Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Pattern Ghost]

11 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

suicides (depression followed by a split second decision)

 

Minor quibble: I don't think suicides are ever split second decisions. I could be wrong, but it runs against my experience and training with suicide prevention. I know that the NE Journal of Medicine cites the percentage of suicides being split second decisions as being very high, but suicides are normally preceded by a very drawn out build up. Just because the final act only takes a second, doesn't mean the decision process was a split second deal.

[csyphrett]

5 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Do homicide rates for women and the elderly in nations which have more strict gun control legislation back up the view that easier access to firearms reduces this risk? 

 

I'm having a tough time assessing why the Canadian homicide rate, overall, would be 1/3 of that in the US. The Wiki article cited differences in trauma care - does the US have markedly worse medical care for injured people than Canada?

 

I don't see a big cultural divide (which differentiates us from, say, India or South America).  Canadians get exposed to American media constantly, and the cultures are not radically different, in my experience.

 

I do see much less access to, and reverence for, firearms in Canada than in the US.  What are the other marked differences that result in triple the homicide rate?

maybe population density is a key factor, Hugh. 

CES

[Pattern Ghost]

2 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

My understanding and I could be wrong was that the CDC is not allowed to look into gun deaths as a project like they have with other things.

 

They aren't. The gun lobby saw to it. On the other hand, organizations driven by medical doctors tend to have a pretty anti-gun bias and have unrealistic understandings of issues surrounding violence.

[csyphrett]

6 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Minor quibble: I don't think suicides are ever split second decisions. I could be wrong, but it runs against my experience and training with suicide prevention. I know that the NE Journal of Medicine cites the percentage of suicides being split second decisions as being very high, but suicides are normally preceded by a very drawn out build up. Just because the final act only takes a second, doesn't mean the decision process was a split second deal.

I think you are right on this, but the thought I was going with is I got a gun, or I got a bunch of pills. Which is going to do the job faster?

CES

[DShomshak]

Regarding Hermit's mention of the moon landing:

 

The "Chasing the Moon" series on PBS included bits of newsreel footage about the Apollo astronauts' world tour afterward. (Which the Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins hated. Not into PR, them.) But the scenes of crowds cheering the motorcade in, IIRC, India, featured people holding up signs proclaiming, "We Did It!" Apparently a lot of people took that "For All Mankind" talk seriously and indeed saw reaching the moon as a universal human achievement.

 

That the US government presented the moon landing in this way, instead of crowing "Ha Ha We Great U Suck," was a fairly remarkable achievement in itself. Or at least it seems that way now. Unfortunately, I can't see any such emotional generosity it happening anytime soon.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Pattern Ghost]

16 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I do see much less access to, and reverence for, firearms in Canada than in the US.  What are the other marked differences that result in triple the homicide rate?

 

Did you read the article on the localization of homicides, broken down by education level, income level, etc. by census areas? The VAST, VAST majority of our homicides happen in ghettos that developed as direct outgrowths of US slavery, the subsequent dehumanization of African slaves, Jim Crow, and further institutionalized racism. So, there's the simple answer: We've got a gang problem, and a large portion of said gang problem is in economically depressed areas created to keep the boot of the elite firmly on the necks of African Americans.

 

And localization of crime exists in EVERY city of any size EVERYWHERE. I've not been to or heard of a single city that didn't have a "bad part of town." What's different is that the United States is spectacularly talented at creating bad parts of town compared to the rest of the world.

 

If you delete all of the murders from the hot spots on the maps in that article, we're really pretty sedate overall.

[Hugh Neilson]

9 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

maybe population density is a key factor, Hugh.

 

Perhaps.  Do we have statistics to back that up? Comparisons of, say, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton (Canadian cities with a 1 million+  population) to LA (smaller than TO, a bit larger than Montreal), Chicago, Houston (comparable to Vancouver), Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio,   San Diego, Dallas and San Jose (that caps out the US cities over 1 million).

 

Sourced from Wiki  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_population_centres_in_Canada )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

[Pattern Ghost]

25 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Do homicide rates for women and the elderly in nations which have more strict gun control legislation back up the view that easier access to firearms reduces this risk? 

 

I think that the majority of women or the elderly in the US aren't armed with guns anyway. But I also think they should have the option to have a force equalizer available, should they chose.

[Hugh Neilson]

I keep having the chilling thought of Scottish Fox' anecdote in a gaming context.  What advice would the RPG player give?  Or the guy advising the next James Bond villain?

 

While I like to hope no one would take that attitude into the real world, it's scary to even consider.

 

Does our own hobby desensitize us to violence?

[csyphrett]

3 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Perhaps.  Do we have statistics to back that up? Comparisons of, say, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton (Canadian cities with a 1 million+  population) to LA (smaller than TO, a bit larger than Montreal), Chicago, Houston (comparable to Vancouver), Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio,   San Diego, Dallas and San Jose (that caps out the US cities over 1 million).

 

Sourced from Wiki  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_population_centres_in_Canada )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

I'm just throwing it out there Hugh. I know that the majority of Canadians live in the southern parts of the country, but I don't know how that would translate into how much you hate each other. Don't you have an agency that records this like the CDC?

CES

[Hermit]

29 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Regarding Hermit's mention of the moon landing:

 

The "Chasing the Moon" series on PBS included bits of newsreel footage about the Apollo astronauts' world tour afterward. (Which the Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins hated. Not into PR, them.) But the scenes of crowds cheering the motorcade in, IIRC, India, featured people holding up signs proclaiming, "We Did It!" Apparently a lot of people took that "For All Mankind" talk seriously and indeed saw reaching the moon as a universal human achievement.

 

That the US government presented the moon landing in this way, instead of crowing "Ha Ha We Great U Suck," was a fairly remarkable achievement in itself. Or at least it seems that way now. Unfortunately, I can't see any such emotional generosity it happening anytime soon.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

If we landed a man on Mars in Trump's watch he'd start selling chunks of the red planet's real estate and putting his name on it with a giant laser

 

[Pattern Ghost]

23 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

I think you are right on this, but the thought I was going with is I got a gun, or I got a bunch of pills. Which is going to do the job faster?

 

I honestly don't think it matters. If you're a male, you're going to be more likely to use the gun. If you're female, you're going to be more likely to use the pill. If you're determined, you're going to succeed. The vast majority of failed suicides are suicidal gestures, not real attempts. Looking at worldwide suicide statistics, strict gun control seems be be much less of a factor than cultural or environmental factors.

[csyphrett]

1 hour ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I honestly don't think it matters. If you're a male, you're going to be more likely to use the gun. If you're female, you're going to be more likely to use the pill. If you're determined, you're going to succeed. The vast majority of failed suicides are suicidal gestures, not real attempts. Looking at worldwide suicide statistics, strict gun control seems be be much less of a factor than cultural or environmental factors.

Thinking about this made me think of two things I heard but don't know if they are true. 

 

500-to 1k people jump off the golden gate bridge a year.

 

And Japan had such a high rate of suicide the government tried to dissuade it by blocking off common death areas.

CES

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Seriously, though, what guns or features of guns would you consider regulating or removing entirely?

 

My personal opinion, as stated above, is that we don't limit any handgun caliber weapon, but that if we limited centerfire rifle calibers to some lower magazine capacity and/or put restrictions on carrying them in public (which for the most part exist, due to anti-poaching laws in most states, but there are areas where goobers open carry rifles), then we could achieve a reasonable approach from the "means" or tools perspective. Of course, I'd want that bundled with some other things that are proven to save lives in mass shooting situations.

 

I think we're mostly in agreement.  My number one priority would be to limit semiautomatic magazines to some single digit number.  I would apply this to handgun calibers as well simply because handguns kill twice as many people in mass shootings as assault rifles.  And then the usual silliness--background checks, no drum mags, no bump stocks, no "arm braces" to get around concealability restrictions. 

[Grailknight]

I'll throw something out just to be radical.

 

My gun restriction would focus on handguns. The reason being: The Founding Fathers didn't really have them and didn't account for them in the Constitution. Revolvers weren't around until the 1830's. Before that it was all single variants that could be(and were used for murders) but were not capable of the kind of casual violence we see today. 

 

Our culture of violence is tied to the handgun, from the dime novels of the Old West to modern movies. 

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

3 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I don't think so. I think if we had a big button that made all guns vanish from the Earth instantly, we would still have the same underlying issues with violence. You'd simply be trading the lives of the people who could have defended themselves vs. superior force for the lives of the school shooting victims, no matter how the numbers fell out. Seems like a bad deal for someone.

 

 

So why does that not play out in the UK for example. We have vanishingly small numbers of mass shootings and we do not get the poorly defended women and elderly being killed in sufficient numbers to get to US levels.

 

Also, I do not consider access to high powered weaponry a fundamental right, not like the right to life, a real fundamental right that the US does not respect (am talking death penalty rather than abortion in the event that was not clear). Constitutional right, I may concede, not so fundamental.

 

Doc

[archer]

19 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

As I've mentioned here before, I don't believe gun ownership in the United States is the fundamental issue underlying gun violence. Neither do I believe poverty or racism are the fundamental issue. All of those factors have an exacerbating effect on the problem, but other countries that have roughly comparable demographics in those areas don't experience the same rate of gun violence. I believe the biggest distinctive factor in the United States is a culture that reveres and glamorizes guns, to the point where unstable people look to them as a legitimate first resort whenever they feel in any way aggrieved or threatened.

 

When it comes to mass shootings, I think the definite uptick in them is coming from the intersection of gun availability plus widespread coverage of the identity of the shooter on social media and mass media.

 

As cell phones have become ubiquitous and people are living for their social media accounts, committing a mass shooting is the fastest way for some nobody to become a somebody.

 

As of this point, I haven't seen an official study showing a correlation. But I've seen charts showing cell phone and social media usage skyrocketing. And I've seen other charts showing mass shooting since Columbine increasing significantly over the same time frame.

 

I don't think it's a leap at all to conclude that there's some connection. A lot of these people leave a manifesto or video which they're hoping will go viral after they die. And, for the most part, they're going into this knowing they're going to die. This whole phenomena is an elaborate suicide ritual which is designed as a last gasp "Look at me! I'm important!"

 

The thing which has changed in the US in recent years isn't the availability of guns. That hasn't changed. What's changed is that lunatic people now know that committing a mass shooting will make them a household name across the country. Your name on the evening news has never been a huge deal because not many people watch the evening news. But getting your name to go viral on social media puts your name in front of almost everyone's face.

 

I think it's vaguely possible to confront the situation by confiscating guns. If you do it thoroughly enough, lunatics would need serious criminal connections to get their hands on guns. But that's a massive undertaking, even if you ignore the legal hurdles, because of the number of guns and the vast amount of ammunition.

 

I think a more easy method to address the problem is to have a total media blackout on the identity of the shooter. The name/photo doesn't go out on the news but all media are made aware of the shooter's identity. Social media platforms change their terms of service so that names/photos of shooters can't be posted and mention of a shooter's name gets the post erased and possibly your account banned.

 

You can talk about the crime itself but not give publicity to the shooter himself.

 

At the least, it'd be a much easier tweak than confiscating a significant fraction of the guns in the country. And if a media blackout on shooter's identities didn't have a measurable effect on the rate of mass shootings after a few years, you could easily stop doing it and return to the way things were before.

[Hermit]

 I sometimes wonder if we should allow for instant name legal name changes to all mass shooters.

Joe Smith walks into a place and kills as many people as he can to get famous and spread his message?

Joe Smith is now "Cowardly Putz!"

It's on his ID, it's what he'll be called in the Court cases,   if he died while doing his attack, it's on his tombstone.

Reporters will rightly refer to him as Cowardly Putz (Possibly with a number depending on how many shooters have also had their name changed to that)

 

"Cowardly Putz was sentenced to Life today" has a nice ring to it.

 

 

[archer]

4 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I think that the majority of women or the elderly in the US aren't armed with guns anyway. But I also think they should have the option to have a force equalizer available, should they chose.

 

< ramble >

 

The idea of me trying to handle a firearm at this point in my life is scary.

 

As nearly as I can tell, in my state I'd pass a background check to get a firearm even though I legally have to have someone manage my Social Security check for me and can no longer do jury duty due to "mental incapacity". I also have medical problems where I have trouble controlling my hands and fingers. The system from what I can tell doesn't cross-check with Social Security or with the local or federal jury duty databases and "can you hold a gun and consistently control your trigger finger" isn't one of the questions they ask. (The check they have on mental problems from what I see only checks to see if you've been officially institutionalized at some point, not whether you're diagnosed.)

 

Last time I shot a gun. 5-6 years ago, I hit the target dead center. But it took me about 90 seconds of waving the gun uncontrollably in small circles before I was able to stop it's movement long enough to take a shot (my brother was closely supervising to make sure nothing went wrong). That was with two hands so I'd hate to think about trying it one-handed or in an emergency. (Luckily, I live with people who aren't incapacitated and could act during an emergency.)

 

I'm all for people having guns for self-defense. Criminals knowing everyone is disarmed is asking for trouble. When I was working for an airline in the early 2000's, they warned us that people leaving the airports in several Florida cities were getting robbed and/or carjacked as they left the airport...because those criminals knew you couldn't take weapons onto an airplane, they didn't have to be concerned about the possibility of armed resistance. I think you'd see that kind of increase in deliberately targeting the defenseless all across the country if criminals knew all weapons were confiscated from law-abiding people.

 

  I'm all for for gun owners securing the guns and ammunition they own so the guns can't easily be seized and use without permission.

 

I'm also all for people knowing when it's time to give up their guns permanently when they become incapacitated and can no longer safely use them.

 

< /ramble >

[archer]

2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

I'll throw something out just to be radical.

 

My gun restriction would focus on handguns. The reason being: The Founding Fathers didn't really have them and didn't account for them in the Constitution. Revolvers weren't around until the 1830's. Before that it was all single variants that could be(and were used for murders) but were not capable of the kind of casual violence we see today. 

 

Our culture of violence is tied to the handgun, from the dime novels of the Old West to modern movies. 

 

 

 

To be clear, they had one-shot handguns.

[megaplayboy]

15 hours ago, csyphrett said:

A gun is a tool. It's the means like old man said. The problem is the motive. Until motives can be verified before people do things, it doesn't matter what the tool is. A semifamous case here in Clemmons is a woman got fed up with her husband telling her to stop spending money on horses. Something I could relate to at the time. She went after him with a harpoon/spear he had got somewhere and had laying around. There's been two or three cases where a man shot his wife and then himself I'm going to say in the last five-ten years maybe and we're a one horse town so it's not like there's a murder every week.

 

If a person doesn't have a gun, they will use something else. BTM used cookies.

 

A gun just makes things easier.

 

Until someone figures out why people act like they do, and how to solve that so they can deal with modern life, murder and suicide is always going to look better than trying to walk it off and trying to start over.

CES      

I feel like this is a straw man argument. We're not trying to reduce the homicide rate to 0.  We're trying to reduce it below its current rate.  There is a credible argument that reducing access to firearms reduces the homicide rate.  

[megaplayboy]

5 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I think we're mostly in agreement.  My number one priority would be to limit semiautomatic magazines to some single digit number.  I would apply this to handgun calibers as well simply because handguns kill twice as many people in mass shootings as assault rifles.  And then the usual silliness--background checks, no drum mags, no bump stocks, no "arm braces" to get around concealability restrictions. 

I'd add licensing, training requirements and liability insurance.  Plus stripping away liability protections for manufacturers and dealers.  

[megaplayboy]

My actual view on the issue is that we need federally funded, unrestricted scientific research on all aspects--how criminals acquire guns, characteristics of mass shooters, medical aspects of the issue, etc.  I think existing research is wholly inadequate and tends to be cherry-picked by both sides without proper scrutiny of methodology.  We need peer-reviewed scientific, medical and social science research on all aspects of the problem, so that policy-makers can make informed decisions using the best data available.  

[Pattern Ghost]

4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

So why does that not play out in the UK for example.

 

It does. Maybe to a slightly lesser degree than in the US, but you can't compare numbers unless both countries report and classify crimes the same way. It's a literal apples to oranges comparison. If it didn't play out in the UK, then why, after banning guns has the government felt it necessary to launch anti-knife campaigns and ban public carry of knives? It's precisely because people didn't magically stop being violent when the guns were restricted -- they just changed tools.

[assault]

Sydney stabbing suspect Mert Ney faces murder charge after CBD rampage

 

"The 20-year-old jumped on cars and yelled at bystanders to “shoot me in the ****ing head” before being restrained by members of the public – later lauded as “heroes” by police – who used cafe chairs and a milk crate to pin him down."

Quote censored for language. Original language in linked article.