The Second Amendment and the "Right" to Bear Arms

To get anything resembling Australian gun laws passed in the US, you will have to start by restoring trust in the US government. Given the following issues:

- War on Drugs leading to excesses in state power
- Largest prison population on the planet
- Institutional racism causing poverty among minorities
- NSA illegal surveillance
- The skullduggery of the post-9/11 US government (not least kidnapping citizens of foreign countries and taking them to be tortured)
- Poisonous legacies of the Vietnam War and Watergate scandals.
- the political parties being at each other's throats.

You have a tall order ahead of you.
 
lionking said:
The common denominator is the US gun culture resulting in the widespread ownership and use of firearms. Cherry picking small portions of the US doesn't disguise this.

ETA The suggestion that the US doesn't have a gun violence problem because Vermont doesn't is just laughable.
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I've already listed some of the problems the US has, but I will go in-depth with some of them.

- Institutional racism towards minorities since before the US was founded has left a lot of them in inner-urban environments with rampant poverty. This forces them to turn to crime in order to make a living, and the police have severe problems policing these areas because said urban communities strongly distrust the government. You can see that today with the War on Drugs, which has led to minorities being disproportionately imprisoned.

- This leads to the US Criminal justice system. The problem is (and it also applies to other countries as well) is that it is using 1980s methodology in order to resolve issues for the 2010s. This means that former criminals are much more likely to end up back in prison, which creates a vicious cycle. Again, it is disproportionately affecting minorities, largely again due to the War on Drugs.

To explain some of the problems with the US justice system, this website is pretty useful: http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=122

- General distrust towards the government. When the Pentagon papers were published, the public believed that government knew best, even in the hysteria of the Red Scare. This revelation had led to people not trusting the government because it sent their sons to die on a fools errand and lied to them about it. It was coupled with the Watergate scandal, when Americans found out the president whom they had elected with an overwhelming majority had committed numerous crimes. This has led to Americans thinking that their government cannot be trusted, which has been arguably vindicated by the skullduggery committed during the post-9/11 (extraordinary rendition, screwing the pooch with Afghanistan/Iraq)
 
lionking said:
Utter nonsense. It is an argument used only by those disparate to try to show (unsuccessfully) that the US doesn't really have a gun violence problem. Just take out gangs, states with large illegal Mexican populations, Chicago, Detroit etc etc and everything's a okay....:rolleyes:
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You're kidding, right?

You're mad because there's evidence that actually goes against your opinion, so you're just going to dismiss it as nonsense?

That's Truther LogicTM 101.
 
Belz... said:
Well that might have something to do with the fact that I never said it was.



Pay attention. I never made an argument. I stated my opinion.
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I'm just intruiged to know why you hold that opinion and by what measure you look down on those that don't share that opinion.
 
lionking said:
The common denominator is the US gun culture resulting in the widespread ownership and use of firearms. Cherry picking small portions of the US doesn't disguise this.

ETA The suggestion that the US doesn't have a gun violence problem because Vermont doesn't is just laughable.
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OK, fine. What about the states below? This is the top 10 states with the lowest Gun Homicide Rates.

STATE | GHR
New Hampshire|0.43
Vermont|0.48
Hawaii|0.51
Wyoming|0.59
North Dakota|0.71
Maine|0.72
Iowa|0.74
South Dakota|0.74
Utah|0.93
Idaho|1.22

Each of those states (with the exception only of Hawaii) is a "gun friendly" state.
 
Sabretooth said:
OK, fine. What about the states below? This is the top 10 states with the lowest Gun Homicide Rates.

STATE | GHR
New Hampshire|0.43
Vermont|0.48
Hawaii|0.51
Wyoming|0.59
North Dakota|0.71
Maine|0.72
Iowa|0.74
South Dakota|0.74
Utah|0.93
Idaho|1.22

Each of those states (with the exception only of Hawaii) is a "gun friendly" state.
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So, New Hampshire top of the list with a firearms homicide rate 4.6 times that of the England & Wales, i.e. 58 deaths* in 2010/11 for a population of 56 million (0.103).

* Includes 12 victims of spree killer Derrick Bird.
 
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Sabretooth said:
OK, fine. What about the states below? This is the top 10 states with the lowest Gun Homicide Rates.

STATE | GHR
New Hampshire|0.43
Vermont|0.48
Hawaii|0.51
Wyoming|0.59
North Dakota|0.71
Maine|0.72
Iowa|0.74
South Dakota|0.74
Utah|0.93
Idaho|1.22

Each of those states (with the exception only of Hawaii) is a "gun friendly" state.
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And these are "gun unfriendly" states in the developed world.

STATE | GHR
Australia | 0.13 (2010)
Austria | 0.18 (2010)
Belgium | 0.29 (2006)
Denmark | 0.30 (2009)
France | 0.22 (2009)
Germany | 0.20 (2010)
Japan | 0.00 (2008)
United Kingdom | 0.04 (2010)
 
Information Analyst said:
So, New Hampshire top of the list with a firearms homicide rate 4.6 times that of the England & Wales, i.e. 58 deaths* in 2010/11 for a population of 56 million (0.103).

* Includes 12 victims of spree killer Derrick Bird.
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NH has a population of 1,300,000. There were 6 gun homicides. There were also 4 knife homicides (0.31 per 100k).

But I see we're back to comparing USA/UK...
 
angrysoba said:
And these are "gun unfriendly" states in the developed world.

STATE | GHR
Australia | 0.13 (2010)
Austria | 0.18 (2010)
Belgium | 0.29 (2006)
Denmark | 0.30 (2009)
France | 0.22 (2009)
Germany | 0.20 (2010)
Japan | 0.00 (2008)
United Kingdom | 0.04 (2010)
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I pulled the top 10 states...I didn't cherry-pick countries that are unrelated to the USA.

I see you conveniently left out Switzerland, Mexico, Brazil, etc.
 
Sabretooth said:
I pulled the top 10 states...I didn't cherry-pick countries that are unrelated to the USA.

I see you conveniently left out Switzerland, Mexico, Brazil, etc.
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I picked developed states. So I left Mexico and Brazil off.

However, by all means let us pick the developed countries which are "gun-friendly"

STATE | GRA
Switzerland | 0.52 (2010)
Israel | 0.94 (2009)

Oh lookee lookee. Switzerland's not so convenienent for you after all.
 
angrysoba said:
I picked developed states. So I left Mexico and Brazil off.

However, by all means let us pick the developed countries which are "gun-friendly"

STATE | GRA
Switzerland | 0.52 (2010)
Israel | 0.94 (2009)

Oh lookee lookee. Switzerland's not so convenienent for you after all.
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0.52 is hardly a "gun problem".

No, my point was that Mexico makes it illegal for a citizen to own a gun, yet they have one of the highest rates of gun violence in the world.

As for your mysterious definition of "developed"...it sounds like that means whatever you want it to mean as long as it proves your point.
 
Sabretooth said:
0.52 is hardly a "gun problem".
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If you say so. The point is that it is higher than just about every country in Europe with strict gun laws.

Sabretooth said:
No, my point was that Mexico makes it illegal for a citizen to own a gun, yet they have one of the highest rates of gun violence in the world.

As for your mysterious definition of "developed"...it sounds like that means whatever you want it to mean as long as it proves your point.
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You tell yourself that. Most literate and educated people know what "developed" means, even if you don't or feign not to.

Are you saying that there is no such thing as a "developed" nation or are you just desperately trying to throw up dust and plead ignorant about the meaning?

Because I could do the same and say that your definition of "hardly a gun problem" is also mysterious and your reference to this supposed non-problem is mysterious as well given that earlier the only criteria you wanted to make was that some "gun friendly" states had lower gun homicide rates than "gun unfriendly" states.

But if you want to know, the developed world is largely agreed to be Western Europe, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, News Zealand and in some measures Israel too.

Most of Eastern Europe, Asia, South America and Africa are not considered in the developed world.
 
arthwollipot said:
For the record, that few days was a long weekend. On my weekends I tend to like doing things other than sitting in front of a computer. I get out and do things, some of them outdoors. Sorry if this isn't convenient for you.

Furthermore, in a thread with many hundreds of posts, I am not going to dig up responses for posts that were made many pages ago.

Like I said, I have participated in a number of gun threads (including this one), lurked on quite a few others, and considered the arguments that gun owners such as yourself have put forward. I have come to the conclusion that they terrify me.

You have affected my opinion, though perhaps not in the way you like. You (spefically and others) have made me more in favour of severe gun control. Your vociferous and at times bordering on the religious support for guns and gun ownership makes me more and more certain that attitudes such as yours need to be curbed for the good of society.

Give me the power, and I will take your guns.

Lucky for you, there is no such power on this earth, and for that I despair.
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No the power does exist, and you are a hypocrite for supporting a central power to use force to make you feel safer.

That central power can only use the very means you deplore to enact such an edict, or any other edict and it has occurred over and over and over again in history and accounts for the most terrible violence this planet has ever seen.

Using force to control is wrong, it cannot be supported morally, yet here you are arguing that it should be supported for the purpose of controlling a populace that terrifies you by having the same ability you want the government to employ against citizens preemptively without regard to the individuals ability to behave responsibly.

. . and we terrify you for wanting to avoid that and for creating a system by which we allow individuals actions to determine their ability to be responsible?
 
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Here we go. I have taken the top ten countries in the human development index replicating Sabretooth's completely objective selection of top ten lowest gun homicide rate in the US and looked at these states' gun homicide rates:

STATE | GHR
Norway | 0.04
Australia | 0.13
United States | 3.60
Netherlands | 0.20
Germany | 0.20
New Zealand | 0.26
Ireland | No data (?)
Sweden | 0.19
Switzerland | 0.52
Japan | 0.00

Now apart from Ireland, there is one that really sticks out. The two highest gun homicide rates are the US and Ireland.

But anyway, why not just concede that with more guns lying around there will be more gun deaths? It is palpably obvious that that is the case to all but the most blinkered observer.

Remember that the issue of gun rights is about, well... rights! Why not just state that the number of gun homicide rates is irrelevant given that it is not up to the government to take away your right to your gun?

If you start trying to claim that gun rights are based on something as contingent as gun homicide figures then you are making yourself hostage to the data. Do you want all of your rights to be similarly contingent?




ETA: Just in case the concept of "developed country" is still too "mysterious" for some posters, Wikipedia has a helpful compilation of lists of developed countries by various criteria. The reliability is based on the fact that generally the same countries consistently make all, or nearly all, of the lists while Mexico and Brazil do not appear on a single one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country
 
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angrysoba said:
Here we go. I have taken the top ten countries in the human development index replicating Sabretooth's completely objective selection of top ten lowest gun homicide rate in the US and looked at these states' gun homicide rates:

STATE | GHR
Norway | 0.04
Australia | 0.13
United States | 3.60
Netherlands | 0.20
Germany | 0.20
New Zealand | 0.26
Ireland | No data (?)
Sweden | 0.19
Switzerland | 0.52
Japan | 0.00

Now apart from Ireland, there is one that really sticks out. The two highest gun homicide rates are the US and Ireland.

But anyway, why not just concede that with more guns lying around there will be more gun deaths? It is palpably obvious that that is the case to all but the most blinkered observer.

Remember that the issue of gun rights is about, well... rights!Why not just state that the number of gun homicide rates is irrelevant given that it is not up to the government to take away your right to your gun?

If you start trying to claim that gun rights are based on something as contingent as gun homicide figures then you are making yourself hostage to the data. Do you want all of your rights to be similarly contingent?
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Because correlation is not causation. You know that, why would you ignore that fact? Just because it is easier to not consider the real causes?

Violence does not happen in a bubble, and no more than violent video games cause the difference in murder rate neither does access to firearms. It is dependent on other factors, and the data when inspected with a truly objective eye using falsification techniques clearly shows that the guns themselves are not the key ingredient.

It is easy to point to statistics and claim conclusions from the correlations (the best politicians can do apparently: When your a hammer everything looks like a nail), it is much harder to ask questions that reveal why the individuals chose to kill.
 
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I suspect the countries with the highest number of machetes per capita would also have the highest number of machete deaths. It seems to me the anti-gunners are more concerned with how people are killed than the fact that they are.
 
Xulld said:
Because correlation is not causation. You know that, why would you ignore that fact?
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I know that correlation is not causation, and I don't ignore it. However, I am responding to a poster who is implying that the availability of guns in "gun friendly" states means that there are fewer gun deaths there than in "gun unfriendly" states. Well, either Sabretooth is saying that or Sabretooth is saying nothing much at all.

And you may also have earlier caught WildCat stating that the rise in the availability of guns led to a reduction in violent crime deaths. I don't know if you popped up to ask WildCat why he was ignoring the fact that correlation is not causation. Perhaps you were willing to let it go on that occasion.

However, as you are now pointing out that gun laws are not related to gun homicide rates, perhaps you will explain what are the causes.

Xulld said:
Just because it is easier to not consider the real causes?

Violence does not happen in a bubble, and no more than violent video games cause the difference in murder rate neither does access to firearms. It is dependent on other factors, and the data when inspected with a truly objective eye using falsification techniques clearly shows that the guns themselves are not the key ingredient.
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I'm looking forward to some of these truly objective eyes. Could you tell me who owns them? And please don't tell me that you do, because you do not. Most of the time you are enraged about the idea that governments can tell you what to do, and you see, from my point of view that is the strongest argument for personal ownership. Attempts to show that lax gun laws lead to fewer gun homicide rates really don't cut it with most people and believe me it doesn't take politicians to say it given that for most non-US people gun laws are of absolutely no consequence in elections.

Xulld said:
It is easy to point to statistics and claim conclusions from the correlations (the best politicians can do apparently), it is much harder to ask questions that reveal why the individuals chose to kill.
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Yes, and apart from trying to handwave away the data and tell us to start focusing on difficult metaphysical problems instead, are you going to actually give a proper alternative explanation for the figures?
 
RenaissanceBiker said:
I suspect the countries with the highest number of machetes per capita would also have the highest number of machete deaths. It seems to me the anti-gunners are more concerned with how people are killed than the fact that they are.
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Actually I am barely concerned at all with either of those problems. And I also doubt that you are.

I'm pretty much only interested in this from an intellectual or anthropological point of view so I am taking a detached look at all this.

I have noticed however, that both sides get awfully sanctimonious in these "debates".
 
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