us #1 in world weapon sales

stevebaby

It is difficult if not impossible to kill anyone at a distance with a knife or a baseball bat.
It is more difficult to disarm someone who is armed with a gun than someone who is armed with a knife or a baseball bat.
Victims attacked with knives or baseball bats have a much higher survival rate than gunshot victims.
The availability of lethal weapons (such as firearms) increases the likelihood that they will be used.
Before the merkin civil war,firearms were too expensive for most people in the us.Over-production after the civil war meant that the price of firearms dropped and gun manufacturers had to find new markets in order to maintain profitibility. They turned to the domestic market and exploited people's fears with a lot of lies.Unfortunately they found a ready market among the gullible.The us has had an obsession with weapons ever since then.
The us (and others) produce far more weapons than they would ever need to defend their own countries.For arms manufacturers to increase profits they must sell them to other countries and the us has a long history of supplying weapons to anyone who wants them (i.e. the taliban,iran etc.),all in the name of profit.The arms trade is just as reprehensible as the trade in heroin.
According to your "logic","heroin doesn't kill people,they kill themselves",so why not legalise heroin,too?

Per capita,the us is the highest consumer of firearms in the Western world.
Per capita,the us has the highest murder rate in the Western world.
Per capita,the us is the highest consumer of viagra in the Western world.
Every time a gun nut tries to defend the indefensible,they go a long way towards explaining why the above three facts are related.

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Hypnospin

i have been thinking along these lines, to believe otherwise takes such a stretch of imagination in the realm of fantasy rationalization, that if one could get behind supporting the us supplying of weaponry, than what is to follow?

a slippery slope, i say, and one that all fanatical perpetrators of warfare upon humankind have been down...

wolfix

First of all the first part of your post is not true.... Prior to the civil war , most households maintained firearms.
Where do you get your facts?? Are you sure gun wounds are more fatal then knife wounds? Show me the statistics.
And few deaths by guns are at a distance of more then 5 feet. Not at a distance.
I would like to see the facts of the last 3 statements you posted. Or did you assume these facts ?

Hypnospin

wolf, the us rated #4 for for murders with firearms.
a higher score for executions, a #3 rank.
this puts the us right up there with what might be commonly termed as less developed nations...
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_wit_fir

some other less than tasty tidbits here as well,
see how things stack up from a statistical standpoint as given here if you wish.

wolfix

Your graph does not show this. It may be there, but you will need to show me this statistic.

Wrong ..... Your graph has the USA listed #24. And since this post talks about guns, your graph has the USA listed #8. So, the US does not have the highest murder rate per capita.

What is wrong with this statistic? It shows we have a great modern medical system.


Explain to me "why the above three facts are related." And your use of the word "indefensible" assumes most people agree with your perception.

stevebaby

"Arming america - The Origins of a National Gun Culture" author:Michael Bellesiles. The fact is,as determined by probate records for the years prior to the acw,that fewer than 5% of households could afford firearms.Guns were for the most part handmade.Very few people even thought that they needed a gun.
Washington's army had difficulty obtaining weapons.They were either supplied by the french or stolen from the British army.He also had difficulty finding men proficient in the use of firearms.
Probate records contain a record of all household items,including guns.They are official records kept in your local courthouse.You can look for yourself.
The relative lethality of guns,knives and baseball bats is so self evident that I don't need to further respond.How many merkin soldiers fire their weapons from a distance of 5 feet?
The facts regarding gun consumption,viagra consumption and murder rates are available from a number of sources,including your own Dept of Commerce and the fbi.
Why do you believe "most" households had guns?
Most merkins are fed a load of nonsense about their own history.One of the many myths that merkins believe is that they were highly taxed by the British government. In fact,when merkins paid tax at all(a nation of tax dodgers from the start),they paid it at a rate of one-fiftieth of their British counterparts,not unreasonable when you consider that the British tax payer was paying for the defence of the colony.Betsy Ross didn't make the first merkin flag at washington's request (the first merkin flag actually had a Union flag in the top left hand corner.).Washington and his officers toasted the "Mother Country" every evening after dinner until well after the revolution started.Paul revere never made it to Concord,he was arrested along the way.
Another of the many myths that merkins comfort themselves with is that they are a peacable people. In fact,the us has in the past century attacked or invaded more countries than anyone else by a huge margin.It's the merkin way of doing business.The prosperity of the us is not due to any intrinsic quality of its citizens,it's due to the fact that the us is a nation of armed robbers and has been ever since admiral perry ordered the japanese to open their borders to us traders at the point of his ship's guns.Nothing much has changed in the last 150 years,has it?
The military industrial complex bought the us government a long time ago and millions of innocent lives have been lost to bring profits to the wealthy few.

It doesn't get any more disgusting than that.

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stevebaby

For the information of others reading this debate,I have not posted any graphs.Wolfix is either making it up or he's very confused.Perhaps he's been playing with his gun,to the point where it has addled his "brain".

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davidmc

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

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stevebaby

Quite correct.It was King George lll who was indicted.
And the us actually declared independence on 2nd July1776,not 4th july as commonly believed.

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wolfix

I stand corrected.....It was the link that Hypnospin provided....
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_wit_fir