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Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

diegobasch.com

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Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#141

Post by RyanMcGreal »

grecy wrote: post #76
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has got to be the only country in the industrialized world where it seems reasonable to respond to mass shootings (and shootings in general) by suggesting that more people should have guns. Here's a scatter plot of firearms per 100,000 and gun homocides per 100 for OECD countries: http://i.imgur.com/ZAI3T.png Needless to say, the dot in the top right corner is the USA> Data is from here: http://www.guardian.c…

I believe this is because America was founded by violence, and the "I'll shoot you if you try to take what's mine" mentality that continues to this day. It's not a peaceful place.

Lots of countries were founded by violence. Europe, for example, was convulsed by violence for most of the past thousand years leading right up to the middle of the last century.

One big difference in the USA is that the right to own guns was somehow inserted into its Constitution among the rights to expression, assembly, fair trial and so on. I can't think of any other countries in which owning a gun is explicitly listed among the set of human rights.

Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#142

Post by hga »

ollysb wrote: post #130
pc86 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something gun control advocates seem to forget is that gun ownership is a Constitutional right for Americans. You cannot compare it to driving a car, or buying a television, or buying something from Amazon. If you're going to compare to something else for the purposes of limiting and regulating it, you need to compare to voting, assembling, practicing your faith or some other Constitutional right. When you are requir…

> gun ownership is a Constitutional right for Americans To turn this round, this constitutional right is the reason that Americans are allowed to own weapons that are normally used in warzones at the age of 18 and without any safety measures. The world has changed since the constitution was written. If you were writing it today, would you still include the right to bear arms?

Absolutely. The French Revolution which followed not long after sparked a new type of government mass murder, with death tolls in the 20th Century in the 10s to 100s of millions (the latter is my adjustment based on how much estimates of Communist mass murder get increased when a country really opens up).

Somehow, these actions always happen to disarmed people....

They are, at least here, truly "unthinkable", for "it can't happen here" without a preceding confiscation of the nation's guns. Which is a sufficient tripwire to provoke a counter-revolution to stop things from ever getting that nasty.

One might also look at the Swiss experience.

Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#143

Post by RyanMcGreal »

diego wrote: post #120
grecy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know if there are any fixes to the problem that wouldn't cause potentially worse problems Again, comparison to other developed countries proves there are.

Why? What country is close enough to the US in size, heterogeneity and number of guns so that you can make a fair comparison? Edit to answer to the comment below: think what you want. Don't try to convince me. I'm skeptical, you're not. Write to your legislators instead of here. Write your own blog posts.

> What country is close enough to the US in size, heterogeneity and number of guns so that you can make a fair comparison?

In terms of number of guns, no other country is. That's the point: other countries made decisions and implemented policies to severely restrict access to guns, and the predictable result today is that there are far fewer guns and much less gun violence.

The decision to restrict guns is a long-term decision - it won't reduce gun violence overnight, but it will reduce gun violence over decades.

Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#144

Post by bdunbar »

Maxious wrote: post #46
bdunbar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't allow people on the roads without a licence I'm not convinced by this argument. Firearms are not used in public spaces, but in private land, or on club-owned property.

> NEWTOWN, Connecticut: People in the rural, hilly areas around Newtown are used to gunfire. [...] > But in the last couple of years, residents began noticing loud, repeated gunfire, and even explosions [from propane gas tanks used as targets], coming from new places. Near a trailer park. By a boat launch. Next to well-appointed houses. > [...] ''We're growing,'' [Council Ordinance Committee Chairwoman, Mary Ann Jaco…

Your point - do you have one?

Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#145

Post by nollidge »

boboblong wrote: post #136
nollidge wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point out where I said "feelings". EDIT: The word I used was threat , which, if arguing in good faith, you would have read as "actual risk", rather than "angsty feelings". I also qualified it with the phrase such as it is . Which, again in good-faith discourse, means "if it exists" or "whatever form it takes". But do continue to tell me more about how I feel.

If a particular gun owner is threatening you, you can take legal action against him or her.

Fantastic, that'll come in handy for the 8,500 people who were shot dead last year.

Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#146

Post by pbarnett »

rictic wrote: post #22
Todd wrote: post #16

I'm not looking forward to the coming months. It's going to be a political circus, with each side clamoring to push or protect their already strongly held beliefs and positions. I really wish we would have a meaningful debate over the best tools and strategies for protecting people in large groups in public places. Because of the delay of so-called first responders, it is really left to the people who are there to ta…

Putting weapons in the hands of teachers and other school officials makes intuitive sense, however the case where it will need to be used is very rare, yet to be useful the weapons will need to be readily available at all times. As a result, it's plausible that the total magnitude of injury would be higher due to accident, misuse, etc.

I don't think that those of us who support teachers having firearms necessarily believe that every (or even most) teachers should have a firearm or be issued a firearm. I believe that carrying a firearm is a very personal choice and a very serious decision for an individual to make.

There currently exist laws that forbid law-abiding concealed carry permit holders from carrying firearms on school grounds. This law does not prevent dangerous people from bringing weapons into these zones and committing atrocities. Instead, I think we should really be encouraging teachers to make the commitment to go through the training process required for them to get their concealed handgun licenses and to regularly train to maintain safe gun-carrying habits. Perhaps teachers could receive some sort of compensation for having a concealed handgun license and engaging in regular firearms safety training.

I am sure that during the excruciatingly terrible events that took place in Newtown some teachers wished they had the means to defend the children and themselves. We should let teachers that want to legally and safely carry instruments of defense to do so. We shouldn't have laws that guarantee defenseless victims.

Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#147

Post by hga »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #141
grecy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is because America was founded by violence, and the "I'll shoot you if you try to take what's mine" mentality that continues to this day. It's not a peaceful place.

Lots of countries were founded by violence. Europe, for example, was convulsed by violence for most of the past thousand years leading right up to the middle of the last century. One big difference in the USA is that the right to own guns was somehow inserted into its Constitution among the rights to expression, assembly, fair trial and so on. I can't think of any other countries in which owning a gun is explicitly l…

It starts from the foundational document, the 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

We have rights to life and liberty, and the right to private ownership of weapons acknowledged in the 2nd Amendment is an instrumentality to help ensure that. It should also be noted that the Bill of Rights (1st though 10 Amendments) were a price demanded by the Anti-Federalists for accepting the Constitution.

Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#148

Post by hga »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #143
diego wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What country is close enough to the US in size, heterogeneity and number of guns so that you can make a fair comparison? Edit to answer to the comment below: think what you want. Don't try to convince me. I'm skeptical, you're not. Write to your legislators instead of here. Write your own blog posts.

> What country is close enough to the US in size, heterogeneity and number of guns so that you can make a fair comparison? In terms of number of guns, no other country is. That's the point: other countries made decisions and implemented policies to severely restrict access to guns, and the predictable result today is that there are far fewer guns and much less gun violence. The decision to restrict guns is a long-ter…

The Swiss are an obvious exception, although their gun-grabbers are steady tightening things.

But I think you're wrong about the path that restrictions would take in the US: the slowly boiling a frog approach won't accomplish the goal, anything too quick, sharp and raw will merely spark the 2nd American Civil War during which "gun violence" will go way up. And most any restriction scheme will increase gun violence, if only on the part of the authorities using force to seize guns and the like.

Maybe in the long term public attitudes could be changed, the 2nd Amendment repealed, and the path you envision might happen, but that's the work of generations and will require a reversal of the renorming of gun ownership we've seen in the last quarter century (I take Florida's 1987 establishment of a shall issue concealed carry license regime as the start; today 42 states have them, de facto or de jure).

Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#149

Post by pc86 »

smacktoward wrote: post #84
pc86 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I welcome you to explain to me how my owning a particular type of firearms constitutes "threat of death or injury." Brandishing is already a crime, so I fail to see what point you're trying to make.

If you fail to store it securely, it could be stolen and used against me. If you fail to operate it properly, I could be struck by a bullet fired by you at somebody else. 2nd Amendment absolutists love talking about their rights, but spend precious little time talking about the responsibilities that come with them. Which are (or should be) significant, when the right you are talking about is the right to wield a leth…

A stolen weapon used to commit a crime does not constitute a crime on the part of the original owner. In my state there is no legally required way to store a firearm. Shooting someone accidentally certainly leaves the person operating the firearm open to civil litigation, and possibly criminal prosecution. I don't think anyone has every implied otherwise. All the regulations that have been mentioned refer to purchasing a firearm. If you want to require rifles be locked up at night, make the argument that it will help prevent theft. Don't make the argument that someone can't purchase it in the first place.

I'm not a "2nd Amendment absolutist" as you put it, no more than I am a free speech or free press absolutist. I have no problem with licensure or registration so long as it's not prohibitive, and you will be hard pressed to find gun owners who say there are no responsibilities associated with gun ownership. To get a license to carry a concealed firearm in my state requires $20 and a few weeks while they do a cursory background check, depending on the county. To get a handgun or rifle takes half an hour for a phone call background check.

If politicians like Sen. Feinstein would stop talking about banning weapons wholesale that had nothing to do with any recent tragedy, and instead talk about a national level of firearms reciprocity (while requiring locations like NYC, Chicago and DC to come up to par), you'd see folks on the Right move quickly and decisively to supporting more common sense gun regulations.

Re: Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

#150

Post by RyanMcGreal »

hga wrote: post #148
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What country is close enough to the US in size, heterogeneity and number of guns so that you can make a fair comparison? In terms of number of guns, no other country is. That's the point: other countries made decisions and implemented policies to severely restrict access to guns, and the predictable result today is that there are far fewer guns and much less gun violence. The decision to restrict guns is a long-ter…

The Swiss are an obvious exception, although their gun-grabbers are steady tightening things. But I think you're wrong about the path that restrictions would take in the US: the slowly boiling a frog approach won't accomplish the goal, anything too quick, sharp and raw will merely spark the 2nd American Civil War during which "gun violence" will go way up. And most any restriction scheme will increase gun violence, i…

Gun control in the US can start with control of those types of firearms most likely to be used in mass shootings: automatic and semi-automatic weapons with magazines that accommodate large numbers of rounds. The US can do what other countries have done successfully: ban sales, restrict ownership, and offer amnesty/buyback for weapons already in circulation.

The US can also mandate safe storage of weapons and ammunition in separate, locked, secure cases. That in itself would reduce the incidence of gun suicide and so-called crimes of passion by introducing a long-enough delay between decision and action that sanity prevails.

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