[SUBMITTED 4.4.16] Edged Out

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Name:

Edged Out

Description:

Banning guns has reduced gun crime, but in its place knife crime is rising. A recent anonymous survey of teenagers suggests that a frighteningly high proportion of them carry a blade routinely.

Validity:

No guns, crime exists.

Options:

[option]"My son was stabbed three times," weeps @@randomname@@, parent of a hospitalised teenager, "all because he looked at someone the wrong way. Well, yes, and spat in the girl's face. Sure, and he kicked her in the stomach once or twice... look that's not the point! We have to ban concealed weapons of any sort!"
[effect]community doctors are arrested for carrying needles in their bags

[option]"A knife is a vital tool!" exclaims outdoorsman @@randomname@@, using @@HIS@@ Bowie knife to peel a banana. "Responsible adults like me shouldn't be punished! Just ban blade ownership till the age of majority, and free the rest of us to carry anything short of a gun."
[effect]halberds and katanas are common 18th birthday presents,

[option]"I can't believe one is reduced to this, I'm frankly dying of embarrassment here, old chap," mumbles @@random_name@@, a teenager waving a silver butter-knife at you as @@HE@@ tries to mug you. "How is any self-respecting criminal meant to be taken seriously these days? For the sake of our national dignity, my dear bureaucrat, you must allow us to have our firearms back! Also, give me your wallet."
[effect]in a weird "reverse amnesty" the government is handing out formerly confiscated firearms back to the public

Name:

Edged Out

Description:

Knife crime is on the rise, with an anonymous survey of teenagers suggesting that a frighteningly high proportion of them carry a blade routinely. But who's that at your door?

Validity:

Not valid if top 10% Safety from Crime
Only valid if public gun ownership banned

Options:

[option]"My son was stabbed three times," says @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, mother of a hospitalised teenager, "all because he looked at someone the wrong way. Well, yes, and spat in her face. Sure, and kicked her in the stomach... look that's not the point! We have to ban carrying weapons of any sort!"
[effect]community doctors are arrested for carrying needles in their bags
[stats]authoritarianism increases, safety increases, weaponisation decreases, death from violence decreases,

[option]"A knife is a vital tool!" says outdoorsman @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, using his bowie knife to peel a banana. "Responsible adults like me shouldn't be punished! Just ban blade ownership till the age of majority, and free the rest of us to carry anything short of a gun."
[effect]a halberd or katana is considered a decent 18th birthday present
[stats]weaponisation increases a little, safety increases a little, authoritarianism increases a little, youth rebelliousness increases a little,

[option]"I can't believe one is reduced to this, frankly dying of embarrassment here, old chap," says @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, a teenager waving a silver butter-knife at you as he tries to mug you. "How is any self-respecting criminal meant to be taken seriously these days? For the sake of our national dignity, my dear bureaucrat, you must allow us to have our firearms back!"
[effect]guns have been re-legalised because knives aren't cool enough
[stats]civil rights increase, authoritarianism decreases, safety from crime decreases, death from violence increases, weaponisation increases a lot, guns legalised,

Name:

Edged Out

Description:

Knife crime is on the rise, with an anonymous survey of teenagers suggesting that a frighteningly high proportion of them carry a blade routinely.

Validity:

Not valid if top 10% Safety from Crime
Only valid if public gun ownership banned

Options:

[option]"My son was stabbed three times," says @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@ mother of a hospitalised teenager, "all because he looked at someone the wrong way. Well, yes, and spat in their face. Sure, and kicked them in the stomach... look that's not the point! We have to ban carrying weapons of any sort!"
[effect]community doctors are arrested for carrying needles in their bags
[stats]authoritarianism increases, safety increases, weaponisation decreases, death from violence decreases,

[option]"A knife is a vital tool!" says outdoorsman @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, using his bowie knife to peel a banana. "Responsible adults like me shouldn't be punished! Just ban blade ownership till the age of majority, and free the rest of us to carry anything short of a gun."
[effect]a halberd or katana is considered a decent 18th birthday present
[stats]weaponisation increases a little, safety increases a little, authoritarianism increases a little, youth rebelliousness increases a little,

[option]"I can't believe one is reduced to this, it is frankly embarassing," says @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, a teenager waving a silver butter-knife at you as he tries to mug you. "How is any self-respecting criminal meant to be taken seriously these days? For the sake of our national dignitas, my dear bureaucrat, you must allow us to have our firearms back!"
[effect]guns have been re-legalised because knives aren't cool enough
[stats]civil rights increase, authoritarianism increases, safety from crime decreases, death from violence increases, weaponisation increases a lot, guns legalised,

[Lychgate]

Add more than one sentence to the beginning description. Options look okay...

[Leppikania]

Knife crime is on the rise, with an anonymous survey of teenagers suggesting that a frighteningly high proportion of them carry a blade routinely.

But who's at your door?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Add more than one sentence to the beginning description. Options look okay...

Interesting suggestion.

Why, though?

[Lychgate]

Add more than one sentence to the beginning description. Options look okay...

Interesting suggestion.

Why, though?

When someone reads that, they'll think "Why is knife crime on the rise?" and "Why does this matter?" Also, I like to see more than one sentence in a description.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Ok, ok. There's lots of one sentence descriptions out there in the spoiler list, and I was trying to exercise some restraint on my normally waffly writing...

But I do like the idea of the lobbyists being at your door, and it does tie in with option 3. So, let's go with that.

[Trotterdam]

[option]"My son was stabbed three times," says @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, mother of a hospitalised teenager,

You need a comma at the underlined spot.

"all because he looked at someone the wrong way. Well, yes, and spat in their face. Sure, and kicked them in the stomach...

Use singular pronouns.

[effect]a halberd or katana is considered a decent 18th birthday present

Nice choice of weapons, there.

"For the sake of our national dignitas,"

Any reason for the gratuitious Latin when English "dignity" would work just as well?

I do love how the advocate for guns is an actual criminal who wants to defend the reputation of hard-working criminals.

[Viking Confederacy]

Authoritarianism increases if the third option is chosen?

Wouldn't authoritarianism decrease if a nation lifted its gun ban?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Absolutely right re the authoritarianism. Brainfart.

As for using dignitas over dignity, I just wanted to get across the impression that the speaker is a posh idiot. Posh idiots often love using Latin for no reason.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=366351

[Sanctaria]

Posh idiots often love using Latin for no reason.

Not only posh idiots. Cur mentiris?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

As the lawyers say, "including but not limited to".

Oddly enough, that's a stock phrase they don't translate into Latin, which is their normal modus operandi.

[Trotterdam]

I think the random Latin would at least sound better if it wasn't the actual etymological origin of the equivalent English word.

Kind of an uncanny valley effect, I guess. It feels wrong because it's so close to English but isn't actually English.

It's also not one of the more common stock Latin words that people tend to recognize, probably for exactly that reason.

[Suggestive Themes]

Should maybe have some effects on Youth Rebelliousness? There's far too few issues that modify that at all, and it seems relevant for this one.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Okay, Latin removed.

Re: Youth rebelliousness, I mentioned it on option 2. I'll leave it up to others to decide if it should be on other items.

[Ficiscia]

Minor thing, but why "guns have been re-legalized" in the effect of Option 3? I would just say "guns have been legalized" - for those who had them legal once, it shouldn't matter, for those where they never have been legal it's more correct. After all, I assume few nations have once banned guns and now want to RE-legalize them.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Minor thing, but why "guns have been re-legalized" in the effect of Option 3? I would just say "guns have been legalized" - for those who had them legal once, it shouldn't matter, for those where they never have been legal it's more correct. After all, I assume few nations have once banned guns and now want to RE-legalize them.

My understanding is that all new nations have a default state of guns being legal: irritating I know, but that's the way it seems to be. Therefore to have got to this stage, you must already have actively banned guns.

[Trotterdam]

My understanding is that all new nations have a default state of guns being legal: irritating I know, but that's the way it seems to be. Therefore to have got to this stage, you must already have actively banned guns.

Even so, it may be so far in your past that your nation is now effectively "guns have always been illegal" as far as most people are concerned. Sometimes people also like to roleplay issue choices as "affirming" something that in-character has always been the case, rather than passing new legislation. So it's polite to just talk about what's happening now (guns are being legalized when they weren't before) if you can reasonably avoid recapping the history that brought us to this point.

I guess that technically, everyone started with guns being legal, because most legal systems are based on the premise of everything being permitted unless explicitly forbidden, and you can't ban guns before guns have been invented.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Right, I'm in that camp myself. I assumed guns were by default illegal in my nation till I got the issue asking me if I should regulate concealed carry. I mentally edited the issue, and picked the most anti-gun option. I was glad when a little while later I got the issue asking if guns should be banned. I mentally edited that too to assume that I was maintaining the gun ban that was already in place.

If I were to get this issue, I'd mentally edit out "re", and assume that I was just enforcing a stance.

This sort of mental editing is necessary, but I don't think as writers we need to create situations to avoid the need for mental editing if a precedent has already been established. In the text as written, any nation getting this issue will have selected an issue banning guns. Therefore in the text as written, anyone selecting the option to allow guns would be relegalising guns.

[Trotterdam]

If I were to get this issue, I'd mentally edit out "re", and assume that I was just enforcing a stance.

This sort of mental editing is necessary, but I don't think as writers we need to create situations to avoid the need for mental editing if a precedent has already been established. In the text as written, any nation getting this issue will have selected an issue banning guns. Therefore in the text as written, anyone selecting the option to allow guns would be relegalising guns.

The point is, "legalizing guns" is also a valid way of describing the event "relegalizing guns". It's slightly less informative, but still perfectly true and gets the important part across.

So why only edit mentally when you can edit for real? If the detail doesn't improve the issue's immersion, believability, or humor, you might as well drop it.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I think I'll agree to disagree on that point, and leave it as it is.

Any other feedback?

[Trotterdam]

[option]"My son was stabbed three times," says @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, mother of a hospitalised teenager,

You need a comma at the underlined spot.

"all because he looked at someone the wrong way. Well, yes, and spat in their face. Sure, and kicked them in the stomach...

Use singular pronouns.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Cheers...

Though I note there is a comma in the underlined spot, unless you're referring to something else I'm missing.

I'd also say that "they" is often used as a gender neutral singular pronoun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

It's a interesting topic, of course, and my own style-rule for issues is to avoid singular "they" in descriptive text, but to use it when it seems more natural in spoken text.

[Trotterdam]

Though I note there is a comma in the underlined spot, unless you're referring to something else I'm missing.

There is in my quote because I added it (otherwise there'd be nothing to underline), but not in your draft.

Maybe it's not very clear where the underline is, since it's small. It's more obvious if you open the post and look for the tags.

The comma should go after the macro.

I'd also say that "they" is often used as a gender neutral singular pronoun.

And people often stab each other with knives, which is what this issue is about. Your point?

It's a interesting topic, of course, and my own style-rule for issues is to avoid singular "they" in descriptive text, but to use it when it seems more natural in spoken text.

In this case it does not feel natural at all, since the mother in question clearly knows the story of what happened to her son, and so would presumably know the gender of the person involved.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Ok comma added, thanks. For some reason I could see it yesterday in that place on the draft, but not today. Tired eyes, I suspect.

Re: "they" being a singular pronoun, this is probably a localisation thing. Her speech sounds perfectly natural to me, whether or not she knows the gender of the attacker. Its not something that needs changing. On the other hand there's no reason not to change it.
I'm going to leave it as it is, for the same reason that we generally default to random gender on randomname unless there's a need to do so otherwise.

Actually, screw it, I'm just going to change it to "her". That's more emotionally engaging, I think, and better puts across the point that he might have been stabbed by someone defending themselves..

[Trotterdam]

Heh. I was actually kind of hoping you'd make her a girl (a girl lashing out with a knife at being abused amused me), but I didn't want to say it.