Sam1911
Moderator Emeritus
Which isn't very frequently, at all, given how much "potential" for it exists. Surely you wouldn't disagree.Well in this case the potential and the evil itself should be of equal concern given how frequently the potential realizes.
As they say, 300 million guns in the USA were used to kill NO ONE last year. A relative pittance of the total were. Vast potential, tiny realization of that potential.
I didn't link them, as strictly in the "more guns = less crime" way, though I believe that to be plausible. Merely pointed out that vastly more weaponry out there "on the street" isn't contributing to more killings, in the only example of a real world test we can look at.To link the current low rates of violent crime with more guns in private hinds is highly specious.Numerous other variables exist, such as the fact that an enormous percent of our population is in prison, which provide far better explanations. Further, total households owning firearms hasn't actually changed all that much but rather existing gun owners have been buying more.
Or in fact, rising rates of violent crime despite the most draconian gun laws imaginable (e.g. England).Short of very draconian legislation though, i do agree that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to significantly reduce access for criminals to guns in this country for the simple fact that there are already so many in existence. At the very least, it would take a long time to have any impact on guns available to criminals. This is another reason why comparisons with countries which have enacted gun bans are problematic. Most had far fewer guns than us, and much lower murder rates, before their bans to begin with.
Of course, but that's not a legislation problem, and it is also a problem vastly in decline. Firearms accidents have fallen just as violent crime has.Even then, legal gun owners, as we see with disturbing frequency, do also at times use their guns in very stupid and dangerous ways. Education, maybe, is the only way to reduce such that i can fathom.
Oh, I understand it, too. It is nonsensical and contemptible and a horrid reason to infringe on the rights of others, but I understand it.Personally i see violent crime as largely a symptom rather than a disease so i understand why people try to treat symptoms when they can't cure the disease, for whatever reason.
See, the thing is, I don't really concern myself with "a solution." I see violent crime as a natural consequence of the society we live in and a eternal reality of the human condition, and (since I'm a history buff) I see us as living in an almost abnormally safe and secure time, wherein violence is actually a pretty distant concern for the vast majority of folks living out in American society. (The fact that violence is concentrated in inner city poverty is a social issue that gun laws can't even begin to touch, and makes people look at you like a racist if you dare to discuss.) So, in very real terms, I don't think violence is a pressing social issue requiring further disruptive efforts to quell. It will never be eliminated and we're pretty far into the law of diminishing returns on that count. (As you mentioned, observe the prison population. Yikes.)The irony is that opponents of gun control who frequently say, "people, not guns, are the problem" offer no solution either.
There isn't a solution to violent crime. There is one pretty useful defense against it, and that is the responsibility of each citizen to prepare on their own.
Agreed, and this well sums up the reasons that I don't make such links myself.Many love to point to Switzerland as a country with high levels of gun ownership and low homicide levels, but conveniently ignore the fact that Switzerland has in place the type of social systems and programs which they rabidly oppose. The same type of programs that are present in nearly all other first world countries with low murder rates. Instead, we hear ridiculous attempts to blame our high violent crime rate on things like secularization of schools, in spite of the fact that the low crime rate countries tend to be even more secular than us.
You've missed the point. I was asking you why you felt these were reasonable and positive things to do if you were troubled by my characterization of gun control as an attempt to fix social issues. Yeah, if you AREN'T trying to make society better/safer then coming out in favor of increased legal millstones around the necks of the citizens looks awful suspicious.Hence, the common theme that it isn't about GUNS, it's about CONTROL. Yes, maybe there is some third reason we've not considered. It isn't to fix a social problem, and it isn't control of others for the sake of power and control. So...what's left? What other purpose do you have?
Right, gun control advocates don't actually care about preventing murder and gun accidents, its all just part of their grand conspiracy to implement a totalitarian dictatorship. "Its about control" is just another silly mantra to demonize people who hold a contrary view, another straw-man.
You've answered, sort of, that you aren't actually proposing anything or supporting anything or being part of any movement so, I gather you see no reason to make an answer to that question. That's fine. I think the majority of those real grass roots ma and pa type folks who lean toward gun control ARE trying to make society safer. I don't think they're totalitarian statists. Of course, no such assumptions are to be made about their political Pied Pipers.
I have NOT said you sound like a liberal, or called you any such thing. I've made my positions clear and supported. You're dismissing them as ideology. It would be supremely easy for me to make the same claim about your own line of thinking, and claim you simply disguise your statist leanings with a mask of studious political agnosticism, but that's not how I debate issues as I find labeling a poor strategy, weak and self-defeating.You're playing a name game. If you believe you can label my position an "ideology" you can then dismiss it by playing your token "ideology=bad" card. But you haven't dismissed it, you've just found a place to stop thinking critically.
I'm not labeling your position as ideological just so i can aptly dismiss it. I'm labeling it as such because your comments followed ideological thinking - guns are always the answer. No, if you want to see the name game, see x-rap's post. No substance, just the tired old "you sound like a liberal".
Holy cow, you think I'd FORCE people to own guns? Jeez. Not everything is about coercion, man. I said I think the world would be a safer place if people DID own guns, not if they were MADE to own guns. I'm for maximum freedom, not government control -- even seemingly pro-gun government oppression.Yes, stupid and irresponsible people do currently own guns, and bad things happen because of such. Its one thing to realize that irresponsible gun owners are inevitable but its something else entirely to make people have guns knowing that such will dramatically increase the number of dumb ones who do as well. Unintentional deaths alone would without a doubt increase, which probably already exceed justifiable self defense shootings as it is now. I have no idea by what means one would cause everybody to own a gun, but at least when we let legal gun owners seek them of their own accord they are more likely to educate themselves than those who have no interest in ownership to begin with. Unless mandating such is also what you're advocating.
Your question was this, "Or does gun ideology mean that one must take the position that firearms restrictions should exist for schizophrenics and clinical pyschopaths?" Honestly I don't have any idea how to answer because I can't figure the question out. I don't know what "gun ideology" is in your view, and I guess I missed the meeting where they handed out the sheet telling everyone what to believe about restrictions on gun ownership for those people. So, I directed you to the two legal principles that can actually answer the question for you.I'll direct you back to the phrases "adjudicated mentally defective" and "due process." They really sum up what you need to understand about mental health and gun ownership.
And i'll direct you back to the question which you've failed to answer.
But to be more clear so we can quell any further circling the mulberry bush, "adjudicated mentally defective" means that a person may not possess firearms if they've been found by a jury -- through their Constitutional "due process" to be formally charged and to defend themselves in a court of law -- to be incapable of peaceable and lawful conduct among the free citizens of this country. No other limitations are needed or acceptable.
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