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> is a dead gang member less of a loss of life than some other person? We should understand the source of something, if we want to change it: the solution to h

> is a dead gang member less of a loss of life than some other person? We should understand the source of something, if we want to change it: the solution to highly concentrated violence by a particular subculture isn’t to restrict the rights of a properly behaving majority — it’s to address the cultural roots of the problem in that sub community. There’s also an opportunity cost to political battles, and I have to seriously ask myself if the urban community wouldn’t have been better served spending the political capital on something that actually helps, rather than battling over general gun rights with uninvolved people. We can look at London or many other cities for an example of how a culture of gangs and violence merely leads to knife and other crime — the fix cannot be a restriction on self-defense and must be around revitalizing those neighborhoods while breaking the cultural continuity of such maladaptive organizations. (Edit: it’s actually often their baizuo neighbors arguing against guns — which may explain why the political capital wasn’t spent on a real solution.) Which is why it’s not a gun problem: the existence of guns in the US transforms its massive gang problem from one in which gangs prey on the public at large, as they do in Europe and now Australia with their increased rates of robbery, home invasions, etc. into a problem of gang members shooting each other at high rates. This is good: criminals locked into battle with each other and safely contained from preying on the public should be preferred to them feeling free to prey on people at large. In this sense, the people portraying a culture problem as a gun problem are doing a serious wrong — they’re like a doctor going around stealing blood on behalf of suicide victims, because they’re willing to inflict harm on many unrelated people to protect a few criminals from self-harm. I find it completely unethical — and to lie about this gang violence, pretending it’s innocent child deaths, simply underscores the moral bankruptcy with which anti-gun advocates operate.

traderjane 8y ago
You want bad people to shoot each other so they'll be distracted and not notice the juicy targets for theft? The article says that 61% of the firearm deaths involving kids were assaults. Do kids warrant that chaos because they're part of a "broken culture"? Is this the right price tag for what we have today? > Of these children, 61 percent were killed in an assault involving a firearm, while 32 percent died by suicide. A further 5 percent died in an accident. The death was undetermined in 2 percent of cases. And does it really have to be said that means interact with intent? Like, knife vs gun actually matters, and that guns matter even in suicide risk? Would as many people have died in the New Zealand Mosque shooting (50), the Las Vegas shooting (59), or that Pulse night club shooting (49)?
- FakeComments 8y ago
  > The article says that 61% of the firearm deaths involving kids were assaults. Do kids warrant that chaos because they're part of a "broken culture"? What fraction of that is a member of one gang shooting a member of another gang? In my previous reading of FBI analysis of gun crime, the answer is “almost all of them”. My objection is what you did right here: portraying one gang member shooting another as a child just caught in a conflict. > knife vs gun actually matters Yes — and it matters in the case you refuse to accept, self-defense. A gun lets a woman shoot a rapist, a frail man shoot an attacker, and an elderly person shoot a home invader. Each of these actual differences in guns versus knives decreases the rate at which gang members can prey on the public, and we see that in the crime rates of the US versus other countries. Guns prevent on the order of millions of crimes in the US, because of their effect on reducing crime like robberies and break-ins. Criminals prefer unarmed victims. What banning guns doesn’t do, and we’ve seen this in other metros, is decrease the rate of gang violence by very much: they kill each other with knives just fine in London. So you’re proposing a feel-good solution: it increases the rate at which non-gang members are harmed, it doesn’t do much for actual gang violence, and it relies on you telling emotionally manipulative lies — like the one above, where you misrepresented the victims of gang violence as simply innocent bystanders when the bulk seem to be other gang members. I absolutely think we should do something about that violence — like increased policing, reinvestment in the area, redevelopment of infrastructure to spur the local area economy, etc. I just don’t think a feel good solution which seems based on misrepresenting facts is useful. Happy, economically prosperous people don’t kill people. That’s the issue — not guns.
perl4ever 8y ago
It's unbelievable to me that gangs can exist without law enforcement being complicit and systematically corrupt.

traderjane 8y ago

You want bad people to shoot each other so they'll be distracted and not notice the juicy targets for theft? The article says that 61% of the firearm deaths involving kids were assaults. Do kids warrant that chaos because they're part of a "broken culture"? Is this the right price tag for what we have today? > Of these children, 61 percent were killed in an assault involving a firearm, while 32 percent died by suicide. A further 5 percent died in an accident. The death was undetermined in 2 percent of cases. And does it really have to be said that means interact with intent? Like, knife vs gun actually matters, and that guns matter even in suicide risk? Would as many people have died in the New Zealand Mosque shooting (50), the Las Vegas shooting (59), or that Pulse night club shooting (49)?

FakeComments 8y ago
> The article says that 61% of the firearm deaths involving kids were assaults. Do kids warrant that chaos because they're part of a "broken culture"? What fraction of that is a member of one gang shooting a member of another gang? In my previous reading of FBI analysis of gun crime, the answer is “almost all of them”. My objection is what you did right here: portraying one gang member shooting another as a child just caught in a conflict. > knife vs gun actually matters Yes — and it matters in the case you refuse to accept, self-defense. A gun lets a woman shoot a rapist, a frail man shoot an attacker, and an elderly person shoot a home invader. Each of these actual differences in guns versus knives decreases the rate at which gang members can prey on the public, and we see that in the crime rates of the US versus other countries. Guns prevent on the order of millions of crimes in the US, because of their effect on reducing crime like robberies and break-ins. Criminals prefer unarmed victims. What banning guns doesn’t do, and we’ve seen this in other metros, is decrease the rate of gang violence by very much: they kill each other with knives just fine in London. So you’re proposing a feel-good solution: it increases the rate at which non-gang members are harmed, it doesn’t do much for actual gang violence, and it relies on you telling emotionally manipulative lies — like the one above, where you misrepresented the victims of gang violence as simply innocent bystanders when the bulk seem to be other gang members. I absolutely think we should do something about that violence — like increased policing, reinvestment in the area, redevelopment of infrastructure to spur the local area economy, etc. I just don’t think a feel good solution which seems based on misrepresenting facts is useful. Happy, economically prosperous people don’t kill people. That’s the issue — not guns.

perl4ever 8y ago

It's unbelievable to me that gangs can exist without law enforcement being complicit and systematically corrupt.