4 ms·

If you're going to look elsewhere, that opens up a new can of worms about what to consider or ignore. Take gun laws. Wildly divergent in law. Widely divergent i

If you're going to look elsewhere, that opens up a new can of worms about what to consider or ignore. Take gun laws. Wildly divergent in law. Widely divergent in practice. wildly divergent in results. I agree that the debate often ignored existence proofs, but... It can be hard to take this a whole lot further. The Aussie gun example is used mostly because the narrative fits. The Tassie shooting leading to a buyback. But, there are lots of counties with all sorts of policies and realities. Which to compare to? Details can matter, as can all sorts of context.

scotty79 9y ago
> Which to compare to? Like any-friggin-one! You had to compare to bottom of the barrel to find a country that has the worse situation with guns than US.
- dalbasal 9y ago
  I don't live in the US, but I'm skeptical. There are a lot of places where civilian gun ownership causes problems, gun crime, etc. Some of the places where it does not cause big problems (eg Switzerland) have liberal gun laws and high ownership rates. There are examples where widespread gun ownership/availability causes exactly the kinds of is "problems" that (according to some) the American founders intended it to cause. Basically, armed revolutions. There are confusing examples where laws are liberal but ownership is rare. There are opposite examples. I'm not saying ignore all this. If you want to learn about policy areas, you need to study examples. Just beware the anecdote, attributing cause and effect. Beware within heated political debates, they are known to cause insanity. There is rarely some objective fact that proves your argument, just a collection of facts that may, taken in context, convince you. Back to drugs policy, Portugal had its own set of cultural norms, problems they were trying to solve, political considerations... I think Mexico and some other big transit countries need to look at radical liberalisation options. Portugal is a good guide for some of their issues, but overall their situation is very different. They have nasty problems with the wholesale dealing, and the organized crime that goes with it. The street level crime and consumption is not their biggest problem, like Portugal.
  - wereHamster 9y ago
    > Some of the places where it does not cause big problems (eg Switzerland) have liberal gun laws and high ownership rates. So you don't consider suicides to be a 'big problem', eh? https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/switzerland-s-troubling-record-of-suicide/8301804 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/switzerland-s-troubling-record-...
    - dalbasal 9y ago
      Sorry. I never should have used guns as an example. I don't know much about it, and it's hard to deal in "not a problem" terms when it comes to life and death. I do think even this speaks to my point though, about looking at examples as fully fleshed out examples. There are all sorts of "gun problems." All sorts of "gun rules." All sorts of simple and complex relationships between those two things and a whole lot of other things. The relationship between gun accessability and suicide is fairly straightforward. But both suicide and gun availability are related to a bunch of other things. *I'm not talking about gun laws (don't live in the US, own guns or have a strong opinion), I'm talking about how we think of policies using examples.
    - foxhound6 9y ago
      Seems that Australia has a higher suicide rate than Switzerland. Didn't Australia ban guns? https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/who-findings_switzerland-reports-above-average-suicide-numbers/40589132 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/who-findings_switzerland-report... http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/09/27/australias-suicide-crisis-has-peaked-to-a-terrifying-new-height_a_21480647/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/09/27/australias-suici...
      - Nursie 9y ago
        Not entirely, but they made owning them very tricky unless you're a farmer AFAICT. City dwellers can own handguns, but they must stay locked up at the gun club when not in use at the gun club.
  - scotty79 9y ago
    Even Switzerland. From wiki about gun laws there: In 2016, the defence ministry estimated that 2 million privately owned guns are in circulation, which given a population of 8.3 million corresponds to a gun ownership rate of around 24 guns per 100 residents. This is roughly a quarter of the rate in the United States, and lower than that in the neighbouring countries of Germany, and Austria, but about the double of Italy and France. Quarter of guns per person US has. If US taxed gun manufacturers an used that money to buy back 3/4 of guns off the market it would surely have bit less gun related problems.
ta98789878 9y ago
It's frustrating to keep seeing people use the phrase "buyback" when they mean "confiscation". In the US, at any rate, a "buyback" is voluntary. For linguistic comparison, the taking of land by eminent domain includes compensation, but one certainly would not say the government "bought" the land.
- dalbasal 9y ago
  In Australia it was voluntary.
  - ta98789878 9y ago
    Classes of firearms were made illegal. Do you mean the newly illegal classes were grandfathered and those owned before the ban could be legally kept by their owners?
  - Zak 9y ago
    "You may sell the thing that's about to become illegal for you to possess to the government for a price set by the government" stretches the definition of voluntary.
sheepmullet 9y ago
> Take gun laws. Wildly divergent in law. Widely divergent in practice. wildly divergent in results. And then we get into the practicalities and the politics! In order to have strict gun control you first need strict border control. Yet the group that wants strict gun control is strongly opposed to strict border control.

scotty79 9y ago

> Which to compare to? Like any-friggin-one! You had to compare to bottom of the barrel to find a country that has the worse situation with guns than US.

dalbasal 9y ago
I don't live in the US, but I'm skeptical. There are a lot of places where civilian gun ownership causes problems, gun crime, etc. Some of the places where it does not cause big problems (eg Switzerland) have liberal gun laws and high ownership rates. There are examples where widespread gun ownership/availability causes exactly the kinds of is "problems" that (according to some) the American founders intended it to cause. Basically, armed revolutions. There are confusing examples where laws are liberal but ownership is rare. There are opposite examples. I'm not saying ignore all this. If you want to learn about policy areas, you need to study examples. Just beware the anecdote, attributing cause and effect. Beware within heated political debates, they are known to cause insanity. There is rarely some objective fact that proves your argument, just a collection of facts that may, taken in context, convince you. Back to drugs policy, Portugal had its own set of cultural norms, problems they were trying to solve, political considerations... I think Mexico and some other big transit countries need to look at radical liberalisation options. Portugal is a good guide for some of their issues, but overall their situation is very different. They have nasty problems with the wholesale dealing, and the organized crime that goes with it. The street level crime and consumption is not their biggest problem, like Portugal.
- wereHamster 9y ago
  > Some of the places where it does not cause big problems (eg Switzerland) have liberal gun laws and high ownership rates. So you don't consider suicides to be a 'big problem', eh? https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/switzerland-s-troubling-record-of-suicide/8301804 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/switzerland-s-troubling-record-...
  - dalbasal 9y ago
    Sorry. I never should have used guns as an example. I don't know much about it, and it's hard to deal in "not a problem" terms when it comes to life and death. I do think even this speaks to my point though, about looking at examples as fully fleshed out examples. There are all sorts of "gun problems." All sorts of "gun rules." All sorts of simple and complex relationships between those two things and a whole lot of other things. The relationship between gun accessability and suicide is fairly straightforward. But both suicide and gun availability are related to a bunch of other things. *I'm not talking about gun laws (don't live in the US, own guns or have a strong opinion), I'm talking about how we think of policies using examples.
  - foxhound6 9y ago
    Seems that Australia has a higher suicide rate than Switzerland. Didn't Australia ban guns? https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/who-findings_switzerland-reports-above-average-suicide-numbers/40589132 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/who-findings_switzerland-report... http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/09/27/australias-suicide-crisis-has-peaked-to-a-terrifying-new-height_a_21480647/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/09/27/australias-suici...
    - Nursie 9y ago
      Not entirely, but they made owning them very tricky unless you're a farmer AFAICT. City dwellers can own handguns, but they must stay locked up at the gun club when not in use at the gun club.
- scotty79 9y ago
  Even Switzerland. From wiki about gun laws there: In 2016, the defence ministry estimated that 2 million privately owned guns are in circulation, which given a population of 8.3 million corresponds to a gun ownership rate of around 24 guns per 100 residents. This is roughly a quarter of the rate in the United States, and lower than that in the neighbouring countries of Germany, and Austria, but about the double of Italy and France. Quarter of guns per person US has. If US taxed gun manufacturers an used that money to buy back 3/4 of guns off the market it would surely have bit less gun related problems.

ta98789878 9y ago

It's frustrating to keep seeing people use the phrase "buyback" when they mean "confiscation". In the US, at any rate, a "buyback" is voluntary. For linguistic comparison, the taking of land by eminent domain includes compensation, but one certainly would not say the government "bought" the land.

dalbasal 9y ago
In Australia it was voluntary.
- ta98789878 9y ago
  Classes of firearms were made illegal. Do you mean the newly illegal classes were grandfathered and those owned before the ban could be legally kept by their owners?
- Zak 9y ago
  "You may sell the thing that's about to become illegal for you to possess to the government for a price set by the government" stretches the definition of voluntary.

sheepmullet 9y ago

> Take gun laws. Wildly divergent in law. Widely divergent in practice. wildly divergent in results. And then we get into the practicalities and the politics! In order to have strict gun control you first need strict border control. Yet the group that wants strict gun control is strongly opposed to strict border control.