Monday, April 09, 2018

Success stories in gun control

Proponents of "common sense" gun control like to tout the UK as a model to be emulated in the USA. In case you're skeptical, here's some success stories:




5 comments:

  1. That framing is a non-sequitor. The UK is far from being heaven on earth. And, its police form and home office department are full of leftist nonsense from top to bottom, which is having dreadful effects in many areas, in many ways. But, all of that can be true without any prejudice to the truth that the UK's situation in regards to guns is, like almost all of the Western world's, a huge improvement in comparison to the US's. If the two choices for the US are no change, or an imaginary nowhere-existing, impossible-to-attain perfection then, yes, you'll have to stick with the status quo. But that's an unconscionable way to frame the issue.

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    1. If you think it's a huge improvement to disarm citizens of any weapons (guns, knives) they can use in self-defense, then leave it to the police, who won't protect them, you're welcome to it. Just don't include me in your suicide pact.

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    2. To focus narrowly on the situation "in regards to guns" is not helpful. Of course banning guns will improve the situation "in regards to guns"--but the question is broader than that: will it improve the rates of violence in general? Will it improve the rate of murder in general? etc.

      To look at the London, which is in a worse state that New York, is not a non-sequitur framing of the issue. Your attempt to reframe the issue in the narrow field of gun violence that is a red herring. I would rather have higher gun violence but lower rates over violence over all than lower gun violence but more over all violence, with people throwing acid in the faces of others and a higher murder rate.

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    3. Your response is utterly simplistic and crass. To begin with, saying that 'the UK's situation in regards to guns is, like almost all of the Western world's, a huge improvement in comparison to the US's' simply begs the question in breathtaking fashion. That is the very issue under dispute, and you bunny-hop the argumentation stage and land on the question-begging stage.

      You fail to even consider the obvious counter-calim to the 'gun problem' that guns make Americans *more safe* and the even more obvious claim of undocumentable statistics of *non-crime* due to the prevalence of gun ownership.

      Blaming the nasty old gun is very easy and extremely lazy. No two countries are the same, and there are multiple factors involved in the crime rate of any given country.

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  2. Fact: Virtually everywhere in America, it is legal to own a gun.

    Fact: 51% of the murders in the US occur in just 2% of the counties.

    Fact: There were 0 murders in 54% of US counties in 2014 (the most recent year available). Another 15% had only a single murder the entire year. This is all murders, not just gun deaths, which are a subset of all murders.

    Fact: 5% of the counties in the US account for 68% of the murders.

    For that matter, even looking at a county that has a high number of murders (Los Angeles County), murders are concentrated in specific locations within the county. In 2014, there were 526 murders in LA County. Yet there was one murder each in Beverly Hills, Hawthrone, and Van Nuys. Clearly, there are specific locations where these murders happen with frequency.

    Guns aren't the problem.

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