5 ms·

> It's time we start legislating based on empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals. I would take anti-gun people more seriously if they actually paid attenti

by wyager 4y ago

> It's time we start legislating based on empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals. I would take anti-gun people more seriously if they actually paid attention to what this entails. For one, anti-gun enthusiast would stop going on about "assault rifles", because only around 200 people a year in the US are killed by rifle homicides. It's totally negligible. Less frequent than blunt instrument homicides. Yet, that's exactly what anti-gun people focus on.

boppo1 4y ago
It's because they look scary
paulryanrogers 4y ago
Sometimes you have to eat an elephant one bite at a time. If guns weren't such a charged issue then more of us would advocate to directly outlaw private gun ownership. Guns add little value to people's lives and are likely to amplify poor decisions into death and serious injury.
- bluGill 4y ago
  > Guns add little value to people's lives Spoken like someone who lives in a city where you can't use a gun. There is a reason why guns laws are unpopular in rural areas: guns are very useful in rural areas. There is no way to safely shoot a gun in a urban area (except a few gun ranges), so any possible use is dwarfed by the danger.
  - SamuelAdams 4y ago
    > guns are very useful in rural areas. For a more concrete example. My father in law lives in Michigan. His house is seated next to 40 acres of forest. There are often coyotes and other wild animals that will approach his house when they're hungry. If you're unaware, coyotes will hunt, stalk, and kill cats, dogs, and small children. To protect my children (3-5 years old) and his dogs, he shoots them.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      Quite a narrow case, and it still requires careful attention in order to shoot the animals. Perhaps there are more practical alternatives with fewer externalities like fences, traps, scents, motion detecting lights, noise deterants, etc.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        None of your suggestions work, animals are smart enough to figure them out in time. They work for a month at best. Traps are the best bet of your list and are a lot harder to use. And then you still need to kill the animal, release is cruel to the animal and harmful to whatever is naturally where you release it
    - 2143 4y ago
      Interesting. In my beautiful 3rd world country (yeah we remained non-aligned during the cold war), Tigers and Leopards have a tendency to come near human settlements and attack domesticated animals. Over here, killing animals (apart from chicken, fish, duck etc, which people regularly eat) is illegal. That means your can't kill snakes, deers, wild pigs, crocodiles and you certainly cannot kill Tiger, Leopards etc (because they're kind of endangered...). If you do and they find out, you're going to jail. It doesn't matter whether the aforementioned wild animals killed your animals or humans. So what do you do if presence of wild animals have been detected? You tell the authorities; they'll set traps, capture the animal, and release it to the forests. By the way, recently, there was an appeal to the government to declare wild boar as pests, so that it can be killed because wild boars destroy crops and stuff. Government declined, because if the boars are killed, the big cats would starve. This might all seem strange, but over here tiger/lion/leopard population was dwindling in the last century. But their population is now at a healthy level. ----- About the gun situation here: nobody really has guns. Except very few maybe. There's plenty of crimes, but those don't involve a gun. Guns definitely would not be a solution to minimize the crime situation here.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        Over here coyotes are not endangered, and deer have an overpopulation problems such that without hunters they will eat all their food by the middle of winter and then starve to death. Snakes protected though, as are wolves. There is a problem with people killing them anyway. They are not the major animals rural people target - because they are endangered there are not many. > You tell the authorities; they'll set traps, capture the animal, and release it to the forests. This is something that they used to do over here. Then we discovered that when you release wild animals far from home they don't know their way around, and so they have trouble finding enough to eat, where to drink, a place to live. They are thus not in great physical shape when they encounter whatever lived there already and so are easy kill. Predators are either lone or pack animals - either way a stranger is something to kill. As such releasing a trapped animal is cruel. Unless you find a place where there is nothing else of the type, but even then we have to ask about if they have the correct genes, turns out animals of the same species get natural selection for DNA that helps in their location.
- wyager 4y ago
  > Guns add little value to people's lives This is a facially absurd claim to make based on the extremely motivated behavior of tens of millions of Americans. > are likely to amplify poor decisions into death and serious injury For a very questionable definition of "likely". As someone who actually performs explicit risk calculations, I am vastly more worried about hundreds of other risk sources to which I have daily exposure.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    Risk factors aren't mutually exclusive. People can advocate and the government can act on more than one issue at a time.
    - wyager 4y ago
      People should pursue risk mitigation strategies which are efficient at the margins, if at all. I would capture marginal utility by making life more risky and less fearful, so I'm certainly not going to accept the piss-poor risk reduction returns of going after assault rifles. Do some research on who is actually dying, who is killing, and with what weapons. I think no honest and well-adjusted person who does that can agree with popular gun control initiatives.
- dgfitz 4y ago
  > If guns weren't such a charged issue then more of us would advocate to directly outlaw private gun ownership. Surely you're aware of the second amendment. I'm not sure how your proposition and said amendment can live in the paradigm.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    Perhaps the US should amend the constitution more often? Instead of bitterly fighting over supreme court seats? And if that's asking too much then maybe the country really is too big and diverse to be governed as a single nation. Anyway, just thinking out loud.
    - wyager 4y ago
      > the country really is too big and diverse to be governed as a single nation I think many gun owners would agree.
  - pnutjam 4y ago
    Tiered gun ownership. You can own revolvers, non-semi automatic rifles at the base tier. You also need to file a reason for gun ownership and accept liability for misuse of your firearms. Your teenage kid kills himself with your revolver, you're on the hook for manslaughter.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      Curious if you think Uvalde massacre could have not happened if the 18-year old had a revolver instead of an AR-15?
      - pnutjam 4y ago
        Yes, it would not have happened, it would have been less kids if it did happen.
pnutjam 4y ago
There are plenty of people advocating for limits on ammunition, or other reasonable stuff; but go ahead with your strawman.
- wyager 4y ago
  I suspect whatever you have in mind for "ammunition limits" is not even slightly reasonable under careful consideration.
- lliamander 4y ago
  What's "reasonable" from an informed perspective vs. an uniformed perspective are vastly different. There are already limits on ammunition and they don't work.
  - pnutjam 4y ago
    Citation. Perp had over 350 rounds.
    - lliamander 4y ago
      Well, first I should clarify that I mean some states have various limits on ammunition and magazine capacity, and that does not help those states with regard to homicide statistics. Secondly, do you think that is unreasonable amount of ammunition? What kinds of legal limitations would you propose? For reference, that's about enough ammo for one person for less than an hour of time at a gun range. Any responsible gun owner is going to be at the range with some regularity, and would go through at least that much in one day.
      - pnutjam 4y ago
        Limits are for ammo that leaves the range, 50 bullets a month for hunting and defense should be plenty. Range ammo should be subsidized and available.
        4y ago
groggo 4y ago
random mass shootings are so horrific that we should do something to make them less lethal. Even if focusing on hand guns instead would statistically save more lives.
- wyager 4y ago
  If your primary concern is reducing horror (which I think is not reasonable from a utilitarian basis), take it up with the media.
renaudg 4y ago
> For one, anti-gun enthusiast would stop going on about "assault rifles", because only around 200 people a year in the US are killed by rifle homicides. It's totally negligible. Less frequent than blunt instrument homicides. Yet, that's exactly what anti-gun people focus on. Yeah, for some reason people keep going on about the ability for any 18 yo nutcase to go into a shop and buy a military-grade weapon designed to shred organs beyond all repair*, enabling them to efficiently slaughter as many school children as possible before terrorized and outgunned LEOs finally have the guts to take them out. These pesky humans and their dislike of living in fear of violent death for their children... Can't they just think about this in spreadsheet terms and look at the totally negligible numbers, like the rest of us psychos ? C'mon... *https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-...

by wyager 4y ago

boppo1 4y ago

It's because they look scary

paulryanrogers 4y ago

Sometimes you have to eat an elephant one bite at a time. If guns weren't such a charged issue then more of us would advocate to directly outlaw private gun ownership. Guns add little value to people's lives and are likely to amplify poor decisions into death and serious injury.

bluGill 4y ago
> Guns add little value to people's lives Spoken like someone who lives in a city where you can't use a gun. There is a reason why guns laws are unpopular in rural areas: guns are very useful in rural areas. There is no way to safely shoot a gun in a urban area (except a few gun ranges), so any possible use is dwarfed by the danger.
- SamuelAdams 4y ago
  > guns are very useful in rural areas. For a more concrete example. My father in law lives in Michigan. His house is seated next to 40 acres of forest. There are often coyotes and other wild animals that will approach his house when they're hungry. If you're unaware, coyotes will hunt, stalk, and kill cats, dogs, and small children. To protect my children (3-5 years old) and his dogs, he shoots them.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    Quite a narrow case, and it still requires careful attention in order to shoot the animals. Perhaps there are more practical alternatives with fewer externalities like fences, traps, scents, motion detecting lights, noise deterants, etc.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      None of your suggestions work, animals are smart enough to figure them out in time. They work for a month at best. Traps are the best bet of your list and are a lot harder to use. And then you still need to kill the animal, release is cruel to the animal and harmful to whatever is naturally where you release it
  - 2143 4y ago
    Interesting. In my beautiful 3rd world country (yeah we remained non-aligned during the cold war), Tigers and Leopards have a tendency to come near human settlements and attack domesticated animals. Over here, killing animals (apart from chicken, fish, duck etc, which people regularly eat) is illegal. That means your can't kill snakes, deers, wild pigs, crocodiles and you certainly cannot kill Tiger, Leopards etc (because they're kind of endangered...). If you do and they find out, you're going to jail. It doesn't matter whether the aforementioned wild animals killed your animals or humans. So what do you do if presence of wild animals have been detected? You tell the authorities; they'll set traps, capture the animal, and release it to the forests. By the way, recently, there was an appeal to the government to declare wild boar as pests, so that it can be killed because wild boars destroy crops and stuff. Government declined, because if the boars are killed, the big cats would starve. This might all seem strange, but over here tiger/lion/leopard population was dwindling in the last century. But their population is now at a healthy level. ----- About the gun situation here: nobody really has guns. Except very few maybe. There's plenty of crimes, but those don't involve a gun. Guns definitely would not be a solution to minimize the crime situation here.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      Over here coyotes are not endangered, and deer have an overpopulation problems such that without hunters they will eat all their food by the middle of winter and then starve to death. Snakes protected though, as are wolves. There is a problem with people killing them anyway. They are not the major animals rural people target - because they are endangered there are not many. > You tell the authorities; they'll set traps, capture the animal, and release it to the forests. This is something that they used to do over here. Then we discovered that when you release wild animals far from home they don't know their way around, and so they have trouble finding enough to eat, where to drink, a place to live. They are thus not in great physical shape when they encounter whatever lived there already and so are easy kill. Predators are either lone or pack animals - either way a stranger is something to kill. As such releasing a trapped animal is cruel. Unless you find a place where there is nothing else of the type, but even then we have to ask about if they have the correct genes, turns out animals of the same species get natural selection for DNA that helps in their location.
wyager 4y ago
> Guns add little value to people's lives This is a facially absurd claim to make based on the extremely motivated behavior of tens of millions of Americans. > are likely to amplify poor decisions into death and serious injury For a very questionable definition of "likely". As someone who actually performs explicit risk calculations, I am vastly more worried about hundreds of other risk sources to which I have daily exposure.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  Risk factors aren't mutually exclusive. People can advocate and the government can act on more than one issue at a time.
  - wyager 4y ago
    People should pursue risk mitigation strategies which are efficient at the margins, if at all. I would capture marginal utility by making life more risky and less fearful, so I'm certainly not going to accept the piss-poor risk reduction returns of going after assault rifles. Do some research on who is actually dying, who is killing, and with what weapons. I think no honest and well-adjusted person who does that can agree with popular gun control initiatives.
dgfitz 4y ago
> If guns weren't such a charged issue then more of us would advocate to directly outlaw private gun ownership. Surely you're aware of the second amendment. I'm not sure how your proposition and said amendment can live in the paradigm.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  Perhaps the US should amend the constitution more often? Instead of bitterly fighting over supreme court seats? And if that's asking too much then maybe the country really is too big and diverse to be governed as a single nation. Anyway, just thinking out loud.
  - wyager 4y ago
    > the country really is too big and diverse to be governed as a single nation I think many gun owners would agree.
- pnutjam 4y ago
  Tiered gun ownership. You can own revolvers, non-semi automatic rifles at the base tier. You also need to file a reason for gun ownership and accept liability for misuse of your firearms. Your teenage kid kills himself with your revolver, you're on the hook for manslaughter.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    Curious if you think Uvalde massacre could have not happened if the 18-year old had a revolver instead of an AR-15?
    - pnutjam 4y ago
      Yes, it would not have happened, it would have been less kids if it did happen.

pnutjam 4y ago

There are plenty of people advocating for limits on ammunition, or other reasonable stuff; but go ahead with your strawman.

wyager 4y ago
I suspect whatever you have in mind for "ammunition limits" is not even slightly reasonable under careful consideration.
lliamander 4y ago
What's "reasonable" from an informed perspective vs. an uniformed perspective are vastly different. There are already limits on ammunition and they don't work.
- pnutjam 4y ago
  Citation. Perp had over 350 rounds.
  - lliamander 4y ago
    Well, first I should clarify that I mean some states have various limits on ammunition and magazine capacity, and that does not help those states with regard to homicide statistics. Secondly, do you think that is unreasonable amount of ammunition? What kinds of legal limitations would you propose? For reference, that's about enough ammo for one person for less than an hour of time at a gun range. Any responsible gun owner is going to be at the range with some regularity, and would go through at least that much in one day.
    - pnutjam 4y ago
      Limits are for ammo that leaves the range, 50 bullets a month for hunting and defense should be plenty. Range ammo should be subsidized and available.
      - 4y ago

groggo 4y ago

random mass shootings are so horrific that we should do something to make them less lethal. Even if focusing on hand guns instead would statistically save more lives.

wyager 4y ago
If your primary concern is reducing horror (which I think is not reasonable from a utilitarian basis), take it up with the media.

renaudg 4y ago

> For one, anti-gun enthusiast would stop going on about "assault rifles", because only around 200 people a year in the US are killed by rifle homicides. It's totally negligible. Less frequent than blunt instrument homicides. Yet, that's exactly what anti-gun people focus on. Yeah, for some reason people keep going on about the ability for any 18 yo nutcase to go into a shop and buy a military-grade weapon designed to shred organs beyond all repair*, enabling them to efficiently slaughter as many school children as possible before terrorized and outgunned LEOs finally have the guts to take them out. These pesky humans and their dislike of living in fear of violent death for their children... Can't they just think about this in spreadsheet terms and look at the totally negligible numbers, like the rest of us psychos ? C'mon... *https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-...