Are guns safer than cars?

[SlappyMcGee]

and the following quote by Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither."

I already used that quote in this thread. We good.

[SlappyMcGee]

The New England Journal of Medicine and the American Journal of Economics and Sociology aren't exactly fringe publications, especially not the former. In any case, the bigger point is that there are better, more effective ways of solving crime through social programs, etc, that have a bunch of other positive effects and no real negative ones.

I don't doubt that increased funding of social programs could play a major hand in reducing crime. However, I have a few problems with it.

1) The effect of increased social programs is long-term rather than short term. This means that, immediately, we still need guns. Furthermore, it means that this is a hard ideology to endorse politically because putting funding into this now will not reap you any votes. (Although that's a bit of a tangent, I suppose.)
2) Social programs will help to keep people from commiting crimes; hand gun ownership stops people who are already committing a crime. Unless you assume that these programs are going to reach every person who could commit a crime, hand guns still have a valuable use in society. A girl would rather take her chances with the near zero risk of an accidental firing of the gun in her home than be brutally raped because you said she couldn't arm herself.
3) Finally, passing forward hand gun legislation that makes it easier to own a gun has a number of positive effects for the economy. It opens up new jobs that are not government dependent, it could potentially lower the crime rate increasing the cache of your town and thus tourism, and it does not cost the government a cent. In fact, they make money on the guns sold through taxes. New social programs, while I -agree- with you to being essential, will cost tax payers money, create some new jobs that depend on our tax dollars, could have the same positive effect with tourism and cache, but is ultimately a net loss for the state in terms of dollars.

You can't just argue that guns are not the best way to prevent crime so we should not use them. Otherwise, only FBI agents would patrol the streets because street level cops are not as meticulous and intelligent. If social programs would also work to lower the crime rate, then due to the practically zero risk of a gun (it being safer than an automobile, you know.), I would say that the two should work in congress towards the mutual goal of a safer society.

[otters~1]

Are ... are you seriously going to argue that because the media doesn't pick up on most "vigilante defenses"... we should assume that guns are incredibly useful?

In other words, no, you're putting words in my mouth. The only point I made was that defensive handgun use occurs with meaningful frequency; to see that as an attempt to argue that guns should be considered useful by default or, hysterically enough, to associate defensive handgun use with vigilantism, is simply absurd.
What is it that pops into your head when I say "defensive handgun use"? Do you picture a woman being mugged, and then a group of armed men swarming around the mugger like a SWAT team? Do you think I'm talking about the Punisher swooping down off a rooftop, or the Friendly Neighborhood Sniperman decapitating the mugger with a .50 BMG? Because for a typical self-defense scenario with a gun, your phrase "vigilante defense" is nowhere remotely close to accurate.

Which is why I put it in quotes. Quotes.

Whether I put words in your mouth or not, I disagree with you. Guns are not as helpful as cars -- you accept this, surely. Further, the two both have major detriments. Now, it may not necessarily follow that all guns should be stamped out and cars should flourish, but even if we assumed the highest frequency of defensive gun encounters possible, cars are still so much more critical to society that comparing them isn't open to debate. What few positive gun uses there are, I'm sure, are the exact opposite of what you portrayed, but thanks for over-dramatically taking us off course to the extent that, as usual, I'm no longer sure who's side I'm on.

Fuck this, whatever Slappy says goes. That'll do.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

That something is the most cost- effective method of achieving something does NOT make it the most effective overall, just the cheapest. Obviously. And I can't see much in that quote suggesting anything other than "Wow! Concealed handguns COST BARELY ANYTHING- it's totally the best approach."

Okay, there's some communication error going on here that needs a-fixin'.
There are really two primary points that I was trying to get across with that, and you seem to like choosing one and pretending my case is incomplete by selectively ignoring the other.
Shall-issue concealed weapons permits are a fucking huge influence on the crime rate. I've said this before, more than once. They are also extremely cost-effective, as you have just conceded to. But that former point stands -- they're super-effective.

What few positive gun uses there are, I'm sure, are the exact opposite of what you portrayed

So this is the part that confused me the most. The thing I focused on was crime reduction, and the opposite of that is an increase in crime... so in your mind, a "positive use" of a gun is as a tool to assist you in raping defenseless women?
You're really going to have to clarify for me here.

Whether I put words in your mouth or not, I disagree with you. Guns are not as helpful as cars -- you accept this, surely. Further, the two both have major detriments. Now, it may not necessarily follow that all guns should be stamped out and cars should flourish, but even if we assumed the highest frequency of defensive gun encounters possible, cars are still so much more critical to society that comparing them isn't open to debate.

formica touched upon this a bit: if there's a better alternative to something useful but dangerous, surely that alternative should be pursued instead.
In this case, cars are not important to people; transportation is. An effective public transit system is far less expensive, but more importantly, significantly safer. I go to school an hour away from where I live, and the thought is frequently on my mind that once I go over 30 mph, I'm pretty much screwed if there's a single fuckup, either on my part or on the part of anyone I pass in the 2+ hours I drive every day. This is simply not at all a concern for a subway system; if there was one where I live, I wouldn't be paying out the ass for a car. Hell, the subway car operator can be drunk and high out of his mind, and I'm still not in danger of death, but merely in danger of missing my stop. If you're trying to make the case that letting individual people control their own, individual metal deathtraps is preferable, you're insane.
formica has hinted that he found some elusive, more effective alternative to guns in the right hands, but I guess he's trying to be mysterious by not saying what that is. Maybe we have to guess?

[otters]

Guns are not as helpful as cars

This is a debate on whether guns are safer than cars. Not more helpful.

[Rose]

the state of public security in England, which appears to have treated Orwell's 1984 as an instruction manual,

I swear I've heard that exact saying before, somewhere.

[otters~1]

What few positive gun uses there are, I'm sure, are the exact opposite of what you portrayed

So this is the part that confused me the most. The thing I focused on was crime reduction, and the opposite of that is an increase in crime... so in your mind, a "positive use" of a gun is as a tool to assist you in raping defenseless women?
You're really going to have to clarify for me here.

Remember that sarcastic bit about the Punisher? Exact opposite of /that/. I picture a positive gun defense more as the gun being used a deterrent -- shots definitely don't have to be fired.

Whether I put words in your mouth or not, I disagree with you. Guns are not as helpful as cars -- you accept this, surely. Further, the two both have major detriments. Now, it may not necessarily follow that all guns should be stamped out and cars should flourish, but even if we assumed the highest frequency of defensive gun encounters possible, cars are still so much more critical to society that comparing them isn't open to debate.

formica touched upon this a bit: if there's a better alternative to something useful but dangerous, surely that alternative should be pursued instead.
In this case, cars are not important to people; transportation is. An effective public transit system is far less expensive, but more importantly, significantly safer. I go to school an hour away from where I live, and the thought is frequently on my mind that once I go over 30 mph, I'm pretty much screwed if there's a single fuckup, either on my part or on the part of anyone I pass in the 2+ hours I drive every day. This is simply not at all a concern for a subway system; if there was one where I live, I wouldn't be paying out the ass for a car. Hell, the subway car operator can be drunk and high out of his mind, and I'm still not in danger of death, but merely in danger of missing my stop. If you're trying to make the case that letting individual people control their own, individual metal deathtraps is preferable, you're insane.

I agree with everything you said about cars, save one thing. Cars are still the best cheap long distance manner of transportation -- subways and bikes are fine in the city, definitely, but plane tickets are kind've expensive (though planes are, of course, far safer).

Bottom line is, the "better alternative to something 'useful' but dangerous" (in this case guns) is expanding the standard of living and doing other things to prevent the necessity of having a handgun in your house. I mean, if you live in the right neighborhood, you shouldn't need self-protection, and if you don't, then by all means keep a gun. I read an interesting book about the Chicago tenements and how they've been affected by gang warfare, and I can see that there are some cases where you might legitimately need a weapon. But I can also see that, at the same time, guns were most of the problem in those neighborhoods.

incluye: try not to pull seven words out of my two paragraph post and respond meaninglessly next time, thanks.

[smartalco]

I read an interesting book about the Chicago tenements and how they've been affected by gang warfare, and I can see that there are some cases where you might legitimately need a weapon. But I can also see that, at the same time, guns were most of the problem in those neighborhoods.

No. Idiots running around thinking they are outside the, using drugs, causing violence, and just generally being giant dickwads are the problem, guns just happen to be a part of that. If there weren't guns, it would be knives, and if not knives, sporks.

[otters~1]

I read an interesting book about the Chicago tenements and how they've been affected by gang warfare, and I can see that there are some cases where you might legitimately need a weapon. But I can also see that, at the same time, guns were most of the problem in those neighborhoods.

No. Idiots running around thinking they are outside the, using drugs, causing violence, and just generally being giant dickwads are the problem, guns just happen to be a part of that. If there weren't guns, it would be knives, and if not knives, sporks.

Guns are like the enabler in this scenario; knives fall far short.

Tired.

[formica]

Guns are not as helpful as cars

This is a debate on whether guns are safer than cars. Not more helpful.

A debate on error- counting isn't particularly helpful for anybody.

Guns ARE safer than cars. Guns are ALSO safer than doctors. Observe:

There are about 700,000 physicians in the United States. The U.S. Institute of Medicine estimates that each year between 44,000 and 98,000 people die as a result of medical errors (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 1999). This makes for a yearly accidental death rate per doctor of between 0.063 and 0.14. In other words, up to one in seven doctors will kill a patient each year by mistake. In contrast, there are 80 million gun owners in the United States. They are responsible for 1,500 accidental gun deaths in a typical year (e.g., National Safety Council, 2004). This means that the accidental death rate, caused by gun owner error, is
0.000019 per gun owner per year. Only about 1 in 53,000 gun owners will kill somebody by mistake. Doctors, then, are 7,500 times more likely than gun owners to kill somebody as a result of human error (Dekker, 2005).

The two aren't comparable, and it's obviously ridiculous to say that because doctors are more dangerous than guns THEREFORE we should either ban doctors or get rid of gun control. Error counting in general is prone to be dodgy and misleading, and is obviously so here.

Anyway, I think I might butt out of this debate soon, because I've been doing a bit of reading and I've realised that, hey wow, I actually know very little on the subject, and a couple lectures in crim, some newspaper editorials, and stuff my family talks about isn't a great basis for an intelligent view on a controversial issue. And the thing that has made the whole issue seem so clear- cut is the fact that America is the basketcase of the developed world when it comes to violent crime and crime in general, and- what do you know- they ALSO have the laxest gun ownership laws. Australia has a much lower rate of violent crime, and it has the STRICTEST gun ownership laws. Obviously, though, correlation isn't causation, and gun laws aren't the defining factor in the difference.

Anyway, I'm just going to write down a quick list of points of where I still think I'm right, where I think I was wrong, why I think I was wrong, and what else I'd like to know. And if you could chuck some interesting articles my way, Tsukatu, that'd be pretty awesome.

Points I still think are good

• People who have a gun on them are more likely to kill somebody they're fighting with, especially in domestic disputes. Statistical evidence from places with tight gun control vs with lax gun control, as well as interviews of convicted people with "violent tendencies" (despite how inaccurate such a subjective self- description method probably is) definitely seems to result in a) Deadlier use of force, due to the superior killing power of guns vs knives or fists, b) a recourse to violence in situations which otherwise might be solved otherwise, or with lesser violence- a punch to the face or whatever. This stuff isn't to do with guns getting into the hands of crazies or "bad guys", just guns getting into the hands of "normal" people, possibly with violent tendencies. Which seems like a pretty compelling reason to believe that, whatever their beneficial properties, guns have very real drawbacks.
• Strict, properly policed and enforced gun control lowers gun- related deaths and certain categories of crime, at least in some contexts. There seem to be compelling reasons to believe effectively policed gun control laws where at the root of the Sao Paulo homicide drop, where this was introduced without addressing underlying socioeconomic problems. Or there's the case of Massachusetts, which introduced a one- year minimum sentence on carrying unlicensed guns and, hey presto, there's a 20% reduction in armed robbery per month, and an 18% reduction in assault. Of course, this depends on the legislation continuing to be actively enforced and possibly a bunch of other factors. (Maybe they just haven't bought KNIVES yet.) (/sarcasm)
• Guns don't address the underlying social causes of crime. Obviously. The only way you can argue this with a straight face is if you take the view that humans are inherently selfish and want as much from life as they can get away with, will always pursue their own interests, and will only be stopped by adequate disincentives/ deterrents- say, the risk of getting shot. This is insanely bleak and, if you start looking at anthropological accounts of hunter- gatherer and pre- capitalist societies, clearly wrong. Or you could look at, you know, any non- sociopath person in your circle of friends. People are just the product of a mess of influences, and there's PLENTY you can do to reduce the number of people who turn into "idiots running around causing violence and being giant dickwads." Besides, why do the numbers of dickwads vary so much between well- to- do and poor neighbourhoods? Or between relatively egalitarian countries (Sweden, go!) and horribly unequal countries with roughly equivalent police presence and gun laws? Pretty much all I can see widespread gun use doing is suppressing crime through deterrence without adjusting the injustices/ etc at the root of the problem.
• The constitution is a rubbishy reason for maintaining a "right to firearms", as the reasons that made it relevant at the time of the grand opening of America don't necessarily apply any more.
• I'm still pretty damn worried about the run- on effects of gun ownership.

Where I've changed my mind

• Gun control doesn't necessarily stop the bulk of criminals getting access to guns. It definitely seems to be the case in Melbourne, Australia, where things happen with knives or just with a bunch of muscular guys acting intimidating. We've also got a much lower crime rate overall than the U.S. I think I've realised, at least partly, why this doesn't necessarily apply everywhere- something to do with gang- related violence. See, the small handful of gangs we have DO have guns and the habit of, very occasionally, shooting people in rival gangs. The case is probably very, very different in the U.S, and may well be very, very different in Australia in 20 or 30 years.
• Accidental firearm discharges aren't, in fact, a big deal. 1,500 accidental gun deaths a year is really not very much, and it could be further reduced. You're going to get some idiots not being careful whatever you do, but if the benefits outweight the risks, then that's awesome.
• I picked up a copy of the first edition of Lott's book from the library and flicked through it, and it's pretty damn convincing on gun ownership reducing crime. There seems to be a decent body of evidence that the statistical basis of Lott's arguments is rubbish, but that's way over my head and iunno how to start interpreting that argument yet (short of "This article says something convenient, which I hope is true! I'm latching on to it, instead of the stuff which proves inconvenient stuff!") So basically I'm not arrogant enough to think I know the answer any more.

On a random sidenote, does anybody have any information on the amount of people purposefully killed by gun owners for minor crimes like trespassing onto private property, stalking, etc? Because I know the news reports come up from time to time, and it'd be nice to get an idea of how big an issue it is.

(Edited to fix list tags. No change in content. <3 Suki)

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

if you could chuck some interesting articles my way, Tsukatu, that'd be pretty awesome.

Ugh, Idontwanna. I found most of my hard sources through this doothing called CQ Researcher that my local community college had a subscription to, but I needed my library card to access it, so I'm afraid you won't be able to get at it unless your nearby educational institution has a similar deal.
I'm actually looking at exactly the starting points I used on CQ Researcher right now, and I suppose I could dump the bibliographies of relevant articles, if you like. It'll just be tedious.
My position was strengthened primarily by More Guns, Less Crime. I have a later edition in which he goes over in fine detail the criticisms leveled against him, his sponsors, and every one of his arguments. I was really impressed with how thorough he was, really.

People who have a gun on them are more likely to kill somebody they're fighting with, especially in domestic disputes. Statistical evidence from places with tight gun control vs with lax gun control, as well as interviews of convicted people with "violent tendencies" (despite how inaccurate such a subjective self- description method probably is) definitely seems to result in a) Deadlier use of force, due to the superior killing power of guns vs knives or fists, b) a recourse to violence in situations which otherwise might be solved otherwise, or with lesser violence- a punch to the face or whatever. This stuff isn't to do with guns getting into the hands of crazies or "bad guys", just guns getting into the hands of "normal" people, possibly with violent tendencies. Which seems like a pretty compelling reason to believe that, whatever their beneficial properties, guns have very real drawbacks.

There's a point I'll definitely concede to in this, actually. The way it's more commonly presented is with the statement, "guns may not increase the rate of violent crimes, but they intensify the existing violence."
So the important issue becomes a comparison of (frequency) * (lethality) figures. For a really stupid toy example with made-up numbers, let's say that knife attacks are lethal 60% of the time and that there are 100 of them per year for every ten thousand people. This means that out of every ten thousand people, 60 of them will be stabbed to death. Now let's say the introduction of guns makes murderers prefer them over knives, but the knowledge that the general populace now has concealed weapons makes half of all the killers chicken out. So if guns kill 90% of everyone they're used against, but there are only 50 killers, you end up with 45 deaths in total. Each victim is less likely to survive, but the decrease in the number of victims outweighs the increased lethality.
So obviously those were made-up numbers, but so far as I understand it, the difference made goes something like that.
And I also realize that I am totally quarter-assing this, because I'm exhausted, so I apologize if only half of this makes sense because I need sleep now kbye.

[formica]

The weightier half of that point is that people with guns on them are more likely to resort to violence- that is, fire a gun at someone in situations where they're fucking pissed off and not thinking straight- largely domestic stuff, where they'd probably know AHEAD OF TIME if the other person has a gun, anyway. Plus in murders like this the killers then regret right afterwards, and they weren't thinking clearly in the first place. I doubt much rational risk analysis takes place in these situations, so I don't see carrying guns making that much of a difference.

And my uni has fairly decent access to various databases and journals, while my sister- who's doing a fellowship- has access to pretty much THE BULK OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE or something. If you cbf that's fine, though.

[SlappyMcGee]

The weightier half of that point is that people with guns on them are more likely to resort to violence- that is, fire a gun at someone in situations where they're fucking pissed off and not thinking straight- largely domestic stuff, where they'd probably know AHEAD OF TIME if the other person has a gun, anyway. Plus in murders like this the killers then regret right afterwards, and they weren't thinking clearly in the first place. I doubt much rational risk analysis takes place in these situations, so I don't see carrying guns making that much of a difference.

And my uni has fairly decent access to various databases and journals, while my sister- who's doing a fellowship- has access to pretty much THE BULK OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE or something. If you cbf that's fine, though.

I don't think there's a situation where a sane person gets angry enough, kills his wife instantly with a gun, and then regrets it immediately afterward. Which is why -sane- people should have guns.

[a happy song]

I don't think there's a situation where a sane person gets angry enough, kills his wife instantly with a gun, and then regrets it immediately afterward. Which is why -sane- people should have guns.

I think what formica's getting at is that any sane person can be prone to these lapses in the correct state of heightened emotional reaction. Ie: having your heart torn out via your rectum and force fed back in via the face hole. Metaphorically, of course.

Crimes of passion, in other words, and access to firearms could extend the lethality of these occurrence quite dramatically.

Anyway, I'm gearing up for a proper response to the thread in general. Tsuki's posts have inspired a rare interest.

[ENT474]

I believe that guns are safer than cars. The gun can be used intentionally. Car accidents/deaths are generally unintentional. Which is safer really depends on the definition of "safe". Does it involve intentionallity, unintentionallity, or storing valuable items? I believe that, as formica said, With a gun, people are more inclined to use it when "needed", and will take that course. Cars are here for efficiency in moving around, not as a weapon. Guns are specifically for violence. Of course, if safe is meant as "free from any kind of danger, guns are safer. But when it means free from risk, they're about the same.
Generally when guns are used, the users have an intention. Maybe the person did something to piss them off. So, it may be his/her fault that he/she got shot.

I just glanced at this topic, and didn't read through most of it. Sorry if reiterating.

[formica]

Quick idea for some models of how gun control laws could impact crime/ safety:

Keep in mind that violent crime is by far the most significant variable. Accidental gun death counts for nothing, pretty much.

Model one: Weak gun control measures
Stuff like gun buybacks (which don't affect crime at all) and preventing people from buying guns in the state but not regulating guns coming in from other states, or not making the effort of a proper program of checking for people's gun licenses at random.
RESULT: Bad. There's a piddly little reduction in accidental gun deaths and maybe a small reduction in the amount and deadliness of crimes of passion. Violent crime, in a best case scenario, is unaffected, and probably increases dramatically.

Model two: Strict gun control measures
Stuff like: Strict laws against purchasing firearms in the state (unless your occupation requires it) and lots of spot- checks on the street to see if people have a concealed weapon and if they have a license for them, using Massachusetts as a model.
RESULT: Slightly good. There's the piddly reduction in accidental gun deaths and deaths from crimes of passion, and levels of violent crime both goes down and become less deadly, to a certain extent. Organised crime- type people, probably including gangs, still have access to guns, so there's still a lot of violent crime going on.

Model three: A gun for every man, woman and child
Everybody, save people with criminal convictions and people who fail personality tests for, say, aggressive tendencies (but fuck it would be hard to design one which people with half a brain can't just exploit) gets a gun. Most criminals and would- be criminals get one anyway, and it seems plausible that most of people denied a gun would seek one out elsewhere, otherwise feeling like they're at a disadvantage against the world.
RESULT: Very good. Some types of deaths go up (the domestic stuff) whereas violent crime- both the gang and the "average Dick who decides to rob something" varieties- plummets.

Model four: No guns in a utopian society
Strict gun control as in model 2. Also, lots of social spending to address the routes of crime. No unemployment; more egalitarian distribution of wealth; strong social support; properly funded, decent public education; and some other stuff I can't think of right now, but something to do with giving people proper community support type mechanisms, and the proper creation of communities again. (Maybe overwriting everybody's middle name with 1 in a variety of 1,000, and calling everybody else with that middle name "family", creating this huge network of "related" people, reducing loneliness and isolation and giving people a type of support mechanism. Or something else that's less insane).
RESULT: Even better. In the medium- to- long term domestic and crime- of- passion types of death goes down and violent crime also plummets to almost zero.

Model five: Guns in heaven
As in model 4, but with everybody who's not a criminal or measurably aggressive ass getting a gun.
RESULTS: Not quite as good as 4. Violent crime plummets to almost zero, and maybe even plummets a tiny bit lower, but because it's such a minuscule variable the difference doesn't count for much at all. The corresponding rise in deaths from domestic spats, accidental gun deaths, etc dwarfs the additional reduction in violent crime.



If model four is unachievable or politically untenable, it makes sense to go for model three. If the country/ state is close enough to model four that moving to model three would make things worse, then we should keep strict gun control. It also seems to make a great deal of sense to go from model three three, slowly shift to model five, and then adopt model four when the relevant tipping- point is reached.

All of this hinges on where the relevant tipping- points are, and what is model four equivalent to. Is it...
Canada today -not that great and on the decline, but way closer to model four than the US?
Australia under Gough Whitlam- where mass movements and labour organisations had a LOT of political influence and were shaping the country for the better, with medicare and free university among the achievements before Whitlam was kicked out of power by the Queen (speaking of, what the fuck?!))
Vietnam in the 80's- where power was completely decentralised and every local council, on which everybody participated, had a whole say in determining policy. It worked well, with women winning a huge bunch of rights not available in developed countries today, like full maternity leave and a one- day paid holiday during menstruation)
Or a completely utopian sort of arrangement, which is unachievable or pretty damn hard to without completely overthrowing society as we know it- say, the sort of thing that only existed for about fifteen minutes at the founding of Soviet Russia?

Or did I get something else wrong somewhere else along the way?

[SlappyMcGee]

Model four: No guns in a utopian society
Strict gun control as in model 2. Also, lots of social spending to address the routes of crime. No unemployment; more egalitarian distribution of wealth; strong social support; properly funded, decent public education; and some other stuff I can't think of right now, but something to do with giving people proper community support type mechanisms, and the proper creation of communities again. (Maybe overwriting everybody's middle name with 1 in a variety of 1,000, and calling everybody else with that middle name "family", creating this huge network of "related" people, reducing loneliness and isolation and giving people a type of support mechanism. Or something else that's less insane).
RESULT: Even better. In the medium- to- long term domestic and crime- of- passion types of death goes down and violent crime also plummets to almost zero.
?

This is the worst one. You might not reduce deaths; but you're leaving people with a life sans freedom. Some life, I say.

[formica]

Model four: No guns in a utopian society
Strict gun control as in model 2. Also, lots of social spending to address the routes of crime. No unemployment; more egalitarian distribution of wealth; strong social support; properly funded, decent public education; and some other stuff I can't think of right now, but something to do with giving people proper community support type mechanisms, and the proper creation of communities again. (Maybe overwriting everybody's middle name with 1 in a variety of 1,000, and calling everybody else with that middle name "family", creating this huge network of "related" people, reducing loneliness and isolation and giving people a type of support mechanism. Or something else that's less insane).
RESULT: Even better. In the medium- to- long term domestic and crime- of- passion types of death goes down and violent crime also plummets to almost zero.
?

This is the worst one. You might not reduce deaths; but you're leaving people with a life sans freedom. Some life, I say.

How is it worse than option two? Unless you think there's a "freedom to be unemployed", "freedom not to be able to receive medical treatment if you're poor", or a "freedom to have your options in life determined by your parents' incomes", and you honestly think that the homeless and those needing medical treatment would honestly bemoan having that "freedom" taken away.

Really, the only freedom you protect by, say, keeping medical insurance private, is the freedom of capital to accumulate. You undermine people's freedom to choose between treatment or no treatment, because this choice become determined for them by their amount of income, which is in turn determined for them by a range of economic factors outside of their control.

So, sure, if you want to say "people's freedom to own guns for hunting is more important (either to them personally or on general principle) than decreasing the risk that they will be killed by somebody wielding a gun" (which is also out of their control and, if they are killed or injured, takes away their "freedom" in a big way) that's cool, but that applies equally to options two AND four. Four is just option two enacted in a better world.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

As a follow-up to Slaps:
A true Utopian society would grant the option to own and carry a firearm, but no one would want or need to.
Obviously, this is never going to happen.

[SlappyMcGee]

Model four: No guns in a utopian society
Strict gun control as in model 2. Also, lots of social spending to address the routes of crime. No unemployment; more egalitarian distribution of wealth; strong social support; properly funded, decent public education; and some other stuff I can't think of right now, but something to do with giving people proper community support type mechanisms, and the proper creation of communities again. (Maybe overwriting everybody's middle name with 1 in a variety of 1,000, and calling everybody else with that middle name "family", creating this huge network of "related" people, reducing loneliness and isolation and giving people a type of support mechanism. Or something else that's less insane).
RESULT: Even better. In the medium- to- long term domestic and crime- of- passion types of death goes down and violent crime also plummets to almost zero.
?

This is the worst one. You might not reduce deaths; but you're leaving people with a life sans freedom. Some life, I say.

How is it worse than option two? Unless you think there's a "freedom to be unemployed", "freedom not to be able to receive medical treatment if you're poor", or a "freedom to have your options in life determined by your parents' incomes", and you honestly think that the homeless and those needing medical treatment would honestly bemoan having that "freedom" taken away.

Really, the only freedom you protect by, say, keeping medical insurance private, is the freedom of capital to accumulate. You undermine people's freedom to choose between treatment or no treatment, because this choice become determined for them by their amount of income, which is in turn determined for them by a range of economic factors outside of their control.

So, sure, if you want to say "people's freedom to own guns for hunting is more important (either to them personally or on general principle) than decreasing the risk that they will be killed by somebody wielding a gun" (which is also out of their control and, if they are killed or injured, takes away their "freedom" in a big way) that's cool, but that applies equally to options two AND four. Four is just option two enacted in a better world.

You're trying to open another can of worms here. I am strongly against public healthcare. It doesn't make sense for me, as a human being, to be literally punished for staying healthy. With health insurance, I can choose to pay for it or not. With the government involved, I -have- to pay for it.

And I hope you realize there are two sides to that issue, and that I'm not patently wrong about wanting privatized health care, because you phrased your response here as if I had never considered your points. Furthermore, just because you put the word "freedom" in to your argument does not mean I will come salivating to the "let the government charge me for staying healthy and take care of me when I get sick" side. The freedom to choose health care comes outside of public healthcare. Public healthcare does not give you the "freedom" to choose treatment or not treatment; if you choose no treatment, you still will end up paying for it. Not much of a choice.

Moreover, expanded paychecks from lowered taxes give people more money that, if they actually wanted to, could be placed into social programs. We don't need a government telling us what we should or should not do. If the government actually represented every voice in the country, it would not be forcing some people who will never have kids to pay for other children's educations. If I wanted to actually put that money into education, I would. And that's why I don't think the government should -force- me to.

[otters~1]

As a follow-up to Slaps:
A true Utopian society would grant the option to own and carry a firearm, but no one would want or need to.
Obviously, this is never going to happen.

That is exactly right.

[formica]

As a follow-up to Slaps:
A true Utopian society would grant the option to own and carry a firearm, but no one would want or need to.
Obviously, this is never going to happen.

a) You don't necessarily have to reach a true Utopian society for option 4 to come out ahead.
b) There's a negative correlation between crime levels and pro- gun sentiments, possibly because crime is concentrated in cities, and people in cities generally have a more cosmopolitan world view and are embarrassed by how out- of- the- ordinary America's permissive gun laws are. Most people who want guns want them because they're rednecks/ libertarians/ redneck libertarians, not because they're concerned about crime.

You're trying to open another can of worms here.

Different can, different subject, sure. Of course, since the only point you made was "I'm a libertarian! Gun control bad!" and since being a libertarian shouldn't be an absolute base belief (as in, you shouldn't be a libertarian because YOU ARE A LIBERTARIAN- you should be a libertarian because you think, for whatever reason, that's best for the world/ yourself/ whatever) apparently that can of worms is the thing still tethering you to your position.

Anyway, whatever, it's a big subject and I'm bored now. I'll just say that libertarianism makes no sense in the context of capitalism and following through with libertarian ideals erodes whatever shreds of legitimacy the nation- state has, throws the social contract out the window, and would probably lead to revolution or, if you're feeling pessimistic, slowly revert society back to some form of feudalism and ultimately to slavery.

[SlappyMcGee]

Anyway, whatever, it's a big subject and I'm bored now. I'll just say that libertarianism makes no sense in the context of capitalism and following through with libertarian ideals erodes whatever shreds of legitimacy the nation- state has, throws the social contract out the window, and would probably lead to revolution or, if you're feeling pessimistic, slowly revert society back to some form of feudalism and ultimately to slavery.

Yeah, you're going to have to go ahead and justify any of that. You can't just passively state "You know, every ethos you stand for is incorrect." You tried to do it on the previous page even more passively, by presuming that a world without freedom but maximum safety would, in everybody's eyes, be a perfect world. And you're doing it now by just saying, "Oh, yeah, by the way, libertarianism makes no sense in the context of capitalism (That's almost definitely false), shreds the legitimacy of the nation state (Good!), throws out the social contract (False! It, in fact, gives you the contract to sign without being born into it.) and would somehow lead to revolution. (If we ever were in a libertarian state, it would probably be because it's what everybody there wants. In fact, it would have to be.)

But feel free to JUSTIFY SOME OF THE CRAZY SHIT YOU SAY.

[smartalco]

formica's last post.

Allow me to recap what has happened in this thread in generic terms.

Slaps: statement and invitation to debate!
formica: coherent and reasonable debate!
Slaps: reasonable response!
Suki: more debate!
formica: more debate!
Slaps: more yet!
formica: LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU MY FINGERS ARE IN MY EARS, AND ALL YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE WRONG

[jean-luc]

(Summary at the bottom)

But I got to thinking more about it. And about how if you are perfectly careful with a gun, ain't no accidents going to happen. You keep it locked in a case with the key around your neck. You don't keep it loaded. You don't point at something you don't fully intend to shoot and you don't take that safety off until you intend to pull.

Not that there can't be freak accidents. For instance, slight amounts of gunpowder buildup in the barrel that eventually blows up, or some crazy science shit that happens one every million years. But I would compare those to manufacturing errors in the automobile industry; sometimes, your car is going to blow up. You just know it ain't going to happen to you cause it's so damn rare.

[...]

Cars cause a number of motherfucking deaths. And no matter how fucking careful you are with a car, you can still get into an accident. Not just some freak one in a million shit either, but some legitimate, breakfast ruining dead shit because even though you were super careful, one other guy wasn't. Or any of the other billion drivers on the road.

I find your foundational argument to be fundamentally wrong.

If you are perfectly careful in operating a car, your operation of that car will never injure you. The only injuries you will be susceptible to are those that are a result of others improperly operating their cars. A huge number of gun-related deaths are caused by others improperly operating guns (think accidental shootings by children, although that's only a component of accidental shootings). Your 'perfect operation' argument applies equally to cars, and assumes that humans will not screw up, which is never acceptable in practical thinking.

America was a piss- weak agrarian power when it was formed. More or less everybody was a farmer, the police force was presumably more or less non-existent. In this context, the right to bear arms made perfect sense. America ISN'T a piss- weak agrarian power any more, so I don't see how the right to bear arms is still relevant.

Hear, hear! I feel that the right to bear arms is outdated and can now be amended out, although I know that won't happen any time soon. This is not at all in opposition to the ideas of the founding fathers - they put the right to bear arms (and the rest of the bill of rights) in an amendment rather than the body of the constitution itself specifically because they knew that it might justly be modified or removed in the future as conditions change.

Sadly, if you ban every gun in America, then the guns don't disappear, but only the bad guys have them now. When you make it illegal to own something, you get a whole lot of lawbreakers, not a whole lot of people moved to stop having guns. Look at prohibition. Now imagine if the illegal gun trade started to be a regular encounter with every day people. Where guns go to anybody without control or serial numbers or nothing. That sounds worse to me.

This is an excellent point, and why I feel that a wholesale ban of guns is inappropriate. However, the "if we outlaw guns..." argument is both cliche and invalid: law enforcement and similarly licensed individuals would retain weapons. The most significant firearm risk to outlaws is law enforcement -- in fact, outside of strong organized crime, the ownership of guns by the general public has virtually no effect on the decision making of criminals (too few people own guns for it to really matter). Those that do own guns seldom use them properly, either because they are unprepared to kill someone or because (alarming frequently) they are simply not familiar with the proper operation of their weapon (in the heat of a conflict they forget to load the chamber or disengage the safety, or a similar blunder). Further, handguns seem to be the most popular weapons for self-defense, even though they are often a poor choice - a shotgun would be more threatening and easier to aim. This indicates that many people are purchasing handguns merely for the 'cool' or 'badass' factor, which is concerning.

It's a deterrent. When crime is at the high it's at in some cities, sometimes having a gun is all you can do to protect yourself.

This is true in some locations, but a very small minority of locations, and this should (or, more accurately, must) be resolved through more effective allocation of law enforcement. Promoting prevalent gun ownership as a crime deterrent establishes a system of vigilante justice that is in gross violation of basic law.

God forbid you have to shoot somebody, but as long as you got a gun, you're going to find criminal scum, the pussy shit-cowards of our sad world, are going to be a lot more scared than you are. And in the pursuit of happiness, not being scared of the fuckers is a must.

Jens Ludwig, in the journal Crime and Justice (2000) analysed studies demonstrating a deterrent effect of permissive concealed weapon laws and determined that the apparent strong effect on crime was a result of systemic errors. In reevaluating, he found the deterrent effect on crime to be within error. More guns != less crime. Mark Duggan, in The Journal of Political Economy (Oct. 2001), found that gun ownership had a significant positive correlation with crime, specifically gun-related homicides. In brief, increasing ownership of guns increases the number of homicides in which a gun was used, while not having a significant impact on other types of crime. More guns = more homicide.

I could cite more papers. Undoubtedly, you could come up with studies showing a deterrent effect (although I will stand by the scientific consensus being that the effect is not significant). The point is, the idea that gun ownership deters crime is not definite, and it is strongly in question.

It is, I think, something to do with emotional distance- standing a little while away and squeezing the trigger of a gun is much easier to do than getting up close and personal and slowly strangling to death.

The huge impact of guns on domestic conflicts is a result of how easy it is. If you keep a loaded and unlocked gun for defensive purposes, it takes a fraction of a second to aim and fire without thinking. Other methods require more dedication. People that kill other people in domestic disputes virtually always truly regret it -- they simply didn't think before taking action.

In Australia, guns are for the most part illegal, and barely any criminals find a way through to the black market to buy a gun. Sure, the cream of the scum do- the Underbelly lords and all that wank- but the meat- and- potatos of the crime world try to hold people up with knives or with brawn. And less people die.

case studies are the most powerful argument, and they are on the side of gun control. Countries with tight gun control have less violent crime, and that's a fact.

2. And also, at want point of motherf*ckerage does somebody deserve to die? Somebody raping your wife? Somebody stealing a car? Somebody stealing some jewellery? Some creep who's infatuated with you and keeps bordering the line between a crush and stalking? Somebody who grabs your wallet? A drunk who threatens to hurt you, or wanders into your home after dark, or urinates against your shed? Somebody who keeps looking at you the wrong way?
There's a related point, which is that, no matter who morally justified you may have been shooting that motherf*cker doing something for which he actually DOES deserve to die, the law might not see it that way. Shooting motherf*ckers willy- nilly might just land you with at least a few years of imprisonment, which doesn't even leave the gun owner any better off.

Excellent point. Legally, the use of deadly force is only permissible when someone's life is in danger and the use of the weapon might reasonably be expected to alleviate that. In Oregon, we recently had a man locked up for firing a gun at the vehicle of a thief. He had intended to blow out a tire to make it easier for the police to locate the man, but legally, discharge of a weapon is deadly force, and is not justified for thievery (or even for murder when the murderer is fleeing).

There is zero correlation between increased gun prevalence in a society and increased violence.
Introducing shall-issue concealed weapon permits into a society dramatically reduces its rate of violent crimes.
The lower rates of violent crime "bleed in" to neighboring US states, even if those neighbors have unreasonably stringent gun control regulations.

A lot of researchers would strongly disagree. There is no clear consensus on the issue. I have found it far easier to find papers showing that gun ownership does not reduce crime than saying that it does. I would challenge you to justify your claim that those points are "well-established."

In Vermont, the only "license" you need to carry and conceal a handgun on your person is 18 years of age, and it is one of the safest states in the US. Its rates of violent crimes and theft are, if memory serves, the second-lowest in the nation. Gun prevalence is high, people apparently know to use their words to solve their disputes, and crime doesn't pay.

Adjust that for population and, more importantly, population density, and Vermont starts looking a whole lot worse.

A fairly famous study was: Kellermann, Arthur L., Frederick P. Rivara, Norman B. Rushforth, Joyce G. Banton, Donald T. Reay, Jerry T. Francisco, Ana B. Locci, Janice Prodzinski, Bela B. Hackman, and Grant Somes- 1993- "Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home." New England Journal of
Medicine 329:1084-1091. It found that persons living in households with guns are 2.7 times more likely to be the victim of homocide than those living in households without guns, which seems to imply that people who shoot their spouses would NOT generally just grab a hammer and kill their spouses using that instead.

QFE. That study is a must-read. It has been challenged, but those challenges have just been to that 2.7 number - no one credible has disagreed that there is a clear positive correlation.

What is it that pops into your head when I say "defensive handgun use"? Do you picture a woman being mugged, and then a group of armed men swarming around the mugger like a SWAT team? Do you think I'm talking about the Punisher swooping down off a rooftop, or the Friendly Neighborhood Sniperman decapitating the mugger with a .50 BMG? Because for a typical self-defense scenario with a gun, your phrase "vigilante defense" is nowhere remotely close to accurate.

No, but I can easily picture one person with a 9 millimetre handgun, and that's all it takes to be deadly. The use of deadly force in a common mugging is a violation of justice, and the gunman would be charged and likely found guilty of homicide.

Firearm-related accidents are extremely few and far between.

In 2007, accidental gun discharges killed more than 613 people. That's a small number, right? Well, in total, guns killed over 31,000 people. Studies indicate that a significant number of those would not have occurred were not a gun (for defensive purposes) on hand. Unfortunately, I don't know how to obtain a data set on that.

Centers for Disease Control numbers, by the way.

You say this as though there was any question of it. Deaths and injuries from firearm accidents are less than the reduction in violent crime rates they introduce by several orders of magnitude. Selling guns that frequently kill the buyers and their families is not exactly a successful business strategy for gun manufacturers

Cite your evidence, because it looks to me like you're pulling that out from where the sun don't shine.

The New England Journal of Medicine and the American Journal of Economics and Sociology aren't exactly fringe publications, especially not the former. In any case, the bigger point is that there are better, more effective ways of solving crime through social programs, etc, that have a bunch of other positive effects and no real negative ones.

I also came across a bunch of other stuff referring back to a more or less complete consensus that the bulk of sociological evidence, at least, shows strong correlation between the availability of dangerous firearms, particularly handguns and assault weapons, and the proliferation of violent crime- even though the cause is still contested.

QFE. There is a tremendous amount of very credible evidence that gun ownership increases crime, and in my research it has greatly outnumbered evidence of the opposite. Those supporting liberal gun policy have made big claims with little evidence.

and the following quote by Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither."

I already used that quote in this thread. We good.

It deserves a second, third, and fourth usage. That quote contains, to me, the whole of the American dream. When we give up our liberty we have nothing.

1) The effect of increased social programs is long-term rather than short term. This means that, immediately, we still need guns. Furthermore, it means that this is a hard ideology to endorse politically because putting funding into this now will not reap you any votes. (Although that's a bit of a tangent, I suppose.)

So we should just go ahead and keep killing people because it's easier. That's America at work.

2) Social programs will help to keep people from commiting crimes; hand gun ownership stops people who are already committing a crime.

Or, you know, it doesn't. See my previous comments.

3) Finally, passing forward hand gun legislation that makes it easier to own a gun has a number of positive effects for the economy. It opens up new jobs that are not government dependent, it could potentially lower the crime rate increasing the cache of your town and thus tourism, and it does not cost the government a cent. In fact, they make money on the guns sold through taxes. New social programs, while I -agree- with you to being essential, will cost tax payers money, create some new jobs that depend on our tax dollars, could have the same positive effect with tourism and cache, but is ultimately a net loss for the state in terms of dollars.

Killing all the Jews created a lot of well-paid crematory positions.

Okay, that was over the top. The point is, the creation of jobs and tax revenue is a terrible, terrible argument. You should realize that.

You can't just argue that guns are not the best way to prevent crime so we should not use them.

I'm arguing that guns don't prevent crime. At all. In fact, they increase it.

Shall-issue concealed weapons permits are a fucking huge influence on the crime rate. I've said this before, more than once. They are also extremely cost-effective, as you have just conceded to. But that former point stands -- they're super-effective.

Show us the data.

Ugh, Idontwanna. I found most of my hard sources through this doothing called CQ Researcher that my local community college had a subscription to, but I needed my library card to access it, so I'm afraid you won't be able to get at it unless your nearby educational institution has a similar deal.

Mine does. List your sources.

IN SUMMARY:

The pro-gun group uses the effect of guns as a deterrent to crime as an axiom to their arguments, but fails to even attempt to justify it. Their arguments are thus unfounded until they provide conclusive evidence. We could very easily come to an impasse with scientific evidence as to the effect of gun control, in which case the issue would have to be argued on another point, because the simple reality is that there is not a clear consensus as to the effect of widespread gun ownership.