Well, you have made the choice, apparently, of living in a place where you don’t support the police. Maybe that was a bad choice on your part, but why should other people be forced to be responsible for your bad choices? The police around here are pretty cool. Several of them are my acquaintances and clients. I guess I understand if you are not able to have a positive relationship with your police, then you feel the need to become a vigilante.
So, the gun was a convenience to you, not a necessity, got it.
Damn good thing that neither of your encounters had guns of their own though, right, or people may have not been left so unhurt.
Can you think of any laws or policies that would help to keep guns out of the hands of these sorts of criminals, so that the next time something like this happens, and you think that showing off your shiny toy will end the altercation, they will not just shoot you for your troubles?
I’d rather get a knife than a bullet to reward my heroism, but YMMV.
I am a retired fed. It was San francisco. I would have to find a working pay phone or a store that would let me use their phone. After waiting for the police for a hour, they would have asked me to give a description= “two big white homeless guys”. Yeah, there are 5000 guys that fit that description. No bad choices were made. The police couldn’t do anything.
Or would you rather i just got mugged? Defending yourself is not being a vigilante.
And would you rather I have just let that screaming woman to be dragged into that alley?
So it contributes nothing to discussions of what legislation should be considered at the state or national level, let alone address why Canadian cities are less murderific than comparable American cities.
Or he’s made the choice of not supporting the police because their existence intrudes upon his vision of his role in his scenarios.
Isn’t the causer of the most fear the one *brandishing *the gun? The one who carries it looking for an excuse? That is the opposite of responsible ownership or conduct. It’s at best foolhardy, and at worst gets somebody killed, possibly even the gun carrier.
These guys are all sure they’re the Good Guys, the Law-Abiding Citizens (if they agree with the law that is), the Responsible Gun Owners (unlike all the *other *ones you see in the news every day). That’s the premise of that mindset, not the conclusion. It’s not easy to get them to see that either there are no such persons in the complex, ambiguous real world, or if not that the evidence is that they’re actually the Bad Guys, the problem and not the solution.
But it would be a major advance if they’d at least stop hiding behind a false, ahistorical and even nongrammatical deliberate misinterpretation of one single clause in the Constitution. Unfortunately we aren’t going to see that any time soon, are we?
but they did say there are large challenges as to what is a DGU and how to measure them:*The extensive and conflicting literature on the prevalence of DGU was summarized by the NRC (2004) report:
Over the past decade, a number of researchers have conducted studies to measure the prevalence of defensive gun use in the population. However, disagreement over the definition of defensive gun use and uncertainty over the accuracy of survey responses to sensitive questions and the methods of data collection have resulted in estimated prevalence rates that differ by a factor of 20 or more. These differences in the estimated prevalence rates indicate either that each survey is measuring something different or that some or most of them are in error. (pp. 6–7)…As NRC (2004) describes, definitional differences and survey differences have resulted in wide-ranging estimates. For example, McDowall, Loftin, and Wiersema (1998) estimated that there were 116,000 DGU incidents annually using the NCVS, while Kleck and Gertz (1995) estimated between 2.2 million and 2.5 million DGUs annually, of which between 1.5 million and 1.9 million involved handguns. *
Ahem - Post #157. I think you read it since you quoted and responded to it in post #162. Of course, the hypothetical is useless since it depends on magic. You’ve harped on this fantasy as if it is in some way informative. It’s not.
Actually, no. That’s not what you said. Here is what you actually said:
This stemmed from your assertion that you have a right to live in a society where you think most guns should be banned. Of course, that’s false, and since you frame this as a moral question, as if not being able to enforce this idea over your countrymen is somehow immoral, then I reject your morality in toto.
I’d say it’s fairly obvious that the number of suicides would decrease. Not sure about murders, but for the sake of argument let’s say yes. So what? With this wish granting genie why not just wish for world peace. it has about the same chance of coming to pass.
So what? So nothing, I suppose…except as a shooter myself I find it odd to read argument after argument based on “murder is human, whatcha gonna do.”
Yes, we are evil fucking monkeys who will harm one another for the slightest perceived gain. But the idea that murders (and/or suicides) would remain constant without firearms seems very strange to me. Crimes of passion, impulsive violence…these are things that are in my mind indisputable characteristics of humanity, and making them less lethal seems to be something worth considering rather than dismissing.
Yes, you are right that was** ElvisL1ves** but you replied to my reply to him with Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers **
… If a stranger approaches you on the sidewalk, you may not (absent other evidence) reasonably presume them to be an assailant, even if they get physically closer to you than the presumed home intruder.
My intended point wasn’t that complicated, just that what comprises a reasonable application of deadly force in self-defense is likely to vary quite a bit on circumstances, hence my response to Blues Man’s comment:
Even if guns had never been invented, I’m confident that what comprises a reasonable response in one’s home is rather different than one in a public area, “stand your ground” laws notwithstanding. I’m open to education on this matter if someone has relevant legal cites.
The only thing being dismissed is the idea that we could magically get rid of all the guns. That’s not going to happen so anything predicated on that notion is a nonstarter.
In addition, making these things less lethal (crimes of passion etc.) is great in a vacuum. But that’s only one side of the calculus. Less lethal crimes of passion due to tighter gun restrictions could mean more lethal other encounters. But it’s not just balancing life for life - is it worth it to save one life at the cost of curtailing the individual liberty of thousands or millions?
There’s lots of dangerous activity out there that we have chosen to allow. Firearms are one of those choices.
As an aside, you’re wrong here, and unfortunately it makes these discussions more difficult for you and other thoughtful and rational debaters. Because there are others arguing a pro-firearm position who are not able or willing to boil it down to the root of the argument. Which, IME, is this:
This is where we get into actual thoughtful debate in these threads, the philosophy underlying the decisionmaking. That can’t happen until we arrive at a position that says “Yes, eliminating small arms might save lives, but the cost is higher than I am willing to accept.”
As it should be for all such strawmen. It would, however, help the credibility of “your side” immensely to stop the absolutist nonsense you adhere to in what you claim is a reaction to the absolutism you imagine.
If that means using weapons of inherently less lethality, you’re going to have to explain that.
The “liberty” you refer to is the liberty to *end *lives. So, the answer is obviously Yes. If you can explain why it shouldn’t be, please begin.
Firearms are, as you know, the only one of those activities for which restrictions on their danger are consistently opposed, by a lobby and a faction that indulges in strawmen absolutes as a way to generate fear. Since you do, in fact, know that, why do you persist in pretending otherwise.
It’s not even over the countrymen, it’s about fellow city dwellers, who also want to live in a city where most guns are banned, or at least carrying them in public is. But, the gun advocates are able to force their morality over that of the majority of residents, and that is the morality that you embrace.
Is that how you respond to all hypotheticals? So, what? What if your hypothetical was different? Your hypothetical is unlikely? Talk about fighting the hypothetical.
The point was a thought exercise to determine if the presence of guns in our society made us safer or less safe. The reason that gun advocates don’t want to admit that, is because if they admitted that not having guns in our country would lower the rates of murder and suicide, then they would also have to admit that what they advocate for for their own selfish reasons makes our country less safe, which is why you get all the bullshit about lives per mile of gasoline and the claim that fists and feet are as dangerous as guns and bullets.