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The Argument for Guns

RChildress107 said:
Again there is a difference between saying guns can be used to keep people safe (not debatable), and saying guns make our society safer as a whole (debatable).
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Is that what you wanted to debate then? B/C you just said that question didn't matter, didn't you?:

RChildress107 said:
It is not debatable that guns contribute value to society.

The only debate is whether they offer a net value to society.

Given how our country was set up and has operated for over 200 years the only relevant question is the first one. Which again is not debatable.
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and

RChildress107 said:
My argument is that the quantity is > 0. That is all that is required to justify the presence of guns in America.
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Could you re-clarify your argument? I may just be misunderstanding, but if the part that is debatable is irrelevant, then what are you debating?.

also why are we making analogies b/t alcohol and guns. one cannot be banned, the other very much can be (would take awhile, but it can be done).

One is designed to kill, whereas fermentation occurs naturally in nature and has been a major part of civilization since the beginning. Also for every shooting "session," if you will, there are many, many times more "sessions" of individuals drinking. so trying to compare the deaths is silly; the rate of both accident and death are significantly higher for guns per use than alcohol.

Also, there are the gun accidents which are innate to firearms. Accidents happen while using alcohol, but are not inherent to the substance (accidents, not deaths). AFAIK misuse of alcohol just kills you it doesn't cause (acute) accidents like a gun can. These last three sentences could be wrong, i'll admit, but it seems that way.

What i'm saying is guns are deadlier than alcohol, even if the absolute value for alcohol deaths are higher.

@all:

anyway, this argument reminds me of healthcare. soon enough, we'll catch up with basically every other industrialized country on this issue.
 
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Whoa. There's finally gun owners the NRA call "weird" and "foolish."

Gun-rights advocates who've recently stormed Texas businesses wielding assault rifles in a brazen show of support for the state's open-carry laws have "crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness," the National Rifle Association's lobbying arm said Friday in a statement -
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the powerhouse organization added that it's "a rare sight to see someone sidled up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slug across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms." To ostentatiously brandish a semi-automatic weapon in a public place is not only "rare," the group continued, "it's downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself."
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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nra-open-carry-gun-activists-behavior-downright-weird/

Never thought I'd see anyone able to out-moron the NRA.
 
dmcheatw said:
Is that what you wanted to debate then? B/C you just said that question didn't matter, didn't you?:



and



Could you re-clarify your argument? I may just be misunderstanding, but if the part that is debatable is irrelevant, then what are you debating?.

also why are we making analogies b/t alcohol and guns. one cannot be banned, the other very much can be (would take awhile, but it can be done).

One is designed to kill, whereas fermentation occurs naturally in nature and has been a major part of civilization since the beginning. Also for every shooting "session," if you will, there are many, many times more "sessions" of individuals drinking. so trying to compare the deaths is silly; the rate of both accident and death are significantly higher for guns per use than alcohol.

Also, there are the gun accidents which are innate to firearms. Accidents happen while using alcohol, but are not inherent to the substance (accidents, not deaths). AFAIK misuse of alcohol just kills you it doesn't cause (acute) accidents like a gun can. These last three sentences could be wrong, i'll admit, but it seems that way.

What i'm saying is guns are deadlier than alcohol, even if the absolute value for alcohol deaths are higher.

@all:

anyway, this argument reminds me of healthcare. soon enough, we'll catch up with basically every other industrialized country on this issue.
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I'm not debating it, because it doesn't matter. The OP and another poster were apparently seeking arguments that guns made the country safer as a whole when compared with the number of deaths that they cause.

My argument is that guns inarguably contribute some value to society (the only arguable part is whether it is a net positive). As a general principle we don't (or shouldn't) ban things that contribute value to society, even if the aggregate effect is arguably negative. When we do ban such things it leads to controversy (see: gay marriage, abortion, and marijuana).

I brought up alcohol as something that clearly contributes value to society (entertainment) but whose aggregate effects are arguably negative (88,000 deaths a year). Alcohol is not as deadly "per use" (however you want to define it) as guns. I was merely pointing out that regardless of the metric you use the difference is not nearly as great as many believe. To ban one and not the other is to draw an arbitrary line based on society's weighing of impossible to measure positive and negative effects.

I would propose instead, that when something contributes value to society it should not be banned outright. Especially in a society that claims to value freedom as much as ours. When that thing brings along with it negative consequences, those consequences should be mitigated through regulation up to the point where such regulation would unreasonably infringe upon that freedom.

IMO, we have not reached that point when it comes to regulating guns (though I think the 4 suggestions mentioned by RJ would bring us pretty close), but that point does exist and should (along with the 2nd amendment) serve as an obstacle to over-regulation or outright banishment of guns in the U.S.

Any conversation that begins with or suggests the option of banning guns in the U.S. is a nonstarter.
 
The notion that the existence or legality of anything that contributes a modicum of value to society even in the face of a highly disproportionate drawback to society shouldn't be questioned is pretty fucking stupid.

While the best solution to gun violence is almost assuredly a pragmatic one, your insistence on calling the debate over the value of guns a nonstarter is transparent.
 
another way of expressing RChildress' point is to look at external costs, and require people who benefit from the use of a product to bear the costs of that product as opposed to externalizing that cost to society. For example, we require people to carry insurance in order to drive a car. That way, when they run over a pedestrian by misusing their car, there is a source of funds to make sure the care of the pedestrian is not borne by the person's family or the taxpayer.

As I posted before, the proper use of guns is of benefit primarily to the owner of the gun and the people who sell him the gun and ammunition. There is not much data to indicate that widespread availability of guns makes Americans safer overall. Thus the people who are benefiting from the guns need to internalize the costs that their preferred product is imposing on the rest of us.
 
bigdoublezero said:
The notion that the existence or legality of anything that contributes a modicum of value to society even in the face of a highly disproportionate drawback to society shouldn't be questioned is pretty fucking stupid.

While the best solution to gun violence is almost assuredly a pragmatic one, your insistence on calling the debate over the value of guns a nonstarter is transparent.
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Stating that "the default rule should be in favor of legality unless the thing in question offers no value at all to society" is certainly libertarian, but it's not pretty fucking stupid.

A debate over the value of guns is not a nonstarter. It's a valuable one and ultimately helpful in determining how and to what extent to regulate their use.

A debate over the legality of guns, however, is a nonstarter. Just as debates over the legality of gay marriage, marijuana, and abortion should all be nonstarters as well. The latter two should be regulated (abortion quite heavily IMO) but as they all contribute value they should be legal, even though there are many who believe (with varying degrees of rationality) that each of those things has a highly disproportionate drawback to society.

A debate over the existence of all of those things is fine from a theoretical standpoint. From a practical standpoint, however, such a debate serves no purpose.
 
Clearly this thread falls in the theoretical realm, so why are you here?
 
bigdoublezero said:
Clearly this thread falls in the theoretical realm, so why are you here?
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And clearly the discussion on the original "theoretical" question ended on page 2 and yet here we are 17 pages later and you are still responding / seeking more answers to your theoretical question.

IMO, the OP asked a series of questions in order to establish the truth of a premise in an argument outlined below:

1. The existence of guns cannot be justified given the negative consequences of guns on our society.
2. Because the existence of guns cannot be justified they should be banned.

or stated differently.

1. The positive attributes of guns are outweighed by the negative consequences to society.
2. Because the negatives of guns outweigh the positives, they should be banned.

I have merely been pointing out that the above argument is not valid.


In your Opinion this thread is merely for ascertaining the truth of #1, which, given the fact that 1. everyone came into this thread with a preconceived answer to that question, and 2. noone has (or was ever likely to) changed their mind, makes it pretty fucking stupid that this thread is 19 pages long.
 
bigdoublezero said:
Clearly this thread falls in the theoretical realm, so why are you here?
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Would you agree that even if the answers to the OP's original questions were as follows (see below) those answers would not (nor should) have any relevance to any discussion of banning guns in this country?

There is no large national need for guns, and there is no argument for guns which could outweigh the number of gun related deaths in this country.
 
There are plenty of things for which there is "no large national need" and the negative consequences of which outweigh any conceivable positives. The entire menu at McDonald's comes to mind.
 
Why don't we look at countries that have much lower gun violence than the US and see what they're doing right?
 
Did not read the whole thread, but has the fact that there are about 300 million guns in the United States been addressed? A really daunting figure.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
Did not read the whole thread, but has the fact that there are about 300 million guns in the United States been addressed? A really daunting figure.
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any serious effort would have to include a compulsory gun buyback like Australia conducted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_buyback_program#Australia The scale of gun ownership in the US is obviously much larger, but then Australia is a much smaller country with a much smaller tax base. Also, I suspect that any politically acceptable program (which, of course, is currently none at all) in the US would force the surrender of a smaller subset of guns, so it would cost less per capita. For example, Australia forced the surrender of all semiautomatic rifles and pump action shotguns as well as almost all handguns, although you can keep certain types of handguns if you are a dues-paying member of a target shooting club and participate in a minimum number of shooting matches annually (I am guessing the real serious Australian home-defense absolutists use this as a work-around).
 
I'm aware of the Australian buyback success, but I feel like the sociocultural differences -- in addition to the size and financial differences listed above -- between the two countries make it hard to compare. I'm about as anti-gun as there is, but I think a buyback program goes really poorly in the United States. Pipe dream at this point anyways.
 
not if you offer the actual black market values for the guns and there really are no questions asked coupled with drug reform to indirectly stem the flow of firearms that come with drugs across the border. I think it should be a standing, voluntary policy. Do that for 20 years and watch the number of guns shrink by many millions. Whenever recessions get hard, which is part of the economic cycle, people will have to either sell their guns, or use them...
 
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