I don’t think gun control follows at all from atheism. Except perhaps now that the “right” has largely become the “Christian right” a number of atheists might be swayed democrat and have inherited the tendency of democrats to be in favor of gun control. Also maybe tendency to think it’s all Christians and Republicans who like guns, atheists think Christians and Republicans are backwards so having guns is backwards. I don’t know that any of these tendencies are very strong but I do now the majority of the people I shoot with are in fact overwhelmingly Republican, but less Christian than I might have expected.
Sam set up a FAQ on violence and answers a number of criticisms, including a number of those raised in this thread, to his article here:
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/faq-on-violence
He gives his contact information and specifically asks for comments, so he might be kind enough to provide the citation if you asked. Historically I’ve found him to be a reasonably reliable source so I doubt he would just make something like that up.
From what I recall Sam does not think it is likely a private person owning guns is enough to hold off the government Randy Weaver style, and he does not expect America to turn into a totalitarian state anytime soon. However he is a high profile speaker who often speaks out against both Christianity and Islam to such an extent that he probably feels his speech puts him at a higher than average risk for assault or assassination. If I’m not mistaken he had a bodyguard before and maybe still does. So my guess is he does think guns can help protect his freedom of speech.
It’s not my intention to pit Der Trihs at all. I tend to agree with most of what he writes. IIRC Der Trihs alluded to the fact that if push came to shove in some societal breakdown scenario he thought those in favor of guns rights would be the oppressors and himself as a “religious minority” might be the oppressed. Also think he gets a lot of undeserved hate on these boards such that I have to think if he spoke out on the street the same as he does on the internet he might be in genuine danger of physical harm.
Both situations makes me wonder why he wouldn’t think it prudent to arm himself if only out of general principle. So when I saw Sam’s article on the subject, with points made from anther in the same minority group as Der Trihs, I thought it would be interesting to hear his thoughts, in addition to others.
Going by the statistics, I’m more likely to be killed by my gun if I own one than to use it against an enemy. And if America degenerated into some Christofascist state with right wing deathsquads, I’m hugely outnumbered and will die whether or not I have a gun. My most likely hypothetical purpose for buying a gun would be for suicide if I had a painful or degenerative terminal disease.
:o Well, it’s not that easy to fight and masturbate at the same time, is it!
Thanks for the reply! Sam responded “them statistics” thusly:
"11. You say that the broader statistics on gun violence don’t necessarily apply to you. This sounds, frankly, delusional. How can you believe such a thing? (link)
Well, clearly some statistics apply to me. But it makes no sense for me to evaluate the risk of my owning a gun by lumping myself in with all the people who keep their guns loaded and unsecured, who suffer from clinical depression, who have not been trained in safe handling practices, who abuse alcohol or drugs, who persist in violent relationships, who belong to gangs, etc. These are not my cohorts. The person who smokes two packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day and works with industrial solvents has a greater risk of getting lung cancer than the person who does neither of these things.
To understand how owning a gun affects my risk of injury or death, I would need to know the statistics for gun owners like me. Yes, it is possible to be self-deceived about many of the relevant variables. I might, for instance, be prone to suicide and not know it. I might become an alcoholic next week or develop a brain tumor that causes me to behave recklessly. But I don’t think these are reasonable suspicions to have about myself. As far as I can tell, I am emotionally stable and take gun safety very seriously. I am, in truth, more worried about my behavior as a driver than as a gun owner. I am far more complacent behind the wheel than when handling a gun.
But there is no doubt that by owning and training with guns I incur some risk of dying in a gun-related accident—and this risk wouldn’t exist if I didn’t own a gun. Perhaps the chance that I or a member of my family will die in a gun-related accident is greater than the chance of our experiencing a home invasion in which I successfully save our lives by using my gun defensively. If true, I have put us at greater risk by owning a gun (there are other variables to consider, but let’s keep it simple). It still might make rational sense for me to own a gun in this case. Spend a little time reading about what the worst criminals in our society do to their victims, and you might agree that getting accidentally shot and killed is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. I am willing to incur some additional risk to be better able to respond to a very low-probability, worst-case scenario. How much risk? That’s difficult to say. I believe we are talking about very small differences here. How does the added risk compare to the risk of taking my family skiing? I don’t know. But judging from the numbers available, I do not think that keeping guns in my home (with the precautions I take) is the most dangerous thing I do. Again, not all gun owners can reasonably say this."
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/faq-on-violence
So I wonder if you make your decision because you see a flaw in Sam’s reasoning such that you think no people should have guns for protection, or rather you think you live in a situation that makes you think your particular risk is as high or higher than the average such that you just think it’s best that you don’t own guns.
Commit suicide? Why make it easy for them? Even Diane Feinstein said she wanted to take out her attackers if she could. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1EObqM9Z0s If you have gun you can still make suicide your last resort rather than let them take you alive. Also FWIW, while they contain a lot of religious wack jobs, as a fairly out atheist myself amidst that group I’ve found the camaraderie of the gun culture to be thicker than religion.
I think that the chance that owning a gun will prove useful for anything but suicide to be miniscule, especially if I do the responsible gun owner thing and lock it up etc. And for suicide, the fact that it would take some time to get one is a good idea, since if you change your mind about suicide in a few days that’s a good sign it was a really bad idea. So owning a gun puts me in danger for essentially no benefit.
I said that I’d suicide if if I had a sufficiently unpleasant terminal illness. I can’t shoot* that*, nor will it care about any noble defiance I may have.
You could keep the gun out when you are home and lock it up when you are away. That’s what I do with my primary defensive gun but I don’t have children. You could use a lock box to make for safety and quick access, I think that’s what Sam does. You also didn’t say if your choice was a personal one, or if you think it applies to all people and people like myself and Sam are wrong to have guns in the home, which is it? FWIW, I have already used mine to prevent my murder in my home.
Sorry my mistake. Are you as “out” about your atheism in real life as you are on the internet?
See, this is where you are not only missing the point, but are very much wrong. The police do on occasion confront the “bad guy” and end up in a shootout. (the mayor? Really?) However the absolute majority of the time the police are there to pick up the bodies and fill out the paperwork. I am not trying to say the police are doing a bad job. But for the most part, police do not prevent crime. For the most part the person who is on the pointy end of a knife or the business end of a revolver is an average everyday person. You cannot rely on the police to be there to protect you during the commission of a crime. How can they be? They don’t have magical powers that allows them to know where the next violent crime is going to happen. Almost always they are called after the fact and by the time they arrive they cannot prevent a rape, robbery or murder. Now they might actually catch the person that committed the crime, but that doesn’t unrape a young woman or repair the shattered spine of the person in a wheelchair because he was shot.
The sad reality is, we live in a very violent world. There are plenty of people out there who want your things, your body or just want to hurt you for fun. As Sam said (and I’ve never heard of the man before), the weak and the elderly are at the mercy of the young and fit. They don’t have the physical means to defend themselves against a stronger faster opponent. Even an in shape, strong male is no match for multiple attackers (despite what the movies tell you).
Enter the firearm. It’s called the Great Equalizer for a reason. It allows individuals to protect themselves and their loved ones from stronger forces. If someone attempts to rape and murder a 75 year old woman, I would wager that her very best chance at stopping that rape and keep herself among the living is a concealed carry permit and the willingness to defend herself. Sure, she could have a cell phone instead. She might even get a call into 911. But considering the average response time is something like 8 minutes (and I am quoting that from memory, I’m sure it varies greatly) I am sure her best chance is her firearm. That pistol makes her as strong as a 20 year old body builder. It takes the power from the criminal and puts it back into the hands of the victim
Now, a gun in the above scenario is by no means a foolproof safety device. It’s quite possible that even with her gun, she might still end up in the morgue. But without it, it’s almost a certainty. And yes, guns are going to end up in the wrong hands and yes there are going to be those in our society who will use them to bring harm to others. Nothing if perfect and we should do all we can to prevent such tragedies from happening. However, keeping firearms out of the hands of law abiding citizens is a step to far.
One other point is the comment you made about the police being tired of being out gunned. I am assuming you are referring to instances like the bank robbery in California. The one with the two robbers that wore body armor and had fully automatic weapons, a M16 and an AK47 if I recall correctly. I agree that the police were completely out gunned in that encounter. However, the current proposed ban does absolutely nothing to address that problem. The cops weren’t out gunned by someone who went to a local gun store and purchased an of the shelf semi automatic rifle. The weapons they were up against were FULLY AUTOMATIC rifles with massive magazines. These weapons are already illegal. The average united States citizen cannot own one of these. There are exceptions for a few collectors. You can purchase a fully automatic weapon if you jump through a very long line of hoops and are able to qualify for a Class III license. Even if you can get cleared to have one, you had better have really deep pockets as the rarity of these weapons means each rifle costs tens if thousands of dollars. Not exactly within legal reach of your average thug. There isn’t a firearm available from your local gun store, available to you average person that can’t be matched by almost any local police department. The only single exception I can think of off the top of my head is the Barrett .50 BMG. But considering it weighs something like 32lbs and is close to 6’in length, I couldn’t ever see it bring used as a weapon of choice in a crime.
It’s a good piece of work, but the author/presenter trips up by not checking definitions.
The FBI definition of violent crime is:
[
](http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/violent-crime)
The Home Office defintion is considerably looser:
[
If you only look at the UK’s incidence of murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault (GBH in UK-crime-speak) you get a comparable violent crime rate of 202 per 100K.* Pretty much half of the US rate** for the same offenses.**
(Source: Table 1 of the same document shared in the video).
*Murder and attempted murder: 1161; GBH with intent: 19,489; GBH without intent 15,112; All rape: 15892; All robbery: 76,189. Total: 127843 violent crimes. UK Pop = 62.3M. Please check my working.
Note also that UK stats don’t distinguish between forcible and non-forcible rape, and that I’ve been generous and thrown attempted murder into the mix as well.
Once you strip it down and look at it on a offence-for-offence basis, the UK’s “high rate of violent crime” disappears.
Hah, I like how he points out the the US has six times as many large metropolitan areas than Britain in order to make the point that violent crimes per capita is not the meaningful statistic, metropolitan areas being the main drivers of crime statistics, while conveniently neglecting the fact that the US also has six times the population of Britain…
And author of The End of Faith. One can only assume that his next book will prognosticate a world without guts.
This was a real eye-roller when I read it in The Week and it hasn’t aged well since then. It just goes to show that being able to have critical, rational thought about something like religion doesn’t mean that you are somehow always going to apply the same to everything else in your life. His argument hits pretty much all of the critical thinking fails; conformational bias, anecdotal evidence, strawman, false dichotomy, statistical denial, cherry picking data, etc, etc. I was hoping his ‘FAQ’ might show a little restraint, but he pretty much doubled down. I couldn’t even tell who this was written for, initially he seems to be writing to convince ‘proponents of stricter gun laws’ why they won’t work/aren’t needed, but about halfway through he argues for… stricter gun laws, even saying getting a gun license should be on par with getting a pilot’s license.
Also, maybe it’s because I had just watched Zero Dark Thirty the night before I read his article, despite The Great Equalizer of automatic weapons, night vision goggles, etc; the SEALs still outnumbered the guys they went to kill something like 4:1. One Navy SEAL vs 6 guys is only equalized by having a gun if none of the attackers has one.
Take Home Points:
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Ban the owning of weapons by [Choose any 2]: young, fit, strong, big, aggressive, men. They should be given only to grandmas, limp-wristed 16 year old rape targets and mild mannered midgets who need special tools to open pickle jars.
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A world without orbital strike weapons is a world where those with tanks can roll right up to my front door for Home Invasion-a-thon 2026 without fear.
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New, highly classified Spec OP force: Rape Team 6.
I agree with you about all of the above.
This, though, is just sophistry. Yes, in that sense they’re protecting his freedom of speech, because dead men don’t speak. But it’s not at all what a reasonable person would think you mean when you mention the 2nd Amendment protecting the 1st.
Protecting your 1st Amendment rights generally means protecting them against government censorship, not against independent crazies who try to kill you for your statements.
First paragraph:
Holy shit!
Second paragraph:
:dubious:
Car theft = violent crime in the UK, apparently.
I don’t see where they equated the two. The article can speak about two different things, you know. In fact, if you note that the first paragraph says higher than anywhere except Australia and the second says highest in the world, it is pretty clear that they do address two different measures.
It does talk about 1999 though. So today it may not be true. But considering that US crime rate has been dropping faster than UK’s, it probably is.