I hate to tell you this, since I agree with your general point. The latest national ranking for safety put NYC's murder rate as one of the lowest for big cities.
tell, yes, but NYC's gun control schemes existed loooong before it's recent drop in homicide rates. NYC's first gun control scheme was introduced by "Big Tim" Sullivan in 1912 a gangster running protection who wanted to disarmed Blacks and Italian immigrants who were shooting back at Sullivan's thugs. Thus, NYC's infamous "Sullivan Law" came into being: the wealthy and well-connected and criminals are armed, the everyday person is not.
I seriously doubt that Sydney has more gun murders than NYC. Gun control is all a mental thing. You Yanks are bought up thinking that you can defend yourself with your gun no questions asked (massive generalisation I know, so sue me ). Other countries, like Switzerland etc are not bought up this way. They are taught that guns are the deadly pieces of work they really are. Give an Australian a gun before he goes to a fight and he'll hit the other kid with it. Give an Amercian a gun before a fight and he'll kill the person he's fighting and everyone that was going for the other guy and then claim self defence. Contribute this rant to my 38hrs without sleep and solid working :Angel:
I know that stats can be twisted in favour of any wiew; mine as well as yours. When I read this sentence from your first link, for instance -this is self evident; when fewer civilians have weapons, then there will statistically become more break-in-scenarioes where armed burlgserers rob unarmed civilians. BUT IT DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT WETHER THERE HAVE BEEN AN INCREASED NUMBER OF KILLS/WOUNDINGS BY THEESE WEAPONS! My point is that if a burlgerer high-jacks me in my house and realizes that I am unarmed, then he'll relax a little more, and are probably less likely to kill me out of sheer nervousity. Break-ins in norway are allmost cosy, as any criminal knows that he won't encounter mad self-defence freaks that will pull their arsenal of self-defence-weapons if he as much as flinch once :love: This thread was originally about forbidding bladed weapons in UK, and I'm sorry if I've ressurected the dreaded thread about banning guns that raged on this forum some months ago I've really said my part in that thread, and I'm only repeating my previous statements. IMHO; the society must be allowed to limit a minority's wish for lawlessness, if the society feels that somthing is about to go out of control. IMHO; the police is better of if they have strict laws that they can slam on the table if they feel they need a paragraph to pin a troublesome subject and that they can ignore conserning obvious lawful people/organisations/situations (like knives on national costumes, knifes in a surgery, knives in a theatre, knives in a registered and respected dojo, etc)
What about knives in a kitchen, I prepare food from scratch and don't eat a lot of pre proccessed pap. Also if a burglar gets shot in Texas, that counts as a lgun killing in the stats but it doesn't count as a loss to society in my oppinion. AND DON'T SHOUT AT ME IT ACOMPLISHES NOTHING. see.
That's what I mean by having strict laws that the Police must use with judgement. Perhaps a notoric Jack the Ripper-copycat should be followed up a bit more closely by the Police than you? If you decide to buy a new high-quality kitchen knife, you (asuming you are a law-abiding citicen without a record of applying violence)would not have the knife confiscated on the street on the way home from the mart; whereas a suspected/convicted might be stopped and had his knife confiscated thanks to a -on paper -strict law? I'M SORRY IF BIG LETTERS ARE INTERPETED AS SHOUTING! (Seriously; sorry ) I use big letters as a way of underlining a punchline, not to be rude. I'm actually more interrested in WHY there is a bigger percentage of americans that think that shooting burlglers, killing in self-defence and beeing armed compared to in Norway, than trying to convince you that guns "are bad". Who knows; if you had been born in Norway, or a peaceful corner of USA, you might have the same experiences as I, and would advocate my arguments and vice versa? A (Norwegian ) psychologist stated earlier this week that the reason why the american society (as if that is one conform society ) have a different wiew on violence than -say Norway; is that the society is infested with fear. The house-owner is afraid that the burlglar will kill, and the burglar is afraid that the house-owner will kill, so they go around with tense nerves, constantly thinking about how to kill/defend themselves. Before I started discussing on MAP, I hadn't even thought about self-defence-scenarios in my house, but I must admit -inspired by some of the debatants on this forum -that I now know where my kitchen knives are, where my medieval sharp longsword lies, etc :bang:
it dosnt matter even if they are banned peopel will keep making them and just becaus some nut job kills someone is stupied there trying to ruin it for peopel who have them as display or training purposes
On the subjects of knives, I have some experience being a chef. You CANNOT carry a knife on the street at all, by law. You have to keep them locked in a toolkit. I have 2 big red toolkits that I keep my knives in when I need to move them.
Something similar is going on up in Scotland but its to do with air rifles, basically a couple of kids mucking around with a rifle shot a baby. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4322109.stm estimates are there are as many rifles as people in Scotland (bout 5 million) The mother in your story is aggrieved and rightly so, but attaching a stigma to martial arts weapons and indiscriminantly banning them isnt the answer, like you all say they`ll just find something else, or make something else. The only answer i see for these kinds of things is licensing , more so for airguns than edged weapons, but if all firearms required licensing (meaning owned and signed for, with the promise of jail time if there misused, by adults. and any firearms without a licence getting you hefty jailtime) than that might help a little, but wont totally end the problem the problem as far as i see it is that kids and teenagers are getting hold of edged weapons (replica swords,daggers etc) and theres nothing really in the way of them getting these weapons... me and my brothers used to get up to allsorts with the air-rifle that could have went wrong, so maybe some smart law changes and a few campaigns to get society to change its ideas about letting teenagers run around housing estates with air rifles might do the trick. but people who love collecting swords,daggers,karampits etc shouldnt be persecuted for the actions of kids...
I agree; licencing is a smart thing. As you say, it doesn't remove the problem, but it makes it easier for the authorities to deal with it. Everything (exept fully automatic weapons which is forbidden, categorized as a terrorist-weapon, making it quite a case if you is found with one.) is licensed in Norway, and nobody seems to have a problem with that. If you want to have a pistol (which isn't regarded as a hunting-weapon in Norway), you have to join an authorized pistol-club, and have a criminal-free record.
