Aldon Smith Agrees to Plea Deal

[deep9er]

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Ohh man thanks for letting me know what their intent is! How about this- I have several guns, will continue to have guns, because it is up to me to decide how I want to protect my family. As in I actually want to protect them, so I have fire arms. I'm not going to off your "their intent is just to steal your shit, but not hurt you" to help me sleep at night and keep my family safe.

and this is why we always read of children getting killed, or killing someone else....cause they get their guns from fathers who think they're protecting them. EVERY person thinks he's locked up his guns so his children can't get it....EVERYONE.

This is one way criminals are able to arm themselves, they steal guns from guys like you.

anyway, we all know this is a hot topic, and this message board isn't going to change anyone. so do protect your family from "intruders", but also protect them from you.

 

[shouldakepowens]

For some reason when I read that, I read that in Mitch Hedberg's voice...

Mitch is a legend

 

[DoobieKeebler]

Mitch is a legend

Agreed.

 

[NinerSickness]

This is the most idiotic thing I've read in awhile.

Very specific, well-thought critique there.

so do protect your family from "intruders", but also protect them from you.

This is a fair enough stance for me. Nobody wants kids to get their hands on guns. Luckily, they now have extremely sophisticated gun safes that can minimize those things from happening.

Nobody's ever 100% safe from all danger. And I would never own a gun (I never have) unless it were extremely well-hidden and unless the danger of someone getting into it was slim to none.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Didn't see this earlier. Australia is the poster child as to why gun-control causes more crime (along with the UK). In the 12 months following the gun confiscation armed robberies skyrocketed 44%. After 2 years it was up 85%. 85 damn percent! That was the immediate effect of gun bans.

Now almost 20 years later, the armed robbery rate is finally back to around where it was before the ban (after peaking in 2001), but the longer the timeline goes the more variables come into play. So I did a little research. The state with the most lax gun laws in the US is Utah. Look what happened to crime rates in Utah from 1997 to 2012:

Utah:

Violent Crime down 38.39%
Murder down 27.88%
r*pe down 30.39%
Robberies Down 43.66%
Aggravated Assault down 38.59%
Burglary Down 50.91%
Larceny down 46.18%

There's been essentially no change in Utah's gun laws since the 90's. Crime has had a downward long-term trend over the last 20 years in both the US and Australia. But the immediate effect of that gun bad was the empowerment of criminals and a HUGE jump in a bunch of various crimes like armed robbery, home invasions, r*pe, murders where a gun was present and so on.

These regulations don't cause all crimes to go up, but it does make it easier for certain crimes like these to be committed.

Do you have a source for those numbers? I've seen them before, but only in the context of a conservative chain email. Not saying they aren't accurate, but I'd be very interested in seeing the numbers of violent crime for say the decade before and the decade after the ban in Australia. This is admittedly ticky-tacky, but I specifically asked about gun crimes, which these numbers do not address. More to the point, I'm not interested in quick-fix policy. I'm not shocked that some crimes might tick up in the immediate aftermath of reduction in guns, particularly when there's a buy-back program. What happens to numbers of shootings - homicide, attempted homicide, accident, etc. - over the longterm?

And while Australia may be a decent comparison in terms of a nation where guns were fairly widespread (though nowhere near the numbers of firearms in the US, so car as I can tell) enacting serious gun reform, I'm not sure that culturally and demographically it is comparable to the US.

As far as Utah, that's just not a good comparison for nation-wide action. The entire state has less than under three million people. The largest city has a population under 200K people. The state is overwhelmingly white and Mormon. Particularly given the presence of the LDS, it is unlike any other state. Though since you bring up the reduction in crime, it's fairly clear it's not a relaxation in gun laws that has led to a reduction in crime, as you seem to contend.

 

[NinerSickness]

Do you have a source for those numbers? I've seen them before, but only in the context of a conservative chain email. Not saying they aren't accurate, but I'd be very interested in seeing the numbers of violent crime for say the decade before and the decade after the ban in Australia. This is admittedly ticky-tacky, but I specifically asked about gun crimes, which these numbers do not address.

Utah Crime Rates 1960 - 2012 I googled the population in 1997 & 2012 & came up with around 2.056 million & 2.850 million respectively and divided the percentages to get the rate difference. And as you can see from those stats, they don't have a column for "armed robbery." They have a column for robbery & burglary. They publish stats like that a little differently than Australia. In fact, Australia took years to even come up with a legal definition of "home invasion" for some reason (political reasons probably).

As far as Utah, that's just not a good comparison for nation-wide action. The entire state has less than under three million people. The largest city has a population under 200K people. The state is overwhelmingly white and Mormon. Particularly given the presence of the LDS, it is unlike any other state. Though since you bring up the reduction in crime, it's fairly clear it's not a relaxation in gun laws that has led to a reduction in crime, as you seem to contend.

But Utah was white & Mormon in 1997 too. That factor was constant, just like their gun laws were. So you can see that crime overall has trended downwards independently of those factors.

Here's a chart to show Australia's armed robbery rate by year:

As you can see, the rate of armed robberies shot up so astronomically when the gun-confiscation was passed that it would be silly to think it was just a coincidence.

Again, guns are not a problem. Everyone knows the problem is unmarried males of 25 years and under who are morally derelict. Women should be able to own whatever guns they want.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

And gun control legislation (the kind this country has enacted and the kind Australia has enacted) stops absolutely none of those things. It increases some of them though.

As far as your beliefs about robbers and thieves go:

"Professors James D. Wright and Peter Rossi surveyed 2,000 felons incarcerated in state prisons across the United States. Wright and Rossi reported that 34% of the felons said they personally had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"; 69% said that they knew at least one other criminal who had also; 34% said that when thinking about committing a crime they either "often" or "regularly" worried that they "[m]ight get shot at by the victim"; and 57% agreed with the statement, "Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police." James D. Wright & Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms [1986]. See Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda? by Don B. Kates, et. al. Originally published as 61 Tenn. L. Rev. 513-596 [1994]."

More evidence that people are the problem and not guns:

Baltimore PD reported in 2007 that 93% of murder suspects, and 91% of murder VICTIMS had felony records. Victims averaged over 13 convictions each.

...but then again, talking about individual humans beings responsible for things goes against the entire premise of the kinds of nanny-state people who want gun control.

I'm not sure this supports your argument. Over half of criminals are worried they are going to run into an armed victim - and yet they still commit crimes. Apparently on a regular basis, at least according to the website RV posted. As such, it's pretty clear that guns aren't as effective as deterrents as you would have people believe.

Perhaps you can make an argument in the cases where people fend off their attackers with a gun, though you can't possibly say that those would have resulted in shootings but for the gun. In many cases, the victim's gun likely made the situation much more dangerous. Obviously no one likes the thought of simply complying with an armed robber, but the odds are they won't kill you if you do. Of course there are exceptions, but they are just that. The typical robber, burglar, etc. isn't looking to kill his victim. There are lots of petty criminals out there. Very few of them are looking to kill everyone. The vast majority of murderers know their victims.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Utah Crime Rates 1960 - 2012 I googled the population in 1997 & 2012 & came up with around 2.056 million & 2.850 million respectively and divided the percentages to get the rate difference. And as you can see from those stats, they don't have a column for "armed robbery." They have a column for robbery & burglary. They publish stats like that a little differently than Australia. In fact, Australia took years to even come up with a legal definition of "home invasion" for some reason (political reasons probably).



But Utah was white & Mormon in 1997 too. That factor was constant, just like their gun laws were. So you can see that crime overall has trended downwards independently of those factors.

Here's a chart to show Australia's armed robbery rate by year:

As you can see, the rate of armed robberies shot up so astronomically when the gun-confiscation was passed that it would be silly to think it was just a coincidence.

Again, guns are not a problem. Everyone knows the problem is unmarried males of 25 years and under who are morally derelict. Women should be able to own whatever guns they want.

What's your point when you note that that crime in Utah has declined? What does that have to do with this conversation? No one is saying crime rates can't decline where firearms are present. And crime rates were markedly higher 15 years ago when gun laws were functionally the same. So what does anything about Utah have to do with this conversation?

And again, where are you getting your numbers on Australia. Posting a table into your post that I can hardly read, and that doesn't identify a source, is basically useless. I don't know if you've noticed this, but there's a lot of misinformation online.

 

[NinerSickness]

By the way, Australia isn't even the easiest way to show how stupid gun control is. England is much easier. Crimes involving guns more than doubled in the 12 months following their 1997 ban on guns.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Well I don't think it's "absurd." It's just a naïve, uninformed understanding of people who commit robberies. Some people think of them as caricatures because they've seen too many movies.

People don't just randomly go out at night saying, "I'm gonna rob me some houses. I think I'll go... that way! And look for a nice-lookin' house to rob. Derp!" As hard as it is for some people to believe, they actually think these things through. Not because they're smart but because they don't want to get arrested or shot. It doesn't take a genius to identify a weak target when trying to rob someone.

Why do you think women who are alone get mugged more often than anyone else? In fact, if gun-control people (the ones who make the laws not the voters) were honest, they would automatically give all women an exception to the limitations on conceal-carry because practically none out of none women commit gun crimes.

No, they don't. Sick, I don't know where your conception of crime comes from, but it is totally and utterly wrong. Trust me. I deal with burglaries and robberies on a daily basis, and they are very rarely planned in the amount of detail you seem to think.

The most common robberies - and it's not close - occur in businesses. Of those, I'd say over 2/3 are what they call Estes robberies in CA. That's when someone from the store tries to stop someone who is committing a petty theft, and ends up getting into a physical altercation with them. If there is any planning involved in these, it is minimal.

If we're talking about residential burglaries, your scenario above is actually exactly what happens in the typical case. People troll particular neighborhoods, often during the day when people will be at work. They look for empty houses, knock on the door with a dumb excuse in case someone answers, and if no one answers, they break in. They very rarely know anything about the residents, and they certainly haven't done the research to know if the homeowners have guns.

There are three exceptions to the above that I have seen with some regularity, and that suggest some degree of planning. The first and most common involves kids - usually using drugs and looking for money - breaking into their parents' houses. The second involves people who work in the house stealing things (cleaners, medical aides, gardeners, chefs, babysitters). And the third is when a neighbor notices - or otherwise knows - that someone is out of town. I don't see how gun ownership would deter any of that. After all, the very first question a home invader is likely to ask is, "Is anyone home?" If they aren't, it doesn't matter how many guns they have.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

By the way, Australia isn't even the easiest way to show how stupid gun control is. England is much easier. Crimes involving guns more than doubled in the 12 months following their 1997 ban on guns.

Link? Any kind of evidence? How many guns did they have prior to banning guns? How many guns afterward? How do those numbers look now? How many assaults with handguns before and after? What happened to the murder rate? Accidental deaths by shooting rate? Suicide rate?

 

[NinerSickness]

What's your point when you note that that crime in Utah has declined? What does that have to do with this conversation? No one is saying crime rates can't decline where firearms are present. And crime rates were markedly higher 15 years ago when gun laws were functionally the same. So what does anything about Utah have to do with this conversation?

And again, where are you getting your numbers on Australia. Posting a table into your post that I can hardly read, and that doesn't identify a source, is basically useless. I don't know if you've noticed this, but there's a lot of misinformation online.

The data comes from Australian Institute of Criminology Australian Institute of Criminology - Home

And the thing about Utah is to show that you have to look at the immediate impact of a factor like gun control to see what it did because the more time that passes the more factors come into play. And the immediate impact of gun control in Australia was armed robberies shooting up like a rocket. This is one of the things that made me realize I was wrong about gun control because I used to have the same position that liberals did on this issue. It's a reasonable conclusion, but the facts don't back it up. If you don't believe me look at England; they banned guns completely, and they have the most gun crime per capita of any 1st-world nation on earth.

 

[NinerSickness]

No, they don't. Sick, I don't know where your conception of crime comes from, but it is totally and utterly wrong. Trust me. I deal with burglaries and robberies on a daily basis, and they are very rarely planned in the amount of detail you seem to think.

The most common robberies - and it's not close - occur in businesses. Of those, I'd say over 2/3 are what they call Estes robberies in CA. That's when someone from the store tries to stop someone who is committing a petty theft, and ends up getting into a physical altercation with them. If there is any planning involved in these, it is minimal.

If we're talking about residential burglaries, your scenario above is actually exactly what happens in the typical case. People troll particular neighborhoods, often during the day when people will be at work. They look for empty houses, knock on the door with a dumb excuse in case someone answers, and if no one answers, they break in. They very rarely know anything about the residents, and they certainly haven't done the research to know if the homeowners have guns.

There are three exceptions to the above that I have seen with some regularity, and that suggest some degree of planning. The first and most common involves kids - usually using drugs and looking for money - breaking into their parents' houses. The second involves people who work in the house stealing things (cleaners, medical aides, gardeners, chefs, babysitters). And the third is when a neighbor notices - or otherwise knows - that someone is out of town. I don't see how gun ownership would deter any of that. After all, the very first question a home invader is likely to ask is, "Is anyone home?" If they aren't, it doesn't matter how many guns they have.

Did you see the poll of 2000 felons I cited earlier? Do you not believe them?

"Professors James D. Wright and Peter Rossi surveyed 2,000 felons incarcerated in state prisons across the United States. Wright and Rossi reported that 34% of the felons said they personally had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"; 69% said that they knew at least one other criminal who had also; 34% said that when thinking about committing a crime they either "often" or "regularly" worried that they "[m]ight get shot at by the victim"; and 57% agreed with the statement, "Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police." James D. Wright & Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms [1986]. See Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda? by Don B. Kates, et. al. Originally published as 61 Tenn. L. Rev. 513-596 [1994]."

 

[deep9er]

Did you see the poll of 2000 felons I cited earlier? Do you not believe them?

"Professors James D. Wright and Peter Rossi surveyed 2,000 felons incarcerated in state prisons across the United States. Wright and Rossi reported that 34% of the felons said they personally had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"; 69% said that they knew at least one other criminal who had also; 34% said that when thinking about committing a crime they either "often" or "regularly" worried that they "[m]ight get shot at by the victim"; and 57% agreed with the statement, "Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police." James D. Wright & Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms [1986]. See Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda? by Don B. Kates, et. al. Originally published as 61 Tenn. L. Rev. 513-596 [1994]."

are we supposed to focus on the 34%, or the 66%?

of course they're more worried about a homeowner with a gun, but does that stop them from doing it?

 

[NinerSickness]

are we supposed to focus on the 34%, or the 66%?

of course they're more worried about a homeowner with a gun, but does that stop them from doing it?

It shows that the prevalence of home owners (and business owners) with guns is a significant factor in how criminals operate. Nobody's saying it's the only factor.

There are simply far fewer home invasions & robberies (armed or otherwise; residential or business) in places where people tend to have a lot of guns.

 

[NinerSickness]

Link? Any kind of evidence? How many guns did they have prior to banning guns? How many guns afterward? How do those numbers look now? How many assaults with handguns before and after? What happened to the murder rate? Accidental deaths by shooting rate? Suicide rate?

"Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871."

Gun crime soars by 35% | Mail Online

Gun crime MORE THAN DOUBLED in one f'ing year. One year! If you think that and the year following the Australian ban are a coincidence, then I don't think you're even willing to consider gun crime statistics in the first place.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Did you see the poll of 2000 felons I cited earlier? Do you not believe them?

"Professors James D. Wright and Peter Rossi surveyed 2,000 felons incarcerated in state prisons across the United States. Wright and Rossi reported that 34% of the felons said they personally had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"; 69% said that they knew at least one other criminal who had also; 34% said that when thinking about committing a crime they either "often" or "regularly" worried that they "[m]ight get shot at by the victim"; and 57% agreed with the statement, "Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police." James D. Wright & Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms [1986]. See Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda? by Don B. Kates, et. al. Originally published as 61 Tenn. L. Rev. 513-596 [1994]."

I'm sure criminals do worry about getting shot. But again, they still commit crimes. As said, your conception of burglaries, at the very least, is simply completely wrong. They involve far less planning than you seem to think.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

"Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871."

Gun crime soars by 35% | Mail Online

Gun crime MORE THAN DOUBLED in one f'ing year. One year! If you think that and the year following the Australian ban are a coincidence, then I don't think you're even willing to consider gun crime statistics in the first place.

Again, what were gun crime rates beforehand? This is admittedly not based on hard facts, but I'm of the impression that gun crime rates are far higher here than they were in either of those countries. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. And again, I'm not focused on the year after the law passes. I'm focused on longterm change.

 

[NinerSickness]

And again, I'm not focused on the year after the law passes. I'm focused on longterm change.

I'll find some comparative figures of US gun-crime rates VS England's later, but I wanted to address this part first.

The longer period of time the more factors come into play. What you said is kind of like saying the following:

I want to see how large terrorist attacks affect the stock market, so I'm going to look at a 10-year chart of the Down Jones Industrial Average starting on 9/11/2001 & see what the 9/11 attack did to the stock market.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

I'll find some comparative figures of US gun-crime rates VS England's later, but I wanted to address this part first.

The longer period of time the more factors come into play. What you said is kind of like saying the following:

I want to see how large terrorist attacks affect the stock market, so I'm going to look at a 10-year chart of the Down Jones Industrial Average starting on 9/11/2001 & see what the 9/11 attack did to the stock market.

Obviously more factors go into it than the one. But the immediate effect is not the same as the longterm effect. It's just somewhat easier to gauge.

Look, at this point it doesn't really matter. I think we've got a serious problem with gun violence in the country that demands action beyond further reducing regulations on guns. You disagree with part or all of that. We're not likely to change one another's minds.