58 Dead, 500 Plus Wounded

Stripe

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Okay. Then you missed it for a different reason.
I didn't miss anything.

The important thing.
We'll be the judge of that.

I listed them.
The issue is not the failure to list; the problem is that you've maligned your own government by comparing it to nations where guns are banned.

You have certain tendencies in discussion and argument that I don't care for or find productive.

How particularly?
Because you promote more regulations as a solution, but use statistics from nations where guns are banned to support your stance.

Yeah, I'm not interested in going over particulars.
You were challenged over the conclusions you were drawing from statistics. Going over the particulars is a requirement for the conversation to advance.

We need a serious discussion on addressing a problem that we have in this country that isn't echoed in any of our cousin Western industrial democracies. We need to look at why and see what we can do to diminish the likelihood of the mass murders that have peppered our headlines and threatened our safety for a while now.
And more regulations will not achieve anything of substance. Unless you advocate an outright ban.

If you want to understand what I'm advancing it's as simple as reading me.
No, it's not.

You advocate increased regulation, but use statistics from nations that have banned guns.

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Gary K

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It's not my issue. I'm speaking to making ownership more responsible/increasing gun safety AND reexamining what restrictions on ownership are reasonable in terms of impacting the efficacy of them as an instrument of mass murder.

No you're not, and I'll show this later on in this post.

And the restriction made anyone owning that sort of weapon appreciably more difficult, which limited the opportunity.

No it didn't. The criminals still have a lot of automatic weapons. It hasn't reduced their access to them at all.

It would be great if it did, but I don't believe anyone is suggesting that as an outcome. Australia, by way of example, toughened gun laws after a mass murder incident in Port Arthur that left 35 people dead. It didn't end gun related crime and violence, but it did significantly impact it in the years following the new laws. Studies conducted between 1995 and 2006 noted that firearm homicides fell 59%, without a rise in other forms of homicide. Suicides by gun dropped 65%. Home invasions didn't increase, despite a fear by some that fewer guns would lead to bolder criminals on that front. Lastly, in the decade before Australia changed its gun laws the country had seen eleven mass shootings. In the more than twenty since it has witnessed none.

Your paragraph here shows the lie in your leading sentence. The Australian gun buyback program was created to buy back firearms already made illegal under Australian gun laws. The entire Australian gun control scheme is to take guns away from the public. Your duplicity is clearly exposed.

You know, if you forced everyone in Australia to get married, forbid divorce, and then kill the wives it would drop the suicide rate far more than taking away all guns. How? The numbers of never married, married, and divorced men who commit suicide count for more 90% of Australia's male suicides, and male suicides make up a little over 75% of all Australians who commit suicide. The numbers work out so that widowed men who commit suicide make up only 3% male suicides. So, I think I have a better solution than you do. ;)

Denial of an increased chance for mayhem isn't a punishment any more than insisting we wear seat belts is a punishment of responsible drivers for the misdeeds of others.

There is another fallacy. You're conflating the privilege of driving an automobile compared to the constitutionally guaranteed right of owning a firearm. It's the fallacy of false equivalency.

One of the reasons firearms are easy for criminals to possess is because they're infinitely easier for almost anyone to own and the instruments made to increase their use as something more than personal defense are equally abundant and cheap. It's a bit like having tough gun laws in one town and surrounding the town with places where there's little control. At that point the laws are more about sentencing than impacting anything in terms of use.

Here is another not very well thought out argument on your side. Do you really expect the criminal to go down and buy a gun that he will know is linked directly to him? You have to be a complete moron to do that when you can go down to the local crook who sells firearms and buy one that cannot be traced back to you. The only crime this might not apply to is the crime of passion, and if someone is angry enough to kill he will find another weapon or use his own hands. All the removal of a firearm would do is change the choice of weapons.

No, I wouldn't. I'm actually a gun owner and life long shooter, qualifying as an expert marksman in my ROTC days. I'm for intelligent regulation, registration of firearms and the removal of certain types and instruments that increase their lethality weighed against reasonable use. Say bump stocks and silencers.

You may have a commendable goal to reducing violence, but your ideas on how to go about it are all screwed up. They do not address the underlying issues that lead to violence and crime. All you want to do is disarm the US law abiding public. That just gets clearer and clearer.

No, the problem is a bit of both, though we know from empirical observation that we can retain the right to own and use guns legally, with increased safety for everyone while dramatically reducing their use as instruments to deny the rights of others, supra.
Nope. The person who does not respect life is the entire problem, as evidenced by the millions of people who own guns and never use them to murder another person. If guns are a contributing factor to murder so are knives, forks, baseball bats, tree limbs, rocks, fists, poisons, ice picks, icicles, water, and on and on and on, for an almost uncountable number of weapons have been used to commit murder. The only thing all these things have in common is the people who use them against another person with the intent to kill that human being. It is the lack of respect for human life, pure and simple, that is responsible for murder.

The known population of earth was at one time reduced through murder by 25%, and that was long before guns were around. Steel knives didn't even exist. Don't know when that was? It was when Cain killed his brother Abel. Abel's murder had nothing to do with any contributing factor other than the desire to kill. Nothing has changed since then either for human nature is exactly the same now as it always has been since the fall of Adam and Eve. People have been murdering one another since long before firearms were invented, thus firearms cannot be a contributing factor to murder.


If you believe that you're bringing it to the conversation in assumption and haven't read much of what I've been saying on the point. Hopefully this helps.

Actually I've been taking my ideas concerning your position from exactly what you've said.
 

Town Heretic

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I didn't miss anything.
That runs afoul of your:

But you won't name those nations.
Except I had. So either you missed it or declared a thing you knew wasn't true. I went with the better assumption, but suit yourself.

The issue is not the failure to list
Make up your mind, supra.

;the problem is that you've maligned your own government by comparing it to nations where guns are banned.
Every country I noted allows the ownership of firearms.

Because you promote more regulations as a solution, but use statistics from nations where guns are banned to support your stance.
Every country I noted allows the ownership of firearms. And I also suggested mandatory safety courses, while attempting to enter and encourage a larger consideration of what has been demonstrated to significantly impact firearm injuries and deaths to the good.

You were challenged over the conclusions you were drawing from statistics. Going over the particulars is a requirement for the conversation to advance.
I don't care how you couch what boils down to, "Say it again." No. Do your own footwork. Or don't.

And more regulations will not achieve anything of substance. Unless you advocate an outright ban.
That's a declaration at odds with the empirical facts presented prior.

No, it's not.
It is unless you have a reading impediment.

You advocate increased regulation, but use statistics from nations that have banned guns.
Every country I noted allows the ownership of firearms.
 

Town Heretic

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No you're not, and I'll show this later on in this post.
Nothing wrong with confidence, but a king doesn't need to point out his crown.

No it didn't. The criminals still have a lot of automatic weapons. It hasn't reduced their access to them at all.
We don't have those universal laws and if you're speaking to Australia, you're wrong.

From a recent Factcheck revisit: "In fact, the most recent government report on crime trends in Australia says, “Homicide in Australia has declined over the last 25 years. The current homicide incidence rate is the lowest on record in the past 25 years.”

Here's a link to the article. It demonstrates the decline in gun violence in Australia. Here's another article link from Slate about the impact of the change in laws.

Your paragraph here shows the lie in your leading sentence.
In what way?

The Australian gun buyback program was created to buy back firearms already made illegal under Australian gun laws. The entire Australian gun control scheme is to take guns away from the public. Your duplicity is clearly exposed.
There's no duplicity in play. I've not only never suggested a contrary thought on their actions, I've noted the buy back with someone here. I've been having this conversation with a few people. In any event, Australians still own guns. They simply don't own as many kinds of guns as we do, among other differences. And we don't allow RPGs and bazookas. The rest is where and why we draw lines, among other considerations like mandatory safety courses, registration, etc.

There is another fallacy.
You're wrong on that again.

You're conflating the privilege of driving an automobile compared to the constitutionally guaranteed right of owning a firearm. It's the fallacy of false equivalency.
No, I'm not. I'm illustrating a problem with your reasoning. You insisted on conflating the denial of a thing with punishment. It isn't inherently true. Not having the right to own an RPG isn't punishment. Not being allowed to drive a car without wearing a seat belt isn't a punishment. Having to produce ID before you vote isn't a punishment. And so on.

Here is another not very well thought out argument on your side.
I believe you believe it, but as with most of this sort of claim I don't believe you'll make the case.

Do you really expect the criminal to go down and buy a gun that he will know is linked directly to him?
No and I didn't at any point make a statement that leads to that belief. What I noted was the cheap and plentiful availability of firearms. What I've noted throughout a number of conversations is that tough gun laws in one area are undone, except as they impact sentencing, by laxity elsewhere. That sort of thing.

The only crime this might not apply to is the crime of passion, and if someone is angry enough to kill he will find another weapon or use his own hands. All the removal of a firearm would do is change the choice of weapons.
You're never going to end crimes of passion. That said, you can significantly impact the likelihood of mass murderers spraying concert goers with bullets. And in Australia when they did that it didn't translate to an increase in other forms of violence or a homicidal transfer to another instrumentality (see: Slate link, supra).

You may have a commendable goal to reducing violence, but your ideas on how to go about it are all screwed up.
That's another subjective valuation, not an argument or criticism that can be answered by reason, lacking reasonable particulars to meet.

They do not address the underlying issues that lead to violence and crime.
Actually, I have spoken to that, though it isn't necessary to impact the problem before us. Would it likely improve the effort? Sure. And so I've engaged to some extent on that point. We might not have had that conversation, but I have.

All you want to do is disarm the US law abiding public. That just gets clearer and clearer.
What's clear is that you need to attack the messenger with imaginative read-ins because engaging on the topic is dangerous to anyone who is trying to defend the status quo. I'm a gun owner who wants a safer nation and believes it's possible to have one.

If guns are a contributing factor to murder so are knives, forks, baseball bats, tree limbs, rocks, fists, poisons, ice picks, icicles, water, and on and on and on
How many people were killed by forks last year? Sum all of those alternatives. What's the number? It's a silly distraction. The problem isn't an either/or. It's both people with an evil intent and the ease with which they can obtain and use an instrument perfectly designed for realizing their fantasy. We can do something about that. And there's really no good reason not to.

Actually I've been taking my ideas concerning your position from exactly what you've said.
All evidence to the contrary.
 

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
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That runs afoul of your:Except I had. So either you missed it or declared a thing you knew wasn't true. I went with the better assumption, but suit yourself.
Nope.

That's called a false dichotomy.

Every country I noted allows the ownership of firearms.
That might be technically true, but Japan and Australia have rules so stringent that they are effectively a ban.

Certainly, nobody could ever legally own a weapon expecting to use it for their primary purpose.

Their laws in the US would be considered a ban.

And Australia's confiscations would not go down well.

And I also suggested mandatory safety courses, while attempting to enter and encourage a larger consideration of what has been demonstrated to significantly impact firearm injuries and deaths to the good.
You can suggest all the regulations you want; none of them would have any significant effect.

I don't care how you couch what boils down to, "Say it again." No. Do your own footwork. Or don't.
Nope.

I have moved past finding out what nations you think have regulations that would work. You've managed to ignore most of the challenges you've been presented by pretending that's all I've said.

That's a declaration at odds with the empirical facts presented prior.
Not just ordinary facts then. I guess we'd better past extra discussion attention.

Your statistics have been challenged. You don't get to ignore the challenge and demand that your ideas are sacrosanct.

Not if you want an "intelligent conversation."

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Town Heretic

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Nope.That's called a false dichotomy.
It in no way is, which is why you throw the term out but nothing to support it. You said I didn't do a thing that I did. When I noted I had and that you must have missed it you said you hadn't missed it. You have a logical contradiction in your narrative.

That might be technically true, but Japan and Australia have rules so stringent that they are effectively a ban.
I think you're the only one who is talking about Japan. I haven't. But your subjective rewrite on the objectively observable notwithstanding, you can own firearms in Australia. Lots of people do. Some even own semiautomatic firearms.

Their laws in the US would be considered a ban.
You can consider a flower a rock if you want to. . . it isn't though.

You can suggest all the regulations you want; none of them would have any significant effect.
Contradicted by previous and available, objective evidence.

I have moved past finding out what nations you think have regulations that would work.
I can see where that would be in your best interest. I suspect anyone reading us can.

You've managed to ignore most of the challenges you've been presented by pretending that's all I've said.
I've engaged several people on any number of points. Sadly, most of them have been status quo purveyors of paranoid fantasy instead of people actively considering both the problem and rational responses to it. I don't feel obligated to address everyone who has a barrel and a spoon to whack it with.

Your statistics have been challenged.
They aren't mine. They're data. And who knows what you consider a challenge. Nope, maybe. But that doesn't interest me.

You don't get to ignore the challenge and demand that your ideas are sacrosanct.
Beyond the challenge part (supra) I've never suggested my ideas are sacrosanct, only that they remain rooted in the empirical and reason and that I'm open to approach of a topic along those lines.
 

Stripe

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It in no way is, which is why you throw the term out but nothing to support it. You said I didn't do a thing that I did. When I noted I had and that you must have missed it you said you hadn't missed it. You have a logical contradiction in your narrative.

Nope.

With a little imagination, I'm sure you can think of a third way things went down.

Heck, I explained the situation clearly enough.

I think you're the only one who is talking about Japan. I haven't.
In Japan, a nation with some of the most strict gun laws on the books your chance of dying in gun related violence is roughly 1 in 10 million, or the same likelihood that an American will die from being struck by lightning.

But your subjective rewrite on the objectively observable.
It's quite simple to look up Australian law and find out just how restricted weapons are. :idunno:

You can own firearms in Australia. Lots of people do. Some even own semiautomatic firearms.
So now it's lots of weapons and few mass shootings. :AMR:

You can consider a flower a rock if you want to. It isn't though.

I've engaged several people on any number of points. Sadly, most of them have been status quo purveyors of paranoid fantasy instead of people actively considering both the problem and rational responses to it. I don't feel obligated to address everyone who has a barrel and a spoon to whack it with.

Perhaps your approach is wrong. :idunno:

Perhaps it's you with the problem and all those others are making valid points.

We know that regulations have only increased over the past 50 years, so why you would believe that more rules would help is beyond me.

Who knows what you consider a challenge.
It seems you have no idea what you're trying to argue against.

I'm open to approach of a topic along those lines.

You seem only willing to discuss a subject of your declarations are accepted wholesale.

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intojoy

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Town Heretic

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With a little imagination, I'm sure you can think of a third way things went down.
Either you knew I had related the information or you didn't know. You could have said you'd seen it but forgotten, which you also didn't do. In point of fact, you appear to feel more comfortable with protracted and contradictory statements and game play than with a simple, "My bad, I remember that now." Or a, "Oh, I missed that. Sorry about that."

Why you make such a tooth pulling production out of something that should be as simple as an admission is for you to work through. Here's an example of how easy it is. On the point about Japan: I got that wrong. My mistake. Thanks for pointing it out. I'd forgotten I did that within the context of several conversations. I'm glad I included Japan for a moment, but I mostly haven't and didn't remember doing it. Appreciate the nudge. :thumb: Over in a post. Easy, unless you're invested in something else.

I'm not.

So now it's lots of weapons and few mass shootings.
Nothing in my position changed despite your attempt to lend the appearance.

Perhaps your approach is wrong.
Or, when you look at Western democracies with stronger gun laws you see, uniformly, statistically significant reductions and comparative superiority in terms of limiting violence relating to firearms. And Australia illustrates that this reduction doesn't necessitate an increase in other sorts of violence or a simple shift in instrumentality.

That's empirical data and it's convincing to anyone capable of examining it.

We know that regulations have only increased over the past 50 years, so why you would believe that more rules would help is beyond me.
I've addressed the problem with the absence of universal laws. More regulation doesn't quantify or qualify that point. How much more? In what particular? Now where we have universal and intelligent application of principle in law the truth is objectively undeniable: firearm violence declines and populations are safer from that violence. The data, again, is readily available and objectively verifiable.
 

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
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Either you knew I had related the information or you didn't know.
That's not a false dichotomy.

When you look at Western democracies with stronger gun laws you see, uniformly, statistically significant reductions and comparative superiority in terms of limiting violence relating to firearms.
When guns are more difficult to come by, it's more difficult to use them.

And Australia illustrates that this reduction doesn't necessitate an increase in other sorts of violence or a simple shift in instrumentality.
Then violent crime in Australia should have diminished after the confiscations there.

That's empirical data and it's convincing to anyone capable of examining it.
You keep yelling "data," but it's your use and interpretation of the data that is the problem.

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Town Heretic

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That's not a false dichotomy.
Who said it was? :plain:

When guns are more difficult to come by, it's more difficult to use them.
It's harder to obtain the sort used in mass murder shootings so effectively to be sure.

Then violent crime in Australia should have diminished after the confiscations there.
You mean violent crime with firearms. And it did. It's currently at a 25 year low. From the Slate article I noted a bit ago:
"What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course. But as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog pointed out in August, homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent...But here’s the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn’t been a single one in Australia since.

Factcheck looked at it more recently:

The previous low in 2007 was surpassed in 2010, when the number of homicides dropped to 261. The numbers have varied since then, but there were 23 percent fewer homicides in 2013 than there were in 1996 — a slight improvement from our last report, which covered a 12-year period ending in 2007...​
“The number of homicide incidents involving a firearm decreased by 57 percent between 1989-90 and 2013-14,” the government crime trends report says. “Firearms were used in 13 percent of homicide incidents (n=32) in 2013-14. In 1989-90 it was 24 percent (n=75) of incidents.”

Cutting a thing in half in general while eliminating for over 20 years what had occurred many times prior seems like a win for safety of citizens.

You keep yelling "data,"
Rather, I'm noting evidence, logically asserting a few things that run counter to the status quo narrative, and suggesting we can do a great deal better than we are if we look at the many more successful models for handling gun violence.

but it's your use and interpretation of the data that is the problem.
It's a problem for people who champion the emotional and subjective, and who can't respond to the reason, but rest on tradition and paranoia.
 

Yorzhik

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You'll need some source and citation on that one.
"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/10/rural-and-urban-gun-owners-have-different-experiences-views-on-gun-policy/"

Self restriction counts.

Yorzhik said:
Then do what the guy down the street is doing. He doesn't have a violent crime problem. He also has less restrictions on guns.
Your assuming a causal relationship that is contrary to reason.
You're assuming a causal relationship between the restrictions you've proposed and lower crime. I'm the one suggesting we look first at causes most correlating to the problem, gangs, black markets, and broken families. These are all problems with obvious solutions.

No. The reason for it is to make a gun fire faster, which is what the bump stock accomplishes.
Do you really not see how pedantic you are being; not realizing the reason to make your gun fire faster is to look cool?

The difference between our deaths per and theirs isn't a tiny amount.
Not true. Where guns are plentiful and correlating problems are few, death rates are about the same.

Australia had a mass shooting that led to a change in laws and that dramatically altered their landscape in terms of firearm related fatalities.
They did a lot more than ban bump stocks and high capacity mags. Show us the country that banned just those items, with the per capita gun ownership rates we have in the US, and then we can measure the effect. We both know what the effect will be - No effect at all.

Then you can propose more regulations. What we need to know now, is exactly how far are you willing to go? An effective ban like they have in Australia? If that's what you want, then admit you are tiptoeing around your true intentions because you know a ban like that would go beyond "reasonable" at the moment.

BTW, you do know that Australia's effective gun ban did not change their violent crime rate beyond any existing trend overall, don't you? I've noticed you keep mentioning "gun deaths" or gun violence as if it mattered more than any other death or violence in society. And when you said "The Australian gun buyback program was created to buy back firearms already made illegal under Australian gun laws" didn't you realize that making those guns illegal is a totalitarian move?
 

Town Heretic

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"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/10/rural-and-urban-gun-owners-have-different-experiences-views-on-gun-policy/"

Self restriction counts.
Yor, that didn't actually support what I was asking for as support. It's an attitude survey...

You're assuming a causal relationship between the restrictions you've proposed and lower crime.
By noting that gun crime, especially deaths, are empirically, objectively and positively impacted by universal gun laws aimed at curbing violence. Australia is one example among many. And among Western democracies we stand out like a bloody sore thumb.

I'm the one suggesting we look first at causes most correlating to the problem, gangs, black markets, and broken families. These are all problems with obvious solutions.
I'm not objecting to combating poverty sensitive issues that disproportionately feed criminal activity. What I'm saying is that we can make ourselves significantly safer without solving the complex web of issues we've been attempting to solve (with mixed degrees of success) and we should do that while we work on them.

It's a bit like this...we have a road with a lot of debris that's causing accidents. We can and should work on designing better roads, correcting bad attitudes among road crews, get at the corruption that leads to low bid contractors using poor materials, address the condition of roads in terms of what drivers do to contribute to the problem. All of those are great ideas. But in the meantime we can get the worst junk off of the highway, and we know that works because everywhere that's done driving is much safer.

Do you really not see how pedantic you are being;
If you mean precise, sure. If you mean it as a criticism I'd say it's a poor one.

not realizing the reason to make your gun fire faster is to look cool?
If by not realizing you mean I don't validate your belief, one not supported by empirical data and favor the more obvious and objectively true answer, sure. Bump stocks increase the firing rate. And no, I don't believe (to the extent our subjective beliefs mean anything) it's the "cool" factor. I think some gun owners love the increased feeling of firepower. I suspect many appreciate the idea of that for the joy of shooting. Some likely because they feel more empowered by it and safer. Some because its the new toy on the shelf and they have to have it. Any number of reasons for owning one, but I don't care why they own it. I care that they do and what the impact of its availability translates to within this discourse.

Not true. Where guns are plentiful and correlating problems are few, death rates are about the same.
That's loose enough to self justify. But it's not the world where we actually live. In that one, poverty and criminal elements abound. And occasionally some guy goes off his nut and looks around for the best available means of wreaking havoc. The rest is what we do about that understanding.

They did a lot more than ban bump stocks and high capacity mags. Show us the country that banned just those items, with the per capita gun ownership rates we have in the US, and then we can measure the effect. We both know what the effect will be - No effect at all.
There isn't an example of that limited a response and it's not one I'm advocating. I noted a few ideas among others and suggested we take serious aim at the problem by looking at what's worked so much better in our cousin Western democracies, where gun related fatalities and injuries are dramatically fewer.

Then you can propose more regulations. What we need to know now, is exactly how far are you willing to go? An effective ban like they have in Australia?
See, Stripe just tried that. You can call a sandwich a pizza, but it's not. It's a sandwich. So banning the ownership of some items, like large clips and bump stocks, and certain types of weapons, like machine guns, or even semi-automatics, isn't effectively banning gun ownership. It's banning particular kinds of weapons and aids, the way we do when we don't allow RPGs or bazookas. It's just a matter of where you draw the line and why.

If that's what you want, then admit you are tiptoeing around your true intentions because you know a ban like that would go beyond "reasonable" at the moment.
But really, what doesn't go beyond reasonable for you in any moment? I mean, you haven't proposed or accepted a single, solitary idea on the plate. And you play the paranoia, suspect the messenger number...I'm weary of it, so if you want a momentary messenger bit, here's the light back at you. People like you are the reason a lot of people who should be alive today aren't. You hem and haw, you talk about larger, complex problems we haven't shown a real talent for solving as being the real issue here, mislabel any attempt to reduce mayhem and violence as some vaguely hidden conspiracy to take guns away from good people, all to preserve the almighty status quo that invites butchery.

There's nothing hidden in my position, from agenda to particulars. I'm a gun owner who thinks, who knows we can do better at making ourselves safer without losing the right to own guns. Can we own every sort of gun? No. And no one with a brain in their head believes we should, which is why you won't be advocating for bazookas, or (hopefully) submachine guns on the streets any time soon.

Now back to our regularly scheduled deprogramming.

BTW, you do know that Australia's effective gun ban did not change their violent crime rate beyond any existing trend overall, don't you?
Then violent crime in Australia should have diminished after the confiscations there.
You mean violent crime with firearms. And it did. It's currently at a 25 year low. From the Slate article I noted a bit ago:
"What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course. But as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog pointed out in August, homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent...But here’s the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn’t been a single one in Australia since.

Factcheck looked at it more recently:

The previous low in 2007 was surpassed in 2010, when the number of homicides dropped to 261. The numbers have varied since then, but there were 23 percent fewer homicides in 2013 than there were in 1996 — a slight improvement from our last report, which covered a 12-year period ending in 2007...​
“The number of homicide incidents involving a firearm decreased by 57 percent between 1989-90 and 2013-14,” the government crime trends report says. “Firearms were used in 13 percent of homicide incidents (n=32) in 2013-14. In 1989-90 it was 24 percent (n=75) of incidents.”

Cutting a thing in half in general while eliminating for over 20 years what had occurred many times prior seems like a win for safety of citizens.

I've noticed you keep mentioning "gun deaths" or gun violence as if it mattered more than any other death or violence in society.
Rather, I note gun deaths because that's the topic. Because we've had repeated, horrific and ongoing violence that can be positively impacted. And we should do that. You want to talk about anything else because it's your end game, to do nothing about it.

And when you said "The Australian gun buyback program was created to buy back firearms already made illegal under Australian gun laws" didn't you realize that making those guns illegal is a totalitarian move?
Thanks for illustrating the lengths you'll go to in order to preserve a death lock grip on the status quo. Good luck with that. You're going to need it.
 

jgarden

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Why is the media focusing on firearms when there are other deadly weapons readily available?

Japan Knife Attack.. At Least 19 Dead..

CNN)At least 19 people were killed and 26 injured in a stabbing spree at a facility for disabled people west of Tokyo, making it one of Japan's deadliest mass killings since World War II. Nine men and 10 women, ranging in age from 18 to 70, were killed in the attack.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/25/world/japan-knife-attack-deaths/index.html

5 teens denied bond in deadly highway rock-throwing case


(CNN)A judge denied bond Tuesday for five Michigan teenagers charged with throwing a rock off a highway overpass and killing a passenger in a van.

The group of teens, aged 15-17, were arraigned in Genesee County district courtroom. They are accused of throwing a 6-pound rock off an overpass near Flint, Michigan, on October 18, fatally injuring 32-year-old Kenneth White.

White was riding home from work when he was struck in the face, head and chest by the rock that crashed through the windshield of the van in which he was a passenger.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/24/us/michigan-teens-rock-throwing-death-trnd/index.html

Because the focus is on our constitution.. specifically on our second amendment..

everready

teacher+guns.jpg


The gun lobby is famous for publicizing isolated cases and taking them to their "illogical" conclusion!

Canada shares 5250 miles of border with the US, has been a sovereign nation for the last 150 years and has more in common with America than any other nation.

Having had the opportunity to take a long, hard look at the "gun culture" in America, there is no national demand by Canadians to establish the equivalent of a 2nd Amendment, or relax its current strict gun laws!
 

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
You mean violent crime with firearms.
Nope.

I try to be very precise with my wording. In response to your assertion that "Australia illustrates that this reduction doesn't necessitate an increase in other sorts of violence or a simple shift in instrumentality."

That indicates violent crime should have decreased. Of course it is trivial to declare that removing access to guns lowers gun-related incidents.

So, tell us. Is the Australian government doing better than the US at "protecting its citizens"?

It's currently at a 25 year low.

In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn’t been a single one in Australia since.
Or three. Depends what conditions you're putting on your statistics to uphold your narrative. From the Wiki list, there has been no significant deviation from what might be their "normal."

However, there are so few data points, it's pretty meaningless to infer anything regarding trends. The one thing we will grant you is that removing guns decreases their use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia

Cutting a thing in half in general while eliminating for over 20 years what had occurred many times prior seems like a win for safety of citizens.
Only if your ignore the costs and focus on statistics that uphold your narrative.

I'm noting evidence, logically asserting a few things that run counter to the "status quo" narrative, and suggesting we can do a great deal better than we are if we look at the many more successful models for handling gun violence. We know that regulations do not work.

It's a problem for people who champion the emotional and subjective, and who can't respond to reason, but rest on tradition and paranoia.
 

WizardofOz

New member
New York has tougher gun law and a lot more people than Alabama and Mississippi, which are much more dangerous places to live if you want to avoid being shot dead.
This isn't true. The high crime areas in Alabama and Mississippi have more restrictions on guns than rural parts of New York.
"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/10/rural-and-urban-gun-owners-have-different-experiences-views-on-gun-policy/"

Self restriction counts.
:confused: :liberals:

"Self restriction" counts as state restriction?
 

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
I note gun deaths because that's the topic.
Then you shouldn't be talking about "violent crime."

Thanks for illustrating the lengths you'll go to in order to preserve a death lock grip on the status quo. Good luck with that. You're going to need it.
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
I try to be very precise with my wording.
I was being corrective.

In response to your assertion that "Australia illustrates that this reduction doesn't necessitate an increase in other sorts of violence or a simple shift in instrumentality."
Right. That's what studies indicated. I left a link or two.

So, tell us. Is the Australian government doing better than the US at "protecting its citizens"?
Sure, especially on the actual point/topic, death by firearm. And they're not alone. A lot of Western democracies, by which I mean every other one, are doing a much better job of it than we are.

Or three. Depends what conditions you're putting on your statistics to uphold your narrative.
It's not my narrative or conditions. It's gun related violence. We can have a spoon related violence chat, or a discussion about who does the better job when it comes to bank robberies, etc. But that's a different thread. Or it should be.

From the Wiki list, there has been no significant deviation from what might be their "normal."
What Wiki using what authority? It's kind of important.

Only if your ignore the costs and focus on statistics that uphold your narrative.
What costs? The buyback? And again, it's not MY narrative. It's the objective, observable, empirical narrative.

I'm noting evidence, logically asserting a few things that run counter to the "status quo" narrative, and suggesting we can do a great deal better than we are if we look at the many more successful models for handling gun violence. We know that regulations do not work.

It's a problem for people who champion the emotional and subjective, and who can't respond to reason, but rest on tradition and paranoia
That's what I wrote all right. :plain:
 
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Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
:confused: :liberals:

"Self restriction" counts as state restriction?

No.

The point was that comparing statistics across states requires analysis of the demographics.

Why TH would describe this as "attitudinal" is beyond me.
 
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