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
( Read more... )
Some things come to mind that have not been addressed, because they are only indirectly connected to the point you made in your initial post.
So, it you have the energy, I'm wondering what you think of:
My understanding is that people who own assault weapons don't use them for hunting, but to be on more equal footing should a political revolution arise such as it did in 1776.
Addressing mental illness, not only in getting them more medical help, but their access to weapons.
My understanding is that currently vendors at gun shows do not have to follow the same reporting regulations as a retail gun shop does.
In the 80s much of the murder rate was connected with the cocaine wars and black people were the main victims. Recent mass murders involved mostly white people. That, I think, is one reason there is such a reaction to these mass murders. It similar to missing children, attractive white girls receive much more media attention, and probably police attention too, than a black girl, attractive or not.
Reply
Addressing mental illness is a great idea; much hay has been made over the dramatic rise in incarceration rates, but if you look at the total fraction of institutionalized adults in the US, the curve is nearly flat. They merely moved people from insane asylums to prisons. Needless to say, asylums are much safer and less expensive.
Correct, gun shows are relatively unregulated. Transfers between relatives are even less regulated.
A major argument against my "public health" style viewpoint, i.e. weighting all deaths equally, is that indeed, not all homicides are equal. I agree that if it's just gangbangers killing each other. well, maybe there's a silver lining there. A self-correcting problem, you might say. But that is very glib and callous and I don't really look at it that way in practice. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, you can't really make unequal weighting like that a basis for policy, at least not explicitly. So of course while cute white children of rich parents count 100x more than violent ghetto teens, as far as public outrage is concerned, you have to pretend to disregard that at some level.
Reply
Reply
They knew, and had witnessed first hand, what happens when government is allowed to disarm its people. They knew what happens when government is left unchecked. History is replete with examples of governments which began benevolently and became genocidal dictatorships, and they all disarmed their people first. Those who think this isn't a possibility and have given up their weapons now can only rely on the precious hope that their government never targets them, because they can no longer defend themselves. I'm not willing to do that.
When the 2nd amendment was written, yeah, there were only muskets and muzzle-loaders. Irrelevant argument, because the people were equally armed as the government. The 2nd amendment was made to evolve so that the people can arm themselves equivalently to the government, and that provides a deterrent. It's already been curbed with the restriction of automatic weapons, more erosion (such as an assault weapons ban) only weakens the people in their ability to deter their government from abuse.
I hope I never have to resist governmental abuse with weapons. But my ability to have them helps keep that hope alive.
Reply
Leave a comment