Time to ban bows and arrows

[Araelus]

When illegal guns are used in a crime, they are rarely used with the intention to kill. In the undeniably vast majority of cases of illegal gun use, they are used as a threatening device.

When legal guns are used in self-defense, they are rarely used with the intention to kill. In the undeniably vast majority of cases of legal gun use, they are used as a threatening device.

If they are used with the intent to kill, that is, murderous intent, the person who claims self-defense will be subject to a criminal trial.
Compare that situation to the federal and state laws (rightfully) adding penalties to criminals who use firearms in the commission of their crimes regardless of how the gun was used.

Interestingly, "moral luck" in legal cases does not care about intent, only action. If Joe robs a bank with a pistol, with the intent to use it as a threatening object, and in the process shoots and kills a bank guard ("The gun just went off!") he will be tried for murder. If Frank robs a bank with a pistol, with the intent to kill some people, and in the process the gun jams and he cannot hurt anyone, he cannot be charged with murder (only attempted murder, or aggravated robbery, etc.) despite his intent - and certainly we can expect Frank to deny any murderous intent. Thus legal action relies on what takes place, not so much what was planned, unless someone does die, in which case the degree of murder is important.

In response to Tristam's call for "honest" arguments: I think the honest argument in favor of citizens owning guns is the notion that everyday people, law-abiding, are trustworthy with lethal force. The honest argument against gun ownership is that those people are not trustworthy.

In the thread about this before, the divisive issue was really socialist vs. libertarian notions of human behavior, not guns. I am not using either of those terms in a pejorative manner.

emphasis mine:

I'm basically in agreement with the Thomas Jefferson quote I believe someone posted early, in that you either trust man to handle it, or don't trust them to handle it. People in general are a variable in the equation, guns are a constant. If someone flips shit and murders 10 people the only preventative measure I see is the firearm. Remove firearm from the equation but keep person that lost their shit and what do you have? 1 or 2 people being stabbed? A fistfight?

"Rights" are nothing more than a term to interpret. They can be given and taken at will, without cause or precedence. Just like abortion my choice of the lesser evil is no guns to the citizens in the name of defense over more guns to the citizens in the name of defense.
I don't trust people to handle guns in ordinary circumstances.

...

You're telling this to a socialist lol. During this crisis a job is a job and people in work help the economy so I'll agree with your point of factories shutting down.

...

By the way, while I passionately disagree with your position I respect it entirely. Me and a good libertarian friend have this debate often and we always come to the conclusion that, like I said early about Mr. Jefferson's quote, I distrust people to have guns while he trusts them - which is indicative of our views on humanity.

I view what The Finesse said there as an honest, clearly thought-out, accurate description of why people take the sides they do in the gun debate.
t
I'm with oldoldman and pohibaba on this issue, but then you probably already knew that.

Spoiler: show

Remember, daggers don't kill people, curtains kill people.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

And I would guess a majority of gun homicides are committed with illegal firearms, (Bought on street or not registered to shooter).

I'm assuming you meant car instead of guns there. My point stands though, we are failing miserably at the "War on Drugs" a ban and subsequent "War on Guns" would just widen the avenue for arms dealers to make money. People who don't obey the law will be largely unaffected, they may just have to pay more for their illegal firearm.

This goes back to my argument with Plow I believe it was in the other thread about the comparisons between smuggling drugs and guns. I don't find that a good argument either considering the physics of it.

And I don't mean, legal drugs being used illegally for recreation, I mean most of those drug deaths are from misdiagnosis, bad prescriptions ( from wrong medicine to greater dosage than needed ), or people with bad advice to take "more for the pain" or what have you.

But I have a beef with Big Pharma also so there's a myriad of angles to tackle that specific issue from.

Point is a "War on Guns" won't nearly be as costly or damaging as the War on Drugs has been.


Also in this post: What tristam said.

[Melchiah]

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you on that point.

Case in point, in the article I cited in my second post in this thread, Canada has created a tremendous monster in their registration and licensing program for all firearms. From the article:

"An important consideration in judging the potential benefit of a licensing system is its cost. Licensing systems are extremely expensive to administer as revealed by Canada's experience with its full licensing and registration system for all firearms, begun in December 1998.

The Canadian government originally estimated that the cost of licensing Canada's three million gun owners and registering their seven million guns would be $185 million [Canadian] over five years, including a one-time start-up cost of $85 million [Canadian].20 But, by March 2000, the Canadian Firearms Centre admitted that the system had already cost Canadian taxpayers $327 million [Canadian] and was running up an annual bill dramatically higher than the government's original forecast.

Using these figures as a baseline for America's arsenal of more than 65 million handguns (let alone its total gun arsenal of more than 190 million weapons), the estimated cost of such a system is staggering. In addition, when faced with such large sums dedicated to increasing public safety, inevitable questions will arise regarding whether such funds could be better spent placing more policemen on the street, upgrading law enforcement resources, or increasing support for other crime-related resources, such as domestic violence shelters."

It absolutely will not be cost effective in America to attempt a complete licensing and registration program for every firearm. I submit that the cost of tracking, locating, confiscating and destroying every firearm in America would have an even more obscene cost associated with it than just a complete license and registry program. Simply put, it just isn't feasible.

Edit: Look, what I was getting with the topic of this thread is that it's pretty ignorant to want to start banning everything that gets used to kill people. Some of you caught on pretty quick that it's silly for me to say "lol ban bows and arrows k" and this is precisely the point. Tristam's point about benefit versus perceived cost is exactly the truth. In 2007, the population of the US was estimated at 302,633,000 persons. The firearm death rate in Washington, D.C., which was the highest ranked I could find, was 31.2 per 100,000. If we apply that firearm death rate to the population we get a percentage of 3.12 x 10^-4. That comes out to be right at 94,000 people in a country of over 300 million. .031% is statistically irrelevant, the only reason anyone gives a shit is because it's human lives. If this were any other data set, three hundredths of a percent would be non-issue. And this is applying the total firearm deaths, suicides included, of the highest ranked firearm death rate in the country. In reality the number would be much lower. Again, statistically irrelevant. I apologize if that sounds cold or inhuman, but I'm willing to risk my life at a less than .0312% chance I'll die in a firearm related incident. That's as honest as I can be. To me, the chance is worth my enjoyment.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you on that point.

Case in point, in the article I cited in my second post in this thread, Canada has created a tremendous monster in their registration and licensing program for all firearms. From the article:



It absolutely will not be cost effective in America to attempt a complete licensing and registration program for every firearm. I submit that the cost of tracking, locating, confiscating and destroying every firearm in America would have an even more obscene cost associated with it than just a complete license and registry program. Simply put, it just isn't feasible.

That's simple, we can just offset the cost by legalizing drugs and taxing the profits.

But seriously, I agree that if anything were to be done it would have to be a long drawn out process and be a draw down of arms. If we started now and it was done right there would be no need for a mass collection and registry and so on and so forth.

In the end it's a pipe dream on my side of the fence so I don't know why your team gets all worked up over it. It's part of the constitution, it's a multi-million dollar lobbying business, and there are still more centrists and conservatives combined than there are liberals.

So the chance at an intellectual debate over the words used in the 2nd amendment on a grand scale are nearly impossible ( this was not a swipe at you ), and its application and enforcement of liberty will always and forever be a tennis match between conservative and progressive intellectuals and nothing more.

[Melchiah]

I've said it before, I'm all for regulation. I'm an honest man, and I respect the law. I just can't get on board with this idea of an across the board firearm ban that some ultra liberals will only be satisfied with.

It really irks me that there are people out there who have such a hard-on for getting rid of guns that they refuse to even acknowledge the merits of the idea that improving the culture of the inner-city and impoverished demographics would have a profound effect on not just firearm related death, but on drug problems and crime in general. I just can't believe there are people who claim to be part of the "people's party" and are so obtuse to such a basic concept.

None of this is a swipe at any one person on this board, just an attitude I keep seeing more and more.