patrick.net

errc says

So do you 'feel' safer when you walk the streets of inner city chicago, because guns are banned?

What, you think guns are banned in Chicago? Where did you hear this, it's not true at all. Unless you have some weird NRA definition of "banned", which means "there are some regulations I don't like"...

StillLooking says

So what?

So, what? Your original assertion is that guns were causing 100,000 crimes to happen each year (on average) in the US. I was responding to that claim.

StillLooking says

This means guns add 100,000 crimes

StillLooking says

This means over the course of one's life millions get shot in the USA. This means one's chances of being shot in one's lifetime are pretty good.

Really? this is your argument?

What are pretty good chances?

Obligatory:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk9wd2FGG-E

(sorry zzyzzx I beat you to it)

bdrasin says

What, you think guns are banned in Chicago? Where did you hear this, it's not true at all. Unless you have some weird NRA definition of "banned", which means "there are some regulations I don't like"...

While the Supreme Court did overturn Chicago's always illegal 28 year old handgun ban in 2010, you can't conceal carry and you will be harassed by police when carrying in public. It effectively disarms you when outside of your house, making you an easier victim.

Yes, the regulations are also made to deter people getting the permit as well.

It is much restricted than Vermont for instance. Given the demographics differences between VT and IL I agree that everyone should not have the right to carry without restriction in IL.

foxmannumber1 says

bdrasin says

What, you think guns are banned in Chicago? Where did you hear this, it's not true at all. Unless you have some weird NRA definition of "banned", which means "there are some regulations I don't like"...

There are some restrictions I don't like. And I hate black people.

*sigh*

StillLooking says

This means one's chances of being shot in one's lifetime are pretty good.

Horribly wrong logic. However, I think statistics prove the odds of getting shot greatly increase by associating with blacks.

StillLooking says

Why are we taking this completely not needed risk? Why not ban guns?

You can't put the genie back in its bottle. A gun is a simple but very effective tool that when used in an uncivil manner can inflict great injury in a short amount of time.

Criminals, by definition, do not care if something is unlawful or not. By banning guns you would be arming the criminals and disarming the potential victims.

Mass production of guns requires heavy industry so unlike drugs for instance, a prohibition of guns will be effective.

Once guns are banned the only new guns will be made by hand in a garage in small numbers. The price of guns will quickly rise to a level where a two bit punk won't have the means to get a gun.

So the genie can be put back in the bottle.

StillLooking says

Hitler armed his people to the teeth. In response to the guns bring liberty canard.

I am losing liberty because of guns. It is more dangerous to out in the world because the risk of getting shot is real. This means I have less liberty because of guns.

So do you 'feel' safer when you walk the streets of inner city chicago, because guns are banned?

I would feel much safer walking the streets of Chicago if guns were banned. Much much much safer.

bdrasin says

There are some restrictions I don't like. And I hate black people.

I do not hate black people. I recognize there are genetic differences between blacks and every other race on the planet that should be addressed in a fact based way so that the happiness of all races can be improved.

StillLooking says

I would feel much safer walking the streets of Chicago if guns were banned. Much much much safer.

Guns were banned in Chicago for 28 years. It did not stop violent gun crime. Once again, criminals do not care about gun bans.

And why is it all politicians are protected by agents and guards who are heavily armed???

But YOU'RE not supposed to be armed to protect YOURSELF?

More liberal "logic".

StillLooking says

I would feel much safer walking the streets of Chicago if guns were banned. Much much much safer.

Until a guy with a knife walked up to you and demanded money...

Fail.

Funny how the people who are afraid of government taking away their guns aren't afraid of government taking away all their other rights including the right not to be sexually molested by the government.

StillLooking says

The price of guns will quickly rise to a level where a two bit punk won't have the means to get a gun.

Correct. Only organized crime will be able to afford them. ;-)

Dan8267 says

Funny how the people who are afraid of government taking away their guns aren't afraid of government taking away all their other rights including the right not to be sexually molested by the government.

1. Within government sexual molestation swings both ways - Democrat and Republican. The USA Patriot Act passed the US Senate with 98 votes for, one against, and one abstaining.

2. Among the potential voters most of the pro-gun people I know have strong libertarian beliefs which have them against the TSA and Patriot Act, against the war on some drugs, for equal treatment of same-sex and other marriages, and against government controls on abortion.

StillLooking says

I am losing liberty because of guns. It is more dangerous to be out in the world because the risk of getting shot is real. This means I have less liberty because of guns.

If you actually peruse the Uniform Crime Reports you'll note that your risk of being shot isn't too out of line with "more civilized places" as long as you're not black, especially when you avoid major risk factors like joining a youth gang, involvement in the drug trade, or being in a love triangle. With a statistically average chance of having those risk factors as a non-hispanic white person in 2007 your odds of being murdered were 3.7 in 100,000 although being non-hispanic black made them 41.4 in 100,000.

When you dig deeper you find evidence suggesting that "black" is a proxy for other socio-economic factors which should exclude black members of the middle class from and include white urban lower class individuals in the population of frequently murdered people.

The United States doesn't have a gun problem. We do have an educational gap which leads to economic disparity and subsequently high murder and other crime rates.

If our murder rate had anything to do with the availability of guns, blood would have run red in the streets of small rural towns where boys kept rifles and shotguns in their vehicles so they could hunt on the way to and from school. It did not.

If our murder rate had anything to do with the availability of guns, it would have been higher before the Gun Control Act of 1968 than after when it became illegal to sell guns through the mail. It was not.

If our murder rates had anything to do with the availability of guns, they'd be higher where adults without criminal records can carry concealed than in places where handguns are effectively illegal. They are not.

Our murder rates are/were not higher in those situations because they don't go up with more ready access to guns. They're high among some subpopulations due to economic and social issues that are unpopular to admit and a lot more difficult to fix compared to passing another gun-control law.

People like to cite _Handgun Regulations, Crime, Assaults, and Homicides: A Tale of Two Cities_ (Sloan at el) as an example showing how American access to guns makes us less safe than Canadians where similar cities (size, geography, etc) are compared although this is incorrect.

Although Seattle and Vancouver are similar cities on opposite sides of the border they have radically different demographics.

At the time of the study white people on both sides of the border had similar economic circumstances and were safer in Seattle with 6.2 murders per 100,000 versus 6.4 per 100,000 in Vancouver.

In Vancouver the minorities were more affluent than average and their murder rates were not out of line with those of the white population. In Seattle the black and Hispanic per-capita incomes from the 2000 census were about half the white population's ( $18,328 and $17,216 respectively vs $35,641) and murder rates consequently many times higher at 36.6 and 26.9 per 100,000.

People's income generally comes from their educational attainment and there's a huge gap there.

Part of the education gap is due to how we run our schools. Public schools are paid for (through property taxes) and controlled (as in the curriculum) by the local populations. Students generally attend local schools. Black children are more likely to live in statistically poor neighborhoods. White children are more likely to live in statistically affluent neighborhoods where professional parents insist the schools provide college level courses so their kids can get into name-brand universities. Black children are therefore less likely to have the same educational opportunities as white ones.

Part of it is social. Children tend to follow in their father's footsteps when it comes to education and earnings.

Poor people living among the relatively wealthy will continue to kill each other until we deal with this regardless of the legal situation involving firearms just like they do in other countries with high economic disparity but strict gun laws. For example, Jamaica decided in 1974 that only the police and military can legally own handguns with illegal possession carrying a life sentence. Following the ban the murder rate skyrocketed past 60 per 100,000 inhabitants although at only 41 per 100,000 in 2012 it's near the post-ban low and matches the US black rate in 2007 but remains over 10X worse than our white rate.

The facts don't support gun-control and the only good which comes out of it is in the voting booth.

It's _MUCH_ easier to vote when one candidate has an anti-gun history and the other contender does not.

When voting I don't care much about abortion law. I doubt the Republicans would be stupid enough to do anything substantial although if they did I can afford to fly my family's women outside the country if they want an abortion.

When voting I don't care too much about public schools. Our kids have under graduate degrees so it doesn't affect me personally. I also don't think the problems with many public schools won't be fixed by more money or that less money will make things worse except as a side effect of the teachers' unions' reaction (like school library closures because the union won't allow parent volunteers to serve as librarians)

Both parties have affected my tax bill for better and worse so that's a wash.

Candidates' attempts at gun control have had significant effects on how I participate in shooting sports and what that costs me. For instance I had to keep my rifles which weren't legal in California in an out-of-state storage facility until they were stolen. Some regular capacity magazines were five times as expensive between 1994 and 2004 as they were before and after.

A disproportionate number of Democrats have actually done something which would offend me enough to vote for (almost) whoever the Republicans care to run against them. A few Republicans have crossed that threshold or said something to suggest they would in the future like Meg "tough gun laws like assault weapon bans and handgun control are appropriate for California" Whitman who is not appropriate for California.

In other states this was less of an issue since many politicians learned their lesson and are no longer as stupid as the Democrats were when they passed HR3355 in 1994 and lost both House and Senate; although in California the anti-gunners are very virulent. It'll be interesting to see what happens in California as we undo the Gerrymandering with things like Prop 20.

drew_eckhardt says

Within government sexual molestation swings both ways - Democrat and Republican. The USA Patriot Act passed the US Senate with 98 votes for, one against, and one abstaining.

True, both parties are to blame for that atrocity. However, not a single republican in 2006 voted against extending the horrific act. Nine democrats and one independent did. As bad as the democrats are on civil rights -- and they do suck ass -- the republicans are more gun ho about removing all human and civil rights.

Official senate vote count on Patriot Act

I could not bring myself to support either Obama or Hilary during the last election because they both voted in favor of that act. Hilary in 2001 and Obama in 2006. Anyone who voted in favor of the act either time should be arrested for undermining the republic and never allowed to hold office again.

drew_eckhardt says

Among the potential voters most of the pro-gun people I know have strong libertarian beliefs which have them against the TSA and Patriot Act

And I could respect those pro-gun people because they are not advocating contradicting beliefs. But pro-gun/pro-PatriotAct is just insane.

I even gave the Tea Party people a chance, but they voted overwhelmingly for the NDAA and increased executive power. Such idiotic hypocrisy merits no respect.

If you're really for small government and personal responsibility, you have to be completely against everything the federal government has done in the past 12 years.

drew_eckhardt says

Black children are therefore less likely to have the same educational opportunities as white ones.

This is not true. They have the same opportunity to learn as anyone else. You are ignoring the fact that there is a genetic component to intelligence and that blacks are, on average, less intelligent than whites due to genetics. The average white IQ is 100, the average black IQ is 85. It does a disservice to both groups by claiming them to be equal when it is obvious that they are not.

Trillions of dollars have been spent solely on black education since the 1960's to close the achievement gap and it has not moved much at all. With the blatant test cheating scandals in super majority black schools who really knows how smart blacks really are, but when cheating occurs they are definitely not changing correct answers to wrong ones.

To claim a social or economic cause for black underachivement shifts blames to whites. The only thing whites are guilty of in this situation is placing a white standard on blacks, a standard which very few blacks can honestly achieve. The root cause of all black problems is their lower genetic intelligence. You simply can't have a modern civilized world with an average citizen IQ of 85.

drew_eckhardt says

The United States doesn't have a gun problem. We do have an educational gap which leads to economic disparity and subsequently high murder and other crime rates.

Drew - I like a bunch of what you say, particularly about the before and after of gun laws, the numbers of guns in the U.S. for a century plus without all the crime.

But what you have not touched on is the elephant in the room. There has been a substantial breakdown of responsible and moral social culture in those same communities that DOES NOT correspond with an education gap. In fact, education opportunities in those communities have only grown. What's changed is the value system among the poor.

I don't argue that gun violence these days correlates directly with poverty. But I'd suggest there is a primary driver for both: a near complete and total breakdown of morality and responsibility in those communities.

And that, I believe, directly correlates to the modern invention of the welfare society that has undermined 1) the need for a nuclear family for basic sustenance; 2) the need for a responsible work ethic to achieve basic sustenance; and 3) the self worth that comes along with being able to successfully achieve an honest living as a responsible adult.

When one is raised not by a mother and father, but instead by a single teenage mom who is subsidized to churn out more kids instead of being held accountable by the community for burdening it with a mother who cannot take care of a mouth she was responsible for creating... And when the teenage fathers are allowed to walk freely instead of being held at shotgun marriage to support the mouth they created, and the rest of the teenage community sees how you will be held accountable from bringing mouths into society.... Well, you're going to have within a few generations a total breakdown of responsibility within that subset of society. These children are raised on the streets by their child-peers in Lord of the Flies fashion, and are many generations now into a culture devoid of right and wrong. Education is of no value to them because it wasn't necessary for their parents or their parents to maintain a full belly.

This is not racial. This is behavioral and very much a carrot and stick breakdown. It is a form of "if you build it, they will come". (If you subsidize it, they will oblige...). If you look at poverty and crime, particularly murder, you have a direct correlation to out of wedlock births, and if you look at the what corresponds directly with poverty most closely, it is single motherhood, exacerbated by # of children. It began mostly in black communities because these were the most economically disenfranchised areas. We went from nuclear black families in the 40s and 50s with violence on par with impoverished white communities, to a launch point with Johnson's Great Society where blacks out of wedlock births started growing and, now many generations in of teenage births, is now are close to 80% out of wedlock. However, white crime / impoverishment started growing at the same point. It lags dramatically the 80% figure, but it's grown dramatically.

As for the crime, it's worsened by drug prohibition which creates a perfect black market for gangs to compete in. Eliminate that, and you'd eliminate drug violence, which is related to many murders.

But I digress... What's said above is not implying some don't escape this cycle. There are plenty who see it for what it is and work through it to escape to middle class. Almost all of those are nuclear family based unless it's actually a BS Jobs program or a mandatory government job meeting statistical requirements in a particular neighborhood.

I will say this, white or black: We are subsidizing a reverse Darwinism in terms of average intelligence. Those of higher IQ are able to more easily able to escape this cycle, which includes limiting mouths to feed to those you can afford to take care of on your own dime. This self regulation does not apply to those whose intelligence limits them to being content to be on welfare, subsidized by the state, to keep churning out kids without consequence. That's where you get the dudes whose currency of being a man is how many children they've sired and dumped onto the taxpayers dime to become the majority of the nation's future criminals.

StillLooking says

I would feel much safer walking the streets of Chicago if guns were banned. Much much much safer.

Until a guy with a knife walked up to you and demanded money...

Fail.

I wonder why on the news we never see any innocent bystanders shot by a stray knife?

bdrasin says

Actually, I have no idea what the facts are on this. I don't think its that important because, as I've mentioned above, the current state of the developed world gives lots of examples which prove that not only is freedom possible in a society with rather strict gun control, it is possible under many different systems.

An armed society is a direct deterrent to tyranny. That many civilized democracies don't descend into tyranny is a different point that does not negate the first point. That guns among a population are critical to overthrowing authoritarianism is displayed year after year.

Moreover, the tyranny of the masses is just as much a worry as that of a dictator, lest we forget the warnings the founding fathers gave when determining this nation should be a liberty rooted republic rather than an outright democracy, which sadly is the directly we've been sliding --where big government is up for dibs to the highest, most organized bidder to steal rights and wealth from the less organized. So much for the idea of LIBERTY.

How many crimes are actually prevented by people havng/bringing their gun(s) ?

(in the US that is).

bdrasin says

Actually, I have no idea what the facts are on this. I don't think its that important because, as I've mentioned above, the current state of the developed world gives lots of examples which prove that not only is freedom possible in a society with rather strict gun control, it is possible under many different systems.

An armed society is a direct deterrent to tyranny. That many civilized democracies don't descend into tyranny is a different point that does not negate the first point. That guns among a population are critical to overthrowing authoritarianism is displayed year after year.

Moreover, the tyranny of the masses is just as much a worry as that of a dictator, lest we forget the warnings the founding fathers gave when determining this nation should be a liberty rooted republic rather than an outright democracy, which sadly is the directly we've been sliding --where big government is up for dibs to the highest, most organized bidder to steal rights and wealth from the less organized. So much for the idea of LIBERTY.

BULL

A good chunk of the gun owners support the government. And this must always be the case.

So an armed society means that the status quo is more easily kept.

And this is proven by Europe where the politicians actually have some fear of the people.

StillLooking says

StillLooking says

I would feel much safer walking the streets of Chicago if guns were banned. Much much much safer.

Until a guy with a knife walked up to you and demanded money...

Fail.

I wonder why on the news we never see any innocent bystanders shot by a stray knife?

I wonder why we never see on the news the detailed background of the fools shooting into crowds... The young teenaged shooter / killer raised on the streets by his gang, his father a nonworking punk / criminal whose sired 14 kids, his nonworking mother too busy getting laid and having 5 other kids who are equally abandoned to the street. In other words, your tax dollars at work.

That's because it would finger the correctly culprit: welfare entitlements / socialism that kills productivity, morality, responsibility.

StillLooking says

lest we forget the warnings the founding fathers gave when determining this nation should be a liberty rooted republic rather than an outright democracy

I guess that's why the founding fathers owned slaves.

In America, "liberty" and "freedom" are just code-words that mean "freedom for the powerful to rule in their own interest at the expense of the weak."

Stop buying into the "freedom" bullsh*t.

It's not about "freedom vs. tyranny." It's about power, and those who have it and those who don't.

All of the other stuff is just smoke and mirrors to distract people from that fact.

American in Japan says

How many crimes are actually prevented by people havng/bringing their gun(s) ?

(in the US that is).

There are numbers out there you can google, and you'll find debates on methodology.

What's impossible to gauge is the deterrent fact that an armed populace presents to potential criminals. There are plenty of examples of crime going down dramatically when there is a highly public vigilante taking matters into his own hands. Bernie Goetz's handling of four would be muggers who thought he "looked like easy bait" caused mugging to nearly vanish in the city during the time between his "self defense" and his turning himself in about two weeks later.

I've read more than a handful of examples where robbers have been shot or shot at, e.g. by a convenience store clerk or an elderly potential victim. Simple logic implies that the fact that getting shot is a possibility similarly deters some would be criminals.

Likewise, in the NYC Bernie Goetz situation, you went from an environment where muggers knew the population by law had been disarmed to one where they were not willing to risk that the person they were mugging was carrying heat. Goetz, by the way, was convicted of illegal possession of a firearm...

By the way, you should ask the same question about The Police. As in, "how many crimes are actually prevented by the police". There's no doubt that the police are effective armed deterrents when present, but how can you calculate numbers? Similarly, when it comes to actual crime that's committed, police overwhelmingly are there to draw chalk-lines around victims, and then to try to bring justice. Most displays of police gun discharge are in the process of arresting potential criminals, serving arrest warrants, etc., vs. actually stopping a crime in progress.

BTW, the police have plenty of examples of getting it wrong, being too quick to shoot the wrong person, breaking down wrong doors, being steroid-minded thugs.

BTW, the police have plenty of examples of getting it wrong, being too quick to shoot the wrong person, breaking down wrong doors, being steroid-minded thugs.

This is exactly why guns should be banned. If the police can't even get lethal force right, then obviously ordinary people can't either.

And in my neck of the woods there is a very strong anti-gun sentiment. I wonder why there is no political power behind the sentiment.

Iraq had one of the most heavily armed citizenry in the world under Saddam.

Therefore:

1) Guns do not prevent tyranny
2) Our military immediately began confiscating guns when we invaded. Following the rightwing argument, we should have armed them, right? The heavily armed citizens would have stabilized the anarchy.

Pure piffle.

StillLooking says

And in my neck of the woods there is a very strong anti-gun sentiment.

Does that include the criminals in your neck of the woods?

wthrfrk80 says

I guess that's why the founding fathers owned slaves.

That's a gross oversimplification, filled with massive implications of complete and utter bullshit. Some owned slaves, MOST did not. For example, Ben Franklin partly argued that separation from Britain was necessary because every attempt by the Colonies to end slavery was thwarted / reversed by the British Crown. Adams was prominent about it (as we've learned, so was his wife...)... No doubt a compromise with the south was made to build a unified front in independence against the Brits. So, yes, many southerners were holders. After the war some released theirs. Franklin, Rush, Jay, Livingston were all anti slavery, as were a majority. Efforts among them ended slavery in PA, CT, RI, NH, VT, NY, NJ. Many midwestern states prohibited it based on efforts by a federal act authored by Rufus King, signed by GW prohibiting slavery in those territories.

In America, "liberty" and "freedom" are just code-words that mean "freedom for the powerful to rule in their own interest at the expense of the weak."

Stop buying into the "freedom" bullsh*t.

And here we go.... By the way, I said LIBERTY, not FREEDOM. These are two related, but distinctly different ideas. Regardless, you've been badly indoctrinated by those who want to impugn the founding of this nation in order to undermine the ideas behind BOTH, it would seem.

It's not about "freedom vs. tyranny." It's about power, and those who have it and those who don't.

All of the other stuff is just smoke and mirrors to distract people from that fact.

I don't think you're off base here, at least at the core... Just muddled. POWER is about authoritarianism vs. liberty. Power can only be consolidated at the expense of individual liberty. Either you have the right to say no thanks, or you don't. Either you own your body and life, or you don't. Either you own what your body produces, past, current or future, or you don't.

When power is concentrated and there for the taking, it most certainly will be used at the expense of the individual. Where this country has erred is not with liberty, but by allowing for power to be used at the expense thereof. Understand that, and you'll get somewhere.

Leopold B Scotch says

Regardless, you've been badly indoctrinated by those who want to impugn the founding of this nation in order to undermine the ideas behind BOTH, it would seem.

Care to elaborate?

Leopold B Scotch says

POWER is about authoritarianism vs. liberty. Power can only be consolidated at the expense of individual liberty.

Power can be consolidated with money. Money buys politicians. Thus people with money can simply buy laws that act in their favor.

Leopold B Scotch says

When power is concentrated and there for the taking, it most certainly will be used at the expense of the individual.

Abosultely.

Leopold B Scotch says

Where this country has erred is not with liberty, but by allowing for power to be used at the expense thereof.

How do you propose to fix that problem? Money buys political power.

Leopold B Scotch says

Understand that, and you'll get somewhere.

You really think I don't understand that?

It's much more peaceful and organized in places like China, where the citizens have no access to fire arms. As long as the government can keep a lid on media leaks, they can keep things nice and tidy and compliant however they like. People starving to death? That's fine...as long as it doesn't end up on TV.

And the US military is everywhere. We have hundreds of bases all over Europe alone. We take care of everyone. Those countries can afford to go gun-free, Captain America just steps in and keeps the peace.

Yep, increase gun-control laws and put your trust in government. It will all work out fine. We have a wonderful representative republic. I voted for someone, who assigned someone to create a committee to appoint oversight groups within the government who recently awarded hundreds of separate government entities to use drone aircraft to keep an eye on all of us domestically! Those drones have got our backs. And the cops are just everywhere! In the near future, after strict gun control in the US, if someone pulls out a piece, the silent remote hexicopter will drop down out of the sky and deactivate it with a laser beam.

Oh! and the economy will always remain stable and we'll always be able to afford salaries for police. No city ever limits funding to police officers. They are well paid and ready to stop the outlaws at every turn.

Lastly, the US has a firm moral compass by which we commonly live. We all share the same values in respect of life, liberty and property, so i'm confident my neighbors (hell...everyone!) will remain passive and compliant even when times are bad. (like things could ever go bad).

Mr. Holmes was playing with evidence bags on his hands like they were sock puppets the other day. He acts like that BECAUSE he has guns. If he didn't have guns, he'd be as sane as you and me. He wouldn't have done anything with gasoline or diesel fuel. (even though fire explosions are much more batman-like cinematically-speaking). Insane guys never use commonly available combustibles, because that would be just completely "over-the-top". I'm mean, a psycho has to draw a line somewhere.

Now about repealing that troublesome amendment in the constitution...

deepcgi says

Lastly, the US has a firm moral compass by which we commonly live. We all share the same values in respect of life, liberty and property, so i'm confident my neighbors (hell...everyone!) will remain passive and compliant even when times are bad. (like that's gonna happen).

Hey, someone else gets it!

American in Japan says

How many crimes are actually prevented by people havng/bringing their gun(s) ?

(in the US that is).

The NRA and other gun advocacy groups claim its on the order of several million a year (based on self-reporting by gun owners). If you only consider cases where a perp actually gets shot (and therefore it is verifiable), its a tiny handful.

StillLooking says

This is exactly why guns should be banned. If the police can't even get lethal force right, then obviously ordinary people can't either.

Huh?!? You're conflating acts of self defense, where would be victim knows full well who is threatening him/her, whereas the police breakdown a door, shoot first and figure out they've broken down the wrong door later. Mixing apples and oranges is fruit salad, not a valid argument.

And in my neck of the woods there is a very strong anti-gun sentiment. I wonder why there is no political power behind the sentiment.

Neat.

Apocalypse: You're right. That's certainly how we've got it working in Afghanistan. I've seen gunships sail in and lay down suppressing ground fire while the poppy field works scramble for cover from those nasty rebel militants.

The US is quite accomplished at making drugs safe for everyone's enjoyment. If the gunships weren't there protecting the opium...it really would turn into a good ole' ghetto free-fire fight.

wthrfrk80 says

Care to elaborate?

Just saying I've heard the argument before from people who are very pro big government progressive solution types who go after the founding fathers as a way to dismiss the validity of liberty and most of the good stuff they stood for, and that the founding was really a ruse to benefit a landed oligarchy. (They then go on to usually celebrate FDR and Johnson, and now Obama, etc.)

Your comment "seemed" to sympathize with that belief since I I've heard it exclusively from that side of the fence, and in my reply I chose the word "seem" specifically to leave that open-ended for your clarification. In hindsight, my words could appear more accusatory than intended.

wthrfrk80 says

"Power can be consolidated with money. Money buys politicians. Thus people with money can simply buy laws that act in their favor....How do you propose to fix that problem? Money buys political power."

Our system was IMO intended to be far less consolidated, where liberty trumped the state and democracy. So long as the people understood the idea of liberty and why it was so important to prevent governments from having the power to trample it, things were better. Where people withheld liberty from others for their own reasons (race, gender, etc.), things were wrong.

We fixed some wrongs over the past centuries, but just the same began allowing more and more collective violations of liberty to take place so long as it was not purely based on race, religion, gender, etc.... (unless you're talking college applications and meeting jobs numbers for racial purposes, where legally you're required to hire / discriminate based on those factors....).

I believe things get more screwed up when you enable violations of liberty to be used as a means to solve injustices against liberty. E.g., collusion among powerful business interests in the 1800s lead to 1) anti trust laws, which were (as should have been expected) essentially bought and paid for by the very folks who were trying to create monopolies, and consequently presented regulatory hurdles against competition to be erected vs smaller competitors while guaranteeing oligopoly among the primary players. With the door open, that it was under Federal Authority to regulate as such, more and more was bought and paid for by the biggies at the expense of the small guy, consider tax and regulatory complexity that strongly favors multinational conglomerates with the critical mass to handle; and 2) Unions that formed to respond against the oligopolies who were preventing the free flow of labor by interfering with smaller competitors, who instead of addressing the problem of "power being bought to screw free flowing labor via solid competition", instead carved out their own power fiefdom at the expense of liberty, which only served to enfranchise organized labor at the trough dominated wrongly at the expense of the rest of the people by the biggest players, as if two wrongs make a right.

As to your question, then, of how do we fix it? Short of reacquainting a majority with the benefits of liberty over progressivism (which is enforced by power at the expense of liberty, thus only exacerbating the root problem), there isn't a fix. We are doomed to be lead by those elected to 1) seize and redistribute the economic seed corn accumulated over past generations during more liberty-oriented times and 2) tell us that what we're eating is a miracle harvest of interventionism.

Reality is that it is free-lunchism, plain and simple. When a society grows addicted to eating seed corn vs. working to create greater harvests, eventually there is famine. That is where our economy had been tipping, and now capitulating. People are about to realize that the seed stores are quite thin having bought into the free lunch train for so long. Hopefully they'll realize there error and not be seduced by outright Marxism or some deeper lunacy that within the dark side of the force.

wthrfrk80 says

Leopold B Scotch says

Understand that, and you'll get somewhere.

You really think I don't understand that?

You talk allot about money being at the root of the issue, so please give a little leeway re my conclusion. Apart from Money not being the same as LIBERTY, it leaves quite a bit for others to infer about your views on money. If the problem is money, what do you propose? Or is it power? Chicken and egg, it is. I think if you simply allow for liberty (e.g. a "consensual" clause to the constitution allowing individuals to opt out if they are otherwise not causing violations of others' liberty), you'd restore money to more productive purposes as then the path to more money is through commerce and value exchange vs. co-opting a bunch of pliant politicians willing to, for example, hand over the banking system to a cartel in exchange for a cut of the action and the ability to monetize govt. spending (subsidize their own power...).

But I digress. Perhaps you totally get it, and you seem to say you do. If so, how can I disagree? I just had your other comments to go on.

foxmannumber1 says

there is a genetic component to intelligence

While this statement might be true, your extension of that statement to IQ scores is pretty tricky. The way IQ is measured is not much of a science. Ever taken an IQ test? Unless you have a source for your statement, I suggest you be careful about connecting ideas and consider all of the thought which might have led to your conclusion.

bdrasin says

If you only consider cases where a perp actually gets shot (and therefore it is verifiable), its a tiny handful.

What is also verifiable is what I stated here:

Leopold B Scotch says

What's impossible to gauge is the deterrent fact that an armed populace presents to potential criminals. There are plenty of examples of crime going down dramatically when there is a highly public vigilante taking matters into his own hands. Bernie Goetz's handling of four would be muggers who thought he "looked like easy bait" caused mugging to nearly vanish in the (NY) city during the time between his "self defense" and his turning himself in about two weeks later.

That was clearly verifiable, and the inference is that criminals are deterred by the threat of being shot at by potential victims with hidden packed heat. The exact numbers can never be known, but the drop was massive in NYC.

Not saying you think this way, but those who argue the "unverifiability of deterrence" as a reason for making guns illegal should therefore apply the same logic to the police. How do you know the police deter crime? What are the statistics? In fact, you could argue that crime goes up where there are more cops if you're poor at statistics. (cops are assigned in greater concentrations to high crime areas.)

Leopold B Scotch says

Just saying I've heard the argument before from people who are very pro big government progressive solution types

Believe it or not, I agree with you. I think that most of those progressive types are full of it. I believe their claims of "wanting to make the world a better place" are just cover to acquire more wealth/power for themselves. Every dictator believes his rule is benevolent. I'm willing to bet both the Kock Brothers and George Soros think they're going God's work.

There are some who believe that only 1. cops 2. military should own guns.
They are either 1. brainwashed to fear guns 2. like being sheep 3. afraid to learn what guns do.
Whether or not guns prevent violent crime in thousands of cases in the USA every year is an interesting but irrelevant fact.
Oppressive goverments universally fear an armed populace.
If you have ever shot a good gun at a range it's so much fun and you will naturally find it enjoyable.
My favorite handguns are CZ, and the CZ75 my favorite because it's so accurate. It's a pleasure to hit where you want to with a gun. Cop guns suck because they are plastic and the recoil causes the gun to jump around. Mililtary handguns are usually not plastic.
Perhaps you have a family and are not concerned to have strangers someday come bother you in your house. You will be frantically dailing 911 and hope that the donut shop is just a block or two from your home.
Remember, when seconds count, the cops are just minutes away.