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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Senate Violence and video games

Discussion in 'Archive: The Senate Floor' started by sons_of_anakin_tatooine, Sep 17, 2013.

  1. Violent Violet Menace

    Violent Violet Menace Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2004
    I have to side with KK on this one. He's actually making his case, while you expressly admit to ignoring his arguments. Then why are you even here?
     
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  2. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    May 25, 2000
    Source on that? I'm just curious.
     
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  3. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    The FBI estimates (I don't have the exact citation on me) that there are about 100000 firearm-related crimes in the US. The CDC numbers show that there are about 30000 firearm-related deaths in the US, including suicides, homicides, self-defense, etc. Adding those together for a more generous estimate gives you about 130000 firearm crimes (including some that are double counted).

    There have been a variety of attempts to quantify how many defensive gun uses there are in the US each year. Different researchers (including those with clear biases to one side or the other) have estimated anywhere from 55000 up to 3.5 million. Most researchers accept a range somewhere between 750000 and 1.5 million. The vast majority of defensive gun uses (on the order of 90-95%) involve merely brandishing the gun to stop an attacker.

    That comes to about 5-10 times as many defensive gun uses compared to gun crimes each year, using an inflated count of crimes and a mid-range estimate of DGUs.
     
  4. V-2

    V-2 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 10, 2012
    I've experienced the KK grun merry go round more than a few times in the gun control thread. His position hasn't changed, and it's not likely to. If you read back to my original post it describes exactly what he's doing. There's literally no point in engaging with gun enthusiasts on their terms, it just turns into a deeply boring technical debate interspersed with excerpts and special interpretations of the special wording of the Holy Constitution.
     
  5. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    And yet, when I have offered to discuss specific ways to improve things, you completely ignore or ridicule it.

    If anyone is treating this topic as a religious matter, it would be you. You have set as your doctrine that all guns are bad, and anything less than a complete bad is unreasonable. Facts don't matter. Reality doesn't matter. All that matters to you is that guns are bad.

    The sort of things I mentioned above aren't inane technical details. Many of them are Firearms 101: The Basics. And yet you don't even care about getting the basic facts right in the discussion. If you can't be bothered with the basics, why should anyone listen to your opinion on anything with the topic?
     
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  6. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    The video game debate has been going on since GTA III came out back in '01 (and probably earlier than that even), and it's still raging on. It'll never go away, just get progressively stupider and more nonsensical.
     
  7. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    Forget GTA. It came up after Columbine in 1999, because of Doom. Before that, it was Wolfenstein 3D, or any number of other early first-person shooters.

    Before that it was TV, or Rock and Roll, or swing dancing, or any number of other "newfangled" things.
     
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  8. sons_of_anakin_tatooine

    sons_of_anakin_tatooine Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 28, 2005

    also from a documentary i saw back around in the 50's a shrink really believed comic books and super heroes were at fault for troubled teens as well in wich he brought it to congress.

    i believe the title of the doc is superheros unmasked from history channel
     
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  9. sons_of_anakin_tatooine

    sons_of_anakin_tatooine Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 28, 2005

    thats not entirley true. im not saying i know everything about guns because i dont but i do know there have been handguns wich can be moddified. to simply deny that is naive and selfish on your part. also you forget that people who do illegal gun running dont care about the law so quit assuming there isnt a illegal underbelly for distribution of firearms.

    you say your pro second ammendment and thats fine no judgment but you shouldnt be calling anyone ignorant when it is human nature to be questionable if i or anyone see someone walking down the street with a fire arm on there hip do to some law that says its ok to be paranoid and carry. you people say you want concealed carry fine but you have to understand that you will get some people who wont think your not suspicious when you carry that thing. if you people want it so bad you have zero right to complain on how your rights are violated. you want it that badly take it but also except the repercussions as well
     
  10. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    I'm sorry, but your reply there is incomprehensible. I can find no coherent logical thread to any of it.

    Are you claiming that the law treats handguns, rifles, and shotguns exactly the same? If so, then you are completely wrong. There are some elements that are treated in common, but each one is a unique distinction under the law, and it really does matter which one you are talking about in this sort of discussion.
     
  11. sons_of_anakin_tatooine

    sons_of_anakin_tatooine Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 28, 2005

    anytime a gun is used you people dont take any responsibility for it and it pisses me off. you people would rather blame things in pop culture instead of growing a set of genitalia and admit in alot of cases guns are an issue.

    this isnt the wild west where we just walk around and shoot someone because we feel threatened or wanting to be a tough guy.

    there was a story in i believe new york city some white guy tried to tackle a black man and the black guy shot him dead and claimed stand your ground. im sorry but to me that right there is a horrible excuse to claim such a thing.

    in florida a black woman who was being abused by her husband fired a warning shot into the wall to scare him claimed stand your ground and the police arrested her and now shes doing 20 years in prison. so she gets jail time and yet a nutjob like zimmerman walk's free even though he himself has a violent history?

    instead of the crap you hear from local radio shows or fox news you may actually want to research this stuff because if you think that's justifiable in both cases im sorry i lost all hope in this country.
     
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  12. SuperWatto

    SuperWatto Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 19, 2000

    ...
    Way back machine, ON!

     
  13. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    The violence in video games = violence in society has been raging for the last 20 years or so. I remember Lieberman and Bill Bennett both speaking out against it during the late Bush Sr. and early Clinton years.

    It's the same people that formed the PMRC with Tipper Gore to try and censor music. It's the same people.
     
  14. shinjo_jedi

    shinjo_jedi Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 21, 2002
    Both sides have extreme emotional responses to the argument, which makes the debate extremely difficult to have and find common ground on. And while I agree that there is a lot of misinformation from the media (in every category - just look at Chuck Todd saying yesterday the media's job is not to correct lies about Obamacare) but it's not some conspiracy; the misinformation reported on Monday is more from the media trying to rush ahead of one another to be the 'first' more than it is sway the gun control debate. Not to mention the misinformation surrounding actual gun control proposals (and the right's insistence that Obama wants to "take their guns.")

    I'm sorry, but what? The primary purpose of knives and cars are not for killing (knives for cooking and cars for transportation). The primary purpose of a gun is to kill (either through hunting, battle, or the threat of as a deterrence). Guns are also used to commit a vastly larger number of homicides than knives and cars. They're not similar in any way.

    Until the right can establish that this "tool" is being used to commit a unique amount of murders in the industrialized world, this debate can really go nowhere.
     
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  15. sons_of_anakin_tatooine

    sons_of_anakin_tatooine Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 28, 2005

    ign had an artcle saying the govenor of ct wanted a high tax on violent games because he felt it would prevent future sandy hook tragetys . im sorry but last i checked it was a gunman responsible not a gamer for what happened.

    if thats the case why not do a big tax increase on guns? because to nutjob pro gun people they think there being violated.

    they say they want something into law but they want to be exempt from it like if there on top of the we are better than you food chain.
     
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  16. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    With respect to the car/knife/teacup murder machine argument: compared with any of those implements, guns are orders of magnitude more efficient in carrying out the purpose of killing or disabling another human being. Any gun owner buying a gun for any purpose other than shooting pieces of paper at a range knows this, because that's why they buy them.

    Basically there is no other category of personal combat weapon on the face of the Earth which kills as efficiently and reliably as a gun. That is why -- without exception -- the various militaries of the world carry guns as their primary weapons of choice. The invention and rise of the gun is generally accepted as the driving reason why we don't see anybody but the SCA wielding broadswords and lances in battle anymore. The gun's efficiency and reliability is also the primary reason why guns they are touted as excellent tools of "self defence" for civilians: because it only takes a minimum of training and skill to kill or injure with a gun. That is also the primary reason why they are touted as excellent "tools" of "deterrence" -- because the fact a gun can kill easily and reliably is well-known to the general population. Unfortunately, that is also the primary reason why they are used by criminals: because they are an excellent deterrent against resistance and excellent for suppressing resistance if it comes to that.

    Consider your alternatives. Killing or disabling with a knife at a minimum requires the assailant to close to hand-to-hand range and then have opportunity enough to make a penetrating or slicing wound sufficient to kill or disable. If one really wants to go Hollywood and throw a knife, that requires a knife superbly balanced so it flies true when hurled through the air, and it requires sufficient strength and dexterity to make the knife hit where the thrower wants it to go and penetrate sufficiently to cause a disabling or lethal wound. And knife throwing range is practically very short. Knife injuries don't tend to incapacitate at the same moment as the injury is inflicted, absent some rare exceptions. Killing or disabling another person unarmed at a minimum requires the assailant again to close to hand-to-hand range and then have opportunity, skill, and sufficient strength to render an incapacitating or lethal injury. That sort of reliability is statistically achieved only after years if not decades of martial arts training or dedication to improving both physical strength and endurance to last out in hand-to-hand combat. Killing or disabling with a car requires, again, contact between assailant's car and victim. It also requires a runup, since car impacts are relatively survivable below about 40 km/h or so. It also requires opportunity and sufficient space for the car to operate, typically on a road; crashing cars into houses to kill someone are typically nonlethal except for the driver. Which also raises the fact that in order to kill someone with a car -- indeed with all three of these methods -- you have to place yourself at some risk in order to kill or disable the other person. Even a car impact carries considerable risk for the driver if he loses control of the vehicle.

    In order to disable or kill, a gun at a minimum requires only that the person knows how to load the gun, point the weapon at the assailant within its effective distance (which, depending on the weapon, can be anything from five feet to five hundred feet), and pull the trigger. And loading the gun need not happen right at the moment when you want to use it. On top of that, some guns -- notably the shotgun -- are specifically designed to remove the need for real skill in aiming, because you fire in effect half a hundred small and potentially lethal projectiles rather than one. A bullet impact usually incapacitates when it hits due to sheer kinetic force of the projectile and the dreadful physical damage it does tearing through whatever it hits. A gun is typically also built to contain more than one round, so it is quite simple to go from murderer to mass murderer (or single self-defencer to multiple self-defencer, if you prefer) in a matter of seconds.

    Guns are, in short, a special category of device. Their primary purpose is to kill or disable. Samuel Colt did not advertise the revolver as a device with which to manufacture colanders. It is no imposition of human liberty to say some items are not suitable for use by the public. Nuclear weapons, for example, are orders of magntiude more efficient than even the most powerful gun at killing or disabling people, and for that very reason every half-rational government on Earth tries to stop either its own population or anyone else's population from getting them or making them unless under the most strict protocols.
     
  17. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    No the primary purpose of a gun is to shoot a projectile from the barrel. On this basis it can be used to kill people or animals or to put holes in paper targets or disintegrate clay discs.
     
  18. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    Not sure if serious.

    Either way, that reminds me of Leonard of Quirm's invention that could level a mountain which he honestly only contemplated for use in roadbuilding. You'll recall even the Patrician was horrified at the inventor's naivete on that subject.

    One might note guns don't just put holes in clay discs; they generally shatter them into pieces. Maybe clay discs should just consider buying guns to protect themselves.
     
  19. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    Deadly serious. Note edit.
     
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  20. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    Internet. Serious business.
     
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  21. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    Well the clay disc confusion stems from the fact that despite firing about a thousand rounds at about a thousand clay discs I have actually hit so few of them. I also don't recall killing anything or anyone.
     
  22. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    Clearly clay discs need to be made roughly four feet to six feet tall and a good one foot wide. Solely in the interests of not wasting bullets, of course.
     
  23. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    That would greatly assist, although the trap machine would look more like a trebuchet.
     
  24. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    Well, if you have to form militias to resist the government, you need some heavy ordnance to counter the government's artillery it'll surely use against an insurrection, so I interpret the 2nd amendment as authorising private ownership of trebuchets.
     
  25. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    Hold on a moment here. Why should I have to take responsibility for someone else's actions? Why should I have to "take responsibility for it" simply because I own guns? I had nothing to do with it.

    And where have I blamed any of it on pop culture? In fact, I've pointed out the long history of trying to blame things on pop culture, using it as an example of fallacious reasoning.

    Don't get your history lessons or legal lessons from TV and movies. Even in the "wild west" you couldn't just walk around and shoot someone for no reason. Anyone who did that, either back then or today, would be pursued and charged with murder.

    The legal standard (which is completely appropriate) is a reasonable belief that you are facing imminent death or grave bodily injury. In other words, the threat can't be some nebulous "I thought he might do something", but rather "he was actively trying to kill or injure me", and it has to be backed up with enough evidence that a reasonable person would agree that the threat was imminent.

    A lot of people can claim a lot of things. Just because they claim it doesn't make it true.

    In New York, they don't have a "stand your ground" law. New York law only authorizes "reasonable force" for defense of dwelling (i.e. against a home invasion). In a case like what you describe, the person wouldn't have been legally able to claim self defense under the statute unless it happened in their home. That doesn't forestall a claim under the common law principle of self defense, but the way New York's statutes are drafted severely weakens that principle (especially if they weren't carrying the gun legally).

    Because it all goes back to the word "imminent" I used above. That means that the threat is right now, in this moment, not at some future time. The woman you mention fired a warning shot, intentionally trying to miss (and admitted as much in court). The legal principle there is that if you have time to warn, then the threat is still in the future, not imminent. Because Florida decided to pass mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes, she got the mandatory minimum.

    By contrast, when Zimmerman shot Martin, his head was in the process of being bashed into the ground. That makes the threat imminent, and validly self-defense. (Note: "Stand Your Ground" was not involved in the Zimmerman/Martin case. That case relied solely on the common law principle of self defense.)

    The contrast between the two cases exactly why almost every self defense instructor out there will tell you to always "shoot to stop the threat" and never fire a warning shot. Either you are legally justified in firing your gun because you are in imminent threat of death or injury, or you are not. There's no "warning shot" justification for firing your gun.

    I have researched it, extensively. If you would like, I can provide a full list of citations and explanations for everything I've said. I could point you all the way back to the origins of self defense in US legal history (going back to English common law starting in 1628).

    I'd certainly be willing to match my research on the matter against yours any day. You game?