The Big Picture: On The Subject Of Violence

[ReiverCorrupter]

I don't live in USA and I don't think I need a gun to defend myself against neither the government nor the people because I believe I'm safe enough.
And if it's the poverty that's the problem help us "anti gun nuts" find a good solution to that "problem" and how is having a gun solving it?

This is a good question, one which I've put some thought into. I'll give you the short version and then the long one:

We have to fix society, not pass stricter gun laws.

LONG VERSION: I think the solution to the vast majority of gun deaths is:

1) legalizing drugs so that the gangs have nothing to sell and thus nothing to fight over. (Continuing pressure on illegal drug trafficking should make the illegal drugs way more expensive than the legal ones, and thus people won't buy anything from them.)

2) Fixing the broken public education system at the pre-university level so that people can actually get out of the ghettos and become middle class citizens.

3) major government investment in infrastructure (I'd like to see a trans-continental bullet train), which would temporarily provide a lot of people with jobs.

4) long term investment in new technology through heavy research and development, coupled with a government stipend that completely pays for undergraduate and graduate education for those who qualify. E.g., if your GPA and SAT are above a certain threshold the government will pay tuition, room and board at the accredited university of your choice.

5) Of course, none of this would work unless we turn around America's economy so that everyone can have a decent job. How best to do this is obviously the #1 debate in America right now. These are my general ideas:

A) passing protectionist measures against outsourcing, e.g. heightened sales taxes on products made outside of the U.S.

B) Tax reform:

B.1) closing all the income tax loopholes and eliminate offshore accounts and other tax havens.
B.2) generally keep corporate taxes low, but add a special tax hike for executive bonuses given in times of financial distress, and add tax breaks for creating jobs in America.
B.3) add a moderate general tax increase on Billionaires coupled with a large luxury tax on stuff like Yachts, planes, etc.
B.4) more tax breaks for the middle class as the middle class drives the economy.
B.5) keep the taxes on millionaires as they are now (millionaires are usually people who are in the process of creating a successful business, and thus should be rewarded rather than punished.)

[Note on B.3-5: there's a huge difference between millionaires and billionaires. I'm not concerned with fairness, just practicality. When wealth pools at the top in the pockets of billionaires and doesn't get reinvested in the economy by spending the entire economy becomes unstable. The fact that billionaires invest their money actually makes things worse. Economies driven by speculation are especially susceptible to things like the sub-prime mortgage crises. Capitalism works best on the supply and demand model where consumers buy concrete products, i.e. when the money is in the hands of the middle class.]

B.6) reduce taxes on people like engineers and scientists.

C) Eliminating government sponsored corporatism.

The relation between government and business should be purely business: the government pays directly for products and services rendered. No patronizing companies through subsidies. E.g. certainly no subsidies should go to oil companies in the hopes that it will decrease the price of oil.

Subsidies to consumers are alright. E.g., we should not have given subsidies to Solyndra just because we liked what they were doing, but it's okay to give subsidies to individual citizens to help them by solar panels. Stimulate demand and the supply side will follow. Allow the consumer to pick the company. It might also be acceptable to give companies subsidies as long as it's to buy specific things, e.g. if a small business wants to buy solar panels the government could foot the bill, as long as the government is helping them pay for a concrete service.

This also means that the government bailout of the banks should have actually been a forced buy-out wherein the government would have majority control of the stocks, with all that entails. Businesses should not be rewarded for failure. Either the banks should have been forced to buy back the stocks, or the government should have broken them down and sell them off piece by piece. Whatever profit the government made from the deal should be counteracted by a tax reduction for the middle class. The extra spending money would help stimulate the economy.

On the flip side, this also demands much stricter anti-trust/collusion/price-fixing laws. For example, GE has an unacceptable monopoly on energy. Often it is the only electric company in an area. One need look no further for proof that that the democrats are as bad as the republicans. MSNBC is owned by GE, which is why you don't hear the democrats complaining about its monopolies. Texas had recently taken steps to promote competition in its energy market, and it has been met with some success already.

D) cut down significantly on our military budget by

D.1) getting rid of all the unnecessary bases across the world. There's no reason for us to have so many bases in Germany, WWII and the Cold War are both over. There are also a shit-ton of officer 'bases' that are essentially just 5 star resorts for Generals and Admirals.
D.2) Cutting down the actual size of our military and focusing on quality rather than quantity. All of our servicemen should be special forces level. A large-standing army doesn't help us fight the kind of battles we've been facing. While we were losing the war in Vietnam by instituting a draft and sending over hundreds of thousands of troops, just a couple men in the SAS were winning several wars in Southeast Asia through clandestine guerrilla warfare. We need to be more like the SAS.
D.3) while at the same time increasing our military's investment in research and development. Scientific inquiry is the future and the military has been the starting point of every major technological innovation of the past century.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

In regards to the whole tyranny argument...

And yes guns are effective against government tyranny, but how much would you bet that the "uprising" wouldn't just lead to anarchy instead? and is that not more or less the same thing?
People need to learn to talk more to solve problems and also listen more.

First of all, I'm not really arguing that gun control will necessarily lead to tyranny. However, I would like say a couple things about it the relation between the two.

I'll start off by saying that tyranny and anarchy are two completely different things. All revolutions lead to anarchy for a short period of time but then order is reestablished. Tyranny tends to perpetuate itself and get worse and worse if the people don't act.

Secondly, the whole "people need to learn to talk more..." argument is hopelessly quixotic. Talking is only good for establishing a compromise, and a compromise can only be reached when people actually have common goals and both sides are willing to make sacrifices. Rationality has nothing to do with peace or 'good' or 'evil'.

In other words, I'm a Humean. I think that we can use rationality to work out how to best accomplish our goals, but that rationality is useless for establishing those goals in the first place. (I say Humean because this view of agency is usually attributed to David Hume, who argued that "reason is a slave to the passions".) Our actions are ultimately driven by our desires, although reason helps along the way.

Being rational just means that you are logically consistent about your beliefs/desires, i.e. you don't contradict yourself. It doesn't mean that you have to be committed to peace and love or any other specific position. It's a matter of syntax, not semantics. Thus someone can have perfectly 'evil' goals and also be perfectly rational as long as the pursue those goals without contradicting themselves.

There's no point in trying to talk it out with someone whose goals are incompatible with your own. The most you can hope to do is appeal to their emotions so that they are affected more by their sympathy or some other such desire such that this desire eclipses the desire that is the source of your disagreement. In other words, you're probably way better off trying to get the person to put him/herself in your shoes and feel what you feel than arguing semantics about the objective meaning of the terms 'right' and 'wrong'. But that is an emotional appeal, not rational discourse.

I'm not saying ban all guns, but how many times have any uprising solved the "problems" without having the army on your side?

Well, the idea is that the people with the guns form an army. However, I will grant you that almost any revolution is always supported in part by people who defect from the corrupt government's army to join the rebels.

However... what should really have you worried is that WE ALREADY HAVE THINGS LIKE THIS:

This should have everyone frightened. The thing that makes tyranny conspiracies sound so crazy is that the soldiers would never go along with it. Robots, however, can be programmed. What's even worse is that private companies can buy and build as many as they want.

You don't have to just be worried about the government, you should really be worried about mega-conglomerates. I frankly think that if there's going to be any sort of tyranny, it won't be from the government, it'll be more like the scenarios in Deus Ex or Syndicate... or basically half the techno-punk scenarios in movies and video games.

(Although I wouldn't worry about things like Skynet or I Robot. AI is pretty much total fantasy at this point. Even as the hardware for computers progresses their software is still limited by programming constraints. Don't get me wrong, we'll eventually be able to program them to do cool things like physically simulate a complete model of the cell, which will lead to major breakthroughs in biology. They just won't be able to think for themselves any time soon. And that's a good thing.)

That concludes my series of rants. Yes, I was bored and I took this as an opportunity to put some of my ideas on paper, and that it was otherwise probably a waste of time.

[Epic snip]

This. This is well documented, logical, and intelligent. I applaud you, good sir.

Thank you, kind sir!

 

[NAdducci]

I normally only post to criticize Bob's work now and then.
I usually agree with his points but he comes to a weak, biased summation sometimes that I just have to try to point out because so many people (myself included) enjoy and follow his breakdown of art and find it enlightening.

And I must say I loved this one. Agree %99 on every point and conclusion, I just had a small difference with art being "sacred". It is powerful and important yes, but it's our freedom that's "sacred" not just artistic freedom.

But great breakdown of this whole thing Bob. Tasteful, spot on, and thorough. Nice work. =)

 

[Jegsimmons]

this is the best vid bob has put out in a long time...and he consistently puts out good vids.

bravo bob.

 

[Jegsimmons]

Does any one know what could have prevented the Denver incident? GUN CONTROL!!

Nope.ave That makes too much sense

Nope, it doesn't make any sense. thats the problem. Mexico has gun control, and 40% of the nation was taken over by cartels. Chicago has gun control and they lead first world cities in murder rates.

Why? because gun control is not crime control. it makes as much sense as banning artwork because it doesnt solve a problem that already happened. Norway has gun control and look what ONE mad man did.
you cant 100% prevent it just by 'banning guns' or 'banning assault clips' (especially since a clip=/= a magazine and the 100 round mag Holmes used Jammed like huge clips do and thats why no one who understands guns uses them which may haved a few peoples lives but im not going to speculate on that). and when you look at crime reports, more than 60% of all homocides (baring police action or self defense) are males 15-30 useing handguns that are not acquired legally and almost every victim and suspect were already convicted or suspected felons. and even more unfortunate is the majority are blacks.

So we dont have a problem with guns...we have a problem with gangs and gang culture. thats the problem. these kids and young people think its cool for whatever reason to join a gang and shoot people for drug money and handle illegal weapons.

While legal gun owners use guns 2.5 million times a year to stop a crime or use in self defense, with another 2 million cases suspected of going unreported. the vast majority dont involve firing a shot. and i further this point by pointing out that legally owned automatic weapons have killed only 4 people since 1937. and three of those happened AFTER the brady law and clinton gun ban and one of those 3 was a cop.

While im not calling guns artwork (though ive seen some pretty stylish custom made guns), they suffer the same as art for people blaming them with out being educated or even having experience with them when it doesnt matter in alot of cases because some crazies shoot up a place. Ignoring the biggest mass murder outside of 9/11 was caused by a car bomb in oklahoma.

banning guns or media forms wont solve any problem and will only create new ones, what we should be doing is find the REAL ways on how to prevent gang crimes and how to detect mentally unstable mad men.

 

[XDravond]

*snip*

Whilst I on a theological standpoint can agree with you I on some points must say that I do not believe guns will ever be the best solution possible, it is however one of the "more possible" ways.
But what has made me go from "I wouldn't mind having a gun" to "why bother" is two things.
1. If "I" get a gun everyone would want one to defend themselves from "me" and then get a bigger gun, a silly serious example of this is the Cold War.
2. I'm going to die at some point, so is everyone else life is to short to prepare for all "if"s. Stay positive and keep your hope and you will live, maybe even have fun whilst doing that.

Shit will happen whatever we do guns will not fix everything and I'm ready to pick one up if I get a good enough reason but for now I don't know what that would be.

I read through your post (takes some time.. ) and still I don't see the need to having guns anything else than shooting animals. And you don't do that with small fire arms machine guns or assault rifles, hunting rifles and MAYBE sniper rifles... So I agree on the point "don't ban guns entirely but restrict what people can get them and how". Personal (civilian)defense shouldn't be needed that's what police is for, sure it's not the perfect solution either(they take to much time and don't solve all crime to name a few of their problems...)

But I really disagree on the point of your following solutions

//
Think of it this way, which is a better way to prevent terrorism? Trying to close down the borders and deport all the Muslims in the hopes that you'll keep all Islamic extremists out of the country, or putting more money into surveillance and covert operations? Putting aside the fact that the former is extremely unjust, it would be almost impossible to carry out.

Surveillance and covert operations is not the solution neither is deporting Muslims (like there's no "native" terrorists...)-.

The solution is learn how you can live together without killing each other... I can live with disagreeing with you for example I don't need to kill you for it and I hope you don't need to kill me either for disagreeing with you, so why not try that on a larger scale.... Yea I know "religious beliefs" and people with (other )psychological problems is a bit harder to convince but should be possible without guns... That would remove the need for all guns for everyone (except perhaps hunting ones..)

(Sorry for not as well built arguments but I'm kinda bored and don't believe in guns for defense is a good idea, they are fun using to shoot paper targets though. But I will probably not change my mind no matter what you say, just like you probably won't either.)
Thank you for reading and your interesting reasoning, I really like good debates even though I'm not so great in written ones...

"Live long and prosper"

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

(Sorry for not as well built arguments but I'm kinda bored and don't believe in guns for defense is a good idea, they are fun using to shoot paper targets though. But I will probably not change my mind no matter what you say, just like you probably won't either.)
Thank you for reading and your interesting reasoning, I really like good debates even though I'm not so great in written ones...

Meh. I'm not necessarily trying to change your mind, I'm really just killing time. I do enjoy a good debate. In fact, I'm studying to be a professional philosopher, so it's actually good practice for me. At the very least it provides me an opportunity to get my thoughts on paper. I'd actually say that a typed debate like this is much better as it forces you to put thought into your responses and not just fall into a shouting match.

That being said, I'm going to respond with another massive wall of text in the following post. You don't have to respond if you grow weary of the argument. I'll understand.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

*snip*

Whilst I on a theological standpoint can agree with you I on some points must say that I do not believe guns will ever be the best solution possible, it is however one of the "more possible" ways.

I never said guns were the best solution to anything. I'm not sure where you're getting that idea. I'll quote myself again:

Gun control isn't the perfect solution to gun related murders, but why does guns have to be?
If no one has a gun, including the gangs etc, who (in the whole world) would kill you with a gun?

I never said that gun ownership is a solution to these problems. The argument that if more people owned guns stuff like the Colorado shooting wouldn't happen is a common (and very stupid) argument made by gun-control opponents, but it is not one that I have made or intend to make.

But what has made me go from "I wouldn't mind having a gun" to "why bother" is two things.
1. If "I" get a gun everyone would want one to defend themselves from "me" and then get a bigger gun, a silly serious example of this is the Cold War.
2. I'm going to die at some point, so is everyone else life is to short to prepare for all "if"s. Stay positive and keep your hope and you will live, maybe even have fun whilst doing that.

Shit will happen whatever we do guns will not fix everything and I'm ready to pick one up if I get a good enough reason but for now I don't know what that would be.

There are two discussions here. One is about whether you should personally own a gun, the other is about whether you have a right to own a gun. You seem to be focused on the former. That's fine, it's your business. But it doesn't really have any bearing on the second question, i.e., whether people have a right to have guns.

That being said, the reasons you listed seem a bit out there.

As far as #1 goes... My friends have guns and I'm not focused on defending myself from them. People also know that I have guns, but as of yet they haven't come and tried to kill me before I kill them. Why? Because I haven't threatened them. People are only going to be afraid of you if you go out waving your guns around in public or if you threaten them. As I said before, if you think the gun violence in America is crazy paranoid middle class white people shooting each other then you've lost touch with reality.

Now, as far as #2 goes, this argument would probably be effective against the doomsday prepper people who spend half of their lives preparing for the end of days. But buying a gun for home defense and taking it out to the range a couple times will hardly interfere with your life. In fact, you might find shooting to be fun. It's about the same as making some emergency plans in case of a natural disaster.

Either something bad will happen to you, or it won't. It's just a matter of statistics. Hope is completely and totally irrelevant. All it does is make you comfortable, it certainly isn't going to save you in the event of a disaster. If anything, it makes you less prepared. I agree that you shouldn't become obsessed with survivalism, but most people who own guns in America aren't.

I'm not saying that you should own guns. If you don't want to have guns, that's your business. I'm just pointing out that the reasons you listed here aren't terribly convincing. Most people who choose not to own guns do it because they are afraid of them, or because they aren't willing to kill another human being. That's the #1 reason why you shouldn't own a gun: you shouldn't own it unless you're willing to use it when the chips are down.

As far as it being more dangerous to own a gun... well... I think Samuel Clements (aka Mark Twain) said it best: "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics." The statistics that say this sort of thing count suicide and violent criminals and are thus rather meaningless. However, that is not to say that guns aren't dangerous. Obviously they are. But if you treat them with respect and take the necessary precautions you'll be fine.

I read through your post (takes some time.. ) and still I don't see the need to having guns anything else than shooting animals. And you don't do that with small fire arms machine guns or assault rifles, hunting rifles and MAYBE sniper rifles... So I agree on the point "don't ban guns entirely but restrict what people can get them and how". Personal (civilian)defense shouldn't be needed that's what police is for, sure it's not the perfect solution either(they take to much time and don't solve all crime to name a few of their problems...)

Well, if someone is in your house it's already too late for the police. Sure, there are accidents where idiots decide to use a 44 magnum for home defense and the bullet goes through the wall and shoots the neighbors dog. If your concern is home defense you should have a shotgun. It comes down to a trade-off: are you really so worried about rare accidents and the like that you're willing to take people's ability to defend themselves and their families if their home is invaded?

[Note: I am NOT in favor of everyone carrying guns in public. That should require a very special license that very few people should be able to get. I am talking about home defense.]

There are two approaches to the role of the government and to ethics in general: utilitarianism and deontology. Utilitarianism is concerned with promoting the greatest good no matter what. If vivisecting 1,000 five-year-old children cures all the world's disease then go for it! Deontology goes in the opposite direction. If lying is prohibited then it is always prohibited no matter what; if the Gestapo comes to your door and asks you if your neighbors are hiding Jews you have to tell them the truth.

The best approach is a middle way between the two extremes. However, when taking this middle way, it is far better to err on the deontological side of things, or else you'll find all of your liberties quickly eroding.

So you see, I'm not saying that everyone having guns promotes the greatest good. I'm saying that people need to have the ability to defend themselves. If you're not allowed the means to defend yourself and are instead forced to be reliant upon the government for self-defense, then why should you be allowed any liberties at all? What could be more basic than self-defense?

Certainly if your self-defense falls to the government then there should also be no problem with the government telling you what you can put inside your body. They already do (see: war on drugs). What then? Should the government tell you what you can and can't eat? Well they try and do that too (see Mayor Bloomberg's outlawing of 12+ oz sodas in New York as well as his recent campaign to try to force mothers to breastfeed). It's just getting ridiculous.

What pisses me off about the gun control thing is that it is the ultimate form of the nanny state. It means that we can't even be trusted to defend ourselves. Frankly, I don't get freaked out when bad things happen and run to the government for help. Sure, if the government took away all freedom, people wouldn't be able to commit crimes. But that's a price I'm not willing to pay.

[Note: I'm not a tea partier. I think the republicans are corporate whores who would sell America out in a heartbeat. But I don't like big government that tells people what to do. I'm all for socialized health care as long as people have a choice in the matter. I'd also like to destroy the whole gay marriage debate by simply removing the term 'marriage' from all of the government forms. Gay and straight couples should just apply for the "HSW457 tax consolidation form" that grants them the same rights. Why? Because that's all the government should do: give couples tax breaks. Let someone else worry about whether it should be called marriage.]

But I really disagree on the point of your following solutions

//
Think of it this way, which is a better way to prevent terrorism? Trying to close down the borders and deport all the Muslims in the hopes that you'll keep all Islamic extremists out of the country, or putting more money into surveillance and covert operations? Putting aside the fact that the former is extremely unjust, it would be almost impossible to carry out.

Surveillance and covert operations is not the solution neither is deporting Muslims (like there's no "native" terrorists...)-.

The solution is learn how you can live together without killing each other... I can live with disagreeing with you for example I don't need to kill you for it and I hope you don't need to kill me either for disagreeing with you, so why not try that on a larger scale.... Yea I know "religious beliefs" and people with (other )psychological problems is a bit harder to convince but should be possible without guns... That would remove the need for all guns for everyone (except perhaps hunting ones..)

That was just an analogy about the practicality of trying to ban guns completely.

However, as I said elsewhere, sometimes people just have competing interests that don't allow for compromise. We don't have any common interests with Islamic extremists. The only way for us to get them to stop fighting us would be for them to give up their beliefs entirely.

Here's something that you really won't like hearing...

Sometimes there is no peaceful solution.

Imagine two men traversing a great desert from two different directions. Half-way through the desert they both realize that they didn't pack nearly enough water. There is no way they can turn back. They both see a tiny oasis with a pool of water and they head towards it. They both reach it at the same time. At first they are happy but then they look down at the pool and realize that there is only enough water there for one person to make the trip. If they try to split the water neither of them will make it. What do they do?

In an idealistic world the most they could do is draw straws. But even if they draw straws, one man is still leaving the other to die of thirst: a 'peaceful' solution only in name.

In the real world both men draw their swords and only one leaves with the water.

Frankly, I don't have a problem with that. Death is death. A violent death isn't really any worse than dying of cancer, in fact it's probably a lot quicker. Sure, we should try to have compassion for one another, but ultimately human beings are animals, and sometimes life doesn't offer us a peaceful solution.

Organized warfare evolved almost immediately after agriculture, and, like it or not, it has been a vital part of our sociological evolution. Sure, in the modern era we would say that all forms of conquest are bad. But there would have been no empires without conquering armies. Warfare is what drives tiny communities to band together into larger communities for protection, which in turn is what allows for cities and for people to specialize in things other than food production like philosophy and mathematics. Without war we would likely still be stuck in hunter-gatherer mode.

Sure, nowadays there are plenty of resources to go around, but I wouldn't take that for granted. We are very quickly overpopulating the planet, and our resources are finite. When people start starving I sincerely doubt the UN will get everyone to share their resources and each let a certain proportion of their populations starve. The expanding circle of need will quickly contract. Why would countries like India agree to let their populations starve when they could try to conquer some poorly defended place like Africa that can give them the capacity to feed their country? Suddenly the pursuit of equality and moral condemnations against violence will have a lot less force than they used to.

Here's hoping that we don't have WWIII over food. But seeing as how no one (aside from China) is doing anything about overpopulation it's looking more and more likely. Although thankfully I don't think it will involve America and Russia in direct conflict. If it does happen I predict that the first world will be swept up in an internal conflict over how to handle all of the refugees while the third world battles it out for land. The one good thing is that since the fighting would be for land and resources no one will want to use nukes.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

Does any one know what could have prevented the Denver incident? GUN CONTROL!!

Nope.ave That makes too much sense

Nope, it doesn't make any sense. thats the problem. Mexico has gun control, and 40% of the nation was taken over by cartels. Chicago has gun control and they lead first world cities in murder rates.

Why? because gun control is not crime control. it makes as much sense as banning artwork because it doesnt solve a problem that already happened. Norway has gun control and look what ONE mad man did.
you cant 100% prevent it just by 'banning guns' or 'banning assault clips' (especially since a clip=/= a magazine and the 100 round mag Holmes used Jammed like huge clips do and thats why no one who understands guns uses them which may haved a few peoples lives but im not going to speculate on that). and when you look at crime reports, more than 60% of all homocides (baring police action or self defense) are males 15-30 useing handguns that are not acquired legally and almost every victim and suspect were already convicted or suspected felons. and even more unfortunate is the majority are blacks.

So we dont have a problem with guns...we have a problem with gangs and gang culture. thats the problem. these kids and young people think its cool for whatever reason to join a gang and shoot people for drug money and handle illegal weapons.

While legal gun owners use guns 2.5 million times a year to stop a crime or use in self defense, with another 2 million cases suspected of going unreported. the vast majority dont involve firing a shot. and i further this point by pointing out that legally owned automatic weapons have killed only 4 people since 1937. and three of those happened AFTER the brady law and clinton gun ban and one of those 3 was a cop.

While im not calling guns artwork (though ive seen some pretty stylish custom made guns), they suffer the same as art for people blaming them with out being educated or even having experience with them when it doesnt matter in alot of cases because some crazies shoot up a place. Ignoring the biggest mass murder outside of 9/11 was caused by a car bomb in oklahoma.

banning guns or media forms wont solve any problem and will only create new ones, what we should be doing is find the REAL ways on how to prevent gang crimes and how to detect mentally unstable mad men.

This. ^^^

It's pathetic that we only get upset about the extremely rare shooting sprees that affect the middle class while young black and Latino men are dying in the streets every day due to gang violence. There are 300 million people in America, you aren't going to stop the random psychos. The only way to stop the REAL gun violence epidemic in America is to fix the broken system that makes these young men think that gang-banging is the only way out of poverty.

But NOOOOOO that problem is too hard. WAAAAAAHHHHHH! It would require a tax increase and an overhauling of the education and welfare systems. Obviously the Republicans have managed to convince everyone that taxes and government are bad, so we're just going to try to pass worthless legislation that won't change anything but will make all our bleeding heart supporters feel warm and fuzzy inside.

It's just like gay marriage, immigration, birth control, abortion and every other moronic hot-button issue. Political organizations have realized that the real problems America faces are too complicated and hard to solve to hold the voter's attention so they focused on these idiotic issues to whip up their bases.

The NRA is telling people that the Obama campaign has a massive gun control conspiracy because they know that stirring up controversy is the best way to get people to send them money. The NAACP realized the exact same thing, which is why they spend all of their energy on trying to lynch George Zimmerman and banning the confederate flag. They support an affirmative action program that is only capable of helping black people who are already middle class, and that sends unprepared students with terrible educational background to places like Berkeley, where they almost always fail out.

All these organizations seem to realize that trying to solve the broken public education system would require sustained effort for a long time without seeing any immediate positive results, and that their supporters don't have the attention span or patience for that sort of thing. So they take the easy way out. There doesn't seem to be anyone who is willing to deal with the problem.

This country is doomed by its own stupidity and apathy.

 

[Beautiful End]

It's easy. Fiction is the perfect scapegoat for psychopaths. Blaming some realistic (A song, a person, etc.) for someone's actions has a probability of being proven wrong. For example, if someone claims he murdered 50 people because his friend told him "he was a wuss", then they can interview said friend and prove it wrong. Of course, it's the same idea as when someone blames it on fiction: You can't prove it without a shadow of a doubt, but people tend to be more biased like that towards fiction. So when someone says something like "videogames made me crazy", people just simply nod and agree. Does that make sense?

But yeah, I'm really tired of people using fiction/videogames/TV/movies/comics/whatever as a scapegoat. That's why all of that gets a bad rep. But like Bob said, there's no possible way to prevent tragedies from happening. If the guy wouldn't have blamed Batman, he would have blamed Law and Order. Or his dad. Or a song. If someone would have noticed he was a psychopath, he might have still would have found a way to kill someone eventually. Maybe he would have stole his neighbor's gun. Maybe he would have gone to the mall on Halloween and kill people dressed as Batman. I don't know! It sounds horrible, yes, but the truth is you can't prevent stuff like that. Even if you banned everything in the world, people will still act like that piece of scum did. Maybe they'll go crazy because of the extreme censorship.

But you know what's worse? People who believe all that crap. But I'm going in circles now...

... so thank Haruhi we at least have that now.

I c wat u did dur. Made me giggle.

 

[notimeforlulz]

Pretty rational and reasonable take. But man that is depressing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gppbrYIcR80

Nice momma cat there.

 

[notimeforlulz]

As a schizophrenic, I feel I have to make this point, because the media is insistent on being fucktards about it.

The Colorado killer has not been officially diagnosed with anything. The media is already stamping labels on him like "schizoid" and "psychopath," using them as if they were catchall phrases for people who do bad things and completely ignoring not only the very specific context in which these terms are used in psychology, but how badly this misrepresents the vast majority of us who have mental disorders.
I'm Schizophrenic. Yes, I have delusions of persecution. Yes, I experience auditory and sometimes visual hallucinations. Yes, I am at times impulsive and irrationally over-emotional. But I have never in my life had any inclination to do something violent, nor do I have any desire to ever do so because I consider the use of violence to be abhorrent and would rather find any other means to resolve conflicts first.
We are not, as a rule, dangerous to society because we have identifiable symptoms of mental illness. Anyone - and I mean ANYONE - can go off the deep end if external circumstances effect them in the wrong ways and I am sick and tired of every killer being automatically labeled as "schizo" or "psychopathic" by a media which refuses to get its facts straight in favor of sensationalizing their stories.
And I'm disappointed in you, Bob, for using the term "psychopath" in the same way, no matter how much I think you have a point on every other issue you addressed in this video.
Please stop making people like me out to be naturally born bad guys.

Sup, schizophrenic too over here. Two years in recovery from first psychotic break. I'm not sure how long you've been recovering or what stage you're at. But keep your faith in the medication and the doctors. Eventually the meds and the doctors' help will work. For me that took 3 months though. So just have some faith that once you start recovering, you're only going to get better.

Also as to the way the media represents schizophrenics and that. Don't let it get to you, there are plenty of evil people out there who don't have psychosis; it's just that putting "Mentally Well Person Murders Person" doesn't quite make a good headline. So it can feel like mental illness gets beaten on a bit.

So hoping your recovery goes well.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Sup, schizophrenic too over here. Two years in recovery from first psychotic break. I'm not sure how long you've been recovering or what stage you're at. But keep your faith in the medication and the doctors. Eventually the meds and the doctors' help will work. For me that took 3 months though. So just have some faith that once you start recovering, you're only going to get better.

Also as to the way the media represents schizophrenics and that. Don't let it get to you, there are plenty of evil people out there who don't have psychosis; it's just that putting "Mentally Well Person Murders Person" doesn't quite make a good headline. So it can feel like mental illness gets beaten on a bit.

So hoping your recovery goes well.

My break was years ago, back in my early college days.

But I make a big deal about it with the media doing this because the misconceptions it perpetuates make people act irrationally towards people like us. Furthermore, because of the stigma against mental disorders and similar problems, a lot of people who should seek help never do because they don't want to be seen as crazy. And in a society that places so many stresses on people, we need to be willing to get help when we need it.

 

[XDravond]

I'm gonna give it a try

*snip*

Whilst I on a theological standpoint can agree with you I on some points must say that I do not believe guns will ever be the best solution possible, it is however one of the "more possible" ways.

I never said guns were the best solution to anything. I'm not sure where you're getting that idea. I'll quote myself again:

Gun control isn't the perfect solution to gun related murders, but why does guns have to be?
If no one has a gun, including the gangs etc, who (in the whole world) would kill you with a gun?

I never said that gun ownership is a solution to these problems. The argument that if more people owned guns stuff like the Colorado shooting wouldn't happen is a common (and very stupid) argument made by gun-control opponents, but it is not one that I have made or intend to make.

But what has made me go from "I wouldn't mind having a gun" to "why bother" is two things.
1. If "I" get a gun everyone would want one to defend themselves from "me" and then get a bigger gun, a silly serious example of this is the Cold War.
2. I'm going to die at some point, so is everyone else life is to short to prepare for all "if"s. Stay positive and keep your hope and you will live, maybe even have fun whilst doing that.

Shit will happen whatever we do guns will not fix everything and I'm ready to pick one up if I get a good enough reason but for now I don't know what that would be.

There are two discussions here. One is about whether you should personally own a gun, the other is about whether you have a right to own a gun. You seem to be focused on the former. That's fine, it's your business. But it doesn't really have any bearing on the second question, i.e., whether people have a right to have guns.

That being said, the reasons you listed seem a bit out there.

As far as #1 goes... My friends have guns and I'm not focused on defending myself from them. People also know that I have guns, but as of yet they haven't come and tried to kill me before I kill them. Why? Because I haven't threatened them. People are only going to be afraid of you if you go out waving your guns around in public or if you threaten them. As I said before, if you think the gun violence in America is crazy paranoid middle class white people shooting each other then you've lost touch with reality.

Now, as far as #2 goes, this argument would probably be effective against the doomsday prepper people who spend half of their lives preparing for the end of days. But buying a gun for home defense and taking it out to the range a couple times will hardly interfere with your life. In fact, you might find shooting to be fun. It's about the same as making some emergency plans in case of a natural disaster.

Either something bad will happen to you, or it won't. It's just a matter of statistics. Hope is completely and totally irrelevant. All it does is make you comfortable, it certainly isn't going to save you in the event of a disaster. If anything, it makes you less prepared. I agree that you shouldn't become obsessed with survivalism, but most people who own guns in America aren't.

I'm not saying that you should own guns. If you don't want to have guns, that's your business. I'm just pointing out that the reasons you listed here aren't terribly convincing. Most people who choose not to own guns do it because they are afraid of them, or because they aren't willing to kill another human being. That's the #1 reason why you shouldn't own a gun: you shouldn't own it unless you're willing to use it when the chips are down.

As far as it being more dangerous to own a gun... well... I think Samuel Clements (aka Mark Twain) said it best: "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics." The statistics that say this sort of thing count suicide and violent criminals and are thus rather meaningless. However, that is not to say that guns aren't dangerous. Obviously they are. But if you treat them with respect and take the necessary precautions you'll be fine.

When I'm talking about "gun->bigger gun" problem is that around here no one expects anyone except the police to be armed and therefore burglars etc extremely rarely carries any kind of gun occasional knives and of course tools but almost never guns.

And for me having a gun I don't think I would spend enough time at a range to let it be worth it money wise since shooting ranges are scarce here. But I know from my time in the army shooting is really fun (a bit to much I think in hindsight...) and I've used assault rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, small guns and some other stuff in the weapon category. Shooting was fun but the "problem" is that it was so fun to learn how to kill witch disturbs me.
And from that time I also know that they let way to non suitable people in there. And that a lot of people who are "stable" (ie could get a gun license) do NOT treat weapons with the right amount of respect.

And of course you should be allowed to defend yourself but the problem is that it's easy to step over the line that makes your defense illegal assault. And having a gun around makes it even easier to just throw a shot against the all of a sudden fleeing criminal and killing said person... and therefore a crime. But if you didn't have the fun but say a stick you would have to run after the person and then you have to think if it's needed and if you really want to waste energy plus that if you do you can even claim you did it whilst "in a fit of rage"(I think it is at least) and even if you accidentally kill the person you might get away with a lower punishment....

And I can not see why it should be a "right" to have guns (I really don't care what someone wrote on a piece of paper 200+years ago...) And I'm free to own a gun but it's really hard to get license and buying one is expensive...
No matter where I am, I am not completely free there are always rules and regulations and therefore my freedom is just an illusive thing. If nothing else you always have moral and ethics that weighs you down, and they are just rules to make you less free so others can be somewhat free at the same time

And sure as hell my arguments are more than just "a bit out there."

I read through your post (takes some time.. ) and still I don't see the need to having guns anything else than shooting animals. And you don't do that with small fire arms machine guns or assault rifles, hunting rifles and MAYBE sniper rifles... So I agree on the point "don't ban guns entirely but restrict what people can get them and how". Personal (civilian)defense shouldn't be needed that's what police is for, sure it's not the perfect solution either(they take to much time and don't solve all crime to name a few of their problems...)

Well, if someone is in your house it's already too late for the police. Sure, there are accidents where idiots decide to use a 44 magnum for home defense and the bullet goes through the wall and shoots the neighbors dog. If your concern is home defense you should have a shotgun. It comes down to a trade-off: are you really so worried about rare accidents and the like that you're willing to take people's ability to defend themselves and their families if their home is invaded?

[Note: I am NOT in favor of everyone carrying guns in public. That should require a very special license that very few people should be able to get. I am talking about home defense.]

There are two approaches to the role of the government and to ethics in general: utilitarianism and deontology. Utilitarianism is concerned with promoting the greatest good no matter what. If vivisecting 1,000 five-year-old children cures all the world's disease then go for it! Deontology goes in the opposite direction. If lying is prohibited then it is always prohibited no matter what; if the Gestapo comes to your door and asks you if your neighbors are hiding Jews you have to tell them the truth.

The best approach is a middle way between the two extremes. However, when taking this middle way, it is far better to err on the deontological side of things, or else you'll find all of your liberties quickly eroding.

So you see, I'm not saying that everyone having guns promotes the greatest good. I'm saying that people need to have the ability to defend themselves. If you're not allowed the means to defend yourself and are instead forced to be reliant upon the government for self-defense, then why should you be allowed any liberties at all? What could be more basic than self-defense?

Certainly if your self-defense falls to the government then there should also be no problem with the government telling you what you can put inside your body. They already do (see: war on drugs). What then? Should the government tell you what you can and can't eat? Well they try and do that too (see Mayor Bloomberg's outlawing of 12+ oz sodas in New York as well as his recent campaign to try to force mothers to breastfeed). It's just getting ridiculous.

What pisses me off about the gun control thing is that it is the ultimate form of the nanny state. It means that we can't even be trusted to defend ourselves. Frankly, I don't get freaked out when bad things happen and run to the government for help. Sure, if the government took away all freedom, people wouldn't be able to commit crimes. But that's a price I'm not willing to pay.

[Note: I'm not a tea partier. I think the republicans are corporate whores who would sell America out in a heartbeat. But I don't like big government that tells people what to do. I'm all for socialized health care as long as people have a choice in the matter. I'd also like to destroy the whole gay marriage debate by simply removing the term 'marriage' from all of the government forms. Gay and straight couples should just apply for the "HSW457 tax consolidation form" that grants them the same rights. Why? Because that's all the government should do: give couples tax breaks. Let someone else worry about whether it should be called marriage.]

Rare occasions yea that's just what home invasions are... and you are definitely right about stupid decisions about choice of weapon but that also raises a problem someone don't need a .44 Magnum to defend themselves but it could come handy if the attacker are behind a wall/armored/etc ie even less likely situations but should they not be allowed then to have a 120mm tank gun with HEAT ammo etc just in case?...

I agree in the part of self defense but I see that with guns it's way to easy to step over the defense/assault line...

And I only use the following for the discussion I'm not convinced to any side here.
Yes the government should be having some saying in what you put in yourself because 1. government is chosen by the people and therefore what the people want (theologically at least... not really though) and the people don't want to have to suffer through taking care of what's left of you and 2. seeing "you" (not perhaps you but someone) kill self whilst wreaking havoc etc (destroying stuff taking up medical personals time etc) and money and time is something I rather spend on something positive like research on why we exist instead of taking care of and idiot and its problems...
(But I do find the guy banning huge sodas and "force" breastfeeding hilarious since he is not my problem but yea stupid ideas, but why are they needed I would ask instead... (overweight people for sodas and no idea on breastfeeding..))

I do personally not trust anyone when it comes to self defense because they would screw it up not matter how well armed they where... And whilst screwing up maybe kill me accidentally...

Agree on most stuff after the "tea party note" but they already tell you what to do it is for example illegal to kill people... ...

But I really disagree on the point of your following solutions

//
Think of it this way, which is a better way to prevent terrorism? Trying to close down the borders and deport all the Muslims in the hopes that you'll keep all Islamic extremists out of the country, or putting more money into surveillance and covert operations? Putting aside the fact that the former is extremely unjust, it would be almost impossible to carry out.

Surveillance and covert operations is not the solution neither is deporting Muslims (like there's no "native" terrorists...)-.

The solution is learn how you can live together without killing each other... I can live with disagreeing with you for example I don't need to kill you for it and I hope you don't need to kill me either for disagreeing with you, so why not try that on a larger scale.... Yea I know "religious beliefs" and people with (other )psychological problems is a bit harder to convince but should be possible without guns... That would remove the need for all guns for everyone (except perhaps hunting ones..)

That was just an analogy about the practicality of trying to ban guns completely.

However, as I said elsewhere, sometimes people just have competing interests that don't allow for compromise. We don't have any common interests with Islamic extremists. The only way for us to get them to stop fighting us would be for them to give up their beliefs entirely.

Here's something that you really won't like hearing...

Sometimes there is no peaceful solution.

Imagine two men traversing a great desert from two different directions. Half-way through the desert they both realize that they didn't pack nearly enough water. There is no way they can turn back. They both see a tiny oasis with a pool of water and they head towards it. They both reach it at the same time. At first they are happy but then they look down at the pool and realize that there is only enough water there for one person to make the trip. If they try to split the water neither of them will make it. What do they do?

In an idealistic world the most they could do is draw straws. But even if they draw straws, one man is still leaving the other to die of thirst: a 'peaceful' solution only in name.

In the real world both men draw their swords and only one leaves with the water.

Frankly, I don't have a problem with that. Death is death. A violent death isn't really any worse than dying of cancer, in fact it's probably a lot quicker. Sure, we should try to have compassion for one another, but ultimately human beings are animals, and sometimes life doesn't offer us a peaceful solution.

Organized warfare evolved almost immediately after agriculture, and, like it or not, it has been a vital part of our sociological evolution. Sure, in the modern era we would say that all forms of conquest are bad. But there would have been no empires without conquering armies. Warfare is what drives tiny communities to band together into larger communities for protection, which in turn is what allows for cities and for people to specialize in things other than food production like philosophy and mathematics. Without war we would likely still be stuck in hunter-gatherer mode.

Sure, nowadays there are plenty of resources to go around, but I wouldn't take that for granted. We are very quickly overpopulating the planet, and our resources are finite. When people start starving I sincerely doubt the UN will get everyone to share their resources and each let a certain proportion of their populations starve. The expanding circle of need will quickly contract. Why would countries like India agree to let their populations starve when they could try to conquer some poorly defended place like Africa that can give them the capacity to feed their country? Suddenly the pursuit of equality and moral condemnations against violence will have a lot less force than they used to.

Here's hoping that we don't have WWIII over food. But seeing as how no one (aside from China) is doing anything about overpopulation it's looking more and more likely. Although thankfully I don't think it will involve America and Russia in direct conflict. If it does happen I predict that the first world will be swept up in an internal conflict over how to handle all of the refugees while the third world battles it out for land. The one good thing is that since the fighting would be for land and resources no one will want to use nukes.

The problem here is that it's hard to see for many people but everyone has some common interest for example both you and Islamic extremists wants to live in a place that you think is "perfect" (sort of...) what is not in common is what you view as "perfect".. I do personally not care the least if all people in Mauritania wants to run around on burning coals as long as I don't have to... So what I try to push on to people is accepting each other enough to stop bothering each other on what either side is doing/thinking/believing/trusting/fucking/etc as long as they don't try force it on to the other side... Yea I know a paradise where everyone live together in harmony hippie style! But wouldn't that be nice?

And there is always (for sake of argument at least) a peaceful solution. For example your example:
What if they managed to decide together who would live and not, not very likely and so on, but still possible. I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if part one though he was to weak to manage but part two is... or one can not live with killing but "live" with death.. or both decide no one gets it because they don't think it's morally OK to kill... and so on...

And you might be surprised how far some have gotten in their theology (I think it's theology anyway) that they actually manage to go over their basic animal instincts. A bad example is people that walks on burning coals even though their inner "animal" says red coal=fire=hot=ouchie...

What if no one would had started killing each other because we could share, would we then not have "missed" things like say the crusades and dark ages...

And since this is an argument I don't really find the following a good idea (in almost any sense) but it is one:
What if we instead of started fighting over land/food we decided to make 90% of all population have suicide or just the "non contributing" population wouldn't that solve that problem?...
But a more peaceful solution here is quite simple, birth control... How and so on is another matter. (China did manage to slow down the birth rate here, not saying their way was good but still...)

And why use nukes when you could just shut down the 'net or if serious and they just want dead people you have two more really bad things biological and chemical.... And I'm not sure if I wouldn't prefer a nuke in my head than those two...

Finally we do agree on one thing (I think) guns is not something everyone should have, especially in public.
And I think we might be slightly off topic

(I do not agree in everything I written, it's for the sake of arguing)

 

[Panda Mania]

Does any one know what could have prevented the Denver incident? GUN CONTROL!!


PSh, the forums suddenly look a lot more "slick". That's nice

He would have found a way to get guns anyhow. I mean he rigged his apartment to blow. He seems like he knew how to get things.

The Netherlands have some very tight gun laws as well, and they also had a home-grown mass murder shootout last year.
I'm not saying that gun control won't cut down on the total amount of violence happening - in fact I'd say it will - but it won't provide a golden bullet to prevent madmen going off on a rampage.

That said; we are long overdue for a reasoned debate on depiction of violence in entertainment. Sociologic research is slowly nearing a consensus on what is actually happening, but both sides of the accompanying debate are mainly occupied with shouting their opinion as loudly as possible, whilst hoping the other will just go away.

Well said. Those on the side of "violent media does not cause violence" often go as far as to deny that media has any effect on us at all. I think this is wishful thinking. I think it does affect us--but how it does, exactly, I'm not sure. I'd really enjoy a public dialogue on modern media, its role in our culture, its history and its impact on the average individual...

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

When I'm talking about "gun->bigger gun" problem is that around here no one expects anyone except the police to be armed and therefore burglars etc extremely rarely carries any kind of gun occasional knives and of course tools but almost never guns.

To be honest, the criminals in your country probably don't use guns because your country makes it difficult for them to get guns. If you're willing to have the necessary laws and enforcement gun control can be effective. My entire point, however, is that the gigantic criminal subculture of 1,000,000+ gang-bangers in America makes that virtually impossible without having the National Guard roll into all the bad neighborhoods. And no one is going to let that happen because that would actually start looking like Fascism.

But I think you're projecting a bit too much on these criminals. Burglars almost always hit a home when no one is there, if they're good at their jobs they shouldn't even need guns. Home invasions are a different story. The home invasions that do happen in America don't happen with assault rifles just because the homeowners might have a handgun. Your arms race analogy is pretty much bunk... except when it comes to gang warfare. The gangs do have arms races... but they're all with illegal guns, and it doesn't have anything to do with the average citizens owning handguns. They're far more concerned with shooting each other.

This all goes back to my main point, which you have as of yet failed to address: are you willing to have an overpowered police state in order to get guns off of the street? You seem pretty willing to give away your freedoms, I'm curious as to where you draw the line.

And for me having a gun I don't think I would spend enough time at a range to let it be worth it money wise...

Meh. Like I said, it's a personal decision.

Shooting was fun but the "problem" is that it was so fun to learn how to kill witch disturbs me.
And from that time I also know that they let way to non suitable people in there. And that a lot of people who are "stable" (ie could get a gun license) do NOT treat weapons with the right amount of respect.

Which is why I'm all in favor of thorough background checks and monitoring systems. (Also, I'd say there's a big difference between learning to shoot and learning to kill. There's a pretty common and well documented psychological phenomenon of deliberate inaccuracy when soldiers actually start shooting at enemy combatants, which is why the military uses desensitization as part of their training in addition to marksmanship.)

And of course you should be allowed to defend yourself but the problem is that it's easy to step over the line that makes your defense illegal assault. And having a gun around makes it even easier to just throw a shot against the all of a sudden fleeing criminal and killing said person... and therefore a crime. But if you didn't have the fun but say a stick you would have to run after the person and then you have to think if it's needed and if you really want to waste energy plus that if you do you can even claim you did it whilst "in a fit of rage"(I think it is at least) and even if you accidentally kill the person you might get away with a lower punishment....

Our laws are actually fairly well developed to deal with those sorts of things. We just had a guy be sentenced to prison for 7 years because he shot at someone while they were running away in his back yard. Sure, that might be a problem for an individual, but it isn't a problem for the law.

And I can not see why it should be a "right" to have guns (I really don't care what someone wrote on a piece of paper 200+years ago...) And I'm free to own a gun but it's really hard to get license and buying one is expensive...

Well, as I said above, saying that someone has the right to defend themselves but that they can't own guns is like saying that a person has freedom of speech but isn't allowed to publish books, hand out pamphlets or post things online. At that point the 'freedom' has effectively ceased to exist.

No matter where I am, I am not completely free there are always rules and regulations and therefore my freedom is just an illusive thing. If nothing else you always have moral and ethics that weighs you down, and they are just rules to make you less free so others can be somewhat free at the same time.

That line of reasoning will allow your freedoms to completely erode over time. You have to draw the line somewhere. What you seem to be advocating is that freedoms should be given up if they have any negative side effects. Well, I hate to break it to you, but pretty much all freedoms have some sort of negative side effect.

If the government needs to intervene to protect your own life because it's too dangerous to allow you to do so on your own, then why shouldn't the government intervene in everything else. You can't speak if you're dead, and thus life is a more basic right than freedom of speech. You can't practice a religion if you're dead, so life is a more basic right than freedom of religion. If we allow for limitations to be placed upon your right to live by not allowing you to defend yourself, then I see no reason why we cannot put limitations on anything you say or do.

Sure, an armed populace will lead to more gun deaths than an unarmed populace. Guns are dangerous. But ideas are more dangerous. This is why countries like Germany are exceedingly keen on censorship; they've seen firsthand what dangerous ideas can do. Even the U.K. had banned Clockwork Orange for about 30 years. Supposedly because it would promote street violence, but if you've actually seen the movie it's pretty clear that they banned it because it hit a little too close to home with its social commentary.

But what's next? Criticizing the government is without a doubt the most dangerous kind of speech. The Oklahoma City bomber killed 168 people in order to protest the government. He was heavily influenced by anti-government propaganda. Perhaps if we protected his fragile mind from such dangerous ideas 168 people would still be alive today. So why don't we outlaw anti-government speech?

I generally hate the American jingoism about how we're the freest country on earth, but the fact of the matter is that it's true. Europe seems to be terrified of scary ideas. Sorry if that sounds condescending. Do I like Neo-Nazis? God no. But I'll defend their right to speak their hate-filled minds. And trust me, they are dangerous and so are their ideas. Just look at the a%$hole who shot up the Sihk temple yesterday.

Rare occasions yea that's just what home invasions are... and you are definitely right about stupid decisions about choice of weapon but that also raises a problem someone don't need a .44 Magnum to defend themselves but it could come handy if the attacker are behind a wall/armored/etc ie even less likely situations but should they not be allowed then to have a 120mm tank gun with HEAT ammo etc just in case?...

What the law needs to do is make it a case of reckless endangerment if you fire a high caliber round through the wall. I'm too lazy to check, but I imagine there's already something like that on the books.

I agree in the part of self defense but I see that with guns it's way to easy to step over the defense/assault line...

And I only use the following for the discussion I'm not convinced to any side here.
Yes the government should be having some saying in what you put in yourself because 1. government is chosen by the people and therefore what the people want (theologically at least... not really though) and the people don't want to have to suffer through taking care of what's left of you and 2. seeing "you" (not perhaps you but someone) kill self whilst wreaking havoc etc (destroying stuff taking up medical personals time etc) and money and time is something I rather spend on something positive like research on why we exist instead of taking care of and idiot and its problems...
(But I do find the guy banning huge sodas and "force" breastfeeding hilarious since he is not my problem but yea stupid ideas, but why are they needed I would ask instead... (overweight people for sodas and no idea on breastfeeding..))

I do personally not trust anyone when it comes to self defense because they would screw it up not matter how well armed they where... And whilst screwing up maybe kill me accidentally...

Well... I think the death penalty is actually an apt analogy for gun control. Does the death penalty prevent crime? Let's imagine that it does. The problem is that for every 1,000 people you put down who deserved it, there's inevitably going to be one or two people who are innocent who get strapped into that chair and killed, helplessly. And for every 1,000 or so violent gun deaths you prevent, there will always be one or two cases where a family is over-run by psychos and raped, tortured and killed without the ability to defend themselves, helplessly. Are these rare scenarios? Of course. But there's something so wrong about these scenarios that many people find the whole thing unacceptable because of it. Frankly, that's why I'm against the death penalty.

Going back to Clockwork Orange... I'm just curious... if you have actually had the pleasure of seeing the movie, I was wondering, how you feel about the kind of preventative treatment that the main character underwent? Obviously it had a lot of negative side effects, but let's imagine society another 70 years from now. Neuroscience has been perfected to the point that we can completely rewire people's personalities. Not so that they feel compelled to do certain things... I'm talking COMPLETELY rewiring them so that they actually desire different things, are happy with the way they are after the change, and don't understand why they acted the way they did before the change. In effect, we can make them different people.

Surely this would be a lot more humane than throwing criminals in prison?

Suppose neuroscience actually disproves free will. Suppose it develops to the point that we can predict exactly what a person would do in any given situation by looking at their brains. Suppose we can spot people who are prone to violence before they've committed a single act of violence, and that we can say with close to 100% accuracy that they would act violently or criminally if confronted with certain scenarios.

If you're concerned about preventing terrible shootings and the like, we could install a cortical mesh on people that would monitor their brains from birth and would be able to recognize violent thoughts and alert the government so the individuals can be 'cured'. This is the best way to reach your utopia where violence ceases to exist. Are you willing to make that sort of trade off?

I'm asking you legitimately. I can't see any sane person agreeing to such a scenario, but I don't want to make assumptions.

snip

The problem here is that it's hard to see for many people but everyone has some common interest for example both you and Islamic extremists wants to live in a place that you think is "perfect" (sort of...) what is not in common is what you view as "perfect"..

Umm... no. Interests are not objective things that people have in spite of their desires. Interests are determined by the desires and psychological makeup of the individual. Saying the Islamic radicals have some hidden common interests that they aren't aware of is tantamount to saying that the radicals are just confused. Sure, if they thought like you then they would have the same interests as you. But they don't, and that is the whole point.

The Islamic radicals interest is converting the world to Islam and destroying non-believers. Their definition of a 'perfect world' is not some slight thing that you can get around in negotiations: it's what drives their position. In order to convince them otherwise you'd have to change their beliefs.

When you say that everyone has a common interest what you're really saying is that there is only one right way of looking at the world and one right interest to have. My entire point is that there is no such objective way of looking at the world.

I do personally not care the least if all people in Mauritania wants to run around on burning coals as long as I don't have to... So what I try to push on to people is accepting each other enough to stop bothering each other on what either side is doing/thinking/believing/trusting/fucking/etc as long as they don't try force it on to the other side... Yea I know a paradise where everyone live together in harmony hippie style! But wouldn't that be nice?

To be honest... I'm more concerned with humanity accomplishing magnificent things than everyone living long peaceful lives. A Utopia where everyone sits around contented seems like a slow languishing death for human civilization. Like it or not, human beings become complacent in times of peace. War, as terrible as it might be, drives us to accomplish things we wouldn't have bothered trying to accomplish during times of peace.

If my society is running low on food or resources, I see no reason not to take from other weaker societies. Why should I watch the people who are close to me die or suffer just to protect the rights of a society that is distant from me? I bear them no ill will, but I take care of my own first. That's just the way life works. If you have infinite resources then great, there's no need for such violence.

There can be no good or evil without choice. You seem to be more than willing to restrict people's ability to act in order to prevent suffering because you hold the prevention of suffering to be of higher importance than human freedom. We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. I want no part of your 'utopia' if it involves converting humanity to a bunch of powerless sheep.

I guess there are some people whose sole meaning in life is to peacefully chew cud, but I don't understand them. As far as I'm concerned, a safe comfortable life where I have no power or freedom is just not worth living. If they want to enslave themselves and eliminate all of their freedoms so that they can be comfortable, they can go do it in their own society, but they better not try to inflict that nonsense on me.

And there is always (for sake of argument at least) a peaceful solution. For example your example:
What if they managed to decide together who would live and not, not very likely and so on, but still possible. I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if part one though he was to weak to manage but part two is... or one can not live with killing but "live" with death.. or both decide no one gets it because they don't think it's morally OK to kill... and so on...

And you might be surprised how far some have gotten in their theology (I think it's theology anyway) that they actually manage to go over their basic animal instincts. A bad example is people that walks on burning coals even though their inner "animal" says red coal=fire=hot=ouchie...

Lol. You're right. If you're willing to die or be enslaved there is always a peaceful solution: allow yourself to die or be enslaved. If your value system requires that people be willing to die rather than be violent then all I can say is that the world itself is heavily weighed against your value system.

You can create whatever values you want, but I'm going to stick to things that won't get me killed. Your peaceful solution is only a solution for someone who has already accepted your value system. But you frankly haven't provided me or anyone who is moderately concerned with their own survival a reason to accept your solution. Why in the hell would I accept my own death on the pure luck of drawing a straw when I can fight to live?

So allow me to rephrase, sometimes there isn't a peaceful solution for people who are actually concerned with their own survival.

What if no one would had started killing each other because we could share, would we then not have "missed" things like say the crusades and dark ages...

1) Sometimes there isn't enough to share. If your argument is actually that there is always enough to go around, then your argument is just factually incorrect.

2) The crusades and dark ages are bad examples because they were also partially driven by religious beliefs.

3) Societies only develop through the concentration of resources and specialization. That means that things have to be unequal to some extent.

4) As I said before, without organized warfare cities would have never formed, and without conquest and slavery there would have never been any great empires. Some people might prefer to live in primitive communal societies in order to avoid violence. Frankly, I'd rather live in the Roman empire where there's running water.

And since this is an argument I don't really find the following a good idea (in almost any sense) but it is one:
What if we instead of started fighting over land/food we decided to make 90% of all population have suicide or just the "non contributing" population wouldn't that solve that problem?...
But a more peaceful solution here is quite simple, birth control... How and so on is another matter. (China did manage to slow down the birth rate here, not saying their way was good but still...)

That still involves a country being willing to sacrifice its own citizens for the sake of other countries.

If your point is that if everyone was altruistic then then everything would be hunky-dory, then so what? It's never going to happen unless you intrusively go in and change human nature itself with biotechnology.

You seem to have missed my entire point: it's perfectly rational to be self-interested and hurt other people for your own gain.

Finally we do agree on one thing (I think) guns is not something everyone should have, especially in public.
And I think we might be slightly off topic

(I do not agree in everything I written, it's for the sake of arguing)

I'll give you that much. Not only that, but as I've said before, I'm totally in favor of having extra background checks and monitoring systems.

 

[XDravond]

I begin with saying sorry for my rambling non structured thoughts, but long at at work...

TL;did read

So thanks to laws and the like that makes it hard to get guns makes the criminals have less guns....... Good to know laws work.

I do not live in a place that is considered to have a overpowered police state (yet..), they are even considered to be sort of weak and punishment a bit low. So why do we have a lower criminal statistic than USA?
(I'm having a guess at better school system and showing of how rich you were considered distasteful for a really long time...) And I'm quite sure that banning all civilian guns will not solve that much but it's perhaps a start.
Thanks to USA we have had more liberties taken away than given thanks to your government, so what is so free about USA?
Feel free to give me a comparison between USA, UK, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and for the sake of it Italy, France, Hungary, Germany etc or any other "modern" country.... And tell me what is so free about USA again?

I have seen "A clockwork orange" a brilliant film very violent and rather unlikely to really happen sure it probably exists some examples but how big is the chances of anything like that happening?... And changing people's mind is sort of immoral in todays society but it's already done, it's called commercials..
Best of all would be to convince all criminals so they understand how "evil" they are, but do that and still have any sense of moral left is sort of impossible as of yet.
And with that I mean "is it right to change peoples mind because we think they are evil?"... Answers is no, but it is quite tempting thing to think about. However I put it like this "do I think it would be OK if someone else rewired my brain to suit their wishes?" and of course that sounds just stupid.

Well, as I said above, saying that someone has the right to defend themselves but that they can't own guns is like saying that a person has freedom of speech but isn't allowed to publish books, hand out pamphlets or post things online. At that point the 'freedom' has effectively ceased to exist.

So explain again why you think just "sane" people should be allowed to own guns but not the "crazy" ones, do they not have the same right... Or do you give your freedom up as fast as you are declared "crazy"? I can't defend myself against a gang wielding knives without a gun but I still will get shot if they are wielding guns so what the F* would make the difference worth it?
And as you said yourself I can gather up stuff and blow the government if I get crazy enough I don't need a gun for that...

And I believe you are missing the point in my "living in peace is a good thing" if you don't agree why don't you go out and start WW3 it will drive mankind forward and pave the road for "accomplishing magnificent things"...

And I know that war has brought us some fantastic things and so on but I think that what mankind is striving for is not to "accomplish magnificent things". It is as far as I believe a sort of magnificent thing to do, understanding, understanding the world and humans place in it.
And I wonder how we understand the world better by just making small firearms available to civilians, start making black-hole devices instead...

There has been a few people that has thought that perhaps "I" am not the most important thing in the universe or been close to something like that, for example one or two Dalai Lama...
And there has been people that has been called heroes because they have given their lives for "the greater good" but you think they shouldn't?

After reading your comment here one thing is clear, you see egoism like something good that mankind should keep on striving for I do not.
(Even though you in previous comment said it's ok to sacrifice a few for the many, it just can not be you or your close ones)

I could however agree on something in between since I like shooting, ONE gun/household(or perhaps person) but no fully automatic, assault rifles etc, more like handguns or hunting rifles etc. With rare exceptions to own more and of course real harsh background checks and close monitoring if any crime or the like remove permit at once.....

So two thing I would like to read from you:
1. Is being egoistical something good or something we should strive after? Yes/No and perhaps reason.
2. Explain the difference when it comes to freedom between US and minimum two countries that is considered to be "modern" or perhaps "western" say UK and Norway.

Thank you for your rather interesting views and willing to discuss with someone who doesn't fact check or give good examples

the following quote is perhaps more on original topic
"The amount of drowning accidents show a coherency whit the sales of ice cream.
So if we ban ice cream drowning accidents should decrease.."

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

I begin with saying sorry for my rambling non structured thoughts, but long at at work...

TL;did read

So thanks to laws and the like that makes it hard to get guns makes the criminals have less guns....... Good to know laws work.

I do not live in a place that is considered to have a overpowered police state (yet..), they are even considered to be sort of weak and punishment a bit low. So why do we have a lower criminal statistic than USA?
(I'm having a guess at better school system and showing of how rich you were considered distasteful for a really long time...) And I'm quite sure that banning all civilian guns will not solve that much but it's perhaps a start.

Dude, we have over a million gang-bangers. I've said this repeatedly. And no, I'm not overstating it. There are over a million gang-bangers in the U.S. If you had a million gang bangers then you'd have the same problems as us.

As to why we have a million gang bangers, yes it's largely due to our shitty education system as well as the illegal drug trade (which gives them something to sell). Basically, these people grow up in bad neighborhoods with crappy education and they think the only way out is to sell drugs. Then they get guns and shoot each other over turf to sell drugs on.

I'm more than willing to pay extra taxes, reform the education system, and to vote to legalize marijuana, but unfortunately none of my countrymen are so there isn't much I can do about it.

Thanks to USA we have had more liberties taken away than given thanks to your government, so what is so free about USA?

Whaaaa? How is that? Do you live in Iraq or Afghanistan? Because, while I agree that we don't have much business being there, those places are pretty much undeniably more free now than they were under Sadam or the Taliban.

But even if we have affected your country's freedom negatively, that doesn't make our country less free. It would make us dicks, make no mistake, but it doesn't really affect our level of freedom.

Feel free to give me a comparison between USA, UK, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and for the sake of it Italy, France, Hungary, Germany etc or any other "modern" country.... And tell me what is so free about USA again?

Easy, we have way less censorship and more freedom of speech. Sure, our society might be crappy in many other respects, and frankly it is. I'm not saying we're the best country, but we do seem to have the most well protected civil liberties. In Germany you can be thrown in prison for questioning the number of people who died in the holocaust. France recently banned the Burka. Believe me, I'm totally unsatisfied with just about every other aspect of American society. I'm just talking about civil liberties.

I have seen "A clockwork orange" a brilliant film very violent and rather unlikely to really happen sure it probably exists some examples but how big is the chances of anything like that happening?... And changing people's mind is sort of immoral in todays society but it's already done, it's called commercials..
Best of all would be to convince all criminals so they understand how "evil" they are, but do that and still have any sense of moral left is sort of impossible as of yet.
And with that I mean "is it right to change peoples mind because we think they are evil?"... Answers is no, but it is quite tempting thing to think about. However I put it like this "do I think it would be OK if someone else rewired my brain to suit their wishes?" and of course that sounds just stupid.

Well, of course it sounds stupid to us now. But human flight sounded stupid to everyone before the Wright brothers came along. And honestly, what is the alternative? That free will is a real thing that we'll discover scientifically? I highly doubt it. As neuroscience progresses so will our ability to understand and control the human mind. It might not happen for a while yet, but it kinda seems inevitable.

So what happens if we can actually prove that human actions are more or less completely determined by genes and upbringing? That the criminals were inevitably going to be criminals given their circumstances? Should we still throw them in prison for something over which they had no control? When the idea of free agency dissolves so will the idea of moral responsibility, punishment and good and evil. Crime will most likely be seen as a disorder to be cured.

So if you're really concerned with stopping crazed lunatics, gun control is never going to be as successful as having people routinely come in for neural retuning. It'll be just like going to the dentist's office, except it prevents crime. Or hell, we can just give out contentment pills. If people can just take a pill to fill them with a sense of contentment about their current scenario, regardless of how crappy it might be, then they'd have no reason to commit crimes. Contentment in a pill would probably be the best selling thing of all time. You wouldn't even have to force most people to take it.

(Personally I'm not a fan of the idea because it'll probably be the death of human civilization, but I can't prevent others from taking it.)

Well, as I said above, saying that someone has the right to defend themselves but that they can't own guns is like saying that a person has freedom of speech but isn't allowed to publish books, hand out pamphlets or post things online. At that point the 'freedom' has effectively ceased to exist.

So explain again why you think just "sane" people should be allowed to own guns but not the "crazy" ones, do they not have the same right... Or do you give your freedom up as fast as you are declared "crazy"? I can't defend myself against a gang wielding knives without a gun but I still will get shot if they are wielding guns so what the F* would make the difference worth it?
And as you said yourself I can gather up stuff and blow the government if I get crazy enough I don't need a gun for that...

You're kind of all over the place here...

Why can we limit insane people's rights? -- Easy. Because society is a social contract and an insane person isn't mentally fit enough to enter into the social contract. They're non compos mentis.

As far as the gang scenario, that's easy too. If you had a gun you could fend off the knife wielding thugs, and the gun wielding thugs probably don't want to get into a shootout when there are more well defended victims they can target. The fact of the matter is that guns are used for defensive purposes all the time. http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/stats.html

And I believe you are missing the point in my "living in peace is a good thing" if you don't agree why don't you go out and start WW3 it will drive mankind forward and pave the road for "accomplishing magnificent things"...

And I know that war has brought us some fantastic things and so on but I think that what mankind is striving for is not to "accomplish magnificent things". It is as far as I believe a sort of magnificent thing to do, understanding, understanding the world and humans place in it.
And I wonder how we understand the world better by just making small firearms available to civilians, start making black-hole devices instead...

Oh, I certainly agree that war can be terrible and counterproductive. Generally one only fights a war if there is something to gain, and the existence of ICBMs makes WWIII utterly pointless because there is nothing to gain. But unfortunately, we owe half of our technology to war.

In fact, you don't even have to fight the war to reap the benefits. You just have to have somebody you fear that drives you to prepare for war. As crazy as it might sound, the Cold War is probably the best thing to happen to humanity in the past century. It's what drove the space race and the development of computers. War is also what drove the development of medicine and penicillin. And as far as discovering the fundamental nature of the universe goes, if you took away the defense spending from Physics and the life sciences there would be little-to-no funding left.

America is probably going to have to cut its defense spending at some point. When that happens you're going to see technological progress slow down considerably.

There has been a few people that has thought that perhaps "I" am not the most important thing in the universe or been close to something like that, for example one or two Dalai Lama...
And there has been people that has been called heroes because they have given their lives for "the greater good" but you think they shouldn't?

After reading your comment here one thing is clear, you see egoism like something good that mankind should keep on striving for I do not.
(Even though you in previous comment said it's ok to sacrifice a few for the many, it just can not be you or your close ones)

Well, first off, I don't think I am the most important thing in the universe. I would gladly lay down my life for my loved ones. I'm just not willing to extend the same to complete strangers. And virtually no one gives their lives for some abstract notion of the 'greater good'. When a soldier jumps on a grenade, he does it for his buddies in the trench with him. When a mother jumps in front of a moving vehicle she does it for the child she pushes out of the way. The people who give their lives for the 'greater good' are usually lunatics who are obsessed with some ideology.

I'm well aware of Buddhist philosophy. Alas, they are not an ally to your cause. They don't believe in changing the world. The point of Buddhism is that it is an acetic religious practice in which individuals renounce the world and try to transcend it. I greatly admire Buddhist monks because they have no delusions about what the world is: it is cruel and impermanent. At the center of Buddhist practice is the renunciation of attachment... not only attachment to one's self, but attachment to one's family, society and the entire world.

You can decry egoism, but what I admire most about these monks is their personal strength and resolve. Buddhism is an individualistic religion. Your salvation is up to you. When Buddhist monks are slaughtered, they sit peacefully and await their death without fear or attachment to their own existence. They don't believe that they are martyrs whose deaths will cause the world to change. They are not trying to build a utopia on earth. They believe that such a utopia would ultimately be as fleeting and meaningless as any other earthly form of happiness.

If that really is your philosophy, then I suggest you reject the ties of family and friendship as forms of attachment that lead to suffering. If you're going to be a Buddhist, then you should go all the way and be a Buddhist.

I could however agree on something in between since I like shooting, ONE gun/household(or perhaps person) but no fully automatic, assault rifles etc, more like handguns or hunting rifles etc. With rare exceptions to own more and of course real harsh background checks and close monitoring if any crime or the like remove permit at once.....

I would even take it one step further and say that you have to keep the assault rifles at the shooting range, much like how the gun clubs in the U.K. work. That would probably be the most effective way. Hell, I see no reason why we can't have light machine guns and explosives as long as they require special permits and are kept at a secure facility.

So two thing I would like to read from you:
1. Is being egoistical something good or something we should strive after? Yes/No and perhaps reason.
2. Explain the difference when it comes to freedom between US and minimum two countries that is considered to be "modern" or perhaps "western" say UK and Norway.

Thank you for your rather interesting views and willing to discuss with someone who doesn't fact check or give good examples

the following quote is perhaps more on original topic
"The amount of drowning accidents show a coherency whit the sales of ice cream.
So if we ban ice cream drowning accidents should decrease.."

Well, I think I already explained #2 above. The U.S. has a lot less censorship than Germany and many other countries in Europe. We haven't banned Burkas in public like France. I think you're confusing my point about greater civil liberties with a point about having less inequality or more equality of opportunity. I for one, would love to have the socialized health care or education systems of those countries. But I think I'll pass on their restricted civil liberties.

As far as #1 goes: I don't really support egoism so much as individuality. You can be self-sacrificing and altruistic as an individual, as long as you came to that conclusion on your own through deep reflection. I strive to be independent both in thought and in action, to be my own person. If that's your definition of egoism, then sign me up.

As far as egoism is concerned, my point is not that egoism is good or bad. My point is that egoism is how the world works. Ultimately there is no objective good or bad. My value system is personal to me. If you value a stranger's life as much as your own, then that's your business. But to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if somebody deserves to have friends and family if they aren't willing to put them above others.

The problem is that you can't make people good by restricting what they do. You can't legislate morality. Restricting freedom doesn't make your society more civilized, it just makes it more well controlled. Like putting a choke-chain on a pit bull.

The answer to preventing crime and violence is to stop it at its source: to provide everyone with a legitimate means to make a living by ensuring equality of opportunity through a good education. Legalize drugs. Prohibition doesn't stop drug use, it only creates organized crime. Reform the mental health care system so that we can spot lunatics before they do something terrible. Gun control can't solve any of these problems, it's like trying to put a band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound.

I believe in the individual, not the group. Look throughout history and you'll see that the most groundbreaking ideas always come from great individuals. If you put a hundred average people in a room they aren't going to come up with something ingenious simply through sheer numbers. In fact, they will most likely fall into groupthink almost immediately. People are dumber in groups because we have an inherent social drive for conformity and consensus. They are far less likely to question or think for themselves. Psychological studies have provided plenty of strong evidence for this, time and again.

Show me a society with a value system in which the individual exists solely for the group and I'll show you a society that almost completely lacks individuality, critical thinking, and, most of all, tolerance for anyone who does not conform. Should we have compassion? Of course. But human beings are complicated creatures with a multitude of different drives and desires. To say that violence is an intrinsic and ultimate evil that must be avoided and prevented, no matter what the cost, is just another form of fanaticism.

I find pointless cruelty and sadism to be as disgusting as anyone else. But I don't have nearly as much of an adverse reaction to violence that is driven by need. I won't pretend that I can stand above someone who robs and steals to feed his family as though I would do differently in the same circumstances. To say that we must only consider the greater good of the group and that all individual rights and needs fall prey to this greater good is just not something I'm willing to sign up for.