PhilKearny wrote:
Studies have repeatedly shown that more guns lead to more violence.
Stephen the Barbarian wrote:
as many studies have shown the opposite
As per usual what a “study” shows depends a great deal on the bias of those doing the studies unless carefully controlled but I’ll point out that in general the more “weapons” in a population the higher a tendency to use them. Restricting them to a certain “class” or group, or having them widely and publicly available always leads to a higher usage in tense situations, more accidents and a general higher degree of violence. Note this is historically TRUE of any 'weapon' in general use so that's not causative but correlative.
The over-used and false rubric of “An armed society is a polite society” is demonstrable false in any historic context. In an armed and permissible society you ONLY have to be as “polite” as you think you can back up with violence and worse if society permits it, you only have to be as polite as the muscle you can hire to do your violence FOR you can back up.
Phx1138 wrote:
I don’t believe it. (And not just because it’s Buzzfeed) If it was so simple, the murder rate in Dodge City or Tombstone in the 1870s and 1880s would make Fallujah look like Disneyworld, everybody had a sidearm. The truth is exactly the opposite
You may not believe it but I suspect that stems from your upbringing and biased historical knowledge. In fact less than 50s percent of the population of either Dodge City or Tombstone wore side-arms. Most of them owned long-arms but pistols were rare as they were not seen as needed in an “urban” environment. That’s why they had sheriffs, deputies and marshals after all. In relation to the national average of the same period in America the “Wild West” averaged a rate of people being violently killed with a gun per year was around 165 per 100,000 or more than 15 times higher than the “average” city rate around the same period. Dodge City and Tombstone ‘averaged’ about 10 per year with a population of around 10,000 which is still very high. Settling dispute by violence was a fact of life far more often than one would think and unlike TV and Movies, (with few exceptions) it should be noted that to COMBAT this trend both Dodge City and Tombstone enacted some of the most restrictive gun control efforts to date.
They failed because enforcement was spotty at best and could easily be influenced by bribery, intimidation and enforcement bias.
(First result from a search on the Murder rate in Tombstone but there’s plenty more to back this up:
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/39889/how-deadly-was-the-wild-west,
https://cjrc.osu.edu/research/interdisciplinary/hvd/homicide-rates-american-west,
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/)
More to the point, you're not taking account of the cultural shift I'm hoping to achieve: changing the attitude toward guns, not just putting more guns in more people's hands. Actually, the attitude in the Wild West, contrary to the movies, was closer to what I'm after: guns aren't toys, & you don't draw unless you mean to use it--which is exactly the attitude Bill Jordan took. (Today, I'd disallow using it the way Earp might have: as a blackjack)
History shows that even WITH knowing and teaching a gun (or other weapon for that matter) to be a deadly instrument people who have access WILL tend to use a weapon at hand if they have it. Keep in mind that along with that same attitude I mentioned above, (I only have to be as polite as I can “afford” to be and even so shooting someone in the back may be “dishonorable” but if you live you can learn to live with that fact, the key word being “live”) there is also the question of how to ‘enforce’ the attitude you want over the one that will likely prevail. The NRA has gone from promoting gun safety to ignoring it in favor of gun rights, from promoting “responsible citizens with guns” to “everyone has a right to have a weapon” with all that implies to both the general and specific attitude towards guns. They 'say' this is out of defense for gun ownership but it's clearly not so.
Put another way the availability and access to bladed weapons historically shows a rise in crimes and violence committed by and using bladed weapons.
Here’s a point you make:
I don't mean that. I do mean, the guns aren't the causal agent. I don't believe there's a causal relationship between guns & violence. That would mean guns have agency, which is preposterous. It's no more credible than arguing cars cause highway deaths--except insofar as there would be none, if cars didn't exist.
You see ‘guns’ while not the ‘causal’ agent, (and it’s not argued that they in and of themselves are) the AMOUNT of guns generally available and accessible ARE a factor. You state you don’t believe there is a ‘causal’ relationship between guns and violence. Your right, but only because a “causal relationship” by definition means that “one causes the other” (
https://www.varsitytutors.com/hotmath/hotmath_help/topics/correlation-and-causal-relation) which is a false argument and unsupportable as such. There is a provable CORRELATION between the number of, and ease of access to guns in a society and which is the point actually being made and in fact those are leading factors, but the factor you’re trying to influence (for example culture) are arguably less important than those two factors in the rise and sustainment of gun violence in society.
Are cars a “causal” factor in death by car? No, which is why no one argues they are but the ease of access and number of them are clearly and unarguably ARE a correlative factor in automobile deaths. The “argument” that “guns cause crime” has I will point out never been seriously made. It is a made up argument straw-man made to enable being knocked down and victory declared. Know why no one makes that argument? Because logically then crime would not have existed before the invention of the gun. Crime has existed since arguably the beginning of recognizable humanity existed as has violence so ascribing the ‘cause’ of such to any single factor other than human nature is doomed to failure. However, it can easily be seen that easy access to tools, weapons and other ‘advantages’ have all been correlated to rises in crime historically so trying to argue that guns have NOT contributed to rising crime is also unsupportable.
(And no even the most rapid anti-gun advocate does NOT make this argument. On another note, bringing up Sweden as a "high gun ownership" example is both false and unworkable. Very few people in Sweden OWN guns and the ones your thinking of, like most who use it as an example, are thinking of those mandated to hold a military rifle on in-active duty. Most of those guns are secured in closets along with the two (2) clips of issued ammunition, in a plastic bag that is not readily accessible. It's not the same as the average US citizen who can easily lay their hand on a loaded and ready firearm at moments notice. The Swiss don't have ACCESS in context of the discussion whereas Americans do)
As above the rise of bladed weapons in society can be shown to correlate directly with the rise in crimes committed with and use of bladed weapons. They didn’t cause rise but they are shown to be a factor in that rise. You may not wish to “believe” certain things but really that’s more bias than anything else.
I understand what you’d like to achieve but I have to point out that historically JUST trying to change the culture does not work since the culture itself is highly malleable. Couple that with the resistance to any change which would or could be used to restrict access to guns and an attitude where the ‘right’ outweighs the ‘responsibility’ and there is unlikely to be any room to change what positive factors one COULD change.
Hence the idea of restricting gun access which in and of itself, (even if it didn't run into the 2nd Amendment) has a mixed success rate.
Such efforts as restricting the ‘right’ to those who’ve served in the military or uniform services, (police or fire for example) run into the same problem since it is again a ‘restrictions’ on something that a large number of people feel cannot and should not be restricted. The same with ‘requiring’ gun safety courses or certification. And arguably this is correct because such CAN be abused and in the end “government” is going to be the ultimate arbitrator of access which is exactly the opposite of what is being argued. Worse the end point of that logic is there should be NO restrictions on who can own and carry a gun which in and of itself is not what most people want nor what the law is based around.
No guns do not “kill” people by themselves and no one is arguing that they do. People kill people WITH guns, they commit crimes with them and they will continue to do so even should their access be highly restricted. The opposing viewpoint though is logically that if there were fewer guns then there would be fewer incidents of gun violence and crime IS in fact true and can be supported with historic, verifiable data.
But if we’re being fully and openly honest the restriction of weapons to a small group or class in and of itself tends to consolidate power into that group or class which invariably leads to the nature and classification of ‘violence’ and ‘crime’ being defined and enforced by that group or class. And this specifically was a fear of the founding fathers since historically such consolidation of power leads to repression and violence on those not of that group or class. One can argue that the proliferation of personal weapons should prevent that occurrence but again, historically, the trend is that far less than the majority will usually NOT own weapons in an organized society trusting to government, supporting organizations, (military, police, etc) and their own soft-power to keep “power” in check and for the most part it works. (Ie the idea that "armed citizens" keeps the government in check is unsupportable by evidence. What keeps the government in check is informed and active voting citizens. Everyone having guns just means it's harder to take them away which does have a small effect on things like State and/or police violence and suppression on a more local level)
Randy
