*sighs, turns over "DAYS SINCE LAST MASS SHOOTING IN AMERICA" sign to 0*
- Thread starter Charlie Don't Surf
- Start date
GasBandit
Staff member
Even putting aside the constitutional argument...
Because the 310 million guns already in private hands will just evaporate when you ban guns? What are you going to do, have a gun buyback that will disarm only the people least likely to be the problem?
Don't forget how the Police will still have guns to "protect" everybody. Because remember, always trust the government with the power. They won't abuse it! But the people, giving them power is just a terrible idea.
GasBandit
Staff member
How long? Longer than it takes for the Federal Government to turn totalitarian, I wonder?
GasBandit
Staff member
Nope.
As the people that don't have masturbatory fantasies about overthrowing the US government with their gun have learned, when the government goes totalitarian, the gun owners will ferverently support it.
GasBandit
Staff member
You're one to talk about fantasies. Still wrong.
If you think the USA is totalitarian, you are delusional. See North Korea, Zimbabwe, or even a "softer" version of it in China. You guys aren't even close.
We aren't there at the moment, but the framework for how it could/would happen has been made pretty clear.
Well, it's a better response than, "At least those kids will never be sexually assaulted now."
--Patrick
Here's a hint: The FIRST thing most revolutionary governments do is ban all the guns from everybody but themselves. That your country took the OPPOSITE approach is fascinating.
Who's trying to ban all the guns again? You are? I'm immediately suspicious of you.
I'm just gonna go ahead and pretend I made all the same arguments as I made after last week's mass shooting, and the week before, and the week before that, and met the same rebuttals, and so on. I don't feel like I have the energy to really do it when there's no point.
Fact of the matter is, as a society, we're okay with this, in the same way that we're okay with having homeless veterans and racist cops. Like, yeah, it's not good that it happens, but nothing's going to be done about it, so, fuck it.
I don't give a shit any more. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired.
Fact of the matter is, as a society, we're okay with this, in the same way that we're okay with having homeless veterans and racist cops. Like, yeah, it's not good that it happens, but nothing's going to be done about it, so, fuck it.
I don't give a shit any more. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired.
Until someone finds a way to have 0% unemployment, 0% homelessness, 0% racism, and 0% fallibility achieving those goals, there are always going to be those who are discriminated against, homeless, unemployed, or some combination. The only alternative is totalitarianism, but that requires those in power to be benevolent and incorruptible in this.
--Patrick
--Patrick
I humbly accept this role.
Oh, fuck you.
There's a big difference between "there will always be some measure of this" and "welp this sure is a problem but we aren't going to even and try to do anything about it other than say it's a shame."
No, really.
Let me borrow a bit from an encryption article I linked in another post:
This same sentiment could easily be applied to guns, knives, cars, Internet access, pesticides, whatever. It's my belief that the reason we aren't seeing a massive tightening or institution of restrictions is because people already believe we're at a level where going too much further will cross over to that point where we'll start smothering too many law-abiders with that same blanket. There are always going to be dishonest people (barring some sort of dystopian eugenics program), and so people are going to get killed, fleeced, elected, or abused, but the trouble with trying to define what constitutes "acceptable losses" is that somebody is going to point a finger at you and shriek, "That guy just put a specific quantitative value on human lives! Every life is sacred and therefore worth far more than that! Except his! Get him!"A cryptographer by the name of Bruce Schneier said:
--Patrick
I realize I'm being nitpicky here, but I don't think it hurts that argument at all. It just can't be used as an example for why existing laws aren't sufficient. It can, however, be used as an argument that there are problems of implementation, and this will result in better adherence by those who failed in this chain.
So it'll still have an overall positive effect on gun violence, but those looking to stand on a pile of dead bodies to decrease gun rights will be disappointed and will have to rely on the other thousands of people killed this year to bolster their argument.
The only reason they even focus on mass murders is because regular murders don't make national news, and many don't even make local or regional news.
Imagine what would happen if every single gun death and its circumstances was reported each night on the news, and all the major news websites had a front page section detailing each murder.
GasBandit
Staff member
I've always lived in a house with no less than 8 guns. When my mother decided to end her life, she chose sleeping pills and car exhaust. So, I've always been a little skeptical of the argument that guns enable the suicidal to do something they otherwise wouldn't.
The more difficult it is to commit suicide, the fewer people do it. Guns make it very, very easy. So while there might be some increase, it wouldn't make up the difference.
I mean, I'd really rather that there not be a time when there's enough data to mine on this subject, but when people say things like, "It would reduce the number of suicides" without putting the word "theoretically" in there or something, that just tells me it's based on opinion and conjecture, not facts and science.
--Patrick
Women, much less likely to commit suicide in the first place, are less likely to choose firearms than men, and in fact are more likely to choose poisoning, then firearms, then suffocation/hanging, with other methods significantly less likely:
This probably correlates with the success rate difference between the sexes, females are much less successful, but their most commonly chosen methods leave a lot of time between the start of the act and irreversible damage than the methods most frequently chosen by men.
I don't think it's possible to know, however, what are cause-effect and what are merely correlations. For instance, only 22% US women own guns while 62% US men own guns. Then there's the heavy skew between the sexes in active armed services who suffer subsequent PTSD, upon which we can pile the likelihood of each sex to seek mental help or support groups after such service.
And that's just one axis of gun ownership - it's hard to claim that raising or lowering gun ownership rates would affect suicides either way.
Suicide, however, is a severe symptom of a mental health issue, not a symptom of gun ownership. While I'm sure successful suicide rates would drop measurably due to the time issue were guns eliminated from the equation, I don't think it would reduce suicide attempts significantly.
This probably correlates with the success rate difference between the sexes, females are much less successful, but their most commonly chosen methods leave a lot of time between the start of the act and irreversible damage than the methods most frequently chosen by men.
I don't think it's possible to know, however, what are cause-effect and what are merely correlations. For instance, only 22% US women own guns while 62% US men own guns. Then there's the heavy skew between the sexes in active armed services who suffer subsequent PTSD, upon which we can pile the likelihood of each sex to seek mental help or support groups after such service.
And that's just one axis of gun ownership - it's hard to claim that raising or lowering gun ownership rates would affect suicides either way.
Suicide, however, is a severe symptom of a mental health issue, not a symptom of gun ownership. While I'm sure successful suicide rates would drop measurably due to the time issue were guns eliminated from the equation, I don't think it would reduce suicide attempts significantly.
You know what? I'm gonna have to admit I was mistaken there. Looks like most mental health experts agree that there really isn't a relationship between gun ownership rates and suicide rates.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-new-brain/201607/fact-check-gun-control-and-suicide
So, it looks like the data doesn't support what I was saying. I was wrong.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-new-brain/201607/fact-check-gun-control-and-suicide
So, it looks like the data doesn't support what I was saying. I was wrong.
And...?
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To be pedantic: Men are 4 times more likely to succeed.
Women, however, are 2-3 more times likely to attempt suicide than men.
There's a heavy age skew as well, younger women are much more likely than young men to self harm and attempt suicide. On the other hand, there's probably also a reporting bias - again, women may be more willing to admit suicidal thoughts and tendencies than men.
It's way too complicated.
At any rate, very, very off topic from the thread title, and we have many people here who cope with suicides and/or suicidal feelings so I'm not going to continue to poke at it.
No, no. It's an important distinction, and any decisions about prevention should of course be focused on the prevention of the attempts, not the prevention of successes. Reducing successes without reducing the # of attempts sounds like the saddest kind of suffering.
--Patrick
fade
Staff member
The problem with using statistics to address an issue like this is that it is really easy to find stats that show how unlikely you are to be killed by a gun. In a world of 7 billion people and even greater numbers of human interactions, that number is diminishingly small, and it's easy to show that. To me, that's less relevant than how likely I am to be killed by a gun when one is fired at me. That's what it's for. That's what it does. Taking it away reduces that number to zero. Same thing with the "a willing murderer finds a way". Okay, again, the denominator is large in that argument, and it's really easy to show stats that disprove the danger of any method of killing. It's also kind of irrelevant.
EDIT: there's nothing new here. This is the same old argument that's been going on forever. I'm just pointing out that stats won't really win the argument, because each debator's relevant statistic is different.
EDIT: there's nothing new here. This is the same old argument that's been going on forever. I'm just pointing out that stats won't really win the argument, because each debator's relevant statistic is different.