The Gun Topic - Move all gun laws/rights discussions here!

[Acid King]

I'm just jumping in halfway here, but has the primary argument here really been for an all-out banning of guns, as opposed to more limited measures to make them harder for shady/dangerous types to obtain (i.e. closing the gun show loophole, whose existence renders the "just enforce the laws we already have" argument totally null and void), or otherwise harder to use for criminal/psychopathic purposes (limiting how many guns can be bought at once, making manufacturers build more mod-resistant models, deep-sixing excessive ammo expansions, etc.)?

I'm definitely no gun nut, but I'm not in favor of an outright ban; I definitely do think that some manner of so-called "common sense" changes are needed, and I seem to recall reading that a majority of gun owners feel the same, but it seems to be the "every convicted criminal has the Second Amendment right to carry a loaded bazooka over each shoulder into any day care center he pleases" fringe that determines where the debate goes (or, more accurately, doesn't go).

The thorniness comes in defining "common sense" policies when the premises you are weighing them against were originally considered immutable, inalienable individual rights not granted by the government. Expanding background checks always comes up, but how far do you consider it reasonable for the government to investigate someone before they can exercise their Second Amendment right? Should the government be given access to medical records? Should psychiatrists be compelled to submit patient evaluations to the ATF? Do people with mental health problems not enjoy the protection of the Second Amendment? In other words, how do you effectively determine who is "shady/dangerous" without hanging the rights of innocent people? Closing the gun show loophole would obviously ensure more background checks are done, but considering the furor over voter ID laws and how they would affect vulnerable populations, it's not too hard to see how the argument could be repurposed to suggest that background check laws infringe on the rights of those very same populations.

Also, you say the fringe determines the direction of the gun control debate, but what debate over restricting constitutional rights isn't driven by absolutists? I mean, the ACLU is always defending the producers of Bukkakke Jizz Blasters vol. 37 and the Ku Klux Klan lest the government infringe on our free speech rights, and Fourth and Fifth amendment activists are often defending people who actually break the law and are only caught because of police misconduct or questionable law enforcement practices. I don't know why you would expect the gun control debate to be different.

I hope you don't seriously believe that people having guns will allow them to rebel against the current government. Regardless of how many civilians have guns, there will never be a successful uprising against the government as-is. What with that runaway military budget and all.

Seriously though, noting that the government has better gear glosses over the fact that, assuming a defection rate of 0%, the federal government would have something like 1.3 million enlisted soldiers to tamp down an insurgency that's potentially spread across a couple million square miles and two large porous borders. That's a tall order for any military.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

See Roo, people like YOU are why people like me feel like guns are necessary for self defense. Because you're a nut, and I'm sure if we had this convo in RL rather than from behind the safety of computer monitors, you'd already be reaching for my neck, Homer Simpson-style. There's a difference between saying "I want something bad to happen to you" and actually demonstrating nutcase behavior.

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

I'm pretty sure fantasizing about bad things happening to people you don't like goes into nutcase territory, especially when it's wishing for people to get shot just because you think that'll validate widespread gun ownership.

"Frankly, I almost hope one day you see gun violence, in your country which bans guns."

[CMoon]

I hope you don't seriously believe that people having guns will allow them to rebel against the current government. Regardless of how many civilians have guns, there will never be a successful uprising against the government as-is. What with that runaway military budget and all.

Seriously though, noting that the government has better gear glosses over the fact that, assuming a defection rate of 0%, the federal government would have something like 1.3 million enlisted soldiers to tamp down an insurgency that's potentially spread across a couple million square miles and two large porous borders. That's a tall order for any military.

Actually the real problem about a nation wide uprising isn't guns (or lack thereof) it's that we can't come together on a single point as a nation and agree on it. Is global warming real? Are fossil fuels a problem? Is socialized medicine good or evil? We can't fucking agree on anything--even what a bad government looks like. Don't know how you get an armed revolution out of that.

[TransatlanticFoe]

...

[Ed Oscuro]

The "mass insurrection" argument is stupid because if some element of the institutions of government becomes unjust, it will (as surely as you can get probabilistically) provoke condemnation and defections (if it comes to that) across a wide segment of society.

Revoking the second amendment or reading it to mean that private citizens are not entitled to firearms would be a grave injustice against basic human rights, but I don't see how that fact alone could possibly justify random murders or violent acts. I would be prone to thinking like Ghandi in that situation would be more reasonable. There are a number of loudmouths and idiots in the firearms community, and yes, "political realism" is the order of the day for many. But that's not applicable to this situation. It's about the right tool for the job and surely there are a few who would want to see every problem like the guy who has the hammer and sees all problems as needing to be nailed down, except using firearms. But that's obviously farcical. Solving the issue of a gun ban (assuming that is the only injustice at hand) with firearms would make no more sense than solving plaque buildup with firearms.

Finally, reasons.

1. Because someone else might be dangerous, I should become dangerous myself.

Come on, rub a couple brain cells together. A law-abiding citizen who has a firearm is not "dangerous" in the sense of being a menace to society.

Surely as long as everyone's wandering around packing heat then everyone will feel they need to be able to defend themselves with lethal force? That sounds like a horrific way to live.

This isn't like you're stumbling around in a zombie apocalypse. It's about taking a reasonable precaution to deal with something that somebody doesn't want to deal with. People have different preferences with regard to risk for all kinds of issues.

Obviously, if somebody lives in a relatively peaceful place, then not buying firearms can be the reasonable thing to do. There's no coercion on the flip side, just calculated risks on both.

2. That reads worryingly like "some people need threatening with death or serious injury". Also that you and you alone can decide, without doubt, what is right and wrong - and use the threat of force to support that. Which frankly, sounds horrific.

This is one of the rare times where I have to say it's actually not about "what is right and wrong," because in an obviously deadly situation you have no time to try to play nice with the other person. Just because there might be the person facing you down could live under an illusion like the Pyro. Does it matter that they think they're playing games with you? Fuck no!

Again, your thinking is based on many misconceptions. Each person is only deciding what levels of activity rise to the level of requiring deadly force, and obviously they will also need to be able to justify that to a court of their peers (or at least to the public prosecutor). If somebody is about to press the big red button, the guards will shoot him. If somebody tries to throw a pie at me, I will just shrug when they miss. If somebody tries to throw a pie at Rupert Murdoch, his wife bitchslaps them (or at least she would when she was still his wife). If somebody is about to throw a pie in the face of the President, the Secret Service will shoot the attempted pie-thrower, because their charge is considered to be that important. Hey, guess what - random people decided that a threat against the President, irrespective of "right and wrong" and "reasonable person" tests, requires deadly force. Sorry, but your point / argument / whatever it is doesn't wash.

[TransatlanticFoe]

...

[Mortificator]

Indeed, one of the problems with firearms as self-defense aids is that they give an absolutely enormous advantage to the aggressor. Mr. Concealed Carry could be walking along, totally confident in the protection the pistol in his holster gives him, when he gets his skull blown open by an attacker before he has any chance to react.

This is also why police have shot men reaching for their wallets and kids playing with toy guns: the fear cops have that if they wait to be sure, they'll be killed, crippled or mutilated with no opportunity to defend themselves.

A non-gun owner in a no-guns population is always going to be better-defended than a gun owner in a gun-owning population, simply because the other available methods of inflicting violence don't so totally overwhelm the prospect of self-defense.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah I stopped when I was asked to "rub brain cells together" so really, I'm done here. If someone with a gun isn't dangerous then fuck it, my risk threshold must be fucked up.

Any argument for gun ownership I've seen so far just makes me feel that something is seriously wrong with society as a whole. So yeah, done with this.

Looks like I was right on the money. I don't think any of you guys realize how frustrating (let alone unproductive) it is to get the same "MY FEELINGS" garbage over and over while all the actual arguments and evidence I put forward (not to mention the nuances in my positions) get no credit or understanding. So when my beliefs don't immediately crumble under the wild emotive flailing, that's got something to do with why I believe what I do.

So yeah, go run off with your tail between your legs. It's moments like this that show the danger of people voting when their vote is based on this kind of "boo hoo, my special feelings haven't been good enough for overthrowing the considered arguments developed over years." This is why people voted for Gawge Bush, because he gave them Special Feelings. I can't have a discussion, let alone advance or understand an argument, if people refuse to try to get with the program.

Indeed, one of the problems with firearms as self-defense aids is that they give an absolutely enormous advantage to the aggressor. Mr. Concealed Carry could be walking along, totally confident in the protection the pistol in his holster gives him, when he gets his skull blown open by an attacker before he has any chance to react.

"Indeed, one of the problems with airbags as self-defense aids is that they give an absolutely enormous advantage to the aggressor. Mr. Has Airbags In His Convertible could be driving along I-95, totally confident in the protection the airbag in his wheel gives him, when WHAM! The General Lee launches off the overpass and takes his head clean off!" - An argument most astute

As somebody else said earlier, that's "sand in the works." Every strategy can fail, in defense or otherwise. Saying "oh look, this can fail" doesn't invalidate the many successful uses of firearms in self-defense.

If nothing else, this kind of debate shows that a lot of people around here aren't in the habit of careful reasoning. I'm not saying other groups are better, but damn, this is pretty sad.

A non-gun owner in a no-guns population is always going to be better-defended than a gun owner in a gun-owning population

Here's a stick, have fun with that Grizzly / Lion / whatever wants to eat, maul, gore, or trample you!

Your arguments are so idiotic I don't want to waste time on them.

[trap15]

while all the actual arguments and evidence I put forward (not to mention the nuances in my positions) get no credit or understanding

I think you know why this happens...

[Ed Oscuro]

The thorniness comes in defining "common sense" policies when the premises you are weighing them against were originally considered immutable, inalienable individual rights not granted by the government. Expanding background checks always comes up, but how far do you consider it reasonable for the government to investigate someone before they can exercise their Second Amendment right? Should the government be given access to medical records? Should psychiatrists be compelled to submit patient evaluations to the ATF? Do people with mental health problems not enjoy the protection of the Second Amendment? In other words, how do you effectively determine who is "shady/dangerous" without hanging the rights of innocent people? Closing the gun show loophole would obviously ensure more background checks are done, but considering the furor over voter ID laws and how they would affect vulnerable populations, it's not too hard to see how the argument could be repurposed to suggest that background check laws infringe on the rights of those very same populations.

There's some confusion about what the "natural right" actually is. I think the natural right is to something close to "parity defensive options compared to your most likely antagonist" - self-defense defined. That doesn't trump accountability - so nuclear weapons are still out, as is the "right" to fight the government over what are essentially petty issues (not to make light of shit like eminent domain land grabs, illegal detainment or improper punishments). Obviously this doesn't entail only one weapon - lethal force - but a continuum of options. People rightly talk about making the right decision quickly, but clearly you don't deal with somebody making faces at you by shooting them.

Voter ID laws are rightly dismissed by those who dismiss the harm of fraud - that could be fixed by ID laws - as being essentially negligible, so there isn't really anything to protect against; at the same time, the harm of implementing voter ID laws is that they make voting harder, where voting has historically not been intended to be a narrowly and jealously affirmed right, especially after the expansions of suffrage. The counter-argument is that your right to vote is degraded by fraudulent votes, but of course this is true of any mistaken vote as well, and you don't see some of these pro-ID Laws types spending lots of money on protecting or improving voting infrastructure (unless I'm wrong). Personally our local polling place has done very well with the same #2 pencil-marked ballots and scanning machine over the last ten years or longer. The summary of ID laws: No apparent problem (except for like one academic who believes there is one, contrary to pretty much everybody else) and a very apparent downside to implementing them.

That's not the case when it comes to an objective method designed to protect the public from the insane. Yes, there is a widespread agreement that psychiatrists have a duty to protect society (or, put another way, society at large - all the individuals within it - has a right) which trumps the right of the patient to have their history and current mental state remain confidential, if the two duties / rights clash. A little time spent looking at this should help you understand how this currently operates.

The key to the system working is that the laws need to be such that personal biases on the part of officials don't make two people seeking help from the law (including obtaining a firearms permit) have different levels of success, when these people are assumed to be the same; the law should work so that the standard used is objective (as much as possible). You can't guarantee this kind of system will not wrongly deny certain kinds of redress to a person, but again the needs of the public at large seem to outweigh the individual when there is a very narrow clash; therefore we have parole boards and sometimes people are denied firearms permits.

So just because somebody's case worker, teacher, or other professional passes along information to the authorities, or has a request for relevant information made of them when a firearm purchase is attempted, there's no reason to say that this leads to an abuse right off the bat.

The reason this kind of test doesn't work for the firearms ban is simply that a firearms ban would affect all persons, regardless of their actual capacities and trustworthiness. It makes too sweeping a characterization of individuals as dangerous. Like retroactive laws, the idea of assuming everybody to be incompetent for the purpose of disallowing a type of behavior that isn't bad in of itself (buying or carrying firearms, Prohibition against drinking on the possibility somebody might then drive drunk, where drunk driving is already a step removed from the harms of drunk driving - the probability of a wreck or running over an innocent) is not the founding assumption of Constitutional law.

It's a different matter if we want to talk about steps taken in individual cases - assuming the worst in safety cases may often prove to be useful, but this alone doesn't really push us towards or against firearms ownership. And if you know specific facts, or probabilities, about a narrow case, then it's quite reasonable to say that might militate towards banning firearms in that circumstance (be it a dangerous person, or a person carrying firearms in certain places, i.e. next to the President).

[Ed Oscuro]

while all the actual arguments and evidence I put forward (not to mention the nuances in my positions) get no credit or understanding

I think you know why this happens...

It happens whether I try to condense things or not, and whether the other person actually has invited an argument or not. Apparently many people assume that attempting to argue means that they're entitled to believe they've made a valid argument or, better yet, that their beliefs are completely untouchable.

If somebody wants to make a sweeping ban of civilian firearms, a move that (at least in parts of the United States) would have dire consequences for many individual people, the least they can do is understand the arguments against doing it, so they have a good reason why those arguments don't apply. So far very few people have even tried one round. There is the process of law intended to protect the individual - and there's also the process of using your head so that you do things for a good reason. Nobody's trying to "filibuster" anybody here. It's a complex issue and idiots shouldn't rule the discussion.

Guess what, folks - flipping burgers is easy. When you read law, philosophy, economics, or something else, you have to read hundreds and hundreds of pages just to get the "classic" arguments out of the way. It's not my place to tell people who shift inventory or whatever that their feelings are wrong - but feelings alone don't give us good law.

Voter ID law is the perfect example. Oh no, FORUN ILLEGULZ are STEALING MAH VOTEZ! THIS IS OBVIOUSLY BAD! Well, duh, most of the liberal internationalists at this forum wouldn't agree. But you see how focusing on the emotion alone leads to very, very bad law.

[BulletMagnet]

The thorniness comes in defining "common sense" policies when the premises you are weighing them against were originally considered immutable, inalienable individual rights not granted by the government.

This is true, but alongside that I'd consider it worth noting that when the Amendment was first written available firearms were nowhere near as accurate or deadly (especially against multiple targets...unless you were packing a cannon) as they are now, and were simultaneously more of a bona fide necessity for survival in wild areas. Moreover, while I'm not someone who can quote the 2nd Amendment from memory, I recall that the concept was based around the idea of a "well-regulated militia", which at least seems to leave the door open for some manner of limitations on who can shoot what, including, presumably, as circumstances change.

On the subject of "every side of the debate is headed by nutcases", to some extent I suppose that's true, but despite the fact that relatively few gun owners are NRA members (again, IIRC) I still tend to hear a lot more from (and, more importantly, see results wrought in favor of) the "ANY limitations on ANYONE under ANY circumstances concerning firearms is automatically unacceptable" crowd, as opposed to the "BAN EVERYTHING" crowd, whoever they are. It seems that the latter, rightly, are largely marginalized and ignored, but for some reason the same doesn't seem to apply to their opposing counterparts. Maybe my perspective's just skewed, but I'm having trouble thinking of very many notable gun-control "victories" to put up against the ever-expanding list of NRA legislative trophies, at least off the top of my head.

[Ed Oscuro]

That might just reflect that at the moment we've got something close to the status quo, or even a reasonable compromise. The lack of a comprehensive (but confidential) background check system might partly reflect that it could actually be hard to implement; no doubt the business side is lobbying hard against that. There's also been some confusion in states about how many background check systems you need, if the state (Pennsylvania, I think) wants to run their own background check system on top of the Federal one, and there have been some questions about confidentiality of information (which was Acid King's concern) in that, if I remember right. I'm also thinking of the "gun show exemption." With all the references to cars - I think that if you need to take a test, show competence, and get a license for driving a car, you can do the same to own a firearm. The costs should be as low as possible to just administer the system - of course there's always the general concern that registrations become inflated as a cash cow for badly-organized state governments who can't focus on their budgeting priorities; that's not unique to this case of course.

The situation with "stand your ground" is pretty murky, because juries, prosecutors, and police seem to have a different understanding of what they mean than was intended by those drafting them, which may have just been to clarify that you don't have a duty to retreat unless you can do so in complete safety, and you only need to have a reasonable person's belief that you face grave harm in order to apply lethal force (some people would like to bump that up to "belief in imminent danger of death" but ultimately they're the same thing because you don't know). The Zimmerman verdict demonstrates both these readings, but unfortunately few people realize that, because Zimmerman's apparent recklessness in following Martin does not make it a clear-cut case. Arguably the law wasn't there to handle with that situation, and Zimmerman's obvious partial responsibility, very well.

As I've noted before, Stand Your Ground's corporate backers are mostly drifting away. I don't think the NRA will ever budge but they're not the only heavy hitter here. Politicians need to do something other than the usual "let's just make the whole thing go away" responses representing a huge shift away from the status quo or any status quo we've ever had.

As far as I can tell, the "lethal force in defense of property" type law, seen in Texas, is completely ridiculous. I don't think you have a right to shoot somebody just because they're spraying graffiti or making off with your Ecto Coola stash. I'm not sure exactly what kind of law there should be in that case, since at the same time I think you should be able to detain somebody at gunpoint if need be.

As far as round capacity limits go, I'm not really bothered. I don't think somebody needs C-mags ("century") mags or belts of rounds, but 30 round magazines are fine, and 15 rounds of a pistol magazine can go wasted sooner than people realize (and, again, they're pistols). Automatic fire? Covered since 1968 at least. "Assault rifles?" Not really a fan of making things have worse designs for the sake of it.

Is there anything else I've missed? If you ask me, it's about the actual policies in place, rather than saying "hooray, we won, here's a victory." Gotta have the content.

[CMoon]

Ed, I think another issue here (and I'm sure you get it) is that a lot of the 'anti-gun' people here are not actually anti-gun. I'm anti assault rifle, I'm becoming more anti-pistol, but that isn't the same as anti-gun. A lot of posters here want to see tougher gun laws--that also isn't the same as anti-gun. I think a lot of folks here have also painted some fairly nuanced opinions, and I've heard few of them actually say they are anti-gun.

It is in my opinion more an issue of what kind of guns you want to put in the hands of the public, and how easily should they be able to get them?

Another interesting question here is one of personal liberties. I wish the the pro-gun crowd would argue just as hard for assisted suicide and the defense of pro-choice medical laws, since these are equally if not more important personal liberties that either have been fully or partially taken away.

[Rob]

Mace, against Alaskan bears? That's not a serious suggestion. When your life is on the line you should not be held to "maybe works" defenses,

Fair amount of debate about this one (people "just feeling safer" with their weapons, one side). I think you may be overestimating the power of a not bazooka vs. a nearby 1000-2000 lb. raging beast, though (and underestimating inferno cloud in respiratory system). If the wind isn't rerouting spray up nostrils, I put my money/life on the mace for stopping a bear in its tracks. The smart thing to do would be to also carry a gun as back-up (when the weather isn't cooperating), but personally do not own and have never fired a gun.

Rob's wandering companion.


I'll let you know if I get killed with it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Looks like I was right on the money. I don't think any of you guys realize how frustrating (let alone unproductive) it is to get the same "MY FEELINGS" garbage over and over while all the actual arguments and evidence I put forward (not to mention the nuances in my positions) get no credit or understanding.

Your arguments are so idiotic I don't want to waste time on them.

Nobody's trying to "filibuster" anybody here. It's a complex issue and idiots shouldn't rule the discussion.

Guess what, folks - flipping burgers is easy. When you read law, philosophy, economics, or something else, you have to read hundreds and hundreds of pages just to get the "classic" arguments out of the way. It's not my place to tell people who shift inventory or whatever that their feelings are wrong - but feelings alone don't give us good law.

Respect is earned, not freely given. And it's not the sort of thing the sort of thing you're liable to earn by by painting anyone who disagrees with you as an uneducated clod, strawmanning everything they've said by labeling it as "just feelings", and then by pretending to be meek ("it's not my place to tell people").

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

And for all your all your whining about how nobody ever pays attention to your "evidence", rarely is it ever actually quantitative. In fact they mostly seem to be your own personal philosophical opinions, rather than evidence. The best evidence is always stuff that can be backed up with numbers... hard data and research. I've already posted this before, but quite frankly if an official institution like the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, with its huge body of data and research literature, thinks that more gun control might be a good idea in order to reduce violence and generally make America a better place, frankly that is way more credible compared to the opinion of someone who touts one (potentially flawed) study out of hundreds in a field with ongoing research as some kind of magical, infallible gospel truth while claiming anyone who disagrees deserves to die, or the opinions of someone who sees himself as some kind of intellectually superior messiah that deserves more worship and praise than the 'burger flippers' and 'inventory shifters' he sees himself as being surrounded by give him.

Disagreeing with specific people is one thing, but the two Eds seem to enjoy painting their opponents with very broad brushes.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

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

Disagreeing with specific people is one thing, but the two Eds seem to enjoy painting their opponents with very broad brushes.

Agreed. It's particularly disappointing when we consider that Ed was lamenting all the sarcasm and 'net speak while calling for the two side to actually engage each other on the previous page. Not cool.

'Muh rights!' 'Muh constitution!' can both be poo-pooed as emotional, not that I would - and "YEAH BUT BEARS MUTHAFUCKER WHATCHOOGONNA DO????" is a fanciful appeal to emotion at best. Shall we legislate based on this?

Respect is earned, not freely given.

Not agreed. But this is mainly a wording thing; respect is always freely given. It can then be lost and regained.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Respect is earned, not freely given.

Not agreed. But this is mainly a wording thing; respect is always freely given. It can then be lost and regained.

I can see your point, though I see the polite respect/treatment you'd give to a stranger in, I dunno, a different sense than someone who's earned or lost respect from that 'default' based on their words/actions. But I guess that's just getting to semantics!

[Ed Oscuro]

Somebody's cute when they're angry!

Speaking of respect, I think you (or anybody else in this thread) is capable of earning it when they show either some familiarity with the literature - we don't need more badly-constructed "arguments" that can be shown invalid by altering terms. If I don't know a good argument against my side, then show me one. The other broad strategy you can try (and which, so far, you have utterly refused to attempt) is actually trying to understand my own points and attempt a response to them. Yes, I've written a lot, but even if you grab out a bit of it and try to deal with just that part, that's constructive because at least it gets us started on potential defects in our understanding.

About using a strawman - I've no idea where that comes from. I think you're using the term to mean that I'm engaging in ad hominems, which aren't strawmen arguments. That's also hypocritical, as earlier you were happy to paint Edmond as the poster child for luckless incompetence, and you've just been waiting to jump in with more ad hominems, telling us all about how terrible I person I am, instead of telling us about how terrible my arguments are. I'll happily be thought of as a terrible person if only you would answer my questions - if that was good enough for Socrates that's certainly good enough for me.

I'm sorry that my patience wears a bit thin when my efforts at engagement are all ignored. It's all "take" and no "give" with some of you guys (I'd expect the same if our convictions were reversed, but with the same opinions). Let's not pretend that I'm the only person who has been curt in this thread.

Some people who have earned my thanks for remaining civil and trying to be constructive include - BulletMagnet (the hapless guy always ends on the wrong end of the stick, so I understand why he'd be cautious around boom pipes!), CMoon, Rob, and Acid King.

It's also unwelcome that you show up with this prattle at the moment I'm trying to be serious again. I think we can do without these kinds of "contributions" from you, thanks.

@ Rob: There's an interesting point here: Some people have different "risk acceptance" levels (a concept kind of borrowed from economics, but that does get balanced against trying to do too much of a scorched-earth campaign against possible sources of danger, which is wrong (as I've noted before). I thought the effectiveness of magnum or 10mm bullets against most big bears was thought pretty good, although some people would rather carry a big rifle. I'll definitely be waiting in hopes that letter never comes, Rob.

You know that old joke about the person who thought the baby food had babies in it, because all the other cans had pictures of the good stuff inside. I wonder what they'd think about that bear spray can

@ CMoon: I shudder to think you got the impression that I would conflate the unsafe Nambu with the handsome Purdey, a real gentleman's (or gentleperson's) gun that goes well with a sharp tweed suit and full retinue of caterers and bodyguards, or for the sportsman who doesn't feel the need to hose down the whole bush. But the capacity of a weapon is meant to signify, hopefully, just a capability - which a person should use sparingly and carefully, if at all. For all other uses, there's laws to prosecute negligent firearms usage.

Actually, I can just remove your suspense and note that I have outlined some cases where restrictions are reasonable, which I think is just as good as saying that being in favor of at least some restrictions is fine, and I have even agreed with some cases where "pro gun" (as you would put it) arguments seem to fail.

As for "assault weapons," what does this term mean? According to the (former) law (the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994), it doesn't have any definite meaning. Do you know how the system worked? Add up the right number of arbitrarily chosen features and doodads seen on a weapon, and it either can narrowly be accepted or struck down. I think it just ends up hurting the sophistication and suitability of firearms. In no field of human endeavor should we be striving to make handling design worse, which is closely tied to safety. I think this has rightly been a bone of contention with not just the NRA but even with sporting shooters and home defense.

Wikipedia:

[The '94 law classified as "assault weapons"] semi-automatic rifles with a detachable magazine and at least two of these features: a pistol grip, a folding or telescoping stock, a flash suppressor or threaded barrel, a bayonet mount, or a muzzle-mounted grenade launcher.

In other words, I could have an AR-15 style rifle and get by just fine, but a cumbersome piece of junk that won't fit through a door sideways will be considered as an "assault weapon" if it has all the other features, even though most people would say it was already stuffed and ready to be mounted on a wall, or maybe melted down for all the good it'd do. A "muzzle-mounted grenade launcher" is a fancy way of saying "those old WWII-era funnels that sit on top of .30 caliber rifles to shoot a type of grenade that is obsolete, no longer manufactured, and not available for civilians anyways."

"Silencers" (or "suppressors," if you ask most people who know about these things) are simply devices that make weapons longer and safer to use for all parties. Despite what you see on television, they don't have any known causative factor (or even get employed) in assassinations and muggings. Thankfully, we've made them legal here in my state. Actually, in some European countries, noise regulations and the consideration that it is impolite to go hunting with a loud weapon are points in favor of using suppressors where you can.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

That's also hypocritical, as earlier you were happy to paint Edmond as the poster child for luckless incompetence

Really it was redundant of me to do so; anyone who's been paying attention at this point can see that Edmond's done a perfectly good job of that all on his own.

I'll happily be thought of as a terrible person if only you would answer my questions - if that was good enough for Socrates that's certainly good enough for me

Complaining about nobody else having arguments of substance and demanding that yours get responses?

That's also hypocritical

I think I've grown sufficiently jaded enough that I'm ready to stop pretending internet arguments are serious business anyways, especially with regards to matter of law. It's not like lawmakers in real life give two shits what some losers on a videogame forum bitch about.

[Ed Oscuro]

Agreed. It's particularly disappointing when we consider that Ed was lamenting all the sarcasm and 'net speak while calling for the two side to actually engage each other on the previous page. Not cool. [...] 'Muh rights!' 'Muh constitution!' can both be poo-pooed as emotional,

If I wanted to be pedantic, I'd point out that's actually a strawman: Nowhere have I said that the Constitution actually serves as the source of human rights - I've expressly contradicted it, in fact. It's just a (pretty good) attempt to use the concept of natural rights (which is itself debatable, but at least useful) in founding a system of law. I've also said a couple times (including before this latest round) that I'm not against people for having emotions, but they need to give me something more to work with. I can work with emotions as a way into an argument, but there needs to be more than just listing the various kinds "academic tropes defining bad people/behaviors" that BareKnuckleRoo has been doing.

I really don't know what Edmond's been up to; I haven't been paying attention. I can't be held responsible for people saying or doing things that are probably contrary to my own views anyway.

not that I would - and "YEAH BUT BEARS MUTHAFUCKER WHATCHOOGONNA DO????" is a fanciful appeal to emotion at best.

That's not an appeal to emotion - that's an appeal to real circumstances that some people are ignorant of, or ignoring. I thought it was supposed to be humorous, so you guys can also check "get a working humor detector" off on your list of things to work on. Maybe it just fell flat, but at worst it wasn't malicious. It is just an example that (like armed police and armies) suggests that viewing the people of the United States has all having exactly the same needs with regards to firearms (either way) as being completely incorrect. You know there's other examples where this works. Fighting racism and "privilege checking" - these are areas where we have to believe that you need some understanding of society and history in order to understand why treating everybody exactly the same might be inappropriate.

Gosh, you folks give me hell when I write in an academic style, and then I get hell for trying to be funny.

Hopefully you see what I mean now - it's not terribly constructive for me to make arguments if you are going to pick them apart and then ignore the rest. I'll deal with that and then try to make clear the rest of my argument. However, I'll take that before I see what are parts of larger arguments characterized in ridiculous fashion.

Respect is earned, not freely given.

Not agreed. But this is mainly a wording thing; respect is always freely given. It can then be lost and regained.[/quote]
Honestly, with the constant recourse to feeble attempts to shame by linking to this and that Wikipedia article on "things academics think you should never, ever do," I'm not holding out hope that there's any capacity for "granting a return of respect" on Roo's part.

I mean, anybody can take the first step towards fixing this, right? Don't disappoint me again by bringing forth yet another article on "Wikipedia's Top Hits Of Bad Behaviors" while engaging in behaviors that are fundamentally hostile to debate.

Let me give an example, and I hope we can get it right. Take a look at this on "Steelmanning" (i.e., not "strawmanning") in debate:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/hmn/applied_art ... d_feynman/

Now consider (or discover, if you weren't able to find where I had listed it in previous posts, for which I apologize for their length) that I have listed (when possible) areas that I'm not sure about, conditions that I think negate individual rights (one of at least three examples in my discussion with Acid King on psychiatry), and areas that

I will guarantee that if you engage probably around 99% (maybe a bit higher or lower, but not by much) of people on the "pro guns" side on the Internet, you won't find any of these concessions for the purpose of debate and finding the truth. I also will guarantee that number holds about true for the other side, unless you are lucky to be arguing in an academic or otherwise rigidly moderated format. Ask yourself, "have I tried to understand my opponent's argument?" and you will have the answer to whether you have been constructive in this conversation (or any other). Wouldn't you like to be part of the 1% for once?

[Ed Oscuro]

Complaining about nobody else having arguments of substance and demanding that yours get responses?

I'm pretty sure that what I've said is actually that

a.) I have provided many responses, with great attempts not to be flippant (my "airbags" example might appear flip, but all I'm doing is changing some terms around to show that the argument isn't valid, which is a reasonable and quick way to dispense of an incompletely defined argument)

b.) I have asked for engagement with my points, but instead I get about 50% new people coming into the thread and rehashing old arguments which I've already detailed responses to - it's hard to go to step C if people exist step B was never taken! - and 50% people just flatly ignoring I've written anything.

I think I've grown sufficiently jaded enough that I'm ready to stop pretending

That sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would like to politely ask that if you're not ready to believe that the other party is going to meet your lofty standards, then get the hell out and stop wasting everybody's time, including yours. Fair deal? I'd do the same if I thought I was wasting your time. Otherwise I will do my best to accommodate you again, and I think there's some promise now that we look like we're actually talking and not just flinging baseless accusations and painting people as academic stereotypes.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Somebody's cute when they're angry!

Oh, you flatterer you. You're way cuter when you're being passive aggressive.

Ask yourself, "have I tried to understand my opponent's argument?"
Wouldn't you like to be part of the 1% for once?

See? <3

Instead, I think I will take a more cynical approach and simply defer the matters of public policy to people who actually get paid grant money and shit to research this sort of thing. You've brought up the self-defense argument plenty of times:

Saying "oh look, this can fail" doesn't invalidate the many successful uses of firearms in self-defense.

The 'many' successful uses of firearms in self-defense, huh?

We analyzed data from two national random-digit-dial surveys conducted under the auspices of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Criminal court judges who read the self-reported accounts of the purported self-defense gun use rated a majority as being illegal, even assuming that the respondent had a permit to own and to carry a gun, and that the respondent had described the event honestly from his own perspective.

Maybe you shouldn't use your emotions to make feel-good arguments about how wonderful guns are for self defense, without y'know, having some data to back that up.

[Ed Oscuro]

That's decent! You've actually misread my point, though: You're trying to respond to individual cases (my original point) with statistics. (I could also do the whole "kick sand in the gears" thing and point out a judge doesn't decide the law, juries do; there's also a good argument that many so-called DGUs might not be known to the gun owner, because a potential perp is deterred by the sight of a gun; and finally, the judge saying something is "illegal" from the armchair is quite the same as saying it's unjustified).

I'm trying to put the statistics off to the side a bit because I think it's fundamentally mistaken to try to make a one-size-fits-all policy for every area based on this and that study from this and that place and era. The question - if I understand the thrust of your argument being towards a comprehensive ban on a class of firearms (say, carrying handguns) - really is about whether society has any right to mandate that all individuals, regardless of their actual demonstrated capacities, should be considered unfit for carrying handguns. Nuclear weapons clearly do rise to the level of threat that it's unquestionably right to demand (in a society like ours, not some fantasy Demon Isle scenario) that there be a comprehensive set of controls and accountability on ownership and deployment of such a weapon. But a handgun can't dent a tank, and most all handguns don't even reliably kill humans, even when used by carefully trained professionals.

I will say that this probably points towards the need for better and more comprehensive training and licensing requirements for gun owners. I don't think it would be a bad thing for people to have to be competent. Right now, I think "the Constitution" has definitely been used as a crutch against incompetence (yeah I realize this goes to a point you were making earlier).

It's the flip side (or rather, a more universal use of) of the "one death is too many" approach. I think the basic disagreement may be whether society can tolerate taking away the ability of one person to protect themselves. How many there are on both sides - I don't think the legal and training framework is currently such that we should make a sweeping decision.

At the very least, I would urge that we try more comprehensive training and licensing requirements before going to the very radical step of banning a class of weapons altogether. That just makes sense. Also, looking at that interesting link you posted, I'd agree that people who use firearms merely to threaten or win an escalating argument should have them taken away.

Still not seeing where my "emotions" get in the way of the facts but we'll have to agree to drop that one.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It's the flip side (or rather, a more universal use of) of the "one death is too many" approach. I think the basic disagreement may be whether society can tolerate taking away the ability of one person to protect themselves. How many there are on both sides - I don't think the legal and training framework is currently such that we should make a sweeping decision.

This I can agree with. However, I do not think that guns should be treated like teddy bears to comfort against the threat of violence as protection if the chances overall of said violence occurring would be reduced by simply making guns less available. One person 'feeling' protected isn't as useful as ensuring that multiple people in society have an actually lower risk of injury/crime/needing protection. If stricter gun control or even a gun ban does that then it strikes me as a more concrete solution, but that's something that research and data should decide when it comes to policy. I've stated before that broad policy suddenly banning guns is idiotic and unrealistic in America anyways; it simply wouldn't work. A lot of America loves its guns and its gun economy. It's not like Switzerland or Finland where they have a lot of gun ownership with low incidences of gun crimes; the mentality surrounding their use is much more disciplined in those countries. You have widespread gun ownership that's related to military service and thus gun owners are naturally of a more responsible attitude, or a case where gun ownership is generally the result of their use as a hunting tool, something that has strict licensing requirements and isn't allowed to be applied for on the basis of 'self-defense'. Whatever changes happen need to address the overall gun culture in America as much as the guns themselves or they're simply being shortsighted, and that sort of thing generally takes a lot of small, gradual policy shifts over a long time. Ideally you'd want to address America's socioeconomic issues to reduce crime in general too, but again that's not a snap your fingers and it happens sort of thing.

Are lethal guns still better for defense if something more futuristic like stun phasers becomes available? I don't know. But I seriously doubt the majority of gun owners would give up their colts or magnums for something more like a better taser, at least not in America at this time.

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, it's not a teddy bear. A firearm is going to offer some actual potential of protection, which only needs to be realized with the skill and cooperation of the user; we issue them routinely to police and security officers who use them to great effect at times (although even these groups don't escape charges of firearms abuse). Training in not just use of the weapon in its defensive role, but also in the use of a spectrum of responses which should include training on knowing when you are being an asshole and need to back down. Ideally, we want a spectrum of responses on both sides: Both on the side of making the overall environment (i.e. the country) safer (prevent people from using firearms wrongly, which almost certainly entails removing firearms from circulation, though only by statistical failure, not by definition; any member of the public at large should be able to rise to the challenge, and they should be able to if they want to claim that kind of right to response), but also providing and even promoting legitimate levels of response.

I am sure that the extreme right-wing (and even the kind-of-casual right-wing) will say that I've pandered and swung too much to the side of knowing what is best for other people, but I think that kind of challenge is reduced if you have a discriminating system in place to ensure that people who actually meet the criteria - however strict or lax the law makes it - can still exercise this right, while asking people who fail to only try harder to change their own beliefs if they want to have a firearm - putting the need on them, not on their fellow citizens. People who are obviously dangerous to themselves and others are just as wrong to try to have a firearm as they would be to try to have a car, so I don't see why stopping them from the one case should be controversial while the other isn't (I'm not really concerned with extreme right-wing views that hold that the gub'mint can't stop you from doing anything even when you are clearly in the wrong).

I don't see any reason why this couldn't be applied to any situation of firearms use but I personally would like to see it applied on a smaller scale, i.e. on those who carry handguns, so we could study its effects. Of course you're still going to have the status quo for many (maybe most) firearms-related violence between people who know each other and live in the same place, but going to one extreme end of the spectrum of possible policies (between total prohibition of firearms to total freedom or even mandatory firearms ownership, even asking people to wear firearms as belt buckles, hats, or earrings) after another just denies people a stable legal framework and in having trust in government to pursue a legible, transparent policy.

Are lethal guns still better for defense if something more futuristic like stun phasers becomes available?

No, so long as it actually fulfills the objectives of a successful defense, including incapacitation for as long as necessary.

Of course some people might just need to be removed from society indefinitely - I think there's a point at which every society says "fuck this Joker guy, he's not going back to Arkham this time."

I don't know. But I seriously doubt the majority of gun owners would give up their colts or magnums for something more like a better taser, at least not in America at this time.

Again, nope.

[evil_ash_xero]

This thread is making me feel like a god damn sexual tyrannosaurus!

[Mortificator]

="Ed Oscuro"my "airbags" example might appear flip, but all I'm doing is changing some terms around to show that the argument isn't valid, which is a reasonable and quick way to dispense of an incompletely defined argument

Any argument can be made invalid by altering terms.

"I would urge that we try more comprehensive training and licensing requirements before going to the very radical step of banning a class of weapons altogether."

Change a couple of words to get...

"I would urge that we try more erotic training and licensing requirements before going to the very radical step of banning a class of walrus altogether."

Well, that's nonsense, so clearly the original argument's nonsense... is what I'd say if I didn't realize the substituted terms have no equivalency to the originals.

Are guns equivalent to airbags? Are weapons equivalent to safety devices with no offensive value? Is a class of criminal perpretrator equivalent to a stylized car from an '80s TV show? I'm pretty sure not, Ed.

handguns don't even reliably kill humans, even when used by carefully trained professionals.

How'd this guy manage it?

[Ed Oscuro]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument#Validity

Pedantry note: An argument is "valid" if it is impossible for the argument to have true premises but a false conclusion.

When I said "altering terms" I didn't mean "putting in whatever gibberish suits me and my humor." The point of my counter-example is to show that you can keep the argument in the same form but come to a conclusion we all recognize as nonsensical, without intending to make it nonsensical. Your attempted riposte with eroticism and walruses does, if anything, not even attempt to keep terms equivalent, so you're far from preserving equivalency yourself. But to get back to the question - did I preserve equivalency in terms? Better yet, did I correctly identify the essence of your argument? I think that, after this, you should agree that I now have identified its meaning, and I will also give you some easy suggestions for improvement.

The trick, I suppose, with a case like this is that you didn't present the usual "if Socrates is a man, then" type argument, which is meant to be purely deduced; your argument implies a lot of things which are debatable, and many of which don't make sense. Consider:

[...] one of the problems with firearms as self-defense aids is that they give an absolutely enormous advantage to the aggressor

So because something could be used offensively and illegally, the justification and utility of its intended use evaporates? No, absolutely not. You're trying to put firearms in a special category without providing any reason to believe that it actually belongs in one, and you fail to notice that changing terms shows the very reasoning behind this argument is flawed. (I'll make this clearer in a bit.)

Mr. Concealed Carry could be walking along, totally confident in the protection the pistol in his holster gives him, when he gets his skull blown open by an attacker before he has any chance to react.

Again, this applies to pretty much everything. Nobody can guarantee absolute safety in any device - engineers are fond of saying "the only totally safe car is the one that doesn't move." Likewise, nobody can guarantee that any item has only positive effects. If you want to insist this isn't true, you lack a fundamental understanding of how the world works.

To fix your argument from falling into these traps, you could simply do what every other statistics-reliant technocratic approach to gun control does, and say that firearms uses are more likely to be unjust than just. That's all you had to do. You were on the edge of saying it, but you distracted yourself with strange stories about probable failures.

Yes, I'm assuming that criminals may still be able to waylay Mr. Concealed Carry, whether or not either has pistols, knives, rocks, or nothing. Your argument, intended to make handguns look special, in fact shows a case where they aren't. You can't just mythologize about the amazing powers of firepower; you have to show why firearms are different. This is not terribly hard to do, but your scenario is based on the exceptionally universal element of surprise, in which all kinds of things turn out to give an attacker just as much ability to attack somebody (in fact, as the famous truncheon or rock-in-a-sock shows, many of them are much quieter about it, which make them potentially even better in your case of the unwary victim). I can guarantee you that many things, the banning of which would impoverish society more than the loss of lives from suffering their existence to be used as weapons, can be used in this fashion, including staplers, plastic bottles, and triangles of folded newspaper. Well, maybe you shouldn't be getting your fingers caught in stapler hinges, shouldn't be constantly sipping from a bottle, and probably shouldn't get newsprint all over everything you touch - but you get the idea.

There's also the matter to wonder about of whether an attempted universal handgun mop-up would actually reduce handgun proliferation amongst criminals than amongst average law-abiding citizens, and of whether the very generic element of surprise should leave to bans on other types of potential weapons. It is strange you didn't try to talk about a face-to-face situation; there's probably even some evidence out there that shows that many concealed carry license holders aren't well prepared or trained to deal with a handgun-wielding felon, which is something that I agree is a problem.

To show a better counter-argument to yours, which I think better captures the spirit of what you originally wrote, I could say this:
Bob's a firefighter and has to choose what kind of face mask to use. Unfortunately the budget has been cut lately. Bob could use Brand F, which is as good as walking in with a bare face, and he knows it; there is also Brand D, which has only saved one life that Brand F wouldn't have, because Brand D still almost always fails. If Bob is putting faith in Brand D being significantly more effective than Brand F, then this faith is misplaced. But should Bob be expected to choose Brand F just because the protection of Brand D is marginal?

So you see that making arguments means actually understanding what we're implying, and knowing the limits of what you can say with what's at hand. If it turns out that Bob the Firefighter puts himself in significantly more danger than usual because he has faith in Brand D (some information we don't have from what's written above), then there is a problem, and I quoted the ancient sages earlier about this: "Only a fool trusts his life to a weapon." But he still knows that he's often better off with one to start with. If he's not better off with a weapon, that's something he should pay attention to as well.

[Ed Oscuro]

handguns don't even reliably kill humans, even when used by carefully trained professionals.

How'd this guy manage it?

Take a look at how many bullets he had to fire, and also at how many people were wounded versus those who survived. Keep in mind that these are rare shootings - in most cases an encounter with bad guys involving handguns is over in seconds, and involves just one or a couple targets.

If the victims all had some kind of firearm - the scenario I was obviously talking about - things would have been quite different. If you consider the roles to be reversed, where instead of an unhinged spree killer we've got somebody who is suddenly confronted by a gaggle of armed criminals, then you're gonna need those bullets.

What I'm saying isn't controversial in the context I'm talking about - I'm merely repeating what is commonly accepted as observed by professionals who look at this. Pistols don't kill effectively or reliably in many cases. "Aim for the head" is for videogames and zombies (again, videogames).

There is a reason that the FBI went towards the much heftier 10mm round (yes, it's not just something from Fallout, but a real thing), which was the death of a number of FBI Agents at the hands of bad guys in 1986. Those agents had revolvers. Even though one of the bad guys had a wound that he wouldn't have survived, he was able to fight long enough to kill more people. There's also a reason law enforcement went away from 10mm and towards .40 and .357 SIG - more bullets equals more chances at life.

I think you can assume that private citizens may not be well trained or even safe to allow to carry a firearm, but I see no reason why you should assume that against the individual in the face of evidence. Background checks and training should obviate those issues.