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Everything seems reasonable to some people when it is applied to someone they don't agree with. Instead think about how a government can and will abuse a law. T

Everything seems reasonable to some people when it is applied to someone they don't agree with. Instead think about how a government can and will abuse a law. Taxes in the US were supposed to be temporary to pay for a war. Imagine using red flag laws and no fly lists to totally decimate the opposing political party, doesn't sound so good to give the government these powers. More people are killed with hammers and clubs each year in the US than with guns it just doesn't make the news like high profile gun violence.

Griffinsauce 7y ago
I like how you moved the goalposts. Shifting to the gun debate like that will surely induce a healthy discussion...
jhayward 7y ago
> More people are killed with hammers and clubs each year in the US than with guns This is blatantly false. You appear to be repeating a sound bite from far-right web sites that claims that "more people are killed each year by hammers and fists than by AR-15s". The above statement excludes about 97% of the people killed by guns. Guns kill vastly more people than fists or clubs in the US - the numbers are on the order of > 10,000 killed by guns, < 800 killed by fists and clubs.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  Rather interesting that so much focus is placed upon the AR-15 which kills less than bare hands, year on year. Even better is that some two-thirds of deaths are suicide, yet we consider this categorically the same as homicide for some reason.
  - CPLX 7y ago
    > the AR-15 which kills less than bare hands Right but the AR-15 kills more people each year than the bare hands of people named Robert.
    - vorpalhex 7y ago
      So do baseball bats and screwdrivers?
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      Are you sure? "People named Robert" is about 1% of the relevant population (15-25 year old men) since ~0.5% of people born in that birth range were named Robert, and while AR-15 pattern rifles are extremely common I'm not sure what proportion of them are actually called that. From this data [0] there were 248 people killed by rifles - all rifles, of any kind - and 660 killed by "personal weapons", a category that includes "hands, fists, feet, etc." in the US in 2014. Assuming people named "Robert" kill people at the same rate as other male names, that would be 6.6 murders - so let's round down and call it 6 to account for the occasional "not hands" killing. That would mean that for AR-15 murders to match "Robert's hands" murders you'd need ~3% of rifle murders to be with that gun. So it seems plausible to me that the two are closely comparable. 0: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/fbi-homicide-data-by-weapon.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/fb...
  - jahewson 7y ago
    The point still stands: 3333 to 800 is pretty bad and demonstrates that the original quote is, as claimed, false.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      Sure, but since we're discussing numbers based in reality it should be brought up.
  - watwut 7y ago
    It is considered the same as homicide for the purpose of counting gun deaths. The reason for counting them the same is that both are deaths by gun. Likewise, hammer homicides and accidents are counted the same too in that stat. They are not counted the same in homicide stats.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      And I would contend that very important nuance is all too often lost, it people tend to use it in reference to gun homicide, and often make comparison against other forms of homicide. Doesn't make sense to compare gun homicide + gun suicide to, say, hammer homicide.
      - Retric 7y ago
        Can you find a single case of hammer suicide? It’s a very poor choice. Anyway, the real issue is you seem to be trolling rather than bringing anything meaningful to the discussion. What’s your actual point within the context of watch lists?
  - msl 7y ago
    A suicide is certainly different from a homicide, but counting them in this context still makes sense, seeing how suicide incidence correlates with access to effective means [1][2]. [1] https://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/pesticides/en/ https://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/pestici... [2] http://www.idph.state.il.us/about/chronic/Suicide-and-Access-to-Means.pdf http://www.idph.state.il.us/about/chronic/Suicide-and-Access...
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      So what about Japan then? IIRC they have a pretty high suicide rate and no guns.
jahewson 7y ago
Ah yes, the rampant club crime, funny how we all totally ignore that. /s

Griffinsauce 7y ago

I like how you moved the goalposts. Shifting to the gun debate like that will surely induce a healthy discussion...

jhayward 7y ago

> More people are killed with hammers and clubs each year in the US than with guns This is blatantly false. You appear to be repeating a sound bite from far-right web sites that claims that "more people are killed each year by hammers and fists than by AR-15s". The above statement excludes about 97% of the people killed by guns. Guns kill vastly more people than fists or clubs in the US - the numbers are on the order of > 10,000 killed by guns, < 800 killed by fists and clubs.

mieseratte 7y ago
Rather interesting that so much focus is placed upon the AR-15 which kills less than bare hands, year on year. Even better is that some two-thirds of deaths are suicide, yet we consider this categorically the same as homicide for some reason.
- CPLX 7y ago
  > the AR-15 which kills less than bare hands Right but the AR-15 kills more people each year than the bare hands of people named Robert.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    So do baseball bats and screwdrivers?
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    Are you sure? "People named Robert" is about 1% of the relevant population (15-25 year old men) since ~0.5% of people born in that birth range were named Robert, and while AR-15 pattern rifles are extremely common I'm not sure what proportion of them are actually called that. From this data [0] there were 248 people killed by rifles - all rifles, of any kind - and 660 killed by "personal weapons", a category that includes "hands, fists, feet, etc." in the US in 2014. Assuming people named "Robert" kill people at the same rate as other male names, that would be 6.6 murders - so let's round down and call it 6 to account for the occasional "not hands" killing. That would mean that for AR-15 murders to match "Robert's hands" murders you'd need ~3% of rifle murders to be with that gun. So it seems plausible to me that the two are closely comparable. 0: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/fbi-homicide-data-by-weapon.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/fb...
- jahewson 7y ago
  The point still stands: 3333 to 800 is pretty bad and demonstrates that the original quote is, as claimed, false.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    Sure, but since we're discussing numbers based in reality it should be brought up.
- watwut 7y ago
  It is considered the same as homicide for the purpose of counting gun deaths. The reason for counting them the same is that both are deaths by gun. Likewise, hammer homicides and accidents are counted the same too in that stat. They are not counted the same in homicide stats.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    And I would contend that very important nuance is all too often lost, it people tend to use it in reference to gun homicide, and often make comparison against other forms of homicide. Doesn't make sense to compare gun homicide + gun suicide to, say, hammer homicide.
    - Retric 7y ago
      Can you find a single case of hammer suicide? It’s a very poor choice. Anyway, the real issue is you seem to be trolling rather than bringing anything meaningful to the discussion. What’s your actual point within the context of watch lists?
- msl 7y ago
  A suicide is certainly different from a homicide, but counting them in this context still makes sense, seeing how suicide incidence correlates with access to effective means [1][2]. [1] https://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/pesticides/en/ https://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/pestici... [2] http://www.idph.state.il.us/about/chronic/Suicide-and-Access-to-Means.pdf http://www.idph.state.il.us/about/chronic/Suicide-and-Access...
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    So what about Japan then? IIRC they have a pretty high suicide rate and no guns.

jahewson 7y ago

Ah yes, the rampant club crime, funny how we all totally ignore that. /s