2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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This short piece accurately captures the reality of guns in the United States.....it is accurate and right on target....
Never Yet Melted » Gun Control and Magical Thinking
For example, we donât really have a single America with a moderately high rate of gun deaths. Instead, we have two Americas, one of which has very high rates of gun ownership but very low murder rates, very comparable to the rest of the First World democracies such as those in western & northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, South Korea. The other America has much lower rates of gun ownership but much, much higher murder rates, akin to violent third world countries.
The tough questions are those like, why do we have these two Americas? But thatâs an uncomfortable discussion to have.
So instead those on the left favor simple minded restrictions that target first world America, with its high gun ownership but very low murder rate, but donât address the root causes of third world Americaâs violence at all.
Meanwhile those on the right correctly feel their civil rights are constantly threatened, so they are constantly in a state of âbetter stock up before they finally ban itâ and the guns and ammo fly off the shelves. The leftâs constant gun control rhetoric is the greatest thing ever for arms manufacturers.
Meanwhile, over the past 40 years, while the number of guns in private hands has doubled, the murder rate has dropped by half.
The left are constantly prattling about âassault weaponsâ which are almost never used to commit murders (about 1% of gun murders; all rifles combined are around 3%). More murders are committed with baseball bats than âassault riflesâ; the vast majority of gun homicides are committed with handguns, but itâs easier to sell restrictions that target âassault weaponsâ, even though such restrictions, even if 100% effective, would make no detectable change in the murder rate (especially because of substitution effects). They favor ridiculous measures such as bans on âhigh capacity magazinesâ, as if magazines werenât cheap and easily swapped out in a fraction of a second.
The uncomfortable fact is that roughly 80% of the US homicide rate is associated with the drug trade, and the drug trade is violent because the drug war reserves it for violent criminals.
We have a system in place where the government subsidizes poverty in urban areas, imposes economic blight in those same areas through heavy taxes and regulations, renders the residents permanently unemployable via the âcriminal justiceâ (sic) system, and creates a lucrative black market in drugs by restricting supply (not to mention increasing demand as people are desperate to escape their circumstances by getting high), meaning the only game in town is often entering the drug trade. The drug trade is violent because those in it have no access to courts to settle disputes. Powerful industries lobby to keep the drug war going; the top spenders are law enforcement unions, the prison industry, big alcohol, tobacco, and pharma.
Guns are not the proximate cause of gun violence in the US.
Childlike magical thinking and simple âfixesâ to complex problems will not work. But it is comfortable, and self-righteousness feels so good. So I expect it to continue indefinitely.â
Never Yet Melted » Gun Control and Magical Thinking
For example, we donât really have a single America with a moderately high rate of gun deaths. Instead, we have two Americas, one of which has very high rates of gun ownership but very low murder rates, very comparable to the rest of the First World democracies such as those in western & northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, South Korea. The other America has much lower rates of gun ownership but much, much higher murder rates, akin to violent third world countries.
The tough questions are those like, why do we have these two Americas? But thatâs an uncomfortable discussion to have.
So instead those on the left favor simple minded restrictions that target first world America, with its high gun ownership but very low murder rate, but donât address the root causes of third world Americaâs violence at all.
Meanwhile those on the right correctly feel their civil rights are constantly threatened, so they are constantly in a state of âbetter stock up before they finally ban itâ and the guns and ammo fly off the shelves. The leftâs constant gun control rhetoric is the greatest thing ever for arms manufacturers.
Meanwhile, over the past 40 years, while the number of guns in private hands has doubled, the murder rate has dropped by half.
The left are constantly prattling about âassault weaponsâ which are almost never used to commit murders (about 1% of gun murders; all rifles combined are around 3%). More murders are committed with baseball bats than âassault riflesâ; the vast majority of gun homicides are committed with handguns, but itâs easier to sell restrictions that target âassault weaponsâ, even though such restrictions, even if 100% effective, would make no detectable change in the murder rate (especially because of substitution effects). They favor ridiculous measures such as bans on âhigh capacity magazinesâ, as if magazines werenât cheap and easily swapped out in a fraction of a second.
The uncomfortable fact is that roughly 80% of the US homicide rate is associated with the drug trade, and the drug trade is violent because the drug war reserves it for violent criminals.
We have a system in place where the government subsidizes poverty in urban areas, imposes economic blight in those same areas through heavy taxes and regulations, renders the residents permanently unemployable via the âcriminal justiceâ (sic) system, and creates a lucrative black market in drugs by restricting supply (not to mention increasing demand as people are desperate to escape their circumstances by getting high), meaning the only game in town is often entering the drug trade. The drug trade is violent because those in it have no access to courts to settle disputes. Powerful industries lobby to keep the drug war going; the top spenders are law enforcement unions, the prison industry, big alcohol, tobacco, and pharma.
Guns are not the proximate cause of gun violence in the US.
Childlike magical thinking and simple âfixesâ to complex problems will not work. But it is comfortable, and self-righteousness feels so good. So I expect it to continue indefinitely.â
