US 2nd amendment scorecard

[milliefink]

@zikzak

In short, sometimes nothing is restraining a cop other than concern for his own safety.

I think what you’re missing is an opposite effect – cops getting all scared and trigger-happy and generally overblown with force when they’re worried that someone has a gun.

[zikzak]

I’m not missing it, that’s totally a thing. And on a purely pragmatic level, it’s probably true that removing the various things that make cops feel scared would reduce the amount of times they kill people because they’re scared. I just disagree with that approach to creating a peaceful society.

[Brainspore]

@zikzak

To pick one policy difference and decide that this is the key determining factor is kinda cargo cult-y, and honestly seems like motivated reasoning. For example, I could cite the difference between protection of free speech in the US vs. our “peer nations”, and claim that this is the key factor driving the difference in murders.

But with few exceptions there isn’t really much fundamental difference between our free speech laws and the free speech laws in most peer countries, so that wouldn’t actually make any sense.

[zikzak]

Yeah, here it becomes tagnled: what do we mean by peer nations, how do those criteria themselves expose biases about what we think America is all about, what do we consider salient about free speech and what does that say about our cultural mythology…all really interesting, but probably too much to get into here.

[Wanderfound]

@astazangasta

But its purpose IS to suppress tyranny in a way: the original debates about the second amendment included forbidding a standing army, an instrument of tyrants if ever there was one - see also the little-discussed third amendment, made as a bulwark against the same concentration of authority. We’ve long gone from those days, so we can scarcely imagine that this could be what the amendment is about.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/01/16/founding-fathers-words-reveal-2nd-amendment-was-to-preserve-slavery/

[jerwin]

the classic reference is Carl Bogus.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=360915

[anon50609448]

@zikzak

The common response is an appeal to common sense, which says “Gun used in murder. If no gun, no murder. It just makes sense!” But I think this “common sense” is more of an anti-intellectual slogan, not an inherently obvious truth.

I’m not appealing to common sense, I’m appealing to trends. We know that the US has an extremely high rate of homicide by police. If gun ownership is lowering it then it would have to be the case that it would be even higher were gun ownership levels not so high in the US. I’m comparing two hypotheses:

• American cops are more likely to shoot because they are aware of the likelihood that an American citizen is carrying a gun
• American cops have an unexplained propensity for shooting people that is even worse than it appears in the data but that is somewhat restrained by their fear of citizens with guns

I can’t prove the former hypothesis, but it’s not fair to say that the two have the same amount of explanatory power or align equally well with our general knowledge of how people behave.

@zikzak

All I can speak to on the question of proof is my own experiences, which is that when I see cops decide whether to abuse folks in my neighborhood, they are always performing a calculus of safety.

If your point is that sometimes cops don’t hurt people because they are afraid and my point is that sometimes cops kill people because they are afraid those observations seems entirely consistent. Fear triggers a fight or flight response. People who are in afraid are more likely to retreat and more likely to use violence than people who are not afraid.

[astazangasta]

Cops kill because they can, and claim fear as a defense. As zikzak has already pointed out elsewhere in this thread, Eric Garner was not armed. Freddie Gray was not armed. They died because of police impunity and racism, not a justified fear of police being shot.

[Loudoun_Hillbilly]

This is fascinating. Enjoying a substantive thread here.

[Brainspore]

@astazangasta

Cops kill because they can, and claim fear as a defense.

Two relevant questions:

1. Does genuine fear of getting shot make cops more or less likely to kill people?
2. Is a cop more likely to successfully employ the “I feared for my life” defense in a society where criminals are frequently armed or a society in which they are rarely armed?

(Edited to rephrase)

[Medievalist]

I stand in awe of your clearly and concisely stated, reality-based position.

@astazangasta

I merely suggest that what this country needs, desperately, is to fix its soul-sickness, not just to remove the instruments of our self-harm.

@astazangasta

Continually training our efforts towards narrow, less-meaningful political victories is how we manage to never talk about all of the deep-seated problems in America.

@astazangasta

If disaffected individuals see a world of caring and solidarity, instead of one that treats them as expendable but lies and tells them they are valued, their sickness might be healed. I think this goes deep - it means challenging capitalism, inequality, corruption in government, stagnation, political disenfranchisement, etc. All of this is stuff ordinary people are capable of fighting, and have organized to fight in the past, in times of greater hope.

I’d vote for anyone running on such a platform, and I’m an unrepentant capitalist!

[Mangochin]

Nor does it have one for Tyranies Supported:

Militia Myths: Why Armed Populations Don’t Prevent Tyranny, But Often Lead To It

[Mangochin]

Cops being afraid of being shot has made them more likely to kill people. It has led to overmilitarization of their equipment, tactics and a trigger happy attitude. Too many guns on the streets, the NRA opposes any measure which could help stem illegal firearms commerce.

One has to bear in mind “2nd Amendment pundits” don’t really believe people of color have a right to bear arms openly in public like rednecks.

The Second Amendment was never meant for black people

[Mangochin]

Actually widespread gun ownership both legal and otherwise has enabled police abuse. It has created a climate of fear which leads to the rash of unarmed people killed by police.

[anon50609448]

If we separate homicides by police into two groups:

1. Police who were genuinely afraid
2. Police who use fear as an excuse after the fact

In the case of (1) @brainspore has it: Are fearful people more or less likely to be violent?
In the case of (2), I think the question is: Are they more likely to get away with killing people when they can reasonably say that their target may have had a gun?

I think in both cases more guns in the public encourages the killing: either by triggering a fight/flight response that goes to fight or by giving a willful killer more reason to believe they’ll get away with it.

I agree with your general sentiment in the thread: there is a problem that goes a lot deeper than people having guns. Police are trained to think of themselves as being at war with the public. At the same time, that kind of police training infected Canada as well, but we don’t see nearly the rate of police homicides here.

Problems like this are always multi-dimensional, and they are always self-reinforcing. Right now there is a generation of young people in the US who know exactly how little their government cares about their lives and they are saying, “You can show us that you give a shit about whether we live or die by banning some guns.” Because of NRA lobbying and the perception that politicians are bought by the NRA, guns are a symbol of government corruption and willingness to ban them is a symbol of willingness to take on corruption. Because of the second amendment, guns are a symbol of individualism run amok - of a society where people aren’t willing to lift a finger to save another person’s life.

I think taking a concrete step to demonstrate to the youngest generation of Americans that their parents and grandparents care if they live or die is itself a step towards healing the soul-sickness of America. I think that making NRA lobbying politically toxic is a step towards healing the soul-sickness of America. I think that saying, “We need to balance individual rights against the public good” would be a step towards healing the soul-sickness of America.