Page 156 of 186 FirstFirst ... 56106146154155156157158166 ... LastLast
Results 1,551 to 1,560 of 1857

Thread: Gun control

  1. #1551
    Administrator
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Posts
    8,832
    I didn't shout it down as absurd. The bike one is a wildly flawed analogy (cycling puts the cyclist in danger not others, and statistically improves your chances at a long life - the health benefits outweigh the risk of being killed by a driver, especially for the #1 cause of early death, heart disease), and the car one I agree with which is why I'd like to increase regulation and enforcement on driving and apply that same regulation to firearms, because I think that the 0.7% death rate is not statistically insignificant. That's one we'll never come to an agreement on as we clearly see it quite differently, but that's more than 1 in 200. To me, that's a lot.

    I'd also argue that the Parkinson's comparison is more apt than you think. We do a *lot* to fight Parkinson's. I'd love to see us pour just as much into stopping people from being shot.

    I'd be curious to see how much of that $31.8 billion is selling to the military and law enforcement. Leaving aside the distaste I feel for the argument that "yeah, people die, but a lot of people are making money off of it so that's not an option", I don't see even banning all civilian gun use (which I don't know that anybody is arguing here, despite your continuing insistence that that's the argument) as killing an entire industry that's helping arm the largest military in the world.

    Total agreement about fourth amendment developments. Again, though, I doubt there are many people on this board that would disagree there, so it tends not to generate the same kind of traffic. It'd be interesting to see if we do have anyone here that's in favor of violating someone's fourth amendment rights in exchange for greater (perceived or real) safety.

  2. #1552
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Posts
    12,803
    I think that's the bottom line, how much right are you willing to give up for greater perceived safety.

    Suffice to say we're all onboard for greater safety. We just have to do it without sacrificing fundamental rights somehow. If your solution is to attack or compromise 2a, then the gun rights folks will just fight it until they die. Can the lefties figure out way to maintain 2a and make it safer for all?

    Both sides need to work together on this. Continued polarization and disdain for the other side will only make matters worse for all.
    Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; July 10th, 2018 at 10:47 AM.

  3. #1553
    What does the Bat say? Jason's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Posts
    3,019
    Quote Originally Posted by dodint View Post
    Sure. But when a proper analogy is made (cars, bikes, etc) that's shouted down as absurd as well. So what can I do? Guns hold a unique place in our society, that's plain to see and most analogies fail. An intellectual annoyance of mine is that firearms impact is exaggerated by influencers, for lack of a better word, out of a dislike for a culture they do not partake in or to use to advance their own agenda. That's a commentary on the national discourse and not directed at anyone specific.

    The Parkinson's comparison was simply an illustration of scale, they happened to have the same death rate of 0.7% of the population.

    Here's another way of looking at it. Jason (and others) wants to use an isolated incident from six years ago (Sandy Hook) to kill the firearms industry, a $31.8 billion industry in the United States. That's $31.8B worth of economic force in the form of jobs, safety, recreation, sustenance procurement, etc. Saying that the industry should go away because a very, very small number of people occasionally misuse or abuse the end product is incredibly near-sighted. It's absurd in the same way banning cars is absurd, the utility far outweighs the the tragic but statistically insignificant bad outcomes.

    This might be the only ongoing debate I engage in that is completely futile. Absolutists clashing with the Constitution was settled 10 years ago this week with Heller II. I wish we talked about something more compelling and impactful, like Fourth Amendment developments. But nobody gleefully runs to the message board when a police officer violates someone's curtilage before getting a warrant.
    Not true, I've been anti-gun for much longer than that. I don't see a need or advantage to them in a modern society. Sure, you can argue there's money and jobs in it, but it's not like we can't use the money spent there on other industries, which would then see an increase in jobs. I also disagree that the utility of guns outweighs the bad in the way that vehicles do.

    Either way, again, I know banning guns isn't going to happen, so I'd like to see us improve inequalities that often lead to crimes, to at least help further decrease violence.

  4. #1554
    Member Member 21Kid's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Orange, CA, USA
    Posts
    5,307
    Socialism!!!

  5. #1555
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Posts
    12,803
    Socialism is bad whenever the poor feels 'entitled' to the wealth of the rich.

    Just as some feel entitled to have sex, when they don't get it, they rent a van or whatever other means to mow women down.

    Things such as Universal income sound good on paper, but it also has another dangerous element to it which is robbing folks of meaning or usefulness. Pretty sure suicide rate will go thru the roof when we have universal basic income...

    With regard to violent gun crimes, I'm sure that happens to nations without gun rights too.

    Narrowing the gap between rich and poor must happen, but rob from rich and give to poor socialism just won't be a good solution. Better solution is for the rich to voluntarily give to the poor. Cause if they don't, either the poor or the govt is going take it from you anyway..,

    Anyway, I don't really think wealth gap is what's cause gun problems in America...

  6. #1556
    Junior Potato
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Posts
    9,597
    Billi… no. Socialism is not about robbing the rich. It’s about paying a percentage of your income (your fair share) in taxation in order to fund the provision of government services… to build a society. Hence the word socialism! The poor don’t get money from the rich, they get it from everyone.

    Chances are that some rich people pay almost zero or an extremely low percentage in tax anyway, because they have the means to manage their money in such a way that they can do it, while still keeping everything perfectly legal and above board. Tax minimisation is not a problem, per se, but people who are well-off have a definite advantage here. And politically, the ones who yell the loudest about how bad socialism is are usually the ones who are the most likely to benefit because the government takes money from revenue and gives it right the fuck back to rich people.

    Outside of welfare and healthcare, who are the ones who get the most from government handouts? Go on, look it up. Where does the overwhelming majority of your government’s non-welfare money go?

  7. #1557
    Spiny beast TheBenior's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Chicago
    Posts
    1,564
    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    Not true, I've been anti-gun for much longer than that. I don't see a need or advantage to them in a modern society. Sure, you can argue there's money and jobs in it, but it's not like we can't use the money spent there on other industries, which would then see an increase in jobs. I also disagree that the utility of guns outweighs the bad in the way that vehicles do.

    Either way, again, I know banning guns isn't going to happen, so I'd like to see us improve inequalities that often lead to crimes, to at least help further decrease violence.
    A lot of that is your perception from being a city dweller, presumably in a neighborhood without homicide rates approaching those of the most dangerous Latin American cities. You live somewhere that probably has more police officers per-capita than any other US city, even if a lot of them are glorified security guards or accountants and lawyers with guns. Your potential police response times to in-progress emergency calls are likely to be under 10 minutes, not under an hour. You don't have to worry about your livestock getting attacked by coyotes or them stepping in rodent burrows and snapping their legs. You haven't been involved in one of the 67,000 annual uses of a firearm in self defense, and that's the low-ball FBI estimate. Other studies' estimates range between 500,000 and 3 million uses, most of which never have a shot fired. Some people aren't as comfortable as you are with ceding your safety to those who are the strongest and most aggressive, or the hoped for goodwill of others.

    To bring up Latin America again, I'm not sure why near legal prohibition of private firearm ownership in the US would result in Western European crime rates, and not just disarm the vast majority of law-abiding citizens like it's done in Mexico or Brazil.

    Probably the biggest thing we could do to reduce crimes committed with firearms is end drug prohibition. A huge amount of, if not most shootings that aren't suicides, are criminals trying to kill other criminals, though more and more are driven by petty social media squabbles every year.

  8. #1558
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Posts
    1,127
    Quote Originally Posted by TheBenior View Post
    Probably the biggest thing we could do to reduce crimes committed with firearms is end drug prohibition.
    x2

  9. #1559
    Administrator
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Posts
    8,832
    Quote Originally Posted by TheBenior View Post
    Probably the biggest thing we could do to reduce crimes committed with firearms is end drug prohibition.
    I'm down with that.

  10. #1560
    What does the Bat say? Jason's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Posts
    3,019
    Quote Originally Posted by TheBenior View Post
    A lot of that is your perception from being a city dweller, presumably in a neighborhood without homicide rates approaching those of the most dangerous Latin American cities. You live somewhere that probably has more police officers per-capita than any other US city, even if a lot of them are glorified security guards or accountants and lawyers with guns. Your potential police response times to in-progress emergency calls are likely to be under 10 minutes, not under an hour. You don't have to worry about your livestock getting attacked by coyotes or them stepping in rodent burrows and snapping their legs. You haven't been involved in one of the 67,000 annual uses of a firearm in self defense, and that's the low-ball FBI estimate. Other studies' estimates range between 500,000 and 3 million uses, most of which never have a shot fired. Some people aren't as comfortable as you are with ceding your safety to those who are the strongest and most aggressive, or the hoped for goodwill of others.

    To bring up Latin America again, I'm not sure why near legal prohibition of private firearm ownership in the US would result in Western European crime rates, and not just disarm the vast majority of law-abiding citizens like it's done in Mexico or Brazil.

    Probably the biggest thing we could do to reduce crimes committed with firearms is end drug prohibition. A huge amount of, if not most shootings that aren't suicides, are criminals trying to kill other criminals, though more and more are driven by petty social media squabbles every year.

    • True, I live in a nice neighborhood, and not in a place with crime rates approaching Latin American cities. Ideally I'd like to see nowhere in the US with crime rates that high.
    • Regarding the rural/farm aspects, not sure if I've mentioned it here, but I actually support gun ownership for those situations, and ethical hunting. Don't really care for gun ownership (especially hoarding guns) in more populated areas.
    • While I haven't experienced firearm in self defense personally, I will say it seems like there's an assumption that I've never been around firearms. The first twenty something years of my life, a good portion of it was spent in rural/farmland type areas where gun ownership was needed for situations you mentioned above, and it didn't seem abnormal to me at all, and frankly still doesn't. My dad also had a gun in the home, when I was in "the city", it was never needed, but felt out of place there. My experiences of gun ownership in "the city" outside of that though were gun shots/ambulances multiple times a week. Also, a couple "kids" who were part of "gangs" that liked to threaten people with guns (including myself a couple times) in high school. This was a couple years before Columbine. Again, not a great "in the city" experience.
    • It's interesting that your range of "self defense" stats goes from 67k to 3 million. It's hard to really debate such a range as that, but I will say I think this country has the capability to be a country where that level of "self defense" isn't necessary.
    • I've mentioned before in these discussions (not sure if in this thread or not), that I think the "gun violence" problem needs to be approached from multiple directions. I absolutely agree that simply banning guns without any other changes wouldn't give desired results. We need to do things that change our foundation for the better. I've mentioned recently changes in education and social safety nets. The war on drugs is another. Also we need to back out of for profit prisons, and do a better job of rehabilitation, and better setting up former prisoners to be productive members of society once out. When people aren't desperate, and are given better opportunities for better lives, they generally don't choose a violent and risky lifestyle, imo.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •