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Dark Knight Rises Massacre
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Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 3:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ghostrider wrote:
visitorq wrote:
^ Nailed it. (Now I definitely think we should ban all motor vehicles to keep society safe).


You can only reach that conclusion if you focus on the disadvantages of cars and conveniently ignore the advantages. People commonly use cars for transportation which must be taken into consideration if you want to ban them. Cars are very practical but guns much less so in today's world.


Cocaine and heroin are really impractical, but the suppression of these substances in the United States has been futile.
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Steelrails



Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 6:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

atwood wrote:
Steelrails wrote:
atwood wrote:
Steelrails wrote:
atwood wrote:
Steelrails wrote:
Quote:
Come on, just admit he caught you out with with your scooter argument.

I don't think so.

.

Of course you don't, but that argument was ludicrous from the get-go.


What? That 1-3 deaths a year from scooter accidents on the sidewalk isn't sufficient reason to ban their use on the sidewalk? That's a ludicrous argument?

Or the argument that deaths from accidents with vehicles are not the same thing as intentional deaths from firearms?

Again- One is an accidental death from a transportation device, used daily by the general public. The other is intentional death from a weapon, used infrequently by criminals. Such things might require different principles in approaching their regulation, not just "they all cause death, let's go safety to the max".

Yes.


I disagree. 1-3 deaths per year is not sufficient reason to ban scooters driving on the sidewalk. I bet 1-3 people per year are killed by two people bumping into each other the sidewalk while walking. By that logic we should ban walking on the sidewalk.

More ludicrosity.

BTW, your assumption that there is any logic to your post is far-fetched at best.


Explain please.
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ghostrider



Joined: 27 Jun 2011

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 11:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kuros wrote:
ghostrider wrote:
visitorq wrote:
^ Nailed it. (Now I definitely think we should ban all motor vehicles to keep society safe).


You can only reach that conclusion if you focus on the disadvantages of cars and conveniently ignore the advantages. People commonly use cars for transportation which must be taken into consideration if you want to ban them. Cars are very practical but guns much less so in today's world.


Cocaine and heroin are really impractical, but the suppression of these substances in the United States has been futile.

Don't even go there . Countries that ban guns experience a lot fewer problems with the criminal misuse of firearms.
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ghostrider



Joined: 27 Jun 2011

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 11:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

visitorq wrote:
ghostrider wrote:
visitorq wrote:
^ Nailed it. (Now I definitely think we should ban all motor vehicles to keep society safe).

You can only reach that conclusion if you focus on the disadvantages of cars and conveniently ignore the advantages. People commonly use cars for transportation which must be taken into consideration if you want to ban them. Cars are very practical but guns much less so in today's world.

Totally irrelevant. Your own "logic" dictates that we must ban all motor vehicles today. To do otherwise would be morally reprehensible and put the public at continued risk of death.

In fact, I'm loving your "logic" so much I'm struggling at the moment to think of things we shouldn't ban...

You can spin it how you want, but don't be surprised if you find yourself quickly becoming irrelevant to the debate.
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Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 4:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ghostrider wrote:
Kuros wrote:
ghostrider wrote:
visitorq wrote:
^ Nailed it. (Now I definitely think we should ban all motor vehicles to keep society safe).


You can only reach that conclusion if you focus on the disadvantages of cars and conveniently ignore the advantages. People commonly use cars for transportation which must be taken into consideration if you want to ban them. Cars are very practical but guns much less so in today's world.


Cocaine and heroin are really impractical, but the suppression of these substances in the United States has been futile.


Don't even go there . Countries that ban guns experience a lot fewer problems with the criminal misuse of firearms.


Data? Which countries?

I refuse to take seriously the conceit that America can ban guns like it were some small European country. We have a different history and a higher demand. I realize that your (sub)urban-bias and statist sympathies make you think that a gun ban in the US will work. But it will end up like the war on drugs. You will have home invasions and it will create criminals from the law abiding. Actually, it would be much worse, because the right to bear arms has been guaranteed since the Bill of Rights. No, that Bill of Rights.

And Captain Corea thought my exploration of the right to bear arms upthread was uninteresting. But apparently it was necessary.
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visitorq



Joined: 11 Jan 2008

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 5:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ghostrider wrote:
Kuros wrote:
ghostrider wrote:
visitorq wrote:
^ Nailed it. (Now I definitely think we should ban all motor vehicles to keep society safe).


You can only reach that conclusion if you focus on the disadvantages of cars and conveniently ignore the advantages. People commonly use cars for transportation which must be taken into consideration if you want to ban them. Cars are very practical but guns much less so in today's world.


Cocaine and heroin are really impractical, but the suppression of these substances in the United States has been futile.

Don't even go there . Countries that ban guns experience a lot fewer problems with the criminal misuse of firearms.

This is something you just pulled out of your ass. Like most things you've posted on this subject.
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ghostrider



Joined: 27 Jun 2011

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 5:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kuros wrote:

Data? Which countries?

Quote:
METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database analyzes homicides and suicides (both disaggregated as firearm related and non-firearm related) and unintentional and undetermined firearm deaths from 23 populous high-income Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries that provided data to the World Health Organization for 2003.

RESULTS: The US homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher. For 15-year olds to 24-year olds, firearm homicide rates in the United States were 42.7 times higher than in the other countries. For US males, firearm homicide rates were 22.0 times higher, and for US females, firearm homicide rates were 11.4 times higher.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20571454

Kuros wrote:
I refuse to take seriously the conceit that America can ban guns like it were some small European country. We have a different history and a higher demand. I realize that your (sub)urban-bias and statist sympathies make you think that a gun ban in the US will work. But it will end up like the war on drugs. You will have home invasions and it will create criminals from the law abiding. Actually, it would be much worse, because the right to bear arms has been guaranteed since the Bill of Rights. No, that Bill of Rights.

And Captain Corea thought my exploration of the right to bear arms upthread was uninteresting. But apparently it was necessary.

Trying to move the goalposts? We were discussing the effectiveness of gun bans not the constitutionality of such bans.
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visitorq



Joined: 11 Jan 2008

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

^ your link above does not validate the prior claim you made. In fact, it's meaningless drivel, devoid of context.
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Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ghostrider wrote:
Kuros wrote:

Data? Which countries?

Quote:
METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database analyzes homicides and suicides (both disaggregated as firearm related and non-firearm related) and unintentional and undetermined firearm deaths from 23 populous high-income Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries that provided data to the World Health Organization for 2003.

RESULTS: The US homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher. For 15-year olds to 24-year olds, firearm homicide rates in the United States were 42.7 times higher than in the other countries. For US males, firearm homicide rates were 22.0 times higher, and for US females, firearm homicide rates were 11.4 times higher.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20571454

Kuros wrote:
I refuse to take seriously the conceit that America can ban guns like it were some small European country. We have a different history and a higher demand. I realize that your (sub)urban-bias and statist sympathies make you think that a gun ban in the US will work. But it will end up like the war on drugs. You will have home invasions and it will create criminals from the law abiding. Actually, it would be much worse, because the right to bear arms has been guaranteed since the Bill of Rights. No, that Bill of Rights.

And Captain Corea thought my exploration of the right to bear arms upthread was uninteresting. But apparently it was necessary.

Trying to move the goalposts? We were discussing the effectiveness of gun bans not the constitutionality of such bans.


You're accusing me of moving the goalposts? I want you to note that we're well into this thread. Earlier in the thread I argued extensively how banning firearms would be unconstitutional. You need not have read every bit of it, its a long thread, but don't accuse me of moving the goalposts. Those goalposts were there long before you entered the field.

Furthermore, I directly connected the constitutional guarantee of the right with the sense of entitlement with which Americans regard possession of firearms. Although I believe the Federal ban on drugs should be unconstitutional under a proper reading of the Constitution, we can agree there is no affirmative, stated right towards possession of cocaine or heroin. Therefore, any attempts to ban firearms will be that much more difficult to some Americans who have regarded firearms as an affirmative constitutional right. So, there's another sense in which the goalpost has not been moved.

Lastly, your study succumbs to my central criticism: this conceit that America can be directly compared to Europe and other WHO countries. It can't. For better or for worse, this is No Country for Old Men. Other WHO countries don't have the experience, reliance, affinity, or overall demand for firearms. So, of course, we would expect these countries to have lower firearms death rates than America even before they banned firearms.

Statism presumes that almost every problem has a top-down governmental solution. Its very Nintendo, right? Guns do harm, and are less practical than they are dangerous, so lets ban guns! Problem solved! Too bad we Americans are autonomous humans, and not little pixel people running around on a side-scroller.
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Fox



Joined: 04 Mar 2009

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kuros wrote:
Too bad we Americans are autonomous humans, and not little pixel people running around on a side-scroller.


You know, I sometimes get the exact opposite impression. America seems like a big, Final Fantasy style simulation, with almost everyone repeating the same two or three lines of dialogue, an cartoonish political melodrama where one side is so clearly the "bad guys" that there must be a plot twist coming, and the Presidency being an item up for sale in the auction house. It's totally a video game.
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fermentation



Joined: 22 Jun 2009

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Captain Corea wrote:
It's never been 100% about safety, IMO. It's about cost/return.

Cars are an integral part of most developed economies. Sure, we could look to a future without them... or smarter ones, but for the most part, it is accepted that they are needed - especially in large places like the US/Can/Aus.

I think the point many people cautioning about gun control is that they view guns as less of a necessity.

As for the regulations, training, and licensing, I think we kind of had a good discussion on that part way through this thread. Simply put, it'd be cool if there was more, IMO.


One could argue guns are a necessity to some people. People use them to hunt and defend themselves. I'm sure a woman would do well with a gun if men broke into her house. But obviously cars are a much integral part of society. There's no arguing there. I ask you then, where do you draw the line though? Does 32 thousand dead justify the use of cars while close to 9 thousand doesn't do the same for guns (in the US)? How many people have to die before something is deemed not cost-effective enough?

As far as licensing and training goes, I'm for training. Not knowing how to use a gun you own is kind of stupid in my opinion. But in the case America, people shouldn't need a license to practice their constitutional right. You don't need a license to practice your freedom of speech or vote. Same goes for guns. I'm not against licensing in itself, but I wouldn't know where to draw the line there either. I'd hate it if I had to get a background check before getting a kitchen knife or taking a boxing class.
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Fox



Joined: 04 Mar 2009

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 4:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fermentation wrote:
But obviously cars are a much integral part of society. There's no arguing there. I ask you then, where do you draw the line though?


That's the entire point of a national debate on the matter: deciding where to draw the line, and deciding what to do when something crosses that line. Guns have almost definitely crossed the line, so what do we do? Other nations have mitigated this problem to a large extent, can America? Kuros rightly points out America faces some fairly unique cultural and historic challenges in this regard, but I also do not think it is in the American character to simply admit defeat, and there's a real challenge here which demands an answer. Indeed, these days Americans have grown far too comfortable with ignoring failure; far too comfortable with not pursuing excellence of result at a collective level. Lying to oneself is just too easy.

fermentation wrote:
I'm not against licensing in itself, but I wouldn't know where to draw the line there either. I'd hate it if I had to get a background check before getting a kitchen knife or taking a boxing class.


How many people do you hear demanding licensing to use a kitchen knife? Probably zero. How many do you hear demanding licensing to use a gun? A not inconsiderable number. It seems to me very much the case that common sense resolves this issue in a casual fashion, and the absurdity of "kitchen knife licenses" are being thrown out more as a smoke bomb than as a serious intellectual challenge.

This is something I am not especially fond of in the character of a certain type of libertarian: they treat life like some sort of logic game, where if only you can come up with the right tricky words, you win! It's sophistry (in the modern sense), and it's not valid. We don't need to take everything to the extreme: car licenses do not mandate tricycle licenses, and gun licenses do not mandate kitche knife licenses. We can be (should be) reasonable.
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Steelrails



Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 4:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fermentation wrote:
Captain Corea wrote:
It's never been 100% about safety, IMO. It's about cost/return.

Cars are an integral part of most developed economies. Sure, we could look to a future without them... or smarter ones, but for the most part, it is accepted that they are needed - especially in large places like the US/Can/Aus.

I think the point many people cautioning about gun control is that they view guns as less of a necessity.

As for the regulations, training, and licensing, I think we kind of had a good discussion on that part way through this thread. Simply put, it'd be cool if there was more, IMO.


One could argue guns are a necessity to some people. People use them to hunt and defend themselves. I'm sure a woman would do well with a gun if men broke into her house. But obviously cars are a much integral part of society. There's no arguing there. I ask you then, where do you draw the line though? Does 32 thousand dead justify the use of cars while close to 9 thousand doesn't do the same for guns (in the US)? How many people have to die before something is deemed not cost-effective enough?


Again, that's the difference between death via accident and death via murder.

It's the reason you can have "no-fly zones" for airplanes that are doing things like dropping bombs on people while not banning commercial flights that may kill hundreds in accidents. One involves accidents. Another involves murder.

The overwhelming majority of gun deaths are a result of intentional murder. The overwhelming number of auto deaths are because of unintentional (although possibly negligent) accidents.
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ghostrider



Joined: 27 Jun 2011

PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fox wrote:

This is something I am not especially fond of in the character of a certain type of libertarian: they treat life like some sort of logic game, where if only you can come up with the right tricky words, you win! It's sophistry (in the modern sense), and it's not valid. We don't need to take everything to the extreme: car licenses do not mandate tricycle licenses, and gun licenses do not mandate kitche knife licenses. We can be (should be) reasonable.

That's what I've noticed- it seems that some people put a lot of mental effort into coming up with arguments in favor of guns that may sound logical in the context of a debate but are often misleading. One example is "If you outlaw guns only the outlaws will have guns." But if you look at what is happening in the real world we see less outlaws obtaining guns and misusing them in places with strict gun control.
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ghostrider



Joined: 27 Jun 2011

PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fermentation wrote:
I'm not against licensing in itself, but I wouldn't know where to draw the line there either. I'd hate it if I had to get a background check before getting a kitchen knife or taking a boxing class.

Isn't that an example of the slippery slope fallacy? It's kind of like arguing that we can't allow gay marriage because then people will want to marry their dogs and cats.
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