Las Vegas Priorities

In reply to GameboyRMH :

So your data shows is a graph of what Wikipedia's Firearm related deaths reflects.

Looking at the actual data set, if you sort by guns per 100 habitants, the data doesn't show much of a statistical relationship between the number of guns owned and actual deaths by firearm especially when suicide is taken into account. Driven5 and RX Reven' are the statisticians here so I'll leave trend lines and other analysis to them. Yes the US is in a league of it's own in terms of access and ownership but there are other factors, at play, here.

I'm not saying there couldn't be some improvements made but attempting to reduce the lethality of weapons with narrowly tailored legislation is stupid since by their nature any firearm is lethal, it's a weapon that's what it does. Anyone who things an outright ban would work is dreaming since the genie is out of the bottle and the prevalence is such that it would be incredibly difficult to get under control.

These events are used by a number of parties intending to force a cultural shift within a country much like 9/11 did. The over reaction to a rare event is like catnip for the media and politicians.

Another interesting datapoint would be how many of that 3% actually are found to commit violent crimes or mass shootings. My guess would be a statistically insignifigant number.

So one thing I often think about when I consider violence of any sort in America is our demographic in the world. Points to consider (yet I have no idea their actual effect nor am I a researcher on this stuff):

1. America is a 'melting pot', meaning we have lots of different people with lots of very different viewpoints living in close proximity, vs most other countries who are more homogenous in religion, race, economics, etc.

2. America is where people come to get more opportunity. Therefore we tend to get the most driven people who are looking to better themselves. We are made up of optimistic, assertive, hard-working, self-promoting risk-takers (and I actually attribute most of our success as a country to this fact), and usually the best-of-the-best from other countries move here and raise their kids here.

I always wonder how these two facts play into violence issues in this country, and I think it is wrong to not consider these when talking about violence.

Driven5 said:

GameboyRMH said:

I don't think that a near-perfect proportional relationship between gun ownership and gun death rates is reasonable.

Your argument would be much better supported if a "near perfect proportional relationship" was even close to what the data points actually aligned to show...But while it may appear to give the 'desired' output, doing nothing more than striking a first order trend line through a loose cloud of data points simply doesn't somehow magically turn it into that. 

Graphs like that are designed specifically to take advantage of the fact that most people don't actually know how to interpret graphs like that.  Charts, graphs, and other depictions that improperly represent data are a part of the problem, rather than a part of the solution.

You would be correct in that, the correct answer isn't a firearms issue, it's that we have a culture issue that has been entirely overlooked or just treated with indifference. I'm not going to get into the details or debate on that since I'd rather not be under a patio, despite those who wouldn't agree seem immune to it. 

Driven5 said:

It's official...Hell has frozen over.

The NRA just issued (finally) their first statement in the aftermath of Las Vegas...Which is a completely reasonable and rational stance on bump stocks.

Now, maybe it is just the sacrificial lamb to prevent a much larger PR nightmare...But maybe it isn't. Regardless, every change has to start somewhere.

It also could be a brilliant move if you look closer into it. They want the BATFE to make a ruling clarifying if they are indeed legal or illegal, which they've already deemed illegal the initial type of slidefire(had a spring in the stock for automatic return), yet deemed legal the subsequent one without the return spring(so you physically had to pull the rifle forward) 

That will take a good long while, and politically deflects the arguement as they were deemed legal under the previous administration's somewhat draconian BATFE. 

I don't think this is a return to Chamberlainesque appeasement from before Heston took it over, but I'll watch and hold them accountable either way. 

WOW Really Paul? said:

Driven5 said:

It's official...Hell has frozen over.

The NRA just issued (finally) their first statement in the aftermath of Las Vegas...Which is a completely reasonable and rational stance on bump stocks.

Now, maybe it is just the sacrificial lamb to prevent a much larger PR nightmare...But maybe it isn't. Regardless, every change has to start somewhere.

It also could be a brilliant move if you look closer into it. They want the BATFE to make a ruling clarifying if they are indeed legal or illegal, which they've already deemed illegal the initial type of slidefire(had a spring in the stock for automatic return), yet deemed legal the subsequent one without the return spring(so you physically had to pull the rifle forward) 

That will take a good long while, and politically deflects the arguement as they were deemed legal under the previous administration's somewhat draconian BATFE.

That makes a lot of sense, and would fit right in with some other stalling tactics they've been deploying since the shooting.

GameboyRMH said:

I still can't buy the argument that these tragedies can't be stopped with laws when every other country with a functioning government has done exactly that. Also, most other countries have tighter controls on the sale of anfo as well.

MURDERS per capita - US ranks 14th

Those "Strict gun laws," including mental health tests, required permits, limits on what guns you can own, and the need for proof that you NEED a gun, aren't working out so hot for Brazil, which is number one on that list. Here's an article from Fox News...I mean...NPR.

Murder rate in Brazil

Here's a great example from the Washington Post on "How to lie with statistics."

India is banning guns! We should be like India!

When this is the reality:

India second place to Brazil in murders per capita

And in 3rd place. MEXICO! Where it's virtually impossible to buy a gun.

Why would you need a gun? The Mexican Government has all the guns! And we're doing such a great job "protecting" you!

The0retical said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

These events are used by a number of parties intending to force a cultural shift within a country much like 9/11 did. The over reaction to a rare event is like catnip for the media and politicians.

BINGO!

I just thought of a great way to solve this whole problem. All we have to do is pass a law that says it's illegal to shoot more than four people at one time! 

/thread

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Ehh, it's not really a stalling tactic like they normally use. That is the coming out over the top against something. 

Pretty much next to no firearms owners in this country care about slidefire stocks, but passing something to allow specifically banning them to be passed opens the flood gates for all those "scary looking" accessories to be regulated, which obviously is berkeleying stupid. 

So, considering how intelligent Lapierre is, I would not be surprised if this is a ploy to have the BATFE go back on what they initially claimed was legal and completely take the sails out of the whole garbage restrictions nonsense since there wouldn't need to be a law against them. And as I noted, those novelty stocks were declared fine under the prior administration, so that's on them anyways. 

Unfortunately the struggle is indefinitely delayed to give us national reciprocity since we have states interfering with federal free passage laws. I'm unamused by all this crap. 

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I'm very curious as to why you want to see guns here in America banned? I'm pretty sure the laws here in the great satan will have no impact on your island.

In reply to Huckleberry :

At one time, or just four people scattered throughout your lifetime? If the shooting was required to be a non-fatal location, like a butt cheek, I might be willing to support that.

Nick (Bo) Comstock said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I'm very curious as to why you want to see guns here in America banned? I'm pretty sure the laws here in the great satan will have no impact on your island.

I have a strange condition where pointless, easily preventable mass death outside of the nearest thick lines on a map upset me. Syria and Myanmar trigger my condition too, for instance.

Edit: BTW, there's a world of room between the status quo and "banned." I like the part called "significantly more tightly controlled."

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Don't give me that. 

On average 96 people in America die every single day in 100 % preventable car accidents. Every day. Needlessly.

That's not what it is.

Not needlessly. Cars are meticulously designed to be extremely safe and provide immense utility. Hundreds of millions of people rely on cars every day, driving inches from oncoming cars at 3-digit closing speeds, and of them, less than 100 are killed. That's not bad at all.

But yet you are ready to re write the Constitution of a country you are not even a citizen of to prevent many less deaths than what you described as being "not bad at all"?

Listen I'm not a gun guy. I only own an old single shot 12ga that is a family heirloom and I haven't shot a gun in over twenty years. It honestly wouldn't change my daily life at all if they were banned.

I just can't see how a person can be so adamant that laws be changed in a foreign country stripping the rights it's citizenry but having zero effect on that person. 

Well I answered honestly before. The raw number of deaths is not as important as deaths per (important) use divided by utility to society. Cars would look really good on that scale, and something like, say, warhead-tipped fidget spinners would be on the other end, even if they killed less people.

If I could chat online with Bashar Al Assad and try to convince him that he should stop genociding all his political opposition, I'd do that too.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

How exactly is even banning guns outright going to do anything to stop most of the 2/3 of gun deaths that are people committed to following through with suicide? Would you still claim 'victory' since technically those would no longer count as "gun deaths"? Or do you think only saving a fraction of the 1/3 of gun deaths is "enough"? Consider that countries with very low gun ownership inherently have low gun suicide rates, but not necessarily low suicide rates. So the data you've showed us not really a fair comparison either.

On the other hand, mandating autonomous cars/trucks ASAP would preserve their 'utility', and even with some deaths due to teething problems, would still save many (multiple times) more deaths than banning guns at the same time.

WOW Really Paul? said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Ehh, it's not really a stalling tactic like they normally use. That is the coming out over the top against something. 

Pretty much next to no firearms owners in this country care about slidefire stocks, but passing something to allow specifically banning them to be passed opens the flood gates for all those "scary looking" accessories to be regulated, which obviously is berkeleying stupid. 

So, considering how intelligent Lapierre is, I would not be surprised if this is a ploy to have the BATFE go back on what they initially claimed was legal and completely take the sails out of the whole garbage restrictions nonsense since there wouldn't need to be a law against them. And as I noted, those novelty stocks were declared fine under the prior administration, so that's on them anyways. 

Unfortunately the struggle is indefinitely delayed to give us national reciprocity since we have states interfering with federal free passage laws. I'm unamused by all this crap. 

Should anyone actually be amused by this?

Trucks aren't bad safety-wise compared to their usefulness, just like cars. As I posted on the last page, the idea that people who kill themselves with guns would've gone through with it with another weapon anyway is wrong:

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/

Most of those suicide deaths could be saved on top of most of the 1/3rd.

You're right that autonomous cars could save many lives right now, which is why I think hand-wringing over moral corner cases with them is silly. They'd be too expensive to mandate right now though, maybe in 5-10 years an autonomous new car won't be meaningfully more expensive than a manually controlled one, and there will be a decent number of autonomus cars on the used market.

I'm not buying the death is okay as long as it's by something useful argument either.  Dead is dead. And they are needless because it can be so easily prevented by just paying attention. 

So, where would racecars fall on this death per utility scale? 

Probably closer to the warhead tipped fidget spinner...

Nick (Bo) Comstock said:

I'm not buying the death is okay as long as it's by something useful argument either.  Dead is dead. And they are needless because it can be so easily prevented by just paying attention. 

Everyone has to pay perfect attention all the time for nobody to die. That's humanly impossible, so some people will always die due to inattention, even if we could eliminate mechanical failures. Our current situation isn't close to that, with people texting-and-driving and all, but considering that practically all cars are currently human-driven, we're doing damn good safety wise. Pretty deep into the diminishing returns overall, even with so many ridiculously inattentive drivers out there. And we're doing it with a very useful thing that brings huge benefits to our lives all the time, right up there with running water and electricity.

Racecars, in terms of danger vs. usefulness alone, would be close to the warhead-tipped fidget spinner. Their saving grace is that race cars kill a tiny number of people. I'm sure it's safe to say that all the race cars around the world this year have collectively killed less people than the Vegas shooter just did.

Doing some research, for the US around 20 people a year are killed in auto racing.

WOW Really Paul? said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

....Pretty much next to no firearms owners in this country care about slidefire stocks, but passing something to allow specifically banning them to be passed opens the flood gates for all those "scary looking" accessories to be regulated, which obviously is berkeleying stupid.... 

If they are banned because they are "scary looking" then you have a point.

If they are banned because they allow nearly the same functionality as a fully automatic weapon, which are already heavily restricted, then there is no "slippery slope" to be found. 

I hope  I go out with a margarita in my hand, a black hat on my head and ... 

In reply to aircooled :

I think the argument goes that if BATF starts regulating accessories then it opens the door to regulate all accessories. It's easier to just say no and keep saying no then open the door to any type of regulation according to the NRA. 

Realistically though, at least off the top of my head, I can think of two that are already regulated: Suppressors and pistol braces (though I think that's been clairified or recinded) becuase it "turns them" into SBRs. 

Realistically a bump stock, up until this point, has always been a grey area and only really good as a range toy. Anyone who has any experience shooting a fully automatic weapon which knows they their accuracy is less than stellar and purpose limited. Useful in some situations but 99.9% of the time useless, hence why the standard issue M4 uses 3 round bursts and fully automatic variants are typically only used by SF groups.