imported post
I don't trust our government -- or any government -- with the power of life and death.
There are plenty of people who deserve to be dead, but it's not wise to give government the task of carrying that out.
And, no, the deterrent factor of the death penalty is neither worthwhile nor particularly useful.
BTW, aureol seems to feel that our "freedoms" cause "thousands" of murders, "directly".
After he instructed me to watch Bowling for Columbine, I finally knew which murders he was referring to.
He is not referring to our unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral overseas adventures. This is little surprise, since his government likes to help out with our little jaunts.
He is referring to our high murder rate here in the U.S.
Well, it shouldn't surprise us that, as a 17-year-old, aureol lacks some basic understanding, such as a basic understanding of logical fallacy, and a basic understanding of how to read a film.
Where to begin?
I had, until very recently, a Bowling for Columbine poster on my wall. This may shock some folks here, others perhaps not so much. I liked the film because of its conclusions, which were conclusions I felt I shared, despite a difference in perspective and bias between myself and Mr. Moore.
Bowling for Columbine, despite following Moore's propensity to ridicule those he disagrees with (in this case WalMart and several gun owners), he was quite notably either unable or unwilling to make gun control the thesis of his film.
Quite contrarily, after spending quite some time ridiculing gun owners, the NRA, and WalMart, he proceeds to Canada, where he points out that they have a roughly proportionally similar number of gun owners per households as the U.S. does.
Now, Mr. Moore could have proceeded to give countless examples of Canadian gun control which is stronger than what he have, or how Canadians have fewer handgun. Did he do this things? Did he make the thesis of the film "American freedoms lead to gun ownership which directly causes thousands of murders?"
No, that was not the thesis of his film. Mr. Moore studiously avoided the correlation-implies-causation fallacy, and instead proceeded to develop an involved and meaningful theory for the cause of violence in America.
Where any gun control advocate could have recited the Canadian laws chapter and verse, Mr. Moore was content to point out that Canadians have lots of guns, and not lots of murder.
He then proceeded to, in a fashion, articulate his belief that it is America's fear-mongering media that are ultimately responsible.
How, here is where Mr. Moore and I diverge. He seems to suspect that, were Americans not subject to this influence, we would stop sleeping with .44s under our pillows of our own accord. He seems to suspect that fear causes gun ownership, a notion I reject outright as a generally unafraid individual.
I'm not sure I agree. I'm also not inclined to view .44s under the pillow as a problem, or even a symptom of anything specific or even negative.
However, I do agree with his fundamental premise: it's not guns that cause gun violence, but a variety of factors. And one of those factors quite likely is a media which focuses on gun violence constantly without any mitigating influence. People receive little gun safety or otherwise positive gun instruction, and they receive endless negative gun instruction from fear-mongering politicians, violent TV and antisocial music.
Now, I'm not about to blame the products of free speech either. I'm the first to argue that art is a reflection of the society which spawns it.
But its clear that the issue is much more complication that merely "guns = directly cause murder".
Even the admittedly anti-gun Michael Moore can admit this, yet it's quite an advanced notion for our British guest.
Which brings me to my next point:
Correlation does not imply causation
Aureol, you're going to have to make your argument stronger than, "guns are legal, and lots of people are killed by guns, therefore the legality of guns causes thousands of murders". You're relying on a purely correlative relationship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence
Random example: Zimbabwe has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, yet you'd be hard pressed to blame it on guns or gun laws, since the majority of homicides are committed without guns (although guns play their part).
In fact, many an observer look at Zimbabwe, and end up
recognizing the basic human right to self-defense and to possess arms for that purpose as a result.
The Ukraine has virtually no firearms homicides (4%), but one of the highest homicide rates in the world (nearly twice that of the US). Also, it has strict gun control.
I'd point out that the UK has had low gun violence since before their gun control efforts from the 60s onward and their final ban in '96 or whenever. In fact, gun violence has
increased since the ban. While it's still much lower than the US, this shows the lack of direct causality in the correlative relationship between gun violence and gun control.
No, clearly it's not the guns, clearly it's something more complex.
Now, aureol, time for a truncated history lesson:
Once upon a time in America, a man could buy
this from
a Sears catalog, and have it delivered to his door.
There wasn't a problem with this, until some moralists passed the 18th amendment, which prohibited alcohol nationwide. Bootleggers rushed to fill the void (nature abhors a vacuum, don't you know), and before you know it you had gunfights in the streets with police where the criminals were armed with that very gun.
Shortly thereafter, we had our first major national gun control law, which represented the first point that an American could no longer buy a submachinegun from Sears.
Think about that for a minute. Clearly the gun didn't cause anything. It was just sitting there on the Sears page, not changing one way or the other. One day it wasn't a problem, the next it was. But it can't be the gun that caused that, or else it would have been a problem from day 1. Clearly, then, prohibition is the causal factor. This is supported by the drop in crime rates that occurred after prohibition was repealed with the ratification of the 21st amendment.
The problem was, crime didn't drop all the way back to normal. You see, all those bootleggers had formed highly profitable gangs, and you now had them engaging in protection rackets (in big cities where gun ownership is uncommon, I'll point out -- but
never outside the big cities filled with immigrants who had yet to value (or were prohibited) their right to bear arms).
Elsewhere, those gangs turned to drug running. (They also tried gambling, but legal corporations destroyed the gangsters when gambling became legalized in Vegas). Today, that is still the prime
raison d'etre for gangs in America.
Young urban youth are attracted, not because they get a gun and its allure compels them to a life of violence and death, but because of the money drugs offer. The guns follow the money, as a means to protect it in the absence of any objective court of justice for drug dealers.
BTW, aureol, remember, I lived in the UK. I can tell you right off the bat one of the big differences from here to there that leads to a huge difference in gun violence.
In the UK, prohibition is a joke (don't get me wrong -- I approve. I'd approve further if you all repealed US-pushed drug prohibition). I witnessed this firsthand: drug dealers are NOT hassled until they turn to specific violence. Occasionally they are shaken down and their product is stolen by the police, but they are rarely incarcerated as a result unless they engage in gang violence.
Thus, unlike in America, those drug dealers are actually positively incentivized to avoid violence as much as possible.
Furthermore, with gun ownership so low and even the beat police disarmed, there's nobody to shoot it out with.
However, that doesn't mean you can just outlaw guns in America and solve all our problems. You magically get rid of all guns, and the gangs won't have guns (although how you could achieve this impossible result has never been shown). However, you still have a gang problem, and you still have drug dealers incentivized towards violence by the system (which, remember, is not the case in the UK). They'll merely turn to beating and stabbing each other, like they do in countries where only the most successful criminals can afford guns.
Correspondingly, that also doesn't mean we couldn't have a peaceful society
with guns, since guns aren't the causal factor. In fact, it suggests that, even if we don't care about guns but we do care about gang violence, we should focus elsewhere since the guns are irrelevant, not being a casual factor.
Now, where ought we to focus? I have some ideas. End prohibition. Encourage lawful self-defense amongst poor minority communities who feel forced to defend themselves, if at all, using extra-legal means. Free the lower rungs economy from government parasitism to enable the poor to afford school and opportunity.
There's lots of things that will help. Gun control isn't one of them.
