Posted by 79 at 2:11pm Jun 30 '12In other words, you've presented a textbook example of a strawman argument, in fact one that I explicitly said wasn't being made!
the point of your post, in your own words:
Rather, my point is to quite simply debunk the myth that more guns, and/or less gun control, means more crime -- it quite simply is not true.
the first half of my post - based on factual statistics - was meant to show that yes, there has been an overall crime drop...but that a first look at the actual evidence suggests that more guns = less of a crime drop. my supposition would go thus: that there are perhaps many reasons violent crime has gone down in our nation, but it seems that allowing more guns has slowed the decline. in other words, if the real reasons for the drop were ignored, guns would cause an increase in violent crime.
i won't insult you with an allegory; i trust you can see the logic in that argument without one.
Less than 0.1% of all guns in the US will ever be used to commit a crime in their (quite lengthy) lifetime. (That's another ATF stat, by the way!)
but what if we're only talking about guns acquired or owned illegally?
Why would we be? I fail to see the relevance.
because you're using a strawman argument. only the crazies are concerned about, say, a hunter's shotgun or a policeman's pistol. most of us who are in favor of more regulation and care are worried in particular about guns owned and used illegally. so trying to argue your point by including all guns is extremely unfair to what we're actually advocating - you're in fact arguing against something we're not saying.
Where did you get such a totally ridiculous notion? No, seriously, where in the hell did this even come from??
it's a valid question. you only talk about guns in aggregate - as if there were no difference between a guy who takes his rifle out to the range like others go to the driving range and someone who got a semi-automatic without a full background check - or someone shown to be unstable, potentially criminally, acquiring weapons.
It's barely worth even responding -- except that it highlights your style of anti-gun "argument" so beautifully...
it's actually there to point out to you what i'm actually concerned about. the more you insist my position is 100% anti-gun, the more of a disservice you do me. and if your responses to reasonable questions ("are you talking about all guns? can we focus on the ones that actually might be a problem?") are personal attacks and passive-aggressive "i'm so wronged! i'm the victim!" lines, then you're only hurting your own cause.
Really? Hm... so an Alaskan King Crab fisherman, the world's deadliest job, is safer than a person simply holding a gun?
yeah, i realized that was a completely ass-brained way of saying what i was trying to convey - i'd have shot a hole in it myself. so i apologize - critters can be pretty dangerous.
what i actually meant was that an innocent person is safer without a gun than with one, unless another human agent with the will and capability to do personal harm is involved. and then to include the caveat that in a situation with potentially violent animals very well might be safer with a gun. also, since it apparently wasn't clear, i'm talking about one person in one situation (eg, a BASE-jumper without a gun is obviously at more risk than a guy at the range with a pistol, i'm aware of that).
It would be even more foolish, however, to completely ignore the CDC's stats on accidental gun injuries and deaths, which clearly show a steady decline despite more and more guns being privately owned.
i wasn't. a decline despite more guns is great, and shows that people actually are being careful with them. however, my argument against the ben franklin cartoon is unaffected by this.
[also, WTF does 9/11 have to do with personal firearms? i've never understood that point of view. not saying it's yours, just saying it seems utterly ridiculous.]
the point of your post, in your own words:
Rather, my point is to quite simply debunk the myth that more guns, and/or less gun control, means more crime -- it quite simply is not true.
the first half of my post - based on factual statistics - was meant to show that yes, there has been an overall crime drop...but that a first look at the actual evidence suggests that more guns = less of a crime drop. my supposition would go thus: that there are perhaps many reasons violent crime has gone down in our nation, but it seems that allowing more guns has slowed the decline. in other words, if the real reasons for the drop were ignored, guns would cause an increase in violent crime.
i won't insult you with an allegory; i trust you can see the logic in that argument without one.
Less than 0.1% of all guns in the US will ever be used to commit a crime in their (quite lengthy) lifetime. (That's another ATF stat, by the way!)
but what if we're only talking about guns acquired or owned illegally?
Why would we be? I fail to see the relevance.
because you're using a strawman argument. only the crazies are concerned about, say, a hunter's shotgun or a policeman's pistol. most of us who are in favor of more regulation and care are worried in particular about guns owned and used illegally. so trying to argue your point by including all guns is extremely unfair to what we're actually advocating - you're in fact arguing against something we're not saying.
Where did you get such a totally ridiculous notion? No, seriously, where in the hell did this even come from??
it's a valid question. you only talk about guns in aggregate - as if there were no difference between a guy who takes his rifle out to the range like others go to the driving range and someone who got a semi-automatic without a full background check - or someone shown to be unstable, potentially criminally, acquiring weapons.
It's barely worth even responding -- except that it highlights your style of anti-gun "argument" so beautifully...
it's actually there to point out to you what i'm actually concerned about. the more you insist my position is 100% anti-gun, the more of a disservice you do me. and if your responses to reasonable questions ("are you talking about all guns? can we focus on the ones that actually might be a problem?") are personal attacks and passive-aggressive "i'm so wronged! i'm the victim!" lines, then you're only hurting your own cause.
Really? Hm... so an Alaskan King Crab fisherman, the world's deadliest job, is safer than a person simply holding a gun?
yeah, i realized that was a completely ass-brained way of saying what i was trying to convey - i'd have shot a hole in it myself. so i apologize - critters can be pretty dangerous.
what i actually meant was that an innocent person is safer without a gun than with one, unless another human agent with the will and capability to do personal harm is involved. and then to include the caveat that in a situation with potentially violent animals very well might be safer with a gun. also, since it apparently wasn't clear, i'm talking about one person in one situation (eg, a BASE-jumper without a gun is obviously at more risk than a guy at the range with a pistol, i'm aware of that).
It would be even more foolish, however, to completely ignore the CDC's stats on accidental gun injuries and deaths, which clearly show a steady decline despite more and more guns being privately owned.
i wasn't. a decline despite more guns is great, and shows that people actually are being careful with them. however, my argument against the ben franklin cartoon is unaffected by this.
[also, WTF does 9/11 have to do with personal firearms? i've never understood that point of view. not saying it's yours, just saying it seems utterly ridiculous.]
Re: it's a pretty picture, yes - 79