Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Admiral Yi]

There are plenty of valid reasons for people to have guns.
Protection (from humans) is not one of them. This is a laughably idiotic argument. Especially when taken to the protection from the government lengths of the crazies.

What you are doing here is an assertion of faith, not making an argument.

It's transparently obvious guns can serve as protection against humans.

[The Minsky Moment]

Militias were local and state institutions, not confessional ones.  It is safe to say that late 18th century Americans would have been completely baffled by the notion of a Jewish militia.

The Constitution was enacted at a time where there was still lively debate over whether the state militias or Washington's regulars made the greater contribution to the struggle for independence.  Whatever the historical or tactical merits of the case, the militia supporters won the political argument.  America would not have a regular standing army but would rely on militias for defense.  The 2nd amendment reflects that.

Thus, the purpose of the militia (and thus the 2nd amendment) was not to defend against the tyranny of the domestic government. Quite the opposite - the purpose was to secure the efficacy of state militias, whose expected job including suppressing domestic insurrections.  The immediate historical background was Shay's rebellion, which broke out while the Constitution was being drafted and was suppressed by the state militia.

Not long after the Constitution was enacted, the "whiskey" rebellion broke out in Appalachia - i.e. an armed tax protest.  Again the militia was called out - not to vindicate or defend the rights of the tax resisters against federal tyranny but for the very opposite purpose - to suppress the insurrection.

The contemporary NRA fantasy that the 2nd amendment was designed to encourage ordinary citizens to band together to resist domestic tyranny by force gets it exactly backwards.  It was designed to give the state and federal governments an effective tool for suppressing such demonstrations.

[Josquius]

There are plenty of valid reasons for people to have guns.
Protection (from humans) is not one of them. This is a laughably idiotic argument. Especially when taken to the protection from the government lengths of the crazies.

What you are doing here is an assertion of faith, not making an argument.

It's transparently obvious guns can serve as protection against humans.

Not really. Its pretty well known that guns are more dangerous to their owners and rarely come into play for their stated purpose e.g.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/reports/2017/10/05/440373/myth-vs-fact-debunking-gun-lobbys-favorite-talking-points/

When you think about it logically it makes sense why not, this comedian sums it up well.
https://youtu.be/0rR9IaXH1M0?t=96

And thats before even considering the weaker controls against you getting a gun are, the weaker controls against criminals getting them are.

As said. Plenty of valid reasons. There's vast wilderness in North America. With wolves and bears about guns can become very necessary. For farmers less dangerous wild animals are a issue. Some people just like shooting shit. But protection is bollocks and all respect is instantly lost for someone pushing that argument with a straight face.

I think the problem is that, in the US, the reasoning behind having an absolute right to guns is an section of their constitution concerning raising a militia — and their founding mythology has a lot to say about the value of resistance to the British by the average yeoman-farmer types.

In this way, the right to own guns has an expressly militant justification - it is required to repel tyranny, presumably by use of a citizen's militia. Thus, it is necessary to believe that owning guns can not only be valuable in repelling tyranny, but an absolute necessity. If this is not true, the basis of the right is undermined - that part of the constitution could appear as nothing more than an archaic survival from the 18th century, no doubt useful at the time but not so much now.

So it is necessary to believe things like 'if only the Jews had access to guns, they would have been okay'. Usually by way of saying 'remove or impede our access to guns, and we could end up just like them'.

In Switzerland its fairly similar. There's this idea of the citizen militas being responsible for the country's freedom, everyone in the land needing to be trained and ready to go to the mountains the minute the French return to form...
But they recognise keeping the milita's weapons in the municipal arsenal works fine for this.
You never hear anyone making an argument that guns are needed for protection. If you apply for a gun license in Switzerland, or indeed most countries in the world, and when asked your reason you say "Protection" thats an instant fail.
The Swiss interpret their citizen militia past in a rather different way as being about community, national identity, shared responsibility between the diverse peoples of the country, etc....

[grumbler]

Al Capone had a gun.  It didn't save him from incarceration.

[The Brain]

Hitler had a gun. It saved him from the gallows.

[Admiral Yi]

Not really. Its pretty well known that guns are more dangerous to their owners and rarely come into play for their stated purpose e.g.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/reports/2017/10/05/440373/myth-vs-fact-debunking-gun-lobbys-favorite-talking-points/

When you think about it logically it makes sense why not, this comedian sums it up well.
https://youtu.be/0rR9IaXH1M0?t=96

And thats before even considering the weaker controls against you getting a gun are, the weaker controls against criminals getting them are.

As said. Plenty of valid reasons. There's vast wilderness in North America. With wolves and bears about guns can become very necessary. For farmers less dangerous wild animals are a issue. Some people just like shooting shit. But protection is bollocks and all respect is instantly lost for someone pushing that argument with a straight face.

Yes really.  There are plenty of documented cases of store workers blowing away would be robbers.  There are plenty of cases of people using guns to defend themselves in other situations.  To disagree with the statement that guns can protect people means you have to pretend all those cases don't exist.  Your original statement that I objected to was also so broad that it included the protection that an armed military provides.

Your comedian is memifying the debate.  He's satirizing gun owners so that an audience that already agrees with him can feel superior.  That's the Bill Maher schtick.

Did you consider that the rugged ranchers who have a legitimate need to shoot wolves have the exact same risk of shooting themselves as the ridiculous suburban cowboy who claims his gun is for home defense?

To be clear, I'm all for gun control.  I wish the 2nd Amendment had never been written.  I would prefer to live in a United States with European style gun laws.  But that doesn't make this memification any less trivial.  Punch lines are not debate.

[The Brain]

Punch lines are not debate.

OK boomer.

[Josquius]

Yes really.  There are plenty of documented cases of store workers blowing away would be robbers.  There are plenty of cases of people using guns to defend themselves in other situations.  To disagree with the statement that guns can protect people means you have to pretend all those cases don't exist.  Your original statement that I objected to was also so broad that it included the protection that an armed military provides.

Your comedian is memifying the debate.  He's satirizing gun owners so that an audience that already agrees with him can feel superior.  That's the Bill Maher schtick.

Did you consider that the rugged ranchers who have a legitimate need to shoot wolves have the exact same risk of shooting themselves as the ridiculous suburban cowboy who claims his gun is for home defense?

To be clear, I'm all for gun control.  I wish the 2nd Amendment had never been written.  I would prefer to live in a United States with European style gun laws.  But that doesn't make this memification any less trivial.  Punch lines are not debate.

Sure, the comedian is mocking the cliched American view on guns, he's a comedian not someone making a political argument. But his points are valid. If you're lying naked in bed and someone breaks through the window.... If you're a responsible gun owner then that gun isn't going to do you much good.

The number of shop keepers successfully defending their shop in a gun battle are massively outnumbered by the amount who are robbed by armed crooks. Look at the first link and the data points in there.
Overall its the argument for why civilization is important. Taking away people's right to do things no decent person would want to do (rape and pillage and murder and all that) being a much smaller loss than the gain from the significantly reduced risk of being a victim.

And I don't agree that the chances of a suburban amateur shooting himself are the same as an experienced rancher. Would be curious for numbers there though it is something that would need to control for a lot of factors. It strikes me that handling guns is something one can become better at with experience and drastically reduce your risk of misadventure.

Its all about averages and percentage chances. A few cases don't make a standard rule and the nirvana fallacy can get in the sea.

[Malthus]

Not really. Its pretty well known that guns are more dangerous to their owners and rarely come into play for their stated purpose e.g.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/reports/2017/10/05/440373/myth-vs-fact-debunking-gun-lobbys-favorite-talking-points/

When you think about it logically it makes sense why not, this comedian sums it up well.
https://youtu.be/0rR9IaXH1M0?t=96

And thats before even considering the weaker controls against you getting a gun are, the weaker controls against criminals getting them are.

As said. Plenty of valid reasons. There's vast wilderness in North America. With wolves and bears about guns can become very necessary. For farmers less dangerous wild animals are a issue. Some people just like shooting shit. But protection is bollocks and all respect is instantly lost for someone pushing that argument with a straight face.

Yes really.  There are plenty of documented cases of store workers blowing away would be robbers.  There are plenty of cases of people using guns to defend themselves in other situations.  To disagree with the statement that guns can protect people means you have to pretend all those cases don't exist.  Your original statement that I objected to was also so broad that it included the protection that an armed military provides.

Your comedian is memifying the debate.  He's satirizing gun owners so that an audience that already agrees with him can feel superior.  That's the Bill Maher schtick.

Did you consider that the rugged ranchers who have a legitimate need to shoot wolves have the exact same risk of shooting themselves as the ridiculous suburban cowboy who claims his gun is for home defense?

To be clear, I'm all for gun control.  I wish the 2nd Amendment had never been written.  I would prefer to live in a United States with European style gun laws.  But that doesn't make this memification any less trivial.  Punch lines are not debate.

A real answer would involve doing risk/benefit analyses in various situations - deaths or injuries prevented by gun ownership via self-defence (based on some reasonable estimate, as it is difficult to measure things that did not happen) versus deaths or injuries caused by gun ownership, through accident, suicide and assault.

I suspect that such a risk/benefit analysis would indeed favour gun control, because while legitimate instances of self-defence using guns do happen, they are uncommon.

A more difficult factor to account for is whether some allowance should be made for deaths or injuries prevented by fear on the part of criminals that others may own guns. For example, burglars may be deterred from robbing homes, if homeowners are known to be potential gun owners. Not sure how you would account for that.

There is also the 'if guns weren't available, criminals may have done the crime anyway, using some other means'. I suppose, though the same could be said on the other side of the equation - if guns were not available, the legitimate self-defenders may have defended themselves using other means.

[crazy canuck]

It is reductionist to simplistically assert as transparently obvious that guns can offer protection to the exclusion of all the data that demonstrates the harm of wide access to guns.

Yi's arguments can only exist if his audience is unaware of the world outside the US.   

The United States has an enormous firearm problem compared with other high-income countries. Americans are 10 times more likely to die as a result of a firearm compared with residents of these other high-income countries. In the United States, the firearm homicide rate is 25 times higher, the firearm suicide rate is 8 times higher, and the unintentional gun death rate is more than 6 times higher. Of all firearm deaths in all these countries, more than 80% occur in the United States.

https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)01030-X/pdf

[Admiral Yi]

A real answer would involve doing risk/benefit analyses in various situations - deaths or injuries prevented by gun ownership via self-defence (based on some reasonable estimate, as it is difficult to measure things that did not happen) versus deaths or injuries caused by gun ownership, through accident, suicide and assault.

I suspect that such a risk/benefit analysis would indeed favour gun control, because while legitimate instances of self-defence using guns do happen, they are uncommon.

A more difficult factor to account for is whether some allowance should be made for deaths or injuries prevented by fear on the part of criminals that others may own guns. For example, burglars may be deterred from robbing homes, if homeowners are known to be potential gun owners. Not sure how you would account for that.

There is also the 'if guns weren't available, criminals may have done the crime anyway, using some other means'. I suppose, though the same could be said on the other side of the equation - if guns were not available, the legitimate self-defenders may have defended themselves using other means.

I'm aware of all this.  I agree with your conclusions.

But that doesn't mean that Squeeze's statment that "Protection (from humans)...is a laughably idiotic argument" is true.

[DGuller]

But that doesn't mean that Squeeze's statment that "Protection (from humans)...is a laughably idiotic argument" is true.

I guess the way he should've stated it is that the idea that the net effect of gun ownership protects the gun owners is a laughably idiotic argument.  Technically, guns saving one life at the expense of taking 1000 other lives unnecessarily would still invalidate his original argument, though "technically" is the key word here.

[The Brain]

How do you feel like big important man without gun? Feelings matter too.

[HVC]

How do you feel like big important man without gun? Feelings matter too.

big and or fast cars.

[Tonitrus]

How do you feel like big important man without gun? Feelings matter too.

We are not fortune enough to have horned helmets and bearded axes.