Gun control doesn't reduce crime (report)

[shanek]

Yes, you called Denmark a tyranny. You were discussing monarchies with Leif Roar, and you referred to monarchies as tyrannies.

No, liar. I said that monarchies easily lead to tyrannies and wanted to know what measures the Danish Constitution puts in place to avoid this (none, apparently, unless you count your unenforceable and therefore meaningless oath). I've clarified this to you several times, so this is just more of your dishonesty.

Two Danes assure you that you are wrong about Denmark, and you still don't admit that you are wrong? Amazing.

Correct, Claus, I'm more willing to take what your Constitution actually says over the word of two obviously biased Danes with their own agendae to push.

If the rights exist outside any human authority, who gave them to us? How did they come into existence?

No one. We just have them. As I have said to you time and time again, and said so in the very post you just replied to, we have them because we are capable of making a choice, carrying out, and accepting the consequences.

 

[shanek]

While Constitutionally the Danish King may not possess power,

Constitutionally, he does. §3 specifically grants him sole executive power and shared legislative power.

 

[Roadtoad]

Constitutionally, he does. §3 specifically grants him sole executive power and shared legislative power.

Hence the reason I said "may." I don't happen to have a copy of the Danish Constitution in front of me.

Perhaps it might be better said that as a practical matter, the King's power is more symbolic. (I also said, "perhaps.")

 

[shanek]

Hence the reason I said "may." I don't happen to have a copy of the Danish Constitution in front of me.

You do now.

 

[CFLarsen]

Constitutionally, he does. §3 specifically grants him sole executive power and shared legislative power.

This is why you lack credibility here. You refuse to listen when people explain the meaning of it.

§3: Legislative authority shall be vested in the King and the Folketing conjointly. Executive authority shall be vested in the King. Judicial authority shall be vested in the courts of justice.

It means that the King signs the laws. That's all it means. He cannot propose laws, he cannot make laws, he cannot execute them in any other manner than signing them. And that's that. Incidentally, he can refuse to sign a law, but that would mean he would be forced to abdicate. Nobody would stand for that.

It is very interesting to see that you consider it acceptable for you to interpret your constitution, while Danes are not allowed to do the same with theirs. Aren't there just too many instances of this superiority shining through?

 

[CFLarsen]

No, liar. I said that monarchies easily lead to tyrannies and wanted to know what measures the Danish Constitution puts in place to avoid this (none, apparently, unless you count your unenforceable and therefore meaningless oath). I've clarified this to you several times, so this is just more of your dishonesty.

No, you clearly compared monarchies to tyrannies. This corresponds well with your dislike for Denmark.

Correct, Claus, I'm more willing to take what your Constitution actually says over the word of two obviously biased Danes with their own agendae to push.

Live in your bubble and be more the fool.

Have you ever travelled?

No one. We just have them. As I have said to you time and time again, and said so in the very post you just replied to, we have them because we are capable of making a choice, carrying out, and accepting the consequences.

When you say:

the rights are considered to exist outside any human authority

who are considering them? Humans? Aren't rights a social construct, then?

 

[CFLarsen]

Uh, Claus, I would have to disagree with you on one point, though this might be a bit of a stretch within this thread, and it might be worth it to discuss this in another thread altogether:

While Constitutionally the Danish King may not possess power, (he cannot veto a law or really even propose one within the Danish Parliament), most monarchs within constitutional monarchies tend to hold tremendous political power, and as such, hold a great deal of political and social influence, if for no other reason, simply because they hold the position of "first citizen among their peers," and only lose such influence if they happen to be blithering imbeciles drooling down the front of their robes.

They don't have power in Denmark, which is what we are discussing.

As this relates to this discussion, (and, oddly enough, towards Gun Control and such), from what I gathered from the few times I was in Denmark and from what I've read over the years, your king happens to be one of the most self-controlled individuals I've read about among European Monarchies.

She's a Queen. It should be renamed to "Regent"....

This would tend to indicate that Danes hold in high esteem self-control. (I could have this backwards, but, as you're actually there, I'll wait for you answer this one.) Quite frankly, your royals tend to be among the most boring individuals you hear about: They aren't in the news with their latest divorce, they aren't trashing hotel rooms, and they aren't out getting wasted in public.

Oh, yes, they are. Well, maybe not trashing hotel rooms, but Prince Joachim (second in line) has just separated from his wife, Princess Alexandra. And there have been stories and photos, e.g. of Joachim being VERY drunk. He drools, whenever he is, the tabloids inform us.

The difference is that the privacy of the Royal House is (largely) respected by the press. There are stories popping up from time to time, but it is nothing, compared to, say, the British monarchy, I'll give you that.

Now, maybe it's me, but I would suspect if Denmark's prime minister were to sign into law a bill that legalized any and all forms of private gun ownership, two things would not happen:

(1.) Gun ownership would not increase significantly.

(2.) Gun violence would also not increase significantly.

If private gun ownership were to be laxed, there would definitely be more guns in society. The more desperate of the criminals would start using them, and people would then want one for protection. Which is what we call "American conditions". Don't want that.

One piece of evidence I would point to is that from what I've read, (and no, I don't have the figures with me, so I'll probably need to do some more digging), even with legalized prostitution in your country, you don't see an increase in the crime rates concerning rape and other forms of sexual violence. My fear is that if we were to legalize it here in the States, we'd have just that.

Why? Because Americans lack self-control?

In Denmark, I never saw kids running around loose late at night. I see it all the time here in California. In fact, I keep my speed around 5-10 MPH when driving around in my neighborhood late at night, simply because of the number of kids running around here, and quite frankly, the parents couldn't care less. (I'm not real popular as a parent around here. I insist on knowing where my kids are, and what they're doing, and who they're doing it with. I'm one Bad Daddy.)

When I lived in Germany as a U.S. Military dependent, I would go with other American friends to places like Sachsenhausen in Frankfurt, usually getting ripped with my friends. Oddly enough, I don't think I ever saw a German kid around there, even during the day.

Would this indicate something? To me, this suggests that Europeans value self-control over all else. It's something I tended to see among the European nobility I would occasionally read about and on one or two occasions, met face to face. These people wield a tremendous amount of social and political power that is not codified within any document, but it's there nonetheless.

If I had to guess, most people in Europe would regard their appearance in the National Enquirer as a tremendous embarassment, rather than a badge of honor. Something to think about when it comes to a discussion regarding firearms, where self-control is REQUIRED.

You may be right. That does raise some rather nasty questions of just how far Americans have progressed compared to Europeans...

OTOH, I doubt we can draw a comparison between the need to have sex and the need to have a gun.

 

[CFLarsen]

Ok. My interpretation of what you wrote was that legalization of prostitution might well be expected to be followed by an increase in sex crimes. In Denmark this did not happen because of the inherent "self-control" of the average Dane (wonder what CFLarsen thinks about that in particular?).

This does not make sense to me because I don't see the sex-crime link that you apparently think is quite likely.

Although we don't have legalized prostitution, we have had legalized pornography for more than 35 years (how time flies!), we haven't seen an explosion in sex crimes. We are pretty relaxed, when it comes to sex.

Apparently, Danes have a lot of self-control...

 

[Mr Manifesto]

My PR0n Collection is Bigger Than All of Denmark's

Although we don't have legalized prostitution, we have had legalized pornography for more than 35 years (how time flies!), we haven't seen an explosion in sex crimes. We are pretty relaxed, when it comes to sex.

Apparently, Danes have a lot of self-control...

Or a lot of self-manipulation..

 

[CFLarsen]

Re: My PR0n Collection is Bigger Than All of Denmark's

Or a lot of self-manipulation..

Hmmmm....no.

We are pretty good at spotting when we are being manipulated.

 

[Ed]

Re: Re: My PR0n Collection is Bigger Than All of Denmark's

Hmmmm....no.

We are pretty good at spotting when we are being manipulated.

Ummm... over your head at 35,000 feet, I fear.

 

[Roadtoad]

Re: Re: Re: My PR0n Collection is Bigger Than All of Denmark's

Ummm... over your head at 35,000 feet, I fear.

Or you're being ignored, divine one.

 

[Zep]

I bet if those 20% had firearms, the other 80% would think twice about voting such a law in.

If the 20% had firearms, the 80% would too, don't you think? Stalemate? Nope, civil war.

 

[CFLarsen]

Bumped for shanek.

Have you ever travelled?

When you say:

the rights are considered to exist outside any human authority

who are considering them? Humans? Aren't rights a social construct, then?

 

[CFLarsen]

Almost a year.

 

[bigred]

Sure it does. If currant research and data are too weak to support strong conclusions then there is no strong evidence that gun control works at all. This certainly is good ammo for those who think gun possession should not be a crime.

Ranb

..yeah and our lack gun control sure is working isn't it

Really you can play that game all day long to either side's advantage. I think the point is that the original post/ink was very weak "evidence." Also comparisons to other countries is dicey at best since these are different places/cultures/etc etc. Saying something worked or didn't work in a country doesn't necessarily mean it would work here (and I believe you could find examples on both sides for that too).

Personally I think guns other than normal hunting gear (eg rifles) should be at the very least MUCH more strictly limited and have yet to hear a logical reason otherwise....the most common being the "my constitutional right" BS and the absurdly laughable militant paranoia about the possibility of some overthrow of our gov't. PS and FYI I'm no anti-gun radical and a career military guy to boot. But any time I have studied this, I concluded they cause a lot more deaths/violent crimes then they prevent.

Unfortunately, like many issues nowdays, people tend to be on one extreme side or other and then try to rationalize it, ie bass ackwards from looking at it objectively first and THEN drawing conclusions w/o regard to whether it's a "liberal" or "conservative" stance.

Oh well.

 

[Yjacket]

Originally posted by bigred - . . . . Personally I think guns other than normal hunting gear (eg rifles) should be at the very least MUCH more strictly limited and have yet to hear a logical reason otherwise....the most common being the "my constitutional right" BS and the absurdly laughable militant paranoia about the possibility of some overthrow of our gov't. PS and FYI I'm no anti-gun radical and a career military guy to boot. But any time I have studied this, I concluded they cause a lot more deaths/violent crimes then they prevent. . . .

So you would like more strict control measures. What measures would you suggest that are not already in place through the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1968 Gun Control Act?

As to your study -- why is it that your conclusions are different than those of qualified persons who are politically situated on both sides of the issue?

And just what will you do to shut down the black market in firearms?

 

[Roadtoad]

Please, someone kill this thread.

Ideally with a bullet.

 

[Iconoclast]

Please, someone kill this thread.

Ideally with a bullet.

Alrighty!