I love a story with a happy ending.

Conservatives recognize the moral necessity of harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity. These aspects need a balance for society to function and to reduce harm. Hard-line liberals recognize only the first two which cause them to appear as if they have an "anything goes" approach to morality. They want to reduce harm/care but they do not see how throwing loyalty, duty, respect etc out of the window to save someone or something may actually boost harm.

That said, an intelligent conservative with poor knowledge and general awareness do a poor job of handling their moral instincts. They may strive for a stability and continuity that isn't stable or continuous in the first place, such as supporting unstable authorities, unstable group categories, unstable hierarchies and unstable principles.

A certain logic or principle may therefore appear both logic and just, when it's actually single-minded.
I'll buy most of that. So then, who defines what is stable? Is "stable" something that stands up to objective analysis, or something that makes us feel good today? I know my answer, but it seems rather in the minority.

The sum-total of the argument for gun control has been, "it makes sense to me that limiting gun ownership will reduce the opportunity for criminal behavior". Subjective gut feel, through and through. Might even work out that way, but the argument simply does not hold up to objectivity nor consistency. The proposed solution has been shown not to work in other locations (Mexico, Philippines). The proposed solution has been shown to be wildly inappropriate for similar problems (drunk driving, assault with other forms of weapon). The proposed solution has been demonstrated to be a failure in similar historic situations (Prohibition). The proposed solution has been shown to be a failure in current similar situations (drug wars). The side proposing the solution has already clearly demonstrated a lack of honesty and integrity (give an inch, take a mile). Other than that, sounds like a candidate for "Stability of the Year".
 
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You seem to think I'm advocating for all guns to be burned. I'm not. I am not thinking like you, that it's either/or. I'm thinking in the middle.
Unfortunately, the side you're supporting has stated quite clearly that they are not thinking in the middle. Arguments about this issue based on a middle ground do not satisfy the constraints of the problem. Any limits on assault rifles (which I personally support, when viewed within a vacuum) are simply the first step toward banning all guns (which I strongly oppose, both within a vacuum and on the broader scope, before we even start to dust off the Constitution). The logic, or objective analysis, whatever you prefer to call it, is quite simply too weak (even if the subjective gut feel is fairly solid) to justify opening the door to people that have already admitted they're lying.
 
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Yes, and comparing the US to two developing countries makes a lot of sense ...

Maybe compare to other "Western Countries" like Germany or something.

You may as well compare the US to the Democratic Republic of Congo then if you want.
Again, oversimplifying issues... Mexico is a state run by organised crime, so making laws isn't going to stop those people. I'm not sure about Phillipines. However, the US is quite different to the DRC and Lebanon or Iraq. So your comparisons are worse than my Swiss cheese.
 
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Unfortunately, the side you're supporting has stated quite clearly that they are not thinking in the middle. Arguments about this issue based on a middle ground do not satisfy the constraints of the problem. Any limits on assault rifles (which I personally support, when viewed within a vacuum) are simply the first step toward banning all guns (which I strongly oppose, both within a vacuum and on the broader scope, before we even start to dust off the Constitution). The logic, or objective analysis, whatever you prefer to call it, is quite simply too weak (even if the subjective gut feel is fairly solid) to justify opening the door to people that have already admitted they're lying.

But I'm not "THEM" and I'm not arguing for "THEY". As you know I'm from Europe and assault weapons have been banned in Belgium for I don't know how long and they're not planning on banning all weapons at all. So your point is once again moot. Can you please go back to my original point, which you have still not answered... Except with your comment that I'm doing something akin to Minority report.


I don't think they do.

I think that having too many guns available will result in more gun crime by the numbers game.

10 guns on the street mean ten people can harm people, 100 guns on the street mean 100 people can harm people.

Yes knives can also kill and so can bare hands, but by virtue of ease, distance and multiple shots fired in rapid succession, I deem guns more dangerous than many other means.

I think swords should be banned too, except for in regulated use by martial artists or the army/police (and people who hunt with swords possibly too) because they can more easily kill people than knives. Also knives are used at home to cut things so it's hard in my mind to ban those.

Guns serve a purpose to defend oneself and I understand that, but I think that they need to be very restricted to people who can actually use them and are sure to make them safe. I do not know enough about the current laws in the US, but I do know these restrictions need to be quite strict and should include many classes in the usage of them as well as the mental state of the buyer (why does he/she need a gun ?)

I do understand that people in the US think that the government might turn on them and while this is unlikely, I think people can think what they want. The problem comes when a child can get a hold of a gun, or in this case a 20-year old or so manages to get a gun from his mother. Some things need to be reviewed, don't you think ? What happened ? How could that person get ahold of someone else's gun ? Was it badly secured ? Do people need to be audited for guns, just like for taxes maybe, with periodic checks that the guns are safely locked away ? Is it worth having the right to own automatic weapons ? I am not saying they shouldn't do this or should do this, but the point is that Americans should pose these questions and more to themselves and find answers they are comfortable with.


Yes, yes, criminals can get ahold of guns, just as they can get drugs. That's not the point. Does that mean that we should just stop having police officers in the US since they can't stop all crimes ? No, of course not, but they help. Just as good gun control could help the situation with guns.

I hope all of this made sense.
 
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But I'm not "THEM" and I'm not arguing for "THEY". As you know I'm from Europe and assault weapons have been banned in Belgium for I don't know how long and they're not planning on banning all weapons at all. So your point is once again moot. Can you please go back to my original point, which you have still not answered… Except with your comment that I'm doing something akin to Minority report.
Actually, if anyone's points about American gun control are moot, I'm doubting it would be the American's, but that's neither here nor there. The solutions that you personally are proposing do not satisfy the constraints of the problem. But we'll just pretend you didn't undercut yourself yet again.

In a nutshell, you want a system that doesn't allow children, nutjobs and criminals to own/use guns. I'm fine with that. You're proposing to accomplish that thru laws. It's already illegal for children, the clinically troubled, and convicted felons to own guns. (In the case of children, they can't own their own and they can't use someone else's without adult supervision.) Congratulations. Your proposal to fix our problems is to install exactly what we already have, which you are quite convinced (and we agree on this) does not work. Do you understand why I might find it hard to take you seriously?


edit- now, if you came in with a plan to actually enforce the laws already on the books, or a plan to be more rigorous about weeding out nutjobs and criminals, or a plan to mandate the use of biometric gun safes (although even that's not a 100% solution), then we might have something to discuss. So far, you've only managed to propose something we already have and complain about the way I think.
 
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I think just reinstating the ban on assault weapons could help a lot.
Honestly, if it weren't for the intentional and unabashed slippery slope tactics being promoted, I would consider that a reasonable compromise where both sides lose, but not completely.

I appreciate the whole "defending against tyranny" thing, but it just doesn't seem very practical in this day and age. So, if you throw out that aspect (and I'm fully aware that many aren't so cavalier about doing that), you're down to hunting/sport and self defense. Hunting with an AK47 is just silly, and someone genuine about self defense doesn't need an AK47 to accomplish that. For me, letting the assault weapon ban come back seems like a fair bandaid until we get serious about the laws already on our books, IF the gun control loons could be trusted to stop there.
 
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I'll buy most of that. So then, who defines what is stable? Is "stable" something that stands up to objective analysis, or something that makes us feel good today? I know my answer, but it seems rather in the minority.

Take vaccines.
Vaccines may make you sick and in rare cases they might kill you. We could be fair to allow people to opt-out from vaccines. We can sympathize with their liberties and forcing them to take a vaccine that may harm them doesn't seem fair, it seems almost oppressive to do so. If you do not know what the vaccine does, how it's effective, the dangers of under-vaccination, the harmfulness of a pandemic, this is really the moral thing to do. Injecting your body with an unknown substance seems to be an awful thing to do from a purity perspective.

But when looking at research on pandemic outbreaks, it seems that if vaccines aren't distributed the potential harm might be much worse. When too many opt-out it may cause a situation in which a virus outbreak lose control meaning tremendous harm. This turns many of the morals that warns us from vaccines on their head. We must now consider that opting out from vaccination may be almost immoral. Purity is reversed as well, where vaccinated are pure and non-vaccinated are non-pure on a society level. And not taking the shot may cause harm and even kill someone.

But we must also acknowledge that trying to force people may lead to an uprising that may result in even fewer getting vaccinated.

There are many factors here. What can be asked by a single individual. What happen with a society with certain liberties compared to one that lacks such liberties. What level of harm is ok to reduce the risk of greater harm. How do ethics change with insight, etc etc.

Gun control works in a similar pattern. Data can be compared between countries. The level of harm of one choice can be compared with the level of harm by another choice. If route A leads to less harm than route B, then route A might be better. But moving from situation B to A might cause harm itself. Regardless of the case, anecdotes aren't helpful, because we want to look at frequency and statistic potential, since both route A and B might have situations that end up harmful to someone.

The sum-total of the argument for gun control has been, "it makes sense to me that limiting gun ownership will reduce the opportunity for criminal behavior". Subjective gut feel, through and through. Might even work out that way, but the argument simply does not hold up to objectivity nor consistency. The proposed solution has been shown not to work in other locations (Mexico, Philippines). The proposed solution has been shown to be wildly inappropriate for similar problems (drunk driving, assault with other forms of weapon). The proposed solution has been demonstrated to be a failure in similar historic situations (Prohibition). The proposed solution has been shown to be a failure in current similar situations (drug wars). The side proposing the solution has already clearly demonstrated a lack of honesty and integrity (give an inch, take a mile). Other than that, sounds like a candidate for "Stability of the Year".

I do not compare with Mexico or the Philippines but west-Europe where there's both low poverty and gun control. This is because poverty is another major factor for problems and both Mexico and Philippines have high poverty rates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_Philippines 26.5%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Mexico 44.2%

Poverty in the states and in west Europe is much lower, beneath 10%.

That said, I do acknowledge that the states is one tough nation to control considering size of it's borders.
 
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Glad to see you appreciating a stance in the middle. :)
I don't know that it's all that far into the middle given the changes I made to the constraints of the problem - dismissing the "tyranny" angle wipes out most of the end of spectrum in one fell swoop and ignoring the open duplicity of the gun control loons makes certain actions more plausible. Both of those assumptions are questionable at best, so I don't know that the position is really all that practical--it's kinda like starting an argument with, "Assuming that water is dry...", no matter how logical everything that follows might be the whole thing fails that consistency stuff I talked about earlier. While my position is toward the middle of the original spectrum, I'm still fairly close to the edge of the "new" hypothetical spectrum I created.

Here you give me a compliment, and I won't even take it without arguing... ;)
 
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Well those with 2nd amendment preoccupations, fear of the government, and gun fetishes still exist, even though you may have obliterated them from consideration.
 
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Actually, if anyone's points about American gun control are moot, I'm doubting it would be the American's, but that's neither here nor there. The solutions that you personally are proposing do not satisfy the constraints of the problem. But we'll just pretend you didn't undercut yourself yet again.

That's not a really good way to view things. Getting a view from the outside can oftentimes solve problems that cannot if only viewed from the inside. So your point being moot isn't because or despite you being an American but just because it was.

In a nutshell, you want a system that doesn't allow children, nutjobs and criminals to own/use guns. I'm fine with that. You're proposing to accomplish that thru laws. It's already illegal for children, the clinically troubled, and convicted felons to own guns. (In the case of children, they can't own their own and they can't use someone else's without adult supervision.) Congratulations. Your proposal to fix our problems is to install exactly what we already have, which you are quite convinced (and we agree on this) does not work. Do you understand why I might find it hard to take you seriously?


edit- now, if you came in with a plan to actually enforce the laws already on the books, or a plan to be more rigorous about weeding out nutjobs and criminals, or a plan to mandate the use of biometric gun safes (although even that's not a 100% solution), then we might have something to discuss. So far, you've only managed to propose something we already have and complain about the way I think.

Apart from the fact that you have ignored my entire posting again, you seem to be right on some points. But anyway, you are not really answering any of my questions at all nor are you replying to any of the points I made. I even requoted my post. Apparently all you see is that I said that I thought gun control was necessary (which you agree with anyway).

So unless you are going to address the points I made or questions I posed, then I see no reason to continue this discussion. I'm not saying that to be antagonistic, just that I do not see the point in reposting something a multitude of times.

I'll do it again in short, so you can actually see what my points were:

1.
I think that having too many guns available will result in more gun crime by the numbers game.

10 guns on the street mean ten people can harm people, 100 guns on the street mean 100 people can harm people.

2. (The on point you picked on)
Guns serve a purpose to defend oneself and I understand that, but I think that they need to be very restricted to people who can actually use them and are sure to make them safe. I do not know enough about the current laws in the US, but I do know these restrictions need to be quite strict and should include many classes in the usage of them as well as the mental state of the buyer (why does he/she need a gun ?)

3. (The questions)
The problem comes when a child can get a hold of a gun, or in this case a 20-year old or so manages to get a gun from his mother. Some things need to be reviewed, don't you think ? What happened ? How could that person get ahold of someone else's gun ? Was it badly secured ? Do people need to be audited for guns, just like for taxes maybe, with periodic checks that the guns are safely locked away ? Is it worth having the right to own automatic weapons ? I am not saying they shouldn't do this or should do this, but the point is that Americans should pose these questions and more to themselves and find answers they are comfortable with.

4. (The end point of that post)
Yes, yes, criminals can get ahold of guns, just as they can get drugs. That's not the point. Does that mean that we should just stop having police officers in the US since they can't stop all crimes ? No, of course not, but they help. Just as good gun control could help the situation with guns.


So the end point was that the gun control in the US is bad, like you realised I was saying. The point is that to figure out what good gun control is, you need to review the current laws and try something new. How to do this is to ask how these people who are committing crimes with legally owned guns are getting their hands on them ? Were there some signs that could have been picked on that they could have acted this way ? Does that mean that the current evaluation system is bad ? Or is it the type of guns that make things riskier ?


In my opinion, there is no point in having guns that can shoot 30 bullets in 3 seconds. So one easy way to reduce these killings is to not sell automatic weapons to people. Another way to help would be to have gun controls, just like audits that check people's guns are secured in a safe. Another way would be to adopt biometric guns. This would ensure no one could fire the gun but the owners. This would have made sure the son could not have shot his mom for example even if he did get into the safe somehow.

These are ideas. Not put in stone laws I'm proposing. You seem to just be shooting down everything because "they" want to ban all guns. So except for the fact that "they" are politicians and are lying about everything anyway, all you're doing is not coming up with a solution nor are you helping out.

But oh well. I hope you finally do respond to my post instead of just saying that you're an American so you would know better what is good for Americans or something like that.
 
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1- that logic only holds if all owned guns are dangerous ones, that is, there are no "good" guns. Which is better: 10 guns on the street with 9 owned by "good" people and 1 owned by a criminal or 1 gun on the street owned by that same criminal and 9 defenseless victims?

2- I agree. Those laws are already on the books. We do a lousy job identifying nutjobs during the application process because leftie political correctness means we're not allowed to call someone a nutjob even if they are. Even if people have been "bad" in the past, we don't do the whole personal responsibility thing so all is forgiven. While many laws have been tweaked so there are stiffer penalties for crimes if guns are involved, if a guy's willing to go to prison for 10 years for robbing a bank, is he really going to give two shits if it's 12 years because he brought a gun along? Want a deterrent, shoot them with their own gun if convicted (that's an intentionally extreme example to illustrate the point).

3- I'm not big on critiquing someone else's parenting because we never know the entire real story. Based on what we think we know, if you demand an opinion, I think the mother screwed up by making guns available to a nutjob. It would be difficult to acknowledge that your own kid was a nutjob and we have no way of knowing just how easy it really was for the kid to get her guns, but with that 20/20 hindsight I'd say she screwed up. I'm not sure how you go about fixing that problem (assuming that we're right about the problem) without getting into a serious Big Brother situation. I do know that "punishing" responsible gun owners to try to reach the bad apples seems like a bad solution to me.

4- The operative word in your last sentence is "could". You also needed to append ", but at what price?" You tend to minimize the price. I tend to minimize the benefit. Different strokes.
 
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Story doesn't always have a happy ending, but this one thank god had such.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/10/taft-california-high-school-shooting

Quite a close call. Now all the nutjobs want their 15 mins of fame. I get that it must be a difficult topic to media. On the one hand you have to cover these kind of tragedies, on the other hand more airtime they give, more it stimulates these nutjobs who think about going out in a blaze of glory.
 
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Not to worry, I'm not taking it personal at all. I'm certainly not above a snipe or three myself. I just find it rather pointless when it is easily demonstrated to be baseless, and it tends to feed the monkeys if ya know what I mean.

The thing is that I don't find it to be baseless and I don't find that you've demonstrated anything even approaching that. Which is why I'm saying the things I'm saying. I don't go around making baseless statements on purpose.

As for snipes - you'll find that I rarely take them personally and I've found that you rarely get personal. Which I appreciate - and it's a postive aspect of your otherwise lacking ability to carry a rational debate ;)

As mentioned earlier, I try to drive toward the objective. Any opinion based on objective facts has more merit than one based on subjective fuzziness. That's simply undeniable. Objective facts are, by their very nature, stark and extreme, so yes, I very much prefer to deal in extremes if that's how you wish to view it. Beyond that, I highly value consistency- the application of solutions based on objective fact toward different problems. Obviously, I'm not so stupid as to believe that solutions can be cut-n-paste'd across every problem in the world, but a "good" solution to any problem should be able to serve as a starting point for many other problems IF that solution is based on objective facts. If you can't manage that, it not only leaves you empty-handed on the current problem, but it should call into question just how "good" your first solution is. It's when you base everything on subjective mumbo jumbo that you're locked into treating every single problem as something completely unique that requires a completely unique solution from the ground up. Building everything from scratch is needlessly time consuming and significantly increases the risk of error. The more subjectivity you allow into the discussion, the more limited your solution becomes—not only do you have the differences problem-to-problem, but you add differences viewer-to-viewer. Why do that? How can that possibly be a preferred approach?

I appreciate what you're trying to do - but unfortunately you'll get much closer to reality by staying away from extremes. First of all, there is no such thing as objective facts - only facts as we know them.

Facts as we know them better be facts - and not facts as you believe them to be. I don't see how they tend to be extreme - but hopefully they're clear and reasonably precise once you arrive at them.

But what you seem to be doing is take your own subjective fuzzy opinion about the world and pretending they're facts - and then presenting them as facts. You completely skip the process of meeting the person you're exchanging with. That's why you come off as extreme and very, very unconvincing. Well, at least to me.

I don't find a fanatical and objectively presented subjectivity impressive or very useful. So, as long as you insist on thinking in black and white, and as long as you insist on ignoring a thorough process before drawing conclusions - you won't get far with someone like me.

Not that getting far with me is particularly desirable, and I fully appreciate that you'd rather not change your approach and just consider me a fuzzy person with a fuzzy subjective wishy-washy ivory tower point of view.
 
Story doesn't always have a happy ending, but this one thank god had such.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/10/taft-california-high-school-shooting

Quite a close call. Now all the nutjobs want their 15 mins of fame. I get that it must be a difficult topic to media. On the one hand you have to cover these kind of tragedies, on the other hand more airtime they give, more it stimulates these nutjobs who think about going out in a blaze of glory.

I'm not sure one wounded and likely two traumatized kids is a happy ending - but at least no one was killed.
 
I do not compare with Mexico or the Philippines but west-Europe where there's both low poverty and gun control. This is because poverty is another major factor for problems and both Mexico and Philippines have high poverty rates.

Poverty in the states and in west Europe is much lower, beneath 10%.

An important point.

poverty / murder rate US:
MacBlog_Shooting2.jpg


gun ownership / gun deaths US:
gun_ownership_deaths_500px.jpg


And same for developed countries:
deaths-vs-guns.png


(gun deaths includes suicides and accidents, but for the discussion this is actually more relevant than murder rate, I think)

Among rich countries, percentag of crimes that are murders:
7240273_f520.jpg


Indicating an increasing likelyhood that crimes involve guns or fights escalte to murder with higher gun ownership rates.
 
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