This thread isn’t about people legitimately taking advantage of open carry laws.
That’s what MikeTheBard indicated with his analogy. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I was asking him what he meant by it. Why don’t you let him answer for himself.
And to respond to you, what exactly was intimidating about their open carry? Did they use too aggressive a sling? Or perhaps it was their actions, not their carry that was intimidating.
I stand corrected. Nonetheless, I suspect the changes to reporting have more to do with the rise in reported assaults than the ban on handguns.
As the snopes article points out about Australia, almost no English or Welsh citizens owned firearms in the first place so it wouldn’t seem to make much sense to attribute a rise in assault to a ban that affected almost no one.
Oh, I agree with you. Just an inopportune coincidence.
Actually, I think that was 1997, anyway. I know it royally buggered my university shooting club…
Well, if I hold a knife to your throat I suppose you could argue that it is my actions and not the knife that is threatening. Nonetheless, if I left the knife at home and merely pantomimed holding a knife to your throat I suspect that would not be nearly so threatening.
So yeah, I do think these little open carry parties where gun control opponents bring their guns and gather around gun control advocates is an example of using open carry laws to intimidate political opponents. The counterprotest wouldn’t be quite as threatening without lethal weapons involved just like miming a knife at your throat would be more likely to elicit chuckles than fear.
Nice. Quote a Snopes article about ONE YEAR into their banning experiment. I obtained data from the Australian Government’s web site, used Google for estimates of the Australian population, and cranked the numbers myself.
Snopes is right in that you cannot directly do a cause-effect relationship. However, if the point of gun control was to make people safer, it is safe to say that it failed miserably in Australia.
Your second link does indeed support my claim that, while murder went down a little, violent crime went up a LOT. All of the talk about how unreliable those numbers are does not change the fact that the reported numbers is all that anybody can talk about. Just because the data is not perfect, we should ignore it (especially if it does not support our pet theory)? Using the same logic, we can say that climate change does not exist because the data is not perfect.
By the way, I wanted to run the number for the UK in the same manner as I did for Australia. However, they DID change the way that crimes were reported. On a web site run by the UK government, they stated, that the standards changed, so it was useless to try to compare before and after numbers. I spend an hour or two trying to make the categories match (FYI: huge, painful spreadsheet to go through), and gave up.
However, that graph does indeed show violence in America going down while that of Australia going up.
Thanks for posting things that support my argument.
Assault is the most common form of violent crime; rates of recorded assault have been increasing steadily over the past 10 or more years. Between 1995 and 2006, the rate of recorded assault rose significantly from 562.8 to 829.4 per 100,000 people (Kendall’s tau = 0.88, p<0.05), an=“” increase=“” of=“” 47=“” percent=“”>Figure 2). Other research suggests this increase is not a recent phenomenon, but started to rise in the 1970s (Chappell 1995).
You’re attributing a slow rise starting in the 70’s to an event that happened in the late 90’s. Doesn’t really support your argument.
And again, as the Snopes article (correctly) points out, attributing a rise in violent crime to a gun ban that affected nearly no one in the entire country doesn’t make a lot of sense.
And:
Results from victimisation surveys produce a less conclusive picture. Overall rates of assault did not increase significantly over the four survey years of the CSS, nor was a consistent pattern observed from the ICVS (4.4% in 1992; 6.4% in 2000 and 4.7% in 2004). When considering gender, the CSS suggests a an increase in the experience of assault among men and women but neither were statistically significant.
Around one-third of people who experience an assault report the incident to police (ABS 2006a). Reporting rates for assault have increased - 31 percent in 2005, up from 28 percent in 1998 (CSS). Reporting rates increased for males (26% to 29%) and females (30% to 34%), and were higher for females in two of the three reference years (1998 and 2005). The PSS did not detect gender-based differences in reporting rates - 33 percent for both males and females.
Okay, what the hell- I’ll bite.
The Westboro Baptists have every right to follow their religion, to speak out against whatever they believe to be wrong with our country, and to protest openly wherever they feel called to. They choose to do so in a manner that the average person finds extremely offensive, and are either oblivious to that fact, or are deliberately trying to be offensive.
Now, I need to digress here to explain exactly what I mean- Because there’s offensive, and there’s offensive. Or to put it more clearly:
OFFENSIVE:
We actually have laws which distinguish between these two definitions- “fighting words”, “provocation”, “menacing”, and “slander”.
I can say anything I want about your political views, your religion, your lifestyle choices, but when I cross certain lines- If you feel legitimately threatened by what I say, or if my words or context are deliberately chosen to provoke you, or if I don’t care that my words are likely to provoke you- Then we move into the area where you begin to be justified in retalliation, and the law is less likely to protect me.
For example, if I walk up to you and say, “I really don’t like your mother- She smells bad and seems kind of bitchy”. You have a right to be offended- But that is all. If you don’t like my opinion, your only legal recourse in in telling me what an awful person I am.
If, however, I show up at your mother’s funeral and loudly declare “Yeah, she was a fucking c–t who probably liked getting assfucked in a Tijuana donkey show”, then, to be perfectly honest, you would be both morally and very likely legally justified in beating me to a bloody pulp then and there.
I’m sure your mother is a very nice lady, and I’m sorry to bring her into that example. My apologies.
Anyway, the point was that all three of those groups, WBC, Stormfront, NAMBLA, deliberately toe that line. They use their protected speech to either deliberately or negligently hurt people.
This is grossly irresponsible.
Open Carry Texas has a right to keep and bear firearms. That is not being disputed, and as previously stated, I will defend their right to do so.
However, they are not keeping their firearms safely locked up. They are not driving out to the game preserve with a couple rifles on a rack in the back window. They are not keeping a small handgun under their coat for self-defense.
They are displaying their guns in a way that is scaring the fuck out of people, either in a blatant attempt to do so, or in absolute negligent denial that the objects they are waving around are designed to be lethal weapons.
And in doing so, they are coming very close, I would say crossing the line into, what’s called “brandishing”. Brandishing, depending on the local laws, is the point where you’re not just holding a weapon, but you appear to be about to use it. It’s the point where someone else may be morally and legally justified in using lethal force against you first.
This is also grossly irresponsible.
So, in summation, the similarity is that all of these groups, while perfectly within their legal rights, use words and actions to hurt, frighten, intimidate, or provoke people- either deliberately, or out of ignorance.
Or, if you’d like the extremely abreviated version, I give you the dramatized words of Larry Flynt:
“If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, it will protect all of you.”
Assholes who use their rights irresponsibly aren’t the defenders of freedom- They are the price we pay for having freedom.
This image has the literal and figurative wrapped around each other so tightly that it’s like some kind of nitrated-plasticine stop-action Wallace-and-Gromit bomb of troof.
Guns are also an extremely effective and simple means of defending yourself against a criminal who wants to do you harm. Since, in general, honest citizens vastly outnumber criminals, and since criminals will not obey the laws anyways, putting additional restrictions on the honest gun owners helps approximately nobody.
And, yes, the world is also full of idiots. I would support mandatory safety training prior to purchasing your first firearm.
You are going under the assumption what what we have is not reasonable. Using that metric, you could pass anything that you wanted and just call it “reasonable” and be done with it. So, using the same logic, keeping us safe by spying on every phone call or e-mail is also “reasonable,” just as it is “reasonable” to allow Netflix to pay Comcast since they are using the most bandwidth. Firearm ownership already has FAR more restrictions on it than any other right. Is that “reasonable?”
It DOES support my argument that banning guns completely failed to reduce the crime rate. I am not saying that banning guns == increasing violent crime. What I am saying is that it has been PROVEN that banning guns != lowering violent crime.
So, if the law affected “nearly no one” then why do it? Was it just a “feel-good” type of law? Clearly, it was passed because the people who drafted it had a result in mind.
So, the rate of REPORTED violence definitely went up, but GUESTIMATES for the REAL amount of violent crime may or may not have gone up. Wow, I feel safer already. Note that during the same period, reported violence in the USA definitely went down (from a graph in one of the links that you shared). Which group would you rather be in: the “may or may not have gotten worse” group or the “definitely got better” group?
So, once again, because the numbers to not support your position, we should throw them out, even though they are the best numbers that we have. Nice.
Emphasis added to demonstrate the contradiction here.
Also, guns are an effective way to defend yourself against a criminal exactly because they are an effective means of killing a human being. In context, someone asked why guns represent a legitimate public safety concern. I answered the question. Pointing out that something that is a legitimate public safety concern could also be used constructively isn’t really an argument against this point. Nuclear reactors are great for generating electricity but that doesn’t imply their use shouldn’t be heavily regulated.
Since most gun control opponents don’t seem to think what we have is reasonable I’m really surprised you’re arguing with me on this point.
My position is that we have a terrible patchwork of legislation that is largely ineffective at its stated purpose inconveniencing gun owners without having any significant impact on gun crime. This seems to be consistent with the opinion of most gun owners I talk to.
Where I seem to differ is that I think there is some possible set of legislation that could be simultaneously less onerous to gun owners while also being more effective at reducing gun crimes and suicides. I’d be really excited if more of these responsible gun owners would consider this possibility and join the discussion under those premises but instead almost everyone who chimes in is opposed to any sort of change whatsoever to gun laws.
Uh, no you have to make a bunch more assumptions about my intent (that should be belied by the forgoing) to make that follow.
First of all, not strictly true. There are many jurisdictions where firearm ownership is not heavily restricted. And second of all, it is reasonable because I can’t kill anyone by expressing an opinion about the government or refusing to testify against myself in a trial.
That law was passed because one man with legally held weapons murdered sixteen children and their teacher and they wanted to make it less likely to happen again.
Same as the ban on semi-automatic weapons following the Hungerford massacre.
It did seem to lower the rate of homicides. I’d trade getting my ass kicked for getting killed any day. You wouldn’t?
It was a gun ban accompanied by a gun buy-back with the intent of lowering the total amount of firearms in circulation in Australia. Presumably, over time this could also decrease the amount of illegally owned firearms in Australia. I would suspect that was the result those drafted it had in mind.
Did it go down in the USA because of guns? Please share the basis for the inference that the rate of assault in the USA has declined as a result of gun ownership.
Umm, I was the one who brought the numbers into the conversation in the first place – and you thanked me for it. That I also stated legitimate reasons to be skeptical of those numbers is simply healthy skepticism. I’m not throwing the numbers out, I’m trying to put them into context.
If the report rate has gone up that will be reflected in the rate of violent crime. That should be taken into account when comparing crime rates in the past to current crime rates. If you deny this then I’ll just turn your accusations of bias right around on you.
aa[quote=“wysinwyg, post:139, topic:31452”]
Implying that mine is? I can back up my point by repeating any number of fallacious or hyperbolic arguments from gun control opponents. I’m not doing that specifically because focusing only on the weakest arguments against one’s position is not particularly intellectually honest. Which was the whole point of the comment to which you are replying.[/quote]
I would be interested in hearing the fallacious arguments from gun control opponents who are in charge of legislation; I am not talking about hyperbole. I am specifically expressing frustration around that mistatements and falsehoods from those in charge of making such proposals w/r/t the prosoals themselves, not the population of advocates and opinionators in general.
aa[quote=“wysinwyg, post:139, topic:31452”]
No, I’m legitimately engaging in a discussion with you. People have got to stop baselessly accusing others of “driving trollies” just for disagreeing.
My reasoning may be incorrect in some respect (at least in your opinion); that does not automatically mean I’m “driving trollies” you.[/quote]
Using an extremist and inflammatory example that doesn’t generally exist (gun owners who are only interested in murder) as a comparison to an actual relevant situation (legislators who would like to ban all civilian gun ownership) is so far off base that if it isn’t driving trollies please let me know what it is (I’m not an expert on the logical fallacies chart). I really don’t feel like that is discussion.
re: the public safety aspect:
That they are an extremely effective means of self protection and should be readily obtained even by people who are not terribly wealthy or educated. (I’m sure we believe the weighting of these opposing statements is different). I don’t think the issue is unacknowledged at all, but people in the progun camp feel that the public sfety issue is more than balanced by other benefits.
aa[quote=“wysinwyg, post:139, topic:31452”]
I certainly don’t hear many of these “responsible gun owners” that are always being contrasted with the likes of OCT admitting that there is, somewhere in the universe of possibility, a discrete set of reasonable regulations on owning and using firearms and advocating for that regime to be implemented in place of what we have.
What is this point I am supposedly missing? It helps to be specific.
[/quote]
If you really feel that OTC is driving the national conversation I can’t argue with that. But regarding the “responsible gun owners” - you don’t hear all of them bleating about the regime which already exists and is not effective? They are right in front of you, you just don’t agree with the improvements they would propose (status quo or gun control rollback).
Yet in the two hundred and fifty-ish years of this country, the biggest advances in curtailing police abuse haven’t come from citizen militias. The advances haven’t come from standoffs and the resulting massacres. Advances in civil society have come from handheld movie and video cameras.
The idea that guns are a functional deterrent to authoritarian violence is compelling in theory, but it’s a weak child compared to the actual effect of cellphones and LiveLeak in practice. Think back to the civil rights era: what was more effective to the cause of civil rights, scary black militias or TV news reports featuring handheld movie footage of dogs and firehoses being used on peaceful protesters?
I appreciate that the idea of firearm-enabled deterrence is compelling. I just can’t support it because in practice it doesn’t work worth a damn and there are much better ways to achieve actual advances.
What’s a bigger deterrent for bad behavior among cops, the possibility that any random person could shoot the cop while they’re doing their job, or the possibility that their actions could be recorded and posted online. Physical threats aimed at cops just escalates the hardware and training and self-righteous “rules of engagement” they use. Sound and video is something they can’t escalate against: “Oh, you’re recording us? Well, we’ll just record you LOUDER!”
Guns escalate violence. Guns escalate feelings of persecution and promote confrontational asshattery. Guns are also really good at creating a bloodbath when the tipping point is reached, whether in a group (like a SWAT team or militia) or in an individual (random “lone wolf” nutbag).
Recording cops (either citizens recording cops or cops recording their own activities) does the opposite. Recording cops de-escalates. Recording racist, gun-wielding wannabee-thug militias exposes them and drives them into a butthurt rage but is more likely to result in de-escalation than would a gun-wielding response. In all cases, more guns is the wrong tactic, and defending the ideal of more-guns-everywhere is just stupid.
Look up “driving trollies”. I can be wrong without “driving trollies” you. If you can’t disagree with someone without accusing them of “driving trollies” then maybe you should step back from the internet for a awhile.
I rarely if ever see the situation framed in these terms by gun control opponents.
I do. As I’ve already stated, I agree with them that the status quo is broken. However, I don’t think simply “rolling back” gun control laws is the answer either – I think replacing them with a more sensible set of laws would be better. As far as I can tell, very few gun control opponents are interested in discussing what a sensible set of replacement laws would look like. For the most part they seem to want no laws about it at all.
Which is a shame because, as so many of y’all like to point out, you’re in a much better position to know what sensible and effective gun control laws would look like than the majority of people favoring such laws.
The problem is that the restrictions which are in place are, by and large, ridiculous. What we need are restrictions that have some basis in reality.
Making one gun illegal and one lawful when they have the same ammunition, range, capacity, and rate of fire? Outlawing large clips or silencers that I can make with $20 worth of parts from Home Depot and an hour in the garage? Background checks if you buy in a store but not at a show? All of these things are glaringly stupid.
Checking to make sure someone isn’t a violent criminal? Making sure that gun owners know how to handle and store their weapons properly? Keeping NBC WMDs out of civilian hands? Those, I can get behind.
Let’s scrap all the stupid regulations and start making an actual effort with the ones that work and make sense: A national licensing program. Widespread training. Improved mental health care. End the god damned war on drugs.
So, to prevent a few deaths, we should restrict the rights of EVERYBODY. So, using the same logic, the 4th amendment should go. Let the cops pull people over for hunches. Make pulling over somebody for “driving while black” OK. I bet that we could save a LOT more lives. Yet, is it the right thing to do?
What it boils down to is “how much liberty are you willing to give up to be safe?” Is snooping on all phone calls and all e-mails OK if it saves the lives of 1000 people? How about 100 people? How about 10? Where do you draw the line?
This is exactly the same sort of thing.[quote=“wysinwyg, post:151, topic:31452”]
Emphasis added to demonstrate the contradiction here.
Also, guns are an effective way to defend yourself against a criminal exactly because they are an effective means of killing a human being. In context, someone asked why guns represent a legitimate public safety concern. I answered the question. Pointing out that something that is a legitimate public safety concern could also be used constructively isn’t really an argument against this point. Nuclear reactors are great for generating electricity but that doesn’t imply their use shouldn’t be heavily regulated.
Since most gun control opponents don’t seem to think what we have is reasonable I’m really surprised you’re arguing with me on this point.
My position is that we have a terrible patchwork of legislation that is largely ineffective at its stated purpose inconveniencing gun owners without having any significant impact on gun crime. This seems to be consistent with the opinion of most gun owners I talk to.
[/quote]
I do agree about the “patchwork” thing. Something completely legal in Georgia will get you thrown in jail in Illinois, even if absolutely nobody got hurt and there was no victim.
Now, what laws could we have that actually WOULD make a difference. Statistically speaking, only about 2% of all gun homicides use a long-gun (rifle of any kind). Mass shootings are a statistical aberration (more likely to be struck by lightning that be in a mass shooting). Does it make sense to restrict all gun owners to reduce something which is already extremely unlikely to begin with?
How would you prevent suicides? Really? What if gun suicides dropped? Should we then ban sleeping pills and alcohol? You cannot protect people from themselves, and it is foolish to try.
Now, if a law COULD be crafted that would simultaneously reduce crime and yet not be an unreasonable burden on honest people, I would definitely be interested. However, I cannot honestly think what such laws would look like. And if such a law did exist and was NOT a burden on honest people, a lot of liberal politicians in places like Chicago would scream that it would put too many guns on the street.
Having a “universal” background check MIGHT be possible, but only if it were truly instant and free, and could be done on-line in 5 minutes or less. Also, exceptions need to be made for relatives and people that you have known for over 5 years. And yet would this really stop anything? People who are true criminals do not care if they get a gun illegally.
Another hot button is mental health, which has its own set of problems. How “crazy” do you have to be before your rights are taken away? Committed? Taking any sort of anti-depressants? How many opinions are needed to take away somebody’s rights? One person who may have an agenda? A board of psychiatrists and psychologists? Should a judge be involved? And if passed, a person who already HAS guns might be reluctant to even seek any sort of mental health for fear of loosing his rights? What about a woman who is in fear of her ex-husband (whom she has a restraining order against). Should she be allowed to have a gun? What if she sought help for depression 30 years ago? 20 years? 10 years? 10 months? Yesterday?
Everybody agrees that “nuts” should not have guns. The devil is in the details. How much proof do you need that a person is a “nut?” Should the person be able to regain their rights? If so, how do you do it? Will the passing of laws like this make people less likely to seek mental health help if they need it?
Not true. Federal law applies EVERYWHERE. There is a strong legal difference between a long arm (rifle) and a handgun. Back in WW2, they used to issue shoulder stocks to some officers that would attach to their 1911 pistol. If you tried that today, you would wind up with a “short-barreled rifle” which will get you a vacation in Club Fed. Does that make sense? Will putting a long shoulder stock on a handgun somehow make it more dangerous? Since handguns are more restricted, turning a handgun into a rifle should make it LESS dangerous, yet the law still stands.
How about making it hard (if not impossible in some areas) to get a noise suppressor (often incorrectly called a “silencer”) I have heard that in some places (such as New Zeland), you are considered a jerk if you go hunting WITHOUT a suppressor – keeping your noise down is just considered polite. Also, listening for rabbits to shoot at in the woods is much easier if you are not wearing hearing protection (personal experience on this one). Yet the Federal government makes you jump through a LOT of hoops to get one, as well as a $200 tax. Sorry, but in a shooting, it is the bullets that get you, not the sound.
So, that is why criminals, in general, try to avoid bothering people who are known or suspected to have firearms. I have read interviews with prison inmates where they have an acute fear of going against a citizen with a shotgun.
Sorry, but there are countless instances where an honest citizen simple shows a firearm and prevents a confrontation with a criminal. In fact, if nothing really happens except for a bad guy running away, the incident is often not even reported to the police, since there is nothing to report. Because of this, exact figures are hard to come by. but estimates are in the tens of thousands of times per year
Quick quote from Google:
The data that does exist varies widely. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics
numbers, each year between 1987 and 1992 about 62,200 victims of
violent crimes used guns to defend themselves, while another 20,000
annually used guns to protect property. According to the National
Self-Defense Survey conducted by criminology professor Gary Kleck of Florida State University in 1993, Americans used guns 2.3 million times a year to defend themselves between 1988 and 1993.
Nice of you to make up imaginary facts to support your position. I give you an “A” for effort.
I think you’ve quoted me as saying things I didn’t say in a couple of places there (maybe it was wysinwig?)…copy/pasting?
As far as the bit about the UK Firearms Law that was passed in the wake of the Dunblane Massacre, you asked why it was passed (at least, I thought you did, although now it occurs to me that you may have been asking about the Australian law anyway).
Certainly there was a lot of resistance (and as I mention above, I was in my university shooting club when it was passed, so I certainly wasn’t especially happy at the time) - but I think the reason you could pass that law in the UK is because almost nobody had handguns anyway - basically target shooting hobbyists only. The impact on the general population was basically zero. I guess the decision was that the benefits in terms of preventing/restricting future events outweighed the effective banning of a sport.
I guess that’s the thing about the UK and guns as compared to the US; they aren’t part of the culture and the occasions when someone goes nuts with them are so rare (once every 10 years or so - Hungerford 1987, Dunblane 1996, Cumbria 2010) that people are much happier to accept gun control legislation; the events are shocking and the subsequent restrictions are on freedoms that almost nobody uses.
