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EvC Forum Side Orders Coffee House Gun Control Again

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Author Topic:   Gun Control Again
dronestar
Member
Posts: 1407
From: usa
Joined: 11-19-2008


Message 16 of 5179 (683948)
12-14-2012 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by crashfrog
12-14-2012 4:52 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
Crash writes:
I think we'd all love to do something to prevent the next tragedy. But you have to prove that what you want to do is something that would prevent the next tragedy without itself being a tragedy.
As i wrote before, I think it would FIRST require a society-wide mental adjustment. Jar's very quick reply in favor of guns suggests it would be a losing battle.
Perhaps I can post more photos of dead children from gunshots, but that didn't seem to sway too many people on the forum before.
This is probably an 'unswayable' solution.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 4:52 PM crashfrog has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by jar, posted 12-14-2012 5:05 PM dronestar has replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 17 of 5179 (683949)
12-14-2012 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by crashfrog
12-14-2012 4:52 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
Crashfrog writes:
I think we'd all love to do something to prevent the next tragedy. But you have to prove that what you want to do is something that would prevent the next tragedy without itself being a tragedy.
I'd really like to think that you don't belive that, but I know you do and I know you'll say it in 6 months time when there's another one. And the one after that.
And you can't and won't ever get that USA has a gun fetish and that trying to do something obvious about that can only help - you know, like making guns just a tad harder to get.
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 4:52 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 5:07 PM Tangle has replied

jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 18 of 5179 (683950)
12-14-2012 5:05 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by dronestar
12-14-2012 5:02 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
jar's reply was not in favor of guns but rather a recognition of reality.
My guns do not pose a risk to anyone and in fact might someday provide safety to others.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by dronestar, posted 12-14-2012 5:02 PM dronestar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by dronestar, posted 12-14-2012 5:12 PM jar has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


(1)
Message 19 of 5179 (683951)
12-14-2012 5:07 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by Tangle
12-14-2012 5:02 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
And you can't and won't ever get that USA has a gun fetish and that trying to do something obvious about that can only help - you know, like making guns just a tad harder to get.
I'm happy to tell you that the USA has a gun fetish. Or, at least, many in the US fetishize guns. Many in the UK and other countries fetishize guns. Many fetish them as items of power.
Many, like you, fetish them as items of fear. But they're just tools, to be used for good or ill. That's why the "serious conversation" never goes anywhere - gun opponents present examples of guns used for ill, and gun proponents present examples of guns used for good, and then gun opponents present examples of guns being prevented from being used for ill, which they say is good, and then gun proponents present examples of guns being prevented from being used for good, which they say is bad.
And they're both right. That's the problem.
you know, like making guns just a tad harder to get.
Let's say guns were harder to get. Presumably, that would prevent the least-motivated school shooters from shooting up schools. But it wouldn't prevent the most-motivated, so schools would still be shot up. But presumably, school shootings would become incredibly rare.
But school shootings are incredibly rare. They represent not even one tenth of one percent of gun homicides. So we're already at the point where gun control is so effective it makes school shootings incredibly rare. Do you really believe we could even have no school shootings at all? Even in Japan, where it's illegal for you to own a gun there are still two or three gun murders every year.
The question is, as tragic as these school shootings are, isn't the response disproportionate to the risk? Legislating in response to school shootings is like mandating that every American has to wear a parachute at all times because a plane crash was on the news. Or, you know, it's like making airline travel incredibly inconvenient because once, some terrorists crashed a plane on purpose. It's all very well and good to say that inconvenience isn't as important as safety - but the TSA's security regime kills more than 500 Americans every year, entirely due to that inconvenience. How many people are going to be killed by your gun control? Did you even think to wonder?
Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.
Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by Tangle, posted 12-14-2012 5:02 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by dronestar, posted 12-14-2012 5:13 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 27 by Tangle, posted 12-14-2012 5:19 PM crashfrog has replied

dronestar
Member
Posts: 1407
From: usa
Joined: 11-19-2008


Message 20 of 5179 (683952)
12-14-2012 5:10 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Rahvin
12-14-2012 5:00 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
Rahvin writes:
I think the "violent, hateful society" bit is essentially hyperbole.
The hateful part might be hyperbole, but the violent part? Compared to other countries, you would argue that america is NOT a violent society?
Rahvin writes:
I don't think most people are hateful, I think they're apathetic.
Yes, that's what I hoped my first post communicated. (However, I firmly believe this apathy is an uniquely american trait.) So what can be done with an apathetic society?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by Rahvin, posted 12-14-2012 5:00 PM Rahvin has not replied

dronestar
Member
Posts: 1407
From: usa
Joined: 11-19-2008


Message 21 of 5179 (683953)
12-14-2012 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by jar
12-14-2012 5:05 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
Jar writes:
jar's reply was not in favor of guns but rather a recognition of reality.
Sadly, it must be a wanted reality or else it would change.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by jar, posted 12-14-2012 5:05 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by jar, posted 12-14-2012 5:15 PM dronestar has not replied

dronestar
Member
Posts: 1407
From: usa
Joined: 11-19-2008


Message 22 of 5179 (683954)
12-14-2012 5:13 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by crashfrog
12-14-2012 5:07 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
Crash writes:
And they're both right. That's the problem.
No, the problem is 20 dead children.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 5:07 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 5:17 PM dronestar has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(3)
Message 23 of 5179 (683955)
12-14-2012 5:14 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by crashfrog
12-14-2012 4:49 PM


You can't now "just go to a gun show and buy one." Gun vendors at gun shows have to follow the same laws at the gun show that they have to follow anywhere - they can't sell to you without running you through the FBI's criminal database, which requires ID, which is a requirement both of Federal law and of owning a Federal Firearms Dealer's license.
Only for dealers who regularly buy and sell firearms and are licensed to do so. Individuals can buy and sell firearms at gun shows without performing such checks. That's what the gun show loophole is.
quote:
Unfortunately, current federal law requires criminal background checks only for guns sold through licensed firearm dealers, which account for just 60% of all gun sales in the United States. A loophole in the law allows individuals not engaged in the business of selling firearms to sell guns without a licenseand without processing any paperwork. That means that two out of every five guns sold in the United States change hands without a background check.
Though commonly referred to as the Gun Show Loophole, the private sales described above include guns sold at gun shows, through classified newspaper ads, the Internet, and between individuals virtually anywhere.
Unfortunately, only six states (CA, CO, IL, NY, OR, RI) require universal background checks on all firearm sales at gun shows. Three more states (CT, MD, PA) require background checks on all handgun sales made at gun shows. Seven other states (HI, IA, MA, MI, NJ, NC, NE) require purchasers to obtain a permit and undergo a background check before buying a handgun. Florida allows its counties to regulate gun shows by requiring background checks on all firearms purchases at these events. 33 states have taken no action whatsoever to close the Gun Show Loophole.
From here.
That's great, for people who want money more than guns. But the reason that people have guns in the first place is because they wanted the gun more than they wanted the money. You can certainly get some guns off the street like this - people at the margins who have a short-term need to liquidize their firearm "asset" - but the very fact that people buy guns proves that you'd have to spend absurd amounts of money to make any dent in gun ownership.
Again, I never claimed it was a full solution. It's simply an incentive. It's a way to accelerate the attrition of firearm ownership after banning them, beyond just letting owners die and guns break and ammunition be expended until there aren't any more.
That's not to mention the distorting effect of a gun buyback on the local gun market; gun buybacks actually increase ownership of guns in an area because you're basically paying people to exchange their nonfunctional or inferior guns for better ones. Gun buybacks don't reduce the amount of guns; they actually make it more valuable to own a gun, so people get more guns.
I don't follow - how does a ban and buyback program increase the ownership of guns? The government becomes the owner of the sold firearms, not private owners, and new sales are banned. How could that result in anything other than reduced private ownership, which is the point?
How are you going to "catch" people owning guns without a door to door search? You're proposing a "war on guns" almost topologically identical to the "war on drugs."
Strawman. I propose no such thing. If a person carries a gun in public and it is reported, they can be arrested. If a person is served a search warrant and a gun is found, that's an additional charge that can be filed even if the warrant was for something else.
Again, you don;t need a police state to ban something. You dont need door-to-door searches unless you think we need to get rid of all guns right now, and I don't see that as a requirement. I see the requirement to be reducing gun ownership by private citizens. A ban would go a very long way, and could even achieve that goal in the very long term alone; a buy back program would accelerate the process, and other ideas might help as well, but I never suggested anything like what you're suggesting.
How well has the war on drugs worked in terms of getting rid of drugs? How have our civil liberties fared under the war on drugs? Haven't we, in fact, already almost arrived at "police state" as a result of criminalizing possession of drugs?
A ban doesn't necessarily have to mean jail time - it can simply be a fine and confiscation. You need an incentive to surrender firearms, but that need not be the threat incarceration, and neither need the ban be taken to the extremes of the so-called "war on drugs." Reduction is the goal, not full elimination.
And, you know...guns don't just grow like pot, and it's harder to make a homemade gun than it is to cook meth. And those you can make at home don't tend to be fully automatic weapons with boxes of ammunition.
You haven't really presented an argument, crash, other than strawmanning my positions.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of
variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the
outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 4:49 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 5:34 PM Rahvin has not replied

jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 24 of 5179 (683956)
12-14-2012 5:15 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by dronestar
12-14-2012 5:12 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
HUH?
Are you saying that you would like for my guns to be a threat to others?

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by dronestar, posted 12-14-2012 5:12 PM dronestar has not replied

dronestar
Member
Posts: 1407
From: usa
Joined: 11-19-2008


Message 25 of 5179 (683957)
12-14-2012 5:16 PM


Have a good weekend gentlemen. I'm off to do some Xmas shopping and spread good cheer, and peace on earth.
Or something like that.

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 26 of 5179 (683958)
12-14-2012 5:17 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by dronestar
12-14-2012 5:13 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
No, the problem is 20 dead children.
Which 20? The 20 that died in this attack on a school? Or the 20 who died today in car accidents?
How about the 20 who died yesterday? How about the 20 who will die tomorrow, and on the next day?
Kids are incredibly safe in school. They're in incredible danger on the ride in. Why spend so much effort, and kill so many people, making kids safer where they're safest, and try to make them safer where they're actually in danger?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by dronestar, posted 12-14-2012 5:13 PM dronestar has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Rahvin, posted 12-14-2012 5:22 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 29 by Tangle, posted 12-14-2012 5:24 PM crashfrog has not replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 27 of 5179 (683959)
12-14-2012 5:19 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by crashfrog
12-14-2012 5:07 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
Like I said, you won't ever get it.
All I can say is that as a visitor to the US, seeing guns on sale in Walmart felt like I was visiting a truly schizophrenic and dangerous country.
(and this was compounded on a later visit, when a road road incident was heightened by the fact that the rager was in a pickup with 2 rifles strapped to the rear of the cab. I can't explain to you how insane that felt.)

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 5:07 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 5:36 PM Tangle has replied
 Message 41 by ooh-child, posted 12-14-2012 6:44 PM Tangle has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(5)
Message 28 of 5179 (683960)
12-14-2012 5:22 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by crashfrog
12-14-2012 5:17 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
Which 20? The 20 that died in this attack on a school? Or the 20 who died today in car accidents?
How about the 20 who died yesterday? How about the 20 who will die tomorrow, and on the next day?
This is a compelling argument to focus our attention elsewhere, on ways to minimize death and injury from more likely sources that can be more easily curtailed.
But that's not an argument against gun control. It's a red herring. Even if our attention is better focused elsewhere...none of us are policy makers, we're just people on a debate board. Whether a kid is more likely to die from a gun or diabetes has no bearing on whether or not gun laws in the US could use some changes.
Besides...gun violence and gun control isn't limited to school shootings. School shootings simply provide an emotionally impactful reason to bring the topic to our attention.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of
variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the
outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 5:17 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 5:36 PM Rahvin has replied

Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 29 of 5179 (683961)
12-14-2012 5:24 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by crashfrog
12-14-2012 5:17 PM


Re: guns versus mentality
Crashfrog writes:
No, the problem is 20 dead children.
Which 20? The 20 that died in this attack on a school? Or the 20 who died today in car accidents?
Deflection.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by crashfrog, posted 12-14-2012 5:17 PM crashfrog has not replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 30 of 5179 (683962)
12-14-2012 5:30 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Rahvin
12-14-2012 4:32 PM


limit ammunition, make accounting for every bullet part of it
Hi Rahvin,
... Ammunition would no longer be legal. ...
Something along this line might be the most viable solution. In Sweden IIRC each person is issued a gun and ammunition and have to account for any ammo used.
Make hunting rifle ammo available in single shot mode, with license to purchase, background checks etc. with ammo to be marked and accounted for before next purchase.
Pistols could be single shot mode and only one round at a time -- you don't need more for self protection.
Enjoy

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Rahvin, posted 12-14-2012 4:32 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Rahvin, posted 12-14-2012 5:34 PM RAZD has replied

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