It’s not a “new found usage”. It’s just incorrect use of term with a specific definition, in an effort to make an argument sound stronger than it really is. It’s a lot like using “sciencey” terms lends supposed weight to those discussions - even when used wholly inappropriately and not in the sense they are intended.
Here’s what he actually wrote: “For example, a guy kills someone in an armed robbery, and that crime is not listed as homicide but as armed robbery, and other such gerrymandering of the facts in the USA.”
In other words, he wasn’t speaking about anything operating in the same fashion that gerrymandering does (political or not) - which has to do with a specific manipulation of data BEFOREHAND to cause a desired outcome - he just meant the “books get cooked” after the fact, and he was even wrong about that. Crime is actually listed by the FBI as “homicide” in an armed robbery.
I gotta tell ya, you have just become part of the problem.
It sure seems as if the proliferation of guns (and in particular, handguns) is a critical, contributing factor to the regular killing sprees a lot of other western countries don’t seem to suffer from.
But from the argumentation of some here it seems that the massive proliferation of guns (and in particular, handguns) in the States is absolutely not a contributing factor to the regular killing sprees people with guns (and in particular, handguns) perpetrate in the States.
I see examples of murder rates and of comparisons between other, less well developed countries with the States (when did y’all start doing that?); and education of dissenters about the true difficulty of legally acquiring a gun (which isn’t important because a psycho-killer would just get a gun unlawfully anyway).
It appears as if the pro-gun people here are making a far better argument for the removal of the massive proliferation of guns from American society than the pro-gun-removal people.
You are entitled to your opinion, but I’ll draw the line at your putting any words or thoughts into me.
So, instead of saying, “he wasn’t speaking about,” instead say, “I took it to mean.”
What this kind of active self-editing will do for you is reduce the Overt Asshole Factor (OAF) of your posts anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000% After a serious reformulation of your content like that, people might begin to take you seriously.
I think it’s a joke you want to create some sort of fascist-esque scheme to control gun ownership for millions of people who hurt no one. I guess logic and reason go right out the window when it comes to the boogey man of gun violence.
So i guess we should start regulating other dangerous objects which make crime and hurting others easier, even though only a small percentage of people are abusing items in that way?
Again, the causes of gun violence wouldn’t go away even if you magically removed all the guns. If you want to reduce gun violence, one needs too look at the causes and attack them. If gun laws worked we would see them actually doing something when enacted, and we don’t. The same knee jerk reactions is why I have to take my damn shoes off every time I fly.
Meanwhile millions of other lawful users are demonized because people think TV and movies are the only reality when it comes to gun ownership.
I originally made my best effort to stay away from the gun control issue in this instance. I did so because the guns used were legally purchased, registered, and he’d had contact with authorities. In my mind, this shooting was not mainly about gun control (controlling weapons). It was much more so about proactive interviewing prior to gun purchase and how very important it is for people to not dismiss possible mental health crises - whether guns are involved or not. (Three of his six dead victims died from stabbings.)
I truly do support gun control, and I feel I best did that by providing quality links to good information. I gave links to several sites providing data on only multiple shootings either resulting in death or injury. I gave that data to follow up an international comparison of our overall murder rates to other countries - some of which have no/few gun permissions. People still died in places without guns. The difference is that fewer died at one time. What I have found in looking at all the data I’ve searched is that our mass injury/murder counts need to be noticed when one occurs, and our numbers are rising.
I hope that people take the time to visit the links I provided (to Stanford, The Daily Beast, Reddit, and Mother Jones). That’s why I bothered to put them there.
Nope.
I mean what I said.
You actually were using a term that means exactly what I wrote, and you were using it incorrectly.
I’m not self-editing.
It’s why I corrected you in the first place.
Done.
Canadian licensed gun owner as well. RPAL, can buy ‘restricted’ firearms including pistols and AR-pattern rifles. It was fairly easy to get my RPAL, I had to take a 1 day class, pass a background check, and have my family contacted by the RCMP to verify that I’m not a threat. Not terribly difficult. I have not actually bought a restricted, though, as my wife feels uncomfortable with them being in the house. C’est la vie, no cowboy action shooting for me.
Now I don’t have any contact with police in my past, or mental health flags, or any of that, but if the guy was determined not to be a threat once, there’s a good chance he could have passed the RPAL process in Canada. The Dawson College shooter did, after all.
As far as an earlier commenter mentioned about stockpiling ammo, that’s most definitely not tracked in Canada. All you have to do to purchase ammunition is show your PAL. They don’t record anything on it. I know of people who have tens of thousands of rounds saved up. Myself I’ve only got a few thousand (they were cheap!) for plinking and hunting.
The regulations are much stricter in Canada, though they have been loosened recently as well with the abolishment of the long-gun (read: non-restricted) registry. The process does catch a lot of people who should never own firearms in the initial checks, but is blind to anyone who seems fine then comes unhinged, or who is planning something and is even moderately good at hiding it.
Not sure you originally were replying to anyone (you hadn’t named who you were talking about), and I hope you don’t think I was offended in any way. I wasn’t. I was just taking the opportunity to clearly state my position, and list all the sources I had put up above. I also wanted to make clear why I was focusing more on the one topic than the other (mental health over guns).
With these kinds of push-button topics, people often make claims based on emotion and perception of reality - without ever really trying to check the facts. Because I’m good at sourcing information, I try to at least make sure people have good access to some of the data they might not otherwise have seen.
your word choice was pretty pejorative, though i suppose my word choice was equally flip. i’ll write it off to different modes of conversation.
personally, i’m glad we regulate cars, and the restrictions seem pretty sane on that front. i think it should be much, much more difficult to own a gun than a car; where, the reverse is currently true.
i get that you don’t want your gun ownership restricted. at the same time, i would gladly trade your aspects of your gun ownership for a more safe society.
to be clear: i would like to see regulations which cover the quantity and type of guns you own, the amount they cost you to buy and load, the requirements you have to register them, the insurance you’re required to carry, and the ease of use you have to fire them.
i know none of that is fun to contemplate, but would it help? i think the answer is a pretty clear yes.
As if my inability to use psychic powers to determine your schooling history, somehow reflects upon my arguments about gun control? You are impossibly bad at making an argument since you’re now merely attacking me in a vain attempt to save face.
Meh, I, for one, am not impressed.
Wait… so the person I’m driving trollies isn’t impressed? I’M SHOCKED!
Because its not a statement, its a question.
No, it’s a statement that you tried to phrase as a question for supposed snarky cleverness.
We should all aspire to be the peaceful, tolerant paradise known as Israel.
…it has a lower murder rate and death by firearm rate than the US and you’re mocking their security situation? You do understand how debate works right? I’m supposed to say something that proves my point and then you’re supposed to present a counterpoint, not laugh along with me about how right I am.
Vermont
I’ve already said: trying to prove your point by talking about states is useless because the examples aren’t relevant. It’s a nationwide problem.
The level of emotion involved in discussions around gun control, drug control, abortion, etc. are often so high that having a rational, civilized discussion can seem out o reach.
In the United States something around a third or a little more of the adults own guns. And guns are involved in something over 10,000 homicides/year in the U.S. (around 2/3 of all homicides.) For comparison the CDC claims around 88,000 deaths annually due to alcohol abuse]2 or roughly 6 times the total number of homicides. The U.S. did try to ban recreational use of alcohol at one time, with generally disastrous results (my opinion anyway.)
In my opinion understanding and shaping the cultural and personal reasons and situations in which people use and abuse themselves and others is far more productive that focusing on the material implements of that abuse. It probably could go without saying but I’ll point out that polarizing ourselves into camps that either favor a state monopoly on weapons or a free-for-all in which there are no social/state restrictions on weapons possessions, well that polarization is not helpful. Virtually all of the most avid second amendment supports are in favor of some restrictions on gun possession, and I would hope that all of the most ardent supporters of gun control are willing to accept some private ownership of guns. The negotiation of interests among these vies is best carried out with an abundance of calm and careful thought and listening.
The poignancy and trauma of murder involving guns is terrible, and is hugely impactful. The story is so compelling, and touches so many deep feelings.
Discussing these matters in rational, calm manner can be very, very difficult.
You are awesome sir. If the NRA bald-eagle-humping flag-wavers were more like you and @Mister44, they’d have a stronger case for being responsible enough to own a gun… but don’t tell them that because as it stands their craziness is making our case for us.
Teapot, this is the crux of all arguments for or against gun ownership based on crime statistics: there simply isn’t reliable data on this topic and there won’t be. There are no reliable experiments, either observational or interventional, and no way to apply population health experimental design to the problem, given the laws that exist and the willingness of people & lawmakers to actually do something substantial about it. The gun data that we have, though much of it was collected by the FBI, is subject to state and local reporting biases, and extreme bias from its analysts. And that’s just the data. I have not even mentioned the reporting in the media about it, or the issue’s history or cultural background.
The gun issue is forever clouded in the USA. Which is sad, because some additional, intelligent gun control measures would be useful and outright banning of guns would be stupid and suicidal. But there is no way to get there to the rational middle because this issue brings out the absolutely rabid crazies on both sides, especially the 2nd Amendment defenders, all of whom make it their holy mission to distill the argument down to a typo in the serial number of the nails in your chair before listening with an open mind and reasonably budging one-eighth of an inch on their position.
This one issue alone -GUNS- shows plainly how completely crazy our country is. There are other issues, too, but no other issue comes close to how debating about guns turns people into nitpicky, verb-tense-and-word-usage-aware, grammatical über-mavens, topic experts and trained epidemiologists. Not politics, not taxes, not sports, not Ed Snowden, not Obamacare, not gay marriage, not police violence, and not even abortion.GUNS.
Guns are the #1 insanity-producing topic. The way we debate about them stands far and away at the pinnacle of things that show how insane people are in the USA, and this thread is just another minor footnote in a long line of never-ending insane gun debates.
Not sure you originally were replying to anyone (you hadn’t named who you were talking about), and I hope you don’t think I was offended in any way. I wasn’t. I was just taking the opportunity to clearly state my position, and list all the sources I had put up above. I also wanted to make clear why I was focusing more on the one topic than the other (mental health over guns).