Pittsburgh shooting

[DMC]

you subs uted your circularities for mine.

you call that a win?

You keep putting words in my mouth.

My responses aren't circular reasoning. I said why the cops were called, not what event led to it. We already knew that.

I said why the bank is heavily guarded (assets that needed protection)

Both of these lead to one thing, in both instances deadly force or the threat of it was selected to protect precious things. In neither case did anyone pe ion their representative for tighter gun laws.

[ElNono]

The argument isn't that he's right but that he's not blaming the temple. He may be the 1st POTUS who doesn't use a word filter or PR person before making a statement.

But by making that statement a fact, he tangentially is blaming the temple (if not outright). We could build this as a pseudo mathematical proof and it would come up right away as a matter of logic.

[DMC]

because I do not agree with you, does not mean that I have not heard you, nor that I have misunderstood.

I don't consider disagreement to mean that. I consider the fact that you've stated on multiple occasions things I have already debunked - things you ignored. Then you fell back on "everything requires interpretation" which is damn near a solipsism. That's where you figuratively say "we'll agree to disagree.. despite the evidence".

[Winehole23]

you've not debunked anything

[Winehole23]

ok, what do you think you've debunked?

[Winehole23]

you seem to think the president is not responsible for the obvious connotations of what he says.

I think he knows what the connotations are and is responsible for them. DJT is a cunning political animal.

he's not dumb.

[Winehole23]

he got there with slant rhyme racism and xenophobia.

the current carries him along.

[Winehole23]

it wasn't an accident that he blamed the temple for inadequate security.

[Winehole23]

(two separate statements there, in case you were wondering)

[DMC]

But by making that statement a fact, he tangentially is blaming the temple (if not outright). We could build this as a pseudo mathematical proof and it would come up right away as a matter of logic.

He said in the very next sentence "uh maybe it could have been..."

Was the MSM blaming gun control legislation when they asked him the question?


Do you think he was blaming the temple? If not, why?

[DMC]

you've not debunked anything

ok, what do you think you've debunked?

you seem to think the president is not responsible for the obvious connotations of what he says.

I think he knows what the connotations are and is responsible for them. DJT is a cunning political animal.

he's not dumb.

he got there with slant rhyme racism and xenophobia.

the current carries him along.

it wasn't an accident that he blamed the temple for inadequate security.

(two separate statements there, in case you were wondering)

All these posts with not a single quote. I don't know how to even address these.

DJT isn't even a politician before 2016. Calling him a "cunning political animal" is a huge stretch.

The rest of your posts illustrate that you cannot discuss this objectively.

[ElNono]

But do you want to be like Japan?

Realistically, we can never be like Japan, so that's not a viable answer to a real issue.

I would want to at a personal level. I feel we would be better for it in this particular problem.
We clearly can be, but realistically not in the immediate.

I think "more guns" is a misnomer intended to mislead the reader (not your fault). There are people who already own guns who provide security for inanimate objects all the time. Humans should be more important, and yes there's a freedom issue at stake here, but freedom of is often freedom from, and freedom from the threat of being shot dead while you're vulnerable should enable the freedom to worship in peace. It's not an ideal solution, but Utopia isn't happening.

I don’t think there’s anything misleading about the advocacy of fighting crime with guns outside those available to LEO. I also don’t think it’s disingenious to provide that as an alternate solution for the immediate, considering the current political and law limitations. I am skeptical, because throughout history it just hasn’t been a provable deterrent or effective way to handle this. And if we go to risk assessment, I think we both would agree that adding more punch to the pack is, at least, unintuitive.

The problem will continue because the statistics (which are used when assessing risk vs reward) say that this is highly unlikely to happen in your establishment. Companies/churches and other places where people gather unarmed will spend more on decorations than on security.

Well, we do and spend a whole lot in statistical nuances (you’re a traveler, you know what I mean). It can certainly be argued (and I’ve done so in the past), that it’s just no good ROI there and we should just live with the statistical noise. But these are clearly high impact events that are easily politically exploited, so I expect them to continue to be high profile, despite what logic would indicate.

[ElNono]

He said in the very next sentence "uh maybe it could have been..."

Was the MSM blaming gun control legislation when they asked him the question?

Do you think he was blaming the temple? If not, why?

I don’t think he actively might’ve been (and this is certainly up for debate), but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. This is why a lot of us (you included), like to use words such as ‘likely’ or ‘generally’, etc.

I mean, let’s just say it was Fox & Friends asking the same questions, do you think his response would’ve been different? The interviewer reaction or follow up questions might be, but what you quoted comes to me as a dogmatic absolutist response, which if taken as the de facto solution to this problem, it automatically means whoever is not doing that is wrong.

[DMC]

I would want to at a personal level. I feel we would be better for it in this particular problem.
We clearly can be, but realistically not in the immediate.

The problem with that type of suggestion is that you cannot surgically implant the aspect of Japanese culture you want into the American mainstream. You either want to be just like Japan or you don't. This includes racial demographics and rights/laws/religions.

It's like wanting your hot 110lb blonde GF to eat pizza and slam beer like the 250lb chick across the hall, but keep her figure and feminine ways.

I don’t think there’s anything misleading about the advocacy of fighting crime with guns outside those available to LEO. I also don’t think it’s disingenious to provide that as an alternate solution for the immediate, considering the current political and law limitations. I am skeptical, because throughout history it just hasn’t been a provable deterrent or effective way to handle this. And if we go to risk assessment, I think we both would agree that adding more punch to the pack is, at least, unintuitive.

The counter argument to my statement is that people aren't trustworthy enough to have them armed. The repercussions of that stance is that only the shooter is armed. It's not like you have the choice between quiet evening of unarmed people vs everyone packing heat. It's that you have the choice between the ability to react vs the inability to react. People tend to create a scenario where no threat exists which automatically makes the gun holder the biggest threat, even if that gun holder has no bad intentions. That's a different scenario than what we are trying to avoid, which is a group of people trapped like fish in a barrel with the shooter having as much free time as needed to kill each one, go outside and reload, go back in and continue. Even if the armed resistance failed to stop the shooter, there should be the ability to react, not just cower and die.

Well, we do and spend a whole lot in statistical nuances (you’re a traveler, you know what I mean). It can certainly be argued (and I’ve done so in the past), that it’s just no good ROI there and we should just live with the statistical noise. But these are clearly high impact events that are easily politically exploited, so I expect them to continue to be high profile, despite what logic would indicate.

Yes but when these establishments, including public schools, sit down for budgeting, they use statistics and probability to decide who gets the money. When politicians divert lottery winnings away from public schools to fund things like juvenile detention centers, you get safer criminals and more at-risk law abiding kids.

[DMC]

I don’t think he actively might’ve been (and this is certainly up for debate), but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. This is why a lot of us (you included), like to use words such as ‘likely’ or ‘generally’, etc.

Because we cannot be certain, but it doesn't make sense that he would intentionally blame the temple any more than blaming lack of seatbelts for a drunk driving death should stem from a comment like "had he been wearing his seatbelt he's probably alive today. You cannot trust other drivers, so wear your seat belt" It's just saying there are ways to mitigate it.

I mean, let’s just say it was Fox & Friends asking the same questions, do you think his response would’ve been different? The interviewer reaction or follow up questions might be, but what you quoted comes to me as a dogmatic absolutist response, which if taken as the de facto solution to this problem, it automatically means whoever is not doing that is wrong.

No. His response would have been the same. The question is a canned one and the response is a canned one. Two talking points that totally dismiss the event that just occurred.

[ElNono]

The problem with that type of suggestion is that you cannot surgically implant the aspect of Japanese culture you want into the American mainstream. You either want to be just like Japan or you don't. This includes racial demographics and rights/laws/religions.

It's like wanting your hot 110lb blonde GF to eat pizza and slam beer like the 250lb chick across the hall, but keep her figure and feminine ways.

I never found that argument persuasive. We don’t want to be Japan, we want to take some (most?) good things from Japan’s gun policies and adopt them as our own. IE: There’s nothing culturally preventing us from having gun owners undergo a strict psychological evaluation every 2 years, or routine inspection of how they secure their weapons, etc. However, it’s arguably too big a burden impeding the excercise of a cons utional right, and so unless you can turn the right into a privilege, it really can’t realistically happen. But there are mechanisms to do that, so I am reluctant to say never, even if the current statistical probability is slim.

The counter argument to my statement is that people aren't trustworthy enough to have them armed. The repercussions of that stance is that only the shooter is armed. It's not like you have the choice between quiet evening of unarmed people vs everyone packing heat. It's that you have the choice between the ability to react vs the inability to react. People tend to create a scenario where no threat exists which automatically makes the gun holder the biggest threat, even if that gun holder has no bad intentions. That's a different scenario than what we are trying to avoid, which is a group of people trapped like fish in a barrel with the shooter having as much free time as needed to kill each one, go outside and reload, go back in and continue. Even if the armed resistance failed to stop the shooter, there should be the ability to react, not just cower and die.

Yet the vast majority of people choose not to be armed, despite being fully aware of their vulnerability. And rationally speaking, at least in first world countries, the odds of being gunned down and/or being in such a situation are statistically smaller than being killed by a drunk driver (where people are generally as vulnerable, gun or not)

One could even argue that society has evolved from everyone having a weapon into societies that solve their grievances through much more civilized means. Clearly there’s still bad actors, and that’s why we’ve come up with ins utions like the trained military and LE so we don’t have to function constantly thinking about personally tackling crime. The caveat is obviously that there will always be a statistical amount of crime (which there is with both approaches).

Now I’m not going to deride people that want to be proactive about different scenarios, as statistically insignificant as they might be, but I do have concerns about preparedness, and specifically the bar being so low that they become public hazards on their own.

Yes but when these establishments, including public schools, sit down for budgeting, they use statistics and probability to decide who gets the money. When politicians divert lottery winnings away from public schools to fund things like juvenile detention centers, you get safer criminals and more at-risk law abiding kids.

I don’t have a counter argument to that point.

[ElNono]

Because we cannot be certain, but it doesn't make sense that he would intentionally blame the temple any more than blaming lack of seatbelts for a drunk driving death should stem from a comment like "had he been wearing his seatbelt he's probably alive today. You cannot trust other drivers, so wear your seat belt" It's just saying there are ways to mitigate it.

But seatbelts are a demonstrable way to massively reduce car accident deaths. And the word ‘probably’ in your sentence still admits they’re not infallible. Point being, ignorance is not (or should not be) a shield. This is more akin to religious people stating as a matter of fact that bad things happen to other people because they don’t follow their dogma. It’s both not factual and it implicitly blames the victim.

No. His response would have been the same. The question is a canned one and the response is a canned one. Two talking points that totally dismiss the event that just occurred.

Whether it’s canned or not, it’s still not a correct answer. Yes, media can be boring rehashing this stuff over and over whenever this stuff happens, and the political stakes will be laid on the ground, but really, let’s call a spade a spade.

[DMC]

I never found that argument persuasive. We don’t want to be Japan, we want to take some (most?) good things from Japan’s gun policies and adopt them as our own. IE: There’s nothing culturally preventing us from having gun owners undergo a strict psychological evaluation every 2 years, or routine inspection of how they secure their weapons, etc. However, it’s arguably too big a burden impeding the excercise of a cons utional right, and so unless you can turn the right into a privilege, it really can’t realistically happen. But there are mechanisms to do that, so I am reluctant to say never, even if the current statistical probability is slim.

Japan historically had no real gun ownership for citizens. This differs wildly from the US. You cannot just ignore these kinds of facts and only focus on the gun related murder rates. There are no mechanisms to make the things you propose have any real effect, only that they could be ins uted if the bill of rights was ignored. Culture and demographics mean everything.

Yet the vast majority of people choose not to be armed, despite being fully aware of their vulnerability. And rationally speaking, at least in first world countries, the odds of being gunned down and/or being in such a situation are statistically smaller than being killed by a drunk driver (where people are generally as vulnerable, gun or not)

One could even argue that society has evolved from everyone having a weapon into societies that solve their grievances through much more civilized means. Clearly there’s still bad actors, and that’s why we’ve come up with ins utions like the trained military and LE so we don’t have to function constantly thinking about personally tackling crime. The caveat is obviously that there will always be a statistical amount of crime (which there is with both approaches).

Now I’m not going to deride people that want to be proactive about different scenarios, as statistically insignificant as they might be, but I do have concerns about preparedness, and specifically the bar being so low that they become public hazards on their own.

This is why we still have issues today. From a distance it's only a statistic. If you were in that room when the shooter was coming around, you'd probably think differently about it.

The "public hazard" argument was used when CHL was first introduced in Texas. There was going to be blood in the streets, road rage killings galore. It never happened. Then, when open carry was passed... people were going to be like gangs of marauders, carrying openly around town like bandits. It never happened. I've never seen anyone carrying openly other than an LEO since the law was passed. I've never carried openly either even though I have the full legal right. So this fear for the public safety is a bit unfounded. What's not unfounded is the fact that large, unarmed groups are targets for psychopaths because they want the highest production of their intended target with the least chance of being shot or stopped before they inflict heavy casualties, or that the cops historically pick up the pieces, they don't prevent these shootings. That means there's no protection against these assholes. Eventually tt doesn't matter what the law makers decide, my life is more valuable than my spotless criminal record.

I don’t have a counter argument to that point.

OK

[DMC]

But seatbelts are a demonstrable way to massively reduce car accident deaths. And the word ‘probably’ in your sentence still admits they’re not infallible. Point being, ignorance is not (or should not be) a shield. This is more akin to religious people stating as a matter of fact that bad things happen to other people because they don’t follow their dogma. It’s both not factual and it implicitly blames the victim.



Whether it’s canned or not, it’s still not a correct answer. Yes, media can be boring rehashing this stuff over and over whenever this stuff happens, and the political stakes will be laid on the ground, but really, let’s call a spade a spade.

I think you're abandoning the argument when you say "call a spade a spade". You're presuming to be right by default and that I just won't admit it.

There is no correct answer to a loaded question about a topic that the media knows full well what his response will be. If he were to say "yes, we need to discuss gun control" he just abandoned his campaign promises. If he says "no we don't need to talk about gun control" then we are where we are now. Maybe it's more prudent to just say most here consider Trump an idiot (but somehow an evil genius at the same time) and so he's going to be the antagonist in every instance, thus automatically guilty.

[Pavlov]

Gab just raised 1mil crowdfunding and now get silenced. Hopefully they come back stronger than ever.

Are you on Gab, Nathan?

What's your handle there?

[ElNono]

Japan historically had no real gun ownership for citizens. This differs wildly from the US. You cannot just ignore these kinds of facts and only focus on the gun related murder rates. There are no mechanisms to make the things you propose have any real effect, only that they could be ins uted if the bill of rights was ignored. Culture and demographics mean everything.

But that’s not really true. Japan tight grip on gun ownership and regulation starts in 1968, and mostly as a response to disarm the samurai. Yes, they don’t have a 2nd amendment, and that is certainly the biggest roadblock in the US. The US having a gun ownership culture might mean something in the immediate, but it doesn’t have to in the long term. After all, we go through cultural shifts all the time, some taking longer than others.

That said, we don’t need to transplant Japan’s honor system or dressing codes to implement some of their more sound regulatory framework on gun ownership. After all, it’s not illegal to own certain weapons there either, it’s just more burdensome. Is it a pipe dream? Maybe. Could we start working towards something like that? Absolutely. Especially when it comes to starting with ideas. Ie: is the 2nd amendment giving us more security as a right than a privilege? I don’t think it’s an unfair question at all.

This is why we still have issues today. From a distance it's only a statistic. If you were in that room when the shooter was coming around, you'd probably think differently about it.

The "public hazard" argument was used when CHL was first introduced in Texas. There was going to be blood in the streets, road rage killings galore. It never happened. Then, when open carry was passed... people were going to be like gangs of marauders, carrying openly around town like bandits. It never happened. I've never seen anyone carrying openly other than an LEO since the law was passed. I've never carried openly either even though I have the full legal right. So this fear for the public safety is a bit unfounded. What's not unfounded is the fact that large, unarmed groups are targets for psychopaths because they want the highest production of their intended target with the least chance of being shot or stopped before they inflict heavy casualties, or that the cops historically pick up the pieces, they don't prevent these shootings. That means there's no protection against these assholes. Eventually tt doesn't matter what the law makers decide, my life is more valuable than my spotless criminal record.

That’s an appeal to emotion. I mean, we can all agree nobody wants to find themselves in such a situation, as rare as they might be these days, and there’s certainly areas more prone to that, but it doesn’t stop making it an outlier (again, these days. In the past, with more people carrying those situations were more prevalent).

Honestly, I don’t have any reasons to doubt you’re a responsible gun owner. But I also know some people that don’t really fit that criteria (and own guns, even if not CHL holders). Even in your case, I would actually argue it makes sense to revisit that every once in a while. People undergo traumatic situations all the time and mental health issues are not necessarily a hereditary problem. It might not save every victim of gun murder, but if it saves some in the long run, I don’t think the burden is unreasonable, IMO

[ElNono]

I think you're abandoning the argument when you say "call a spade a spade". You're presuming to be right by default and that I just won't admit it.

There is no correct answer to a loaded question about a topic that the media knows full well what his response will be. If he were to say "yes, we need to discuss gun control" he just abandoned his campaign promises. If he says "no we don't need to talk about gun control" then we are where we are now. Maybe it's more prudent to just say most here consider Trump an idiot (but somehow an evil genius at the same time) and so he's going to be the antagonist in every instance, thus automatically guilty.

We both agreed recently that his statement is clearly not factual at this time. That’s what I call incorrect. If he were to say, “well, an armed guard likely could’ve prevented or reduced the damage”, that opens the door to “or not”.

I don’t have an issue with the argument itself insofar that is has not been proven demonstrably false, but that also doesn’t make it automatically demonstrably true.

Now if you argue this is his political cunning talking, then he clearly needs to be more careful with his choice of words, because, as stated, it really does open to interpretations of blaming the victim, and it’s really his fault.

[ElNono]

Fascinating topic, I’ll waive the proverbial white flag momentarily, I’ll catch up later in the day.

[DMC]

But that’s not really true. Japan tight grip on gun ownership and regulation starts in 1968, and mostly as a response to disarm the samurai. Yes, they don’t have a 2nd amendment, and that is certainly the biggest roadblock in the US. The US having a gun ownership culture might mean something in the immediate, but it doesn’t have to in the long term. After all, we go through cultural shifts all the time, some taking longer than others.

That said, we don’t need to transplant Japan’s honor system or dressing codes to implement some of their more sound regulatory framework on gun ownership. After all, it’s not illegal to own certain weapons there either, it’s just more burdensome. Is it a pipe dream? Maybe. Could we start working towards something like that? Absolutely. Especially when it comes to starting with ideas. Ie: is the 2nd amendment giving us more security as a right than a privilege? I don’t think it’s an unfair question at all.

It's not the Bill of Privileges. You'd have to have a major revolution, coup, and purge of the gene pool to get anywhere close to what you're suggesting.

That’s an appeal to emotion. I mean, we can all agree nobody wants to find themselves in such a situation, as rare as they might be these days, and there’s certainly areas more prone to that, but it doesn’t stop making it an outlier (again, these days. In the past, with more people carrying those situations were more prevalent).

The entire subject is an appeal to emotion. In the grand scheme of crime/deaths it's not even on the radar yet we only discuss gun control when these emotional events happen. You cannot very well make it a big deal on day then on day two take the 10 thousand foot view and break out the stats, and hope to not be right back here in a short amount of time with zero progress.

Honestly, I don’t have any reasons to doubt you’re a responsible gun owner. But I also know some people that don’t really fit that criteria (and own guns, even if not CHL holders). Even in your case, I would actually argue it makes sense to revisit that every once in a while. People undergo traumatic situations all the time and mental health issues are not necessarily a hereditary problem. It might not save every victim of gun murder, but if it saves some in the long run, I don’t think the burden is unreasonable, IMO

One person who doesn't fit the criteria killed 11 in that temple.

I respect your thoughts on the matter but I feel they are more wishful thinking than possible solutions. The toothpaste cannot go back into the tube in this country. We should operate with that in mind. We cannot even stop people from killing each other in a city that has all but banned guns. Even in prisons people kill each other and there are armed guards. So we are broken down on the side of the road, at night, in the middle of nowhere and we have the tools we brought with us. We can hope someone brings us a new car or that we find a tool box in the woods, but we'd be best to try to fix the car with the tools available to us.

[Nathan89]

Are you on Gab, Nathan?

What's your handle there?

Yes, I try to support other options besides big tech companies.