No less than lethal .... murder?

Or: when police officers blatantly violate directions and people die.

Suppose that a man is threatening to jump into his death, standing on a ledge three floors up, what is the right thing to do? Call in a negotiator, set up an inflatable cushion?
Well, according to one NYC "only one", deploying a stun gun is the way to go!

Let's see

1. Officers had radioed for an inflatable bag as the incident unfolded, but it had not yet arrived
2. the guidelines issued with the expansion in June specifically state that when possible, the stun guns "should not be used ... in situations where the subject may fall from an elevated surface
3. So far this year, stun guns have been used 180 times. No other deaths have been reported.

No not murder, negligent manslaughter ... if anything.

A pound of cyanide ... freely for sale?

So a poor man is found dead in an expensive hotel, dead from cyanide poisoning (technically cardiac arrest or respiratory failure I think, but lets not split hairs), a pound of cyanide was recovered at the scene, that's enough to kill eighty people and then some.

First terrorism was suspected, but now police have decided it was suicide.

A couple of toughts:
People continue to demonize guns as suicide tools, but the substance he supposedly used is readely available to all:

• Denver police spokesman John White assured that the kind of cyanide Dirie had could be purchased anywhere, since it's the primary ingredient in rat poison.

Which also begs the question: doesn't this mean that an ideal weapon for mass murder is simply out there? Where are the million people marches? The "terror gap" websites and the like?

Man gunned down by killer robot.

Ya rly!

I kid you not, though don't get your hopes up on the sci-fi plain.

Austrian man shot on driveway by killer robot.

So I was reading some VPC ...

I was reading their "cease fire" strategy guide to reduce firearms violence.
I've got to admit that both sides of this debate have members in their ranks who hardly qualify as the brightest stars in the sky, but some of the things I read ...
Still, there was some quite inspirational material in there, especially concerning the amount of firearm homicides that were of "felonious nature".

"The first is that crime killings are in fact one of the smallest categories of firearms death. Of the 30,565 (10,895 homicides, 18,169 suicides, 1,501 unintentional injuries) firearms deaths reported in 1988, only seven percent (2,179) stemmed from actual or suspected felony activity.(...) Yet to categorize gun violence solely as a crime issue dismisses more than 90 percent of all gun deaths."

This is most interesting material, I'd say.
So, truly felonious crimes like those school shootings, drive-by's and assassinations only amount to 7% of all shootings?
That's why you're bent on banning standard capacity magazines from civilian ownership? And how exactly is that limit going to do anything about those suicides which account for nearly 60% off all victims? Oh you're going to ban cheap handguns are you? Wonder how Kurt Cobain feels about that ...

They started by blaming woman-oriented marketing by the gun industry on the increase of gun suicides by females, after they stopped poisoning themselves. The VPC casually omitted that this was all after barbiturates had been banned under Nixons war on drugs, so yeah, there's your reason for the increase.
But hey, if it'll help you keep all of those weapons out the hands of a whopping 7% of all triggermen, who cares about the truth right?

So, no guns no suicide?

Tell that to the parents of the second grader who hung himself.
" VINELAND -- A 7-year-old boy who died at home Wednesday hanged himself, the prosecutor's office said."

Another triple murderer that won't face trial.

There one ever-recurring argument against gun legislation which I'd like to illustrate today:

"Gun laws affect only the law abiding"

There's the "duh" explanation to this, because anybody who'd break these laws would be a criminal. But what about after a crime has been committed? If somebody were to do a drive-by-shooting, he could face some serious charges right? Breaking several federal laws concerning guns, homicide, reckless endangerment
will put you in that position.

No, these people break those laws, because they are not planning on getting caught. They have no intention to stand trial and face punishment for their actions.

Take for example the most recent school shooting in Ohio; at the age of 14 he could not legally buy any type of firearm that accepts primed cartridges. I'm using this wording because I don't know whether he used a rimfire or centerfire weapons, I'm quite convinced he wasn't using blackpowder pistols.

So, he was in violation of several federal laws, but he will -for obvious reasons- not stand trial.
Another person who killed several people killed himself yesterday after an hours long standoff with law enforcement. (Texas Standoff Ends When Suspect Drives Into Lake)

If you're a religious person, you can choose to believe that these people may still face penalty in the afterlife, but there are still plenty of murderers at large who are alive and well
. There are many who are out on parole, probation, or who have made themselves comfortable within the prison system.

This is one of the reasons why I think we should improve our penal system. Prisons are overcrowded with people who do not belong there, and people who are not rehabilitated are cut loose to make place for others. We should keep looking for better investigative tools, it's a true pity that ballistic fingerprinting and microstamping show little promise, but our prison system is ready for a reform.

And our gun legislation? Should we keep legislation which has not been observed to work?

"This man obviously was very determined to end his life."

Here's a fitting illustration of the notion "If you want to end your life, you WILL find a way."

"ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- The body of a 41-year-old man was found in a wooded area next to a guillotine he built and used to kill himself, police said.
"I can't even tell you how long it must have taken him to construct," he said. "This man obviously was very determined to end his life."
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/14099445/detail.html

Are guns beneficial to society?

My beloved* opposite end of the spectrum has recently released claims that civilian gun ownership is not beneficial to non-gun owners. He lays the blame for gunshot victims by the presence of guns, and states that the defensive use, which he describes as protecting our TV and stereo systems, doesn't outweigh the damage caused when people abuse guns.
(1)(2)

In this article, I intend to thoroughly review the entire notion, and prove him wrong whenever he is indeed mistaking

Let's take a look at the blame part, gun control proponents often like to blame guns for violence and suicide. Now, I'll be the last one to deny that defensive weapons are in fact quite facilitating to murder, but can we blame them?
Or -statistically speaking- is there a correlation between firearms ownership and homicide rates? Not according to these figures The USA is the most armed country (% of armed households), but does not have the highest homicide rating, another well-armed country, Norway (82% the guns of the US) is even dangling on the bottom of the homicide rate chart.
Even though we can clearly see that guns are used for murder at a higher rate when a nations gun ownership level increases, guns do not necessarily affect the total homicide rate .
You've all heard some "gun nut" tell you that you can't blame an inanimate object for violence, turn out he may have been right!
The figures found here support that idea, but in a grimmer aspect. They clearly show that the US was not a peaceful nation the year when the numbers were collected, but there is still no correlation between firearm ownership and homicide to be found.

We definitely have a violence problem, a murder problem, but we can't point at guns and yell "culprit!", it's just not true.

Well ... doesn't this end the entire argument? Not entirely, the exact same story can be told about suicide, guncite's got a page on that too, once again there is no direct correlation between the presence of firearms and the suicide rate. You can read up on it on the sixth page of that last document. Once again, we may have a suicide problem, but guns are not too blame.

So, what good are guns to us?
Let's not talk about target guns and hunting weapons, their benefit to the owner is obvious, they're benefit to the rest of society is nil, and they're hardly ever used for criminal purposes (guns used in crime). No, we're talking about handguns and defensive weapons (often dubbed by the misnomer assault rifles)
Starting with handguns: People buy defensive handguns (not Olympic target guns) for self defense. This is the same reason that police officers are issued handguns. They can be carried concealed with relative ease (as to not offend hoplophobes) and do not impede your mobility when used indoors.

Even when a small portion of a population carries concealed weapons, criminals become deadly aware that violent crime becomes a risky occupation. A clear increase of confrontational violent crime has been observed in countries where gun ownership has been reduced. (The failed experiment).
How's that for the benefit of society as a whole? YOU are safer because an NRA member miles away has gone through safety classes, submitted fingerprints and the works, and has spent his hard earned money to purchase a tool for -what appears to be- safeguarding society as a whole.

Now, I know that the statistics published by gun rights organization are grotesquely inflated, but firearms ARE used for self defense, safeguarding life and limb, and often enough, property as well.
I do not agree with shooting somebody who tries to make off with your TV, I do however condone blocking his path and demanding he puts your property down. Should the criminal decide to aggravate the level of threat to lethal, than do whatever you must to stop him.
If you've got a camera nearby, use that instead! Photograph faces, shoes, cars, license plates ... both a camera and a handgun can be operated with one hand, nobody needs to be shot over your TV.

Oh well, what about assault weapons?
Well, depending on whose definition of assault weapon, they are either used rarely for criminal
purposes, or not at all. (Guns used in crime)
What's their possible use? Ask you local police officer. In large cities, it's not uncommon for police cars to have one of those scary black fully automatic machine guns inside, sitting there should a police officer decide he could use it to defend lives. Because of their cheap ammunition, they are cheap and fun to shoot recreationaly, and are marginally effective for hunting and varminting.

In all seriousness, guns cannot be held responsible for the bad side, and they definitely have a good side.
Besides, why would you ban them, not only can it not be done (wrote a piece on that in August, "can we get rid of guns"), but it doesn't help. Read "the failed experiment", take a look at "current events in the UK" on this very blog.
Banning guns does not take guns away from criminals, does not take the murderer out of people and will not give the depressed a new appreciation for life; those are things we'll have to do as society as a whole.

Say, why not go on a camping trip with some hunters? They won't make you kill an animal or point a gun at you. Why not invite your local NRA chapter to the funeral of a "gun victim", they'll be first in line to denounce gun abuse.

Why not be a little more kind to your fellow man?

*Zealots from both sides make me look good :p
Guns used in crime http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/guic.pdf
Gun ownership stats http://www.unicri.it/wwk/publications/books/series/understanding/19_GUN_OWNERSHIP.pdf
The failed experiment http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/FailedExperimentRev.pdf