She didn’t just object to what I said, she made it clear that she firmly believes it proves I’m a disingenuous gun-grabber, and dismissed anything I said as a mere smokescreen for my devious design to ban all guns. Look at how she’s ripped Zeriel fer crissakes! Sorry, but she’s shown zero willingness to accept me at my word, and judging from what I’ve read of her in the past, that ain’t gonna change. To hell with her, and to hell with this whole argument. I’m done.
Wait, are you telling me that “Guns don’t …, people …” is not a useful way to debate a topic? How about “there is no such things as a gun crime” used by a gun “advocate” in another thread, is that one OK or not?
Anyone who characterizes their position in a debate as the ‘reasonable’ or ‘commonsense’ one is engaging in dishonest debate.
Those who advance the same arguments as the most vocal anti-firearm lobbyist groups in the United States risk being taken for supporting those same ideals.
No, that would be a straw man. I said that anyone whose position seems to be that we must always be looking for some sort of compromise between ‘where we are now’ and ‘all guns are banned’, particularly when ‘where we are now’ continues to change as new regulations and restrictions are added, is advancing the same type of argument that Sarah Brady, Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein use.
If you want to have a moderate, reasonable discussion you cannot assume the conclusion that more restrictions are needed. First, we debate that.
You have demonstrated only a willingness to consider which addition restritions are to your liking. You have not demonstrated a willingness to consider that we have enough, or even too many, restrictions.
How would you feel about opening up the automatic firearm registry so that arms manufactured after 1986 could be added to it? Keep in mind that all the restrictions from 1934 with respect to their purchase (those being the fingerprinting, taxation and letters from law enforcement) would still be in effect. It still wouldn’t be easy, or cheap, to get a legal full auto. What say you?
What straw men? I have specifically identified points and rhetoric that I recognize in your and Zeriel’s own words as being either a plan or argument that has been advanced by highly anti-gun lobby groups. Even the licensing scheme, the ‘Let’s treat it like driver’s licensing.’ has been directly advocated by HCI/Brady Campaign.
Look, I do you the courtesy of addressing you to answer only for your own points, not ones your supposed political allies make. I’d expect the same courtesy from you.
At least catsix is being halfway eloquent when she’s putting her opponent’s words in my mouth, and even then I’m not putting up with it.
There sure the hell is such a thing as a gun crime–I GLADLY support laws that increase the penalties for ANY crime in which the criminal actor is using items that increase the amount of harm he can deliver to his victims. Guns are a tool, certainly, but using one to magnify the effectiveness of one’s crime should be punished in proportion to the increased threat level one has. (I view drug/alcohol legislation the same way–legalize it all, and then give people a double-severe sentence if they’re dumb enough or uncontrolled enough to commit crimes while using said substances–since my view is that essential human dignity requires that we are all assumed capable of making good decisions, but society’s interests require that we punish people more severely when they make bad decisions involving more dangerous things.)
Hell yes, says I. There’s been, IIRC, exactly one case of a legally registered fully automatic weapon used in a crime since 1934.
I note the 1934 restrictions you propose reinstating are more inconvenient than the ones in my proposal. 
I have never read any of the actual words written by HCI/Brady. Address me on the merits, not on the slope you think the words imply I might be on.
Fair enough. How many cases can you pull from personal experience where you actually know the reason someone had for open carrying? In my experience, it’s mostly a matter of it being impractical/unlawful to carry concealed. Then again, I don’t personally know any “badass” gun owners. Could be a sampling error, but it’s anecdotal evidence anyway.
I know a few, but they’re in the tiny minority. Which doesn’t prove anything, really, as most of us here on the dope are not the people that the other people here on the dope are worried about.
What do you mean ‘reinstating’?
They are still in effect.
I already have.
You have not yet, at all, made any effort whatsoever to prove your assertion that more restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms are needed.
None, which is why I asked over and over in the beginning of the thread for some statistics. Data trump theory. But nobody appears to have the relevant statistics, which is why I’m going to theory.
Show me stats on crimes committed by open-carriers in the modern US, and I’ll cheerfully concede the point: I’ve been ready to do so since my first post in this thread. Absent those stats, I’m left to wonder about the motive for open carriers.
Daniel
Similar to how areas that authorize concealed carry see lower crime, I’ve seen some references that open carry correlates with lower crime than concealed carry. I don’t think that’s necessarily relevant, since it just deals with the ability to OC, so I haven’t dug out the source data for the claim. For the most part it doesn’t look like OC is common enough to say much about it, statistically.
Still wouldn’t account for why you’d be “going to theory” that doesn’t appear to mesh with the (anecdotal) evidence.
And they’re still crap. We should be working for repeal of that stuff, but we shouldn’t be just trying to force it down the throats of the unwilling.
My “proof” is pragmatic–my plan grants a whole slew of rights you want (universal CCW, universal shall-issue for all types of personal gunpowder arms) and, by virtue of the fact it insists on a bit of safety training, garners support from people who are normally pro-gun-control.
That’s the point, right? Getting legislation that people might actually vote for that gives you more of what you want?
What are YOU willing to trade? Nothing at all? Good luck getting THAT through a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President–no one could even get it through a staunchly Republican Congress and President in Bush’s first term.
This is politics, and there’s got to be a quid pro quo in politics or the majority will tell you to pound sand.
The data is unfortunately hard to come by, because no one is really tracking (besides a crime-rate-vs.-local-laws generalist way) the prevalence of open-carry where it is legal. Non-crimes are not statistical events, and surveys would have to be tuned to account for the fact that many gun owners (especially handgun owners) are somewhat reasonably paranoid about such inquiries being fronts for anti-gun organizations.
I’m not sure how to put this delicately, so I won’t. You’re the source of the anecdote, and your reaction to my earlier posts does not fill me with great confidence in you as an unbiased observer. Given your anecdote and anthropological theory from a thinker for whom I have great respect, I’ll go with the latter.
Give me the stats, and that’s awesome. But your anecdote (which isn’t really even an anecdote so much as a vague impression on your part) fails to convince me.
Daniel
Zuriel has also chimed in that "badass"es are a minority in his experience as well. Given the lack of good data, “What is your experience?” is my basic question.
Do you not have a single case where you actually know the reason someone you saw was carrying a gun?
It’s not like I’m claiming I don’t know any poseur assholes who happen to own guns. Just that when it comes to the topic at hand, it’s taken fairly seriously.
You want my anecdotes? Okay. Here are the two times someone made sure that I knew they were carrying a gun. I really cannot think of any other occasion (absent seeing hunters out in the woods, cops/security guards, etc.) when someone let me know they were carrying.
- In college, a friend of mine decided to give some schmoe on campus a drive to the grocery store, and we all piled in the car. On the way, he cornered me with a long rambling diatribe about something or other. It came up during the rant that he’d taken a lot of coke. When we got back, he lifted up his waistband to show me the gun he’d stuffed in the front of his pants.
- I used to work for a senile old angry guy who liked to talk about the .357 magnum he packed. On at least two occasions, an irate patron left our building, and the boss followed him out in the parking lot yelling at him; he came back inside still steamed, talking about his gun and how willing he’d have been to use it if the guy had wanted any trouble.
I don’t think anecdotes are data. But my personal anecdotal experience does nothing to convince me that folks who let others know they’re packing heat are non-crazy non-assholes.
Daniel
That explains much. Thank you for your anecdotes. While they may not be worth a hill of beans to most around here, to me, they certainly explain why someone in your situation would feel the way that you do.
Here I think is the crux of the issue–the problem is that legit, good-guy gun owners are not likely to discuss their carry status unless they’re doing so in an appropriate time and place (usually, talking hobby talk with other gun owners).
Both of your anecdotes, interestingly, are people who are in theory carrying concealed. The cokehead, I’d love to see get some nice extensions on his jail time for driving intoxicated while carrying a weapon (and double him down again if he DIDN’T have his CCW). The other guy, it’s hard to tell.
Where do you live again? If your area has shall-issue CCW, it’s almost a certainty that you see more people with concealed weapons every day, but as they’re law-abiding, you will never know it unless there’s a situation where a handgun can be legitimately used in your line of sight.
To clarify a couple of points:
- My cokehead acquaintance (of one night, thankfully) wasn’t driving: he was bumming a ride.
- My opinions about how I should respond to an open-carrier are NOT based on these anecdotes, as I’ve said previously. As Zeriel points out, these were both concealed-weapon carriers. They are the closest anecdotes I have to what was asked–namely, to someone carrying a firearm openly when not in uniform. I believe they are relevantly similar to an open-carrier, since both people intended for me to know that they were armed. But they’re not the basis of my opinion.
- I had one encounter in WA, and one in NC.
- Una convinced me earlier in the thread that folks with CCW permits are, as a group, less likely to commit a violent crime than the populace at large. I accept this, and I accept that the folks who lawfully carry guns and I don’t find out about them are, in general, unlikely to do anything to me. They’re not the ones I worry about.
Daniel
Your assumption is that someone who open carries does so because they intend for you to know they are armed. This is not based on your experience with gun owners who made a point to show you they were armed, but on… something else.
My experience is that someone who open carries does so because carrying concealed is impractical. Absent anything indicating otherwise, if I see someone open carrying, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they had a choice between other people knowing they’re armed or to go unarmed.
Yes, there are other reasons. I’ve seen things on the news about a local group (VCDL) who open carry as some sort of public desensitization/reeducation program to show that someone with a gun is not intimidating. Human nature being what it is, I doubt you’d have to go that far to find some “badass” who open carries for the attention. Assuming he has any friends, he probably won’t have to go very far before one of them tells him he’s being a douchebag.
The relevant question, I think, is whether the open-carrier is statistically likelier to engage in unwarranted gun violence than someone not openly carrying a weapon. We don’t have those stats, but at least one reason for open carrying would suggest such a proclivity. Since I can’t know someone’s motives from looking at them, everything else being equal, I believe (cautiously, willing to be persuaded otherwise by facts) that the open carrier is likelier to engage in unwarranted gun violence than someone not openly carrying a weapon. As such, I believe it is rational to show extra wariness around such a person, and that people who openly carry for no other reason than desensitization have the wrong end of the stick.
Daniel