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 Smacks wrote:
I did not say "legally" equivalent, now you are twisting my words.

Sorry I thought we were talking about legal rights, considering we are talking about the Constitution of the United States. As for the UDHR, etc., "free speech" is a lovely phrase but it can stand for a lot of things. The American legal tradition of free speech is extremely divergent from the British tradition, for example. Just something to note as you make arguments based on monolithic assumptions.

 Smacks wrote:
Also about ~50% of Americans are in favour of gun rights being limited, I don't have the figures for people wanting to limit free speech, but I bet it's a lot lower than 50%

Keep in mind that gun ownership rights are already limited in the USA. The issue is not whether gun ownership should be totally unrestricted. I would say the number of Americans favoring some restrictions on gun ownership is far higher than 50%, probably more like 98%+. I think the same percentage are in favor of some limits on free speech. Just like restrictions on private gun ownership, limits on free speech have long been a part of the American legal and cultural landscape. Our limits on free speech, as a matter of law, however, are not nearly as as restrictive as yours.

 Vash108 wrote:
Forgot to leave this here
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/americas-top-killing-machine/384440/

Keep in mind that "gun deaths" includes suicides which account for a very large proportion of that number. If you remove people intentionally attempting to end their lives from the equation, the numbers drop quite dramatically.

 Smacks wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
You seem under the delusion that in order for me to own a weapon, someone is going to walk into a school and shoot children. Thats just grade A bullgak from an ignorant foreigner.

You have advocated gun ownership being a human right. Which would imply that even people such as convicted fellons should have the right to own a gun (as they do the right to a fair trial).

Rights can be abridged or removed through due process of law. Just as criminals can have their right to bear arms taken away by a court, criminals can be compelled, as part of their sentencing, to be prohibited from engaging in certain activities, contacting certain people, or using certain forms of communication or information systems. The key is that this has to be done as a consequence of one's actions, and by due process through the public legal system.

I don't hold you personally responsible, as I think your personal contribution is probably negligible. But collectively the gun rights lobby is a significant contributing factor, in people (such as Vester Lee Flanagan or Roger Elliott) having almost unrestricted access to guns.

What sort of law would have prevented Flanagan from accessing a gun? He had no previous convictions (as far as we are aware) that would have made him a prohibited person. He did not have any sort of diagnosed mental condition nor was he declared mentally unfit.

Unless we're going to get into some serious Minority Report type stuff here, or simply bar people for getting fired from jobs for being donkey-caves from getting guns, then there isn't a solution available from the legal system here. The legal system can punish crime, it cannot prevent it.

...and here we go!

White House concedes new gun laws wouldn’t have stopped Va. gunman

The White House conceded Friday that new gun regulations probably wouldn’t have prevented the gunman who murdered two television journalists in southwestern Virginia this week.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said it appears that a proposal championed by President Obama to require background checks on purchases at gun shows “would not have applied in this particular case.”

Law enforcement officials said gunman Vester Flanagan used a Glock handgun in Wednesday’s shooting, one of two that he bought last month. He legally bought two Glock model 19 handguns from a Virginia dealer.

Mr. Earnest said the White House has never suggested that one piece of gun legislation would prevent all gun violence in the U.S. But Mr. Earnest said the proposal on background checks, which failed in the Senate in 2013, would prevent other shooting deaths around the country every day.

“There are similarly shocking acts of violence that don’t get as much attention that could be prevented … if Congress weren’t scared of the NRA,” he said.

Flanagan opened fire on WDBJ reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, during a live broadcast in Virginia on Wednesday, killing both of them. He later killed himself as police closed in.

A third shooting victim, Vicki Gardner, who was being interviewed when Flanagan began shooting, was upgraded from stable to good condition Thursday in a hospital.

Flanagan was fired from WDBJ in 2013.

Good to hear that the 3rd victim was upgraded to stable today.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The legal system can punish crime, it cannot prevent it.

As I was trying to explain earlier today, this is the fault line. When we say people like Vester Flanagan murdered people because he was crazy, we're setting ourselves up: the criminal becomes the patient. Crime becomes a disease. And the function of criminal justice is not only to cure but prevent outbreaks of this disease.

I think it's pretty reasonable to say that moderately improved restrictions on who can own a gun won't help much. You need to make it much harder to own a gun. Just entirely outlaw gun ownership outside of specific, enumerated reasons, like rural pest control or what have you, and buy back and destroy the guns currently in circulation. Then you'll probably see a meaningful drop in gun crime.

And hey, maybe then your police will be able to do their jobs without thinking they're going to get shot at any instant by twelve year olds.

The first part of your proposal would violate the constitution.

The second part would be impossible to achieve.

 whembly wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
You understand what "throwaway statements" are, right?

Kan if you want me to agree that all your arguments ITT have been throwaway statements, I will gladly do so.

Sure, that's what I'm saying.

Just keep pretending that's what I was saying, and not that the kinds of measures which could potentially reduce gun violence aren't ridiculously opposed by a lobby which pours an obscene amount of money into making people believe that without their guns, violent criminals are going to murderrape them in their sleep!

This is obscene?
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000082


For reference:
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2014&indexType=s
Chamber of Commerce spent about 37x as much as the NRA.

Comcast & Google spent 5x as much.

Regardless...

What new laws do you propose that would've stopped Flanagan from killing those reports?

And that's before you consider the amoiunt of money Bloomberg (and others as private individuals) have spent


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vash108 wrote:
Forgot to leave this here
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/americas-top-killing-machine/384440/

Funny, gun deaths have been trending down for a long time.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:
Also about ~50% of Americans are in favour of gun rights being limited

Really?



Seems less than a third of the US population would like stricter gun control.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
...and here we go!

White House concedes new gun laws wouldn’t have stopped Va. gunman

The White House conceded Friday that new gun regulations probably wouldn’t have prevented the gunman who murdered two television journalists in southwestern Virginia this week.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said it appears that a proposal championed by President Obama to require background checks on purchases at gun shows “would not have applied in this particular case.”

Law enforcement officials said gunman Vester Flanagan used a Glock handgun in Wednesday’s shooting, one of two that he bought last month. He legally bought two Glock model 19 handguns from a Virginia dealer.

Mr. Earnest said the White House has never suggested that one piece of gun legislation would prevent all gun violence in the U.S. But Mr. Earnest said the proposal on background checks, which failed in the Senate in 2013, would prevent other shooting deaths around the country every day.

“There are similarly shocking acts of violence that don’t get as much attention that could be prevented … if Congress weren’t scared of the NRA,” he said.

Flanagan opened fire on WDBJ reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, during a live broadcast in Virginia on Wednesday, killing both of them. He later killed himself as police closed in.

A third shooting victim, Vicki Gardner, who was being interviewed when Flanagan began shooting, was upgraded from stable to good condition Thursday in a hospital.

Flanagan was fired from WDBJ in 2013.

After Sandy Hook the list of recommendations for more stringent gun control also would not have prevented that attack either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
As I was trying to explain earlier today, this is the fault line. When we say people like Vester Flanagan murdered people because he was crazy, we're setting ourselves up: the criminal becomes the patient. Crime becomes a disease. And the function of criminal justice is not only to cure but prevent outbreaks of this disease.

We are already seeing this with the new Surgeon General trying to claim that gun deaths are a public health risk

 Grey Templar wrote:
The first part of your proposal would violate the constitution.

The second part would be impossible to achieve.

So it seems like you've got two options:

- change the interpretation of the constitution. "The people" keeping and bearing arms to maintain a well-regulated militia does not seem to require personal gun ownership. Maybe you can keep them in militia armouries under lock and key, ready for the day that you rise up and overthrow your tyrannical government or whatever.
- change the second amendment. It's an amendment in itself, and it doesn't actually make a heck of a lot of sense, so you might as well just get rid of it.

Buying back guns might be tough, but they're probably not going to just destroy themselves. I guess you could just seize them and destroy them without offering compensation. You do have a lot of government debt, after all. It would be hard, but it's not going to get any easier, so you might as well just get on with it.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
So it seems like you've got two options:

- change the interpretation of the constitution. "The people" keeping and bearing arms to maintain a well-regulated militia does not seem to require personal gun ownership. Maybe you can keep them in militia armouries under lock and key, ready for the day that you rise up and overthrow your tyrannical government or whatever.
- change the second amendment. It's an amendment in itself, and it doesn't actually make a heck of a lot of sense, so you might as well just get rid of it.

So the options are to completely pervert the meaning of the Second Amendment. Or to infringe upon the rights of millions of law abiding Americans?

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Buying back guns might be tough, but they're probably not going to just destroy themselves. I guess you could just seize them and destroy them without offering compensation. You do have a lot of government debt, after all. It would be hard, but it's not going to get any easier, so you might as well just get on with it.

The Second Amendment isn't going anywhere, so you might as well just accept it.

 Manchu wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I did not say "legally" equivalent, now you are twisting my words.

Sorry I thought we were talking about legal rights, considering we are talking about the Constitution of the United States. As for the UDHR, etc., "free speech" is a lovely phrase but it can stand for a lot of things. The American legal tradition of free speech is extremely divergent from the British tradition, for example. Just something to note as you make arguments based on monolithic assumptions.

 Smacks wrote:
Also about ~50% of Americans are in favour of gun rights being limited, I don't have the figures for people wanting to limit free speech, but I bet it's a lot lower than 50%

Keep in mind that gun ownership rights are already limited in the USA. The issue is not whether gun ownership should be totally unrestricted. I would say the number of Americans favoring some restrictions on gun ownership is far higher than 50%, probably more like 98%+. I think the same percentage are in favor of some limits on free speech. Just like restrictions on private gun ownership, limits on free speech have long been a part of the American legal and cultural landscape. Our limits on free speech, as a matter of law, however, are not nearly as as restrictive as yours.

This is a nice post Manchu, you make some great points, and of course I can't disagre with great point.

However, I don't see how the current legal status was ever a source of disagreement (at least not in this thread). I.e it's not like anyone was arguing "I think you'll find it's the right to bear farms". We all know what the law says, and what that currently means for anyone wanting to purchace a gun.

What is a point of disagreement, and what is always a point of disagreement is whether those laws benafit socioty, or whether they eventually do more harm than good. That isn't a legal question. It isn't even an American question. It's a social, athpological question.

If I were going to start a new human socioty (hypothetically) on an Earth like planet, and I were writing the constitution now. I think free speech would be a good one to have in there. But the right bear arms? I'm not convinced that it does anything positive. Grey Templar seems to disagree, and stated that it's a fundamental human right. But then he also said that he shouldn't have to justify it because it's his right. Which is good for him I suppose living in the US, but it wouldn't persude me to include it any new constitution I were writing, it's decidedly unpersusive.

Which begs the question, if it isn't worth keeping in a new constitution, then why keep it in an old one? Why not get rid of gun control in the UK?

 Vaktathi wrote:
What sort of law would have prevented Flanagan from accessing a gun? He had no previous convictions (as far as we are aware) that would have made him a prohibited person. He did not have any sort of diagnosed mental condition nor was he declared mentally unfit.

Unless we're going to get into some serious Minority Report type stuff here, or simply bar people for getting fired from jobs for being donkey-caves from getting guns, then there isn't a solution available from the legal system here. The legal system can punish crime, it cannot prevent it.

I will agree Flanagan is a difficult case. However, inthe UK he would have found it extremely difficult to obtain a handgun. Whether that would have disuaded him for carrying out his attack or increased his chances of being arrested, I guess we'll never know. this guy was caught recently in the UK planning an attack.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I think it's pretty reasonable to say that moderately improved restrictions on who can own a gun won't help much. You need to make it much harder to own a gun. Just entirely outlaw gun ownership outside of specific, enumerated reasons, like rural pest control or what have you, and buy back and destroy the guns currently in circulation. Then you'll probably see a meaningful drop in gun crime.

This would require a constitutional amendment to remove a protected right. This would be...impractically difficult, not to mention open up possibilities for attacks on other rights.

Even if you did accomplish it, you have very large sections of the population that would refuse to comply, and have the means to do so. Likewise, the sheer number of guns in circulation would make it impractical, it would take multiple lifetimes to collect all those guns.

And hey, maybe then your police will be able to do their jobs without thinking they're going to get shot at any instant by twelve year olds.

Or maybe we just have a problem with certain police officers acting stupidly and a system that does nothing to correct that behavior?

So it seems like you've got two options:

- change the interpretation of the constitution. "The people" keeping and bearing arms to maintain a well-regulated militia does not seem to require personal gun ownership.

It has been commonly understood that way for over two centuries, and confirmed by the supreme court as an individual right.

Likewise, if we're going to talk about re-defining "the people", then we're going to have problems with lots of things, including the right of "the people" to assemble, redress grievances, be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, etc.

Maybe you can keep them in militia armouries under lock and key, ready for the day that you rise up and overthrow your tyrannical government or whatever.

And at what cost are storage facilities for three hundred million weapons (which also happen to be private property) going to be built, maintained, operated, secured, and staffed? How are they going to be spread such that people don't have to travel extremely long distances to access these facilities?

- change the second amendment. It's an amendment in itself, and it doesn't actually make a heck of a lot of sense, so you might as well just get rid of it.

By this line of thinking you can attack every civil right that americans have. You can apply this fallacious reasoning to every amendment in the bill of rights.

From a practical matter, overturning an amendment requires not only that the federal government approve it, but most of the state governments as well, and that's simply not a realistic political possibility.

Buying back guns might be tough, but they're probably not going to just destroy themselves. I guess you could just seize them and destroy them without offering compensation. You do have a lot of government debt, after all. It would be hard, but it's not going to get any easier, so you might as well just get on with it.

This is assuming that the results of such confiscation are better than the current situation. You would have massive non-compliance both of individuals and law enforcement on such a seizure order, and likely far more civil disturbance than whatever we have now.

The US has problems with violence beyond just guns. Removing guns isn't going to solve that. The socio-economic and cultural issues that drive such violence need to be addressed, and would be far better uses of the resources in terms of lived saved per dollar spent and hour worked.

 Smacks wrote:
What is a point of disagreement, and what is always a point of disagreement is whether those laws benafit socioty, or whether they eventually do more harm than good. That isn't a legal question. It isn't even an American question. It's a social, athpological question.

You keep bring this up every time you discuss the Second Amendment, but you have yet to demonstrate that guns are a net detriment to society.

And if it isn't an American question why are you fascinated with discussing the Second Amendment?

 Smacks wrote:
If I were going to start a new human socioty (hypothetically) on an Earth like planet, and I were writing the constitution now. I think free speech would be a good one to have in there. But the right bear arms? I'm not convinced that it does anything positive. Grey Templar seems to disagree, and stated that it's a fundamental human right. But then he also said that he shouldn't have to justify it because it's his right. Which is good for him I suppose living in the US, but it wouldn't persude me to include it any new constitution I were writing, it's decidedly unpersusive.

Which begs the question, if it isn't worth keeping in a new constitution, then why keep it in an old one? Why not get rid of gun control in the UK?

You are not convinced because you have already made your mind up, and all evidence to the contrary which has been shown to you on numerous occasions has been ignored.

text removed.
Reds8n

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
And if it isn't an American question why are you fascinated with discussing the Second Amendment?

I'm not really, apart from you always bring it up., and try to use it to block all discussion.

You are not convinced because you have already made your mind up, and all evidence to the contrary which has been shown to you on numerous occasions has been ignored.

That's not true, I'm a very open minded person. I have looked extensively at the gunfacts propaganda page you are always linking in here. And there are many points a agree with you on. For example, I agree guns kill fewer people than cancer. But ultimately I think the gun rights agenda is misaligned with the truth of the situation.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Or to infringe upon the rights of millions of law abiding Americans?

When you say "infringe rights" it sounds like you're talking about something that actually matters, like the right to a fair trial, or the right to water. The right to threaten kids on your lawn with a magnum, the rest of the world seems to get on fine without that one. Which makes the language sound a bit hyperbolic, even if it is technically a "right" in the US, Infringing it a bit sounds like a good idea to me.

 Smacks wrote:
[

 Vaktathi wrote:
What sort of law would have prevented Flanagan from accessing a gun? He had no previous convictions (as far as we are aware) that would have made him a prohibited person. He did not have any sort of diagnosed mental condition nor was he declared mentally unfit.

Unless we're going to get into some serious Minority Report type stuff here, or simply bar people for getting fired from jobs for being donkey-caves from getting guns, then there isn't a solution available from the legal system here. The legal system can punish crime, it cannot prevent it.

I will agree Flanagan is a difficult case. However, inthe UK he would have found it extremely difficult to obtain a handgun.

yes, but handguns are, effectively unobtainable for civilians in general in the UK. Without going that route, I don't think think there's any preventative capability from the legal system if someone is bound and determiend to kill other people, and willing to end their lives in doing so.

 Smacks wrote:
When you say "infringe rights" it sounds like you're talking about something that actually matters, like the right to a fair trial, or the right to water. The right to threaten kids on your lawn with a magnum, the rest of the world seems to get on fine without that one. Which makes the language sound a bit hyperbolic, even if it is technically a "right" in the US, Infringing it a bit sounds like a good idea to me.

This is where we get into different cultural values and perceptions, and the potential threat to other rights people see in the attacks people are making on the 2nd amendment (as, say, the redefining of "the people" in the example a few posts above).

 Smacks wrote:
Having a gun to shoot burglars would put you on quite shaky ground legally. A review of so called "self defence" cases involving guns, found that many were actually illegal when scrutinized.

Good thing I know the self defense laws for the state I live in. They are quite strong, and have been regularly reinforced in court cases where they are pertinent. So no, here, where I live, having a gun to shoot burglars does not put me on "quite shaky ground" in the least bit.



There's also a thing with American Rights, built from our own Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"

So, if you want to argue that somehow, Americans should no longer have the right to firearms, then you'd have to be able to argue that we no longer have a Right to life, as self-defense is merely the natural exercise of the Right to Life.

Gun buy-backs happen in communities fairly frequently, actually, and are generally pretty popular. Heck, there was one not too long ago where a guy showed up with hand grenades.

 Smacks wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
And if it isn't an American question why are you fascinated with discussing the Second Amendment?

I'm not really, apart from you always bring it up., and try to use it to block all discussion.

When you insist on talking about the right to keep and bear arms and refuse to discuss the Second Amendment it is difficult to progress the conversation given that it is a cornerstone of the right

 Smacks wrote:
That's not true, I'm a very open minded person. I have looked extensively at the gunfacts propaganda page you are always linking in here. And there are many points a agree with you on. For example, I agree guns kill fewer people than cancer. But ultimately I think the gun rights agenda is misaligned with the truth of the situation.

So when you claimed it was outdated that was with an open mind? And gun propaganda? The best you have to offer is to poison the well? Those graphs and charts were from data from the FBI, CDC, Gallop, etc. dismissing them because you do not like the source is the very antithesis of the open minded

If you feel that "the gun rights agenda is misaligned with the truth of the situation" I would be interested in seeing you evidence to support this position.

 Smacks wrote:
When you say "infringe rights" it sounds like you're talking about something that actually matters, like the right to a fair trial, or the right to water. The right to threaten kids on your lawn with a magnum, the rest of the world seems to get on fine without that one. Which makes the language sound a bit hyperbolic, even if it is technically a "right" in the US, Infringing it a bit sounds like a good idea to me.

That must be you examining the right to keep and bear arms with an open mind again, especially when you take a criminal act and pretend that is what the right was designed for. The right to keep and bear arms is an actual right in this country, you may not like that right but that is immaterial to its existence.

When can we expect to see evidence from you that guns are a net detriment to society?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:
Having a gun to shoot burglars would put you on quite shaky ground legally. A review of so called "self defence" cases involving guns, found that many were actually illegal when scrutinized.

Many? Really? How many?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
So when you claimed it was outdated that was with an open mind? And gun propaganda? The best you have to offer is to poison the well? Those graphs and charts were from data from the FBI, CDC, Gallop, etc. dismissing them because you do not like the source is the very antithesis of the open minded

Firstly, I never claimed the bill of rights was outdated. You took that out of context. Why would I say free speech is outdated? I wouldn't, and if you try to say I would, then you are arguing dishonestly.

Secondly, the data is sourced from the FBI, CDC etc... but it is also cherry picked, sometimes in quite a misleading way. The entire section on firearm related deaths does nothing but try to downplay to numbers by comparing them to traffic accidents. It's really not a good source. Sorry. I'd prefer to read something a bit more impartial.

When can we expect to see evidence from you that guns are a net detriment to society?

I feel like there is a wealth of quite good evidence that shows, guns don't reduce crime, guns increase your risk of accidental death, guns are used aggressively etc... but you don't seem to want to entertain any of it.

 Smacks wrote:
Having a gun to shoot burglars would put you on quite shaky ground legally. A review of so called "self defence" cases involving guns, found that many were actually illegal when scrutinized.

Many? Really? How many?

We've talked about this before. "Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Criminal court judges who read the self-reported accounts of the purported self-defense gun use rated a majority as being illegal"

So a majority according to that study, which I'm sure you're about to find fault with.

EDIT: would you like to have this conversation in PM? Then we never have to talk about it again

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

Relapse wrote:
Are we to argue for more control over alcohol and limit it in a similar fashion to guns ... ?

It's time to have a serious discussion about driving and alcohol consumption in this country. Until we have mental health screening for people who want driver's licenses or who want to purchase and consume alcohol, this terrible death toll will continue.

Biggest fallacious bunch of bullcrap that gets bandied about.

There isn't however any real comparison between the two, as Relapse and many others who bring this stupid argument up already know. Mass shootings or revenge shootings like this case are not the same thing as someone driving while impaired and plowing into a school bus.

Really? The end result is the same, with equal numbers of people ending up dead or injured between shootings and drunk driving related accidents. The only difference is that alcohol also includes a host of additional negatives society has to deal with, such as 2 out of 3 domestic abuse cases involving alcohol.

Is that the same evidence that shows the cities in the U.S. With the tightest gun control laws also have the highest gun crime rates?

Or is it the same evidence where the number of registered gun owners continues to increase while gun crime is on a continuous decline?

@psienesis - those "popular" gun buy backs are successful at getting beater firearms that don't work or aren't worth more than the buy back. They're not getting Sigs or Ed Browns or H&Ks. The only firearm i own that would even be worth a $250 buyback would be my little Beretta .22 plinker. Even my "beater" O/U is worth more in trade than $250.

 cincydooley wrote:
Is that the same evidence that shows the cities in the U.S. With the tightest gun control laws also have the highest gun crime rates?

I believe that was one example of cherry picked evidence. By comparing cities with completely different socio-economic conditions, you can skew the data to make it look like gun-control = more crime. But I believe if you look at the specific cities over time, gun crime had actually dropped since tighter gun controls were introduced. So there's really not much to shout about.

Or is it the same evidence where the number of registered gun owners continues to increase while gun crime is on a continuous decline?

Crime has been falling consistently, even in Europe. Some people have suggested that it is because the adolescent population has been declining. I suppose it would be fair to say that the recent increases in gun ownership and concealed carry, doesn't seem to have a huge impact on crime yet either way (difficult to say without a good control). But I feel like it's still early days. All those new guns are still shiny and cherished. It will be interesting to see what the world looks like in 30 or 40 years, when all these guns have had a chance to circulate more, and muggers and concealed carry holders have settled into more of a pattern.

 Smacks wrote:
Firstly, I never claimed the bill of rights was outdated. You took that out of context. Why would I say free speech is outdated? I wouldn't, and if you try to say I would, then you are arguing dishonestly.

Last time we had this discussion you said that. There is no dishonesty on my part

 Smacks wrote:
Secondly, the data is sourced from the FBI, CDC etc... but it is also cherry picked, sometimes in quite a misleading way. The entire section on firearm related deaths does nothing but try to downplay to numbers by comparing them to traffic accidents. It's really not a good source. Sorry. I'd prefer to read something a bit more impartial.

So providing context is now downplaying? Interesting

Cherry picked? Please show me some examples that show theses graphs are inaccuracte or otherwise cherry picked.
Would you consider the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council impartial?
http://iom.nationalacademies.org/Reports/2013/Priorities-for-Research-to-Reduce-the-Threat-of-Firearm-Related-Violence.aspx

Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies (Kleck, 1988; Kleck and DeLone, 1993; Southwick, 2000; Tark and Kleck, 2004)

.

“Overall crime rates have declined in the past decade, and violent crimes, including homicides specifically, have declined in the past 5 years,” the report notes. “Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of firearm-related violent victimizations remained generally stable.” Meanwhile, “firearm-related death rates for youth ages 15 to 19 declined from 1994 to 2009.” Accidents are down, too: “Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”

From the Center for Disease Control
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html


Also from the CDC;
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18319&page=R1

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”

“Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”

I expect you'll disregard these out of hand as you have with other pieces of evidence as you demand impossible perfection

 Smacks wrote:
When can we expect to see evidence from you that guns are a net detriment to society?

I feel like there is a wealth of quite good evidence that shows, guns don't reduce crime, guns increase your risk of accidental death, guns are used aggressively etc... but you don't seem to want to entertain any of it.

Damn Dreadclaw, you've got far more patience with this guy than I ever have. Keep it up brother.

 Smacks wrote:
I believe that was one example of cherry picked evidence. By comparing cities with completely different socio-economic conditions, you can skew the data to make it look like gun-control = more crime. But I believe if you look at the specific cities over time, gun crime had actually dropped since tighter gun controls were introduced. So there's really not much to shout about.

About that.....



So homicides have been dropping. What about compared to homicides with a firearm?



Wow, they've been falling too. And all since gun control restrictions have been eased.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I think it's pretty reasonable to say that moderately improved restrictions on who can own a gun won't help much. You need to make it much harder to own a gun. Just entirely outlaw gun ownership outside of specific, enumerated reasons, like rural pest control or what have you, and buy back and destroy the guns currently in circulation. Then you'll probably see a meaningful drop in gun crime.

This would require a constitutional amendment to remove a protected right. This would be...impractically difficult, not to mention open up possibilities for attacks on other rights.

Even if you did accomplish it, you have very large sections of the population that would refuse to comply, and have the means to do so. Likewise, the sheer number of guns in circulation would make it impractical, it would take multiple lifetimes to collect all those guns.

You already have the possibility of "attacks" on rights, though. The Constitution isn't some magical document written by God, and it's silly to act like it is. It's something written by humans. They can make mistakes. The second amendment has not borne out its imagined function. The militias that were imagined to be able to resist the federal government do not exist. Not only do they not exist, but

1. they cannot exist. You cannot make a militia that can resist the federal government militarily. The value of professional soldiery (commitment, training, funding for equipment, like tanks and jets and drones) is too great.
2. the whole scenario is incoherent. There is not going to be a point where Obama declares himself supreme dictator of the United States and the military unanimously supports him and the only defense of the people is that they rise up together. Frankly, you're already seeing immense government overreach and abuse of power and most of you don't care. That's what it's going to look like. There isn't going to be a moment where the true enemy is revealed and it's you vs them.

All you're left with, in the end, are the same arguments everyone else has the world over, and for the most part they're not very good. People generally shouldn't have tools whose only purpose is to end the lives of other people.

 Vaktathi wrote:

And hey, maybe then your police will be able to do their jobs without thinking they're going to get shot at any instant by twelve year olds.

Or maybe we just have a problem with certain police officers acting stupidly and a system that does nothing to correct that behavior?

It seems to me that there's probably a link between how trigger happy your police are and the ubiquity of guns there. I don't mean to say you can't make improvements to your police forces - you certainly can. But I don't think the current problem came out of nowhere, and one of the causes is probably the extreme likelihood that someone could pull a gun on them.

 Vaktathi wrote:

So it seems like you've got two options:

- change the interpretation of the constitution. "The people" keeping and bearing arms to maintain a well-regulated militia does not seem to require personal gun ownership.

It has been commonly understood that way for over two centuries, and confirmed by the supreme court as an individual right.

Likewise, if we're going to talk about re-defining "the people", then we're going to have problems with lots of things, including the right of "the people" to assemble, redress grievances, be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, etc.

Actually, it seems like I was wrong here and your states should be able to do pretty much whatever they want with gun laws without changing the constitution, even setting aside the possibility that the federal government might be able to as well. So you seem to have reasonably clear legal paths to banning guns if you have the political will to do so.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Buying back guns might be tough, but they're probably not going to just destroy themselves. I guess you could just seize them and destroy them without offering compensation. You do have a lot of government debt, after all. It would be hard, but it's not going to get any easier, so you might as well just get on with it.

This is assuming that the results of such confiscation are better than the current situation. You would have massive non-compliance both of individuals and law enforcement on such a seizure order, and likely far more civil disturbance than whatever we have now.

The US has problems with violence beyond just guns. Removing guns isn't going to solve that. The socio-economic and cultural issues that drive such violence need to be addressed, and would be far better uses of the resources in terms of lived saved per dollar spent and hour worked.

You do have lots of issues you should work on, I agree. You should just work on gun violence, too. The vast majority of people do not need a tool whose only purpose is to kill other people.

It's a really big problem, and maybe none of us will be alive to see the end of it, but you can start making inroads now.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
Firstly, I never claimed the bill of rights was outdated. You took that out of context. Why would I say free speech is outdated? I wouldn't, and if you try to say I would, then you are arguing dishonestly.

Last time we had this discussion you said that. There is no dishonesty on my part

No, you took what I said completely out of context, and then even though I explained for 3 pages that you were quoting me out of context and even resorted to 22 point type, you kept doing it, and you're still doing it.

To recount: I said that a 200 year old document was not relevant to the discussion I was having at that time. That does mean it is not relevant to other discussions, it just wasn't applicable to what I was talking about at the time. In the same way that it is not relevant to a discussion about sheep (or a whole bunch of other subjects).

You then twisted my words, and tried to make out that I said because the bill of rights is 200 years old it's outdated. Which isn't at all what I said, that is a bare faced lie on your part, and now that it has been explained to you (for litterally the tenth time), I expect you to stop perpetuating that lie, or concede though your actions that you are arguing dishonestly.

Please show me some examples that show theses graphs are inaccuracte or otherwise cherry picked.

What? those weren't even from gun facts?

I expect you'll disregard these out of hand as you have with other pieces of evidence as you demand impossible perfection

Hardly, I will disregard the statistics about falling crime, as (has already been mentioned) crime is falling in Europe too, there is no demonstrable correlation between falling crime and gun ownership. If higher gun ownership really did lower crime, then the US would have the lowest crime in the world by a factor of a hundred, but it actually trails behind other similar countries.

The medical stats regarding self defence injuries aren't really a surprise. I don't think anyone was disputing that shooting at people from a distance is safer than hand to hand combat.

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”

Well that is certainly surprising. Where is this from? I would certainly like to know how that data was accumulated?

I have provided evidence above which directly undermines your claims.

Not really. You have provided evidence that crime is falling, and that shooting people might be safer than hand to hand combat. I never claimed anything different.

If I could find out more about the alleged 3 million self defence cases, then you might be onto something. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but there's a overpowering smell of BS coming from that one.

That study which you did not even have the common courtesy to link to? I want to make sure we are talking about the same study, because if so taking the results of two random call surveys and amalgamating them (rather than looking at actual available data like the CDC and FBI statistics I have previously mentioned) does not strike me as scientifically sound.

The FBI and CDC didn't collect that kind of data. And that kind of data is actually quite important. You claim that an estimated 3 million people are using guns in self defence, but during this study which was large and covered a random cross-section, people were asked about how they were defending themselves with guns, and it transpired that most of them were claiming to be defending themselves but were actually (according to expert legal opinion) being aggressive and committing crimes. Potentially 1.51 million additional crimes.

ALso using data from surveys that are at least 15 years old is not an accurate reflection when I have demonstrated that many trends for firearm death and violent crime have been on the decline.

Yeah, I'm sure human nature has completely changed in the last 15 years.

If you feel, as you previously stated. that "the gun rights agenda is misaligned with the truth of the situation" I would be interested in seeing you evidence to support this position.

Well there is John Lott, the so called "gun rights guru". On the NRA payroll. From his own wiki page:

"John Lott claimed to have undertaken a national survey of 2,424 respondents in 1997, the results of which were the source for claims he had made beginning in 1997.[59] However, in 2000 Lott was unable to produce the data, or any records showing that the survey had been undertaken. He said the 1997 hard drive crash that had affected several projects with co-authors had destroyed his survey data set,[60] the original tally sheets had been abandoned with other personal property in his move from Chicago to Yale, and he could not recall the names of any of the students who he said had worked on it."

Sounds legit.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
It's a really big problem, and maybe none of us will be alive to see the end of it, but you can start making inroads now.

A "really big problem"? By what definition?

Come on guys you need more guns to prevent gun violence.

It is like the shark you are more likely to be attacked by a shark, if there are none in the water then if there is 1000000
Thats why I only swim at dusk with a meat suit in a pool full of sharks. I don't want to get bit

 Smacks wrote:
What? these aren't even from gun facts?

You claimed the stats were cherry picked. Demonstrate this or concede the point

 Smacks wrote:
Hardly, I will disregard the statistics about falling crime, as (has already been mentioned) crime is falling in Europe too, there is no demonstrable correlation between falling crime and gun ownership. If higher gun ownership really did lower crime, then the US would have the lowest crime in the world by a factor of a hundred, but it actually trails behind other similar countries.

I won't dwell too much on the irony that only now are you complaining about correlation =/= causation after you claimed with no evidence that stricter gun control results in less crime (Chicago and DC Columbia disagree with you)
Only if you insist on comparing apples with oranges and ignore cultural, social, and economic factors

 Smacks wrote:
The medical stats regarding self defence injuries aren't really a surprise. I don't think anyone was disputing that shooting at people from a distance is safer than hand to hand combat.

It's almost as if people who have an effective way to defend themselves are better when confronted by an armed attacker

 Smacks wrote:
Well that is certainly surprising. Where is this from? I would certainly like to know how that data was accumulated?

I at least had the courtesy of providing you with a link to the document. I cannot read it for you.

 Smacks wrote:
Not really. You have provided evidence that crime is falling, and that shooting people might be safer than hand to hand combat. I never claimed anything different.

You claimed more gun control resulted in less crime. That was demonstrated to be false

 Smacks wrote:
If I could find out more about the alleged 3 million self defence cases, then you might be onto something. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but there's a overpowering smell of BS coming from that one.

That was the upper estimate the CDC examined. You are free to read the links provided and not just dismiss them out of hand

 Smacks wrote:
The FBI and CDC didn't collect that kind of data. And that kind of data is actually quite important. You claim that an estimated 3 million people are using guns in self defence, but during this study which was large and covered a random cross-section, people were asked about how they were defending themselves with guns, and it transpired that most of them were claiming to be defending themselves but were actually (according to expert legal opinion) being aggressive and committing crimes. Potentially 1.51 million additional crimes.

That was the upper level considered. Even lower levels examined showed self defense at least on par for occurrences as aggressive acts. I see that you have still provided no link as requested, and have ignored the fact that this was a survey based on random phonecalls to homeowners. Were they all legal experts? How many self defense claims turned out to be criminal acts (with evidence please) as your "potential" is not sourced.

 Smacks wrote:
Yeah, I'm sure human nature has completely changed in the last 15 years.

Crime, society, laws, and customs do. Of course if you want to ignore recent data and scientific studies you are more than welcome to. Next time you have a headache just ask your doctor to drill a hole in your head to let the evil spirits out. If you're going to ignore recent developments you may as well do it properly

 Smacks wrote:
Well there is John Lott, the so called "gun rights guru". On the NRA payroll. From his own wiki page:

"John Lott claimed to have undertaken a national survey of 2,424 respondents in 1997, the results of which were the source for claims he had made beginning in 1997.[59] However, in 2000 Lott was unable to produce the data, or any records showing that the survey had been undertaken. He said the 1997 hard drive crash that had affected several projects with co-authors had destroyed his survey data set,[60] the original tally sheets had been abandoned with other personal property in his move from Chicago to Yale, and he could not recall the names of any of the students who he said had worked on it."

Sounds legit.

And what about Bugs Bunny? I didn't mention him either, but if you have to resort to ad hominems and attempting to bring up events from 18 years ago to discredit current studies (which I did not enter into this discussion) and an entire group of people then that shows how untenable your position is. Even if we accept your criticism how do the actions of one individual show "the gun rights agenda is misaligned with the truth of the situation"?

I'll ask again;
When can we expect to see evidence from you that guns are a net detriment to society?


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For a little perspective on how other countries compare with the US for mass killings



Not even in the top 5 of more developed nations.