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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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 Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:06 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| Point blank question time, are you for or against closing the gun show loophole? Vistorq, you can play too. |
Point blank question, but unfortunately I don't have a point blank answer in response...
While I am of course against convicted felons having guns, I am not so quick to conclude that "obvious" solutions would actually work in practice. In theory, if it were simply a matter of closing down gun shows to magically end gun crime, then I would most likely sign off on it. However, I remain skeptical, since there are always trade offs and unexpected consequences.
For example, if you eliminate one source for criminals to obtain guns, then they will find another. Worst case, you might even observe some effects of the "Iron Law of Prohibition", which in the case of drugs and alcohol mean that if you make some illegal, the price goes up, as does the strength of the product (i.e. you get dealers pushing crack where you once had cocaine, or you might incentivize criminals to seek out worse guns or bombs where they once had easy access to more regular firearms). Criminals might just resort to stealing guns from other people, either to use for themselves or to sell for higher profits on the black market. By closing easier ways, you would be incentivizing this. Bottom line is that it is complicated, and when there's high demand with constricted supply, you are adding a lot of extra pressure to the mix.
As for trade offs, the obvious one is that you'll be punishing all the regular people who use gun shows. You'll also be setting a precedent that could be used later to further impose gun control, until eventually all the gun-grabbing fanatics have their way. The ultimate trade off in theory is having a police state imposed on us to ostensibly keep us safe. That is the principle I am most opposed to, even if it's just something that seems very reasonable and easy on the surface of it. In the case of closing gun shows, I'm frankly not convinced it would change anything, except signaling to criminals that they now have to find new ways to get their guns (and signaling to organized crime that there is now a hot new commodity on the market that is going to command higher prices). |
It doesn't mean closing gun shows, it just means that they would require the same background check as normal gun stores. I think that in the case of mass shooters, many are not hardened criminals. I recently read a book about Columbine, and in it, the killers stress out about how to get guns, and eventually turn to a gun show. If it had been just that much harder, they might have just gone with their bombs, which failed to go off. I mean not every crazy kid will have access to underground gun dealers, to get guns you have to know someone, and the mass killers aren't gangsters, I mean who do these guys know for the hook up. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:15 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| It doesn't mean closing gun shows, it just means that they would require the same background check as normal gun stores. I think that in the case of mass shooters, many are not hardened criminals. I recently read a book about Columbine, and in it, the killers stress out about how to get guns, and eventually turn to a gun show. |
I realize this, and what you say sounds pretty reasonable, but I'm still not totally convinced it would change anything. I probably wouldn't get up in arms (no pun intended) over it, but (whether successful or not) as a precedent I would expect it to be used as fodder by the gun-grabbers down the road.
| Quote: |
| If it had been just that much harder, they might have just gone with their bombs, which failed to go off. I mean not every crazy kid will have access to underground gun dealers, to get guns you have to know someone, and the mass killers aren't gangsters, I mean who do these guys know for the hook up. |
Beside the point I think. How did the last mass shooter get his guns? How many gun deaths do these mass shootings actually account for? I think you get what I mean there... And there's always a trade off, just like in the War on Drugs (even though it is a somewhat different beast from gun control, I think several of the same principles apply). |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:54 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| It doesn't mean closing gun shows, it just means that they would require the same background check as normal gun stores. I think that in the case of mass shooters, many are not hardened criminals. I recently read a book about Columbine, and in it, the killers stress out about how to get guns, and eventually turn to a gun show. |
I realize this, and what you say sounds pretty reasonable, but I'm still not totally convinced it would change anything. I probably wouldn't get up in arms (no pun intended) over it, but (whether successful or not) as a precedent I would expect it to be used as fodder by the gun-grabbers down the road.
| Quote: |
| If it had been just that much harder, they might have just gone with their bombs, which failed to go off. I mean not every crazy kid will have access to underground gun dealers, to get guns you have to know someone, and the mass killers aren't gangsters, I mean who do these guys know for the hook up. |
Beside the point I think. How did the last mass shooter get his guns? How many gun deaths do these mass shootings actually account for? I think you get what I mean there... And there's always a trade off, just like in the War on Drugs (even though it is a somewhat different beast from gun control, I think several of the same principles apply). |
I don't think that any of the current gun control measures are a cure all by any stretch. I think that a few are just common sense, such as closing the gun show loop hole. I think the cost of this measure is small, yet if it can save lives and stop making it so easy for absolutely any one to get a gun, I think it's worthwhile. It won't stop any actual professional criminals, but it has the potential to stop crazy people, underage people, and, for lack of a better term, casual criminals. I wouldn't really worry about people taking your guns away, unless the demographics of America, and the political blocs in America, change drastically. I mean realistically maybe it's a source of concern in 50 years or something, but like you said, that far in the future is beside the point. There are no potential Cohen Acts (http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia60.html) coming, it's just not politically feasible. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 9:52 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
"An honest discussion," huh?
I wasn't aware the shooter was black. The media reported him as white. Is that another fact they got wrong? |
The thread became about gun control. It might be possible to diminish the school etc shootings with some gun control but the 56% (from memory from FBI stats) of all homicides by firearm are from 4-5% of the population (black men 14-28, again, FBI stats). The vast, vast majority of those shootings are with illegal firearms. How in the hell can any liberal person make the argument that gun crime can be meaningfully diminished by making me file out additional forms when buying a firearm when it would take military style sweeps of black neighbourhoods looking for illegal firearms to make a serious dent in the ferocious pace of gun violence in American cities?
Again, maybe we can use background checks and so on to diminish nutjobs like Lanza (I don't know how he got his firearms?). I doubt it but maybe and I don't think most people will really mind the additional work.
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| Titus, at this point in America its the Blacks that are committing a high amount of crime. You are saying its genetic but when it was the Irish committing crime for about half a century, you don't say its genetic? Why is that? |
Aggression and impulse control are heritable traits (from .4 to .8, depending on the research). I don't know what this obsession is with Irish crime among liberals but it was never anywhere near black rates. Ever. The Scots-Irish are a unique ethnic group with unique traits and may very well be more aggressive.
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| Why is it only high black crime rate is gentetic but other races, especially whites who are or have commotted crime at a high rate for as long or longer not genetic? |
I did not make that argument.
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| Italians, specifically Sicilians have had organized crime for centuries. Are they predisposed to commit organize crime? |
They're clannish with very low rates of civic mindedness and this is probably in part heritable.
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| The rate of jewish white collar crime on Wall Street far exceeds other ethnic groups. So, they are predisposed for white collar crime as well? |
Ha. Yes.
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| I think that a few are just common sense, such as closing the gun show loop hole |
Have the firearms used in these mass shootings been traced to gun shows? I've not paid attention to where the guns come from. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 10:16 am Post subject: |
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Titus: Scotch-Irish and Irish are completely disparate groups with pretty much zero in common, the former being completely irrelevant to this discussion.
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| Upon arrival in America, the Scotch-Irish at first usually referred to themselves simply as Irish, without the qualifier Scotch. It was not until a century later, following the surge in Irish immigration after the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s, that the descendants of the earlier arrivals began to commonly call themselves Scotch-Irish to distinguish them from the newer, largely destitute and predominantly Roman Catholic immigrants.[11] The two groups had little interaction in America, as the Scotch-Irish had become settled years earlier primarily in the Appalachian region, while the new wave of Irish American families settled primarily in northern and midwestern port cities such as Boston, New York, or Chicago. However, many Irish migrated to the interior in the 19th century to work on large-scale infrastructure projects such as canals and railroads.[12] |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_American |
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Spartacist
Joined: 18 Feb 2012
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 8:23 am Post subject: |
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| If you look at surveys of crime rather than basing your figures on arrests, African Americans commit crimes at roughly the same rate as other ethnicities. They are disproportionately represented in arrest rates because of racial profiling and because they more often come from lower socio-economic groups. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Spartacist wrote: |
| If you look at surveys of crime rather than basing your figures on arrests, African Americans commit crimes at roughly the same rate as other ethnicities. |
Could you provide a few sources for such data? |
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Spartacist
Joined: 18 Feb 2012
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Spartacist wrote: |
| If you look at surveys of crime rather than basing your figures on arrests, African Americans commit crimes at roughly the same rate as other ethnicities. |
Could you provide a few sources for such data? |
Aah, now you're making me do some work. Since others were bandying around stats from memory I thought I could do the same. I'll find them. |
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augustine
Joined: 08 Sep 2012
Location: México
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Spartacist wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Spartacist wrote: |
| If you look at surveys of crime rather than basing your figures on arrests, African Americans commit crimes at roughly the same rate as other ethnicities. |
Could you provide a few sources for such data? |
Aah, now you're making me do some work. Since others were bandying around stats from memory I thought I could do the same. I'll find them. |
Don't be overly inclined to oblige him. It's well documented that Fox hates black people. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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| augustine wrote: |
| Spartacist wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Spartacist wrote: |
| If you look at surveys of crime rather than basing your figures on arrests, African Americans commit crimes at roughly the same rate as other ethnicities. |
Could you provide a few sources for such data? |
Aah, now you're making me do some work. Since others were bandying around stats from memory I thought I could do the same. I'll find them. |
Don't be overly inclined to oblige him. It's well documented that Fox hates black people. |
This is not the first time I have witnessed you libeling me in such a fashion. If you have any dignity at all, though, it will be the last: I do not hate black people. |
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augustine
Joined: 08 Sep 2012
Location: México
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| This is not the first time I have witnessed you libeling me in such a fashion. If you have any dignity at all, though, it will be the last: I do not hate black people. |
Do not question my dignity when it was you who was almost/should have been banned for engaging in multiple anti-black internet tirades. Funny how you're passive on the issue now. I guess that's you pretending to act dignified. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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| augustine wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| This is not the first time I have witnessed you libeling me in such a fashion. If you have any dignity at all, though, it will be the last: I do not hate black people. |
Do not question my dignity ... |
Don't worry about it. Based on your answer, I have absolutely no question left in my mind about the matter of your dignity, Augustine.
Libel all you like, if it pleases you. Screech like an angry chimp. It's fine.
| augustine wrote: |
| Funny how you're passive on the issue now. |
Is there cause to repeat myself, Augustine? |
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augustine
Joined: 08 Sep 2012
Location: México
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| augustine wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| This is not the first time I have witnessed you libeling me in such a fashion. If you have any dignity at all, though, it will be the last: I do not hate black people. |
Do not question my dignity ... |
Don't worry about it. Based on your answer, I have absolutely no question left in my mind about the matter of your dignity, Augustine.
Libel all you like, if it pleases you. Screech like an angry chimp. It's fine.
| augustine wrote: |
| Funny how you're passive on the issue now. |
Is there cause to repeat myself, Augustine? |
What are you even talking about? I have no dignity because you used to say sick stuff about black people and I brought it up? That makes no sense. You said that blacks were inherently different than other races. I'm just pointing that out. You're being defensive because that's you're only play here. It's OK to admit that you hate black people. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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That's enough indulging the screeching of angry chimps, I think.
Spartacist, I look forward to that data. |
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augustine
Joined: 08 Sep 2012
Location: México
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Screeching? Angry? And, compared with some of the vile things you've said about blacks previously? Hardly, I'm just calling you out for what you are. You back down and call me a chimp? Laughable exit, but alright. The fact is, your wordplay and general nonsense is a defensive response based on you not wanting to be called out again and potentially banned. |
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