"Be like that"? You mean have one-quarter the violent crime rate? Fuck me but Brits are dumb. If you ever want to move to the US, I will help set you up with mad guns and all. Not kidding, come on over. Jesus, fuck Britain.Originally Posted by benzss
It's a bit late to comment on this serious, on-topic post, but yes I agree that self-defense with a knife requires actually learning at a minimum what is tantamount to basic martial arts skills in order to use them effectively for self-defense.
However, is it not also correct to say that using a gun for self-defense requires a good deal of training as well?
PANDAS
If you don't like them, then get the fuck out.
Yes, definitely; anyone who carries a gun for self-defense, and hasn't taken the necessary training, is being reckless and irresponsible. However, using a gun for self-defense does require less training than using a knife. A knife requires a particularly large amount of training to use effectively, because the nature of knives forces you get within arm's reach of your target and start what is essentially equivalent to a fist-fight, but with a deadly weapon thrown into the mix. It is, as you said, tantamount to a martial-arts type of activity. If you aren't absolutely able to control the knife in a hand-to-hand struggle, it's very easy for it to be taken away from you. A gun's ability to be used at range, and the extremely simple and easy way in which it can inflict a deadly wound, makes it a much less risky proposition. But yes, you should still make a point of getting the necessary training if you are going to carry ANY lethal weapon for self-defense. There is no lethal weapon that can be responsibly used without training.
Yes that is true. And I dont know anyone who has a gun for self defense who does not shoot it. As for peop,e with knifes. I dont know anyone who uses one for self defense.
o.O
Citation?
With pleasure. Here is the Home Office's British Crime Report for 2005-2006: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimeew0506.html. Follow the link for Chapters 7-8, then go to page 12 of Chapter 7 and look at Table 7A; you will see that England and Wales had a violent crime rate of 23 incidents per 1000 people, or 2300 per 100,000 people, in the 2005-2006 reporting year (which runs September to September, IIRC).
Now, here is the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Data for the last couple decades: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html. Go down to the bottom and look at the line for 2005. You will see than in 2005, at the same time the Brits were having 2300 violent crimes per 100,000 people, the US violent crime rate was only 469.2 per 100,000 people.
469 is about one-fifth of 2300. According to the official statistics provided by the US and British governments, Britain has roughly five times as much violent crime as the US. Bring this up next time someone tries to pretend that British gun control makes their country safer than ours.
Now compare our murders with yours.
Most people that get killed in the US are big-time criminals anyway (not traffic offenders!), so it's not the epidemic that a cursory glance at statistics would suggest.
@Syme: thank you, I will, with pleasure.
Well I'd definitely like statistics for that.
It is true that the US murder rate is substantially higher than the UK's murder rate. It is also true that a disproportionately large number of US murder victims had prior criminal records or were engaged in crime, though I'm not sure that's enough to entirely justify crunker's claim. The same is probably true in Britain, or anywhere else for that matter. People who are involved with dangerous people or situations are, unsurprisingly, in greater danger of being hurt or killed.
To me, though, the overriding point is that the UK is a vastly more dangerous and violent and unsafe society than the US, despite their draconian efforts at gun control. I feel that it's dishonest to try and skirt that fact by choosing a single class of violent crime (even murder) to focus on while marginalizing the others, especially when murders make up such a tiny fraction of the overall violent crime rate. It's not like rape, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, etc. are trifling little crimes that don't matter as long the murder rate is down. I'm certainly not saying that British gun control causes the level of violence that exists in the UK, but the UK's case does clearly demonstrate that violent crime is largely decoupled from gun availability, and that the promise of "less guns, less crime" is a bogus one. Whether or not a society has lots of guns will have very little bearing on whether or not it has lots of violent crime. It works the other way, too: Some European countries, such as Switzerland and Finland, have very high rates of gun ownership, but still manage to have very little violent crime. So the idea that high gun ownership rates correlate with high violent crime rates is bogus as well.
Last edited by Syme; 06-22-2009 at 12:54 AM.
i think the murder rate is a bit more relevant than you're giving it credit for tbh. the point you're trying to make with guns =/='ing level of violence i agree with though.
is correct, although with all of those offenses the victim usually walks away with a scar or two. in my opinion they don't even compare to murder, which is why i think it's such an important particular statIt's not like rape, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, etc. are trifling little crimes that don't matter as long the murder rate is down.
I believe it's also true to say that the overarching ban brought in in 1997/8 has done little to affect anything except gun ownership.
well i mean
I'm certainly not trying to downplay the seriousness of murder, but the fact remains that murders account for only a tiny fraction of all violent crime (about 1% in the US, even less in the UK), so the murder rate really has very little to do with how violent or dangerous a society is in the overall sense. It seems to me that Brits often try to focus in on their lower murder rate in order to dodge around the fact that their society is, overall, vastly more violent and dangerous than that of the US.
...True.
I still feel that sometimes we need to put a little perspective on things. It's not like most people that get killed in the US are little old ladies or four year olds or decent people at all.
woah woah woah. I just saw this thread and thus the insult to my bowl. The bowl in no way resembles a phallus and the fact that any paraphernalia was even included in that picture was just because my table was messy.
I know you said you aren't trying to compare crack to pot syme, but like faesce said I use crackhead mainly to describe certain people(who may or may not be addicted to crack). I was describing the grimy people who do shit like threaten you when you don't give them change or a cigarette.
I carry a knife because its a great tool. I cant tell you the number of times Ive had to cut or poke a hole in something, and having a sharp, good quality knife (I carry a Gerber) really helps. However, I wouldnt use a knife in self defense unless it was a last resort, or I had an advantage in the situation.
If you have the advantage, would it really be self defense?
self defense implies that you're defending yourself from an attacker. it doesn't denote any advantage or disadvantage in itself.
No, thats just called having an advantage. You can defend yourself from an attacker who has a knife with a gun.
Doesnt seem very sporting.
Cause its not lol. Its self defense, not sporting.
This isnt the old days where you duel it out with pistols after 20 paces. lmao
It wasn't very sporting for your attacker to pull a knife on (what he thought was) an unarmed person in the first place, so he gets what he deserves. Poor sportsmanship is met with poor sportsmanship.
yeah first thing i'd think about if my life was in danger was whether or not my next actions were sporting
Right after I finished going determining the morality of my actions using the principle of utility.
uh-huh. it's both sporting a bulbous testicle-like protrusion at one end as well as a flaring, conical termination at the other that is the head of the penis.
PANDAS
If you don't like them, then get the fuck out.
popular bowl
not a penis
only 5 year olds and nermy see penises in every day objects
That is the standard shape for a bowl, how else would you like it to be made? There are some bowls that do look like a penis and this is not one of them. It's also color changing and awesome. Maesce you go to primal?
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