Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Gun Control...

I never have much liked guns myself. Yet they often come up in political argument and the American Founders had a strong view on them. Also, I wonder if the Jews had had more guns in Nazi Germany what may have happened there. I guess control of the guns is something to look into there sometime.

As far as I know, the facts go against the Left on this. Yet they cling to the issue in various irrational ways. Michael Moore in Bowling For Colombine finds the evidence that Canadians own guns, yet gun homicides are not as high. So it is logical to conclude that guns have nothing to do with crimes comitted with guns. Yet, Moore stages some theatrics with K-Mart for the sake of gun control. Why? Maybe it was not for the sake of gun control at all but instead was about the moral vanity and cheap theatrics typical to the Left and more than a few artists. It gives people a good feeling in their good lil' hearts. Then, happy with themselves, they go home. Then their house is burglarized by a criminal with a gun he did not buy at the local K-Mart. (But at least now, all the gun hobbyists can no longer buy their ammunition at K-Mart.)

This is what it is like on issue after issue with Leftists. It seems to be all about their own feeelings. Eventually, you realize there is a pattern to their feelings. They don't hate guns because guns "cause" crime and violence. So disproving that with a sound logical and factual argument will not dissuade them. Instead they seem to hate guns from the same neurotic feelings that they hate wealth, the military, etc.

I.e., because they hate fatherhood. In contrast to Leftist's feelings about things, some of the general facts, logic and evidence on the issue,
"There are large differences between Americans and the populations of foreign countries, even English-speaking countries with many superficial similarities. American rates of non-firearms homicide are far higher than homicide rates from all causes in England and Japan, a circumstance that supports the inference that murder rates in the United States would be many times higher than English or Japanese rates even if every civilian firearm in this country suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke. The United States records more non-firearms murders than there are murders from all causes in Western Europe and Japan combined, territories more than half again as populous as the United States.[.....]

There is a poor correlation between firearms numerosity and diffusion and homicide rates. This observation appears in several guises. Gary Kleck reports, on the basis of as-yet unpublished data, that homicide and gun homicide compared to (legal) gun ownership figures from thirty-six nations shows no correlation: lower rates of legal firearm ownership did not coincide with lower rates of homicide or gun homicide; neither did higher legal ownership rates coincide with higher rates of homicide.The same null correlation appears, incidentally, from a time series study based on records of (legal) English firearm ownership and crime from 1870 to date: lower rates of (legal) firearmownership did not coincide with lower rates of homicide or other violent crime; neither did higher legal ownership rates coincide with higher crime. If these findings are right, the instrumentality [more guns = more crime] model is wrong.

Consistently in England, Canada, and the United States, areas with the greatest legal gun ownership have the lowest rates of violent crime compared to other areas of the same nation having lower gun ownership. This is "a curious fact if firearms stimulate aggression" (as some versions of instrumentality theorywould suggest), according to criminologists Hans Toch and AlanLizotte. Addressing the issue as to American statistics alone, they conclude "that guns do not elicit aggression in any meaningful way." Quite the contrary, these findings suggest that high saturations of guns in places, or something correlated with that condition, inhibit illegal aggression."
(CAUSES AND CORRELATES OF LETHAL
VIOLENCE IN AMERICA; AMERICAN
HOMICIDE EXCEPTIONALISM
By Daniel D. Polsby & Don B. Kates, Jr.
Colorado Law Review Fall, 1998 69 )

Again, I do not really like guns. I do not like war either. I would prefer a windsurfing utopia. Yet I cannot go off into la, la land with Leftists and prissy Christians. In this world there is Good and Evil, justice and injustice. A state of war is in it already. It is no use trying to live in denial.

(As to the prissy Christians, the philosophy of Christ does not call for a denial of that fact.)

6 comments:

luke said...

I have two guns. If America is ever under attack, I'll let you borrow one of them. You can get my back and I'll get yours.

mynym said...

Sounds like a plan....

Besides....guns don't kill people, cigarettes kill people.

Anonymous said...

what 'bout me?? :(

~Bertie

mynym said...

As to you, don't smoke cigarettes and you'll be fine and dandy.

But don't get too dandy....

An interesting thing about that research is the fact that Americans kill each other a lot, guns or no. I wonder why that is.

Anonymous said...

"I would prefer a windsurfing utopia."

How about a windsurfing and dancing utopia...that would be real fine and dandy!

~Bertie

mynym said...

"How about a windsurfing and dancing utopia...that would be real fine and dandy!"

Maybe a little too dandy, if you ask me.