The anti-gunners either don’t understand due process, or don’t care:
Yes George Zimmerman has been arrested a LOT. He certainly hasn’t earned my admiration, but he also hasn’t earned my admonishment.
Hell that would be hypocritical as there’s a mugshot of me out there. Of course like George Zimmerman I was never convicted either, my arrest was a simple clerical error. I was operating a boat without current registration, and my Boss who owned the boat paid the fine…but the Marine Patrol forgot to tell the court that, so the infraction went to trial and I wasn’t there. Failure to appear warrant issued, and I was arrested a laughable (the cops were literally laughing about it) two years later! With the error cleared up, all charges were dropped.
Of course Martin had his own issues, but no mug shots as his crimes were handled by his school rather than the courts.
Either way, the antis HATE George Zimmerman because A) They’re racist, and REALLY wanted a story of a white man murdering a black man (and they were embarrassed that he was neither “White” by their own definitions, nor was this a murder, or even racially motivated…if anything testimony by the PROSECUTION showed that MARTIN was motivated by race in attacking Zimmerman) and B) Because they HATE self defense because it is the #1 reason why we should be against gun control. They hate him so much that they must continue the narrative despite all the evidence it was a false one.
Trayvon Martin, according to his supporters, was tracked down and killed by a Jew in an exclusive gated community, pre-trial.
Trayvon Martin was just doing a little gay bashing when found DRT, according to prosecution start witness.
Forget what?
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/04/23/12542/firearm-ownership-rises-florida-gun-murders-increase
Would love to hear your opinions on why the UK, Australia, Japan and Canada average a combined 300ish gun related deaths and the US averages 30,000?
If you are looking for a rational analysis, the absolute numbers you offer are virtually meaningless.
Per capita, next, is a crude metric, at best suited to ask, “Why the difference?”
@John: There are a number of errors in your statement. The first is in saying that a person who is killed where a firearm is the tool used is somehow different from a person who is killed when a club or knife is used. What you are stating when you make such a claim is that you don’t care if people die, so long as they are bludgeoned or stabbed to death, and not shot.
Second, the US averages 4.7 homicides per 100,000 residents. That places the US at number 111 out of the 218 nations in the world in homicide rate, even though the US has more firearms than any other nation, with 90 firearms per 100 residents.
Third, many nations, including the UK, Canada, and Australia, only count a death as being a homicide AFTER a person is convicted of the crime. In the US, the death counts as a homicide when the ME declares it so. This causes the number of homicides in those countries to be vastly understated.
Lastly, the article you linked in your first post is also misleading. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida’s population has exploded over the past few years, and this has lead to an increase in the NUMBER of murders in the state, but not the RATE of murders. The murder rate in the state has been falling for more than 2 decades, and that trend continues into 2015. Even though Florida’s population has increased by 46% since 1993, the number of homicides has fallen by 18%. Even if you cherry pick, as the linked article did, and only go back to the year 2000, the state population has increased 16%, while the number of murders has only increased by 9%, which indicates a falling murder RATE. Link:
http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/content/fsac/menu/crime-trends/violent-crime.aspx
In other words, your position relies upon a distortion of the facts to suit an agenda that has NOTHING to do with reducing crime or death.
Beautifully done, Divemedic. I was planning on tackling this one (still might) but you hit every major point I was planning on touching on.
I wonder if we’ll be seeing “John” again. Email he left looks fake (not that I care I have several people who comment here who leave hilariously bogus emails) but it’s obvious he doesn’t read the blog, as he walked right into the whole “Gun Death” thing.
“John” I do hope you do come back and comment more, I love civil dissent.
Looks like that’s a yes Weerd.
I find it intersting that *this* comment is what brought John out of the woodwork.
Especially given he’s the type of flailing “internationalist” who will go on about how great other nations are with their low “gun crime” and then scream up and down about how we’re paranoid for thinking he’s about gun bans.
And notice his total ignoring apples/Oranges comparisons.
Yep, lots of murders in the US are with guns and in other nations the % is MUCH lower.
But then he jumps right past the whole point where low “Gun Death” != Low Murder or High Public Safety….and then he TOTALLY ignored how the Commonwealth nations count “Murder” compared to us.
If a Body is found in Boston TODAY and it was obvious another human killed him for criminal reasons. There is a VERY low chance the person that killed him will ever surface (Massachusetts Only solves 43.8% of it’s murders, and that rate nearly DOUBLES if its in the confines of Boston) So in the US that’s a Murder, and in the UK/Australia it’s a “Homicide of Interest”.
We’ll see where this goes, but I see it falling apart VERY rapidly.
Well, he crossed the Apples and Oranges / Bad stats Rubicon with his opening post.
As divemedic points out John tried to blame guns for the increase in murders in Florida, while ignoring that the murder *rate* was going down.
By John’s logic the Florida goverment should ban immigration (both interstate and international) to reduce murders!
John, I appreciate you sticking your neck out. FWIW-I’m no expert, but Weer’d and some of the other commenters here seem to have a solid command of gun debate.
So, John, you’re not okay with lawful private ownership of firearms under the Constitution, and their lawful use for a variety of purposes (self-defense, sport, collecting, etc.) Does that mean you’re okay with Government enjoying sole ownership of firearms, and the capacity to enter into Constitutionally dubious wars that kill hundreds of thousands of innocents?
We’re number 1! we’re number 1!
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/u-s-has-more-guns-and-gun-deaths-than-any-other-country-study-finds/blogEntry?id=20303432&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
Divemedic-the percent of homicides that are committed by people using guns (60-70%) is significantly higher than other tools used for murder. In developed countries we are the most heavily armed and have the highest rate of gun related deaths.
What do you consider accurate number of gun deaths in the countries I mentioned before? Even a conservative estimate would still give the USA a 29,000 lead. We are armed, but it’s not making us safer (please don’t try to counter with any John Lott research, he’s been proven to be a quack). If you think that it’s ok to have 30k (or whatever your best estimate is at the difference, the difference will be significant) more gun related deaths than the other countries I listed combined, there is no point to discuss.
Jack-the second amendment is up for interpretation. It’s also an amendment, meaning it can be changed. I’m assuming you like to focus on the “unfettered part”, I pefer to focus on the “regulation” part that the NRA conveniently leaves off the front of their building. I don’t think it’s realistic to think that your arsenal is going to protect you from our military/government unless you own a drone and a few tanks and even that is only going to buy you a few extra hours or days. Canada, Japan, the UK and Australia have seemed to survive gun control pretty well.
If you think 30k (and climbing) gun related deaths a year are too much, what are your solutions?
Again, you use the metric of “gun death” to make a point, totally ignoring that people who are clubbed to death are still dead. This tells me that you do not care about the dead, merely about the guns. You are merely using the death of these people for your blood dancing to achieve your goal.
To even come close to your claimed 29,000 gun deaths, you must also include suicide.
and you ARE right that Amendments can be changed. I invite you to try. I just don’t see you getting 75% of the state legislatures to repeal the 2A.
Your link “Us has more gun deaths than any other country”.
Good to know Somalia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc, are so much safer than the US.
Jack-in the countries I listed guns aren’t illegal, but are heavily regulated. In Canada, the UK and Australia hunting is legal. I’m not sure on Japan. Some of the regulation that they use are: (annual mental health app(Japan), heavily regulated storage and safety requirements that are annually checked (Japan), nation gun registries (Canada), limits on types of guns (UK/Australia). These allow for sport shooting and hunting. If guns make us so safe, why doesn’t the NRA support government research regarding fun deaths? It seems to me if they clearly make us safe, that we wouldn’t have the number of gun related deaths in our country due to our massive amounts of guns. If they do make us safe, then let’s advocate to study them and prove that they are making us safer. I will gladly spend my tax dollars toward a government backed study. How about you all since you are convinced that they make us safe?
Because the “research” wasn’t research- it was government funded propaganda with a prearranged outcome. Not science.
Again, you continue to use “gun death” as a metric, because the people being killed in other countries by means other than guns destroy your attempted blood dancing use of a death to support an agenda.
Count ALL deaths, and we can start to look at the problem, which is murder, not guns.
So which do you have a problem with? Murder? Or guns? If murder, all murders count. If the people being killed by clubs don’t matter and only those killed using guns matter, then just be honest and admit that their deaths are just a means to an end: outlawing firearms.
Pure intentions? You mean that I don’t want to see others killed, killing themselves or accidentally killing someone else? Correct! In our country, 67% of homicides are committed with a gun. If knives, spoons or any other instrument were involved that much I would be involved in “spoon control”.
But your implication that Person A shoots person B, that was ONLY because Person A had a gun.
I find that conclusion to be highly illogical.
“” If knives, spoons or any other instrument were involved that much I would be involved in “spoon control”.””
Well given that more people ARE killed with blunt insruments, or knives than with rifles….
And yet you specifically want to ban certian rifles…
We could go back and for all day quibbling. 30k vs 1k (that would be on the high side) of gun related deaths (suicides, homicides, “accidents”) can’t be spun to make the gap get significantly small enough to justify saying we don’t have an issue. Simple questions for you:
1. Do we have a gun violence issue in the US (yes or no question)?
2. How many gun related deaths would you think it takes to consider gun violence an issue?
3. If you think we have a gun violence issue, what are your solutions to make it better?
Ah, we’ve gone from the “Why won’t the US be like other countries!”
And now we’re at the “Well what are YOUR answers gun nut? Huh? Huh!”
And note that John has felt that he doesn’t need to answer the thrid question himself. But since we’re dealing with someone who looks favorably to resgistration, deliberatly onerous permiting, bans for broad types of guns, who dismisses the idea of self defense, and wants to gut the 2nd amendment.
Course the massive problems (logistical, legal, financial, civil rights) of a broad confiscation are overlooked, as are the laughable reduction in crime. (Let’s forget that there’s hundreds of millions of guns in this country and that there’s dozens and dozens of groups that make billions smuggling or manufacutring contraband. And that said groups would have ready customers for illegal guns).
Nah, none of that matters because John’s intentions are pure!
I will answer:
1. Do we have a gun violence issue in the US (yes or no question)?
No. We have a violence problem.
2. How many gun related deaths would you think it takes to consider gun violence an issue?
How about we look at violence as an issue, and stop ignoring all of the other violence.
3. If you think we have a gun violence issue, what are your solutions to make it better?
Your three questions are all loaded questions, designed to arrive at your predetermined location. Sort of like the “Have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?
Thanks for answering my questions. I would still like to hear your solutions. We agree we have a violence issue, but why do Americans chose to use guns? We have examples of other countries with violence issues that don’t use guns? What are your solutions to solve the violence issue? Btw, your talking to a former republican, boyscout and regular church attendee (not that this makes any difference) that has shot guns (and enjoyed the testasterone boost from it). Would love to hear some solutions to our violence problem. Arming more people doesn’t seem to be working for us.
You get a “testosterone boost” from a shotgun?
Biologically incorrect, but the colloquial implication (and your bizarre behavior of leaving a different fake email at every post) are really making me think you’re a crazy-person.
I could answer your question, but what have you done to deserve the time?
Study about t-levels and guns:
http://blog.uwgb.edu/alltherage/five-facts-about-guns-anger-and-violence/
I don’t think its bizarre to not want you to have access to my email address. After all, you do have guns.
I would like to hear your thoughts on solving our violence problem.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/01/good_guy_with_a_gun_myth_guns_increase_the_risk_of_homicide_accidents_suicide.html
Oh! We’re doing this now! Okay then!
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/defensive-gun-ownership-gary-kleck-response-115082.html#.VOYf4EKDzN1
Again with the “developed nation” dog whistle, which really means:
Nation with conditions that prove my point and allow me to ignore all of the countries with conditions that disprove my point, as they are not filled with enlightened, elitist white people, but are filled with ignorant minorities who don’t know what’s best for them.
You yourself said that the 2A can be changed, but then provide an article that says 63% of the country believes that they are safer with a firearm in the home. Good luck changing that Constitution with less than 40% of the people.
Still waiting for answers to the three questions? Forgot the fourth:
4. If guns make us safer, why don’t you (maybe you do, but the NRA doesn’t) support a government backed study on gun violence and the US?
Wow, you couldn’t even wait 20 minutes?
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/01/14/texas-ammosexuals-re-enact-charlie-hebdo-shooting-with-armed-civilian-everyone-still-dies-video/
Well Weerd looks like I called it.
John’s gone to the “Let’s throw everything to the wall and see what sticks!” style of gun control advocacy
Now he’s using an incident where terrorists were able to easilly purchase machine guns and an RPG in a country with very high levels of gun control… to advocate for French-style gun control in this country.
And he’s citing The Truth About Guns in this site, as WELL as constantly using the “Gun Death” metric.
I don’t know where this dude came from, but he doesn’t seem very bright.
1 Calling your opponents names like “ammosexuals” weakens your argument, and also proves Markley’s Law.
2 No one is saying that firearms are always the answer. Sometimes, you are simply outgunned and outnumbered. One man armed with a handgun being outgunned and out maneuvered by a pair of men with better weapons, surprise, and other conditions is only going to defeat them a small percentage of the time. That small chance, however, is better than no chance. (if it saves just one life…)
However, using that unscientific test that had no controls and improper variable isolation to say that a gun is never the answer is like using the Dale Earnhardt crash to say that seatbelts never work.
I was actually using the “gun nuts try to prove that if one of the people in the France incident had been armed that it would of save lives” (it didn’t, everyone died anyway, except the one armed person that ran away). I’m sure the reenactment was super scientific and the people that were placed in the situation were surprised by the bad guys. If they had been surprised I’m sure they would of fared better.
Still waiting
I did answer the third question. I will do it again:
National gun registry
Regulation of storage of fire arms
Mandatory background checks for all gun transfers (private and gun shows)
Mandatory insurance on firearms (responsible gun owners keep having those nasty accidents) (like automobiles)
Age restrictions on gun ownership and operations (like automobiles)
Restrictions on types of guns and magazine sizes (I can’t drive a tank down the street)
Mandatory annual safety training for all owners
Mandatory safety Studies and improved safety technology on new gun sales (smartguns) (like automobile safety requirements…remember no seat belts, no airbags, no emmmisions restrictions)
Waiting for you ideas
You want to regulate guns like cars? I will quote Lawdog here:
I would absolutely love to license guns just like we do cars and drivers — for the same reason that every gun grabber who suggests it is lying through his or her snaggle teeth.
Think about it.
We give a drivers license to every seventeen-year-old high school student who can pass a lowest-common-denominator Drivers Ed course. A course that can be successfully passed by a lobotomized chimpanzee.
In a large percentage of cases, we give drivers licenses to 16 year-old kids who state that they have a particular hardship.
Tell me, Mr or Ms. Gun Grabber, that you want to license guns just like cars. You’ll give a gun license to every 17 year-old who wants one — just like a drivers license.
You’re a liar.
Any person who possesses a drivers license can drive on any public road on any state in the Union. They can drive on school grounds, they can drive on college campuses, and they can drive to any courthouse in the Union.
Tell me, Gun Grabber, that you want to license guns just like cars. You’ll let anyone with a gun license carry a gun anywhere they want to, in every State in the Union — just like a drivers license.
You’re a liar.
Drivers licenses issued by one State must be honoured by all other States. Anyone with a Texas Drivers License can drive any car he (or she) wants to, anywhere in New York City that he can fit. And the New York authorities don’t have a thing to say about the matter.
Tell me, Gun Grabber, that you want to license guns just like cars. You’ll let any 17 year-old cowboy from Bugscuffle, West Texas carry his gun anywhere he wants to in New York and tell the New York authorities they can’t do anything about it — just like a drivers license.
You’re a liar.
If you get caught driving a car without your drivers license, you get a $90 traffic ticket that comes off your record in three years.
Tell me that you want to license guns just like cars. Tell me that if that Texas cowpoke is visiting Chicago, and gets caught carrying his gun without his license, he gets a traffic citation — just like a drivers license.
You’re a liar.
No one must undergo a background check to get a license, any felon can get a drivers license, no mental checks are required for a drivers license.
Tell me again that you want to license guns just like cars. You’ll let everyone — 17 to 70, felons, no mental checks, pay your money, take your test, here’s your gun license — just like a drivers license.
You’re a liar.
If I’m on private property, I don’t even need a driver license to drive any car I want to, the only limit to the number of cars I can possess is the size of my bank account, I can buy as many cars at once as my wallet can stand, and I can buy a car off a street corner in Compton today, another from a back-yard in New York tomorrow, I can import cars as many as a I want, from any country that I want, and I can sell or trade any or all of them to anyone I want — and the Federal Government doesn’t have word one to say about the matter.
I build any car I want to — with no Federal permission; I can modify, cut-down, trick-out, customize or skeletonize any car I want to without so much as a “Yes”, “No”, “Boo”, “Kiss my arse” or “By your leave” from the Federal Government.
Tell me, Mr or Ms. Gun Control, that you really want to treat guns just like cars. Tell me that your “gun license” that is “just like we license cars” will let us treat guns just exactly like we treat cars.
You are a damned liar.
Don’t forget rentals!
Someone with a Montana license can rent a car iN New Jersey drive around in New York city and then return the car in Boston.
You got me there. Automobiles aren’t a perfect example, but they are heavily regulated and we have seen significant improvement in the safety of the product. Bridge the gap between 30k and 1k for me, or give me some solutions to our violence problem (that happens to be committed with guns 67% (homicides) of the time.
What? Because your ignorant, argue in bad faith AND admit that your *solutions* don’t work the onus is now on me?
Is that an attempt at providing a solution.
John the only “Solution” you appear to want is “You’re Right John we SHOULD ban guns”.
Get some help.
Help me understand what the other options are. I Didn’t alway advocate for gun control, maybe you could change my mind again with some good solutions to our violence problem.
Oh! We’ve got “Treat guns like cars”! Anyone have Bingo yet? Also funny that he insists he answered this question before…
(Let’s ignore that you only need registration and insurance for cars that go on public roads. Or that a driver’s license is good in any state, or that said licenses are so ubiquitous they’re the defacto ID. Or that there’s no background checks on the purchase of a car… And of course the age limits for purchase and getting a diver’s license are less restrictive than to buy a handgun…)
Other than that I’m seeing a lot of bans on cosmetic things and a mass of added expenses that are there just to hassle law abiding gun owners and do nothing for criminals.
John basically wants guns to become toys of the rich and the connected.
And he’s shown an ignorance of car law that’s on par with his ignorance of gun law.
Give is some solutions to 30,000 people dying a year. Bridge the gap between 30k and 1k for me. Find 29,000 lives in the countries I mentioned.
I’m getting a VERY strong manic depression feel about this guy.
John, you might want to see a doctor.
It is worrying, I mean at first he was scattershot, and now he’s all “What’s the frequency Kenneth!”
Divemedic addressed this issue way back at the beginning of the comments:
a) You cannot compare absolute numbers between countries with different populations, you have to use rates.
b) “Gun related deaths” is not a valid metric if your goal is public safety. In other words, it does no good to eliminate “gun murders” if murders using other weapons increase by the same amount or greater. The only valid comparison is to consider the overall murder rate, not the rate of which tools are used.
c) Other nations don’t record or report murders the way the US does, and the difference in recording criteria means the US reports a much higher murder rate than these other nations do. If you’re going to try to compare the US to other nations, you must attempt to compensate for those differences in reporting criteria.
Start asking valid and logically constructed questions, and you might start getting answers.
This isn’t a binary solution set. It isn’t a matter of “If you don’t have a better idea, let’s ban guns.”
Here is another idea: The vast majority of deaths where a gun was the instrument used are suicides. The majority of the remainder are repeat offenders that are members of a street gang.
This allows a simple solution: Allow police to come to people’s homes and kill anyone who either wants to commit suicide, or who is a known gang member. If it makes you feel better, they can kill them with a blow to the head from a club. That way, there is no gun death.
Eliminating “gun suicide” would reduce that 30,000 number to 11,000. Then, killing the known gang members would cut that number even further- to as low as 1,000 or so. The “gun death” rate would then be on par with North Korea or the UK. Problem solved.
(Yes, I am mocking you, and no I am not serious.)
Something else that bears mentioning about the US murder rate is that in addition to most murders being by a small class of career criminals, so are their victims.
Removing “urban” crime from the statistics makes the US damn near the safest nation on the planet, and doesn’t change the rate of gun ownership all that much.
This is why most gun owners are fed up with being told that we must do something to reduce violence. We’re not the problem, we know we’re not the problem and we refuse to be punished further for crimes we aren’t committing.
PS: urban crime is not a dog whistle for black crime, by the way. People of Irish descent in certain neighborhoods of Boston are quite white and quite criminally violent.
Probably jacks gun ownership up, actually, because the places in this country where gun ownership is honestly difficult are places with big urban centers. Meanwhile places where there are no barriers to gun ownership besides federal law you have a HUGE number of non-gunny gun owners. These people don’t shoot, they don’t hunt, and they don’t carry, but they have a few old guns in closets, attics, and sock drawers.
Also while the cliche is “Possession is 9/10th of the law” it’s crap. Just because you POSSES a stolen gun, doesn’t mean you now OWN it.
National gun registry
Since you already suggested we should follow Canada’s lead on gun control, we don’t need to bother with this path as they are scrapping their registry for being too expensive without the expected return. And our registry would be 25x as big/expensive.
Regulation of storage of fire arms
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for firearm storage as households have too many different requirements and concerns. Are you talking about storage requirements that would make the gun unavailable for self-defense (like what was already found unconstitutional in the Heller decision)?
Mandatory background checks for all gun transfers (private and gun shows)
Do you support giving citizens access to tools to be able to do this privately? Or are you fixated on the typical solution that gun control supporters want which is to simply make it illegal to sell a gun privately? Do you define “transfer” as the moment someone else takes hold of a gun (like the new law in Washington), or are you only concerned about sales, and long term loaning? We keep seeing proposals that involve heavy legal peril with severe life-altering consequences around common aspects of gun culture in the name of “closing the gun show loophole”. You can see how this would make people want to fight such restrictions.
Mandatory insurance on firearms (responsible gun owners keep having those nasty accidents) (like automobiles)
And you’re ok with someone needing to only pay a small deductible for causing injury or death with one of those “nasty accidents”? I argued with one gun control supporter on this topic, and it became clear that she didn’t want any gun policy holder to receive an actual benefit for holding a policy (unlike their car insurance). She was looking for a tax- not insurance.
Age restrictions on gun ownership and operations (like automobiles)
Interesting. Do you really want to reduce the age restriction from 18 (21 to purchase a handgun) down to 15 or 16? Ok, but that surprises me based on your other comments.
Restrictions on types of guns and magazine sizes (I can’t drive a tank down the street)
You can own a tank just fine, and I’m sure you could drive it down the street for an orchestrated parade or something. But that revolves around all the various requirements for registration for public road use. You can have an armored vehicle that meets all those requirements and drive it like you would any other vehicle. There are also no horsepower restriction on cars, and we now actually have road-going cars exceeding the horsepower limitations that governing bodies for racing place on their cars. Dodge got the ok to enter their Viper into LeMans but had to detune it by 150 horsepower to meet regulations. And there already is heavy restriction on the types of guns people can own in the NFA. Do you have issue with where the NFA draws the line?
Mandatory annual safety training for all owners
You keep saying “…like automobiles”, but we don’t do this for cars. There is a one-time license, that needs to be renewed every six or so years by simple paperwork (maybe an eye-test too). What mandatory training we do have hasn’t stopped bad drivers from being on the road. I’m sure we can all agree that there are loads of crappy drivers out there, right? Maybe there is some common ground along the lines of safety (because we all want to see continued improvement there), but unfortunately it seems the gun control side wants to use it as an obstacle and not a resource. Like Chicago mandating range time while forbidding ranges at the same time.
Mandatory safety Studies and improved safety technology on new gun sales (smartguns) (like automobile safety requirements…remember no seat belts, no airbags, no emmmisions restrictions)
The gun industry has come up with improvements on their own, which coupled with training and awareness campaigns has helped to reduce accidental gun fatalities by over 90%. Consumers don’t like to die, so we like guns that are safe, and the market responds to deliver. Much like the auto industry. Seatbelts, airbags, anti-lock brakes, stability control- these were all industry inventions. They only became government mandates after most of the vehicles on the market already had them. The “smartgun” analogy would be if the government mandates that all cars sold have autonomous driving capability (before it were technologically possible). Even the government mandates for car safety features I take some issue with for being over-regulation. If most cars have the feature to respond to the market, then why not let a few specialty cars exist where it is not a concern of the market. This is what killed the Lotus Elise. Lotus finally pulled it from the US when it couldn’t meet the requirement for airbags that shut off when detecting a child’s weight on the front seat. Really? We could just keep this fine performance sports car without having this feature that is much more relevant for a family car?
(like automobiles)
fair enough –
– The metric for highway safety is fatalities per hundred million vehicle miles.
– You can own/operate any vehicle you want on private property.
Surely, you support the same consideration for a constitutionally enumerated right as a frivolous privilege as ownership of a dangerous machine.
No? Did not think so.
I’m quite healthy Weerd. Thanks for your concern.
Sorry, John, I’m not buying that. You’re spamming my comments, getting some decent responses…and obviously not reading them.
Doesn’t have to be a personal attack. I have refrained from using terms like ignorant, mentally unstable (manic), dumb (not very bright is the direct quote). Awesome guys! Let’s have a discussion and call the other person names (I linked a quote to an article that used the term ammosexual and I used the term “gun nut” to describe the reenactment which I’m assuming you weren’t involved in). Still waiting for solutions.
You ARE ignorant, you ARE unstable.
Because of those two things I find it impossible to tell if you are stupid, but that is possible.
There is some strong Dunning–Kruger effect at work here. Given he doesn’t even know the laws in the nations he’s holding up, nor cares about things like total versus percapita.
There’s also his wounded-fawn game where we should be thankful for how he’s restrained himself, but how unconscionable our tone is.
Similar asymmetry rises from how we’re obligated to answer all his questions and provide solutions that meet his standards, but he’s free to ignore whatever he pleases and if he does respond to us it is with exasperation.
Course this is also a prime example of “the labor theory of morality”. Sure his “solutions” are more aimed at making life difficult for law-abiding gun owners, especially lower-income ones, but he’s “providing a solution”.
So while there is massive ignorance at work here, there’s also a large dose of arrogance as well.
Nice! Good comeback. Because I disagree with you I’m ignorant (the ignorance debate could go both ways, but I haven’t gone there)? Because I don’t want you to have access to my email address I’m unstable? 80 people will die from a gunshot today and tomorrow and the day after that. Enough name calling, how about some solutions?
Well damn Skippy.
This message posted while I was writing the one that starts talking about Dunning–Kruger, but wow… nailed it on my part.
There’s the D-K effect, the wounded fawn, the preening arrogance, making demands of us, the poor statistics, and the “solutions!” twaddle.
You’re ignorant because you have no idea what you’re talking about, and ignoring the responses given to you.
You’re unstable because you’re dropping nonsensical comments on my blog as fast as you can type them ON A POST THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.
And you’re a rude asshole. You’ve been given several answers and discussions, and have ignored them, and you’re on a BLOG that you obviously haven’t read.
You want to know how I feel about the issue just shut your yap and start reading. I will not spoon feed you, and strongly recommend others do the same.
The comment above you begged for some solutions to change your mind about gun control.
Frankly I don’t care. You’re insane, you’re rude, and you’re nobody. There is nothing you can do to change violence in this country, or change my right to keep and bear arms. I won’t waste any further time with you.
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And now I’m a asshole. People are dying, and you think the guns don’t have anything to do with it. Now that’s ignorance.
They don’t. That isn’t ignorance, it is a fact. In order to establish that guns are the cause of murder, there must be a positive correlation between gun ownership rate and murder rate.
There is no such correlation. The US has more guns per capita than any other nation, yet a homicide rate that is very near the median. The Solomon Islands, with the third lowest per capita firearm ownership rate, is on par with the US homicide rate. (4.7 for the US, and 4.2 for the Solomons)
If you plot gun ownership rates with homicide rates, there is NO correlation.
Causation REQUIRES correlation. To claim otherwise is to display a complete lack of understanding of Sociology, Statistical analysis, and science.
And here we see the wounded fawn blooddance!
Step right up! And gasp at the faux moral indignation! See John is on the side of angels because he offers “Solutions!”
Where we are evil monsters for daring to challenge his logic or point out that his solutions are merely a gun controller wish-list that would do little to address the deaths he sheds crocodile tears over.
Or maybe his empathy is sincere and he honestly believes that his laundry list would actually help. But that goes to ignorant then.
Holy Crap, you all had a live one on here. Damn good read, but I dont think that John.com/John bothered to read any of it, and if he did, none of it will sink in.
For perspective, 15,000 die each year from cancer caused by CT scans (Consumer Reports, March 2015, p.39).
Get busy John.
BTW, ‘John’, ever considered addressing the first response, by myself, that Zimmerman was merely defending himself from an attempted murder by a gay-basher?
Or do you just ‘coincidentally’ support gay-bashing? Is it really just happenstance that you have common ground vicious thugs?
This was a great read, and very akin to a “discussion” I had with someone on “social media” earlier today, albeit on a completely different topic. The loonie I was talking to was arguing that because she wanted to be a man she was raped, and therefore we need “gender-neutral” bathrooms instead of men’s and women’s restrooms to prevent anyone else from being raped. She threw so many tangents at me (gender-queer rights, gender bias, “we can’t help our urges, they are who we are,” “public safety,” “if it stops one crime,” and more, and got angry when I pointed out she was essentially justifying rape, because the rapist has urges too, so who are we to judge? She totally dismissed the idea of self-reliance and responsibility for one’s own safety, and accused me of saying rape is exactly the same as cross-dressing.
She rage-quit when I suggested that, instead of pushing nonsensical non-solutions down everyone else’s throat to accomodate her lifestyle choices, she simply carry a gun for protection, screen-capped one tiny portion of my argument, then went on a rant in a separate post about how I was a bigot who hates queers.
John – don’t waste your impressive knowledge on the Dunning-Kruger riddled freak show.
LOL! Now that’s truly funny, Betsy! Thanks for that!
Bless her heart.
One of the things I love about D-K is how meta it can be. As using the conclusions from the effect itself are just as susceptible to D-K as any other skill.