Gun policy and associated lies

[snousle]

I cannot believe how much flap there has been over twenty murders in a country that experiences more than a thousand times that many every year. All because they were clustered in one place, with one perpetrator. All else being equal, is it not prereferable to have twenty children murdered by one madman, than twenty children murdered by twenty

Comments

[danthered]

I don't necessarily agree with you that nothing can practicably or effectively be done, but I do very much agree with you on the bizarre and tragic reflexive self-mutilation the US so reliably does. 9/11 was an unmitigated success for its perpetrators and their supporters; look at what the US has spent and sacrificed and done to itself in futile pursuit of "security"! 3,000 people died at the World Trade Center in 2001. More than an order of magnitude more than the WTC toll died that same year in American traffic, but that's just business as usual. More than two orders of magnitude more than the WTC toll died that same year in America from tobacco, but that's just freedom and libertee and adult choices.

Umwhut?!!

[snousle]

Even more pointedly, the TSA has killed far more Americans than terrorists have. Just a small incentive to drive instead of fly is deadly at a massive scale. But since these are "statistical" deaths, and you can't point to any SPECIFIC people who the TSA has killed, they don't count for nothin'.

As everyone knows, statistical analysis is just a liberal conspiracy.

[furr_a_bruin]

One can argue that the other industrialized nations that have both stricter gun laws and a tiny fraction of our per capita level of gun violence also have cultural factors that play into that - but it is unquestionably, irrefutably the case that we both have ridiculously lax gun laws AND the highest rate of civilian gun deaths and maimings in the industrialized world. I do not think these two facts are completely unrelated.

A conservative case for an assault weapons ban

[snousle]

And it is also true that Stone Age tribes have male homicide rates approaching 50 percent. The entirety of technological, legal and social history can land a country anywhere on the spectrum of violence. That is not the same as the set of options available to the US through law or policy. The US cannot even remotely turn itself into Norway, so I really question whether, in the absence of a time machine, the US can learn much in the way of useful lessons from the rest of the world.

Although from what I have read, there are certain aspects of the high rate of violent crime in the UK that might suggest directions the US should NOT take.

[furr_a_bruin]

We can at least stop making it worse. I've never encountered anyone that could provide a more cogent, rational explanation for why they would need a high speed semi-auto weapon with a massive magazine than "Well... I want one, they're fun!" Given that they enable mass murder, I think those people's right to live exceeds in importance someone else's right to "fun

[snousle]

What is this "making it worse" of which you speak? Again, violent crime has been decreasing across the board for a decade. Whatever is being done or not being done, it is unquestionably making things better. Dramatic mass murder in this style is not even a blip against this enormous, overwhelmingly important trend. We could have a Columbine every week on top of current crime rates, and we STILL would not touch the murder rate of the mid '90s. So really, it's hard to know what you are even talking about when you say "making it worse". Given our general ignorance of what is going on in the first place, the most prudent course of action would be to do nothing and hope that current trends continue.

(Incidentally, a remarkable and plausible hypothesis of why things are getting better has to do with the elimination of lead in gasoline. Not sure if its true, but it's illustrative of how off base the current gun control debate might be.)

[barbarian_rat]

This was a very interesting exchange. Snousle, you make some very good points

[snousle]

Yes, there are a lot of people who think that they need weapons for a future war against the federal government. Tactically, the situation is hopeless, and for the most part I think they are crazy, but I do think that the existence of these weapons is of strategic value if you honestly believe such a war is imminent. Even if losing is guaranteed, making the war vastly more costly could theoretically discourage it from happening, sort of like the case with strategic nuclear weapons

[barbarian_rat]

Thanks. It's very much how I see things.

[equinas]

This is not "some people". The Founders did not write the 2nd amendment for hunting, sport-shooting, or even self-defense. They wrote it so the that the "government fears the people". Thomas Jefferson: "When people fear the government, there is tyranny; when government fears the people, there is liberty

[h0gwash]

Ultimately, gun control is kind of an optional thing so I don't think there's much story there. Sir! May I remind you that discharging a weapon within the city limits is illegal!

I think the real staying power of the story is the actively nihilistic psychosis which has happened on both coasts and the midwest.

The New Economy of simultaneously prolonged high unemployment for some and very long work hours for many others has trapped most Americans in a prolonged state of heavy emotional stress. We don't know where the fulcrum between normalcy and psychosis lies and we are afraid we will or someone we are supporting will be driven mad.

[equinas]

I love how you call it an auto-immune disorder for the country to attack itself when this kind of thing happens. That is a perfect analogy.