The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

Ha!

I'm gonna go eat some cereal - I'll be back in a little while.

when come back bring arsenal

Okay, as much as I'm disagreeing with Roger's stance, I believe that in addition to his hardon for guns he is stating that he is glad that his wife is comfortable with the guns around their house and knows how to use them because that makes her less likely to hurt herself with one.

Droooone: I know you were making at least a little humor in the argument, but if there were no guns, the next deadliest weapon would surely do just fine, dont you think?

Manalishi: Worse things have surely happened to me... but not on any basis that a gun would have ever helped me. I mean, I have had cancer twice, i have gotten fucked over by people emotionally. both of those really hurt me much worse than the loss of any personal possession could. Maybe, maybe if i my house was broken into when i was home alone, got roughed up and could have been helped by a gun, maybe i would think differently, but i really would hope that i wouldnt. anyway, most burglars make an effort to steal at a time when no one is home so they wont be caught.

but if there were no guns, the next deadliest weapon would surely do just fine, dont you think?

If there were a reasonable assumption that the elimination of guns would be equitable and complete - yes. Then you'd just be facing off Fonz style with chains and bats and stuff.

That's a very problematic assumption, though.

I think Milo and I are closer to each other in spirit than our posts or our final stances would lead the casual reader to think; I think we are using the same attitude to come down on different sides of this issue and I think his points make sense and are valid, I just don't come to the same conclusion as him.

I don't have a great deal of knowledge on British labour, stet - how prevalent were deaths and strike-breakers physically

I know that in the coal strikes of the '80s there was violence and retaliation on both sides (Thatcher's fault, right?), but I don't know if (further back) there was violence largely from the owners/state against unionizers.
The pitched battles of the 80s are probably a good example, ye: the Police were used as a state army to break the strike, but neither side was armed. I can't imagine how it would have turned out if the miners had guns -- I fear it would have meant armed police, which would have meant massacres.

In 1919 there was a riot over working hours in George Square in the centre of Glasgow, and tanks were sent in, but it was largely bloodless as well. Most of the labour history is like that -- lots of fisticuffs and thumpings and some huge marches, but very few deaths.

You talked about intimidation breaking US union movements (which I don't know much about) --- surely the guns would have helped with that?

Milo: I definitely agree that it is a problematic assumption, but I still just cant see the justification of agreeing with our current gun situation over a situation with much, much stricter gun regulation and fewer gun deaths.

yes, i know that anyone pro-gun will say that very strict gun regulation will never cut down on deaths, but it never hurts to try, right?

Now, i know this isnt the best comparison, but look at prohibition. alcohol was viewed as something dangerous to society. it led to more crime (mainly because of gangsters and their guns) and we decided that prohibition really wasnt the answer to the problems. So a novel thing happened... they repealed it.

I think a lot of gun owners are afraid that they are wrong, so they will fight to the death so they will never have the opportunity to be proven wrong.

And of course, the canon example here is Ghandi, who successfully used no guns to stop us stamping all over India with lots of them xpost

You guys are familiar with this, right?:

The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000. Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000. Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services.)

The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. Yes, that is 80 million. The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.0000187.

Statistically, doctors are 9,144 times more dangerous than gun owners.

NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Dude, why are you crazy?

Very strict gun regulations probably would prevents some deaths, just not ALL of them, so what's the point.

I mean seriously, why are you posting bullshit statistics games like they are meaningful or like that will make someone find you credible?

but doctors are NECESSARY, u dumby

accidental gun deaths
vs.
intended gun deaths

accidental doctor deaths
vs.
intended doctor deaths

Hey, this is fun!

yeah guys. gun leg is gonna be hard. so let's not try.

besides, there's powerful lobbying behind that shit.

I really dont see how the upside of owning guns privately outweighs all of the death and stuff that happens that involves guns. t0dd on the mark to this point.


now, excepting for legitimate reasons (say viable and verified threats against family, self – but not raw property, fuck property – and for the procurement of food, hunting, etc.,) why [/i]can't[/i] we have a significant lockdown on guns? seriously, let's quit hiding behind the second amendment as gospel; use it for the philosophy intended. the philosophy is intended toward the protection of the people from universal threat. so let's read it in the spirit of mitigating a universal threat: gun violence. logos, not inflexible literality.

anyway, we're reading an evolutionary article; or at least i try to consider it that way when i'm reminded of the 3/5ths representation it entitles me.

also bullshit on the 80 million guns claim

xpost galore

Manalishi: That is really the worst stat i have ever seen... and possibly the most transparent. I am pretty sure you realize this.

While accidental gun deaths do matter to me and are definitely a problem, they are not the real problem. The problem is non-accidental gun deaths... where people are meaning to harm others. are drive-by shooting accidental? are school shootings? are cases of passion?

sure, doctors are people and they make mistakes. the human body is fragile and when doctors accidentally prescribe a wrong drug or make a mistake in surgery, it is not with intent to harm. how many doctors are out there who harm intentionally?

lol guns

http://images.dmusic.com/v7/emoticons/shoot.gifhttp://forums.seriouszone.com/images/smilies/sconf.gifhttp://images.dmusic.com/v7/emoticons/uzi.gifhttp://forums.seriouszone.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

i think that 80 million might be right - the best estimates are something like 30% of households, but that # doesn't differentiate between an old hunting rifle in the garage and a loaded 357 in the dresser.

http://www.renegadechickens.com/chickens/Toons/foghorn.jpg

pictured l-r: ilx, roger

Nonviolent protest only works against opponents who have qualms about slaughtering you, yeah?

No, it works against people who have qualms about being seen to slaughter you. It's all PR

Kerm: in a democratic society such as ours, mowing opponents down rarely results in positive gains for your side. remember what happened in Harlan County after an anti-union bully killed a miner? the company gave in and let the miners unionize because there was national attention and scrutiny.

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e105/con7/gungirl1.jpg

^^ properly educated amirite????

I've been following this debate with interest, during my lunch break of vegetable pasty and orange juice, but sadly Manalishi has just lost all credible debating points with his fucking rubbish statistics.

This article is about the Australian gun buyback. It might be of some interest to the gunny people on this thread.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/buyback-has-no-effect-on-murder-rate/2006/10/23/1161455665717.html

Dr Baker and her co-author, Samara McPhedran, declared their membership of gun groups in the article, something Dr Baker said they had done deliberately to make clear "who we are" and head off any possible criticism that they had hidden relevant details.


hmm.

The stats were just for fun, folks. Get over yourselves.

That said - the statistics are correct. But clearly supposed to be funny.

SO you are just trolling then.

Boy, you fellas just LOVE that word, huh?

you proved you are no jimmy kimmel.

lock thread

lol @ 'great ilx gun control debate' = milo and dan perry more or less agreeing and everyone pretending to take manalishi seriously

guns: cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems

So the next time I go to the docs, do I need to pack heat or something?

The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.0000187.
The number of accidental deaths per car owner is 0.000055.

almost three times as high!

clearly, we should outlaw cars before we outlaw guns.

number of airplane deaths per airplane rider is 0.000002 ... this is about 1/10th the odds of dying in a car accident!

so ... why is it harder to get an airplane pilots license than a driver's license? LIBERAL CONSPIRACY?!?!?!

"The younger the better. I like shooting them. I like how they look and smell."

-manalishi

seems pretty clear to me.

It is very tempting to put the manga girl on this thread.

do it. i havent seen it yet thank god but anyone whos clicked on this monstrosity deserves it.

Gershy, I remember when I first saw that footage (thanks youtube), it really upset me. But now it doesn't really fuck with me(thanks, desensitisation).

if guns were allowed in the state capital, i bet somebody totally would have shot dwyer in the hand before he shot himself, thus saving the day.

One guy with a conceal-carry could have ended that in an instant.

Aw man, I just got back from the ER (where, last week, we had a guy shoot his eye out in a botched suicide, in case anyone's wondering), and am too tired to wade in here properly, but: milo's been pretty otm throughout here, guys. And Manalishi, dude, you're making decent points with bad stats, and clearly know how to wind up the masses, but you realize that the whole feel-smell-taste admission just gives dweebs like kenan an excuse to make ad hominem attacks that confuse the issue. And kenan: cut it out. Your smarmy, preening bullshit is full of gross assumptions about guns, gun owners, and gun violence.

That being said: taking the Constitution as gospel is silly, and weirdly dogmatic--it's just some shit some dudes wrote a couple hundred years ago. Good stuff? Sure! I like it, including the Second Amendment. But even if I didn't, and even if, like kenan, I thought that the Second Amendment ought to be repealed or seriously undermined, there's nothing really to do about it: the right to bear arms really IS a part of "being American." Not because you're obliged to like or endorse firearms, but because you're obliged to live with them, even if only because they've been grandfathered in. Let's assume that those 80 million gun owners only own one gun. And let's also assume there's a small percentage of illegal, unregistered or accounted for guns (how about 2 million). That's still a shitload of guns. Getting rid of them would be impossible, and would also require the American gov't to go and arrest or harass perfectly law abiding citizens like milo and Roger and my dad and, like, most of the state that I live in and all of my parents' neighbors. That is, people who have never used a gun against another person and hope that they'll never have to. Moreover, guns have been retained by the American people since day one--this is NOT the case in Europe, so to apply the British model of gun control is specious. Y'all never had guns (thanks, repressive monarchies!) so to say that you're cool without them, so why aren't we? is disingenuous. (a very similar line of reasoning could be applied to socialized healthcare but that is an entirely different issue...)

And another thing: slaughters like today's tragedy will always be outliers. Tacky as it may seem to say this, 30some deaths by handgun-wielding-psychopath every few years is lost in the heaving sea of your "average" gun deaths: some accidents, some criminal v. innocent, lots of criminal v. criminal, some innocent v. criminal, crimes of passion, and so on. Accidents are the fault of irresponsible gun owners. Crime is crime, and if, say, drug dealers are willing to shoot each other over whatever, getting rid of guns will (a) just make them stab instead, and (b) oh wait, do nothing since they'll still probably get their hands on guns anyway (note: this can really not be exaggerated enough--any attempts by the gov't to, say, srsly stop the flow of handguns into the country would just be a huge misallocation of resources, much like the War on Drugs).

Crimes of passion are really where guns make the difference (though, note, I have zero stats to back this up): while ppl will never stop killing each other out of rage, getting rid of guns would probably seriously curb the number of people who are successful. Guns are alarmingly convenient, both in the ease and the distance with which one can kill someone else. If everyone always had to stab or beat everyone else to death, you'd probably see a lot of would-be killers stand down--"actual" violence is a lot harder than making someone dead before the ringing in yr ears has stopped.

oh, and the concealed carry argument is totally retarded: college students are not really likely to be the type of ppl that are gonna have concealed carry licenses, nor are campuses likely to be the type of place that would allow ppl to walk around strapped. thus: the only people that will have guns will be criminals or gun nuts (who, in this case, would also be criminals). So, criminals and criminals.

(also: no stats for any of my arguments, just hunches. so, yeah, if you know something i don't, please share, but try to be civil about it. something about gun control brings out the smug moralist in people/kenan, where even CONSIDERING gun ownership is basically the same as wanting to have underwear like the sex machine)