Gun violence

[LonnyDemaree]

America is inundated with guns so expect that the worst is yet to come.

[suncat05]

What The What??

[jazyd]

America is inundated with guns so expect that the worst is yet to come.

No we are inudated with nut cases who are not treated, liberals who forget all those that are murdered on a daily basis in Chicago and places like that but go bonkers when a nutcase shoots up a school. How about the muslim that just stabbed classmates, want to outlaw knives also, probably more knives out there than guns.

Lets talk about getting rid of cars, they kill people by driving fast, allowing drunks to get behind the wheel or people high on their funny drugs, it is the cars fault afterall, just like those guns.

How about electricity, how many die from being electricuted each year, kids that stick things in wall sockets and get killed.

Smoking, how many deaths there from cancer, wait that brings in tax dollars, can't do anything about that. Much like wacky weed now, tax dollars, forget the health decline and brain loss, just worry about the tax dollars.

If the feds or states figured out how to tax guns and ammo more for their bank deposits we would never hear about gun laws.

How about the liberals stop putting judges in place that won't enforce the laws we already have on the books, you know, those 20,000 or so federal and state laws that judges thumb their noses at.

And why is it liberals are allowed guns to protect themselves or have bodyguards that carry high powered guns to protect their clients but me the average citizen should not be allowed to own a gun.

The constitution declares I am free to own a gun and that right SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED UPON.

Too bad the constitution means nothing to liberals

[bigsky]

Society's breakdown isnt due to guns.

[Doc]

No we are inudated with nut cases who are not treated, liberals who forget all those that are murdered on a daily basis in Chicago and places like that but go bonkers when a nutcase shoots up a school. How about the muslim that just stabbed classmates, want to outlaw knives also, probably more knives out there than guns.

Lets talk about getting rid of cars, they kill people by driving fast, allowing drunks to get behind the wheel or people high on their funny drugs, it is the cars fault afterall, just like those guns.

How about electricity, how many die from being electricuted each year, kids that stick things in wall sockets and get killed.

Smoking, how many deaths there from cancer, wait that brings in tax dollars, can't do anything about that. Much like wacky weed now, tax dollars, forget the health decline and brain loss, just worry about the tax dollars.

If the feds or states figured out how to tax guns and ammo more for their bank deposits we would never hear about gun laws.

How about the liberals stop putting judges in place that won't enforce the laws we already have on the books, you know, those 20,000 or so federal and state laws that judges thumb their noses at.

And why is it liberals are allowed guns to protect themselves or have bodyguards that carry high powered guns to protect their clients but me the average citizen should not be allowed to own a gun.

The constitution declares I am free to own a gun and that right SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED UPON.

Too bad the constitution means nothing to liberals

You forgot pools, lawnmowers and chainsaws. NRA talking points 101 mandates inclusion of "pools, lawnmowers and chainsaws" when listing all the dangerous things that kill people when using the deflection tactic in a gun discussion. Did you lose your manual?

[Doc]

Society's breakdown isnt due to guns.

Nor is it due to nut cases who are not treated

[CitizenBBN]

You forgot pools, lawnmowers and chainsaws. NRA talking points 101 mandates inclusion of "pools, lawnmowers and chainsaws" when listing all the dangerous things that kill people when using the deflection tactic in a gun discussion. Did you lose your manual?

You keep using that word "deflection". I do not think it means what you think it means.

The word you're looking for is "perspective", where you step back from a harm or problem or risk and try to put it in the context of other harms and problems and risk in order to figure out its priority and what response may be appropriate.

It's a useful tool. It keeps us from expending policy resources poorly, and maximizes the benefit to society by trying to produce the most good with the least expenditure. It's fallen out of favor in a world where everything we do is regulated from Washington, but it's still the right approach.

It does get in the way of agenda thinking though, messes that stuff up all over the place.

But that's how we figure out what the real causes of problems are, by looking at variables and construction relationships so we can find or not find statistical correlation. If we don't do that we end up with out of whack policy priorities and policies that don't actually solve the problem but just sound like they might.

when we do that with guns and crime in America the last 30 years or so it's pretty clear the social issues such as insanely rampant drug use are far and away the source of our problems, and the gun use is more symptom than cause. America has been inundated by guns since before it was America, but the rampant use of drugs and the decline of standards of behavior has allowed for the rise of drugs and the associated violence of it, just as Prohibition fueled the rise of organized crime and the violence associated with in in the 1920s and 30s.

[Doc]

Another useful term would be red herring. You could probable make a 5 paragraph post on that to impress folks, muddy the waters a bit more and take us farther away from the topic, then take a victory lap.

[CitizenBBN]

Another useful term would be red herring. You could probable make a 5 paragraph post on that to impress folks, muddy the waters a bit more and take us farther away from the topic, then take a victory lap.

I can't help it if I adhere to the basic tenets of good policy. In the future I'll try to be far more myopic and make policy suggestions based on what worries me, not what may do the most good for the most people. I will admit that's far more the American way than my approach.

I keep recalling a study done years ago, at the height of the last wave of police crime shows on Tv in the late 70s and early 80s, where they found that people overestimated the actual crime rate in New York by a factor of 10. It was a direct result of show after show highlighting crime in New York, but the statistical truth was that large numbers of people in that poll lived in places less safe or as safe as NY yet they said they wouldn't go there b/c of the crime.

So it's not wise to base one's travel plans on faulty perceptions of crime rates, and it's not wise to base policy on faulty assumptions about the causes of violence.

I'm sorry that I think we'd do better to focus on breaking the cycle of drug use and gang/organized crime that is driven by the drug trade than focusing on gun laws or really anything else on the list, but I do. In my assessment that's where the rubber hits the road, that's where we can do more good with the political and economic resources.

I don't defend gun ownership b/c I like everyone owning guns. I see it as the correct answer to the situation.

As another example, I despise, and I mean DESPISE, drug use in my presence, yet I support fairly broad legalization. Not b/c I like drugs but b/c I think that's the best way to minimize the criminal damage the drug trade is doing. I'm for what works, and the anti-gun law list doesn't work against the real problem, criminals.

But I determine what will work and what problems to attack based on basic principles of policy making, and that's why I think it's perfectly legitimate to point out when an area of proposed legislation is either non-solvent or simply not addressing a significant enough problem relative to what it will solve.

All policy should be based on identifying a harm, showing the harm is significant enough to rise to the level of policy being discussed, that the proposed solution addresses the cause of that harm, that the problem is inherent in the current structure and will not be solved without policy action, and lastly that the policy in question will solve for the harm in some meaningful way. Harm, significance, cause, inherency, solvency. that's how all policy goals should be evaluated.

[CitizenBBN]

Now the shorter answer:

yes, America is inundated with guns. But it has been inundated with guns since we were 13 colonies on the edge of the world. So that's not the source of the problem.

America is also inundated with drugs and economic hopelessness build on a foundation of 60 years of telling people they are helpless victims who now believe they cannot help themselves or better themselves. That's why they use drugs in record amounts, and that use drives a multi billion dollar criminal economy where distribution is decided by violence. The fact that they use guns is an aside to what they are doing.

If we rounded up every gun in America yes we'd lower the impact of that violence, but it would all still be there. Fewer casualties only b/c knives are less effective, but I'd rather focus on the real problem.

of course we cannot round up all those guns, so it's a sophistry to think in those terms. Far better to accept that for a variety of reasons, many of them good ones, we dont' want to have a disarmed citizenry, and as long as we have an armed citizenry of law abiding Americans, we have to find other ways to deal with the violence.

[Darrell KSR]

Bullet violence. There are SO many bullets. There are more bullets than there are guns! What to do? Shoot them!

[CitizenBBN]

Bullet violence. There are SO many bullets. There are more bullets than there are guns! What to do? Shoot them!

I'm doing my best to get as many bullets and guns off the shelves and streets as I can, but I only have so much budget.

[Doc]

No we are inudated with nut cases who are not treated, liberals who forget all those that are murdered on a daily basis in Chicago and places like that but go bonkers when a nutcase shoots up a school. How about the muslim that just stabbed classmates, want to outlaw knives also, probably more knives out there than guns.

Lets talk about getting rid of cars, they kill people by driving fast, allowing drunks to get behind the wheel or people high on their funny drugs, it is the cars fault afterall, just like those guns.

Then start a thread on cars and wreck less driving. I'll bet you don't find a single person who supports drunk drivers. I'd also bet you don't find anybody who supports putting an 8 year old behind the wheel of a car on I-95 with dad in the passenger seat and then applaud pops for teaching the young one the value of responsibility.

How about electricity, how many die from being electricuted each year, kids that stick things in wall sockets and get killed.

Then start a thread on electrical safety. Bet you won't find anybody who supports the idea of an electrician who allows his 8 year old child to wire a home as a good idea that teaches responsibility. Of course if he was the 8 year old driving, that would be two illegal activities he committed. Of course if it was his hunting cabin that he drove to and wired, it would have been legal for him to fire off a few hundred rounds of ammo while there if pops said it OK.

Smoking, how many deaths there from cancer, wait that brings in tax dollars, can't do anything about that. Much like wacky weed now, tax dollars, forget the health decline and brain loss, just worry about the tax dollars.

Then start a thread on smoking. I doubt you will find anybody who supports giving 8 year olds the right (citizen, is that the correct term? I don't think it is but I did not have time to consult with a linguist or etymologist. I'm sure you will pipe in and correct me so I'll thank you now) to smoke even if his parents say its OK. Of course smokings primary harm potential is to the person doing it unlike say a gun, or a car or electricity when it burns down the house which has a huge potential for collateral damage (again, term check please). And of course that 8 year old smoking while legally shooting a gun because daddy is watching him, would be illegal.

If the feds or states figured out how to tax guns and ammo more for their bank deposits we would never hear about gun laws.

How about the liberals stop putting judges in place that won't enforce the laws we already have on the books, you know, those 20,000 or so federal and state laws that judges thumb their noses at.

Sounds like a good thread topic

And why is it liberals are allowed guns to protect themselves or have bodyguards that carry high powered guns to protect their clients but me the average citizen should not be allowed to own a gun.

Because they are hypocrites. Same reason actors make millions peddling blow'em up and shoot'em up action films based on violence then ignore films as a cause for violence in society

The constitution declares I am free to own a gun and that right SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED UPON.

Too bad the constitution means nothing to liberals

.

[KeithKSR]

Society's breakdown isnt due to guns.

Loss of values.

[CitizenBBN]

Doc, those aren't bad examples (well the smoking one is weak b/c no one would "support" anyone smoking at any age), but I think if we were to have a world where 8 year olds regularly drove, and of the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of them doing so their accident rate was lower than that of the adult average doing that same driving, woudl we need a law to ban it?

A better analogy might be something where kids are currently allowed to do something, and then talk about restricting it. Like working on a farm, another thing that has been a longstanding part of American culture, and similarly is one that the federal government is trying to stop b/c they now deem it unsafe for kids.

Is farm work dangerous? Yes, inherently so. But for a few centuries now the way we've approached it is to vest the responsibility for what is safe and too unsafe for a child to do in the parents, with the law stepping in only when behavior warrants it.

The good news is that we already have laws to cover that, whether it is having your kid run a cultivator or shooting a gun. Easy enough to decide at law if the behavior is responsible or not.

So when I was a kid I worked on the farm, but some things I was allowed to do, some were deemed too unsafe by my family. So I could drive the tractor in some fields, but others were too unlevel. Likewise I could go shooting with a long gun (only after having been taught how to handle guns with my family), but I wasn't allowed a handgun by myself, and my first rifle was a single shot bolt action that was never going to get away from me in some way.

Now the grandfather who left that girl with a gun clearly needs to be prosecuted, but as a Libertarian I believe you don't take away the rights of those being responsible b/c of the irresponsibility of a few, so it's far better to prosecute this guy as appropriate for his negligence and endangerment rather than have some blanket law that no kid under X age can handle a gun under any circumstances.

The deciding factor is whehter or not there is enough harm out there to warrant removing those rights, and that's where we disagree. it's also where things like swimming pools come into play b/c we need to find perspective on the number of kids who are harmed each year to determine how significant it is in the context of the overall risk to kids. You don't remove a fundamental right and a deeply ingrained cultural norm for tens of millions of Americans without there being a strong need.

Is 100 kids injured strong enough? that's why I use the swimming pool analogy, b/c to be able to say "yes the current level of harm is enough to justify that action" then you have to conclude that the level of harm of privately owned pools, which kill more kids under the age of 14 every year than guns, is high enough to ban those as well. Otherwise it's just hypocrisy, not policy.

[PedroDaGr8]

What if I argued that society isn't breaking down and this is evidenced by the fact that violent crime is down DRAMATICALLY across the board in almost EVERY single location in the USA. Using homicide rates as an example, the homicide rate per 100,000 in 2013 (the last year I found data for) was just a smidge above the average homicide rate for the entire 1950s and is on a downward trend. Similarly, other violent crimes are on the way down as well. I'm not going to get into the cause or the reason why. Just challenging the concept that society is somehow worse or more violent than it used to be. If anything, this is one of the BEST times to be alive in human history. It just seems that everyone seems to look at the past with rose colored glasses and think the 1950s and 60s (when many of them grew up) was somehow better from violent crime than today. Reality and statistics say from a crime stand point, it hasn't been much better than it is now. It is dramatically better than the sky high rates of the late 60s through the 90s, is more or less on par with rates of the 1940s and well below the rates of the 1930s or 1940s. From this stand-point I think that the premise that society is somehow worse today is inherently flawed when it comes to a crime discussion. Society today is literally as good as it has ever been.

[suncat05]

I have to ask a question here, because something has been bothering me about this topic..........have any of the mods here spoken to Lonny and asked him if he posted this one sentence topic? The reason I ask is that when have we ever seen Lonny Demaree do this kind of thing before? Just post a one sentence discussion point of this nature and not include any additional storyline or talking points?
Something doesn't seem quite right here.

Anyone?

[Doc]

Anyone?

[CitizenBBN]

Pedro, you're of course absolutely right that, when measured as a question of violent crime, things are actually way better than they've been in decades.

But in another key way, drug use, it's worse than ever. If it weren't for that we might be looking at the lowest crime rate in US history, bc the drug trade clearly is the biggest single factor driving crime in America.

Also, we've gotten crime down, but we have the largest ratio of incarceration in the free world. we're just locking people up left and right, again mostly tied to drugs in some way, and keeping it off the streets, but clearly we're losing the war on drugs and only in a holding action of just putting everyone involved in prison as often as possible.

In short, we're winning the battle, but losing the war. We're keeping murder rates down, but with more and more people losing hope and turning to drugs I'm not sure long term we're in very good shape.

[Doc]

What if I argued that society isn't breaking down and this is evidenced by the fact that violent crime is down DRAMATICALLY across the board in almost EVERY single location in the USA. Using homicide rates as an example, the homicide rate per 100,000 in 2013 (the last year I found data for) was just a smidge above the average homicide rate for the entire 1950s and is on a downward trend. Similarly, other violent crimes are on the way down as well. I'm not going to get into the cause or the reason why. Just challenging the concept that society is somehow worse or more violent than it used to be. If anything, this is one of the BEST times to be alive in human history. It just seems that everyone seems to look at the past with rose colored glasses and think the 1950s and 60s (when many of them grew up) was somehow better from violent crime than today. Reality and statistics say from a crime stand point, it hasn't been much better than it is now. It is dramatically better than the sky high rates of the late 60s through the 90s, is more or less on par with rates of the 1940s and well below the rates of the 1930s or 1940s. From this stand-point I think that the premise that society is somehow worse today is inherently flawed when it comes to a crime discussion. Society today is literally as good as it has ever been.

I don't know if your stats are correct or not but I'll assume they are. No reason to not take at face value. However the perception is what it is in large part due to the current administration. If we want to have that "honest conversation" that liberal so often bring up in their talking points, we can start with the honest part about how the current president has a much greater interest when a black person gets shot by a white person. Its really not about gun control, its about racial injustice as the motivating factor. Where is he and the govt when a black kid shoots a white police officer in Ft Pierce FL? Or when a black kid shoot another black kid in Chicago? But when a white office while doing his job shoots a black thug, then the feds step in. You notice all the recent gun issues brought to national attention have one thing in common? The shooter is white. You believe only white guys are mentally unbalance and shoot people? Every single day in this nation there are murders committed with guns and if the President/liberal/gun control lobby wanted to make a case for the evils of guns he/they would have to look at those daily incidents rather than the occasion mass shooting that they exploit. But that would require exposing who commits those and that isn't something they are interested in focusing on because that is urban/inner city killings. Now that is where I suspect the drop in your numbers comes from Pedro which of course is a good thing. However the administration would prefer to focus on

1) whites killing blacks for the purpose of furthering their racial agenda
2) non urban shootings because they seem more frightening to people. We expect inner city violence

The big picture does not matter.

[suncat05]

Good points, Doc. Excellent points, in fact.

[jazyd]

Doc, have not heard a word from the administrtion about investigating the two black cops that murdered the 6 yr old boy in Louisiana this past weekend. The boy was white, and his dad is in the hospital in bad shape. Where is ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS?

[bigsky]

http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/l...e43654638.html Cops & gun violence

[Doc]

Doc, have not heard a word from the administrtion about investigating the two black cops that murdered the 6 yr old boy in Louisiana this past weekend. The boy was white, and his dad is in the hospital in bad shape. Where is ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS?

And you won't because its does not fit their agenda.

[kingcat]

Condition people to believe competition is Godly, place them in groups, and subsequently make targeting those group easier and more profitable.

Never mind the biases and prejudices that result, they will only help perpetuate the system..and again increase profit.



"As for guns or the like , the argument itself is more important than any solution."