[luke warm]

hrothgar, on Mar 14 2009, 08:59 AM, said:

In my mind, the core issue is not plagiarism, but rather the political philosophy the underlies the analysis; however, you've opened a much more interesting question:

Should we be able to expect that folks who post information have more than a passing familiarity with the content there of?

I had never seen the article that you posted.  I decided to do a rudimentary search looking for background information.  It took about a minute to find the McElroy article.  Another two to track down The Freeman and the Foundation for Economic Education.

My big issue with most of your posts is that you don't appear to have given any real thought to these issues.  Rather, you are echoing random right wing rants.  It gets really old after a while.  Worse yet, I strongly believe that the ignorant populist exceptionalist echo chamber that runs muck on the right is outright dangerous.  This is (part of the reason) why I tend to be very "in your face" when I see this spew over into areas like the Water Cooler.

I do feel that your postings on religion are somewhat different.  Here, I actually believe that you've made a real effort to try to understand some of the issues involved.  I still think that your conclusions are profoundly weird.  But at least I get the feeling that you have some kind of background in the topics being discussed...

there is only one person who posts here who knows me or whatever small qualifications i might have on certain subjects... concerning this particular issue, why don't you tell me, and anyone else interested, what you think about it? you seem to have a proclivity to dismiss the content depending on the source (which is what you did this time), when the important thing to ask (to me) is whether or not whatever is referenced might have a point... for example, does it really matter whether or not that site had info from somewhere else when it comes to the content?

you post on almost every topic in the WC, yet criticize only those who you perceive to hold a political view that differs from yours, and your criticism (more often than not) usually ends in a personal attack... i realize that you, and probably the majority of people here, don't care that such tactics would not be successful in a more rigorous environment, or for anyone reading with an open mind... in any thread concerning religion, for instance, you share your opinions - and the content of those posts show me that you have even less of a 'passing familiarity' with the subject than you accuse me of having on others...

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Mar 14 2009, 06:31 PM, said:

you post on almost every topic in the WC, yet criticize only those who you perceive to hold a political view that differs from yours, and your criticism (more often than not) usually ends in a personal attack... i realize that you, and probably the majority of people here, don't care that such tactics would not be successful in a more rigorous environment, or for anyone reading with an open mind... in any thread concerning religion, for instance, you share your opinions - and the content of those posts show me that you have even less of a 'passing familiarity' with the subject than you accuse me of having on others...

I think that you are confusing:

"Agrees with" and
"Shows respect for"

I suspect that I've disagreed with most everyone on this site on one topic or another. This isn't particularly surprising... It's very rare that any two people follow completely in lockstep. There have certainly been occasions where I've disagreed with MikeH, Helene, JDonn, Gerben (name there person, I can probably find an example when I disagree pretty strongly with what they're arguing)...

The crucial difference is that, while I might disagree with what they have to say, I still have respect for them... Accordingly, I try to engage in relatively polite discourse. There are, of course, examples of other poster that I don't respect. I tend to be much more dismissive of these folks because I don't think that they've earned the right to sit down at the table.

Their arguments are shoddy
They rely on sourcing that is easily proved to be factually incorrect
They echo right wing talking points without any effort at thought

Maybe I should be more polite and treat such people with kid gloves and try to bring them around... Sadly, I think that most of them are a lost cause.

Quote

in any thread concerning religion, for instance, you share your opinions - and the content of those posts show me that you have even less of a 'passing familiarity' with the subject than you accuse me of having on others...

I'm not going to pretend that I've investing nearly the time and effort that you've spent trying to master all the weird little orthodoxies that you parrot. The folks down at CARM have done a brilliant job arming you to go forth and do battle...

I made a sincere effort to read up on on Plantinga, "Warrant", CARM and the like.

Unfortunately, I rarely accept the basic premise upon which these folks want to argue.

"Absolute" Laws of Logic
Abstract Entities
"objective certainty"

It all feels oh so similar to arguing about home many angels can dance on the head of a pin...

[helene_t]

kenberg, on Mar 14 2009, 01:59 PM, said:

A woman, with her two girls, had left her abusive husband [....] The husband arrives drunk, banging on the door, demanding to be let in to see his wife. My father is not at home. My mother is there, with my father's 12 guage pointed at the door, explaining to the husband that he should go now. He went.
[......]
I would like life to be such that everyone can say, as I do ow, that no gun is needed. That is not yet the case.

To me, that argument feels akin to the balance of terror, when USSR and USA refrained from fighting conventional wars because they were afraid it would escalate into a nuclear war. By the same token, Americans may sometimes refrain from using fists or knifes (or from committing burglary) because the violence might be deadly because either or both parties often will have a gun.

I am sure private gun ownership does deter some crime, such as in your story. To me, it is just a practical matter. I find it difficult to understand why people can get ideological about it (unlike, say, death penalty and abortion, which I do understand that people can have an ideological stand on although I am not ideological on those issues, myself, either).

So it boils down to, is the damage prevented by legally owned guns (such as in your story) smaller or larger than the damage caused by guns that are legally owned or which would not have come into circulation if they weren't legal.

Intuitively, I find it hard to phantom that gun ownership could be any good on balance. I could be wrong - I think it was Blackshoe who posted a reference to a book presenting an empirical study, showing that gun ownership on balance makes society safer. It could be true under some circumstances. Maybe it was a good choice when Fujimori armed peasants so they could defend themselves against Sendero Luminoso. Maybe the issue is different in countries like U.S. and South Africa, where criminals will have guns anyway, than in countries like Denmark and UK where it is feasible to make it difficult at least for ordinary criminals like burglars and car thieves to get guns.

Maybe even places like where I live myself would be safer with guns. What do I know. Seems absurd to me, but it is hard to know.

[kenberg]

I have only a moment, maybe more later. I agree that practicality rules. BUt that does not necessarily mean statistically average practicality. Even if banning guns would make people in some statistical sense safer it does not follow that it would make a really level headed guy like me ???? safer.

I think there is a serious argument in there somewhere and I'll try to get back to it.

[rbforster]

Many people seem to raise the issue of stricter gun controls whenever these sorts of shooting tragedies occur. They imagine that if the disgruntled shooter couldn't have gotten access to a gun, the deaths could have been stopped. There are many issues with this view:

1. There are many guns, even in countries were guns are illegal. A determined shooter could obtain a gun illegally, albeit with somewhat more difficulty. Still, these sorts of rampages are often carefully premeditated, so planning to obtain an illegal gun is no different than planning to buying illegal drugs (which seems pretty easy so I hear).

2. Guns do provide effective defense, if you're trained to use them. If every student and teacher in that school had a gun and was trained to use it, the shooter will get gunned down long before he has time to kill nearly as many people as he did. Robert A. Heinlein who wrote: "An armed society is a polite society," and he's got a point.

3. Disarming the populace makes everyone more susceptible to violent crimes, both from criminals day to day and from government tyranny in the long term. In fact, all those "gun banning" agitators are free-riders on the protection provided to all citizens by the fraction of the armed population that serves as a deterrent against violent crime. I point you to the anti-gun lobby some years back that distributed signs "There are no guns in this house" as part of a marketing campaign and had to stop when houses bearing those signs were systematically burglarized. Hanging such a sign on each person through draconian gun legislation can't be expected to fare much better.

I think mandatory training and gun safety is the best sort of requirement. If the criminals don't want to take the training class, maybe they'll botch their next robbery or accidentally shoot themselves.

[mikeh]

Rob F, on Mar 14 2009, 12:52 PM, said:

Robert A. Heinlein who wrote: "An armed society is a polite society," and he's got a point.

What he left out was that an armed society is a society with a very high murder rate... but, who cares? At least they'll be polite about it:)

I'm not so sure that a libertarian science fiction writer, whose books generally portray the hero and his followers as rational, is the best guide to how best to try to organize a real-life, and hence frequently irrational society... much as I loved his books when I was much younger (and believed in the myth of rational behaviour)

[Lobowolf]

Quote

So it boils down to, is the damage prevented by legally owned guns (such as in your story) smaller or larger than the damage caused by guns that are legally owned or which would not have come into circulation if they weren't legal.

This is a premise I disagree with. I understand that it's a "preferred value judgment" question and not a "right or wrong" question. The premise (basing the decision on some large-scale utilitarianism) punishes the responsible, law-abiding gun owner, who has done nothing wrong, because the irresponsible or criminal gun owner (possibly) makes for a net negative. So the person who keeps his home defense gun locked up still has to turn it in or be a criminal. The woman who could successfully thwart her her rapist or murderous ex doesn't get that chance, because someone else on another side of town is going to leave his gun lying around and it's going to be stolen and used to kill 2 people, and 2 is bigger than 1. I understand that the premise of criminalizing risk creation has precedent (e.g. drunk driving); however, as a legal construct, I think it really has to be far down the line of tactics to resort to.

Quote

Intuitively, I find it hard to phantom that gun ownership could be any good on balance.

If you mean a society with gun ownership vs. a society with no gun ownership, you might be right. I'm not completely convinced, but I could certainly see it. However, the idea presents a false dichotomy, at least with respect to the USA. The options aren't gun ownership vs. no gun ownership; the options are gun ownership in general vs. gun ownership except by law abiding citizens. Intuitively, I find it impossible to believe that the latter could be better, on balance.


As an aside, as an animal rights supporter, I find the "exceptions for hunting" by the people generally more opposed to gun ownership amusing, and a bit perplexing. I do understand that handguns are easier to conceal, take into public, and do damage with, and maybe that's all it is -- as a practical matter, rifles are safer for society (Charles Whitman aside). But the notion that we have to do something about my girlfriend, who keeps her gun locked up at home and likes to shoot paper targets at the range, and not her brother in law, whose favorite recreational activity is to go out into the wilderness, find beautiful deer and such, and kill them...that strikes me as the most counter-intuitive of all.

[onoway]

Canada brought in gun registry laws a number of years ago and by and large, imo, they have been a hugely expensive waste of time. We still have drive-by shootings in gang wars with the occassional unlucky bystander getting in the way; we still have people trying to kill policemen... we still have all the problems we had before. Fewer of them, it's hard to say, it doesn't seem so but I have no knowlege of the statistics.
The police don't want ANYONE to have guns. A couple of years ago a woman was cleaning her legally owned handgun after returning from the firing range when she heard unexpectd noises from the garage. She reassembled her gun and went to investigate. A man had broken into the garage with a crowbar. She did a "citizen's arrest" and the police came and got the guy but also were trying to charge HER. There was enough of a shout about it they backed off, but they stuck to the view that she should just have called the cops and hoped that he didn't come after her with the crowbar until they got there.
There was also another story about a wife with an abusive husband who answered the door one day and had his knees shot. Officially, it was a case of mistaken identity; but a mutual acquaintance told me that the wife's brothers had warned him..and told him the next time would be higher. Not saying this is a good thing..but the wife is not going to be a statistic of women beaten to death by her husband. Nor will she be put in hospital (again) for health care dollars to look after, as a result of his abuse.
The problem imo is a practical one..criminals ARE going to have guns. Perhaps it would be better to have people trained to be responsible about them than to try to ban them entirely. Bans won't work anyway; they never do. As far as mandatory registration goes, I know several people who have guns and either register one ( which allows them to buy ammo) or get a friend to buy ammo for them. And the worst mass murder we have had (til now at least) was done by someone who could quite legally have acquired guns as at the time he had no record of instability.
One thing that everyone seems to agree on..that IF you have a gun, and you get in a situation where you feel you need to show it in defense; you have to be prepared to use it. That alone prompts many people to avoid getting one (including me). I am not at all sure that untrained people are safe from themselves with one.
All that said, I see no reason whatsoever that anyone needs any sort of automatic weapon.
I suspect the police, with some reason perhaps, fear the growth of vigilante justice, such as the kneecap story above. . However, the answer might lie in finding a solution for the percieved need for this rather than just taking all weapons and hoping for the best.
Perhaps the problem is exacerbated by the glorification of guns and violence in general in the video games and movies on which most kids (in north America at least) are growing up. I watched an old Roy Rogers TV episode the other night (don't ask) and the Wild West it might have been but it was lightyears away from the Terminator in philosophy as well as in technical adeptness.

[Gerben42]

Quote

One thing that everyone seems to agree on..that IF you have a gun, and you get in a situation where you feel you need to show it in defense; you have to be prepared to use it. That alone prompts many people to avoid getting one (including me). I am not at all sure that untrained people are safe from themselves with one.

Agree with this. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be safe from myself, even if trained. I wouldn't have the courage to use it.

[Winstonm]

There can be no doubt that the ease of accessability to guns has been a contributing factor in the random acts of violence at places like Virginia Tech University and Columbine High School - still, these case and many more have been linked not only to gun availability but also to mental illness.

It is naive IMO to believe that humankind is non-violent, that removal of the guns will somehow support a non-violent end. What may help - at least here in the U.S. - might be free access to treatment for the mentally ill along with better laws to prevent the mentaly ill from buying, owning, and using guns.

The truly dangerous person is not the one who is angry or armed but the person who feels no hope and sees no other options.

[blackshoe]

Gerben42, on Mar 15 2009, 05:12 PM, said:

Quote

One thing that everyone seems to agree on..that IF you have a gun, and you get in a situation where you feel you need to show it in defense; you have to be prepared to use it. That alone prompts many people to avoid getting one (including me). I am not at all sure that untrained people are safe from themselves with one.

Agree with this. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be safe from myself, even if trained. I wouldn't have the courage to use it.

I agree with him too. I will say, though, that knowing that one does not have the guts to use a gun even when necessary does not lead to the conclusion that no one should have guns. Not by any logically valid chain of thought, anyway.

Also, if "no one" should have guns, that should include the police and the military. And the security people of the rich and powerful. Good luck with that.

[jdonn]

blackshoe, on Mar 15 2009, 05:48 PM, said:

Also, if "no one" should have guns, that should include the police and the military. And the security people of the rich and powerful. Good luck with that.

I agree with you about police and security people, and in fact there are countries where they don't have guns. But saying the military shouldn't is ridiculous. They have to fight against militaries from other countries who will have guns. Even now they have lots of things regular citizens can't have, such as large bombs and cool planes.

[blackshoe]

But Josh, if no one has guns, that won't be a problem!

Shouldn't the US, as the world's leader, show the way by disarming itself? Surely everyone else in the world will see the light, and follow in our footsteps!

[hotShot]

In Germany there are about 350.000 registered guns for a population of 82.000.000 people.
The chances that someone loses control and has immediate access to a gun are extremely low. Even considering that there may be be about 10 to 20 times more illegal weapons, the chances are low to immediate access to a gun.

I agree that this wont stop someone determined to use a gun for a crime, but the criminal can hardly claim that the crime was unintended.

[jdonn]

blackshoe, on Mar 15 2009, 06:11 PM, said:

But Josh, if no one has guns, that won't be a problem!

Shouldn't the US, as the world's leader, show the way by disarming itself? Surely everyone else in the world will see the light, and follow in our footsteps!

Um, I'm all for mockery, but do you always argue by mocking arguments no one made?

[blackshoe]

I'm just carrying "disarm the citizenry" to its logical conclusion.

[H_KARLUK]

Gerben42, on Mar 12 2009, 11:31 AM, said:

These kind of things make me thoroughly sick.

Any ideas on how to prevent this?

There will be always th people who like to have a front row seat to th massacre. Sometimes individual, sometimes legal or illegal organizations will join th party.

It's just another result of saturated words with lies and or atrocity. I bet killers mostly thinking they were in a defense position.

Are humanbeings supposed not to have been born to prevent sickness in later life ?

I suggest "employment" and "good education" versus cruel things. But sorry, it's a world that even lost attorney collects his fee.

[Gerben42]

Anyway in other news, the father of the kid in Germany who didn't lock up his guns is now facing charges.

Quote

But sorry, it's a world that even lost attorney collects his fee.

Is this wrong? He did his job too, you know... Around here at least, sometimes you lose a case because the other side was right, not because they had the better attorney.

Quote

I suggest "employment" and "good education" versus cruel things.

The kid in Germany went to a school with a rather good name. What apparently is a big problem, is that kids can go nuts without anyone noticing.

[mike777]

"Guns one issue, bottom line this is about government doing much much more to reduce risk in our life. '


we reduce risk at the cost of......

[luke warm]

mike777, on Mar 17 2009, 04:09 AM, said:

"Guns one issue, bottom line this is about government doing much much more to reduce risk in our life. '


we reduce risk at the cost of......

wiretaps, warrantless and indefinite incarcerations... it just makes sense that gov't should take guns, look at all the other wonderful things it does to "reduce risk in our lives"