Ask the gun control people who go around with armed guards, e.g. HRC.
erl, we seem to be talking around each other.
Not at all. I was using my example to illustrate that freedom and security ARE NOT mutually exclusive. I think your statement that “Security comes from removing freedom” is in error. Security is sometimes gained for a population through governmental restriction of certain activities, but often it’s gained through government protections of those freedoms you say “can only be taken away.” The point is that the government may prohibit some of its citizens from taking away the basic liberties of many of its other citizens by imposing restrictions. There is still a net gain of both security and liberty. (This, by the way, why I wanted your differentiation between freedom and liberty.)
If you have, I haven’t seen it. That’s not what I’m arguing. Perhaps it would be better for me to say that I don’t think Security and Freedom are opposing ideals. Security is the relative ability to control one’s environment. This can be increased through restrictive impositions, certainly, but it can also be increased through greater liberty of action. Can you see my point?
Criminals always go for the easiest prey around, generally speaking. They certainly prefer to be armed while their ‘mark’ isn’t. Pretty cowardly, but there it is. Concealed carry has a certain element of the unknown in locations that hasn’t outlawed the free exercise of the 2nd, and the Lott study found that it even has the effect of protecting people who don’t own firearms and/or don’t choose to carry them on their person.
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesaire Beccaria in "On Crimes and Punishment - (1764)
Even back then, it was obvious that restricting firearm ownership or the ability to bear them was foolish. Remember, though, we now live in a country that stamps “Caution- Cape does not enable user to Fly” on kid costumes, and a blow job isn’t sex. Go figure.
Darwin’s Finch:
I’m sorry, but if they ran close enough to make any kind of physical contact with you, than they weren’t running in your “general direction” they were running at you. You lacked the defensive mindset to identify the representative threat and react appropriately. If you had had a gun, pulling it and holding it in plain view, not pointed at them, may have induce a sudden course change in the two runners. You then put it back in its holster, and continue about your business.
It worked for me against a half-dozen mopes in S. Dallas in '97.
Xeno: (responding to WAE):
Of course they might; it’s called risk versus reward. It has nothing to do with ethics, but personal survival to enjoy the fruits of their ill-gotten gains. It’s basic survival instinct.
Cite, please? Other than H.C.I.? Preferably Prof. Lott’s own words? Because I can play that game, too.
“All criticism of Prof. Lott’s work is bought-and-paid for by Sarah Brady and her staff cronies.”
See how easy that was? I’ve read Lott’s book “More Guns, Less Crime”, and hardly think that the characterization that he “started with his conclusions” is appropriate or fair.
True enough, but it is at least there to porvide an opportunity. And denying that opportunity to free citizens on flimsy or non-existent evidence and contrived “what-if” scenarios is arrogance of an almost criminal scale. Not that I’m accusing you of that…but certain elements of the pro-control crowd certainly show no hesitation in that regard.
Fair enough. Shouldn’t you have posted this in IMHO, then? Just kidding; the mods. over there would’ve booted it about 10 seconds after being posted.
Funny; I sure don’t feel recognized, other than that one article in U.S.A. Today.
Having previewed my post, I realized it comes across somewhat confrontational; that was not my intent. Instead of wasting an hour rewriting it, let me say that my words are more in the vein of devil’s advocate. Your breakdown of asumptions and stuff in the OP is one of the more logical approaches to a GCD I’ve seen taken in Great Debates.
Period.
ExTank (in response to my belief that criminals won’t reevaluate their ethical dispositions in response to an armed citizenry):
I already agreed about risk assessment; my comment was in response to Weird Al Einstein’s assertion that “more guns” would cause criminals to give up on crime rather than change their modus operandi. I think a leopard may disguise his spots on occasion, but he’ll never change them. IOW, the fear of an armed response will most likely cause situational changes in criminal activities, but not lifestyle changes among criminals (IMHO).
Please, ET; gimme more credit than basing my opinions on HCI, ok? My assertion is pure supposition, so I have no cite. It’s based on my reading of Lott-Mustard, and of some of Lott’s other work. I stand by my opinion, but that’s what it is, an opinion based on actually reading his studies. The man should, by all rights, be an embarrassment to the NRA, and I hope they stop using his “research” to support their stance, which can be justified solely on ideological grounds.
Well, thanks for the non-accusation! Obviously, you recognize I haven’t advocated total denial of CCW. What I have done though, is to answer WAE’s quite reasonable question as to why I characterized the belief that having a concealed weapon tends to raise one’s odds of successful self defense as “Weak”. While I do make that very assumption, I’m by no means going to accept that it’s a certainty.
Of course I knew that! Hey, it’s people like you, 'Tank, who make the most effective case against unreasonable controls by consistently fighting ignorance on the subject of guns. Thanks.
I don’t see that there is a gain in liberty.
Yyyyyeeaaaahheerrr, no… I don’t see that one can, through legislation, increase freedom. The government can secure a freedom, but only by removing others.
My point was that they knew full well that their potential victims were likely to be armed, and it didn’t seem to deter them in the least.
Since I don’t know any cops personally, could you let me in on the punchline?
California. Why for you ask?
Actually, now that I think about, you probably asked because if the event occurred in a state such as CA, then the criminals were probably banking on the fact that I wasn’t armed. And, to an extent, I agree that that may have been a factor. However, I rather doubt that the average criminal type is going to go through the effort to keep abreast of current gun-control legislation, and base his/her actions accordingly. If they’re looking to stick somebody up, they’re probably not performing cost-benefit calculations beforehand.
erislover:
Shucks. This is the sort of discussion that would be much more productive face to face over a couple of beers! I don’t think we’re gonna get much further on this particular question unless we can agree on our definitions of “freedom” and “liberty”. I would be glad to do this on a different thread, although I have a feeling we’ve discussed this point before.
I don’t know about that last part. About 5 or ten years ago I remember reading a breakdown of average yearly salaries of a number of different professions. Amazingly, carreer criminals’ salaries were estimated on there. Thirty thousand a year for a full-time criminal.
Now, I’m sure there was some serious so-called white collar crime in there, but the point is that criminals aren’t always total idiots, and just because you rob someone doesn’t mean you aren’t thinking straight.
As well, I don’t buy the idea that criminals who have guns are in a hurry to use them. Armed robbery ain’t no thing compared to murder; the gun is there as a scare tactic which doubles as a last resort. So what? So plenty of people will avoid a more violent criminal path out of fear of targets being armed, and perhaps more likely to use a gun in defense (for which there is little or no trouble) as opposed to the weilder using it for offense (for which there are many penalties).
RE: Ask a cop.
Cops carry guns. Criminals, some of them, carry guns. When a criminal sees a cop with a gun, he runs and tries to ditch the gun instead of “simply” shooting the cop and getting away (not that some don’t try that, too, though). Why is that, do you suppose? I think criminals think a little more than some give them credit for.
xen, yeah I know I’ve been down that road before with quite a few posters.
I think after all these gun debates die down I’d be happy to start a new thread, though. For now, let me say that I think your OP underestimates the ability guns have as a device which is weilded but rarely used.
Neither criminals nor “regular” people want to die. Everyone knows guns are pretty damn lethal. When confronted with the possiblity of a lethal situation versus a non-lethal one, I think it is safe to say that so long as the person isn’t desperate the non-lethal path is chosen.
See erislover’s post above.
I’m struck by politicians and celebrities who seek to ban the carrying of guns, but who make use of armed bodyguards for themselves or their children. I guess HRC considers her safety to be more important than ours.
Ah. Now I get it.
I would suppose that most criminals know that if they shoot a cop, they’ll have the entire force out after them; a “by the book” investigation would quickly become a manhunt. If they shoot Joe Schmoe on the street, it’s a standard criminal investigation, not all of which are solved. In other words, they may figure that if they shoot a cop, they are more likely to be caught and prosecuted, and the arrest is not likely to be pretty, either.
Which is not to say that the same criminal might not avoid confrontation with an armed would-be victim. I just think they are less likely to want to shoot it out with a police officer - not that I have any evidence one way or the other.
At any rate, sorry for the hijack, since I know this is all tangential to the OP.
I thought you said that criminals aren’t likely to do cost benefit analysis?
Close. What I said was:
**
There’s a difference between going up against a known-to-be-armed police officer and a might-be-but-probably-not-armed civilian. Although, perhaps what I should have said initially is that I don’t see the latest legislation figuring into the criminal’s plans when deciding whether or not to go out and mug someone tonight.
I remember hearing that after Florida’s concealed carry law was passed, criminals began specificly targeting motorists with out of state or rental cars. The most obvious explanation for this is that they realized that tourists would not be armed, but natives might.
It wouldn’t take any research to know about the carry law, it was in the news.
David Kopel* had this to say about Florida:
Note that even though the violent-crime rate rose “more slowly”, it still rose.
- I have no idea who Kopel is; I just found that statistic interesting. It seems pretty clear, however, that he is pro concealed-carry, so I’m not trying to imply anything sneaky by using the above quote.
Please don’t do that again, I do not like being paraphrased. I understand you wanting to trim excess verbiage, but the fact is, the OP in this thread was too expansive to begin with, so much so that I almost didn’t respond.
You had an exchange w/ExTank on this. He was correct to point out that your raising the issue of ethics is a red herring. Remember, we are treating criminals as rational actors here, acting in their own self interest. Not, obviously, out of “ethics”.
You did not respond directly to what I said, only to the paraphrase, so I am going to copy it here:
“Presumably criminals who commit “confrontational” crimes now do so because it is easier than the other kind (I take it we are assuming criminals act in a rational manner). If expanded gun ownership makes this kind of crime more difficult, then we can assume that the overall level of “easiness” of crime in general will go down, and thus the crime rate will be reduced, as some of these criminals come to the conclusion that their life of crime has become too difficult and, more importantly IMO, fewer individuals begin a life of crime.”
About the Lott study: I take it you are skeptical about it, and its conclusions. Debating its technical merits is out of my league, so we can’t do that. Let me ask you this: what would convince you that his conclusions were correct?
The paraphrase here was particularly egregious. I specifically said that I would agree with you, given that assumption, but that I thought the assumption was flawed.
Somebody ought to know something about this. Someone with experience in law enforcement. Perhaps I will post the question to GQ…
Here you seem to be setting an anecdote against a highly detailed and rigorous statistical study. It would be much better imho if you would better explain what you think is flawed in Lott’s paper.
I don’t see why you would feel that way.
I was making the common sense assumption that gun control laws affect the level of gun ownership. Do you dispute this?
So on what do you base your statement?
I think it would depend on the circumstances. Including whether the “catcher” is armed…
Please elaborate on this. Have others made the come to the same conclusions? It strikes me that you would not be alone in your opinion.
I don’t understand this. How can you “verify” something that is going to happen in the future?
The two are obviously linked, given my assumption of several responses ago.
I am just quoting your paraphrase of me here. I don’t know what you were paraphrasing. It’s hard enough to follow this thread already, and here I am not even sure what you were responding to…
:rolleyes: And it’s also HCI’s (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) entire reason for existing. Is this really how you want to debate?
Why on earth would you think this? Here you are essentially tossing out one of the (very valid imho) assumptions we have made throughout this thread. See kalashnikov’s post about what happened in Florida.
Ummmm…so? They were still beating the national average, including states with strict gun control laws. Can someone with a better grasp of statistical reasoning than I have explain why the result here was demonstrably positive in spite of the fact that “it still rose”? I don’t think I am up to it, and anyway I’m tired, and need to go to bed…