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Here’s my ask before you enter your perfectly argued comment here: if you have 30 mins read these NYT profiles of 12 children lost to gun crime: https://www.nyt

by Jun8 3y ago

Here’s my ask before you enter your perfectly argued comment here: if you have 30 mins read these NYT profiles of 12 children lost to gun crime: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/14/magazine/gun-violence-america-child-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/14/magazine/gun-.... If you’re passionate about this subject and have lots of time go and volunteer at high crime communities (if you dare), for example in high schools. I did the latter for three years, volunteering to help the Ace Tech High School (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACE_Amandla_Charter_High_School https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACE_Amandla_Charter_High_Sch...) more than 10 years ago, as part of their Robotics Team. The problems I saw were myriad but it was common to see lockers decorated with flowers, for kids who died recently. I totally understand and agree with the educated person’s poverty, bias, etc. arguments. But when a problem gets this bad first you need to stop it, and then work on long term goals. Just answer this question: if your child had 10% chance of getting shot and killed walking to/from from school, what would your position be on any technology that can reduce that by even 1%.

lolinder 3y ago
> Just answer this question: your child had 10% chance of getting shot and killed walking to/fro from school, what would your position be on any technology that can reduce that by even 1%. Just to put some actual perspective on the numbers: about 40 kids are killed in all of New Mexico each year and about 20 of those are suicides (still tragic but not the walking-home-from-school kind). That's still too many, but is nowhere near 10%. You're inflating the numbers to trigger emotions. Making wide scale policy decisions based on your emotions surrounding anecdotal incidents is not a good policy. I feel for the families that lose their children, but I don't believe that acting for the sake of acting is safe. Acting in the heat of a crisis is how we got the TSA and the NSA, which we still haven't managed to get rid of. The risk of creating an enormous and impossible to get rid of surveillance state to save 1% of 20 kids per year (2 kids every 10 years) frankly isn't worth it.
- Jun8 3y ago
  I’m talking about high crime areas in big cities. Here’s a data point from Chicago: in May 2021, up to that time in the year 108 children were shot, 16 of them died: https://abc7chicago.com/amp/chicago-shootings-child-shot-teen-kid/10663331/ https://abc7chicago.com/amp/chicago-shootings-child-shot-tee... It’s not the “heat of the crisis”, this has been going on for years now here. See this WaPo article from 2013, from when Michelle Obama attended the funeral of a 15 year-old girl: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/michelle-obama-heads-to-chicago-for-slain-teenagers-funeral/2013/02/09/418a9ea4-716e-11e2-8b8d-e0b59a1b8e2a_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/michelle-obama-heads...
  - lolinder 3y ago
    You're advocating creating policy based on emotion, not numbers. That is what I mean by creating policy in the heat of the crisis—the argument goes that it's better to do something than nothing, so we just throw surveillance at the wall and hope it reduces the number of tragedies. I'm not advocating doing nothing, but I am advocating against arguments in favor of surveillance that lean heavily into emotions surrounding anecdotes and ignore questions of actual incidence rates, causality, and efficacy of the proposed solutions.

by Jun8 3y ago

lolinder 3y ago

> Just answer this question: your child had 10% chance of getting shot and killed walking to/fro from school, what would your position be on any technology that can reduce that by even 1%. Just to put some actual perspective on the numbers: about 40 kids are killed in all of New Mexico each year and about 20 of those are suicides (still tragic but not the walking-home-from-school kind). That's still too many, but is nowhere near 10%. You're inflating the numbers to trigger emotions. Making wide scale policy decisions based on your emotions surrounding anecdotal incidents is not a good policy. I feel for the families that lose their children, but I don't believe that acting for the sake of acting is safe. Acting in the heat of a crisis is how we got the TSA and the NSA, which we still haven't managed to get rid of. The risk of creating an enormous and impossible to get rid of surveillance state to save 1% of 20 kids per year (2 kids every 10 years) frankly isn't worth it.

Jun8 3y ago
I’m talking about high crime areas in big cities. Here’s a data point from Chicago: in May 2021, up to that time in the year 108 children were shot, 16 of them died: https://abc7chicago.com/amp/chicago-shootings-child-shot-teen-kid/10663331/ https://abc7chicago.com/amp/chicago-shootings-child-shot-tee... It’s not the “heat of the crisis”, this has been going on for years now here. See this WaPo article from 2013, from when Michelle Obama attended the funeral of a 15 year-old girl: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/michelle-obama-heads-to-chicago-for-slain-teenagers-funeral/2013/02/09/418a9ea4-716e-11e2-8b8d-e0b59a1b8e2a_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/michelle-obama-heads...
- lolinder 3y ago
  You're advocating creating policy based on emotion, not numbers. That is what I mean by creating policy in the heat of the crisis—the argument goes that it's better to do something than nothing, so we just throw surveillance at the wall and hope it reduces the number of tragedies. I'm not advocating doing nothing, but I am advocating against arguments in favor of surveillance that lean heavily into emotions surrounding anecdotes and ignore questions of actual incidence rates, causality, and efficacy of the proposed solutions.