Poll of the Day > I'll never understand people on this side of the guns debate

(+) Yeah! (+)

"Hey, did you know all the worst crime in the US happens in the places with strict gun control?"

so actually enforcing regulations and rules on who can and can't get guns causes more people to get shot and killed apparently?....

what kind of logic is that....no sane person thinks "don't do anything about it and it'll fix itself"
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While I disagree with the argument it's not entirely without merit. The prohibition and war on drugs showcase a lot of the issues that can come from attempting to strictly regulate something when there's still a demand for it.
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Hey, did you know in places with open gun policy has a 350% higher rate of white male suicide?
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Hey did you know countries with proper laws and controls don't see anywhere near as much violence from guns as the USA does?

Ill never understand Swahili
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Mead posted...

Ill never understand Swahili

I'm the same with Farsi.
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arbys: they have the beef
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Bear posted...

beef

Actually, they have the meats.
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Lil69Leo posted...

Hey did you know countries with proper laws and controls don't see anywhere near as much violence from guns as the USA does?

This is pretty obvious since all of those countries don't even come close to America's total population.
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NightMareBunny posted...

Ill never understand people

There. Read that before you think about making another topic.
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Well it is a fact that the places with the highest violent gun crimes have strict gun control in the US (and Mexico, Columbia, and Venezuela but...Venezuela.)

But that said, maybe they have gun control because of the violent crime but gun control isnt working
But if we incorporate it more in other places itll work

Well not for Mexico and stuff but maybe if gun control is enforced everywhere the statistics will flip and the places with gun control wont be the highest crimes anymore and every place will meet in middle ground
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Revelation34 posted...

Lil69Leo posted...

Hey did you know countries with proper laws and controls don't see anywhere near as much violence from guns as the USA does?

This is pretty obvious since all of those countries don't even come close to America's total population.

As a percentage of the population America still has an abnormally high rate of gun violence compared to countries with strict gun control ...

Did you go to school kid
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FatalAccident posted...

Did you go to school kid

Irony.
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NightMareBunny posted...

"Hey, did you know all the worst crime in the US happens in the places with strict gun control?"

so actually enforcing regulations and rules on who can and can't get guns causes more people to get shot and killed apparently?....

what kind of logic is that....no sane person thinks "don't do anything about it and it'll fix itself"

1) If the argument is "We need to apply stricter gun control to reduce violent crime", and evidence exists to indicate that stricter gun control does not, in fact, seem to reduce violent crime, then that is a completely valid counter-argument to make.

2) If the argument is that increased gun control merely leads to decreased rates of gun ownership by law-abiding citizens (ie, the people who obey the law), while failing to significantly decrease the number of illegally owned guns in the hands of criminals (ie, the people who don't obey the law), thus placing innocent people more at risk, and evidence exists which could support said hypothesis, then that is a completely valid argument to make.

3) If the argument is that limiting gun ownership in the hands of law-abiding citizens increases the odds of non-gun related violent crimes (with the implication that violent criminals are more emboldened to commit assault or armed robbery when they know the people they are robbing or attacking likely do not possess guns for self-defense), and evidence exists which could support said hypothesis, then that is a completely valid argument to make.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with said stance, and whether or not evidence which supports it exists in sufficient quantity to justify it, it's a perfectly understandable position for someone to hold.

If anything, there are probably far more valid arguments against gun control as it currently exists in the US than there are arguments in favor of it, considering the #1 problem right now isn't a lack of laws, as much as it is how poorly existing laws are enforced, and how many of them are either incidental or actively detrimental to the overall problem.

Then again, "Let's slap a band-aid on the problem and pretend it's fixed" is pretty much the US politician's answer to every socio-economic issue these days, so it's not entirely surprising that we're fucking this one up as badly as we fuck up everything else.



Lil69Leo posted...

Hey did you know countries with proper laws and controls don't see anywhere near as much violence from guns as the USA does?

Population heterogeneity will always render that argument a logical fallacy, regardless of which particular bullshit hot-button political argument it's being wielded like a cudgel in.

Like it or not, socio-political solutions that work perfectly in a nation where the population is relatively homogeneous in terms of ethnicity/economics/ideology/etc. don't necessarily transfer over perfectly into scenarios involving one of the most biologically and economically diverse populations on the planet.

For that matter, the last 100+ years of human history have mostly been a litany of Western civilization attempting to force its ideals and way of life on the rest of the world, only to have it backfire spectacularly in a number of cases, in a multitude of ways.

And that's before we even start getting into specific situational differences or other established variables that render certain solutions untenable.

Humans are a complicated bunch of monsters. The societies we've built are equally complicated, and don't easily break down into identical modular parts.

And the most effective socio-economic solutions to problems (ie, blatant self-sacrifice) are almost always the ones we never want to resort to.


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NightMareBunny posted...

so actually enforcing regulations and rules on who can and can't get guns causes more people to get shot and killed apparently?....

Well, if you enact new regulations and the rates start to increase rather than decrease, it's pretty clear you have a problem on your hands. And disarming law-abiding citizens has certainly helped out mass murderers.

Cacciato posted...

NightMareBunny posted...

Ill never understand people

There. Read that before you think about making another topic.

It might help if NMB left his parents' house once in a while.
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Revelation34 posted...

FatalAccident posted...

Did you go to school kid

Irony.

That isn't ironic at all, and you avoided his point.
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Guns are just an easy scapegoat for people to chase when a tragedy happens. The new red herring is the AR-15 because of mass shootings. They don't realize that assault style weapons have been around a LONG time, and mass shootings are a relatively new trend. Hell, the Colt SP-01 (the first AR-15 for civilian purchas) just went on the Curios & Relics list last year. That means the AR-15 has been available to the public for 51 years now. Let's not forget they're widely available in Canada as well, but they don't seem to have the same mass shooting problem we have here in the US.
The problem here is, everyone is stressed to the max, and no one gives a shit about anyone else's problems. In fact, the more problems you have, the higher the chance of that person being alienated and isolated. These are the consequences of perpetuating a self-centered society. It's the same reason we have the massive prison population that we do. Oh, you're having a hard time? Well I can't be bothered to try and improve your situation. We'll just put you somewhere out of sight. Have you ever noticed all these shooters tend to be that fucked up guy that no one wants anything to do with? Well what does a person abandoned by society have to lose? Nothing. So why not go out with a bang. I imagine it's a pretty tempting option if you think your only other outcome is a life of solitude and misery.
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Ozmose posted...

Have you ever noticed all these shooters tend to be that fucked up guy that no one wants anything to do with?

What I've noticed is that as soon as the media and everyone on the Internet started obsessing over each new mass-shooting, suddenly a whole lot of shootings started, many of them by the sorts of people who seem like they'd be really desperate for some sort of attention or meaning in their lives.

It's almost as if there's some sort of correlation there...



Hell, even the Ancient Greeks understood that if you give someone the recognition they desire you're just rewarding them and encouraging others:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis#Destruction

Of course, they didn't really succeed at stifling that sort of thing either...


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We don't have much stricter laws... We just don't have a right to own. It's a privilege. We also don't have a maniacal government Hell-bent on fear-mongering and capitalism.
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RCtheWSBC posted...

That isn't ironic at all, and you avoided his point.

He had no point.
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Revelation34 posted...

FatalAccident posted...

Did you go to school kid

Irony.

somebody uneducated incorrectly using the word irony because they have no response to a legitimate argument

Yup

Irony indeed
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FatalAccident posted...

somebody uneducated incorrectly using the word irony because they have no response to a legitimate argument

Yup

Irony indeed

I agree that is irony.
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zebatov posted...

We don't have much stricter laws... We just don't have a right to own. It's a privilege. We also don't have a maniacal government Hell-bent on fear-mongering and capitalism.

...those are stricter laws. All societies start from a baseline of no laws then add laws restricting behavior. If guns are heavily restricted in your country, it's because you have stricter laws. Now, you might have stricter laws BECAUSE you have no recognized rights (and nations like the UK aren't really big on recognizing rights, which is why speech is heavily restricted there, too -- you can tell how free a nation is by what you can say there without being arrested), but ultimately you have stricter laws.
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Or you can do like in the UK: enjoy being thrown in jail for making a Muslim joke and you ain't got shit to defend yourself for when the government decides to throw whomever they want in jail for whatever reason they feel like.
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Lil69Leo posted...

Hey did you know countries with proper laws and controls don't see anywhere near as much violence from guns as the USA does?

Hey, did you know nearly all of those country's populations pale in comparison to the US in both size and diversity?

It's a heck of a lot easier to get something done when most of your population agrees on something.