To argue for gun control because of all the innocent lives that are being lost is inane.
As someone earlier noted, you *are* taking the Faith approach. Denying the obvious with a straight face is a rhetorical device, not evidence in your favor. The correlation between gun prevalence and gun deaths is clear. The fewer and safer we make guns the fewer will be gun deaths.
Wow. You really think that people should be unable to defend themselves? That's fucked up.
The argument wasn't that people should be unable to defend themselves. The argument was that the defense response to non-lethal threats shouldn't be lethal.
The argument that Heathen is making is that people defending themselves with lethal force is that person judging the guilt of a crime and administering the death penalty, and that the average person should not have the capacity for that.
Yes, you've got it right this time. He wasn't arguing that people shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves.
So since you do actually understand his argument, reply to that argument instead of one you make up.
The foremost issue is how to reduce gun deaths in this country. What we know is that the lower the prevalence of guns the lower the incidence of gun deaths. About the arming of police, I'd prefer something closer to the UK approach, but of course this would be impractical while the citizenry is still armed.
I understand. You believe we can't get there (reduced gun deaths) from here (30,000 gun deaths per year) and should stop trying because of the law of unintended consequences as illustrated by the double nickle (and even better by prohibition). But by this reasoning government should never do anything. It doesn't seem particularly persuasive.
What means would you propose for reducing gun deaths?
Though the NRA and other pro-gun advocates might disagree with me, I wouldn't mind seeing a few states, like New York, or California, or Illinois take the lead on satisfying every anti-gun advocates desires, up to and including a complete ban of privately owned firearms. Then everyone in the entire country can watch how it works.
I'm all in favor of this experiment, but I think there's already enough evidence. If you look at this table of firearm death rates by state, it looks like the states with stronger gun control laws tend to have lower firearm death rates. New York, California and Illinois have rates of 5.1, 7.7 and 8.2 respectively, while your own state of Kentucky is 12.4. Tennessee right next door is 14.4. Alaska, Sarah Palin's home state, is 20.4. Alabama, home of the redneck, is 16.2.
Your ramblings about the "dilemma" it poses your opponents are cryptic to those of us who have the good fortune not to live in your head. Perhaps you could expand on this bizarre fantasy; or perhaps you will on maturer reflection discover that you would look slightly less stupid if you kept it to yourself.
He and Catholic Scientist are like a two-man "The Onion", but focused on gun issues. For many of their messages, nothing more need be said.
Re: The Gun Industry: Making the World a Safer Place
marc9000 writes:
Last time I checked, gun nuts could still vote.
?? So can many illegals - so can those who know nothing about history.
You've forgotten what you said that I was replying to. You said, "It's important to realize that so much gun interest is within the U.S. government." I dont' disagree, but if there are gun nuts in government it's because they were voted in.
I'm tired tonight, and that's pretty raggedy I'll admit,...
Well, I don't know about raggedy, but it isn't about anything I said. I had expressed an interest in your proposals for reducing gun deaths.
Actually, preparing for low risk events takes little extra effort.
I'm glad to hear you say that and hope that it is true, because when I read this from Message 2614:
jar in Message 2614 writes:
... but I still carry weapons, insurance, practice situational awareness, handgun and rifle practice, shoot near and far, stationary and when on the move, using knives and axes defensively and practically, keep a packed panic bag and bug out caches, practice defensive driving.
As my arthritis gets worse I have had to practice more using my off hand and that's gotten much better. In fact in most cases I'm better left handed than right now. It's still cumbersome when it comes to the bolt action rifles but even there I've practiced enough to feel comfortable. I've added some ambidextrous holsters and knives and practiced enough to be comfortable there as well.
It's comforting to know I'm about as prepared as I can be.
It made it seem like self defense and preparation was a dominating aspect of your life, which would be sad unless it were a hobby or something like that, so it's good to hear it isn't so.
We have a generator - that's the extent of our preparation.
Re: The Gun Industry: Making the World a Safer Place
marc9000 writes:
It's not a case of forgetting, I didn't know anyone thought that purchases of guns and ammo by today's U.S. government were anywhere near voters, or even elected officials.
Government reflects the will of the people. If voters really wanted a government with fewer arms then they would vote for candidates who share that view, and eventually the government would have fewer arms.
About your proposals for reducing gun deaths, you want to:
Put constraints on the news media regarding the reporting of gun deaths.
Put less emphasis on science and teach more history and other secular subjects in public schools.
Shouldn't you be saying that to Percy? He's the one who thinks those laws are already enough evidence of it working.
I didn't say anything about Chicago. What I actually said was that this table of firearm death rates by state seems to indicate that states with stronger gun control laws tend to have lower firearm death rates.
So what means do you propose for reducing gun deaths?
I mentioned Illinois, New York, California, Alaska, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama, each of those states also have cities, and I didn't say anything about single one. I didn't say anything about Chicago, or about New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Fairbanks or Birmingham. But urban areas, especially low income urban areas, almost always have higher homicide rates than less densely settled regions. Chicago isn't particularly unusual.
The point is that looking at the state level doesn't get to the root of the problem.
The point is that looking at the state level indicates that stronger gun control laws correlate with lower gun death rates. You do raise a good issue:
That table doesn't tell us anything about how strong the gun control laws for each state are. How are you judging their strength? Do you have a resource for that? It be interesting to lay out the firearm death rates with some quantification of the strength of a state's gun control laws, even if we just did a scale of 1 - 10 or something, and see just what kind of correlation is really there.
Yes, it would be good to have this data. Meanwhile, if you don't like Illinois as an example because of Chicago then substitute New Jersey. New York, New Jersey and California have significantly lower gun death rates and stronger gun control laws than Kentucky, Tennessee, Alaska and Alabama.
So what means do you propose for reducing gun deaths?
Stronger penalties for minor gun crimes. You gotta get the guns out of the hands of the criminals, or get the criminals out of the public. Passing rules for the law abiding citizens to obey doesn't do anything to the people who aren't obeying the laws in the first place. You gotta lock up the people who are actually using guns for criminal activity, for a long time.
Stronger penalties for gun crimes is fine by me, but I was hoping for something that might address gun deaths like those at Newtown, CT.
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