Can you name someone who thinks the solution involves doing nothing?
Thought not.
How can you possibly expect to engage in a rational discussion when you have no idea what the opposition thinks?
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58 Dead, 500 Plus Wounded
- Thread starter CherubRam
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Thought not.
How can you possibly expect to engage in a rational discussion when you have no idea what the opposition thinks?
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I don't have Pew in my mind, did you note it? I've been speaking to a few of you and have a number of irons in other fires. When I don't know I won't tell you that I do, only what my impression is.
No, for the reasons given prior. I'm not going to keep telling you what I wrote and what I meant by it. I understand your reading, but you've been given my answer. Now you can speak to that and I'll listen, but I'm not going to argue further on my intent in connection.
I've read conclusions to the contrary and as a matter of logic if you reduce firearm violence you impact overall crime, but the point remains to impact the likelihood of mass shooting events occurring in the future. More, if we implement other ideas, like mandatory gun safety courses we should see a decrease in accidental injuries relating to firearms.
Rather, and plainly, your attempt to make the discussion centered on overall violent crime instead of the actual topic, which is impacting mass shootings.
Why don't you try to put particular ideas in play and stop trying to see how many side bars and mind reading escapades you can entangle the attempt in?
I'm not responsible for the irrationality of your estimations.
Given it wasn't an honest (by which I mean objectively true) criticism, that's funny.
And that wasn't.
I wrote: "And I noted in response, now multiple times, that there are any number of issues that could also impact gun violence and I'm on board for continuing to address them."
See, that looks like a rebuttal, but it isn't. I've noted and agreed that there are any number of problems that will impact gun violence and that we should continue to address them as a society, but that most of them are complex and have been on our radar for decades without being solved, by both Republican and Democratic efforts. We shouldn't give up on the efforts, but neither should those efforts constitute the totality of our response, if we want to see a change in the increasing death toll and incidents of mass shootings.
Helping to reduce gun violence is empirically linked with universal and tough gun laws. Every other Western democracy is a testament to that understanding.
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They don't do as well as other countries but they do a lot better than we do, to be sure. Looking at Swissinfo.ch they are second to the U.S. in my Western democracies block, with a hair over 3 firearm deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is about 10.5 per 100,000.
Switzerland at a glance
Prohibits the ownership of automatic weapons and silencers.
Most semi-automatic weapons are also prohibited.
They have compulsory military service, which means they're trained in gun safety.
Handguns require a special permit.
Guns AND ammunition are accounted for.
Every weapon sale is reported, along with the name of the buyer.
Background checks are mandatory.
By law, ammunition and guns are required to be held separately and securely.
Carrying a gun in public requires a special license and proof of necessity.
Switzerland has a little over 24 guns per 100 people.
By comparison, we have more than one gun for everyone.
Yes. Post 393. You claimed it was an "attitude survey" only. When it actually showed where the guns are.
You say my reading was wrong, and then say my reading was right.
You want to strain at gnats while swallowing camels. You know it's bad to make sweeping laws based on statistically insignificant problems. Especially when those sweeping laws run counter to laws that solve problems more correlating to the issue.
Because while you play games with people's lives, I would prefer to make them prosperous and happy.
Then stop with the laws that run counter to addressing the problem.
There is no correlation between gun restrictions/bans and violent crime as the data showed that you ignored. The difference is that you exhibit confirmation bias, while I've actually looked at your data to understand it and asked a question about it. Your answer was to throw up your hands. Have you actually presented more than Time 2013 or the Stanford study?
The link I followed and later quoted directly mostly spoke to attitudes of gun owners. Here's a note on it from post 412:
Spoiler
I don't consider mass murder and the people impacted by it to be adequately described as you just rather cynically did.
Beyond the obvious, which is that you have in no way demonstrated a statistical insignificancy, did you miss my sarcastic rebuttal to the notion that mass shootings were insignificant problems? If so: it's jackassery of the highest order to insinuate or state that mass murders are insignificant outliers in any meaningful sense.
Another thing you haven't actually established beyond your sense of it. A load of steaming beans, York. What laws? You've yet to propose one while trying to sweep the problem of mass murder by gun under the rug of a general distancing through a larger consideration of additional crime.
I've suggested that we mandate gun safety and look at models from, really, any other Western democracy, all of which do a profoundly better job of protecting their people from the level of gun violence and number of mass shootings we experience. That's not playing at anything.
Prosperity? Are you now directly shilling for the gun lobby? That would be refreshing as admissions go. Or maybe you're considering the overtime police have to log on mass shootings, the people who manufacture police tape, the cleaners. In that case you're right. My ideas will negatively impact their financial situation.
Beyond that, you haven't, despite repeated requests, offered one precise idea on how to impact the problem. One law. One change. You're a peddler of vague pronouncements and sentiment signifying nothing, protecting the status quo. You're part of the reason more Americans are at risk today and will be tomorrow. The good news is that I believe you're going to find your part in the dustbin of history.
That's just a lie. You've offered nothing specific while consistently mischaracterizing an effort to meet the problem under consideration with an objective approach whose impact can be seen in, again, literally every other Western democracy.
Rather, every Western democracy that has universal and tougher gun laws (AKA, everyone else) has remarkably lower levels of gun related homicide and mass shootings. How some statistician attempts to water that impact by including domestic battery, etc. is mostly indicative of an interest in avoiding the topic and misleading people who want to be.
A good deal more to a number of people here and elsewhere. But if I only made one concrete and definable proposal I'd have lapped you.
In other news: The sky is blue.
You want to make this into a regulation-creating contest now?
How many times do you have to be told?
Regulations are part of the problem. They will not solve anything.
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And had you read the first paragraph you would have seen the rates of ownership. Households outside of big cities have guns at about 2 times the rate as big city households.
And now that you've seen the data, that would seem obvious, wouldn't it?
And that is a rather disgusting rhetorical trick you just played there. I said the statistic was insignificant, not the people that were affected.
But I do have a way.
2016 numbers. Every dot is a homicide, the red ones were mass shootings.
View attachment 26023
It's not a lie. I've offered that laws that deal with gangs, black markets, and broken families would lower homicides by a great deal more than anything you've offered. In fact, you've offered a law that *increases* black markets, doing the exact opposite of what needs to be done to lower homicide rates.
And, again, there is no impact from any gun regulation/ban that lowers crime rates in any western democracy. It's just your confirmation bias we've seen, while all you've done to refute my data is to ignore it. I've showed:
Gun ownership rates are higher outside of big cities.
Big cities have more restrictions on guns than outside big cities.
Homicide rates are higher inside big cities.
Within big cities there are certain areas that are a great deal more deadly than others.
Making more regulations/bans on guns hasn't changed any crime trends in any western democracy.
And what I haven't gotten into the conversation because so far you have been so anti-social, is that highly correlating issues of gangs, black markets, and broken families are relatively simple problems that can be solved and would lower homicide rates by a great deal. And solving these three relatively simple problems would also have a side benefit of creating happier and more prosperous people, which would also save a lot of lives.
No, you've referenced those repeatedly without offering a single idea on how to impact it.
That's another unproven assertion of yours.
And again, you're not being honest with the facts, since crime rates include gun homicides, which are a part of your larger, unspecified parameters of "crime rate". See: Australia before and after universal and strong gun law passage.
I expect they are. I've been over this before, the response to violence that largely reduces to a sentencing impact because of uneven laws in surrounding areas. If you want to impact gun violence the laws have to be universal.
That's not true. See: gun violence in every other country with universal gun laws compared to the U.S. Mass shootings and firearm related homicides.
There's nothing so antisocial as advancing a course of inaction that makes the slaughter of your fellows more likely than needs be.
It's a serious topic. You're a shill for the NRA and the status quo. That makes the likelihood of continuing mass shootings and the deaths you call "statistically insignificant" the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And if the current trend in that particular continues, both incidents and the death toll will continue to rise.
That's your mantra. It still lacks any specificity relating to how these "simple" problems can be addressed.
Which you haven't set out one particular on.
Again, I'm sure solving poverty centered issues would help. But I know we've been trying as a society for some time. What we haven't tried, relative to gun violence, is approaching the subject as our cousins have, the ones who have all of the above on your list without having anything like our gun violence problem.
Irony noted. You called the tune, Yor, in an effort to wave away the topic by including it in a larger matter.
You said you don't change the law for a statistically insignificant problem. That's how you hide the status quo that makes the next massacre no less likely than it was yesterday.
Now that's disgusting.
We can do better. We can be safer. There's no reason not to reform our approach and every motivation to have a serious dialogue and examination of how. Maybe all we can agree on at this point is mandatory safety and registration. It won't be enough, but it could be a start.
We being the Air Force could have done better, sure. Is there any reason why the Air Force wouldn't or shouldn't or couldn't tell the FBI about Kelley's criminal behavior, so that his background check would have come back dirty, thus denying him the ability to buy guns from an FFL?
Nothing wrong with dialogue and examination. Problem is when we disagree, and then start accusing our opponents of evil, because we disagree.
I don't agree on registration. It only targets law abiding people, and ignores criminals, who will avoid registration, and it would be good for a future compulsory buy-back to run smoother. Without registration, when a gun is used in a crime, we won't know whose gun it is, true, but we can continue to address criminals obtaining guns with other means, see below.
Mandatory safety: I've floated the notion already about having gun safety be a requirement for high school graduation, which won't affect people who don't graduate high school, but it would cover most people. It would also force our youngsters turning into adults, to become aware of guns, which is a good idea because there are about as many civilian owned guns in this country per capita. A lot of people probably never touch guns their whole lives, but I would guess that most of us do, whether or not we ourselves initiated the exposure. How to administer this safety training will take a lot of leg work, but it's a thought that can be addressed.
Said safety training for now could be patterned after the NRA's own gun safety courses. They've been in the gun safety business for longer than anybody, and that remains the NRA's primary mission, is to spread gun safety. We've already mentioned how at least one of the NRA's top gun safety principles is already law, maybe we begin examining how many more can be codified also. Don't point a gun at anybody (already law). Treat every gun as if it's loaded, even when you know it isn't. Know what's behind what you're aiming at. Such things.
Criminals do not have the RKBA, they've forfeited it, or otherwise shown that they can't be trusted with guns. The "gun show loophole" regards, in states without gun permitting, the private sale of guns without the requirement to involve a criminal background check to rule out a criminal buying a gun in a private sale. Private individuals just do not have the ability to check if a buyer is a criminal or not. To "close the gun show loophole," every private sale would involve an FFL who would run the background check for the seller, on the buyer. For states where they issue permits, this might be unnecessary, or at least not as urgent as in states where there is no permitting, because permitting itself involves a criminal background check.
I can be talked out of any number of things, but not that peaceable law-abiding citizens have the civil right to possess and carry loaded standard issue military weaponry, and I'd like to see laws regarding the open carrying of such weapons loosened, along with the tightening of other laws, like criminal background checks for private sales. The RKBA is a civil right, and I can't accept tightening laws on peaceable law-abiding citizens, in order to target criminals.
Of course in the case of Paddock, none of these things would have done a darn thing to stop him, since he wasn't a criminal yet when he committed his mass shooting terrorist act, except maybe if more people carried rifles.
But that's never been the question. The question I've been asking is if you realize that fixing these 3 specific areas are a better solution to the problem than your proposals.
You do realize that banned guns and banned gun accessories are bought and sold on the black market by definition, don't you?
All the data supports my position. Your rebuttal so far is to ignore the facts. Especially the data on Australia - the violent crime trend remained the same. Do you have to back and look at the graph again?
A sentencing impact because of uneven laws? You aren't making sense. It is due to problems other than guns because the surrounding areas don't have the homicide problem where there are more guns per capita. Logically, you should advocate for the same lowered restrictions in big cities to achieve the lower homicide rates of areas outside of big cities.
Or, at least you should figure out, in big cities with the same gun ownership rates and gun laws, why some areas have very high crime and others very low crime. Think - the guns are the same... it's something else.
The data says it's true. Stomping your feet and continuing to ignore the data isn't helping you.
Inaction would be not looking at highly correlated issues and finding solutions for them. Do you really think we have no clue what can be done about gangs, black markets, and broken families?
Especially black markets. I haven't presented it yet, but I'll give you 1 guess how to make a black market disappear, relatively quickly, with a simple law.
These aren't poverty centered problems. A lot of gang members are very rich. Black markets have no respect for the rich or poor. And broken families tend to cause more poverty than they come from. You keeping calling these not-poverty issues the vague problem called "poverty" because I'm starting to get the feeling you don't really want to solve the highly correlated issues related to homicide.
You should realize that solving the larger matter will also frequently solve the sub-matters under it. If you think I don't care about the things you care about, it's because I care more than you.
That's rich coming from a guy that admits he knows his solutions won't stop the next massacre, either.
Thank you for posting this.
Lessons:
Have a rifle; not just for yourself, but also for your daughter.
Have plenty of your magazines fully loaded with ammunition/rounds, all the time already.
Make sure that your safe/lockbox/locker/case is quick and simple to open.
Don't assume that it isn't gunfire.
Live around people who you know have rifles.
And my response is that it's nonsense. That we know we can impact mass shootings, that countries that have tried to impact gun violence have done it, that while we've had working on three hundred mass shootings this year, Australia has had three since Port Arthur, twenty one years ago. Meanwhile, we have task forces on gangs and have been trying our hand at solving all those "simple" problems you note for decades. The ones so easily fixed they haven't been and you can't suggest one literal way to do it.
Oh, brother...When you have uneven gun laws, by which I mean restrictive gun laws at point A and comparatively lax ones at point B, you necessarily impact the efficacy of the A laws to accomplish their aim. It's a lot like dry and wet counties and alcohol. So at that point all the laws really become is instruments for tougher sentencing when you're caught violating them.
To attempt to say the problem is the laws don't work is to willfully ignore the want of universality I've repeatedly noted as a necessity.
Nah, but here's the thing, again, the point isn't to cure other social ills or impact other crimes. Tougher, universal gun laws are meant to stop or significantly impact mass shootings, mass murders of the sort we've had too often here. Every other Western democracy has the data to show that is accomplishable. We can do that.
Yes, they largely are. Gangs and most criminal activity are disproportionately poverty centered problems. They're born in poor neighborhoods and flourish there. Single mothers also tend to be disproportionately in need of public assistance.
When you say something like that I get the particular notion that you're desperate to distract and that you have a peculiarly high opinion of your no-idea approach to "simple" issues.
Oooookay then.
lain:What I know and what the data shows is that countries with the sorts of laws I'm proposing don't have anything like our problem with mass shootings and firearm homicides, that we have it within our power to save a great many lives...provided we don't listen to caring folks like you.
No, we being the country, with tougher gun laws, universally applied. Until we attempt that we're going to continue as we are with three times the gun violence of our closest Western cousin.
Still waiting to see the rational argument that advances people advocating measures that can demonstrably and positively impact mass murder are evil. I can make the other argument without any particular difficulty.
Targets how? Harms in what way?
"Firearm registration laws require individuals to record their ownership of a firearm with a designated law enforcement agency. These laws enable law enforcement to identify, disarm, and prosecute violent criminals and people illegally in possession of firearms. Registration systems also create accountability for firearm owners and discourage illegal sales. Information generated by firearm registration systems can also help protect law enforcement officers responding to an incident by providing them with information about whether firearms may be present at the scene and, if so, how many and what types." Gifford law center
Too indirect. It should be tied to gun ownership. It's not denying the right, only mandating the safe use.
No, their primary mission is to protect the cash cow that is the gun manufacturing and sale industry. They've opposed legislation to promote gun safety. Now for a long time, prior to the 60s, the NRA was very much concerned with gun safety and even laws relating.
Karl T. Frederick, the president of the NRA, testified before Congress (in 1939) stating, “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.”
He was before Congress supporting laws drafted in response to prohibition violence, including some bans and heavy taxes/regulations on weapons associated with that violence.
What that illustrates, as with the "no bazookas", is that the right isn't absolute, that we have already understood that and restricted how the right functions in relation to particular citizens.
Right. You advocate for weapons like the sort that made Las Vegas possible and I'm against you, will do what I can to see you on the losing side of our compact's history. And a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise be alive will be grateful for the opposition.
That remains a problematic claim. In point of fact, where supply is harder to come by you make that sort of mass shooting less likely. If we'd done it decades ago we may well have stopped him. I'm fairly certain he wouldn't have killed 26 people with a single shot rifle or shotgun.
If more guns was the solution we'd be the safest of Western democracies, instead of the grotesque outlier when it comes to firearm homicides.
