Mass Shootings and Gun Debate 2018 Thread

[JessFR]

I have read most of them and have not seen the statistics I asked for.



(My emphasis.) I agree with you - that is why I did not mention gun specific stats in a vacuum, but contrasted them with a correlation in the reduction in deaths resulting from violent crime - a trend that you denied exists, by the way.



I don't know about 'crime stats', broadly construed. But I cited evidence that showed deaths resulting from violent crimes declined after the gun controls. I acknowledged that there was already a downward trend, but pointed out that the trend clearly accelerated following buyback schemes.



This is false according to the reputable sources I have provided. Please provide some reputable source(s) which refute this, or concede that you are wrong. Please, show me the data. I have showed you mine. You have been quite critical of another poster in this thread for being vague; it is a little ironic that you keep dogmatically asserting this 'fact', in the absence of any supporting evidence - and without due acknowledgement of the counter-evidence I have adduced.

If you really insist I'll get the data you want. But for the reasons I've just explained, I can't just do it that fast.

I can tell you the sources. I'll get the links if you like, in the meantime. They were the the ABS crime stats, as I recall, they were specifically the ones for homicide, robbery with and without a weapon, possibly burglary, and suicide that I checked. I took all the available years, as I recall they changed the format somewhere in the late 80s so I had to account for that too. Then plotted it on a year by year chart. And from that I couldn't find evidence of any notable decline resulting from 96.

Like I said, I'll find some way to get it again if you insist. But in the meantime, could you be so kind as to show me where you linked or provided evidence that disputed the suggestion that the overall crime stats were impacted as a result of 96. I've checked again but I can't find them in your previous posts.

And I'd there really is good evidence of it, I want to see it. Even if I can't convince you of why it's either wrong or misleading or improperly interpreted, I still wanna make sure for myself that there's no danger that it might be actually be correct.

Cause if there is, it'd change everything. And I'd want to know why your numbers are different from mine and which ones were correct.

EDIT: Never mind, I made a mistake. I found them. I'm assuming you're talking about you're previous post, source two. Total rates per 100,000.

Those do look like the same numbers I used at the time. The ABS states I used were the 1 in 100,000 numbers just like them. And it looks very familiar so I don't dispute their accuracy.

The problem is its only going from as early as 2000.

The numbers fluctuate from year to year no matter what you do. You gotta look at the whole picture, more data, going back to the 80s or further to see how much fluctuation is normal.

You can't tell from that graph alone, but based on my recollection from back when I looked into this a decade ago, it looks exactly like a fluctuation I would have dismissed as too small to be notable. Especially when there's a general downward trend happening already.

It's always jumping around a little from year to year. The numbers aren't high enough overall to even it out. So an apparent decrease over just a 3 year span is too small to draw any conclusions.

Since those numbers look the same as I remember mine being. I'm sure that with the full year to year graph of 86 to 2003,the time I recall covering back then (the stats only come out years after the year they're relevant for) would show quite clearly that that drop is well within the normal year to year fluctuations.

Like I said, if you insist. I'll dig it all up again.

As I previously explained, I couldn't find anyone interested in the truth at the time. Everything I found was either looking at the wrong data, or too small a sample size.

Doesn't tit strike you as odd that there are stats going back to the 80s but the news only shows a couple years around 2003? Anyone who knows anything about statistics would know that the numbers can fluctuate normally in data and you need as many samples as you can to increase that accuracy.

So why didn't they provide all the years they had? Perhaps because 2003 doesn't look so compelling when you have 2 decades worth of similar bumps and dips for no apparent reason at all.

The answers you're looking for are the overall homicide rates per 100, 000 (not the totals that don't account for population increase, another trick they use to fudge it), as many years as possible.

When I did it as I recall I had them all for about 85 to 04.the year at the time being somewhere between 05-06.

So, thinking now. I probably wasn't able to find much about the 03 gun controls. So perhaps it's worth my looking again anyway. At the time, I don't remember the year but it can't have been later than 07 at most. Which means I could only have had data up to 04 or 05.

Honestly at the time I really wasn't looking much at 03. My primary focus was finding the truth about the big one, the 96 gun controls. At the time 03 wouldn't have been long enough ago. I do remember I looked at it. But not particularly closely.

So, actually I'll probably dig it up again regardless. You've got me curious now.

I'm sure I probably don't want to know. In many ways I wish I'd never looked into it at all. Knowing the truth has been nothing but a source of frustration.

You gotta keep in mind 03 also wasn't a particularly big change comparatively.

Some time today I'll see about digging up the years again. Then I'll have to find some way to plot it cause I don't have anything like that installed. All I have is a phone and a really slow laptop. I'll figure something out. So, sorry but I'll have to get back to you.

You gotta understand, most people are convinced the gun controls in Australia worked. And nobody's gonna listen if you say anything else. Most of the time they never even show stats that aren't gun specific. And when they do its usually only for a very brief time when it proves nothing.

Admitidly I haven't looked in probably a decade or longer, but at the time, I was never able to find any pre-made graphs that just showed all the available data per 100, 000 overall. The only place I found it was the ABS. and only as the unplotted numbers for that year. I had to download each year separately and put it all together to get a graph of what I wanted to see.

But honestly, thank you for caring about the statistics at all. That alone is worth the trouble of digging them up. Most people don't care what they say really.

I used to have these graphs of course. But they've been lost over the many years since. I'm sure they're on a hard drive somewhere. But tracking that down would take longer than starting from scratch. But if there's a chance you might actually give a shit, I'll do it.

In the meantime, since I can't just pull it out that fast, I'll just repeat what the data I used was. It was the crime statistic datasheet, per 100,000, national although I also checked state by state. For homicide (I also checked robbery suicide and a few others but homicides the main one). Provided by the ABS government website. For the years of about 86 to 04 give or take. At the time that was the earliest and latest their data went for. But that was over 10 years ago. Presumably there's a lot more now. They didn't have any graphs for the whole time period so I plotted the numbers myself in excel as a line graph.

So that's the data I've been referring too this whole time.

I wanted to know the truth at the time and that was the best info I could find. And just about the only honest info around. But again. In hindsight maybe I'd have been better off just blindly believing it was a huge success. Would have been far less frustrating.

 

[aihfl]

There has never been a mass school shooting involving an assault rifle in America.

Uhhh, I think your nose just grew a few inches. Ever heard of a tragedy called Sandy Hook?

 

[JessFR]

Uhhh, I think your nose just grew a few inches. Ever heard of a tragedy called Sandy Hook?

That wasn't an assault rifle. I've already covered this.

I know I write really fast, especially since all these posts are done on a smart phone (hence the frequent autocorrection mistakes) so I have a have a habit of putting out a LOT of words crazy fast. But I covered this all already. As well as the context of why I said it.

At this point most of what I've said I've probably said at least twice.

Sigh, OK round three.
As tathra eventually said, and as I said prior to him. Assault rifles are automatics. Sandy hook wasn't an automatic. By using the word assault rifle incorrectly it confuses the issue. It conflates things in such a way that gives people a false perception of reality.

The weapons used in sandy hook are only "assault" anythings in a cosmetic sense. Another gun with identical attributes and function apart from appearence would be labeled a hunting rifle. So people wanting to ban one but not the other is stupid.

EDIT: I find it funny, OK not funny, frustrating to the point of infuriating, that a lot of people here probably think I'm rabidly pro gun because of everything I've said.

But I've also said that banning semiautomatics would stop mass shootings. That there might be cause to limit magazine capacity. That we should have licensing that's totally incompatible with the 2nd amendment.

All shit that if said in isolation to another crowd would have me labeled rabidly antigun.

But you can't pick and choose your beliefs based on evidence according to society. Either your pro gun or you're antigun and either way there is a set template of beliefs you must have too. It's retarded.

At the end of the day, my primary goal is to have confidence that whatever I believe in, whatever I wind up supporting, is probably the right thing. And unfortunately, my search for the right thing has resulted in a whole mess of views that society says you can't pair together.

Either you're pro life, pro gun, probably pro death penalty, pro republican, and tough in drugs.

Or you're the reverse of all those things.

And if you take a side on one most people will assign you to the respective side for everything else.

And you sure as hell can't have an individualist interpretation of the 2nd amendment AND want to change it. And want gun licensing nationally, and be opposed to an assault weapon ban. There are rules damn it! Conformity to be had and enforced.

Labeling at its finest.

 

[alasdairm]

if a single kid died in a european country from a guy walking into a school it would be a huge event. but, in the u.s. in less than 2 months this year there have been ~17 shootings in schools killing tens of kids and adults and injuring scores more.

and we send thoughts and prayers and say there's nothing to be done. argue over whether we should call the weapon the murderer use an assault rifle or a machine gun or even a weapon at all. and people argue that the best solution is to arm teachers. give teachers fucking guns!

it's ABSOLUTELY FUCKING INSANE.

how many kids have to die? all of them?



alasdair

 

[JessFR]

Yep. That's exactly what I said. I said we have to kill every kid in the US. You got it.

Good thing it was so clear I was worried someone might accidently or intentionally misinterpret it.

Seriously man. Not happy at the suggestion I'm just being pedantic. I can play this game too.

Why do YOU not care about the kids? If you cared you'd want to know as much about the situation as possible so you can be sure you best know how to solve it. Like a responsible citizen.

You wouldnt want to ban things we've banned before with no success at the expense of better policies that might works. You wouldn't want people spreading ignorance by conflating the situation.

Youd give a shit that we actually ban the right thing over the scariest looking thing.

Why don't you care about the kids?
Why is it all you care about is banning guns when children are dying? Why don't you care that nobody is putting proper thought into the correct course of action?

You care more about guns than the gun buts do!

Told you I could play that game too.

In all seriousness though. This IS caring about the kids. Talking about what works and what doesn't. Analyzing the situation and getting as much info and data as possible. That's what you do when you care and want real, effective change.

Crying "why don't you care enough to just do the most readily obvious thing and ban the scary guns" isn't. That's what you do when you don't like guns and the kids are your political ammunition in the fight to ban them. No pun intended.

 

[zephyr]

The kids are dying in these shootings because someone decides to go in and kill them with guns.


The shooters in these schoolyard killings have been youngsters mainly.

How did they get the guns for a start.


Making any weapon registered and subject to conditions like safe storage etc is just responsible gun ownership.


It might be annoying but govt has your social security number and drivers license so who cares if you are on a register for guns?


Its not as if anyone is completely anonymous.

Kids should be free to come and go to school and be safe just as they are.

Locking them up and metal detectors etc is impeding their freedom for no reason. Not every nutter can be stopped but they can be stopped from obtaining guns that can kill the whole school in 30 secs srsly.


It would be easier to just ban all automatics and stupid modifications.

 

[aihfl]

That wasn't an assault rifle. I've already covered this.

And pray tell what makes a Bushmaster not an assault rifle? Now I know Wikipedia can be unreliable, but at least I went there lest I be accused of using some sort of left-leaning news source. Sometimes Jess I think you live in some sort of alternate reality where down is up and up is down. A Bushmaster XM 15 is an assault rifle end of fucking story. And no, I have enough of a life that I'm not going to sort through your lengthy diatribes just to satiate my curiosity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapons_legislation_in_the_United_States

 

[Xorkoth]

But you can't pick and choose your beliefs based on evidence according to society. Either your pro gun or you're antigun and either way there is a set template of beliefs you must have too. It's retarded.

Agreed here wholeheartedly. The political situation here is so obscenely polarized that many people feel there is no room for the middle ground. Or even that there is no room for anyone but the one extreme side they agree with (which is scary).

I'm not anti-gun despite what I've said. There are just shades of gray. It should be clear I'm against semiautomatic, large magazine weapons for civilians, I really don't see why anyone needs those and they lead to an increased potential for harm (and it's not just hypothetical, many recent mass shootings illustrate that in fact they do get used to increase harm). But no way would I say that guns should be prohibited carte blanche. Even though I don't own a gun nor do I plan to, I agree that people should be able to have them. Just not ANY gun.

Curious, Jess, about a question I raised earlier today: if you're for people being able to have semiautomatic weapons because it violates freedom to prohibit them, do you also think people should be able to own other types of weapons such as nerve gas, nuclear bombs, anthrax, etc? And if not, where does the line get drawn, and why?

 

[JessFR]

Well look. As a rule I don't get into terminology arguments. If YOU wish to decide that YOUR definition of assault rifle includes it. Fine. But what I'm saying is that it's not correct with the definition of an assault rifle used in the closest thing we have to technical parlance.

Which requires assault rifles be selective fire. Meaning it can't be an assault rifle and semiautomatic only.

Wikipedia says as much too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

Selective fire. It can't be semiautomatic only.

And the rifle in sandy hook was semiautomatic only.

The same rifle design, can have varients that meet different criteria.

The reason the definitions matter is more that everyone agree on the meaning more than what the meaning actually is.

The problem here is by saying sandy hook was an assault rifle, you imply that it had characteristics it didn't have.

And that matters because then you can say something that's false, such as pointing to some source that says the military uses M4 assault rifles and then suggest thats the same as a similar weapon used in a spree killing. When it's not.

And in doing so, you end up suggesting we ban things when it makes no sense. Like suggesting we ban assault rifles when, even though assault rifles actually are federally legal to own in the US. they are so expensive and rare that they're never what's used in spree shootings.

Is that what you want? To wind up banning a rifle that has never been used in a spree killing? Don't you care about stopping spree killings? Cause banning the wrong thing sure won't help anything now will it?

Or another example, banning assault weapons, a term that has no strict definition at all. Despite its verbal similarity to assault rifle. Now you're again banning guns over cosmetic differences. So again, you're still leaving other guns that can do just as much damage untouched.

And seriously this had to be getting on the 4th time I've said this.

But no. You and tathra are right. Suggesting people have any idea at all what they want to ban is far too specific.

The kids are dying in these shootings because someone decides to go in and kill them with guns.


The shooters in these schoolyard killings have been youngsters mainly.

How did they get the guns for a start.


Making any weapon registered and subject to conditions like safe storage etc is just responsible gun ownership.


It might be annoying but govt has your social security number and drivers license so who cares if you are on a register for guns?


Its not as if anyone is completely anonymous.

Kids should be free to come and go to school and be safe just as they are.

Locking them up and metal detectors etc is impeding their freedom for no reason. Not every nutter can be stopped but they can be stopped from obtaining guns that can kill the whole school in 30 secs srsly.


It would be easier to just ban all automatics and stupid modifications.

Case in point? Zephyr thinks automatics have been used in spree killings. Totally untrue. Because of unclear use of words.

 

[zephyr]

Well the mandalay thing was a modified semi automatic.


Regardless of what weapon it actually is- i am pretty sure multiple weapons were fired and there were plenty of magazines too: what purpose does a semi automatic or handgun with a plethora of magazines and ammo actually have, seriously? I mean- what for?


If there is a reason , isnt there more than enough reason to keep these weapons far from reach of teenagers with a grudge or any lunatic?


Anyway. Its been fun.


I gotta go.

Later.

 

[JessFR]

Agreed here wholeheartedly. The political situation here is so obscenely polarized that many people feel there is no room for the middle ground. Or even that there is no room for anyone but the one extreme side they agree with (which is scary).

I'm not anti-gun despite what I've said. There are just shades of gray. It should be clear I'm against semiautomatic, large magazine weapons for civilians, I really don't see why anyone needs those and they lead to an increased potential for harm (and it's not just hypothetical, many recent mass shootings illustrate that in fact they do get used to increase harm). But no way would I say that guns should be prohibited carte blanche. Even though I don't own a gun nor do I plan to, I agree that people should be able to have them. Just not ANY gun.

Curious, Jess, about a question I raised earlier today: if you're for people being able to have semiautomatic weapons because it violates freedom to prohibit them, do you also think people should be able to own other types of weapons such as nerve gas, nuclear bombs, anthrax, etc? And if not, where does the line get drawn, and why?

I think people should have the freedom to do or own anything they like unless there is real, compelling evidence that such freedom has to be limited for the best interests of society and there is no other way to accomplish that goal.

If someone could provide me a compelling, reasoned, evidence based argument that perhaps banning people from owning nerve gas was a mistake and that there is no danger. Then sure? I don't see that happening. Not with such abundant and indisputable evidence that someone would eventually use them to cause severe destruction. But just as a theoretical argument, if there's no danger there's no danger.

Perhaps there are hobbies out there interested in chemistry that would like to study VX. who am I to tell them they can't just because I'm not personally interested myself?

To me, the line is gray. Society, not just me but society has to decide where the line between freedom and safety should be. And I do think some safety must be sacrificed for freedom, just as some freedom must be sacrificed for safety.

Personally I don't have a clear cut line myself. But what's definitely not in the gray area of the line is any attempt to reduce freedom where there is evidence that it will not have any benefit to society.

It's one thing for us to debate as a society how safe we want to be vs how free, in a subject where it's one or the other. But if the subject in question is only being suggested to be banned based on people's assumptions and prejudices and ignorance, that's not in the gray area.

To me, I think there should be at least some rational reason to ban it, and in no circumstances should we be doing anything where there's evidence that it fails to improve safety.

There is a gray area. Some of these questions are on it. Is stopping school shootings, statistically small that they are, worth a reduction in freedom? I'm not sure. Perhaps. But even if so, there's not just one way to try doing it.

I don't believe the 2nd amendment should be absolute. I don't think everyone should have the absolute right to own a gun. I think we should have a licensing system. Focus on who has guns, not what guns they have. That's where the evidence ive seen has brought me.

I do however think that society should never ask the question "why does anyone need X?". That assumes a legal system where all is illegal until legalized. A system fundamentally in contradiction to the assumption of freedom.

Everything should be allowed no matter how seemingly unneeded, unless removing that freedom is the only way to protect people. And assuming the number being protected is large enough to warrant that sacrifice. And assuming society is collectively OK with losing that freedom for that safety.

Yes, there gray area to be had and I don't have all the answers to it. There's still lots of things where I still haven't decided myself.

But the way I see it. We are nowhere near that gray area. We are stuck arguing about things that have been tried and failed. That are based on ignorance of the reality of the situation, and so aren't starting off on a sound, logical basis to start with.

They are bad policy and that's why I'm opposed to them.

If I honestly believed that we could reduce the annual homicide rate, with no side effects, by let's say, 30%? By banning semiautomatics, and that banning semiautomatics is the only way to achieve a reduction anywhere near that high. That might be an example where I'd say I think that freedom is worth sacrificing. That if there's no alternative that impacts freedom less for a similar number saved. And it won't have a side effect of killing people some other way, so a real net 30%. Yes I would probably say those lives are well worth the lost freedom.

But that isn't what we are talking a out. We are talking about policies that largely are based in ignorance, and frequently have already been tried unsuccessfully. And by people who clearly aren't interested in preserving freedom, or ensuring our policies are based in evidence.

Since they don't personally make use of the freedom, they don't respect it. But I do.

So. Should people be allowed to have nerve gas? I really, REAAAALLLLY doubt it. I don't like to say an outright no on subjects I don't feel all that familiar with. But it's as close to a no as I'd go without it being a definite no.

But then, I don't believe there should be a fundamental right of all people to be armed. I believe that generally speaking, a way should be made available for anyone who is not a danger to other people to receive training and obtain a firearm for their protection or other reasons. That that should always be a freedom we have until there is no question that such a freedom is impossible without costing a substantial number of lives as its cost.

As for the specifics, I think more than anything else why ever we do should be evidence based. Scientific. I don't think we should retry failed ideas or try ideas that aren't sensible to start with because they are uninformed ideas.

So it might be more accurate to say I believe in an assumption of freedom and decisions born from scientific method, than the 2nd amendment.

But that said. I do believe the 2nd amendments only valid interpretation is individualist. I think it's probably a mistake that's come about as society has changed. And that it's probably too extreme for the modern world. But I won't deny its meaning just because I disagree with it.

Not everyone should be allowed to have guns. Most people probably should. But I think we should have a stronger system to control who has access to them. But I don't think there's any real evidence to suggest there are good answers to be had in banning specific typed of guns.

And I think that you should probably have to receive at least some basic training to possess weapons.

So yeah. That's what I think about the whole thing.

 

[JessFR]

And pray tell what makes a Bushmaster not an assault rifle? Now I know Wikipedia can be unreliable, but at least I went there lest I be accused of using some sort of left-leaning news source. Sometimes Jess I think you live in some sort of alternate reality where down is up and up is down. A Bushmaster XM 15 is an assault rifle end of fucking story. And no, I have enough of a life that I'm not going to sort through your lengthy diatribes just to satiate my curiosity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapons_legislation_in_the_United_States

People always say that. I have too much of a life to do this or that. This or that generally being learning anything new.

Sure they have plenty of time for Facebook posts, cat pictures, and a million other meaningless uses of the internet. But not for furthering education. They don't have time for that.

And yes, listening to the opinions of others counts as educational. It helps you learn new things. See other points of view. Understand your fellow humans. As opposed to the echo chamber of universal agreement Facebook tends to promote.

That's fine. You don't have to listen to anything I say. You don't have to listen to anybody who doesn't agree with you full stop. You certainly wouldn't be alone in that.

Let's see, reading everything I've written today? Probably took me about, let's say, 40 minutes to write it all? Tops? So depending on how fast you read. Maybe a half hour to read it all properly, give or take?

Perhaps if you're so busy in your life that you can't spare such an extraordinary amount of wasted time, you shouldn't be robbing the world of your valuable time by participating in this thread at all.

 

[zephyr]

Jess, what about not banning any of the things but naking guns etc accessible to a licensed gun owner, the license earned by tests like a car, every weapon documented in a nationwide database like other records and subject to random inspections or checks to see if theyre kept out of anyone elses reach?

If someone wants a massive stockpile of weapons and ammo then wouldnt that set off alarm bells?


Surely the right to bear arms means the individual is trained and aware of their use. There are other freedoms that are important. What about the right to NOT bear arms. What if ppl own guns just because they feel unsafe as everyone else has one?

As for nerve agents etc, these things are not any use except to kill people indiscriminately. Is freedom really the freedom to be able to kill indiscriminately? Re read your post and yeah nerve agents are not something id be happy with having.





I cant think of a good reason to make any weapon available just because they should be available coz freedom. Especially one that is capable of killing in numbers far more than youd need ever.

Freedom in that regard comes at a cost of loss of freedom with more security and metal detectors. What if you dont have a gun and think it impedes your freedom by being forced to go through one?


What about bombs? Can we all have a few kilos of C4?

 

[JessFR]

I've already addressed some of that. As for say, the freedom to be free from fear of a gun owning society.

This is where I should define what I mean by freedoms. I'm talking about what philosophers tend to call negative freedoms.

Freedoms that only require the government not infringe them. As opposed to positive freedoms which require action to enforce.

I don't believe in those kinds of ambiguous positive freedoms like the freedom to be free of a potentially unfounded fear.

You do have some positive freedoms that should be absolute. The right to vote for example.

But mostly I'm talking about negative freedoms. The right not to have what you want to say, do, or own, impeded by someone else. That's what I think of when I talk about freedom.

Not a freedom to be free from your own potentially irrational fears by denying the negative freedoms of others.

I've already explained in detail what I think should be freedom and why, and for what criteria. If I went over bombs I'd just be repeating myself. So for myself, take what I said in my earlier post and change VX to c4. Done.

You have a right not to bear arms. But not to deprive others of their rights because you fear what they might do with them.

I've also already explained at length what I think about the "nobody needs x" argument.

 

[alasdairm]

Analyzing the situation and getting as much info and data as possible. That's what you do when you care and want real, effective change.

if you've read my comments on cdc funding, you'd know we're on the same page.

Crying "why don't you care enough to just do the most readily obvious thing and ban the scary guns" isn't.

i'm not saying that.

alasdair

 

[Captain.Heroin]

If you could cut mass shootings in America by 47% simply by enforcing immigration laws would you do it?

No, not at all. Please keep divisive shit like this out of this thread.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I think people should have the freedom to do or own anything they like unless there is real, compelling evidence that such freedom has to be limited for the best interests of society and there is no other way to accomplish that goal.

If someone could provide me a compelling, reasoned, evidence based argument that perhaps banning people from owning nerve gas was a mistake and that there is no danger. Then sure? I don't see that happening. Not with such abundant and indisputable evidence that someone would eventually use them to cause severe destruction. But just as a theoretical argument, if there's no danger there's no danger.

Perhaps there are hobbies out there interested in chemistry that would like to study VX. who am I to tell them they can't just because I'm not personally interested myself?

To me, the line is gray. Society, not just me but society has to decide where the line between freedom and safety should be. And I do think some safety must be sacrificed for freedom, just as some freedom must be sacrificed for safety.

Personally I don't have a clear cut line myself. But what's definitely not in the gray area of the line is any attempt to reduce freedom where there is evidence that it will not have any benefit to society.

It's one thing for us to debate as a society how safe we want to be vs how free, in a subject where it's one or the other. But if the subject in question is only being suggested to be banned based on people's assumptions and prejudices and ignorance, that's not in the gray area.

To me, I think there should be at least some rational reason to ban it, and in no circumstances should we be doing anything where there's evidence that it fails to improve safety.

There is a gray area. Some of these questions are on it. Is stopping school shootings, statistically small that they are, worth a reduction in freedom? I'm not sure. Perhaps. But even if so, there's not just one way to try doing it.

I don't believe the 2nd amendment should be absolute. I don't think everyone should have the absolute right to own a gun. I think we should have a licensing system. Focus on who has guns, not what guns they have. That's where the evidence ive seen has brought me.

I do however think that society should never ask the question "why does anyone need X?". That assumes a legal system where all is illegal until legalized. A system fundamentally in contradiction to the assumption of freedom.

Everything should be allowed no matter how seemingly unneeded, unless removing that freedom is the only way to protect people. And assuming the number being protected is large enough to warrant that sacrifice. And assuming society is collectively OK with losing that freedom for that safety.

Yes, there gray area to be had and I don't have all the answers to it. There's still lots of things where I still haven't decided myself.

But the way I see it. We are nowhere near that gray area. We are stuck arguing about things that have been tried and failed. That are based on ignorance of the reality of the situation, and so aren't starting off on a sound, logical basis to start with.

They are bad policy and that's why I'm opposed to them.

If I honestly believed that we could reduce the annual homicide rate, with no side effects, by let's say, 30%? By banning semiautomatics, and that banning semiautomatics is the only way to achieve a reduction anywhere near that high. That might be an example where I'd say I think that freedom is worth sacrificing. That if there's no alternative that impacts freedom less for a similar number saved. And it won't have a side effect of killing people some other way, so a real net 30%. Yes I would probably say those lives are well worth the lost freedom.

But that isn't what we are talking a out. We are talking about policies that largely are based in ignorance, and frequently have already been tried unsuccessfully. And by people who clearly aren't interested in preserving freedom, or ensuring our policies are based in evidence.

Since they don't personally make use of the freedom, they don't respect it. But I do.

So. Should people be allowed to have nerve gas? I really, REAAAALLLLY doubt it. I don't like to say an outright no on subjects I don't feel all that familiar with. But it's as close to a no as I'd go without it being a definite no.

But then, I don't believe there should be a fundamental right of all people to be armed. I believe that generally speaking, a way should be made available for anyone who is not a danger to other people to receive training and obtain a firearm for their protection or other reasons. That that should always be a freedom we have until there is no question that such a freedom is impossible without costing a substantial number of lives as its cost.

As for the specifics, I think more than anything else why ever we do should be evidence based. Scientific. I don't think we should retry failed ideas or try ideas that aren't sensible to start with because they are uninformed ideas.

So it might be more accurate to say I believe in an assumption of freedom and decisions born from scientific method, than the 2nd amendment.

But that said. I do believe the 2nd amendments only valid interpretation is individualist. I think it's probably a mistake that's come about as society has changed. And that it's probably too extreme for the modern world. But I won't deny its meaning just because I disagree with it.

Not everyone should be allowed to have guns. Most people probably should. But I think we should have a stronger system to control who has access to them. But I don't think there's any real evidence to suggest there are good answers to be had in banning specific typed of guns.

And I think that you should probably have to receive at least some basic training to possess weapons.

So yeah. That's what I think about the whole thing.

VX nerve gas should be illegal (and off topic for this thread). People like Kim Jong Un or any other criminal who possesses it should be dealt with swiftly. Legitimate states with stockpiles should agree to slowly eliminate these weapons, but we all know that isn't going to happen.

There's a few chemicals that should remain illegal, none of which are recreational drugs.

 

[tathra]

I'm getting really tired of seeing "gun control" get substituted for "BAN ALL FUCKING GUNS!!!!11" by conservatives.

regulating is not banning.
requiring mandatory training is not banning.
requiring licensing is not banning.

all of these are required to operate a motor vehicle, how come nobody is talking about the ban on cars?

 

[Cream Gravy?]

^Ban carzzzz!!! They kill thousands every year!

 

[zephyr]

Ban all guns. They are stupid.

There.