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How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

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Re: How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

#71

Post by rayiner »

nathan_compton wrote: post #59
kashunstva wrote: post #29

> we find that a socially optimal level of ownership is often greater than zero I suppose one could model this in some way. But as a pacifist, vegan and never owner of firearms, I’m genuinely clueless as to how this could be. Is the social optimality here a function possessing weapons for hunting, which can be a social activity?

I don't own a gun, but I live in a very rural area. It might take police 20 minutes to reach us in an emergency, even if we managed to make a call (as we might not in a home invasion, for example). From this point of view I can see the utility of owning a gun, at least in principal. Also, imagine a scenario where a foreign power attempted to occupy a country? There is probably an optimal number of armed citizens to d…

We have a real-life example of the second point playing out in modern times. The relevant observation is that it's important for armed citizens to be able start a conflict in order to put other forces in play. During Bangladesh's war of independence from Pakistan, civilians captured weapons from military depots to fight against the Pakistani Army. Those civilians formed the core of a resistance movement that was then quickly joined by defectors from the Pakistani military and, eventually, India. The civilians could not possibly have won a war against the Pakistani military. But it's doubtful that India would have jumped into the war if there wasn't already an armed resistance movement for India to support.

We have learned from Iraq and Afghanistan that it's very difficult even for the world's most powerful military to hold cities and countryside against people armed with handheld automatic weapons.

Re: How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

#72

Post by rolph »

nostrademons wrote: post #48
tinfoilhatter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the optimum level changes based on whether or not citizens are being actively brutalized by an authoritarian government and their police forces en masse. When that happens, the optimum level is a lot and when it's not happening, the optimum level is probably orders of magnitude less. Unfortunately, we can't accurately predict when these things will happen.

I hear this argument repeated a lot, and I think it is legit the reason for the 2nd amendment - but it doesn't make sense with modern technology. That authoritarian government is going to come at you with Bearcats, helicopters, and drones. Firing a gun at them is just going to make you cannon fodder. If you want to actually challenge the authoritarian government, you need MANPADS, RPGs, cruise missiles, and drones of…

what you have said, is exactly why the 2A legitimates bearing arms, not only firearms.

the origin of the US is about being able to resist unreasonable force, and thats the root of the 2A, being able to resist, due to an uninfringed right to bear arms, to the end of checking the force of a militia having strayed out of its rights.

Re: How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

#73

Post by Glyptodon »

alistairSH wrote: post #14
RyJones wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? Control of you life is your basic human right. Firearms are the great equalizer.

Isn’t there a massive body of research that indicates gun ownership is less safe on average that non-ownership? Ie the chance of accidental shooting of family/friends is high enough to offset any benefit (on average across the US)?

The problem I have with "safetyism" is it comes across as something you can say about cars, knives, power tools, skis, hang gliders, and so many other things. Like do I buy that even though ski deaths are lower in non-skiing households, just like gun deaths are in non shooting ones, that it's less impactful and important than the same effect with guns? Sure. But it's also a conversation that is soooo patronizing in a ridiculous way that it really seems like a double standard. And so much of it seems disingenuous. Like do we focus on enabling safe storage and mental health safety with guns or making it harder? On making kids and families more knowledgeable and safer around guns or just amping up the anxiety and fear?

Re: How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

#74

Post by krapp »

elpocko wrote: post #67
krapp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have. The mods have made it clear they consider it necessary to maintain the quality of conversation and they have no intention of changing it.

The mods are obviously wrong and there should be way more pushback from the users. It's embarrassing.

You can try, but the only thing "pushback" will likely achieve is getting your account filtered for posting "unsubstantive content."

Re: How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

#75

Post by Glyptodon »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #30
alistairSH wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t there a massive body of research that indicates gun ownership is less safe on average that non-ownership? Ie the chance of accidental shooting of family/friends is high enough to offset any benefit (on average across the US)?

Teen suicide in households with a gun is a very interesting stat to bring up for this. Suicide in general is higher for gun owners, which can be handwaved away as “that’s my right”. But suicide is higher for children of gun owners? That seems like a tough risk to justify.

The thing is there's such a breadth of circumstances and behaviors involved that pigeonholing it under one giant banner is questionable. Like the people who leave loaded guns in random drawers around their houses are doing something very different with a different risk profile. Whereas once you get to teens in households that have guns and generally practice some level of safe storage it's a much more complex issue IMO. Because as a society we want teens to become responsible enough to handle things like cars, or power tools, or guns. But we also know that they're not adults yet. And we know that infantilization of teens isn't going to do anyone favors in the long run. So it's probably not as simple as ban cars and ban guns or whatever else.

Re: How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

#76

Post by delichon »

chasd00 wrote: post #65

Rounds fired per gun owner per month would be an interesting statistic. The vast majority of people who buy a gun out of fear go to the range once and then put the gun in the top of the closet never to be seen again. I don't think they contribute anything in the cost/benefit equation to gun ownership for a society.

> The vast majority of people who buy a gun out of fear go to the range once and then put the gun in the top of the closet never to be seen again.

I'm close to that, but I put its potential benefits similar to that of my fire extinguishers, and with no kids around the cost/risk is low. I am happy to be part of the statistics that raise the costs for intruders, and I like being ready to defend my dogs from the local coyotes, wolves and cougars. My guns and fire extinguishers are downstream of the same kind of fear.

Re: How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

#77

Post by JJMcJ »

kashunstva wrote: post #29

> we find that a socially optimal level of ownership is often greater than zero I suppose one could model this in some way. But as a pacifist, vegan and never owner of firearms, I’m genuinely clueless as to how this could be. Is the social optimality here a function possessing weapons for hunting, which can be a social activity?

In some parts of the USA like the interior of Alaska, hunting is a big part of actually getting food to eat, not just for sport.

Re: How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

#79

Post by nostrademons »

rolph wrote: post #72
nostrademons wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this argument repeated a lot, and I think it is legit the reason for the 2nd amendment - but it doesn't make sense with modern technology. That authoritarian government is going to come at you with Bearcats, helicopters, and drones. Firing a gun at them is just going to make you cannon fodder. If you want to actually challenge the authoritarian government, you need MANPADS, RPGs, cruise missiles, and drones of…

what you have said, is exactly why the 2A legitimates bearing arms, not only firearms. the origin of the US is about being able to resist unreasonable force, and thats the root of the 2A, being able to resist, due to an uninfringed right to bear arms, to the end of checking the force of a militia having strayed out of its rights.

I'd agree with that on a philosophical level, but no court has actually interpreted the 2A as legitimating the right to build a cruise missile, MANPADS, or nuke. Try it and I suspect you're looking at a very long prison term. Usually people look at me like I'm insane when I suggest that "Well logically, the right to bear arms should include the right to bear nukes, so all this stuff about 'born secret' and classified information is unconstitutional."

Re: How Fear and Social Pressure Are 'Overarming' the U.S.

#80

Post by potsandpans »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #30
alistairSH wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t there a massive body of research that indicates gun ownership is less safe on average that non-ownership? Ie the chance of accidental shooting of family/friends is high enough to offset any benefit (on average across the US)?

Teen suicide in households with a gun is a very interesting stat to bring up for this. Suicide in general is higher for gun owners, which can be handwaved away as “that’s my right”. But suicide is higher for children of gun owners? That seems like a tough risk to justify.

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