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The odds of dying in one of these mass shooting incidents in the US are infinitesimally small. These incidents are the price of freedom, and I'm sad to hear th
by tsotha 14y ago
The odds of dying in one of these mass shooting incidents in the US are infinitesimally small. These incidents are the price of freedom, and I'm sad to hear the Aussies are no longer willing to pay it.
- andrewflnr 14y agoI'm generally in favor of freedom, but you can't assume it's always a good, at any cost. If (and I don't really believe this) frequent mass murders were the cost of freedom, we would have to seriously consider whether it was worth it.
- tsotha 14y agoWhat do you mean by "frequent"? The US is a country of 312m people.
- andrewflnr 14y agoFind any of the recent threads here on the Connecticut shooting. We (in the US) do seem to have a relatively high per-capita mass-murder rate, at least compared to other first-world countries. That wasn't my main point though.
- w1ntermute 14y ago> We (in the US) do seem to have a relatively high per-capita mass-murder rate, at least compared to other first-world countries. That statistic is misleading and ignores the elephant in the room: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4931177 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4931177
- flyinRyan 14y agoIt isn't misleading! You're the one being misleading by claiming we need to cook the data to come up with the result you want to have instead of the reality of the situation.
- w1ntermute 14y agoI'm not suggesting we "cook the data", I'm suggesting that we shouldn't boil the data down to one statistic just so that we can get a number that conveniently agrees with our worldview. See my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4932547 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4932547
- flyinRyan 14y ago>I'm suggesting that we shouldn't boil the data down to one statistic just so that we can get a number that conveniently agrees with our worldview. Ironically, this is exactly what you're suggesting. Word for word.
- w1ntermute 14y agoWrong again. That's what you are doing. You're taking the number of firearm homicides per capita in the US (one number) and just comparing it to that in other countries.
- Gormo 14y agoHe isn't "cooking the data". Or, more accurately, he's the one who isn't cooking the all of the data in one big pot, without regard for whether all of the data are actually describing the same thing. The point he's making is that there are qualitative distinctions within the data that demand their own discrete analysis. What's misleading here is ignoring distinctions in the data in order to falsely posit a uniform source of causality.
- tsotha 14y agoIt's still not what I would call "frequent". Our murder rate has gone down in recent years and isn't high enough to justify new restrictions on firearms, IMO.
- andrewflnr 14y agoI don't really disagre with you on gun control, but... You're still hammering on that one word of my original comment. Since you've said nothing against my real point, that the end (that is freedom) doesn't necessarily justify the means, can I assume I've gotten it across? We need to actually think about if and how access to guns improves people's lives overall.
- tsotha 14y agoLet me put it this way, then: I don't believe these kinds of incidents are at all common enough to make any changes to American gun laws. Your chance of getting caught up in one is statistically zero, so if people want a gun to hunt or for self defense it outweighs any safety benefit of tighter gun laws.
- w1ntermute 14y agoYes, I don't understand why no one will come out and say it - such mass murders are simply the price of the freedom to have guns. If everyone is armed, things aren't going to be better, they're going to be worse, as innocent bystanders will get hurt in shootouts between armed civilians and the evildoer they're trying to take out. One interesting thing that I read recently is that the extremely high rate of firearm murder in America is largely inflicted by and on impoverished black males living in urban areas. If you eliminate those cases/areas from the picture, things are not all that different in America from Europe. You have a higher chance of getting stabbed by a chav in London than you do of getting shot in suburban America. Of course, there are occasional mass murder incidents (which make the news). But given that most mass murderers are white and have mental problems, mental healthcare reform would take care of those cases that do occur outside of urban areas. As for the high rate of firearm homicide in urban/black areas, that has more to do with the endemic problems in contemporary African American culture than anything else, and will require a much more comprehensive social policy to correct.
- tsotha 14y ago>One interesting thing that I read recently is that the extremely high rate of firearm murder in America is largely inflicted by and on impoverished black males living in urban areas. If you eliminate those cases/areas from the picture, things are not all that different in America from Europe. You aren't supposed to talk about that.
- kls 14y agoWhile I laughed at the dark irony of your response to the subject after a few moments of reflection it's actually pretty depressing because when you really ponder it, political correctness and agendas are the reason that things like a bunch of little kids in a school being senselessly murdered will never get addressed properly and any laws enacted will only be laws of agendas. People won't let go of their own crap for 2 seconds to actually do something good for someone else.
- rooshdi 14y agoCulture is a not an excuse for allowing humans to gun down each other. Improved firearm regulation can be a part of a comprehensive social policy.
- rooshdi 14y agoAmerica now has about a 9 times higher firearm-related death rate than Australia. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-re...
- w1ntermute 14y agoThis statistic is deceptive. Read my reply above: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4931177 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4931177
- rooshdi 14y agoI've read it. It doesn't change the data.
- w1ntermute 14y agoIt changes the interpretation of the data, without which the data means nothing.
- rooshdi 14y agoWhat is your interpretation? That some people are irrelevant?
- w1ntermute 14y agoStop putting words in my mouth, I never suggested that anyone is "irrelevant". My interpretation, which should have been obvious, is that you cannot legislate away cultural problems. Banning guns to stop people from obtaining them is completely moronic when those people are in the very business of smuggling of illegal items into the country in the first place.
- rooshdi 14y agoThere is a difference between banning guns and improving the background check process to ensure less mentally instable and people with a history of crime acquire firearms. Also, it is my opinion that a culture of crime is no excuse to give up on improving firearms regulation.
- rmc 14y agoI live in a country with gun control laws. Despite what you may think, this is not a totalitarial oppressive regime. I'm willing to give up my right to bear arms (and my right to pollute the air, etc.)
- tsotha 14y ago>I live in a country with gun control laws. Despite what you may think, this is not a totalitarial oppressive regime. That may be so, but things change. If it becomes a "totalitarial" oppressive regime your options will be more limited than mine.
- rmc 14y agoHighly unlikely. I live in a small country (Ireland), without any nuclear forces or advanced military. Even the police force aren't armed (except for a special branch), and they have one helicopter. I stand a much better chance against that than you do against the US armed forces.