You have children including young children. If one of you children were shot and killed in a mass shooting, would the fact that your kids death was just one of an extremely low number of victims make you feel any better?
It not about a "gun culture," but a "death culture."
- Thread starter elohiym
- Start date
You have children including young children. If one of you children were shot and killed in a mass shooting, would the fact that your kids death was just one of an extremely low number of victims make you feel any better?
oatmeal
Well-known member
If we are indeed concerned about reducing deaths we should work on road related deaths.
There about 30,000 road related deaths per year.
For that matter, if we consider that smoking is the cause of about 1,300 deaths a day, a day why haven't we banned tobacco use?
Why? because we would rather tax those things that are killing us.
Tobacco is killing 1,300 people a day vs. people murdering other people at 13,000 people a year?
And we allow tobacco?
Tobacco use is suicidal
There about 30,000 road related deaths per year.
For that matter, if we consider that smoking is the cause of about 1,300 deaths a day, a day why haven't we banned tobacco use?
Why? because we would rather tax those things that are killing us.
Tobacco is killing 1,300 people a day vs. people murdering other people at 13,000 people a year?
And we allow tobacco?
Tobacco use is suicidal
You are more honest with this answer than most of your posts. Why are you such a malcontent? Are you Calvinist in your thinking of God, and that he directs everything and therefore all things wrong are wrong because God decreed it?
Quetzal
New member
I don't know. I am not dodging your question I just have genuinely no idea what the divine is, how it works, or if it even exists. Sorry that upsets you.
I believe even you would make the correct choice on the fly, as you call it. A man jumps out and chokes you, your response is what? He jumps on your mother when the two of you are in Target. Your response is what?
Ask him to stop or you have to think it through?
Quetzal
New member
It is not always so black and white.
Unless someone has training, I don't think anyone knows exactly how they would respond in such a situation due to the *shock factor*.
Quetzal
New member
Right and that was my argument from the beginning. I don't mind firearms in the hands of someone who has formal training.
I would have an issue with firearms being banned in such a way that law abiding citizens were not able to defend themselves in their own home.
Quetzal
New member
Sure, I wouldn't argue against that. Despite my distaste for firearms, they aren't going anywhere. In regards to what you are referring to, we are in agreement.
Foxfire
Well-known member
That was certainly the case for somewhere between a half million to a million Rwandans who were hacked to death with machetes' in a country that has an average of just over 1 (one) gun per 200 people.
We live in a culture where an entire generation has no memory of the US NOT being at war. :think:
elohiym
Well-known member
Of course not; but the point is that I wouldn't blame guns for my child's murder because it would be irrational to do so. The cause of murder isn't guns but a certain mindset.
If your child was stabbed to death in a mass-stabbing, would you seek to ban knives or regulate them more than they are now?
PureX
Well-known member
I agree.
And that "mindset" is the result of a very long honored and often repeated cultural narrative involving the use of handguns and deadly force to resolve our problems and differences. In effect: we 'kill our problems' by labeling the people who present them to us as 'evil', and obliterating them with violent force. And in our books and movies it's easy to make this absurdly over-simpistic narrative appear reasonable, because the "bad guys" are always really bad, clearly bad, and irredeemably bad. They 'deserve' to be annihilated from existence, and the big payoff in the narrative is the obliteration of evil through the obliteration of the 'bad guys'.
But in real life such absurd over-simplification is unrealistic, and leads us to make very unreasonable choices and decisions that cost a lot of real human beings their lives. Yet we are so enamored with this over-simplistic fantasy of solving the problem of evil and contention with others in our society by killing those who manifest it that we won't recognize the fantasy for what it is, and let go of it. And this is the real reason that so many of us are so absurdly resistant to any sort of gun control. We are 'in love' with our fantasy of the righteous gun-slinger obliterating evil, and the instant resolution and gratification that comes with it.
This love of fantasy and the habit of denial in favor of fantasy seems to be a particularly U.S. American trait, and it's been keeping us from seeing ourselves as we really are for a very long time. And from seeing the reality of how we behave toward each other, and toward the other people of the world.
If this is the "culture of death" that you were referring to in your OP, then I whole-heartedly agree with you. But I honestly do not know how we are going to combat generations of cultural imprinting, now, when most of us can't even recognize that it's happened, and still happening. And they will fight tooth and nail to deny it if we try to show them.
So all that leaves us with is the practical imposition of gun regulation aimed at trying to minimize this fantasy of the righteous gun-slinger and the irrational and dangerous behaviors that result from it. And even that will be a great struggle, because even that will be resisted tooth and nail by those who have long since incorporated this fantasy into their concept of reality. Not to mention that it will hurt the bottom line of the gun manufacturers who wield a great deal of influence in the both the media and the halls of government.
Quetzal
New member
I would like you to take out a piece of scrap paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left side I want you to list all of the things that make knives and guns similar. In function, design, and aesthetics. On the right side list everything that makes them fundamentally different. I really need you to see just how different these two things are. Perhaps this elementary exercise might help you.
elohiym
Well-known member
elohiym said:
Not necessarily. Perhaps fewer people would be killed with guns, but that is just an assumption and depends on what you mean by "less available." The murder rate could remain the same; with the decrease in gun homicide there could be an increase in knife homicide. For example, according to Australian crime statistics: "Firearm use has declined by more than half since 1989-90 as a proportion of homicide methods, and there has been an upward trend in the use of knives and sharp instruments, which in 2006-07 accounted for nearly half of all homicide victims."
elohiym said:
Who is arguing the right to bear arms is the right to commit murder or be negligent? Not me. There are laws against murder and criminal negligence already. You seem to believe a woman's right to privacy is the right to abort (murder) her child.
Apply some common sense to a fact: If any law infringes on a constitutional right, that law is void. I don't have to pretend that a void law is bad.
The same can be said for knives, cars and other things. I also posted statistics on negligent deaths caused by physicians being approximately 400,000 per year. Your focus on guns is irrational.
That's obviously not true, and it's not relevant enough to the topic to debate. .
elohiym said:
Therefore, you are going to do nothing about weapons that account for 12% of the murders because you think they are "part of ordinary things like cooking." That's a lame reason, to put it mildly.
If someone gave you the choice of being shot in the head, stabbed to death, burned to death or being beaten to death with bear hands, which method would you choose?
Quetzal
New member
I don't think I have ever seen someone use such an unreasonable defense for guns anywhere. That says a lot.Not necessarily. Perhaps fewer people would be killed with guns, but that is just an assumption and depends on what you mean by "less available." The murder rate could remain the same; with the decrease in gun homicide there could be an increase in knife homicide. For example, according to Australian crime statistics: "Firearm use has declined by more than half since 1989-90 as a proportion of homicide methods, and there has been an upward trend in the use of knives and sharp instruments, which in 2006-07 accounted for nearly half of all homicide victims."
Who is arguing the right to bear arms is the right to commit murder or be negligent? Not me. There are laws against murder and criminal negligence already. You seem to believe a woman's right to privacy is the right to abort (murder) her child.
Apply some common sense to a fact: If any law infringes on a constitutional right, that law is void. I don't have to pretend that a void law is bad.
The same can be said for knives, cars and other things. I also posted statistics on negligent deaths caused by physicians being approximately 400,000 per year. Your focus on guns is irrational.
That's obviously not true, and it's not relevant enough to the topic to debate. .
Therefore, you are going to do nothing about weapons that account for 12% of the murders because you think they are "part of ordinary things like cooking." That's a lame reason, to put it mildly.
If someone gave you the choice of being shot in the head, stabbed to death, burned to death or being beaten to death with bear hands, which method would you choose?
This Charming Manc
Well-known member
The highlighted bit is important her, as a proportion.
However if you look at the overall graph of homicides in australia
http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/aic/research/homicide/homiciderate2.png
You would see its a higher proportion of a smaller number, which seems to be about a static amount, comparing the two graphs
However guns shows a drop as a proportion in a falling number with suggests the drop is steeper than your graph would suggest.
However if you look at the overall graph of homicides in australia
http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/aic/research/homicide/homiciderate2.png
You would see its a higher proportion of a smaller number, which seems to be about a static amount, comparing the two graphs
However guns shows a drop as a proportion in a falling number with suggests the drop is steeper than your graph would suggest.
Not necessarily. Perhaps fewer people would be killed with guns, but that is just an assumption and depends on what you mean by "less available." The murder rate could remain the same; with the decrease in gun homicide there could be an increase in knife homicide. For example, according to Australian crime statistics: "Firearm use has declined by more than half since 1989-90 as a proportion of homicide methods, and there has been an upward trend in the use of knives and sharp instruments, which in 2006-07 accounted for nearly half of all homicide victims."
You don't know what? What do you mean dodging questions and upset? Are you high?
Speaking of gun control versus murdering 3000 like al qaeda did without firing a shot....
| A weapon is only a tool | |
Quetzal
New member
You are moving the goal posts. You were asking me about my spiritual background.
If you look at what I have actually said you would know that I am not trying to ban guns. I am trying to find a way to make it much harder for murderes ro actually get and keep guns. By necessity, it will have to be invasive. Many don't like that but you are not willing to do something completely different than what we are currently doing, nothing will change.