@design_RG Actually seems to be working really well in the USA, provided you arent hearing a propaganda spin on the numbers. In fact often times int he USA we see when we try to ban or restrict guns the death toll gets so out of control we wind up needing to reverse the ban and then numbers go back down. So from my perspective as a Data Scientist the numbers appear to be in favor of guns, though I do recognize there is a lot of corrupt "spin" on the numbers people hear sadly.

Mil spec is a bit of a misunderstood term. All mil spec means is that it is a reliable gun made out of high quality metals. It means nothing with regard to stopping power or rate of fire. Its a term I find is used with almost complete ignorance as to what it means in context.

Why would being armed be unholy, that sounds silly to me. There is nothing remotely morally wrong about a gun. Thats just hyperbole. In fact your whole response strikes me more as conditioning than anything else.

@freemo I did not want to start a long thread, arguing points we both believe in, have other tasks on hand that are more important and productive.

But, registering an opinion and voicing it, for the record.

The situation in America which everyone in the world sees quite well is how often gruesome shooting happens. The argument for granting people the right to bear arms is based on interpretation of a very short and terse, arguable, Colonial era piece of legislation. Enacted in a time when the future of the incipient republic was nowhere but granted.

I do find it appalling, what goes in there. I do have training and not afraid of using arms; had to get it when living in a location where public safety was ineffectual. In my opinion, best to live in a place where this is not required.

Coming armed to a place of worship strikes me as wrong, disturbing, without rationalizing it. It feels wrong, imo.

We come from totally different sides on this, but I wanted to register a different view. Otherwise people might use some fragments of posts in justifying censure to our instance, I am afraid.

Out for editing my day's blog... :smile:

@design_RG Yes it is quite sad people kill themselves.

Though the fallacy in that line of thinking is quite plan when you apply it to almost anything other than guns.

"In europe we banned guns, now gun based death has went down"...

"In crazytown we banned vaccines, now vaccine related death has went down"...

Yes banning a thing reduces death by that thing, on the surface to those who are acting on emotion, not data, that seems like a win, but as we see when you view the bigger picture it isnt.

Yes we can see that if you ban guns gun related deaths go down, but that completely ignores the fact that all other forms of homicide go up, and by a huge margin more often than not.

So yea sadly the situation everyone thinks they see in america is sadly a pretty strong indication that the people who "see" it are also the people not informed enough or objective enough to understand what they are seeing. Since any objective look at the data paints a very different picture.

The idea that being armed is inherently wrong or disturbing is the bias. Being capable of self defense and being able to save others should they be attacked is hardly unholy.

Your opinions are always welcome and you are welcome to discuss to as much or as little detail as you wish. But I wouldnt worry too much about people who might want to censor us for my or your opinions. We **want** those people to block us, thats in our best interest, so best not to try to stop it. We obviously dont want people intolerant of different opinions to be filling up our feeds.

@design_RG And yes I am bias, I am the proud owner of an AR-15.

@freemo Not in Netherlands, I imagine?

I confess to having found a beautiful swiss 9 mm pistol, used and for sale at the side of the road in Pennsylvania, and would love to have bought it. Fit my hands perfectly, better than the full size Beretta clone I had previously, in other lands.

They had rifles like yours, very useful if there's a war nearby. Technologically interesting to me, design and materials, all top notch.

But I am glad to live in a jurisdiction were this is not so easily obtainable and definitively never carry-able openly.

@design_RG The AR-15 is a small games rifle. Its intended purpose isnt War it is for shooting racoons and small animals. It isnt even powerful enough for Deer, for that you need a more powerful hunting rifle.

It isnt bad for self-defense though.

@design_RG @freemo For war go for a FAL, the AR-15 is underpowered against armor even if you modify it for burst or full auto.

@design_RG And the other point. America isnt armed because of the need for protest or politicial change. We are armed for 2 reasons:

1) to prevent people like hitler, which as we've seen the european policy of banning an armed citizen has a worse track record than America, so it would appear American's tactic is more effective.

2) To reduce overall violence. In this regard it is also effective, as the numbers seem to suggest (banning guns shows a distinct increase in overall homicide and violent crimes around the world).

@khird How many people in the church were armed?

@khird As far a I know in sutherland texas, unless you have info to the contrary, not a single person in the church was armed and thus not capable of stopping the shooter.

Interesting you pick that example though because the person who DID stop the shooter was a civial armed with an AR-15, again as far as I know it was the first person he encountered who happened to be armed, and certainly the first one who owned or carried an AR-15.

So at worst this suggests we need more people with AR-15 qand not just hand guns, at best it suggests we need people who are armed and carry, even to church.

@freemo

Picked it because it's the closest to "all else held equal" in terms of circumstance, so as to minimise confounding variables.

I have no information either way. Per media reports, the guys who brought down the White Settlement attacker were church security; it seems plausible that pure-civilians don't usually worship while armed. On the other hand, it would also be believable that the Sutherland Springs shooter did face armed resistance but prevailed against them.

@khird WEll in the end anecdotal evidence only goes so far, thats as much true for my OP as it is for your rebuttal.

But in the end the truth is, we know fromt he data that when you make guns illegal homicide almost always spikes in the decade+ that follows, when guns are made legal again it tends to shoot back down. This is true in almost every case when we look at the data, so in the end that is the only deciding factor for me. Anecdotal evidence is more for the people who arent good with proper statistical data like that.