Florida passes self-defense bill

[Brian R.]

Anyhow: Your right, theres no magic pill. The US. will only get less violent by investing in less guns and more education. Less fear and more hope. ~~DukeP~~

There is no cure, magic or otherwise. There are too many porous borders here, along with too many people who think firearms are their salvation, and a pervasive gun lobby (NRA). The desire for firearms does not result from fear, but from the "my dick is bigger than your dick" syndrome in many cases.

[Wombat]

And off course we have robberies. There will always be people that get themselves in a situation where they see crime as their only escape (mostly drug abusers, we are still trying to find an efficient way to properly handle the poor sob's).

They just dont need to be violent (because they are not afraid of getting shot).

Yeah, because rapists just need to ask nicely. Get a grip.

Its more considered an annoyance, on the lvl of getting a parking ticket (My office was burglared twice last year).

My home, and my office, have never been robbed. Why is your arrangment better than ours again?

[Umfriend]

In my country only the cops and the criminals carry guns.

The cops to protect the cops against the criminals.

The criminals to protect the criminals against the criminals.

I think we have on average one incident every 20.000.000 manyears of an innocent getting shot, here in my country.

The odds are on my side, I gather.

I think it is still the same here, but it could well be changing for the worse. I am still a protagonist of severe gun control in my country, becuase I belive it will still minimse the level of violence and the number of accidental harm or wrongfull harm (i.e. people getting shot by non-criminals that had a gun for self-defense).

Just not so sure on the US where the actual circumstances might well be different.

[DukeP]

Because Wombat, I dont feel the need to wear a gun.

Nobody near me feel they need to wear a gun.
My office being burglared didnt make me want to camp out inside it with a gun.

I really dont want to kill anybody.

As for Rape?
For me, rape is compareable to assault and battering. Its always demeaning to be forced, to be beaten, to be helpless. And off course nobody should have to experience it (and it IS rather rare, thank god).
But killing someone is MUCh worse than raping someone. MUCH. Like it or not, but rape is a part of our (evil?) biological past. Its not civilised, its nothing but a beast from the past. But. Its neither the worst torture there is.
Its not Your worst nightmare (then you have a very poor imagination).
It can be an aggrevated assault, with one part innocent and one part guilty.
But its not murder, and "defense" in the shape of killing the assailant, is clearly murder - and while the court would be lenient, it would still be sentenced as such. Witch it should.

~~DukeP~~

[az]

Duke, I don't know how to say this nicely, but you obviously have no idea of what you are talking about. Please shut up (at least about the rape).

I think this is the second time I'd agree with Doc M (yes, I scare myself), but you seem to be oblivious that there is a less perfect world than the little one you live in. And yes, I believe in strict gun control (at least in Europe).

AZ

[DukeP]

Ehm. Well. No, I havent been raped, if thats what You mean. Have you?

I have been beaten good tho. Got involved in a barfight (and no, I wasnt strictly innocent). 5 guys held me while one guy beat me. That was an interesting experience.

I dont say that rape is "piece of cake, get over it". I just say that its in no way worse than dying (even tho it might feel like it, at that moment). But life goes on, eventually.

Some rapes arent in fact rapes. They are sadistically and completely deranged assaults performed by sick, sick people. When someone cuts you up in ohh so many ways, then the rape part becomes the less of the evils. This happend in my hometown a couple of years ago. And it was off course a tragedy for the girl involved, as well as for her family and friends.

But the sicko who did it is just that; a sicko. He obviously belongs inside a very secure installation, where a selection of good doctors have the ungratefull job of exercising his demons (if possible).

The amount of persons capable of doing such acts are fortunately few - and I cant really see what any society could do that would completely prevent these acts (and no, nothing short of a personal bodyguard or two would have prevented this episode from happening).

~~DukeP~~

[Jessterw]

Knowing several women whom have been raped, the few of which were raped as part of a larger assault have always said the rape was the worst part - and the hardest to recover from. So from a male perspective it may seem like the rape becomes the lesser evil, I think most women would have a different opinion.

[KvHagedorn]

There IS no selfdefense. The Germans used selfdefense as the reason for their attack on Poland. They might have been right! Poland WOULD have attacked Germany. Maybe. Sometime.

There is only attack. Attacking back is still attacking.

You never cease to amaze me, Duke.. you ARE a professor, right? Amazing.

Anyhow, the apt WWII analogy here is the Munich accord. Be a wuss and do nothing.. see how far this gets you in the real world? It just makes you the prey. Your enemy will eat your flesh, grind your bones, and all your high-mindedness will be forgotten. Like it or not we ARE animals.. you too. That is, unless you consider yourselves Ãœbermenschen there..

[Wombat]

Ehm. Well. No, I havent been raped, if thats what You mean. Have you?

Some rapes arent in fact rapes. They are sadistically and completely deranged assaults performed by sick, sick people. When someone cuts you up in ohh so many ways, then the rape part becomes the less of the evils.

Rape is a crime of power. They are ALL "in fact rapes." Second, the rape does NOT become the "less of the evils."

[Dr Mordrid]

Interview with John Lott Jr. (U of Chicago), co-author of "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws", perhaps the largest study in the subject ever done;

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html

His conclusions have been reinforced by subsequent statistics in the every expanding number of states with permissive concealed carry laws.

USA Today (national daily) summary of the situation post Loft-Mustard:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_n2640_v127/ai_21114537

Also;

In 1973, the American firearm stock totalled 122 million, the handgun stock was 36.9 million, and the homicide rate was 9.4 per 100,000 people. At the end of 1992, twenty years later, the firearm stock had risen to 221.9 million, the handgun stock had risen to 77.6 million, but the homicide rate was 8.5--or 9.5 percent lower than it had been in 1973. The percentage of murders committed with firearms decreased as well. In 1973, 68.5 percent of murders were committed with guns. Fifteen years later, after Americans had purchased almost as many new firearms as they had in the preceding seventy-three years, 62.8 percent of homicides were committed with guns. . . . In sum, over a twenty year period of unparalleled increase in guns, homicide rates were erratic, unpatterned, and completely inconsistent with the shibboleth that doubling the number of guns, especially handguns, would increase homicide rates.

Don B. Kates et al., "Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda?" Tennessee Law Review 62 (1995): 572-73

In short, it is not the number of guns but their distribution--that is, the people who have the guns and what they are using them for--that matters. The available evidence clearly indicates that firearms in the hands of permit holders are not a law enforcement problem, are not a source of social harm, and that irresponsible use of firearms by permit holders is the very rare exception.

Hopeful that permitting citizens to carry concealed weapons will reduce crime, states across the country have implemented new "shall issue" concealed carry laws. Do such laws make us safer?

Texas is a good case study. Before its concealed carry law was passed in 1995, proponents claimed that public safety would improve. Opponents said the Lone Star State would quickly degenerate into a Wild West shooting gallery.

"If you introduce a gun into a violent encounter," Duke University criminologist Philip Cook has said, "it increases the chance that someone will die." Since January 1, 1996, when Texas's new concealed carry law went into effect, 100,000 citizens have acquired licenses--far more than projected--while only 700 applications have been denied.

So far, the crime data from Texas support the claims of gun enthusiasts. Through the first eight months of 1996, Houston murder rates were down 18 percent from the previous year. Dallas murder rates fell 25 percent from the previous year. The evidence is mixed with regard to other violent crimes. Property crimes reported to the police, meanwhile, rose 3 to 4 percent in both cities (at this writing, statewide figures for 1996 were unavailable).

At a minimum, the data suggest that the alarmists were wrong about the impact of concealed carry on reckless homicide. The decline in gun deaths, admittedly, might have little to do with concealed carry permits. A five-year prison-building boom in Texas, for example, has raised capacity from 50,000 to 150,000 beds and probably accounts for the lion's share of the crime decline. The willingness of the state to seek and successfully employ the death penalty is a relevant factor too. The Texas crime rate has fallen by nearly 40 percent during the 1990s, to its lowest level since 1970.

But an impressive study from the University of Chicago concludes that concealed carry permits are indeed responsible for a significant national decrease in violent crime and no significant increase in fatal firearms accidents. Economist John Lott and his graduate assistant David Mustard are the first social scientists to scientifically study the impact of concealed carry permits. The crimes most likely to be deterred by concealed handgun laws, conclude Lott and Mustard, involve direct contact between the victim and criminal rather than nonconfrontational crimes like auto theft and burglary.

Contrary to the findings of a widely quoted study by University of Maryland researchers who picked only three cities in Florida and one city each in Mississippi and Oregon, Lott and Mustard used data from all three thousand counties in the United States between 1977 and 1992. Concealed handgun laws, it turns out, reduce murder by 8.5 percent, rape by 5 percent, and severe assault by 7 percent. The Lott-Mustard statistical models are sophisticated and account for many differences among counties, including arrest rates.

According to Lott and Mustard, there would have been 1600 fewer murders, 4200 hundred fewer rapes, and 60,000 fewer severe assaults if the same state laws to license law- abiding handgun carriers had prevailed throughout the country in 1992. The deterrent effect of concealed handgun laws turns out to be highest in counties with high crime rates. Despite a relatively small number of women with concealed handgun permits, the deterrent impact on rape is comparable to that of other violent crimes.

The Chicago economists figure that the national reduction in violent crime is worth $6.6 billion, while the modest rise in property crimes costs about $400 million--for a net social gain of $6.2 billion.

The Lott-Mustard study has set the disarmament movement back a good ten years, reducing it to emoting and personal smears. The study, which appeared in the University of Chicago's peer-reviewed Journal of Legal Studies in January 1997, examines the data in every conceivable way and finds the deterrent effect of armed, law-abiding citizens to be undeniable.

Today, 31 states--representing 49 percent of the population--have "right to carry" laws on their books. Many legislators in those states took a lot of heat for their belief in the benign effects of gun ownership and concealed carry. Now they have solid proof that they were right.

Crime: February/March 1997
Publication Date: February 1, 1997
Written By: Morgan O. Reynolds

Since these articles even more states have passed CC laws with similar results. The biggest beneficiaries are women, who are disproportionately taking advantage of them where ever they're passed.

Dr. Mordrid

[The PIT]

In this country we're still in the namby pamby approach to law and order.
End result the law breaker has "more rights than you" and you can't defend yourself.
As Sasq says what works in another country doesn't mean it will work in another.
Being soft on crime doesn't work here all that happens that you don't bother reporting crime and in some places people live with a siege like mentality afraid to go out.

[Umfriend]

I'll have to agree with him there.

The big difference being that *if* you've survived it, you are able to forgive someone. But being attacked, you don't know whether you'll live to be able to do that. I therefore do not see why one should not be allowed to defend himself, nor how it compares to not killing an insect that is not threatening to you at the time you take action.

[Umfriend]

And yes, I believe in strict gun control (at least in Europe).

I'll second this, noting that we can still afford this and we should do anything we can to continue that. As said earlier, I just don''t know whether it is a luxury people in the US can afford themselves.

[Sasq]

I'll second this, noting that we can still afford this and we should do anything we can to continue that. As said earlier, I just don''t know whether it is a luxury people in the US can afford themselves.

see sig

[Umfriend]

Some rapes arent in fact rapes. They are sadistically and completely deranged assaults performed by sick, sick people. When someone cuts you up in ohh so many ways, then the rape part becomes the less of the evils. This happend in my hometown a couple of years ago. And it was off course a tragedy for the girl involved, as well as for her family and friends.

But the sicko who did it is just that; a sicko. He obviously belongs inside a very secure installation, where a selection of good doctors have the ungratefull job of exercising his demons (if possible).

The amount of persons capable of doing such acts are fortunately few - and I cant really see what any society could do that would completely prevent these acts (and no, nothing short of a personal bodyguard or two would have prevented this episode from happening).

Three observations:
1. I do not care how you would rank various kinds of assualt and abuse. The fact is that I do not see why anyone should not be allowed to use force in preventing unsolicited violence against them.
2. He is a sicko, ok. So what? I know you are against the death penalty, and I still am as well (although I get to doubt it more and more), but that is besides the point. The point is that after the deed has been done, the abuse can not be prevented anymore. If sending someone to such an institute as punishment or to prevent recurrence, fine. But hell will freeze over before I will accept that before the deed has been done, I can not use force to prevent a crime like these against me from happening becuase I can rest securly in the assucrance someone will be punished.
3. True, it may never be completely prevented. I don't think that is relevant at all. What is is that we may reduce it. The question is whether the cost of reducing it is outweighed by what is reduced. Apparantly, in the US, many believe these laws have a lower cost than the benefit of less crime. I don;t see why that is not a good thing then.