Parkland, FL shootings

[v9733xa]

Feb 24, 2018 15:10:05 GMT -5 sirmoshington said:

To steer back to the Parkland shooting, how isn't it possible that both sides just agree that something seems to be wrong, on how the US handles guns? The parkland students said it right imo, that it really seems, that people seem to care more about their right to own military type weapons than they care about students lives.

It's the "slippery slope" argument, in my opinion.

Here's a clip from Vice News, which is on HBO but posts good segments online frequently, about what i mean.



Now look, i don't like Frank Luntz, but there's no denying that he can get groups of people together (usually conservative ones) and knows what questions to ask.  He's no crackpot, even if i do disagree with most of his opinions.  Anyway check out that video, all NRA or former NRA members.  While i wouldn't call any of them crazy, as i watched this yesterday on TV (yay YouTube on a big flatscreen) i yelled "oh fuck you!" to like 4 of these guys cause i could not stand them.  (Productive commentary? No, but they couldn't hear me.)  See what i mean about the slippery slope.  They're so fucking scared of jackbooted soldiers marching into their homes to ask for quarter and take their guns that they think even limiting magazine clips is absurd. 

When people are so afraid of even the most insane scenario, and they truly believe it could happen, there is no reasoning with them. 

[sirmoshington]

Feb 25, 2018 11:06:41 GMT -5 v9733xa said:

Feb 24, 2018 15:10:05 GMT -5 sirmoshington said:

To steer back to the Parkland shooting, how isn't it possible that both sides just agree that something seems to be wrong, on how the US handles guns? The parkland students said it right imo, that it really seems, that people seem to care more about their right to own military type weapons than they care about students lives.

It's the "slippery slope" argument, in my opinion.

Here's a clip from Vice News, which is on HBO but posts good segments online frequently, about what i mean.



Now look, i don't like Frank Luntz, but there's no denying that he can get groups of people together (usually conservative ones) and knows what questions to ask.  He's no crackpot, even if i do disagree with most of his opinions.  Anyway check out that video, all NRA or former NRA members.  While i wouldn't call any of them crazy, as i watched this yesterday on TV (yay YouTube on a big flatscreen) i yelled "oh fuck you!" to like 4 of these guys cause i could not stand them.  (Productive commentary? No, but they couldn't hear me.)  See what i mean about the slippery slope.  They're so fucking scared of jackbooted soldiers marching into their homes to ask for quarter and take their guns that they think even limiting magazine clips is absurd. 

When people are so afraid of even the most insane scenario, and they truly believe it could happen, there is no reasoning with them. 

Thanks for the share, quite an interesting piece. I don't know the guy Luntz but liked his approach in this vid and I definitely agree that some of these people had some batshit crazy arguments.
The argument that struck me the most, was the one guy who said, that just the slightest change in regulation would open the door on a complete ban of firearms. That is some paranoid shit right there and imo the reason why in the past people have been so trigger happy in certain situations. This climate of fear that the media and the government is spreading is so damn toxic that just like you said they start to believe in the most insance scenarios.

[v9733xa]

My response to those people, and those that say similar things, would be something like "why can't you buy a grenade r rocket launcher?" I'm sure they would say something like "well that's impractical, you would never hunt with that or protect your home with that." So they DO draw the line somewhere.

I'd really like to ask one of them where that line is. It's the question i hoped Luntz would ask and he didn't. What shouldn't we be allowed to own? Land mines? Missiles? An M2 Browning machine gun? And if you can justify that, why can't they understand justifying a ban (or at least a serious limit) on owning a gun designed by the military for the purpose of ripping apart human flesh?

[sirmoshington]

I think they can't even argue these reasonable points. The experience I made when watching discussions on the topic when the pro-ban side brought a killer argument from which I thought, alright there is no argument against that, the other side would always bring up something completely ridiculous like "people use cars to kill other people bla bla bla" (you know the drill)

[v9733xa]

The March for Our Lives event is today in Washington D.C. and all around the country (i thought about going but i was just so tired i couldn't stay awake, it would not have been a good idea to make that 90-mile drive at 7 in the morning with how tired i was).

So i'll post signs and shit instead.

More later perhaps.

[v9733xa]

Already found some more.

[v9733xa]

Last post i promise.

[thenuge]

Well. I guess I'll be that guy. I'm pro 2A. And wouldn't mind discussing it with you guys to at least provide a different point of view on the topic. I'm not too sure where to start but I guess I'll start with the whole teachers having guns in schools. I conceal carry. And believe it or not, teachers can and do conceal carry given a letter of permission from the principal, local sheriff, or school district office. Looking at the pics posted of the signs... guns are already in a lot of these schools. Also, pretty sure the "arming teachers" isn't meant to be taken as a train all teachers to use a handgun whether they like it or not. I believe it is more of a "if you are qualified such as a former LEO or military personnel you may carry". Just renewed my license this past wednesday and the instructor told us his wife carried concealed for the past 20 years while she was a teacher at a local public school. Teachers are already armed. Most people just have no idea, including teachers that work with them... after all, the whole point of concealed carry is to be concealed.

The idea that somehow vaginas are more regulated than guns is kinda... missing the mark? I'd list some of the many restrictions on firearms here in the US but I hope we can agree on this one. It is simply not true. If not, I can provide a list of many instances where it would suck to have a gun in your pants instead of a vagina.

As far as the where to draw the line on the 2nd amendment and buying RPGs or rocket launchers, an M2 browning hmg... well. Believe it or not, you CAN buy some of these items as well They are considered an NFA item and require A LOT of money. But people can and do own them legally. These are essentially discriminatory weapons, meaning you can aim them at a singular object. Mines, bombs, NBC weapons, etc are indiscriminate weapons. I believe, as do others, that US citizens have the right to defend themselves from unjust aggression or the threat of such aggression. This is for a good reason, at one point in our history we no shit fought the most powerful government in the world with an army made up of farmers and a navy that was provided with letters of marque and a continental navy that basically practiced piracy (guerre de course). Then we find ourselves stuck in Afghanistan/Iraq for over a decade wondering how on earth we haven't won against farmers with AKs. They certainly can make a difference in terms of the whole tyranny defense if that's the angle you want to take. I get the whole paranoia claim "these guys think the government is going to storm their homes and molest all their holes while they are at it!!" Yeah, it does sound crazy here in the US. But it does happen in other countries. Public is disarmed and the government takes advantage of the people. It may not happen here in the US in my lifetime, or the next generation, or the generation after that... but if it does eventually happen, that generation will have the means to defend themselves. I suppose that is more or less what it is about for me.

Okay, let's have it - hoping to keep it civil. I don't see many of these convos go well on the interwebs.

[Glitch]

I'm sorry if I didn't read this too in-depth, but you're solution to gun abuse is carry more guns? I just don't get it.

[v9733xa]

So then what it is about this country, this one solitary country, that makes it have these mass shootings?

Why can so many others get it right, or at least have far fewer of those events, that we can't figure out? Or is the "2A" (i've never heard that before, is that like some gun nut shorthand used on reddit or NRA forums or something) supporter just content with mass shooting events and general gun violence to say "meh, my right to have a gun is more important, mental health!"?

It's hard to keep this civil with a freaking Ted Nugent avatar, by the way. It's a hindrance to your apparent intelligence which seems pretty real.

[thenuge]

Mar 26, 2018 17:46:03 GMT -5 v9733xa said:

So then what it is about this country, this one solitary country, that makes it have these mass shootings?

Why can so many others get it right, or at least have far fewer of those events, that we can't figure out? Or is the "2A" (i've never heard that before, is that like some gun nut shorthand used on reddit or NRA forums or something) supporter just content with mass shooting events and general gun violence to say "meh, my right to have a gun is more important, mental health!"?

It's hard to keep this civil with a freaking Ted Nugent avatar, by the way. It's a hindrance to your apparent intelligence which seems pretty real.

The Nuge avatar is a nod to the guy's music. You know, Cat Scratch Fever? Stranglehold? Not his political opinions. Guy is off the rails. Plus, its a funny picture.

Pro-2A is a pretty common way to say you are pro second amendment. Or at least not difficult to infer the meaning. Not sure what the hang up is here? Obviously you won't hear the term watching the young turks. I'm not involved in NRA forums or a member and don't have a reddit account but maybe gun nuts are using it on there. 

So back on topic. We aren't the only country that has mass shootings. According to this study, the US is just outside the top 10 in death rate per million citizens due to a mass shooting from 2009-2015. I don't mean to deflect here, I am just pointing out we are not the "one solitary country... that has these mass shootings". Countries in front of the US are well developed, Norway, France, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium... so it's not like they are 3rd world or anything. These countries have much stricter gun laws than we do... but that doesn't seem to affect their mass shooting rates?

Obviously mass shootings are terrible. Obviously no one wants them. But what happens each and every time one starts? Someone stops it eventually. How? The shooter is either shot or detained (by people with guns). I don't know why it is so hard to understand that someone with a gun is pretty much the only way to stop someone else with a gun. This is why I have a hard time with gun control. If it actually worked I'd be for it. We now live in an era where you can 3D print a lethal firearm. No serial, no registration, no background check, totally discrete. It never really has been or even will be difficult to buy a firearm from the black market. People that want guns are going to get them. I'm just trying to be reasonable here. I legitimately don't think it is possible to control guns in the manner gun control advocates want them controlled. Semi-automatic weapons ban? Guess what, that included well over 90% of guns including revolvers. Is that realistic? We have laws on the books already, numbering easily into the thousands when you factor in individual state + federal laws. Yet they are still broken every time commits a mass shooting. Murder is illegal after all. 

Since we are in this thread specifically discussing Parkland, law enforcement had almost an overwhelming amount of interactions and intimations that this kid was up to some shit. Here's a summary of some of those interactions. Namely FBI visiting the kid and not communicating it with the local law enforcement. The FBI admitting it did not follow up tips that claimed "something is going to happen" etc. The ball was dropped here big time and yet THIS is the shooting gun control advocates decide they want to persecute gun owners and the NRA over. Why is absolutely NO ONE calling out the FBI? The local law enforcement? The community itself? This kid's warning signs were about as crystal clear as they will ever get. Straight up claiming he wants to be a professional school shooter online. And it was just glossed over and was not followed up. I believe the focus of everyone's rage has been severely misdirected.

[v9733xa]

Who's got data? We do, we do!

[thenuge]

Cool. So. I like to dig into studies... see what the methodology is, what their definitions are, etc. You know, actually think for myself instead of seeing a chart and screaming "take away my rights!" Which by the way is pretty amazing that for the first time in our history we are actually asking the government to take away a right. And holy shit, it is the same government that is responsible for some truly terrible foreign conflicts, well-documented police brutality, AND it appears at least half of the voting population believes our current president to be a totalitarian fascist who if I remember correctly has been called "literally Hitler". But we should definitely take away our means to defend ourselves and hand em over to these trusty guys. I realize you probably do not care about protecting yourself or your family by the most effective method possible, a firearm, but there are quite a few of us that would prefer to be able to do so and also get to choose the manner in which we do it. Guns really aren't that scary if you have ever been around them or know how to handle them. I strongly encourage you or anyone else to go to a local range and learn safe handling and do a little bit of shooting. The bullets do not have heat seeking capabilities and guns don't just go off whenever they feel like it. But anyway.

I'll provide sources for everything. Although something tells me you probably won't check them and may just post a meme or more shit from Vox that you copy/pasted since you absolutely blazed past most, if not all, of my points in my last response. This will probably be my last response in the thread since it doesn't seem like you really want to discuss anything.

Also, I'd like to point out that your solution, as is everyone else's that is anti-gun is either more regulations or ban them outright or some combination of the two. If those things work in other countries, then it would be painfully obvious that we should do the same. So we should probably examine if that is actually true. Do gun bans or does gun control affect the rate of gun violence? Do some research. Find out what the other side has to say, compare the two, dig into the data. You might be surprised if you can mute your bias. I'm not going to go into it in this thread because it is going to be super long as is.

Also, and this is big, correlation does not equal causation. A pretty common phrase when dealing with any study. There is a reason a univariate analysis is frowned upon in the scientific community and a multivariate analysis is the standard. Just because you set an X and Y axis does not mean that those are the sole determining variables. It is just easier to digest and makes for an eye catching chart. In the case of gun control vs gun violence I do believe that the two should show correlation (even if that is no correlation) just because the other variables may be somewhat minimal. So I do want to acknowledge that. Just saying it is good to take correlation charts with a grain of salt. Not sure if you do or not, given that your rebuttal (?) was just a dump of charts showing correlation.

I'm just going to go over the first chart because otherwise this post is going to be huge. I can definitely go over the other charts if you or anyone else wants. Plus, it will take some time to read up on the studies. If I find the studies are well-represented by the graph I'll definitely say so. But otherwise I'll point out if anything is misleading or wrong etc. Given that it is mainly charts provided by Vox - who have a pretty shit reputation- I won't be giving them the benefit of the doubt.

So let's look at the first chart:



The data was compiled here by The Guardian, published in 2012, and the raw data was collected from the UNODC's annual crime survey of presumably the year 2011 found here as well as the Small Arms Survey of 2007. The above chart is showing the rate of firearm related homicides per 1 million people in countries that are relatively high on the HDI (human development index). Notably, the United States is #10 on the list. The countries Norway and Iceland are ranked ahead of the US (Norway being #1, Iceland #9) have simply been left off the chart. That is strange. Looking at the HDI list, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Iceland, and Canada are all ranked higher than the US. Fun fact, there are only 15 countries with gun ownership rates higher than 24 per 100 people and 6 of which are in the top 10 of the HDI list. But I thought guns kill people whenever they feel like? How are these countries so high on the Human Development Index when people OWN GUNS? Don't guns literally shoot people at random? The correlation here is obviously interesting. Gun ownership very clearly does not correlate well with gun violence. But we'll look at it further anyway.

Since you didn't use your words and just decided to post charts I guess I'll have to make some assumptions here. Given the vast majority of your charts, you are arguing that more gun ownership means more gun related violence. The above chart only depicts gun violence but conveniently leaves off the amount of gun ownership per country. Why? Because the resulting chart would not be nearly as alarming. I took the time to make a chart with the same exact data, but instead taking into account firearm ownership (per the small arms survey) in conjunction with firearm homicides (taken straight off the Vox chart itself). Here's the result: Please note- I am using THE EXACT SAME DATA that the Vox chart used So I guess, who's data chart sucks? Yours does, yours does.



So I took the liberty of calculating the ratio of ownership to homicide which is how this chart is organized from left to right. The lower the first number in the ratio, the more likely a homicide will be committed by a firearm in that given country. You can see that when you actually put this in context, the US is 4th, behind Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Belgium.

On the topic of gun control, the Netherlands has one of the strictest policies on guns, I won't go into detail on their laws as you can easily look them up and see for yourself. Compared to the US they are very strict.

Look at these figures. Wouldn't countries with lots of guns have lots of violence? No not the case. Wouldn't countries with few guns have little violence? Weird. Not the case either. But isn't that what Vox is trying to say?

Wouldn't we expect the data to show the US first on the chart in a glaring fashion if the United States had a gun violence problem, just like the Vox chart? Because that Vox chart makes it look like we are basically 3x as worse than the next closest country when it comes to firearm homicides. Honest question here, do you think that the data is properly presented there with the Vox chart? Do you think it shows something very different when given gun ownership as well? No shit we have a lot of firearm homicides compared to these other countries. We have 100 million more people than the rest of the countries on this chart combined.

I'm not sure if it is safe to say, but I think this first chart is completely misrepresented and hopefully I've made that clear. I'll take a look at the rest of the charts later if you'd like. But something tells me they aren't exactly the product of top-notch journalism.

[thenuge]

Damn. Thought I was done but it took almost no time researching the next few charts. Chart #2 is spot on correct. Good job Vox. Too bad they didn't merge it into a single chart with the first one which would reveal what I outlined above. No correlation with gun ownership and gun homicide.

Chart #3 is bad. At least in context of the other charts posted. Suddenly we went from talking about gun homicides... to gun deaths. Which includes suicide. Suicide and gun ownership have a very positive correlation. If someone is looking for a way out and they have a gun, they are most likely to use it. If they don't have a gun, they still find a way out. But that's not what we are arguing here. We are talking about gun ownership affecting gun violence - that is - perpetrated onto others. When you take out suicide and look at just gun homicides - the chart would look like this:



Weird. Absolutely no correlation. Also, notice this chart actually includes an R value? Which ranges from -1 to 1. 0 being no correlation. The R value for this chart is 0.0031.

So I guess that eliminates chart #3...

Chart #4 is also terrible. Notice if you take out the trend line and the United States you would have an awfully hard time finding a correlation. It is almost as if they just decided to drop a trend line in there without stating what the coefficient is... I wonder why they would do that?

Here is basically the same chart... including all countries. So it is pretty jumbled but at least you can see the US in the grand scheme of things.



And just for good measure. Since we (and I guess by we, I mean me and Vox... not you) are arguing ultimately that gun ownership just HAS TO BE CORRELATED TO GUN HOMICIDE... here are all of the European countries compared.



Not what I would call a statistically significant correlation, would you?

And a note on these graphs. Because they are just so damn easy to make, I outsourced them to someone that had already made them. You can certainly go through and verify the source for the numbers - I realize wikipedia is frowned upon - but go ahead and look at the sources for the figures in wikipedia and build your own charts. It truly is not hard to do. These charts you linked have now shown 3 out 4 times to be either gravely misleading, grossly omitting key definitions, or simply dropping data points that didn't fit the mold. That's called confirmation bias. The charts I linked show the whole picture. There aren't any visual tricks or data fuckery.

I promise I'm not an evil person that wants to see people gunned down in the streets or in schools. But I do like to make informed decisions and I take the stance that I take on guns for a reason. Hopefully this makes sense to either you or anyone else reading.

[thenuge]

Chart #5:



This one is... interesting. Seems to check out just fine. Numbers are accurate, showing the percentage of homicides that are gun related in each country. I have no beef here. But do a reverse image search on it... why is no one else using this chart except vox and some random bloggers? Seems weird.

Maybe it is because most people can look at this one and determine it is actually pretty shitty and not worth sharing.

Out of 219 data points to choose from - this chart chooses 15. 14 of which are all in the bottom 1/4 of data represented. Seems like an honest comparison...

It is true that gun homicide makes up a huge chunk of US homicides. Here's a chart for 2016 homicides by weapon.




Note that the overwhelming amount of homicides are committed with a handgun... yet everyone shits bricks over "assault weapons". Just another great example of some seriously misguided ideas.

And here (although broken down by gender) is a list of homicides by weapon in the UK.



Nice. Gun homicide is down. But damn... looks like if someone is killing you in the UK they are just going to stab you or beat you to death.

Do you really think taking away guns (or just taking on more regulation) will completely erase or drastically reduce gun homicide in the US without adding it to another category such as stabbings?

Oh yeah, and for the last chart. It is basically the same thing as the MotherJones chart. Takes into account suicide. Would look completely different if just accounting for gun homicide.

Interestingly enough, check out this chart showing gun homicides and their relation to gun laws (as measured by the Brady State Score system) - shows no correlation with gun laws and gun homicides. Now you can definitely find charts showing correlation with gun suicides and gun laws... but once again that isn't what we are arguing.



As far as the Australian buyback program... I'll detail tomorrow why a simple chart showing a downward trend starting roughly 10 years prior to the buyback that amazingly continues downward after the buyback is not necessarily the best argument for gun control/buyback programs. And more detail on if that program legitimately worked. Because if it did, it would be huge and we should absolutely do the same thing. But I'm done for now.

Ya got me all riled up man, what can I say? Haven't debated, if that's what we're doing, in a loooong time.