# Claims you've never actually heard spoken



## Bullgrit (Jul 1, 2015)

This isn't intended to be political or religious, but I realize my opening example here could be taken as one or the other even though it's not my intention for this to be a political or religious discussion.

There are many random things that I've heard people complain that other people say and do, but that I've never actually encountered anyone actually saying or doing. For instance, I keep coming across arguments against the idea that the Earth is 6,000 years old. Lots and lots of blogs, articles, videos, etc. of people explaining how the Earth is not 6K, but I've never seen one thing from a "young Earth believer" actually making the claim. Now, that may be because I've never sought out those claims. But, then, I've never sought out the counter-argument, either, yet I stumble across them all the time.

What is something that you see a lot of counter-arguments against that you've never encountered the pro-argument for?

Bullgrit


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## Ryujin (Jul 1, 2015)

You don't have to dig very deep to find that sort of comment. Sometimes it's the very people who debunk that sort of thing, who are linking back to those who make the claims. For example, on the religion vs. atheism front, you have people like Youtuber "Armoured Skeptic", who likes to insert Creationist video into his own and then debunk the statements (or occasionally just laugh at them).

I can't really think of anything that I haven't seen the original argument for, because I tend to try and dig up the origins. Maybe this thread will point some out for me?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 1, 2015)

As it so happens, I live just a few minutes from a Creation Science Center, and I run into young earthers quite a bit.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jul 2, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As it so happens, I live just a few minutes from a Creation Science Center, and I run into young earthers quite a bit.




Does that cause a lot of damage to your car?


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## Scott DeWar (Jul 2, 2015)

Darn those young, small earth elementals! they get hit by the bumper and dents it every time!


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## Bullgrit (Jul 2, 2015)

> Sometimes it's the very people who debunk that sort of thing, who are linking back to those who make the claims.



I guess I miss those links because I really don't delve into the debunking information that much. I don't believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, and I don't have anyone trying to tell me it is, so I don't need the debunk info. I'd rather spend my time learning about something new, or something old that I just don't yet fully grok.

Bullgrit


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## Morrus (Jul 2, 2015)

I've never heard anyone say it in real life.  I've seen it online though.


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## Alzrius (Jul 2, 2015)

I was going to say that I've never actually heard spoken most of the more outlandish claims about Obama, but a friend recently played for me a video of a very uncomfortable-looking Rick Santorum listen to a woman talk about how Obama needed to be removed from office _now_, and that we couldn't wait until the next election because we wouldn't _make it_ to the next election with him in office, an example of why that is being how he's fired every military general that said they wouldn't order troops to shoot American citizens.

Youtube: preserving the crazy.


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## Janx (Jul 2, 2015)

I have sat at a dinner where somebody said Obama should be shot and that Obama was caused the deficit.  As I understand it, we entered the Obama presidency with a $13 trillion dollar deficit that had accrued during the Bush regime.  Clinton left office with no deficit.  Bush racked up the bill because we were riding high on the dotcom bubble, and when 911 happened, he didn't raise taxes to fund the war (like all presidents all do).  So when the bubble burst, we needed more money, and it got borrowed.  I told the guy that.

Ken Ham's debate with Bill Nye should have brought up the 6,000 year old earth.  I don't recall hearing it in person.  I was surprised to see it on the Sopranos (just finished watching that for the first time).  they had a religious dude visiting Tony while in the hospital spouting that nonsense.

I have sat in a church (as a guest of a friend I was visiting), and a parishoner and stood up and was ranting about how "this was a christian nation" in the early 1990s.


I have seen an anti-gun friend on FB post how there have been zero mass killings stopped by somebody with a gun.  Somebody else found the link to an article with nine instances where a civillian or off duty cop with a personal weapon stopped or helped stop a mass killing.

I have seen the current meme going on about how obamacare has been the law of the land for 3 years, stop trying to change that, and how the 2nd ammendment has been the law of the land for 222 years, stop trying to change that.  The focus on the image is that obama is trying to kill guns.  From what I understand, Obama has done nothing about guns in both of his terms.  The false claim being to be anti-Obama because he's anti-gun, of which there's no evidence to support that based on his actions.


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## Morrus (Jul 2, 2015)

Janx said:


> I have sat at a dinner where somebody said Obama should be shot




I've always wondered whether people who opine that death or violence should be the penalty for disagreement should be committed. It seems to happen a lot on the internet.


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## Ryujin (Jul 2, 2015)

Janx said:


> I have sat in a church (as a guest of a friend I was visiting), and a parishoner and stood up and was ranting about how "this was a christian nation" in the early 1990s.




The United States is a bit of a dichotomy; nation that enshrines the separation of Church and State, in law, and yet in which no one who doesn't thank God could ever become President (at least not at the moment).



Morrus said:


> I've always wondered whether people who opine that death or violence should be the penalty for disagreement should be committed. It seems to happen a lot on the internet.




There would be no one left to take care of the patients.


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## Janx (Jul 2, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I've always wondered whether people who opine that death or violence should be the penalty for disagreement should be committed. It seems to happen a lot on the internet.




it's certainly a crime to suggest it about the president of the united states.  But it's the kind of extremist bullcrap we get here.  I've seen recent articles that the US has had more right-wing extremist terrorism incidents than muslim ones.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 2, 2015)

> I have seen an anti-gun friend on FB post how there have been zero mass killings stopped by somebody with a gun. Somebody else found the link to an article with nine instances where a civillian or off duty cop with a personal weapon stopped or helped stop a mass killing.




On another board, I recently saw a guy make a claim that there were no mass killings being perpetrated by people using legally purchased weapons.  I pointed out several that had*, and that the class of spree killers called "family annihilators"- persons (usually fathers) tend to use killing methods convenient to them, often their own legally purchased firearms.

Guns don't change people's violent tendencies, they make it easier to make violent tendencies into assaults, and translate more assaults into homicides.







* I just mentioned the Thurston High, Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech killings, but the UT Tower shootings, and Cleveland Elementary- the one that inspired the Boomtown Rats hit "I don't like Mondays" and the middle-of-the-day residential street ambush killings of Michael and Florence Phillips by Richard Brian Uffleman and his sons Rick & Jerry (featured on the ID series "Fear thy Neighbor") are just the first few that spring to mind in which the guns were legally purchased.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 2, 2015)

Janx said:


> it's certainly a crime to suggest it about the president of the united states.  But it's the kind of extremist bullcrap we get here.  I've seen recent articles that the US has had more right-wing extremist terrorism incidents than muslim ones.




The US has definitely experienced more SUCCESSFUL domestic right-wing terrorist operations than by Islamist extremists: McVeigh, the guy who flew his Cessna into an IRS building, the Roof killings, and all those church burnings, lynchings, etc. endured by black (and other minority) communities in the South.


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## Dioltach (Jul 2, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> On another board, I recently saw a guy make a claim that there were no mass killings being perpetrated by people using legally purchased weapons.  I pointed out several that had*, and that the class of spree killers called "family annihilators"- persons (usually fathers) tend to use killing methods convenient to them, often their own legally purchased firearms.
> 
> Guns don't change people's violent tendencies, they make it easier to make violent tendencies into assaults, and translate more assaults into homicides.
> 
> ...




The 2011 Alphen shooting in the Netherlands is another.


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## billd91 (Jul 2, 2015)

There are tons of wacko conspiracy theories on the internet that I haven't had direct contact with, that's no difficult feat. There is just so much crazy out there - nobody can possibly exposed to all of it. It's the crazies and extremists you *are* exposed to that I find interesting.

Around the Midwest (and maybe other places) there is a group that goes preaching on college campus, Campus Ministries is their name. They'll tell you, with a straight face, that oral sex causes cancer. One of them, Brother Jed, used to tell us that accepting Jesus into his life, while eating at Burger King, instantly cured his crab infestation.

Sometimes people are just crackpots, unable to put cause and effect together. Sometimes they're just really startlingly ignorant. But sometimes, they're also really desperate. I know someone, who otherwise understands science, who believed the anti-vaccination camp for a while. She's got a child with autism and this was early in the theory, long before Jenny McCarthy threw her celebrity status behind it. She has intellectually come around but, sure enough, was reluctant to have her youngest child immunized and drew the process out longer than is recommended by pediatricians. Her daughter is, I believe, fully immunized for her age now, but I'd bet it's her lingering and desperate fear of what caused her older child's autism that was the obstacle and not her other rationalizations. I think that she and McCarthy (and many others) were so desperate to find a reason for their children's issues that they latched onto whatever threads of theories they could in the literature - and clung to them, in some degree, even when officially discredited.


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## Scott DeWar (Jul 2, 2015)

The suggestion of removing any one from office via a bullet is a suggestion best kept to oneself. We have a safe and legal method of removing a person from office. It is not easy, but it does not involve murder, which is wrong. In my humble opinion.


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## Umbran (Jul 2, 2015)

Janx said:


> I have seen an anti-gun friend on FB post how there have been zero mass killings stopped by somebody with a gun.  Somebody else found the link to an article with nine instances where a civillian or off duty cop with a personal weapon stopped or helped stop a mass killing.




I think we need to be careful with wording there - I don't know of any armed civilians *preventing* a mass killing.  There are some who have stopped a shooting spree once it has begun.  The cases I know of there are several victims dead before the civilian could get involved.

I am not sure there's statistical evidence that having civilians stop shootings actually reduced the number of deaths.  I think the typical dynamic is that the shooter does a lot of damage in the first few moments to minutes of an attack, and then is basically done anyway, as the targets have scattered and found cover.  So, the armed civilian who saves the day may still be a bit of a myth.


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## Scott DeWar (Jul 3, 2015)

it is also possible the shooting sprees are occurring at places where they are betting an armed civilian would not be, such as at a church or theater of a major city.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 3, 2015)

Scott DeWar said:


> it is also possible the shooting sprees are occurring at places where they are betting an armed civilian would not be, such as at a church or theater of a major city.




Almost all of them are.  And honestly, there are no real easy answers to that.  There will always be soft targets unless we make it an affirmative duty for all adults to go around armed.  

And doing THAT is just asking for the homicide rate to jump, as the effort and time it takes to kill a human drops to 3 seconds and 3lbs of pressure on a trigger, everywhere in the USA.


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## Umbran (Jul 3, 2015)

Scott DeWar said:


> it is also possible the shooting sprees are occurring at places where they are betting an armed civilian would not be, such as at a church or theater of a major city.




Either way, if the civilians are effective, we should still see the incidents that do run upon an armed civilian end in fewer deaths.  I'm not sure that's the case, from the quick reading I've done.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 3, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Either way, if the civilians are effective, we should still see the incidents that do run upon an armed civilian end in fewer deaths.  I'm not sure that's the case, from the quick reading I've done.




There was a study recently published in PLOS One that talked about a "contagion effect" for mass killings: they found that in the 13 days following a highly-publicized mass killing, the odds of another mass killing rose alarmingly.

In addition (and tangential to your point):



> Researchers behind the new study also found that states with higher gun ownership were more likely to have mass killings and school shootings. On the contrary, states with tighter firearm laws had fewer mass shootings.
> 
> Levin said he believes a high number of handguns is partially responsible for the high rate of mass shootings in the United States.




So in those polities where you'd expect there to be higher odds of a mass killer encountering a good guy with a gun, we're not seeing any kind of deterrent effect accompanying that arsenal's existence.


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## Janx (Jul 3, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Either way, if the civilians are effective, we should still see the incidents that do run upon an armed civilian end in fewer deaths.  I'm not sure that's the case, from the quick reading I've done.




I'd have to find the article I found about the 9 instances to see their detail.

I do suspect that the bad guy will always get a leg up and a few shots in before anybody on the planet could possibly stop him. Simply because unless I am parked in my car, see the bad guy walk from his car into the nail salon with 50 guns strapped on him, I'm not in position to start shooting first.  And other than calling 911, I'm not sure what the best strategy would be.  With a pistol, shooting a well armed guy across a parking lot seems risky (missing, return fire from a rifle, etc).  Or do I get out, try to sneak up on him and cap him from close range?

So any first responder is responding to the attack that just started.  Which means some folks are going to get hurt.  Active shooter situations win initiative basically and get their surprise round.

There's also the usual excuse that attacks happen in no-gun zones like schools.  Nobody in a school is supposed to have a gun.  Which makes it easier to get your murder spree on before anybody with a gun can get to you (generally cops).


While I am for having the right to have a gun (I have some), I don't see them as being useful/applicable all the time.  Bad guys will break into my house when I'm not home, so I can't shoot them then*.  A home invasion will happen while I am going potty or watching TV and don't have a gun handy.  Half the places don't allow guns, so my gun gets left in the car when something crazy happens (which is actually pretty rare anyway).  Having had a friend who almost got carjacked at a stop light, probably the most likely time/place to keep a gun handy and have it be useful is in the car for when roadside crime happens or for entering/exiting the vehicle for parking lot robbery.  It's why my wife got her CHL because employees where she worked were getting robbed in the parking lot.

*this happened to me last year.


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## Janx (Jul 3, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> So in those polities where you'd expect there to be higher odds of a mass killer encountering a good guy with a gun, we're not seeing any kind of deterrent effect accompanying that arsenal's existence.




Not arguing with the math, but deterrent effect seemed to be debunked as I learned in sociology 101 a zillion years ago.

so death penalty laws, didn't stop crime.

By extension, the fact that more civilians have a gun in Houston than in NYC, doesn't stop bad guys from doing crime. (though I have no idea what the crime rates between the 2 cities are)

I recall from hearing an NPR article about corporate embezzlement crime, that the biggest factor single accountants were tempted to commit crime had was that they were the only one watching the books.  They saw little chance of getting caught, so they did it.

My assumption then is that crime in general is motivated by the idea that they are not likely to get caught.  Since my house now has an alarm and cameras, which increase the chance of a crook getting caught, they'll go hit somebody else's easier house.

I am not a fan of the Open Carry idea (though in TX it requires a CHL and it does simplify some issues about perfect concealment in our hot weather), but I imagine proponents might think that if every other person has a gun on their hip, the bad guys will see their chances of getting caught/shot are higher and go somewhere else.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 3, 2015)

> Not arguing with the math, but deterrent effect seemed to be debunked as I learned in sociology 101 a zillion years ago.




Pretty much.



> I am not a fan of the Open Carry idea (though in TX it requires a CHL and it does simplify some issues about perfect concealment in our hot weather), but I imagine proponents might think that if every other person has a gun on their hip, the bad guys will see their chances of getting caught/shot are higher and go somewhere else.




While they may have a point, to me, the power and value of "Open Carry" depends too much on white privilege.

Q: what do you call a bunch of white guys carrying guns openly on the streets of Texas?
A: Open Carry advocates

Q: what do you call a black guy carrying a gun openly in an Ohio Wal-Mart?
A: The Deceased

I carry no firearms- not even fake ones: I don't need panicky white people thinking i'm a threat.


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## billd91 (Jul 3, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> While they may have a point, to me, the power and value of "Open Carry" depends too much on white privilege.




Yeah, this whole open carry issue is really starting to get disturbing. I can't imagine African-Americans or Arab-Americans getting away with the same stuff those white guys are getting away with. I'd love to see someone actually confront the issue by trying, but they would have to be extremely brave people because I can't imagine them not getting a SWAT team called on them.


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## Umbran (Jul 3, 2015)

billd91 said:


> I'd love to see someone actually confront the issue by trying, but they would have to be extremely brave people because I can't imagine them not getting a SWAT team called on them.




If they survived, though, it would make one heck of a civil-rights lawsuit.  

Film a bunch of the open-carry people doing what they do, and not being called on it.

Do that same thing, film it.  Get dragged in.  Have the ACLU on speed-dial....


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 4, 2015)

Considering the number of blacks who have been killed carrying toy/bb guns- the guy in Wal-Mart was carrying one he was intending to buy, after all- I just don't think I'd volunteer to be a part of that social experiment.


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## Umbran (Jul 4, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Considering the number of blacks who have been killed carrying toy/bb guns- the guy in Wal-Mart was carrying one he was intending to buy, after all- I just don't think I'd volunteer to be a part of that social experiment.




Yeah.  Thus my, "If they survived."

Crappy state of affairs.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 4, 2015)

The last gun-like object I owned was a squirt gun that looked like a Colt 1911. It was actually battery powered, and made a bit of a "crack" when it fired.  Then a buddy borrowed it and blacked out the orange tip.  That was in 1987.  

I've only touched 2 firearms since then, both belonging to others, handled in the privacy of my own home.  I'm simply not going to give someone good odds of making a bad mistake.


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## Janx (Jul 4, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The last gun-like object I owned was a squirt gun that looked like a Colt 1911. It was actually battery powered, and made a bit of a "crack" when it fired.  Then a buddy borrowed it and blacked out the orange tip.  That was in 1987.
> 
> I've only touched 2 firearms since then, both belonging to others, handled in the privacy of my own home.  I'm simply not going to give someone good odds of making a bad mistake.




It's not good that the world still works that way.  You should get the same levels of treatment i get.  Period.

Solve poverty.  I think that's part of the key to the treatment issue.

For cops, a rookie cop starts out all squeaky clean with no bias.  After a year, the majority of perps he busts are black or hispanic.  Makes him start thinking it's the blacks or hispanics that are the problem.  Thus everybody fitting the profile starts off as "probably guilty" because in his limited experience of only dealing with bad people, that's what he's been conditioned to.

For teachers, they all talk about schools as a percentage of white, in order to provide a metric to the quality of the school (even at interviews).  Same reason as the cop, the list of troublemakers trends to blacks and hispanics.

What's really going on:
A typical "good" school in Houston starts off pretty strong with a white demographic.  Then the apartments come in, which leads to the poor flooding the school (there are schools in Houston with population rivaling towns and colleges).  The poor are predominantly hispanic and black.  Guess what kind of people don't value education or are more likely to have a parent in jail or get into crime?  Poor people.

Its the alignment of the hispanics and blacks to being poor that reinforces the racial profile and negativity.  Fix the poverty and the crime rate goes down, and hopefully the mix of crooks across all demographics levels out.  Cops stop seeing the same colored people in the back of their car.  This is where Quannel X gets biased that the cops are out to get the blacks.  In Houston, they have a very diverse police force.  That means the chance a perp gets busted by a black cop is just as likely as a white cop.  The problem is there really are more poor blacks than whites, and the most desperate of poor turn to crime.

CPS has the same problem.  If they remove a kid from the home, statistically, it's a poor family, and almost always in a non-white neighborhood.  The law says they have to try to place the kid back with family, except that everybody in that family has likely done time, making them unsuited for re-homing.

I think the hardest thing to learn is to not blame the race for the pattern we see on the surface.  Black folks doing more crime isn't because black folks are more crimey.  It's because they are poor. They occupy the largest segment of the total poor in America.  Couple being poor with the stigma we talked about in another thread about being unsuccessful implying you are lazy, bad. 

Solve Poverty.  Helps the crime rate.  Helps end racism.

I have no clue how to do that.


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## Scott DeWar (Jul 4, 2015)

forget I made this post





A.  
B.  
C. 
  C-1. You break the law, You pay the price


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## Cor Azer (Jul 4, 2015)

Scott DeWar said:


> how to solve poverty:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




That's a bit disingenuous.

Many poor have an excellent work ethic - heck, for some it's why they fail in school; it's not that they don't value education, it's that they don't have time for studying because they work after school to help their family. What they lack is opportunity, and unfortunately, you can't teach opportunity.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jul 4, 2015)

Scott DeWar said:


> how to solve poverty:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, if you work someone owes you a paycheck.



> B.  You don't work, you don't eat.



As Cor Azer mentioned, this is one of the reasons some people fail at school. A lot of kids end up having to drop out of school to help put food on the table, pay the bills and support their families. 
Also, it's a slogan used by the former Soviet Union, so... 


> C. You go to jail, you still need to support your family



Considering that prisoners can get paid as little as 12 cents per hour, it's going to be difficult for them to support their families.


> C-1. You break the law, You go to jail



That sounds a bit extreme. Your statement doesn't seem to make any exceptions for breaking minor laws. I mean, what if you went 6 miles over the speed limit? You broke the law, you go to jail, right? Jaywalking? Jail time! Downloaded an illegal copy of a Game of Thrones episode? I hope you like prison sex.


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## Umbran (Jul 4, 2015)

Scott DeWar said:


> how to solve poverty:
> 
> Teach a work ethic.
> A.  No one owes you anything
> ...




Um, no. The meme that those in poverty are so because they are lazy, or otherwise lack willingness to work does not stand up to scrutiny.  It is fiction.

Work ethic does not get you out of poverty if the jobs available do not pay living wage, and/or society as a whole keeps opportunity away from you.

We are told from youth that if you work hard, all your dreams will come true, but that's not quite right.  Hard work is required, yes, but hard work alone doesn't do the trick.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 4, 2015)

1) Yes, there are people who are abusing the system- I know a lot of them.  But there is also a lot more to poverty than not "getting a job".

My maternal aunt is poor.  She works @6 days a week.  Sometimes 7.

Her youngest son is poor.  He has trouble getting enough hours at work to make money.  Places that are hiring right now and pay better and/or have better work schedules are too far away to walk.  But he currently can't afford any vehicle, and there is no public transportation here.

2) not being poor doesn't insulate you from racism.  If you look, there are all kinds of news stories out the about blacks in the middle class or even 1% getting treated like crooks in retail settings.  I am one.

3) there are other dynamics to racially stereotyping people's views of their fellow human beings than merely being exposed to their poorest or their social misfits.  Merely being beaten out for a job promotion by a black, a woman or other workplace minority has been shown to increase negative feelings towards those groups in white males in ways that losing out to another white male does not.  There is complex psychology going on: the defeated assumption that the job was theirs gets replaced by an assumption that the person they lost out to got it solely because they had some special treatment, either by law or some kind of "political correctness" impetus by management.


> I think the hardest thing to learn is to not blame the race for the pattern we see on the surface.




True.  But I'll go further: the hardest thing to do is to dissociate race (or gender, or sexual identity or religion) from surface patterns of failure or success.  They may contribute in some ways, but culture is a bigger culprit.


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## Umbran (Jul 4, 2015)

Janx said:


> For cops, a rookie cop starts out all squeaky clean with no bias.




Well, no more bias than anyone else.  Which isn't really saying much.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 4, 2015)

Yup.  Racial bias has been found in young kids...of all ethnicities.  They learn it quick.


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## Janx (Jul 5, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Um, no. The meme that those in poverty are so because they are lazy, or otherwise lack willingness to work does not stand up to scrutiny.  It is fiction.
> 
> Work ethic does not get you out of poverty if the jobs available do not pay living wage, and/or society as a whole keeps opportunity away from you.
> 
> We are told from youth that if you work hard, all your dreams will come true, but that's not quite right.  Hard work is required, yes, but hard work alone doesn't do the trick.




weren't we just talking about this in another thread?  That Puritan work ethic leads to blamey thinking that somebody who is failing to be successful is lazy, because you're successful, and you must be working hard.


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## bone_naga (Jul 5, 2015)

Janx said:


> Not arguing with the math, but deterrent effect seemed to be debunked as I learned in sociology 101 a zillion years ago.



Kind of sort of but not exactly. On an individual level, it can work. There was a National Crime Victimization Survey where they talked to convicted criminals and many of them stated that they had avoided targeting a specific person because they believed that person to have a gun. Criminals aren't stupid. They're like any other predator, they tend to pick off the easy targets that give them what they want with minimal risk to themselves (assuming that there isn't a personal motivation involved, of course).

However, that doesn't stop them from committing the crime at all. If they pass one person up, they will choose another.

Mass shootings seem to nearly always take place at a soft target where guns are not allowed, even if it is an otherwise gun-friendly state. There are cases of possible shooting sprees being stopped but it's impossible to say how many would have been killed had no intervention occurred because we don't have crystal balls that can show us what might have been.

Back to the individual level, though, defensive gun uses outnumber all gun deaths (including suicides, which account for the majority of gun deaths), so I'd say it is still worth consideration. In fact, I really don't think that basing policy around mass shootings vs normal everyday crime really makes a lot of sense. Instead of real solutions, all we get from those events are worthless knee-jerk reactions.


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## bone_naga (Jul 5, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Q: what do you call a bunch of white guys carrying guns openly on the streets of Texas?
> A: Open Carry advocates
> 
> Q: what do you call a black guy carrying a gun openly in an Ohio Wal-Mart?
> ...



That was a sad incident, and I don't think it's the only one. Unfortunately when you combine panicky people that think open carriers are already on the verge of being mass murderers with racial bias, things tend not to end well.


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## Scott DeWar (Jul 5, 2015)

*A retraction of a bad post*



Scott DeWar said:


> forget I made this post
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I have omitted obviously offensive material. I would like to use the excuse of "I didn't think that . . . ." But that is where the problem is: I DIDN'T THINK.


I am sorry EN World.​





I was tempted to just say "I failed my charisma check"


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## Janx (Jul 5, 2015)

Scott DeWar said:


> I have omitted obviously offensive material. I would like to use the excuse of "I didn't think that . . . ." But that is where the problem is: I DIDN'T THINK.
> 
> 
> I am sorry EN World.​
> ...




forgiven.

A certain political group tends to espouse that mindset.  Having grown up on welfare, it offends me because it assumes my mom was lazy.  Things are more complex than that, and lazy she most certainly was not.

Here's why I forgive you.  Whenever I present a dumb or only half-smart idea, Danny or Umbran usually comes up with what is wrong with it, or makes it better (danny just did that a few posts up for me).  They have adjusted my thinking, given me explanations for why a thing was not as good as it could be.

You've retracted your statement.  I assume you understand the logical problems with it now.  If you were part of that political group and used your new info to better guide them, tone down their rhetoric to reflect compassion and grace, that's a good thing.


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## Umbran (Jul 5, 2015)

bone_naga said:


> Back to the individual level, though, defensive gun uses outnumber all gun deaths (including suicides, which account for the majority of gun deaths), so I'd say it is still worth consideration.




The number I have heard bandied about is that guns are used in self-defense 2.5 million times each year.  Mind you, that number comes from a study done by the NRA, that has a vested interest in the result.

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics says that, in the 5 year period from 2007 to 2011, in property and violent crimes, guns were used in defensive action a total of 338,700 times (about 1% of the time, someone tries to defend themselves with a gun).   That's total over all five years.  And those are just the times guns were used - not the total number of times they were *successfully* used.

The FBI says that, in 2012, only 259 people were killed in a justifiable homicide (a civilian killing a felon during commission of a felony).  And that happened to be a five-year high.

According to the 2004 book "Private Guns, Public Health" by Dr. David Hemenway, Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, the difference is in a problem of statistics and false positives in the NRA study.  In essence, the NRA was extrapolating from a small sample set that is predisposed to reporting that they have stopped crimes with guns.

(cite for some of the above:  http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable15.pdf)

Meanwhile, the CDC reports that in 2013, there were 21,175 successful suicides by firearm**, and 11,208 homicides by firearm*** 

So, rouoghly speaking, guns are used in defense about 68,000 times a year.  Leading to about 250 deaths of felons.

Meanwhile, they are used to kill 32,000+ people a year overall - and generally twice as many people kill themselves with a firearm than kill others with a firearm.

So, yes, defensive uses outnumber deaths.  But is is not at all clear that the defensive uses are valuable enough to justify allowing the deaths to occur.



**http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm
***http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm


----------



## Scott DeWar (Jul 5, 2015)

Janx said:


> forgiven.
> 
> A certain political group tends to espouse that mindset.  Having grown up on welfare, it offends me because it assumes my mom was lazy.  Things are more complex than that, and lazy she most certainly was not.
> 
> ...




I too was raised on welfare, but unlike you, My Mom was lazy. I am on a constant vigil to fight that in my own life.


----------



## Umbran (Jul 5, 2015)

Scott DeWar said:


> I have omitted obviously offensive material. I would like to use the excuse of "I didn't think that . . . ." But that is where the problem is: I DIDN'T THINK.
> 
> 
> I am sorry EN World.​




Sir, you win a number of points for being classy.  Thank you.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jul 5, 2015)

Umbran said:


> The number I have heard bandied about is that guns are used in self-defense 2.5 million times each year.  Mind you, that number comes from a study done by the NRA, that has a vested interest in the result.



You also have to take into account the rise Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws, and how because of SYG laws, incidents not previously considered self-defense have been reclassified incidents as "self-defense. SYG laws, the wonderful one we started in Florida and pushed out to the rest of the country, were basically written by the NRA, so take it as you will.


----------



## Scott DeWar (Jul 5, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Sir, you win a number of points for being classy.  Thank you.




Ummm, Wow! Thank you! ! My Grandfather TRIED to teach me manners. I credit him with this.


----------



## bone_naga (Jul 5, 2015)

Umbran said:


> The number I have heard bandied about is that guns are used in self-defense 2.5 million times each year.  Mind you, that number comes from a study done by the NRA, that has a vested interest in the result.



A vested interest certainly invites scrutiny, but it doesn't automatically mean the results are wrong. Otherwise I could just as easily dismiss your link from the VPC due to its anti-gun bias. Also, it wasn't an NRA study.



Umbran said:


> The FBI says that, in 2012, only 259 people were killed in a justifiable homicide (a civilian killing a felon during commission of a felony).  And that happened to be a five-year high.



I think justifiable homicide numbers are a poor measure of defensive gun use. Most DGUs don't kill the attacker. Many don't even require for any shots to be fired at all. The defensive gun owner isn't trying to kill someone else, just end the attack, as opposed to a murderer who is making an active attempt to kill his target.



Umbran said:


> In essence, the NRA was extrapolating from a small sample set that is predisposed to reporting that they have stopped crimes with guns.



Quite possible. Any survey generally entails extrapolating results from a small sample population, which leaves room for error, whether it was intentional or not. I will also say that Kleck's 2.5 million number is higher than most other studies.



Umbran said:


> So, yes, defensive uses outnumber deaths.  But is is not at all clear that the defensive uses are valuable enough to justify allowing the deaths to occur.



I will agree that it's not clear, but it's certainly worth consideration. If the low end result estimate is 100,000 per year and the high end estimate is 2.5 million, it seems likely that the truth is somewhere in between. Not necessarily the middle, but hardly an insignificant number. It's also not clear exactly whether a law that reduces the ability for lawful ownership and use would have an equally proportional impact on criminal use.

Another item for consideration: if crime in the US was only differentiated from other countries by guns, then our non-gun homicide rate should be equal to or in fact lower than other countries (since people that would otherwise kill with a knife or other implement will instead gravitate towards guns). But if you compare the homicide rates in the US and the UK, after you adjust our rate to remove the number of gun-related homicides, we still have a higher homicide rate than the UK.

Please excuse the use of an obviously pro-gun website, but its sources are all cited if you care to check their work. It's basically laziness on my part so that I don't have to look up as many web links.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics/clics2012a/commsumm.nsf/b4a3962433b52fa787256e5f00670a71/10498c3a3264be7887257998006fe0d7/$FILE/HseJud0202AttachN.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgeff.html

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgbur.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2013/06/handguns_suicides_mass_shootings_deaths_and_self_defense_findings_from_a.html


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## Umbran (Jul 5, 2015)

bone_naga said:


> I think justifiable homicide numbers are a poor measure of defensive gun use. Most DGUs don't kill the attacker.




Of course not.  It is only a gauge.  The idea that defensive gun use leads to the death of the felon _only one time ten thousand_ does not sound credible.  Thus, 250 or so deaths is not consistent with 2.5 million uses. Even with my numbers, the rate is something like one-third of one percent of all defensive uses end in the death of a felon.

It would be interesting to see how many of them end in the death of the defender.



> I will agree that it's not clear, but it's certainly worth consideration. If the low end result estimate is 100,000 per year




By the numbers I've already presented, the low end is no higher than about 68,000, two-thirds of what you suggest there. 



> Another item for consideration: if crime in the US was only differentiated from other countries by guns, then our non-gun homicide rate should be equal to or in fact lower than other countries (since people that would otherwise kill with a knife or other implement will instead gravitate towards guns). But if you compare the homicide rates in the US and the UK, after you adjust our rate to remove the number of gun-related homicides, we still have a higher homicide rate than the UK.




That assumes that the firearm-homicide rate and the non-firearm homicide rates are independent.  I am not convinced that is a safe assumption.  You'd have to provide some support for that before it can be a major part of an analysis.

In both countries, "violent crime" does not include homicides.  Violent crime rates are typically gotten from survey data, as many crimes are not reported to police.  Victims of homicide, however, rarely respond to surveys 

In 2010, the NCVS had the US violent crime rate at 10.8 per 100,000, about a 1.15 chance of a person being the victim of a violent crime.
The British Crime Survey had the rate in Britain and Wales at 3.1%!  Wow!  Lots of gun control, but more violent crime!  

But, the homicide rates are different:
There were 622 homicides in England and Wales in 2010.  With a population about 55 million, that makes the rate one in 88,000
There were 14,022 homicides in the US in that same year.  With a population of 308 million, on in 22,000, four times higher.

11,101 of those homicides were committed with firearms.  That's one in 28,000 or so.  Our firearms homicide rate alone is higher than their total homicide rate.

A couple things we could say that are consistent with the data:
We could say, "People in England and wales like to beat each other up, but they *don't* kill each other," This may be a cultural difference, meaning that you really cannot compare across countries at all.

Or, we could say, "Yes, guns seem to deter violent crime.  However, they *enhance* homicide."  If so, I am not sure it is necessarily a win for us.


----------



## Morrus (Jul 5, 2015)

I don't envy you guys having to have this conversation endlessly.


----------



## Scott DeWar (Jul 5, 2015)

I purposely stayed away from it.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 5, 2015)

bone_naga said:


> That was a sad incident, and I don't think it's the only one. Unfortunately when you combine panicky people that think open carriers are already on the verge of being mass murderers with racial bias, things tend not to end well.




Yeah.  Lots of dead or injured minorities in the past couple of years who had faux or NO firearms...or sometimes, no weapons at all.

Now, some were legitimately bad people involved in ongoing police engagements.  Too many, however, were not.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 5, 2015)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> You also have to take into account the rise Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws, and how because of SYG laws, incidents not previously considered self-defense have been reclassified incidents as "self-defense. SYG laws, the wonderful one we started in Florida and pushed out to the rest of the country, were basically written by the NRA, so take it as you will.




SYG laws tend to be drafted pretty sloppily, and applied even more sloppily by juries.

I was stunned by the Trayvon Martin case.  I was taught in my Texas CrimLaw (ohhhh so many years ago) that those who initiate a conflict- even verbally- cannot subsequently claim self-defense if the conflict escalates to violence.  And on an open, public street, a teenager being followed by a creepy adult male is just as entitled to self-defense as an adult male following a suspicious-looking teenager.

SYG shouldn't have even been a factor in that case.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 5, 2015)

> A couple things we could say that are consistent with the data:
> We could say, "People in England and wales like to beat each other up, but they *don't* kill each other," This may be a cultural difference, meaning that you really cannot compare across countries at all.
> 
> Or, we could say, "Yes, guns seem to deter violent crime. However, they *enhance* homicide." If so, I am not sure it is necessarily a win for us.




Like I was saying before, guns don't make people more violent, but they make it a lot easier to turn violent impulses into assaults, and turn assaults into homicides.

And as we find all the time, firearms make it MUCH easier to kill someone accidentally or negligently.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jul 5, 2015)

Yeah, SYG laws are written pretty badly. The Florida one had to be fixed because drug dealers were going to drug buys, killing buyers, and claiming self defense. There was also a case of the guy who heard someone breaking into his car. He ran outside, and some guy had stolen his car radio. This guy chased the thief down, and stabbed him to death. The thief had a bad of car radios, which this guy took and sold off. He got off on self defense.


----------



## bone_naga (Jul 5, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Of course not.  It is only a gauge.  The idea that defensive gun use leads to the death of the felon _only one time ten thousand_ does not sound credible.  Thus, 250 or so deaths is not consistent with 2.5 million uses. Even with my numbers, the rate is something like one-third of one percent of all defensive uses end in the death of a felon.



Well I think we already said that it is quite possibly lower than 2.5 million, but defensive gun uses don't require any shots at all to be fired, and even when they are fired mortality rates indicate that there is a fairly good chance that the person will live, so it's really not surprising to find low justifiable homicide rates.



Umbran said:


> It would be interesting to see how many of them end in the death of the defender.



That I don't know, although one of the links in my previous post addresses the effectiveness of gun use vs other forms of defense.



Umbran said:


> By the numbers I've already presented, the low end is no higher than about 68,000, two-thirds of what you suggest there.



Sure, we can look at that as a low-ball number, although I think the 100,000 is still probably lower than the actual number.



Umbran said:


> That assumes that the firearm-homicide rate and the non-firearm homicide rates are independent.  I am not convinced that is a safe assumption.  You'd have to provide some support for that before it can be a major part of an analysis.



I never said they were. I didn't assume anything.



Umbran said:


> In both countries, "violent crime" does not include homicides.  Violent crime rates are typically gotten from survey data, as many crimes are not reported to police.  Victims of homicide, however, rarely respond to surveys



That's why I quoted homicide, plus those are the numbers that are typically toted out in gun control debates.



Umbran said:


> But, the homicide rates are different:
> There were 622 homicides in England and Wales in 2010.  With a population about 55 million, that makes the rate one in 88,000
> There were 14,022 homicides in the US in that same year.  With a population of 308 million, on in 22,000, four times higher.
> 
> 11,101 of those homicides were committed with firearms.  That's one in 28,000 or so.  Our firearms homicide rate alone is higher than their total homicide rate.



I'm not sure what your point is since as I already pointed out, our non-gun homicide rate is also higher than their total homicide rate.


----------



## bone_naga (Jul 5, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And as we find all the time, firearms make it MUCH easier to kill someone accidentally or negligently.



Accidental firearm deaths are very rare. More people drown each year. I guess you could say it makes it easier to kill someone accidentally, but it's also extremely easy to avoid such accidents.


----------



## bone_naga (Jul 5, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> SYG laws tend to be drafted pretty sloppily, and applied even more sloppily by juries.
> 
> I was stunned by the Trayvon Martin case.  I was taught in my Texas CrimLaw (ohhhh so many years ago) that those who initiate a conflict- even verbally- cannot subsequently claim self-defense if the conflict escalates to violence.  And on an open, public street, a teenager being followed by a creepy adult male is just as entitled to self-defense as an adult male following a suspicious-looking teenager.



I'm sorry but I have to disagree here. If the situation was reversed and Zimmerman had shot Trayvon simply for following him (since you state that being followed entitles you to self-defense), he would have been wrong and he probably would have been convicted. Following someone isn't initiating conflict.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> SYG shouldn't have even been a factor in that case.



It really wasn't. Zimmerman would have been entitled to self-defense even in the absence of SYG. SYG removes the duty to retreat in certain cases. According to Zimmerman's story, and supported by the physical evidence, he was being assaulted and could not retreat. So SYG wouldn't have really been a factor.

Now only Zimmerman knows exactly what happened, how it went down, and who really initiated the physical confrontation, but the evidence just wasn't there to convict him.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 5, 2015)

bone_naga said:


> Accidental firearm deaths are very rare. More people drown each year. I guess you could say it makes it easier to kill someone accidentally, but it's also extremely easy to avoid such accidents.




Look at the news: how many kids have blown away friends & family playing with unsecured handguns?  How often do you see a report of someone being killed or injured by celebratory gunfire?  Both are definitely accidental, neither is particularly rare.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 5, 2015)

> I'm sorry but I have to disagree here. If the situation was reversed and Zimmerman had shot Trayvon simply for following him (since you state that being followed entitles you to self-defense), he would have been wrong and he probably would have been convicted. Following someone isn't initiating conflict.




Assume Trayvon Martin survived the struggle, not Zimmerman.  His trial testimony would have been a narrative of a teenage boy walking down the darkened street being followed by an adult.  He would say that he feared a kidnapping, robbery, or assault.  When he confronted his shadower- because he didn't think he could get away- a struggle started, and the man brandished a gun.  In fear for his life, he bashed Zimmerman's head against the ground until he went limp/dropped the gun, etc.

That narrative is at least partially supported by the phone call he was making at the time he noticed Zimmerman following him.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/26/justice/zimmerman-trial/

Certainly, the other party to the phone call could be said to have bias in Martin's favor, but it is still a solid piece of witness testimony in support of a self-defense claim.



> It really wasn't. Zimmerman would have been entitled to self-defense even in the absence of SYG. SYG removes the duty to retreat in certain cases. According to Zimmerman's story, and supported by the physical evidence, he was being assaulted and could not retreat. So SYG wouldn't have really been a factor.
> 
> Now only Zimmerman knows exactly what happened, how it went down, and who really initiated the physical confrontation, but the evidence just wasn't there to convict him.




While the evidence would not support a murder charge, it certainly was sufficient to support a claim of involuntary manslaughter



> To establish involuntary manslaughter, the prosecutor must show that the defendant acted with "culpable negligence." Florida statutes define culpable negligence as a disregard for human life while engaging in wanton or reckless behavior.  The state may be able to prove involuntary manslaughter by showing the defendant's recklessness or lack of care when handling a dangerous instrument or weapon, or while engaging in a range of other activities that could lead to death if performed recklessly.




http://statelaws.findlaw.com/florida-law/florida-involuntary-manslaughter-laws.html

Zimmerman was told by police dispatchers to break off his trailing of Trayvon Martin because it was dangerous.  By that, the dispatcher means not just for Zimmerman or Martin, but also for any bystanders and/or police officers sent to the scene.  

He didn't care; he didn't follow orders.  Instead of stopping and waiting for the police _he knew had been dispatched_, he chased a running Martin.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/326700-full-transcript-Zimmerman.html


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## Scott DeWar (Jul 6, 2015)

bone_naga said:


> Accidental firearm deaths are very rare. More people drown each year. I guess you could say it makes it easier to kill someone accidentally, but it's also extremely easy to avoid such accidents.




Yeah, that di-hydorgen - oxide is a deadly substance, indeed.


----------



## Janx (Jul 6, 2015)

Umbran said:


> s seem to deter violent crime.  However, they *enhance* homicide."  If so, I am not sure it is necessarily a win for us.




This part is basically true by logic.  Saw an article on the topic.  Before semi-auto handguns became popular (ala Glock), everyone had Revolvers.  6 shots was all you got.  So you didn't blow your whole wad.

The result was less bullets in bodies at the hospital and lower fatality rates.

The semi-auto holds more ammo, shoots them faster, and reloads faster.  My 9mm holds 17 rounds with the stock magazine.  That's almost 3 times as much ammo as the revolver.


----------



## Janx (Jul 6, 2015)

Scott DeWar said:


> Yeah, that di-hydorgen - oxide is a deadly substance, indeed.




Another state from Freakonomics:
more kids die in pools than by guns.

yet the moms against guns crowd aren't chasing down swimming pool regulations...

There are no doubt some reasonable laws to enact while still letting people have guns.  Forcing folks to get a CHL if they want to by a gun might help (classroom time explaining the self defense laws, proof of ability to handle fun, extensive background check by FBI).  Barring loop holes (like me selling you my gun), it would ensure just about everybody with a gun is a safer person.

TX already has laws requiring guns to be locked up if there's kids in the house.  So getting folks to follow the existing laws is better than making new ones


----------



## Janx (Jul 6, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> SYG laws tend to be drafted pretty sloppily, and applied even more sloppily by juries.
> 
> I was stunned by the Trayvon Martin case.  I was taught in my Texas CrimLaw (ohhhh so many years ago) that those who initiate a conflict- even verbally- cannot subsequently claim self-defense if the conflict escalates to violence.  And on an open, public street, a teenager being followed by a creepy adult male is just as entitled to self-defense as an adult male following a suspicious-looking teenager.
> 
> SYG shouldn't have even been a factor in that case.




Yup.  In TX, per the CHL class I took, that was the case.  If you are breaking the law presently, you have no right to self defense.  If you initiate or escalate the conflict, you have no right to self defense.

This is a legal risk for Open Carry, because by me having a pistol on my hip and arguing with Danny about a traffic accident, I am potentially escalating the conflict to "now there could be shooting"  Danny would be more worried and intimidated.  You could say he'd be in "fear of life"  which means if I get ragier, Danny may have right to defend himself.

In the CHL class (before Open Carry was a a topic), we were specifically reminded that we had to be in greater control of our emotions, because having a gun on you while being angry could lead to making a very bad choice.

The basic rule of thumb I got from CHL training and martial arts was "never advance toward trouble"

On the Zimmerman vs Martin case, Zimmerman advanced toward trouble.  Regardless of the outcome, his legal risk increased dramatically from when he was in the car, and then he got out to advance toward trouble.  Whether the details of the case ended up in his favor or not, his CHL instructor would have shook his head when he got out of the car.


----------



## Janx (Jul 6, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I don't envy you guys having to have this conversation endlessly.




yeah.  Guns.

Nobody's frothing mad at anybody.

And I do see good points and information being cited.

If I'm going to like guns, I'd like to make sure I am as wary of what can be wrong with guns.  Not just to counter negative arguments in a debate, but to be really informed on the risks.

For instance, guns in a house where there's somebody depressed (severely)/suicidal increases the risk of them completing a suicide.  Guns are just too efficient for that, leaving not enough time for the person to sort of think their way out of it.  I have a friend with depression, and though he likes guns (at the range), he's told me about the issue for him and how bad the funk gets when his meds aren't working as well. So he will never be left in a house with ready access to guns.


----------



## Umbran (Jul 6, 2015)

bone_naga said:


> Sure, we can look at that as a low-ball number, although I think the 100,000 is still probably lower than the actual number.




You are allowed youe own opinion, of course. But policy should be based on as few opinions as possible.



> I never said they were. I didn't assume anything.




You didn't say so explicitly, no.  But, there's an assumption in your logic.  You said that if the US crime rate was only differentiated from other countries by guns, then our non-gun crime rates should be the same as those in other nations.  I'm telling you that isn't necessarily so.  The presence of guns may impact the non-gun crime rate.  



> I'm not sure what your point is since as I already pointed out, our non-gun homicide rate is also higher than their total homicide rate.




Because I do not like unsupported, qualitative assertions in policy discussions.  It is not enough to say it is more - we should show *how much*, and what the numbers are.  Doing so takes mere minutes, and keeps our discussion more firmly grounded in data than in opinion.  This helps keep the egos and emotions out of the matter.



bone_naga said:


> Accidental firearm deaths are very rare. More people drown each year. I guess you could say it makes it easier to kill someone accidentally, but it's also extremely easy to avoid such accidents.




Per my above statement... 

The CDC reports that, from 2005-2009, there were an average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States — about ten deaths per day. There were an additional 347 boating-related drownings each year.

The CDC says there were 591 accidental gun deaths in 2011.  102 of these deaths were under 18, and half of these were under 13 years old.  It is not currently known in how many of these accidental deaths it was a child that pulled the trigger.

I agree, it is pretty easy to avoid the accidents.  You avoid many of them by keeping your gun locked up.  This basic piece of gun safety rather eliminates one of the major stated reasons for allowing so many guns in the populace - home defense.  If an invader is going to harm you, he isn't going to wait for you to get your gun out of the safe.  If he isn't going to harm you, and is only going to take off with the TV, while you technically have the right to defend your property, I question the risk analysis that has you dragging out a gun to keep the Samsung where it is.


----------



## Janx (Jul 6, 2015)

Umbran said:


> I agree, it is pretty easy to avoid the accidents.  You avoid many of them by keeping your gun locked up.  This basic piece of gun safety rather eliminates one of the major stated reasons for allowing so many guns in the populace - home defense.  If an invader is going to harm you, he isn't going to wait for you to get your gun out of the safe.  If he isn't going to harm you, and is only going to take off with the TV, while you technically have the right to defend your property, I question the risk analysis that has you dragging out a gun to keep the Samsung where it is.




This last part's a little complicated.  You seem to imply that a home invader is after my TV.  If I am not home, sure, that's the case.  If I am home, it is quite likely for a violent reason.  We just had 2 home invasions in the last month near my home.  One, the resident got shot, the other, he was tied up.  And I think it was last year, a guy dang near wiped out his ex-wife's entire family.  That was just miles from my home.

Maybe in NYC you can expect courteous crooks to take the cash and run if you carry some dough to give them.  But here in Texas, if a bad guy is in your presence, you have a pretty good chance he means to do you harm because he could have hit a zillion unoccupied places.

That said, I agree with your assessment that a gun in the home is of unlikely use in a home invasion.  If it's locked up, obviously not.  If it's in a pistol safe for quick access, it assumes you have time from door kick-in to he's shooting at you to get your gun.  Only works at night, in your bedroom.  If you are not wearing your gun during all waking hours, it will likely be too far away from you when the attack begins.  So you're going potty and the invasion starts.  You left your gun on the coffee table while you went to the bathroom.  There's just too many things I could be doing at home and logically not have my gun on me to make it a certainty that my gun will be ready when a home invasion starts.  

I'm not even keen on taking the gun out to investigate a noise if there's people living at home who you can't assert immediately where they are.  With zero kids, if I hear a noise, I reach over and confirm my wife is in bed.  If she is, I can get up and shoot anybody else I find in my house because I control the population count absolutely.  Once I can't assert where she is or where kids or guests are, I'm likely to have a bad shooting accident.

As a practical matter, I don't think home invasion risk is that high.  Sure some have happened within miles of my home.  And there are some corner cases where you can be expecting trouble.  After a hurricane.  After one of your family members has been followed home suspiciously (that was just last week for one of my neighbors).


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## Morrus (Jul 6, 2015)

I feel lucky in that I've never experienced, or known anyone to experience, a home invasion.  The very concept has always felt fictional to me, it's so far out of my personal realm of experience. You occasionally hear about them in the news, and they sound dreadful.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 6, 2015)

It is one of the most aptly & clearly named crimes: it is an invasion in every sense of the word.  Even if they only rob you, they leave deep emotional scars.


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## Janx (Jul 6, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It is one of the most aptly & clearly named crimes: it is an invasion in every sense of the word.  Even if they only rob you, they leave deep emotional scars.




just a regular burglary can be traumatic.  By buddy's house got hit, and he was pretty upset for years.  It made him want to sell his home and want to move.  Nobody should have that unsafe feeling about their home.

Last year, my house got hit while I was out of town for work, and my wife had left for an appointment.  That hit her pretty hard, because I wasn't there at all.

I had to beef up security, alarms, cameras in order to present a credible change that things were better and safer to counter my wife's fears.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 7, 2015)

My freshman year dorm room got hit...while I was sleeping in it.  No lasting trauma for me.


----------



## Joker (Jul 7, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> My freshman year dorm room got hit...while I was sleeping in it.  No lasting trauma for me.




Yeah, but you're a wrestling-manic, dual guitar wielding lawyer.  He saw you talking in your sleep about corporate law to the tune of Another One Bites the Dust and he ran away most rickety.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 8, 2015)

That's me NOW.  Then, I was an undertall, overweight Buddha with a high-top fade.  And lots of Hawaiian shirts.


----------



## Joker (Jul 8, 2015)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That's me NOW.  Then, I was an undertall, overweight Buddha with a high-top fade.  And lots of Hawaiian shirts.




Equally frightening.


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## Janx (Jul 8, 2015)

Joker said:


> Equally frightening.




Indeed.  Might just need Danny to use the teleporting system to make the rounds to patrol all our houses.


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## Ryujin (Jul 8, 2015)

Why am I suddenly reminded of "Undergrads"?

[video=youtube;pY59QdaVqv0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY59QdaVqv0[/video]


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## WayneLigon (Jul 13, 2015)

Bullgrit said:


> What is something that you see a lot of counter-arguments against that you've never encountered the pro-argument for?




I usually try to find the origins. It's usually pretty easy. You mean to say that, in the original example, you never went to the Creation Museum site, or just typed in 'Young Earth Creationism' into Google?


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