4 ms·

On the opposite side, there is some questionable gun math as well. Much of the current political discussion is centered around mass shootings and white suprema

by cwkoss 7y ago

On the opposite side, there is some questionable gun math as well. Much of the current political discussion is centered around mass shootings and white supremacist shootings, with the claimed remedy being "lets ban assault weapons". In 9 of 10 gun deaths, the gun involved was a pistol, not a rifle. "Assault" distinction means that fraction of deaths an assault rifle ban would prevent is somewhere less than 10% of all gun deaths - assuming every death was perfectly prevented by this ban. You are 4x more likely to be shot by the police than a mass shooter, and 40x more likely to be shot by police than a white supremacist. https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/08/06/40978688/inslees-gun-plan-targets-white-supremacy-not-everyday-violence https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/08/06/40978688/inslees... https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police-shootings-2018/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police... The vast majority of gun deaths are suicides. ~4% of gun murders involve rifles. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081 I think gun control is being used by the left much like abortion is used by the right: it is an emotionally charged topic that can rile up the base even though legislative solutions will largely be ineffective.

mc32 7y ago
So a few different things are going on. Statistics tell one thing. And if we’re reasonable we can reduce unnecessary deaths. Then besides ordinary reason we have hot-button and politicization and polarization issues. If mr O’Rourke were to say, mass shooters and supremacists are statistically unrewarding lines of attack, people would drop support en masse. People would accuse him of being a supremacist himself and someone who doesn’t care about victims of mass shooters. And then there is the reality of the second amendment and confiscation. That said, reasonable people can agree in screening people better and discriminating against certain anti social behaviors, etc.
- rayiner 7y ago
  > That said, reasonable people can agree in screening people better and discriminating against certain anti social behaviors, etc. Yes, but the concern is the unreasonable people. O’Rourke basically blew away the “reasonable compromise” position by making clear (at least in the eyes of second amendment advocates) that there is an end goal, that end goal is confiscation, and that any compromise is just one step toward that end goal.
  - mc32 7y ago
    That’s true. He was given ample opportunity last night to nuance or walk back his strong response but instead doubled down and insisted he’d basically “make” people turn them in. Pretty much alluding to being ok with having standoffs and shootouts Elliot Ness style, which will not convince any moderates.
    - taborj 7y ago
      Incidentally, it's this exact type of situation that caused the founding fathers to include the second amendment in the first place. "On April 14, 1775, Gage received instructions from Secretary of State William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, to disarm the rebels..."[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Concord#British_government_preparations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Conco...
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    For the gun rights people, O'Rourke is just stating what everyone already knew. To illustrate this, there's a lovely 'cake' meme [0] (available in both cartoon and text form!) about how much gun rights have already been eaten away, and every one was sold as a compromise already. At some point, "this is a compromise because it means you get to keep any rights at all" stops being acceptable. (The link itself is from 2017, but the text is from 2010) > Allow me to explain. > I hear a lot about "compromise" from your camp ... except, it's not compromise. > Let's say I have this cake. It is a very nice cake, with "GUN RIGHTS" written across the top in lovely floral icing. Along you come and say, "Give me that cake." > I say, "No, it's my cake." > You say, "Let's compromise. Give me half." I respond by asking what I get out of this compromise, and you reply that I get to keep half of my cake. > Okay, we compromise. Let us call this compromise The National Firearms Act of 1934. > There I am with my half of the cake, and you walk back up and say, "Give me that cake." > I say, "No, it's my cake." > You say, "Let's compromise." What do I get out of this compromise? Why, I get to keep half of what's left of the cake I already own. > So, we have your compromise -- let us call this one the Gun Control Act of 1968 -- and I'm left holding what is now just a quarter of my cake. > And I'm sitting in the corner with my quarter piece of cake, and here you come again. You want my cake. Again. > This time you take several bites -- we'll call this compromise the Clinton Executive Orders -- and I'm left with about a tenth of what has always been MY DAMN CAKE and you've got nine-tenths of it. > Then we compromised with the Lautenberg Act (nibble, nibble), the HUD/Smith and Wesson agreement (nibble, nibble), the Brady Law (NOM NOM NOM), the School Safety and Law Enforcement Improvement Act (sweet tap-dancing Freyja, my finger!) > I'm left holding crumbs of what was once a large and satisfying cake, and you're standing there with most of MY CAKE, making anime eyes and whining about being "reasonable", and wondering "why we won't compromise". > I'm done with being reasonable, and I'm done with compromise. Nothing about gun control in this country has ever been "reasonable" nor a genuine "compromise". > LawDog 0: https://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2017/10/gun-rights-cake-analogy.html https://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2017/10/gun-rights-cake-...
EdwardDiego 7y ago
From a not-US POV, y'all should definitely ban pistols too. I know there's a snowball's chance of doing that, but if you broke the culture of people carrying weapons as a matter of course, you'd also begin to rectify this, as Police no longer had to treat everyone as potentially armed > You are 4x more likely to be shot by the police than a mass shooter, and 40x more likely to be shot by police than a white supremacist.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Police in the US do not have a duty to protect: many US citizens who live in rural or poor areas essentially only have self-defense means to protect themselves as police response times can be hours if they show up at all. I'd love for our society to reach a place where all citizens can feel safe without owning guns, but we are such a large country with a lot of racial and economic imbalances remaining - I fear this is quite a long ways off.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    > we are such a large country with a lot of racial and economic imbalances remaining The sheer amount of handguns also won't help people feel safe either. It's a damn intractable problem, a sorta prisoner's dilemma about who disarms first, or if at all.
    - splintercell 7y ago
      The whole gun debate is like people talking about how they should ban all the cars and everyone should use public transit. It makes sense for urban population to think about banning all cars and only using public transit, but it's insane for rural population to consider that. The urban population hasn't owned a car in generations, so it doesn't even make sense to them why anyone would own a car. Most Europeans are urbanites, and have banned cars for over half a century, so they can't make sense why Americans are so hard set on their cars and give weird suggestions about how getting rid of cars vs public transportation is a prisoner's dilemma.
istjohn 7y ago
Police wouldn't be so trigger happy if guns weren't so pervasive.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  That's one of my big arguments for banning and confiscating handguns.
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  No. It’s because they’re trained to be that way
  - istjohn 7y ago
    They're trained to be that way because of the prevalence of guns on the street.
- RickJWagner 7y ago
  Thats probably true. But it's also probably true that a lot of crooks won't hand over their guns. They aren't afraid to hold drugs, stolen merchandise, etc. They won't worry about hanging onto a gun, especially when it gives them such an advantage in robbery. I'm pretty sure a good portion of otherwise law-abiding citizens would hang onto their guns, too.
  - flukus 7y ago
    The might still have guns, but even crooks would be less likely to use them because they're less likely to encounter someone else with a gun, making them less likely to have to worry about the first mover advantage in that situation. For robberies they probably don't even need one, just a sufficiently realistic replica.

by cwkoss 7y ago

mc32 7y ago

So a few different things are going on. Statistics tell one thing. And if we’re reasonable we can reduce unnecessary deaths. Then besides ordinary reason we have hot-button and politicization and polarization issues. If mr O’Rourke were to say, mass shooters and supremacists are statistically unrewarding lines of attack, people would drop support en masse. People would accuse him of being a supremacist himself and someone who doesn’t care about victims of mass shooters. And then there is the reality of the second amendment and confiscation. That said, reasonable people can agree in screening people better and discriminating against certain anti social behaviors, etc.

rayiner 7y ago
> That said, reasonable people can agree in screening people better and discriminating against certain anti social behaviors, etc. Yes, but the concern is the unreasonable people. O’Rourke basically blew away the “reasonable compromise” position by making clear (at least in the eyes of second amendment advocates) that there is an end goal, that end goal is confiscation, and that any compromise is just one step toward that end goal.
- mc32 7y ago
  That’s true. He was given ample opportunity last night to nuance or walk back his strong response but instead doubled down and insisted he’d basically “make” people turn them in. Pretty much alluding to being ok with having standoffs and shootouts Elliot Ness style, which will not convince any moderates.
  - taborj 7y ago
    Incidentally, it's this exact type of situation that caused the founding fathers to include the second amendment in the first place. "On April 14, 1775, Gage received instructions from Secretary of State William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, to disarm the rebels..."[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Concord#British_government_preparations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Conco...
- DuskStar 7y ago
  For the gun rights people, O'Rourke is just stating what everyone already knew. To illustrate this, there's a lovely 'cake' meme [0] (available in both cartoon and text form!) about how much gun rights have already been eaten away, and every one was sold as a compromise already. At some point, "this is a compromise because it means you get to keep any rights at all" stops being acceptable. (The link itself is from 2017, but the text is from 2010) > Allow me to explain. > I hear a lot about "compromise" from your camp ... except, it's not compromise. > Let's say I have this cake. It is a very nice cake, with "GUN RIGHTS" written across the top in lovely floral icing. Along you come and say, "Give me that cake." > I say, "No, it's my cake." > You say, "Let's compromise. Give me half." I respond by asking what I get out of this compromise, and you reply that I get to keep half of my cake. > Okay, we compromise. Let us call this compromise The National Firearms Act of 1934. > There I am with my half of the cake, and you walk back up and say, "Give me that cake." > I say, "No, it's my cake." > You say, "Let's compromise." What do I get out of this compromise? Why, I get to keep half of what's left of the cake I already own. > So, we have your compromise -- let us call this one the Gun Control Act of 1968 -- and I'm left holding what is now just a quarter of my cake. > And I'm sitting in the corner with my quarter piece of cake, and here you come again. You want my cake. Again. > This time you take several bites -- we'll call this compromise the Clinton Executive Orders -- and I'm left with about a tenth of what has always been MY DAMN CAKE and you've got nine-tenths of it. > Then we compromised with the Lautenberg Act (nibble, nibble), the HUD/Smith and Wesson agreement (nibble, nibble), the Brady Law (NOM NOM NOM), the School Safety and Law Enforcement Improvement Act (sweet tap-dancing Freyja, my finger!) > I'm left holding crumbs of what was once a large and satisfying cake, and you're standing there with most of MY CAKE, making anime eyes and whining about being "reasonable", and wondering "why we won't compromise". > I'm done with being reasonable, and I'm done with compromise. Nothing about gun control in this country has ever been "reasonable" nor a genuine "compromise". > LawDog 0: https://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2017/10/gun-rights-cake-analogy.html https://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2017/10/gun-rights-cake-...

EdwardDiego 7y ago

From a not-US POV, y'all should definitely ban pistols too. I know there's a snowball's chance of doing that, but if you broke the culture of people carrying weapons as a matter of course, you'd also begin to rectify this, as Police no longer had to treat everyone as potentially armed > You are 4x more likely to be shot by the police than a mass shooter, and 40x more likely to be shot by police than a white supremacist.

cwkoss 7y ago
Police in the US do not have a duty to protect: many US citizens who live in rural or poor areas essentially only have self-defense means to protect themselves as police response times can be hours if they show up at all. I'd love for our society to reach a place where all citizens can feel safe without owning guns, but we are such a large country with a lot of racial and economic imbalances remaining - I fear this is quite a long ways off.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  > we are such a large country with a lot of racial and economic imbalances remaining The sheer amount of handguns also won't help people feel safe either. It's a damn intractable problem, a sorta prisoner's dilemma about who disarms first, or if at all.
  - splintercell 7y ago
    The whole gun debate is like people talking about how they should ban all the cars and everyone should use public transit. It makes sense for urban population to think about banning all cars and only using public transit, but it's insane for rural population to consider that. The urban population hasn't owned a car in generations, so it doesn't even make sense to them why anyone would own a car. Most Europeans are urbanites, and have banned cars for over half a century, so they can't make sense why Americans are so hard set on their cars and give weird suggestions about how getting rid of cars vs public transportation is a prisoner's dilemma.

istjohn 7y ago

Police wouldn't be so trigger happy if guns weren't so pervasive.

Gibbon1 7y ago
That's one of my big arguments for banning and confiscating handguns.
colejohnson66 7y ago
No. It’s because they’re trained to be that way
- istjohn 7y ago
  They're trained to be that way because of the prevalence of guns on the street.
RickJWagner 7y ago
Thats probably true. But it's also probably true that a lot of crooks won't hand over their guns. They aren't afraid to hold drugs, stolen merchandise, etc. They won't worry about hanging onto a gun, especially when it gives them such an advantage in robbery. I'm pretty sure a good portion of otherwise law-abiding citizens would hang onto their guns, too.
- flukus 7y ago
  The might still have guns, but even crooks would be less likely to use them because they're less likely to encounter someone else with a gun, making them less likely to have to worry about the first mover advantage in that situation. For robberies they probably don't even need one, just a sufficiently realistic replica.