Another mass shooting in the U.S

Sparks

pabloh999 wrote: »

Id say 31000 gun deaths last year pretty unacceptable.
Is it acceptable to you? Yes/No?

20,000 of those are suicides.
Canada and Australia both proved by doing it, that if you ban guns to prevent suicide by gun, you can succeed.

Unfortunately, Canada and Australia both also proved by doing it, that if you deny suicidal people one means, they just choose another. Suicides by self-inflicted gunshot drop off to nearly zero; and then suicide by drowning, jumping, poison, self-inflicted knife wounds, car exhaust and every other method goes up and the final suicide rate remains unchanged.

So by implementing a gun ban as a solution instead of looking to the actual causes of the problem and addressing them, you're ignoring 20,000 deaths as acceptable losses.


Look now at the remaining ten thousand or so. According to the US DoJ, two thirds of those are gang violence. Thing about gangs is, take away legally held firearms and you don't generally disarm them. But lets say you have Harry Potter's wand and you wave it and all the guns in the world vanish instantly. Okay, now the gangs are reduced to beating and stabbing each other to death and, oh yeah, IEDs. You know, like the pipe bombs Dublin gangs have been using on each other for the last few years, including the one they found in a school today. But let's be generous and say you eliminate all their gun deaths (around six thousand) and they only manange to beat, stab and blow up four thousand. So that's two thousand people you've saved so far.

What about the remaining three thousand? Well, let's give you the gun accidents right off the bat. That's another four to five hundred in a bad year. So you're up to 2500 now. And the remaining 2500? Well, the thing is, some of those are going to be genuine cases of self-defence; and some are going to be premeditated murder; and some will be some form of manslaughter in between those two poles. But if it's a genuine case of self-defence, then it was a him-or-you situation, so you've just killed all those people because they didn't have a gun to defend themselves. And if it was pre-meditated murder, well, if you're evil enough to plan it, you're evil enough to use another means if one is denied you, so you probably won't save any of them. But lets be generous and say you save all the manslaughter cases. At a guess, that's another thousand, maybe another fifteen hundred people right there.

So you saved maybe four thousand people, killed somewhere between five and fifteen hundred people (in fact, you saved that many "bad guys" and killed that many "good guys" pretty much by definition there), and you made no difference to 26,000 deaths at all.

That's back-of-an-envelope, but consider this next bit: according to the pro-gun-ban side of the debate in the US, firearms are used every year in 80,000 self-defence situations (you don't, after all, need to kill the other guy every time to defend yourself with a firearm; sometimes just producing it works, sometimes the other guy survives -- that's why the 80,000 don't show up in the gun death figures). The anti-gun-ban side has a much higher figure, in the six-to-seven-figure range, but let's say they're utterly biased and wrong and use the pro-gun-ban side's figure. If it's a self-defence situation and you can't defend yourself (and those figures are for actual situations, not people feeling wary, the study selected for this) then the outcome is going to be a beating, or a rape or a murder.

So, implementing a complete gun ban (using magic no less - you can't have a complete ban without it and without a complete ban the figures wind up much worse than these), you save about four thousand lives, you trade hundreds of innocent lives for hundreds of criminal lives, you have no effect on twenty-six thousand lives, and you create eighty thousand beatings, rapes and murders.

Even at the most basic level of assessment, that plan is not a good one.

Gatling

Try to have a complete fire arms ban in America as Sparks well written post say's you may save 4000 lives you may just get a civil war when you try to disarm 3million people who are steadfast and resolute in there Defence of the 2nd Amendment Right . save 4000 kill 100,000 + that's been extremely conservative

FionnK86

Weapons designed for war should be band, but keep handguns and hunting rifles. They're is no need for assault rifles with rapid firing magazines. It's not like the "deer" your hunting is going to take 10 rounds to drop. They are useless for self defence also. You've caught a burglar, sure shoot him I don't care your property,your life, they forfeit it entering your land, but there is no reason to plant 10 bullets in him. You can only kill him once. Assault Rifles were designed during WWII, to give the soldier the capability to repel or take on a squad of troops, not little kids in a school.

It's the right of an American citizen to bear arms, and let them f**k up their own country.

Sparks

Gatling wrote: »

Try to have a complete fire arms ban in America as Sparks well written post say's you may save 4000 lives you may just get a civil war when you try to disarm 3million people who are steadfast and resolute in there Defence of the 2nd Amendment Right . save 4000 kill 100,000 + that's been extremely conservative

Yes, but for the purposes of the back of the envelope, we had a solution that didn't lead to any deaths...

Gatling

Sparks wrote: »

Yes, but for the purposes of the back of the envelope, we had a solution that didn't lead to any deaths...

All HAIL the MIGHTY SOOOTY

Sparks

FionnK86 wrote: »

Weapons designed for war should be band

All the modern ones are and have been for a while now.

kThey're is no need for assault rifles with rapid firing magazines.

Skipping the minor error there, assault rifles have been heavily controlled in the US for some time now.

They are useless for self defence also.

Quite a few people's experiences would seem to indicate that this is an erroneous conclusion. It's not something I'd ever like to find out for myself, but if you can't learn from actual data, what hope is there?

they forfeit it entering your land

Er, no. That's not how it works, here or there.

but there is no reason to plant 10 bullets in him. You can only kill him once.

Except that this isn't hollywood and sometimes one bullet won't stop an assailant; but everyone's seen hollywood so sometimes if the firearm looks mean and scary, you won't need to actually fire it.

Assault Rifles were designed during WWII, to give the soldier the capability to repel or take on a squad of troops, not little kids in a school.

That's not what they were designed for.

Look, everyone's got an opinion and a right to it, that's true, but on the other hand, this idea that everyone's opinion is equally valid and correct... well, Dara O'Briain said it best:

Dara O'Briain wrote:

There's a kind of notion that everyone's opinion is equally valid. My arse! Bloke who is a professor of dentistry for forty years does not have a debate with some idiot who removes his teeth with string and a door!

Read more about it, and think more about it. See if your opinion changes. Just for fits and giggles.

MadsL

FionnK86 wrote: »

Weapons designed for war should be band, but keep handguns and hunting rifles. They're is no need for assault rifles with rapid firing magazines. It's not like the "deer" your hunting is going to take 10 rounds to drop. They are useless for self defence also. You've caught a burglar, sure shoot him I don't care your property,your life, they forfeit it entering your land, but there is no reason to plant 10 bullets in him. You can only kill him once. Assault Rifles were designed during WWII, to give the soldier the capability to repel or take on a squad of troops, not little kids in a school.

It's the right of an American citizen to bear arms, and let them f**k up their own country.

Where do you even begin to correct the misinformation in this post...???

Gatling

WOW

pabloh999

MadsL wrote: »

So there are other factors at work in the murder rate other than comparative levels of gun control?





The people have the right under the Second Amendment to defend themselves, the Seond Amendment doesn't concern itself with from whom, although given the historical context it is to prevent the excesses of Government having an unfair burden on the people.

Who does the Constitution of Ireland intend to defend the people from when it states that an Irish citizens home is inviolable?

Obviously there are many other factors at work.
But when gun lovers like your good self tell everyone guns have nothing to do with it, or very little this serious problem will never be fixed.

Even 2 common sense bare minimum measures are not even in place

- Eliminate those gun shows
Your a criminal and you want a gun? Go to a gun show.

- Gun dealers must provide detailed inventory of their stock

Despite the relaxing [8] of some
restrictions, parts of the original Tiahrt Amendment remain in place [7].
The ATF can't require gun dealers to conduct an inventory to account for lost or
stolen guns; records of customer background checks must be destroyed within 24
hours if they are clean enough to allow the sale; and trace data can't be used
in state civil lawsuits or in an effort to suspend or revoke a gun dealer's
license.

Fvcking Insanity
How can anyone defend this?

Gun owners seem unwilling to make even token gestures of compromise.

fishy fishy

just a comment for those who don't know....

we don't live in the States.... we live in Ireland - Ireland is not the next new "State" of America.

Would ye not try and get a bit more interested in what goes on in your own country instead of sorting out someone else's?

just a thought.

pabloh999

fishy fishy wrote: »

just a comment for those who don't know....

we don't live in the States.... we live in Ireland - Ireland is not the next new "State" of America.

Would ye not try and get a bit more interested in what goes on in your own country instead of sorting out someone else's?

just a thought.

Yes very good comment:rolleyes:
Who is this "we" you speak of, many posters here live there - shock:eek:
Replace "we" with "I" and piss off.
Before ye go
Exactly what problems do you think will be sorted out here?

Do you think Obama is here? Posting comments, taking advice



I lived there for the best part of a decade and have many friends over there

fishy fishy

pabloh999 wrote: »

Yes very good comment:rolleyes:
Who is this "we" you speak of, many posters here live there - shock:eek:
Replace "we" with "I" and piss off.
Before ye go
Exactly what problems do you think will be sorted out here?

Do you think Obama is here? Posting comments, taking advice



I lived there for the best part of a decade and have many friends over there

put your energy into fixing your own country.

Sparks

pabloh999 wrote: »

How can anyone defend this?

You know that while in Ireland this is technically not the case, in practical terms it's only very very rarely carried out, all the paperwork is exactly that - on paper - and therefore we effectively have no such system because a full national accounting would take so long it would be a year out of date before it was even half-done?

And yet, we seem to cope.

Not saying it couldn't be better; I'm just saying it's not (pardon the pun) a silver bullet.

Gun owners seem unwilling to make even token gestures of compromise.

Possibly because people who don't know what an assault rifle is are calling for their ban while looking at things that aren't assault rifles. And that's the normal pattern we see - in the UK, in the US, in Ireland, every time something happens that scares the general populace, we talk about how we have to "fix the problem" and then within a heartbeat, that idea is forgotten and we start talking about what guns to ban this time. As if (a) licenced firearms holders had anything to do with the problem; or (b) banning a firearm would fix the problem. (a) has never been true where the firearms laws were enforced, and (b) has never ever happened (and usually banning a firearm makes everyone think the problem is fixed and then a few years later, we do the whole dance again, with more people injured or dead because we never actually fix the problem).

So firearms owners have learnt, through repeated demonisation and repeated punishment, that if they even think about giving an inch, everyone else will take ten miles.

But on the other hand, if you have any actual evidence to back up your theory (and by evidence I mean something that has undergone and been approved by peer review - you know, the basic kind of evaluation we demand from new medicines or medical treatments), then we could talk, because then we'd know you'd put in the time and studied the problem. It's just that most people who want a ban on guns of some kind have never done that.

pabloh999

fishy fishy wrote: »

put your energy into fixing your own country.

Ok, but before I do that, what can be fixed by posting comments on a website?

pabloh999

Sparks wrote: »

So firearms owners have learnt, through repeated demonisation and repeated punishment, that if they even think about giving an inch, everyone else will take ten miles.

So stubborness and paranoia?

In America most gun victims are black/hispanic. So there is unwillingnes to change anything or really care by the establishment.
I think that is gonna change as demographics change.
So gunmakers/lobbyists will probably have to focus on minorities in the long term.
Not much hunting in big cities, hand guns are banned in some cities.
So really the only way to sell to people(minorities) in cities is through illegal means

Despite the relaxing [8] of some
restrictions, parts of the
original Tiahrt Amendment remain in place [7].
The ATF can't require gun
dealers to conduct an inventory to account for lost or stolen guns; records of customer background checks must be destroyed within 24 hours if they are clean enough to allow the sale; and trace data can't be used in state civil lawsuits or in an effort to suspend or revoke a gun dealer's license.

Sparks

pabloh999 wrote: »

So stubborness and paranoia?

No.
A learned response to being blamed repeatedly for something that's not their fault because they're (ironically) an easy target (after all, if you write a gun ban into law, it's only the law-abiding gun owners who'll obey it, so they have always been the ones who bear the brunt of any such law).

There's also the point that we're constantly treated in a way that society wouldn't tolerate if that treatment was levelled at groups defined by ethnicity or gender or age. For example, what you just wrote. I explained there's a long-standing historical precedent - not an opinion, verifiable fact - in several different countries that shows why gun owners are legitimately cynical and wary of proposed new firearms legislation. You characterised that as a negative character trait (stubbornness) and a borderline mental health problem (paranoia). That's uncivil, downright rude and would normally not be tolerated by anyone who felt they should be treated like everyone else; but for some reason, people think it's perfectly okay to talk about firearms owners like that.

Not much hunting in big cities, hand guns are banned in some cities.

That's factually inaccurate. In fact, in some cities, the opposite is true (New York permits handguns but not rifles).

MadsL

pabloh999 wrote: »

But when gun lovers like your good self tell everyone guns have nothing to do with it, or very little this serious problem will never be fixed.

You know name-calling doesn't really help you make your argument any more than calling me a baby-murderer helps you win an abortion debate, could we hold back on the "gun-lover" crap.

Even 2 common sense bare minimum measures are not even in place

- Eliminate those gun shows
Your a criminal and you want a gun? Go to a gun show.

- Gun dealers must provide detailed inventory of their stock

Fvcking Insanity
How can anyone defend this?

Gun owners seem unwilling to make even token gestures of compromise.

You missed where I posted and addressed this?

MadsL wrote: »

How do you make that non-punitive in terms of costs for small time sellers though?

How about a buyers licence rather than a seller being required to run the background check? Or Firearms dealers giving a 30 day buyers clearance certificate.

The complaints are mainly that gun show buyers feel any legislation will drive prices up.

Would you accept a system of compulsory background checks for DUI before you could buy a car, at the sellers expense, even if selling the car privately. That's pretty much what you are asking for from private gun sellers.

As to the Tiahrt Amendments, you have to have a balance in any society between recording the activities of your citizens and those citizens' protection against unnecessary interferance in their privacy. There is always going to be a legal tension between those two extremes.

As far as inventory is concerned, I can see how gun dealers pushed back being forced to do additional paperwork as a cost of doing business. No other business in the US as far as I am aware is required to register its inventory on a Federal basis.

In America most gun victims are black/hispanic. So there is unwillingnes to change anything or really care by the establishment.

You are coming very close to calling someone a racist there.

I think that is gonna change as demographics change.
So gunmakers/lobbyists will probably have to focus on minorities in the long term.

Huh?

Not much hunting in big cities, hand guns are banned in some cities.
So really the only way to sell to people(minorities) in cities is through illegal means

Wut? Illegal means? Sell to? Please do explain...

pabloh999

MadsL wrote: »

You know name-calling doesn't really help you make your argument any more than calling me a baby-murderer helps you win an abortion debate, could we hold back on the "gun-lover" crap.



You missed where I posted and addressed this?



Would you accept a system of compulsory background checks for DUI before you could buy a car, at the sellers expense, even if selling the car privately. That's pretty much what you are asking for from private gun sellers.

As to the Tiahrt Amendments, you have to have a balance in any society between recording the activities of your citizens and those citizens' protection against unnecessary interferance in their privacy. There is always going to be a legal tension between those two extremes.

As far as inventory is concerned, I can see how gun dealers pushed back being forced to do additional paperwork as a cost of doing business. No other business in the US as far as I am aware is required to register its inventory on a Federal basis.


You are coming very close to calling someone a racist there.


Huh?


Wut? Illegal means? Sell to? Please do explain...

Gun lover - you are a lover of guns, no?

You are making the mistake of comparing the sale of guns to any normal product or procedeure.
So what if gun dealers have a bit of extra hassle and costs?
Who gives a fvck
How selfish can you get.

They are guns, not cars, not tractors, not computers
31000 people every year arent killed by computers or mobile phones,
Although it seems mobile phones are tracked better than guns.

Are you telling there me is balance in the media when it comes to reporting of crime?
Black murders barely go one cycle on the local news.
White girl missing/raped almost goes national.
But thats a discussion for another day


So to sum up
Gun people response to gun massacres- we wont change anything?

MadsL

pabloh999 wrote: »

Gun lover - you are a lover of guns, no?

Do you own a phone. oh, you "phone lover". Own a sink? Oh you "sink lover".
Do you realise how ridiculous you sound calling people "gun-lovers"

You are making the mistake of comparing the sale of guns to any normal product or procedeure.

How is it different? I can buy a compound bow in Walmart.

So what if gun dealers have a bit of extra hassle and costs?
Who gives a fvck
How selfish can you get.

I wasn't talking about gun dealers. I was talking about private sales. If you put a significant charge on individuals, it will be challenged as unconstitutional, then taxpayers have to pick up the charge. Someone has to pay for the cost of a background check. Who should that be do you think?

They are guns, not cars, not tractors, not computers
31000 people every year arent killed by computers or mobile phones,
Although it seems mobile phones are tracked better than guns.

In 2011 alone, over 3,000 people were killed in distracted driving crashes and that number is growing, a traffic cop told me recently that cops are now more concerned by mobile phones and driving than DUI. And you have already been told your figure of 31000 includes 20000 suicides, so stop using emotive and false figures.

Are you telling there me is balance in the media when it comes to reporting of crime?
Black murders barely go one cycle on the local news.
White girl missing/raped almost goes national.
But thats a discussion for another day

You want to make a gun control discussion about race? Wow.

So to sum up
Gun people response to gun massacres- we wont change anything?

Did you miss me proposing changes to the gun show process, and supporting all 23 Presidential Orders.

What changes have you proposed other than a knee-jerk reaction and namecalling.

InTheTrees

pabloh999 wrote: »

Gun lover - you are a lover of guns, no?

You are making the mistake of comparing the sale of guns to any normal product or procedeure.
So what if gun dealers have a bit of extra hassle and costs?
Who gives a fvck
How selfish can you get.

They are guns, not cars, not tractors, not computers
31000 people every year arent killed by computers or mobile phones,
Although it seems mobile phones are tracked better than guns.

Are you telling there me is balance in the media when it comes to reporting of crime?
Black murders barely go one cycle on the local news.
White girl missing/raped almost goes national.
But thats a discussion for another day


So to sum up
Gun people response to gun massacres- we wont change anything?

You really need to learn more about US domestic politics.

And Americans for that matter.

You're off on some angry parallel path that really doesnt correspond with the issues at hand.

And getting angrier and angrier.

pabloh999

InTheTrees wrote: »

You really need to learn more about US domestic politics.

And Americans for that matter.

You're off on some angry parallel path that really doesnt correspond with the issues at hand.

And getting angrier and angrier.

Im not one bit angry;)
What makes you think i am?
But I would be angry if i still lived there
Tracking guns does not correspond with the issues at hand..ok

pabloh999

MadsL wrote: »

Do you own a phone. oh, you "phone lover". Own a sink? Oh you "sink lover".
Do you realise how ridiculous you sound calling people "gun-lovers"


How is it different? I can buy a compound bow in Walmart.


I wasn't talking about gun dealers. I was talking about private sales. If you put a significant charge on individuals, it will be challenged as unconstitutional, then taxpayers have to pick up the charge. Someone has to pay for the cost of a background check. Who should that be do you think?


In 2011 alone, over 3,000 people were killed in distracted driving crashes and that number is growing, a traffic cop told me recently that cops are now more concerned by mobile phones and driving than DUI. And you have already been told your figure of 31000 includes 20000 suicides, so stop using emotive and false figures.


.

Any gunrelated costs should be paid for by anyone buying a gun, obviously. Small price to pay for hopefully reducing a small bit of the gun carnage. Contribution to trying to build a better society?


The thing is gun lov..i mean gun people like yourself view guns like any household object such as a toaster or a chair and the rest of us view them as dangerous weapons designed to kill.
That'll never change i suppose.
If i was in your shoes and something i had a strong passion for was threatened i might use all the same sort or arguments(no matter how silly they sound to everybody else:D)

Anyways, nothing will change, life goes on...for some.

Oh yea by the way i do love sinks, how did you know

InTheTrees

pabloh999 wrote: »

Im not one bit angry;)
What makes you think i am?
But I would be angry if i still lived there
Tracking guns does not correspond with the issues at hand..ok

I guess the lack of empathy comes across as angry.

Sparks

pabloh999 wrote: »

Any gunrelated costs should be paid for by anyone buying a gun, obviously.

Not obviously.

Small price to pay for hopefully reducing a small bit of the gun carnage. Contribution to trying to build a better society?

Why should those not causing the violence problem in the US be (a) blamed for it; or (b) forced to pay for it?

The thing is gun lov..

See what I meant in an earlier post above?
If you'd said wok, spick, ******, slant-eyes, or any one of any of the other deogatory terms we've invented for ethnic groups, age groups, gender groups or religious groups, you'd be hauled up over it, but because this group is defined by owning an item, you seem to think it's acceptable.

It's not. It's hate-filled nonsense.

InTheTrees

Sparks wrote: »

It's not. It's hate-filled nonsense.

Its also short sighted and obstructive because it segregates people into one camp or the other while there's really a HUGE amount of people in the middle trying to make a change.

BattleCorp

pabloh999 wrote: »

So stubborness and paranoia?

Holy fcuk. You think us law abiding citizens in the shooting community have nothing to fear when it comes to gun control implemented by people who know sweet fcukall about shooting? You think we are just stubborn and paranoid?

Here's an example below showing that we aren't paranoid.

I've said it 10 times in this thread already but centrefire handguns were more or less banned here in 2009 (no new licences) in order to cut down on gun crime. The thing is that no legally held centrefire handguns have ever been recorded as being used to commit a crime here. How does this cut down on the amount of handgun crime. All it did was punish the law abiding licenced centrefire pistol users. It didn't save one single life, just punished me by removing me from a sport that I enjoy.

This is the kind of crap that we in the shooting community have to put up with. We are tarred and feathered every time there's a shooting. The fact that 99.999% of shooters go about their business every day in a safe, law abiding manner gets lost among the screams to "ban guns" whenever any tragedy occurs, as if that's the cure-all for every tragedy.

To be honest, it's getting hard to keep arguing with people who don't have a clue about guns but still shout and scream that they want them banned. The amount of people on here saying ban assault rifles is staggering considering hardly any of them know what the fcuk an assault rifle is.

MadsL

pabloh999 wrote: »

Any gunrelated costs should be paid for by anyone buying a gun, obviously. Small price to pay for hopefully reducing a small bit of the gun carnage. Contribution to trying to build a better society?

There's no evidence that it would reduce anything, except bank balances.

I see that e agree with each other. Except the gun show proposals have been to date to make the seller financially responsible.

The thing is gun lov..i mean gun people like yourself view guns like any household object such as a toaster or a chair and the rest of us view them as dangerous weapons designed to kill.

You know if people starting regarding cars with more respect we might have far fewer deaths, if as much energy went into safety campaigns as you want to focus on gun control far far more lives would be saved than the 11000 a year that you are talking about. I'm not saying we can't do both, but cars are now killing at an increased rate 7.5% higher than last According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an estimated 25,580 Americans were killed in motor vehicle crashes during the first nine months of 2012.

That'll never change i suppose.
If i was in your shoes and something i had a strong passion for was threatened i might use all the same sort or arguments(no matter how silly they sound to everybody else:D)

What "silly" arguments have I made, really. I would like to know.

CollardGreens

......I sure do wish obama would stfu about guns/healthcare and pay attention to what America needs him to do and focus on JOBS!!!!

He uses anything, and I do mean anything to take the publics mind off of what is most important to many. If half these ppl that are shooting had jobs then they might be to involved to take the time to shoot at anybody.

We need jobs, when we have jobs the money funnels to other countries (yes we do buy Irish beer)

pabloh999

Sparks

Yeah, you're a few days late with that one pablo, it aired last week. And while I have a lot of time for Jon Stewart (his is the only tv programme I watch regularly), even he would point out - in fact has pointed out - that expecting him to be right all the time or to be the final arbiter of informed debate in the US is somewhat undermined by the Comedy Channel logo you might notice on the screen when he's on; his brief is to poke fun at what he sees as extremists, not to solve the world's problems.

(For example, the mcdonalds coffee incident he mentions is an infamous example of why the drive for tort reform in the US is wrong, infamous for being misquoted as he does there. His research team is not perfect because their job is to write jokes, not research public policy...)

And even then, he doesn't jump up and down yelling "ban them ban them" - he's talking about fixing broken laws; he's talking about hollywood's glorification of firearms in movies; and you've missed the first few shows he did on this where he was calling for people to talk about the violence problem.

And when people actually talk (meaning a two-way dialogue), they learn things. For a quick example, talk to a firearms expert about the Girandoni air rifle and you wouldn't be saying that you could have assault muskets with bayonets because such things aren't a joke - they existed, they were deployed in a major army for over thirty years, they were used in the early settlement of America, and they could be built in someone's garage workshop fairly easily (assuming that workshop was reasonably equipped).

Talk to firearms experts for longer, and you'd learn more. Like the breakdown of those 30,000 people and how gun bans can't actually save most of them. Hell, if people talked to firearms experts about firearms a bit more often (say, the way you talk to computer experts about IT law or doctors about medical law or engineers about laws pertaining to construction standards), you might actually wind up with sane, effective gun laws; but that never happens (I ought to know).

As to your subtext, that we're all paranoid and imagining a potential problem where one does not exist, there are many traditional sayings that express a concise and succinct answer which also conveys adequately the level of disbelief those of us who were paying attention in the last few decades (in fact, in just the last decade in Ireland) have towards your statement. "Don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining", for example...