The case against guns

[orpheus]

To Seth

The 'evidence' you post that I ignore is generally non evidence.

Right. Actual reportage of actual lawful defensive gun uses is "non evidence." You are so full of shit.

I see you persist in the fallacy that anecdotes are evidence. Rest assured I will continue to ignore them, for the simple reason they do not constitute evidence. If you put together 100% of all cases where guns are used, and subjected them to rigorous statistical analysis, and published in a peer reviewed journal (like the NEJM articles I like to quote), then they would be worth taking note of. But anecdotes are much more often used to mislead than to enlighten, and gun nutters do enough misleading as it is.

That's because all you care about are statistical arguments. I care about individual people, their rights and their individual safety. And that's what the Constitution cares about too. It doesn't say "the right to keep and bear arms shall be infringed in direct proportion to the number of people killed illegally with handguns."

It' says "...the right to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED." (emphasis added)

No mention of statistical analysis or need-based apportioning of rights at all.

Which is why your entire argument continues to be complete collectivist horseshit.

If you're going to fall back on the fingers-in-the-ears "Constitution-la-la-can't-hear-you-Constitution, so there!" argument, then your anecdotes are not needed either. You can't have it both ways. If the Constitution is holy writ, then whether guns are good or bad for people is immaterial.

[Seth]

To Seth

The 'evidence' you post that I ignore is generally non evidence.

Right. Actual reportage of actual lawful defensive gun uses is "non evidence." You are so full of shit.

I see you persist in the fallacy that anecdotes are evidence. Rest assured I will continue to ignore them, for the simple reason they do not constitute evidence. If you put together 100% of all cases where guns are used, and subjected them to rigorous statistical analysis, and published in a peer reviewed journal (like the NEJM articles I like to quote), then they would be worth taking note of. But anecdotes are much more often used to mislead than to enlighten, and gun nutters do enough misleading as it is.

That's because all you care about are statistical arguments. I care about individual people, their rights and their individual safety. And that's what the Constitution cares about too. It doesn't say "the right to keep and bear arms shall be infringed in direct proportion to the number of people killed illegally with handguns."

It' says "...the right to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED." (emphasis added)

No mention of statistical analysis or need-based apportioning of rights at all.

Which is why your entire argument continues to be complete collectivist horseshit.

If you're going to fall back on the fingers-in-the-ears "Constitution-la-la-can't-hear-you-Constitution, so there!" argument, then your anecdotes are not needed either. You can't have it both ways. If the Constitution is holy writ, then whether guns are good or bad for people is immaterial.

Wrong. Nobody said the Constitution is "holy writ," merely that BG's arguments are statistical horseshit and always have been. His argument reduces the individual to a number on an actuarial chart and it attempts to apportion rights according to his peculiar statistical interests. That's not how rights work. I don't have 4 percent of a right to keep and bear arms, or a 24 percent right to freedom of speech, or a 18 percent right to a fair trial, or a 88 percent right to freely exercise my religion. I have a 100 percent right to exercise each of those rights, and so does every other individual in the United States.

BG is being intellectually dishonest in his argument that because 8000 people a year are murdered with handguns this justifies banning all handguns, particularly when he blatantly, mendaciously and repeatedly ignores and discounts the tens of thousands or millions of times each year that citizens use handguns in lawful self defense. His argument is entirely based on a one-sided analysis of cost, without regard to the benefit side any such analysis requires if it's to be credible.

Even if we accept the lowest verified figure for DGU's issued by the DOJ of 80,000 DGU's a year, that's ten times the number of people who were NOT victimized by criminals BECAUSE they had handguns (or other firearms) than those who were murdered with handguns.

In any rational analysis of gun policy one simply must look at the cost/benefit ratio in order to make any sort of a valid conclusion, which BG simply refuses to do. He consistently denies that guns are used for lawful self defense to any great extent at all. But when I publish documentary evidence of precisely such DGU's, does he challenge the "anecdotes" for accuracy or try to show that they are NOT lawful DGU's? No, he simply dismisses them as "anecdotes." But they aren't anecdotes, they are recitations of facts and thus are absolutely evidence that firearms ARE used lawfully for self defense.

And since the right to self defense is complete and plenary to each individual, even ONE example of a successful DGU completely validates the entire concept and practice of allowing an armed citizenry because, as I said earlier, rights are not apportioned to the individual as a percentage of some pundit's policy desires. Every individual has an absolute and complete right to be armed for self defense, and that's what our Supreme Court has said, and NO individual has a right, even the tiniest vestige of a right, to UNLAWFULLY kill someone with a firearm.

It's not a statistical argument and never has been. It's a black-and-white matter of individual rights.

I'm not bothering to seek out and republish every single report of a DGU in the US because it's entirely unnecessary to do so. Any single example I've provided is sufficient justification for all law-abiding citizens to be armed for self defense.

[MrJonno]

People like Seth are so inadequate they have to have some sort of moral certainty in their lives, whether its god or a constitution it doesnt matter. Everything has to be either good or bad, right or wrong they can't cope with actually having to think through issues on a case by case basis.

Moral relativism is an evil to them because quite simple they are fanatics

[Tero]

Seth, it's never black and white. Neither are motives.

I would make a lousy cop. I would let the maybes go. Some trigger happy cop or holier than thou judge will eventually get them. Not me, unless they come after me personally.

[Collector1337]

People like Seth are so inadequate they have to have some sort of moral certainty in their lives, whether its god or a constitution it doesnt matter. Everything has to be either good or bad, right or wrong they can't cope with actually having to think through issues on a case by case basis.

Moral relativism is an evil to them because quite simple they are fanatics

You mean like how you say all pistols are bad and can't judge by a case by case basis when they actually do good and save someone's life?

[MrJonno]

People like Seth are so inadequate they have to have some sort of moral certainty in their lives, whether its god or a constitution it doesnt matter. Everything has to be either good or bad, right or wrong they can't cope with actually having to think through issues on a case by case basis.

Moral relativism is an evil to them because quite simple they are fanatics

You mean like how you say all pistols are bad and can't judge by a case by case basis when they actually do good and save someone's life?

No problems with pistols for sports, but if they save 1 live but get 10 killed (even if I'm the 1) then they have no place in the home or personal possession.

So quite relative on that too

[Jason]

[Collector1337]

but if they save 1 live but get 10 killed (even if I'm the 1) then they have no place in the home or personal possession.

You seriously believe those figures, don't you?

[MrJonno]

but if they save 1 live but get 10 killed (even if I'm the 1) then they have no place in the home or personal possession.

You seriously believe those figures, don't you?

And you seriously believe 800 000 people in the US aren't murdered each year because they own guns!

[Coito ergo sum]

People like Seth are so inadequate they have to have some sort of moral certainty in their lives, whether its god or a constitution it doesnt matter. Everything has to be either good or bad, right or wrong they can't cope with actually having to think through issues on a case by case basis.

Moral relativism is an evil to them because quite simple they are fanatics

Moral relativism, to me, is neither good nor evil. It just is the way it is. Morality is relative because morality is made up in the brain. Destroy all brains, there is no morality. Is there a morality where cannibalism is moral? Yes. Are cannibal tribes objectively immoral? Only by using a fictional "objective lawgiver" who supposedly applies morality to the universe. In reality, nothing is good or bad, but that thinking makes it so -- as Shakespeare put it.

[Coito ergo sum]

People like Seth are so inadequate they have to have some sort of moral certainty in their lives, whether its god or a constitution it doesnt matter. Everything has to be either good or bad, right or wrong they can't cope with actually having to think through issues on a case by case basis.

Moral relativism is an evil to them because quite simple they are fanatics

You mean like how you say all pistols are bad and can't judge by a case by case basis when they actually do good and save someone's life?

No problems with pistols for sports, but if they save 1 live but get 10 killed (even if I'm the 1) then they have no place in the home or personal possession.

So quite relative on that too

What if you found out they saved 10 lives, and only got 1 killed? Would your opinion change?

[Collector1337]

but if they save 1 live but get 10 killed (even if I'm the 1) then they have no place in the home or personal possession.

You seriously believe those figures, don't you?

And you seriously believe 800 000 people in the US aren't murdered each year because they own guns!

800,000 people murdered a year because "they own guns?" Are you high?

How has my family, all of my extended family, and many friends, who all own guns, for generation after generation, managed to survive without a single episode of gun violence of any kind, let alone murder?

[MrJonno]

What if you found out they saved 10 lives, and only got 1 killed? Would your opinion change?

When the US murder rates go down 75% to match more sane countries sure, until then its a body count

[Coito ergo sum]

What if you found out they saved 10 lives, and only got 1 killed? Would your opinion change?

When the US murder rates go down 75% to match more sane countries sure, until then its a body count

Are New Hampshir's gun laws adequate for you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_New_Hampshire

In 2012 - the gun homicide rate in New Hampshire was 0.53 per hundred thousand.

[MrJonno]

Nope there is no real genuine difference in any part of the US on the availability of firearms, restrictions are obviously irrelevant if you can go 20 miles across a non guarded border and just buy a firearm

When there is a controlled border between US states and everyone requires a passport/metal detector scan like at an airport I might have an interest in such statistics