Gun Control Debate

[Faramond]

In your view, does voting for one of two people with significant difference in their worldview and likely policies impose no moral responsibility on the voter?

I tend to be very suspicious of attaching morality to voting. This is a recipe for polarization and resentment.

Of course we can come up with examples in which there is one vote that is moral, and another that is not. I think a lot of people on both the left and the right would even point to the past election. But I won't. I have family members who voted for Trump and others who voted for Clinton. None of them made an immoral choice.

I think voters should try to understand the issues, try to understand the temperament of the candidates ( cough ), try to understand their own biases. The more we do that, maybe the more moral our votes might be. But -- I wouldn't attach any kind of stark morality to most votes, no.

[Faramond]

Ad I said, the comic is not an argument, it's an expression of mourning. Because that's all you can really do.

Then maybe I should have never responded to it. I took it as an argument.

[Dave_LF]

I may have more to say later (probably on the other thread), but for now, I'm off to other places...

[yovargas]

I never said that conservatives don't engage is poor behavior. On the whole they're probably worse. But that doesn't contradict anything I said.

I think it contradicts the "this kind of behaviour got Trump elected" talking point if that kind of behaviour is happening on all sides.

[Impenitent]

EDIT: I responded reflexively before reading beyond Faramond's post, and now regret posting because it comes off as a pile-on which was not my intention; and in any case Faramond has answered my question in the interim.

I'm not going to stop saying it because it's true. And conservatives can't help but understand liberal arguments because they are blasted at them everyday in universities, in workplaces, in popular culture, by self-important late night talk show hosts -- in all facets of American life.

Faramond, in this specific case, which liberal arguments do you object to? Sincere question.

My understanding is that gun control advocates (not the fringe-dwellers who want abolition) want some form of pre-purchase checks to ensure that purchasers are of sound mind and have no criminal background. Why is this objectionable and/or smug?

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[Faramond]

I don't *object* to them. I'm saying that I can't but help but be *aware* of them.

Look, this is probably a slight exaggeration. A person in the US can insulate him or herself from liberal arguments and "ways of thinking" if determined enough. But it's not easy. The default university will be much more liberal than conservative. Other than Fox News most tv news has at least a slight liberal slant. ( I'm sure many will disagree.) The newspapers that set the national conversation for the most part are liberal. ( New York Times and Washington Post ) It's far easier to be insulated from conservative arguments and "ways of thinking".

I think there are good and bad ways to slant liberal. CNN.com is just awful. Goodness knows Trump does most of the work himself, but they really go out of their way to make almost every headline a negative thing about Trump. Vox is far better. They're liberal but I never feel like I'm being fed a line of BS.

[Impenitent]

Thanks for responding, Faramond - you posted at the same time as I was editing my post to explain that I had already gleaned your meaning.

Your discussing a meta-argument here, rather than gun control specifically, the meta-argument being the chasm bw liberal and conservative that causes each side to treat the other as an unsavoury stereotype rather than a person.

You're right, and I agree completely that objectifying the other as evil makes real conversation and resolution less and less likely.

[Faramond]

My understanding is that gun control advocates (not the fringe-dwellers who want abolition) want some form of pre-purchase checks to ensure that purchasers are of sound mind and have no criminal background.

But what if abolition is the only way to have prevented a certain crime from having happened?

The way these things always go is that the news comes out, everyone says "thoughts and prayers", and then the "politicization" begins. Now, I don't think honestly trying to solve a problem is "politicization". Not at all. But politicization ( what an ugly word ) probably does fairly describe a lot of what is said after one of these tragedies.

The thing is, if we look at this shooting and ask "how could it have been prevented?" then where will that lead us? I'm not sure what pre-purchase check would have prevented what happened in Las Vegas. Maybe there's something, but -- it just feels like a BS solution to me. To just say "well we did something". I just can't take seriously the idea that there is any form of pre-purchase check that will eliminate all mass shootings. Or eliminate all the other shootings, the ones that are going on all the time that are frankly a lot worse in sheer scope but somehow rarely come up in these conversations. I'm not saying I "object" to pre-purchase checks, or eliminating loopholes, or whatever Jimmy Kimmel thinks should happen, but I'm deeply skeptical that it would make very much difference. Some, probably. But enough? Not really.

How shall I put this? I don't have a set in stone position on this, but I think it likely that to make real progress on gun violence you do have to talk about abolition, or at least severe restriction, of certain kinds of guns. Probably not hunting guns. Probably hand guns. Automatic weapons are already more or less illegal. Assault weapons? Well, I know a lot of gun advocates think this is a BS way to describe them. I'll leave that for later.

To be honest I think all this nipping around the margins with checks and loopholes is a misuse of political energy. It sure wouldn't be easy to severely restrict handguns, but it might well be worthwhile. It would be the work of many years. And it would require listening to Trump voters and trying to find some common ground, at least with some percentage of them.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Dave, I understand your sense of frustration and even futility, but things do change. Ten years ago, very few people would have thought that same sex marriage would be legal by now, but things changed very rapidly. I know that gun control is a very different type of issue with different types of forces involved, but it could still change. How to get there I do not know, but giving up is not the answer. And as Faramond notes, it is not just to end horrendous mass shootings like the ones in Las Vegas and Orlando, but also to end the endemic violence in big cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. Solving that problem involves a multitude of solution, of which any type of gun control is just one. Issues like poverty and lack of opportunity and many others also need to be addressed in order to get at the root of the problem.

[Primula Baggins]

Weapons like the ones the Las Vegas killer was able to use to shoot hundreds of people in a few minutes of firing used to be illegal for private ownership in this country, as were the kits used to change semi-automatic weapons to automatic ones. We could certainly go back to that as a first step.

Weapons like that eliminate the ability for us to protect ourselves, anywhere, ever. Literally the only way to be safe from that kind of attack is to hide in a locked and windowless place, all day, every day, for the rest of your life. Or rather, "life."

[Frelga]

IAWP Just because a problem is big and complex doesn't mean we should not be looking for simple steps to make it better.

Re-banning the automatic weapons and conversion kits is one such step. Personally, I feel that anyone wanting to own such a weapon is a prima facie reason why they shouldn’t own any weapons at all.

Another step would be removing blocks and restoring funding to federal research into gun violence and safety. We have done very well making cars safer, surely we can do better with guns, too. That may or may not help with an event like Las Vegas, which so far remains inexplicable, but it would certainly help reduce the number of accidental deaths (just a couple weeks ago, a little girl died because she went to look for candy in her grandma's purse and found a loaded gun) and gun suicides. Even the problem inner city violence may have solutions that would save lives today, until we as the society get our act together on the underlying social problems.

[Alatar]

I'm half afraid to dip my toe in here, but FWIW, from a country where the only weapons are pretty much in the hands of farmers, criminals and the police (who are mostly unarmed), a couple of random thoughts in no necessary order.

It seems like the problem with legislation is that everything suggested is pushed back, hard, by the NRA lobby. It's like, if a solution isn't 100% effective, its just hurting law abiding Americans. But we don't take that approach to other laws. We don't say, "No matter what we do, there will be child abusers, so lets not inconvenience Scout Leaders with background check and vetting". Why is every attempt at legislation treated as an attempt to "take away my guns".

Look, if I'm going to be brutally honest, from the outside looking in I'd love to have seen America ban gun ownership apart from sporting rifles 50 years ago. But that genie is out of the bottle and can't be put back. If the country is awash with legitimately owned firearms it makes it a lot harder to police or even find the illegal ones. The argument I often hear is that if you ban firearms, only criminals will have guns. That's mostly true. Its also the case in Ireland. But it still means less guns. It means less accidental shootings. It means less access for the deranged individual with a grudge. Criminals will always have guns. But for the most part they use them to kill each other. I'm not saying that's ideal, but its preferable to the situation in the US.

Finally, and I know this will be controversial, I think that the very nature of the American psyche has a lot to answer for. The jingoistic patriotism, the exaggerated respect for the military, the "hero" mentality. These all seem to feed into a destructive pattern for many individuals. In addition to that, the fact that so many kids are taken hunting at a young age, almost as a rite of passage. I know that certain animals need to be culled, but when a child is taught at a young age to celebrate the taking of a life, any life, I believe that has consequences on society.

Apologies if any offence is taken, none was intended.

[Sunsilver]

How shall I put this? I don't have a set in stone position on this, but I think it likely that to make real progress on gun violence you do have to talk about abolition, or at least severe restriction, of certain kinds of guns. Probably not hunting guns. Probably hand guns. Automatic weapons are already more or less illegal. Assault weapons? Well, I know a lot of gun advocates think this is a BS way to describe them. I'll leave that for later.

To be honest I think all this nipping around the margins with checks and loopholes is a misuse of political energy. It sure wouldn't be easy to severely restrict handguns, but it might well be worthwhile. It would be the work of many years. And it would require listening to Trump voters and trying to find some common ground, at least with some percentage of them.

It worked for Australia. And the interesting thing about Australia is its history is not too different from the history of the U.S. Both are nations of immigrants, both had sort of a 'cowboy' culture where guns were very common.

When I was studying history in High School, we got into a discussion on why Canadian culture had turned out so differently re. guns than the U.S. The answer was it was due mainly to the North Western Mounted Police (our world-famous Mounties, now the R.C.M.P.) They patrolled their territory, and brought lawbreakers and murders to justice, so there was no lawless period when people became used to taking the law into their own hands.

I remember seeing an old Canadian bar sign, which dated back to the 'Wild West' days in the States. Bar patrons were required to even check their knives at the door before entering. Apparently Canadian bartenders knew that booze and deadly weapons just didn't mix! Sorry, Hollywood, no Wild West style shootouts in Canadian bars...

Anyway, here's the article about Australia. John Oliver has a wonderful segment out there where he talks about their solution, and tries to persuade the U.S. to emulate it:

https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback

[Sunsilver]

Maybe what's needed in the gun control debate is an honest information campaign. I collect statistics like this:

but of course, those in favour of guns are going to say the statistics are biased or inaccurate!

Here's some anecdotal evidence from Facebook, too. The poster gave her permission to share this with others, in the hopes it would help.

Guns in the Family

I come from a family of hunters. My father was a collector and a dealer. There were always a variety of long guns, revolvers, automatic, semi-automatic, etc.i n my own family I have lost a grandfather, uncle, mother and father related to the presence of guns. I have a cousin that luckily only lost one finger. There are no members of my family, that I know of, that were protected from injury due to the presence of a gun. My opinion about the need for the average person to have a gun are established from personal experience. I need no other evidence than that.

[Dave_LF]

The "wild west" thing is mostly a myth. Why the US wound up so different from its peers on so, so many things is something I wonder about all the time.

[Sunsilver]

Dave, it may be a myth, but one that has become firmly embedded in popular culture.

[Dave_LF]

That it has. How much does the myth follow reality, and how much does reality follow the myth? Who can say...

[yovargas]

Nah. I think this one is easy to explain. No other major Western country was founded on the anti-authoritarian ideas of the US. We were born a country of proud rebels, and the idea of independence, of not letting anyone rule you or tell you what to do, are firmly rooting within our culture's narrative, philosophy, and self-identity. The 2nd amendment was largely created out of fear of being defenseless against a tyrannical gov't and the NRA and their likes still use that fearful narrative to great effect.

[Dave_LF]

Maybe, but if so, that attitude was there before the revolution, and was the cause of it. Why didn't the Canadians feel the same way? Or the Australians? And the French had their own anti-monarchist revolution, but it didn't leave them with anything resembling modern American attitudes (their outcome, of course, was rather different). I've been reading a lot of early American history lately, and have really been struck by how the founders were beset with the exact same issues and fault lines that we still have hanging around today. Issues that just don't seem to exist elsewhere, or that at least aren't as intractable as they are here. Why are Americans so weird?

[yovargas]

Do Canadians or Australians have something as equivalently iconic as the Declaration of Independence stating that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."?