Not again!

[odd_fish_9]

Again, I can't speak for others but I don't think many Americans really believe that average citizens toting revolvers or shotguns are ever going to deter a professional military force. Indeed, untrained farm boys armed with their father's muskets could only annoy, but not deter, the King's professional army in 1776. It wasn't until actual trained infantry, with a lot of French aid, confronted British regulars and truly contested the issue.

Not really. There are too many counterexamples. Bunker Hill wasn't fought by American regulars; and although the untrained farmers there did eventually leave the field, the cost to the British troops was catastrophically high. In fact General Howe - himself uninjured although he led the charges from the front - for the rest of the time that he commanded the Crown's forces in America never again staged a frontal assault on Americans.

There are other notable examples from both the Revolution and the War of 1812, such as Cowpens or New Orleans.

This is not to assert that regular "Continentals" weren't a factor, or that French troops, money, and, particularly, ships weren't important. But the amateurs shouldn't be written off too casually. They can easily change the equation even without a tactical victory.

 

[HazelGod]

People with guns are safer because they can shoot other people with guns who are trying to shoot them, because they have guns. Therefore having guns make people safer?

Maybe not circular by your interpretation, but seriously flawed by mine.

Nice try, strawman. We've already agreed on the virtual impossibility of removing guns from existence here. The only point of contention is their legality for people to privately own. Given these conditions, yes...the general population is safer from violence of all kinds with some private citizens carrying weapons on their persons. This makes sense not only by virtue of reason, but is borne out by crime statistics as well. Nothing flawed about it, circular or otherwise.

Well, that's as may be. I was referring to this thread.

As was I. Pay attention. I know it's a difficult idea to grasp for some, but people may occasionally incorporate ideas from other discussions into the one presently unfolding.

Not at all. And I was quite aware of the source. I could have cited a pro-gun website. The reason I chose them is because they are, as you say not entirely inflammatory and a little wider focussed than most lobby sites.

That said, you're a fine one to lecture me about the use of statistics to back up an argument.

I am indeed, as you seem to have missed the point yet again. I don't cite statistics to reinforce my contentions...I do so to point out the futility in their use for such purposes at all, particularly obnoxiously inflammatory comparative statistical nonsense like the OP put up in post #3. They prove nothing, and are more often than not used disingenuously to attempt to manipulate an audience...by exaggerating certain aspects, obfuscating others, or both.

Yes, your point being? The site clearly states that and I made no allusion to the contrary, all I did was provide the link, the inferences are entirely your own. Again, cheap tactics.

What, you don't like your own tactics used against you? Again, your remark is entirely disingenuous...a bit like handing cigarettes to kids then disavowing any intent to have them smoke. The link you posted leads off with a chart that conveniently fails to specifically reference its underlying datasets. (The ICVS? Are you kidding? A Crime Victim Survey doesn't include data on homicide, because - imagine this - you can't survey dead people. But I grepped their entire 2000 database for both murder and homicide, just to be sure. And the 2005 Ryerson research they referenced? Visit the cited link yourself...it goes nowhere.)

The site is a propaganda fabrication for furthering an agenda, just like cigarettes are a nicotine delivery mechanism. They're only used for one purpose. You cited the lie, you bear the consequence associated with it.

The US rate on that site for homicides is 3.98/100k or 8 times the Swiss rate of 0.50/100k. How exactly, are those figures 'in line', is it some other meaning of 'in line' that I'm unaware of? I'd suggest you find a calculator and not lecture me on remedial maths.

They're "in-line" in the same sense that your site lists these figures for separate years in each nation, and cites from a source (a book authored by one of the co-founders of Canada's Coalition for Gun Control) that is entirely different from the two sources cited in the chart immediately above (neither of which was verifiable).

We're back to one of my key points: stop regurgitating other people's predigested conclusions, and start developing your own through independent reasoning and analysis. You'll find them much easier to defend when you've arrived at them on your own.

I wonder though what this reality (as you put it) have to do (directly) with people in the US having a greater propensity toward shooting each other than us huddled euro-masses?

Probably nothing...which was my entire point, if you bothered to read it. Situations and policies from one society have little comparative validity from one to the next. There are simply too many complex variables to make such comparisons meaningful. I only pointed out the most glaringly obvious.

However not to labour a point about your motives and attempts to misdirect the argument but yet again I catch you in a fallacy; The population density of Finland is 15-17/Km2, the gun homicide rate in Finland is 0.35/100k. Just to step outside Europe - Australia comes in at packed 6.4/Km2 and a rate of 0.24. Now, what was your point again?

You missed it entirely...as illustrated hilariously by this last passage.

Did I say you had? Please point out where I did. Perhaps it's your own reading comprehension that's in need of some spit and polish?

The causes for this are arguable, but the tragic side effects of effectively unrestricted gun ownership are not. It's sad you're unable to see that.

Now go home and get yer fuckin' shine box.

If you're going to resort to shoddy tactics such as (more) insults and misdirection and perhaps outright lies, you really are wasting my time. I'd rather discuss the issue sensibly with someone who's up to the task.

Amusing though it is to be called black by the kettle, so would I. You clearly don't qualify.

I don't believe so but it's late, gimme a break!:smile:

So we excuse your inability to reason through a position and recognize how easily it could be upended as a consequence of the hour?

What I'm saying is that having a gun only makes one safer if your opponent doesn't.

You're looking at this from the wrong level. Sure, that's true in a controlled one vs. one scenario...but life isn't like that. From a societal perspective, we are all safer by virtue of the fact that citizens are free to own and carry arms. Because you're a lot more likely to see this:

In the UK and where I spend much of my time, Zambia and sometimes Zimbabwe - there's plenty of crime but comparatively little gun crime. I may feel threatened running into dodgy characters late at night but I'm not expecting to get shot by them because these are not gun cultures.

...when those same dodgy characters aren't expecting to get shot in the process of accosting random citizens like you. I could go on and draw the correlation amongst lower population densities, concurrent logistical problems with police protection in rural areas, higher private ownership of guns in same, lower incidences of gun violence in same, etc, etc...but that would be lost on those unable (or unwilling) to use reason.

Think past your own experiences.

First remove the mote from thine own eye...

 

[odd_fish_9]

What I'm saying is that having a gun only makes one safer if your opponent doesn't.

Obviously not so. The recent unpleasantness in Colorado is an immediate counterexample. Bad guy has rifle, good guy has pistol. Good guy wins anyway. Lots of people without any guns at all are no longer threatened, because the good guy is, by definition, not a dire threat to the unarmed and helpless.

Violence breeds violence, we know that already.

A platitude, not a fact. Even if the platitude was true, it wouldn't apply, because you are equating non-synonyms - guns are not the equivalent of violence. A gun in every household is not the equivalent of a violent society. If those guns were to be misused, then the result could well be a violent society.

I went to a machine gun shoot a few months ago. The civilian-owned firepower present - and used - handily exceeded the capabilities of some of the smaller European armies. Was that a violent display? Hardly - nobody suffered so much as a scratch. It was noisy, to be sure. But the knee-jerk equation of guns and violence is rubbish.

But the form that violence takes (on average) will depend on the weaponry at hand (on average) - be it guns, knives, axes whatever - not so?

The last time that there were no guns at all was the Middle Ages - not now remembered as a particularly placid period.

If everyone is armed equally, no one is safe (or, more accurately at equal risk). It's a self serving argument.

Your only options, when two groups are in physical conflict, is for one to be better armed than the other, or for them to be armed equally. All that a law can do is disarm one side - it can't disarm both, because one group is criminal. We know that laws have relatively little effect on criminals, because of the disastrous failures of prohibition laws in general (specifically, alcohol and narcotics). Any conceivable disarmament law will have approximately zero effect on guns in criminal hands. The only group which you can disarm is the group on which criminals prey. And what is the advantage of doing that?

Bad guys won't play fair, that's a constant so it factors out because it applies to all violent crime.

It doesn't factor out, it's always present.

Keep in mind that American gun laws are not really intended to disarm criminals. They are intended to disarm non-criminals. The current political mantra of "enforce the laws already on the books" is essentially calling the bluff on the gun-control fans who justify their ever-increasing legal entanglements as having something to do with crime.

In the UK and where I spend much of my time, Zambia and sometimes Zimbabwe - there's plenty of crime but comparatively little gun crime. I may feel threatened running into dodgy characters late at night but I'm not expecting to get shot by them because these are not gun cultures.

I could drive down to Mexico, where my statistical chances of being murdered would increase drastically over what they are now. But I would almost certainly be murdered by knife, rather than by gun. Frankly, that is nothing to celebrate. Concentration on gun crime, simply because a gun in involved, is a good way to miss the forest for the trees. The problem is homicidal violence, not guns. Those who insist that the two are essentially the same simply don't know what they're talking about. The US, despite the large stash of weapons, is not one of the world's more violent countries.

Obsession with exclusively gun crimes makes it look, to casual observation, like it is particularly violent. Hence the fog of statistics which grace the beginning of this thread.

 

[Drifterwood]

We've already agreed on the virtual impossibility of removing guns from existence here.

I agree. :smile:

It is sad that you got to this situation in the first place, and I believe that you did in part because of some misguided patriotic mythology misused by an interest group - but hey, ain't that the American way.

Colorado is not chicken and egg, if no one had a gun in the first place, it would not have happened.

But clearly this is unrealistic in a culture awash with firearms.

It does no good for your international reputation. I know you don't give a rat's ass about that HG, so no need to say so.

 

[odd_fish_9]

I believe that you did in part because of some misguided patriotic mythology misused by an interest group - but hey, ain't that the American way.

What interest group would that be - the citizenry? If so, then it is the American way.

 

[BigDuder]

Let's change the mantra.

Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people.

Now which part of the equation needs to be removed to stop people being killed?

i've got a board with a nail in it with your name on it.

 

[dong20]

Nice try, strawman. We've already agreed on the virtual impossibility of removing guns from existence here. The only point of contention is their legality for people to privately own. Given these conditions, yes...the general population is safer from violence of all kinds with some private citizens carrying weapons on their persons. This makes sense not only by virtue of reason, but is borne out by crime statistics as well. Nothing flawed about it, circular or otherwise.

Well I agree that removal of all guns in their entirety is virtually impossible. As for reducing the number in circulation over a period of time, in concert with addressing the fundamental issues that underpin their use, that I’m not so sure about. I will agree with you that it’s not easy, but I don’t agree that an attempt is futile, nor is it the only point of contention.

As was I. Pay attention. I know it's a difficult idea to grasp for some, but people may occasionally incorporate ideas from other discussions into the one presently unfolding.

I try not to presume that others have read every post I or others make, your ego may cause you to presume otherwise, I couldn’t say.

I am indeed, as you seem to have missed the point yet again. I don't cite statistics to reinforce my contentions...I do so to point out the futility in their use for such purposes at all, particularly obnoxiously inflammatory comparative statistical nonsense like the OP put up in post #3. They prove nothing, and are more often than not used disingenuously to attempt to manipulate an audience...by exaggerating certain aspects, obfuscating others, or both.

No, I think I got your point exactly. Actually, you should read it again, especially since post number 3 wasn’t made by me. While you’re there, have a look at post 17 where you may find…yes statistics, some polling data from criminals and tangential references to war zones. I agree statistics are responsible for so much confusion but they can also serve a useful purpose.

If your intention was to suggest that more people are killed in vehicle accidents (or suicide bomb attacks) than with firearms you succeeded, but then that was never the issue, or indeed in dispute was it? Your contention that the latter is statistically insignificant may be true ‘statistically’ (though I’m not sure it is), but in any other context it’s simply offensive.

What, you don't like your own tactics used against you? Again, your remark is entirely disingenuous...a bit like handing cigarettes to kids then disavowing any intent to have them smoke. The link you posted leads off with a chart that conveniently fails to specifically reference its underlying datasets. (The ICVS? Are you kidding? A Crime Victim Survey doesn't include data on homicide, because - imagine this - you can't survey dead people. But I grepped their entire 2000 database for both murder and homicide, just to be sure. And the 2005 Ryerson research they referenced? Visit the cited link yourself...it goes nowhere.)

No, I provided a link to a website, you inferred that my intent was to mislead, which it wasn’t but that’s an aside. Either way how is that my tactics?

Also, I’m not responsible for the management of the Ryserson.ca website. You neglect to mention that the other study (by the UN) can be found here. United Nations Crime and Justice Research Inst. - Data

Incidentally, the columnar data to which I was referring are sourced from http://www.guncontrol.ca/English/Home/International/GlobalGunEpidemic.pdf

Again, something else you neglected to mention, presumably in your eagerness to highlight a report which is I agree (unfortunately) missing.

But by all means, grep away.

The site is a propaganda fabrication for furthering an agenda, just like cigarettes are a nicotine delivery mechanism. They're only used for one purpose. You cited the lie, you bear the consequence associated with it.

Nice try, but recall that you earlier described it yourself in the following terms “…While they aren't as egregiously inflammatory as DW's stupid comparisons to war casualties, they're a case study in statistical misinformation unto themselves…”

Of course, now you found a ‘broken’ link, it’s all simply a lie. Or perhaps you’d never looked at it before? I’m sure similar figures could be obtained elsewhere but at this point I think it’s moot.

They're "in-line" in the same sense that your site lists these figures for separate years in each nation, and cites from a source (a book authored by one of the co-founders of Canada's Coalition for Gun Control) that is entirely different from the two sources cited in the chart immediately above (neither of which was verifiable).

No, they are in line in the sense that there not in line.

The data are sourced as above, but then of course I didn’t refer explicitly or even indirectly to the chart. That the data in the table are sourced from a source other than the chart is significant in what way? - they relate to different statistics it’s reasonable they may have different sources. Also they are pretty much in line with other sources, including your own.

As for the chronology, are you seriously suggesting that because the US data refer to 2003, Finland 2003 and Switzerland 1998 for example renders any comparison invalid? Well I suspect that had Swiss gun homicide rates increased 8 fold in 3 years (or US rate dropped the same amount) it may have attracted some media attention. I think it’s more a clutching at straws motivation on your to justify ignoring inconvenient data.

Remember it was you that made the assertion that by halving the US gun homicide rates they equated to Swiss rates, not I. Not that it's at all true of course.

We're back to one of my key points: stop regurgitating other people's predigested conclusions, and start developing your own through independent reasoning and analysis. You'll find them much easier to defend when you've arrived at them on your own.

So, where do you get your stats HG, personal fieldwork?

Probably nothing...which was my entire point, if you bothered to read it. Situations and policies from one society have little comparative validity from one to the next. There are simply too many complex variables to make such comparisons meaningful. I only pointed out the most glaringly obvious.

Well, of course you would say that. I read what you wrote, it contained factual inaccuracies (at best) and I called you on them. If such things didn’t matter why mention them at all? More on that later.

You missed it entirely...as illustrated hilariously by this last passage.

No again.

Now go home and get yer fuckin' shine box.

Yes boss.

So we excuse your inability to reason through a position and recognize how easily it could be upended as a consequence of the hour?

Not at all. Not that I agree with your contention anyway.

You're looking at this from the wrong level. Sure, that's true in a controlled one vs. one scenario...but life isn't like that. From a societal perspective, we are all safer by virtue of the fact that citizens are free to own and carry arms. Because you're a lot more likely to see this:

No, I’m simply looking at it differently to you and I didn’t cite a specific scenario. Much homicide, if not most, is one on one. The safety element is really only applicable if both parties are in a position to make use of their weapons. In many situations I’d imagine that isn’t the case thus the benefit of the potential victim being armed is reduced, thus questionable.

...when those same dodgy characters aren't expecting to get shot in the process of accosting random citizens like you. I could go on and draw the correlation amongst lower population densities, concurrent logistical problems with police protection in rural areas, higher private ownership of guns in same, lower incidences of gun violence in same, etc, etc...but that would be lost on those unable (or unwilling) to use reason.

That’s my point, expectation is a key element. It’s a cultural factor. Now perhaps we're getting somewhere.

As for drawing correlations, do so, so far it seems you’ve merely sought to attack me. I’ve done likewise I admit.

Much of your argument appears to come down to an apparent unwillingness to consider another perspective. Naturally, one can infer correlations between a wide range of factors, but that doesn’t imply or confirm causality. Taken at face value - if lower population density leads to higher incidence of gun crime, then Australia should be awash with blood whereas it’s not.

Different nations will exhibit different response. The US will not necessarily behave the same as say, Finland. I mention this only because you did. You now say that this isn’t really relevant, so again I ask why mention it again? Rubi touched on Gun Culture, but it’s been pretty much ignored by everyone else since then except myself.

What I’m trying to explore, before we got side tracked into character assassination is among other things; what causes the US to have rates of Gun Homicides way out of line with other nations with comparable gun ownership rates, and does gun control legislation play a role in gun crime rates, what can be done to address the issue of gun crime, either in the US or elsewhere?

If you’re willing to have this discussion, then so am I.

First remove the mote from thine own eye...

Ok, I will try if you will. Alternatively, if all you want to do is insult me, find someone else.

 

[Drifterwood]

What interest group would that be - the citizenry? If so, then it is the American way.

I thought that Socrates had addressed this issue in the Republic with Thrasymachus

i've got a board with a nail in it with your name on it.

Sorry BigD, this reference goes beyond my knowledge of your idiom. Though I can't see the point of having my name on a nail :tongue:, nor for that matter why the board having a nail in it has any relevance to the fact that my name is on the board, if not indeed on the nail.

 

[dong20]

Obviously not so. The recent unpleasantness in Colorado is an immediate counterexample. Bad guy has rifle, good guy has pistol. Good guy wins anyway. Lots of people without any guns at all are no longer threatened, because the good guy is, by definition, not a dire threat to the unarmed and helpless.

What's not obvious? I'm not at all sure what that last sentence means, in this context anyway, bad guys only tend to reveal themselves late in the game.

A platitude, not a fact. Even if the platitude was true, it wouldn't apply, because you are equating non-synonyms - guns are not the equivalent of violence. A gun in every household is not the equivalent of a violent society. If those guns were to be misused, then the result could well be a violent society.

Yes it is, but it's not entirely without merit. Your other conclusions are entirely your own. The comparative violence of a society is, as you say not defined by the possession of offensive weapons but their use within it. Clearly guns are misused, to an alarming degree. American society is considered violent. That's not entirely justified, but neither is it untrue.

Irrelevant. Your hobby activities bear no relation to the commission of violent acts in the mainstream.

The last time that there were no guns at all was the Middle Ages - not now remembered as a particularly placid period.

Was it ever?

Your only options, when two groups are in physical conflict, is for one to be better armed than the other, or for them to be armed equally. All that a law can do is disarm one side - it can't disarm both, because one group is criminal. We know that laws have relatively little effect on criminals, because of the disastrous failures of prohibition laws in general (specifically, alcohol and narcotics). Any conceivable disarmament law will have approximately zero effect on guns in criminal hands. The only group which you can disarm is the group on which criminals prey. And what is the advantage of doing that?

Sounds entirely logical, except it's not based on much more than supposition and is in conflict with the experience of many other nations. Don't you get it? - The law, any law is only a part of the solution, or is that something that is beyond your understanding?

That's why constants tend to be factored out.

I have no idea what that means. I do know it makes little sense.

In terms of homicides in say, SA or Jamaica I'd agree the uS is well down the pecking order. Of course one of the difficulty in making such a comparison of crime (violent or otherwise) is establishing a benchmark or common frame of reference.

The crime of killing someone with a gun (other than in war or self defence) is generally one that is unviversally accepted hence used commonly. I'm not saying that the problem of violence is solely related to gun crime, merely that this thread is.

My only argument here has been about Gun homicides. See above and earlier posts. Did you miss them?

 

[B_Monster]

This is the most ridiculas thread, all arguement but, no one has put one gun on the streets and no one has taken a gun off the street, give it a rest or DO something!!!

 

[SteveHd]

O.K. I think I can "DO something" ... I'll volunteer to buy a gun. I've been thinking about buying another semiautomatic rifle because I want one with a bayonet.

Does anyone have any first-hand experience with the SKS carbine?:biggrin:

 

[B_Monster]

O.K. I think I can "DO something" ... I'll volunteer to buy gun. I've been thinking about buying another semiautomatic rifle because I want one with a bayonet.

Does anyone have any first-hand experience with the SKS carbine?:biggrin:

Now you've got the idea, :biggrin1: and with your new bayonet you'll have something to slice your christmas goose with.