Atrocious_Mutilation wrote:
fetalfeast wrote:
I waited for a long time to weigh in on this thread, but I think that time has come. Mjollnir, thank you for being a voice of reason here.
You want to know why gun control is ethically and practically wrong? Here's a simple answer: Fuck you, you have no individual or collective right to tell me what I can or cannot own. You want to disarm me? Come take my gun yourself instead of delegating your government to do so, you fucking pussies.
However, the answer is not that simple when addressing the ethical question of gun ownership. For starters, it's widely propagandized that Australia and Britain(which will be two prime examples) have seen a decrease in violent crime since the enactment of gun control laws. However, a simple check of the CIA World Factbook proves this isn't the case. Not only is violent crime steadily increasing in these countries, but it is several times higher than the rate in the US.
Secondly, gun control is advocating a band-aid solution to a problem that should warrant much deeper investigation. Instead of "DERP SHOOTINGS SO LET'S TAKE GUNS FROM LAW ABIDING PEOPLE", why not take a look at WHY these people are shooting up schools. What is going on in their head? What is motivating them? Is there a psychological root to this problem? Is it too hard to think about these things? I may not understand the psychology behind the drive to murder, but I can understand the psychology of the gun-control nuts perfectly. "DERP guns are scary and it's too difficult for me to think of the world in anything other than black and white absolutes so BAN ALL GUNS!"
Finally, even though it's been said before, it warrants reiteration. Banning guns will not take them out of the hands of criminals. It's quite simple, really. Criminals don't follow laws to begin with, so what will make them start now? A ban on guns will never take them off the street. It will only cause the market to become more lucrative. Look how that's working out for the Sinaloa cartel, for instance!
There is no cut and paste, black and white answer. Some countries with no guns have decently low crime rates, some with guns have high crime rates. There are way, way too many factors at play to put the blame squarely on the shoulders of gun ownership. Both sides are guilty of this, but the gun control crowd is more so.
And remember, when every second counts, the police are only minutes away!
I'm sorry, but I really have to reply to this haemorrhage of a post.
I've never gotten this American mentality of a new "liberal" government knocking on peoples' doors and personally and forcibly taking their guns, which may or may not be registered and be much more powerful than is required. There's no way they'd do that as the seizing of private property would be seen as communist, or in the current language of political slurs 'socialist', and make the government extremely unpopular. Not even Obama would do it, not only because he isn't a socialist of any sort but also because he'd become a target for the gun-touting population. So much for the land of the free.
You also quote Britain and Australia for having increased violent crime rates than America. It sounds like you're the one spouting propaganda. I checked the CIA World Factbook to see if your claim was right, but there was one problem: There is no section for crime, so it seems like you pulled those figures out of your arse. I can't speak for Britain, though I'm sure that it has a lower crime rate than America, but your view of Australia is very ill-informed. Ever since assault weapons were banned after a mass shooting in 1996, there haven't been any mass shootings since. Let me make that clear:
no rampage shootings have happened in all of Australia since 1996. Zero. None. Compared to the 16 or so that's happened in the US since 1996. And why has gun control worked so well in Australia? Because of the success of the government-funded gun refund program where hundreds of thousands of people across the country voluntarily gave up their guns because they felt they didn't need them. But this only shows how deeply embedded guns and violence are in the American psyche and how stubborn the conservative American populace is towards giving up guns in the paranoid delusions that the the citizens will rise against a bloated, oppressive government, and that most laws in American Congress have never heard of a transition stage. You need a gradual transition into an end result before you can reach it. That's why you had a civil war, you didn't give the citizens the chance to adjust to the new laws and all it did was anger the slave owners of the South to the point of seceding and starting a damned war. It's like going cold turkey on cigarettes, you can't have a successful quit without having some gradual decline in nicotine. The Australian form of gun control is actually a very good model for what could happen to America, but the NRA-loving population is just too stubborn and ill-informed to know what's right.
Another problem is that you say that the rate of violent crime is higher in Australia than it is in America. It is if you read the numbers as numbers and not statistics or percentages. Maybe you forget that the population of Australia sit at around 21 million compared to America's 315 million or so. If you crunch the numbers, then you end up having incidents of violent crime than in America. It's like comparing the rate of obesity between Australia and America. Australia may have a higher rate of obesity per capita, but if you get the American rate of obesity and take that for the American population you end up having more obese people in America than there are people in Australia. It's all relative and how you frame it can be used by anyone for their own ideology.
I see you're using the typical 'blame people, not guns' mode of attack. I do agree that there has to be something done about the state of mental health, but throwing some money at it isn't going to fix the problem. Not only do you have to increase spending in public health, you also have to inform people about the dangers of guns and in the process wean people off the use of guns by implementing gradual gun control policies. Aside from that, you're not fixing the problem by simply telling people that guns are safe tools that can be use to kill criminals, small animals and anything with a bloodstream. That's another thing I don't like about the American mindset, thinking "Well, criminals are going to get guns anyway so we might we well not do anything to stop them obtaining weapons". Of course the bloodshed isn't going to end if you can buy a gun on sale at the local Walmart and use it to open fire on a funeral, but isn't a little restriction to lower the rate of crimes used with guns better than not doing anything and letting people shoot each other in the face?
Thanks, Roger. I was hoping someone would respond to the actual content of my post rather than sniping on petty details.
First things first... Wow, you are right about the CIA World Factbook having no section on crime. Gun control is not something I usually debate about anymore, and a lot of times my sources on things get foggy and mixed up. Chalk it up to my own stupidity, I guess.
I'll see if I can find sources that actually support that assertion, and if not I'll concede that point.
I'm going to try to respond paragraph by paragraph, and hope I don't repeat myself too much.
First off, you're oversimplifying modern political philosophy by calling it "liberal" and "conservative". Those terms are outdated, outmoded, and not specific enough to work in most situations. Modern American "liberalism" and "conservatism" are really just authoritarian centrist. To accurately debate someone about something like this, you've got to drop the left/right paradigm.
Today in New York, a law went into effect banning firearms with more than seven bullets per magazine. Now, unless I've been misinformed, there is no "grandfathering", no grace period, nothing. Even when speaking pragmatically about a democratic system, it's just a shoddily constructed law altogether. It makes law-abiding citizens into criminals overnight. This is an indicator of how future laws will pan out, I fear. To top it off, the President implied in today's press conference(and Joe Biden earlier this week) that he would potentially bypass normal rule of law and the lawmaking process and sign an executive order related to gun control as soon as tomorrow. The "liberal" government scenario that you say won't pan out? There's some serious indicators it's going to happen, and happen soon.
I'll leave the numbers and statistics thing alone until I can get some sources for my assertions.
Now, to address the "people, not guns" point you raised: For starters, I never said we should "just throw money around" to find a solution, and specifically advised AGAINST a Band-Aid solution. "Blaming people" is a much more complex approach. People are sentient; guns are tools. As for "criminals not following laws means we should have no laws at all" strawman: There are two main kinds of laws. There are laws which provide justice for something that has already occurred, and there are laws to prevent crime from occurring. Look at drug laws and "bedroom laws" for instance. See how effective they are? Need I say more?
If gun control really did work in Australia, as you say, I'd love to investigate some other factors as to why that's the case, because I suspect it's a little more complicated than guns magically disappearing.