Guns and crime

[Libertarian666]

I've been trying to stay away from these types of debates, because the don't usually contain considered arguments.  The two sides believe staunchly in their respective opinions, and each will cite whatever facts they can find in support.

The referenced article is a good example.  I took a look at it out of curiousity, and found it to be mind-blowingly naive.  It seems the authors have forgotten about a few other things that might affect overall crime rates...like the Renaissance.  Comparing society from 800 years ago to now and pointing to one tiny difference (the presence of gun control) and ignoring the MASSIVE differences in social/political structure, religion, culture, immigration, poverty, life expectancy, etc...I don't even know where to start.  There's also the issue of crime reporting...I'm going to go way out on a limb here and suggest that the recording rate for homicides has not exactly remained constant over the past 800 years.

If you are looking for an article about the effects of gun control on homicides, here's one that considered the issue more carefully:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3185622

Perhaps not surprisingly, it came to the opposite conclusion.

Thanks for the link, WiseOne.  I need to consider that article more thoroughly, but I have to say that my first thought I had when reading that article, is that Seattle and Vancouver are so very different, culturally.  I'm not an expert in the two cities, but I've spent a decent amount of time in both.  I don't believe that Vancouver has the gang activity and racial issues that Seattle has.  I'm willing to be proven wrong on that.  I think this is yet another case of correlation not equaling causality. 

Another example is Japan; they don't have any guns, and they don't kill each other (not very often, at least).  But their culture is so very different than the U.S. I firmly believe we could sprinkle guns all over that country, and they'd continue to go about their lives peacefully (except when they decide to kill themselves, which they are able to do at an astounding rate, even without guns).

I don't have the source of this at the moment, but I remember reading a comparison of murders in Vancouver and Seattle. I recall a very interesting fact from that article: the rate of murders by black murderers in Vancouver is higher than the corresponding murder rate in Seattle, and the rate of murders by white murderers in Vancouver is also higher than the corresponding murder rate in Seattle. I'll leave it to the audience as an exercise to see how it would then be possible for the overall murder rate in Seattle to be higher than the overall murder rate in Vancouver, which was also the case.

[Benko]

PS,

My bad.  What I meant earlier is what you are talking about in your 2 quotes below.  There is something fundamental on a psychological level, perhaps having to do with attitude towards violence, that results in what you are talking about.  This would explain what I think you'll frequently find which is that these people are adverse  phobic about violence even when  that violence is necessary/appropriate.

will never change their position because they are emotionally unstable or ideologically blinded, or both.

Frankly, the best argument I can think of for a certain amount of gun control is to improve the mental health of traumatized extremist liberals who regard guns as evil talismans and cannot even bear to look at them.

[Benko]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2560750

As promised, President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is proposing to put the ban on 5.56mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela’s, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president.

[Pointedstick]

The Republicans, who control both houses of congress, can easily stop this if they care to. We'll see if they do…

[Pointedstick]

That's very strange.  What about the .308 or 30-06?  Both will penetrate more armor than an M885 round.

It's just a dick move. There is no logic behind it. Yet another non-good argument for gun control...

[MachineGhost]

I agree with Pointedstick, I haven't heard a good argument against legal gun ownership.  And I THINK I am open to such an argument, if one exists.  I just have never heard one.

Me either.  The problem is, I think, you have irrationalists on both sides...  both those that own guns and those that are for gun control.  May the two never meet.

[MachineGhost]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3185622

Perhaps not surprisingly, it came to the opposite conclusion.

Problem with that is there is a cultural difference.  Canadians are relatively more pro-gun control, pro-socialist than Seattle is.  Seattle also has a relatively large black, poor population in certain areas of the city.  It's no white/asian utopia like the surrounding suburbs or Vancouver.  I think you can lay a supermajority amount of gun violence blame on black culture.

[MachineGhost]

If this hypothetical scary felonious assaulter has a gun too, then we're more or less on equal footing--which is a hell of a lot better for me than the alternatives of neither of us having guns or only him having a gun.

Here's the problem with that hypothetical though.  You're counting on a rational response on the other side.  If there is no rational response and they escalate the drama, your odds are suddenly not very good compared to complying and pacification.  How many encounters are of this type?  Are they even tracked?

[MachineGhost]

It doesn't sound like you're saying what PS is saying, that there are NO good arguments for any gun laws.  I really don't know what the right balance is, though I think it's to the left of full, unfettered gun legalization.

I like the balanced dividing line being dependent on the weapon being capable of "mass destruction" or not.  Obviously, we're not in the habit of letting nuclear or biological weapons and the like be in the hands of ordinary citizens so that cat is already out of the bag as far as "weapon control" goes, of which "gun control" is merely a subset.

[Pointedstick]

If this hypothetical scary felonious assaulter has a gun too, then we're more or less on equal footing--which is a hell of a lot better for me than the alternatives of neither of us having guns or only him having a gun.

Here's the problem with that hypothetical though.  You're counting on a rational response on the other side.  If there is no rational response and they escalate the drama, your odds are suddenly not very good compared to complying and pacification.  How many encounters are of this type?  Are they even tracked?

I am not counting on a rational response, I am counting on a self-preservationist response. If that is out of the question because the hypothetical attacker is drunk or on drugs or stupid beyond comprehension… then why on earth wouldn't a gun be the best possible thing to have in my hand!?

[MachineGhost]

I am not counting on a rational response, I am counting on a self-preservationist response. If that is out of the question because the hypothetical attacker is drunk or on drugs or stupid beyond comprehension… then why on earth wouldn't a gun be the best possible thing to have in my hand!?

Well, I guess as long as you clearly know you have an advantage over the attacker.  A gun is only as good as the skill of its wielder.  But, it's a risky gamble without explicitly quantifying that to act on merely a confidence feeling that a weapon gives you.  And worse, a major downside is you may have to face imprisonment on manslaughter charges or worse if you do pop a cap in the attacker's ass.  Can you quickly calculate of all the various pluses and minuses in the emotional heat of the moment to arrive at the optimal and correct decision that preserves your future liberty?

[Pointedstick]

We're discussing a hypothetical situation in which I am assaulted by a physically superior person who we have now established has no sense of self-preservation. "Escalation" and "confidence" don't come into it. This is a situation in which I am dead meat, and the only thing that will save me is a firearm. If I shoot such an obviously crazed attacker, and especially if it takes place within my own home, if my family is nearby, if he's black, if I'm a woman, etc, then there wouldn't be a jury that could convict my of anything, not even in loony Kalifornia.

[Libertarian666]

We're discussing a hypothetical situation in which I am assaulted by a physically superior person who we have now established has no sense of self-preservation. "Escalation" and "confidence" don't come into it. This is a situation in which I am dead meat, and the only thing that will save me is a firearm. If I shoot such an obviously crazed attacker, and especially if it takes place within my own home, if my family is nearby, if he's black, if I'm a woman, etc, then there wouldn't be a jury that could convict my of anything, not even in loony Kalifornia.

So this is an argument for having a sex change first, right? Assuming you aren't already a woman, that is.