Inthemiddle
Rookie
- Oct 4, 2011
- 6,354
- 675
- 0
- Banned
- #1
Can everyone start getting that through their heads please? All this talk about gun laws and crime rates.....aside from the fact that those trying to use such stats are suffering from a massive case of confirmation bias, it all also continues to commit the fallacy of implying causation simply from a [non existent] correlation.
Crime is not caused by guns. Overly restrictive gun laws as a way to control crime is like restricting dog ownership to prevent pit fighting. Owning a dog doesn't cause someone to use that dog in a fight. That's a personal decision the individual makes. They don't make that decision just because they have a dog. It's a desire they come to, regardless of whether they have a dog yet or not.
Crime is not caused by gun ownership, or by gun legalities. No law abiding citizen wakes up one morning and says "Hey, I own a gun, I think I'll become a criminal now." The decision to take place in criminal activity is a personal decision that an individual makes, regardless of owning a gun or not.
What we really need to do is stop wasting time trying to pass gun laws. We need to get to the things that actually cause people to make the decision to turn to crime. Things like poverty, lack of upward mobility, etc. I know we'll never get rid of ghettos. But if we can chance the face of poverty in our country so that the ghetto becomes a "passing through" for more people instead of a permanent way of life, we'll do alot more to reduce crime than any gun law ever will. If our country would stop stigmatizing mental illness, and make a commitment to expand mental health service access and embrace mental health as a normal part of human well being just the same as any biological disease, then alot more people would be able to obtain treatment to help prevent them from reaching the unfortunate point that people like Adam Lanza and the Columbine shooters reached.
Even if we somehow found a way to completely eliminate access to guns by any person who would intend to use it for evil acts, that wouldn't stop them from doing the evil they've decided to commit. A criminal intent on violence will simply use a knife, a crowbar, a baseball bat, whatever they can manage to get their hands on. A person intent on committing mass murder will just turn to fertilizer and ball bearings, or gasoline and matches. If we think that we can somehow stop people from acting out the evil in their hearts, then we're just as naive as the people in history who thought they could stop people from praying to the god of their choice, from loving the person they love, or believing the politics they follow.
Not long ago, our society had a very suppressive attitude toward sexuality, and even still today cultural attitudes towards sex still need improving. But as we start to shake the remnants of those unhealthy obsessions we're replacing it with a new object of irrational obsession....gun ownership. If we truly want to see positive and healthy developments for our country we have to look deeper, we have to treat the causes and not satisfy ourselves to simply treat the symptoms.
Crime is not caused by guns. Overly restrictive gun laws as a way to control crime is like restricting dog ownership to prevent pit fighting. Owning a dog doesn't cause someone to use that dog in a fight. That's a personal decision the individual makes. They don't make that decision just because they have a dog. It's a desire they come to, regardless of whether they have a dog yet or not.
Crime is not caused by gun ownership, or by gun legalities. No law abiding citizen wakes up one morning and says "Hey, I own a gun, I think I'll become a criminal now." The decision to take place in criminal activity is a personal decision that an individual makes, regardless of owning a gun or not.
What we really need to do is stop wasting time trying to pass gun laws. We need to get to the things that actually cause people to make the decision to turn to crime. Things like poverty, lack of upward mobility, etc. I know we'll never get rid of ghettos. But if we can chance the face of poverty in our country so that the ghetto becomes a "passing through" for more people instead of a permanent way of life, we'll do alot more to reduce crime than any gun law ever will. If our country would stop stigmatizing mental illness, and make a commitment to expand mental health service access and embrace mental health as a normal part of human well being just the same as any biological disease, then alot more people would be able to obtain treatment to help prevent them from reaching the unfortunate point that people like Adam Lanza and the Columbine shooters reached.
Even if we somehow found a way to completely eliminate access to guns by any person who would intend to use it for evil acts, that wouldn't stop them from doing the evil they've decided to commit. A criminal intent on violence will simply use a knife, a crowbar, a baseball bat, whatever they can manage to get their hands on. A person intent on committing mass murder will just turn to fertilizer and ball bearings, or gasoline and matches. If we think that we can somehow stop people from acting out the evil in their hearts, then we're just as naive as the people in history who thought they could stop people from praying to the god of their choice, from loving the person they love, or believing the politics they follow.
Not long ago, our society had a very suppressive attitude toward sexuality, and even still today cultural attitudes towards sex still need improving. But as we start to shake the remnants of those unhealthy obsessions we're replacing it with a new object of irrational obsession....gun ownership. If we truly want to see positive and healthy developments for our country we have to look deeper, we have to treat the causes and not satisfy ourselves to simply treat the symptoms.
