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The flaw in this argument is that guns and pools have very different uses. You can't swim in a gun. Guns have no useful purpose. The fact that pools are more

The flaw in this argument is that guns and pools have very different uses. You can't swim in a gun. Guns have no useful purpose. The fact that pools are more dangerous doesn't justify owning a gun, so there is no "cognitive dissonance" here. You don't want a gun in your house regardless of any other dangers that exists, just like you want to child proof the house. You want a pool for the same reason you want a bicycle: it provides lots of benefit. Ultimately we make a choice that the benefit of the pool or the benefit of a bicycle for the child is greater than the risk. We can't eliminate all the risk. We can eliminate unnecessary risk (like guns).

icelancer 14y ago
> Guns have no useful purpose Home defense, hunting, on-person defense for women in unsafe areas, etc. But yeah, continue on your screed. Let's not let facts get in the way of a good diatribe.
- simonh 14y ago
  People with guns are more likely to get killed than people who are unarmed. OK, lets looks at the facts. At least, the facts available despite the NRA's diligent shutting down of as much research into the role of guns in American society as possible. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fa... • A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater. Although Myth I also refer to you to: #7: Guns make women safer.
  - icelancer 14y ago
    The vast, vast majority of the "research" posted in that post is anecdotal and irrelevant. Just because assault "victims" (did they control for gang-related violence? for obvious malicious intent? etc) had a higher rate of being shot doesn't mean guns are useless. Same with the "fact" that guns in the home are linked to suicides and assaults and not legitimate home defense. OK? Yeah, that's obvious. But that doesn't control for the fact that many people who purchase guns use them completely responsibly. I understand you think it's a bad idea that on average, gun crime happens. But none of the "evidence" you posted presents a slam-dunk case for repealing the 2nd Amendment and probably many others (unreasonable search and seizure and the like). None of this even factors into the whole intent of allowing citizens to own weapons, which is worth a fair amount.
  - notdrunkatall 14y ago
    I learned long ago that 90% of motherjones articles are trash. They are the online liberal equivalent of FOX news.
- rooshdi 14y ago
  While firearms do provide a means of self-defense, there is also data which suggests there's an association between less firearm laws and higher firearm fatalities: http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1661390 http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=16613...
- ThomPete 14y ago
  Home defense makes no sense unless you believe that if someone steal your TV it's ok that you potentially kill him/her for tresspassing. The safest defense is to not have this turn into an arms race. Both for you and your children.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
GHFigs 14y ago
What's the useful purpose of a private pool?
- rooshdi 14y ago
  Aquatic therapy and exercise. Not being sarcastic.
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    I think the person you responded to meant that you could go to a public pool. So the answer is: privacy while using a pool for its normal purpose.
    - damncabbage 14y ago
      Or perhaps: Aquatic therapy and exercise while not swimming in several someone else's urine.
- runeks 14y ago
  Having fun, enjoying swimming.
arbus 14y ago
Child proofing your house does not include throwing away everything that is dangerous in the house, the same way you lock your liquor and medicine cabinet instead of getting rid of them.
derefr 14y ago
> Guns have no useful purpose. If I recall, in some countries, the only legal guns are rifles--because they can be used to hunt game. Or, to put a finer point on it: some people use a gun to feed their family.
- lmm 14y ago
  That's pretty disingenuous. Maybe there are places where it really is cheaper to hunt food with a gun than buy it, but America is not one of them.
  - derefr 14y ago
    Right; I meant to specifically negate the statement "guns have no useful purpose." I never said guns had any useful purpose in America. :)
  - sageikosa 14y ago
    Once you own the gun, ammunition is cheap in comparison to the poundage of meat from deer, wild foul and other small game animals. Not that I partake in hunting personally (suburban lifestyle), but my home state (of Pennsylvania) has a significant rural population that takes advantage of the large deer population to supplement its caloric budget. America isn't homogeneous with regard to its distribution of jobs, supermarkets and population.
    - arethuza 14y ago
      Out of interest, who owns the land people hunt on in places like Pennsylvania? Here in Scotland large parts of the country are privately owned sporting estates and shooting is not a cheap sport!
      - waterlesscloud 14y ago
        It's often public land. State or national forests, which are gigantic portions of the US, are generally hunting areas (though state or national parks are usually no-hunting zones). Hunting is licensed by the states, and is usually relatively inexpensive for in-state residents. People from other states usually pay considerably more for a license. Big game or rarer animals may require special "tags" which come at larger fees and may be limited and awarded by lottery. There are private game reserves. Georgia and other southern states have massive hunting preserves that can be a mark of old money, for instance. There are similar ranches in the west. And hunting clubs that anyone can just buy their way into. And, to be honest, there's a lot of what is technically poaching- hunting on the private land of others without permission. That sort of thing isn't all that well policed, though state fish and game authorities are generally pretty tough on completely unlicensed hunting.
tolmasky 14y ago
> Guns have no useful purpose. The fact that pools are more dangerous doesn't justify owning a gun, so there is no "cognitive dissonance" here. What is the useful purpose of a swimming pool exactly? Are you proposing that they are a meaningful part of our society? Is this "use" so valuable that it clearly outweighs the deaths it causes? You seem to in your own comment think the bicycle provides the same benefit, so why keep pools if we have such a great alternative? No one swims a gun, but no one swims to work either. At least there are people actually dependent on bikes because they can't afford cars. > We can't eliminate all the risk. > We can eliminate unnecessary risk (like guns). So you think pools qualify as a necessary risk then? Is it at all possible that you may just personally see no use in guns while appreciating the recreational value of a pool despite its risks, while at the exact same time a gun owner may see no use in pools while appreciating the recreational value of guns? You can't swim (useless activity) in a gun. You also can't fire a pool. I can actually perfectly understand the argument "well, both guns and pools should be outlawed then". I really have a hard time shrugging off pool deaths because they are such a clearly useful thing that is a necessary risk for society though (however that argument works much better for car deaths vs. gun deaths). Edit: Below I was just commenting on understanding your audience and thus not making arguments that won't resonate with them. There is an entire culture around gun ownership. There are some people that go shooting every day, and it really hurts your position to tell them that that part of their life is not a valid "use". It is actually quite similar to football in some respects. At some point in this country we may have to discuss the very real health issues associated with it, and a part of the framing of that argument should probably not belittle the attachment people have to something that is in fact quite useless (as any and all recreations are to the people that don't practice them).
- kkowalczyk 14y ago
  Let's remember this is in context of owning guns and having children. Children like to swim in pools. Children like to ride bicycles. I sure hope even the most enthusiastic gun owner doesn't give guns to children to play with. I don't have to justify the usefulness of pools or bicycles. The kids like them, it's a fact. As a society we tolerate the risk of those things. Is it rational? Should we? I don't care - we just do and that's a fact. You can take away a risk associated with a pool or bicycle but only by taking away the fun that children have swimming in pools or riding a bicycle. It's true that some parents enjoy the things you can do with a gun. It's also true that having a gun in the house is additional, sometimes tragic, risk with no benefit to children. First, as a parent you're supposed to put the benefit of your child over the little joys in your life, like squeezing a trigger of a 44 Magnum or getting enough sleep. Second, you can enjoy most of the benefits of having a gun without actually having one in the house. I'm pretty sure you cannot hunt or discharge firearms within city limits anyway. You can still indulge yourself in hunting or go to a shooting range without endangering the life of your child by having a gun in your house.
OGinparadise 14y ago
You can't swim in a gun. Guns have no useful purpose. The fact that pools are more dangerous doesn't justify owning a gun, so there is no "cognitive dissonance" here...We can eliminate unnecessary risk (like guns). And you can't kill your potential killer or rapist, unless you invite him in the pool and hope he drowns, with pools being dangerous and all. I hope you never have to wish you had a gun near you. Personally I have no pool, but... Pools, unless they are Olympic size ones used to do laps for most people are useless, "just [extremely dangerous] fun." Fun, like shooting a gun which also can save your life, or the life or your neighbor. Mighty useful if you ask me and much safer than pools.
- sheri 14y ago
  Isn't bringing up potential killers or rapists just fear-mongering in order to justify gun ownership? Is there any data supporting that gun ownership results in fewer rapes or deaths? I find defense being thrown about as a very valid reason for owning a gun, but in a country like the US, is there concrete evidence that gun ownership caused fewer home break-ins? I don't hope to be in a situation where I need a gun near me, but I also don't hope for someone confronting me having a gun in his/her hand.
  - OGinparadise 14y ago
    When it happens to you, the % jumps to 100%/. end.of.story. Suppose you make illegal all guns right now. Do you think it will be hard for a crook to his hands on a now illegal weapon? All I need to know: A gun will help me defend myself and family. A gun can be kept safe by adhering to certain known gun safety principles. Accidents happen but then a brick from a building's facade can smack you in the head in the morning. Cops are great, if you have one right there, right when you need him/her. So, I think to myself, why not have one? Leaving all fun aside, it's a piece of mind.
    - jackowayed 14y ago
      This is a common argument, and while it has some merit, it also reeks of illusion of control bias. Guns make people feel safer because they feel more in control of their safety. In reality, if someone is armed and has broken into my house, I want it to be absolutely clear to them that I am unarmed. I want them to know that they have no need to attack me, and that they should just take some of my stuff and get out (by far the most likely reason they're there), leaving me unharmed. The alternative possibilities sound much worse to me. This is true in almost every situation where people talk about guns being useful against crime. I think I am more likely to harm myself, to incite the other party to harm me, to harm a bystander (maybe someone in my household), or to harm someone that I perceive as a much more serious and dangerous criminal than they actually are, than I am to successfully be a "good guy with a gun who stops a bad guy with a gun".
cabalamat 14y ago
> Guns have no useful purpose Yes they do. Some people enjoy firing them, therefore their useful purpose is to make people happy (which at the end of the day the same end purpose for everything people do). Ditto with pools -- some people like swimming, so they also fulfil the useful purpose of making people happy.
notdrunkatall 14y ago
The flaw in your argument is that guns do have a useful purpose. I'm sorry that you're so obtuse that you can't understand what that purpose is.
betterunix 14y ago
"Guns have no useful purpose" Correction: guns have no useful purpose that you can personally imagine (or that you are personally willing to accept). Yes, I am a gun owner. I own three rifles, and at least two have a clear utility argument: 1. .22lr is for basic practice (aiming, breathing control, etc.) at low expense. 2. .270 is for hunting deer. Where I live, there are more whitetail deer than there were when Europeans first arrived on this continent, and the only way to keep that population under control is by hunting. Deer are the cause of numerous automobile accidents and cause quite a bit of property damage. In some suburban areas where deer hunting is not allowed, towns occasionally hire people to exterminate deer because they have become pests. Right there, you have useful purposes for a large class of firearms. Killing pests on farms is another common use of rifles. "We can eliminate unnecessary risk (like guns)." So what you are saying is that anyone with children should not be a hunter or farmer, or that they should store their guns somewhere other than their home (and hope they are not stolen)? The problem with your argument is that it is a blanket statement -- you are talking about guns as a general thing, which covers little BB guns all the way up to naval canons. Some guns have immediate and obvious civil uses, but you leave no room for that.
nsxwolf 14y ago
If guns have no useful purpose, police shouldn't carry them.

icelancer 14y ago

> Guns have no useful purpose Home defense, hunting, on-person defense for women in unsafe areas, etc. But yeah, continue on your screed. Let's not let facts get in the way of a good diatribe.

simonh 14y ago
People with guns are more likely to get killed than people who are unarmed. OK, lets looks at the facts. At least, the facts available despite the NRA's diligent shutting down of as much research into the role of guns in American society as possible. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fa... • A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater. Although Myth I also refer to you to: #7: Guns make women safer.
- icelancer 14y ago
  The vast, vast majority of the "research" posted in that post is anecdotal and irrelevant. Just because assault "victims" (did they control for gang-related violence? for obvious malicious intent? etc) had a higher rate of being shot doesn't mean guns are useless. Same with the "fact" that guns in the home are linked to suicides and assaults and not legitimate home defense. OK? Yeah, that's obvious. But that doesn't control for the fact that many people who purchase guns use them completely responsibly. I understand you think it's a bad idea that on average, gun crime happens. But none of the "evidence" you posted presents a slam-dunk case for repealing the 2nd Amendment and probably many others (unreasonable search and seizure and the like). None of this even factors into the whole intent of allowing citizens to own weapons, which is worth a fair amount.
- notdrunkatall 14y ago
  I learned long ago that 90% of motherjones articles are trash. They are the online liberal equivalent of FOX news.
rooshdi 14y ago
While firearms do provide a means of self-defense, there is also data which suggests there's an association between less firearm laws and higher firearm fatalities: http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1661390 http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=16613...
ThomPete 14y ago
Home defense makes no sense unless you believe that if someone steal your TV it's ok that you potentially kill him/her for tresspassing. The safest defense is to not have this turn into an arms race. Both for you and your children.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

GHFigs 14y ago

What's the useful purpose of a private pool?

rooshdi 14y ago
Aquatic therapy and exercise. Not being sarcastic.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  I think the person you responded to meant that you could go to a public pool. So the answer is: privacy while using a pool for its normal purpose.
  - damncabbage 14y ago
    Or perhaps: Aquatic therapy and exercise while not swimming in several someone else's urine.
runeks 14y ago
Having fun, enjoying swimming.

arbus 14y ago

Child proofing your house does not include throwing away everything that is dangerous in the house, the same way you lock your liquor and medicine cabinet instead of getting rid of them.

derefr 14y ago

> Guns have no useful purpose. If I recall, in some countries, the only legal guns are rifles--because they can be used to hunt game. Or, to put a finer point on it: some people use a gun to feed their family.

lmm 14y ago
That's pretty disingenuous. Maybe there are places where it really is cheaper to hunt food with a gun than buy it, but America is not one of them.
- derefr 14y ago
  Right; I meant to specifically negate the statement "guns have no useful purpose." I never said guns had any useful purpose in America. :)
- sageikosa 14y ago
  Once you own the gun, ammunition is cheap in comparison to the poundage of meat from deer, wild foul and other small game animals. Not that I partake in hunting personally (suburban lifestyle), but my home state (of Pennsylvania) has a significant rural population that takes advantage of the large deer population to supplement its caloric budget. America isn't homogeneous with regard to its distribution of jobs, supermarkets and population.
  - arethuza 14y ago
    Out of interest, who owns the land people hunt on in places like Pennsylvania? Here in Scotland large parts of the country are privately owned sporting estates and shooting is not a cheap sport!
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      It's often public land. State or national forests, which are gigantic portions of the US, are generally hunting areas (though state or national parks are usually no-hunting zones). Hunting is licensed by the states, and is usually relatively inexpensive for in-state residents. People from other states usually pay considerably more for a license. Big game or rarer animals may require special "tags" which come at larger fees and may be limited and awarded by lottery. There are private game reserves. Georgia and other southern states have massive hunting preserves that can be a mark of old money, for instance. There are similar ranches in the west. And hunting clubs that anyone can just buy their way into. And, to be honest, there's a lot of what is technically poaching- hunting on the private land of others without permission. That sort of thing isn't all that well policed, though state fish and game authorities are generally pretty tough on completely unlicensed hunting.

tolmasky 14y ago

> Guns have no useful purpose. The fact that pools are more dangerous doesn't justify owning a gun, so there is no "cognitive dissonance" here. What is the useful purpose of a swimming pool exactly? Are you proposing that they are a meaningful part of our society? Is this "use" so valuable that it clearly outweighs the deaths it causes? You seem to in your own comment think the bicycle provides the same benefit, so why keep pools if we have such a great alternative? No one swims a gun, but no one swims to work either. At least there are people actually dependent on bikes because they can't afford cars. > We can't eliminate all the risk. > We can eliminate unnecessary risk (like guns). So you think pools qualify as a necessary risk then? Is it at all possible that you may just personally see no use in guns while appreciating the recreational value of a pool despite its risks, while at the exact same time a gun owner may see no use in pools while appreciating the recreational value of guns? You can't swim (useless activity) in a gun. You also can't fire a pool. I can actually perfectly understand the argument "well, both guns and pools should be outlawed then". I really have a hard time shrugging off pool deaths because they are such a clearly useful thing that is a necessary risk for society though (however that argument works much better for car deaths vs. gun deaths). Edit: Below I was just commenting on understanding your audience and thus not making arguments that won't resonate with them. There is an entire culture around gun ownership. There are some people that go shooting every day, and it really hurts your position to tell them that that part of their life is not a valid "use". It is actually quite similar to football in some respects. At some point in this country we may have to discuss the very real health issues associated with it, and a part of the framing of that argument should probably not belittle the attachment people have to something that is in fact quite useless (as any and all recreations are to the people that don't practice them).

kkowalczyk 14y ago
Let's remember this is in context of owning guns and having children. Children like to swim in pools. Children like to ride bicycles. I sure hope even the most enthusiastic gun owner doesn't give guns to children to play with. I don't have to justify the usefulness of pools or bicycles. The kids like them, it's a fact. As a society we tolerate the risk of those things. Is it rational? Should we? I don't care - we just do and that's a fact. You can take away a risk associated with a pool or bicycle but only by taking away the fun that children have swimming in pools or riding a bicycle. It's true that some parents enjoy the things you can do with a gun. It's also true that having a gun in the house is additional, sometimes tragic, risk with no benefit to children. First, as a parent you're supposed to put the benefit of your child over the little joys in your life, like squeezing a trigger of a 44 Magnum or getting enough sleep. Second, you can enjoy most of the benefits of having a gun without actually having one in the house. I'm pretty sure you cannot hunt or discharge firearms within city limits anyway. You can still indulge yourself in hunting or go to a shooting range without endangering the life of your child by having a gun in your house.

OGinparadise 14y ago

You can't swim in a gun. Guns have no useful purpose. The fact that pools are more dangerous doesn't justify owning a gun, so there is no "cognitive dissonance" here...We can eliminate unnecessary risk (like guns). And you can't kill your potential killer or rapist, unless you invite him in the pool and hope he drowns, with pools being dangerous and all. I hope you never have to wish you had a gun near you. Personally I have no pool, but... Pools, unless they are Olympic size ones used to do laps for most people are useless, "just [extremely dangerous] fun." Fun, like shooting a gun which also can save your life, or the life or your neighbor. Mighty useful if you ask me and much safer than pools.

sheri 14y ago
Isn't bringing up potential killers or rapists just fear-mongering in order to justify gun ownership? Is there any data supporting that gun ownership results in fewer rapes or deaths? I find defense being thrown about as a very valid reason for owning a gun, but in a country like the US, is there concrete evidence that gun ownership caused fewer home break-ins? I don't hope to be in a situation where I need a gun near me, but I also don't hope for someone confronting me having a gun in his/her hand.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  When it happens to you, the % jumps to 100%/. end.of.story. Suppose you make illegal all guns right now. Do you think it will be hard for a crook to his hands on a now illegal weapon? All I need to know: A gun will help me defend myself and family. A gun can be kept safe by adhering to certain known gun safety principles. Accidents happen but then a brick from a building's facade can smack you in the head in the morning. Cops are great, if you have one right there, right when you need him/her. So, I think to myself, why not have one? Leaving all fun aside, it's a piece of mind.
  - jackowayed 14y ago
    This is a common argument, and while it has some merit, it also reeks of illusion of control bias. Guns make people feel safer because they feel more in control of their safety. In reality, if someone is armed and has broken into my house, I want it to be absolutely clear to them that I am unarmed. I want them to know that they have no need to attack me, and that they should just take some of my stuff and get out (by far the most likely reason they're there), leaving me unharmed. The alternative possibilities sound much worse to me. This is true in almost every situation where people talk about guns being useful against crime. I think I am more likely to harm myself, to incite the other party to harm me, to harm a bystander (maybe someone in my household), or to harm someone that I perceive as a much more serious and dangerous criminal than they actually are, than I am to successfully be a "good guy with a gun who stops a bad guy with a gun".

cabalamat 14y ago

> Guns have no useful purpose Yes they do. Some people enjoy firing them, therefore their useful purpose is to make people happy (which at the end of the day the same end purpose for everything people do). Ditto with pools -- some people like swimming, so they also fulfil the useful purpose of making people happy.

notdrunkatall 14y ago

The flaw in your argument is that guns do have a useful purpose. I'm sorry that you're so obtuse that you can't understand what that purpose is.

betterunix 14y ago

"Guns have no useful purpose" Correction: guns have no useful purpose that you can personally imagine (or that you are personally willing to accept). Yes, I am a gun owner. I own three rifles, and at least two have a clear utility argument: 1. .22lr is for basic practice (aiming, breathing control, etc.) at low expense. 2. .270 is for hunting deer. Where I live, there are more whitetail deer than there were when Europeans first arrived on this continent, and the only way to keep that population under control is by hunting. Deer are the cause of numerous automobile accidents and cause quite a bit of property damage. In some suburban areas where deer hunting is not allowed, towns occasionally hire people to exterminate deer because they have become pests. Right there, you have useful purposes for a large class of firearms. Killing pests on farms is another common use of rifles. "We can eliminate unnecessary risk (like guns)." So what you are saying is that anyone with children should not be a hunter or farmer, or that they should store their guns somewhere other than their home (and hope they are not stolen)? The problem with your argument is that it is a blanket statement -- you are talking about guns as a general thing, which covers little BB guns all the way up to naval canons. Some guns have immediate and obvious civil uses, but you leave no room for that.

nsxwolf 14y ago

If guns have no useful purpose, police shouldn't carry them.