Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[unclevlad]

3 hours ago, pinecone said:

Silly how so? A world without guns is a world where the strong rule, and the weak obey. Definately "able-ist". A woman that chooses to fight with a gun has a decent chance, without the chances are very poor indeed. What about disabled persons? Are they to be left to the wolves? The supreme court has found that the police have no obligation to protect, so who do you propose for this service?

 

So many flaws.

I'm over 60, never particularly muscular, and these days, the usual aches and pains don't help.  In many cases, I could offer up some defense to a knife wielder, tho...while I scream my head off.  Your only notion of defense is the counter-attack...escalating the situation.  DARN well better hope my attacker can't disarm me or I put myself MUCH, MUCH worse off.  Against a knife, I might be able to find something for defense in many places...but I'll have to find my gun if I'm at home.  Depending on the nature of the disability, do we really want a disable person with a gun?  Do we really want a LOT of people to have guns?  With people with anger triggers?  Escalation from words to *shots* does happen.  

 

Go back to the summer of 2020.  Numerous incidents where Trump supporters actively tried to intimidate or disrupt Democratic rallies.  And things were very tense.  Now throw in 15-20% of the attendees having guns, and the enormous anger of that summer.

 

Protecting the vulnerable is a major problem, I completely agree, but you wouldn't just be arming the vulnerable.  You're also jumping straight to the highest degree of personal escalation without ever considering if some middle ground is possible, and ignoring both the difficulties in using a gun, and the risk of misuse.

[Ragitsu]

One question: do you want to live in a society where civilian gun ownership is a necessity or do you want to live in a healthy society?

[unclevlad]

1 minute ago, Ragitsu said:

One question: do you want to live in a society where civilian gun ownership is a necessity or do you want to live in a healthy society?

 

Follow-on question:  can there be a viable society where civilian gun ownership is a necessity?

[pinecone]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Not really. It's disingenuous to refer to this as a "mass killing." This was a "killing spree." The victims were found in thirteen separate locations. It's extremely improbable that knife wielders could have closed with and killed that many people all at once in one area, whereas that's common with mass shootings, given a gun's greater range.

 

I'd also like to point out that this took place in my country of Canada, where gun laws are fairly strict, and it's much easier to obtain a concealable knife than a concealable gun.

  

 

You sound like someone who's never been attacked with a knife, or seen someone attacked. Against flesh or most clothing, strength has little bearing on damage done, it's the edge and point that do the work. Speed and skill are much more important. Unless you're talking about knifing something like a bear, with thick fur and muscle, in which case strength definitely helps.

Sadly I Have been attacked with a knife, and a machete. But I was neither small, nor weak. It turned out badly for the attacker(s)

1 hour ago, Ragitsu said:

One question: do you want to live in a society where civilian gun ownership is a necessity or do you want to live in a healthy society?

Nice strawman question! Are you claiming all societies including our own are not healthy? Can you provide any example of such a healthy society? Perhaps in the vast reaches of the pacific ocean?

 

And who claims it is a nessesity for the strong and able? I notice your "healthy" society makes no allowances for the weak or disabled.

6 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Not really. It's disingenuous to refer to this as a "mass killing." This was a "killing spree." The victims were found in thirteen separate locations. It's extremely improbable that knife wielders could have closed with and killed that many people all at once in one area, whereas that's common with mass shootings, given a gun's greater range.

 

I'd also like to point out that this took place in my country of Canada, where gun laws are fairly strict, and it's much easier to obtain a concealable knife than a concealable gun.

  

 

You sound like someone who's never been attacked with a knife, or seen someone attacked. Against flesh or most clothing, strength has little bearing on damage done, it's the edge and point that do the work. Speed and skill are much more important. Unless you're talking about knifing something like a bear, with thick fur and muscle, in which case strength definitely helps.

 

[pinecone]

Quick qeustion, what is your expertese in knife fighting from? Military training? Living in bad parts of town? Please give examples to support your strong claims about "how knives work".

Lastly playing word games of is it a mass slaying, or a spree killing is honestly unworthy of you. Do you wish to find truth, or blow smoke?

Lastly you dodge the question posed, how will the weak, and disabled be protected?

[Old Man]

16 minutes ago, pinecone said:

Quick qeustion, what is your expertese in knife fighting from? Military training? Living in bad parts of town? Please give examples to support your strong claims about "how knives work".

Lastly playing word games of is it a mass slaying, or a spree killing is honestly unworthy of you. Do you wish to find truth, or blow smoke?

Lastly you dodge the question posed, how will the weak, and disabled be protected?

This is starting to come across as a bit heated.  Just letting you know lest you attract unwanted attention from short tempered mods. 
 

To answer your question, the weak and crippled are welcome to join the non-gunfight with tasers, pepper spray, or other non lethal means which are impossible to commit mass shootings with. 

[Ragitsu]

Isn't it "civilian-ist" to disallow armor piercing bullets? What if a corrupt or bloodthirsty police officer violently mistreats civilians? How are they supposed to fight back against bulletproof vests?

[death tribble]

Several of the current cabinet will go as well as Boris. We can't lose the lot but you take what you can get.

[Pattern Ghost]

3 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

Isn't it "civilian-ist" to disallow armor piercing bullets? What if a corrupt or bloodthirsty police officer violently mistreats civilians? How are they supposed to fight back against bulletproof vests?

 

Bigger gun. You don't really need armor piercing  bullets to get a through vest, just more speed with enough mass for the most part. Or an ice pick or sharp screwdriver, depending on the armor.

[Pattern Ghost]

5 hours ago, pinecone said:

Lastly playing word games of is it a mass slaying, or a spree killing is honestly unworthy of you.

They're two different classes of events, and those classifications give context to an argument. To conflate them when constructing an argument is an error, IMO, so fair game to point out.

 

Killing 10 people in one place in a short amount of time is vastly different than killing 10 people in several different places over a longer time. There have been mass stabbings that have exceeded this, and would qualify as mass murders, but this isn't one of them. IIRC, those all took place in confined spaces or in one case where the victims were small children. In any of those cases, a firearm would have been vastly more devastating.

It's important to make good arguments when discussing these things, and that means accurate analogies, IMO.

 

4 hours ago, Old Man said:

To answer your question, the weak and crippled are welcome to join the non-gunfight with tasers, pepper spray, or other non lethal means which are impossible to commit mass shootings with. 

 

There's a reason that law enforcement does not defend against knives with less lethal options, and that reason applies equally to civilians, IMO. The police, whether obligated to or not (and the answer is "not" in this case), cannot possibly intervene in a use of force situation until it's over, unless they're standing right there when it starts. It's not unreasonable for civilians to have the means to present equal or superior force to defend themselves.

 

For the record, I think it's a bad idea to conflate mass shootings and their causes, including the role of availability of firearms, with personal self defense. Taking measures against the tools of mass shooters can probably be done in a way that doesn't impinge too greatly on lawful firearms owners who wish to have the option for defense or recreation.

[Ragitsu]

Or, y'know, we could fix the nation from the ground up.

 

A radical thought, I know.

[Lawnmower Boy]

29 minutes ago, death tribble said:

Several of the current cabinet will go as well as Boris. We can't lose the lot but you take what you can get.

Hey! Take it to the Political Discussion Thread! This is the Forever-Merry-Go-Round-of-Guns Thread. Apparently.

[Pattern Ghost]

14 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

Or, y'know, we could fix the nation from the ground up.

 

Seems easy enough. Let's do that. Shouldn't take more than a long weekend, right?

[Pattern Ghost]

13 minutes ago, Lawnmower Boy said:

Hey! Take it to the Political Discussion Thread! This is the Forever-Merry-Go-Round-of-Guns Thread. Apparently.

 

This is 'Murica! Can't get the guns out of our politics or our politics out of our guns. Guns are the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups of political discussion.

[Cygnia]

3 hours ago, death tribble said:

Several of the current cabinet will go as well as Boris. We can't lose the lot but you take what you can get.

 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

[Starlord]

13 hours ago, pinecone said:

Lastly you dodge the question posed, how will the weak, and disabled be protected?

 

Perhaps someone who lives outside of the US could better answer this....  They may provide a better perspective on how society protects itself every day without guns and without living in the only country in the solar system where one needs to fear gun violence on a constant, everyday basis.

[BNakagawa]

Arming the vulnerable is just arming predators with an extra step involved.

[Pattern Ghost]

29 minutes ago, BNakagawa said:

Arming the vulnerable is just arming predators with an extra step involved.

 

Do you have any direct evidence that this is a widespread problem? No anecdotes, because I can toss out press clippings of elderly and infirm people running off or shooting attackers all day. Where's the evidence that vulnerable people are having their guns stolen on a widespread basis enough to impinge on their rights?

[Pattern Ghost]

40 minutes ago, Starlord said:

living in the only country in the solar system where one needs to fear gun violence on a constant, everyday basis.

 

Do we need to? We have a problem with criminal on criminal violence, mass shootings, some domestic violence and some stranger on stranger violence, usually criminal on victim. In general, there's no great need to walk around in fear all the time. It's wasted mental energy. That won't sooth those who are genuinely worried, of course, but it's the truth.

 

I think the first step is to work on the underlying issues around each category, measure the results, refine them. The tools are less important, but sure, go ahead and look at them. But first, try to remove the motivation to kill. There are areas who have had great success, for example, with gang violence, but other metros don't attempt to duplicate their methods. Mass shooters for the most part exhibit similar warning flag behaviors, but police and social services don't follow up when those are brought to their attention. Why don't we have crisis intervention teams investigate these people, and sit them down and talk to them? Give them a chance to vent their issues in a safer manner, at the least.

 

Then there's political violence, which now is a thing again in this country after that lovely gathering on January 6th. I don't see any simple solutions there. That's the violence that concerns me the most at the moment, and largely because I lack faith in our parties to let cooler heads prevail. Even if we lock up a certain ex-president, he'll just spew his rhetoric from prison and likely gain influence rather than lose it.

[Ragitsu]

Improving an individual's economic standing goes a LONG way towards abolishing or at the very least diminishing many of those factors which lead to acts of violence.

[Starlord]

13 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Do we need to?

 

Well, I was speaking in the general sense comparing a US citizen to nearly every other country where gun violence happens rarely to never.  In a more specific sense - FYI, I am acquainted with 3 people who have been shot or shot at in the last 3 years.  Beyond that, do you have kids and/or close family that works in a school?  My wife's school has had 3 lockdowns, 1 with a confirmed active shooter in the last 2 years...urban school not inner city.  My daughter's school has had 4 gun threat warnings since May...2 in the same day.

[Pattern Ghost]

38 minutes ago, Starlord said:

Beyond that, do you have kids and/or close family that works in a school? 

 

Nope, but I have a 9 year old niece. Before I moved to a consulting role for a friend's company, I received notices for local lockdowns for schools in the area, and other serious crimes. I've secured scenes or several times for shooting victims (gang members, all of them) coming into emergency rooms. Part of my new role is giving training to organizations, including Active Shooter response. It's pretty familiar territory.

 

As far as random violence goes, I live in the Seattle metro area, and there has been an uptick as the homeless population has exploded. Not that homeless people are bad, per se, but when the local government refuses to prosecute any crimes and demoralizes and guts their police department, you also attract bad actors to the area. I've watched the local population become more and more violent with our security officers over the time I worked for the hospital. One of my friends who also worked managing hotel security had his director shot by a transient trespasser a bit over a week ago. A few years back, two guys I knew who worked at the gas station down the street for me were murdered by a recently released felon for trying to break up a fight between the felons and some construction workers. Before that, we had a shoot out in the parking lot of our apartment between two Russian gangs, resulting in several injured and two dead.

 

All that said . . . I don't walk around in fear of gun violence. I don't carry a gun. I generally only carry weapons professionally, though I do always carry a small folding knife, so some people might see that as a weapon. I just like not using my teeth to open stuff, and don't view it as such.

 

I'm also trained and experienced in de-escalation, some self defense (not a pro fighter by any means), crime prevention and situational awareness. Heck, I'm teaching the last two tomorrow.

 

So, I admit I may be the odd man out. I still don't think that people who live a normal life and don't intentionally put themselves into bad situations on a regular basis have a great cause for concern. The lock downs are mostly idiots being idiots, to be honest. Either pranks or administrators vastly overreacting to situations. If we were better at early intervention, they'd be much less of a concern, IMO.

 

Edit: I'm not saying this to in any way diminish your concerns or fears. I'm just sharing my perspective, and hope you find some small value in it.

 

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

14 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

I'm also trained and experienced in de-escalation, some self defense (not a pro fighter by any means), crime prevention and situational awareness. Heck, I'm teaching the last two tomorrow.

 

 

That's much of the issue we have...not that you have training, but that the vast, overwhelming majority of people *don't*.  And that's the concern.  Only 8 states require any kind of training.  And how often does that training, for a civilian, extend beyond proper handling and safety?  I also think the de-escalation training is huge.  Gun possession in itself feels like it creates an escalation mindset, not a de-escalation one.  What's going to be the fallback reaction during a threat?  Pull the gun.  

 

Got that number (8 states) from an anti-gun site, EveryTownResearch.org.  I'll tend to buy it because it's easy to fact-check, and because figure there's lots of states that are very lenient.  A point that's less supported, but still makes sense to me, from that site:

 

Quote

In a self-defense experiment involving a firearm simulator, people with less training and experience performed worse — and many accidentally “shot” innocent bystanders or unarmed people.

 

Also, you commented about cases where guns protected the elderly/less capable.  Question:  how many of these were at home?  There's a difference between gun possession at home, and carrying in public.  Another angle, tho:  how many impulsive home shootings, how many accidental shootings, are there, relative to the number of successful defenses?

[unclevlad]

An analysis in FiveThirtyEight today...Republicans may lose certain governorships.  2 moderate governors (Mass and Maryland) opposed Trump, opposed the steal, supported abortion rights...how dare they!!!  The Mass governor chose to retire;  the Maryland governor is stepping down after 2 terms.  But figure that in the even MORE highly charged party primary, neither would've stood much of a chance.

 

And that's the point of the story:  in purple to mildly blue states where it may matter most, nominating a hard core Trumpist may well backfire.  

 

Let's hope so.