welsh
Junkmaster
Warning, this is going to be a damn long post-
I would prefer if this didn't become an argument where facts are thrown out as being twisted or used to support favored arguments or an argument where it comes down to fundamental principles as to what each person thinks is common sense matched with insults.
However, those are valid matters of opinion as well. More importantly, however, I think we need to keep the personal attacks or insults out. At least on this issue as emotions often get the better of logic on the issue of guns.
Megatron- I will disagree with you somewhat on the use of facts. Yes both sides use facts that support each other, and each side funds studies which they want to support their side. This is the lawyer trick of bombarding a jury with competing studies and experts that contradict each other- the battle of the experts. But there are plenty of people who are willing to do the research because it's an interesting question. In the end, these studies are measured by the quality of their research- how good where the methods. That's how they get judged, and why Lott's work is not as well respected as it should be or why Kleck's work is admired but being reconsidered.
The question is one of values- how much do we value greater social safety vs that of personal safety. This is why the issue of Defensive Use is so important. Do we have greater social safety with guns than not? If so than we resolve the issue of individual safety and social safety by having guns.
Of course there are risks having a gun. Yes, you might use the gun to stop the possible burglar from killing you and raping your wife. You may use the gun to stop a gangbanger. But it's also possible the gun may kill you or may be misused- simply because it creates the power to kill. The gun might be used by your spouse when she catches you banging the neighbor. You might use the gun against your neighbor because your dispute with him, perhaps on where the property line runs or because he says your dog shits on his yard, that you shoot him or he shoots you. The gun itself doesn't cause the damage, it's the person and people are emotional and not always rational. The gun does have give the holder the potential to kill. Most owners of guns keep them under control and locked down, but not everyone is as rational or mature as the next fellow. And of course we can't decide ad hoc who deserves a gun and who doesn't
LEt me add something about police protection. It's true that with the time to respond, policemen will probably not get to your home in time to stop the burglar from killing you and escaping. The police are not everywhere so that they can prevent random street violence, rapes, murders etc. However, police protection does deter crime. The more cops you have, the better your police protection, the more certainty of justice, the more deterrence value, and the less likely you are to crime.
Take for instance New York. I once had a chat with a homicide detective from Brooklyn. This was the unit that first responded to a homicide and had the case for a few days until it got turned over to the local precinct. He said that usually if they are going to catch the perpetrator, they nail him within the first 48 hours. But the percentage of perpetrators they catch and bring to trial (not convict) was only around (he figured) 48%. In other words, if you killed someone in Brooklyn, chances were (barely) you would get away with it.
Now compare that to what we know about crime rates. Most of the murders happening in the US are occurring in urban poor areas, often high minority areas. It used to be that murders usually happened by people you were acquainted with. No more. But why should these crimes happen in poor areas? If crime is committed for monetary reward, shouldn't the criminals go to the richer neighborhoods? One reason why that might not happen is because in the more wealthy neighborhoods, people can pay for more police protection, and in some cases more private security.
There has been a rise in private security in the US. It is considered to be one of the growth industries. Private neighborhoods with gates, guards etc. Factories and plants that higher security to stop vandalism is part of that. Protected neighborhoods is another. Of course that protection is privately paid for and thus tailored to the particular neighborhood. But then government provided police forces are often paid for by local taxes. Poor neighborhoods have worse police protection because they pay fewer taxes. Less cops means less deterrence of crime and thus crime rates go up.
The interesting thing, at least for me, is that this has a long history behind it and the reason why Europe is fairly disarmed is not because of the goal of lowering death rates to violence, but rather for the control of the state over it's citizenry. The payoff for much of Europe is higher levels of public safety. But why that exists at all, how it happened, is interesting.
Historically one finds that Europe has had a strikingly change in the way the state controlled the private access to violence. I have been reading Charles Tilly's Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990-1992 which is basically about how the national states of Europe were made and why they developed differently. One fines a similiar study on the regulation of violence and the development of stable political orders in Robert Bates' Prosperity and Violence.
I am offering this to develop this argument a bit more and hope you all with consider this-
On page 69-70 Tilly writes,
"Over most of European History, ordinary men have commonly had lethal weapons at their disposal; within any partiuclar state, furthermore, local and regional powerholders have ordinarily had control of concentrated means of force that could, if combined, match or even overwhelm the state. For a long time, nobles in many parts of Europe had a legal right to wage war.... People outside the state have often profited handsomely from tehir private deployment of violent means.
Since the seventeenth century, nevertheless, rulers have managed to shift the balance decisively against both individual citizens and rival powerholders with their own states. They have made it criminal, unpopular, and impractical for most of their citizens to bear arms, have outlawed private armies, and have made it seem normal for armed agents of the state to confront unarmed civilians. By clinging to civilian possession of fire arms, the United States now sets itself apart from all other Western Countries, and plays the price in rates of death by gunshot hundreds of times higher than its European counterparts: in the proliferation of private weaponry, the United States resembles Lebanon and Afghanistan more than Great Britain and the Netherlands."
Remember, this book was written in 1992 when crime rates were much higher in large parts of the US than they are now.
He continues, "Disarmament of the civil population took place in many small steps: general seizures of weapons at the ends or rebellions, prohibition of duels, controls over the production of weapons, introduction of licensing for private arms, restriction on public displays of armed force. " Tilly then goes on about talking how the Tudors, Louis XIII subdued local strong men by destroying fortresses and regulating their right to bare arms and thereby decrease the odds of serious future rebellions.
"At the same time, the state’s expansion of its own armed force began to overshadow the weaponry available to any of its domestic rivals" Until the state reached what Max Weber defined as the state "A state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory).
"Exactly how civilian disarmament proceeded depended on its social setting: in urban regions, the installation of routine policing and the negotiation of agreements between municipal and national authorities played a major part, while in regions dominated by great landlords the disbanding of private armies and the elimination of ... castles and the interdiction of vendettas alternated between co-option and civil war..... The disarmament of civilians enormously increased the ration of coercive means in state hands to those at the disposal of domestic rival or opponents....: It became almost impossible for a dissident faction to seize power of the state without collaboration of some segments of the state's own armed forces. "
Interestingly, this control also centralized power in other state administration agencies- treasuries, conscription, supply , taxes, etc.
SO why the Europeans got the low rates of gun related deaths is not due to some social contract device for greater social peace, but rather over the long history of the state gaining control over its population to suppress resistance.
Much of this happened over the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe, where you see a decline in such past times as dueling. In the US we had a president that had survived a number of duels and had the scars to prove it (Jackson) and guns were necessary as the country expanded West. However, in the states you have this contest over what the social contract should allow- the right of individuals to bear arms vs. the promotion of public safety. In Europe, that issue was resolved by the state’s willingness to seize the private access to violence to perpetuate it’s own power.
I would prefer if this didn't become an argument where facts are thrown out as being twisted or used to support favored arguments or an argument where it comes down to fundamental principles as to what each person thinks is common sense matched with insults.
However, those are valid matters of opinion as well. More importantly, however, I think we need to keep the personal attacks or insults out. At least on this issue as emotions often get the better of logic on the issue of guns.
Megatron- I will disagree with you somewhat on the use of facts. Yes both sides use facts that support each other, and each side funds studies which they want to support their side. This is the lawyer trick of bombarding a jury with competing studies and experts that contradict each other- the battle of the experts. But there are plenty of people who are willing to do the research because it's an interesting question. In the end, these studies are measured by the quality of their research- how good where the methods. That's how they get judged, and why Lott's work is not as well respected as it should be or why Kleck's work is admired but being reconsidered.
The question is one of values- how much do we value greater social safety vs that of personal safety. This is why the issue of Defensive Use is so important. Do we have greater social safety with guns than not? If so than we resolve the issue of individual safety and social safety by having guns.
Of course there are risks having a gun. Yes, you might use the gun to stop the possible burglar from killing you and raping your wife. You may use the gun to stop a gangbanger. But it's also possible the gun may kill you or may be misused- simply because it creates the power to kill. The gun might be used by your spouse when she catches you banging the neighbor. You might use the gun against your neighbor because your dispute with him, perhaps on where the property line runs or because he says your dog shits on his yard, that you shoot him or he shoots you. The gun itself doesn't cause the damage, it's the person and people are emotional and not always rational. The gun does have give the holder the potential to kill. Most owners of guns keep them under control and locked down, but not everyone is as rational or mature as the next fellow. And of course we can't decide ad hoc who deserves a gun and who doesn't
LEt me add something about police protection. It's true that with the time to respond, policemen will probably not get to your home in time to stop the burglar from killing you and escaping. The police are not everywhere so that they can prevent random street violence, rapes, murders etc. However, police protection does deter crime. The more cops you have, the better your police protection, the more certainty of justice, the more deterrence value, and the less likely you are to crime.
Take for instance New York. I once had a chat with a homicide detective from Brooklyn. This was the unit that first responded to a homicide and had the case for a few days until it got turned over to the local precinct. He said that usually if they are going to catch the perpetrator, they nail him within the first 48 hours. But the percentage of perpetrators they catch and bring to trial (not convict) was only around (he figured) 48%. In other words, if you killed someone in Brooklyn, chances were (barely) you would get away with it.
Now compare that to what we know about crime rates. Most of the murders happening in the US are occurring in urban poor areas, often high minority areas. It used to be that murders usually happened by people you were acquainted with. No more. But why should these crimes happen in poor areas? If crime is committed for monetary reward, shouldn't the criminals go to the richer neighborhoods? One reason why that might not happen is because in the more wealthy neighborhoods, people can pay for more police protection, and in some cases more private security.
There has been a rise in private security in the US. It is considered to be one of the growth industries. Private neighborhoods with gates, guards etc. Factories and plants that higher security to stop vandalism is part of that. Protected neighborhoods is another. Of course that protection is privately paid for and thus tailored to the particular neighborhood. But then government provided police forces are often paid for by local taxes. Poor neighborhoods have worse police protection because they pay fewer taxes. Less cops means less deterrence of crime and thus crime rates go up.
The interesting thing, at least for me, is that this has a long history behind it and the reason why Europe is fairly disarmed is not because of the goal of lowering death rates to violence, but rather for the control of the state over it's citizenry. The payoff for much of Europe is higher levels of public safety. But why that exists at all, how it happened, is interesting.
Historically one finds that Europe has had a strikingly change in the way the state controlled the private access to violence. I have been reading Charles Tilly's Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990-1992 which is basically about how the national states of Europe were made and why they developed differently. One fines a similiar study on the regulation of violence and the development of stable political orders in Robert Bates' Prosperity and Violence.
I am offering this to develop this argument a bit more and hope you all with consider this-
On page 69-70 Tilly writes,
"Over most of European History, ordinary men have commonly had lethal weapons at their disposal; within any partiuclar state, furthermore, local and regional powerholders have ordinarily had control of concentrated means of force that could, if combined, match or even overwhelm the state. For a long time, nobles in many parts of Europe had a legal right to wage war.... People outside the state have often profited handsomely from tehir private deployment of violent means.
Since the seventeenth century, nevertheless, rulers have managed to shift the balance decisively against both individual citizens and rival powerholders with their own states. They have made it criminal, unpopular, and impractical for most of their citizens to bear arms, have outlawed private armies, and have made it seem normal for armed agents of the state to confront unarmed civilians. By clinging to civilian possession of fire arms, the United States now sets itself apart from all other Western Countries, and plays the price in rates of death by gunshot hundreds of times higher than its European counterparts: in the proliferation of private weaponry, the United States resembles Lebanon and Afghanistan more than Great Britain and the Netherlands."
Remember, this book was written in 1992 when crime rates were much higher in large parts of the US than they are now.
He continues, "Disarmament of the civil population took place in many small steps: general seizures of weapons at the ends or rebellions, prohibition of duels, controls over the production of weapons, introduction of licensing for private arms, restriction on public displays of armed force. " Tilly then goes on about talking how the Tudors, Louis XIII subdued local strong men by destroying fortresses and regulating their right to bare arms and thereby decrease the odds of serious future rebellions.
"At the same time, the state’s expansion of its own armed force began to overshadow the weaponry available to any of its domestic rivals" Until the state reached what Max Weber defined as the state "A state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory).
"Exactly how civilian disarmament proceeded depended on its social setting: in urban regions, the installation of routine policing and the negotiation of agreements between municipal and national authorities played a major part, while in regions dominated by great landlords the disbanding of private armies and the elimination of ... castles and the interdiction of vendettas alternated between co-option and civil war..... The disarmament of civilians enormously increased the ration of coercive means in state hands to those at the disposal of domestic rival or opponents....: It became almost impossible for a dissident faction to seize power of the state without collaboration of some segments of the state's own armed forces. "
Interestingly, this control also centralized power in other state administration agencies- treasuries, conscription, supply , taxes, etc.
SO why the Europeans got the low rates of gun related deaths is not due to some social contract device for greater social peace, but rather over the long history of the state gaining control over its population to suppress resistance.
Much of this happened over the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe, where you see a decline in such past times as dueling. In the US we had a president that had survived a number of duels and had the scars to prove it (Jackson) and guns were necessary as the country expanded West. However, in the states you have this contest over what the social contract should allow- the right of individuals to bear arms vs. the promotion of public safety. In Europe, that issue was resolved by the state’s willingness to seize the private access to violence to perpetuate it’s own power.
.
The part about the burglar having more rights is something that can only happen in America, I mean was the judge like totally wasted when he pronounced the verdict? Am I supposed to greet the burglar with open arms, perhaps a cup of coffee? Sheesh that is just idiotic. Anybody who is trying to steal from me is going to get a baseball bat in the head! 
