Mega-Thread: Gun Control Thread

[The Stormbringer]

No Silver Bullet Solutions to the Werewolf Crisis
A fable of feasibility

Lars Doucet
Jan 24

Mark Coopersmith gaveled the town meeting to order. “Ladies and Gentlemen, what are we going to do about the werewolf crisis? Every full moon, this town is attacked by invincible supernatural werewolves that murder people and then eat them.”

A few hands went up. “Yes, Trevor Farrier, in the front row–what do you suggest?”

“We have to improve our emergency response. If the paramedics can get to the scene fast enough after a werewolf attack, we can save some of the people the werewolves have left for dead before they bleed out.”

“Excellent idea, Trevor. Who else?” More hands went up. “Yes, Rachel Miller. What have you got for us?”

“We need more werewolf victim assistance programs. Werewolves make a lot of mess after they murder someone and then eat them, and it can be a real economic burden for the survivors to pay all the funeral and cleanup expenses by themselves.”

“Good idea Rachel, but what if some of this assistance goes to rich families who should already be able to afford it?” asked Mark. “And what if some of the poorer families spend their assistance money on frivolous comforts?”

“Well obviously, werewolf victim assistance needs to be means-tested and closely regulated. After somebody's family has been murdered and then eaten by werewolves, we'll ask them to sign a bunch of forms, provide proof of income, as well as character references to make sure they're sufficiently deserving of assistance. And naturally, we'll hire a team of officials who work full time scrutinizing recipients' spending to make sure there's no financial waste in the system.”

"Thanks Rachel. Very sensible. Any other ideas? Fred."

“Thank you,” said Fred Planter. “Werewolves are at root a supply issue–the supply of wolfsbane, namely. Studies have consistently shown that werewolves are somewhat repelled by the smell of wolfsbane, and the plant has a lot other beneficial uses as well. Unfortunately, the damn NWIMBYs that run this place won't let us grow or store any. This kind of smart, stockable, mixed-use herbalism is illegal to grow in most Transylvanian towns!”

“Wolfsbane is a disgusting, poisonous weed!” squealed Karen Piper. “It ruins the neighborhood character! No Wolfsbane in My Back Yard!”

Fred glared at her and shot back: “Easy for you to say, Karen–you literally live in a castle you inherited from your father, complete with 40-foot unscalable walls. When was the last time you lost a loved one to a werewolf?”

“You're a shill for herb developers!” piped back Karen.

Mark banged the gavel for order. “That's enough of that. Let's hear from someone else.” One hand remained. “Okay, Larry Smith. Let's hear it.”

“Wolfsbane's a good idea and we should do it. But it won't solve the root problem by itself, for that we need to get at the heart of the matter, literally: let's shoot the werewolves with silver bullets.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Look, there are no silver bullet solutions to the werewolf crisis.”

“Yes there are,” protested Larry. “Silver bullets are the silver bullet solution. Lycanthrobiologists have repeatedly demonstrated that werewolf physiology is extremely susceptible to high velocity projectiles made of silver.”

“We don't need theories, we need evidence.”

“I've got your evidence right here,” said Larry, pulling out a stack of research papers. “A recent meta-analysis by Van Helsing, et al shows that households subject to werewolf attacks have highly differentiated mortality rates that strongly vary with defense typology. The highest rate of survivorship occured in home defenders who, in the blind panic of a werewolf attack, happened to stuff their blunderbusses full of silverware before firing it at the werewolves. This has happened in twelve different locations with varying degrees of experimental controls and effect sizes, but they all point in the same direction – wherever we see a higher density of silver, and a greater velocity of silver projectiles, we see a higher survivorship rate, and a lower rate of people being murdered and then eaten.”

“That proves nothing, correlation isn't causation.”

“Are you serious, Mark? There's a clear mode of action and causal direction. People shot the werewolves with silver, the werewolves screamed in pain and ran away, and then those people weren't murdered and then eaten by werewolves.”

Mark arched a skeptical eyebrow. “What if it was just the loud noise that scared the werewolves off? The chief study cited in the meta-analysis doesn't specifically control for that.”

“Sure, but plenty of the other studies do.” Larry shot back. “The consistent finding is that if you just load the blunderbuss with black powder and nothing else, the werewolves murder and then eat you. And as for ammunition, the material really does matter–people who loaded their firearms with tin utensils fared no better than those who had no ammunition at all. It has to be silver.”

“Well, in any case, I'm not convinced,” said Mark as he skimmed through the papers. Pointing to a specific line, he said, “Besides, it looks like these werewolves were shot with your precious silver, and they didn't even die! I also see some of the families who used your silver-based defense method still got killed. So much for your silver bullet theory.”

“Yes, some participants in the silver group still died,” said Larry, “but they died at much lower rates. And although the werewolves in this study weren't killed outright, they were hurt! Look, a blunderbuss firing knives and forks is hardly the most sophisticated possible weapon – accuracy is terrible and penetration power is very low. What matters is this points us in the right direction and suggests we can greatly improve on these results. If we put our best minds to work on this–by casting some silver bullets, perhaps–then I bet we could probably kill some of these werewolves outright. At the very least we'd hurt them and scare them off. That would be much better than the status quo, where every full moon werewolves murder a bunch of people and then eat them.”

At that, Sarah Fletcher stood up and hastily left the meeting.

Mark shook his head. “See what you did, Larry? You've upset Sarah. Man, why do you always do this? Look, I know it's comforting to believe in simplistic solutions, but werewolves are a complex problem, cursed even. And to truly solve a problem of this magnitude, we need an equally complex and nuanced solution. The kind that's slowly hashed out over dozens of town hall meetings over a series of many, many, years.”

Larry spread his hands. “I get what you're saying, Mark. I really do. You think I'm a monomaniacal crank who has glommed onto one convincing theory, and that keeps me from seeing the full picture and appreciating the thorny details. I have two points in response:

First–there's been numerous times in history where a complex, cursed problem turned out to have a 'simple' solution. As it turns out, citrus juice straight up cures scurvy. Some moldy bread unlocked an entire arsenal in the fight against infectious disease. The cholera epidemic in London was cut short by simply removing the handle to the Broad Street Pump. You can save tons of lives very cheaply by distributing mosquito-treated bed nets. Or just by washing your hands. And instead of maintaining a giant bureaucracy whose sole purpose is to scrutinize the 'worthiness' of each welfare recipient through obsessive means testing, it turns out it's more effective–and cheaper!–to just give people money.”

Larry continued: “And yes, 'for every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong.' We should be wary of overly simplistic sounding 'silver bullet' solutions. But we shouldn't let this wariness become too extreme! If humanity automatically ruled out every 'simple' solution simply because it sounded too simple, we would have missed some of the greatest wins in human history.”

“That's all well and good,” said Mark. “But there's another issue with your 'silver bullet' theory. A fairly thorough account by Briggs shows that in the real world, casting silver bullets is actually surprisingly hard. So even though your idea might work in theory, it probably won't work in practice.”

“I'm glad you brought that up,” said Larry, “because that's actually my second point: just because a solution sounds simple to say doesn't mean it's a simplistic gloss of the issue that doesn't take the full complexity of the world into account. I'm proposing we shoot the werewolves with silver bullets. You think this is a sign I'm being unserious, because, among other things, manufacturing silver bullets is complicated. As it happens, I'm familiar with Briggs' research, and the most salient finding, which you elided, was this: the experiment proves it's possible to both manufacture and fire silver bullets. So what if it's hard to do? The status quo is that werewolves, which most believe to be invincible, unstoppable killing machines—murder people and then eat them. Thanks to Briggs, we have a proven method for creating a weapon that has the potential to actually kill werewolves. And if it turns out it doesn't kill them, it just merely wounds them or scares them off? That's still loads better than what we have now.”

Mark shook his head. “Look, Larry, even if silver bullets are somewhat effective, it's not like you're just going to cast a bullet, shoot a werewolf, and be done with the entire problem once and for all.”

“I know, Mark! That's point two again! Saying 'silver bullets are the solution' is not the same thing as saying 'implementing silver bullets will be effortless!' Look, I know how annoyed you get because 'Silver Bullet Attacks would fix this' is a meme on Twitter whenever anyone brings up werewolves. Outside a few cranks, nobody actually believes that we'll just make a bunch of silver bullets and then werewolves will magically disappear overnight. We'll still need to do the hard work of making the bullets, lying in wait for the enemy, aiming carefully, and then shooting them until they're dead. Some shooters will miss, some of their guns will misfire, some will get caught by surprise, and some will probably die. It will take work, practice, training and improvement. But silver bullets will take us from an impossible problem to a problem we can solve at all. And if we try really, really hard, silver bullets could give us a world where nobody gets murdered and then eaten by werewolves.”

Mark frowned, then said, “I appreciate all that, Larry, but I really don't think you're engaging with the manufacturing question. This is a much more fatal issue than you're giving it credit for. Look, I have a lot of experience in metallurgy and...”

The town meeting continued on for several more hours; among the other comments raised, Karen Piper insisted that all new anti-werewolf measures must first be subjected to rigorous environmental review, Bob Inglefart complained that the root cause of werewolf incursions was too many people moving into the area, while Theodore Duckworth asked if anyone had considered the possibility that werewolves were good, actually.

Just then a loud BANG came at the door.

“Wha?–” said Mark.

The door was smashed into splinters as a giant werewolf burst into the town hall. The beast opened its gaping maw and bellowed a deafening roar as slobber ran down its fearsome jaws. The creature leered hungrily at the defenseless attendees of the town meeting, then took a single step forward.

A shadow moved in the darkness and three swift thwick sounds were heard in short succession.

The werewolf looked slowly downwards at its chest. Sticking out of a swiftly spreading patch of blood were three feathered wooden shafts. A sudden look of horror came on the beast’s face as it howled in pain, stumbled back out the door, and vanished into the moonlight.

The attendees, unmurdered and uneaten, stood stunned for what seemed like nearly a minute.

Mark finally broke the silence. "What just happened?"

Sarah Fletcher stepped out of the shadows, brandishing a bow. She pulled an arrow out of her quiver and pointed to the bodkin point, gleaming in the lamplight. “Silver-tipped arrows.” She said. "When I heard Larry started going on about silver bullets, I realized that I had everything I needed to make silver-tipped arrows in my shed. They're probably not as powerful as a real silver bullet fired from a gun would be, but they're way easier to make on short notice. Sometimes you need to stop overthinking everything and just try an idea and see if it works."

[Doctor Amadeus]

Law abiding citizens will continue to be law abiding citizens in the face of new laws. This is just an incredibly weird take.

When my state passed a law requiring that we put food waste in our green bins (organic waste) and not blue bins (trash), do you know what I did? Started putting my food waste in the green bin, which was ever so mildly inconvenient. Because I didn't look at this extremely minor change as so burdensome that I'd start breaking the law.

Not that it's a law that actually gets enforced except for consistently bad worst-case offenders, no county has the financial ability or staff to go around inspecting peoples personal trash bins to issue a petty citation because they tossed half their burger in the trash instead of the green bin.

This is just a really twisted outlook on reality.

But you’re here you’re arguing for gun control why?

No law abiding citizens shouldn’t be imposed on because of beliefs based on shit you read. Live your life.

[The Stormbringer]

I was doing a stroll down memory lane recently and I remembered an issue of Spider-Man, published ~40 years ago, that was talking about gun control. What struck me about it is that the arguments have stayed the same for at least 40 years.
-GIGASNIP-

Thanks for this. One thing that really stands out to me to this day is handguns. They have no other purpose than killing people. They were designed to kill people. Yes, you can use them for shooting competitions, but their primary function is ending the lives of other human beings, being highly portable, and easy to hide/stow away on your person. Rifles and shotguns I can understand keeping around, especially for hunters and the like, but handguns? We need to just get rid of them. All of them.

[The Stormbringer]

I negated about half for the sake of a lengthy reply.

Fortunately the silver bullet+arrow in this scenario are AR-15 and handguns. Handguns take quite a lot of training to be effective with, especially under stress. AR-15 on the other hand has two more points of contact, linear recoil, and is less likely to overpenetrate than 9mm in an enclosed area with around 4x the muzzle energy with a better expectation of energy deposition on target. Handguns are far more convenient though, especially when you've trained with them.

No. In context, the silver bullet is GUN CONTROL. The thing that people constantly keep arguing against for a billion reasons (despite evidence) rather than actually trying it and seeing if it makes a difference. We're just gonna keep letting people dying to werewolves (AKA gun violence).

[Endus]

Would you agree that committing mass murder is different than the more standard forms of violence? I segregate out mass murder since its abnormal for even violent crime, and the public also seems to think so.

In terms of number of victims. Not in any other meaningful sense. It sure seems like you're just reacting irrationally based on emotion, rather than thinking it through.

Robbing someone or ferociously beating someone in an argument is a different tier of violence compared to someone deliberating going to a school with the intent on committing mass murder.

Again, because of the number of victims. The motive isn't that different, though. I don't class a school shooter's motive as more reprehensible if he's tackled after his first victim (and thus, not being a mass shooter) rather than if he gets 20 victims in because the cops are too chickens hit to get in there and stop him. Same motive in both cases; we're discussing effectiveness at that point. And sure, more murders equal more charges, we're just talking reprehensibleness of motive here.

Is only the latter guy "mentally ill", based solely on the number of victims? That doesn't make any sense at all, even if I were willing to entertain the base premise that argues for mental illness as a factor, and as I've already demonstrated, there is no evidence of that.

[Endus]

The intent in those scenarios are clear, whether or not the 'mass murder' classification is technically stopped.

Don't shift the goalposts just because your argument was based on a premise that doesn't work.

The intent to commit such an action is of a different magnitude of offense to most 'standard' types of violent crime, being some sort of aggravated assault or theft. The nature of which could be the result of a poor temper control, financial problems, etc. To say that all violent criminals have mental health issues is wrong, I agree, but we're not talking about standard violent crime, we're talking people with the intent of committing mass murder, generally on some of the most vulnerable people in society.

And to repeat, there remains no actual evidence to support that. You're still just making it all up.

Ironically, in way that would potentially lessen their culpability and responsibility.

[Endus]

How at all is that shifting a goalpost? We're talking about intent, whether or not said individual is successful in checkmarking a 'mass murder' versus only having one victim before they're stopped doesn't change the obvious intent.

You tried to distinguish between mass and "regular" murders, and the distinction there is 100% on the number of victims.

Then you tried to move that goalpost to "intent", which is why I called out the bait and switch.

Almost everything is more complex below the surface, to include someone's desire to do such crimes. They're no less culpable or responsible for their actions if they were driven by pure evil intent caused by some form of mental illness or not. Where the main discussion should be around is if their madness was driven by nature and/or nurture, since the negative consequences of both in this context can be mitigated if detected early enough.

The insanity plea is literally when mental illness impairs your decision-making and leads to you making fhoicesvyoh otherwise wouldn't. Which is what you're arguing is true of mass murderers. So yeah; I take issue with you arguing any reduction in their accountabilty by trying to insert false claims of mental illness. All because you can't accept that maybe they're just violent bastards, no mental health issues required.

[Grinning Serpent]

And why do you need to protect yourself with a gun? Is it because of the probability the (imaginary) bad guy also has a gun?

This one's easy. Because if someone used the brick guest key to open your door, you have no idea why they're there - is it just your stuff, or are they there for you? Maybe a little of both? And if you announce your presence and that you're armed and they don't immediately flee, then it becomes almost certain that they are there to do you harm. If that becomes the case - I have announced I am present and armed and willing to shoot and they have not fled - then I am absolutely going to use the strongest force I am legally allowed to use to defend myself. I'm not going to go from unarmed to hand weapons to guns in ascending order like it's a fucking shonen anime, I am going to go directly to "maximum force allowed" because I have already quite literally told them I will kill them if they don't leave. I do not care what they are or aren't armed with because I am most certainly not going to give them a chance to use it on me. "Bad guy might have a gun" is not a factor in my decision to own a gun for self-defense or not. Though if we're talking about "fascist pigs and their flunkies becoming aggressive" types of scenarios, then yes I want a gun because they definitely have guns too. I'm a white dude that can "pass for normal," though, so that's not usually at the forefront of my mind when considering self-defense since I am not likely going to be the first choice of victim for those types.



But what if you're a woman, and therefore likely going to be substantially smaller than a typical intruder? What if you're disabled? What if you're a big strong manly man that believes in solving problems with honorable fisticuffs in the kitchen at 3 in the morning on a Tuesday, but you also have a much smaller wife or kids who can't do that?

Guns don't give a fuck about how big their user is, more or less. A 5.56 fired by a 250 pound man doesn't hit any harder or faster than that same 5.56 fired by a 105 pound woman or an 85 pound kid. They don't care if their user has full use of both legs or not, or no legs at all. They are just as effective fired by someone who is very small or disabled as they are fired by someone that is physically fit and able-bodied, more or less, in the context of "defensive use in an interior residential space" anyway.


That's why I would choose to buy a gun if I felt the need for a tool for self-defense. I would probably buy one now, in the wake of the police brutality we saw a few years ago, but I can't really justify the cost. The cost of buying and adjusting the gun (aftermarket upgrades etc), the absurd price of ammo, and the time and monetary cost of having to repeatedly drive to one of a few decent (not owned by/catering to fascists) indoor/outdoor ranges in my area... can't really justify it right now. But again, that's because I'm a white dude that can "pass as normal." I very well might feel otherwise if I couldn't do that or was POC.

[Endus]

This one's easy. Because if someone used the brick guest key to open your door, you have no idea why they're there - is it just your stuff, or are they there for you? Maybe a little of both? And if you announce your presence and that you're armed and they don't immediately flee, then it becomes almost certain that they are there to do you harm. If that becomes the case - I have announced I am present and armed and willing to shoot and they have not fled - then I am absolutely going to use the strongest force I am legally allowed to use to defend myself.

At which point you end up shooting your adult son who was coming home from college as a surprise, or something.

It's a wild overreaction to a situation you don't understand.

Plus, one of two things is true, here; either you're paranoid and delusional and a danger to people around you, or your living conditions are predicated on such extreme levels of violence that it's shocking for a first world nation to experience such. In which case, why are things so bad there? And this is gonna bring us right back to "way too many guns for bad people to get ahold of to use for break-ins and shit while also society is fucking over so many people in poverty that turning to crime is all some people have as an option".

In which case, fix those problems, don't defend the need to be armed as if it's a moral "good".

Canada's literally just to the north and has a pretty similar origin and history. And we don't have this problem. In fact, what you're describing as a response would like be a prosecutable crime, here, threatening someone with death for breaking in. If you harm someone breaking into your home, you're going to have to be able to demonstrate that you had no other reasonable option. You don't just have carte blanche to go Rambo on them. Like, you can't even punch them for breaking into your house, not unless they present a direct threat to you (and their presence in your home doesn't qualify).

Because if you get a situation like your neighbour smashing a window and coming into your home because he's drunk as fuck and thought this was his house, and your response is to bean him in the back of the head with a bat, you're getting prosecuted for aggravated assault, here in Canada. Even if it's dark and you didn't know it was your neighbour.

[Cthulhu 2020]

How are things going? Well, schools are starting to roll out "Expandable safe rooms" that fit neatly in the corner. Expand within seconds to protect from school shootings!

https://twitter.com/GillianBNews/sta...97817526267904

I wonder if conservatives are happy about what they're doing? Schools are having active shooter drills and even implementing hardware into schools to protect against school shooters. We're going to reach an Apex point where the children of today are the politicians of tomorrow, and considering how kids today are actually becoming MORE left as they age and are being taught that guns are fucking terrifying, conservatives might have cucked themselves for the future by refusing some basic COMMON SENSE gun legislation.

[Grinning Serpent]

No. In context, the silver bullet is GUN CONTROL. The thing that people constantly keep arguing against for a billion reasons (despite evidence) rather than actually trying it and seeing if it makes a difference. We're just gonna keep letting people dying to werewolves (AKA gun violence).

We have tried it, though. That's what's so silly about all this wrangling. Funny story btw, thanks for linking it, but it's ultimately just more of the self-masturbatory preaching to the choir that people love to do so much of.

Bill Clinton sacrificed every ounce of political capital his administration had to pass the series of bills back in 1994, and they did fuck all to make us safer. We've passed increasing gun control since the NFA and yet gun violence has only *increased* here over time.

This doesn't mean that "gun control doesn't reduce gun violence." Obviously, we can point to any number of peer countries with sane gun/hunter cultures (I'm going to remind everyone here that I am perfectly fine with the way Canada handles their gun laws, just to get that out of the way) and information we have here and make strong connections that "gun control works." Or get close enough, anyway.

But there's problems at hand here that the story didn't really address adequately. I think the most relevant, out of all of them, is the sheer logistical and legal difficulty in enacting and enforcing "common sense gun control" here (using "like what Canada does" as an example of what that phrase means to me.) We already have a number of effective gun control laws, but they are not adequately enforced, either due to institutional incompetence, difficulty of prosecution of those violations, or a mixture of both. So any gun control laws which are reliant on proper enforcement are unlikely to achieve anything of value. Laws which further increase penalties for gun-involved crimes or the like may have some effect, as those come into play automatically during prosecution of a crime rather than needing separate enforcement, but as far as I'm aware those sorts of laws tend to be managed more at the state or county level less than the federal level.

There's also the issue of compliance with laws. And yes, it's very easy to say "well tell the cops to go take the guns away from those bad men and fire them if they refuse," but I honestly prefer realism to fantasy. You're looking at a *lot* of dead cops if even 5% of the COME AND TAKE THEM blowhards *actually* decide to fight like they claim they will. You're not going to catch me feeling bad for fucking pigs, but that's a reality that has to be considered when you're proposing these laws. You think cops are going to want to go break into a house with the near-certainty that they're going to get shot at? And the person in question hasn't committed a "real crime" like possessing marijuana or being a person of color? It's also worth looking into the history of police forces and federal law enforcement and their history of enforcing such laws using violence - it's not exactly a good one, they tend to cause a lot of collateral damage in the process.


But that's just one issue I have with the idea of seriously pursuing gun laws here. I think the second issue, and possibly an even larger one than the legal and logistical issue, is the sheer political *cost* of pursuing gun control here. Clinton traded horses to pass some gun laws in 1994 and his administration was a limp dick for the rest of his time in office. Not only that, but the asshole he effectively put into power by those horse trades (Newt Gingrich) immediately turned around and impeached him... pretty much because he could. Should also look into Newt Gingrich and what he did within the GOP - in many respects, he could be seen as laying the foundation for the GOP we've had to deal with since the Obama administration and all the cultural rot and cancer that's come with it. Thanks, Clinton. But those bills probably saved a whole lot of lives, so it was worth it! Right? Well, no. Even the most optimistic studies can't really prove they accomplished very much - they mostly just suggested that *maybe* we would have seen dividends after another few decades.

But Democrats didn't just lose in Washington, they lost badly across the country. Democrats got absolutely massacred in state elections after Clinton's little stunt. Moreover, one of Hilldawg's major initiatives as First Lady was to figure out some way to rein in our country's idiotic healthcare system and maybe pass legislation improving it... first steps towards nationalized healthcare of some form. But after Clinton sold the farm to pass those gun bills, there was no fuel left in the tank to consider pursuing another initiative that would have a high cost.

And today, the cost of pursuing gun control is likely higher still... and not entirely from the GOP. There is a significant minority of Democrat voters who will be very likely to vote against a gun control advocate in primaries. They will almost certainly still show up to vote against the Republican in the final race, regardless of who the Democrat is... but "holding my nose and voting" is what we got with HRC in 2016, and how'd that work out for us? How many races have Democrats lost that they might have otherwise been able to win, if they'd just shut the fuck up about the guns? Beto would almost certainly have trashed Cruz in Texas, because fucking no one likes Ted Cruz, but he just couldn't fucking shut up about the AR-15's. Abrams lost the 2018 gubernatorial race by a hair's width - less than 55,000 votes - and one of her major platforms was... gun control. When you have margins this narrow, or you're trying to drive cracks in a previously strongly red region, you cannot afford to hemorrhage votes away for stupid reasons.


I don't know how to interpret "silver tipped arrows" in this analogy, but there ARE some laws we could pass that have broad bipartisan support... except lawmakers can't seem to fucking help themselves try and sneak other shit into those bills that *lack* such broad support. Pretty much only the cops (who are themselves often the abusers) really resist "close the boyfriend loophole" bills, and if you were to bait the hook on such a bill with things such as removing suppressors or SBRs from the NFA, you'd probably see a lot of people willing to cross the aisle... as long as that bill was closing the loophole, loosening that NFA restriction, and *NOTHING ELSE.* But "silver tipped arrows" would *NOT* be any kind of feature ban, handgun ban, or restrictions on such. The story suggest it's not a huge expenditure to make those arrows, but bans or major restrictions or universal background checks (with the national registry system that would be the only practical way to enforce such checks) would absolutely be huge expenditures.

[Endus]

We have tried it, though. That's what's so silly about all this wrangling. Funny story btw, thanks for linking it, but it's ultimately just more of the self-masturbatory preaching to the choir that people love to do so much of.

The USA's history of gun control is incredibly weak. It hasn't meaningfully been tried, because nobody's willing to expunge the 2nd Amendment, which is a necessary first step. If you're unwilling to consider doing so, then you're saying you're comfortable with gun violence rates triple or more that of any other developed nation that isn't currently fighting an active war on their own soil.

Which, y'know, fine. But at least be honest that you'd prefer the rate of school shootings and such to continue so that you can have a gun. That those dead kids are a price you're entirely willing to pay in the name of gun ownership.

[Grinning Serpent]

At which point you end up shooting your adult son who was coming home from college as a surprise, or something.

Hence why you loudly announce your presence and intention to shoot. The stories of people who murdered family members, neighbors, etc all share that one common thread - they shot first, they never announced themselves or otherwise challenged the intruder. That's why pretty much any instructor worth a shit is going to drill into your head that you fall back to a defensible location (typically a room with only one entrance and, ideally, cover) and loudly and clearly announce your presence and intention to shoot. You don't go looking for trouble and you don't shoot before verifying what you're shooting at.

Plus, one of two things is true, here; either you're paranoid and delusional and a danger to people around you, or your living conditions are predicated on such extreme levels of violence that it's shocking for a first world nation to experience such. In which case, why are things so bad there? And this is gonna bring us right back to "way too many guns for bad people to get ahold of to use for break-ins and shit while also society is fucking over so many people in poverty that turning to crime is all some people have as an option".

Yeah, pretty much. Which is why I prefer to approach gun violence issues from a "target the reasons people are choosing crime" angle rather than fixating on the guns. Dealing with our country's obscene wealth inequality will improve the lives of everyone, including people who are struggling to make ends meet but *don't* choose crime. Meanwhile, "take guns away from the bad men" leaves those struggling low income people just as fucked as they were before. I think one path is clearly better than the other, and those paths are mutually exclusive, at least for a time.

Canada's literally just to the north and has a pretty similar origin and history. And we don't have this problem. In fact, what you're describing as a response would like be a prosecutable crime, here, threatening someone with death for breaking in. If you harm someone breaking into your home, you're going to have to be able to demonstrate that you had no other reasonable option. You don't just have carte blanche to go Rambo on them. Like, you can't even punch them for breaking into your house, not unless they present a direct threat to you (and their presence in your home doesn't qualify).

I suppose there'd be elements of Canadian gun laws I didn't agree with. This one I definitely don't agree with. If people don't want to be shot, they should not be breaking into homes. "Duty to retreat" is problematic in too many ways for me to support it, at least when the context is within your own home.

It's actually kind of insane to me that "intruder in your house" is not a sufficient justification for even unarmed force. You could face criminal prosecution for decking a guy that just kicked in your door? Seriously?

[Edge-]

How are things going? Well, schools are starting to roll out "Expandable safe rooms" that fit neatly in the corner. Expand within seconds to protect from school shootings!

https://twitter.com/GillianBNews/sta...97817526267904

I wonder if conservatives are happy about what they're doing? Schools are having active shooter drills and even implementing hardware into schools to protect against school shooters. We're going to reach an Apex point where the children of today are the politicians of tomorrow, and considering how kids today are actually becoming MORE left as they age and are being taught that guns are fucking terrifying, conservatives might have cucked themselves for the future by refusing some basic COMMON SENSE gun legislation.

I have a question.

What's the ceiling made out of?

I have another series of questions.

How much does it cost to purchase and install in every classroom in America? How will they ensure every classroom in America has the necessary free space for one? How will they ensure classes that are 40+ students, which don't really seem like they could fit in there, can have multiple "safe rooms"?

This all seems incredibly expensive and rather impractical when facing the realities of unequal class sizes and packed classrooms. Unless the intent would be that these would only go to the right schools with sufficient funding to keep class sizes lower and have more modern facilities. Not expressly, but as a consequence of the kinds of core ideas that make up the foundation of its design.

[Endus]

I suppose there'd be elements of Canadian gun laws I didn't agree with. This one I definitely don't agree with. If people don't want to be shot, they should not be breaking into homes. "Duty to retreat" is problematic in too many ways for me to support it, at least when the context is within your own home.

It's pretty darned standard everywhere but the USA, because Americans like to think they're all Rambo or something. It's the same principle as for self defense under any other situation; the minimal amount of force a reasonable person could expect would suffice is all that's legally justifiable. Breaking in doesn't present any direct physical threat. If you're talking about what they might do to you, then you're talking about your imagination, not the actual circumstance.

It's actually kind of insane to me that "intruder in your house" is not a sufficient justification for even unarmed force. You could face criminal prosecution for decking a guy that just kicked in your door? Seriously?

Because kicking in your door doesn't pose any threat to you.

If he then tried to attack you, then you could act in self defense, but there's no "defense" at the point of kicking in your door; it's a property crime. It's akin to kids throwing a rock through your window; you don't get to go punch those kids, either.

And I'll point out something important, here; there is no rash of home invasions in Canada where homeowners get assaulted and beaten or killed. I'm not gonna say it never happens, but it's not something anyone has to worry about.

Hell, there was a home invasion of the Prime Minister's house during Chretien's time as PM; Aline Chretien heard the guy, saw he had a knife, and got herself and her husband into their bedroom and locked the door and called the RCMP. Who took like 6 minutes to arrive.

And then the guy was arrested without other harm and was convicted but not sentenced because he was schizophrenic and out of his mind at the time.

That's how stuff gets handled in Canada. It's a hell of a lot more civilized.

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/when-ali...rive-1.4889688

[Cthulhu 2020]

Here's a big reality. Gun advocates like to believe that they're responsible, that most of US gun owners have been properly taught gun safety, that they know how to handle, store, and properly use a gun. But that's not the reality. The vast amount of gun owners have no fucking clue about proper gun handling or even safety. They're idiots with a lethal toy. And this is allowed to occur because one of the GOP's biggest donors is the NRA.

The NRA is funded by gun manufacturers. There is a direct, monetary link between Republican law makers and people who directly profit from the sale of guns. The NRA and the gun manufacturers do not give a single shit about the safety of anyone. They care about profit. And they're turning our country into a violence filled failed state all for the sake of money.

[Mayhem]

Well if we regulate guns like cars then gun deaths should go up.

that's true, if you were allowed to fire your legally owned registered gun in public in a designated but open space the likeliness of some random being hit increases

somehow people keep forgetting when comparing guns to cars that car accidents that involve not just the passengers of the car are happening because of shared spaces

that's like if a gun range was in the middle of a mall without any walls but just some lights that turn green or red depending on if someone wants to shoot at a target and in between people can just cross the range

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah how dare you have instincts and good sense to pick up natural clues in human behavior.

Big difference between someone with a disorder not accountable for their actions and those that are. The core is if you in anyway equate ever that murdering innocent people is ok. No matter who you are you’re fucked in the head.

But I thought that's the price you as a country have to pay for the freedom of owning guns?

So you're mentally ill or evil which is it?

[Gabriel]

If he then tried to attack you, then you could act in self defense, but there's no "defense" at the point of kicking in your door; it's a property crime. It's akin to kids throwing a rock through your window; you don't get to go punch those kids, either.

If someone is violently kicking in your door despite you making your presence known, I'm pretty sure you can defend yourself with force even in Canada, dude.

If someone is clearly using violence to get to you, you don't have to wait for them to punch you before you can punch back.

We've had this case in Finland where a guy was trying to get through the front door with a chainsaw, and the homeowner shot him in the legs through the door with a shotgun, and he was acquitted because he used appropriate force in defending himself. The problem is that in the US people just mag dump at everything that goes bump in the night.

[The Stormbringer]

We have tried it, though. That's what's so silly about all this wrangling. Funny story btw, thanks for linking it, but it's ultimately just more of the self-masturbatory preaching to the choir that people love to do so much of.

-SNIP-

You want a comprehensive plan for addressing gun violence in the USA? Sure, got one for you right here.

[Doctor Amadeus]

that's true, if you were allowed to fire your legally owned registered gun in public in a designated but open space the likeliness of some random being hit increases

somehow people keep forgetting when comparing guns to cars that car accidents that involve not just the passengers of the car are happening because of shared spaces

that's like if a gun range was in the middle of a mall without any walls but just some lights that turn green or red depending on if someone wants to shoot at a target and in between people can just cross the range

- - - Updated - - -

But I thought that's the price you as a country have to pay for the freedom of owning guns?

So you're mentally ill or evil which is it?

Nobody has the right to break into anyone's home or rob them. You don't NEED a car anymore than you need a firearm for self defense, never the less in a free society anyone should be allowed to own a car or a gun, whether regulated or not. Both are regulated enough, the problem are with assholes on the other end typically advocating for dipshits breaking the fucking law, fuck that.

Nothing wrong with protecting your family, life, and property with a gun EVERYONE should do that.


What NOBODY should ever do is use that as an excuse to murder innocent people PERIOD.