SubJeff on 25/8/2012 at 12:09

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Actually the countries I lived in Africa at the time were far safer than the US, especially Malawi.

You think it's paranoid to have a gun where others do, I think its common sense.

I have previously wanted all guns banned, yes. But I've changed my opinion and now think that it isn't the answer. This thread reflects that.

I agree. It's why I've changed my attitude to gun ownership.


And I said that a. you don't need to go to a country to know anything about it and b. that the US is so huge I'll wager you know hardly anything about it.

This does not equal "I know more about it than you", they are two separate statements.







nigga please

LarryG on 25/8/2012 at 20:30

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Not my acceptable cost, no no, I ask about American society's acceptable cost. If I could save one life or one injury by giving up my guns I would in a flash. No, for me the interesting question is still how many would be too many for the plurality of the American people?

You can quibble all you want as to whether the 100,000 (approximate) number I have derived as the number of annual fatal and non-fatal injuries is right, and adjust it up or down to correct for whatever factors you wish, but the core question remains. Phrase it as "perceived deaths and injuries" or "net death and injuries" if you prefer, but again I ask: "How many are tolerable before we decide to change the laws?"

To this thread I ask that very uncomfortable uncomfortable question: "How many would you suggest as being too many deaths and injuries for America?"

I begin to suspect that America will tolerate quite a "few" more. (A reminder, we have determined that in terms of human life and limb, "few" is some number greater than 100,000.) I suspect that for a significant and powerful minority there is no upper limit that would justify strong regulation. They consider the right to bear arms worth any cost to society, up to and including the destruction of that society itself, because, perhaps, they see the loss of that right as indicative of a different, but equally terrible, destruction of that society. So that leaves the rest of us. How much perceived, net human harm will get enough of the rest of us sufficiently pissed off about the problem to override the will of that minority?

What is the value seen by society for the protection of a constitutional liberty which has outlived any reasonable purpose? Al Qaeda spent roughly half a million dollars to destroy the World Trade Center and cripple the Pentagon. The attacks resulted in the death of 2,996 people, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 direct victims, including firefighters and police. Weeks after the attack, the death toll was estimated to be over 6,000, more than twice the number of deaths eventually confirmed. But let's not quibble, let's say that 10,000 deaths and injuries were the result of those horrible attacks. That's 1/10 the number of annual deaths and injuries due to firearms. Yet that "few" a number of directly affected people was sufficiently large to change the laws surrounding another constitutional liberty, the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, when Congress also passed the USA PATRIOT Act, saying it would help detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes. We now allow law enforcement to invade the privacy of citizens in its search for domestic terrorists and have eliminated the need for judicial oversight of law enforcement and domestic intelligence when terrorists are the targets. This was passed practically overnight, with little congressional debate. Equivalent weakening of the right to bear arms has never been suggested.

So, it seems that an American citizen killed or injured by a terrorist is worth more than 10 other American citizens when we kill or injure them ourselves.

So forget about the human costs, look at (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/cost-graphic.html) the economic costs. $55 billion in direct damage to buildings and infrastructure. $123 billion in economic disruption across the country. In response to those costs we are projected to spend at least 3.1 trillion dollars to protect ourselves from and exact punishment on Al Qaeda.

Really?? No, that can't be right. We could not justify such a horrible calculus of lives and dollars, not even to ourselves. We could not value those dollars more than our own people. Something else must be going on.

What I think is going on is that the Al Qaeda attacks wounded our pride, and we are a prideful nation. And to us, no cost is too much to pay for regaining our pride. Our constitutional liberties? Throw them away. Our money? Throw our economy into chaos paying for a war machine which has no fixed enemy to fight. Yes, once our pride is on the line, we will do any amount of harm to anybody and anything, including ourselves and our liberties, to protect it.

The thing is, guns don't harm our pride, they buttress it. We are proud of our right to bear arms. Live free or die, that's us. So until firearms damage our pride, I don't think we'll do anything about them.

I just hope that none of my family and friends nor your family and friends are among the price which must be paid before we decide too many have died to protect what is, essentially, a liberty without any modern value and a pride which does us more harm than Al Qaeda ever could.

Aerothorn on 26/8/2012 at 03:34

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How would you know if it's "nearly on the same level" as Africa? By your own logic, you can't comment on Africa because you don't know about it because you (I'm guessing) haven't traveled it extensively (also there's the whole "treating a continent like a a country" thing).

SubJeff on 26/8/2012 at 08:31

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This amuses me. If you re-read your reply to me re:Africa its clear your talking about the dangerous parts of Africa, but if you re-read what you are replying to it's clear I'm talking about safer parts. In fact it's clear I'm talking about a place I consider less dangerous than the USA because of the lack of guns.

Says a lot about you really.

june gloom on 26/8/2012 at 10:03

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Every time I think I'm giving you a hard time you don't deserve you post again. My whole point was that nowhere in America is it ever necessary to have 20 weapons all over the house. That you felt the need to do so in the countries you lived in -- countries that you, apparently, feel are safer than America -- says a lot about the situation in said countries. That you feel the same need to do so should you by some bizarre, unfortunate (for us) circumstance you decide to live here, says more about you than it does about the United States.

Stop posting. This thread is awful and it's your fault.