Sometimes; not always.
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I would be happy to look at any data you wish to provide. One of the big issues that I have noticed that makes it difficult to compile good data is that the defensive use of a gun where it is not fired is hard to count. It is hard to quantify crimes prevented. And of course it is such a partisan issue. Most people are strongly on one side or the other of the issue, so objectivity becomes a rare and precious thing.
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I find the gun debate as baffling as most people, but the idea that Silicon Valley would, could or should somehow âfix itâ is a whole other order of wtf.
Guns are, fundamentally, remote controls that you can use to switch off other people. Itâs one of the clearest and simplest design briefs a product could have. The only way to make a gun better is to make it better at killing, or to make it do fewer unwanted things (like exploding or being hard to carry). So, if you think civilian guns are too dangerous now, the only thing to hope for from Silicon Valley is that it doesnât start âdisruptingâ that market.
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Are they though? Isnât it possible that many or even most people avoid the topic altogether because of the perception that everyone will be strongly on one side or the other? And if that is so, then doesnât that allow the partisans that manifestly make up most of the discussion that does occur publicly to effectively shut down non-partisan conversation? In general, I wonder if most Americans simply assume the United States is so thoroughly polarized that all calm discussion is futile. Mind you, if my hypothesis is correct, I donât think most of the partisans create that perception on purpose. Rather I think they too believe most people are as partisan as they are and theyâre the only ones willing to discuss those topics.
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Thatâs what you gleaned from that long and thoughtful post?
BTW, itâs basis, not bases, unless youâre talking about baseball.
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Mostly to better ignore it.
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When people focus on captious objections, I find it best just to either give a brief reply or none and focus attention back on the salient points. I donât let it bother me. I figure when people get riled, as this topic is prone to do, the irrelevant details annoy them more and they get distracted. Of course I could be wrong, @Ulysses might be intentionally trying to goad me, but I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt and, in any event, if he is trying to, the futility of that effort is its own solution.
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Thanks for the compliments, and criticism. I love this place, seriously.
My comment wasnât meant to be particularly emotionally charged â more snarky than anything. Was it a broad generalization of the culture in Silicon Valley and resorting to jokes based on stereotypes? Sure. Was there some projection there? Yeah, probably. I grew up in the Bay Area, and spent much of my early career working in Silicon Valley as a young, self-entitled, armchair libertarian (Iâm reformed now). In my experience, a of the people I have worked with in the tech sector seem to fit into that mold.
Iâve said in the past on BB that I like and enjoy firearms, but I also am deeply disturbed by Americaâs gun culture and would welcome more legislation to control access to firearms and/or ammo. I donât think these two things (being a firearm enthusiast and wanting tighter controls) need to be mutually exclusive. This approach seems to work perfectly well in other countries.
I agree with many of your points, though. Both sides are so charged that it doesnât seem like anybody can ever meet a common ground between responsible firearm ownership and âOMG THE GUBMINT IS TAKING R GUNZZ!!â. I also agree that this is not a problem that can be solved through technology.
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As do I. Teenage girlhood doesnât have any bearing on it. Iâve started sentences with âumâ when presenting my research to the senior management of multi-billion dollar corporations dozens of times⌠and they are still my clients. Because it is a useful word.
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Your comment about Silicon Valley didnât strike me as an egregious slight, and I got the bit of snark. I only meant to point it out as an example of how thinking of people as a group can lead to oversimplification. I certainly didnât mean to call you out specifically. Sagan knows Iâve been guilty of a bit of stereotyping and deployed snark myself often enough.
And of course stereotypes donât come out of nowhere. Theyâre just one facet of multifaceted people that wonât apply to all of them. I worked in SoCal for a few years and Iâve traveled enough to the Bay Area on business over two decades to get what you mean. I never really considered myself a libertarian, but I held some left-leaning libertarian views. Theyâre fewer now as Iâve become a bit more statist and seen more roles where regulation can ultimately lead to more liberty for more people. The selfish brand that seems to run through a lot of libertarianism never really spoke to me. It always seemed obvious to me that that would just lead to a kind of petty feudalism instead of the massive corporate feudalism we have now.
Ditto, and I agree that certain aspects of American gun culture are very disturbing. Especially the attitude that simply owning a gun is security, when in fact there are only a few circumstances under which trained shooters can really protect themselves or others with a firearm. I do think gun regulation needs to be tailored to the country in question. There just isnât the same circulation and access in other countries. But I donât believe that renders pragmatic regulation a non-starter. While the mental health issue is a real problem in America, and does have direct bearing on gun violence and suicides, I think advocates who use it as a deflection from discussing regulation are being disingenuous.
In addition to regulation and mental health care, another approach that seems largely overlooked is maturing some of the attitudes about guns both among gun-owners/enthusiasts and those who are largely unfamiliar with them. The insularity and discomfort between gun-owners and regulation advocates doesnât help matters, because it isolates and ossifies ideological stances. I think a lot of people whom firearms and the idea of gun-owners make nervous would be surprised to learn some of their friends and acquaintances might be gun-owners/shooters without them knowing it, because many have a stereotypical view of who and what kind of person a gun-owner is which is far from universally applicable.
Thatâs what you get from poisoning the debate with emotions.
Emotions arenât toxic unless you allow them to master you instead of you mastering your emotions.
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Which is what regularly happens.
Maybe some sensible licensing and regulation of access would help here? Would mostly solve the gun problem too.
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I think of emotions like advisers. Theyâre useful, aid intuition, provide motivation, enrich the tapestry of communication, and add poignancy to experience. But though they have the captainâs ear, theyâre best kept from directly exercising executive authority except under rare and well-defined times of savagery, and even then always with the understanding that they exercise that temporary authority at the pleasure of the captain who may revoke it at any time.
Which is not to claim I am perfectly successful at this myself, but itâs my guiding principle with regards to my emotions.
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True - but good luck getting this in a debate about emotionally charged issues.
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It is not easy. But again, I suspect that may be in part because there exists a number of people who stay out of these discussions because of that very expectation. Take this thread for example with @anon67050589 and @ficuswhisperer and some others bringing calm collected reason to the debate. Perhaps itâs simply a matter of staying even-keeled and moving on until you find people who are willing and able to as well.
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Why would âthe gun manufacturer lobbyâ be opposed to the availability of smart guns in the market? If people had the option to purchase firearms with strong user-authentication technology, this would only serve to increase the sales of firearms, mostly to people who do not already own a gun. How many âfence sittersâ do you know who are afraid to own a firearm today, but would buy a âsmart gunâ if one were an option?
Itâs not having more options for more varied guns that the gun lobby opposes.
No, your strawman view of what you want to believe the NRA is has reacted that way, the official position of the NRA on smart guns is more nuanced:
The NRA doesnât oppose the development of âsmartâ guns, nor the ability of Americans to voluntarily acquire them. However, NRA opposes any law prohibiting Americans from acquiring or possessing firearms that donât possess âsmartâ gun technology.
NRAâs warnings about smart gun mandates is not at all unreasonable, considering such a mandate codified in New Jersey state law, and the Brady Campaign sued the state of NJ to try to âtriggerâ enforcement of a ban on non-smart guns in New Jersey.
The actual gunmakers/sellers trade association is not the NRA, but rather the less well known NSSF, which also is not opposed to smart guns, but is opposed to making them mandatory.
But you know who is opposed to smart guns being available as an option? The anti-gun Violence Policy Center, whose founder, Josh Sugarman, says:
The industry is always looking for new ways to market guns to non gun ownersâpeople who previously wouldnât own a gun might think about buying a smart gun, âInstead of pinning our hopes on this technology, I think there are better ways to spend the millions of dollars it takes to develop this technology.â
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The U.S. has uniquely poor gun regulation and uniquely horrific gun homicides. Those outside of an AM radio talk show or Fox News or the NRA who are opposed to regulating guns assume the burden of credible, peer-reviewed persuasion.
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Well, there is an issue that needs to be addressed, but people do not seem to be able to agree on what the problem is, so their suggestions for solving it do not resonate with each other. It is a big country, and peopleâs experiences and lifestyles vary widely. My experience is primarily very rural, although I have lived in cities, but that was mostly overseas. But as rural western people, we always had access to lots of guns, even as kids. We were not allowed to shoot or hunt unsupervised, but if I had wanted to, I could have broken the rules and taken a gun from the gun cabinet. But I would not have dared. By the time I was 12, my friends and I could go off hunting or target shooting on our own, without asking or telling anyone. That is how I grew up, and my Dad grew up the same way. I am not saying this because I think that everyone should be raised like I was, but just to illustrate how my personal experiences relate to my views. Like I said, whatever problems we had as kids, lack of access to firearms was not among them. But nobody I knew was ever involved in any sort of accidental or deliberate shooting. Certainly there were no school shootings. People had issues and disputes like any population, but nobody I knew, or heard about, ever got shot.
So when we discuss firearms violence, which I agree is an issue, If your position is that firearms violence is caused primarily by access to guns, I have to disagree. By that logic, my childhood should have been a bloodbath. We have more guns than ever. literally everybody has lots of guns. But we have almost no crime, and what little there is usually involves people coming in from elsewhere. I think the issue is more complicated than that. Access to firearms is likely a factor, but I donât think it is the primary factor.
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