So we should “fix” compulsiveness and aggression - characteristics that serve(d) an evolutionary role and can arguably never be deprogrammed - instead of controlling an object that can turn a dangerous, compulsive, aggressive person into a very dangerous, compulsive person with the means of delivering on their aggression?
Seems like a desperate attempt to hold onto your guns in the face of overwhelming evidence that controlling them would lead to a safer society.
Definitely! If poor thinking can’t be helped, not much else is going to ever matter.
If it seems like that, then this is because it’s what you want it to be about. This isn’t about controlling objects, it’s really about controlling people. This has never made a safer society, and I have no reason to suspect that it will suddenly begin doing so. But making people who can control themselves will.
[quote=“teapot, post:22, topic:53907”]
Your suggestion to just ignore the really murdery parts of America (good, peaceful people live in these places too - do they just deserve it according to your narrative?) also completely ignores that America’s love of guns and locking people up is precisely the reason these places are so murdery now.[/quote]
I didn’t say to ignore it. I said just the opposite, figure out the cause of violent crime and work to combat it.
People seem to think that places like Canada are more reasonable and sensible. My point was most of America reflects the same gun crime rates. There are certain areas that throw the curve way off. I think addressing the worst areas is going to do the most good.
I am not a criminologist, but personally I think decriminalizing drugs and making some if not all of them legal will go a long way. The NFA act of 34 was a direct result of the increased violence from alcohol prohibition. Make alcohol legal again and the motivations to kill other people to keep control of territory, money, and illicit goods drops dramatically.
All the deaths in places like Chicago aren’t crimes of passion or moody loners. It’s “business”. Remove the business and one’s motivation for putting your self at risk for death is going to decrease.
Well, that’s as convienient excuse for never doing anything as I’ve ever heard.
“Theft will always happen, so we might as well make it legal until all people everyone just people spontaneously decide to stop doing it, at which point there’d no longer be a need to make it illegal anyway.”
“Rape will always happen, so we might as well make it legal until all people everyone just people spontaneously decide to stop doing it, at which point there’d no longer be a need to make it illegal anyway.”
“Murders will always happen, so we might as well make it legal until all people everyone just people spontaneously decide to stop doing it, at which point there’d no longer be a need to make it illegal anyway.”
It’s called “personal responsibility”.
Yes you need to control your damn self. That is how society functions. You can’t and shouldn’t bubble wrap the world because some fool can’t control themselves. That is part of living in a free society.
Looks like another Michael Bloomberg-funded scam. This has about as much validity as the fake “abortion advice clinics” set up by anti-abortion religious groups.
Even if the history of those guns was true, and I’m betting it was all made-up stories, it’s a prime example of cherry-picking your data - a hundred guns with a “history” out of 300 million guns in the country, and we’re supposed to believe it “proves” that guns are more likely to harm you than make you safer? (That claim came from a decades-old and heavily-debunked study run by an anti-gun researcher who also cherry-picked his data, studying only cases where somebody was killed in the home by a firearm, and ignoring all non-fatal cases and all cases where the presence of a firearm stopped or prevented an assault in the home.)
… aaaand another closet randian anarchist pops out of the woodwork.
What I like about this video, though, is that it questions why it’s okay to think it’s normal to even have guns.
I grew up in the country. Lots of the kids I went to school with shot gophers with rifles. I’ve eaten moose meat chili made from an animal my friend’s dad shot himself. That kind of gun usage I can get.
Keeping a pistol locked in a safe in my bedroom under the belief that I’ll get to it before a home invader finds me – that I don’t get. The prep, risk, and successful completion of task rates don’t match up. Even if I were fully awake and didn’t fumble the combination, my apartment is small enough I’d only have about two seconds’ lead time. I can’t imagine a house increasing that to much more than five seconds. The alternative is to have the gun loaded and handy at all times, which add the video shows isn’t exactly responsible.
Admittedly, I’m in Canada, and the only time I’ve actually seen a gun in real life and not on a screen has been in visits to the States.
Speaking of cherry picking … those hundred guns must be very very busy, given the 100,000 deaths and who-knows-how-many injuries in just the last three years.
a “Catch .22” if you will…
Maybe don’t use Canada so readily as a comparison. Rightly or wrongly, we blame a big chunk of our gun crimes on the lax laws in the States making guns more available.
I guarantee you it’s not just me that sees it that way and it’s interesting that you’ve also now ventured into suggesting that somehow my warped view is what makes it seems this way, despite the fact that the OP is a video that is essentially making the same argument as I am.
This isn’t about controlling objects, it’s really about controlling people.
If history teaches any lesson it’s that people are very difficult or impossible to control while objects are significantly easier to control.
Then you misread my statement, because not doing anything is not what I stated the objective to be. Saying that solutions outside of your framing of the situation are excusing it might instead indicate that you are unwilling to frame a very real problem in different terms.
Surprised nobody brought up the Swiss yet.
Lots of guns, not a lot of gun violence. Low poverty rates, socialized medicine for the mentally ill, no handguns allowed, strict gun laws, compulsory military service… All major factors.
While comparing apples and oranges to a certain extent, I think we could learn some lessons from how they handled the issue.
If you were presented with irrefutable evidence that properly controlling gun ownership would reduce the violent crime rate would you chance your mind? I very seriously doubt so, because there’s a highly financed lobby that constantly works to muddy the waters and bring disrepute to studies and researchers that say as much and people are inclined to place more confidence in information that confirms their previously-held beliefs (plus you clearly don’t think you’re part of the problem despite statistical evidence to the contrary). NRA people say the kinds of things you’re saying because you know that reaching a consensus on matters like this is next to impossible.
There evidence for AGW is supported by 99% of climate scientists yet the idiotic debate about it in mainstream society rages on. I’ll admit that the evidence for AGW is far stronger than that for the positive impact of firearm control on violent crime rate, but this “let’s research it and figure it out” line of argument is fucking dishonest since you know it’s just a time-waster and since many studies on the matter have found that firearm ownership leads to higher risks for the owner and those around them.
I am not a criminologist
You wouldn’t know it, considering the confidence with which you say this:
All the deaths in places like Chicago aren’t crimes of passion or moody loners. It’s “business”.
You might be making this into something more personal than I intended. My point was only that I think this isn’t a productive approach. That I think it misses the larger point needn’t be seen as a reflection of the OP, you, me, or anybody else.
The deception is that objects don’t need control, because they have no will or action of their own. What appears to be political control of objects is always essentially control of people which is obfuscated. I agree that people are ultimately difficult or impossible to control - but this doesn’t stop a lot of misery caused by attempting to do so. Most of government, media, and commerce are dedicated towards achieving this, in some sense. People resist a culture based upon self-control because it renders most of the current structures obsolete, and control is big business. Use of guns controls people one way, taking them away controls them another way.
My point was only that I think this isn’t a productive approach.
…yet you admit that people are difficult/impossible to control, while ignoring the fact that strict gun ownership laws seem to work well for and have been implemented in most of the rest of the world.
This is not a philosophy class. We are talking about people losing their lives because a group of people like shooting shit and the false sense of security these people get from guns. It’s not a time to wax philosophical about society, it’s time to deal with the laughable loophole-ridden excuse for gun laws in America.
How exactly am I an anarchist?
I am not saying there should be know laws, but you can certainly have too many laws. If you’re in the UK I am sure you can think of some examples.
My brother-in-law has what I can only describe as an arsenal. All legal, all kept in a safe, he’s appropriately trained, etc. He won’t even VISIT states that won’t allow him to carry. He basically said anything he can legally obtain he will, because it’s his constitutional right. At least he is responsible, but that line of thinking doesn’t make sense to me. He’s got other rights too - why not join a cult, start a newspaper with crazy stuff, or stand on a streetcorner saying outlandish things?
No, you just trotted out a tired and favoured talking point of the pro-gun lobby. The makers of the video don’t actually want people to watch that video: it’s the bait. The makers of that video want to get people to discuss this issue and hopefully look at the statistics on their site that do convey the point they’re making which is, since you clearly missed it, “You assume guns make you safer, yet statistics say the opposite”.
that seems to support the view that users of a particular technology are inherently evil, and apparently want children to be endangered, and that we should allow a privileged class to have a monopoly on power.
…If you could just point me to where this is being said we can continue this argument.
Hackers & Makers are not all criminals or terrorists
I remember when that makerbot went crazy and murdered a bunch of people because reasons, don’t you?
“For the children!” is not a valid justification to persecute adults who behave in a reasoned manner
Is “for the humans” OK?
just because others are made “uncomfortable”
“Just because others are made dead” changes the proposition of the bet a little, don’t you think?
^These are not comparable subjects, irrespective of your desire for them to be so.
PS: A video is not a person. My original point about sheds seems to stand.
