Summations Only

Your point isn't clear and sounds like crazy talk, but if it's related to gun control and it's not crazy talk then instead of relying so much on links could you make more of your point in your own words? As near as I can tell, you seem to believe that psychotropic drugs are being forced on children, and you seem to be trying to connect that to efforts at making information about mental conditions available for background checks. But you never actually say this or offer evidence - all you offer is YouTube speculation from a non-professional.There is an on-topic point buried in there. One problem with making information about mental conditions available for background checks is that people might be dissuaded from seeking psychological help if they think it means they'll lose or become limited in their access to guns.--Percy

And because the NRA so fully supports Obama's recent actions, on the front page of their website they posted Obama: Commander in Deceit: Dana Loesch strikes back at President Obama's executive order.--Percy

You're not seriously claiming that an interview with someone with no official capacity with the NRA gives a more accurate characterization of the NRA position than does the NRA website itself? They aren't leaving much ambiguity here: --PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Okay, good point.--Percy

Gun control is unpopular because guns are considered an effective defense. It is imagined that guns make one safer from threats. Pull gun, aim, fire, and the threat is over.The truth is that guns, even in the hands of highly trained personnel, are a crap shoot for defense. Shoot at a disorderly father brandishing a gun and the bullet might go through his arm and kill his 12-year old daughter standing behind him (Pennsylvania girl, 12, killed after father aims gun at constable). Fire at what sounds like someone breaking into your house and you might kill your son returning home unexpectedly (Cincinnati father shoots, kills son he mistook for intruder). Become mentally unstable and you murder an entire family (Family, neighbors wait for answers after Hilltop fatal shootings).These are just the dramatic stories that make the news. In mostly ones and twos the deaths, murders and suicides mount, reaching more than 30,000 each year. The carnage won't end until people begin thinking of guns not as safety devices but as hand grenades or ticking time bombs that could go off without warning at any time.--Percy

I didn't describe guns as hand grenades or ticking time bombs that could go off without warning at any time. I said that the carnage won't end until people begin thinking of guns not as safety devices but as hand grenades or ticking time bombs that could go off without warning at any time. One never knows when someone will become angry or depressed or careless. The guns purchased for safety and self defense are more likely to be used against oneself, one's family and one's friends, and one can never anticipate when or why. Proposing extreme measures that no one is advocating doesn't really help the discussion. The long term goal is to reduce gun ownership. Attitudes will change gradually.--Percy

This point has been raised and disposed of before. It's primary fallacy is that it ignores lethality, but anyway, I didn't just say crazy. I said people become "angry or depressed or careless." It would be for the greater good if the country moved in directions that make death less likely when something like that happens. Well, then you're wrong again. Your approach so far has mostly been, "The 'reduce gun deaths' side would be so much easier to refute if they held extreme or illogical positions, so I will assign them such positions and try to make them defend them." This makes little sense. I don't think I've proposed any specific "measures." If I have a main argument it's the certainty that fewer households with guns would mean fewer households experiencing gun deaths. Buying a gun for defense in reaction to news of the latest gun violence is a wholly understandable reaction, but we need to promote a better understanding of the reality that this actually increases the danger of gun violence.If I have a secondary argument it's about the ease of acquiring guns. The lethality of guns argues that gun ownership be better managed, perhaps requirements somewhat similar to motor vehicles.--Percy

It doesn't make it any less true. I addressed the issue similarly in my reply. I know that others have been making arguments like this, but I consider them off-target. The pro-gun side has advanced the argument that if gun ownership should be restricted because of gun deaths then ownership of other common items that also cause deaths like motor vehicles and ladders should also be restricted. The argument that the utility of these items outweighs their danger is true but not quite the right point.What I feel is the more relevant argument would bring to attention the underlying flaw in the pro-gun argument: all human endeavor involves risk. There is not a single 100% safe activity. Whether you're driving or climbing a ladder or defending your home, risk is involved.Motor vehicles are purchased to provide transportation, a task they perform admirably. Ladders are purchased to provide access to high places, a task they also perform admirably. But guns are purchased to provide additional safety, a task they perform woefully. They do the opposite, placing one at greater risk of gun injury and death.A side note: Motor vehicles are regulated far more strictly than guns, and relative to their degree of lethality ladders are regulated far more strictly at the federal level than guns.--Percy

Agreement about the problem's nature is necessary before discussion of specific measures. Most pro-gun people do not agree that a gun in the household brings greater danger, not greater safety. As a general rule most people believe they're above average, and the gun-specific corollary of this rule is that most gun owners believe they have the necessary qualities to make themselves safer with a gun than without. This is a fallacy. There's no tricky part about it. No one is always calm and always sane and always careful and always secure, and it's been shown statistically that guns increase danger, not safety. Until gun owners recognize this it will be difficult to reach agreement on effective gun control measures. Glad to hear this. Here is a breakdown and interpretation of the federal regulations that Obama is proposing to enforce more strictly: Federal Firearms Regulations Reference Guides. I'm not proposing discussing this, it's very long, very detailed, very repetitive, but it's relevant to the discussion, so I'm providing the link. Glad to hear this, too. Yes, which is one reason I'm reluctant to discuss specific measures. It can quickly become merely political, and anyway, just getting agreement on the nature of the problem is difficult enough.--Percy

The headline screams, "Local resident murdered by burglar." With the burglar still at large, local gun shops experience a dramatic increase in sales.The specifics differ but the story is always the same. Whether it's in a home or at a business or at a school or in a public place or somewhere else, whether the perpetrators are criminals or terrorists or friends or family, the reaction of many is to arm themselves so they can make themselves safer. It's a simple knee-jerk reaction: "If I buy a gun, then I'll be safer."This reaction is far too simplistic, causing many to make a very poor and dangerous decision to purchase a gun. Much more accurate reasoning would go something like this: "If I get gun training, and if I stay trained, and if I keep the gun in a safe place where it can't be discovered by children or stolen, and if I find a way to also keep it available for defense, and if I maintain the gun, and if I'm never careless, and if I never become depressed or suffer from some other mental illness, and if I never become angry, then I and those around me will be safer."Until the common perception of guns includes an understanding that it requires a considerable investment in planning and effort before the "safer" parts kicks in, there will never be a realistic dialog about gun control.--Percy

ABC News reports Woman Shot in Washington State Movie Theater, Man Arrested.After the shooting the man called 911 from home to report that he had dropped his gun and it went off. The woman is now in stable condition.--Percy

Continuum, Season 1, Episode 3 ("Wasting Time"). A criminal manages to take the gun from a cop from 2076. He fires the gun at the cop, but the gun detects the unauthorized user and instead stuns the criminal with an electrical shock. Neat! (The gun raised a big display reading "UNAUTHORIZED USER", but the criminal either ignored it or didn't see it.)Adding electrical shock capability to a reasonably-sized handgun may be a bit advanced for current technology, but detection of unauthorized users is already possible and getting better. Any objections out there to guns that only fire for authorized users?--Percy

Not really that it's strange? Or not really that reducing gun prevalence reduces gun deaths? I'm going with latter given what you say next: First, comparing just two countries out of a couple hundred is statistically meaningless, and the data that Tangle is referring to has great statistical significance, but I'll examine your comparison anyway. First, I assume when you say "higher rates of violence" you mean gun violence. This List of countries by number of guns per capita at Wikipedia says that Canada has 30.8 guns per 100 residents, and that Brazil has 8. This List of countries by firearm-related death rate shows Canada at 1.97 per 100,000 population and Brazil at 19.72. That does indeed appear to contradict the claim that gun prevalence correlates with gun violence: But the 8 guns per 100 residents must be legal guns. Read any article about gun violence in Brazil and you'll find it suffers from the combination of an enormously high rate of illegal guns and a significant ghetto violence problem, where illegal guns are likely concentrated. These Brazilian internal problems so different from Canada are an example of why you can't just pick two countries and compare them. Even with similar countries comparisons are difficult. The statistics Tangle is referencing are from studies of gun violence in a single country or of comparisons of similar countries. Mexico and Switzerland? Could you find more different countries to compare? Maybe Luxembourg‎ and Syria? Anyway, looking at Mexico and Switzerland, here's their table: Elaborating on what you said about gun ownership in Switzerland being "practically mandatory," every able male in Switzerland is required to serve a stint in the military, and most retain their gun when they leave, explaining the high gun ownership rate of 45.7%, almost the same as the percentage of males in the population.Mexico does allow private ownership of guns, but they do have a significant drug cartel problem, and as you note, there must be a significant source of illegal firearms that is probably the US. Mexico's claims of 15 guns per 100 residents must significantly understate reality.Once more, superficial comparisons of two wildly disparate countries tells us nothing about the effect of gun prevalence on gun violence prevalence. There's no puzzle. It's a big a complex world out there, and it's easy to find country by country circumstances that cloud statistical comparisons, but when you do the proper studies correctly the fact emerges that more guns translates to more gun violence. The murder rate in the UK is 1.0 per 100,000 residents, in the US it's 3.8. Their "knife violence problem" is dwarfed by our gun problem.--Percy

I didn't prove any point for you. Rather, you seem to be rebutting points not made. No one here believes the strength of gun control laws is the only controlling variable for murder rates. The simple argument is that increasing gun prevalence leads to increasing gun violence. The problem is actually very simple. We know adding guns to most situations, like households, places those in the vicinity at greater risk of injury and death.Guns being the actual instrument of injury and death, clearly they are the single most significant problem. You take a crime-ridden ghetto in Brazil and add guns and you get a big increase in murders. By comparison to Brazil Canada seems nearly crime free, and adding guns there only causes small increases in suicides and gun injury and death. You can't make a nudnik claim of, "Oh, this is so complex, the various factors could never be identified and quantified." Of course they can, and they have.Adding a gun to any situation that doesn't include training, practice, refresher courses, proper storage, regular maintenance, etc., only puts people at greater risk of injury and death. Studies that examine guns in households, and other studies that look at different countries and compare apples to apples (e.g., the US, Canada and Europe) and not Mexico to Switzerland (unless the variables are controlled for), show that increasing gun prevalence correlates with increasing gun violence. It makes little sense to argue that the problem is so complex that it defies analysis. The gun lobby is so sure that studies of gun violence would go against them that they've influenced the passage of laws that prevent the government from funding studies. What's next, book banning?--Percy

A lot of commentary on the web seems to agree with GDR, e.g.: Bible Hub on Luke 22:38. Just quoting a small portion:

quote:

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At the time the apostles understood Christ to mean real weapons, but he spake only of the weapons of the spiritual warfare. The sword of the Spirit is the sword with which the disciples of Christ must furnish themselves.
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It is to be observed that he did not say "the two swords are enough," but "it is enough;" perhaps meaning simply, enough has been said. Other matters press on, and you will yet understand what I mean.
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Not of course meaning that two swords were enough, but sadly declining to enter into the matter any further, and leaving them to meditate on His words.
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As so often, the disciples took their Master's words with curious literalness, and, as a reply, produced two swords, as if these two poor weapons could help them in the coming times of sore need. If they were to stand firm in the long trial-season which lay before them, they must surely provide themselves with very different weapons to these; their arms in the campaign of the future must be forged in no earthly workshop.

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--Percy