Newtown School Shootings

[ICantSpellDawg]

I posted:
this in facebook.

Friend A replied:

doogie howser should stick to medicine. this dude is sort of ridiculous -- he makes a big deal out of "the media" cherry-picking its statistics, then does the exact same thing himself, noting that the violent crime rate in the UK is 3.5 times that of the US (!!!!!) while totally downplaying the fact that the murder rate in the US is three times that of the UK.

the post-newtown conversation is about preventing mass shootings, and i think it's pretty clear that, in this case, murder rate is a more relevant statistic to look at than overall violent crime rate. (it should go without saying that making an apples-to-apples comparison between violent crime statistics collected by two different agencies in two different countries is going to be difficult.)

i also don't see the relevance of his point that crime is concentrated in cities. this, of course, isn't news. but it's also the case that these mass shootings don't seem to go on in cities nearly as often as they go on in suburban/rural areas -- newtown, virginia tech, columbine. violent crime in cities is a problem, but it's a separate issue.

in particular, though, the thing that leads me to believe that this dude is retarded is him making a big deal out of the US having "six times the number of large metropolitan areas!" as the UK. well, we also have five times the population of the UK. if he wanted to make some meaningful comparison, he'd look at the fraction of the US and UK populations that live in cities.

some other statistics are probably helpful. in england and wales, 9.3% of homicides are committed with a firearm, and in scotland it's 2.2%:

http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn01940.pdf

in the US it's in the neighborhood of 66%:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Us...esbyweapon.svg

this, to me, says a lot about why the murder rate is so much lower in the UK. -- the non-firearm-related murder rates are actually pretty similar. it seems like guns play a significant role here.

he's right that banning the AR-15 (or any other assault rifle) isn't going to eliminate violent crime. but saying that they account for only a small portion of gun-related crime is like saying that no one was killed by nuclear weapons last year. it's true, sure, but it doesn't mean that there's a compelling reason why people should have them

Friend B replied:

While in Oklahoma, I had the opportunity to discuss this issue with some locals. Consensus is that there is no purpose for the AR-15 or related weapons in civilian life other than to make dudes (or chicks) feel like they got bigger wangs

I replied:

The fact that rifles of any type are involved in approximately 400 homicides on average per year is a foolish thing to bring up? Or that 3x as many people died from automobile accidents as they did from ALL gun related homicides in the U.S. over the past 3 years? I think that perspective is an important thing to bring up in a discussion about radically diminishing the right of individuals to defend themselves in an effective way.

The "choose your own crime stats" title clued me in to the idea that he might choose his own crime stats. I think that violent crime is an important metric and appreciate that you think it goes without saying that comparing one set of data between the FBI and Home Office might not be as congruous as we'd like it to be. Also, you are discussing the "murder rate", but I haven't read that rate anywhere. I've read "homicide rate" as 4.2 in the U.S. and 1.7 in the U.K. for 2011. As you know, homicide is the killing of another person, whereas murder is the unlawful killing of another person, with malice aforethought; a subset of homicide.

Without question, violence in the United States appears to be more lethal than in most other OECD countries, but in many cases violence tends to occur with more regularity in those other countries than you'd expect and, I believe that the availability of firearms in civil society does not increase rates of violence which is important to consider when defending or attacking fundamental and Constitutionally protected rights.

Thank you for answering my request without bringing up wangs, even though you used the words ridiculous and retarded to describe someone who was arguing opposing points. Although, Doob did discuss the issue of gun rights with a viable sample-sized group, I'm sure.

Friend B replied:

Again owning an AR-15, any "assault weapon" or stockpiling guns and ammunition has absolutely nothing to do with the "right of individuals to defend themselves in an effective way". And if more people die by accident or improper use of firearms than in homicides perhaps that is even more of a reason to impose limitations. yes, the sample size in question was men and women with above average sized wangs.

I replied:

That depends on who or what we are defending ourselves from. There can be limits to gun ownership, as the NFA and background check laws show. A convincing argument can be made in the use of the word "Infringe" rather than "Abridge" in the clause, although this has been believed to be a difference of inches rather than miles. Sensible, arguably constitutional limits might include high capacity magazine bans which I don't like but might make sense or the idea that people must pass checks at gun shows which I am in favor of as this is clearly an unnecessary risk when easy internet access is available at the shows (as they weren't in the 80's). If you believe that the right to bear arms on an individual basis extends only to hunters and those practicing to hunt, then you would disagree, but I don't believe that this approaches the core of the reasoning behind founding or modern Constitutional jurisprudence, except in minority dissent.

Friend B replied:

Ok. What type of nonhuman that exists in reality do you need an AR-15 to protect yourself from?

I replied:

No, AR-15's are primarily designed to kill/stop human beings. I'm not suggesting that most people use them for any other purpose (other than the most common "preparing to use them for this purpose"). I maintain that we have a right to kill/stop humans to an extent in special circumstances around the protection of our own life/liberty or that of those immediately around us. This right has been limited with regards to indiscriminate spraying using select-fire automatic weapons, but the death rate using these weapons - which are now in common use - is exceptionally low. These weapons are effective for this purpose and this purpose is viable, to a reduced extent, for civilians in a Democratic Republic with a right to arm themselves with an eye on government. It's important to try to show that these policies and concerns are reasonable and that they resonate without using Constitutional protection in and of itself as an argument. That is a legal, historical and possibly a moral argument, but to leave it aside allows people to discuss ideas without undue merit, other than in a circular argument.

To decry the 2nd amendment as an archaic policy against an abusive government because of the perception that we are living at the "end of history" is foolish when discussing these issues, as it is when discussing opposition to the Patriot Act, or "stop and frisk", or eliminating due process for non-citizen individuals in areas controlled by the U.S. government, or extra-judicial killings of U.S. citizens abroad. I'm sure that I don't like government making these decisions and these decisions are ominous.

Friend A replied:

comparing raw numbers of automobile accidents and gun homicides is totally pointless; how many people get in a car every day and how many people handle a gun? and the number of deaths from one says absolutely nothing about the number of deaths we should tolerate via the other. and the discussion is about mass shootings, not overall violent crime, so bringing in violent crime stats doesn't add anything.

anyone who sincerely believes that the AR-15 is what's standing between democracy and tyranny is vastly out of touch with reality.

maybe it's cute to split hairs over the exact wording of the second amendment, but real people are really dying. if you think that's acceptable, great, but i don't. banning assault rifles would help stop at least some of these shootings, without taking away other effective means of defending your home -- how about a shotgun?

I replied:

Real people are really dying. Everyday. The question of cost vs benefit should be at the heart of every serious policy decision, not just emotional pandering, even though that isn't going anywhere soon. Things can be done, but what is being floated is not acceptable. I place a high value on the Second amendment as it is currently understood. You claim that the AR-15 is not what is "standing between democracy and tyranny". What is? I believe that there are quite a few things occupying that space. Bloomberg says that stop/frisk/confiscate without probable cause isn't isn't a breach of the search and seizure restrictions in the 4th amendment. You say semi-automatic guns are not part of the right of citizens to be armed, and their reasoning is anachronistic in the first place. Anwar alAwlaki, a U.S. citizen, shouldn't have been convicted prior to his execution, and he didn't actually need his 5th amendment right of due process because of reasons. In fact, lets just scrap that stuff. Those things arn't what is holding our nation of laws together, but rather details which have no bearing on the future of expansive freedom. Lets just use the LCD of exactly what the framers meant when they said "free speech", start prosecuting "pornography" and leave protected speech to cover only what is "informative". Good people say good things, pornography or music with curses in it isn't what is holding our country together anyway.

I re-replied:

and, technically, there are more civilian owned guns (approx 270mil ) in the U.S. than there are registered private passenger vehicles (approx 254mil). If there are approx 200mil licensed drivers and the average round trip commute is 46 minutes, that is about 153 mil hours spent in a car per day all together. If there are approx 9 million CCW holders in the U.S., they carry approx 8 hours per day maybe - about 72 million hours spent with concealed weapons. tee hee hee

Friend A replied:

the people driving their cars are operating them; someone carrying a firearm isn't operating it the whole time, or else something has gone very wrong. you're also completely missing the larger point that the two have nothing to do with each other, so you bringing up car accidents accomplishes nothing.

and i agree that costs and benefits should be weighed -- that's completely obvious. we're never going to prevent all bad things from happening, but there's certain low-hanging fruit that should be taken care of. among that is the ban of assault rifles. i'm saying that doing so would provide a clear benefit at pretty much no cost.

and i don't know, dude, but it looks to me like there are a whole lot of democracies around the world featuing citizens that stave off tyranny without access to the AR-15. you can fear-monger all you'd like, but it's never going to be a compelling argument.

and, back to the original post, i still think that this dude is a tard. there are a lot of people who want to Act Serious and talk about Data but either have no ability to understand what they're looking at or else use this Seriousness as a mask. this dude is among them

I replied:

I disagree that the guy is retarded and I think that he makes good points about our purportedly violent culture when compared with actual rates of violence elsewhere. It is convenient to disregard points that don't contribute to your larger argument, but I try to recognize legitimacy in the arguments of others where it exists. His point is that we are a much less violent culture than is currently believed and, because gun rights are important, this point directly reduces the cost side of my cost benefit understanding. Your point that shootings are higher as a result of our gun rights is legitimate aNd increases the cost side of my understanding. Are there things that can be done to help lower the cost side without substantially reducing the benefit side? Sure. Without question, the weight that I give the benefit site is greater than the weight you give it

Friend C:

I just listened to something on the public radio today about gun violence and that hand guns are the main cause of these kinds of deaths as opposed to rifles. I don't have time to read what all you guys think, but Chris, my thoughts are that rifles aren't the problem, nor hand guns, or rules around them -- but the issue really lies with individuals believing that someone else's life isn't important or valuable.

I replied:

That sums up the cause of just about every problem that we have. Hit the nail on the head.