Drunk driving and guns.

[Whovian]

[Deep13]

1. cars and guns have something else in common...

...I don't touch either one if I had alcohol during the previous 24 hours.

[Whovian]

2. Good on you but back in reality world

Alcohol does a pretty good job on judgment and emotional reactions.

[Deep13]

19. Reality world? Where do you think I live?

Don't essentialize. General categories and and descriptions for masses of people are not very accurate when looking at individuals.

And I know what alcohol does. As a kid, I lived with an alcoholic stepfather for 8 years. Oddly, he was at his worst when he was sober.

Alcohol reduces inhibitions and impairs judgment. A person may think he or she is sharp with a little alcohol, but he isn't. It's highly addictive and has a very low lethal dose.

[libdem4life]

3. The Israeli solution seems like a sensible and civilized weapons policy.

Posted earlier on DU. Good to have a sane policy and process to at least look at. It is possible to have both guns and public safety. We also keep 10,000,000 passengers a day, give or take, safe aboard our airplanes.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israel-rejects-us-gun-lobby-claims-security-18057515

[Whovian]

4. The last Aircraft threat was over a decade ago for any country.

Who is "We?"

[libdem4life]

7. The US. The TSA. A Federal Agency.

There are 100,000 US flights a day with average 100 passengers per flight that are safe because of it. The same needs to happen for the domestic weapons situation now.

[Whovian]

9. Other than 9-11 thare have been virtually no flights

that ended in the deaths of hostages. I can remember many more accidents of military planes causing death than commercial flights. The answer imho lies in getting rid of the problem which n this case is the gun.

[libdem4life]

18. Yes, we agree. Point being we devised a national system to make air passengers safe.

We can do it with guns.

[Recursion]

5. We've also cut gun violence by more than half in 20 years

Actual complex problems rarely have simple solutions.

[Whovian]

6. A straight line

is often the best solution.

[Recursion]

8. What was the straight line that has reduced gun violence so much?

As far as I can tell, our gun laws have been all over the map that time. Why has gun violence consistently gone down?

[Whovian]

10. Like all the school shootings and mass killings?

Sorry. I don't buy your RKBA entrenched logic. Guns are designed to kill people and that's where they excel. They need to be curbed in this nation precisely because of people like you.

[Recursion]

11. Yes, schools are *MUCH* safer than they were 20 years ago

Gun violence in schools is way, way, way down. Yes, including mass shootings.

[GeorgeGist]

12. Has it?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/14/1169385/-CDC-statistics-show-that-gun-violence-is-not-decreasing

[Recursion]

13. In a two-decade window? Significantly

A single-decade time series would have a less clear regression. But, I mean, look at that drop from 96 to 98.

[hack89]

28. Those stats don't specially address gun crime

which is what we have cut in half.

(Note that the number of gun deaths is simply a count of death certificates.)

[Whovian]

14. The straight line that would ban most guns from the hands of the general public.

Eeeew!

[Recursion]

15. I have no idea what that would do

If it ends up like banning drugs has, it's going to kill significantly more people than it saves.

[Whovian]

16. Want to expand a bit on that thought? Are peeps going to grow their own guns?

Drugs kill the users, Guns kill their users perceived enemies. See the difference?

[Recursion]

17. Ask yourself how many people the war on drugs has killed

Whether in fights between illegal sellers or through police enforcement. And once again poor people, especially minorities, will bear the brunt of this.

No, people won't make their own guns, for the most part. Very few make their own drugs. I'm not even sure what a marijuana plant looks like, come to think of it.

[Whovian]

20. Well, if their guns have been confiscated

Let them have at each other with bats or whatever. I doubt many children will be hit by stray swings.

[Recursion]

24. And if confiscating all or even most of the 300,000,000 guns out there were possible...

... it would be worth trying.

[99Forever]

25. But of course!

It can't be perfect, so don't even try!

Never heard that excellent piece of wisdom before. You think that up on your own?

[Recursion]

27. Confiscating some and driving the rest underground

Would make things worse.

I have actually thought my position through, you know.

[99Forever]

29. In case you didn't notice...

... which quite apparently you didn't. I got your message.

Just another one of the same old tired NRA talking points to protect your *precious*.

I absolutely get it, nothing could be clearer.

Repeat ad nausium, it really works wonders.

[Recursion]

30. Nice try; I don't own any guns

So, no precious here. Cheers!

[99Forever]

32. Of course you don't.

None of you people arguing for the mo'gunz solution do.


I SO believe you!

[morningfog]

35. You must get paid by the post, then?

[Deep13]

21. I have to agree that this is a complex problem.

Large scale civilian gun ownership is both a cause of violence and a symptom of it. We are a society that has come to think of violence rather than discourse as a solution to many problems. That's why there are so many "gun nuts" who are stocking up on "survival" gear and waiting for "SHTF" (shit hits the fan, meaning a collapse of civil society). They've given up on society even though we are not actually facing any existential threats (except global warming).

Cultures by definition are self reproducing. In the USA, violent culture is expressed by things like guns, police violence, aggressive foreign policy, callousness in domestic policy, capital punishment, tolerance for poverty even among children, or preferred entertainment forms and others. The attitudes that promote these things also cause people to accept them as normal. The national narrative claims that violence won independence, ended slavery, won the west, defeated fascism and communism.

As Michael Moore noted, Canadians have a lot of guns, but very little violent crime. (They do have strict gun control.) For the most part, Canadians just are not violence people. Similarly, when I was in Jordan last summer, I never felt like I needed some way to protect myself. Civilian firearms are illegal in Jordan. The people do not want or need them in large part because Jordanians just are not violent people. As a tallish, fat, white man, I stuck out like a sore thumb, but there was never even the suggestion of hostility.

[Warren Stupidity]

31. Apparently they are either going to shoot the ocean or the drought,

depending on where they live.

we are not actually facing any existential threats (except global warming).

[Superbot]

22. signs like this are cute

But if we want to seriously combat guns, let's use serious logic people please! These are the type of posts that right wingers will use to laugh at our arguments. We have a serious crises on our hands right now. And we have real reason to stop what is happening.

[Glassunion]

23. Designated shooters?

[cthulu2016]

26. This just doesn't make sense

Driving drunk is a crime.

Owning a gun is not a crime.

Murdering people with a gun is, however, a crime... and we have a total ban on murder just as we have a total ban on drunk driving.

No part of the analogy makes sense.

[Whovian]

33. Not to a gun fetishist. To the rest of the world, maybe so.

[cthulu2016]

34. I doubt gun fetishists are the only people on Earth who can think

1) Anyone who agrees with the slogan in the OP is a frigging idiot. It is senseless. It says nothing about anything... it is a very sad logical dysfunction reduced to bumper-sticker form.

2) You claim that "the rest of the world," defined as non gun fetishists, thinks it makes sense.

3) Either everyone in the world who is not a gun fetishist is a gibbering idiot (unlikely) or your estimation of the situation is flawed.


I realize that you think some good is accomplished by posting nonsensical arguments for gun control, but that is not the case.

Gun control will be brought about by people thinking intelligent thoughts about policy, not by this sort of 2+2=3 nonsense that is absurd on its face to anyone not already in the choir.

We have reduced drunk driving without banning alcohol by criminalizing and strongly enforcing laws against the misuse of alcohol. So there is no gun analogy in sight.

And as for your grandiose assumption that you are in some contest with "gun fetishists," I am pro gun control, do not consider the 2nd Amd a personal right, and have never owned or even fired a gun.

But that does not mean that I am going to jerk around like a fool pretending that nonsensical arguments are wise.

[Angleae]

36. Not to the gun prohibitionists

Most of them seem to believe that there are only two types of people, those who want guns banned and the drooling idiots of the NRA.