Or someone kidnaps your daughter and thanks to your preparedness and special set of skills you realize you're actually Liam Neeson.
This whole guns-for-safety-schtick has been debated online a thousand times. You know what protects you from crime? Tackling the very real social issues like poverty and racism that cause crime.
You have so many guns and yet your crime rate is so shitty. Mass shootings are routine in america. Where are all the good guys with guns to stop the bad guys when you need them?
It's not working. It simply isn't, crunch numbers all you want. Just look at Canada. They have guns. Yet, they seem to live so much safer lives. Is Mexico such a dangerous place because they don't have enough guns? They got the good Heckler&Koch rifles, you know.
You want to fight fights that I say should be avoided in the first place. Fix your social issues and less people will have reasons to try breaking into your home.
Same with the terrorist. Don't just bomb them, disable their ideological rethoric, disable their methods of recruiting.
We have islamic terrorists here in germany. They either try to build bombs (requires actual know-how) or they attack with axes and knives. Something must be working in our favor here. Same can't be said for the citizens of Paris or nightclub visitors in Orlando. They got shot.
The american paranoia is a reaction to an action that can be made far more unlikely to happen. Once you are ready to tackle the issues.
You can bring a fire extinguisher every time you go to the gas station in case a fire breaks out or you can just stop smoking around the gas station.

Nonsense! If gun ownership is low, then obviously gun crime will be low too, right? Oh wait, D.C. has some of the lowest gun ownership rates in the country yet it somehow has the highest (by far) gun crime rates. Weird... it's almost as if criminals don't care about gun control and will obtain guns illegally!

@ChaosEngine

Did you even read the article I linked? It makes a pretty strong case that at the time the wording was intended to imply every citizen's responsibility as well as right for "collective self-defense," as in everyone should own a gun so they can help out in the event of an invasion.

In other words, you're flat out wrong when you say the 2nd amendment wasn't about self-defense--that's precisely what it was about. It wasn't about personal (i.e. individual) self-defense at the time of its inception but it has since been found to include that meaning because the idea that people should keep guns at home but only use them to defend against foreign attackers and not domestic ones, such as a home invader, was found to be patently absurd. And yes, eventually militias faded away, but the idea that citizens have a right to own firearms for sport or protection--whether it be from wildlife or other humans--had already been legally established for a long time.

I'm not sure why your tone is so dismissive in this thread. You live in New Zealand, am I correct? Yes, you're right, you're quite lucky to live in a country where your government protects you from growing your own food by throwing all those dangerous gardeners in prison.

Look, New Zealand has a shit-ton of guns (about one for every four people) as well and people own them for a variety of reasons, from sport to self-defense. You have a lower crime rate, which can be attributed to a variety of factors but not conclusively to the strict gun laws, as people in New Zealand do in fact still commit crimes with guns.

So... what's the point you're trying to make?

No such thing as a failed experiment.

The Pill was supposed to be a fertility drug.

But now it could be credited with lowering the crime rate.

Wow, impressively low crime rates there if so many cops have the time to produce this music video.

(also, 60 km/h = 37.3 mph)

I agree with the general idea -- we should continue to spend, and spend MORE, on getting lead out of the environment (especially in homes and public utilities like water, etc.).

But I do have a semi-minor nit to pick. Oliver mocked the lead industry shill guy from the '70s for suggesting that better general health across the population at the time was because "we must (have been) doing something right", and therefore lead paint must not be dangerous. Yet one of his own major argument points comes from referencing a "study" that shows that every dollar invested in lead abatement ends up returning 17+ times that much in societal gain due to lower crime rates, lower medical bills, etc.

That's a problem because BOTH of those arguments are making a correlation equals causation error. The lead industry shill was wrong -- general population health was higher in the '70s than ever before because of advances in medicine. Lead was holding it back -- but to be fair, only to a tiny degree compared to the gains made in general health care.

I'd argue Oliver's cited study is equally wrong (or at least misleading) -- OK, crime may be lower, but I seriously doubt that spending more on removing lead contributes to that much at all. And total costs of health care spent on caring for people with lead poisoning are almost certainly lower now than they have been previously, but the lion's share of that (legitimate) financial gain undoubtedly came from banning lead paint and then leaded gasoline -- as seen in Oliver's graph of "average blood lead levels of children aged 1 to 5" which dropped incredibly fast between 1980 and 1990, and then much more slowly since then.

So any financial return on further investment in getting rid of lead is very very unlikely to live up to the same rate that it did in the 80s. I doubt that the study accounted for that, if it is also including tenuous things like crime rate to trump up its numbers...

Oliver is right to later suggest that "not poisoning children" is a better argument for getting rid of lead than "17 times financial return on money invested into lead removal". Just stick with the poisoning argument instead of the dubious correlation vs causation study.

Where is the option for the cotton planter to change careers to something they find interesting and challenging?

Does it matter? If you have a job that you studied for in college and suddenly notice it doesnt fit you, you have to work a lot to correct that for no pay, you actually have to pay for it. Also if youre 40+ and want to start a new career human resource managers will rather take someone who didnt have the issues like you and has the years experience in actual work at the same job. So you will always be at a huge disadvantage if you decide to change professions.
All these "super successful" people you see on TV that proudly talk about how they did all that so well, "just because they worked soooooo hard" (everyone either does that, or claims it), are exceptions to the rule!



Where are the benefits of infrastructure?

Uhm, those infrastructures are mostly used to get to your job or do your job anyway. What good are they if you work where you live, like those slaves?



How about healthcare?

AFAIK slaves got good healthcare, since they were property and the owner would lose money if they "broke" and couldnt be fixed.
Also I wouldnt call American healthcare good. People have to pay for it. And often have to take huge debts on themselves and their family to survive or be still able to work.



How about individual's rights?

Individual's rights? Yeah, maybe against other "slaves", but not against the state or rich people. They will always have a huge advantage compared to you. And actually they do what they want all over the world. Just look at those cesspools Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Millions killed for what? Are you safer now than before 9/11? No. The whole world is actually MUCH MUCH unsafer now. All thanks to your masters that care so much about the "individual's rights".
They even have the audacity to threaten NATO countries with invasion if they ever dared to bring one of them before an international tribunal.



How about protection from hostility?

Hostility from whom? Terrorists? Are you kidding me? Terrorists who are only created due to inhumane politics aswell? Criminals? Do you know that crime is actually not something we are born with, but we actually learn to do, because of our surroundings? If a lot of people feel treated unfair and cant do anything about it, crime rate will skyrocket. It has been that way for thousands of years. Look at other countries that treat their people much more humane and actually even pay then enough to live a good life even if they dont work, or have never worked! They shudder when seeing American crime rates. You can compare yourself more to Brazil than to Europe.



How about ever improving quality of life?

Most people are extremely stressed in their life, due to their job, not having enough time because of their job, being frustrated because other people have more then them, while working less (or not at all), having health issues due to their work and they know they cant change the job because they wont get another one, they simply hate their job, but also know they cant get a better one, etc, etc, etc.
There was a study a few years ago where they found out that people 500-1000 years ago were actually very happy. They didnt have to work nearly as much as we do nowadays! It wasnt rare that they only worked 6 months a year, and even if they worked they had MUCH longer breaks every day and didnt work as long. And they lived a good life for those times. Of course nowhere near as good as the monarchs, but it wasnt nearly as bad as its commonly claimed.

One thing has changed though: If youre smart and/or lucky (as in having a rich family) you can open your own company, do what you love. But even that gets harder and harder because the competition gets higher in numbers and in quality.

I don't know if the right's stance on gun control is the hypocrisy I'd point out about their so called "pro-life" stance, but I'll get to the hypocrisy in a moment.

It is odd how after every mass shooting here, which means we get to hear it a lot, the political right always jumps on the "oh no, they are trying to take our guns away", "if guns kill people, why don't they try to ban cars which kill more people" and other memes when nobody is talking about banning guns or forcing everyone to register all the guns they own, let alone take guns away. Closing the gun show loophole (and all such laws proposed that would close it still left open the ability to pass guns to family members without a license or registration), allow the CDC to track gun violence... these aren't unreasonable requests. Even exempting the gun industry from the same liability laws we hold nearly every other industry to (with a huge notable exception to fracking... hmm... another one the right loves) seems fairly reasonable, though I guess I can semi see the concerns... of course said concerns go back to the fact that nearly anyone can get a gun quickly and easily. 30+ homicides a day, 50+ gun related suicides every day, 40+ accidental deaths every day, hundreds treated for gun assault injuries every day, thousands of crimes committed at gun point from rape to robbery and burglary, and the list goes on and on... I support one's right to own guns, including hand guns, but we need to admit there is a gun violence problem. And it isn't a heart problem, if Cain had a gun he'd have used a gun, a rock is what was available to him at the supposed moment of action. And it isn't a lack of Jesus problem as over 78% of people in the US general population and other far more democratic, first word, advanced economy, fully free will, countries like the Netherlands have far more Atheists than us, but have far less gun violence... less violence overall. It's not a video game problem, as those games are popular outside the US, and again no correlative rise in violence. (And yes, the UK violence rate is higher, but it isn't an apples for apples correlation, they define far more things into their national violent crime rates than we do, when all things are equaled out, they have a much smaller one.) So it's time that the right just admit there is an issue with guns and violence in this country.

But as I said, we don't need to point to the rights stance on guns to prove they aren't actually pro-life. Just point to the fact they are the ones who are most in support of the death penalty. Just point to the fact they are the most pro-war and are the loudest war hawks, despite the fact Jesus said "blessed are the peacemakers" I guess they figure that means forcing everyone to the US's will, since somehow God anointed the US with special privilege above all other nations (after all the Bible mentions the eagle rising against the bear, which must be the US rising against the Soviets). Point out that they support stand your ground, somebody taking your nice new TV, stand your ground and turn that crime into a death penalty there in your home... of course Jesus said if somebody takes your coat to give your shirt too, not that I'm sure He was meaning to freely let people take all your stuff, but I can guarantee He wouldn't have been pro-stand your ground. They don't support having guaranteed affordable health care, or having government assistance for the needy and the poor. Apparently that life only matters while in the womb, the quality of life after that doesn't matter, and if they can make it worse for the child then they don't care, so long as their taxes don't help the child.

They aren't by any stretch of the imagination pro-life. They are anti-abortion. I think abortion is far from ideal, and should be a last option. The best option is the same thing that the women not having abortions have, affordable health care. Access to contraceptive options like IUDs (which don't stop fertilized eggs from attaching to the uterus which they try to claim) and the pill... and it doesn't matter if the pill itself is cheap, the doctor visit to get them and follow ups need to be affordable too... somehow the right really likes to blame women and hold them accountable for the pregnancy, when in fact it's the guy who should be blamed. If they don't want a pregnancy, then he should wrap it as soon as it comes out of the pants. No playing "just the tip" or anything else like that. Then dispose of properly, and ideally, don't rely on it as the sole method of birth control. So guarantee all people, including women, access to affordable health care. Give them their free choice of birth control and I'd say encourage the use of the IUD which has an amazingly low failure rate compared to other birth control methods... that is if she's going to use a contraceptive on her end. Don't make it a crime to have a miscarriage... which is some of the most asinine law proposals ever created... and rape is rape, no such thing as "legitimate" rape, I don't care if the Bible is into punishing women for being rape victims (a virgin not betrothed has to marry the rapist and he has to pay her father 50 shackles of silver for the father's loss or property and the couple may never divorce, Deuteronomy 22:28-29 or if she's in a city and betrothed then she has to be put to death Deuteronomy 22:23-24, a passage defended because it says "because she cried not", but how often do people ignore crimes or say they didn't see anything, heck people film others raping a passed out girl, so "because she cried not" is a poor excuse).

TLDR: The right are far from being pro-life far beyond gun control, they support war, they support the death penalty, they support stand your ground, they are against the government helping the needy and the poor, and are against a truly affordable health care policy that would largely eliminate the need for abortions in the first place.

Congratulations, you've managed to recognise an obviously tongue-in-cheek comment by applying basic reading skills. Oh no, wait... you didn't.

You want credible sources?

Here ya go:
correlation of gun ownership with suicide and homocide
How right-to-carry impacts the crime rate (hint: it's not good)

Understand, I don't want to ban guns. I have friends who hunt and shoot a lot, (I've done it myself a few times and quite frankly, shooting is fun).

The problem is that it's simply way too easy to get a gun in the US. You know why you have "armed thugs" breaking into your house? BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS A FUCKING GUN. In other 1st world countries, most break-ins are unarmed, because as Jim said, most people just want your TV.

Now, it may be that the ship has sailed in the U.S. because you failed to do anything about this for so long. But it would absolutely make sense to make it just a bit more difficult for anyone to have access to a gun.

I am German myself and I am disgusted how the German media and politicians are only blaming Greece. Some conservative papers (like welt.de) are ticking out completely and are turning to phrases that are very close to our Nazi history and are not allowing overly critical comments.

How Germans could chop down wages so quickly and without much opposition from the people and other parties?
The main reason is Hartz IV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept
Its a reform for the unemployed people, which at first sight doesnt have much to do with wages of the working people. But it does have everything to do with it. Let me explain:
Before Hartz IV unemployed people didnt have much to fear from the state. They got their unemployment (Sozialhilfe) money every month which was enough to live without much fear of anything. It didnt mean much to be unemployed. But people found a job if they wanted to. Of course, like every country, it was exploited by a tiny minority. People were happy with it and many countries were envious of that system because it provided so much social security that people got very peaceful and crime rates were pretty much non-existent.

Hartz IV was planned to cut the massive costs of that social system. The left wing government (which turned out to be massive hypocrites), a coalition of a socialist party and a green party, claimed it would decrease unemployment rates massively and save lots of tax money and they would force those lazy useless unemployed people to get jobs. They emphasized on "the hard earning people whos tax money is stolen by lazy unemployed" and used the tiny minority of exploiters to get Hartz IV under way. Hartz IV was basically a cut for unemployed people where they would barely have enough money to live from or pay the rent from it. It also allowed the government to use many tricks to adjust the unemployment rate. They for example excluded people who were unemployed at a certain age or people who were send on useless trainings (like how you write a job application or how you use a PC), which were forced on them from the government. If they didnt attend, they would get cuts on the already not enough Hartz IV money.

They got it through the parliament (since there was no oppositon of mention thank to their "democratic" coalition) and it went all downhill from there. Unemployed people were suddenly massively discriminated, even by the politicians, because they had created so much hate against unemployed and built many stereotypes in the process, supported by stupid fake shows in the media, just to push Hartz IV through. As I said before, they only used the minority that exploited the system before in their arguments, and didnt care about the majority. That also lead to companies falling for the created stereotype and not employing people who had been using Hartz IV at one time and even going as far as them looking at older employees as inferior. They got rid of them in a massive purge, which also led to the trick of excluding old people near pension-age from the unemployment statistics. Pensions dropped because those old fired people didnt get a job anymore and had to use Hartz IV. That meant that they had to use up their savings before they get Hartz IV money (that rule is part of Hartz IV), which drained old people of their money and also caused them to get caught in an even worse trap:
After a few years of getting Hartz IV money, they dropped to the lowest pension rate, which was barely above Hartz IV. It didnt matter if they worked 40 years of their life in a well paid job. Now they were poor and would never get a pension that was appropriate to their former job. That lead to a massive shift in wealth away from the normal people (middle class and poor), to the rich people. The buying power of Germans was destroyed, and it became even worse after the socialist/conservative government (yes, a stupid coalition like that is possible here) increased the sales tax by 3% to a whopping 19%. As result of this living costs exploded and black labor skyrocketed. Cost of energy of any kind, taxes, food prices, gas, rents, every day stuff you need increased massively. The Euro was to blame too, because prices of many things (especially food) were just exchanged 1-1 to the Euro. So for example if there was cheese before that cost 1 Deutsche Mark, it would now cost 1 Euro, even though 1 Euro was worth 2 Deutsche Mark. Wages collapsed, while everything got much more pricy. Hartz IV made all that worse.
Now for the main reason how Hatz IV pushed wages down:
The fear of dropping into Hartz IV (for the reasons I mentioned) was massive. Nobody ever wanted to drop into Hartz IV because they knew then everything was over. So they accepted extremely low wage jobs, even if that meant they would get less money than they would from Hartz IV, which already was barely enough to live a crappy live from. They took 2, 3, 4 shitty paid jobs instead, and the companies loved it, because they saved a lot of money with that. The problem with that was that even well educated people had fear of Hartz IV and accepted lower wages because of it. Wages didnt rise for 20 years (and they dont rise much now either). Yet living costs, as I said, increased massively. It all came together.
Germanys economy was very low at one point, yet they still tried to tell us that the unemployment rate dropped again (even 2007/08 and every year after that). People started to learn how they manipulated us and now we are here. Companies making revenue records after revenue records, yet nothing is arriving at the people. The media claims everything is well, the statistics still lie to us that the unemployment rate is low, but its not.
And now they are trying to blame the Greeks for our problems. Just like the unemployed Germans before, and the stupid masses fall for it again.
Yet they still wonder why Germans are a dying breed (population has been dropping for years now), and dont get that having children is very expensive in Germany and only few people still have money or time for that (since both women and men have multiple jobs to be able to live) because of these developments.

@enoch

I'm not arguing that American laws are entirely reasonable. I'm simply arguing that, given America's significantly higher violent crime rates, American prisons have a much higher percentage of violent criminals than Norway's prisons. These criminals would love Norway's prisons and would be perfectly fine living in them.

The U.S. and Norway are very different countries with very different cultures, economic situations and crime rates. What works for Norway won't necessarily work for the U.S. One statistic I'd love to know is the recidivism rate for non-violent criminals in the U.S. I imagine it's significantly lower than the recidivism rate for violent criminals.

Where are the statistics that prove that gun control makes you safer? D.C. has very strict gun control and it has the highest crime rate in the country. Conversely, Vermont has very lax gun control and it has the lowest crime rate in the country. What this proves (at least in the U.S.) is that gun laws don't necessarily make any meaningful impact on crime rates. Even if guns were outright banned in every state, guns wouldn't magically disappear. Most gun-related crimes involve illegally-obtained guns anyway. If criminals can't obtain guns legally (which is already statistically unlikely), they'll just obtain them illegally.

In order for gun control to be effective, it would need to be rigidly enforced. The government would need to actively search for and confiscate/destroy every gun it could find and make sure that guns aren't smuggled into the country. The war on drugs has shown that such tactics are costly and ineffective.

If you want to reduce crime, reduce poverty. Unlike guns, poverty has a direct and irrefutable correlation with crime. A reduction in poverty is GUARANTEED to result in a reduction of crime.

What I was more specifically disputing was any causal link between the two.

Crime rates in Australia go up and down (the long term trend has been downwards) but firearm ownership is (and was) quite low. As far as I know only organised crime gangs keep weapons for self defence, so if your average burglar knows that unless you happen to rob a crime boss you're not going to be facing a weapon can you explain exactly how there could be a causal link between crime rates and restrictions on weapons?

I don't think I'm alone in saying that even if I had a rifle in my house, I'd call 000 if I had a break-in rather than unlock the gun-safe and attempt to murder some schmuck.

You fellas defending the cops need to think again.

You DO NOT SHOOT except to SAVE LIFE. I don't care if its Charlie Manson - if he's unarmed and surrendering in broad daylight YOU DO NOT SHOOT HIM.

Failure to respect this code leads to paranoia, violence, rage, hatred and TOTAL SOCIAL APOCALYPSE.

Ferguson will get back from the brink but only because of people who understand that.

Btw Norway has the most liberal, kindest, most forgiving judicial system in the world (AFAIK) and also the LOWEST REOFFENDNG AND CRIME RATES.

USA reoffending rate 85%. Incarceration rate highest outside of Somalia. So if the moral spiritual ethical stance is too lefty for you try BASIC FUCKING STRATEGY.

Yikes, too much text to respond to specifically so here's an overall rebuttal to modulus:

Guns already exist. There are millions of guns out there. Guns last a long time and can be used repeatedly by many different people. Guns can easily be smuggled and distributed illegally. There will always be a demand for guns (for legal and illegal purposes) because they are very effective at what they do. The person holding the gun will always have power over the person holding nothing. Even if the U.S. banned all guns and the production of guns, gun makers would just continue manufacturing guns in other countries and guns would be smuggled into the country, just like narcotics.

Just as the ban on drugs has proven woefully ineffective, a ban on guns wouldn't accomplish anything either. D.C. has very strict gun laws and the lowest gun ownership (legal ownership, at least) in the country and yet their gun-related crime rate is by far the highest. I'm talking more than double the rate of the next highest state. Conversely, Vermont has very lax gun laws and more than ten times the gun ownership of D.C. yet it has the lowest gun crime rate in the country. Wyoming has the highest gun ownership in the country and extremely lax gun laws yet it has among the lowest gun crime rates. In fact, if you look at the states with the lowest crime rates, you'll notice that the vast majority of them have minimal gun control laws.

Finally, you say you've been robbed, mugged and assaulted on numerous occasions. Do you think that would have happened if you were clearly armed? When given a choice between robbing someone who's armed and someone who isn't, do you honestly think criminals would ever choose the armed candidate? When you ban guns, you're just letting criminals know that they can do what they want with minimal risk. Your personal experiences only convince me that guns are a more effective deterrent than being unarmed.