Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    You're comparing a few dozen deaths over decades in several different countries from terrorists using a car to tens of thousands of deaths every year from firearms in one country where legislation is extremely lax. No one addressed it because it's not comparable, I'm not going to list all the reasons why it's more practical to shoot someone than to ram them with a car... The numbers speak for themselves, no matter how much you want to rationalize them.
     
  2. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    Let me start with saying that that post inspired me to immediately donate again to SBAF - as soon as the idiots from Frontier Communication manage to fix my internet connection. It should be a
    I was born in Europe and nothing pisses me off more that any hint of European moral superiority.
    Europe has many things that are envy of the world but the lessons about reason and morality coming from the continent that twice almost annihilated itself in either idiotic (WWI) or racist (WW2) wars, which Europe survived largely if not only because of American help.....please f**k off and mind your own business.
    Or make an effort to understand the US Constitution and political reality.g it from Sta

    Typing it from Starbucks. Their espresso is not half as good as European, but they compensate with their politics
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2019
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Legislation won't help much. Almost 90% of guns used in crimes were not obtained through retail sources. They were obtained on the black market, "the street", through a family, friend, or fellow inmate, stolen, etc.

    We can pass federal legislation prohibiting obtaining guns through any secondary means (where it will apply to states where such laws don't already exist), but there is the problem of enforcement, that is controlling behavior.

    Note that interstate transfers between individuals must go through a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) within the recipient’s State of residence. But gang-bangers or persons conspiring to go postal are not bound by these laws. Evidently, the consequences of breaking such laws (fines and jail) don't seem to be an effective deterrent.

    When I was in college, I gave a handgun (I legally purchased it) to a friend. That was a long time ago, so I don't know if it was legal or not to just give the gun away to another person just like that. My memory is fuzzy on it. My first handgun was a revolver. I may have trespassed into somebody's house and "found it" when I was a kid.
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2019
  4. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Disliked... but attempting to answer it is going to take us down the same old shit hole, and I'm not in the mood to make, or be, work for the mods.
     
  5. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    I know someone who has got a BiB with a Fostex Fe206 e. Have not heard it myself but people like the razor sharp pinpoint imaging, bass is naturally limited in extension yet goes deeper than expected.

    I guess you are familiar with this or something akin:

    https://speakerprojects.wordpress.com/cabinet-types/bib-loudspeakers/bib-calculator/
     
  6. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Making it illegal to sell guns anonymously and requiring thorough background checks/psychological tests for all firearm related sales, whether used, new, at gun shows, pawn shops or online would be a step in the right direction. Legislation won't magically stop people getting guns illegally but it may curb sales to people who aren't all there mentally or have violent tendencies.
     
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Federal background check requirements are already in place for retail sales. That includes gun shows, pawnshop, and online sales. It's a misperception that I can go to a gun show or pawnshop, buy a gun, and not have to undergo a Federal NICS lookup. These background checks have no doubt this has already decreased firearm-related homicides.

    What DSM 5 diagnoses would you recommend that would warrant disqualification or additional inquiry from the FBI? FWIW, France requires a medical cert for their category B and C weapons. There are no guidelines there for physicians to disqualify (see the first sentence, developing criteria is so impossible that even France doesn't do it.) The cert does not need to be from a shrink unless one has been treated in a mental institution. BTW, a cat B license allows me to use a weapon with a 20-round magazine. That's 10 more bullets than I am allowed in California.

    Restrictive French gun controls did not stop the Bataclan incident. The bad guys I presume got their guns from the black market. Lone wolf attacks are impossible to stop with any kind of legislation. These people are nuts and will be able to find a way no matter what. As for gang-bangers, they don't get their guns from Walmart, gun shows, or the local pawnshop... unless they are young and being initiated, and have a clean record, and just happen to have a wad of cash (guns and ammo are expensive).

    For Chicago and other inner-cities struggling with gun violence, maybe we can devise a racist preventative measure: Make it so that black or brown people from poor neighborhoods need to be at least 55 years old in addition to coming out clean from the NICS to even possess a gun. Violation of this law would be the death penalty. Cameras with technology to record faces and identify guns still be installed at every corner of the bad neighborhoods to facilitate enforcement.

    It's possible that through legislation, the loophole for person-to-person intrastate transfers will be eliminated in the remaining ~35 rural and southern states that don't have this. I doubt this will decrease gun homicides because there's no evidence of effectiveness in reducing firearm homicides in the ~15 or so states that have implemented such a law to control private gun transfers.
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2019
  8. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Bataclan weapons came into France through organized terrorist cells, broken down into dozens of parts smuggled in separately. They weren't purchased on some underground French black market. A lot of planning went into getting them in undetected, which is why incidents like these are extremely rare, unlike in the US where it's a common occurrence.

    Federal background checks don't happen for every type of gun sales. Making them mandatory even when selling used guns would help big time, for starters. It's not like nothing can be done. Only 11 states require universal background checks.

    Private parties are not legally required by federal law to: ask for identification, complete any forms, or keep any sales records, as long as the sale does not cross state lines and does not fall under purview of the National Firearms Act. This holds true in Arizona and allows you to buy guns without a background check, anonymously, at gun shows and online.

    As for no evidence in those ~15 states, their deaths by firearms rate is at a minimum 3 times lower than the country's average. That's plenty enough proof where I'm standing.
     
  9. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    That's a false association. We need to look at changes before and after the laws were implemented to determine their effectiveness. Some states simply tend to be more violent than others. Again, legislation on restricting private sales won't prevent black market sales.

    Even if we look at the firearms murder rate alone (rather than changes pre and post law), your assertion does not hold up. The following states with such laws tend to have higher than average firearms murder rates (2016):

    California
    Delaware
    Maryland
    DC
    Florida (partial - implemented at the county level)
    Illinois
    Michigan
    New Jersey
    North Carolina
    Pennsylvania​

    If anything, there might be a slight inverse correlation, LOL!

    The states with these laws that have lower than average rates are in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest. They would still have had low firearm murder rates without the laws in place. The Northeast is debatably the most civilized part of the country.
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2019
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Uh no. Schengen Area countries, open borders. Very easy to get guns in. Fewer firearm murders in France (and USA states in NE and NW) mainly because it's cultural. This may change in the future because of ISIL, radicals, shitty suburbs, lack of opportunities, lots of AK47s. They like AK47s over there. We like AR-15 variants.

    As far as "black market". OK, I am wrong. The terrorists in France got them from friends, family, and fellow criminals. The existing French laws didn't work to prevent this. Criminals don't obey laws.
     
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  11. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Now you're being disingenuous, the majority of those states are in the bottom half in terms of gun deaths rates. Inverse correlation is far from being the case, even if the false association you attribute above (I haven't seen anything showing its false yet however) is true.
     
  12. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Uh, no, those gun parts came from ex Yugoslavian countries, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia which are not part of Schengen. You can blame "culture" if you wish but the fact is that less guns around = less deaths linked to firearms.

    And again, the terrorists in France smuggled those guns in from outside, they didn't get them from friends, family or fellow criminals because terrorists don't associate with criminals. They stay under the radar.
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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  14. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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  15. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    That's actually not necessarily true. HI, ID, MO, WV, and WY have very high rates of gun ownership but low gun murder rates. Every other person has a gun in Hawaii. But it's chill there and Asians and Polynesians just aren't into gun violence.

    But rather than talking anecdotes, lots of guns = lots of gun violence is another misconception. The numbers simply don't support this. Here is a graph that illustrates this.

    [​IMG]

    The raw absolute numbers were taken from the FBI. The per capita numbers were derived from 2010 Census data extrapolated to 2016. I don't think the onus is on me to prove the numbers right. If they were wrong or bogus, likely a Wikipedia contributor would have caught it.
     
  17. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Minor nitpick: it'd be nice if part of this conversation was about the dearth of state and federal statistics on firearm deaths and firearm use. Both sides cherry pick due to the lack of long term time series data. Also, even if wikipedia cites the primary source, it's best to sidestep wikipedia and go directly to the primary source. Full disclosure, I work for a federal statistical agency, and I've worked with folks that came from the bureau of justice statistics. The extent to which the federal code limits their ability to collect and report relevant data is almost sickening.
     
  18. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    High rate of gun ownership doesn't correlate to "more guns" though.

    Your numbers aren't bogus, they just don't really correlate to anything. Some states in your list have high gun death rates, other have low ones, most except for DC are average at best. Again those numbers aren't looking at the big picture - the southern states where gun control laws are most lax clearly have the highest gun deaths, and also the highest gun ownership rates coincidentally. Per the Wikipedia table:

    Top 25 in gun deaths per 100k:
    Florida
    Alabama
    District of Columbia
    Louisiana
    Missouri
    South Carolina
    Delaware
    Alaska
    Maryland
    Georgia
    Tennessee
    Mississippi
    Pennsylvania
    Michigan
    Nevada
    Oklahoma
    Arkansas
    North Carolina
    Illinois
    Virginia
    Texas
    California
    Indiana
    Kentucky
    Kansas

    Top 25 in terms of gun ownership:
    Alaska
    Arkansas
    Idaho
    West Virginia
    Wyoming
    Montana
    New Mexico
    Alabama
    North Dakota
    Hawaii
    Louisiana
    South Carolina
    Mississippi
    Kentucky
    Tennessee
    Nevada
    Minnesota
    Texas
    South Dakota
    Wisconsin
    Colorado
    Indiana
    Iowa
    Florida
    Arizona

    That's 12 states that are on both list out of 25:

    Alaska
    Arkansas
    Alabama
    Louisiana
    South Carolina
    Mississippi
    Kentucky
    Tennessee
    Nevada
    Texas
    Indiana
    Florida

    Want to guess which 12 states in the US have the most lax gun control laws?
     
  19. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's those 12 states, and also the following (which are low in gun rate deaths, below 2.9 per 100k) that have lax gun laws.
    1. MT
    2. ID
    3. SD
    4. VT
    5. WY
    6. ND
    7. UT
    8. ME
    9. IA
    10. NE
    11. AZ
    12. WI
    Lax gun laws = higher gun death rate is another misconception. The data just isn't there to support this.

    https://fortune.com/2018/03/20/gun-laws-gun-crimes-state-gun-regulations/

    upload_2019-8-26_16-51-44.png
     
  20. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Correlation isn't causation: https://www.gunsandammo.com/editorial/best-states-for-gun-owners-2018/327233

    But it's something.
     

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