Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Frumple]

@Starver: Dude(tte), the last driving game I played was in like '97, '98. Something like that. It had been years since the last time I played one when I got my license. It was mostly just knowing the whole turn-wheel-other-way-when-reversing thing that games taught me.

As for failure rates, I have no clue. Wouldn't even know where to look. Being a bit more fair, I don't even know how representative that test is for the rest of the state... just that it was sufficient to get a permit. So it might not be as bad in areas that can't be acceptably described as bumfuckistan, for all that it matters when all that means is taking a trip to the more lax areas.

@RK: Yeah, lil'amazing the death count isn't higher, innit? Primary reason I even bothered to go through the course is so I would be (will be, anyway) able to carry a knife legally. Mind you, basically the entire male population in my area (and a good chunk of the female population, too) carry decently sized knives as a matter of course anyway, regardless of permit. Being fair, they do come in handy pretty often. Not just for stabbing people things, either!

And yeah, that's part of the reason that insidious urge for a highscore occasionally pops up while driving. Extra points if you can get another car to take out some civvies instead. Skillshot equivalent, y'ken?

[Nadaka]

The Florida ccw permit is valid in more states than any other ccw permit IIRC.

http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/news/concealed_carry.html/

While Florida's law allows licensees to carry stun guns, knives, and billy clubs in a concealed fashion

WHAAAAAAA???!?

What the holy fuck is wrong with you people? I can get a license for a shiv? Srsly?? I could put a stiletto in my boot and it would be legal?
Combine that with the "stand your ground" law, and the generally high percentage of fruitcakes in the Florida population....I'm honestly fucking amazed that the streets don't run red with blood down there.

I really don't get the outrage here. Why wouldn't someone be allowed to carry a knife for self defense instead of a gun if that was their particular preference?

[RedKing]

The Florida ccw permit is valid in more states than any other ccw permit IIRC.

http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/news/concealed_carry.html/

While Florida's law allows licensees to carry stun guns, knives, and billy clubs in a concealed fashion

WHAAAAAAA???!?

What the holy fuck is wrong with you people? I can get a license for a shiv? Srsly?? I could put a stiletto in my boot and it would be legal?
Combine that with the "stand your ground" law, and the generally high percentage of fruitcakes in the Florida population....I'm honestly fucking amazed that the streets don't run red with blood down there.

I really don't get the outrage here. Why wouldn't someone be allowed to carry a knife for self defense instead of a gun if that was their particular preference?

Concealed carry of firearms for personal defense has kind of become an accepted thing culturally. Concealed carry of a switchblade, a billy club....that's the kind of thing a guy named Guido does just before he goes to hang around dark alleyways at night.

I get what you're saying, there's really no functional reason to distinguish them, but these seem less like weapons of self-defense and more like tools of mugging.

[Flying Dice]

Thing is, though, what makes firearms any different? They're still tools used to kill others, and fill the exact same role in a mugger's "profession". Except that someone fighting back against a mugger with a knife or club probably has a better chance of getting away without a serious or fatal injury.

[Frumple]

Bit easier to shiv someone or cold cock 'em in the back of the head with a billyclub and get away without being noticed. Guns are pretty loud, generally. E: Thus the tool of mugging vs weapon of self defense thing... a gun (usually) announces to th'bloody world shit just went down. A knife is more... covert, circumspect. Not as loud, etc. You can stab someone and walk away and the person on the other side of the wall/alley might not notice. Not as possible with gunfire.

[Starver]

Why wouldn't someone be allowed to carry a knife for self defense instead of a gun if that was their particular preference?

Spoiler: Never bring a knife to a gunfight? (click to show/hide)

(Not that I'm calling you a Wop.)

* Please note, this escalation of arms is not my view, nor that of many of my fellow Britons, although I cannot speak for the Irish American Lithuanian Russian Sherwood Forester Dragon Voicing Space Marshalling Greek Ruling Camelot Founding Colonially Retiring Amazonic Bioprospecting Peripatetic Egyptian Grail Seeking Postapocalyptic Brutal Scottish Ex-Pat Devolution Supporting Bermuda-Resident that is Sean Connery.

[GreatJustice]

Because I'm talking about two different things sets of statistics?  We have very different definitions of violent crime but very similar definitions of murder.  Therefore comparing "violent crime" is flawed while comparing well defined crimes that are not massively underreported (such as murder) is not.

You keep saying "we". Not American here.

Besides that, you do realize that American laws regarding murder change by state, right? As do gun control laws, ranging from guns being effectively banned outright (as they are in Illinois as I recall) to concealed carry and open carry being legal.. In fact, gun control laws can often vary from city to city (for example, while the state of Missouri has mostly lenient gun control laws, St. Louis has very stringent ones). Washington D.C is a special case, but it has some of the strictest gun control in the USA and also has some of the highest rates of murder. Inversely, Vermont and New Hampshire have the lowest rates of gun violence in the US, yet have some extremely lenient gun control laws (especially Vermont in this case).

Mind, gun laws obviously aren't the root of all gun crime, and there are other factors that drive it up (the Drug War is a HUGE cause of gun/violent crime in the US, and is likely the cause of a disproportionate amount of gun related deaths in the Southwest or elsewhere), but it certainly isn't any more reasonable to compare American murder statistics (Which can vary by state) to British murder statistics (which don't) and American gun control laws (which vary by city and state and are rarely straightforward) to British gun control laws (which are uniform).

In any case you're clearly being willingly obtuse if you can't see that murders are generally recorded more than rape (hint: there's usually a murdered corpse which is hard to ignore).

A murdered corpse can also be a "corpse that was victim to an accident" or a "corpse that committed suicide". Alternatively, it could be a "missing person". Obviously murder will be reported more than rape, but the same problems still apply.

That is clearly the crux of my argument, and not the "this graph doesn't really show anything and you wouldn't expect a small piece of legislation to show a massive impact within 4 years".

A small piece of legislation that reduced gun ownership by ~20%? Also, the second chart shows that the 1997 handgun ban didn't make an especially massive impact, either. To contrast to American overall crime statistics:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Of course it is tricky to compare crime from one country to another, but keep in mind that while UK crime has been declining marginally as gun laws become stricter, US crime has been declining significantly as gun laws by state become noticeably less strict. For comparison,

US gun control laws (simplified, but it works for this case) in '86:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Us gun control laws in '11:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So you're not going to answer me and instead you'll throw in an irrelevant new source?  Well yes, there will be more crimes involving handguns if you ban handguns because there is now a new crime involving handguns.  That's the whole point of a ban!  So the "total number of crimes involving handguns" goes up because it's now a crime to own handguns, but that's fine as long as the crimes which involve people being hurt go down.  And hey:

I was citing it to show you what gun control law I was referring to, not to show the article.

[Nadaka]

I really don't believe in drawing an arbitrary line based on social acceptability, tradition, the appearance of criminal association, or class based distinctions.

Where I would draw the line is entirely functional. Can a weapon be used for self defense without an unreasonable risk of harm to innocent bystanders, or is it indiscriminate? Anthrax, explosives, fully automatic weapons and high penetration weapons can be difficult/impossible to use effectively for self defense without posing a great threat to innocent bystanders.

Knives and clubs are very much capable of being used this way, they would tend to default to this use. Pistols (preferably with hollow point ammunition and not fully automatic) are in my opinion also viable under that reasonable restriction if used responsibly.

It is entirely reasonable that a CCW for a firearm to require a somewhat higher level of commitment in licensing than a melee weapon. The use of a firearm carries higher levels of risk to bystanders when used irresponsibly. It is irrational for the opposite restriction to apply. I don't even really see why melee weapons would require a CCW permit.

[i2amroy]

At least you guys have concealed carry licensing over in Florida. Here in Arizona we are one of three states (and the only one with large dense urban areas, with the other two being Alaska and Vermont) that have a law that allows anyone over the age of 21 to carry a concealed weapon. Of course the same law also allows police officers to require compliance if they ask for your concealed weapon or if you have one, as well as extremely increasing the penalties on crime with a concealed weapon. Unfortunately it hasn't been long enough to tell if the fact that now Grandma could be packing a concealed weapon outweighs the fact that so can every mugger out there, so we don't know yet whether this is a good or bad thing.

Nun-chucks on the other hand, are completely illegal to own personally in the Az, despite several people I know owning a pair.

And on the topic of self-defense, shotguns are actually one of the best guns out there for those purposes, even better then pistols. A 12 gauge is on of the most effective guns out there at any range less then 25 yards, and why would you be defending from a range further then that? Then simply use bird shot or some other small game buckshot and you have a weapon that will stop anyone at close counters just fine, yet won't go through walls and accidentally hit somebody innocent.

[Prometheusmfd]

At least you guys have concealed carry licensing over in Florida. Here in Arizona we are one of three states (and the only one with large dense urban areas, with the other two being Alaska and Vermont) that have a law that allows anyone over the age of 21 to carry a concealed weapon. Of course the same law also allows police officers to require compliance if they ask for your concealed weapon or if you have one, as well as extremely increasing the penalties on crime with a concealed weapon. Unfortunately it hasn't been long enough to tell if the fact that now Grandma could be packing a concealed weapon outweighs the fact that so can every mugger out there, so we don't know yet whether this is a good or bad thing.

Nun-chucks on the other hand, are completely illegal to own personally in the Az, despite several people I know owning a pair.

And on the topic of self-defense, shotguns are actually one of the best guns out there for those purposes, even better then pistols. A 12 gauge is on of the most effective guns out there at any range less then 25 yards, and why would you be defending from a range further then that? Then simply use bird shot or some other small game buckshot and you have a weapon that will stop anyone at close counters just fine, yet won't go through walls and accidentally hit somebody innocent.

Hell, if they started manufacturing rock salt shells for self defense (hurts like hell, but would be hard pressed to break even cardboard after a few feet), it'd probably be a better case.

[Reelya]

That is clearly the crux of my argument, and not the "this graph doesn't really show anything and you wouldn't expect a small piece of legislation to show a massive impact within 4 years".

A small piece of legislation that reduced gun ownership by ~20%? Also, the second chart shows that the 1997 handgun ban didn't make an especially massive impact, either. To contrast to American overall crime statistics:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Of course it is tricky to compare crime from one country to another, but keep in mind that while UK crime has been declining marginally as gun laws become stricter, US crime has been declining significantly as gun laws by state become noticeably less strict. For comparison,

US gun control laws (simplified, but it works for this case) in '86:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Us gun control laws in '11:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So you're not going to answer me and instead you'll throw in an irrelevant new source?  Well yes, there will be more crimes involving handguns if you ban handguns because there is now a new crime involving handguns.  That's the whole point of a ban!  So the "total number of crimes involving handguns" goes up because it's now a crime to own handguns, but that's fine as long as the crimes which involve people being hurt go down.  And hey:

I was citing it to show you what gun control law I was referring to, not to show the article.

To the contrary, GreatJustice, November 1993 was the implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act which has to this date blocked sales of about 2 million guns in the USA. How is blocking the sales of 2 million handguns "noticeable less strict". Note 1994 was the year they initiated compulsory background checks. due to the Brady Bill.

Also 1986 saw the Firearm Owners Protection act under Reagan, take a look at the ups and downs of handgun homicides:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A huge spike in handgun murders after 1986, which only stopped rising after the passage of the Brady Bill.
All the decrease in homicides is handgun related, and all of it occured only after Clinton passed the Brady Bill. Other homicide types haven't budged much at all.

[GreatJustice]

That is clearly the crux of my argument, and not the "this graph doesn't really show anything and you wouldn't expect a small piece of legislation to show a massive impact within 4 years".

A small piece of legislation that reduced gun ownership by ~20%? Also, the second chart shows that the 1997 handgun ban didn't make an especially massive impact, either. To contrast to American overall crime statistics:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Of course it is tricky to compare crime from one country to another, but keep in mind that while UK crime has been declining marginally as gun laws become stricter, US crime has been declining significantly as gun laws by state become noticeably less strict. For comparison,

US gun control laws (simplified, but it works for this case) in '86:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Us gun control laws in '11:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So you're not going to answer me and instead you'll throw in an irrelevant new source?  Well yes, there will be more crimes involving handguns if you ban handguns because there is now a new crime involving handguns.  That's the whole point of a ban!  So the "total number of crimes involving handguns" goes up because it's now a crime to own handguns, but that's fine as long as the crimes which involve people being hurt go down.  And hey:

I was citing it to show you what gun control law I was referring to, not to show the article.

To the contrary, GreatJustice, November 1993 was the implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act which has to this date blocked sales of about 2 million guns in the USA. How is blocking the sales of 2 million handguns "noticeable less strict". Note 1994 was the year they initiated compulsory background checks. due to the Brady Bill.

Also 1986 say the Firearm Owners Protection act under Reagan, take a look at the ups and downs of handgun homicides:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All the decrease in homicides is handgun related, and all of it occured only after Clinton passed the Brady Bill. Other homicide types haven't budged much at all.

Yet the Brady Bill's actual effect was negligible, as most gun control was already handled at the state level. At the state level, guns were put under far stricter controls than the Brady Bill before it was even introduced. For example, California had such statutes before its introduction, yet California's homicide rate dropped significantly after '93 despite the fact that the Brady Bill didn't change any laws already present there.

EDIT: Oh, and I found that "better" chart that I was talking about earlier relating to homicides in Britain. Here you go:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Reelya]

You do know that they don't do heaps of border checks between states in the USA and you can drive to another state, buy guns, then drive back?

http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2003_spr/cook.htm

What is state above is that the states which were required to enforce the brady bill saw the same decline in homicides as states which already had the restrictions. It's up to interpretation, and specifically is not proof that the law had no effect, the same report says:

"On the plus side, there is strong evidence that the law undermined gun-running operations that were buying large numbers of guns in southern states and transporting them north for resale, he said."

So there's "strong evidence" that the Brady Bill reduced the flow of illegal guns from states with previously poor gun control to those with stonger gun control.

[Starver]

EDIT: Oh, and I found that "better" chart that I was talking about earlier relating to homicides in Britain. Here you go:

Firstly, "Homicides sans large anomalies unrelated to guns"?  Well, that's vague.  Do I have to hunt around for the double-dagger reference in all the rest of your 'support' evidence, or are can you give us something a bit more informative.  (Also I use 'sans' a lot, but rarely in situations where I'm not being ad hoc with the language, and knowingly highlit with italics.  It may be a matter of writing style, but "w/out" (or "without" in full) would have been much better in that trend label, IMO.  Consider me picky.  But it does sound like a weasel phrase for "stats rejected because they don't support the argument".  Very careless.)

Secondly, this graph...  Is it actually the case that outside of the range 1997-2006 that Homicides exactly equates the "Homicides sans [sic]..." value?  That looks selective to me.  The dotted line's movement on the graph outside of this range (and even in the eight years that can be infered, it is the exact same value as the solid line for four of them!) might or might not show how extraordinary this limited range is, pattern-wise, but it looks like we don't get the opportunity to know and compare.  Again, only stats that 'support' the evidence.

Thirdly, it doesn't even seem to support your case.  If the solid line is (as it looks like trend title is claiming) the "guns and only guns" trend rate, then the peak indicated by the undiluted value is a blip of non-gun homicides above the norm[1] i.e. a few people are not using guns, rather than others using them significantly more.  (Meanwhile, if I'm wrong about the selectiveness in the second point, every single homicide ('sans' those that don't count) outside of that noted range was caused by guns?  Wow.  I don't know how the British press missed that trend.)  So now we have stats that actually contradict the implied state of affairs.


Fancy graph.  "Better"?  I don't think so.  So many problems.  Throw it away, it proves nothing (less than nothing, may even be contrary to your purpose) even if it could be trusted.  (Assuming I'm not reading it upside down or something...  No, fairly sure I'm not.)



[1]  The norm being a general upward trend, which (without evidence to the contrary) one might as well assume to have started well before the handily-placed first firearm control laws and be just a general upward trend dictated to by more population density, falling values 'immigrant problems', Hollywood, increased solar activity, recent alien parasite infestation...  Well, YGTI.  If anything you might be able to say that, over the following five years from the gun control, the trend of (relevant) murders stopped going up like it had been (and, on a similar time-scale and period, the aftermath from the 1968 event seems to be suppressed significantly from the path it then continued to take, before people find out that they can murder people after all (the other problems with the graph excepted).  But it's just looks so broken that I don't think we could say a thing either way.

[Leafsnail]

The anomalies are legit.  One of them (2002) was Harold Shipman being found out - 173 murders (which in reality happened over a period of many years) were suddenly all reported at once, and since the average number per year was something like 750 that actually had a big impact on the rate of murders that year.  According to the source the other anomalies correspond to the 52 people killed in the 7/7 bombing attacks (2005), 58 Chinese immigrants suffocating in a lorry (2000) and 20 cockle pickers drowning at once (2003).  An interesting fact is that actually the method of recording homicides changed in that graph - it used to be counting the number of homicide incidents (so if a Harold Shipman had been found out in 1964 it would have counted as 1 count of homicide rather than 173), which causes a strange rise towards the start of it.

In addition if you extend the graph to present day it becomes extremely obvious that what had been an upwards trend for some 30 years reversed decisively by 2003.  If you exclude the large Shipman anomaly of 2002 and the cockle pickers of 2003 it seems like the trend probably reversed (or at least plateaued) in 2001, 4 years after the law came in.  I'm sure it wasn't the only factor, but "This law was introduced and then 4 years later a year-on-year rise in murders suddenly became a year-on-year fall" doesn't help your case much, considering you'd expect there to be a little while before the impact is felt.