Gun policy and associated lies
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
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I am aware that there's "semi-auto" and then there's "semi-auto" - various weapons have different round-to-round cycle times, and perhaps that could be part of what defines a weapon that can be purchased by a civilian and which could not. I'm fully behind the idea that there's absolutely NO civilian justification for a magazine of more than 10 or 11 bullets, period and full stop. Ban them viciously, buy them back and melt 'em down - and anyone found manufacturing them illegally, lock 'em up for life. No, I'm not kidding.
It's long, LONG past time we stop coddling the gun fetishists and their insane conspiracy bullshit about how if we license gun owners and register guns we're going to be taken over by black helicopters full of UN troops.
I'm under no illusion that changing the bat-fuck insane gun culture in this country (see Bushmaster's "Man card" crap, for example) will be easy or quick or that we would ever be where a vastly different culture (e.g., Japan) is on this issue. But the fact it's difficult and will take time is not a justification to avoid making what progress we can, as we can.
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(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.)
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When I say "making it worse" I'm referring to continuing to permit the sales of weapons and ammo magazines that no civilian has any rational need for and which clearly make mass murder far easier for someone inclined to commit it.
Need I point out that the dickhead who shot up Gabrielle Giffords' constituent outreach event was only finally tackled and stopped when his oversized magazines ran dry and he had to pause shooting to try and switch to full ones? Why should we not want to provide that window of opportunity after fewer rounds, and thus more often?
The line between civilian arms and military arms has to be drawn somewhere - and all I'm saying is that it would be prudent to draw that line a bit more narrowly than we have been, no matter how loud the gun fetishists scream about how they're being castrated.
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Did you just not understand that I'm primarily talking here about stopping hideous MASS MURDERS of which we've had multiple examples committed with high-speed lead sprayers with mass murder magazines this year, or are you intentionally avoiding a direct response?
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Stopping mass murders at the expense of increasing overall homicide rates would be overtly immoral. Mass murders are an insignificant fraction of the overall homicide rate, and the risk of this immoral side effect seems very large if we focus on them instead of more routine forms of mortality. Therefore I consider them unworthy of serious attention unto themselves, although their secondary effects can be a considerable problem. It's not at all clear to me if your own attitude is of positive or negative influence in that regard.
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Considering we can't really have a controlled experiment here in the USA - the experience of jurisdictions with strong gun control laws adjacent to ones with relatively lax gun laws (e.g., Washington DC and Virginia) shows that would be difficult at best and is likely impossible - it seems that despite your dismissal of the experience of other nations, that's pretty much the only source of practical experience with other approaches to the problem.
Part of my argument is from utility, which you repeatedly refuse to address. I doubt anyone goes hunting with an AR-15, unless their idea of "hunting" is to turn small game into ragged gobbets. I may not have picked up a love of hunting from my father, but I could not help but learn some of the basic ideas - such as it being ideal to put the animal down as quickly as possible with as few shots as possible so as to maximize the edible meat - in addition to being as merciful as possible.
As I have said - I'm unaware of any practical use for a weapon such as was used in the recent tragedy in Connecticut other that that - murdering people - that could not be just as well served by a firearm less ideal for mass murder. Other than your idea that somehow a nut-case might not actually use it because he's got it ... do you know of any?
Addendum: if you want something more scholarly on the Australian experience than the link above - http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/10/5/280.full
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If you are going to advocate interference with a long lasting downward trend in violence by imposing new laws, it's you that shoulders the burden of proof that those laws are likely to work. We already know from drug and alcohol prohibition that trying to constrain a basic human desire more often than not has side effects that are worse than the original problem. The assault rifle issue may look narrow and arcane, and it might have remained that way had it not been turned into an ideological litmus test. Now, people acquire them BECAUSE of the threatened ban. Yes, it's perverse, but its also reality.
Whatever has transpired over the past decade in the US is "working" more than any deliberate effort, ever, and we don't even know why. On the other hand, its not clear that the Australian approach worked at all; even if you accept the notion that it was responsible for eliminating mass murder, if the overall homicide rate is not measurably affected, who the hell cares? Oh right, people who are swayed more by mediagenic drama than by actual human welfare, i.e. nearly evryone. (sigh.) Go read the Wikipedia article on gun politics in Australia and you will see just how equivocal the results of that legislation were. I suppose it would be in bad taste to actually advocate for more mass murder, but it would be no more irrational or destructive than reactions that are considered socially acceptable today.
I don't care what the stated utility is of assault rifles. I know a number of people that choose to own them, and they all have their own reasons, but none of them are things you're going to talk them out of. I'm perfectly happy to accept the proposition that every single one of them is deluded, since it makes no difference what their rationale is given that it is sincerely and defiantly maintained. These guns embody a simple and common technology that cannot be contained, a cat that cannot be put back into the bag. I have already explained why, given existing American gun culture and ownership levels, you can't just legislate them out of existence, and you are the one who has repeatedly refused to engage with the reality of that situation. There may exist effective approaches to gun control, but focusing on this one class of weapon is, as far as I know, unsupportable under quantitative cost benefit analysis. Which is the only class of argument I take seriously.
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Kates, B., and Mauser (heh), G. (2010). Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide? A review of international and some domestic evidence. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 30(2), 649-694. Retrieved from http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf.
Lott, J. R., & Landes, W. M. (2000). Multiple Victim Public Shootings. Yale School Of Management's Legal Scholarship Network, 1. Retrieved from http://www.thevrwc.org/JohnLott.pdf
P.S.: Australia's model is inapplicable to the U.S. Irrelevant, in fact.
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If this does indeed constitute a clear relationship, I'm ready to be convinced on this particular point, but again since mass murders are relatively rare things it's not clear how much this should influence policy even if it were.
In the meanwhile, I was kind of disturbed by efforts to suppress firearms research and was thinking of posting about this article as well.
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