Home care and guns don't mix

[imported_tajmahal]

I won't go through this line item by line item, I believe I've covered everything you've said. No matter how it is framed, guns kill comparatively less people and do significantly less harm overalll than other things no one is arguing about further restricting. As I've said, until those other things are hot political items I simply will not believe the anti-2A movement is actually about saving lives, if it were we'd see more care given to these other areas that are doing far more harm. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

You have to remember that this is TheVrolok's favorite book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics

 

[SlowSpyder]

Tell you what, in California to buy a firearm you have a 10 day waiting period and you can only buy 1 firearm at a time. Let's just put that restriction on 1st Amendment rights. That way a liberal Democrat can apply to say something, wait 10 days until they can actually say it, and then after they speak they can wait another 10 days before they say something else. Sounds fair to me right? That doesn't even include outrageous fees and taxes that are levied. Just apply the restrictions already in place on the 2nd Amendment and apply them to your other rights.

Clearly we need a ban on high capacity beer, nothing more than a six pack. Also a restriction on how powerful alcohol can be, an 80 proof limit, and a waiting period to buy such a strong substance. Establishment like pubs and bars that exist just to drive to and drink and then drive away need to be banned. Time to repeal the 21st amendment, clearly they couldn't envision how much damage today's alcohol would do to society, afterall, alcohol kills about 2x as many people as guns, and if guns need further restriction...

Right gun grabbers? Why is no politician running on such a platform if it is about saving lives?

 

[pmv]

Compare guns to alcohol / tobacco and get back to me. There are some 15+ millions concealed carry license holders in America. Some ~35 million smokers. Some ~100 million gun owners.

Tobacco only kills its users. That's their choice. The same is not true of guns, so the two issues are not comparable (I don't think secondary-smoking is a major issue, and fire-risk can be managed by just banning it in specific locations, as generally happens).

Alcohol is a little more complicated, but, again, the majority of alcohol-related deaths are either of the user themselves, or they actually are car-related (which brings me back to my desire to see greater car-control - it sometimes seems to me that legal gun-owners take their responsibilites a bit more seriously than do legal car owners).

You are possibly left with a minority of cases where some people became violent to others under the influence of booze. Whether alcohol can be blamed for those is debatable.

All the same, I still tend to think that the issue is different in a culture where guns have already become mainstream, and where lots of people want them, compared to one where a ban on them can be maintained with some degree of concensus. The issue, perhaps, is why so many people want the things.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Tobacco only kills its users. That's their choice. The same is not true of guns, so the two issues are not comparable (I don't think secondary-smoking is a major issue, and fire-risk can be managed by just banning it in specific locations, as generally happens).

Alcohol is a little more complicated, but, again, the majority of alcohol-related deaths are either of the user themselves, or they actually are car-related (which brings me back to my desire to see greater car-control - it sometimes seems to me that legal gun-owners take their responsibilites a bit more seriously than do legal car owners).

You are possibly left with a minority of cases where some people became violent to others under the influence of booze. Whether alcohol can be blamed for those is debatable.

All the same, I still tend to think that the issue is different in a culture where guns have already become mainstream, and where lots of people want them, compared to one where a ban on them can be maintained with some degree of concensus. The issue, perhaps, is why so many people want the things.

No, second hand smoke kills ~41000 a year. Those are innocent victims. That is more than every gun suicide, accident, murder, and police shooting combined by some several thousand. So smoking kills more innocnet victims than guns by a long shot. Guns are blamed on some 36000 deaths (if you include suicides, which make the vast majority of this number) a year, tobacco over a half a million, and as I stated earlier, far more INNOCENT VICTIMS than guns. And let's look at what the ATF is responisible for. Which of those kills the most? Which the least? Which is most regulated, what do you just have to be 18 to buy?

Alcohol is very difficult to report on. How many fights and domestic violence problems do you think involve alcohol? I'm not at all for banning alcohol, but I feel if we accept it's risks (and tobacco's) then it is silly to try and hold guns to some higher standard given that they already kill significantly less than either and are more regulated. And let's not forget guns can actually stop crime and save lives, hard to find examples of such for alcohol or tobacco.

To me this is looking at freedoms vs. the risk to society. And when you compare guns to other things they're already much safer and less harmful. It is hard to argue for ever more restriction when looking at guns in this light.

 

[pmv]

I mean, because they owned slaves does that invalidate the constitution, is the 1st amendment amoral and forgettable because they owned slaves? Why would the 2nd be?

You are playing games with words.

It doesn't 'invalidate' the constitution, it does, though, emphasise that the founding fathers were not the combo of Jesus, Yoda, Gandalf, Professor X, and Hari Seldon from the Foundation books, as some Americans seem to imagine.

They were flawed human beings and products of their time who couldn't really see the future and didn't even understand their own time beyond the limited perspective of their race, sex and class. Ergo, they might have gotten some things wrong, and what they came up with remains open to challenge.

 

[pmv]

No, second hand smoke kills ~41000 a year. Those are innocent victims.

Heh, I guess I've been listening to too many conservatives like yourself on that topic! Normally you are eager to deny such claims.

I'm still not convinced, though, as it happens. But personally I'm never exposed to it, becuase we have so many restrictions on smoking already (banned in workplaces, pubs, public transport...).

The only time I breath in other's smoke is when I choose to accompany friends outside whatever venue we are in, to hang out while they indulge their addiction. That's my choice.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Heh, I guess I've been listening to too many conservatives like yourself on that topic! Normally you are eager to deny such claims.

I'm still not convinced, though, as it happens. But personally I'm never exposed to it, becuase we have so many restrictions on smoking already (banned in workplaces, pubs, public transport...).

The only time I breath in other's smoke is when I choose to accompany friends outside whatever venue we are in, to hang out while they indulge their addiction. That's my choice.

I am NOT a conservative. I think conservatives have jumped the shark in many ways, but if there is one area I think they're spot on right about it is the 2A. I think the Dems are correct in plenty of areas too, but the 2A is not one of them. There are restrictions to where you can smoke and where you can have guns, but bad guys will ignore that for guns, and the carcinogens still follow smokers and they're sharing them with you even when they're not smoking (third hand smoke). But, no politician is trying to do something about tobacco on anywhere near the level they'll fight the 2A. I feel the anti gunners ideals are based more on propaganda than substance when you look at it like this, compare guns in a realistic way to other freedoms we enjoy that can harm us.

 

[pmv]

I am NOT a conservative. I think conservatives have jumped the shark in many ways, but if there is one area I think they're spot on right about it is the 2A. I think the Dems are correct in plenty of areas too, but the 2A is not one of them. There are restrictions to where you can smoke and where you can have guns, but bad guys will ignore that for guns, and the carcinogens still follow smokers and they're sharing them with you even when they're not smoking (third hand smoke). But, no politician is trying to do something about tobacco on anywhere near the level they'll fight the 2A. I feel the anti gunners ideals are based more on propaganda than substance when you look at it like this, compare guns in a realistic way to other freedoms we enjoy that can harm us.

I'll take that at face value and apologise for assuming you are a conservative.

I remain unconvinced that smoking really imposes that great a hazard on others, but maybe in the US it's more common in public places than it is here (last-workplace-but-one I was in, not only did you have to go outside to smoke, but you had to leave the grounds entirely and walk across the street! At least smokers are getting more exercise than non-smokers as a result of all these restrictions.)

But I have to admit that if (through some fantastically improbable sequence of events), I were to end up standing for political office in the US, gun-control would not be high on my list of priorities. Simply because I don't think it's worth losing votes over it when there are more important issues to deal with (above all, economic ones). It strikes me as an example of the problems you get when nations encompass incompatible cultures.

One reason why I'm happy the UK didn't join Schengren is because a lack of border controls makes it far easier to bring guns into a country. Some of those used in terror attacks in France were just driven there from Eastern Europe, for example.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

This says 1300 per year killed with guns (killed seems an easier-to-define category than injured, so am going with that)

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-gun-deaths-children-20170619-story.html

It seems very difficult to find how many children are killed in pure bicycle accidents, as most sources annoyingly muddle the figure up with motorised vehicle accidents (as a huge proportion of children killed on bikes are in fact killed entirely due to the involvement of a car, so those are car accidents, not bike accidents - the correct figure to compare with the firearm figure would include only those who fell off their bike unassisted with no (moving) motorised vehicle involvement, or who collided with another bike, or a pedestrian, plus child pedestrians killed by bicyclists crashing into them).

But clearly the figure for pure bike accidents is far, far lower than 1300 a year. Given that the total death toll (all age groups, and including what are really car accidents) is only 1000 a year.

So I found what looks to be a little more precise measure for bicycles at least:
https://www.rospa.com/road-safety/advice/pedal-cyclists/facts-figures/
For 0-15 only (unfortunately limited) it's listing 6 killed, 272 seriously injured, 1651 slightly injured. Those numbers are far lower than the cited 1287 killed by firearms from your link, one important fact to point out though is it states later that a full 38% are suicides. Now, without guns, many of those probably wouldn't have been suicides (or at least successful ones) but I feel it warrants at least pointing out. If one were to disclude those 38%, it'd be right around 800. Still a far sight from the numbers of bicycle/skateboard fatalities though, and I'm sure it would be if that 0-15 were extended to 18, or skateboard numbers included.