School shooting: but don't mention guns!

[DJW]

I understand homicides are different from all the rest in that they are not accidents. But I think that the principle of looking to improve safety will have a positive affect on homicides.

Improving safety is far too arbitrary. You need to be more precise if you hope to have any real affect on society or to effective at all wrt particular gun violence.

I see there is a lot of academic public health studies about guns, from John Hopkins Bloomberg Uni to Harvard to privately funded work by the likes of Public Health Law Research.

Argumentum ad populum.

I don't know if the public health lot are regarded as anti-gun or not, but their appliance of study and science to firearms and overall public health and safety measures to reduce deaths makes more sense to me than anything else I have read so far.

Argument from ignorance and confirmation bias indicates a lack of effort on your part.

So amongst the solutions I have read so far are increased police crackdowns on illegal guns

http://publichealthlawresearch.org/taxonomy/term/31/all

Good. Illegal guns are bad. The guns used in NewTown weren't illegal--btw.

Restriction of high risk individuals for getting guns

http://www.jhsph.edu/research/cente...ublications/WhitePaper102512_PressRelease.pdf

Any effort to restrict high risk individuals from getting guns will need some serious debate. The 2nd, 4th and 5th amendments to the U.S. constitution will need to explored independently and in combination by really serious people for a long time to get anywhere. I wish that would be easier to do, but I don't have high hopes.

Gun use and self defence

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/public-opinion/index.html

There's a recent SCOTUS decision that has a lot of relevance to the use of guns wrt an individual's right to keep and bear arms. You know this though, don't you.

There is even more on general safety and maybe a huge campaign, which I am sure would have popular support at the moment, on the likes of safe storage and child mortality

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9315767

Argumentum ad populum again? Safe storage and child mortality are linked, certainly. Laws already exist in many states. A federal law may be necessary to streamline and standardize the effort for better effect.

would be of benefit. The aim would try and make the Sandy Hook shooting a tipping point where US society decides it needs to fear the sheer number of guns in its country more than anything else.

Your aim may be to use these murders as a tipping point to sew fear throughout my nation. Correct me if I'm misinterpreting that last sentence, but I really think there are better ways to spend your time.

 

[RemieV]

The difference between a drowning death and a gun-related death is that in the drowning example, there are things you personally can do to prevent it. No one is chasing down children with a swimming pool.

With guns, there is nothing you personally can do if someone goes all whacky and decides to take a bunch of people out other than support laws that have the potential to remove that threat.

 

[joesixpack]

Well, who'd've guessed? The answer, according to the NRA, is more guns.

Just an aside;

Most gun owners are not members of the NRA, and LaPierre certainly doesn't speak for them, or even every NRA member. Under his "leadership", the organization lurched far to the right. It has become part of the reactionary right apparatus, and his involvement in the organization is why I left it. I suspect that I'm not the only one. I seldom read any of his opinion pieces or listen to anything he has to say (and I doubt I'll be reading his statement on the Sandy Hook). Any opinion I share with him is purely coincidental.

 

[Belz...]

If that's what you think he's saying, I suppose it wouldn't be surprising that that is the reaction. But that's actually not at all what he's saying, and a less emotional re-reading would relieve you of that delusion.

Isn't anonymity great ?

 

[Belz...]

Please quote the post in which I said we shouldn't feel grief towards people we can put a face on or on a few children. I think that claim is an outright lie, but if there is any evidence that I actually wrote the words you are putting in my mouth, I'd like to see it. Produce it.

The whole point is lawmaking. People are calling for changes to the laws based on THESE deaths, based on THIS grief. Other deaths and other grief is not prompting them to make similar calls for changes in other areas.

If anyone is ignoring human emotion, it's the people who shrug off drowning deaths, while insisting that this once-in-a-lifetime tragedy should lead to permanent policy changes.

Come on, now. You're basically saying that people shouldn't get emotional over a few deaths when more people die elsewhere. First they are not mutually exclusive. Second, that's not how humans work, which is what my post was mentioning. Third, how do you know they don't get emotional over those other deaths ?

 

[Belz...]

You very plainly made an ad hominum attack on Zeggman when you admonished Dcdrac to not bother engaging with Zeggman.

First, it's "hominem", and second, no, that's not an ad hominem attack. Perhaps you should check the definitions of the words you use before using them.

That's what my post had to "literally" do with your post.

Again, you have lost me. What did it have to do with arguments anyway ?

Acknowledging emotion explains to me why irrational ideas can gain traction in any discussion, but Zeggman's suppposed lack of understanding of human emotion by you doesn't have any business in the debate.

I'll voice my opinions wherever I wish, thank you very much.

 

[Belz...]

His scapegoating of violent movies and video games is idiotic, as is his call for a national mental health registry. That doesn't make him wrong about everything:

Video games have been scapegoats for quite a while now. Before that it was movies, comic books, theatre, witches, demons, you name it. But never the individuals or the parents or society or whatever. No, it's something intangible.

I also love the fact that he says "you shouldn't say 'gun' is a bad word" while basically saying tha guns are the solution to everything.

 

[zeggman]

Come on, now. You're basically saying that people shouldn't get emotional over a few deaths when more people die elsewhere.

I'm not saying any such thing. People shouldn't let their emotions drive them to make poor policy decisions just for the sake of "For God's sake, won't somebody DO SOMETHING?".

I get as emotional over tragic untimely deaths caused by cars and swimming pools as I do over tragic untimely deaths caused by murderers, but not everyone has to be like me.

 

[joesixpack]

Isn't anonymity great ?

I beg your pardon? What does that mean? Did you mean "Isn't ambiguity great?" because your statement is quite ambiguous to me.

 

[joesixpack]

Come on, now. You're basically saying that people shouldn't get emotional over a few deaths when more people die elsewhere. First they are not mutually exclusive. Second, that's not how humans work, which is what my post was mentioning. Third, how do you know they don't get emotional over those other deaths ?

He's saying nothing of the sort. What he's saying is that the emotional reaction to a social problem isn't necessarily the most rational solution. In fact, it's generally the least rational solution.

 

[jimbob]

Of course there is a problem with doing research into the effectiveness of gun control measures...

Over the past two decades, the NRA has not only been able to stop gun control laws, but even debate on the subject. The Centers for Disease Control funds research into the causes of death in the United States, including firearms — or at least it used to. In 1996, after various studies funded by the agency found that guns can be dangerous, the gun lobby mobilized to punish the agency. First, Republicans tried to eliminate entirely the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the bureau responsible for the research. When that failed, Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, successfully pushed through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget (the amount it had spent on gun research in the previous year) and outlawed research on gun control with a provision that reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

Daniel Vice of the Brady Center told Salon that the stymieing of research at the CDC “is just one part of a broad campaign of secrecy to keep information from the public about how dangerous guns are.” He noted that the ATF used to release lots of gun crime data to the public, including a list of problem gun dealers providing firearms to criminals (almost 60 percent of firearms at crime scenes were traced back to just one percent of gun dealers, he said). But beginning in 2003, an amendment introduced by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican from Kansas, prevents the ATF from releasing all kinds of gun data. It’s been added as a rider to every spending bill since.

As a non American, I find this attitude towards finding the truth really disturbing.

 

[Nessie]

Improving safety is far too arbitrary. You need to be more precise if you hope to have any real affect on society or to effective at all wrt particular gun violence.

This is a forum debate, not academia or policy making

Argumentum ad populum.



Argument from ignorance and confirmation bias indicates a lack of effort on your part.



Good. Illegal guns are bad. The guns used in NewTown weren't illegal--btw.



Any effort to restrict high risk individuals from getting guns will need some serious debate. The 2nd, 4th and 5th amendments to the U.S. constitution will need to explored independently and in combination by really serious people for a long time to get anywhere. I wish that would be easier to do, but I don't have high hopes.




There's a recent SCOTUS decision that has a lot of relevance to the use of guns wrt an individual's right to keep and bear arms. You know this though, don't you.



Argumentum ad populum again? Safe storage and child mortality are linked, certainly. Laws already exist in many states. A federal law may be necessary to streamline and standardize the effort for better effect.

So do you think a safety campaign based on the academic studies I linked to is not going to work? I am lost as to what your point is.

Your aim may be to use these murders as a tipping point to sew fear throughout my nation. Correct me if I'm misinterpreting that last sentence, but I really think there are better ways to spend your time.

It is not my aim, I raised it as a possibility. If it turns out not to be a tipping point then my original view that the USA is stuffed and will just have to put up with a high gun homicide and death rate stands.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Did DJW just call references to scientific studies as "argument ad populum" ?! LOL

 

[Kestrel]

And a further note on 15-19 year-old gun deaths... these are often crime related. From a survey in Boston:

"Between 1990 and 1994, 75% of all homicide victims age 21 and younger in the city of Boston had a prior criminal record."

"Criminal record" includes everything from murder and armed robbery to shoplifting and being caught with a joint. To evaluate this number, it helps to know what kind of crimes were involved and also the percentage of all young people in Boston that have a "criminal record". Also, having a criminal record doesn't mean that the homicide was related to a crime.

It's also cherry picked example. Why talk only about the city of Boston when detailed homicide data is available for the entire nation?

 

[DJW]

First, it's "hominem", and second, no, that's not an ad hominem attack. Perhaps you should check the definitions of the words you use before using them.

I know what an ad hominem attack is (or at least I used to). Handwaving me away like you did Zeggman though is telling wrt your debating style. Pedantry noted as well.

Again, you have lost me. What did it have to do with arguments anyway ?

I never had you, Belz, to be able to lose you. I'm pretty sure that I made a clear point. Perhaps others here would be kind enough to chime in if I'm mistaken. My nature is to apologize and try to learn from my mistakes. I'm not always successful, but I try, so if I'm wrong about calling what you did to Zeggman an ad hominem attack, I'll certainly apologize.

For the record, I think that when you tell another poster not to attempt to discuss something with someone else because they have some imagined flaw that would make discussion impossible (his argument won't be relevant because he doesn't understand emotion) is an ad hominem attack. I see your comment to be similar to if you had said don't talk to zeggman about cancer because he's a smoker. Zeggman may very well know nothing about human emotion, but he can have a valid, rational discussion about school shootings without emotions.

I'll voice my opinions wherever I wish, thank you very much.

You're welcome, Belz. I don't think I did anything to deserve your snide comments, but having an opinion is fine and I support your having them.

 

[DJW]

Did DJW just call references to scientific studies as "argument ad populum" ?! LOL

Well, yeah, I did. I shouldn't have done that, Ken, and you can address me directly--btw.

If you haven't read the studies, but you are saying that there seems to be "a lot" of them, then you're deriving an opinion based on volume, so it seems like an ad populum argument.

It isn't.

Glad I made you laugh, but sorry about the confusion.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Well, yeah, I did. I shouldn't have done that, Ken, and you can address me directly--btw.

If you haven't read the studies, but you are saying that there seems to be "a lot" of them, then you're deriving an opinion based on volume, so it seems like an ad populum argument.

It isn't.

You're right, it isn't an ad populum argument. It's an argument citing volumes of evidence that agree on a conclusion. There is nothing fallacious about that, unless it's just a minority conclusion and there are massive volumes of scientific evidence to the contrary.

 

[Kestrel]

Of course there is a problem with doing research into the effectiveness of gun control measures...

As a non American, I find this attitude towards finding the truth really disturbing.

Squashing research projects is a good way to keep science from finding evidence contrary to your deeply held beliefs.

Protecting the privacy of firearms dealers also helps keep under wraps how easily and quickly firearms are diverted from legal to illegal markets.

 

[DJW]

He's saying nothing of the sort. What he's saying is that the emotional reaction to a social problem isn't necessarily the most rational solution. In fact, it's generally the least rational solution.

Which is what I was trying to say until I tripped over my brain.

 

[DJW]

You're right, it isn't an ad populum argument. It's an argument citing volumes of evidence that agree on a conclusion. There is nothing fallacious about that, unless it's just a minority conclusion and there are massive volumes of scientific evidence to the contrary.

Yeah, I just went back over Nessie's post. I completely misread what he was writing. I'm sorry Nessie.