Free Soviets wrote:Sevvania wrote:Let us imagine a gun-free scenario, then. Let us, if only for a moment, say that no firearms exist in the United States of America, criminally owned or otherwise. A gun is an equalizer and a deterrent. But let us imagine that there are no guns, and violent crimes are committed with blades, cudgels, and bare hands. It would seem to me that in such a scenario, the bigger, stronger individuals would be relatively free to do as they please until local law enforcement arrives. An old man isn't going to be able to bring down an athletic thug in hand-to-hand combat.
what sort of mad max dystopia do you live in? i mean, there are some places that work sorta like this now (for the rest of us, we have strong enough institutions that it doesn't even rank as a concern). but there its the guns that do most of the work. because the abstract idea of guns in the hands of a lone citizen simply does not act as an equalizer and deterrent. instead, they are used by the criminals to get what they want with minimal risk to themselves.
ah, you say, but what if even moar people had guns. an armed society is a polite society, right? well, no. because it turns out that the same thought patterns that lend themselves to violent criminality also lend themselves to poor impulse control and being terrible at assessing risk.Sevvania wrote:But, "all those dead kids," while tragic losses, are a very small percentage of gun crime in general. If one looks to the notorious mass shooters, it can be seen that almost all of them invariably plead insanity or commit suicide, which would imply that their mental health is somewhat less-than-ideal. Rather than pinning the blame on inanimate objects that do not act autonomously, perhaps one might look to the single aspect that has remained constant throughout every crime that has been committed since time immemorial; human beings. Would it be better to have no guns and individuals with mass-killer mentalities, or better would guns be less of an issue if there were improved treatments for individuals with such warped mentalities?
how about we take the best of both worlds and improve access to and effectiveness of treatments while at the same time making it significantly more difficult for the crazy and the criminal to access guns?
also, inanimate objects quite clearly are causal. in fact, the constant of humanity is part of how we know this - people is people but rates change, which means we can reasonably assume that its not the people that make the difference. consider again the easy case. if nuclear weapons were uncontrolled and readily accessible, would there be more or less nuclear explosions than there are today?
Edit: I just realized something that could be considered ironic:
"Mad Max" is set in Australia, a nation that is often referenced for its strict gun laws. Granted, it is a fictional movie, and as such it cannot be interpreted as hard evidence for or against the effects of gun control.
Note, I did not say that moar guns equals moar better; I don't aspire to have a gun in every home. I simply said that, when looking at the number of mass shootings (which are generally the crimes that raise attention issue of gun control) committed by the mentally ill, that I would feel more secure amongst individuals who may or may not have guns, but have superior counseling and/or other treatment options available to those amongst them with mass-killer mentalities. As opposed to a gun-free environment in which individuals with a known history of mental health problems and mass-killer mentalities could simply find another way of carrying out their ill-intents. Explosive devices were found in the apartment of James Holmes, despite his having seen three different mental health professionals prior to his shooting. "Despite the fact that she was seeing him as a patient, she decided not to hospitalize him for saying he wanted to kill people. Her reasoning is unknown."
I do agree with "improve access to and effectiveness of treatments while at the same time making it significantly more difficult for the crazy and the criminal to access guns". No one here wants criminals or crazy people to have guns. However, I also don't want a full-on ban or severe restrictions with questionable effectiveness imposed upon individuals who do not use their weapons unlawfully.
If guns were not part of this equation, would this individual who expressed a desire to kill people on more than one occasion not have done what he did, instead choosing to sit at him with his improvised explosive devices? The largest school massacre in the history of the United States belongs not to a shooter, but to a bomber.
There are always going to be loopholes and alternative weapons for the crazy and criminal, whether that be a bomb, a knife, or "any muzzle-loading rifle, muzzle-loading shotgun, or muzzle-loading pistol, which is designed to use black powder, or a black powder substitute"(United States Gun Control Act of 1968), as such firearms are largely exempt from most gun restrictions in place in the United States. This means that a cap-and-ball revolver with a detachable cylinder (during the Civil War, it was not uncommon for soldiers to carry several pre-loaded cylinders) is unaffected by regulations that affect other handguns. The same exemption applies for LeMat-style revolvers capable of feeding from a 9-round cylinder wrapped around an underbarrel shotgun. These weapons also fire solid lead rounds (lead and other expanding rounds have been outlawed for use in warfare since ~WWI, as they mangle and maim rather than just punching through a target), as opposed to a round with a brass jacket, as is the norm amongst semi-automatic handguns.
To address the age-old guns = nuclear weapons train of thought, one can also interpret it this way: When America was the only nation in the world with nuclear weapons, we dropped two of them on a nation that had no capability of fighting back against such weapons in order to get what we wanted. During the Cold War, when Russia developed nuclear weapons of their own, and in the years beyond where even more nations have acquired nuclear capability? It has become a saber to rattle, a deterrant, rather than being used as a means to an end. Not one nuclear weapon has been used against a human being during any war since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
