The counter-point I'm making is that if you take away that right, shit will change and fast.
That doesn't explain Australia..
Sure it does - look at the crime stats for Aussieland in the years immediately following the 1996 gun ban and buyback; all brands of violent crime increased by a fair amount from 1996 - 2000, including, ironically, gun crimes.
Now, after 2000, yes, the Aussies have seen a drop in violent crime rates - but so have we Americans. In fact, if you compare stats, the decreases in crime rates since 2000 has been almost parallel between the two nations. This leads a logical person to conclude that there is no statistical correlation between gun bans and decreases in crime rates.
And every other modern democracy that doesn't have a version of the second amendment (which is most of them). Somehow democracy seems to do just fine without the citizenry possessing small arms
You keep using that word, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. Besides, we're not talking about "democracies," we're discussing violent crime rates in relation to laws relating to firearms. You're either conflating the subjects or intentionally moving the goalposts.
That said, it all depends on your definition of "doing just fine," doesn't it? Iran, for example, is technically a democracy, yet I don't know anyone who would consider Iran a bastion of human decency and freedom. Conversely, the United States is, contrary to popular misconception, not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic with democratically elected representation in Congress.
Once you educate yourself on the difference between a "democracy" and a "constitutional republic," I can finish explaining why people who care about America are so damned adamant that the Constitution be followed to the letter. Some reading on historic examples of what happens when those in power force a monopoly of violence on their subjects would probably help you understand as well.
I recommend starting with the British takeover of feudal Japan, move on to the rise of National Socialism in post-WWI Germany, then check out some material on the rise of the Maoists in China.
The point I'm making is that the 2nd Amendment doesn't in fact seem to be all that useful or important to maintain freedom and democracy, unlike other amendments that are continually exercised to that end.
The counter-point I'm making is that if you take away that right, shit will change and fast.
Since I already brought it up and some idiot already cried Godwin -
Right before they started rounding up and exterminating "undesirables," the National Socialist Party passed laws banning those groups from possessing weapons. We all know how this story ends.
So, no, today we don't have to use our armaments in order for the Second Amendment to serve its purpose; the government knowing that we are a well-armed society seems to be enough for the moment. I pray that doesn't change for the worse.
I wear my seatbelt and have homeowner's insurance, too, but not because I'm scared - because I'm smart.
who you'll probably never meet, breaking into your house and raping your face or something.
Break-in-and-murders have been going through the roof around here.
If you lived in an area where bear attacks were on the rise, wouldn't you think it smart to get some anti-bear spray and learn how to use it? Or would you take your chances, to avoid causing some ignorant asshole to claim that you're "scared?"
Who is exactly pissing their bed?
5-year-olds and their mental contemporaries, of which I am not a member.
Not going far enough. Get rid of manual transmission with synchromesh gears, power steering, and power brakes, then we will see how well people can drive.
Hell yea. My first ride was a vintage truck with power nothing, and the teeth on my syncro's were completely toast, so I know exactly how much skill and thought has to go into driving a vehicle like that.
Although I might be convinced to keep the vacuum assisted brakes since they do offer greater performance over non assisted one.
Well, OK, but I'm going to have to insist that the vacuum be provided by a driver operated hand-pump. Can't be having people slack off.
OK, so 15 years later Australia has less violent crime. I'm sure that's a real comfort to the people who lived there from 1996-2000, right after the gun ban was enacted, and violent crime skyrocketed.
For the record, the US has also had a "steady decline" in violent crime over the past 15 years, and we didn't ban guns. So much for that hypothesis.
For centuries people have had seriously inconsistent black powder. Having all of your bullets fire properly is a 20th century invention. Like I said, the tools are there, but manufacturers have machines that do it more precisely than a human is capable of and don't make mistakes (usually).
For centuries people who wanted a precision item made would have to go to either a master craftsman or industrial manufacturing facility; being able to 3D print aforementioned items in your garage is a 21st century phenomenon.
Point being, if we can build a computerized additive manufacturing machine in our home sheds, it's not unreasonable to think that the same society could reasonably build and operated computerized smokeless powder production facilities in the same space.
For powder, this mostly just means some bullets will be hot or smoky or heavy with residue and you'll have to clean your barrels more often.
I could live with that, just like how I could live with the stuff I make with my self-built 3D printer not being top quality merchandise.
Interestingly, before the oft-questioned "passage" of the 16th Amendment, "labor given in exchange for payment" was just that; income was what a business earned as a result of selling a product or service.
We're wasting billions of dollars because of people like you, trying to maintain the illusion that taxing businesses is somehow different from (morally superior to) taxing individuals.
Yea, no we're not. Nobody in government give half a fuck what "people like [me]" think, outside election season. And even then, since"people like [me]" don't contribute millions to their campaigns, they still don't really care what we have to say.
FYI, I don't care about "morality" in taxation. I'm merely pointing out that for the majority of American history, until 1913, "taxable income" was defined as "profits made as a result of business transactions," and did not include labor exchanged for money or goods. Oh, and also that the ratification of the 16th Amendment has been called into question repeatedly, and said question has never been answered with more than a stern "stop bringing that up."
If you have a problem with any of the historical facts I provided, build a time machine, rather than rant at the messenger.
From my experience, CDC estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as they often seem dubious at best.
They're not the least bit dubious, or hard to understand. CDC estimates, like all their actions, are designed o get them more tax dollars to play with.
Um, you do know that "dubious" means "questionable," not "difficult to understand," right?
The problem with the current graduated system isn't that people in the middle or people in, say, the 60-80 percentile don't pay enough -- I'm fairly sure they do -- it's that it ceases to scale at the top.
The simple fact is that the tax code provides ridiculous breaks for those people who don't actually earn their income. Look at Mitt Romney -- his overall tax rate is ridiculously low because he uses the carried interest exception.
Also because most of his income is from "capital gains" which are only subject to a 15% Capital Gains tax.
If kidnapping, extortion, and good old fashioned robbery were so profitable, the everybody would be doing it.
Presuming by "everybody" you mean parties in power, then they actually do all do it. Just look at almost any news story about government agents interacting with non-government subjects.
What irritates me about that particular talking point, besides how contrived and stupid it is, is that the people who espouse it are basically saying, "if you didn't get hurt or killed by a gun, fuck you because you don't matter."
I haven't heard anyone saying that, and I certainly don't think it's what the GP said.
Next time you see someone making a big deal about gun deaths, point out all the other things that kill far, far more people, then see how they react. No, most people won't come out directly and say that, but the implication is pretty damn obvious.
What a lot of gun control activists do say is that if more people are armed then more confrontations will end up with someone being injured, and if more people are armed with particularly effective weapons like guns, more confrontations will end with someone seriously injured or dead.
And they will ignore the fact that most of the people who get shot and killed in said confrontations are criminals. I presume this is because they think a rapist or murderer's right to life trumps the right of another person to defend themselves from rapists and murderers; haven't seen a decent counter argument, anyway.
FYI, a number of those nations with lower gun death rates have exponentially higher rape and violent mugging rates. So "less guns" doesn't equate to the chocolate-rainbows-and-sexy-unicorns utopia that busybodies seem to think it would.
First, it's worth pointing out that rape and violent crime rates are much more difficult to compare than murder rates - in a Western democracy a murder is likely to get recorded as a murder, while reporting rates and definitions of rape and violent crime can vary.
Actually, they aren't - for example, the UK only counts a death as a homicide statistic if the killer is convicted in court. But that doesn't stop people from blindly making the comparison anyway, because they think it strengthens their argument (when reality couldn't be further from the truth).
Also, you can't honestly deny that regardless of how other countries define "rape" and "violent crime," those numbers skyrocketed after certain nations, such as Australia, enacted gun bans.
If you were thinking of Canada - the GP's example - the top two results on Google (I didn't check any further) agree that the rates of murder, rape, violent crime and overall crime are all lower.
Yea, probably for a lot of reasons: 1, Canada has a different history and culture than the US does. 2, Canada has a much smaller population, and 3 of the people who do live there, many of them live far removed from large population centers, which tend to be the areas with the most violent crime.
Consider this: If you didn't count Detroit and Chicago (cities with strict gun bans, BTW) in the statistics, America would be about as violent as Sweden. Take a couple more major cities out of the mix (STL, LA), and we're one of the most non-violent nations on the planet. Ever.
I'm sure you can find some countries that do worse than the US on some measures. But if that's your argument - that if you're allowed to pick which country to compare the US to, and if you're allowed to pick what to compare them on, then you can find examples that are worse - then you don't have much of an argument.
Totally agree, though I will point out that your statement here applies to every side of every argument.
Side note: There are types of smokeless powder that are made from materials other than nitrocellulose.
Main point: Smokeless powder was invented in the 1880's. Pretty sure if we can build a 3D printer in our garages, we would be able to come up with a home manufacturing process for that too.
Agreed on the primers - I researched rebuilding used ones a while back and wow, what a dangerous pain in the ass.
There really needs to be some sort of "drops mic, walks off stage" tag for posts like this one...
In addition to MLK, I would also like to point out that the people we refer to (with pride) as our nation's "founding fathers" were, to the last man, capital criminals. Traitors, thieves, murderers... hell, by today's standards they'd either be labelled "terrorists" or "the honorable Senator from ______."
Pistols, however, are used by criminals, by people committing suicide, and by kids playing around with them. As a direct result, over 30,000 people die every year after being shot with a pistol.
You left a group out: pistols are also used by law-abiding citizens to defend themselves from criminals.
How many of that 30,000 were violent felons who deserved to be shot? More than none, I promise you, and I'm glad for it - IMO, a woman's right to not be raped far exceeds a rapists right to life.
Good. As a libertarian, gun owner, voter, and not insane person, I understand that there needs to be SOME government regulation of guns. There is no reason not to try something to prevent insane people from getting firearms.
I agree.
They're going to murder anyway,
I disagree.
If you have a subset of the population presenting a threat to the rest, wouldn't it make more sense to separate them from everyone else, rather than try with futility (and inevitably fail) to essentially un-invent a tool?
If America treated mental illness like, you know, a fucking illness rather than a crime, we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion.
I've never met a true anti-gun person. Every person I meet who argues that the general public shouldn't have (or only have very restrictive) access to guns also argues that the police should be allowed to use guns to enforce this argument. This is not an anti-gun argument. This is a monopolization of force argument.
If you as the opposite of "monopolization of force" think that there should be a balance of force between citizens and government and a real option of fighting the government, then you should start arguing for private ownership of real military heavy weaponry -- rockets, bombs, machine canons, armed fighter jets, attack helicopters, etc. Having hand guns in the hands of citizens is a joke in this context.
Reductio ad absurdum; besides, it's not like the tanks are firing rockets into neighborhoods with fighter jets.
All we need is an equalization of force: cops get tanks, we can have tanks; cops get machine guns with grenade launchers, we get them.
Of course, you're probably assuming TPTB would turn our own (actual) soldiers against us.. trouble with that is, they're going to be hard-pressed to convince guys like my brothers to start killing their own families over an ideology. Ever wonder why our soldiers are spread across the globe, rather than defending their own home turf?
Because soldiers are trained to use tanks and bombs to secure freedom, not take it away.
Slashdot Mirror
Now if only someone would invent a virus that quickly and painfully kills compassionless assholes, we'd be all set.
Ever heard the phrase, "even a broken clock is right twice a day?"
For that price, they'd better be giving you an actual wire to connect to.
The counter-point I'm making is that if you take away that right, shit will change and fast.
That doesn't explain Australia..
Sure it does - look at the crime stats for Aussieland in the years immediately following the 1996 gun ban and buyback; all brands of violent crime increased by a fair amount from 1996 - 2000, including, ironically, gun crimes.
Now, after 2000, yes, the Aussies have seen a drop in violent crime rates - but so have we Americans. In fact, if you compare stats, the decreases in crime rates since 2000 has been almost parallel between the two nations. This leads a logical person to conclude that there is no statistical correlation between gun bans and decreases in crime rates.
And every other modern democracy that doesn't have a version of the second amendment (which is most of them). Somehow democracy seems to do just fine without the citizenry possessing small arms
You keep using that word, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. Besides, we're not talking about "democracies," we're discussing violent crime rates in relation to laws relating to firearms. You're either conflating the subjects or intentionally moving the goalposts.
That said, it all depends on your definition of "doing just fine," doesn't it? Iran, for example, is technically a democracy, yet I don't know anyone who would consider Iran a bastion of human decency and freedom. Conversely, the United States is, contrary to popular misconception, not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic with democratically elected representation in Congress.
Once you educate yourself on the difference between a "democracy" and a "constitutional republic," I can finish explaining why people who care about America are so damned adamant that the Constitution be followed to the letter. Some reading on historic examples of what happens when those in power force a monopoly of violence on their subjects would probably help you understand as well.
I recommend starting with the British takeover of feudal Japan, move on to the rise of National Socialism in post-WWI Germany, then check out some material on the rise of the Maoists in China.
The point I'm making is that the 2nd Amendment doesn't in fact seem to be all that useful or important to maintain freedom and democracy, unlike other amendments that are continually exercised to that end.
The counter-point I'm making is that if you take away that right, shit will change and fast.
Since I already brought it up and some idiot already cried Godwin -
Right before they started rounding up and exterminating "undesirables," the National Socialist Party passed laws banning those groups from possessing weapons. We all know how this story ends.
So, no, today we don't have to use our armaments in order for the Second Amendment to serve its purpose; the government knowing that we are a well-armed society seems to be enough for the moment. I pray that doesn't change for the worse.
And you're the one so scared about a criminal,
I wear my seatbelt and have homeowner's insurance, too, but not because I'm scared - because I'm smart.
who you'll probably never meet, breaking into your house and raping your face or something.
Break-in-and-murders have been going through the roof around here.
If you lived in an area where bear attacks were on the rise, wouldn't you think it smart to get some anti-bear spray and learn how to use it? Or would you take your chances, to avoid causing some ignorant asshole to claim that you're "scared?"
Who is exactly pissing their bed?
5-year-olds and their mental contemporaries, of which I am not a member.
Not going far enough. Get rid of manual transmission with synchromesh gears, power steering, and power brakes, then we will see how well people can drive.
Hell yea. My first ride was a vintage truck with power nothing, and the teeth on my syncro's were completely toast, so I know exactly how much skill and thought has to go into driving a vehicle like that.
Although I might be convinced to keep the vacuum assisted brakes since they do offer greater performance over non assisted one.
Well, OK, but I'm going to have to insist that the vacuum be provided by a driver operated hand-pump. Can't be having people slack off.
They dropped more slowly, but have been on a steady decline.
OK, so 15 years later Australia has less violent crime. I'm sure that's a real comfort to the people who lived there from 1996-2000, right after the gun ban was enacted, and violent crime skyrocketed.
For the record, the US has also had a "steady decline" in violent crime over the past 15 years, and we didn't ban guns. So much for that hypothesis.
For centuries people have had seriously inconsistent black powder. Having all of your bullets fire properly is a 20th century invention. Like I said, the tools are there, but manufacturers have machines that do it more precisely than a human is capable of and don't make mistakes (usually).
For centuries people who wanted a precision item made would have to go to either a master craftsman or industrial manufacturing facility; being able to 3D print aforementioned items in your garage is a 21st century phenomenon.
Point being, if we can build a computerized additive manufacturing machine in our home sheds, it's not unreasonable to think that the same society could reasonably build and operated computerized smokeless powder production facilities in the same space.
For powder, this mostly just means some bullets will be hot or smoky or heavy with residue and you'll have to clean your barrels more often.
I could live with that, just like how I could live with the stuff I make with my self-built 3D printer not being top quality merchandise.
We're wasting billions of dollars because of people like you, trying to maintain the illusion that taxing businesses is somehow different from (morally superior to) taxing individuals.
Yea, no we're not. Nobody in government give half a fuck what "people like [me]" think, outside election season. And even then, since"people like [me]" don't contribute millions to their campaigns, they still don't really care what we have to say.
FYI, I don't care about "morality" in taxation. I'm merely pointing out that for the majority of American history, until 1913, "taxable income" was defined as "profits made as a result of business transactions," and did not include labor exchanged for money or goods. Oh, and also that the ratification of the 16th Amendment has been called into question repeatedly, and said question has never been answered with more than a stern "stop bringing that up."
If you have a problem with any of the historical facts I provided, build a time machine, rather than rant at the messenger.
From my experience, CDC estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as they often seem dubious at best.
They're not the least bit dubious, or hard to understand. CDC estimates, like all their actions, are designed o get them more tax dollars to play with.
Um, you do know that "dubious" means "questionable," not "difficult to understand," right?
The simple fact is that the tax code provides ridiculous breaks for those people who don't actually earn their income. Look at Mitt Romney -- his overall tax rate is ridiculously low because he uses the carried interest exception.
Also because most of his income is from "capital gains" which are only subject to a 15% Capital Gains tax.
So, apparently cheaters DO prosper.
If kidnapping, extortion, and good old fashioned robbery were so profitable, the everybody would be doing it.
Presuming by "everybody" you mean parties in power, then they actually do all do it. Just look at almost any news story about government agents interacting with non-government subjects.
I'm really not sure why you mischaracterize neo-nazis as a non-violent group; ignorance is hard to believe
Who said anything about non-violent?
You. Your exact words were
Neo-Nazis talk a lot. But they're just noisy idiots.
Feel free to continue backpedaling wildly.
What irritates me about that particular talking point, besides how contrived and stupid it is, is that the people who espouse it are basically saying, "if you didn't get hurt or killed by a gun, fuck you because you don't matter."
I haven't heard anyone saying that, and I certainly don't think it's what the GP said.
Next time you see someone making a big deal about gun deaths, point out all the other things that kill far, far more people, then see how they react. No, most people won't come out directly and say that, but the implication is pretty damn obvious.
What a lot of gun control activists do say is that if more people are armed then more confrontations will end up with someone being injured, and if more people are armed with particularly effective weapons like guns, more confrontations will end with someone seriously injured or dead.
And they will ignore the fact that most of the people who get shot and killed in said confrontations are criminals. I presume this is because they think a rapist or murderer's right to life trumps the right of another person to defend themselves from rapists and murderers; haven't seen a decent counter argument, anyway.
FYI, a number of those nations with lower gun death rates have exponentially higher rape and violent mugging rates. So "less guns" doesn't equate to the chocolate-rainbows-and-sexy-unicorns utopia that busybodies seem to think it would.
First, it's worth pointing out that rape and violent crime rates are much more difficult to compare than murder rates - in a Western democracy a murder is likely to get recorded as a murder, while reporting rates and definitions of rape and violent crime can vary.
Actually, they aren't - for example, the UK only counts a death as a homicide statistic if the killer is convicted in court. But that doesn't stop people from blindly making the comparison anyway, because they think it strengthens their argument (when reality couldn't be further from the truth).
Also, you can't honestly deny that regardless of how other countries define "rape" and "violent crime," those numbers skyrocketed after certain nations, such as Australia, enacted gun bans.
If you were thinking of Canada - the GP's example - the top two results on Google (I didn't check any further) agree that the rates of murder, rape, violent crime and overall crime are all lower.
Yea, probably for a lot of reasons: 1, Canada has a different history and culture than the US does. 2, Canada has a much smaller population, and 3 of the people who do live there, many of them live far removed from large population centers, which tend to be the areas with the most violent crime.
Consider this: If you didn't count Detroit and Chicago (cities with strict gun bans, BTW) in the statistics, America would be about as violent as Sweden. Take a couple more major cities out of the mix (STL, LA), and we're one of the most non-violent nations on the planet. Ever.
I'm sure you can find some countries that do worse than the US on some measures. But if that's your argument - that if you're allowed to pick which country to compare the US to, and if you're allowed to pick what to compare them on, then you can find examples that are worse - then you don't have much of an argument.
Totally agree, though I will point out that your statement here applies to every side of every argument.
Side note: There are types of smokeless powder that are made from materials other than nitrocellulose.
Main point: Smokeless powder was invented in the 1880's. Pretty sure if we can build a 3D printer in our garages, we would be able to come up with a home manufacturing process for that too.
Agreed on the primers - I researched rebuilding used ones a while back and wow, what a dangerous pain in the ass.
But studies show that most people that commit suicide do not 'really want to commit suicide'.
Now, I've seen some bizarre, nonsensical anti-gun arguments in my day, but this one...
I think you just got yourself into the running for Worst Argument Ever - Of All Time.
Congrats?
There really needs to be some sort of "drops mic, walks off stage" tag for posts like this one...
In addition to MLK, I would also like to point out that the people we refer to (with pride) as our nation's "founding fathers" were, to the last man, capital criminals. Traitors, thieves, murderers... hell, by today's standards they'd either be labelled "terrorists" or "the honorable Senator from ______."
Dogs are the best self-defence weapon.
Fuck yea they are. But they shouldn't be your only self-defense weapon. What if someone with a gun breaks in and shoots your dog?
Pistols, however, are used by criminals, by people committing suicide, and by kids playing around with them. As a direct result, over 30,000 people die every year after being shot with a pistol.
You left a group out: pistols are also used by law-abiding citizens to defend themselves from criminals.
How many of that 30,000 were violent felons who deserved to be shot? More than none, I promise you, and I'm glad for it - IMO, a woman's right to not be raped far exceeds a rapists right to life.
Ban automatic transmissions. That'll keep a good share of the inept off the road.
Throw in lane-sensing bullshit, self-parking, and all that other nonsense that allows shitty drivers to think they aren't shitty, you'll have my vote.
Good. As a libertarian, gun owner, voter, and not insane person, I understand that there needs to be SOME government regulation of guns. There is no reason not to try something to prevent insane people from getting firearms.
I agree.
They're going to murder anyway,
I disagree.
If you have a subset of the population presenting a threat to the rest, wouldn't it make more sense to separate them from everyone else, rather than try with futility (and inevitably fail) to essentially un-invent a tool?
If America treated mental illness like, you know, a fucking illness rather than a crime, we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion.
besides, it's not like the tanks are firing rockets into neighborhoods with fighter jets.
"tanks" == "cops"
Funny typo, but far from my best (or would it be worst?) work.
I've never met a true anti-gun person. Every person I meet who argues that the general public shouldn't have (or only have very restrictive) access to guns also argues that the police should be allowed to use guns to enforce this argument. This is not an anti-gun argument. This is a monopolization of force argument.
If you as the opposite of "monopolization of force" think that there should be a balance of force between citizens and government and a real option of fighting the government, then you should start arguing for private ownership of real military heavy weaponry -- rockets, bombs, machine canons, armed fighter jets, attack helicopters, etc. Having hand guns in the hands of citizens is a joke in this context.
Reductio ad absurdum; besides, it's not like the tanks are firing rockets into neighborhoods with fighter jets.
All we need is an equalization of force: cops get tanks, we can have tanks; cops get machine guns with grenade launchers, we get them.
Of course, you're probably assuming TPTB would turn our own (actual) soldiers against us.. trouble with that is, they're going to be hard-pressed to convince guys like my brothers to start killing their own families over an ideology. Ever wonder why our soldiers are spread across the globe, rather than defending their own home turf?
Because soldiers are trained to use tanks and bombs to secure freedom, not take it away.
Why would you want an untraceable weapon? I cannot think of any ethical reason.
To quote the great Ace Ventura, "That's none of your damn business, Dan, and I'll thank you to stay out of my personal life."