LordFluffy t1_iu5lu69 wrote
Reply to comment by Head-Ad4690 in Sources: At least 6 people shot outside funeral in Pittsburgh’s Brighton Heights neighborhood by Bustalacklusta
> I said a lot fewer people die when other weapons are used, and your response was, “Really?” Followed by examples attempting to refute my statement.
You stated an absolute that should have been a conditional. I backed my refutation with examples. If you'd bothered to read all the words, you'd have seen this too:
> In some times, in some places, I'd even say more frequently, you're correct.
> If your point isn’t that other weapons are just as effective as guns, then what is your point exactly?
That guns don't cause crime any more than matches cause housefires. What causes it are people deciding they're going to go kill some other people. They then avail themselves of whatever means they have at their disposal that are likely to do the job. If they don't have any one particular means, they have options, and will likely adapt their approach to accommodate for any deficiencies.
The hope is that if we ban this one way to hurt people or even severely limit access to it, stories like this one will be sad history, not daily events. I think that's naive; a LOT has to change before that becomes true and there are no, and I do mean no, quick solutions. I think it would be best that we look at things from a holistic perspective and address the more essential causes of violence.
Otherwise, what you have is a bet: The number of lives saved by limited access to guns will outnumber the lives that would be saved by defensive uses that are hindered by the same restrictions.
I just have never thought that was a good bet.
Need any clarification?
Head-Ad4690 t1_iu5o847 wrote
Yeah: what about my statement needs to be conditional?
Are you just looking for an “on average” or “usually” tacked on, or what?
LordFluffy t1_iu5ovhu wrote
"Usually" or "most often" seems accurate. Even "the majority of the time".
Head-Ad4690 t1_iu5p4nd wrote
My statement was general and such things aren’t expected to apply to every single instance. Without any qualifiers, it can be and is intended to be read as applying to the aggregate. You just misinterpreted it in the one way that would make it wrong, then went on a rant against that misinterpretation. Congrats.
LordFluffy t1_iu5qe2j wrote
> Congrats
Did you limber up before you made that stretch?
Head-Ad4690 t1_iu5qja7 wrote
You managed to interpret my general statement as something like “every single imaginable instance of mass murder would be less deadly with another weapon than with a gun” when that is clearly not what it said, and somehow I’m the one stretching?
LordFluffy t1_iu5qqbg wrote
I can only read what you wrote.
I've also had this conversation enough to know that when people make such statements it's less implied "most often" and more implied "in so many that any others are statistically insignificant".
Head-Ad4690 t1_iu5r1hs wrote
And what’s wrong with that, exactly? The gun will be more deadly the vast majority of the time.
LordFluffy t1_iu5rajp wrote
> The gun will be more deadly the vast majority of the time.
"Vast" I think is an overstatement.
And again, this is centering the conversation on one means of violence in the US which I think is myopic.
Head-Ad4690 t1_iu5rg0i wrote
Well, I don’t think it’s an overstatement. Again, the people to whom it matters most, the mass-murdering fuckheads, nearly always choose a gun when they can.
LordFluffy t1_iu5rqff wrote
> Again, the people to whom it matters most, the mass-murdering fuckheads, nearly always choose a gun when they can.
Mass murder is horrific. It is also the least of the violence in the US.
I think if you put the effort in to helping victims of abuse relocate and become financially independant, just for example, you'd save far more lives than if you melted all the guns in the US to scrap, much less any actually feasible gun control measure.
Head-Ad4690 t1_iu5rwtq wrote
Nice deflection.
LordFluffy t1_iu5sia1 wrote
No, kind of my whole damn point.
The goal is to save lives, yes? On this we can agree, I hope.
The effort to implement restrictive gun control I think has cost the left more political capitol than it's been worth. I think it's helped the right and also given some very terrible people a symbol (along with the mythologizing of certain weapons).
Furthermore, I didn't pick domestic abuse haphazardly. There's a big correlation between abuse and mass murder. Even in the narrow window of violence we're talking about, I think you'd see better results trying to undercut motive rather than restrict means.
I'm not deflecting. I'm just not putting on blinders to the larger issues at hand.
Head-Ad4690 t1_iu5t15b wrote
If that was your whole damned point then you would have led with that. Instead, you talked about individual instances of knife and vehicle violence as if that somehow proved something.
Here are two statements I hope we can both agree on although I won’t be surprised if you find some way to argue:
- Guns are, in general, a far superior tool of mass murder than knives or other easily accessible weapons.
- Mass murder is not the top priority if your goal is to save lives by whatever means you can.
LordFluffy t1_iu5td9y wrote
> Instead, you talked about individual instances of knife and vehicle violence as if that somehow proved something.
Because I was responding to particular statements you made.
> Here are two statements I hope we can both agree on although I won’t be surprised if you find some way to argue
I think any objection I'd have would be nitpicking.
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