3 ms·

With regard to the Australian experiment, what of violent crime in general?

by aaronem 13y ago

stcredzero 13y ago
That old saw. Okay, if you wanted to restrict the cutting of grass, you could do this by raising the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers. Would this then result in an increase of other kinds of gardening and lawncare? Maybe. I'm not sure that's relevant. The real harm that comes out of the so-called "gun debate" is a polarization of American society and a failure of both sides to recognize our legal and societal framework as a treasure everyone holds in common. Instead, both sides vilify each other and only talk to their own to showboat their intransigence. As a programmer, I can certainly understand the frustration of pro-gun side. I'm very familiar with the ridiculousness of laws trying to restrict technology written by clueless politicians. Many gun laws fit into this category. I just can't see this situation being resolved in an attractive manner the way things are going now. The solution? Get people actually talking to each other.
- aaronem 13y ago
  > I'm not sure that's relevant. If your intent is to raise the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers, then the effect of so doing on gardening and lawn care is entirely irrelevant. If your intent is to reduce the extent to which gardening and lawn care take place, it's entirely relevant. In such ambiguities originate the suspicions of the pro-lawnmower faction. As regards the rest, I think you've got cause and effect mixed up; it seems to me not so much that the "gun debate", and similar "debates", polarize American society, as that what we call American society, and in particular the politics of the United States, revolve around a conflict between two fundamentally irreconcilable perspectives on -- well, on everything, more or less. A century and a half ago, this conflict erupted into open warfare, which concluded in a decisive victory for one of the two factions; while neither side has taken up arms in any meaningful way since, the conflict itself remains unresolved, and has simmered under the surface ever since. On the other hand, the side which won that war I mentioned has done a sterling job of consolidating its gains and pushing to expand them, to the extent that it would be all but impossible for their opponents to pull off an upset by any conceivable means -- and God be thanked for that! It's the only thing which stands between our comfortable lives here in the United States, and chaos. So, on the whole, I'm satisfied. Of course, I'd be happier still if I thought the winning side had a program with a snowball's chance of actually working when implemented on a platform of some three hundred million or so human beings, but I figure that, by dint of careful neglect of my health, I can more or less ensure that I won't be around to see anything worse than, at most, the initial stages of the collapse which I expect, in the fullness of time, will arrive. Sure, I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I am -- and, in the meantime, there's Calvados, and good fellowship among friends, and even a few programming languages to work in which aren't as terrible as the rest, and who can say fairer than that?
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    If your intent is to raise the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers, then the effect of so doing on gardening and lawn care is entirely irrelevant. I suspect you'd agree: much proposed gun regulation is a knee-jerk in reaction to fear. Its consequences to society aren't well thought out. As regards the rest, I think you've got cause and effect mixed up Regardless of how it all got started, people talking at each other is now a part of a self-perpetuating cycle.
  - cdoxsey 13y ago
    Not sure where you were going at the end there, but for what it's worth: modern day conservatives are not equivalent to the confederacy in the civil war. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. The issues that polarize Americans today are very different from what they were 150 years ago.
    - aaronem 13y ago
      What polarizes Americans today is exactly what polarized Americans then. Any given "issue", for example gun control, means precisely as much, in the context of that conflict, as Afghanistan meant in the context of the Cold War. But you will note that at no point, in the comment to which you replied, did I give a name to either faction of which I spoke. This was quite deliberate. I have names for those factions. So do you. So does anyone who might take part in a discussion like this one. But those names aren't all that often the same, and even when they are, it usually turns out that each party has his own idea of precisely what they mean. Throwing names around, in my experience, tends very strongly to confuse the matter, rather than to clarify it. That said, I'll grant I did not expect a comment like yours. Where did you happen upon the remarkable idea that "Republican", a century and a half ago, meant anything remotely similar to what it means today?
- bmelton 13y ago
  > The solution? Get people actually talking to each other. Agreed, but at the same time, disparaging the OP for having to address rhetoric (that old saw) seems antithetical to that aim. Yes, gun violence decreased in Australia when they banned guns. Violence did not. Violence, to me, seems to be specific enough an objective that specialization isn't needed. I understand why oncologists specialize in curing cancer, as that is their field of expertise. I do not understand why gun control advocates feel that specialization is necessary with violence, if the net effect is the same with or without them. I believe that is the point that aaronem was trying to make; not that he was trying to be pithy. For what it's worth, I'm pretty hard-line on the second amendment, and I see value in the second amendment as a tool for the preservation of freedom. If a law were passed that banned possession of a firearm that I already owned, and/or required a mandatory buyback of that firearm, I would probably become a felon for violating that law as I would deem that law unconstitutional. That said, if the 2nd amendment were repealed, I would cede my firearms. That doesn't necessarily say anything on its own, but frames the rest of what I'm about to say; which is that presumably, every responsible gun owner would also like to see a reduction in gun-related crimes, even more so than the average gun control advocates, and it boggles my mind that gun control advocates seem to focus on gun crimes specifically, to the detriment of all other forms of crime, while gun rights advocates seem to do the exact opposite. You'd think the tables would be turned, as gun owners have the most vested interest.
  - rdtsc 13y ago
    > and I see value in the second amendment as a tool for the preservation of freedom. I hear that often. How do you see that happening? What is the reasoning? I wasn't born here and I keep hearing this point touted often. Maybe it is something obvious, I haven't learnt yet. They way I see it presented is "we have guns so we can preserve our Freedom". Freedom from who? Some seem to think it is from criminals taking our possessions, some think it is from government. Which one do you think of when you think "freedom". If it is the later (and probably the more common interpretation), doesn't seem unreasonable that for guns to be a viable threat or worry-some thing for the government to fear, it would have to match the parity guns had in, oh I don't know, early 1800s? A group of 1000 militia men armed with guns vs 1000 government soldiers armed with guns. I can see that play out well. 1000 men armed with AR-15s vs a nuclear arsenal, tanks, helicopters, machine guns, an intelligence apparatus, total media and public transportation control, satellites, 100s and 100s of billions of dollars in budget. Why are guns even mentioned as a "protection of freedom" when Government is that one freedom is protected? Seems rather like a joke to me (but again maybe I am missing an obvious argument here). Counter-arguments I can think of and heard before -- "oh but this would be a guerrilla warfare that is why AR-15 and hunting rifles and pistols would be effective", so "need a nuclear arsenal" doesn't apply here. My response to that is "how would guns help". Wouldn't it then be more about guerrilla tactics (or maybe terrorist tactics, depending which side is talking about it). IEDs, poisoning water supplies, sabotage, home-made rockets etc. And again there having or not having legal guns seems to make little difference. What am I missing?
girvo 13y ago
In absolute terms, it's down. Assault is up, though, which is weird. Shootings are way down, obviously.
- jasomill 13y ago
  Doesn't seem weird to me — I sure as heck would be less inclined to assault someone carrying a firearm! I'd be surprised if "assault with a firearm" wasn't down, though.

With regard to the Australian experiment, what of violent crime in general?

by aaronem 13y ago

With regard to the Australian experiment, what of violent crime in general?

That old saw. Okay, if you wanted to restrict the cutting of grass, you could do this by raising the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers. Would this then result in an increase of other kinds of gardening and lawncare? Maybe. I'm not sure that's relevant. The real harm that comes out of the so-called "gun debate" is a polarization of American society and a failure of both sides to recognize our legal and societal framework as a treasure everyone holds in common. Instead, both sides vilify each other and only talk to their own to showboat their intransigence. As a programmer, I can certainly understand the frustration of pro-gun side. I'm very familiar with the ridiculousness of laws trying to restrict technology written by clueless politicians. Many gun laws fit into this category. I just can't see this situation being resolved in an attractive manner the way things are going now. The solution? Get people actually talking to each other.

aaronem 13y ago
> I'm not sure that's relevant. If your intent is to raise the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers, then the effect of so doing on gardening and lawn care is entirely irrelevant. If your intent is to reduce the extent to which gardening and lawn care take place, it's entirely relevant. In such ambiguities originate the suspicions of the pro-lawnmower faction. As regards the rest, I think you've got cause and effect mixed up; it seems to me not so much that the "gun debate", and similar "debates", polarize American society, as that what we call American society, and in particular the politics of the United States, revolve around a conflict between two fundamentally irreconcilable perspectives on -- well, on everything, more or less. A century and a half ago, this conflict erupted into open warfare, which concluded in a decisive victory for one of the two factions; while neither side has taken up arms in any meaningful way since, the conflict itself remains unresolved, and has simmered under the surface ever since. On the other hand, the side which won that war I mentioned has done a sterling job of consolidating its gains and pushing to expand them, to the extent that it would be all but impossible for their opponents to pull off an upset by any conceivable means -- and God be thanked for that! It's the only thing which stands between our comfortable lives here in the United States, and chaos. So, on the whole, I'm satisfied. Of course, I'd be happier still if I thought the winning side had a program with a snowball's chance of actually working when implemented on a platform of some three hundred million or so human beings, but I figure that, by dint of careful neglect of my health, I can more or less ensure that I won't be around to see anything worse than, at most, the initial stages of the collapse which I expect, in the fullness of time, will arrive. Sure, I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I am -- and, in the meantime, there's Calvados, and good fellowship among friends, and even a few programming languages to work in which aren't as terrible as the rest, and who can say fairer than that?
- stcredzero 13y ago
  If your intent is to raise the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers, then the effect of so doing on gardening and lawn care is entirely irrelevant. I suspect you'd agree: much proposed gun regulation is a knee-jerk in reaction to fear. Its consequences to society aren't well thought out. As regards the rest, I think you've got cause and effect mixed up Regardless of how it all got started, people talking at each other is now a part of a self-perpetuating cycle.
- cdoxsey 13y ago
  Not sure where you were going at the end there, but for what it's worth: modern day conservatives are not equivalent to the confederacy in the civil war. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. The issues that polarize Americans today are very different from what they were 150 years ago.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    What polarizes Americans today is exactly what polarized Americans then. Any given "issue", for example gun control, means precisely as much, in the context of that conflict, as Afghanistan meant in the context of the Cold War. But you will note that at no point, in the comment to which you replied, did I give a name to either faction of which I spoke. This was quite deliberate. I have names for those factions. So do you. So does anyone who might take part in a discussion like this one. But those names aren't all that often the same, and even when they are, it usually turns out that each party has his own idea of precisely what they mean. Throwing names around, in my experience, tends very strongly to confuse the matter, rather than to clarify it. That said, I'll grant I did not expect a comment like yours. Where did you happen upon the remarkable idea that "Republican", a century and a half ago, meant anything remotely similar to what it means today?
bmelton 13y ago
> The solution? Get people actually talking to each other. Agreed, but at the same time, disparaging the OP for having to address rhetoric (that old saw) seems antithetical to that aim. Yes, gun violence decreased in Australia when they banned guns. Violence did not. Violence, to me, seems to be specific enough an objective that specialization isn't needed. I understand why oncologists specialize in curing cancer, as that is their field of expertise. I do not understand why gun control advocates feel that specialization is necessary with violence, if the net effect is the same with or without them. I believe that is the point that aaronem was trying to make; not that he was trying to be pithy. For what it's worth, I'm pretty hard-line on the second amendment, and I see value in the second amendment as a tool for the preservation of freedom. If a law were passed that banned possession of a firearm that I already owned, and/or required a mandatory buyback of that firearm, I would probably become a felon for violating that law as I would deem that law unconstitutional. That said, if the 2nd amendment were repealed, I would cede my firearms. That doesn't necessarily say anything on its own, but frames the rest of what I'm about to say; which is that presumably, every responsible gun owner would also like to see a reduction in gun-related crimes, even more so than the average gun control advocates, and it boggles my mind that gun control advocates seem to focus on gun crimes specifically, to the detriment of all other forms of crime, while gun rights advocates seem to do the exact opposite. You'd think the tables would be turned, as gun owners have the most vested interest.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  > and I see value in the second amendment as a tool for the preservation of freedom. I hear that often. How do you see that happening? What is the reasoning? I wasn't born here and I keep hearing this point touted often. Maybe it is something obvious, I haven't learnt yet. They way I see it presented is "we have guns so we can preserve our Freedom". Freedom from who? Some seem to think it is from criminals taking our possessions, some think it is from government. Which one do you think of when you think "freedom". If it is the later (and probably the more common interpretation), doesn't seem unreasonable that for guns to be a viable threat or worry-some thing for the government to fear, it would have to match the parity guns had in, oh I don't know, early 1800s? A group of 1000 militia men armed with guns vs 1000 government soldiers armed with guns. I can see that play out well. 1000 men armed with AR-15s vs a nuclear arsenal, tanks, helicopters, machine guns, an intelligence apparatus, total media and public transportation control, satellites, 100s and 100s of billions of dollars in budget. Why are guns even mentioned as a "protection of freedom" when Government is that one freedom is protected? Seems rather like a joke to me (but again maybe I am missing an obvious argument here). Counter-arguments I can think of and heard before -- "oh but this would be a guerrilla warfare that is why AR-15 and hunting rifles and pistols would be effective", so "need a nuclear arsenal" doesn't apply here. My response to that is "how would guns help". Wouldn't it then be more about guerrilla tactics (or maybe terrorist tactics, depending which side is talking about it). IEDs, poisoning water supplies, sabotage, home-made rockets etc. And again there having or not having legal guns seems to make little difference. What am I missing?

girvo 13y ago

In absolute terms, it's down. Assault is up, though, which is weird. Shootings are way down, obviously.

jasomill 13y ago
Doesn't seem weird to me — I sure as heck would be less inclined to assault someone carrying a firearm! I'd be surprised if "assault with a firearm" wasn't down, though.