On 1/31/2011 8:05 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Yeah, the truly sad thing being, it doesn't even have to be changed to
>> erase guns, just make the rules clearer.
>
> The rules are actually quite clear, methinks. The only reason anyone
> thinks the rules are fuzzy is because they don't like the rules. I don't
> think anyone would argue, for example, that it's illegal for a member of
> the militia to own a firearm appropriate for use in the militia. Yet
> that's exactly the kinds of firearms that people try to outlaw. And
> "milita member" has a very clear definition in current law as well.
>
> Sort of like how "evil" only has a fuzzy definition when God is doing it.
>
The problem being, most of them are not talking about a "militia". They 
are talking about everyone being armed, just to be armed. The fuzziness 
comes from the fact that, while that may have even been intended, in 
some vague sense, it probably was seen as, "the need to have one to hunt 
too", not, "the need to protect myself from some random person on the 
street", which is neither "militia", nor "hunting for food". Its hardly 
clear, had we had supermarkets all over the place back then, if the 
argument would be going on about whether the militia part is someone 
*independent* of the armed part.

>>>> rug and calling, "Just normal stuff, so we didn't put it in the
>>>> report."
>>>
>>> You can go on speculating all you like. None of it actually means much
>>> until you show the extent to which anything like that actually happens.
>>> You can speculate that if the US changed our gun laws, Norway would have
>>> less violent crime, and you can speculate that if the US bought fewer
>>> violent video games, then Norway would have less violent crime, and
>>> you'd have about equal amounts of support for either stance.
>>>
>> Actually, no you wouldn't. The irony is, even though the issue of gun
>> control may be fuzzy in the US, we are the #1 buyer of violent video
>> games, and just about everything else similar, yet the violent crime
>> rate actually dropped drastically about the time that such games hit
>> the market, and its been in steady decline since.
>
> That's actually rather my point.
>
The one is making the argument, "removing these will make things 
better", the other, "adding them will". The evidence for the former, in 
terms of games, is negative. It seems to have no correlation at all, 
even though a lot of people would like it. For gun availability to be a 
positive, you need to show that a) possession of them *does* produce a 
decline, which can't be attributed to anything else, which I don't think 
is arguable, and b) it never produces a decline in safety and 
non-violence, which I *really* don't think is at all supportable.

So, no, my point and yours are *not* the same.

>> But, then, the real problem is abuse, mental health issues, and the
>> like, and our refusal to deal with *those* problems, both as a nation,
>> and as parents
>
> Yep. That's basically what I said early on. Except in relation to
> firearms instead of video games.
>
And, if everyone only used drugs in safe places, and recreationally... 
And other various arguments in the same vein... We know guns are used to 
kill people, sometimes by people that, laughably, end up being declared 
"temporarily insane", we don't know that games do *jack*. Not the same 
thing at all.

>> The solution is to deal with the problems, not stick everyone in
>> plastic hamster globes, and only show them "safe" things,
>
> Don't forget not letting them have anything dangerous, like a firearm.
> Gotta protect everyone, after all.
>
Yeah.. We should just do away with all the laws that keep people from 
owning/doing things that are deemed dangerous on the books, because 
*all* of them are a bad idea, and lead to people in plastic bubbles.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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