Mega-Thread: Gun Control Thread

[Eroginous]

Well, again, we've only talked about it today because you've brought it up today. I've said I'm a licensed attorney in the state of Florida, I've never claimed I was working full time as an attorney. Precisely because I don't care for 60 (or 70. or 80.) hour work weeks. I mean, if I was putting in those kinds of hours I wouldn't have time to still have fewer than 20% of your post count. The only reason I ever pointed it out in the first place was because I was seeing some comically erroneous things about the law being asserted as fact and figured I'd try to help, but that was well before I understood you, nothing I'd have bothered attempting now.

As for what "nobody" believes, you're the only person I've noticed even openly express doubt. Is that people with more real life experience in or around the law that can tell I'm not making it up as I go, realizing I'm not lying? Is that people with more general class and maturity figuring it's pointless and snide to bother calling me on it if they thing I am? A mix of both? Who can say?



Lemme go ahead and do about 18,000 of your posts in quick recap... fallacy fallacy citation raw data fallacy anecdote correlation. You continually run home to your favorite pile of catchphrases that let you attempt to bluff your way past having no particular specialized knowledge of relevance to guns, the law, or the law about guns. One of the most awkward and limp of these is to insist on citation for even self-evident assertions like that court opinions are called opinions, or that Article V of the Constitution is the one that deals with amendments, or that the 5th Amendment contains the self-incrimination clause.

Regardless, spam on, I'm sure you'll be quite pleased with however cuttingly clever you find your next response. I'll turn my attention to debating people with something of substance to say.



See, I'm good with that. The polity has at its core a duty to its own education and participation and engagement, it's not for their servants in the government to rise up and oversee them. That's one of the reasons why Madison wrote so extensively about the character of the people, and why John Adams gave us this favorite quote of mine -- "we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (for Tuts -- (Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.) http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=63 ). Can shave religion/religious out of the quote if you like, but it still amounts to the same thing -- the republican form of government is entirely at the mercy of the moral integrity of the polity, and that, at least to me, also means its engagement with affairs of state and civic participation. But all that said, even a dunderhead polity is still the sovereign in a republic, and must have its way.

You must really like punishment, cuz you're punishing yourself by responding to him. Most of us just ignore him. We learned a long time ago that he's only good for snide one liners that ooze his opinion in no real meaningful way, but are crafted carefully so as to avoid getting a ban.

As for the other two gun control proponents who frequently post, one of them isn't even living in America and chooses to use 3rd hand knowledge to debate. The other insists that studies are gospel and can't be bothered to look at facts unless they are massaged in the way he likes. You most likely won't make much headway with those two either, which leaves most of the intelligent conversation happening between those of us on the pro gun side.

[PhaelixWW]

The evidence for DGU vs. OGU clearly shows a huge imbalance between the two.

No it doesn't. You keep saying this like it's fact. It's not.

If you selectively look at only the evidence you want to, then sure, it will "clearly show" what you want to see. But that's just confirmation bias.

Across medically treated cases, costs average U.S.$154,000 per gunshot survivor and U.S.$12,000 per cut/stab survivor.

So firearm injuries are 12 times more expensive than stab wounds, and you want to call that incidental? Sorry Phaelix. Not buying it.

Like I said, you only see what you want to see. You're ignoring the fact that survivors only account for $21b of the $174b. The remaining $153b is for fatalities. The socioeconomic cost of a gun fatality and a knife fatality are going to be highly analogous.

And your cut/stab survivor data is skewed to include a much higher incident ratio of non-lethal intent (with corresponding lower average wound/damage levels), whereas an assault with a gun is almost universally going to be committed with lethal intent. A similarly-lethal-intent attack with a gun is still likely to have a higher cost compared to a knife attack, but you can bet that the cost differential would dwindle drastically without the inclusion of the plethora of common non-lethal-intent cut/stab victims.

[Mayhem]

Serving and obeying are the same thing in the context of representative government. If you lose that, you've lost representative government other than as a vain and false gloss over an authoritarian parent-state.

so that´s a yes?

[Rukentuts]

No it doesn't. You keep saying this like it's fact. It's not.

If you selectively look at only the evidence you want to, then sure, it will "clearly show" what you want to see. But that's just confirmation bias.



Like I said, you only see what you want to see. You're ignoring the fact that survivors only account for $21b of the $174b. The remaining $153b is for fatalities. The socioeconomic cost of a gun fatality and a knife fatality are going to be highly analogous.

And your cut/stab survivor data is skewed to include a much higher incident ratio of non-lethal intent (with corresponding lower average wound/damage levels), whereas an assault with a gun is almost universally going to be committed with lethal intent. A similarly-lethal-intent attack with a gun is still likely to have a higher cost compared to a knife attack, but you can bet that the cost differential would dwindle drastically without the inclusion of the plethora of common non-lethal-intent cut/stab victims.

As opposed to what, your zero evidence?

[TZucchini]

No it doesn't. You keep saying this like it's fact. It's not.

If you selectively look at only the evidence you want to, then sure, it will "clearly show" what you want to see. But that's just confirmation bias.

I'm not sure what else there is to say here. I provided several pieces of evidence to back up my claim. I've provided sources that criticize Kleck's overestimates. All you've responded with is "no it doesn't." That's not very convincing.

Like I said, you only see what you want to see. You're ignoring the fact that survivors only account for $21b of the $174b. The remaining $153b is for fatalities. The socioeconomic cost of a gun fatality and a knife fatality are going to be highly analogous.

And you're more likely to die as a result of a firearm wound compared to a knife wound. And you're certainly much more likely to die as a result of other forms of violence (blunt trauma, punching/kicking), than firearm wounds.

So no. That figure isn't "the cost of violence." It's directly attributed to the cost of firearm violence.

And your cut/stab survivor data is skewed to include a much higher incident ratio of non-lethal intent (with corresponding lower average wound/damage levels), whereas an assault with a gun is almost universally going to be committed with lethal intent.

The idea that people who stab aren't really trying to kill someone, compared to people who shoot, is an opinion, not backed by evidence.

[vetinari]

The idea that people who stab aren't really trying to kill someone, compared to people who shoot, is an opinion, not backed by evidence.

Well, much to my displeasure, the courts agree (at least over in Aus), as most times stabbing is classed as assault leading to grievous bodily harm as opposed to attempted murder. :|

[Stormdash]

That is a peculiar distinction to even bother with; in most US law, "lethal force" includes force reasonably likely to result in either death OR GBH/GBI.

[PhaelixWW]

I'm not sure what else there is to say here. I provided several pieces of evidence to back up my claim. I've provided sources that criticize Kleck's overestimates. All you've responded with is "no it doesn't." That's not very convincing.

And we've provided evidence against the NCVS and Hemenway's underestimates. But you just ignore the problems with your numbers and believe them wholeheartedly while believing that any issue with Kleck's numbers mean that they're completely and utterly unworkable.

And instead of saying that, despite the controversial data, you tend to believe one set over another, you instead try to claim that it's "overwhelmingly clear" that the numbers you want to be true are, in fact, decidedly true.

Yeah, confirmation bias, all the way.

I, for example, believe and have always believed that Klecks numbers are overestimates. But I also believe, with sufficient cause, that Hemenway's numbers are underestimates. That allows for a very, very large compromising middle ground that tends to support my overall position. The only thing I will say is overwhelmingly clear is the fact that the truth is decidedly unclear.

That figure isn't "the cost of violence." It's directly attributed to the cost of firearm violence.

Those costs are the costs of "firearm violence" only in the sense that they are the costs of violence in which a firearm was the instrument of injury.

The problem is that you're trying to realign that to mean "the costs directly attributable to the existence of firearms", which is completely different, and markedly not true. And you're definitely not alone in this.

The real issue that I have is that those statistics are created with what I can only assume is the sole intention of being used as a conversational gambit in an argument for which the actual meaning will be misconstrued to be other than what it really is.

It's intentional obfuscation, intellectual dishonesty of the worst kind.

The idea that people who stab aren't really trying to kill someone, compared to people who shoot, is an opinion, not backed by evidence.

Who said all those cut/stab wounds were caused by people trying to kill the victim? Or caused by a person at all?

The abstract (since we can't even see the whole study) stated that the cost analysis covered 3,100,000 cut/stab survivors. Surely you're not implying that there were over 3 million cases of attempted homicide with a knife?

The vast, vast majority (90-95%) of those 3.1m cut/stab injuries were unintentional. The only consideration the study used was whether they were medically treated.

So, yeah, skewed data.

[Rukentuts]

And we've provided evidence against the NCVS and Hemenway's underestimates. But you just ignore the problems with your numbers and believe them wholeheartedly while believing that any issue with Kleck's numbers mean that they're completely and utterly unworkable.

And instead of saying that, despite the controversial data, you tend to believe one set over another, you instead try to claim that it's "overwhelmingly clear" that the numbers you want to be true are, in fact, decidedly true.

Yeah, confirmation bias, all the way.

I, for example, believe and have always believed that Klecks numbers are overestimates. But I also believe, with sufficient cause, that Hemenway's numbers are underestimates. That allows for a very, very large compromising middle ground that tends to support my overall position. The only thing I will say is overwhelmingly clear is the fact that the truth is decidedly unclear.



Those costs are the costs of "firearm violence" only in the sense that they are the costs of violence in which a firearm was the instrument of injury.

The problem is that you're trying to realign that to mean "the costs directly attributable to the existence of firearms", which is completely different, and markedly not true. And you're definitely not alone in this.

The real issue that I have is that those statistics are created with what I can only assume is the sole intention of being used as a conversational gambit in an argument for which the actual meaning will be misconstrued to be other than what it really is.

It's intentional obfuscation, intellectual dishonesty of the worst kind.



Who said all those cut/stab wounds were caused by people trying to kill the victim? Or caused by a person at all?

The abstract (since we can't even see the whole study) stated that the cost analysis covered 3,100,000 cut/stab survivors. Surely you're not implying that there were over 3 million cases of attempted homicide with a knife?

The vast, vast majority (90-95%) of those 3.1m cut/stab injuries were unintentional. The only consideration the study used was whether they were medically treated.

So, yeah, skewed data.

You can continually claim confirmation bias while engaging in hardcore handwaving because your argument has been toasted.

[Saucexorzski]

You can continually claim confirmation bias while engaging in hardcore handwaving because your argument has been toasted.

So, your just attributing to him your own actions? seems pretty silly Tuts, come on now we want better jabs.

[Rukentuts]

So, your just attributing to him your own actions?

Indeed, because I haven't totally linked studies in this thread.

Meanwhile our resident file clerk handwaves them because their controlled inputs don't match raw data.

[pharix]

Lemme go ahead and do about 18,000 of your posts in quick recap... fallacy fallacy citation raw data fallacy anecdote correlation.

you forgot handwaving!

[Rukentuts]

you forgot handwaving!

How can one handwave evidence a fake lawyer seems mentally incapable of providing?

[Deleted]

I need a gun to counter the gun pointing at me. If only guns were made illegal then I wouldn't need one, as there wouldn't be one being pointed at me.

[Stormdash]

I need a gun to counter the gun pointing at me. If only guns were made illegal then I wouldn't need one, as there wouldn't be one being pointed at me.

Good grief I hope this is sarcasm. Can't tell on this board

[Deleted]

I'm indeed sincere.

[Stormdash]

I'm indeed sincere.

You realize that pretty much every corner of the going being pointed at you is already illegal, right? The act itself, and almost certainly (statistically speaking) the holder's possession of it? That doesn't raise an obviously logical flaw in your theory?

[Deleted]

I see you don't understand. Meh.

[Ghostpanther]

I see you don't understand. Meh.

I understand. See if I am wrong.....you feel as long as there are guns available to any criminal out there, you want to be able to meet force with equal force. As trying to defend yourself against a criminal who is armed with a firearm with anything but another firearm puts you at a disadvantage. Right?

[lockedout]

Indeed, because I haven't totally linked studies in this thread.

Meanwhile our resident file clerk handwaves them because their controlled inputs don't match raw data.

Your studies are all biased that's probably why no one wants to acknowledge them. That and there methodology is terrible, plus you rarely even read your own studies anyway.