[hrothgar]

 mikeh, on 2013-January-25, 12:47, said:

It is, of course, more complex than that. The Swiss have a high rate of gun ownership, tho I believe somewhat regulated and less to do with handguns than the US, and they have a low crime rate. But, you like simple arguments (as to all libertarians and most conservatives) because that way you can avoid dealing with messy reality.

The Swiss have a VERY high rate of gun ownership.
Ammunition... that's another story.

Here's the relevent quote:

Quote

Up until October 2007, a specified personal retention quantity of government-issued personal ammunition (50 rounds 5.56 mm / 48 rounds 9mm) was issued as well, which was sealed and inspected regularly to ensure that no unauthorized use had taken place.[4] The ammunition was intended for use while traveling to the army barracks in case of invasion.

In October 2007, the Swiss Federal Council decided that the distribution of ammunition to soldiers shall stop and that all previously issued ammo shall be returned. By March 2011, more than 99% of the ammo has been received. Only special rapid deployment units and the military police still have ammunition stored at home today.

...

The sale of ammunition – including Gw Pat.90 rounds for army-issue assault rifles – is subsidized by the Swiss government and made available at the many shooting ranges patronized by both private citizens and members of the militia. There is a regulatory requirement that ammunition sold at ranges must be used there.

http://en.wikipedia...._in_Switzerland

[ArtK78]

 Phil, on 2013-January-25, 13:05, said:

I think we found our guy: Last Line of Defense

Phil:

Go back to post #52.

[mike777]

Switzerland — Gun Facts, Figures and the Law

Useful link on Swiss gun facts.

http://www.gunpolicy...ion/switzerland

---


btw there are reports that the ammunition from shooting ranges is often brought home on a massive scale, this seems to be an open secret if the reports are correct.
I have no idea how long ammo can be stored and still be be workable in Switzerland.

[kenberg]

 blackshoe, on 2013-January-23, 17:36, said:

Criminals have stated, over and over again, that the possibility that a potential victim is armed gives them pause - they would much prefer to let that one alone, and go find someone safer to rob. So if I (or anyone else) am carrying, and the criminal knows it, I'm likely "never to get robbed in the first place".

You paint me as some slavering gun nut that goes around looking for excuses to to kill people. I suppose that fits your agenda.

You do realize an alternative here? If you look to be the best source of cash, and there is reason to believe you are armed, he first shoots you, then takes your cash. I realize that the old argument is that a guy does not have to run faster than a bear, he only has to run faster than the other guy. But if one guy looks particularly delicious, this logic may not apply.

But really, do you spend a lot of time in places where getting robbed at gunpoint is a serious possibility? I, very possibly delusionally, think I am pretty good at sizing up strange surroundings. If I am in a strange city and things don't look right, I don't analyze my reasons, I hit the road. If I had a gun in my pocket, I would still hit the road. Perhaps having a gun somehow makes some people feel safer. Slightly safer maybe, but only slightly. I feel a lot safer when I am somewhere else, and I don't want anything in my pocket that might lead me to believe that it's ok to ignore my instincts.
Not to mention that going out for a walk but first stuffing a gun in my pocket seems really weird.
Maybe you live in a (much) rougher neighborhood than I do.

I sort of hate to mention it, but my wife recently learned that a friend of a friend was shot and killed by her husband. I suppose the wife could have kept a pistol in her bra or something, but really I just don't have much faith in this approach.

[mike777]

Ken not sure how to stop that unless you want to go into homes and take away guns as an option.

[blackshoe]

@mikeh: your argument to me is "you're an idiot". Okay, you win, I'm an idiot. Take away all the guns (or all the ammunition). Neither of us can know with certainty what the long term consequences will be, but I know what I think, and I hope I'm not around to see them. In the meantime I'll just go deal with that reality you think I'm so afraid of. 'Bye.

[kenberg]

 mike777, on 2013-January-25, 15:48, said:

Ken not sure how to stop that unless you want to go into homes and take away guns as an option.

The place to start is with the realization that not all tragedies can be foretold or prevented. But there are things that can help, and one of them is changing the culture of guns. A couple of years ago we had a groundhog that came around a lot. Very cute, but they can be a problem. Our neighbor volunteered to send het husband over with his rifle. For her, and for her husband, a gun is not the last solution, it is the first. Our solution was to wait for a bit and see if the groundhog moved on. He did.

We have way too much faith in guns as problem solvers. A friend has all sorts of security apparatus at his home. I don't feel the need, but I acknowledge that he has some good stuff He does not have a gun, as far as I know. Just plenty of stuff to warn him that trouble is coming. Where I live, I think that any such trouble is about as likely as being hit by the proverbial bolt of lightning., Either could happen, but not likely. But if I ever started to worry, I would follow his example and load up on security equipment. I have not shot anyone yet, and I plan to finish off my life with that record intact.

Here is some local news. Not nearby local however. It depicts a way of life that I simply have no experience with. I have no idea what to do. Except to go nowhere near it.

http://www.washingto...985ee_blog.html

[mikeh]

No: your conclusion may be that you're an idiot, and you may well base that conclusion on the fact that I made a number of reality-based observations that suggest that your arguments are specious and that you have no counter.

You like to state propositions as 'true', without any analysis or argument as to why they are true. Your assertion that only individuals have 'rights' is one such. I post what several upvoters seem to think are valid arguments as to why you are wrong. Earlier, you argued that one can justify widespread and out-in-public gun ownership because criminals will be deterred from attacking someone they fear is armed. I pointed out that the majority of gun deaths and serious injuries that gun-control proponents seek to prevent arise in entirely different circumstances, in which deterrence seems unlikely to be effective. You have made no substantive response to those arguments. I point out that current research (I heard of the studies on NPR and don't have a link to them) suggests a positive correlation between stand your ground laws and an increase in gun-related deaths. I pointed out that a rational society would have to balance the good that your notion, if it actually worked, would cause in harm reduction against the very probable increase in other forms of gun violence that your notion might occasion. Your response to this: precisely zero.

It is true that your failure to engage in a real debate, and your reliance upon typically simplistic libertarian talking points has led me to the same conclusion as you appear to have arrived at, but I am more than happy to hear substantive arguments from you, that address reality, as measured by objectively verifiable observations. Indeed, since the one thing I keep repeating is that this is a complex topic, a truly rational debate might well cause me to modify my views. Which views have never been nor have I ever written here, that all guns should be outlawed. Your interpretation of my views as such further strengthens my views of your limited intellectual ability. It reminds me of the Fox News assertions that Obama is a socialist, and the Palin pronouncements that Obamacare involved death panels. You seem to prefer simplistic black and white caricatures of your opponents and their ideas. I suppose that is because it saves you the evidently painful task of appreciating that other people, as intelligent or more intelligent than you, think differently and have cogent reasons for doing so.

I don't mind people like you living in your fantasy world, if it were not for the deleterious effect people like you have on the world the rest of us inhabit.

Only an idiot would think otherwise

Edit: ooops: I meant to quote Blackshoe's response, in which he admits (I suspect sarcastically) that he is an idiot

[mike777]

"The place to start is with the realization that not all tragedies can be foretold or prevented. But there are things that can help, and one of them is changing the culture of guns"


Good point but it seems it just seems that this culture of guns is growing as of today compared to decades ago....at least that is my impression. My guess is the reason for this is a feeling of a shrinking world and its growing problems, only a guess.

[kenberg]

As with many things, it seems to me that ideology has now replaced sensible approaches. Here is another story from fifty years or so back. I was a grad student living in the upstairs of a house in a quiet neighborhood. We had a cat, Buckley, who would go out roaming. Through accident or (more likely) though someone's intent, Buckley got some poisoned food and was writhing in pain. The guy downstairs lent me his .22 and I put Buckley out of his misery. This was in the center of Minneapolis and surely I violated a law by firing a rifle in the backyard. Just as surely, no one would think of calling the police to report it, and they would have been told to mind their own business had they done so. A practical problem with a practical solution, everyone I knew would have seen it that way. No one I knew talked of the necessity for us all to have guns to save ourselves from governmental tyranny. In my younger days I knew some fairly weird people, but not that weird.

Many years back, when my father was still living in the old neighborhood, I was back for a visit and one of the neighbors was telling a story about a neighborhood kid who got caught breaking into someone's house. The owner roughed him up a bid and sent him home to his father for re-education. Not only was no one shot, no one even bothered to call the police. They just told the kid to shape up.

Somehow we have lost this restraint. We are told we should all arm ourselves and shoot someone. Young people often do some pretty stupid things on their path to adulthood. I would like to see them live through it.

[blackshoe]

About thirty years ago I had a guy chase after me in a case of road rage. My first instinct was to drive to the nearest police station, but I didn't know where it was. I couldn't shake him, so finally I just stopped on the street. He got out of his truck with a baseball bat in his hand, intent on, as he put it, "f...ing [me] up". I talked him out of it. I don't like shooting people unless it's absolutely necessary, but if it is absolutely necessary, I'd certainly like to have the right tool for it.

When I lived in Albuquerque in the early 1970s my next door neighbor and I got into a discussion about a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood. He was a cop. His advice: "just make sure the body is inside the house when we get here". Fortunately they caught the guy so it never came up.

Heinlein said something to the effect that if you put too many animals in too small a cage, they'll go crazy. He added "Man is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself". Maybe we need to ban cities.

[mikeh]

 blackshoe, on 2013-January-26, 07:51, said:

About thirty years ago I had a guy chase after me in a case of road rage. My first instinct was to drive to the nearest police station, but I didn't know where it was. I couldn't shake him, so finally I just stopped on the street. He got out of his truck with a baseball bat in his hand, intent on, as he put it, "f...ing [me] up". I talked him out of it. I don't like shooting people unless it's absolutely necessary, but if it is absolutely necessary, I'd certainly like to have the right tool for it.

When I lived in Albuquerque in the early 1970s my next door neighbor and I got into a discussion about a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood. He was a cop. His advice: "just make sure the body is inside the house when we get here". Fortunately they caught the guy so it never came up.

Heinlein said something to the effect that if you put too many animals in too small a cage, they'll go crazy. He added "Man is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself". Maybe we need to ban cities.

These are supposed to be substantive arguments?

An example of no need for a gun: in a situation in which having a gun might well have led to using it? A brutal police officer who seems to have used Dirty Harry as a role model? I know a lot of police officers....I have extensive experience defending officers accused of excessive force, and know two officers who were forced to shoot assailants, killing them. None of the officers I know would for a moment give the advice your neighbour gave. And a quote from a long-dead science fiction writer? Who next? L. Ron Hubbard?

[PassedOut]

 blackshoe, on 2013-January-26, 07:51, said:

Heinlein said something to the effect that if you put too many animals in too small a cage, they'll go crazy. He added "Man is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself". Maybe we need to ban cities.

Jared Diamond's latest book provides a good explanation of why an increase in population density leads to the inevitable replacement of traditional liberarian societies.

[Fluffy]

 kenberg, on 2013-January-26, 07:07, said:

As with many things, it seems to me that ideology has now replaced sensible approaches. Here is another story from fifty years or so back. I was a grad student living in the upstairs of a house in a quiet neighborhood. We had a cat, Buckley, who would go out roaming. Through accident or (more likely) though someone's intent, Buckley got some poisoned food and was writhing in pain. The guy downstairs lent me his .22 and I put Buckley out of his misery. This was in the center of Minneapolis and surely I violated a law by firing a rifle in the backyard. Just as surely, no one would think of calling the police to report it, and they would have been told to mind their own business had they done so. A practical problem with a practical solution, everyone I knew would have seen it that way. No one I knew talked of the necessity for us all to have guns to save ourselves from governmental tyranny. In my younger days I knew some fairly weird people, but not that weird.

Many years back, when my father was still living in the old neighborhood, I was back for a visit and one of the neighbors was telling a story about a neighborhood kid who got caught breaking into someone's house. The owner roughed him up a bid and sent him home to his father for re-education. Not only was no one shot, no one even bothered to call the police. They just told the kid to shape up.

Somehow we have lost this restraint. We are told we should all arm ourselves and shoot someone. Young people often do some pretty stupid things on their path to adulthood. I would like to see them live through it.

I think this is another form of childs being edcated by television instead of their parents, or how the morality has changed (to worse IMO).

There was a comic who compared the old days where proffesor would talk to the parents and the parents would chastize the child, now its more like the child talks to the parents and the parents try to threated the proffessor. Or even the child threats the proffessor!

[kenberg]

Fluffy,

There is an obvious danger of wandering off topic here, but you are a young parent and maybe I will say a word or two about my parent's approach to any problems I had in school. From the beginning, problems that I had in school were my problems to solve as best I could. Basically they figured that teachers were not to tell them how to be parents, and they were not to tell teachers how to be teachers. As a child I really liked this, and I think it makes a lot of sense. But different approaches fit different people so this does not rise to the level of a recommendation.

Sometimes parents would come in to the University to intercede on behalf of their son or daughter, someone maybe nineteen or twenty years old. More often than not, the student would have an embarrassed look that said "I'm really sorry about this, it wasn't my idea". It's always tempting to ask just when it is that the parents will be expecting, or at least allowing, their offspring to fend for themselves.

Anyway, back to the guns. Bang.

[y66]

 blackshoe, on 2013-January-26, 07:51, said:

Heinlein said something to the effect that if you put too many animals in too small a cage, they'll go crazy. He added "Man is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself". Maybe we need to ban cities.

People can go crazy anywhere. Don't blame cities for this.

One of the goals of reform is to make it harder for crazy people to get guns and ammo that can take out 50 people in 50 seconds. Perhaps this is one goal you agree with?

From today's paper:

Quote

As the American prison population has doubled in the past two decades, New York City has been a remarkable exception to the trend: the number of its residents in prison has shrunk. Its incarceration rate, once high by national standards, has plunged well below the United States average and has hit another new low, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced recently. And crime in the city has fallen by more than 75 percent, almost twice as much as in the rest of the country.

Whatever has made New York the safest big city in America, that feat has certainly not been accomplished by locking up more criminals.

Or by making it easier for crazy people to buy, sell and carry guns.

[kenberg]

 y66, on 2013-January-26, 12:06, said:

From today's paper:

If time is short, still don't skip this read.


What strikes me about the described tactics are that they appear to emphasize the sensible over the ideological and they seem to be working.

I love this part:

Quote

"The intellectual tragedy of the New York crime miracle is that it had no experiments to identify just what worked," Dr. Sherman said.

His frustration is shared by David Weisburd, a criminologist at George Mason University in Virginia and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

"As long as crime is going down, New York's police don't seem to want to know which strategies are working and which aren't," Dr. Weisburd said. "When I proposed an experiment to one police official in the last administration, he replied, 'You could only bring me bad news.' "

No doubt we should try our best to overcome this intellectual tragedy, but in the meantime we can rejoice in the decrease in crime. Good going guys.And while we are contemplating the intellectual tragedy we should try hard not to screw things up. Who knows, maybe doing things that work will catch on, despite the intellectual tragedy of it all.

[PassedOut]

 y66, on 2013-January-26, 12:06, said:

Perhaps this is one goal you agree with?

From today's paper

Great article! Should be must reading for everyone in politics (and for all of us who regularly hector our representatives).

[Elianna]

 y66, on 2013-January-26, 12:06, said:

People can go crazy anywhere. Don't blame cities for this.

http://en.wikipedia....i/In_cold_blood

[jdeegan]

My Aussie cousins and my English roommate from years ago are and were not afraid of guns. It's nice when a certain difference of opinion can be settled with fists (or in the case of the Aussie cousins some kind of Thai martial arts). The one thing that seperates the Aussies from the Americans is a wee detail. In Oz after the unfortunate Tasmanian events, the population turned in their guns (for the most part). In the U.S. there ain't no way. Do you want to disarm Arizona, Texas, Harlem, Detroit, et.al.?

When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.