Job Discussion Forums

[buravirgil]

Referring to alternative opinions as that of sheep, or a reflexive, hive mind, is neither constructive or compelling evidence of your own.

John's argument was not that banning guns will eliminate criminals.

The onus of your argument (as I see it) is explaining how and why mass murderers exist in other nations not devoid of a "soul". But I think many people agree your analysis of "community" is compelling. I've often wondered if any social disorder isn't a matter of proportion and of ever increasing populations. Given a hundred people, maybe one is volatile and dangerous. Increase that by a factor of a hundred, or a thousand, and how manageable/detectable can they be?

[steki47]

[steki47]

The wording of this issue bugs me. When we talk about fatal car accidents, we don't talk about the "car problem", we focus on the people using the machines. Yet we talk of the "gun problem" not the "criminal problem".

[Lack]

[buravirgil]

[steki47]

[johnslat]

I wonder if the problem is reading comprehension.

That is, not realizing that "taking away/banning" gun is not only not the same as regulations for gun, but is actually mutually exclusive.
If guns are banned, there could be no "regulations" for their purchase or use.

Or if the problem is simply a liking for fallacies, in this case, the "straw man fallacy:

"The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position."

I think it may be the latter, since another fallacy was also used, the red herring, in response to my reductio ad absurdum, a mode of argumentation or a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd conclusion.

"Ah, the logic: Criminals don't obey laws, so gun regulations won't work.

Well, that'll certainly help us streamline the Criminal Justice system. We can dispense will all laws since criminals pay no attention to them, anyway."

This time, it was the red herring fallacy, as in this response:

"If you have some evidence that criminals do follow the laws that they break, I'd be interested in hearing that

A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic.

Yup, I'm going to go with fallacies rather than poor reading comprehension.

The same problem crops up again here:

"One extreme argues that tougher gun laws and/or banning of guns will solve the problem . . . ."

since it would be impossible to both ban guns AND institute tougher gun laws.

Regarding this statement: " When we talk about fatal car accidents, we don't talk about the "car problem" . . .

No, we don't. But we do talk about the drunken driving problem and the texting while driving problem, just as we can talk about irresponsible gun owners and "cowboys."

Irresponsible gun owners don't store their guns safely. "Two children lose their lives in unintentional shootings almost every week in the United States.



And can you believe this: " Florida is set to become the first state to pass a law that would limit doctors' ability to council parents about gun safety in the home. Pediatricians decry the law as wrongheaded, and they're backed by statistics that suggest the law will kill kids. The majority of the shootings occurred in places likely thought of as safe, with 84 percent of deaths happening in a home or vehicle belonging to the victim’s family, or in the home of a friend or relative. In 76 percent of cases studied, the gun belonged to a parent or other family member.

Last week, the state legislature approved a bill that would make it legal to impose punishment on doctors who ask about guns kept in the home "

Many of us have "smart phones," but the NRA is against "smart guns."

"For example, the iP1 is a smart semi-automatic pistol that communicates with an RFID watch, which is worn by the user of the gun.
Thanks to an internal tracking device on both the gun and watch, the pistol will not fire if it is away from the owner. The watch can also provide useful data to the wearer, such as how many bullets have been fired."

But the NRA sees a sinister plot:

"What happens if we put computer chips in all these guns and Obama pushes a button and all these guns go down?" he asks.

Then, there's the "The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun."



Please notice first how "man," not "woman" is used, But that would be OK as regards the "bad man"since every mass shooter so far has been male.
A mass shooting is generally defined as an incident in which at least 4 people (not including the shooter) is shot and killed. There have been at least 39 of these in the US since 1984. In only one of them, in which 4 people were shot and killed, was the shooter stopped by a "good guy with a gun."

So, the NRA is "dead" against "gun-free zones," claiming that more guns is the answer.Some gun owners, who could never have been in combat - otherwise they'd know better - are cowboys who have fantasies of being that "good guy with a gun"

The reality is different.

You're on a college campus, and this whacko with an AR-15 drops by and starts shooting. So, you and maybe 10 other people whip out your pistols and start firing back.

You've been watching too much TV - what that would be like is best captured by this scene in "Born on the 4th of July," directed by Oliver stone, who served in Vietnam and won a Bronze Star. It's total confusion, chaos, panic, and insanity. And remember - the soldiers are well-trained for battle situations:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ladY1kwco


Speaking Friday on CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, perennial gun rights advocate John Lott said, “My solution for these mass shootings is to look at the fact that every single time, these attacks occur where guns are banned. Every single time.”
That’s neither true in general nor true in this instance. The FBI tells us that active-shooter scenarios occur in all sorts of environments where guns are allowed—homes, businesses, outdoor spaces. (In fact, there was another mass shooting the same day as the Oregon massacre, leaving three dead and one severely wounded in a home in North Florida.) And Umpqua Community College itself wasn’t a gun-free zone. Oregon is one of seven states that allow guns on college campuses—the consequence of a 2011 court decision that overturned a longstanding ban. In 2012, the state board of education introduced several limitations on campus carry, but those were not widely enforced."

Her's one example of a cowboy: "According to police, a carjacking at a gas station in Valero Saturday night left one man injured, but it wasn’t the intended target when a bystander attempted to go “full-Rambo” and stop the crime-in-progress. Rather than call police, the unnamed GGWAG leaped into action and opened fire on two men who jumped another man at the gas station. He didn’t manage to quite hit his targets, but the unnamed shooter managed to land one blow — to the victim’s head. The carjackers managed to escape with the unnamed victim’s pickup truck."

So, if you harbor such fantasies, well, grow up.

Regards,
John

[buravirgil]

Lobbyists successfully drafting legislation to impose fines on doctors' speech is a temerity I can't sufficiently deplore for all its backwardsness. Lobbyists and "speech" have enjoyed a liberty by a Roberts Court (the latest is ongoing in Alabama) that I can scarcely address reasonably.

So, of what regulation are you a proponent John?

[steki47]

[Lack]

[johnslat]

You'd think I'd know by now how useless it is to try to talk sense to gun nuts.

Maybe this time the lesson will persist.

[scot47]

The Gun Lobby are impervious to Reason.

[gregory999]

The problem with America is that it has more guns than it needs.
America has 4.4 percent of the world's population but almost half of its civilian-owned guns!
Statistically speaking, places with more guns have more homicides:

The Harvard School of Public Health's Injury Control Research Center is a great resource here. It notes that a wide variety of methodologies show guns as a risk factor for homicide in the US and other high-income countries. Developed countries with more guns generally have more homicide; states within the US with more guns have more homicide; people with access to guns — particularly women — are more likely to be victims of homicide than those without access.
http://www.vox.com/cards/gun-violence-facts/gun-homicide-effect-increase

President Obama is clearly fed up. His speeches after mass shootings — speeches that have become a bit of a morbid ritual, given how regularly the shootings occur — have grown angrier, more emotional, and more disgusted at America's gun violence problem and Congress's unwillingness to do literally anything to stop it. "This is a political choice that we make," Obama declared Thursday night, after the 294th mass shooting of 2015, "to allow this to happen every few months in America."

So, Americans, why the gun control law cannot get trough the Congress? Is it because of the Second Amendment? Or because of the Republican cowboys?

[Lack]

[buravirgil]