Senate [holy ****] the senate regulars' collective wet-dream came true

Because THEY'RE not pulling off the conspiracies themselves. They're puppets, frontmen, masks, whatever you want to call it.

 

Something something Satan, etc etc.

 

He's the apex of the pyramid, the All-Seeing Eye capstone, but there are still men who work directly under and direct the plans of the elite as a whole.

 

I worship Satan, ASR.

 

Templars? Illuminati? Heidelbergs? Alien lizard men? C'mon, tell us which is your favorite secret cabal.

 

No, please don't.

 

I thought he entertained you?

 

Wait, Satan is the severely weakened, incorporate Sauron? So who's Morgoth? And what's he been up to?


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See, E_S, that's why I said it probably wouldn't matter. But again, you guys are using your own information to prove my point.

Let's see, so despite the perception that crime is rising in London, it's actually decreasing by -20.4%. So when someone posts a horrible example like an innocent shop owner being menaced by a criminal with a shotgun in England, it represents the exception-not the rule. Ok, I'm with you.

But according to the data presented, New York City (the city used as an example) has murder rates decreasing by -20.3% (firearm related by -19.5%) and robbery rates decreasing by -5.1% (firearm related by -10.7%) and so on....So when someone posts a horrible example like a German exchange student being menaced by a criminal with a shotgun in the US, it's the exception-not the rule, right? Ok, I'm with you. But wait....

Besides that, England has a population of 53 million. If the entire UK was factored in, it's still a population of 63 million, spread over an area of 244,000 square kms. The US has a population of 318 million, spread across an area of about 10,000,000 sqaure kms. Why bring up population and area? Because your justification of differences among Newham and Westminster also apply to the US. A more urbanized, densely packed area like the South side of Chicago has a higher rate of violence. While a area in the middle of Nebraska has a sparsely packed, low rate of violence. An affluent area like Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts probably hasn't had a single homicide since Ted Kennedy decided to go for a joy ride 45 years ago.

If violence was increasing in the US and decreasing in the UK or similar phenomenon or paradigm shift, I might understand what your perception based point was. You know, because if data is used to support one conclusion, then the exact same data should be used to support a similar conclusion? But if you are going to use an entire class of data to prove something in one area, it makes no sense to ignore the exact same data when it applies to another area- just to be grumpy about the whole thing.

(Magically, for some reason, Australia gets a pass, because while it has higher per captia rates than both England and the US, it's not because those rates are actually higher.... It's just that out a sense of fair play and faith in the system, Australians report the crimes more frequently than anywhere else, so that skews the rates..... )

 

I don't see how you get around the problem that the widespread presence of guns creates whole categories of crimes of convenience and access that are smaller problems in countries that don't have the gun blight we have. The more guns you have, the more gun accidents you have (e.g. children getting hold of a gun), and the more gun suicides, the more crimes of passion where a gun seems like just the right tool for ending a domestic dispute, the more "accidents" of mistaken identity where people intentionally shoot someone they thought was an intruder but was actually a friend or neighbor or family member, the more determination to make use of a gun for "self defense" even in situations where it is not reasonable, prudent, or actually legal to use it for self defense. This is all well documented. The numbers may be small for some of these categories, but they are higher than in the countries where the prevalence is basically zero.

Exercising second amendment rights is mostly about creating a national public health problem. That's all it is. The second amendment makes America less safe. Why? because most Americans are too stupid to own a gun. And the ones who want to own a gun most tend to be the most stupid of all.

And I still haven't seen any credible evidence anywhere, ever, that the benefits of "self defense" outweigh the costs of all those kinds of accidental injuries and intentional deaths.

 

Well, that's your personal feeling, which have been set for a while now. Can't really do anything about that.

For comparison, did you know that the exact same amount of people have died by the improper ingestion of marijuana infused products since Colorado legalized the recreational use of marijuana than have died by attackers waiting in their basements/garages that have been the recent focus of this thread? The exact same number of people..... Does that automatically mean that Colorado's legalization is wrong? That the "war on drugs" was right all along? Should pot go back to being illegal in Colorado? It stands to reason that the more marijuana is legalized, the more harm is going to come from it. Or is it that the relatively small amount of people who used something improperly don't define the large base group who use it responsibly? That when the public voted to relax marijuana restrictions in Colorado, that the .0003% who would use it improperly are factored in as part of the negative side of human nature? Consequently, the rate that firearms are used improperly among total gun ownership in the US is about .0001% as well. It's a statistical tie. But pot is a left issue and guns are a right issue, and one goes great with a bag of Doritos....

My point is geared toward those here who characterize the US based on the one guns issue. Sure, guns are more available in the US than somewhere they aren't, so there is more gun crime. But is that any worse than travelling over to Australia and having a 2.5x greater chance of being raped there than in the US? Or to repeat an exact quote "What's wrong with that ^&#@%$ up society?" Human nature is human nature no matter where you go.

But again, the chance of actually being raped in Australia is small, and it's silly to worry about it, especially if you just act normally. Just like the chance of being a victim of gun violence in the US is small, and it's silly to worry about it, especially if you just act normally.

 

Not when we're trolling him.

 

20,000 gun suicides a year is a silly thing to worry about? Right now in the U.S. there's an undiagnosed clinically depressed teenager about to kill himself with his father's handgun. There will likely be several of them today.

 

No, it's just that suicide itself is a personal, inwardly focused event. Would that rate being any less or any more "silly" if they were suicides of other means and/or carried out by assisted/euthanasia devices ala Dr Kavorkian? But what does that have to do with anything? I don't know, who better to determine one own's life event than the person themselves? Granted, suicide is not a true "victimless event," as the person's family/loved ones are impacted, but it's a choice that applies to the person carrying it out and isn't dependent on a firearm. I'd say that if some sort of assisted suicide law can up in our state, I'd probably vote for it, factoring in any hypothetical details.

I will say what is "silly" is how such things are improperly linked together under "gun violence." The CDC is one agency that does so, and will release tallies like "Gun Violence reaches 20,300 in the US!" and then way down at the bottom of the page in small print is the disclaimer 20,000 of that is from suicide, and 300 is crime/violence....

 

handwaving away suicide as a personal choice, the way KimballK always has, certainly makes it easier to ignore the public health catastrophe of gun ownership in the U.S.

 

Ok, sure, but what's puzzling to me is how in one thread you can promote the idea of drastic population control methods because of dire over-population, and then become so paralyzingly focused on suicide, which is really nothing but population control by personal choice.

Yeah, that's intentionally harsh by design, and I'll even offer a rare piece of personal history, because I've known 2 people who have killed themselves. One was a very good friend from high school who I saw nearly every day and who killed himself with a razor blade shortly after graduation (we think because he was afraid of the future) I would love to have Kevin back, but that was a choice he made for whatever reason he felt was best. Kevin was 18 when he killled himself and he didn't use a gun. I don't even know that he had access to a gun. But even if his family owned one, it didn't matter.

The other was someone who worked at my dad's business, who I didn't know very well except in passing, and who took a bunch of prescription medication.The other guy was older, I'd assume late 30's when he did it, and he didn't use a gun either. Again, I don't even know if he owned one. Being that he was older, the potential of gun ownership was greater, but it didn't factor into his choice.

In essence, suicide isn't a direct component of gun ownership any more than it is a subset of razor blade ownership.

 

Well, yeah, there's something to be said for just flooding the U.S. market with guns as a form of population control, particularly as a means of weeding out the dumb bunnies, but it's not very efficient.

Also, you know I advocate a two-track approach to reality. In this track, suicide is a product of mental illness in a lot of cases. There are exceptions sure. If I were diagnosed tomorrow with a terminal brain tumor, I would be inclined to go out that very day and buy a handgun to use on myself. But realistically I would be compelled to ride the cancer all the way down so that my family could claim my life insurance payout.

I'm pretty sure this kind of decision, a rational choice to avoid an even more painful and humiliating death, is a relatively small percentage of suicides.

Suicide is rendered more likely by readily accessible, easy and certain methods of suicide. Guns are tools, but only good for a few things, and suicide is one of the things it's clearly good for.

 

Ok, and I agree with all of that. The problem is when you over-politicize the gun issue, or when you act like the gun itself caused someone who had absolutely no thoughts of suicide to go ahead and carry it out simply because the gun was there. ( I picture you envisioning the gun on the table, and the person grabbing at it, but trying to push the gun down with their other hand and then just deciding well, I have everything to live for, but I have the gun, and I have the bullet, so i might as well carry it out....)

Again, I share your assessment on suicide as a component of mental illness.
I share your assessment on suicide as a final answer to a extraordinary event- terminal illness, insurmountable debt, loss of one half of a long time partner, etc...
I share your assessment that a gun is more likely to bring about a point of no return in relation to other methods, such as taking pills can be pumped out of one's stomach, so the likelihood of "attempt" vs "success" with something like a razor blade or pills is greater because it's not like you can put the shotgun blast back in the gun once you pull the trigger.

But it's not like firearms make the rate of suicide more likely on their own or as a cost factor of firearm ownership. No one decides to go down to a gun store, fill out the application, pass a background check, wait for the waiting period to pass, and then bring the gun home to kill themselves simply because it's so easy or because the gun has such a powerful soul of its own it overrides the person's resistance absent of any of the other factors above. It's a silly extrapolation in relation to all the other factors.

If a law was passed where people who wanted to kill themselves could go down to a physician and do it "properly" in the quickest and least painful way science could provide, I don't think the rate would dramatically increase or decrease in relation to areas where guns are prohibited or not prohibited. If we used your example again, and you were diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, it's not like you would suddenly decide to go to the gun shop or the new "suicide emporium" next door. You would still ride it out, or look to the insurance payoff at the end, or whatever your personal motivation was.

 

I think it's exactly like that. Gun availability drives up the rate of suicide and has become the one go-to suicide tool that just about anyone with a psychiatric disorder (90% of suicides) can get their hands on.

And suicide is just part of the picture. We all know that the states with the highest rates of gun ownership (e.g. Alaska, Alabama) have the highest rates of gun deaths. http://www.vpc.org/fadeathchart11.htm

 

Again, though, the data provided doesn't say anything like that.

Could it be that Alaska has such a high death rate because of weather related factors? Because of the isolation and generally harsh conditions related to other states? That if all guns were magically removed from Alaska tomorrow, it would still top the chart because of those other factors that have nothing to do with guns? That if guns were removed the overall rate would remain the same (obviously through different means) because it's seasonal depression disorder on steroids? Hawaii has such a low rate, and the enchanting climate, miles of beaches, and the legendary Don Ho have nothing to do with it.

But we could both look at a table where suicide rates are factored by month, and spring/summer would have the highest rate. So guns don't cause suicide, Easter does. If we ban Easter, then all the suicides would go away. Of course, the mere fact that suicides peak in certain months are due to other more complex factors, and I think we realize that Easter doesn't make it more likely for people to kill themselves..

"The Violence Policy Center (VPC), a national tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Washington, DC, works to stop this annual toll of death and injury through research, advocacy, education, and collaboration."

I don't know. I'm not saying that it does or doesn't. But it's a basic correlation-causation fallacy based on the table presented.

 

I do just want to touch on points raised by both of you here; the convenience aspect. We agree, I think, broadly Mr44 that firearms themselves are not an indicator of crime - that is, ease of access does not automatically mean more gun crime. So pointing out that the demographics of the south side of Chicago is similar to the demographics of the borough of Newham in London merely illustrates that crime correlates to areas of disenfranchisement (political, cultural, social or economic).

So if we accept there's a certain class of criminal who will use violence to achieve goals, either out of recidivism or desperation, we are left trying to explain incidents of people who would not normally fit the broad profiles for those career criminals but who are also not committing crimes of passion. Four incidents in about the last 24 months - so one every six months on average - have gained media attention because each of them have involved invoking a bastardisation of the original notion of the Castle doctrine.

I understand the idea of defending oneself with force in one's home, if a threat can be ascertained. I can't relate, living in Australia, but I understand it.

I don't necessarily agree that the weighting should be on the balance of probability alone, because I think it would be very hard to establish intent if you have a two story house and someone is merely boosting your TV downstairs.

I think when you either start an altercation in the parking lot with four black teenagers and end it with the use of your firearm; or when you more or less lie in wait in your home to specifically kill someone who enters it unlawfully - that's a problem. But it's a problem not of a few individuals, rather of a systemic issue. If you have access to a firearm, there's an increased chance you will use the firearm.

If you have a culture of permissiveness around firearm use, with specific emphasis on your RIGHT to own a firearm and your RIGHT to defend yourself, the boundaries that would normally apply are much more elastic and you are more likely, in my view, to exercise this right.

This is why I content America's in a really terrible place. The sensible approach, from a policy standpoint, is to scale back access to firearms. It provides a populace with comfort, even if that is largely symbolic. But whereas there's always going to be elements of crime and firearms that are inextricably linked, that's addressed through other channels. What you want to do is basically take the risk that middle class citizens will be using firearms in an irresponsible way, and cut that risk down.

The issue is, America goes the other way. Instead of good public policy, tighter regulations, and a culture that does not celebrate the gun's usefulness as a tool for every day life (pilloried so masterfully in that old Simpson's episode) you get the peak firearm lobby body arguing for less regulation, less control. It's baffling, idiotic, and just plain wrong.

For every one of these four incidents I refer to - the shootings of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, the actions of Byron Smith and of Mr Kaarma - there's others which go unreported. They are less sensational, but still carry the same hallmarks - a person who represented no established threat was gunned down and the use of disproportionate force was not taken to be an inherent wrong. If this does not represent a systemic issue with respect of firearms, I don't know what I can say.

 

Mr44, obviously I will need to make a more in depth discussion. As a matter of facial analysis to build your argument is something of a non sequitur. Annual trends in gun crime are entirely beside the point. No one has asserted that gun availability is the sole factor responsible for fluctuations in crime. Rather it was asserted that areas with the stricter gun control demonstrate lower gun crime. The correct way to examine this is to look at the basal rate of gun crimes. Here, undeniably London & New York City are two similarly sized cities but with the latter has 300% the number of gun crimes as the former. Unless you have some alternative explanation this would seem to support the point that areas with more regulations around gun ownership do demonstrate lower levels of firearm related violence and crime. Were you ever going to address this or did you just choose to entirely sidestep it in favor of a sort of interesting but not relevant analysis about perceptions of crime versus annual or monthly changes therein?

 

I guess that's were I would just say the reality is more in the middle ground. For those outside of the US, guns aren't really all that readily available. Yes, general gun ownership is allowed, so any system has to be organized around that fact, It's true that they are less restricted than in some places and have more of a rights based expectation to them. But it's not like Tombstone where you can just walk into the general store and leave with a six shooter on your hip.. Or it's not like 1920's Chicago where Al Capone and his boys are driving around blasting everything with Tommy guns. It's a deliberate process with a lot of red tape and restriction by design.

The issue is that all the detail rich complicated stuff has been set for a while now. The last meaningful piece of gun legislation was passed back in 1968, and it had restrictions that made sense and actually address the concerns you just raised. After that, it's just a back and forth pull over stupid laws like banning a rifle because it has a thumb hole stock and pretending that is going to matter in the slightest.

As for the other stuff, being concerned over the actions of Byron Smith is a lot like worrying that Godzilla is going to step on your house, which is no different than the scale of any other example.

EDIT for J_W. Yes, this is a quick reply in difference to a longer one. And again, I would reply to you that it's not that easy. New York has the toughest gun restrictions in the US. For the longest time, the city of Chicago all but banned gun ownership. And even though Chicago effectively banned all guns, Chicago had the highest gun crime rate in relation to the rest of Illinois, were guns were much more common. This is the same reason why London still has an underground gun violence problem, because none of these areas exist in a vacuum. London guns come from Eastern Europe. Clearly, simply restricting guns isn't a solution.

The problem with comparing the US to England is that the US is a republic, and most of gun laws fall to the states, with a few exceptions regarding what the federal government sets as overall requirements.

 

I suppose that depends entirely on if you view Smith as an isolated incident, or as part of a wider systemic issue?

 

Sorry Mr44, just saw your edits here.

I think the point between comparing London and an American city; or Sydney, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Barcelona, Rome, Zurich, Auckland, Taipei, Tokyo etc and an American city is that the exceptions to the norm (i.e. normal criminal elements) are more pronounced there. One analogue to the US culture is South Africa, and that's hardly a flattering comparison.

What we want to understand is not why is there gum crime, but rather - why are these horrifying examples (I would add to the ridiculous and dangerous reinterpretation of Castle doctrine the mass shootings in schools) either unique to the US, or disproportionately more common in the US?