The Big Gun Control Thread

LarryC wrote:
Robear wrote:

But, an armed society is a polite society. Isn't that the basis of American social systems?

Heinlein isn't exactly wrong.

Not exactly, but as with virtually all libertarian principles, it requires that everyone be a white, able-bodied cis male landowner or someone who is able to walk on their hind legs and impersonate one sufficiently well.

Actually, Larry, your firearms laws are significantly more restrictive than ours... Possibly you're referring to knives, sticks, that sort of thing?

Yes. Also, laws are made to be enforced on the weak by the strong. Their application is so woefully unequal that it's not uncommon for rich people to just buy licenses even through their servants and also maintain a small armory and army. Or just not have licenses and bribe judges when you're caught. Not recommended for foreigners. Of course, many people just pack knives or makeshift guns instead.

LarryC wrote:
Robear wrote:

But, an armed society is a polite society. Isn't that the basis of American social systems?

Heinlein isn't exactly wrong. Gun-toting people in the US simply haven't matured enough in a fully armed system to really be that polite. That is, most Americans don't think that having an argument has their own death at the end of it. I live in an armed society. We are "polite," but that "politeness" has a lots of costs and inefficiencies that go along with it.

One of those is the famed "Asian" reluctance to argue or contest a superior. Korean Airlines had to make a specific policy to counter the phenomenon. We take pains not to contradict or argue because our upbringing raises us to think that the other end of a serious disagreement is drawn weapons and people getting killed. I, of course, am atypical in this fashion; but this is only because I've been raised differently. I see the benefits of being able to disagree without people getting killed one way or the other.

You don't want a "polite" society in which people submerge concerns and grievances just because they don't want any trouble. It's extremely, extremely bad, backwards, and primitive.

I am pretty sure I addressed this on page 139:

If there was ever a more inaccurate pablum than "an armed society is a polite society" I am not aware of it. A polite society is a society socialized with common manners. An armed society is simply an armed society.

More to the point, the kind of armed society that these open carry nutbags are advocating is one in which deadly violence and the threat of same is an acceptable part of social discourse and where the individual use of deadly force is a form of communication. I can think of very few things as impolite myself.

This and most civilized societies have managed to make themselves safer, freer, and more open by making such force expressions abnormal, aberrant, and horrifically exceptional. We are able to have spirited disagreements largely because we don't have to be afraid that some butt-hurt dumbass will pull a gun because his world view has been shattered by facts. Normalizing this kind of force is a guaranteed step backward in every imaginable way.

Keep in mind, I am a gun enthusiast. I own several including many folks would call "evil black assault guns". I keep them because I enjoy shooting, feel that they give me a connection to history, and believe in an individual right to self defense.

That said, this business about normalizing the expression of deadly force is, to my thinking, deeply corrosive to civil society.

I know, Paleocon. I just clarified that you do get something that superficially resembles politeness, given enough time. That is what Heinlein might be referring to and pining for. It is useful to point out that even though this politeness may be mimicked by a society founded on lethal force, it is not a trade-off anyone should want.

I am actually living in a society where lethal force is part of the social discourse. It is quite bad.

LarryC wrote:

I know, Paleocon. I just clarified that you do get something that superficially resembles politeness, given enough time. That is what Heinlein might be referring to and pining for. It is useful to point out that even though this politeness may be mimicked by a society founded on lethal force, it is not a trade-off anyone should want.

Precisely.

You get what amounts to superficial politeness in the American South where the whole ass-backward "honor culture" often results in folks shooting one another over arguments about high school football team records and comparisons of pickup trucks, but the fact of the matter is that this sort of dressing up the pig is deeply corrosive to civil society and historically results in the stifling of moral and intellectual progress. it is also hard to imagine anything quite as impolite as the implicit or explicit threat of violence over getting butt hurt.

The 11 nations book comes to mind, yet again...

I am actually living in a society where lethal force is part of the social discourse. It is quite bad.

I gotta say, LarryC, your overall stance is one of the most interesting things I've ever seen you say... both that Heinlein was right, and that it's a terrible outcome.

Politeness from self-discipline and politeness from fear are entirely different things, and he apparently conflated the two. I've always more or less believed he was right, and still do... but realizing that it was only part of the equation is quite the eye-opener.

Grocery shopping this afternoon in a Harris Teeter grocery store. Suburban, primarily white, middle class Charlotte. Passed a woman in jeans and a tshirt with her 5 or 6 year old son, pistol on her right hip with 2 clips on her left.

That was a first in the 16 years I've lived here.

I think I sighed a little too loud, because the look I got was just plain evil.

JC wrote:

Grocery shopping this afternoon in a Harris Teeter grocery store. Suburban, primarily white, middle class Charlotte. Passed a woman in jeans and a tshirt with her 5 or 6 year old son, pistol on her right hip with 2 clips on her left.

That was a first in the 16 years I've lived here.

I think I sighed a little too loud, because the look I got was just plain evil.

I just cannot fathom how these people view the world. I seriously can't. The reality is that guns have become a political symbol - a GOP jersey, practically - rather than an actual weapon to some people. In their mind, though, it's impossible to say if they really believe that their trip to the grocery store is so dangerous that they need a gun, or if they think they're sticking it to liberals by wearing their jersey and rooting for their team.

I can, however, fathom double posts.

Bloo Driver wrote:

I just cannot fathom how these people view the world. I seriously can't.

It's built in.

The basic idea, which keeps turning up in study after study, is that people who view the world negatively - are more fearful of potential threats, react more strongly to disgusting things, distrust others as a base approach, and dislike change (favoring familiarity, simplicity and constancy) - are more likely to be conservative politically. Those whose basic outlook is trusting, optimistic, tolerant of unpleasant stimuli and open to new ideas tend to be politically liberal (in the US model of both terms). These are both posited as being part of a mix of social types that gave strong evolutionary advantages during the Pleistocene.

And it's unlikely that we'll see people change their beliefs significantly through simple persuasion. What this does tell us, though, is that when these groups work *together* to define policies, we do very well. When they don't, everyone suffers.

Oh, I understand that. I was just noting that it frustrates me because I can't tell the difference between those who legitimately worry for their safety and those who just want to wave their little political totems.

Bloo Driver wrote:

Oh, I understand that. I was just noting that it frustrates me because I can't tell the difference between those who legitimately worry for their safety and those who just want to wave their little political totems.

538[/url]]
But the odds [of someone keeping a gun at home] vary significantly based on the political identity of the child’s parents. If they identify as Democratic voters, the chances are only about one in four, or 25 percent, that they have a gun in their home. But the chances are more than twice that, almost 60 percent, if they are Republicans.

Whether someone owns a gun is a more powerful predictor of a person’s political party than her gender, whether she identifies as gay or lesbian, whether she is Hispanic, whether she lives in the South or a number of other demographic characteristics.

It will come as no surprise to those with a passing interest in American politics that Republicans are more likely to own guns than Democrats. But the differences have become much more stark in recent years, with gun ownership having become one of the clearest examples of the partisan polarization in the country over the last two decades.

JC wrote:

Grocery shopping this afternoon in a Harris Teeter grocery store. Suburban, primarily white, middle class Charlotte. Passed a woman in jeans and a tshirt with her 5 or 6 year old son, pistol on her right hip with 2 clips on her left.

That was a first in the 16 years I've lived here.

I think I sighed a little too loud, because the look I got was just plain evil.

Well, there is an alternate approach.

Philosopher guy wrote:

The question ... is how we bystanders should react when people come into a store with guns.

My proposal is as follows: we should all leave. Immediately. Leave the food on the table in the restaurant. Leave the groceries in the cart, in the aisle... Just leave, unceremoniously, and fast.

But here is the key part: don’t pay. It doesn’t matter if you ate the meal. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just received food from the deli counter that can’t be resold. It doesn’t matter if you just got a haircut. Leave. If the business loses money, so be it. They can make the activists pay.

EDIT: Links hurr durr... internet durr

That would be my response. I can't tell the difference between some yahoo with a need to clank brass balls, and some yahoo with a need to blow someone's balls off. I'm out of there, muy pronto.

Robear wrote:

That would be my response. I can't tell the difference between some yahoo with a need to clank brass balls, and some yahoo with a need to blow someone's balls off. I'm out of there, muy pronto.

So much of the time, the whole open carry and stand your ground business as a political statement just strikes me as white men throwing temper tantrums.

Paleocon wrote:
Robear wrote:

That would be my response. I can't tell the difference between some yahoo with a need to clank brass balls, and some yahoo with a need to blow someone's balls off. I'm out of there, muy pronto.

So much of the time, the whole open carry and stand your ground business as a political statement just strikes me as white men throwing temper tantrums.

Well, isn't it?

Here in the South I'd say it's 50% guys wanting to feel powerful and 50% who actually think they've got to have them to defend their families from all the criminals and government that are just waiting to pounce on them for one reason or another.

Arizona man decides he's going to "educate" the public about open carry by bringing a loaded AR-15 to the airport and pointing it at people.

And here we have the outright stupidity of the entire movement.

TPM[/url]]"I am a peaceful political activist, and my purpose in walking around the airport with my AR-15 rifle was entirely political in nature," he said in a news conference outside his attorney's office. "Put simply, I decided to make the point that a peaceful citizen can openly and responsibly carry a firearm, including an AR-15, for the protection of themselves and their community."

"I wanted to help educate the public and the employees at the airport about this point by allowing them to see a peaceful person responsibly carrying an AR-15 while doing things that people normally do there, like waiting for someone, drinking a cup of coffee," he added.

Carrying a firearm into the airport is not in itself illegal. Steinmetz was arrested on suspicion of two counts of disorderly conduct after a woman and her daughter reported fearing for their safety when the firearm pointed at them.

No sane person is ever going to feel comfortable being around armed strangers. Doubly so when they're out in public doing mundane things that aren't remotely dangerous and certainly don't require being armed.

Seriously. Just who in the world was Steinmetz protecting himself and his community from while he was in Sky Harbor Airport? The police? TSA? Terrorists? Other people carrying firearms?

I'm surprised no one starting yelling "Gun!" and pulled the fire alarm.

Steinmetz was arrested on suspicion of two counts of disorderly conduct after a woman and her daughter reported fearing for their safety when the firearm pointed at them.

Ummm... isn't that assault of some kind? (with a deadly weapon?)

I think for assault you have to show that he *intended* to threaten them. Sweeping them with a loaded weapon was probably accidental.

Robear wrote:

I think for assault you have to show that he *intended* to threaten them. Sweeping them with a loaded weapon was probably accidental.

Except quite deliberate as his own words suggest.

Demosthenes wrote:
Robear wrote:

I think for assault you have to show that he *intended* to threaten them. Sweeping them with a loaded weapon was probably accidental.

Except quite deliberate as his own words suggest.

No, his own words suggest that he in no way intended to point his weapon at anything. His own words say that he intended to show the public a responsible gun handler exercising proper handling, which does not include pointing your gun at people you don't intend to kill.

Now he may have accidentally pointed the gun at someone, or even purposefully done so and his words are lying about what his intentions were, but his own words do not suggest a deliberate attempt to assault anyone.

I'm not trying to defend him, I think he's an idiot. But everytime someone attacks a scarecrow of a gun nut another gun nut gets his wings. And by wings I mean "assault" rifle.

The report I saw said that in the process of walking around, he bought some coffee, so he had a cup in one hand. As he later stood in a passenger waiting area, he shifted the weapon, causing the muzzle to sweep across some bystanders, and they complained.

Sounds accidental to me. Stupid, but accidental.

Peter Nathan Steinmetz, 54, was carrying the AR-15 rifle July 25 inside Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport's busy Terminal 4 and bought a cup of coffee before stopping in front of some passenger gates, a court document says.

Steinmetz removed the rifle from his shoulder, causing the muzzle to face a mother and her 17-year-old daughter, authorities said. They told police they feared for their lives.

Now he may have accidentally pointed the gun at someone, or even purposefully done so and his words are lying about what his intentions were, but his own words do not suggest a deliberate attempt to assault anyone.

And this is my point. The deliberate act of pointing the gun at someone is assault, isn't it? It's not a matter of threatening them, it's pointing a weapon at someone.

And really, the whole, well I was moving it and holding it and it accidentally pointed at someone. You'd still be prosecuted if you accidentally shot someone while pulling a stunt like that, so why wouldn't you still be prosecuted for pointing a loaded weapon at someone, even if accidentally?

Demosthenes wrote:

And really, the whole, well I was moving it and holding it and it accidentally pointed at someone. You'd still be prosecuted if you accidentally shot someone while pulling a stunt like that, so why wouldn't you still be prosecuted for pointing a loaded weapon at someone, even if accidentally?

Because the outcomes of either of those actions aren't the same?

Negligent, but probably not deliberate.

Demos, think about the gradation of various offenses. Is killing someone *always* prosecuted as premeditated murder with special circumstances? No. It can premeditated, spur of the moment, unintentional, accidental, and so forth. It's the same thing with assault.

Your stance could also be applied to, say, accidentally clocking someone in the head with your elbow in a crowded subway car. Under your rules, that would be felony assault, same as beating someone up.

There has to be some acknowledgement that unintended behavior is not the same as deliberate behavior. I think the guy was a complete asshole, but I find it hard to believe that he was *deliberately* pointing his weapon at someone, especially since all the evidence he was just shifting the rifle around and probably didn't even think about what that motion would do to the barrel, or that someone might feel threatened by it.