Fearful residents lock, load

Link

<snip>

"It strikes pure panic for a good reason," Stanislaus County Sheriff Les Weidman said. "Theft or a burglary -- that (makes you mad). But it doesn't affect you like when someone comes into your home and someone in your family is sexually assaulted. Or, you're dipped into a hot tub until you give up information (where valuables are kept). It's a violation of your family and your home. It's a living hell."

And it's what finally will drive some people to buy guns -- even people who were once anti-gun.

<snip>

See?....Even anti-gunners can learn the importance of self-defense.

Call the cops.

It's what you pay them for.

Everybody trying to be their own fortress...utter nonsense.

The cops are under no obligation to protect individuals.

B

and that's EXACTLY what you pay cops for.

comment on the responsibilites of cops in the USA.

Unless cops protect citizens...there is no reason to have them

Fire them.

Start again.

are only required to protect the common good.

protect the 'common good'

They're called 'citizens'

Uh, maybe in Canada, you have a cop to protect every single person, but down here our cops serve the public, common good.

B

and we have fewer cops than you do.

And the 'public common good' involves citizens...without them...there IS no 'public common good'

seeing as how your citizens all have complied with the gun registry.

B

Yours is the highest in the western world

Even WITH all your weaponry

Oh, yeah...

Guns are "manhood enhancers" so just make all men eunuchs...that should solve the problem.

Or, require eveybody to register their guns, should cost taxpayers only $2 million, Canadian.

Right.....


Edit: mis-spelled Canadian.....sorry

And I am female, and own and use guns. Always have.

Is your car registered?

Is your house registered?

And the problem you have registering a gun would be......?

there's one of me and seven guns. Got a problem with that?

in OUR constitution, it does not say "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, as long as they register their guns."

Now, anything else, or are you through?-

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call the cops, call the fire department, and call for a pizza...see which one gets there first.

Cops can take hours to arrive at your home...even if it only takes 15 minutes, you can be raped, severly beaten or worse, waiting for the cops to show up.

That's why I like having the option to defend myself should the situation arise.

then uses it on you. Or your husband has a few too many and decides to win the argument with his family security device. Or your eight year-old is showing off Daddy's manhood enhancer to the five year-old and it goes off by accident.

"manhood enhancer"

Very nice way to throw the "penis argument" in...

"He drives an SUV....must be making up for a small dick"

"He watches football...must be making up for a small dick"

"He drinks Folgers...must be making up for a small dick"

Try again.

B

Unless you're duck hunting...that's what a gun is for

A manhood enhancer

never undersatnd the rich heritage of firearms in the USA. You were raised to be a subject.

is a subject.

You need an education

And most Canadians are armed.

a quick wit?

B

I was talking about you.

We just don't go nutz with it.

"Raised to be a subject"....Where do you get that stuff from?

I'm British, and I was raised to be a decent, well-rounded person. It's not like we have Royalty Subservience Indoctrination Classes. Most Brits couldn't give a toss about the Royals and generally speaking people don't find that their liberties or rights are infringed in any measureable way by being a subject of a monarch rather than a citizen.

That aside, I'm not entirely sure why being a subject has anything to do with the gun debate.

Regarding the "rich heritage", I don't know why the US has more of a rich firearms heritage than many other countries, or indeed why a heritage of firearms use has any real impact on the practicalities of lawmaking in the modern age. One could easily re-characterise the "rich heritage" as "an alarming casualisation", where an historically necessary lethal weapon has taken an incongruous place in everyday life.

If I were to be facetious, I could suggest that the UK has a "rich heritage" of empire building, or South Africa has a "rich heritage" of racism, but to be honest I'm pretty sure I couldn't back those arguments up and it's too inflammatory anyway...

:-)

P.

Well, I will agree in part. Anyone who breaks into my home better duck, because I WILL be hunting them.

"A man's(or woman's)home is his castle".

Stop shooting each other on the basis of some mythology

I can call a cop. One might even come eventually. In the meantime, my place is robbed and I might be killed. YOU call a cop. Me, I'll look after myself. Anyone who dares break into my home had best do the same.

Get better cops.

What do you propose? Putting my valuables on the front porch to avoid breaking and entering? No thanks. We have a society that believes in individual rights.

I am in the same boat as you. I could call, but there are 4 patroling a 800 sq mile county. I wouldn't accept this situation without the means to defend myself.

How's that gun registration thingie going up there?

B

Most Canadians are armed as they have always been.

How's all that murder of your fellow citizens going?

a couple billion dollar overrun, and you still haven't solved the problems....

Nice.

B

Get your news from Canada....not the freepers.

It's a gun registry...we've had one since 1928 for handguns.

Works fine...how's your murder rate hmmmm?

Ok...this is old, but will do...

failed Canadian gun registry

"In December 2002, a preliminary audit by the Auditor General of Canada revealed that the Department of Justice was estimating the gun registry program would cost more than $1 billion by 2004-05, and collect about $140 million in fees. The Auditor General noted that this estimate did not include all financial impacts on the government. "

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nice personal attack.

Wow, when your argument is complete and utter shit, call your opponent a Freeper. Works every time.

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Grab the guns paranoia is expressly the message Moore depicts. It's so evident here... We must bomb Iraq to be safe. Real things to fear and how to run your life are trumped by the consuming fear (as crime rate drops, except sexual assualt) all aid BushCo. When you are so reactionarily sacred manipulation is much easier.

scholar on the issue of firearms and NEVER uses hyperbole and emotion to "make" his point...

Chuckle...

he's just not a lunatic like some on here.

and your point is?

but Moore isn't anti-gun either.

He just doesn't believe it's any 'American right' to go blasting away at everybody because they're American.

He's right.

There is no "American right to go blasting away at everybody because they're American."

Nice hyperbole...

No one said it out loud to you before?

NOW you've figured out it's dumb??

YOU were the one quoting the constitution.

the NRA, along with the VPC, has become the PETA of the gun issue.

:hi:

with such nonsense and fear-mongering?

But what else do you expect from a Canadian? :silly:

which means you use guns responsibly...not to play some 21st century version of 'cowboys and Indians'

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I just think some people are having a hard time accepting the truth.

Funny how an article about California turns into a discussion of USA vs. Canada.

California or the USA vs Canada

It was a 'call to arms' because this is 'normal' for 'all' Americans....and a 'mans gotta do what a mans gotta do' crap.

You can have your guns.

If you think that will solve whatever is bugging you. I am not anti-gun. Hell I am easily able to say that I have fired weapons at least 10s of thousands of times. You sound like a person defending their right to smoke, or eat twinkies or something. Overreaction is a serious problem on this subject on both sides. But "My cold dead hands" fits whether NRA member or not from my experience with gun advocates.

Why do I fear non-criminals with guns as much as gun-toting punks. Both can kill. Oh and please don't shoot me I will be the unarmed bystander.

Gun control promotes a sissified victimology and empowers government to oppress the most vulnerable in our society. Do YOU trust John Ashcroft, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney with a government database of names, addresses and the models of every gun you own? What about the gay man who lives in the rural Red states and can't count on the local redneck police to protect him from gay bashers who decide to have a little "fun" on Friday night by bashing gays (check out www.pinkpistols.org)?

that's the time it takes for response time in big city neighborhoods for an emergency - things such as home invasions or burglars in action.

Even for those who can afford to live in expensive private communities, response time is five minutes - and that can still be a very long time.

What does someone without a firearm do when the bad guy is at the front door...and the wood starts to splinter as he uses his crowbar on the door...and your frantic calls to the police yield nothing but assurances that they'll be there...as soon as they can? But, you see, they're on another call...

I don't know what someone without a firearm would do. I know what I did. And the bad guy went away and hasn't bothered me anymore.

I'll keep my firearms, thank you very much.

Yes I trust my govt with the info, and yes I trust the cops with it.

They are public servants, and they'd damn well better do a good job or they're outta there. PDQ

As to 'bad guys'....something doesn't strike you as odd that you appear to have more 'bad guys' than anyone else in the western world....or at least think you do??

This is no way for civilized people to live folks.

"Western World"

And

"Civilized People"

Canada, USA, Europe, Japan...standard definition of first or western world.

Civilized people...well not folks who have to take a gun to the grocery store 'for protection' that's for sure!

Canada, Europe, Japan, USA, one of these things does not belong. Unless of course you are simply speaking of total wealth.

Lets see, Three are fairly homogenous societies, one is not.

Three have a fairly equitable distribution of wealth among the populace in general, one concentrates it most of its wealth in a tiny minority.

One has severe disparities among its populous in regards to race, wealth, and the distribution of that wealth. Wonder which one that is?

I guess what I am really trying to say is that the USA is more comparable to some of the 'bad' countries in the 'second and third world' than the predominately white Eurocentric 'first world' that most people describe as the 'western world'. There are more socio-economic parallels between the US and Mexico, than the US and Canada.

"Canada, Europe, Japan, USA, one of these things does not belong.
...
Lets see, Three are fairly homogenous societies, one is not."

Please define what you mean by "homogeneous" (what I assume you meant to say).

And "society".

Hmm. Europe is not "a society", I'm afraid. Europe is many societies. No one with an iota of knowledge and understanding of history, geography, etc. would refer to "Europe" as "a society". The last thing that Europe is, is homogeneous. Nor, of course, are many of the multiple societies that make up Europe in any meaningful way "homogeneous" themselves.

I'll assume that you think that the US is the one that is not a homogeneous society.

We've disposed of "Europe".

Now, one might fairly accurately call Japan a "homogeneous" society. One more down.

And Canada? Do you seriously believe that Canada, the society closest to your own in so many senses of the word, the one you might actually be expected to know something about, is "homogeneous"?

One does get tired of giving this lesson, but it just seems to be so necessary.

The 2001 census showed that 16% of Canada's population was born outside Canada. Homogeneous? "More" homogeneous? The figure was a little under 10% in the US, last time I looked.

http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/demo28a.htm

Of Canada's ~30 million population (over 11 million of whom self-identified as being of "Canadian" ethnic origin, leaving under 18 million responses to be divided among the other possibilities), over 1 million are of North American Indian origin; over 1 million are of Chinese ethnic origin - 5.5% of those who stated a specific origin; over 1 million are of Ukrainian ethnic origin; nearly 3/4 of a million are of Indian origin; and so on.

http://www.statcan.ca:80/english/Pgdb/demo43k.htm

In Toronto, over 10% of those who stated an origin other than "Canadian" are of Chinese origin; 9% East Indian; 1% or a little more as each of Guyanese, Iranian, West Indian, Pakistani, Korean, Vietnamese. Fewer than half of those who stated an origin other than "Canadian" said that their origin was English, Irish or Scottish. ... pretty damned "homogeneous", eh?

Any idea what the comparative figures are for the US? Less "homogeneous", do you think? I don't.

Ever noticed that Canada was, at its very origin, very precisely *not* homogeneous -- that it was a state formed of two peoples, with distinct languages, religions, legal systems and cultural practices? The fact that one didn't set about subjugating/assimilating the other, as a matter of public policy, was the bonus, of course.

http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/rel/canada.cfm

Then there are the 16% of Canadians who report "no religion", the 2% who are Muslim, the 1% who are Hindu and 1% who are Buddhist, and so on. Do something fewer than 72% of the US population identify themselves as Christian -- which would make the US less "homogeneous" in this sense?

In France, nearly 5% of the population is foreign-born, from what I can see on a quick search; in Germany, the figure seems to be slightly higher. Differences in status-granting procedures make comparisons difficult. In the UK 2001 census, 87.5% (7/8) of people in England and Wales self-identified as "white British"; 2% as Indian, over 2% as belonging to one of the Black groups -- some areas were over 10% Black Caribbean, others over 10% Black African -- and so on; overall, 9% of respondents were of "minority ethnic groups". Source countries for immigration to European nations are no longer mainly other European nations; and most have become "countries of immigration" rather than "countries of emigration" as they were in the past -- they are destinations for immigrants, not places which emigrants leave to go somewhere else. These phenomena are now of sufficiently long standing that they have to be factored into any social/ethnic comparison with the US.


"Three have a fairly equitable distribution of wealth among the populace in general, one concentrates it most of its wealth in a tiny minority."

While there are very certainly greater wealth disparities in the US than in Canada, Japan and most European countries, this is really just a tiny bit of an overstatement of the case (if I may be permitted an understatement of my own in return). The distribution of wealth is not, properly speaking, at all "equitable" in the case of those three.

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/ragsandrichessummary.html
http://www.lcurve.org/

In the US, "The top one percent are now estimated to own between forty and fifty percent of the nation's wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%", while in Canada, "The wealthiest ten percent of family units held 53 percent of the wealth in 1999. The wealthiest 50 percent of family units controlled an almost unbelievable 94.4 percent of the wealth, leaving only 5.6 percent for the bottom 50 percent". The disparity is indeed greater -- a direct comparison isn't possible from these figures alone, but the top >1% in the US may control what the top <10% controls in Canada, i.e. something under half of all wealth -- but greater *total wealth* in the US certainly makes up for some of the disparity, in terms of the absolute wealth available to the lower-wealth population segments.

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fbhome.html
(Gini indexes for each country)
http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/Psychology/dalywilson/iiahr2001.pdf

The difference when we look instead at income disparity (which is more meaningful here than wealth disparity), is significant, but not as significant as the difference between the US and, say, Russia or South Africa.



"One has severe disparities among its populous in regards to race, wealth, and the distribution of that wealth. Wonder which one that is?"

I dunno, you've lost me. First, by grossly overstating your case in the case of wealth distribution (and not really saying anything at all about "disparaties in regards to wealth" as distinct from "disparities in regards to distribution of wealth" -- are you saying what might in some cases be true, there is more absolute poverty in the US?). And second, by completely misstating the facts in the case of "race", especially when we consider that "race" must be accompanied by, in particular, religion, ethnicity and place of birth when considering the real extent of the kind of diversity that needs to be considered in making such comparisons.


So, all in all ...

"I guess what I am really trying to say is that the USA is more comparable to some of the 'bad' countries in the 'second and third world' than the predominately white Eurocentric 'first world' that most people describe as the 'western world'. There are more socio-economic parallels between the US and Mexico, than the US and Canada."

... you have a glimmering of a point, I'd say. The one about income disparity, if you care to make that point.

Your characterization of the rest of us out here as "Eurocentric" is really just simply bizarre, in this day and age and for quite some time now.

In point of fact, the main way in which "There are more socio-economic parallels between the US and Mexico, than the US and Canada" is quite simply that the US shares a culture of violence with countries in which there are severe socioeconomic disparities, regardless of the presence of marked social/ethnic diversity, that is not shared by countries with marked social/ethnic diversity but without those severe socioeconomic disparities.

Diversity is apparently *not* consistently strongly correlated with violence; disparity, on the other hand, is. As to what conclusion anyone might draw from the facts on disparity and violence, for instance ... what is causal, what is consequential, and to what degree ... well, to each his/her own, I suppose.

.

First / Developed World, maybe, but definitely not West...in fact I'd go as far to say it was in the Far EAST.

And while we're at it, why not mention Australia and New Zealand as being members of the developed/first world?

"Fearful residents lock, load"

Making decisions under emotional duress is not necessarily a good idea.

Sounds like lots of people use their "fear" to justify their posession of lethal weapons.

Me I "fear" spiders. I've not bothered taping all my windows shut so they can't get in. That would be mental.

you don't need to tape your windows shut Spen, they're already locked and barred so you can't get out!

Anyhoo, you're right...IMHO it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Getting a gun for self-defense is almost like letting criminals win. They've made you change your behaviour and place a lethal object in your home, which acts as a constant reminder of your fear of attack.

Does everybody in the US genuinely live in constant fear of attack? If so, why do so many choose not to have weapons? I don't know, it just seems to me that if things were bad enough to require the arming of citizens for self-defense then everyone would do it.

is a bunch of crap brought to us by the media. In my 52 years of being around guns I have never known anybody that bought a gun out of fear. I know it happens but not to the degree the meadia says. All my guns have been chosen as a specific tool, Colt Commander for concealed carry, Colt Govt model for my job, two custom Colt Govt Models for competition. I have a Rem 30-06 for deer and a Marlin lever action in 45-70 for boar. The majority of gun owners buy guns for hunting and range work or just plain collecting and if they end up using one for self defense that is a side benefit of having them.

I appreciate it! All too rare on this board!

P