Two wrongs don't make a right (the (ir)rationality of revenge) - also gun control

And how do we know if a society accepts or abhors violence? It isn't by examining levels of violence, I trust? Gun control is pretty tight in Switzerland though, right? I mean on top of mandatory military service and audits on ammunition ownership (for those that still posess ammo issued by the military), there are strict limits on what kinds of guns can be bought and by whom and limits on how many. It isn't about disallowing citizens to defend themselves, it is about what should be available to do that. Clearly you think nuclear weapons are not something citizens should use to defend themselves, and I imagine you probably don't think a 7.62 mm General Electric Minigun is necessary for defense, either.So why should I not accuse you of holding the false belief that disallowing citizens to defend themselves by preventing them wielding miniguns is better for society?If defence against home invasion is your primary concern then a low range weapon with limited shots should be the kind of thing you are happy with, I'm assuming?The key point with the gun debates is not about defence, but about:1) range (if it is possible to kill someone with a weapon who is at a distance and running away, this is a point of concern for some)
2) consequences of errant shots
3) the ability ot hit multiple moving targets in relatively quick succession.
4) Effort (psychologically (and physically), killing sombody by pulling a lever quarter of an inch is much easier than manually piercing bone with a blade). To kill someone with a gun 'in the heat of passion' requires less time and less anger than it takes to plunge a knife through their ribcage.As a start.I have long grown bored of the gun debate - so I don't engage in it. But if you are going to do it, at least understand the issues and try not to frame your opponents as people who are against allowing people to defend themselves. I do think there is a better explanation for American violence versus Swiss violence. It isn't about 'glorifying violence' it is about poverty. A lot of the homicides in the US are gang related. Poor, disenfranchised males tend to group together and engage in male-on-male group violence. It is a common thing in humans (and chimps). Give them tools that make violence, quick and easy (and distant), and it becomes a major issue.The US has large sections of society who, due to historic accident, are desperate and tend to find themselves staying alive by trading on the black market.You would probably do better to argue that because of these factors, having a firearm in the USA is more necessary than it might be in some other places. But they are just my opinions. Feel free to ignore them - but I think you should be prepared for it to take a long time before you experience any meeting of minds.

Cars are designed in such a way to avoid killing people as much as possible. Innocence is a red herring. Guns are designed to kill people. Innocence is a red herring. Miniguns, nuclear weapons, sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads and VX gas are all tools.Is anybody actually arguing that guns are inherently 'evil' or are they actually arguing that their prevalence presents more dangers than they are worth?

I was under the impression that it was highly regulated, compared with the US, for example. One gun per permit, stricter restrictions on the types of weapons allowed, purchasing of ammo etc. That's the entire crux of the argument, though. There is agreement that some weapons are not reasonable - the argument is over whether a semi-automatic handgun is or not. You don't get to decry that your opponents want people to be completely defenceless just because they disagree over what is and what is not a reasonable defence tool. They don't. I never said they did. I just said that most people agree that a person should be able to defend themselves so defence is not the issue at stake and claiming that your opponent believes that making people defenseless is a good idea is not a strong argument since it misses the point. Then don't say that your opponent believes that if it is actually what you believe is the result of your opponents opinions on gun control. No they aren't.I've traded on the black market. I don't have lots of money. A street dealer can be making less money than a McDonald's worker. His boss is probably making about the same as a duty manager at McDonald's. Not really. A gun is a defence tool against other people who have guns in an environment where they don't get to turn to the police for protection of their territory. I am not making an argument for or against gun control. I'm just trying to show you that you're argument misses the point and that therefore you are going to go around with circles with your opponents without any meeting of minds. Just because I think your argument is weak, or is a poor rhetorical ploy - does not mean my opinions on gun control differ from yours. I was just hoping to tighten up the debate a little.Your opponents think differently than you. You should not assume that the consequences you think will happen as a result of their policies are consequences they believe will happen. Just because you think not having a short range firearm is 'defenseless' does not mean they think that. So don't say they believe that being defenseless is good for society, since that is clearly not what they are stating they believe.Incidentally - I have been fired at by a small handgun while I was staying with my family in New Orleans. Fortunately, the worst I've had to deal with here in the UK are a few knives and bottles and clubs - the only firearm I've seen in the UK belonged to an ex-girlfriend's father. I have lost a work colleague after he was shot to death in my local Chinese takeaway. I am not entirely divorced from gun crime and firearms. I say this to point out that you not only assumed my opinions on gun control were contrary to yours, but that this must be because of complete inexperience with firearms. You did not have the information at your disposal to make this assessment.I urge you to stick to the facts.

It is a red herring. Yes, innocent lives lost (because of a lack of guns or because of their prevalence)is a statistic of import in the debate. But adding it to your sentence is irrelevant. Guns are designed to kill people. Cars are designed to complete their job without killing people. Trying to spin it any other way looks pretty disingenuous to me. I missed that post. Or are you exaggerating here? So stick to that, rather than making some argument about how guns are inert entities and are not inherently evil. It is not relevant, yes?

Mixed and complicated. But as you say, given that I have also lived in a 'gun capital' (aka Moss Side) without personally encountering any firearms problems, I'm basically happy with the way things are. I'd like a solution that involves me having a firearm that hurts baddies and didn't hurt family or myself and that nobody else in the world was allowed to have.If I could see a good empirical argument for more ownership, I'd be willing to change my mind in a heartbeat. But post hoc ergo propter hoc type arguments don't really convince me. It seems to me that the more guns exist, the more my chances are I'll be shot by one of them. The more legal they are, the more legitimate businesses will sell them, the more factories will build them. That's not a rigorous argument - before evolution gun control, fox hunting and Tibet were the topics I'd debate all the time. I grew tired with the unconvincing arguments, decided that both sides have a point and that in general its a good idea not to have a lot of guns around - but if there were a lot of guns around it might be worth considering owning one myself. For the moment - I'd rather criminal gangs share a small number of firearms rather than each member having their own personal stash.Under circumstances where I would want a gun - it would be something akin to a shotgun rather than a semi-automatic pistol or the like.

Well that's just a silly comparison isn't it? When almost every family is involved in using millions of guns non stop throughout every single day, then maybe we can start to compare them in this fashion. I think that cars are accepted because of their vital role in transportation that enables a large economy (which funds healthcare foreign aid and other life saving things), and they are constantly being redesigned to reduce fatalities during their constant use.The other is rejected because people believe the associated deaths are not sufficiently compensated for. I don't think legalising guns will turn the UK into the Wild West. I think it will increase the number of guns in the UK. If you want to convince me that an increase in the number of firearms and the associated deaths that go with that will be compensated for in some other way then that is fine. Agreed.

Or maybe the contrary belief is based on propaganda and the politics of fear rather than facts Or maybe both sides have a little fear and a little propaganda. Individual accidents has been a factor in opposing the building of nuclear power stations.You know the reason we don't let people have access to nuclear weapons or miniguns? That's the standard in play here. The potential harm in proliferation versus the good in defence and deterrence. All things being equal the greater the number of weapons, the greater number of people will be harmed by those weapons. The debate should focus on whether this increase will be compensated for elsewhere, such as a greater decrease in people being harmed by those weapons via the deterrence effect. Which argument? Not mine, I'm not advancing one. I'm just trying to help you understand your opponents and stop setting up strawmen.

Do you seriously think that the only/most significant benefit to a highly mobile society is that they can arrive at work on time? Do you think that humanity was forever turning up late until cars became prevalent?

Seriously?It's a tricky question. The middle aged man is probably out during the day, so I'd wait around until he left and rob him then. If I was worried there might be someone at home and I thought there was a firearm on site I'd probably take a weapon of my own - prefarably a firearm.On the other hand, the defenseless old lady can just be pushed to the ground and I could intimidate her with a piece of metal or just brute strength. But she is more likely to be at home, so the chances of having to deal with her is increased.Ultimately, since possessing firearms is mostly illegal in this country and the chances are that a black market firearm has been used in a serious crime and I don't want to take the risk of being associated with that crime, or the crime of posession I'd probably think twice about any job that required a firearm.Then again, if I was feeling devious and I had good reason to believe the man had an illegal firearm, I could shop him in and take the opportunity of him being at the police station to rob his house.If guns were legal, then maybe the old woman has one too. I'd have to be sure someone was out, or take them by surprise. I might even steal the gun while I'm there.Of course, I think we agree that a smart burglar will avoid a house which is defended with heavy weapons if possible.Now - you come home and find your wife in bed with your best friend. You are really angry.There is a chance you will make a decision to kill one or both of them and that mindset will last but a few fleeting moments. Which is more likely, that you can kill them with your gun before your regain sanity or that you will stab or bludgeon them to death before you regain sanity?Or you are having an argument with a friend, it gets heated. He throws a punch, you retaliate. Things get out of hand. One of you reaches for a weapon. Under what conditions is someone more likely to die? If the weapon is a knife, or if the weapon is a gun?I don't think I've seen much in the way of discussion about these kidns of situation. Or much in the way of suicide either for that matter. Maybe that might be a fruitful avenue?

I conceded that owning a gun is likely to deter a burglar from breaking into your house when you are at home but will likely increase the probability the burglar will carry a gun (for self defense against trigger happy home owners).If I was going to rob a house, I wouldn't use my black market weapon without very good reason. I might get caught, I might kill someone and all of these things are bad for my robbing career. If they don't own a gun, why would I take one?I am geniunely interested in what you have to say regarding the other side of the coin though - that of 'heat of passion' situations where owning a gun might turn a black eye and broken ribs into a lethal hole in the body. Is the deterrent effect compensated for by an arms race with thieves and possible increase in heat of passion homicides/suicides?I'm not taking a stand here, I'm just wondering where you stand on this?

I'm not disputing that wielding a gun will prove that you are a threat, but given how difficult they are to obtain in a country where they are highly controlled and that one doesn't need one to successfully rob a house or mug someone tends to result in most thieves not carrying one.Empirically, it is confirmed that thieves don't generally feel it necessary to carry firearms to burglaries or muggings in a society where the chances of your victim having a firearm is minimal.Which leads to the question I originally asked. To which this is not an answer. Is the deterrent effect compensated for by an arms race with thieves and possible increase in heat of passion homicides/suicides?

Switzerland's gun control as compared with the US. I'm not advocating a position. Just trying to clarify things. Indeed - in your opinion. With pleasure: I was simply urging you not to mischaracterise your opponents position by projecting your opinions on the consequences of your opponents policies into statements about their beliefs. Vis: "[holding the] false belief that disallowing citizens to defend themselves will somehow be better for society.". That isn't what they said they believed. They believe that some options for defence create more associated problems than they solve. Not all items on the black market are out of the price range of the average consumer (pirate DVDs can be bought for a handful of cents, for example, drugs for only a few dollars). Nor does the average consumer purchase things in order to sell them for profit. Some people sell on the black market at a below cost (such as selling stolen items).A street dealer can buy drugs from his dealer at a price that you or I could afford, and sell those drugs to consumers to make a small amount of profit - enough to get by with. I doubt it is as simple as that. You might also make those that follow the law for the most part, less likely to kill someone they know in rage or despair. By making guns illegal you might be reducing the need for criminals to carry them in circumstances such as burglary. When you double the prison sentence of a crime if a firearm was carried by the perp' you also provide a deterrent.And that's the rub - there are upsides and downsides. Pretending that one or the other doesn't exist is not going to result in a meeting of minds. You know why.
The argument isn't that items that can kill should be outlawed. It is items that have a certain level of killing ability should be regulated or outlawed.
You agree that this is the case. You just disagree with what level is appropriate. Why must you ask such silly rhetorical questions? (irony intended) The cars argument has been addressed - the positive effects outweighs the negative. Can the same argument clearly be made in favour of firearms? You said that your opponents believed that removing the ability for citizens to defend themselves makes society better. Which is not what your opponents have said is their belief. Indeed, whose business if you have a minigun to protect your private property? Whose business that you have sarin gas? Dynamite, grenades, cluster bombs, nuclear weapons...What you can and cannot possess in your own home is society's business. No - you were making statements about my experience without knowing what my experience was and inferring my opinions on that from that guess about my experiences.

I have no idea what belief it is you heard.I've not claimed that a person holding a firearm isn't a deterrent. In fact I have conceded that it is a deterrent.However, if you reduce the need for someone to possess something while also increasing the risk for possessing I would suspect there is a possibility you will reduce possession. How is this 'fanciful' and 'not based in reality'? I can understand that you think it is empirically wrong, but that is a different matter. Most of them do not carry firearms, but specialist units do (those at airports or other terrorist targets and those that respond to firearms incidents), as well as a few patrols in certain areas.There is certainly a lack of rage related fire arms death, most gun crime is intended to be gang on gang or large robbery operations (banks, post offices etc) and this is correlated with an increase in the number of firearms due to conversions and surplus weapons from recent wars in Europe becoming available on the black market. There are maybe some other factors. Indeed, this is true of all countries. Yes, I believe this is true. Well, for a start there exists a greater possibility for burglars to encounter an armed trigger happy resident in the US and this is an obvious deterrent. I also think the prison sentences are harsher in the US than in the UK. I'm not sure about the success rate in solving burglaries in the US but that might be a factor.abe: Another thought:- Holding up a bank, off licence, or other establishment using a gun is probably a more common way to make quick money in the US than in the UK so those who would be inclined to rob a house in the US may decide to forgo the hassle of finding a fence for stolen items and just go for a cash register. I haven't seen stats, but that might also be a factor. The same could be said of nuclear weapons and miniguns and grenades... Are you having difficulty comprehending me? I have no idea how you managed to translate my words to mean anything of the sort. Maybe I'm being confusing or obfuscatory?I said that your opponents have NOT said that they believe that making citizens defenseless makes society better. Your problem is that you think that not having a gun equals not defended, but your opponents do not necessarily think that. Your opponents may agree with you that being defended makes society better, they just don't think that all methods of defense necessarily make society better. This isn't a debate about legality of firearms ownership, since that is trivially obvious. They are legal in your country and not legal in mine. This has become debate about whether they should be made illegal (or more restricted) in yours or made legal in mine (or made less restricted). Or more generally, should Utopia, Freedonia or Kallipolis have widespread gun ownership.You can't argue that something should be legal because it is. Otherwise I could just point out that handguns are not legal because they have been deemed unreasonable.The argument you put forward as a reason as to why they should be legal applies equally to miniguns, that's all I was saying. The argument, in case you don't want to check back was

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who's business is it that I should have a gun to protect my private property?

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Which, as you observed, it is the authority's business (more specifically society's business) to decide what constitutes reasonable and unreasonable degrees of protection. And the debate here is which policy is better and why. Which, by extension, means what you can possess too (everything that is not included in the set {that which you cannot possess}) Why don't you go back and look at what I was responding to, if you aren't sure? I did quote it.Here,

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From your perspective, as an individual who has never been around guns, I understand your position or can at least empathize

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To which I replied

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I am not making an argument for or against gun control...Incidentally - I have been fired at by a small handgun...I have lost a work colleague after he was shot to death in my local Chinese takeaway... say this to point out that you not only assumed my opinions on gun control were contrary to yours, but that this must be because of complete inexperience with firearms. You did not have the information at your disposal to make this assessment.

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to which you replied

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I'm only arguing the positions you are making

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to which I replied

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No - you were making statements about my experience without knowing what my experience was and inferring my opinions on that from that guess about my experiences.

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Does that make it clear?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I'm not overly keen on resuming a debate on the specifics of the case I am going to bring up, but I was curious about how you hold the opinions that you do since they appear to me to be contradictory.It seems in this thread you are advocating that the mere possibility that a homeowner has a gun is a deterrent to burglars. I'm assuming you think that the higher the probability the bigger the deterrent effect.Previously you justified Mr Martin's shooting/killing burglars in his home (one was crouched and the other climbing out of a window) based on the premise that merely firing a warning shot or calling out might cause the thieves to flee and return with weapons or to pull out their own weapons.Do you see the problem I face in trying to reconcile these positions?On the one hand a chance that a homeowner might own a gun deters thieves from robbing a homeowner.On the other hand, a homeowner wielding a firearm who is clearly alert to thieves breaking into his property is forced to shoot to kill thieves who are attempting to flee because the risk of them engaging in a firefight (either immediately or after some period of time) is too great.As I said, whether Mr Martin was justified is not something I care to debate - it just seems, on the face of it, that shooting someone in the back just in case they might return for a gunfight seems to be in tension with the position that a gun acts as a suitable deterrant.I appreciate I repeated myself a number of times. I did so because I may have been unclear in my discussion in this thread previously and I seek to remove as much ambiguity over what I am saying as possible, just in case.

Yes but it does lead me to another avenue, which ties it into to a few hints and ideas that have come up previously. As you say: So we have definitely deterred at least some of those that seek profit or thrill from burglary. At the very least, they will be more careful about ensuring the property is absent before making the attempt.So who else, other than rationally thinking profit motivated or adrenaline junkies commit burglary. Excuse me while I speculate.First up are substance addicts. Some of them are so far gone that threats to their life while known about, are secondary to getting the money together for their next fix. Some of them are not so far gone, and are rational enough to be deterred. There is probably a spectrum as well as those that are given targets by their dealers. Some will be deterred, others won't and will take their chances, and others won't be deterred and will attempt to equalise the playing field by using weapons of their own and the element of surprise.Those that are deterred will probably still turn to criminal ends to acquire their money - but use risky ones.So far we have deterred the least harmful thieves, the ones that are the most likely to run away at the sign of trouble who might commit a little violence to guarantee their escape but whose primary concern is ending the situation rather than making it worse.
We have pushed some crimes elsewhere, made some burglaries more dangerous to everybody and made some burglaries more dangerous to substance addicts.This, to me, doesn't strike me as a simple gain for society.But there are others:Madmen, psychos, and the like. A more complicated lot - for the most part we can probably agree that deterrence isn't a significant factor here, though it probably some effect. Some of them might be simple kleptomaniac types, essentially harmless but requiring professional help. Naturally gun ownership makes the world more dangerous for them. Others will 'up the ante' and bring their own guns. Some would have brought guns anyway.Now, the kind of person who breaks into a house with a gun in order to commit a violent attack or violent robbery in the UK is a rare one, though not non-existent. They generally use the shock and awe tactics and gain control of the occupants before the occupants have had the time to assess and comprehend the situation. Gun ownership for this type of crime is only sometimes of use for those exact reasons.I mean, looking at just burglary or other home invasion type crimes, it seems that there are very few situations in which widespread gun ownership is a benefit. There are a large number of 'adrenaline junky' type thefts which will probably be cut - but they are not generally the kind of thefts that require lethal defensive capability to defend against.From a game theory perspective it seems that if two opposing 'players' have a firearm, the chances of somebody getting injured or killed is vastly higher than if only one has or if both parties have knives or the like.Don't get me wrong - I'm all for policies that reduce crime. It seems to me, from a general look at things, that the only crimes you would deter are the ones which are the least harmful and the ones that remain become more likely to result in a death or serious injury. I suppose there is some positive game theory outcome in that more burglaries will be committed while the residents are absent.

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Now, statistically the most likely person to murder you is someone you know (about 2 in 3 chance that your murderer, if there is one, will be known to you. It is even more likely,if you are a woman, you will know your murderer). And the biggest single motive for murder is 'argument' as far as I am aware. So while we are deterring some property crime, making some property crime more dangerous and merely displacing the rest...we are making it easier for your most probable murderer to do the deed before their blood has cooled.This is the reason I don't tend to stake out a definitive position in gun debates. There are valid reasons for possession of firearms, and there are some associated benefits to society. But there are downsides too. I find it astonishing that people find it within themselves to definitively state that their country would be better one way or another with or without firearms. I am inclined to think the UK is better without them and the kind of reasoning above is the basic thought behind my opinion.What do you make of these kinds of issues?