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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday November 09 2017, @01:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the anthropogenic-population-change dept.

We have a recent report by the US government that climate change is almost certainly caused by humans. However, we don't have the same rigor in gun death statistics; instead policy debate can rely only on FBI crime statistics which aren't directly comparable year-over-year due to changing measurement methodology (see "Caution to users").

This is because the NRA put pressure on the CDC through a Republican Congress to halt this research, under the logic that it promotes the cause of gun control.

But how likely is it that this is intentional, to use the US Second Amendment as an ongoing lightning rod for public attention (in a "bread and circuses" sense) while political business continues as usual on the back end (e.g. Paradise Papers)? Obama and a Democratic congress had the opportunity to restart this, which would presumably be just as "common sense" as the actual reforms they have been promoting on this issue, since whoever was actually supported by the facts would presumably have a motivation to set the program back in motion to improve support for their proposals.


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  • (Score: 2) by number11 on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:17AM (6 children)

    by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:17AM (#594418)

    Suppose those gun owners don't agree to give up their guns despite what the media says.

    It's not whether the media says that, it's whether the law says that. Let's say it does. (I dunno if that will happen or not, or whether it would be good or not, but that's irrelevant). People who violate laws are criminals. What do you do when criminals flaunt their violation of the law?

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by jmorris on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:00AM (1 child)

    by jmorris (4844) on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:00AM (#594444)

    What do you do when criminals flaunt their violation of the law?

    Depends on who the criminal is. In the case of Hillary Clinton, people came together tonight to "scream helplessly at the sky" because we didn't make her President as a reward for breaking just about every law we have and every moral principle backing those laws.

    Or if you are a stoner you have enough unofficial power to get states to ignore Federal Law and have the media praise this situation... while screaming in rage at other States having the hate to attempt enforcing Federal immigration laws.

    Short version, some laws are more real than other laws, some people are more subject to laws than other people.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:53PM (#594655)

      I thought the Rs were in favor of state rights?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 09 2017, @11:52AM (3 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday November 09 2017, @11:52AM (#594569) Homepage Journal

    A more relevant question: What do you do when you just made a third of your population into armed criminals?

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by number11 on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:19PM (2 children)

      by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:19PM (#594711)

      What do you do when you just made a third of your population into armed criminals?

      In practice, nobody is going to ban all firearms, so the details matter. It's not likely to be anywhere near a third. If they just banned 30-round magazines, we'd just have to listen to a lot of whinging on the part of people who can't hit their deer in less than 30 shots.

      If the criminals are drug users (I'd bet that 1/3 of the population either is, or has, used illegal drugs, especially if we count alcohol that's not used in a legal manner), we arrest them and lock them up. Expensive, but the cops and the prison industry make out like bandits.

      Of course, most drug users aren't armed. Cops tend to react very vigorously when faced with an armed perp. Especially if the perp shoots at them. It would be messy, and criminals do get hurt sometimes. That seems to be ok with our society in other contexts.

      • (Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:16PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:16PM (#594836) Homepage Journal

        In practice, nobody is going to ban all firearms, so the details matter. It's not likely to be anywhere near a third.

        Yeah, I'm thinking that's part of why the gun-phobes are trying the death by inches approach. They know there's nowhere near enough police to disarm a third of the population.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday November 10 2017, @04:00AM

        by Mykl (1112) on Friday November 10 2017, @04:00AM (#595020)

        This.

        We're all very keen on pointing out the gun crackdown in Australia following Port Arthur, and based on some of the conversations around this you'd think it's illegal to own guns in Australia.

        That's not the case. There are certain kinds of guns that are not allowed, and the process to obtain a gun license is more difficult than before. But most farmers still have rifles, there are still individuals with handguns etc.

        I've found it fascinating how quickly the gun industry rolled over on bump-stocks, yet they oppose equally reasonable measures (background checks on purchases at gun fairs etc). Perhaps when bump-stocks are banned and the English fail to invade, the US might think about looking at other measures?