Gun Control Anyone?

[Polish_Silver]

Guns vs car accidents

Even the argument that the availability of guns has no affect on murder is IMO suspicious. I 'believe' that some significant number of murders are 'crimes of passion' that are facilitated by the tremendous utility of guns. If the perpetrator had to go get a gun from his 'criminal accomplices', he'd probably cool off in many cases. Of course the foregoing is just an opinion.

I also wonder about this. If the angry person reached for a knife, the victim would have greater chance to run away, scream in pain, etc. The gun makes it easier to kill, and therefore widespread gun availability seems to allow more murders to happen.

From your CDC stats, it seems that gun murders are about 1/2 of car accident deaths. But we regulate cars substantially, and use them for transportation. So the "cost-benefit" of cars seems ok. But we don't depend on guns the same way. So is the benefit of widespread gun ownership worth the annual cost of 10k lives?

I haven't touched the problem that, when people own so many guns, it would be difficult to make them "hard to get".

The public safety question is also distinct from the 2nd amendment justification to deter tyrrany---the fact that guns are a public safety hazard does not mean that they are not useful to counter balance government power.

[bart]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

One incredibly important aspect largely missing from the debate is training.

There is a LOT of quite relevant firearms and stress inoculation training going on for citizens, law enforcement, and the military.......that's GOOD.

The bad news is there should be more of it, for more people, on an ongoing basis(as stated previously firearms skill is partially perishable).

Couldn't agree more, as long as it's possible to maintain anonymity.

[bart]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

If there were a national training company with a lobby and wall street backing, you can bet your ass it would be discussed and mandated. Wall Street really dropped the ball on this investing opportunity. I think they are losing their touch.

Cage. You. Now. ;-)

[bart]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

I did wonder if the debate here was any less irrational.

I love this chart. Seriously. So lets see:
- out of 10 items 5 are self inflicted death (assuming unintentional poisoning does not include your wife mistaking the rat poison for arabica blend).
- Driving accidents, seriously ?
- Medical errors... having complicated surgery or like, is usually the victims choice so it is either an accident or "self-inflicted".
- Tabacco is in fact the only item on the list apart from homocides where your action causes harm to others and you know it. For this reason, it is widely regulated and in most countries you are not allowed to smoke in any public places.

So the purpose of the chart is to show: A lot of people die, therefore (machine) gun killings are not that bad in the grand scheme. That is not just silly, it is pretty disgusting.

Different strokes for different folks.

My take is that that chart was intended to put the whole gun deaths area into some perspective. In other words, where's the huge outcry about the amount of deaths from hospital or doctor caused deaths, which are roughly 10x the ones from guns?
I was very concerned about the bad data in that chart though which is why I posted a chart with data from the FBI - baseball bats are *not* what was stated. They're not the #1 weapon used in violent crimes, that's handguns.

And machine guns (full automatic as opposed to semi-automatics like hunting rifles or 'assault' rifles) are extremely heavily regulated, and justifiably so. I was curious about machine guns though, like the Thompson .45 or Uzi etc., so I rented a Thompson legally at a safe & well controlled gun shop range in Las Vegas some years ago. I had fun making lots of holes in a target with 100 rounds.
It was not all that different from renting a 427 Cobra for a day and finding out how "manly" it really was. It was scary powerful and a blast.

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

When I hear that about magazine limits, I think about more than one person in an adversary situation, as in gangs do exist and break-ins (or whatever) by multiple people also exist. And then I think about most gun owners who are poorly trained and also subject to being quite upset in a high emotion defensive situation.

The simple truth is that the potential that they'll miss and run out of bullets is not small. In other words, that's well beyond nonsensical in a civil and law abiding society.

Very logical. But it supports the idea that a big magazine helps you shoot more people, which was the reason for restricting big magazines to reduce school shooting fatalities.

Many people had said "changing the clip is so fast it doesn't matter". I don't buy that, because anything that complicates the process slows it down and makes a failure more likely.

[LorenS]

Re: Guns vs car accidents

From your CDC stats, it seems that gun murders are about 1/2 of car accident deaths. But we regulate cars substantially, and use them for transportation. So the "cost-benefit" of cars seems ok. But we don't depend on guns the same way. So is the benefit of widespread gun ownership worth the annual cost of 10k lives?

The car/ gun thing is a bit overblown, because most car deaths are accidents caused by people who generally obey the law. Therefore changing the laws changes the behavior of most of the people causing the deaths.

Even so, car regulations are widely ignored by criminals and deadbeats, so car crimes are still pretty common.

If most gun deaths were accidents and we could regulate things that would reduce those accidents then new laws would help reduce gun deaths. In fact, this is the case. Hunters now have to take hunter safety class and wear orange during hunting season. Accidental hunter deaths have declined markedly and overall, accidental gun deaths have fallen quite a lot as well, in part due to the civil liability faced by gun owners who realize they are liable for how they handle and store their guns.

I also wonder about this. If the angry person reached for a knife, the victim would have greater chance to run away, scream in pain, etc. The gun makes it easier to kill, and therefore widespread gun availability seems to allow more murders to happen.

The key point to this argument is the balance between a crime that would have been less severe had a gun not been available and a crime elsewhere that was prevented by a gun being readily available. Some studies seem to indicate that the widespread ownership of guns prevents, stops or deters enough crimes that would have included a fatality to offset the increased fatality of the crimes that use a gun to kill. This is really hard to prove.

Maybe this is a misinterpretation, but it seems that you are saying that when a guy rapes a woman, beats her up and lights her on fire it is a success of gun control that this lady survives because he could have shot her.

It is a fact that crimes of the nature described above go up when guns are banned. When guns are banned, non lethal, violent crime goes up. That means that if the studies that prove that guns save more lives than they claim are wrong (and I don't believe they are) you are happy to trade more non lethal violence for fewer deaths. Maybe it is worth it to have significantly more violent crime for less lethal crime.

Is there some kind of reasonable trade? Are 3 rapes with minor mutilation worth one live survivor of a knife attack who is scarred for life and partially paralyzed, but alive? Don't forget that your solution comes at the price of putting non violent people in jail for the mere possession of your newly created contraband, specifically you not only are willing to accept more non lethal violent crime for fewer deaths you're also trading freedom and incarcerating a few non compliant, non dangerous criminals.

[LorenS]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

Very logical. But it supports the idea that a big magazine helps you shoot more people, which was the reason for restricting big magazines to reduce school shooting fatalities.

Many people had said "changing the clip is so fast it doesn't matter". I don't buy that, because anything that complicates the process slows it down and makes a failure more likely.

Here we get into the contextual issues. If you are walking around in a school, with multiple weapons and children cowering in the corners, having to change a 10 round magazine is really not an issue. We gave this guy 10 minutes to have his way with our kids. No one in the school was capable of effectively confronting this man, in large part to our "gun free" zone law.


If you are in your house with one gun in your hand and three masked intruders with crowbars and knives having to change the magazine in your one gun while you are being rushed by whoever survived the initial volley having to change a magazine is a BIG deal.



I'm sorry, but it's true, if you are willing to give an insane homicidal guy a gun free zone and 10 minutes of unfettered access what do you expect to happen? Would it really be OK if the guy used 7 round magazines and 5 more kids survived?

Let's get real, gun free zones may prevent the occasional accidental shooting, but they are colossal failure in preventing mass shootings.

We gave this guy a gun free zone and 10 minutes to commit mayhem. Magazine capacity is so irrelevant.

[reggie]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

To me, the two perception shaping adjustments I would like to see in the perpetual gun control debate are:

1.) The 2nd Amendment's primary purpose is the deterrence of tyranny..

I'd like to suggest extending this frame of reference, as I would also say that its primary purpose is to allow a sovereign individual to protect ALL of their inalienble rights (to liberty, property, family,...), irrespective of the source.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Here it comes...

I have no expertise in firearms other than the several thousand rounds I've burned up killing beer cans and other targets with my own guns and my friends'.

The notion that average folks should have access to the same firepower as a soldier leads us into a sort of arms race that does not seem sensible.

Based on your post, you do not appear to trust the average American to act responsibly.

All of life is a trade-off between risk and benefit.

Agreed.....and I'm kinda thinking this gun control exercise might be best actually analyzed and sliced by a bunch of gun agnostic actuaries. I'd love to see their analysis of the risk/rewards of firearms ownership, particularly their assessment of citizen owned firearms as a check/balance to a broken political process.

The risks of unstable people spraying bullets into theaters and schools is real and recent.

So we've had a few terrible incidents in the past year with evil black assault murder machine cannons(as stated by the Big 6 Mass Media), how does that all look when put in perspective with the rest of violence crime in total, violent crime against children, etc? To be fair......it seems like a horrible over reaction.

What I blame is media ownership concentration.

While most here would claim, with some degree of truth, that they are relatively immune to mass media messaging....I believe the real truth is that no matter how hard we try, we are affected and shaped by mass media......some just more than others.

The benefits of heavily armed citizens, on the other hand, seem pretty far-fetched and hypothetical.

Let me ask you a question.

Was Mutual Assured Destruction(MAD) far-fetched and hypothetical during the Cold War?

I tend to think of citizen owned firearms on one side and government on the other as a less civilized but roughly analogous version of MAD.

If you have it, you will not need it or use it as much(in the big messy "tree of liberty and blood" national reboot sense of things).

I support citizens having small arms to overthrow tyranny, but I am also willing to limit magazine capacities.

I'm along similar lines, but I still think it's exceptionally silly in some regards.

Personal experience: Last week I attended a combat shooting course again for a job coming up. For regulatory reasons due to it being a private contracted company we had to use restricted magazines. It made it harder on us at first for our magazine change drills and SOPs. The irony is we're probably a bit faster on mag changes now for when we get into theatre with full capacity magazines.

The fact is that laws will never, ever stop a well motivated and focused bad guy. Ever.

I see the risk of crazy folks mowing down innocent people as very real, and far greater than the potential benefit of having individuals with 50 round banana clips at the ready to defend liberty. Should a tyrant emerge, we could organize many people with 10 rounds each and get the job done. I can change a 10 round clip pretty fast, and I already own several.

How many lives is freedom and the deterrence of tyranny worth?

As a parent I don't want to see any more dead kids in person, their remains in mass graves, or even just on TV as a politically convenient video bite.

Isn't this a negotiation?

Or is it dictated as entirely one sided?

Where's the President, senior legislators, or even a widely watched media pundit who says "We acknowledge the role of an armed citizenry as a check and balance against the rise of domestic tyranny, and we appreciate their acceptance of firearms control measures that retain the Framers Intent while improving the perception of public safety."

Or something to that effect.

Why do YOU think firearms sales have exploded like internet share prices circa 1998?

If they were all racists, the US would already be deep into Civil War 2.0, so that's just a silly and lazy argument.

I see exploding firearms sales as a "Wisdom of Crowds" indicator.

To me exploding firearms sales is a reaction to people knowing there are some fundamental and serious problems with the US. Some of them rationally/logically understand the debth and breadth of the problems....many don't.......but they respond with something they DO understand...firearms.

I see it much like how Americans had a cacooning home improvement frenzy of spending post 9/11, I think this is little different.

Massive Firearms sales is rough Wisdom of Crowds indicator....at least that's how I read it.

[shiny!]

Re: Here it comes...

"What does the Department of "Homeland Security" suddenly need 1.4 billion more rounds of ammunition at the very point the same government is making it harder for citizens to arm themselves?"

a very good question indeed:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...er-fire/print/

Where is the liberal outrage? Where is the liberal suspicion about powerful, unchecked governments? Where is the liberal unflinching devotion to individual liberty?


We have a president who has radically reshaped the landscape of American government so that it is more of a behemoth than at any time in history and more involved in every aspect of our lives. It is also more unanswerable than ever before.


Now this president is issuing 23 new edicts aimed at curbing individuals' gun rights. At the same time, his federal agencies are stockpiling more and more weapons and ammunition.


And for what, exactly? To go hunting? To shoot the Chinese when they come to collect their debts? To shoot Mexicans tumbling over the Southern border? To shoot the Canadians?


What does the Department of "Homeland Security" suddenly need 1.4 billion more rounds of ammunition at the very point the same government is making it harder for citizens to arm themselves?


There are only 300 million of us. How many bullets do you need? That's more than four bullets for every American man, woman and child. Is your aim really that bad? I mean, have you seen us lately? We are too fat to run very far.


You can say these concerns are some sort of Alex Jones, wack-nut, black helicopter paranoia or you can simply ask, "Why does the government need a billion more rounds of ammo just as it is trying to disarm citizens?"

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2IH1Yh1EB

[LorenS]

Re: Here it comes...

New York police are freaking out, they may be subject to the new gun laws.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?se...ork&id=8958116

[reggie]

Re: Here it comes...

How many lives is freedom and the deterrence of tyranny worth?

As a parent I don't want to see any more dead kids in person, their remains in mass graves, or even just on TV as a politically convenient video bite.

Isn't this a negotiation?

Or is it dictated as entirely one sided?.

I do not agree with the way you are framing this discussion.

Either we possess Invidividual liberty or we do not. If we do, then neither you nor anyone else can dictate what I do as long as I don't infringe on anyone elses same inalienable rights. It's about tolerance.

So, as I see it, you're advocating for a tyranny of the majority (ie Democracy). But guess what, eventhough the masses have been convinced that they can negotiate our liberties, that's not how this nation's framework is configured. And people like me, will continue to fight to maintain our individual liberty, no matter how the masses are maniipulated by a super-sophisticated propaganda machine that seems to escape even the most "educated" of minds.

It's unfortunate that so many of the variables that spark these dialectics are left unsaid, undiscussed, and ridiculed or ignored when discussed. Godel proved "G" to be true in formal systems, essentially saying that there are statements which are true but unproveable. Well, we have the same dynamic within our social systems, and understanding G would drastically alter the public's perception of the issues at play.

[Polish_Silver]

Liberty is not an Absolute

I do not agree with the way you are framing this discussion.

Either we possess Invidividual liberty or we do not. If we do, then neither you nor anyone else can dictate what I do as long as I don't infringe on anyone elses same inalienable rights. It's about tolerance.

"liberty" is partly a social construction. Private property certainly is. The constitution had an eminent domain clause in it from 1789, didn't it?

Since no one made a particluar piece of ground, the obvious rule would be "anybody can use it" . But to allow indivduals privacy, and to promote various values, we have a system where people own certain territories, within limits defined by law. If you own ground, can you prevent airplanes flying above it? People digging wells that take the water beneath it? All of this is determined socially. Private property is a phenomena of the last 6,000 years---agricultural city states. Before that, we were roving bands of hunters, and if there was territory, it was held by the group, not by individuals.

[vt]

Re: Liberty is not an Absolute

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...gainst_tyranny

[reggie]

Re: Liberty is not an Absolute

"liberty" is partly a social construction. Private property certainly is. The constitution had an eminent domain clause in it from 1789, didn't it?

Since no one made a particluar piece of ground, the obvious rule would be "anybody can use it" . But to allow indivduals privacy, and to promote various values, we have a system where people own certain territories, within limits defined by law. If you own ground, can you prevent airplanes flying above it? People digging wells that take the water beneath it? All of this is determined socially. Private property is a phenomena of the last 6,000 years---agricultural city states. Before that, we were roving bands of hunters, and if there was territory, it was held by the group, not by individuals.

Fair point. Let me digest this and reply back if I have anything to add.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...gainst_tyranny

Just look at the propagandistic manipulation in the very first sentence of your referenced post...

"Two-out-of-three Americans recognize that their constitutional right to own a gun was intended to ensure their freedom. "

When is the last time you heard the "machine" refer to our rights as Inalienable? They simply don't do it anymore, which leads people to believe that their rights are under gov't and therefore changeable by Man.