5 ms·

Well, something like banning all gun sales & ownership would reduce both so the policies for both really can look the same.

by altacc 5y ago

bell-cot 5y ago
However pleasant a thought experiment that might be - the US's long experience with prohibiting alcoholic beverages eliminating alcohol-related crimes and social problems (oops, it didn't), and the War on Drugs(tm) eliminating drug-related crimes and social problems (oops, it didn't) would seem to suggest that "ban all guns" is not the great idea that one might wish.
- altacc 4y ago
  This is false equivalence. There are many things that used to be widespread in the USA but today are non-existent or greatly reduced. Just pointing to examples of different things is not a coherent argument.
  - Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
    I seriously doubt you're referring to anything people have been willing to kill for to get access to throughout the ages like alcohol or weapons. Alcohol and firearms are intimately intertwined in US history, from what sparked our revolution into a hot shooting one as the British attempted to destroy arms and ammunition stored in Concord, Massachusetts to the Whiskey Rebellion which started 16 years later. One should not consider forcing a major social change without considering the consequences, the example of the lasting to this day damage done to the social order of Prohibition of alcohol being an excellent example. For example all but extinguishing the local tavern and replacing it with the speakeasy derived bar, massively damaging respect for the law, giving organized crime it's greatest period to entrench itself in the nation, etc.
car_analogy 5y ago
It would reduce gun homicide or all homicide? Trick question - there is not even any correlation between gun homicide and firearm ownership rate, let alone all homicide: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-between https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-... So even by the myopic logic of taking away rights because the first-order consequences are desirable, it doesn't work out.
- camgunz 5y ago
  Couple of issues here: - None of the sources in your source do a regression analysis, so there's almost certainly confounding variables. This probably happened because the author was super motivated to make their point, rather than engaging in good faith analysis. - You're the only post narrowing to homicides, everything else in this thread and the OP are about deaths. The post you link makes it seem like broadening to deaths is tricky sophistry, but there are lots of gun suicides, and lower gun ownership rates brings those down. That's not sophistry, that's saving lives. - If you look at one of the article's sources, gunpolicy.org, there seems to be a direct correlation between ownership and homicides [0][1]. Again this isn't a serious analysis, but it's more serious than your link (I actually clicked into some charts), and indicates the opposite conclusion. [0]: https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/proportion_of_households_with_firearms https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/proporti... [1]: https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/number_of_homicides_any_method https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/number_o... EDIT: Sorry your article does try and take on a study that does perform regression, which finds "For each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership [via gun suicide proxy], firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9%", but poo-oos it because it finds other correlations, which is an argument against regression analysis, not against gun laws.
  - anamax 5y ago
    > there are lots of gun suicides, and lower gun ownership rates brings those down. That's not sophistry, that's saving lives. You mean like in Japan...
    - camgunz 5y ago
      I know you're being dismissive, but in good faith I agree there are other variables.
      - anamax 5y ago
        And then there's the question of whether suicide is necessarily bad. The assisted-suicide folks argue that some suicide is arguably better than the alternatives. 20-30 years ago, Time Magazine did a "here's a picture of everyone in the US who died by gun during {interval}" issue. (I think that the interval was one week.) I remember thinking that the vast majority of the suicides seemed reasonable.
devwastaken 5y ago
We have never lived in a gun free U.S. and realistically never will, regardless of legislation. It's the same idea as the war on drugs - you can make things illegal, you can violate the 4th amendment and make all manner of methods to search, seize, and charge for it. You can make swat drug task forces that bust down doors, shoot first, ask questions later. Yet if I want a dime it can be conveniently delivered at an affordable price any time. This is the same story as prohibition. You can criminalize, poison people, and shoot as much as you want, at the end of the day the geography of the U.S. makes it dumb easy to transport and sell anything. Legal ownership of concealable weapons and automatic firearms is already difficult in a number of states, especially cities with high gun violence. As an individual I have to have the right to protect myself from that harm. Firearms are designed to be equitable protection, it doesn't matter that I'm not 6'5 and a not body builder. I can defend myself just as effectively, especially when criminals aren't playing by the rules and already have firearms anyways.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  Legal ownership of concealable weapons and automatic firearms is already difficult in a number of states, especially cities with high gun violence. I'm not sure what you mean by "automatic firearms," but what you describe is limited to a very small number of states, albeit some of our most populous. Counterexamples are legion, 42 states have "shall issue" concealed carry, that's like 72% of the population before the COVID flee big cities demographic changes to the extent they're lasting, and so far this year three states are improving that to "Constitutional Carry," a total of half the states in the union! For how we got here, "The American Indian foundation of American gun culture" is essential reading: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/11/21/the-american-indian-foundation-of-american-gun-culture/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
- altacc 4y ago
  Ah, the grandmother with a gun argument. However there is not conclusive evidence that owning a gun makes you safer. If anything, widespread gun ownership makes you less safe from crime, accidental death and suicide. In almost all other western countries the notion of needing a gun to feel safe is totally alien. The context in which the American gun debate happens is rather unique and the real discussion should be about how to change the context/environment, not just banning guns.
anamax 5y ago
The folks involved in these activities are often dealing in other banned substances, so it's not obvious that banning actually reduces. "but guns are different than drugs". Yes, guns are durable. I don't know how long cocaine lasts, but 100 year-old cartridges are perfectly good. Even if you assume one gun per murder, the required volume is a small fraction of drug smuggling. Oh, and guns are actually easy to make. They're 19th century tech.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
If you tried to implement that on any timeline that could possibly save lives (sure you could boil the frog over a century but that wouldn't save many lives) you'd get something between the Troubles and the breakup of Yugoslavia on a scale that would make either look like a picnic. If you assume starting from the situation as it exists today that's just not realistically possible. The amount of bloodshed it would take would be exceptional. Most of thee people who'd resit you are people who'd made peace with going down fighting and said people are not even the same ones causing the violence that's the problem in the first place. Do Not Want. Not. My. Fight.
parkingrift 4y ago
Yes. We did this in the 70s with the war on drugs and successfully eradicated all drug use in the United States. No one does drugs in the US any longer, not at all. And certainly no one is dying from drug use. How could either of these things happen when we banned them so long ago?
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  Yep, and San Francisco made laws against theft/shoplifting and clearly there's no theft/shoplifting there.

Well, something like banning all gun sales & ownership would reduce both so the policies for both really can look the same.

by altacc 5y ago

Well, something like banning all gun sales & ownership would reduce both so the policies for both really can look the same.

bell-cot 5y ago

However pleasant a thought experiment that might be - the US's long experience with prohibiting alcoholic beverages eliminating alcohol-related crimes and social problems (oops, it didn't), and the War on Drugs(tm) eliminating drug-related crimes and social problems (oops, it didn't) would seem to suggest that "ban all guns" is not the great idea that one might wish.

altacc 4y ago
This is false equivalence. There are many things that used to be widespread in the USA but today are non-existent or greatly reduced. Just pointing to examples of different things is not a coherent argument.
- Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
  I seriously doubt you're referring to anything people have been willing to kill for to get access to throughout the ages like alcohol or weapons. Alcohol and firearms are intimately intertwined in US history, from what sparked our revolution into a hot shooting one as the British attempted to destroy arms and ammunition stored in Concord, Massachusetts to the Whiskey Rebellion which started 16 years later. One should not consider forcing a major social change without considering the consequences, the example of the lasting to this day damage done to the social order of Prohibition of alcohol being an excellent example. For example all but extinguishing the local tavern and replacing it with the speakeasy derived bar, massively damaging respect for the law, giving organized crime it's greatest period to entrench itself in the nation, etc.

car_analogy 5y ago

It would reduce gun homicide or all homicide? Trick question - there is not even any correlation between gun homicide and firearm ownership rate, let alone all homicide: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-between https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-... So even by the myopic logic of taking away rights because the first-order consequences are desirable, it doesn't work out.

camgunz 5y ago
Couple of issues here: - None of the sources in your source do a regression analysis, so there's almost certainly confounding variables. This probably happened because the author was super motivated to make their point, rather than engaging in good faith analysis. - You're the only post narrowing to homicides, everything else in this thread and the OP are about deaths. The post you link makes it seem like broadening to deaths is tricky sophistry, but there are lots of gun suicides, and lower gun ownership rates brings those down. That's not sophistry, that's saving lives. - If you look at one of the article's sources, gunpolicy.org, there seems to be a direct correlation between ownership and homicides [0][1]. Again this isn't a serious analysis, but it's more serious than your link (I actually clicked into some charts), and indicates the opposite conclusion. [0]: https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/proportion_of_households_with_firearms https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/proporti... [1]: https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/number_of_homicides_any_method https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/194/number_o... EDIT: Sorry your article does try and take on a study that does perform regression, which finds "For each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership [via gun suicide proxy], firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9%", but poo-oos it because it finds other correlations, which is an argument against regression analysis, not against gun laws.
- anamax 5y ago
  > there are lots of gun suicides, and lower gun ownership rates brings those down. That's not sophistry, that's saving lives. You mean like in Japan...
  - camgunz 5y ago
    I know you're being dismissive, but in good faith I agree there are other variables.
    - anamax 5y ago
      And then there's the question of whether suicide is necessarily bad. The assisted-suicide folks argue that some suicide is arguably better than the alternatives. 20-30 years ago, Time Magazine did a "here's a picture of everyone in the US who died by gun during {interval}" issue. (I think that the interval was one week.) I remember thinking that the vast majority of the suicides seemed reasonable.

devwastaken 5y ago

We have never lived in a gun free U.S. and realistically never will, regardless of legislation. It's the same idea as the war on drugs - you can make things illegal, you can violate the 4th amendment and make all manner of methods to search, seize, and charge for it. You can make swat drug task forces that bust down doors, shoot first, ask questions later. Yet if I want a dime it can be conveniently delivered at an affordable price any time. This is the same story as prohibition. You can criminalize, poison people, and shoot as much as you want, at the end of the day the geography of the U.S. makes it dumb easy to transport and sell anything. Legal ownership of concealable weapons and automatic firearms is already difficult in a number of states, especially cities with high gun violence. As an individual I have to have the right to protect myself from that harm. Firearms are designed to be equitable protection, it doesn't matter that I'm not 6'5 and a not body builder. I can defend myself just as effectively, especially when criminals aren't playing by the rules and already have firearms anyways.

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
Legal ownership of concealable weapons and automatic firearms is already difficult in a number of states, especially cities with high gun violence. I'm not sure what you mean by "automatic firearms," but what you describe is limited to a very small number of states, albeit some of our most populous. Counterexamples are legion, 42 states have "shall issue" concealed carry, that's like 72% of the population before the COVID flee big cities demographic changes to the extent they're lasting, and so far this year three states are improving that to "Constitutional Carry," a total of half the states in the union! For how we got here, "The American Indian foundation of American gun culture" is essential reading: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/11/21/the-american-indian-foundation-of-american-gun-culture/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
altacc 4y ago
Ah, the grandmother with a gun argument. However there is not conclusive evidence that owning a gun makes you safer. If anything, widespread gun ownership makes you less safe from crime, accidental death and suicide. In almost all other western countries the notion of needing a gun to feel safe is totally alien. The context in which the American gun debate happens is rather unique and the real discussion should be about how to change the context/environment, not just banning guns.

anamax 5y ago

The folks involved in these activities are often dealing in other banned substances, so it's not obvious that banning actually reduces. "but guns are different than drugs". Yes, guns are durable. I don't know how long cocaine lasts, but 100 year-old cartridges are perfectly good. Even if you assume one gun per murder, the required volume is a small fraction of drug smuggling. Oh, and guns are actually easy to make. They're 19th century tech.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

If you tried to implement that on any timeline that could possibly save lives (sure you could boil the frog over a century but that wouldn't save many lives) you'd get something between the Troubles and the breakup of Yugoslavia on a scale that would make either look like a picnic. If you assume starting from the situation as it exists today that's just not realistically possible. The amount of bloodshed it would take would be exceptional. Most of thee people who'd resit you are people who'd made peace with going down fighting and said people are not even the same ones causing the violence that's the problem in the first place. Do Not Want. Not. My. Fight.

parkingrift 4y ago

Yes. We did this in the 70s with the war on drugs and successfully eradicated all drug use in the United States. No one does drugs in the US any longer, not at all. And certainly no one is dying from drug use. How could either of these things happen when we banned them so long ago?

hotpotamus 4y ago
Yep, and San Francisco made laws against theft/shoplifting and clearly there's no theft/shoplifting there.