7 ms·

the prevailing discourse in the political arena and the news is different. The prevailing argument of gun advocates, at least in the US, is that "it's not our

by glurgh 13y ago

the prevailing discourse in the political arena and the news is different. The prevailing argument of gun advocates, at least in the US, is that "it's not our guns. it's those other, bad people's guns". It would probably help their case if they stopped arguing that owning a potentially deadly piece of gear is some universal human right not subject to regulation like, say, owning a car. Most car owners cause approximately no deaths. All drivers need a license and insurance. The compromise is there to be had - own whatever gun you want, but take a few steps to convince the rest of us that you can do so safely.

angersock 13y ago
"All drivers need a license and insurance." One wonders, why? At least in the case of licenses and insurance, we see folks all the time (anecdotally illegal aliens doing work, though I'm curious how well statistics actually back that supposition up) drive with neither, usually to no ill effect. Insurance usually doesn't seem to help very much in the case of a totaled car, and mostly just seems to be a captive market for insurance providers. Drivers licenses are more for glorified identification than a seal of approval of your driving prowess--look at the highways near any major city. And yet, here we are, with millions of firearms owned and honestly not that much death and dismemberment because of it, all without licensing and insurance. We don't need a compromise--it's a solution in search of a problem.
- cstross 13y ago
  The point about insurance isn't so that the driver gets a new car if they wreck it -- it's so that if they kill or injure, or damage the property of, someone else then that someone else is covered. Driving licenses are "a seal of approval of your driving prowess" in many countries other than the United States; American drivers frequently can't drive for shit. (Sorry, but I live in the UK, with approximately half the per-capita adjusted road death/injury rate to the US, and a driving test that's notoriously hard.) As for "not that much death and dismemberment" because of the easy availability of firearms in the US, it's noteworthy that the level in question is a couple of orders of magnitude higher than in the UK, where firearms ownership is rare and tightly licensed. I wouldn't argue for a total ban -- if nothing else, North America is full of interesting and exciting wildlife, to which many people live in close proximity -- but there's no obvious need for city dwellers to own semi-auto rifles and handguns, and requiring those who do to carry third-party insurance in case an accidental discharge ends up injuring someone is an absolute minimum.
  - angersock 13y ago
    "...and requiring those who do to carry third-party insurance in case an accidental discharge ends up injuring someone is an absolute minimum." The thing here is that accidental discharges don't happen if you properly maintain your weapons and ammunition, and if you handle them properly. As an example, I wouldn't store any weapons with a round chambered, wouldn't store weapons loaded, and wouldn't use any rifle or pistol rounds in an apartment for self-defense because of over-penetration concerns. The case where you have an accidental discharge and it hurts someone or something is entirely preventable using common sense, and so I don't believe that we should require insurance against what is honestly improper and unsafe tool usage--that burden should rest on the person who caused the accident.
    - cstross 13y ago
      As over 90% of road traffic accidents are the result of human error, I strongly disagree with your conclusion -- otherwise we wouldn't need third-party insurance for cars, either. (On the other hand, if you're as sensible as you say, I have three words for you: no claims discount.)
      - maxerickson 13y ago
        The NRA apparently endorses a personal liability insurance: http://www.locktonrisk.com/nrains/excess.htm http://www.locktonrisk.com/nrains/excess.htm Quick searching is not instructive as to pricing, but I guess some homeowners policies cover gun accidents, and such insurance is not particularly expensive.
        hga 13y ago
        Indeed, and you can tell from the costs what the insurance companies think are the serious risks (hint, not liability). I'll just mention ratios, that I'm a USAA customer who's father was in the military (eyesight kept me out, but they have a special category for us because we're better risks), that I don't have very many guns, have a monitored alarm, and no longer get the no claims discount (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado). All that said, I pay 4 times as much for the extra protection needed to cover loss of my guns as I do for the liability insurance that's an enumerated part of my renter's policy, and the single instance liability they're on the hook for is 35 times greater than a total loss of my listed guns and scopes.
- glurgh 13y ago
  Well, we don't see that all the time - we see it sometimes. The only reason some people can drive with neither is because most people don't. I don't think it's merely a solution in search of a problem because we seem to spend an enourmous amount of political energy on the topic in the way we don't on 'who gets to own a Ferrari'. Ferrari owners pay the exorbitant insurance fees for the privilege. You're a firearms enthusiast who would like to own a .303 British? More power to you. Pay up.
  - presidentender 13y ago
    Actually, the higher-energy cartridges like .303 Brit and .30-06 are used even more rarely in crime than other rifle cartridges. Intermediate cartridges, which came into military favor following the second world war, allow the user to carry more ammunition per unit of weight, and to manage the recoil of the rifle more easily. It's also easier to manufacture an autoloading rifle to reliably fire a cartridge like 5.56 or 7.62x39 than one like .303 British.
    - glurgh 13y ago
      Ferraris aren't very common as bank robbery getaway vehicles either. My point was that it should be possible to come up with some sort of regulatory regime that reasonably covers the entire range of uses - from personal safety to collection of exotica. This isn't possible if one side's position is 'I get to have whatever I want, because'. You can't buy a thing that plugs into your wall socket that isn't UL certified, what exactly, is so uniquely special about firearms, of all things.
      - mikeash 13y ago
        The great thing about mandatory liability insurance is that the government doesn't need to make any determination at all about how dangerous various kinds of weapons are. You think the threat of Gun Type X is overblown? Great. If that's true, market forces will ensure that the liability insurance for it is cheap.
ianstallings 13y ago
Some of us believe that we shouldn't need to convince you of anything. There is no such thing as "pre-crime". I have the liberty to do as I please as a human being on this planet so long as it doesn't hurt you. Simply claiming that I might hurt you or someone else might hurt you with a rifle is dubious logic at best.
- glurgh 13y ago
  I have the liberty to do as I please as a human being on this planet so long as it doesn't hurt you. No, you don't. There is such a thing as exposure to risk. Otherwise anyone would have the liberty to build a toxic waste processing plant by your back yard because, hey, that's not hurting you. Yet. Strangely, this is not the established way of things in any actually functional society.
  - ianstallings 13y ago
    The beauty of liberty is I don't care what you think about me exercising it. That's kind of the point I was trying to make. That whole "give me liberty or give me death" thing really means something to some of us and we really don't care what others think. They have a name for us actually - Americans.
    - glurgh 13y ago
      No, those are caricature Americans. No thinking Americans, starting with the founders, made it a point of pride of ignoring what other people think. They may have arrived at different conclusions but the notion they did so because liberty is some function of willful ignorance is idiotic.
      - ianstallings 13y ago
        Ah yes, ad hominem attacks. Thanks! I look forward to more intelligent discussions with you sir.
        13y ago
hga 13y ago
Your whole premise is false: keeping and bearing arms is much safer than driving cars. I can go into details as to why I believe that's the case, but to start with, whenever I walk outside the door I put my carry gun into a holster, and then never take it out until I return home. So it's just sitting there on my hip under my shirt or vest, not much of a danger to anyone as long as I keep it away from an MRI machine's strong magnet. But the raw facts speak for themselves; off the top of my head, the latest available numbers are 33,000 or so vehicle accident fatalities per year, 600 with guns. Lots more car owners accidently kill than gun owners, and as I've mentioned elsewhere, the proper analogy to a drivers license is a concealed carry licence, and I'd add for hunting a hunting licence, which nowadays requires proof of taking a hunter's safety course (unless you're an old guy like me and are grandfathered). As far as "convincing" "the rest of us", we simply don't have to do that any more than I have to convince you that I can use a printing press without prior restraint, its an enumerated Constitutional right. Want to change that? The Constitution has a mechanism.
- stevewillows 13y ago
  While your stats are true, people typically aren't aiming their car at someone.
  - travisby 13y ago
    People typically aren't aiming their guns at someone, either. The statistics he listed were also for accidental deaths, in both cases.
- glurgh 13y ago
  I think you might be arguing against something that I didn't actually say. The operative words in "concealed carry license" and "hunting license" is "license", which was exactly my point. The number of printing press deaths in the US, and likely worldwide is probably quite small.
  - travisby 13y ago
    A "hunting license" gives you the ability to take an animal, not to own a firearm. And in most states (outside of the most infringing states -- my home state of NY is a great example), a Conceal Carry license is "how" you can carry a handgun on your person - and not the ability to own one.
sjtgraham 13y ago
Do you need a license or insurance to own a vehicle? Likewise do you need those to operate a vehicle on private property for private i.e. non-commercial purposes?

by glurgh 13y ago

angersock 13y ago

"All drivers need a license and insurance." One wonders, why? At least in the case of licenses and insurance, we see folks all the time (anecdotally illegal aliens doing work, though I'm curious how well statistics actually back that supposition up) drive with neither, usually to no ill effect. Insurance usually doesn't seem to help very much in the case of a totaled car, and mostly just seems to be a captive market for insurance providers. Drivers licenses are more for glorified identification than a seal of approval of your driving prowess--look at the highways near any major city. And yet, here we are, with millions of firearms owned and honestly not that much death and dismemberment because of it, all without licensing and insurance. We don't need a compromise--it's a solution in search of a problem.

cstross 13y ago
The point about insurance isn't so that the driver gets a new car if they wreck it -- it's so that if they kill or injure, or damage the property of, someone else then that someone else is covered. Driving licenses are "a seal of approval of your driving prowess" in many countries other than the United States; American drivers frequently can't drive for shit. (Sorry, but I live in the UK, with approximately half the per-capita adjusted road death/injury rate to the US, and a driving test that's notoriously hard.) As for "not that much death and dismemberment" because of the easy availability of firearms in the US, it's noteworthy that the level in question is a couple of orders of magnitude higher than in the UK, where firearms ownership is rare and tightly licensed. I wouldn't argue for a total ban -- if nothing else, North America is full of interesting and exciting wildlife, to which many people live in close proximity -- but there's no obvious need for city dwellers to own semi-auto rifles and handguns, and requiring those who do to carry third-party insurance in case an accidental discharge ends up injuring someone is an absolute minimum.
- angersock 13y ago
  "...and requiring those who do to carry third-party insurance in case an accidental discharge ends up injuring someone is an absolute minimum." The thing here is that accidental discharges don't happen if you properly maintain your weapons and ammunition, and if you handle them properly. As an example, I wouldn't store any weapons with a round chambered, wouldn't store weapons loaded, and wouldn't use any rifle or pistol rounds in an apartment for self-defense because of over-penetration concerns. The case where you have an accidental discharge and it hurts someone or something is entirely preventable using common sense, and so I don't believe that we should require insurance against what is honestly improper and unsafe tool usage--that burden should rest on the person who caused the accident.
  - cstross 13y ago
    As over 90% of road traffic accidents are the result of human error, I strongly disagree with your conclusion -- otherwise we wouldn't need third-party insurance for cars, either. (On the other hand, if you're as sensible as you say, I have three words for you: no claims discount.)
    - maxerickson 13y ago
      The NRA apparently endorses a personal liability insurance: http://www.locktonrisk.com/nrains/excess.htm http://www.locktonrisk.com/nrains/excess.htm Quick searching is not instructive as to pricing, but I guess some homeowners policies cover gun accidents, and such insurance is not particularly expensive.
      - hga 13y ago
        Indeed, and you can tell from the costs what the insurance companies think are the serious risks (hint, not liability). I'll just mention ratios, that I'm a USAA customer who's father was in the military (eyesight kept me out, but they have a special category for us because we're better risks), that I don't have very many guns, have a monitored alarm, and no longer get the no claims discount (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado). All that said, I pay 4 times as much for the extra protection needed to cover loss of my guns as I do for the liability insurance that's an enumerated part of my renter's policy, and the single instance liability they're on the hook for is 35 times greater than a total loss of my listed guns and scopes.
glurgh 13y ago
Well, we don't see that all the time - we see it sometimes. The only reason some people can drive with neither is because most people don't. I don't think it's merely a solution in search of a problem because we seem to spend an enourmous amount of political energy on the topic in the way we don't on 'who gets to own a Ferrari'. Ferrari owners pay the exorbitant insurance fees for the privilege. You're a firearms enthusiast who would like to own a .303 British? More power to you. Pay up.
- presidentender 13y ago
  Actually, the higher-energy cartridges like .303 Brit and .30-06 are used even more rarely in crime than other rifle cartridges. Intermediate cartridges, which came into military favor following the second world war, allow the user to carry more ammunition per unit of weight, and to manage the recoil of the rifle more easily. It's also easier to manufacture an autoloading rifle to reliably fire a cartridge like 5.56 or 7.62x39 than one like .303 British.
  - glurgh 13y ago
    Ferraris aren't very common as bank robbery getaway vehicles either. My point was that it should be possible to come up with some sort of regulatory regime that reasonably covers the entire range of uses - from personal safety to collection of exotica. This isn't possible if one side's position is 'I get to have whatever I want, because'. You can't buy a thing that plugs into your wall socket that isn't UL certified, what exactly, is so uniquely special about firearms, of all things.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      The great thing about mandatory liability insurance is that the government doesn't need to make any determination at all about how dangerous various kinds of weapons are. You think the threat of Gun Type X is overblown? Great. If that's true, market forces will ensure that the liability insurance for it is cheap.

ianstallings 13y ago

Some of us believe that we shouldn't need to convince you of anything. There is no such thing as "pre-crime". I have the liberty to do as I please as a human being on this planet so long as it doesn't hurt you. Simply claiming that I might hurt you or someone else might hurt you with a rifle is dubious logic at best.

glurgh 13y ago
I have the liberty to do as I please as a human being on this planet so long as it doesn't hurt you. No, you don't. There is such a thing as exposure to risk. Otherwise anyone would have the liberty to build a toxic waste processing plant by your back yard because, hey, that's not hurting you. Yet. Strangely, this is not the established way of things in any actually functional society.
- ianstallings 13y ago
  The beauty of liberty is I don't care what you think about me exercising it. That's kind of the point I was trying to make. That whole "give me liberty or give me death" thing really means something to some of us and we really don't care what others think. They have a name for us actually - Americans.
  - glurgh 13y ago
    No, those are caricature Americans. No thinking Americans, starting with the founders, made it a point of pride of ignoring what other people think. They may have arrived at different conclusions but the notion they did so because liberty is some function of willful ignorance is idiotic.
    - ianstallings 13y ago
      Ah yes, ad hominem attacks. Thanks! I look forward to more intelligent discussions with you sir.
      - 13y ago

hga 13y ago

Your whole premise is false: keeping and bearing arms is much safer than driving cars. I can go into details as to why I believe that's the case, but to start with, whenever I walk outside the door I put my carry gun into a holster, and then never take it out until I return home. So it's just sitting there on my hip under my shirt or vest, not much of a danger to anyone as long as I keep it away from an MRI machine's strong magnet. But the raw facts speak for themselves; off the top of my head, the latest available numbers are 33,000 or so vehicle accident fatalities per year, 600 with guns. Lots more car owners accidently kill than gun owners, and as I've mentioned elsewhere, the proper analogy to a drivers license is a concealed carry licence, and I'd add for hunting a hunting licence, which nowadays requires proof of taking a hunter's safety course (unless you're an old guy like me and are grandfathered). As far as "convincing" "the rest of us", we simply don't have to do that any more than I have to convince you that I can use a printing press without prior restraint, its an enumerated Constitutional right. Want to change that? The Constitution has a mechanism.

stevewillows 13y ago
While your stats are true, people typically aren't aiming their car at someone.
- travisby 13y ago
  People typically aren't aiming their guns at someone, either. The statistics he listed were also for accidental deaths, in both cases.
glurgh 13y ago
I think you might be arguing against something that I didn't actually say. The operative words in "concealed carry license" and "hunting license" is "license", which was exactly my point. The number of printing press deaths in the US, and likely worldwide is probably quite small.
- travisby 13y ago
  A "hunting license" gives you the ability to take an animal, not to own a firearm. And in most states (outside of the most infringing states -- my home state of NY is a great example), a Conceal Carry license is "how" you can carry a handgun on your person - and not the ability to own one.

sjtgraham 13y ago

Do you need a license or insurance to own a vehicle? Likewise do you need those to operate a vehicle on private property for private i.e. non-commercial purposes?