Humble AK Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said: Crazy to think there were two mass shootings this week and I don't recall anyone talking about it. The new normal indeed. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-kansas-shooting-idUSKCN0VZ15K http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/21/us/michigan-kalamazoo-county-shooting-spree/ Because it's pretty run-of-the-mill in the US. I think all of us have just accepted that these mass shootings are here to stay. You'll have Repubs arguing that this wouldn't be a problem if everyone were armed and you had some cowboy civilian available to take the shooter down, and then you'll have people like me arguing that this wouldn't happen if there were no guns available for people to rampage with. And then you have those somewhere in between. There's arguments, fist shaking, and nothing changes. Shit, our own president has made tearful speeches regarding this matter, but even he didn't believe any difference could be made with the current climate. So yeah. I think the US has chosen its course for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alguien Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Kalamazoo is my hometown. They caught the guy right by Bells, one of my favorite brewery/bars. It's utterly surreal. But of course, we don't have a gun problem, as a bunch of assholes were quick to post in the comments literally just minutes after the news reported the six deaths. Nope, nosireee... Welp, congrats to the NRA marketing team for doing a bang-up job on quelling this issue so far. Sincerely, fuck you. --Everyone with common sense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balefont Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 On 1/22/2016 at 6:39 AM, Free Northman Reborn said: Well in my view the basic dilemma here is that people today live in bubbles of assumed safety, which are artificial and unsustainable. First world living conditions of the last 50 years are not normal. The living conditions of the other 90% of the world population are normal. And the odd terrorist attack or gang shooting is simply normal humanity intruding into the artificial bubble of safety that many first world citizens view as the norm. In the end, the police could not protect you if you were in that theatre in Aurora on that fateful day. You either had to rely on zebra "herd mentality" when lions attack, hoping that the herd member next to you got killed rather than you or your loved one (which is blind luck) or you needed a gun to protect yourself. I know which option I prefer. It really amazes me how fearful the conservative psyche is. No wonder you're all always harping on and freaking out about FREEDOM! You're unable to escape this constant state of fear in your daily lives. I prefer to live being progressive and liberal. It feels like FREEDOM! to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NestorMakhnosLovechild Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 2 hours ago, Balefont said: It really amazes me how fearful the conservative psyche is. No wonder you're all always harping on and freaking out about FREEDOM! You're unable to escape this constant state of fear in your daily lives. I prefer to live being progressive and liberal. It feels like FREEDOM! to me. These lame attempts at pathologizing opposing political views are unhelpful, especially when they rely upon attempts to shame people for experiencing normal human emotions. Even if it is the case that fear (as opposed to say, a rational calculation of acceptable risk) is motivating support for private gun ownership, that in itself doesn't say anything meaningful about the issue. "You're just a bunch of fearful babies" is just a lazy form of debate that, arguably, also has the side effect of perpetuating traditional gender norms about masculinity and femininity. I mean this is a clear attempt to subvert the liberal perception (not necessarily false in all cases) that conservatives view themselves as manly men, by portraying them as cowering fear-babies. But you know, there are certainly women out there who do carry firearms because they are fearful about their ability to defend themselves against people who are physically stronger than them, and who they would never be able to protect themselves against without the aid of a tool that levels force - and that may be a perfectly legitimate fear, about which one is entirely justified in basing a decision to purchase a firearm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balefont Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 I'm sorry you think my "lame attempts at pathologizing opposing political views are unhelpful" but... Wait, actually I'm not sorry. I don't give a fuck. There have brain studies that show people are born to tendencies towards conservatism because of their brain make-up. And then there is this: Quote this process reveals the following conclusion: A large body of political scientists and political psychologists now concur that liberals and conservatives disagree about politics in part because they are different people at the level of personality, psychology, and even traits like physiology and genetics. And this. And so, whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 Bale, But people being different doesn't make the differences pathological. It's just being different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balefont Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Bale, But people being different doesn't make the differences pathological. It's just being different. My point is that conservatives tend to be more fearful (as studies are showing) than liberals and their ideologies and policies flow from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 5 minutes ago, Balefont said: My point is that conservatives tend to be more fearful (as studies are showing) than liberals and their ideologies and policies flow from there. No. Your point seemed to be that the conservative mindset of greater caution and fearfullness of the unknown was something to be ridiculed in the context of the firearm debate. You are changing the goalposts by now suggesting that all you intended was to point out the psychological differences between conservatives and liberals, something which most of us are well aware of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodRider Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 2 hours ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said: and that may be a perfectly legitimate fear, about which one is entirely justified in basing a decision to purchase a firearm. It may be a legitimate fear, but that does not make it a legitimate reason to buy a firearm. In fact buying a firearm increases your chance of death and /or injury. And this is precisely the problem. You literally just used (projected) fear (justified or not) to justify buying a firearm, when to the best of our knowledge buying a firearm only makes you feel better, and doesn't mitigate the actual risk. That is an age old sales tactic, and it deserves to be called out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 16 minutes ago, BloodRider said: It may be a legitimate fear, but that does not make it a legitimate reason to buy a firearm. In fact buying a firearm increases your chance of death and /or injury. And this is precisely the problem. You literally just used (projected) fear (justified or not) to justify buying a firearm, when to the best of our knowledge buying a firearm only makes you feel better, and doesn't mitigate the actual risk. That is an age old sales tactic, and it deserves to be called out. That's a bullshit claim based on twisted statistics. For example, while having a firearm in the home might indeed increase the risk of suffering firearm violence, this statistic is skewed significantly by the large number of illegal firearms owned by people living in the criminal underworld. It is further skewed by legal gun owners from the lowest socio economic class of society, where alcohol and drug abuse, single parent households and generally bad life decisions are the order of the day, and where irresponsible gun use would be vastly higher than in other segments of society. The claim that you are "in greater danger if you have a gun in the house" might be utter hogwash if you only sample middle class suburban gun owners with solid jobs and stable family environments. Or if you take single, college educated women who own a gun for self defense. Or middle aged gun owners approaching pensioner age, who tend to be more responsible in general. Or rural families who don't live in gang infested ghettos. Etc. Etc. The point is, you cannot use a claimed statistic which is skewed by inner city ghetto dwellers and trailer park inhabitants to quantify the risk of gun ownership to a middle class family man, for example. Hence the claim is bullshit as far as it should affect an individual's choice to own a firearm or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alguien Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 Yeah, Bloodrider, stop using such twisted tactics as actual facts and math in your arguments, you spin doctor! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balefont Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 48 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said: No. Your point seemed to be that the conservative mindset of greater caution and fearfullness of the unknown was something to be ridiculed in the context of the firearm debate. You are changing the goalposts by now suggesting that all you intended was to point out the psychological differences between conservatives and liberals, something which most of us are well aware of. I am not bowing down from my position that the conservative tendencies towards being more fearful lends to the fact that we cannot, as a country, get on a decent page about sensible gun laws (I am not anti-gun ownership) and fear-based rhetoric adds fuel to the fire. I am, once again, glad to live in freedom of these fears because worrying about the thin-veneer that is the fabric of society to the point where I feel I'd need to openly carry (or carry at all) a gun on a regular (or ever) basis feels restrictive and not very freedom-like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 31 minutes ago, alguien said: Yeah, Bloodrider, stop using such twisted tactics as actual facts and math in your arguments, you spin doctor! Well, the statistics are ok so long as they don't include middle class, straight, white, christian, family men. Gun violence in that group is simply the result of irresponsible gun owners and doesn't count because fearful FNR says so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodRider Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 56 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said: That's a bullshit claim based on twisted statistics. For example, while having a firearm in the home might indeed increase the risk of suffering firearm violence, this statistic is skewed significantly by the large number of illegal firearms owned by people living in the criminal underworld. It is further skewed by legal gun owners from the lowest socio economic class of society, where alcohol and drug abuse, single parent households and generally bad life decisions are the order of the day, and where irresponsible gun use would be vastly higher than in other segments of society. The claim that you are "in greater danger if you have a gun in the house" might be utter hogwash if you only sample middle class suburban gun owners with solid jobs and stable family environments. Or if you take single, college educated women who own a gun for self defense. Or middle aged gun owners approaching pensioner age, who tend to be more responsible in general. Or rural families who don't live in gang infested ghettos. Etc. Etc. The point is, you cannot use a claimed statistic which is skewed by inner city ghetto dwellers and trailer park inhabitants to quantify the risk of gun ownership to a middle class family man, for example. Hence the claim is bullshit as far as it should affect an individual's choice to own a firearm or not. This is literally special pleading. You offer no evidence for your view of these statistics, save your own conviction that people who are "inner city ghetto dwellers and trailer park inhabitants" skew the risks. “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” The truth of the matter is, having a gun escalates the situation. Mere possession of a gun increases your chances of being shot or killed. Quote ABSTRACT Objectives. We investigated the possible relationship between being shot in an assault and possession of a gun at the time. Methods. We enrolled 677 case participants that had been shot in an assault and 684 population-based control participants within Philadelphia, PA, from 2003 to 2006. We adjusted odds ratios for confounding variables. Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05). Conclusions. On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures. Read More: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2008.143099?journalCode=ajph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 18 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said: Well, the statistics are ok so long as they don't include middle class, straight, white, christian, family men. Gun violence in that group is simply the result of irresponsible gun owners and doesn't count because fearful FNR says so. The point is that a blanket statistic for the entire population is meaningless when it comes to the decision of a particular individual to buy a firearm or not. Just like the average heart attack statistic for the entire population does not apply to someone who is fit, doesn't smoke, and leads a healthy lifestyle, so too the risks associated with owning a firearm will vary widely based on unique factors such as socio economic status, educational levels, stability of the family environment, mental health and firearm training. So the average statistic across an entire population need not be relevant to an individual from outside of the various high risk groups. That is pretty logical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 26 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said: Well, the statistics are ok so long as they don't include middle class, straight, white, christian, family men. Gun violence in that group is simply the result of irresponsible gun owners and doesn't count because fearful FNR says so. Didn't you know that gun violence only exists within groups that FNR has some bigoted feelings towards? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said: Didn't you know that gun violence only exists within groups that FNR has some bigoted feelings towards? Yup! It's logic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 11 minutes ago, BloodRider said: This is literally special pleading. You offer no evidence for your view of these statistics, save your own conviction that people who are "inner city ghetto dwellers and trailer park inhabitants" skew the risks. “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” The truth of the matter is, having a gun escalates the situation. Mere possession of a gun increases your chances of being shot or killed. FLAWS IN STUDY OF FIREARM POSSESSION AND RISK FOR ASSAULT http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866589/ The study by Branas et al.1 contains errors in design and execution that make it difficult to determine the meaning of their findings. Their study assessed risk for being assaulted and then shot, a compound outcome event whose second element (being shot) is not inevitable given the first (being assaulted). Persons who were assaulted but not shot are not studied. We do not know whether any association between firearm possession and their outcome measure applies to assault, to being shot given an assault, or both. The study does not control for time and place. The authors invoke stray bullets to argue that residents of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, are at equal risk for being shot, no matter where they are and what they are doing. This ignores the fact that violence is not randomly distributed and is unfair to Philadelphia. The control group is inappropriate, as was probably guaranteed by its selection from all adult Philadelphians. There were large differences between case participants and control participants in prior criminal history and alcohol or drug involvement, all of which influence gun-carrying behavior and risk for violent victimization. Personal and geographic differences compounded one another: 83% of shootings occurred outdoors, yet while those shootings were occuring, 91% of control participants, arguably at lower risk already for personal reasons, were indoors. A list could easily be made of likely differences between case participants and control participants that were not addressed. The problems with geography and control selection are not insurmountable. A classic study of alcohol use among adult pedestrian fatalities in Manhattan enrolled the first 4 pedestrians reaching the site where the fatality occurred “on a subsequent date, but on the same day of the week and at a time as close as possible to the exact time of day of the accident [italics retained]”2(p657) as control participants for each case participant. Branas et al. have omitted critical detail from their results. Assaults can be independent of any prior relationship between perpetrator and victim—a would-be robber spies a prospect emerging from a bar—or can occur in the context of, and perhaps because of, some prior relationship. The association between gun possession and risk of being assaulted or shot may differ greatly between these 2 types of encounters. Attacks by strangers are common, accounting for 50.5% of robberies and aggravated assaults reported by males and 34.7% of those reported by females.3 The authors should present separate results for assaults independent of and related to prior personal involvement between victims and shooters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 Holy crap, one study is flawed (in a way that I didn't bring up in my argument) - this must mean ALL STUDIES ARE FLAWED Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 12 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said: The point is that a blanket statistic for the entire population is meaningless when it comes to the decision of a particular individual to buy a firearm or not. Just like the average heart attack statistic for the entire population does not apply to someone who is fit, doesn't smoke, and leads a healthy lifestyle, so too the risks associated with owning a firearm will vary widely based on unique factors such as socio economic status, educational levels, stability of the family environment, mental health and firearm training. So the average statistic across an entire population need not be relevant to an individual from outside of the various high risk groups. That is pretty logical. And I guess in your logic brain, those health statistics are still irrelevant even when you start bringing in nicotine, junk food, and sedentary behavior into your lifestyle, hmm? Like in the same way those statistics are logically irrelevant when you bring guns into your home because your own special reasons? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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