A little tidbit to use against the anti's

[Soodonim]

Something you might bring up the next time you have a discussion with a gun control advocate.
The Nirvana fallacy is a logical error of comparing a real world situation with the absolute ideal situation instead of all of the other possible real world situations. No reasonable person wants innocent people to die from gun violence. Some gun control advocates commit this Nirvana fallacy when they suggest that all guns should be confiscated. They think that this would actually result in no one dying from gun violence. But this is an unworkable solution; there is no way to confiscate all the guns in the country, and even if you did, smugglers would supply the criminals' demand.

Seeing how there is no way to eliminate gun deaths, we should look to the best way to reduce the deaths. To simplify, we have three options: more gun laws, fewer gun laws, or keep it the way it is. I can't go into the statistics as well as many on here, but it's obvious that more gun laws won't do the trick. Think of Chicago, where the solution to dozens of shootings in a weekend is to call for stricter gun control. I don't know how to get stricter than a ban except by saying "this time we mean it". Keeping gun laws the way they are is preferable to tmore, but the optimal solution to reducing gun violence is to allow more honest citizens to have guns.


P.S. I won't waste any bandwidth going into the obvious Constitutional issue. This policy analysis should be irrelevant given the fundamental right to gun ownership and self protection that was present in American and English civilization before the Constitution was written and indeed the Constitution protects it.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

You can also look at it in a somewhat mathmatical way. There are 4 basic options.
1: No one has guns
2: Only good people have guns
3: Only bad people have guns
4: Both bad and good people have guns.

1 and 2 are physically impossible. Guns cannot be unmade, and it's impossible to tell who "good people" are. Everyone is innocent until the moment they commit a crime. There are "first time" criminals all the time. How can one predict the future? Number 3 is the option that the antis are currently pushing. Gun control is a voluntary filter. One has to choose to take part in gun control. We know that it's very easy to circumvent and get a gun anways. Anyone can do this, good and bad people alike. But, only good people choose not to. We choose to let the gun laws affect us. So in the end, you have only the people who decide to ignore gun control possessing guns. These are of course the same kind of people who ignore laws against killing and stealing as well.

That leaves us with option 4. Let guns be available. By spreading guns equally across the whole feild, it ceases to be such a potent force. it reminds me of the scene in Aladdin when the monkey grabs a sword and waves it at the guards who are chasing him and Aladdin. 1 monkey with a sword>a group of unarmed guards. One of the guards comically screams "He's got a sword!". The head guard then says to the rest of them "You fools! We've all got swords!" The sword is no longer such a force multiplier. Since everyone has one, it doesn't matter anymore.


The end goal should be to either even the playing feild, or tip in in our(the good guys) favor. We can't tip it in our favor, and we can't even it by getting rid of guns completely. So the only way to even it is to increase guns so that it is the same force multiplier for everyone, and it cancels itself out.

OP, you're right about the Nirvana Fallacy. The antis agree that option 2, only good people having guns, is impossible. They don't trust anyone is "good enough" to be be trusted with a gun. In a sense, they are correct. But the mistakenly think that the solution is for no one to have guns. Their fantasy ideal world scenario. Logic however shows us that it is impossible to remove guns from the planet forever. Even if we could magically remove all current guns from existance right now, they are still not very hard to make. Any decent machinist can build a gun. And the knowledge of their design and function has been around for centuries. You can't close Pandora's Box. Guns cannot be un-invented. By trying to implement what they see as the best option, number 1, they actually implement the worst option, number 3. Because the only people that follow gun control are the same people who don't need gun control.

 

[Hawk]

I've noticed with respect to multiple victim incidents, at least on international forums, an obvious failure of imagination that transcends naivete on firearms.

It appears many believe that if all firearms could be wished away that multiple victim homicides would disappear as the perpetrators would be forced to substitute less effective means such as bricks or blades.

It never dawns on them that someone might pull a Keyhoe. The liklihood that Alfred Noble put a speed bump on their highway to the medieval seems to never hit their radar - this despite the words "improvised" and "explosive" being on the their news outlets every day.

They seem fine with the concept of "substitution of tools" but the concept that such substitution might result in something more efficient than firearms seems to elude them, even when spoon-fed.

 

[LopezEL]

I recently was trying to explain the above to my father. He believes that we should have stricter gun control. Our family is originally from Mexico, I was born here and was always fascinated with guns... I had to educate myself on them because he would never introduce me to them. My Kung Fu instructor actually took me to the range and let me shoot his guns because he felt it necessary that I at least be familiar with them to become a well rounded martial artist. When I turned 18, I bought a Mossberg 500 shotgun but when my Dad found out, he confiscated it and I thought he had sold it until just recently when I got it back (I'll be 22 on Friday and own several guns that he doesn't know about). He was upset that first of all, It was so easy for me to obtain a shotgun: I just ordered it from gunlocator and then picked it up at a local pawn shop and secondly that it was so inexpensive. I Think I paid like 300 dollars.

In Mexico, shotguns are completely illegal for citizens. My uncle caught a guy burglarizing a home and he pulled out his shotgun... when he went to the police department, he made the mistake of keeping the shotgun in plain view in the front of his truck and he was arrested/kept in jail longer than the guy that had broken into the house.

When I told my dad that gun laws should actually allow people to carry in more places and that strict gun control only kept guns out of law abiding citizens, his response was the following: When is the last time you heard of a school shooting in Mexico? Then, how many school shootings has USA had just this year? At that point, I just dropped the subject because he is one of those people that just doesnt seem to understand despite all the facts. I worry about him... he carries large amounts of cash on him all the time, is a very well known, respected individual in our community, and owns several rental properties. I hate to say it but he would be a prime target for me if I were a criminal. Ive tried to get him to at least keep a gun in his house but the last time he had one, he stuck it in an ac vent and when he remembered about it and pulled it out, it was completely rusted. How can go about educating him on this topic other than what I have already tried?

 

[Deanimator]

When is the last time you heard of a school shooting in Mexico?

When's the last time you heard of the US Army coming into a major US city and disarming the police because they're nothing but a criminal gang?

How many chiefs of police were assassinated in the United States in a the last couple of years?

Who's your dad, GEORGE Lopez???

That's HILARIOUS!

He seems VERY particular in his selection of violent acts to condemn.

If you're going to condemn violence in the US, ***MEXICO*** is the LAST contrary example you want to use. It's like citing Scott Petersen as Alec Baldwin's better in the husband department.

 

[cambeul41]

http://www.gunsandammomag.com/second_amendment/rk0405/

Gun laws, like all laws, should be evaluated to determine if they meet accepted measures of success. Gun-control advocates contend that gun laws reduce murders as well as other gun crimes. An examination of this proposition shows conclusively that gun laws fail to reduce murder rates in many countries. Therefore, they fail to meet the fundamental measure of success and should be amended or repealed.

A 1997 Justice Department report on murders in the U.S. shows that our country has a murder rate of seven victims per 100,000 population per year.

Gun control in Mexico is a fascinating case study. Mexican gun laws are simply draconian.

Mexico's murder rate is an eye-popping 17.5.

 

[TallPine]

When is the last time you heard of a school shooting in Mexico? Then, how many school shootings has USA had just this year?

Well, the border works both ways doesn't it ...?

 

[AndyC]

LopezEL, I can appreciate your concern for your father - mine's in South Africa, and although he's armed and skilled with firearms, I still worry about him.

That said, you can't live his life or make his decisions for him, so I'll suggest something that has been successful for many people here - invite him to the range with you. Show him the fun side of firearms first (assuming he takes you up on it) before moving into the self-defense aspects

 

[bumm]

Hundreds of years ago, the world WAS without guns, for all practical purposes. It was a MUCH more dangerous place for the common man.
Marty

 

[Soodonim]

Sorry to ressurect the thread, but hey, I started it. Another thing to look at is correlation vs. causation. You can't just point out Japan's strict gun laws and low violence as a case for gun control. There are other factors present. But the important thing to focus on is the marginal effect of gun control. Where gun control is enforced on responsible citizens, it might not happen immeadiately, but the crime rate goes up. I live in Chicago, and have decided that owning and carrying a handgun illegally is not worth it given the risk. But a criminal isn't as concerned about the reprecusions of committing a crime, or they wouldn't be a criminal. It prevents me, a responsible citizen, but does not sufficiently deter the criminals in Chicago. We all know what happened in Chicago a few weekends ago.