Jack Thompson takes it out on Counter-Strike

**ficksucker** · April 20th, 2007, 05:18

Originally Posted by mmochel

Lets think about this rationally for a minute.
There are millions of guns illegaly owned, and most gun crimes are comitted with illegal guns.
If we take every gun away from people who own them legally, then what happens when one of these nuts decides to go on a shooting rampage.
Is a criminal more likely to go to an area where he knows that noone else has a gun, if people had guns then the criminals would be less likely to try and shoot people.
That being said I have never owned a gun and have no intention of buying one, but I do not think we should limit them any more than we already have.

You bring up a good point, and I'm not a strong advocate either way. But let's take a case study of the Canadian city Vancouver BC and the nearby city Seattle. Seattle has more murders/100 000, but when you analyze what type of murders you find that Vancouver and Seattle have about the same rates of knifing, beating to death, etc. The entire difference in murder rates can be attributed entireley to shootings alone. They have almost identical rates of murder with every other weapon.

As for the video games violence connection, there is some evidence that violent games may increase violent behaviour, but not much more so then violent TV (if you know your stats, early estimates of the correlation are about 0.25 which is pretty low). If we consider TV acceptable then we can't be hypocrites and want bans against games. And if you use the same standard we should ban drinking too.

**benn** · April 20th, 2007, 08:06

ok I kinda get your post but think it has too many holes in it. i mean...

Originally Posted by Psyberjock

While gun control is good ... they will find ways to kill people, just not as many at one time.

surely that is a good thing right?

Originally Posted by Psyberjock

At the same time, getting rid of guns prevents people from enjoying their hobbies which can be harmless if properly conducted. From collecting antiques to game hunting and everywhere in between. Guns are ok. They're not bad. People are bad and they use guns to do their dirty work. It's a lot like weed or mushrooms. They're just plants. They're not bad. It depends on how you use them.

OK but guns have an undeniable connection with violence. Even if you just collect them, they are weapons of death. Designed to kill people. An increasing amount of people are not responsible enough to be in a passive environment with firearms.

Your example using drugs is the worst example for you but the best for me:
In a similar way to firearms, many people misuse weed, shrooms etc. It is PROVEN that these are gateway drugs and it is very rare for someone to only ever have smoked weed and not taken any other drugs. Drugs are made illegal under the pretense that by restricting supply and access, they are making it less likely that they will be in the hands of irresponsible people. The same laws should be applied to Guns.

It is purely a matter of maths:
presume 1 person in every 1000 is an idiot who will misuse a firearm.
restrict access or make them illegal and (for this example) lets say that only 25,000 people can 'easily' obtain a firearm. that means you only have to worry about 25 idiots.
with unrestricted access, let's say (again for this example) that the whole population of 50 million people can 'easily' obtain a firearm. You now have the potential for 50,000 idiot incidents.

i think that it would be impossible due to legacy issues, but America should ban firearms.

my background? i have indulged in everything above and WAY more. I think firing a gun is an amazing feeling, that someone who has never experienced will never understand. Similarly, I have had some of the most amazing experiences of my life on Class A drugs. BUT I recognize that there are people in society who cannot act responsibly with either of these so I have to suffer strict laws (living in UK).
Is it fair? NO.
Is it right? In my opinion, yes.