The case against guns

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Re: The case against guns

Post by FBM » Sun Jan 12, 2014 6:20 am

The planet is over-populated, anyway. The doctors aren't helping by coming up with cures for all these diseases, either. How else are we going to thin the herd? If you care for the planet, kill somebody today!
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Re: The case against guns

Post by Blind groper » Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:28 am

To FBM

You have to demonstrate sincerity with that policy. So start with yourself.

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Re: The case against guns

Post by FBM » Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:33 am

I'm doing my part by not reproducing.
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Re: The case against guns

Post by Seth » Sun Jan 12, 2014 8:44 am

Blind groper wrote:I have now finished reading the book on the history of violence by Harvard University Professor of Psychology, Steven Pinker.

While he does not dwell on the gun issue, it is very clear that his research has shown that one of the things that has perpetuated violence in human society is the vigilante mind set.

That is : those people who are determined to carry out their own form of justice, rather than relying on the authorities, are perpetuating and increasing levels of violence in society.

There is little or no difference in the mind set of a violent criminal and a person who decides to use "self defense" principles to harm others. The violent criminals justify their own actions using their own weird code, such as justifying a murder by telling themselves that the victim brought it on himself. The vigilante, who uses violence to "defend himself" rather than use the police for protection, uses very similar self justifying arguments, but is doing as much harm to society as that criminal. The more people using the vigilante approach, the more violent society is.

Professor Pinker, who has done years of research into the causes of violence, makes it very clear that personal action such as advocated by Seth, is harming society and exacerbating violence, and leading to more, not fewer, killings.
Horseshit. There is a 100 percent difference between the law-abiding citizen who is forced by the criminal actions of another to use force in self-defense and a "vigilante mindset," which is where your argument, as per usual, goes astray.

You grossly (and probably deliberately) misapprehend the nature of self-defense and the nature of vigilantism. The willingness to use force to defend yourself or other innocent persons against criminal attack has absolutely nothing whatever to do with vigilantism or "carry[ing] out their own form of justice." Justice has nothing to do with it, nor does revenge, anger, "payback" or any other rationalization used by those who initiate force against others.

The first principle of self-defense, particularly armed self-defense is that one never uses any sort of force that is not rendered unavoidable by the lawless actions of others. The second principle of self-defense is that legitimate self-defense never applies more force that is necessary to render the attacker(s) incapable of continuing their attack and ensuring the safety of innocents. Any action taken to harm an attacker once that goal has been achieved is a criminal act, not self-defense, and that IS "vigilantism." However, that does not preclude the use of deadly force when faced with an attack that raises a reasonable belief that your life, or the life of another innocent is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, and that a lesser degree of force would be inadequate, in your reasonable judgement, to prevent the harm.

Self-defense is justified by many different types of attack, but lethal self-defense is not. But neither is it precluded because the law recognizes that an attack that triggers the right to self-defense may unfold and escalate quickly, in a matter of a second or two, which may require an instant application of force sufficient to terminate the threat before the attacker can succeed in completing his or her attack. The law also recognizes that the individual has the right to survive any lawless attack unscathed and unharmed, and that his right to remain free of injury outweighs whatever right his attacker might have to be free of injury or death occasioned by his attack. As well, the law recognizes that a reasonable belief that one is in mortal peril is adequate to justify the use of lethal force and that there may be no time available to assess the situation in a more leisurely fashion, and therefore the law makes allowances for a potential disparity between the victim's perceptions and the actual threat such that if the victim's use of force is based on a belief that would be held by a reasonable person facing the same totality of circumstances would have held.

Unlike the "vigilante mindset" that you allude to, the individual forced to respond with force to force doesn't have the "mindset" that you attribute (falsely) to me. If anything, he is at a distinct disadvantage in the conflict precisely because his assailant has had plenty of time to ponder and plan his attack, whereas the victim may have mere fractions of a second to make an instantaneous decision that will either save his or another's life or end up getting him killed because he hesitated to use a sufficient amount of force to terminate the threat, which is actually the most common scenario because, and precisely because Joe Average Law-Abiding Citizen does not have a vigilante mindset. What he may have, and what I cultivate and recommend, is both pre-planning, practice and vigilance that keeps one from being surprised by another's attack. But please note that "vigilance" and "vigilantism" are two entirely different things, and one has nothing whatever to do with the other.

Being prepared and trained to deploy reasonable and appropriate physical force in the face of an unlawful attack is not "vigilantism." Never has been, never will be. It's just simple common sense and good citizenship.

And thus is your edifice of unreason once again demolished at a single blow.

Better luck next time.

Pinker's thesis that one of the moderating forces in human violence is the state and it's "monopoly of legitimate force" is true only so far as it's intended to go. No nation on earth forbids the individual from exercising his right to self-defense when he is attacked, though the UK comes perilously close to doing so by so severely limiting the individual's physical ability to do so that self-defense becomes impotent and useless.

However, his argument about the monopoly of force of the state does not actually mean a monopoly on the use of force. His argument applies, as you have said, to the INITIATION of force against another as a method of righting an actual or perceived wrong. What it does not apply to is the use of force in DEFENSE against the unlawful initiation of force by another. "Vigilantism" is inherently and inescapably linked to the human notions of justice which are largely based in notions of retribution, punishment, prevention of future bad actions, and compensation for wrongs, all of which are adjudicatory in nature.

Pinker's primary focus is human violence and war, where these notions come into play on not just an individual level but on a societal level, where one nation wages war on another in order to redress some perceived wrong. He's quite right that the propensity for societies to engage in war has lessened and he's quite correct in his analysis of why violence has declined, and will hopefully continue to decline.

However, any argument he makes that the use of force in self-defense against an imminent attack is unjustified is either a) wrong; or b) grievously misinterpreted by you, which I suspect is the actual fact.

Even Pinker understands that the dispensing of "justice" is best handled by the state, which can take a more neutral position and can help to eliminate personal emotion and bias, and that is why he argues that the police are generally speaking the proper instrument of achieving justice and peace in society. But nowhere that I'm aware of does he claim that the use of self-defense against imminent lawless attack to be unjustifiable or even anti-social, so long, of course, as the force used in self-defense ceases when the imminent threat has been neutralized, at which point the state takes over the process of determining and administering justice.

It's too bad that you cannot seem to comprehend the distinction between "vigilantism" and "self-defense," though I suspect you do but don't care to acknowledge it for reasons of personal bias.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: The case against guns

Post by laklak » Sun Jan 12, 2014 4:23 pm

Professor Pinker is a poofter.
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

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Re: The case against guns

Post by Blind groper » Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:13 pm

To Seth

Let me point out the flaw in your illogic. There is one thing you overlook. That is the human propensity to self delusion.

Obviously not all people who advocate self defense, with guns or otherwise, are deluded. But delusion is so common that it enters into a sizeable proportion of 'self defense' actions. This means that the vigilante ends up shooting dead a person who is not threatening him.

The vigilante mind set tends to be an angry mind set. People who set out to be vigilantes are ready to shoot someone, whether it is justified or not. So they see someone who might or might not be a threat. Instead of finding out for sure, they shoot. This is probably the real cause of the Zimmerman case, regardless of anything the court decided.

Certainly a person who is 100% sane and has no self delusion can carry a gun without endangering society. We rely on that with trained police. Sadly, all too many of those vigilantes are not 100% sane.

Pinker had a chapter in his book about the wild west. I told you once before, Seth, that the murder rate in the old west was 25 killings per 100,000 people per year. Pinker points out that this is probably an estimate on the low side. In many places, and at many times, it was much higher. There was even a small town where, for a few years, the murder rate was 1 in 4 (25,000 per 100,000 per year except that there were a lot fewer than 100,000 living there). The reason for this was mainly the lack of any real law enforcement by police, government and courts. Rough 'frontier justice' prevailed - the vigilante approach. End result was numerous tragic killings.

The taming of the wild west happened for two reasons.
1. Government stepped in and set up police and courts, plus prisons.
2. The 'feminisation' of the west. When numerous young women travelled to the west and found husbands. A young man with a wife and children is less likely to get violent.

But it is very clear that the vigilante approach is barbaric, and leads to numerous unnecessary killings.

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Re: The case against guns

Post by JimC » Sun Jan 12, 2014 8:55 pm

BG, I think it was a mistake to bring the term "self-defence" into to your argument earlier. Except for the most ardent pacifist, self-defence is always a legitimate option in the right circumstances. Of course, there is the proviso that many potentially violent situations can be defused by intelligently responding to a situation, but, in extremis, self-defence may be both appropriate and vital.

The problem comes with the mind set that elevates it to a primary human motivation, to be applied automatically and un-yieldingly in any situation, the whole macho, never-take-a-step-backwards mentality.
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Re: The case against guns

Post by Seth » Sun Jan 12, 2014 10:50 pm

Blind groper wrote:To Seth

Let me point out the flaw in your illogic. There is one thing you overlook. That is the human propensity to self delusion.
Takes one to know one.... :bored:
Obviously not all people who advocate self defense, with guns or otherwise, are deluded. But delusion is so common that it enters into a sizeable proportion of 'self defense' actions. This means that the vigilante ends up shooting dead a person who is not threatening him.
Does it? Prove your assertion. You can begin by first compiling all incidences of self-defense shootings, in detail. From there we can debate the specifics of each and every incident to determine whether it was a justified self-defense shooting or a "vigilante...shooting dead a person who is not threatening him."
The vigilante mind set tends to be an angry mind set. People who set out to be vigilantes are ready to shoot someone, whether it is justified or not. So they see someone who might or might not be a threat. Instead of finding out for sure, they shoot. This is probably the real cause of the Zimmerman case, regardless of anything the court decided.
This may be true...of vigilantes. However, it is NOT true of ordinary law-abiding citizens reacting to an unlawful attack in self-defense. So, your statement is non sequitur because I'm not advocating or defending vigilantism, merely lawful self-defense.
Certainly a person who is 100% sane and has no self delusion can carry a gun without endangering society. We rely on that with trained police. Sadly, all too many of those vigilantes are not 100% sane.
And you think cops are 100% sane? Boy is your perception of the world fucked up...
Pinker had a chapter in his book about the wild west.
Wayback machine fallacy.
I told you once before, Seth, that the murder rate in the old west was 25 killings per 100,000 people per year. Pinker points out that this is probably an estimate on the low side. In many places, and at many times, it was much higher. There was even a small town where, for a few years, the murder rate was 1 in 4 (25,000 per 100,000 per year except that there were a lot fewer than 100,000 living there). The reason for this was mainly the lack of any real law enforcement by police, government and courts. Rough 'frontier justice' prevailed - the vigilante approach. End result was numerous tragic killings.
So what? That was then, this is now. Which makes his investigation interesting from a historical perspective as a demonstration of the changing modes of law enforcement, but which has absolutely no pertinence whatever to today's raft of laws that regulate the use of lawful self-defense.
The taming of the wild west happened for two reasons.
1. Government stepped in and set up police and courts, plus prisons.
Yup. But we're not talking about police or court action, we're talking about immediate self-defense actions by the individual in the absence of police protection.
2. The 'feminisation' of the west. When numerous young women travelled to the west and found husbands. A young man with a wife and children is less likely to get violent.
Yup. But then again a young man with a wife and child in the "wild west" was even MORE likely to be armed for self-defense because he has more than just himself to protect, and rightfully so.
But it is very clear that the vigilante approach is barbaric, and leads to numerous unnecessary killings.
I might agree with you...if we were talking about vigilantism. But we're not. You're just fallaciously conflating vigilantism with lawful (and moral) self-defense to try to bootstrap your idiotic argument that people shouldn't bother to defend themselves, much less be trained, prepared and armed to do so at need. Trying to paint anyone who has the courage to go about armed for self-defense as a "vigilante" is a particularly weak and ignorant attempt at demonization that doesn't even rise to the level of a valid argument.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.

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Re: The case against guns

Post by Seth » Sun Jan 12, 2014 10:54 pm

JimC wrote:BG, I think it was a mistake to bring the term "self-defence" into to your argument earlier. Except for the most ardent pacifist, self-defence is always a legitimate option in the right circumstances. Of course, there is the proviso that many potentially violent situations can be defused by intelligently responding to a situation, but, in extremis, self-defence may be both appropriate and vital.

The problem comes with the mind set that elevates it to a primary human motivation, to be applied automatically and un-yieldingly in any situation, the whole macho, never-take-a-step-backwards mentality.
Yup. But that's just bad tactics, not an indictment of defensive firearms or self-defense.

Any knowledgeable self-defense advocate or trainer will always act to avoid conflict as the primary tactic, turning to force only when that is not possible.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S

"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.

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Re: The case against guns

Post by Blind groper » Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:30 am

To Jim

You may be right in suggesting that the term 'self defense' weakens my case. But remember I am not talking of genuine self defense, but the illusion that leads to shootings because the shooter is deluded.

The easiest way of cutting down on such shootings is to remove the weapons, meaning hand guns. As I said before, I am not really fussed about assault rifles, or machine guns etc., because statistically they cause little harm.

Hand guns, though kill half of all those killed by murderers in the USA, and two thirds of all those who die in suicide.

Nor am I naive enough to think we can remove all hand guns in one fell swoop and solve the problem overnight. But there is no excuse for not making a start. Small steps to save a few lives here, and a few lives there, and cut down on the horrible carnage that American nutty gun culture and excessive gun ownership leads to.

A PS to that message.

We can see the relationship between gun ownership and murder rates by comparing countries in the OECD.

Highest gun ownership per capita. USA. Highest murder rate - USA

Second highest gun ownership - Finland. Second highest murder rate - Finland.

Medium level gun ownership - Canada. Medium level murder rate - Canada (Murder rate is 150% that of my country.)

Low gun ownership - Australia and New Zealand.
Low murder rate - Australia and New Zealand.

Lowest gun ownership - Japan. Lowest murder rate - Japan.

The only country that does not follow this rule in general is Switzerland, with high gun ownership and low murder rate, but the Swiss are particularly sane.

It is also worth noting that Australia (after the Port Arthur massacre) reduced gun ownership and the murder rate dropped as well.

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Re: The case against guns

Post by Hermit » Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:55 am

Blind groper wrote:It is also worth noting that Australia (after the Port Arthur massacre) reduced gun ownership and the murder rate dropped as well.
That's a dishonest use of statistics, particularly as you are aware that sidearms were never an issue here, and acknowledged that rifles and shotguns had little impact on murder rates. The murder rate in Australia decreased in the three years after the gun control legislation at the same velocity as in the three years before it. So, the statistics on murder in Australia cannot be used in support of gun control for at leas two reasons.

Also, while the suicide rate by firearm dropped dramatically after the buy-back of guns, the overall suicide rate in the three succeeding years increased at the same rate as in the three years preceding it.


Turning to Seth's mantra,"more guns, less crime, fewer guns, more crime", I'd like him to demonstrate a causal connection in relation to this graph:

Image

It appeared in a pro gun site, and shows not even an approximately parallel correlation between gun ownership and violent crime.

It seems to me that neither side in the gun control debate has been able to back its position up with facts.
Last edited by Hermit on Mon Jan 13, 2014 4:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The case against guns

Post by Seth » Mon Jan 13, 2014 4:02 am

Blind groper wrote:To Jim

You may be right in suggesting that the term 'self defense' weakens my case. But remember I am not talking of genuine self defense, but the illusion that leads to shootings because the shooter is deluded.
'
And yet you have not cited a single instance of this occurring, much less demonstrated that it happens so often as to justify the draconian effects on everyone else that you propose.
The easiest way of cutting down on such shootings is to remove the weapons, meaning hand guns.


And once again you ignore the consequences of doing so. Let's do the math. If one percent of people who possess handguns are "deluded" and dangerous because they have a handgun, that means that 99 percent aren't deluded and aren't dangerous because they have a handgun. Yet you would disarm the 99 percent in order to try to get to the 1 percent. And you don't give a flying fuck about the safety or lives of the 99 percent so long as you achieve your real goal, which is to eliminate all guns because you have a delusional phobia of them.
As I said before, I am not really fussed about assault rifles, or machine guns etc., because statistically they cause little harm.
Well, that's something.
Hand guns, though kill half of all those killed by murderers in the USA,
How many handguns, exactly? How many murders? What percentage of all handguns in the USA do the handguns used for such crimes comprise. Here's a clue: It's less that 0.0004 percent. Which means that 99.9996 percent of handguns in the USA are not used to kill anyone. When are you going to acknowledge this simple mathematical fact? Never, I suspect, because it destroys your biased and bigoted hoplophobic argument completely.
and two thirds of all those who die in suicide.
I'll let you do the math this time. The number is still in the ten-thousandths of a percent, which means your argument is no better than your earlier one.
Nor am I naive enough to think we can remove all hand guns in one fell swoop and solve the problem overnight. But there is no excuse for not making a start. Small steps to save a few lives here, and a few lives there, and cut down on the horrible carnage that American nutty gun culture and excessive gun ownership leads to.
While utterly ignoring the carnage that will result from doing so, something that you simply refuse to acknowledge, even though you've been cited to dozens of examples where the lack of a handgun in the hands of a victim would have resulted in their being the subject of the carnage you allude to.

Like I said, you don't give a flying fuck about anything or anyone except your paranoid delusions about guns. It's a great thing that you aren't an American, at least I don't have to worry about you becoming President.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S

"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.

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Re: The case against guns

Post by Hermit » Mon Jan 13, 2014 4:33 am

Blind groper wrote:It is also worth noting that Australia (after the Port Arthur massacre) reduced gun ownership and the murder rate dropped as well.
That's a dishonest use of statistics, particularly as you are aware that sidearms were never an issue here, and acknowledged that rifles and shotguns had little impact on murder rates. The murder rate in Australia decreased in the three years after the gun control legislation at the same velocity as in the three years before it. So, the statistics on murder in Australia cannot be used in support of gun control for at leas two reasons.

Also, while the suicide rate by firearm dropped dramatically after the buy-back of guns, the overall suicide rate in the three succeeding years increased at the same rate as in the three years preceding it.


Turning to Seth's mantra,"more guns, less crime, fewer guns, more crime", I'd like him to demonstrate a causal connection in relation to this graph:

Image

It appeared in a pro gun site, and shows not even an approximately parallel correlation - or more precisely, a consistently inverse relationship - between gun ownership and violent crime.

It seems to me that neither side in the gun control debate has been able to back its position up with facts.
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Re: The case against guns

Post by Blind groper » Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:44 am

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazi ... revalence/

The above reference shows the link between suicide rate and gun ownership. More guns means more deaths by suicide. This is the more serious connection, since there are always more suicides than homicides. More lives lost unnecessarily.

My last post showed the clear link between gun ownership and homicide rate in the OECD, with the exception of Switzerland. Again, more guns = more harm. This time in the form of homicides.

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Re: The case against guns

Post by Blind groper » Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:49 am

http://www.bu.edu/news/2013/09/13/new-r ... homicides/

On guns and homicides.
The link above shows that gun ownershop correlates with homicides. State by state in the USA, every 1% rise in gun ownership causes a 0.9% rise in gun homicide.

Guns kill people. More guns kill more people. The whole bullshit idea that Seth puts across that guns are good is crap. More guns mean more innocent people are killed.

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