2016 Election Thread

[TheLeviathan]

 

Then I think what you are seeking is a party yet-to-be named.

 

Maybe, but Libertarian is the closest to it that exists.  It damn sure isn't the Republicans and the naivete of liberalism still clouds any plans most Democrats have.

 

So, yeah, I'm stuck.  And, if you look around, you'll find a majority of Americans can fall along those same lines.  What we need to do is on one hand reject the partisanship while also accepting a compromise of some beliefs.  If we do that and go with "Smart Government, More Freedom" as a basic platform for ideas - we COULD oust these two parties.

 

But, sadly, too many get scared into voting the same ol' way.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

What is? doing nothing? Because the VAST majority of gun deaths have nothing to do with religion or terror. What is the answer?

 

Doing something and doing it wrong compounds issues.  That's what gun control does.  It creates an allusion, not unlike our beloved TSA, but it doesn't fix issues.  You need to look at human nature here.  Gun deaths have a lot more to do with poverty and a complete societal break down.  Add some mental health issues in there and you have a really bad concoction of factors.  No one wants to touch that one, and sadly the government has more responsibility for those than any of us would like to admit, whether that be not taking care of our veterans to an economic system that is slowly siphoning money out of the hands of the poor and middle classes and into the hands of the wealthy. 

 

But take away guns... all that will do is increase the frequency of these types of events along with their casualties. 

[TheLeviathan]

 

I'm being a bit sarcastic here, but the reality is that no gun law is going to prevent someone from getting machine gun.  It may make it harder, but it won't make it impossible.  

 

If your logic for the existence of laws is that they must make the crime "impossible" to commit, you're advocating anarchy. 

 

No laws work that way.  Can you join us back in reality for the rest of the discussion?

[PseudoSABR]

 

 Criminals break the law.  I'm being a bit sarcastic here, but the reality is that no gun law is going to prevent someone from getting machine gun.

 

Only in theory are you correct. Nearly every mass-shooter was not a criminal prior to their atrocious act.  These people aren't criminal experts; they don't associate with criminals.  In practice, many of these individuals, esp. the white suburban males, wouldn't have any idea where to get an illegal AR-15.  Sure, they could do it, but it would take time, and would be fraught with risk.  It's not like texting around and trying to find some weed.  (I'd like to see Dylan Roof try going to some urban center and asking around to buy a machine gun.)  

 

Additionally, gun laws do seem to be working, because we don't have known-criminals out there committing mass shootings.  They too could conceivably buy weapons on the black market and stick it to the man with a mass shooting, but common criminals aren't the ones motivated to do mass-shootings; it's righteous people who disguise themselves in normality and bid their time until they commit the atrocity often willing to die.     

[Mike Sixel]

 

Doing something and doing it wrong compounds issues.  That's what gun control does.  It creates an allusion, not unlike our beloved TSA, but it doesn't fix issues.  You need to look at human nature here.  Gun deaths have a lot more to do with poverty and a complete societal break down.  Add some mental health issues in there and you have a really bad concoction of factors.  No one wants to touch that one, and sadly the government has more responsibility for those than any of us would like to admit, whether that be not taking care of our veterans to an economic system that is slowly siphoning money out of the hands of the poor and middle classes and into the hands of the wealthy. 

 

But take away guns... all that will do is increase the frequency of these types of events along with their casualties. 

 

Worked in Australia. I think they bought something like a million guns....

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-guns-idUSKCN0XP0HG

 

http://time.com/4172274/what-its-like-to-own-guns-in-a-country-with-strict-gun-control/

 

The arguments against this, that I can find, basically say "American's would never allow this to happen" or, "it is against the constitution". But, violence and death have dropped.....that's the goal, right?

 

As for "criminals will break the law, so we shouldn't have the law"....does that apply to stealing, or raping or killing also? That's just a terrible, terrible, logical fallacy. Awful.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

If your logic for the existence of laws is that they must make the crime "impossible" to commit, you're advocating anarchy. 

 

No laws work that way.  Can you join us back in reality for the rest of the discussion?

 

I'm advocating for reforms that actually solve problems, not create more.  If that's denying reality, then I think it's time we all had a reality adjustment. 

[Mike Sixel]

 

I'm advocating for reforms that actually solve problems, not create more.  If that's denying reality, then I think it's time we all had a reality adjustment. 

 

Like what? What reforms are you arguing for? Because if all you are doing is arguing "no" .... well, then you aren't really making a good argument.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Worked in Australia. I think they bought something like a million guns....

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-guns-idUSKCN0XP0HG

 

http://time.com/4172274/what-its-like-to-own-guns-in-a-country-with-strict-gun-control/

 

The arguments against this, that I can find, basically say "American's would never allow this to happen" or, "it is against the constitution". But, violence and death have dropped.....that's the goal, right?

 

As for "criminals will break the law, so we shouldn't have the law"....does that apply to stealing, or raping or killing also? That's just a terrible, terrible, logical fallacy. Awful.

 

If the government wants to go out and have a voluntary buy back of guns to get them off the street, then by all means go do so.  I have an issue though with the government that is far more concerned about limiting freedoms than protecting them and using a crisis as a guise to implement laws that the end of the day won't work. 

 

Australia bought back 1 million guns...  Just how many would the US government have to buy back for that to work?  Again, there's 192 million guns in this country (and that's an estimate)... oh, yeah, and we're broke too.  There's that minor little difficulty. 

 

I'll say what I said before, as it still stands.  Gun control isn't going to fix that problem.  It will take guns out of the hands of citizens who are law abiding and put them in the hands of those who could care less about the law.  Yes, there's more risk for those who might want to acquire a legal fire arm (to Levi's point), but it won't stop them. 

 

You're looking for this solution in all the wrong places, and you're quite willing to sign away your (and my) freedoms for the allusion of security.  It's rather sad really.   I'd suggest we get back that piece of paper that supposedly governs this land as just about every problem that our country faces today can be traced back to where they deviated from that document's original intent when it was convenient to them. 

[mikecgrimes]

 

I have no idea what you are talking about.  Liberals want single-payer heath care, and openly admit it.  We got ObamaCare b/c of compromise and corporate interests.   No one secretly wants to take your guns, and the ObamaCare debate certainly doesn't prove that liberals or Democrats have some secret dark-hearted agenda.  It's just right-wing paranoia and it's crippling the government. 

 

The notion that a controlling party shouldn't allow a vote if they won't like the results is anti-democratic any way you slice it. 

 

After Gruber it's easy to go back and say people were open and honest about true intent.  But if you ever once said oh come on nobody's saying single payer as is related to the actual bill being discussed then it's the exact same thing.  The problem with remembering correctly the significance of Gruber is that everyone that pays attention from either side understood true intent before Gruber spelled it out.  Maybe true intent on guns isn't to slowly tear away all gun rights one by one but after we change this set of laws we will have another mass shooting, then what?  I already know.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I'm advocating for reforms that actually solve problems, not create more.  If that's denying reality, then I think it's time we all had a reality adjustment. 

 

No, you made an absolutist argument.  Look, the last time this broke out I also argued that most gun reforms (short of taking away forms of guns) is not going to stop these attacks for some time.  They just won't because of the existing proliferation.  I made that argument because I wanted to be a realist about why we're changing the laws.  The reason isn't to make a crime "impossible".  That is an absurd line to draw.  The sign telling me to drive 15 mph in a school zone doesn't stop the next idiot from going 100.  That's not the point.  Sometimes the point is to remind those so called "law abiding citizens" what the law is.

 

And the law should be pretty simple - you don't need (to quote O'Reilly) a mortar, a bazooka, a tank, or any large magazine forms of assault rifle.  And the sooner we stop allowing those guns to go into circulation among the citizenry, the sooner we can talk about proliferation.  We can't buy back all the guns like Australia did, but we sure as hell can start the clock on when those guns stop going in circulation.  Will it be next month?  No.  Next year?  No.  But maybe in 10 years these weapons are only in the hands of police (shouldn't even be there, but whatever), the army, and some criminals.  Not in the hands of some security guard who beats his wife.  Or a disgruntled teenager.  We pass these laws to start the clock on reducing their proliferation over time.  Plain and simple.

 

There is no one-size-catches-all fix to this.  There can't be.  Gun reforms won't, in some sweeping motion, fix this.  Nor will any other single law we pass.  They won't "fix" these crimes.  Or make them "impossible".

 

But what do they actually fix?  They start fixing our social contract.  The laws and accepted way in which we live.  Where we decide we don't need body armor, military weapons, and a Punisher cache in our basement to feel like 'Mericans.  Or even to feel safe.  The proper regulation of guns goes a long way to fixing the soul of the country.  One step back towards sanity.  It'll take more, but it's a damn nice start.

 

We have to win the culture war against guns, it's sad that it's taking more of these mass shootings to win people over, but that's what has to happen.  The laws themselves need not be super efficient (they probably won't be), but their successful passing is, in and of itself, a victory in changing the culture of this country about guns.  

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Like what? What reforms are you arguing for? Because if all you are doing is arguing "no" .... well, then you aren't really making a good argument.

 

I think you need to fix the economic problem in this country and quit meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations to start. 

 

Islam, like it or not, loses a lot of that fire when the average Muslim has little reason to hate us, but when we bomb them, torture them, kill hundreds of thousands of their people in regime changes (and create 10 times that in refugees), occupy them, torture them, and in general destabilize their region, all in the name of giving them freedom; then don't act surprised when they decide to take up arms and kill the infidel, especially I might add when it doesn't take a high amount of intelligence to see through the lies used to justify it.  Islam is convenient.  These people are angry.  They are all angry for different reasons, but where Islam succeeds is that it can unify and direct their anger.

 

It's not that much different on the economic side.  Our government is in the pockets of the elite, and there's a system in place that is slowly destroying the wealth of the middle class, while simultaneously seeking to limit their freedoms.  Criminals at the highest level get away with their crimes and true reform.  This has created a huge underclass, where poverty is now one of those most pressing problems in the US.  1 in 5 US children are born in it now, and those numbers aren't shrinking.  Poverty can be as destabilizing as regime change, and it's contribution to this mess cannot be ignored. The land of opportunity is no longer a land of opportunity, and what was once hope has now been replaced with despair.  People recognize this, they don't recognize why, especially at a micro level when they see their problems in context, and if they have a preconceived hate of someone for whatever reason (which just about everyone does at some level), they start blaming them for the problems they don't understand.   People are angry for many reasons, the problem though is that our system in place plays on that anger.  That's how Hitler motivated Germany to kill 6 million Jews.  He unified them behind their anger, demonized his opponents, and riled up his base to slaughter htem.  It's the same formula that Republicans use against Democrats, Democrats against Republicans, Islam against the west, and so on and so forth.  The problem is that it only yields more anger, more despair, and when the powers that be are not actually fixing the issues, people take matters into their own hands.

 

[PseudoSABR]

 

  I'd suggest we get back that piece of paper that supposedly governs this land as just about every problem that our country faces today can be traced back to where they deviated from that document's original intent when it was convenient to them. 

Yeah when we deviated from that whole three-fifths a person thing, the country really went down hill.   Constitution was flawed then and it's flawed now.  It's not holy. It was written by many people with many different intents.  It must be interpreted, and there are a wide-range of reasonable interpretations that differ greatly.  

 

You know that it was only in 2007 that Supreme Court declared a gun control law as unconstitutional, right?  Funny how it took more than 200 years to learn the original intent of 200 year document...

[Craig Arko]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/06/15/what-happened-when-an-orthodox-jewish-congregation-went-to-a-gay-bar-to-mourn-orlando/

 

What happened when an Orthodox Jewish congregation went to a gay bar to mourn Orlando.

[nicksaviking]

I'm advocating for reforms that actually solve problems, not create more.  If that's denying reality, then I think it's time we all had a reality adjustment.

 

So every other 1st world country is just lucky?

 

Besides by the "don't make a law that can easily be broken" theory, why should illegal immigrants be illegal if they can get in anyway. Just open up the borders.

[twinsnorth49]

No offense, but if you believe the first part of your statement you weren't paying attention. I'm not so certain the second part is true either, but that' a bit harder to prove.

 

People to this day are upset about how the government handled this, not to mention the federalization of airline security as a nice handout to the industry who had to fund it prior... and if you think the TSA is well run, efficient, and even remotely good at what it does.... well, I cannot help you. They maintain the allusion of security... and it's just that, an allusion.

 

Gun control by the way isn't much different. In my limited understanding of human sociology, I've discovered one fundamental truth... Criminals break the law. I'm being a bit sarcastic here, but the reality is that no gun law is going to prevent someone from getting machine gun. It may make it harder, but it won't make it impossible. Any gun regulation falls into that as it will be the law abiding citizens who end up without guns and will have no option but to hide when seconds matter and the government is minutes away. There are, on estimate 192 million guns in the US. They aren't going anywhere, and making them harder to obtain will create a black market that will eventually see the transfer of these weapons out of the hands of those who should have them and into the hands of those who shouldn't. Let's stop putting whitewash up on our crumbling walls. Gun control isn't the answer here. It may make people feel better, but it won't stop these events. If anything, it will create a greater target rich environment for them.

Nobody believes this will stop all of these events, but making it more difficult to obtain a gun will reduce them, it works in other countries.

 

Sadly, you're response smacks of nothing but cynicism. It may come across as a "let's get real here people" approach, but it's just cynical.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

No, you made an absolutist argument.  Look, the last time this broke out I also argued that most gun reforms (short of taking away forms of guns) is not going to stop these attacks for some time.  They just won't because of the existing proliferation.  I made that argument because I wanted to be a realist about why we're changing the laws.  The reason isn't to make a crime "impossible".  That is an absurd line to draw.  The sign telling me to drive 15 mph in a school zone doesn't stop the next idiot from going 100.  That's not the point.  Sometimes the point is to remind those so called "law abiding citizens" what the law is.

 

And the law should be pretty simple - you don't need (to quote O'Reilly) a mortar, a bazooka, a tank, or any large magazine forms of assault rifle.  And the sooner we stop allowing those guns to go into circulation among the citizenry, the sooner we can talk about proliferation.  We can't buy back all the guns like Australia did, but we sure as hell can start the clock on when those guns stop going in circulation.  Will it be next month?  No.  Next year?  No.  But maybe in 10 years these weapons are only in the hands of police (shouldn't even be there, but whatever), the army, and some criminals.  Not in the hands of some security guard who beats his wife.  Or a disgruntled teenager.  We pass these laws to start the clock on reducing their proliferation over time.  Plain and simple.

 

There is no one-size-catches-all fix to this.  There can't be.  Gun reforms won't, in some sweeping motion, fix this.  Nor will any other single law we pass.  They won't "fix" these crimes.  Or make them "impossible".

 

But what do they actually fix?  They start fixing our social contract.  The laws and accepted way in which we live.  Where we decide we don't need body armor, military weapons, and a Punisher cache in our basement to feel like 'Mericans.  Or even to feel safe.  The proper regulation of guns goes a long way to fixing the soul of the country.  One step back towards sanity.  It'll take more, but it's a damn nice start.

 

We have to win the culture war against guns, it's sad that it's taking more of these mass shootings to win people over, but that's what has to happen.  The laws themselves need not be super efficient (they probably won't be), but their successful passing is, in and of itself, a victory in changing the culture of this country about guns.  

 

I've been over this Levi, I have.  The problem with starting the clock is that the guns will eventually end up in the wrong hands, which will be solely the government (bad as I don't trust them) or criminals (just as bad).  The problem isn't guns.  If someone wants to drive 100 MPH in a school zone, it's because their intent is to kill... plain and simple.  Most of us will slow down, b/c while it's obnoxious, we don't want to run over a kid. 

 

If you want to win the culture war against guns, you have to fix the problem that is people.  There's a reason someone grabs a gun and walks into a night club and goes crazy, and it isn't related to the fact that guns are easy to access.  Those people will still get their guns.  If the can't (and I don't think a lack of legal access to guns will fix it) they will find plenty of creative ways to kill people (heck, the internet has plenty of ways a person can device using household items that will do just as much damage).  Guns are easy, but if you get rid of them, they will find another way, whether that be an a bomb or simply finding said gun illegally.  It won't solve the problem.  That is what we want, right?  To solve this problem... at the core you have a very real problem with man's depravity.  You can abate the violence by solving their fundamental needs (give them food, housing, clothes, etc.).  It won't eliminate it, but it puts enough risk on it that most will walk away. 

 

The problem isn't guns.  It's people.  Solve the people problem and guns are the least of your concerns.  If you look at what drives people, it's greed.  Plain and simple.  The Bible (whether you believe it or not) isn't wrong when it says the love of money is the root of all evil, and putting aside all the other issues that you likely don't agree with, it's a statement that rings true.  Solve the economic issue, and a lot of these problems just go away.  Solve the foreign policy issue (and let's face it, greed has a place there too) and over time they go away.  Take away guns, and the problem remains.  You don't fix why it is that someone is willing to massacre a bunch of kids or young adults in a night club.  People that do those types of things rarely have something to lose.  You're looking in the wrong place. 

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Yeah when we deviated from that whole three-fifths a person thing, the country really went down hill.   Constitution was flawed then and it's flawed now.  It's not holy. It was written by many people with many different intents.  It must be interpreted, and there are a wide-range of reasonable interpretations that differ greatly.  

 

You know that it was only in 2007 that Supreme Court declared a gun control law as unconstitutional, right?  Funny how it took more than 200 years to learn the original intent of 200 year document...

 

I get the document wasn't perfect.  I don't pretend it is (and you make a good example as to why it wasn't ), and let's not build a straw man here either.  I'm not saying that slavery was ever a good thing, of course, we tend to ignore that every western country could end slavery without a civil war that killed 1 million of its people.  Why couldn't we? I'll give you a hint, there were items the South was willing to give up slavery for, and it comes back down to money.

 

What it did have was  a great mechanism to prevent abuse, and like it or not, the people that wrote it down got far more right than they did wrong.  It also had a mechanism to allow for change, but that apparently is too difficult for people, as using dialog to convince others as to what is right or wrong is not nearly as easy as bypassing it to achieve whatever agenda we desire.  Let's not pretend that the constitution is upheld in any capacity today.  It's not.  Both sides parties it.  That's why said gun law was there in the first place.  It was a check against tyranny.  There's a downside to that, and we are seeing it today, but we are willing to accept tyranny in the face of a law that won't do jack to keep us safe.  Sorry, I won't back that. 

 

By all means, if you think guns are bad, put a fund together to buy up all those guns.  I'm sure plenty will fund it, and those looking to sell on the secondary market will be more than happy to sell to someone like you.  If you can stay away from the human desire to make money off of them, it might actually work... but you don't need the government for that (and I guarantee you that the humans running the government won't stay away from said desires).  You can do that without forcing your ideals on someone else.  Is it that hard to do?

[twinsnorth49]

 

 

If you want to win the culture war against guns, you have to fix the problem that is people.  There's a reason someone grabs a gun and walks into a night club and goes crazy, and it isn't related to the fact that guns are easy to access.  Those people will still get their guns.  If the can't (and I don't think a lack of legal access to guns will fix it) they will find plenty of creative ways to kill people (heck, the internet has plenty of ways a person can device using household items that will do just as much damage).  Guns are easy, but if you get rid of them, they will find another way, whether that be an a bomb or simply finding said gun illegally.  It won't solve the problem.  That is what we want, right?  To solve this problem... at the core you have a very real problem with man's depravity.  You can abate the violence by solving their fundamental needs (give them food, housing, clothes, etc.).  It won't eliminate it, but it puts enough risk on it that most will walk away. 

 

It's certainly helped by the fact it's as easy to buy a gun as a vending machine soda. If I can make someone have to do the extra work to find a way to kill a bunch of people as opposed to making it simple for them, I'm all for it. Maybe someone notices a person doing an awful lot of legwork on ways to kill 6 year olds, maybe they don't , but I'd rather give myself that opportunity than to just hand the gun over the counter to them.

 

If saying banning guns is a lazy argument against gun deaths,  then so is the, "they'll just find something else anyway" one. That's just an excuse to maintain the status quo and have it your way. Many issues contribute to why the people who do these things do them, I honestly don't think you need to tell most of the people on this board that, they get it. But while we idealistically try to work on curing humanity I think trying to do something in the interim that at least might help to reduce or avoid these tragedies is probably a good idea. If the social cost of that is you can't own a rocket launcher or that you risk facing the oppressive tyranny of the government, then I think in the grand scheme of things it's probably one most people are willing to live with. At least when the alternative is just a whole lot of talk.

 

I realise I live in Canada, and I probably have a pretty good idea of what your opinion on that is, regardless, we too have socio-economic issues, growing disparities in wealth, challenges in the areas of mental health care, not to mention a 3rd world level issue of  poverty with  our indigenous people. What we also have are fairly stringent gun laws, and while we admittedly still experience our fair share of gun related deaths, I believe they play a role in preventing more of them from occurring. Which in my opinion allows us to focus more on the real reasons that cause them, instead of endlessly arguing about why owning an assault rifle is fair or not.

[TheLeviathan]

 

 

 

I've been over this Levi, I have.  The problem with starting the clock is that the guns will eventually end up in the wrong hands, which will be solely the government (bad as I don't trust them) or criminals (just as bad).  The problem isn't guns.  If someone wants to drive 100 MPH in a school zone, it's because their intent is to kill... plain and simple.  Most of us will slow down, b/c while it's obnoxious, we don't want to run over a kid.

 

 

And speeders will always speed, the point remains the same - you just made it for me again.  We can't control criminal intentions, but that doesn't mean we abandon laws to try and control them and punish offenders.  I'm asking the same thing here - just like you slow down out of the best intentions for everyone - I'm asking you to give up your military weapons - for the best intentions of everyone.  You still get to own your gun (drive your car) we just regulate it (laws).  And we regulate it knowing full well it isn't a fix-all.

 

o solve this problem... at the core you have a very real problem with man's depravity.  You can abate the violence by solving their fundamental needs (give them food, housing, clothes, etc.).  It won't eliminate it, but it puts enough risk on it that most will walk away.

 

 

So let me get this right....you say the plan to regulate guns won't work....we should just fix human nature?  I mean....are you trolling me here?

 

As north says, other first world countries simply don't have this happen because the tools to execute the ugly side of ourselves aren't there.  They are highly controlled and difficult to access.  When a 17 year old can just walk into their house, open a safe, and walk out the freaking Punisher - you are throwing gas on the fire.  You're giving hate and people with nothing to lose the tools to go out in a blaze of death.  

 

What gun regulations do, over time, is reduce proliferation and access.  I'm not going to sit here, like some, and argue gun laws fix the problem.  They won't.  Nothing, in and of itself, will.  We have to defeat the idea that you need guns to survive and live your life.  You'll be fine.  We have to defeat the idea that they give power to someone.  They don't.  That battle is going to take a long time to win, but reducing the kinds of military tech that people have access to will, over time, reduce these instances.  

 

It's one step, along with many others, we have to take.  

[ashbury]

guns will eventually end up in the wrong hands, which will be solely the government (bad as I don't trust them) or criminals (just as bad).  

I'm asking you to give up your military weapons  

I've been mostly away from this discussion for a week or so, but it seems to me that we are still talking past one another.

 

Diehard alluded to the underlying premise that I brought up a while back - a dystopian future where the government pays a visit to take everything you have (plus he brought in the point about criminals running rampant that I didn't think of adding since it's not my vision).

 

Asking to give up military weapons is a non-starter when this is the point of view - military weapons are precisely what the survivalist faction demands to keep.

[Craig Arko]

Asking to give up military weapons is a non-starter when this is the point of view - military weapons are precisely what the survivalist faction demands to keep.

Time to get back to working on the Plutonium collection, I see.

 

http://www.radiabeamsystems.com/?gclid=COzJk9vesc0CFQ6oaQodqmcFLw#!products/cc57

[DaveW]

"Gun laws don't work and won't work"

 

I see this a lot, and once again for the 5th time in this thread I will ask this question, I'm pretty sure it won't get a response from the people who say the above quote. But here we go anyways....

 

If gun laws don't or won't work, then can you please explain how the murder rate dropped 50% in one year (and has stayed down) in NYC the minute tough gun laws were passed?

[TheLeviathan]

 

"Gun laws don't work and won't work"

I see this a lot, and once again for the 5th time in this thread I will ask this question, I'm pretty sure it won't get a response from the people who say the above quote. But here we go anyways....

If gun laws don't or won't work, then can you please explain how the murder rate dropped 50% in one year (and has stayed down) in NYC the minute tough gun laws were passed?

 

I would suggest we allow more data to accrue before we declare that a definitive victory.  Not to mention it seems like your stats are all over the place.  A 14% drop in shootings relative to a 6% drop in crimes across the board indicates there is some change, but you appear to be overstating the case.  And statistically speaking, probably overstating it before it's reliable.

 

Not that it might not be working, just that the question isn't necessarily a fair one.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I've been mostly away from this discussion for a week or so, but it seems to me that we are still talking past one another.

 

Diehard alluded to the underlying premise that I brought up a while back - a dystopian future where the government pays a visit to take everything you have (plus he brought in the point about criminals running rampant that I didn't think of adding since it's not my vision).

 

Asking to give up military weapons is a non-starter when this is the point of view - military weapons are precisely what the survivalist faction demands to keep.

 

I don't take fears of a dystopian government invasion any more seriously than Independence Day 2 or The Walking Dead as a case for making gun laws.  

 

So, no, we're not talking past each other.  I'm just refusing to acknowledge tin-foil hat fears as a valid argument.

[ashbury]

I don't take fears of a dystopian government invasion any more seriously than Independence Day 2 or The Walking Dead as a case for making gun laws. 

It isn't necessary for you to embrace the view, in order for it to be what's behind the opinions you oppose.

 

So, no, we're not talking past each other.  I'm just refusing to acknowledge tin-foil hat fears as a valid argument.

The second sentence is kind of an case study in talking past one another. Not to mention that labeling as "tin-foil hat" comes across as haughty at best, and accomplishes approximately bupkis.

 

Instead of refusing to acknowledge the fears, refute them. Because they aren't going away on their own.

[TheLeviathan]

 

It isn't necessary for you to embrace the view, in order for it to be what's behind the opinions you oppose.

The second sentence is kind of an example of talking past one another. Not to mention that labeling as "tin-foil hat" accomplishes approximately bupkis.

 

You mean like entertaining everyone's theory of the apocalypse in every discussion?  Sorry, if that's your basis for your belief, you're not bringing a valid argument to the table.  That disqualifies your opinion and I don't have a problem saying that.

 

Though maybe I'm wrong about that to a degree, tying to "talk to" (rather than past) that mentality is worse than "bupkis": It indulges nonsense and treats it like a valid argument instead of what it is.

 

Just like I won't listen to someone who tells me women are lesser than men because some obscure line in the bible, I'm not taking anyone's bunker theory on how the world ends in consideration on gun laws.  Sorry, get a valid argument or don't expect to be taken seriously.

[DaveW]

I would suggest we allow more data to accrue before we declare that a definitive victory. Not to mention it seems like your stats are all over the place. A 14% drop in shootings relative to a 6% drop in crimes across the board indicates there is some change, but you appear to be overstating the case. And statistically speaking, probably overstating it before it's reliable.

 

Not that it might not be working, just that the question isn't necessarily a fair one.

Uh.....I'm not talking about 2015/2016, I'm talking about when the tougher gun laws went into place 20 years ago or so.

[TheLeviathan]

Citing your data would be helpful Dave.

[DaveW]

Will pull the links later this week when I have some time, until then, this chart basically spells it out.

 

[TheLeviathan]

Call me crazy Dave...but it appears to mirror the rates across the country in general:

 

http://thepublicintellectual.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Homicides-1900-2010-2.jpg