Feb 1, 2023·edited Feb 1, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
I have this argument with my parents when we discuss guns. I'm a pro-gun guy, and they are very much not. The problem is you're arguing logic vs. emotion, and from an emotional sense, numerous small, invisible issues (that wind up being a far bigger deal, like the suicide epidemic) are negated by the MSM screaming, "53 KIDS DIE IN MASS SHOOTING. AR-15 GUNS DOWN INNOCENT LIVES." I use a bit of hyperbole there, but not that much...
I think there is also a classist element to this as well, especially amongst the very rich and the very poor. Among the poor, especially those of color, owning and carrying a gun is a risk due to the widespread view that police target minorities and carrying a gun, even if legal, may cause issues. Thus, the only ones that are willing to risk it are those who are most likely to need it, someone who is going to quite possibly get in a gunfight, like a gang banger. This is a strictly anecdotal view, but it has been expressed by several of the drivers that work at my company, especially among the men of color.
The more interesting argument is among the well off. My parents are doing well, live in a nice area, and consider themselves 'safe.' Their neighborhood is 25-30 miles from the nearest bus stop, in an area that requires a car, and the police watch for vehicles that are a little too run down. They never have to deal with a homeless man drawing a knife on them, or a carjacking at a stop sign. They never go into the city because they don't think it's safe. They live in a bubble. I think why spree killers scare them so much is the randomness. It is the one instance where the reality of violence can invade their bubble of security, and potentially impact their lives directly, even if they do everything "right."
Unfortunately, I've lived a bit rougher than they have, though I'm doing well now. My time living rough taught me a few things, though. There are people in the world that will resort to force to get what they want, and the only way to stop them is to have an equal or greater force to stop them. I'm old, I'm fat, and there's only one of me. If a group of young in shape people attacked me, I'd be in serious trouble. That's why I carry...but my parents are convinced it couldn't happen to them.
It's no wonder there is an overlap between people who don't understand the nuances of firearms and who believe things like 100% renewable energy is possible, that humans could someday emit zero carbon emissions, traffic fatalities could be reduced to zero, and that a pandemic could be reduced to zero cases.
If the news channels covered vehicular deaths the way they cover firearms deaths they'd have to start a new panicked emission every 15 minutes, every day, all year.
In fact the twisting they do with this type of stuff is remarkably similar to what they do with guns and with the gas stove freakoutry.
Same article:
"In 2021, more than half of daily vehicle trips in the U.S. (including car, rail, transit and air travel) were less than three miles, according to research compiled for the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. An estimated 28% of vehicle trips were less than one mile."
What the journalist here left out is that these super short trips only make up for something like 2% of all vehicle miles traveled so replacing them with bike trips (if such are even feasible for the many making these trips) to address "climate crisis" is laughable.
On the gas stove front, the ones who insist they're contributors to climate change neglect to state that gas stoves in the US contribute to something under one percent of all natural gas use in the country.
Nicely laid out. Most gun opposition is purely emotional reactions to guns, without any logic or reason. If we really wanted to reduce gun deaths in America, we would engage in policies to improve the lives of poor blacks and help the mental health of men. Such policies are not well-appreciated by TPTB. And most anti-gun activists would rather scream about guns then solve the problem.
The USA-vs-Europe comparison is reportedly itself bizarre in that it ignores most of the rest of the human world population.
The USA's recent cultural history is a frontier culture. My mother (93 years old) grew up on a near-subsistence farm in Kansas during the Great Depression. Her parents had migrated to the eastern Colorado high plains after the end of the frontier era (before she was born) to try horse ranching after WW1. The US Army was buying a lot of replacement horses for those killed in the war, so it was lucrative. Unfortunately they went just as a "dust bowl" type drought was settling in, so living in a sod hut doing dry farming and grazing horses wasn't sustainable. They left and went back to Kansas where their German-immigrant extended family helped them get back into grain farming.
There were several generations of exploitive land speculation (some fueled by foreign investment at the end of the British Empire) in the high plains and other parts of the arid west, and a lot of "pioneer" type people were lied to about climate, water and agriculture. See Wallace Stegner's iconic biography of John Wesley Powell, "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian".
Comparing the USA to Latin America is more meaningful (Latin America has higher violence, including higher gun violence). Latin America's colonial history is much closer to the USA's frontier history.
Europe's history is largely defined in terms of Great Power (colonialist) rivalries and nationalistic culture. Europe is all about empire-on-empire crime, mostly via organized mass military violence up to WW2.
The rejection of empire-on-empire crime by (mostly urban) Europeans is what frames their attitudes about guns.
Up until about 100 years ago, about 50% of the USA population was rural, and rural gun ownership was common and not problematic.
Failing to account for regional and urban-vs-rural cultural differences is just bad social science and bad social media commentary.
Gun violence in America is primarily concentrated in areas with large numbers of Blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, the continually ignored fact in these debates about American gun violence is that the reason for the outsized rates of violence of the United States, compared with the other Northwestern European and NW Euro derived countries, is the large Black and Hispanic populations in this country.
A lot of that can be explained by the way the welfare system is set up in the US. Families without a father tend to create unstable children. Most of the Mexican violence is caused by the war on drugs.
re: tribalism and race and class wars- "diversity" messes
The deeper cause was explained by Simon Bolivar, who became frustrated, after independence from Spanish Absolutism, with the difficulty of trying to get people at a tribal level of development to create a modern, liberal, democratic society, long before the USA started meddling in Latin America, and even longer before the modern drug trade existed:
Vd. sabe que yo he mandado veinte años y de ellos no he sacado más que pocos resultados ciertos:
[] 1º) La [latin] América es ingobernable para nosotros.
[] 2º) El que sirve una revolución ara en el mar.
[] 3º) La única cosa que se puede hacer en [latin] América es emigrar.
[--->] 4º) Este país caerá infaliblemente en manos de la multitud desenfrenada, para después pasar a tiranuelos casi imperceptibles, de to dos colores y razas.
[] 5º) devorados por todos los crímenes y extinguidos por la ferocidad, los europeos no se dignarán conquistarnos.
[] 6º) Si fuera posible que una parte del mundo volviera al caos primitivo, éste sería el último periodo de la [latin] América...
Letter near the end of his life (November 9, 1830)
As you know, I have led for twenty years and have obtained only a few certain results:
[latin] America is ungovernable.
He who serves a revolution plows the sea.
The only thing one can do in [latin] America is emigrate.
This country will fall unfailingly into the hands of the unbridled crowd and then pass almost imperceptibly to tyrants of
[->] all colors and races.
Devoured by all crimes and extinguished by ferocity, the Europeans will not deign to conquer us.
If it were possible for one part of the world to return to primitive chaos, this would be the last period of [latin] America.
Gutiérrez Escudero, Antonio, ed. (2005),
"6. Carta al general Juan José Flores, jefe del estado de Ecuador (Barranquilla, 9 de noviembre de 1830)
[Letter to General Juan José Flores, head of state of Ecuador, Barranquilla, November 9, 1830"]
(in Spanish), Simón Bolívar: aproximación al pensamiento del Libertador (approximations to the thoughts of the liberator), Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos (CSIC), Sevilla, p. 12, retrieved on 2017-11-06
Very interesting post, thanks for sharing. I tend to be in the no-guns camp myself, but it was enlightening to read the data. While it might make sense based on these facts for *more* people to own and carry guns, I think one important but annoyingly unquantifiable element in this debate that both sides seem to keep "missing" each other on is: differing ideas of what safety means to them. For some, safety means the ability to arm themselves in order to protect against threat; for others, like me, safety means the ability to walk the world unarmed, and not fear intimidation or action by those who are. I get both sides of the debate, and neither view's "wrong", but to say that everyone (including people who genuinely just don't want to own a gun) should arm themselves for safety is the same rather myopic reasoning as saying that everyone (including people who want to own guns) should not own a gun for safety. We're all just trying to feel safe in the world, we just have different ideas of how to go about it. Anyway, appreciate the fair and reasonable discourse on the subject. :)
I don't concealed carry. In fact, I moved someplace safer where I didn't feel the need to concealed carry. So I am in some ways like you, what I seek is to walk the world unarmed. Where you and I differ, is that I am more comfortable knowing that there are people around me concealed carrying, because I know if some random asshat decided to go on a spree killing at the playground where I attend, he'd get plugged inside ten seconds by some grandma with a 38 and it would never even make the news.
The lesson here is you don't need 100% CCW to be 100% safe. You may only need something like 5%.
Yeah, and I feel less inclined to worry about the above scenario and more inclined to worry about accidentally cutting off someone who's having a bad day in traffic and having them pull a gun on me! Haha... I get what you're saying, and I guess we have different ideas of what constitutes the more immediate threat and what we're willing to personally sacrifice for our own values and ideas of safety.
The statistics on CCW holders committing crimes show that they're much less likely to shoot you than someone who isn't a CCW holder. So at a minimum, the worry of someone shooting indiscriminately simply because they're armed should be mitigated some by statistics.
I"ve been to the gun range enough to see how a lot of folk shoot that don't get out there much, "spray and pray" does not just apply to Islamic insurgents.
Getting a CCW, at least for me, put in me an imperative to learn to shoot better.
There are lots of ways someone who is “having a bad day” could harm you besides shooting you with a gun. In your road rage example, in the rare event that an extreme escalation occurred, any violence would be far more likely to occur using the vehicle as a weapon. Hands and fists are even more likely than guns. And they’re every bit as deadly.
Guns have positive social utility that far exceeds their negative externalities because (by size, weight, cost and ease of use) guns are the most effective force multipliers ever invented. Before guns were commonplace, society was ruled by its physically strongest members. Almost everyone lived in fear under the law of the jungle. There’s an incredible amount of truth to the apocryphal adage that “God made man but Sam Colt made them equal.”
I don’t carry guns in public, either. Because of where I live—Oakland, California—I couldn’t even if I wanted to. But this regime of mutually forced disarmament doesn’t contribute to my subjectively emotional sense of safety. I still live in a very violent, dense urban environment where thefts, muggings, fights and shootings are commonplace and “illegal” guns are ubiquitous. Organized acts of civil disobedience also add to the general sense of lawlessness.
The prevailing political zeitgeist created this mess with the noblest of intentions. But by preventing armed-self defense, both individually and collectively through the police, instead of building a new utopia, we’ve reinstated the law of the jungle.
Of course, none of this is rational. But people are only rational about those issues that unequivocally affect them personally.
I’d love to move somewhere else. But for all the regular reasons, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. There’s also not going to be a wholesale change in general voter attitudes about policing and armed self-defense. So my family does what everyone else in California does: we pay exorbitant sums of money to create a protective bubble around ourselves. And we pretend we’re safe.
It’s no coincidence that these are almost exactly the same conditions that prevail in so-called Third World countries, where trust is low, institutions are corrupt, civil society is non-existent and the rule of law is a joke.
Adam Smith said, “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” He meant that it takes an awful lot of bungling by political leaders to bring down a powerful and prosperous state. But as with demographics, once momentum passes a critical velocity, the result becomes inexorable.
Thanks for sharing your views, and I hear what you're saying. How I feel guns differ from fists or cars is that they serve a far more limited function than either of the others - namely, to threaten, injure or kill (whether for good, bad or neutral purposes). I guess I personally see the idea of buying a gun in order to neutralize the threat of some other person's gun a bit like those old cartoons where the two characters keep whipping out progressively bigger and bigger weapons on each other until they both have like anti-aircraft missiles haha... Perhaps it's a matter of differently ordered values - it seems that my sense of safety and my idea of what constitutes a good, worthwhile life hinges, in part, on trusting that I and others can walk this world unarmed, and perhaps I'm willing to die for that belief.
Though who knows? Maybe I'd feel reeeal different if I lived in a high crime area. Good food for thought...
I mean, *I'm* willing to take a chance on a world without guns. But then, I'm 6'5", 240 lbs, have decades of training in martial arts, and am unlikely to be selected for a violent rape.
But I'd *hate* for my nieces to have to take that risk.
All this to say, I get what you're saying: You're not advocating that everyone go out and buy a gun, just those who feel called to. But I feel pretty mistrusting of some of these folks' reasons haha (granted, I imagine it's not the majority by any stretch), and it feels frustrating bc there seems to be no recourse other than (1) arm up myself, which I don't want to do, or (2) be at the whims of those gun owners. But you're totally right that the cat is fully out of the bag, and that the issue isn't guns but the missing sense of safety that drives some of these people to buy them in the first place.
Lastly, there doesn't seem to be a quick and easy way to immediately tell the difference between a responsible gun owner and a reckless gun owner when I see someone carrying out and about - so when I see any gun, be it friend or foe, my sense of safety takes a hit, and I think that's what some people are trying to get across when they advocate for the total eradication of guns.
I think you're correct on that count, that that's what they're getting at. But total eradication of guns is simply impossible here, so advocating impossible things is a waste of everyone's time and anxiety.
Totally agree. I definitely don't endorse the hyperemotional, irrational character-impugning anti-gun commentary that you've dealt with. I think it's unfair and unproductive.
total eradication in the sense that you get all the guns. Yes. but creating social conditions such that guns are anathema are certainly possible. then it's just a time game. guns are finite things and eventually time will destroy them all. so if they can "keep the heat" on them long enough, they can effectively get rid of them all..
In RD Witt's analogy, no one having a gun would equate to nobody having herd immunity but a pathogen being rubbed out by successive quarantining, and herd immunity would be enough people having a gun that everyone is scared to use them or else they might get shot.
When I first moved to Ohio in the late '90s, Pennsylvania had concealed carry but Ohio did not. John Lott's book More Guns, Less Crime had just been published. His research indicated that the positive effects of concealed carry had a relative radius of 50 miles, if memory serves. I live about ten miles from the border, so I was benefitting from their program. That is more or less what I was getting at. If you've not read the book, I'd suggest it. Regardless of your position on armed citizens.
That's my take anyway. I think a lot of pro- and anti-gun folks have more in common than they think. Both are reacting to a perceived threat to their safety that seems fairly overstated (though I personally feel might become worse if we add more guns to the equation), and both are trying to do what they can to feel safe about it
when I first moved to Texas, carrying a gun was not an option. CHL did not exist and to be caught with a firearm was to get in trouble. I've always had, for lack of a better word, an "evil mind" I'm creative so it was always fun to think of ways to do unlawful things. The only thing that kept me from following the dodgy path was that I had people that loved and depended on me. but as things such as seatbelt laws and other laws that seemed to me to be eroding my civil rights, I felt more and more that a life of crime was being forced upon me. I also felt that should I go down that path I would become a monster with no restraint.
getting my CHL changed that. Maybe its childish and Edgelord, but I felt that I had been entrusted with a sacred duty towards my fellow man, I became a better person.
Don't' take this the wrong way, but if the world was such that no guns existed and you could walk anywhere you wanted without fear of attack, people a little less sane than me would make it their job to turn that world on it's ear. Some people if there is not a bit of danger, feel dead inside, and will do all they can to feel alive, and if that means you have to die, so be it.
Feb 1, 2023·edited Feb 1, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
My guess is that it is mostly a tribalistic "echo chamber" thing, largely across the left-vs-right narrative (and as BJ points out, "left" tends to map to "white upper class" on these emotive-subjective issues).
The requirement that people transcend their echo chamber is a requirement for the capacity for rational, objective thinking, and maybe even meta-narrative ("transpartisan") thinking, such as integral theory or similar.
But the anti-gun narrative largely overlaps the "woke" "left" and "progressive" narrative, which is heavily reinforced by social institutions (what I call the "race-grifter-industrial-complex") and mass commercial media, so there is little interest in, or incentive to, transcend the "woke" "left" echo chamber's subjective, emotive rhetorical structure, and value system (as well as victim narratives).
There is also echo chamber on the "pro-gun" "right" (which does not include all gun owners) but that isn't relevant given that the numbers, and rational systemic analysis, mostly line up with the pro-gun viewpoint.
Bias disclosure: I grew up in a military family, learned to shoot .22 rifles at 6 years old at the base firing range [teachers were required to bring their entire class to the firing range where military gun instructors taught the kids, one-on-one], have never owned a gun as an adult, but since I'm now retired and own a campervan, I'll need a "camp gun" for protection against predators, including bears, and any two footed vermin that try to bother me in remote camping areas (Nevada, Idaho, eastern Oregon, Idaho, Montana, etc.). I might even try some legal hunting for food.
"If nobody had guns" is akin to other utopian fantasies such as "Vision Zero" (no traffic fatalities), "Net Zero" (not the ISP, the carbon emissions) and "COVID Zero"
Feb 3, 2023·edited Feb 3, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
If the topic comes up, I now just avoid any attempt to get drawn into an argument. Go straight to an invitation to come shooting. Exploit their emotion. Everybody has something. Fear, hatred, danger, power. It's impossible in this culture not to at least have a closeted curiosity. Whatever it is, connect via that visceral fascination. More fun than talking, and they'll actually experience and learn something.
Feb 2, 2023·edited Feb 2, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
"Rocky Mountain Views" is *very* confused about who has the mental illness here. They're the ones that abhor an inanimate object, and think that with the proper incantation, they can prevent horrors.
I usually point out (in the vein of e.pierce's comment, even) just *who* is likely to suffer the immediate first brunt of a concerted effort to eradicate firearms ownership in this country. I.e.: "poor black people" They *already* refer to excessive police attention on that demographic as "genocide".
Conveniently, they've been pre-programmed to be outraged about "Stop and Frisk", so it really turns up the cognitive dissonance when you make them realize they're calling for that same program on a national scale.
If the "woke" crazies got in power (after destroying the Constitution) and then tried to implement a gun ban, they would have to come up with a practical method of identifying the "white" "racists" with guns, since those are the people they believe are the worst humans in society.
The surveillance state's collection of mass social-media data would probably make that trivial for a lot of "white" "racist" gun owners, but not all.
Many of the target population of "white" "racists" could have their bank accounts seized, similarly to what happened to the trucker-protestors in Canada, flushing them out into the open where they could be picked off more easily.
But at some point military action would be needed since there just aren't enough law enforcement in rural areas willing to take guns away from people they know.
At that point something like a civil war, insurgency style, would begin, with widespread attacks on infrastructure and then economic collapse.
If the federal government then collapsed, a real civil war would get going, and probably lead to nuclear war within 6 months or less.
If not, then there would be widespread authoritarianism which would probably quickly evolve into state totalitarianism with widespread dissident insurgency in opposition.
The "woke" crazies would get lots of propaganda jobs working for the totalitarian state.
See Orwell's "1984", which will become the instruction manual, along with the movie "Idiocracy".
Do you actually know anything about farming? Most food is produced, processed and distributed by large commercial interests. They will generally go in whatever direction politically that the higher levels of the power elites tell them to go in, as it relates to selling their products.
Any kind of populist insurgency would have to deal with those realities, so not only would they completely discredit themselves by stating a willingness to starve 100s of millions for political purposes, they would also have to face an extremely well funded police state protecting corporate agribusinesses (that care about money before all else).
I'm new to the blog, and I am just now reading through archives. The "homicide vs. genocide" argument is novel, but I need to read it some more to decide if it's convincing enough to really be convincing to someone who's honestly open to argument (I imagine Twitter anti-gun accounts are not in that set of people).
It's an unusual argument. I don't often trot it out, because it is *very* unconvincing to someone who doesn't think genocide can happen here, while things like genocide and civil war are quite often on the minds of the gun owning community. Before you dig too much deeper into that, read this one:
Those are really the overall conceptual groundwork for the "homicide vs genocide" math. The first one in particular shows how relatively routine things like genocide and civil war are, in the human condition, to try and put the odds of it in better perspective. And the second one tries to apply that perspective to the current tar baby that is American politics.
> "I don't often trot it out, because it is *very* unconvincing to someone who doesn't think genocide can happen here[.]"
Ironic, since I'd expect most people on the "woke" side of things to respond well to an argument of the form "How different do you think the history of this country would be if the natives had possessed firearms?"
In truth, I've found that the extreme true believer wokes are actually much more willing to engage pro-gun positions than the flaccidly performative wokes are. Marx was a huge proponent of the proletariat carrying rifles, folks who are hyper focused on bad cops and marginalized communities want those communities to arm up, and when Antifa marches in Atlanta they carry Mossbergs, AKs, and ARs.
So if you're a one issue person and your issue is guns, the deeply committed woke are a surprisingly good in-vector.
The OR GIS analysis was quite useful. It's just a pity that the gun issue, like others wedge issues, has become political. I too went to school in the 50's and saw many trucks with a rifle in the window. Oddly few worried about theft but wanted to hunt after school. Pleasant afternoons in a field were a reward. Somehow back in those dark ages there were no shooters going after schools or restaurants. Maybe in the aftermath of war we has seen enough killing overseas. OTOH we didn't have SSRIs to tame boys and our cannabis was not really very potent. And most of us knew about hard drugs we were aware of the hazards and limited ourselves to booze. My how the culture changed.
I think if you go back to the complete data set the rise and fall of gun homicides is extremely easy to explain. It goes up and down with drug and alcohol prohibition related gang crime. You've got a straight line rise right exactly to the day that alcohol prohibition was repealed, then a drop to a low point in the 1950s, then a ramp up from the mid 1960s when cocaine started to get big to a peak in the middle 70s, and another peak in 1980, which are both related to cocaine use. Then a drop and another peak in the early 90s related to crack cocaine. Then a drop and a low valley in 2000+. It's all related to drugs and alcohol.
Thanks again for a thought-provoking post. You may have influenced my thinking on some things( more later on that.) I do have some quibbles though, which I believe are a bit more rational than those of Mr Rocky Mountain View, who is not really a fair representative if you are trying to have a legitimate debate.
First, the suicide argument. As a person who works in mental health, I can assure you that if a doctor believes or suspects that someone is suicidal, they will definitely think about the risks and pursue minimization of these risks. They will ask about firearms and they will do their best to convince the person to make it more difficult to have access to them, in just the ways you mentioned in that previous article. If they refuse and the doctor or therapist is truly concerned, they will have them admitted to a psychiatric unit involuntarily, which is not ideal but sometimes necessary. So that is a suggested change that's not really a change. More later, out of time for now.
There's a huge problem with having them admitted to a psych unit involuntarily, because if you do that then you disincentivize people who need treatment from seeking it. You probably do much more harm than good on a societal aggregate level.
The stigmatization of seeking mental health treatment is a real problem, especially how it actively dis-incentivizes seeking treatment, thus perpetuating the very problems we're trying to avoid. This is especially an issue among the politically-aware gun owning cohort, who are fully aware at how admitting to having unapproved thoughts of self-harm or depression could lead to losing their rights.
Really, it requires more than just thoughts. They are going to try their best to establish intent. In California an involuntary hold entails losing one's rights to own or purchase firearms for 5 years. Probably not too hard to get around that though. And again, it puts a little speed bump in the road to suicide, which is a good thing.
> "Probably not too hard to get around that though."
Functionally this is probably accurate. The thing is though, most gun owners in this country don't *want* to break the law, which acquiring a firearm while under such a prohibition would be.
Concern over being deprived of my rights kept me from seeking *any* treatment for even just my beginning depression for a decade, meant that I was never fully open with any therapist or psychiatrist even after I sought treatment, and kept me from seeking help when I was explicitly suicidal for several years. The only reason I'm here is because my housemate had to reset the cable modem on my desk, and while doing so, saw a draft of a note to the executor of my will.
That "speed bump" *ensured* that I did not seek professional assistance for my problems.
That may be, but it's the law here in California and I'm be surprised if it weren't the law across the country. There is a fairly high bar, though, to admitting someone involuntarily.
My plans to kill myself involved items available at any hardware store. Anyone who is truly determined to end their life will not be deterred by the absence of firearms.
True, but it would have taken time and effort to go to the hardware store and buy those items. Maybe that was the small but important barrier that kept you from doing it.
I think this ^^ is a legitimate point, and we see it in the suicide numbers with men but not with women. Some ratio of total male suicides is done in a hasty fashion and would not have transpired without access to a firearm. That's a real thing that the gun community needs to grapple with internally.
The only thing that halted my plans was having had them discovered 60 hours prior to implementation. I definitely had my materials by then. I had spent six months getting everything sorted. I knew it was already going to be bad enough for everyone else, I didn't want leave a mess (physical, financial, or legal) as well. But I had also spent several man-years of insomnia figuring out how to do it in a manner which would be absolutely guaranteed, would not be messy, and would not be painful. I do also realize that I am atypical.
For those who are curious, the true solution ended up being "IV Ketamine".
Somewhere you say the number of children killed in school shootings is such a tiny portion of the deaths due to guns. I can’t find the exact quote, and it may not even be in today’s post – I printed out additional materials from the links, and I don’t know exactly where I read it.
I’d like to share a few thoughts about the way people react so strongly to school shootings, even though they are a tiny portion of the “gun death” tally.
When we think about suicides, we often feel sad, wish things had gone differently, and want to take steps to lower the number of suicides in the future – many useful steps you’ve mentioned in your posts. We may also have some feeling that who the person committed suicide contributed to this ending -- it was the end of their story.
One reason for the special impact of school shootings is their randomness, but I think it goes deeper than that. For most parents, and people who hope to be parents, the thought of their child dying or being injured by random bullets is a unique horror. No one could expect it. We all face potential random events – car accidents, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, a bolt of lightning. We know random events are part of normal life.
But no one expects random shootings at school. Did this happen fifty years ago? Seventy years ago? I don’t think so.
You think of the children, their whole lives ahead of them. Nothing they did contributed to their deaths. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their stories were cut off mid-chapter.
Most people feel horror when they learn fifteen toddlers were killed within two minutes. We don’t feel the same horror at fifteen people killed when cars pileup on the freeway – we know that happens occasionally and we accept it as part of freeway driving.
I’ve just started to read your posts within the past few months, and you’ve written a great deal on this subject that I haven’t had time to read yet. You’ve convinced me there are so many guns already distributed in the United States that efforts to withdraw them make no sense.
On the other hand, I think it will be a long time before people’s hearts accept the random killing of small children as a normal part of modern life.
All of this is true, but then we get into the complicated calculus of weighing one life versus another one, which is sticky. The main reason why the school shootings get elevated is because they garner the attention of well off white women, in a way that inner city shootings don't, and progressive causes in the United States have always been championed by well off white women, going back at least as far as alcohol prohibition.
Nobody wants the murder of children to be considered normal. Given that there's no magic gun evaporation fairy, however, the only solution that could potentially actually prevent them in the future would be armed teachers.
Which, though it should not need to be said, I will explicit as not *forcing* any teacher to be armed, but rather *allowing* those who wish to do be, the opportunity to do so.
Uvalde was 4th graders. My ex-brother in law is a 4th grade teacher... and a former US Marine. But if someone with murderous intent shows up in his classroom, he'll be disallowed from using the most effective possible tool to defend his students. By which I mean a firearm.
Part two. Comparing gun homicides here to genocide homicides in Europe means you are comparing 2023 US to Germany 90 years ago or Eastern Europe post USSR. Are you?
Okay, say you are, and there is some kind of genocide or Civil War here. Even if the MAGAs and alt-right and Qanon people did turn against the US populace, they would not need to buy a single new gun to win, if they were really serious. And if you want to argue that someone is going to take their guns away, well, that's just arguing to argue, not to win. So perhaps your point is to encourage non-gun owners to buy guns? If any of them read your substack it might actually work to some small extent. But of course they don't.
I've followed enough links that I'm not actually sure in which piece I read what; but with respect to good guys with guns, the example you used in particular which I can't quite remember in which a non-expert shooter killed the bad guy shooter from a surprising distance seems to mitigate for mandatory training for gun owners. Is that something you would favor? I believe the reason most law enforcement are against concealed carry is because these good guys with guns can cause things to worsen pretty rapidly.
If I felt that the armed good guys were trained sufficiently, I would be fine with concealed carry though. I guess it was a combination of you and Uvalde that change my mind on that one.
Second question: to be honest I don't know whether concealed carry or open carry is considered to be worse, by anti-gun people. Personally I find open carry an alarming practice, especially when the carriers are in the Michigan State House, for example. Is one or the other considered more desirable by the pro-gun people?
Asking these questions with the understanding that you may not have time to respond to them.
I think gun people are split on whether concealed or open carry is more ideal. I think if all carry was open most people in the country would be more aware of how often they're surrounded by guns, which is quite honestly most of the time they're in public spaces they just don't realize it. But on the flip side, open carry is less of a deterrent against crime because you don't want the criminal to know who's carrying and who's not. A mass shooter could start by shooting all the armed people, for instance. For that reason, and also for general politeness reasons, I tend to think that concealed carry is more polite and effective.
I am definitely comparing US 2023 to mid 20th century Europe. Here's an example of why:
If you're going to try and collect "data" for revolutions, then you have to go back that far in order to get enough data points to be meaningful, or you have to take the entire world into your data set, or both. I did both of those here:
I'd say that extrapolating from previous political upheavals is a fair bit trickier than extrapolating from previous floods, climate change notwithstanding. In this country: 1/6 protesters have fucked around and found out, and BLM people have just been handed a paradox. After 2 years of democratic control of the government, everyone still has their guns, and conditions in the US are improving and will continue to improve thanks to sound government. The biggest threat I see is related to climate change, first in the form of "degrowth," a concept that hopefully will not be needed with the development of new technology (thank you IRA for increasing research funding) and secondly in the form of climate refugees coming into the US in large numbers.
Corrupt elements in the FBI have been documented "colluding" with corrupt politicians (Schiff, Ninny Jankywitch) to engage in censorship and illegally attack journalists that are exposing the corruption.
That represents a regression to J. Edgar Hoover style tactics (COINTELPRO) at a minimum.
The cultural-left is generally colluding, as predicted, with corrupt elements of global finance and digital capitalism to push for the creation of a Neo-Feudal society.
Say "bye bye" to classical liberalism, the Constitution, democracy, market capitalism, etc.
Since racial fears were a major factor in the 1/6 events, I think we can assume that it will be the alt-right that will foment this potential uprising, so I guess it would be the moderate gun owners protecting the non-gun owners/ gun haters. It would be nice if more of the Republicans in Congress would work with Democrats on immigration reform, but unfortunately there are even fewer interested now than last time we tried.
I don't think the alt-right has enough juice to get everyone behind them. I personally think about the only possible way the right decides to start shooting is if the left decides to go door to door taking guns away. That would elicit a nationwide "nope," and then the blues would be stuck.
Outside of that, I think a new dynamic would have to form, like mass starvation or the elite technocrats inventing immortality for the rich.
Considering there is a Current Events addition to the genocide list occurring in Eastern Europe right now, the scope and impact of which is yet to be fully determined, I'd say it's a pretty timely topic.
"I believe the reason most law enforcement are against concealed carry is because these good guys with guns can cause things to worsen pretty rapidly."
This isn't the case. Most rank-and-file cops are pro-concealed carry. "Civilian defensive gun use will only escalate an already dangerous situation" is a media-perpetuated myth that they desperately want you to believe, and push whenever possible within entertainment. Lack of training rarely makes a difference at the contact distances that most defensive shootings occur. Police need to be trained (not that they often are) for engagement at longer distances, because unlike a self-defender, their job is to APPROACH the danger, not to get away from it.
Even given the disparity in apparent training, CWP holders are far less likely to commit a bad shoot than a cop. Why? Because they're there from the start, and it's very clear to them what's going down, and who needs to be stopped.
Open carry is a tricky bit, and for the most part in mixed company in public is not terribly smart. I'd be hesitant to just declare to everyone that "you can't do this" though because there's a lot of edge cases where it's actually smart and prudent.
A lot of your questions are addressed in Larry Correia's new book "In Defense of the Second Amendment", which I recommend highly. It's all well-tread material for those of us who have been in this for the last good while, but it's well organized and presented, and perfect for someone who wants to learn "Why these gun nuts are all so fixated on this"
I suspect there's a break between beat cops and sergeants when it comes to wanting more CCW. I think beat cops probably figure it'll make their lives easier, while sergeants probably figure it'll make their lives harder.
Fair points. OTOH, I don't think we are Russia's next target for takeover. The best they could do was get Trump elected, and I don't think that went as well as they expected it to.
Interesting about the rank-and-file cops' view. Makes sense.
Why are you posting absurd, discredited conspiracy theories (Trump-Russia) concocted by corrupt media corporations, corrupt politicians and corrupt elements of the national security apparatus?
I have this argument with my parents when we discuss guns. I'm a pro-gun guy, and they are very much not. The problem is you're arguing logic vs. emotion, and from an emotional sense, numerous small, invisible issues (that wind up being a far bigger deal, like the suicide epidemic) are negated by the MSM screaming, "53 KIDS DIE IN MASS SHOOTING. AR-15 GUNS DOWN INNOCENT LIVES." I use a bit of hyperbole there, but not that much...
I think there is also a classist element to this as well, especially amongst the very rich and the very poor. Among the poor, especially those of color, owning and carrying a gun is a risk due to the widespread view that police target minorities and carrying a gun, even if legal, may cause issues. Thus, the only ones that are willing to risk it are those who are most likely to need it, someone who is going to quite possibly get in a gunfight, like a gang banger. This is a strictly anecdotal view, but it has been expressed by several of the drivers that work at my company, especially among the men of color.
The more interesting argument is among the well off. My parents are doing well, live in a nice area, and consider themselves 'safe.' Their neighborhood is 25-30 miles from the nearest bus stop, in an area that requires a car, and the police watch for vehicles that are a little too run down. They never have to deal with a homeless man drawing a knife on them, or a carjacking at a stop sign. They never go into the city because they don't think it's safe. They live in a bubble. I think why spree killers scare them so much is the randomness. It is the one instance where the reality of violence can invade their bubble of security, and potentially impact their lives directly, even if they do everything "right."
Unfortunately, I've lived a bit rougher than they have, though I'm doing well now. My time living rough taught me a few things, though. There are people in the world that will resort to force to get what they want, and the only way to stop them is to have an equal or greater force to stop them. I'm old, I'm fat, and there's only one of me. If a group of young in shape people attacked me, I'd be in serious trouble. That's why I carry...but my parents are convinced it couldn't happen to them.
This is exactly correct. The belief that banning guns will solve all of the gun problems is a luxury belief only available to the very "safe."
It's no wonder there is an overlap between people who don't understand the nuances of firearms and who believe things like 100% renewable energy is possible, that humans could someday emit zero carbon emissions, traffic fatalities could be reduced to zero, and that a pandemic could be reduced to zero cases.
If the news channels covered vehicular deaths the way they cover firearms deaths they'd have to start a new panicked emission every 15 minutes, every day, all year.
Some media outlets are on their way there.
They insist the roughly 40k deaths per year in the US from traffic related fatalities is "traffic violence"
LA Times used that phrase just today.
"With traffic violence surging in recent years, especially among non-car drivers, sharing the road with car drivers could feel daunting."
(https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2023-02-01/essential-california-e-bike-incentives-essential-california?utm_id=85016&sfmc_id=1808642 )
In fact the twisting they do with this type of stuff is remarkably similar to what they do with guns and with the gas stove freakoutry.
Same article:
"In 2021, more than half of daily vehicle trips in the U.S. (including car, rail, transit and air travel) were less than three miles, according to research compiled for the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. An estimated 28% of vehicle trips were less than one mile."
What the journalist here left out is that these super short trips only make up for something like 2% of all vehicle miles traveled so replacing them with bike trips (if such are even feasible for the many making these trips) to address "climate crisis" is laughable.
On the gas stove front, the ones who insist they're contributors to climate change neglect to state that gas stoves in the US contribute to something under one percent of all natural gas use in the country.
RE the class and race issue, have you seen HWFO's "Systemic Racism explained to the Right" piece?
I probably have, I make it a point to read articles when they come out, but I'll look it up again later tonight.
Nicely laid out. Most gun opposition is purely emotional reactions to guns, without any logic or reason. If we really wanted to reduce gun deaths in America, we would engage in policies to improve the lives of poor blacks and help the mental health of men. Such policies are not well-appreciated by TPTB. And most anti-gun activists would rather scream about guns then solve the problem.
(awkwardly raises hand)
What does TPTB stand for?
Thanks for asking, I didn't know either.😉
The Powers That Be
"War and genocide are horrible. Nothing to do with guns in the USA"
We don't have war and genocide here, and we have a lot of guns.
Europe has war and genocide, and not a lot of guns.
Correlation isn't causation, but it makes you thonk.
https://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm
"Death by Gun Control" excellent topic.
The USA-vs-Europe comparison is reportedly itself bizarre in that it ignores most of the rest of the human world population.
The USA's recent cultural history is a frontier culture. My mother (93 years old) grew up on a near-subsistence farm in Kansas during the Great Depression. Her parents had migrated to the eastern Colorado high plains after the end of the frontier era (before she was born) to try horse ranching after WW1. The US Army was buying a lot of replacement horses for those killed in the war, so it was lucrative. Unfortunately they went just as a "dust bowl" type drought was settling in, so living in a sod hut doing dry farming and grazing horses wasn't sustainable. They left and went back to Kansas where their German-immigrant extended family helped them get back into grain farming.
There were several generations of exploitive land speculation (some fueled by foreign investment at the end of the British Empire) in the high plains and other parts of the arid west, and a lot of "pioneer" type people were lied to about climate, water and agriculture. See Wallace Stegner's iconic biography of John Wesley Powell, "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian".
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10802.Beyond_the_Hundredth_Meridian
Comparing the USA to Latin America is more meaningful (Latin America has higher violence, including higher gun violence). Latin America's colonial history is much closer to the USA's frontier history.
Europe's history is largely defined in terms of Great Power (colonialist) rivalries and nationalistic culture. Europe is all about empire-on-empire crime, mostly via organized mass military violence up to WW2.
The rejection of empire-on-empire crime by (mostly urban) Europeans is what frames their attitudes about guns.
Up until about 100 years ago, about 50% of the USA population was rural, and rural gun ownership was common and not problematic.
Failing to account for regional and urban-vs-rural cultural differences is just bad social science and bad social media commentary.
https://colinwoodard.com/dna-study-confirms-american-nations-map/
https://www.unz.com/jman/guns-violence-again/
excerpt:
Gun violence in America is primarily concentrated in areas with large numbers of Blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, the continually ignored fact in these debates about American gun violence is that the reason for the outsized rates of violence of the United States, compared with the other Northwestern European and NW Euro derived countries, is the large Black and Hispanic populations in this country.
...
---
also see:
https://www.unz.com/jman/rural-white-liberals/
A lot of that can be explained by the way the welfare system is set up in the US. Families without a father tend to create unstable children. Most of the Mexican violence is caused by the war on drugs.
re: tribalism and race and class wars- "diversity" messes
The deeper cause was explained by Simon Bolivar, who became frustrated, after independence from Spanish Absolutism, with the difficulty of trying to get people at a tribal level of development to create a modern, liberal, democratic society, long before the USA started meddling in Latin America, and even longer before the modern drug trade existed:
digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/28362/1/BolivarPen.pdf
...
Vd. sabe que yo he mandado veinte años y de ellos no he sacado más que pocos resultados ciertos:
[] 1º) La [latin] América es ingobernable para nosotros.
[] 2º) El que sirve una revolución ara en el mar.
[] 3º) La única cosa que se puede hacer en [latin] América es emigrar.
[--->] 4º) Este país caerá infaliblemente en manos de la multitud desenfrenada, para después pasar a tiranuelos casi imperceptibles, de to dos colores y razas.
[] 5º) devorados por todos los crímenes y extinguidos por la ferocidad, los europeos no se dignarán conquistarnos.
[] 6º) Si fuera posible que una parte del mundo volviera al caos primitivo, éste sería el último periodo de la [latin] América...
translated into english:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar#Letter_near_the_end_of_his_life_(November_9,_1830)
Letter near the end of his life (November 9, 1830)
As you know, I have led for twenty years and have obtained only a few certain results:
[latin] America is ungovernable.
He who serves a revolution plows the sea.
The only thing one can do in [latin] America is emigrate.
This country will fall unfailingly into the hands of the unbridled crowd and then pass almost imperceptibly to tyrants of
[->] all colors and races.
Devoured by all crimes and extinguished by ferocity, the Europeans will not deign to conquer us.
If it were possible for one part of the world to return to primitive chaos, this would be the last period of [latin] America.
Gutiérrez Escudero, Antonio, ed. (2005),
"6. Carta al general Juan José Flores, jefe del estado de Ecuador (Barranquilla, 9 de noviembre de 1830)
[Letter to General Juan José Flores, head of state of Ecuador, Barranquilla, November 9, 1830"]
(in Spanish), Simón Bolívar: aproximación al pensamiento del Libertador (approximations to the thoughts of the liberator), Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos (CSIC), Sevilla, p. 12, retrieved on 2017-11-06
Very interesting post, thanks for sharing. I tend to be in the no-guns camp myself, but it was enlightening to read the data. While it might make sense based on these facts for *more* people to own and carry guns, I think one important but annoyingly unquantifiable element in this debate that both sides seem to keep "missing" each other on is: differing ideas of what safety means to them. For some, safety means the ability to arm themselves in order to protect against threat; for others, like me, safety means the ability to walk the world unarmed, and not fear intimidation or action by those who are. I get both sides of the debate, and neither view's "wrong", but to say that everyone (including people who genuinely just don't want to own a gun) should arm themselves for safety is the same rather myopic reasoning as saying that everyone (including people who want to own guns) should not own a gun for safety. We're all just trying to feel safe in the world, we just have different ideas of how to go about it. Anyway, appreciate the fair and reasonable discourse on the subject. :)
Here's an interesting boundary argument:
I don't concealed carry. In fact, I moved someplace safer where I didn't feel the need to concealed carry. So I am in some ways like you, what I seek is to walk the world unarmed. Where you and I differ, is that I am more comfortable knowing that there are people around me concealed carrying, because I know if some random asshat decided to go on a spree killing at the playground where I attend, he'd get plugged inside ten seconds by some grandma with a 38 and it would never even make the news.
The lesson here is you don't need 100% CCW to be 100% safe. You may only need something like 5%.
Yeah, and I feel less inclined to worry about the above scenario and more inclined to worry about accidentally cutting off someone who's having a bad day in traffic and having them pull a gun on me! Haha... I get what you're saying, and I guess we have different ideas of what constitutes the more immediate threat and what we're willing to personally sacrifice for our own values and ideas of safety.
The statistics on CCW holders committing crimes show that they're much less likely to shoot you than someone who isn't a CCW holder. So at a minimum, the worry of someone shooting indiscriminately simply because they're armed should be mitigated some by statistics.
I"ve been to the gun range enough to see how a lot of folk shoot that don't get out there much, "spray and pray" does not just apply to Islamic insurgents.
Getting a CCW, at least for me, put in me an imperative to learn to shoot better.
There are lots of ways someone who is “having a bad day” could harm you besides shooting you with a gun. In your road rage example, in the rare event that an extreme escalation occurred, any violence would be far more likely to occur using the vehicle as a weapon. Hands and fists are even more likely than guns. And they’re every bit as deadly.
Guns have positive social utility that far exceeds their negative externalities because (by size, weight, cost and ease of use) guns are the most effective force multipliers ever invented. Before guns were commonplace, society was ruled by its physically strongest members. Almost everyone lived in fear under the law of the jungle. There’s an incredible amount of truth to the apocryphal adage that “God made man but Sam Colt made them equal.”
I don’t carry guns in public, either. Because of where I live—Oakland, California—I couldn’t even if I wanted to. But this regime of mutually forced disarmament doesn’t contribute to my subjectively emotional sense of safety. I still live in a very violent, dense urban environment where thefts, muggings, fights and shootings are commonplace and “illegal” guns are ubiquitous. Organized acts of civil disobedience also add to the general sense of lawlessness.
The prevailing political zeitgeist created this mess with the noblest of intentions. But by preventing armed-self defense, both individually and collectively through the police, instead of building a new utopia, we’ve reinstated the law of the jungle.
Of course, none of this is rational. But people are only rational about those issues that unequivocally affect them personally.
I’d love to move somewhere else. But for all the regular reasons, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. There’s also not going to be a wholesale change in general voter attitudes about policing and armed self-defense. So my family does what everyone else in California does: we pay exorbitant sums of money to create a protective bubble around ourselves. And we pretend we’re safe.
It’s no coincidence that these are almost exactly the same conditions that prevail in so-called Third World countries, where trust is low, institutions are corrupt, civil society is non-existent and the rule of law is a joke.
Adam Smith said, “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” He meant that it takes an awful lot of bungling by political leaders to bring down a powerful and prosperous state. But as with demographics, once momentum passes a critical velocity, the result becomes inexorable.
Thanks for sharing your views, and I hear what you're saying. How I feel guns differ from fists or cars is that they serve a far more limited function than either of the others - namely, to threaten, injure or kill (whether for good, bad or neutral purposes). I guess I personally see the idea of buying a gun in order to neutralize the threat of some other person's gun a bit like those old cartoons where the two characters keep whipping out progressively bigger and bigger weapons on each other until they both have like anti-aircraft missiles haha... Perhaps it's a matter of differently ordered values - it seems that my sense of safety and my idea of what constitutes a good, worthwhile life hinges, in part, on trusting that I and others can walk this world unarmed, and perhaps I'm willing to die for that belief.
Though who knows? Maybe I'd feel reeeal different if I lived in a high crime area. Good food for thought...
I mean, *I'm* willing to take a chance on a world without guns. But then, I'm 6'5", 240 lbs, have decades of training in martial arts, and am unlikely to be selected for a violent rape.
But I'd *hate* for my nieces to have to take that risk.
For sure. Believe me when I say that I hate that they have to take that risk as well.
All this to say, I get what you're saying: You're not advocating that everyone go out and buy a gun, just those who feel called to. But I feel pretty mistrusting of some of these folks' reasons haha (granted, I imagine it's not the majority by any stretch), and it feels frustrating bc there seems to be no recourse other than (1) arm up myself, which I don't want to do, or (2) be at the whims of those gun owners. But you're totally right that the cat is fully out of the bag, and that the issue isn't guns but the missing sense of safety that drives some of these people to buy them in the first place.
Lastly, there doesn't seem to be a quick and easy way to immediately tell the difference between a responsible gun owner and a reckless gun owner when I see someone carrying out and about - so when I see any gun, be it friend or foe, my sense of safety takes a hit, and I think that's what some people are trying to get across when they advocate for the total eradication of guns.
I think you're correct on that count, that that's what they're getting at. But total eradication of guns is simply impossible here, so advocating impossible things is a waste of everyone's time and anxiety.
Totally agree. I definitely don't endorse the hyperemotional, irrational character-impugning anti-gun commentary that you've dealt with. I think it's unfair and unproductive.
total eradication in the sense that you get all the guns. Yes. but creating social conditions such that guns are anathema are certainly possible. then it's just a time game. guns are finite things and eventually time will destroy them all. so if they can "keep the heat" on them long enough, they can effectively get rid of them all..
Would this be similar to "herd immunity?"
Are you referring to the herd immunity implied by everyone having a gun, or by no one having a gun?
In RD Witt's analogy, no one having a gun would equate to nobody having herd immunity but a pathogen being rubbed out by successive quarantining, and herd immunity would be enough people having a gun that everyone is scared to use them or else they might get shot.
When I first moved to Ohio in the late '90s, Pennsylvania had concealed carry but Ohio did not. John Lott's book More Guns, Less Crime had just been published. His research indicated that the positive effects of concealed carry had a relative radius of 50 miles, if memory serves. I live about ten miles from the border, so I was benefitting from their program. That is more or less what I was getting at. If you've not read the book, I'd suggest it. Regardless of your position on armed citizens.
That's my take anyway. I think a lot of pro- and anti-gun folks have more in common than they think. Both are reacting to a perceived threat to their safety that seems fairly overstated (though I personally feel might become worse if we add more guns to the equation), and both are trying to do what they can to feel safe about it
when I first moved to Texas, carrying a gun was not an option. CHL did not exist and to be caught with a firearm was to get in trouble. I've always had, for lack of a better word, an "evil mind" I'm creative so it was always fun to think of ways to do unlawful things. The only thing that kept me from following the dodgy path was that I had people that loved and depended on me. but as things such as seatbelt laws and other laws that seemed to me to be eroding my civil rights, I felt more and more that a life of crime was being forced upon me. I also felt that should I go down that path I would become a monster with no restraint.
getting my CHL changed that. Maybe its childish and Edgelord, but I felt that I had been entrusted with a sacred duty towards my fellow man, I became a better person.
Don't' take this the wrong way, but if the world was such that no guns existed and you could walk anywhere you wanted without fear of attack, people a little less sane than me would make it their job to turn that world on it's ear. Some people if there is not a bit of danger, feel dead inside, and will do all they can to feel alive, and if that means you have to die, so be it.
"IF NOBODY HAD GUNS"
Yeah. But millions and millions of people do and are not gonna give them up just because you want them to, so your worldview is irrelevant.
All of their arguments seem to be predicated on this fantasy, and as long as they cling to it, there is absolutely no discussion to be had.
My guess is that it is mostly a tribalistic "echo chamber" thing, largely across the left-vs-right narrative (and as BJ points out, "left" tends to map to "white upper class" on these emotive-subjective issues).
The requirement that people transcend their echo chamber is a requirement for the capacity for rational, objective thinking, and maybe even meta-narrative ("transpartisan") thinking, such as integral theory or similar.
But the anti-gun narrative largely overlaps the "woke" "left" and "progressive" narrative, which is heavily reinforced by social institutions (what I call the "race-grifter-industrial-complex") and mass commercial media, so there is little interest in, or incentive to, transcend the "woke" "left" echo chamber's subjective, emotive rhetorical structure, and value system (as well as victim narratives).
There is also echo chamber on the "pro-gun" "right" (which does not include all gun owners) but that isn't relevant given that the numbers, and rational systemic analysis, mostly line up with the pro-gun viewpoint.
Bias disclosure: I grew up in a military family, learned to shoot .22 rifles at 6 years old at the base firing range [teachers were required to bring their entire class to the firing range where military gun instructors taught the kids, one-on-one], have never owned a gun as an adult, but since I'm now retired and own a campervan, I'll need a "camp gun" for protection against predators, including bears, and any two footed vermin that try to bother me in remote camping areas (Nevada, Idaho, eastern Oregon, Idaho, Montana, etc.). I might even try some legal hunting for food.
"If nobody had guns" is akin to other utopian fantasies such as "Vision Zero" (no traffic fatalities), "Net Zero" (not the ISP, the carbon emissions) and "COVID Zero"
Zero's an emotional number.
"IF NOBODY HAD GUNS"
Yeah magical thinking isn't going to help anyone.
Guns get smuggled into PRISONS. So if turning the entire country into a prison won't stop the guns, maybe they're looking at the wrong symptom.
If the topic comes up, I now just avoid any attempt to get drawn into an argument. Go straight to an invitation to come shooting. Exploit their emotion. Everybody has something. Fear, hatred, danger, power. It's impossible in this culture not to at least have a closeted curiosity. Whatever it is, connect via that visceral fascination. More fun than talking, and they'll actually experience and learn something.
"Rocky Mountain Views" is *very* confused about who has the mental illness here. They're the ones that abhor an inanimate object, and think that with the proper incantation, they can prevent horrors.
(Edit: "who", not "how". Dangit.)
Thank you very much Mr. Campbell. You put all the relevant data in one place. You have saved me so much research time it's unbelievable.
Have you tried pointing out their posts are so cringe you’re considering suicide?
Genocide is more likely?
Since Hitler shot himself, does that make the Holocaust a Genocide-Suicide?
What if Hitler knew he would be reincarnated as Joe Biden? :)
I usually point out (in the vein of e.pierce's comment, even) just *who* is likely to suffer the immediate first brunt of a concerted effort to eradicate firearms ownership in this country. I.e.: "poor black people" They *already* refer to excessive police attention on that demographic as "genocide".
Conveniently, they've been pre-programmed to be outraged about "Stop and Frisk", so it really turns up the cognitive dissonance when you make them realize they're calling for that same program on a national scale.
If the "woke" crazies got in power (after destroying the Constitution) and then tried to implement a gun ban, they would have to come up with a practical method of identifying the "white" "racists" with guns, since those are the people they believe are the worst humans in society.
The surveillance state's collection of mass social-media data would probably make that trivial for a lot of "white" "racist" gun owners, but not all.
Many of the target population of "white" "racists" could have their bank accounts seized, similarly to what happened to the trucker-protestors in Canada, flushing them out into the open where they could be picked off more easily.
But at some point military action would be needed since there just aren't enough law enforcement in rural areas willing to take guns away from people they know.
At that point something like a civil war, insurgency style, would begin, with widespread attacks on infrastructure and then economic collapse.
If the federal government then collapsed, a real civil war would get going, and probably lead to nuclear war within 6 months or less.
If not, then there would be widespread authoritarianism which would probably quickly evolve into state totalitarianism with widespread dissident insurgency in opposition.
The "woke" crazies would get lots of propaganda jobs working for the totalitarian state.
See Orwell's "1984", which will become the instruction manual, along with the movie "Idiocracy".
I would look forward to watching the city dwellers attempt to grow enough food to survive such an action.
Do you actually know anything about farming? Most food is produced, processed and distributed by large commercial interests. They will generally go in whatever direction politically that the higher levels of the power elites tell them to go in, as it relates to selling their products.
Any kind of populist insurgency would have to deal with those realities, so not only would they completely discredit themselves by stating a willingness to starve 100s of millions for political purposes, they would also have to face an extremely well funded police state protecting corporate agribusinesses (that care about money before all else).
I know a lot about distribution, and where the people who drive the trucks live, and how most of them lean politically on this topic.
I'm new to the blog, and I am just now reading through archives. The "homicide vs. genocide" argument is novel, but I need to read it some more to decide if it's convincing enough to really be convincing to someone who's honestly open to argument (I imagine Twitter anti-gun accounts are not in that set of people).
It's an unusual argument. I don't often trot it out, because it is *very* unconvincing to someone who doesn't think genocide can happen here, while things like genocide and civil war are quite often on the minds of the gun owning community. Before you dig too much deeper into that, read this one:
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical
And then this one:
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/guns-and-protofascism
Those are really the overall conceptual groundwork for the "homicide vs genocide" math. The first one in particular shows how relatively routine things like genocide and civil war are, in the human condition, to try and put the odds of it in better perspective. And the second one tries to apply that perspective to the current tar baby that is American politics.
> "I don't often trot it out, because it is *very* unconvincing to someone who doesn't think genocide can happen here[.]"
Ironic, since I'd expect most people on the "woke" side of things to respond well to an argument of the form "How different do you think the history of this country would be if the natives had possessed firearms?"
In truth, I've found that the extreme true believer wokes are actually much more willing to engage pro-gun positions than the flaccidly performative wokes are. Marx was a huge proponent of the proletariat carrying rifles, folks who are hyper focused on bad cops and marginalized communities want those communities to arm up, and when Antifa marches in Atlanta they carry Mossbergs, AKs, and ARs.
So if you're a one issue person and your issue is guns, the deeply committed woke are a surprisingly good in-vector.
> "when Antifa marches in Atlanta they carry Mossbergs, AKs, and ARs."
I chose to not attend the recently declared "Night of Rage", so I'll take your word for it. ;)
Welcome! This is one of only two substacks I've given my hard earned dollars to, so I hope you find it as pleasingly edifying as I have. :)
Just a reminder about decals of your logo. You said to hit you up about it
https://hwfo.myshopify.com/products/hwfo-stickers
Thank you sir. I'll try to get to that this afternoon.
After a MedPage editorial (https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/102879) lamenting how guns are causing all these awful deaths, I tried to respond with data showing deaths/100 k by guns is slowly returning to 1950's levels after rising badly in the late 1960's to late 1990's. I found this study from 2014 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122535 that shows that data and https://www.statista.com/statistics/187592/death-rate-from-homicide-in-the-us-since-1950/ plots it as well. Now I really wanted to blame the increased secular shift in culture of the 1960's where we arrived at relative morality and a collapse of any notion of public shame. Well the decline in deaths since the late 90's destroys my viewpoint. OTOH, this article https://www.ammoland.com/2016/08/per-capita-firearms-vs-murder-rates-u-s-1950-2014/ shows the large increase in people buying guns. Seems logical that a well armed public might discourage shooters and those intent on harm. My comment to MedPage didn't get by moderators and I'm not sure just anybody can access their site.
The OR GIS analysis was quite useful. It's just a pity that the gun issue, like others wedge issues, has become political. I too went to school in the 50's and saw many trucks with a rifle in the window. Oddly few worried about theft but wanted to hunt after school. Pleasant afternoons in a field were a reward. Somehow back in those dark ages there were no shooters going after schools or restaurants. Maybe in the aftermath of war we has seen enough killing overseas. OTOH we didn't have SSRIs to tame boys and our cannabis was not really very potent. And most of us knew about hard drugs we were aware of the hazards and limited ourselves to booze. My how the culture changed.
I think if you go back to the complete data set the rise and fall of gun homicides is extremely easy to explain. It goes up and down with drug and alcohol prohibition related gang crime. You've got a straight line rise right exactly to the day that alcohol prohibition was repealed, then a drop to a low point in the 1950s, then a ramp up from the mid 1960s when cocaine started to get big to a peak in the middle 70s, and another peak in 1980, which are both related to cocaine use. Then a drop and another peak in the early 90s related to crack cocaine. Then a drop and a low valley in 2000+. It's all related to drugs and alcohol.
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/the-gun-homicide-epidemic-isnt
Another excellent essay. Something about spades comes to mind, not PC.
Thanks again for a thought-provoking post. You may have influenced my thinking on some things( more later on that.) I do have some quibbles though, which I believe are a bit more rational than those of Mr Rocky Mountain View, who is not really a fair representative if you are trying to have a legitimate debate.
First, the suicide argument. As a person who works in mental health, I can assure you that if a doctor believes or suspects that someone is suicidal, they will definitely think about the risks and pursue minimization of these risks. They will ask about firearms and they will do their best to convince the person to make it more difficult to have access to them, in just the ways you mentioned in that previous article. If they refuse and the doctor or therapist is truly concerned, they will have them admitted to a psychiatric unit involuntarily, which is not ideal but sometimes necessary. So that is a suggested change that's not really a change. More later, out of time for now.
There's a huge problem with having them admitted to a psych unit involuntarily, because if you do that then you disincentivize people who need treatment from seeking it. You probably do much more harm than good on a societal aggregate level.
The stigmatization of seeking mental health treatment is a real problem, especially how it actively dis-incentivizes seeking treatment, thus perpetuating the very problems we're trying to avoid. This is especially an issue among the politically-aware gun owning cohort, who are fully aware at how admitting to having unapproved thoughts of self-harm or depression could lead to losing their rights.
I'm sorry it's been such a difficult path, and glad your housemate was able to interrupt your plan. Hope things have gotten better for you.
Really, it requires more than just thoughts. They are going to try their best to establish intent. In California an involuntary hold entails losing one's rights to own or purchase firearms for 5 years. Probably not too hard to get around that though. And again, it puts a little speed bump in the road to suicide, which is a good thing.
> "Probably not too hard to get around that though."
Functionally this is probably accurate. The thing is though, most gun owners in this country don't *want* to break the law, which acquiring a firearm while under such a prohibition would be.
Concern over being deprived of my rights kept me from seeking *any* treatment for even just my beginning depression for a decade, meant that I was never fully open with any therapist or psychiatrist even after I sought treatment, and kept me from seeking help when I was explicitly suicidal for several years. The only reason I'm here is because my housemate had to reset the cable modem on my desk, and while doing so, saw a draft of a note to the executor of my will.
That "speed bump" *ensured* that I did not seek professional assistance for my problems.
That may be, but it's the law here in California and I'm be surprised if it weren't the law across the country. There is a fairly high bar, though, to admitting someone involuntarily.
My plans to kill myself involved items available at any hardware store. Anyone who is truly determined to end their life will not be deterred by the absence of firearms.
True, but it would have taken time and effort to go to the hardware store and buy those items. Maybe that was the small but important barrier that kept you from doing it.
I think this ^^ is a legitimate point, and we see it in the suicide numbers with men but not with women. Some ratio of total male suicides is done in a hasty fashion and would not have transpired without access to a firearm. That's a real thing that the gun community needs to grapple with internally.
The only thing that halted my plans was having had them discovered 60 hours prior to implementation. I definitely had my materials by then. I had spent six months getting everything sorted. I knew it was already going to be bad enough for everyone else, I didn't want leave a mess (physical, financial, or legal) as well. But I had also spent several man-years of insomnia figuring out how to do it in a manner which would be absolutely guaranteed, would not be messy, and would not be painful. I do also realize that I am atypical.
For those who are curious, the true solution ended up being "IV Ketamine".
ROFL, the delusion in that one.
Makes even Gavin Newsom look sane.
Somewhere you say the number of children killed in school shootings is such a tiny portion of the deaths due to guns. I can’t find the exact quote, and it may not even be in today’s post – I printed out additional materials from the links, and I don’t know exactly where I read it.
I’d like to share a few thoughts about the way people react so strongly to school shootings, even though they are a tiny portion of the “gun death” tally.
When we think about suicides, we often feel sad, wish things had gone differently, and want to take steps to lower the number of suicides in the future – many useful steps you’ve mentioned in your posts. We may also have some feeling that who the person committed suicide contributed to this ending -- it was the end of their story.
One reason for the special impact of school shootings is their randomness, but I think it goes deeper than that. For most parents, and people who hope to be parents, the thought of their child dying or being injured by random bullets is a unique horror. No one could expect it. We all face potential random events – car accidents, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, a bolt of lightning. We know random events are part of normal life.
But no one expects random shootings at school. Did this happen fifty years ago? Seventy years ago? I don’t think so.
You think of the children, their whole lives ahead of them. Nothing they did contributed to their deaths. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their stories were cut off mid-chapter.
Most people feel horror when they learn fifteen toddlers were killed within two minutes. We don’t feel the same horror at fifteen people killed when cars pileup on the freeway – we know that happens occasionally and we accept it as part of freeway driving.
I’ve just started to read your posts within the past few months, and you’ve written a great deal on this subject that I haven’t had time to read yet. You’ve convinced me there are so many guns already distributed in the United States that efforts to withdraw them make no sense.
On the other hand, I think it will be a long time before people’s hearts accept the random killing of small children as a normal part of modern life.
All of this is true, but then we get into the complicated calculus of weighing one life versus another one, which is sticky. The main reason why the school shootings get elevated is because they garner the attention of well off white women, in a way that inner city shootings don't, and progressive causes in the United States have always been championed by well off white women, going back at least as far as alcohol prohibition.
Nobody wants the murder of children to be considered normal. Given that there's no magic gun evaporation fairy, however, the only solution that could potentially actually prevent them in the future would be armed teachers.
Which, though it should not need to be said, I will explicit as not *forcing* any teacher to be armed, but rather *allowing* those who wish to do be, the opportunity to do so.
Uvalde was 4th graders. My ex-brother in law is a 4th grade teacher... and a former US Marine. But if someone with murderous intent shows up in his classroom, he'll be disallowed from using the most effective possible tool to defend his students. By which I mean a firearm.
Part two. Comparing gun homicides here to genocide homicides in Europe means you are comparing 2023 US to Germany 90 years ago or Eastern Europe post USSR. Are you?
Okay, say you are, and there is some kind of genocide or Civil War here. Even if the MAGAs and alt-right and Qanon people did turn against the US populace, they would not need to buy a single new gun to win, if they were really serious. And if you want to argue that someone is going to take their guns away, well, that's just arguing to argue, not to win. So perhaps your point is to encourage non-gun owners to buy guns? If any of them read your substack it might actually work to some small extent. But of course they don't.
I've followed enough links that I'm not actually sure in which piece I read what; but with respect to good guys with guns, the example you used in particular which I can't quite remember in which a non-expert shooter killed the bad guy shooter from a surprising distance seems to mitigate for mandatory training for gun owners. Is that something you would favor? I believe the reason most law enforcement are against concealed carry is because these good guys with guns can cause things to worsen pretty rapidly.
If I felt that the armed good guys were trained sufficiently, I would be fine with concealed carry though. I guess it was a combination of you and Uvalde that change my mind on that one.
Second question: to be honest I don't know whether concealed carry or open carry is considered to be worse, by anti-gun people. Personally I find open carry an alarming practice, especially when the carriers are in the Michigan State House, for example. Is one or the other considered more desirable by the pro-gun people?
Asking these questions with the understanding that you may not have time to respond to them.
I think gun people are split on whether concealed or open carry is more ideal. I think if all carry was open most people in the country would be more aware of how often they're surrounded by guns, which is quite honestly most of the time they're in public spaces they just don't realize it. But on the flip side, open carry is less of a deterrent against crime because you don't want the criminal to know who's carrying and who's not. A mass shooter could start by shooting all the armed people, for instance. For that reason, and also for general politeness reasons, I tend to think that concealed carry is more polite and effective.
I am definitely comparing US 2023 to mid 20th century Europe. Here's an example of why:
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/spot-the-true-believer
If you're going to try and collect "data" for revolutions, then you have to go back that far in order to get enough data points to be meaningful, or you have to take the entire world into your data set, or both. I did both of those here:
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical
I'd say that extrapolating from previous political upheavals is a fair bit trickier than extrapolating from previous floods, climate change notwithstanding. In this country: 1/6 protesters have fucked around and found out, and BLM people have just been handed a paradox. After 2 years of democratic control of the government, everyone still has their guns, and conditions in the US are improving and will continue to improve thanks to sound government. The biggest threat I see is related to climate change, first in the form of "degrowth," a concept that hopefully will not be needed with the development of new technology (thank you IRA for increasing research funding) and secondly in the form of climate refugees coming into the US in large numbers.
re: "conditions in the US are improving"
How? Did you read the #twitterfiles ?
Corrupt elements in the FBI have been documented "colluding" with corrupt politicians (Schiff, Ninny Jankywitch) to engage in censorship and illegally attack journalists that are exposing the corruption.
That represents a regression to J. Edgar Hoover style tactics (COINTELPRO) at a minimum.
The cultural-left is generally colluding, as predicted, with corrupt elements of global finance and digital capitalism to push for the creation of a Neo-Feudal society.
Say "bye bye" to classical liberalism, the Constitution, democracy, market capitalism, etc.
Since racial fears were a major factor in the 1/6 events, I think we can assume that it will be the alt-right that will foment this potential uprising, so I guess it would be the moderate gun owners protecting the non-gun owners/ gun haters. It would be nice if more of the Republicans in Congress would work with Democrats on immigration reform, but unfortunately there are even fewer interested now than last time we tried.
I don't think the alt-right has enough juice to get everyone behind them. I personally think about the only possible way the right decides to start shooting is if the left decides to go door to door taking guns away. That would elicit a nationwide "nope," and then the blues would be stuck.
Outside of that, I think a new dynamic would have to form, like mass starvation or the elite technocrats inventing immortality for the rich.
1/6 glowed like the sun and I'd be hesitant to attribute anything meaningful to it aside from "Feds gonna fed"
I don't know what that means
Considering there is a Current Events addition to the genocide list occurring in Eastern Europe right now, the scope and impact of which is yet to be fully determined, I'd say it's a pretty timely topic.
"I believe the reason most law enforcement are against concealed carry is because these good guys with guns can cause things to worsen pretty rapidly."
This isn't the case. Most rank-and-file cops are pro-concealed carry. "Civilian defensive gun use will only escalate an already dangerous situation" is a media-perpetuated myth that they desperately want you to believe, and push whenever possible within entertainment. Lack of training rarely makes a difference at the contact distances that most defensive shootings occur. Police need to be trained (not that they often are) for engagement at longer distances, because unlike a self-defender, their job is to APPROACH the danger, not to get away from it.
Even given the disparity in apparent training, CWP holders are far less likely to commit a bad shoot than a cop. Why? Because they're there from the start, and it's very clear to them what's going down, and who needs to be stopped.
Open carry is a tricky bit, and for the most part in mixed company in public is not terribly smart. I'd be hesitant to just declare to everyone that "you can't do this" though because there's a lot of edge cases where it's actually smart and prudent.
A lot of your questions are addressed in Larry Correia's new book "In Defense of the Second Amendment", which I recommend highly. It's all well-tread material for those of us who have been in this for the last good while, but it's well organized and presented, and perfect for someone who wants to learn "Why these gun nuts are all so fixated on this"
I suspect there's a break between beat cops and sergeants when it comes to wanting more CCW. I think beat cops probably figure it'll make their lives easier, while sergeants probably figure it'll make their lives harder.
Fair points. OTOH, I don't think we are Russia's next target for takeover. The best they could do was get Trump elected, and I don't think that went as well as they expected it to.
Interesting about the rank-and-file cops' view. Makes sense.
Why are you posting absurd, discredited conspiracy theories (Trump-Russia) concocted by corrupt media corporations, corrupt politicians and corrupt elements of the national security apparatus?
#twitterfiles
(gross overgeneralization)
DNA and violence:
most violent gene pools/regions:
black/south
hispanic/latin/roman
celtic/border reivers/appalachians
slavs
one commonality: low social trust, social order: honor systems, moots, extended family "clannishness" (inbred)
less violent:
frankish manorials (english, germans, dutch)
commonality: high-social-trust, Constitutional order (formal law), nuclear family (outbred)