Andromalia
Pardon my french
It's not like everybody buys their guns, either. A significant number are stolen. When you buy a weapon, you give the opportunity to steal it from you to a bad guy.
Lots of shootings...
- Thread starter /wrists
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StevenC
Needs a hobby
The point is, as Max said, that freedom has a different definition in the USA that seems to just mean "how things are in the USA". Because by no other definition is the USA the most free nation in the world.
In fact, by most definitions you're living in a pretty tyrannical place at the moment. The SCOTUS just arbitrarily removed bodily autonomy from women using a justification that would allow organ harvesting, and they're going to reexamine and remove some more basic rights soon, too. You have one of the fullest prison systems in the world backed by an unequal justice system. Your system of governance is wildly unrepresentative to the point that 2 of the last 4 presidents were elected without a majority in a two horse race. You have a wildly outsized military despite never facing a war on your own soil in your entire existence. You have a highly militarised police force that won't even save children being shot at. Your health is sold to private companies for profit.
And it's illegal to cross the street because the auto industry, like the gun industry, is more important than people.
How tyrannical does a country have to be to justify those guns?
I agree with the rest, but British troops did burn down the capital during the War of 1812: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington
So, it's been a *while*, but the US has had foreign invaders waging war on its soil.
StevenC
Needs a hobby
Ah yeah, forgot about that one. And there's also the Civil War, but the point is more about invasion, and even then the force "rebelling against tyranny" couldn't win when it was still mostly just muskets.
tedtan
Well-Known Member
Fixed that for you.
StevenC
Needs a hobby
Yeah, and while we're at it, you can't say cunt on TV.
zappatton2
Well-Known Member
So much this. This is what I find so baffling about the guns = freedom argument.
There are so many demonstrably freer nations, by virtually any metric of what freedom stands for, that have no equivalent concept of the 2nd amendment or weaponization as a condition of "rights" or "freedoms".
And rightfully so! Don't want that shit to mess with your kid's heads while they're cleaning their guns.
narad
Progressive metal and politics
This is not true. Back when the Donald was hosting "The Apprentice" and I was living in America, I would often find myself saying "cunt on TV".
I know you are just trying to be funny, but back in the apprentice days, Trump was an extremely popular and loved public figure. The tv show was extremely popular in the US.
It wasn’t until he declared his candidacy as a republican that TDS started.
Popping in to address a few people who have quoted me. I would highly recommend that anyone who has cited Australia in this "discussion" actually read the study @Bodes has linked.
What do you think that study says? I am quoting the study you linked directly here:
"Many claims have been made about the NFA’s far-reaching effects and its potential benefits if implemented in the United States. However, more detailed analysis of the law shows that it likely had a negligible effect on firearm suicides and homicides in Australia and may not have as large an effect in the United States as some gun control advocates expect."
It is beyond me why you would try to "poopoo" on my statement and then link a scholarly study that validates my statement. Negligible is in line with my claim and completely at odds with your "by almost half" claim.
You can read the volumes of studies that have been done. There are at least a half dozen big ones out there. Gun violence researchers are desperate to prove it did what the anti-gunners said it would- people have been trying for decades, but the data doesn't support the (preconceived) conclusion.
There is a reason that the graph you posted isn't the proof that you seem to think that it is. If you read and understood the study that you linked, you would understand why.
If you think that the Australia semiauto rifle "assault guns" ban was "quite effective at reducing gun violence", you are at odds with a majority of the scholarly studies published on the subject. You said Bodes "ran through the stats". Read the study.
What do you think that study says? I am quoting the study you linked directly here:
"Many claims have been made about the NFA’s far-reaching effects and its potential benefits if implemented in the United States. However, more detailed analysis of the law shows that it likely had a negligible effect on firearm suicides and homicides in Australia and may not have as large an effect in the United States as some gun control advocates expect."
It is beyond me why you would try to "poopoo" on my statement and then link a scholarly study that validates my statement. Negligible is in line with my claim and completely at odds with your "by almost half" claim.
You can read the volumes of studies that have been done. There are at least a half dozen big ones out there. Gun violence researchers are desperate to prove it did what the anti-gunners said it would- people have been trying for decades, but the data doesn't support the (preconceived) conclusion.
There is a reason that the graph you posted isn't the proof that you seem to think that it is. If you read and understood the study that you linked, you would understand why.
If you think that the Australia semiauto rifle "assault guns" ban was "quite effective at reducing gun violence", you are at odds with a majority of the scholarly studies published on the subject. You said Bodes "ran through the stats". Read the study.
You two should sort this out.
StevenC
Needs a hobby
Did you read either of what we said, because if you did you would find the statements to be compatible?
narad
Progressive metal and politics
Dude, that's some alternate reality take. He was like a Simon Cowell or Kim Kardashian figure. Entertaining. Not loved. Not respected. Just kinda trashy TV. Popular, but so was Jerry Springer or Dancing with the Stars.
tedtan
Well-Known Member
I’ve heard dick and pussy quite a hit on net work TV lately, which is a big change in the us, but I don’t think I’ve heard cunt.
But then we don’t use cunt the way you do; in the US its almost always an insult to a woman, rather than something used fairly casually.
How many reality television stars are "extremely popular and loved?" People tune into those shows to make themselves feel better about how much mentally well they are in comparison. Even Trump's most vocal supporters in 2016 were apologizing for "The Apprentice" rather than citing it as a reason why he should be elected.
I don't know what sort of adjective should go before "effective," but there is a downward trend in both firearm homicide and firearm suicide since 1996.
StevenC
Needs a hobby
Yeah, I saw recently that in the US it is more of a word to describe a woman, whereas the rest of the world it's just slang for reproductive organs and therefore no different to calling someone a dick.
jaxadam
Well-Known Member
See You Next Tuesday
Read the study @Bodes posted. A logarithmically scaled line chart is not a substitute for statistical analysis. If you think that line chart tells you everything you need to know then you are missing out.
I've made a case for how we could reduce violence without infringing on people's rights. I think they have some merit, and that implementation of those ideas could help save lives.
People here generally don't seem to want to hear that. The consensus here seems to be that prohibition is the solution. That is fine - I didn't expect to change anyone's opinion, just share an additional perspective and some information. I think that is far too rare. People would rather read 40+ pages of dogpiling, insults, and confirmation bias than a single academic paper that @Bodes linked.
Now I can go back to arguing about what 5150 is best.
You're wrong about that, BTW.
I can't speak for everyone else but I change my mind on stuff all the time based on facts as they're presented. And frequently that comes from people I disagree with and yes, includes people on here and conservatives. Again, I can't speak for everyone else but I *usually* push back hardest if the facts I'm presented with still don't overcome the facts I've already got.
If a pro-gun, or zero prohibition argument presented itself that looked like it was going to make a dent in the specific kind of violence I'm concerned with, I'd be the first to advocate it. Instead I get "don't tread on me, those people aren't my problems" basically, which isn't a proposed solution. The other one I usually get is "the problem isn't what you think it is..." to abdicate any responsibility and move the issue further away from inconveniencing them.
So when a school gets shot up and someone says 1.) the problem isn't school shootings 2.) the problem is not enough guns (even though there armed, trained dudes flooding the hallways) 3.) the problem is an entire generation of people, that's a HEAVY lift to overcome with me right off the bat. Those all lean a lot closer to "don't do anything, just accept it" which, to me, doesn't give you (rhetorically, not literally you) a seat at the table.
Ok, as unlikely as it is for you to come back to the discussion, I think the problem is that, in your last two posts, you didn't make any actual point.
Is that the point you wanted to make?
As far as the statistic mentioned in the paper:
IDK, 4.4% decline in gun violence per year is good. 2.9% decline in non-gun violence per year is also good. One out-of-context statement about how more study is needed doesn't undo the significance of that. But I can see why you didn't quote the more relevant parts of the paper - because these arguments are a lot more subtle. There was a hugely successful suicide prevention program in Australia starting in the mid-1990's. You can't really assign the success of that to the NFA, nor vice-versa, but there's no way to isolate the variable in that system. Gun violence was already trending downward since the early 1990's, which you can see in the graphs, so there's less significance than what is often attributed to the NFA, and maybe that decline in violence had nothing to do with the NFA.
Yeah, those are good points, and the paper does a great job, but the gist of what it's saying just boils down to the old adage "correlation is not causation." But that's not at all the way your argument of "you didn't read the paper!" comes off.
The paper 100% is not saying that the NFA was ineffective at controlling gun violence, it's saying that there were too many other social changes happening all around the same time to isolate the exact cause.
And I think that's exactly why we need to be advocating for more reforms than simply an "assault" weapons ban. However, some sort of reform over gun control laws in the USA is definitely necessary. Whether that means some sort of additional restrictions on certain types of weapons or not, requires some thought, but, if we are talking about mass shootings in general, well, those do tend to generally be associated with certain types of weapons more than others, and we all know that. It also does tend to generally be associated with shooters of a certain age and a certain sex, more than others. And I don't think we ought to profile people based on things outside of their control, but we can openly discriminate against certain objects, and we can do a better job discriminating certain behaviours. I mean, a person on a rooftop with a bolt-action rifle or a shotgun or even a handgun, is going to be less deadly to a crowd of concertgoers or paradewatchers than that same person armed with a high-performance semi-auto rifle with a duffle bag full of extra magazines. Furthermore, if you are hunting for food for survival, the bolt-action rifle or shotgun will likely be a better tool than the rifle in question. Hell, in most home invasions, the hundgun is going to be a better tool than the rifle in question, unless you want to leave a few random holes in your neighbours' walls as well.
So, I guess, what point are you trying to make??
