They make a few good points but let me present the other side of the argument.
In the first segment, they make a few (true) claims that don’t tell the whole story:
Gun homicides have dropped. But they do not claim that homicides generally have dropped significantly and the reason for that is that it is not clear that homicides generally have dropped in Australia. Constant rates of homicide victimisation in Australia [CFI no. 3] One reason is that common citizens and criminals never had access to handguns so their gun homicide rate was never that big to begin with. The gun ban and confiscation was almost entirely rifles and shotguns (with semi-auto or pump actions) and those were fairly heavily regulated to begin with and not as common as they are here, they confiscated fewer than a million firearms. Their genie never got out of the bottle like ours did, they had about 4 guns per 100 people, we have about 110 guns per 100 people. Our last opportunity to really reduce the level of gun ownership throughout our society (IMHO) was in the aftermath of WWII but we didn’t.
Gun suicides have dropped. But like homicides, they do not claim that suicides generally have dropped more than the background rate. "As hanging suicides rose at about the same rate as gun suicides fell, it is possible that there was some substitution of suicide methods. It has been noted that drawing strong conclusions about possible impacts of gun laws on suicides is challenging, because a number of suicide prevention programs were implemented from the mid-1990s onwards, and non-firearm suicides also began falling.[33]"Gun laws of Australia - Wikipedia
I’m not saying that Australia didn’t see any benefit but its not the slam dunk case that John Oliver tries to present and what works in Australia (a country that had maybe 4 guns per 100 people and virtually no handguns in the hands of ordinary citizens or criminals) isn’t necessarily something that would work someplace where there are about 110 guns per 100 people and about half of them are handguns.
In the second segment they talk about the political problem and the politics on guns in Australia and the US are night and day. Australia doesn’t have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. It doesn’t have our gun culture. It doesn’t have almost half of households with a gun. In the last presidential election, it is not clear that Obama would have won reelection if he had been stumping on an AWB.
I don’t think it is cowardice for a Democrat from Montana or Alaska to support gun rights any more than it is corporate shilling for a Democrat from Texas to support the oil and gas industry that supports so many of their constituents. Do you really want to burn your pro-gun Democrats, chase them from your party and engage in the same sort of purity tests that Republicans seem to be demanding of their politicians.
In the third segment, tries to address the argument that what happened in Australia can’t happen here or that it can’t work here. I don’t think they make the case that what can happen Australia or that makes sense in Australia’s can work here. But one soundbite that I find interesting is that they passed these laws in a matter of weeks after the Port Arthur Shooting. If the gun control group here had aimed for something a little less retarded than an AWB and moved on it quickly, they might have had it but they didn’t.
Back when MLK and RFK were assassinated, LBJ tried to pass licensing and registration. LBJ may not have been JFK but he knew how to count votes and pass legislation. He fucking passed Civil Rights, Immigration for non-White immigrants, Great Society War on poverty. But his plan was sidelined by a senator from Maryland who wanted to table LBJs plan while he tried to ban guns. He still ended up with the Gun Control Act but he thought he could get licensing and registration back then and maybe he could have if he hadn’t been derailed by gun control advocates that didn’t know shit about guns.
Like I said, the burden is not on me. I’m not trying to change anything, much less eliminate a constitutional right.
I’m gonna say that countries like Russia, South Africa, The Phillipines, Mexico, Brazil are all civilized nations despite having higher murder rates than us.
In this case it is what someone who is absolutely in the right says. If you thought your arguments had any merit, you would engage in great debates but you stay in the pit because this is the only place where your sort of arguments can survive.
I’m in great debates all the time, you and Hentor are the ones that keep running away because your views are so extreme that you need insults to maintain them.
I’m not debating the particulars are different. And I never said what worked there would work here. But it’s food for thought, at least. It strikes me as a jumping off point, and that there may be a solution that leaves both sides equally pissed (as someone-or-other once said, “a good compromise leaves everybody mad”).
Superdude, don’t you realize? Nothing, would ever, ever work in the US - nothing! So why bother even trying? Why bother even talking about trying? Waste of time! Also, GUNS!
You want to maintain the right to kill, in violation of the most basic principle of morality and civilization. Yes, that does put a, if not the, burden on you. That you are so clearly unable to bear it that you deny its existence *should *cause you to reflect.
And your point would be? That there are a few other countries that have the same sickness that we do?
Psychopathically.
No, we’re in the Pit because your “arguments” are not debatable. They are based on your mental illness, and the board rules do not permit that be discussed in any other forum.
Who else do you think has been trying to engage you here?
Only a psychopath could call respect for human life “extreme”. Only a psychopath could claim, as you do above, that killing someone does not impact their right to life.
Australia engaged in banning and confiscation. I don’t know how much light it sheds on how we can address our issues. With that said I have proposed compromises that would leave both sides a bit unhappy, i.e.licensing and registration with federal pre-emption of all local and state gun laws. The gun control side thought it was a great idea as long as we let the local and state governments impose additional restrictions, IOW as long as it imposed a floor on gun regulations but not a cap (which is hardly a compromise on their part). The gun rights side mostly didn’t trust the gun control side not to turn a registry into a roadmap for confiscation (and there are plenty of vocal gun control advocates that want exactly this).
Riiiight.
I’ve reflected on it and I am not protecting a right to kill. I think murder should be illegal. What you object to is that I am protecting a right that give people the ABILITY to kill more easily than they could otherwise. A right that might save more lives than it takes. A right that is protected by ourconstitution. So, no matter how much your froth at the mouth, the burden is on your to prove that there is more harm than good and that the harm is sufficient to justify taking away a right.
Hey, you were the one that said that every other civilized country in the world didn’t have this problem. Did you mean to say something else?
If you have any fact then you could present them in great debates. I’m not the only one that participates in those debates. And yet you adn hentor are the only ones that scurry away when pressed on your points.
I think I’ve had exchanges with everyone that posts regularly on this thread.
So why not come on over to great debates? We can see if your arguments stand up under scrutiny.
In fact there is a thread where we discuss the notion of whether or not our rights are more important than the lives of little children.
I love how Dumuri keeps going on and on about Great Debates, as if he does any better there than in the Pit.
In fact, in the Pit, he at least has the cop out of claiming I only insult him. In Great Debates, I explained grant funding, modeling count distributions, funding agencies, and it all went over his fucking head. At least Bone tried to formulate responses, but they were pretty much all trivialities. Dumuri can do nothing but parrot what other gun nuts say.
Not a damn bit of difference there. Reflect a little harder and see what other rationalization you can come up with, as well as how else you can appear to the sane to understand the value of life.
Or it might not, and you have nothing whatever to support your claim against the tens of thousands of real deaths we have here every year.
Along with quite a few other rights involved, which you strenuously avoid naming. You also avoid acknowledging the even more fundamental and universal moral codes involved, but that is not surprising given your inability to comprehend all this fluffy stuff the sane people keep babbling about.
Yes, we realize that your inability to quantify or even define this alleged “good” forces you to pretend you have no responsibility to do so, as if you now realize your own utter failure to convince anyone else of your absolute-ideologuist position. But that only makes you a coward as well as a psychopath.
When I propose a single standard for the entire country I thought that was exactly what I was doing. The cap and the floor is exactly the same when you have a single standard.
