Can we please just admit that maybe gun control is a good idea finally?

I read it as him acknowledging that simply banning all guns straight up (I believe he used the term "Japan-style gun control" or something) was not feasible and was like OK if we begin with the notion that the cat is out of the bag and pretty hard to put back in then what can we do next; then moving into figuring out cultural drivers, etc. I mean it's the same thing as people who say that better access to mental health care would decrease gun crime except that I just viewed it as him being a little more rigorous about why that is a good option besides social spending = all the feels.

So yeah as my arch-nemesis on numerous topics for over a decade now, I guess sometimes I defend him because I get where he's coming from. heheh. ;)

When you say "by definition" you don't need to provide a citation. It's "by definition". That's what that phrase means; he has defined "especially dangerous people" to include "people who enjoy hunting".

I probably do sound like a psychotic robot. I blame 20 years of arguing k. The Internet and 7 years at Microsoft.

Are you a vegan or strict vegetarian? Just asking as hunting is no more about just a desire to kill things then being a cattle rancher or pig farmer is for most people.

<Pedantry> A claim that something, by definition, lies within another set - for example, that all people who enjoy hunting are within the set of especially dangerous people, or that people whose names are like countries lie within the set of sophonts whose home planet is not Earth - can absolutely require citation. The alternative is an assertion of it as a first principle.

Which makes absolutely no sense. Stating that people who enjoy hunting are necessarily especially dangerous people is a quantifiable and testable claim, exactly the kind of thing that one should back up with empirical data. Backing up or refuting that kind of claim is something that statistics are really good at.

</Pedantry>

I think we're talking past each other here and I am likely at fault because I was loose in what you quoted. I blame the fermented sugar cane. Let me try again.

I am aware of the science and the need to control certain animal populations. I don't dispute it. When I say I "don't care about it" it is because it does not alter my view that guns should be kept out of the hands of private citizens. Therefore, I would prefer that the government handle population control.(side note: yes, I know this isn't going to happen). Again, I do not argue against or disregard the scientifically-established need to control animal populations. I just don't think it justifies private gun ownership.

My view of the the psyche of hunters is a distinct argument -- I think there are very very few hunters who go out to the woods because they feel a sad duty to reduce the deer population. No, they go out because they want to kill deer. In my opinion, that makes them dangerous persons and it makes them someone whose opinion -- "you can't take away my hunting rifles" -- I am happy to ignore.

I hope this is clearer. If not, my apologies. If it is, and you still disagree, that doesn't make me an idiot. It means we disagree.

Really, Brett? Try harder. My neighbor doesn't go out deer hunting because his family needs protein.

And no, Aaron, I have no data on the relative dangerousness of hunters. Not claiming that I do. I just don't care for people who are motivated by the desire to murder something in cold blood. It's an OPINION.

Your pedantry is incorrect, because you're viewing the phrase "by definition" through a strictly set theory perspective. That's fine, but language doesn't have mathematical precision. Your definition is overly rigid, and thus departs from standard useage. According to the standard useage of "by definition", citations are meaningless.

If I say that "The term 'horses', by definition, refers to a set of hooved animals" there is no citation I could give, except possibly the dictionary.

Ironically, you could claim that "by definition" means what you claim it does by definition, but then I'd challenge your definition.

If you eat meat humans killed those animals for food. Just like hunters do.

Neither does anyone else.

A friend of mine on Facebook linked to this study today:

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365.full

In the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, Australia banned semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns and pump-action rifles.

...of course, as with anything in sociology, this could be a pure example of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but I think it's a relevant story anyway because partly what it shows is how important it is to have a functional polity. John Howard was a right-wing PM, banning semi-automatics was profoundly unpopular with his rural supporters, and no-one would have blamed him if he'd made a mere symbolic gesture and moved on. Howard couldn't possibly have known what the effects of his decision would be, because it's sociology and nobody knows anything. He did what he thought was best, though, and he was free to do it. If it had turned out to be a disaster, someone could later have undone it. Today, though, it looks like a bloody good decision, and there would be less than zero political mileage in trying to undo that legislation.

Politics works best, it seems, when you have two centrist parties fighting to get the vote of the median voter. It seems to me that Obama's big problem is that he can't do what John Howard did. He can't just decide that something is probably right, take the risk that it backfires, and legislate it, with the possibility that someone else will undo the legislation later if it goes badly. Because of the toxic mess that is present-day American politics, not only can't Obama introduce laws that most Americans dislike and then give them time to discover they're actually good laws; he can't even implement an agenda that most people actually want.

I'm not sure if I'm really leading to any particular point here. When a bunch of kids just had their chance to grow up stolen from them, I guess it makes it seem especially ironic/tragic that part of the reason is because of those who do have that chance but don't want to take it.

One of the arguments in favor of livestock farming is that it is not only more efficient, but less dangerous than hunting for food. If you're in an area where hunting is your best option for food - then by all means. I don't think such places exist anymore in a first world country, however.

Not every hunter is a subsistence hunter, however. I'd say that the vast majority are sport/trophy hunters. (Appropriate disclaimer: I have gone on licensed population-control pig hunts, so I am not wholly against the concept of hunting for a purpose.) I find sport hunters to be pretty lame, though. It's not sport any more than rock climbing is - you're practicing and using a physical skill, it just happens to be one that carries with it a great deal of risk to other people by its nature.

From my experience, it's a preventative measure, mostly, to keep the conflict from escalating. If the conflict is already in place, it's much more difficult to apply the training retroactively, if that makes sense.

It also doesn't work very well if either party involved in the conflict (assuming it's just two people) is intoxicated.

But, it does help. A lot of the violence we see can be traced to conflicts that have been ongoing and escalating over time. My dad actually told me a story today about a man who killed his neighbor lady, because he thought she was cheating on him. Though it's an oversimplification, I think it's fairly safe to say that he had anger issues and didn't know how to deal with that kind of conflict.

It also goes into the same vein as Mr. Rogers' famous address to the senate defending PBS funding, where he explained that he teaches children how to deal with their feelings. Again, the issue isn't quite that simple, but it's a fundamental building block of assuring good mental health for ourselves, and it's not like these skills don't translate into other parts of life anyway. Is this stuff going to work on old dogs or macho men who think they don't need this kind of "sensitivity training"? Maybe not, but we can at least start with our own children as a more long-term solution.

The unfortunate part is that, even if we acted today, the effects are not immediate for any of the solutions proposed, including the non-solutions of "arming everyone responsibly" and "reforming media to keep 'glorification' of mass murderers from being reported."

This thread is really going places! I'll contribute.

Your pedantry is inferior.

The dictionary would be a perfectly suitable citation for an argument that definitionally a horse belongs to the set of hooved animals.

Asserting that something can be appropriately described by some set of descriptors by definition is something to which it is entirely appropriate to ask for a citation.

It's the kind of opinion that you could easily test. If you don't test your opinions, I'm very sorry, and could I interest you in a little book about rationalist? I swear, this book will change your life.

(That was a reference to the Book of Mormon. Just in case anyone thought I was being serious.)

Tomorrow, assuming I'm still interested, I might fork a thread over in D&D for actual discussion of these issues, and let this thread be for arguments over the ONE TRUE PURPOSE of any given thing and whether or not we should ban window AC units because someone once totally dropped one on some dude's head.

I know that I'm at fault for contributing to the emotional morass of obfuscating bullshit, but I do feel that immediate no-holds-barred threads such as this serve a purpose: to let those emotions flow freely and to let everyone vent their rage and angst at the horror of the situation, at the opposition to whatever they feel should be done to prevent future horrors, at people on their own side who don't agree with their own solution, and so on, but these threads' purpose only lasts a day or two before a need arises for a calmer, cooler, and far more collected version. Especially when some people see fit to bogart this subforum as their own personal stomping ground because they were banned from the polite forum. It's a giant toxic mix beyond a certain point.

So, in advance, if you do create that thread: thanks, jeffd.

THREAD CLOSED

I am aware of the phrase's use in philosophy. I have a degree in the subject after all. But phrases do have multiple meanings, and the phrase "by definition" generally has a looser meaning in general useage than it does in philosophy, which has very specific (and often somewhat counterintuitive) definitions for many things.

This is... what.. the third time you've asserted this? And yet you have yet to provide any supporting argument.

Dogmatism does not become you.

Oh Christ here we go!

Given that the other party in the conversation implicitly accepted my position on the matter, the onus is on you. You properly recognized that, but put forth an argument that was unsound; I pointed out that it was unsound and that in fact your purported unreasonable extrapolation was reasonable, thus rending your line of argument invalid. (Specifically, I would accept a dictionary citation as support for a claim that horses fall within the set of hooved animals.)

As a supporting argument: the alternative is to accept all definitional assertions as first-principles positions. Taking this route loses precision and gains no accuracy, as the first-principles state of an assertion is a valid fallback to a request for citation or evidence.

If you want to offer a counterargument, I suggest looking for a third option (e.g., a manner in which we do not reasonably request citation or evidence for such an assertion while still not accepting it as a first-principles position) that remains valid under examination (I would specifically exclude the position of taking assertions on faith, e.g. assuming that all parties have valid evidence and citation and thus not requesting it, for example). That would leave my offered argument as a false dichotomy.

Alternatively, you could argue that accepting all definitional assertions as first-principles positions does not lose precision or gains accuracy, or that a request for citation or evidence does not permit said valid fallback.

THE BALL IS IN YOUR COURT.

Epic thread is EPICCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Why is your avatar not Christmas themed?

jeffd and the socialist feel-good universe loving fucking Autobots have declared WAR ON CHRISTMAS

Fuck Michael Bay, too.

I guess what's more than meets the eye is HATRED OF CHRISTMAS!

I've actually been thinking about photoshopping a Santa hat onto my avatar.

Well do so.
In the meantime I believe I said

THREAD CLOSED

The biggest false dichotomy in the world is thinking this issue should only be approached from the gun control side or the mental health side. It should be obvious to anyone that the people who perpetrate these acts have psychological problems that need professional help. It should be equally obvious that not even the most comprehensive mental health system will catch everyone, just as stringent gun control won't stop the most determined psychopath from obtaining a firearm.

In defence of the gun control side I find the portrayal of all mass killers as utterly determined and calculating as unhelpful. Some pretty demonstrably are, but I'm quite sure others are more affected by circumstance and practicality. It's not unreasonable to think that some would not have ultimately followed through if they did not live in a society where easy access to firearms is both taken for granted - guaranteeing that shooting as a method is foremost in their minds - and a reality in most cases. Only some would-be killers will stop at nothing, for others practical stumbling blocks will affect their decisions. Speaking in binary terms about the possibility of getting a gun entirely misses the point. It's possible to get a gun anywhere, but probability of outcomes is what's important.

It's a complex issue which nobody, certainly not me, has a definitive answer to. But dismissing any approach with a direct bearing on the facts of the matter, gun access and mental health being the most obvious, is unjustifiable.

You do realize that insurgents and terrorists (pick what you prefer) usually have backing and some organization ? Suprisingly enough you will many times also find trained personnel among them. You know ? From the terrorist training camps we hear about ? Which similar to military special forces training (to my knowlegde) will train you in building IED ? These guys usually will have some bomb builder around who makes their explosives, someone with training - training usually not available to high school students. Making explosives is not trivial, even if you go for 'simple' Redox-stuff. Starting the procedure ? Sure. Being successful and surviving ? Can happen, but it is certainly not a given that you will. A random potential mass murderer trying it ? I will happily bet against him.

Edit: Oh, and remember hearing about IEDs that fail to go off ? Because they weren't built well. Guess why. And if you feel really curious, I seem to remember that Bruce Schneier talked about IEDs a while ago on his blog, linking to several sources on them. If I remember correctly many times they aren't even explosives, but fakes that are supposed to both make soldiers feel threatened and hold them in place until the bomb disposal unit has cleared the device as non-threatening. Which again would indicate a problem in procuring sufficient explosives.

Well, I do know that people try to get nitric acid from fertilizer via sulfuric acid (available from some old types of batteries). I initially posted a youtube video of someone on this here to prove that people think it is the way to get it. Stupid, starting with ammonia would be easier. But it is in principle possible. However, even building any kind of redox-reaction base explosives with ammonium nitrate is highly dangerous. And yes, impurities will make it both more failure-prone and more risky.

EDIT: removed the video to prevent a long discussion why the video might be fake, and on the specifics of bomb building. Added info on getting HNO3 from fertilizer.

That much is true. Look, Shepherder. You seem to argue in good faith. Please understand that I was more blowing up because of the moronic way of arguing that others engaged in. I have zero stakes in US gun control. However, I was drawn in by people claiming that a lack of availability of guns will not reduce incidence of death due to violent crime (even if we just look at mass murders), and I do suffer from XKCD-syndrome when I do see something like it. This would necessitate that changing to any other kind of weapon will still allow perpetrators the same effect, so they must be as easy to use, as commonly available and as effective. According to this train of thought we are talking knifes (!) and home-made explosives. Sorry, that is just moronic. As for gas attacks - yes, technology has advanced. How many citizens do you think have access to state of the art chemistry to produce military grade toxins ? Incendiaries - probably your best bet. And surprisingly easy to make, sure. But again - do you really, honestly think that every mass murder is both as able, as willing and as competent in using them that he will achieve the same effect as with guns ? And we are not even talking about robberies and other violence enabled by guns. Ever tried to hold up a store using self-made Sarin gas ?
In short, guns were developed for a reason. If all these other means were still as effective, we would arm our soldiers with knifes. Explosives are of course used by the military, as are gas etc. But they are produced by companies with a lot of know-how, and to use them is somewhat tricky and operators are trained for a reason. And for everyone else - stop bringing up single incidents of use of weird weapons as if they mean anything. Someone blew up a building using home-made explosives does not mean it is as easy as buying and using a gun.
People like me do not argue that it is impossible, we argue it is a lot harder.

Ooohhh... bows. To add a bit of info - since I recently took up archery I read up on the matter a bit. There is a thesis on injury patterns caused by bows, using various bow types and non-human targets (dead pigs and the same dummy targtes used in ballistic forensics). Nice thesis, if anyone is interested. It is in German, however. In the introduction the author gives an overview on deaths caused by bows etc. In short, bows can definitely cause fatal wounds, but doing so is a lot harder than with guns, and the potential for the victim to 'only' be injured is high. From my point of view, hitting anything reliably with a bow is decidedly non-trivial. And yes, I can compare with (low-powered) rifles, which in comparison are.
Modern bows, including compound are not good killing weapons in comparison to guns. Potentially fatal, sure, but not on the same level. And if anyone now starts arguing using the medieval ages as example - longbows used by the mostly life-long trained bondsmen were a lot stronger than bows modern women/men will use. Even modern compound bows are typically 60lbs. vs. 100-120lbs. of the medieval bow, though these are very hard to compare without the math on kinetic energy transfer. Stronger modern bows do exist, but good luck using one successfully without a few years of training. Skeletons uncovered on medieval battlefields like Agincourt exhibit a typical severe deformation of the shoulders (one-sided Biceps-brachii-Enthesiopathy), caused by using bows with drawing strengths at the limits of human physiology. There is a reason that even slow-loading muskets outperformed bows - less training needed. And even then, archers mainly peppered areas with long distance shots in the hopes of hitting someone in the army filling that area. Also, if I remember my history correctly battles of the time took longer with less casualties until the close combat occurred.
Again - if you all seriously believe that there are so many weapons on par with guns when it comes to indiscriminately killing people, ask a general why on earth they are still spending so much money on expensive guns. After all, bows are easier to produce and replace, as are knifes.So clearly, soldiers must be morons for considering guns to be worth their time.

I hate how after each of these events there's always stories about how the shooter was a socially awkward loner into things that extroverts disdain, like video games and/or particular sub-cultures. I bet drunken Francophones will make jokes about video gamers and spree shootings at the Christmas party tomorrow, looking at me as the socially awkward computer geek in their midst.

Anyway, horrible story but Americans will never give up their guns. Obama's smart enough to know that trying to change that would galvanize the right in a way that makes the Tea Party look like a Sunday bridge club. It would turn his second term into a war, and when push came to shove the Dems wouldn't have his back.

In many parts of the country they do, I'm not a hunter, and would rather not have to hunt, but I respect those who hunt, butcher and eat their kills. In this part of purpletopia a lot of people hunt, and butcher and eat the venison. I've over heard many discussions in the last few weeks abou the merits of self butchering vs. going to butcher A,B or C. And, I've had some really awesome deer jerky. Most of the people I know can afford grocery store meat. However, grocery prices and meat prices in general have gone up in the past few years. In some rural areas, people are surviving off of what they hunt, grow in their gardens and get from food pantries.
Hunting animals for food is in no way related to mass murder. One is survival the other insanity.

Farnsworth

In the case of the middle east I wouldn't be so certain of laying the blame entirely upon training camps. McVeigh, Kaczynski, and Beivik could pull it off without losing digits; I suspect that there's probably a not insignificant number of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria who have done the same. If the making of high explosives and propellants required more than following the script provided by experienced chemists WWI would have been a very boring war mostly remembered for it's trench shovel melees.

Aum Shinrikyo managed to produce Sarin and VX in small, impure quantities. It wasn't a raging success, but it's not a reassuring factoid. On the other hand, your usual suspects of WWI could and were pretty lethal if effectively deployed against unprotected victims. You'd need access to the building to deploy it though, so this is all wankery on my part, because in the same circumstances incendiaries would be easier by far. Or, you know, guns.

Just because I want to see if I can get you to recoil in horror; have this:

Yeah, totally as easy as grabbing your mother's semi-automatic rifles and going to a school...
I know you said as much yourself, but then why post it? Nobody is disagreeing that a suitable determined terrorist can get his hands on nasty stuff.
But it's WAY harder, takes planning and a certain kind of personalities, which is why the school shootings are all too common and the McVeighs, Breiviks and Aum Shinrikyos are very rare... and of those 3, only one had great success with the home made stuff.

And in Iraq/Afghanistan apart from the trained bomb makers we're also talking about people good at recycling, using stolen military grade explosives and grenades/artillery shells - something even Americans can't readily get their hands on.

Nothing else is as easy as shooting a bunch of people with military grade weaponry. Making sure that's not readily available will make a difference.

And regarding all the silly hunting stuff, both European countries like my own and Australia manages to make weapons for hunting legal, while still banning certain kinds of weapons. Here it's not really hard to get a hunting license (you take classes and pass the exam) and buy a shotgun or hunting rifle, you just can't buy a 100-cartridge magazine, silencers, high powered sniper rifles, semi-automatics or pump action shotguns.
Our last school shooting was 20 years ago or so and was a mentally unstable young man (yes, we have them too) in a university cafeteria with a sawn off double barreled shotgun. Death toll was 3 - the two students he managed to surprise and himself in a toilet.
Houngan could even move here and keep at his hobby using the exact same pistols and revolvers he's using now - he would just be limited to where he could shoot his guns, and he'd need a license, be registered, and have to be a member of a licensed shooting club and use their weapons for a few years before he'd be licensed to have his own and keep them at home.
I don't find that draconian at all - it's even more lax than what Nute and OZ is talking about.

See, I don't disagree with any of that. I just disagreed with his assertion that anything short of getting rid of all guns, Japan-style, is not going to have any effect on the rate or efficacy of mass murders. I cited two studies that suggest that it would have an effect, he cited his gut feeling and a Wikipedia article about an incident that happened nearly a century ago. I definitely agree that tighter gun regulations is not the silver bullet for addressing violent crime, and that other issues, like mental health care, also need to be addressed. I'm not sure why so many people seem to think that we can only do one or the other of those two things, and not both. And yeah, I get that there is a lot of political inertia that would need to be overcome in order to get any sort of meaningful reform of gun laws, but the same holds true for addressing mental health. There are a lot of folks in Washington that will launch a kneejerk opposition to any sort of health care reform, especially now that they have expended so much political capital talking up the evils of Obamacare.

Going from a "middling" gun control regime that permits a range of semi-automatic firearms to what you're talking about in Denmark would be a big deal politically in many countries. In the US there'd be the existing political/cultural obstacles, the 300-million-gun ocean in circulation, and the second amendment as it's currently being interpreted by the Roberts SCOTUS.

It's not a counsel of despair, as better gun control is certainly possible, and it may be that the Connecticut killings will make a difference in spite of the discontinuity Ben and others have mentioned. But there isn't the possibility of a Dunblane-like gun control revolution even though millions of people feel like there should be.

Just to address the also-fucked-up mental health side of the issue, this is relevant.

I created a thread to talk about mental health treatment, partly inspired by the post you just linked. I have optimistically put it in the Debate & Discussion forum.

This author says we shouldn't quickly assume the shooter had mental health problems.