Off-Topic Posts from Gun Control Series Q2 -- Is legally owning a gun correlated to different likelihood...

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Sy Borg
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Re: Off-Topic Posts from Gun Control Series Q2 -- Is legally owning a gun correlated to different likelihood...

Post by Sy Borg »

LuckyR wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:13 am
Greta wrote: March 26th, 2019, 5:30 pm
The stats on this issue belonged in the OP, otherwise it's an invitation to do speak without knowledge, ie. not philosophical.

The only important figure here is comparing murder stats of comparable nations. How's the US's murder rate as compared with comparable western countries? To what extent does the US history of slavery contribute? What of the contribution of inequality in the US is increasingly making the nation look demographically more like a Communist state than a western democracy?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... aps-charts

The US does have special circumstances - through slavery in the past and corruption and extreme inequality in the present - as compared with other western democracies. These differences have been overplayed skilfully by the NRA (which is funded by arms companies) to blind people from the obvious fact that, the more people who own weapons of murder, the more people will die.

I always get a good laugh when people try to explain that, if everyone had a lethal weapons, then the M.A.D. principle will keep people behaving - as if in any time in the world's history that whole societies operated as rational agents. If that's the case then the US should not only have a lower shootings per capita rate than wiser nations, but a vastly lower shooting rate. Rather, it has by far the highest rate.

All of this is extremely well known and obvious but one cannot cut through entrenched corruption - and that is what's happening between the media, the NRA, arms companies and the political class (and now they are working to undermine Australia's gun laws to open up more markets - basically trading lives for profit and influence).
Your post has many truisms within it but sort of haphazardly skips about (from topic to topic). For example, comparing the data from countries with very few guns to the US is only helpful to countries with very few guns (Australia?) to help them decide to continue to have very few guns. It does nothing for the US since guns essentially last forever and the number of guns is so incredibly high that even if no new guns entered the market, there would be too many guns for over a century.
Lucky, If regular slaughter of children is not enough to influence gun policy in the US then there's no sense trying to find solutions to the their gun problems because they are a lost cause. By inference, the discussion should centre on other countries that are not already broken in this area.
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Re: Off-Topic Posts from Gun Control Series Q2 -- Is legally owning a gun correlated to different likelihood...

Post by LuckyR »

Greta wrote: March 31st, 2019, 5:26 pm
LuckyR wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:13 am

Your post has many truisms within it but sort of haphazardly skips about (from topic to topic). For example, comparing the data from countries with very few guns to the US is only helpful to countries with very few guns (Australia?) to help them decide to continue to have very few guns. It does nothing for the US since guns essentially last forever and the number of guns is so incredibly high that even if no new guns entered the market, there would be too many guns for over a century.
Lucky, If regular slaughter of children is not enough to influence gun policy in the US then there's no sense trying to find solutions to the their gun problems because they are a lost cause. By inference, the discussion should centre on other countries that are not already broken in this area.
As I mentioned in my third paragraph (which you and most everyone else choose not to address) it isn't really about middle class white school kids, statistically.
"As usual... it depends."
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Sy Borg
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Re: Off-Topic Posts from Gun Control Series Q2 -- Is legally owning a gun correlated to different likelihood...

Post by Sy Borg »

LuckyR wrote: April 1st, 2019, 2:59 am
Greta wrote: March 31st, 2019, 5:26 pm

Lucky, If regular slaughter of children is not enough to influence gun policy in the US then there's no sense trying to find solutions to the their gun problems because they are a lost cause. By inference, the discussion should centre on other countries that are not already broken in this area.
As I mentioned in my third paragraph (which you and most everyone else choose not to address) it isn't really about middle class white school kids, statistically.
Okay, if regular slaughters in the ghettoes are not enough to influence gun policy in the US then there's no sense trying to find solutions to the their gun problems because they are a lost cause.
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Re: Off-Topic Posts from Gun Control Series Q2 -- Is legally owning a gun correlated to different likelihood...

Post by LuckyR »

Greta wrote: April 1st, 2019, 3:10 am
LuckyR wrote: April 1st, 2019, 2:59 am

As I mentioned in my third paragraph (which you and most everyone else choose not to address) it isn't really about middle class white school kids, statistically.
Okay, if regular slaughters in the ghettoes are not enough to influence gun policy in the US then there's no sense trying to find solutions to the their gun problems because they are a lost cause.
I don't disagree with your central point, though there could be some miniscule improvements made with little effort through common sense legislation. The main reason to do so would be to demonstrate that the legislative branch had a backbone and wasn't bought and paid for by the lobbyists. And it might save a life or two.
"As usual... it depends."
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Sy Borg
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Re: Off-Topic Posts from Gun Control Series Q2 -- Is legally owning a gun correlated to different likelihood...

Post by Sy Borg »

LuckyR wrote: April 1st, 2019, 3:17 am
Greta wrote: April 1st, 2019, 3:10 am

Okay, if regular slaughters in the ghettoes are not enough to influence gun policy in the US then there's no sense trying to find solutions to the their gun problems because they are a lost cause.
I don't disagree with your central point, though there could be some miniscule improvements made with little effort through common sense legislation. The main reason to do so would be to demonstrate that the legislative branch had a backbone and wasn't bought and paid for by the lobbyists. And it might save a life or two.
It certainly would not hurt to require background checks but it seems that the legislative branch has indeed been bought by the arms companies.
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