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alexhaz64 
Joined: 01 Mar 2008
Posts: 4480
Location: Long Beach, CA
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 Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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| directshot999 wrote: | | That can be solved by letting the teachers take advantage of the 2nd amendment. |
The thought of schoolteachers carrying weapons is terrifying to me. It just seems so counter-intuitive.
Maybe it's because I have never and don't ever plan to use a gun that I don't see the point to them. Their primary purpose is to kill. Other things kill, but that is not by design (cars, drugs, etc). I understand the biggest issue is personal safety, but I feel like for every case of successful self-defense, there's at least two cases of someone getting hurt that could've been prevented with the absence of firearms. Then again I have no idea what the actual statistics are so I could be way off here.
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ready2rock
Joined: 25 Aug 2007
Posts: 1738
Location: somewhere in this vast universe
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 12:50 pm Post subject: |
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It's true that people kill people, but guns make it quite a bit easier.
(by the way, one of my favorite philosoraptor memes: "If guns don’t kill people, people kill people – does that mean toasters don’t toast toast, toast toast toast?")
Also, to quote something Aasif Mandvi tweeted today: "if the logic is, its useless to regulate guns because criminals will still break the law, then why have traffic laws? why have any laws?"
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bclare
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 6048
Location: Boston
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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Relevant article on Slate today http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/human_nature/2012/12/connecticut_school_shooting_semi_automatic_weapons_and_other_high_speed.html
| Quote: | This morning, a madman attacked more than 20 children at an elementary school in China. As of this writing, there are no reported fatalities.
A few hours later, a madman attacked an elementary school in Connecticut. As of this writing, 20 of those kids are dead.
The difference? The weapon. The madman in China had a knife. The madman in Connecticut had three semi-automatic guns. |
There have actually been a lot of school stabbings in China; crazy people run into elementary schools and start attacking kids. The thing is, since guns aren't available, they're using knives and killing maybe a couple kids, whereas Americans who can get access to guns are easily able to kill a dozen.
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directshot999
Joined: 16 Oct 2007
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Location: Birmingham, AL
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LlamaYip 
Joined: 23 Dec 2008
Posts: 3151
Location: Chicago, IL
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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Guns don't kill people. Neither do people. Really fast bullets kill people.
But seriously. I find this very frustrating that these mini-movements come in waves after shooting massacres like this. I've heard about seven of these in my lifetime, and the reaction with regards to scrutinizing the current gun laws are virtually the same every time. I live in a city where 20 kids get killed within two weekends EVERY weekend, and a neighborhood where there are consistently several handfuls of shooting every month. But because this has been so routine for such a long time, awareness of this is bypassed and there is no response from the public to reexamine prevention of tragedies like this. I can complain about this all I want but it is always going to be that way.
I am not a supporter of gun rights laws, but there needs to be more approaches to these situations than this. And I'm short of answers.
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raynebc
Joined: 16 Jun 2008
Posts: 992
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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| alexhaz64 wrote: | | I understand the biggest issue is personal safety, but I feel like for every case of successful self-defense, there's at least two cases of someone getting hurt that could've been prevented with the absence of firearms. Then again I have no idea what the actual statistics are so I could be way off here. |
This is the main assumption for those pushing for gun control laws, only the fanatics won't admit that they don't have statistics that back them up except for cherry picked instances. |
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bclare
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 6048
Location: Boston
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| raynebc wrote: | | alexhaz64 wrote: | | I understand the biggest issue is personal safety, but I feel like for every case of successful self-defense, there's at least two cases of someone getting hurt that could've been prevented with the absence of firearms. Then again I have no idea what the actual statistics are so I could be way off here. |
This is the main assumption for those pushing for gun control laws, only the fanatics won't admit that they don't have statistics that back them up except for cherry picked instances. |
Almost alll of the statistics I've been able to find are those put out by the NRA or other such groups that have a clear rooting interest, and as such may be biased.
Here's something from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Department of Justice (albeit from 1994; gun crimes have gone down since then)
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt
And the essential points
In 1992 offenders armed with handguns committed a record 931,000
violent crimes.
On average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a
firearm to defend themselves or their property.
Offenders fired their weapon in 17% of all nonfatal handgun crimes
(or about 2% of all violent crimes). In 3% of all handgun crimes,
the victim was wounded. The offender shot at but missed the victim
in 14% of all handgun crimes.
A fifth of the victims defending themselves with a firearm
suffered an injury, compared to almost half of those who defended
themselves with weapons other than a firearm or who had no weapon.
Care should be used in interpreting these data because many aspects
of crimes--including victim and offender characteristics, crime
circumstances, and offender intent--contribute to the victims'
injury outcomes.
In most cases victims who used firearms to defend themselves or
their property were confronted by offenders who were either unarmed
or armed with weapons other than firearms.
Anyway, that's approximately 10 gun crimes for each attempted self-defense with a gun. Of course it's hard to say how any of the criminals who used guns would have still been trying to commit the crime had they not been able to possess a gun. 931,000 gun crimes in a year works out to approximately 2500 per day (100+ per hour, so almost 2 every minute) but like I said the crime rate is lower nationally today than it was in 1992.
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youhas 
Joined: 21 Jul 2006
Posts: 3015
Location: Santa Clara, CA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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I wish I had any even remotely plausible legislative solution to the matter at hand. But I can't even remotely think of something that would severely curtain such matters. As was pointed out to me elsewhere: there are something on the order of 300 million firearms available in the U.S. Even if there was a massive change of heart and a gigantic trade-in program, that'd leave you with what, "only" 200 million? And where would that leave you? The genie was let out of the bottle a long, long time ago. Any gun-control law under the sun might not put even the tiniest dent in things.
I do wish that more advocates of gun proliferation would take at least mild ownership of the issue. If you celebrate a culture where you think guns of interminable power should be freely available to all who are so interested, for political or philosophical reasons: that is your right. But if you make those weapons as readily available as possible to all comers, you make them as readily available to crazy-pants individuals as well, and crazy-pants people will occasionally do crazy-pants things; that is an inevitable consequence. It sorts of sickens me to see anyone trumpet the glory of the former but pretend that the "collateral damage" it causes is somehow magically unrelated. If you espouse a philosophy, be intellectually honest and own that philosophy in its entirety.
| raynebc wrote: | | This is the main assumption for those pushing for gun control laws, only the fanatics |
I will note, as respectfully as I can, that this is the second time in this thread where you've implied that anyone desiring tighter gun availability is a "fanatic". That sort of rhetoric just sort of polarizes people and makes us even less likely to hold a productive political conversation about matters, which helps no one.
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tormentedbyu
Joined: 25 Feb 2007
Posts: 3090
Location: Katy, TX
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| Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| ready2rock wrote: | It's true that people kill people, but guns make it quite a bit easier.
(by the way, one of my favorite philosoraptor memes: "If guns don’t kill people, people kill people – does that mean toasters don’t toast toast, toast toast toast?")
Also, to quote something Aasif Mandvi tweeted today: "if the logic is, its useless to regulate guns because criminals will still break the law, then why have traffic laws? why have any laws?" |
What kind of toaster do you use that toasts bread without your assistance to place the bread inside it (load it) and start it (pull the trigger)? :p
As long as we're not talking about banning all guns outright here I'm not opposed to reasonable gun control laws. Criminals are going to find ways to get guns if they need them. People buy illicit drugs and illegally purchase firearms everyday. Banning guns won't stop that, it will just make the illegal market for them stronger.
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bclare
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 6048
Location: Boston
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| Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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| tormentedbyu wrote: | | ready2rock wrote: | It's true that people kill people, but guns make it quite a bit easier.
(by the way, one of my favorite philosoraptor memes: "If guns don’t kill people, people kill people – does that mean toasters don’t toast toast, toast toast toast?")
Also, to quote something Aasif Mandvi tweeted today: "if the logic is, its useless to regulate guns because criminals will still break the law, then why have traffic laws? why have any laws?" |
What kind of toaster do you use that toasts bread without your assistance to place the bread inside it (load it) and start it (pull the trigger)? :p
As long as we're not talking about banning all guns outright here I'm not opposed to reasonable gun control laws. Criminals are going to find ways to get guns if they need them. People buy illicit drugs and illegally purchase firearms everyday. Banning guns won't stop that, it will just make the illegal market for them stronger. |
Toasters don't toast toast, people toast toast. But I am unable to toast toast with my own two hands; I need a toaster. If toasters were illegal, I would be much less likely to eat any toast.
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MehPlusRawr
Joined: 20 Jul 2009
Posts: 1389
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| Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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| bclare wrote: | | Toasters don't toast toast, people toast toast. But I am unable to toast toast with my own two hands; I need a toaster. If toasters were illegal, I would be much less likely to eat any toast. |
This analogy sucks but whatever I'll continue it.
Let's say eating toast with butter is illegal, but eating toast with margarine is fine. Toasters are legal so people can eat their perfectly normal legal toast with margarine. But the buttered toast crime rate is rising. To combat this, the government makes buying toasters and owning toasters illegal.
Well, the normal population that doesn't want to go to jail will simply stop eating toast. The buttered-toast hooligans won't be fazed- they were already doing one illegal thing, why would they care if they had to do two illegal things to get to the same result? The buttered-toast consumption would definitely go down a bit because of the new difficulties in obtaining a toaster, but at the cost of all that delicious margarine toast.
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blingdomepiece
Joined: 03 Aug 2007
Posts: 4358
Location: Ottawa ON Canada
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| Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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It's worth having a bit less delicious margarine toast if it makes it less likely that children in a kindergarten will get slaughtered.
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inv4der
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bclare
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 6048
Location: Boston
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| Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| MehPlusRawr wrote: | | Well, the normal population that doesn't want to go to jail will simply stop eating toast. The buttered-toast hooligans won't be fazed- they were already doing one illegal thing, why would they care if they had to do two illegal things to get to the same result? The buttered-toast consumption would definitely go down a bit because of the new difficulties in obtaining a toaster, but at the cost of all that delicious margarine toast. |
If you outlaw something, criminals will still do it anyway. The solution therefore is to not bother outlawing anything. I could have sworn youhas posted something saying how silly that line of reasoning was, but maybe that was just something I read somewhere else.
One problem though is that a lot of people who commit gun crimes are not recognizably "criminals" or "buttered-toast hooligans" beforehand. Sure gangsters will have illegal guns, but gang activity and organized crime makes up a small percentage of gun crime; most are so-called "crimes of passion".
Example: Jovan Belcher, the football player who shot and killed his girlfriend and himself a few weeks ago. They had 8 guns in the house, totally legally. Despite some poor decision making on his part (possibly driving drunk, possibly cheating on his girlfriend) I suspect that if firearms were illegal he would not have owned any. What happened was basically a domestic dispute that got out of hand; have you ever gotten so mad at someone that you just wanted to kill them? Well if you feel that way and there are guns in the house, it's not hard. If there are no guns in that situation, maybe he grabs a knife. Knife attacks aren't nearly as dangerous as guns; it's possible to defend yourself against a knife, possible for another person (Belcher's mother was at the home) to step in and help, possible for someone who has been stabbed once or twice to survive.
Many of these situations start with domestic disputes. This guy in Connecticut started by shooting his mother. A bunch of the recorded "mass shootings" for example on the MJ article are only happening within one family, someone getting pissed off, grabbing the gun that's in the house and killing their parents / kids / siblings etc.
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MehPlusRawr
Joined: 20 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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| blingdomepiece wrote: | | It's worth having a bit less delicious margarine toast if it makes it less likely that children in a kindergarten will get slaughtered. |
I agree.
However, I feel that the crimes deterred by strict, hard-to-enforce gun regulations are most often crimes of opportunity: I have a gun, that guy has money, I need money, he needs to not be shot, and we can work something out here.
Premeditated murder is probably not going to be stopped by reducing the amount of legal guns in the U.S. I believe that the benefits from enforcing such policies (less violent crime, similar amounts of premeditated murder) wouldn't be worth the cost to do so. Trying to stop guns is about as feasible as trying to stop drugs.
Rampages like this are, as far as I know, exclusively perpetuated by people who are mentally unwell, and that's a whole different kettle of fish. Making guns harder to get would certainly stop this to some extent, but it wouldn't be the best solution to the problem.
Mental care in the U.S. is really hard to get at. There isn't a yearly physical for your mind, and there are quite a lot of people who are mentally unwell with nobody at all aware of it. I live in N.Y., and getting a concealed carry permit consists of just a couple things: you need to be over 21, have a mostly clear criminal record (minor offenses don't automatically disqualify you), and go through a background check. You have to mention if you've ever been treated for mental illness, but there is no psychological examination of any sort. This is the major problem.
1vad3r's article says things that obviously make sense: guns are easy to get, there are lots of guns, and there are lots of crimes with said guns. I can steal some bits for my points here: assault weapons were the second most common category of gun for shooters to possess, and most weapons were bought legally. These problems have simple and workable solutions- "make guns illegal" just doesn't work.
Guns that are designed for non-innocuous uses (see: assault weapons) simply should be made illegal in the U.S. This won't stop the trade of them, but we certainly shouldn't encourage it. The backlash against this won't be huge- there's not a lot of stuff you can do with a big ol' machine gun beyond "shoot dudes." This isn't easy, but it is comparatively easy, and it is plausible. It will almost exclusively affect criminal activity and there should be a direct correlation between stopping production and sale of assault weapons and violent crime.
My first post worried me at a second reading, mostly because raynenbc agreed with me. I stand by it. Making people jump through hoops to get guns won't do anything to discourage legal access to guns for illegal purposes- it's just annoying. The important bits are twofold: making sure they're not a criminal, and making sure that they're mentally well. The first bit is enforced right now, but not very well. There's not really any good way to stop criminals getting guns, and if anyone has what they consider to be a feasible solution to it I'd be very interested in hearing it.
The biggest problem is, again, the lack of functioning mental care in the U.S., and the lack of focus on it when purchasing a firearm.
The idea "if you give everyone a gun then nobody will get shot" just doesn't make sense. Guns effect violence. Guns suck, and it would be cool if we didn't have them. The problem is that we do have them, and we can't just take them away. It's all very well to say "STOP GIVING THE CRIMINALS GUNS, LIKE IF YOU AGREE," but if you're not offering a method to do that, then you're not saying anything of substance.
tl;dr: making guns illegal doesn't work. Making guns that are supposed to kill people illegal does work. Psychological evaluations should be absolutely mandatory when getting any sort of gun, and mental care in the U.S. needs a rework in general.
welp while previewing this post bclare said something that I guess I have to respond to now
Outlawing something does indeed fail to stop hardened criminals that disregard all laws completely. It does stop law-abiding citizens from doing it, and that's the big thing- the criminals are just an outlier. If you take away streetlights and traffic laws, then a lot more accidents will be caused by people who observe laws.
The difference is that normal citizens will get in accidents without traffic laws, but will not go on killing sprees with relaxed gun laws. Gun laws are targeted towards people who abuse them, traffic laws are targeted at any motorist.
I mentioned something about crimes of passion, as you call them, and you have a good point there: some murders legitimately would not have been committed without legal guns. This sucks, but... what can you do about it? Outlawing guns won't work.
My position on this issue is still developing, since it's never really something I've thought about a lot. IDEAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
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