Just wanted to crow a little in reporting a small success.

A buddy of mine grew up in CA and doesn't have too much firearms experience. Enough that he says "I can shoot well" but given how he's talked about it over the years.... I'd have to see the bullet holes in the paper before I believe him. He's quite liberal but not overly politically active. The extant of it is pretty much facebook activism. He knows A LOT of people, though, so when I started correcting his anti-gun facebook meme posts with such things as facts and statistics it got a little attention from a lot of people.

He was concerned at one point that I was upset with him and called me on it. I was able to get it across that I don't care if he is anti-gun - I just want him to be well informed. I know a lot about firearms (by comparison, at least) and I was correcting the parts of his posts that were just wrong. No, you can't "easily" convert an AR-15 into a machine gun even if it looks just like one. I even pulled apart my CETME and showed him the parts that were altered so that it could not be restored to selective fire and pointed out that just having the parts to do so is already a federal felony.

I also pointed him to the actual statistics about gun violence. Not preaching, just pointing out that long arms of any kind are a small fraction of any kind of gun violence and that about half of the deaths due to guns are in fact suicides, and that police shootings in the line of duty are also included in those figures. That crime of all kinds is lower in areas where people commonly (legally) carry guns. That historically the only way mass shootings are stopped with the least casualties.... ever...  is by armed civilians. That mag cap limits and "assault weapons" bans didn't stop or even slow the Columbine mass shooting. I wasn't arguing with his beliefs, I just figured he should know that parts of what he was basing his views on was incorrect. Correct information always leads to better decisions so I was trying to help him.

He now posts things like this:

Interesting and uplifting that you got through, right on.

.

.

Why is this list so skewed?  Only one of the items compared is able to kill without human involvement ... in fact, it kills IN SPITE of human involvement. 
The rest are only tools/products which require human use to cause harm.

Thanks, all. He's still certainly not pro-gun but he has started questioning the BS that gets handed down by the Brady Campaign. He is no longer anti-gun either - and that is the small success.

moosed: its just a thoughtless FB "meme." Most of them don't really survive any level of scrutiny. 

Thanks, all. He's still certainly not pro-gun but he has started questioning the BS that gets handed down by the Brady Campaign. He is no longer anti-gun either - and that is the small success.

moosed: its just a thoughtless FB "meme." Most of them don't really survive any level of scrutiny.

Too bad many FB members get the majority of their "facts" from FB infographics!

"You can't put anything on the Internet that isn't true."

"Where did you hear that?"

"The Internet."   

Why is this list so skewed?  Only one of the items compared is able to kill without human involvement ... in fact, it kills IN SPITE of human involvement. 
The rest are only tools/products which require human use to cause harm.

Moosed,
I know this is not a Pitbull forum, but all the things listed required human involvement to cause death. Ask any responsible Pitbull owner, those pits that have killed or maimed people are usually trained to or mistreated to the point they feel a need to protect themselves.  Either way, it required human involvement.

Moosed,
I know this is not a Pitbull forum, but all the things listed required human involvement to cause death. Ask any responsible Pitbull owner, those pits that have killed or maimed people are usually trained to or mistreated to the point they feel a need to protect themselves.  Either way, it required human involvement.

I don't like bashing any breed of animal.  It's not the pit bull's aggressiveness that causes it to be more dangerous, and the aggressiveness is what the "human involvement" can affect.  The Pit Bull WHEN IT DOES ATTACK is totally focused on killing, not just winning the fight.  That is why Pit Bulls have been known to amputate a man's feet even after the man is down and not fighting back.  They are relentless.

If you have any dog breed and teach them bad behavior, the results are bad.  If you have a Pit Bull and teach them bad behavior, the results can be even worse. The studies and stats support this conclusion.  Pits account for a substantially inordinate amount of mamings and deaths compared to their representation in the domestic dog population. 

I still believe the comment I made about not requiring human interaction to kill is correct.  Many of the Pits which attack are family pets and not abused or trained to kill.  They are, however, animals, and they behave as such.  Only, when they act like animals, the results are worse than with most other breeds.

 

Dogs are descendedents of wolfs, top predators.  They still carry many of their wild features. Sharp teeth, aggression, stamina, and pack mentality. Only difference is they do not fear humans.  You can train or not train your dog all you want, once they get "free" and return back to the "wild", they essentially are "wolfs". And they are not afraid and familiar with humans, which makes them more dangerous.

Look what happened after hurricane katerina.  Packs of dogs were roaming the streets eating anything they could find.

Dogs are descendedents of wolfs, top predators.  They still carry many of their wild features. Sharp teeth, aggression, stamina, and pack mentality. Only difference is they do not fear humans.  You can train or not train your dog all you want, once they get "free" and return back to the "wild", they essentially are "wolfs". And they are not afraid and familiar with humans, which makes them more dangerous.

Look what happened after hurricane katerina. Packs of dogs were roaming the streets eating anything they could find.

... and ANYONE?      

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Free Audiobook
http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/book/call-of-the-wild-by-jack-london

Free Ebook
http://www.literatureproject.com/call-of-the-wild/

Description:

Buck is living a happy life in California until he is sold to pay a gambling debt. Taken to the Klondike to become a sled dog, Buck must toughen up and learn the harsher rules of survival in the North. One of the first of these is how to deal with being harnessed in the same team as a dog that wants to kill him.

Large, strong and smart, Buck toughens to his new life. But even the toughest dog can be worn down by constant work, and after 3,000 miles of pulling sleds, Buck nears the end of his rope.

Cast away as no longer useful, Buck is acquired by greenhorns whose inexperience nearly kills him, but after being saved by John Thornton, he at last finds a man he can love.

Then on a remote gold-hunting expedition, Buck hears a call emanating from the woods and speaking to the wild heart of his distant ancestors. The lure of it almost balances the great love he bears for Thornton, but events take him away from his old life... and into legend.

Please be aware this book contains graphic descriptions of violence and animal cruelty.

Slight correction:

Roving packs of wild dogs are certainly possible should the SHTF here. They taste a good deal like chicken but need to be boiled longer because the meat is tough.

Humans are the top predators.