Don't believe your lying eyes (Enco)

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

@Enco

Here’s a question you should have an answer to.

If one were to grant (and solely for the sake of discussion) that having a gun increases people’s personal safety but significantly decreases safety of the general public—which seems to be the case based on the stats in the article I cited—which is the more precious value, personal safety or a safer society?

Personal safety vs. a safer society is a false dilemma, since “society” is a group of individuals and has no life outside of those individuals.

And since this is false dilemma, the question is based on a false premise. Next question.

[—Participant]

It’s not a false dilemma. You’ve chosen to read the question in a silly way.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Which is the more precious value, personal safety or a safer society?

That is a great question.

[—Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

Which is the more precious value, personal safety or a safer society?

As with many issues, the answer is ‘it depends’. At least two complicating factors will be perceived safety versus actual safety and reasonable expectations of safety versus rights.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Which is the more precious value, personal safety or a safer society? That is a great question.

It’s a philosophical question and questions like this forced me to major in philosophy, not law or theology.*

* I was given a career aptitude test toward the end of my senior year and it told me my best shots as a major were law, the ministry, or philosophy. Clearly, I made the wrong choice.

[UnseenParticipant]

@Enco

Your gun-hugger gobbledegook doesn’t change the fact that societies that have chosen to decide that guns aren’t toys and that not everyone should have one are on the whole far safer from gun crimes and have far far far fewer homicides by gun.

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Unseen.

[UnseenParticipant]

Those who claim we need guns to defend the Constitution by overthrowing an oppressive government should ask themselves this. Should an uprising of gun-huggers overthrow a government, what guarantee is there that they would be on the right side?

Today, we have a Republican party that’s pretty much gone insane, most according to the polls believing cockamamie notions about being cheated out of a fair election, fearful of “Commies” taking over the left. Many actually believe Q that the country’s leaders are pedophiles who kill babies for their blood.

I suspect that a lot of them identify as patriotic militia who’d like to set an out-of-kilter America aright again.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Autumn,

Although, within the context of the United States it becomes an unfortunate situation. You can choose to live in a state with stricter firearm regulations, but if neighbouring states are lax, then through trafficking and straw purchasing, their policies become your problem—a problem to which there is no immediate or obvious solution without working on a national level. Even across national borders it can be difficult to cut off the flow of trafficked weapons.

So you want Rome with a single neck for a single leash? Got it, Nero.

Look, criminals do not have to look beyond the borders of their locale to find guns, since the overwhelming majority of firearms used in crimes are not purchased, but stolen.

This is yet another reason why licensure and background checks are ineffective at keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals, but are effective at discouraging the peaceful from attempting to purchase them.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Autumn,

It’s not a false dilemma. You’ve chosen to read the question in a silly way.

It is a false dilemma, since you can have both or even have neither.

[—Participant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Autumn,

It’s not a false dilemma. You’ve chosen to read the question in a silly way.

It is a false dilemma, since you can have both or even have neither.

No, for two reasons.

i) You’re assuming the question compares an increase in personal safety for everyone versus an increase in safety for the general public. It’s a needless and illogical assumption. In practical terms, not everyone can address personal safety concerns with firearms. Also, if everyone could, then they would effectively be the general population, so why would anyone be asking you to compare a thing against itself? It’s unlikely enough, that that’s probably not what was being asked of you.

ii) Even if it were, your premise doesn’t stand. The impacts on any given individual and the impacts on the collective are different. You can both improve your personal safety in terms of your ability to defend yourself while decreasing the safety of the society around you by making it more dangerous. Whether you see a net increase or decrease in safety will likely be circumstantial. It’s unlikely all people will experience the same gains and losses equally.

[—Participant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Autumn,

Although, within the context of the United States it becomes an unfortunate situation. You can choose to live in a state with stricter firearm regulations, but if neighbouring states are lax, then through trafficking and straw purchasing, their policies become your problem—a problem to which there is no immediate or obvious solution without working on a national level. Even across national borders it can be difficult to cut off the flow of trafficked weapons.

So you want Rome with a single neck for a single leash? Got it, Nero.

Where did I say what I “want”? You don’t got a damn thing,

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

@Enco

Your gun-hugger gobbledegook doesn’t change the fact that societies that have chosen to decide that guns aren’t toys and that not everyone should have one are on the whole far safer from gun crimes and have far far far fewer homicides by gun.

By your line of reasoning, which you also took with automobiles and auto accidents, we’d have fewer or no property crimes if people just had less or no property, a position seriously and actually espoused by The City of San Francisco:

san francisco’s new approach to combatting property crime is encouraging victims to have less property pic.twitter.com/f7pg0lL7Fd

— Mike Solana (@micsolana) September 21, 2023

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake and Unseen,

My favorite people are Chemists, Pharmacologists, and other hard Science professionals, who don’t trifle with false dilemmas and indeed solve multiple real problems of living.

They create things like Botox for both cosmetics and migraines, Skyrizi for Eczema and Crohn’s Disease, Renvoc for the heartbreak of Plaque Psoriasis and Ulcerative Colitis, Metformin for Type 2 Diabetes, and possibly Cancer and Aging, even more mundane multiple problem solvers like Shimmer Floor Polish:

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Enco

The functions cars perform are a daily necessity for most American adults as well as for the American economy. Highway deaths are a regrettable side effect of a tool that benefits every American.  At the same time, we could have fewer highway deaths if we could get car traffic to be much sparser by getting the public to use affordable or even free public transportation.

Guns, on the other hand, are not even close to a necessity, which you can verify by simply looking at the many countries where gun ownership is far far less common than it is in the US.

As for property, it’s hard to have any sort of wealth without property. There’s no credible  comparison to be made vs. cars or guns.

Finally, the more I argue with pro-gun people and experience their blindness to reality, their concoction of far-fetched defenses, and their blind loyalto to the object of their devotion…

…the more it starts to look to me like a religion.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Autumn.

Where did I say what I “want”? You don’t got a damn thing,

Well you did say that differnt rules in different jurisdictions is a problem, which in turn, implies a s9lution. Sopooo…

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