Khukuri techniques ??

Hibuke, don't know as of yet,as he is moving and setting up pactice[MD]he was in US last year for conf/seminar. But he brought the family with him which was a treat.
 
Originally posted by munk
...but murder rates amongst poor drug takers are not going to change due to the kind or type of weapon used.

munk
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Yes munk you are right. What I wrote was confusing, even to myself when I read it now again. It seems I had two opposing theories in my mind at the same time as I was writing. Basically I was writing my brainstorm!

What is correct to say is that the easy access to guns in the US causes higher death rates among poor people than among ordinary people. Simply because they use the guns on eachother a lot.

Anyway, the basic idea of human behavioural ecologists like myself is that the human species follows biological predictions. In nature there is something called r-selected and K-selected species.

K-selected species are long lived and have few offspring, which they invest a lot of energy and resources in (the bear is one example) in order to produce few but high quality offspring that survive well. These species can do this because they are very well adapted to their environments and have low death rates. This is the best way of spreading your genes under such good circumstances.

While r-selected species are usually smaller species (like mice and rats) who are shorter lived, and they produce lots of offspring and invest little time and energy in them. These species' death rates are high because they are not so highly adapted to their environment and they have an opportunistic survival strategy. Their solution is to produce lots of low quality offspring instead of few high quality offspring like K-selected species do. The high number of offspring is both because of their own early death and because a lot of the offspring will die as well. Under such circumstances the r-strategy is the best for spreading your genes.

The interesting and striking thing is that the same thing can be seen in human beings. If you end up at the very bottom of society as a street criminal you have few resources to invest in your offspring and the death rate of your social group is a relativ high. Therefor you take the r-strategy to produce as many kids as possible with a minimum of investment in each of them. Many low quality offspring are good for countering high death rate of yourself and of your kids so that your genes have a chance of spreading.

If you are in a higher social position in society (like regular people) you have more resources and a longer life expectancy. And as predicted those people produce fewer offspring but invest more resources into them. They chooce the K-strategy and produce few but high quality offspring that are well adapted to their environment that are guaranteed to reproduce and spread your genes by making you a grandparent.

The great thing about this is that finally we have a scientific explanation (thanks to biology) for social problems that social scientists have yet not been able to explain or find solutions for. Social scientists work by unscientific methods while biologists work by scientific methods; making predictions and testing them.

Hope it all was understandable folks! :)

So I guess you could say that the gun laws of the US inflict the reproductive strategies of the poorest groups. If changing the laws would change things I doubt. Now that the guns are already in circulation and a subculture of violence has been created any ordinary citizen simply has to arm himself.
 
What is correct to say is that the easy access to guns in the US causes higher death rates among poor people than among ordinary people. Simply because they use the guns on eachother a lot. >>

Wrong. See Gary Kleck; 1.5 to 3 million defensive uses of guns every year, and John Lott, More Guns less Crime.
You've quoted a common myth and something periodically attempted in research which is not repeatable by other researchers.

What is correct to say is that drugs and criminal lifestyles amongst the poor and or minorities result in higher homicide figures.


You've confused the 'poor' with the criminal. Britain's violent crime figures are rising and they have far less access to guns. Even 10 years ago, during the height of violence here, if you removed Black and Hispanic murder figures from the general pop the US had among the lowest murder rates in the WORLD. A dirty rotten secret I am not proud of. "death rates" by the way, is different from murder. Check your 'study' to see if they eliminated suicide and justifiable homicide from the figures. A difficult variable is how many drug pushers shot how many other drug pushers.

munk
 
If you magically got rid of every gun in the world, any difference in murder rates is speculation. Death is still death whether by sword, arrow, brick or Khukuri. Removing many long arms and most handguns, Canada's leaping suicide rates went up. The man who attacked school children armed with a blade in Japan murdered 10, I believe, higher fatality than the average mass suicide/homicide attacks with a gun in the US.

The bottom line is we have real problems not being addressed when we are fooled into examing the instruments and not the criminal.


munk
 
It is never the instrument. It is the person using the instrument. If I have the motivation to shoot a couple of people give me twenty bucks and the use of a respectable machine shop and I can make a double barreled gun of just about any calibre I want in a couple of hours that's perfectly capable of doing the job.
 
Originally posted by munk
What is correct to say is that the easy access to guns in the US causes higher death rates among poor people than among ordinary people. Simply because they use the guns on eachother a lot. >>

Wrong. See Gary Kleck; 1.5 to 3 million defensive uses of guns every year, and John Lott, More Guns less Crime.
You've quoted a common myth and something periodically attempted in research which is not repeatable by other researchers.
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OK, you have statistics for defense nation wide in the entire population, but what about defenses AND ATTACKS with guns within our social subgroup? We are not talking about the US population, we are talking about a subgroup. Any statistics? And what is "defensive uses"? Is it homicide, wounding or scaring off? We are talking only homicides here, and in a certain subgroup only. It would be vital to compare those numbers in all this. Unless we have such numbers I still have to stick to what I read about death rates and homicides in gangsta areas.

I have not quoted the common myth of that guns alone kill. I am explaining why efficient weapons increase death rates among groups of people who use violence. I am sure that if I lived in a subculture where social status and resources could be earned by violence, then I would prefer a gun to a knife simply because it is easier to use and more deadly. And so I would tend to commit more homicides and I would tend to get gunned down a lot too. And this is the way it is in the heaviest gangsta cultures. Reasonable don't you think?

Also you have to remember that people who feel that they are at a lower level in the social hierarchy start producing more of the hormones that makes us more prone to risk taking and aggression. Their entire biochemistry changes. This is a proven fact. And if you grow up and your brain develops under both these cultural and hormonal influences during adolesence then you will have a problem. So giving guns to people low in the social hierarchy is a bad idea when they live in a subculture of violence. All races have this reaction pattern, it just depends on where you are able to place yourself in the social hierarchy.

What is correct to say is that drugs and criminal lifestyles amongst the poor and or minorities result in higher homicide figures.
[/B]
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Sure, that is the obvious thing. People don't just gun eachother down because they are poor and happen to have guns in their houses. I just didn't mention the obvious thing. I thought we were speaking within those common understandings. I am not saying that homicide is related to guns alone. I am saying that if you give more efficient weapons to criminals who grow up in a violent subculture then that subculture will live a life on it's own due to the biology of mankind. And so their death rate will rise compared to violent groups without such efficient weapons.

You've confused the 'poor' with the criminal. Britain's violent crime figures are rising and they have far less access to guns. Even 10 years ago, during the height of violence here, if you removed Black and Hispanic murder figures from the general pop the US had among the lowest murder rates in the WORLD. A dirty rotten secret I am not proud of. "death rates" by the way, is different from murder. Check your 'study' to see if they eliminated suicide and justifiable homicide from the figures. A difficult variable is how many drug pushers shot how many other drug pushers.
[/B]
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No, I am talking about the group of criminals who are both poor and violent. So no confusion.

British crime figures rising ok, but not so many homicides since they don't have guns so much, right? And see my explanation above about violence and crime existing independently of guns.

Ok, lowest murder rates in the world. But we have focused this talk on subgroups in the US, and not the great bulk of the population. I am not doing this to critisize the gun laws. I am showing a way of analyzing a subgroup and how they are affected by that guns are easy to buy. I am just interested in cause and effect, if the homicides are justifiable or not is uninteresting for figuring out cause and effect. And you are even proving my statistics in your statement:"...if you removed Black and Hispanic murder figures from the general pop the US had among the lowest murder rates in the WORLD." You support that a certain subgroup have higher death rates by this. And suicide in this, even if there are some undiscovered ones then the same confounding variable would apply to the statistics of the group of regular people that this subgroup is compared to and even it out.



By the way, the popular myths and so called conventional wisdoms are produced by the social scientists, biology is the tool to shatter those myths and provide an understanding at an ultimate level.
 
Originally posted by munk
If you magically got rid of every gun in the world, any difference in murder rates is speculation. Death is still death whether by sword, arrow, brick or Khukuri. Removing many long arms and most handguns, Canada's leaping suicide rates went up. The man who attacked school children armed with a blade in Japan murdered 10, I believe, higher fatality than the average mass suicide/homicide attacks with a gun in the US.

The bottom line is we have real problems not being addressed when we are fooled into examing the instruments and not the criminal.


munk
Click to expand...

I don't know if that is only speculation. I read that back in preindustrial societies of Europe the murder rate increased immideatly when rifles became common to own instead of just the normal battle axe. (All free men were obliged to own personal battle axes as part of his military equipment.) Old church books are great for such statistics here in Europe.
(But then again, those sociologists are terrible statisticians. Not as good as biologist.)

But this increased murder rate makes sense too. It is easier to pull a trigger at a distance than to get real close to a potentially dangerous opponent and try to kill him. This efficiency is actually why firearms became more popular than blades.

But I support your last statement. The bottom line is the subcultures and not the weapons themselves. In my country we have plenty of hunting rifles but no problems with it at all. But then again, this is because the problematic individuals in my country don't have such an easy access to guns! A mugger with a knife I can defeat or outrun, a bullet is so much more difficult to outrun...
Even if I was wearing a gun too, I assume the mugger had already pulled his gun, and I would not have time to draw mine...
I prefer to confront knives, they are safer for me.
 
People kill one another for the same reasons they have since the dawn of time, anger, jealousy, greed, lust, and ignorance. It doesn't matter whether the weapon used is a wooden club or a high capacity 9 millimeter. Our technology has evolved rapidly, sadly, we have evolved very little. Guns are tools, and any tool can be used inappropriately. Personally, I think I'd rather be shot than beaten to death with a claw hammer.

Sarge
 
Sylvrfalcn, Aye! and as far as banning gun's, How do you ban the Knowledge! I could go to a hardware store and buy everything I needed to make a few.I recently read a new's story from China ,which really has gun control, that the villager's are doing a cottage industy of firearms manufacture and that over 6 million arm's have been taken.
 
Originally posted by Sylvrfalcn
People kill one another for the same reasons they have since the dawn of time, anger, jealousy, greed, lust, and ignorance. It doesn't matter whether the weapon used is a wooden club or a high capacity 9 millimeter. Our technology has evolved rapidly, sadly, we have evolved very little. Guns are tools, and any tool can be used inappropriately. Personally, I think I'd rather be shot than beaten to death with a claw hammer.

Sarge
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Sarge, you are military right? Sarge sounds military.

Today the US and the world fears nuclear bombs in the hands of certain political leaders in the Middle East. Why? Because they have a different set of mind than us. Nuclear bombs in our hands is not dangerous because of our self protective set of mind, and no attacking imperative in our minds. Nuclear bombs in the hands of those kind of people are a real danger. Right? This is because those weapons allow them to inflict massive damage on the opponent which is out of their harm in conventional ways for massive attacks, right?

We (The West) have the same kind of ammo waiting, and so we will retaliate in an equal way. But they don't care about this. Right? So seen in that perspective it does not make sense for those Middle Eastern leaders to launch a nuclear missile, but still they might do that sooner or later. Because they have a different way of thinking.

Let's walk into the future where every nation has a nuke. If you try to ban nukes then, then the world would call it crazy and call for the need of self protection. And they would say that nukes is not the problem, it is the people and their situation that is the real basis of the problem.

Now, if you replace The West with regular Americans, and Middle Eastern leaders with gangsta subcultures in the US, and finally replace the nukes with guns then you have the same situation. Only difference is that in the past the US gun laws made it easy for that group with a different set of mind to get their hands on those very weapons that will impose a threat for regular people. (Just like giving Saddam Hussein a nuke today...) And today the gun situation is irreversible... Just like in the nuke example.

If you give a murderer a toothpick I think it is not so bad. If you give him a knife it gets a bit worse. A gun on the other hand is crazyness. The increasing efficiency of a weapon makes a person more lethal. It is easy to understand that undesirable people should not have nukes. Admitting that past gun laws have led to undesirable people into having guns is harder because it confronts people's sense of freedom in having a gun.

Now, again, in the US I would have carried a gun too. I am no fool.
 
. I am explaining why efficient weapons increase death rates among groups of people who use violence. I am sure that if I lived in a subculture where social status and resources could be earned by violence, then I would prefer a gun to a knife simply because it is easier to use and more deadly. And so I would tend to commit more homicides and I would tend to get gunned down a lot too. And this is the way it is in the heaviest gangsta cultures. Reasonable don't you think?
>>>

This is not supportable by the research. Just the opposite, here in the States, in those places with more guns per capita there are less violent crimes. In those places with more guns and concealed carry there are less violent crimes.

In every society and every generation there are popular ideas that are reasonable on their face and yet wrong. You must be counter intuitive to understand that when US society is armed there is less violence.
IF AVAILABILITY OF GUNS WERE THE DETERMINER, WHY SO MANY NORTHERN EUROPEAN NATIONS WITH ARMED CITIZENRY DO NOT HAVE THE CRIME RATES AS OTHER NATIONS, SOME WITH AND SOME WITHOUT FIREARMS OWNERSHIP? Why are Britain's stats climbing above our own in a nation with very little gun (handgun ban) ownership?

Obviously, there are social factors and economics at play here.

munk
 
Eikerverang; I know many people who like Bill could make a firearm in their garages within a hour.

If you seriously want to discuss the tool as behavior then the tool should be completely banned; something which has failed and utterly impossible to do, or if possible, would result in the removal of so much personal liberty that it would be unspeakable, ie; cells for citizens.

If you believe 'biology' is the answer to our social problems you are in for disapointment. There isn't any one miracle route to understanding why men do the things men do.

munk
 
Re Nukes:
The people you mentioned are scrambling for nukes for the exact same two reasons we initially did, A. Defeat our enemies, and B. Prevent our enemies from defeating us. You can put whatever socio-political, ethnic, or religious slant you like on it. As long as mankind has reached no higher level of enlightenment than children playing with fire, the means to destroy one another, be it nukes, guns, or bows and arrows, will be around. Given that reality, I see no problem in decent folks arming themselves in the most adequate manner the law allows. You can bet the bad guys are armed. Pray for peace and pass the ammunition.

Sarge
And yes, I'm military, in fact one of my former missions was to haul ground launched nuclear cruise missles around the forests of western Europe. The bad guys had SS20 cruise missles pointed at us. The BGM 109 cruise missles we had pointed at them were vastly superior. The bad guys made the right choice...........................
 
And yes, I'm military, in fact one of my former missions was to haul ground launched nuclear cruise missles around the forests of western Europe. The bad guys had SS20 cruise missles pointed at us. The BGM 109 cruise missles we had pointed at them were vastly superior. The bad guys made the right choice........................... Sarge

What Sarge does not go on to say is that our missiles were protecting Europe, many nations who now after having enjoyed protection criticize the US for proliferation of handguns and nuclear weapons.

munk
 
..is inextricably tied to his tools, be they tools of destruction or creation. Tools are in man's nature now, ever since our first ancestor picked up a stone or stick, and found it had a use beyond what he alone had in his natural toolkit.

Man cannot turn back from the path of technology without ceding his place in the food chain to another species.

I know this is a bit off the discussion path, but if we as a people set guns or any other tools aside, where does it end?

Also note that it is mankind vs. mankind we're talking about here. Once you fight yer way to the top, it's hard to stop killing yerself. Hel, you've had to fight all the way from prehistory to the top, and confrontation is ingrained almost instinctually in man.

Keith
 
Originally posted by munk
. I am explaining why efficient weapons increase death rates among groups of people who use violence. I am sure that if I lived in a subculture where social status and resources could be earned by violence, then I would prefer a gun to a knife simply because it is easier to use and more deadly. And so I would tend to commit more homicides and I would tend to get gunned down a lot too. And this is the way it is in the heaviest gangsta cultures. Reasonable don't you think?
>>>

This is not supportable by the research. Just the opposite, here in the States, in those places with more guns per capita there are less violent crimes. In those places with more guns and concealed carry there are less violent crimes.


Ok, let me just think for a moment now. You compare place A with a better armed population than in place B, which also has an armed population but much less, and you find that the heavier arms of place A functions as a violence preventive. Ok, sure, I never suspected anything else! The thing I have been trying to talk about here is why the population in place A had to get more arms in the first place! Obviesly the criminals had gotten their hands on guns that were easily accessible for all people. So if they hadn't had that possibility in the first place then the people of place A would never have had to worry about burglars with guns at all. Burglars and muggers would still be there, but they would not have had guns to threaten your life. However after this situation with criminals with guns has arisen, after that it will make sense as you say to be well armed in order to prevent violent crimes. Violent crimes that could have been avoided in the frist place, but now it is too late. So I support wearing guns in the US today! It is the point of no return. And so your gun policy of place A today is correct.


In every society and every generation there are popular ideas that are reasonable on their face and yet wrong. You must be counter intuitive to understand that when US society is armed there is less violence.


I am personally a fighter of popular misbeliefs.

As I stated above and in my earlier posts, if you had read them thouroughly, then you would have seen that I acknowledge that the point of no return is passed for the US. And thereby I support the guns for every ordinary citizen in the US today. Sorry to be so rude with you.


IF AVAILABILITY OF GUNS WERE THE DETERMINER, WHY SO MANY NORTHERN EUROPEAN NATIONS WITH ARMED CITIZENRY DO NOT HAVE THE CRIME RATES AS OTHER NATIONS, SOME WITH AND SOME WITHOUT FIREARMS OWNERSHIP? Why are Britain's stats climbing above our own in a nation with very little gun (handgun ban) ownership?

Obviously, there are social factors and economics at play here.

munk
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But munk, did you read my earlier posts carefully at all? I did never state that guns are the determiner. I explicitly stated that this was only a problem in certain social subgroups that are violent in culture and have crime as the better economical alternative. Which means that it is their cultural context that makes them dangerous with guns, and not the guns themselves. Do you read my postings at all???

In adressing those subgroups I have explicitly stated that social factors and economics form the very basis for that social context, just as you now stated too. Read my postings please.

About Britains statistics. You still haven't said that the number for homicides in Britain is higher compared to in the US. Since we are talking about homicides then we need statistics for homicides only and not all violent crimes as a group.
 
When confronted with the vast body of statistics, pseudo-statistics, myths, half-truths, urban legends and downright lies that surround the 'gun control' issue, there's only one incontrovertible fact -

- Namely, *that restricting and/or forbidding private citizens to own guns has no beneficial effect whatsoever on the number of gun killings and gun crimes*.

We know this is a fact because it's been proved beyond reasonable doubt, by experiment, here in the UK and other countries. In Britain, private ownership of guns has been virtually eliminated. During the course of this process, gun killings and gun crime have rocketed.

In the 1950s, gun ownership in the UK was at its peak and there was virtually no gun crime. Shotguns could be bought in most country hardware stores without need of permits (you had to have a licence, which cost a few shillings from the post office; if you had a gun without a licence, you could be fined up to a week's wages... It was a tax rather than a gun control measure) and were unregistered. Rifles and pistols were registered, but scarcely more controlled. In addition, there were countless unregistered war souvenirs in the country; about one to every five adult males, according to the best estimates available.

Now, in 2002, legal gun ownership has been reduced by about 90%; all handguns are illegal; all guns are registered, and may only be used on specified land for the purposes specified in the permit (such as humane slaughter of livestock); it is of course totally illegal to own or use a gun for self defence under *any* circumstances.

And, guess what; London now has a higher rate of gun murders and gun crime than NYC. Other British cities - Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford - have worse gun murder/crimes than London, and the rate escalates exponentially with each fresh set of stats. Street gang members now routinely go armed. Schoolkids are carrying 9mm pistols to school. Machine-gun battles in the streets make the news only on the rare occasions when one of the perps is caught. The vast majority of gun crimes are committed with either handguns (now completely banned) or fully-automatic weapons (which have NEVER been legal to own here). Most of these weapons have been smuggled into the country in the last 10 years (and Britain's an *island*, sharing no borders with other countries...); the main sources of supply being Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Most of the illegal WW2 souvenirs were taken out of circulation by a succession of amnesties & hand-ins; the remainder are far too obsolete to be of interest to fashion-conscious gang members. Latest stats suggest that once again we're back to a level of one illegal gun to every five adult males - which, given the hysterical loathing most ordinary Brits have been taught to exhibit towards guns and gun ownership, would seem to suggest that a small section of society is very, very heavily armed indeed - namely, the section of society most likely to use them to kill, maim and rob.

That's what gun control's done for us, folks. That and nothing else.

The facts - freely admitted by the government, though of course they deny the only logical conclusion - speak for themselves with an eloquence I could never hope to achieve.

So; yes, there's a desperate problem with street violence and gun crime in many societies, including the USA. There must be a way of tackling it that'd work. But all we've achieved is to prove conclusively that confiscating private citizens' guns *doesn't* work. Logic surely demands that it's time to move on now, and try and find a genuine solution, instead of compounding the error.
 
Originally posted by munk
Eikerverang; I know many people who like Bill could make a firearm in their garages within a hour.

If you seriously want to discuss the tool as behavior then the tool should be completely banned; something which has failed and utterly impossible to do, or if possible, would result in the removal of so much personal liberty that it would be unspeakable, ie; cells for citizens.

If you believe 'biology' is the answer to our social problems you are in for disapointment. There isn't any one miracle route to understanding why men do the things men do.

munk
Click to expand...

I do not discuss a tool as behaviour nor the removal of it. I will leave such silly debates to the fanatic feminist sociologists. I am discussing how a tool will have differing effects depending on the different imperatives that form the drive of the different persons that use them.

I do not *believe* in biology. I only observe how some hypothesis are correct and can be upgraded to theories. So far the best tool we have for describing human nature's deepest parts is biology. This is a new thing in society today, and my field of science is new. For the first time we are facing the possibility of a coherent science all the way from physics to humanoria. Human behavioural ecology seems to be the best catalyst, the combiner of nature sciences and social sciences. The cooperation is already a fact and has yilded good results in the diciplines of medicine, psychiatry, psychology and anthropology. But having the ultimate tool for describing and understanding will not necessarily make us solve all problems. Faith is not my domain. I leave that to the priests. I do a science. So no dissapointments for me. Because this is not a miracle route, this is hard and step by step painstaking work that takes years to accomplish. My life for these last two years has been to prove or disaprove 2 hypothesis with 10 predictions all together. So I am not in the department of faith, I am in the department of pure logics.

Well, for whatever it is worth... :)
 
The thing I have been trying to talk about here is why the population in place A had to get more arms in the first place! Obviesly the criminals had gotten their hands on guns that were easily accessible for all people. So if they hadn't had that possibility in the first place then the people of place A would never have had to worry about burglars with guns at all. Burglars and muggers would still be there, but they would not have had guns to threaten your life. However after this situation with criminals with guns has arisen, after that it will make sense as you say to be well armed in order to prevent violent crimes. Violent crimes that could have been avoided in the frist place, but now it is too late. So I support wearing guns in the US today! It is the point of no return. And so your gun policy of place A today is correct. >>>Eikverang


Eikverang, There is no such thing as, 'the first place'. The sword was once the controlling weapon. Instead of arguing if gun ownership had not become so prevalent, it would be better to argue if social conditions had not deteriorated, and honest citizens prevented by statute from using the firearms they owned. (unlawful to carry, load, or have access to in many places)

I think Holt is far more concise and pointed than I on this topic. And yes, I did read what you said, and do not think you are narrow or buying into popular myths, though I do think your education is continueing.

munk
 
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