What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

[tombat1913]

Re: gun sales skyrocketing in US

I was not advocating prohibition. Simply noting the correlation between guns and gun deaths. And the impossibility of being killed by a gun that does not exist. Which is indisputable. Don't know why this is such a hard thing to grasp.

You just said it again, "a gun that doesn't exist". There's clearly some part of your logic that I'm missing here. You don't advocate prohibition, but somehow guns will just not exist? Please feel free to explain to me how guns will just not exist!

[tombat1913]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

Every time I have seen some American on TV, maybe teaching their son to use weapon at some weapon learning center. My thought have been that person is crazy, one of those idiots that think the US actually have something to do in Iraq, and probably have a fat, fat wife, overweight children, vote conservative republican, think he have the full right to kill intruders (because paranoia is part of the mindset of someone like that, how could they even judge who to kill) and drive a big car with low mpg stealing all that oil we have in the north sea, with the worthless dollars. Worst is that he might think he represents common sense, while in reality live in a very narrow bubble. Reminds me of the Simpson episode Homer joined some weapon organization. They sure knew how to put it

You would do well to not get your perspective of an entire nation of diverse people from the television. Talk about narrow bubbles!

[Guest]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

Here you are Roger. Made to order for you.

ROGER IN A FEATHERY PAUL REVERE HAT.bmp

Your histrionic fits are feathers in our caps.

[jwonks]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

As long as people continue to do bad things (this will never end), the good people are entitled to self preservation when faced with life threatening circumstances as a result of bad people's actions.

The bad guys are animal like in their predatory pursuits. They pray on the weak, on the unarmed, on the people that cannot fight back on physical grounds. But this ain't the animal kingdom where might is right. As human beings we have evolved to do things a little different than lions. This is where the great equalizer comes in.

A gun is the great equalizer in the formula might vs. weak. Old folks, the handicapped, women and the non-battled tested can all stand up to criminals during dangerous situations. Gun ownership also acts as a powerful deterrent to attacks. The more armed the citizenry, the less likely will a coward criminal think about attacking. This would not be otherwise possible with a social policy that banned guns; you would effectively give the bad guys carte blanche to prey on the citizenry with no fear of repercussions given the physical and defense disadvantage the citizenry would have. Cops are not omnipotent and all-powerful and cannot deter crime everywhere at anytime.

Criminals acquire guns whether there is a ban or not--they are criminals after all and are not law abiding. What banning accomplishes then is restricting the ownership and usage of guns for self-defense by good people (since they are law abiding) leaving them vulnerable to the bad people who will acquire the guns anyway, banned or not.

[nero3]

Re: gun sales skyrocketing in US

Your words above are one of the most illogical, vacuous and senseless statements I have ever read.

One need not think of oneself as good to recognize evil when it is staring you in the face. You must be one of those thoroughly postmodern types who believes that the only "good" is to show "tolerance". That's splendid as an academic theory - until an armed thug decides to slit your wife's throat in front of you. At that point all of your "tolerance" will be seen for the moral cowardice that it really is.

If we took your ideology to its logical extension then the Nazis would still rule Norway, because none of us is "good" enough to kill them - no matter what they do.

I think you need principles perhaps. The arguments you use are pretty much the same that the police would use if they wanted to question a pacifist, that did not want to join the military (in the past). Then they would always bring up that situation with your wife, or someone you care about, just to make you say something, so that they are like "aha, so you are not a pacifist" after all. But again. With no nuclear weapons no nuclear war. With no weapons in the house, much less chance of killing family members and friends, and with no army, much less chance of a War, and if the US could behave in the world, much less terrorism as well. This is brain and statistics, vs more the primitive southern culture held by people such as yourself.

[jwonks]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

Is that what Norway used in repelling the Nazi threat during WWII, brain and statistics?

[nero3]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

As long as people continue to do bad things (this will never end), the good people are entitled to self preservation when faced with life threatening circumstances as a result of bad people's actions.

The bad guys are animal like in their predatory pursuits. They pray on the weak, on the unarmed, on the people that cannot fight back on physical grounds. But this ain't the animal kingdom where might is right. As human beings we have evolved to do things a little different than lions. This is where the great equalizer comes in.

A gun is the great equalizer in the formula might vs. weak. Old folks, the handicapped, women and the non-battled tested can all stand up to criminals during dangerous situations. Gun ownership also acts as a powerful deterrent to attacks. The more armed the citizenry, the less likely will a coward criminal think about attacking. This would not be otherwise possible with a social policy that banned guns; you would effectively give the bad guys carte blanche to prey on the citizenry with no fear of repercussions given the physical and defense disadvantage the citizenry would have. Cops are not omnipotent and all-powerful and cannot deter crime everywhere at anytime.

Criminals acquire guns whether there is a ban or not--they are criminals after all and are not law abiding. What banning accomplishes then is restricting the ownership and usage of guns for self-defense by good people (since they are law abiding) leaving them vulnerable to the bad people who will acquire the guns anyway, banned or not.

" Although firearms are often kept in homes for personal protection, this study shows that the practice is counterproductive. Our data indicate that keeping a gun in the home is independently associated with an increase in the risk of homicide in the home. The use of illicit drugs and a history of physical fights in the home are also important risk factors. Efforts to increase home security have largely focused on preventing unwanted entry, but the greatest threat to the lives of household members appears to come from within."


https://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/329/15/1084

If people could stop being so naive about themselves as persons, and realize that they will be a potential danger to their family and friends when having a gun, this debate would be over. In the traffic, most males think they are a better driver than the average. It's the same thing happening here, just on a much larger scale.

[jwonks]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

If people would just realize that by banning cars, there would cease to be vehicular manslaughter and homicides, the world would be a better place!!

[jwonks]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

If people could stop being so naive about themselves as persons, and realize that they will be a potential danger to their family and friends when having a gun, this debate would be over.

Of course there are going to be risks or as you say "potential dangers" when guns are present inside a home. That's no reason to an outright ban.

That would be like banning shopping because some people overspend and overshop themselves to bankruptcy. Or banning televisions because some people get addicted and as a result get lazy and unhealthy . Or banning computers because some people watch kiddy porn with it. This is not a very intelligent argument on your part. "Some" is not justification for "All."

[nero3]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

Of course there are going to be risks or as you say "potential dangers" when guns are present inside a home. That's no reason to an outright ban.

We are talking about probabilities, that says it's a bigger risk the gun will be used against friends or family, than on what's the intended purpose. Then you have the naive person who think he is "good" and would never do something like that, or buck the odds. I think it's more situation than person dependent.

[Guest]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

Nero3 -

I have some large differences with your assessment of the order that would have occurred in the world in the past 60 years without an American deterrent. And even some big differences in your assessment of the role of guns as discussed here. I actually suspect we have some quite large dfferences of opinion on this entire question. But for all the rest - the self righteous American accusations of cowardice of Norway in WWII, the suggestions that those who make arguments such as you do, must "lack a stiff spine" or some such nonsense, I wish to dissociate myself from those comments. However I am not a subscriber to the inherent realism of a unilateralist pacifist approach, and frankly never have been.

Take the analogy to an international level, where you can see this principle in actual practice in history. Such vacuums when one power retreats in a Wilsonian idealism that this will foster a new era of peace - this sort of idealism has been at the root of some of the world's biggest disasters. The idea you mention about "blowback" where if the US did not meddle elsewhere we would have no troubles in the world, is to this reader a bit of popularism without much basis in historic fact. Large retreats from geopolitical power have always been met by a very willing new strongman who will gladly step in to take over the oppressions of the former - with long and bloody periods of alliances disintegrating in between.

In Europe, you have had many such lessons through history of geopolitical struggles and devastating wars between the larger European nations, so it is clear that a collective "trauma" after 500 years of such wars has settled into European awareness and they tend to believe that the rest of the world shares their own idealism for establishing a new "international" wherein no country will see preeminence. It is important for Europeans with perhaps the viewpoint you express here, to not fall too deeply into the impression that the island of stability and peacetime which they have enjoyed for the past 60 years has been entirely of their own devising.

This long and profoundly transformative period of peacetime and multi-nation unification which has occurred in Europe has only materialized because it has been ensured by a "balance of power" wherein their own interests were part of a larger deterrent whole, and the US whom you may see as somewhat of a rogue elephant has actually played a central role in guaranteeing the peace in Europe long enough for the European Union to become a reality. Of course you are outside the EU, but still, you must take my point, that it's stability and evolution to it's new civilized and peaceful identity has been purchased on the back of American guarantees. If you don't agree with this insight about the last 60 years, our views are miles apart.

The peace and security of nations has many interesting parallels with the peace and security of the individual in each society. The US today is however most certainly one of the industrialised nations with the largest problems to do with violence. Seems like a lot of the Americans posting indignantly about gun rights here don't readily (or willingly) grasp how it can be that "less armed" societies elsewhere actually get along fine without the bristling proliferation of weapons without losing huge freedoms, and the entire issue is "stood down" in these societies to become much less a problem than it is here. An inflamed issue can make the rights of the individual look terribly threatened by being deprived of too easy access to guns, with merely a few misleading sentences. So Americans may refuse to acknowledge this interesting fact - that lack of guns elsewhere is not necessarily accompanied by peoples enslaved to a "socialist nightmare".

Further, if in such countries, people become prosperous and contented, and each generation reaches higher than the previous in education and security, then all this blathering on about "inalienable natural freedoms won by owning a gun" which we are doing over here begins to look like merely smoke obscuring the fact we are not building a better country for our children.

Americans who are passionate about gun rights as synonyms for freedom conclude others must be less "free" as a consequence - which is a questionable assumption. Conversely, citizens of countries from Norway to Switzerland, to Singapore, to Japan (all the very well ordered ones), look at the US in bewilderment, at the mass delusion we all have over here that by arming ourselves we become enfranchised and win our "security". There is a very good argument to be made that the more this idea takes hold, the more America's citizenry will arm itself to the teeth and become an object of growing perplexity to the rest of the world. Frankly in our present condition I think we already are. Arming each peace loving American family with weapons in the house to defend it's peace and freedom, is an exercise in growing societal dysfunction. It is indicative of something which is not peace and freedom at all.

I think you need principles perhaps. The arguments you use are pretty much the same that the police would use if they wanted to question a pacifist, that did not want to join the military (in the past). Then they would always bring up that situation with your wife, or someone you care about, just to make you say something, so that they are like "aha, so you are not a pacifist" after all. But again. With no nuclear weapons no nuclear war. With no weapons in the house, much less chance of killing family members and friends, and with no army, much less chance of a War, and if the US could behave in the world, much less terrorism as well. This is brain and statistics, vs more the primitive southern culture held by people such as yourself.

[jwonks]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

The Kellermann study you cite has been disputed by guys like John Lott and Gary Kleck.

The main point of contention is that only a small percentage of the victims murdered were killed by guns belonging to the victim and/or house-members. In other words, in the cases studied, the murderer was more likely to kill the victim with a gun that was kept outside the victim's home thus blowing a huge hole in the theory that guns kept in the victim's home increases gun related homicides to the point if offsets the benefits of keeping a gun for home defense.

Another point of contention is that the study seems to gloss over the underlying factor which is domestic violence and its causes. That is, gun ownership are only a means to domestic violence and not the cause.

[Raz]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

Lukester wrote:

"...the self righteous American accusations of cowardice of Norway in WWII, the suggestions that those who make arguments such as you do, must "lack a stiff spine" or some such nonsense, I wish to dissociate myself from those comments."

Lukester - would you please reread my post and explain to me where I accused the people of Norway of cowardice in World War II? In point of fact, I praised the people of Norway!!! :confused:

And I believe the point about America bringing some of this "blowback" upon itself is true. That's one of the main reasons I'm proud of the fact that I never voted for Bush. BUT, the point of discussion was on a personal issue - not a national one. It was your good friend Nero3 who moved it to that realm when he insulted me as one living in the Southern US, and the rest of America as well.

I stand by every word I've written on the subject of his personal pacifism.
And I have a LOT more to say to the gentleman from Norway as soon as I can get some work done so I'll have the time.

[nero3]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

Lukester wrote:



I stand by every word I've written on the subject of his personal pacifism.
And I have a LOT more to say to the gentleman from Norway as soon as I can get some work done so I'll have the time.

Sometimes, I think the clearer picture can emerge from an outside perspective. People in the US don't want Europe or China to tell them what to do, and Obama have more of the European view, thats why he is more popular here than in the US. A lot of people living in the US don't have that perspective about the US, and the US role in the world. People who are in a situation, loose track, and get something I refer to as tunnel vision. In Oslo 100 % of all 40 plus assault rapes that were submitted to the police over the last 3 years, was done by non native Norwegians. Mostly men from Africa and Turkey. It seems some here are attributing a lot of views to me, that I don't have just because it would be part of a left wing stereotype. What I am saying is just that I feel less safe in a friends house, not more safe, if I knew they had a gun and was worried about intruders, compared to if they did not have a gun, as I would be more worried about them using the gun on me, than on a intruder, because I am the kind of guy that go with the numbers, not the emotions. A lot of people in Norway, have their old Army weapon, somewhere, that they might not even know where is, its not as a protection against intruders. Some farmers have a hand gun, so they can kill some sick animal. The guns here that are for the fear purpose people have them in the US, is extremely rare compared to what the numbers might suggest. If some country were to attack us, then I am pretty much sure we would loose. The only country that could save us would be the US and NATO. That is why we are pumping oil at full speed, and never, intentionally have operated below capacity.

[Master Shake]

Re: What's really happening in USA is finally sinking in

Judging who should have them, actually is wrong. Human nature just is the way it is. It's not the skills operating the gun, that's the thing as I think. I think that's not where the problem lies. It's more that those who are worried enough to buy a gun also is more likely to shoot down a thief, get paranoid on their wife, the full package really. You can't make that judgment. Nobody, should have a gun, more guns means more murders. Having a gun, when a criminal comes at you, just increases the risk.

You're a TFI.

Having a gun when a criminal comes at you increases the probability that you'll be able to defend yourself (and your family/friends).