philh

'When people are licensed to carry, there may be more guns in circulation, because some people will buy a new gun just for that purpose. But even if it's the same number of guns, the exposure time for potential to use those guns greatly expands.' ------- may be and are - are not the same. Your reasoning is entirley specualtive. If a state says you may now carry a conceeled weapon doesnt mean you will - or even the number of concealed weapons goes up.How you would get reliable data here is beyond me, after all if a state changes the law to allow conealed weapons one would expect the number of people to admit having concealed weapons to go up whether it had or not, as many would be less likely to admit it when they were illegal. Even if it does go up doesnt mean it goes up by a statistically significant amount. But lets presume you are right that gun ownership in the US has soared along with a falling crime rate. Something which i think is far from clear. according to Gallup in 1993 51% of households had guns in 2000 the number was 42%. But lets give you the benefit of the doubt, this 30 year low in the crime rate is still massivley higher than similar countries who do not allow guns. why do you so consiently ignore this fact? As i have said before its easy for figures to fall when they are ridiculously high. There's no question that indeed the US homcide rate was and still is ridicously high. and it is a fact that the US with the higest number of guns of all Western democracies still has the highest homicide rate. It is a fact that Switzerlandd with the second highest gun ownership rate has the second highest homicide rate. like many gun loving Americans you seem to look at the US in isolation and refusse to consider it in the context of the wider world. Lastly lets give you even more benefit of the doubt. Lets presume that crime in the US continued to fall so that it was even lower than its western counterparts. Should we finally conclude in favour of guns? Remember when analysing statistics you dont just get the one bit of the sample you like and discard the rest. So far the last few years in the US the picture has been improving. but that must be taken in the context of the so many decades of outrgeoulsy high homicde rates. So why should we ignore the past stupendous Us homicide rates? I am happy for Americans that there crime rate has fallen , but if we want to know whether heaveily armed countries have higher homicde rates than others we need to include past and present data. If we include past data - as indeed we must- the picture is one of the armed nations facing much higher homicde rates. The current data shows only a change in the degree of this fact, but the direction of it remains exactly the same. if the gun loving US manages to get a homicde rate lower than its gun hating allies for a period of time equal or greater than the time its had a higher rate for, then you maye have a valid point. So far even with the lowering of the homcide rate we havent even had one year of this , let alone the decadees you would need to redress such a terrible imbalance.

the cost of doing nothing? Yes it would have cost a lot if 1)Saddam had WMD's; Iraq Survey group and UN said he didnt and Bush himself has now admitted this. 2) saddam posed a threat to the world: he didnt, even Powel and Rice admitted this. 3)Saddam had ties to AQ: accordign to all inteligence agencies he didnt. See my post on oprevious page for more details and sources. As to Iran, the mess in Iraq has made it more difficult to deal with that problem. Iraq: no Wmd's - invaded. North korea had WMds - not invaded. What message does that send to Iran?

I dont know any people that support thee insurgency so there is no need to debate that issue. We all agree the insurgents are evil assholes. Anyone here that comes on the forum and defends the insurgents will certainly get my and I imagine other people condemnation. But the same is not true for the invasion that is why i and others are loud in condemming it.

"First of all, you claim that more guns = more crime. And then you turn around and say that more people licensed to carry concealed handguns in public is not a problem. That's contradictory. " No it isnt contradictory becuase any change in the law that allows people to carry concealed weapons has no necessary implication for the number of weapons in circulation . My claim that most homicdes are domestic crimes refers to the fact the victim was an intimate of the murderer. If a man beats up his girlfriend i would consider that domestic violence whether they share the same roof or not. If you dont like that wording then sure Ill change it to intimate violence if you like.Not sure anyone else would be familair with such a term. But the point remains the same , most murders are not comitted by someone trying to rob,rape ,assualt etc but by people who are well known to each other. So the idea that you need a gun for self defence against criminals is a bogus one. My sources for data + a few other interseting stats: According to the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports 1976-1999, 59% of the murder victims known to have been killed by an intimate in 1999 were shot to death. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Homicide Trends in the United States, Intimate Homicide, 2001. "In about 80% of (homicide) cases , the victims and assailant were known to each other"Domestic Vioelence and Homicide Antecdents, Dr Murray Straus. "Within the period covered, twice as many women were killed by husbands or intimate acquaintances using firearms than were murdered by strangers using firearms, knives, or any other means." Men, Women, and Murder: Gender-Specific Differences in Rates of Fatal Violence and Victimization , Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH, and James A. Mercy, PhD, The Journal of Trauma , Vol. 33, No. 1, July 1992, pp. 1-5. "Family and intimate assaults involving a firearm were 12 times more likely to result in death than non-firearm associated assaults between family and intimates. " Risk Factors for Violent Death of Women in the Home , James E. Bailey, MD, MPH; Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH; et al, Archives of Internal Medicine , Vol. 157, April 14, 1997, pp. 777-782. ---------------------------- "There are countries with no legal guns and few gun murders. There are countries with no legal guns and lots of gun murders. There are countries with lots of legal guns and few gun murders. There are countries with lots of legal guns and lots of gun murders. And yet you conclude that legal gun ownership is the determining factor in gun murders? Go fish. " There are people who smoke and dont get lung cancer and there are people who eat fatty foods and dont get fat. does that mean you deny that smoking causes lung cancer or that fatty foods make people fat?there are people who get shot in the head and survive , so do you deny that shooting someone in the head cuases death? a few exceptions do not disprove strong statisical relationships , they are called outliers and exist in many strong relationships. The strong relationship i refer to is the one that shows a high correltion between countries(with similar socie eco conditions) that have high number of guns and high number of homicides.its not just the US, switzerland has the second highest gun ownership rate in the West and guess what the second highest homicide rate: check the data:(source Cia World fact Book 1992)Gun ownership rates%s United States 29 Switzerland 14 Finland 7 Germany 7 Belgium 6 France 6 Canada 5 Norway 4 Europe 4 Australia 2 Netherlands 2 United Kingdom 1 Handgun murders (1992) (2) Handgun 1992 Handgun Murder Country Murders Population Rate (per 100,000) ----------------------------------------------------------- United States 13,429 254,521,000 5.28 Switzerland 97 6,828,023 1.42 Canada 128 27,351,509 0.47 Sweden 36 8,602,157 0.42 Australia 13 17,576,354 0.07 United Kingdom 33 57,797,514 0.06 Japan 60 124,460,481 0.05 How can you deny such a link? its not just the Us has the highest gun ownership and the highest homicde rate , but Switzerland the second highest gun ownership rate and the second highest homicde rate. Do the cultural differences(so far the only suggested explanation suggested on this forum) extend to Switzerland as well? the actual correlation rate between gun ownership and homicide has been calculated as .84 (source:"International Correlations between Gun Ownership and Rates of Homicide and Suicide", Canadian Medical Association Journal 148:1723 (May 15, 1993).

Its not millions kallend but billions.$266 billion is the current cost of the war. Imagine what we could have achieved with that money spent elsewhere.

Saddam had WMD's? This is what Hans Blix had to say after Saddams capture: "I doubt that he will reveal any WMD, because I think both we U.N. inspectors and the American inspectors have been looking around and come to the conclusion that there aren't any," Blix said. "He might be able to reveal when they were done away with. I am inclined to think it was early in 1991 or 1992 ." this is what the Iraq surbey group said: (SG has found only)"small numbers of degraded chemical weapons," which " were likely abandoned, forgotten and lost during the Iran-Iraq war" and "do not pose a militarily significant threat...because the agent and munitions are degraded." Moreover, "ISG has not found evidence to indicate that Iraq did not destroy its BW weapons or bulk agents." Also "Saddam Hussayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program." "ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes. " "ISG thoroughly examined two trailers captured in 2003, suspected of being mobile BW agent production units, and investigated the associated evidence. ISG judges that its Iraqi makers almost certainly designed and built the equipment exclusively for the generation of hydrogen. It is impractical to use the equipment for the production and weaponization of BW agent ISG judges that it cannot therefore be part of any BW program." "The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam." this is what the CIA said to Mr Bush in Feb 2001 "We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs, " So I stick to my conclusion that Saddm at the time of the 2nd gulf war had no WMD's unless you think the Iraq Survey group are a bunch of liars? Saddam a threat? saddam was contained after Gulf War 1 but dont just take my word for it: here is what Colin powell said 15 may 2001: "The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the last 10 years, not in deterring him from moving in that direction, but from actually being able to move in that direction. The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago. It has been contained. " this is what Condy Rice said on tv 29 july 2001: "But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt. " Link to Al queda? Where is the evidence for this? here is what donal Rumsfeld said in Oct 2004 on Saddam and Al Queda. "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," This is what former counter terrorism chief Richard Clarke said : "he(Paul Wolfowitz) chaired a meeting the next day (just after Sept 11th) to develop an offocial position on the relationship between Iraq and Al Queda . All agencies and all departments agreed, there was no cooperation between the two." the SEpt 11tth commision said AQ had explored possible cooperation with Iraq" while in Sudan through 1996, but that "Iraq apparently never responded" . the result of contacts according to the commision ?"they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship." We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

another effect of the Iraq war shoudl be considered form this letter from a Special forces Commander in Afghanistan reporoduced in the book "will they ever trust us Again?: "what began to bother me about the conflict started when "our george" began denying us the divisional support that was requested. this simply means that we were asking for very large numbers of troops so that we could cordon off the areas needing to be closed , so that we could assure the capture or killing of higher ranking taliban leaders ie Osama bin Laden I strongly believe tht the US could have cptured or killed Osama in a months time had this support been given. And i only now understand why the Oval Office did not approve a full scale attack ...It was becuase old geogie boy wanted to attack Iraq, and he was saving the military divsions to complete that task. " So not only have 30,00 lives been lost for bogus reason, But as a reuslt of the Iraq escapade the Al queda leadership got away. Moreover they now have more recruits bbecause of the grossly unjust nature of the Iraq war. we in the west are now more at risk from terrorism and for what end? becuase of a war that has taken 30,000 lives all based on george Bushs lies. Bush lie 1; That Saddam had WMds Bush lie 2 That Saddam posed a threat to the world Bush lie 3 that Saddm had links to Al Queda.

"We certainly don't know how life began on Earth, do we? Yet it is propagated by Neo-Darwinists as "fact" that life on Earth began naturally, w/o any divine or creator intervention, even more vehemently than some door-to-door bible thumpers! Believing in THAT, that life sprang up on earth naturally takes an even bigger leap of faith than believing in a creator. " ------------------- Wrong Wrong Wrong. Neo Darwinists , at leasat in their role as neo darwinsts do not claim "as"fact" anything about how life on earth began. Evolution via natural selection is about the origin of species not about the origin of life. The origin of life falls under the study subject of abio genesis. This is a seperate subject form evolution. Some evolutionsist believe life first originated naturally some believe in divine creation either is consistent with a Darwinian aproach. Ther are several competing theories for abio genesis, some with better evidence than others. For example , one scenario details the interaction of a crudely self replicatting genetic molecule and a crudely surface bound metabolic coating . The genetic molecule might have exploited the chemical energy of the repliucation process and the ability of the metaboloid to protect itself by binding to its surface.Currently experiments are being conducted to investigate how RNA and simple metabolic cycle create simple pathways which will help verify the likelihood of this scenario. It will not be done on a leap of faith. This and other abio genesis thoeries will be tested that is how naturalistic explanations ie science works. To contrast with religion where the added assumption of super naturalistic agent is introduceed without a shred of evidece. What we know from physcis is the solar system originated naturlly, what we know from biologiy is that species originated naturlly, what we know form geology is that mountains originated naturlly. To suppose life originated naturally is less therefore less of an unwarranted assumption than to introduce any unproves super natural agent. As to the theory of memes, it is supported by the fact that by far the majority of Christians were brought up by Christian parents, the same for jews,Muslims etc. occasional anecdotes of excpetions hardly outweight the mass of evidence of billions of people.

"Right, but why is the circle there in the first place (even if only in your mind). How did this concept of circle come into existence. What set the law in motion? " quite frankly we dont know why the laws of physics are there. but why should we conclude anything from our ignorance?

yeah - but it would be even more fun without Bush in it.

"However, does it really seem logical to you that the matter and energy which makes up this entire universe always existed. Where did it come from? " Well we can explain quite far back. all the way to the big bang. perhaps there was a before the big bang. String theory has some interesting suggestions, although they are not proven. But really we should focus on what we know and we can measure. Anything else is unsubstantiated, so it is with god. ' There had to be a beginning somewhere/somehow. " Really how do you know this? Not everyhting has a begining, circles dont.

How come they tried to impeach clinton for lying about a blow job. but not bush for lying about a war that has killed 30,000 people?

"You haven't really shown sources of the data so it means nothing to me." WHAT ? have you read my posts? i have indeed provided sources. In fact the whole point of the last sections of our debate is because one of my sources the NCVS is being examined. your case about the 46 states is irrelevant. the issue I have pointed out is the higher number of guns in the US leads to the high number of homicides s in the US. i have consitently claimed that most homicides are domestic violence. so whether a weapon is allowed to be concealed or not in public is hardly an issue.yes the US crime rate is at a 30 year low , but I have never suggested that gun control is the only way to reduce crime. In fact i have not made any suggestions for US policy as this is a debate about Canadian policy. i bring up the Us for one purpose alone. To show that there is a positive correlation between gun ownerhsip and the homicde rate. The fact is the USA has massivley more number of firearms than similar nations and massively higher number of homicides. This is something Canada needs to consider when making policy.

Kleck criticses the NCVS survey for being non anonymous becuase the bureau of the census collects the data and has the individuals home address, telephone number etc. Well i have worked for Mori and NOP as a market researcher when i was a student , let me assure you we never ever did a survey without getting these details. In my experience, which involved three years in the business all survey are done in this manner. Moreover if this is a problem for you why do you quote any surveys by the FBI ? surely the same problem should be considered? Kleck comments"since they are never directly asked whether they used a gun for self-protection. They are asked only general questions about whether they did anything to protect themselves." Again this is standard method in all surveys , its called not biasing the respondent. if you suggest an answer more often than not the respondent will answer in the affirmative. we did an expermient once whereby we aksed respondents two questions and prompted an answer in the affirmative , which we mostly got, the answers were set up to be contradictory. Thats why you dont prompt the respondent. Again standrad methodology in all research. Klecks critique of Hemingway is pretty bogus. his first line of attack is that Hemingway has too many cases of overstimation of DGU's and not enough under estimation. But if there are more reasons why DGU's are overestimated then why shouldnt hemingway raise them?he then goes on to criticise hemingways political allegiances and motivations. Any scholar knows that its the scholarship that counts not the motivation for it or even the character of the scholar. All of that is entirely irrelvant. One of Klecks important points is that "DGUs usually involve unlawful possession of a gun by the gun-wielding victim, and sometimes other illegalities as well" now how does this help the case for the US model? If the incidence of Dgu's is higher becuase the guns were illegal or the participant was involved in other illegal gun related activities that would make the gun crime rate even higher than stated. Hardly backing the pro gun case . Your own comment "It should be clear to any reasonable person that while estimates of 2- 2.5 million are most likely on the high side" well i agree with that. But that didnt stop you actually making the claim eariler in a preivous post you finished your post by asking: "Do you know that other studies indicate firearms are used (used does not imply fired) over 2 million times a year for personl protection.?" Did you think then the number was on the high side or did you change your mind. Why didnt you admit then what you say now? Even if the figure were right it would mean the crime rate was considerably higher than is reported. Again that would hardly back the case for less fire arm controls in the US. Having even higher crime rate than it already does would not bode well really would it? After all , and this really is the crux of the matter; the US has the highest number of guns per person out of any western democracy and the highest homicide rate in the Wetsern world. This is even after the large fall in recent years in Us crime rates. Now i think its pretty damm obivous that the two are connected. No one has suggested any reason other than Craddocks sugestion of 'drastic cultural differences'. well I am still waiting to see what these 'drastic differences" are. consider these elements: Political system:multi party democracy Economic systekm:free market capitalism Religion: predomiantly Christian but with minorities including, jewish, Hindu, sihk, Atheist, Muslim etc Ethnicity; predominatly white but with signicnt minorities of black, hispanics , Asian etc Where am I describing Us or Europe or Australasia or Canada? Of course :all of them, drastic differences? I dont think so, people of all these areas also watch violent American movies, play Grand Theft Auto and listen to Marilyn Manson in droves. Where is the drastic cultural difference? if it exists why are not all levels of crime higher in the US? They are not, only the violent crime, in particular gun crime, are consitently higher. Whats your explantion for that?

Thank you craddock for providing some data so we can debate somehting substantial rther than empty rhetoric. After all we dont debate things in physical sciences without evidence nor should we do so in social sciences. you say the studies I mentioned are a joke but you do not say why. but I will say why there are problems with kleck. he delibertley misleads. example:kleck quotes hemingway and Miller as saying they "found no significant association between the percentage of suicides with a gun (a valid measure without artifactual association problems) and homicide rates across 26 nations, they found significant associations twice as large when using the Cook measure, and based their conclusions on the latter finding.” but this is what hemingway and miller themselves had to say:"Kleck is factually wrong. We did find a statistically significant association between the percentage of suicide with a gun and homicide across 26 nations. This relationship held whether we used the crude homicide rate (significant at 0.000) or the natural log of the homicide rate (significant at 0.001). This is a main finding of our paper and is shown clearly in Table 2. The first sentence of the Discussion states: “Results from our simple regressions of 26 developed nations show a highly significant positive correlation between total homicide rates and both proxies for gun availability.” Now Craddock, you say my studies are a joke but they came from the National Crime Victimization Study. Kleck himself uses data from thsi source , so if they are a joke so are kleck and you have no right to quote him. The big problem for Kleck is that he does not compare like with like he takes the defensive use of guns found by private surveys and assumes the NCVS massivley underestimates the number of crimes then compares them to the suddenly correct number of crimes derived form what? You guessed it the NCVS study. That is why Klecks finding are so out of sync with other studies that compare like with like. The Us dept of Justice found between 1987 and 1992 62,000 people defended themsleves with handguns and in the same period criminals used handguns 931,000 times. the FBi's study "Crime In the United States" conducted in 1998, conlcuded 50 people were killed in a gun hoimicde for every one person that used guns in self defence. kellerman found in the New england Jounral of medicine that a having a gun in the home ensured a risk of being murdered 2.7 time higher than not having one. furthermore that you are 21 times more likely to be killed by someone you know than a stranger breaking into your house. The argument that bannign handguns is akin to banning alcohol or banning cars does not work becuase cars and alcohol can do other thing than harm others. They can bring a great deal of joy into people lives. In fact I advocate legalising all drugs. For those of you that agree drugs should remain illegal i wonder why you favour in contrast the continued legalisation of guns. The difference is guns have only one(with the one exception of sporting use) application: hurting others. Contrast Holland where drugs are tolerated and guns are not , result the US has more thn four times the homicide rate of Holland. Lastly I am not trying to bash the US just one aspect of US law that i think illuminates a lot about the effects of gun ownership. There are many positive aspects of US society and if someone starts a thread bashing them I will be one to defend them.

If you want to understand why people are religious. i would reccomend reading about memes. They behave like genes but are human ideas. They reproduce themselves like genes. Religion is a very effective meme, in most cases its most important message is follow us or die either an actual death(eg Judaism) or an eternal death(eg christianity). it uses the balckmail of hell and the bribery of heaven to get itself reproduced and the beauty of it all is that you cant find out the goods are all bogus until you die. Ingenious.Notice that almost everyone in the world follows the religion they were born with. That should give you a clue as to the nature of religious belief.

"I see the data differently. It looks to me like more law-abiding citizens need to arm themselves. " ------------------------------------ I guess people see what they want to see. Ive shown you data showing the Us has the highest number of guns and the highest murder of any western democarcy by a very large margin. Ive shown you the guns are used offensively in more than 10 to 1 cases. Ive shown you data that most gun crime is domestic violence not unknown assailants. Ive shown you data that even when people try and use guns in self defence it doesnt work. Yet your solution is more guns. amazing do you actaully have any evidece/data to support your views or is just rhetoric?

Does it make sense to have guns in a country having more people who are prone to violence? Yes, so their potential victims can defend themselves. I have already given relevant data in my earlier post to refute this argument. But in case you need reminding the data was 85,000 defensive uses of firearms against 1 million offensive uses . i think that speaks volumes. The reality is that guns give a much larger advantage to the attacker than it does to thee defender in a violent confrontation. this is beccuase the denfender will rarely have the oppurtunity to get to their gun in time to repel an attack. Whislt there will be some people who defend themselves with firearms the net result is a large number of victims of violent gun crime. That is the reosn why the US has such a high murder rate compared to any other western democracy.

"I don't think you really understand the problem. Guns are a tool. Guns don't kill people, they just make it easier. " "These same people could kill with a knife, a hammer, a pipe, a sharpened pencil, a brick, a screwdriver, chemicals, bombs, or any number of other things just as easily." --------- So do guns make crime easier or not ?your first statement the answer is no, your second the answer is yes. Perhaps you can give us a consistent argument to address? I think anyone would agree it is easier to kill someone with a gun than without. Thats why modern armies have guns rather than knifes or swords. So when you make crime easier (by having lots of people with guns) dont be suprised if you get lots of crime. if you have a country where there are according to you " more people who are prone to commit violent acts" does it really make sense to give them to tools to make their violent acts easier?I would have thought it would make more sense for such a country to have less guns not more than others.

Your comment about british crime rate going up after the ban on handguns conventiently ignores the very low crime rate the british had in the first place. Its easy for numbers to go up when they are low. It conventiently ignores the fact that the USA has the highest murder rate of any wetsern democracy by a very large margin. I remember visiting DC when it had the highest murder rate in the world. I would much sooner live in a country where the murder rate has risen to .014 per 1000 of the population (in the UK) than one that has drastically fallen to .0428 per 1000 of the population (in the US).Source: Un survey Of Crime i would love to hear why you think the banning of hand gund has inccreased the crime rate rather than being coincidental. After all in 1953 all weapons were made illegal in public. so the banning of handguns in 1997 would onlly have affected crime in the home (guns werentt allowed any where else b4 that, and getting a gun was not so easy even then) but one of the big rises in crime has been in mugging. how could this possibly be affected by the bannign of handguns? Many commentators in the Uk have discussed the reasons for the rising crime rate. I dont think i ve ever seen a single one suggest its the 97 ban on handguns to be to blame. you need to learn that if A proceeds B, it does not in any way imply that A is the cause of B.Thats basic logic.

Its one thing to make a mistake (invading a country to get rid of their WMDs when they dont have any) its quite amazing to see hed do it again knowing that he was in error. What an horrendous fellow Mr bush is. 15 times the number of people that died on Sep 11th are dead and Mr Bush says hed do it again. I wonder if iraq goes from a secular dictatorship to an Islamic dictattorship will he say the same?

"Are you fucking serious? Bunch of liberal bullshit. It couldn't have anything to do with the drastic difference in culture in the US. No it must be the guns. " ----------------------------- Of course there are some differences in culture. But drastic difference. Are you serious? i live in the Europe. My girlfriend is from the US and I have been there 5 times this year. The population of the two areas watch a lot of the same films, tv shows, read the same books, listen to similar music, we are both predominantly christian cultures but with large ethnic minorities.Both are democratic and capitalist . Moreover many of the people who contributed to building US society were of European descent. All western European countries have a lower homicide rate than the US. differences in culture do exist but drastic is quite frankly a ridiculous comment. Are you seriously suggesting it is not easier to kill with a gun than without? " Quite often in the US the mere presence of a firearm protects ones self or property with out even being discharched. " Do you have any evidence for this or did you make it up? please present your evidene with sources. Furthermore you have to balance those statistics you dont find, if you do that is; with the considerable increase in risk of being a victim of firearm crime because of the large amount of domestic unplanned gun crime. Your example of the 71 year old man defnding himslef witha firearm is so irrelevant i dont knwo where to start. Anyone that has every studied social science or any science for that matter knows anecdotes prove fuck all. Yes you have an intersting example of the wonderful use of firearms, do you think I cant provide the opposite? Shall I mention a few high school massacres? I wont bother because its a serious study of the net effect that counts. I have provided my evidence and my source for my case and you havent. You just dismiss it like a petulent child. if you have evidence as to why the survey i mentioned was dishonest please present it.

I read plenty of Christian philopshers ssuch as The Case for Christ by lee Sobel, Mere chsritianity by CS Lewis plus plenty of bible study as i was religious for many years. once you take th blinkers off theres no more depth to religion than to Santa. have you read Alvin Plantinga?Ive never seen someone dress up simple arguments from ignorance in such a cumbersome manner. dont bother is my advice.

Work it out: gnosic refers to knowledge, even in websters: we have: Etymology: Greek gnOsis, literally, knowledge, from gignOskein :esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation gnosis means knowledge ,in context knowledge of god or other spiritual matters. An agnostic then is either someone who has no knowledge of such matters or believes such knowledge is impossible. Gnosis refers to knowledge, theism refers to belief. You can believe in god without believing you have knowledge of god. A means without so agnostic is without knowledge atheist is without belief. One who is undecided is just that, it doesnt require another word. Some people claim that agnostic and athiest are contary positions. But I think you can see the language does not imply that. furtheromore since it might be fair for Hindua, jews etc to define what it means to be jewish so it might be true for athiests. look at most athiest sites you will find the following: "Basic atheism is not a belief. It is the lack of belief. There is a difference between believing there is no god and not believing there is a god--both are atheistic, "Dan Barker "atheism is a negative view, characterized by the absence of belief in God. " Michael Martin "an atheist is someone without theism, or without a belief in God." Gordon Stein these are all leading atheists if you are to deny athiests the right to define themselves will you do the same to jews, Hindus etc? So you will see the language and the people imply a certain definition fo athiesm. I am an agnostic becuase I have no knowledge of god, an athiest because I have no belief in god and I further believe there is no god. This last point goes beyond simple athiesm. This is the view which has been considered a religious viewbecuase I cannot prove god doesnt exist. whilst that is true ,one cannot prove Santa doesnt exist, one cannot prove fairies do not exist, one cannot prove there is not a dragon living in the middle of the sun of that there is a man in the moon. So to the extent that denial of god is religious so must these other positions be considered religious. I dont think thats a fair description beuccase to deny Santa, dragons, etc is not to dismiss them for no reason but to dismiss becuase of our knowledge of the natural world and our knowledge of the origin of mythology. Both imply that Santa, dragons etc are creations of the human mind not physical realities.so it is with god,

"Guns are inanimate objects that do no possess the ability to do anything by themselves. " I agree but i think theres no doubt that its a lot easier to kill someone witha firearm than without which is why the USA has a much higher homicide rate than similar Western democracies. Making guns illegal willnot ensure criminals wont have guns but its a start. Police can arrest those with guns for simply having them, so whilst some will still have them, hopefully the number will be less. now this not some fantasy this is reality in most wetsern democraices. it it works well in the Uk, Holland, New Zealand etc. Mosre importantly you seems to assume that gun crime is commited by career criminals. In fact at least some, and many claim most, gun deaths are comitted in domestic disputes in a non premeditated matter. So theres every reason to believe reducing the amount of guns even from "law abiding citizens" will indeed reduce the number of gun deaths. the idea that guns can be used for self defence seems misguided. If a criminal pulls a gun on you its not very likely that you will be able to get your gun out in time unless you are some kind of wild west superstar gunslinger. to quote the American medsical Students Association"In fact, wielding a gun in a home invasion crime can be more harmful than beneficial. In one study of 197 such crimes in Atlanta, a gun was successfully used to repel an intruder in only three cases (1.5%); whereas, in six cases (3.0%), the intruder actually reached the homeowner's gun first or seized it during a scuffle with the victim. " Furthermore we have "firearm-related death in the home is rarely related to strangers breaking in. One study of homicides revealed that 70% of murders were committed by a relative or intimate of the victim, with only 4% of murders traced to an intruder; in the remainder of cases, the victim-perpetrator relationship was unknown. 18 The National Crime Victimization Survey reported 85,000 annual defensive uses of guns both inside and outside the home and one million instances of offensive uses of guns in injuries, deaths and criminal victimizations, 19 suggesting that outcomes with guns are much more often negative than positive.