Get that day right this time, please.
Why be concerned with hypocrisy when your base is dumb enough that they don’t even notice most of Trumps hypocritical stances.
Nope.
Even so, they can chose to never invite secret service-ptotected guests and to never use locations with gun restrictions if they want to stick to there “more guns always better” principles, but they don’t.
Would you say it was hyperbole if I said the same thing about the cigarette companies that intentionally hid evidence of the link between smoking and cancer? Or when GM misled government regulators about their knowledge of ignition switch problems that led to over 100 deaths? Or other similar automotive scandals where companies decided recalls were more expensive than wrongful death lawsuits? What about when clothing companies look the other way as the factories that manufacture their goods have to put up suicide nets? Or oil companies that make deals with governments that kill would-be union leaders to prevent strikes?
Letting bodies pile up in the service of profits is standard for large companies and industries. The NRA, as a gun industry lobby, has the unique position of having those bodies be the bodies of American children who die in terrorist attacks. Their misfortune in having the absolute worst victims from a PR perspective doesn’t earn them a drop of sympathy.
It was not meant as hyperbole, it was a perfectly reasonable assessment.
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Per year, they are incredibly rare. They are more common in schools that already have problems of violence, including gang activity. Most shootings are targeted, not random. Nearly none of the shooters have a weapon legally. That is, there are already laws that are supposed to prevent these things and they are breaking them. They are only a little more common than deaths from sports in schools. They are less common than moderate to severe injuries of sports in schools. (Ironically, Cheerleader has even more injuries because they aren’t considered a sport and they don’t have the same safety rules 
)
This article breaks down stats about frequency.
No one said it was acceptable.
Like I said, I am not convinced that is the solution, but their position is still being morphed into a straw man for this post. The ignorance and stereotyping is embarrassing. I mean someone questioned “Why would you take an unloaded gun into a gun show. At this point is is just accessorizing.” Maybe that was a joke, but it didn’t come off as one. It highlights so many people have really no clue about real world use outside of the violence one sees on the news and entertainment. Opinions that differ from mine are fine, but I’d like them based more on reality, or at least with a fair understanding of what the 99.9+% of gun owners use their guns for.
I am not sure on what a prudent solution looks like. For schools where violence is more common (i.e. fights etc) extra security including metal detectors is probably prudent (and already used in some places). A school with out violence issues probably doesn’t need that level of security. They could probably make due with restricting access and securable class rooms.
Past that, I can’t think of a crafted law that would stop or significantly impact school shootings. Other than perhaps a total ban and turn in of anything besides the most basic fire arms, which affects 80million non-violent, lawful owners and I can’t really condone that either. If one can, ok, but I am going to defend against that.
It is hyperbole because your analogies don’t logically work. Regular cigarette use is harmful. Regular gun use is not, as 99.9+% of gun owners hurt NO ONE. GM made a faulting product. Gun deaths are generally not from a faulty product, but from INTENTIONAL MISUSE. And no one is putting out hits on people - Jesus H Christ, why did you even include this?
The bodies have been REDUCING since the 90s. If I told you, “Hey, if we cut gun homicides in half, can we consider this a win?” Well, hot damn, that is what has happened.
The NRA gets its power from the PEOPLE who VOTE. Not the corporations, who contribute less than they private donations. The gun companies would adapt to any NEW law, creating what ever fire arm fits within the law. This misconception that a RIGHTS org full of PASSIONATE members is just a ploy to make money for gun companies is not based on fact. There is some truth that their propaganda drums up worry of bans, but those aren’t exactly unfounded.
What is IRONIC, is there is a significant portion out there (I’d say maybe 10%?) that think the NRA is TOO wiling to compromise.
Finally, blaming the NRA, who is supporting the RIGHTS OF LAWFUL GUN OWNERS for people who ILLEGALLY own them and/or ILLEGALLY use them makes no rational sense.
Do we say the ACLU are Nazis and racists because they LITERALLY SUE for the right of the Nazis and White Supremacists to hold rallies? Do we blame the orgs looking to legalize weed or decriminalize drug for the opioid epidemic, or the violence surround the drug trade? Hell we really blame the alcohol industry for drunk driving deaths and drunken domestic violence.
Again, I can live with difference of opinion. This hyperbole and what boils down to character assassination I can’t.
That’s a good point. Would the NRA similarly acquiesce as easily if/when the Feds regulated firearms even more so and to the extent that it seriously started biting into gun sales.
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So far it’s been looking like Work-for-Trump wannabes, by definition, are not competent.
So the ones who are harmed by guns at school (or home) are just acceptable casualties for your freedom to own a deadly weapon? I’ve ask this several times before, but what is the limit? How many gun deaths will it take for you to consider the casualties unacceptable?
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Statistically, you are twice as likely to die from a gunshot if you own a gun than if you don’t. Proliferation of guns increases the murder rate and results in more gun violence that would not be committed using other forms of assault. Fewer guns result in fewer deaths and less crime, not some post-apocalyptic hellscape of burglary, looting, and knifings. The risk of being fatally injured from a break-in or burglary is literally an order of magnitude lower than the risk of being killed by a gun in any scenario at all, and firearm-related burglary interactions accounted for only 2% of all break-ins in 2006.
Regular gun use is harmful. How’s that for some coldly calculated statistical reality?
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I’m sure there are those on the right who do notice (and with that “so-what” attitude exacerbating the problems in the current political climate) . The situation is that they brush those hypocrisies (and lies) off and focus on whatever promise made re wedge issues (abortion, LGBT rights, etc) or job promises (coal mining, steel production). I hope these people soon come to understand that wedge issues, and jobs that will never come back (at least to the extent seen long ago), won’t put food on the table.
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Fair point I should probably concede:
Despite lobbying in ways that align with the interests of gun manufacturers, the NRA is a gun enthusiast organization, not an arm of the industry.
Some things I’m not going to concede:
10.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people per year. 78.74 years in an American life.
10.6 / 100,000 * 78.74 = 0.008346 gun deaths per american per lifetime (should I be only counting 50 or so good gun killing years)
So I’m already up to nearly 1% of Americans being killed by guns. If I limit responsibility for those deaths to the 42% of Americans who live in households that own guns:
0.008346 / .42 = 0.01987 gun deaths per american living in a gun owning household per lifetime (assuming no great difference in household size between gun owner and non-gun owner households)
So, no, not 99.9+% of gun owners never hurt anyone. 98% of gun owners never get anyone (including themselves) killed. (That’s not the same as saying that owning a gun carries a 2% risk of death)
(before I posted this @alahmnat posted various links to actual facts instead of napkin math, but I’m still posting my napkin math because I think it gives a sense why 99.9+% shouldn’t pass a smell test)
Yes it makes rational sense. Widespread legal selling of a product makes the product more available for people who want to get the product illegally. And one of the reasons we make it hard for people to legally own high explosives is because we are worried that people who legally own it may illegally use it. Widespread legal ownership of a thing is going to increase illegal use of that thing.
I pay attention to the effects of policies rather than the intention of policies. There’s nothing irrational about that.
The NRA runs ads to convince people that they need guns to be safe. Having a gun makes you less safe. That is killing people by spreading fear. That is not hyperbolic.
As for character assassination: I think people like Wayne LaPierre are willfully deceiving people to personally profit (his total compensation in 2015 exceeded $5M [true but misleading, he makes about $1M/yr]). It’s possible he genuinely believes what he is saying but I hold people who find themselves in positions of power to a high standard due to my anti-authority streak. I think he ought to get the facts before he goes and tells people that owning a gun makes them safer. If he hasn’t done so then that is because it is against his financial (or maybe just emotional) interests.
It’s not “character assassination” to say what I think of a person based on their public actions.
Well, this is totally off topic so I’m not going to argue it, but I did think it was worth providing context. I’m extremely critical of the ACLU. When a wedding cake designer didn’t want to design a wedding cake for a gay couple they engaged in some spurious slippery slopes to argue why they didn’t think it was first amendment*. When nazis want to march in the streets they refuse to engage in factually supported “slippery slopes” (that is, links) between nazi marches and violence. American first amendment protection has always had a tinge of white supremacy to it and they are willfully blind to that. They aren’t nazis in their hearts, but I think America is more of a police state today, and in more danger of becoming a literally fascist country because of the ACLU.
So I guess that tells you who you are arguing with.
*ETA: Not defending homophobic cake decorators, though I found their reasoning for not defending one particular homophobic cake decorator extreme poor. They don’t want to grapple with the fact that sometimes the first amendment conflicts with other rights and defends in the indefensible, so instead they engaged in motivated reasoning about why it wasn’t protected.
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I wouldn’t get your hopes up. These people are able to say they’re Christians but, cut taxes that goes towards helping poor people (New Testament cough) or how they say abortion is murder but, excruciating death via the death penalty is ok.
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It doesn’t hurt to hope. Who was it that coined the phrase, ‘Hope for the best; expect the worst’?
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The solution is obvious. Install Mike Pence in every classroom!
No, wait…there might be females in those classrooms.
I’ve got it…install Mike Pence and his wife in every classroom!
You’re thinking too small. Just declare the entire United States an NRA convention (sadly already true…) and since special politicians are in attendance, the whole place must be gun-free.
I don’t have a limit, per se. I am sure there is one, but I don’t have a hard number Do you have a limit of “acceptable deaths”? Gun homicides are nearly HALF of what they were when I was in high school. So even if I had a number, the number is trending DOWN.
Twice as likely for something very rare is still very rare. .01875% is a generous estimate of the percentage of users per year who use their guns as homicides weapons (it’s even lower some years). Accidental death (which does get a few suicides lumped into them) is an incredibly small percentage of .001%. Yes, owning a gun means you have increased risk of committing suicide via a gun. But I don’t know of any law one can craft that would stop that (other than ban and turn in, which I have been assured is not the goal, only common sense laws). Especially people who have owned guns for years, decades, and only be came suicidal later. Though I concede the point there is a correlation of less gun ownership means less gun suicide (though suicide can be much higher than the US rate with out the use of guns, as seen in other countries).
I can link you to charts that show the increase number of guns scaling with the reduction in gun homicides, but I won’t because I honestly think that is more of a correlation, vs causation. I concede that the documented number of guns stopping crime shows it is fairly rare, but there is some evidence that number is much higher when you account people using guns to ward off others or to stop crime with out firing a shot. These instances often go unreported, and those that are aren’t tracked nationally, that I know of.
Still, even if they are rarely used for defense, doesn’t mean the RIGHT to defense isn’t there. Look someone in the eye and say, “In the unlikely event someone breaks in and wants to cause you and your family harm, I don’t want you to have the best tool available to defend yourself.” And shit does happen. My mom knew one of the victims of the Wichita Massacre. A friend of mine just last week had his kid’s apartment broken into by a guy with a knife (Twice! After going to a hospital for suicide watch, he was released vs arrested!). A distant cousin had her boyfriend randomly stabbed to death at a gas station. There is a near zero downside for someone preparing themselves for unlikely violence. The average gun owner who keeps them for defense, hunting, sport, or what ever is not really the problem here.
Go seek out the annual police reports of places like Chicago, St Louis, Milwaukee, and LA, and they break down who is doing the worst homicides. It is clear that if you are murdered in these higher crime areas you are most likely killed by someone you know, someone who has an arrest record, and you likely have an arrest record. It is criminals preying on criminals, and they too are often armed. They usually break down the areas with the worst crime, and you can see it is highly localized. These are the majority of homicides that should be focused on. And based on a study in Pittsburgh (which echos an older study by the Bureau of Justice), ~80% of people arrest with guns did not legally own they gun they had.
According to those above reports mentioned, the second biggest cause of homicides is domestic violence. Thus this is where you get your correlation of gun ownership and an uptick in gun homicides. So I concede that point.
So - ok - we got some numbers laid out - what LAWS are we going to craft? Are we going to scorch earth and just take them all or almost all but the must basic fire arms? Can we craft laws that focus primarily on the people DOING the actual crimes, who are already skirting laws? Certainly I think we could bolster the NICS system to make sure it is accurate and up to date. Also while domestic abuse charges can get one flagged for NICS, there often isn’t anything DONE to make sure said person still has guns at home even when there is a conviction. (I think charges can even lead to at least temporary removal of firearms, but I think that varies state to state.) I also think follow ups on NICS REJECTIONS is prudent. There are like 80,000 rejections a year. Certainly not everyone rejected should be in jail or investigated, but if one is looking for people tying to own guns who shouldn’t, well, this seems like the list of prime leads from Glengarry Glen Ross.
What other ideas do people have.
Thanks
You are losing me with your math, I haven’t even had my 2nd MT Dew. I can’t understand how you get any where NEAR “So I’m already up to nearly 1% of Americans being killed by guns.”
The number I use, which I take generally HIGHER numbers than the more recent lower numbesr to be fair:
Suicides - 22,000
Homicides - 15,000
Accidents - 800
Those numbers will flux and if you look it up, you will find more recent numbers are lower (at least in homicides and accidents, not sure on suicides).
The estimates for gun owners (or people with access to guns) is based on a Pew survey and I took the lower estimate of 80 million. So for HOMICIDES that is .01875% using their guns for homicides.
I don’t lump suicides in that number, because it is a completely different problem.
It makes since that more of legal X will mean more supply of illegal X. But it makes no sense in BLAMING the makers or user of legal X for the illegal use of X. This goes with guns, drugs, booze, computers, etc.
If we magically removed all guns tomorrow, what weapons would criminals use? Probably knives (which London is getting in the news for, as their murder rate surpassed NYC the other month, with most homicides being stabbing.) So then what - are we just going to be like, “Eh, murder rate is less, but we can’t stop people stabbing each other. That’s silly.” Or are we going to limit knives? Or clubs?
I still disagree, but at least I understand your angle.
The ACLU and the NRA isn’t perfect, but I think both of these are the best rights groups we have for their respective rights. And these groups are a CHECK against the government. Remember, the Bill or Rights isn’t GRANTING rights to the people, it is LIMITING the government from effecting (affecting?) those rights.
This just boggles the mind. As Killer Mike said in an interview, “Don’t call the president a tyrant, and then tell me I shouldn’t have guns.” (mea culpa if I forgot a word, that may be a paraphrase.)
Look, I am not one of those people waiting to fight the government and water the tree of liberty with blood. Though I AM very wary of granting the government powers and authority that can be abused. Hence I am pro crypto, anti back door, wary as fuck about the NSA and domestic spying, etc. But I don’t sincerely think America is a police state per se (that isn’t to say we don’t have problems with policing), nor am I worried (yet) that it will be come a “literally fascist country”.
But if I was. If I was like… 20%ish worried about that, you can be damn sure giving up the prime means of resistance wouldn’t be on the list of things I support. YMMV.
Thank you, though, for your reply.
Of course. From a moral standpoint, no predictably avoidable deaths are acceptable.
The benefits of gun ownership are not morally superior to preventing unnecessary murders and accidents.
Mass gun ownership is a net loss for our society.
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= 37,800 (I was using something more like 33k that I got from googling)
Number of Americans who died last year, all causes 1,989,000
37800 / 1989000 = 0.019
1.9%. That’s how you get the number, by dividing the number of deaths from guns by the number of deaths.
Even for homicides, you are getting 0.01875% per year. If you add up all the causes of death per year you’ll note it comes to a lot less than 100%. Multiply by the number of years in your life to get percentage per lifetime.
Access to guns dramatically increases suicide completion. Gun ownership is heavily correlated with suicide in state-to-state comparisons. I can’t find a simple number, but if gun owners are twice as likely to kill themselves (this is in the right ballpark) then we can attribute half of gun suicides to gun ownership.
It is not a completely different problem. It is the number one problem with having so many guns around.
It makes sense to examine the effects political policies when evaluating a group that advocates for those policies. That’s not the same as blaming individuals.
I don’t know if America is going to descend into fascism or not. I’m a dire pessimist, and I probably overestimate the odds. But if it does, the majority of the people who say they need guns to fight fascist government are going to be in posses rounding up dissidents. They will be tools of the fascists, not enemies of the fascists.
In a poll, roughly half of Republicans believe that Trump won the popular vote in 2016 and would support postponing the 2020 election if Trump said it was necessary to ensure that the election were held fairly. Given the large difference in gun ownership of Republicans vs. non-RepuDo you think gun owners were over- or underrepresented in that group?
I think mass shootings are a very serious problem that need to be addressed because of the emotional impact they have. From an epidemiological point of view they are a blip, 50 deaths here, 13 there in a country where 5500 people die a day. But if we are going to back off to a clinical or statistical perspective and point out that they kill barely a 600th of the Americans that the flu does, we have to look at gun ownership as a whole from that same perspective.
It is a fact that owning a gun is dangerous from that perspective. It is a fact that most of the risk of gun ownership is born by gun owners but some of the risk is born by the people who are around them.
The same is true of driving to and from work every day (maybe half as dangerous than owning a gun) and of smoking (maybe about five times more dangerous than owning a gun). A huge amount of that risk could be mitigated with a cultural change around responsible of gun ownership. But gun ownership in the US is not about responsibility, it’s about rights.
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I will smuggle a bomb with me when I next fly, because a good guy with a bomb can surely stop a bad guy with a bomb. In fact, lets give every passenger on a plane their own bomb!
Oops, I think I usually do 18000 for suicides. I got mixed up. But yes ~330000 is the number I use, though that does flux year to year.
I think you’re right about it accounting for the overall deaths (though this includes suicides, but it is accurate).
I still think the math is off there. You’re saying one’s chance of being Murdered or suicided by a gun is 1%? I don’t think that is accurate. It has been waaaayyy too long since I have taken Calculus or any even algebra, but if that number was accurate one would think it would be headline. Don’t you need to factor in the full population alive during those 70 years? It isn’t the same 300+ million people. You probably have, what, 3x that much of people moving in/out, dying, and being born during that time?
Yes, I conceded that point and agree there is a correlation.
You’re right it is not a completely different problem if ones solution is just “remove the guns”. That tactic one hopes to have a blanket effect. I’ve been assured that isn’t the goal, though. Honestly, it will probably effect suicide numbers greater than crime numbers, as the honest folk not using them for crime will comply.
It IS a completely different solution if ones solution is to craft some other law - licensing, waiting periods, banning certain items, etc. Laws focused on preventing illegal users from acquiring them won’t stop legal users who want to use them to kill themselves.
Man… see if I really believed this was possible right now, I would be burying stuff in the woods for later. Yes they will be tools of the fascists. If I thought that was even a possibility, I would make preparations to insure they weren’t the only ones with those tools.
I have to go do a manager meeting now. Take care.
