A Sane Discussion About Gun Violence

[carpedm9587]

Perhaps the word immoral does not carry all you want it to. It is certainly unwarranted in my opinion. Look back at my post on privacy abortion vs gun ownership (it is none of their business if I own a gun.

Some of your fellow citizens disagree with you. We believe it IS in everyone's best interest to have a clear tracking for guns, and that gun ownership brings with it the responsibility to ensure that the gun you purchase does not become part of the 79% statistic.

Some slip up and admit it. How many want the same thing but never say anything. No way to tell, but I think all, or most, of the gun control advocates in government want it. Just my take.

And my problem with this take, Jedidiah - is that it is based on a "feeling." You cannot know it. You cannot defend it. So you hold the position because it affirms the point of view you want to hold. There is too much of that going on with respect to this discussion. It means people are entrenched, and unwilling to examine any point of view that differs from their own. I think, as citizens, we have a responsibility to do more than that.

This is getting to far into a psych field I will not deal with. If someone is of age it is their business, if not it should rest on the parents.

Which is why I asked about the other things that have an age limit. Again, citizens have a right to say, "we think, as a nation, this should not be permitted before age X for reason Y." We have done so for alcohol, driving, voting, serving in the armed forces, etc. We should likewise do so for deadly weapons, IMO.

Evidently so.

[carpedm9587]

So a "combat knife" should be treated differently than a butcher's knife even though the only meaningful difference between them is the name?

I'm sorry, carpe, but that really is insane thinking (insane in the colloquial and not clinical sense).

I'm going to limit my response to those who are capable of exchanging respectfully. Thanks for your post.

[carpedm9587]

Very distant relationship to the gun issue. Reasonable care is needed in almost all areas of life. No need for draconian measures such as the box within a box business.

As you have noted - we will have to agree to disagree. Note - as I have said, I am not advocating for "box in a box." I am saying we do not have enough information to make a decision, and the first step is to gather that information.

[carpedm9587]

I saw it as the perfect opportunity to create a new term. Since CP was once a cop, and it sounds like a "cop out" it was too perfect to pass up.

My glare was intended to be humorous... I do it to CP all the time

[carpedm9587]

we know the rate of such mass killings before gun-free zones and after. They have increased, not decreased. So if the goal was to decrease school shooting with gun-free zones, it has failed. If you want to argue that there is no way to know if the incidents would be even higher without them, then you are actually arguing against even setting up any such zones or gun bans, because we would have no way to tell if they worked or not. You can't have it both ways.

There are many variable involved, Sparko, so you are citing a correlation with no evidence that it is causation. That happens a lot in these discussions, I find. When a correlation supports an existing point of view - it is immediately grabbed and used. When it supports the opposition - it is explained away.

And I am not arguing for or against gun-free zones. My gut says, "fewer guns means less chance of casual/spontaneous attacks," but my gut could well be wrong. So I have no argument for/against a schoool that trains personnel and arms them, and no for/argument against those that elect to go the direction of the gun-free zone.

I think we have probably come to the useful end (if there was a use at all) to this thread...

[rogue06]

we know the rate of such mass killings before gun-free zones and after. They have increased, not decreased. So if the goal was to decrease school shooting with gun-free zones, it has failed. If you want to argue that there is no way to know if the incidents would be even higher without them, then you are actually arguing against even setting up any such zones or gun bans, because we would have no way to tell if they worked or not. You can't have it both ways.

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[Mountain Man]

I'm going to limit my response to those who are capable of exchanging respectfully. Thanks for your post.

Translation: "I realize that my silly argument is indefensible, so I'm going to try and save face by hiding behind a lame excuse."

[Mountain Man]

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The sign says "Gun Free Zone". Psychopaths see "Defenseless Victims Zone".

[Sparko]

There are many variable involved, Sparko, so you are citing a correlation with no evidence that it is causation. That happens a lot in these discussions, I find. When a correlation supports an existing point of view - it is immediately grabbed and used. When it supports the opposition - it is explained away.

And I am not arguing for or against gun-free zones. My gut says, "fewer guns means less chance of casual/spontaneous attacks," but my gut could well be wrong. So I have no argument for/against a schoool that trains personnel and arms them, and no for/argument against those that elect to go the direction of the gun-free zone.

I think we have probably come to the useful end (if there was a use at all) to this thread...

Sure you can hand wave it away, but if there is no way to tell if gun-free zones have worked and we actually have MORE school shooting than before we enacted them, then there was no reason to enact them. The argument for them was flawed.

Just like the arguments to regulate guns more or ban guns. According to you there is no way to know if they work or not since we can't actually compare what it would be like if we didn't regulate guns. That means there is no reason to regulate guns.

[carpedm9587]

Translation: "I realize that my silly argument is indefensible, so I'm going to try and save face by hiding behind a lame excuse."

No MM - the translation is exactly what I posted. And I'm going to ask, again, if you cannot remain respectful in your posts - please post in a different thread.

[carpedm9587]

Sure you can hand wave it away, but if there is no way to tell if gun-free zones have worked and we actually have MORE school shooting than before we enacted them, then there was no reason to enact them. The argument for them was flawed.

Just like the arguments to regulate guns more or ban guns. According to you there is no way to know if they work or not since we can't actually compare what it would be like if we didn't regulate guns. That means there is no reason to regulate guns.

As I noted in my OP, there are only two things that I believe we can/should do with regards to gun on the basis of the information we have: universalize background checks and implement a national gun registry. Other initiaties, for or against, lack adequate evidence to support or refute - hence the need for impartial, peer-reviewed studies. Given you lack the information to argue against a gun free zone - I don't accept your arguments, for the reasons I cited before. Given someone defending gun free zones lacks the information to justify them, I don't accept their arguments that they are necessary and effective. Neither side knows - both sides are guessing using their "gut" and a lot of correlation without evidence of causation.

IMO, the lack of good information is one of the biggest problems related to gun safety. We DO know that the problem can be significantly reduced - and we know this because other countries have done it. But we cannot even say for sure that their approaches would work in the U.S. The shutdown on funding research into this has been an effective way to leave the discussion open to a lot of dust thrown into the air - which I suspect was th eprimary motivation for it.

[Cow Poke]

My glare was intended to be humorous... I do it to CP all the time

You DO?!?!?!

[Cow Poke]

The sign says "Gun Free Zone". Psychopaths see "Defenseless Victims Zone".

I have yet to be able to obtain a single free gun from those zones.

[Jedidiah]

Some of your fellow citizens disagree with you. We believe it IS in everyone's best interest to have a clear tracking for guns, and that gun ownership brings with it the responsibility to ensure that the gun you purchase does not become part of the 79% statistic.

People are allowed to disagree, I think they are wrong. Remind me what the 79% represents and I will remind you that virtually all of the legally owned guns in the US have never been used in any sort of crime.

And my problem with this take, Jedidiah - is that it is based on a "feeling." You cannot know it. You cannot defend it. So you hold the position because it affirms the point of view you want to hold. There is too much of that going on with respect to this discussion. It means people are entrenched, and unwilling to examine any point of view that differs from their own. I think, as citizens, we have a responsibility to do more than that.

What I read in the newspaper and on line news is based on a feeling? How does that work? You are right I cannot know that all or most believe that, but they never jump on the ones who slip up. If I am wrong about that show me, don't tell me.

Which is why I asked about the other things that have an age limit. Again, citizens have a right to say, "we think, as a nation, this should not be permitted before age X for reason Y." We have done so for alcohol, driving, voting, serving in the armed forces, etc. We should likewise do so for deadly weapons, IMO.

I was referring to your "of that age cognitively ready to handle this responsibility." With my background in psych (admittedly out dated) I reject the interpretations of data that this stuff leads to. What you are responding to is:

If someone is of age it is their business, if not* it should rest on the parents.

*Means not of age. I still defer to the parents rather than to some generic psycho babble.

[Jedidiah]

We don't know that they have no helped, Jedidiah - because we have no way of knowing how many crimes have NOT occurred because there were gun free zones. This is what I mean by needing to have through, and validated, research done. People make statements like this - without the data to back it up. It just "feels" right.

Sounds a lot like the gun grabbers.