Subject:
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Re: Violence created by presence of guns? (was: Gotta love Oracle...)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 14 Oct 2001 13:55:22 GMT
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Viewed:
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521 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Horst Lehner writes:
> Hello Chris,
>
> > And those have to do (I believe) with children who are
> > institutionally abused, more than with firearms. The firearm was a only
> > tool...a means of expression.
>
> But wouldn't things be better when other means of expression are easier to
> get than arms?
They are already. Guns are A) a hassle to get most places, B) expensive, and
C) highly regulated as is.
> Or, still better than nothing, vice versa, when arms are
> harder to get?
It might, in fact, reduce the number of school shootings. I'm not convinced of
this, but I'm willing to concede that it might. But I think the cost to your
national heritage and our freedom and our way of life is far far too great a
price to pay. I would rather have kids who are able to take the lives of their
peers occasionally go off half cocked and do so, and retain the ability to
defend myself and others. This stance may sound cold on first glance, but note
also, that I believe that social intervention (to educate parents) and
re-engineering the way schooling is done would all but eliminate the problem.
> > Either the presense of guns causes violence or it does not.
> > (I'll give you a hint -- it doesn't seem to in the US.)
>
> How can you be so sure?
Through rigorous statistical analysis.
> A minute ago you at least admitted that the ready
> availability of arms gives overly passionate people more chance to live
> their conflicts violently. Isn't that, in a sense, violence being created by
> the presence of guns?
The presense of guns may increase the rate of deaths stemming from crimes of
passion. I think that Gary Kleck may have stats that address that -- showing
that the increase is trivial in the big-picture sense -- but I don't have a
reference with me today.
> Even worse, when people get used to the presence of guns from their
> childhood, isn't it possible that they get the feeling it is OK to also use
> them sometimes?
It is. So obviously, I have no problem with them coming to learn that.
> And that, ultimately, they use them for BAD things?
Some people do bad things. I don't have all the answers about why that is.
Many of them cracked under abuse and some of them were just born broken...I
think. People will choose to use cars for bad things sometimes too. Do you
advocate their illegality as well?
> After
> all, everyone of us has his little devil inside,
You may mean this only euphamistically, and if so I don't know how to respond.
I can't claim perfection either. But if not, then I certainly reject the
notion.
> Also, I heard a lot of arguments so far about how the presence of guns
> increases security, because the badies don't know who is armed and who is
> not.
I suspect that this is more or less directly linked with the increase in
security.
> However, these arguments ignore some important factors.
The arguments aren't even concerned with factors. There is a simple and plain
correlation between lawful gun ownership and decreased violent crime. The
numbers are there. Why this is true is not well understood and something about
which we can conjecture. But it really just _is_ that way.
> In preparation
> of whatever they intend to do, the badies will easily be able to arm
> themselves beyond what they reasonably have to expect among their victims.
How does that matter? Are you suggesting that muggers will carry .50 cliber
machine guns and mortars? I doubt it.
> Also, they will be bit quicker shooting their victims whenever they suspect
> one of them is reaching for a gun.
Quicker than they are now? What makes you think so?
> So, even if you assume the number of
> badies and their illegal actions remains constant, their impact will
> increase.
I don't assume it will remain constant. It will drop. It has done so in each
and every venue studied. There are notable accounts of sociologists setting
out to prove how bad certain gun-freeing legislation has been terrible for a
community, who are turned by the data into gun advocates. If you are open to
the truth, it is your only option.
> If any of the last two paragraphs holds some truth, the result would
> certainly qualify as violence caused by the presence of guns.
I admit that _maybe_ under _some_ circumstance, _some_ kinds of violent crime
_may_ increase with the prevalence of firearms. But put on balance, the number
of violent crimes will (and has in every modern instance) drop, not rise.
Chris
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