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NICE! As much as I hate the right every once in a while they do something good. Apparently now states **must** issue permits to carry a handgun to anyone who requests it unless they have an explicit reason not to (like they have a criminal history)... This makes all states "shall issue" states!
This is great, am really excited to see the #2A being expanded!
https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-guns-decision-second-amendment-new-york-2022-6
@freemo Firstly, this is from last year, it's not new. Secondly, it's based on some bizarre legal theory, creating a legal principle that did not previously exist and does not make sense: specifically, that the state can pass gun control laws only if there is are "historical roots" for the law in question. So it's (again) the court making up the law it wants, rather than the law it's got.
Thirdly though, and most importantly, why is this a good thing? You're a gun nut, I get it, and that's fine - you're a responsible gun owner and all that.* But why does the fact that responsible owners are responsible mean that it's a good thing for everyone to be given a gun for the asking, even if there is no reason to believe they know what they're doing or will be responsible? We don't give cars to people who haven't demonstrated they can drive safely, for the good and sufficient reason that in incompetent hands they're lethal, and cars aren't even designed to be lethal weapons.
*Personally, I don't get why you would have a need to carry a gun in public, and open carry in particular is physically intimidating to others in the same way that walking around with a large and aggressive dog is. So I must say I think it's particularly anti-social. But that's not a safety issue, merely a courtesy one.
@VoxDei "The right to bear arms shall not be infringed"... very clearly denying a gun to people without any reason is infringing on ones right to bear arms.
Has nothing to do with if your a gun nut or not, has more to do with if your honest about what the law very clearly says.
@freemo A license requiring you know what you're doing and know how to be responsible in no way infringes on the right to bear arms.
@VoxDei Yes, it does. It creates a complex scheme governed by an indifferent at best / adversarial at worst bureaucracy that prevents prospective victims from acquiring a firearm to protect themselves in time-sensitive situations. There exists no shortage of cases in which this has happened.
Do I share your sentiment that everyone who owns a firearm ought to be trained and experienced? Oh, most assuredly. Everyone in the 2A crowd would ardently agree with you. We merely don't believe it should be used as a mechanism to dissuade one from acquiring or deny someone a firearm they need immediately.
@ihavenopeopleskills @freemo I would take issue with the idea that anyone (certainly any significant number of people, there may be edge cases) genuinely needs a gun immediately for legitimate purposes. Even more so if you exclude reasons that aren't caused by the wide availability of firearms in the first place - I'm much less likely to feel I need one to protect myself if the likely threat doesn't have one. Moreover the 2a protects the right to bear arms, not to be able to obtain one instantly.
> I would take issue with the idea that anyone (certainly any significant number of people, there may be edge cases) genuinely needs a gun immediately for legitimate purposes.
Once you put enough adjectives in front of something anything becomes a minority of the whole...
* genuine
* need
* immediate
*legitimate
* purpose
I mean sure ... lots of people have some combination of those 5 properties and not all 5 at once. The point? Someone with legitimate purpose, but it may not be immediate shouldnt have a gun because their need is "some unknown point in the future"?
> Even more so if you exclude reasons that aren't caused by the wide availability of firearms in the first place
That is a fallacy of statistical understanding, but lets not get off into that tangent....
> I'm much less likely to feel I need one to protect myself if the likely threat doesn't have one.
Not really, we have 3d printers that can make guns now, including fully automatic... One guy on youtube made a fully automatic gun in a few minutes by swleding together random parts from a bed frame.
Guns are trivial to obtain out of thin air, the idea that you think the other guy wont have a gun simply because you told him he couldnt doesnt track with the reality we are in, maybe 30 years ago, not now.
> Moreover the 2a protects the right to bear arms, not to be able to obtain one instantly.
No it doesnt simply "protect the right to bear arms".. it makes all infringement against ones ability to bear arms illegal. If you are denying me my right to bear arms in the hear and now, and dont even promise me the right in a few days, that is most certainly within the definition of an infringement.
Yeah, but the argument made was that a license prevents someone who needs a gun immediately from getting one. My point is why would you need a gun immediately? There might be one or two edge cases, but I suspect they'll be very small numbers of occurrences. I would say preventing people from getting guns immediately is a net *good* thing - it'll prevent a lot of suicides, for a start, way more than lives it'll ever save because someone could obtain a gun on an hour's notice.
Guns are *not* trivial to obtain out of thin air. 3D-printed guns are not common. I live in the UK, we have strong gun laws, you don't find that people have a secret 3D-printed gun hidden in a cupboard just in case they need to shoot someone. Yes, fine, hardened criminals might have one, but that's the case now - if you're determined to get an illegal weapon, you can, it doesn't make them widespread and it doesn't mean that Joe Average needs a gun and needs one right now (but with a long enough delay to nip down to the shops and come back with a gun).
I'm not denying you your "right" to bear arms (scare quotes because I don't understand why anywhere bestows that right in the first place, and the 2a explicitly says that it's related to the requirement for a "well-regulated militia", which is never considered in the legal arguments). But none of the constitutional rights is absolute. The first amendment, for instance, does not allow you to say anything to anyone at any time. If I go around saying "person X is a rapist" for example, if I can't prove it I get sued for slander, I can't say "Oh but the first amendment, I can say what I want whether it's true or not". Imposing a requirement on gun ownership to prove that you have some basic competence via a licensing scheme does not infringe your rights. Moreover, the 2fa bestows a "right to keep and bear arms", not to walk around with assault weapons - it would be within the meaning of the 2fa if the government said "You can have this one type of gun" - you would have a right to keep arms and to bear them. I realise that American jurisprudence, especially from the point of view of the current Supreme Court that barely pays lip service to the actual law, disagrees with that, but that doesn't change what I think the law actually says.
> Yeah, but the argument made was that a license prevents someone who needs a gun immediately from getting one. My point is why would you need a gun immediately? There might be one or two edge cases, but I suspect they’ll be very small numbers of occurrences. I
I dunno, I know you well enough to know your arguing in good faith, but if I didnt know that I would think this was intentionally dishonest.
For starters, no, the only argument against licening is not an immediate need. Generally the argument against it is five fold:
1) the 2A is very clear that all infringement against gun ownership is illegal (thought he supreme court has ruled in ways contrary to this text in the past). If you want to place reasonable infringements on gun ownership, thats fine, but get it added as a constitutional ammendment then as the law would require
2) Licensing means some way is needed to verify the license in real time against a database. This means any licensing would act indirectly as a gun registry and would open up the potential for gun owners to be targeted and abused and ultimately disarmed in unjust ways or make rising up against the government a virtual impossibility as everyone is pre-identified.
3) Licensing can be abused to deny people access to guns unfairly. In an ideal system the training is obtainable by everyone who puts in the time. But in reality licensing can be denied, and the fear is potentially for unjust reasons.
4) It divides access to a right by class... While guns themselves can be very cheap, and even made at home practically for free, licensing may be arbitrary expensive and prohibitive. This will push access to this right further towards the rich and block it from the poor.. Rights should be availible to all.. We could fix this by making all licensing paid for by public programs... but no one would allow that.
5) And of course the point you point out which is also very much a valid point... if your life is in immediate danger you may need a gun now.
Now as to how much of an edge case the immediate need is.. I mean I dont care if its 1%, these people need them to save their lives.. but its likely a lot higher than you think... Most people who buy them recently had someone threaten to kill or rape them, and that happens quite often... I have been pro-gun my whole life, never bothered to buy one till the mob said they would kill me... The two girls I know who carry, the only two, carry specifically because they broke up with an abusive BF who threatened to hurt and rape them... These arent edge cases, they are quite common I am sure (though I couldnt find actual numbers on it).
> Guns are not trivial to obtain out of thin air. 3D-printed guns are not common. I live in the UK, we have strong gun laws, you don’t find that people have a secret 3D-printed gun hidden in a cupboard just in case they need to shoot someone. Yes, fine, hardened criminals might have one, but that’s the case now - if you’re determined to get an illegal weapon, you can, it doesn’t make them widespread and it doesn’t mean that Joe Average needs a gun and needs one right now (but with a long enough delay to nip down to the shops and come back with a gun).
How is it not trivial when any 3d printer off a shelf can print on in a short period of time and then I have a gun... It is trivial. The fact that people dont bother to print them in the UK may be true, but that isnt due to it not being trivial, its still trivial, people just may not choose to.
> I’m not denying you your “right” to bear arms (scare quotes because I don’t understand why anywhere bestows that right in the first place, and the 2a explicitly says that it’s related to the requirement for a “well-regulated militia”, which is never considered in the legal arguments)
No it does nothing of the sort, and this is quite obvious to anyone reading the text in a way that is honest and objective. Furthermore the forefathers who authored the line themselves you are misrepresented have very clearly clarified that it doesnt mean what you are saying it means... Lets look at that.
First here is the exact text:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The part about a well regulated militia is called a exemplary clause, it is not a qualifying clause.. in other words its meant to give an example of one reason why the right is so important, not intended as a limitation.
First this is just obvious on the surface.. You can test this and get it past your biases by using a less controversial topic but of the same format. Take the following phhase
"An effective congress, being neccessary to the security of a free state, the right to democratic vote shall not be infringed"
Would this imply only congress gets to vote? Or that voting is only protected when voting from congress members? Of course not. Anyone reading that (or the original) can clearly see that they are explaining one reason the right is needed, and not saying the right is only exercised in that scope.
Now even if you do argue, as I said the authors of the 2A themselves have very clearly stated that it applied to **all** people and not just an organized militia, so all doubt is completely removed regarding the argument your making:
I have made posts on this where I listed like a dozen quotes from the founding fathers proving this.. I will leave the most direct here, there are more if you need it:
“I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” — Founding Father, George Mason, co-author of the Second Amendment.
> The first amendment, for instance, does not allow you to say anything to anyone at any time. If I go around saying “person X is a rapist” for example, if I can’t prove it I get sued for slander, I can’t say “Oh but the first amendment, I can say what I want whether it’s true or not”.
No you can say or do anything.. it is just if what you say or do causes harm then you have to pay for it.
Your analogy applied to guns would only work if gun owners were claiming the #2A gave them a right to go around killing people because if they cant kill people it would infringe ont heir right to own a gun... no, killing people can be illegal even if ownign a gun is legal...
Similarly I can say whatever I want... Simply speaking is never illegal in and of itself.. However if that speech harms someone then yes, that harm can potentially be illegal. Just as no one can stop me from owning a gun, but how I use that gun, if it causes harm, can be illegal.
@freemo I have no time to read all the toots, but IMHO, for certain themes like guns, illegal drugs, alcoholics, prostitution, etc... one should compare the effects of different rules in different nations, for deciding the best approach.
For example if gun regulamentation is effective in reducing a lot the crimes, then it can be a good thing, despite there can be cases of person affected in negative by this limitation.
If buying drugs in a regular way reduce the profit of criminal cartels and the health impact on society, why not?
etc...
Summing up: a nation should do the contrary of USA: public health-care system; legal drugs; prohibition of guns. 🙂
Agreed, but you have to be careful to do it right.
For example this mentality is exactly what lead to my stance on gun-rights. The fact that virtually every state and nation, when banning guns, saw a **huge** spike in homicides and/or violent crimes in the 5 - 10 years following before those numbers sometimes go down but almost never reach pre-ban levels or below again... that pattern clearly shows that other nations banning guns has had a very harmful effect.
Obviously we can take one step further and also look at wars and falls of nations... in virtually every case a nation with a dictator was limited to countries where people were unarmed either in the past, or during the rise of the dictator.
Hitler is often cited as an example of this, there was a massive disarmenment of Europe in most countries (including germany) following WWI and surprise surprise, after the decade or so it took to get rid of guns Hitler pops up almost immediately.
They told me that Canada has a lot less murders by gun respect USA, because they have also more controls on the license.
Excerpt from this link:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/06/americas/canada-deadly-gun-violence/index.html
> For a decade, there were about five murders per year in Canada with three or more victims, according to the country’s national statistics agency.
> For one, Canadian law requires citizens to undergo robust background checks and mandatory training before obtaining a gun license.
> Reasons for license denials or revocations have included mental health concerns, potentially being a threat to oneself or others, court orders, and lying on license applications.
Is this article wrong? Apparently the only logical conclusion is that the Canada way is better than the USA way. Were am I wrong?
> They told me that Canada has a lot less murders by gun respect USA, because they have also more controls on the license.
As a professional statistician I can tell you you just got into the territory of "bad science" using objectively bad analysis that would be rejected immediately by any math-literate (statistics) scientist for good reason.
We are trying to show causation, to do that you need to show a cause being **followed** by an event... you cant compare two countries that have hundreds of millions of influencing factors and say "look this country has less crime and no guns its related!" no, thats just no better than a lie, a well intentioned one, but a lie... There are far far too many factors for you to even suspect or hint at any one cause.
In fact even if you could directly establish correlation this does nothing to address post hox ergo procter hoc fallacy... which is the cause and which is the effect... Does high crime rate cause people to want to legalize guns, or does legalizing guns cause high criem rate.. if the correlation is valid either direction of causation would likewise be valid, so you still did absolutely nothing to even **hint** at a causation here.
This is why i choose my wording carefully. What we do see, and what does actually tell us causation, is that when guns are banned (the cause) in the 5 - 10 years that **follow** (the effect) homicide and violent act rates sky rocket through the roof in almost all cases. They also almost never recover to below pre-ban rates... at best they settle slightly above pre-ban rates, at worse they remain quite higher.
> Is this article wrong? Apparently the only logical conclusion is that the Canada way is better than the USA way. Were am I wrong?
The specific facts of the article may be right.. but as per above this isnt even **suggestive** of a cause-effect relationship between guns and deaths.
In fact you only have to look at the numbers.... Significant hand gun bans in canada were enacted in 1966 with bill C-150 .. these banned many types of guns and got quite a few guns, particularly hand guns used in self defense, off the streets.
What was the result to homicide rate? well lets look at a chart...
Well look at that, the homicide rate goes through the roof, doubling for about a decade (just as i suggest)... and while it does start to decrease eventually it never falls below pre-ban levels... meaning a lot of peopel died over very very many decades due to this policy.
@freemo ok interesting: the homicide levels increased.
But in this chart
https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_083892.pdf also
USA had a massive spike in homicides rates. More than Canada. And the USA not banned guns.
Maybe you are correct, but I had to study a lot of stats, before being sure.
You said that in 1966, after the introduction of ban on guns in Canada, the homicide rate increased. And that it is the usual effect of these type of bans.
I noted that in Canada the rate were increasing from 1960, so prior to the ban of gun. It reached a peak on 1977.
1.28 homicide each 100k citizen in 1960; 1.41 in 1965; 3.0 in 1977.
Meanwhile in USA, from 4 of 1960 to 11 of 1977.
So one can derive, instead, that in these years the homicide rate increased both in USA and Canada, despite Canada introduced bans.
For sure, it seems that the ban of guns in Canada did not influenced the homicide rate. So my initial thesis is not so much convincing now. But your thesis about the increasing as consequence of the ban, is not completely validated, by these stats alone, because there were a similar increasing also in USA.
> I noted that in Canada the rate were increasing from 1960, so prior to the ban of gun. It reached a peak on 1977.
Incorrect. See the attached chart which pulls the start date of the chart back a bit to 1960. You can clearly see the trend was wobbling with no clear up or down trend. It is only on the exact date of the bill we see the rates increasing sharply and noticeably.
In fact from 1960 to 1966 the homicide rate **decreased** slightly overall, not increased. Then in a single year after 1966 it increased by a HUGE margin.
> 1.28 homicide each 100k citizen in 1960; 1.41 in 1965; 3.0 in 1977.
We call this cherry picking, noticed the dates you picked were completely arbitrary (1960, 1965, 1977).. which has no relationship to the dates discussed.
Now take a look at the chart... you really going to tell me you dont see an abrupt rate change at 1967?
I took my data from "Statistics Canada"
I saw them only in number, but if I use your chart view (that is compatible with the numbers of my link), I agree with this last your message. The spike is clear.
My analysis was wrong because I saw only the numbers, not the charts. My fault.
Remain the fact that also in USA in the same period there were a similar increase.
Maybe the law introduced in 1966 does not affect the already sold guns, but only the new guns.
I know you try to argue in good faith, so that is a fair mistake to make.
> Remain the fact that also in USA in the same period there were a similar increase.
Yea... guess what, thats because a huge gun ban took place at the same date in the USA (something I just chcked and remembered, i had forgot before).
That date in the USA is the day that the definition of a "machine gun" was expanded and fully automatic guns were completely banned. It also banned **all** guns that dont have a "sprorting purpose" which caused many of our guns to be banned... Some of this was later repealed thankfully...
But yea you just proved my point, you went "wow look there is a huge spike here in the united states see it cant be due to gun bans".... and you literally are pointing at exactly the moment of the biggest gun ban in american history on a national level... QED, by accident, but QED
@mzan @freemo @VoxDei @ihavenopeopleskills
> Guns are effectively banned in certain local govts in the US. (Although recent SCOTUS decisions have been reducing the extent of local restrictions.) It would be instructive to see where those US homicides occur (and being careful to exclude justified homicide, i.e. self defense). As a cherry picked example, Chicago is known for both gun control and homicides. An actual survey would be more instructive.
There is absolutely no doubt a proper formal analysis would be better... Sadly this is one issue that has such strong biases you will find it will be very hard to do and just trust.. would require an individual who is an expert in Data Science to evaluate it as you cant expect peer review to succeed with such a strong bias on an issue at play... not to say we shouldnt do peer review, but good luck seeing sane results.
That said I have before shared the data regarding chicago in the past (it is attached here) and you do see a very similar spike... this pattern is just so obvious its hard to miss with any example.
as motivation of gun-ban, I remember having read in some place that the differences between homicide rate in USA and Canada nearby cities were very different, and in favor of Canada.
During this discussion I tried to compare Detroit and Toronto, but there were no big differences. Rather similar.
Then I found a comparison between a big USA city and a rather smaller Canadian city, and it is not fair comparing two different type of communities.
Your data is rather convincing, in the sense that now I have doubts. So one more reason for not believing the media, without double-checking.
For turning completely my mind, I need obviously to research more data, because stats can lie, also if taken in good faith. But initially, I believed that stats were completely in favor of the ban, but this does not seem the case anymore.
> as motivation of gun-ban, I remember having read in some place that the differences between homicide rate in USA and Canada nearby cities were very different, and in favor of Canada.
Yup, you've gotten back to leaning into your post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy and cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallace.
This observation is in no way a relevant data point to this conversation as it represents a classic logical fallacy in analysis and is invalid as a talking point.
> During this discussion I tried to compare Detroit and Toronto, but there were no big differences. Rather similar.
Since this is a known and established fallacy, explained earlier... why are you comparing them? I explained clearly any valid analysis will have to fall within a class of causality tests... you arent doing that, you are leaning into **known** fallacies in the hopes it will create a counter argument despite being invalid regardless of if you found similar values or not.
> Then I found a comparison between a big USA city and a rather smaller Canadian city, and it is not fair comparing two different type of communities.
As pointed out it is invalid regardless
> Your data is rather convincing, in the sense that now I have doubts. So one more reason for not believing the media, without double-checking.
I am glad you have doubts and im glad you are investigating and not just accepting my word, thats a good thing... But your "checking" is born out of not understanding valid statistical analysis... While you dont have to beleive my data, as a data scientist expert you should at least beleive me when i describe the way we do analysis and why (hopefully it makes sense) and then use that understanding and analyze it that way.
Here is what I suggest.. Write down 10 random countries that has banned guns at some point. Pull up both the homicide and violent rate charts for eachm be careful to make sure it is **all** homicides and violent acts and not just ones involving a gun (since the argument for guns is preventative)... now on that chart, before looking at the history, circle all the points where you see the trends ""significantly** change from a downward r flat trend to a upward trend over several years... Then go search for "<country> gun prohibition history" and find any site that gives you a timeline of major gun prohibitions in that country.... Look at the list and see if any items on the list line up with the dates you circled, and then from the context ask yourself if it was a significant gun ban in the history, usually a country only has one or two major confiscations till no guns are left...
Then when your done look at how often the patterns line up and how often they dont.. then draw your own conclusion.
@mzan
> sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_083892.pdf also
>
> USA had a massive spike in homicides rates. More than Canada. And the USA not banned guns.
uhhh what are you even arguing for here?
That would be like this conversation:
Scientist: "We see the death rate in every country increases once COVID-19 is introduced intot he country. Therefore we can conclude COVID-19 will increase the mortality rate of the country"
You: "But look, this one time in solenea we see the death rate increased and there were no COVID cases in the whole country... this makes your argument very suspicious, maybe COVID doesnt kill people"
The logic makes no sense... the fact that a pattern is born out and consistent is not invalidated simply because things other than guns can and have influenced these rates in the past... thats the very reason we look at multiple examples (and why i looked at every country in europe and around the world not just one)... its also why we use cause-effect tests and not correlation, to ensure we are limiting our scope to events related to guns and not other potential unrelated causes.
> Maybe you are correct, but I had to study a lot of stats, before being sure.
As well you should... But at least for the moment given the facts that have been presented in this thread, I think its clear my point is the one that is reasoned and fact based... that may change if you have new evidence, but clearly this evidence points to only one conclusion an objective person could make based on what we have said so far and argued.
@VoxDei @ihavenopeopleskills