Guns and gun control

[Thyroid]

Oh, politics.

I was reading-up a little bit on the tragedy at Sandy Hook, specifically the response to it. I saw something that I initially thought was parody, but it couldn't have been because it was a transcript of a press conference by the NRA.

The press conference's point was that the NRA is proposing a new program, called National School Shield Program, that places professional, armed guards at school doors. The idea is that, because we live in a world of polar good and evil, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," as if that's the only way this scenario could play out. It turns schools into potential shoot-outs.

There's a part I found genuinely bemusing. After similar tragedies in Australia and the United Kingdom, both countries passed and enacted laws that effectively squelched any similar tragedies taking place again. They were thorough, swift, and unyielding. So why does America not take this up? Why end-up with stuff like this? How many more Emmett Tills does a country need?

What do you think? Am I raving mad here, or being sensible?

[ThunderPeel2001]

America has some weird issues with guns. In fact, it's possibly the weirdest issue they have. You can talk about inherent racism, poor school systems, corrupt businesses, sexism, homophobia, the government (just about), and everything is fine. Mention gun control and some folks get REALLY upset VERY quickly. It's a strange thing that's unique to America (in my experience, at least). I've learned not to get involved in gun control debates because of this.

Anyways, I think Bill Hicks did a great job of explaining my POV on gun control:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MEzCtyRWP8

An American friend of mine posted this on his Facebook wall, and I think it sums up the recent reaction perfectly...

"A few pro-gun people are running to the old trope about guns not being evil, just people who use them to kill. The woman who purchased the guns that were used yesterday bought them to protect herself and her property. Then her insane son got them. So what's the magic solution to keep guns out of the hands of the insane people? If you insist that we all have access to guns, you are insisting that we include the sane as well as the insane -- because we don't yet know how to install a blinking red light on the crazy people, or the ones who are sane today and will be crazy tomorrow. Which means there will always be murder by guns. And these losses are therefore in service of the right to have guns, which we have decided is more important than a few kids now and then."

[castorp]

I like to explore. Long-vacant houses, industrial ruins, old quarries, etc. Sometimes there are 'Do not enter' signs, but if I get in without breaking anything, the place is not in visible or planned use by any owner and without noticeable security I feel okay to ignore those. Worst that can happen, besides hurting myself, is that some security-guard comes by, and if he gets me (only once it was close - the most exciting thing ever, even if probably nothing would have happened) I suppose there will be shouting and maybe a bit of arm-twisting - same with police, and as long as they don't find fuel and matches or a sprayer on me I guess I'm even fine in a penal sense.

In the USA I fear I'd get shot roaming around. Get shot and it would be legal. Most probably an irrational fear (?), but that's the first thing that comes to mind when I think about this gun-issue, or guns in the USA in general. Guns scare me.

[Argobot]

An American friend of mine posted this on his Facebook wall, and I think it sums up the recent reaction perfectly...

"A few pro-gun people are running to the old trope about guns not being evil, just people who use them to kill. The woman who purchased the guns that were used yesterday bought them to protect herself and her property. Then her insane son got them. So what's the magic solution to keep guns out of the hands of the insane people? If you insist that we all have access to guns, you are insisting that we include the sane as well as the insane -- because we don't yet know how to install a blinking red light on the crazy people, or the ones who are sane today and will be crazy tomorrow. Which means there will always be murder by guns. And these losses are therefore in service of the right to have guns, which we have decided is more important than a few kids now and then."

I get that your friend was the one who said this not you, but I really think it's wrong when the argument gets distilled down to: 'just don't give crazy people guns!' In many of the more egregious instances of gun crime in this country, there was no obvious link between the shooter and any kind of mental disorder. God knows that people try to make up that link though (like the initial media reporting after Sandy Hook where people were seriously trying to make the argument that because the shooter may or may not have been mildly autistic, that somehow explains why he did what he did).

If we have a weird relationship towards guns in this country (and we do) I think we have an equally weird relationship to mental health problems.

[brkl]

Just don't wear a hoodie.

Argo, I don't think that's the point he makes. I mean he says we can't tell who are going to be dangerous in the future.

[castorp]

Just don't wear a hoodie.

Ah, yeah, I always wear those.

[Nachimir]

The press conference's point was that the NRA is proposing a new program, called National School Shield Program, that places professional, armed guards at school doors.

There was a guy on Twitter who made an excellent mockery of this, by tweeting links to new stories about other mass shootings in the USA, along with the text "We need an armed federal agent in every [location]". Among many, the list included school, post office, government building, and… drum roll: Federal agency.

Also, Columbine High and Virignia Tech both had armed guards

[Thyroid]

Even if they didn't, the idea of having a shoot-out in school shouldn't even come-up. I sometimes see my baby cousin, who is six, off to school. I expect her to come home knowing a couple of new things, having made new friends, developed a crush on someone, maybe gotten a bruise on her knee from the playground. She's off to school to get started in life, not to witness other people, coming at her with a pistol, getting shot at by the guy who waves her into school each morning.

[syntheticgerbil]

I've been arguing about this so much the last week after not wanting to bother at first. I think at the very least we could just ban semi automatics and automatics, since they are guns for the purpose of spraying bullets. There's no reason any regular citizen should own these. If you're truly in danger, make do with your hand gun like an action hero, I say (I mean you did do that training, right Mr. Gun Owner?).

But when you say that the nutty right wingers will argue that they need big weapons so that they can protect themselves from a government takeover. Well here's some fucking news, the government is going win. I don't recall the Branch Davidians owning a tank, but okay.

I tend to think people who stockpile weapons legally are mentally unstable in the first place. I have never met someone who owns many guns (I live in Texas) who has not given me the creeps. From my experience, they tend to be backwards simpletons with paranoia issues. I'd personally feel more safe if the government owned the majority of the guns than some of these redneck wackos with cases full of assault rifles.

Then there's street crime which I don't think major gun control will ever fix because it's caused by poverty and a sense of desperation and danger, which is more of a fault of the government than mental instability in my opinion. Either way the casual criminal doesn't tend to have a stockpile since that costs money (druglords withstanding), and most of the time it tends to be handgun crime with one person dead.

But I mean I don't own a gun, nor do I ever plan to. If I were in some crisis situation, I'd find a different way to deal with it. I guess if we were to compromise laws, I'd only make handguns, rifles, and shotguns legal, since I don't know what is legal in most other countries that have way less gun violence than the United States. Those seem like things where a mass murderer could be at least be apprehended a little bit easier.

But the way I really feel is, it's almost a pointless debate because even with the 2nd amendment arguments, I think the bigger problem is weapons manufacturers in general and whose palms they are greasing in our government. Corporations will always have more money than any citizen so they'll run the laws according to their profit margin. So until we get some stricter campaign finance reform, I don't think it'll happen in any serious fashion. All sorts of weapons are intertwined in our economy, importing and exporting.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I get that your friend was the one who said this not you, but I really think it's wrong when the argument gets distilled down to: 'just don't give crazy people guns!' In many of the more egregious instances of gun crime in this country, there was no obvious link between the shooter and any kind of mental disorder. God knows that people try to make up that link though (like the initial media reporting after Sandy Hook where people were seriously trying to make the argument that because the shooter may or may not have been mildly autistic, that somehow explains why he did what he did).

If we have a weird relationship towards guns in this country (and we do) I think we have an equally weird relationship to mental health problems.

That's not what my friend was trying to say, but I get what you mean. (Also, I do think wanting to kill a bunch of strangers is a sign of mental problems!)

[Nachimir]

But when you say that the nutty right wingers will argue that they need big weapons so that they can protect themselves from a government takeover. Well here's some fucking news, the government is going win. I don't recall the Branch Davidians owning a tank, but okay.

Yeah, good luck to them firing AR-15s at tanks and drones (in their absurd, paranoid alternate future).

[Luftmensch]

In his usual silly fashion, Ruben Bolling has a thing or two to say about the American obsession with Gun Rights (and pokes a bit of fun at extreme libertarianism in general)

Personally, I don't know enough about the issues to make an informed comment. I think for many people, it's more of an emotional issue than a rational concern. I liken it to Catholics and birth control. Being raised Catholic, it's really weird trying to engage anyone in a conversation about using condoms, because they just shut down. People in my community don't want to talk about condoms, the pros or the cons, because they're just bad, simple as that. Vatican said so. It's a shame that, by and large, the American gun control conversation is so unwilling to discuss things outside of terms of good and evil. It's not all like that, but it's common enough that it is hard to have a civil discussion with a stranger on the bus when the topic is guns and you disagree.

[syntheticgerbil]

Are launch codes for nuclear missiles really an existing thing? I always figured that was a taken artistic license in Metal Gear Solid.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Are launch codes for nuclear missiles really an existing thing? I always figured that was a taken artistic license in Metal Gear Solid.

I don't know. They codes and things in Dr Strangelove and WarGames... they must be real!

[tegan]

Canadian here. We have a pretty good compromise where firearms are permitted, but regulated very strictly. We also have a very very different attitude to the way gun violence is portrayed in the news. I've heard that there seems to be a very direct correlation between how much discussion and publicity a school shooting gets and how likely it is that another school shooting will follow shortly after.

I pay a lot more attention to American news and politics than I do Canadian ones, honestly, because it's like looking into some crazy time capsule of all the crap we sorted out years ago, except everyone is louder and angrier.

[Luftmensch]

I pay a lot more attention to American news and politics than I do Canadian ones, honestly, because it's like looking into some crazy time capsule of all the crap we sorted out years ago, except everyone is louder and angrier.

And looking at Canadian pop culture is like looking at a crazy time capsule of America ten years ago, except everyone is happier and more content.

[chickenontheceiling]

i read a really interesting article just after the shooting exploring the idea that 'merica got democracy too early. i wish i could find it but i'll have to paraphrase:

basically, most societies developed law and security under a monarchistic model, where authority was in the hands of a ruler. law and order was established and people got used to the idea of police as a state force that mostly worked in their favour. then the monarchies slowly lost power and authority/law was transferred to the people.

not so in 'merica. power was taken by the people and decentralised before order had been established, and the militia mentality was built in to the founding ideals. a man and his gun was still a rational necessity in the protection of society. instead of the idea of refining the legal system, the idea of standing outside it became dominant.

i don't know if i explained that too well.

the problem i see is that you need a gun because everyone else has a gun. everyone else has a gun because way back when the legal power system had too many holes in it and now it's too late to take them off everybody.

[Gormongous]

i read a really interesting article just after the shooting exploring the idea that 'merica got democracy too early. i wish i could find it but i'll have to paraphrase:

basically, most societies developed law and security under a monarchistic model, where authority was in the hands of a ruler. law and order was established and people got used to the idea of police as a state force that mostly worked in their favour. then the monarchies slowly lost power and authority/law was transferred to the people.

not so in 'merica. power was taken by the people and decentralised before order had been established, and the militia mentality was built in to the founding ideals. a man and his gun was still a rational necessity in the protection of society. instead of the idea of refining the legal system, the idea of standing outside it became dominant.

i don't know if i explained that too well.

the problem i see is that you need a gun because everyone else has a gun. everyone else has a gun because way back when the legal power system had too many holes in it and now it's too late to take them off everybody.

I had a really long post typed up about how self-help (aka, kill the bastard yourself with your privately owned weapon) never fails to receive the most recognition as the foundation of political and juridical power when articulated in the face of a centralized government exerting new and/or unfamiliar forms of authority, based largely on the chapters I've been reading in Edward Muir's Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta in Renaissance Italy, but then I closed the browser window instead of posting.

Rest assured, it was very clever and insightful, if somewhat stating the obvious, but I'll just settle with echoing my agreement for now. It seems to me that societies republican in origin tend to breed a citizenry that views itself as the individual vessels for all powers the state arrogates to itself. Therefore, they all want their fully automatic whatevers, so they can continue to keep exercising said legislative, judicial, and executive powers on their own if the state should break down. Monopoly of legitimate violence and all that.

There's also probably something to be said about America's millennarian anxieties being carried past term, no doubt due to 9/11 and all that, since I don't know of many other two-hundred year old democracies where a large percentage of the populace believes itself perpetually on the verge of civil war.

[jeremywc]

I tend to think people who stockpile weapons legally are mentally unstable in the first place. I have never met someone who owns many guns (I live in Texas) who has not given me the creeps. From my experience, they tend to be backwards simpletons with paranoia issues. I'd personally feel more safe if the government owned the majority of the guns than some of these redneck wackos with cases full of assault rifles.

I live in Texas too and consider myself a pretty liberally minded person. The department I work in has many gun enthusiasts who own AR-15's. I don't personally think they need those AR-15's, but I would never classify any of them as mentally unstable. They're all responsible people, many ex-military, who take gun safety seriously. I feel completely safe around them both inside and outside of work. I think making a blanket statement like that harms the conversation because it's so quickly dismissed by the other side (with good reason).

I kind of stand in the middle on the issue. I've been reading up lately on trust and risk modeling. Reviewing assault weapon laws makes sense in light of the shootings lately, but I hope no one believes that it's going to stop people from finding ways to exploit the trust models we build in society. All security systems are based on trust models. Some people are mentally wired in a way where they look to use those trust models to exploit security systems. And a small portion of them will try to do it in the most violent, dangerous manner possible. Our trust (and security) models are actually pretty effective and, as a whole, violent crime continues to drop over the course of human history. I think banning assault rifles would be an effective security control, but no matter what we do, there's always a rogue element of humanity that will do whatever it takes to harm others. :-(

[elmuerte]

Are launch codes for nuclear missiles really an existing thing? I always figured that was a taken artistic license in Metal Gear Solid.

I think they are because it is part of a proper security mechanism. Any security mechanism contains of at least one of these:

• something you have (like a key)
  
• something you know (like a password)
  
• something you are (like a fingerprint)
  

The more of these you have, the better the security.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I kind of stand in the middle on the issue. I've been reading up lately on trust and risk modeling. Reviewing assault weapon laws makes sense in light of the shootings lately, but I hope no one believes that it's going to stop people from finding ways to exploit the trust models we build in society. All security systems are based on trust models. Some people are mentally wired in a way where they look to use those trust models to exploit security systems. And a small portion of them will try to do it in the most violent, dangerous manner possible. Our trust (and security) models are actually pretty effective and, as a whole, violent crime continues to drop over the course of human history. I think banning assault rifles would be an effective security control, but no matter what we do, there's always a rogue element of humanity that will do whatever it takes to harm others. :-(

So by that argument, why don't we allow everyone to have nuclear weapons?

[jeremywc]

So by that argument, why don't we allow everyone to have nuclear weapons?

I didn't make the argument that everyone needs unrestricted access to all weapons. I was basically saying there will always be crazy people.

[brkl]

Yup. A school in China got attacked in December and 23 children and an elderly woman were knifed. The difference is no one died.

[jeremywc]

Yup. A school in China got attacked in December and 23 children and an elderly woman were knifed. The difference is no one died.

You're extrapolating my argument farther than I stated. I said "I think banning assault rifles would be an effective security control..." Past that, how exactly do you propose we prevent attacks in schools?

EDIT: Also, holding up China as a model for good government has got to be one of the worst arguments ever. :-P

[Argobot]

Well since all school shootings happen in schools, we should just ban schools. There, problem fixed.

That's just some good old NRA-style logic right there, as evidenced by their latest commercial campaign, where they (seriously) call the president an 'elitist hypocrite because he doesn't want armed guards in schools even though he's children are protected by a security the detail (which the ad very pointedly does not call the Secret Service).

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/nra-unleashes-hounds.php?ref=fpa

It's stuff like this that makes it really hard for me to follow the news, because I just get so beat down and depressed.