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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Oh, I knew what I was getting into. I'm Australian so I have very limited knowledge on America and its politics, actually I get most of my news about America from Daily Show/Colbert Report so it's interesting to get these segments where I have actually learned more about the gun debate in America than anywhere else because anywhere else people come off as 'gun nuts'. I hope you don't do a segment or a corner just because you think "So many people know about this" because that's dumb.
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Mar 6, 2014 01:54
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Forgive me for taking my own venting tangent here. You know what really bothers me about the gun debate in America? The way that mass shootings dominate the landscape of discussion. They get most of the the media coverage and elicit virtually all the discussion, but should they? How many people have died in mass shootings between 1982 and 2013? 539 by my count (I got that from Mother Jones but I couldn't get the chart to sum so I might have added it up wrong. Please forgive me if I am off.) How many people die of firearms homicides in general? Well, according to the CDC (page 19), 11,101 people died of gun homicides in 2011. Now, I couldn't find a listing of gun homicides per year, but I found this chart which lists the gun deaths for 1979-2003 and 2010, which presumably includes accidents and suicides. (Not sure why there's a gap.) For the sake of argument, I will assume the amount of homicides is the same ratio to the deaths as they were in 2011 (in which about .34 of deaths are homicides). I know this isn't ideal, but it's the best I can do. Between 1982 - 2003 & 2010, 765,635 people died of firearms deaths (not necessarily homicides). Multiply that into the ratio we're using and that leaves us with 260,315 firearms homicide in 3-ish decades. Compare that to the 539 people killed in mass shootings. That is one in 482, about two-tenths of one percent. The comparative difference between the two is greater than comparing the area of Alaska to Rhode Island. I know my numbers aren't perfect. We can call the specifics into debate. Regardless, I think it's safe to say that mass shootings are a vanishingly small minority of actual gun homicides in America. And yet, they are the most vociferous part of the debate. Please do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to minimize any tragedy. I just want people to understand that America has a real problem with gun violence and gun deaths, and focusing on the mass shootings is not the solution. We need to soberly understand the whole picture if we want to face this. Keep in mind, I say this as a person who is personally pro-gun rights.
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Mar 6, 2014 03:29
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Magnetic North posted:people focus on mass shootings It's because they're dramatic, provoke strong emotional reactions, and are sensational enough to make the evening news. It's kind of similar to how in the late 1800's workers regularly died in factories all the time, but in small numbers, and nobody really made a deal of it until stuff like dramatic fires where women jumped to their death rather than burn happened. We don't hear about many of the small scale homicides because they aren't dramatic enough to sell, and those we do tend to be either politically charged(Zimmerman) or forgotten just as fast as they pop up(30s local news blurbs). Because we remember the mass shootings, they take up the argument space.
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Mar 6, 2014 03:39
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Red_October_7000 posted:And your ordinary plinker is the guy you don't want to piss off since if he, who never hurts anything beyond pieces of paper and tin cans, is made to go through yet another hoop before he can buy his Buckmark and his case of .22, he'll get out and vote. Any kind of check would basically not even target collectors or hobbyists. Its basically the same kind of process you get whenever you apply for a job. There's already a great deal of bureaucracy as it is when it comes to guns anyway, so I think most gun owners can weather a little more inconveniencing. But, I can see why you would have a defensive attitude towards legislation since the 2nd amendment was drafted to be inclusive. Red_October_7000 posted:If you want my honest opinion I think anyone should be able to have whatever guns they like provided they can prove that they won't be a huge threat to the public. In my mind that entails a good course on firearms safety and specific instructions in the type of gun they want, so that they don't shoot themselves in the foot cleaning it and so that if they ever have to use it for defense they don't gently caress up and shoot innocents by accident. I'd go so far as to put firearms safety into the school curriculum, just as I'd put driving. Let's face it, The USA is a country founded on a revolution by force of arms, and even though it's been almost 225 years, that notion isn't going to go away, nor are our guns. We should accept as much and make sure that our citizens can be safe with them. This is an interesting approach, because it puts the onus upon merchants. If you purchase a gun, they give you a course and a little card (like CPR-trained cards) you can use for later purchases. It would also end shady gun show shenanigans. Red_October_7000 posted:I will say there are definitely people who just shouldn't own guns, but honestly I wouldn't trust most of them with a long piece of string. Most people, if provided with adequate mental health care and a society that actually gives a poo poo about them, would never turn to violence except in situations where most everyone would do so. Any effort applied at trying to needlessly restrict firearms ownership would certainly be better spent in addressing the social problems that cause people to become violently anti-social in the first place. Think of it this way -if you were given a Genie who would grant wishes, and you wished away all the guns, you would still have a society full of violence and suffering. If you wished away mental disease, poverty, and social strife, you could give away machine pistols in cereal boxes and have less violence than we have today, and a number of benefits that cannot be achieved through gun control. Of course we have no wishing lamp and must make do with the ordinary mechanisms of government and society. I am simply of the opinion that if we want a better society, with less of the ills brought by uncalled-for violence, that we should direct our efforts towards treating the underlying issues that cause people to turn to violence, rather than the instruments with which violence is wrought, mostly because those issues cause exponentially more suffering than is brought about by those who lash out violently with firearms. It's true a better safety net would be more effective than total prohibition, but I don't know which is more likely to happen in America, and the problem remains.
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Mar 6, 2014 03:56
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Fruits of the sea posted:I would like to agree with this stance in principle, but I don't think there is any point at which using a firearm can be used without regard for the consequences. Bullets can penetrate multiple walls and people, miss or hit something entirely different and bereaved and wounded can sue. There's also the ethical dilemma behind injuring or killing someone. That's a lot of responsibility for a person presumably in mortal terror, and in those circumstances it makes some sense for the law to provide a set of rules inside of which a firearm may be used. The music guy is going to be hosed if a jury doesn't believe he was acting reasonably, and shooting into a retreating vehicle should gently caress him regardless, as that's obviously not justified. Stand-your-ground doesn't mean anything here. e: and with fabulous timing, I just stumbled into how he's already hosed and waiting to be hosed further, so hurray. Agent Interrobang posted:This is not even getting into the issue that the law is very... selectively enforced. Look up the case of Marissa Alexander, a black woman who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for firing a warning shot at her husband, while he was actively beating her. When she tried to use Stand Your Ground as a defense in her retrial, it got flatly denied. If Stand Your Ground is not serving its purpose or being enforced in a situation like that, which is absolutely the situation it is intended to cover, what precisely is the purpose of the law EXCEPT to promote escalation of violence? Tiggum posted:Yeah, and Penn & Teller: Bullshit! is also also a comedy show that presents particular arguments, and neither one should be taken as an unbiased presentation of objective fact. They're comedy shows, their primary purpose is to be entertaining. They're not intended to be or presented as objective. It and The Daily Show present opposite side of this argument, and if you take either one as being the absolute truth then you're wrong, but that doesn't mean they're not both entertaining and worth watching. I linked the Daily Show bit and not the Penn & Teller bit because I had seen the Daily Show bit more recently. In the interest of balance, here's the Penn & Teller bit. OG17 fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Mar 6, 2014 |
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Mar 6, 2014 04:09
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OG17 posted:And I don't understand how people are criticizing subjectivity about when you can use a gun, as "when you believe you're going to be killed/raped/etc. if you don't" seems like the best and only possible solution. You still have authorities decide if circumstances objectively justified that belief, it's not like people just say they were scared and then get to home. Didn't "Black people are inherently scary, and dangerous to whites" end up being enough to let someone get away with killing a black teen half a year ago or so? OG17 posted:Though stand-your-ground very obviously can't be used for "warning shots," as if you're shooting at nothing instead of shooting at the threat to your life it's a pretty self-evident confession that you didn't think there actually was a threat to your life This is absolutely insane. A law that actually punishes you for taking a less-than-lethal approach?  And where do you get the idea that firing a warning shot means the shooter didn't think there was a threat to their life? I have no idea if I'd be willing to shoot another human being, even if they were trying to kill me. But I would certainly be able to fire a warning shot in hope of scaring them away.OG17 posted:I don't know why you're conflating "persuasion piece" with "unbiased objective fact" but the Daily Show piece is garbage because it uses garbage arguments, which is a fatal blow when your entire piece is an argument (with jokes!). And one of us is very bad at television if you think Bullshit isn't explicitly trying to promote Penn and Teller's viewpoints, just like Daily Show opinion bits promote those of their own writers. I'm starting to think that your avatar and redtext are well deserved.
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Mar 6, 2014 04:21
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Magnetic North posted:Forgive me for taking my own venting tangent here. You know what really bothers me about the gun debate in America? The way that mass shootings dominate the landscape of discussion. They get most of the the media coverage and elicit virtually all the discussion, but should they? This sort of thing is why I suggest change that targets the underlying problems that make people want to kill for socially unacceptable reasons. Mass shootings are terrible, yes, but they amount to nothing. It's really sad that countries like England and Australia have put in place really tight gun laws after mass shootings as knee-jerk reactions. Not just because lots of ordinary law-abiding folks were denied the enjoyment and security they extracted from gun ownership, but because it fools the public into thinking they are safer for it, fools them into thinking they have helped when they haven't helped at all. The knee-jerkers usually love to focus on the types of guns used for the shootings, usually military type weapons and machine guns. Lots of people like to collect these and shoot them for fun, but in actual fact they are essentially never used in "ordinary" crimes. Since the National Firearms Act came into force in the 30s, I think one lawfully held machine gun has been used to commit a homicide, and that was by a policeman who improperly shot a fleeing subject. Most such weapons are too big and bulky to be handy for typical crime, and they're always expensive whether you buy them legally or not. But they're big and flashy and easy for politicians to point at and say "Bad!" And of course people care way more about looking like they're doing something rather than doing something, so going after guns of one sort or another is popular because it's easy, and that appeals. Nobody wants to sit down and chew on the hard issues of societal problems and mental health shortfalls that causes people to end up in such dire situations that they feel that using force of arms on some undeserving random innocent is their only way out. Frogfingers, if I had my way we'd have sensible gun laws. Take a course for the kind of gun you want, get your certificate, then buy and shoot to your heart's content. Only the necessary hoops to jump through to ensure that nobody with a history of violent crime or uncontrolled mental disease gets guns. No crazy poo poo about magazines that hold so many bullets or how you can't have a suppressor or a bayonet lug or the barrel can only be so short or long or what kind of a stock it can have. Just two checks, basically, "Is this person OK to have guns of any sort?" and "Has he reliably proven that he knows how to use this particular gun?" As to safety net versus prohibition, two salient facts to chew on: Guns are easy to make, really. The Sten SMG from WWII was designed to be made in a bicycle shop. Now we're seeing 3D-printed guns, and while they're laughable now, how long before you can print out a serviceable little automatic, even a battle rifle? So you simply can't get rid of all guns. The safety net will address so many other problems we, as a society, experience and suffer from. So which to work for? The un-attainable, or that which helps all and in many ways.
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Mar 6, 2014 04:21
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OG17 posted:I don't know why you're conflating "persuasion piece" with "unbiased objective fact" but the Daily Show piece is garbage because it uses garbage arguments, which is a fatal blow when your entire piece is an argument (with jokes!). And one of us is very bad at television if you think Bullshit isn't explicitly trying to promote Penn and Teller's viewpoints, just like Daily Show opinion bits promote those of their own writers. I don't know why you think I'm conflating "persuasion piece" with "unbiased objective fact" or what the hell you're talking about. 
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Mar 6, 2014 04:32
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Tiggum posted:Yeah, and Penn & Teller: Bullshit! is also also a comedy show that presents particular arguments, and neither one should be taken as an unbiased presentation of objective fact. They're comedy shows, their primary purpose is to be entertaining. They're not intended to be or presented as objective. It and The Daily Show present opposite side of this argument, and if you take either one as being the absolute truth then you're wrong, but that doesn't mean they're not both entertaining and worth watching. I linked the Daily Show bit and not the Penn & Teller bit because I had seen the Daily Show bit more recently. In the interest of balance, here's the Penn & Teller bit. OG17 posted:I don't know why you're conflating "persuasion piece" with "unbiased objective fact" but the Daily Show piece is garbage because it uses garbage arguments, which is a fatal blow when your entire piece is an argument (with jokes!). And one of us is very bad at television if you think Bullshit isn't explicitly trying to promote Penn and Teller's viewpoints, just like Daily Show opinion bits promote those of their own writers. So glad you agree, then.
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Mar 6, 2014 04:45
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Going to interrupt the gun control discussion to say this LP got me to play Deus Ex beyond training for the first time. I have negative skill with FPS games, but it's got me interested enough that I'm fuddling through and having fun in the process. Thanks, Bobbin!
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Mar 6, 2014 05:29
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my dad posted:This is absolutely insane. A law that actually punishes you for taking a less-than-lethal approach? This is because a firearm is always assumed to be a lethal weapon, and that if you have the time and ability to intentionally miss a shot, you are not being threatened enough to justify a response with deadly force. Further, that shot you intentionally missed? That bullet is going to land somewhere, and it might hit a bystander, especially in a stressful situation where you don't have a steady aim. A pretty substantial overview can be found here.
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Mar 6, 2014 05:38
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fool_of_sound posted:This is because a firearm is always assumed to be a lethal weapon, and that if you have the time and ability to intentionally miss a shot, you are not being threatened enough to justify a response with deadly force. Further, that shot you intentionally missed? That bullet is going to land somewhere, and it might hit a bystander, especially in a stressful situation where you don't have a steady aim. A pretty substantial overview can be found here. I'm just going to add to this that in Minneapolis a young boy in his own home was killed when a stray bullet passed through the wall. Twice.
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Mar 6, 2014 06:00
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As far as firing a warning shot being a bad idea....my dad posted:This is absolutely insane. A law that actually punishes you for taking a less-than-lethal approach? Then don't carry a gun. Under no circumstances is the presentment of a firearm in a hostile situation anything other than a declaration of lethal intent. The idea of a less-than-lethal approach does not exist in this context. There are nonlethal options available to you that do not involve owning/carrying a firearm. Someone who feels threatened enough to draw a handgun, and fires it at anything other than the threat is in fact being grossly irresponsible. Either the situation merits lethal force, and you shoot (or are prepared to shoot, in case of an immediate surrender), or the situation doesn't merit lethal force, and the weapon should never be drawn. A gun is a dangerous tool, with potentially lethal consequences for mishandling or abuse, but it is still a tool and the operator is responsible for using it in appropriate circumstances. If you (in the general sense, not you specifically) do not feel like you would be capable of properly using the tool appropriately, the correct response is to use a different tool that you can properly handle (such as a taser, or pepper spray, or a pair of running shoes). Also it bears mentioning that the vast majority of gun control legislation disproportionately discriminates against poor and minority populations, as well as a strikingly large majority of gun-related crime being committed with illegally obtained firearms. Once you add in the ridiculous shenanigans that have been attempted through linguistic gymnastics on the subject, it's easy to understand why those in favor of gun ownership distrust any perceived restriction on gun ownership from the anti-gun crowd. So I'd like to hear the explanations for a couple of things, from the pro-gun control and pro-gun ownership perspectives. You can consider this an exercise for the reader, or homework for those of you still in school. Don't worry, it won't take very long considering the volume of literature on the subject. 1.) An explanation of the so-called "gun show loophole", because I feel it would be instructive. 2.) The definition of what, precisely, constitutes an "assault weapon". I recommend including the definition of an "assault rifle" and explaining how it relates to the definition of an "assault weapon". 3.) The reasoning for the recent attempt to label magazines that hold more than 10 rounds as "high-capacity", regardless of whether or not the historical standard capacity for magazines of any given weapon exceeded 10 rounds. 4.) An objective look (as much as possible) at the differences and requirements to purchase a firearm vs purchase a car, in your local state of residence. Cite your sources.
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Mar 6, 2014 06:01
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Tiggum posted:I don't know why you think I'm conflating "persuasion piece" with "unbiased objective fact" or what the hell you're talking about.  I actually read your post over a bunch, sorry if I still messed it up! my dad posted:Didn't "Black people are inherently scary, and dangerous to whites" end up being enough to let someone get away with killing a black teen half a year ago or so?  DEUS EX DERAIL Bobbin, you're still carrying around that pump shotgun (riot gun?) - do you think it's a good weapon, or is it just a curiosity? Will it get regular use, and would you replace it with the assault shotgun? To me shotguns seemed limited and redundant against squishy stuff and their alt-ammo pretty weak against anything but cameras, but I also like the assault rifle a lot so maybe we're on different wavelengths.
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Mar 6, 2014 06:08
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OG17 posted:
The sawed-off shotgun has better damage, accuracy, recoil, reload speed, and takes up one less space than the assault shotgun, but its clip size of 4 and slow-as-hell firing speed are crippling. I'll be upgrading as soon as it's possible. As for its use, I find that sabot rounds are safer than explosives when fighting off spider bots. I don't often use buckshot, though.
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Mar 6, 2014 06:26
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OG17 posted:Bobbin, you're still carrying around that pump shotgun (riot gun?) - do you think it's a good weapon, or is it just a curiosity? Will it get regular use, and would you replace it with the assault shotgun? To me shotguns seemed limited and redundant against squishy stuff and their alt-ammo pretty weak against anything but cameras, but I also like the assault rifle a lot so maybe we're on different wavelengths.
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Mar 6, 2014 06:32
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OG17 posted:I said the bit's not just jokes, but also an argument, and you responded by saying it's not supposed to be taken as unbiased objective fact, which apparently you think I believe? So I said you're conflating persuasion piece (which is what I was saying) with unbiased objective fact (which no one was saying), because if you're not I have no idea why you'd bring it up. As far as I can tell, your objection to the Daily Show bit is that it's biased and not thoroughly researched. My response is, yes, of course it is, it's a comedy show. I was at no point conflating an attempt at persuasion with an objective report. I have no idea what your problem is with the Daily Show bit or what you're even talking about.
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Mar 6, 2014 08:44
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FactsAreUseless posted:I love the assault shotgun, I use it far more often than the assault rifle. It takes down commandos quickly and at close range faster than the Dragon's Tooth, and all the skill you're putting into Rifle for that sniper rifle also improves the shotgun, plus it can carry Sabot rounds for dealing with spiderbots. So by pumping Rifle you get a one-hit long range headshot weapon, and a one-hit short range headshot weapon. The assault shotgun is amazing. My favourite thing about the assault shotgun (and shotguns in most fps games) is that it forces the player to engage in an exciting way. The Dragon's Tooth would be good for this too, if it's sound effect wasn't such a letdown  I hope Bobbins will show off what happens when hacking bots and gun turrets as well. It may not be very subtle, but it sure is entertaining.
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Mar 6, 2014 09:34
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This isn't really relevant for the current topic, but to go back to the anti-vaccination topic from a different video: I stumbled upon this article that's interesting: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/vaccine-denial-psychology-backfire-effect quote:So as a rational person, you might think it would be of the utmost importance to try to talk some sense into these people. But there's a problem: According to a major new study in the journal Pediatrics, trying to do so may actually make the problem worse. The paper tested the effectiveness of four separate pro-vaccine messages, three of which were based very closely on how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself talks about vaccines. The results can only be called grim: Not a single one of the messages was successful when it came to increasing parents' professed intent to vaccinate their children. And in several cases the messages actually backfired, either increasing the ill-founded belief that vaccines cause autism or even, in one case, apparently reducing parents' intent to vaccinate. quote:The results showed that by far, the least successful messages were "Disease narrative" and "Disease images." Hearing the frightening narrative actually increased respondents' likelihood of thinking that getting the MMR vaccine will cause serious side effects, from 7.7 percent to 13.8 percent. Similarly, looking at the disturbing images increased test subjects' belief that vaccines cause autism. In other words, both of these messages backfired. quote:The two more straightforward text-only messages, "Austism correction" and "Disease risks," had more mixed effects. "Disease risks" didn't cause any harm, but it didn't really produce any benefits either. quote:Finally, Nyhan adds that in order to protect public health by encouraging widespread vaccinations, public communication efforts aren't the only tools at our disposal. "Other policy measures might be more effective," he notes. For instance, recently we reported on how easy it is for parents to dodge getting their kids vaccinated in some states; in some cases, it requires little more than a onetime signature on a form. Tightening these policies might be considerably more helpful than trying to win hearts and minds. That wasn't really working out anyway, and thanks to the new study, we now know that vaccine deniers' imperviousness to facts may be a key part of the reason why.
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Mar 6, 2014 10:18
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Red_October_7000 posted:This sort of thing is why I suggest change that targets the underlying problems that make people want to kill for socially unacceptable reasons. Mass shootings are terrible, yes, but they amount to nothing. It's really sad that countries like England and Australia have put in place really tight gun laws after mass shootings as knee-jerk reactions. Alternatively "won't anyone think about the poor guns?" my dad posted:This is absolutely insane. A law that actually punishes you for taking a less-than-lethal approach? Of course, if you know absolutely anything at all about how actual confrontations work - see the post above regarding escalation and deescalation - you'll realize that demonstrating your ability and intent to use lethal force is a really good way to make sure you won't have to actually use it. But that kind of thinking assumes you're facing real people who don't want to die, rather than videogame / cartoon opponents.
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Mar 6, 2014 10:18
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The worst about the dragon's tooth is that you have to take it from Versalife to the Triad temple; I don't have 4 inventory slots to spare, you know 
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Mar 6, 2014 10:29
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Xander77 posted:Of course, if you know absolutely anything at all about how actual confrontations work - see the post above regarding escalation and deescalation - you'll realize that demonstrating your ability and intent to use lethal force is a really good way to make sure you won't have to actually use it. But that kind of thinking assumes you're facing real people who don't want to die, rather than videogame / cartoon opponents. That sounds an awful lot like the MAD doctine from the cold war. It was flawed in that once each side presented a nuclear deterrent, it was no longer safe to disarm or deescalate the situation. Of course that assumes both sides have firearms and not some other, less immediately lethal form of force. I'm not sure if applying military doctrine to situations such as home invasions is at all relevant, but it is interesting. A cold war mentality could also go some way towards explaining the unwillingness of many to give up their guns.
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Mar 6, 2014 10:38
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Junior G-man posted:The worst about the dragon's tooth is that you have to take it from Versalife to the Triad temple; I don't have 4 inventory slots to spare, you know Fruits of the sea posted:That sounds an awful lot like the MAD doctine from the cold war. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Mar 6, 2014 |
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Mar 6, 2014 10:46
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Xander77 posted:You don't pick it up at Versalife. If you don't intend to keep it, you can pick it up at Maggie's place then drop it and proceed with the narrative. drat, I misremembered. Still, first time I played DX I was so excited to get this NANO ZOOM ZOOM DEATH BLADE that was so hyped up and it turned out to be a hunk of junk. 4 inventory spaces. I ask you!
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Mar 6, 2014 11:02
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Xander77 posted:"Whoopty-doo!" Warning shots violate two of the four basic rules of firearms safety, which is why they're discouraged in essentially every circumstance except very specific military rules of engagement. To review, those rules are: 1. Treat all firearms as if they are loaded. 2. Only aim at a target you intend to fire upon. Warning shots do not provide a valid target; you are discharging your weapon without intent to hit a target, which is often outlawed regardless of the circumstance, especially within city limits. 3. Keep fingers off the trigger until ready to fire. 4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it. In a typical self-defense situation, it will be difficult or impossible to completely clear the path of your bullets downrange. You may be inside, unable to see what is happening in the street or yard, or the next room, or the rooms above and/or below you. Unless you're out in the wilderness, there's probably all kinds of poo poo that can go wrong. A warning shot can be just as dangerous as an aimed one, but to the completely wrong people. The penetration factor of bullets through residential walls and objects should not be understated. You could easily wound or kill someone who isn't even involved in the altercation, and it has happened before. Sure, it could be argued that a bullet can pass through a person too, but the human body is a lot better at ablating a bullet than a window or a sheet of drywall. If you have no choice but to shoot, you might as well hit the one part of the world that is trying to kill you. I can definitely sympathize with the idea that no two gunfights are alike and that circumstantial grey areas exist, but with that said, warning shots are hazardous to all the wrong people. Is it possible to de-escalate a situation with a warning shot? Yes, but that doesn't make it an acceptable alternative to either another less-lethal method, or lethal force. It doesn't mean that, even if you do not use warning shots, and you hit your target, that the bullet won't keep going and hurt someone behind them. That is something one must always consider if they're going to carry and exercise their right to self-defense.
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Mar 6, 2014 11:04
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Bobbin, I'm loving this LP and I love DX, but this thread is too much. I'm just going to subscribe to your YouTube channel to watch anything in the future. I come here to read about DX, not to read the millionth gun control D&D. Looking forward to future videos!
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Mar 6, 2014 12:01
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I'm from Serbia. We're just behind US in terms of gun ownership, with more than 50 weapons per 100 people. While we have some of the most liberal guns laws in Europe, our laws are still a heckuva lot stricter than US laws. Our rate of gun homicides is ~0.6 per 100,000 people (comparable to the US states of North Dakota and Iowa). In US, the average rate is around 3.6 (correct me if I'm wrong). Due to a combination of availability of firearms, and the poor condition of our mental health care system, gun suicide rate is a lot higher, at 2.81 (compared to 6.3 in US). There are two crucial things in our gun law system which influence this the most, in my opinion. First: Our laws reward a non-lethal approach and punish a lethal one. You are encouraged to run away if possible, and 'necessary force' is a big deal in our law. The idea here being that it's the job of the police to get you back your stolen stuff, and that your stuff isn't more valuable than someone's life. I assume that the utter lack of trust in the police in parts of US (justified or not) causes a problem with getting stuff like this passed. Second: Our police gets the final say in who can or can't get a gun, every gun purchase is carefully registered, and gun ownership closely monitored. I assume this would be the biggest hurdle for the US gun crowd to accept, 'evil meddling state' and all. Personal attitude: I don't like guns. A friend of mine was nearly caught in the crossfire of a gang shootout a few days ago (a bullet hit the car she hid behind). I believe the right balance between gun control and gun liberties lies further in the direction of limiting guns than it already is, but I think that an improvement to our mental healthcare system would be a more important thing to do, and save a lot more lives. US gun laws are absolutely insane. People act like the current situation in US is one extreme, the proposed increased gun control laws the other extreme, and the right answer somewhere in the middle. Hell no. Even with several of the proposed restrictions to gun ownership in US, you guys would still have an insane set of laws that all but encourage domestic terrorism. When I listen to people talk about "what if" scenarios that justify owning an assault rifle, it's like listening to a 11 year old kid talking about his favorite FPS. Oooh, imagine if 4 faceless baddies charged into my house intending to kill me, while being incompetent and poorly equipped enough to be taken down by one proper citizen armed with the latest in self-defense weaponry. edit: I won't post anything else about gun laws. I apologize if my participation in the discussion contributed to worsening of this thread. my dad fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Mar 6, 2014 |
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Mar 6, 2014 12:07
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LiquidRain posted:Bobbin, I'm loving this LP and I love DX, but this thread is too much. I'm just going to subscribe to your YouTube channel to watch anything in the future. I come here to read about DX, not to read the millionth gun control D&D. Looking forward to future videos! My thoughts exactly. Loving the LP, chalk up another DX replay. Not reinstall mind you 'cause why would anyone uninstall this game?
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Mar 6, 2014 12:17
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The Casualty posted:If anything, the old westerns you speak of (and cop shows, can't forget those) have propagated the idea that warning shots are effective and without consequence. How about this: You load blanks into your scary gun. Now you can warning shoot. In fact, let's just only hand out blanks to private "self-defense" guns and not tell people. Placebo effect - they feel safer because they have a big scary gun and the evil black person they imagine will invade their home is going to be scared of the big scary gun. You'll save more lives than if you gave people real bullets - a lot more.
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Mar 6, 2014 13:40
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If I ever own a gun for self defense, I'll pay some extra money for frangible rounds so I don't explode the head of a toddler three houses down.
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Mar 6, 2014 14:56
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Are there rounds that just incapacitate? Talking about rounds that dont produce significant injury, natch. Im thinking that most people dont have a nightstand long enough to hold a shotgun for beanbags though.
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Mar 6, 2014 15:29
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DatonKallandor posted:How about this: You load blanks into your scary gun. Now you can warning shoot. In fact, let's just only hand out blanks to private "self-defense" guns and not tell people. Placebo effect - they feel safer because they have a big scary gun and the evil black person they imagine will invade their home is going to be scared of the big scary gun. You fire a warning shot, now your enemy knows you're armed. Then he fires back. And then you die. Also some people actually practice with their self-defense guns and don't just keep them under their bed while they rub one off to the thought of executing some intruders. Rigged Death Trap posted:Are there rounds that just incapacitate? Talking about rounds that dont produce significant injury, natch. The problem with that is that "non-lethal" is more accurately described as "less lethal". Anything that can incapacitate can kill.
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Mar 6, 2014 15:39
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Are there rounds that just incapacitate? Talking about rounds that dont produce significant injury, natch. Most smaller guns like pistols simply go through a human which usually isn't that bad as long as nothing vital gets hit. If you hit a limb you'll probably survive as long as you can keep the blood loss in check until you get to a hospital.
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Mar 6, 2014 15:50
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Iretep posted:Most smaller guns like pistols simply go through a human which usually isn't that bad as long as nothing vital gets hit. If you hit a limb you'll probably survive as long as you can keep the blood loss in check until you get to a hospital. Isn't that rather likely? I mean there's, like, stuff in there. Like organs. And the belly/chest/
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Mar 6, 2014 15:53
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Unlike in movies and video games, any blow that can render someone unconscious is also very likely to be life threatening. Less-lethal weapons are similar. You're launching a beanbag at bullet speeds which might not rip through flesh, but it might rupture your kidneys if you get tagged in the right spot.
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Mar 6, 2014 15:54
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double nine posted:Isn't that rather likely? I mean there's, like, stuff in there. Like organs. And the belly/chest/ I've never actually shot or dealt with a man who got shot but I'd imagine the most ineffective area to shoot someone is the stomach. It's probably just going make them angrier and if they have a gun they'll shoot back. Though I guess they'll die to internal bleeding eventually if you hit something vital. Shooting in the legs at least makes them fall over and makes them cry. Though this is mostly just my speculation from reading up on different kinds of gun wounds on a short course about it.
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Mar 6, 2014 17:05
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This is my favorite anything ever involving guns. It's from a TV movie and recreates an infamous firefight in Miami from the FBI's history. I think it does pretty awesome job of demonstrating the chaos of a real gun battle. While it's a dramatization, the scene follows the after action report very closely. The shoot out led to a ton of policy changes, like letting local law enforcement know about stuff. The thing I like most is that people get shot multiple times and continue fighting, unlike most fiction where bullet=dead.
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Mar 6, 2014 17:29
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DatonKallandor posted:How about this: You load blanks into your scary gun. Now you can warning shoot. In fact, let's just only hand out blanks to private "self-defense" guns and not tell people. Placebo effect - they feel safer because they have a big scary gun and the evil black person they imagine will invade their home is going to be scared of the big scary gun. I'm not sure why you're being so snarky, but anyways, there are people who do put a blank in their handgun, or put birdshot or rock salt in the first round of their shotgun, with the intent of wounding or scaring off an intruder. Whether or not it actually changes anything is, as far as I know, not tracked by any statistical means.
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Mar 6, 2014 17:53
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My intuition is that warning shots create a prisoner's dilemma situation. If an assailant has a gun, and the defender fires a warning shot, the assailant has a difficult decision to make. He first has to correctly understand that the shot was a warning and not a miss. Next, he has to believe that the warning shot indicates that the defender is willing to allow him to withdraw, rather than shoot him in the back. If he doesn't correctly interpret the intent of the warning shot, and does not believe that the defender will allow him to escape, then his only rational decision is to immediately return fire and hope for the best. Even if he does correctly interpret the defender's intent to warn and allow him to retreat, he may still want to pursue his attack out of desperation or rage or whatever. The defender also has some tough choices. Having fired a warning shot, he now needs to evaluate whether he thinks the assailant's withdrawal indicates a genuine retreat or a feint to attack at a different time or angle. If he doesn't believe that the warning shot has definitely driven the assailant off, or created a safe opportunity to escape, he has to attack for real or risk being shot. Since these two people presumably don't know anything about each other, their chances of correctly interpreting each others intent is going to be pretty poor. That means they'll need to err on the side of protecting themselves, which means shooting for real. I'm not convinced that firing a warning shot is any more effective than the defender stating or showing that he's armed, and it seems to me that it would be pretty hard for the attacker to correctly identify the warning shot for what it is.
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Mar 6, 2014 18:20
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 16:03 |
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Crigit posted:snip If you're close enough to shoot, you're close enough to also talk. Or shout, if you will. Information can be exchanged. Also, criminals don't tend to go into houses looking for a protracted gun battle. They usually want an easy mark, smash and grab.
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Mar 6, 2014 18:30
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