BAN GARLIC

[brenthutch 383]

What is YOUR point?  Are you saying than an armed population has the ability to overthrow a tyrannical monarchy only to see it’s ability to resist tyranny is than stripped away by a new dictatorship that, having learned the lessons of the first revolution, disarms the populace?  If so, we are in full agreement.

[billvon 2,396]

17 minutes ago, jakee said:

What's your point?

That unless he can keep his AK and 30 round magazines, it will be just like Hitler and the Jews.  Anything else is a slow slide down a slippery slope into an oven.

But to step back into the real world, let's look at a more recent example.  Assault weapons - indeed, any semiauto weapons - were banned in Australia.  Amazingly enough, no Hitlers, ovens, gas chambers or concentration camps have been sighted.  Nor have any mass shootings occurred.  The only people who lost in that country were the gun manufacturers.

[brenthutch 383]

Does Australia have a 2nd Amendment?

[jakee 1,254]

47 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

What is YOUR point?  Are you saying than an armed population has the ability to overthrow a tyrannical monarchy only to see it’s ability to resist tyranny is than stripped away by a new dictatorship that, having learned the lessons of the first revolution, disarms the populace?  If so, we are in full agreement.

So in that situation, the ownership of guns by the populace did not help. In your situation, since you aren't currently living under an tyrannical dictatorship, the ownership of guns by the populace would seem to be one of the most likely ways for you to end up with one.

 

If you're genuinely worried about a mass famine, get rid of some guns.

Edited August 14, 2019 by jakee

[billvon 2,396]

32 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Does Australia have a 2nd Amendment?

Nope!  Nor do they have mass shootings, Nazi regimes or genocides.  So they're doing something right.

[yobnoc 142]

30 minutes ago, billvon said:

Nope!  Nor do they have mass shootings, Nazi regimes or genocides.  So they're doing something right.

They do in fact have a second amendment.  It was ratified in 1910.

" amended Section 105 to extend the power of the Commonwealth to take over pre-existing state debts to debts incurred by a state at any time. "

[billvon 2,396]

3 minutes ago, yobnoc said:

They do in fact have a second amendment.  It was ratified in 1910.

" amended Section 105 to extend the power of the Commonwealth to take over pre-existing state debts to debts incurred by a state at any time. "

Fair point!

[brenthutch 383]

It lacks the pizazz of ours. 

[nigel99 143]

44 minutes ago, billvon said:

Nope!  Nor do they have mass shootings, Nazi regimes or genocides.  So they're doing something right.

Neither do we have an orange lunatic running the asylum

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

14 minutes ago, nigel99 said:

Neither do we have an orange lunatic running the asylum

True, but to be fair, this was a problem for a number of years. 

Long before the Mango Mussolini came along.

[yobnoc 142]

1 minute ago, wolfriverjoe said:

True, but to be fair, this was a problem for a number of years. 

Long before the Mango Mussolini came along.

President David Dennison should not be compared to Mussolini.  It's an insult to Mussolini.

[Stumpy 256]

8 hours ago, nigel99 said:

Neither do we have an orange lunatic running the asylum

Well, not orange but one out of two isn't bad.

[SkyDekker 1,121]

19 hours ago, brenthutch said:

It lacks the pizazz of ours. 

true, but yours has been one of the stupidest things ever to be added to a constitution.

[GeorgiaDon 340]

19 hours ago, brenthutch said:

It lacks the pizazz of ours. 

It also lacks the body count.

Don

[Coreece 190]

On 8/13/2019 at 11:53 PM, mbohu said:

On 8/12/2019 at 2:39 AM, Coreece said:

Only about 20% of all mass shootings in the last 50 years involved assault rifles, but they accounted for almost half of the deaths.

That's what I thought was likely. It's somewhat common sense, I would think.

Sure, but another point I wanted to bring up is that if you want to go by the definition used to identify the 250+ mass shootings that we were talking about in my previous post, then the impact of assault rifles on those numbers wouldn't be as profound and would more closely reflect the numbers that Blacksmith was talking about.

So I agree with you that different definitions can muddy things up a bit.  Take for example Everytown's analysis.  They determined that there were 173 mass shootings from 2009-2017 and that "the majority of mass shootings were related to domestic or family violence. These incidents were responsible for 86 percent of mass shooting child fatalities."

All these varying stats and definitions change the dynamics in how we think about mass shootings, how we talk about them, and more importantly, how we mitigate their effect.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Coreece

[mbohu 77]

12 hours ago, Coreece said:

All these varying stats and definitions change the dynamics in how we think about mass shootings, how we talk about them, and more importantly, how we mitigate their effect.

Yes. These are some excellent articles with real data. Again, I think that when most people talk of "mass shootings" they think almost entirely only of the well-publicized incidents--and then data from completely different definitions of "mass shootings" gets used in talking points to justify whatever political statement someone wants to make.
In all fairness, though, apart from the fact that media "loves" these kinds of incidents because of their shock value, they are somewhat qualitatively different, because they seem to really rattle our very idea of a civilized society: In most other instances we can still have this idea that these types of events somehow don't apply to us: "I wouldn't be in relationship with those kinds of people" (domestic violence), "I don't live in those neighborhoods and don't associate with these people" (gang related), etc. Wrong (or incomplete) as these thoughts may be, it's understandable that shootings that involve completely random bystanders in public places are so disturbing to us.
It is almost logical that there are only 2 reactions that people intuitively come up with to make themselves feel safer:
1. I need to be constantly armed myself, so I can protect myself in such a random occurrence
2. We need to take these kinds of guns away from everyone to minimize the chance of something like this occurring.

Moving the discussion into a direction that looks at the actual data and starts out by defining what we even want to address here, is always going to be hugely challenging. I'm actually quite surprised to see the nature of your posts here. It's not often that you see such illuminating commentary on this issue. Thanks!

[kallend 1,623]

4 minutes ago, mbohu said:

0. In all fairness, though, apart from the fact that media "loves" these kinds of incidents because of their shock value, they are somewhat qualitatively different, because they seem to really rattle our very idea of a civilized society: In most other instances we can still have this idea that these types of events somehow don't apply to us:

1. I need to be constantly armed myself, so I can protect myself in such a random occurrence

0.  The victim is just as dead in either case.  Separating mass shootings from others is just a way of deflecting attention from either problem.

1. El Paso is in the most permissive state with respect to gun laws.  Didn't help much, did it?  It's just part of the Rambo delusion with which many American males seem afflicted.

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

2 hours ago, kallend said:

It's just part of the Rambo delusion with which many American males seem afflicted.

Hi John,

I call it the Dick Stretcher delusion.

Jerry Baumchen

[Coreece 190]

On 6/16/2019 at 8:41 AM, kallend said:

Owning a gun in compensation for penile inadequacy

2 hours ago, JerryBaumchen said:

4 hours ago, kallend said:

It's just part of the Rambo delusion with which many American males seem afflicted.

Hi John,

I call it the Dick Stretcher delusion.

Jerry Baumchen

See, one can try to find common ground with varying perspectives based on an abundance of evidence, stats, facts, etc., in an attempt to calm the divisive rhetoric and move collectively toward a more unified stance against gun violence, but apparently some people are more interested in the size of men's penises than they are in real, practical solutions.

 

5 hours ago, mbohu said:

It's not often that you see such illuminating commentary on this issue.

Indeed, just look at the comments above.  Why trouble yourself with harsh reality when you can just blame the ills of American society on white, (preferably christian) conservative penile inadequacy?

It just marks how shallow their depth of perspective really is on the issue.

[mbohu 77]

1 hour ago, Coreece said:

Indeed, just look at the comments above.  Why trouble yourself with harsh reality when you can just blame the ills of American society on white, (preferably christian) conservative penile inadequacy?

Well, yes...and no!
See, now you fall prey to a similar thing: You suddenly bring in "white, christian, conservative" when none of these words or concepts were part of the comments above. Maybe you do so, because the people above were saying things that makes them seem like other people who blame things on "white, christian, conservative", or maybe because they have used these words in other unrelated posts, or maybe you even know them personally.

In any case, though, none of this was said, and none of this is staying on the track we were on: facts, solutions, etc.
I think, all that proves is that none of us is immune to using these types of "arguments".

Now if I tried to extract the very kernel of truth from these kinds of statements (the comments above), it would be that: Our attitude towards guns (and weapons as a tool to display "strength" versus a tool of destruction) is most likely very much influenced by our psychology, although I think it has much less to do with the size of certain appendages (especially considering that about half of us don't even have them), but probably grows mostly out of our early childhood experiences: What made us feel safe and in control as children, versus what made us feel weak and small and helpless.
This psychological aspect, is a whole other aspect of this debate; but since we are barely ready to start talking about just the plain data and physical realities, I am afraid we are far from facing this additional reality with any kind of objectivity.

[mbohu 77]

8 hours ago, kallend said:

0.  The victim is just as dead in either case.  Separating mass shootings from others is just a way of deflecting attention from either problem.

1. El Paso is in the most permissive state with respect to gun laws.  Didn't help much, did it?  It's just part of the Rambo delusion with which many American males seem afflicted.

0. I think you may be missing the point here, kallend: If anything, my statement was actually helping your earlier argument about rifles, because it is those specific types of mass shootings that are probably perpetrated more with the kinds of rifles that it sounded like you are in favor of regulating more (I am too, by the way)
--but see, that shows again how hard it is to hear each other. You probably saw me agreeing with something Coreece wrote, thought that he/she is "pro-gun" (although nothing I've read from Coreece indicated that) and therefore assumed I was too--therefore setting up a need to argue against me.

1. Right. If you look at the 2 statements I wrote again, you'll see that I used them as examples of emotionally motivated "solutions" that weren't looking at data or reality.

Since I can probably at this point make the safe assumption that you are for some kind of regulation in regards to guns, the question becomes twofold:

1) WHAT exact kind of regulation?
2) HOW can we make this a reality in this country?

(There is of course also the other important question of "what ELSE, other than gun-related regulation can and must be done to really have an effect on this problem", but let's just stay with the gun regulation issue)

re. 1) we HAVE to look at the actual data. Do we want to ban certain types of guns? Would it be more effective to base any bans on magazine sizes? Is it better to regulate WHO can own guns? Is it better to have some kind of licensing and training program for gun owners with possibility of loosing the license under certain circumstances? Does all of that need to be combined?
For all of these questions, some data exists, that may point into the right direction of what may or may not be useful (and yes, in some cases--logically--people who actually deal with guns in their lives may know some useful stuff that those of us who don't, simply aren't aware of.)

re. 2) Given the cultural attitudes in this country, do you think that screaming at "the other side" and criticizing their penis sizes (emotionally satisfying as it may be) is going to help move this forward? If so, why hasn't it done that so far? Could another strategy be more helpful here?

[gowlerk 1,910]

Oh for crying out loud. Stop with the analyzing why people like guns. It's simple. Guns are beautifully machined pieces of art. They give power to their owners. And they  truly fun to play with and own. It has nothing to do with how anyone feels about the size of anyone's body parts. Americans have a problem with giving that up because too many of them are just too damned selfish to let go of them for the betterment of society. There is no mystery.

[mbohu 77]

34 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Americans have a problem with giving that up because too many of them are just too damned selfish to let go of them for the betterment of society

So the argument is that Americans are more selfish than people in other countries (as people in other countries are apparently able to make that sacrifice) and the conclusion is that nothing can be done about it? (hard to cure selfishness)
 

[kallend 1,623]

On 8/18/2019 at 11:52 PM, mbohu said:

So the argument is that Americans are more selfish than people in other countries (as people in other countries are apparently able to make that sacrifice) and the conclusion is that nothing can be done about it? (hard to cure selfishness)
 

Well, let's look at this:

The USA has a far higher murder rate than other wealthy countries.

Other wealthy countries have video games.

Other wealthy countries have mentally ill people.

Other wealthy countries have gang problems.

Other wealthy counties watch much the same TV as Americans.

Other wealthy countries have more restrictive gun laws.

 

But according to the gun lobby and the legislators it has purchased, the gun laws can't be the explanation.  So what is?  Are Americans just intrinsically nastier than the citizens of other wealthy countries?

[ibx 2]

17 minutes ago, kallend said:

But according to the gun lobby and the legislators it has purchased, the gun laws can't be the explanation.  So what is?  Are Americans just intrinsically nastier than the citizens of other wealthy countries?

Yes I would say so. This is one of the things that makes the USA so successful and at the same so miserable. Two better words would be individualism and opportunism. Both of these things are not nearly as profound in other countries. In Europe nobody has a problem with socialized health care for example...  The individual has higher standing in the American Psych than it has in the old country by far.