The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

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Ed, you're right: I now remember as a kid seeing police in Italy walking around with submachine guns.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:58 (seventeen years ago) link

me having a gun only makes it that much more likely that a cop is going to shoot me. it wouldn't protect me or make me feel more secure in any way.

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link

but rifles and shotguns have practical, non-human-killing purposes.

Go on.

― jaymc, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Sorry to be such a horse's ass, Ally, but exactly how many US localities are there where you need a concealed weapons permit to own an antique gun? Feel free to name lots of them.

(But I don't think it'll change my horse's-ass notion that there's a difference between appreciating guns as objects and carrying functional concealed weapons -- a difference this horse's ass is willing to bet is reflected in the laws of like practically every US locality. This was not meant to suggest anything at all about Alfred's father. It was a fairly simple statement that we should be careful about letting "I appreciate guns as objects" bleed subtly over into "therefore people should be allowed to carry them," because the one really doesn't have anything to do with the other.)

― nabisco, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link

let's put them all in museums where they can be fully appreciated

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Because I'm boring and narrow-minded, I keep coming back to what vahid pointed out: the root causes of many gun deaths are social, and are only tangentially related to the availability of legal guns. Implementing gun control (which, given what it is now, means banning handguns??) would cost so much money, and take so much time, and would be so fucking divisive politically, that I really think that all that effort and aggro would be better invested in attacking the larger social issues that need redressing.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Wasn't there a robbery/shootout in L.A. or somewhere in the last two years, where they had AKs, armor, and a lot more firepower than the initial responding officers did?

let's put them all in museums where they can be fully appreciated

...and eventually discovered by the dastardly Simon Phoenix for his nefarious schemes.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Rifles and shotguns (and large-caliber handguns) are incredibly useful and necessary for work/travel/life in remote areas in Alaska, Canada, and many western states due to danger from bears and other large animals. I know it may be sort of hard to believe to a city dweller but it is very, very real.

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

jaymc: you're doing that thing again.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

(ie, it DOESN'T MATTER if a private citizen is armed, the state makes it is business to be BETTER ARMED)

This is super-OTM and sort of the only response to people who want to be armed for potentially revolutionary purposes; which is to say that a state can't really operate as a state unless it has a monopoly on violence.

― max, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:05 (seventeen years ago) link

that was about ten years ago and i think you can even find it on youtube (north hollywood shootout)

xxxxp

― rps, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:05 (seventeen years ago) link

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d5/Government_Warehouse.jpg

― and what, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:06 (seventeen years ago) link

"top....men"

― rps, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Moreover, forget about protection from animals (which, as Dan said, is actually a legitimate threat but for, let's face it, a v v small segment of the populace): what about shooting them and eating them? I know ppl don't hunt much in the city, but they do practically everywhere else. And, so we don't get embroiled in a whole separate discussion about hunting, can we just agree that some people think hunting is barbaric and unnecessary and some don't, but that it's something we've been doing for literally forever and that banning it right now would be a little weird?

nb I have never been hunting.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:08 (seventeen years ago) link

rest in peace, Porkins and that pipe-smoking government guy

― kingfish, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:09 (seventeen years ago) link

"That thing again" = being curious?

― jaymc, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link

xxpost I was trying to avoid broaching that subject :)

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, I assumed you were going to talk about hunting, but I wanted to know what else you had in mind. Thanks for the explanation.

― jaymc, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link

I have. It's fun! My dad still goes "hunting," but it's basically an excuse for him and his fiftysomething buddies to get away from their wives, drink Glenlivet, and bitch.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link

^^^^ that is most hunting, i think

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

plus you come home with meats

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

otm

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link

guys really i just want a steak and can't afford them so i figure shooting an elk and strapping it to the hood of my ford focus would probably solve my problems for a while. also i want an excuse to walk around in the mountains.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link

I know a guy out in Bigfork who could probably hook u up

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:16 (seventeen years ago) link

here get elk with this glock 17

― Will M., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link

No I think he has the elk already.

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link

(the elk dealer)

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link

roger adultery

― RJG, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:19 (seventeen years ago) link

shoot elk dealer and take his elk

use this glock17

― Will M., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:20 (seventeen years ago) link

...I sound like one of those text adventure video games from the 80s.

― Will M., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:21 (seventeen years ago) link

YAOW?

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:26 (seventeen years ago) link

are we done here? looks like we're done here. i'm just gonna go ahead and post this again:

http://www.texasfrightmareweekend.com/images/savini.jpg

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:33 (seventeen years ago) link

seems like a good a time as any.

― Will M., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Thank you for that.

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:39 (seventeen years ago) link

A lot of people who know shit about hunting often describe it as a pathology instead of a sport (I'm accusing no one here). I don't care for hunting, but into my teens I always went with my dad; it was an excuse to hang out with him and his buddies. As usual, look to the langauge. I never heard anything but the greatest respect for the deer, boar, and turkeys: their mating patterns, what they smelled like, the kinds of prints they left, the grace of their movements. These guys weren't sadists blowing shit away. They never poached: they went during the eight-week period in which Florida allows licensed hunters to bag legal game. If they didn't catch anything -- which is often the case -- there was no recrimination. It may sound bizarre to say so, but I'm glad my dad hunted instead of, I dunno, sat on a sofa watching the Dolphins all Saturday. I find that behaviour more depressing.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:43 (seventeen years ago) link

vahid: that paper was v v excellent, and pretty much sums up the reasons i'm interested in public health

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:05 (seventeen years ago) link

wow thanks anecdotal story

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Humanity caught in being killing machines shockah

― sexyDancer, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:14 (seventeen years ago) link

NFL games are on Sunday.

― jaymc, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:17 (seventeen years ago) link

OK, this thread is so much more rational and nuanced than I imagined it would be.

The anti-gun contingency needs to realize that, for most gun owners, being around guns is natural and maybe even mundane and that interest in guns for sportsmanship, or hunting, or self defense, or for just plain aesthetics is not pathological.

"More guns = more safe" is one of the weaker and most commonly abused arguments by gun rights advocates. Also, while the second amendment has been an effective political tool, it just isn't the coverall that gun rights enthusiasts make it out to be.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Shows how much I know.

EDIT: Waitwait: I've watched NFL games on Saturdays. Are they "championships"?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:23 (seventeen years ago) link

playoffs

― horseshoe, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:23 (seventeen years ago) link

xxpost again no problem dude - i actually came across it in my studies because it has implications in managing behavior problems in teens - it shows that escalating the consequences (ie the "risk" of behaviors like jerking mr f0zis chain) isn't useful if the teenager hasn't bought in to the reward system. ie if one of my students assumes that they won't learn math/science/study skills NO MATTER WHAT, then there is no expected payoff for the low-risk behavior of being a good student, whereas the high-risk action becomes more attractive because at least there is a *possibility* of a positive outcome (ie impressing chix0rs/boiz and/or mr f0zi himself with yr devil-may-care attitude)

i am sure you can make a similar argument to show that if yr young stick-up-kid is habituated to gun violence (several parents, male relatives, friends already dead by age 21) and sees it as a likely outcome for their life story NO MATTER WHAT (because they grew up in a dangerous neighborhood) then the housewife cowering in the bathroom with a 357 is very little dis-incentive indeed

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:25 (seventeen years ago) link

i clicked on this by mistake but after the college season ends there are the occasional saturday games as well.

― chicago kevin, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:26 (seventeen years ago) link

What are criminals afraid of? Burglar alarms? Dogs? Nope. They're afraid of some housewife in a bathrobe with a loaded and cocked .357.

My father scared off a burglar with a knife.

John Justen and I scared off a burglar by waking up.

Plus what moonship just posted.

I think the mindset of the criminal (or potential criminal) and the subsequent motivations and incentives are a little more complicated then as posited in your argument. If guns scared off criminals (or potential criminals), then armed nogoodniks would probably spend less time shooting at each other and more time pointing the gun at us unarmed folk.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:37 (seventeen years ago) link

my anecdotal story which i'll drag out here is my student who was shot on christmas day in the arm and hand. he was hanging out on the street with some buddies, a dude comes out of his house and sees that his car has been tagged in his driveway, accosts the pack of 16-year-olds in the street. the teenagers tell the dude (who is 25, i think) to go smoke a cock. he goes inside and comes out like two hours later with a revolver and starts blasting away at the teens. the guy is fine (he doesn't hang out on the street anymore and won't play football for a months yet) but it could've easily ended up in "4 teenagers dead" bernard goetz type horror.

i'm not sure what my story illustrates, except that the 25 year old dude is going to be in jail for a while (he was caught fleeing to mexico) and that it obviously shows very poor decision-making skills on his part - "i am pissed about my car being damaged, so i think i will go to prison for several years"

i think having access to concealable handguns probably exacerbates this poor decision-making problem in a way that access to bolt-action hunting rifles doesn't, so i think we could also exercise some nuance when we talk about gun control.

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:41 (seventeen years ago) link

OH and this is another the interesting anecdote: three weeks later on a friday night a 15 year old was shot and killed in the street. the cousin of the SHOOTER was caught at his high school (which is in our neighborhood) with a handgun in his backpack on monday - he had brought the gun to school for HIS OWN protection, since he was fearing retaliation.

interstingly enough, in this case, roger's attitude of

Shooting back - and effectively neutralizing a threat - DOES stop someone shooting at you.

-- Manalishi, Monday, April 16, 2007 6:54 PM (Yesterday)

leads to MORE CRIME in this instance (unless what, we make it legal for 9th graders to carry handguns to school?)

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:46 (seventeen years ago) link

~~then~~ than

plus a bunch of other illiterate shit

GAH

(xpost to me)

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:52 (seventeen years ago) link

geez don't skip a beat or anything, NRA-lobby whore.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/virginia_tech_gun_control

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 21:10 (seventeen years ago) link

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