So is LeftForge ever going to address the fact that gun control doesn't work?

I really am curious to know.

Don't be dense. Gun control does work. Back when abortions were illegal, there were hardly any of them being done. The war on drugs has all but eliminated the use of drugs in America. The reason Prohibition was repealed was because, with almost no alcohol available in the whole country, too many people were getting thirsty. Because it is illegal to enter the country without proper authorization, the number of illegal immigrants in the USA is lower than it has ever been in history.

I could give you many more examples that prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the government has always been extremely successful in preventing whatever it is that needs to be outlawed, by having strong laws against it and mobilizing large police forces to make sure those laws are applied. That's the way to change society!

Define doesn't work.

In terms of reducing mentally unstable peoples access to firearms, lowering the number of criminals with guns and generally lowering the numbers of gun related deaths and injuries then gun control definitely does work.

Or are you talking about what you see as the secondary effects of a gun ban, like reducing a homeowners defense options?

That is extreme silliness, of a sort which I find to be a cause for great amusement. Therefore, that silliness is good, for I am amused thereby.

Which countries statistics do you specifically disagree with?

Those in the U.S. Specifically, cities like D.C., Chicago, Detroit and the greater Los Angeles area.

That's a whole lot of assertion with a great bunch of nothing to substantiate it. How exactly does gun control limit the number of criminals with guns? Which licensing and registration schemes in the black market are supposedly reducing the number of criminals with guns?

So this line of speculation just occurred to me. The fictional universe in Star Trek is dominated by one of the most liberal governments in fiction. But it seemed like at least once on every season on every show, the transporter resulted in violence and mayhem. Yet that same liberal government never tried to ban the transporter.

I think I've just discovered what really made Star Trek so far-fetched. It wasn't warp drives or ray guns or teleportation -- it was the existence of liberals who weren't shrieking lunatics.

Honestly, gun control probably isn't/wouldn't be effective in America. Even if any regulations aren't watered down to the point of being meaningless, the country is already too saturated with guns for any new laws to solve anything.

That doesn't mean gun control can't be effective, and that doesn't minimize the fact that it's been proven effective in many other countries.

Exactly.

Too many people get caught in the trap of thinking that not only are their preferred solutions the morally preferable ones, but also the most effective ones.

Happens all the time in left/right debates. Both sides arguing their position is morally superior, while also insisting it will have the best outcomes in all possible ways. Which when you look at it impartially is pretty bloody unlikely to be the case all the time.

1. fling shit. do provide nothing but name calling and some absolutist 'opinion' backed by.. . zilch arguments.

2. lean back and wait



*yawn*

It seems to work very well here.

Understandably there are problems in getting it to work in a country that is already saturated with guns.

Exactly where does this work? Rick said it worked in Ireland, and Australia had success. But with a head start of 300,000,000 guns I'm just not seeing it working here in America.

And factor in America has a little higher level of hard-core murderous violent felons that kill at the drop of a hat, over any perceived slight. They won't just "accost" you in the street and give you a broken nose. They will literally beat you to death. People like that are going to get their hands on guns.

If every gun was rounded up in America Mexicans would just smuggle them in anyway. I'm guessing that wouldn't happen in Ireland or Australia.

Just remembered! That Feinstein genius said we shouldn't be allowed to sell assault weapons. Because if none are sold in stores/gun shows, none can be bought!

BTW they don't sell heroin at CVS pharmacy - where the heck do addicts get their fix? Could guns (like drugs) be sold in an underground economy? WE need to look into this...first I heard of such a thing.

And most of the developed world.
It is the US that is the outlier in this regard.

Again, because the rest of the countries in the developed world had a lower level of violent homicide to begin with, and a least a little bit of respect for law and order. We don't have that here as much.

Of course, over there, the anarchists seem to be of the left-wing variety, over they seem to be mostly nominal right-wingers, not that it actually matters when you do the wash....

OP provides no evidence and therefore gets no response.

and in a country that has the constitutionally protected right to have arms. It was written in there for a reason, just as valid today as any of the rest of our rights. Does Ireland even have a constitution? Do you have any rights beyond those allowed by government?

Nope. I slave all day in the salt mines, pausing only for my government ration and the Two Minutes Hate.

Moron.

Sounds about right.

Don't bother. He's the living clichée of the dumb American.

Not only that, we don't have electric power, no sewage system and we have to harvest what the forest will give if we want to eat.

Let me tell you a tale of two cities of almost exacty the same size and similar demographics, Richmond, Virginia and Rochester, New York. Virginia has essentially no gun laws and allow anyone from anywhere to buy just about any gun without limit. Rochester is under New York's toughest-in the-nation laws which sharply limit sales and possession of handguns, semi-automatics or any other weapon that isn't for sport.

Guess which city has 1/6 the gun murder rate of the other?

If you guess that Rochester is the city with fewer gun killings, you win.

Here's another fun fact. Guess which of the nation's 20 largest cities has the lowest gun homicide rate?

If you guessed New York City, you're right.

The numbers say gun control saves lives.

That's often the case, but then look at DC. Cities with lower gun violence combine gun control with other outreach efforts.

There is a real ideological (bordering on religious) belief that gun control can't work and therefore anything that might contradict that is going to be dismissed. I have no ideological stake in believing that gun control can't work, but I have seen it not work and am skeptical that any particular plan will be a magic bullet that solves the problem.

It might work if they modify the constitution and get 3/4 of the states to go along. It won't work because its illegal and all these laws need to be challenged in court as they infringe on the constitution.

I would support John Castle's hypothesis if he were willing to subject it to rigorous testing.

Perhaps we can put him in a locked room with Jason Loughner and an AR-15 and see who's got the better reflexes.

America has no gun control so how can one address the fact that something we don't have doesn't work?

That just may rank as the most bald-faced lie you've ever told.