For instance, gun free zones:
Clearly a brilliant, totally genius idea, that works every time.
Except, of course, for when it doesn't.
As things stand, it is only a matter of "when" until we get to host our own entry into the ISISholes' pantheon of atrocities.
Of course, there's no need for things to stand as they are.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Emphasis added, obviously. Our reality based overlords are fond of torturing the second amendment, subjecting it to astonishing contortions ignoring both context and grammar. It's amazing how they can detect emanations, thereby finding the Constitution mandates murders of convenience and gay marriage, yet refuse to acknowledge that which is staring them in the face.
But one clear threat we face from the Religion of Death is also one that we can counter by noting that introductory clause. Pres Obama could, through a completely legal executive order, direct that the entire US will be "shall issue" for the concealed carry of handguns to those who complete a DOD approved program of weapons training.
And then eliminate the fantastical notion that gun free zones are anything other than places to herd victims.
Of course, as a progressive, Pres Obama would never entertain the notion. He'd far rather Americans be defenseless in their own country.
209 comments:
1 – 200 of 209 Newer› Newest»I imagine the panic the feds must have felt when they realized this guy has actually worked in a nuclear plant in 2013.
But your question about Obama begs the other question: why is it that while Bush was president, for whole eight years, he didn't sign the executive order you ask now? And were you blaming him for not doing it back then?
Would the total of child shootings then go up from the present 40 a day? I don't know.
I have often been accused of innumeracy. Even I can see that 40 a day is more than 5 once.
Also, when the the militia ever well-regulated? It's only function was to shoot workers.
Gun-free zones are a fairly new phenom.
Once again, you demonstrate that you know nothing of the history of your own country. Gun-free zones have been usual since the founding.
My favorite example was the XLT Ranch, once the largest in the world. In the 1880s, the XLT cowpokes carried mobile telephones in their saddlebags but not guns.
As I have suggested, more than once, America has had an interesting history and it would repay you the effort to learn it.
Perhaps, but they weren't mandated as gun-free by the force of the federal government and if the XLT cowpokes carried mobile phones in the 1880's, the ranch had to be in the Twilight, not Gun-Free, Zone.
[Clovis:] why is it that while Bush was president, for whole eight years, he didn't sign the executive order you ask now? And were you blaming him for not doing it back then?
Mumbai, Nairobi, Ottawa, Austin, Ft. Hood, and Charlie Hebdo have all happened since Bush was president.
So while I do fault Bush, and Clinton for making military installations "gun free" zones, they didn't have the examples that Obama has to do something different.
And I don't think it is possible to fault enough the magical thinking behind "gun free" zones in the first place.
[Harry:] Would the total of child shootings then go up from the present 40 a day?
Leave it to you, Harry to conflate two entirely separate issues, while ignoring what's right in front of you.
I'm pretty certain that the vast majority of those 40 child shootings per day happen in places with strict limitations on concealed carry.
Which also means most do not occur where concealed carry is taken for granted.
And, of course, you are implying that somehow all shootings are equal. They aren't. The impact of four ISIShole inspired adherents to the religion of death achieving a Nairobi or Mumbai would be huge.
The best, and perhaps only way to prevent that, is widely distributed defense. Right now, for attackers it is easy: none of their intended victims is armed. However, if Obama actually cared enough to do the obvious, attackers would have absolutely no idea which, or how many, of their targets would be shooting back.
Advantage: defense.
Refer to Ottawa as an example.
Gun-free zones have been usual since the founding.
What do you mean by "usual"?
[erp:] ... if the XLT cowpokes carried mobile phones in the 1880's, the ranch had to be in the Twilight, not Gun-Free, Zone.
As is his wont, Harry is being astonishingly sloppy with language. The phones to which he refers were no more "mobile" than a wired landline phone. What he really meant to say was that they carried telephone handsets. They could go to the telephone line, climb the pole, and hook up their handset.
Not mobile in any meaningful sense of the term, but that's Harry for you.
Also, when the the militia ever well-regulated? It's only function was to shoot workers.
Your tendentious reading of history aside, it is well within realm of reason that the DOD could establish a small arms tactical shooting training program, along with attendant background checks, that would create a significant number of people that could thwart a mass shooting.
Indeed, the enduring question is why, instead of pursuing fatuous gun control laws, the administration has not set up equivalents to the FFDO program for schools, hospitals, etc.
Oh, wait, I know why.
Progressives hate it when people can defend themselves.
Skipper,
---
So while I do fault Bush, and Clinton for making military installations "gun free" zones, they didn't have the examples that Obama has to do something different.
---
Well, I hope you mean Bush the Father, for he was the first to sign up the thing into law.
Which means you have 2 Republican presidents in the line, with one being the one to blame for it in the first place, yet you choose to place that ball solely on Obama's (and progressives) yard.
The strange thing is, we down here are bounded to much tougher anti-gun laws, yet you won't find a military installation with uniformed guys in bare hands.
Which leads to the most obvious conclusion: one thing (anti-gun progressive disposition) has nothing, as in absolutely nothing, to do with military personnel being rendered lame ducks waiting to be shot in a pond.
There again: Only In America* (*TM).
XIT not XLT. There weren't any phone lines. So you don't know what you are talking about. No pole climbing required. And I thought you were all about innovation.
The only reason you think that a rare terrorist (if that's what it was) attack is more important than thousands of slain children is that you don't care about slain children.
You call into evidence a series of gun attacks around the world. I call into evidence Iraq or Israel, where the attackers were unwilling to take part in fire fights. So they turned to bombs. That's all your idea of arming everybody would accomplish.
And many, many more people would be killed and maimed.
In the 1880s, the X(I)T cowpokes carried mobile telephones in their saddlebags but not guns.
Yeah, but personal calls and texting were strictly forbidden.
Harry, you're a genius!. All we have to do is ban guns in the Israeli and Iraqi militaries and ISIS and Hamas will just rely on fistfights.
[Clovis:] Well, I hope you mean Bush the Father, for he was the first to sign up the thing into law.
Thank you very much for bringing me up to speed -- I wasn't aware of that.
Now that I am, then I whole heartedly hurl opprobrium, and eggs (1 doz, rotten) at Bush 1. Just goes to show that delusional thinking isn't purely the province of progressives.
The strange thing is, we down here are bounded to much tougher anti-gun laws, yet you won't find a military installation with uniformed guys in bare hands.
Lucky you, to not have any gun crime. Surely that is incontrovertible evidence for tougher anti-gun laws.
Wait. What?
[Harry:] XIT not XLT. There weren't any phone lines.
I looked up some stuff on the XIT ranch. Not a single syllable substantiates My favorite example was the XLT [sic] Ranch, once the largest in the world. In the 1880s, the XLT [sic] cowpokes carried mobile telephones in their saddlebags but not guns.
You are right, I have absolutely no earthly idea what you are talking about.
Until you can provide some substantiation, this looks like yet another example of Harry's Bollocks.
The only reason you think that a rare terrorist (if that's what it was) attack is more important than thousands of slain children is that you don't care about slain children.
Let's take this sentence out for a run, shall we?
The only reason you think that a rare airline crash is more important than thousands of slain children is that you don't care about slain children.
The only reason you think that a rare case of Ebola is more important than thousands of slain children is that you don't care about slain children.
The only reason you think that a rare bear attack is more important than thousands of slain children is that you don't care about slain children.
What is the common thread? It isn't a trick question, or at all difficult, but let me help you out: each is a non-sequitor; there is no connection between the antecedent and the consequent. I'm not quite sure why progressives are so fond of the non-sequitor, but then I've never figured out there magnetic attraction to passive voice or ineptitude with attribution, either.
You call into evidence a series of gun attacks around the world. I call into evidence Iraq or Israel, where the attackers were unwilling to take part in fire fights. So they turned to bombs. That's all your idea of arming everybody would accomplish.
Well, of course, Harry. Concocting a bomb is so much easier than getting a gun, that it is a wonder they haven't done it already.
Unless, of course, it isn't.
But never mind that, you would rather continue to succumbing to your "gun free" zone delusion than allow Americans a chance to defend themselves.
Remind me again why it is progressives think of themselves as the reason-based community?
This is the funniest comment thread I've read in a long time!!!
"...why is it that while Bush was president...": LOL, it must be Bush's fault! Winner for best non-sequitur of the thread.
"Also, when the the militia ever well-regulated? It's only function was to shoot workers.": LOL, they shoulda written it as "A well regulated militia being necessary to be able to shoot workers!!!"
"...if the XLT cowpokes carried mobile phones in the 1880's, the ranch had to be in the Twilight, not Gun-Free, Zone.": LOL, I have to give erp (with an assist from Harry) "Best of Thread (so far)!!!" The whole gun control debate seems like something out of the twilight zone to me.
"All we have to do is ban guns in the Israeli and Iraqi militaries and ISIS and Hamas will just rely on fistfights." LOL, a close second for "Best of Thread (so far)". And then if we just cut off all of their fists, we'll have peace in our time!
Ahhh, good laughs feel so wonderful. Thank you all!
But my favorite laugher on the gun control issue today is this one which seems to indicate that adults have no more maturity and capacity for responsibility than kids on a playground.
I guess I figured out what Harry means by mobile phones in 1880. Are you talking about horns, Harry?
Skipper,
Our gun violence problem is a bit more complex than a license issue.
I guess that much of the gains in self-defense brought by carrying guns would be offset by the extra accidents and rage related incidents.
Clovis, even someone in a rage may think twice if he thinks the other guy may be armed.
The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado (The Western Frontier Library Series) Paperback – September 15, 1977
by J. Evetts Haley
It's a history book. Interesting stuff, history.
Clovis, Skipper almost got it. The cowpokes carried magneto handsets, which they hooked up to the barb wire fences.
Another fun XIT fact. Cowpokes were not allowed to bring their own horses onto the ranch.
If Skipper doesn't see a connection between guns and guns, I don't think I can help him.
I looked up some stuff on the XIT ranch. Not a single syllable substantiates My favorite example was the XLT [sic] Ranch, once the largest in the world. In the 1880s, the XLT [sic] cowpokes carried mobile telephones in their saddlebags but not guns.
And many syllables argue in favor of just more Harry's Bollocks:
Certainly the operation of such a huge spread meant coping with unceasing problems. Instances of fence cutting and cattle rustling increased as smaller ranchers moved into the Panhandle and the adjacent New Mexico Territory. Consequently the XIT men, along with certain "hired guns," often formed vigilante posses that struck back at known rustler abodes. Straight-shooting lawmen like Ira Aten were frequently hired as section foremen. Moreover, wolves and other wild animal predators, deprived of their natural prey, took a terrible annual toll among cattle, particularly during the calving season; many cowboys thus earned extra money by "wolfing" to obtain the high bounties established for wolf pelts.
Moreover, I tracked down the book, and searched it for "guns".
I'm calling shenanigans. ... the XLT cowpokes carried mobile telephones in their saddlebags but not guns ... is complete, pardon the expression, bull crap.
Interesting stuff, history. Interesting enough that one wonders why you have to make things up.
[Harry:] If Skipper doesn't see a connection between guns and guns, I don't think I can help him
It's a shame that wasn't the connection I was making, nor does it have anything to do with your galloping non sequitur.
Indeed, the connection you were making, that somehow creating diffuse defense against a diffuse threat would automatically lead to more dead children (with progressives, why is it always about the children, even when it isn't?), rather paints you as a racist hater.
Why? Because the majority of gun violence is committed by, and against, blacks. You have only two ways out of the corner you have painted yourself: blacks are constitutionally incapable of responsibly owning guns; or, something other than guns is the problem.
And that doesn't even touch the other fatal error in your "argument" (scare quotes, because Harry's Bollocks don't make for a valid argument): that violence in black communities should somehow deprive everyone else of the only possible defense against another Nairobi.
[Clovis:] I guess that much of the gains in self-defense brought by carrying guns would be offset by the extra accidents and rage related incidents
Why do you guess that? In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many US states greatly liberalized their gun laws, to the point where they became "shall issue" states. That is, the state will issue a CCW permit (some states don't even require that) unless there is a specific reason not to.
The blood bath that you assume, and confiscationist zealots such as Harry predicted, never came to pass.
Instead, gun violence is largely concentrated in areas where guns are prohibited, but for reasons that can't have anything to do with guns themselves.
Except, of course, for racist haters.
The cowpokes carried magneto handsets, which they hooked up to the barb wire fences
Sure they did. Harry, magneto telephones of that era were phones with a battery and hand crank that sent an impulse to ring a bell on a phone connected to the same line. I'm no electrical engineer, but I seriously doubt barbed wire could double as a telephone line or that operators were standing by plugged into the wire to send gunless help across a three million acre ranch to help unarmed cowboys under attack from armed rustlers. If anything, they must have had rudimentary telephone lines. But no walkie-talkies or mobile or cordless anything for many, many years.
However, I'm fascinated you see some connection here, and only partly because Skipper isn't arguing for the right to bear arms on private property against the rules of the owner. Do you see some early enlightened approach to gun control in these Texan ranchers that we should be inspired by and build on? If so, I'm wondering whether you see the shenanigans some of the cowpokes got into in the bunkhouses as an early example of tolerance for gay marriage?
Bret:
The teacher would not have handed out rocks. He or she would have confiscated all rocks, declared a universal zero-tolerance policy and mandated bullying workshops and counseling. Perhaps he or she would have followed the example of a British school district that launched a public anti-bullying campaign complete with special pins or ribbons for the kids to wear to show their support. Sadly, that campaign had to be cancelled when the bullies simply laid in wait off school grounds and beat up any kid wearing the ribbons. We all know why that happened, don't we? Not enough public funding for the campaign. :-)
Peter, I'm so glad you made the point about private vs public property. Prior to the second CRA, we made the rules for our private property and the feds had no jurisdiction over them. Then we opened that can of worms for what seemed at the time a specific good. Unfortunately, the amount of good deeds in the lefty basket is bottomless and we are now so over-regulated that even the media is beginning to notice.
BTW - Harry has still not explained why all the lefty presidents since Wilson (who makes the KKK look saintly) didn't desegregate the military and all other federal installations?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XIT_Ranch
Harry, this is what you wrote:
My favorite example was the XLT [sic] Ranch, once the largest in the world. In the 1880s, the XLT [sic] cowpokes carried mobile telephones in their saddlebags but not guns.
Here is what the book you referred to says on the matter, from page 110:
Careful to see that neigboring riders respected its property, the XIT management, after cleaning up its own initial mess, was even more careful that its own cowboys rode trails that were straight. Findlay and Boyce drafted a code in January of 1888 called "General Rules of the XIT Ranch." The twenty-three requirements of this code constituted a radical departure from old range etiquette and practice. ... Cowboys were forbidden to carry six shooters ... There was much infringement of these rules, particularly the one concerning the carrying of guns... (Emphasis added so that Harry can take the obvious on board.)
I think it particularly deceitful of you to originally cite the book as an authority, then when you get shoved, you turn to Wikipedia. A source that you routinely denigrate, BTW.
Which meant that in order to set the record straight, that indeed the cowboys carried guns, I had to spend time tracking down the source, searching the references, and finding the all too common refutation of yet more Harry's Bollocks.
That's bad enough, but your scuttling to Wikipedia made me retype that entire passage, because there is no copying and pasting from Google Books.
So, to repeat what I said above, ... the XLT cowpokes carried mobile telephones in their saddlebags but not guns ... is a big steaming pile of bull crap.
As to why you thought the XLT ranch, no matter the reality, is somehow dispositive to ISIS inspired attacks is, still, an utter mystery.
A report -- fresh news -- from the reality-based community about how non-gun-free zones scare away armed attackers:
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/07/21/thieves-storm-into-pawn-shop-make-off-with-weapons-jewelry/
Speaking of bollocks:
“ 'Brazen is probably a perfect word to describe what these two individuals did,' said Ron Humphries, Special Agent in Charge at the ATF Denver Field Division.
"Humphries said the robbery is the first of a licensed gun dealer in Colorado this year, and it’s particularly concerning for several reasons. Employees at gun dealers are typically armed themselves, which didn’t deter the suspects."
[Harry:] Speaking of bollocks.
Yes, indeed: ... the XLT cowpokes carried mobile telephones in their saddlebags but not guns ... is a big steaming pile of bull crap.
How about owning your stinking the place up?
Instead of whiplashing those poor goalposts.
Turns out the Chattanooga attack site was not a gun-free zone, though it remains unclear whether that was effective.
http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/2015/07/21/sources-navy-officer-marine-shot-chattanooga-gunman/30426817/
As for bollocks, if I have to now say that the XIT was a gun-free zone, you have to stop saying Chicago is. Logical consistency, how does that work?
An armed society is a polite society:
http://gawker.com/prosecutor-wyoming-shooter-went-hunting-for-drunk-ho-1719296139
Harry, making my point for me -- again.
If this guy thought the people at the shelter were armed, he probably wouldn't have thought this was a good idea.
[Harry:] As for bollocks, if I have to now say that the XIT was a gun-free zone, you have to stop saying Chicago is. Logical consistency, how does that work?
You wouldn't know logical consistency if someone smacked you upside the head with a valid syllogism.
Boy, for some truly epic point-missing, that pretty much sets the new bar. Even for you.
To recap: you were the one who said the cowboys didn't carry guns, because the XIT ranch was a gun free zone. Well, it was, and, pace you, they did. So, if your point was the very first gun-free zone was just as delusional as every one since, then, sure, that's obvious. But that clearly wasn't your point. Rather, because either you don't learn from the books you read, or you willfuly misrepresent them, you point was to extoll the wonderfulness of the XIT ranch gun policies: you, not I, was the one insisting the XIT ranch was a gun free zone. That, right there, is your bollocks.
As if that wasn't enough, you somehow extend your reality distortion field to what I have said, which is most emphatically not that Chicago is a gun free zone. Well, let me rephrase that, to make it perfectly clear, even to you: Chicago is a gun free zone in the same way that the XIT ranch was.
Which is to say, in name only. Worse, though, in Chicago, only the predators have guns.
You wouldn't know logical consistency if someone smacked you upside the head with a valid syllogism.
Skipper,
----
Why do you guess that?
----
If you read enough of the google links you gave on our gun violence problem, you'd see it is most concentrated where the Law is laughable. So it is the notion that, in a Favela, anyone would be defenseless because he doesn't have a gun out of fear of the State. If he doesn't have a gun, it is almost by choice - and because he knows that, if the bad guys want to take him down, the gun will be of no help after all.
Now back to the (almost) lawful part of the society, sure there are a few events where to have a gun would be helpful. Unfortunately, there is a possibly larger set of events where it is of little help, if not a burden. Most of the killings in the traffic stops happen because the victim tries to react when a gun is already pointed out at its face, for example.
And if Erp thinks guns will give people in rage a pause, she doesn't quite get the concept of rage. Makes sense, she is a girl...
I get the concept of rage, but unless the enraged one is also suicidal, he/she won't go into an armed camp gun blazing.
Girls, and thanks for including me as one, although perhaps the past tense would be more appropriate, don't get enraged when some jerk in a car cuts us off or some other equally silly affront to our delicate egos.
We save it for people who threaten our children or perform acts of cruelty or stupidity that endanger our families or communities which is why I am so enraged over the current situation where we no longer live under the rule of law and would gladly without the slightest hesitation eliminate those responsible from the face of the earth forthwith and completely.
I am going to go out on a limb and guess that there are about a thousand times more peeved janitors in this country than Muslim terrorists, so I await the explosion of fear and quivering outrage from the gun nut community about the Colorado murders.
What? Nothing? How can that be?
And, erp, are you quite sure you have thought this through as carefully as the janitor (or for that matter, the Chattanooga murderer)? Because according to the reasoning of you and Skipper, both those guys would have had to expect that they would get way.
Neither place is either gun-free nor -- more to the point -- police-free.
[Clovis:] If you read enough of the google links you gave on our gun violence problem, you'd see it is most concentrated where the Law is laughable.
In this regard, I shall defer to you; I have no idea of what Favela life is like.
Now back to the (almost) lawful part of the society, sure there are a few events where to have a gun would be helpful. Unfortunately, there is a possibly larger set of events where it is of little help, if not a burden.
In the US, at least, that doesn't follow. I'm not about to suggest there is a causal relationship between liberal gun laws and more than twenty year decline in US crime rates, but it is absolutely clear that widespread gun ownership -- in the US -- hasn't led to increases in murders or suicides.
What also should be clear, but never is to progs such as Harry, is that gun laws, just like gun-free zones, are delusional: all they do is succeed in disarming the law-abiding.
[Harry:] Because according to the reasoning of you and Skipper, both those guys would have had to expect that they would get way.
Harry, my reasoning, and erp's, aren't based upon anecdotes. As noted above, when some states relaxed their gun laws, fundamentalist confiscationists -- of which you are one -- predicted a blood bath.
Didn't happen, did it? Anymore than the XIT gun prohibition meant cowboys weren't carrying guns. (Classy the way you owned that howler, by the way. Not.)
But to religionists such as yourself, facts don't matter, do they?
Which means you are left with your original problem: there is no good reason not to expect that some Islamists are going to try and pull a Mumbai/Nairobi here in the US.
There is only one way to make that option unpalatable: make it clear that the ISISholes will have absolutely no idea who will be shooting back.
Like all good progressives, though, you prefer victims, instead.
Harry, why is that you have not addressed, at least not addressed here, the role African tribes like Obama's Luo and the their collaborators, the Arab slave traders, played in bringing Equatorial African Negroes to the slave markets in England and then transported to the U.S. south to be sold into slavery?
Shouldn't their descendants in Araby and Africa be held responsible and made to pay reparations as we here in the U.S. whose ancestors had absolutely no role in the slave trade nor Jim Crow are being held responsible 150 years or approximately seven generations after slavery was made illegal and more than 50 years after discrimination was outlawed?
After all, fair’s fair.
Skipper,
----
I'm not about to suggest there is a causal relationship between liberal gun laws and more than twenty year decline in US crime rates, but it is absolutely clear that widespread gun ownership -- in the US -- hasn't led to increases in murders or suicides.
----
I think AOG was the one to best describe it, as far as I know. He once pointed out that a society with liberal gun laws is one of trust, for you need to trust your fellow citizens in order to be OK with them holding guns.
Simply put, my society is one of distrust. People hardly trust each other down here nowadays, other than in superficial matters, so it follows we don't trust the next fellow holding guns either. And I guess we are right when making that call, for an armed society in distrust won't be a polite society at all.
In other words, even though I would like to have a gun myself, I know plenty of people I would never want to confer a gun to.
Doofuses; a 2-time loser, too:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/07/23/recruiting-center-shot-fired.html
erp, your racism is shameful.
Harry as a historian, you surely want to set the record straight. Tell all about it then. How the KKK went to Africa and grabbed people, put them in chains and dragged them across the ocean to Georgia or Alabama.
You want shameful, look in the mirror Harry. You have condemned to multi-generational custodial care human beings just like youself, but without the hubris that you have because you think you are smarter and know what's best for us all.
This horrible mess we're in -- you done it.
I am going to go out on a limb and guess that there are about a thousand times more peeved janitors in this country than Muslim terrorists
I see we've reached new heights in evidence-based argument. This post is starting to cross with Howard's post on rationalism. I marvel at the Harrys of the world who look at a populace more fearful of terrorists than janitors and judge them misguided.
Anarchy vs Rule of Law or black lives matter only if they further the narrative.
Under the Rule of Law everybody involved would have been subpoenaed to testify under oath. Refuse to do so and go to jail.
[Clovis:] I think AOG was the one to best describe it, as far as I know. He once pointed out that a society with liberal gun laws is one of trust, for you need to trust your fellow citizens in order to be OK with them holding guns.
Did he mean that the society started out that way, or became that way? Violent crime quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Starting in the late 1980s, a number of states went from "may issue" to "shall issue". In 1991, because of the rapid increase in crime over the preceding several decades, was definitely not a "high trust" society.
Yet here we are, 25 years later, with much less crime, and (absent areas subjected to single party collectivist governance) far more trust.
It may well be — and I will take your word on this — that sufficient distrust trumps the deterrent effect of not knowing who might be shooting back.
But here in the US, gun-free zones are so self-evidently delusional* that it is astonishing to me, particularly in a country a constitution that explicitly mandates that gun possession is an individual right, anyone can continue to maintain that the only people that can have guns are the predators.
Confiscationists have yet to come up with an answer for that.
*[Harry:] Gun-free zones have been usual since the founding. Is good for a chuckle; both for its magical thinking and self-demonstrated ignorance.
And I guess we are right when making that call, for an armed society in distrust won't be a polite society at all.
Perhaps, like I said, you are the authority in this regard. But I wonder if you give deterrence short shrift.
=======================
Here is a thoughtful argument against arming soldiers when they are off base. Nut grafs:
Soldiers ought to have the freedom to exercise their Second Amendment rights like any other citizen —either by storing a handgun in a glove box or carrying it concealed on their person. Armed Military Police should defend those who dedicate themselves to our defense. All provisions to keep these men and women safe must be considered—that is, everything except an open show of force at home.
Balance Liberty and Security
Arming uniformed soldiers in a civilian setting blurs the separation of martial and civil authority. It perpetuates the fear that feeds the terrorist’s strategy. And it has no place in a free society. The best counter-terrorism policy will keep American soldiers safe while preserving the principles they seek to defend.
I hadn't thought of it that way.
' I marvel at the Harrys of the world who look at a populace more fearful of terrorists than janitors and judge them misguided'
Do you now?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/lafayette-theater-shooting-john-houser.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
A real live terrorist event, and the details pretty much condemn all the gun nut arguments, don't they?
He wasn't a janitor.
Data is different than anecdote.
You guys may not remember that Harry shared with us that when a mere teenager he had to work as a janitor actually shooting rats!
Naturally, we believe that the scion of southern gentry (father a naval officer and grandfather a judge) was reduced to doing menial labor to earn his bread. s/off
[Harry:] A real live terrorist event, and the details pretty much condemn all the gun nut arguments, don't they?
OK, pick one, just one, "gun nut" argument and tell us exactly how this "real live terrorist event" condemns it.
People, people, isn't it about time to move past anecdotes?
The U.S. has 300 million legal guns, far and away the most in the world both in absolute and proportionate numbers. It has about 10,000 gun homicides a year, many more (proportionately) than the rest of the West, but strikingly fewer than much of the rest of the world, particularly Latin America. Both the rest of the West and Latin America have much stricter gun laws. Go figure.
Mega-statistics about "total deaths" are fun and anecdotes about shocking tragedies are even more fun, but both hide or distort what are surely the questions that divide the two camps. It is silly for the pro-gun side to just assume having so many guns "saves lives" and it is equally silly for the gun control side to assume that gun control will usher in a world of greater general security. Surely the issues are whether gun control would reduce or control the number of illegal guns and save, not lives in general, but righteous, innocent lives?
Skipper,
---
Yet here we are, 25 years later, with much less crime,
---
I am sure you are aware of the flaws in posing correlation as causation.
So much so that, in more recent studies, right-to-carry gun laws were linked to increase in violent crime . Emphasis in "increase".
---
But I wonder if you give deterrence short shrift.
---
I don't. My position here is not due to lack of thought.
The decisive factor here is, what kind of criminal is prevalent in your society: the "predator" kind, who makes a living out of it, or the occasional "drifter", who will take only the easy opportunities, when he is in dire need or under drugs (or both).
Down here, it is sure the first kind.
Now, if you think "deterrence" means anything for the predator, you are lucky to be a pilot instead of a robber. For the professional criminal, the difference if his victims are armed or not only means he will need to choose more carefully the moment of attack (to take them by surprise and with no one around), and use deadly force more unsparingly. So if the victim has a gun, chances are 10 to 1 that he will be killed if he tries to use it. Not much of a deterrence, IMHO, as our statistics on armed victims in traffic stops promptly show.
Do you know what real deterrence means for the predators? It means them being the catch. If crimes are actually investigated and more often than not the perp ends up in jail, it does a hell of a difference. The criminal suddenly notices his friends are dwindling, taken either by handcuffs or by bullets in pursuit by the police.
So, can you guess what else has changed , "starting in the late 1980s" as you would say?
Peter,
---
The U.S. has 300 million legal guns, far and away the most in the world both in absolute and proportionate numbers. It has about 10,000 gun homicides a year, many more (proportionately) than the rest of the West, but strikingly fewer than much of the rest of the world, particularly Latin America. Both the rest of the West and Latin America have much stricter gun laws. Go figure.
---
I can't figure it all out, but I sure know one thing you don't: Latin America has as "much stricter gun laws" as its priests have strict celibacy laws, and both work just as well.
There is not a single statistics on guns, in Brazil, that I would believe in, but I can tell you it is easier to buy an illegal gun in many Favelas than it is to buy a legal one in half of the USA.
Not to mention that anyone with no prior arrests can have a gun permit down here - which means you can buy guns and have them at home. We are "strict" only in making hard to get a carry permit.
And contrary to the US, it is all Federal laws, so the whole country is actually pretty liberal on the guns-at-home side.
Probably Latin America owns having far less guns than the US not to Laws, but for the same reason it has far less everything than Americans: we have far less money too.
'pick one, just one'
Shooters pick gun-free zones.
Bonus:
He was a CC.
It appears (but the gun nuts are afraid of research, so who knows?) that the period of falling crime has coincided with a strong concentration of gun-having in the US.
That is, more and more households and communities have hardly any guns, while the total number gos up, so that there are plenty of guns where there are any.
Clovis makes an excellent point (that I have made before) about cost. Remeber 'West Side Story'? The zip-guns? Have you heard of any local hoodlum having to rely on a zip-gun in the last generation? Hell, no. He's got a real one. And the real ones are far better made than the guns of 60 years ago. Nobody talks about Saturday Night Specials because now everybody goes for the Glock.
Harry, I'll make a point I've made many times before too. These random killers have something in common. They have a long history of drug or alcohol abuse or other, to put it delicately, mental health issues. In a previous saner world, they would have been in institutions and kept from harming themselves and society.
Your cohort, Harry, thought that was mean and cruel, so the institutions (Clovis, look up deinstitutionalization) were emptied and the sick folks were left to their own devices incidentally creating another cadre of victims to be brought to the fore in the media whenever there was a Republican in the White House, otherwise ignored.
Many became homeless and others were left in the care of their families who couldn't cope and when they asked for help, there was none because not only wasn’t there any room at the inn, the inn was turned into condos for rich lefties (sorry for the redundancy).
Erp,
I don't know, many of the crazies practicing mass shootings wouldn't be institutionalized even in the old days.
But the progressive argument, as Obama recently offered, that such events wouldn't happen under stricter gun laws, doesn't look strong either. The extent to which such laws would need to be strict is far beyond anything possible in the USA. For example, if they outlawed only carry permits but allowed guns at home (so the US would get as "strict" as Brazil, for example), the crazies would still have the same access. So why bother?
Which leads to the next question. Why in so many other countries, where crazy people can have access to guns even if they are not as pervasive as in the US, the incidence of mass killings is so much lower?
Mind you that deinstitutionalization is a rule in much of the world too, Erp, so that can't answer the question above.
Are the American crazies different from the other crazies of the species? Do the borders you live in make you a different kind of lunatic?
I haven't traveled that extensively, so I can't comment on how other countries deal with people addled by substance abuse or other mental conditions that may cause people to kill randomly. I can only say that until recent times when vacrancy laws were repealed and people were allowed to sleep in the streets and parks and people clearly dangerous we're let out of institutions instances like these were so rare, I can't remember any. The first I remember of this kind of thing was the guy shooting from the tower at the University of Texas I think in Austin and I don't remember any details.
Erp,
---
The first I remember of this kind of thing was the guy shooting from the tower at the University of Texas I think in Austin and I don't remember any details.
---
I do happen to know about it. It was in 1966, and I know about it because the guy killed a promising young physicist named Robert Boyer, who was making new things in Relativity. I was reading a paper of him many years ago and it had a disclaimer of being posthumously published. I've got curious and went on to find out how...
I sometimes tell this story to make it clear the life of a theoretical physicist can also be dangerous :-)
[Hey Skipper:] OK, pick one, just one, "gun nut" argument and tell us exactly how this "real live terrorist event" condemns it.
[Harry:] Shooters pick gun-free zones.
Bonus:
He was a CC.
Harry, I hate to the one to break it to you, but "shooters pick gun free zones" is an observation, not an argument, and, oh by the way, the theater was a "gun free" zone.
So that's a twofer: you confused an observation for an argument, and, once again, are factually challenged.
But wait, there's more:
Because he had been accused of both domestic violence and soliciting arson, though never successfully prosecuted, he was denied a permit to carry a concealed pistol. His family repeatedly described him as violent and mentally ill; his mental health had been called into question going back decades, and he spent time in a hospital receiving psychiatric care. He vandalized the house he was evicted from last year, and tampered with the gas lines in a way that could have caused a fire or explosion.
(Emphasis added for those who can't be bothered to become acquainted with the facts.)
So, not a CC, either.
Try again.
[Harry:] It appears (but the gun nuts are afraid of research, so who knows?) that the period of falling crime has coincided with a strong concentration of gun-having in the US.
Is that "appears" as in it "appears" the XIT ranch and the Grand Theater were gun free zones, or "appears" as in you forgot to link to the reference that should give us a reason to believe you aren't blowing it out your hat?
[Clovis:] I am sure you are aware of the flaws in posing correlation as causation.
Yes.
I'm also aware that there is no such thing as causation without correlation.
To reiterate, I'm not making the strong claim that guns did, in fact, contribute to the stunning (and completely unpredicted by sociologists) decrease in crime over the last 25 years. While I think the hypothesis is plausible, it is impossible to isolate the fact of greatly increased gun possession from everything else going on.
What is certain is that the claims of confiscationists at the time -- that liberalized gun laws would lead to a bloodbath -- have proven to be completely, epically, wrong.
So much so that, in more recent studies, right-to-carry gun laws were linked to increase in violent crime . Emphasis in "increase".
Not "studies", "study".
I'm not a statistician, but I have been around long enough to know that the word "study" all to often means "data sorted and massaged to reach the desired conclusion".
(Side question: why the heck didn't the Phys.org article link the study they slobbered all over?)
I tracked the "study" down. It's long enough that I didn't thoroughly read it, but it gives every appearance of doing just that. They can't know what they claim to have tortured out of the data -- for just one example, consider rape statistics. The authors can't possibly know whether changes over time have come about due to changing definitions, greater willingness (due to the cultural decrease in shame) of victims to report and authorities to charge, or actual change in rape rates.
Moreover, all the variables come with imprecision, yet there are no error bars on the results. Odd.
Now, if you think "deterrence" means anything for the predator, you are lucky to be a pilot instead of a robber.
I'm lucky in any event.
But I think your assertion is difficult to believe on its face. It may well be true that the victims are more likely to be hurt or killed if they have a gun, but that is too narrow a viewpoint. After all, and this goes to my point in the OP, where legal concealed carry is common, predators have to take into account everyone in the vicinity, not just the victim.
Which is your problem. Brazil makes it practically impossible for anyone to CC legally, which only makes life easier for predators, who don't, by definition, give a damn about the law in the first place.
So, can you guess what else has changed , "starting in the late 1980s" as you would say?
You are right about that. However, as with all the other correlations, it is impossible to say to what extent increased imprisonment has led to decreased crime. Intuitively, it seems a slam-dunk. But I'll just bet that there are studies insisting just the opposite.
[erp:] These random killers have something in common. They have a long history of drug or alcohol abuse or other, to put it delicately, mental health issues. In a previous saner world, they would have been in institutions and kept from harming themselves and society.
Clovis raises some interesting questions, but the brute fact remains that there are a great many people on the streets who would have been institutionalized before, and that it seems intuitive that at least some of these mass shooters (Lafayette, Sandy Hook and Aurora, for just three recent examples) would have been committed back in the day.
Which means Harry is relying on anecdotes, driven by changes in commitment policies, to take guns away from people who aren't the problem, due to a problem that has nothing to do with guns.
Same with murder rates overall. Blacks, at 13% of the population, commit just over half the murders in the US. If blacks committed murder at the same rate as whites, the US murder rate wouldn't be very much different than Europes.
Unless one is a racist hater, then the problem isn't blacks themselves, or guns, but rather what has been done to blacks.
Which means confiscating guns isn't the solution.
[Peter:] It is silly for the pro-gun side to just assume having so many guns "saves lives" and it is equally silly for the gun control side to assume that gun control will usher in a world of greater general security. Surely the issues are whether gun control would reduce or control the number of illegal guns and save, not lives in general, but righteous, innocent lives?
Australia and Britain have greatly restricted gun ownership, with no discernible effect on murder or suicide rates.
The brute question, which confiscationists refuse to address, is that confiscation will leave the predators armed, and victims defenseless. I don't have time to look real hard for links, but it seems that confiscating guns in the UK has led to more gun crime and more home invasions.
I dunno, Skipper, I think you have to be careful looking to other countries and positing straight line correlations between ease of gun ownership and general safety. That's just a mirror of what the gun control crowd does, taking as holy writ that gun control will seamlessly reduce gun deaths (And, like Harry, deluding themselves into thinking something called "research" backs them when all they do is play the anecdote game). Here are the international stats on gun ownership and gun homicides. If you think you can detect a universal causation or even correlation pattern, you're a smarter man than I. Do you really think that if poor Brazil increased it's number of lawful guns tenfold, its off-the-charts homicide numbers would plummet?
Too many variables: drugs, urban dysfunction, demographics, tradition and culture to name just a few. Especially culture. I have a very hard time believing most American gun owners are thinking self-defense. I think the reality is that many of them just like guns and always have. If you grew up in a house with guns, you are going to see their prohibition as a loss more than if you didn't. But my goodness, you can be alarmingly causal about them with high-profile tragic results that don't exactly scream the right of a free citizen to defend himself from bad guys and tyranny.
Then there is your political culture--the Second Amendment, penchant for seeing conspiracies in government, etc, which takes the issue out of empirical analysis. Canada has a fairly high incidence of gun ownership, but it's almost all rifles in rural areas (and aboriginal communities, which have our highest gun death rates). I don't believe I have ever met a Canadian who thought that he was less safe or less free because he couldn't own a handgun, but I know there are lots of Americans who will tell him he is.
Skipper, one of the reason given when the mentally ill were let out of institutions was that chemistry would solve their problems without the need for locking them up. Psychotropic drugs were fairly new then, so there was a chance proponents knew what they were talking about.
Since then, although I doubt there are any studies to support it, those drugs haven't solved the problems of the mentally ill even if they're taken correctly, but as empirical evidence suggests, they are being abused and causing worse problems than the ones they were supposed to cure.
Here's another anecdote, the grandsons, both about 30 and living in different states, of two of my friends recently committed suicide after being treated with the same drug for depression. When I googled it, one of the "side effects" listed is suicidal tendencies.
Think of that! A side effect of a drug in the old days was dizziness or upset tummies -- brave new world indeed!
Peter, even though Canada and the U.S. are kissin' cousins and as close as two cultures can be, we are not the same. Self-defense, as I see it and I've never even seen a gun except in museums, so it's not personal, is a by-product of gun ownership. Law-abiding people want to own guns for a myriad of reasons none of which are any of our business.
Well, one discernible effect in Australia is that there have been 0 -- that's nil, nada, not any -- mass shootings since the guns were melted down.
This is what really happens when a malevolent person encounters an armed citizen:
http://gawker.com/florida-man-shot-in-ass-protecting-turtle-nests-from-dr-1718921566?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Since there were 2 -- count 'em, 2 -- armed cops at the theater, it wasn't a gun-free zone by any sane definition of "gun-free."
The argument that shooters choose gun-free zones really is an argument, made all the time by gun nuts. It is not an observation since it has not been observed.
And Houser was embracing another rightwing gun-nut practice: constitutional carry.
erp, so you are embracing a vast expansion of government-paid medical care for the mentally ill. Thank you. It's called Obamacare. But this destroys your oft-repeated contention that ordinary people can and did take care of their own in the old days.
Harry,
Obamacare is health insurance, not health care and I have no idea what you mean by my embracing it.
Skipper,
----
why the heck didn't the Phys.org article link the study they slobbered all over?)
----
Except they did. In the last line of the piece, under the "More Information" paragraph.
As for you careful analysis of that 108 pages paper, I will unfortunately withdraw from further comments, for I really don't have the time to read the whole piece right now.
On Gun Ownership X Incarceration numbers as a factor to reduce violence, take this: gun ownership per household has actually declined over much of the period in question (see second graph at the link), while Incarceration had monumental growth over the same period. But by all means, don't ever let the facts get into the way of your preferred narrative.
---
After all, and this goes to my point in the OP, where legal concealed carry is common, predators have to take into account everyone in the vicinity, not just the victim.
---
To which my reply was, in short: they have to and they will, easily.
Living the easy safe life of a wealthy first world citizen, Skipper, I guess you have little idea of how hard it is to keep your guard all the time, all days, all years. Most people can't. Hence predators will keep having the advantadge in most situations.
[Harry:] Since there were 2 -- count 'em, 2 -- armed cops at the theater, it wasn't a gun-free zone by any sane definition of "gun-free."
That, right there, is a steaming pile of bovine excreta.
Here's a challenge that you will not accept: find a news story that accurately places the police officers at the time of the shooting, and show how that substantiates your claim that they were in a "gun-free" zone, by any sane definition of the term.
How do I know you won't accept it? Because you either haven't bothered to learn anything you didn't already know about this horrible incident, or you are deliberately misstating the facts.
(NB: if you are right -- you aren't, by a long shot, but nevermind -- you would have succeeded in gut shooting your own argument. Well played.)
[Harry:] Well, one discernible effect in Australia is that there have been 0 -- that's nil, nada, not any -- mass shootings since the guns were melted down.
Just to recap the score: you didn't have a clue about the XIT ranch, or the theater shooter, or where the police officers were. You are already nought for three.
Now make it nought for four:
Monash University shooting - In October 2002, Huan Yun Xiang, a student, shot his classmates and teacher, killing two and injuring five.
2011 Hectorville siege - A mass shooting that took place on Friday, April 29, 2011, in Hectorville, South Australia. It began after a 39-year-old male, Donato Anthony Corbo, went on a shooting rampage, killing three people and wounding a child and two police officers, before being arrested by Special Operations police after an eight-hour siege. (Emphasis added for the factually challenged.)
Well, at least melting down guns, except for those tragedies, ended mass killings in Australia. Oh, wait ...
Childers Palace Fire - In June 2000, drifter and con-artist Robert Long started a fire at the Childers Palace backpackers hostel that killed 15 people.
Sef Gonzales - On July 10, 2001, Sef Gonzales bludgeoned to death his sister, mother and father with a baseball bat.
Churchill Fire - 10 confirmed deaths due to a deliberately lit fire. The fire was lit on 7 February 2009.
Lin family murders - On July 2009, Lian Bin "Robert" Xie killed his sister, her husband and three members of their family (5 persons from the Lin family) with a hammer. The faces of the victims were so disfigured that forensics had to be used to identify them. The motivation for the family massacre were partly because Lin had criticised Xie for not having a job.
Quakers Hill Nursing Home Fire - 10 confirmed and as many as 21 people may have died as a result of a deliberately lit fire in a Quakers Hill nursing home. The fire was lit early on 18 November 2011.
Cairns stabbings - A woman stabbed 8 children to death on Friday, 2014, December 19, 2014. 7 of them were her own.
What was your point?
Skipper, Harry couldn't care less about people being killed. He only cares about moving along the narrative that gun ownership must be strictly controlled and only allowed for use by the body guards of our betters.
Stabbings, arson, bludgeonings are not part of the narrative unless they're committed by Christians of any sect who ipso facto are irrational nut jobs and probably, worst of all, white male Europeans as well.
"...moving along the narrative..."
It's just an act of cultural marxism.
[Peter:] I dunno, Skipper, I think you have to be careful looking to other countries and positing straight line correlations between ease of gun ownership and general safety.
Ummm …. errr … you are right. Particularly because the source to whom I linked had an opinion on the matter long before viewing the evidence.
However, I think several things can be safely said about gun laws:
- Not only did the bloodbath promised by confiscationists like Harry not occur, exactly the opposite happened.
- Except where there are positive measures, such as at airports, to exclude guns, "gun free" zones are delusional, and that their only consequence is to deprive victims of self-defense. They do nothing, whatsoever, to deter predators.
- There is a strong correlation in the US between relaxing gun laws and the across the board decrease in crime. However, it is impossible to demonstrate a cause-effect relationship.
- Where guns have been banned or severely restricted, there has been no correlation with murder or suicide rates. That may well be due to the low prevalence of firearms to begin with; however, the immediate conclusion is if restrictions on liberty will not have any positive consequence, why bother? (Other than appeasing the fundamentalist confiscationists, that is.)
Returning to the OP: "gun free" zones are delusional. It is at least plausible that either ISIS, or the ISIS inspired, will attempt to re-enact Mumbai, Nairobi, or Beslan in the US.
The only way to make it less plausible is to complicate the tactical situation for those so inclined. And the only way to do that is to introduce a wild-card: dropping the foolish charade of "gun-free zones", or modifying the concept to the extent of "gun-free" except for those who have passed a background check and successfully completed FFDO-like training.
Which would mean that attackers would be facing an unknown number of people with the capability of shooting back. Ottawa was a perfect example.
Remember: the police will always get there too late. And, moreover, they will be easy to target.
But never mind that. Despite no evidence of guns increasing murders, or their absence decreasing them, we need to ensure that the terroristically minded have unimpeded access to shooting galleries.
[Clovis:] As for you careful analysis of that 108 pages paper, I will unfortunately withdraw from further comments, for I really don't have the time to read the whole piece right now.
Okay, no need for sarcasm. [/sarc off].
It isn't like I carefully analysed it, so I could well be wrong, but I saw at least several areas where careful analysis might very well put a great deal more error into their findings than they acknowledged.
But I'll just bet that there are studies insisting just the opposite.
You would bet right. However, if there ever was a study that deserved air quotes, this one is it.
Read the comments in your link.
Peter said Do you really think that if poor Brazil increased it's number of lawful guns tenfold, its off-the-charts homicide numbers would plummet?
He is right, it clearly is a counterintuitive assertion. At the moment, only predators are using guns. Allowing non-predators to carry means of self-defense is, by definition, very unlikely to increase the murder rate. So I really think that there will be either no effect at all, or that, like is at least plausible in the US, predators do respond to incentives.
Clearly you think they would respond to effective police and courts.
[erp:] Skipper, one of the reason given when the mentally ill were let out of institutions was that chemistry would solve their problems without the need for locking them up.
Perhaps. But there were also two other main reasons: the cost of maintaining mental institutions, and the extreme difficulty of drawing a line beyond which someone who has not committed a crime may nonetheless be insitutionalized for an indefinite period of time.
The last one I am sympathetic to: it is a perfect example of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. We have no idea if the human costs of deinstitutionalization have exceeded those of the status quo ante. Sure, one can point at the ravers and their assualts on the quality of life for everyone else, and at least some mass murders, too. But there is no denying that institutionalizing people also had some very real costs, as well.
What I am not sympathetic too, though, is people like Harry using rare atrocities having everything to do with mental illness, and nothing to do with guns, as a confiscation hobby horse. As he has shown here, and is routinely demonstrated every time one of these tragedies happen, confiscationists, whether Harry or the NYT, are either analytically retarded, or fundamentally dishonest.
Skipper, if you read the histories of random killers, most have had episodes of violent behavior often spanning years and even decades. It is expensive to maintain institutions for the care of the mentally ill, but one of our obligations as citizens is to provide for the public weal in the same way we provide police and fire protection and maintain an army to protect us from foreign enemies, we need to protect ourselves from dangerously mentally ill people by removing them from mainstream society.
As always, we need to define our terms. The rule of law has until recently always been paramount. We need to return to it ASAP if there's to be any hope that future generations escape the current fascism.
The mentally ill were moved to the streets to provide more chaos and make it is easier to sell a takeover of our liberties to the great unwashed and un/misinformed.
It's an important part of moving the narrative along.
Skipper,
---
Allowing non-predators to carry means of self-defense is, by definition, very unlikely to increase the murder rate.
---
I have mixed feelings and thoughts about that assertion.
I like the idea of law abiding citizens carrying guns and shooting every criminal trying to cross them. What I don't like is the law of unintended consequences.
One thing Americans and Canadians may not know, but is a deep sociological observation I have, is that Brazilians tend to present much more childish behavior when anyone call them in a wrong act. I can see multiple shootings coming from trivial daily disagreements between armed hotheads every single day.
When I told you that we are a society in distrust, you probably understood we are afraid of criminals. Not only that, we are afraid or each other as well.
So I can safely tell you that many people down here agree with me that allowing non-predators to carry may well lead to a sizeable increase in murder rates indeed.
Skipper,
---
So I really think that there will be either no effect at all, or that, like is at least plausible in the US, predators do respond to incentives.
---
I am telling you they do respond to incentives, by bettering their game. Maybe it is my fault for only stating it, instead of giving you real life examples.
I could select from thousands, published in every newspaper, but I can do better and tell you about a handful events that happened with close relatives only, in order to dissipate doubts on accuracy.
Strategy 1: strike at the weakest point - women.
My uncle lives in a nice house in Curitiba, with my aunt, one male cousin and one female cousin. My uncle does have a gun - he is a prosecutor, and they can get carry permits.
One morning, my cousin is going to her work, as usual, so after getting the car out to the street she is cut by two cars (at her front and back), they get down with guns and take her. They go back to the house, with her at gunpoint, and take the whole house as hostages. My uncle was not near his gun, but he openly told me he would never even think about returning fire upon seeing her daughter captured anyway. They took the most valuable things they had (including his legal gun), and run away letting they all locked in the bathroom.
You know, there are all kinds of talks down here about how you need to look out your surroundings before getting out or approaching home, so you can avoid what happened to my cousin... but how the predator will adapt to that?
Strategy 2: strike directly at home, at the weakest hours.
My grandmother lives with another cousin and her husband. They go to work at mornings and come back at dusk, while my grandm stays home. Supposedly anyone observing the house for days enough will get that, so it is no surprise they decide to strike at 3 pm of one conventional weekday. Four guys jump the fence, kick the door and take my grandmother as hostage. They again take the most valuable things and run away. Among those things stolen, there were 5 illegal guns, for my cousin's husband is one typical "law-abiding" Brazilian who, not agreeing with our restrictive gun laws, would once in a while go to Paraguay to buy one pistol or other (he also enjoys shooting as a sport anyway).
There are many, many stolen guns out there in the streets, taken from homes like in the above example.
Really, I could go on and on and on, just to make this single point: what lacks in both cases above, and 92% of the others I could relate, is that no arrests were ever made. And the guns the victims had made difference only in making the robbers better provided afterwards.
Peter wrote: "I don't believe I have ever met a Canadian who thought that he was less safe or less free because he couldn't own a handgun..."
Do you have places in Canada like Harlem or inner city Chicago? I've never owned a gun and don't plan to ever own a gun, but if I lived in or near some of the really dangerous places in the US, I'd want to own guns and probably one or more of which would be hand guns.
Would it make me safer in such a place? Maybe not, but there is huge value to me in at least having the option to potentially defend myself in case of an attack in my own home.
[erp:] It is expensive to maintain institutions for the care of the mentally ill, but one of our obligations as citizens is to provide for the public weal in the same way we provide police and fire protection and maintain an army to protect us from foreign enemies, we need to protect ourselves from dangerously mentally ill people by removing them from mainstream society.
Here's the rub. The set of mentally ill people is thousands of times larger than the subset of people who are mentally ill, and dangerous. In and of itself, that's not too big a hill to climb; however, there is simply no way, a priori, of telling those in the dangerous subset from the rest. After the fact, sure, it's easy.
But that's no help. Not only is there no cost free way out, it is hard to say which is the least expensive. In retrospect, it seems that this guy would have been committed had such an option been practically availabe. But what about this guy?
[Clovis:] What I don't like is the law of unintended consequences.
One thing Americans and Canadians may not know, but is a deep sociological observation I have, is that Brazilians tend to present much more childish behavior when anyone call them in a wrong act.
Unfortunately, you only have first hand experience to go on. [/irony off]
Going ad hominem so soon, Skipper?
Clovis:
No ad hominem, not even a little bit.
By saying Unfortunately, you only have first hand experience to go on, I am saying that your first hand experience so completely overwhelms anything else I might have that I can only do one thing: admit you are right, or, at the very least, admit that your argument has so much more authority than mine that I can't possibly use reason to support an alternate conclusion.
Clovis,
The Brazilians I've met in San Diego don't seem to be more childish than any other group. You definitely don't seem to be more childish than any other group.
So how widespread is this childish thing?
Skipper, wasn't it you who said we mustn't let the lack of the perfect get in the way of the mere good.
Actually the German pilot was bring seen for mental issues and should have been, at the least, grounded. That he was allowed to fly a plane is -- IMO -- criminal.
Bret, the Brazilians I've met are also ordinary in disposition, but next week my husband is seeing a neurologist for nerve pain who is from Brazil. I will get an impartial opinion on this issue from him. :-)
Clovis, what horrible stories. Were the criminals caught and punished I hope? We live in a no outlet neighborhood and lately I am very conscious when a car I don't recognize turns into our area and frequently drive around and go back out to the main road. Many times the car follows me awhile before turning off. One time I had to drive into the police station before they gave up.
' there is simply no way, a priori, of telling those in the dangerous subset from the rest. After the fact, sure, it's easy. '
So true. So we let all of them have firearms and filter the dangerous ones after they use them. Smart.
As a pawnbroker, I have been following this case for a couple years. CC? Hell, yeah. Crazy man with gun. Double hell-yeah!
http://www.kentucky.com/2015/07/27/3961863/ex-preacher-competent-to-stand.html
And
http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/Man-shot-multiple-times-in-Somerset-one-arrested-264891581.html
[Harry:] So true. So we let all of them have firearms and filter the dangerous ones after they use them. Smart.
And knives, hammers, baseball bats, gasoline, fertilizer, cars, and airplanes.
You are fetishizing guns, and ignoring reality. When Australia effectively banned guns, mass murders didn't end, did they? In fact, I'd bet that if you -- well, not you, someone numerate -- looked at the mass-distribution of mass murders before and after guns were banned, there wouldn't be any discernible difference.
So, obviously, ban guns.
Which brings up a different way in which the self-annointed reality based community has departed reason's reservation. Any sort of significant gun control in the US is, like gun free zones, delusional.
Speaking of "gun free" zones, [Harry:] Since there were 2 -- count 'em, 2 -- armed cops at the theater, it wasn't a gun-free zone by any sane definition of "gun-free."
So far, crickets.
[erp:] Actually the German pilot was bring seen for mental issues and should have been, at the least, grounded. That he was allowed to fly a plane is -- IMO -- criminal.
I agree, there were certainly enough signs that he should have been permanently denied a pilot certificate. There are plenty of other diseases that will result certificate revocation, mental illness shouldn't get any special pass.
But that really wasn't what I was getting at. He didn't exhibit the sort of behavior that would have ever gotten him committed, yet he killed 150 people in about the most horrifying way possible.
That exemplifies the difficulty I talked about above, which although seemingly obvious enough, eludes Harry completely. Banning guns has no effect on that homicidal subset of the mentally ill. After all, why should it? Guns don't cause mental disease; their absence won't cure it. (And confiscationists call themselves, without a hint of irony, the reality based community.)
Bret,
---
So how widespread is this childish thing?
---
IMO, it's mostly concentrated in Brazilians being very bad at taking negative criticism or someone calling their attention when they are doing something wrong. You can see some going to irrational anger due to some small admonishment.
It is very particular to that kind of situation, so I am not implying Brazilians are typically more childish in a broader sense.
But as it happens, that's the kind of behavior you don't want someone to present when armed.
Erp,
I don't say so because my mother is one, but Brazilian doctors are well regarded in many circles. I have German friends who come to Brazil exclusively for consulting doctors and getting surgery. In their opinion, the cost-benefit is better and Brazilian doctors tend to be way more attentive - so that's one thing about our culture I can praise, before anyone call me anti-Brazilian.
Now, one thing I enjoyed about Florida is that I never felt in danger there, so I hope all those strange cars in your street are just lost people looking for some address.
On the criminals: no, they were never caught. I unfortunately know about similar stories with lots of people, and in not a single one the perps were caught.
The rate of resolution of homicides in Brazil is between 5% and 8%, which is a great way to tell criminals that crime pays really, really well.
Clovis, No, they weren't looking for an address or they wouldn't have followed me when I took them for a scenic tour of the area and even to police headquarters.
What they were looking at was a little old lady coming out of a store and getting into a big car who looked like an easy target and it only started happening when about 400 units of section 8 housing (where the population is overwhelming of white European derivation) was built less than a 1/4 mile from our house.
Why haven't your relatives installed motion cameras if their neighborhood is so dangerous?
It's the rule of law that kept us safe. Not guns. It's why we stop at red lights in the middle of the night when there isn't another car in sight for miles and follow the rules even when no one can see what we're doing.
Erp,
They do live in good neighborhoods - that's the main reason they were robbed, the predators won't lose their time if the prize isn't worth it.
And many do have cameras, electrical fences, alarms, etc. To no avail, the predators know very well to use a mask, turn off the system, and so on. Don't you ever underestimate them for being criminals, natural selection ensures they do have some brain.
Maybe - and sorry if I sound too progressive here - our main fault as a country is not as much being so incompetent at law enforcement, but to fail to inspire so many people smart enough to beat whole security systems in doing something better with their lives.
The same problem prevails here among the black community where kids who aspire to becoming part of the mainstream are dissed for acting white, etc.
If the left really wanted to end poverty and violence among the people in custodial care, they'd make sure schools identified the kids with potential and make sure they were ready to take their places in the world, not reward them with trinkets to remain among the downtrodden or use affirmative action to make believe they're ready for prime time and when they get into the world, they find out they've been lied to.
Do you have places in Canada like Harlem or inner city Chicago?
We have pockets of urban crime that may be getting worse, but nothing like that. But when a tragedy involving the shooting of innocents grabs the spotlight, there are no calls for letting citizens arm themselves, even from the right. My point is that this issue is a very American one and that, as much as you may bristle at foreign criticism, you may just have to accept that it doesn't play elsewhere in the same way, and I think the reasons for that are much more varied and complex than either side (both domestically and internationally) wants to believe. The vast majority of law-abiding folks outside the States just don't make the causal connections to safety and security your pro-gun lobby makes, particularly about handguns and CC.
I get and support the argument about being able to defend one's home, but even with that one, there is a big difference between rural and urban settings. But to take that and run with it to the point where you argue generally that a society where everyone is armed to the teeth is a safer one (not to mention a more trusting one!!)is a very tough sell in my view.
You have two foreign bloggers here, Bret, one from a relatively peaceful country and one from a very violent one. The two countries couldn't be more different crime-wise and gun-wise, even to the point of bringing to mind stereotypes about boring, peaceful Canadians and hot-blooded "childish" Brazilians. Yet Clovis's anecdotes about what actually happens, the nature of the dangers and how to respond resonate with me more than Skipper's do.
What I do agree with and think the stats bear out is that gun control laws have a very small role to play in preventing violent crime and homicides. I think that much of the gun control lobby is motivated by a kind of idealism that is several steps removed from actually saving lives.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/28/watch-what-happens-when-regular-people-try-to-use-handguns-in-self-defense/?tid=pm_pop_b
... regular people Harry?
Yikes on steroids!
Harry, what's your point?
[Peter:] But when a tragedy involving the shooting of innocents grabs the spotlight, there are no calls for letting citizens arm themselves, even from the right.
No, but there are demagogic calls to disarm citizens, though. Understandable, perhaps, but stunning exercise in reality denial.
Contrary to Harry, mass murders involving guns almost always happen in proclaimed "gun free" zones. Clearly, they aren't; just as clearly, we should stop pretening they are.
So the question is: what to do about it? There are four options on offer: institutionalize the homicidal maniacs, eliminate guns from the US, stop pretending there is such a thing as "gun free" zones, or nothing.
The first two are impossible. Confiscating guns will only disarm the law abiding, to the extent they agree to be disarmed. As an educated guess, nearly 100% of my co-workers own guns. (Full disclosure: before moving to Germany I owned a .22 rifle, and a 44 cal revolver. Where I lived, Alaska, that was considered unarmed.) Of that 100%, very few would go quietly.
Harry, and his confiscationist co-religionists, are advocating an impossible course of action guaranteed to produce insurrection for precisely no benefit -- no change in murder or suicide rates, and the mass murders will continue through other means. It should be clear that I haven't made any claims, beyond superficial plausibility, that liberalized gun laws have had any particular effect on the US crime rate. But that is true in both directions. What the confiscationists need to do, although they won't, is understand that the US has a constitutution that is meaningful. The 2A is explicit, far more so than the emanations that made gay marriage the law of the land. If progressives believe that a constitutional decision, then by all means extend their respect for the constitution to the entire document.
IOW: if they can't get an amendment passed cancelling the 2A, then the 2A is the law of the land and STFU.
Anyway, that leaves two answers to gun notfree zones. My proposal is to extend the FFDO concept to all Americans. After a background check and training similar in degree to the FFDO program, citizens would be, in effect, deputized to use their weapons when faced with a violent crime in progress.
Since these people could be anywhere, in unknown numbers, then things suddenly get more complicated for mass murderers. Obviously, the deranged will very likely find a different way to their ends, as Australia's experience shows to anyone curious enough to make a cursory examination.
But as bad as those deranged people are, the real problem is ISIS inspired attempts at mass murder. The US, unlike most, if not all, other countries outside the Islamic arc, is a target.
So the real question is: in social terms, which is more costly, a well regulated militia, or another Nairobi?
Yet Clovis's anecdotes about what actually happens, the nature of the dangers and how to respond resonate with me more than Skipper's do.
With regard to Brazil, I completely agree. He brought up aspects of Brazilian life about which I had no real familiarity.
But having lived in a part of America where gun ownership is practically universal, and permits aren't required for concealed carry, it is striking how unremarkable a part of life guns are there.
You'd think the Harry's of the world could take that on board, but religious fanatics are rather adverse to reality.
It is not true that mass shootings happen in gun-free zones, which hardly exist anyway.
Jindal, parroting the NRA line, says 'now is not the time' to discuss gun regulation -- not just after an atrocity. That is a sign the gun nuts know they don't have an argument that anyone would buy. And it's never not just after a gun atrocity. As the Post reported, in the first 204 days of 2015, there were 204 mass shootings.
2 million dead in my lifetime, not counting the merely maimed. And for what?
Another responsible gun owner, a cop this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr3Ky1OJqFA
As Skipper says, it's hard to tell the nuts from the sane. So we let 'em all have guns and figure who shouldn't by the body count.
Somehow other countries get along without tens of millions of gun nuts roaming the streets.
https://www.facebook.com/BuczchicMindy/photos/a.1515284618696563.1073741828.1515278958697129/1877714062453615/?type=1
Zing!
[Harry:] It is not true that mass shootings happen in gun-free zones, which hardly exist anyway.
If by that you mean to say you agree with me, that the only purpose of gun free zones is to disarm victims, then fine.
But I suspect you have something completely different in mind. So please list for me the mass shootings that did not occur in declared "gun free" zones.
I'm betting the crickets get another workout.
That is a sign the gun nuts know they don't have an argument that anyone would buy.
No, that is a sign you need to read newspapers more. From the WP, just a couple days ago: Gun control? Americans increasingly see more guns as the solution, not the problem.
Former Texas governor Rick Perry, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, argued after last week's deadly shooting at a Lafayette, La., movie theater that Americans should be allowed to bring guns into movie theaters -- and everywhere else -- to prevent such crime.
It's an echo of a familiar theme from NRA head Wayne LaPierre. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," LaPierre said frequently amid the more recent gun-control debate.
And most Americans agree with this logic, according to a 2014 Pew Research Poll. Since the 2012 Newtown, Conn., massacre of 26 people, including 20 school children, the poll found a nine-point rise in the number of Americans who think gun ownership could "protect people from becoming victims of crime."
(Emphasis added for those who routinely assert as true that which is totally bogus. See also XIT ranch, and results of Australia gun ban.)
Of course, we can always rely on the police, right?
As Skipper says, it's hard to tell the nuts from the sane. So we let 'em all have guns and figure who shouldn't by the body count.
And we let them have hammers, baseball bats, gasoline, airplanes and cars. You planning on banning all those things, too? People who are intent on mass murder will commit mass murder. People who are bent on suicide will commit suicide. Banning guns, in this regard, gets you absolutely nothing, as history -- really you should read and learn about it sometime -- makes perfectly clear.
Even further removed from reality, though, is the sparkly unicorn magical thinking that by a wave of the confiscationist wand, guns would disappear. Bollocks. Instead all you would do is leave the predators with all the guns.
Great plan, that.
But that doesn't matter to a religious fanatic, such as yourself.
Zing
Harry, perhaps you could remind us what stopped the theater shooter?
---
Of course, we can always rely on the police, right?
---
Thanks, Skipper. Is it a bit sick of my part to tell you guys I feel a bit better about Brazil after reading those things? Hey, you have incompetent police too!
My consternation is the focus on mass shootings.
1. Only around 1% of "firearm-related homicides" in the United States are from the mass shootings.
2. I don't see anything having much effect on mass shootings.
2a. The density of police and concealed carriers is too low to stop the vast majority of these shootings. (About 3% of people have concealed carry permits but if even 1/3 of those in public were carrying at any given time, I'd be amazed, meaning only around 1 in 100 people is armed in non-gun-free zones).
2b. Perhaps "gun free" zones invite trouble, but even if those were abolished, it seems likely to me that the mass shooters would go elsewhere.
2c. The ease of purchasing illegal guns in most places in the world makes it unlikely that making guns illegal will have much, if any, effect. Especially since 3D printers and low cost NC machines can build anyone a gun in a few hours, completely "off-the-radar".
3. Many mass shootings are criminal gang activity. Perhaps changing laws (particularly drug laws) might reduce the demand for criminal gangs, but those folk are going to be armed and dangerous no matter what.
So I consider mass shootings to be a small and not particularly important part of the debate from any objective sense.
Bret,
---
My consternation is the focus on mass shootings.
---
I've asked myself the same thing. Skipper looks to be very worried about some Nairobi thing in the US.
That Nairobi mall had 63 victims dead. Looks pretty irrelevant compared to 9/11. And that can be less than the toll taken by mass shootings in a typical year in the US.
It looks like that a death caused by a muslim terrorist hurts more, to Skipper, than any other death. I am not sure the dead person will make the same judgment...
Bret:
Allow me to slightly disagree to agree.
Mass killers go to gun free zones because they know they will be able to kill as many people as possible before the police show up; to that extent, "gun free" zones do invite trouble.
However, as Australia, and MH370, and Germanwings, show mass murders goal is murder -- guns are just a means to an end. Let's assume that enough people were trained concealed carry so that there was high likelihood there would be at least one in any "gun free" zone, all that would end up doing is displacing mass murderers to a different means to attain their ends. Mass shootings aren't really a part of this debate at all -- making them so is to completely confuse means with ends.
Similarly, the mass shootings that Harry linked to are nearly all the result of criminal activity. Banning guns would, by definition have no effect on that, whatsoever.
As well, England, New Zealand and Australia show, banning guns has no effect on the suicide or murder rates, either.
One wonders just what the confiscationist's point is.
Which takes me back to the point of this post: we have a foreseeable threat, against which a diffuse defense is the only thing that can possibly work, with the primary goal being to complicate things enough to deter Islamofasicsts.
Unfortunately, fundamentalist confiscationists would rather have us defenseless.
[Clovis:] It looks like that a death caused by a muslim terrorist hurts more, to Skipper, than any other death. I am not sure the dead person will make the same judgment...
You are right, except for one thing: it isn't the dead person making the judgment.
Not all deaths are equal.
An Islamist mass shooting in a US mall would have all kinds of knock-on consequences, all bad, that crazed killer shootings do not.
We are all equal in death, Skipper. It is the one single thing we know for sure in life.
It is amazing you didn't get that yet.
Clovis, I'm not sure if you're being ironic because while the victims are equally dead, the worldwide Islamic movement to conquer the west is not the same as isolated nut cases going on random killings sprees.
against which a diffuse defense is the only thing that can possibly work
Skipper, if an armed citizenry is part of society's defense against terrorist attacks, what is or should be the duty of a citizen to arm himself and respond?
If Gary Cooper has listened to Grace Kelly, should he have been condemned?
[Clovis:] We are all equal in death, Skipper. It is the one single thing we know for sure in life.
It is amazing you didn't get that yet.
Of course we are all equal in death, but for those of use who remain alive, not all dyings are equal.
Compare the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo to, say, Sandy Hook. More died at Sandy Hook, and the victims could not have been more compelling.
How many foreign leaders showed up?
[Peter:] Skipper, if an armed citizenry is part of society's defense against terrorist attacks, what is or should be the duty of a citizen to arm himself and respond?
Good question. The answer probably runs right along the lines of the analagous question: If a military is part of a society's defense against terrorist attacks, what should be the duty of a citizen to join the military?
Strictly speaking, since the end of the draft, there is no duty. Yet people still listen to an inner call to join.
I think the same type of person would be part of a well ordered militia. I plenty of guys who are FFDOs. They decided to take the time to get the training, and go to the range periodically to qualify. I have no idea why the government couldn't set up a similar -- and self-financed -- program for all civilians, not just pilots.
I also have no idea why, although it would be quite certain, "progressives" would stoutly resist any such thing.
If Gary Cooper has listened to Grace Kelly, should he have been condemned?
An embarrassing personal admission: I am so profoundly ignorant of pop-culture that I have exactly no idea what you are talking about.
And here I was assuming your entire theory of gun control was inspired by this. :-)
Peter asks: "what is or should be the duty of a citizen to arm himself and respond?"
I've asked myself that very question since I'm supportive of the 2nd amendment and the freedom to bear arms yet have never owned a gun myself.
So for me, there's either a duty and I'm a freeloader or there's no duty. As you might guess, I've decided there's no duty in order to avoid feeling guilty of being a freeloader. But if I had to give reasons of why there should be a right to arm oneself but no duty, here they are:
1. In my opinion, being an armed citizen is basically a voluntary occupation.
2. Many of us volunteer for various activities based on our skill set and inclination. For some, guns are a natural inclination, for others (such as myself), they're not.
3. It would be pointless for those who would be incompetent with a gun to arm themselves. I might be one of those people. Or, more accurately, I would be one of those people because I simply wouldn't be able to put in the training time in order to be adequately skilled under the current set of circumstances.
4. I think the number of people who arm themselves, especially arming themselves in public via concealed carry, will naturally adjust to the circumstances. For example, while I think there is a small Islamic threat at the moment that's hardly worth worrying about, if that threat were to grow significantly, I think more people would stay armed and we would naturally respond to the problem. If it got bad enough, even I would arm myself and put in the training time to be adequately competent to help defend my community.
Hey Skipper wrote: "I am so profoundly ignorant of pop-culture..."
LOL.
A movie that's more than a half-century old is pop-culture? Is Shakespeare pop-culture too? How about Oedipus Rex? Prehistoric Cave paintings? Dirt? :-)
Kurt Schlichter (h/t Instapundit) weighs in:
But none of that matters, because this debate is not about facts. It’s about power. The liberal anti-gun narrative is not aimed at creating the best public policy but at disarming citizens the liberal elite looks down upon – and for whom weapons represent their last-ditch ability to respond to liberal overreach.
Put simply, liberal elitists don’t like the fact that, at the end of the day, an armed citizenry can tell them, “No.”
Do read the whole article.
Clovis,
Deaths that are part of a military attack on civilians are different than other deaths. Perhaps not to the dead, but certainly to (many) of those who are left living. Consider the Geneva Conventions, for example, and the verbiage dedicated to civilian attacks.
I think Hey Skipper believes that attacks by Muslims are part of a war and that deaths from those attacks are intentional civilian casualties in that war. I'm guessing you don't agree that the Muslim attacks are part of a war, in which case you'll come to a different conclusion than Hey Skipper.
Howard,
The bummer quote in Schlichter's article: "The fact remains that any outright attempt to take the arms from tens of millions of American gun owners would almost certainly result in a second Civil War."
Ten years ago I would've scoffed at that idea. While progressives have thought of conservatives as subhuman for a long time ("Bitter-clingers", "gun nuts", etc.), over the last ten years conservatives have started to overwhelmingly consider progressives as subhumans as well. Humans have trouble killing other humans. They have less trouble killing subhumans.
We are now a very heavily armed country where we all hate each other.
Not a good thing (the hate part, anyway).
Bret,
Push-back in other areas might prevent things from coming to that...
Bret,
---
I'm guessing you don't agree that the Muslim attacks are part of a war, in which case you'll come to a different conclusion than Hey Skipper.
---
Right to the point. A crazy person with an ideology/regilion is still a crazy person.
Skipper,
---
Compare the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo to, say, Sandy Hook. More died at Sandy Hook, and the victims could not have been more compelling.
---
If a Superior Power gave you the choice: either Sandy Hook happens, or Charlie Hebdo, do you have any doubt about yours?
---
How many foreign leaders showed up?
---
How come that's now a metric for something?
[Peter:] And here I was assuming your entire theory of gun control was inspired by this. :-)
[face palm]smacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmacksmack[/face palm]
Actually, that is one of the few bits of pop-culture I know anything about. Great movie, that.
So to answer If Gary Cooper has listened to Grace Kelly, should he have been condemned?
The movie gives you the answer to that question, doesn't it? All the other male residents of the town were condemned. Every man watching that wanted to be Gary Cooper, not the shirkers.
[Howard:] It’s about power. The liberal anti-gun narrative is not aimed at creating the best public policy but at disarming citizens the liberal elite looks down upon.
Harry is the archetype. "Gun nuts", ammo-sexuals, is but a small example of the opprobrium he hurls at those who prefer to keep their guns, thank you very much. Oddly, considering how deranged he knows gun owners to be, he will still get on airplanes with gun owners at the controls.
[Bret:] I think Hey Skipper believes that attacks by Muslims are part of a war and that deaths from those attacks are intentional civilian casualties in that war.
Exactly. Mass killings caused by the mentally ill -- MH370, and Germanwings far exceed any gun facilitated mass killing I can think of -- although horrific, are self-contained tragedies that aren't the result of an intentionality with wider aims. They are, essentially, accidents.
But Islamist killings are something altogether different. Yes, the dead are all equally dead, but murdering the Charlie Hebdo staff is nothing like MH370.
Clovis wrote: "A crazy person with an ideology/regilion is still a crazy person."
Sure, but a non-crazy person with an ideology/religion is still a non-crazy person. I'm not sure what your point is. That Muslim's who kill people in a war are inherently crazy?
Unless you take the position that anybody who fights in a war is crazy (a la Heller in Catch-22) or that anybody with an ideology/religion is crazy (and everybody has some ideological positions which would make everybody crazy), it's not clear to me whether the mass shootings by Muslims are by crazy people or front line grunts in a war - or perhaps both.
But it doesn't even matter the disposition of the individual doing the killing. Surely, in all wars, some soldiers are crazy. But when soldiers, crazy or not, target civilian populations, the leadership and greater whole are consider responsible (again, consider the Geneva Conventions).
So I think the only question is whether they're part of a war with an enemy who's sufficiently organized and coherent overall to be consider a cohesive entity. I don't think we can tell with any certainty at the moment, but in ten years, looking back, we'll know.
If these attacks by Muslims (again, crazy or not) are instigated, supported, and/or condoned by the cohesive entity that is the enemy, then they are enemy soldiers and those attacks have a much different meaning than unorganized shootings. At least to me (and I'd bet most non-progressive Americans).
Clovis wrote: "If a Superior Power gave you the choice: either Sandy Hook happens, or Charlie Hebdo, do you have any doubt about yours?"
I definitely have doubt. Which would you choose and why would you have no doubt about it? If Charlie Hebdo was an American company, then I'd probably consider them equally bad.
[Clovis:] How come that's now a metric for something?
That not all killings are the same.
[Howard:] The bummer quote in Schlichter's article: "The fact remains that any outright attempt to take the arms from tens of millions of American gun owners would almost certainly result in a second Civil War."
It takes two sides to fight a war. Let's say that the government somehow passes a law banning guns. Who is going to enforce it? Certainly not the military, both as a matter of law and temperament -- they are very people that Obama, Kerry, and Harry love to hate. And not the police, either, since most police officers are just as much in favor of the 2A as most Americans are.
But if there was, somehow, a concerted effort to confiscate guns, it would get very ugly, very quickly.
Which should be perfectly obvious to even the most casual observer of reality, begging the obvious question: why bother? Why are progressives so intent on attaining something that is not only unattainable on a practical level, but also simultaneously destructive and pointless?
Australia and England offer good historical examples for the effects of banning guns. Murder, suicide, and mass killing rates are unchanged. For example, if you look at Australia's murder rate over time, where there are no dates on the chart, you will not be able to detect when the gun ban took effect. People who are intent upon suicide, or mass murder, have plenty of options available -- again, look at Australia. To think these things will disappear simply because a particular tool disappears is magical thinking of the very first order.
Courtesy of the self-styled "reality" based community.
[Howard:] The bummer quote in Schlichter's article: "The fact remains that any outright attempt to take the arms from tens of millions of American gun owners would almost certainly result in a second Civil War."
It takes two sides to fight a war. Let's say that the government somehow passes a law banning guns. Who is going to enforce it? Certainly not the military, both as a matter of law and temperament -- they are very people that Obama, Kerry, and Harry love to hate. And not the police, either, since most police officers are just as much in favor of the 2A as most Americans are.
But if there was, somehow, a concerted effort to confiscate guns, it would get very ugly, very quickly.
Which should be perfectly obvious to even the most casual observer of reality, begging the obvious question: why bother? Why are progressives so intent on attaining something that is not only unattainable on a practical level, but also simultaneously destructive and pointless?
Australia and England offer good historical examples for the effects of banning guns. Murder, suicide, and mass killing rates are unchanged. For example, if you look at Australia's murder rate over time, where there are no dates on the chart, you will not be able to detect when the gun ban took effect. People who are intent upon suicide, or mass murder, have plenty of options available -- again, look at Australia. To think these things will disappear simply because a particular tool disappears is magical thinking of the very first order.
Courtesy of the self-styled "reality" based community.
Mistakes will be made:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20150730_Man_confesses_in_fatal_shooting_of_Vegas_mother.html
From an article praising a former justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court:
'As a reliably tough-on-crime trial judge, he wore a pistol in court and once had a defendant’s mouth duct-taped shut.'
He never had to shoot anyone from the bench. So that proves gun are good.
Skipper,
----
Yes, the dead are all equally dead, but murdering the Charlie Hebdo staff is nothing like MH370.
----
I agree. That's the reason that, had I to choose, I would prefer to be at the Hebdo building than at that MH370 flight - at least I would stand a chance. But I guess that's just me.
Bret,
-----
So I think the only question is whether they're part of a war with an enemy who's sufficiently organized and coherent overall to be consider a cohesive entity.
-----
Yes, they are commanded to kill by Allah. You just need to find and shoot him now - good luck with that.
And if that's not crazy enough in your view, well, few things will ever be.
-----
Clovis wrote: "If a Superior Power gave you the choice: either Sandy Hook happens, or Charlie Hebdo, do you have any doubt about yours?"
I definitely have doubt. Which would you choose and why would you have no doubt about it? If Charlie Hebdo was an American company, then I'd probably consider them equally bad.
-----
My personal set of values tells me Sandy Hook was worse, way worse, both by type and number of victims. Not only that, it tells me that the victims country matters absolutely nothing in either case. It also tells me that differentiating one mass murder from a crazy muslim, like Chatanooga, from a crazy racist, like Charleston, or the last movie theater killer, makes sense only as an exercise in hubris.
Clovis wrote: "... they are commanded to kill by Allah."
I didn't realize you believed in Allah (which is a requirement for you to think that they "are commanded to kill by Allah").
Clovis wrote: "Sandy Hook was ... way worse ... by type of victims..."
When my children were the age of your child (or is it children by now?), I would've agreed with you. But now I know that it would be at least as crushing to me to lose one of my grown or almost grown children to a terrorist attack at their workplaces as it would've been to lose them at elementary school. And if they were parents, it would be crushing to their children. And as you say, the dead are the dead and it doesn't much matter to the dead whether they are children or adults.
I readily admit that I'm a tribal kinda guy. My family is more important than my tribe(s)* which is(are) more important than my community which is more important than my country which is more important than everybody else. Thus an attack on France just doesn't affect me as much as an attack on America. You're apparently a person of the world where everybody is equally important to you. Nothing wrong with that, but that's definitely not me.
* I consider the participants in this blog to be an example of one of my tribes.
Bret,
---
I didn't realize you believed in Allah (which is a requirement for you to think that they "are commanded to kill by Allah").
---
So you need to believe the reason someone announces to have in order to reproduce his stated reason?
---
And as you say, the dead are the dead and it doesn't much matter to the dead whether they are children or adults.
---
And as you and Skipper insisted, this is about who stays alive, not the dead. In that perspective, you claim it would equally hurt to see your children killed by a maniac, no matter their ages.
And I completely agree with that, as father.
Lacking in your math, though, is the rest of the living world. It is a greater objective loss for society to loose 20 toddlers plus 6 schoolworkers, than it is to loose 12 adults. Less objective, but relevant enough in my view, is that some of 12 adults were of enough advanced age in order for their remaining contribution to be less relevant than the toddler's. New trumps Old, most of the time.
I assume that, given the awful choice in losing your son/daughter when they are at age 4, or when they are at 64, you'd now have far less doubts.
---
Thus an attack on France just doesn't affect me as much as an attack on America. You're apparently a person of the world where everybody is equally important to you.
---
Of course not. It is just that an attack in America is as relevant for me as one in France. Given the awful choice for an attack happening in my country, or one happening in any other one, I would give the same answer as you.
With the caveat that, upon looking each victim as an individual, I can easily and completely forget nationality and be hurt by the simple fact he is my fellow human.
[Harry:] Mistakes will be made:
By that do you mean that mistakes will be made only with guns, or that you are trying to prove once and for all, so that no one need ever try again, that anecdotes do not an argument make?
I agree. That's the reason that, had I to choose, I would prefer to be at the Hebdo building than at that MH370 flight - at least I would stand a chance. But I guess that's just me..
This isn't about you, it is about objective reality. We do not deaths of the young the same way we treat those due to age. A friend of mine a couple weeks ago lost his 18 year old daughter to a rare blood disease. It requires a big step away from reality to suggest that anyone regards that in the same way as the death of my grandmother at 97.
We don't treat deaths from accidents the same way as those from intentionality, and we don't regard deaths due to nihilism the same way as those intended to make us do, or stop doing, something.
That's the reason that, had I to choose, I would prefer to be at the Hebdo building than at that MH370 flight - at least I would stand a chance. But I guess that's just me.
Here's the biggest reason you wanted to be at the Hebdo building. The passengers on 370 had about a half hour knowing they were going to die; the flight attendants about an hour. (Passenger emergency O2 vs. FA walk-around bottles.) Similarly, the passengers on Germanwings had just shy of 20 minutes to know they were going to die, and couldn't do a damn thing about it.
In contrast, at Hebdo, you were either dead within a minute or two, or not. Back in the day, we had a saying: I know I'm going to die, I just don't want to be all tensed up when it happens.
My concern is the knock-on consequences. From nihilistic acts, virtually none, save for the delusional vaporings of confiscationist progressives (I know, I repeat myself.). Compare with what would happen if several ISIShole inspired Islamists managed to kill 30 or so people at a mall.
I don't even want to think about it.
Why? Because things happen after intentional murder that has the goal of cowing us into submission.
Skipper,
-----
Compare with what would happen if several ISIShole inspired Islamists managed to kill 30 or so people at a mall. I don't even want to think about it.
-----
The irony of your position is that it only makes more probable such an attack will ever happen.
The more you dread it, the more desirable it is for the Islamists - IOW, a self-fulfilling predicament.
So from a game theory point of view, to measure mass killings for its results, not is motivation, ends up being a bit more wise too.
Clovis, my position has no effect on reality; rather, my position is that is what reality is.
It should be amazing to everyone how many hate crimes against Muslims there haven't been since 9/11; who knows how many more atrocities it would take for that to change. That could well be the consequence of a mall shooting.
Therefore, we need to add tactical complications. So that means either installing positive measures to exclude guns from gun-free zones (expensive, and bound to leave places unprotected), or foregoing the charade we have now, and stop limiting people's inherent right of meaningful self-defense.
Which collectivists hate; hence their insistent, and evidence free, efforts to end that right.
They prefer victims to self-defense.
Skipper,
----
Clovis, my position has no effect on reality;
----
Actually, it does - at least to the extent it represents the similar position of many of your fellow citizens, which you imply it does.
What is in play here is very similar to what happens in Economics. Expectations about the future by relevant actors *do impact* the here and now, which then impacts those same future expectations, in quite non-linear way.
It is what makes Economics so unfit to be as predictive a science like the hard sciences.
It is no surprise that most human activities, including terrorism, present a similar riddle.
To wit, your prescribed solution - arm everyone - is exactly a proposal to influence future expectations of those actors. So I kindly ask you to rethink that "my position has no effect on reality" thing, and give further thoughts to my previous point on self-fulfilling predicaments. BTW, they do happen in economics too - it is how speculative attacks happen to currencies.
Skipper, a very good point about the absence of retaliation toward Moslems as a whole despite the left's attempt to color us all as bigots and racists.
Clovis, economics is no more a science than astrology.
[Clovis:] Actually, [your position] does - at least to the extent it represents the similar position of many of your fellow citizens, which you imply it does.
I hate to sound belligerent, but that is wrong on two levels. Most importantly, you appear to be revoking human nature. People react the way people will react, and their reactions to murders will be fundamentally driven by the reason behind those murders. How could it not? It would be as maladaptive to take no notice of why a murder happened than why I missed the train, despite being at the train station, a couple weeks ago.
That is why we react differently to nihilistic murders than ideological ones.
Of course, in the trivial sense, my proposal, if enacted would change the future behavior of both nihilists and ISISholes: it would make their targets harder. I'm happy to assume that for the nihilistic murder-suicides, they will simply choose another way to flame out.
However, the same can't be said for ISISholes: their violence has a point, and failing to achieve enough violence because someone foiled their plans (Austin, Ottawa) is to score an own goal. In case I didn't mention it above, the point here is not to shoot ISISholes, but to deter them in the first place. Just like, in a different way, airport security isn't intended to catch ISISholes, but to not make the attempt in the first place.
The reality I wish to impact is the enemy's behavior, which bears no resemblance I can think of to currency fluctuations.
erp:
True, so far. But people have their limits. Fortunately, unlike Europe, the US doesn't want to give a damn about Muslims, which is the perfect way to integrate a minority into the majority culture. Take no notice of them, one way or the other.
But should another sufficient atrocity happen, then Americans will be forced to take notice.
Yes and that's the plan, so then they can say, see we told you Americans are intolerant.
It must be fun to be on the A Team which has it going and coming.
erp, I don't think it's anything like a plan. I think progs are deluded in many ways, but not evil. Mostly.
BTW, thanks for the heads up about Paul Jaminet's restaurant visit, but I'm in Amsterdan that day. (I responded via email, but it bounced back for some reason.)
Skipper, I did get your email and replied?
About progs. They come in two categories: the cynical ones calling the shots for power and money like Dem and world socialism leaders who IMO are evil and the plebes who are true believers like Harry and Bernie Sanders who are mindless followers.
Skipper,
----
The reality I wish to impact is the enemy's behavior, which bears no resemblance I can think of to currency fluctuations.
----
In a less beligerent day you may want to take a look at texts like this one (or his many references).
To quote one phrase:
"The conclusion I draw from my discussion is that the best response of both players [security agents and terrorist] is to randomize their selection."
I link the text to illustrate two things.
First, there are good arguments to treat Terrorism as a rational game, to which my analogy to currency fluctuations holds well.
Second, to make the point you keep not taking in account in your proposals, as I keep pointing out. Criminals (not only terrorists) do react to incentives, and they do plan accordingly in non-trivial ways.
More to the point, your proposal to arm everyone in order to add uncertainty, apart from all the unintended consequences it may have, will also be taken in account by a terrorist plot, in such a way to minimize many of tha gains you aim at.
Clovis wrote: "It is a greater objective loss for society to loose 20 toddlers plus 6 schoolworkers, than it is to loose 12 adults."
Is it? I don't think so. The investment society has in a functioning adult (12 + years of education, food, clothing, housing, etc.) is much, much higher than for a toddler (or even many toddlers). Toddlers are a major net-negative for a long time. Adults are usually a net positive.
Therefore, objectively, 20 toddlers aren't a very big loss. It's really easy (and kinda fun) to make more of them.
In fact, that was one of the arguments the Soviet Union used to use to not allow adults to emigrate. That they've invested a lot in those adults and, as part of the collective, those adults need to stay to pay back their debt to society.
Bret,
---
In fact, that was one of the arguments the Soviet Union used to use to not allow adults to emigrate.
---
And that's everything you need to know about how well your argument plays out in real life.
The mindset needed to regard 12 adults as more important than 20 toddlers is just the one that leads to failed societies.
Two interesting articles related to this debate...
First is a recent paper by John Lott (a pro gun advocate who has been known to torture statistics or at least push them to the limit to make his points). One point in this paper: "Regression estimates show that even after accounting for the per capita number of police and people admitted to prison and demographics, the adult population with permits is significantly associated with a drop in murder and violent crime rates."
Second is the fact that a soldier that had a weapon in the "gun-free zone" and tried to stop the Chattanooga shooter may be prosecuted for his actions.
Clovis wrote: "The mindset needed to regard 12 adults as more important than 20 toddlers is just the one that leads to failed societies."
So that was specifically what led to the collapse of the Soviet Union? Who knew? :-)
Their mindset? Absolutely.
Skipper,
---
[Bret] Second is the fact that a soldier that had a weapon in the "gun-free zone" and tried to stop the Chattanooga shooter may be prosecuted for his actions.
---
IOW, the US Navy guys had guns (even if flouting rules for that).
Yet, the score was significantly better for the assailant. How come?
Do not start, please, on how so many more would die if they actually hadn't guns. The lesson here is how even an incompetent attacker had the obvious advantadge.
Bret,
Maybe your description of Lott is yet too kind .
Bret,
Yet on Lott, the statement you quoted is based on his graph at the end of Page 9 of the paper.
Please, do take a look at it and tell me what you think.
Clovis wrote: "Yet, the score was significantly better for the assailant. How come?"
The element of surprise is a huge advantage.
As I've written in a previous comment, "I don't see anything having much effect on mass shootings" because if the shooter doesn't mind dying, the element of surprise pretty much guarantees the shooter will be able kill a number of people before someone can stop him.
Clovis wrote: "Maybe your description of Lott is yet too kind."
Or not. Keep in mind this is a very emotional and passionate topic. Lott has done a tremendous amount of advocacy for concealed carry making him a target for accusations from folks with religious fervor (sorry Peter:-) for gun control.
Of the 5 controversies listed (and I'm sure there's more given the subject), only the last one is cut and dried against him and while clearly unethical, its exact effect on any policy outcome or anything else is not clear to me.
Clovis wrote: "Please, do take a look at [the graph of page 9] and tell me what you think."
Is there anything specifically I should notice?
BTW, I'm not totally sure the summary quote is derived from the graph, and that, in itself is probably a problem. It should be obvious where a summary statement is derived from and, now that you mention it, I'm not sure what it's derived from. Perhaps his earlier work which is also mentioned?
Bret,
---
As I've written in a previous comment, "I don't see anything having much effect on mass shootings"
---
And I very much agree, that's being the reason I keep pushing Skipper to see if he comes up with some better ideas.
---
BTW, I'm not totally sure the summary quote is derived from the graph, and that, in itself is probably a problem.
---
Yes, right to the point - the main problem with his graph and arguments is how they are lacking in providing for such an important statement he poses in the Summary (the one you first quoted).
If he had made the classical deflection of referring the proof to another source, I'd be OK in looking for that another source.
But no, he used the most misleading option of postponing the argument to his footnotes 3 and 4 (pg 19). Someone might think that such important claim would need some careful analysis, instead of some obscure regressions he made an effort to hide both in their placement in the paper as well in their technical obscure phrasing.
I've read papers enough in life to know how to spot a dishonest one. But really, anyone could call this one out.
Indeed, it is not a matter of 'if.' It happens every day because we are an armed society:
http://ktla.com/2015/07/31/good-samaritan-family-gunned-down-trying-to-help-stranded-driver-in-montana/
http://news.yahoo.com/police-9-11-memorial-visitor-carried-2-loaded-163921850.html
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/03/ricky_gervais_applauds_karmadillo_for_helping_texas_man_shoot_himself_in_the_face/
The comments are enlightening
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/two-men-open-fire-mississippi-military-facility
Yeah, worry about the Muslims. The Christian monotheists are jake.
When, not if . . .
http://wonkette.com/592576/florida-jerks-super-excited-their-neighbor-shot-a-kid-saved-a-tv
Is the silence leaden?
Salon and wonkette -- surely you jest Harry.
erp,
There's not necessarily anything wrong with Salon and Wonkette.
There are 100,000+ incidents every year where an armed citizen stops a crime, many of them serious. Obviously, there are going to be mistakes made, some of them pretty silly, absurd, and/or tragic, and Harry dutifully finds them.
Harry's main problem is that he can't seem to distinguish between anecdote and data. To me, it looks like, in his mind, a few bits of stupidity more than counteracts the overwhelming number of times guns help.
And there's nothing wrong with that either. It's his subjective preference. Definitely not mine though.
Bret, There's nothing wrong with thinking that there's nothing wrong with any part of the left wing media including Harry's references above, but my subjective opinion is that those two aren't any more credible than the rest of them.
Data are so suspect, it's often very difficult to distinguish them from anecdotes.
Harry -- the silence, on my part, has everything to do with being on the road, and nothing at all to do with my continued astonishment at your relentless insistence upon confusing anecdotes with anything other than anecdotes.
And just in time to make my case -- I promise I'm not making any of this up, and you will just have to take my word for it, because I doubt it is on the webz -- there is this: day before yesterday, my across the street neighbor in Alaska took his dog for a walk. Near the confluence of the South Fork and Eagle Rivers (about two miles from where I lived) he was charged by a grizzly.
Fortunately, he was carrying a revolver and, when it counted, was a good shot. Result: my neighbor wasn't mauled, or worse, and the bear was dead.
True as that account is, it is nonetheless an anecdote. In that particular instance, it was a very good thing indeed that he had availed himself of the right to self defense, a right which the Harry's of the world would love to block. Also, it demonstrated that eliminating the right to bear arms gives the advantage to the predators of the world.
However, in the wider sense, whether that right, widely exercised, costs society more than it is worth, the anecdote is useless.
Just so with Harry's continued use of them. They demonstrate nothing, except perhaps Harry's hypocrisy, because he never cites a countervailing anecdote, nor extends his anecdotal reasoning (not a compliment) to any other area of life. No mention of, say, motorcycles, or that drowning kills more children under the age of 15 than guns. No move to ban motorcycles or swimming pools. They also demonstrate his innumeracy: in a country with 300 million guns, it should be amazing that there are so few anecdotes offer.
What's worse, the reason Harry relies on anecdotes is because data is so hostile to his position. In this thread, he hasn't referred to any sort of data once. I think I know why. It doesn't matter -- yet he continues to make fun of the religious.
BTW - at RTO, Harry has frequently linked to Wonkette. Every time I follow a link what I find is either ignorant, ideologically hammered, or outright mendacious. As in the knowingly lying kind of mendacious. It is symptomatic of progressivism's pervasive habit: elevation of narrative over reality.
100,000+ is the claim. It works out to about 1 every 5 minutes, an improbable number.
We would soon run out of bad guys if the figure was even 1% as high.
The actual figure appears to be in the high dozens per year.
There are about 1,800 grizzly bears, and 300,000,000 firearms. Overkill, in a manner of speaking.
Defensive Gun Use (DGU) doesn't mean the criminal is killed or necessarily even shot, so no, we wouldn't "run out of bad guys."
Wikipedia shows a range: "Estimates over the number of defensive gun uses vary, depending on the study's population, criteria, time-period studied, and other factors. Higher end estimates by Kleck and Gertz show between 1 to 2.5 million DGUs in the United States each year.[1]:64–65[2][3] Low end estimates cited by Hemenway show approximately 55,000-80,000 such uses each year.[4][5] Middle estimates have estimated approximately 1 million DGU incidents in the United"
That's, of course, one of the reasons we disagree. The sources I consider plausible and the sources you consider plausible have no overlap. Therefore, we literally live in different worlds.
Explain to me again how this carrying of a gun for defense is supposed to work:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20150807_police_officer_said_he_shot_unarmed_man_out_of_fear.html
The very first news story I reported was a DGU. A man was chasing his wife around the house, and his 11-year-old son got down the family shotgun, sheltered behind a door jamb and as his father made a circuit, blew his guts out from behind.
Some people would say, that adds to the statistics that show that if you have a gun in the house you are more likely to be shot than if you don't.
In the next 48 years, you know how many other news stories about DGU the papers I worked for reported? (Not just my reports, by all the hundreds of reporters I worked with)
0. That's right. Nil, nada, not any.
[Harry:] 100,000+ is the claim. It works out to about 1 every 5 minutes, an improbable number.
Why is that improbable? Because you say so? Pardon my skepticism, but you have racked up an impressive number of additions to Harry's Bollocks in this thread.
There are about 1,800 grizzly bears, and 300,000,000 firearms. Overkill, in a manner of speaking.
Your ability to write sentences that are grammatically correct, but absolutely devoid of meaning, continues to astound me.
Overkill, in exactly what manner of speaking? Please, be precise; use equations and graphs where required.
Pro-tip: Consider how many of those 300E6 firearms were within effective range of the bear at the time.
I'm willing to bet you will respond to this in the same way you have to your other howlers: leaden silence.
Explain to me again how this carrying of a gun for defense is supposed to work:
How about starting by explaining to us exactly what Ferrell was doing at the time he was shot.
In the next 48 years, you know how many other news stories about DGU the papers I worked for reported? (Not just my reports, by all the hundreds of reporters I worked with)
0. That's right. Nil, nada, not any.
And? Given a random distribution of DGU, and gun laws at the time, how many should you have seen reported?
Pro-tip: keep in mind that DGUs that do not result in actually firing the gun will go completely under your radar.
---
I can't help but continue to note Harry's reliance upon anecdote. It's almost as if he has no actual evidence upon which to base his confiscationist fervor.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20150807_14yearold_in_arkansas_charged_with_killing_grandparents.html?mobile=true
Amazing, isn't it, that the grandparents in the above linked didn't shoot it out with their grandson?
Here's more. There are about 13,000 pawnshops, virtually all of them gunships, so not gun-free. Yet they get robbed at about the same rate -- maybe higher-- than ice cream parlors. For professional reasons, I keep up with pawnshop robberies. They are not uncommon. I cannot recall the last ice cream parlor stickup I heard about but I am sure there are some.
And do you know what the favorite loot in pawnshop robberies is? Go ahead, guess.
Harry, there are many problems with anecdotes. Among them is the implicit assertion that the act in question would not have occurred in the absence of a gun.
It is cheating -- a common affliction among ideologues -- to wish away the alternative. Which you do every time.
If your implicit assumption (are you ignorant of it, or neglecting to mention it?) was true, then acts like suicide, or murder, would show a precipitous drop in those places that have banned guns. That sort of evidence is called data.
I can't help but notice that your comments, taken together, represent a data void.
Is that par for the journalist course?
[Harry:] Yet [pawnshops] get robbed at about the same rate -- maybe higher-- than ice cream parlors.
You have given me many good reasons to not take your word for this. Evidence, please.
Harry,
According to Wikipedia approximately 20% of the U.S. population of 300,000,000 are between the ages of 0-14. Just wildly guessing let’s say that comes to about 30,000,000. Guessing again half are girls = 15,000,00 and guessing again that each age is approximately equal in number, not a bad guess would be that there are somewhere around ten million 14 year old boys in the U.S. and 13,999,999 of them did not kill their grandparents.
I didn’t check out your link, but the killing must have been a white European male with a gun or you wouldn’t have linked to it. However, if the boy was intent on killing them, he could have done so with any blunt instrument, knife or even his bare hands. Now if the old grannies had a gun at hand, they might have saved themselves and killed their grandchild. Speaking as an old granny, I would have much preferred the former to the latter.
erp:
20% of 300,000,000 is 60,000,000. Easy mistake to make whilst typing.
No matter, your point is even more secure after fixing the error.
A poor mechanic blames his tools, but in my case, it's true. The tool between my ears ain't what it used to be -- many thanks for picking up the error. :-)
In the next 48 years, you know how many other news stories about DGU the papers I worked for reported? (Not just my reports, by all the hundreds of reporters I worked with)
0. That's right. Nil, nada, not any.
Which must mean this didn't happen.
Isn't the anecdote war fun?
I googled: Suspect killed at auto dealer” and got this array of articles.
The latest in a long line of college boy committing a violent crime killed by a police officer in the line of duty. Perhaps if black lives really mattered, the campaign would be to get black college students to stop committing crimes and get back to their books instead of inciting more violence by condemning those we’ve entrusted to protect us for doing their sworn duty.
Somehow, having a gun in the house didn't work out so good this time:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/us/8-people-found-dead-inside-texas-home-after-arrest.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Harry, why do you say there were guns in the house? The article only mentions guns twice. Once that there was a shot apparently by the perp, as the other occupants were dead, when they police tried to enter and once in a statement by a neighbor who reported hearing a shot.
No mention of whether the unarmed victim was a college student or an athlete on his way visit his sick grandmother.
Harry, I take it from your continued reliance upon mere anecdote that you have absolutely no data to support your position.
Well done.
http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/guns/right-wing-open-carry-patriot-shoots-and-kills-his-3-and-4-year-old-sons-images/
Data:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/states-with-high-gun-ownership-see-more-officers-killed/?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=none&state=standard&contentPlacement=1&version=internal&contentCollection=well.blogs.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwell.blogs.nytimes.com%2F2015%2F08%2F13%2Fstates-with-high-gun-ownership-see-more-officers-killed%2F&eventName=Watching-article-click
NYT is no longer a creditable source IMO -- even the crossword puzzles promote the narrative. After doing the Sunday puzzle for 66 years, I'm very close to calling it a day.
Well, you could go to the original study, but that would mean piercing your fantasy shell, so you won't.
Harry:
Your sneering pseudo-intellectual condescension is always grating, but it becomes even more so when you can't master even the most simple html conventions. Your plastering the URL into your post is not only ugly, it forces anyone who follows your link (a courtesy, which you have convincingly demonstrated, you do not return) to copy the entire thing, then paste it into a new browser page. Instead, you could use the href command.
Okay, I get that for a big forehead progressive who knows everything all the time for everyone, that is one burden too many. If only I could be so smart that I could be absolutely confident about things of which I am wholly ignorant.
So here is another pro-tip -- granted, from an ammo-sexual, so what could I know. I use Apple products; I can't give you the precise path for a WinBox, but it is easy enough to find how WinBoxes do auto-correct. Add an entry such as this:
.hr
For the replacement text (replace brackets with carats, because duh):
[a href=""][/a]
Okay, I get that this will entail an additional level of difficulty, using a text editor instead of the blogger comment window, then copying and pasting your comment into blogger, but for a progressive with such a prodigious forehead, that should come as no challenge, and adds only about a half-second to a post. Oh, and it also saves aggro when blogger goes stupid and loses your post.
Anyway, having generated the entire html command from .hr, paste the URL between the quotes and the accompanying text between the carats and, presto-chango, you get:
[a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/states-with-high-gun-ownership-see-more-officers-killed/?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=none&state=standard&contentPlacement=1&version=internal&contentCollection=well.blogs.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwell.blogs.nytimes.com%2F2015%2F08%2F13%2Fstates-with-high-gun-ownership-see-more-officers-killed%2F&eventName=Watching-article-click"]Data[/a]:
Which, on the screen, becomes:
Data:
Which means that for someone curious enough to follow the link -- which is never you -- all that is required is to alt-click the hyperlinked text, then select "Open in New Tab". Easy! And Elegant!
Heck, if a bitterly clinging pig ignorant conservative can figure it out, it should be a doddle for self-proclaimed geniuses the world over.
More anecdotes:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/13/1408234/-Take-me-out-at-the-ballgame-Drop-your-gun-in-the-crowd-GunFAIL-CXXXIII?showAll=yes#
Well, I used to use the href command, so I know how to do it. I decided copy/paste was easier.
I decided copy/paste was easier.
Typically self-centered progressive. It is barely easier for you, and harder for everyone else.
But never mind that, shall we look at your link? I shall ignore this:
Among the 180,000 officers in the eight states with the lowest rates of gun ownership, the homicide rate was 0.31 per 100,000. Among the 183,000 in the 23 states with the highest gun ownership rates, the rate was 0.95 per 100,000.
Why should I ignore that? I have no earthly idea, and I have just as much of a clue why Mr. Bakalar, or you, couldn't be fussed to provide an explanation.
But since you both found that unworthy of mention, then I shall defer to your massive foreheads and do the same.
Moreover, I shall, without question, follow the implication that both Mr. Bakalar and you are making: that guns are the single explanation of the difference between police officer deaths in low- and high-gun owning states. I shall also ignore, since simplistic single-factor explanations are so wonderful, unless they are inconvenient that (as one commenter noted), that Wyoming, with the highest per capita ownership is *not* in the top 'quintile,' while DC, with the lowest gun ownership is *not* in the lowest 'quintile.'. Indeed, I shall follow Harry's example, and ignore every comment pointing out what a load of bollocks this is.
But since you, Harry, are the big brain here, I shall take this as iron-clad truth: over the period from 1996 to 2010, 52 police officers per year were shot to death in the US. And, furthermore, that if the gun ownership rate of the highest 23 states was the same as the lowest, that 12 fewer police officers per year would have died. (NB: that is a totally fictitious, bovine extrusion number. Why? Because there isn't nearly enough information available to figure out what it really is. Heck, make it 52, as you will shortly see, it doesn't matter.)
Goose, meet gander.
Let's presume that everything Harry's link implies is true, and then some: 52 fewer people would die prematurely each year.
But that isn't the end of it. (Unless, of course, you are analytically challenged.) Over the same period crime of all kinds, including murder, and that includes murder of police officers plummeted, while gun ownership skyrocketed.
As I stated above, it would be foolish to attribute all of that decrease to gun ownership. But if Harry gets to attribute increased police deaths to it, then how much of the overall decrease in crime over the same period could be attributed to guns in order to compensate for 52 police officer deaths per year?
As close to zero as darnnit is to swearing.
Oh, gosh, I made a schoolboy error. I assumed that the police officer death rate per year is constant. It isn't.
Ignoring the spike in 2001, due entirely to 9/11, the trend has been relentlessly downward over the period that gun ownership has increased.
Harry, how is it that progressives like you are certain you know everything, while getting it all (XIT ranch, Australia mass shootings, etc) so wrong?
Skipper, I thought the same thing about Harry lengthy link, but them I wouldn't follow one of his links, especially one to the NYT, even if he figured out how to label it, "Road Map to the Fountain of Youth."
[erp:] NYT is no longer a creditable source IMO ...
I disagree. Often, the NYT does outstanding straightforward journalism. agenda journalism, it is truly abysmal.
But it does serve an admirable purpose: to frequently demonstrate how biased (or how stupid, take your pick) MSM journalists are.
erp has never said what her sources are. Not the Times, so she says. But what are her sources? Aside from Evans I cannot recall her ever citing even one. I may provide bulky links, but I do provide them.
Harry, what are your sources for the truly remarkable accusation that Catholic bishops backed McCarthy because Catholics want booze?
BTW - Conservatives didn't have anything to do with Prohibition. We are the guys who don't want to tell others how to live, remember?
Your conflating of conservative/libertarian with your major bugaboo, religion, is ridiculous. It's your side, Harry, who are control freaks or as they used to say in the Soviet Union, anything not forbidden, is required.
You have made so many bizarre statements and your sources are usually even more bizarre and obscure.
Lots of things I know because I lived through them and haven't keep a list of books, articles, lectures, discussions and conversations, etc. I have a very good, almost photographic memory, and remember a lot, unfortunately the multiplication tables have been a victim easy access to calculators.
You take exception to my experiences, called me a liar and a racist because your tunnel vision only sees the narrative uber alles and is blind to evidence in front of the eyes of anyone who wants to see.
BTW - I've cited the Venona project several times, the last time only a day or so ago, but to quote Skipper, crickets.
Skipper, Microsoft won't allow me to open the link: agenda journalism. It comes up with this: javascript:void(0);
This is a new error message. One I've not seen before.
Agenda Journalism.
Well, I noticed that you mentioned Venona, but Venona doesn't provide any support for McCarthy's claims.
Harry, how about defending how it is that guns are responsible for deaths that happen, but not for deaths that don't?
Never mind that, you have two fundamental problems that you always fail to address. Taking away guns without disarming only the law abiding, and, taking away guns in the first place:
American gun owners are beginning to respond with a fresh, powerful argument when facing anti-gun liberals. Here it is, in its entirety. Ready?
“Screw you.” That’s it. Except the first word isn’t “Screw.”
It’s not exactly a traditional argument, but it’s certainly appropriate here. The fact is that there is no point in arguing with liberal gun-control advocates because their argument is never in good faith. They slander gun owners as murderers. They lie about their ultimate aim, which is to ban and confiscate all privately owned weapons. And they adopt a pose of reasonability, yet their position is not susceptible to change because of evidence, facts or law. None of those matter – they already have their conclusion. This has to do with power – their power.
You can’t argue with someone who is lying about his position or whose position is not based upon reason. You can talk all day about how crime has diminished where concealed carry is allowed, while it flourishes in Democrat blue cities where gun control is tightest. You can point to statistics showing that law-abiding citizens who carry legally are exponentially less likely to commit gun crimes than other people. You can cite examples of armed citizens protecting themselves and their communities with guns. You can offer government statistics showing how the typical American is at many times greater risk of death from an automobile crash, a fall, or poisoning than from murder by gun.
But none of that matters, because this debate is not about facts. It’s about power. The liberal anti-gun narrative is not aimed at creating the best public policy but at disarming citizens the liberal elite looks down upon – and for whom weapons represent their last-ditch ability to respond to liberal overreach.
Put simply, liberal elitists don’t like the fact that, at the end of the day, an armed citizenry can tell them, “No.”
If confiscationists were the least bit honest, which they are not, they would acknowledge that confiscating guns, even ignoring leaving the predators armed, is a task that, as all the evidence clearly shows, isn't nearly worth the very real, and serious, costs involved.
You'd think that progressives would find a more amenable target. For instance: in Germany, the motor vehicle death rate is on the order of half that of the US, despite driving much faster than we do. (For those of you at home in the blogging audience, that is what first hand evidence looks like.)
If saving lives is so important to you, than you can save many times more by doing whatever it is the Germans do in the US.
But it isn't about saving lives, is it?
Skipper, your link comes up with an error message about Facebook. I don't do Facebook, does that matter?
Try this.
Thanks. Nice driving. I think I detest Nixon more for reducing the national speed limit to 55 mph than I do for the rest of his fascist attempts on our lives -- Watergate was just a media-made distraction. If he was a Soviet-loving lefty, they would have loved him, alas for him he was a nationalist lefty.
It was during the time we did a LOT of driving from sea to shining sea and up, down, crisscross the U.S. of A. camping in a tent showing our kids what a wonderful country this is/was.
What kind of driver preparation do kids get Germany? Here in Florida driving skills are minimal, hills are mostly non-existent and roads are usually straight arrows, so even the slightest curve causes people to run off the road.
I stay off the interstates as much as possible. There are fatal accidents on the two major roads near here, I-95 and I-4 almost daily just in the two counties north and south of us. I don’t know which are more dangerous, the idiots who put their car on cruise control and meander all over the left lane or the crazies on Harley’s zooming in and out of traffic as fast their machines can go, the drivers of many of them almost as old as their speed.
Erp,
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What kind of driver preparation do kids get Germany?
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In my experience, the typical German driver is as skilled as the typical American one.
Most road deaths in Germany happen in rural roads, not in their Autobahns, which are in general only a bit better than your Florida Interstates.
In a big country such as the US, the preponderance of "rural roads" (os just roads not as good/wide and with only one traffic direction, as interstates and autobahns) will then naturally lead to more deaths, I guess.
{Clovis:] In my experience, the typical German driver is as skilled as the typical American one.
In at least one regard, disagree. On multi-lane highways, German lane discipline is virtually perfect. In the US, there are no end of idiots that camp in the left lane.
[erp:] What kind of driver preparation do kids get Germany?
Much more rigorous. Required first-aid training. The licensing test is a bear -- 100 questions pulled from a 950 question bank. Signage here is very complex (unnecessarily so, IMHO), and all cities of any size have lots of trams and buses to keep things lively. Consequently, the test questions aren't gimmes. Many, if not most, people do not pass it the first time. We haven't gotten to the driving school yet (yes, we have to do that), but from what I hear, it isn't a gimme, either.
Also, it requires an endorsement on the license to drive a manual trans car.
In my experience here so far, the overall skill level is, in general, the same. But I see a heck of a lot fewer circus acts on the roads here -- the bottom 20% of US drivers don't seem to have licenses here.
[Clovis:] In a big country such as the US, the preponderance of "rural roads" (os just roads not as good/wide and with only one traffic direction, as interstates and autobahns) will then naturally lead to more deaths, I guess.
Dunno about that. There are plenty of rural roads here, and lots of roads in town are twistier, with more limited sight lines, and converge in all kinds of weird configurations.
I suspect that DUI laws here are more draconian. Moreover, German population density is much higher than the US, so anyone living in a city -- which is most -- will be within knee-walking distance of a bar.
But that aside, I think German drivers are much more rigorously trained than in the US, and it contributes to the lower death rates.
The US death rate is 7.6 per billion vehicle km. Germany is 4.9, and Britain, with some truly frightening secondary roads, comes in at 4.3.
So, confiscationists, how about finding about what our peer countries are doing to achieve just over half our death rate? You could save 12,000 lives per year, and without trashing the Constitution (although that is probably a feature for you), or risking insurrection.
Skipper,
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On multi-lane highways, German lane discipline is virtually perfect.
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Agreed. And an interesting example of how collective behavior is self-coordinated: even a lousy foreigner driver will, upon seeing that discipline in a German autobahn, soon realize and abide by it.
But since everything involving discipline is virtually perfect in Germany, I saw not reason to mention it. The US won't ever want to top that. You only need to witness the heated discussions on gun control here to understand so.
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Dunno about that. There are plenty of rural roads here, and lots of roads in town are twistier, with more limited sight lines, and converge in all kinds of weird configurations.
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Yes, because there are plenty of rural roads in Germany, plenty of people die on them, more so than in Autobahns.
My point being that, as a rapid inspection upon a World Map can show, it is trivial to expect *many, many more* rural roads in the US. Hence more deaths.
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Moreover, German population density is much higher than the US, so anyone living in a city -- which is most -- will be within knee-walking distance of a bar.
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As you rightly used afterwards, the relevant figure here is the death rate per billion vehicle km. So it doesn't matter if people drive less in Germany - as long as you compare the death rate per the miles done, it is a meaningful comparison.
Now, what that number does not capture is how many of those miles are being made in a single dangerous road or in a fast autobahn-style one.
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So, confiscationists, how about finding about what our peer countries are doing to achieve just over half our death rate? You could save 12,000 lives per year, and without trashing the Constitution (although that is probably a feature for you), or risking insurrection.
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I have the feeling you wouldn't like their solution either.
If the most obvious culprit is the kind and condition of the road, the direct solution is to make them all more like autobahns.
Which means, for most of them, a lot of public money going on there. The pro-gun people looks to be the anti-gotv-money-for-roads people too, so you'll only jump from one polemic to the other, with all the same people arguing the same sides.
'They slander gun owners as murderers.'
Fools.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/44951_Brave_Patriotic_American_Guarding_Muslim_Free_Gun_Store_Accidentally_Shoots_Himself
[Clovis:] Yes, because there are plenty of rural roads in Germany, plenty of people die on them, more so than in Autobahns.
Yes, just as more die in the US on rural roads.
But that isn't the point. I frequently saw US drivers doing really stupid stuff. E.g: when a sudden wet snowfall in Anchorage meant the maximum safe speed was 40 mph, a guy went steaming by me in the right lane. At a very gentle curve, the rear end stepped out and he went sailing across my lane into the left lane and punted a guy into the media before ending up in the ditch on the right side, wheels in the air.
That was some seriousl stupid.
I have seen less stupid in my entire time here in Germany than in one drive from my hotel in Memphis to the flight simulator building.
That has to make a difference.
And yet another attack, "courtesy" of Harry, of the anecdote monster.
Shame you can't actually come up with any evidence.
One more question about driving in Germany: are there speed traps similar to the kinds endemic here?
Our geographically large rural county with a very low population spends a lot of tax dollars planting police cars on little used, but well paved roads with ridiculously low speed limits making driving the long distances from one end of the county to the other a real pain.
Erp,
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One more question about driving in Germany: are there speed traps similar to the kinds endemic here?
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Endemic, no, but it is a common mistake to believe the Autobahns won't have one. They have parts with speed limits and those can present some speed radars.
(Yes, I've once managed to get a fine driving in an Autobahn.)
Skipper,
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I have seen less stupid in my entire time here in Germany than in one drive from my hotel in Memphis to the flight simulator building.
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So it is a good thing that self-driven cars is a promess to the near future and soon enough everyone can enjoy lower than German levels of accidents.
So that's pretty much a solution already in queue.
As for Guns, what the future will give? Can we ban them after Robocop?
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