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EvC Forum Side Orders Coffee House Gun Control Again

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Author Topic:   Gun Control Again
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 3764 of 5179 (765620)
08-02-2015 12:00 PM
Reply to: Message 3763 by jar
08-02-2015 9:52 AM


jar writes:
Why are gun deaths an issue when they are so small compared to other deaths like traffic deaths?
That you're not disputing that the widespread prevalence of guns is responsible for the higher rate of gun deaths is small comfort, but anyway, there were 8855 firearm related homicides in 2012 in the US. How many needless deaths is too small to be a concern?
And so many are children. This CDC Study reports that the death rate for children in the US is far higher than for other industrialized nations:
quote:
The homicide rate for children in the United States was five times higher than that for children in the other 25 countries combined (2.57 per 100,000 compared with 0.51)
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3763 by jar, posted 08-02-2015 9:52 AM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3765 by jar, posted 08-02-2015 12:43 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 3766 of 5179 (765623)
08-02-2015 1:29 PM
Reply to: Message 3765 by jar
08-02-2015 12:43 PM


You're playing semantic games while people die. Reduce the prevalence of guns and it will reduce needless gun deaths.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3765 by jar, posted 08-02-2015 12:43 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3767 by jar, posted 08-02-2015 1:32 PM Percy has replied
 Message 3768 by Minnemooseus, posted 08-02-2015 2:39 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(3)
Message 3770 of 5179 (765630)
08-02-2015 5:20 PM
Reply to: Message 3767 by jar
08-02-2015 1:32 PM


jar writes:
Your playing semantic games while people die. Reduce folks speeding or driving drunk and it will reduce needless vehicular deaths.
See how easy it is?
I see how easily you spout nonsense to avoid discussing the topic of this thread. I'm not playing semantic games in any way, and your attempted turnabout makes no sense since I'm perfectly willing to discuss reducing traffic fatalities. In a thread where that's the topic.
But I am trying to address a big problem not just a small but vocal one.
Over 8000 annual deaths from firearm homicides is smaller than 25,000 annual traffic fatalities, but it is not small. It also represents a rate nearly ten times greater than other industrialized nations
Since there are over a half million cancer deaths every year, by your silly argument we shouldn't be talking about anything with comparatively tiny numbers of deaths, which would include both firearm homicides and traffic fatalities.
Can I suggest that if you don't feel the topic is worth discussing that you stop posting?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3767 by jar, posted 08-02-2015 1:32 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3775 by jar, posted 08-03-2015 8:52 AM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 3772 of 5179 (765632)
08-02-2015 5:43 PM
Reply to: Message 3768 by Minnemooseus
08-02-2015 2:39 PM


Re: High gun death rates in some areas
Minnemooseus writes:
Jar is pointing out that gun deaths are still relatively low compared to auto accident deaths.
Sure, and that he's more concerned about traffic fatalities. Which is his prerogative. But that doesn't mean firearm deaths shouldn't be a concern or that we shouldn't discuss them, particularly since children are so often the victims. Jar asks (paraphrasing), "Why are gun deaths an issue compared to traffic deaths?" Everyone knows the answer to that question. Simple humanity requires concern about all needless deaths.
And "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," *is* a semantic game. The important point is that the widespread prevalence of guns is responsible for the higher firearm homicide rate in this country.
I think one thing that is getting lost is that gun incidents are not uniformly distributed throughout the country. Gun control may indeed be a minor problem in rural areas/states, but it is a major problem in at least some urban areas.
The problem can be broken down into greater geographic detail, but the basic issue applies everywhere: more guns mean more gun deaths.
And it *is* pertinent to repeat a point often made in this thread, most recently by Saab93f, that motor vehicles serve essential economic and social purposes while guns do not. Ironically, guns purchased for self defense are far more likely to be used against oneself, friends or family than for actual self-defense.
There is one similarity between gun safety and car safety: gun nuts and the gun industry are fighting safety improvements just as hard as the auto industry once did.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3768 by Minnemooseus, posted 08-02-2015 2:39 PM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3773 by xongsmith, posted 08-02-2015 6:02 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 3777 by New Cat's Eye, posted 08-04-2015 4:59 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 3835 of 5179 (765831)
08-06-2015 5:41 PM
Reply to: Message 3775 by jar
08-03-2015 8:52 AM


jar writes:
But I do feel the topic is worth discussing, and am trying to point out that the solutions suggested are at best sophomoric and in many cases just stupid.
You can only be thinking of when you said, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
The issue is not guns but misuse of tools;
No, this isn't some tools issue. Guns increase one's risk of injury and death. Their net benefit is negative.
it is the same issue are vehicular deaths and that is ignorance and disregard of existing laws.
You're way out in left field somewhere. Of course less ignorance and greater adherence to existing laws would help, but that's true of almost anything.
You can't change or in any way avoid one fundamental fact: Guns make almost no positive contributions. They make almost exclusively negative ones. This definitely isn't true of vehicles, nor of almost anything else in our daily lives for that matter. Maybe hard drugs are the closest thing to being as bad as guns.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3775 by jar, posted 08-03-2015 8:52 AM jar has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(2)
Message 3836 of 5179 (765832)
08-06-2015 5:44 PM
Reply to: Message 3778 by jar
08-04-2015 9:51 PM


jar writes:
If we banned vehicles it would reduce vehicular deaths.
Well, as we all know, "Cars don't kill people. People kill people."
Cars, trucks, etc., serve essential economic and social purposes. Guns have almost none. Their one supposed benefit, self defense, turns out to increase risk of injury and death.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3778 by jar, posted 08-04-2015 9:51 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3862 by jar, posted 08-07-2015 10:37 AM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 3837 of 5179 (765833)
08-06-2015 5:56 PM
Reply to: Message 3781 by jar
08-05-2015 8:25 AM


jar writes:
Don't you mean that handguns do not serve a useful purpose that YOU see?
But the benefit that *YOU* see for handguns is imagined. If there was really some "useful purpose" that you could surprise us all with you would have mentioned it. The reality is that there is no net benefit to widespread ownership of guns, only a net cost in terms of injuries and deaths. Year after year.
Meaningful points this far into a debate can't be made with one and two sentence posts. If you really want to contribute to the debate then please proceed, by all means, but if not then please stop the silly and nearly meaningless sneering that doesn't contribute anything.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3781 by jar, posted 08-05-2015 8:25 AM jar has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 3848 of 5179 (765847)
08-06-2015 9:28 PM
Reply to: Message 3785 by jar
08-05-2015 9:37 AM


jar writes:
I cannot help peoples inability to actually read what it written. That is NMP.
Listen to the feedback you're getting because it's how people are really experiencing you here. You're cryptic. A lot. It comes across as sanctimonious poser crap.
In the US we currently have no way to track who should be prevented from buying a gun. We do not track mental disorders or physical limitations.
Let's dispose of this fiction right off the bat. Wherever the public impression came from that psychology can predict what someone might do in the future, forget it. Untrue. Completely false. Psychology has no such ability. Any such faith in psychology is completely misplaced.
You know what I bet lots of working psychologists think every time it's reported that some murderer in the weeks before the crime told his psychologist that he heard voices in his head telling him to "Kill, kill, kill!" These psychologists are thinking, "Gee, I've got patients telling me that right now." What a quandary for psychologists! Should they just turn these patients in? Obviously not, since almost none of them ever act on it. And there's no way to tell who will act on the voices and who won't.
It's way past time to dispense with the post-massacre handwringing about why the perpetrator wasn't stopped before he started. There's no way to tell what's really going on in someone's head, much as we might want to believe otherwise.
A history of arrest for violence or murder is a sure indication that one should be placed on the "no gun" list. Psychiatric diagnosis or hospitalization for serious mental conditions like schizophrenia and so forth is another indication.
But most murders are committed by people who don't fit within any category that would allow us to tell that they're going to murder before they murder. In 2010 out of 12,996 murders, 5544 were committed by someone known to the victim (FBI Homicide Data on Murder Circumstances for 2010). You want to prevent most of those 5544 murders? Remove handguns from the general population.
We need to track such information. Hell, it would likely be a good idea if the US actually had a list of who is a citizen.
An aside: There'd be better luck with achieving such goals if one party wasn't a bunch of crazed border enforcers intent on making life as hellish as possible for illegal immigrants. How about we first start living up to, "Give us your tired, your hungry, your poor," before we start registering everyone only so we can make it possible to more efficiently throw illegal immigrants into the US Immigration Department's torture maze.
I would support making concealed handguns illegal and requiring open carry. Let the public see that gun owners are just like everyone else and really a far smaller threat than the average driver.
Whether Bozo the gun clowns walk around with their manhood in their underwear or hanging out for all to see is not relevant, and neither is the potential instructional impact on us gun sissies. You're ignoring a fundamental reality: more guns mean more gun deaths.
I would support mandatory gun training and annual certification...
Positive steps. Also needed is removal of the exception on background checks for guns sold at gun shows or in private sales. Annual re-registration for guns, just like motor vehicles, is another important step. Technology improvements to makes guns safer is another.
...(but only if we also required it to drive a vehicle; folks with guns don't scare me but all them drivers out there do).
...
I would support far stricter enforcement of existing gun laws (but also vehicular infractions).
Coupling safety improvements in different realms makes no sense. Let the experts in congress conduct all the irrational wheeling/dealing.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3785 by jar, posted 08-05-2015 9:37 AM jar has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 3849 of 5179 (765848)
08-06-2015 9:44 PM
Reply to: Message 3786 by 1.61803
08-05-2015 10:31 AM


Re: From my cold dead stupid fingers....
1.61803 writes:
What we need is a cultural revolution in regards to guns. Guns are a fascination for us Americans. We simply love our guns, so much so we are willing to suffer the consequences of the gun related deaths brought about from a ignorant/stupid armed society.
What you mean, "We?"
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3786 by 1.61803, posted 08-05-2015 10:31 AM 1.61803 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3858 by 1.61803, posted 08-07-2015 9:42 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 3863 of 5179 (765876)
08-07-2015 10:55 AM
Reply to: Message 3787 by Diomedes
08-05-2015 11:01 AM


Re: From my cold dead stupid fingers....
Diomedes writes:
Incidentally, for those on this thread, there was a documentary on Frontline PBS recently called 'Gunned Down'. Really interesting and I would recommend checking it out.
I found it here: Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA | Watch S2015 E4 | FRONTLINE | PBS | Official Site
Watched it already. It's scary and depressing, and it provides some good insight into the mindset of the NRA. They truly do believe that all it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Such platitudinous sloganeering is simple and very effective at convincing those already sympathetic to such views, as grievously false as they may be.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3787 by Diomedes, posted 08-05-2015 11:01 AM Diomedes has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 3911 of 5179 (765941)
08-08-2015 8:09 AM
Reply to: Message 3806 by New Cat's Eye
08-05-2015 3:55 PM


Cat Sci writes:
In my "business" handguns are an unfortunate, necessary evil.
Look at it this way, if they didn't have a useful purpose then how could they be necessary?
I just about loath the glorifying of guns and accept them as tools since they are what we got.
They're great tools, for their purpose. That means they're useful.
You simply cannot deny that handguns have useful purpose.
I'm obviously still way behind in this thread, but anyway, since Saab just revealed he's in law enforcement, I think he meant they are a necessary tool for law enforcement (which, I agree, is a "useful purpose"). He seems to be arguing that they have no useful purpose for your average citizen, particularly for self defense.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3806 by New Cat's Eye, posted 08-05-2015 3:55 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 3912 of 5179 (765942)
08-08-2015 8:12 AM
Reply to: Message 3807 by New Cat's Eye
08-05-2015 3:58 PM


Cat Sci writes:
I'm probably the most substantial poster in this thread.
This is an award that can only be bestowed upon you by others, not by yourself, and obviously this isn't your only delusion. Will you be referring to yourself in the third person soon?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3807 by New Cat's Eye, posted 08-05-2015 3:58 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 3913 of 5179 (765943)
08-08-2015 8:24 AM
Reply to: Message 3812 by New Cat's Eye
08-05-2015 4:26 PM


Cat Sci writes:
Your view that its all just a misinterpretation of the 2nd amendment has already been proven wrong by the Supreme Court, and has already been thoroughly discussed in this thread, so there's really no point in me saying any more about it.
Just for purposes of keeping the debate factual I want to state clearly that you are correct. Quoting some of the Supreme Court's 2013 Aguilar ruling:
quote:
"...the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense..."
"...individual self-defense is ‘the central component’ of the Second Amendment right..."
"...Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day...
But this Supreme Court notwithstanding, we must keep in mind another fact: the more guns, the more gun deaths.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3812 by New Cat's Eye, posted 08-05-2015 4:26 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 3914 of 5179 (765944)
08-08-2015 8:43 AM
Reply to: Message 3826 by NoNukes
08-06-2015 3:30 AM


NoNukes writes:
Cat Sci writes:
The Law of the Jungle doesn't use those natural rights. Its only when we have societies that we can begin to pretend that there are natural rights.
pretend there are natural rights?
No reply from Cat Sci. Interesting.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3826 by NoNukes, posted 08-06-2015 3:30 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3929 by NoNukes, posted 08-08-2015 11:04 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 3915 of 5179 (765946)
08-08-2015 8:52 AM
Reply to: Message 3839 by New Cat's Eye
08-06-2015 6:30 PM


Cat Sci writes:
Weren't you the one who said that nobody likes a tattle tale?
And how could you know that the other position isn't the one that I don't actually believe in? Or that I didn't change my mind?
Argue the position, not the person.
Well, now you're just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.
A previous position is irrelevant to the point of this one.
That you seem to be both for and against natural rights depending upon whether it supports your argument of the moment seems precisely relevant. One doesn't even need to formulate one's own arguments to argue against you - one can just quote your own words back to you.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3839 by New Cat's Eye, posted 08-06-2015 6:30 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

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