The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (3246 of them)

That packing.org site scares me...

Primary Gun
The first pistol you draw when a firearm is needed. Typically loaded with medium to large caliber rounds.

― Ned Trifle II, Friday, 20 April 2007 21:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Why is that scary?

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 21:43 (seventeen years ago) link

"Vast majority of firearm deaths are from accidents"

Uh, no. Only 3% are unintentional, 57% are suicides, 39% are homicides and 1% are undetermined.

They age group with the highest share of unintentional deaths is Children under 14, and that's still under 20%... unintentional and suicides combined for that age group is under 40%...

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 21:44 (seventeen years ago) link

err you right!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Friday, 20 April 2007 21:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Jeez, why can't our government step in and keep all these people from killing themselves??

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 21:54 (seventeen years ago) link

well they did put Kevorkian behind bars already

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 21:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Jeez can't our government step in and stop high school students from blowing their faces off and using our tax dollars for their long term care?

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Friday, 20 April 2007 21:57 (seventeen years ago) link

^ happened to a student of my mother's

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Friday, 20 April 2007 21:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Children under 14 shooting each other/themselves shouldn't really be classified as accidental, more "adult gun owners being negligent cockfarmers".

― onimo, Friday, 20 April 2007 21:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, it seems pretty clear to me, judging by those statistics, what we need is Suicide Control. Ban suicide, or at least make those who are thinking about leaping off a bridge submit to intensive background checks, and ask them to please wait 6 months before doing the deed. Buying the farm in California, New York or Massachussetts is ONLY allowed with express written consent from Michael Bloomberg and the New York Yankees, and you have to apply for a permit first, which is usually only available to retired civil servants on a first-come-first- served basis. If you're jumping from a building, the building can be no more than ten and no less than five stories high. Those who resist the poison and Carbona fluid tax will be held accountable and could face up to a year in prison.

I think this can work.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link

you are not funny

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:04 (seventeen years ago) link

How come libertarianism has failed more completely than stalin-style socialism at achieving any political footing? how come?!?!?1

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:07 (seventeen years ago) link

ugliness

― RJG, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:08 (seventeen years ago) link

too weak and poorly armed to beat up other rival political philosophies

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Debatable and highly dubious claim. But I think the answer is because people seem to have grown accustomed to sucking at the teet of the government, and real conservatives have little recourse in a two party system so they continue to vote 'NOT DEMOCRAT' despite the sheer terror that is the corporation-fondling Republican Party as we know it today.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Too individualistic to organize effectively. Anarchists + morals.

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link

"teet of government" (dood don't you work for the DMV??)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link

maybe I'm confusing you with someone else

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link

So long as we're playing misinformation factwatch on here, let's note the following: according to the CDC database output, more than 50,000 people were injured in firearm assaults in 2005, and more than 15,000 were injured in firearm accidents. More than 11,000 people died as a result of firearm homicides, and around 700 died in firearm accidents. None of these numbers include suicide or self-harm. (That's just the quick, raw output from the CDC database -- let me know if I'm entering my queries wrong and coming up with bad numbers.)

In any case, given that, I'm skeptical about claims that a "tiny minority of criminals" are working overtime to make their quotas and bring gun violence into as many lives as possible. Those numbers may reflect a minority of gun owners and users, sure -- a smallish chunk versus a reasonable, law-abiding majority. But it seems off-base to cast them as some aberrant criminal fringe when gun violence is affecting such a large chunk of the population. Minority or not, this isn't the work of some negligible psychos -- it's a fairly significant cause of death.

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:23 (seventeen years ago) link

What is wrong with government teets? I mean its gotta beat government cheese. Of course, communist CUBA has a lower infant mortality rate than the USA, but I'm sure if we go even more towards a market-based health care system this will sort itself out!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:24 (seventeen years ago) link

i'd be curious about the numbers of civilians who saved themselves or others/prevented a crime because they had a handgun, if such studies are in fact done.

― félix pié, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:26 (seventeen years ago) link

what the Nuge's anecdotal stories of heroism don't convince you? The cops won't protect you maaaaan, only armed vigilantes can save you from crazed gunmen!

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:28 (seventeen years ago) link

http://bostondirtdogs.boston.com/Headline_Archives/Bronson.bmp

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:29 (seventeen years ago) link

(Haha sorry that sounded really preachy / moralistic, just saying the numbers are high enough that it's not like "ok, a tiny number of outlaws use guns" -- their presence and harm would seem to be felt a little more widely than that.)

Felix, John Lott would be happy to provide you with lots of deeply problematic research on that point. (I don't know whether he'd chuckle or not when you mentioned how well-behaved everyone would be in the Goetzified armed-citizens future he's clamoring for.)

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:30 (seventeen years ago) link

"teet of government" (dood don't you work for the DMV??)

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, April 20, 2007 5:21 PM (7 minutes ago)

No, I do not. Wrong guy.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:31 (seventeen years ago) link

"Citizenship is for suckers."

― kingfish, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:35 (seventeen years ago) link

lolz

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:36 (seventeen years ago) link

JOIN THE MARINES!!!!!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I believe the correct term is GOVERNMENT TITTAYS

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Sorry, no I meant a tiny minority of gun owners, who are criminals... not that only a minority of criminals use guns, though the stats I'm seeing say "Incidents involving a firearm represented 9% of the 4.7 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault in 2005."

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't want the gummint in my bidness, telling me I can't externalize my costs as much as possible by dumping mercury into the Willamette River, exposing my illegally hired employees to polybrominated biphenyls, or from deliberately not paying for the roads my suppliers deliver their goods to me on.

― kingfish, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, Kerm, I know exactly what you meant. And I'm skeptical about calling it a "tiny minority" when what looks like 75,000 people are hurt by firearms in a year. You're right -- even if every one of those involved a different gun and owner, it'd still be a minority of gun holders in this country. But you can't write it off as "tiny," like it's some kind of negligible aberration. I think that extends a little beyond incidental "guess it happens" numbers and starts affecting a wide stretch of the population pretty deeply.

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:45 (seventeen years ago) link

i'd be curious about the numbers of civilians who saved themselves or others/prevented a crime because they had a handgun, if such studies are in fact done.

Unfortunately, these numbers are almost always bullshit as the studies seem to be undertaken by pro-gun lobbies rather than independent sources.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:46 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't want the gummint in my bidness, telling me my truck drivers need to have a certain "license for driving," that my drivers can't take handfuls of stimulants to drive for 48 hours straight, or to prevent them from hauling a 20-ton shipment over a bridge that can only hold 15.

― kingfish, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

but that Principal shot some crazy kid one time and saved everybody!! Didn't you hear?!

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.joblo.com/newsimages1/the_principal2_jpg.jpg

― félix pié, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Or rather, Kerm, I'm saying fine, call it a tiny numerical minority all you want, but the numbers are still too significant to pretend it's just some incidental exception.

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:52 (seventeen years ago) link

I owe no one for the success in my life, not the GI Bill will allowed my veteran grandfather and father to afford to buy a house at a nice federally insured mortgage and get a proper education, nor the publicly funded school i attended while growing up, nor the publicly maintained roads i drive to work on, nor the publicly funded universities that I attended or the federally-insured loans I took out to attend there, nor to the patent courts, federally-backed banks, publicly-designed-and-built Internet, that ensure I can actually earn a living.

There is no such thing as society, there's only me, and the rest of you can fuck right off.

― kingfish, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:53 (seventeen years ago) link

(etc etc etc)

― kingfish, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:53 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not saying it's not important. 75,000 people is way important... but 75,000 is a tiny minority of the 45 million gun owners. I'm saying the vast vast vast majority of people don't commit crimes with their guns, so restricting the rights of the majority, and their ability to defend themselves from all kinds of threats, should require a lot of justification. "We should give polygraphs and psychological screenings to everyone wanting to buy a gun" fails the cost/benefit analysis by a thousand miles in my opinion... especially if the end result is fewer law-abiding good guys being armed.

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:55 (seventeen years ago) link

kingfish yr killin me

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:59 (seventeen years ago) link

if only you had a gun!

― félix pié, Friday, 20 April 2007 22:59 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm sorry, Shakey, i feel the truth should be told about our coddling nannystate that lets freeloaders sponge off the backs of hardworking, virtuous americans who have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. These welfare programs only allow the undisciplined to be lazy and steal from my pocket. They should be put into an private industry of some kind, perhaps a "house of work," where they can at last contribute to society and earn their gruel thru the backbreaking physical labor I can to undergo as a mortgage consultant.

I'm sorry if this is too "politically incorrect" for liberals to hear.

― kingfish, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:09 (seventeen years ago) link

had to undergo, rather

― kingfish, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah Kerm I think the problem here is that some people see making handgun ownership difficult as a Great Harmful Burden, while other people can't figure out what's so horrible about having a few hurdles to jump in order to get powerful, dangerous weapons.

For the record, barring some complete apocalytpic breakdown of social order that's just around the corner, I'm skeptical about the value of "good guys being armed," given vigilanteism's not always being "good" and the world's general refusal to stick to good-guy/bad-guy clarity. I'm glad for everyone who's successfully used a handgun to prevent a horrible assault, but in general I would not be particularly reassured by learning that all my nice, friendly neighbors were packing. And unlike Goetz types, I would quite happily rather get robbed, even regularly, than wind up shooting anyone. Roger will probably call me a pussy or something now, but I'm just saying the public good of non-police "good guys being armed" seems iffy to me, both on a logical level and on a personal one.

Meanwhile we happily deny the responsible public access to, like, everything based on what some irresponsible minority might do! Anything even mildly dangerous is constantly screened from us based on tiny minorities, and we tend to just as accept it as a necessary thing, because it's always something more boring and minor than guns, and there's no giant constitutional amendment giving us a leg to stand on. (Legally speaking, that amendment is the sole heavy weight balancing against the CLEAR public health issue posed by 75k injuries/deaths a year.)

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Maybe another way of putting it is that even apart from the criminal minority who intentionally go out and assault people, I'm still not reassured by the thought of the law-abiding people around me ever making life-of-death decisions about others, and I don't think this nation is in quite so wild and unpoliced that we have no other choice.

And as I was alluding to earlier, a lot of gun incidents take place where the line between "criminal minority" and "ordinary people I don't want making life-or-death decisions" gets blurred -- I'll bet plenty of those who wind up shooting or threatening people in drunken arguments really do think they're the self-defending good guys.

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:28 (seventeen years ago) link

but wouldn't the morning commute be MUCH more fun if it were like that scene in L.A. Story?

― kingfish, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:30 (seventeen years ago) link

"few hurdles" sure.. that's what we have now: background checks, fingerprinting for handguns, registrations and fees. I don't know how convinced I am that those things accomplish much, I'm alright with them. I'm talking about psychological screenings/interviews and polygraph tests and crazy invasive criminal-until-proven-innocent stuff miserably failing the cost/benefit.

As far as you being iffy about your neighbors being armed... What makes you nervous about that? Are you worried about an accident, or that one of them will snap or being in proximity to a dangerous device or what? And how much of your iffiness stems from unfamiliarity with guns? It just seems odd that we're comfortable walking among huge crowds of strangers on the sidewalk, and driving 70mph within feet of other people doing the same, but someone's got a gun and it's freakout time.

Carrying openly (like a cowboy) doesn't require special permitting, but most people don't do it because there are laws against scaring people with a gun in its holster on your hip.

You're totally right about being wrongly denied responsible public access to things. I'm against coddling across the board.

And possessing a gun while intoxicated is illegal too... Dude, how do you leave the house?

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 23:47 (seventeen years ago) link

one year passes...

Sorry to revive a touchy thread, but this story has my coworkers asking again why this kind of thing happens in America.
(I'm an American living abroad). What do I tell them?

Boy, 8, fatally shoots self with Uzi at gun show

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081028/ap_on_re_us/boy_shoots_himself

― Savannah Smiles, Tuesday, 28 October 2008 10:25 (fifteen years ago) link

this is already being discussed in a rational and clear headed manner on the disgruntled shootings thread

― Glans Christian Christian christian Christian Andersen (MPx4A), Tuesday, 28 October 2008 10:31 (fifteen years ago) link

Skipping 3146 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.