58 Dead, 500 Plus Wounded

[Stripe]

He hasn't proposed any law or specific ideas despite being asked to repeatedly.

Actually, he has.

I'm sure nothing changes nothing.

You're yet to name someone who proposes doing nothing.

Are you going to drop this falsehood?

"Laws are the products of written statutes, passed by either the U.S. Congress or state legislatures. The legislatures create bills that, when passed by a vote, become statutory law.

Regulations, on the other hand, are standards and rules adopted by administrative agencies that govern how laws will be enforced." Christopher Coble, from Law & Family Life, 2015

So while they're often used interchangeably they aren't the same thing. And even foundational law, as with Constitutional provision, is subject to amendment/alteration.

A law is that which confirms with God's standards.

It makes no difference what your politicians say.


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[Jonahdog]

A law is that which confirms with God's standards.

TOL mobile app

Oh, I'll bet you only use that standard when it is your particular deity, right?

 

[Town Heretic]

Actually, he has.

Not that you can quote apparently. Not even after I named his ideas mysteries and routinely called for specifics, any specific idea. Now if you look at my last to Yor you'll see I've set out enough ideas, clearly and often enough that he can list a handful long past my noting them.

You're yet to name someone who proposes doing nothing.

And again, when you don't propose an actual change that can be instituted (and miraculous alterations of our national sensibility wouldn't be an example) you're doing nothing about the problem. You're holding the line of the status quo that has led to an increasing level of violence and death.

By way of example, I asked you a bit ago what specifically you'd do to combat the problem. Because attacking any actual, particular idea isn't that.

Are you going to drop this falsehood?

It isn't a falsehood. You're trying to strain at rhetorical gnats and looking more like an English as second language speaker who can't read beyond the literal. If that's the problem (as opposed to a goofy attempt to side bar for no reaSo again how, specifically, would you combat the problem of mass shooting in the U.S? What particular steps could you take that aren't being taken to safeguard people?

A law is that which confirms with God's standards.

This isn't a conversation about your religious beliefs relating to law. And on the actual point I've set out ideas for laws that should impact mass shootings. Have you any?

 

[Town Heretic]

I went back to the beginning of Yor's posts in this thread.

Here's Yor's actual position and he set it out at the start of his presence in the thread. It's literally a defense of the status quo.

But that is the take away on the gun issue. Humans have a right to defend themselves, regardless what any document states, so they should be allowed to freely buy and sell guns and ammo. Sometimes there will be crazy people that shoot other people, but there will be less people killed if they are allowed to defend themselves.

Couldn't be clearer. That's the status quo. That's what we have.

But then it gets worse as Yor argues with his own reason, speaking to the right of gun ownership and rights:

It's either unfettered or it doesn't exist. One either has the right to defend themself or they don't. Everything else is just the transition to the right being suppressed completely.

Given you don't have an absolute right to every particular weapon we are, following his logic, transitioning to the complete suppression of the right. It's a bonkers notion and every right has some restriction and even Yor doesn't believe in his own point. How do I know that? He tells me so:

Individuals can defend themselves reliably with a weapon that can be brought to bear against a single other human. If it can do such, it should be freely allowed.

That's a limitation on the right, a fetter.

How does Yor try to resolve his own logic problem/contradiction?

you see "a weapon that can be directed against a single human" as a fetter, you see it the wrong way. It's a principle. It can be applied to all the detailed behavior bans that you can come up with. And it also answers your objection outlined below.

Whatever you call it, if it limits the ownership of weapons it's a fetter, a limitation, a restriction on the right, and a logic problem he doesn't begin to solve within his own position.

Still looking for those ideas that alter the landscape by altering the status quo.

The way to do it is to give people freedom.

But they already have the freedom his ideas allow. You could argue they have more if Yor is actually willing to put himself down under the "no machine gun" idea, which he doesn't endorse directly, but appears to recognize. That wouldn't be giving people more freedom though.

Then he writes:

Remove all laws that are currently on the books, and replace them with 3 general laws:
You shall not steal
You shall not abuse
You shall not murder

Now he wants to remove all restrictions of law except the above. Now we have bazookas.

And under these 3 will be other generalities, like:
The government shall insure contracts between consenting adults

And now we have no clear idea what the world would look like with Yor, since it appears he's starting to realize why codes are complex and evolving as other issues come to his mind.

And this is as close as he comes to advancing particular ideas that might change things.

I'll concede they're ideas. Ideas with serious internal contradiction, but ideas. But they're also a load of nothing. Why? Though I don't believe I should have to caveat, when I speak to advancing particular ideas to change things I don't mean crazy, impossible ideas that will and can never happen, like "Issue everyone force fields that stop bullets" or "Scrap the Constitution and institute this instead..."

Those are flights of fantasy, not serious proposals, no matter how seriously offered or believed in. I mean within the rule of law and as we are, what specific proposals do you have to alter the violent and unacceptable status quo that sees us the worst among our Western democratic cousins when it comes to gun violence. I shouldn't have to qualify, but there it is.

When you propose ideas like "change the entire system" you're really effectively arguing for the status quo, given you and I know those changes can't and won't happen. And I'm not looking for a philosophical debate. I've been consistently speaking to an issue and an empirical, objective approach to altering the unacceptable.

That remains the goal. Any takers?

 

[Nihilo]

We've had a solid month and half now to consider this problem. For the record, here's where I stand personally:

1. I believe in the RKBA, and that this civil and human right means the right to possess and to carry standard issue military and police weaponry, which includes selective fire service rifles and carbines, and full size semiautomatic handguns. Therefore, countries where this right is denied or effectively denied, are civil rights violators.

2. The FBI background check needs to be fixed, because it is broken. Kelley in particular wouldn't have been able to purchase his AR if the system wasn't broken.

3. I continue to believe that smaller handguns should be banned, and retroactively, because of their implication in crime, accidental shootings, and kids shootings, plus, that the RKBA never means the right to own such weapons, which are inherently more dangerous than their full size counterparts, and no military uses them. They are for spies and other special operatives exclusively.

4. Arguments against civilians owning the weapons I mentioned above, fail to explain why police and military should have them. The Fort Hood shooting rampage was perpetrated by a military man, and the BLM movement (and the Black Panthers movement before that) is targeted at murderous police shootings against black people. Police and military are treated dismissively by most anti-gun rights people, and I feel that it is without warrant. IOW, if you're going to argue against civilians possessing and carrying these weapons, then you need to provide justification for why the police and military should be permitted to.

5. Concealing deadly weapons ought to be criminal. There ought to be no permission to conceal weapons, and so the whole movement towards concealed carry is wrong right from the start. This used to be the common opinion, and the only reason that it's become acceptable and encouraged, is because of laws that have forbidden the open carrying of deadly weapons, in reaction to gangsters (themselves sprouting from Prohibition) and the Black Panthers (who were combating police murders).

6. Corollary to #5., carrying rifles openly should be favored to concealing handguns. Rifles are better weapons in all regards when you remove concealed carry as legitimate and legal. Furthermore, rifles and shotguns, longguns, are less likely to be involved in accidental shootings, due to their size/length. All laws forbidding the open carrying of rifles and shotguns should be stricken.

7. RPGs and other weapons designed and used as anti-material (as opposed to anti-personnel) are not standard issue by any military or police, and so are not implied by the RKBA. .50-caliber BMG rounds can be chambered in strictly anti-personnel weapons, and so that round should be included in the RKBA, but not the M-2 machine gun, which is used for anti-material and anti-personnel when mounted on vehicles.

8. Criminals of all types, but especially violent criminals and those committing dangerous felonies, have forfeited their right to keep and bear arms. This should also be retroactive, and not dependent upon conviction. I.e., when criminals are convicted, they should also be subsequently charged with illegal possession going back to the date of the crime they are convicted of.

9. There is a problem with murder in the world. Too many murders go unsolved, which leaves murderers walking among us innocent people. And it is by definition murderers who are prompting us all to consider the possibility of denying innocent and peaceable people the freedom to possess and carry standard issue military and police weaponry.

10. Handicaps. I don't know where the line is, but I know where well beyond the line is. Cases that are beyond the line void the RKBA for that victim, and must be reflected in the FBI background check system somehow.

11. "Gunshow loophole." I don't know the reason against requiring private sales and transfers (e.g., gifts, prizes) from somehow engaging an FBI background check on the buyer/recipient. It does stand to reason, that if there are free citizens who do not possess the RKBA, then there ought to be some way of actually preventing them from acquiring such weaponry. If there is another means to achieve this besides a background check, I would like to know what that is.

I know we disagree, but that is where I stand.

 

[Stripe]

Not that you can quote apparently.

It's your job to know what your opponents are saying.

Not even after I named his ideas mysteries and routinely called for specifics, any specific idea. Now if you look at my last to Yor you'll see I've set out enough ideas, clearly and often enough that he can list a handful long past my noting them.

Therefore, something. :idunno:

And again, when you don't propose an actual change that can be instituted (and miraculous alterations of our national sensibility wouldn't be an example) you're doing nothing about the problem. You're holding the line of the status quo that has led to an increasing level of violence and death.

Nope.

Continuing to wail along these lines isn't helping.

By way of example, I asked you a bit ago what specifically you'd do to combat the problem. Because attacking any actual, particular idea isn't that.

And I answered.

What was my answer?

It isn't a falsehood.

It sure is. Nobody here proposes doing nothing.

You're trying to strain at rhetorical gnats and looking more like an ESL speaker.

How, specifically, would you combat the problem of mass shooting in the US? What particular steps could you take that aren't being taken to safeguard people?

Uphold the law.

This isn't a conversation about your religious beliefs relating to law.

Because you say so?

We have to bow to your conceited and exclusionary notion of what the law is? You keep citing other nations' examples, but want to exclude my ideas because I'm not American?

Dude, get over yourself.

I've set out ideas for laws that should impact mass shootings.

Nope. All you have are more regulations.

 

[Stripe]

Couldn't be clearer. That's the status quo. That's what we have.

No, it's not.

The "status quo" is a lot of regulations. You want more of them.

And even if it was, you have not supported your claim that he proposes doing nothing.

Logic is not your strong suit is it?

 

[Yorzhik]

No, you haven't Yor, and it makes me wonder that you keep insisting on that while every time I ask for a specific law you go back to some general line about needing to deal with single mothers and black markets, etc.

You seem to be able to figure out that "single mothers" are a large part of "broken homes". Yet, when asked the rhetorical question about how to deal with a black market, you seem to be unable to put two and two together.

I don't think you are unable. I think you are purposefully spewing rhetoric instead of discussing the issues.

You don't have solutions, Yor. You have a declaration about your belief concerning the root and some vaguely paranoid musings about the state. I've asked, repeatedly, for specific ideas to impact the problem.

I have provided at least one solution, but you don't want to talk about it.

Do you know of any simple thing we could do to help get rid of a black market?

It won't "stem the tide" as the data shows.

Literally untrue. I've noted the mass shootings before and after those laws in Australia and the remarkable difference between every other Western democracy and our own on firearm related homicides.

You've never acknowledge the data. And that's because it's obvious a discussion about stopping "mass shootings" is emotional cover for discussing homicide problems that affect people a great deal more.

I have no sympathy for anyone who cares more for their AK than they do the law and the safety of others.

See? This is rhetoric. It's an emotional trigger based on incomplete, and in this case, wrong information.

If you cared about the safety of others, you'd see the data that clearly shows there are more guns per capita and less gun restrictions in rural areas while homicide rates and gun restrictions are higher in big cities. You'd see the data clearly shows that the homicide rates in big cities are concentrated in certain areas - i.e. the laws are equal across big cities and the homicide rates are *still* starkly different.

You never did address the question of what concerts, church services, and mass events have been cancelled because of mass shootings.

What's the point?

People in big cities are afraid to leave their homes because of violent crime, especially at certain parts of the day and in certain areas of a big city. No one is afraid a mass shooting will happen at their event.

The problem is it doesn't fit your rhetoric.

So far on your list of how far you'd go we have: mandatory training, check if the person is crazy (although you'll have to define this better), check if the person is or was a criminal of a certain threshold (will that ever change in a persons lifetime?), register all transfers, and any guns beyond breech loaders are illegal.

I've gone along with Kat (or resident expert) on the psych eval. I'm fine with the current laws regarding felons and gun ownership. And I'm okay with hunting weapons that can't be easily modified into automatic ones.

Thanks for the acknowledgement. So stop it with the "ban bump stocks and high capacity mags" mags when what you really mean is "No one can own a firearm beyond a breech-loader except for government approved agents and after a psych eval." And beyond that, you can't have any firearm if you commit a felony.

No law stops all of the conduct it aims to, but that's no argument against law. I'm not trying to accomplish the impossible, only the possible, which is making mass shooting less likely and reducing firearm deaths and accidental injuries. That we can absolutely do.

You're using the relatively small emotion-driven event of a mass shooting to restrict the ability of people to defend themselves across the board. And as you admit here, you will always have another statistically insignificant but emotion-driven event wherein you will call for regulations to control the population as a whole even more.

No, which is why you won't quote me saying either.

When you have uneven gun laws, by which I mean restrictive gun laws at point A and comparatively lax ones at point B, you necessarily impact the efficacy of the A laws to accomplish their aim. It's a lot like dry and wet counties and alcohol.

What I said was that not having universal gun laws, having them vary from place to place, undermines the efficacy of the laws. To illustrate that I compared it to the problem with wet and dry counties being next to one another or a dry county with a wet city. It undermines the attempt of the dry county.

Yeah, I understood the first time I read it. That was the point. To illustrate it; We could sure reduce the cirrhosis rate if we applied prohibition equally across the nation. Don't you care about people with cirrhosis?

 

[Yorzhik]

Here's Yor's actual position and he set it out at the start of his presence in the thread. It's literally a defense of the status quo.

You don't understand what "status quo" means. I've proposed changes to gun regulations in big cities to be more like those of rural areas. I've also said we should discuss curbing gangs, black markets, and broken families - instead of gun regulations that other western nations have proven don't change anything.

Are you saying I haven't proposed those things?

 

[Stripe]

Are you saying I haven't proposed those things?

I thought we all proposed doing nothing.

 

[Town Heretic]

You don't understand what "status quo" means.

I do and your initial with me was a fair sum of it, as I noted. Then you went worse than that as I noted.

When your proposals reduce to the impossible they're pragmatically doing nothing (as with your erase the laws and start over with three) or where you champion removing protections, it's essentially the same since again there's literally no chance of that horrible notion making it off the boards. And when you talk about simple solutions to black markets (without offering one), or gangs (without offering one) or broken homes (they all aren't but again you don't offer specifics about addressing it) you're really saying a lot that reduces to the status quo (because as a society we've been trying to address those) and nothing changes.

I've proposed changes to gun regulations in big cities to be more like those of rural areas.

That sounds considered, but all you actually did was suggest we wipe gun laws off the books in more dangerous areas of the country with larger concentrations of poverty and crime. Or as you put it:

Having held off most gun regulation (in fact 'shall issue' and 'constitutional carry' have become the most popular forms of carry legislation) we see crime continue to fall in areas where guns are less restricted. Let's extend that to the high crime areas and see the violent crime rates fall even further.

Crime rates have generally fallen everywhere as the Baby Boomers have gotten older. But the rates will be higher where you have greater concentrations of criminals and the poverty that you don't address and that continues to foster the gangs you have no particular solution for...gangs that do contribute to disproportionate human suffering in those areas of the country where a lack of universal gun law contributes to a ready supply of lethality.

So no, you haven't suggested one particular idea to reduce the likelihood of mass shootings, a thing even you recognized:

Radically reducing? I'm not sure how to respond to this. If you had said "we want to reduce the likelihood of being murdered by firearms by possibly a tiny amount" then I'd understand you. But your proposal doesn't get within light years of "radically reducing"... unless of course you had more - many more - restrictive laws in mind that you aren't telling us about.

And there you go again. We can't fetter a right or we're inviting tyranny...except you want to fetter the right, but it isn't a fetter it's a principle even though in action it does precisely the same thing. Here you say reducing gun restrictions will make us safer but even you don't really believe that, which is why you tried to offset the idea of universal law above and earlier not by suggesting that it wouldn't work, but by suggesting it wouldn't work a radical difference absent harder measures than you saw suggested to that point.

I've also said we should discuss curbing gangs, black markets, and broken families.

You mean single parent families. You think single moms are a root of gun violence...but you don't think poverty plays a role. lain:

In any event, saying repeatedly that we should talk about issues that as a society, we're already talking about and have been trying to do something about isn't really proposing any specific action to impact the issue of mass shootings or gun violence. No one is pro gang. No one is pro black market. And most people probably wouldn't cite single parent households as a thing to lump with gangs and criminal commercial enterprises.

Are you saying I haven't proposed those things?

Those things? Vague principles and the elimination of some or most law? Yeah, you proposed a whole lot of nothing, Yor. But nothing that would actually make a difference on the topic.

You left off the more ambitious (than scrapping a lot of gun law in cities) scrapping all laws except the three...and then whatever else needed to be added. lain:

 

[Town Heretic]

Meanwhile...

Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the U.S., where there are more guns, both men and women are at a higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.​

​

Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.​

We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.​

Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew. Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.​

Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten-year period (1988-1997). After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.​

Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002; 92:1988-1993.​

Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003. We found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty). There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.​

Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social Science and Medicine. 2007; 64:656-64.​

This book chapter summarizes the scientific literature on the relationship between gun prevalence (levels of household gun ownership) and suicide, homicide and unintentional firearm death and concludes that where there are higher levels of gun ownership, there are more gun suicides and more total suicides, more gun homicides and more total homicides, and more accidental gun deaths.

Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D. Firearms and violence death in the United States. In: Webster DW, Vernick JS, eds. Reducing Gun Violence in America. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.​

This article examines homicide rates of Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) from 1996 to 2010. Differences in rates of homicides of LEOs across states are best explained not by differences in crime, but by differences in household gun ownership. In high gun states, LEOs are 3 times more likely to be murdered than LEOs working in low-gun states.

Swedler DI, Simmons MM, Dominici F, Hemenway D. Firearm prevalence and homicides of law enforcement officers in the United States. American Journal of Public Health. 2015; 105:2042-48.​

 

[Town Heretic]

IWe have to bow to your conceited and exclusionary notion of what the law is?

It's not my notion of what the law is here. It's what the law is here.

You keep citing other nations' examples

Rather, I keep noting that every other Western democracy does a much better job when it comes to protecting their citizens from gun violence and I've suggested we look at their models, which vary, from the UK to Switzerland, in doing a better job of it ourselves.

but want to exclude my ideas because I'm not American?

What ideas have you particularly advanced to impact the problem that you feel I've excluded?

 

[Stripe]

When your proposals reduce to the impossible they're pragmatically doing nothing.

This is out-and-out dishonesty.

Nobody proposes doing nothing, and your assertion that our proposals are indistinguishable from that is just your attempt to camouflage your repeated error.

Meanwhile...

Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the U.S., where there are more guns, both men and women are at a higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

It's not my notion of what the law is here.

You keep denying ownership of your posts. Why is anyone's guess.

It's what the law is here.

Nope.

You don't get to define what the law is.

You could acknowledge that when you say law, you are not talking about a universal standard that the world should live up to. To be sensible, you could just call your ideas for gun control "regulations."

Then we could avoid this whole side issue.

Rather, I keep noting that every other Western democracy does a much better job when it comes to protecting their citizens from gun violence and I've suggested we look at their models, which vary, from the UK to Switzerland, in doing a better job of it ourselves.

And your proposals will do nothing to fix the situation.

What ideas have you particularly advanced to impact the problem that you feel I've excluded?

:AMR:

This question has nothing to do with what you're responding to.

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[Town Heretic]

This is out-and-out dishonesty.

No, it isn't.

Nobody proposes doing nothing

Literally true. And I can read. So either I was really hoping that no one else here could read or I was doing something that appears to escape you.

Hint: it's the latter.

and your assertion that our proposals are indistinguishable from that is just your attempt to camouflage your repeated error.

No, it's just a point you'd rather attempt to get around this way instead. And I can't blame you. When someone says, "What we need are jet packs in every household!" as a solution to highway fatalities they really need for the discussion to move off that point and to be about something else.

You don't get to define what the law is.

I don't have to. I only have to use the term correctly, which I have.

You could acknowledge that when you say law, you are not talking about a universal standard that the world should live up to.

I'm talking about gun laws here modeled on gun laws in other Western democracies. There's literally no mystery about that and no one should need a clarification on the point.

To be sensible, you could just call your ideas for gun control "regulations."

It wouldn't be sensible to stop and define words that are used properly and within a context that doesn't invite ambiguity. I'd wonder at what someone who attempted that was up to. I'd wonder what someone attempting to get anyone else to do that was up to.

What are you up to?

And your proposals will do nothing to fix the situation.

I'm sure you believe that. What I know is that in every country where they're in play incidents of mass shooting and firearm violence are markedly lower than where they aren't, which is here.

Now you said I wanted to exclude your ideas and I asked what were the ideas you thought you'd presented that I'd tried to exclude. I see you're moving on to the next attack in lieu, but I wanted to give you another shot at setting out those ideas that you felt were set aside. Because I don't believe you have any practical, specific notions on the point but I'm always up for being pleasantly surprised.

In the meantime...the violence continues.

 

[Yorzhik]

Are you saying I haven't proposed those things?

nothing that would actually make a difference on the topic.

You don't like it therefore it doesn't count. Got it.

I look at both sides but you are prideful and never consider the consequences of your actions. That's why you use an emotionally-driven-but-statistically-insignificant example to kowtow people. You should work harder at listening to other people and acknowledging that, yes, gun restrictions/bans haven't changed any existing trend but we should trust you that things will get better despite the evidence.

 

[Town Heretic]

You don't like it therefore it doesn't count. Got it.

No, I'm distinguishing between steps that can be taken and flights of fantasy that literally everyone reading understands can't and won't happen. So if you propose striking the laws of the land and...anything past that point is pointless. It's fantasy. It can't and won't be done.

And when you propose something that can't and won't be done you affirm the status quo that remains.

I look at both sides but you are prideful and never consider the consequences of your actions.

You've compared me to Stalin, and written

I imagine that we'll have to define what a police state is now. I have the feeling you don't know what it is.

my ideas are magnitudes more directly relatable to the problem than yours.

I have to admit that I made this reply in a rather emotional state. My 15 year old was reading it and he started to laugh. I tried to be mature and model a measured, reasonable, unemotional response, but his laughter was infectious and by the time I was done with this we were both laughing at TH's antics hard enough to make our sides hurt. Please, TH, change your attitude so we can discuss this rather important topic in a calm and productive way.

you play games with people's lives, I would prefer to make them prosperous and happy.

My way would save thousands of lives, and your way would save tens until your way became a tyranny...
then we'd lose a lot more than you'd save.

And you think I'm prideful? Or for a more recent example:

That's why you use an emotionally-driven-but-statistically-insignificant example to kowtow people.

For anyone new to the conversation that's how Yor characterizes the deaths from mass shootings. It's how he justifies not actually changing anything. I kid you not.

You should work harder at listening to other people and acknowledging that, yes, gun restrictions/bans haven't changed any existing trend

You should look at Australia and every Western democracy with universal gun laws and dramatically lower rates of those shootings and commiserate deaths and realize how irrational what you just wrote is.

 

[Yorzhik]

No, I'm distinguishing between steps that can be taken and flights of fantasy that literally everyone reading understands can't and won't happen.

Changing a black market can't and won't happen?

So if you propose striking the laws of the land and...anything past that point is pointless. It's fantasy. It can't and won't be done.

Just like striking down prohibition didn't happen. Oh, wait...

That's why you use an emotionally-driven-but-statistically-insignificant example to kowtow people.

For anyone new to the conversation that's how Yor characterizes the deaths from mass shootings. It's how he justifies not actually changing anything. I kid you not.

Except for things I propose we change. Plus, my proposals reduce all homicides, whereas Town Heretic wants to create a new group of criminals across the whole country to affect just the red dots.

2016 numbers. Every dot is a homicide, the red ones were mass shootings.
View attachment 26044

You should look at Australia and every Western democracy with universal gun laws and dramatically lower rates of those shootings and commiserate deaths and realize how irrational what you just wrote is.

Except the data says you're wrong. The trend didn't change. There were no dramatically lower rates, in fact there was a spike in homicides when the ban was enacted.
View attachment 26046

 

[Town Heretic]

Changing a black market can't and won't happen?

I was speaking to your ditch all the laws and change them to three, get rid of the "situational law" you never would define for me. Changing a black market? What does that even mean? We've been after criminal markets and activity for years, just as we've been after gangs for years and worked to help struggling, single parent households.

None of that is beyond the status quo.

Just like striking down prohibition didn't happen. Oh, wait...

That's a bizarre way to attempt a point. Prohibition was the surprising aberration to begin with, a break from tradition. It was immensely unpopular and eventually failed. It was at no point unforseeable or on par with an overhaul of basic legal principle in the nation.

Except for things I propose we change. Plus, my proposals reduce all homicides

You made no real proposals on the few concrete and possible points you raised, Yor. We must do something about gangs and black markets? We are and have.

whereas Town Heretic wants to create a new group of criminals across the whole country to affect just the red dots.

Yeah, that's my master plan all right, to create criminals, people who just aren't responsible for their actions in owning or trafficking in illegal goods. [/sarcasm]

Rather, enacting universal and tougher gun laws are a means to impact our unacceptable level of firearm related death and mass shootings. Their efficacy is demonstrated in literally every other Western democracy that has them. As the failure of the status quo is demonstrated in our own land.

2016 numbers. Every dot is a homicide, the red ones were mass shootings.

The dots he tries to diminish, the things he calls "statistically insignificant" and not the thing for which laws should be enacted are American lives. Thousands of them can be saved by serious, universal gun laws and safety mandates. But not if you listen to Yor.

Except the data says you're wrong. The trend didn't change. There were no dramatically lower rates

13 Mass shootings in Australia in the two decades before the laws and four in the twenty plus years since. Zero if you require the death of five to qualify, but four by FBI standards. Pretty dramatic decrease.

This year in the U.S. we're working on four hundred of them.

, in fact there was a spike in homicides when the ban was enacted.

I've noted that enacting laws to diminish gun supplies won't immediately and magically work without the process of actually getting the guns and then reducing their availability in replacement over time. And you need to look up extinction events related to behavior modification if you want to understand spikes in unwanted acts prior to the inevitable decline.

 

[Stripe]

I only have to use the term correctly, which I have.

Nope.

You don't get to define things for the entire planet.

It wouldn't be sensible to stop and define words that are used properly and within a context that doesn't invite ambiguity.

But it would be right to correct you if you were arrogantly asserting authority on a matter where you have shown yourself to be utterly clueless.

You have no idea of what the law is.

I'd wonder at what someone who attempted to assert that training qualified him to exclude the opinions of others on matters of justice and morality was up to. I'd wonder what someone attempting to get anyone else to do that was up to.

What are you up to?

I'm sure you believe that. What I know is that in every country where they're in play incidents of mass shooting and firearm violence are markedly lower than where they aren't, which is here.

When you ban cars, traffic fatalities drop.

In other news, the sun rose this morning.

Now you said I wanted to exclude your ideas and I asked what were the ideas you thought you'd presented that I'd tried to exclude. I see you're moving on to the next attack in lieu, but I wanted to give you another shot at setting out those ideas that you felt were set aside. Because I don't believe you have any practical, specific notions on the point but I'm always up for being pleasantly surprised.

Try responding sensibly to what you've been given. :up:

In the meantime...the violence continues.

Therefore, something. :idunno:

It looks like you're making an appeal to emotion. What? Should we drop everything we believe and bow to your demands because the very thing you hail as the cure has created the problems?

Regulations never save anyone.

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