4809

Alternatively, you could stop mischaracterizing others’ positions as absurd strawman arguments that make them look like monsters and idiots. You know, either way.

Eh, you’re not wrong from a certain point of view, but I don’t accept that. If data is pointless because we’re just arguing emotions anyway, let’s all join the tea party.

One more time: Not arguing that what the shooter did here was wrong. My position remains, despite all efforts to paint it otherwise, that aggregate societal outcomes are better when there are fewer guns circulating, even if outliers fit a neat little narrative. Because that’s what the data say. Because we should make policy from a position of knowledge, not feel-good bullshit.

Then again, I live in the USA, so as the man said, I should get used to disappointment.

4810

Get off your elitist high horse for a moment and stop looking at this as some sort of statistical ploy. A home was invaded by armed individuals, the occupant had a gun and the invaders were killed.

Aside from your graphs and pie charts, what were you hoping to happen here?

4811

Make policy decisions based on data for the best societal outcomes, instead of overreacting to emotion and making bad decisions?

4812

I don’t disagree with your big-picture assertion. I’m all for grinding every single firearm into metal shavings.

I’m just saying that this argument requires nuance and unfortunately, this situation (if it went gone down as reported) is always going to be a point for the opposition.

4813

I am not talking about policy. I am talking about this exact situation. What did you want to happen in THIS case? If he didn’t have a gun, what do you think would happen. They’d ask the owner nicely to hand over their stuff?

4814

You quoted it, right there! In the post you’re responding to! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here.

4815

Except… you did do that. Several times. Maybe calm down and pay attention to what you’re saying.

Edit: Hell, you were doing it in the thing I was responding to that you quoted.

4816

I mean is it so controversial to state that, on the whole, there would be fewer bad outcomes with less guns in circulation, while at the same time in this specific situation the gun led to a better (though still tragic) outcome?

I know it’s a difficult thing to look at things with any level of nuance, and god forbid the answers go beyond black and white bullshit ‘answers’. But @Nesrie I know you are aware of some of the pitfalls of having an overabundance of weaponry in the general public.

The best outcome here is the robbers are deterred with no loss of life. In the aggregate this is worse than that, but better than the home owner being killed. Is it possible that there was a better outcome? Yes, but it is also possible that the better outcome was not achievable in this situation.

But you can not zoom down to the micro level and rely on that in these discussions. Otherwise we end up arguing from emotion and anecdote. Like we pull out some story of a home owner pulling a gun, escalating a situation that results in their death, or a kid gets ahold of the gun and shoots a family member on accident, or the owner misidentifies a friend or family member as an intruder and shoots them, or a home owner thinks he’s being robbed, but its the police and he gets killed by the cops. All those things happen too, and the data says they are far more common than stories like this where the home owner prevents a potentially worse outcome.

4817

If that’s the position the anti-gun lobbying group wants to take, they need to own and say it. It won’t matter what the aggregate is. The pro-gun group is going to be able to point to specific cases, humanize and say look, this could be you, you can put yourself in their shoes can’t you. The answer is yes, yes I can. And there needs to be a good response to that other than stop being human.

Whether or not you want this at a micro level is immaterial because that is where it is at today. The fuck off and look at my graph response is not going to change anything, not in this country. How do I know that… because this is what always happen.

There will be no progress in this area if anti-gun continues to approach this in that manner. You don’t have to take my word for it though. History shows us this.

I’m neither anti-gun or pro-gun really. I see certain kinds of guns as unnecessary, and I kind of wonder if a pistol would have been sufficient and killed less in this case. The anti-gun fuck you stupid emotional people don’t like that answer. Neither does the fuck you what right do you have to limit my access to guns group either.

4818

Probably not?

I don’t fundamentally agree with the concept overall, but that stance is a reasonable one.

4819

Certainly wasn’t my intention, and reading back through my posts here I still don’t see how you got that from what I wrote. Where did I argue that the shooter was in the wrong here?

4820

I’m always amused when I stroll back into QT3 and there’s a giant blue number next to a sleepy thread title.

That escalated quickly.

4821

This strongly implies it:

Your position comes off as “homeowner went Rambo on these people and odds are nothing bad would have happened.”

4822

Ah, I see how that could read like that. I was thinking of “in the alternative scenario of a less armed situation, the odds are that the outcome is less horrible all around and for society as a whole.”

This being the society we have, I don’t particularly fault the homeowner for what happened other than that I believe that the choice to not carry/own firearms generally makes one safer outside of specific scenarios and outlier situations. C.f. I live in the city, and have been burgled, and still have no desire to own a weapon.

4823

You don’t fundamentally agree with what, that America has way too many guns in circulation and that, in a more sensible world, there would be fewer negative incidents? Because while the courts have espoused a maximalist interpretation of the 2nd amendment in the last 50 years, looking at other similar societies shows there is something uniquely odd about America and gun violence. That increased gun ownership has positive correlation with violent incidents.

Keep in mind I am not of the ‘ban all guns, and grind them to dust’ stripe. I’ve used, and been around, guns more than probably anyone here that was not military. I grew up hunting, have shot thousands of rounds. I’m not pushing for complete bans, but good lord is our current cultural fetishization fucked up. It is literally killing us.

And then we get into a war of anecdotes.




Shall I continue?

See why I say this type of emotion driven, anecdote fueled arguing is stupid and pointless? We could go all day and, sadly, never run out of stories. You want to actually improve outcomes? Fix problems? We need to get out of the small scale, and look at the bigger picture. Use anecdotes to drive home the thesis, maybe, because we’re still just apes who respond to shiny things instead of logic sometimes. But, damn it, don’t go proposing ideas based solely off anecdote.

Not saying that’s where we are, I fucking know that the gun lobby loves to eat this shit up and use it to sell their vision of firearms uber alles. But it is where we should strive to be. Because if we only ever respond to the lizard brain stimuli and disregard science and evidence to drive politics and policy? We’re doomed. See: Trump, 45.

4824

As I recall, they were armed with knives, so on a whole other level from the AR 15. This was a tragic outcome. 3 lives lost over worldly possessions.

4825

You’re right Craig. We should just keep doing what we’re doing. Doing the same thing and expecting different results is not at all a definition of insanity.

4826

Did you even read my post? I said that reacting on emotion and anecdote is what we (as a society) are doing. That in a better, more enlightened, world we would instead make decisions based off more informed perspectives. I’m arguing that we should attempt to change the nature of the debate. The literal opposite of doing what we are doing.

But, hell, continue to pretend that there’s nothing that could possibly be done, and I should shut up and accept that our culture will continue to worship at the altar of Mammon while we kill ourselves with liberty. How’s that working out for us? I mean arguing constantly that there is nothing to be done, and so we should stop looking at societies problems seems to be your shtick, or it certainly seems that way.

4827

No I read it. You still think that problem is on one side. I look above and you know what I see as the emotional response, it’s not the pro-gun group which I don’t think is even represented here actually.

4828