Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Expands Online Commerce Role, But Says "No Guns, Please"
The New York Times reports that Facebook's newly staked-out role as a site to facilitate local, person-to-person sales (ala Craigslist) has a new wrinkle: the site has announced a site-wide policy restricting firearms sales that applies to personal sales, though not to licensed dealers or gun clubs. According to the story,
Although Facebook was not directly involved in gun sales, it has served as a forum for gun sales to be negotiated, without people having to undergo background checks. The social network, with 1.6 billion monthly visitors, had become one of the worldâ(TM)s largest marketplaces for guns and was increasingly evolving into an e-commerce site where it could facilitate transactions of goods. ... Facebook said it would rely on its vast network of users to report any violations of the new rules, and would remove any post that violated the policy. Beyond that, the company said it could ban users or severely limit the ways they post on Facebook, depending on the type and severity of past violations. If the company believed someoneâ(TM)s life was in danger, Facebook would work with law enforcement on the situation.
The policy applies as well to private sales that occur using Facebook Messenger, though the company does not scan Messenger exchanges and must rely on user reports.
The social network, with 1.6 billion monthly visitors, had become one of the worldâ(TM)s largest marketplaces for guns
Guns don't kill, unregulated easy access to firearms does.
Um... actually...
Firstly, private gun sales are legal. Facebook is making a blanket policy which is politically charged, which could also be applied to arranging abortions, distasteful speech, consensual sex of any non-mainstream type, and a host of others that anyone can come up with after a few minutes thought.
So in effect, they are suppressing behaviour that is completely legal.
Secondly, although guns do seem to kill a lot of people, the overall statistic of importance to check is "average expected lifespan", which is much *higher* in areas where there is easy legal access to guns.
To put this another way, if you let your kids play in the yard of a gun owner, their chance of being killed by that gun go way up, but their chances of death by *all causes* go down. If you can't maintain proper nutrition or medicine for a time because you got robbed, it affects your overall lifespan. If your neighbor has guns, it has a protective effect on you because criminals tend to go elsewhere, and so on.
Thirdly, if you like to compare England to the US, consider this Harvard study which finds (journal page 656):
[...] despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence in the 1990s.On the other hand, the same time period in the United Kingdom saw a constant and dramatic increase in violent crime to which England’s response was evermore drastic gun control including, eventually, banning and confiscating all handguns and many types of long guns. Nevertheless, criminal violence rampantly increased so that by 2000 England surpassed the United States to become one of the developed world’s most violenceridden nations..
To conserve the resources of the inundated criminal justice system, English police no longer investigate burglary and “minor assaults.” As of 2006, if the police catch a mugger, robber, or burglar, or other “minor” criminal in the act, the policy is to release them with a warning rather than to arrest and prosecute them.
Easy access to firearms actually protects people.
Personally, I dislike being mugged, robbed, burgled, and assaulted in *minor* manners, but
Another reason of many why I gave up on facebook.
"There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and
It's a "problem" why? Because you say it is? Look, you may fall for the propaganda. I really don't care if you do. I will however correct this type of propaganda when I see it.
Fact: The areas with the highest number of legal guns per capita in the US have the lowest crime rate.
- Criminals don't follow the law, and there are more criminals than cops. Always will be, so don't slide down that slippery slope.
Another billionaire with 24/7 armed security doesn't understand why anyone would want a gun.
An informed argument is so refreshing. Bravo!
Firstly, you are citing news articles and not published research, and others might point out the gap in credibility between our arguments. For my part, I know that your sources reflect publish papers so it's all good.
The difference between our arguments is this: I claim that looking at *gun* deaths is misleading, because the vast majority of gun incidents resolve in favor of the gun owner and do not lead to death.
The statistic of measure should be the overall fatality rate (death from all causes), not the "death by gun" rate.
So for a counter example, note that the rate of "death by anaphalactic shock" shoots way up in areas that have lots of vaccinations.
Should we thus avoid vaccinations?
All of your sources are referring to gun deaths. We could ban guns in an attempt to reduce these specific types of death, but if it is at the expense of the overall fatality rate, it's not the prudent move.
One of the FB gun buying/selling/trading groups that is for my local city is now known as the "awesome pony trading group". And posts are all edited to reference equines, saddles (holsters) and tack (ammo)
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Porn magazine and otehr sex toy paraphenelia are legal to sell to 18+, roughly like guns, and yet some outfits refuse to stock them. As a private entity it is up to facebook to see what it wants to put up with. As such you can certainly see why a corp would avoid any non licensed sale, as it could bring them heat.
secodnely, the definition of violent crime differs in the US and UK. When you look at the crime which are considered violent in Uk they are not even in the stats in the US
US
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cj...
* And ehre is UK : https://www.gov.uk/government/...
So you get pushed and shoved, and hurt your ankle ? In UK a Violent crime. That would not even count as aggravated assault in US : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Basically when you look into it, the myth that there is more violent crime in UK than US is jsut a myth, usually misused to pretend gun are needed for self defense. They are not. They are escalation tools, they lead mugger and petty crime to escalate the force they use in their crime.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
There is also no constitutional right that buying a gun has to be easy.
What part of "shall not be infringed" did you find confusing? The authors meant the 2A to apply to citizens, the supremes have ruled that it does, NY wasn't allowed to ban saturday night specials because that makes guns expensive for poor people and you can't force people to buy a safe for the same reason.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Thank you.
That's a well-formed and unassailable argument, I won't be using that study as a reference in the future. If Slashdot had the "delete post" option I would use it.
Your post does not address the core argument (guns good/guns bad), but that's OK.
Let's pick this up again in the next gun control article discussion.
What part of "well regulated militia" do you find confusing?
I find it confusing why so many people like yourself insist on utilizing the most common modern connotation of "regulated" instead of the one which dominated at the time, and then expect other people to follow along like they are also a bunch of dumbfucks. Regulated meant "in good working order", it did not mean "subject to rules and regulations". If you read the papers written by the authors and proponents of the 2A, they make it abundantly clear that the purpose of the amendment was indeed to secure the right of popular revolt against the government, and further that the people's right to self-defense should not be interfered with by denying them arms. But clearly, you haven't done that either, which is why you're claiming that there's some confusion about the intent of the 2A. There is not. Only you and people like you who are anti-gun because you think you can solve problems by making people weaker claim that there is any debate on the subject. There is not. We know what they intended, and that was to avoid the need for and indeed the presence of a standing military, and to permit the people the tools needed to defend their country from enemies foreign and domestic.
It's not at all confusing to me, because I've read the relevant materials. It's not at all confusing to me why you find it so confusing, either. You're a disingenuous coward.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"