What's With The Guns?

[Arwin]

@FinnAgain

Um… what?

Tell me how, exactly when someone comes to take something that’s yours or injure you, it becomes a non-zero sum game? Obviously if he suceeds, you lose. If you stop him, he loses. This is a classic zero sum game. Simply because you escalate the stakes to include death does not make it a non-zero sum game.

Honestly, I’m baffled by your train of thought here… how on earth do you propose you reach a mutually beneficial deal with someone who is trying to use force to take your property or do you physical harm?

You can both die, or you can both not die.

[THespos]

@blowero

I didn’t think I was avoiding anything. Did you feel as though I doubted the veracity of UncleBeer’s quotations? Because I thought I was pretty clear that I accepted them. I’m not sure what your point is with regard to Johnny L.A., since he was adamant that he never intended to say that the government wants to ban guns. You want me to admit a point that was never made?

How about returning to the original argument? I believe Johnny L.A. used that point to support a contention that some government officials want to limit the pursuit of happiness insofar as the legality of gun ownership is concerned. We’ve seen citations to prove that such government officials exist, and do hold that opinion. We’ve also seen evidence to suggest that, as Johnny L.A. put it, “guns are not as big a threat to an orderly society as some people make out.” So what’s your ultimate conclusion?

@blowero

So anyway, if we can get past that little bit of posturing, what exactly is it that you folks are saying? Is it that you don’t want the government to regulate any kinds of guns, and you want to have your machine guns and missile launchers and armor-piercing bullets and what not? Or is it that you are o.k. with banning certain kinds of guns, and only object to a ban on all guns? Or is that too nitpicky for you?

Posturing, my ass…

I can’t speak for “you folks” as that would be painting with a wider brush than that to which I am entitled, but I personally believe that law-abiding citizens should be able to purchase and own firearms, provided they can prove that they’re mentally competent, of age, and will attest to the fact that they don’t intend to use the firearm to commit a crime. I do support waiting periods and background checks. I also support taking the right to own handguns and easily-concealable firearms (e.g. - sawed-off shotguns, pen guns) away from violent felons.

I’m somewhat torn on assault weapons, but I don’t believe U.S. citizens should be allowed to own “missile launchers.” Then again, that might just have been hyperbole on your part, blowero.

[Duke_of_Rat]

@Arwin

It’s about 40.000 for cars (the leading cause of death), and 30.000 for guns.

Deaths by Firearms, 1979?2010 (guns)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/17/national/main563703.shtml (cars)

More in this post: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5668432&postcount=44

But gun owners typically seem interested only in their own (circumstances). I cannot shake this observation, no matter how hard I try. I do understand the fun of owning and using a gun. I’m just suspicious of what people tell themselves to justify indulging themselves, because they tell me the same things and they don’t click, they blow up under close scrutiny.

I’m a bit sceptical of the InfoPlease statistics, but it might be how they are manipulated/catagorized.

In the “guns” link above, it says roughly 30K/yr in 2001 died from firearms.

But in This Link it says for the same year there were only 20K homicides. So if 100% of homicides were by firearm, that’d leave 10K to divide up between “accidents” and “suicides”. And there may well be 10K accidental shootings, or 10K suicide by firearm a year (or a portion to each). I suppose 5K/yr suicide and 5K/yr accident might be plausible.

But, automobiles are not the “leading cause of death”, either. According to the same link I posted, more people die from Alzheimer’s than automobiles (per your cite). And Alzheimers is 8th on the list.

And more tellingly, 27K/yr die from “Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis”. This is more than likely largely due to alcohol consumption, yet alcohol is totally legal. Factor in the deaths attributed to being under the influence of alcohol, and I would imagine it would overshadow the 30K/yr from guns. Factor in the 41% of traffic deaths that are alcohol related (from your cite), and you get about 16.5K alcohol related traffic deaths on top of the liver disease deaths.

So there are things out there killing us at least as much as guns, yet only guns get such a bad rap. A pistol = bad, Pinot Noir = good.

So by juggling the statistics, alcohol is killing either directly or indirectly at least as many people each year as guns. Couldn’t we save more lives/yr by banning alcohol? Didn’t we try that once before? Yet guns kill less people and they must be banned ASAP?? I must be missing the reasoning…

Whether or not any of the cited statistics are credible or accurate, I don’t know. In a cite a couple of posts up, from the FBI, it’s saying that there were only 9.6K homicides by firearm (in 2003, not 2001 as the other cite) out of 14.5K homicides. So 2/3 of homicides are by firearm by that account.

While I respect your views, I’m not going to stop drinking, or driving an automobile, or give up my guns. I might take up skydiving, as my mother succumbed to Alzheimer’s and I’d rather hit the ground a high velocity as die from that.

[FinnAgain]

@Arwin

You can both die, or you can both not die.

That’s simply ridiculous.

You seem to be ignoring the initial scenario, namely, that someone is attempting to commit a crime. So your ‘either both die or neither’ quote is simply obfuscatory.

It isn’t a question of two people walking off on a sunny day to smell the flowers, but, one person trying to rob and/or do harm to the other. The simple fact that if the situation escalates it is deadlier does not make it a non-zero sum game. Because, note, if you give ‘advantage’ to the robber by not killing him, and he gives ‘advantage’ to you by not killing you. it’s still a zero sum game as he’ll be stealing your money, and perhaps doing you non-lethal harm.

[Arwin]

@FinnAgain

That’s simply ridiculous.

You seem to be ignoring the initial scenario, namely, that someone is attempting to commit a crime. So your ‘either both die or neither’ quote is simply obfuscatory.

It isn’t a question of two people walking off on a sunny day to smell the flowers, but, one person trying to rob and/or do harm to the other.

The simple fact that if the situation escalates it is deadlier does not make it a non-zero sum game. Because, note, if you give ‘advantage’ to the robber by not killing him, and he gives ‘advantage’ to you by not killing you. it’s still a zero sum game as he’ll be stealing your money, and perhaps doing you non-lethal harm.

No. It leaves a zero-sum game. There is a distinction. Think of animals, fighting over a territory, a prey, a wife. They play a zero-sum game where one gets the territory, prey or wife, and the other doesn’t, but at the same time they rarely kill each other. Often the fight is even partly or completely ritualised. It’s not hard to see why this is an advantage to the collective (species) as well as the individual who even if he loses, still at least usually lives.

[Jillyvn]

@Crafter_Man

Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that all murders & unjustifiable homicides involved the use of a firearm, and that banning firearms would eliminate all murders & unjustifiable homicides. Guess what? I still would not want firearms banned.

When it comes right down to it, crime statistics have absolutely nothing to do with my inalienable right to keep and bear arms. In other words, I couldn’t care less about any causational relationship between firearms and crime; I have a right to keep and bear any kind of firearm I want, crime stats be damned.

Shouldn’t crime statistics have some bearing on the legality and government regulation of firearms? For example, the assault weapons ban - there was an acknowledgement, while it lasted, by the government that certain subsect of firearms was responsible for elevated levels of gun violence and should be banned.

You previously posted: “Here’s the bottom line: I believe I have a natural, inalienable right to keep and bear any kind of firearm I desire. When it comes to my right to own firearms, I couldn’t care less what you think, what the government thinks, or what the law says.”

Why do you feel you have a natural and inalienable right to own any kind of firearm you see fit to own, if the government has decided to ban it? I seriously don’t understand where this natural right comes from.

[catsix]

Rebekkah said:
For example, the assault weapons ban - there was an acknowledgement, while it lasted, by the government that certain subsect of firearms was responsible for elevated levels of gun violence and should be banned.

Except that they were wrong, and the firearms they ‘banned’ weren’t even commonly used in crime. I also love that you say firearms are ‘responsible’ for crime. Where I come from, people commit crimes, not inanimate objects.

They set out to, and did, ban certain cosmetic features on rifles and handguns that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with crime, purely because those firearms look scary. Their ban had absolutely nothing to do with functionality, and certainly didn’t stop people from lawfully owning functional equivalents to the firearms that were banned - nor, in fact, did it prevent anyone who had enough money from owning the ones that were banned. It simply drove the price of those ‘pre-ban’ firearms through the ceiling that would otherwise have existed due to natural supply and demand.

Again, they did all this to a group of firearms which has no practical designation (Tthe term ‘assault weapon’ is meaningless - it’s government speak for ‘gun that looks scary’.) and were never used in any significant number of firearms crimes. You picked an absolute loser of a law to illustrate your point, specifically because the law was designed to tackle a problem that didn’t exist, it caused absolutely no benefit, and thankfully died late last year.

Why do you feel you have a natural and inalienable right to own any kind of firearm you see fit to own, if the government has decided to ban it?

I believe that my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness don’t come to me because government grants them. I believe I have these rights purely because I am a human being. I also believe that I have the absolute right to personally defend my liberty and my life, and that I have a right to do that with the most effective tool available for the job. The government does not tell me what my rights are via the Constitution. The Constitution tells the government what rights of mine it may not trample upon.

I seriously don’t understand where this natural right comes from.

It comes from being human.

[Malthus]

@FinnAgain

Arwin and Malthus:

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a classic example in Games Theory of a non-zero sum game. That is, unlike games like chess where there can be only one winner and one loser, (ie. zero sum games).

In general, in a zero sum game, one “player’s” advantage is another “player’s” loss.

However, in a non-zero sum game, like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, it is possible to cooperate and achieve a mutually beneficial solution. Or, in Bucky Fuller’s terminology, it is a solution with is to the advantage of all without disadvantaging any.

In the case of robbery or physical violence, it is a zero sum game. That is, either your money gets taken, or it does not. Either you are injured, or you are not. As such, applying non-zero sum game logic to a zero sum game is false to facts. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is not applicable in situations where there is always going to be someone who wins, and someone who loses.

That seems to me to be a distinction that makes no sense; after all, from the point of view of the prisoners in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, they can either go to jail or not, if one talks - in other words, if you take only a single possible outcome into consideration, it is a zero-sum game from their POV.

However, if one of them betrays the other one, by confessing to the police, the defector will gain more, since he is freed; the one who remained silent, on the other hand, will receive the full punishment, since he did not help the police, and there is sufficient proof.

From the shopkeeper’s POV, to have a gun or not is (broadly) similar to the decision whether to confess or not: if the shopkeeper has one, and the robber does not, (presumably) the shopkeeper “wins all” (comparable to the one prisoner going free, and the other going to jail); if the robber has a gun and the shopkeeper does not, then the robber “wins all”.

If both have guns, then you get a bad solution - possiblity of a shoot-out leading to death. It may be better than “the robber has a gun and you don’t”, but it is not optimal. Similar to this:

If both betray, both will be punished, but less severely than if they had refused to talk.

If neither have a gun, it is similar to the “both have a gun” solution - one may overcome the other, but the chance of death is less thereby. Similar to this:

If none of them accepts the offer, they are in fact cooperating against the police, and both of them will get only a small punishment because of lack of proof.

Now, obviously the robber and the shopkeeper are not “cooperating” in the sense of mutually agreeing to not have guns - it is the law that, in theory, enforces this “cooperation”. But the result is in effect the same.

Seems to me that the parallels are obvious … just replace “cooperate” and “defect” with “have a gun” and “not have a gun”, and use the same matrix of outcomes.

The only difference is that you are loading the question somewhat by positing , because we are expected to sympathize with the “shopkeeper” and wish him or her to win over the “robber”. Replace those two with “angry person #1” and “angry person #2” involved in “a confrontation”. Over a very large number of “games” this will probably be more accurate as a model for gun violence in general.

[Crafter_Man]

@Rebekkah

Shouldn’t crime statistics have some bearing on the legality and government regulation of firearms?

I don’t see why.

@Rebekkah

For example, the assault weapons ban - there was an acknowledgement, while it lasted, by the government that certain subsect of firearms was responsible for elevated levels of gun violence and should be banned.

Those statistics are debatable, but let’s assume for the moment that the assault weapons ban did reduce gun violence. Does that make it right? Not in my book. I couldn’t care less if the assault weapons ban reduced crime. I have a right to own one, regardless of anything else. In fact, I do own one. And no one is going to take it from me.

@Rebekkah

Why do you feel you have a natural and inalienable right to own any kind of firearm you see fit to own, if the government has decided to ban it? I seriously don’t understand where this natural right comes from.

I don’t know… the same place where freedom of religion comes from?

Arguments about natural rights are rarely constructive; we might as well be arguing about religion. Suffice to say, I believe I have a right to keep and bear any firearm of my choosing. I do not need to justify this belief to you, the government, or anyone else. And if the government decides to ban my assault weapon, rest assured I won’t be turning my in.

[Crafter_Man]

@catsix

I believe that my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness don’t come to me because government grants them. I believe I have these rights purely because I am a human being. I also believe that I have the absolute right to personally defend my liberty and my life, and that I have a right to do that with the most effective tool available for the job. The government does not tell me what my rights are via the Constitution. The Constitution tells the government what rights of mine it may not trample upon.

Amen, brother!

[catsix]

That’s

Amen, sister!

[FinnAgain]

@Arwin

No. It leaves a zero-sum game. There is a distinction. Think of animals, fighting over a territory, a prey, a wife. They play a zero-sum game where one gets the territory, prey or wife, and the other doesn’t, but at the same time they rarely kill each other.

It’s still a zero sum game.

I don’t know how else to put this… if someone is trying to rob you, that is, obviously a zero sum game. If you pull a gun on him, it doesn’t become a non-zero sum game. Likewise, if you fail to pull a gun and you’re still robbed, it’s still a zero sum game.

P.S. The concept of animals having wives is funny.

[Crafter_Man]

@catsix

That’s

Amen, sister!

:smack:

[Jillyvn]

@catsix

I believe that my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness don’t come to me because government grants them. I believe I have these rights purely because I am a human being. I also believe that I have the absolute right to personally defend my liberty and my life, and that I have a right to do that with the most effective tool available for the job. The government does not tell me what my rights are via the Constitution. The Constitution tells the government what rights of mine it may not trample upon.

It comes from being human.

You would be willing to accept everyone’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness then, right? If the government and your constitution hold no sway for the rules and regulation of society, you have lawless chaos. Sure, everyone can a 50 calibre rifle, but at what cost?

Seriously, now. The idea of a “natural, unalienable” right to have a gun reeks of the kind of gun evangelism I hear from the NRA and this is what put me in such a negative mindset about guns in the first place.

[FinnAgain]

@Malthus

That seems to me to be a distinction that makes no sense; after all, from the point of view of the prisoners in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, they can either go to jail or not, if one talks - in other words, if you take only a single possible outcome into consideration, it is a zero-sum game from their POV.

Well, yes… and if you rig an experiment you can show that a photon is only a wave or only a particle.
Doesn’t make it true.

@Malthus

From the shopkeeper’s POV, to have a gun or not is (broadly) similar to the decision whether to confess or not: if the shopkeeper has one, and the robber does not, (presumably) the shopkeeper “wins all” (comparable to the one prisoner going free, and the other going to jail); if the robber has a gun and the shopkeeper does not, then the robber “wins all”.

These situations are still zero sum games.
There is no outcome that starts with a robber trying to steal something from you that ends up as non-zero sum.
Unless, magickly, the robber decides to work for you to earn money and you end up profiting from his labor. This, to me, seems unlikely in the extreme.

@Malthus

If both have guns, then you get a bad solution - possiblity of a shoot-out leading to death. It may be better than “the robber has a gun and you don’t”, but it is not optimal.

Zero vs non-zero sum games don’t deal with ‘optimal’ outcomes, but beneficial-for-all-parties outcomes. This is an important distinction.

@Malthus

If neither have a gun, it is similar to the “both have a gun” solution - one may overcome the other, but the chance of death is less thereby.

So?
It’s a zero sum game with a chance of a lethal outcome.
That doesn’t make it a non-zero sum game if nobody is killed.
Note, also, a chance of mutual death does not make it non-zero sum either. Chess can result in a stalemate.

@Malthus

Now, obviously the robber and the shopkeeper are not “cooperating” in the sense of mutually agreeing to not have guns - it is the law that, in theory, enforces this “cooperation”. But the result is in effect the same.

No, the result is totally different.
In a chess game, if both people decide not to use their queens, it’s still a zero sum game. Same in a robbery, if both people decide not to use guns, it’s still a zero sum game.

@Malthus

Seems to me that the parallels are obvious … just replace “cooperate” and “defect” with “have a gun” and “not have a gun”, and use the same matrix of outcomes.

Yeah, if you deliberately ignore the fact that “cooperate” has a distinctly different connoation and denoation than “don’t use a gun”

@Malthus

The only difference is that you are loading the question somewhat by positing , because we are expected to sympathize with the “shopkeeper” and wish him or her to win over the “robber”.

That’s just absurd.
It’s a loaded question to assume that someone doesn’t have the right to violate your life and/or property, thus harming you?

@Malthus

Replace those two with “angry person #1” and “angry person #2” involved in “a confrontation”.

Again, if you want to deliberately ignore that robber =/= angry person.

@Malthus

Over a very large number of “games” this will probably be more accurate as a model for gun violence in general.

And ignore the situation we’re discussing, and obfuscate details, and attempt to make equivelent things which are not, etc…

[Crafter_Man]

@Rebekkah

Sure, everyone can a 50 calibre rifle, but at what cost?

Your problem is that you automatically equate firearms to death, chaos, and destruction. This is implicit in your statement. (“At what cost…”) While it’s obvious you view firearms as Evil Tools of Death[sup]TM[/sup], I have an opposite view: firearms are tools of life. IMO they help free people from bondage. Do you see the problem now? You equate firearms with death, while I equate firearms with life.

Oh, and by the way: I think everyone should have a fully automatic Barrett .50 BMG in their closet. Seriously.

@Rebekkah

Seriously, now. The idea of a “natural, unalienable” right to have a gun reeks of the kind of gun evangelism I hear from the NRA and this is what put me in such a negative mindset about guns in the first place.

Gee, I wasn’t aware the NRA was around in 1791… :rolleyes:

[Malthus]

[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
Well, yes… and if you rig an experiment you can show that a photon is only a wave or only a particle.
Doesn’t make it true.

[quote]

Thanks for ignoring the point.

These situations are still zero sum games.
There is no outcome that starts with a robber trying to steal something from you that ends up as non-zero sum.
Unless, magickly, the robber decides to work for you to earn money and you end up profiting from his labor. This, to me, seems unlikely in the extreme.

'The prisoner going to jail for ratting on his comrade is still a zero sum game.

Unless, magickly, a prisoner decides to work on the outside to free his comerade.’

What are you trying to prove with this stuff?

Zero vs non-zero sum games don’t deal with ‘optimal’ outcomes, but beneficial-for-all-parties outcomes. This is an important distinction.

And the beneficial-for-all-parties outcome is one which doesn’t end with anyone dying. Right?

So?
It’s a zero sum game with a chance of a lethal outcome.
That doesn’t make it a non-zero sum game if nobody is killed.
Note, also, a chance of mutual death does not make it non-zero sum either. Chess can result in a stalemate.

You are deliberately missing the point.

No, the result is totally different.
In a chess game, if both people decide not to use their queens, it’s still a zero sum game. Same in a robbery, if both people decide not to use guns, it’s still a zero sum game.

“ratting out a prisoner and getting out of jail” is “still a zero-sum game”. Using your criteria, you’d be forced to conclude that the original Prisoner’s Dilemma doesn’t fit the criteria.

Yeah, if you deliberately ignore the fact that “cooperate” has a distinctly different connoation and denoation than “don’t use a gun”

Who cares? This is an exercise in games theory, not a morality play.

That’s just absurd.
It’s a loaded question to assume that someone doesn’t have the right to violate your life and/or property, thus harming you?

Is it “loaded” to assume that every confrontation with a gun leading to death is a morally absolute situation, in which one person is the “good guy” like an innocent shopkeeper, and the other is a “bad guy” like a robber?

Well, yes.

I’ll be willing to bet that plenty of incidences of gun violence are of the “drug dealer shoots drug dealer” variety, or the “angry husband/wife shoots wife/husband” variety - rather than all being of the “robber shoots shopkeeper” variety.

Any theory which failed to take this basic fact into account would be pretty useless, right?

Again, if you want to deliberately ignore that robber =/= angry person.

Again, not everyone who is shot or shoots is a robber or a shopkeeper.

And ignore the situation we’re discussing, and obfuscate details, and attempt to make equivelent things which are not, etc…

This is infuriating, considering you simply invented the whole “robber” scenario - in a post declaring my idea wrong.

How’s that for “ignoring the situation we’re discussing”? :rolleyes:

Deal with the situation as originally presented - don’t just invent emotionally-loaded examples and claim that they are the general rule!

Two can play at that game - but it isn’t a fun or meaningful game, so why bother? If you don’t want to take the intellectual excercise of attempting to use games theory to examine this question seriously, just say so!

[catsix]

Rebekkah said:
Sure, everyone can a 50 calibre rifle, but at what cost?

The problem with your position is that you see firearms as nothing but a negative. Mohandas K. Gandhi would disagree with you, in fact, he does in his own words:

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.

Of course, well known pacifist that he was, Gandhi also said:

I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.

You say that people owning firearms implies a cost. Well, I say that the people not owning firearms causes a far greater cost.

[Arwin]

@FinnAgain

Zero vs non-zero sum games don’t deal with ‘optimal’ outcomes, but beneficial-for-all-parties outcomes. This is an important distinction.

I’m sorry, but you’re being a pedantic sophist. As if the prisoner’s dilemma’s reduced sentence isn’t in any way comparable to this situation.

So?
It’s a zero sum game with a chance of a lethal outcome.
That doesn’t make it a non-zero sum game if nobody is killed.
Note, also, a chance of mutual death does not make it non-zero sum either. Chess can result in a stalemate.

What’s your point now? Taking away the increased risk of dangerous and possibly lethal injury on both sides is not beneficial to both parties? You cannot see any parallel at all? And yet you sound so intelligent. And yes I meant mates, hit submit, then tried to correct it but of course I was too late

No, the result is totally different.
In a chess game, if both people decide not to use their queens, it’s still a zero sum game. Same in a robbery, if both people decide not to use guns, it’s still a zero sum game.

No, because the stakes have been reduced. Instead of getting killed, I only get robbed. That is not the same. Similar for the robber - both of us not having a gun (or even only the robber having a gun), means that there is a reduced risk to be killed or to have killed, so that the stakes are lower for both parties and the worst possible outcome reduced. This is not dissimilar to the reduced prison sentence.

Or consider a chess tournament, with a final. Say that two opponents get through to the finals if they draw, or one of them loses and definitely does not make the final. The other guy who then makes the final has a higher ELO rating than both of them. They just trade pieces until it’s a draw and both go to the final.

Yeah, if you deliberately ignore the fact that “cooperate” has a distinctly different connoTation and denoTation than “don’t use a gun”

Again compare with animals, using manes and roars instead of claws and teeth to determine who wins the argument. That only works if both agree not to take it much further than that. And that is most definitely a form of cooperation.

That’s just absurd. It’s a loaded question to assume that someone doesn’t have the right to violate your life and/or property, thus harming you?

Works both ways. Carrying a gun and using it does the same. Who are you to decide at that moment this person deserves a possible death penalty? Are you a judge? God?

And ignore the situation we’re discussing, and obfuscate details, and attempt to make equivelent things which are not, etc…

You’d make a fine lawyer, Sir Sophist. But you’re only fooling yourself.

[catsix]

Arwin said:
Taking away the increased risk of dangerous and possibly lethal injury on both sides is not beneficial to both parties?

I think the point is that it is only possible to take away the possibilty of causing lethal injury from one side - the side who obeys the laws. It is not possible to take the ability and the means to cause death away from criminals.

No, because the stakes have been reduced.

How? You’ve only shown that you can reduce the risk the criminal faces that the victim will have the means to not be a victim. How are you going to reduce the risk for the would-be victim?

Who are you to decide at that moment this person deserves a possible death penalty? Are you a judge? God?

I am a human being, and I will defend my life with any means necessary to ensure that I continue breathing. You got a problem with that?