Board 8 > What the US needs to ban guns

(+) Yeah! (+)

VeryInsane posted...

I wouldn't care so much about banning guns so much as there should be way more research on gun violence and possible gun control

I think the fact that there isn't is kinda silly

the 1938 example is a way to highlight the idea that placing restrictions on who can own guns can lead to shifts in power that allows the government to enact more unfair policies in the future. it's not about passing a law to take away all guns. it's about reforming gun control to make it harder for people to get guns. or pretenses from taking guns away from certain groups. then once they now longer have the ability to defend themselves, or a diminished ability to defend themselves, you can pass whatever law you want because they no longer have the capacity for self advocacy while under direct threat from physical violence.

although truthfully it's difficult for me to care enough to argue about these kinds of positions. I mean we've seen it happen in history so in my mind it's not worth arguing about at all. we simply know this is what can (will?) happen.

for me the gun control debate is more about the fact that I believe people should be able to do whatever they want. I don't trust nor respect any kind of government entity to tell me what I am allowed to own or how I should behave. even if you could actually suspend my disbelief far enough that I would somehow accept a hypothetical scenario where the government was actually representing the will of the people... honestly, I still wouldn't care. I guess I am just too stubborn and individualistic but I still don't think anyone except for myself has a right to decide how I should behave.
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MariaTaylor posted...

So you can't actually get rid of guns entirely. It just doesn't work. And I'm not making the argument of "well if you ban guns they'll get in some other way." What I mean is... are you going to take them to Mount Doom and throw them into the fires of Mordor? No? Okay then. So LOGICALLY in a REALISTIC scenario what does "gun control" actually mean? You're just taking guns away from citizens and localizing every gun in existence into the hands of the political elites who will then decide what to do with them. The guns cannot disappear. The people who are confiscating the guns (and they will have to use guns to do this, believe me) are going to now control the entire stockpile of guns. This is essentially saying that the many should voluntarily give up their power to the few.

just going to jump in here on this

you don't have to throw guns into a volcano to destroy them. Guns can be wrecked just like any normal object.
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KingBartz posted...

just going to jump in here on this

you don't have to throw guns into a volcano to destroy them. Guns can be wrecked just like any normal object.

you can melt down and destroy every single gun in America, yeah. I don't think this would be a good idea though. well, unless you are the Chinese government. they would probably think it was a good idea. for us to disarm our nation.
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KingBartz posted...

you don't have to throw guns into a volcano to destroy them. Guns can be wrecked just like any normal object.

lol

He said Mount Doom so you came to clarify that guns don't have to be destroyed using the high temperatures associated with volcanic magma.
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seriously I don't want to rehash the same exact thing again for the fifth time in this topic but the fact that someone wanted to correct my colorful language and clarify that guns can actually be destroyed using methods other than a fictional volcano that exists in a fantasy setting, without engaging my actual argument in any way whatsoever, is pretty tiring.
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The 1938 example is fine for showing what the worst of banning guns could look like, but I was talking more about gun cases recently (specifically, shootings like the one this week) and researching them and possible solutions instead of well, doing nothing
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the shooter used a weapons stockpile that included illegally modified weapons and brought them into a gun free zone and started massacring people. I'm not sure exactly how gun control would have prevented this. gun control already existed and it already did not prevent it.

he was also a mysterious as hell multi-millionare who no one would have expected to perpetuate this kind of shooting incident. so the idea that more background screening would have prevented him from obtaining weapons doesn't seem to hold much water.
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MariaTaylor posted...

KingBartz posted...

just going to jump in here on this

you don't have to throw guns into a volcano to destroy them. Guns can be wrecked just like any normal object.

you can melt down and destroy every single gun in America, yeah. I don't think this would be a good idea though. well, unless you are the Chinese government. they would probably think it was a good idea. for us to disarm our nation.

Yeah I am sure that is the big reason China doesn't launch a land invasion of the United States, all the guns our citizens own.

The whole idea here is to lessen the number of guns out there so that people stop killing each other. Weapons being so easy to obtain basically guarantees that an unbalanced person who wants one can obtain one and use it with ease.

This is not some apocalyptic scenario. Australia is a pretty similar culture to ours, its a frontier culture. They love their guns. They still do. They went out and bought (and destroyed) back tons of weapons and changed the sort of weapons that were in easy circulation 21 years ago and not coincidentally they haven't had a big mass shooting in 21 years.

Australia hasn't been overrun by dictators, its citizens still have freedom of speech and last I checked they weren't conquered by china. Don't worry they can still own guns too and they have a pretty high gun ownership rate and have a domestic gun violence rate to match.

That rate of ownership just isn't 89 guns per 100 people. Like that's ridiculously high.
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I didn't say it was the big reason they wouldn't launch a land invasion of the United States. don't put words in my mouth. I said they would be happy about it. Do you think they wouldn't? Make that argument. Don't create some false argument that I never made and then argue against that just to make yourself feel right.

Eddv posted...

The whole idea here is to lessen the number of guns out there so that people stop killing each other.

I know what "the idea" is. I just don't think it will lead to the expected outcome without creating unexpected consequences.

Eddv posted...

Weapons being so easy to obtain basically guarantees that an unbalanced person who wants one can obtain one and use it with ease.

they are not easy to obtain right now. except illegally. which... well... I don't see how making the legal methods more difficult really solves anyway. it just makes it harder for law abiding responsible gun owners to obtain guns. meanwhile the people who are already obtaining guns in an illegal an easy way can continue to do so. doesn't seem like a great outcome to me.

Eddv posted...

This is not some apocalyptic scenario. Australia is a pretty similar culture to ours, its a frontier culture. They love their guns. They still do. They went out and bought (and destroyed) back tons of weapons and changed the sort of weapons that were in easy circulation 21 years ago and not coincidentally they haven't had a big mass shooting in 21 years.

Australia hasn't been overrun by dictators, its citizens still have freedom of speech and last I checked they weren't conquered by china. Don't worry they can still own guns too and they have a pretty high gun ownership rate and have a domestic gun violence rate to match.

so? just because something works one time in one location doesn't mean that it will work in all times in all locations under every conceivable circumstance. I'm not afraid of the risk that gun control might work. I'm afraid of the risk that it might NOT work and lead to unintended consequences. and looking at examples from history we know that these negative outcomes ARE possible. why would I want to take that risk? I don't.

Eddv posted...

That rate of ownership just isn't 89 guns per 100 people. Like that's ridiculously high.

why? compared to what? which arbitrary number do you think is acceptable for 100 people to own? this argument makes no sense to me. do you actually give a shit what 100 random other people do? why are you so concerned about giving other people permission to do stuff?
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MariaTaylor posted...

I didn't say it was the big reason they wouldn't launch a land invasion of the United States. don't put words in my mouth. I said they would be happy about it. Do you think they wouldn't? Make that argument. Don't create some false argument that I never made and then argue against that just to make yourself feel right.

Its not a thing even worth saying without unstated implication. Its utterly irrelevent. Its like saying why do
you drink vodka, I am sure Russia would be happy about that? It's just a nonsensical statement unless you're meaning to imply that widespread gun ownership is good for national security, which is as I expressed an inane argument.

MariaTaylor posted...

so? just because something works one time in one location doesn't mean that it will work in all times in all locations under every conceivable circumstance. I'm not afraid of the risk that gun control might work. I'm afraid of the risk that it might NOT work and lead to unintended consequences. and looking at examples from history we know that these negative outcomes ARE possible. why would I want to take that risk? I don't.

What are the risks of a voluntary gun buy back program? No one is taking any guns by force. You're not going to get any massacres when the FBI tries to forcibly collect guns from families in Montana because that's just not going to happen. Are you that uncomfortable with that many guns being in one place all at one time and if so what makes you so comfortable with all of them being out there in the wild in the first place?

MariaTaylor posted...

why? compared to what? which arbitrary number do you think is acceptable for 100 people to own? this argument makes no sense to me. do you actually give a shit what 100 random other people do? why are you so concerned about giving other people permission to do stuff?

For reference, Yemen, which is literally in the midst of a civil war is the second place in this statistic at roughly HALF that number. Canada, a fellow frontier nation is at 1/3 that number. It's a REALLY high number of guns considering how you don't literally need a firearm to fight off rogue militants in this country and in fact in nations where that IS the reality is STILL isn't this high. You want to know why we kill each other with guns so often its that we have a LOT of fucking guns.
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Eddv posted...

Its not a thing even worth saying without unstated implication.

so then I guess the disagreement is that you felt it wasn't worth saying but I felt it was worth saying. well, luckily, this scenario is pretty clear cut. I am the one who said it. so really only my opinion matters in this case. it's not like I have to okay it with you whether something is worth saying before I say it.

Eddv posted...

What are the risks of a voluntary gun buy back program?

none. I have no problem with this.

Eddv posted...

No one is taking any guns by force.

if they do attempt to take guns by force, I would have a problem with it. pretty easy argument to follow.

Eddv posted...

For reference, Yemen, which is literally in the midst of a civil war is the second place in this statistic at roughly HALF that number. Canada, a fellow frontier nation is at 1/3 that number. It's a REALLY high number of guns considering how you don't literally need a firearm to fight off rogue militants in this country and in fact in nations where that IS the reality is STILL isn't this high.

the problem is that this matter is entirely subjective. I get that you FEEL you are right because you have an emotional attachment to the matter. but the truth is that it's completely arbitrary. there is no way to quantitatively determine how many guns per 100 people is too much. the fact that you are acting like your opinion is the authority on the matter is just entirely misplaced.

Eddv posted...

You want to know why we kill each other with guns so often

well

a. our homicide by gun rate is actually not very high for the number of guns we own.
b. there are already pretty clear causes for the gun related deaths we do have, and lack of gun control is not one of those causes

the reality is that you don't actually want to know why we kill each other with guns "so often." you just kind of arbitrarily decided that it was the case and that the only explanation is the lack of gun control and the only solution is more gun control.

that is not the behavior of someone who wants to know why. that's the behavior of someone who thinks they already know why.
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to explain what I mean by a, above

america's homicide death rate by guns is 3.60
our gun per inhabitant rate is 112
(this is what I'm getting when I look it up anyway. I'm not sure where you got the number 89 from)

this gives a ratio of 0.032

the homicide by death rate in honduras is 66.64
the gun per inhabitant rate is 6.2

this gives a ratio of 10.7

having less guns per person didn't seem to help them very much
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Eddv posted...

Boy I'd have liked to spend some time with my family this week but compared with owning a high powered rifle that sort of thing a luxury i cannot afford. - a common sentiment in foolmos reality apparently.

You're really good at this arguing thing huh
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SmartMuffin posted...

Gun control in the US originated as a way to prevent blacks from fighting back against the KKK.

IIRC blacks were never intended to own guns in the first place
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VeryInsane posted...

I wouldn't care so much about banning guns so much as there should be way more research on gun violence and possible gun control

That would be good, and hopefully it would help educate people about the purpose and value of the 2nd amendment
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mexico homicide gun rate 6.34
guns per citizen rate 15
total ratio: 0.42

I wanted to look up Yemen since you brought it up but I couldn't find statistics. maybe if I looked harder. but I don't really care that much since it's obvious there is little/no correlation.

ireland homicide 0.25
gun ownership 3.89
ratio: 0.064

ireland's ratio is HIGHER than america. would anyone say they have a gun homicide epidemic?

france homicide 0.21
gun ownership 31.2
ratio: 0.0067

france has a similar homicide rate to ireland despite having way more guns per person. seems like adding more guns didn't cause them to start a wanton spree of murder.
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The US gun epidemic perception comes 100% from high profile massacres like this. Most people don't give a shit about the 95% of gun deaths that's mostly poor and minorities.
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definitely true. a similar number of people are killed every month in chicago as to the people who were killed in las vegas just recently. nobody seemed to care about that happening 12 times a year.
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MariaTaylor posted...

definitely true. a similar number of people are killed every month in chicago as to the people who were killed in las vegas just recently. nobody seemed to care about that happening 12 times a year.

I think it's more the fact that it happened all at once and immediately, where as a daily gun related death in urban areas have been considered standard news, as depressing as that is.
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sounds like you're just agreeing with what foolmo and I already stated/agreed on above. which is fine. not everything has to be a disagreement and an argument.

anyway one of the best ways to reduce the number of gun related homicides in america is to improve conditions in urban areas. that's where a lot of these gun related homicides are happening. but I guess to do that politicians have to stop having million dollar fundraisers and actually do work. so yeah, who knows when that's going to happen.
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I try to look at arguments in a pragmatic manner, trying to find the best reasonable way to fix it

I don't think a gun ban would be effective in America's landscape. Too many people like guns, and it's not something that I see being enforced properly.

That said, not even providing adequate funding to researching gun violence, regardless of the cause, is pretty poor. It's not even these large scale massacres you see in public places or in schools, it's just murder incidents that you only see in local news, in some cases not even they cover it! Is it Poverty? Mental Illness? Both? It's hard to really say since the government isn't trying their best to at the very least look into it. If it's one of those cases I listed above, it's not necessarily the guns, but rather class and health issues. I guess all those dumb political campaign fundraisers can just go to research instead.
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how much funding is being provided right now? how much do you think is acceptable? do you think it should cost a lot of money to figure out why people are shooting each other? in my opinion it feels as if there are a lot of common sense answers that we can begin addressing immediately. why not spend the money on fixing those problems instead of wasting it trying to identify other causes that might be more elusive and difficult to perceive. I speculate that the gun homicide rate could be dropped significantly just by improving conditions in urban areas.

we should do that first. then if the gun homicide rate still doesn't go down we can look to other causes. the only unintended side effect if we are wrong is that living conditions for millions of people will have been improved anyway. so it kinda seems like a fine "risk" to take.
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There is none since 1996 when the CDC stopped funding it. Obama lifted it a few years ago but given the congress was conservative there still isnt any funding on it

Is pumping money into poverty stricken areas the best answer? Seems like inflation to me though I'm admittedly not well versed in the subject
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by the way @eddv I am a bit curious about something

if you are so pro gun control why did you move to NC? you know we have open carry here, right? seems like you'd be worried for your safety if you think gun ownership is correlated to violence.
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VeryInsane posted...

There is none since 1996 when the CDC stopped funding it. Obama lifted it a few years ago but given the congress was conservative there still isnt any funding on it

okay, I couldn't find a clear answer on this. I know it stopped but then it said that it started again. but then apparently it didn't? even though it did? confusing. either way I personally don't think it really needs any funding so I guess this isn't a point I can care about too much. once again I don't think it's worthwhile to waste money researching things we already know. use the money to fix the problems instead.

VeryInsane posted...

Is pumping money into poverty stricken areas the best answer? Seems like inflation to me though I'm admittedly not well versed in the subject

I mean yes if you take a very simplified view of what I said and read it as "just give money to poor people." but that's not what I actually said nor what I am advocating for. I'm talking about improving conditions for the people who currently live in those areas. in order to do that you're going to have to spend money. nothing is free. the government has already taken our money in the form of taxes. I'd rather they use it for something like this as opposed to just using it to do meaningless (in my opinion) research.

once again it comes down to this. even if improving conditions in those areas does not bring the gun homicide rate down (although let's be honest it almost CERTAINLY will), the only downside is that we will have improved the lives of millions. still seems like a good plan from my perspective.
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Basically, the president said it was ok to research but congress never carried it out. Nothing else of note.

I did seem to misread what you said and realized it as soon as I hit post, improving conditions is definitely better but it will definitely not be easy (nor do I expect congress to look at poverty at all)
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MariaTaylor posted...

by the way @eddv I am a bit curious about something

if you are so pro gun control why did you move to NC? you know we have open carry here, right? seems like you'd be worried for your safety if you think gun ownership is correlated to violence.

I was moved here. It wasn't like I said "oh hey North Carolina sounds fun" thats just where the job took me.

And its now like a quiver in fear of guns. It's just a logical correlation that gun ownership has a pretty strong relationship with gun violence. Obviously there are other factors, such as culture. Imagine how little gun violence there would be in this country with even less gun ownership.
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I mean I just sort of demonstrated above that there doesn't seem to be a correlation

so it would take a pretty active imagination to come to that conclusion
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So you deny that if you owned a gun you'd be any more likely to use a gun than if you didn't own said gun?
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I deny that there is a correlation between the number of guns owned per 100 people and the rate of gun homicides. refer to the data I posted above. it's not even a debate or an argument. you can clearly see there is no correlation.
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MariaTaylor posted...

I deny that there is a correlation between the number of guns owned per 100 people and the rate of gun homicides. refer to the data I posted above. it's not even a debate or an argument. you can clearly see there is no correlation.

I think Eddv was saying more guns means more gun homicide, and erroneously used that specific statistic to back it up.

Its a statistical fact (or it was a couple years ago), that carrying a gun makes you far more likely to be shot be a gun, and not necessarily your own.
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that's a completely different argument from what he was making above, though. above he was talking about the fact that in america there are too many guns owned per 100 citizens.

okay so... now he's saying if one person owns a gun they are more likely to be shot. how is that any of his business? why should eddv or anyone else be in charge of regulating that? should we also outlaw soda because drinking it will cause someone to get diabetes?
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Eddv posted...

Obviously there are other factors, such as culture. Imagine how little gun violence there would be in this country with even less gun ownership.

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Eddv posted...

Imagine how little gun violence there would be in this country with even less gun ownership.

MariaTaylor posted...

I mean I just sort of demonstrated above that there doesn't seem to be a correlation

so it would take a pretty active imagination to come to that conclusion

and now we're just going in circles.
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foolm0r0n posted...

ExThaNemesis posted...

How are you going to enforce who can and cannot post in your topic?

Super witty insults

When are those coming into play?
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MariaTaylor posted...

Eddv posted...

Imagine how little gun violence there would be in this country with even less gun ownership.

MariaTaylor posted...

I mean I just sort of demonstrated above that there doesn't seem to be a correlation

so it would take a pretty active imagination to come to that conclusion

and now we're just going in circles.

No, because in order to get an accurate look at the difference you would have to do a comparison of the two statistics over time among the same group of people and even then it might not be 100% accurate.

You're attempting to argue against the common sense assertion that gun ownership on the individual level does not lead to gun violence on the individual level.

Or I suppose more accurately that guns per capita isn't a metric that captures the rate of gun ownership, which I guess is a little more murky.
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Eddv posted...

No, because in order to get an accurate look at the difference you would have to do a comparison of the two statistics over time among the same group of people and even then it might not be 100% accurate.

so if you want to do that comparison then go do it. there's literally nothing stopping you. if you want to prove me wrong then prove me wrong. don't sit here and say that data may exist that might possibly prove me wrong. you said something, I provided data that proved you were wrong. if data exists that proves that you were right then you shouldn't have any trouble finding it.

Eddv posted...

You're attempting to argue against the common sense assertion that gun ownership on the individual level does not lead to gun violence on the individual level.

not even remotely true. for the third and final time, I am claiming that there is no apparent correlation between the gun ownership per capita and the gun homicide rate. and, for the third and final time, it's not even an argument. the existing data already shows that there is no correlation. the end.

Eddv posted...

Or I suppose more accurately that guns per capita isn't a metric that captures the rate of gun ownership, which I guess is a little more murky.

I don't have to argue this, because it doesn't matter. we already know the correlation does not exist. only someone who is attempting to bullshit, mislead, and deceive others into going along with their view needs to start changing the definition of words to try and make their false argument seem credible.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

When are those coming into play?

You just made one
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That's it?
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maybe
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people don't want to post in a topic if they can't just come in, make the same "how many y/o is ____" or "vlado fanfiction" joke and then go about their day
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MariaTaylor posted...

people don't want to post in a topic if they can't just come in, make the same "how many y/o is ____" or "vlado fanfiction" joke and then go about their day

Well you also said you disagreed with me but never said how, instead opting to argue rhetoric
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MariaTaylor posted...

people don't want to post in a topic if they can't just come in, make the same "how many y/o is ____" or "vlado fanfiction" joke and then go about their day

foolmo is a cuck

but is he HOT???
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foolm0r0n posted...

Well you also said you disagreed with me but never said how, instead opting to argue rhetoric

also when i told him why he was wrong and he had nothing but insults left he just stopped talking to me.
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SmartMuffin posted...

but is he HOT???

You'll see when we go to Houston nightclubs...
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foolm0r0n posted...

The 2nd amendment is arguably the most important in the whole Bill of Rights. Without it, none of the other rights are valid. It might deserve the #1 spot, but there's no question it should be in the top 2.

Am I the only one who finds this wording funny?
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foolm0r0n posted...

Well you also said you disagreed with me but never said how, instead opting to argue rhetoric

I'm not that interested in arguing with you

Mr Lasastryke posted...

also when i told him why he was wrong and he had nothing but insults left he just stopped talking to me.

it's amazing that you are so demented that in your warped view of reality this is what actually happened
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MariaTaylor posted...

it's amazing that you are so demented that in your warped view of reality this is what actually happened

i can just read the posts in this topic and verify that's what actually happened. the proof is in the facts.
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k

I mean you're not really worth arguing with, so you're free to believe whatever you want honestly
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i usually believe the facts, yes.
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