@dystopianfuturetoday, our man Jon is talking about you!

*length=8:14 hammers ... hahahahaha!!

The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 8:14 - length declared by PlayhousePals.

you can have my hammer when you pry it from my cold dead hands.

Holy shit, that guy that Piers was interviewing was unstable.

When you acknowledge that it's OK that we take firearms away from criminals and the mentally ill. Then you acknowledge that weapons are not a right, they are a privilege. A privilege that can be taken away with the consent of the governed.

I think a good way to sum up what most people want to do is weed out the irresponsible gun owners from the responsible. Every time someone makes an argument for sensible regulation, the strawman of a total gun ban is thrown back. Sorry, but please try and pay attention.

Maybe YOU take owning firearms seriously. Maybe YOU train diligently, maybe YOU have your weapons securely locked up. Maybe YOU take safety seriously. Maybe YOU would be beneficial to have around in a time of crisis. But a lot of people don't and aren't.

If you acknowledge that the firearms are a responsibility, then regulation is a very responsible thing to be asking for.

We don't want your guns (except maybe assault weapons), keep them, just prove you can keep them safe. I think that's what most people are asking for.

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I didn't laugh at all. Fucking sad.

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I think we deffo need to step up stopping people who are mentally disturbed from getting firearms

Also stop the gunshow loophole as well

But banning assault rifles or large capacity magazines won't do anything to stem the violence at all. People will just bring improvised weapons to their place of slaughter.

Next thing you know it'll be people upset about modifying certain glocks to be fully auto with extended clips. Then they'll start banning handguns.

video doesnt work/load for me:(

U's calkin us dum?!

But seriously, he should have countered their points about dictators confiscating guns... He is smart enough. It's a good, albeit very superficial argument from gun enthusiast.... even if it just fools the average person, because that's who you must fool...

What I find sad is that your country is so predictable. There are always only 2 sides bashing each other. Not a single wise word from people in the middle, or at least those are ignored.
On this site too. Only one side. People who comment from the other side, are bashed. Even people from the middle are are bashed because their propositions include a bit of the other side.

I guess people are afraid to be alone, if they actually try to think for themselves instead of taking predigested crap from either side.

This link should work for folks in Canada

http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheDailyShow?videoPackage=129169

I appreciate how he made the point to say SOME gun enthusiasts, as there are plenty of them that actually recognise the need for regulations for firearms. It's just unfortunate that we seem to mostly hear from the loud mouth, paranoid lunatics

I couldn't agree with this assessment more. Well said.

The quoted guy was referencing this:

2011 Homicide Circumstances.

Blunt objects (hammers and clubs) were used to kill people more often than rifles.

You know that recently in China a man walked into a school and stabbed 22 kids? Guess what, they all survived. (See this UK Guardian article for more info). You're right, taking away the guns won't stop people from being violent but it will drastically reduce their capabilities for committing mass fatalities on the scale of Sandy Hook.

About banning assault rifles--since nearly all gun deaths in the U.S. occur because of handguns, not rifles, making handguns illegal would actually make far more logical sense--not that it would ever happen in the U.S., mind you.

About the "mentally disturbed" comment: less than 4% of violent crimes in the U.S. are committed by those with a mental illness. Identifying those "mentally disturbed" as you called them that will actually commit a violent act is not nearly as easy as it sounds; you might want to read this NY Times piece on the subject. Alcohol and drug use is actually a much better predictor of violent acts than mental illness is.

Back on topic to this clip--I'm saddened that Jon Stewart has fallen into the trap of thinking of this as a "gun control" issue. It isn't. There are already millions of guns in circulation, many of which are unregistered and would be impossible to confiscate in the case of a ban. The horse is out of the barn already, and it's far too late to start talking about shutting the doors. We need instead to be addressing the issue of why people are using the guns to commit crimes in the first place: economic disparity, the war on drugs, a culture that glorifies violence and "getting back" at the other guy, a mental health system that has difficulty both identifying and treating those with violent tendencies, etc.

People want the quick fix, the easy solution--there isn't one. The sooner Stewart, Obama, the NRA, and the rest of the U.S. figures that out, the sooner we can start having a real discussion about how to make our society a better and safer place.

To clarify ... I was laughing at the delivery.

To my core, I abhor violence in any form. ALL of this hurts my heart.

I love how Jon points out that we are a nation of overreactors while at the same time he too is overreacting (along with the rest of the media). Guns are used in less than 10% of violent crime, yet that's all the media is concerned about. Jon and the media are both overreacting about so called assault rifles as well. Only 3% of crimes are committed with any type of rifle, and "assault rifles" are only a small sub-category of rifles. Why is the media only focusing on less than 10% of violent crimes (those that only involve guns), and why put so much of that focus on the least used type of gun to commit violence? Mass shootings barely make up 0.1% of all murders, yet it gets constant media coverage for weeks after it happens. If we do something to cut down on ALL violence, gun violence will also drop.

Jon also gets a lot of his "facts" wrong. The CDC has an average (1999-2010) gun homicide rate of 12,807 per year and an average accidental gun death of 758 per year, that doesn't add up to 30,000. There is no epidemic of gun violence either. Violence, including gun violence has been on a steady decline every year.

He was almost about to make a good point about gun control with the comparison to drunk driving. Drunk driving deaths were reduced through common sense laws, stricter sentences for drunk driving offenders and educating the public, not by banning alcohol or cars, or imposing ridiculous limits on cars like reducing the size of fuel tanks so drunk drivers would have to stop and refuel more often. When has banning anything ever solved a problem? We tried that with alcohol already, it didn't work. Drugs are illegal, and hows that war on drugs going? I don't use drugs, but I'm all for legalizing and regulating them. It's our generation's prohibition and it needs to end because all it's doing is causing more crime than it's preventing.

The argument that muskets were all that was available when the constitution was written is ridiculous. When the constitution was written they also didn't have radio, TV or the internet, so should we limit free speech and freedom of the press to only newspapers and soap boxes?

I'm willing to have a common sense discussion on how to reduce not just gun violence but all violence, but I'm waiting for the "anti-gun" side to show up with some common sense instead of fear and ignorance.

Guns are already highly regulated, but I'm not opposed to any new regulation as long as it will keep guns from criminals, include harsher punishment for criminal use of guns, and doesn't put any added burden on responsible gun owners. The current legislation being cooked up (what little has been revealed so far) is completely insane.

And by the way (since Jon brought up Mr. Belding), in 1997 at the Pearl, MS high school, it was the school's assistant principle with a gun that stopped the shooter. This was reported only in local papers. Only one national media network covered it, NBC, they mentioned it only twice, and then it was forgotten. Under the law the assistant principal was considered a criminal for having a gun in a gun free zone, yet if he didn't have his gun in his car that day to stop the shooter, the shooter would have been able to carry out his plan to drive to the junior high and kill more students while police were responding to the high school.

I've seen a lot of people flaunting story since it happened, but they fail to read the whole article:

There were six similar attacks in just seven months in 2010 that killed nearly 20 people and wounded more than 50.

The most recent such attack took place in August, when a knife-wielding man broke into a middle school in the southern city of Nanchang and stabbed two students before fleeing.

In one of the worst incidents, a man described as an unemployed, middle-aged doctor killed eight children with a knife in March 2010 to vent his anger over a thwarted romantic relationship.

Tight controls mean that gun crimes are rare in China and make knives and sometimes explosives the weapons used in mass attacks in China.

@jimnms

(1)

I don't accept that the US is a more violent country by nature, therefore to me approaching it by cutting down all violence as you say is not plausible.

People can wax lyrically about a gun and violence obsessed culture but as far as I'm concerned the pervasiveness of Western society means you can say that about just about any country nowadays.

Socio-economic conditions determine the rate of murder and all indicators show that despite the US having a high per capita income rate, it has a drastically above average murder rate.

The only logical conclusion I see is that the easy availability of guns empowers the ratio of violent people with a tool designed to liquefy people's insides resulting in this.

(2)

I agree that the media focus on mass shootings ignores the wider issue. It is true however that mass shootings are certainly more common in the US that in equally highly developed countries so that mere fact is still newsworthy. The significantly higher murder rate of the US to any other developed country should be the issue but nobody seems to ever talk about it from the snippets I see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

You mention China. Mass murder sprees certainly can happen in any country regardless of gun regulation. Nothing will stop the occasional delusion but resourceful individual from improvising but it stands to reason that looking at the wider trend, despite China being drastically less developed it's murder rate per capita is 20% of the US.

I'm glad you agree that banning Assault Rifles won't solve the problem!

When I hear the argument about hammers, I laugh, because who ever believes that is a dumbass. And then I realize, people actually believe it, and then I'm sad.

Yes, assault rifles are outnumbered by hammers . . . maybe. Actually, BLUNT OBJECTS outnumbers rifles, but that includes bats, bricks, printers, pianos, pipes, candle holders and the whole ensemble of clue.

Now, in reality most murder is between people who know each other. That's why serial killers are more terrifying. They're killing people they don't know, seemingly at random. Which puts the paranoia in the population and people start freaking. Random killings just seem more terrifying. For some reason people just don't expect their mom to kill them. Who knows why, must be some weird fluke or Buddha or something.

The idea that I can go watch a movie with my daughter and some guy with an overloaded assault rifle, body armour etc can come in and just shoot everyone is way more terrifying a prospect than my mother-in-law finally snapping and picking up a knife and stabbing me. First off, I could totally kick her ass. Second, the former I can't do anything about. Despite the "it takes a good man with a gun" bullshit, reality shows otherwise. 9mm versus bulletproof vest, smoke grenade, IED's and assault rifles just doesn't cut it. But I don't play CoD . . .

In regards to the constitution, yeah, when it was written the military and the people had the same access to weaponry. Matter of fact, we didn't even have a standing army. It really was up to the states to get a regulated militia to keep the country safe from invaders. So comparing that to printed newspapers and tv and internet is, well, simple. It's a similar argument most paranoid gun owners use for everything. Let's just take a superficial look and ignore reality. Kind of like real dictators and tyrants taking away 22mm hand guns while pointing their tanks at your house.

I think that's the greatest irony . . . those who wish to own guns to protect themselves from tyrants are blindly following their leaders and scream for murder and revolt, or 1766 will rise again! yadda yadda, are becoming the same puppets they claim they are protecting themselves from. No one saw Hitler coming? Well, he sounded a lot like Beck honestly. So did Stalin, etc. The people who followed them thought they made absolute sense, and then this and that happened and now we all know them as mass murdering fiends.

So again, are we really talking gun control so we have the right to become the fourth reich, or are we really wanting a worthwhile discussion on saving lives?

@shatterdrose... Wow. Your comment about Beck and the 1776 folks has shifted my whole thinking on this issue. The parallels are remarkable.

Luckily, those most violent speaking folks are the minority. I take comfort from that.

And I shall listen more closely.

Thanks for your insight.

And don't forget about gum control. -your dentist

I would argue that Stewart, Obama, and the NRA do in fact know that there is no easy solution. They would have come up with it by now. If more guns really did solve gun violence, we would have all had them a long time ago and there wouldn't be *any* talk of increased gun control.

Reality is quite a bit different.

Here's the thing though. One of those guys is beholden to ratings, One of them is beholden to voters, One of them is beholden to gun profits.

So take your pick as to who we should be listening to. Or more specifically, NOT listen to.

Hint: It's the NRA that we shouldn't be listening to. They're the least likely to be objective. When your bread and butter is the proliferation of firearms, you're *never* going to consider any restraint to that profit motive.

really disappointed in stewart. I think we should take care of people. Upper class is doing better, middle class is getting smaller, poor is being taxed more. Most people do not under stand what a semi-automatic gun qualify as.

Hey America! If you really want to "save" lives how about getting the fat asses off the couch. 20 kids dead... it is terrible, but how about texting drivers, super-size meals, buckets of movie size sodas?

I can't wait for the next bandwagon to jump on.

this video doesnt play for me:(

Same here.

@RedSky

I didn't say the US is more violent by nature, and I don't think it is (the US has lower violence than the UK and Australia which have essentially banned gun ownership). With 70 million people in this country owning guns (NRA 2010) and 45% of households having a gun in them (Gallup 2011), if we were so violent, you'd hear about neighbors shooting it out all the time over trivial shit.

I read an article the other day, which I can't find right now, that showed the difference between gun ownership in large cities and urban areas vs. rural areas and small towns. The rate of gun ownership in rural areas and small towns was over 2x as in cities, but violence and murders are higher in larger cities. Does this mean more guns equals less violence? Whether it does or doesn't, I think it shows that more people crammed into a smaller space equals more violence.

Why should we punish millions of responsible gun owners because of the actions of a few (and some who weren't legally able to own guns). Around 35,000 people are killed in car accidents every year. Most car owners and drivers are responsible and safe, but there isn't a public outcry to impose crazy restrictions on them (although we could reduce the number of deaths caused by cars if we did). The reason is because a lot of people have an irrational fear of guns even though you're more likely to be killed or injured by a car than guns.

I blame a this on the media. Some people are also irrationally afraid of flying, even though it's one of the safest ways to travel. If on the same day for some freaky reason 500 people died in unrelated, isolated car accidents across the country and a plane carrying 200 passengers crashes killing everyone on board, which do you think will get the most news coverage?

I just read an article by Sam Harris last night titled FAQ on Violence, which is a followup answering some questions and criticism of a previous article titled The Riddle of the Gun. Just go read the article. He answers a lot of questions about violence, gun violence, using guns for self defense, etc. I don't agree with some of what he says, but it does echo some of what I've been saying in discussions on this subject.

I'm gonna assume you live in Europe because if so this slam will be meaningful. It is PAINFULLY stupid and sad how much European Intellectuals tow the line for the US Intellectual elite. It's like they're somehow retarded. So you gotta wonder, we have people that control our message because they rule us...they control your message too on a myriad of issues, and you don't even vote for them.

Again this only works if you're from Europe soo PLEASE be from Europe alright!

The comparison you make is stupid. Cars aren't guns, cars have a purpose...a AR15 has no purpose other than killing a lot of people very efficiently.

The 2nd Amendment is stupid and should be looked at again...mostly by people who keep referring to it without mentioning the "A well formed militia" part.

@jimnms

I'll address by paragraphs:

(1)

The reason I suggested that you are implying that the US is more violent by nature is because statistically it is far more murderous than a country of its socio-economic development should be. Have a look at Nationmaster tables of GDP/capita and compare than to murders/capita in terms of where the US sits.

If we take the view that you are suggesting that we should simply reduce violence globally then that is a laudable goal but it would suggest that the US is abysmally failing at this currently. I happen to believe this reason is gun availability. I see no reason to believe this abysmal failure comes from gross police incompetence or any other plausible factor, rather the gun ownership and availability that sticks out like a sore thumb when you compared to other countries such as those in the G8.

(2)

I think that we would be both agree that there are more gun enthusiasts in rural areas. Many of those would also own collections of guns for recreation rather than merely what self protection would require. The article below cites a study from 2007 by Harvard that says 20% own 65% of the nation's guns.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/19/tragedy-stresses-multiple-gun-ownership-trend-in-us/1781285/

There is no reason to suspect that these people are any more violent than your non gun-owning folk. The issue is not so much ownership levels, but the availability that feeds a would-be criminal's capacity to carry out a crime.

While actual ownership levels might be lower, guns can no doubt be purchased for cheaper and within a closer proximity in densely populated cities. This availability feeds the likelihood of them being employed as a tool to facilitate a crime.

This is also incidentally a key misunderstanding of the whole gun debate. No one is (or should be at least) implying that recreational gun owners are the problem. It is the necessity for guns to be freely available to gun enthusiasts among others for them to enjoy this hobby that causes the problems.

(3)

Building on my above point above, gun control shouldn't be seen as a punishment. There is no vidictiveness to it, merely a matter of weighing up the results of two courses of action. On the one hand there is diminished enjoyment of legal and responsible gun owners. On the other hand there is the high murder rate I discussed earlier, which really can't be explained away any other way than gun availability.

Let's do a back of the envelope calculation. Australia and the US are culturally relatively similar Anglo-Saxon societies. Let's assume for the sake of argument that my suggestion is true. Referencing wiki here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

The homicide rate in Australia is 1.0/10K/year and 4.8/10K/year. Let's say that gun availability explains 2/3rds of the difference. So we're talking about a 2.5/10K/year increase. Taking this against the US's 310M population this represents 7,500 more deaths.

Now to me, the issue is clear cut. The lives lost outweight gun enthusiast enjoyment.

And it's not just to me. There is a very clear reason that the vast majority of developed countries have made gun ownership incredibly difficult. I can guarantee, at some point they have done this back of the envelope calculation for their own country.

(4)

You raise the comparison to cars. See my workings above. With cars, they obviously provide a fundamentally invaluable benefit to society. The choice every society has made is to instead heavily regulate them. The reason there is no outcry to impose heavy restrictions on them is because there already are.

- Being required to pass license tests.
- Strict driving rules to follow.
- Speeding cameras everywhere.
- Random police checks for alcohol.

Can you think of any further regulations plausibly worth trying with cars that could reduce the accident death rate? I struggle to think of anything else effective that hasn't already been implemented.

With guns there are dozens of options not yet tried.

- Rigorous background checks.
- No gun show exemption.
- Assault weapon restrictions.
- Restrictions of ammo such as cost tariffs.

The list goes on. Imagine if we lacked the regulations we do on cars and there was a NCA (National Car Association) that was equating requiring to pass a driving test to tyranny.

(5)

I don't think there's much irrationality here. The US is clearly more murderous than other G8/OECD countries. To me, Occam's Razor explains why.

As for the comment on focussing on tragedies than the large issue, see my previous comment. You're missing the point that it's not just the gun sprees that are the problem, it's the steadily high murder rate. Mass shooting are just blips in this.

(6)

I will have a read through this.

Yes, I am European, and you dont seem to have a clue about Europe.
Europe is nowhere near as extreme as the USA has become.
As I said, theres always only 2 sides in the US, and thats not even only in the media, its everywhere. How much did the 3rd strongest party get on your last vote? Not even 1%? That would be impossible in most European countries, even, or especially, Republics.
As I already said, forums are a pretty good gauge of that. Theres always only 2 opinions from 2 extreme sides. Other opinions are extremely rare and if they are mentioned, get flamed to the ground, so that an open discussion is impossible. Exactly that what you are doing to me right now.
Congratulations and thanks for proving my point.

Oh and yeah, I agree somewhat, that a lot of European politicians (incl. the elite) are retarded, but they dont tow the line, they lick American heel. As does most of the rest of the world, since the USA is a super power that has been messing and still messes around in most countries affairs in unbelievable ways. Thankfully around 80% of the European people have realized that. That was also the percentage that was AGAINST the Iraq war in Europe. What was the percentage in the US? Yeah...

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Couldn't agree more

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, January 9th, 2013 10:42pm PST - promote requested by JiggaJonson.

@Yogi Way to miss the point. I wasn't comparing cars and guns, I was comparing laws regulating cars and guns. That's all I'm going to say to you. You've already told me in another discussion that you're going to refuse any evidence that doesn't agree with your narrow minded beliefs, so having a discussion with you is pointless.

@RedSky

1) I'm not implying that the US is more violent. I already pointed out that the US has lower violent crime rates than the US and UK despite the higher murder rate.


2) I'd say people in rural areas are most likely own guns for hunting and also self defense as there are no police patrols out in the country.

I also wouldn't blame the availability of guns to criminals on gun enthusiasts. Criminals generally don't legally buy their guns. One way to cut down on illegall gun sales is to charge the sellers as accomplices to the crimes committed with the weapons they sell illegally.


3) Maybe punishment was not the right word I should have chosen. My point is that to cut down on driving fatalities, the laws enacted didn't put any inconveniences on responsible drivers.

Your back of the envelope calculation isn't quite so clear cut. Sam Harris discusses this in his article.

It is also worth noting that relatively gun-free countries are not as peaceful as many think. Here are some recent crime data comparing the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and Sweden. Although the U.S. has a higher rate of homicide, the problem of assaults in these other countries is much worse...

So, while the U.S. has many more murders, the U.K., Australia, and Sweden have much higher levels of assault. One might think that having a few more murders per 100,000 persons each year is still much worse than having many hundreds more assaults. Perhaps it is. (One could also argue, as several readers have, that differences in proportion are all we should care about.) But there should be no doubt that the term “assault” often conceals some extraordinary instances of physical and psychological suffering.