And that's nonsense prima facie, as I cannot hold both the knowing advance of a falsity and be ignorant of the same. That's always been a lazy, irrational bit of rhetoric. Pick an insult.
First off, I have only once attacked your character through insulting remarks. It was the 5th grade comment. That is the only time. I did that for two reasons: 1.) It was true; I recroded those notes from my (liberal) fifth grade teacher. 2.) To demonstrate what an "insult" is.
Classifying something as ignorant or a falsehood is not insulting. At no point have I attacked your intellect. I hope I have made that clear.
To begin, here is my quote: "Your claims and argument that the second amendment "reads," "says," "was used for," etc solely for the purpose, and as a precursor that is no longer necessary, to form a military force is a falsehood."
Your response:
And, again, that is not and has not been my view any more than my aim is to eliminate the right. In fact and at nearly every point I have advanced that the right was an extension of any number of pragmatic understandings, but that (and lately in our particular discourse) having hung its necessity on an overriding and compelling necessity no other was needed at the time of its writing. It should have been amended long before now to include a larger consideration.
I think that I have utilized poor choice of vocabulary. Perhaps the more adequate analysis would be that you set up your argument, using second amendment being solely for the obsolete precursor for a standing military force, as a background noise as means of supporting your argument.
I would say that this is a much more suitable analysis. My apologies for poor phrasing before. I, too, have utilized historical context (more accurately) as the background noise for my own argument. I would even posit that the genesis of such background noise was my own leading argument, by stating that my position is the same as the Founders. While this disagreement is rooted in history, I would say that it should not bear upon the legislation that we are intending to discuss. I think it would be productive if we left historical analysis behind in order to focus on present issues.
If I need to demonstrate my analysis, here is my evidence:
That's the ticket. We didn't have a standing army, unlike the nations that could threaten our security as a union, loose as that union was initially and comparatively. So we had to rely on a militia. That militia was necessary and the people who comprised it must then necessarily have weapons and the right to them protected. Basic social contract. Good notion.
I also think there were other good reasons for protecting the right to bear arms. I'm sure those were understood in the time as well, but given the overwhelming need and good served by the first they weren't needed. Literally.
Had the Founders merely wanted to promote the right to bear arms among its people no mention of the militia would have been necessary. That they began with that very consideration is indicative of their intent. That said, again, I think they were aware of other pragmatic reasons, reasons I support to this day, but the one given was sufficient for the day.
(even as I hold there are other valid reason owing no part to either militia).
Well, no. I noted that the right had a context and purpose. That context was centered on the preservation of the fre State. The threat to that was from foreign powers. But really man, pick an object. You only just said you weren't talking about the tyranny of our own government and now you speak to Jefferson's fear of the fear of just that.
Right. The right was established in the absence of a standing army to safeguard our legal ability to raise one from our ranks (among other, unvoiced but I think important considerations that really should have been written in, but understandably weren't given the right to one protected the right to others). There wasn't a sufficient vision of our nation as a more unified and federally controlled institution to envision the standing army and degree of federal development and control that would come later.
On to modern day....
...the arguments I've presented for the actual point here, or what was supposed to be the point of the conversation, the argument for restricting certain guns from entry into the stream of commerce without the abolition of the right to bear arms.
Glad we agree.
Sorry to hear it, though you're likely responsible with them. I say sorry to hear it because that indulgence, a needless one, is the premise for a great deal of equally needless harm.
Sorry to hear that as well. I've rarely met anyone who was skilled in the use of a gun who couldn't also break that gun into parts for proper cleaning and I wonder at how long or what sort of ROTC program she was involved with? Smacks of high school, perhaps. That would explain it.
No, I would be making an argument from authority had I advanced my qualifications and said that because of them my position on a particular (outside of an understanding or point directly tied to any or all of them) must be true.
Now here's what actually happened. You said that my remarks demonstrated "an ignorance of firearms". Responding that I am a life long hunter, possessing a qualified skill in their use, among other notes, is a clear rebuttal on the general point you make in your mistaken assumption.
Here you make two assumptions. The first is the ideological fallacy relating to my owning of weapons more volatile than an AR-15. You classify my indulgence as a needless one, and as a premise for a great deal of equally needless harm.
I am of no threat to a law-abiding citizen, in any capacity, by owning firearms of higher damage potential than an AR-15. Also, my owning of two of such guns is deemed necessary for my career, due to interactions with wildlife. Now, you see how your former statement was ignorant, because you did not possess the knowledge that such guns were necessary for my career? But now, you are not ignorant of such reason any longer, for you have been educated.
The second assumption you made was that my sister was in high school ROTC. She was. She was also in college ROTC, although with no plans to join armed forces of any division. It was just where her then-friends enjoyed to spend their time.
The reason I provided such information was to demonstrate that your input of such information as a means of proving that you possessed gun knowledge was an appeal to authority. Hence, why I included that bit afterwards.
If it makes you feel any better, I was ignorant to if you were a lawyer or paralegal, due to my inability to recall such facts. You educated me, by informing me of you passing the BAR (congrats on that, by the way). Thus, I moved from ignorant to educated.
Picking up....I'd written "Absent speed loaders a revolver isn't really that much more dangerous, except in terms of concealment, than a double barrel shotgun."
.....
What I see is a disconcerting habit of assuming or not fully contextualizing on your part. For instance, you choose a 45 and assume what caliber of shotgun? At what distance? With what skill, etc? In general, a shotgun is more deadly for any practical use. You want home defense, I'll take my double barrel 20 gauge indoors over any handgun. And I'm skilled with a handgun. Most people, criminal or not, aren't particularly proficient in the use of their weapon in the best of circumstances, let alone in a situation involving adrenaline and fear.
Beyond that, I've considered six shot revolvers. I wouldn't consider much if anything beyond that, if that.
I agree that such statistics and details matter. Thus, my example.
My "disconcerting habit" is equal to yours. You said that a revolver isn't really that much more dangerous than a double-barrel shotgun. You had not fully contextualized your argument there, but are quick to point out that my example is an assumption, absent of full context.
My example was to demonstrate that such a claim of revolvers not being more dangerous than a double-barrel shotgun, could be, and often are, wrong (unless you are including illegal double-barrel shotguns). A Judge, which is classified as a revolver, possesses six shotgun rounds, as opposed to two. Thus, the Judge can accurately be labeled as "more dangerous."
You seemed much to quick to try and dissolute my point, rather than consider it. This seems to solidify my questioning of you seeing where you were wrong in your revolver vs shotgun statement.
Let's progress........
My quote: "I know it is an old, and overused argument, but it is relevant: Heroin, cocaine, etc are illegal. Yet, people still have access to them. Has this supply not been impacted?"
Your reply:
And yet where the measures I support are in play deaths and violence by gun are appreciably lower than where they are not.
This is not evidence in the US. According to that CDC report, the top locations in the US with the highest rate of gun crimes/deaths are those with the strictest gun laws and regulations, which include Washington D.C., Baltimore, LA, Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit.
How do you address this evidence, as it relates to your claim?
If laws had no impact there would be no laws. Laws impact on two fronts. First, their consequence deters the reasonable man in his pursuit of any particular desire. Illustration of this is in the notable decrease in loss of life following the lowering of speed limits and the insistence of seatbelt use in cars. Does it stop every? Of course not. Does it work a good? Of course it does. Second, laws which prohibit the manufacturing, distribution and sale of particular things will necessarily impact the distribution and sale of those things. The fewer of them the less damage is likely by them (see: every other Western democracy with universal and tougher gun law). As even those who oppose my measures note, it's a logical necessity. Water is wet. Even those who don't want to bathe can recognize the empirical truth of the proposition.
I agree that laws are necessary and have an impact. Your first front is correct.
Your second, I would say is also correct, however your conclusion is not. "The fewer of them the less damage is likely by them (see: every other Western democracy with universal and tougher gun law)." Why do we see increases in violent crime being introduced correlational to tougher gun restrictions and regulations?
If you wish to use a comparable country: The UK, when it introduced stricter gun laws, saw an increase from teen percentages to 59% of the burglaries being “hot burglaries” (burglaries committed while the home is occupied by the owner/renter).
If you find it insufficient argue for increasing the numbers of police or proximity to the citizenry.
Rather than addressing critical questions of "What is the average response time of a police force to a home invasion? And Or how about to a public murder, such as any mass shooting?," you attempt to redirect the issue to numbers and proximity of police.
If you wish to follow through with this redirection, then I would submit the fact that most crimes occur within cities, not in rural areas. Your argument would bear weight if evidence pointed to more rural locations having higher crime rates, but that is not the case. Again, we see higher gun crime rates in major cities, with the largest police forces per capita, and with the strictest gun laws.
Citation to authority? In any event, what I have cited to and noted is that the banning of these weapons leads to an easily observable distinction when it comes to gun violence, deaths, and mass murders.
Not according to the CDC.
Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day. This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. The types of guns used: the kind you would ban.
Also, of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.
*The above facts are also supported by two other sources; Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," and Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," NIJ Research in Brief (May 1997); available at
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf.
Rather, it may evidence any number of things, from a saturation point past which additional weapons have an increasingly marginal impact. It may reflect a decrease in a given population prone to using those weapons violently. Any number of things really. And so we have more guns per individual than any nation on earth and lead the world in gun violence and mass murder. This rather demolishes the argument that safety is found in the possession of more guns. Coupled with the statistics from our cousins the rational course is clear.
In point of fact, where gun laws are more strict in our own states the deaths per 100k of citizens is markedly better and compared to every other Western industrialized democracy with universal and stronger gun laws that undeniable fact becomes more dramatically evidenced
Yet, the claim that the US leads the world in gun violence and mass murder is false. This is even supported by liberal, anti-gun websites, such as
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list.
The US is not leading in gun violence. The alt-fact I have heard is that if you remove the top five crime ridden cities, which have the strictest gun control laws, the US drops down to like 183rd in gun crime. Now, I do not think this alt-fact is true, hence my labeling it as an "alt-fact." But, the truth within this false fact is that the most violent cities in the US, sporting the highest numbers of gun crimes, have the strictest gun laws. The locations with the lax gun laws, such as rural areas, have more guns per person, and near minimal gun crime.
Evidence does not support your conclusion.
Not really. At least not in the sense that we are. I've noted Sweden, which has dramatically more gun control than we do here. You have to take and pass a serious test first after a year long course. You can't own more than six guns without special permission. You have to store them in a safe and transportation of them is regulated as well. You can't own guns if you're a felon, convicted of domestic violence, or driving under the influence. You can't own a fully automatic weapon and the chances of your getting a license for a semi-automatic aren't great.
I agree with most of these rules. The only two laws you mentioned that do not exist in the US are the year long course/test and a limit of six guns, without special permission.
What about Switzerland?
My point is that both of these countries have extremely high ownership rates, to the point of nearly every citizen having at least one gun, and boasting low crime rates. Thus, you claiming that "saturation point past which additional weapons have an increasingly marginal impact," is sort of proven wrong with the examples of Sweden and Switzerland.
Google deaths per 100k by guns and see what you come up with.
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
(link)
Thank you for the superb link. I appreciate it.
I do note that the numbers are mostly consistent with the CDC analysis. However, this report does not take into account those pesky details that you are a stickler for. What details? Such as gang and drug related crimes making up 80% of all gun deaths in the US. These are illegal guns, owned by people who are prohibited from having guns, being used for illegal purposes.
The link you provided also does not compare gun crimes adequately. For example, the focus is on the US age and crime rates. But firearm assault is not classified the same way, internationally. The article also is publishing such statistics based upon a selected researcher, rather than a conglomerate of statistics. Not saying that the researcher is wrong; but much more reliable research would examine and compile information from a variety of sources, such as FBI, Police forces, CIA, etc.
You are certainly free to view it as a coincidence of staggering dimensions.
Well, let us consider the quotes (in a numerical point format) from the CDC:
1. Armed citizens are less likely to be injured by an attacker:
“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”
2. Defensive uses of guns are most common:
“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”
3. Mass shootings and accidental firearm deaths account for a small fraction of gun-related deaths, and both are declining:
“The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths. Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons.” The report also notes, “Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”
4. Gun buyback/turn-in programs are “ineffective” in reducing crime:
“There is empirical evidence that gun turn in programs are ineffective, as noted in the 2005 NRC study Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. For example, in 2009, an estimated 310 million guns were available to civilians in the United States (Krouse, 2012), but gun buy-back programs typically recover less than 1,000 guns (NRC, 2005). On the local level, buy-backs may increase awareness of firearm violence. However, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for example, guns recovered in the buy-back were not the same guns as those most often used in homicides and suicides (Kuhn et al., 2002).”
5. Stolen guns and retail/gun show purchases account for very little crime:
“More recent prisoner surveys suggest that stolen guns account for only a small percentage of guns used by convicted criminals. … According to a 1997 survey of inmates, approximately 70 percent of the guns used or possess by criminals at the time of their arrest came from family or friends, drug dealers, street purchases, or the underground market.”
6. The vast majority of gun-related deaths are not homicides, but suicides:
“Between the years 2000-2010 firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearms related violence in the United States.”
And here, I will toss you a little nugget;
7. “Interventions” (i.e, gun control) such as background checks, so-called "assault rifl"e bans and gun-free zones produce “mixed” results:
“Whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue.” The report could not conclude whether “passage of right-to-carry laws decrease or increase violence crime.”
Moving on:
Rather, they target only some types of guns. The guns used successfully to murder scores of children in minutes. Yes. That's right.
You mean handguns, as "assault rifles" have not been used in most school shootings?
On a last note....
Were that the case we'd be the safest country on earth instead of the least among equals.
Murders (all, not just gun deaths) per 100k:
U.S. 4.88
Denmark .99
Finland 1.6
Sweden 1.15
UK .92
Greece .85
Italy .78
Portugal .97
Spain .66
Austria .51
Belgium 1.95
France 1.58
Germany .85
Most of those are 2014 and 2015 numbers according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
I will stick with the CDC research, ordained by Obama, and with research not conducted by the most regressive organization on the planet (the UN).
A horrible thing. Now unpack it. In the account you're speaking to it wasn't some lone nut, but a group of men in a train station. A group of individuals in a tightly packed space committing an act of terrorism. A planned and coordinated act. They have more in common with Tim McVey than with the deranged or evil young man in Florida, or the deranged and/or evil fellow in Las Vegas. That is to say, they are an outlier among outliers and really, practically speaking, outside of the point.
Well, no. It is a fact that more knives are used than rifles in violent acts. It's a rather singular one. But my objection has not been limited to rifles and where rifles not to all. Your statement that then asserts I must be a hypocrite if I'm not similarly situated on restricting knives without your having similarly framed the point is mistaken.
Knives, unlike the class of guns I'm considering, haven't been designed to kill a great many people in a short period of time. And in the singular sense (use of any one of them to manage it) they have rarely been used to accomplish or capable of that end. Recall that this was a part of my noting what distinguishes the class of weapons that I objected to in relation to the sort of weapon I support in defense of the right.
I'd agree that if for no apparent reason other than to serve your ends we agreed to focus on all knives as an instrument of violence when compared to one class of guns, knives would win that peculiarly narrowed race.
It seems you are just dismissing knives being used more than rifles, solely because such a fact is detrimental to your cause.
If I am wrong, then why focus on "assault rifles," since knives are used far more? If I am wrong in your focus, then please explain it more concisely.
Lastly, guns available to the public have not been designed to kill a great number of people in a short period of time. The AR-15 for example is a small game rifle, modeled after the military's M4. The .223 round is simply lighter for the armed forces to carry, however, it is not ideal for dispatching enemies, especially absent a FMJ.
If you have an example of a currently legal gun, or guns that have been designed to kill great numbers of people in a short period of time, please let me know what they are.
In summary, we can dispatch with historical debate on the second amendment, as it is serving no purpose on current discussion regarding regulations on guns. Statistics demonstrate that guns are used far more (80 times, in fact) to save lives, than to murder. A majority of gun violence is committed by people already engaging in illegal activities, involving illegal guns, further committing illegal acts. These individuals clearly are not going to care about what laws and regulations are in place. Also, the US is not the most violent, gun ridden country in the world, despite the abundant falsehoods that claim it is.
Questions for you:
1.) What evidence do you posit that demonstrates "where the measures I support are in play, deaths and violence by gun are appreciably lower than where they are not"?
2.) Why do we see increases in violent crime being introduced correlational to tougher gun restrictions and regulations? (Partly rhetorical, however, if you continue in your claim that gun regulations equal less gun crime, then it becomes a relative and critical analysis)
3.) Why focus on "assault rifles," since knives are used far more, in violent crime/deaths? (only applicable if you maintain that rifle regulations are more relevant and necessary than knife regulations/restrictions)
4.) If I am wrong in your focus, then please explain it more concisely.
5.) If you have an example of a currently legal gun, or guns that have been designed to kill great numbers of people in a short period of time, please let me know what they are.