A Sane Discussion About Gun Violence

[carpedm9587]

The government controls the list - you really think they're going to share data about its inefficiency? It's legend that, once your name is on that list, you A) Can't get an explanation of how you got on it, and 2) it's nearly impossible to get off. There appears to be no due process in getting on the list, as the government uses "predictive judgments".


The U.S. Government Is Putting Americans on Its No-Fly List on a Hunch

"Legend" is not an argument, CP. I'm sorry, but I am too familiar with the tactic of taking a few anecdotes and turning them into major hay to make a point. One person out of tens of thousands enters the country on the so-called "lottery system" and wreaks havok years later after being radicalized well AFTER he was admit, and suddenly the entire so-called lottery system is "unsafe" and "needs to end," despite the strict screening and high-degree of success the system has had. Both sides do it.

An anecdote is not an argument - it's just a story.

[Cow Poke]

"Legend" is not an argument, CP. I'm sorry, but I am too familiar with the tactic of taking a few anecdotes and turning them into major hay to make a point. One person out of tens of thousands enters the country on the so-called "lottery system" and wreaks havok years later after being radicalized well AFTER he was admit, and suddenly the entire so-called lottery system is "unsafe" and "needs to end," despite the strict screening and high-degree of success the system has had. Both sides do it.

An anecdote is not an argument - it's just a story.

Where do you propose to find data on an actual program controlled by the government and is "secret"? Pretty much all we have is anecdotes.

[carpedm9587]

Where do you propose to find data on an actual program controlled by the government and is "secret"? Pretty much all we have is anecdotes.

I didn't say you could, CP. I said you cannot draw a conclusion on the basis of mere anecdotes. Sometimes, the data is not there - and the best we can say is "I don't know." We don't know what percentage of the people on the list should not be there, what percentage have not had problems removing themselves, and what percentage are not on the list at all. All we hear are the "horror stories." That is not enough of a basis to form a conclusion.

You cannot justify jumping to a conclusion because the information you need to reach that conclusion is not available.

[Cow Poke]

I didn't say you could, CP. I said you cannot draw a conclusion on the basis of mere anecdotes.

Yeah, we know that.

[Jedidiah]

I didn't say you could, CP. I said you cannot draw a conclusion on the basis of mere anecdotes. Sometimes, the data is not there - and the best we can say is "I don't know." We don't know what percentage of the people on the list should not be there, what percentage have not had problems removing themselves, and what percentage are not on the list at all. All we hear are the "horror stories." That is not enough of a basis to form a conclusion.

You cannot justify jumping to a conclusion because the information you need to reach that conclusion is not available.

Can't get secret information so we should go ahead and trust that the known flaws are outliers. Not me.

[carpedm9587]

Yeah, we know that.

I am not always convinced that is true. It seems to me that a lot of people are willing to jump to conclusions on the basis of a handful of stories that confirm their pre-existing bias. My radar is up for such things - from either side. I just don't accept them anymore.

[carpedm9587]

Can't get secret information so we should go ahead and trust that the known flaws are outliers. Not me.

No - what I said is that the best we can do is say "I don't know." I didn't say trust - or distrust.

[Jedidiah]

No - what I said is that the best we can do is say "I don't know." I didn't say trust - or distrust.

Well and good, but you have to recognize something. You can either trust the No Fly List (and by extension the government that made it) with it's known flaws, assuming that it is otherwise okay, or recognize that there are likely to be more flaws that have not been seen publicly, or not trust it. "I don't know" is not much of an answer. As a victim I do not trust it or any such list that the government may make.



guns.jpg

[Littlejoe]

To me it's simple...if they have guns, I need one...or a knife or a bat...I need a gun. I'm small and older, I'm no match physically to most would be attackers/muggers etc.

ISTM to be no different than why any nuclear power doesn't get rid of ALL it's nuclear weapons.

I've already been through the class and have a weapons permit. I carry pretty much everywhere I go. If a store or restaurant has a no guns sign on the door, I do not patronize them. I avoid all the places that I can that do not allow guns to be carried.

Now, I'm also a hunter, and I'll tell you if you've ever walked into a pasture of tall grass and had a group of wild hogs stand up around you, you WILL want a semi-auto. Herds of hogs can be rather large and them suckers are tough to kill. Walking out of the woods in the dark with nothing more than a flashlight and a single shot rifle is too risky IMO now days. I used to do it all the time before the hogs showed up...We also have mountain lions in the area, I've actually seen one on our hunting grounds.

[carpedm9587]

Well and good, but you have to recognize something. You can either trust the No Fly List (and by extension the government that made it) with it's known flaws, assuming that it is otherwise okay, or recognize that there are likely to be more flaws that have not been seen publicly, or not trust it. "I don't know" is not much of an answer. As a victim I do not trust it or any such list that the government may make.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26748[/ATTACH]

No - I can say, "I don't know."

Look, Jedidiah - I neither think that government is the answer to everything, as many on the left do, nor do I think government is this great beast seeking to devour us all, as many on the right do. I think government is us - the people we elect, and the system we enable. It is flawed, and it is functional. It has good and bad points. Like anything else...it's imperfect.

It's just not the "Great Satan" so many make it out to be. It just is. And we can make it better - or we can throw up our hands an declare it the enemy.

I choose the former.

[Cow Poke]

I am not always convinced that is true. It seems to me that a lot of people are willing to jump to conclusions on the basis of a handful of stories that confirm their pre-existing bias. My radar is up for such things - from either side. I just don't accept them anymore.

Then stop jumping to conclusions that others are jumping to conclusions.

[Jedidiah]

No - I can say, "I don't know."

You can say it, but if you support a No Fly type list, you ARE indeed deciding to trust it. The words do not cover up the action.

Look, Jedidiah - I neither think that government is the answer to everything, as many on the left do, nor do I think government is this great beast seeking to devour us all, as many on the right do. I think government is us - the people we elect, and the system we enable. It is flawed, and it is functional. It has good and bad points. Like anything else...it's imperfect.

It's just not the "Great Satan" so many make it out to be. It just is. And we can make it better - or we can throw up our hands an declare it the enemy.

I choose the former.

I do not see the government as exactly a devouring beast. It is a beast devouring itself. We have more laws than even lawyers can really know without a lot of research. Yet "ignorance of the law is no excuse" still seems to reign. The federal government is rapidly destroying itself by trying to pass laws to make things better. "There oughta be a law" has run this once great nation into the ground. We keep spending more money to make everything better, but everything keeps getting worse. It is a fact that the government can not do everything. If we got rid of a bunch of the laws would there be problems in areas we used to have problems with? Sure, but the government protection against those problems in itself, creates new problems. We have too many regulations that do add some protection, but at tremendous cost. I am not an anarchist, but I am a minarchist. We need just the minimum government that protects us from foreign invaders, and protects individuals from criminals. Every single time we pass a law to make something better, some other area ends up being made worse. We are legislating this nation out of existence. It can only get so top heavy before we follow in the footsteps of Tsarist Russia. That government fell because it was top heavy, and unless you had one of the cushy government jobs there was a good chance that you were seriously in need. We see the edge of that in inner city neighborhoods today. Kids grow up with no hope, no thought that they can ever escape legally. A few do, I hoped to see one of those few as our president, but no such luck. Keep trying to make it better and it will eventually die, hopefully not before I do. But I pity my kids, my grandkids, and especially my great grand kids. Taxes keep going up and never go back down. There is no hope of saving this nation that way. In the meantime I want to see helpless law abiding citizens able to protect themselves from criminals without a bunch of nanny interference.

Cut federal spending drastically, cut taxes drastically, get out of private citizens business, and require the elimination of 10 laws for each one enacted. And each new law has to be written in a way that ordinary people can understand in one or two pages of large print.

This goes a bit beyond guns, but it is the basis for my position.

[carpedm9587]

Then stop jumping to conclusions that others are jumping to conclusions.

When I see people jumping to conclusions on the basis of a few stories - which I know because they cannot produce the data - then I'm going to call them on it, CP. I don't care if they are left, right, or center. It's one of the main problems with our current political climate, that pretty much anyone will swallow a few stories and turn it into a justification for a position.

Other than a few horror stories - there is no data that suggests that the no fly list is "seriously broken." It's a meme. It is, as far as I can tell with the research I've done in the past few hours, largely pushed forward to defend the "you cannot take guns away form people who are on the no fly list" position. But there is no actual data behind it. Just a handful of stories.

[carpedm9587]

You can say it, but if you support a No Fly type list, you ARE indeed deciding to trust it. The words do not cover up the action.

Yes - my default position is to trust - until I have cause not to. That is, if you think about it, the default position of all of us. It is how society works and what keeps it running. If you don't think so, think carefully the next time you brush your teeth, take a pill, or eat something you bought. The number of people whose hands that material passed through, any of which could kill you by compromising the item you are putting in your mouth, is enormous. You are trusting each and every one of them with that act. Think carefully, the next time you are driving, each and every time aan oncoming car passes you. You are trusting them to stay on their side of the line (probably without a thought), and you don't even know them.

A society runs on trust. It is why eroding that trust is so dangerous to our society. So yes, I trust the millions of people who work in our government. I do not see them as perfect, nor do I agree with how every institution is structured, nor do I agree with every decision made. But I believe the vast majority of my fellow citizens are good people - including everyone I have met here. Some are irritating. Some have annoying habits. But I trust that any of them would run to my aid if I were in sufficient need, and my trust is rewarded far more often than it is not.

I do not see the government as exactly a devouring beast. It is a beast devouring itself. We have more laws than even lawyers can really know without a lot of research. Yet "ignorance of the law is no excuse" still seems to reign. The federal government is rapidly destroying itself by trying to pass laws to make things better. "There oughta be a law" has run this once great nation into the ground. We keep spending more money to make everything better, but everything keeps getting worse. It is a fact that the government can not do everything. If we got rid of a bunch of the laws would there be problems in areas we used to have problems with? Sure, but the government protection against those problems in itself, creates new problems. We have too many regulations that do add some protection, but at tremendous cost. I am not an anarchist, but I am a minarchist. We need just the minimum government that protects us from foreign invaders, and protects individuals from criminals. Every single time we pass a law to make something better, some other area ends up being made worse. We are legislating this nation out of existence. It can only get so top heavy before we follow in the footsteps of Tsarist Russia. That government fell because it was top heavy, and unless you had one of the cushy government jobs there was a good chance that you were seriously in need. We see the edge of that in inner city neighborhoods today. Kids grow up with no hope, no thought that they can ever escape legally. A few do, I hoped to see one of those few as our president, but no such luck. Keep trying to make it better and it will eventually die, hopefully not before I do. But I pity my kids, my grandkids, and especially my great grand kids. Taxes keep going up and never go back down. There is no hope of saving this nation that way. In the meantime I want to see helpless law abiding citizens able to protect themselves from criminals without a bunch of nanny interference.

Cut federal spending drastically, cut taxes drastically, get out of private citizens business, and require the elimination of 10 laws for each one enacted. And each new law has to be written in a way that ordinary people can understand in one or two pages of large print.

This goes a bit beyond guns, but it is the basis for my position.

Amazing how we can live in the same nation, and see it so differently. Did you know that the highest tax bracket was once over 90%? Taxes have come down, but what we pay has gone up because what we make has gone up. Our GDP has grown progresively, almost unrelentingly. We once had rivers so polluted they burned - but most of that is now gone. While there are wars here and there around the world, we are living in one of the longest periods of protracted peace, without a major conflict, in history. We have seen our legislative leaders tackle racism and promote civil liberties. We are in the midst of an awakening to the degree to which women have been and are being demeaned in our society. We have seen so many good things happen, and we have seen some we are less proud of.

Ironically, I agree that our nation faces a great threat. I don't agree it is "the government." After all, the government is whoever "we the people" elect to power and trust to make good decisions. But "we the people" are not electing people who will go to their jobs, ignore the dollars of special interests and industries, and work for the betterment of all of us. We are electing people who will refuse to compromise, refuse to engage, and hold fast to a partisan position. We the people have decided that our view is the only one that matters, and anyone who disagrees with us is "the enemy" and we are voting for people who think and work the same way. And "we the people" have stopped trusting facts aand started trusting stories. We the people have become suspicious of people with an education. We the people are rapidly learning not to trust one another.

When trust erodes - societies fall. Our country is not going to end because the government is leading us to failure. It is going to end because we are turning on each other, and seeing an enemy in the face of the citizen that has a different point of view, instead of seeing "the loyal opposition."

That is why I hold to trust. That is why I'm trying to break the "bubble" of my world by activtely engaging with those who hold radically different views: so that I am reminded, every day, that the person on the other side of the issue is my fellow citizen - not my enemy.

[Cow Poke]

When I see people jumping to conclusions on the basis of a few stories -

No, its when you see people you ASSUME are jumping to conclusions on the basis of a few stories. Just stop it.