Gun Control

Published by

Clarissa

October 6, 2015

There are stupid arguments on both sides of the deeply boring gun control discussion. Here we discussed such a stupid argument advanced by the opponents of gun control.

The proponents are not much better, though. Time and again, they roll out the “what about other countries” argument which is not an argument at all. Which other country with a population of 350 million, an insanely high standard of living, and at the forefront of the greatest societal transformation since the 18th century can they possibly have in mind? Or is it, yet again, the Switzerland fallacy?

Mass shootings keep ocurring, and every time they do, everybody rolls out the same tired mantras that haven’t managed to solve anything. Do people not want actually to address the issue? Why not at least try to look for a fresher approach instead of fantasizing about Switzerland?

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22 responses to “Gun Control”

cliff arroyo

October 6, 2015

Gun control isn’t even treating the symptoms of the patient, it’s treating somebody else’s symptoms and hoping that that will somehow help the patient.

IIRC when you control for drug and/or inter-gang violence* and middle-aged to elderly male suicide gun violence rates in US are not that high.

And mass shootings are like plane crashes, random and rare (numerically speaking).

*gang members shooting each other which I don’t especially care about, though I do care about the random bystanders that they also shoot

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1. Clarissa
  
  October 6, 2015
  
  What bugs me is the lack of logic. I’m all for gun regulations (especially the ones that ban guns from campus), but what’s the hope here for a man who is planning to mass slaughter people? That he’ll look for a gun, discover it’s hard to find one, and say “Ah, well, I’ll just watch TV then”? Do people think this is a realistic scenario?
  
  And I don’t really care about the issue that much. I just can’t deal with the lack of logic.
  
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The Dark Avenger

October 6, 2015

Uactually, Switzerland has laws like not allowing loaded guns to be transported, that would send the NRA into a tizzy if they were passed here.

We also have more mass shootings than any other country. All the things Cliff notes aren’t true of such tragedies in the least.

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1. Clarissa
  
  October 6, 2015
  
  Yes. This is not Switzerland. And now that we have established this earth-shattering new fact, let’s discuss how this is not Belgium either.
  
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  1. The Dark Avenger
    
    October 6, 2015
    
    I wouldn’t trust you to find a good beer if it was.👽
    
    However, the greater point is that we could have reasonable gun laws if the NRA wasn’t a bought-and-paid-for lobbying arm of the firearms industry.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      October 6, 2015
      
      “However, the greater point is that we could have reasonable gun laws if the NRA wasn’t a bought-and-paid-for lobbying arm of the firearms industry.”
      
      The point of what? Are you even reading what you are responding to?
      
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xykademiqz

October 6, 2015

I am fantasizing about Australia, not Switzerland.

I really don’t understand the American obsession with guns; it’s a bit of history that I accept I will never fully comprehend.

But open carry on campuses, are you kidding me? Let’s say I have a kid open-carry a gun in my class, don’t you think that will affect how he’s treated by the professor and other students? I personally don’t want to get shot by an armed loon who thinks he deserves an A and will accept nothing less, and trust me there are plenty who think mighty highly of themselves.

I don’t see why we can’t have very tight regulation, with background checks and a mandatory wait period, and a limit on the lethal power of guns that can be owned by civilians. (I know why we can’t, because it would cramp NRA’s style.) That alone would do quite a bit to restrict access to people who shouldn’t have it… but-but-but gun enthusiasts can’t wait! And guns prohibited in school, universities, etc. Those who like their guns so much can go hunting or go to a shooting range.

I used to smoke and I loved it. Yet, it is now banned because everyone will tell you that smoking kills. Seriously, we can’t regulate guns?

To me, one incident of little kids being mowed down at school was more than enough to have absolutely no sympathy for any gun enthusiast, no matter how enlightened they might consider themselves. We stopped sending a kid to playdates to a friend’s house because he saw bullet shells around and apparently the kid and dad go hunting; my kid is not setting foot in there ever again. And yes I judge — very strongly — people whose love of guns is making passing the legislation harder. Maybe I will come over to slowly kill them with my second-hand smoke. But maybe not, because I am afraid they will shoot me.

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1. Clarissa
  
  October 6, 2015
  
  Australia has the population of a little over the New York Metro area. Maybe we should just stay with Switzerland. 🙂
  
  I agree that guns should be prohibited on campuses, together with army recruitment stations, preachers, religious organizations, junk food joints, and multiculturalism centers.
  
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  1. xykademiqz
    
    October 6, 2015
    
    I would argue that the old tiny Switzerland is far more dissimilar to the US than the young and vast (if underpopulated) Australia. Some of the most conservative parts of the US have very low population density and rely on farming, similar to Australia.
    
    The fact is that mass shootings occur often in the US, and much more often then elsewhere in the developed world. People are getting desensitized to them, which perhaps is the point: low level of persistent fear for one’s safety, to add on top of the pervasive anxiety about job insecurity, long-term financial insecurity.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      October 6, 2015
      
      “The fact is that mass shootings occur often in the US, and much more often then elsewhere in the developed world. People are getting desensitized to them, which perhaps is the point: low level of persistent fear for one’s safety, to add on top of the pervasive anxiety about job insecurity, long-term financial insecurity.”
      
      This is where I want this discussion to go. There are definitely reasons why these mass shootings happen. They are not in the least accidental and it is not accidental that they happen in this country and not elsewhere. And I believe you are absolutely right in choosing the direction of collective anxiety as the most productive venue of analysis. This is what I want to discuss, this!
      
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      1. xykademiqz
        
        October 6, 2015
        
        Seeing the flocks of football enthusiasts in my town this past weekend (there was a university game, also a nearby NFL game) tells you all you need to know about the increasingly unhealthy crowds being purposefully kept in the state of fear and anxiety, superficially placated with great abundance of low quality food and entertainment.
        
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      2. cliff arroyo
        
        October 6, 2015
        
        “They are not in the least accidental and it is not accidental that they happen in this country and not elsewhere”
        
        That’s what the first part of my first comment was about. It’s not like an addiction exactly but most big gun control ideas are about like trying to get someone to stop smoking by making cigarettes harder to get. It’s not addressing the underlying problem.
        And that problem has been around a long time you can find mass shootings going back decades in the US most of them just got lost in the memory hole before the internet). They do seem more common now (though how many of them are copycat affairs is hard to measure.
        
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        xykademiqz
        
        October 6, 2015
        
        like trying to get someone to stop smoking by making cigarettes harder to get.
        
        It works. As does being banned from smoking anywhere where there’s heat or civilization.
        
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        cliff arroyo
        
        October 6, 2015
        
        It works for casual smokers, not for addicts (unless they find another outlet for the root cause of their addiction), see…
        
        One Cause of Obesity
        
        The question is what is it about life in the US that makes some people want to inflict random violence on large numbers of people and then go and try to do it?
        
        Mass shootings aren’t that different from “homegrown” terrorists like the 7/7 London bombers, the two profiles just choose different weapons and justifications (which have little to no connection with reality).
        
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        Clarissa
        
        October 6, 2015
        
        I like to be quoted. 🙂
        
        That’s the part I’m not getting. A prospective mass murderer will just shrug his shoulders and go read a book instead if he discovers that getting a gun is more complicated than he thought? I mean, heroin is illegal yet even quiet suburban grandmas in my town are managing to find enough to get hopelessly addicted.
        
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2. Dreidel
  
  October 6, 2015
  
  @xykademiqz
  
  “Maybe I will come over to slowly kill them with my second-hand smoke.”
  
  A gun that isn’t fired harms no one, no matter how close it is. So comparing the presence of a gun to second-hand smoke is a very poor analogy.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    October 6, 2015
    
    Just like a cigarette that is not lit. 🙂
    
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    1. Dreidel
      
      October 6, 2015
      
      True, but how many unlit cigarettes do you see in people’s hands? If it’s readily visible, it’s lit and dangerous.
      
      If the cigarettes are still in their package in a pocket or purse, that’s not “open carry.” 🙂
      
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      1. Clarissa
        
        October 6, 2015
        
        Thankfully, none, or I’ll be tearing them out and gobbling them up. 🙂
        
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cliff arroyo

October 6, 2015

“A prospective mass murderer will just shrug his shoulders and go read a book instead if he discovers that getting a gun is more complicated than he thought?”

Well a lot of gun control rhetoric (on both sides) is just signalling, that is public embrace of the talking points of whatever group the person wants to be accepted by.

It’s like most political “opinions” in that regard.

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1. Clarissa
  
  October 6, 2015
  
  Mantras, that’s what this is, simply mantras. “Stuff happens” on the one side and “gun control” on the other. Everybody signals their tribal affiliation and feels less anxious as a result. Yippee.
  
  And then the whole vicious circle happens again.
  
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xykademiqz

October 6, 2015

I don’t think limiting access to guns will reform sociopaths or address the underlying causes of their sociopathy (which is fascinating to ponder in its own right). It will, however, make it harder for them to do great damage to other people, which is what I care about.

Someone who is dead-set on shooting people may find a way, but many of them will be hindered because it will be harder and more complicated to get a gun, or multiple guns, or multiple semiautomatic guns. A shooter won’t just be able to just go and buy them, or he won’t be able to do what the Sandy Hook shooter did, which is get several from his gun-nut-mother’s closet.

If someone goes and procures guns from local thugs (who are not necessarily sociopaths, btw), so be it; but the know-how to go this route would be a considerable barrier for many well-off angry white boys with some sort of aggrieved entitlement issues that serve as the focus of their sociopathy.

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