The American Gun Control Debate
I used to be 100% in favor of harsh and strict gun control laws. But lately I feel torn.
On the one hand, I think gun control has been shown to be a very effective method of reducing mass shooting and other gun violence in countries like Australia.
On the other hand, I'm not particularly interested in repealing the constitutional right to bear arms, as lately - largely in light of the autocratic tendencies of President Trump - I have had largely negative attitude towards strengthening the federal government.
Where do you stand on this debate? Do you support stronger gun laws in America? Why or why not?
On the one hand, I think gun control has been shown to be a very effective method of reducing mass shooting and other gun violence in countries like Australia.
On the other hand, I'm not particularly interested in repealing the constitutional right to bear arms, as lately - largely in light of the autocratic tendencies of President Trump - I have had largely negative attitude towards strengthening the federal government.
Where do you stand on this debate? Do you support stronger gun laws in America? Why or why not?
Comments (2133)
That’s it. Timothy knows all this, of course, but for some reason wants to avoid the basic question and instead focus on something that in my view is irrelevant.
My response wasn't even originally in this thread. It has nothing to do with gun gun control as a policy. I was simply trying to explain the lack of a robust correlation between gun ownership rates and homicide rates. I've posted the scattered plots, I've corrected what you seemed to think was a study about the relationship between gun ownership and homicides.
I have no interest in defending the thesis that "gun ownership is not related mass shootings," the bailey you have decided to retreat to. Why keep insisting you're correct rather than just looking the simple relationship up (not some 20+ variable model answering a different question) and saying: "oh yeah, there isn't much of a relationship for US states or world countries, but that's because of variations in other factors (poverty, ethnicity, inequality, unemployment, etc.) overwhelm the effect. Gun control would still reduce the homicide rate."
That makes perfect sense to me. Things can be related without showing a strong relationship on a plot.
How is: "does a greater share of households owning firearms lead to more homicides?" irrelevant to the gun control debate?
That seems to me to be the question at the heart of gun control debates. "If we let people have more guns, are they going to kill more people?" Homicide rates overall are what is relevant because of substitution effects. What good is it if banning guns causes firearm murders to fall, but then total murders stay the same or increase? Why would it be better to keep someone from shooting someone else if they will just stab or strangle them instead?
The same question comes up for suicides. We don't really care about "reducing suicides carried out with firearms," as much as "reducing total suicides." Some share of would-be suicides and murderers who are denied firearms will still carry out the same acts with different implements. This is even true with mass killings. If we thought that would be spree shooters would simply carry out as many and as deadly mass stabbings, what would be the point is banning guns?
What research tells us is that reducing access to fire arms appears to reduces certain types of homicide and suicide, and spree killings. But the relationship is complex and easily overwhelmed by other effects. E.g. in the model you shared, inequality (GINI), race, and general rates of violent crime overall were more predictive of firearms related homicides than firearm ownership itself. It doesn't suggest a super strong, direct, relations when the rate of people physically owning the type of murder weapon is less relevant for predicting homicides with that type of weapon than variances in income.
Which isn't to say gun control might not be a worthwhile policy, but it also shows it is unlikely to be the key to reversing the United States very high homicide rate.
The interesting thing is though that we do that all the time. A dense population cannot possibly function without risk management, and risk management always involves "punishing the innocent", if you want to put it like this.
From drugs to waste management, from driver's licenses to zoning laws, regulation to avoid common risks is entirely normal. And I don't think that guns can be classified as anything less than risky.
And that is the peculiarity to which @Wayfarer also speaks. That in the US, and almost exclusively in the US, guns are [I] not [/I] framed as a risk to be managed but instead as an integral part of the person wielding them. It would be only be a slight exaggeration to say that in the US, guns are people.
Right, it's a conflict between rights, namely a right to self-defense and a right not to be shot. The position is also often that criminals simply won't follow gun laws, so even if there are restrictions put in place, it will only effect the very people who are going to use their guns only for self-defense and recreation. I don't think this is a particularly good or well supported argument, but it remains popular because, on the surface, it is plausible enough if you don't dig too deep.
In fact, this argument does hold if you look at local level gun control. E.g., if Chicago does a lot to restrict fire arms access but Illinois does not, then criminals still have an easy time getting fire arms. There is an extra level of nuance in that smuggling across state borders is trivially easy, there are no searches at all, no check points, no declarations, where as smuggling across national borders is not at all easy. So the conservative argument ends up being true to some degree, but in terms of local gun control, not national.
The problem is that many factors play into homicides and suicides. The relationship between the ease of access to firearms and these problems is thus complex, and people have a hard time understanding the evidence in support of gun control. That this has become a "culture war" issue makes it even harder to make any progress. The US's antiquated electoral and primary system makes things much worse, since support for some gun control measures are quite robust, and yet they are still highly unlikely to ever be passed.
For policy folks, I think there is often a utilitarian consideration that this is one of the hardest places to make progress and that the change in outcomes you can expect is modest. That's another reason why it doesn't gain overwhelming traction. Homicide rates have fallen and remain historically low (in the US context) which takes the pressure off. The last time we had huge gun control overhauls, violent crime was much higher.
It was a study about gun ownership and homicides, so there’s nothing to correct. True, it doesn’t account for stabbings and defenestration. But your own weird interests doesn’t change the obvious.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I already mentioned the general homicide rate has declined. That should give you pause about the relevance of the point you’re making — on a gun control thread.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Because you can kill people in all kinds of ways. If you take away guns completely, the overall number of deaths would likely change (even though motivated individuals could, theoretically, choose another method). Fine. Who cares? Is that not as “obvious” as “more guns = more homicides from guns”?
Why would the number of people owning a gun lead to more or less non-gun homicides? In Vermont, there’s a low homicide rate — of course. But a lot of people own guns. Is that somehow interesting? No. Because the question should be: does Vermont have higher rates of GUN-related homicides compared to states with lower gun ownership? But even that question leaves out the questions of regulations.
All kinds of factors are involved in why some countries are more violent than others: poverty, religious or racial tensions, desperation, gangs.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
“If we let people have more guns, with little regulation, are we going to see more killings from guns?” That’s the question. Then you can ask what percentage of overall homicides are from guns, etc.
Yours is the mental health question dressed up in statistics. There’s no reason to believe the US has higher rates of mental health issues. Other countries are just better at not handing an AR-15 to any Joe Blow who comes ambling along.
And yes, it would be better if they were stabbed or strangled. Think of the damage a strangler or stabber could do with a weapon of war. Imagine if Richard Card walked into that bowling alley with a knife.
Whether overall rates will stay the same— I doubt it very much. It’s theoretically possible, but given the number of gun related deaths/homicides in this country, it seems far fetched indeed.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
You better regulate guns, you drastically reduce overall homicides.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Very true. But we don’t think that, do we? Las Vegas massacre, for example, couldn’t happen without those guns. It could happen with a bomb, but bombs aren’t professionally manufactured and then given out to nearly anyone who asks for one.
And so we end up back to the topic at hand, which is gun control.
A lot of it has to do with history. Gun laws have been used to blindly suppress certain classes: black people, first peoples, Catholics, immigrants, and the poor. It has become a point of humor that gun-controllers need to search through racist codes and laws to present any legal precedent in American courts these days.
Consider this quote from former slave and anti-lynching advocate Ida Wells:
It would be wrong to suggest that gun-controllers seek to suppress certain classes, but her argument should haunt anyone doing so. What happens when the law refuses to protect, or worse, turns against those they are meant to serve? This fear is almost laughed off as an anachronism. But then I have to watch as the great Canadian leader sends guns to Ukrainian citizens while taking them away from his own. Slavery, war, and genocide are never that far away, and official murder is always easier with a disarmed populace.
Americans simply do not trust their government enough, nor should they.
I don't really buy that though. If you want guns to protect you from the government you can buy your rifle, lock it in a safe and leave it there until you need it. And you can do that in a lot of European countries, too. Sure you need a permit, you actually need the safe etc. So it's bit more effort but entirely doable if you want a gun just in case.
And despite all the performative distrust of "big government" in the US, the US government is not unusually weak or less likely to abuse it's power.
So what's special about US usage of guns is how easily it is to pull a gun on a fellow citizen.
A fellow citizen might try to kill you though, so I should hope it would be easier. A gun is a great equalizer in that regard. How do you propose the weaker citizens should defend themselves from the stronger?
Weakness is relative, so there is no equaliser. One of the tasks of living together is making sure that whoever has a physical advantage in any given situation cannot abuse that advantage.
Guns have no special standing here, they're just another factor to consider.
I guess you’d have no choice but to depend on others if you are unable to defend yourself. Sounds terrible, to me.
You have no choice but to depend on others, period. We are born into this world as dependants and we can only realise our autonomy by engaging in relations with others.
It's one of the fundamental dichotomies of human life: the desire for autonomy and the need for community.
As previously illustrated, community hasn’t faired so well to quell violence, or worse, has supported it. When communities come to head we call it war, for instance.
Sure there is. If I'm an elderly man, I'm weaker than a young burglar breaking into my home. However, if I have a gun, the playing field becomes much more level.
But people do abuse the physical advantage they have over others, and the police can take awhile to show up.
They don't have a special standing, but they do make it possible to defend my house very efficiently.
Must be fun living in the Wild West. What imagination.
There are over 300 million guns in the U.S. It's ridiculously easy for criminals to get their hands on one. Until that changes, I'm also going to have a gun, and I'm going to support other law-abiding citizens' rights to own guns.
That being said, I support restricting civilian guns to bolt-action rifles, revolvers, and shotguns, with severe penalties for anyone illegally possessing guns.
I own a gun too. But the reality is that we don't live in the Wild West. Attacks we're concerned about generally happen without warning. If someone is gonna kill you, they don't challenge you to a duel. In fact the "good guy with a gun" myth shows that having a gun often has the opposite effect.
There's always a bigger fish though. There are countless possible advantages, not just muscle strength.
Quoting RogueAI
Yes. But then guns only help in a small subset of these situations. You cannot organise a society in such a way that there is zero risk. So again the question isn't "do guns give you a relative advantage sometimes" but: "of all the things you can do to improve society, why are you focused on guns specifically".
Quoting RogueAI
And is that advantage worth the price?
Quoting RogueAI
But isn't this ultimately a vicious circle?
The home insurance purchaser isn't hoping his home burns to the ground so he'll get more in a check to rebuild his home than he paid to the insurance company. He's "buying" peace of mind that IF his home is damaged, he's prepared to rebuild.
Similarly the purchaser of a home defense weapon is buying peace of mind, not actual statistical safety, just as I (hope to) give more to the insurance company than receive from it.
Sure. But firearms also make committing murder much easier, so you also will get homicides that wouldn't have occured without the guns.
You get two offsetting effects. There is a deterrence and self defense effect, but also the effect of allowing people to commit murder much easier.
On the whole, the ability to kill people easier (and to accidently kill bystanders while carrying out an attack) seems to outweigh the deterrence and self-defense effect. There is plenty of evidence to support the contention that, all else equal "fewer guns = fewer murders."
And that seems to me like a pretty good argument for gun control. Moreover, the types of restrictions you put on fire arms can also shift the degree to which guns are used for self-defense versus homicides. Fairly banal firearms regulations still do plenty to keep guns out of the hands of the most unstable citizens.
Quoting tim wood
No thats not what i'm saying at all, what i'm saying is that it is an environment and mental health issue, if a person who will do a mass shooting doesn't have a gun, that mass shooting will turn into a mass bombing, or fire, etc. So it would be smarter to try and solve the mental health and environment issue, rather than the gun issue.
Quoting tim wood
Doesn't it though? If you and me get robbed, and I have a gun and you don't, who is in a better position to defend themselves? If someone is going to break into a house, and they know one owns a gun and the other doesn't, what house do you think they will try and break into? Better weapons means that I can defend myself better if need be. Just like a ufc fighter can defend themself better than someone who doesn't train because there ability to use there body as a weapon is better.
More weapons will mean that the robber surely will have a gun, for his personal protection.
I agree that fewer guns = fewer murders. And if someone pondering the purchase of a home defense weapon could by declining would substantively reduce the amount of guns in their community by their declining, your observation would be relevant.
If one option was going back in time when US gun numbers were much less and capping at that number, I wouldn't have a problem with that. If making AR15s never having been sold was a time travel option, I'd be for that.
Alas, the real question is where to go from the actual current state.
[quote=Washington Post]Mass shootings involving AR-15s have become a recurring American nightmare.
The weapon, easy to operate and widely available, is now used more than any other in the country’s deadliest mass killings.
Fired by the dozens or hundreds in rapid succession, bullets from AR-15s have blasted through classroom doors and walls. They have shredded theater seats and splintered wooden church pews. They have mangled human bodies and, in a matter of seconds, shattered the lives of people attending a concert, shopping on a Saturday afternoon, going out with friends and family, working in their offices and worshiping at church and synagogue. They have killed first-graders, teenagers, mothers, fathers and grandparents.[/quote]
Don't expect any action from American politicians, though. They seem to regard it as the price worth paying for the constitutional rights to bear arms.
That's a fair point. The consideration for an individual is different than that of the policymaker.
Slightly related point: freezing the sale of new automatic weapons did seem to have the effect of getting them all into the hands of people who are highly unlikely to use them in homicides it seems. America still has a lot of automatic weapons floating out there, but now they are quite rare and expensive. It takes a lot of work to own one and now they are rarely ever used in crimes. I do think this is related to the high cost and their status as collectors items instead of "weapons."
Well the biggest risk (by far) of firearms is making suicide attempts more likely to be lethal. Thus if there is someone in your household who is at any risk of a suicide attempt, don't have a firearm in your home. If noone in the household attempts to take their life although accidents and homicide are statistical possibilities, they aren't dramatic and in my opinion don't warrant not buying a firearm if you want to target shoot, hunt or protect your home.
The comparison with drugs ends up very misleading, because it seems to be the case that, where guns are not common, a gun is often a liability for anyone engaged in criminal activity.
The main reason that repression has been ineffective at eliminating the drug trade is that the demand for drugs is inflexible. People addicted to drugs will do whatever it takes, and addiction is very profitable for the sellers.
No such dynamic exists for guns. Most organised crime is preoccupied with making money and staying undetected (or unmolested). In a country where guns are illegal, anyone who relies on criminal activity for their income will think very hard before taking a gun out on the street. Being caught with a gun in a country with strict gun control is one of the best ways to get a whole lot of law enforcement attention on you.
And most of the things these people do don't benefit particularly from being armed. The only area where guns are both a significant advantage and are actually used is in gang-on-gang violence, or occasionally internal disputes / acts of revenge.
On the other hand petty criminals might wish to be armed, but petty crime is already a high risk - low reward kind of deal a lot of the time. The people involved usually carry psychological issues like addiction or are otherwise marginalised. They don't generally have the resources to get a gun.
So the chilling effect of gun control on armed crime is overall much more effective than the one on illegal drugs.
https://everytownresearch.org/graph/the-u-s-gun-homicide-rate-is-26-times-that-of-other-high-income-countries/
As for the last part I don’t find gun violence or any kind of violence acceptable. I know others have said this but I think the obvious answer isn’t gun control but addressing the fundamental causes behind crime, violence, suicide etc. What makes someone buy a gun and go on a killing spree at a school? What makes someone kill their whole family and then themselves? What makes someone join a gang and kill rival gang members and turn their neighborhood into a war zone? What makes someone rob people at gunpoint? What makes someone kill their friend after a heated argument and so on and so on? From my research you’ll have much better luck reducing gun violence by addressing poverty, the war on drugs, mental health, poor education, poor infrastructure, hopelessness and the various other systemic issues that haunt our society than even more ineffectual gun control that only serves to infringe on the rights of law abiding citizens.
https://efsgv.org/press/study-two-thirds-of-mass-shootings-linked-to-domestic-violence/
It is the guns. Which is why the US is unique in its mass shootings, for example. "Crime and murder" are at their lowest -- so robberies and car thefts are lower, and that's supposed to prove something? Also, homicides are down since 1981, yes. The share of those homicides where guns were used? 80% or more.
We have more guns than people and very lax regulations. Hence the gun violence, including mass shootings occurring nearly every day.
Also, the number of guns in this country has DRAMATICALLY increased, outnumbering population around 2007. So the statement "Firearms have always been readily accessible" is misleading.
https://www.thetrace.org/2023/03/guns-america-data-atf-total/
Your argument is that nothing is wrong, or if it is, it's not guns. Then what is is? We gotta bust out the NRA-approved "mental health" talking point?
Agree, but it’s hardly a ‘nuance’. It is a glaringly obvious fact. There was a feature by a journalist a couple of years ago about the process of acquiring a gun in Japan. Several exams, written questionnaires and more than one interview, taking more than a year in all. Of course Japan and America are vastly different culturally and socially, but then, Japan has almost zero gun deaths and I can’t recall ever reading of a mass shooting. (The assassination last year of Shinzo Abe was with a home-made weapon.)
One thing I’ll never understand about the Second Amendment argument is why there is complete deviation from the original wording, which talked of ‘well-regulated militias’. If a well-regulated militia was given control of AR15 assault rifles, it would presumably keep them under lock and key and the control of a responsible officer. Not make them freely available to anyone who happens to want to take one home. There was apparently another Supreme Court ruling some time back which interpreted ‘well-regulated militia’ to mean practically unlimited rights to own any kind of weapon. Which is another thing I don’t understand - why the US Supreme Court has such a libertarian attitude towards gun ownership.
:up:
To put it simply: In the US people have guns to protect them from other fellow citizens (and for hunting and sport). In Switzerland (and in Finland) they don't have them to protect from other fellow citizens. With the militia system of the Swiss this is more evident.
And the video tells clearly the obvious: 2nd Amendment means now something else than it originally was meant to.
I agree with you in principle, but it is an unfortunate fact of life that the Supreme Court has so ruled (District of Columbia v. Heller, 552 U.S. 1229 [2008]). We can take the long view, like "pro-life" advocates did after Roe, and go a multi-decade quest to change the makeup of the Supreme Court.
In the meantime, we can only seek means to reduce the damage.
Is that bolded part true? In recent years, 70% of homicides are by firearms (per FBI stats) Even if your statement is true, the statistics suggest homicides could be reduced with more controls on access to guns.
IMO, gun ownership by those who are responsible and emotionally stable aren't the problem. So the ideal would be to reduce ownership by the irresponsible and unstable. Training and exam (analogous to getting a driver's license) might help, as well as laws that support responsible ownership.
That is not going to be easy when you have the 2nd Amendment and the current gun lobby. And the current political system where lobbies can have very much political power.
There's the obvious reasons when a lot of people have guns: If people have guns around to protect their homes and property, you will have problems. That's a lot of loaded guns lying around in drawers. If people who don't otherwise care at all about guns (don't hunt, don't go to the range), but still own especially small handguns, you will have problems.
Yet in the US example the whole culture around guns is one leading issue, and you simply don't change culture by exams and policy adjustments. For many Americans, the right to own a gun is part of being an American and what the US is all about.
I don't think my proposal violates the 2nd Amendment, although I agree the NRA would oppose anything that constrains gun ownership.
Quoting ssu
It would be a political struggle, and require framing the issues in ways that more people could accept it. I'd open with my earlier statement: gun ownership by those who are responsible and emotionally stable aren't the problem.
I expect that nearly 100% of gun owners believe thaty they themselves are responsible and stable. If you're responsible and stable, you have nothing to fear! An example of a "responsibility" law is a law that requires gun owners to prevent access by children. 34 states already have such a law - even Texas(!), where I live. Laws like this are low-hanging fruit - but let's not overlook chipping away at the problem by harvesting it.
This is the unfortunate strategy that the gun lobby, or nearly every lobby, follows. Fight everything, every inch. Assume there never will be a consensus and that the other side will be demanding a total ban on every kind of firearm for any use or ownership, hence trying to compromise will be useless and counterproductive.
:100: That's why there's a huge surge of gun sales after every particularly heinous mass murder event. The most vicious of vicious circles.
The only thing that decreases gun sales last time was when Trump got elected.
Yes, the urge to buy a gun is all between ones ears.
Well, the gun nuts are not angry about the existing limitations like this:
I tend to vote more conservative than liberal these days and I object to illegal immigrants having guns.
Well, it's the typical modern day argument method: there is no room for any conversation. You simply repeat your line no matter what and simply ignore what the other one says. Any deviation from your line is like "giving your little finger to the devil". To say "This thing is this way, however..." is too complicated, too lax, as if you wouldn't have a firm opinion. Anyway, these people don't debate, they just are supporting their stance and making it clear to everybody.
It's like try to ask either a pro-choice or a pro-life person if they have exceptions to their rule. Good luck with that.
If you have a right answer, you are dealing with mathematics and logic.
If the answer is better (or worse), then the next question is better for whom? Unfortunately the "better for everybody" becomes difficult to get now days.
Gun manufacturers, their lobby, their propaganda, and the dupes that fall for it, have done enough damage and killed enough children. In a rational society they’d be in prison, or worse. May they rot in hell.
Unpack this, please. If it's unjustified killing (murder/manslaughter), than the person is not "law-abiding". If it's a justified killing, then it's self-defense.Quoting tim wood
The threat is someone breaking into my house. The counter is shooting them with my gun.
People without a criminal record should be able to buy a gun. I'm on the fence about mental health issues.
"As I suppose you know very well, state laws differ greatly on whom you can shoot and why, and in many cases are contradictory. E.g., in Maine you can shoot a woman hanging laundry in her own backyard. In Louisiana a boy coming up on your porch - if memory serves he rang the doorbell. In Florida, I gather, anyone who comes towards you whose looks you don't like. In Massachusetts your first duty is to retreat if you can."
I agree that you should retreat if you can, unless someone is breaking into your house.
Quoting tim wood
I live in California. It's legal to shoot home invaders. I would only shoot someone if I thought they might kill me. Even then, I would fire a warning shot and tell them to get out. If they're running out the door with my TV, I would let them go.
My kid is grown and moved out, no kids ever visit, and I wouldn't use it for suicide. I don't play with my gun or target shoot. It sits in a drawer. It's not a danger to anyone except someone trying to break in.
Washington Post says 100,000 cases of gun self-defense happen every year. That's a lot. How many of those would have been killed had they not had a gun? Even if it's only 10%, that's 10,000 people a year who were saved because they had a gun.
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13/602143823/how-often-do-people-use-guns-in-self-defense
ETA: If/when I have grandkids, I'm not keeping a gun in the house. You're right there that the danger is just too great.
American citizens.
Quoting tim wood
If someone is breaking into your home at night, where are you supposed to retreat to? The back yard? Under the bed? Regardless, I live in California.
"Good heavens! Read your own citation! I quote from it:
"The latest data show that people use guns for self-defense only rarely. According to a Harvard University analysis of figures from the National Crime Victimization Survey, people defended themselves with a gun in nearly 0.9 percent of crimes from 2007 to 2011."
My citation showed there are 100,000 cases of defensive gun use every year. Do you dispute that? Not every case of defensive gun use is going to be reported as a crime.
"David Hemenway, who led the Harvard research, argues that the risks of owning a gun outweigh the benefits of having one in the rare case where you might need to defend yourself.
"The average person ... has basically no chance in their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense," he tells Here & Now's Robin Young. "But ... every day, they have a chance to use the gun inappropriately. They have a chance, they get angry. They get scared.""
If there are 100,000 cases of defensive gun use a year then the claim "has basically no chance in their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense" is false or pretty misleading.
"So apparently you assess yourself personally as not so much at risk; yours is a drawer gun. Do you ever practice with it? How do you assess your chances of successfully confronting a house breaker with your gun? That is, your gun by itself could get you or someone else killed who should not be killed if you're not proficient, trained, knowledgeable, and practiced in its use - and never mind what your bullet hits if it misses your target."
I've practiced and am proficient with it. I no longer target shoot. My nearest neighbor's house is hundreds of feet away. The danger to them of a .38 round going through two (or more) walls and hitting them is nil.
Was this copy-and-pasted from the NRA?
Quoting tim wood
This is interesting…
And why did the other four go along?
Your question was poorly worded. What “bridge”? There is no bridge. What the fuck are you talking about?
Quoting tim wood
No kidding. The Heller decision was awful. As was Bruen. What’s the point?
Okay— my wording was ambiguous. It should have read: many people think the 2nd amendment gives everyone the right to a gun, and that this is what it has always meant— but really it was only (re)-interpreted this way in 2008.
Where are you going to find that many prisons and who will run the country when so many workers are in them?
I would wager my house that it does nothing whatsoever. So goes the power of the money, lobbying, and propaganda.
As an outsider to American gun culture, I think it's a shame that so many agree with Charlie Kirk, who once said "I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe."
Well, he died for the second amendment I guess. He also railed against empathy— but after seeing the video, I just can’t help but feel sickened. I can’t cheer it on or laugh at it. It actually upset me. I hope Charlie was wrong and that empathy is alive and well. Including for all the kids killed every week in school shootings. No half staff flags for them though.
Though, his argument for the gun deaths in defense of the second amendment was primarily for "the other side" to die so he and others can continue spreading their hate. The defense of the second amendment by people like Kirk has always been a strategy to legitimize hate speech.
This is what happens when such hate is spread vast and wide. If they argue for polarization and violence, they will get polarization and violence in the end. It's like people don't understand that hateful rhetoric leads to hate.
Did he truly think that what he argued for would lead to a better world? That reducing certain groups of people in society to sub-human levels would lead to a better society?
One doesn't have to cheer or laugh at something like this. It just shows exactly where the hateful rhetoric of the grifting fascist right leads, and it's not towards an open, empathic and safe society.
Agreed.
Everyone keeps mentioning this statement here and elsewhere, without citation. It’s an odd phenomenon because clearly it is not something that you all remember hearing or reading before his murder, assuming that you never followed his debates and conjured it from memory. I never heard it before but I’ve read it a bunch of times today. Was it passed around on Reddit or Bluesky or something in the wake of his assassination?
I suppose it’s supposed to be a comforting piece of irony or karma for his haters, or an argument for gun-grabbing. The problem is its repetition only serves to undermine the irony. He believed people should have the right to own guns in order protect the rights of themselves and their loved ones, and his murder only proves to justify that statement. There are crazies out there and people who hate you and wish death upon you because they don’t like what you say. These people do not believe in any rights at all. Perhaps you do not believe in such rights nor possess any desire to protect them, or maybe you skilled enough to take out those who would hurt you and your loved ones with homemade nunchucks and kitchen knives, but the statement is not the irony everyone is making it out to be.
By unironically labeling people as 'fascists' you're exactly contributing to the political climate in which murder becomes justified.
It's a tried and true tactic of those who want to see radicalized individuals take matters into their own hands.
Unfortunately, it has become commonplace on this "philosophy" forum.
As miniscule as this forum's influence is, many of you have done what little you can to feed this dysfunctional climate further (and the various threads may act as a testament to this). Some of Kirk's blood is, unironically, on your hands as well.
What a laughable pretense that such people take themselves seriously intellectually.
https://x.com/Ronxyz00/status/1965872119604289791
And I’d much prefer it if they don’t have access to guns, even if that means I don’t have access to guns either.
I’m happy with the UK law on gun ownership. It’s not because I don’t believe in rights; it’s because I think that private gun ownership is too dangerous.
Do you feel you are responsible enough to have a gun? Meaning, you won't just flip out one day into an imaginary "last stand" against "society" and try to kill as many people as possible? Do you, if you have kids, believe you've raised them properly enough not to do the same?
Why don't you trust other people to make the right decisions? It's because you acknowledge you are, at least in one or more ways, superior to the average person. Be it by intellect, by morals, or simply self control. Am I wrong? If so, why? Do you just randomly think people in general are untrustworthy enough to wield any sort of power? Why are men allowed to raise kids then if they're unable to make the right decisions, in your eyes? Why not just give your kid to a monkey and hope for the best? What of governance then? In many ways, that's similar to a man owning a gun.
What about crossbows? Is it the "danger" aspect where one shouldn't be allowed unequal force over another person due to safety concerns? If so, shouldn't we regulate bodybuilders or "taller/stronger than usual" people since they can physically cause large amounts of harm to the "average person" more so than in reverse? You gotta pick a side here mate. One side entails many other things you may not immediately observe or be aware of. Things that might open your eyes to possible hypocrisy. Or perhaps not. But it is possible.
Just curious as to what your mindset is. Thanks.
I’ve seen what happens in the USA. It happened in Scotland in 1996, and it was that that brought in gun control here. We haven’t had a school shooting since.
Okay. A school shooting (a few dozen dead kids) is bad. A war, my friend (a few million dead kids) is worse. There are no excuses or way to sideline or "talk around" that fact. Without a right or means to defend oneself from an oppressive government, the darkest desires which often control people imbued with the mindset to seek power over others, such becomes inevitable. And don't give me that "a rifle cannot defeat a military jet or drone" nonsense. Soldiers and police are people too who want to go home to their families who literally wake up each day knowing they prevent indiscriminate killing of their own countrymen. They're not going to do that and the average low-level enforcement (cops) will be less likely to.risk their lives over a clearly immoral order that would likely end in one or more of their own deaths.
Not to mention, societal collapse. Historically, basically all nations are "roving gangs" temporarily turned civil due to access to resources that belonged to other people. There are no good people left, for the most part. We're literally the worst of humanity, artificially propped up by violence and theft. That's all there is to it. Ticking time bombs waiting to go off. Of no purpose or value but what we delude ourselves into thinking. Meaning, an individual who chooses to live a private life without engaging in (basically forced and compulsory) social membership with strangers because "I don't want to die" (AKA fear) should have a right to reasonably defend himself from a group of marauders, something only possible with a semiautomatic (or higher) firearm. All current institutions and groups were ultimately based and established on the principle of fear. Fear is not solid ground.
I don't know you, but I feel I know enough from your posts to establish you're not a minority or someone who has reason to have means to defend themself over someone who is not. I'm right about that, aren't I? Yes, I often am.
Sorry to disillusion you about this, but the bad guys will always get weapons while weapons continue to exist.
Quoting Michael
The UK does seem to be having a lot of machete and knife fights on city streets now though don't they. When I left England almost 50 years ago, this was almost unheard of. But , as I said before, the bad guys will always find weapons to use against the average man in the street.
Besides, I don’t see calls for the degenerate in the White House to lessen the rhetoric. When I hear that from the same people, I’ll give it a moment’s thought. Otherwise, it’s dismissed as the typical behavior of hypocrites and partisans.
If you genuinely believe anything that's happening in the US is remotely "fascist", it is you who is the extremist here.
Despite all of the legitimate criticism one could have of Trump, almost all of what this forum produces on the topic reads like a toddler's temper tantrum.
Get over yourselves already, and stop this childish posturing as 'crusaders against fascism' - it's embarassing, and, as we see with the Kirk assassination, potentially dangerous.
So you think frequent mass shootings at schools is a price worth paying because it's theoretically possible that society will collapse or that the government will become a tyranny and start executing innocent citizens?
I'm more of a realist. The UK has had strong gun control for almost 30 years, and nothing like that has happened. Compared to the USA I'd say we're much safer, have more rights, and actually hold our politicians to account.
But hey, if the zombie apocalypse happens then I'll eat my words (if I'm not already eating someone's flesh).
Quoting Sir2u
Better that than guns.
Quoting Sir2u
And yet we haven't had a school shooting since strong gun control has been in place.
Extremely dangerous. Kirk was influential; he could have run for office one day — if he's a "nazi/fascist," it becomes a moral responsibility to remove him like removing a young Hitler. Murder becomes laudable; a sign of moral virtue. To let him be is to be a passive bystander to a potentially new Hitler rising to power.
:scream:
Keep your fingers crossed.
I wonder if they’ll ban 3D printers in Scotland since a kid was recently jailed there for plotting a mass shooting at his/her school.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyj2g5l1g2o.amp
[tweet]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1967212631217074590?s=46&t=IakyLvDoU1iHVTU4X-LNfg[/tweet]
It is an interesting phenomenon.
My question is: what psychological benefit does one receive from posting it on social media?
My argument is not to be reframed. If you think it's invalid, point out why.
Also, how is it "theoretical?" Humans have been creating civilizations and societies for thousands of years. Thousands of empires over thousands of years. None of them exist today. Therefore, it is not "theoretical" that "society [might] collapse" it is literally historic and scientific fact no different than the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
That said, I don't believe a person should be able to purchase any firearm in the same manner and with the same ease they would buy a sack of flour. However, there are unrealistic people with poorly thought out views and inclinations to enact those views on both sides of the debate. A man with several average modern handguns attached to his person can basically go on a shooting spree with the exact same deadliness as that of a semi-automatic "assault" rifle in the same amount of time and with the same ease and lack of effort.
In my opinion, evidenced by fact, a firearm is an equalizer between men. Otherwise, the bigger guy basically always wins the fight, fights the bigger guy often picks because it gives him purpose to be superior over a stranger (when it's easy for him to be). Any other weapon aside from a firearm has its effectiveness basically determined by the size (and sometimes skill) of the user.
I find it pleasing to know I live in a society where an elderly man or woman or even child home alone can fend off a large, armed man with murder or rape on his mind, with ease, in the event of such an emergency, whereas the only other fate would be unspeakable tragedy. Is that so irrational in your eyes? Am I such a bad guy for holding such a sentiment? I don't think so.
I doubt it, they are getting cheaper all the time so there must be a lot of them around, and you can buy all of the piece on ebay and build your own.
But what is most noticeable about the case is that he was a loudmouth and practically turned himself in to the police. How many are out there that are smarter that him that the police have no idea about?
The number of stabbings has risen as well, probably not too long to wait before it happens in a school. Using the US gun advocates logic, I real hope the teachers have bigger knives, as they seem to think that teachers with guns will prevent shootings.
Civilizations, societies and empires are not the same things. Many empires and societies have disappeared, but there are still a few places where you can find the same cultural, customs and languages that made up those societies and have been around for thousands of years.
Oh, absolutely. Thing is. In every single one of those places, you'll tend to find signs of brutal war, killing, rape, enslavement, or displacement of those who originally left them, many of which were non-combatants I.E "average Joes", specifically "average Janes" in regards to rape. They kill the soldiers, who is basically every male over the age of 12 since you're not going to just sit there and let some people come in and kill your mom or sister. Then they either kill or rape the women, or both, often not in the order you would expect. Sometimes killing either all the children or just the males leaving the raped females (if they decided not to kill them) alive to ethnically "change" the entirety of the civilization thus "conquering" it. That is what demi-humans do. That's a fairly standard practice in ancient warfare.
So, that's pretty much what I mean as far as "society collapsing." And, if they were somehow able to have a form of self-defense over those who committed these atrocities (or non-atrocities if you're a "that's just how life is" kind of guy) they possibly would be alive today without the brutal rape, murder, and abuse. Think about it. If you're a group of 1,000 people with 1,000 guns, and you want to "conquer" or "wage war" on a land of 10,000 people with an army of 2,000 who have 2,000 guns. That's something you might consider doing. You knows, you might win. Once the soldiers are out of the way, all you have to do is play shepherd dog with the remaining 8,000 and herd the defenseless people to where you want them to go, like cattle. Often into a mass grave. So they don't "bother you" in the future. After picking out your "prize" or "spoils of war", of course (by which I mean women and for some cultures, children..) Now, if those 10,000 people each have 10,000 guns, you're outnumbered, and you'll look for easier prey. Is that not how this world works? Both in the animal kingdom and in terms of both ancient and modern military strategy? Surely this isn't difficult to understand.
So what's your point. Just because I like to play with the personal belongings of my deceased victims and perhaps keep them around as a morbid token of my little "conquest" over others, that's supposed to vindicate how a community of men, women, and children collapsing and falling to unspeakable violence is somehow "fine?" That's no argument. That's a declaration of insanity! With all due respect.
I agree.
If the authorities cannot reasonably keep you safe, there's no moral grounds upon which they can prevent you from keeping yourself safe.
Many places in the West are degenerating when it comes to crime and the state's ability or willingness to fight it. Clever criminals can basically do whatever they want.
No, but the reality is that easy access to guns seems to lead to an increase in gun deaths, school shootings, etc.
So you have to ask; is it worth it? Charlie thought so. The British didn’t. I think we made the right call.
And in 30 years, we haven't changed our minds, even across party lines. Perhaps because we've seen what happens in the USA.
Many Americans see what is happening to the UK and it only reaffirms the reasons we should never give up our guns.
What things?
I think you had to delete what you wrote because you could be arrested for it. I couldn’t imagine.
UK and many other countries in Europe including my own are turning into shitholes. The sense of safety that once was is now just an illusion. People feel safe because they had the good fortune not to be confronted with reality, which is that if they cross paths with the wrong people the authorities can't and won't do a single thing.
I am being confronted with such a situation right now.
Is there any new society that is different? They all want what they think is best for themselves and care little for anyone else. Prejudice and partiality are part of every group, from the coffeehouse reading club to the biggest countries in the world. Will all of these people having guns solve their differences?
Quoting Outlander
That sounds like basic inter-gang warfare in downtown some place USA.
Quoting Outlander
Well that looks like a lot of guns, 10,000 guns X 10,000 people is a a hundred million guns, Where are they going to put them all.
So you seem to believe that if everyone in the USA has a gun then no one will invade. But that does not explain who the hell would even want to invade the USA.
But if you take the time to consider the actual number of guns in the hands of bad guys and compare it to the number in the hands of the good guys, you might find that there are a lot more on the good side. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, the bad guys don't target them.
If this is a reference to criminals then I'll repeat what I said to NOS4A2 before: I’d much prefer it if they don’t have access to guns, even if that means I don’t have access to guns either.
I deleted it because in my haste I was putting words in your mouth, which may have been unwarranted. Perhaps you weren't referring to government tyranny but crime, like Tzeentch above.
To be clear, I think US gun laws are much too loose, but I think there are ways to sensibly mitigate the risks while still allowing citizens to carry protection when the authorities neglect their duties.
And I would much rather have "the great equalizer" as called it.
Criminals already have access to firearms, even in my country, that has virtually no legal firearms.
But what about a knife wielder? How are you going to protect yourself against that? What about a knife wielder who is also twice your size?
I'm in the unfortunate position where I've had to contemplate my options in such a situation, and my conclusion is that I would 1000% prefer to go toe-to-toe with firearms, than I would against a knife wielder. One stab in the neck and it's over, as recent events have shown.
Grim, I know, but this is reality. We are not living in the '90s anymore. Society has changed.
But you know, if you have any advice for me I'm all ears.
Also see this:
Perhaps if we have a pistols-at-dawn duel, but that's not the reality. It's drive-by shootings, someone pulling a gun on you before you know what's happening, being shot at a distance and from behind, etc.
And according to this, "overwhelming evidence demonstrat[es] that firearms are not an effective means of self-defense."
But if you have any ideas on how to fight off a knife wielder with your bare hands without losing your throat, I am all ears buddy.
Comparing street crime to warfare is a false equivalency. But that said, I'm 100% certain that wars would be less deadly without guns (and other long-range weaponry).
I'm much more likely to survive a fist fight than a gun fight.
Also, I agree that wars would be less deadly without guns - they would be less deadly for the side made up of criminals fighting against the side made up of law-abiding, normal people.
It would be a landslide for the criminals.
Running away is perhaps the most effective option.
Quoting Tzeentch
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
Of course it is - and it would be the first option I'd consider.
Unfortunately, if someone is out to seriously hurt you, they will have considered it as well.
And as I said before, if someone is out to seriously hurt me then I’d rather neither of us have guns than both of us have guns.
I’m unlikely to be sniped to death with a knife from 200 yards whilst I’m busy debating college students.
Or maybe you started to feel the gravity of unsafety, and you wield a knife as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts on fighting a guy twice your size in a knife fight. Keep in mind, if you manage to defend yourself using a knife (which in many countries you're prohibited from using in self-defense) you may also be guilty of murder - possibly premeditated.
And believe me, you wouldn't be debating college students in public if you had any awareness that there were serious threats on your life.
Gun vs gun in a small alley - at least it's 50/50, and the other side will realize this as well. You have a counter-threat.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to argue. If it’s just that my likelihood of surviving a knife attack is greater if I have a gun than if I’m unarmed, then I agree, but it’s incredibly myopic and naive to think that this proves anything.
You need to look at the bigger picture; at what actually happens in the real world.
The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007–2011
Then consider the high levels of gun violence more generally that come with high levels of gun ownership. There are so many mass shootings, school shootings, and other gun homicides in the USA. Yet somehow their citizens are safer because they have a gun that they can putatively use in self-defence?
It seems like their defence of gun ownership is a fantasy that contradicts the actual facts.
I'll stick to what the statistics and studies show. My country is safer with strict gun control, and so I'm glad that we have it.
Could that possibly be because shoplifting is now so easy and almost always prosecuted? It is much easier apparently to just walk into a store and walk out with a new article instead of breaking into someones house or car for a used article.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8z8kdd8zvo
Quoting Michael
I agree with you entirely, BUT:
https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf
Some one is going to have a hell of a time taking them away from their owners. And the logistics to move and destroy them would be costly and time consuming. Someone probably already worked out that it is easier and cheaper to pay funerals and compensation for the nearly 50,000 victims each year.
Good for you. I wouldn't wish such a thing on anyone.
But in essence all you're saying is, because you are safe, there is no problem. Unsafety, for you, is a statistical anomaly. For me and many others it is reality.
All I can say is, I wonder how many months of being terrorized in and around your home you'd be able to stomach before you sang a different tune.
When the authorities cannot or refuse to keep me safe, they have no moral grounds to deny me the means to protect myself. It is really as simple as that.