You've got a distinctly limited repertoire, Kevin. We've just seen the third mass-murder with guns in the UK in the last twenty years - and (almost unbelievably given the amount of illegal firearms around) all three were carried out with completely legally-owned weapons, by the type of individuals who would be temperamentally unlikely to seek out illegal weapons. This unmistakable pattern has provided - and in my view still provides - a fairly obvious opportunity for legislative action to make the public safer. Well, perhaps it's not obvious to all. Your own solution?
By limited repertoire I was merely referring to the "do it again, only harder" line, which I must have heard about seventy-nine times, and I'm not even a regular visitor.
Honestly, Kevin, these contortions of 'logic/reason/philosophy', highly selective 'facts', and voodoo 'statistics' are not going to distract many people in the UK from the elephant in the room - that you're quite simply far, far more likely to be shot in the US than in the UK. The suggestion that the steps taken to restrict access to guns over the years have got nothing to do with that differential is utterly risible.
"Not here, no way"? I wouldn't be quite so complacent if I were you. After all, I gather you've already got 'socialized medicine' on the way. It once seemed so unthinkable...
UK violent crime rate is three times the US violent crime rate. About the only crime more common in the US is firearm related crime. That's it. You have more rapes, more assaults, more robberies, and your murder rate is higher every year. What will be your excuse, ten years down the road, when jolly olde England, where the bobbies go unarmed, finally manges to beat out the US in every single category of violent crime? The problem with you, you worthless, gutless, clueless little worm, is that you have made your imprecations, you've said the magic spells, and yet still you have these things happening. Because it is possible, very possible indeed to have a society with very few guns and very low crime. Look at Japan or Singapore. Very strict systems of punishment, coupled with a monoculture, can often lead to low crime rates. England has a fragmented society, a large welfare state which allows for large numbers of idle young men, and of course a criminal justice system who spend all their time arresting people for fighting back or for owning kitchen knives above a standard length. When they do catch rapists and murders, they let them out again after less then ten years on average. Either remove the welfare for criminals, deport all the violent immigrants, and keep the rapists and murders locked up for life, or let the people go about armed and able to protect themselves. It's not hard. We have safe streets, excepting the drug spots, but that has to do with drug prohibition, not guns.
Shit, you think your country is safe? You don't know what safe means. There isn't a place in my city I wouldn't feel overly threatened in, because if worse comes to worse, I've the means to defend myself. The English model of cowering before thugs is working great for you. Lick the boot you sniveling coward. May your chains sit lightly upon you. Hard to believe how far England has sunk, and how fast.
Let's get a majority opinion, once and for all, on whether such deadly devices should be so widely available. I don't believe that most sensible people would believe that anyone other than the Police and armed forces should have access to them. It's not 'totalitarian' to say that it should be the decision of the majority of people in the country whether individuals should be allowed to own leathal(sic) weapons. - "Sefidahjan"
Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA- ordinary citizens don't need guns as their having guns doesn't serve the State-Heinrich Himmler
Oops, I Godwined....oh well. If the jackboot fits...
"Honestly, Kevin, these contortions of 'logic/reason/philosophy', highly selective 'facts', and voodoo 'statistics'..."
Hahahaha!
Stop.
You're killing me.
Hightly selective facts? I nearly wet myself. Surely, you are joking. We've gotten quite good at spotting that horseshit over here. In fact, it's something that Kevin pointed to just a week or two ago (for the hundreth time, at least) in a post. Bandying about with inflated numbers and made-up shit isn't working, not here, anymore...ah, yes, Monday, May 10th - Well, it's Better Than 4,000.
And that's just an example. Not the first, and I'm certain not the last.
My suggestion, get off of the numbers game completely. It's not something that can be compared, since every country has a different standard for compiling the much mis-used statistics. Instead, make arguments based upon reason. Then again, we've pretty much beaten the pants off of you sissies with that too.
Kevin's right about all of it. The world is run by Judy-boys such as yourself, with a GANG of other Judy-boys rooting those other imbeciles right along. Pretty disgusting, but there it is.
Access does not equal causation. Over the last 10 years, over 130 million new firearms have entered the hands of the civilian market, but over that same time frame, our murder rate has gone DOWN.
Yes, we murder each other far more regularly, but that is NOT because of the tool, it is, as it always has been, the person holding the tool.
Kevin's point with that "do it again" line is that your country has tried to do only one thing in its attempt to solve its violence problem, and that is to increasingly restrict the access of the general public to defend itself with the most effective tool available. Take a good look that that homicide graph again, James. What has the trend been over the decades since your government has started to restrict firearm ownership?
As to your subtle hint there at the end, we have the helpful experience of whatching how your country incrementally advanced the cause of disarmament, and know what to look for. For being the guinae pig, I thank you.
That being said, sales figures since about August 2008 or so have been brisk, to say the least. Our political leadership has taken note, rest assured, and not willing to poke that hornet's nest, is mostly leaving well enough alone, all while Alan Gura dismantles the legal basis of our hoplophobic bastions of gun bigotry one lawsuit at a time.
I didn't feel particularly safe whenever I boarded a bus, especially at night, in London. I've never been in trouble (except one time when I stepped in to defend a woman from an abusive partner), but probably because I was always alert. In a short radius around the place where I lived there have been four murders in about 3 years: three related to drugs, one during a robbery. Plus assaults, robberies, thefts, brawls (many unreported) and various chav antics.
I have never been in the States so I cannot compare, but I'm not afraid of armed people as such.
I feel that I should point out - to Mr. Kelly in particular - that legal ownership has very little to do with firearms crime.
Yes, Michael Ryan was legal, until he started shooting people. Thomas Hamilton was not, and only possessed firearms by dint of police complacency.
Whilst two of the three mass shootings did involve legal firearms, how about all the people murdered with illegal ones? The handgun ban did not save Rhys Jones.
Also, using the official home office and police statistics on the issue is hardly "selective".
The irrational belief that gunfire somehow carries with it its own extra moral dimension of evil independent of the evil of the actor wielding it always amazes me. I guess despite ipods, humans never really stray far from their demon haunted animistic world.
>> that you're quite simply far, far more likely to be shot in the US than in the UK
And in the UK, you're simply far, far more likely to be beaten senseless, and spend time in a coma ward than in the US.
And yet some folks in the UK has the gall to tell us that this somehow forms the basis to claim the moral high ground? Especially considering the context of institutionalized defenselessness?
There is no virtue to be found in helplessness.
There is no virtue to be found in granting evil any advantage whatsoever.
Providing a wide field of low risk soft targets legally, culturally and psychologically restrained from fighting back is one heck of an advantage to grant.
It seems to me that we are entirely right to hold in contempt both individuals and societies so envervated that they won't lift a finger to protect themselves.
I cannot help but feel sympathy for those who believe and act otherwise, who are trapped in that web of enfeeblement, and I cannot help but feel disgust for those who institute, enforce and perpetuate such an evil.
Good grief. First time I ever commented here and I get a long post with statistics and relevent quotes in reply. Awesome. You are right of course that we are less than 2% of the population. We are however more than 5% of the Conservative vote. If this had happened a few months ago with Labour (pauses to spit) in power we would have been utterly screwed. The current prime minister is not who I would have chosen to lead the Conservative party but at least he has done some shooting. As a patriotic Englishman I can only hope that the socialist tide has turned.
"This unmistakable pattern has provided - and in my view still provides - a fairly obvious opportunity for legislative action to make the public safer."
Geekwitha45 - I'm quite happy to claim the moral high ground when it's called for, but I haven't actually done so in this case. I'm simply relying on the elementary logic (which Kevin ought to appreciate) that when these massacres are continually perpetrated by people with legal rather than illegal weapons, doing something about the legal weapons is rather likely to lessen the risk.
Britt - leaving aside your delightful personal observations about me (as ever I'll take it as a compliment), we went over all this area of the broader crime rate last year. Basically for all his bluster that he is literally able to prove such things beyond all doubt, Kevin didn't even come close to establishing a causal link between the rate of other crimes in Britain and our tight gun laws - and that's hardly surprising, given that it's such a contrived proposition. Incidentally, you clearly didn't bother to check up on some of your assumptions - the rate of rape in the US is considerably higher than in the UK. But no wonder everyone feels the need to change the subject from the fact that gun crime is so much higher in the US than the UK.
Splodge of Doom - I'm confused about what your Thomas Hamilton point - either he owned weapons legally or he didn't. As far as I can see...he did.
Wait, isn't murder ILLEGAL in your country? Why didn't that stop this guy?
Not too long ago, there was a push to legalize concealed carry on campuses in Texas (which was shot down -- pun intended), because people were worried about bloodbaths and disgruntled students killing professors, etc. I argued with one of my anti-gun colleagues about this, and told him if a person isn't inhibited by a law against murder, why would he be inhibited by a law against carrying a gun? Makes sense, right? The problem is this. He said he worries about what he would do if he was angry and had a gun in his hand, therefore, he reasoned, even if a student intended to be law-abiding, if his temper got the better of him he would shoot someone.
It's classic projection. You will never convince people like Mr. Kelly with logic, because their beliefs are rooted at the gut level and are deeply emotionally ingrained. It will take an equally emotional experience in the opposite direction to counter them.
Sarah, in truth it's the other way around. Kevin and his ilk are horrified that their right to own their favourite luxury item might one day be taken from them, and have had to construct all these logical and 'philosphical' contortions to try and convince themselves that such an outcome would objectively be an outrage, rather than something that just constitutes a loss to them personally.
Kevin and his ilk are horrified that their right to own their favourite luxury item might one day be taken from them,
That's not the right we're worried about, as we've told you repeatedly.
And we're horrified at the contortions you'll go through, dismissing savage assaults and near-murders - and even murders! Just as long as the attackers didn't use guns.
And claiming you're safer there, despite the evidence.
Claiming "innocent" De Vries was shot - despite the evidence that he was behaving in a threatening manner, and violating several laws, (remember the force of law, that you were claiming you believed in?)
No, it's not really the guns at issue, but the entire culture of self-reliance and self-determination, and the subjugation of our individual rights to people like you, who will blatantly lie, deceive, and emotionalize - and then claim victimhood.
I realize you think you understand us. You don't. We've explained this to you many, many times. You've ignored us in favor of your caricature.
"Claiming "innocent" De Vries was shot - despite the evidence that he was behaving in a threatening manner, and violating several laws, (remember the force of law, that you were claiming you believed in?) "
He wasn't behaving in a threatening manner, but admittedly he was violating laws. So he quite simply must die - is that what you're telling me?
This was an unarmed man, knocking on someone's back door to ask for help. For that he was shot dead in cold blood. I seem to remember you (or maybe it was one of your chums) trying to claim that knocking on the door somehow constituted an 'act of violence'. And a cold blooded killing doesn't?
Originally you could have claimed that, but I'm calling you back out for a liar.
The news coverage was pathetic on that side of the Atlantic, and your first claims could have been excused - but after we linked to you specific background that explained that night, you cannot, honestly, make that claim.
You even admitted he was committing felonies, but then called him innocent.
He was ringing doorbells, he had scaled a 6 foot privacy fence, and was banging -violently- on a glass door when the homeowner shot him. (According to all witnesses, including his friend.)
He'd previously jumped out of a moving car (which might give some clues as to his demeanor and attitude).
He was behaving in a threatening manner, as we detailed to you. Ringing the doorbell (twice) wasn't. And he wasn't shot for that. He was shot for jumping the fence and attempting to smash his way into the house.
That is threatening. That's damn near the definition of "threatening".
That's not a cold blooded killing, either. Someone's trying to smash into my house, in the middle of the night, that's the very opposite of "cold blooding killing".
No matter what, you can't be honest about anything to do with your worldview, can you?
Actually, James, this is exactly like the vaunted Markadelphia.
Aside from ignoring all the inconvenient facts, aside from insisting that your initial view was correct, aside from refusing to admit error, or even attempt to describe the situation correctly...
You're insisting you know what De Vries was thinking and attempting, despite not being there, and contrary to the witnesses, based on far-away and reflective introspective hindsight.
Well, he had no criminal record, and was in town for business, thus he couldn't be a violent criminal.
Mark does that a lot. He tells us what various political people are thinking.
You call the homeowner a "cold blooded killed" as he was faced with multiple threats - insisting that he wait for a proportional response, to see if De Vries wantd to merely rape his wife or baby, or perhaps just "give him some bruises" and steal some things.
That's the sickening thing about your worldview, you're so confident that you understand the thought processes of people under stress - and you can calmly and dispassionately tell them that yes, they might get raped, or they might get killed, but really, it's for the best of all if they'll just take it for the good of the country. For the Queen, I guess.
They were on the phone to the police when De Vries was trying to smash in - not exactly the sort of "help" people request - and the homeowner damn sure felt threatened.
Funny (not really) how you can't factor that into your worldview.
"Kevin didn't even come close to establishing a causal link between the rate of other crimes in Britain and our tight gun laws"
Actually, he did. You just deliberately "misunderstood" it. A refusal to accept an argument does not make an argument invalid. Philosopher Antony Flew put it this way:
"The attempt to show that there is no philosophical knowledge by simply urging that there is always someone who can be relied on to remain unconvinced is a common fallacy made even by a distinguished philosopher like Bertrand Russell. I called it the But-there-is-always-someone-who-will-never-agree Diversion. Then there is the charge that in philosophy it is never possible to prove to someone that you are right and he or she is wrong. But the missing piece in this argument is the distinction between producing a proof and persuading a person. A person can be persuaded by an abominable argument and remain unconvinced by one that ought to be accepted."
Er, no Ed. You'll find that simply asserting you've proved something and then sitting back to admire your handiwork is regarded as insufficient by most philosophers as well.
You'll have to explain the "isn't murder illegal" point because that one genuinely has baffled me. Are you saying all laws are pointless, and that we should have a free-for-all instead? I have this insane feeling that perhaps you are...
"Are you saying all laws are pointless, and that we should have a free-for-all instead? I have this insane feeling that perhaps you are..."
Can't you ever argue honestly?
My point is simple: If existing laws could not stop a crime, there is no reason to think that additional laws will be any more effective at physically stopping someone who is intent on doing evil things.
Can you? There was absolutely no way to interpret your point other than that because 'banning murder' hasn't been effective in every case, there's no point in banning anything else. Taking that principle to its logical conclusion, the illegality of murder serves no purpose. That's the Alice in Wonderland area of 'philosphy' we seem to have entered into.
You really are on astonishingly weak ground here, because this massacre was carried out with legally owned weapons. It's not much good saying that "this proves that the tight gun restrictions don't work" when almost by definition this incident demonstrates that the restrictions haven't been tight enough.
"There was absolutely no way to interpret your point other than that because 'banning murder' hasn't been effective in every case, there's no point in banning anything else."
In a word, Bullshit! I explained what I meant, and you replied with this. There was obviously another way to interpret it, but you didn't want to take my words in the way I intended them. That's dishonest.
"carried out with legally owned weapons"
THIS time. A single incident does not a pattern make. How many people in Britain have been killed with ILLEGAL guns since Dunblane? Have those restrictions stopped those crimes?
And without such restrictions, how long would this guy have been able to continue before someone fired back at him? (Assuming Britons actually considered self-defense to be appropriate.)
This Englishman (sitting in New Zealand) would have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent a madman rampaging down the street murdering people.
Assume I was going to the range, had cleaned the oil out of the barrel of my firearm and was checking "Gun? Yep, Ammunition? Yep. Hearing protectors? Yep".
Then I observe someone walking down the street randomly shooting people.
Unless it was my wife out there I would look at my firearms certificate and note that it has an endorsement "The firearms to which this certificate relates to can only be used on approved ranges".
I ask myself "Is the street an approved range? Will I be breaking the law and will I be in breach of the conditions of the firearms certificate? And according to the answers, I would DO NOTHING. The reason is (let us hear the often repeated chorus):
"YOU CAN'T TAKE THE LAW INTO YOUR OWN HANDS" (as an aside, in whose hands IS the Law? Certainly not the peoples hands, that's for sure)
"DON'T BE A "HAVE A GO HERO"
"ONLY THE POLICE ARE HIGHLY TRAINED ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH THIS SITUATION"
The press would have a field day demonising me and "Wild West scenarios comes to the streets of Britain" etc. and so forth ad nauseam headlines would be churned out by the press.
I would certainly lose my firearms certificate, possibly my liberty, get a criminal conviction (breach of the conditions on the firearms certificate, remember?) and would be stuck in the Unhinged Kingdom.
As I said, it would have to be an extremely powerful reason where the looses I sustained would be outweighed by the benefits (such as defending my wife or my own life) that would cause me to stop the murders.
Sorting out my concience and coming to terms with the result would have to be addressed later ...
"Taking that principle to its logical conclusion, the illegality of murder serves no purpose. That's the Alice in Wonderland area of 'philosphy' we seem to have entered into..."
And therefore, making weapons of any sort any more illegal than they might already be has about the same chance of making a dent in murder rates or armed robbery or what have you. Then again, YOU are the one living in Wonderland. Does that make you Alice?
"You'll find that simply asserting you've proved something and then sitting back to admire your handiwork is regarded as insufficient by most philosophers as well."
I agree. So why are you using this tactic?
A valid argument consists of as much evidence as possible (both pro and con) plus a valid logic argument based on that evidence. Kevin has repeatedly posted such arguments. You have not.
Kevin claimed to find that distinction utterly hilarious, but I stand by it completely. He had said at the outset that he wanted a debate about 'philosophy' and wasn't interested in 'winning and losing'. I stuck to that, but Kevin went on to do the complete opposite.
"I'm not, and I never have been. I [asserted] that very point last year -"
There. Fixed it for you.
The cool thing about the internet and open comment systems like this is that people can go back and read things for themselves. The record stands.
The simple fact is that you constantly ignore _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_ you don't like. For example, the overall violence rate (physical assault, such as the one that prompted the original debate, where fists and feet were used, not guns), the results of what actually happened as gun restrictions were passed, the appropriateness of self-defense, etc.
Tell me, have you checked out the link posted by Richard? How do you account for the fact that the population adjusted occurrence of such sprees between the U.K. and the U.S. are very, very similar DESPITE the fact that number of guns (adjusted for population) in the U.S. is roughly sixteen times the number of guns in the U.K.AND Americans routinely carry our guns with us?
Yup, and you were taken to the woodshed by kevin, myself, and many other commenters. You are consistently proven wrong, yet you come back to be beaten up with facts & logic yet again. Why?
Kevin didn't even come close to establishing a causal link between the rate of other crimes in Britain and our tight gun laws
That's not the point. The point is those laws haven't made you SAFER. Your violent crime rates have skyrocketed. Your gun crime (traditionally ALWAYS very low - even when no gun laws existed) have climbed. After BANNING handguns, handgun violence there has nearly doubled.
Your philosophy says "disarming the majority of the population WILL MAKE US SAFER" - but it doesn't. And WHEN it doesn't THE PHILOSOPHY CANNOT BE WRONG. Since you cannot accept that, your only conclusion can be that you didn't implement your "solution" properly, and you must TURN UP THE POWER and disarm the majority MORE EFFECTIVELY. And when that doesn't help? DO IT AGAIN, ONLY HARDER!
And you will not grasp that fact, even when the numbers (voodoo statistics, in your terms) are placed in front of you in black and white, or in color charts. You exhibit the stereotypical symptoms of denial.
Yes, Americans shoot each other more than Brits do. We ALWAYS HAVE. Yet armed to the teeth, our violent crime rates have been declining for over a decade. Yours? You insist that your gun laws make you safer because America's homicide rate is THREE TIMES what it is in the UK. In that earlier post I SHOWED YOU that the homicide rates of the UK and the US ARE CONVERGING. What did you do? Ignored it. "Voodoo statistics," you said. No it's a FACT - one you avoid, because it illustrates that your philosophy DOESN'T WORK.
That'll be number 80. It's really not a great catchphrase, Kevin.
After BANNING handguns, handgun violence there has nearly doubled.
We went over that last year. I pointed out that if the post-Dunblane restrictions hadn't been passed, the rate of illegal weapons would have in all probability grown at an even faster rate than they have (at the very least at the same rate) and the net result would have been a higher rate of gun crime than we have now. You comprehensively failed to provide a compelling argument (let alone proof) for why that is not a reasonable interpretation.
In that earlier post I SHOWED YOU that the homicide rates of the UK and the US ARE CONVERGING.
You reckon you can be confident of a convergence when the homicide rate in the US is still three time as high? Tell you what, get back to me when it actually has converged. I'm not holding my breath.
For the record, and as I've pointed out before, when I say 'voodoo' statistics I'm not referring to the numbers themselves (that would be a bit silly as they've evidently been copied and pasted from other sources) but instead to the conotorted use you put those numbers to, and the unsupported conclusions you reach on that basis.
You reckon you can be confident of a convergence when the homicide rate in the US is still three time as high? Tell you what, get back to me when it actually has converged. I'm not holding my breath.
As we pointed out, and you ignored, that 3x higher is for less than 1% of the total area of the US. That's not to say it's not significant, but it's also dropping like a rock, even in the worst places.
Whereas yours is spreading like wildfire.
But not to worry, I have a very strong suspicion that the Sharia courts will intervene long before they converge.
But just in case they don't - what will you do then?
"the net result would have been a higher rate of gun crime than we have now."
And just like last year, asserted as if you could know that the rate of gun crime would magically deviate from the trend which existed prior to the passage of those laws. This is what I mean by ignoring _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_.
"conotorted use you put those numbers to, and the unsupported conclusions"
Aaaand again, ignoring what you don't like. You have asserted that the numbers are "contorted" but you have not made an argument based on _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_ and sound logic.
And have you got any _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_ that the rate of gun crime has increased because of the post-Dunblane restrictions? Thought not. As I've repeatedly pointed out, I'm not the one who (like Karl Marx) has claimed that his 'philosophy' is literally provable.
Mr. Kelly, I think it's quite simple. What tangible evidence do you have that gun laws have made Britons safer? Can you show a correlation between the enactment of gun laws and a decrease in violent crime/gun crime?
Sarah, what tengible evidence do you have that a gun free-for-all has made you safer, other than a gun crime rate that is massively higher than ours, and a general homicide rate that (as even Kevin concedes) is three time higher?
a gun crime rate that is massively higher than ours,
Yet those very crimes you point to so gleefully, are almost entirely illegally held guns, in places that modeled their gun laws on the UK. Common citizens cannot own, or carry guns in those places.
(Yet.)
Notice that for all the times that's been pointed out to you - that the places jacking up the gun crime and murder rates - are almost always "gun free zones", where the law-abiding are disarmed - you ignore this, despite - or because of - it's fatal poison to your assertions.
So your plan is we - all - emulate the areas with the highest crime and the highest rate of acceleration of violent crime. And you call us delusional.
Mr. Kelly, I asked first. Since you say these laws are enacted for increased public safety, don't you think the onus is on you to demonstrate that this is so? If you feel so strongly about it, it should be an extremely simple matter to show me that such laws have, in fact, led to a decrease in violent/gun crime.
"And have you got any _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_ that the rate of gun crime has increased because of the post-Dunblane restrictions? Thought not."
Wow… It's sooooo "nice" of you to "reply" to a reply I could not possibly make yet.
Quite simply, when examining trends, even sociological ones, it is entirely reasonable to expect a trend to continue unchanged unless something occurs to cause a change. At the time the gun ban occurred, there was a change in the trend. Because that change occurred, it's entirely reasonable to ask what occurred to cause the change. The only thing that happened at the point where the change occurred which A) we're aware of, and B) that seems to be related to trend being tracked, is the passage of the handgun ban.
The most rational response to that line of reasoning is to demonstrate that something else changed to cause the change in the trend. But instead of doing so, you are asserting that the trend would have changed without a cause, and that the change would have actually been bigger than it actually was. That strikes me as being exactly like the cartoon of two guys at a chalkboard covered with math, with these words scribbled in the middle of it, "Then a miracle occurs…".
Sorry, but a sudden change occurring without a cause violates one of the basic tenants of science: Every event has a cause.
"As I've repeatedly pointed out, I'm not the one who (like Karl Marx) has claimed that his 'philosophy' is literally provable."
Ever heard of a thing called a logical fallacy? This particular specimen is called the Association Fallacy.
I pointed out that if the post-Dunblane restrictions hadn't been passed, the rate of illegal weapons would have in all probability grown at an even faster rate than they have (at the very least at the same rate) and the net result would have been a higher rate of gun crime than we have now.
And:
You reckon you can be confident of a convergence when the homicide rate in the US is still three time as high?
This is where my head gets all 'splodey. You insist that your restrictive gun laws make you safer because your murder rate would have gone up FASTER without them, but our lax gun laws make us LESS safe because our DECLINING murder rate is still three times that of the UK. Isn't your premise that more guns = more gun crime? In addition, your skyrocketing violent crime rate is unrelated to your gun laws (even though those laws are supposed to make you safer) but our declining violent crime rates have nothing to do with our liberal self-defense laws (that you claim should make us less safe.)
You insist that if the number of guns in private hands increases then the number of gun crimes MUST ALSO increase, do you not? Yet as you reduce the number of guns in private hands in the UK, your gun crime rates have continued to go UP, and as the number of guns in private hands in the US increases (by 3-4 MILLION a year) our violent crime rates have continued to go DOWN.
I showed you in that previous piece that the homicide rate in the US was once TEN TIMES that of the UK, and now it's less than three times. The trend has been ongoing since the 1970's, so in answer to your question, YES, I'm confident of a convergence. Here's a challenge for you: get back to me when the ratio hits a mere 2:1, and explain to me again how your strict gun control laws kept it from getting there FASTER.
I contort statistics? At least I look at the numbers and draw logical conclusions. If A then B should work on BOTH sides of the Atlantic, but in your worldview it doesn't. Why is that?
Kevin, there can be no greater example of failing to draw logical conclusions than a) to look at three mass killings in a row committed with legal weapons and not to spot that restrictions on legal weapons must have a part to play, and b) looking at the increasing level of illegal gun ownership and somehow magically implicating gun control laws in that problem. How the hell would laxer controls make those illegal weapons go away? Surely it would make the problem much, much worse.
(Way to go dodging every single point in my comment with this non sequitur, James. Truly a masterpiece of avoidance of anything that challenges your worldview. - Ed.)
a) to look at three mass killings in a row committed with legal weapons
Over 20 years?
and not to spot that restrictions on legal weapons must have a part to play,
Oh, they do, just the opposite of what you're suggesting.
and b) looking at the increasing level of illegal gun ownership and somehow magically implicating gun control laws in that problem.
The problem is the legal guns and gun owners are punished increasingly for illegal gun ownership - in a forlorn hope that somehow, those bad men will just go away.
How the hell would laxer controls make those illegal weapons go away? Surely it would make the problem much, much worse.
Completely without proof.
Unless those guns are converted from "legal" guns, then they don't have anything to do with it.
Since it's been linked to you the massive imports of never legal guns to the criminals in the UK, and you've ignored that, I won't bother explaining the simple concept of making .22s and shotguns illegal has nothing to do with the gangs getting Glocks.
Other than it demonstrates your totemeque view of the world.
So the fact that every singlemass killing in the UK in the last 25 years has been with legal weapons is of no significance to you whatsoever? Of course not, forget about the facts, the philosophy can't possibly be wrong, can it?
Quick, more guns! And if they don't work, even more guns! Do it HARDER!
"So the fact that every singlemass killing in the UK in the last 25 years has been with legal weapons is of no significance to you whatsoever? Of course not, forget about the facts, the philosophy can't possibly be wrong, can it?"
So the fact that making most weapons illegal in the UK has resulted in an increase in the number of killings with said illegal weapons is of no significance to you whatsoever? Of course not, forget about the facts, the philosophy can't possibly be wrong, can it?
"Quick, more guns! And if they don't work, even more guns! Do it HARDER!"
Quick, more laws! And if they don't work, even more laws! Do it HARDER!
Kevin, there can be no greater example of failing to draw logical conclusions than
a) to look at the UK's ever-increasing violent crime rates and conclude that gun control laws have made the UK SAFER.
b) looking at the US's "lax" gun laws and DECLINING violent crime rates and conclude that our lack of gun control laws have made the US MORE DANGEROUS.
The criminal elements in the UK get all the guns they need, James. The laws only affect the price. They need to steal and rob a few more people to afford them, that's all. But disarming the victim pool? That makes their jobs much easier and safer.
THAT is what I'm arguing. It's not about gun control laws, James, it's about the CULTURE. Gun control laws are just a symptom of the culture. Your culture must change before revising your gun laws would have any beneficial effect. And my culture is such that I (and my readers, whom you cannot understand) utterly reject your philosophy of learned helplessness.
So wait, the country with more then 500 million guns, more guns then any other country in the world, that country is more likely to have gun crime? Stop the fucking presses, James Kelly, splitting atoms with his mind over here. Other amazing facts from this genius of the age:
Saudi Arabia has more vehicular accidents involving camels then any other country.
North Korea has more people who injure themselves while conducting enormous choreographed dances then any other country.
France has more people who choke to death while eating snails then any other country.
Oh, and you're lying or just wrong. Sexual assault is more prevalent in the UK then in the US. All totaled you manage 2.5 million acts of violence a year, which is half of our 5 million, despite the fact that you have one sixth our population. More importantly, our crime is declining and yours is increasing. So in five years, or ten years....
That assumes the new government over there doesn't make some changes regarding crime. From what I've seen of him he's more concerned with being good little econuts and world citizens.
This raises the question about whether rape is reported or not. There's been a lot of discussion concerning a) whether police are recording crime as reported, and b) whether people are bothering to report crimes to the police there, since they've largely lost faith in them.
I can pull links if you'd like, but I admit this is all speculative.
I've never claimed it can. Now, perhaps you will answer this question instead of pretending not to hear yet again - how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?
Since you believe so strongly that your course is the right one, why aren't you out enforcing it on the strength of your own convictions and with your own resources?
how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?
Give me three and a half hours unchecked, and i, or most people out to rack up a body count, would far exceed your rampages.
With damn near anything. Especially if you'll grant me use of a car.
If you won't, some molotov cocktails will get things rolling nicely.
Fire extinguishers? Over here they're made of steel, and I've seen autopsy photos of 2 able-bodied men who were killed by a much smaller man with one.
The WTF here isn't the guns, even, James. It's he culture of learned helplessness that allowed someone to rampage for three and a half hours with no intervention.
A culture so languid that it can't raise a hand to stop a murder isn't going to be fixed merely by handing out guns. On that you and I agree.
Three and a half hours - total red herring, and you know it. It took him that long because he was roaming about rural Cumbria in his car hunting down specific individuals. The idea that using a lower-grade weapon than a gun wouldn't have slowed him down (indeed stopped him from killing so many) is palpably absurd.
Three and a half hours - total red herring, and you know it.
No, I don't know it.
He rampaged for three and a half hours without intervention.
It took him that long because he was roaming about rural Cumbria in his car hunting down specific individuals.
Then the (legal) gun didn't really assist him all that much, now did it?
Pick a story and theory and stick to it, would you?
The idea that using a lower-grade weapon than a gun wouldn't have slowed him down (indeed stopped him from killing so many) is palpably absurd.
No, James. What's absurd is your contention that a gun let him kill rapidly, but yet at his leisure. And that there couldn't have been a similar massacre with a "lower grade weapon" - even though according to you he had all day.
James, please put the goalposts back where you orginally put them.
Remember, we were answering your question: possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun,
and I pointed out that he took three and a half hours to kill.
Or 210 minutes. 25 people shot. 12 killed.
So about 8 shot per hour. Little over one every 10 minutes. 3.5 killed per hour.
Boy I bet he had to have an "assault weapon" to kill that fast.
Now you're trying to move the goalposts, since you realize that you made a stupid rhetorical point that works against you.
It didn't help him to drive faster? No, guns are designed to kill, not for transport.
Three and a half hours. Unimpeded. Only stopped when he decided to stop.
What was your original question?
how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?
And it's trivial to find reports of 10+ people being stabbed in under a few minutes, machetes being used in massacres over 20-30 minutes...
And yes, a baseball bat, with three and a half hours, could easily kill 12 people and wound 13 more.
This was your thought experiment.
It's not our fault you don't know the facts of the case, nor have the ability to realistically judge threats and reality, including known attacks.
Thankyou for the clarificiation, Ken. Answer - Because I believe in democracy and the rule of law, rather than 'might is right' and imposing one's will by force.
Electing a parliament that passes laws, the police and the courts implement those laws...this is pretty basic stuff. I thought belief in democracy and the rule of law was a shared value between our two countries.
Thought experiment: Tomorrow Parliament passes a law, to be implemented by the police and courts, summarized thus:
"The United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland is now and forevermore restored to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Line up in the square to kiss the bishop's ring, or don't let the sun set on your ass in these islands."
Perfectly democratic and in accordance with the "rule of law" as you propose it. So you'd be perfectly okay with it, right?
>>I thought belief in democracy and the rule of law was a shared value between our two countries.
So, the color of democratic process vouchsafes and justifies all outcomes, does it?
*Several* wars have been fought to reject that premise, including our own American Civil War.
Even Hitler and Stalin knew to cover their ass with the pretense of democratic process, and the proliferation of the various "People's Democratic Republics of Whatever" are illustrative of the falsity of that.
No, Democracy, in and of itself, is not the highest value. While it is may be necessary for a free society, it is hardly sufficient.
So. If you take A's property by force, it's theft. If some guy with a badge claiming to be acting "in the name of the People/King/G-d/Whatever" does it, it's...what, exactly?
Apart from the salutary (sorry for the big word there) benefit of not exposing you to personal danger, that is.
The point is, you are perfectly happy imposing your will by someone else's force.
Ken, do you regard tax - and the rigorous enforcement of the tax regime - as 'theft'? Is there any government action that you're prepared to concede might just be appropriate?
How is any action on the basis of "Do this or I'll imprison/kill you" appropriate? To say that it's okay for the (G)overnment is to say that some people are more equal than others and enjoy prior claim to the property of their lessers. On moral grounds, taxation under coercion is most certainly theft.
Ability is certainly heterogeneously distributed, but on what basis can the legitimate claim that "Government Agent over there is a better person than regular people, and therefore enjoys a prior claim to my life and property?"
Taxation is not necessarily theft. But it can be used as such.
There are plenty of appropriate government actions - stopping, oh, serial killers on a spree rather than huddling in... we've got donut stores, where do your cops go when they're on the clock and not working?
But that's not to say that every action should be governmental, nor that every discretionary choice should be made by the government, nor there be a vote on natural rights.
Taxation is not necessarily theft. But it can be used as such.
True. Without digging into it deeper (which would be beneficial) or hijacking the thread, it strikes me that a tax that is either truly voluntary (and can that be called a tax? I dunno), or that can be avoided by refraining from engaging in the activity subject to tax, would not be theft.
Excise taxes, import duties, user fees, and perhaps even some consumption taxes (not sure about this; to have to start picking and choosing on the basis of elasticity of demand/availability of substitutes is gonna distort the market's price allocation function as badly as current schemes do -- price being one of the few nearly unambiguous forms of communication available to Homo sapiens sapiens, I hate to mess with it) come to mind.
As you point out, though, not everything is a matter for the state. The legitimate function of government (by which I mean the regulation of human relations) is to secure the natural right of the individual to life, liberty, and several property. Ed sums it up quite well below, but I propose that government and the state are not synonymous, and government may not require a state.
I cannot predict what would happen in the absence of the state, but I am well aware what has happened in every time and every place in the presence of a state. Having (roughly) counted the skulls, I'm willing to give the alternative a try.
"Is there any government action that you're prepared to concede might just be appropriate?"
Have you ever heard of the Declaration of Independence? At its core, it was an argument about the purposes for government:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,"
So there are justified purposes for governments. And taxes are necessary for even a fully justified government to function.
It then goes on to argue that violations of those basic humans are never justifiable, not even by governments. And in fact, if a government goes too far in trampling basic human rights, there is an active duty to replace that government with a new one:
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
(The rest of the Declaration was a listing of evidence that King George's government had reached that point.)
Our argument is that self-defense is a basic human right tied to the Right to Life, and that a government which takes actions to make its citizens defenseless violates that right, and therefore, such actions are entirely illegitimate.
So, the question remains, are you perfectly okay with asking your government to impose your will by force, in effect trampling your neighbor's right to self-defense?
"A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law, and no, I have no desire to see that changed."
You know, I could have sworn that you were arguing for banning shotguns and .22's. Furthermore, I could have sworn that we were challenging you on imposing that desire on others through government force. Are you now changing your tune on that?
"...I believe in democracy and the rule of law, rather than 'might is right' and imposing one's will by force...."
I don't believe in democracy, and for precisely the same reason you give for demanding your vaunted democracy. Of course, anyone whose IQ passes the century mark could figure out why this is, as the institution of law (spit) and mob rule is nothing more than "might is right," and imposing the will of many on the few, and has an historically shaky set of ethics by which those in power have abused their positions.
Seriously, you Brits need to get on with ending your obsession of "bans," since they don't have a hope of dealing with the actual ills of your broken society.
Then why do you keep focusing on "gun crime" and deliberately ignoring overall violent crime as if the gun causes crime?
"I answered your question, now please stop ducking mine."
Answering your question is pointless without first establishing the basis for that answer, a basis which you keep dodging. (Though U-J's answer was pretty good.)
It doesn't cause crime, it massively increases the death and injury caused by crime. Now that I've explained that very basic point (which was inherent in the question anyway) perhaps you will finally stop ducking the question.
"In other words, it multiplies the force which the person is intending to project. Agreed?"
Er, yes, so by logical extension a man with a lower-grade weapon will be less likely to succeed in causing as much harm, whatever his murderous intent. So, your latest excuse for dodging the question is..?
"Er, yes, so by logical extension a man with a lower-grade weapon will be less likely to succeed in causing as much harm, whatever his murderous intent."
Good! It's nice to see some progress. In fact, I think you've pretty much answered your own question:
"how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?"
I never claimed that these items were as quick and efficient as a gun. (Though in this latest incident, it's entirely possible to kill more people in the same time frame using a baseball bat than this guy killed using his guns.)
What they do accomplish is also to multiply force, even if not as much as a gun does. So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and will) still find a way to kill. Agreed?
When faced with someone intent on committing violence, how do you stop them? (Remember, you've already agreed that violence comes from the individual's intent, not the gun.)
I've never claimed it can. Now, perhaps you will answer this question instead of pretending not to hear yet again - how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?
____
If I were of a mind to kill as many random people as possible, I'd use a truck loaded with ANFO slurry. If I was one of these retarded suicide losers, I'd set off a small charge on one side of a concert or some other event, designed to get the maximum amount of people moving toward the truck, then detonate it when maximum density had been reached.
I could get a job at a resturant and poison the water glasses.
I could set fires in busy buildings, and destroy hydrants to keep the FD from mounting an effective response.
I could just drive around in my car running random pedestrians down.
Knives? Japan had a guy who killed over ten people with an old bayonet.
You are ascribing one specific category of inanimate objects with inherent charcteristics, while denying that a multitude of other things can be turned to the same end. I'd say is probably possible to keep these weapons out of the hands of people like this guy in Cumbria, because these spree shooters are not part of the criminal class. So you force the next crazy to use his car, or gasoline bombs, or an ax. Meanwhile the citizens go defenseless against the criminals, who have guns and are using them.
You banned all handguns in 1997. Yet there are still handguns in the UK. In fact, there is more handgun crime every single year. Explain that Jimbo. Handguns banned means zero handgun crime? Right?
And yet the worst mass murder at a U.S. school was not Columbine or Virginia Tech, where the perpetrators used firearms, but the Bath School Disaster in 1927, carried out by Andrew Kehoe without the use of a firearm.
At the above link the BBC has some figures compareing the prevelance of mass killings in different countries.
Mass killings per 10m of population in the USA 0.08. In the UK 0.06. Legal guns per 100 of population USA 90 UK 5.6. The correlation between legal gun ownership and mass killings looks weak to say the least.
On a happier topic I am pleased to report that on those figures I have way more than my share of guns.
This commenting system is a bit "funky". (To say the least.) You can upload your images to attach to a post by clicking the "Add images" object at the bottom left of where you create comments. Just use the buttons and you'll be able to share those with the rest of us.
Well, there was the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act. This made it illegal to carry an "offensive weapon" without being able to demonstrate a need for it. "Self defense" was no longer considered a legitimate reason to own a firearm. You couldn't carry a knife, mace, or a pointy stick in public anymore without being able to demonstrate "need." No pocket knives, no nothing.
The law abiding were, for all intents and purposes, legally disarmed beginning in 1953. In 1967 shotguns were added to the registry.
Does the criminal class in Britain have a government lobby or something? They should've called it the Criminal Ease and Safety Act. Reminds me of the Far Side cartoon showing two alligators laying on a beach, having obviously just eaten two kayakers, and saying with delight "That was incredible. No fur, claws, horns, antlers, or nothin'... Just soft and pink." That's what criminals in Britain must be thinking every time the government passes some stupid new law making their victims even softer.
I think it's actually traceable back to WWI, and then II. After a generation was lost going over the top, you can see how reluctant the UK was to fight in WWII. After those losses, and the loss of the Empire, there were some massive sea changes to the culture that Kelly is a stereotypical example to demonstrate.
I think the 60's just ended up with some codifications of the laws, but the cultural shift away from the "man's house is his castle" started long before that.
jsid-1275672244-7The Happy Rampager at Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:24:04 +0000
James, you said, “Answer - Because I believe in democracy and the rule of law, rather than 'might is right' and imposing one's will by force.”
The irony being that someone like you, who believes that guns are not suitable for those who might find themselves faced with serious threat, believes very much that ‘might makes right’, believes wholeheartedly in the rightness of ‘imposing one’s will by force’, and believes that nothing should get in the way of brute violence.
The question is whether you can claim the ‘moral high ground’ when you’re the sort of person who doesn’t want people, such as Bird’s 12 victims, to be able to stop a nutter like Bird from killing them. This latest atrocity happened exactly as you wanted it to. You don’t want Bird to be deprived of a gun half as much as you want his victims to have been deprived of guns, with which to stop him. Stopping the Derrick Birds of the world isn't important to you. Stopping his victims,is.
Let’s face it, you’re the type who puts his own satisfaction ahead of other people’s lives. Mine, the 12 dead, everyone in the UK whether they agree with you or not. You also think you can fling mud to hide the fact that you hold other people’s lives in contempt. What sort of person does holding other's lives in contempt make you?
Why, it makes him a slave who knows he is a slave, can imagine nothing else, and will not rest until everyone else is likewise enslaved (as witness his ill-disguised glee over National Health coming to America).
I believe that yes, the criminal class in Britain DOES have a government lobby, it's call the Political Class. In creating their dependent-oriented Welfare State which the "National Health System" helped lock into place, they require a level of victimhood of their citizenry (much brought about by the use of class-envy as a weapon of social division), and as such and seeking equality among victims, a criminal with a traditional criminal background and criminal skills has just as much right to "earn" a living as a criminal predator, as someone with a real job. The police have managed to leverage the bureaucrats and grow their organization - which is the basis for success in a Statist scheme - and have put police surveillance cameras all over the place that do nothing to prevent crime but assist the cops in data collection. The Po-po are mainly a Victim Recording apparatus anymore that conveys the crime-element statistics to the Bureaucrats in the State, after events have taken place. It's safer for them that way since they have to deal with so many dissatisfied customer/clients - including criminals who are simply attempting to earn a time-honored living...
Well, the dude is pretty much the personification of the kindergarten schoolyard tactics of "I know you are but what am I?" and *sticking your fingers in your ears and humming*. That was bound to get something of a rise out of the regular readers here, especially given that it flies in the face of plain facts and figures.
"Damn! This thread is going to hit 100+ comments, and Markadelphia is nowhere to be found!"
Ah, but look more closely.
The only significant difference between Kelly and Marxadopia is that Kelly apparently proofreads before posting.
Note that they have the same modus operandi, which is evasion. They use the same methods, which are the Standard Responses of Markadopia. In this thread alone, he has copiously used #1, #4, #5, #6, #7, #9, and #12.
Oh, and thanks a lot, James. As does Marxy, you do such good work for our side. As with Marxy, you don't fool anyone.
Since Markadelphia is nominally pro-2A, I think it would be fascinating to watch him try to debate James Kelley. It'd be like a dog fight, where both dogs have no teeth or nails. Or two Monty Python black knights wailing away at each other. Or a fight to the death where the opponents have nothing but NERFs for weapons.
"I'm drawing a blank on that one, DJ. What's an Igli?"
Read Heinlein's Glory Road. Some choice excerpts describe Igli better than I can:
-----
"I looked Igli over more carefully. He resembled that scion of the man from Dundee, all chin and no forehead, and he combined the less appetizing features of giants and ogres in The Red Fair Book. ...
"He was vaguely human, using the term loosely. He was a couple of feet taller than I am and outweighed me three or four hundred pounds but I am much prettier. Hair grew on him in clumps, like a discouraged lawn; and you just knew, without being told, that he had never used a man's deoorant for manly men. The knots of his muscles had knots on them and his toenails weren't trimmed."
-----
Okay, that's just the visual description. Rather troll-like, isn't it? To continue:
-----
"Igli can't be killed. You see, he is not really alive. He is a construct, made invulnerable for this one purpose. ..."
"You mean he is a robot?"
"Not if you are thinking of gears and wheels and printed circuits. 'Golem' would be closer. The Igli is an imitation of life. ... But worse, too, as Igli isn't very bright nor well balanced. He has conceit without judgment."
-----
So, how was he killed, you asked? It was (ahem) Easy. (Read the book and get the pun.) The Hero Oscar simply fed him to him (lovely alliteration, ain't it?) until he was gone.
No, I won't spoil it for you. Read the book. You'll like it.
"BTW, I noticed that #12 is not in Kevin's post of Marky's standard responses."
"Standard Response #12, the "I'm a deliberate fuckwit!" response. When he discovers, yet again, that he cannot counter his opponent's argument, he intentionally mischaracterizes his opponent's argument, reasoning, meaning, and even the plain language of his statements, and then argues against his own mischaracterization as if it shows his opponent to be wrong. He does not care that this shows him to be fundamentally dishonest and/or unable to understand what his opponent actually wrote, but it gives him yet another opportunity to avoid admitting that he is wrong and/or that his opponent is correct. While this response often embodies one or more of his other Standard Responses, overall it is a distinct form that is easily recognized."
Don't forget that the UK government is now actively fudging the crime numbers in an attempt to keep a lid on the statistics. Probably the only number they can't hide would be actual murders, since a body is a terribly inconvenient fact to get around. They are doing this by discouraging the creation of a police report. If the cops don't put it on paper, or into a computer, then it didn't happen, right?
Good discussions are awesome. But I gotta say that when a thread is as active as this one, Echo's "threading" is hell on wheels to keep track of who said what to whom, and where the latest comments are.
Well, I've returned after several hours and found umpteen more points directed at me, so I'm going to bail out of this very hard-to-follow comments thread and give my thoughts on some of the issues raised here -
I'm scarcely running away - the blog post I linked to contains detailed responses to as many of the points raised as I could manage, and it took me three hours to write. Alas - and regardless of in-joke taunts referring to a man who I've never come across but who sounds ever more appealing by the second - that will have to do to be getting on with.
"Toying" with you?!? Are you now pretending that you're a mind reader? (Just like Markadelphia.)
I was stepping you through the logic to make sure you didn't miss anything, or pull the kind of bullshit you just pulled in that post by leaping from where we were to a completely unrelated and illogical "conclusion".
You agreed with each step. Each one seemed logical to you. That's because they are logical, and there was no "toying" or deception involved.
If you want to show that your position is logical, then return to the end of the logic chain that you agreed with and continue with it One. Step. At. A. Time. to show that it's logically correct. I'm convinced that your conclusion is illogical. In part because it brings in claimed premises (training) that have not been established one way or the other (and which I dispute), and cherry picked data (U.K. sprees only vs. worldwide and sprees vs. "everyday" murders) which is a logical fallacy, and in part because I've gone through the logic before and your "conclusion" simply does not follow.
You can start right here:
So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and will) still find a way to kill. Agreed?
Speaking of ignoring things, here's what you posted.
Britt:"You banned all handguns in 1997. Yet there are still handguns in the UK. In fact, there is more handgun crime every single year. Explain that Jimbo. Handguns banned means zero handgun crime? Right?"
James Kelly:"No, it means fewer handguns, and less handgun crime, than would have been the case had the ban not been implemented. That is not the same thing - as has been repeatedly pointed out to Kevin - as saying the level of handgun crime has fallen in the UK since the late 1990s."
Yet you completely ignored the argument I had already made on this point.
"Quite simply, when examining trends, even sociological ones, it is entirely reasonable to expect a trend to continue unchanged unless something occurs to cause a change. At the time the gun ban occurred, there was a change in the trend. Because that change occurred, it's entirely reasonable to ask what occurred to cause the change. The only thing that happened at the point where the change occurred which A) we're aware of, and B) that seems to be related to trend being tracked, is the passage of the handgun ban.
"The most rational response to that line of reasoning is to demonstrate that something else changed to cause the change in the trend. But instead of doing so, you are asserting that the trend would have changed without a cause, and that the change would have actually been bigger than it actually was. That strikes me as being exactly like the cartoon of two guys at a chalkboard covered with math, with these words scribbled in the middle of it, "Then a miracle occurs…".
"Sorry, but a sudden change occurring without a cause violates one of the basic tenants of science: Every event has a cause."
Care to try again?
Or do you care to explain how the U.K. and the U.S. have almost identical rates (population adjusted) of killing sprees despite the fact that the U.S. has roughly sixteen times the rate of gun ownership of the U.K., not to mention Americans routinely carrying guns every day? Those rates are _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_, and per usual, you seem to be ignoring what you don't like.
Then there's this classic case of moving the goalposts:
Ken:"You lie." Kevin Baker:"No, he doesn't. Well, "enshrined" is a complete fabrication . . ." Ed:"You know, I could have sworn that you were arguing for banning shotguns and .22's. Furthermore, I could have sworn that we were challenging you on imposing that desire on others through government force. Are you now changing your tune on that?"
James Kelly:"Don't be obtuse, Ed. The comment from Kevin, meanwhile, is slightly baffling - the law does indeed provide for proportionate self-defence, and it's as "enshrined" as any law can be in a country that does not have a written constitution."
And right back to the dishonest argument again. The central point of arguing what government can and cannot do (theft, imposing your will on others via government fiat) was about taking guns from others. We addressed your dodges about what is legitimate for government to do, and all of a sudden, out of frikkin' nowhere, you're talking about proportionality (which, BTW, I noticed you did not define) as if the original topic of "Mr. and Mrs. U.K., turn them all in" never existed. My comment was directed squarely at RETURNING to the MAIN POINT. (It's all right here. Anyone can check up on this.) And you have the cojones to call ME "obtuse"?!?
When your illogical arguments boil down to this example:
"believes that nothing should get in the way of brute violence.
What, other than the law making it as unlikely as humanly possible that dangerous people have a gun handy?"
... you really are not worth pursuing. I will not speak for The Happy Rampager, but it is fair to say that when he was referring to "brute violence", he was not referring to just firearms. In my eyes, he was referring to the simple fact that if you disarm everyone, the smaller, weaker examples of society are left with little to no choice when the larger, stronger examples of society stroll along and demand something from the former. A 100-pound-soaking-wet woman stands little-to-no chance of beating back a 300-pound linebacker rapist without some sort of self-defense tool that does not rely on physical strength or prowess to use.
And people like you, James, all too gleefully would strip the hypothetical woman in question of that very tool. You would leave her effectively defenseless in the face of her rapist, and yet you would cheerfully claim that you support peple's rights to self-defense.
With an argument like that, and a mind that would actually produce that kind of position, I can only come to the conclusion that you are a singularly disgusting example of the mentalities created by the culture of induced-and-forced victimhood hijacking once-Great-Britain these days, and write you off accordingly. I have little use for an individual who would all-too-happily walk a nation into a nightmare of being ruled at the street level by those who are physically stronger, and at the national level by the government, without check or control by the people.
I think one thing left out of this discussion is the fact that mass killings, while horriffic and sensational, are simply no good as a means of determining social policy. It is, essentially, surrendering civil liberties to prevent terrorism. Your actual odds of being harmed in one of these incidents is several orders of magnitude lower than being harmed in a more prosaic incident, such as an assault or robbery. Humans have a long history of scaring themselves to pieces over the wrong things, while ignoring the dangers that are far more pressing. Thus, parents are horrified by the idea of a gun in their house, but think nothing of driving their kid in a car all day before sending the tykes to splash around in a swimming pool, both of which have claimed many times more lives than guns. We fear mass-killers, but never stop to think of the dangers of disarming THE ENTIRETY OF LAW-ABIDING SOCIETY. James Kelly demonstrates this mental hitch rather well, focusing entirely on THREE incidents of legally-owned guns being used in atrocities while THOUSANDS are murdered in less sensational ways.
And lest I come off as too holier-than-thou, I'll admit that, back in 2003-2004, when a mentally-feeble older driver plowed his car through the Santa Monica Farmer's Market, killing nine people and maiming more, I initially cried out for tougher laws against senior drivers, without even thinking if the incident was representative of an actual trend. It's an easy trap to fall into.
Sarah Mr. Kelly, I think it's quite simple. What tangible evidence do you have that gun laws have made Britons safer? Can you show a correlation between the enactment of gun laws and a decrease in violent crime/gun crime?
James Kelly Sarah, what tengible evidence do you have that a gun free-for-all has made you safer, other than a gun crime rate that is massively higher than ours, and a general homicide rate that (as even Kevin concedes) is three time higher?
That's everything in a nutshell, right there: Sarah wants the government to have to prove that a right is too dangerous to exercise before it can be removed; James wants burden to fall on individuals to prove that the right is safe enough to be left lawful. I can't think of an exchange that more perfectly illustrates the opposite worlds that we're arguing from.
Well, I'm left gobsmacked (can I use the British construction here?) by the "proportionate response" comment by Mr. Kelly.
Proportionate? What's "proportionate" about a 200+ lb 19 year old yob robbing an 100 lb 80 year old woman? Just what "proportionate" response do you believe the woman would be able to (successfully) defend herself with? Swinging her handbag? Using an hatpin? Calling the plod and hoping for them to get there before she is beaten down to a pulp?
"God made all men, but Samuel Colt made them equal", is as true today as it ever was. Care to try the proportionate response crap when you're outnumbered 3 (or more) to 1? Or when they have knives, and you have, well, nothing?
Shame on you, sir! Shame! For advising all persons, regardless of ability, age, infirmity, or even sheer will to just give in, give up, and give their lives as sacrifices on the altar of "oooh! we're too cowardly to defend ourselves from evil acts" correctness.
May you never find yourself whispering through blood caked lips and broken teeth into the wet puddle your life's blood is pouring into from the stab wound in your chest, as your wife's screams rend the air from the rape in progress, and your child whimpers brokenly by your side, "if I'd only had a gun..."
Perhaps only THEN you'd see, before you saw nothing more at all...
Mr. Kelly has attempted to transplant the discussion over to his own site.
As I recall, the last time the comments went on over at Mr. Kelly's place, he invoked Reasoned Discourse (R)(c)(tm), and so I'm not going to respond to him there.
Quoth Mr. Kelley:
-------------------------
'Geek with a 45', in response to my suggestion that it is legitimate for the authorities to disarm private gun owners if mandated to do so by democratic legislation, had this to say -
"No, Democracy, in and of itself, is not the highest value. While it is may be necessary for a free society, it is hardly sufficient."
Agreed, the rights of individuals and minorities need to be enshrined, otherwise you can end up with extreme outcomes like a majority ethnic group making a 'democratic' decision to wipe out the minority. But, in truth, Europe on the whole does a better job than the US of protecting the rights of individuals - by far the most important of which is the right to life. No European country other than Belarus takes the lives of its own citizens, whereas unfortunately most US states still have the death penalty on the statute book.
----------------------------
Fail.
This is both switch and bait and a red herring. Executing a duly convicted individual for his crimes cannot be conflated for the systematic legal denigration of personal rights of innocent individuals, whether they are in a minority category or not.
Continues Mr. Kelly:
----------------------------
On the issue of guns, there are two potential rights that can be afforded citizens, but that plainly clash with each other - a) the unlimited right to amass tools for the purposes of self-defence, and b) the right not to be attacked, and perhaps even more importantly, not to have to live in constant fear of being attacked by fellow citizens. Which of these rights should be accorded precedence? I'd say the latter, every time.
-------------------------
Fail again.
First, Mr. Kelly sets up a false dichotomy. Next, he falls back to a familiar construction, which this group has already adequately dismantled, that he somehow has a right not to be afraid of his neighbor's posessions. (And I won't even get into the whole issue of positive vs negative rights)
[sarcasm]
I for one, tremble in fear that Bob next door will someday run amok with his lawn mower, in an act of horrific gardenia carnage. I must petition the town council at once to ban lawn mowers, and thus protect my individual right not to fear for my garden. If Bob should resist the confiscation of his mower, in defiance of the will of the people, then he shall certainly deserve his subsequent death or incarceration.
[/sarcasm]
All in all, he seems to be repeating his same tired mantras in the dogmatic manner of a true believer, still refering to arms as "luxury items". Indeed, to view arms as anything other than a dismissible triviality would be the beginnings of acceptance of the connection between arms and the self preservation of one's own life, which is something he cannot do without risking the rest of his tired worldview.
Such people are always going to exist, and most will not turn from their self righteous path. As always, the eternal question is how to arrange things such that their power and influence over us is entirely negated, and thus secure our own rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit in defiance of those who would have them, no matter what the pretext, or their skill at conflation and red-herring artistry.
Well, Geek, as it wasn't beneath your dignity to leave a comment at my blog to alert me to your response, I'll do the equivalent - my response is here -
"In point of fact, I wasn't trying to "transplant" discussion,"
Riiiiiigggggghhhttt…
I guess that explains why you closed the comments on your post or you're not actively continuing the discussion over there. What? You are? Doesn't refusing to continue discussion over here, then actively carrying on discussion there undermine your claim and make it seem that you actually did want to "transplant" the discussion?
Ed, the first rule of thumb in life is that you have to define what you want in life before you can go after it. There's a distinct air of amiguity as to what you're actually criticising me for. Is closing my comments (ie. "reasoned discourse" - yawn) a bad thing ? Is allowing people to comment but then ignoring them a bad thing? Is responding to those comments a bad thing? Which 'the heck' is it, Ed?
1) Claiming you're doing one thing while doing the opposite.
2) Running away from serious, step by step logical debate where we come to agreement before moving on because you apparently realized that it was going where you refuse to go.
Ed - bizarre. Your 'step by step' was simply assisting me to prove my own point - that the weapon involved in an attack is as much a determinant of the outcome as the murderous intent of the assailant. Even now I'm still baffled by what the hell you think you were actually proving.
Yet you stopped right there and jumped to a conclusion in your post that was not logically connected to what we had established so far. (1, 2, 3, -479!!!)
We had already established that human intent controls guns and that guns (and other weapons) multiply human intentions to project force. That's it.
But from there, you threw away the human intent part and "concluded" that guns can only be used for evil.
Furthermore, you ignored the next step in the logical chain—what the combination of what we did establish proved (there was more that this proved, which was coming up)—not once, but twice: (Markadelphia tactic #1)
So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and will) still find a way to kill. Agreed?
No, not agreed. When I answered that bit of your 'step by step' at my blog I thought it was blindingly obvious that I was saying 'no, I do not agree', but if you didn't pick up on that I'm quite happy to clarify the point for you. Without a gun, a person may or not succeed in killing - but it is substantially less likely that they will do.
Yet the event that caused us to start our argument was someone getting beaten to death by a group of killers using nothing more than their hands and feet.
Your refusal to agree goes against the available evidence. Good luck with that.
My favorite line from "Lord of the Rings":
"The women of this country learned long ago, those without swords can still die upon them."
Without a gun, a person may or not succeed in killing - but it is substantially less likely that they will do.
Without a gun, a woman may or not succeed in defending herself against a superior male aggressor - but it is substantially more likely that she will. Comment?
I'm late to the fight, but I have an observation. James Kelly wrote way back at the beginning:
...that you're quite simply far, far more likely to be shot in the US than in the UK.
With the conclusion that we ought to increase the restrictions on legally owned firearms. Well, given that logic, how do we solve the following problem here in the USA: you're (anyone) far, far more likely to be shot in the US by a black person than a white person. Furthermore, you are far, far more likely to be shot by a black person using an "illegal" gun than anyone using a "legal" gun. Your solution, James?
Note: scare quotes indicate that it's not so much the guns that are legal or illegal, but the possession of the guns.
Well, carnaby, following Mr. Kelly's logic would dictate we either ban black people or prohibit black people from having guns, but since neither of those is conscionable, and your statistics are either bogus or it's all the fault of white people, we just prohibit everyone (except people from the .gov) from having guns because guns are evil (unless in the hands of people from the .gov), and then lament the fact that we don't have an "authentic" black person in the White House who flashes a handgun to establish his authority, but it's the fault of horrible white people that blacks do that anyway, so I give up.
The chances of being shot by anyone are low, but according to the statistics provided by lefty political scientist Andrew Hacker, author of Two Nations, whites are more likely to be assaulted/raped/robbed/killed by a black person than by a white person.
James Kelly Said This:
----------------------------
I certainly don't regard guns as a 'dismissable triviality', but I do regard the pleasure of owning one as trivial when compared to the greater public good of restricting ownership.
--------------------------
James Kelly Also Said This:
---------------------------- Kevin and his ilk are horrified that their right to own their favourite luxury item might one day be taken from them, and have had to construct all these logical and 'philosphical' contortions to try and convince themselves that such an outcome would objectively be an outrage, rather than something that just constitutes a loss to them personally.
----------------------------
It's kinda hard to avoid concluding that Mr. Kelly isn't full of it, isn't it?
When people start invoking "the greater public good", it is best to check after your wallet, your livestock, your daughters and your prerogatives, for it is certain men wearing masks of good intention are coming after something that is rightfully yours.
I will say it slowly, and carefully.
Arms are neither trivial, nor toys, nor luxury items. They are an instrumentality of our intrinsic right to enforce both our own continued existence, and, when all other recourse has failed and our institutions have collapsed "back to nature" in the Lockean sense, our rightful prerogatives.
Mr. Kelly & Co doesn't get to choose our values for us. Mr. Kelly & Co. don't get to decide that their preference has legitimacy in some appeal to "the greater public good".
There is no circumstance under which James Kelly and his ilk, no matter how numerous they may be, or where they are, or by what allegedly democratic process they plead legitimizes their action that this right can be generally revoked or repudiated.
We will never surrender the right to enforce our own existence or the means to do it, which is what Mr. Kelly describes dismissively as "our favorite luxury" item.
If we won't lay down arms, then someone is going to have to come and take them, won't they?
So where that leaves Mr. Kelly & Co is at their own loggerheads, where they must go through their own "logical and 'philosphical' contortions to try and convince themselves" that such an action on behalf of some ill justified belief in "the greater public good" would be right and just, and that they would be blameless should the matter come to bloodshed, as such matters innevitably do.
Here's a hint: the man bashing down the door is the aggressor.
James Kelly:"No, it means fewer handguns, and less handgun crime, than would have been the case had the ban not been implemented. That is not the same thing - as has been repeatedly pointed out to Kevin - as saying the level of handgun crime has fallen in the UK since the late 1990s."
The only problem with your statement is that you cannot prove it. It's like "jobs created or saved", there is no way to prove whether or not there would have been more deaths by shooting then without the 97 law. The fact is that the law was passed on the propostion that fewer handguns would result in fewer shooting deaths. The opposite is true, the exact opposite result of what was promised.
This is why I there's no point in arguing with people like you. You are, in a very real sense, mentally deficient. You are utterly incapable of grasping the fact that if a law promises one thing and delivers the exact opposite, then the law has failed in it's purpose. The Left always does this. They promise fewer gun deaths/fewer people in poverty/more people having health insurance. Then when the exact opposite happens they cry "but it would have been so much worse without the government's action." Utter bullshit, and I'm sick and tired of hearing it. You offer something that no one can prove as an argument. It's childish, it's idiotic, and the worst thing about it is that it works to persuade the soft headed idiots Markadelphia creates every day at work.
Another question for Kelly: what is the history in the UK of firearm homicide (Kevin has answered this already) and firearm (or other) mass murder? Back in the day when firearms could be carried in public in the UK, were there any mass shootings? I have searched but have not found any evidence of such. If not, then by Kelly's logic, we can conclude that restriction of firearms in the UK has led to the few mass murders in recent memory. And since firearm homicide has never declined in the UK, what good have the firearms restrictions given to the fine subjects of that country?
You could not look for a better encapsulation of the mentality of the state-worshipping ruling elite than the claim by Sir Ian Blair, former disastrous Metropolitan Police Commissioner and newly-appointed peer (nothing succeeds like failure), writing in The Guardian on the topic of gun control: “The possession of a firearm is a privilege, not, except in a few cases, a necessity.”
Have you got that? The possession of a firearm is a “privilege”. In fact it is nothing of the sort: it is a right, guaranteed to all British subjects by the Bill of Rights of 1689. This assertion by Blair, whose police officers notoriously abused their firearms privileges by shooting dead Jean-Charles de Menezes, affords an instructive insight into the leftist/liberal belief that the state is the all-powerful authority controlling human existence. It may deign to extend privileges, such as firearm ownership, to a minority of its helots, but it does so as an act of grace, not in deference to any rights they might claim.
The state, in reality, is supposed to be the servant of the public. Its role should be rigidly limited and every power it exercises jealously scrutinised for overreach. For centuries, the entire basis of English Common Law was the assumption that everything that was not forbidden was legal. Today, the British subject is presumed to have virtually no rights (unless he belongs to a politically correct minority) and only by the most laboured exertion on his part may he make his case to the state, his master, that a privilege such as gun ownership should graciously be extended to him.
[...]
The reality is that no system will ever detect the likes of Derrick Bird, normal in his behaviour for years, then suddenly running amok. These tragedies happen: hard cases make bad law, as Dunblane taught us. All that can be done is to appraise licence applicants as one would potential car drivers. Health and Safety cannot be allowed to snuff out all normal human activities: the general population cannot be brought down to the lowest common denominator of the psychopath. It is illegal gun ownership that poses the overwhelming risk to life – what are the authorities doing about that? Or knife crime: people are four times as likely to be killed by a knife as by a gun.
The extravagant gun control legislation passed in the immediate aftermath of the Dunblane massacre has done nothing to save life. A decade after that legislation, in 2007, the Home Office claimed that gun crime was falling. It was David Davis who uncovered the truth, buried in a Home Office statistical bulletin, and confronted the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith with the facts: “Gun-related killings and injuries (excluding air weapons) have increased over fourfold since 1998.”
The mania to restrict firearms ownership among law-abiding people has led to a situation in which only outlaws have guns, as the American bumper sticker warns US citizens. In heavily armed America, only 13 per cent of burglaries take place while householders are on the premises, because intruders fear being shot. The gun control lobby in Britain aims, by turning the ratchet every time there is a high-profile shooting, to eliminate private firearms completely. The doctrine is that only the state should bear arms (with results we saw in Stockwell Tube Station). Only such a state monopoly can assert its absolute power over society.
The reality is that only a totalitarian state disarms its citizens. Any further measures in that direction must be resisted. Instead, we should be reviewing the Draconian laws we already have. What about Big Society, Dave? Is it big enough to bear arms responsibly? Or will the coalition be complicit in the leftward turn of the ratchet towards increased state control?
"Complicit" does not even begin to explain the mentality of people like James...
I can only admire the brass neck of you lot - YOU complain about ad hominem attacks? Do you want me to count how many times I've been called a wuss or a coward over the course of this thread?
Water off a duck's back, guys, but really - aim for a bit of consistency.
Codswallop. What you do is dismiss Warner's argument based on the fact that it's Warner making it.
What I do is draw conclusions about your character, based on your policy preferences, your preferred means for carrying them forward, your...ahem...arguments and how you attempt make them.
Bluff is another thing with which you appear to be unfamiliar, then.
Interesting that you'd spend the time reading someone you've already dismissed as a fruitcake. You must be hurting for quality entertainment.
Actually, from what I've read of Cameron and Nu Conservative, Vichy Tories sounds like it's at least in the ballpark. You I'd mark down as a wannabe half-baked Vidkun Quisling, provided you can find enough thugs to kick in doors for you.
"Interesting that you'd spend the time reading someone you've already dismissed as a fruitcake."
Sigh. It was a joke. I haven't read any of Warner's posts since the general election campaign, and I'm not planning to start up again now (nor are many Conservatives, judging by what they regularly say about him).
Nah, I'm gonna keep doing it, Little Jimmy, 'cuz I like picking fights with guys like you.
I'm WANTING you to swing, you see.
Yes, I'm goading, and I don't care.
The reason, of course, is that you are a nothing more than a garden-variety tyrant, using whatever "reason" you've thought up to deny freedom to everyone else. Someone else in this thread had earlier, and correctly, called you out as being a willing slave, and that you absolutely insist that everyone be throw into the gulag with you. Your ethical bounds are showing, here, and I'm of the opinion that it's far uglier that whatever supposed atrocities are being perpetuated against the citizenry by way of bad people with "legal" guns.
All cases by your argument, if followed through to their logical conclusion, would result in even MORE bloodshed, death and genocide, and historically, this is evident, and only a simpleton would argue otherwise.
That's it, pure and simple. The people who wrote the Bill of Rights knew that and the people who wrote the Constitution of the United States knew the Bill of Rights. This is a matter deep in the history of our nations. This is where the profoundly repressive nature of much 20th century political thought meets the concept of liberty so central to our history. It's not just about me shooting clays or my neighbour killing rabbits.
To sum up James Kelly's ideology (feel free to correct me, if you're willing to explain):
He's worried about being killed by someone with no record. The sterotypical "next door neighbor". Someone just snapping suddenly when around the gun, which emits insanity rays. (I suspect he'd also object to comparisons with his belief there, and the Mullah's identical obsession with women's hair.)
But he's not at all concerned over being predated upon by career criminals.
He's only worried about "legal" guns. Those that, prior to the psychic break, were allowed and permitted.
The illegal ones don't worry him, and so their increase is of no concern. The massive increases in violent crime, likewise, doesn't bother him - just so his neighbors are made as defenseless as he's made himself, so they cannot possible harm him with a certain class of object.
In thinking about this thread, I got more curious about the exact numbers of murders and weapons involved. So I did a little more digging.
First, I started with the statistics Kevin used for those graphs, the aggregate numbers from the British Home Office. First, of all, the homicide numbers included murders, manslaughter (unintentional deaths) and infanticide. In this case, I'm only interested in the murders, where someone intended to kill someone and succeeded. Furthermore, it doesn't break down the deaths by firearm, so I had to go looking further.
A relatively basic site I found is NationMaster.com. It's really limited, in that it (apparently) only shows data from a single year, in this case 2002. It's apparently focused on comparing nations, not showing trends. In any event, it did give me something useful.
For 2002, there were 1,201 murders in the United Kingdom. That's not accidental killings, or abortion "substitutes"; that's people who were the victim of someone who intended to kill them.
NationMaster.com also provided statistics on how many of those murders were with a firearm: 14.
That means that in 2002, there were 1,187 murders committed WITHOUT a gun. That means that a lack of a gun did not stop 98.8% of the murders in 2002, thus proving my point:
"So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill."
I also tracked down the number of people killed in shooting sprees in the U.K. I actually found 4 "sprees":
- 1987, Monkseaton, 1 person killed (he fired at 15 people, which is why it's called a "spree")
- 1988, Hunderford, 17 people killed (including the shooter by suicide)
- 1996, Dunblane, 18 people killed (including the shooter by suicide)
- 2010, Cumbria, 13 people killed (including the shooter by suicide)
That means that the U.K. has had a total of 49 people killed in sprees over the 23 years, an average of 2.1 per year. Meanwhile, 1,201 people were deliberately murdered in 2002 alone, 1,987 of which were committed without the aid of a gun. If 2002's murders were an average, that means that there were more than 45,000 murders over the last 23 years committed without the aid of a gun, and which James Kelly is deliberately ignoring in this debate.
Which is more important? 45,000 murders? Or 49 murders?
Furthermore, he is making a huge deal over the fact that the spree killings used legally owned guns. Meanwhile, I would be willing to bet good money that most (if not all) of those 14 murders committed with a gun in 2002 were committed with guns which where already illegally owned.
This deserves more research. Does anyone know of a good source of data for annual murders (only) in the U.K. covering the last 23 (and preferably 50) years, including murders by firearm? It would be especially great if that data could break down firearm murders by guns owned legally vs. illegally.
"That means that in 2002, there were 1,187 murders committed WITHOUT a gun. That means that a lack of a gun did not stop 98.8% of the murders in 2002, thus proving my point:
"So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill." "
Er, what? It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying.
Er, what? It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying.
What, counting the dead that you're refusing to count?
They were killed, without "legal" guns. That was Ed's point. Your sneering dismissal is nonsensical.
They're dead. Not mostly dead, not pining for the fjords, not 1/2 dead, but dead.
They were killed, despite no "easily available guns."
Ed: "So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill." "
You: "It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying."
It pretty much, by definition, does.
This is going to be another one of your situations where you just ignore all the facts you don't like, and keep insisting that your demonstrably incorrect assertions is in fact, reality?
Yes, I think we're getting to the nub of all this nonsense about how I don't argue honestly or ignore things, because it seems on many occasions you and a few others simply haven't understood the objections I've been making.
My reponse to Ed was that without a gun, people intent on murder would succeed in killing some of the time, but on fewer occasions than if they did have a gun. Therefore pointing to a batch of murders that occurred without the use of a gun neither proves nor disproves that point. You would have to somehow show that the numbers of murders is not lower than it would have been with more guns around.
As far as I'm concerned, James has ended the argument. There is no hope of convincing such a man. His is the most astoundingly pathetic evasion of the blindingly obvious since the debate about the meaning of "is." All that is left is to distance such men as much as possible from the levers of power and leave them to their delusions.
Yes, I think we're getting to the nub of all this nonsense about how I don't argue honestly or ignore things, because it seems on many occasions you and a few others simply haven't understood the objections I've been making.
Not really, because you tend to make a assertion, and when the facts don't back it up, or it contradicts your other assertions, you'll insist that they're both right.
When something is rebutted, even if you disagree, it's utterly dishonest to repeat what you said initially, especially if additional information has been introduced. Just like with DeVries, we know that he was not "innocent", he was not "merely knocking", and he presented a threat. You insist he was "innocent", and that the homeowner was a "cold blooded murderer" (as he cowered in his house against the attempt to gain entry). That last assertion is totally dishonest, and without basis.
The assertion that DeVries "posed no threat" is very disputable, especially since he'd already defeated one layer of protection (scaling a fence specifically meant to keep people from easily gaining access), and was - loudly - yelling, and beating on a door.
Now, if you want to rebut that situation, if you want to introduce a witness or information, but you don't.
You just insist that he was "shot down in cold blood". Which isn't possibly the case.
My reponse to Ed was that without a gun, people intent on murder would succeed in killing some of the time, but on fewer occasions than if they did have a gun.
But that's not the question he asked you.
Ed asked: "So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can and do still find a way to kill. Agreed?"
Therefore pointing to a batch of murders that occurred without the use of a gun neither proves nor disproves that point.
James. If the point is "people can kill without a gun" and you're pointined to people killed without guns, that's exactly on point.
The problem here is you appear to not understand any sort of basics about following a point to a logical conclusion.
The question: "So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can and do still find a way to kill. Agreed?"
You said "No, you didn't agree."
Therefore pointing to a batch of murders that occurred without the use of a gun neither proves nor disproves that point.
I just had to repeat it, it's so boggling. You would have to somehow show that the numbers of murders is not lower than it would have been with more guns around.
That wasn't the question.
Perhaps you should read before you dismiss us as not thinking.
Me:"That means that in 2002, there were 1,187 murders committed WITHOUT a gun. That means that a lack of a gun did not stop 98.8% of the murders in 2002, thus proving my point:
"So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill."
James Kelly:"Er, what? It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying."
Um… Yeah… You are free to believe whatever you like, but after this, you can't even pretend you're rational about it, not even to your friends.
::: backing away slowly and carefully :::
I not sure even Markadelphia has matched this.
DJ, how would you classify this one? It almost seems like #12 taken to a whole 'nuther ('nutter?) level.
Now, if you want to rebut that situation, if you want to introduce a witness or information, but you don't.
I don't have to - all the information you've just given yourself (once we dispense with the rather desperate spin) confirms that he was guilty of nothing other than trespass, and that the idea he posed any conceivable threat is risible. He was a drunk, unarmed man looking for help in a slightly clumsy way, as drunk men are prone to do. They're not usually summarily executed for that minor sin.
The man who shot him in cold blood certainly 'posed a threat', though. I'd take it you'd concede there's plenty of proof for that.
As for your apparent failure to understand the elementary logical process I took you through over Ed's failure to prove what he claimed, I can only shrug my shoulders in despair. I genuinely have no idea of whether you're just pretending to misunderstand, or if the blinkers really are on that tight. Anyway, you asked the question, and I answered it, so there's not a lot more I can do.
Me: Now, if you want to rebut that situation, if you want to introduce a witness or information, but you don't.
I don't have to - all the information you've just given yourself (once we dispense with the rather desperate spin) confirms that he was guilty of nothing other than trespass,
Not so. And this has been - painfully - spelled out for you over a long period.
He was "guilty" (not really, since he wasn't arrested, charged and convicted) of very much more than that - but most importantly, while you minimize it as "nothing other", as you dismiss and minimize people being stomped - almost - to death as "nothing more than bumps and bruises" - it discredits your "logic" and your entire worldview once other people find out the true facts, and your spin on it.
But he was threatening to break into the home after circumventing a passive defensive system.
Compare this to your assertion above that "A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law", and what it means. The man had already defeated a passive defense system, and was actively attempting to penetrate the domicile.
and that the idea he posed any conceivable threat is risible.
According to you. Of course, you're also ignoring all the rest of the surrounding information, which in context quite obviously rebuts the hell out of that.
You don't know that, you weren't there. Granted, neither was I, but I'm not going to second guess someone scared of a drunk thug trying to break into the house.
He was a drunk, unarmed man looking for help in a slightly clumsy way, as drunk men are prone to do.
He was (according to witnesses, including the friend with him), loud, profane, beligerant, and was screaming and beating on the (glass) back door after scaling a 6 foot fence.
That's not a bemushed drunk. That's a hooligan. You know, like the ones we started out talking about at Rachel's, who KICKED AND STOMPED A MAN TO DEATH. As "drunk men are prone to do."
That's why I call you dishonest - when you find out that not only was he acting in a strange manner, but that he jumped a fence and was beating on the back door - that changes the situation dramatically. Quite interestingly, you keep minimizing the witness reports in favor of your own take on the situation.
They're not usually summarily executed for that minor sin.
The man who shot him in cold blood certainly 'posed a threat', though. I'd take it you'd concede there's plenty of proof for that.
Apparently you don't know the meaning of the concept of "in cold blood". Not surprising.
He shot him in fear for his life. That is the opposite of "in cold blood". And you have no idea what DeVries was planning, or doing.
As for your apparent failure to understand the elementary logical process I took you through over Ed's failure to prove what he claimed, I can only shrug my shoulders in despair.
Ed asked you: "If you do not have A, then you can still do B, right?"
You've then claimed that B is incorrect, and correct, and it's blindingly obvious, and *we* failed.
Really.
I genuinely have no idea of whether you're just pretending to misunderstand, or if the blinkers really are on that tight. Anyway, you asked the question, and I answered it, so there's not a lot more I can do.
I did. You "answered" it, that's for sure.
The fact that you contradicted yourself and can't notice it when pointed out ... Yeah.
Ed asked you: "If you do not have A, then you can still do B, right?"
He used the word 'will' alongside 'can' (indeed he emphasised 'will'), and it was on that basis that I answered his question. As you must have seen that, I'm now tending towards the view that you're pretending not to have followed the logic.
"Granted, neither was I, but I'm not going to second guess someone scared of a drunk thug trying to break into the house."
What? What? This is the man who's been wittering on about lack of evidence every time I open my mouth? Where is the slightest evidence he was trying to break into the house?
"And you have no idea what DeVries was planning, or doing. "
Have you ever heard of the phrase 'innocent until proven guilty'? Even on the balance of probability my 'theory' of what he was up to (ie. what anyone with an ounce of common sense can see he was up to) is about a hundred times more likely than yours. This all-purpose get-out clause of 'aha, but he jumped over a fence' is beginning to look rather pathetic.
Compare this to your assertion above that "A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law", and what it means.
I can promise you it doesn't mean taking a 'kill first, ask question later' approach just because a drunk man has jumped a fence and knocked on your back door.
What? What? This is the man who's been wittering on about lack of evidence every time I open my mouth? Where is the slightest evidence he was trying to break into the house?
It was in every news article and quote I linked you to the last go 'round.
Slightest? It's overwhelming. That's why he wasn't charged with any crime. The Grand Jury no-billed in *minutes*.
Have you ever heard of the phrase 'innocent until proven guilty'?
Amazingly enough, I have. And had he been arrested by a police officer, and charged, that's what happens.
But he was actively threatening people.
Even on the balance of probability my 'theory' of what he was up to (ie. what anyone with an ounce of common sense can see he was up to) is about a hundred times more likely than yours. This all-purpose get-out clause of 'aha, but he jumped over a fence' is beginning to look rather pathetic.
It was a 6. Foot. Tall. Fence. It was a "privacy" fence that's designed not to be easily circumvented.
Pathetic is that you're unable to concede that your example is a piss-poor one about the American Gun Culture, and far more damning about the Scottish Drunk Thug Culture.
I can promise you it doesn't mean taking a 'kill first, ask question later' approach just because a drunk man has jumped a fence and knocked on your back door.
In the middle of the night. While screaming profanities, and while an accomplice is at the front door. While he's *banging on a glass door*.
Even aside from all of that, being in the back yard, rather than being "pathetic" is rather context changing for most Americans.
Because even if he *was* quiet as a mouse, there was no legitimate unthreatening reason to be in the back yard.
Which is why your construct fails so badly. If he wanted help, the legitimate place to ask for it would be the front door.
There's no - none - reason to jump the fence and attack the back door.
None. That's not a mild drunk - that's a man who's a threat. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was crazy - there's evidence for that, too.
But the very fact he'd gone over a fence - and into the back yard raises the threat (and means he was doing more than "trespassing" at that point.) But that's a finer point of US/TX law.
That's incredibly damning, and that you concede that and then insist that he was "executed" is proof that you'll subjugate the Truth to your Fantasy.
It was in every news article and quote I linked you to the last go 'round.
No it wasn't. There may have been one or two people jumping to the same wild conclusion you've jumped to, but that's a different issue. In fact, it could rather aptly be described as 'subjugating the truth to a fantasy'.
There's no - none - reason to jump the fence and attack the back door.
So he quite simply MUST DIE? This is insane.
Incidentally - "attack" the back door? This is beginning to read like a deliberate send-up.
Yes, it was. And I'm willing to use the rest of this thread as the basis on comparative trustworthiness.
I linked you to the news articles that detailed the evidence and witnesses in front of the grand jury, including the people DeVries was drinking with - and then got paranoid about and jumped out of their moving car, and the drinking buddy who got out with him (after they stopped the car.)
There's no - none - reason to jump the fence and attack the back door.
So he quite simply MUST DIE? This is insane.
James, to be quite clear: Yes. Someone attempting to gain entry to my house in the middle of the night must die.
Or be wounded until they stop threatening me, my family, and my house.
Yes. Yes. Yes. That's why there was nothing filed against the homeowner.
Incidentally - "attack" the back door? This is beginning to read like a deliberate send-up.
James, I gave you the articles, news articles, and IIRC, witness reports previously. You ignored them then, apparently, and it's not my fault that having ignored it then, you want to dismiss it out of hand.
This is the situation and example you picked, and not only I, but many others - presuming you were honestly unaware of the situation - corrected that.
Or attempted to. We can only take your head to water. We can't make it drink.
James, to be quite clear: Yes. Someone attempting to gain entry to my house in the middle of the night must die.
For the umpteenth time, you have failed to prove that he was trying to enter the house, or indeed that it is even likely that is what he was trying to do.
James, I gave you the articles, news articles, and IIRC, witness reports previously. You ignored them then, apparently, and it's not my fault that having ignored it then, you want to dismiss it out of hand.
It was the slightly mad use of the word 'attack' in relation to an inanimate object that I was referring to.
Or attempted to. We can only take your head to water. We can't make it drink.
You've just summed up the 'trying to explain simple concepts to Unix-Jedi' experience rather succinctly.
For the umpteenth time, you have failed to prove that he was trying to enter the house, or indeed that it is even likely that is what he was trying to do.
I started to just quote this, and your last line, as it mostly stood by itself, but paused.
No.
That's not how the world works, James.
DeVries might have been trying to award Publisher's Clearing House. he might have been trying to donate a kidney.
But nobody knows what he meant to do. We can only go by what he did do. What the homeowner could know of him.
And that was a threat. Period.
If he was "merely a drunk looking for help", he wouldn't have jumped the fence.
There's no reason for that. None. Period. You can't make the case that it was a mistake on the case of the homeowner, once he's done something that raises his threat level.
James, I gave you the articles, news articles, and IIRC, witness reports previously. You ignored them then, apparently, and it's not my fault that having ignored it then, you want to dismiss it out of hand. It was the slightly mad use of the word 'attack' in relation to an inanimate object that I was referring to.
It wasn't mad, it was a IIRC, direct quote from the homeowner and his wife during their testimony.
He was attempting to break it, to apparently, enter the house. It was the way to bet. Nothing he did fit the "innocent man looking for help". Not the time of night. Not the behavior (singing loudly in the street). Ringing doorbells, and then jumping a 6 foot fence and - even if he knocked politely on the back door, he'd have been looking at the inside of a rifle or shotgun or pistol barrel in every house *I* know of in America - because he was acting abnormally and threateningly.
But it's quite clear you cannot assess risk. You're scared of the infinitesimal, and unconcerned about the common.
DeVries was acting as a threat in multiple areas and in multiple ways - the fact that you claim his victim was the only threat is just further proof that "simple concepts" are something you don't understand, much less explain.
No, people never do slightly silly things when they're drunk, do they?
Oh, people do wildly stupid things when they're drunk.
You're making my point for me.
So, again, according to your view - so I don't mistakenly ascribe views to you you don't hold - what would be "proportional self-defense"?
I must ascertain - via - blood sample? The Blood Alcohol level? Then I must... get to the same level? Then what?
Tell me, at what point can you presume - without knowing their intent! - that someone means you harm?
Please take into consideration that you consider it's at the point when someone owns a gun legally.
When they're - drunkenly - insanely - soberly waving a bat around or whatever the situation.
Based on your "simple concept" that (other than they own a gun) you have to know their 5 year background history, their blood alcohol level, their culture, their background....
Explain to me how that's ....
Nevermind.
Don't bother. Just stop lying about the situation.
Actually, it's more worthy to point out, because there is a massive gulf between the two systems.
"A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law"
and
The man who shot him in cold blood certainly 'posed a threat', though. I'd take it you'd concede there's plenty of proof for that.
Sorry, I missed that concession. No, I'll argue that strenuously. He posed no threat to anyone not threatening him. He didn't leave his house, he didn't "look for trouble", he didn't attempt to harm anyone.
He defended his home, his family, and his self.
Which is perfectly legal, because based on what he knew at the time, he was under attack.
Let's go back to that "proportionate" concept.
Given that system, I must allow the criminal the first strike, and cannot escalate beyond what he has attacked me - not my child, not my wife, but *me*.
Even if I find him in my kitchen, and he tries to kill me with one of my kitchen knives, and I fight him - proportionately! and kill him - in my house, in my kitchen, in the UK I could be prosecuted for murder. Because I didn't let him stab me first.
That's part of the gulf between us, James. You want to look back with "perfect knowledge" - in cases where "legal guns" are used, and say "There was NO NEED FOR THAT", and come up with some radical workaround. But that's not the way the world works. You don't make decisions based on what you'll know later. You make it based on what you know NOW.
Except in your case, you discount what you know, substitute some false facts, and then claim it "elementary".
But that's the problem. I don't grant you I need to allow a criminal to hit me in the head with a piece of steel rebar, or a baseball bat BEFORE I know he's a threat. Him threatening me - with or without a weapon in hand is enough to justify and allow me to act in my own defense.
And I most certainly do not concede "proportionate" has any bearing on that, it's the stupidest concept yet thought up. The criminal certainly doesn't have to subscribe to that, in fact, that's a definition for criminals. They don't follow the law.
You trust them more than your neighbors.
Let's restate that.
You trust criminals more than people with a lifelong track record of being law abiding.
The threat was the man attempting to break into the house.
The one who was yelling, profanely, and who'd already broken past 1 level of defense, and who was smashing on a glass door while screaming, and while there was another person on the front door.
That's the threat.
He was attempting to break into the house, he was the aggressor.
James, holy hell, I always took those Scottish sterotypes of being thugs, and fighting on a drop of a hat as being overblown.
You really can't possibly see the problem, see the threat inherent in the situation, and insist that a man minding his own business until he was threatened was in actually, a threat, because he didn't .. what? allow DeVreies to break in? Kick him in the head?
At _what point_ would _even you_ agree DeVries crossed the line?
Er, at the point at which he did at least one or two of the dastardly things you claim he was planning to do, but almost certainly wasn't? In other words never, because he wasn't a threat - he was a drunk man looking for help.
You quite simply can't read with comprehension, can you?
I gave you a hypothetical. What if - what if that was his plan?
I made that quite plain. And asked you at what point you'd agree he was a threat.
You didn't answer.
because he wasn't a threat - he was a drunk man looking for help.
So your way of asking for help is to break into a house and rape the women you find there?
Seriously? After all, that's what the homeowner was facing. A violent, deranged home invader.
At _What point_ would you agree DeVries crossed the line?
Maybe that's the problem. You don't understand how to do that.
At least consciously, it's obvious you have no problem building your own reality and then describing how things should be. But in order to have a discussion about these things, you have to be able to build the scenario.
And you have to be able to know what real and what's hypothetical.
Again, this business of 'not arguing honestly' is ringing distinctly hollow, when I've just answered your question and you've basically defied the evidence of your own eyes by pretending I didn't. He would have hypothetically 'crossed the line' at the point at which he tried to break into the house. But away from hypotheticals and back in the real world, he was shot for jumping over a fence, knocking on a back door, and being a bit loud. Capital offence in Texas every time.
He would have hypothetically 'crossed the line' at the point at which he tried to break into the house. But away from hypotheticals and back in the real world, he was shot for jumping over a fence, knocking on a back door, and being a bit loud. Capital offence in Texas every time.
The idea that an aggressor should always get a first shot at their intended victim(s) before defense can begin is so intensely looney and irrational that it's obvious that no rational argument can answer it. You might as well try teaching a pig to sing, or explain cosmology to a screeching, poo-flinging baboon. The results would be the same.
In short, you are an absolute loon. You've consistently demonstrated absolute irrationality and a total inability to even grasp rational arguments, let alone understand them. You cannot argue a plant into sentience, and you cannot argue a "duck" into rationality.
Ed (after linking to murder statistics: "So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill."
James Kelly: "Er, what? It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying."
or
James Kelly: "My reponse to Ed was that without a gun, people intent on murder would succeed in killing some of the time, but on fewer occasions than if they did have a gun."
Incidentally - Ed asked you: "If you do not have A, then you can still do B, right?" He used the word 'will' alongside 'can' (indeed he emphasised 'will'), and it was on that basis that I answered his question. As you must have seen that, I'm now tending towards the view that you're pretending not to have followed the logic.
Ed asked you: " "So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill."
They "can" and "do" find a way to kill. And you said they didn't, but they didn't, even though they did, just less than if...
Holy Hell. I need to go visit some ancestors of mine graves and thank them for getting OUT (and me) of Scotland.
He's dumber then Mark. Mark at least has the sense to pull his disappearing act when he's proven to be absolutely wrong.
So far he's asserted that the gun bans have lowered gun crime, when they haven't. He's asserted that the UK is safer, and once again the facts say the opposite. Well, that's imprecise. As long as you consider higher levels of rape, assault, and robbery to be acceptable as long as the murder rate remains below that of the US's, then the UK is still safer. Oh, and of course the MENSA chapter president is still insisting that it's really hard to kill people without guns, notwithstanding things like the Gallic Wars, the Nika Riots, the Mongol conquests, and the Crusades. Not to mention every single murder ever committed with a sword, knife, ax, club, halberd, spear, pike, dirk, tomahawk, melon baller, or spork.
I think basically he's holding that banning all remaining guns would lower gun crime. This despite the fact that gun crime has risen following every gun control act passed by Parliament. I bet when his canoe leaks he drills another hole to let the water out.
Honestly, I believe that firearms in the hands of private citizens is one of four main factors in the level of crime, the others being: the extensiveness of the dole, societal cohesion and morality, and the effectiveness of the police and prisons. If the UK would hire Gurkhas to patrol the streets, eliminate the dole for criminals, and throw every single murderer, rapist, and thug in jail for life at hard labor, they'd be as safe as Japan or Singapore, even with the strict gun control. The issue is that the UK has outlawed self defense, subsidized the criminal class with the dole, allowed massive amounts of immigration with no time or effort for assimilation, and completely given up on punishing the villains. You have followed the worst possible policy for dealing with crime.
So far he's asserted that the gun bans have lowered gun crime, when they haven't.
Er, no, I did not say that, and I suspect you know that perfectly well. Here is what I actually said -
No, it means fewer handguns, and less handgun crime, than would have been the case had the ban not been implemented. That is not the same thing - as has been repeatedly pointed out to Kevin - as saying the level of handgun crime has fallen in the UK since the late 1990s.
That's bullshit. The MPs promised the handgun ban would lower the amount of handgun deaths. Lower it, in real terms, not by some fairy tale unicorn James Kelly standard. They promised that if the thousands of law abiding handgun owners traded in their guns, then there would be fewer gun deaths. These people did not trade in their property, they did not sacrifice their freedom, for some imaginary "it would have been so much worse without the law" standard.
Look, you can believe what you want, but sitting there and insisting that "oh sure, more people died from guns after we banned them, but it would have been doubleplusungood without the ban" is not the result of reasoned argument. It's not the result of logical thinking. You just want it to be true, and so you believe, in the face of all evidence that it is. That's faith, not reason. At the end of the day, you believe common people having guns is a bad thing, not because you can prove that it leads to more crime or anything like that, but because it offends your delicate sensibilities.
I dont' know if dumber but definitely in the same ideological disconnect from reality. Unix-Jedi among others has exposed this quite clearly. When arguing against belief, using logic and facts means little. They can latch on to one small truth and build an entire belief system on it. Deconstruction means their belief system is under attack and it is very hard to look at it objectively when your entire political/societal being is defined and warped by it. That quote by Reagan continues to ring in my head:
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so."
"I'll be generous here and assume you haven't read my explanation"
I did read it. It showed that you've decided the data "doesn't even begin to prove" something DIFFERENT than what I ACTUALLY wrote.
"I need to go visit some ancestors of mine graves and thank them for getting OUT (and me) of Scotland."
Ditto.
Unix, give it up man. Facts mean nothing to this guy. Evidence means nothing. Logic means nothing. The evidence is here for anyone to see. You can drag a Kelly to logic, but you obviously can't make him think.
Can (capable of), will (may be expected to, are sure to), and do (have done so in the past, and continue to). Your deliberate refusal to correctly understand my point (especially when corrected on that "misunderstanding) is clearly not my fault.
"And always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you."
—Karl Popper
And I would add "because they refuse to understand you" to that quote. Baghdad Bob and the Loose Change guys have nothing on your brand of belligerent ignorance.
Kelly has latched onto one idea, and it's got little support.
"If you don't have gun crimes, people won't snap and go crazy and kill people."
What of the guns people need to have? For hunting? For the police? For any reason? Well, that starts to crack the idea a little there.
But that's easily ignored. "They don't need them!"
OK. But what of people using them to defend themselves?
That's a little harder to justify.
"If the attacker doesn't have a gun, likely all he can do is steal your material things, and maybe break some bones and give you sme bruises - they'll heal, and you can buy new things, and well, at the worst, rape, but c'mon now, is it really all that bad?"
Well, that's getting hard to explain to women, they tend to get all "het up" about rape, really. But still! Nobody's getting *killed with guns*.
"See? It's great!"
But what of the people killed WITHOUT GUNS?
"Uh, well, eventually, if we don't have any guns, and we give in to the thugs, then we'll convince them of the error of their ways...."
And, like all good progressive, leftist fantasies, it's always "magic" at the bottom.
Some people are so enamored of the fantasy of someone NOT killing someone else because they don't happen to have a gun handy that they just can't give the idea up.
It's ludicrous. We're supposed to envision the enraged potential killer rumaging through his closet looking for a gun, flinging crow bars, machetes, kitchen knives, ropes, golf clubs and baseball bats over his shoulder only give up and watch TV instead of killing whoever the object of his rage might be.
And this, they would have us believe, is the sound basis for an oppressive public policy.
I too, am grateful to the foresight of my ancestors.
We're supposed to envision the enraged potential killer rumaging through his closet looking for a gun, flinging crow bars, machetes, kitchen knives, ropes, golf clubs and baseball bats over his shoulder only give up and watch TV instead of killing whoever the object of his rage might be.
What an intensely silly thing to envision. Try envisioning the potential victim of an attack having more time to react, get out the way, fight back, etc., and then you'll get a bit closer to understanding how strict gun control can save lives.
Again, the fantasy that criminals obey laws, and that unicorn dust will magically make guns go away, that 80 year olds have an even chance against strapping 20 year old thugs in hand to hand combat.
The belief that aggressors and predators will willingly place themselves at a disadvantage or equal footing to their intended prey indicates thunderous naivete/wishful/magical thinking.
I cannot magically wish away criminals, nor their tools, and so I instead envision dangerous victims who can stand on equal or superior terms to their attackers.
I denounce the foolish notion that placing oneself at disadvantage benefits either self or society.
Try envisioning the potential victim of an attack having more time to react, get out the way, fight back, etc., and then you'll get a bit closer to understanding how strict gun control can save lives.
Magic!
Even though the facts show the attacks and murders going up, it's such a BEAUTIFUL VISION that we can't let facts get in the way.
Because, those criminals would certainly have obeyed stricter gun laws!
And at least they're getting exercise stomping people to death!
Just a final thought on the tragic case of the innocent Scottish businessman who was shot by a Texan homeowner in 1994 after knocking on his door for help. From the Houston Chronicle report -
"I've always told my children that if there is trouble to get out of the house quickly and go to a neighbor's home and scream for help and bang on the door. I can't tell them to do that anymore. They might get shot," she said.
Pretty much says it all, doesn't it? That's the paranoid, fear-ridden, anti-social, atomised society your belief system has rendered inevitable. I'm off to thank my ancestors for only crossing the Irish Sea, rather than the Atlantic.
Just a final thought on the tragic case of the innocent Scottish businessman who was shot by a Texan homeowner in 1994 after knocking on his door for help.
I just bolded all the things that are either blatantly dishonest, or arguable.
As I've pointed out above, you've given DeVries the benefit of the doubt in every case, against the evidence.
You've slandered and insulted everyone else.
Even after it's been made crystal clear that your description is - at best -arguable, you've insisted that it's correct.
And blamed the gun - not DeVries, not alcohol (there's disputed testimony and evidence to if he was intoxicated), not the scottish Drunk Thug Culture - for all the events.
You're fine with a (possibly) drunk DeVries breaking in and killing the household, cause, hey! It's what drunks *do*!
But not him being repelled with force from the house he attempted to break into.
And you will go to extreme lengths to avoid characterizing the situation fairly.
It's the gun's fault, and the homeowner, awakened out of sleep, who fired at a screaming banshee trying to invade his house, a cold blooded murderer. If only we had no guns!
See, I'm good with shooting drunk, threatening thugs, and the very fact that you can't even MENTION that, that you above gave your "line" where DeVries stepped across, and ignored he'd done that, reinforces your base dishonesty that you're rational.
DeVries crossed that line, even according to you. That wasn't the gun's fault, and your pathetic attempts to smear a victim as the offender, to excuse a thug culture do far more to damage your own argument than anything I could.
All I had to do is provide for everyone the actual facts of the case, and allow you to distort them.
Pretty much says it all, doesn't it? That's the paranoid, fear-ridden, anti-social, atomised society your belief system has rendered inevitable.
Nope, it's a quote from someone the press was looking for. It's nonsense.
If you break into someone's house "trying to get help", if you purposely compromise security measures, and if you attempt to break in - from the view of somebody inside - it's not paranoid, fear ridden or anti-social for those inside to defend themselves.
What it says of your worldview that you can't admit that DeVries *wasn't* simply a "silly drunk" who was knocking on the door is far more revealing.
Nope, it's a quote from someone the press was looking for. It's nonsense.
Absolutely, only the 'correct' views can be tolerated.
I can't believe you've even tried to call into question the indisputbale fact that he was a businessman - if anyone has any doubt you're hellbet on distorting the very simple facts of this case, thatt should seal the deal.
I can't believe you've even tried to call into question the indisputbale fact that he was a businessman - if anyone has any doubt you're hellbet on distorting the very simple facts of this case, thatt should seal the deal.
What business was he there to transact, and do you often open your doors to loud, belligerent "businessmen" at 3:30 AM?
That's why I highlighted it.
It didn't matter what his profession was, it mattered what his actions at that time were.
'The world must accept the fear [of objects in daily use and ignoring substitutes] and peril [despite the fact that it's less perilous in our world] I selfishly [some projection and hypocrisy there] impose upon it.'
James:
You face no fear or peril from my "imposition", unless you threaten me or mine.
"'The world must accept the fear and peril I selfishly impose upon it.'"
Hey Judy-boy, grow a pair and then you wouldn't be so afraid, and besides, I don't give a rat's ass about what YOU are afraid of, as I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER IT, as it appears you don't either.
What is it like, James, to be entirely at the mercy of the world? You have a case of external locus of control worthy of one of Dalrymple's cases out of Life at the Bottom. You dress it up in fancier words, but there it lies like a three-day-dead fish, stinking and shining, nevertheless.
Oh no, not anti-social!!!! Anything but that!! Why is it that whenever I hear "anti-social" I hear the faint faint echo of "heretic" and "Jew" and "counterrevolutionary" just underneath it?
Oh, and remember this folks: wanting to take guns away from everyone based on the fact that a very small minority of people use them for evil is not paranoid, and not the result of an irrational fear of inanimate objects.
Oh, and remember this folks: wanting to take guns away from everyone based on the fact that a very small minority of people use them for evil is not paranoid, and not the result of an irrational fear of inanimate objects.
Well, to be fair, it doesn't have to be based on that. It could, instead, be opportunism and base lust for power over others. But then, even base power lust can be driven by fear, so there you are.
This thread proves once again that the lack of critical thinking and logic implicit in Mr. Kelley's posts implies that the ONLY way to limit the damage these folks can do (as a previous poster said) is to limit the say they have in how things are run. Holy crap... the best thing we can do to help the U.S. is to figure out how to disenfranchise a large portion of the population? (or fix education - talk about an Augean stable...)
Thanks, Ed. I wouldn't have seen this without your link.
And I can present you with one very big story that demonstrates my point eloquently - nothing less than the national story of your own country. The most meritocratic country in the world, and yet with some of the most shocking and disgraceful inequalities in the western democratic world. You're right, nothing can literally guarantee equality of outcome, but that doesn't mean it's not an ideal we shouldn't be striving to get as close to as practicably possible (especially when it comes to something as important as public safety) - equality of opportunity simply doesn't do the trick, and never has done.
The most meritocratic country in the world, and yet with some of the most shocking and disgraceful inequalities in the western democratic world.
(Nevermind it's less than Scotland's.)
Inequalities?
You're right, nothing can literally guarantee equality of outcome, but that doesn't mean it's not an ideal we shouldn't be striving to get as close to as practicably possible (especially when it comes to something as important as public safety) - equality of opportunity simply doesn't do the trick
James.
I can present you with one very big story that demonstrates my point eloquently - nothing less than the national story of your own country.
You understand nothing of the story of our country. Nothing. The national story you point to - incorrectly - is just as skewed as your take on an "innocent businessman gunned down in cold blood".
Possibly more, actually.
Thank you, though, for that does explain much towards your views.
They're not based in reality, they're based in wishful fantasy, in which human nature - the human nature and foibles that the entire idea of our Constitution, our "story" is based upon - is remade in the "perfect" image.
I started to say "no", but on reflection, perhaps it's a tossup.
Item: The Black Knight insists upon Equality of Opportunity
"None shall pass"
"Then you shall die"
Like Kelly: No.
Item: The Black Knight insists upon Equality of Outcome
"None shall pass"
"Then you shall die"
Like Kelly: Yes.
Item: The Black Knight is unable to admit to weaknesses or failures, minimizing the damage to his rhetorical argument
"Tis merely a flesh wound!"
Like Kelly: Somewhat. He'll sometimes make a concession, then withdraw it or it's impact on his argument.
Item: the Black Knight refuses to admit defeat or even concede a draw.
"Come back here, I'll gnaw your legs off!"
Like Kelly: Yes.
Item: The Black Knight is skilled in his form of conflict
We see him defeating a knight, and Arthur gives him praise after wounding him.
Like Kelly: No.
Item: The Black Knight has an unwavering belief system
Like Kelly: Yes.
Item: The Black Knight has a sword and the willingness to use it.
Like Kelly: No. *
* - But there is plenty of evidence that such people actually do posses means for their *own* defense, and we have no way of knowing that Kelly isn't in that exact Rowan/Feinstein/Boxer/Moore mold
I think the comparison fits because if his absolute refusal to admit facts which defeat his claims, even when they're dead obvious and not even a little vague. (98.8% of murders committed without a gun "doesn't even begin to prove" that murders are committed without guns.) His worldview is laying there bleeding to death with no arms and legs, yet he's still claiming victory.
"Item: The Black Knight is skilled in his form of conflict" "Item: The Black Knight has a sword and the willingness to use it."
In this medium, some of the weapons available are rhetoric and evidence. As you said before, he's unlike Marxy in that he actually proofreads what he writes. He also uses (and misuses) some (cherry picked) evidence. So initially, he seems skilled. (The opponent we first see him battling turns out to be straw man.) But when combat begins, we discover that even though he's swinging the sword of rhetoric with both hands, an opponent with actual skill needs only one hand to deflect his blows, because they're actually devastatingly weak.
I have a question for everyone - the US, the UK, and everywhere else - who insists that only the police and army should be permitted to carry weapons.
My question is...."What the fuck makes the cops and soldiers so damn special?" Why do you feel so safe about them being armed, but nobody else?
Oh, because they've undergone weapons training and supposedly therefore know how to use weapons responsibly, morally, without inflicting collateral damage?
News flash: SO HAVE A LOT OF ORDINARY FUCKING PEOPLE! Have you ever heard of concealed-weapons training, hunter safety courses....?
To pretend, for even one second, that we Texans care nothing for the value of human life is absurd at best. I can easily guess that Mr. Kelly has never been to Texas. It is not that we (or anyone else here in the states) do not care for our fellow man, it is that we care for the well-being of ourselves and our loved ones first and foremost.
Should one ever find themselves in my neighborhood, I can guarantee that the sheer number of firearms therein would boggle the imagination of some. However, the likelihood of being injured, threatened, or killed here is nil. Should one of my neighbors need something, they would have no problems coming to my front door at a reasonable hour.
Anything else is viewed with immediate suspicion and would be responded to in an effective manner.
It seems to me that Mr. Kelly is merely perpetuating a stereotype of Texas that many across the pond seem to hold.
I give my personal invitation to him to come visit my area. I think he would be simply astonished as to the quality of life and people he would find stateside.
However, it would seem that he is not interested in truth, facts, or anything that would disprove his narrow world view. Thus I will not hold my breath.
Oh come on, can't you all see that Mr. Kelly just wants a perfect system where everyone is safe and no one has to be good, because no one can be bad? Clearly, the less of a career criminal you are, the less you need to be presumed innocent, ergo you must be treated worse than a career criminal beforehand.
When Mr. Kelly accurately states “Innocent until proven guilty” but avoids mention this is a legal construct that the prosecution assumes in the pursuit of a fair trial, he frees himself to boldly declare that the home owner was “a cold blooded killer”. Otherwise, both would have to be tried in court and that is a long and expensive to the tax payer to figure out who is who. Why bother with such minutiae when one merely needs to ask the right questions!
My goodness, and don’t you dare say that the doublethink is quite strong with this one! It is the nuance of an emasculated EU Subject that confuses those who are bitterly clinging to guns.
Prostrate before your betters and the almighty voting bloc, let someone else do the thinking, and you all will be much happier! Why, those that have done so are the very picture of well adjusted and clear thinking groupthinkers that will heal this world!
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I read those comments and see what the laws are already like in Britain, and I fall to me knees and thank God that I live in Arizona.
You've got a distinctly limited repertoire, Kevin. We've just seen the third mass-murder with guns in the UK in the last twenty years - and (almost unbelievably given the amount of illegal firearms around) all three were carried out with completely legally-owned weapons, by the type of individuals who would be temperamentally unlikely to seek out illegal weapons. This unmistakable pattern has provided - and in my view still provides - a fairly obvious opportunity for legislative action to make the public safer. Well, perhaps it's not obvious to all. Your own solution?
"Quick, more guns!"
You've got a distinctly limited repertoire, Kevin.
Yes, it's called fact, logic, reason and philosophy. Not surprising that you can't grasp that.
Your own solution?
"Quick, more guns!"
Nope. Change your culture. You're a culture of victims and predators now. It's a damned shame considering what (formerly) Great Britain used to be.
Your "solution" seems to be to surrender. Not here. No way.
By limited repertoire I was merely referring to the "do it again, only harder" line, which I must have heard about seventy-nine times, and I'm not even a regular visitor.
Honestly, Kevin, these contortions of 'logic/reason/philosophy', highly selective 'facts', and voodoo 'statistics' are not going to distract many people in the UK from the elephant in the room - that you're quite simply far, far more likely to be shot in the US than in the UK. The suggestion that the steps taken to restrict access to guns over the years have got nothing to do with that differential is utterly risible.
"Not here, no way"? I wouldn't be quite so complacent if I were you. After all, I gather you've already got 'socialized medicine' on the way. It once seemed so unthinkable...
UK violent crime rate is three times the US violent crime rate. About the only crime more common in the US is firearm related crime. That's it. You have more rapes, more assaults, more robberies, and your murder rate is higher every year. What will be your excuse, ten years down the road, when jolly olde England, where the bobbies go unarmed, finally manges to beat out the US in every single category of violent crime? The problem with you, you worthless, gutless, clueless little worm, is that you have made your imprecations, you've said the magic spells, and yet still you have these things happening. Because it is possible, very possible indeed to have a society with very few guns and very low crime. Look at Japan or Singapore. Very strict systems of punishment, coupled with a monoculture, can often lead to low crime rates. England has a fragmented society, a large welfare state which allows for large numbers of idle young men, and of course a criminal justice system who spend all their time arresting people for fighting back or for owning kitchen knives above a standard length. When they do catch rapists and murders, they let them out again after less then ten years on average. Either remove the welfare for criminals, deport all the violent immigrants, and keep the rapists and murders locked up for life, or let the people go about armed and able to protect themselves. It's not hard. We have safe streets, excepting the drug spots, but that has to do with drug prohibition, not guns.
Shit, you think your country is safe? You don't know what safe means. There isn't a place in my city I wouldn't feel overly threatened in, because if worse comes to worse, I've the means to defend myself. The English model of cowering before thugs is working great for you. Lick the boot you sniveling coward. May your chains sit lightly upon you. Hard to believe how far England has sunk, and how fast.
Oh, and for this idiot:
Let's get a majority opinion, once and for all, on whether such deadly devices should be so widely available. I don't believe that most sensible people would believe that anyone other than the Police and armed forces should have access to them. It's not 'totalitarian' to say that it should be the decision of the majority of people in the country whether individuals should be allowed to own leathal(sic) weapons. - "Sefidahjan"
Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA- ordinary citizens don't need guns as their having guns doesn't serve the State-Heinrich Himmler
Oops, I Godwined....oh well. If the jackboot fits...
"Honestly, Kevin, these contortions of 'logic/reason/philosophy', highly selective 'facts', and voodoo 'statistics'..."
Hahahaha!
Stop.
You're killing me.
Hightly selective facts? I nearly wet myself. Surely, you are joking. We've gotten quite good at spotting that horseshit over here. In fact, it's something that Kevin pointed to just a week or two ago (for the hundreth time, at least) in a post. Bandying about with inflated numbers and made-up shit isn't working, not here, anymore...ah, yes, Monday, May 10th - Well, it's Better Than 4,000.
And that's just an example. Not the first, and I'm certain not the last.
My suggestion, get off of the numbers game completely. It's not something that can be compared, since every country has a different standard for compiling the much mis-used statistics. Instead, make arguments based upon reason. Then again, we've pretty much beaten the pants off of you sissies with that too.
Kevin's right about all of it. The world is run by Judy-boys such as yourself, with a GANG of other Judy-boys rooting those other imbeciles right along. Pretty disgusting, but there it is.
James,
Access does not equal causation. Over the last 10 years, over 130 million new firearms have entered the hands of the civilian market, but over that same time frame, our murder rate has gone DOWN.
Yes, we murder each other far more regularly, but that is NOT because of the tool, it is, as it always has been, the person holding the tool.
Kevin's point with that "do it again" line is that your country has tried to do only one thing in its attempt to solve its violence problem, and that is to increasingly restrict the access of the general public to defend itself with the most effective tool available. Take a good look that that homicide graph again, James. What has the trend been over the decades since your government has started to restrict firearm ownership?
As to your subtle hint there at the end, we have the helpful experience of whatching how your country incrementally advanced the cause of disarmament, and know what to look for. For being the guinae pig, I thank you.
That being said, sales figures since about August 2008 or so have been brisk, to say the least. Our political leadership has taken note, rest assured, and not willing to poke that hornet's nest, is mostly leaving well enough alone, all while Alan Gura dismantles the legal basis of our hoplophobic bastions of gun bigotry one lawsuit at a time.
I didn't feel particularly safe whenever I boarded a bus, especially at night, in London. I've never been in trouble (except one time when I stepped in to defend a woman from an abusive partner), but probably because I was always alert. In a short radius around the place where I lived there have been four murders in about 3 years: three related to drugs, one during a robbery. Plus assaults, robberies, thefts, brawls (many unreported) and various chav antics.
I have never been in the States so I cannot compare, but I'm not afraid of armed people as such.
I feel that I should point out - to Mr. Kelly in particular - that legal ownership has very little to do with firearms crime.
Yes, Michael Ryan was legal, until he started shooting people. Thomas Hamilton was not, and only possessed firearms by dint of police complacency.
Whilst two of the three mass shootings did involve legal firearms, how about all the people murdered with illegal ones? The handgun ban did not save Rhys Jones.
Also, using the official home office and police statistics on the issue is hardly "selective".
The irrational belief that gunfire somehow carries with it its own extra moral dimension of evil independent of the evil of the actor wielding it always amazes me. I guess despite ipods, humans never really stray far from their demon haunted animistic world.
>> that you're quite simply far, far more likely to be shot in the US than in the UK
And in the UK, you're simply far, far more likely to be beaten senseless, and spend time in a coma ward than in the US.
And yet some folks in the UK has the gall to tell us that this somehow forms the basis to claim the moral high ground? Especially considering the context of institutionalized defenselessness?
There is no virtue to be found in helplessness.
There is no virtue to be found in granting evil any advantage whatsoever.
Providing a wide field of low risk soft targets legally, culturally and psychologically restrained from fighting back is one heck of an advantage to grant.
It seems to me that we are entirely right to hold in contempt both individuals and societies so envervated that they won't lift a finger to protect themselves.
I cannot help but feel sympathy for those who believe and act otherwise, who are trapped in that web of enfeeblement, and I cannot help but feel disgust for those who institute, enforce and perpetuate such an evil.
Good grief. First time I ever commented here and I get a long post with statistics and relevent quotes in reply. Awesome. You are right of course that we are less than 2% of the population. We are however more than 5% of the Conservative vote. If this had happened a few months ago with Labour (pauses to spit) in power we would have been utterly screwed. The current prime minister is not who I would have chosen to lead the Conservative party but at least he has done some shooting. As a patriotic Englishman I can only hope that the socialist tide has turned.
Richard, I hope you're right. But keep this in mind:
"The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet." ;)
I hope you're getting contingency plans ready.
"This unmistakable pattern has provided - and in my view still provides - a fairly obvious opportunity for legislative action to make the public safer."
In other words: in olde England, serfs up!
Geekwitha45 - I'm quite happy to claim the moral high ground when it's called for, but I haven't actually done so in this case. I'm simply relying on the elementary logic (which Kevin ought to appreciate) that when these massacres are continually perpetrated by people with legal rather than illegal weapons, doing something about the legal weapons is rather likely to lessen the risk.
Britt - leaving aside your delightful personal observations about me (as ever I'll take it as a compliment), we went over all this area of the broader crime rate last year. Basically for all his bluster that he is literally able to prove such things beyond all doubt, Kevin didn't even come close to establishing a causal link between the rate of other crimes in Britain and our tight gun laws - and that's hardly surprising, given that it's such a contrived proposition. Incidentally, you clearly didn't bother to check up on some of your assumptions - the rate of rape in the US is considerably higher than in the UK. But no wonder everyone feels the need to change the subject from the fact that gun crime is so much higher in the US than the UK.
Splodge of Doom - I'm confused about what your Thomas Hamilton point - either he owned weapons legally or he didn't. As far as I can see...he did.
Wait, isn't murder ILLEGAL in your country? Why didn't that stop this guy?
Shh. He's using logic.
Wait, isn't murder ILLEGAL in your country? Why didn't that stop this guy?
Not too long ago, there was a push to legalize concealed carry on campuses in Texas (which was shot down -- pun intended), because people were worried about bloodbaths and disgruntled students killing professors, etc. I argued with one of my anti-gun colleagues about this, and told him if a person isn't inhibited by a law against murder, why would he be inhibited by a law against carrying a gun? Makes sense, right? The problem is this. He said he worries about what he would do if he was angry and had a gun in his hand, therefore, he reasoned, even if a student intended to be law-abiding, if his temper got the better of him he would shoot someone.
It's classic projection. You will never convince people like Mr. Kelly with logic, because their beliefs are rooted at the gut level and are deeply emotionally ingrained. It will take an equally emotional experience in the opposite direction to counter them.
Sarah, in truth it's the other way around. Kevin and his ilk are horrified that their right to own their favourite luxury item might one day be taken from them, and have had to construct all these logical and 'philosphical' contortions to try and convince themselves that such an outcome would objectively be an outrage, rather than something that just constitutes a loss to them personally.
Kevin and his ilk are horrified that their right to own their favourite luxury item might one day be taken from them,
That's not the right we're worried about, as we've told you repeatedly.
And we're horrified at the contortions you'll go through, dismissing savage assaults and near-murders - and even murders! Just as long as the attackers didn't use guns.
And claiming you're safer there, despite the evidence.
Claiming "innocent" De Vries was shot - despite the evidence that he was behaving in a threatening manner, and violating several laws, (remember the force of law, that you were claiming you believed in?)
No, it's not really the guns at issue, but the entire culture of self-reliance and self-determination, and the subjugation of our individual rights to people like you, who will blatantly lie, deceive, and emotionalize - and then claim victimhood.
I realize you think you understand us. You don't. We've explained this to you many, many times. You've ignored us in favor of your caricature.
"Claiming "innocent" De Vries was shot - despite the evidence that he was behaving in a threatening manner, and violating several laws, (remember the force of law, that you were claiming you believed in?) "
He wasn't behaving in a threatening manner, but admittedly he was violating laws. So he quite simply must die - is that what you're telling me?
This was an unarmed man, knocking on someone's back door to ask for help. For that he was shot dead in cold blood. I seem to remember you (or maybe it was one of your chums) trying to claim that knocking on the door somehow constituted an 'act of violence'. And a cold blooded killing doesn't?
James:
Originally you could have claimed that, but I'm calling you back out for a liar.
The news coverage was pathetic on that side of the Atlantic, and your first claims could have been excused - but after we linked to you specific background that explained that night, you cannot, honestly, make that claim.
You even admitted he was committing felonies, but then called him innocent.
He was ringing doorbells, he had scaled a 6 foot privacy fence, and was banging -violently- on a glass door when the homeowner shot him. (According to all witnesses, including his friend.)
He'd previously jumped out of a moving car (which might give some clues as to his demeanor and attitude).
He was behaving in a threatening manner, as we detailed to you. Ringing the doorbell (twice) wasn't. And he wasn't shot for that. He was shot for jumping the fence and attempting to smash his way into the house.
That is threatening. That's damn near the definition of "threatening".
That's not a cold blooded killing, either. Someone's trying to smash into my house, in the middle of the night, that's the very opposite of "cold blooding killing".
No matter what, you can't be honest about anything to do with your worldview, can you?
Actually, James, this is exactly like the vaunted Markadelphia.
Aside from ignoring all the inconvenient facts, aside from insisting that your initial view was correct, aside from refusing to admit error, or even attempt to describe the situation correctly...
You're insisting you know what De Vries was thinking and attempting, despite not being there, and contrary to the witnesses, based on far-away and reflective introspective hindsight.
Well, he had no criminal record, and was in town for business, thus he couldn't be a violent criminal.
Mark does that a lot. He tells us what various political people are thinking.
You call the homeowner a "cold blooded killed" as he was faced with multiple threats - insisting that he wait for a proportional response, to see if De Vries wantd to merely rape his wife or baby, or perhaps just "give him some bruises" and steal some things.
That's the sickening thing about your worldview, you're so confident that you understand the thought processes of people under stress - and you can calmly and dispassionately tell them that yes, they might get raped, or they might get killed, but really, it's for the best of all if they'll just take it for the good of the country. For the Queen, I guess.
They were on the phone to the police when De Vries was trying to smash in - not exactly the sort of "help" people request - and the homeowner damn sure felt threatened.
Funny (not really) how you can't factor that into your worldview.
Other than it would mangle it badly.
"Kevin didn't even come close to establishing a causal link between the rate of other crimes in Britain and our tight gun laws"
Actually, he did. You just deliberately "misunderstood" it. A refusal to accept an argument does not make an argument invalid. Philosopher Antony Flew put it this way:
"The attempt to show that there is no philosophical knowledge by simply urging that there is always someone who can be relied on to remain unconvinced is a common fallacy made even by a distinguished philosopher like Bertrand Russell. I called it the But-there-is-always-someone-who-will-never-agree Diversion. Then there is the charge that in philosophy it is never possible to prove to someone that you are right and he or she is wrong. But the missing piece in this argument is the distinction between producing a proof and persuading a person. A person can be persuaded by an abominable argument and remain unconvinced by one that ought to be accepted."
"Because I said so" is always a lousy argument.
Er, no Ed. You'll find that simply asserting you've proved something and then sitting back to admire your handiwork is regarded as insufficient by most philosophers as well.
You'll have to explain the "isn't murder illegal" point because that one genuinely has baffled me. Are you saying all laws are pointless, and that we should have a free-for-all instead? I have this insane feeling that perhaps you are...
"Are you saying all laws are pointless, and that we should have a free-for-all instead? I have this insane feeling that perhaps you are..."
Can't you ever argue honestly?
My point is simple: If existing laws could not stop a crime, there is no reason to think that additional laws will be any more effective at physically stopping someone who is intent on doing evil things.
Can't you ever argue honestly?
Can you? There was absolutely no way to interpret your point other than that because 'banning murder' hasn't been effective in every case, there's no point in banning anything else. Taking that principle to its logical conclusion, the illegality of murder serves no purpose. That's the Alice in Wonderland area of 'philosphy' we seem to have entered into.
You really are on astonishingly weak ground here, because this massacre was carried out with legally owned weapons. It's not much good saying that "this proves that the tight gun restrictions don't work" when almost by definition this incident demonstrates that the restrictions haven't been tight enough.
"There was absolutely no way to interpret your point other than that because 'banning murder' hasn't been effective in every case, there's no point in banning anything else."
In a word, Bullshit! I explained what I meant, and you replied with this. There was obviously another way to interpret it, but you didn't want to take my words in the way I intended them. That's dishonest.
"carried out with legally owned weapons"
THIS time. A single incident does not a pattern make. How many people in Britain have been killed with ILLEGAL guns since Dunblane? Have those restrictions stopped those crimes?
And without such restrictions, how long would this guy have been able to continue before someone fired back at him? (Assuming Britons actually considered self-defense to be appropriate.)
This time, Ed? This time? More like every time there's been an incident on this scale in the last 25 years (this is the third).
ED "What the" Heckman,
This Englishman (sitting in New Zealand) would have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent a madman rampaging down the street murdering people.
Assume I was going to the range, had cleaned the oil out of the barrel of my firearm and was checking "Gun? Yep, Ammunition? Yep. Hearing protectors? Yep".
Then I observe someone walking down the street randomly shooting people.
Unless it was my wife out there I would look at my firearms certificate and note that it has an endorsement "The firearms to which this certificate relates to can only be used on approved ranges".
I ask myself "Is the street an approved range? Will I be breaking the law and will I be in breach of the conditions of the firearms certificate? And according to the answers, I would DO NOTHING. The reason is (let us hear the often repeated chorus):
"YOU CAN'T TAKE THE LAW INTO YOUR OWN HANDS" (as an aside, in whose hands IS the Law? Certainly not the peoples hands, that's for sure)
"DON'T BE A "HAVE A GO HERO"
"ONLY THE POLICE ARE HIGHLY TRAINED ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH THIS SITUATION"
The press would have a field day demonising me and "Wild West scenarios comes to the streets of Britain" etc. and so forth ad nauseam headlines would be churned out by the press.
I would certainly lose my firearms certificate, possibly my liberty, get a criminal conviction (breach of the conditions on the firearms certificate, remember?) and would be stuck in the Unhinged Kingdom.
As I said, it would have to be an extremely powerful reason where the looses I sustained would be outweighed by the benefits (such as defending my wife or my own life) that would cause me to stop the murders.
Sorting out my concience and coming to terms with the result would have to be addressed later ...
"Taking that principle to its logical conclusion, the illegality of murder serves no purpose. That's the Alice in Wonderland area of 'philosphy' we seem to have entered into..."
And therefore, making weapons of any sort any more illegal than they might already be has about the same chance of making a dent in murder rates or armed robbery or what have you. Then again, YOU are the one living in Wonderland. Does that make you Alice?
"You'll find that simply asserting you've proved something and then sitting back to admire your handiwork is regarded as insufficient by most philosophers as well."
I agree. So why are you using this tactic?
A valid argument consists of as much evidence as possible (both pro and con) plus a valid logic argument based on that evidence. Kevin has repeatedly posted such arguments. You have not.
I agree. So why are you using this tactic?
I'm not, and I never have been. I made that very point last year -
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2009/04/only-freedom-ill-ever-understand.html?showComment=1239683817943#c1882977336206367642
Kevin claimed to find that distinction utterly hilarious, but I stand by it completely. He had said at the outset that he wanted a debate about 'philosophy' and wasn't interested in 'winning and losing'. I stuck to that, but Kevin went on to do the complete opposite.
"I'm not, and I never have been. I [asserted] that very point last year -"
There. Fixed it for you.
The cool thing about the internet and open comment systems like this is that people can go back and read things for themselves. The record stands.
The simple fact is that you constantly ignore _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_ you don't like. For example, the overall violence rate (physical assault, such as the one that prompted the original debate, where fists and feet were used, not guns), the results of what actually happened as gun restrictions were passed, the appropriateness of self-defense, etc.
Tell me, have you checked out the link posted by Richard? How do you account for the fact that the population adjusted occurrence of such sprees between the U.K. and the U.S. are very, very similar DESPITE the fact that number of guns (adjusted for population) in the U.S. is roughly sixteen times the number of guns in the U.K. AND Americans routinely carry our guns with us?
The cool thing about the internet and open comment systems like this is that people can go back and read things for themselves. The record stands.
Well, quite. And the cool thing about what I did is that I provided a link to facilitate that process. The record does indeed speak for itself.
Yup, and you were taken to the woodshed by kevin, myself, and many other commenters. You are consistently proven wrong, yet you come back to be beaten up with facts & logic yet again. Why?
Kevin didn't even come close to establishing a causal link between the rate of other crimes in Britain and our tight gun laws
That's not the point. The point is those laws haven't made you SAFER. Your violent crime rates have skyrocketed. Your gun crime (traditionally ALWAYS very low - even when no gun laws existed) have climbed. After BANNING handguns, handgun violence there has nearly doubled.
Your philosophy says "disarming the majority of the population WILL MAKE US SAFER" - but it doesn't. And WHEN it doesn't THE PHILOSOPHY CANNOT BE WRONG. Since you cannot accept that, your only conclusion can be that you didn't implement your "solution" properly, and you must TURN UP THE POWER and disarm the majority MORE EFFECTIVELY. And when that doesn't help? DO IT AGAIN, ONLY HARDER!
And you will not grasp that fact, even when the numbers (voodoo statistics, in your terms) are placed in front of you in black and white, or in color charts. You exhibit the stereotypical symptoms of denial.
Yes, Americans shoot each other more than Brits do. We ALWAYS HAVE. Yet armed to the teeth, our violent crime rates have been declining for over a decade. Yours? You insist that your gun laws make you safer because America's homicide rate is THREE TIMES what it is in the UK. In that earlier post I SHOWED YOU that the homicide rates of the UK and the US ARE CONVERGING. What did you do? Ignored it. "Voodoo statistics," you said. No it's a FACT - one you avoid, because it illustrates that your philosophy DOESN'T WORK.
And you cannot accept that.
DO IT AGAIN, ONLY HARDER!
That'll be number 80. It's really not a great catchphrase, Kevin.
After BANNING handguns, handgun violence there has nearly doubled.
We went over that last year. I pointed out that if the post-Dunblane restrictions hadn't been passed, the rate of illegal weapons would have in all probability grown at an even faster rate than they have (at the very least at the same rate) and the net result would have been a higher rate of gun crime than we have now. You comprehensively failed to provide a compelling argument (let alone proof) for why that is not a reasonable interpretation.
In that earlier post I SHOWED YOU that the homicide rates of the UK and the US ARE CONVERGING.
You reckon you can be confident of a convergence when the homicide rate in the US is still three time as high? Tell you what, get back to me when it actually has converged. I'm not holding my breath.
For the record, and as I've pointed out before, when I say 'voodoo' statistics I'm not referring to the numbers themselves (that would be a bit silly as they've evidently been copied and pasted from other sources) but instead to the conotorted use you put those numbers to, and the unsupported conclusions you reach on that basis.
You reckon you can be confident of a convergence when the homicide rate in the US is still three time as high? Tell you what, get back to me when it actually has converged. I'm not holding my breath.
As we pointed out, and you ignored, that 3x higher is for less than 1% of the total area of the US. That's not to say it's not significant, but it's also dropping like a rock, even in the worst places.
Whereas yours is spreading like wildfire.
But not to worry, I have a very strong suspicion that the Sharia courts will intervene long before they converge.
But just in case they don't - what will you do then?
Oh, and:
It's really not a great catchphrase, Kevin.
It's not *our* motto. It's yours.
I was forgetting. Yours is -
"People are getting shot. Quick, more guns!"
Except that doesn't really apply. Unless you're unable to actually understand our point of view.
Which I'll concede, you don't.
Look at what I said below. I said that "more guns" isn't the answer for the UK.
Didn't I?
"the net result would have been a higher rate of gun crime than we have now."
And just like last year, asserted as if you could know that the rate of gun crime would magically deviate from the trend which existed prior to the passage of those laws. This is what I mean by ignoring _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_.
"conotorted use you put those numbers to, and the unsupported conclusions"
Aaaand again, ignoring what you don't like. You have asserted that the numbers are "contorted" but you have not made an argument based on _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_ and sound logic.
And have you got any _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_ that the rate of gun crime has increased because of the post-Dunblane restrictions? Thought not. As I've repeatedly pointed out, I'm not the one who (like Karl Marx) has claimed that his 'philosophy' is literally provable.
Mr. Kelly, I think it's quite simple. What tangible evidence do you have that gun laws have made Britons safer? Can you show a correlation between the enactment of gun laws and a decrease in violent crime/gun crime?
Sarah, what tengible evidence do you have that a gun free-for-all has made you safer, other than a gun crime rate that is massively higher than ours, and a general homicide rate that (as even Kevin concedes) is three time higher?
a gun crime rate that is massively higher than ours,
Yet those very crimes you point to so gleefully, are almost entirely illegally held guns, in places that modeled their gun laws on the UK. Common citizens cannot own, or carry guns in those places.
(Yet.)
Notice that for all the times that's been pointed out to you - that the places jacking up the gun crime and murder rates - are almost always "gun free zones", where the law-abiding are disarmed - you ignore this, despite - or because of - it's fatal poison to your assertions.
So your plan is we - all - emulate the areas with the highest crime and the highest rate of acceleration of violent crime. And you call us delusional.
Mr. Kelly, I asked first. Since you say these laws are enacted for increased public safety, don't you think the onus is on you to demonstrate that this is so? If you feel so strongly about it, it should be an extremely simple matter to show me that such laws have, in fact, led to a decrease in violent/gun crime.
"And have you got any _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_ that the rate of gun crime has increased because of the post-Dunblane restrictions? Thought not."
Wow… It's sooooo "nice" of you to "reply" to a reply I could not possibly make yet.
Quite simply, when examining trends, even sociological ones, it is entirely reasonable to expect a trend to continue unchanged unless something occurs to cause a change. At the time the gun ban occurred, there was a change in the trend. Because that change occurred, it's entirely reasonable to ask what occurred to cause the change. The only thing that happened at the point where the change occurred which A) we're aware of, and B) that seems to be related to trend being tracked, is the passage of the handgun ban.
The most rational response to that line of reasoning is to demonstrate that something else changed to cause the change in the trend. But instead of doing so, you are asserting that the trend would have changed without a cause, and that the change would have actually been bigger than it actually was. That strikes me as being exactly like the cartoon of two guys at a chalkboard covered with math, with these words scribbled in the middle of it, "Then a miracle occurs…".
Sorry, but a sudden change occurring without a cause violates one of the basic tenants of science: Every event has a cause.
"As I've repeatedly pointed out, I'm not the one who (like Karl Marx) has claimed that his 'philosophy' is literally provable."
Ever heard of a thing called a logical fallacy? This particular specimen is called the Association Fallacy.
I pointed out that if the post-Dunblane restrictions hadn't been passed, the rate of illegal weapons would have in all probability grown at an even faster rate than they have (at the very least at the same rate) and the net result would have been a higher rate of gun crime than we have now.
And:
You reckon you can be confident of a convergence when the homicide rate in the US is still three time as high?
This is where my head gets all 'splodey. You insist that your restrictive gun laws make you safer because your murder rate would have gone up FASTER without them, but our lax gun laws make us LESS safe because our DECLINING murder rate is still three times that of the UK. Isn't your premise that more guns = more gun crime? In addition, your skyrocketing violent crime rate is unrelated to your gun laws (even though those laws are supposed to make you safer) but our declining violent crime rates have nothing to do with our liberal self-defense laws (that you claim should make us less safe.)
You insist that if the number of guns in private hands increases then the number of gun crimes MUST ALSO increase, do you not? Yet as you reduce the number of guns in private hands in the UK, your gun crime rates have continued to go UP, and as the number of guns in private hands in the US increases (by 3-4 MILLION a year) our violent crime rates have continued to go DOWN.
I showed you in that previous piece that the homicide rate in the US was once TEN TIMES that of the UK, and now it's less than three times. The trend has been ongoing since the 1970's, so in answer to your question, YES, I'm confident of a convergence. Here's a challenge for you: get back to me when the ratio hits a mere 2:1, and explain to me again how your strict gun control laws kept it from getting there FASTER.
I contort statistics? At least I look at the numbers and draw logical conclusions. If A then B should work on BOTH sides of the Atlantic, but in your worldview it doesn't. Why is that?
Kevin, there can be no greater example of failing to draw logical conclusions than a) to look at three mass killings in a row committed with legal weapons and not to spot that restrictions on legal weapons must have a part to play, and b) looking at the increasing level of illegal gun ownership and somehow magically implicating gun control laws in that problem. How the hell would laxer controls make those illegal weapons go away? Surely it would make the problem much, much worse.
(Way to go dodging every single point in my comment with this non sequitur, James. Truly a masterpiece of avoidance of anything that challenges your worldview. - Ed.)
a) to look at three mass killings in a row committed with legal weapons
Over 20 years?
and not to spot that restrictions on legal weapons must have a part to play,
Oh, they do, just the opposite of what you're suggesting.
and b) looking at the increasing level of illegal gun ownership and somehow magically implicating gun control laws in that problem.
The problem is the legal guns and gun owners are punished increasingly for illegal gun ownership - in a forlorn hope that somehow, those bad men will just go away.
How the hell would laxer controls make those illegal weapons go away? Surely it would make the problem much, much worse.
Completely without proof.
Unless those guns are converted from "legal" guns, then they don't have anything to do with it.
Since it's been linked to you the massive imports of never legal guns to the criminals in the UK, and you've ignored that, I won't bother explaining the simple concept of making .22s and shotguns illegal has nothing to do with the gangs getting Glocks.
Other than it demonstrates your totemeque view of the world.
"Over 20 years?"
So the fact that every singlemass killing in the UK in the last 25 years has been with legal weapons is of no significance to you whatsoever? Of course not, forget about the facts, the philosophy can't possibly be wrong, can it?
Quick, more guns! And if they don't work, even more guns! Do it HARDER!
James, I already asked you to confirm that, indeed, I said the opposite.
Could you do that?
James:
I don't know why you're not answering this, could you then tell me why you won't answer it, if you won't confirm what I previously said?
I dunno, it seems to be working out pretty well here:
"So the fact that every singlemass killing in the UK in the last 25 years has been with legal weapons is of no significance to you whatsoever? Of course not, forget about the facts, the philosophy can't possibly be wrong, can it?"
So the fact that making most weapons illegal in the UK has resulted in an increase in the number of killings with said illegal weapons is of no significance to you whatsoever? Of course not, forget about the facts, the philosophy can't possibly be wrong, can it?
"Quick, more guns! And if they don't work, even more guns! Do it HARDER!"
Quick, more laws! And if they don't work, even more laws! Do it HARDER!
Kevin, there can be no greater example of failing to draw logical conclusions than
a) to look at the UK's ever-increasing violent crime rates and conclude that gun control laws have made the UK SAFER.
b) looking at the US's "lax" gun laws and DECLINING violent crime rates and conclude that our lack of gun control laws have made the US MORE DANGEROUS.
The criminal elements in the UK get all the guns they need, James. The laws only affect the price. They need to steal and rob a few more people to afford them, that's all. But disarming the victim pool? That makes their jobs much easier and safer.
That's the difference in our philosophies, James. You insist that a disarmed and compliant victim pool means a safer society. I insist that it's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can. THAT makes a safer society.
THAT is what I'm arguing. It's not about gun control laws, James, it's about the CULTURE. Gun control laws are just a symptom of the culture. Your culture must change before revising your gun laws would have any beneficial effect. And my culture is such that I (and my readers, whom you cannot understand) utterly reject your philosophy of learned helplessness.
would have in all probability
Yep, THERE's yer evidence.
So wait, the country with more then 500 million guns, more guns then any other country in the world, that country is more likely to have gun crime? Stop the fucking presses, James Kelly, splitting atoms with his mind over here. Other amazing facts from this genius of the age:
Saudi Arabia has more vehicular accidents involving camels then any other country.
North Korea has more people who injure themselves while conducting enormous choreographed dances then any other country.
France has more people who choke to death while eating snails then any other country.
Oh, and you're lying or just wrong. Sexual assault is more prevalent in the UK then in the US. All totaled you manage 2.5 million acts of violence a year, which is half of our 5 million, despite the fact that you have one sixth our population. More importantly, our crime is declining and yours is increasing. So in five years, or ten years....
That assumes the new government over there doesn't make some changes regarding crime. From what I've seen of him he's more concerned with being good little econuts and world citizens.
"Oh, and you're lying or just wrong. Sexual assault is more prevalent in the UK then in the US."
To remind you, we were talking about rape.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita
This raises the question about whether rape is reported or not. There's been a lot of discussion concerning a) whether police are recording crime as reported, and b) whether people are bothering to report crimes to the police there, since they've largely lost faith in them.
I can pull links if you'd like, but I admit this is all speculative.
James, I have one question for you:
Can a gun kill anyone on its own? (As in, deliberately pointing itself at someone and firing. Do not "pretend to misunderstand" here.)
I've never claimed it can. Now, perhaps you will answer this question instead of pretending not to hear yet again - how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?
You keep focusing on the gun and ignoring the intent of the person. That is claiming that the gun has intent.
So which is it? Is it the intent of the person that matters? Or the tool they use?
Dear James:
Since you believe so strongly that your course is the right one, why aren't you out enforcing it on the strength of your own convictions and with your own resources?
No? Why ever not?
Ken, I literally have no idea what you're talking about. Please enlighten me, and then perhaps I can answer your question.
Ed - "That is claiming that the gun has intent."
No, it isn't. I answered your question, now please stop ducking mine.
how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?
Give me three and a half hours unchecked, and i, or most people out to rack up a body count, would far exceed your rampages.
With damn near anything. Especially if you'll grant me use of a car.
If you won't, some molotov cocktails will get things rolling nicely.
Fire extinguishers? Over here they're made of steel, and I've seen autopsy photos of 2 able-bodied men who were killed by a much smaller man with one.
The WTF here isn't the guns, even, James. It's he culture of learned helplessness that allowed someone to rampage for three and a half hours with no intervention.
A culture so languid that it can't raise a hand to stop a murder isn't going to be fixed merely by handing out guns. On that you and I agree.
Three and a half hours - total red herring, and you know it. It took him that long because he was roaming about rural Cumbria in his car hunting down specific individuals. The idea that using a lower-grade weapon than a gun wouldn't have slowed him down (indeed stopped him from killing so many) is palpably absurd.
Three and a half hours - total red herring, and you know it.
No, I don't know it.
He rampaged for three and a half hours without intervention.
It took him that long because he was roaming about rural Cumbria in his car hunting down specific individuals.
Then the (legal) gun didn't really assist him all that much, now did it?
Pick a story and theory and stick to it, would you?
The idea that using a lower-grade weapon than a gun wouldn't have slowed him down (indeed stopped him from killing so many) is palpably absurd.
No, James. What's absurd is your contention that a gun let him kill rapidly, but yet at his leisure. And that there couldn't have been a similar massacre with a "lower grade weapon" - even though according to you he had all day.
Pick one, or the other.
Then the (legal) gun didn't really assist him all that much, now did it?
It didn't help him to drive faster? No, guns are designed to kill, not for transport.
James, please put the goalposts back where you orginally put them.
Remember, we were answering your question:
possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun,
and I pointed out that he took three and a half hours to kill.
Or 210 minutes. 25 people shot. 12 killed.
So about 8 shot per hour. Little over one every 10 minutes. 3.5 killed per hour.
Boy I bet he had to have an "assault weapon" to kill that fast.
Now you're trying to move the goalposts, since you realize that you made a stupid rhetorical point that works against you.
It didn't help him to drive faster? No, guns are designed to kill, not for transport.
Three and a half hours. Unimpeded. Only stopped when he decided to stop.
What was your original question?
how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?
And it's trivial to find reports of 10+ people being stabbed in under a few minutes, machetes being used in massacres over 20-30 minutes...
And yes, a baseball bat, with three and a half hours, could easily kill 12 people and wound 13 more.
This was your thought experiment.
It's not our fault you don't know the facts of the case, nor have the ability to realistically judge threats and reality, including known attacks.
"how on earth can a knife"
Right, 'cause we all know stuff like this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8582203.stm
doesn't happen.
James is almost as fun as Marxy!
Really. I'll use small words then.
You believe strongly that guns should be taken from people. You believe that it is the right thing to do.
Why are you not out doing it yourself?
Thankyou for the clarificiation, Ken. Answer - Because I believe in democracy and the rule of law, rather than 'might is right' and imposing one's will by force.
James, you said:
Answer - Because I believe in democracy and the rule of law, rather than 'might is right' and imposing one's will by force.
The question was from Ken:
You believe strongly that guns should be taken from people. You believe that it is the right thing to do.
So sending other people to apply force on your behalf means you're not imposing your will by force?
Electing a parliament that passes laws, the police and the courts implement those laws...this is pretty basic stuff. I thought belief in democracy and the rule of law was a shared value between our two countries.
Thought experiment: Tomorrow Parliament passes a law, to be implemented by the police and courts, summarized thus:
"The United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland is now and forevermore restored to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Line up in the square to kiss the bishop's ring, or don't let the sun set on your ass in these islands."
Perfectly democratic and in accordance with the "rule of law" as you propose it. So you'd be perfectly okay with it, right?
>>I thought belief in democracy and the rule of law was a shared value between our two countries.
So, the color of democratic process vouchsafes and justifies all outcomes, does it?
*Several* wars have been fought to reject that premise, including our own American Civil War.
Even Hitler and Stalin knew to cover their ass with the pretense of democratic process, and the proliferation of the various "People's Democratic Republics of Whatever" are illustrative of the falsity of that.
No, Democracy, in and of itself, is not the highest value. While it is may be necessary for a free society, it is hardly sufficient.
So. If you take A's property by force, it's theft. If some guy with a badge claiming to be acting "in the name of the People/King/G-d/Whatever" does it, it's...what, exactly?
Apart from the salutary (sorry for the big word there) benefit of not exposing you to personal danger, that is.
The point is, you are perfectly happy imposing your will by someone else's force.
There are several words for that, you know.
Ken, do you regard tax - and the rigorous enforcement of the tax regime - as 'theft'? Is there any government action that you're prepared to concede might just be appropriate?
How is any action on the basis of "Do this or I'll imprison/kill you" appropriate? To say that it's okay for the (G)overnment is to say that some people are more equal than others and enjoy prior claim to the property of their lessers. On moral grounds, taxation under coercion is most certainly theft.
Ability is certainly heterogeneously distributed, but on what basis can the legitimate claim that "Government Agent over there is a better person than regular people, and therefore enjoys a prior claim to my life and property?"
Taxation is not necessarily theft. But it can be used as such.
There are plenty of appropriate government actions - stopping, oh, serial killers on a spree rather than huddling in... we've got donut stores, where do your cops go when they're on the clock and not working?
But that's not to say that every action should be governmental, nor that every discretionary choice should be made by the government, nor there be a vote on natural rights.
Taxation is not necessarily theft. But it can be used as such.
True. Without digging into it deeper (which would be beneficial) or hijacking the thread, it strikes me that a tax that is either truly voluntary (and can that be called a tax? I dunno), or that can be avoided by refraining from engaging in the activity subject to tax, would not be theft.
Excise taxes, import duties, user fees, and perhaps even some consumption taxes (not sure about this; to have to start picking and choosing on the basis of elasticity of demand/availability of substitutes is gonna distort the market's price allocation function as badly as current schemes do -- price being one of the few nearly unambiguous forms of communication available to Homo sapiens sapiens, I hate to mess with it) come to mind.
As you point out, though, not everything is a matter for the state. The legitimate function of government (by which I mean the regulation of human relations) is to secure the natural right of the individual to life, liberty, and several property. Ed sums it up quite well below, but I propose that government and the state are not synonymous, and government may not require a state.
I cannot predict what would happen in the absence of the state, but I am well aware what has happened in every time and every place in the presence of a state. Having (roughly) counted the skulls, I'm willing to give the alternative a try.
"Is there any government action that you're prepared to concede might just be appropriate?"
Have you ever heard of the Declaration of Independence? At its core, it was an argument about the purposes for government:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,"
So there are justified purposes for governments. And taxes are necessary for even a fully justified government to function.
It then goes on to argue that violations of those basic humans are never justifiable, not even by governments. And in fact, if a government goes too far in trampling basic human rights, there is an active duty to replace that government with a new one:
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
(The rest of the Declaration was a listing of evidence that King George's government had reached that point.)
Our argument is that self-defense is a basic human right tied to the Right to Life, and that a government which takes actions to make its citizens defenseless violates that right, and therefore, such actions are entirely illegitimate.
So, the question remains, are you perfectly okay with asking your government to impose your will by force, in effect trampling your neighbor's right to self-defense?
A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law, and no, I have no desire to see that changed.
A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law
But it's not practiced. It's there, all right. And ignored.
no, I have no desire to see that changed.
We'd be happy for it to stop being a theoretical construct and actually an allowable defense.
So how do you define "proportionate"?
A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law, and no, I have no desire to see that changed.
You lie.
No, he doesn't. Well, "enshrined" is a complete fabrication . . .
"A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law, and no, I have no desire to see that changed."
You know, I could have sworn that you were arguing for banning shotguns and .22's. Furthermore, I could have sworn that we were challenging you on imposing that desire on others through government force. Are you now changing your tune on that?
"...I believe in democracy and the rule of law, rather than 'might is right' and imposing one's will by force...."
I don't believe in democracy, and for precisely the same reason you give for demanding your vaunted democracy. Of course, anyone whose IQ passes the century mark could figure out why this is, as the institution of law (spit) and mob rule is nothing more than "might is right," and imposing the will of many on the few, and has an historically shaky set of ethics by which those in power have abused their positions.
Seriously, you Brits need to get on with ending your obsession of "bans," since they don't have a hope of dealing with the actual ills of your broken society.
"No, it isn't."
Then why do you keep focusing on "gun crime" and deliberately ignoring overall violent crime as if the gun causes crime?
"I answered your question, now please stop ducking mine."
Answering your question is pointless without first establishing the basis for that answer, a basis which you keep dodging. (Though U-J's answer was pretty good.)
It doesn't cause crime, it massively increases the death and injury caused by crime. Now that I've explained that very basic point (which was inherent in the question anyway) perhaps you will finally stop ducking the question.
"It doesn't cause crime,"
Good. I'm glad we've established that.
"it massively increases the death and injury caused by crime."
In other words, it multiplies the force which the person is intending to project. Agreed?
"perhaps you will finally stop ducking the question."
Not ducking it, just taking it one step at a time. Almost there…
"In other words, it multiplies the force which the person is intending to project. Agreed?"
Er, yes, so by logical extension a man with a lower-grade weapon will be less likely to succeed in causing as much harm, whatever his murderous intent. So, your latest excuse for dodging the question is..?
"Er, yes, so by logical extension a man with a lower-grade weapon will be less likely to succeed in causing as much harm, whatever his murderous intent."
Good! It's nice to see some progress. In fact, I think you've pretty much answered your own question:
"how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?"
I never claimed that these items were as quick and efficient as a gun. (Though in this latest incident, it's entirely possible to kill more people in the same time frame using a baseball bat than this guy killed using his guns.)
What they do accomplish is also to multiply force, even if not as much as a gun does. So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and will) still find a way to kill. Agreed?
When faced with someone intent on committing violence, how do you stop them? (Remember, you've already agreed that violence comes from the individual's intent, not the gun.)
I've never claimed it can. Now, perhaps you will answer this question instead of pretending not to hear yet again - how on earth can a knife, baseball bat, fire extinguisher, lawnmower, church newsletter or any other of the weird and wonderful items that have been cited possibly kill as many people so quickly and efficiently as a gun, regardless of the murderous intent of the individual?
____
If I were of a mind to kill as many random people as possible, I'd use a truck loaded with ANFO slurry. If I was one of these retarded suicide losers, I'd set off a small charge on one side of a concert or some other event, designed to get the maximum amount of people moving toward the truck, then detonate it when maximum density had been reached.
I could get a job at a resturant and poison the water glasses.
I could set fires in busy buildings, and destroy hydrants to keep the FD from mounting an effective response.
I could just drive around in my car running random pedestrians down.
Knives? Japan had a guy who killed over ten people with an old bayonet.
You are ascribing one specific category of inanimate objects with inherent charcteristics, while denying that a multitude of other things can be turned to the same end. I'd say is probably possible to keep these weapons out of the hands of people like this guy in Cumbria, because these spree shooters are not part of the criminal class. So you force the next crazy to use his car, or gasoline bombs, or an ax. Meanwhile the citizens go defenseless against the criminals, who have guns and are using them.
You banned all handguns in 1997. Yet there are still handguns in the UK. In fact, there is more handgun crime every single year. Explain that Jimbo. Handguns banned means zero handgun crime? Right?
James, if I wanted to kill a wuss like you, it would be only slightly more effort with a spoon than with a gun.
You wouldn't even need the spoon.
And yet the worst mass murder at a U.S. school was not Columbine or Virginia Tech, where the perpetrators used firearms, but the Bath School Disaster in 1927, carried out by Andrew Kehoe without the use of a firearm.
At the above link the BBC has some figures compareing the prevelance of mass killings in different countries.
Mass killings per 10m of population in the USA 0.08. In the UK 0.06. Legal guns per 100 of population USA 90 UK 5.6. The correlation between legal gun ownership and mass killings looks weak to say the least.
On a happier topic I am pleased to report that on those figures I have way more than my share of guns.
Richard,
This commenting system is a bit "funky". (To say the least.) You can upload your images to attach to a post by clicking the "Add images" object at the bottom left of where you create comments. Just use the buttons and you'll be able to share those with the rest of us.
Thanks for that. Computer driving is not my specialist subject.
What happened in the 1960s that the violent crime/homicide rates went up so precipitously?
Well, there was the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act. This made it illegal to carry an "offensive weapon" without being able to demonstrate a need for it. "Self defense" was no longer considered a legitimate reason to own a firearm. You couldn't carry a knife, mace, or a pointy stick in public anymore without being able to demonstrate "need." No pocket knives, no nothing.
The law abiding were, for all intents and purposes, legally disarmed beginning in 1953. In 1967 shotguns were added to the registry.
Does the criminal class in Britain have a government lobby or something? They should've called it the Criminal Ease and Safety Act. Reminds me of the Far Side cartoon showing two alligators laying on a beach, having obviously just eaten two kayakers, and saying with delight "That was incredible. No fur, claws, horns, antlers, or nothin'... Just soft and pink." That's what criminals in Britain must be thinking every time the government passes some stupid new law making their victims even softer.
I don't think it was the 1960s, directly.
I think it's actually traceable back to WWI, and then II. After a generation was lost going over the top, you can see how reluctant the UK was to fight in WWII. After those losses, and the loss of the Empire, there were some massive sea changes to the culture that Kelly is a stereotypical example to demonstrate.
I think the 60's just ended up with some codifications of the laws, but the cultural shift away from the "man's house is his castle" started long before that.
Here's that table (we'll see if it's readable):
James, you said, “Answer - Because I believe in democracy and the rule of law, rather than 'might is right' and imposing one's will by force.”
The irony being that someone like you, who believes that guns are not suitable for those who might find themselves faced with serious threat, believes very much that ‘might makes right’, believes wholeheartedly in the rightness of ‘imposing one’s will by force’, and believes that nothing should get in the way of brute violence.
The question is whether you can claim the ‘moral high ground’ when you’re the sort of person who doesn’t want people, such as Bird’s 12 victims, to be able to stop a nutter like Bird from killing them. This latest atrocity happened exactly as you wanted it to. You don’t want Bird to be deprived of a gun half as much as you want his victims to have been deprived of guns, with which to stop him. Stopping the Derrick Birds of the world isn't important to you. Stopping his victims, is.
Let’s face it, you’re the type who puts his own satisfaction ahead of other people’s lives. Mine, the 12 dead, everyone in the UK whether they agree with you or not. You also think you can fling mud to hide the fact that you hold other people’s lives in contempt. What sort of person does holding other's lives in contempt make you?
Why, it makes him a slave who knows he is a slave, can imagine nothing else, and will not rest until everyone else is likewise enslaved (as witness his ill-disguised glee over National Health coming to America).
I believe that yes, the criminal class in Britain DOES have a government lobby, it's call the Political Class. In creating their dependent-oriented Welfare State which the "National Health System" helped lock into place, they require a level of victimhood of their citizenry (much brought about by the use of class-envy as a weapon of social division), and as such and seeking equality among victims, a criminal with a traditional criminal background and criminal skills has just as much right to "earn" a living as a criminal predator, as someone with a real job. The police have managed to leverage the bureaucrats and grow their organization - which is the basis for success in a Statist scheme - and have put police surveillance cameras all over the place that do nothing to prevent crime but assist the cops in data collection. The Po-po are mainly a Victim Recording apparatus anymore that conveys the crime-element statistics to the Bureaucrats in the State, after events have taken place. It's safer for them that way since they have to deal with so many dissatisfied customer/clients - including criminals who are simply attempting to earn a time-honored living...
'So how do you define "proportionate"?'
Why, it's whatever the authorities say it is!
Damn! This thread is going to hit 100+ comments, and Markadelphia is nowhere to be found!
Well, the dude is pretty much the personification of the kindergarten schoolyard tactics of "I know you are but what am I?" and *sticking your fingers in your ears and humming*. That was bound to get something of a rise out of the regular readers here, especially given that it flies in the face of plain facts and figures.
"Damn! This thread is going to hit 100+ comments, and Markadelphia is nowhere to be found!"
Ah, but look more closely.
The only significant difference between Kelly and Marxadopia is that Kelly apparently proofreads before posting.
Note that they have the same modus operandi, which is evasion. They use the same methods, which are the Standard Responses of Markadopia. In this thread alone, he has copiously used #1, #4, #5, #6, #7, #9, and #12.
Oh, and thanks a lot, James. As does Marxy, you do such good work for our side. As with Marxy, you don't fool anyone.
Since Markadelphia is nominally pro-2A, I think it would be fascinating to watch him try to debate James Kelley. It'd be like a dog fight, where both dogs have no teeth or nails. Or two Monty Python black knights wailing away at each other. Or a fight to the death where the opponents have nothing but NERFs for weapons.
<< still looking for an evil grin smiley >>
"It'd be like a dog fight, ..."
It would be like an Igli fight, methinks.
I'm drawing a blank on that one, DJ. What's an Igli?
BTW, I noticed that #12 is not in Kevin's post of Marky's standard responses.
"I'm drawing a blank on that one, DJ. What's an Igli?"
Read Heinlein's Glory Road. Some choice excerpts describe Igli better than I can:
-----
"I looked Igli over more carefully. He resembled that scion of the man from Dundee, all chin and no forehead, and he combined the less appetizing features of giants and ogres in The Red Fair Book. ...
"He was vaguely human, using the term loosely. He was a couple of feet taller than I am and outweighed me three or four hundred pounds but I am much prettier. Hair grew on him in clumps, like a discouraged lawn; and you just knew, without being told, that he had never used a man's deoorant for manly men. The knots of his muscles had knots on them and his toenails weren't trimmed."
-----
Okay, that's just the visual description. Rather troll-like, isn't it? To continue:
-----
"Igli can't be killed. You see, he is not really alive. He is a construct, made invulnerable for this one purpose. ..."
"You mean he is a robot?"
"Not if you are thinking of gears and wheels and printed circuits. 'Golem' would be closer. The Igli is an imitation of life. ... But worse, too, as Igli isn't very bright nor well balanced. He has conceit without judgment."
-----
So, how was he killed, you asked? It was (ahem) Easy. (Read the book and get the pun.) The Hero Oscar simply fed him to him (lovely alliteration, ain't it?) until he was gone.
No, I won't spoil it for you. Read the book. You'll like it.
"BTW, I noticed that #12 is not in Kevin's post of Marky's standard responses."
You can find it in the comments of this post:
http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2010/04/in-celebration-of-earth-day.html
"Standard Response #12, the "I'm a deliberate fuckwit!" response. When he discovers, yet again, that he cannot counter his opponent's argument, he intentionally mischaracterizes his opponent's argument, reasoning, meaning, and even the plain language of his statements, and then argues against his own mischaracterization as if it shows his opponent to be wrong. He does not care that this shows him to be fundamentally dishonest and/or unable to understand what his opponent actually wrote, but it gives him yet another opportunity to avoid admitting that he is wrong and/or that his opponent is correct. While this response often embodies one or more of his other Standard Responses, overall it is a distinct form that is easily recognized."
Don't forget that the UK government is now actively fudging the crime numbers in an attempt to keep a lid on the statistics. Probably the only number they can't hide would be actual murders, since a body is a terribly inconvenient fact to get around. They are doing this by discouraging the creation of a police report. If the cops don't put it on paper, or into a computer, then it didn't happen, right?
Kevin, your comment sections do seem to run on longer these days. I consider that a good thing. ;)
Good discussions are awesome. But I gotta say that when a thread is as active as this one, Echo's "threading" is hell on wheels to keep track of who said what to whom, and where the latest comments are.
Yeah, it forces you to read through everything rather than just skip to the bottom and work up to the last comment you remember.
Well, I've returned after several hours and found umpteen more points directed at me, so I'm going to bail out of this very hard-to-follow comments thread and give my thoughts on some of the issues raised here -
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-response-to-kbfc.html
I thought Markadaffya was the one with the Brave Sir Robin privileges here?
I'm scarcely running away - the blog post I linked to contains detailed responses to as many of the points raised as I could manage, and it took me three hours to write. Alas - and regardless of in-joke taunts referring to a man who I've never come across but who sounds ever more appealing by the second - that will have to do to be getting on with.
"Toying" with you?!? Are you now pretending that you're a mind reader? (Just like Markadelphia.)
I was stepping you through the logic to make sure you didn't miss anything, or pull the kind of bullshit you just pulled in that post by leaping from where we were to a completely unrelated and illogical "conclusion".
You agreed with each step. Each one seemed logical to you. That's because they are logical, and there was no "toying" or deception involved.
If you want to show that your position is logical, then return to the end of the logic chain that you agreed with and continue with it One. Step. At. A. Time. to show that it's logically correct. I'm convinced that your conclusion is illogical. In part because it brings in claimed premises (training) that have not been established one way or the other (and which I dispute), and cherry picked data (U.K. sprees only vs. worldwide and sprees vs. "everyday" murders) which is a logical fallacy, and in part because I've gone through the logic before and your "conclusion" simply does not follow.
You can start right here:
So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and will) still find a way to kill. Agreed?
Speaking of ignoring things, here's what you posted.
Britt: "You banned all handguns in 1997. Yet there are still handguns in the UK. In fact, there is more handgun crime every single year. Explain that Jimbo. Handguns banned means zero handgun crime? Right?"
James Kelly: "No, it means fewer handguns, and less handgun crime, than would have been the case had the ban not been implemented. That is not the same thing - as has been repeatedly pointed out to Kevin - as saying the level of handgun crime has fallen in the UK since the late 1990s."
Yet you completely ignored the argument I had already made on this point.
"Quite simply, when examining trends, even sociological ones, it is entirely reasonable to expect a trend to continue unchanged unless something occurs to cause a change. At the time the gun ban occurred, there was a change in the trend. Because that change occurred, it's entirely reasonable to ask what occurred to cause the change. The only thing that happened at the point where the change occurred which A) we're aware of, and B) that seems to be related to trend being tracked, is the passage of the handgun ban.
"The most rational response to that line of reasoning is to demonstrate that something else changed to cause the change in the trend. But instead of doing so, you are asserting that the trend would have changed without a cause, and that the change would have actually been bigger than it actually was. That strikes me as being exactly like the cartoon of two guys at a chalkboard covered with math, with these words scribbled in the middle of it, "Then a miracle occurs…".
"Sorry, but a sudden change occurring without a cause violates one of the basic tenants of science: Every event has a cause."
Care to try again?
Or do you care to explain how the U.K. and the U.S. have almost identical rates (population adjusted) of killing sprees despite the fact that the U.S. has roughly sixteen times the rate of gun ownership of the U.K., not to mention Americans routinely carrying guns every day? Those rates are _E_V_I_D_E_N_C_E_, and per usual, you seem to be ignoring what you don't like.
Then there's this classic case of moving the goalposts:
Ken: "You lie."
Kevin Baker: "No, he doesn't. Well, "enshrined" is a complete fabrication . . ."
Ed: "You know, I could have sworn that you were arguing for banning shotguns and .22's. Furthermore, I could have sworn that we were challenging you on imposing that desire on others through government force. Are you now changing your tune on that?"
James Kelly: "Don't be obtuse, Ed. The comment from Kevin, meanwhile, is slightly baffling - the law does indeed provide for proportionate self-defence, and it's as "enshrined" as any law can be in a country that does not have a written constitution."
And right back to the dishonest argument again. The central point of arguing what government can and cannot do (theft, imposing your will on others via government fiat) was about taking guns from others. We addressed your dodges about what is legitimate for government to do, and all of a sudden, out of frikkin' nowhere, you're talking about proportionality (which, BTW, I noticed you did not define) as if the original topic of "Mr. and Mrs. U.K., turn them all in" never existed. My comment was directed squarely at RETURNING to the MAIN POINT. (It's all right here. Anyone can check up on this.) And you have the cojones to call ME "obtuse"?!?
When your illogical arguments boil down to this example:
"believes that nothing should get in the way of brute violence.
What, other than the law making it as unlikely as humanly possible that dangerous people have a gun handy?"
... you really are not worth pursuing. I will not speak for The Happy Rampager, but it is fair to say that when he was referring to "brute violence", he was not referring to just firearms. In my eyes, he was referring to the simple fact that if you disarm everyone, the smaller, weaker examples of society are left with little to no choice when the larger, stronger examples of society stroll along and demand something from the former. A 100-pound-soaking-wet woman stands little-to-no chance of beating back a 300-pound linebacker rapist without some sort of self-defense tool that does not rely on physical strength or prowess to use.
And people like you, James, all too gleefully would strip the hypothetical woman in question of that very tool. You would leave her effectively defenseless in the face of her rapist, and yet you would cheerfully claim that you support peple's rights to self-defense.
With an argument like that, and a mind that would actually produce that kind of position, I can only come to the conclusion that you are a singularly disgusting example of the mentalities created by the culture of induced-and-forced victimhood hijacking once-Great-Britain these days, and write you off accordingly. I have little use for an individual who would all-too-happily walk a nation into a nightmare of being ruled at the street level by those who are physically stronger, and at the national level by the government, without check or control by the people.
Good riddance to you, coward.
I think one thing left out of this discussion is the fact that mass killings, while horriffic and sensational, are simply no good as a means of determining social policy. It is, essentially, surrendering civil liberties to prevent terrorism. Your actual odds of being harmed in one of these incidents is several orders of magnitude lower than being harmed in a more prosaic incident, such as an assault or robbery. Humans have a long history of scaring themselves to pieces over the wrong things, while ignoring the dangers that are far more pressing. Thus, parents are horrified by the idea of a gun in their house, but think nothing of driving their kid in a car all day before sending the tykes to splash around in a swimming pool, both of which have claimed many times more lives than guns. We fear mass-killers, but never stop to think of the dangers of disarming THE ENTIRETY OF LAW-ABIDING SOCIETY. James Kelly demonstrates this mental hitch rather well, focusing entirely on THREE incidents of legally-owned guns being used in atrocities while THOUSANDS are murdered in less sensational ways.
And lest I come off as too holier-than-thou, I'll admit that, back in 2003-2004, when a mentally-feeble older driver plowed his car through the Santa Monica Farmer's Market, killing nine people and maiming more, I initially cried out for tougher laws against senior drivers, without even thinking if the incident was representative of an actual trend. It's an easy trap to fall into.
Sarah
Mr. Kelly, I think it's quite simple. What tangible evidence do you have that gun laws have made Britons safer? Can you show a correlation between the enactment of gun laws and a decrease in violent crime/gun crime?
James Kelly
Sarah, what tengible evidence do you have that a gun free-for-all has made you safer, other than a gun crime rate that is massively higher than ours, and a general homicide rate that (as even Kevin concedes) is three time higher?
That's everything in a nutshell, right there: Sarah wants the government to have to prove that a right is too dangerous to exercise before it can be removed; James wants burden to fall on individuals to prove that the right is safe enough to be left lawful. I can't think of an exchange that more perfectly illustrates the opposite worlds that we're arguing from.
Well, I'm left gobsmacked (can I use the British construction here?) by the "proportionate response" comment by Mr. Kelly.
Proportionate? What's "proportionate" about a 200+ lb 19 year old yob robbing an 100 lb 80 year old woman? Just what "proportionate" response do you believe the woman would be able to (successfully) defend herself with? Swinging her handbag? Using an hatpin? Calling the plod and hoping for them to get there before she is beaten down to a pulp?
"God made all men, but Samuel Colt made them equal", is as true today as it ever was. Care to try the proportionate response crap when you're outnumbered 3 (or more) to 1? Or when they have knives, and you have, well, nothing?
Shame on you, sir! Shame! For advising all persons, regardless of ability, age, infirmity, or even sheer will to just give in, give up, and give their lives as sacrifices on the altar of "oooh! we're too cowardly to defend ourselves from evil acts" correctness.
May you never find yourself whispering through blood caked lips and broken teeth into the wet puddle your life's blood is pouring into from the stab wound in your chest, as your wife's screams rend the air from the rape in progress, and your child whimpers brokenly by your side, "if I'd only had a gun..."
Perhaps only THEN you'd see, before you saw nothing more at all...
I think it's fairly obvious James Kelly doesn't come here for the hunting.
Mr. Kelly has attempted to transplant the discussion over to his own site.
As I recall, the last time the comments went on over at Mr. Kelly's place, he invoked Reasoned Discourse (R)(c)(tm), and so I'm not going to respond to him there.
Quoth Mr. Kelley:
-------------------------
'Geek with a 45', in response to my suggestion that it is legitimate for the authorities to disarm private gun owners if mandated to do so by democratic legislation, had this to say -
"No, Democracy, in and of itself, is not the highest value. While it is may be necessary for a free society, it is hardly sufficient."
Agreed, the rights of individuals and minorities need to be enshrined, otherwise you can end up with extreme outcomes like a majority ethnic group making a 'democratic' decision to wipe out the minority. But, in truth, Europe on the whole does a better job than the US of protecting the rights of individuals - by far the most important of which is the right to life. No European country other than Belarus takes the lives of its own citizens, whereas unfortunately most US states still have the death penalty on the statute book.
----------------------------
Fail.
This is both switch and bait and a red herring. Executing a duly convicted individual for his crimes cannot be conflated for the systematic legal denigration of personal rights of innocent individuals, whether they are in a minority category or not.
Continues Mr. Kelly:
----------------------------
On the issue of guns, there are two potential rights that can be afforded citizens, but that plainly clash with each other - a) the unlimited right to amass tools for the purposes of self-defence, and b) the right not to be attacked, and perhaps even more importantly, not to have to live in constant fear of being attacked by fellow citizens. Which of these rights should be accorded precedence? I'd say the latter, every time.
-------------------------
Fail again.
First, Mr. Kelly sets up a false dichotomy. Next, he falls back to a familiar construction, which this group has already adequately dismantled, that he somehow has a right not to be afraid of his neighbor's posessions. (And I won't even get into the whole issue of positive vs negative rights)
[sarcasm]
I for one, tremble in fear that Bob next door will someday run amok with his lawn mower, in an act of horrific gardenia carnage. I must petition the town council at once to ban lawn mowers, and thus protect my individual right not to fear for my garden. If Bob should resist the confiscation of his mower, in defiance of the will of the people, then he shall certainly deserve his subsequent death or incarceration.
[/sarcasm]
All in all, he seems to be repeating his same tired mantras in the dogmatic manner of a true believer, still refering to arms as "luxury items". Indeed, to view arms as anything other than a dismissible triviality would be the beginnings of acceptance of the connection between arms and the self preservation of one's own life, which is something he cannot do without risking the rest of his tired worldview.
Such people are always going to exist, and most will not turn from their self righteous path. As always, the eternal question is how to arrange things such that their power and influence over us is entirely negated, and thus secure our own rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit in defiance of those who would have them, no matter what the pretext, or their skill at conflation and red-herring artistry.
Well, Geek, as it wasn't beneath your dignity to leave a comment at my blog to alert me to your response, I'll do the equivalent - my response is here -
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-response-to-kbfc.html?showComment=1275750340802#c3400501772245918685
In point of fact, I wasn't trying to "transplant" discussion, just to draw my part of it to a close. This thread seemed be growing tentacles.
"In point of fact, I wasn't trying to "transplant" discussion,"
Riiiiiigggggghhhttt…
I guess that explains why you closed the comments on your post or you're not actively continuing the discussion over there. What? You are? Doesn't refusing to continue discussion over here, then actively carrying on discussion there undermine your claim and make it seem that you actually did want to "transplant" the discussion?
Ed, the first rule of thumb in life is that you have to define what you want in life before you can go after it. There's a distinct air of amiguity as to what you're actually criticising me for. Is closing my comments (ie. "reasoned discourse" - yawn) a bad thing ? Is allowing people to comment but then ignoring them a bad thing? Is responding to those comments a bad thing? Which 'the heck' is it, Ed?
I'm criticizing you for two things:
1) Claiming you're doing one thing while doing the opposite.
2) Running away from serious, step by step logical debate where we come to agreement before moving on because you apparently realized that it was going where you refuse to go.
Ed - bizarre. Your 'step by step' was simply assisting me to prove my own point - that the weapon involved in an attack is as much a determinant of the outcome as the murderous intent of the assailant. Even now I'm still baffled by what the hell you think you were actually proving.
Yet you stopped right there and jumped to a conclusion in your post that was not logically connected to what we had established so far. (1, 2, 3, -479!!!)
We had already established that human intent controls guns and that guns (and other weapons) multiply human intentions to project force. That's it.
But from there, you threw away the human intent part and "concluded" that guns can only be used for evil.
Furthermore, you ignored the next step in the logical chain—what the combination of what we did establish proved (there was more that this proved, which was coming up)—not once, but twice: (Markadelphia tactic #1)
So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and will) still find a way to kill. Agreed?
No, not agreed. When I answered that bit of your 'step by step' at my blog I thought it was blindingly obvious that I was saying 'no, I do not agree', but if you didn't pick up on that I'm quite happy to clarify the point for you. Without a gun, a person may or not succeed in killing - but it is substantially less likely that they will do.
Yet the event that caused us to start our argument was someone getting beaten to death by a group of killers using nothing more than their hands and feet.
Your refusal to agree goes against the available evidence. Good luck with that.
My favorite line from "Lord of the Rings":
"The women of this country learned long ago, those without swords can still die upon them."
Let me put this another way, you're right back to claiming that guns cause people to kill, despite agreeing earlier that that was not the case.
Without a gun, a person may or not succeed in killing - but it is substantially less likely that they will do.
Without a gun, a woman may or not succeed in defending herself against a superior male aggressor - but it is substantially more likely that she will. Comment?
"Without a gun, a person may or not succeed in killing - but it is substantially less likely that they will do."
Go look up the deadliest days in the history of warfare and tell me how substantially less likey it was for people to kill without guns.
"In point of fact, I wasn't trying to "transplant" discussion, ..."
And now we see him do Marxy's Standard Response #8, and he's working on #10!
I'm late to the fight, but I have an observation. James Kelly wrote way back at the beginning:
...that you're quite simply far, far more likely to be shot in the US than in the UK.
With the conclusion that we ought to increase the restrictions on legally owned firearms. Well, given that logic, how do we solve the following problem here in the USA: you're (anyone) far, far more likely to be shot in the US by a black person than a white person. Furthermore, you are far, far more likely to be shot by a black person using an "illegal" gun than anyone using a "legal" gun. Your solution, James?
Note: scare quotes indicate that it's not so much the guns that are legal or illegal, but the possession of the guns.
Well, carnaby, following Mr. Kelly's logic would dictate we either ban black people or prohibit black people from having guns, but since neither of those is conscionable, and your statistics are either bogus or it's all the fault of white people, we just prohibit everyone (except people from the .gov) from having guns because guns are evil (unless in the hands of people from the .gov), and then lament the fact that we don't have an "authentic" black person in the White House who flashes a handgun to establish his authority, but it's the fault of horrible white people that blacks do that anyway, so I give up.
Carnaby, you are only likely to be shot by a black person if you yourself are black. Criminals and victims tend to come from the same communities.
The chances of being shot by anyone are low, but according to the statistics provided by lefty political scientist Andrew Hacker, author of Two Nations, whites are more likely to be assaulted/raped/robbed/killed by a black person than by a white person.
James Kelly Said This:
----------------------------
I certainly don't regard guns as a 'dismissable triviality', but I do regard the pleasure of owning one as trivial when compared to the greater public good of restricting ownership.
--------------------------
James Kelly Also Said This:
----------------------------
Kevin and his ilk are horrified that their right to own their favourite luxury item might one day be taken from them, and have had to construct all these logical and 'philosphical' contortions to try and convince themselves that such an outcome would objectively be an outrage, rather than something that just constitutes a loss to them personally.
----------------------------
It's kinda hard to avoid concluding that Mr. Kelly isn't full of it, isn't it?
When people start invoking "the greater public good", it is best to check after your wallet, your livestock, your daughters and your prerogatives, for it is certain men wearing masks of good intention are coming after something that is rightfully yours.
I will say it slowly, and carefully.
Arms are neither trivial, nor toys, nor luxury items. They are an instrumentality of our intrinsic right to enforce both our own continued existence, and, when all other recourse has failed and our institutions have collapsed "back to nature" in the Lockean sense, our rightful prerogatives.
Mr. Kelly & Co doesn't get to choose our values for us. Mr. Kelly & Co. don't get to decide that their preference has legitimacy in some appeal to "the greater public good".
There is no circumstance under which James Kelly and his ilk, no matter how numerous they may be, or where they are, or by what allegedly democratic process they plead legitimizes their action that this right can be generally revoked or repudiated.
We will never surrender the right to enforce our own existence or the means to do it, which is what Mr. Kelly describes dismissively as "our favorite luxury" item.
If we won't lay down arms, then someone is going to have to come and take them, won't they?
So where that leaves Mr. Kelly & Co is at their own loggerheads, where they must go through their own "logical and 'philosphical' contortions to try and convince themselves" that such an action on behalf of some ill justified belief in "the greater public good" would be right and just, and that they would be blameless should the matter come to bloodshed, as such matters innevitably do.
Here's a hint: the man bashing down the door is the aggressor.
Molon Labe, pal.
James Kelly: "No, it means fewer handguns, and less handgun crime, than would have been the case had the ban not been implemented. That is not the same thing - as has been repeatedly pointed out to Kevin - as saying the level of handgun crime has fallen in the UK since the late 1990s."
The only problem with your statement is that you cannot prove it. It's like "jobs created or saved", there is no way to prove whether or not there would have been more deaths by shooting then without the 97 law. The fact is that the law was passed on the propostion that fewer handguns would result in fewer shooting deaths. The opposite is true, the exact opposite result of what was promised.
This is why I there's no point in arguing with people like you. You are, in a very real sense, mentally deficient. You are utterly incapable of grasping the fact that if a law promises one thing and delivers the exact opposite, then the law has failed in it's purpose. The Left always does this. They promise fewer gun deaths/fewer people in poverty/more people having health insurance. Then when the exact opposite happens they cry "but it would have been so much worse without the government's action." Utter bullshit, and I'm sick and tired of hearing it. You offer something that no one can prove as an argument. It's childish, it's idiotic, and the worst thing about it is that it works to persuade the soft headed idiots Markadelphia creates every day at work.
I need a drink.
I think that sums things up PERFECTLY.
Another question for Kelly: what is the history in the UK of firearm homicide (Kevin has answered this already) and firearm (or other) mass murder? Back in the day when firearms could be carried in public in the UK, were there any mass shootings? I have searched but have not found any evidence of such. If not, then by Kelly's logic, we can conclude that restriction of firearms in the UK has led to the few mass murders in recent memory. And since firearm homicide has never declined in the UK, what good have the firearms restrictions given to the fine subjects of that country?
If it is is any consolation, Kelly's slave-like mentality is not representative of that held by all British subjects:
You could not look for a better encapsulation of the mentality of the state-worshipping ruling elite than the claim by Sir Ian Blair, former disastrous Metropolitan Police Commissioner and newly-appointed peer (nothing succeeds like failure), writing in The Guardian on the topic of gun control: “The possession of a firearm is a privilege, not, except in a few cases, a necessity.”
Have you got that? The possession of a firearm is a “privilege”. In fact it is nothing of the sort: it is a right, guaranteed to all British subjects by the Bill of Rights of 1689. This assertion by Blair, whose police officers notoriously abused their firearms privileges by shooting dead Jean-Charles de Menezes, affords an instructive insight into the leftist/liberal belief that the state is the all-powerful authority controlling human existence. It may deign to extend privileges, such as firearm ownership, to a minority of its helots, but it does so as an act of grace, not in deference to any rights they might claim.
The state, in reality, is supposed to be the servant of the public. Its role should be rigidly limited and every power it exercises jealously scrutinised for overreach. For centuries, the entire basis of English Common Law was the assumption that everything that was not forbidden was legal. Today, the British subject is presumed to have virtually no rights (unless he belongs to a politically correct minority) and only by the most laboured exertion on his part may he make his case to the state, his master, that a privilege such as gun ownership should graciously be extended to him.
[...]
The reality is that no system will ever detect the likes of Derrick Bird, normal in his behaviour for years, then suddenly running amok. These tragedies happen: hard cases make bad law, as Dunblane taught us. All that can be done is to appraise licence applicants as one would potential car drivers. Health and Safety cannot be allowed to snuff out all normal human activities: the general population cannot be brought down to the lowest common denominator of the psychopath. It is illegal gun ownership that poses the overwhelming risk to life – what are the authorities doing about that? Or knife crime: people are four times as likely to be killed by a knife as by a gun.
The extravagant gun control legislation passed in the immediate aftermath of the Dunblane massacre has done nothing to save life. A decade after that legislation, in 2007, the Home Office claimed that gun crime was falling. It was David Davis who uncovered the truth, buried in a Home Office statistical bulletin, and confronted the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith with the facts: “Gun-related killings and injuries (excluding air weapons) have increased over fourfold since 1998.”
The mania to restrict firearms ownership among law-abiding people has led to a situation in which only outlaws have guns, as the American bumper sticker warns US citizens. In heavily armed America, only 13 per cent of burglaries take place while householders are on the premises, because intruders fear being shot. The gun control lobby in Britain aims, by turning the ratchet every time there is a high-profile shooting, to eliminate private firearms completely. The doctrine is that only the state should bear arms (with results we saw in Stockwell Tube Station). Only such a state monopoly can assert its absolute power over society.
The reality is that only a totalitarian state disarms its citizens. Any further measures in that direction must be resisted. Instead, we should be reviewing the Draconian laws we already have. What about Big Society, Dave? Is it big enough to bear arms responsibly? Or will the coalition be complicit in the leftward turn of the ratchet towards increased state control?
"Complicit" does not even begin to explain the mentality of people like James...
I wouldn't draw too much consolation, Linoge - even most of the right-wing blogosphere in the UK regard Gerald Warner as a bit of a fruitcake.
Argumentum ad hominem...he's pretty much checked off every box under "How to Argue Everything But the Merits."
Ken beat me to it, but if the best you can do is insult the person rather than argue the point, as I said before: good riddance to you, coward.
I can only admire the brass neck of you lot - YOU complain about ad hominem attacks? Do you want me to count how many times I've been called a wuss or a coward over the course of this thread?
Water off a duck's back, guys, but really - aim for a bit of consistency.
YOU complain about ad hominem attacks?
By who?
You're committing yet another genetic fallacy there.
but really - aim for a bit of consistency.
It won't be possible by following your lead.
But most importantly, the names you've been called weren't and aren't central to the thesis.
Where your argument is almost soley based on them.
Codswallop. What you do is dismiss Warner's argument based on the fact that it's Warner making it.
What I do is draw conclusions about your character, based on your policy preferences, your preferred means for carrying them forward, your...ahem...arguments and how you attempt make them.
See the difference?
No, Ken, there isn't a difference. But good on you for at least having a go at bluffing your way out of it.
Right, I'm off to read Gerald Warner's latest mad missive about the 'Vichy Tories'.
Bluff is another thing with which you appear to be unfamiliar, then.
Interesting that you'd spend the time reading someone you've already dismissed as a fruitcake. You must be hurting for quality entertainment.
Actually, from what I've read of Cameron and Nu Conservative, Vichy Tories sounds like it's at least in the ballpark. You I'd mark down as a wannabe half-baked Vidkun Quisling, provided you can find enough thugs to kick in doors for you.
"Interesting that you'd spend the time reading someone you've already dismissed as a fruitcake."
Sigh. It was a joke. I haven't read any of Warner's posts since the general election campaign, and I'm not planning to start up again now (nor are many Conservatives, judging by what they regularly say about him).
Mmmm. Best scratch comedy off the career list too, then.
I think Warner's already been told that, but alas, he thinks he knows better...
Nah, I'm gonna keep doing it, Little Jimmy, 'cuz I like picking fights with guys like you.
I'm WANTING you to swing, you see.
Yes, I'm goading, and I don't care.
The reason, of course, is that you are a nothing more than a garden-variety tyrant, using whatever "reason" you've thought up to deny freedom to everyone else. Someone else in this thread had earlier, and correctly, called you out as being a willing slave, and that you absolutely insist that everyone be throw into the gulag with you. Your ethical bounds are showing, here, and I'm of the opinion that it's far uglier that whatever supposed atrocities are being perpetuated against the citizenry by way of bad people with "legal" guns.
All cases by your argument, if followed through to their logical conclusion, would result in even MORE bloodshed, death and genocide, and historically, this is evident, and only a simpleton would argue otherwise.
>>The reality is that only a totalitarian state disarms its citizens.
Disarming the populace is what conquerers do to the conquered. It's not what free men do to each other, or themselves.
That's it, pure and simple. The people who wrote the Bill of Rights knew that and the people who wrote the Constitution of the United States knew the Bill of Rights. This is a matter deep in the history of our nations. This is where the profoundly repressive nature of much 20th century political thought meets the concept of liberty so central to our history. It's not just about me shooting clays or my neighbour killing rabbits.
To sum up James Kelly's ideology (feel free to correct me, if you're willing to explain):
He's worried about being killed by someone with no record. The sterotypical "next door neighbor". Someone just snapping suddenly when around the gun, which emits insanity rays. (I suspect he'd also object to comparisons with his belief there, and the Mullah's identical obsession with women's hair.)
But he's not at all concerned over being predated upon by career criminals.
He's only worried about "legal" guns. Those that, prior to the psychic break, were allowed and permitted.
The illegal ones don't worry him, and so their increase is of no concern. The massive increases in violent crime, likewise, doesn't bother him - just so his neighbors are made as defenseless as he's made himself, so they cannot possible harm him with a certain class of object.
In thinking about this thread, I got more curious about the exact numbers of murders and weapons involved. So I did a little more digging.
First, I started with the statistics Kevin used for those graphs, the aggregate numbers from the British Home Office. First, of all, the homicide numbers included murders, manslaughter (unintentional deaths) and infanticide. In this case, I'm only interested in the murders, where someone intended to kill someone and succeeded. Furthermore, it doesn't break down the deaths by firearm, so I had to go looking further.
A relatively basic site I found is NationMaster.com. It's really limited, in that it (apparently) only shows data from a single year, in this case 2002. It's apparently focused on comparing nations, not showing trends. In any event, it did give me something useful.
For 2002, there were 1,201 murders in the United Kingdom. That's not accidental killings, or abortion "substitutes"; that's people who were the victim of someone who intended to kill them.
NationMaster.com also provided statistics on how many of those murders were with a firearm: 14.
That means that in 2002, there were 1,187 murders committed WITHOUT a gun. That means that a lack of a gun did not stop 98.8% of the murders in 2002, thus proving my point:
"So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill."
I also tracked down the number of people killed in shooting sprees in the U.K. I actually found 4 "sprees":
- 1987, Monkseaton, 1 person killed (he fired at 15 people, which is why it's called a "spree")
- 1988, Hunderford, 17 people killed (including the shooter by suicide)
- 1996, Dunblane, 18 people killed (including the shooter by suicide)
- 2010, Cumbria, 13 people killed (including the shooter by suicide)
That means that the U.K. has had a total of 49 people killed in sprees over the 23 years, an average of 2.1 per year. Meanwhile, 1,201 people were deliberately murdered in 2002 alone, 1,987 of which were committed without the aid of a gun. If 2002's murders were an average, that means that there were more than 45,000 murders over the last 23 years committed without the aid of a gun, and which James Kelly is deliberately ignoring in this debate.
Which is more important? 45,000 murders? Or 49 murders?
Furthermore, he is making a huge deal over the fact that the spree killings used legally owned guns. Meanwhile, I would be willing to bet good money that most (if not all) of those 14 murders committed with a gun in 2002 were committed with guns which where already illegally owned.
This deserves more research. Does anyone know of a good source of data for annual murders (only) in the U.K. covering the last 23 (and preferably 50) years, including murders by firearm? It would be especially great if that data could break down firearm murders by guns owned legally vs. illegally.
"That means that in 2002, there were 1,187 murders committed WITHOUT a gun. That means that a lack of a gun did not stop 98.8% of the murders in 2002, thus proving my point:
"So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill." "
Er, what? It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying.
Er, what? It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying.
What, counting the dead that you're refusing to count?
They were killed, without "legal" guns. That was Ed's point. Your sneering dismissal is nonsensical.
They're dead. Not mostly dead, not pining for the fjords, not 1/2 dead, but dead.
They were killed, despite no "easily available guns."
Ed: "So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill." "
You: "It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying."
It pretty much, by definition, does.
This is going to be another one of your situations where you just ignore all the facts you don't like, and keep insisting that your demonstrably incorrect assertions is in fact, reality?
"It pretty much, by definition, does"
No it doesn't, and it should be blindingly obvious why. Have a look at my answer to Ed's question -
"So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can and do still find a way to kill. Agreed?"
- and then explain to me how Ed's statistics prove me wrong.
No it doesn't, and it should be blindingly obvious why.
Indulge me, then.
For I don't see what's so "obvious" about it.
"For I don't see what's so "obvious" about it."
Yes, I think we're getting to the nub of all this nonsense about how I don't argue honestly or ignore things, because it seems on many occasions you and a few others simply haven't understood the objections I've been making.
My reponse to Ed was that without a gun, people intent on murder would succeed in killing some of the time, but on fewer occasions than if they did have a gun. Therefore pointing to a batch of murders that occurred without the use of a gun neither proves nor disproves that point. You would have to somehow show that the numbers of murders is not lower than it would have been with more guns around.
As far as I'm concerned, James has ended the argument. There is no hope of convincing such a man. His is the most astoundingly pathetic evasion of the blindingly obvious since the debate about the meaning of "is." All that is left is to distance such men as much as possible from the levers of power and leave them to their delusions.
Yes, I think we're getting to the nub of all this nonsense about how I don't argue honestly or ignore things, because it seems on many occasions you and a few others simply haven't understood the objections I've been making.
Not really, because you tend to make a assertion, and when the facts don't back it up, or it contradicts your other assertions, you'll insist that they're both right.
When something is rebutted, even if you disagree, it's utterly dishonest to repeat what you said initially, especially if additional information has been introduced. Just like with DeVries, we know that he was not "innocent", he was not "merely knocking", and he presented a threat. You insist he was "innocent", and that the homeowner was a "cold blooded murderer" (as he cowered in his house against the attempt to gain entry). That last assertion is totally dishonest, and without basis.
The assertion that DeVries "posed no threat" is very disputable, especially since he'd already defeated one layer of protection (scaling a fence specifically meant to keep people from easily gaining access), and was - loudly - yelling, and beating on a door.
Now, if you want to rebut that situation, if you want to introduce a witness or information, but you don't.
You just insist that he was "shot down in cold blood". Which isn't possibly the case.
My reponse to Ed was that without a gun, people intent on murder would succeed in killing some of the time, but on fewer occasions than if they did have a gun.
But that's not the question he asked you.
Ed asked:
"So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can and do still find a way to kill. Agreed?"
Therefore pointing to a batch of murders that occurred without the use of a gun neither proves nor disproves that point.
James. If the point is "people can kill without a gun" and you're pointined to people killed without guns, that's exactly on point.
The problem here is you appear to not understand any sort of basics about following a point to a logical conclusion.
The question: "So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can and do still find a way to kill. Agreed?"
You said "No, you didn't agree."
Therefore pointing to a batch of murders that occurred without the use of a gun neither proves nor disproves that point.
I just had to repeat it, it's so boggling.
You would have to somehow show that the numbers of murders is not lower than it would have been with more guns around.
That wasn't the question.
Perhaps you should read before you dismiss us as not thinking.
I hate threaded comment systems....just sayin.
"people intent on murder would succeed in killing some of the time, but on fewer occasions than if they did have a gun."
"Without a gun, a person may or not succeed in killing - but it is substantially less likely that they will do."
Go look up the deadliest days in the history of warfare and tell me how substantially less likey it was for people to kill without guns.
Me: "That means that in 2002, there were 1,187 murders committed WITHOUT a gun. That means that a lack of a gun did not stop 98.8% of the murders in 2002, thus proving my point:
"So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill."
James Kelly: "Er, what? It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying."
Um… Yeah… You are free to believe whatever you like, but after this, you can't even pretend you're rational about it, not even to your friends.
::: backing away slowly and carefully :::
I not sure even Markadelphia has matched this.
DJ, how would you classify this one? It almost seems like #12 taken to a whole 'nuther ('nutter?) level.
"DJ, how would you classify this one? It almost seems like #12 taken to a whole 'nuther ('nutter?) level."
It is indeed another instance of Marxie's Standard Response #12, the "I'm a deliberate fuckwit!" response. It is a classic, textbook-perfect example.
"I not sure even Markadelphia has matched this."
He has, many times, but James uses better grammar and he proofreads before posting.
Keep it up, James. You're doing such good work for our side.
Now, if you want to rebut that situation, if you want to introduce a witness or information, but you don't.
I don't have to - all the information you've just given yourself (once we dispense with the rather desperate spin) confirms that he was guilty of nothing other than trespass, and that the idea he posed any conceivable threat is risible. He was a drunk, unarmed man looking for help in a slightly clumsy way, as drunk men are prone to do. They're not usually summarily executed for that minor sin.
The man who shot him in cold blood certainly 'posed a threat', though. I'd take it you'd concede there's plenty of proof for that.
As for your apparent failure to understand the elementary logical process I took you through over Ed's failure to prove what he claimed, I can only shrug my shoulders in despair. I genuinely have no idea of whether you're just pretending to misunderstand, or if the blinkers really are on that tight. Anyway, you asked the question, and I answered it, so there's not a lot more I can do.
Um… Yeah… You are free to believe whatever you like, but after this, you can't even pretend you're rational about it, not even to your friends.
I'll be generous here and assume you haven't read my explanation yet (although frankly it shouldn't have needed explaining).
Me: Now, if you want to rebut that situation, if you want to introduce a witness or information, but you don't.
I don't have to - all the information you've just given yourself (once we dispense with the rather desperate spin) confirms that he was guilty of nothing other than trespass,
Not so. And this has been - painfully - spelled out for you over a long period.
He was "guilty" (not really, since he wasn't arrested, charged and convicted) of very much more than that - but most importantly, while you minimize it as "nothing other", as you dismiss and minimize people being stomped - almost - to death as "nothing more than bumps and bruises" - it discredits your "logic" and your entire worldview once other people find out the true facts, and your spin on it.
But he was threatening to break into the home after circumventing a passive defensive system.
Compare this to your assertion above that "A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law", and what it means. The man had already defeated a passive defense system, and was actively attempting to penetrate the domicile.
and that the idea he posed any conceivable threat is risible.
According to you. Of course, you're also ignoring all the rest of the surrounding information, which in context quite obviously rebuts the hell out of that.
You don't know that, you weren't there. Granted, neither was I, but I'm not going to second guess someone scared of a drunk thug trying to break into the house.
He was a drunk, unarmed man looking for help in a slightly clumsy way, as drunk men are prone to do.
He was (according to witnesses, including the friend with him), loud, profane, beligerant, and was screaming and beating on the (glass) back door after scaling a 6 foot fence.
That's not a bemushed drunk. That's a hooligan. You know, like the ones we started out talking about at Rachel's, who KICKED AND STOMPED A MAN TO DEATH. As "drunk men are prone to do."
That's why I call you dishonest - when you find out that not only was he acting in a strange manner, but that he jumped a fence and was beating on the back door - that changes the situation dramatically. Quite interestingly, you keep minimizing the witness reports in favor of your own take on the situation.
They're not usually summarily executed for that minor sin.
The man who shot him in cold blood certainly 'posed a threat', though. I'd take it you'd concede there's plenty of proof for that.
Apparently you don't know the meaning of the concept of "in cold blood". Not surprising.
He shot him in fear for his life. That is the opposite of "in cold blood". And you have no idea what DeVries was planning, or doing.
As for your apparent failure to understand the elementary logical process I took you through over Ed's failure to prove what he claimed, I can only shrug my shoulders in despair.
Ed asked you: "If you do not have A, then you can still do B, right?"
You've then claimed that B is incorrect, and correct, and it's blindingly obvious, and *we* failed.
Really.
I genuinely have no idea of whether you're just pretending to misunderstand, or if the blinkers really are on that tight. Anyway, you asked the question, and I answered it, so there's not a lot more I can do.
I did. You "answered" it, that's for sure.
The fact that you contradicted yourself and can't notice it when pointed out ... Yeah.
Incidentally -
Ed asked you: "If you do not have A, then you can still do B, right?"
He used the word 'will' alongside 'can' (indeed he emphasised 'will'), and it was on that basis that I answered his question. As you must have seen that, I'm now tending towards the view that you're pretending not to have followed the logic.
I'll be generous here and assume you haven't read my explanation yet (although frankly it shouldn't have needed explaining).
Well, first, you'd have to actually decide which mutually exclusive explanation you're going with.
"Granted, neither was I, but I'm not going to second guess someone scared of a drunk thug trying to break into the house."
What? What? This is the man who's been wittering on about lack of evidence every time I open my mouth? Where is the slightest evidence he was trying to break into the house?
"And you have no idea what DeVries was planning, or doing. "
Have you ever heard of the phrase 'innocent until proven guilty'? Even on the balance of probability my 'theory' of what he was up to (ie. what anyone with an ounce of common sense can see he was up to) is about a hundred times more likely than yours. This all-purpose get-out clause of 'aha, but he jumped over a fence' is beginning to look rather pathetic.
Compare this to your assertion above that "A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law", and what it means.
I can promise you it doesn't mean taking a 'kill first, ask question later' approach just because a drunk man has jumped a fence and knocked on your back door.
What? What? This is the man who's been wittering on about lack of evidence every time I open my mouth? Where is the slightest evidence he was trying to break into the house?
It was in every news article and quote I linked you to the last go 'round.
Slightest? It's overwhelming. That's why he wasn't charged with any crime. The Grand Jury no-billed in *minutes*.
Have you ever heard of the phrase 'innocent until proven guilty'?
Amazingly enough, I have. And had he been arrested by a police officer, and charged, that's what happens.
But he was actively threatening people.
Even on the balance of probability my 'theory' of what he was up to (ie. what anyone with an ounce of common sense can see he was up to) is about a hundred times more likely than yours. This all-purpose get-out clause of 'aha, but he jumped over a fence' is beginning to look rather pathetic.
It was a 6. Foot. Tall. Fence. It was a "privacy" fence that's designed not to be easily circumvented.
Pathetic is that you're unable to concede that your example is a piss-poor one about the American Gun Culture, and far more damning about the Scottish Drunk Thug Culture.
I can promise you it doesn't mean taking a 'kill first, ask question later' approach just because a drunk man has jumped a fence and knocked on your back door.
In the middle of the night. While screaming profanities, and while an accomplice is at the front door. While he's *banging on a glass door*.
Even aside from all of that, being in the back yard, rather than being "pathetic" is rather context changing for most Americans.
Because even if he *was* quiet as a mouse, there was no legitimate unthreatening reason to be in the back yard.
Which is why your construct fails so badly. If he wanted help, the legitimate place to ask for it would be the front door.
There's no - none - reason to jump the fence and attack the back door.
None. That's not a mild drunk - that's a man who's a threat. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was crazy - there's evidence for that, too.
But the very fact he'd gone over a fence - and into the back yard raises the threat (and means he was doing more than "trespassing" at that point.) But that's a finer point of US/TX law.
That's incredibly damning, and that you concede that and then insist that he was "executed" is proof that you'll subjugate the Truth to your Fantasy.
It was in every news article and quote I linked you to the last go 'round.
No it wasn't. There may have been one or two people jumping to the same wild conclusion you've jumped to, but that's a different issue. In fact, it could rather aptly be described as 'subjugating the truth to a fantasy'.
There's no - none - reason to jump the fence and attack the back door.
So he quite simply MUST DIE? This is insane.
Incidentally - "attack" the back door? This is beginning to read like a deliberate send-up.
No it wasn't.
Yes, it was. And I'm willing to use the rest of this thread as the basis on comparative trustworthiness.
I linked you to the news articles that detailed the evidence and witnesses in front of the grand jury, including the people DeVries was drinking with - and then got paranoid about and jumped out of their moving car, and the drinking buddy who got out with him (after they stopped the car.)
There's no - none - reason to jump the fence and attack the back door.
So he quite simply MUST DIE? This is insane.
James, to be quite clear: Yes. Someone attempting to gain entry to my house in the middle of the night must die.
Or be wounded until they stop threatening me, my family, and my house.
Yes. Yes. Yes. That's why there was nothing filed against the homeowner.
Incidentally - "attack" the back door? This is beginning to read like a deliberate send-up.
James, I gave you the articles, news articles, and IIRC, witness reports previously. You ignored them then, apparently, and it's not my fault that having ignored it then, you want to dismiss it out of hand.
This is the situation and example you picked, and not only I, but many others - presuming you were honestly unaware of the situation - corrected that.
Or attempted to. We can only take your head to water. We can't make it drink.
James, to be quite clear: Yes. Someone attempting to gain entry to my house in the middle of the night must die.
For the umpteenth time, you have failed to prove that he was trying to enter the house, or indeed that it is even likely that is what he was trying to do.
James, I gave you the articles, news articles, and IIRC, witness reports previously. You ignored them then, apparently, and it's not my fault that having ignored it then, you want to dismiss it out of hand.
It was the slightly mad use of the word 'attack' in relation to an inanimate object that I was referring to.
Or attempted to. We can only take your head to water. We can't make it drink.
You've just summed up the 'trying to explain simple concepts to Unix-Jedi' experience rather succinctly.
For the umpteenth time, you have failed to prove that he was trying to enter the house, or indeed that it is even likely that is what he was trying to do.
I started to just quote this, and your last line, as it mostly stood by itself, but paused.
No.
That's not how the world works, James.
DeVries might have been trying to award Publisher's Clearing House. he might have been trying to donate a kidney.
But nobody knows what he meant to do. We can only go by what he did do. What the homeowner could know of him.
And that was a threat. Period.
If he was "merely a drunk looking for help", he wouldn't have jumped the fence.
There's no reason for that. None. Period. You can't make the case that it was a mistake on the case of the homeowner, once he's done something that raises his threat level.
James, I gave you the articles, news articles, and IIRC, witness reports previously. You ignored them then, apparently, and it's not my fault that having ignored it then, you want to dismiss it out of hand.
It was the slightly mad use of the word 'attack' in relation to an inanimate object that I was referring to.
It wasn't mad, it was a IIRC, direct quote from the homeowner and his wife during their testimony.
He was attempting to break it, to apparently, enter the house. It was the way to bet. Nothing he did fit the "innocent man looking for help". Not the time of night. Not the behavior (singing loudly in the street). Ringing doorbells, and then jumping a 6 foot fence and - even if he knocked politely on the back door, he'd have been looking at the inside of a rifle or shotgun or pistol barrel in every house *I* know of in America - because he was acting abnormally and threateningly.
But it's quite clear you cannot assess risk. You're scared of the infinitesimal, and unconcerned about the common.
DeVries was acting as a threat in multiple areas and in multiple ways - the fact that you claim his victim was the only threat is just further proof that "simple concepts" are something you don't understand, much less explain.
If he was "merely a drunk looking for help", he wouldn't have jumped the fence.
Well, that one's certainly right up there with your classics. No, people never do slightly silly things when they're drunk, do they?
No, people never do slightly silly things when they're drunk, do they?
Oh, people do wildly stupid things when they're drunk.
You're making my point for me.
So, again, according to your view - so I don't mistakenly ascribe views to you you don't hold - what would be "proportional self-defense"?
I must ascertain - via - blood sample? The Blood Alcohol level? Then I must... get to the same level? Then what?
Tell me, at what point can you presume - without knowing their intent! - that someone means you harm?
Please take into consideration that you consider it's at the point when someone owns a gun legally.
When they're - drunkenly - insanely - soberly waving a bat around or whatever the situation.
Based on your "simple concept" that (other than they own a gun) you have to know their 5 year background history, their blood alcohol level, their culture, their background....
Explain to me how that's ....
Nevermind.
Don't bother. Just stop lying about the situation.
Actually, it's more worthy to point out, because there is a massive gulf between the two systems.
"A proprotionate right to self-defence is enshrined in British law"
and
The man who shot him in cold blood certainly 'posed a threat', though. I'd take it you'd concede there's plenty of proof for that.
Sorry, I missed that concession. No, I'll argue that strenuously. He posed no threat to anyone not threatening him. He didn't leave his house, he didn't "look for trouble", he didn't attempt to harm anyone.
He defended his home, his family, and his self.
Which is perfectly legal, because based on what he knew at the time, he was under attack.
Let's go back to that "proportionate" concept.
Given that system, I must allow the criminal the first strike, and cannot escalate beyond what he has attacked me - not my child, not my wife, but *me*.
Even if I find him in my kitchen, and he tries to kill me with one of my kitchen knives, and I fight him - proportionately! and kill him - in my house, in my kitchen, in the UK I could be prosecuted for murder. Because I didn't let him stab me first.
That's part of the gulf between us, James. You want to look back with "perfect knowledge" - in cases where "legal guns" are used, and say "There was NO NEED FOR THAT", and come up with some radical workaround. But that's not the way the world works. You don't make decisions based on what you'll know later. You make it based on what you know NOW.
Except in your case, you discount what you know, substitute some false facts, and then claim it "elementary".
But that's the problem. I don't grant you I need to allow a criminal to hit me in the head with a piece of steel rebar, or a baseball bat BEFORE I know he's a threat. Him threatening me - with or without a weapon in hand is enough to justify and allow me to act in my own defense.
And I most certainly do not concede "proportionate" has any bearing on that, it's the stupidest concept yet thought up. The criminal certainly doesn't have to subscribe to that, in fact, that's a definition for criminals. They don't follow the law.
You trust them more than your neighbors.
Let's restate that.
You trust criminals more than people with a lifelong track record of being law abiding.
He posed no threat to anyone not threatening him.
So nobody died, then?
Nobody who wasn't a threat, no. Only the threat was stopped.
What was the threat? The gun? The only person with a gun was the man who shot him.
The threat was the man attempting to break into the house.
The one who was yelling, profanely, and who'd already broken past 1 level of defense, and who was smashing on a glass door while screaming, and while there was another person on the front door.
That's the threat.
He was attempting to break into the house, he was the aggressor.
James, holy hell, I always took those Scottish sterotypes of being thugs, and fighting on a drop of a hat as being overblown.
You really can't possibly see the problem, see the threat inherent in the situation, and insist that a man minding his own business until he was threatened was in actually, a threat, because he didn't .. what? allow DeVreies to break in? Kick him in the head?
At _what point_ would _even you_ agree DeVries crossed the line?
Er, at the point at which he did at least one or two of the dastardly things you claim he was planning to do, but almost certainly wasn't? In other words never, because he wasn't a threat - he was a drunk man looking for help.
I didn't say he planned to do it.
You quite simply can't read with comprehension, can you?
I gave you a hypothetical. What if - what if that was his plan?
I made that quite plain. And asked you at what point you'd agree he was a threat.
You didn't answer.
because he wasn't a threat - he was a drunk man looking for help.
So your way of asking for help is to break into a house and rape the women you find there?
Seriously? After all, that's what the homeowner was facing. A violent, deranged home invader.
At _What point_ would you agree DeVries crossed the line?
Me: I gave you a hypothetical.
Maybe that's the problem. You don't understand how to do that.
At least consciously, it's obvious you have no problem building your own reality and then describing how things should be. But in order to have a discussion about these things, you have to be able to build the scenario.
And you have to be able to know what real and what's hypothetical.
Again, this business of 'not arguing honestly' is ringing distinctly hollow, when I've just answered your question and you've basically defied the evidence of your own eyes by pretending I didn't. He would have hypothetically 'crossed the line' at the point at which he tried to break into the house. But away from hypotheticals and back in the real world, he was shot for jumping over a fence, knocking on a back door, and being a bit loud. Capital offence in Texas every time.
He would have hypothetically 'crossed the line' at the point at which he tried to break into the house. But away from hypotheticals and back in the real world, he was shot for jumping over a fence, knocking on a back door, and being a bit loud. Capital offence in Texas every time.
Yes, those bits you've put in bold do amplify the heartbreaking absurdity of what happened rather well. Should have done it myself.
PS. Have you taken to "liking" your own contributions? Must try that myself...
Yes, those bits you've put in bold do amplify the heartbreaking absurdity of what happened rather well.
I needed to say no more to win the argument.
Unix-Jedi: I gave you a hypothetical. What if - what if that was his plan?
I made that quite plain. And asked you at what point you'd agree he was a threat.
You didn't answer.
I think you missed it, he did answer:
James Kelly: "at the point at which he did at least one or two of the dastardly things you claim he was planning to do"
In other words, after he had already started wailing away on the homeowner, or his wife, or his kids.
This deserves only two words: Fuck and You.
Yes, those usually are the words from someone who has no argument left. Again, it's water off a duck's back, but the resort to abuse speaks volumes.
Of Course there's no argument left!
The idea that an aggressor should always get a first shot at their intended victim(s) before defense can begin is so intensely looney and irrational that it's obvious that no rational argument can answer it. You might as well try teaching a pig to sing, or explain cosmology to a screeching, poo-flinging baboon. The results would be the same.
In short, you are an absolute loon. You've consistently demonstrated absolute irrationality and a total inability to even grasp rational arguments, let alone understand them. You cannot argue a plant into sentience, and you cannot argue a "duck" into rationality.
Ed (after linking to murder statistics: "So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill."
James Kelly: "Er, what? It doesn't even begin to prove that. Keep trying."
or
James Kelly: "My reponse to Ed was that without a gun, people intent on murder would succeed in killing some of the time, but on fewer occasions than if they did have a gun."
Incidentally -
Ed asked you: "If you do not have A, then you can still do B, right?"
He used the word 'will' alongside 'can' (indeed he emphasised 'will'), and it was on that basis that I answered his question. As you must have seen that, I'm now tending towards the view that you're pretending not to have followed the logic.
Ed asked you: " "So even if a person doesn't have a gun available, they can (and DO) still find a way to kill."
They "can" and "do" find a way to kill. And you said they didn't, but they didn't, even though they did, just less than if...
Holy Hell. I need to go visit some ancestors of mine graves and thank them for getting OUT (and me) of Scotland.
Seconded.
I dare say. A slave cannot be truly content until the free men have gone. Comparison pricks the conscience, withered as it is.
A 'slave' being defined as someone without the right to health care? No wonder slavery is suiting me so well...
What will you do when you run out of other people's money and labor to pay for your health care, slave?
A 'slave' being defined as someone without the right to health care?
There is no definition over here for that.
Of course, now you're moving your goalposts all over other places, and getting into "natural rights" discussions. You'll do poorly there, as well.
But in no part of the US is your "right" to health care abridged or denied.
None.
He's dumber then Mark. Mark at least has the sense to pull his disappearing act when he's proven to be absolutely wrong.
So far he's asserted that the gun bans have lowered gun crime, when they haven't. He's asserted that the UK is safer, and once again the facts say the opposite. Well, that's imprecise. As long as you consider higher levels of rape, assault, and robbery to be acceptable as long as the murder rate remains below that of the US's, then the UK is still safer. Oh, and of course the MENSA chapter president is still insisting that it's really hard to kill people without guns, notwithstanding things like the Gallic Wars, the Nika Riots, the Mongol conquests, and the Crusades. Not to mention every single murder ever committed with a sword, knife, ax, club, halberd, spear, pike, dirk, tomahawk, melon baller, or spork.
I think basically he's holding that banning all remaining guns would lower gun crime. This despite the fact that gun crime has risen following every gun control act passed by Parliament. I bet when his canoe leaks he drills another hole to let the water out.
Honestly, I believe that firearms in the hands of private citizens is one of four main factors in the level of crime, the others being: the extensiveness of the dole, societal cohesion and morality, and the effectiveness of the police and prisons. If the UK would hire Gurkhas to patrol the streets, eliminate the dole for criminals, and throw every single murderer, rapist, and thug in jail for life at hard labor, they'd be as safe as Japan or Singapore, even with the strict gun control. The issue is that the UK has outlawed self defense, subsidized the criminal class with the dole, allowed massive amounts of immigration with no time or effort for assimilation, and completely given up on punishing the villains. You have followed the worst possible policy for dealing with crime.
So far he's asserted that the gun bans have lowered gun crime, when they haven't.
Er, no, I did not say that, and I suspect you know that perfectly well. Here is what I actually said -
No, it means fewer handguns, and less handgun crime, than would have been the case had the ban not been implemented. That is not the same thing - as has been repeatedly pointed out to Kevin - as saying the level of handgun crime has fallen in the UK since the late 1990s.
That's bullshit. The MPs promised the handgun ban would lower the amount of handgun deaths. Lower it, in real terms, not by some fairy tale unicorn James Kelly standard. They promised that if the thousands of law abiding handgun owners traded in their guns, then there would be fewer gun deaths. These people did not trade in their property, they did not sacrifice their freedom, for some imaginary "it would have been so much worse without the law" standard.
Look, you can believe what you want, but sitting there and insisting that "oh sure, more people died from guns after we banned them, but it would have been doubleplusungood without the ban" is not the result of reasoned argument. It's not the result of logical thinking. You just want it to be true, and so you believe, in the face of all evidence that it is. That's faith, not reason. At the end of the day, you believe common people having guns is a bad thing, not because you can prove that it leads to more crime or anything like that, but because it offends your delicate sensibilities.
I dont' know if dumber but definitely in the same ideological disconnect from reality. Unix-Jedi among others has exposed this quite clearly. When arguing against belief, using logic and facts means little. They can latch on to one small truth and build an entire belief system on it. Deconstruction means their belief system is under attack and it is very hard to look at it objectively when your entire political/societal being is defined and warped by it. That quote by Reagan continues to ring in my head:
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so."
"I'll be generous here and assume you haven't read my explanation"
I did read it. It showed that you've decided the data "doesn't even begin to prove" something DIFFERENT than what I ACTUALLY wrote.
"I need to go visit some ancestors of mine graves and thank them for getting OUT (and me) of Scotland."
Ditto.
Unix, give it up man. Facts mean nothing to this guy. Evidence means nothing. Logic means nothing. The evidence is here for anyone to see. You can drag a Kelly to logic, but you obviously can't make him think.
Kelly is either certifiable or:
Or I could be right, of course.
Something different to what you actually wrote? You wrote 'can and WILL' - it's there for all to see, there's no point trying to rewrite history now.
Can (capable of), will (may be expected to, are sure to), and do (have done so in the past, and continue to). Your deliberate refusal to correctly understand my point (especially when corrected on that "misunderstanding) is clearly not my fault.
"And always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you."
—Karl Popper
And I would add "because they refuse to understand you" to that quote. Baghdad Bob and the Loose Change guys have nothing on your brand of belligerent ignorance.
Kelly has latched onto one idea, and it's got little support.
"If you don't have gun crimes, people won't snap and go crazy and kill people."
What of the guns people need to have? For hunting? For the police? For any reason? Well, that starts to crack the idea a little there.
But that's easily ignored. "They don't need them!"
OK. But what of people using them to defend themselves?
That's a little harder to justify.
"If the attacker doesn't have a gun, likely all he can do is steal your material things, and maybe break some bones and give you sme bruises - they'll heal, and you can buy new things, and well, at the worst, rape, but c'mon now, is it really all that bad?"
Well, that's getting hard to explain to women, they tend to get all "het up" about rape, really. But still! Nobody's getting *killed with guns*.
"See? It's great!"
But what of the people killed WITHOUT GUNS?
"Uh, well, eventually, if we don't have any guns, and we give in to the thugs, then we'll convince them of the error of their ways...."
And, like all good progressive, leftist fantasies, it's always "magic" at the bottom.
At some point, it just gets surreal.
Some people are so enamored of the fantasy of someone NOT killing someone else because they don't happen to have a gun handy that they just can't give the idea up.
It's ludicrous. We're supposed to envision the enraged potential killer rumaging through his closet looking for a gun, flinging crow bars, machetes, kitchen knives, ropes, golf clubs and baseball bats over his shoulder only give up and watch TV instead of killing whoever the object of his rage might be.
And this, they would have us believe, is the sound basis for an oppressive public policy.
I too, am grateful to the foresight of my ancestors.
We're supposed to envision the enraged potential killer rumaging through his closet looking for a gun, flinging crow bars, machetes, kitchen knives, ropes, golf clubs and baseball bats over his shoulder only give up and watch TV instead of killing whoever the object of his rage might be.
What an intensely silly thing to envision. Try envisioning the potential victim of an attack having more time to react, get out the way, fight back, etc., and then you'll get a bit closer to understanding how strict gun control can save lives.
Again, the fantasy that criminals obey laws, and that unicorn dust will magically make guns go away, that 80 year olds have an even chance against strapping 20 year old thugs in hand to hand combat.
The belief that aggressors and predators will willingly place themselves at a disadvantage or equal footing to their intended prey indicates thunderous naivete/wishful/magical thinking.
I cannot magically wish away criminals, nor their tools, and so I instead envision dangerous victims who can stand on equal or superior terms to their attackers.
I denounce the foolish notion that placing oneself at disadvantage benefits either self or society.
Try envisioning the potential victim of an attack having more time to react, get out the way, fight back, etc., and then you'll get a bit closer to understanding how strict gun control can save lives.
Magic!
Even though the facts show the attacks and murders going up, it's such a BEAUTIFUL VISION that we can't let facts get in the way.
Because, those criminals would certainly have obeyed stricter gun laws!
And at least they're getting exercise stomping people to death!
Just a final thought on the tragic case of the innocent Scottish businessman who was shot by a Texan homeowner in 1994 after knocking on his door for help. From the Houston Chronicle report -
"I've always told my children that if there is trouble to get out of the house quickly and go to a neighbor's home and scream for help and bang on the door. I can't tell them to do that anymore. They might get shot," she said.
Pretty much says it all, doesn't it? That's the paranoid, fear-ridden, anti-social, atomised society your belief system has rendered inevitable. I'm off to thank my ancestors for only crossing the Irish Sea, rather than the Atlantic.
Well, if it's any consolation at all, we're thankful your ancestors only crossed the Irish Sea instead of the Atlantic too.
Just a final thought on the tragic case of the innocent Scottish businessman who was shot by a Texan homeowner in 1994 after knocking on his door for help.
I just bolded all the things that are either blatantly dishonest, or arguable.
As I've pointed out above, you've given DeVries the benefit of the doubt in every case, against the evidence.
You've slandered and insulted everyone else.
Even after it's been made crystal clear that your description is - at best -arguable, you've insisted that it's correct.
And blamed the gun - not DeVries, not alcohol (there's disputed testimony and evidence to if he was intoxicated), not the scottish Drunk Thug Culture - for all the events.
You're fine with a (possibly) drunk DeVries breaking in and killing the household, cause, hey! It's what drunks *do*!
But not him being repelled with force from the house he attempted to break into.
And you will go to extreme lengths to avoid characterizing the situation fairly.
It's the gun's fault, and the homeowner, awakened out of sleep, who fired at a screaming banshee trying to invade his house, a cold blooded murderer. If only we had no guns!
See, I'm good with shooting drunk, threatening thugs, and the very fact that you can't even MENTION that, that you above gave your "line" where DeVries stepped across, and ignored he'd done that, reinforces your base dishonesty that you're rational.
DeVries crossed that line, even according to you. That wasn't the gun's fault, and your pathetic attempts to smear a victim as the offender, to excuse a thug culture do far more to damage your own argument than anything I could.
All I had to do is provide for everyone the actual facts of the case, and allow you to distort them.
Pretty much says it all, doesn't it? That's the paranoid, fear-ridden, anti-social, atomised society your belief system has rendered inevitable.
Nope, it's a quote from someone the press was looking for. It's nonsense.
If you break into someone's house "trying to get help", if you purposely compromise security measures, and if you attempt to break in - from the view of somebody inside - it's not paranoid, fear ridden or anti-social for those inside to defend themselves.
What it says of your worldview that you can't admit that DeVries *wasn't* simply a "silly drunk" who was knocking on the door is far more revealing.
Nope, it's a quote from someone the press was looking for. It's nonsense.
Absolutely, only the 'correct' views can be tolerated.
I can't believe you've even tried to call into question the indisputbale fact that he was a businessman - if anyone has any doubt you're hellbet on distorting the very simple facts of this case, thatt should seal the deal.
"I can't believe you've even tried to call into question the indisputbale fact that he was a businessman"
So was Derrick Bird. What they did before they snapped is irrelevant.
I can't believe you've even tried to call into question the indisputbale fact that he was a businessman - if anyone has any doubt you're hellbet on distorting the very simple facts of this case, thatt should seal the deal.
What business was he there to transact, and do you often open your doors to loud, belligerent "businessmen" at 3:30 AM?
That's why I highlighted it.
It didn't matter what his profession was, it mattered what his actions at that time were.
DeVries' business involved kicking in doors while drunk?
Fascinating!
Alternatively:
That's the paranoid, fear-ridden, anti-social, atomised society your belief system has rendered inevitable.
If you exclude those areas with UK-style gun laws, looking at the other 99.5% of the US, is there paranoia, is it fear-ridden?
Where are the most "gun crimes"? The > .5 or the 99.5?
Where's the most anti-social behavior?
And you wonder why I'm very hesitant to follow your path into defrauded slavery. (Per the health care comments.)
Mr. (using the term advisedly) Kelly's philosophy can be summarized thus: "The world owes me the life I want."
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."
—Mark Twain
Wheras yours is - 'The world must accept the fear and peril I selfishly impose upon it.'
More words of "wisdom" from the belligerently ignorant.
And I must accept the irrational fear and flawed estimations of peril you impose upon me?
I think not.
'The world must accept the fear [of objects in daily use and ignoring substitutes] and peril [despite the fact that it's less perilous in our world] I selfishly [some projection and hypocrisy there] impose upon it.'
James:
You face no fear or peril from my "imposition", unless you threaten me or mine.
"'The world must accept the fear and peril I selfishly impose upon it.'"
Hey Judy-boy, grow a pair and then you wouldn't be so afraid, and besides, I don't give a rat's ass about what YOU are afraid of, as I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER IT, as it appears you don't either.
Please, go off yourself.
What is it like, James, to be entirely at the mercy of the world? You have a case of external locus of control worthy of one of Dalrymple's cases out of Life at the Bottom. You dress it up in fancier words, but there it lies like a three-day-dead fish, stinking and shining, nevertheless.
Oh no, not anti-social!!!! Anything but that!! Why is it that whenever I hear "anti-social" I hear the faint faint echo of "heretic" and "Jew" and "counterrevolutionary" just underneath it?
Oh, and remember this folks: wanting to take guns away from everyone based on the fact that a very small minority of people use them for evil is not paranoid, and not the result of an irrational fear of inanimate objects.
Oh, and remember this folks: wanting to take guns away from everyone based on the fact that a very small minority of people use them for evil is not paranoid, and not the result of an irrational fear of inanimate objects.
Well, to be fair, it doesn't have to be based on that. It could, instead, be opportunism and base lust for power over others. But then, even base power lust can be driven by fear, so there you are.
This thread proves once again that the lack of critical thinking and logic implicit in Mr. Kelley's posts implies that the ONLY way to limit the damage these folks can do (as a previous poster said) is to limit the say they have in how things are run. Holy crap... the best thing we can do to help the U.S. is to figure out how to disenfranchise a large portion of the population? (or fix education - talk about an Augean stable...)
He certainly seems determined to keep that stable as full as possible.
Thanks, Ed. I wouldn't have seen this without your link.
And I can present you with one very big story that demonstrates my point eloquently - nothing less than the national story of your own country. The most meritocratic country in the world, and yet with some of the most shocking and disgraceful inequalities in the western democratic world. You're right, nothing can literally guarantee equality of outcome, but that doesn't mean it's not an ideal we shouldn't be striving to get as close to as practicably possible (especially when it comes to something as important as public safety) - equality of opportunity simply doesn't do the trick, and never has done.
The most meritocratic country in the world, and yet with some of the most shocking and disgraceful inequalities in the western democratic world.
(Nevermind it's less than Scotland's.)
Inequalities?
You're right, nothing can literally guarantee equality of outcome, but that doesn't mean it's not an ideal we shouldn't be striving to get as close to as practicably possible (especially when it comes to something as important as public safety) - equality of opportunity simply doesn't do the trick
James.
I can present you with one very big story that demonstrates my point eloquently - nothing less than the national story of your own country.
You understand nothing of the story of our country. Nothing. The national story you point to - incorrectly - is just as skewed as your take on an "innocent businessman gunned down in cold blood".
Possibly more, actually.
Thank you, though, for that does explain much towards your views.
They're not based in reality, they're based in wishful fantasy, in which human nature - the human nature and foibles that the entire idea of our Constitution, our "story" is based upon - is remade in the "perfect" image.
By force [if needed].
So, if Marxaphasia is Brave Sir Robin, does that make James Kelly the Black Knight?
Well, he doesn't even acknowledge flesh wounds.
I started to say "no", but on reflection, perhaps it's a tossup.
Item: The Black Knight insists upon Equality of Opportunity
"None shall pass"
"Then you shall die"
Like Kelly: No.
Item: The Black Knight insists upon Equality of Outcome
"None shall pass"
"Then you shall die"
Like Kelly: Yes.
Item: The Black Knight is unable to admit to weaknesses or failures, minimizing the damage to his rhetorical argument
"Tis merely a flesh wound!"
Like Kelly: Somewhat. He'll sometimes make a concession, then withdraw it or it's impact on his argument.
Item: the Black Knight refuses to admit defeat or even concede a draw.
"Come back here, I'll gnaw your legs off!"
Like Kelly: Yes.
Item: The Black Knight is skilled in his form of conflict
We see him defeating a knight, and Arthur gives him praise after wounding him.
Like Kelly: No.
Item: The Black Knight has an unwavering belief system
Like Kelly: Yes.
Item: The Black Knight has a sword and the willingness to use it.
Like Kelly: No. *
* - But there is plenty of evidence that such people actually do posses means for their *own* defense, and we have no way of knowing that Kelly isn't in that exact Rowan/Feinstein/Boxer/Moore mold
I think the comparison fits because if his absolute refusal to admit facts which defeat his claims, even when they're dead obvious and not even a little vague. (98.8% of murders committed without a gun "doesn't even begin to prove" that murders are committed without guns.) His worldview is laying there bleeding to death with no arms and legs, yet he's still claiming victory.
"Item: The Black Knight is skilled in his form of conflict"
"Item: The Black Knight has a sword and the willingness to use it."
In this medium, some of the weapons available are rhetoric and evidence. As you said before, he's unlike Marxy in that he actually proofreads what he writes. He also uses (and misuses) some (cherry picked) evidence. So initially, he seems skilled. (The opponent we first see him battling turns out to be straw man.) But when combat begins, we discover that even though he's swinging the sword of rhetoric with both hands, an opponent with actual skill needs only one hand to deflect his blows, because they're actually devastatingly weak.
I have a question for everyone - the US, the UK, and everywhere else - who insists that only the police and army should be permitted to carry weapons.
My question is...."What the fuck makes the cops and soldiers so damn special?" Why do you feel so safe about them being armed, but nobody else?
Oh, because they've undergone weapons training and supposedly therefore know how to use weapons responsibly, morally, without inflicting collateral damage?
News flash: SO HAVE A LOT OF ORDINARY FUCKING PEOPLE! Have you ever heard of concealed-weapons training, hunter safety courses....?
Morons.
To pretend, for even one second, that we Texans care nothing for the value of human life is absurd at best. I can easily guess that Mr. Kelly has never been to Texas. It is not that we (or anyone else here in the states) do not care for our fellow man, it is that we care for the well-being of ourselves and our loved ones first and foremost.
Should one ever find themselves in my neighborhood, I can guarantee that the sheer number of firearms therein would boggle the imagination of some. However, the likelihood of being injured, threatened, or killed here is nil. Should one of my neighbors need something, they would have no problems coming to my front door at a reasonable hour.
Anything else is viewed with immediate suspicion and would be responded to in an effective manner.
It seems to me that Mr. Kelly is merely perpetuating a stereotype of Texas that many across the pond seem to hold.
I give my personal invitation to him to come visit my area. I think he would be simply astonished as to the quality of life and people he would find stateside.
However, it would seem that he is not interested in truth, facts, or anything that would disprove his narrow world view. Thus I will not hold my breath.
Oh come on, can't you all see that Mr. Kelly just wants a perfect system where everyone is safe and no one has to be good, because no one can be bad? Clearly, the less of a career criminal you are, the less you need to be presumed innocent, ergo you must be treated worse than a career criminal beforehand.
When Mr. Kelly accurately states “Innocent until proven guilty” but avoids mention this is a legal construct that the prosecution assumes in the pursuit of a fair trial, he frees himself to boldly declare that the home owner was “a cold blooded killer”. Otherwise, both would have to be tried in court and that is a long and expensive to the tax payer to figure out who is who. Why bother with such minutiae when one merely needs to ask the right questions!
My goodness, and don’t you dare say that the doublethink is quite strong with this one! It is the nuance of an emasculated EU Subject that confuses those who are bitterly clinging to guns.
Prostrate before your betters and the almighty voting bloc, let someone else do the thinking, and you all will be much happier! Why, those that have done so are the very picture of well adjusted and clear thinking groupthinkers that will heal this world!
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