Firstly my friend, I agree with quite a bit here and I also want to apologize for my delayed response. So here we are.
1) i would advocate for gun control where any citizen has the right to have a firearm. You could eliminate all legal firearms like in Japan or the UK, but you are right here Von that in the big picture, this essentially just means the rich and powerful retain a monopoly on firepower.
My caveats would be that your woman being raped in the alley, should be ok with a revolver. Not an uzi. The probability that she would hurt herself or someone else is too great IMO.
2) if we are permitting gun ownership now, what is to be said of the unique situation of US mass shootings? I think most people understand some gun violence is an acceptable risk to allowing gun ownership much like we tolerate vehicle deaths. In this regard, i believe the issue we are actually discussing is more illusory than either of us realize fully. All i can say at the moment is that mass shootings, at the regularity they currently are happening in the US, is my concern. If a solution to this exists, then the US people owe it to themselves, the victims past and future, and to the world to actually deal with it. The literal rest of the world has working examples of this. Oh, and while were at it, get your asses on the metric system like the rest of us normies. And football sucks, soccer is futbol. American football is a joke that appears to be the brain child of some imp who had a beef with European monopoly on the word football. I jest but seriously.
As for mass shootings... we do have an answer for it. Our mass shootings don't occur in places where our solution is implemented. (And we could have a discussion about 'mass shootings' that go far, far beyond this but...) Our mass shootings do not occur in places where the average citizen is routinely openly carrying firearms. They are often stopped rather quickly in places where some average citizens are carrying concealed.
Our mass shootings happen in places where average citizens are forbidden from openly and casually carrying firearms, and in places where they don't do so.
Umm. Im not really sure this is so. They happen everywhere in your country. Not so much in Canada. They do still happen tho. What do you think is the root cause of these?
Let's deal with the facts first. They do not happen 'everywhere' in our country. They 1) Almost always happen in places where guns are forbidden and 2)Always, to the best of my knowledge, do not happen, or do not successfully happen, in places where the average citizen is casually and openly carrying firearms.
If you have some evidence differing, feel free to post it, but I have studied this issue and that is what I have found. They happen in places where the citizens are not allowed to carry firearms to fight back.
Ok. So let’s say the one in Vegas where the guy opened up on a crowd from a hotel room. I assume the people at the concert were prohibited from having firearms, to your point. But how was this guy able to acquire all his weaponry? The same thing could have happened in Canada but it hasn’t. Why do you think this is? And with mass shootings ‘beginning’ at Columbine in 1998 or 99, and the frequency they happen now in the US, begs the question why? What is to be done?
I think you raise a very good question about different forms of violence in different communities. I’m going to begin by saying that the answer is not gun control. The places in the United States, with the least amount of gun control tend to have the least amount of mass shootings.
Ok i watched the video. I think the over correction of banning all guns is obviously silly. There is a lot being done to amp up this viewpoint, but in reality, it is only held by know nothing mediocrity champions of the lap top class. Most Democrats will fit into this category nicely. But what is the real reason the mass shootings happen? And do those countries in Europe really have greater gun violence? If so, why do we never hear about it? Does Canada appear less or more stable to you with regards to this issue? What about Kenya? Stop looking at left right divisions and start looking up down. I think most of the answers are hidden in this lens. The rest is designed to make us fear each other, mostly. Also if anyone higher on the economic ladder is convincing you to hate someone lower on the economic ladder than you, they are manipulating you.
See my answer above about 'gun violence' and 'mass shootings'. But you raise a very good point about culture. Certain cultures (see much of the middle east) has murder on a mass scale practically every day. In South Africa the standard question is how many times your car has been stolen *this year*. The US rebelled against Great Britian, Canada didn't.
So cultures differ. US films which expend millions of rounds of ammo are popular world wide, but somehow nobody else is capable of making a good action flick. No one makes morbid nihlistic films like the Europeans. etc etc.
But statistics make it quite clear that gun control has nothing to do with the issue.
This is kind of a generic answer, so I am putting it on top here. I am not willing to talk about 'mass shootings' for the following two reasons:
1) 'shootings'... it doesn't matter how you die. If you going to try to measure something it should be 'deaths', not 'shootings'.
2) 'Mass'... again, it doesn't matter how you die, or how you are killed. If one person is killed every day all year, that is worse than if fifty are killed all at once.
Just for public awareness, that i am in good faith and not intentionally leaving you hanging. I know you know. Now it is clear for Substack wanderers. 😉
First, I refer back to your steelmanning post (https://tinyurl.com/3vbhd5tb). This is not steelmanning, because the assumption is "gun control" means taking all guns. Some do advocate for that, but many more advocate for background checks, limiting automatic weapons, mental health requirements, etc. I think you will find making an moral absolutist argument harder on those topics, although this is an invitation to try. A large percentage of the public supports gun control, meaning what I describe. A much smaller, albeit a vocal minority, pushes for NO guns.
Second, I always find the defend against state tyranny argument to be weak, given drones, missiles, etc. Does having a gun protect someone in the Middle East when an unseen bomb is dropped by an unmanned aircraft? I find self defense to be a much stronger argument than resist the government.
Please do not take this an attack, I enjoy reading your views, especially ones I do not full agree with. I just feel there is a more comprehensive way to argue this. A more nuanced argument on more nuanced positions held by those who believe in some gun control.
Oh, no problem, I love it when people disagree with me! I may respond to your points with an entire post but in the meantime:
1) I do not assume that ‘gun control’ means taking all guns. In fact I specifically deny it. I say that even after the most draconian gun control, three groups will be left with guns: the rich, the powerful (ie state actors) and criminals.
2) I always find the ‘drone’ (and tank, and jet plane) argument to be weak, because the overwhelming majority of tyranny happens in small settings. The police break down your door, beat you up, rape your wife, and steal your children, and walk away whistling. Even the overwhelming majority of massive state action takes place much more one on one.
3) I would welcome someone attempting to make a gun control case in a ‘nuanced’ way, I believe that the moral issue would still keep coming up time and time again.
Well done on the first point. I was unintentionally vague, yet it had the effect of strawmanning your argument. When I say all guns, I mean all types of guns, regardless of purpose, from the general public.
Many advocate limits on specific guns and specific people, while allowing many or most guns for many or most people. Still gun control, but trying to eliminate certain threats while allowing as much freedom as possible. I live in a state with lots of gun control, much of which I think is too far. I also know it is possible to get guns legally, it involves a test and a waiting period.
I believe the above hits on the local tyranny referenced. Law abiding, mentally well people can own shotguns, hand guns and rifles that are not automatic. It strikes me that the tyranny is brought up for more warlike weapons, implying a more state level tyranny.
I would also welcome that from gun control advocates. Stop treating gun owners like ignorant hillbillies and discuss reasonable ways to accommodate safety and liberty.
I am not the guy for those arguments, gun control isn't really my issue. The disagreement is on the general idea that any change in favor of any type of gun control is inherently immoral. I tend to think plenty of states go too far, in both directions. Which is why I would like more nuance on both sides. I would love to read coherent, real life, statistically based arguments from both sides to grasp the topic better.
My point was, and is, that gun control has a moral component, and that this comes out in at least two ways:
1) By depriving the individual (or the group) from the inherent right of self-defence and
2) By having separate categories of people with different rights. Thus my 'rich, state, and criminals' statement. I think we need to ask ourselves about the moral component of saying that it is OK for the state to have certain weapons, but not OK for individual citizens. I think that is an immoral claim, and if anything I would put it backwards.
It is not that 'any type of gun control is basically immoral', it is 'we need to acknowledge the moral dimension of gun control' in these two areas.
I agree a lot with the fallible father (great name).
I don’t particularly think Canada is great on gun control. But the statistics are overwhelming that we have a fraction of the gun violence in comparison to the US. Bill Burr has this funny quip about people who have pools. Someone will spout off some stupid talking point like “most drowning deaths happen in the home” and Bill Butr’s response is “yeah, obviously the second you get a pool your chances of drowning in it go up, because now you have a pool. And where do you think most people with pools go in pools? Anyways i butchered it, but my point is, Canada is a similar nation culturally in many ways to the US. We get all of your media, advertisements, even pharmaceutical ones (which is crazy), movies, etc. but we don’t have the gun violence. I am sincerely wondering why this is. And Vonn, even if the gun violence in the US happens primarily where guns aren’t permitted. It still happens throughout your country and at an increasing rate whereas it doesn’t right next door. I don’t presume to know why, but why do you think this is. Open question
>>Canada is a similar nation culturally in many ways to the US
Here is where we disagree. Canada is a very, very different nation from the US, culturally. Just for a quick thought experiment, compare who we elect as leaders. How would Trump have done (or Reagan, or Bush Jr) in Canada? How would Trudeau have done here.
>>even if the gun violence in the US happens primarily where guns aren’t permitted. It still happens throughout your country
Ok, this statement is literally contradictory. Violence (see my post about 'gun' violence) happens in places which have strong gun control laws. It happens less in areas which have weak ones, or Constitutional Carry. The 'throughout' is literally false. If you were to eliminate the statistics from all of the (mostly major cities) which have strong gun control laws, the US would probably have less violence than Canada. (Unless you were to eliminate all of the places in Canada with strong gun control laws, in which case you would have no statistics :) )
Let me use a similar tactic. Let me say that 'Mexican drug cartels are prevelant throughout North America'. You point out that they don't have much power in the US or Canada, but I say, "That may be, but they are prevelant throughout North America'.
You simply cannot lump small town open carry Texas in with Chicago. If you tried the kind of thing in Small Town as they do in Chicago, the cops would never find your body, or your car, or your guns. Indeed the cops would probably be helping.
Ok too your point about Trump and Trudeau, although i think they are more similar than most, daddy issues, seeking approval, not great leaders, but that’s just me. Ok tho. if you had to pick a country most like yours, like we do when we compare statistics like gun violence, i would imagine we would be the first or second choice.
Obviously there are differences, but we are very similar as well, and Canada used to be more independent from the US ( we never joined in on Vietnam, pre NAFTA, etc). Anyways, the gun violence has appeared to explode in the US in the last 20 or so years, i refer to Columbine as that is the first big one I was aware of while a kid in school. the fact remains that gun violence, and mass shootings, which i find particularly alarming and realize you seek to distinguish these from each other, are happening across the US, increasingly so, and other countries do not experience this. I mean we could say gun violence is brutal in Brazil or Colombia, which it is, and have a fair understanding of why this is so. but mass shootings not so much.
It really doesn’t matter if the mass shootings take place where you have dinky little gun free zones or not. What matters is they are happening. So what if it’s a Walmart, a school, a school, a concert, a parade, a school, a theatre, a school, a church, etc. i mean, i already look at healthcare, employment, and the US government foreign policy as far bigger issues fueling mass shootings. But im still wondering why people think they are happening, such as yourselves, and what should be done?
Canada legalized marijuana finally, we should go further like Portugal and legalize most or all drugs. Tax and regulate them. Because Portugal’s model works.
Do you think the price of having guns as you do, is the levels of gun violence and mass shootings you have?
Do we not agree it has exploded in living memory and become normalized?
>>It really doesn’t matter if the mass shootings take place where you have dinky little gun free zones or not.
It really does matter. It really, really, really does matter.
We currently have a mixed system: one that sort of allows guns in some places, seriously allows them in others, and draconianly forbids them in others. This is vitally important.
We have a system where the most vulnerable people are made more vulnerable by gun control laws. It's like if you required firemen to go into fires while wearing nothing but their underwear. This is a vitally important distinction that has to be front and centre in every discussion.
Let us take 'knife crime' in Britain, where you aren't even allowed to carry mace. If the average punk with a knife from Britain were to come to small town Texas, their 'knife crime' spree would be short-lived, cause they would get shot. Shot, killed, buried and the guy that did it would be praised by all and sundry.
>>Do you think the price of having guns as you do, is the levels of gun violence and mass shootings you have?
My answer here would be that the price of having our gun control laws is the levels of violence that we have. I think you have the prescription absolutely backwards.
The US is a violent culture, no doubt about that. We aren't the only ones, however. And as Europe imports people from these violent cultures, we are seeing their violence rates skyrocket.
My moral point here is that when a victim shoots an assaulter... that is a good thing. When crime is prevented by the presence or use of a firearm or anything else, that is a good thing.
And my moral point is also that it is an immoral thing, in general, to take weapons away from the general public, and leave them in the hands of criminals, the rich, the powerful, and the government.
Sorry i sent this before i meant too. But i wanted to say
“Do you think there is anything to be done?
And im not trying to slip you up or catch you in a trap, im just curious what you think, if we agree closely or not, and what we could possibly see as a solution if any.
Thanks for the conversation so far, I am enjoying it
Substack is not very good at showing these comments!! Of course, neither is FB, but I can't see why it can show me I have a comment and then I have to spend a half an hour opening things to find it!!!
There are lots of limits that I would support, I suppose. I think prisoners who are about to be executed should not be given a firearm. Just the witnesses who are shooting them.
I don't think most government agencies should be allowed to 'own' more and better firearms than are present in their community among the regular people.
I do think there are some weapons, such as nuclear weapons, which should be owned only by groups of people (I'm not saying governments here) as opposed to private individuals...
But just to be clear, the issue in this post is not to determine our final gun policy but to look at the moral underpinnings thereof. So if a locality were to forbid firearms to their police and their rich people and proved capable of taking them from criminals in total... then and only then do I believe they get past the moral issue I raised above about 'groups'. If and only if the government takes total and effective responsibility for defending its citizens, do I believe it is moral to remove weapons that could be used in self-defense. (And, yes, these contradict.)
Every Leftist Totalitarian ever - from Hitler's National SOCIALISTS (that's for my younger readers who have been lied to by their professors and the media telling them Nazis are somehow "right wing") to Chavez to Obama and Biden - wants desperately to take the guns away from the people.
That should tell you all you need to know about them.
Americans are free because on April 19, 1775 our forefathers told the King to go fuck himself when the army tried to take the cannons, muskets, powder and ball from the armories and homes in Lexington and Concord. The fantasy of some Leftist twits notwithstanding, the free people of this nation will never disarm.
This ironclad law has been true since laws were recorded: Free men carry weapons with which to defend themselves, their property and their families. Slaves do not.
I agree with most of this. I tend to think that 85% of the population share basically the same values and ethical instincts (although the priorities obviously vary quite a bit). To use your example: no one these days is supportive of slavery, and no one would consider executing slaves to be an improvement (for the slaves or for society). Almost everyone agrees that gun deaths are bad. The big differences I see on gun control is the Left disregarding the 'freedom' argument for guns and dismissing the idea that guns are a necessary counterweight toward tyranny. If Leftists understood the conservative position on those ideas and took them seriously this might be a policy area on which we could achieve a workable national consensus. As it stands (like with so many other divisive national issues) federalist flexibility and the US Constitution create our policy status quo.
My moral argument has always been this: If you take weapons away from law-abiding citizens, the only people who will have weapons are the government agencies and Criminals. Criminals, by their very nature, won't follow gun control laws, and the government has shown a marked determination to break the laws in order to enforce their illegal mandates.
Firstly my friend, I agree with quite a bit here and I also want to apologize for my delayed response. So here we are.
1) i would advocate for gun control where any citizen has the right to have a firearm. You could eliminate all legal firearms like in Japan or the UK, but you are right here Von that in the big picture, this essentially just means the rich and powerful retain a monopoly on firepower.
My caveats would be that your woman being raped in the alley, should be ok with a revolver. Not an uzi. The probability that she would hurt herself or someone else is too great IMO.
2) if we are permitting gun ownership now, what is to be said of the unique situation of US mass shootings? I think most people understand some gun violence is an acceptable risk to allowing gun ownership much like we tolerate vehicle deaths. In this regard, i believe the issue we are actually discussing is more illusory than either of us realize fully. All i can say at the moment is that mass shootings, at the regularity they currently are happening in the US, is my concern. If a solution to this exists, then the US people owe it to themselves, the victims past and future, and to the world to actually deal with it. The literal rest of the world has working examples of this. Oh, and while were at it, get your asses on the metric system like the rest of us normies. And football sucks, soccer is futbol. American football is a joke that appears to be the brain child of some imp who had a beef with European monopoly on the word football. I jest but seriously.
Good grief, I just published it a couple of hours ago, not sure why you are apologising :)
As for mass shootings... we do have an answer for it. Our mass shootings don't occur in places where our solution is implemented. (And we could have a discussion about 'mass shootings' that go far, far beyond this but...) Our mass shootings do not occur in places where the average citizen is routinely openly carrying firearms. They are often stopped rather quickly in places where some average citizens are carrying concealed.
Our mass shootings happen in places where average citizens are forbidden from openly and casually carrying firearms, and in places where they don't do so.
Umm. Im not really sure this is so. They happen everywhere in your country. Not so much in Canada. They do still happen tho. What do you think is the root cause of these?
Let's deal with the facts first. They do not happen 'everywhere' in our country. They 1) Almost always happen in places where guns are forbidden and 2)Always, to the best of my knowledge, do not happen, or do not successfully happen, in places where the average citizen is casually and openly carrying firearms.
If you have some evidence differing, feel free to post it, but I have studied this issue and that is what I have found. They happen in places where the citizens are not allowed to carry firearms to fight back.
BTW did you see the attached Babylon Bee post at 1:57 and on?
I will look at it now
Sorry i am so poor at navigating. Where is this Babylon bee post attached?
It is attached to the post we are replying to right now, it is at the very bottom under the links
It’s a YouTube video
Ok. So let’s say the one in Vegas where the guy opened up on a crowd from a hotel room. I assume the people at the concert were prohibited from having firearms, to your point. But how was this guy able to acquire all his weaponry? The same thing could have happened in Canada but it hasn’t. Why do you think this is? And with mass shootings ‘beginning’ at Columbine in 1998 or 99, and the frequency they happen now in the US, begs the question why? What is to be done?
I think you raise a very good question about different forms of violence in different communities. I’m going to begin by saying that the answer is not gun control. The places in the United States, with the least amount of gun control tend to have the least amount of mass shootings.
Ok i watched the video. I think the over correction of banning all guns is obviously silly. There is a lot being done to amp up this viewpoint, but in reality, it is only held by know nothing mediocrity champions of the lap top class. Most Democrats will fit into this category nicely. But what is the real reason the mass shootings happen? And do those countries in Europe really have greater gun violence? If so, why do we never hear about it? Does Canada appear less or more stable to you with regards to this issue? What about Kenya? Stop looking at left right divisions and start looking up down. I think most of the answers are hidden in this lens. The rest is designed to make us fear each other, mostly. Also if anyone higher on the economic ladder is convincing you to hate someone lower on the economic ladder than you, they are manipulating you.
See my answer above about 'gun violence' and 'mass shootings'. But you raise a very good point about culture. Certain cultures (see much of the middle east) has murder on a mass scale practically every day. In South Africa the standard question is how many times your car has been stolen *this year*. The US rebelled against Great Britian, Canada didn't.
So cultures differ. US films which expend millions of rounds of ammo are popular world wide, but somehow nobody else is capable of making a good action flick. No one makes morbid nihlistic films like the Europeans. etc etc.
But statistics make it quite clear that gun control has nothing to do with the issue.
This is kind of a generic answer, so I am putting it on top here. I am not willing to talk about 'mass shootings' for the following two reasons:
1) 'shootings'... it doesn't matter how you die. If you going to try to measure something it should be 'deaths', not 'shootings'.
2) 'Mass'... again, it doesn't matter how you die, or how you are killed. If one person is killed every day all year, that is worse than if fifty are killed all at once.
Just for public awareness, that i am in good faith and not intentionally leaving you hanging. I know you know. Now it is clear for Substack wanderers. 😉
A few thoughts....
First, I refer back to your steelmanning post (https://tinyurl.com/3vbhd5tb). This is not steelmanning, because the assumption is "gun control" means taking all guns. Some do advocate for that, but many more advocate for background checks, limiting automatic weapons, mental health requirements, etc. I think you will find making an moral absolutist argument harder on those topics, although this is an invitation to try. A large percentage of the public supports gun control, meaning what I describe. A much smaller, albeit a vocal minority, pushes for NO guns.
Second, I always find the defend against state tyranny argument to be weak, given drones, missiles, etc. Does having a gun protect someone in the Middle East when an unseen bomb is dropped by an unmanned aircraft? I find self defense to be a much stronger argument than resist the government.
Please do not take this an attack, I enjoy reading your views, especially ones I do not full agree with. I just feel there is a more comprehensive way to argue this. A more nuanced argument on more nuanced positions held by those who believe in some gun control.
Oh, no problem, I love it when people disagree with me! I may respond to your points with an entire post but in the meantime:
1) I do not assume that ‘gun control’ means taking all guns. In fact I specifically deny it. I say that even after the most draconian gun control, three groups will be left with guns: the rich, the powerful (ie state actors) and criminals.
2) I always find the ‘drone’ (and tank, and jet plane) argument to be weak, because the overwhelming majority of tyranny happens in small settings. The police break down your door, beat you up, rape your wife, and steal your children, and walk away whistling. Even the overwhelming majority of massive state action takes place much more one on one.
3) I would welcome someone attempting to make a gun control case in a ‘nuanced’ way, I believe that the moral issue would still keep coming up time and time again.
Again, thanks for the comment.
Well done on the first point. I was unintentionally vague, yet it had the effect of strawmanning your argument. When I say all guns, I mean all types of guns, regardless of purpose, from the general public.
Many advocate limits on specific guns and specific people, while allowing many or most guns for many or most people. Still gun control, but trying to eliminate certain threats while allowing as much freedom as possible. I live in a state with lots of gun control, much of which I think is too far. I also know it is possible to get guns legally, it involves a test and a waiting period.
I believe the above hits on the local tyranny referenced. Law abiding, mentally well people can own shotguns, hand guns and rifles that are not automatic. It strikes me that the tyranny is brought up for more warlike weapons, implying a more state level tyranny.
I would also welcome that from gun control advocates. Stop treating gun owners like ignorant hillbillies and discuss reasonable ways to accommodate safety and liberty.
I am not the guy for those arguments, gun control isn't really my issue. The disagreement is on the general idea that any change in favor of any type of gun control is inherently immoral. I tend to think plenty of states go too far, in both directions. Which is why I would like more nuance on both sides. I would love to read coherent, real life, statistically based arguments from both sides to grasp the topic better.
My point was, and is, that gun control has a moral component, and that this comes out in at least two ways:
1) By depriving the individual (or the group) from the inherent right of self-defence and
2) By having separate categories of people with different rights. Thus my 'rich, state, and criminals' statement. I think we need to ask ourselves about the moral component of saying that it is OK for the state to have certain weapons, but not OK for individual citizens. I think that is an immoral claim, and if anything I would put it backwards.
It is not that 'any type of gun control is basically immoral', it is 'we need to acknowledge the moral dimension of gun control' in these two areas.
I agree a lot with the fallible father (great name).
I don’t particularly think Canada is great on gun control. But the statistics are overwhelming that we have a fraction of the gun violence in comparison to the US. Bill Burr has this funny quip about people who have pools. Someone will spout off some stupid talking point like “most drowning deaths happen in the home” and Bill Butr’s response is “yeah, obviously the second you get a pool your chances of drowning in it go up, because now you have a pool. And where do you think most people with pools go in pools? Anyways i butchered it, but my point is, Canada is a similar nation culturally in many ways to the US. We get all of your media, advertisements, even pharmaceutical ones (which is crazy), movies, etc. but we don’t have the gun violence. I am sincerely wondering why this is. And Vonn, even if the gun violence in the US happens primarily where guns aren’t permitted. It still happens throughout your country and at an increasing rate whereas it doesn’t right next door. I don’t presume to know why, but why do you think this is. Open question
>>Canada is a similar nation culturally in many ways to the US
Here is where we disagree. Canada is a very, very different nation from the US, culturally. Just for a quick thought experiment, compare who we elect as leaders. How would Trump have done (or Reagan, or Bush Jr) in Canada? How would Trudeau have done here.
>>even if the gun violence in the US happens primarily where guns aren’t permitted. It still happens throughout your country
Ok, this statement is literally contradictory. Violence (see my post about 'gun' violence) happens in places which have strong gun control laws. It happens less in areas which have weak ones, or Constitutional Carry. The 'throughout' is literally false. If you were to eliminate the statistics from all of the (mostly major cities) which have strong gun control laws, the US would probably have less violence than Canada. (Unless you were to eliminate all of the places in Canada with strong gun control laws, in which case you would have no statistics :) )
Let me use a similar tactic. Let me say that 'Mexican drug cartels are prevelant throughout North America'. You point out that they don't have much power in the US or Canada, but I say, "That may be, but they are prevelant throughout North America'.
You simply cannot lump small town open carry Texas in with Chicago. If you tried the kind of thing in Small Town as they do in Chicago, the cops would never find your body, or your car, or your guns. Indeed the cops would probably be helping.
Ok too your point about Trump and Trudeau, although i think they are more similar than most, daddy issues, seeking approval, not great leaders, but that’s just me. Ok tho. if you had to pick a country most like yours, like we do when we compare statistics like gun violence, i would imagine we would be the first or second choice.
Obviously there are differences, but we are very similar as well, and Canada used to be more independent from the US ( we never joined in on Vietnam, pre NAFTA, etc). Anyways, the gun violence has appeared to explode in the US in the last 20 or so years, i refer to Columbine as that is the first big one I was aware of while a kid in school. the fact remains that gun violence, and mass shootings, which i find particularly alarming and realize you seek to distinguish these from each other, are happening across the US, increasingly so, and other countries do not experience this. I mean we could say gun violence is brutal in Brazil or Colombia, which it is, and have a fair understanding of why this is so. but mass shootings not so much.
It really doesn’t matter if the mass shootings take place where you have dinky little gun free zones or not. What matters is they are happening. So what if it’s a Walmart, a school, a school, a concert, a parade, a school, a theatre, a school, a church, etc. i mean, i already look at healthcare, employment, and the US government foreign policy as far bigger issues fueling mass shootings. But im still wondering why people think they are happening, such as yourselves, and what should be done?
Canada legalized marijuana finally, we should go further like Portugal and legalize most or all drugs. Tax and regulate them. Because Portugal’s model works.
Do you think the price of having guns as you do, is the levels of gun violence and mass shootings you have?
Do we not agree it has exploded in living memory and become normalized?
>>It really doesn’t matter if the mass shootings take place where you have dinky little gun free zones or not.
It really does matter. It really, really, really does matter.
We currently have a mixed system: one that sort of allows guns in some places, seriously allows them in others, and draconianly forbids them in others. This is vitally important.
We have a system where the most vulnerable people are made more vulnerable by gun control laws. It's like if you required firemen to go into fires while wearing nothing but their underwear. This is a vitally important distinction that has to be front and centre in every discussion.
Let us take 'knife crime' in Britain, where you aren't even allowed to carry mace. If the average punk with a knife from Britain were to come to small town Texas, their 'knife crime' spree would be short-lived, cause they would get shot. Shot, killed, buried and the guy that did it would be praised by all and sundry.
>>Do you think the price of having guns as you do, is the levels of gun violence and mass shootings you have?
My answer here would be that the price of having our gun control laws is the levels of violence that we have. I think you have the prescription absolutely backwards.
The US is a violent culture, no doubt about that. We aren't the only ones, however. And as Europe imports people from these violent cultures, we are seeing their violence rates skyrocket.
My moral point here is that when a victim shoots an assaulter... that is a good thing. When crime is prevented by the presence or use of a firearm or anything else, that is a good thing.
And my moral point is also that it is an immoral thing, in general, to take weapons away from the general public, and leave them in the hands of criminals, the rich, the powerful, and the government.
Sorry i sent this before i meant too. But i wanted to say
“Do you think there is anything to be done?
And im not trying to slip you up or catch you in a trap, im just curious what you think, if we agree closely or not, and what we could possibly see as a solution if any.
Thanks for the conversation so far, I am enjoying it
Yeah, repeal the gun control laws, for starters :)
Are there any limitations on owning of firearms you would support?
Substack is not very good at showing these comments!! Of course, neither is FB, but I can't see why it can show me I have a comment and then I have to spend a half an hour opening things to find it!!!
There are lots of limits that I would support, I suppose. I think prisoners who are about to be executed should not be given a firearm. Just the witnesses who are shooting them.
I don't think most government agencies should be allowed to 'own' more and better firearms than are present in their community among the regular people.
I do think there are some weapons, such as nuclear weapons, which should be owned only by groups of people (I'm not saying governments here) as opposed to private individuals...
But just to be clear, the issue in this post is not to determine our final gun policy but to look at the moral underpinnings thereof. So if a locality were to forbid firearms to their police and their rich people and proved capable of taking them from criminals in total... then and only then do I believe they get past the moral issue I raised above about 'groups'. If and only if the government takes total and effective responsibility for defending its citizens, do I believe it is moral to remove weapons that could be used in self-defense. (And, yes, these contradict.)
Hey guys. Just woke up. On night shift. I will respond in a bit.
Every Leftist Totalitarian ever - from Hitler's National SOCIALISTS (that's for my younger readers who have been lied to by their professors and the media telling them Nazis are somehow "right wing") to Chavez to Obama and Biden - wants desperately to take the guns away from the people.
That should tell you all you need to know about them.
Americans are free because on April 19, 1775 our forefathers told the King to go fuck himself when the army tried to take the cannons, muskets, powder and ball from the armories and homes in Lexington and Concord. The fantasy of some Leftist twits notwithstanding, the free people of this nation will never disarm.
This ironclad law has been true since laws were recorded: Free men carry weapons with which to defend themselves, their property and their families. Slaves do not.
I agree with most of this. I tend to think that 85% of the population share basically the same values and ethical instincts (although the priorities obviously vary quite a bit). To use your example: no one these days is supportive of slavery, and no one would consider executing slaves to be an improvement (for the slaves or for society). Almost everyone agrees that gun deaths are bad. The big differences I see on gun control is the Left disregarding the 'freedom' argument for guns and dismissing the idea that guns are a necessary counterweight toward tyranny. If Leftists understood the conservative position on those ideas and took them seriously this might be a policy area on which we could achieve a workable national consensus. As it stands (like with so many other divisive national issues) federalist flexibility and the US Constitution create our policy status quo.
My moral argument has always been this: If you take weapons away from law-abiding citizens, the only people who will have weapons are the government agencies and Criminals. Criminals, by their very nature, won't follow gun control laws, and the government has shown a marked determination to break the laws in order to enforce their illegal mandates.