until everyone drives more safely; furthermore, there's always the crazy people in China: as long as there are knife wielding madmen in China, we can't address the gun problem here at home. We can't make a beginning because the end is not in sight. The perfect is the enemy of the good. And so let's keep things the same and just wait for the next inevitable massacre, and once again wring our hands and pretend that we care.

The end can never be attained unless we make a beginning. Otherwise, it's all just nonsense. There is no panacea, for guns or any social evil. Buck, you're probably against serving healthier food to children in schools because many children remain fat anyway. Just give up.

Or maybe you don't feel this way. Then how about saving a good number of childrens' and adults' lives by banning assault weapons? Yes, murders will go on, but not so many. Make a beginning. Make a statement that our society finds these weapons unacceptable because too many people are dying because of them.

Change means that we actually change. We can't have it both ways. Maybe for the good of society a lot of responsible people will have to give up their toys. (Because if an assault weapon is more than a toy for you, we've all got a problem.) There are other toys. Yes, it's a sacrifice for responsible people. Ask yourself it it's worth it.

Jeffrey,

It is not that simple.
No one really wants to ban assault weapons.
The anti-gun lobby wants to ban all guns.
They want to effectively remove the ability for citizens to protect themselves.

What you hear, is propaganda, sensationalism, to sway uninformed public opinion.
To them, banning assault weapons, or handguns are footholds in the execution of an liberal agenda. This battle has been going on a long time, it is nothing new.

The simple truth is, there is nothing special about an assault weapon. With few exceptions today, most firearms are semi-automatic. They fire once each time the trigger is pulled, and use recoil to reload for the next shot. They may make larger clips for assault weapons, big deal. Many states have limitations on clip sizes that can be sold.

It takes literally 1-2 seconds to change a clip. Push a button, the empty falls out, slide a new one in. Done.



No one wants tragedies to happen. But guns prevent more crimes than are caused against innocent people. That is what is at stake here, not assault weapons.

Edited by livingontheroad on 12/20/2012 19:59:38 MST.

"Yes, Why choose between the two? Can't we worry about both at the same time?"

Frankly, I'd rather see us do something about both at the same time. We've been worrying for far too long already. Seems like you folks are on the cutting edge up in AK, at least on the obesity front, by kicking the little dears out into the playground during recess. Sounds vaguely like what they used to do with us back in the Cretaceous Period. Worked, too. There weren't many obese children back then, because when you're running from all those dinosaurs you just can't afford to waddle.
The gun thing is probably not going to be quite that simple but, what the heck, if we didn't have something to worry about we'd just sit around snarfing down Cheetos and get......obese.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the world ISN'T out to get you."

I'm NOT paranoid, darn it; I'm right! Aren't I? :0/

You statement above is BS.

Made me smile. Paul, I am American. Just because I've lived a large portion of my life outside the States, and I have a very diverse background, doesn't detract from the fact that the entire paternal side of my family is straight from South Carolina and New York, including my father and brother. I'm not speaking about all this as an outsider. But I also have an outsider's perspective. Believe it or not, that is possible.

As to my comments... I read every post in any thread I intend to comment on, listening to what everyone has to say. My main intent is to try to understand what people are trying to say, even those I totally disagree with, and then to offer something of value to the discussion, rarely to try to "fight" with anyone. I figured that in this discussion too much was heading toward a simplistic BW interpretation of guns/no guns, and that inserting something that might touch on people's emotional stance, but making people aware of the logic behind their positions, might get the discussion out of a rut and move in a new direction. Usually I'm not much offended by opposing views or even people telling me I'm full of BS. What I think is success is having gotten people talking again, in a new vein. And on that case, I think my comments were spot on. They did what they intended. People are talking, from a new perspective.

livingontheroad said:
" All you need is reasonable fear of bodily harm. Period. You do not have to hesitate."

Reasonable being the key word here. Reasonable will likely be determined in court. An unidentified person turning a door knob doesn't constitute an imminent threat to me. I'd rather identify a threat and not shoot the town drunk or a confused senior. You don't pull the trigger without knowing what you're gonna hit. If for no other reason, the potential criminal and most definitely civil lawsuits are going to ruin you. Plenty of people have gone to jail for "defending their property".

book said:
"Gun advocates are always shifting the argument away from guns. We can't regulate or ban assault style weapons until our children are thinner; nothing can be done until we find a cure for psychosis; and of course, there's always car accidents: let's not change our gun laws until everyone drives more safely; furthermore, there's always the crazy people in China: as long as there are knife wielding madmen in China, we can't address the gun problem here at home. We can't make a beginning because the end is not in sight. The perfect is the enemy of the good. And so let's keep things the same and just wait for the next inevitable massacre, and once again wring our hands and pretend that we care."

+1 They also claim that gun control means banning all weapons and leaves the innocent with no way to protect themselves.