58 Dead, 500 Plus Wounded

[Town Heretic]

OK
I will say this, I was the oldest and my father made me go hunting and shoot rabbits and squirrels. Then I got a 30-30 and went on to hunt deer. My father was a hunter but Bob, my husband, was much more into going out west, after big bears and Elk and we made some trips to Alaska, hunting Dall sheep, Caribou, and to Africa, some serious big game.

They both hunted Dove Pigeon, and other water game like ducks.

My father was just a small town attorney who had a farm; he did not see hunting as a big sport like Bob did.

Neither of those men would have ever owned an assault style rifle. To my father, a 30-30 was good enough, and for Bob we had some very exotic rifles in very large calibres.

Reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird...my grandfather had a Winchester that I coveted, but it was almost entirely bolt and breech with him and I inherited the sensibility, and some machinery.

 

[Yorzhik]

Rather, I proposed laws to significantly impact mass shootings and firearm violence, which is the topic and outlay.

I realize that. I'm not against your ideas because I'm so enamored by guns. I'm against your ideas because I look at the topic in a realistic manner.

Here is an analogy. We are standing at a tank of water. There are two holes in it, one being noticeably larger than the other. You look at the small hole and say we can fix this one quick and easy, and then we'll move on to the bigger one. We don't need case studies to reveal to us that stopping the small hole could be a good first step to getting the leaks stopped. But I read the case studies anyway, and find in them that patching the little hole the way you want doesn't do anything to stop the amount leaking - in fact, there are risks you refuse to acknowledge that could cause bigger problems down the road. So I go straight to the fixing the big hole while you get mad about not fixing the little hole - even though the case studies show that fixing the big hole will help fix the little hole.

I know, it's a little counter intuitive, but that's what the case studies show.

I've set out objective data from other countries. I've noted that states here with better, tougher gun laws do appreciably better in terms of firearm death rates than states with lax laws.

Sure, the small hole will leak less if you stick your finger in it. But stop getting mad at me for reading the case studies. They show that fixing the little hole doesn't slow any overall leaking trend, and they also show possible problems later on for fixing the leak the way you want.

even though you don't argue for the possession of all sorts of weapons. It's peculiar.

No, that would just be you twisting the story. Self defense is the right of all people, and self defense can use all sorts of weapons that can be directed against another single individual. If the weapon cannot be directed a single other person, it is not, in general, self defense.

I haven't used emotionally driven arguments

Sure you have

You are correct. I've used emotionally driven arguments in this discussion and you list some below. I stated my position poorly.

More correctly, I don't need to use emotionally driven arguments because I've read the case studies. The studies aren't emotionally driven. They show that no gun ban or restriction is causal to a drop in homicide. Sure, it might stop homicide with certain weapons, but why do you think we don't understand that? What would be our motive for, as you see it, ignoring the drop in homicide by certain weapons? Because we love guns more than people? Because we like to see people die? Because we are racist? Stupid?

No matter how you respond to those questions, you'll have to use rhetoric because the case studies show exactly what I've said all along.

 

[Town Heretic]

Here is an analogy. We are standing at a tank of water. There are two holes in it, one being noticeably larger than the other. You look at the small hole and say we can fix this one quick and easy, and then we'll move on to the bigger one. We don't need case studies to reveal to us that stopping the small hole could be a good first step to getting the leaks stopped. But I read the case studies anyway, and find in them that patching the little hole the way you want doesn't do anything to stop the amount leaking

I don't know what studies you're referring to, but to believe that the laws that impact mass murder don't impact violence statistically is to believe that the hundreds who die each year and the thousands who are maimed or injured to a lesser extent would be killed, maimed, or injured anyway (not the literal people, but in those numbers).

No reason supports that. And once you come to terms with that the rest follows.

So I go straight to the fixing the big hole while you get mad about not fixing the little hole - even though the case studies show that fixing the big hole will help fix the little hole.

Nothing in my proposals forestall or preclude addressing any particular that you believe or can logically assert feeds gun violence. It's simply not an either/or. So do both.

Sure, the small hole will leak less if you stick your finger in it. But stop getting mad at me for reading the case studies.

I'm not mad and what case studies? Citations? To lend an idea, here are actual case studies, cited:

"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.

No, that would just be you twisting the story.

It's literally the opposite. You can't say the right to bear arms must be without limitation or it's not a right, because you and everyone else, using one metric or another, limits the right. The rest is reason and an examination of the factors I notice none of you are interested in discussing, which makes sense given they undermine your efforts. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly our founders are exculpated by some understanding of their age, but we will not consider that when they framed the right to bear arms the nature of those arms, the use, the pragmatic need, and the broad lethality was far different.

Self defense is the right of all people, and self defense can use all sorts of weapons that can be directed against another single individual.

Literally no one has argued against the right fo self-defense. And again, the moment you note "another, single individual" (and not everyone would) you do what you object to anyone else doing and defeat your own premise regarding a restriction related to right.

Sure, it might stop homicide with certain weapons, but why do you think we don't understand that? What would be our motive for, as you see it, ignoring the drop in homicide by certain weapons? Because we love guns more than people? Because we like to see people die? Because we are racist? Stupid?

Why do people feel safer driving their cars then they do flying on an airplane? They do, but they aren't. And that's without the help of a concerted lobbying effort on the part of car companies to sell them on the bias.

No matter how you respond to those questions, you'll have to use rhetoric because the case studies show exactly what I've said all along.

They really don't. Speaking of, here's an interesting article from Scientific American. A few snippets follow:

In a 2015 study using data from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard University reported that firearm assaults were 6.8 times more common in the states with the most guns versus those with the least. Also in 2015 a combined analysis of 15 different studies found that people who had access to firearms at home were nearly twice as likely to be murdered as people who did not. Scientific American, Oct. 1, 2017

And as I noted prior, even with contamination from lax states, those states with stricter gun regulations have lower rates of gun violence than those without it.

 

[Nihilo]

No. That's not it at all, though certainly suicides are disproportionately committed by people using firearms.

I think you meant to say, "Yes, true, because certainly suicides are disproportionately counted as firearm related deaths, than other firearm related deaths." The anti-gun rights website ranking showed, not a correlation between gun laws and gun related deaths, but between wealth and suicide rate, and the poorer states of our Union have more suicides than the richer states do. It has nothing at all to do with gun laws.

Retroactively? It's not time travel.

Retroactively as in, no "grandfathering" of weapons already in civilian possession; i.e., confiscation or compulsory buy-back.

I'm setting out gun violence statistics in relation to laws and noting that countries with universal and strong gun laws do a much better job of safeguarding their citizens.

In the short term. And even in the short term (which ignores the dozens of recent-historical Wikipedia-page-level cases where strong gun laws, enabled those who still have guns to perpetrate mass violence against those peaceable, law abiding, non-military and non-law-enforcement citizens, who are victims of those strong gun laws), the direct and proximate cause of murders, is murderers, and not guns or gun laws, whether strong or weak. Murderers murder, and always have, and always will. Murders mean there's a murderer problem, not a gun problem, and not a gun law problem. With the obvious exception being, that murderers who are military or police, are more free to murder when there are strong gun laws.

Pretty much. The same reason fire departments have firetrucks and I don't.

Another apple and orange problem. You are not prevented by "strong firetruck laws" from owning a firetruck.

I disagree with the Court's holding. And ... I'm proposing a new line in the sand, one based upon the approach of the rest of Western democracies that do a great deal better at holding down gun violence and mass shootings.

I disagree with any line in the sand that is defined by malum prohibitum crimes. I disagree with any line in the sand that isn't there because of an interference with other people's own civil rights. I also disagree that the definition of rights, of what we mean by rights, involves anything so transient as a line drawn in sand. There are hard lines that bound our rights, namely and exclusively, summed up in saying, that there is no right to commit a malum in se crime, which is as you noted, a crime that is inherently evil/wicked/harmful/bad; in contrast to malum prohibitum crimes, which are bad because the law says it's bad, even though it is not inherently evil/wicked/harmful/bad. It doesn't minimize that some malum prohibitum crimes are still justly criminal, but there is a hard line between these two types of crimes. As example, all violent crimes are malum in se crimes, they are inherently evil/wicked/harmful/bad; and no law needs to say that for it to be so, though most nations, even throughout history, do have laws that agree. Like civil rights, that exist in and of themselves, without the need for laws to recognize, affirm, and protect them, in order for them to exist. Our civil/human rights exist, they are intrinsic to being a human being, and these civil rights are the corollary to malum in se crimes. Malum in se crimes are so, because they violate civil rights, such as the right to life, the right to liberty, and the right to self defense. So even in a state of complete anarchy, our civil rights exist, and malum in se crimes exist, as corollaries to one another.

No, you're standing up for a different line in the sand.

And I'm arguing against the notion itself of "a line in the sand," because there is no other such line in the sand for any other of our rights, and because the "line" you're proposing actually is inimical to the Second Amendment's RKBA.

It's essential that we differ honestly or there's no point in a conversation.

I agree with those words, but I don't know what you mean by them. Or at least, I've reason to doubt that we are using the same words. I'm leery that we're victims of homonymy.

I've been straight forward in noting I am not arguing against the right to bear arms.

You've been straightforward in disagreeing with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the RKBA, and you're arguing from your own private opinion of what the RKBA is, so you are arguing against the authorized interpretation of the RKBA. That's just math.

I'm speaking to rational restraint within that exercise, something common to any right.

And I repeat, that what you're proposing isn't common to our other rights, like to free exercise of religion and to free speech. These rights are bound by us not having any right to do harm, and there is no implication that the RKBA is any different, but you are arguing to restrain/infringe that right, and your characterization that laws forbidding slander and libel, and human sacrifice, are like what you're proposing, is not true. It's a false analogy, and not a parallel. You keep saying it is, but it's not.

Neither of us is looking to abolish the right to own a firearm.

And you keep saying this, as if it's answering anything I've said to you. There is no other country that outright bans civilian ownership of guns, without exception and unconditionally. In every country, even in those with the toughest gun laws, there are private citizens who own guns. Even in countries where their laws do not recognize, affirm, or protect, any right of peaceable, law abiding civilians to own guns, there are many civilians who do nonetheless, and lawfully. But this is not handled in these countries as if it is a civil right, and not even close. What you propose, is that we mimic these countries' ideas and laws, and I will fight against that idea for as long as I live. It is wickedness to do what you're proposing. I apologize to anybody offended at that, but that's what I know.

That's what many who believe in abortion rights would say to me or could. It wouldn't change my answer.

Then you know what it's like to write what I just did to you. The RKBA means the right of peaceable, law abiding private citizens, who are of age, and who have not been involuntarily committed to a mental institution, to possess and to carry, standard issue military (not "military style," and not partially-disabled/neutered/blunted "civilian versions/facsimiles of") weaponry, and you do not believe that. We both do not agree with the Supreme Court, that the civil right to privacy entails a right to kill a fetus, themselves having the civil right to life.

Once we recognize that no one is arguing for the right to bear any arms the conversation becomes clearly what it is, discourse over where the appropriate line in the sand should be.

You can't have that view, not in this conversation. You are arguing against the RKBA, and I'm arguing for it, and I am using the authorized interpretation of that right, and you have maintained that you disagree with that authorized interpretation, and so therefore, we must be arguing, at least from my vantage point, about the right itself, and not about any line in the sand.

I tend to agree.

Then maybe this should be where we try to work from. Of course from this point of agreement, I'm guessing that we'd immediately disagree on what should be done instead, but maybe it's worth a try. If current laws which permit people to conceal deadly weapons ("concealed carry" laws and permits, i.e., "CCW," including the current trend of states voting on "Constitutional carry") are bad laws, then that means that states who currently issue such permits, and who ignore people who do carry concealed deadly weapons, should change. This will also help property/business owners who do not want armed people to patronize their establishments, because to do so would involve them concealing deadly weapons. Today, it is not a crime to violate a property/business owners' wishes, because carrying concealed deadly weapons is legal and permitted. In order to violate their wishes without such laws, they would need to conceal them, and they would be breaking the law. I would think that businesses and property owners would agree with such laws being revoked/repealed.

The corollary matter becomes, then what? We've grown used to living in a Union where concealing deadly weapons, which used to be universally seen as criminal, is legal if not common, so what do we do now? What then future President Reagan did in California, in response to the Black Panthers movement, was to outlaw, unconstitutionally IMO, the carrying of long guns. We would have to revisit that decision, if we're going to outlaw CCW, is my position. We would have to become familiar with people wearing guns on their hips, on their waists. In some places within the US, this is already common, but in many places, it would be new and weird, and for many, scary for a little while. And no doubt, there would be battles against allowing the open carrying of weapons, but if we de-moth-ball laws forbidding CCW, then we have to consider what the RKBA means, and it clearly does not mean that carrying or bearing guns should be outlawed.

And to disagree.


And I've said the first isn't strong enough and agreed on the latter.

If it isn't strong enough, then I'm open to ideas. I just think that whatever is done wrt safety training, ought to keep in mind that we have a whole country full of civilian owned guns, so not training everybody, or at least offering it like how sex education and condoms are offered to every student but that parents can opt out their families from these programs, so parents can opt out their families from otherwise mandatory or compulsory gun training for students in public schools.

Expanding NICS checks to private sales and transfers, should simultaneously involve an improvement or fix to the program, so that we are expanding a more just, and a more effective system, and not the current broken system, that didn't even help to prevent Kelley from detonating his mass shooting terrorist bomb in the middle of that Texas Christian church. How tough should this be? How tough is it to sit down, and make a list of all the government agencies that could have information that we want in the NICS system? And how tough to make those organizations do their duty wrt the NICS system? This is murder prevention work, it's among the most important law enforcement work that there is, it's among the most important military work, protecting innocent Americans from being murdered, in advance, just by making sure that the NICS system is fixed, and not broken.

Because of this, it might possibly be better to advance the expansion of the system before the system is fixed, only because the NICS check is known more for false negatives than for false positives. The idea would be coming from the fact, that right now, there are lots of murderers living in America, and that there is a loophole in the NICS check, so that murderers can right now in many states, answer classified ads and get as many guns as they want, and the law can only right now require that sellers not sell to people they know to be unfit or unsuitable, and that convicted criminals not try to acquire any gun.

Even if all sellers always interview potential buyers about their criminal history, they have no way to background test the potential buyer, and must take the potential buyer's word for it that they're not a criminal. So the bottom line is what I said earlier, that murderers can currently acquire guns avoiding the NICS FBI background check system, which would have stopped Kelley, if it wasn't broken, because Kelley bought his weapon at a FFL federal firearms licensed gun retailer.

I'm still open to something other than expanded NICS checks, I'm still open to no NICS checks, but I'm closed to any registration scheme, for reasons given already in this thread.

I'm unconvinced there is a way to retain semi-automatic weapons and the means to make those automatic and in any meaningful sense impact the gun violence and mass murder problem we face as a nation.

Closing the classified ad loophole is the most reasonable thing to try next. At least you're then closing the door that is currently open, for murderers with a criminal record to acquire guns, whenever they like, in many states (the classified ad loophole doesn't affect any of the states in the top five of that suicide list you quoted earlier, but it does the bottom five).

I did.

You did.

Are you seriously under the impression that only those two instances of the nearly 400 mass shootings involved weapons and modifications like those found in Las Vegas and Texas? That's completely wrong.

No, it's mostly right, actually. Most mass shootings war crimes domestic terrorist attacks are not perpetrated with military style civilian version assault rifle type weapons.

That's also completely wrong for the reasons given in rebuttals prior to him on the very point. If you haven't read it then I'd point you there.

You're arguing now that banning mouse guns would prevent mass shootings, or that banning mouse guns would not prevent mass shootings? I'm just losing the plot a little bit.

So abortion is a settled issue for you then? And you'd have been fine and dandy with slavery?

No. It's settled that in those cases also, the laws already do a poor job of recognizing, affirming, and protecting civil rights, like how the laws do the same to the civil right to keep and bear arms.

That's just a long sentence that essentially underscores what I noted about your position prior. You believe we should be wallking about like citizen soldiers.

That's just what you call what I call free citizenship.

I believe we have more guns per person than any of the places that safeguard their citizens from gun violence dramatically better than we do.

That's because we have more guns per person than any place period, including the worst places on earth to live, where murders happen many times more frequently than in America, even though we have many more guns per person than they do. It's not about guns, it's about murderers, and thankfully, while we have too many murderers, we don't have the most.

That's Brazil, incidentally, a country among many others with far fewer guns per person than the United States do, and yet Brazil is the world's kingdom of murderers.

But I appreciate the engagement and clarity.

Good.

We draw very different lines.

And I am beginning to understand how.

 

[Ktoyou]

Suicide is a bad statistic. More persons kill themselves with carbon monoxide, so, should ban all cars? If a person really wants to kill themselves, they will, no matter if they have a gun, or not. Suicide is no longer treated as a criminal act, but a mental disorder.

So, it is my same argument, limit gun ownership by people with mental illness.

 

[Nihilo]

Actually, the Bible does support slavery, just not the variety of it that we cooked up in the West.

God never gave anybody the right to own slaves like cattle.

But again, it took a Constitutional Amendment to end slavery for all time and establish the right of a people to be recognized as people.

Yes, it did. And now, by comparison, we already have a right explicitly already recognized in the Bill of Rights, and in very clear terms using language inimical to any infringement at all upon it, and yet we still have yet to establish it, even in the light of the Supreme Court's handful of cases heard regarding that right, which make it clear the right is possessed by peaceable, law abiding citizens, of age, who have not been committed involuntarily to a mental institution, to own, and to carry, military and police, standard issue firearms, both long guns and handguns. So this is quite unlike slavery.

I'll leave that there.


Unless you don't understand Amendments you believe that too (See: slavery, the right to vote, etc.).

I understand amendments, and I don't believe that, because as I've repeated at least a handful of times, there never was a right to own people like cattle, and there never wasn't the right of women of age to vote, there were just bad and unjust laws that in the first case permitted malum in se crimes, and in both cases failed to recognize, affirm, and protect civil/human rights.

Things can change, by degree or entirely, but only when the Republic speaks with a remarkably uniform belief on the point.

Right.

I think that once women didn't have the right to vote, that many people were considered chattel, and that now neither of those is the case. I think that because it's demonstrably, objectively true. You're free to think what you like.

As can you. Try, people possess the civil rights of liberty and to vote, and when laws recognize, affirm, and protect those rights, then the law is just, and when the laws do not do that, then the law is unjust, and the law was unjust when the laws considered people chattel, and when women didn't have freedom to vote.

Probably, it not being true and all. That sounds like me.


You should try another impression. I'd recommend Christopher Walken. That's a good one if you can pull it off.


Well, no. Nothing like that, honestly. So when you repeat that, you're nothing like honest. I'd prefer to think you're better than that, but if you keep insisting you aren't at some point I'm going to take your word for it.

You can take my word for it, that you do argue against the RKBA, as how the Supreme Court authoritatively interprets the RKBA, as is verbatim mentioned in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, because you've said that you disagree with the Court, and that the Court disagrees with you, at least two times that I can remember.

No, dodging is intentional. I may have missed it or you may have put it poorly. What was it? Sometimes your usage gets problematic. Try again. I'll do my best.

What weapons do you believe we have the right to possess, and carry?

Suffice to say that if I own a weapon that would be banned I'd present it and keep the law. If you need to know more than that you'll have to justify the need beyond satisfying your personal curiosity.


We don't know if you have any. And it doesn't matter until you make it matter by some rational construct. I can't bear a child, but I still have an interest in the abortion issue, by way of example.

Do you have a weapon that the 1994-2004 federal "Assault weapon ban" would have forbidden, while it was the law of the land? Do you have a civilian version of a military assault rifle? Do you have a rifle or carbine that can accept a magazine with a capacity greater than 10 rounds? If you don't have any of these, then you have no skin in this game. It's not curiosity, and there's rationally why it matters. If you're arguing that something you already own should be illegal to possess, then that's one thing, and if you don't, then that's entirely different.

You don't need to know what I do or don't have, beyond just out of curiosity, because regardless, it doesn't change my view, because it doesn't change my motive.

That's irrational. I neither agree with the line drawn by the Court nor favor abolition of the right to bear arms. There's no internal contradiction in that and no distraction unless you have an attention deficit.

Right. The "line." To me and the way I see things, it's good work to define the edges of our rights, and where they terminate, but you are negotiating a "line." The line is fixed, right around other people's own civil rights, and is not negotiable, and wherever the "line" in the laws varies from this fixed line, that is where the laws are unjust, and they need to be fixed.

Same answer. Try a short, clear inquiry. I have no reason to dodge you or your part absent missing it or it being buried in an attempt to communicate that fell short for some reason.

Do you have any skin in this game?

No one has a right to commit a crime.

No one has a right to commit a malum in se crime.

For those wondering at the inexplicable introduction of Latin into the mix, he means a thing that is evil in itself, like murder.

Correct.

What? I'm calling the lack of a right to commit a malumin se crime a restriction?

Yes. To you, libel is a restriction on the right to free speech, and instead, I'm saying, No, libel is a malum in se crime, and no one has the right to commit a malum in se crime.

See, this is probably the sort of thing you'd walk away feeling dodged over, but it's just a construction issue.

We're wrestling around the crux of why we differ.

I've never suggested that owning a gun is evil in itself. I haven't suggested that owning a bazooka is evil in itself either.

OK.

You're trying to argue that my rights are intrinsically bounded by malum prohibitum crimes

I know that your right of exercise is restricted by law. In this case, I believe we have the right to possess firearms. I believe some firearms and aids we currently possess shouldn't be legal and that if they weren't we could have firearm deaths and injuries much more in line with every other Western democracy. I believe that the trade in human life and destruction isn't justified and that the right had a context that has markedly altered over the years since. I've noted that we no longer need militias and that the weapons in use at that time by soldiers were the same sort men used from necessity, beyond the need to summon an army.

I think this might be the axle of our difference. I believe in absolute rights, and I see those absolute rights bounded by other people's own absolute rights, and furthermore that these rights are never to commit malum in se crimes, that are intrinsically wrong. I think we agree this far. I furthermore believe that denying an absolute right is a malum in se crime; witness murder wrt life. Not all malum in se crimes are of equal gravity, cf. vandalism or arson, and murder. But they all involve harm from one person to another, in a direct proximate nexus way. Libel frequently involves no physical harm, but does nonfiction harm nonetheless. Malum in se. Rape, it's possible can leave no lasting physical harm, but it leaves nonfiction harm. It doesn't mean that rape is not graver than breaking someone's arms or legs. Bones heal, and the nonfiction harm is healed, but rape is a nonfiction harm that doesn't heal like broken bones, and it is nonfiction harm. Libel is nonfiction harm, of a different type. Libel is more like vandalism, where the vandalized property, is your reputation as a human being. When someone slanders or libels you, you are the victim of a malum in se crime, and your civil right to own property, in this case the right to own your own reputation as a human being, has been violated, or infringed.

The Supreme Court has ruled on what constitutes infringement of the RKBA, and it's not letting people have access to standard issue military weaponry, that's infringement, and that's it. Everything you're talking about changing is possible, but not if peaceable, law abiding private citizens can't have access to standard issue service rifles and carbines and handguns. Otherwise it's just a political mass shooter shooting rampage domestic terrorist mass murderers war crime, where political is the marketplace of ideas, rather than on a physical battlefield. You're going to get everything else, or at least you can, but you're going to have to fight for every inch if you're also going to support the current ongoing malum in se crime being perpetrated on the American people in direct explicit violation of the supreme law of the land, on the civil right to keep and bear arms.

See? I didn't need a bit of Latin to make the point.

LOL. So what?

You aren't forfeiting the right to bear arms when you can't bear every arm.

No one's talking about every arm. No one. The only reason that RPGs got in here was because you brought them up and made us discuss them. And now that that subject is dead in the water, it is clear, that the right is access to the same standard issue service rifles and carbines, and handguns, that the lowest ranks are outfitted with. We used to sell civilians M1 Garands, which were standard issue service rifles during WWII. The M1 Garand was replaced by the similar, but detachable magazine-receiving, and selective fire, M14, and then, standard issue became the M16, with the M1 being retired completely sometime in that transition. Today America's service rifle is either the M4 carbine or the M16, but that could be dated information.

And the crime only exists after you fail to meet the obligation of law.

Your "obligation of law" is to me "relinquish some of your God-given rights, on pain of fines, and jail-time." Of course peaceable, law abiding private citizens don't want to pay fines or go to jail. This is blackmail. It's like extortion.

There's nothing extreme or convoluted in my position/distinction, which remains one of degree and not kind.

The truth is that your position is extreme, and I've deciphered what looked convoluted. It looks like your position/distinction is of a different kind. The right to life has always implied, and been the corollary to, the proscription of killing. The commandment against killing was recognizing, affirming, and protecting the right to life, it is a good law; just. When it was written by the finger of God upon the tablets, Thou shalt not kill, which recognized, affirmed, and protected the right to life, even then, back then, while Moses breathed, there was the RKBA, and it was the right to possess and to carry standard issue military weaponry, which I'm guessing involved a sword, bows and arrows, spears; I'm guessing. The RKBA is rooted in the right to life, which is also the reason that abortion is a type of killing, because fetuses possess the right to life, which ought not be infringed by the mother's right to privacy, which in the case of abortion does nonfiction harm and is malum in se. But it does depend upon the law establishing the personhood of the fetuses, like how the law had to establish the personhood of various non-white races.

I believe it's "We, the people," and not, "Me, the person."

That's not a parallel. If every American says, "Me the Person," all together, then what's that called? "We the People." That's math.

Yes, there has, your recognition notwithstanding. Now you could say that there was a right to own chattel and that what we now recognize as people we confused with chattel for generations, but who would really believe that to be true?

So there's a right to abortion then.

Disagreed.

Soldiers are trained and armed to serve. Largely that entails being ready to kill the enemies of their country. That truth is why those countries don't similarly arm and train their firemen, whom are no less valuable and who have as much right to defend themselves, but who aren't charged with the soldier's obligation.

We have the obligation to defend ourselves. We have the right, and we have the duty. If we do nothing, then that's how police and military tend to become too socially powerful, along with not being under civilian control. Our police are trying to protect us, who are doing nothing to help them out. We could be prepared to defend ourselves, but instead, most of us shamefully choose to be unprepared, and to pass the buck to law enforcement, and ultimately treat violence as natural disasters and disease outbreaks rather than as crimes. If especially every adult would take the effort to prepare to defend themselves, then that will take a nonfiction load off the police, and we can stop treating their duty to Protect, as we're lounging around and having them wait on us hand-and-foot jut because their other duty is to Serve.

 

[Town Heretic]

... we already have a right explicitly already recognized in the Bill of Rights, and in very clear terms using language inimical to any infringement at all upon it, and yet we still have yet to establish it

Not even a little. The conversation isn't about whether the right exists, as I've repeatedly noted.

I understand amendments, and I don't believe that, because as I've repeated at least a handful of times, there never was a right to own people like cattle

What's true is that before the Civil War a white man had the right to own slaves. It's a literal truth. And it could even be practiced Biblically, if the slave owner was so inclined.

and there never wasn't the right of women of age to vote...people possess the civil rights of liberty and to vote, and when laws recognize, affirm, and protect those rights, then the law is just, and when the laws do not do that, then the law is unjust, and the law was unjust when the laws considered people chattel, and when women didn't have freedom to vote.

The right to vote is an expression of a particular form of government and who that government enfranchises or excludes (children and young people, the deranged, etc.) is an expression of a compact, agreement among those establishing it.

You can take my word for it, that you do argue against the RKBA, as how the Supreme Court authoritatively interprets the RKBA,

Then you can at best say, as I have more than once, that I differ with how the Court sees that right's exercise. And I've told you why and how, with particularity. What you cannot say rationally is that I don't support the right to bear arms. I don't support every version of its exercise, to be sure.

What weapons do you believe we have the right to possess, and carry?

Answered prior, though more germane to the discourse is an examination of those other countries that do a much better job of stemming the tide of gun violence and mass shootings.

If you're arguing that something you already own should be illegal to possess, then that's one thing, and if you don't, then that's entirely different.

Because you want it to matter doesn't mean that it logically does or should. In the same way, whether or not you possess a single firearm or a truckload of AR 15s has literally nothing to do with the substance of this discourse, which is why I've never inquired on the point.

No one has a right to commit a malum in se crime.

No one has a right to commit a crime.

To you, libel is a restriction on the right to free speech

Rather, it objectively is entirely that, however you value the restriction, however you justify it. If speaking my mind works a harm that no reasonable man would inflict upon himself then the right to speak his mind is illusory. But in any event, if you can tell me what I may or may not legally say you have restricted my right to speak, or limited its exercise. Happens with every right.

, and instead, I'm saying, No, libel is a malum in se crime, and no one has the right to commit a malum in se crime.

At law you have no right to commit a crime in either case. The legal distinction you use incorrectly is one to distinguish type, not right.

I believe in absolute rights

An absolute right to bear arms would be without any particular restraint. You believe in the Court's version of a right you will then call absolute in that expression.

I furthermore believe that denying an absolute right is a malum in se crime; witness murder wrt life.

Unless you distinguish between created and inherent rights, the difference between the right to life and the right to vote, by way of illustration, I differ. There's nothing inherently evil in denying a child, or the incompetent the right to vote. There is in denying them the right to exist, to put a point on it.

I skip over the particulars of grading violations of law on a curve. Suffice to say it occurs and is reasonable, as is consideration within the law for mitigation from black letter law where reason and circumstance demand it.

The Supreme Court has ruled on what constitutes infringement of the RKBA

Not disputed. Also not what the conversation is about any more than discussions on abortion about the Court's position in Roe.

You're going to get everything else, or at least you can, but you're going to have to fight for every inch if you're also going to support the current ongoing malum in se crime being perpetrated on the American people in direct explicit violation of the supreme law of the land, on the civil right to keep and bear arms.

If the people as a result of reflection and conversations like this one decide to alter the law of the land there's no crime of any sort being perpetrated on anyone by anyone.

No one's talking about every arm. No one.

Right. You can have the right to bear arms without that. Yor may believe it's about how specifically you can aim one. You may choose to embrace the notion that you should be able to arm yourself like a citizen soldier. We're all talking about the line in the sand. What is permissible and what is not in exercise, supra and prior.

The only reason that RPGs got in here was because you brought them up and made us discuss them.

And bazookas. But the only reason they were introduced was to observe what was and what wasn't really being argued over, a thing you still haven't gotten right, supra and prior.

Your "obligation of law" is to me "relinquish some of your God-given rights, on pain of fines, and jail-time."

The right to bear arms is a created right, not an inherent or God given one. At best you can argue that the nature of man, his fall and corruption, made them either a necessity or an inevitability. God didn't arm Adam. Man wasn't made for war.

Of course peaceable, law abiding private citizens don't want to pay fines or go to jail. This is blackmail. It's like extortion.

No, this isn't blackmail or extortion unless you don't understand either or the law in foundation. You also have to possess all sorts of licenses to do all sorts of things and those aren't extortions either.

The truth is that your position is extreme

No, it's reasoned. The problem is that the status quo was founded on a set of facts and circumstances no longer applicable or true in many respects. Resisting that, the status quo, is actually extreme and dangerous, and responsible for a great deal of preventable carnage.

The RKBA is rooted in the right to life

No, it isn't. It's founded in the need for a civilian army, in the recognition that many if not most of those who would live under a unified law and Constitution required weapons beyond this state need to both procure food and livelihood, and to protect themselves from hostiles, and to protect themselves from evil men, especially where there were few if any evidences of legal support, or police, to assist them. And the right preserved them their tools, tools that were not capable of the broad lethality we have today, in circumstances far different, where the gun is rarely a tool required for livelihood or sustenance and where the police are a steady presence in most places, where we possess a standing army, and where law can be upheld otherwise. So, much of the reason has fled and the tools themselves have become so clear and present a danger to the public peace and enjoyment of right (in many but by no means all expressions) that it is reasonable to approach the subject again.

which is also the reason that abortion is a type of killing, because fetuses possess the right to life

So NOW you don't want to read what the Court has said about the right. And so we discuss.

If every American says, "Me the Person," all together, then what's that called?

A silly exercise in social narcissism? I think you missed my point on that one.

So there's a right to abortion then.

Disagreed.

Yeah, that literally followed my quote but it didn't follow the logic of it or rebut it. No idea what you were up to there.

We have the obligation to defend ourselves.

And for the God alone knows how many times no one is disputing that, least of all me.

We have the right, and we have the duty.

Yes and no, respectively. I have no inherent duty to preserve my own life. In fact, I can give it up willingly for another and count it among the highest moral acts. Even outside of that morality we honor soldiers who sacrifice their lives for others.

If we do nothing, then that's how police and military tend to become too socially powerful, along with not being under civilian control.

Our military is not and has not been held in check by our stash of assault weapons. That's not how it works. If we promote a respect for our institutions and remain actively and ethically engaged in the process of government we have little to fear from it. If we abrogate our responsibilities it becomes what we allow it to become.

Our police are trying to protect us, who are doing nothing to help them out.

We are among the most armed people in the world. We dwarf our cousin Western democracies in that respect. And we are the least safe among them.

Doing the same thing or more of it and expecting a better result is social insanity.

Updating a post from earlier in the month. five days ago:

Meanwhile, using the FBI measure of mass shootings to tally the dead:

2013: 457
2014: 364
2015: 423
2016: 647
2017: 531 555 560 so far this year.

And the wounded:

2013: 1,176
2014: 1,213
2015: 1,387
2016: 1,781
2017: 1,619 1,883 1,895 so far this year.

Status quo is not the answer. It's time to take action before the next tally.

 

[Stripe]

What's true is that ... man had the right to own slaves ... Biblically.

Not even remotely true.

Why would you say this?

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[Town Heretic]

And because it bears repeating:

Meanwhile looking back to last year, from the article What I Learned Tracking Every Mass Shooting in America and Europe, 2016:

As of publication I had tracked 370 mass shootings in the US, which left 392 dead and 1,502 injured. Meanwhile I tracked only 35 incidents in all of Europe over the same timeframe, which left 53 dead and 174 injured. - Mark Hay, Vice.com, January, 2017

We not only can do better, we have to.

 

[Stripe]

:yawn:

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[Nihilo]

before the Civil War a white man had the right to own slaves.

It was not an inherent right then, and it's not now, and it never was and it never will be. It was evil and unjust law that permitted people to commit malum in se crime. Like with abortion today. If you say there was a right to own slaves like they were cattle, then there is a right today for mothers to terminate their pregnancies. No other option.

Because you want it to matter doesn't mean that it logically does or should.

'Same goes for you.

if you can tell me what I may or may not legally say you have restricted my right to speak, or limited its exercise. Happens with every right.

If you can tell me what I may or may not legally shoot you have restricted my right to keep and bear arms, or limited its exercise. See?

If the people as a result of reflection and conversations like this one decide to alter the law of the land there's no crime of any sort being perpetrated on anyone by anyone.

If it's unanimous, of course. Otherwise, that's why we have a Bill of Rights, it's to prevent people---even a majority---from passing unjust and wicked laws that fail to recognize, affirm, and protect inherent human, civil rights. The Bill of Rights protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority, and it's the only thing that does so.

a thing you still haven't gotten right

No, I got it right, honestly.

The right to bear arms is a created right, not an inherent or God given one.

The right to keep and bear arms is an inherent, human, civil right.

the status quo, is actually extreme and dangerous, and responsible for a great deal of preventable carnage.

The status quo is we've got too many murderers. We've got to do something about all the murderers, we agree on that.

So NOW you don't want to read what the Court has said about the right. And so we discuss.

Which right?

I think you missed my point on that one.

I think I got it, honestly.

There's never been any right to own people

Yes, there has

So there's a right to abortion then.

Yeah, that literally followed my quote but it didn't follow the logic of it or rebut it. No idea what you were up to there.

Really?

Our military is not and has not been held in check by our stash of assault weapons.

No one's disputed that. The Commander-in-Chief is a civilian.

We are among the most armed people in the world.

No, we are not among them, we are them. Nobody else is even close.

we are the least safe

The more the murderers, the less safety. That's just math.

Doing the same thing or more of it and expecting a better result is social insanity.

What do you call legal slavery? What is legal abortion on demand called? Are these also social insanity? And what about using statistical fallacies to attempt to advance an agenda? Is that social insanity?

Updating a post from earlier in the month. five days ago:

It's good to update regularly, so that people know that when we talk about MURDERERS, that it's not just a statistic, or a number. Murderers are out there, and they're active, right at this moment, and they will continue to murder, because that's what they do; murderers murder. And America has a murderer problem, and we better do something about it, because the murder rate in America is more than in any other Western democracy.

 

[Town Heretic]

It was not an inherent right then, and it's not now, and it never was and it never will be.

I never called it inherent. It was created, but a right none the less, like the right to vote.

Like with abortion today. If you say there was a right to own slaves like they were cattle, then there is a right today for mothers to terminate their pregnancies. No other option.

I agree. There's no other option but to recognize that in this country, within certain parameters, a woman has the right to abort the unborn. Doesn't make it moral, ethical or rational. But that's the way it is and will be unless the Court is overruled by public opinion through amendment.

If you can tell me what I may or may not legally shoot you have restricted my right to keep and bear arms, or limited its exercise. See?

I was never confused about every right being subject to rational limitation in exercise and in balancing it among other rights and individuals. No one really believes in unfettered right. And the rest is discourse and decision.

The right to keep and bear arms is an inherent, human, civil right.

That's declarative. There's nothing more to sustain it. And I answered it in my last.

The status quo is we've got too many murderers.

The status quo is where we are, with mass shootings and gun violence, with a want of universal laws and the commiserate carnage. In Western states where that isn't the case, and to a lesser extent in our own states where laws are stronger, that violent result is appreciably lessened, as I've illustrated.

No, we are not among them, we are them. Nobody else is even close.

And by an extraordinary measure the least safe Western democracy on the planet. It's not even close.

It's good to update regularly, so that people know that when we talk about MURDERERS, that it's not just a statistic, or a number. Murderers are out there, and they're active, right at this moment, and they will continue to murder, because that's what they do; murderers murder.

All the more reason to make sure that impulse meets a limitation on means that will lessen their ability to broaden their impact.

 

[Nihilo]

I never called it inherent. It was created, but a right none the less, like the right to vote.

I'm glad we have determined which are the apples and which are the oranges. Inherent rights, and created rights.

There's no other option but to recognize that in this country, within certain parameters, a woman has the right to abort the unborn. Doesn't make it moral, ethical or rational.

Or inherent.

The right to bear arms is a created right, not an inherent or God given one.

The right to keep and bear arms is an inherent, human, civil right.

That's declarative. There's nothing more to sustain it. And I answered it in my last.

I learned that from you.

The status quo is where we are, with mass shootings and gun violence, with a want of universal laws and the commiserate carnage. In Western states where that isn't the case, and to a lesser extent in our own states where laws are stronger, that violent result is appreciably lessened, as I've illustrated.

Status quo is too many murders, and therefore, because of math, too many murderers; and yet you mention neither, not even once.

And by an extraordinary measure the least safe Western democracy on the planet. It's not even close.

Because of murderers. You keep forgetting them. I'm sure they appreciate that, but it's irrational of you to continue to do so. I know I know: declarative.

All the more reason to make sure that impulse meets a limitation on means that will lessen their ability to broaden their impact.

"That's declarative. There's nothing more to sustain it."

 

[Stripe]

There's no such thing as a "created" right.

 

[Town Heretic]

I'm glad we have determined which are the apples and which are the oranges. Inherent rights, and created rights.
Or inherent.I learned that from you.

I think it's an easier way to distinguish among rights and among crimes for most people than using unfamiliar Latin phrases. It doesn't lessen the legal authority, but it puts the thing in a context. There are rights we're born with and those that proceed from them. From the desire to exercise a protection of life and liberty we create a government to protect them and now we have the right to vote, necessary for preserving the means to protect our broad liberties and to balance them among us in a civil society.

Status quo is too many murders, and therefore, because of math, too many murderers; and yet you mention neither, not even once.

You can't say the status quo contains murders and then decide that my note of the status quo doesn't note murders.

What I've done is propose an approach to impact those violent deaths in this country, particularly, in keeping with the topic, the mass murder/shooting variety. The fact is that every Western democracy has a significantly lower homicide rate, as do states with stricter gun laws compared with those that don't. It's why I noted the five best and worst states in relation to gun control laws and the impressively different rates of violence attending that distinction.

Internationally, and from the UNODC intentional homicides per 100k in 2015 (the most recent figure I could find for many) and the U.S. in 2016:

France: 1.58
Germany: .85
Australia: .98
Switzerland: .69
Netherlands: .61
Luxemborg: .72
Spain: .66
Portugal: .97
Italy: .78
Greece: .85
UK: .92
U.S.: 5.3

Because of murderers. You keep forgetting them. I'm sure they appreciate that, but it's irrational of you to continue to do so. I know I know: declarative.

I'm less concerned with it being declarative and more concerned with it being misleading, supra.

 

[Nihilo]

I think it's an easier way to distinguish among rights and among crimes for most people than using unfamiliar Latin phrases.

As long as we're using the same lexicon, so that we're not talking past each other, that's fine.

It doesn't lessen the legal authority, but it puts the thing in a context. There are rights we're born with and those that proceed from them. From the desire to exercise a protection of life and liberty we create a government to protect them and now we have the right to vote, necessary for preserving the means to protect our broad liberties and to balance them among us in a civil society.

If we believe that democracy is the inherently best form of government, then I'd venture that the right to vote is inherent and not created. But that depends upon whether we believe that democracy of some form is the inherently best form of government. Your constant comparison between the U.S. and other "Western democracies" indicates that you may agree.

You can't say the status quo contains murders and then decide that my note of the status quo doesn't note murders.

You did not previously note murder, nor murderers. I just see no rational reason for the neglect, since it is murder that's the problem, by whatever means.

What I've done is propose an approach to impact those violent deaths in this country, particularly, in keeping with the topic, the mass murder/shooting variety. The fact is that every Western democracy has a significantly lower homicide rate

Right, no argument. I'm just continuing to remind that murders require murderers, and so such statistics necessarily mean that America has more murderers in our population than do any of these other countries.

, as do states with stricter gun laws compared with those that don't. It's why I noted the five best and worst states in relation to gun control laws and the impressively different rates of violence attending that distinction.

Correlation does not prove causation, although significant causation should result in significant correlation. The data that I recall you sharing, had suicides lumped together with murders, and accidental shooting deaths. Suicides are the majority of shooting deaths in all of the United States, and virtually none of them are committed with any long guns, neither hunting rifles and shotguns, nor with partially-disabled, "military-style," "assault weapons." Suicides are virtually all committed with handguns, as are most felony murders, murders, accidental shootings, and also mass shooting shooting rampage domestic terrorist mass murder war crimes.

Internationally, and from the UNODC intentional homicides per 100k in 2015 (the most recent figure I could find for many) and the U.S. in 2016:

France: 1.58
Germany: .85
Australia: .98
Switzerland: .69
Netherlands: .61
Luxemborg: .72
Spain: .66
Portugal: .97
Italy: .78
Greece: .85
UK: .92
U.S.: 5.3

In most if not all of these countries, the murder rate is climbing. In addition, while a good 3/4-to-4/5 of murders are ultimately solved, that means that at least one of every five murders go unsolved, leaving these murderers freely roaming among peaceable, law abiding citizens. We not only have a murder and therefore murderer problem, but we also have a problem of identifying and capturing murderers, which is another facet of our problem.

Back when the U.S. had a civilian-owned guns per person figure (50 years ago) that is half of what it is today, the murder rate in the U.S. was the same as it is today. Therefore, the number of guns in civilian hands doesn't influence the murder rate, proving not only at most, weak causation, but in fact no causation at all, because there is no correlation; the cause/causes of all these murders is/are something else. IOW, had we, 50 years ago, thought to deliberately test the hypothesis that more guns will cause more murders, and we deliberately doubled the number of guns in civilian hands per person, to see if we could move the murder "needle," the needle didn't move. So we've denied the hypothesis that more guns will cause more murders; it's a false hypothesis.

I'm less concerned with it being declarative and more concerned with it being misleading, supra.

I'm concerned with misleading also. It's worth examining what other countries with far fewer murderers among them, are doing that we could do also. We already know that changing gun laws won't move the needle, because otherwise, the needle would have moved over the past 50 years, and it didn't move. (Well, full disclosure, it did move, up, to about double, for a few decades, from the mid-1960s, and then it came back down again; all the while, the number of guns in civilian hands, kept marching onward and upward. It's worth examining what if anything, was done over this period, to reduce the number of murderers among Americans.)

 

[Town Heretic]

As long as we're using the same lexicon, so that we're not talking past each other, that's fine.

Seems reasonable. I'm mostly thinking about the one or two people who aren't us who might for some reason read through the conversation.

If we believe that democracy is the inherently best form of government, then I'd venture that the right to vote is inherent and not created. But that depends upon whether we believe that democracy of some form is the inherently best form of government. Your constant comparison between the U.S. and other "Western democracies" indicates that you may agree.

I'm a strong believer in a republic approach to governing, but I don't believe either or our opinions should necessarily invest that with inherency.

You did not previously note murder, nor murderers.

An odd insistence unless you believe I believe (or anyone believes) that the murders I've been noting statistically happen independent of anyone accomplishing them.

Right, no argument. I'm just continuing to remind that murders require murderers, and so such statistics necessarily mean that America has more murderers in our population than do any of these other countries.

I don't know. I'm not sure it's possible to objectively know. But I know that among Western democracies our rates of murder and violence distinguish us.

Correlation does not prove causation, although significant causation should result in significant correlation.

A thing I've noted more than once.

The data that I recall you sharing, had suicides lumped together with murders, and accidental shooting deaths.

I've looked at a few different bases and examinations. The first involves mass shootings, which often contain within them a suicide. In addition to that I've looked at firearm violence, both as homicides and in sum. I've looked at deaths by firearms in countries and in states with comparatively stronger and weaker gun laws.

Suicides are the majority of shooting deaths in all of the United States

Almost 2 to 1 the last time I saw numbers. In 2013 it was around 11k homicides and 21k suicides, with fewer than 1k in accidental and less than half that "undetermined".

,and virtually none of them are committed with any long guns, neither hunting rifles and shotguns, nor with partially-disabled, "military-style," "assault weapons."

Which makes sense when you consider how much easier it is to use a pistol.

Suicides are virtually all committed with handguns, as are most felony murders, murders, accidental shootings, and also mass shooting...

True on the lower end of the FBI generated threshold. Certainly not true of the higher end of the death pool, as in Las Vegas or Texas.

In most if not all of these countries, the murder rate is climbing.

Cite to source? And what do you mean by climbing? Sounds serious, but take, say, France. Its rate was steady at around 1.2 for three years, ticked up in 2015 to 1.6, fairly incremental as climbings go. I imaging the influx of 3rd world refugees is influencing that number. Spain had a murder rate of .8 in 2012 per 100k. It was .66 in 2015.

In addition, while a good 3/4-to-4/5 of murders are ultimately solved, that means that at least one of every five murders go unsolved, leaving these murderers freely roaming among peaceable, law abiding citizens. We not only have a murder and therefore murderer problem, but we also have a problem of identifying and capturing murderers, which is another facet of our problem.

We know that a lot of the lower level homicide occurs in relation to crimes of passion and between people engaged in criminal acts and that the higher order, mass shootings are different animals. We also know that most of the violent crime in our nation is committed by a relatively small number of individuals and a great deal of it by repeat offenders, concentrated in areas that can be avoided. Not so of the mass murderer and/or serial or spree killers.

Back when the U.S. had a civilian-owned guns per person figure (50 years ago) that is half of what it is today, the murder rate in the U.S. was the same as it is today.

Cite to source and years. The murder rate was much higher during the peak youthful years of the Baby Boom and began to drop when that population aged.

Therefore, the number of guns in civilian hands doesn't influence the murder rate

I've literally cited studies that run contrary to your estimation, an estimation that doesn't appear to consider the factors that can impact that rate.

Now you can certainly choose to believe that it's an amazing coincidence that every Western nation with stronger and universal gun laws does a dramatically better job at maintaining lower rates of gun violence and mass shootings, and you can choose to believe it's a coincidence that states with stronger gun laws have appreciably lower rates of gun related violence than states that don't.

IOW, had we, 50 years ago, thought to deliberately test the hypothesis that more guns will cause more murders, and we deliberately doubled the number of guns in civilian hands per person, to see if we could move the murder "needle," the needle didn't move.

It actually did. It did dramatically. And on the downside you're just not considering why that changed.

In the mid 60s the number of murders was single digit thousands, around 9k.
By 1970 it had risen steadily to 16k per year.
By 1974 it was at 20k.
Most of the 80s saw it at 20k.
By 1991 it had reached almost 25k and it stayed in the 20s until the beginning of a slow decline that dipped under 20k in 1996.
By 2000 it was down to 15k and a half before edging back up to around 16 for most of the remainder of the decade.
By 2014 we saw murders down to almost 14k even, the lowest since 1968.
In 2015 it ticked up to nearly 16k.
In 2017 it reached 17k, continuing an upward trend.

In the 60s the rate was around 5.3, lower in the beginning and rising to a high of 7.3 by 1969.
In the 70s the rate avg. was around 9.0, with a high of 9.8 in 1979.
In the 80s the rate avg. was around 8.7 with a high of 10.2 in 1980.
In the 90s the rate avg. was around 8.1, with a low of 5.7 in 1999.
2000-2009 the rate avg. was around 5.5 with a low of 5.0 in 2009.
2010-2016 the rate avg. was around 4.8 with a low of 4.4 in 2014, before trending up in the following 2 years, 4.9 in 2015 and 5.3 in 2016, respectively.

So we've denied the hypothesis that more guns will cause more murders; it's a false hypothesis.

Rather, you've demonstrated the danger of isolating without observing. So today looks a lot like 50 years ago, but in between is a very different story. It's the story of a large population with largely unfettered access to guns. So the arc of crime and violence isn't singularly about the tool, which is important. Also important, within population comparisons, which I've offered, state to state and nation to nation. Those argue against you. States with stronger gun laws do much better at protecting their citizens than states with weaker gun laws, mirroring the same relationship we find comparing our nation to the nations of Europe. And we've led the world in gun possession all along that chronology.

 

[Stripe]

Seems reasonable.

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[Town Heretic]

Five days with no mass shootings in America. Last occurrences on Nov. 24th leaving 5 dead and 12 wounded in three separate incidents.

 

[Stripe]

Five days with no mass shootings in America. Last occurrences on Nov. 24th leaving 5 dead and 12 wounded in three separate incidents.

:yawn:

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