# Catsix, STFU! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 16, 2007, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366 "2007-04-16T18:08:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/281 "2007-04-18T01:03:56Z")
[QUOTE=villa] Well thanks, **lowbrass**. I put a dollar in a jar every time you post the word “strawman” on these boards thinking it makes you look clever and I am pretty close to paying for the flight for my vacation next week. [/quote] Great. Then keep responding to points I never made, and you’ll have tons of money saved. > [@](#): > > You are a weasle. Maybe you can start and ad hominem jar, too. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > I never took a position either way on the survey. What’s that got to do with it? You argued against 4 points that I never made, yet acted as though I had made them. What do you want me to call that other than strawmen? > [@](#): > > I specifically said I don’t know the basis of the survey. I just think maybe if you are going to criticize it, and to make the claim you make regarding it that: > > you might need to understand the terms of the survey a little bit better. I don’t know how the survey determines threatened or attacked. I wonder if you do? I think that if people are going to take the survey at face value as supposedly proving that guns are used in vast numbers by private citizens to defend their lives, then I can take it at face value as _not_ proving as much. If the _proponents_ of the survey wish to show otherwise, it is contingent on them to do so. Again, it cuts both ways. If you contend that it’s poor research, poorly presented, then it’s obviously not good evidence to support a pro-gun argument. You can’t have it both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/57b2e6/32.png) [@Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/282 "2007-04-18T01:36:45Z")
I will probably regret this, because I don&t have time to fully participate in this thread, but **lowbrass** , you&re an idiot. Saying “strawman” is not some magic talisman that makes your opponent&s argument disappear. FTR, I do not own a firearm, nor have I ever fired one. Yet I find myself being more impressed with the arguments made by the pro-gun rights side in this thread. Among other things, the vast majority of the idiotic, illogical posts have been made by their opponents. (nuclear weapons as an analogy? Please.) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/283 "2007-04-18T01:55:49Z")
**lowbrass** has been calling for cites, so let’s give him some. From July1996 **Policy Review** : _We also examined violent-crime data in California, where permit policies vary widely by county. Counties that issue permits liberally had lower violent-crime rates than counties with restrictive policies; restrictive counties had lower rates than counties with prohibitive policies. A graduate student at Southwest Texas State University compared states that adopted concealed-carry laws with demographically similar states that did not. This study found strong support for the hypothesis that concealed-carry laws reduce the homicide rate, and weak (but still positive) support for a reduction in robbery and serious assault._ … \*In Florida as a whole, 315,000 permits had been issued by December 31, 1995. Only five had been revoked because the permit holder committed a violent crime with a gun. ``` Permit holders are not angels, but they are an unusually law-abiding collection of citizens. In Florida, for example, permit holders are about 300 times less likely to perpetrate a gun crime than Floridians without permits. Florida's experience has been copied nationwide. This should not be at all surprising: A person could carry a concealed handgun without a permit and, unless he gives himself away by committing some other offense, he would never be caught. Hence permit applicants tend to be those citizens willing to pay a large fee (usually more than $100) to comply with a law they could probably break with impunity. * ``` … \*Similarly, law-enforcement organizations in many states have supported concealed-carry laws. In Colorado, 53 of the state’s 63 sheriffs voluntarily issue carry permits to citizens who pass a background check–even in liberal Boulder County. As these peace officers recognize, the government cannot in practice guarantee the safety of citizens in their daily lives. Therefore government must not prevent a responsible, trained individual from seeking to protect herself. \* I was mistaken. Permit-holders have committed violent crimes. A whole 5 of them in this study, out of 315,000. I was wrong, **lowbrass**. I \*\*do \*\* apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/284 "2007-04-18T02:10:37Z")
For those people saying that college students couldn’t be trusted in large numbers to carry weapons, let me just point out that a significant number of people the same age as college students are presently handling firearms and other dangerous weapons on a daily basis. A good number of them are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, I have to wonder how many of those serving in Iraq might have been at VT, had it not been for this botched war? If any of them, even unarmed, could have done something to have saved more lives? ---
**Author:** ![Spiral\_Stairs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Spiral\_Stairs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiral_Stairs)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/285 "2007-04-18T02:17:19Z")
[QUOTE=Random] …Among other things, the vast majority of the idiotic, illogical posts have been made by their opponents. (nuclear weapons as an analogy? Please.) [/QUOTE] My God. Now I remember why I rarely come to the Pit. It’s like people’s brains shrivel up at the door. Let me go through this once more. 1. **Catsix** suggested that it’s unfair that law-abiding gun owners find their rights restricted as a result of the criminal misuse of guns. In that post, Catsix made the infamous “Guns don’t kill people, people do” argument. 2. I said that’s a stupid argument because one could say the same thing about nuclear weapons. If “guns don’t kill people” (because it takes a person to pull the trigger), then neither do nuclear weapons (because it takes a person to push the button). I have yet to hear a _principled_ reason to apply the ridiculous “X’s don’t kill people” argument to guns but not to more deadly weapons. 3. Now, let me pause here. If, for some reason, you can’t get your head around that analogy, then replace “nuclear weapon” with “rocket launcher.” _It’s the same fucking argument: It is asinine to complain about the regulation of a weapon because only a criminal will misuse it._ Yet I assume most people on this thread would agree that rocket launchers should be highly regulated. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/286 "2007-04-18T02:29:58Z")
When you find me, ever, arguing the position that every citizen should have ordnance, I’ll defend it with ‘principled reason’. I have never argued that position, nor will I, because I understand the distinction between ordnance and arms. And no, the differences is not the same as ‘turkeys versus chickens.’ Nuclear bombs, rocket launchers, RPGs, and flat out grenades are ordnance, not arms. They’re not the same type of animal. It’s dishonest and slimy to try to attack me for not defending a position I never stated. You and **lowbrass** are both guilty of it, but I’m not falling for your bullshit. You don’t get to fabricate a position, ascribe it to me, and then try to force me to defend it in order to score some kind of point by screaming ‘Lookee, catsix won’t defend a belief she doesn’t hold!’ You want to argue what I actually said? Fine, do so. But I’m not playing your bullshit little reindeer game. ---
**Author:** ![Spiral\_Stairs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Spiral\_Stairs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiral_Stairs)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/287 "2007-04-18T02:49:56Z")
[QUOTE=catsix] …I have never argued that position, nor will I, because I understand the distinction between ordnance and arms. And no, the differences is not the same as ‘turkeys versus chickens.’ Nuclear bombs, rocket launchers, RPGs, and flat out grenades are ordnance, not arms. They’re not the same type of animal. [/QUOTE] I cited for you an accepted definition of “arms.” You ignored it and failed to cite any of your own. I’m [not alone](http://www.brainshavings.com/supplements/arms/i.htm) in seeing the problem: > [@](#): > > We now know that our nation’s oldest writings seem to show that the “arms” which citizens could keep and bear included some of the most advanced and destructive weapons known at the time. Without some counterbalance, the scary modern scenario of the privately-owned suitcase nuke wiping out a city center seems more threatening than perhaps it should. > … > It seems fairly clear that the Founders and their informed contemporaries understood the term “arms” to be synonymous with what we call “weapons.” > … > If we take a textualist approach to interpreting the Constitution, we find that all military weapons are considered “arms” for the purposes of the Second Amendment. Although recognizing the keeping and bearing of arms as a fundamental individual right can rein in judges intent on eroding our constitutional freedoms, it also causes huge problems if we let the right run wild. > … > Read honestly, the individual right to keep and bear arms in defense of self and country protects every kind of weapon one could want and afford. (This guy ends up arguing that the Constitution must be amended to solve these problems.) In any event, this argument over interpretation of the Second Amendment is beside my main, and original, point: The argument that “guns don’t kill people, people do” is stupid. It seems you’re not even trying to defend it anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Caridwen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@Caridwen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caridwen)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/288 "2007-04-18T02:53:50Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] For those people saying that college students couldn’t be trusted in large numbers to carry weapons, let me just point out that a significant number of people the same age as college students are presently handling firearms and other dangerous weapons on a daily basis. A good number of them are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, I have to wonder how many of those serving in Iraq might have been at VT, had it not been for this botched war? If any of them, even unarmed, could have done something to have saved more lives? [/QUOTE] I don’t think it was the age people objected to but the whole campus environment that makes it seem like it’s not a particularly great idea. Police can be the same age. My nephew is around that age and carries a gun every day because of his employment. It’s not exactly the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/57b2e6/32.png) [@Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/289 "2007-04-18T03:00:00Z")
[QUOTE=Spiral Stairs] 1. **Catsix** suggested that it’s unfair that law-abiding gun owners find their rights restricted as a result of the criminal misuse of guns. In that post, Catsix made the infamous “Guns don’t kill people, people do” argument. [/QUOTE] If this were the sum total of her argument, you might have a point. Unfortunately for you, it wasn&t. Whether you agree with her gun rights policy position or not, only someone dishonest could dispute that there are scenarios where an armed citizen could accomplish something worthwhile. Scenarios such as preventing a criminal attack by a rapist, home invader or the like, which she has ably described. A principled gun control advocate might argue that this public policy good is outweighed by the harm that freely-available handguns might cause. A dishonest gun control advocate ignores the good that private ownership of guns might accomplish, ignores that point, and uses tactics like false analogies. False analogies like private ownership of nuclear weapons, which would result in no equivalent (or even concievable) social benefit. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/290 "2007-04-18T03:04:50Z")
I come to this clusterfuck late, and there’s no way I’m gonna read all of it. But anyone who thinks a free-for-all shootout in that school would have been a better thing is a fucking idiot. ---
**Author:** ![enigm4tic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@enigm4tic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enigm4tic)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/291 "2007-04-18T04:02:08Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] I come to this clusterfuck late, and there’s no way I’m gonna read all of it. But anyone who thinks a free-for-all shootout in that school would have been a better thing is a fucking idiot. [/QUOTE] and here once again I will interject my continual support for CCPs to be issued on a stricter basis including safety, situational, and marksmanship training for anybody attempting to be issued a Permit, limiting the potential for a “free for all”. If more than one person is shooting, don’t join a firefight, it’s that simple. Every civilian issued a permit should have this drilled in to their head, along with other basic safety/situational rules. It’s a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/292 "2007-04-18T04:23:44Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] I come to this clusterfuck late, and there’s no way I’m gonna read all of it. But anyone who thinks a free-for-all shootout in that school would have been a better thing is a fucking idiot. [/QUOTE] Good gosh all mighty! Sure is a good thing that no one said that. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/293 "2007-04-18T05:01:33Z")
[QUOTE=lowbrass] Still gonna go with “zero”? [/QUOTE] Remember a 66% increase of a very small starting number might be 1 time per year. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/294 "2007-04-18T05:22:54Z")
[QUOTE=drachillix] Remember a 66% increase of a very small starting number might be 1 time per year. [/QUOTE] An incremental increase in the number of electric cattle prods lodged in my rectum is likely to seem insignificant to a statistician. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/295 "2007-04-18T05:23:00Z")
People who want to be trusted with guns shouldn’t play carelessly with statistics. Gary Kleck is the man whose survey (as in: please quit calling it a study – he made no attempt whatever to verify anything his respondants told him, or even to check his results against known facts to see if they made sense) proved conclusively that 100% of people who admit to pulling a gun on somebody will _also_ claim it was justified. Amazing, yes, but true. He then concludes that there are two and a half million crimes thwarted by armed citizens every year, or about double the number of violent crimes _reported_ in 2005. [Other](http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/165476.txt) research has noted the sheer implausibility of this thesis. How all these incidents can be kept out of the papers – surely it would be just the _least_ bit newsworthy, on a slow day – is a mystery. Well, not really. As has been noted, delusions of heroism are a lot more common than acts of heroism. With a straight face, Kleck explains that the reason more official surveys don’t come up with anything like his figures is that a lot of these crime-fighting incidents might be seen by the authorities as something more like, oh, unlawful assault with a deadly weapon. Once you’ve redefined all these as legitimate self-defense, though, you’re the darling of the gun lobby. But for the present discussion, the survey is practically useless anyway: in very few of Kleck’s DGUs were the gun users actually being attacked, their willingness to confront someone dropped sharply when the other person also had a gun (sensible enough), and if there’s a single comparable case wherein a number of unofficial armed people, not known to each other, all pulled out weapons during a violent crime and that somehow made the situation _better_, neither Kleck nor any other researcher has mentioned it very loudly. On preview, I see \*\*enigm4tic \*\* has a plan for keeping shootouts safe, sane and fun for everybody: before you fire, you have to call “Dibs!” or “I got it!” like outfielders do so they don’t run into the shortstop. Is “don’t join a firefight” _not_ currently something the people who own 200 million guns in this country are being taught? ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/296 "2007-04-18T05:37:38Z")
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus] **The NBER is not a crap site, anyway. It is a very well respected economic research institute.** As for the article, who knows how good the research is. It is probaby far from impeachable. What happens more often than not is somebody manages to get hold of a data set first, then does some math, comes up with some testable hypotheses and starts running regressions. [/QUOTE] While you all can feel free to carry guns all day long, the bolded portion above is utter bullshit. It’s just another Scaife and Friend’s front organization, used to parrot whatever crap they are spewing this year. Next you’ll tell us that PNAC is a well respected global policy think-tank. ---
**Author:** ![enigm4tic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@enigm4tic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enigm4tic)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/297 "2007-04-18T05:43:08Z")
[QUOTE=The King of Soup] On preview, I see \*\*enigm4tic \*\* has a plan for keeping shootouts safe, sane and fun for everybody: before you fire, you have to call “Dibs!” or “I got it!” like outfielders do so they don’t run into the shortstop. Is “don’t join a firefight” _not_ currently something the people who own 200 million guns in this country are being taught? [/QUOTE] presumably, they ARE being taught that. And you’ve created a completely different scenario. If somebody bursts in and starts shooting, three people draw simultaneously (relatively) and fire at the same target… people with situational training (which I stipulated above, and presumably most people who get CCPs should be fairly familiar with even with today’s laws) would not subsequently devolve in to a free for all. To imply such would be ludicrous. I sure as hell HOPE that the people who own guns in this country are being taught or are aware that jumping in to a firefight with unknown parties is an incredibly bad, reckless, and irresponsible acts. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/298 "2007-04-18T07:07:09Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] For those people saying that college students couldn’t be trusted in large numbers to carry weapons, let me just point out that a significant number of people the same age as college students are presently handling firearms and other dangerous weapons on a daily basis. [/QUOTE] How much time did those young men and women spend learning how to use a weapon and how to handle a dangerous situation with people shooting at you? Is this the same kind of training you have to go through to get a handgun permit in Virginia? ---
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/299 "2007-04-18T07:59:19Z")
[QUOTE=Random] I will probably regret this, because I don&t have time to fully participate in this thread, but **lowbrass** , you&re an idiot. Saying “strawman” is not some magic talisman that makes your opponent&s argument disappear. [/QUOTE] Wow, you’re really a colossal moron, aren’t you? I did not say I wanted his arguments to disappear; I said he was arguing against points I never made. Read for content. ---
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366/300 "2007-04-18T08:22:45Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] **lowbrass** has been calling for cites, so let’s give him some. From July1996 **Policy Review** : We also examined violent-crime data in California, where permit policies vary widely by county. Counties that issue permits liberally had lower violent-crime rates than counties with restrictive policies; restrictive counties had lower rates than counties with prohibitive policies. [/quote] Is this not available on-line? I’d be interested to see which counties were examined. Corellation does not necessarily equal causation. One factor I can think of is that rural areas tend to have lower crime rates by virtue of their lower population. But rural areas tend to _also_ be more conservative politically. Areas of greater population density tend to be more liberal, hence more likely to restrict guns. It could be that their higher population density is the reason for higher crime, not the rate of permit issuance. That’s just one possibility, which is why more details would be needed to evaluate this claim. > [@](#): > > A graduate student at Southwest Texas State University compared states that adopted concealed-carry laws with demographically similar states that did not. This study found strong support for the hypothesis that concealed-carry laws reduce the homicide rate, and weak (but still positive) support for a reduction in robbery and serious assault. The Brady website (cue frantic out-of-hand dismissals by gun-proponents) cites a study showing the opposite conclusion from your graduate-student cite. > [@](#): > > Between 1992 and 1998, the violent crime rate in states which kept strict CCW laws fell by an average of 30%. The violent crime rate for the states that had weak CCW laws during this same time saw their violent crime rates drop by only 15%. > [@](#): > > In Florida as a whole, 315,000 permits had been issued by December 31, 1995. Only five had been revoked because the permit holder committed a violent crime with a gun. I’m suspicous of this. Why are they citing _how many permits were revoked_, rather than citing the _number of crimes committed by permit holders_. The obvious answer would be that the latter was unavailable, which raises the question of whether the data is really complete to reach such a conclusion. I’d need more details to properly evaluate this one. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that this _is_ complete picture of Florida. I already cited that Texas CCW holders DO commit gun crimes AT A GREATER RATE THAN NON PERMIT HOLDERS, so we have 1 against 1 so far. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catsix-stfu/400366.md?page=16)