6 ms·

Opportunity cost of banning cars is huge. Opportunity cost of gun control is negligible (as showcased by the rest of the world). Gun control is the low hanging

by ajuc 7y ago

Opportunity cost of banning cars is huge. Opportunity cost of gun control is negligible (as showcased by the rest of the world). Gun control is the low hanging fruit of death prevention.

jakeogh 7y ago
Only the criminals get non-DRM 3D printers in the future?
- bifrost 7y ago
  Likely accurate. People will have to resort to regular metalwork after that. Or going to Home Depot.
- Junk_Collector 7y ago
  This is getting beat up but it's prescient. There have already been calls for DRM inclusion on 3D printers and consumer CNC machines. The bans start with objects of violence, i.e. guns and knives. Next it will be to prevent copyright violations. No more printing your own warhammer figurines or Micky Mouse Novelty phone holders. Then we move on to objects of sexual deviance, gotta think of the kiddos. Eventually it leads to the day where you are buying 3D printers that only print from a pre-approved and monitored repository of models. But don't worry, you can upload your owns models to Google-CAD!
  - bifrost 7y ago
    Nobody needs a 19 inch long dildo of hate, think of the children! We must save the children!
geggam 7y ago
I think you dont understand the cost of democide. Being disarmed by your govt is a very dangerous position. What do you put as the value of human life ? How about 262 million lives ? His research shows that the death toll from democide is far greater than the death toll from war. After studying over 8,000 reports of government-caused deaths, Rummel estimates that there have been 262 million victims of democide in the last century. According to his figures, six times as many people have died from the actions of people working for governments than have died in battle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide
- ajuc 7y ago
  Gun ownership doesn't change that. For example China had no gun control before Mao and it still happened.
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    So what are the numbers for per capita gun ownership in pre-Mao China? There's no point in saying there's no gun control and then ignoring how many guns are owned by the people.
Thriptic 7y ago
It depends on what you mean by gun control (full ban vs restrictions), but the opportunity cost of banning firearms is not negligible. * There is an economic impact (lost revenue for firearm producers, sellers, resellers, ammunition producers, gun ranges, sport associations, hunting groups, accessory producers, etc). * There is a personal utility cost (enthusiasts, hunters, and sport shooters can't enjoy their hobbies anymore). * There is a communal cost (those people now have fewer reasons to come together and form groups). * There is a personal defense cost (citizens and especially at risk groups are less able to defend themselves). * There is a national defense cost (armed citizens impede invasion). * There may be a military readiness and recruitment cost. * There is an increased probability of tyrannical government (armed citizens impede this, I don't know to what degree). * There are time and legal costs (this will be fought aggressively and take up large amounts of legislator and judicial time which could be spent on other matters). In the US this would require a full constitutional amendment which is by design a non-trivial undertaking. * There are regulatory costs (someone needs to define and interpret what bans mean). * There are enforcement costs (all existing firearms would be grandfathered in. To my knowledge there is no legal basis for eminent domain of firearms or seizure of assets that were legally purchased pre-ban. For example, any alcohol purchased before prohibition took effect was still legal to possess and use. Any automatic weapon purchased before the ban on automatic weapons is still legal). You can argue that it's still a net benefit to ban firearms (and you may be right) but I disagree that there are negligible costs.
- ajuc 7y ago
  > There is an economic impact Gun control doesn't prevent gun ranges, sport associations, hunting groups, etc - all of these exists in my country (Poland) despite strict gun control. They just have to do more paperwork. You could just as well argue requiring driving licence destroys car industry and hobbies :) > There is a personal utility cost They can, they just have to take an exam, register their guns, and pass some checks. > communal cost If anything there's more reason to come together to shoot - because shooting requires permissions so it's harder to organize it separately. There are many shooting contests in Poland (for example one I participated in as a teen - organized by LOK (League of National Defense)). > personal defense cost That's what police is for, and looking at the homicide and violence stats from all over the world - the less gun ownership in the population - the safe the country is. This isn't a cost, it's a benefit for personal defense. There's +- 1.5 homicides per 100 000 citizens in Poland. And about 5-10 in USA. > national defense cost Armed citizens barely change how hard it is to invade a country. Armies with tanks, planes and missiles doesn't care much about your colt or ar-15. When the government has problem with part of the country - it can just stop supplying it with food, energy and fuel. You'll surrender in a few weeks with no victims :) > military readiness and recruitment cost I had shooting lessons at school for 2 years. Among other stuff (first help training, survival lessons, how to behave when there's a missile attack etc). Our country has strict gun control, somehow it didn't prevent it. Many countries with gun control even have mandatory military service :) Training people to use military rifle takes a few weeks anyway. > increased probability of tyrannical government Tzar Russia had no gun control, yet it got totalitarian communism in a few years. China before Mao had no gun control and got Mao anyway :) Gun control changes nothing, because totalitarian regimes arise with popular support, or invade with armies. Poland after WW2 had lots of firearms in hands of citizens, the biggest resistance in Europe as percentage of population. There was anti-communism resistance fighting till 60s in some cases. Soviets didn't care, most people just wnted them to stop because they were more invconvenient for the populace than for the Russians. At no point were they close to overthrow the government. > time and legal costs These are the only realistic ones, and are negligible compared to other things we have to do to prevent similar number of deaths. > regulatory If you want to divide legal costs into proper legal and regulatory - sure, whatever, still negligible compared to banning cars or curing cancer. > enforcement costs small as well - most people don't do revolutions. We already have state enforce taxes on people, enforcing a few other things as well is easy and in case of gun control - was done in many countries all over the world with next to no problems. I like how pro-gun Americans raise all these points ignoring that literally 99% of the world did this with good results and no problems. Theory is all nice, but you cannot ignore the reality.
Turing_Machine 7y ago
> Opportunity cost of gun control is negligible (as showcased by the rest of the world). I don't call 100 million people murdered by their own governments within living memory "negligible".
- bifrost 7y ago
  People routinely "forget" the death toll of Communism/Statism because its very inconvenient.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    And also because that all happened far away, and that would surely never happen here in the Land of the Free™, right? That's not to say that a modern military couldn't and wouldn't curbstomp a bunch of civilians with small arms in this day and age, but an armed civilian is at least slightly harder to tyrannically subjugate than an unarmed one.
    - sunkenvicar 7y ago
      The 2nd Amendment is valuable because F35s, tanks, and helicopter gunships are useless for fighting an armed citizenry. Say a President uses the military to fight US civilians on US soil. He and anyone else involved in the plot would preside over a country not worth ruling. Because all their friends and family would be kidnapped and murdered by lunchtime.
      - ajuc 7y ago
        People in USA have no idea how authoritharian/totalitarian regimes happen, so they imagine such absurd scenarios. Totalitarian regimes start as democratic state with huge popular support for big changes in law. They slowly change law stretching some laws beyond recognition, but still preserving popular support by mass spending, finding external or internal public enemies. Before the country as a whole decide it's enough - it's far past the time for a revolution. Half of your friends support the authoritharian government and work actively to enforce it.
bifrost 7y ago
Hardly. It does almost nothing and this has been studied and has been continually ignored because the hysteria machine needs something to grind against.
benjohnson 7y ago
>>Gun control is the low hanging fruit of death prevention. Given the recent millions who have died in genocides, it make sense to arm citizens in order to prevent death.
- bifrost 7y ago
  Yep! spot on. A disarmed citizenry (AKA the militia in the US bill of rights) is vulnerable to tyranny.
  - ajuc 7y ago
    Poland before WW2 had lenient gun control laws, and lots of illegal arms (it was where WW1 and 1920 anti-soviet war was fought). It changed nothing, because you can't fight tanks and professional army with pistols. Besides when people were rounded up for camps they didn't knew they will die, it happened gradually.
    - bifrost 7y ago
      You might want to look at what happened to the US in Vietnam...
cwkoss 7y ago
Opportunity cost of gun control is huge for marginalized groups which cannot count on timely police response, or in worse cases, police response may increase chances of lethality. See recent news on Atatiana Jefferson. https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/13/20912212/atatiana-jefferson-fort-worth-police-shooting-texas-aaron-dean-murder https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/13/20912212/atatiana-... Why do gun control advocates never discuss disarming the police?
- istjohn 7y ago
  Because you can't disarm police while every criminal has a gun.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    But, since every criminal will still have a gun (or near enough for police to claim such), that just means you can never disarm police.
    - ajuc 7y ago
      Countries disarmed criminals with introducing gun control. It's not hard. Criminals are rational beings - if there's minimal chance that the victim has a gun, and doing the same crime with a gun means much longer sentence, and you don't need the gun anyway - then criminals won't take guns with them, it would be stupid for them to continue using guns.
      - geggam 7y ago
        So if we make it easier for criminals to take the things we spent our life working to obtain. We are better off ? You do realize theft is essentially stealing the part of your life you spent working for that thing ?
        ajuc 7y ago
        They catch them later anyway. Much better if they steal your stuff and go to the jail, than if you start a firefight and people get injured or dead? How much you carry on you - 1000 USD? How much to fix perforated lungs? Will they even fix it completely? The best solution to theft is to let it happen and retrieve the stolen goods later. Turning a theft into murder is the worst possible solution. BTW Crime is less common in countries with gun control than in USA (admitedly - that's probably only partially caused by gun laws, much more important is the absurd lack of basic public services).

by ajuc 7y ago

Opportunity cost of banning cars is huge. Opportunity cost of gun control is negligible (as showcased by the rest of the world). Gun control is the low hanging fruit of death prevention.

jakeogh 7y ago

Only the criminals get non-DRM 3D printers in the future?

bifrost 7y ago
Likely accurate. People will have to resort to regular metalwork after that. Or going to Home Depot.
Junk_Collector 7y ago
This is getting beat up but it's prescient. There have already been calls for DRM inclusion on 3D printers and consumer CNC machines. The bans start with objects of violence, i.e. guns and knives. Next it will be to prevent copyright violations. No more printing your own warhammer figurines or Micky Mouse Novelty phone holders. Then we move on to objects of sexual deviance, gotta think of the kiddos. Eventually it leads to the day where you are buying 3D printers that only print from a pre-approved and monitored repository of models. But don't worry, you can upload your owns models to Google-CAD!
- bifrost 7y ago
  Nobody needs a 19 inch long dildo of hate, think of the children! We must save the children!

geggam 7y ago

I think you dont understand the cost of democide. Being disarmed by your govt is a very dangerous position. What do you put as the value of human life ? How about 262 million lives ? His research shows that the death toll from democide is far greater than the death toll from war. After studying over 8,000 reports of government-caused deaths, Rummel estimates that there have been 262 million victims of democide in the last century. According to his figures, six times as many people have died from the actions of people working for governments than have died in battle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide

ajuc 7y ago
Gun ownership doesn't change that. For example China had no gun control before Mao and it still happened.
- CompanionCuuube 7y ago
  So what are the numbers for per capita gun ownership in pre-Mao China? There's no point in saying there's no gun control and then ignoring how many guns are owned by the people.

Thriptic 7y ago

It depends on what you mean by gun control (full ban vs restrictions), but the opportunity cost of banning firearms is not negligible. * There is an economic impact (lost revenue for firearm producers, sellers, resellers, ammunition producers, gun ranges, sport associations, hunting groups, accessory producers, etc). * There is a personal utility cost (enthusiasts, hunters, and sport shooters can't enjoy their hobbies anymore). * There is a communal cost (those people now have fewer reasons to come together and form groups). * There is a personal defense cost (citizens and especially at risk groups are less able to defend themselves). * There is a national defense cost (armed citizens impede invasion). * There may be a military readiness and recruitment cost. * There is an increased probability of tyrannical government (armed citizens impede this, I don't know to what degree). * There are time and legal costs (this will be fought aggressively and take up large amounts of legislator and judicial time which could be spent on other matters). In the US this would require a full constitutional amendment which is by design a non-trivial undertaking. * There are regulatory costs (someone needs to define and interpret what bans mean). * There are enforcement costs (all existing firearms would be grandfathered in. To my knowledge there is no legal basis for eminent domain of firearms or seizure of assets that were legally purchased pre-ban. For example, any alcohol purchased before prohibition took effect was still legal to possess and use. Any automatic weapon purchased before the ban on automatic weapons is still legal). You can argue that it's still a net benefit to ban firearms (and you may be right) but I disagree that there are negligible costs.

ajuc 7y ago
> There is an economic impact Gun control doesn't prevent gun ranges, sport associations, hunting groups, etc - all of these exists in my country (Poland) despite strict gun control. They just have to do more paperwork. You could just as well argue requiring driving licence destroys car industry and hobbies :) > There is a personal utility cost They can, they just have to take an exam, register their guns, and pass some checks. > communal cost If anything there's more reason to come together to shoot - because shooting requires permissions so it's harder to organize it separately. There are many shooting contests in Poland (for example one I participated in as a teen - organized by LOK (League of National Defense)). > personal defense cost That's what police is for, and looking at the homicide and violence stats from all over the world - the less gun ownership in the population - the safe the country is. This isn't a cost, it's a benefit for personal defense. There's +- 1.5 homicides per 100 000 citizens in Poland. And about 5-10 in USA. > national defense cost Armed citizens barely change how hard it is to invade a country. Armies with tanks, planes and missiles doesn't care much about your colt or ar-15. When the government has problem with part of the country - it can just stop supplying it with food, energy and fuel. You'll surrender in a few weeks with no victims :) > military readiness and recruitment cost I had shooting lessons at school for 2 years. Among other stuff (first help training, survival lessons, how to behave when there's a missile attack etc). Our country has strict gun control, somehow it didn't prevent it. Many countries with gun control even have mandatory military service :) Training people to use military rifle takes a few weeks anyway. > increased probability of tyrannical government Tzar Russia had no gun control, yet it got totalitarian communism in a few years. China before Mao had no gun control and got Mao anyway :) Gun control changes nothing, because totalitarian regimes arise with popular support, or invade with armies. Poland after WW2 had lots of firearms in hands of citizens, the biggest resistance in Europe as percentage of population. There was anti-communism resistance fighting till 60s in some cases. Soviets didn't care, most people just wnted them to stop because they were more invconvenient for the populace than for the Russians. At no point were they close to overthrow the government. > time and legal costs These are the only realistic ones, and are negligible compared to other things we have to do to prevent similar number of deaths. > regulatory If you want to divide legal costs into proper legal and regulatory - sure, whatever, still negligible compared to banning cars or curing cancer. > enforcement costs small as well - most people don't do revolutions. We already have state enforce taxes on people, enforcing a few other things as well is easy and in case of gun control - was done in many countries all over the world with next to no problems. I like how pro-gun Americans raise all these points ignoring that literally 99% of the world did this with good results and no problems. Theory is all nice, but you cannot ignore the reality.

Turing_Machine 7y ago

> Opportunity cost of gun control is negligible (as showcased by the rest of the world). I don't call 100 million people murdered by their own governments within living memory "negligible".

bifrost 7y ago
People routinely "forget" the death toll of Communism/Statism because its very inconvenient.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  And also because that all happened far away, and that would surely never happen here in the Land of the Free™, right? That's not to say that a modern military couldn't and wouldn't curbstomp a bunch of civilians with small arms in this day and age, but an armed civilian is at least slightly harder to tyrannically subjugate than an unarmed one.
  - sunkenvicar 7y ago
    The 2nd Amendment is valuable because F35s, tanks, and helicopter gunships are useless for fighting an armed citizenry. Say a President uses the military to fight US civilians on US soil. He and anyone else involved in the plot would preside over a country not worth ruling. Because all their friends and family would be kidnapped and murdered by lunchtime.
    - ajuc 7y ago
      People in USA have no idea how authoritharian/totalitarian regimes happen, so they imagine such absurd scenarios. Totalitarian regimes start as democratic state with huge popular support for big changes in law. They slowly change law stretching some laws beyond recognition, but still preserving popular support by mass spending, finding external or internal public enemies. Before the country as a whole decide it's enough - it's far past the time for a revolution. Half of your friends support the authoritharian government and work actively to enforce it.

bifrost 7y ago

Hardly. It does almost nothing and this has been studied and has been continually ignored because the hysteria machine needs something to grind against.

benjohnson 7y ago

>>Gun control is the low hanging fruit of death prevention. Given the recent millions who have died in genocides, it make sense to arm citizens in order to prevent death.

bifrost 7y ago
Yep! spot on. A disarmed citizenry (AKA the militia in the US bill of rights) is vulnerable to tyranny.
- ajuc 7y ago
  Poland before WW2 had lenient gun control laws, and lots of illegal arms (it was where WW1 and 1920 anti-soviet war was fought). It changed nothing, because you can't fight tanks and professional army with pistols. Besides when people were rounded up for camps they didn't knew they will die, it happened gradually.
  - bifrost 7y ago
    You might want to look at what happened to the US in Vietnam...

cwkoss 7y ago

Opportunity cost of gun control is huge for marginalized groups which cannot count on timely police response, or in worse cases, police response may increase chances of lethality. See recent news on Atatiana Jefferson. https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/13/20912212/atatiana-jefferson-fort-worth-police-shooting-texas-aaron-dean-murder https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/13/20912212/atatiana-... Why do gun control advocates never discuss disarming the police?

istjohn 7y ago
Because you can't disarm police while every criminal has a gun.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  But, since every criminal will still have a gun (or near enough for police to claim such), that just means you can never disarm police.
  - ajuc 7y ago
    Countries disarmed criminals with introducing gun control. It's not hard. Criminals are rational beings - if there's minimal chance that the victim has a gun, and doing the same crime with a gun means much longer sentence, and you don't need the gun anyway - then criminals won't take guns with them, it would be stupid for them to continue using guns.
    - geggam 7y ago
      So if we make it easier for criminals to take the things we spent our life working to obtain. We are better off ? You do realize theft is essentially stealing the part of your life you spent working for that thing ?
      - ajuc 7y ago
        They catch them later anyway. Much better if they steal your stuff and go to the jail, than if you start a firefight and people get injured or dead? How much you carry on you - 1000 USD? How much to fix perforated lungs? Will they even fix it completely? The best solution to theft is to let it happen and retrieve the stolen goods later. Turning a theft into murder is the worst possible solution. BTW Crime is less common in countries with gun control than in USA (admitedly - that's probably only partially caused by gun laws, much more important is the absurd lack of basic public services).