So there's been another school shooting in the US

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DaveW
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DaveW »

VectorM wrote:What we call "common sense" is usually completely wrong or irrational, so it sounds about right.
Given the level of gun violence in the US..er, care to explain why it's wrong or irrational? Seems to me that most intelligent people should be afraid of guns if people keep getting shot by them.
Jamaica for example has way stricter gun control than the U.S., is a fucking island, and yet, gun violence is several orders of magnitude higher than in the U.S. And if you look at just plain homicides, fucking North Korea, one of the mot controlled countries in the world, has higher homicide rates than both the U.S. and the U.K. combined.
Jamaica has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and North Korea is freaking North Korea - talk about cherry-picking examples. Out of comparable developed countries (i.e. Canada, Europe, Australia) the US has far higher gun related deaths.
VectorM wrote:That and the simple fact, that studies have not found causal relationship between gun ownership and levels of violence. They've actually found higher correlation with car ownership, of all things.
Causal links are very difficult to prove. However, there is a a correlation between gun deaths and gun restrictions.

You might want to read this and educate yourself.
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by VectorM »

Given the level of gun violence in the US..er, care to explain why it's wrong or irrational? Seems to me that most intelligent people should be afraid of guns if people keep getting shot by them.
Should people be afraid by cars, police, and the government itself then, since they cause deaths in the thousands every single year?
Jamaica has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and North Korea is freaking North Korea - talk about cherry-picking examples.
I am sorry for picking examples that are inconvenient to you, but you are avoiding the issue here - WHY is it that Jamaica has such high murder rates? WHY is that gun prohibition completely failed to negate gun violence on a freaking ISLAND. And how in the hell do you think that prohibition (or regulation or whatever you want to call it) of guns will work in the U.S. with it's 300 000 000 population and large territory and already huge amounts of guns, when it couldn't even work in a small island?
talk about cherry-picking examples. Out of comparable developed countries (i.e. Canada, Europe, Australia) the US has far higher gun related deaths.
So I am not allowed to pick countries form THE ENTIRE BLOODY WORLD, but you are allowed to cherry pick yourself? One of which isn't even a country. And by what standard are they "comparable". There are hundreds of different ways you can compare them, besides just standard of living (assuming this is what you are going for).

You are also being inconsistent. Australia and Canada both have smaller murder rates than the U.S. and the majority of the world. So, what, it matters when Jamaica has the highest murder rates, so you can just dismiss the gun regulation there, but you can't do the same with Australia?

And then there are countries like Switzerland, that have more guns per capita than, say, Germany, yet Germany has more murders with firearms. And Germany and Switzerland way more similar to each other, than to the U.S.
Causal links are very difficult to prove. However, there is a a correlation between gun deaths and gun restrictions.
Correlation is just that, correlation. If you can't prove a causal link, it's not worth much, if anything. You can find similar correlations with anything else - obesity, types of schooling, governance, etc. But it's all more or less worthless, if you can't demonstrate a causal link.
You might want to read this and educate yourself.
You might want to do the same with some actual research. http://www.catb.org/esr/guns/point-blank-summary.html

Excellent quote form that:
Fixating on guns seems to be, for many people, a fetish which allows them to ignore the more intransigent causes of American violence, including its dying cities, inequality, deteriorating family structure, and the all- pervasive economic and social consequences of a history of slavery and racism. And just as gun control serves this purpose for liberals, equally useless "get tough" proposals, like longer prison terms, mandatory sentencing, and more use of the death penalty serve the purpose for conservatives.
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by Jonas »

Vector you are the angriest and most confrontational person I think we've ever had on these forums. What the hell is wrong, man? Are you all right?
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by VectorM »

Sorry, was I supposed to just ignore what was said, or what? How is this any different from anything you've responded to, besides the style?

Then again, I know you are anti-gun yourself, so I guess you got your bias, right? O:) :mrgreen:
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DaveW »

VectorM wrote:
Given the level of gun violence in the US..er, care to explain why it's wrong or irrational? Seems to me that most intelligent people should be afraid of guns if people keep getting shot by them.
Should people be afraid by cars, police, and the government itself then, since they cause deaths in the thousands every single year?
Of course people should be afraid of cars. You don't see pedestrians walking into oncoming traffic, do you? The difference is, cars serve a utilitarian purpose and people don't (generally) use them to murder people.
VectorM wrote:I am sorry for picking examples that are inconvenient to you, but you are avoiding the issue here - WHY is it that Jamaica has such high murder rates? WHY is that gun prohibition completely failed to negate gun violence on a freaking ISLAND. And how in the hell do you think that prohibition (or regulation or whatever you want to call it) of guns will work in the U.S. with it's 300 000 000 population and large territory and already huge amounts of guns, when it couldn't even work in a small island?
They're not inconvenient, they're just daft - you're talking about a developing country with major, deep-seated gang problems as if it's directly comparable to the United States. A lot of the gun violence in Jamaica is gang-related, which isn't (as much) the case in the US. And also, regulation is a hell of a lot different to prohibition. Additionally; you do not know what the phrase 'cherry pick' means.
Fixating on guns seems to be, for many people, a fetish which allows them to ignore the more intransigent causes of American violence, including its dying cities, inequality, deteriorating family structure, and the all- pervasive economic and social consequences of a history of slavery and racism. And just as gun control serves this purpose for liberals, equally useless "get tough" proposals, like longer prison terms, mandatory sentencing, and more use of the death penalty serve the purpose for conservatives.
Problems that don't exist anywhere else in the worl.. shit, wait, that describes the UK. Unfortunately, the US doesn't have a monopoly on those kinds of social issues and yet the majority of major shooting incidents happen in the US. Violence and murder will exist without guns. But giving everyone the means to easily commit that violence is obviously going to lead to an increase in it, just like stopping IDS soldiers taking home their guns stopped a large amount of impulsive suicides.

A thought experiment: you start giving a pistol to every violent schizophrenic patient who enters a psychiatrist's office. They start murdering people. Your response seems to be "Well, we need to tackle the schizophrenia - anything else wouldn't work." No - we need to stop giving them pistols. Incidentally, there's not a lot to stop a mentally ill individual purchasing a gun in the US.

It's all a moot point anyway; Libertards and NRA members will get their political way and the US won't be seeing sensible gun laws anytime soon - proving that they care more about supposed 'freedom' than dead kids. Congrats, sir.
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DDL »

VectorM: Being opinionated is one thing. Being a total prick about virtually everything is another. Outright dismissing other arguments based on presuppositions (like you've just done to Jonas) is just being a dick for the sheer sake of dickishness.

Regarding police, cars and government, please provide a list of useful services that "guns" perform, in addition to their whole purpose of drilling holes in living things. Do they transport millions of people from A to B? Do they patrol the streets, perform routine traffic duties, or eat doughnuts? Do they regulate taxes and provide clean water and electricity?

Or is it in fact that comparing "guns" to "the government" in terms of 'deaths caused' is stupid even by your standards?

Regarding jamaica vs canada, europe or whatever, Dave's point is that if you are going to compare the US to other countries, you want to compare it to other countries with similar economies, standard of living and development. This is not jamaica.

The US has run at about 67% of all homicides being gun-related since since at least 2003 (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and- ... icide.html) which in comparison with other countries of actual equivalence, puts it streets ahead of all but switzerland. Also, switzerland has about...100 homicides a year, so 60% of that is 60 people. The US last year had 9960 firearm homicides. Even factoring in the huge differences in population the US is still about 5 times more deadly, and this is comparing with the MOST gun-happy country.

In switzerland there is almost no murder, but when they do murder, they have a lot of guns. In the US there is a fuckton of murder. Also, everyone has guns. Murder and guns are not good combinations.

In short, the US is not only hugely gun-happy, but ALSO disproportionately murder-ridden for such a developed country.


So, the question is...would gun control help? Almost unarguably yes. Guns escalate simple, non-violent encounters to deadly levels, effortlessly. Guns empower everyone, no matter whether this is appropriate. Guns confer overconfidence. Guns make the killing of someone as easy as pulling a trigger: anyone with a finger can now be a killer.

I've had this debate a fucking hundred times, and it's clear that america's problems extend vastly beyond "everyone has too many guns", but this doesn't change the fact that "everyone having too many guns" is a MASSIVE problem.

At the very least gun-licenses could be made more difficult to obtain, or some effort could be made to instill a sense of responsibility in gun-wielders (see switzerland, national service). You'd still have tons of crime-related gun violence, but at least you'd have fewer school shootings.

EDIT: also what Dave said :p
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by Jaedar »

VectorM wrote:
And then there are countries like Switzerland, that have more guns per capita than, say, Germany, yet Germany has more murders with firearms.
I like how you jump straight from guns per capita, a normalized value, straight onto an absolute measurement and claim there's a relation. Puts the rest of your post into such a nice perspective.
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Yeah. He makes me look reasonable :P
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

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VectorM wrote:How is this any different from anything you've responded to, besides the style?
The style was kind of the point. You can hold whatever opinion you like, if you're reasonable about it. I try to be polite and understanding, though I don't always manage it. You seem to go out of your way to jump into any debate as aggressive and rude as possible. At this point I'm just scanning your posts for any direct personal insults so I can ban you.
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by Cybernetic pig »

C'mon people lets not let this one get out of hand. As Jonas said the other day, we are better than that.

The net is lit up with threads etc on this story atm. All pretty much discuss the same thing: "WTF is wrong with some people".,,,and gun crime.
Last edited by Cybernetic pig on Sat Dec 15, 2012 4:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

Post by DaveW »

DDL wrote:Regarding police, cars and government, please provide a list of useful services that "guns" perform, in addition to their whole purpose of drilling holes in living things. Do they transport millions of people from A to B? Do they patrol the streets, perform routine traffic duties, or eat doughnuts? Do they regulate taxes and provide clean water and electricity?
Agreed - and this is a major sticking point for me; I just don't see the benefit over the risk. Gun's don't make confrontations safer, they don't make for good home defence - so, what? They're legal just because?

Cars are worth the risk only because they are so useful. If public transport was viable everywhere and cars were still as dangerous, then 'do we still need cars?' would be a justifiable question.

I think limiting guns to those who have a legitimate use for them, like we do in the UK, is perfectly sensible. It's certainly not the case that guns are flat-out prohibited - I'd love to get a Steyr HS .50 at some point. But I'd rightly have to justify why I need a .50 calibre rifle (target shooting, btw)
Last edited by DaveW on Sat Dec 15, 2012 3:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

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VectorM wrote: And yet, in the real world, where there are countries other than the U.K., gun violence (if I will accept to separate gun violence form just plain homicide) is higher in countries that have just as much, if not more gun control. Jamaica for example has way stricter gun control than the U.S., is a fucking island, and yet, gun violence is several orders of magnitude higher than in the U.S.
Good comparison there. Very valid. Jamaican GDP, culture, institutions, corruption and size are far more comparable to the US than the UK. Thank you for this profound insight.
VectorM wrote: And if you look at just plain homicides, fucking North Korea, one of the mot controlled countries in the world, has higher homicide rates than both the U.S. and the U.K. combined.

That and the simple fact, that studies have not found causal relationship between gun ownership and levels of violence. They've actually found higher correlation with car ownership, of all things.
AFAIK both official and unofficial (estimated) crime rates in North Korea are very low. I'd love to see the source of that fact (because I'm rather interested in DPRK and was always surprised about those low crime figures). Also, do you have a link to the relationship between gun ownership and violence?
I found one paper which indicated no relationship between gun ownership in the US and homicides - which doesn't mean anything, since it's about gun control, not the number of firearms. If in one area many regular people and a number of criminals and idiots buy guns, whereas in a different region it's mostly criminals/idiots, the total number of firearms is higher in the first case, while the number of homicides may be lower (due to higher risks involved in homicides). What matters is whether gun control can help, which is related to the availability, not ownership, of firearms.
Even then, a review of papers written on the subject suggest a positive relationship between gun ownership and homicides: link.

EDIT: seems I'm a bit late to the party, and I'm repeating some arguments here. Sorry for that.

@VectorM, again: you talk about correlations and proving causation.
1. It is not possible to "prove" causation.
2. Based on statistics which are somewhat more complicated then correlation, it is possible to show a more or less specific relationship between individual variables, which allows us to distinguish between the effects of, for example, population size, density and income and gun ownership on homicides.
3. Whether this implies a causal relationship depends on theory: what does theory predict? If empiric evidence (the relationship between variables) matches the theoretical relationship, there is strong evidence for such a causal relationship.

The theoretical relationship is simple enough: more guns implies more danger, for it makes everyone involved more dangerous. It also implies more violence, for firearms make it easier to commit violent acts (hell, I'm so ridiculously weak, I could barely commit a violent act without a firearm). More firearms also imply more risk to instigate violence; as long as less then 100% of the population has a weapon at hand, obtaining a firearm and using that to commit a crime empowers the criminal.
Empirics are a bit more complicated, since there is some self-selection bias (criminals may be more inclined to buy guns, for example). The fact that despite this theoretical bias researchers have still found links between gun ownership and violence, we can be pretty sure there is a causal relationship.
Which does not necessarily imply guns should be banned (with or without exceptions), which depends on the benefits of gun ownership (protection from government, fun, feelings of safety) and other drawbacks of gun ownership (accidents, feelings of danger). But the relationship is there.
Last edited by gamer0004 on Sat Dec 15, 2012 4:11 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

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They're not inconvenient, they're just daft - you're talking about a developing country with major, deep-seated gang problems as if it's directly comparable to the United States. A lot of the gun violence in Jamaica is gang-related, which isn't (as much) the case in the US. And also, regulation is a hell of a lot different to prohibition. Additionally; you do not know what the phrase 'cherry pick' means.
I know what cherry picking is and what you did fits that definition, except that you legitimize the cherry picking by calling the comparison daft.
But let's play along. Yes, Jamaica is obviously a very different type of beast. But so is Denmark. So is Switzerland. So is Germany. I can make the case that Denmark and Switzerland, with their small territory, small populations, relatively homogenous ethnicity, comparatively liberal views on drugs, simply can't be compared as well.

So, what heuristic do you use exactly to determine which countries are legitimate comparisons and which are not? What about countries like Russia, or Thailand? Are they comparable?
Unfortunately, the US doesn't have a monopoly on those kinds of social issues and yet the majority of major shooting incidents happen in the US.
The point of the quote was (you obviously wont read a word from the link I posted, since you might actually learn something from it) that people will focus on just the guns and ignore other social issues that might contribute to the problem, and what do you know, you just did that. Unless all of those issues are exactly the same in every single way, compared to the States, then you don't have any basis to claim that guns are the only substantial factor here.
A thought experiment: you start giving a pistol to every violent schizophrenic patient who enters a psychiatrist's office. They start murdering people. Your response seems to be "Well, we need to tackle the schizophrenia - anything else wouldn't work." No - we need to stop giving them pistols. Incidentally, there's not a lot to stop a mentally ill individual purchasing a gun in the US.
Yes, let's base legislation on made up anecdotes, rather than actual research and evidence.
It's all a moot point anyway; Libertards and NRA members will get their political way and the US won't be seeing sensible gun laws anytime soon - proving that they care more about supposed 'freedom' than dead kids. Congrats, sir.
I agree that they definitely don't care about dead kids, as their foreign policies have shown. And considering you approval of action against Iran, I don't think you really care either.
Last edited by VectorM on Sat Dec 15, 2012 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

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I listed over half the developed world - I wouldn't call that cherry picking. Subjective? Yes, very. The countries/continents (and yes, I am perfectly aware Europe is a continent and not a country - I do live in it) I listed - Canada, Europe and Australia are pretty similar to the US in terms of social structure, living standards and economy. There's nothing disastrously different between them like widespread gang violence or an authoritarian regime.
VectorM wrote:The point of the quote was (you obviously wont read a word from the link I posted, since you might actually learn something from it) that people will focus on just the guns and ignore other social issues that might contribute to the problem, and what do you know, you just did that. Unless all of those issues are exactly the same in every single way, compared to the States, then you don't have any basis to claim that guns are the only substantial factor here.
Of course the social issues are a problem, I'm not saying anything to the contrary. Just like putting a gun in someone's hand doesn't in-and-of itself make them murder people. But perhaps if America has such major social issues that makes everyone want to kill eachother, they should stop giving everyone the means to do so.
VectorM wrote:Yes, let's base legislation on made up anecdotes, rather than actual research and evidence.
Ironically, if legislation was based on 'actual research and evidence', American gun laws would be a lot stricter than they are right now.

Doesn't change the thought experiment, though. You seem to talk about guns as some kind of inevitability, rather than something we can do something about.
VectorM wrote:I agree that they definitely don't care about dead kids, as their foreign policies have shown. And considering you approval of action against Iran, I don't think you really care either.
I'm not sure where I publicly stated an opinion on Iran; I'd only support intervention if they threatened more lives than would be lost 'stopping' them.

Also, what the hell?
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

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I'm not sure where I publicly stated an opinion on Iran; I'd only support intervention if they threatened more lives than would be lost 'stopping' them.

Also, what the hell?
In that PUA thread you mentioned Iran's nuclear development as a threat.
I'd only support intervention if they threatened more lives than would be lost 'stopping' them.

Iran isn't really a threat to anyone as of now, and the only real reason it's perceived as one is because of the States desire to control that region. The economic blockade on Iran is nothing short of bullying and provocation.
AFAIK both official and unofficial (estimated) crime rates in North Korea are very low. I'd love to see the source of that fact (because I'm rather interested in DPRK and was always surprised about those low crime figures).
I was talkign about homicide rates, not crimes in general, but here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... urder-data
Also, do you have a link to the relationship between gun ownership and violence?
http://www.catb.org/esr/guns/point-blank-summary.html

This might interest you as well: http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/WP-Tough-Targets.pdf
Last edited by VectorM on Sat Dec 15, 2012 5:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: So there's been another school shooting in the US

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VectorM wrote: The economic blockade on Iran is nothing short of bullying and provocation.
I agree with this, although Iran is percieved as a threat for many reasons; tyrants and the like.

Straying off-topic though.

EDIT: quote "Not a threat as of now"... I am not up to date.

"It is time to present the mullahs in Iran with a clear choice -- they can forego a nuclear weapon or they can have a functioning economy. To be sure, there is no guarantee that even a total economic blockade will prevent Iran from changing its strategic calculus to develop a nuclear weapons capability. But as the prospects of war over the next months increase, does the international community not owe it to itself to say it has exhausted all other options? It surely makes sense to try, particularly since we have seen the impact current sanctions are having on the regime. And the human cost of hyperinflation, though at times great, is far less than those of a nuclear-armed Iran or a preemptive military conflict."

Ambassador Mark D. Wallace is CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran. He served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Representative for U.N. Management and Reform.
Ever since the 60's america have been trying to stop Irans nuclear plans IIRC. Other countries and the U.N too. Seems like a threat to me. But who knows, maybe America just wanted control from the start.
Does come across as bullying though, why doesn't N.K get this treatment?

Anyway, Child killer can rot in hell.
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